lady_mab | Fic - Starless Sea drabbles

Their time in the Harbor leaves marks, etched deep inside of them in ways that neither can reach.

Sometimes, its hard to tell the pieces apart from one another, from their mundane lives, from what they read in books.

Dorian remembers the weight of a sword in his hand and against his chest, of chains around his shoulders that he can't see and can't shake. Zachary hears the whispers, hears the hum of bees, will say something to the empty kitchen and then be surprised when its not completed.

Sometimes, there are places the other can't go. Into the depths of the Harbor, the lines of those stories still tugging on their consciousness. Pulling them into nightmares, stories left unfinished, waiting for the conclusion.

(Sometimes, it happens softly.) Dorian's hand warm against Zachary's skin, studying the lines and mapping the valleys. A pause, over his heart, a furrow to his brow as if he wants to say something but is caught listening to the pulse beneath his palm.

Zachary takes Dorian's hand with one of his own, uses the other to tangle back in that dark hair peppered like starlight, and pulls him back in for a kiss. Alive, the steady rhythm says. Alive alive alive.

There is a scar on the dark skin, burned in like it was a brand not a sword that struck the blow, and Dorian traces the shape of the key as the tips of his fingers tell stories across the planes of Zachary's chest and stomach. Presses his lips to tender skin, savors the taste and the warmth, the way Zachary's breath hitches in the silence of their room.

Alive, Dorian repeats, confirming it across every inch of Zachary's body. Alive alive alive.

(Sometimes, it happens sharply.) Zachary gasps awake in the middle of the night, still drowning in an ocean of honey. Those first few seconds are always the hardest, remembering how to breathe, the desperate scramble to untangle himself from the blankets.

Like a lifeline, Dorian's arm curls around his waist. He reels Zachary in to whisper reassurances against his skin or into his hair. (The language varies, depending on what chapter of his life he was dreaming about.)

Those first few minutes are always the hardest, because Zachary never knows if he can trust what he's feeling. He remembers the porch of his mother's house blanketed in snow, of Dorian urging him back inside. He remembers the biting cold, because otherwise, he'd thinking about the bitter disappointment at that Dorian's words.

His Dorian, his storyteller, recounts the story to that point. Reminds him of the lines, and how they blur, the palm of his hand over Zachary's heart, to remind himself of the same.

The couch is the last of their furniture to arrive, though they're nowhere near done unpacking everything. But they've cleared a halo of space for it and collapse onto the cushions without much further ceremony.

Everything is still so new between them, but it flows with ease.

Being in each other's space after being alone for so long is natural.

The kisses are soft, delighting in this new-found closeness.

They are both exhausted after three days of moving and unpacking and moving again and rearranging, and this couch isn't nearly big enough for the two of them to lay out on it like this, but Dorian keeps his hands against Zachary's back, ensuring he doesn't roll off the edge into the sea of bubble-wrap and empty boxes.

He enjoys this chance to explore, letting his touch roam, his lips finding the places that make Zachary laugh or moan or sigh and ask for more.

There's a patch on the curve of Zachary's neck that makes his breathing pick up, makes his fingers card back through Dorian's hair to keep him there, makes him tangle their legs together like there is nowhere he would rather be.

"You taste like honey," Dorian muses, letting the words be murmured into the skin.

"I do not," Zachary replies, though his words are faint and lack conviction.

He chuckles, and lets his tongue trace the lines of Zachary's neck before kissing the fluttering pulse beneath the tilt of his jaw. "You do."

"Surely, not all of me?" Zachary says in a way that is equal parts challenge and invitation.

Dorian laughs again -- baffled, mystified, enamored, that he could have this -- though the sound is lost as Zachary tugs him in for a kiss.

The boxes to be unpacked remain untouched for the rest of the evening.

Kat needs to find Zachary, because she needs his opinion on a debate she is currently having with one of the other guests. She needs to find him, but she can't, and she thinks it's terribly unfair of him to sneak off from his mother's party.

She can't find Dorian either, who wouldn't have had the opinion she wanted but would have undoubtedly taken her side in the matter -- or at the very least, helped her find Zachary.

Eventually, with a nudge from Madame Love and a freshly poured glass of scotch pressed into her hand, Kat finds her way out onto the deck. It's cold, and she hugs her borrowed sweater closer to her. Snow blankets the scene, powdering the cars parked in the drive with a light dusting of white.

The music is muffled through the walls, quiet enough that she can hear the sound of laughter from around the corner. She follows.

Zachary and Dorian move together in the faint steps of a dance, faces pressed close together as Dorian murmurs something that only Zachary can hear. They dance in a small, tight circle, and Kat is content to watch them -- forgetting the glass in her hand, forgetting the reason she wanted to find them.

