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bananacockatiel · 10 months

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Substitute Lovers - Sage Lesath + FWB!Felix (pt. 5)

Word Count: 5,069

Warnings: Blood, fighting, suggestive scenes. Minors DNI.

Pt. 4 here!

Sage notices the ring on your finger as you come down the stairs before he notices the rest of you. It fixes his attention, pulls him into its gravity, like a dying star.

You look like a stranger, clothes in fabrics and colors that aren’t your own; more of a costume than the one you first appeared to him in when Felix transported you to Astrea. But for all the work Anisa and Felix put into your disguise no jewelry adorns your frame, aside from the ring. Sage pleads, with all the strength in him, to be strong enough to let that go.

He sits against the wall, elbows propped against his knees, picking at cloth fibers that’d worked their way into his gauntlet. Most of his night was spent caring for his armor, sharpening his weapons, and pacing around Fathom. The chilled venom of his past bit into his chest every time Sage thought about taking you to that market; and the ache of memories he tried to drown out continued to resurface like buoyant remnants of a shipwreck.

This would not be the first time Sage entered the black market, but it would be the first time he entered it without any friends on the inside. The tap of your footsteps against the floor shakes him from his reverie, lulling him into the uneasy arms of the present moment.

He makes no effort to curb his staring as you make your way towards him, caught somewhere between the inner tension of this realization and the strangeness of missing you even as you stand right in front of him. Sage doesn't recognize the expression on your face as the gentle thud of your footsteps stops a few inches in front of his own. Slowly, he cranes his chin upwards until he meets your eyes.

“Just say it.”

“You look like an asshole,” Sage chuckles.

“I feel like an asshole,” you mumble, taking him in. He already looks worn, like he somehow managed to make his way to Porrima in the night, deep shadows underlying his golden eyes. “I think it’s a mix of Felix’s old school uniforms and Anisa’s training gear. Hand-me-down casserole.”

“Sounds about right, wearing the worst to visit the worst.” Sage flashes one of his winning smiles at you that doesn’t quite meet his eyes. “Just let me know if you’d like any help taking it off.”

"I thought this was one of your old haunts," you reply, picking up on a string of tension between the two of you, but unsure of how to remedy the situation.

What did it mean, for you to think this of him? How far did you think he'd sunk into the underbelly of Porrima? How steep was the incline of his downfall in your mind? How undeserving did you mark him of your understanding?

"Got boring after a while. Not a whole lot to steal in a market full of thieves. Sage lurches forward, pushing against the ground to bring himself upright. "Besides, it's hard being the prettiest face in the crime ring, you're more of a target that way."

You make a small sound of acknowledgement, taking a moment to pull at the hem of the just-too-tight shirt you were wearing. Sage's eyes strayed for a moment, taking in the places the garment hugged your form along your waist before gradually growing to accommodate the expanse of your-

"C'mon, Sage. The outfit can't be that bad." You chastise him without knowing you're doing so. He thanks the gods silently.

"Just looking for what party favors they equipped you with," he mutters. He's already picked up on the outline of a dagger against your hip, faintly bulging against the fabric of your skirts, along with the purple bruises lingering on the skin of your collarbone. “Since you and Felix were strategizing for so long last night, I figured you must have gotten something nice.”

He watches as your arms cross and cheeks redden, but you don’t look away.

* * * In all fairness, the night did legitimately start with strategizing. You visited Felix for further instruction on utilizing the charms he placed on the ring and to clarify what you should expect out of the black market. It was only your intention to converse with him, to gain the smallest amount of comfort that conversation could provide and allow his words to lull you into an uneasy rest in your room.

If you’d have been smart, that’s exactly how the night would have gone. The scene plays in your memory now, shame and desire pooling in your stomach.

Now, you hold the ghost of Felix’s breath against your hand as he pants erratically underneath you. You wished you had some way to bottle it, keep it, hold it for yourself when you felt more like a wreck than a person.

