damedechance - Tumblr blog

damedechance · 6 days

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maybe they didn't kiss but *I'm* giving you the biggest and messiest kiss for this one.

P.S. the title is a banger as always

unrequited (terrifying!)

pairing: elain archeron x lucien vanserra rating: t (for too bad they don't kiss in this one) wc: 2.5k almost primary tag: love realisation, laufey - from the start, love is driving me a bit insane

read on ao3 or proceed under the cut

There’s a thin line between infatuation and obsession. A thin thin line.

Elain isn’t sure on which side of it she stands when it comes to Lucien Vanserra.

“There’s our foxling!” Cassian calls, after Feyre and a toddling Nyx open the River House doors to the courtier. He’s wearing green again. Emerald, not sage like last time. Elain adds it to the mental list she maintains, of colours she can’t ever look at without thinking of him. The velvet couch beneath her feels hot, or maybe that’s just her.

There’s half a smile caught at the edge of his mouth, hinting at teeth as he steps into Feyre’s arms. Elain isn’t envious of the way her sister’s arms circle his broad shoulders, or how Lucien leans into them, his own arms wrapping around her back. It was too easy to forget how much Feyre cared for him, of the bond they forged in darkness and the weight of mountains on their shoulders. Elain could see it, like ivy coiled and climbing around a them both. If he held her like that, touched her like that, she might break. Or do something stupid. Like sigh, or melt.

“Lovely as always, Feyre.” He says, pulling back to place a kiss on her sister’s cheek.

“Speak for yourself! Your hair’s longer.” Feyre picks an auburn braid twisted over his shoulder. It is longer, unbound strands almost reaching his waist. There are smaller braids trailed through it, each one sealed with a golden cuff, catching in the faelight, or the setting sun, or the hearth fire. Had he styled them himself? An image springs to mind of Lucien sat before a polished mirror, candle flickering in the reflection. There’s an unmade bed behind him, sheets soft in the memory, as his fingers twist sections around each other, securing with thin leather and gold clasps. In her mind, he’s topless, for some reason. Perhaps he hadn’t been alone. Elain shakes it off, nails biting into the fabric of her skirts.

“Things tend to grow over time,” He steps back, reaching down to ruffle Nyx’s hair, fingers carding through dark silk. Elain knows just how soft it is. She’d bathed him this morning. “Just like this one.”

Nyx babbles at the attention, speaking nonsense noises that not even she can understand. He reaches up for Lucien’s hand and grips his finger between chubby palms. Lucien lets himself be pulled, dragged down until he’s kneeling, still taller than Nyx’s toddling height. Feyre’s smile could’ve lit the entire court.

Things grow over time. Oh, she could write essays on that particular subject. Or several particularly revealing diary entries, at least.

“Just wait until you see him fly.”

Elain had felt Rhysand’s arrival long before the other’s, apparently. Even Cassian started at his interruption from the top of the stairs. He takes the steps a mite quicker than usual, and offers Lucien his own greeting — raising him from the floor before pulling him in for a swift embrace. Rhysand’s warming to Lucien had been inevitable. Each and every one of his inner circle had taken to treating him with something akin to kindness in the years since Hyburn’s defeat and Koschei’s fall. Not surprising. That’s just how he is.

“I dare say I’ll get to witness that treat later,” He muses as Nyx runs back to his mother, gripping at Feyre’s skirts, demanding her attention as he does when he feels he’s been too long without it. “And how are you fairing, Rhysand? Fatherhood still keeping you occupied?”

“In ways I could’ve never anticipated. Is Eris still—”

“A cunt?” His laugh is whiskey and molasses. Poison and its balm. It doesn’t hurt but Elain steels for it, as always. The weight in her chest begging to be felt. “Of course. I doubt he’ll surprise us by changing anytime soon.”

“I’ll tell him you said that.” Azriel calls from the chaise, furthest away from the fire, strategically placed to view the whole room from his seat. The circlet on his wrist is new, a wreath of golden flame atop his scars.

“I’ve no doubt you will.” Rhys rolls his eyes. “Can I get you a drink, friend?”

“Or three.”

