#I think we can all agree that one look at my worldbuilding tag ought have clued us in to my Very Neurotypical Brain rather a while ago | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

clansayeed · 4 years ago

Text

Bound by Circumstance ― Chapter 14: Things Better Left Unsaid

PAIRING: Nik Ryder x trans*M!MC (Taylor Hunter) RATING: Mature

⥼ MASTERLIST ⥽

⥼ Bound by Circumstance ⥽

Taylor Hunter (MC) has made it good for himself in New Orleans; turns out moving to a new city fresh out of college to reinvent yourself isn’t as hard as people make it out to be. Things only start to get confusing when he finds himself the target of a malevolent wraith. Good thing someone’s looking out for him though — because without Nighthunter Nik Ryder as his bodyguard he definitely won’t survive long in the twisting darkness of the supernatural underworld he’s tripped into.

Bound by Circumstance and the rest of the Oblivion Bound series is an ongoing dramatic retelling project of the book Nightbound and the rest of the Bloodbound series. Find out more [HERE].

Note: Circumstance only loosely follows the events and plotline of Nightbound, and features a separate antagonist, different character motivations, and further worldbuilding.

*Let me know if you would like to be added to the Circumstance/series tag list!

⥼ Chapter Summary ⥽

Taylor gets answers to questions he didn't know he had to ask. It seems to be an entirely unnecessary divergence from the main quest line.

[READ IT ON AO3]

Not gonna lie — it’s pretty damn validating when Elric, too, gives Nik a look of utter incredulity at his claim.

Only that’s a scarily similar look. One he could only recognize in the mirror. The same high arch of the right eyebrow; the way he blinks rapidly in sets of three.

Its the least dignified look he’s ever seen on the Fae Lord’s expression — honestly the least dignified he’s seen any fae look, which humanizes them in a way Taylor didn’t know he needed in order to make everything around him less mind-blowing — and its so very fucking Taylor-esque. Does the exact opposite of what its intended to do and actually makes him start to consider the ‘What If?’ of the matter.

Lady Thalissa finally takes in a deep breath and turns away from the balcony railing; joins in on the discussion with otherworldly intensity. This close to the roaring waterfall below her hair billows in the freeze like living flame.

“Elric has shared with me in Living Memory the events of the attack. And while I too find this… being —” the word comes out with a different intention than how it sounds and the Lady of Lamrian offers him a nod of her head in pardon, “— to be of strange innate power, I must agree that you have come to the wrong conclusion, Nighthunter.”

But, like with all things, once Nik has made up his mind he refuses to back down.

Taylor wishes that he would just this once. Especially since both of their lives grow increasingly at risk.

“Why else would the bloodwraith go after Taylor in the first place, if not for his connection to a stronger power?”

“Why should it concern us?” She counters with, what Taylor believes, is a very good fucking point.

He can feel Elric taking him in on a level deeper than physical out of the corner of his eye. He’s seen the power this guy is capable of — doesn’t want to ask him to find something else to stare at for risk of earning that ire.

You know what he wants to know?

He wants to know why himself and Elric both are letting someone else do the arguing for them. Why they can’t just say “nope that’s bullshit, no way I’m your long-lost kid, especially since you’re an immortal being and I’m a moderately decent stage actor from Middle-of-Nowhere Midwestern America” and be done with it.

But he knows the answer. Knows it the same way Elric knows it — in the fashion that unravels their quickly-constructed barrier of impossibilities without even trying.

“I’m not even gonna try to give you an answer on that one, lady. Er — My Lady.” Nik hastily corrects, but the noblewoman doesn’t seem too bothered by it. “But just like you can’t deny that thing is coming for the big faces in supernatural city politics, you can’t deny that this — them — might just be the missing page we’ve been looking for.”

The look she gives him says I very much can deny it you insolent human, so much so that she doesn’t even need to speak it.