Felix’s hair is splayed underneath his head like a darkened halo, in sharp contrast to the blushed skin of his cheeks and neck. His hands are tied by a silken cord to the headboard of his bed, but his feet remain free. He looks like some sort of bound spirit, or entity, and you lean down to whisper how beautiful he is against one of the angry bruises you left against his neck. Just as the salty taste of his sweat dances across your tongue, he whimpers something you don’t make out as he bites the skin of your palm, hard. You wonder if you’ll find your blood smeared crimson against his swollen lips when you pull back.

You still yourself and sit flush against his hips, already missing the delicious friction of a moment ago, but you can tell by the look in his eyes that he’s close and you refuse to allow him release so easily. Chest heaving, his feet scramble underneath you for purchase somewhere on the bed to create leverage and resume the pace you created. Powerless and pathetic, his hips rut needily against you.

“You’re really making this difficult for me, you know that?” you breathe against his ear, lips brushing against the skin there with the softest pressure. “How am I supposed to leave in the morning when I could have you like this, tied up and waiting for me to use as I please?”

He bites the skin of your palm again and you pull your hand back, pleased to see a mix of your blood and his saliva smeared across his mouth, nearly meeting his chin. Felix gasps, reunited with full lungs and reacquainted with oxygen once more, pupils blown and staring into your eyes. You raise your clean hand to touch his face, wiping away some of his smudged eyeliner. Eyes drop to his mouth as he licks his lips, chin tilting upwards in a wordless plea for you to do the same to him with your own. You exhale onto his face, reveling in his helplessness.

“Have you forgotten how to speak too?” You chuckle, soiled hand running down his chest, smearing the fluids there. He shudders underneath you and it’s almost enough to break your resolve. “You really are pathetic-”

“Kiss me.” He breathes. “Please. Kiss me.”

You suck your teeth for a moment, contemplating his submission. The vision of him underneath you, so willing, sends a shiver down your spine. You lean down and press a kiss on the tip of his chin before running your tongue against his lips. He cranes his head so that his open mouth catches yours, and it’s your turn to moan. Hands balling into fists in the hair at the top of his head, you finally resume your pace, hips meeting his over and over as the sounds of your flesh meeting each others’ fill the room. Felix yelps your name, whining that he’s close, for you to slow down, for you to stop, for you to never stop, and you shove your fingers into his mouth.

You hear a sound from the hallway, but caught in the bliss of this small moment with Felix it passes through your ears and out of your consciousness.

* * * "Are you alright, Sage?" You take a step closer to him, eyes fixed on his face. His heartbeat quickens, hands clenching into fists at his sides. "Have you eaten anything today?"

"Why, have you got something for me to eat?" The words leave his mouth before he's able to stop them, leaving "Of course not" waiting on the tip of his tongue. "We'd be cutting it close, but I think I could make it quick before we leave." Will I still be the same man to you, when we return?

You shake your head at him, right hand coming up to pinch the bridge of your nose.

“I don’t know why I bother with you sometimes.”

Sage doesn’t know, either.

* * * The moon shines bright through the treetops in the forest where Felix’s portal spits you out at, its rays bitter as the taste of sour grapes filling your mouth. Sage takes a moment to look himself over (He checks twice to make sure his tail is still there, and you the memory of Sage muttering before he left that he’d be charging the richling for every hair that went missing in transit fills your mind), before dusting off his thighs and pushing his way into the trees. Dizzy, you follow the sound his boots make as they trample through the underbrush, damp leaves and foliage you don’t recognize smacking against your clothes.

You only have to struggle to match his pace for a few moments however, as soon his long strides come to a halt in front of you at the trees’ edge. The faint smell of urine and other bodily fluids fills your nose as a particularly strong gust of wind blows in your direction from the north.

“That’s the market, all right,” Sage takes a deep breath, golden eyes reflecting the dances of green flames flashing wildly here and there from below in the market. It has the feel of looking into the ocean, faint choruses of raucous songs from bitter voices rising above the treetops like siren songs. Even at this distance you can hear the noises of a fight break out, but Sage remains as still, looking more at peace than you’d seen him in weeks.

