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lastleggysee · 2 years

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Substitute Lovers - Sage Lesath (pt. 2)

Okay so I couldn't get Last Legacy off my mind and ended up writing more Sage/Reader (+ FWB!Felix) so here's that. It's also a slow burn now I guess.

Part 1 here!

Word count: 6,635

Warnings: Mentions of blood, slight NSFW (nothing graphic imo), minors DNI

Felix returned, black-clad and brooding, two days later than he initially stated he would.

Before this, Anisa was the only one who worried about his delay, insisting to go on a search for him by sunset on the first day. Sage offered his assistance if she was offering a bounty, mumbling something about “bringing the brat back before midnight”, but you managed to hold their reins until his arrival.

On the morning of Felix’s return, Sage found you reading on the balcony, lightly stroking Stella’s sleeping form on your lap.

“Some balls you’ve got - don’t they teach kids to stay away from monsters where you’re from?” He chuckled, sliding down the wall to sit down next to you.

“Oh Sage, it’s just a book. It’s not going to hurt you.” You don’t look up from the page you’re on. Since arriving in Astrea, your magic largely showed itself in bursts of instinct. You’d managed to familiarize yourself with small spells, party tricks and mildly-impressive-but-hardly-lethal cantrips mostly, but more complex incantations alluded you. It felt like trying to learn a new language while simultaneously running a triathlon, frustrating and exhausting, but you devoted time to bettering your skills nonetheless.

A simple truth belied your determination: You’re the weakest link of the New Starsworn. And if you knew it, the Lord of Shadows and all his creepy-crawlies knew it too.

“I don’t know, you smacked me pretty good with one the last time. What was it again - Transfiguration for Tactile Learners?”

Sage watched your brow furrow deeply. As if on cue, Stella stands up on your lap, stretching impressively, before scampering off into the castle. Your gaze follows her and lingers long after she’s gone.

Do you stare at Felix like that, when he leaves your room? After the blush has finally faded from your cheeks and you’re brushing your hair back into place; after your now-hoarse voice has bid him goodnight. How long do you spend looking at the door after he’s gone? How easily do you drift off to sleep after picturing his face in the ceiling above your bed?

But you turn to face him when he calls your name, more often than not, and Sage has never been the type of man to discount small victories.

This time, though, he does have to call your name twice before you return his attention, face only a few millimeters shy of a scowl. “Lighten up, you’ll get wrinkles if you walk around with a face like that.”

“The only thing here that’ll give me wrinkles is you,” you sigh, reluctantly closing your book.

“Only in your bedsheets, if you’re lucky,” he says. “But now that I’ve got your attention, I could use some help.”

“Oh? I’m so honored,” you roll your head from side-to-side, trying your best to coax out a stubborn crick that keeps itself hidden.

His smile could have melted you then and there, if the wall wasn’t holding you up. The tips of his fangs now exposed, in sharp white contrast to his sun-kissed skin, the way his mouth tilted towards one side as he moved his lips to form his request. You would have agreed to anything he asked, coming from a mouth like that.

“Last night, Anisa got me thinking- I really could use a little extra coin. I’m gonna bag a couple bounties, just enough to pay off my tabs and put some away. I mean, I’m glad to be here and all, but righting wrongs and delivering justice doesn’t really pay the bills.”

“Sage, what bills do-”

He cuts you off. “Tabs add up, but that’s not the point. I’m rusty, literally- I spent half the morning scraping the shit off lefty here.” He thrusts his gauntlet into your face, the image of an overexcited child delivering a handmade macaroni necklace to their teacher, before continuing. “I want to get a few rounds of training in real quick before I go. Just for the afternoon. Unless you’re busy, of course.”

A steady hand over his, and you lower his gauntlet from out of your face. How hasn't he lost an eye yet, walking around with these things all the time?

"I'm yours."

* * *

Your chest is heaving. Sage barely has to put in any effort and before you know it you're flat on your back, the air knocked from your lungs. How brutal must the gym classes in Astrea be, for this to come to him so easily?

