@for-the-love-of-nsfwhump and I just can't stop creating aus, can we 😂 this one places our polycule in an urban fantasy setting, in the aftermath of a fae/human conflict at a time when things look like they might be heating up towards again 👀. Dami belongs to Vee!
main tropes: meetcute, buff they/them throws bad guys, magical peril, chase scene, mentions of homelessness/sleeping on the streets, life-draining spell, wings, fae, mages, animal familiars
The little spells shop is the only one with windows still lit on the night Peyton finds himself at the utter end of his endurance. His pursuers have narrowed the gap between them to a matter of blocks, if not less - he doesn’t have the strength to cast another scrying spell to find out. At least they're not in eye-or-earshot yet.
Ahead of him, a pair of humans cross the street to avoid passing him. He hears the fragments of their whispered disdain as they call him drunk, high, broken. They can't see the sleepless nights dragging at his bones. They don't see the fear chilling the back of his neck, or the ache in every cramped pinch of the wings strapped tightly down under his shirt. They can't see the cantrip that weaves around his ankles, tugging at his heels, twisting under the balls of his feet, leeching energy from under his skin with every needling poke of its tiny teeth. All they see is the way he stumbles, scraping a shoulder against the wall, the way he looks behind him as if expecting something that doesn't appear. They don't know that when he mutters under his breath he's not mumbling alcohol-soured fallacies, but desperate weavings of the last of his glamour, throwing up deceit and deception frailer than a spider's gossamer silk between his presence and the scrying fae pursuing him.
He blinks, fruitlessly attempting to clear his eyes of rain. When was the last time he was dry? Two nights ago, maybe, when he’d persuaded someone to take pity on him despite— or maybe because of— his bedraggled appearance.
His feet are freezing. One shoe is barely holding together, threads of canvas clinging to the thin sole across holes that seem to grow larger by the day. He wasn't prepared when he ran away. He should have at least put on good shoes, even packed a blanket or something food, but the fear had overtaken him. He pays for it now with every blister and limping step, but… it's better. It's better than staying would have been.
The cantrip finds its moment, and Peyton goes down hard, one ankle wrenched beneath him. His palms bark painfully across cold pavement, and in the space between breathlessness and the first swell of pain, he hears them.
“—close by—”
“Just get a sightline, then we’ll have—”
Peyton scrambles up, breath catching in a snarl of terror in the base of his throat. His ankle gives out the moment he tries to put weight on it, throwing him right back down. He can’t run— he needs a place to hide, he needs—
The little shop door opens when he falls against it, letting him spill across the threshold in a tangle of limbs into warm, spiced air and the quiet smell of books and herbs and tea. From deeper inside the shop, he hears a startled “Mousse—!”.
Peyton drags himself over the sill and nudges the door closed behind him with his good foot, fixing his eyes on a little corner between two shelves that will hide him from view of the shop windows. Maybe they didn’t see him come in here. If he can just hide, if he can just get out of sight for a moment, maybe. Maybe he’ll be safe— for a night, for an hour, for long enough to rest. Maybe.
Someone’s here. Peyton hears footsteps. He crawls faster, wedges himself into the corner just as a shadow blocks the low light of the lamp hanging in a tangle of vines from the ceiling over the door.
“Please—” he chokes out, shoving himself further back as someone observes him from what seems like a very great height. They look more like a warrior than a shop-owner, and he quails deeper into his little corner.
They blink, and he puts golden-brown eyes and lightly pointed ears together. A halfling, not a human. Maybe he has a chance at mercy, then, if his kind haven't been unbearably terrible towards them.
He could laugh at the thought, if everything hurt a little less.
“Please, just— I just need an hour, please, just until— I just need a place to hide, I promise I’ll go as soon as they pass by, you’ll never know I was here.”
He can’t tell what they’re thinking. Water drips slowly from his clothes and hair, forming a little puddle under him. Will they throw him out for bringing damp in to ruin their books? Toss him into the gutter under the feet of his pursuers and watch as he’s dragged away?
“Please,” he repeats, barely above a whisper.
The little bell over the shop door chimes once, then again in quick succession. Booted feet tromp against the wood floor, and the shop-owner’s focus turns to the new intruders. Peyton holds his breath. If they don’t come any further into the shop— if they don’t look here between the shelves—
“We’re closed.” The shop owner, gruff and low.
“The door was unlocked,” counters a voice Peyton knows all too well. The fae who wove the cantrip that even now needles at him, tugging threads of magical energy loose to sustain itself at the expense of Peyton’s vitality. He imagines her wings unfurling slowly as she paces closer, consummately at ease.
“We’re still closed. Get out.”
“Now that’s not a very welcoming attitude towards paying customers,” another of his pursuers chips in.
Peyton sees the tips of Chantry’s wings around the corner of the shelf, then his back. He picks up something off the shelf, glancing to the side— and grins, slow and triumphant.
“There you are. Come on out, Peyton, there’s nowhere else to run.”
Emiliana appears over his shoulder, all sharp teeth and sharp eyebrows and sharp-tipped fingers. “Peyton,” she croons, “time to come hooome!”
The shop owner looms behind them both, arms crossed. Peyton thinks, in a mad moment of fear-tinged hilarity, that their biceps are the size of his face. “You’re not customers, and we’re closed. Get. Out.”
