One of those nights where everything changes.

(heed the tags once again)

Íþróttaálfurinn wakes from a light, fitful sleep.

The night is snow-bright, the silent attic full of deep, velvety dimness. Even in the near-darkness, from the sound alone he can tell the snow has completely covered the skylight.

It takes him a moment to realize what woke him up. A creaking that isn't the floorboards, a shift in weight from the other side of the couch. Glanni, a silhouette in the dark, uncoils and stretches his legs with a groan, joints popping, and pulls upright.

Íþróttaálfurinn's eyes adapt to whatever scarce light is filtering though the cover of snow on glass, and he watches the man wander thought the small space like a sleepwalker. Glanni palms around soundlessly until he finds the leather armour, digging out the clothes Íþróttaálfurinn left folded inside.

"… Glanni?" he calls in an undertone, as his nemesis' restless hands pickpocket the mailer out of his pants.

The man doesn't jump at being caught. He doesn't even look in Íþróttaálfurinn's direction, busy holding the gaze of the three pictures with quiet, deathly defiance. The only answer he gives is the scratch of a lighter.

A shock of anxiety spears through the elf, unjustified: Glanni has done nothing but light a candle. And yet, Íþróttaálfurinn's guts clench in that painfully familiar way as Glanni's profile comes alive, stark and gaunt in the orange glow, tinting his own cast shadows a deep, muted blue. He has that look in his eye, the look that made Íþróttaálfurinn wonder, for a moment, if the horror out on the Ocean couldn't be outrun because he had brought it along in his balloon. He is on his feet before he knows it, fighting the uneasiness through movement, stepping again into the silence that settles, heavy as dust, around them.

As Íþróttaálfurinn silently steps closer, Glanni lets the newspaper clipping hover over the candle. Only the flame, shivering in each of Glanni's exhales, removes the scene from its dreamlike stillness. Its proximity makes the paper see-through, overlaps the print into illegible scribbles, tricks the eye into demonic swirls on the oath-breakers' faces. Held solemnly, inexorably closer, the mugshots darken beyond recognition before catching fire.

Íþróttaálfurinn startles, watching the fire consume slow and then voracious, a bluish miniature tide, blackening the paper in its wake. All at once, the world shifts once more and the fire paints the attic as some ancient temple, shadows dancing wild on the walls, and Glanni, the seiðman, sole custodian of the arcane ritual, binding the evil spirits to send them off into the night. Be careful, he wants to beg him. Evil is deaf to reason. It will not be contained.

Glanni lets go of the last little bit, cupping his hands underneath. The curl of ash lets off a few bright orange sparks, and flutters obediently into his hands. He exhales, almost putting the candle out, and the leaden weight in Íþróttaálfurinn's chest won't let him move an inch.

Then, the elf grabs the discarded mailer, in a gesture so sudden the crack in the atmosphere is almost audible. He gets out the cold, anonymous Christmas card, opens it under the man's joined hands. The pad of his thumb brushes Glanni's knuckles and the man jolts, looks at him with no semblance of recognition.

"Let go," Íþróttaálfurinn pleads.

The long, nimble hands open, in a gesture as direct as a child dropping bits of crushed petals. The remains of the paper fall into the card in little black flecks, leaving Glanni's fingers stained in ink and soot.

"Fire would do the trick, I thought," Glanni rasps. He sounds like he hasn't spoken in years. "I thought it would help."

"I'm sorry," Íþróttaálfurinn tells him, before knowing why. Every time one of them speaks, the candle-flame trembles into near-extinction.

Íþróttaálfurinn puts away the card and the man stays motionless, not hunched over and not standing straight, but sort of hanging, off-balance, unfinished. He looks arranged wrong, like something used to this shape that has suddenly lost the habit, that unnatural stillness in the air now too heavy, smothering. The clipping must have kept Glanni awake, a taunting presence in the corner, and Íþróttaálfurinn regrets not getting rid of it himself. His palms itch to cup Glanni's hands, unite them, pull him back into a single, perfect piece.

He steps close again, and Glanni's gaze flickers up to meet his.

"Íþró," he says, like he just noticed he's there.

"I'm here," Íþróttaálfurinn assures. This, too, without really knowing why, as the luminous grey gleams at him in the snow-bright penumbra, and he can hear the storm rattling in its chains. Glanni lifts a hand, and the elf feels icy fingertips trace the edge of his jaw.

"You want to help me," Glanni says, "even if I'm―even someone like me. You don't think I'm beyond saving." He cocks his head to the side, a hint of a smile sharpening, splitting his grave face. "You're a hero. If I fell, you would catch me."

His hands smell like bonfire, like forests burning, like the trace of evil bound. The man takes a step so close the pull of gravity nearly brings them to collide. Íþróttaálfurinn breathes in, wishing he could inhale the smell deep enough to halt the chills down his back. Glanni's sharp smile and his full lips glint in the dark, and Íþróttaálfurinn thinks of their touch so holy, of the bit of innocence trapped there, gifted and then forgotten. He imagines the faint black streaks on his cheek.

"Yes," he answers simply, chin tilted up to hold the man's gaze, and his voice also nearly trembles into extinction. "Yes, always."

He has no time to let the weight of his admission sink in. His mind is winding itself into dark, endless tunnels, the attic is caving in, the man is too close and then not there, and a sharp noise snaps him back into himself: Glanni's knees hitting the hardwood. His mouth dries like drought-struck land.

