marlowemuses | A cruel reality when you've had too much to dream

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A cruel reality when you've had too much to dream

On most days, Adam thought he knew all there was to know about himself. He had studied his skin and the capabilities of his muscles. He had interrogated every thought inside his own mind. He knew the depth of his capacity for exhaustion, and how much he could do on how little sleep.

He did not know, on the afternoon of the prince's eighteenth birthday, that over the course of the day things had been learned about him, through spell and revelation, that he did not know about himself.

Adam knew that there were celebrations throughout the kingdom for the prince, but Adam had no time for them. He had the day off of work at the shipyards, but that only meant that he had time to catch up on his chores at home, which would allow him some time to catch up on his studies. He knew that the royal family was magic. A fairy king and his family, and the middle son, the magic son, who would inherit everything. He knew, esoterically, that the fairy-dreamer kings of their realm took magic consorts who aided and increased their power.

Adam had no interest in any of it. This was mostly due to self-preservation for his pride and his heart. He knew he was not magic and did not belong in that world. Nothing he could do would ever produce an aptitude for that kind of magic. So he forbade himself from wanting it.

And if, in the months since his own birthday, he'd found lost things easier and broken things were more swiftly fixed by his hands, he attributed it only to his own intelligence and aptitude. If the weather suited itself to his mood and the flowers grew around his parents' house in a riotous profusion that he'd never seen before, Adam thought little of any of it. All these things had logical explanations, or they were mere coincidences.

He did not know that the king had cast a spell for his son, and his face had appeared in a basin of water, and a map had glowed to mark his home and the back field where Adam was hard at work repairing a broken fence.

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"You say that now," Ronan joked. At least he joked as much as one could when slowly dying.

He couldn't say much after that. Even though he focused everything into fighting the demon, he felt the demon sap his strength away. The process had slowed thanks to Adam, but he was losing.

Ronan didn't keep track of time but he knew it had to have been at least an hour before his father came. By that point, his eyes had blotted over with ooze and even more of it slid from his ears. So he didn't see the panic in his father's eyes and only barely heard it in his voice. The same could be said for his mother only she didn't say anything more than his name, softly.

Neither of them paid much attention to Adam save for getting more information. The gratitude came after they'd removed the demonic taint. Niall thanked Adam in the way only he could, knowing just what buttons to push, and all the while secretly relieved that not only was his son alive but he was getting along well with his magician.

Ronan slept through it all. He slept for most of the next day too. Finally, he came out to look for Adam. He hadn't actually thanked him yet.

The feeling of uselessness rose steadily in Adam as he sat beside Ronan waiting for assistance. Ronan only seemed to grow worse, and Adam’s ability to push it back only faded until he couldn’t seem to make anything happen at all, and his insecurity began to tip toward despair.

It was a relief when Niall and Aurora appeared. Adam stood out of the way as they took his place by the bedside and worked together to cast out the demon from him. Then they stayed behind, sending Adam and Ronan back to the palace. Niall’s thanks and praise rung hollow in Adam’s ears, despite the skillful way that Niall appealed to Adam’s pride and his craving for approval. It was hard to accept thanks for helping Ronan hold out a little longer when all Adam could think was that Ronan’s real magician would have been able to save him without assistance, and if Niall and Aurora hadn’t been a mere couple of hours away, Adam would have failed him entirely.

While Ronan recovered, Adam settled in. He was fed generously and provided a room that was larger than most houses Adam had seen. The steward seemed to intuit that Adam wouldn’t seek out food while he was working, and perhaps this was common for magicians, because meals appeared on a regular schedule wherever Adam was, so that he never had to stop what he was doing in order to eat. He spent most of his time in the library that he was told was his now, the magician’s library. Aurora or an advisor might occasionally seek to reference a tome, but most of it was meant for magicians in training, and therefore it was his to explore.

With Aurora and Niall busy dealing with the demon and no one else adequately familiar with the workings of magic, Adam was left almost entirely to his own training. He picked stacks of books from the shelves and curled up in a chair for hours at a time reading. If he was a magician, and if he was all that Ronan had, then it was his duty to gain skill as quickly as possible so that he wouldn’t fail again. He glanced up when Ronan walked into the room, stomach clenching with relief that Ronan was awake and ambulatory and not some nightmare version of himself.

“Your parents are holding back the demon,” he explained, eyes a little bit wary as he studied the prince. “Our job is to study and improve as quickly as possible so that if they need aid we’ll be able to offer it.”

"Oh, if that's all." Ronan leaned against the wall. He studied Adam for a few moments. He looked well physically but there was something about his eyes that showed the demon had worn him down, even Ronan had been the one it tried to devour. No, obliterate would be the better word. Ronan pushed the thought away.

"Are you alright?" he asked. He picked at the wall though his fingers could find no purchase against stone. It was something he could do, however ineffectual.

“It didn’t touch me,” Adam answered, a little bit confused, because he thought that Ronan knew that the demon hadn’t reached him. It didn’t occur to him that Ronan would mean anything else. No one had ever taken an interest in Adam beyond the bare physical facts of whether he was too damaged to work, and he’d internalized that. Adam wasn’t wounded, wasn’t incapacitated, and was better fed than he had been in his life.

