#well then i would have 2 get a tylendel too huh

[baccan0pe]

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[araneaes-order]

Angels We Have Heard Ch. 4

Last Herald-Mage Fanfic

Follow up to In the Bleak Mid-winter my “fix-it” rewrite of the canon ending. (’Cause, C’MON!!!) This is several months later, because no way these two aren’t gonna meet up again.

In the Bleak Mid-winter | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 |  Visit my master list

Word Count: ~2750

Rating: Mature for themes of suicide and substance abuse and stuff, I don’t know, I try to err on the side of caution, I think it’s fairly fluffy really

Tags: Canon mm, ^attempted suicide, ^substance abuse, comfort, mourning, singing

On AO3.

Chapter Synopsis: They burn some candles, sing some songs, while away a night.

Stefen opened the door and let the Herald go first into the shack.

This was already taking too long. The man needed to light his damned candles and go.

He was tired and itchy and feeling like an idiot for being caught like he’d been, doing something so stupid. The visit to the temple and that damned pushy priestess hadn’t helped his state of mind. Or knowing Berte had been there, on the other side of the wall, in the darkness. In the ground. It had taken her death to get her moved permanently across the river.

The night was still young enough, though. There was still time for more dreamerie and bed if the Herald would take himself off. He shut the door behind them and swiped at his hair.

“So how do we do this?” he asked impatiently.

For a moment the Herald looked at him, something between surprise and pity in his eyes and it made Stefen want to spit.

“The candles?” He waved. “Just…light them?”

“We need a place—”

“Only got the one,” Stefen said, already dragging the crate from the corner of the room to the center. The top of it was caked with old wax and his regular candle was already affixed to the center of the box. He waved at it.

The Herald looked uncertainly from him to the crate.

“It’s what I’ve got,” he said again, rubbing his arms. Cold here wasn’t like cold up north, but it was cold enough.

With a little effort the Herald got down to a cross-legged position in front of the crate. And how healed was he really? Stefen wondered again. Past waifish to sickly. Better for him too, to get back to his posh castle and recovering. Who’d had the bright idea to let him out in the first place, didn’t they have enough sense to take care of their last Herald-Mage better than this?

He took the place beside him, cross-legged too.

This sort of candle, glowingly white, skinny like they were, weren’t meant to be just melted to whatever was handy, they belonged in some fancy candelabra, like Stefen sure didn’t have access to, but the Herald used some of the yellow wax from the old candles to fix them there just the same.

Then he glanced at Stefen, so careful, nervous, wanting something Stefen didn’t understand and didn’t think he wanted to give anyway. “Now we just…light them. And think about the person we’re lighting them for.”

Maybe that was why he’d gotten so mad at the priestess, because she looked at him the way Herald did. Expectant. Wanting. He’d had his run ins with the temples, not in a long time granted, Dark and the brigands of the northern woods had hardly been devotees, but he remembered the uppity nuns from his childhood. More, he remembered the brothers and sisters of more than one temple they’d passed on the way north, when he’d made that first journey. Gods and prayers were for rich men, pockets flush with gold, however they’d gotten it—like the slavers and like the Herald, when he wasn’t traveling light and playing at being gutter trash.

He nodded his chin. “You start.” He wasn’t trying to be belligerent, he was just past done with the company.

The Herald bobbed his head in a subtle bow and took a twig. Lighting it from the regular candle he lit the first of the white ones and paused.

His face was grave, his gaze fixed on the little flicker of flame, its light shimmering in damp reflection on his eyes. “For Tylendel,” he said softly.

Stefen’s mouth tightened.

He held out the smoldering twig and took a deep breath. “And for Savil.” He said it as softly, but his breath caught a little as the second candle was lit. Stefen felt that flash of shame again, that when the Herald had wanted to talk earlier he’d turned it into a pissing match, and it was worse when the Herald’s eyes fell shut and his lips moved subtly, briefly, in actual prayer or…what, he couldn’t know. He’d never been that close to anyone. He didn’t understand the grief he felt from that place in his head that wasn’t quite his anymore.

The Herald hadn’t had the chance to do this for her, yet, he realized, shifting away a little from the intimacy. It wasn’t for him.

But then the Herald was looking at him again, holding out a fresh twig. He might have been able to rebuff him before—he still thought this was stupid—but there was something needy in the other man, not for Stefen himself, but just for someone to share this and for some reason he found he couldn’t deny that. He didn’t think this man, this Herald-hero of Valdemar, was the sort to reach out often. Not like this.

