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clonerightsenthusiast · 5 years ago

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Connecting with the Youth

[Campaign Skyjacks, gen, 5k words]

“Do you think they forgot about us?”

Jonnit’s voice has gotten progressively more anxious over the last day. Really, Travis can hardly blame him; to a boy as young as he is, a few days of uncertainty must feel like a lifetime. It’s funny, though, so he takes his time responding, leisurely stretching his arms upwards and linking his fingers behind his head. “Forget us? No,” he says with a dismissive sniff. “They could never forget us.”

Jonnit nods quickly a few times and mumbles affirmations to himself, clearly taking heart. Travis waits for the newly resolved hope to grow for a few more moments.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Jonnit says louder. “They wouldn’t—”

“Now, leave us behind on purpose? I wouldn’t throw that one out of the equation.”

Jonnit’s face contorts into an expression of fear and betrayal. Travis throws his head back and laughs. The kid’s just so expressive; everything he feels shows so clearly on his face, every tiny change in mood. It makes playing with his head so fun.

Being stranded, he thinks, may not be so bad.

As long as they get picked up before it starts to lose its shine.

(continue on ao3)

“I’m hungry.”

Jonnit is drumming his heels against the rock face, and Travis would reach up and flip him off the top of the boulder to hear him squawk and sputter in the snow at the base, but ever since he did it the first time, whenever he makes any move upwards the boy snatches his legs in and just keeps talking.

“We didn’t bring enough food to just sit here forever and wait for them,” he says, hugging his knees close and peering down at Travis. “What are we gonna do, Travis?”

“Die, maybe,” Travis says, shrugging. He eyes the base of the boulder disdainfully: clearing away enough snow to be able to sit comfortably without getting wet would take too much time and effort to be able to do with dignity, and he isn’t quite desperate enough to stoop to sharing the top bit with the boy.

“Travis, I’m serious!”

“So am I.”

“You’re never serious.”

“I’m always serious.” Travis gives him a withering look, which Jonnit returns with every ounce of teenage stubbornness in his body. “Really, Jonnit, think logically. We’re lost in the mountains with very little food and no known settlements in traveling distance by foot. Either the Uhuru will come get us, or we’ll die. That’s really all there is to it.”

“We’re not lost,” Jonnit grumbles. “I know exactly where we are.”

“Oh, good. You’ll be able to pinpoint our graves precisely on a map.”

“That’s not funny, Travis.” Jonnit is full-on scowling, now. He must be more upset than Travis thought; it’s usually impossible to rid him of his normal sunny demeanor.

“On the contrary, I’m hilarious.” When his quip fails to procure any more than a huff, Travis gives a put-upon sigh and swans over to lean artfully against the boulder. He gives the side of Jonnit’s boot a flick with one finger. “Oh, come now, Jonnit. There’s no need to be a little bitch about the situation.”

“I’m not being--I’m not!” Jonnit snapped, his hands flailing as if he was attempting to take off and fly back to the Uhuru on the power of his frustration alone. “Just because you can’t die—”

“I never said that,” Travis says mildly.

“Well--well, can you?” Jonnit asks, blinking down at him. Travis applauds himself for momentarily distracting him from what was shaping up to be a real tirade.

Travis shrugs. “You can do anything if you believe in yourself.”

“Travis—”

“Jonnit.”

Travis drops his voice, cutting Jonnit off and leaving no room for argument. The boy stops, hugging his knees to his chest once again and looking down at him with wide, owlish eyes.

Travis takes a deep breath and puts a hand solidly on his boot. “Jonnit, who is in charge of the ship?”

Jonnit blinks, the gears in his head nearly audibly grinding as he tries to follow the abrupt change in topic. It’s always entertaining to watch the boy think; he’s certainly clever enough, and applies himself so thoroughly to any question asked of him that you can see him working through it. He uses his whole body to think, forehead scrunching up and hands fiddling with the laces of his boots.

“Uh, well,” he says, frowning, “I guess technically that’s Captain Orimar, but since he’s dead and all it would be whoever tells the captain what to do, so I guess it’s… Dref?”

Travis snorts. “God, please, no. Be serious. With the two of us off the ship, who’s really making the decisions on board?”

Jonnit blinks. “I mean, lots of people make the decisions--I mean, there’s… there’s Spit, and Wasp, she makes the decisions about food and stuff, and—”

Travis pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs. Connecting with the youth is such a tiresome endeavor. “Gable, Jonnit. Gable is in charge of the Uhuru right now.”

“Oooh,” Jonnit says, nodding to himself. “Yeah, that makes sense. I should’ve guessed that one.”

Through heroic effort, Travis does not roll his eyes. With exaggerated patience, he squeezes Jonnit’s boot to get his attention back. “And if Gable is in charge of the ship, do you really think they’ll let them just sail off without us?” he asks.

Jonnit lets out a long, blustering breath. He nods, his head bobbing faster as he seems to convince himself. “Yeah,” he says, and then brighter, “Yeah! Gable’ll come get us for sure! They're probably just… a little lost, or something.”

“Sure,” Travis says, patting his foot. “So stop complaining. Everything'll be fine.”

“Yeah!” Jonnit says. “It'll all be fine. Thanks, Travis.”

