Thairn was surprised at how empty the hotel suite felt without Mickey there. Even Illa seemed to feel it. It didn't take long before they ended up driving around what Peach Blossom had of a downtown.
Strange to be out with Illa as a man again, after all this time. Mickey had blatantly taken Thairn out, holding hands, but Thairn and Illa fell on old instincts, held back. There was a game to it, subtle controls on Illa's behavior, bits of affection no one else could notice.
Thairn bought Illa a new trench coat by suggesting Illa buy it and then reverse-pickpocketing the money into his pocket. Perused the hardware store with utter nonchalance and had Illa pick what rope would be best for their "project". Not even a stray smile to the shopkeeper--the fun of it was in looking entirely innocuous.
They lingered without buying in a jewelry store, asking about what to get for their "girlfriends". Illa wore jewelry in some identities. Nothing of the kind they sold here, though he did take a lovely pause next to the torcs and chokers.
Thairn's guise as Tobias could not appear to afford anything this expensive, and the school bullies were already making their first moves--he was riding the line between pretty and perilous rather hard.
Did Mickey wear jewelry, Thairn wondered? He'd have to ask.
Their next stop was a bookshop for Illa to pick up another terrifically trashy vampire romance (not the only kind, Illa assured Thairn, but the best kind). Thairn noticed Illa flip through several of the books before picking this particular one, his body making a subtle shift Thairn's way, his lips moving. Was Illa picking another for Thairn to read aloud, perhaps? Thairn had enjoyed that. And the idea that Illa might be choosing something to fit Thairn's voice... ah, that it was even a possibility felt a delight.
Thairn, meanwhile, found a horribly inaccurate book on magic that set a disbelieving quirk to his lips. Thairn bought the book. Mickey would get a kick out of it.
Thairn and Mickey had been teaching each other this past week, beginners' spells and rhymes, the basics of wand-carving, evocation control. Strange to teach someone without wings. They'd tried a few ways to get wing spells to work--whistling or flexing his back muscles or using an instrument--to no success. Mickey was toying with the idea of carving an instrument as a wand and trying to do it that way, but that would take more time and resources than this vacation had to offer. Thairn did make sure Mickey had the notes memorized, at least, for if it did work out.
For lunch, there was a diner across the street from the bookstore, decked out in black and white and cherry-picked 50s nostalgia. They sat in the waiting area next to the jukebox, which was blasting out Elvis loud enough no one could hear a word they said.
Thairn resisted the urge to fidget, but he couldn't control the nervy feeling that sprang up under his skin. Illa picked up on it. Began to move a seat sideways, as if maintaining a straight enough distance were the issue. Thairn fought the urge to reach out, gave his head a subtle shake instead. And Illa, obedient, settled back into his seat. Good Illa.
"What's wrong?" Illa asked. Quiet enough to run under the guitar strums.
Should Thairn say? And how much could he, in public? Though there was the music, to muddle his words for him.
"It's just places like this." Ridiculous, really, given how many conspiratorial meetings glamoured fae held in places like this. "I'll be relaxed once we're seated."
Illa raised a curious eyebrow. Of course he wouldn't realize. He passed extremely well for Winter-white, and the humans couldn't tell that he was mostly Autumn. But Thairn was Autumn and Spring and hints of Summer and not a drop of Winter, lived on the borderline of what could be passed off as tan. Places like this... places like this had been a gamble, for a while. But there weren't those signs anymore, no one was going to separate them off to different seating, or kick him out for taking the wrong one. He didn't even think about the way things used to be anymore, except in places that tried to make him remember.
It was a relief when the hostess took them to their table. Thairn didn't say and Illa didn't ask.
They resumed their game, Thairn scanning through the menu, Illa with obedient inattention to his own, waiting on what Thairn would order Illa to order.
"I wonder what the eggs are like today," Thairn said, finger trailing down the brunch options as he slipped soothingly back into that control, that confidence, of having Illa at his beck and call. "I bet they'd go well with the peach and pecan pancakes."
"Is that what you're going to have?" Illa asked, with studied nonchalance.
"Oh, no," Thairn said. "I'm having a sandwich."
"Ah." Illa was fighting a smile, Thairn could see it. When the waitress came, Illa dutifully ordered the eggs and pancakes, as if it had been his own idea. There was a secret, silly thrill to that, to all the little actions he'd taken at Thairn's bidding today, like a new kind of code for Illa to say, I'm yours.
Under the table, where no one could see, Thairn dug his nails into Illa's knee. Illa pretended not to notice, but his eyes lost some of their focus, his movements some fluidity. Reward.
