The Wildness Within

I Trust You 1

AN: Augus finding out about Ash and Gwyn shenanigans, and trying to get to the bottom of everything. Gwyn has 'guilty dog' expression a lot in this one.

'I kissed him,' Ash said. 'We kissed.'

Augus blinked at him, feeling far more alert than he usually did after hunting. Court status meant that he didn't technically need the seven days to fully digest his prey, and he spent the remaining two simply resting in waterhorse form in the deep, dark depths of his lake, his mind healing and finding its equilibrium once more.

'He's been a bit weird since then,' Ash said. Then he sighed. 'Scratch that. He's been a bit of a mess.'

'There's a lot of things that could be causing that,' Augus said, looking down the corridor to where Ash had said Gwyn was hiding in blankets. 'The kiss may seem the most obvious trigger to us, but that doesn't mean that it is.'

'I...suppose,' Ash said. 'Actually he kind of threw a tantrum when I wouldn't do more.'

'A tantrum?' Augus said sharply.

'A weak one,' Ash said, smiling, running his hands through his hair. 'Glaring. Not letting me sit on the couch with him. But I could...I could smell his fear, Augus. The entire time that he tried to make a point, he was so afraid of me. He wasn't like that with the kiss. He was like that after. I've been trying to give him space, but I think he's just going deeper and deeper into himself. But because I was the one who...who crossed a line with him, I just don't want to be the one who like...leans on him to come back to us. If you know what I mean?'

'I know,' Augus said. 'Let me deal with it.'

'God, thank you,' Ash said.

He stepped forwards and hugged Augus tightly, and Augus – still lost in his hungrier waterhorse mind – thought of Ash's body. He couldn't not, the way Ash hugged so generously, pushing his body fully against whoever he hugged. He thought of Ash's lips meeting Gwyn's lips and a flicker of heat bubbled inside of him. The bubbles were tiny little things. Easy enough to dismiss.

But they were there.

When Ash pulled back, he looked down for several seconds, keeping his hands on Augus' arms. He cleared his throat, looked up at Augus, his eyes brighter.

'We gonna dance around this forever, brother?' Ash said, his voice rougher than before.

'Perhaps not forever,' Augus said, stepping back, severing the contact between them. 'But certainly for a time longer.'

'Yeah,' Ash said, closing his eyes in what looked like relief. 'Okay. Good.'

Augus reached up and cupped the side of Ash's head, his thumb resting behind his ear. The eye contact between them was fierce, sparked. It was no different to how they'd looked at each other for years, and yet there was a layer of awareness that wasn't there before.

'This doesn't happen without Gwyn,' Augus said, his voice low.

'And if he leaves, we'll stop,' Ash said. 'Because you have really cool self-control. And...so do I. I really wanted to kiss him more. But I just- I couldn't, you know?'

Augus rubbed the space behind Ash's ear, catching a knobby strand of waterweed and stroking that deliberately. Ash's waterweed wasn't as sensitive as Augus', but his thick, red-brown-gold eyelashes fluttered briefly anyway.

It was Ash who stepped back, smiling in apology.

'Go sort him out,' Ash said. 'I trust you. Do whatever you need to.'

*

Now, he stood over the hunched form of Gwyn, blankets gripped in his fist. He sighed silently. Gwyn looked miserable. His head was tucked beneath his arms, it had to be hurting his neck, but whatever he could do to make himself seem as small and defenceless as possible, he was doing it. Augus wondered if Gwyn had tried to find Augus in the early hours of the morning. If he'd spent the week gripping his own wrists.