“Oh, no problem,” Travis says magnanimously, waving one airy hand. “Oh, and Jonnit?”

“Yeah?” It takes all of Travis's discipline not to snicker at the wide-eyed trust in the look the boy directs at him.

He closes his hand around Jonnit's boot and flips him off the boulder, sending him tumbling into the soft snow below with a satisfying yelp.

“You're in my seat.”

—

After two days of waiting, the boy is miserable. To his credit, he does an admirable job of hiding his discomfort, but it doesn’t take someone as astute as Travis to notice the way he shivers and curls into himself when he thinks no one’s watching. Summer be damned, it’s cold up here, and their clothes are soaked through from the snow. Travis had dug out little burrows where the snow is deepest for them to sleep in, but they were far too cramped to stay in during the day—especially for a pair of skyjacks.

So instead here they are, crouched in the lee of the boulder to shelter from the wind, Jonnit chattering away about some inane story or other to cover the sounds of their empty stomachs. It’s not the first time they’ve missed a few meals, especially considering those lean months following Orimar’s death, but rarely have they gone a full day without food and even then it was never for quite so… open-ended a timeframe. There is no upcoming port here to restock at, no leads on jobs to follow up on for the promise of fuller coffers. No light at the end of the tunnel. All they can do is sit, and wait, and freeze.

Of course, Travis isn’t worried; cold and hunger simply do not work fast enough to hurt him in any permanent way. He’s terribly uncomfortable, of course, and he does wish Gable would hurry up and just come get them already, but he’s fine.

The boy, on the other hand, will not be. Jonnit has proven himself time and again to possess greater fortitude than would be reasonably expected of a child his age, but he is still so terribly mortal. Travis watches him shiver in his wet coat (and, okay, maybe dunking the child in snow several times wasn’t the best survival practice, but it’s not like he’s ever claimed to be a good babysitter) and pictures life on a ship with Gable and Spit if he returns to them with a dead Jonnit.

And then he considers life on a ship with a Jonnit who is, even more than he already is, laboring under the delusion that he cares.

He weighs it for a while.

Eventually he sighs inwardly and gets up, cutting Jonnit off mid-sentence. Travis stretches luxuriously and in one smooth motion pulls off his coat and dumps it on the boy. "Well, I'm going to go find a better vantage point and see if I can spot the ship. You stay here. If I don't come back, just assume I've run off or something."

Without looking at Jonnit sputtering as he extricates himself from the heavy fabric dropped on his head, Travis strides off up the slope. It really is worse without his coat to break the wind, and for a moment he considers going back and retrieving it after all, but… well. It's such a shame to spoil a dramatic exit.

—

The pile of rocks is absurdly precarious, but it is also very tall. Climbing it gives Travis something to do, and if he does get a better vantage point to spot the Uhuru, then he can't be accused of leaving just to avoid Jonnit. Besides, even if he does fall, so long as he doesn't just die outright, he'll be fine. He rubs his hands together and gets to work.

It takes a certain amount of dexterity to be a skyjack, regardless of official position, so Travis makes it a fair way up the rocks before gravity finally (some might say inevitably) gets the best of him. His boot loses traction on a patch of nearly invisible ice and he can't catch a good handhold before he's tumbling off his perch.

He lands hard and his leg gives way beneath him with an unsettling snap. Travis lets out a yelp, and then a much louder series of curses that would make even Gable frown.

"Travis?!"

Travis jumps at the yell, sending a shock of new pain down his leg, and then turns his eyes skyward. If he doesn't look, maybe it'll turn out to just be his imagination.

"Travis, are you okay?! Hold on, I'm coming!"

At that, Travis gives up on hope and cranes his neck to see, clambering up the rocks at the base of the pile, Jonnit. Wearing Travis's too-big coat with the collar pulled up against the wind, and decidedly not where he had left him.

"Jonnit, what are you doing here?" Travis demands, shifting to what he hopes is a more dignified position and wincing as it moves his injured leg.

"I came to help!" Jonnit calls up, nimbly scaling another boulder. "I'm really good at spotting stuff! Plus you, uh, you forgot your coat."

Travis does not pinch the bridge of his nose, but he feels he should be recognized for the heroic effort it takes. Jonnit is making remarkably good time up the rocks—he's a nimble little kid, and has more practice than Travis does swinging about in the ship's rigging.

"Jonnit, I don't need help looking at open air," he says.

"But apparently you did need help climbing these rocks," Jonnit shoots back stubbornly. "I mean, these things are dangerous—oh!"

Travis sighs as Jonnit slips on some more damn ice and falls—a much shorter distance, to be sure, but he still lets out a sound like a kicked dog and doesn't immediately get up.

"Jonnit," he drawls, with exaggerated patience. "Did you hurt yourself?"

There's a significant pause, then another yelp and finally a sheepish, "Maybe."

Travis sighs again, louder this time to make sure the boy hears him. "You know, for a very clever boy, you are really remarkably dumb sometimes."

"Hey!" Jonnit snaps back indignantly. "You hurt yourself too! I was just trying to help!"

Travis finally looks down so Jonnit can see his full disdain. "Jonnit," he says slowly. "My bones turn to goop, remember?"