It's easy to forget Sage was - is - (does it really matter?) a soldier. That the same hands, wide palms outstretched to you now, have taken lives before. How can he call himself rusty when any fight you're in with him is over in a matter of minutes?

He pulls you up with ease. However, your oxygen-deprived knees aren't quite prepared to resume their duties and support you just yet. You crash into the expanse of Sage's exposed chest, eye-level with a particularly angry-looking raised scar. How powerful could something have been, to have left such a mark on him? You're not sure if you want to know.

"Breathe," he reminds you, strong hands supporting you more than you'd care to admit from underneath your elbows. As if to demonstrate, he inhales deeply through his nose before puckering his lips and exaggeratedly exhaling onto your face, blowing back a few strands of your hair that weren't affixed to your sweat-soaked forehead.

Unable to retort, you follow his instruction, choosing to ignore the insult he added to your pride’s injury. You also choose to ignore his all-too-satisfied laugh as he extricates you from his arms and walks towards the edge of the pool on the outside of your improvised sparring arena. You’re even able to half-ignore the aching in your calves as they protest from overuse.

But try as you might, you’re unable to ignore the way the muscles of his back move as he crouches down to meet the pool, splashing water from his cupped hand onto his face before running that same hand over his scalp. It didn’t help that his usual braid was now perfectly askew, stray strands of pearlescent hair framing his shoulders from behind. No wonder he’s kicking your ass when he’s able to take your breath like this without even touching you. Sage’s fingers idly skim the water in front of him, creating small ripples that playfully catch the sunlight.

“Alright, playtime’s over,” he stands, wiping his hands on the front of his thighs and turning towards you once more. “Not that you haven’t been a lovely punching bag, but I’d better get going while I’ve still got a little daylight ahead of me.”

You want to say something clever, something witty or biting, something about knocking that smug grin off his face, but your words are lost somewhere between the ache in your chest and the thin trails of water running down his. Instead, you nod.

Ever-cavelier, he walks you back to your room at Fathom. His praises of your improved technique (“Who’re you stabbing down when I’m not around?”) are as earnest as his gesture of holding open the door of your room for you when you arrive. He stands in your doorway, perked-up ears grazing the doorframe, and for the first time in your rather long trek back to your chambers, Sage is silent.

He should thank you, he thinks. Should offer to help you stretch, offer to buy you a meal upon his return. Should stop staring at you. Should definitely ignore the gentle working of your fingers through your hair, tying it out of your face. Sage wagers with himself that if he were a smart man, he’d turn around right now and leave - but his eyes remain transfixed on the stubborn tresses of hair clinging to the back of your neck and the ghosting of skin peeking out from the collar of your shirt.

“What’s the holdup? Scared or something?” you hum, kicking your shoes off and into a corner.

His heartbeat quickens. Scared? Absolutely. He didn’t used to think about these things. He’s lived the past five years as an enigma, a shadow, a blood-stained mask held up to the world without anyone to question what was underneath. And you read him so easily.

“No,” of course I am. “Do I look like the type of man that scares easy?” He leans against your doorframe for emphasis. And he’s mostly telling the truth. Sage has never scared easily - about anything in the world outside of this godsdamned room at least.

“Be careful, Sage.” you remind him. He didn’t notice you getting closer until your hand was on the doorknob, form half-hidden behind the heavy door’s wooden frame.

“Oh, you know me. I always use protection.”

“You’re a dog,” you chide, closing the door softly. Sage lets out a mock howl that’s dramatic, even for him, that echoes down the stone hallway as he walks away.

Felix frowns, wondering how a dog could’ve possibly managed to find its way into Fathom, dusting himself off lightly from the portal he just stepped through.