"Men aren't made of words," Glanni hums, smile stained red if only in spirit, looking up at him from under his lashes. "They are like machines, I can read them just fine. I know how they work."

Íþróttaálfurinn opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. The half-lidded gaze spears him in place, mute and paralyzed, as Glanni's hands shape to the arches of his hips.

"I can read you. I see you look―I see you hold back. You've been holding back for a while. I know you want something."

These are hands that know what they're doing. The icy skin is late to warm up, the touch of them now soft and supple, resting just above the hem of his slacks, a shock of cold against Íþróttaálfurinn's over-warm skin. Long, clever fingers knead in circles around his hipbones, tracing, slipping under the lent shirt, and the elf's spine tingles all the way down.

"So let me give it, then," Glanni continues, voice gaining confidence, hands gaining momentum. "Our interests align, don't you see? You'll get what you want, and you won't have to hold back anymore. And I…" he murmurs, a ghost of breath over his crawling skin, eyes fluttering shut. He leans in, his back a slow and fluid arch, a reptilian alignment of angles that shouldn't work but does, and presses his mouth to the elf's bare stomach. "And I… will finally feel clean again."

The soft touch of lips strikes him through like lightning, tensing his muscles to stone. His body threatens to collapse, knees ready to give out, and he holds himself up out of sheer willpower. He chokes out a gasp as his nemesis, undeterred, starts to trail down, his breath searing-hot into the fabric.

"W-wait," he finally manages, when he soft red lips and clever fingers are already in the hem of his underwear, ready to speak their truth into existence. He closes both wrists in a shaky grip, leaning away, silencing them. "Stop this, it's―it's not the right time. It's not how it works."

"Oh, but someone has a different idea, here," Glanni drawls, with a sly nod to the elf's shame in his borrowed slacks. He makes no motion to free his hands, leaving them loosely curled, hanging by the wrists like they aren't his business.

"Someone will calm down if you leave it alone." Íþróttaálfurinn crouches down, a knee lifted to hide himself. It's stifling, but he's never been more grateful for the cover of half-light on his burning cheeks and ears and neck. "It will get like that from a gust of wind up in the balloon―I wouldn't listen to it, really. It's unreliable."

Confusion creases the man's forehead, narrows his eyes to a squint. "Are you playing with me?"

"I'm not." Íþróttaálfurinn tugs the hands closer as the tendons jolt against his fingertips, joining them together in the careful cradle of his own. "I'm not, I would never."

"But you want something," Glanni insists, a deeply frustrated note in his voice. "And I want you to take it. I don't want to be patient with it, you see? The assholes are dead, and I'm taking my old self back. Right now."

Íþróttaálfurinn swallows, predicting what bit of news will be, again, his to deliver. That one can never emerge unchanged from the storm, as though it never touched him; that the skin that feels soiled will not peel off, revealing the old self both new and unchanged, hiding just underneath. And he will not listen, like Íþróttaálfurinn himself didn't listen in his time. He will learn on his own, one day, that storms break and transform and disfigure, and leave it to time to sand off the rough edges. That change is the unfortunate, inevitable nature of storms.

"I cannot," he says only, like the fault of it rests on his shoulders. And maybe, in a way, it does. "Done now, like this, it would be no different than boiling yourself alive again. No different than this, either." He nods with his chin to the gauze corner peeking from Glanni's sweater.

"No―you don't get it. I'm not afraid, Íþró," Glanni presses, with that strange fervour in his voice. "You're touching me, and I'm not afraid. I cannot waste this chance―and you want to! I know you do, I've seen you. Since the start of our little game."

Íþróttaálfurinn's heart falls, right on that old pile of question that he spent all those months swallowing, hiding his care and longing from the wrong eyes. "I―you knew?"

"I'd have to be blind not to," the man says, with a bitter, dry chuckle. "Or as dense as you, I guess."

The alley rushes back to Íþróttaálfurinn's ringing ears. He thinks of Glanni's offers, now like back then, in this new light. You gonna make an honest man out of me? the man asked in jest, when in truth his sharp eyes could see right through him, and have been seeing right through him the whole time.

"So now don't you lie to me, and take me for a fool, and try to tell me exclusive rights doesn't sound like a sweet deal to you, nemesis."

Íþróttaálfurinn swallows. The words rolled in place, half-hissed, pink tongue through white teeth, full of promises, loaded with implications.

And it does sound like a sweet deal, damn him and his preternatural intuition. It appeals to the ugly in him, the selfish, the restless. It all awakens now, roaring, a sticky weak thing crying mine, all mine, only mine, in the voice of a child left behind, left nameless. For a moment, under the man's inescapable gaze, he feels so stripped he sees no outcome but the scathing shame of flight.

"See?" Glanni smiles like he won, curling closer, daring him to fall instead in the greedy hollow of his presence. "My mighty hero, and his dirty second motives. I like it, Íþró, I like you crooked."

Íþróttaálfurinn has never been the best at planning, the one with the best foresight, the best at thinking things through. He is of an instinctive breed, and his gut has never failed him.