“Hasn’t changed a bit.” Sage says, and you wonder where his mind has traveled, even as his body remains affixed to the spot.

* * * “Where are you right now?” Felix’s whispers pull you to the surface of the moment. You’re lying on your side, propped against his pillows, facing him as he picks at the polish on his nails.

“Hm?” Your words feel bitter in your mouth, like a film you can’t scrape off. “Oh, I didn’t realize I was hogging all your pillows. Sorry.”

“You know that’s not what I mean.” his voice is low, but no longer the voice of a lover. It’s genuine, surprisingly so for him, and sincere; the voice of a friend. You’re not sure if you feel more intensely the warmth of this or of his hand as he reaches down and runs his fingers softly against the crown of your head.

“That’s not a bullet I care to bite right now.” you murmur, but you’ve taken a second too long to respond, feeling more fragile as the seconds pass. Your throat burns as you try and choke down everything you want to say to him.

“Bullet?” Felix asks.

“Nevermind.”

“I’m more mind than man, most days,” Felix slowly sits upright in his bed, hands tousling his hair. You listen to him breathe, nearly able to hear the half-formed thoughts skimming the surface of his mind. “That was a joke, by the bye.”

“It was funny.” you reply, eyes fixed on the fabric of his sheets. “Well, almost funny.”

“I’m almost grateful.” His voice has impossibly softened. “But I’d be more so if you’d enlighten me as to your whereabouts for the past hour.” He places a finger to your forehead for emphasis, a smirk belying his tone.

You don’t know how to tell him without hurting him that you’re in your bed. You’ve turned the lights off but forgotten to turn on your fan, and are trying to work up the energy to right your mistake before you drift off to sleep. You’ve just watched a movie - you can’t remember the title, you were on your phone for all but the climax, and the taste of dinner lingers in your mouth. You should call your mother. You should -

You remind yourself that crying won’t change anything, and take a deep breath to steady yourself.

When the tumult of your new life here manages to settle itself, in the small, quiet moments as you lie in Felix’s bed, you’re sometimes surprised to open your eyes and find that you haven’t been lying in your own bed this whole time, that this wasn’t a dream. The feel of the mattress, not quite comfortable, but not quite uncomfortable, and the familiar scratch of his sheets - it feels almost normal. Almost home. The closeness of the sensations is almost inhumane.

“I’m right here with you, Felix. Right where you left me.”

* * * The market grows louder and more disorienting the further you walk into it. You mostly keep your head down, following the white tuft of Sage’s tail as it serpentines through the crowd of people, the concert of curses mingled with conversation ringing in your ears around you. Sage walks with a purpose despite your apparent lack of destination as you make another circle around the same set of booths with an impressive collection of knives and weapons. Worry blooms, like an itch in the middle of your back you can't scratch, as you watch Sage's head flick back and forth as he watches the faces of passersby. The smell of heavy smoke from an unseen fire burns your nostrils.

You do your best to keep your head low and arms close by, as Sage suggested, but the site demands your attention. Each booth (and nearly each vendor) you pass has soot and dirt caked so thoroughly into each crevice they nearly appear to be outlined in ink. The uneven ground underneath your feet is littered with loose stones and garbage, and you struggle to sidestep puddles of water and other pools of dark liquid that Sage bounds around with ease. Tension hangs in the air, floating like unseen wasps overhead the crowd. Glass shatters from somewhere above you, scattering over the heads of the crowd. You pull your eyes from the grimy horizon for a moment, covering the crown of your head with one of the ridiculous scarves Felix insisted upon you wearing, only to run face-first into Sage’s broad back.

