Title: Move Along

Genre: Angst/Romance

Rating: T

Characters: Roran & Carn

Warnings: Adult themes, homosexual references

Note: Slightly AU, Spoilers for Inheritance. This is way fluffier than I meant it to be when I first thought of it… Is it too fluffy now? Too sudden? This is my first Inheritance fanfic, so I'm still new to this.

Disclaimer: Characters belong to Christopher Paolini, I'm afraid. The plot of this fanfic, however, belongs to me and my unusual mind. This fanfic was loosely inspired off of the song Move Along by the All American Rejects, so give them some credit as well.

Summary: If Carn couldn't learn to let go, Roran would just need to help him.

Roran watched the Varden encampment with intense focus, his eyes veering towards every flicker of movement in the dying rays of the sun's light. The soldiers that still remained were weary and battle-scarred from the recent encounter with Aroughs. The siege had been a success, and the men were just finishing preparations to regroup with the main body of the Varden at Dras-Leona.

He noted with displeasure that many tents were empty and unmanned- they had lost many a good soldier in the encounter, though not nearly as many as he thought they would, thankfully. He remembered the moment the arrow had hit him in the back- how he had thought he would be unable to make it back to Katrina, or that he would be at the very most carried back to her in a burial shroud. But what confused Roran more was the fact that this possibility didn't seem to bother him as much as it should.

Roran's eyes clenched shut as he threw his head back and exhaled slowly. His wife hadn't been the same since she had been rescued from the Ra'zac. She was more withdrawn now, and didn't treat him the same. That was the worst part. She treated him like a hero, like a god, and he hated every minute of it.

Shrugging the thoughts of Katrina aside, Roran noticed Carn pacing, agitated, at the western edge of the camp. The thin, lean magician had been worn thin by the battle with the enemy spellcaster, Roran knew, and one didn't escape battle mentally unscathed. Even Roran still faced nightmares about the many men who had fallen to his hammer. Carn had been in the very minds of the men he had killed, and Roran imagined that must be a thousand times worse.

Feeling a twinge of sadness for his friend, Roran decided to see what was bothering the magician, and if there was anything that he could do to help, though the chances of that were minimal. As he started across the camp, he could feel the gazes of the soldiers upon the back of his neck- admiring, warm gazes. He had rescued them in times of trouble, he was aware, and they trusted him with their lives.

"Carn!" Roran shouted as he approached his friend. Startled, the magician lifted his gaze from the dusty ground beneath him. When his weary eyes fell upon Roran, some of the tension seemed to seep from his body, and he relaxed ever so slightly. The friendship between the two had become something to be valued, Roran knew. Carn had proven his loyalty to him time and time again, and vice versa.

As Roran drew near to Carn, he noticed how pale the magician was. He grasped one of Carn's nimble hands in his own, and almost recoiled upon contact- the skin was colder than ice, and he was quivering uncontrollably.

"Carn, what's wrong?" Roran asked, an urgency in his voice that he normally only reserved for the midst of battle. The magician pulled his hand away as if he had been scalded.

"I'll be fine, I just need time to think." Carn snapped, his thin chest rising and falling with every shallow breath. For a moment, Roran wondered if he had gone mad from the shock of the battle- but he had a feeling that something else was bothering Carn than simply the fight with the enemy spellcaster. The magician dropped his eyes to the ground again.

Worried, he grabbed at Carn's hands once more, this time taking one in each calloused hand, and holding them close to him. "No, you're not. You're shaking like a frightened rabbit." Roran moved his face closer to Carn's without realizing it, squinting slightly to distinguish the magician's features in the dim evening light.

Carn appeared to hesitate, before letting his dark eyes meet Roran's once more, and he noticed the fear and anxiety that clouded the spellcaster's thoughts.

"I had everyone's lives in my hands today, Roran." Carn stated his breathing still noticeably shallow. "And I faltered. I almost lost to that other magician, you know. I was nervous, and it almost cost us Aroughs. It almost cost us our lives. All because of me." The words were laced with venom, something Roran was surprised to hear from one as naturally peaceful as Carn.

"I almost failed us."

Roran felt Carn try to pull away once more and tightened his grip on the other man's hands. He was no mind reader, but he could feel the grief and frustration oozing from Carn's consciousness all the same. The pain of his near failure was eating the magician alive, and Roran hated this. He leaned forward to reassure his friend-

And their lips met in an unexpected blaze of fire. Roran felt Carn tense slightly at first, as he had himself, but soon, both men were immersed in the passion of the kiss. Without realizing it, Roran released Carn's hands and moved them to cradle the magician's jaw, holding it close to his face as the kiss deepened.

It was only when the two had to pull apart to breathe that the full realization of what had just happened dawned on Roran. But Katrina was an afterthought now- she was leaving the Varden in the near future anyways- and emotions that Roran had never experienced with Katrina were bursting into existence like a wildfire birthed by a sudden strike of lightning. His heart was racing, his blood flowing faster than it had in the heat of battle. It was in this way that Roran realized what he had known somewhere in the back of his mind all along. The same realization appeared to be simultaneously dawning on Carn.

Roran let his gaze wander to the rest of the camp without moving his head, but no one seemed to have noticed the exchange. His hands dropped weakly back to his sides and he stepped back. He let his eyes flit back to Carn. The magician was breathing just as heavily as he, and his normally pale cheekbones were a deep shade of scarlet. "Roran…"

Roran averted his gaze once more, embarrassed. "I've wanted to do that for a long time," he admitted sheepishly. Somewhere inside his heart, he knew it to be true.

He was surprised when a grin made its appearance on Carn's flushed face. "Just do it again,"

Roran grinned in return, and couldn't help but oblige. This time, the clashing of lips was much softer, and he couldn't help but wonder where Carn had learned to kiss so well…

The kiss was ended abruptly as the magician pulled away, and Roran couldn't help but wonder if this was all a cruel joke- if his affections, if that was the proper term for them, were in vain and Carn was just toying with him.

These suspicions were dashed as Roran's eyes registered the look of sincerity on the spellcaster's face- there was no humor there. "Before anything happens, though, I want you to know that… that I want this to mean something. What about your wife- you're married, aren't you? I'm sorry, Stronghammer, but I'm nobody's…" he paused, looking for the right word. "I'm nobody's second."

Roran sighed inwardly, aware of the stress radiating from Carn. He had expected something like this to come up. He was married, and expecting a child at that. But Katrina was leaving him, leaving the Varden, any day now… would they even be properly married after that? Would it be worth it? He absently fingered his ring, one of the two that Eragon had forged for the newlywed couple, and, for the first time since it had been placed on his finger, removed it and slipped it into a pocket of his breeches.

"Katrina and I…" he tried to think of the best way to phrase his thoughts. "She's leaving the Varden. She's not the same person I was betrothed to in Carvahall, and I don't know if we'll ever be truly happy together, what with me being on the battlefield every other day." He chuckled dryly at this, his left hand wandering to feel the ring's familiar shape through the pocket. "What I'm trying to explain is… you're not my second, Carn." Hesitantly, Roran lifted his eyes to meet the magician's. It had been less difficult convincing the villagers of Carvahall to follow him into the Spine than it was talking to Carn at the moment.

Carn seemed to ponder his words for a second, his eyes dropping to the ground once more. Slowly, he raised his eyes to meet Roran', and before the latter could comprehend what was happening, the magician's lips were on his once more. He smiled against Carn's mouth, responding to the kiss with enthusiasm. I love you, he mouthed, and, somewhere in his mind, he heard Carn's voice repeat the phrase back to him: I love you too. And for the first time since Roran had joined the Varden, he had a sense that things might just end up alright after all.