Elain hates that she wants him so badly. That the mere sight of him curls through her like warm oil and smoke, shrouding rational thought in delirium. Desire is not something so unfamiliar. And yet, if he knows of how she dreams of thicker fingers when touching herself, he does not let on.

No. He barely even looks her way. Conversation flows without her, thankfully.

In another time, it would’ve been a blessing: To be free of his attention, his expectation. The absence of his gaze is a weightless feeling, similar only to the first crack of thunder after hours of rain, a crack through the silence, a secret finally told. Relief, if anything. That, in itself, should be a comfort. Her mate cannot give her the comfort she needs, but he allows her this.

But somehow it’s worse. Freefall, instead of freedom. Nightmares wake her most nights, the breath stolen from her lungs seconds before screams think of forming. The craving for gravity roots in her gut like convolvulus coiling around the golden tether of their souls. It calls to her, the bond, so she lets the weeds thrive until it’s nothing but a rope of green, glowing from the inside out, begging it to silence. The phantom tugs between her ribs a memory.

It always burns through by morning. Rich and vibrant and gold.

“Elain,”

She whips around, standing, skirts still bunched in her fists. A curl falls free from the updo Nesta had arranged it in before she departed with the Valkyries, all plaits and pins and far too elaborate for something as informal as this. Too delicate. Azriel casts her a look from his perch. Ever the spectator, rarely the participant. A shadow curls around his forearm, tapping patterns against his forearm in a code she doesn’t recognise. “Honey wine?”

He doesn’t say are you okay? or lost again? like when they used to disappear in each others company instead of playing house with the others; talking for hours in the gardens, sat in the rafters of the house of wind, in the library at the river house. Becoming fey had been an isolating experience — nothing made sense then, little more makes sense now — but Azriel had helped in a way. He was her choice, her first friend.

The tilt to his head, the knife at his belt. He’ll carve the side he wants to pick.

Elain shakes away the wispy threads of a vision. A golden thread, wrapped in soft vines, hums in her chest. There’s no shifting that one, unfortunately. What’s most unfortunate is she’s not 100% sure if that’s a problem anymore.

“Please.” It comes as a croak. She clears her throat, as if that will help. “Please, that sounds—”

“I’ve actually had some spiced cider imported from our personal cellars back in Autumn,” Lucien starts, seemingly to Rhysand and not her, and yet saving her from the spotlight nonetheless. Cassian, Rhysand, Feyre — hells, even Azriel all look towards the emissary. “Courtesy of Eris, I’ll admit. Although, it is a childhood favourite of mine. Best served hot, if you’re able.”

Childhood to the fey is clearly much different to that of the human realms.

“It would be rude to refuse,” Rhys, a smirking Feyre at his side, flicks his hand at the table. A magic trick so practiced, the clink of the glasses on the table is no longer a surprise.

Cinnamon, cloves, ginger, anise steaming in heavy plumes of steam — It’s him. It smells like him.

A warm glass is placed in her hand and—oh, how stupid she must look staring off into the place settings, attempting to distract herself from draining the whole thing. Bronzed leaves twined with ears of corn and barley, curls of pumpkin vines threaded between goblet and plate and candlestick. Brown and red and yellow and orange and gold. Always gold. Always in her periphery. Always watching.

Her eyes slip shut, brows furrowing slightly, intentionally underplayed. Best to fake a migraine than to admit the truth. Best to fake anything else than to admit she was wrong all this time.

She’s not been able to look at the colors of change since Eris’ coronation to High Lord of Autumn. On the last night of fall’s end, atop the decorated tombs of their ancestors, only one left noticeably bare. The High Lord wore a crown of oak, thorns and nightshade, set aflame at the last touch of sunset. He looked resplendent, born for the throne, but Lucien— he’d braided strands of spun gold into his hair, then. As usual, she ached to touch them. It’s worse now. Seeing him each time. It’s worse.

It’s too late. A voice whispers. Her voice. Viscous poison in her head. You’ve made your intent clear. You have been too cold, too distant. You can’t love him. You can’t love him, you barely know him. You owe each other nothing.

A smaller voice whispers back. You owe it to each other to try.