When the meal came, there were further subtleties to play, enough to keep them both pleasurably distracted. How many creamer containers Thairn let Illa put in his coffee by how much Thairn pulled out of the bowl, how much sugar in the coffee and pepper on the eggs by small gestures no one else would notice. Rotated the syrup tray to choose Illa a flavor.
By the time the server came with the checks (separate, of course, who could think of them as being together?), Thairn was thoroughly relaxed. He snuck cash for Illa's meal onto Illa's receipt while Illa was looking inside the bag from the bookstore, and paid his own.
It caught Thairn by surprise when Illa visibly deflated, handed the book bag across the table.
"Something wrong?" Thairn asked.
"I already have this one. I don't think they do returns--do you want it?"
Something off in his tone, too subtle for anyone but Thairn to notice. Thairn peeked inside the bag to look at the book. Illa had dog-eared a page.
"Of course," Thairn said. "Not my usual genre, but I'll try it out. Was it a good one, at least?"
"Very."
Delightful.
They had privacy in the car, as Illa drove them back. Thairn opened up the book to where the corner was folded, began to read the scene. Aloud, of course, and it did suit his voice, as he'd hoped. He put all of his precise diction and rich resonance to the reading, saw a frisson shiver up Illa's skin. Mm.
"Is this what you'd like, then?" Thairn asked, once the passage was done.
Illa nodded, red in the face.
Thairn grinned, and set to work figuring out how best to apply the details.
The rope slid easy over Thairn's palm as he wrapped it around the table leg, around Illa's wrist. Cinched it tight, knotted it firm, and placed two fingers under the rope to make sure Illa had circulation.
Thairn grazed fingertips across Illa's skin, felt the muscles there relaxing from the helplessness. Odd, still, but good.
Illa, lying face-down, followed Thairn with his steady gaze as Thairn went and secured the other hand in place. The suite's table was small, convenient enough to keep Illa from being overstretched. His legs, Thairn secured to the surface by the thighs, hooking rope until he'd forced the calves to squeeze against them.
"Perhaps I should stuff an apple in your mouth, so you'll make a better meal," Thairn said, running knuckles up Illa's spine between his wings. Free, of course. No need to repeat that panic in the bedroom the other day.
Illa made an agreeable sound, under already from the play on their errands, from the touch of rope on his skin, from Thairn's confident and careful work.
When Thairn had fantasized of doing this with Illa, being this to Illa, Thairn had cast it in a much smaller role. They would be enamored, aflame with passion, and then there would be this also, one of Illa's pleasures. But now, instead, Illa belonged to Thairn first, was this first.
Thairn wasn't sure how it should feel, but how it did feel was so very right.
He made certain all was secure, ran a possessive hand through Illa's hair. Went to get the blade, wiping it down with alcohol as he brought it over. A leftover from Alanna's classroom.
Are you sure this won't bring you back there? Thairn had asked.
This was a part I liked.
And what luck, Thairn had all of his fae anatomy well-studied, because the need to torture Illa to sate Magdalena had demanded it. Knew where best to cut Illa, so he could bleed without risking damage. Certainly, Thairn could heal, but healing magic was never guaranteed. Better to be safe.
He began first on the back of Illa's down-stretched arm, where Illa could see. Pressed the point of the knife into that pale skin until a single ruby drop welled forth. Illa took in a breath, and, given his usual stoicism, it was clear the pain had little to do with it. His eyes stared, wide, waiting for Thairn to continue.
Thairn drew the knife down, Illa's skin parting before the blade. The line invisible, at first, then reddening, until liquid seeped forth, fluid streaks chasing one another down his untouched skin. Thairn caught them with his fingertips, drawing Illa's focus away from the blade.
Thairn did love to play to an audience.
He stained his lips with the captured droplets. Caught them on his tongue, and--
Agh. That taste. That was... agh.
But Illa. Pupils full-blown, lips parted. That look in his eyes.
Thairn could do a lot, for that look in his eyes.
Thairn took the knife down Illa's other arm. It had to match, of course. Gathered the blood against his knuckles, took the offering to Illa's mouth. Felt the thrill of it as Illa licked it away, tongue tickling between Thairn's fingers, the sensation carrying all down Thairn's body.
Thairn curved his hand around, captured Illa's chin. Took in every detail. The flush at Illa's cheeks, those deep, darkened eyes, the reddening at his lips. Thairn's.
Thairn let go of the chin, grabbed for Illa's hair. Forced Illa's head down and bit, sharp along the back of Illa's neck, hard enough to make Illa flinch beneath it, to hear a high, suppressed sound escape Illa's throat.
