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2024-05-22
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All We Can Taste Is Rain

Summary:

Oisin Hakinvar’s crush started softly, and with indescribable longing, before he ever knew who she was or would be to him.

Adaine Abernant's crush started because Oisin had the gall to be a really hot asshole.

Notes:

I was asked on tumblr for Inkblade headcanons/scenarios. I failed spectacularly in NOT writing a fic in the process. Had to actually spend time editing and expanding this a tad for once, primarily to remove the essay outline structure it was written in, and make it flow better as a story verses a series of thoughts that got wildly out of control.

Have fun y'all!

Work Text:

Oisin Hakinvar’s crush started softly, and with indescribable longing, before he ever knew who she was or would be to him.

Freshman year, a Thursday Intro To Glyphs class he thinks is interesting but isn’t invested in. He doesn't know to look for or talk to her at all, she’s just one of many faces in a class that he barely notices.

Oisin first fell in love, he would one day later think, in the way one does when you see a stranger sitting across from you on the public bus or train.

The sunlight hit her hair, a glimpse of gold to draw attention, and between one moment and the next he suddenly couldn't take his eyes off of her. Maybe he saw her smiling and laughing with her friends, perhaps she was rolling her eyes at them with her nose scrunched up just a little in faint judgment, or maybe he can't even remember because while walking past her in the hallway he had been so dumb-struck for a second he walked face first into an open locker door, hard enough to almost give him a concussion, much to Ivy's absolute confusion.
She does laugh at him mercilessly later, finding endless ways to tease him over the incident even if he won't say what exactly had been the cause of his near disastrous distraction.

It had been a moment of "I don't know you, you don't know me, but for one unfathomably long moment I wanted nothing more than to imagine a life lived that included basking near you and your smile every day until I die."

 

Unrealistic right? Just a passing stranger, his life wasn’t a love story, it's an average Tuesday and Oisin has homework and an appointment with his party in the forest after school.

He gathers his bearings and moves on, and if his mind wanders back to the girl in the hall who had captivated him to lethal effect? Well it's a pleasant memory for him and he thinks that's allowed, right?

Except.

Except she's in his Glyph class two days later, he realizes, and suddenly that hallway moment of longing rushes back until his entire face is purple and he's trying not to stare at the occasionally stuttering but brilliant wizard girl two rows ahead in class. The way his head crest flutters is mortifying, and he spends the rest of class with his tail wrapped tight around his legs and hand “rubbing” at his neck all period in an attempt to keep himself under control and not broadcasting these emotions to anyone familiar enough with dragonborn to notice.

The semester ends, and with it so does the Intro to Glyph’s class. Oisin originally makes the dumb teenage decision to take more Glyph classes at first, because he hoped she would too. Adaine doesn't, but Oisin continues because he finds he is good at them and enjoys it. It’s certainly easier to learn when he's not distracted in class 70% of the time.
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As Oisin gets older, more and more of his draconic nature becomes apparent. It's like a second puberty happening concurrently with normal puberty, which means it's a rollercoaster nightmare for him and the High Five Heroes.

 

Some aspects of this inherent inheritance is easy to handle.

Dragons are notorious for hoards, but not all dragons hoard the same things, even within their own subclasses. It will take time and experimentation to discover what calls to Oisin’s heart, but until then he collects a scattering of random things. It’s not all gold and jewels and endless wealth exclusively. Still, Oisin does have quite a few (mostly blue) gems and jewels in his new fledgling hoard, a staple for those like him descendant from Blue Dragons. They were given from relatives and family friends to honor this new stage in his life.

Oisin takes them despite not knowing yet what he most wants to hoard, but if his favorite gem just so happens to be one that reminds him of the shade of blue in a particular elven girl's eyes then-

 

Some things fit seamlessly into his life, a connection with his heritage that feels fulfilling.

