
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/1404202.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Underage
  Category:
      F/M, M/M, Multi
  Fandom:
      Glee
  Relationship:
      Blaine_Anderson/Original_Character(s)
  Character:
      Blaine_Anderson, Original_Male_Character(s), Original_Female_Character(s)
  Additional Tags:
      Polyamory, Lemon, Alternate_Universe
  Series:
      Part 43 of Leoverse
  Stats:
      Published: 2014-04-02 Words: 8398
****** I'm A Tree That Grows Hearts ******
by lisachan
Summary
     Blaine gets hurt during a fight, and not even Annie's magic seems
     enough to save him. Adam decides to take him to a healer he heard
     about while in Mistral City, a mysterious kid that apparently heals
     wounded and sick people by sleeping with them. Despite Leo's protests
     and the disappointment of all his kids, once healed Blaine will
     decide to get involved in Cody's personal situation, something that
     will have consequences on everybody's lives.
Notes
     WARNING: This story is an AU from the original 'verse. What happens
     in here has little to none correlation with what happens in Leonard
     Karofsky-Hummel VS The world or Broken Heart Syndrome. The characters
     involved are (mostly) the same, but situations and relationships
     between them may be completely different.
     In this particular instance of the universe, Blaine is a man who used
     to live in Adelar, a small village that got ravaged and burned to
     ashes by plunderers years ago. He used to teach survival and fighting
     techniques to the kids there, but when the plunderers came he only
     managed to save a handful of them, and they escaped with only their
     lives. Since then, they've been living on the road, and Blaine raised
     the children (Leo, Adam and Annie) as if they were his own. Except
     they weren't, and at some point all of them started to develop
     feelings for him, with the consequence that now the four of them are
     involved in this weird foursome with its own set of rules. All of
     which will obviously mean exactly nothing the moment Blaine lays eyes
     on Cody.
As fire starts to rain over their heads from the dark night sky, Leo realizes
that Adam’s probably been right all along, and that attacking the castle might
have not been the brightest idea, after all.
“I told you!” Adam yells, as he tries to pick Blaine up from the ground, “I
told you they had defenses! But no, you had to come and wreak havoc, anyway!”
“I didn’t know for sure there would be magicians too!” Leo snorts, running by
his side and grabbing Blaine from under his arm, helping Adam out, “How’s he
doing?”
“He’s got his fucking stomach torn apart by an explosive bullet!” Adam answers,
struggling to hold the man up at least enough to try and see if he can wake up
and drag his feet on his own, “How do you think he’s doing?”
“Can you two stop fighting and start running?” Annie barks, casting one last
icing spell to the top of the castle, from where the magicians keep launching
fireballs against them, “God, this is just so stupid!” she gestures vaguely in
mid-air, streams of magic springing from her fingers like shiny golden laces,
swirling around Blaine’s body and making it almost weightless. “Is he still
alive?”
“For now,” Adam nods, running faster now, “But if he dies, Leo, I swear—”
“He’s not gonna die,” Leo says categorically, leading them to the nearby woods,
“Now let’s just get to our horses, and I don’t wanna hear a single word more.”
As if feeling on their skin Leo’s own rage, both Adam and Annie keep their
mouths shut for the rest of the run.
                                       *
All the events leading to the battle seem vague and distant, as if hidden in a
mist. Leo knows there’s a reason why they were all there, fighting to get
inside that castle. He has a knowledge of the facts – the artifact their client
commissioned them to steal, the plans, the endless discussions to get
everything straight before the assault – but somehow none of that makes sense
now that he has his eyes locked on the impossibly still figure of Blaine lying
on the ground between the bushes while Annie tries and cure him with her magic.
He wonders lazily about the money their client has promised them. Five millions
in gold, he said, to be given to them the moment they came back with the
medallion. He tries and mentally count five millions – they’ve never seen such
an amount of money – but he doesn’t really care. It’s just a way to try and
keep his brain occupied because, if he stops thinking, then he’ll notice how
pale Blaine looks, how sunken his cheeks, how his chest doesn’t move with his
breaths, because he’s not breathing.
Five millions, he thinks. That’s a lot of money. But it wasn’t worth this.
“Is he alright?” Adam emerges from the bushes behind him, rushing next to
Blaine. He stops a couple of steps away from his body, noticing its stillness
and whiteness, and steps back, horrified. “Oh God,” he says in a strangled
whisper.
“Would you shut up?” Annie demands in a low, deep growl. Her eyes are focused,
concentrated on the dim flashes of light emanating from her palms as she
presses them against Blaine’s torn flesh.
“Fuck you, Annie!” Adam reacts instantly, frowning at her, “I’m just worried!”
“Be worried as you like, but be quiet too, or I swear I’ll have your lips sewn
together,” she warns him, lifting her pale blue eyes, cold as ice, on his face.
He backs off a little, startled. “…fine,” he snorts, walking away and stopping
by Leo, casting him an half-annoyed glance. “Are you hurt?”
Leo looks up at him, arching an eyebrow. “Weren’t you angry at me?”
“I still am,” Adam answers coldly, and then sighs, dropping to sit next to him,
“But not enough to want you hurt,” he adds in a softer voice, casting him an
indulgent look. “Tell me you’re fine, come on.”
“I am,” Leo sighs too, looking back at him and forcing a small smile on his
lips, before looking back at Blaine’s apparently lifeless body, “As much as I
can be.”
“He doesn’t seem to be recovering,” Adam says, his voice uncertain.
“I know that already, Adam,” Leo frowns, “You don’t need to tell me.”
“Well, you ought to hear me!” Adam insists, turning to look at him, eyes filled
with rage, “Because it’s your fault! I told you it’d be dangerous!”