Pulled his teeth free from Illa's skin and saw the hollows where they had reddened like a blush. Thairn wanted this, to mark Illa, to own him in wounds. Wounds Illa welcomed, that Thairn wanted to give, that no one had written on a stark white lecture sheet.
Thairn pressed Illa's head down, sank weight on an elbow beneath Illa's wing to ensure he held still. Checked that the wing wasn't constricted, had to remember that. And took that knife along Illa's shoulder, in one of the clear spaces Thairn had memorized, where nerves and arteries were few.
"Ah," from Illa, soft as a benediction, turned to breath by the touch of Thairn's tongue, that breath turned ragged by the edges of Thairn's teeth. Illa's muscles lax, then tense again at the scrape of Thairn's nails down his spine, between his wings.
Thairn shifted positions, held Illa in place anew for the other side. And carved another stroke into his flesh.
Thairn sucked on this one, and mercy was that it reduced the flow some, brought less of that salty, mythrilene taste to his mouth. Illa pushed into it, as much as his bonds would let him. And his wings. Goodness, his wings.
Thairn longed to catch them in his ropes, to watch the rope braids quiver with their movements. Felt the guilt of that desire sour the blood in his stomach.
He focused instead on the joy of how expressive they were free, and drove that sharp blade through Illa's skin, and with it cut away his worser desires. Watched instead how those wings stiffened taut when the knife first bit, the way relaxation drifted them down against the air as Illa began to bleed. The shiver that soughed through them when Thairn drank. At a bite, they closed tight against Illa's back. At Thairn's nails along Illa's ribs, they fluttered.
Stroke by stroke, Thairn carved wings into Illa's back. Not like Illa's own, but feathered in curving slices. Took control of those instead, spread them crimson. And watched rapt as Illa took his blood-offerings from them, taking in the sight of that euphoria, that trust.
Thairn's.
Cleaning it up was part of the scene. Thairn rubbed stinging alcohol into those wounds, heard that hiss of strange pleasure. Got Illa's too-knowing look when Thairn gave a scratch a second swipe. It was messy, and the rubbing alcohol just made it messier, returned halted flows to liquid. It took gauze and healing kisses to make it stop, for all it ached to see the lines of those wings disappear into new skin.
But from the easy loll of Illa's head as Thairn untied Illa from the table, Thairn would probably be allowed to make them anew, sometime.
Illa took to the shower for his recovery time, leaving Thairn to coerce the whole mess of gauze and paper towels and loose alcohol pads into the tiny hotel trashcan. He was still getting the rope loose from the table legs when the door sounded. Thairn hurried it free, managing to toss it into a kitchen cabinet just in time.
"It was nice to--" Jack's eyes fixed on the table. Went wide. "--see you."
Ah, damn, they'd spilled some. "Sorry, I'll get a paper towel."
"Mickey," Dani said. "You told us they weren't vampires."
"I didn't say they weren't kinky."
The color had drained from Jack's face, and he couldn't seem to look away. Thairn blocked his line of sight--politely, he felt--and began to mop it up. Surreptitiously checked his mouth, too. Had he washed up well enough? It would be embarrassing.
Mickey, meanwhile, was trying to soothe Jack. "Come on, we'll get you into the living room. I thought you were getting better about this?"
"Not fainting is my better about this," Jack said, voice weak.
"Aren't you dating a vampire?"
"Jade's barely gotten him used to his own," Dani said.
Jack dizzily allowed himself to be taken to the couch. Thairn checked for more, mopped up what he found. Dipped into the bathroom to check his face and warn Illa. There were a few flakes still between Thairn's lips, easy enough to remove. The rust that had infiltrated the folds of his knuckles, not so much. Illa took Thairn's warning easy, said he'd intended to sit here for a while anyway.
Thairn emerged out to a calmer conversation, to Jack saying, "I know I already thanked you for that thing you brought, but..."
Dani was the one to hug Mickey. "I really appreciate it."
"Of course," Mickey said. "I'm sorry it took this long. If we'd had it then..."
"Don't worry about it," Dani said.
Thairn approached, trying not to be too obtrusive. Leaned against the back of Mickey's chair, accepted a ready, affectionate hand. It was still such a relief, not to hide.
"So are things really changing, there?" Jack asked.
"In some ways," Mickey answered. With a look to Thairn that spoke wordless of how little time lay between them and having to pretend again. "In other ways, it's all the same. Still a mob."
"Well," Jack said. "We're here, if you need us."
"You look terrified at the idea."
"With good reason. But, we are still here for you. We'll see you again before you leave, right?"
"Of course. I'll break into your apartment and show up on your couch when you least expect it."
