I Can't Lose Him (Part Three)
Pairing: Ariel x Cassian's twin!healer!reader
Summary: Finally, Ariel wakes up.
Warning: Painfully inaccurate to the original storyline.
a/n: Part three of I Can't Lose Him! Let me know if you'd like to hear more about the pair!
The commotion in the tent gets louder as you rush toward it. There’s an argument happening inside, and the sound of shattering glass reaches your ears. It isn’t until you hear Nesta shout at Azriel to “Sit down!” that you realize you’ve left the two most stubborn fae in all of Prythian alone together.
When you whip the tent flap open, you’re met with a dizzying scene.
Azriel, leg still splinted straight and right arm bandaged tightly to his torso, has a white knuckle grip on the wooden chair beside the bed. It groans under the pressure as he puts all of his weight on it to help him stand. Nesta, however, is attempting to form a human shield, with two hands splayed on his chest, attempting to push him back down to the bed.
“Damn it, Azriel, sit down! You’re half dead; do you want to be all dead?” Nesta pushes with all of her strength, but even injured, centuries of training is not lost on the Shadowsinger as he refuses to be forced down. Clearly, the two have not heard you enter the tent, as their arguing only continues.
“Tell me where she is, Nesta,” Azriel hisses through clenched teeth, trying to ignore the pain that you’re sure is ravaging his body.
“Y/N is going to kill you herself when she finds you out of bed. Plus you’ve smashed the pain tonic. Now for the last time: Sit. Down. Right. Now.” Nesta pushed with each word, anger lacing her voice, but still, your mate would not relent.
“I don’t care if Cassian is with her, tell me where she is. Knowing him, she’s probably worse off than being alone.”
“What is going on in here?” you shout, rushing to Azriel’s side. “Are you insane, Az? Sit down before you rip your stitches out!”
Both Nesta and Azriel instantly stop their arguing at the sound of your voice. The hazel eyes that meet yours were ablaze with worry and confusion, but instantly soften to relief when he sees you.
“Thank the gods,” Nesta said, dropping her arms to her sides and stepping away from Azriel. “You have the most possessive and unreasonable mate in existence.”
“Oh, like yours is any better,” you joke, convincing Azriel to at least sit on the side of the bed for the time being.
If Nesta was affected at all by your words, she didn’t let on, her face as neutral as ever. “He’s not my mate,” she deadpanned.
You felt a smile working its way into your mouth and you quickly turned away so she wouldn’t see. “Sure he isn’t, Nesta,” you replied, amused by both her’s and your brother’s blatant ignorance. You winked at Azriel, hoping to lighten the mood and reference the countless times the two of you had whispered about Nesta and Cassian. But your attempt at making the joke was met with a look of displeasure from your mate.
“Are you going to tell me where you were? Why did you swear Nesta to secrecy?” Azriel interjected, his eyes boring into you with frustration and pain.
You signed. “Honestly, I’d rather not,” you replied, pushing his dark hair away from his sweat soaked forehead.
“Rhys and Cassian took her to Devlon’s tent to heal him.”
“What?!” Azriel made to stand again but you pushed him back down with one hand on each shoulder. Centuries of training hadn’t been lost on you either, despite your exhaustion.
“Nesta!”
“See you later,” she said, fake innocence in her voice as revenge for calling Cassian her mate. She flipped her braid over her shoulder and spun away to leave, pushing the tent flaps open and closed with more force than seemed necessary.
“Why would you do that for Devlon?” Azriel asked, eyes roaming over you for signs of the Lord of Windhaven and his less than respectful approach to Illyrian females.
“Relax, Az, he barely tolerated me near him, let alone him wanting to touch me.” You took this opportunity to get Azriel back into bed, swinging his legs up and helping him reposition himself. “Besides, Cassian and Rhys were with me. Cassian almost ripped his head off for much less.”
He chose not to respond, instead closing his eyes and taking deep, calming breaths.
“Why didn’t you take the pain tonic I left for you?” you asked, already knowing the answer. It was at your feet, the bottle shattered in a million pieces and the liquid seeping into the dirt floor.
“I’m fine,” was his only response. Stupid, prideful, Illyrian baby, you thought.
Digging through your medical bag, you found another tonic and touched it to his lips, encouraging him to drink. But the moment you brought it to his mouth, he pulled his head away, refusing to drink it.
“Don’t make me force feed you, Az. I need to check your stitches,” you warned, hoping it would convince him to drink it.
“No.”
“Don’t be stupid, it will help you.”
“Why did you close your side of the bond?” he asked, opening his eyes and cocking an eyebrow in your direction. You were taken aback by the sudden change in topic. You turned away and placed the tonic on the side table with a quiet clink before sitting on the side of the bed, admitting defeat.
“I didn’t want you to know where I was in case you woke up. I know how much you hate Devlon. But obviously that didn’t work out as I planned.”
“You never close your side of the bond. I thought something had happened to you. And then when I woke up, Nesta was there, not you. She refused to tell me where you were or what happened. I tried to reach out, but you were completely closed off to me. I thought… I thought something…” he stopped, his good arm flying up to the stitches on his side and hissing in pain.