“Can’t stay away, huh?” His laugh is barely audible over the noise of the scene around you. He reaches behind himself, hands locking around one of your wrists, and pulls you to the side of an abandoned booth. It looks twice picked-over, once something valuable and now something left to decay in the streets. Just as you start to recognize something of yourself in it, Sage leans down and whispers in your ear, voice soft but commanding. “Watch this.”

He’s placed himself between you and the brewing commotion to his right, but you’re able to crane your head to follow his instruction. Suddenly, one man runs, broken bottle outstretched, charging towards a group of three others. His weapon makes contact with one’s back and he yells something in a language you don’t recognize. One of the men kicks the assailant’s legs out from underneath him before the man who was stabbed pulls an impressively sized knife from the leg of his pants, raising his arm skyward. Sage puts himself in between you and the scene once more, and you’re reminded of the night you first met as he smirks down at you.

“Thank you.” you whisper, trying to focus on anything but the sounds of the fight before you. Your hands knot themselves together, fingers sliding over the ring Felix gifted you and searching for some sort of comfort.

“Just doing my job,” Sage replies, looking over his shoulder. There’s an uncharacteristic tenseness to his posture, and he looks rigid as he clenches and relaxes his hands repeatedly. You watch the muscles of his forearm expand and relax against the fabric of his coat.

“How’d you know?” You ask, half-curious and half attempting to drown out the sounds of snapping and screaming.

Sage raises an eyebrow, exposing the tip of his fangs in another smirk before responding.

“I don’t know anything,” he mumbles. The fight is starting to die down, and you try not to think of the reason for this. “You think too much.”

“I get it, a magician never shares their secrets.”

“Magician,” His tongue moistens his lips, and he takes a deep breath before responding. “Magic doesn’t have a damn thing to do with it. You can feel when shit’s about to go down, when you pay attention.”

“Ah, so it’s your cat-like reflexes.”

He looks down at you, something puzzling in his gaze, a smile ghosting against the corners of his mouth. Even with the light of the moon above you, illuminating Sage’s hair a brilliant silver, it’s hard to make out his expression as you stand in its (his) shadow. There’s a heaviness in his stare, pulling you in like ocean tides, and you curse your own longing.

“Something like that,” he says, turning his gaze from you once more to observe the scene. Bystanders have begun to cajole the fight’s victors and empty the pockets of the losers. “Now c’mon, I think I spotted our guy.”

And so when he turns away from you again, you follow him like gravity. * * * There’s blood on the knuckles of the man Sage grasps hands with.

You’re on the opposite edge of the market from where you came in. A group of five stands before you now, shifty and serious, stares all warm blood and cold steel. The largest one holds your and Sage’s weapons in their arms, reminding you of just how vulnerable the pair of you were against the group. Something about the way they look at you while Sage speaks makes you feel like someone pulled out the drain stopper in your stomach.

“Here’s the patron,” Sage’s voice sounds lower than it usually does, and for a moment you feel as though you’ve slipped into a dream.

“A student.” The man responds, eyeing you up and down. He looks like the memory of something terrible, like a face you’ve seen in a nightmare but can’t place once you wake. “Rare company.”

“Don’t judge the ale by its tankard,” There’s something uneasy in the way Sage smiles so casually, with his shoulders tense and forearms flexed.

“Never do, in this line of work. Which is why I hope you can understand why we’ve taken such precautions.” The man gestures to your weapons, making eye contact with you as he does so. The line of Sage’s spine is tight as a bowstring. The air around you feels thinner, somehow colder, as the two of them discuss amounts, payment. Their small talk has the sharpness of something shattered on the edges of it, and for a moment you’re lost in the swirling of your thoughts. How many times had Sage done something like this before? Was he once in the place of the man standing before you now, with blood on his hands?

Sage calls your name, gruffly, his tone turning the blood in your veins to ice. They’re both staring at you with an unfamiliar urgency, and your courage withers.

“Your payment?” the man barks, extending his hand. Hastily, you remove the satchel of coins Felix gave you from your purse and deliver it to him, hoping he doesn’t notice the tremor in your hands as you do so. He tosses the pouch to one of the companions to his right, who begins counting, without breaking eye contact with you. Your breath quickens.