He took the twig and lit it from the old candle and lit the third of the white ones. “For Damen,” he said quickly, only a little guilty that the boy deserved more than this. He deserved a lifetime, a good one, a happy, healthy, long one, lived without fear and without the pain of his last hours. A candle couldn’t give him all that. He coughed to hide his sniff, and turned his head as if he was covering his mouth with his elbow to hide a swipe at his wet eyes.

His throat was too tight to move on and he stared at that candle for a moment, waiting for any hint of the peace this was supposed to bring. It was only a candle. Even the three didn’t do much to alleviate the darkness around them.

He risked a glance at the Herald, who met his gaze as if he’d been waiting for it and smiled a little, nodding.

Stupid. Fucking idiotic, this was.

He sighed, annoyed, and lit the next candle. The last two had been a bad idea. If he’d just left it to the Herald he’d already be done. “For Berte,” he said, defiantly. If there was anyone who did deserve her end—who’d deserved worse!—it was old Berte, the bitch. He sure as fuck didn’t miss her like the woman the Herald had lit his candle for. If he closed his eyes he could still feel her behind him in the shack, hear the rustle of her blanket, the wheezing of her breath, smell the dreamerie—

That… that much wasn’t her, anymore.

He opened his eyes, glaring at the light. Last one.

He lit it faster even than the others, and shook the twig out when it was done. “For Warin,” he said. He felt the Herald flinch beside him.

Well he should, he’d killed the man himself. There’d been worse folk licking at Dark’s heels, lots of them. Warin hadn’t been so bad and he probably wouldn’t have been picked out to go against the Herald if his master hadn’t known that Stefen occasionally crawled into the young captain’s bed when he’d felt an itch.

He clenched his fists on his thighs. It was a little brighter in his shack, but that was it. Wasn’t ever going to be otherwise.

They sat in quiet for a while. Stefen’s thoughts were no less dark for the light, but he hoped at least the Herald was getting whatever he’d wanted from it. He’d shut his eyes again, a relative blank in the back of Stefen’s head.

Stefen scooted himself back so he could lean against the wall, tired, leaving the candles to the Herald. He reached for his gittern and pulled it from its case, plucking out a lazy melody. At least in the music there was a sort of peace. A distance and a closeness at once.

After a while the Herald sighed and moved to join him, the two sitting on his pallet as they had earlier.

“I’m sorry. I had hoped…”

But Stefen was too tired even to fuss at yet another pointless apology. “Shhh,” –his turn to say, still playing.

It startled him when, a while later, the Herald started singing, a pensive old tune Stefen was fairly sure he’d picked up before he’d gone north. The Herald’s baritone was more than just passable…

He laughed, bitter and weary in the comfortable darkness around them. “No wonder I didn’t impress you. All you have, and this too? ‘Dreams die hard,’ yeah?”

The Herald stopped, and Stefen regretted it. “That wasn’t a lie. The Bardic Gift came later. And I paid for it, more than I would have.”

“Huh,” he said noncommittal. Then, “Know this one?”

He’d figured he would, and he seemed to take it for the olive branch it was, singing again in his more-than-passable voice. He only faltered for a second when Stefen joined him, tenor and baritone layering pleasingly over the gittern.

Two songs later Stefen handed over the instrument. “Any good with her? Trade you?”

The Herald took it, but it was a moment before he caught on and got out his old lute for Stefen.

Stefen winced, running his hands over the beat-up old thing. If anything it was worse than his, a sorry state, that. For a second he thought how he could get him better. The pawn shop had one in the window, wasn’t too pricey, and—

He hit a hard, discordant note—easy, on that thing—pretending to adjust it and shaking himself loose. The Herald could probably buy out the pawn shop, building and all, and not think twice about it. He didn’t need Stefen’s little gestures, any more than he’d needed a few coppers for a handful of useless candles. The first one had already gone out, the one he’d lit for his beloved Tylendel.

Focusing on the sad old lute, he tried out a quick run, readjusted, and went again. A few more times and he was ready to slip off onto a particularly maudlin love song—not one of his.

The Herald snorted, but joined him on the gittern. “A favorite of my mother’s,” he said, with some amusement.

Stefen smiled, as much at the skillful playing. ���She has interesting taste.”

“That she does.”

Proving it though, as if he’d needed to, the Herald led the singing on that one, though Stefen was quick to join him. It was an awful song and it made him feel better to share the triteness of it. It was nice that the Herald couldn’t sing it with a straight face either and they were both laughing when it was done.

Stefen let his hands fall still and closed his eyes, to better enjoy the Herald’s serenade. He didn’t recognize the tune but it was lovely. If there were words, the Herald left them unsung.

