Fic!

[ariastar]

Co-written with Polaris. ^^ Before all else, we should probably apologise for the insane length of this fic. If you don't want to read it all at once, you are probably sane. ^^ In any case, here be the chronicles of Finn's first three or so days in the land of llamas with Lord Alden. This is rated probably around high PG-13, for swearing and vague sex and excessive use of the word 'fuck' and the fact that these are not very happy boys. Um. Enjoy. ^^

It’s the Fall that Kills You
Part One

Alden didn’t want to think.

He sat for some time, doing exactly that, staring at the cave wall and listening to his own breathing, intensely aware of being alive. Not dying. Not dying.

He felt nearly as thought he was going mad.

It was suffocating. Alden leapt to his feet and strode from the cave in great distraction. Panic didn’t work like this. There were tight situations, and a rush of adrenaline, and he did what he could, and that was all.

He hadn’t done what he could for Finn.

Alden swore quietly. He was going to burst of this. This helplessness; not knowing where the boy was, or what he could have-should have, damn it all-done. Finn. Finnfinnfinn. It all ran together, his breath (not dying), and the words and the suffocating light of the Andes, and Alden nearly wanted to cry. Over this boy he’d never met. Would never meet. Gods.

When the llamas started trotting past him, Alden had to clench his teeth to keep from lashing out at the damn things. Damn llamas. Finn had laughed about them, been mock-frightened of being drooled on by them; talked as if he would come and rescue Alden from the llamas and the cave and sit around and drink chocolatl with him and damndamndamn.

He didn’t want to be where the llamas were, and that much was certain. Alden began climbing on up the sunny green slope, opposite the direction the llamas were going. Damned things looked frightened. What right had they-

Why? a little voice murmured, some rational part of Alden not strangled by this suffocating panicked grief. What are they frightened of?

Alden set off faster, desperate for something to be doing, anything.

Blood. Lots of blood; prey animals didn’t like that smell, did they-it meant death, it meant agony and pain.

It meant the same thing for humans as it meant for them. Humans just couldn’t smell it.

There was a body on the hillside.

Alden stared, his mind going into sudden overdrive. Finn’s computer had said it was transporting Finn somewhere. Somewhere. It had listed the coordinates. What were the coordinates?

He couldn’t remember.

That didn’t matter.

Alden went on up the hill in a run made stumbling by sudden panic. Pleasepleaseplease-

What did Finn look like? He didn’t know what Finn looked like. They’d never spoken. He’d been at Meligot’s parties... The man-no, too young; anyone younger than Alden was boy-was on his back, and that was where the blood was coming from, but for a second Alden could only brush his face frantically, unable to tell if this was, after all, Finn.

Then he came to his senses enough to realise it didn’t matter. Whoever he was, the boy was dying-vicious wounds in his back-a knife, or more than one knife, from the look of it-and it didn’t matter if it was Finn.

But Alden glanced around in desperation, wondering where the boy had come from, and suddenly it did matter, very much indeed.

A T.H.E.Y. handheld computer was shining in the sun, further up the hill.

“Hell,” Alden breathed with feeling, going nearly numb, and turned back to the boy. He’d have to access the damage quickly.

The boy’s eyes flickered open, clouded over with pain. No. Couldn’t have that-oh, gods, they were so blue. Even this way. And Alden knew. The computer and those eyes. It didn’t matter that he’d never seen them.

“Don’t die,” he whispered, and pressed a hand to Finn’s forehead. Slid the boy into sleep. Couldn’t have Finn feeling this, or struggling. Couldn’t afford the distraction.

He turned the boy over fully, winced in sympathetic pain and horror. Some of those knives had cut to the bone-though, thank gods, none had managed to sever the spinal cord. Some small miracle.

He hadn’t, Alden realised faintly, been this panicked at the sight of wounds in... a very long time. Because this was Finnegan. This was personal.

“Don’t you dare die,” Alden hissed at him, and shut his eyes tight, and got to work.

He settled his fingers very gently on Finnegan’s bloodied back. His mind felt half-numb-don’t die, damn you, lad, don’t die on me, don’t die-and he hadn’t done a healing in years. Not one of this magnitude. He probably didn’t remember his anatomy correctly. He was probably going to give the boy wings. And kill him in the process.

No.