* * *

You dine in your room that night, and the night after that. Your housemates (Castlemates? Comrades? Brothers in arms?) had once again made themselves scarce; only now conveniently showing themselves as you sat down in the kitchen while brewing yourself a cup of tea. Anisa’s visit was short-lived as she sheepishly asked for your help to tighten the straps on the back of her uniform. There must be one hell of a visitor for her to bring out the official colors of the Sunstone Order so early in the morning, but this didn’t surprise you.

What did surprise you, however, was Felix’s voice from across the room asking you to make a cup for him as well soon after Anisa rushed out the door. He looks rough, even for it to be so early in the morning, and his footsteps appear heavy as he slinks towards the counter. Felix nods, not exactly at you, but in your general direction at least, as you sit the heavy-bottomed mug in front of him. You count the seconds between his sips of tea and heavy sighs like thunder following lightning. You focus on your own beverage in a tense silence, waiting for the skies to open up and Felix to reveal the details of his visit home.

“I’ll never understand how Escell managed to ascend to the rank of archmage without the slightest clue of how to brew a decent cup of tea.” His customary slouch appears exaggerated, somehow, giving him the appearance of speaking directly into his cup.

“Beats me. Even in my world, reading tea leaves is pretty common magical practice,” you mutter offhandedly, idly wiping crumbs off the counter. “Maybe he just lied on the application.”

Felix chuckles tersely at this. “Is it, now? Well, I suppose he’s got no excuse then.” He turns the bottom of his mug towards the ceiling, and looks into the cup with curiosity.

“So you’re able to divine what, exactly from the symbology?” Felix is rotating the cup slightly now, his tone pensive. Combined with the far-off look in his eyes, you’re unsure if he actually wants a response or if he’s simply processing this new bit of information out loud. You suppose you can’t blame him, he never seemed to quite grasp the concept of a barista and the duties of the job.

“The future, I think,” your nose scrunches as you dig through the recesses of your memory. “We don’t have fancy magic schools where I’m from, but I don’t know, I think it’s mostly up to interpretation. What feelings you get from what you see more than the symbols themselves.”

“It just feels empty,” Felix’s eyes seem a shade darker as one corner of his mouth raises to form a sardonic smirk. “How fitting.”

He rights his posture to an acceptable level of slouch, clears his throat, and the omen passes. You rise to pour yourself another cup and he’s asking about your studies, Stella’s antics in his absence, your thoughts on the less-than-academic romance novel he lent you a week before his departure - but his eyes linger on the cup for the majority of your conversation. His words expertly sidestep your attempts to inquire about his time away, and eventually you abandon the topic in favor of showing him your novice attempts at a portal spell you’ve been working on.

For the rest of the time you spend together that day, neither of you mention the half-moon indentations etched into his palms.

* * *

Though your drunken conversation with Sage over a week ago still smolders in your memory, you don’t manage to end things with Felix. You would be ashamed of yourself, if you weren’t already so preoccupied with your newest shame: even in a world as fantastical as Astrea, you still manage to find yourself bored more often than you’d care to admit.

You mentioned this idly to Felix one evening, following a particularly enthralling afternoon of arcane research and, lounging on one of the chairs in his study that seemed to be filled with as much dust as cushioning, if not more.

“Doesn’t your family have, I don’t know, a magical amusement park day pass or something? You ask, reluctant to follow suit as Felix flips his way through an impressively heavy tome.

“I haven’t the faintest clue what you just asked me, but if amusement is involved I assure you my family has no part of it.” His chin rests heavily on the heel of his palm, giving his voice a strained tonality. “What sorts of amusements kept you occupied back in your world?”

You avoid his question, reluctant to admit that escaping to the virtual world of Astrea was one of the few pastimes you managed to engage in with any regularity. Instead, you cross the room, ruffling his hair as you pass by him on your way to the door. If he notices your gesture, he doesn’t show it, not looking up from his book even as the heavy door to his study slams shut.

In a valiant effort to fend off the growing sense of sameness (you didn’t realize how much of a difference Sage and his flavor-of-the-day moods and antics made until he’d been gone for a few days), you decided to pay Tulsi a visit.