“Careful, halfling,” Chantry spits. “We’ll get what we came for, and then be on our way.” He stalks forwards and grabs Peyton by the arm. “Get up. Get up, damn it—”
"Chantry please, just let me go—"
Peyton's efforts to tug his arm free are useless against the other fae's well-rested strength. He finds himself on wavering feet, gripped by rows of fingers that feel too many and too tight. The cantrip, energized by its creator's proximity, digs little spell-teeth into his bad ankle again, spiking pain and exhaustion up the bones of his leg and into his hip. He sags, groaning, and Chantry gives him an irritated shake.
"Don't start with that. You brought this on yourself, and now you'll live with the consequences. Let's go."
He muscles Peyton towards the door. Peyton's toe catches in a wood-knot, and his shoe tears entirely apart, leaving shredded canvas behind as Chantry continues dragging him towards the shop's door.
The door shuts in front of them. Peyton blinks up at the shop owner; when did they move? Why?
The fae pause. "Move," Emiliana pronounces distinctly.
The halfling shakes their head. Chantry and Emiliana share a look, equally annoyed and confounded.
"What, are you looking for compensation for the trouble? Fine, here." Chantry fishes out a handful of coins and tosses them at the shop owner. Bright gold clatters off of their chest and across the floor, but they don't move to pick it up.
Emiliana bites out an irritated curse. "Move," she commands, pouring thralling into her words. Peyton, already linked to her by the cantrip draining his energy, jerks and shudders helplessly in Chantry's arms.
The shop owner stands tall and unmoved, a cliff beaten by waves. "He doesn't want to go with you," they intone.
Emiliana lifts her chin, wings flaring. "This is fae business. Step aside, or you will be made to."
The shop owner lifts a single eyebrow. Emiliana falters slightly at their lack of reaction, then surges forward as if determined to erase her moment of insecurity.
The halfling catches her wrist in one hand, stopping the knife she drew midair. Emiliana growls and leaps upwards, beating her wings and knocking items from shelves. The shop owner yanks her wrist, twisting it until she shrieks and drops the knife, then pivots to kick the door open and throws her bodily out into the street.
She lands with a crunch Peyton can hear from inside the shop. His bound wings twinge in empathetic pain.
Chantry hisses low in his throat and pulls Peyton in front of him. "Don't take on more than you can handle, halfling," he warns. "This is fae business."
The shop owner takes a single step towards him. Chantry jerks back.
"Get out."
"Not without—"
"Out."
Chantry drops Peyton and flees.
The halfling closes and locks the door after him before turning to Peyton, who cowers where he's been dropped on the floor.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bring trouble, please don't make me leave till they're gone," he pleads.
He can't suppress his flinch as they step past him deeper into the shop, but at least they're not throwing him out right away. He looks over at the corner between the shelves, considering just crawling back there. Less mess if he only drips in one spot, right?
Just as he gets up the energy to try moving, a heavy, warm towel drops over him. Peyton startles and looks up. The halfling, once again uncannily stealthy for their imposing size. They observe him for another long moment until he feels like a quivering shrimp laid out on a butcher's block.
"Thank… you," he manages when it seems they're not going to say anything. "I'll, um—" he pats his dripping clothes awkwardly, then decides it's probably meant for the floor. "I'll clean up."
They sigh as he hitches himself across the floor, trailing more water. "I don't like getting involved with fae politics. Tell me why I shouldn't toss you right back out where you came from."
"I don't either," he says quickly. "I— that's why I ran, I'm trying to get out. They want— I can't be what they want."
"And you didn't try a glamour to hide those Montgomery features?"
Peyton freezes with one hand on a bookshelf to support his bad leg.
"Yes, I recognized you. Told you I don't like fae politics, not that I'm ignorant of them."
"I… tried," Peyton says quietly. "I'm out of magic. Ran out a day or two ago. Haven't had a chance to rest since."
He can't look at them. Maybe they'll believe him, and maybe they'll toss him out into the rain again. He nudges the towel over another swatch of water, choosing to focus on what he can fix.
"Pathetic."
The voice isn't the halfling's, and it's much closer. Peyton startles and turns on his bad leg, which folds under him like a broken mationnette. He clatters against another shelf, very nearly tipping a few focus crystals off. His bound wings flare with hot pain, crushed between his spine and the wooden case. On the shelf opposite, a large cat lounges, licking one paw in studied disdain.
"But then you always did have a soft spot for the downtrodden, don't you Damiel?"
Peyton ogles the cat in open fascination. "A familiar," he breathes.
The cat blinks at him slowly. Its mouth doesn't move, but he hears its words plainly. "Congratulations on spotting the obvious. There's hope for you yet."
"Mousse," the halfling— Damiel— sounds tired. "Leave him alone."
The cat flicks its tail. "So you are keeping him."
Peyton's head snaps over to stare at Damiel. They lift a hand to forestall his open mouth. "Just for the night."
"You can earn your keep," Mousse jumps down with a soft thump and saunters past him, "by making sure there is absolutely no water left on the floor. Someone might accidentally get their paws wet."
Peyton closes his mouth and nods fervently. For a roof and a chance at sleep, he's more than willing to take orders from a cat.