Jonnit opens his mouth to respond, then shuts it and sits there with a really extraordinary expression caught between embarrassment and teenage mulishness.

Travis takes a moment to enjoy it before breaking the silence with, "Well now I suppose we just wait until nightfall and then find a way to get you back down the mountain."

Jonnit deflates, retreating back further into Travis's coat. "I really was trying to help," he mutters, just barely audible over the wind.

Travis sighs and tries to get comfortable against the rocks. It's going to be a long few hours to sunset.

"Do you really think I'm smart?"

"Don't fish for compliments, Jonnit. It's unbecoming."

—

By the time the sun finally sets, Travis feels more like an icicle than a man. The familiar agony of his transformation is almost a relief when he at least gets four functioning legs and some fur out of the deal.

Climbing back down the rocks is no easier than getting up, especially when he's now considerably smaller and lacks thumbs, but the white coyote eventually makes it down to where Jonnit is curled up miserably.

"All right, now what's wrong with you?" Travis asks, sniffing at him. He doesn't smell blood, which is probably a good sign. He wonders idly how cold it has to be for blood to freeze.

"Just my ankle," Jonnit says, shifting to show him. His ankle is a sight to see, crooked and swollen and an unseemly color.

"Gross," Travis says eloquently.

"I dunno how well I can walk," Jonnit adds as if he hadn't spoken, moving his foot and wincing. "I don't think it's broken, though."

"Well you'll have to, because I can't carry you," Travis says. "And even if I could—"

"Yeah, yeah, I get it," Jonnit snaps. "Okay, maybe I can just sort of… shimmy my way back to the ground…"

It's undignified, but Jonnit does manage to slide his way down the rocks using his three remaining limbs. Travis picks his way down a fair bit quicker and looks at him expectantly as Jonnit stands braced against the rocks at the bottom.

"How fast can you crawl?" he asks, tail wagging slightly in amusement at the mental image.

Jonnit makes a face. "That'd take all night to get back to the rendezvous point," he says. "Maybe I can just…"

He lets go of the rock and takes a hesitant step forward with his bad foot and... immediately falls over.

Travis, because he is a saint, doesn’t laugh. Well. He only laughs a little.

"Travis, I don't think I'm gonna make it," Jonnit says mournfully, propping himself up and looking at Travis with wide, sad eyes. "What do we do?"

Travis sighs and sits down to consider. He could leave the boy here and go back alone; if Gable shows up tomorrow he can simply lead them back to Jonnit. If he remembers how to get back here, that is.

The disapproving Gable frown in his head deepens further.

Maybe you shouldn't have left me here with him, then, he thinks spitefully at them. What did you expect? Why don't you come get him, then? Where are you?

Of course, he gets no response, because Gable is on the Uhuru and he's alone on this mountain with an injured child.

Well. He supposes Jonnit did get hurt trying to help him. Even if it was very stupid of him. It would be… rude to abandon him here after that. Besides, with the sun down the temperature is dropping rapidly and Travis does not relish a walk back to their bags in the cold and dark.

"Well, I suppose we'll just have to sleep here and go back in the morning," he says finally, getting up.

"Are you sure?" Jonnit asks, but he's already sagging against the rock from relief. Travis rolls his eyes and doesn't deign to respond, rather getting started on a new snow cave.

If paws are good for anything, it's digging; it's not long before Travis has cleared out a decently sized burrow under the snow. He slips out and stretches, eyeing Jonnit. The boy sat down to wait, but at least he had the presence of mind to leverage himself onto a small ledge and didn't drop directly into the snow in Travis's coat. His whole body is drooping as he tries to stay awake.

"All right, get in," Travis says, startling him awake. His funny little jerk upright is amusing, but Travis watches his bad foot carefully. It would be much less funny if he made their situation worse by further injuring himself just from a little spook.

It takes the boy a moment to visibly process what Travis said, but when he does Jonnit perks up. "You're done?" he asks, already slithering down off the ledge.

"If I wasn't, would I have said anything?" Travis says with what he thinks is remarkable patience.

"Right, yeah, no," Jonnit says, bobbing his head and hobbling towards the cave. He hesitates just outside, glancing down at the coat still engulfing him. "Um, your coat…"

"Well I can't very well use it like this, can I?" Travis says snippily, raising a paw to gesture at his current canine form. The inability to raise his eyebrows with disdain is one of the most frustrating things about his animal forms.

Jonnit ducks his head. "Yeah, okay. Uh, good night, Travis."

"Mm, yes, good night," Travis says, turning his back on the boy as Jonnit crawls into the snow cave. The faster he digs another cave, the faster he can get out of this damn wind.

Now he's thinking about his coat. Sure, strictly speaking the boy needs it more. But it's warm, and it's his coat, and he wants it. Another gust of wind cuts through his thin fur and Travis shivers. Coyotes really are not made for snowy mountain peaks. He turns around, eyeing the entrance to the snow cave. Maybe he could just…

It'd be humiliating. But it would get him out of the cold faster. Besides… they're alone up here, and he can probably talk Jonnit into keeping his mouth shut.

Making up his mind, Travis crawls into the snow cave. It's dark inside, but already warming up. Jonnit's visible only as a dark mass curled up in the small space. He stirs as Travis wriggles his way into his space.