There is a smile on Zachary's face that she's not sure she's ever seen before, not like this. Dreamy and pleased and in love and utterly certain. Dorian's expression is lost as he presses his nose against the side of Zachary's head, but the ease in his posture is something that is only ever visible when he looks at Zachary.

They slow, and there's an end to whatever story Dorian was telling. He takes a step back, though not willing to draw away completely.

Kat is about to make her presence known, because neither man has spotted her yet, so wrapped up in each other that she felt awkward needing to break the moment, but then Dorian drops to one knee and she freezes in her spot.

Their voices are still too low, inaudible beneath the sound of the party, but she can fill in the pieces.

Dorian offers up a small box, trying to say something, but Zachary is already pulling him back to his feet by the collar of his ridiculous holiday sweater. "Yes," he says on a laugh before leaning in to kiss Dorian. His laughter might also be crying as he lets Dorian put the ring on his finger. "Of course, yes."

Kat laughs then, though she doesn't mean to, because only Zachary would accept a proposal with 'of course'.

They look over and spot her, and her brain immediately scrambles for apologies. 'I wasn't watching,' which is a lie, or 'I didn't mean to intrude,' which is less of a lie. 'I'm so happy for you,' which is the truth, but then Zachary laughs again and lifts a hand to wipe away something from beneath his glasses and Dorian just looks… happy.

"Kat," Zachary starts, but she doesn't wait for him to finish.

She manages to put the glass of scotch down on the railing before flinging herself across the distance between them. Her arms curl around his shoulders, and he catches her with an arm around her waist as her squeal of delight is muffled into his chest.

And then, without hesitating, she throws her arms around Dorian next.

He stiffens, the way he always does when someone hugs him. As if he expects something else, but never that. But it softens a moment later, and his hand comes to rest between her shoulder blades and that is his way of showing fondness for her.

Kat wipes at her eyes with the heel of her hand and then says, "Do it again I forgot to take pictures."

Zachary laughs, then presses his left hand to Dorian's cheek. "Maybe next time. I'm not going to take this ring off."

Dorian lifts an eyebrow in a way that is undoubtedly meant to be incredulous, but just looks completely smitten. "Next time?" he asks, and received a kiss from Zachary in response.

This, at least, Kat manages to get a picture of.

The door opens, and they step out into a warehouse.

It's just the two of them -- Zachary and Dorian. The woman who sometimes responded to the name Eleanor and the one-handed man who sometimes remembered his name was Simon remain in the Harbor.

"There's a whole new world down here to explore," Eleanor says, "and someone has to map it."

So Zachary, barely able to stand on his own two feet but stubborn enough to not let himself be carried, and Dorian, arm wrapped possessively around Zachary to keep him upright, step through the door into the warehouse only to be greeted by a shrill, heart-wrenching sob.

Zachary responds with a pained grunt, and for a moment, Dorian's heart stops. He thinks that Fate was crueler than he first thought, that she is taking back what he gave, but then Zachary s dragged out of his arms, tumbling to the ground tangled up in this figure in a teal coat.

It takes far too many precious seconds before Dorian realizes that he recognizes the figure.

The woman from the bar. The one who sat with Zachary. The one who saw him.

She has Zachary in her arms and she is in his and they're clutching each other so fiercely that, for another moment, Dorian realizes there is no space there for him. But it doesn't feel the same way it did as he watched them before -- when it felt odd and disjointed.

There is a comfort here, a safety that has been gone for far too long, and he can feel himself relax.

Soon, he realizes that she's saying words between the strangled sobs. He doesn't know if he should listen in, if this is a private conversation. But her tear-stained eyes turn up to him, not quite accusatory, but protective. "Two years, Zachary. You've been missing for two years."

Neither of them say anything, but Dorian can feel the silent plea in Zachary's expression as they exchange a quick look.

It's a shock -- not unexpected, but still a shock. Dorian knew that they had moved in and out of time while traveling the Starless Sea, and it was probably only thanks to Fate that they ever found each other again.

Well, both her fault and then thanks to her.

Zachary is still looking at Dorian, and he can feel his own slowly forming panic mirrored in Zachary's eyes.

Two whole years.

Dorian kneels down, reaching out to brush the backs of his fingers along Zachary's cheek, then cupping the back of his head in an attempt to ground him. "You're home, Zachary," he says. "You're home, and you're alive."

The woman makes a noise, and just when he thinks that she's going to shove him aside to get back to Zachary, she throws an arm around both of them and pulls them in against her -- knotting them close into a tangle of limbs and emotions.

