So here it is! Your good ole feelsy Valentine's Day one-shot! (And even though it is technically the 15th I never went to bed so it is still Valentine's Day for me hah!)... I'm gonna be honest, as I was writing this I had no clear idea where it was going to end up. I just wrote until I came to a point where I could write an ending because mental musings are like that :P
You know, all of that effort I put into Mason in my old one-shots stories never really... clicked? Not for me, anyway, but Drayson, well, I can live and breathe that ship. If I ever truly dwelve into romancy stuff, it would probably be with them.
So here's to it: Drayson! Don't get too too excited because it's still heartbreaking, but hey, I'm the amazing Lya200, did you expect anything less from me?
And... funny story... my Valentine's fic WAS gonna be Drayson raising Grayson's kid together, but then I saw my unfinished prompt for my writing group and was like, "Hold on, let's fix that one sentence's wording for later..." Nope. I finished that instead, and the kid one remains I think halfway done? Maybe 3/4 of the way done. Knowing me, that one could go on FOREVER because there is so much that I wanna do with them (unless if I post it in different parts which actually isn't such a bad idea now that I think about it and it will keep it from being ridiculously long.
Ah, yes, the lack of sleep is getting to me, but I have to post this!
And just a warning: Grayson is like really depressed in this but it's an accident I swear!
Let's Go On An Adventure
How to Love Again
Grayson always wore a carefully constructed mask to conceal his emotions, but sometimes it became too much to keep up the charade. His barriers would break down piece by piece before all that was left was an empty husk of a man who had seen far too much death and destruction, some of which had been at his own hands during his days as the commander of the Emperor's armies.
And yet no matter how broken he was, he never let Drake notice. Grayson would wait until his friend was fast asleep before he rose with shaking legs and erratic breaths. He would put a safe distance between him before he would collapse to his knees again, this time alone. A pair of wedding rings would be clutched in his fist, a pair of objects so valuable and yet he couldn't afford to lose them. He'd cry into a baby's blanket, which would be worn with rough handling and age. It was only when he was alone that he allowed himself to be who he really was, not an outlaw or a dragon's egg thief but a grieving husband and father who had lost everything.
He had gotten quite used to hiding his tears. Often Drake would oversleep, giving Grayson ample time to hide any evidence that he had ever cried. It wasn't that he didn't trust Drake, quite the contrary, but this was something he needed to face alone. Armen was more important than Grayson's own problems, and he would push them aside until their mutual friend was saved and Drake was happy again.
He didn't know when Drake had become the priority, but somewhere in the past few weeks, he did. Through thick and thin, when it was just the two of them, Drake had become more important than that damned dragon's egg. It didn't matter what happened to Grayson as long as Drake was safe because if he lost him, the only person left that he loved, he might as well just give up like he almost did before he found Drake again.
Maybe that's what it was. He was just clinging to Drake for love and support despite knowing that the other would never feel the same way towards him that Grayson felt for him. He clung to his best friend, afraid to let go of him because if he did he'd lose him like he lost his family. But when Drake was looking, he didn't tell him an ounce of it. He couldn't because if he did, Drake would leave like he left him four years ago. Grayson knew that he would, and he couldn't be left to pick up the pieces of a broken friendship, a broken love, once again.
He thought that things would be better when Mia joined their little group. She made things feel lighter between him and Drake, and Grayson's sense of longing would be buried beneath all of the morbid jokes that they would share. When he was alone with Drake, things were harder to hold back. His emotions were clouded, and yet he kept secrets from him until he almost got him killed.
Mia called them out on arguing like an old married couple, and while Drake only laughed, Grayson's heart turned numb at the thought. It could have been so easy, if only he had the guts to tell Drake how he really felt about him, but thoughts of his dead wife and son kept him from doing that. Would it be a betrayal towards his family? He had already betrayed them before by taking that egg and bringing about their deaths. Was he doomed to be alone forever?