"Travis…?" he asks, his voice heavy with drowsiness.

Travis nudges his way inside his coat, pressed up against Jonnit's chest. This close, he can make out Jonnit's wide eyes barely a foot from his. "We are not friends," he informs him sternly as he settles in against the boy.

He thinks Jonnit smiles, but he could also be imagining it. This is obviously nothing to smile about. "Okay, sure, Travis," he says.

Travis snorts. Jonnit's arms close around him, wrapping him up more completely in the coat and pulling him closer. Travis blows out a long breath and gets comfortable, sticking his snout into Jonnit's neck and smiling to himself at the boy's little yelp.

"G'night, Travis," Jonnit says, yawning.

Travis hums and closes his eyes. "Good night, my boy."

—

Travis wakes up to the familiar ache that heralds his transformation. He's loathe to leave the warm little cocoon he's found himself in, but Jonnit snuffles in his ear and he remembers abruptly exactly where he is, and where he does not want to be as a man.

He pulls himself free of Jonnit's arms and crawls out of the snow cave as the transformation begins in earnest. The sounds echo off the rocks in a particularly gruesome manner, but soon enough the sun is above the horizon and Travis is a man again.

He stretches, pleased as always with the return of his opposable thumbs, but a gust of wind quickly makes him miss his fur again.

Oh, his coat!

Travis crouches down outside the entrance of the cave and clears his throat. "Jonnit," he calls. "Jonnit, I know the sounds of all my bones breaking woke you up. Get out here."

After a moment, he can make out movement inside and steps back, considering the rocks again. He's not actually going to climb them again, because one day lost to injury is enough, but it does seem a terrible waste to just leave without actually getting a better view of the skies around them.

Before he can talk himself into a spectacularly bad idea, Jonnit pulls himself free of the cave, blinking in the sudden sun.

"Good morning," Travis says, turning back to face him. "How's the foot?"

Jonnit grimaces. "Not great," he admits, moving his bad leg out in front of him to show Travis. It's still gross and Travis grimaces back at him.

"Well, nothing for it. We can't just stay here. What if the Uhuru finally shows up and we aren't there and they just leave? We have to get back."

Jonnit seems to take this to heart—as, bless him, he does with everything. He struggles to his feet—or, well, foot. He still stands on one leg, hesitant to put any weight on his injured foot.

Travis looks him over, but the boy puts on a brave face (which is, frankly, rather adorable) and says nothing, so he shrugs and starts walking.

He gets a scant few yards before he hears a surprised little yelp and turns to find Jonnit face-down in the snow. As he watches, the boy pushes himself up, scowling. When he looks up and notices Travis watching, his eyes go wide and scrambles to get back up again—only to put his weight on his bad leg and tip over again.

Travis sighs. "Jonnit."

"Just a second, Travis, I just need a—"

"Jonnit," he says again, more firmly.

"Really, just a second, and I'll be good to go—"

Travis strides over and grabs the boy by the bicep, hauling him to his feet. "Jonnit," he says again, and finally he shuts up. Travis takes a deep breath and summons a stern look. "If you need help, just say something."

A number of emotions flash across Jonnit's face in quick succession, from confusion to annoyance to exasperation. "But you said—"

"What I'm saying now," Travis interrupts him, "is that I would like to get back to the rendezvous point today, and if you can't walk there on your own then you need to tell me."

Jonnit bristles for a moment, puffed up like a slighted songbird, then deflates all at once. "Yeah, I need help," he admits.

"There, was that so hard?" Travis asks.

Jonnit glares at him. "You're real mean when you're trying to be nice, you know."

"Jonnit, please," Travis says, pulling his arm over his shoulders and starting back down the mountain with the boy hopping along beside him. "I'm never nice."

—

By the time they get back to the boulder marking their rendezvous point, Jonnit is clinging to Travis's back with the sworn promise that he never breathe a word of it to anyone else. Travis does not slump in relief at the sight of their bags laying there in the snow where they left them, because Jonnit would be able to feel it. He keeps his relief entirely to himself, thanks.

Jonnit slides off his back and leans back against the rock. "Thanks, Travis," he says, painfully earnest.

"Don't mention it," Travis says, kneeling to inspect his foot. "Really, don't mention it." He shoots Jonnit a warning look. The boy grins back unrepentantly.

Children.

Travis hasn't had to worry about injury in a very long time, so he frankly has no idea what to do about Jonnit's. Also, he doesn't like looking at it. He shrugs and stands back up. "Well, just don't climb any more rocks until they come get us," he says. "It probably won't fall off."

"If I sit up on the boulder, will you push me off?"

"Probably, yes."

Jonnit huffs and flops down onto the packed snow at the base.

Travis sits on the boulder.

—

Without the problem of the rocks and Jonnit's injury to occupy their thoughts, it's not long before they turn back to their empty stomachs.

"Travis?" Jonnit finally pipes up after a while.

"Hmm?" Travis hums from where he's splayed himself across the top of the rock.

"What if Gable doesn't come?"

Travis sighs and glances down. Jonnit isn't looking at him, but has his head tipped back against the boulder and is staring off at the sky. Travis reluctantly pushes himself up into a sitting position. "Gable will come."