The sidequest of your evening proved more challenging than you’d care to admit.

And so, you find yourself walking through the dimly-lit streets of Porrima, your mind wandering to a time when Astrea was just a setting in your favorite video game. What did you spend all those hours doing, when the missions were completed? The glow of the moon begins to rise over the western half of the ocean in stark contrast to clouds in the east, casting an iridescent pathway over the water so strongly you could have mistaken it for a bridge, if you didn’t know better.

Not that you knew much better concerning Porrima, all things considered. Your feet felt clumsy walking over the cobblestone streets, as though your bones themselves knew they didn’t belong; that they weren’t ever really meant to walk the paths you’re on. Thankfully, the streets were much less crowded now than they had been during your last excursion with Sage, so you could put on a well enough show of being a native to avoid suspicious eyes. The few stalls still open, manned by sleepy-eyed vendors, appeared even to have lost some of their color under the streetlamp’s lights. Damp, chilled air blowing in from the water leads the lamp’s flames in a precarious dance, casting flickering shadows this way and that. The splendor of the afternoon had been replaced by a still and alluring melancholy. You wonder not if it will rain, but when.

It was on your third wrong turn - taking you past a spectacularly vulgar establishment you approximated to a mystical dive bar before leading to a dead end- that you decided to stop for a break. You sit on the edge of a water fountain and pick at the skin of your thumbs as though the precise memory of Tulsi’s shop was buried somewhere beneath the distressed flesh. Asking for directions tied your stomach into angry knots on your best of days, and you hated to make your status of lone outsider known almost as much as you hated to return to Fathom and gather dust like all of Felix’s old books. Your stomach argues that you should stop into the bar to get a meal (or something close to it), but you know your appetite won’t allow you to put down much. Anisa always scolded you for wasting food. Maybe, if you turned back now, you could find her stash of treats before she returned from her duties.

The steady stream flowing from the fountain behind you washes over your thoughts. You’re unable to make out precise details of the statue’s face, backlit by the moon in a cool white light, but a vase of flowers sits balanced between a large, ornamental pair of horns. Was it a spell or some innate quality of the plants themselves that kept them from withering in the cool air?

The crash of a door opening, a screech of laughter trailing to the nearby alley. It sounds too bright for it to be ringing through a seedy alleyway. Almost eerie, like a bird chirping at midnight.

But you don’t turn your head at the songbird’s calls. Instead, a too-loud and too-familiar voice calls your attention. Of course, where else would fate have him be?

It’s hard for you to focus on their conversation over the pounding in your ears, but they’re making no secret of their intentions with each other. You put a hand on your chest and are almost surprised when you’re not able to feel your emotions ripping their way out from your rib cage underneath your palm. How long had he been back? Was he even planning on returning to Fathom? Had he even spared you a thought?

The alley takes on the dark and guilt-ridden quality of a confessional booth as you give into the masochistic urges to observe. Sage’s partner is nearly as tall as him. They’re shushing him with a finger pressed to his lips, their other hand clasped firmly around the belt on his chest - admiring the same jagged scar you did the last time you saw him. Sage’s eyes, never leaving their face, reflect the dim light as he takes their finger into his mouth. The songbird giggles again, pulling him by his belt in for a kiss. Sage’s hand - where’d he leave his gauntlet? - raises to envelop theirs as his knee slides in between their thighs. His boots are dirty; they’re going to leave marks on the pale fabric of his partner’s skirts.

It’s hard for you to tell whether it was the cold that caused you to lose feeling in your fingers or something else entirely. You abandon the original purpose of your trip, along with the breath you didn’t realize you were holding, and spend nearly all of the change in your pocket on what bags of street cakes were left at a vendor’s booth. They’re stale, half-crumbling in your hand before you’re able to lift them to your mouth. You attempt to dodge holes in the pavement on your way back to Fathom. The moon’s attempt to illuminate your path from behind a wall of clouds is futile, and you trip over uneven stone.

