The Wildness Within

Accommodation 2

'What?' Ash said, his hand pausing on Gwyn's face.

'Hundreds,' Gwyn gasped. 'Hundreds and hundreds. They could have been the last of their species. They could have. Maybe they had...language and c-culture and religion and gods and stories and folklore and more. I don't care if they were begging to die. If they'd been fighting for seventy-five years. I don't want to end things.'

Ash said nothing at all. Gwyn felt his lips curl into an ugly expression because he could sense Ash's horror. Ash thought he understood, but he didn't understand.

'I didn't want my cousin to end,' Gwyn said, his voice coming from deep inside his chest. 'I didn't want him to be ended like that. I don't care if you wanted him dead. I don't care if the both of you did. I don't care that you think of my family so...cruelly, like they're nothing. They let me live. They didn't have to and they did not want to.'

Ash's breathing shook, his hand started moving in Gwyn's hair again. More tender than before.

Gwyn still stared at soil and shadows and felt like he carved every word raw from his own flesh.

'You think he was nothing more than a bad story that needed to be finished. But he was my cousin, and he l-loved me in the only broken way that he could. My family was cursed. Did you know? Like those people I killed. And I brought death to them as well, for all the King says it was him. I'm not stupid. I know they died because I told Augus I was Unseelie and Augus told the King, and the King saw stories where I could see real people.'

It didn't matter if he wasn't making sense. There was a certainty in what he was saying, and he finally found the strength to meet Ash's eyes, the shocked expression there.

'I end things,' Gwyn rasped. 'I ended the first An Fnwy estate when I was a child. I ended my mother's happiness. I ended the family line. I ended those people and that curse and whoever else was left in my family and I don't- I don't want to be the one who ends your stories. I can't.'

Ash's brow had furrowed, his head was tilting to the side. And then his hand tightened on the side of Gwyn's hair and he smiled. An open, guileless expression.

'Hey,' Ash said. 'Sometimes things need to be ended.'

Gwyn stared at him. Opened his mouth to find whatever words still lurked inside of himself.

'Sometimes,' Ash said quickly, 'you have to finish something to start something new.'

'That doesn't mean anything!' Gwyn shouted.

'Your life couldn't stay the same forever,' Ash said, the smile never leaving his face. 'Augus' life couldn't. Mine couldn't. It doesn't work that way.'

Gwyn snarled at him before he could stop himself. Moved too quickly and powerfully for Ash to stop him and pinned him to the ground as he'd done in the very beginning, when Ash had dared come close enough to him that Gwyn had wanted to kill him for it.

Ash's shoulders felt fragile beneath his palms, Gwyn's knees dug into his hips and he knew he was hurting him.

'You shouldn't trust me,' Gwyn said, his voice shaking. 'You don't even know what I am.'

'Sure I do,' Ash said far too easily for someone in the position he was in. 'You're Gwyn ap Nudd, Unseelie fae, and part of my family. You're a bit strange sometimes, and I don't always know what you're thinking or what you're going to do next, but I know that I like you a lot and I think you're worth it even when you're sure you're not.'

Gwyn blinked down at him.

'You're mad,' Gwyn said.

'Mad as in crazy? Or mad as in angry?' Ash said, lips quirking.