Blood clots here-that severed artery, bound back up, don’t let it clot there-and slowing… Not too much, can’t let it slow too much or the boy’s heart will stop. Muscles next-severed things, gods… carefully, carefully, winding and binding, so that everything wrapped together, raw and newly made and too stiff, not too tight but weak, unused tender things. There was nothing for that. Keep going. Layers upon layers of skin now, over the rest of it, and Alden-Alden still, yes, so he must be-realised, somewhere faint and far away, that it shouldn’t work like this, because it wasn’t Finnegan’s faint energy from which he was drawing this regeneration. It was somewhere else, and in a whirl of desperation he had forgotten to specify where.

He eased his mind away from the boy’s body, as gently as possible, so neither of them could go into shock. It was then that he realised exactly where he had been getting that healing power from; obvious enough, with the blurring sound in his ears, and spots dancing blackly before his eyes, and tiredness, dragging at him, drowning dragging.

He couldn’t do this now. Couldn’t black out. He had to get Finnegan’s equipment, and see to it that the boy was all right when he woke, and-

Some battles are fighting lost, and at the moment for Lord Alden, staying awake was one of them.

Finn opened his eyes and saw stars.

Real ones. And it was cold, freezing cold; he could feel it everywhere in his body. Especially his back. He hadn’t ever thought he’d feel anything in his back again. Hadn’t thought he’d feel anything ever again, really.

His throat was too dry to speak. The best he could do was a whimpering, confused noise.

Something beside him stirred slightly, and groaned, and then began swearing in a hoarse and amazingly familiar way.

I’ve heard you before, Finn thought dazedly. But you didn’t know me. Everybody knows you. “Alden?” he managed to whisper, barely even that.

“Hell,” the man said, a final, sulky thing, and groaned again. Finn heard him sitting up. “Can’t have you out here,” he muttered. “We’ll both freeze to death.” A mirthless little laugh. “Great waste of both our energy, that.”

“Alden,” Finn whispered again, the only real thing he could manage. Couldn’t even move. Wanted to grab hold of the man and never let go, but the best he could do was twitch his fingers a little.

A shadow eclipsed the stars above his head; the man’s face, though Finn couldn’t see it. Cool fingers rested, trembling slightly, against his temples. “Shut up,” Alden told him softly. “Sleep, Finn.”

“Alden,” Finn murmured, and everything went away.

The chill had gone away. It still wasn’t warm-this was the Andes, Finn realised blearily. Of course it wasn’t warm. He was God only knew how many feet up the side of a mountain. In a cave, apparently, or at least his eyes saw a rough stone ceiling and walls when he forced them open.

“Welcome to the land of the living,” Alden’s voice murmured, hoarse still, somewhere to his side. “Feel up to talking now?”

“C’n I have some water?” Finn whispered. All the water in his mouth must have drained out with the blood.

“And then some,” Alden said quietly. “That’s a lot of lost blood we’ll need to restore.” A careful hand slipped under Finn’s shoulders. “This is going to hurt, but you can’t drink nor eat lying down.”

Finn squeezed his eyes shut. It did hurt, more than he would show; back one knot of pain, dull and sharp and every sort in between. But bleeding no longer, and eventually he was sitting.

Finn opened his eyes and looked at Alden.

The man looked as he remembered and not as he remembered; the same face, but closer now than any time Finn had glimpsed him around Headquarters. More lines of tension, and an oddly deep, fierce concern in Alden’s eyes.

“Water,” the man said briskly, and held up a flask. “Up to lifting it, or shall I continue as the nanny for a while?”

Finn shoved the pain away and took the flask, nearly glaring back at the other man. No offense, and they both knew it. They simply knew how to manipulate each other to do what had to be done.

The water was glorious on his parched throat.

“Good lad,” the man murmured. “Can you stomach any food? Bread? Meat? Anything substantial should do it.”

Finn swallowed hard. “I don’t know. I don’t know how long I’ve been out.”

“I don’t either,” Alden murmured wryly. “At least twenty-four hours, I do know that.” He got carefully to his feet and wandered off across the cave, which Finn saw now was of substantial size and filled with all sorts of food in varying practicalities. Alden retrieved something and returned, sitting down on the cot next to Finn. “A bit of bread,” he said. “Just as much as you can manage.”

“All right.” Finn broke off little pieces of it; he was not so hungry as he would expect-probably he had gone out the other side of hunger, and would feel it shortly. Or maybe the stabbing pains in his back-real and remembered-simply took priority.