* * *

You track mud into Felix’s study. He’s in essentially the same position you left him in, only with a different book and his legs criss-crossed in his chair.

“Don’t worry, I’m not here to do anything,” you indiscriminately pull a book from his stack and throw yourself onto a cushion on the floor. “I’m just not about to be alone in this creepy mansion when the storm starts.”

Felix at you for a long moment before shaking his head and returning his attention to his book.

You make an earnest effort to make sense of the words in front of you, but descriptions of alchemical techniques throughout the ages begin to blur together after a while. At some point during your absence Felix had opened the heavy curtains, and although you see the sway of trees in the distance it has still yet to rain.

Why does it always seem like you’re just waiting for the bottom to drop out?

Unable to sit still, you begin to straighten up around the room. Papers and what look surprisingly like small animal bones once littering the floor are gathered into a small pile.

Is Sage still in the alley?

You re-shelve what seems like a library’s worth of novels, brushing dust off of them as you go.

Did he go home with them, or will they spend the night at a motel? Sage was looking to pay his tabs, after all.

You find a small bottle of nail polish underneath a pile of blankets.

Had he spent the afternoon with them? Longer?

Felix had been looking for that particular bottle. He must have at least a dozen missing items in this room.

He’s going to give them the wrong impression, spending time with them like that. Sage doesn’t do relationships, you recall from one of your first conversations with him.

You look for somewhere to place it, somewhere Felix won’t lose it again, but the room still seems half-drowned with clutter.

There was no reason for him to have been that tender, to have taken their hand in his like that while he roughly pushed their legs apart with his knee-

You slam the nail polish onto the desk in front of Felix with more force than you’d meant to. Hair falls from his face as he looks up at you again, his expression unreadable.

It’s none of your business. He’s none of your business.

“Well, are you just going to sit there all night?” you huff.

“I was under the impression you didn’t want to have sex,” He doesn’t take his eyes off of you as he closes his book. “Not that I wouldn’t be happy to oblige.”

“Oh, Felix,” you lean down, running your fingers through his dark hair before settling at the nape of his neck. He doesn’t respond, but you don’t question whether or not you’re commanding his attention. You watch his throat rise and fall as he swallows thickly. “If either of us had what we wanted, would we even be here right now?”

* * *

When the first drops of rain begin to drum against the roof, you realize your mistake. Although your bath could have waited until morning, you dreaded the thought of spending the night with sweaty hair stuck to the back of your neck. After a brief debate on whether to try and wait the storm out or not, the tiredness in your bones triumphs over any sense of reason and you brace yourself for the trek back towards the castle.

The warm water of the bath house stood in sharp contrast in your memory to the torrents of cold rain coming down now. By the time you reach the entrance your clothes are soaked. You empty the water from your shoes and abandon them by the entrance, making an effort to wring as much moisture as you can from your saturated attire. The chilled stone against the soles of your feet nearly causes you to leap.

So much of your energy is focused on not falling or freezing that you don’t hear the sound of an additional pair of heavy footsteps over your own muttered curses until they’re too close for comfort. Adrenaline dances with already-intense feelings of aggravation as you ball your hands into fists at your sides. If anyone was going to pick a fight with you, they picked a hell of a night to do so. You turn towards the sound, and almost immediately wish you hadn’t.

“You look awful. Who pushed you in the moat?” Sage laughs, evidently pleased with himself for scaring you. You avoid his face. It’s difficult to see him in the dim light, but you’re able to make out that he’s put his gauntlet on again.

“It’s the middle of the godsdamned night, everyone looks awful.” You turn away from him, shame creating a not-unpleasant burning in your cheeks.

“The storm makes it feel later than it is,” he jogs forward to fall in step with you. “But I’ve got a decent internal clock - it’s still a few hours until sunrise.”

He spent most of the night with them, then. The chill makes its way to your chest.

“I had a hell of a time out there - got enough to settle my debts and then some,” he continues. “But don’t worry, I didn’t forget about owing you from that card game the other night. I was gonna wait until morning, but if you’re up there’s no time like the present.”

