I see Lance and Isaac as two parents who have slightly different parenting styles. For example, when their child came home from school a little upset and said to Lance, “Dad, a boy was teasing me…,” Lance immediately reassured the child, promising that they would go together and deal with that boy in a civil way. At the same time, when the little one says the same thing to their Papa Isaac, Isaac simply hands the child a real dagger and says, “Here, now you can deal with that bully,” and return to reading the newspaper, smiling at the little one’s joyful cry and completely ignoring the angry glare from his dear pink-haired husband.
For @studentinpursuitofclouds, who got me thinking of Isaance fight scene
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It probably speaks to something about him, that even on his day off Isaac finds himself with his sword in hand.
That you need a hobby, a voice that sounds suspiciously like Alesia whispers, and have you considered making another friend?
It's just that running drills, wrapped in the blanket of silence in the empty training room, is soothing. Meditative, even, if he closes his eyes to train his balance. He can settle into his bones and sinew and let his mind...turn off.
This is his first mistake.
He's startled from his reverie by a shuffling at the weapons rack, and when he cracks his eyes open to see the culprit, he knows the noise was on purpose. A courtesy to let him know that he was no longer alone, because Isaac well knew that Lance could be dead silent when he wanted to be.
Isaac waits.
Lance says nothing, trailing a graceful hand over the training weapons until he settles on a sword similar to the one fixed to his belt during patrols. Isaac watches, mouth suddenly dry, as he rests the flat of the blade on a finger and drags it forward until it's balanced perfectly. He looks up, meeting Isaac's gaze with traces of satisfaction in the press of his lips and a challenge in the slight tilt of his head.
"How about it?" He asks, eyes unyielding over the length of his blade. Isaac stares at him for a long, long moment.
"Fine," he mutters, and stalks over to swap out his own blade.
This is his second mistake.
The training sword is almost unsettlingly light, but no exercise is worth the risk of bloodshed. Or the hours he'd have to spend sharpening it afterwards.
Isaac stalks back to the center of the floor, purposefully turning his back to Lance shedding his outer layers. A beat longer for Lance to follow, and with a small nod, they're moving.
Almost immediately they're shockingly in sync, trading neat paries and sweeping blows like cards in a game of poker. Even if they've never faced off before, they've spent hours watching each other's backs from the outpost. Isaac knows Lance avoids taking head on strikes, so he focuses on keeping a steady base and wearing down his endurance; Lance anticipates it and challenges his footwork.
It's oddly exhilarating, and for the first time in possibly a decade, Isaac finds himself feeling just a hint--
playful.
And then Lance grins at him something feral, and with a graceful flick of his wrist, the room fills with a blue smoke.
"Cheating," he observes more than accuses, and of course, Lance rises to the bait.
"It is your fault, really, for not declaring any terms," Lance cracks back, and it's enough. Instead of turning to face him, Isaac throws both his sword and his caution to the wind and thrusts backwards, using one freed arm to strike at Lance's sword hand and his other to launch an elbow into his gut.
It's probably more from surprise than the intensity of his hits, but it's enough to get Lance to drop his weapon. Isaac takes hold of his outstretched wrist and swings his leg back, sweeping Lance's front foot out from under him, and uses his captive arm to lever him to the ground.
The obvious move is to follow him down and use his advantage to go for a hold.
This is his third mistake, because halfway to a wristlock, Lance's eyes flutter halfway closed and Isaac can feel his slow exhale, and he becomes violently aware of their position and how everywhere their bodies are pressed together burns.
For just a moment, he forgets how to breathe.
And of course, it's enough time for Lance to find leverage and flip them over, and this is so much worse because Lance is leaning over him, chest heaving, hair falling over his eyes and his smile wicked, and very, very much clutched between Isaac's thighs.
Isaac does what Isaac does best: let's his higher functioning retreat and his instincts take over. Without a single thought he's gripping and arm and throwing his legs into a textbook arm bar. He doesn't exhale until he feels Lance tap out against his calf.
Isaac doesn't like winter. The incessant fall of frozen water droplets, transformed into crystals, has already covered the ground with a long blanket up to his knees. Walking along the familiar paths near the Adventurers' Guild is now not only difficult, but his thin pants, unsuited for such weather, are wet and weigh him down.
Isaac couldn't stand the cold. Not that the scarred man loved his native scorching crimson desert and sandstorms, but that didn't mean he was much better off in an icy desert either. The frost here reached such lows that the adventurer could feel icicles forming on his nose. His face and hands are red from the biting cold, pieces of snow stick to his cloak, and even the enchantment on his armor doesn't warm him enough.
Isaac doesn't like noise and crowds, preferring solitude and the company of his own thoughts. But sitting on a wooden pier near the unfrozen running river, with a mug of hot mulled wine and leaning against a talkative pink-haired adventurer, warming himself with the heat of another man's body and listening to something about blue slimes, Isaac thought that even in such harsh weather it wasn't so bad.
