Chapter Text
The atmosphere at Basgiath War College in the aftermath of the battle with the venin and their wyvern - not a children’s scary bedtime tale after all, most unfortunately - is filled with the exhilarated exhaustion Garrick Tavis has come to expect after a battle. Around him cadets weep and celebrate, the relief in the air palpable, their survival an unexpected surprise after the events of the day.
He is no less surprised than anyone else to find himself still breathing, and while it’s definitely a positive turn of events, he can’t quite bring himself to feel simply happy. Which is irritating.
Garrick knows that should he wish, he could raise an eyebrow (sexily) at one of the many riders in various states of inebriated merriment, pull them into a corner (respectfully, of course) and then delight together in the wonder of being alive and human and warm and strong.
But - he feels unsettled, like there’s something he forgot to do, or something he’s missing, but he can’t quite put his finger on it.
Scanning the quadrant around him he finds nothing unusual (riders dancing on tables, people making out with abandon against walls), and so he heads for the stairwell that will lead him out into the lower courtyard.
It’s quieter down here; most of the riders choosing the camaraderie and comfort of their friends rather than solace alone in the dark.
He leans against the battlement, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. Maybe the first real deep breath since the wards came back up, since Sorrengail miraculously worked out how to reinstate them. Garrick is still unclear on the details - the death of General Sorrengail, and her squadmate losing a leg, had both taken priority over explaining the ins and outs of the wards, save that they are there and working.
And then there’s the fact that Xaden was being really fucking weird. Garrick is used to his best friend’s tendencies towards secrecy. Xaden thinks he’s so good at hiding his emotions, but having spent the better part of 20 years together, Garrick can tell when something is going on behind that calm surface, and there’s definitely something going on. Probably something to do with Violet, he supposes, trying to dispel the uneasy feeling in his chest.
Part of him wishes he could just go and talk to Xaden, as they usually do after a battle - going over the fight, things they could have done better, their strengths and weaknesses -something about putting the terrible things they’ve seen and done into words makes it easier to process.
Right now he just feels vaguely overwhelmed by the whole situation - sure, wonderful, they have wards again, and the wyvern may have collapsed under them - but the venin that control them are still outside. Still impossibly strong. Probably breeding more wyvern at this very moment.
Sighing, Garrick runs his hands through his dark curls. He needs to get a grip. What is he, twelve years old and needing his best friend to convince him it’s all going to be fine?
He’s just decided to head back up to the quadrant and help himself to a large cup of lemonade, maybe find a cute rider to distract him from his frankly pathetic train of thought, when he hears footsteps coming towards him in the darkness. His hand automatically edges towards his sword and the figure emerging into view before him pauses.
“It’s just me,” Imogen Cardulo says softly, her pink hair now visible in the sliver of moonlight above them. Garrick relaxes his hand at the sight of one of his closest friends and leans back against the wall again, one foot propped behind him, and waits for her to make fun of him for being twitchy.
She doesn’t. Instead, Imogen sits down and rests her back against the wall next him, letting her head fall back against the stone, her eyes closed.
“You okay?” Garrick asks her. They’ve both cleaned up since the battle, but he can see cuts along her arms, a bruise forming on her jaw.
She shrugs. “Nothing I can’t handle,” she says, in a voice that he supposes she thinks is nonchalant, but just sounds tired to him. “You?” She opens one green eye, squinting up at him.
Garrick folds himself, with the grace of a much smaller man, into a seated position next to her.
“Never been better,” he says, aiming for the same air of indifference.
Imogen snorts - it’s always amused him that that sound can come from her - and then says in a quiet voice “it just feels…”
“Wrong?” Garrick supplies.
“Mm,” she murmurs, folding her legs in towards her chest and wrapping her arms around them. Resting her chin on her knees, gazing forward rather than looking at him, she adds “everyone’s celebrating like we won. But it’s just a pause, really, isn’t it?”
He’s not sure she actually expects him to answer but he does anyway, feeling like bolstering himself equally as much as her. “It’ll give us time to regroup. And at least now we know more about those fuckers,” he adds, referring to the wyvern and the horrifying discovery that they come in different breeds.
“Oh, yes. Just another cheerful addition to our nightmares,” Imogen says flippantly, rolling her eyes.
Garrick remembers the months after the Apostasy in their foster home - with their families dead, their friends far away in other (so called) noble homes in Tyrrendor, they’d had only each other. He’d comforted her when she’d been unable to sleep from the nightmares that haunted her, didn’t admit that when he closed his eyes he saw the same scenarios.
With nothing else to do, and with the eventual threat of the Riders Quadrant looming over both of their heads, Garrick had done what only made sense at the time - he’d taught her how to fight.