And yet, and yet, it wouldn't take much, this time, to convince himself it's for the better. There is so much of the old him in Glanni's calculating stare, in the way he can summon seduction at will, like a flicked switch. It would be easy, to think it's the right way to fix it. To tell himself that Glanni is wiser than he is, that even now―on his knees, his hands leaving stains and that desperate, fragile light in his eyes―he is lucid and in control and knows what he wants.

"Don't make a guy beg, Íþró," Glanni says, voice dripping honey. "I'm not used to it. Just come down here." He tilts his head back, drawing his eye over the bared pulseline until Íþróttaálfurinn can almost taste it. "We'll both feel so much better."

It shouldn't be like this, he thinks, guts twisting. Glanni's eyes are bright, glittering with hard, bitter triumph; but in his voice, Íþróttaálfurinn can only taste the desperation, like bile in his throat, pushing up, pushing in, a question swallowed that just won't stay down. Will you be one of them?it asks. Will you be the fourth to break an oath on me?

And oh, he's sure he could make it tender enough to fool himself, mask with loving words the harm he's doing, the advantages he's taking, bury his face in that inviting neck and taste the flutter of his pulse and pretend he doesn't see the chasm opening under them both. Slowly, painfully, he lets go of Glanni's wrists.

"No, we won't―neither of us, and especially you," he says, taking a moment, this time only, to think of the after. This one time, it's a matter of life and death. "Not like this. It's not right. It's not why I'm trying to help."

He thinks of impending disaster and the benevolent, welcoming attic sullied with misery and sour, cooling sweat. He thinks of the pretend-sleep, the avoiding glances. Of the inevitable, bitter parting. Of coal mines, crumbling, and unseen wounds, ripped open before they can heal.

"But you did think about it," Glanni says, brow clouding in incomprehension. "You're thinking about it right now. You want to."

"It doesn't matter what I want. It's too soon, and you…" His voice fizzles out, he has to clear it, switch his knees and shift his weight just to end up in the same spot, to the inevitable confrontation. "I don't think you are in your right mind for any of this."

The triumph dies in the man's eyes, like a light going out. The frown pulls Glanni's whole face in a hard, unpleasant grimace.

"You don't get to decide that," he snarls, flushing red in angry splotches, feral creases on the bridge of his nose and teeth bared, his voice growling low. "You think you get to decide what's best for everyone?"

"I don't! I just… I don't want you to pick me because I'm willing, and you have no alternatives―"

"Then what is this? What do you want? What game are you playing?"

"No games! I didn't save your life just to use you myself, Glanni. You're not a spoil of war!"

He realizes, then, that his hands are clasping the other just above the elbows, pressing his arms flush into his sides. He doesn't know exactly how forceful the gesture was, but hurries to pull away all the same.

Quietly, he breathes out, "You deserve better than that."

"And what do I deserve, pray tell?" Glanni asks, with a stubborn sort of defiance, eyeing him warily. But there's no fight in him anymore, and Íþróttaálfurinn doesn't know where it all went.

"I don't know," he murmurs, opening his arms. "Not forcing yourself to indulge anyone's second motives, for starters? And then… good things. To feel safe, to have friends. To feel cared for."

The man narrows his eyes, staring, the wariness outweighed by disbelief.

"You… want me to feel… cared for," he repeats. "Is this just because I was…?"

"No. They have nothing to do with it," Íþróttaálfurinn hurries to say, shaking his head. He doesn't know what he's admitting, exactly, but it comes out of him like water trickling from cupped hands. "I've… stopped seeing you as an enemy long before that alley."

He remembers now, one of the first signs. They made an escape together, one time, just like in the movies―as the children say―out of a window and up a rope. He held Glanni against him and felt invincible, their enemies disappearing behind as they rode away on a fateful gust of wind. And when manoeuvring required both of his hands, he didn't want to let go. There, in the air full of excited gasps and startled laughter, he discovered he liked being allies more than he liked enmity, that he liked the spirit of this villain more than a lot of his fellow heroes. That the children had been right about him all along.

"But the alley made me realize… when the trail brought me to you, I was―terrified," he starts to say, surprising himself with the fearless openness in his voice. "I was certain I had been too late… and I pictured how it would be. How I would try to go on and―how my world would be different, without you in it. I hadn't felt that lost in a while. And then you were alive, and you put in me all this trust you don't have. And it changed me. I just had to… come to terms with it."

He wonders if the man, stunned to silence before him, is thinking of the same memory. Something is dawning on him, Íþróttaálfurinn can tell. Something that frightens him.

Slowly, he says, "To terms with… your care."

The elf can only nod. Glanni shakes his head, contradicting him through gesture as words fail to convey his incredulity.

"Care as in… feelings. Not just sex. You're talking feelings feelings."

Íþróttaálfurinn finds himself, suddenly, breathless.

For all he tried to avoid it, he has fallen right in and the weight of Glanni's presence sucked all the air from the room. He could tell him he'd want to care for any creature in need, and hide himself behind his duty to humankind―but this is different, and it's time, it seems, for them both to know.

"Yes," he whispers.

The expression on Glanni's face, for the span of a few heartbeats, tells him nothing. It's alien to him, trust as more than the absence of fear. He doesn't know what to do with Íþróttaálfurinn's confession, more burden than gift in his eyes. A heavy truth he never offered to carry.

"I'm a bad pick for a date, Íþró," he says, making a wide, lost, helpless gesture. "These things, I don't—I'm bad at… I don't do―I don't even have friends. I live on the run. I don't know what you want or how to give it to you―I don't know shit."