“Like everything we do, Adam!”
“More so!” Adam yells, pointing a finger towards Blaine, “I told you there
would be magicians, that we were too few, that night wasn’t enough to cover us
up! But you had to have it your way, as usual! And he was by your side, as
usual! And now he’s dead!” he says, his voice breaking a little on the last
word, his eyes growing wide as he realizes the meaning of it.
Leo looks back at him with cold, hard eyes, unwillingly filling with tears.
“Are you done?” he asks with a shaky voice.
Adam looks down, ashamed at himself. “I’m sorry,” he whispers.
“Fuck you, Adam,” Leo stands up, his whole body trembling with rage as he turns
around, meaning to leave.
He only stops because of Annie’s voice. “Guys!” she calls out, “He’s awake!”
Leo quickly turns around, running towards Blaine and kneeling by his side. Adam
gets there only a second too late and loses the spot, deciding to just stand
there. For a moment, this reminds Leo of when they were children, at the
village, and they used to have races all the time to see who would be the first
to get to training, or who would run faster, to catch Blaine’s attention. They
basically never stopped.
“Blaine?” he asks softly, leaning over him and stroking his hair, damp with
sweat and blood, “Hey. You with us?” he tries a smile when he sees Blaine’s
dark eyes struggling to focus on him.
“Is…” Blaine says, his voice faint, almost barely audible.
“What?” Leo leans closer, offering his hear, “Don’t force yourself, you don’t
have to talk if—”
“Is it gonna leave a scar?”
Leo pulls away, blinking a couple of times before frowning madly. “You idiot!”
he yells, hitting him on his shoulder, “You’re so stupid, I have no idea how
you survived your own stupidity up to now!”
“Ouch,” Blaine whines faintly, his lips twisting in a painful grimace.
“Leo, stop it,” Annie says, her smile showing how relieved she is, “You’re
hurting him.”
“He deserves it!” Leo insists, and then his voice softens, as his hand falls in
a tender caress over Blaine’s bare chest, “You scared the shit out of me,
asshole.”
“I’m fine,” Blaine says, but he’s breathing heavily, and when he turns his head
and coughs, he spits blood. “I guess.”
“You’re not fine,” Annie says, retrieving her bag and fetching some bandages,
that she carefully starts to wrap around him, “I wasn’t able to mend your
wound. It’s deeper than I thought. I barely managed to catch you before you
slipped away,” she adds with a sad smile, her blue eyes a little teary, “But we
need to get you to a city, and to a real medic.”
“Oh, please,” Blaine gestures vaguely in mid-air, snorting, “Now that I’m
alive, it’ll heal by itself.”
“If I hear just another word from you,” Adam finally says, his voice
unreadable, as his eyes, “I swear I’m gonna finish the job and cut you in half.
Now we’re gonna get you back on the horse – you’re riding with me.”
“He can ride with me,” Leo tries, looking up and frowning at Adam.
Adam glares at him. “He’s riding with me,” he says, and it’s final. “We’re
gonna get you to Mistral city, it’s the nearest. I know a guy, I’ve heard about
him last time we were there. He’s gonna take care of you.”
“Adam,” Blaine whines, trying to move and failing, “I don’t wanna see any
creepy lizard-skinned or cat-eyed warlock.”
“You’re gonna do exactly as I tell you!” Adam states, pointing the finger at
him and waving it under his nose, “And that’s final,” he adds with a snort.
“Besides, he’s not a warlock.”
Annie blinks a couple of times, looking up at him in surprise. “And what is
he?”
Adam sighs, looking away and shrugging. “Judging by what people say,” he
answers nonchalantly, “Apparently, a whore.”
                                       *
The room is dark and smells of sex and incense. Leo makes a face the moment he
steps into it, and turns to look at Adam with a disappointed face. “Really,
Adam? Really? This place’s filthy.”
“It’s our best chance,” Adam answers coldly, looking around the shadowy, bare
room. There’s only a couple of old wooden chairs lined up against the scraped,
dirty gray wall. Barely enough to lie Blaine down, but it’ll have to do, he
decides, as he drags Blaine’s body there and puts him down.
Leo rushes by his side, helping Blaine to put up his legs as Annie finally
releases the magic control over the man’s limp body, now that she doesn’t have
to keep him from falling at every step of the way anymore. She leans against
the wall, breathing heavily. She’s pale and her forehead’s covered with
perspiration.
“You know very well our best chance is a medic,” Leo protests, but Adam’s not
even listening to him anymore. He straightens up and walks towards Annie,
passing a hand through her fiery red locks and then down along her neck,
massaging it affectionately.
“You should rest,” he tells her.
Annie looks up at him, forcing a small smile on her peachy lips. “Not until
he’s alright.”
“Is anybody even listening to me?” Leo whines, still kneeling beside Blaine’s
body.
Blaine lifts a hand, stroking Leo’s cheek with his thumb. “I am,” he says, his
voice faint like a distant echo.
“Don’t talk,” Leo instantly tells him, pressing both his hands against his
mouth with his usual lack of grace, “Don’t strain yourself out. Somebody’s
gonna take care of you soon, I promise,” he tries and smile reassuringly,
before he stands up and glares at Adam, “If anybody actually shows up, of
course.”
“I’m here,” says a voice from behind him, and Leo turns around to see a kid
around his age, dressed with a white satin tunic that barely covers his chest,
made by two layers of fabric that crosses right over his belly, leaving it
uncovered, and then slide down his thighs in a short skirt that leaves the most
of his legs exposed. There’s a trace of a week-old bruise on his left cheek and
one of his arms is covered in bandages, and if it was any other time, or Blaine
was in any less danger, Leo would ask about it, but not now.