Grayson might have finally found friends he could count on, and yet he had never felt more alone. He could trust Drake with his life, but not his secrets. Drake only knew about that damned egg and what happened to his family, but only because Grayson had messed up. He didn't tell him how he obtained it. He didn't tell him of the literal hellscape he felt that he lived in for two years after losing everything. Hell, he had been living in that same hellscape since long before that: when he had been alone in the Arctic base, when he had been trapped alone in Ironmyre for a year, when Armen died and Drake left him alone because he just wanted to forget.
God, Grayson was a mess.
But at the end of the night, he always picked himself up again. He hid his rings, he hid the blanket, he hid his tears. Nothing ever came up, and his secrets were safe. Drake never noticed that something was wrong, and that was okay. Drake had plenty enough to worry about, and Grayson wasn't going to let anything distract him from their common goal: to save Armen. Grayson meant nothing in comparison.
In another life, Grayson wasn't sure what would have happened. Their lives were intertwined because of that demon who haunted them all, but if you took Him out of the picture, they would have never met. Grayson would have lived a normal life somewhere, but without Drake. No, he couldn't have that. For the first time in years, Grayson was allowed to breathe, allowed to love, and he couldn't say a word without the fear that he would send his one true friend running for the hills. The painful feeling in his heart was better than knowing that if he told the truth, he'd lose Drake forever.
He dropped the rings into his pocket: worn, golden, warm from his touch. One belonged to him, and the other, the smaller one, to his dead wife. Grayson shed another tear as he thought back to that life, but Drake hadn't been in it. No, Drake was sleeping right beside him. Although tired and weakened from an earlier display of powerful magic, he was safe. That was truly the only thing that mattered right here and right now.
Grayson only glanced over at Mia's sleeping form to be sure that she was asleep, too. Then he walked over like the silent hunter he was. Then, with a touch that was soft and near imperceptible, he readjusted Drake's blanket from where it had slipped during a restless fit. Grayson stared at him longingly, and he remembered how nothing could ever come of this.
"I love you, Drake," he whispered only to himself. Grayson knew he wouldn't be heard, so his secret was safe. The only way he could ever confess this to Drake would be if one of them were on their deathbeds, and even then he probably couldn't.
Grayson returned to his own sleeping bag. Facing the dying fire, he could see his house burning and people screaming from its depths. When he closed his eyes, he could see his wife and son hanging in the square because he had gotten to them too late. However, the most terrifying thing would have to be Drake's dying form as he lost color and consciousness from that poisoned arrow, not to mention how he had almost killed Grayson in his possessed state. If he hadn't woken up, Grayson would have let him. It would have been better than killing Drake instead.
You guys are alive. They aren't.
Grayson would keep him safe. He would ensure that Drake would be happy again, even if he suffered along the way. If he could return Armen to Drake, then all would be well. Where he failed in protecting his family, he wouldn't fail in protecting Drake. He couldn't. If something were to happen to him, Grayson knew he would never be able to forgive himself. There would be no coming back from that second heartbreak.
"I love you, Drake," Grayson whispered into the air. He thought everyone was asleep, and he did not know that this time, he was overheard.
Now the only thing left to do is do something with Drake's take on this story, but that's a story for another day when Lya isn't running on no sleep :P And hopefully that take would be happier and maybe with a happy ending for them both because I have fallen for this ship so Chucking hard gah!
I just wanna read some Drayson now :(
CJ: I WAS toying with that name for the one-shot title, but then my brain was like "yo name it like you did "The Puppet" and then you can like write something called "The Mage" and "The Archaeologist." Pfft, like that will ever happen! I just want a whole story on Grayson getting possessed, gah! Yess, I know exactly how to sneak Mia in there if I ever get down to ACTUALLY WRITING IT!
Meanwhile, poor Mia still doesn't have any stories on here. I fear that if I don't post something for her soon, she'd kill me.
~Lya200~