"It doesn't matter," he reassures, trying to contain the mounting panic in both of them. "I don't need―or want anything right now. I just―it would have been disingenuous to lie to you, that's all. So now you know."

He rises to his feet, finally, and Íþróttaálfurinn breathes in relief, following him.

"You're being… soft," he says, incredulous. "Right now, I could be up to anything, and you'd just believe me." He shifts. "Really, how do you know I'm not playing you right now?"

"I don't."

Then, Glanni's arm shoots up, and he opens the skylight. Íþróttaálfurinn lets out a gasp of surprise when the miniature avalanche falls on him. He looks up to the other, baffled, his arms open.

The man is grinning some weary shadow of a grin, mirroring his pose, the snow in little piles on his head and arms. He collects it, cleans his hands, dries them on one of the rags. He comes closer and Íþróttaálfurinn lets him, doesn't step away when his gaze drops low, when his clever hands clean the smudges from his hips with the damp cloth.

The night streams in, cold and snow-bright, from the open glass, and the elf finds himself breathing easier. The sky is white as cotton still, no stars in sight, but it is sky nonetheless.

"There. All better now, right?" Glanni asks, with that gruff sheepishness that all his rare apologies have. The candle goes out when he closes the skylight, snuffed out by the current.

"Yes," Íþróttaálfurinn says low. "All better."

"I'm… sorry. I think." Glanni shakes the marked rag, in a jerky, nervous movement. "Didn't mean to come on this strong. I just thought―"

Íþróttaálfurinn watches his fingers curl over the rag, his weight hang on the idea of a step back, his shifty gaze fighting to come up and meet his. Íþróttaálfurinn steps forward, his arms coming up over Glanni's, waiting for him to step into the embrace before draping slow around him. He's shivering.

"It was a misunderstanding," he says, daring to brush his lips there where his mouth falls, stroking the man's back through the minute startle of affection. "No harm done."

"I just… never know what people want from me, you know? I keep trying to go with what I know and. Well."

"It's not working, is it."

"Nothing's working. I don't get it," he mutters. "When it happened, I didn't need to―to cry or anything… I was okay. I got up and planned my escape and went my way. And almost died of exposure, yes," he adds before the elf can even inhale. "But that's beside the point. I was fine―I thought I had handled it. That it wasn't gonna bother me. That I moved so fast I left it behind, right?"

Íþróttaálfurinn looks at him, swallowing the tightness in his throat.

"Right," he chokes out, thinking of the two of them, two foolish men with the same wrong idea.

"And instead… everything is still here, waiting. Fucking me up where I least expect it. Can't look at a picture without throwing up, can't hear a siren without freaking out―it's some Samarra bullshit."

"Survival will do that," Íþróttaálfurinn says. "It's useful, you push everything into this little box, and it stays there until you're out of immediate danger. And it waits."

"Why doesn't that work? Can't it just stay in the box? I must have, like, a collection of those."

Íþróttaálfurinn shakes his head. "Unless you open it, it's not gone. And it rots, if you wait too long. That's how these things happen." He brushes a finger over the gauze, barely touching. "If you leave it in there, in time… it poisons everything."

Glanni gives him a tilted glance. Then something settles on his features, the resolve of a man who never does things halfway.

"I'm just gonna rip it open, then." Like a reluctant witness about to rat out his accomplices, he says, "Give you some more truth you didn't ask to carry."

Íþróttaálfurinn's chest floods in relief. "I'll carry it."

It's story-time, and Glanni stands a little taller, holds out his hand, and the elf takes it without hesitation. Glanni lifts their joined hands, like initiating a dance, and Íþróttaálfurinn shifts his weight in preparation. Tragedy was, after all, always meant to be on a stage.

"I thought I could talk my way out of it, you know?" he starts, moving an experimental step forward. The elf readily follows. "That's what I'm good at. I thought I had it."

And the unthinkable lifts its ugly head, sitting up on its haunches, at attention, looming huge all around them. Glanni talks of the power of his voice, taking a step back for Íþróttaálfurinn to pursue. The floorboards creak under their light steps, and Íþróttaálfurinn isn't apt at this dance but he tries not to show it. At the fragile edge of this moment, there is no space for hesitation.

"I've seen you talk your way out of difficult spots, before," he says, following, slipping praise in the breathing spaces that keep the thing from pouncing. "You have a knack for it."

Glanni bows his head, a street magician shying from praise, no, please, you're too kind. He threads their hands together, spins him once, and pulls Íþróttaálfurinn's hand up, until the elf's palm cups his throat.

He manoeuvres it, long fingers pressing on the back of his knuckles like playing an instrument. It reminds the elf of learning to fly, the steady hand of the flight-master guiding his, searching for a good wind in the tautness of rope.

"I knew it was coming for me, you know? Could see those long fins, swimming nearer and nearer. But I was so sure of myself that I waited, seeing if I could get something more out of my stay. I've been in the business a while now, in and out of prison for all these years without anything ever happening to me… was too good to last, I guess."

"Occupational hazards," Íþróttaálfurinn murmurs, voice tight.

Glanni finds what he was looking for. A current in his blood, pulsing so fast it's almost a vibration, a gasp and stutter in his form, faltering. Lightheaded, Íþróttaálfurinn realizes his guided fingers have been following the ghost of the marks around his throat.