“Keep it.” A pebble digs into your heel, but you don’t stop to shake it off.

“Limited time offer, I’d take it if I were you.” he purrs. “I might just find something to spend it on by morning. Or someone, you never know.”

The air around you falls too-still for a moment, louder than the thunder roaring above you. You’re not sure when your hands started shaking, rage like ants pouring from a flooded pile barely concealed by the sleeves of your shirt. You mutter something about where he can shove his money, if he even has it at all. Even with his long strides, you’re walking faster than him now.

“What’s your problem?” Sage reaches out, catching you by the hand. “Gods - you’re freezing!”

Instinct kicks in. A sharp jerk and you snatch your hand from his, the immediate absence of his warmth feeling criminal. You bury your hand in your pocket, turning from him once more. His eyes dig into your back for a few steps, and then the feeling is replaced by heavy fabric draping over your shoulders.

You stop mid-stride, the bottom of the red fabric of Sage’s coat pooling around your bare feet. The breath you take in smells overwhelmingly of him. Even with your still-wet clothes stuck to your body, it’s the warmest you’ve felt all day. It’s soothing. It’s infuriating.

“Coins are in the pocket,” he snaps, impossibly still from behind you. “You’re welcome.” Lightning flashes outside, and your shadows briefly merge, stretching further into the hallway. How fitting for even his shadow to have consumed all of you so quickly.

A dozen half-formed responses float to the surface of your brain, but your energy is focused elsewhere. You will your arms to shake off the coat, but your limbs don’t respond. You will your legs to push your shivering form forward, but you remain affixed to the spot. You take in slow, deep breaths, hoping to calm the rabid creature hammering against the inside of your ribcage. He’ll be the death of you.

“I don’t want your coat, Sage.” You pour as much venom into your voice as you can, but its echo down the corridor sounds feeble. And you didn’t, truly. Since arriving in Astrea you’d yet to see him wash it, and a dozen small tears and imperfections make themselves known as you glance down at the sleeves. Either dried blood or smeared jam marred the outer forearm (Did he throw down with a baker?), infinitely less offensive than the heat of him which clung to the fabric.

He snorts. “You look like a half-drowned rat, I wanted you to have it.” The juxtaposition he creates with the harshness of his tone and the compassionate gesture leave you at a loss for words.

He didn’t do this to hurt you. There was no way for him to know how much damage his needle-sharp warmth caused as it seeped into your skin from the fabric. He didn’t recognize his kindness for the ambush it was. To him, it’s just his coat. You’re being mean. You’re being unfair to him. It’s just his coat, and that’s all it should be for the both of you. His footsteps ring heavy in your ears, and for a moment it’s hard for you to differentiate between them and your own heartbeat. He stops in front of you, cupping his hands over your shoulders.

“Respectfully, Sage, I didn’t ask-” you begin, tone as cold as you can muster. All lessons on telepathy thus far had proved fruitless and frustrating, but his intentions are exact. You meet his eyes, severe and caustic as molten gold, and cringe slightly.

“You didn’t have to. Don’t have to.” he cuts you off. You don’t have to thank me either, but it’d be nice.

“Look, I get it. Shit happens. If you gotta be mad, then fine. Be mad with me. I can take it-” Sage stops himself when you scoff, taking the inside of his cheek between his teeth for a moment. His mind oscillates between a call to escalate the situation - he’d barely said a word to you and you were already working on ripping him a new one - and something else entirely. The tremble of your shoulders underneath his hands breaks his resolve.

“Whatever, be mad then. I’ll be sorry if that’s what you want, alright?” Sage sighs. “But just keep the damn coat. I’ll be sorry, you be warm. Then we both go off and have a shitty rest of our night in peace.”