Instead; “Perhaps you are not on the wrong path. Perhaps, in an occurrence more rare than the birth of a phoenix or the perfect alignment of all the stars of Obidyanix, a halfling was born to a mortal mother.

“But to imply that sheer happenstance would dictate that child be of my husband’s blood —”

“Your hands are unburnt.”

Thalissa falls silent at Elric’s first words since his surprise at the arrival of two outsiders into his Hall without his knowledge.

On sheepish instinct Taylor goes to shove his hands into his jeans — instead finds them tugged forward by an invisible force, some kind of magic, and hovered over with the pale fae’s own. Like a sphere of glass keeps them from touching. He marvels at them the way anyone might marvel at seeing hands for the first time.

The pad of Elric’s thumb strokes over the lines of his palm and though they aren’t touching it sends a shiver down Taylor’s spine. Feels a little bit like satin. “In such shock as I was upon seeing your impossible act at the Council Garden, I did not take into account your preserved hands.”

It’s just creepy enough that Taylor is frozen; caught between wanting to pull away and fearing the repercussions of actually doing it.

Thalissa rests an olive hand upon his shoulder, a ballad of confusion written in the emeralds of her eyes. “My Northern Moon…?”

“Did he tell you Taylor threw fae grimfire?”

Nik startles her attention back to him. There’s nothing haughty in the way he says it. No victory to be found. Just — what he believes to be — truth and certainty.

“You speak of a sorcerer’s imitation.”

But Elric is the one to dispute her this time around. “No, my Western Sunrise, he does not.”

“But —”

“I saw it with my own eyes. A Living Memory to give to you when this is through. This one,” he covers both of Taylor’s hands with his — that same force he now recognizes as magic making them fold together, “carries the touch of the Fae. And that is only what we know.”

Nik answers his unspoken question; “The only thing that can’t be burned by fae grimfire is a fae. No protection spell in Ivy’s arsenal would keep you from that kind of power.

“That’s when I knew, you know.” Head cast down, Nik suddenly can’t look him in the eye. “I played it off because… because I didn’t have any proof. But that wasn’t fair to you, Rook.”

So much was going on after he came back to consciousness at the Shift. Between feeling as nauseous as he did and then the whole ‘my mouth and your mouth doing the tongue tango’ fallout; topped like a bad dessert with Vera’s panic and what happened to Tonya? The fact that he could remember everything that had happened today in order was kind of a miracle.

Who had the time to think about why his fingers weren’t crispy chicken tenders?

“But —” — because if no one else was going to try and argue this then he’d just have to do it himself — “— I mean… this is nuts! I think I’d know if I were — and anyway my dad was an accountant from Kenosha!”

Smooth defense there, buddy. Because so far Thalissa is the only vocal opposition and even she gives him a look of is that all you could come up with?

With a reluctance Taylor can feel in the places where skin ought to meet skin Elric pulls away. Folds his hands together where they are swallowed up by large and delicately embroidered sleeves. The Lady leans against him and he brushes a ghosted kiss to her temple.

“Bitter moments and hours have been lost on the debates of halflings and their parentage before. But Nighthunter, it is the vehemence of your conviction which draws inquiry. Explain how this pertains to the blighted creature haunting our lands.”

Nik’s teeth grind together. “From the day I was hired I’ve been tryin’ to figure out just what he’s got that that thing wants. What a kingpin like Carlo and someone as powerful as Denna had in common with a human who didn’t know lick, or ain’t so much as been within three degrees of our world.

“Then it attacked the Beau-Keyes. Picked everyone off one by one. I punched a few good holes into it just the other night but it couldn’t have cared less about me, about Kathy — it went after power.”

Elric nods slowly; takes it all in. “First the Wolf… then Tonya.”

“The Rookie was right there but it wanted something else. I ain’t fully convinced it went after him at the end… it seemed a lot more focused on you; the oldest thing in the city, and the vampire.”