"You need to stop doing that."
"You need to understand how terrible your security is."
"You could just give us advice like a normal person."
"It wouldn't be the same."
"We're leaving him to you," Jack said to Thairn. "I assume you know how to handle him."
"I'll do my best."
"His best seems to involve that taste in aprons," Dani said.
Mickey harrumphed. "The apron is perfect and beautiful, and I'm going to wear it to your apartment now that you've impugned its honor."
They laughed, traded more banter and jokes. Left Mickey sighing happily as he closed the door behind him. "Family, huh?"
"The good kind." Thairn greeted Mickey with a kiss.
Mickey's eyes widened the same as Jack's, but not in fear. Mickey ended it grinning. "Is that Illa's?"
Ah. Right. "I can go wash my mouth out better."
"If you want."
"If I want?"
"Vampire sex is hot."
Thairn shook his head, accepted another kiss that spoke of eagerness enough to leave him warm and wanting. He wasn't sure how he himself felt about this vampiric theatre, but if it made both of them respond so fervently, each in their own way...
"You're blushing," Mickey said against Thairn's lips.
"I never."
"It's adorable, don't stop." Mickey threaded a finger through a strand of Thairn's hair.
Another kiss, then, and they let it linger, enjoying the slow pleasure of it. Enjoying that they could have slow pleasure in it, when soon enough... but now wasn't the time to think about soon enough.
Mickey misread it. "I told you I'd come back."
"You did." Thairn recalled that fear, too, and all the things that stood between them. And yet... "No more tragic romances?"
"No more tragic romances."
It felt like a promise bound between them, for all it carried no real magic.
"Speaking of no more tragic romances, Illa isn't bleeding out in some corner you had to stuff him in to keep Jack from fainting, is he?"
"No, no, I've healed him. He's recovering in the bathroom--he had to shower the rest of the blood off. I need to bring him something to drink and eat, though, come to think."
"Can I help?"
"Of course."
They readied Illa some bread and milk, because he would be sure to find it amusing. Mickey didn't get the joke, and Thairn had to explain it, left Mickey shaking his head and commenting on how he thought he was the one with the morbid sense of humor.
Thairn brought it alone into the bathroom to find Illa sitting on the towel-rug, leaned back against the tub, eyes half-lidded. Every inch of him spoke of relaxation.
He did smile at the bread and milk, took it gladly. He seemed so peaceful, and Thairn basked in it, let it suffuse him with languid ease.
"You don't like the taste," Illa commented, over his cup.
"No. But I do like the effect it has on you. And doing it to you." A wistful sigh. "I just wish I could have left you some scars. Is that odd?"
"I don't know about permanent scars. But, nothing's permanent with your healing."
"No. No guarantees, but it shouldn't be."
"I like marks." Illa rubbed his neck where Thairn had bitten him, and that one hadn't been bleeding, so it hadn't been healed. "I like being yours."
"Good." Thairn resisted the urge to reach out and touch, since Illa was still technically in recovery mode. But that urge couldn't feel like tension, not with the way it felt to be around him right now. "I'm glad you're mine."
Thairn was delighted to find Illa joining them to sleep in bed that night, though Illa had to kick off his covers to not overheat in the pajamas. Mickey did sprawl into Thairn, and Thairn and Illa kept waking each other by brushing wings. But none of them spoke of setting up the couch fort or sofa bed, because a night without nightmares was a rare thing indeed for all three of them. Any drop of bad dreams, and Thairn would awake between Mickey and Illa, surrounded by comforting presence.
Illa got up at his usual crack of dawn in the morning to cook crepes. Thairn trailed out soon enough, while Mickey slept in.
"What was it you did, anyway, the first part of this vacation?" Thairn asked, fingers loosely threaded through Illa's hair as he sipped his tea.
"I've been wanting to talk to you about that, a little in private."
Thairn glanced at the closed door. "Should I keep it secret from Mickey?"
"For now. Gabriel's only cleared me to tell you--though I didn't exactly let him know we'd be seeing Mickey."
"Gabriel? Is this a part of the new assignment I wasn't cleared to know?"
"No, this is personal. It's why I used my vacation time on it."
Thairn's hand in Illa's hair clenched, pulled some of the strands tight. "Please tell me you aren't becoming one of his subs again."
"No. Not something I'm interested in." Illa touched Thairn's hand in reassurance. "It has to do with home."
"Home? Our world?"
A nod, beneath his hand, and. "What are your thoughts on slavery?" A tension to Illa's voice.
"Slavery."
"Yes."
"I guess I don't think about it. It seems so alien when we're here."
"I do. Since Gabriel."