She's still talking, and Zachary is making half-hearted sounds in response, though mostly she just repeats, "I've missed you," and "You're home," and "I'm so glad," her hands gripping them fiercely.

For the first time in a long time, Dorian closes his eyes and feels safe.

It's only been a few weeks. Two months, at the most, since they got back. Zachary has lost track of time. He wanders the halls of his mother’s home, his home, unmoored.

He's thought, several times, about going back. About finding the door again.

Mirabel would let them in, wouldn't she?

He finds himself hesitating every time he passes a closed door, looking at it just a little too close, trying to see if it's a door or something else. An entrance, an invitation.

"You've given that place enough of yourself," Dorian told him, when they were three weeks in, and he found Zachary curled into a ball on the floor in the hallway before an open door, panicking because he couldn't decide if he was disappointed or relieved when all it did was open into a linen closet. "It will be there for us to return to, if we need it."

Perhaps it is a comfort, he reasons. To be home again, to hear his mom in the kitchen talking to the dog. To be home at all, considering.

He'll catch looks from Dorian occasionally -- awed and mystified, enamored and relieved, all sorts of emotions bundled into a mess inside Zachary's chest but conveyed so plainly through Dorian's gaze.

Zachary knows that Dorian is having a hard time adjusting. Madame Love Rawlins is a force to be reckoned with even when she doesn't know something about you, and she clearly knows something about Dorian that she declines to share, but she says this with a smile that means it is only an inevitable truth that she has accepted. Kat is, well, Kat. She comes around frequently those first few weeks, as if to ensure that Zachary hasn't ducked out of her life again. As if to ensure that the "man he brought home" (her words) was up to her standards.

He's thankful that he has her to look out for him, that after everything she was still there to pull him through the door. That she bundled both him and Dorian into her car and drove them home.

He's also incredibly amused to eavesdrop on the stilted conversations between Kat and Dorian, whenever either of them tries to make conversation. Whenever Zachary isn't around to be the common link between them.

They're like that now, sitting around his mother's dining table. There is a plate of ginger cookies between them, mulled wine in mugs, and neither of them are speaking. Kat's not on her phone, and Dorian isn't reading a book, so that's an improvement.

They've since gotten most of the small talk out of the way, because there is only so often the two of them can repeat the same 'getting to know you questions' when they refuse to delve into deeper topics.

Zachary leans just out of sight, closes his eyes, and listens to their silence shift, become an audible hum of pre-noise, the way it does when one of them gears up to speak. The intake of breath, the straightening of posture to show the other is listening. He smiles.

"So…" Kat starts. "Any… I dunno, New Year's resolutions?" It's a few days out from the New Year, and while most of the world is nursing hangovers from Christmas parties, Zachary and Dorian and Kat are still recovering from the recent Winter solstice celebrations.

Dorian shifts in his chair, makes a noise. "I haven't decided yet."

Zachary can imagine him tapping his feet against the wooden floor. It's too cold to go barefoot, but Madame Love was able to locate some delightfully fluffy (and colorful) socks that he concedes to wear.

"I think, perhaps," he continues, slowly, thoughtfully, in a way that means he's speaking something aloud he hasn't before, and Zachary tilts his head closer to listen. "I would like a place of my own."

"Don't like living with the mother-in-law?" Kat says, though it cuts off at the very end in a way that Zachary finds suspicious. Still teasing, but in a way that is 'I said too much'.

But Dorian hurries to say, "No. That's not it. She's lovely. I… I love it here. It's a little like being back in the Harbor, but the heart here is different."

(This, Dorian has told him before, curled up and tangled together on the too-small guest bed when Zachary couldn't sleep and snuck into Dorian's room in the early hours of the morning. It feels like you, like home, he had said, and Zachary knew then that he was in love.)

"Oh," Kat says. "How?" There's a beat, before she adds, "I mean, you've said that you're not actually a Dorian."

He sighs. "That… is also something to work on. I suppose that's first. I just…" There's a soft but heavy sound, and when Zachary chances a peak, Dorian has his forearms on the table, hands clutching each other nervously. "I want to have a place, so I can ask Zachary to move in with me. So I can, I don't know… So we can cook meals together and watch TV on the couch, and sleep in our own bed. And I know that we can do that here -- most of that anyway but… I still don't feel, steady, I guess."

That's probably the most words Dorian has said to Kat at once, especially without Zachary present.

There's a pause, then Kat sighs, a little wistfully. "Those are good goals. We'll help, however we can."

"Thank you."

Her huff of laugh is barely audible. "Yeah. That's what friends are for."

Zachary smiles to himself, his heart warm and light, and says a soft and silent thanks to whatever other power might be listening for letting him have such wonderful people at his side.