Sage hasn’t been proud of himself, truly and sincerely proud - not the self-satisfied garbage he spits out onto everyone around him - many times in his life, but these words he works out over his waning patience are enough for him to add another tally to his count. Especially over the past few years, he’s been so used to surrendering to whatever anger comes up and allowing it to consume him. You’ve talked with him about it, and he’s repeated your words to himself in the mirror more days than he hasn’t. It’s so easy to give into the scent of blood in the water; to bite and kick and spit out cruel words, to win. He’s not happy about it, but if he’s got to lose to anyone, he’s glad it’s you.

Too incensed to thank him, too proud to look away before he does. His tone has a finality to it, commanding the conversation’s conclusion without saying so, but his hands have yet to leave your shoulders. Heat from his palms has worked its way into your tense muscles. What an inconvenience it will be when he removes them and finds that you’ve utterly melted into him. What a waste of an act of kindness. What a shame.

Part of you that wants to dive past the point of no return, to tell him how you smolder under his touch, to ask his forgiveness in all languages you speak and that you don’t, to pour every inch of yourself out onto his shoes and beg him to fill you back up. Part of you that wants to hang him by the rafters with his tail and never look back. You do neither, and can hear the laugh of whatever god is out there that’s given you these feelings as the sadistic punchline to their cosmic joke. Their angels say: You’re being mean. You’re being unfair to them. The god replies in the deep breath you draw to steady yourself.

“That was pretty cold of me, wasn’t it?” you say. He doesn’t answer. “Pretty frigid even, I guess you could say.”

He accepts your unspoken armistice as a withering light returns to his eyes. No hard feelings.

“I’m not mad at you, Sage.” you know he picks up on your lie as soon as you say it, but he doesn’t call you on it. His gaze is steady, and for a moment you have to remind yourself that he demonstratively doesn’t have the ability to read your mind. “Not that I couldn’t find something to change that, if I wanted to.”

“You’re sure about that?” The way Sage phrases it is not a question.

“Absolutely,” you reply, rolling your shoulders back and straightening your slouch. An embarrassing CRACK erupts from your protesting joints. “For starters, who buys a coat with no way to close the front?”

Sage half-chuckles, half-hums. “There’s buttons on the inside, I just don’t see the point in using ‘em is all.”

All-too-eager hands immediately seize the opportunity to fasten closed the front of your borrowed garments, but frustration soon blooms in you once more as you struggle. Sage attempts to direct you - something about a flap near the seam on the left side - but your labors yield no fruits.

“Need some help?” He doesn’t know how, if, he wants you to answer. You shrug, still fiddling with the edges of his coat, and Sage holds his breath before leaping into the deep end.

He drops to one knee in front of you, smoothing your - his - (it looks better on you, anyway) lapel between his index and thumb as he goes. You freeze, eyes wide, your hands balling into loose fists at your chest - now almost level with his ears. The air feels thick as you inhale.

“May I?” He asks, his voice half-drowned out by a clap of thunder, half by your racing pulse in your ears. You nod almost imperceptibly, eyes searching in vain for something, anything, to focus on instead of the way he’s fixated on the fabric sitting just to the right of your navel.

For a moment, Sage considers making a joke - asking if you’re planning on knocking his eyes out, a quip about what a shame it’d be to hit a man while he’s down - but the words die in his throat. Your chest rises and falls softly, and his ears twitch slightly as the breath of your exhale tickles his hair there.

He pulls the fabric tighter around you, fingers easily finding the buttons hidden behind tattered seams. Sage has fought for more of his life than he hasn’t. He’s broken fingers, almost lost some, even, more times than he could count. Used his hands and swords and whatever else he could find as a weapon. He remembers sanguine days when it felt more natural to lift a blade than it felt to lift a drink to his lips with his friends, than it felt to lift Tulsi from the floor and carry her to bed. His hands remember more than he cares to admit; scars cannot be so easily erased with a trip to the bar.

There’s a distance between those hands and the hands he uses now to fasten the first button just above your hip bone, he thinks. He works steadily; reverently. In the darkness he has to pause every now and then, running his finger along the seam for a few inches until he finds the next set of buttons.