“Finally,” he says sharply, looking at the kid with no mercy, “He could be dead
by now.”
The kid turns to Blaine, studying him carefully as the man lifts a hand and
waves at him, putting up a smirk that looks more like a painful grimace. “He’s
alive,” he says.
Leo growls, annoyed. “Gods— Are you dense? Are you retarded or something?”
“Leo,” Adam calls out, placing a hand on his shoulder and pulling him away,
“Let go,” he turns to the kid and looks at him, studying him shamelessly. “I
expected something different. Anyway, if you’re Cody, you’re the one we’ve been
searching for. They say you can cure mortal wounds, that you have a way with
it. We can pay, you’ve gotta cure him.”
Cody looks again at the man, and then back at Adam. “And you are…?” he asks.
“His boyfriends,” Adam and Leo answer together.
“And girlfriend,” Annie adds with a weary smile.
Cody looks at them all, his eyes suddenly growing wide with surprise. “Oh,” he
stammers, “Oh, I— I see. I mean, that’s pretty unusual, isn’t it?”
“Do we have to talk about it now, while he bleeds to death?!” Leo yells,
unnerved.
Cody backs away, startled by his voice. “I’m— I’m sorry,” he shakes his head
and moves out of the way, “Please, take him and follow me,” he says, leading
them behind a curtain and into a smaller but also cleaner room, with a bed and
a small desk in a corner. “Lay him down on the bed,” he nods, gesturing towards
it. “I suppose you’re familiar with my methods?”
Leo makes a face, looking away. “Adam told us all about them.”
“We heard about you last time we were here in the city,” Adam explains with a
sigh, “They say there’s some ritual you do, some gods you invoke. Through sex.”
“Please,” Blaine says wearily, his voice now nothing but a wheeze, “The offer
is tempting, but I doubt I can be up for the task, if you know what I mean,” he
jokes with an uncertain, broken laughter.
“Blaine, please, do shut up,” Annie sighs, lightly hitting him on his forehead.
“You won’t have to force yourself,” Cody smiles embarrassedly, “The ritual will
take care of everything.”
“See?” Blaine snorts, trying to get up and failing, “It’s damn magic.”
“It’s not magic,” Cody shakes his head and gets closer to him, pressing a hand
over his shoulder to make him lie down again, “It’s a prayer. I don’t deal with
magic, it’s unholy.”
“Excuse me?” Annie instantly frowns, “For your information, magic’s what got
him here still alive despite a damn hole in his stomach to begin with! Show
some respect.”
“I’m sorry!” Cody instantly backs away again, blushing furiously in shame, “I
didn’t know—”
“You shouldn’t have said it anyway, whether a magician was actually here or
not!” Annie insists, and then bends over Blaine, putting a hand on his
shoulder, “Come on, let’s get you out of here and to a medic.”
“Let him go!” Adam says, his voice a threatening growl as he grabs Annie by her
wrist and pushes her away from Blaine. “God, you two are such idiots!” he goes
on, glaring at both Annie and Leo, “Why do you give such importance to such
bullshit? Who cares what he is or how he does it? Who cares what he thinks
about magic or that he uses sex to heal people? Blaine’s dying!”
An heavy silence falls over the room after his words. Leo and Annie both look
away, ashamed at themselves, while Blaine closes his eyes, trying to breath in
and out slowly. Each and every breath he draws sounds painful, shaky and faint
as if every one of them could be the last.
Leo’s the first to look up. “I’m sorry,” he says. His eyes show he means it.
“Me too,” Annie nods, her eyes still locked to the ground, but filling with
heavy, tired tears.
Adam sighs, relieved, turning around to face Cody. “He’s all yours,” he says,
“Cure him.”
That’s the last Cody hears, before watching him walk away, quickly followed by
the other two.
                                       *
“Well, aren’t you a pretty one,” Blaine jokes, looking at Cody as the kid moves
swiftly all around him, placing burning incense and weird wood and metal
talismans carved with symbols he’s never seen before, “Walking around in that
skirt. How do you manage to walk safely back home every time you go out?” he
asks, as he playfully lifts a trembling hand up, stroking Cody’s thigh with his
rough palm.
“Don’t do that,” Cody withdraws, hitting his hand lightly as he finishes
preparing the room for the ritual.
“Why be so shy? You’re gonna shag me anyway, so,” Blaine laughs, and his laugh
turns into an hard, heavy coughing, and he tilts his hand to the right to spit
some blood on the floor. Then he closes his eyes and tries to breathe regularly
again, but apparently his lungs refuse to be of any help. He breathes in and
out slowly, too slowly for what he’d like, and when he places a hand on his
stomach he can’t help but feel grossed out and quite scared by the amount of
blood he’s losing. “That is if you manage to be done with your last minute
decorations before my entrails leak on the floor.”
“Please, don’t joke about this,” Cody casts him a patient but clearly upset
look, his pretty lips curling into a childish pout, “I’m not going to shag you,
that’s a vulgar term that doesn’t describe at all what I do in here.”
“You fuck people for their own good and you make a living out of it,” Blaine
laughs again, and a painful moan escapes his lips as the amount of blood
dripping out of his wound doubles. “Was that descriptive enough?”
Cody doesn’t answer for quite some time, getting closer to him and examining
his wound with attentive eyes. “Do you always joke like this?” he asks then,
removing the sloppy bandage wrapped around his stomach, “You could be dying
this very moment.”
“But I won’t,” Blaine smiles, closing his eyes and relaxing under Cody’s
soothing, cool fingertips against his burning skin, “I’ve got you to do your
pretty magic and take care of me.”