Later, he suspected he’d be a bit pissed that the Herald hadn’t ever played for him, or at least sang, or at the very least let on that his ‘not liking music’ had been such a stupid, downright obscene lie. That voice was… well. It was a damned shame to have hidden it from him, that was all, he thought, as the Herald hummed wordlessly to his own song.

Stefen’d let his head fall back, and then turned it so he could watch him. Not only was he good, but the Herald appreciated the music, Stefen could tell. He fell into it the same way Stefen did, with a far away look in his eyes and his face gone soft with thoughts of somewhere better.

His lips twisted again at the memory of the way the man had ignored all his efforts in the guard post the first time they’d met. And then claimed he didn’t like music at all. Fucker.

It was not the most opportune moment, with those particularly galling memories in mind, for the Herald to pause and meet his gaze. He smiled, ignorant of his companion’s dark thoughts. Stefen supposed at least it meant he wasn’t eavesdropping through that weird link they had now.

“Would you sing your song for me?” He offered the gittern back and Stefen only looked at it. Now, he wanted him to sing for him. And that song.

“D’rather not,” he said, but he traded the gittern back for the lute.

Undeterred, and far too pretty for all his gauntness and his patchy beard and his shadows, the Herald smiled a little…brighter. Stefen felt it, like a current through his body, that small, sweet smile. “Please?”

He felt like groaning, but it came out as little more than a breath. He wasn’t usually an easy mark, but of their own accord his fingers were already striking notes, chords, dancing away into melody. He cleared his throat and watched the candles, four still lit and burning down the hours since they’d returned. It was probably getting on to dawn, but the darkness wasn’t gone yet and he supposed, in their way, those candles played a part in his song too. Even Berte’s. Even Tylendel’s.

He watched them as he sang, the little swaying lights, little memories, little prayers offered in the darkness. He played and he sang and he put his grief into it, and his hopelessness.

But he hadn’t written it to be a hopeless song even if the characters in it were. The Herald was a hero, unafraid of the cost of his efforts, unafraid of death. And Dark was defeated in the end. Lives were lost, destroyed, innocence burned to cinders at the frozen top of the world, but the hero won, and the kingdom was saved from that threat at least.

And the hero was now sitting beside him in a shack, in a slum, but alive. They both were, somehow, when everything in Stefen still felt like the song should have ended with everyone dead, a blood price for that sort of victory. But this wasn’t a song—and he finished his, voice and gittern going silent together.

His eyes stung and his heart hurt, but he wasn’t crying.

“You’re amazing,” the Herald said, hushed, sounding… yeah, fine, amazed.

Stefen didn’t want to hear it. He set his gittern down carefully and nudged it gently away from him before he reached for the Herald. Those silver eyes watched him, wide, surprised, but he didn’t pull away when Stefen cupped his face and held him for a kiss. Stefen breathed hard, struggling with it, but in spite of his fear the Herald didn’t pull away.

Not breaking the kiss, the soft, tentative press of his lips to the Herald’s, he managed to get up on his knees and moved his hands to the other man’s shoulders, lightly pressing him back and following him down when he allowed it, stretching out on the pallet, Stefen on top. It was only when he reached for the Herald’s belt that the man caught his hands and Stefen dropped his head from the kiss, sobbing, an animal sound of pain at the awaited rejection.

The Herald still didn’t shove him away though, instead wrapping his arms around him and pulling him closer, shifting a little so they were almost both on their sides, and he kept Stefen tucked against him like he was something precious.

Stefen held himself together, fighting all the broken pieces of his insides that were trembling with the need to come apart, until the Herald caught his head and tilted it up just enough to press his lips to Stefen’s forehead.

He didn’t cry prettily. There was nothing musical in his sobbing, or his moaning, or his hard, rasping breathing. At one point he tried to struggle free of the Herald’s arms but the man wouldn’t let him, holding on to him until he gave up and buried his face against his neck, soaking him with pointless tears.

There was a lassitude that settled over him when he’d cried himself out. Normally he’d have reached for the dreamerie and tried to lose himself after wringing out like that but he was too tired to move, and too warm, and too comfortable, pressed into the Herald’s body, arms around each other.

The room was still dark, but it stayed dark most of the day, firmly in the shadow of the big houses. He turned his head, trying to clear enough snot from his nose to catch a breath, without blowing it on the Herald’s clothes, and the last thing he saw before he fell asleep was the four candles, still burning on the crate.

Continued in Chapter 5

Or on AO3