“You evade the point.” Even frustrated, Thalissa’s words come out like a melody.

“My point is why go for half when you can have the whole thing? You said so yourself, Lord Elric; once a bloodwraith’s been sicked on something nothing short of its goal is gonna stop it. So what if it doesn’t have a person as a goal — what if it has a type?

“You asked what the odds were of Taylor sharing blood with not just any fae in town but the Founder and Protector of the Lamrian Colony. I’m gonna say they’re pretty damn high — right up there with whatever forces at play put me in his way in the first place.”

There’s always been a certain aura of ‘the Chaotic Dumbass’ to Nik, though maybe he’s just projecting to keep himself from being put to blame. But this — this is a whole other side of the man he’s never really seen—or noticed—until now.

How long had he been thinking about this? Was it all a ruse and he was actually pulling it out of his ass? No… its probably pretty hard to successfully bullshit a fae as old as he is important.

There’s very little doubt in his mind that Nik actually believes everything he’s selling. And its convincing enough to have them all listening; all… considering.

“But that’s not why we’re here.”

Uhm… isn’t it? But Nik doesn’t give him the chance to speak. “This — all this family stuff — this is a courtesy. Because you’re a powerful figure in the community and I respect that. But we ain’t here for just that. We’re here as a warning. Because its still out there. How many people does it have to go through before it ends up lurking at the edges of Lamrian’s wards?”

Elric actually seems haughty. “Our wards are impenetrable.”

“And a guy like you seems likely to get tired of being confined awful fast. You’re really just gonna wait the thing out?”

“If we must.”

Thalissa nods in agreement. “Lamrian has always endured.”

“Can you say the same for its people?” Nik nods down below the balcony as he speaks.

Towards the hundreds of glowing lights in the darkness; lamps glowing pale pinks and yellows and blues bobbing in the air as the fae who carry them migrate away from the Lord’s domain and out towards the funeral procession they had interrupted in the first place.

The guards who had been killed by the bloodwraith at the Beau-Keyes. They were being mourned by not only their rulers but by their entire community. It was a sadness in the air that permeated through the beauty of Lamrian — spires of impossible age and design unlike anything Taylor had ever seen on the back of the brightest and clearest night sky.

He couldn’t have imagined something like this in his wildest dreams. And yet it was so hard to truly appreciate because of the loss that was felt in every cobblestone, every winding string of ivy crawling up, up into the clouds and their oblivion.

The Lord and Lady, too, watch their people sing the songs of the fallen. A glittering tear falls down Elric’s cheek.

When Nik continues his voice is rougher; thicker. He isn’t spared from the emotions demanding to be felt in their full power.

“You’re a good man, Elric — and a better regent. You really care about your people, but how long can you keep them safe here when they’re already such a big part of the mortal world?”

“Tilly doesn’t seem like the type to run and hide,” Taylor finds himself saying, “and Garrus…”

“Garrus is no longer welcome among us.” Thalissa practically snaps. Looks ready to give another piece of her mind when Elric’s hand falls over hers.

“What is the pettiness of an old grudge compared to the lives of our people, my Western Sunrise?”

Old as they may be, having lived lifetimes Taylor’s not sure he could comprehend right at that moment; they’re still affected by loss. Not just in ceremony but in a heavy way.

And yet they still won’t do anything to help? It’s a bitter irony.

“If you’re just gonna hole up here and not even consider helping, then no amount of pleading on our part is gonna actually make a difference.” Taylor grabs Nik’s arm, catches Elric’s eyes with one last look of disappointment. “Let’s just go. Maybe the Garden Coven is the answer after all.”

“That’s all well and good, Rook, but we kinda need them to get outta here.” Right, that makes sense.

They’ve wasted enough time here.

Its the dramatic act of turning and leaving that’s supposed to prove the point, that the ones who are staying are the ones really turning their backs on everyone.