It’s kept them both alive, the years of training, of sparring, of challenging each other, her speed against his strength, her light agility versus his range. She’d stopped having nightmares - or she no longer went to him when she needed reassurance, he realizes, turning to look at her now.
“You still have them?”
“Don’t we all?” She raises an eyebrow at him and then looks away dismissively. “What? Sleep is for the weak anyway.” She rolls her shoulders, stretching her neck, pushing the strands of pink hair that always escape back behind her ear.
He opens his mouth, realizes he has no idea what to say (“everything’s going to be okay” seems wildly optimistic in light of the current situation and “at least we still have both our legs” feels a little insensitive), and opts instead for a bump of his elbow against her shoulder.
She nudges him back and they sit for awhile in companionable silence. The rousing sound of riders singing (off key but with enthusiasm) can be heard echoing down the stairwell.
And for a moment, the threat of the venin, the wyvern, the general fact of their impending doom, is far away. Garrick feels suddenly immensely grateful - to be here, under the glowing moonlight, with a friend (who incidentally smells a lot nicer than Xaden, so that’s a bonus). Surely they can worry about the saving the world tomorrow - or maybe the next day, depending on the hangover Garrick has just decided he may have after all.
“Shall we go try some of that lemonade?” He asks Imogen, standing and reaching for her hand. She allows him to pull her up, her hand cold and small in his. She lets go and brushes off her leathers, looking past him.
“Sure,” she says, leading the way up the stairs. “I heard Ridoc saying something about experimenting with different flavours.”
“Not sure I want to drink anything Gamlyn has been tampering with.”
“Pfft,” is the only response he gets to this.
They reach the top of the stairs and are greeted by a scene of general mayhem - someone is blasting music from a magical speaker, while the chorus of riders singing a war ballad continue to belt out verses in competition with the thud of the bass. Ridoc Gamlyn, always prepared for a party, is indeed passing cups of different coloured liquid around. Imogen winds her way through the crowd, comes back a moment later with two cups of lemonade, one tinged pink, the other a rather more ominous dark purple.
She hands the purple one to Garrick with an evil grin, raises her cup to his and taps it lightly. “To working out how to kill those motherfuckers.”
“I was going to say cheers, but that works.”
Garrick sips his lemonade cautiously. It tastes like grapes and sugar and nothing like alcohol, which part of him recognizes is a very dangerous thing, and one he should probably care about, but can’t quite bring himself to. He drains his cup.
“Want another?”
Imogen shakes her head, sipping at the pink drink a shade lighter than the bright pink of her hair. “I’m good.”
Garrick shrugs, the buzzing feel of the lemonade kicking in already. It’s pleasantly numbing, making him forget about flying monsters, friends with secrets, of wars on pause rather than won.
Finding another cup (orange this time, with a bright citrus flavour), he makes his way to the crowd in the middle of the quadrant. The music emanating from the speaker is louder here, the beat of the drum resonating through his whole body. His earlier thought of pulling someone into a corner, of losing himself in another’s body, seems like a most excellent idea now.
A tall rider with short blonde hair braided back against her temples to keep it off her face catches his eye. Three stars on her collarbone indicate that she’s in her third year. She’s lost in the rhythm of the music, her eyes partially closed, and her hips move in a way that make Garrick dance closer to her. He’d quite like to feel those hips in his hands; feel them move against his own body.
He sips his lemonade, makes his way across the dance floor. Nearby he can see Bodhi dancing with abandon with a bunch of other riders, their skin sweaty and shining under the mage lights that someone has made twinkle in different colours. He passes couples holding hands, twirling together, spinning - the blonde woman turns and catches his eye.
Garrick holds her gaze, takes another swig of sweetly orange flavoured bad decisions. Or good decisions? Who can say really - it feels like a great decision in this moment to smirk at this rider, see her take in his lieutenant stripe, his patches, watch her move into his orbit with those hips of hers. Imogen always rolls her eyes at his patches (“show off,” is her usual comment) but - whatever - not everyone has to be dark and mysterious.
He leans in towards the blonde’s ear and asks over the music “want to dance?”
She responds by reaching her arms up and looping them behind his neck, her body now pressed closely to his, both still swaying to the beat.
Half an hour later, Garrick isn’t thinking about evil winged beasts or childhood friends with nightmares or worrying about what tomorrow will bring - he’s completely and utterly preoccupied with the pair of breasts bouncing above him. Sitting half up and resting on his elbows, he leans in and sucks on one of the hard nipples, flicking his tongue at it.
