There's Crows In The Garden | 3rd Life AU

.: Words Left Unsaid :.

TWs: mention of blood, mention of war (in A/N)

***

When we got back to the Dogwarts castle a few days later, it was snowing, it was late, and Ren and I were tired.

The army had dissipated on our way back to the castle, with groups of soldiers splitting off at all times to go back to their hometowns. Etho'd left too, but since he hadn't known if he'd be safe at home in The Fort of The Counts of the Swamp, he'd gone to Skizzle Point instead. By the end of our journey, the only people accompanying Ren and I were a couple of guards, and they'd rushed off to who-knows-where almost immediately after we arrived at the castle, leaving us alone.

"Shall we head off to bed?" I asked My King. We were standing in front of one of the side entrances, and had been for an awkward amount of time. I was a patient man, but if I wanted to go to sleep and My King was just staring at a door, I was bound to get a little antsy.

Ren looked over at me and seemed like he was about to say something, but decided against it at the last second. Instead, he said, "Sure," opened the door, and walked away. I rushed to follow him.

We were both silent all the way to our room. I was a bit concerned about where Ren's head was at, since he looked to be far up in the clouds, but I was ultimately too exhausted to want to deal with asking him. I knew he'd beat around the bush until one of us gave up.

As soon as we arrived inside our room, I kicked off my boots and went to sit on the bed. Ren stayed right where he was, by the door. "You're going to get the bed all dirty," he told me. "We should get cleaned up before we rest."

I looked down at my clothes, stained with mud and blood, and shrugged. "You can if you want to. I don't care. I'm tired."

Ren pursed his lips, but joined me on the bed without washing up and changing his clothes first. After we'd both slipped under the sheets, I blew out the lantern on my bedside table and dropped us into darkness.

"Hey, Hand?" Ren whispered when we'd found our way into each other's arms, like we always seemed to do.

"Yeah?" I murmured sleepily. 

There was a long gap of silence, long enough that I almost thought Ren had fallen asleep, and then, in a voice so serious it was scary, he said, "I just want you to know that I really appreciate you, Martyn. I appreciate you more than you'll ever know."

I tried to make a joke out of it. "You're such a flatterer."

"Martyn, please," Ren basically begged, shutting me up. "I need you to know I'm one hundred percent serious about this."

"Sorry," I apologized. "I know. I don't know why I joked about it— I shouldn't have joked about it."

Ren pulled me further towards himself. "It's okay."

I let there be a beat of nothing but quiet, rhythmic breathing, and then said, "For the record, I appreciate you, too, and I care about you more than I maybe should."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," I confirmed. "I-" The words were on the tip of my tongue, but they dissolved before I could throw them out into the space between us. "Nevermind."

"Okay," Ren murmured. He pressed a kiss to the top of my head. 

"G'night," I whispered, my heart beating out of my chest.

"Goodnight, Martyn," he returned. 

For not the first time, I dreamt of My King kissing me that night.