"I made sure they found me ready, played my cards close, ready to leverage all I could. And I did, until the last moment. Promises, lies, blackmail―anything I could think of." He pauses, swallows, Adam's apple sliding swift against Íþróttaálfurinn's palm. "They were pinning me down, and I was still talking―I really thought I could make it out. I didn't want to believe it."

Under the elf's hand, the pulse picks up further, now a flutter of trapped wings. His heart hurts to imagine it, that wavering note in Glanni's voice, when he's trying his hardest to stay in control, how he can talk for hours, weave words into snares, keep track of all the scattered lies that create a truth. All for naught, and the moment he knew that there was no escape… distantly, Íþróttaálfurinn realizes his hand is shaking, too.

Glanni speaks, quieter. "They got fed up with my yammering, I suppose. His hand moved and it just,"―he pushes hard on Íþróttaálfurinn's hand, until the elf has to resist, refusing to grip him too tight―"and all the aces fell out my sleeve. All my words, choked down. Something shifted―like when the wind changes, and you can smell a storm coming? And suddenly I knew. It felt… inevitable. Scariest thing I've been through."

Íþróttaálfurinn shudders, thinking of all the fragile things that could have been damaged in that handful of bone and cartilage. He shifts his hand under Glanni's, until he has a light hold of his neck. A caress and not a death-grip. Glanni lets him.

"Then he bit me and―I just froze. I went away, somewhere else. Let them do what they wanted. Could tell I'm… practiced, they said, and laughed." The crack in his voice strikes like lightning through the elf's chest. "Kind of had it coming, I guess."

"No," he breathes, in the hollow resonance of Glanni's voice. "It shouldn't have happened. It wasn't your fault."

"But I knew," Glanni hisses. "And I still couldn't find a way to avoid it. Like an idiot."

His free arm has come around the man's middle, dance-steps mellowed to a slow, steady rocking, and he doesn't know if he asked for permission with words or with his hesitation only. Pulling close, his mouth comes to rest against the sharpness of a clavicle, softened just barely by the fabric of the sweater, like teeth behind lips.

"Nobody deserves to be hurt like that," he says, willing his voice steady. It's all in his throat, coming out pained and open, again in the direct language that calms frightened children. "You didn't deserve it. You don't deserve bad things to happen to you."

He strokes with his thumb, drawing light, careful circles, feeling the man shiver against him. He holds the throat like it has a weight of its own, and he wonder if maybe he will be the one to buckle under the weight of a trust too great to bear.

"They broke something," Glanni murmurs, in a small, wounded voice. "I don't know what… but something is not the same." Slowly, he moves Íþróttaálfurinn's hand to his upper back, to the slight bumps under the gauze and knitwear. "Every time someone touches me here, I jump. I go back there, for a moment. Feel it all over again. Hear them laugh again."

They are directly under the freed skylight, and Íþróttaálfurinn sighs. As he traces lightly over the semi-healed marks, his eyes start burning. But he must not give in. It wouldn't be helpful, to crumble on someone holding onto him for strength.

"You did make it out alive. You survived, they didn't. You still win."

"Only because of you."

"I'm on your side, so you still win."

For a while, neither of them moves. Standing, breathing, and holding on takes all they have.

Then, Glanni asks, "Do you still get lost in the coal mines, after all these years?"

Íþróttaálfurinn tightens his lips. "Yes," he answers, where a lie would bring ease, but only truth can aid the healing. "But it's not the same, I can't say how it will be for you―mine is so much older, and so many people helped me with it. And I barely knew my old self, so I don't miss him. It's distant, like an old wound that healed okay."

"Only hurts when the weather changes, and on the holidays," Glanni says, stuttering out a laugh when the elf nods. "And when your nemesis visits unannounced."

"Oh," he murmurs, chest squeezing at the worry there. "No, not this time."

"I'm―not fine, am I?" Glanni chokes out, voice disappearing into breath. "Can't talk my way out of this one. And you can't fix me."

The elf shakes his head, his hair brushing light into the crook of Glanni's neck. Glanni curves over him, hunching his shoulders until his chin rests grave against the elf's shoulder, sinking in the embrace.

"But you fixed everyone in town," he says, almost sullen.

"It's not the same," Íþróttaálfurinn sighs. "Wouldn't it be scary, if I had that kind of power? Nothing can have it, no water, or fire, or hero."

His hand rubs over his back, between the tips of his shoulder-blades, up in the short crop of his hair. He wants to brush his lips on the bare, healing skin, lay a gentle word on every violent mark. Show him there's nothing ruined in him, nothing to clean, nothing to hide.

"Who the fuck has it, then?"

"Just you."

"Goddammit―"

"But I won't leave you to do it all alone. I owe it to you."

Glanni leans back to look him in the eye.

"You… think it's on you," he says, slowly, lucid calculation back in his voice, still trying to understand every angle of his motives. And this time, he is dangerously close. "You still think it's all your fault."

"It was my fault," he breathes out. And all the rest gets stuck behind those spilled words, crowded unseen behind his teeth, so heavy he cannot speak anymore.

"Íþró," Glanni says, the same way Íþróttaálfurinn told him, oh, you idiot, and cups his face with both hands. What has gotten into you, elf? Glanni asked him, as Íþróttaálfurinn crumbled in a horrified heap, the night he loaned time.