You reached for the pain tonic, and this time, you gripped his chin and tipped it inside his mouth. “Drink it,” you demanded. With a swift bob of his Adam’s apple and quick dart of his tongue across his bottom lip, you were satisfied.
The two of you sat quietly for a few moments, Azriel’s confession laying heavily in the air between you. After what felt like forever, you knew you were going to have to be the one to break the silence. Azriel was, afterall, a spymaster for a reason.
“I was scared,” you admitted, dropping your gaze to your hands. “You fell 200 feet out of the sky. When you were first hurt, I thought I was going to lose you. And then you were screaming. I had never heard that sound come out of you before in my entire life. I had both my arms inside your chest, Az. I had to cut you open while you screamed for me to stop. I couldn’t be your mate in those moments; I couldn’t hold your hand and tell you it was going to be alright. I couldn’t send comfort through the bond. At that moment, all I could do was scream at Cassian to hold you still while I butchered you.” You turned your hands over and stared at your palms, remembering the blood you had to wash off of them after you had finished putting him back together. “I had both my hands inside your chest,” you repeated, trailing off into a whisper.
“You promised me,” you continued, allowing the vulnerability to become present in your voice. Your eyes were rimmed with wetness as you thought of how close to death your mate had been. “You promised you’d come back to me.”
“Technically,” Azriel started, reaching a scarred hand up to brush a piece of hair out of your face. He cupped your cheek and pulled your gaze away from your hands and back to his eyes. The mountains and valleys of his scarred skin felt comforting and familiar. “Technically, I kept my promise. There were just a few bumps along the way.”
You blinked, letting out a weak laugh and let the tears flow over. You leaned your forehead to his and closed your eyes, inhaling his familiar scent. Opening your side of the bond, you felt a wave of emotions wash over you from him. Love and appreciation filled your soul, spreading from the center of your chest where the golden thread that connected the two of you were joined.
“Don’t ever do that to me again.”
“I’m sorry, love,” Azriel said, lacing his fingers through your hair and holding you to him. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
For a few moments, the two of you stayed like that, soaking in the rare time alone together. It wasn’t until he shifted in the bed again that you pulled back, wiping your tears and getting up to check on how he was healing.
“Oh gods,” Azriel groaned. “I feel like the morning after Cassian’s birthday at Rita’s.”
You let out a laugh, still choked with leftover tears, but felt yourself send a jolt of amusement through the bond unintentionally.
“Hey! That’s my birthday too, you know,” you joked, unwrapping the splint that held his leg tightly in place. His fae healing truly was remarkable. You were able to bend his leg up to his chest, still being careful of the damaged lung and healing stitches underneath the dressing wrapped around his torso.
“Yeah but you’re not the one insisting I keep drinking.” He grunted through the stretches, allowing you to rotate his hip out, around, and back a few times.
You shrugged, a smile spreading across your face. “No one ever said you had to drink them. You could just dump them and tell Cassian they were delicious.”
His eyes narrowed at the suggestion. “And is that what you do? Because I seem to remember that for the past few centuries, you've been roaring drunk on your birthday. Last year you refused to come home with me because you thought I was a random stranger trying to pick you up for a one-night-stand.”
You threw your head back in a boisterous laugh, remembering how you woke up with a horrible hangover and found Azriel asleep on the floor at the foot of the bed. A smile spread across your mate’s face at the sight of your joy, despite your fingers massaging deep into the tissues of his leg to work out any lingering pain.
You worked your thumbs into the muscles of his thigh and swore the moan of relief that left Azriel’s lips stirred something deep in your belly. You shook the feeling off and kept going.
“Should I mention some of the times you’ve drank too much? How about that time Rhys kept buying you shots and you kissed me in front of all of Rita’s, almost blowing our secret of nearly 300 years?”
Azriel smiled and you felt the memory wash across the bond. The vision of you giving into the kiss before hastily reminding yourself that your match was supposed to be a secret, played in your mind. Thankfully Cassian, the only other person besides you and Azriel that knew about the mating bond, faked the possessive brother act, pushing Azriel off of you and dragging him outside where, instead of telling him off like everyone thought, had actually dunked his head in the icy barrel of rainwater to help him work off the alcohol.
You gasped in surprise and shook your head to clear your mind of Azriel’s memory. “You never told me he dunked you underwater. No wonder why you came back soaking wet. Cassian said you fell face first into the Sidra!”
Azriel rolled his eyes. “Of course he did, that bastard.”
After a quick peek at the stitches along his left flank and a thorough stretching of his right shoulder, you flopped yourself onto the bed beside him. Exhaustion washed over you again and you felt Azriel’s concern flood your senses. You ignored it, instead choosing to wrap a blanket around yourself and close your eyes. Shuffling closer to your mate, you came as close as you dared without worrying about hurting him.
You felt a scarred hand thread through your hair to scratch at your scalp. A pair of lips touched your forehead and your mate’s voice sounded deep in your ears. “Sleep, love. I’ll be right here.”
Without another word, you fell headfirst into a deep, undisturbed sleep.