Thalissa makes a gesture with her hand and an armored guard rounds the corner of the balcony; ready and waiting to be summoned. “Prepare a portal for our guests,” she addresses him somber and solemn, “and when they have departed we would ask you to go over every fiber of the wards to ensure Lamrian’s safety.”

The guard bows and departs. A jerk of Nik’s head means they ought to follow, but something heavy keeps him from doing so. Not just in his feet which feel like two anchors are fastened to his ankles, but something that makes the air that once was crisp and a refreshing change now feel thick in his chest.

It makes sense for Nik to have hoped an appeal like ‘long lost child’ would spur Elric into action. Whether he’s just pulling legs or actually means what he says. He’s seen it done in plays and epic dramas and normally it works because… well because normally even if its a lie at first it ends up being the truth.

There’s no fucking way this is the truth.

“While I would not risk the lives of my people again, I would wish you luck.”

When he looks back at Elric the man’s hand is offered to shake. It’s funny, almost. Humorous at least. So uncomfortably human in gesture that the longer Taylor hesitates to take it the more he seems unsure of whether or not he’s performed the right action.

And he doesn’t want to take it. Wants to make some kind of point by refusing. But if, by some actual impossibility, he had seen something familiar in the Lord moments ago…

He breaks the invisible glass sphere — the barrier between them — and shakes Elric’s hand firmly.

He hasn’t crossed the barriers between his realm and the realm of mortals in nearly half a century.

Would not even have noticed the passage of time if not for wistful sighs that turned into the insistence of his beloved soul-kind, his Western Sunrise, that he walk among them and remember what it once felt like to gaze upon mortality with wonderment and delight.

In the strands that weave together the universe he knows they were once part of the same creation. Even among the fae that is a rarity to encounter. Even more so to stay at each others’ sides as they have.

That she chose to abandon their world and walk with him among the places where only the lost dare to be found… it would be impossible to ask for such love and devotion — only for the trouble he would have bringing a request like that to his lips.

Each night he walks through throngs of fumbling children — even the oldest of mortals are still so very young in his eyes. And when they see him they know it, too. Despite the dull flush this glamour gives him, they know he is different than they are.

That the look in his eyes comes from the pain of loss and the pleasures of discovery.

In most of them it incites a feeling — an instinct. One to let them revel in his beauty but keep their distance.

In her…

It was as though on the day she came into the world that instinct was taken and turned on its head. Where others retreated she sought to dive in deeper, further. The act of pursuit so foreign to him that he wondered if she somehow had a touch of the fae inside of her and did not know it.

She was greedy in the way immortal creatures were greedy; demanding of the world to let her feel and accepting nothing less than every emotion there could possibly be in the universe. So unlike the rest of her kind. A single rain drop able to flood the desert.

There was little doubt in his mind that if she had the power to shape the stars to her whim she would carve out entire stretches of sky with the stories she had lived, wished to live, and would live before her time was done.

She prostrated to him with an open breast and he took. Shamelessly. Even now he remembers her soul brighter than the suns of the homeland he now walks only in Living Memory.

In memories like these.

But to see a soul is to eclipse simple, tangible things. The indent of her cheek when she smiled. The strands of gold she wove together and called hair. A silvery streak over her knuckle called a scar. The curl of peach-painted toes in ecstasy.

He sees it now, too. As if the very veils of reality have been drawn back with a startled flourish.

Not in the mouth, hair, or toes. But in the part he had forgotten; had wanted to forget — has no qualms being honest with himself. Because compared to those of his kind they are far more dull, far more revealing of their frail limitations than they would like to think.

Her soul rests in his eyes.

When this is all over, if he’s still alive to see The End, he’d like a few answers.

A perfectly reasonable request.

And yeah, its a bit of a shock to them both… but it doesn’t change anything if Elric isn’t going to help.

Maybe one day he will be more than forgiven. Maybe one day he will understand.