"But what if they don't?" Jonnit repeats stubbornly.

"Then we'll die, is that what you want to hear?" Travis snaps. "Does that make you feel better?"

"You mean I'll die," Jonnit grumbles. "I bet you'll be fine."

Travis bristles. "Jonnit, please, I didn't carry you down a mountain to abandon you now. If I was going to leave, I would've done it before humiliating myself."

Jonnit subsides, chewing his lip and still staring intently at the cloudy sky.

Travis sighs. The next time Gable asks him to babysit, he is going to tell them precisely where they can stick it. "Jonnit," he says finally. "There's no point in worrying about what will happen if Gable doesn't come, because Gable will come. End of story. All right?"

Jonnit sighs and goes boneless against the rock. "Okay," he says, defeated.

Travis's hands twitch. He's not happy about leaving the conversation there, but what else can he do? There's no point in lying to the boy. They both know that if Gable doesn't show up, there's nothing they can do.

"Hurry the hell up, you giant idiot," he mutters under his breath, too quiet for Jonnit to hear. "We need help."

—

With nothing better to do, Travis elects to take a nap. So when the screech echoes across the mountain side he nearly falls off the rock.

"Travis!" Jonnit cries in glee before the sound has even fully faded. "Did you hear that?!"

"No, Jonnit, I didn’t—of course I heard that!" Travis snaps, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. "What the hell was it?"

"Metatron! It was the Metatron, look!"

Travis follows Jonnit's point to see, sure enough, the familiar figure of Gable's hawk approaching, with the albatross trailing behind.

"They found us! They came!"

"Well," Travis says, not bothering to stifle the grin spreading across his face. "I told you they would, didn’t I?"

Jonnit pulls himself to his feet using the rock as Travis hops down beside him. The Metatron lands with a flurry of snow maybe thirty yards off, and Gable slides down off its back.

"Gable!" Jonnit calls, waving frantically as if they needed help finding their way over. "You're here, you're finally here!"

"Jonnit," Gable says, their voice cracked with relief. They stride over quickly, barely impeded by the snow, and kneel down in front of the boy to inspect him. "How are you? What happened to your ankle?"

"I fell off some rocks climbing after Travis," he says cheerfully. "Uh, I'm gonna need some help walking to the bird."

"Of course, Jonnit, no problem," Gable says quickly, then squints at Travis. "Why were you climbing rocks?" They look back at Jonnit. "And what are you wearing?"

"It's really of no concern now," Travis cuts in smoothly before Jonnit can open his mouth. "We can all go back to the ship, and he can get his gross foot fixed, and I can get something to eat, I'm starving."

"Yeah, Gable, I'm so hungry, it's been days—"

"I know," Gable says quickly. "I'm so sorry, let's get you back to the ship now."

As if on cue, Flee lands beside Metatron and from his back appears—

"Spit!" Jonnit grins and waves again. The old man trundles over, reaching out to ruffle Jonnit's hair.

"Good to see you still in one piece, Jonnit," he says fondly. "Too bad you still have Travis with you, though."

"Lovely as ever to see you too, Spit," Travis drawls.

"Aw, c'mon, Spit, Travis was great! He gave me his coat, and helped me with my foot! Last night he even—"

"All right, why don't you go help the boy onto a bird, Spit," Travis says loudly.

Spit eyes him suspiciously, then offers Jonnit his arm. "Come along then, boy. It's not every day I'm the more able-bodied one around, ha!"

"What are you talking about, Spit? You're fit as a fiddle!"

The two made their slow and careful way back over to Flee. Travis watched them go then turned to see Gable's raised eyebrow.

"Nothing happened," he says. "Nothing you'll ever hear about."

Gable snorts and drops one massive hand on his shoulder. "Thank you for looking after him."

"The boy's tougher than he looks," Travis says, shrugging. "Though he wouldn't have needed looking after if you were at the rendezvous on time, you know."

Gable's expression turns grave. "I'm sorry, Travis."

Travis huffs and looks away. "Yes. Well. Did you accomplish what you were trying to do, at least?"

"Yes. We did."

"Then it's fine. We were fine. We are fine, certain limbs excepted. It takes more than a little cold and hunger to take us out."

Gable's hand squeezes once then releases him entirely. "It won't happen again. I promise."

"Hmph. I hope not. Maybe don't leave your navigator with the ground team next time, hm?"

Gable snorts. "Yeah, in retrospect, maybe not the smartest move."

"Well, that's why you have me," Travis says, waving a hand. "Now can we please go? I've been in these clothes for days."

Gable picks up both bags and slings them over their shoulders. "Will you forgive me for being late if I let you fly the bird?"

Travis narrows his eyes, unable to stop a smile from pulling at the corner of his mouth. "Maybe."

Gable snorts and gestures towards Metatron, and before they can change their mind Travis hurries over and climbs into the saddle.

Over on Flee, Spit climbs up in front of Jonnit, who wraps one arm around his waist and raises the other to wave at Travis.

Before he can think better of it, Travis waves back. A grin splits Jonnit's face and for a moment Travis can't help but feel that maybe being stranded wasn't so bad.

Gable climbs up behind him, and with one final rush of cold wind, they take off for home.

