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Aftermath	By : singvogel Category: A through F > Forgotten Realms Views: 3056 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: The Forgotten Realms/recognisable characters appearing in this story are Wizards of the Coast, Inc., all rights reserved. They are used without permission and for entertainment purposes only. No profit is being made by the autor.

Chapter List
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A/N: So, they are still trying to find their way, but it is taking them a bit longer than I thought :) Next chapter will probably have Sinnafein in it, but I'm making no promises.
Small steps
When he steps into the house he has not set foot in since that fateful evening years ago Tos’un cannot help himself. He looks towards the curtain, which hides Jaellien’s private room, where he received one of the most terrible whippings he can remember and he shivers. It proved to him that the mage is capable of just the same level of violence and vengefulness which he himself can achieve with the right motivation.
Of course the blond elf has noticed his look.
“That is not going to happen again”, he says, sounding not quite reassuring to Tos’un, but rather a bit like he is trying to convince himself as he speaks. The drow lets it go for now, because he recognizes that there is at least the intention of making it true.
If he did not feel so terrible, Tos’un would have laughed when Jaellien finally leads him into the kitchen only to turn around and say: “Would you like something to eat?” with an almost endearingly helpless expression.
Neither of them really knows how to behave, how to fill this new truce with meaning, but for the moment they both try their best to keep their interaction from deteriorating into angry, barbed comments and insults like it usually does so swiftly the moment either of them opens their mouth.
“I... “, Tos’un hesitates, but he remembers too well how the mage would manage to spoil each and every meal even under threat of severe pain. He never managed to do anything beyond the simple cutting of meat and vegetables to any degree of their satisfaction, so it had usually fallen to Tos’un and Ad’non to do all the actual cooking and spicing. “If you are really...”
“You can do the final preparing”, Jaellien cuts in drily and saves him from trying to phrase it as a polite request.
Relieved but not quite trusting that this deceptive sense of relative peace will hold Tos’un merely nods. He is not very surprised to find that Jaellien’s cupboards and shelves are almost bare except for a few very basic vegetables, salt and some bread. Apparently the other has not developed any new surprising talents when it comes to cooking. It is very strange to know someone so well but also not at all, he thinks. He notices how Jaellien is watching him out of the corner of green eyes with a certain wariness, almost as if he expects that Tos’un will suddenly turn around at any second to hit him or start to say something cutting and derisive.
Some months ago he might have done exactly that, if only because he hates being stared at and his guilt is already lying so heavily inside his stomach. He should not be here. What would Sinnafein think if she knew? What would she say? It makes him uncomfortable enough that he has to keep himself from squirming, but he has vowed to himself that he will not take the usual escape route this time. He said he meant it and at the time he did, so now he will simply have to follow through with his words, no matter how much he would suddenly like to hide behind scathing comments. It would be easy to provoke Jaellien enough, which is what he usually does, almost without effort. But he also hates it. He hates it and it is slowly destroying him from the inside. There has to be something better than the endless fighting they have been engaged in during the last years.
Tos’un realizes only now, how much of a wall he has also built around himself, that maybe it is not only the other who has been shielding behind their aggressive spats throughout the years. Maybe he has been lying to himself in a way when he attributed all aggressiveness to Jaellien, because while the mage certainly is the more vocal one, Tos’un realizes now how tempting it feels to slide back into the old track and avoid being more open and approachable, no matter how much he does not actually want them to fight again. He only needs to say or do something he knows would cause the blond to hiss at him with the instant anger of hurt feelings. It would end all this, his guilt, his fear of being hurt in a different way. In a way much more painful and terrible to him, because he has never really been taught how to deal with it except in violent retaliation.
“I’ve never been quite aware of just how hard I have been fighting against you”, Tos’un says, traces of his initial surprise still lingering in his voice. Very carefully he keeps his hands and eyes on the carrots he his currently slicing.
“Until now”, Jaellien says, sounding strangely relieved.
“I was taught very early and harshly to always guard myself at all costs”, the drow admits. “I guess I did not realize how much those teachings have stayed with me even after spending more than two decades up here.”
“You also do not trust me, like you would trust Sinnafein.”
Tos’un thinks he can detect a little bit of hurt in that statement, but it is perfectly true. You almost killed me, he thinks then, but does not say it out loud, for it would change nothing, because Jaellien knows it as well as he does. There is no good reason for him to trust the blond mage.
“You have more reason to cause me harm.”
He has phrased it as neutrally as he could, but Tos’un can sense how Jaellien stiffens beside him in frustration.
“I do not... “, the blonde hisses, old, familiar anger seeping back into his voice, but then he breaks off and only grounds out: “Please excuse me for a moment”, before he flees from the kitchen and leaves the drow still staring at a half sliced carrot.
It takes only a few minutes before the mage returns, but when he does he has a determined expression on his face, which tells Tos’un that this discussion is not over yet. Carefully he puts the knife away.
“Besides that first day”, the mage says tightly, watching him closely as if the answers to his questions will appear in his face any second, “when have I caused you any harm in the last five years? What makes you assume that I want to do that right now?”
“I would, if I were in your place.”
Jaellien stares at him now, clearly surprised at such an open admission. Honesty can be brutal, Tos’un thinks, but it is true. He has admitted that much to himself over the years, but the blank stare he is receiving prompts him to continue: “You said once that I have not changed at all and in a way you were right. Even though I do love Sinnafein, prefer the life I have now and have even found a certain measure of desire for peace and trust in my heart, if someone was to treat me like I did you I would take the opportunity for revenge if it was presented to me and I would revel in it.”