“I told you, it’s not magic,” Cody points out, annoyed at Blaine’s
stubbornness, “It’s a sacred ritual. I invoke the Triple Goddess and ask her to
cure you, and save you.”
“And why would she?” Blaine asks, his grin twisted with pain, “I’m not exactly
a fan.”
“Then you’re lucky she listens to me,” Cody finishes, his voice suddenly stern,
final.
Blaine decides not to speak again as he watches Cody lift up his already short
skirt, showing himself naked underneath, and climb onto him, sitting on his
lap. He lets out a desperate cry as he feels the light and yet apparently
unbearable weight of the kid pressing against his wounded stomach, but Cody
presses one of his hands on the cut and there’s that soothing coolness again,
working like a charm on his feverish, quaking body.
“Ssh,” Cody whispers, leaning in on him and speaking against his lips,
“Everything will be alright,” he says with a soft smile, just before kissing
him.
An unexpected wave of weakness washes over Blaine’s body, leaving him tired and
limp on the bed. That’s it, he thinks, That’s me, dying, but in a few seconds
Cody’s lips move apart from his and the kid starts chanting something in a
language he doesn’t understand, and suddenly there’s fire burning inside of
Blaine’s body, not the fire that’s consuming him from his wound, but a
different, healing one. He feels himself filled to the brim with strength, his
heartbeat growing faster as if his heart was racing for its life, pumping new,
hot blood through his veins to show the world it can still do it, it’s still
strong enough to survive this.
Blaine opens his eyes wide, trying to focus on Cody, but the kid’s changed into
something else. There’s a dim white glow emanating from his skin, a light that
makes him look paler than the moon, and Blaine instinctively thinks that must
be magic, but then there’s a voice inside of him, a female voice, speaking
slowly, softly, that tells him it isn’t. There’s no magic that powerful, no
magic that overwhelming, no magic that divine.
It’s something different, something holy, and right now, Cody’s not a whore,
he’s a goddess.
Blaine lifts his hands, closing them strongly around Cody’s hips as the kid
lifts himself up from his lap, uncovering the bulge in Blaine’s crotch.
“Unbelievable,” Blaine whispers, looking at himself. The wound’s healing, but
it’s not only that. There’s a new kind of power running through his veins,
filling his body with strength, with light. His skin starts to glow too, golden
like the sun, a perfect match for Cody’s, and when he looks up at him he
notices that his eyes are the bluest he’s ever seen, actually too blue to be
natural.
He feels his body changing, and it makes him tingle all over. Cody lets out a
needy whimper and Blaine sees his bloody hands run to the belt keeping his
pants closed. His wound is still open, but he couldn’t care less, right now.
When Cody manages to get him out of his pants, he instantly pushes him down on
himself, his erection almost naturally finding its way inside Cody’s body, that
welcomes it eagerly, hungrily, as the kid arches his back, his body shaking
with pleasure, his head thrown back, exposing his neck.
Blaine sits up, the cut on his stomach burning like hell, blood squirting out
of his wound, staining Cody’s white tunic, and digs his teeth into Cody’s white
skin, scratching it, drawing blood out of it too. It tastes heavenly, he tastes
heavenly, and Blaine tasted magic, in his life, he tasted it on Annie’s
fingertips, in her mouth and between her thighs, and it tasted nothing like
this.
There’s something more. Something valuable. And despite having been on the
threshold between life and death up to a moment ago, his mind’s already
spinning at max speed, now, screaming we need the kid, the kid must come with
us.
He comes with a deep, low growl, all the strength that filled him up until now
leaking out of him with his orgasm. Suddenly, all his limbs feel heavy, and
he’s not strong enough to keep himself up straight anymore. He falls back on
the mattress, breathing heavily, eyes quickly losing focus of what surrounds
him. He manages to look down at himself, though, and notices his wound’s
completely disappeared, leaving no trace, not even a scar.
“Who the hell are you?” he whispers breathlessly as he watches Cody climb down
of his body and stand up right next to him, come dripping down his thigh and
onto the floor.
The kid smiles, placing a hand on his forehead. “Rest, now,” he says softly.
Blaine’s asleep before he can even notice it.
                                       *
He wakes up hours later, though he couldn’t tell how many, not even if he
wanted to. The first thing he hears is screaming, and suddenly all his kids are
onto him, hugging him and tugging at his torn apart shirt, covering his face in
kisses. “Now, now,” he laughs, amused, as he tries to kiss back every hungry
mouth searching for his, and pat every small troubled head that tries and slip
underneath his hand like a little kitten’s, “If you pull at me that way, my
stitches will come off,” he jokes.
“There are no stitches, you idiot,” Leo scolds him, slapping him on his stomach
to prove his point.
“It’s a miracle,” Adam nods knowingly, proud to have been the one to suggest
the clearly only solution they had. Annie doesn’t answer to that – she doesn’t
believe in any God, just in the strength of her own magic, that she believes
it’s drawn by the world’s energy and certainly not bestowed upon her by some
godly creature living in spirit form in the sky – but she’s too happy to see
Blaine alive and well to waste time talking about miracles and whatnot.
“You… certainly are a colorful, funny lot,” Cody chuckles from the chair he’s
been sitting in as he waited for Blaine to wake up together with the other
kids. He changed his clothes, he’s now wearing another tunic, white and
revealing as the one he wore as he laid with Blaine, but tighter around his
chest and waist and looser around his hips, the soft silky fabric sliding down
his thighs like water, showing off his curves.
“You haven’t seen the half of it,” Leo smirks, turning to look at him and
eyeing his clothes. “Do you always dress like that?”
“Well,” Cody blushes, looking down at himself and closing his legs tightly,
suddenly painfully self-aware of his own nakedness underneath a dress that does
nothing to cover him, “I find it more practical, considering what I do.”