“Yeah, doubt it.” Taylor answers aloud — pulls his hand away from the fae’s touch and the world of Lamrian, still with a beauty beyond compare, goes dull around him. If that’s what life is going to be like now knowing what he knows…

“The gateway is ready, My Lady,” calls the guard behind them.

With a finality Taylor glances between the Lord and Lady; she who now looks between the other half of her soul and deeper than just his human body with a new revelation. There’s almost an apology in the crease of her ginger brow.

She opens her mouth to speak — but either can’t find the right words or simply doesn’t want to bring them to light.

“Thank you for your time. — And we’re sorry for your loss.”

He’s tugging Nik along then. Doesn’t give him the chance to say much but from the looks of it there’s nothing more to be said.

Nik was right.

But Elric, Thalissa — they still won’t help.

So it doesn’t matter, does it?

The guard leads them back to the main hall where they entered. Now empty of the mourning congregation from before. The portal is like Tilly’s; created by the hidden place between a curtain of rich velvet reaching all the way up to the top of an archway made of polished amethyst.

The noises from behind it should echo through the hall’s every hollow space but it doesn’t. It waits until they’re mere breaths from stepping through and Taylor only notices because of how jarring the sounds of a ringing landline and crackling of a PA speaker sound in comparison to the medieval space they occupy.

Just like last time he takes the first step. Worries deep deep down that if he doesn’t he might never — might try and stay and not just to convince them to help, either.

There’s no curtain on the other side this time around; no veil between worlds. Just a doorway already open and the hospital lobby in a lull beyond.

Before Taylor can beeline for the sight of Cal, Cadence, and Katherine having rejoined them, a familiar hand grabs his wrist, tugs him aside until the lobby fluorescents are a far-off dream. Replaced instead by the darkness of a cramped facilities closet.

His eyes adjust in no time at all. He watches as Nik blinks away the light. Wonders silently and to himself if that’s something he inherits from his… from Elric.

Wonders if its a halfling thing.

But he knows why Nik pulled him in there. “I know why you pulled me in here,” and he really doesn’t want to talk about it, “and I really don’t want to talk about it,” because there’s more at stake than the secrets Nik has been keeping from him, “because I’m sure I don’t need to tell you there’s more at stake than any other secrets you’re keeping from me.” And because seeing Kristin again has reminded him just how high the stakes really are.

He doesn’t say that last bit aloud.

“Too bad,” like Nik’s just used to getting his way, “because —”

“Sorry—was I speaking English? I said no.”

Together they wait in breathless silence for someone to burst in and kick them out. He wasn’t exactly quiet. And the footfalls of rubber crocs and worn gym shoes are soft but not silent — they come and go and leave the pair alone.

He can��t help but bite out; “You know for the ‘brooding loner’ type you sure want to talk about your feelings a lot.”

“It ain’t for my sake, Rook.”

“Well if its for mine, you can cut it out. Because—because I can’t even begin to introduce how mad at you that I really am, okay? And for the record, Ryder, I’m a guy with a lotta words to say. So when I don’t have any its generally seen as not a good thing.”

And his skull might not be as thick as he makes it out to be because Nik does, indeed, fall quiet. Stares at him with all of the shadows from the light underneath the door casting on the hard angles of his face and he’s thinking, debating, trying to figure out the right thing to say but this might not be something that can be fixed by simple words. By an apology.

He might be finally starting to realize that.

“You…” he totally inherited the ‘wagging finger’ from his mother and not Elric, not Elric at all, “I mean, you get how I’m angry, right? Please tell me you get that because I don’t think I really know if I can find the words to make you get it.”

“I — I get it.”

“No you don’t!” He shoves the man back — or tries to, he’s solid muscle that Taylor remembers almost fondly and doesn’t move an inch — with gritted teeth and frustration. From a place of frustration he didn’t know he could reach.

“Okay. I don’t.”