Isaance moment when the grumpy Isaac insists on writing reports late into the night, neglecting his sleep and ignoring his beloved pink-haired partner. And for this, Lance punishes him with "blanket prison" – namely, a warm blanket that rises into the air thanks to Lance’s magic and wraps around Isaac, trapping him. No matter how much Isaac curses at his laughing partner, he cannot escape the "prison," and because of the overly cozy conditions, drowsiness, and Lance’s embrace, Isaac quickly gives in and immediately drifts off into the realm of dreams.
Isaance moment, where Lance finds an orphaned little dragon and brings it home to his husband/lover, taking care of the little magical creature. Isaac, who had been screaming at the top of his lungs that they wouldn’t have a dangerous reptile spewing fire/ice/Yoba knows what as a pet, could be found a week later quietly snoring on the couch, with the little dragon lying on his chest, fast asleep as well, to the delight of the pink-haired adventurer.
the mountains and the stars and the sea (6103 words) by aes_asteria
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Stardew Valley (Video Game)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Isaac/Lance (Stardew Valley)
Characters: Isaac (Stardew Valley), Lance (Stardew Valley), Camilla (Stardew Valley), Alesia (Stardew Valley)
Additional Tags: Mentions of other adventurers, Canon Universe, Hurt/Comfort, Spoilers for Lance heart events and relationship dialogue
Summary:
Isaac doesn't think about Lance.
He doesn't.
...
“I've heard tales of the perilous Skull Cavern dungeons. Are they as dangerous as they say?”
Lance isn’t looking at him when he asks, eyes scanning the wasteland below.
For you? No.
Camilla always sent them into the Badlands before letting them into the city, much less the Guard, and Lance was no exception.
Isaac had watched him, from the outpost, from the fortified walls. Anyone could see he was skilled, slashing through a half dozen mummies with his sword and in the next moment, burning the piles of fabric with an outstretched hand before they can reanimate, casting away serpents with some invisible force. There was a grace in his movements that Isaac would never find himself, always the blunt force, always the brute strength.
He wasn’t perfect, and Isaac had watched him end his first few excursions abruptly, just like every other recruit, but Camilla had added him to the rotation shockingly fast.
“Compared to this?” He gestures at the scene in front of them. “No.”
No one was completely sure why Camilla waited so long to let new people into their ranks when they could really use all the hands they could get. He asked, once, as they watched some kid who clearly knew his way around a sword hack his way across the desert. After back-to-back shifts he was a little punchier than usual, a little more worn.
“To fetch potion ingredients for me. None of you are stupid enough to do it anymore,” she had laughed.
In the moment, he was too tired to push for more.
He thinks he’s the only one who’s been bold enough to ask Camilla herself.
Jadu asked them once, when he was buying defense potions off Alesia and dreading crossing the borders again.
“She wants you to prove yourself,” she told him. “She needs to know you could defend the Village if you had to.”
Before Jadu it was Marlon at a Stardew Valley guild meeting, more to make Alesia feel better than anything.
“She likes to play games,” Rasmodius grumbled. At the time Isaac glared at him, but he was probably right to some degree. They all were.
Isaac agrees with Alesia the most, with one key divergence. The recruits need to prove they can fight, sure, but they also need to prove they could keep fighting. The Badlands had a way of haunting you long after you were back behind the magical barriers. Not many made it west of the gates, seen the weapons littering the ground, and kept going. Not many were able to see the empty gaze of the Fallen and return.
Fewer were able to look one in the eyes and cut it down.
“We should go sometime,” Lance muses, bringing him back to the present.
“We?” he scoffs.
“Yes.” Lance turns to him with a faint smile. “You can show me the ropes.”
Isaac says nothing, just turns to the red sand and watches a cluster of skeletons bump into each other, and ignores what it feels like to be watched.
Random Isaance moments that decided to settle in my head and live rent-free:
Isaac only likes tea and coffee that Lance personally brews for him. This has nothing to do with any special spices or magic, it's just regular black tea with lemon or a cup of coffee. But Lance knows how to make it perfectly: not too strong, not too diluted, not too sweet, but also not too bitter. Isaac considers his partner's hot drinks to be the best.
Lance knows the exact number of scars on Isaac's body.
They both argue playfully and lightheartedly about brewing potions and measuring ingredients correctly into the cauldron, like an elderly married couple (except they are a married couple).
Usually Isaac adheres to the principle of "fight first, ask questions later" when dealing with monsters, but Lance showed him another side to these creatures, especially shadow monsters, which made him reconsider his views. Still, if they threaten his life, the lives of others, and, most importantly, Lance's life, Isaac will show no mercy.
"I will conquer the world for you" meh. "I will peel tangerines and remove those stupid white long things for you till the end of time" is Isaac's true love language to Lance.
Lance's laughter was music to Isaac's ears, so he began to make sarcastic comments and jokes more often around his lover just to hear him laugh.
Almost every morning, Isaac can't find his shirt where he left it before going to bed, and it's all because of his lover, who likes to steal clothes and put them on while making breakfast.