“More practical?” Annie looks at him too, amused by his femininity but somehow
also feeling threatened by it enough not to hold back any snarky remark, “I bet
you’ve got all eyes and hands on you when you walk out. Even crossing the
street must be an hard task, with all those little skirts flying up with the
faintest gust of wind.”
Cody looks away again, scratching his flushed cheek. “I wouldn’t know,” he
admits, “I don’t go out often.”
“You don’t need to go out often to be stripped off by the wind, if you’re
always wearing clothes like these,” Annie chuckles, “Just once will suffice.”
Cody’s smile gets more uneasy, as he tries to make himself even smaller on the
chair by crouching his shoulders. “I suppose…” he says, vaguely.
Blaine frowns lightly, throwing his legs of the bed even though he decides to
stay sit for a while, not sure he’d be able to stand straight just yet. “You do
come out of this hole every now and then, don’t you?” he asks, his voice
darker.
Cody smiles apologetically at him, shaking his little black haired head. “Not
really, sir, no,” he says, and then blushes even more when he feels his guests’
eyes shockingly fixed on him for several seconds after his revelation. “But I
don’t mind!” he hastens to say, shaking his head and waving his arms in front
of himself as to blow away everybody’s concerns. “Tell me about you, instead,”
he tries, hoping that a change in subject will take their thoughts away from
him, “It’s so uncommon to see a man like you traveling with so many kids,
unless they’re his children.”
“Well, I guess, in a way, you could say they are,” Blaine answers with a small
chuckle, “Aren’t you, my dear little ones?”
“Stop calling us that,” Leo protests with a pout, “You know we don’t like it,”
he turns to Cody, facing him with pride, “We’re his partners.”
“Oh,” Cody blushes, looking at him and then turning back at Blaine, “Are they?”
“I let them believe so,” Blaine answers in a small chuckle, as Adam’s hand
lands on his nape with a soft slapping noise, “We’re all from a small village
north of the Great Lake,” he says then, his smile softening at the memory,
“Adelar, you may have heard of it.”
“Oh,” Cody’s hand runs to his mouth, covering it, “Wasn’t it one of those
villages that got destroyed during the Plunderers’ Descent?”
“Exactly,” Blaine nods, “They attacked the village and set it on fire, stealing
everything and everyone they could put their hands on. I managed to save these
three,” he says, looking fondly at the kids, “And we’ve been traveling together
ever since.”
“So you take care of them,” Cody smiles sweetly, moved by the loving way Blaine
speaks about his companions.
“And we take care of him,” Leo clarifies, pouting again, “We work for him.”
“Well, we had to make a living, somehow,” Blaine explains with a short
laughter, “At first they were all very small, so they depended on me for
everything, and that was fine by me, but as they grew older they decided they
wanted to help out, and I didn’t see why they couldn’t,” he says, shrugging
casually. “We’re relic hunters, even though we only work for commission. That’s
how I got hurt, we were trying to get something, but clearly it went all wrong.
Even though, maybe we just didn’t have the proper equipment,” he suggests, his
eyes studying Cody’s figure with interest.
“Yeah, and whose fault was that?” Adam asks mockingly, turning to look at Leo,
but in doing so he manages to intercept Blaine’s gaze, and his eyes grow wide,
“Oh, no. No way!”
“But why not?” Blaine asks, as Annie and Leo turn to look at him too, puzzled
by what’s happening. Those two often don’t realize instantly what’s on Blaine’s
mind, contrary to Adam, with whom Blaine shares the same practical way of
thinking, “He’d be useful.”
“I don’t care,” Adam insists, shaking his head, “We can’t have another mouth to
feed. And then look at him, he’s all pale and small, and look what he walks
around in, we’d have to protect him all the time.”
“But we don’t have a healer,” Blaine points out, smiling calmly, as if already
knowing he’ll win the fight in the end.
“Hey!” Annie protests, frowning, “I can heal people.”
“I know you can, princess,” Blaine turns to her and kisses her on her forehead,
“But some wounds are deeper than others, and some things you can’t cure. He
can, though.”
“Wait… Wait a moment,” Leo says, finally catching up, “You wanna take him with
us?” he asks, turning to look at Cody, horrified, and then looking back at
Blaine, “No! We don’t know him! We can’t trust him!”
“Well, he saved me, didn’t he?”
“He fucked you!” Leo points out, frowning, “That’s why you want him around.”
“Ah, baby boy,” Blaine laughs, genuinely amused, “Don’t I have enough of it
from the whole of you pestering me all day? I’m merely saying we could use one
like him during our missions, that’d make things easier for all of us. For you
to plan our actions and for us to do as you say without fearing we’ll end up
slaughtered by the end of the day,” he explains with another chuckle.
“Are you saying my plans are shit?” Leo asks in a low growl.
“E-Excuse me,” Cody’s soft voice reaches them from the other side of the room,
“May I ask what you’re talking about?”
Blaine smiles charmingly, gently freeing himself from his kids’ embrace and
standing up, his hands on his hips, his chin up, an amused yet intrigued light
shining in his eyes. “We’re talking about asking you to come with us, pet,” he
says, “If you’re interested.”
Cody instantly stands up, fear rushing to his eyes, filling them to the brim.
“No!” he says hastily, and then he clears his throat, looking away, “I mean,
thank you for your kindness, but I’m not allowed to leave.”
“Yeah, that much I already got all on my own, see how smart I am?” Blaine
smiles, walking closer and putting two fingers under Cody’s chin, pushing it up
so to meet his eyes again, “Come on, don’t tell me you never wondered about the
world outside,” he goes on, smiling invitingly, “I wouldn’t believe it.”