“Excellent,” his tongue moistens his lips as he fiddles with his pockets, removing four small vials full of an inky liquid. You wonder if he can see the hairs standing up on the back of your neck. He holds one of the vials in his hand, extending it towards you. “Now, if you’d be so kind as to drink, we’ll be on our way.”

As soon as the words leave his mouth, your knees threaten to fail you. Your mouth feels dry as you open it to speak, but nothing comes out.

“You think they’re going to spend so much gold just to waste it here?” Sage scoffs, tone betraying his posture once more. “Is this your idea of a joke?”

“Only one will suffice,” the man glares at Sage. “Again, precautions. Your reputation precedes you, Sage Lesath.” He speaks Sage’s name like a curse, like a bad omen, as he stares him down.

“To hells with my reputation,” Sage spits.

“We’ll see each other there, I’m sure,” the man’s voice is full of venom, although his tone remains calm and his demeanor collected. He turns his gaze to you, shaking the vial back and forth between his forefinger and thumb. “If you’d like to leave, I’d suggest you drink. Quickly.”

Sage curses, erupting in protest, even as one of the men strides forward with weapon in hand. His tail flicks back and forth, and there’s a familiar, terrible look in his eye. You wonder how your shaking legs manage to push your frame forward, despite your head swimming somewhere in the clouds above you. You take the vial in your hand, and Sage’s protests are drowned out as the ringing swells in your ears. It feels heavier than its size would suggest, inky blackness swirling like forbidden galaxies in your palm. Uncorking it, you’re overcome with the feeling of standing on a precipice, wind blowing into your face from cavernous valleys below. Sage has gone silent, but you feel his heated gaze on you as you raise the glass to your lips, taking half of it into your mouth, wishing you could remember a prayer to say for the both of you.

The drink is thick, almost oily as it sits on your tongue. Your stomach already feels sick at the idea of swallowing, and you begin to feel hot. It tastes of ash, bile, and something sickly sweet. You put your tongue to the roof of your mouth but can’t bring yourself to swallow, even as it begins to tingle uncomfortably against your gums. Your face feels flushed, and you feel a sheen of sweat bloom against your forehead. Images of Balsam flashing across your mind. Would Felix be able to help, once your eyes were full of the same red glow? Or would you meet the same fate, slumped over against Sage’s feet as he pulls his sword from your cold chest?

You erupt into a violent cough as the liquid hits the back of your throat, spewing it onto the shirt of the man in front of you. It burns painfully as it runs from your nose, gobs of the mixture and saliva dripping from your mouth onto the dirt in front of you. Your breaths heave for a few moments as your head swims.

In three swift steps Sage is beside you, removing the glass from your hand. He downs the rest of its contents in one fluid motion, tossing the empty container at the feet of the man before you. One of his hands comes to rest on your upper back, and you’re grateful for the steady pressure as you fight the urge to retch.

“It’s done.” Sage’s voice has a tremble to it. “Now give us our shit so we can leave.”

The man sighs, mumbling something under his breath that you don’t catch over the pounding in your head. Sage’s eyes narrow as he steps in front of you, his stance protective.

The only warning you get before the blows start is Sage roughly pushing you away from him as three of the men jump on top of him.

Even for all of the training, rigorous as you may have thought it to be, you had never been hit like this. No one told you that when a blow so hard lands to your stomach, the air in your lungs and body goes along with it. Knees giving out under your weight, you sink to the floor. An unfamiliar noise, a half-groan, half-gasp, escapes from your mouth as you try to make sense of the room spinning above you.

You lift your chin just in time to be hit across your left cheek with your assailant’s elbow. You think you hear Sage yell something, but it all feels like background noise over the ringing in your ears and the taste of blood in your mouth.

As your vision goes in and out, you recall Sage told you something, once, about how elbows and knees were the strongest striking points on your body. It feels like he was right.

