Lord of Unkindness: Chapter Fourteen

 Notes: We're back! And maybe moving in a positive direction, for once. For now ;)

 Title: Lord of Unkindness, Chapter Fourteen

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Chapter Fourteen

 

The feeling Ciro gets when he sees Angelo pull up in a plain black pickup sedan that’s seen better days is like when the sensation of being drunk hits you all at once. One second you’re wondering when your buzz is finally going to kick in, and the next you’re swimming in a slightly dizzy sea of pleasure. At least, that’s what drinking does to Ciro, not that he has in a long time. He pushes to his feet when Angelo gets out of the car and sighs with relief when his little bird comes to rest on his shoulder. It’s not enough magic to bring life back into all his limbs, but it warms him up a bit.

“Ciro…” Angelo reaches for him but Ciro shrinks back into the darkness, making Angelo follow him farther down the alley.

“Are you sure you weren’t followed?” he asks as Angelo glares half-heartedly at him.

“Absolutely sure. Are you all right? You look—”

“You need to be positive.”

Angelo looks at him and raises his hands. Golden light dances around them, spreading out like a bubble until they’re encased in its warm glow. It finally dissipates into thousands of sparkling twinkles, leaving Ciro dazzled and dazed in equal measure. “Those will disperse any magical detection that could possibly have followed me,” he says. “I did the spell three times on my way to you. There are no familiars within half a mile, and the only ones I can sense beyond that are a gibbon and two cats. Now come here, damn it.”

Ciro takes one tentative step forward, then another. He reaches out and the second their fingertips touch the drunk feeling is back, only now it’s positively euphoric. He’s too tired to fight the allure of Angelo’s magic, too drained not to let on how much he wants this. He’s too exhausted for anything except joy that Angelo is here, with him, holding him right now. For the first time in months, Ciro lets his defenses down and lays his head on Angelo’s shoulder. It’s a bit of a stretch, he’s got four inches on the shorter man, but Angelo just hums and pulls him in tighter.

“You’re okay,” Angelo murmurs, and Ciro isn’t sure which of them he’s reassuring. The strength with which he holds Ciro is almost enough to bruise. “Thank the gods you’re okay. When I heard what happened at your apartment I wanted to go back in time and beat myself for letting you leave me.”

“Didn’ give you a choi’,” Ciro slurs, his fatigue a fuzzy blanket over his senses.

“And now it’s time for me to turn the tables. I’m going to take you somewhere safe.”

Ciro wants to believe him. He desperately wants to believe that safety still exists, but after six months of exhausting work only to be discovered and hunted down by his family’s fixer, he just can’t muster that level of faith. He’s empty—of magic, of faith, of family, of friends. He’s got nothing left except a tiny bird and the man holding onto him, and Ciro knows the kind thing to do would be to let Angelo go.

He flinches as his bird pecks his forehead—hard. “Ow.”

“You deserve it for whatever you’re thinking,” Angelo says, but there’s no heat in his voice. There is warmth, though; warmth everywhere, all around them, cocooning them together. It almost feels like being back in bed together, and Ciro tries to say as much.

“It is, but we got to lie down whenever we were in bed together.” Angelo kisses the side of his head. “I feel like lying down would be good for you right now. You need rest, sweetheart. Rest and magic.”

It hurts to pry his head off Angelo’s shoulder, but Ciro does it because this is important. “They’ll find my magic if we stay in the city,” he insists. “They’ll find it, then they’ll find me. I can’t hide well enough from my own family, they—”

“All right, all right,” Angelo soothes. “We’ll leave your magic out of it. For now. But we’re past the point where acupuncture is going to do much for you, and you desperately need healing. Your nerves are screaming and you can’t even hear it, Ciro.”

Well, that’s not a pleasant metaphor. “How?” he asks, because it’s all well and good to put on a strong front but Ciro is so fucking tired, and Angelo is so caring and concerned, and he’s just so tired of turning care away. It was hard to leave him the last time; he’s not sure he could even muster the energy to take a single step backward right now.

“I’ve got a place we can go, okay? It’s protected, way better than a goddamn battery factory. I’ll shield us on the way there, and then we can take some time to figure things out for you, okay?”

That sounded good, except… “Too much for you.” Angelo seems like a never-ending font of magical energy, but no one can keep this sort of pace up forever. “You’ll exhaust yourself.”

Angelo winds his fingers into Ciro’s hair and tilts his head just enough so he can kiss his forehead. “It’s not new magic,” he promises. “This is somewhere I set up a long time ago for healing. You’re not the only one who’s needed extra help along the way, so there’s no need for you to feel any sort of guilt whatsoever.”

He would love for that to be true, but… “The clin’c?”

“Maria’s handling it. And before you ask, no, she doesn’t know where this place is but she can get in touch with me if anything goes wrong.” He kisses him again. “No one is being inconvenienced. No one is being bothered. Dig up your inner rich boy and lean into it for once, all right? You do, in fact, deserve nice things.”

Ciro chuckles and gives up. He gives up and gives in, and when he pulls back to look at Angelo he can tell the moment Angelo realizes it. The other man’s face lights up with a brilliant smile, and his eyes shine with relief. “Okay,” Ciro says. “I’ll go with you.”

“That’s my boy.” He kisses Ciro right beside his ear, which gives Ciro a convenient excuse for the shudder that works its way down his spine that has nothing to do with the touch, and everything to do with the words. “Come on, into the car. Let’s get this show on the road.” Angelo helps Ciro in, going so far as to recline his chair and fasten the seatbelt for him. Ciro loathes being managed, babied, but it’s different when Angelo does it. It’s not like his father, taking a responsibility away from him because he doesn’t trust Ciro to handle it. It’s not like with Nephele, trying to do things for him to lock him in close to her and make him dependent. Angelo’s just doing it because he wants to be nice to Ciro.

He’d thank him, but once his head is down it’s all Ciro can do to keep his eyes open. The hum of the car starting is the final straw; he goes from watching the blurry landscape go by to waking up when the hum abruptly stops. He opens his eyes, painfully; the lids scrape like knives, and his throat is dry enough that he immediately starts coughing.

A water bottle appears in front of him. “Drink, babe,” Angelo encourages, then gets out of the car. Ciro drains half the bottle and pours a little over his eyes as a stopgap measure to making his own moisture again. His bird, now sitting on the dash, squawks at him judgmentally.

“I’m doing my best,” Ciro mutters. The look in the tiny raven’s eyes indicates that it’s really not at all sure of that. “Thanks a lot.” He drinks the rest of the water, then slowly unbuckles himself and gets out of the car. The sedan is parked in front of a small, abandoned-looking building that reads Church of—oh. Um. Wait, what?

He stares at Angelo, who’s pulling bags out of the trunk. “You’re a scientologist?”

Angelo laughs. “No, the sign’s just to keep people from going in. Although we are close to Gilman Hot Springs, but just because I wanted access to the water, not because I want anything to do with the people. You can enter, though, I already unlocked the door.”

Ciro walks dubiously over to the ramshackle building. He turns the handle, opens the door, steps inside…

And blinks. And blinks again.

What the…