“That’s— That’s not the point, sir,” Cody struggles to look down again, moving
away from him and turning his back at them all. He doesn’t notice, but he moves
his hand to his wounded arm covered in bandages, and strokes it slowly. He
doesn’t notice, but Blaine does, even though he says nothing about it. “I’m
fine here,” Cody goes on, repeating words like he learned them by heart and
forgot he doesn’t even believe in them, “I may be curious of the world, but
that doesn’t mean I want to see it. I’m just fine like this, doing my job, with
the Goddess comforting me, so please, don’t worry about my well-being. I’m
taken care of.”
“Yeah,” Blaine answers, frowning lightly, “I can see that.”
When the door opens, the squeaking sound it produces cuts the thick silence in
half, and everybody lifts their eyes on a tall man with dark blonde hair and
clear blue eyes who enters the room without knocking. “Cody—” he says, and
stops abruptly when he realizes the kid isn’t alone, “What’s with all the
people?”
“William!” Cody runs towards him, pressing both his hands against his chest as
if to preemptively keep him from advancing any further, “They’re— He’s the man
I cured this morning,” he explains with an uncertain smile, “He’s alright, now,
so his companions came to pick him up. They were just leaving.”
“You wasted precious hours keeping him here after you healed him?” William
asks, looking down at him with stern, cold eyes. Blaine can almost see the
frightened shiver that runs down Cody’s spine as he withdraws.
“I’m sorry,” he says, “He fell asleep, I didn’t know how to move him.”
William keeps looking at him with hard harshness for a couple of seconds, and
then asks, “Did they pay?”
“Yes,” Cody nods quickly, hoping that this will keep him from getting any
angrier, “Yes, they already did.”
“Then go,” William says, looking up at Blaine. Their eyes meet in a deafening
silence, and Blaine’s hands clutch in fists down his sides.
“Who’s he?” he ask, nodding towards William.
A spark of pure rage ignites into Williams eyes, and the man moves a step
towards Blaine. “How dare you—”
“William, please,” Cody puts a hand on his forearm, trying to hold him back
without him noticing, and then turns to Blaine, and smiles faintly. “He’s the
one taking care of me,” he answers, “Please, go.”
Blaine keeps looking straight at William, showing no intention to move a single
step until it’s Leo pressing a hand on the small of his back, pushing him
towards the door. “Let’s go,” he says softly, leading him away.
They leave the building in but a few seconds, but even when they’re finally
out, and the sun is warm and shining above them, and a gentle, cooling breeze
ruffles their hair as they walk down the street, looking out for a place to
stay for tonight, Blaine’s expression doesn’t soften. His eyes are dark and
unclear, and his lips are petrified in a stern, disappointed line.
“Blaine,” Adam says, walking by his side but not looking at him, “Let it go.
You can’t save him. You cannot be everybody’s hero, and besides, he doesn’t
even want to be saved.”
Blaine doesn’t answer immediately, but when he does his voice is low, deep and
angry. “That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t have tried anyway.”
                                       *
He wakes up earlier than anybody else. He went to sleep unwillingly, he wasn’t
even tired, traces of the supernatural forces Cody had pushed inside him still
in rushing through his veins together with blood, and he only desisted from
staying up anyway because all the kids kept insisting and insisting until it
wasn’t reasonably possible for him to explain one more time why he wasn’t
sleepy at all.
They couldn’t understand it, he knows that. They have had a bad, tiring day,
all they looked out for was to cuddle up with him in the bed and never wake up
until it was the morning after. He, though, as much as he could like to cuddle
up with them, didn’t want any of that. Strength was keeping him up, awake and
aware. He could still feel its taste on his tongue. Cody’s.
He sits up on the bed, gently freeing himself from Annie’s arm over his chest,
and then stands up, looking at the three kids peacefully asleep on the bed. The
moment he’s out of the picture, they all get closer to one another, entangling
arms and legs and hair, hugging each other exactly like they used to do when
they were little and he wrapped them all in the same blanket beside the fire,
as he stood awake to watch over them.
He sighs, moving to the window and resting his forearms on the windowsill,
looking outside, right at the dawning sun.
He dreamt of the fire again. There was fire everywhere, and people screaming,
and children wailing. The Plunderers’ black horses were running from one side
of the village to the other, and everywhere there was nothing but destruction.
He was trying to get out of there, but first, he was thinking, the children. He
had to get the children. They were somewhere under the burning, wrecking
houses, and he had to rescue them.
In the dream, he kept searching for them until he heard a muffled cry coming
from under a pile of burning logs. He run there, lifted them with his bare
hands – fire scraping his fingertips, burning his skin – but there weren’t Leo,
Adam and Annie underneath it. It were Cody’s blue eyes, filled with tears,
looking up at him and screaming “help me”.
He closes his eyes, covering his face with both his hands and exhaling slowly.
“You’re still thinking about him,” Leo says from behind him, and Blaine
instantly turns around, startled by his voice.
“I thought you were sleeping,” he says with a soft smile, changing the subject.
“I was,” Leo says, “Until you got up. I searched for you, and you weren’t
there, and you know you never can do that.”
“I’m sorry,” Blaine smiles again, opening his arms and waiting for Leo to come
rest his head against his chest with a soft sigh, “You should go back to sleep,
though. You’ve got at least another couple of hours, before we have to go.”
“Why don’t you come too?” Leo asks, tugging at the waistband of his pants, “You
must be tired.”
“I’m not, kid,” Blaine smiles patiently, “I told you, that ritual put something
inside me. It was more than just healing. It gave me strength, something I’ve
never felt before.”
Leo looks down, sighing sadly. “That’s why you can’t stop thinking about him,
isn’t it?”