The blonde (“Hana,” she’d informed him breathlessly, in between kisses on the way to her room) moans loudly, thrusting those magnificent hips harder against him. Her hands press against his chest as she rises up off him and then slides back down against his hard length. They find a rhythm, moving faster, panting, until Hana’s thighs squeeze his hips even more tightly and she gasps - “fuck - I’m going to - fuck”
He feels her tighten around his cock and reaches a hand between her legs, stroking her, bringing over the edge, and the feeling of her come has Garrick barrelling towards his own orgasm (he’d like to think he could usually last longer, but it’s been a long day).
They lie breathing heavily in the aftermath, their heart rates slowly going back to normal, the sweat drying on their skin.
“Gods,” Hana says in a sigh. “That was-”
Garrick is already sitting up, reaching for his leathers. “Yeah,” he says, pulling them over his long legs, buttoning up his fly. He glances back at the still completely naked woman next to him - who is looking at him with far less adoration than she had a few minutes ago and something bordering more on wrath.
“You’re just going to-”
“Early day tomorrow,” Garrick lies, locating his t-shirt and then trying to remember which floor they’re on, and where Bodhi’s room is in relation to this one. She’s a third year? Got to be close. Hopefully not next door.
He stands, pulling his jacket over his head. Hana is sitting up, her blanket pulled up to cover her chest, her eyes flashing.
“Nice to meet you,” Garrick says, because, manners.
“Fuck you,” Hana responds heatedly.
It doesn’t seem like the time to remind her that she already has, and so he waves instead, stepping back into the corridor and closing her door behind him. He hears something hit it on the other side. Ah well. It’s not like they’ll be in Basgiath for much longer.
He looks around him, gathering his bearings, having spent the majority of the walk here from the quadrant focused positively not on his surroundings. Hana’s room is in the middle of the third years - Bodhi’s is further along, away from the stairwell.
Garrick heads towards his friend’s door, feeling decidedly better about the state of the universe than he had earlier in the evening. The fact that he is still slightly drunk on questionable lemonade, his body loose with pleasure, has nothing to do with it, of course. Everything is going to be fine.
He knocks on Bodhi’s door, waits, and knocks again more loudly when there isn’t an immediate response. Perhaps he’s still at the party? He knocks with more force. “Bodhi?”
Nothing.
Well, shit. Garrick wants to go to sleep and think about bouncing breasts before the inevitable dreams of wyvern and freakish red eyed creatures catch up to him. He considers his options. The barracks for lieutenants isn’t that far, he supposes reluctantly, though definitely more effort than he’d been hoping to exert.
He makes his way down the corridor, yawning, and at the top of the stairwell runs into the next best option to Bodhi. He steps back onto the third floor, allowing Imogen past him in the arch of the stairs. She looks him up and down in a far less appreciative fashion than Hana earlier in the night.
“Byrne throw you out already?” She asks, crossing her arms over her chest, pink hair falling across her face.
“…Byrne?”
Imogen rolls her eyes. “Hana,” she says, spelling it out for him like the imbecile she’s clearly inferring he is.
“No, no,” Garrick responds cheerfully, wondering how best to convince Imogen to give him half her bed. “We had a moment, and then the moment was over, you know how it is.”
“How terribly romantic,” Imogen says drily. She turns away towards the third year rooms. “Night, Garrick.”
“Imogen.”
She pauses, turning back to him. He gives her his best forlorn look - he’s not that practised with forlorn, more often opting between come hither and die, fucker - but one must do what one can.
“Got any space in that bed of yours?”
She’s either unaware that this is his best forlorn expression or is spectacularly immune to it. “Ha,” she says, “try Bodhi.”
“His whereabouts are currently unknown.”
“Too bad.”
“Just a little nap? Just to recover my usual vigour?”
“I think you’ve quite enough vigour to be getting on with.”
Imogen heads towards her room, waving at him in a dismissive, shoo-ing gesture. He ignores being shoo-ed and follows her.
“One hour.”
“No. I’m sleepy.”
“Didn’t you say sleep is for the weak?”
“Oh, now you listen to me.”
“You’ll barely notice me.”
Imogen stops in her doorway and scowls at him. “Sure, because your monstrous frame would hardly even register.”
“I’ll think small thoughts.”
“Gah,” she says, and Garrick grins with triumph as she unwards her door and allows him inside. He hasn’t seen her third year room before this, but it’s essentially the same as those in her first and second, only larger. There’s an air of neglect about it at the moment, Imogen having been in Aretia for the past few months, but it still smells like her, familiar and comforting.
She doesn’t bother undressing, collapsing instead upon the top of her sheets and then rolling to the side to give him space.
He lies down next to her - the ceiling is spinning, but only slightly, so that’s good.
“If you throw up on my bed I will murder you and then feed you to Glane,” Imogen says flatly, and turns away from him, curling up on her side.
“You’re the best,” Garrick responds affectionately, and promptly falls asleep.