“A toast,” Rhys starts, never one to let silence poison his home. “To old friends—”

Elain can see him behind her eyes. You’re my mate he says, as the world crashes around them. A bronze skinned fae with dark coiled hair and warmed amber eyes stands over his shoulder, eclipsed in an aura of gold. She is not real, Elain can tell. But at the time— You’re my mate. The fae female presses a kiss to his shoulder and Lucien doesn’t even flinch. She drifts away, but no one says a thing. Not even him, eyes full of an emotion she can’t quite face. Revelation is the closest she’s ever come to deciphering it. She’s seen it since. Too many times.

Somewhere in the recesses of her closet is the cloak he shrouded her in.

It no longer smells like him, like woodsmoke and leafmould.

She wonders if he thinks about it like she does. If he notices its absence in his wardrobe, or misses its gilded collar, brass buttons and plush embroidered lining — now frayed from how often her fingers passed over it. If she returned it after all this time, would he spend the same nights memorising the changes? Evidence that she thought of him, or that she cared at all.

“—and new ones—” Feyre adds, a babbling Nyx muttering over her. There’s a touch of concern to her tone but Elain ignores it. Has to.

She’s still trapped to the visions behind her eyelids. He sent her music, bird song, poetry, sunlight. From summer coasts to winter peaks, vicious overgrowth of untapped spring to autumn’s ever falling leaves. If he meant to, she’d never asked. Never even thought to query it. Too focused on avoiding the pull in her gut to be near him. Feeding the hesitation that set in whenever it was clear he would be visiting. He was not entitled to her attention because some divine power bound them. She was not entitled to the grip of his hands on her thighs the gift of his private smiles, the press of his palm against her lower stomach—

Even if she wants it.

The decision isn’t one of impulse, not really.

Not often did she give their bond the benefit of the doubt. Not often did she feel along its coiled threads, each one another tie — it was not just one single entity, but thousands. Thousands of minuscule strands, thin as spiderweb. They drip and reform and writhe at her attention, signing as if praised, as if a disciple and she a god. Not often did she thank its weight. But she held it now, inside her mind. Squeezed just a little. Just enough.

She opens her eyes, still only half focused on the table decorations.

“—and whatever they—”

“New beginnings.”

Rhysand is interrupted which, surprisingly, is a rare occurrence. Even Nesta had settled into a kind of quiet distaste for his theatrics come family dinner rather than outward ones, but Nesta is somewhere high on the Illyrian steppes, sword in her hand, sweat on her brow. A promise curled behind silver. War fresh queen come reap the soul, and once razed earth combine them whole.

It’s not until she takes a breath that Elain even registers it was her. She was the one interrupting. Mind half curled around memories and prophecy, too preoccupied to stop the thought from slipping past. Rhysand looks her way but she can’t quite meet the question in his eyes. To answer would be her end. Her destruction.

There’s a bundle of ash samaras behind a young pumpkin, tucked into the elaborate table setting. It’s the first time she’s seen them since crossing the wall and, absurdly enough, something inside her clicks. Of simpler times. When life passed by in hazy slow motion. They used to play with them as children, throwing clutches into the air and watching as they spiraled to the ground, like autumn snowfall. She can’t even touch them now. Not without pain.

But sometimes, it’s worth it. It’s all worth it.

Elain clears her throat.

“To new beginnings.” It comes more alert— assertive, even. Although, still rough as ash bark in her throat.

The bond in her chest, the one she’d ignored all this time, tugs in response.

“New beginnings.” Lucien says, in the first words he’d said to her in months— years, perhaps. An echo. A prayer.

“New beginnings!” Cassian raises his glass, then Azriel, Feyre and Rhys, then him. Her throat aches when she looks to him, unready to meet his eyes just yet just in case she can’t tear away this time. Instead, Elain focuses on a broach on his lapel. Hyacinth blooms inlaid with gold and pearl, catching in the fey lights, shimmering. It’s beautiful.

He’s smiling. This much she knows.

The hot spiced apple tastes like a kiss.

#elucien #elucien fanfic #elain archeron #lucien vanserra #acotar fanfiction

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