"I would have taken responsibility," Íþróttaálfurinn blurts out, choked up. He feels like his chest is going to burst. "I could have been faster, I could have spared you―"

"Would you have broken into a prison? Just to―"

"Yes!"

"… oh." A pause. An inhale. A glimmer of understanding. "Shit, you do care."

The hard edge of the clavicle bumps into his teeth, muffling him, as Glanni's arms come up around his head, forceful, almost harsh. Íþróttaálfurinn breaks.

"If I had listened―if only I had been closer, my crystal would have told me―and instead I was so late, and you were almost killed… I wanted to be there for you―and I couldn't―"

"Hush," Glanni orders. "You aren't responsible for me; I can look out for myself. Well… most of the time." He huffs a chuckle, talking of self-reliance with a challenge in his eye, as though daring for him to tell him, sure, and look at how you ended up. "If it wasn't my fault, it wasn't yours either. It's not on you, Íþró. It's not on you."

"Why are you reassuring me?" he says, with an edge of whine in his voice. And the relief is there, damn it. It's a weight that floats off, to hear a human say he doesn't have power of life and death and decision over him.

"Because I'm here, and―I'm the one you've got?" Glanni says, in English, altering oddly what Íþróttaálfurinn whispered into his hair that night, like the language of care was as foreign as a foreign tongue, and couldn't be spoken in the common words between them. Too close, too knowing. "If neither of us is fine, and we're the only ones here, then we have to make do, right?"

He pictures the two of them, cut away from the present, meeting in the place his lost hours went. Glanni seems again a giant in his eyes, so tall and beautiful, with his dark hair and the mournful grey in his eyes. So brave, and fragile. He hesitates, his thumb barely daring to stroke the edge of Glanni's jaw.

"You aren't such a bad pick," he says.

"No, I… really am. Probably… the worst pick."

"Now who's flattering himself?" he teases. Then, he shoots for reassurance, and lands on a plea, "I don't care, really. Just let me help, without all that in the way. Let me be selfish."

And there it is, the glass in his eyes, that breakable thing so raw, so close to the surface, looking back at him bare and afraid. It isn't the thing to say to human men, who loathe feeling small and breakable, who cannot bear to be reminded of their own fragility.

"You are so bad at selling time," Glanni tells him, with a huffed laugh and some hopeful warmth glinting in his eyes. "Especially your own."

"Consider it another Christmas present, then," he says. Briefly, he wonders what sort of hero has he become, wrapping time like a gift. "Let's go back to sleep?"

Glanni nods. Shyer than before, stripped of its lustre of confidence, a long hand curls slow around his. It doesn't feel rough anymore.

"You shouldn't have to do this, really," Glanni mutters, with all the firmness he can muster at the moment, and no little amount of guilt filtering through. "It's fucking Christmas. You were already busy sulking tonight. Lost in your coal mines and shit."

Íþróttaálfurinn snorts, adjusting his position slightly on the narrow couch. "I wasn't sulking."

"And here you are, instead," Glanni continues, ignoring him. "Patching up insomniac outlaws, then spooning them out of their misery, feeling guilty about shit you have no business feeling guilty over…"

Are you sure about this, Glanni has already asked him, at least five or six times.

Yes, absolutely, he replied unflinchingly, as the man lay so tense in his hold he feared his body might be asking to be let go, that this might be too much, with him pressed up against his back like this.

"Don't worry about it." Haltingly, he smoothens down Glanni's sweater where it bunches up on his side, feeling the frayed fabric and the tension underneath. "It's what I do."

Glanni cranes his neck to face him, faint blush and tired, over-bright eyes doing nothing to undermine the sheer scepticism on his face.

"Okay, usually with less spooning," he says, and thank the Elders, Glanni cracks a smile. "That's only for my worst enemy."

"You won't be able to fix it like this every time, though," he says, sobering immediately. "Someday you won't be here, or," his voice pinches, dying away in a breath, "or it won't be enough. And then I―"

"I know," he reassures. "But if something works for now, no harm in using it. We can figure out the rest when the time comes."

The man turns back, breathing out, his hands gesturing over the edge of the couch.

"But why," Glanni asks, voice full of so much incomprehension still, it makes him ache. "Why do this for me? You're into me, but don't want sex. You feel guilty, but this won't appease it. I'm in more debt with you than I've ever been, but you say you owe me, and want nothing in return―I don't get it."

"What did you think I—?"

"I don't know," the man mumbles, "some weird sort of guilt-induced watered down pity-fuck… or something."

"Oh dear, no."

"A pity-spoon?"

"Glæpur."

He is distracted for a moment with the way in which, even with how alien the language of affection seems to be for the man, he turned in his arms and let them trace his side as he turned, grazing the dip of his ribcage. Simple, natural, like breathing.

"This is not a favour," he says, gently pulling closer. "Or pity. Or anything of the sort. I just want to do it. I would want to do it anyway. Whenever you like… if you'd like. But for now, you said it helps, and I want to help."

He's starting to understand how things work, in the harsh shadowy world Glanni inhabits, where everything deals in debt and onus, and kindness has no place but as a calculated favour. He's grateful, actually, that the man is letting him take care of him. It's a favour for him, in a way. But an admission like that… it's a present for another Christmas.

