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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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.

"It's what I asked for," Adam repeated, though he wasn't sure if Ronan was asking about the ring or the process. Ronan could create wonders out of thin air, and he'd fought back the demon with magic. Adam could do little more than support him. He kept looking at the ring rather than Ronan, because it was easier to face.

As he focused on it, he became aware that he could feel the magic in the ring as the same as the magic in Ronan, distinct from the things around them. If he closed his eyes, he almost couldn't differentiate between ring and prince, except for the size. It was as though Ronan was the ring, and the ring was Ronan.

Curling his hand around it, Adam focused on warming the ring and intensifying the magic within it, wondering if he could and whether it would do anything at all.

Ronan stared at the floor. He didn't know what that repetition meant, but he didn't read anything good into it. He was probably annoyed with him again. He waited while Adam analyzed Ronan's creation. At least, he tried. Once his patience wore off, he stood and stretched his legs so they wouldn't go stiff. It was too short a nap for that, but it was the best excuse he had.

"Let me know when you're done."

Adam was surprised and disappointed when Ronan got up, evidently bored. “You don’t feel that?” he asked, wondering if he was doing something wrong. “It feels just like you do. Like it’s a tiny part of you.”

He watched Ronan warily, wanting him to stay but not knowing how to ask for it. “We’re supposed to work on training together. The book said that there’s some way that I can use the ring as a link to you. I don’t know how to do that.”

"It does?" Ronan asked, clueless when it came to the details of his powers. He cared about making things and getting better at it, not how or why it happened. The specifics were Adam's job. Still, he was a little curious about that new piece of information though he had no idea what to do with it.

He had this vision of pieces of him lying all over, hidden away in art, tools, junk, and apparently this ring. He shifted uncomfortably. Maybe he'd let Adam think about it.

"That's helpful. Do you think you're supposed to figure it out on your own?" He did not want to ask his parents about this. It might not have applied to them anyway.

"I think I'm supposed to figure it out with you." Adam didn't want to tell the prince that he had to stay, but he also didn't want this to all go awry because Ronan felt too antsy and impatient. "We need to figure out how to feel each other's magic. Don't blush," he added quickly, in case Ronan's mind went straight to the book like Adam's did. "There are seven chapters with clothes on."

Shifting on the couch, Adam sat cross-legged, facing the opposite end in hopes that Ronan would return and sit there. "Can you do that thing with light like you did in the village?" He held up his hands with space between them, as though the sparkling energy might appear between his hands if he could just figure out what Ronan had done.

"God, I'd hope so," he said. All of his ancestors had followed that book, or so Niall said. He wanted to pretend they'd all skipped that chapter too.

He took a deep breath and held up his hands to mirror Adam. Shaken and still more than a little uncertain, it somehow took more effort. His mind just didn't want to focus. When the energy appeared, it flickered in and out for several long moments before stabilizing and then spreading across his fingers. It felt warmer, softer now that they weren't in danger. This wasn't to destroy.

"Don't freak out."

He nudged the energy along until it danced across the space between them and onto Adam's hand.

Fascinated, Adam focused on the energy. Without the stress and distraction of dealing with the demon, he could feel it much more acutely. It was warm in a way. Radiant.

Curling his fingers around the little bubble of light, Adam let himself trust his instincts. It felt like stretching a muscle that he hadn't known that he possessed. He could feel the energy, and it seemed to shift in his hands. Focusing on that, Adam played with it gently, manipulating it, seeing how he could stretch and shift it.

He lost focus and it popped out of existence, startling him. But even with that failure, the success of moments before was heady. He stared at Ronan, eyes alight with interest. He really could do magic. Ronan hadn't been wrong about him.

"Again, please," Adam asked, scooting a little closer so that their knees touched.

Now that Ronan had warmed up, it was easier. After a few seconds, the magical energy crackled to life. He let it rest in his palm for a while, feeling it. After a while, he tested it out by running it up and down his fingers.

Time to try something new.

"Catch," Ronan said. Instead of moving his hands closer to Adam. It didn't go as far as he'd wanted but he hadn't tried to push it much to begin with. Part of that failure might have been from moving his legs closer to Adam, mirroring his previous movement. The rest of Ronan's body seemed to want to follow.

The little ball of light bobbed away from Ronan but then stuttered, as if Adam should have done more to catch it. He pulled it toward him with a thought, drawing it into his hands and trying again. He shaped it this time, guiding it into a cylinder, then a cube, testing his control through a range of geometric shapes until he pushed too hard and it popped again. He paused, panting, and let his hands drop.

His hands fell onto their touching knees, fingers laying against Ronan’s calf. They were so close, and he wanted to be closer. He felt powerful when Ronan was near him.

His mind strayed toward the images in the book and his cheeks flushed. There was a certain tradition between the heirs and their magicians, even if Ronan and the king had insisted that he wouldn’t be forced. It was tempting, somehow. He liked the idea that Ronan might find him attractive. It would be so easy to kiss Ronan, close as they were.

Was this just the influence of the magic bond between them? Adam balked at the idea, but he wasn’t able to deny it. He hadn’t been attracted to boys before. Envied them, especially handsome, confident ones, watched them with his heart thudding and his chest aching with want to be them. Same as he felt around Ronan.

Maybe not just. Maybe not ever just. None of them had ever looked back at him with any hint of interest. Not the way Ronan looked at him, like Adam was the only interesting thing in the world.

He caught Ronan’s hands and wove their fingers together, facing the palms inward so that they were linked and ready for another ball of energy. “Again,” Adam said.

Whatever energy danced between their fingers now, it wasn't the kind of magic from before. This made him feel weaker and stronger all at once. It made his breath catch in his throat. All he was doing was holding Adam's hands and it could do this to him? Adam could do this to him.

This was almost too intense, even for Ronan, and yet he couldn't look away from Adam. Couldn't move his eyes, not even to close them. Something inside felt right in a way it never had and he wasn't sure if he could blame this on Adam being a magician.

All he had to do was think and the magic was there between them, glowing brightly, charging his and Adam's hands and then their entire bodies.

Ronan swallowed. He wanted to say something but his tongue proved as difficult to control as his eyes.

Adam felt incredibly powerful, skilled, special, in ways that he never had before, and it surged through him. He learned fast, pressing the boundaries of what he could control, trying for more and more complicated nuance with the shapes formed from the little bubble until pop. "Again."

And again, and again, utterly consumed by the moment and the power flowing between them, eyes only on the glow of magic.

A servant interrupted them with lunch, knocking politely and setting a tray on a nearby table for minimal disruption.

Adam was startled nonetheless, surprised to realize that time had passed. He was half in Ronan's lap, knees against Ronan's knees, calves aligned, as close as they could get, and anything outside the two of them seemed wrong. Unreal. His hands--still holding Ronan's--sank into their shared lap, and he stared after the servant even once they were gone, puzzled to find that he still existed in this world.

"You were right," Adam said at last, returning his eyes to Ronan's. They were so close, and he thought again that it would be easy to kiss him. "I'm your magician."

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

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