#campaign podcast #travis matagot #jonnit kessler #you know whats NOT worth the time?? editing in all the goddamn italics that didnt copy paste over #anyways i finally finished this fic pls accept some fluff in this our hour of need #my fic

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not-from-the-absence-of-violence · 4 years ago

Text

And tell me if somehow some of it remained.

Thank you so much to @drowninginstarlights for editing!! <3 and to spoilers for ep 91 of skyjacks!

When you drop a stone into water the water ripples out from it, and the ripples are new and different and yet in so many ways the same.

or small moments where deep down Margaret and Travis knew they had found eachother again.

Travis knew it from the moment he’d seen her. There was no mistaking his Margaret. She seemed almost untouched by time, the same hazel brown eyes, the same curly brown hair, his Margaret dressed in white and green and gray.

For a moment, he called to her as if no time had passed. She looked at him with the same curious glance he had known so well. He felt a pang in his chest as she asked him who he was, and he shook the past off. It’s just fate playing cruel tricks on him.

Besides. It’d been almost two centuries, it’s possible his brain was simply projecting what he remembered of her onto the first person he saw that vaguely reminded him of her. That hurt, of course. He remembered a time when he believed that he could’ve recognized his wife blind or bound, by her smile or her voice.

But it certainly wasn’t a coincidence. He wasn't sure what luminary was behind this new twist, but at least it’s original. It doesn’t matter she has the same mole on her cheek, the same spring in her step, the same laugh.

Travis has become really good at not seeing what’s right in front of him.

Margaret doesn’t register that something is different for a while. Travis is an intriguing man, certainly brought to her for a reason. He’s special and broken and she’ss curious and a black lily.

It’s not, in fact, until they are sitting together, weaving a spell, and she asks for his name. There are plenty of people in the world who do not go by their names, and certainly it isn't odd for a man like Travis Matagot to have a pseudonym. She knows he’s lying before the fragile spell breaks, but doesn’t strike her too badly, she’s good at her job.

There’s a moment then she thinks: William. Right before he says it out loud.

The spell strengthens and she feels odd in her chest. Like a tight, old knot that she hadn't been paying attention to suddenly unravels.

Magic is weird sometimes, she thinks, dismissing it. In a way, she’s right.

Margaret’s childhood has always been spotty. As long as she can remember, it’d felt like hazy static. There are flashes of something, a river bank, a forest, the familiar laugh of Rusalka. There’s no pain tied to it, though, and she’d learnt to accept that sometimes things surrounding luminaries were incomprehensible.

Of course, even if she wasn’t sure exactly what role Rusalka or the River played in her life, but it remained one of the few things she was sure of, and so she would be known in the town she found herself to be a young woman

“Ah, the river's daughter,” they’d tell her, with a slight wary apprehension.

“My name is Margaret,” she would say pleasantly, never knowing who gave her that name but knowing with bone deep certainty it was hers. She always managed to endear herself to most people she met.

She traveled quickly to Aurum, looking for work and purpose. She was, even then, already quite adept with magic and charm, aside from being deeply attuned to other people's emotions. When she learned of the teachings of black lilies, not only a job, but a belief and a way of life, she was immediately sold. It quickly became her life's work and passion. She believed that everyone deserved care, to heal. Her training went well, those years she spent more time becoming aware of her own emotions.

That’s when she realised the grief that she carried, like a gaping hole in her chest. It had always been there, but she was learning that everyone carried around pain that felt like an open wound. It was frustrating, this grief that felt more like longing, no reason for it, just… there. After so long, it had become almost comforting, like a gentle tether, even if she didn’t know to what.

She asked the luminaries for guidance one day, if they could clue her in on the reason for her longing. Three cards she pulled from the deck: The Changeling, The River, The Union.

It felt like an odd combination to understand her grief. The Union and The River could speak of a barrier to a connection of some kind? The Changeling perhaps signifying desire, an impulse?

She was not aware, then, how the cards mocked her in the simplicity of the answer. There was no way for young Margaret to see what was right before her.

So she learned to live with a cobbled together knot of feelings in her chest. She didn’t repress it, she accepted it as a fact of living. It was simply like a melody she had always known.

When they kiss again for the first time something in their souls sings, and Travis knows. The kiss is light, warm, it manages to be just on the good side of desperate. It should hurt, but instead it just feels like coming back to a warm home after spending a day in the bitter rain. It can never be quite what it was once, when they were young and believed they were unstoppable, but Travis still looks at her and for a second he manages to forget where they are, when they are.

The pieces don't quite fall together, not yet, but somewhere in the man that has become Travis Matagot, William sings as they are together once more.

Margaret has kissed many people before. She’s even kissed people she harboured a great deal of affection towards, and every kiss is different— they always are. There’s a familiarity in this kiss, it's easy, it's well worn. It’s new all over again in its own way. Travis is the kind of man to worm himself into your heart despite yourself and despite himself.

She doesn’t register the unraveling of thread in her chest, she exhales and it goes away and it's all just as natural as breathing.

The days in Nordia go by quickly, and with the looming threat of the Mariner and the swiftness with which the ritual needs to be performed there’s no time to examine their own feelings towards each other.

But there are glimpses. There are always glimpses.