“You’re damn right you don’t! Who the hell do you think you are? Where do you get off thinking you can just—just keep upending my life like this?! No—No don’t answer that, don’t you fuckin’ dare.

“Because you… you think you can just come into my life and keep messing with it the way you have been well. Well no. No more—I’m just saying no more. No more being chased, no more underground fights, no more fearing for my life and no more secrets!

“Christ… do you think she knew? Do you think she knew and never told me?” — where the hell did this come from? — “Do you think that—that every time I fucked myself up or every time I did something stupid she was just wondering how human I was? When I told her I was trans—did she think it was some dumb fae thing?

“You know all the answers, Nik, so just—just tell me if she knew.”

His hand flies over his mouth to contain his sudden choked sob like he hasn’t been practically shouting and if anyone was going to come in they definitely would have by now.

Everything goes a little blurry and tears sting in his eyes and then he’s wrapped in a person-sized vice and the smell of dust and dirt and Ryder fills his nose and he didn’t know how much of a comfort it would be until he has it. Doesn’t want to ever be let go.

“Did she… I mean —”

Its obviously not in the realm of questions Nik asks often. How he manages a couple of false starts before huffing heavy through his nostrils and decides to just stay quiet instead.

But he can guess where the man might have been going with it. Did she accept you? Was she supportive? Do I need to have a talk with her?

“It—hic—took her a bit. There were some therapists involved.”

Nik’s arms tighten around him. “She didn’t try to change you through that shit, did she?”

“No—no nothing like that. More… she and me — we had to find a way to talk about it that didn’t land me at a bar and her closing up.”

Taylor pulls back — tries to regain some semblance of the masculine facade — and there’s a sheet half-pulled off of the shelf nearest them in Nik’s offered hand. It’s a much-needed laugh before he takes it and wipes his eyes. “It wasn’t like it is in the movies, you know? I went in ready to tell her, ready for everything to be so black and white…”

But telling his mom hadn’t been the binary acceptance or rejection he thought it would be. It had taken time, and a lot of talking, and a lot of refusing to talk. Compromises that weren’t really compromises because there was always someone who got out of the deal a little more satisfied than the other.

Then something changed. He couldn’t tell you how or when exactly it happened but he was lucky enough to be able to look behind him in the small court room, to find her eyes in the small crowd, and in them find the courage to turn back to the judge and say proudly just why he wanted his name changed.

They went out for dinner after. At the hostess’ booth his mom had given her his real—and newly legal—name. And he knew everything was going to work out.

And those memories were still good ones. They were still important, still defined his journey. But if she knew…

No. If she didn’t know. If she didn’t know then this was just another thing to tell her. Another part of himself to bring into the light. Another secret between them — and that just didn’t seem fair. Not to Taylor, not to his mom, not to anyone.

Nik fidgets relentlessly in front of him. Arms at his sides, then hands in his pockets, tucked under his armpits, one in the coat pocket and one in his jeans. Like he’s only just realized he has hands and has no idea what to do with them.

“You, uh, you… better?”

Taylor nods; gathers the sheet up into a ball and chucks it in a laundry cart at the back of the closet. “As much as I can be — I’m still pissed at you, though.”

“At this point I’d be worried if you weren’t.”

“It’s not a joke, Nik.”

“I know Rook — I know.”

“So now what?”

Its a useless question; they both know the answer.

Nothing has changed. Elric won’t help. Kristof isn’t a likely ally, Isadora neither. Tonya is out of commission. And if the bloodwraith really is after creatures of power like Nik suspects then Taylor — and somehow Cadence — still have targets on their backs.

Now what?

Now… they just keep going down the list. There’s one last name to cross off.

#nightbound #nik ryder #nik ryder x mc #choices nb #playchoices #nightbound mc #mc: taylor hunter #cal lowell #oc: cadence smith #katherine nightbound #oblv: bound by circumstance #oblv: new chapter #; my fics

1 note · View note