Setting aside the book he’d been reading, Adam reached for another one that he had waiting. “I can’t do this one without your help.”

He’d tried, of course. The book was very specific on the topic of developing the bond and strengthening the magic between dreamer and magician, and Adam had skimmed the first few chapters, but he didn’t even understand the first chapter and had given up after three. The book had a strange balance of specific detail and vague assumption, and Adam could tell that he was missing something crucial to understanding it.

“It’s a template for helping us learn to work together.” Adam opens it to the first chapter, turns the book, and holds it out to Ronan. “The first exercise is that you’re supposed to give me a trinket or talisman of your own making, and then I’m supposed to practice focusing on the magic of the talisman and using it as a link to you.” None of that makes any sense to Adam. There are no instructions whatsoever regarding the thing Ronan’s supposed to make, and no explanation of what kind of magic he’s supposed to infuse it with. Adam dreads the possibility that either the book is meant for a magician with a different kind of magic, or that he’s simply lacking whatever innate magical power or understanding would make this comprehensible.

Ronan didn't know how to handle Adam's reaction to his question but pressing for an actual answer didn't seem right. Instead he let Adam redirect him to the book. He took it and glanced at the page. When Adam mentioned that he'd have to create something, Ronan only nodded. However lost Adam was about that, it was straightforward to Ronan.

"That should be easy," he said. He began to flip through the pages, at first skimming the instructions then glancing through. So far he was just seeing what Adam would need to practice. That made sense, in a way. Ronan had used his magic virtually since the moment of birth.

"When does it actually get hard--" He skipped a couple chapters this time, opened his mouth, and immediately turned red.

He snapped the book shut.

Next time, he'd be more careful with his words.

Adam felt a little discouraged by how Ronan breezed through the book, all of it easy for him. But they'd proved by now that Adam had at least a little magic, so he'd just work hard to catch up. Tirelessly, if needed.

Watching Ronan's face as he browsed through, Adam was perplexed when he suddenly went red and shut the book. The reaction didn't make any sense to him. Adam couldn't think of anything in the book of magic and bonding that would be embarrassing, so he had to guess that it was something personally familiar to Ronan, or some scribble in the margins.

"What?" Adam asked. He was perfectly willing to be brushed off, if it was personal, but if he needed to be warned about the significance of something in the book, he'd prefer to hear it from Ronan.

"Nothing," Ronan said quickly as if his images weren't swirling in his mind's eye. He'd barely read anything but that brief glimpse had opened up an array of possibilities-- or it would have if Adam were interested. Which he wasn't. And yet he couldn't stop thinking about it. Adam on his knees while...

"It's uh--" He cleared his throat. "Let's stick to the first few chapters."

Which chapter had those spells been on? Oh, crap. Now how was he going to avoid it again?

Now Adam was curious, since Ronan hadn't given him good enough reason to drop the subject. If the knowledge was dangerous, that just made Adam want it more. "We're going to have to get to the higher chapters eventually," he pointed out, holding out his hand to see if Ronan would give it back. He of course intended to flip straight to the later chapters to see what had made Ronan react and what it was that he might need to be prepared for.

"I don't think you'll be into it." Ronan started to tuck the book closer before realizing he was acting like a child. If Adam wanted to see it so badly, let him. He was right. They'd see it again eventually.

Reluctantly, he held the book out to him. "Don't say I didn't warn you."

Adam took the book back, flipping through it to the later chapters. He'd expected to have to skim, but the illustrations were very clear on the topic. Adam stared at one of them, skimming over the caption and nearby text to make sure he wasn't misunderstanding what he was seeing. Then he lowered the book to his lap, gazing into space for a moment as he processed it.

"No one's going to force us," he said at last, shutting the book again and looking up at Ronan. "Are they?"

"No!" Ronan said suddenly. His cheeks flushed again, despite the fact that he tried desperately to regain his composure. "We don't have to do any of that. There have been kings and magicians who weren't lovers. No one made them do that." He folded his arms over his chest.

He really hoped no one made them do that.

"They can't make a king do anything anyway. So we won't."

"There must be other ways," Adam said, crossing his legs and spreading the book across his lap. He flipped through it more methodically now, considering each chapter and the techniques proposed. "They're all techniques to attune us to each other and to increase our power and control. The theory seems to be that we are two parts of one essence, so the more that we can be attuned with each other and united in purpose, the more powerful we become."

Accepting that theory made it easier to dismiss what he'd seen, though the illustrations lingered in Adam's mind. He hadn't had the occasion to see much pornography, and he hadn't been prepared for it to be linked with his new role in this way. "You really understand this first exercise? The trinket or talisman? It doesn't say anything about what sort of thing you're supposed to make."

Ronan eagerly latched onto this subject instead of the one that involved their bodies in various positions.

"That's not the point. You need to get used to what I feel like-- my magic." Crap. He was never going to be able to escape that chapter now. "Anything I make feels different compared to something my dad makes," or so he'd been told. "So all you have to do is get used to that."