There’s the moment when Travis says “Her name was Margaret.” She can’t quite get over the way he says her name.

There’s the moment when Travis hears her laugh and knows that it’s still the most beautiful sound he’s ever heard.

There’s a moment when they cross a river and Margaret who has never been afraid of water, never water but always, always drowning, feels a quiet and deep fear. There’s Travis' hand in hers and his determined promise: “I won’t let go of your hand.” She trusts him, wholly and completely. There’s a moment where he trusts her, which lets her cast her spell and protect them from the water. This time, this time they cross.

It’s on the Uhuru that the moments become more frequent. By then, Travis has become an expert at keeping the two Margarets separate from each other in his mind. One still hurts to think about and the other is right in front of him, he takes what he can get. When you drop a stone into water the water ripples out from it, and the ripples are new and different and yet in so many ways the same.

They sit on the floor together. It’s night and most people are asleep, but Travis’ sleeping schedule has never been what you’d call normal, and being human at night has shattered the last of the routine altogether. It’s a quiet night, Margaret stays up with him for no real reason. They’re both pleasantly tipsy.

He’s tired, in the nice, well worn way that follows a good day, and he’s smiling openly in a way that’s so rare for him. They’re talking about something that will be inconsequential in the morning, and what matters is that there is a strand of hair loose from Travis’ ponytail.

Almost absentmindedly, she reaches to tuck it behind his ear, and when he realises what she’s doing, he giggles. She almost can’t believe it, Travis Matagot giggling. She holds her hand to his cheek and presses a kiss right beneath his eye.

He smiles at her. “What was that for?”

She’s not sure herself, so she just sighs. “For being cute sometimes.”

His offended look doesn’t quite achieve what he’s hoping because of the creeping blush on his neck.

Sometimes there are parties on the Uhuru. They’re corsairs on their way to collect a lot of money, but it’s a long journey and they’ve got to do something. The crew get antsy otherwise. So parties it is.

This time Travis is moping on the side. Gable has given up on convincing him to join and has opted instead to spin around with Jonnit in their arms. Sometimes Travis just gets in the mood to be contrary and there is no fighting him on it.

Or well, that’s what everyone else thinks, but Margaret is stubborn and not above using unorthodox methods for Travis to have a good time.

“Come on, Travis,” she says taking his hand.

“I don’t want to,” he says, pouting.

She knows he’s lying, being frustrating on purpose. She fights the eyeroll and smirks instead. She brings his hand to her mouth and kisses his knuckles softly.

“I know you’re just being difficult,” she says softly, enjoying seeing his brain short circuiting for a moment. The way he looks at her, just a little wide eyed. She presses a kiss on his palm before gently tugging him. “Are you going to stop being such a killjoy, dear?”

Travis can only think how he was never able to say no to that look of hers. He stands up reluctantly and makes a big show of sighing and whining about it.

They fall into a dance that feels familiar, but they still have to learn the steps all over again. They twirl around, holding each other's hands, and tripping over each other's feet. He smiles despite himself.

“Wow,” Jonnit comments, as the party progresses, “You made Travis change his mind, Margaret, I don’t know if you’re aware how hard that is.”

She sees Travis turn bright red. He tries to pull her away, dance somewhere away from his friends, but she’s stronger than he is.

“Oh, I am aware,” she says.

“How did you do that?” says Gable, sounding genuinely impressed.

“Who’s to say?” Travis says, just a little too quickly.

After the fire, after Dref, they’re all sitting in Dref’s office together. It’s night and Jonnit is practically asleep in Gable’s lap, as they sit in quiet contemplation.

Travis is lounging on a chair, legs propped up on the armrest and he’s picking at the skin around his nails. Margaret is drumming her fingers on the desk, vaguely unnerved by Travis pulling at his skin so vigorously.

“Could you stop doing that, Travis?” she says, not unkindly.

“Hmm?” he says, not stopping.

“You could get a small infection, you know,” she tries.

He rolls his eyes. “You always say that to me, Margaret, and as always, it won't matter in a few hours.”

She knows her pet peeve is slightly illogical, and she knows how the argument will go, has always gone. He’ll be difficult, she won’t quite be able to explain why it bothers her.

“I haven’t ever heard her say that that to you,” Gable remarks distractedly.

She sighs. “I just don’t like to see you hurt yourself,” she says. It's a quiet confession, as she’s aware that he isn’t really hurting at all, it's just a silly little thing that makes her uneasy.

He stares at her for a little too long, and he doesn’t sigh or roll his eyes. And this time the outcome changes. This time, he grabs his deck of cards and starts shuffling them instead.

They don’t say anything, but they lock eyes, and there is a small moment of acknowledgement between them.

They’ve changed, mostly for the better.

He transforms with such ease these days, bearing the pain so much better than he used to.

He wouldn’t let anyone see him, before, and certainly not his Margaret. There’s nothing worse than the grief of standing helpless to prevent the pain of someone you love, and he wouldn’t let inflict that on her. She always convinced him to let her hold him afterwards, though, as he sat again in a body that didn’t quite feel his.

Now the night comes and it never even creeps into his mind to ask her to leave.

“Does it still hurt?” she asks.

He rolls his brand new shoulders, the bones cracking a little.