"So what, do I just―ask?" Glanni says, like it's ridiculous. "Hey, Íþró, I'm having a hard time, come cradle me in your strong hero arms, all night, without a single naughty thought crossing your mind? Save me from my own bad choices, kiss all the nightmares away?"

Íþróttaálfurinn snorts. "Yes," he manages, somehow, to deadpan. "That's precisely what you do."

"This isn't―" Glanni starts, serious. "Íþró, this isn't the kind of thing I can just ask for."

"You could make a gesture," the elf says, putting the aside all the painful whys that rise in him. "Use a code-word. Just maybe remember it, this time."

The doubts don't leave the man's face, even masked with the irreverent sneer he pulls. He tries a few increasingly ridiculous code-words, but Íþróttaálfurinn doesn't miss the way he still twitches in tension every time one of them shifts.

"Whenever I like, you say. As in, it would be the same to you if I had, like, a broken leg?" he asks, then. "If I got ran over, or shot, or stabbed―you would take care of it just the same?"

The unthinkable looms above them, scary and monstrous, a spectre but stronger still, grazing them with its invading, coaly hands.

"Even a paper-cut, Glæpur," Íþróttaálfurinn assures, curving in protectively, sending out a hope that none of those ever happen. In a careful understatement, he says, "I just… you know, prefer to have you all in one piece, in general. In the smallest amount of pain possible. Or none, preferably. And hold you because you feel like being held. That'd be neat, too."

He's the one rambling now, his eyes downcast even though the man has his back to him again. He pauses, and Glanni doesn't turn to sneer at him. Maybe, the absence of a pain quota to fulfil before receiving closeness is too alien a concept, the final straw in this night of strangeness.

"… huh," Glanni says only.

Then, under Íþróttaálfurinn's hands, limb by limb, all the tension melts away. Glanni lets out a sigh that sounds like he had been holding his breath for hours.

Íþróttaálfurinn draws a sigh of relief of his own, and leans in, to kiss him lightly behind the ear. "Away go the nightmares."

Glanni lifts a hand and traces the edge of his hairline, shivering. "S-so, why do you kiss here all the time? Is it a thing?"

All the time? "It's… where the tip of your ear would be, if you were an elf."

"Sorry I only got lame round ears to offer."

Íþróttaálfurinn coughs. "They… they're pretty charming, actually."

"… huh."

After a pause, he finds his voice again.

"Listen, if I can just… ask," Glanni starts, haltingly, like he's getting used to a seriously ludicrous idea, "can I ask you to―could you…" He nudges down the collar of his shirt. "Can you send them away from here, too?"

If only I could, Íþróttaálfurinn thinks, touched. Now, he is the seiðman, banishing evil through his touch alone. If only.

He bows his head and places a slow, careful kiss on Glanni's shoulder. The man gasps, curling in on himself, clutching his forearm tight with all of his long fingers, keeping them both anchored. His pulse is racing, panicked wings trapped in his cradling hands. This must be too much, he thinks. An elf can't make a good seiðman.

"Should I…?"

Glanni is silent. He answers only when Íþróttaálfurinn makes to pull away.

"… no," he murmurs, pressing back into him. "Please."

Íþróttaálfurinn kisses his back until he's trembling too hard for him to control the pressure, and his lips tingle from the herbal tang of the salve. Then, he just holds, and strokes, and soothes, as they both lie speechless and heaving, scared of the boundary just stepped over, tall as a cliff behind them.

After a while, Glanni speaks again.

"I haven't cried since the last time I saw your stupid face," he tells him, half sullen, half like he's expecting praise.

"I get that a lot," Íþróttaálfurinn says, and the man makes a choked noise, like a wet guffaw. "How do you feel?"

"Like shit. But also… I don't know, lighter."

"… thank you," Íþróttaálfurinn says, once more, without knowing why.

The man snorts. "The hell?"

"Our interests do align, after all," Íþróttaálfurinn murmurs, trying to deflect his embarrassment. "I was lost in my coal mines tonight, even before seeing you." He glances up at the snowfall, now visible out the cleared window. "So, really, you're the one that helped me."

"That makes no fucking sense," Glanni says earnestly, though his voice is cracking, still reeling with the experience. "But it's awfully convenient, so I'll take it."

Íþróttaálfurinn grins. "Good."

"So, this is not only the first―but also the weirdest Christmas present I've ever given," he laughs. Íþróttaálfurinn can't help but shift closer, curving over him, body an arch of kindness.

"You're going to have a hard time topping it, next year," he says.

It might have been a mistake, a shot in the dark, a shot in the future. He falls quiet, swallowing.

Slowly, Glanni turns all the way in his arms, pushing against him until Íþróttaálfurinn rolls on his back, throwing the covers in disarray.

"If the game is over now, what―" Glanni says haltingly, brushing the dried tear-tracks across the bridge of his nose. "Now I don't know what's left for us."

Ideas crowd the elf's mind, uncalled for. Rosy visions of the future, redemption and collaboration, and snowflakes in Glanni's eyelashes. He daren't express any of them. Not now, not yet. Not with everything still so fragile, held in balance by the snow-bright, cocooning darkness, by the weight of their confessions.