Adam bit the inside of his lip to keep himself from smiling when Ronan tripped over his own phrasing. The sex magic chapter had rattled Adam, but clearly not anywhere near as much as it had rattled Ronan. Adam had to admit that he kind of enjoyed Ronan's flustered blushing.

"Okay," Adam said, understanding only a little of that. He'd felt Ronan's magic, and it made sense that Niall's magic would feel distinct. "What do you mean, what you make? What kind of making things do you do?"

"I dream things," Ronan said. "Then I take them back. I should be able to do it without dreaming eventually but right now-- you saw the best I can do while awake." At least in comparison to the whole sex magic debacle, he didn't sound as sheepish. That admission didn't make him feel nearly as embarrassed as that.

"But I'm good at dreaming, so if you have any requests I'll take them." As long as they didn't involve dicks.

Oh God, what if he dreamed about that?

"You can dream things into reality?" Adam said, not quite sure he really understood the ability or the process. "I think you'd better just show me."

As for requests, Adam wasn't sure what to ask for. He wasn't used to asking for things at all. But Ronan had to dream something, and even if Adam couldn't think of anything to ask for, he could at least describe practicalities. "Something small and easy to carry. A talisman I can always have on me to connect me to you."

"You want to watch me sleep?" Ronan teased. He thought about what he could make for Adam but nothing came to mind. He'd have see what his mind provided him.

Glancing around, he looked for anything comfortable to take a quick nap on. By now he'd trained himself to fall asleep anywhere, but he preferred a place that wasn't going to give him a crick in the neck or an aching back.

He went over to a bench that looked passable. He figured Adam meant now and why waste time anyway?

Adam went with him, following after and perching on the edge of the bench to watch. It meant tucking close against Ronan’s side, so he could feel the warmth of his body against his hip. “Is it okay if I watch?” he asked, figuring it was important. He needed to learn as much as possible. They needed to work together. And if he could feel any of Ronan’s magic while he dreamed things into being, that would teach him more than any book.

"Yeah, but it'll be boring." Ronan didn't know how exactly this worked but as far as he was aware, it was just sleeping and then suddenly waking up with the object in his hand. He'd never paused to consider how it might shift from his mind into his hand.

He settled in, trying to ignore how close he was to Adam, and closed his eyes.

Adam watched him, curious about the process and still a little worried about Ronan from their encounter with the demon. He rested his hand over Ronan’s heart, feeling for what he could, but he didn’t notice any traces of the darkness from the village. Ronan’s magic felt soothing, the sort of thing that Adam wanted to sink into.

He could feel something happening, as if Ronan’s magic was larger than himself, but it didn’t seem to extend past Ronan in any way Adam could sense.

Watching over Ronan, Adam waited, surprised by how glad he was to have Ronan back and worried about him sleeping after only just having woken up again.

Ronan took what the dream gave him. He found that he made his best creations when he did that. Unfortunately, he was half way through polishing the ring when he pictured himself actually handing it to Adam. The context was different when you weren't dreaming solely for yourself.

But it was too late. He couldn't change the dream. He woke up. The ring came into existence and he immediately closed his hand around it, hoping Adam hadn't noticed just what he'd brought back though of course he had. that was the point.

"Done," he muttered.

Adam saw the glint in his hand, understood a moment later that it was a ring and blushed as Ronan closed his hand around it. There were certain clear implications connected with rings, especially when compounded upon the expectations already implied for a prince and his magician.

He hadn’t felt anything. Ronan’s magic didn’t feel so overtly larger than his body now, but Adam didn’t feel like he had learned anything. The ring was real, however, and Adam didn’t think it had come from sleight of hand.

He held out his palm for it, since he couldn’t turn off the practical side of his mind and they were doing this for a reason.

For a few moments, Ronan held the ring tighter. Handing it over wasn't proposing marriage but it was symbol of something greater, something that bound them. The prince and the magician. Finally, he relaxed his fingers and dropped the ring into Adam's hand.

"I don't always get to choose what to make." He cleared his throat. "I can try again." Though the more he thought about it, the more he wasn't sure he wanted Adam to take him up on his offer.

"It's what I asked for," Adam pointed out, though he certainly hadn't asked for the attached symbolism. It was appropriate though. Even if they didn't want this union, they were bound in some way. They were partners now, and it mattered for them to work together.

He looked down at the ring instead of watching Ronan's expression as he put the ring on his finger. Right hand, ring finger. It fit perfectly, and something about that in particular made his heart lurch a little, throat tightening. He forced down the stray thought of what the ring would look like on his left hand, reminding himself that no one would ever possibly want to give him a wedding ring. Whatever the tradition, whatever this bond between them, it strained belief to imagine that anyone could ever love him.

Ronan nodded, started to clear his throat, then stopped. He looked at Adam's hand, then at his face.

"What do you think?" he asked since that sounded better than "do you like it?"

Ronan was now even more keenly aware of how close they were. That Adam was brushing against him. He hoped he wasn't blushing but if he were, who could blame him? Aside from himself.

A cruel reality when you've had too much to dream

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