Alden watched him closely. “And if you can’t eat any more,” he said quietly, “for gods sakes, lad, keep drinking. That was too much blood.”

Finn saw that the man’s hands were shaking slightly.

“How much?” he asked softly. Didn’t really want to know. Remembered how much effort it had taken to hold it off that long.

“Hell, lad.” One of the shaking hands dragged distractedly through Alden’s hair. “I don’t know. I wasn’t measuring it.” The man swallowed hard. “I didn’t do the tidiest mending I could have. Your muscles are probably bound far too tightly.”

“My back hurts,” Finn admitted, and added fervently, “But you did it.”

“Yes,” Alden sighed, and leaned back against the wall, tipping his head back, eyes closed. He looked strangely exhausted. “I’ll take care of that too. I can loosen the muscles a bit.”

“Not right now, though,” Finn murmured. “You’re nearly as bad as I am. I told you not to follow me.”

The man blinked his eyes back open and turned to look at Finn. “I didn’t, lad. Your computer transported you here.” Alden smiled tightly. “Wish I had, you know. I wouldn’t have had to save your life if it hadn’t needed it in the first place.”

“Not that sort of following. The sort where you go to insane lengths to punch me in the face because you had to.” Finn was vaguely aware that he wasn’t making too much sense.

“Ah,” said Alden quietly, and seemed to know exactly what Finn was talking about. He curled his fist thoughtfully, then turned and dealt Finn a stinging punch square on the nose.

Finn hid his face against his knees. “Did I deserve that?” he asked ruefully, rubbing his nose against his knee as if it would rid it of the stinging.

“Yes,” said Alden, and started to laugh, the sort of laugh that doesn’t mean anything’s particularly funny at all, but it has to be done. The sort of laugh halfway between madness and keeping madness at bay. Inexplicable and relieved and uncontrollable, Alden laughed.

Finn jerked his head up-ow-because that laughter hurt just as much as everything else, and without really thinking about it, and even though he knew better, he found he was wrapping his arms around Alden, hugging him awkwardly, nose-still smarting-and mouth just in the hollow of his throat.

Alden stopped laughing with a little gasp. The man was still trembling. “Hell, Finn,” he whispered brokenly, hands helpless at his sides. “Hell. You deserved that.”

“I know,” Finn whispered. “I know. You would have followed me.”

“I should have done that when you could defend yourself, though,” Alden said. His hands settled gently on Finn’s back. “And you’re not nearly healed yet.”

“Try it again later,” Finn murmured. “I’ll hit back.”

Alden laughed quietly. “Fair enough.” His hands pressed against Finn’s back, agonising and gentle and painful. “Awkward like this, but we’ll get you mended.”

“Mmm.” Finn pressed back a little, into the touch. “Well enough to fence,” he murmured wryly.

“And then you can defend your honour properly,” Alden agreed. “Or at least get me back for that bit of underhandedness.”

“I already scolded Juilliard about defending my honour,” Finn recalled. “What is it with people thinking my honour needs defending?”

“Have you?” Alden asked, pressing a little harder than was strictly necessary. He seemed to realise what he had done, and hissed softly in sympathetic pain, going back over the bit of muscle more carefully. “Probably just an antiquated turn of phrase, my lad. What should you like to be defending?”

“I don’t need defending. I’m one of the people who does the defending.” Finn winced. “You’ve no cause to be so upset when I mention Juilliard, you know.” He curled a little closer to Alden.

“I know.” Finn could hear the rueful grin in his voice. “The man gets on my nerves. That’s all.” His hands stilled. “Never mind that. Tired, lad?”

“Yes.” But there was one last thing, and Finn could whisper it right against his neck. “I missed you. I didn’t miss him, except in the way you miss people who are interesting, if annoying.”

Alden probably tried to suppress the shudder that passed through him at that, but Finn was pressed close enough that he could feel it perfectly.

“Go to sleep, lad,” Alden murmured.

“You too.” Finn held onto Alden as the other man lowered him gently back down on the cot. “It’s big enough for two.”

And it was.

“Hell,” Alden said, dropping to his elbows beside Finn. “No magic now, lad. You don’t have the energy. Let me do that spell.”

“Too late. ‘S permanent.” Finn tugged him down all the way. “Go to sleep.”

“You,” Alden mumbled, but Finn never found out what Alden had meant to call him, because one or the other of them drifted off to sleep then, and it was all the same.