Aching jaw opening and closing, manually trying to force air into your body, you feel like some awkward, stupid fish. You’re on your hands and knees now, head beginning to swim due to lack of oxygen, the noise still involuntarily making its way past your lips. Mingled blood and saliva drip from your mouth onto the ground like a leaky faucet. The mess stains your hands as you reach for your chest, clawing at the skin there, trying to work life back into your lungs. How ugly a way to die.

A heavy boot crashes against your spine, and a searing pain like you’ve never felt before makes its way through your body for the second time today. You begin to realize that the soiled ground underneath you will soon become your deathbed, and you wait for the mud underneath you to fill your mouth as you make contact with the dirt.

Instead, you feel yourself falling onto something cold, blunt, and metal. As you make contact, the ground shakes violently, sending a wave so powerful and your assailant falls to the ground next to you, unmoving. You grasp onto the object underneath you and roll onto your side, gasping for air, and doing your best to make sense of the blurred images coming into focus of the object in your arms.

The Astrolabe.

Body still aching, you crane your head around the room to look for Sage, ignoring the sharp pains in your neck as you do so.

At first, all you see is a glint of white in a pool of red, his hair reflecting in the moonlight. The largest of the group is sitting on his chest, his gauntleted making repeated contact with Sage’s face, tearing away flesh as it goes. Your knife is stuck in his shoulder, pinning him to the ground. Even at this distance you make out the glow of red in Sage's swollen eyes.

Using the relic to pull yourself into a sitting position, you look around, forcing deep, shaky breaths into your aching lungs. The man who beckoned you to drink is nowhere to be seen, while the bodies of two of his companions lie bloodied on the ground next to Sage.

Leaning heavily on the Astrolabe, you rise in what feels like slow motion. Holding the cool metal in your hands, you will some force, some magic, anything to present itself. Images of Felix in his study, books scattered around the two of you, as he encourages you to look within yourself, to find the thread you pulled onto when you were transported here, to reach those energies. Then, you felt the tingle of energy crackling at the edges of your fingertips, reaching the outer edge of something within you. Then, you felt your chest swelling with the power of it all.

Now, your hands feel empty aside from the cool metal, and the only sensation in your chest is the ache that begins there and spreads throughout your body with each breath. You hear Sage groaning as his assailant's blows grow more erratic with each strike to his face. The creaking noises of the metal gauntlet as it strikes his flesh nearly make you retch once more.

But the noises Sage makes as he lies there, hands clawing at any exposed stretch of his opponent's skin he can reach, that turn your veins to ice. Sage has never been an expressive individual, not with the things that matter. Pain drips so clearly from the noises he makes now, you wouldn't recognize them as coming from him if you weren't looking at him head on.

If the man on top of Sage hears you approaching, he makes no move to show so. He very well may not; you can barely hear your own footsteps over the sounds of their struggle.

You plead with the Astrolabe, the universe, anything and everything, to awaken the same power that brought you to Astrea once more to come to your aid and help Sage. The seconds stretch like miles before you as the scene unfolds in front of you, the man taunting Sage as he takes a handful of his hair into his hand to expose his neck. He pulls the knife from Sage's shoulder and holds it against the swell of his throat, and your body leaps into action before your mind fully grasps the situation.

You feel like an observer, floating over your own body and watching the scene as you draw the Astrolabe back over your left shoulder, bringing it down against the back of the stranger's head as hard as you can. Unsure of where you were aiming in the first place, the relic makes contact with the base of the man's skull, where his neck meets his spine. As quickly as it appeared the Astrolabe disappears, and the only evidence you have of it ever bei.ng there in the first place are the tingling reverberations in your palms. The man slumps over onto his side, knife falling into the dirt next to Sage's face, unmoving.

What did you just do?

#i cannot even express how much I've been loving this little series #what an amazing writer you are op #ily #fictif last legacy #last legacy #last legacy felix #last legacy sage

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