“Leo…” Blaine smiles sweetly, cupping the kid’s face into his hands and making
him look up, “Don’t be jealous. I promise it’s not that,” he says, leaning in
to kiss him lightly on his lips, “It’s just that he gave me something, and I
left him there, with that man.”
“We’re not sure he was hurting him,” Leo points out, pouting.
Blaine smiles again. “You’ve seen them,” he says, “He was frightened by him.
His arm was wounded, there was a bruise on his face. He told us he never goes
out of there. How much more do you need?”
Leo sighs, resting his forehead against Blaine’s naked shoulder. “So it’s like
Adam said,” he whines, “You wanna be everybody’s hero,” he looks up at him,
holding back the tears, “Aren’t we enough?”
“Oh, you’re more than enough, child,” he says, leaning in to kiss him again,
deeper this time, ending the argument. You’re more than enough, he thinks, as
he feels the crackling fire against his skin again, But if I could save just
one more child, just one…
                                       *
They’re all out on the streets a few hours later. “Alright,” Adam says,
clapping his hands after he secured his sword to his hip, “Let’s put all this
behind us and go back to the damn castle, this time possibly with a less stupid
plan to go by.”
“My plan wasn’t the problem,” Leo snorts, looking angrily at him, “It was your
blatant incompetence that got in the way.”
“How is my incompetence the reason why Blaine got hurt, considering he was
protecting you?” Adam retorts, glaring at him.
“Well, maybe he was protecting me because you were doing nothing!” Leo points
out, “Fifteen minutes battling with house gnomes, Adam, really?”
“They were more than twenty, for fuck’s sake!”
“At least I was trying to do something useful!”
“What, climbing a wall bare-handed under the crossfire?”
“My God, aren’t you two annoying,” Annie sighs, rolling her eyes and then
slipping her arm under Blaine’s, clinging to it. “Hey, why are you so quiet?”
she smiles up at him.
Blaine smiles back, lifting a hand to ruffle her red hair. “It’s nothing,
princess,” he answers, “I was just thinking.”
“About the boy, am I right?” Annie’s smile falters a bit, but the grip around
Blaine’s arm just tightens. “You really must have the hugest crush on him.”
“Oh, dear,” Blaine laughs, shaking his head, “Why are you all so convinced I
like him that way?”
“I don’t know,” Annie shrugs, “You did have sex with him, after all.”
“He was healing me,” Blaine answers, “Saving me. I just think he’s got a
valuable power, and that it’s unfair to leave him there, with that man, locked
up in a dirty room fucking wounded pricks and sick old men when he could come
with us, see the world, be of help. Be free.”
“You asked him,” Annie reminds him, looking up at him, “He said he didn’t want
to come.”
“He was scared, princess,” Blaine tells her with a patient smile lingering on
his lips, “Ask any scared child if they want to be rescued, they’ll always
answer they’re fine just like that.”
“Yes, but he isn’t a child, Blaine,” she answers back, looking almost sharply
at him, “We’re not helpless children anymore, and he’s our age.”
Blaine looks away, that smile still on his lips. “I know, princess,” he says,
sighing softly.
Annie sighs too, looking away. “You’re not gonna get over it, are you?” she
asks in a whisper, “It’s always gonne be like that. We’re always gonna be
children to you, despite the things we do together, despite how much we’ve
grown. And every time you’ll meet someone who’s helpless and in need, you’re
always gonna take it like this. On your shoulders. Like everything else.”
Blaine lifts a hand, covering Annie’s shaking one with it, and squeezes her
pale pink fingers affectionately. “I’m sorry,” he says, and his voice sounds
like he is, but his heart’s racing in the other direction.
“Don’t be,” Annie says with a sigh, shaking her head, “It’s who you are, after
all,” she adds with a little smile, “It’s why we love you.”
                                       *
They pass by the house Cody lives and works in on their way out of the village.
Blaine stops in front of the door and instantly Leo’s by his side, grabbing him
by his elbow, urging him to move. “Come on,” he says, “We can be halfway there
by noon if we leave now.”
“Yes,” Blaine says, his eyes fixed on the building, “Yes, I’m only going to
stop for a minute. Say thanks and bye, see if everything’s alright,” he adds,
freeing himself of Leo’s hold and walking into the place.
Leo watches him go with no looking back and sighs deeply, biting at his bottom
lip.
“Come on,” Adam says, patting his shoulder and then pushing him towards the
building too, “Let’s go after him, see he doesn’t put himself into any
unnecessary danger.”
Leo looks down and nods, but his eyes are dark. “I don’t see why he has to do
this,” he says, disheartened.
“It’s in his nature,” Adam shrugs.
“It’s what brought him to save us in first place,” Annie says, walking next to
them.
So we should be grateful, Leo thinks. But he doesn’t say it out loud, because
he just feels jealous.
Inside, the room is dark and stinks just like they remember it from yesterday.
Only the curtain separates them from the other room, and Blaine quickly sets it
aside, walking in. He stops right there, though, on the doorstep, his eyes
growing wide as they fall on Cody’s small frame all curled up in a corner of
the bed, his face a mask of bruises and curdled blood, his body covered in
scratches, the bandage around his arm undid, showing a nasty, still unhealed
cut down his forearm.
“Oh, Goddess,” he whimpers, bringing his arms around his chest and then over
his face, sheltering himself, “You shouldn’t have come back.”
“What is it?” Leo asks, lifting himself on his tiptoes to look past Blaine’s
shoulders. His jaw drops the moment he sees Cody, and in his eyes there’s the
same horror that dawns into Adam’s and Annie’s when they, too, get to see the
condition Cody lies in. “My God, what happened to you?”