You know it’s rude to stare, but this view of the top of his head has your sense of reason in a chokehold. Sage is being careful not to touch you, not exactly - muttering apologies when one of his knuckles skims across the fabric of your clothes; throwing gasoline on the fire burning in your stomach with each gesture. How he’d managed to go most of the day with no shirt on underneath is beyond you, but his long hair curling around his biceps as he carefully works his way up your torso looks so warm, maybe the cold really didn’t bother him that much. You hope his grip on your waist now will be enough to keep your spirit from leaving your body; that’d be an embarrassing conversation with Felix. As he gets closer, and the flashes of lightning come more frequently, you’re able to make out dark flecks on his lower lip and right cheek. Mud? It wasn’t raining when he got to Fathom, and you didn’t see him outside. Blood? Whose? Worries like moths flutter above your head.

A particularly bright flash illuminates the corridor as Sage secures a button a few inches below your collarbone, and curiosity gets the best of you. You open your mouth to call his name, but your vocal cords work against you. When nothing comes out you take his chin in your hand, maneuvering his face to better look at him. He makes a noise of discontent, but is pliant in your hand. You run your thumb across his bottom lip, carrying thin red streamers of blood against the corner of his mouth.

“Sage, what did you do?” You ask.

His brows meet in the middle like a car crash. “It’s bounty hunting, not nice bounty conversations over dinner. Like I said, shit happens.”

Your finger traces the outline of scratches running below his cheekbone from his hairline. They should be healing, should have been healed before you noticed.

“This jackass had some kind of enchanted ring or something,” Sage answers the question you didn’t ask. “Got me pretty good across the face, but it’s getting better all the time.”

“Let me help you,” magic is already buzzing underneath your fingertips.

“It’s not that bad.” Sage raises his own hand in an attempt to push yours away, but the look in your eyes stops him in his tracks. “Really - you should’ve seen me earlier, used the last of my socks trying to soak-”

“Don’t be like that.” You feel his eyes on your face as you push loose strands of hair back from the wounds.

Sage mutters a reluctant affirmative, and your fingertips warm as the skin of his face stitches itself back together. You rub away dried blood, scrutinizing the pink lines of skin left underneath your touch. How long would it be until you could control your magic enough to leave no traces of injury, until you could keep others from getting injured in the first place?

Sage feels a stone in the pit of his stomach as your thumb pulls at the skin of his lip again, clinical and calculating. There’s something wrong, deeply wrong, Sage realizes at his own disappointment. He’d set this moment on a precipice and that damn look on your face sent it tumbling off the edge. Your brows are knit together in contemplation; the fevered skin of your palm comforting against the line of his jaw.

There was something about this moment Sage would never come back from. His head feels dizzy, like he’d gone a moment too long underwater, as your tongue moistens the skin of your lips.

Let me help you.

Sage opens his mouth, and is stopped in his tracks by the growl your stomach makes. You apologize, cheeks darkening in the dim light, and the two steps you take backwards from him feel like miles.

“I, um, I’m going to go change. I left some street cakes in the kitchen, if you want some.”

Sage stares at the hall you walked down for long after you’re gone.

* * *

Sage is sitting on the kitchen counter when you arrive, picking through a paper bag of your street cakes. He doesn’t look up at you, but tosses a bag perfectly in your direction nonetheless. It looks different than it did when you bought it.

“What happened to all the snakes?” You ask, picking through its remnants.

“I thought you didn’t like ‘em,” Sage replies, mouth full and still chewing. In the dim candlelight, his fingers still hold half of an intricately decorated cake that looks suspiciously like a rattlesnake.

He was right, you didn’t like the snakes. Neither did he.

The two of you eat in silence.

#sage lesath #last legacy sage #fictif last legacy #sage x reader #sage lesath x reader #felix escellun x reader #felix iskandar escellun #last legacy mc #last legacy #when this fandom dies i hope it takes me with it #which probably won't be long so thank god #again haven't written in years pls be kind

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