The last is spoken almost like a challenge, but all it does is make Jaellien groan in frustration and rub his face in gesture that is pure helpless aggravation.
“I know that!” he snaps, looking up again. “But did it never occur to you that I. Am. Not. You?!”
He has kept himself from saying it before, but now the words burst out of Tos’un’s mouth almost without thought: “You were angry enough to almost kill me! What am I supposed to expect? It’s not like you ever stated clearly what you want from me! Besides pushing me into your bed you never did anything but hiss, yell and snap at me at every opportunity.”
He can hear Jaellien grind his teeth, but the drow still does not quite understand what frustrates the blonde elf so much. In his mind there is still no definite indication as to what Jaellien might really expect from him.
“Fine!” the mage yells suddenly, hitting the table with tightly curled fists. “I’ll admit it then, because after five years you still don’t seem to get it. But if you say one fucking taunting word, if you ever dare to try and use this against me I will strangle you and hang you by your own entrails!”
He hesitates for a moment and stares at the now rigid drow as if to see whether his threat will be taken seriously. Apparently satisfied when Tos’un merely stares back in silent, wide eyed shock he finally continues: “All I want from you, all I EVER wanted, is that you acknowledge me, my worth as a person, not as some toy or tool to play with, use and discard, but as someone you could actually respect. I just want to know that I am worth something to you, that you care damn you. As you might have noticed a single nice gesture from you almost had me break down right there. I really am that pathetic. And yet you never did that before and it always made me furious how you could be so fucking distant and uncaring except for when I broke your control with sex or pain or if I managed to make you angry, but I could not leave it alone and kept coming back even though it hurt every single fucking time. And now after five years of this I am tired, hurt and lonely and I just don’t know what to do anymore!”
Jaellien’s voice breaks on the last sentence and somewhere during this half yelled, rambling speech his eyes have taken on a suspicious shine which speaks of tears long suppressed.
“In a way knowing that you love her only makes it worse”, he continues before Tos’un can say something in reply to this latest revelation, “because now I am certain that you are actually capable of caring enough. I just hate the thought that you would never give this kind of consideration to me, even after I have already given you so much. It seems that it all had no value at all. My dignity my pride, all of it meant nothing to you. There were times in my life when I literally lived and breathed for your approval. And even though I hate the fact, that need seems to have stuck with me somehow. There really is nothing I can do about that so I am resigned to it by now. But when you said that you were tired of fighting I hoped that maybe something would finally change, but we are still here, fighting again.”
He sounds so lost that Tos’un’s heart clenches in sudden empathy, a feeling which is unusual in regards to this particular elf, when he has done all he can to distance himself from the other, to ignore the seeds of compassion which nonetheless seem to have grown somewhere deep inside his soul. What Jaellien just described to him mirrors his own thoughts and emotions in a way he cannot ignore.
“My feelings are not as different as you might think”, the drow says softly, looking down on his hands again, because he cannot face the hopeless look in the mage’s eyes right now. “But don’t you see that what you’re asking from me goes against the very things which have been taught to me by my wife, the things you want from me too? I love her, so how can I betray her by granting you what you wish for?”
Jaellien’s look at these words is pure misery.
“I’m not asking you to stop loving her”, he says hopelessly, dark eyes wide and deep with the pain he usually covers up so well.
“But you are asking me to betray my vows.”
A stubborn glint enters Jaellien’s eyes as he presses his lips together before he asks the next question: “What if she did not exist? Would it be possible then?”
The icy shiver that runs down Tos’un’s back at that question lets him answer more harshly than he normally would, because that is something he does not even want to imagine.
“She is the very reason I care at all. Without her I would not be speaking to you now, so I am warning you and I will do it this one time only: Do not go there!”
“You said you meant it!”
It is almost a wail, but not quite. There is still some composure left in the blonde, even though he is clutching at the corner of his table as if he would not be able to stand otherwise. Tos’un draws up his shoulders without really meaning to, but forces himself to relax again. The well known feeling of being trapped is uncomfortably at odds with the compassion and want he also feels, but has never allowed himself to acknowledge until now, except for when it was forced upon him by Jaellien. Somehow then he could convince himself that he was not entirely responsible for his own feelings. It was just another way he has been lying to himself he supposes bitterly.
“Yes”, he says, now moving towards the other, slowly so as not to startle him. “I did and I do, but I want you to be aware that I will be paying a very high price for it.”
When he is close enough Jaellien transfers his death grip from the table to Tos’un’s arms and pulls him even closer.
“I’m too far in to stop now”, the blonde whispers loosening his fingers a little, but at the same time moulding his body to the drow’s as if he wants them to melt into each other. “Please don’t hurt me.”
The last is breathed into Tos’un’s shoulder and neck so softly that despite his very acute senses he is not quite sure if he really heard it. He swallows his sigh, because he is aware that there is enough reason in their past for Jaellien to be afraid. Somehow it also soothes his own fear of hurt though. If the other is so afraid surely he is not planning to attack Tos’un, now that he has finally found the courage to lay himself open. It reassures him enough to lift one hand and stroke carefully along the mages back as if he was trying to soothe a skittish animal.
This time when Jaellien actually seems to melt against him with a small, helpless sound, Tos’un cannot deny the first stirrings of tenderness inside his chest, for he can recognize the tentative, desperate trust in the gesture, which has never been quite there before. It is a new, unexpected facet to the want he already knows and it surprises him. So it begins, he thinks, as the tenderness swiftly mixes with the beginnings of sharp edged guilt.
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Aftermath