“Well it's not what I would call fun, but.” he says, then shrugs.

She lays a hand on his shoulder, a not quite sad smile on her face.

“Well, at least it’s better now.”

A lot is better now, he thinks.

“Stop moving so much,” Margaret says, with a smile in her voice.

Travis sighs. He enjoys the bright colour and tiny detailing she’s applying on his nails but he’s also allergic to sitting still.

“I always do it much faster,” he complains.

“Well, you do have to do it every day, I suppose.”

“That’s exactly why letting you draw black lilies in them was a mistake,” he says “They’ll be gone by the morning!”

She doesn’t look up from her precise handiwork. “Even if they aren’t permanent doesn’t mean they don’t have value now, love.”

That phrase sinks into Travis’ mind, as he stares at Margaret slightly bent over, tongue sticking out, agonizing over a black lily motif on his nails.

He’s fallen in love with her again. Somehow the thought doesn’t make him flinch.

There isn’t a single, thundering moment where Travis starts thinking of Margaret as a constant. It had been a creeping thing, so slow Travis hadn’t even realized.

The closest there had been was an unassuming conversation.

It’s a warm day and Margaret has long since given up reading the book in her hands. Travis is coiled around her neck in snake form, distracting her.

“Do we have any plans, after N’goni, I mean?” she says.

“Well it’s not my ship, now is it, Margaret,” Travis says.

“Well pardon me for imagining there might be places you still want to visit,” she says, grinning up at his face on her shoulder.

“I did promise Jonnit, I would go to Akaron with him. So we’ll go there, I suppose,” he says, eventually.

“Never heard of that one before.”

“It’s his hometown.”

“Aw, Matagot,” she says teasingly, “That is almost uncharacteristically sweet of you.”

Snakes can’t blush, but Travis coils around her tighter and hides his gaze in her hair. “I thought I was going to be mortal soon, okay?” he mumbles into her hair.

She runs her hands down the scales closer to her. “Well I am sure we will have a lovely time there,” she says, smiling. “I’m glad my work can be done everywhere.”

A comfortable silence washes over them, eventually Margaret goes back to reading, and Travis basks in her warmth and comfort.

If there have been another person in the room, they might have called the two of them out on the amount of times they’d used the word “we”. But it's just the two of them, not quite realising the thing they have been quietly rebuilding together. Not quite realising it finally feels like they can breathe again.

Margaret can’t quite remember it, but she knows, she knows on their wedding day they had made a promise.

Margaret hadn’t been aware she was dead, only aware she was still fighting a river, a different river and she was fighting it in soul if not in body. The current was unbelievably strong, but she wasn’t going to be pulled down and away by the Mariner, of all things. She’d fought with tooth and claw, holding onto her promise to William like a liveline, a tether. Anchoring her to her life and feeling. She wasn’t ready to go, and she was ready to move heavens or raise hell for it.

Sometimes if you fight long enough, strong enough, determined enough, even a puny little mortal caught between life and death on a technicality could catch the gaze of lumin’s eye.

“Do you wish to see him again, is that it? Trying to move us with a tale of spurned love?”

She’s not sure who’s asking.

She isn’t quite sure about anything anymore.

She is losing herself, but if she knows something it’s that she will get out and that she’s Margaret and she’s in love.

“You misunderstand,” she manages to choke out, “He’s the one keeping me here, helping me fight, he’s my rope upon which I will climb out of here.”

He never truly let go of her hand.

Something, someone, many things laugh.

Time has no meaning in the river, and yet it still manages to feel like an eternity before she pulls herself out of the river at the edge of a forest.

It's always in the quiet moments of solitary contemplation that you’re able to confront things.

Margaret stares out of the window in her room of the Goose. She doesn't break down crying, but she lets the cold shock wash over her like waves. Her William had been out there all this time, and all this time he hadn't let her go.

He didn’t have to hold on so tight anymore. She was here now, with the tight thread of a promise still between them. He would find her, when he was ready, when he could.

She was going to take some time off, to think. For years now, she’d been secure in her life, but this is different. New and old. Complicated and yet simple. It would certainly be a fun set of threads to unravel, if they were not her own.

She smiles down at the letter anyway. She trusts Travis, she trusts herself, and she knows that there’s no force on Speir that could come between them.

Travis finally lets himself know what’s been there in back of his mind for a long time. He’s been so very good at not looking at it.

Alone in his bunk, he raises his fingers to his mouth where she had kissed him, and with trembling fingers he brushes his lips. His long lost lover. He tugs lose the hair ribbon she’d given to him and stares at it.

A million emotions he's never had the words for flood him. He's relieved! He's happy she's out there, that she knows that he'll come look for her when he’s able to. He's afraid of losing her again, he's terrified he’s already lost her. There’s a century of grief he hasn't quite yet processed, he's worried about the fact that this might all be a trick, but also, he’s in love, ecstatic thundering love in his chest. It almost erases all other thoughts from his brain.

Tonight, they each look up at the same sky. There are so many worn promises strung between them and now, this brand new one joins their ranks, fragile and full of hope for the future.

He looks out onto the chaos of the starry night outside, tears full of so many things falling from his eyes. Finally, he exhales.

He isn't drowning anymore, and either is she.

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