The Songbird and the Wolf

[ XXIV ] A Gilded Cage

Quinn doesn't know how much time has passed before his mind is his own again.

Seconds, minutes, hours maybe even days.

All spent with a voice at the back of his mind screaming that it had all, always, been only a matter of time.

That maybe he had never even left the cell in the first place.

The voice is laughing at him for ever thinking he'd had the chance at a life beyond cell walls. That he deserved anything but this.

In the distance, either a hundred miles from him or only a matter of metres, the Wolf isn't sure, he can hear others. The rustle of movement, voices that swarm and swell about him, a storm he gets caught in, drowns in its torrent.

He stirs, body aching with the tremble, realising someone is kneeling beside him.

It takes his exhausted brain a moment to realise it is Astor, Astor holding a small cup.

The Wolf takes it, and loses more than half of its contents by the time the rim has reached his chapped lips.

The glass is filthy, a layer of grime that tells him it hasn't been washed in thousands of uses.

But he drinks, and it tastes like fresh spring spring, the cool hitting the back of his throat, sinking deep into him.

It is over too quickly, his shirt stained and the ground damp beneath him when he finishes, but the water is enough.

It calms him, though does nothing to silence the frantic screaming at the back of his mind.

The Wolf clawing at his skin, begging to get out.

Get out, kill and flee.

Quinn's hands reach for his throat, feels jagged dual line of scars marring the skin there. And in a macabre way that calms him further.

A reminder of the chains, not the chains themselves.

His breathing steadies, though still hitched slightly in his throat. He rests his head against the stone wall, and through half lidded eyes, he finds Astor looking at him.

His companion does a valiant attempt at looking like he isn't, but the Wolf knows well when he is being watched.

"Thank you," Quinn's voice is unfamiliar to his ears, hoarse and scratchy and broken.

Astor folds, slumping to the ground with a thud until he sits across from the wolf, legs crossed beneath him with a sigh.

"You saved my Queen," there is something close to joking about his exhausted words. "Convincing a guard to get me a little water is hardly some great debt I'll demand you repay."

Quinn has no response to that, isn't quite certain the words are true. Not following a life of every small act, kind, cruel or otherwise, demanding repayment.

But this man seems kind, and for that the Wolf is grateful.

For a moment, Quinn sits close eyed, inhaling as steadily as he can. The world down here stinks of damp, dreariness and hopelessness. All things that work there way through him, weighing at his shoulders as much as the filth layering his narrow form. 

When he opens them again, steadying breaths doing nothing but driving him deeper into a dark, deep well.

He finds Astor looking at him again, studying spot just below the line of his jaw.

Quinn makes eye contact with the fae, not bothering to ask the why or what.

For a silent moment, Quinn thinks he might be safe from questions he'd rather not answer. The Wolf lifts his eyes, studying Astor's features, expectant.