Despite remembering perfectly well how awful, and painful, and tragic the
burning of their village was, since then none of them has ever felt any real
pain. Blaine has sheltered them like a big oak down whose branches they could
swing with no fear of falling down and bruise themselves. They’ve been
protected, they’ve been secure. It had never occurred to them, before, that
somebody could be provided for by someone else who also caused them harm. In
their simple mind, that the same man who feeds and provides a roof over Cody’s
head could also be the one who hits him and then leaves him alone, bleeding on
his bed, sounds just as sick as pillagers ravaging a village filled with
innocent people.
Cody brings his knees to his chest, groaning in pain and involuntarily showing
the huge purple bruise that covers his side, just over his ribs, and that’s
enough to make something switch into the kids. Leo pushes Blaine into the room
and out of the way, “Let me pass!” he yells, as he runs towards the bed,
kneeling on it and looking at Cody from every angle, “What the hell happened to
you?”
“Was it that man?” Adam asks, briskly grabbing Cody’s arms by his wrists and
pulling them away from his face, “Is he still around? Why didn’t you do your
thing and cured yourself, you silly? You’re all black and blue.”
“I…” Cody starts, looking at them with huge, scared eyes, “I can’t do the
ritual to myself, it’s—”
“Useless, that’s what it is,” Annie snorts, moving Leo aside to kneel next to
Cody, “Let me take care of it. Magic might be unholy, as you called it, but at
least it’s effective.”
No one seems to care about Blaine anymore, and he’s left a few steps away from
the door, looking at his kids taking care of another kid. Saving him, somehow,
like he saved them ten years ago. The vague knowledge of the fact that they’re
able to stand on their own feet now only briefly crosses his mind. Sometimes he
just thinks he needs to know he still has to take care of them more than they
need to be taken care of at all.
“What the hell’s happening here?” somebody says, entering the room a few
moments after. Blaine turns to look at him and instantly recognizes him as the
man they saw yesterday, William.
Blaine only needs to see the way Cody curls against the wall, almost clawing at
it in a desperate attempt to even climb it if it helps him get as far away as
possible, shaking, wailing, terrified, to decide what to do.
He turns around, and reaches out for William. His hand closes tightly around
his neck, and despite the fact that, slim as he is, he certainly isn’t fragile
nor skinny, his bones feels thin like sticks under his fingertips.
“What—” William tries, but Blaine’s fingers tighten their grip around his
throat and cut his breath, as he gets easily lifted up in the air, his legs
kicking aimlessly and his hands desperately hitting Blaine’s as he tries to
make him let go of him.
“Blaine!” Leo calls out, but he shuts up instantly when he sees Blaine’s skin
glowing golden.
“What the hell…?” Adam says, astonished, and when Cody jumps up from the bed,
standing still in front of it with his arms rigid and his fists clutched down
his sides, he asks “You know what it is?”
“He knows,” Blaine answers. His eyes are red as fire, now, and the glow
emanating from his skin is warm as sunlight, “It’s the power you gave me, pet.
I’m using it to pay you back.”
“Wait—” the kid says in a strangled whisper, eyes filled with that bottomless
fear, so typical of children, the one that would make you adore the hand that
hits you just because you know nothing else, just because you fear that, once
it’s gone, there’s going to be nothing else for you.
But Blaine doesn’t wait. His fingers close violently around William’s neck,
snapping it with an ugly cracking sound. William falls to the ground, gargling
blood for a couple of seconds, his whole body convulsing restlessly until it
moves no more. His open eyes are left to stare into the void, and Cody stares
into them, and he feels faint, and he drops to his knees and screams, so hard
and for so long that, when he’s done, the other kids’ ears are ringing.
He stays crouched on the dirty floor, his hands closed in fists, his small
shoulders shaking with sobs. Blaine walks to him, but he doesn’t kneel beside
him, he doesn’t even touch him.
“You’re on your own, now,” he says, the glowing light of his skin slowly fading
away, “I’m gonna ask you one last time, so make it the correct answer. Do you
want to come with us?”
Cody looks up at him, breathing heavily. There’s a lost expression on his face,
but there are no tears in his eyes.
                                       *
Cody’s shoulders are already red and showing freckles, and they’ve only been on
the road an hour. “We’re gonna have to find him something else to wear,” Annie
muses, looking at him, “I don’t think we have something that fits him, right
now. I think he’s got a thinner waistline than I have, I’m kinda jealous.”
“He’ll thicken up,” Blaine smiles fondly as he takes off his shirt and wraps it
around Cody’s shoulders. It’s so big on him that it almost looks like a cloak.
“How does the world look, pet?” he asks curiously.
Cody smiles excitedly, casting eager, hungry looks all around himself, to the
road, the mountains on the horizon, the quiet river alive with fishes and a
thousand other water animals they’re following. “Different than the last time I
saw it,” he answers with a small chuckle.
“When was it?” Leo asks in a bored, forced voice, looking away. He’s trying
very, very hard not to show any interest, but Blaine knows better.
“Um, when William bought me, I guess,” Cody answers with a small, embarrassed
smile, “Ten years ago, more or less.”
“That’s a lot of time,” Adam comments, casting him a suspicious look, “So you
were free, before?”
“I suppose,” Cody nods, “But I didn’t see much of the world back then either. I
lived in a convent.”
“What?” Leo snorts, looking at him in shock, “What kind of nuns sell a child to
a man like that?!”
“Um,” Cody, mutters, blushing and looking down, “I suppose… not very pleasant
ones,” he says.
Blaine squeezes his shoulder, laughing out loud in amusement.
The road goes on in a straight line for miles in front of them. It’s
surprisingly reassuring.
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