A phrase to make Thairn shudder.
"And when I got home," Illa said, "I asked our family 'servant', Perrine, if she wanted to escape."
A chill feeling. "Did you, now."
"I did. And she did. And I helped her."
"And Gabriel helped you?"
A nod.
"Illa, she probably knows a lot he shouldn't."
"I have his vow not to go seeking that information, directly or indirectly, nor to have anyone do it for him."
"You picked the phrasing?"
"Yes."
"Why would he agree?"
"Because he escaped Faerieland slavery, too. When he hurt me, he would only do things the faeries had done to him."
A sickened shudder. "No."
"Yes. So he has motivation. He's keeping her as secret as possible; he might only tell Mickey because of how high up Mickey is in the mob, and his connection to me."
"Why are you telling me this? Anyone you tell expands the danger." Why was Thairn trying to dissuade him? But it was still...
"Because I trust you, with my life and more." Heavens, that felt good to hear. "And because I want your help, freeing more."
"Are you serious?"
"Yes."
It was an insane proposition. Yet, Thairn imagined any of his old friends or lovers succumbing to his homeland's dirty secret. Two hearts beat in his chest. Could he really deny that humans were people, the old unspoken assumption that justified it to themselves?
"This is madness," Thairn said. "I'll help."
Mickey came out of the bedroom one evening, dressed to the nines. "I have a surprise for you."
Thairn looked him up and down with visible pleasure. "A surprise?"
"I'm taking you both swing dancing."
"Where?"
"The hotel doesn't have a ballroom, but they do have a conference room, and I bribed them into clearing it and setting up some speakers."
"Are you serious?"
"Entirely. Go get dressed all fancy. I refuse to be seen with either of you in those outfits."
They did. Thairn had one set of formalwear, tucked into the suitcase, and Illa had considerably more. Thairn borrowed a waistcoat from Illa and used the shirt and slacks Thairn himself had packed. When Illa was dressed, he looked handsome and nostalgically familiar.
"Reg," Thairn said.
"Teddy." Illa held a confident happiness in his eyes.
They kissed, the way Reg would never have let Teddy all those years ago. It felt like Thairn was on the other end of a healing kiss, for once.
Glamours on, and Mickey gave them an inspection and approved their outfits, though he did pout that they needed more pinstripes. They went down to this converted conference room, and they weren't closeting at all well, and for a minute, for now, it didn't matter. It couldn't matter, not in the face of Mickey's confident stride, in the feeling that surged the minute they opened the doors and brass began to play.
"Show me how it's done?" Mickey asked.
Thairn reached for Illa's hand, swept him onto the dance floor. There was that thrill in his eyes, the one they'd found playing music from their computer in that studio apartment. Thairn felt the rush of it take him, the swirl and pull of the music through their bodies. No hesitance between them, just smooth sync with every chime of the piano keys and pound of the drums.
This song flowed into the next, and Thairn's lead flowed into Illa's. Now Thairn was the one following the suggestions in the push and shift of Illa's hands and stance, speaking wordless through movement. Thairn's invisible wings played along, too, flared for joy and balance when he out and twirled, closed tight for intimacy when Illa drew him into a dip. It was everything, to be like this.
At the end of a spin and song both, Illa set Thairn free, floating across the dance floor. Thairn took hold of Mickey's hand, pulled him out into the open. Sometime between their magic lessons, Thairn had been teaching him how to lead, but for this, Mickey gamely followed. Thairn's Juliet. Mickey didn't have the beat quite the way Thairn did, but Mickey let Thairn draw him through it, Mickey's hand gentle where it rested on Thairn's shoulder. When they drew in close, there was something sweet and tentative to the way Mickey laid his cheek against Thairn's.
The crooned serenade slammed hard to the blasting trumpets and blurring piano of a jitterbug song. They pulled apart with a laugh, and Thairn guided Mickey to kicks and shuffles and hip swings.
The next song that played was one Illa knew, and he said he'd seen a three-person dance to it once. He showed them the steps as best as he could remember, Thairn and Mickey filling in the gaps. It was a pantomime, Illa and Mickey pretending to fight over Thairn, stealing Thairn away in spins and sweeps. They stumbled sometimes, of course, bumped into each other and missed steps. Tried to adapt those mistakes into the dance, too.
They were well past the song by the time they got the hang of it, but that scarcely mattered. It really did feel like flying, changing hands between them, passing Mickey under the arch of Thairn and Illa's arms and vice versa. Like an endless oasis of time, a pleasant eternity of life in rhythm.
Everything was perfect for a moment, nothing else to worry about anywhere. Just them and their dance.
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