"I consider the truce on-going," Íþróttaálfurinn says, pulling the covers up around Glanni's shoulders, as the man gingerly settles on his chest. "I won't call it off until you are back on your feet―and don't you try and fight me on this."

"… I wasn't gonna."

"Then, what's left is you, and rest and healing, and all the choices you can still make, when the time comes. Friendship, trust if you find it. Care―whatever it is we're doing now, if you will have it. Not asking anything of you, nor putting you in debt."

"Friendship," Glanni says, voice low, like uttering perjury. "Petty charm, I sure can do. Hell, I came back because I wanted to see if the city would have me, even without your help." A pause, in which the man has the grace to drop his eyes and look a little ashamed, if only for show. "But real friendship? I really don't know."

"Then let me lighten your worldview, for once," he says. "No one fell for your petty charm. The children really care, they talk about you all the time. The Mayor told me himself he has faith in your future choices. Nobody wants you to feel like you're overstaying. Everyone is rooting for you."

"Are you?"

"I am first in line." He allows himself a tentative smile. "I would never leave my dear nemesis behind."

Glanni gives him a sidelong glance, and Íþróttaálfurinn's ears don't fail to betray him and heat up until they burn.

"I don't know how it works, any of this," he sighs. "I'm out of my depth. I keep thinking, what the fuck are you doing, accepting all this kindnesswilly-nilly? Like I'm just getting tangled with another whole breed of loanshark."

"I'm afraid, too," Íþróttaálfurinn whispers. "I don't think I'm supposed to get this personal with the towns in my care. But I can't help it―Latibær is special to me. And everyone in it. And you."

"Heroes and villains," Glanni whispers back, pensively.

A couple of minutes pass in silence, the elf counting heartbeats, the man deep in thought. Long enough for Íþróttaálfurinn to start to wonder how is Glanni fitting his feet under the cover, lying halfway down such a short couch. They must be freezing, he thinks, searching them with his own and then tugging until Glanni folds his knees higher, and lets him fit them between his shins.

"Alright," Glanni sighs, who apparently allowed this entire manoeuvre without really noticing, absentmindedly following Íþróttaálfurinn's nudging. "I… I guess I could try… not being the worst pick ever. Where do I start?"

"Staying in this bed until morning, for example. Maybe―if I can make a wild suggestion―even sleep."

The man gives a little, sheepish shrug. "I see my fame still precedes me."

After that, he stays quiet for another long while. Maybe he was taken aback by the directness, maybe he's calculating his next move. Maybe, he's just as anxious as he says, just as anxious as Íþróttaálfurinn feels.

"So we aren't orphans anymore," Glanni says, almost bluntly. But the sentence still inflects, lifting at the end in a subtle, uncertain question mark. "We don't need to leave. We can stay here. Both of us, we got adopted."

Íþróttaálfurinn huffs out a single, teary chuckle. "We keep getting last minute Christmas presents."

"Seems we both lucked out, in the end."

The snow falls outside, soft now, the blizzard giving space to the vast and silent, to the seeds sleeping hidden. Íþróttaálfurinn, mind hazing into relaxation, allows himself a slow, affectionate squeeze. Surrounded in terrible moments, this one moment crystalizes in his mind as a crux of perfection.

"Your heart is trying to escape," Glanni tells him, fingers splaying slow in the middle of Íþróttaálfurinn's chest. Without any armour on, his broad palm is warm as a pool of sunlight. He is suddenly aware that this is the first time they are so close without any leather in between.

"It's nothing," he hurries to say, spying the worried stillness of the hand, Glanni's body starting to draw back even though he hasn't moved. "I'm just… happy. And incredulous."

"… huh."

The couch is stiff under Íþróttaálfurinn's back, their bodies squeezed tight in the narrow space. Yet, they fit, warm and slotting together in unexpected comfort, like they were always meant to cradle each other in warmth, encouraging the restoring sleep that tugs at their eyelids.

"I'm going to have to get you something else too, next year," Glanni murmurs, between a yawn and a slow, pleased stretch, leaning his chin on his folded arms. "I mean, aside from the unmitigated pleasure of my company."

Íþróttaálfurinn lets out a soft huff. "I liked the chamomile," he mumbles, already drifting off. "I like that you made it. No lemon, next time."

He feels Glanni's shoulders vibrate with laughter.

"That's not a present present. How about this." And quietly, he croons, "Baby, I've been here before, I've seen this room and I've walked this floor." He glances up, drawing the attic into his intimate, whispered solo, summoning playfulness out of thin air, easy as breathing. "I used to live alone before I knew ya."

Then he leans over, and kisses him light on the lips. It is a hesitant, fragile thing, dry and soundless. Not red or tangy, not desperate, not delirious enough to be forgotten. There is no tide of emotion filling Íþróttaálfurinn's heart, but rather an ebbing, quiet stillness, like a sea made oil-smooth by the night. He breathes out, and the restlessness exhales out of him all at once, melted away, banished.

"Perfect," he whispers, and he can feel Glanni beaming, even with his eyes closed.

His fingers move slow as he drifts to sleep, through the short black hair that catches the glow of the white sky, soft like wind-swept grass. He holds his treasure in his arms, hears him sigh that peaceful, humming note.

And the sacred forest of overhead beams whispers, hallelujah.

Notes: Yes they are actually gonna sleep this time. (!)
Just the epilogue left!

Chapter title from The XX's Say Something Loving.