[BL] I Didn't Sign Up For This-Chapter 61: In Which We Have the Worst Time for Feelings (And Accidentally Become Untraceable)

Chapter 61: In Which We Have the Worst Time for Feelings (And Accidentally Become Untraceable)

The abandoned safehouse was exactly as advertised: abandoned.

Mara pulled the van into what had once been a garage, now mostly collapsed roof and vegetation reclaiming the structure. The main building wasn’t much better, walls still standing, barely, windows long since shattered, everything covered in years of neglect.

"Home sweet home," Mara said dryly, killing the engine.

Getting Azryth inside was an ordeal. He could barely walk, and I wasn’t much better, between us, we had maybe one functional person’s worth of mobility.

Henrik and Mara ended up half-carrying us into what had been a living room. Someone had left old furniture behind, a couch that smelled like mildew and regret, some chairs that looked one strong wind away from collapse. 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

"I’ll set up perimeter wards," Mara said. "Henrik, get them stabilized, we have maybe an hour before someone picks up our trail again."

She disappeared outside.

Henrik immediately started examining us both. Azryth first, checking the wound on his chest where the poison had hit, the black veins were mostly gone now, faded to faint grey lines that would probably scar.

"The poison’s neutralized in you," Henrik said, sounding relieved. "Your essence is regenerating slowly, but it’s happening."

"What about Riven?" Azryth asked immediately.

"Let me check." Henrik turned to me, and I saw his expression shift. "Lift your shirt."

I did. The black veins were still visible across my chest and arms, darker than Azryth’s had been, pulsing faintly with each heartbeat.

"That’s not good," I said.

"That’s... complicated." Henrik pulled out some kind of scanning device. "The seal neutralized most of the poison and transformed it into something your body can process. But there’s still residual curse energy, it’s not active enough to kill you, but it’s not fully eliminated either."

"So I’m walking around with a demon-killing poison in my system."

"Inactive demon-killing poison," he corrected. "The seal is containing it and breaking it down gradually, give it a few days and it should be completely gone."

"A few days," I repeated. "And if the seal fails before then?"

"Then the poison reactivates and you die horribly." Henrik said it matter-of-factly. "But the seal seems stable, you should be fine."

"Should be. Great. I love that confidence."

"It’s the best I can offer given you did something that should have been impossible." He started packing up his equipment. "Both of you need rest, real rest. No fighting, no rift closing, no running from hostile organizations, just sleep and recovery."

"We don’t have time for rest," Azryth said. "The hunters, the Covenant.."

"Are temporarily confused," Mara said, returning from outside. "I just checked the tracking signatures, something weird happened when you two did... whatever you did in the van."

"What kind of weird?" I asked.

"The kind where every tracking spell within a mile radius got scrambled." She pulled up her tablet, showing a map covered in static. "Look at this. The Coalition’s tracker on your binding is gone, the Covenant’s pursuit markers? Disrupted. Even my own monitoring equipment got fried."

Henrik and I exchanged glances.

"The binding surge," he said. "When Riven pulled the poison through and the seal activated. That much power flowing through a demonic-warden connection must have created some kind of magical interference."

"How long will it last?" Azryth asked.

"Unknown. Could be hours, could be days. But right now?" Mara smiled grimly. "You’re ghosts, completely untraceable."

"That’s the first good news we’ve had in days," I said.

"Don’t get too excited. The effect is temporary, once the interference clears, they’ll pick up your signatures again." She collapsed into one of the questionable chairs. "But it buys us time, maybe forty-eight hours before the trackers recalibrate."

Forty-eight hours. Two days to recover, regroup, and figure out our next move.

Two days before everyone hunting us could find us again.

"I’ll take the first watch," Henrik said. "You three get some rest."

Mara didn’t argue, just headed for what had probably been a bedroom. Henrik settled near the broken window, monitoring equipment spread around him.

Which left me and Azryth alone in the mildew-scented living room.

"You should sleep," he said.

"So should you."

"I’m fine."

"You’re absolutely not fine, I can feel you, remember?" I shifted on the couch, trying to find a position that didn’t make everything hurt. "You’re exhausted and in pain and trying very hard to pretend you’re not."

He was quiet for a moment. Then: "The couch is large enough for both of us."

"Is that an invitation?"

"It’s practical. Body heat aids recovery, and..." He paused. "I’d prefer you close, after what happened."

Something in his voice made me look at him more carefully, I understood what he wasn’t saying, fear, vulnerability, the lingering terror of almost dying.

"Okay," I said quietly.

We arranged ourselves on the couch with some difficulty. It was barely wide enough for two people, which meant we ended up pressed together, his arm around me, my head against his shoulder.

Through the binding, I felt him relax slightly. The contact grounding him.

We lay there in the dim light filtering through broken windows. Outside, I heard birds starting their morning songs, dawn was coming.

"I thought I’d lost you," Azryth said suddenly, his voice rough. "When the poison hit, when I felt the binding start to break, I thought that was it. That I’d finally found something worth living for and I was going to watch it die because of what I am."

I shifted to look at him. "Azryth..."

"Five hundred years in that amulet," he said quietly. "Five hundred years of nothing but my own thoughts, my own regrets, my own rage. And in all that time, I never once feared death. Death would have been mercy, an end to the isolation."

"But now you do," I said.

"Now I’m terrified of it." He looked down at me, and there was something raw in his eyes. "Because dying means losing you, and I love you too much for that to be acceptable."

The words hung between us, simple and devastating.

"I know you know," he continued. "I know we’ve both been dancing around it, pretending we can keep this clinical, keep this about the binding and survival and tactical necessity. But I can’t pretend anymore, not after tonight." His hand came up to cup my face. "I love you. Completely, terrifyingly, in a way that makes five hundred years of careful emotional control completely irrelevant."

Through the binding, I felt the truth of it, the depth of it, how much it scared him to admit out loud.

"I’ve never had this before," he said. "I’ve never loved anyone like this. Sera was a close political alliance, affection maybe. But this?" His thumb brushed my cheekbone. "This is something else entirely, this is waking up and the first thought being ’is he safe?’ This is being willing to die if it means you live. This is...." He stopped, searching for words. "This is everything I never thought I’d have and being absolutely terrified I’ll lose it."

"You’re not losing it," I said. "You’re not losing me."

"You can’t promise that, neither of us can." His voice was tight. "Every day we’re hunted, every rift we close puts us in danger, every step closer to Veyrith increases the chance one of us doesn’t make it. And I hate it. I hate knowing that loving you means living with constant fear that you’ll die because of me."

"Then we’re matched," I said quietly. "Because I’m just as terrified."

He looked at me, surprised.

"You think this is easy for me?" I almost laughed. "Azryth, I love you so much it physically hurts sometimes. Like my chest is too small to contain it all, and that’s terrifying because I’ve never actually loved anyone before, I never had anyone I’d die for without hesitation, never felt this vulnerable."

"Riven..."

"I’m not done." I grabbed his hand. "Every risk you take, I feel it through the binding, every injury you sustain, I experience, every time you put yourself in danger to protect me, I want to scream because you matter just as much as I do and you keep acting like you’re expendable."

"I’m not..."

"You absorbed that Covenant attack meant for me during the safehouse assault. You threw yourself between me and a binding trap, you constantly position yourself as the shield and me as the thing worth protecting." My voice cracked. "And I love you for it and hate it at the same time because losing you would destroy me. Not just physically through the binding, emotionally. Completely."

His expression shifted, understanding.

"We’re both terrified," he said.