Oisin has a deep fondness for rain and storms. He always knows if one is incoming even if it's not in the forecast. Something primal in him connects to the raging skies, for good or ill. Inside he thrums with something static, a force that fluctuates in patterns he understands instinctively. It makes him feel confident and powerful, to be so connected to the skies and storms with all their wrath and beauty. He also considers it very romantic, the sound of rain or the way it feels on his scales.

Unfortunately, much later in his life, Adaine Abernant will get so incredibly cross with him anytime she hears him predict a storm coming, even if he's talking to literally anyone else and doesn’t know she can hear him.

(Adaine thinks Oisin is a storm himself, and if she is not careful she will be like the last Oracle and have forgotten to stock up on water breathing spells. How can she risk drowning amidst the storm of his being?)

 

Some parts of himself, Oisin discovers, scare him silly.

Dragons hold great respect for power and prowess. Physical fights for hierarchy, play, or even courtship are very normal. For all that they are sentient brilliant beings, Dragons are still wild, untameable, primal things. This lurks underneath all of them, good or evil, some are just more adept at hiding it.
For courtship, this comes into play as sizing the other up. Both sides of a Dragon couple are looking to find out whether or not the other has any worth as a long term partner who would need to help guard the nest. Protecting eggs and hoards from greedy adventurers is serious business, a concern practically baked into draconic DNA. There are reasons there aren't many truly ancient dragons, after all.

Too large a discrepancy in strength can sometimes be a turn off for the stronger Dragon, so the most successful courtships are usually of similarly strong dragons, or at least, ones that put up enough of a fight despite the gap.

In particularly disastrous courtships, only one dragon walks away alive.

Oisin, seeing the great accomplishments and prowess of Adaine Abernant over the course of Freshman year, feels a deep stirring even before he's ever rage-star’d.

He wants to fight her so badly, to sling magic and bare bloody teeth until the raging beast inside is sated. Naturally this scares him, and Oisin REFUSES to seek Adaine out to talk because of it. The teen boy part of himself wants something kind, soft and tender between them, while the dragon making itself known as he ages wants to prove itself strong to her.

Later, he will tell himself this urge was ENTIRELY because he'd been on the path towards being contaminated-then-consumed with rage and wanted the Bad Kids dead.

It’s absolutely not because it's the first step in traditional dragon courtship. And yet still…..Oisin just wants to prove himself to her. He wants to feel for himself the confirmation of her renowned battle prowess, to be struck and strike back in vicious dance. This is all for purely rival-related reasons, he tells himself. He is, perhaps, a bit of a liar.
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Adaine's crush, not just her thinking he's cute, but her actual legitimate crush on the blue dragonborn, actually starts when the Rat Grinders are being redeemed post-Junior Year.

 

She hates his guts. He made her feel belittled and stupid during Junior year, and yes they kicked his and his friends asses, but also now they just have to deal with them still being around. (Ok, yes this is similar to how they made friends with Ragh, but Adaine isn’t the only one feeling petty.)

Except…

Now Adaine finds she and Oisin have to spend time together, partially in classes, partially because Lucy loves her friends despite everything but is also now a friend of The Bad Kids.

The former Rat Grinders are CLEARLY trying so hard to be better and kinder, but still the parties are mingling and the tension would be so fucking funny if it was anyone else.

 

Adaine and Oisin's relationship and interactions could be described in just a montage of them being assholes to each other. Oisin can be polite and respectable, funny even, with everyone BUT Adaine apparently. Bickering about wizard things, taunting cutting words, and Adaine repeatedly trying to punch his smug face whenever he gets too close while gloating if he's right about something.

Once during the previous year, Adaine literally told Aelwyn that while she wants and needs kindness, she does acknowledge that it's messed up that she wishes someone was a little mean to her sometimes. Thinking back to that moment, all Adaine can think is how this rivalry with Oisin is NOT WHAT SHE MEANT!!!!!!

 

The worst part, is that no matter how much Adaine hates Oisin, which she does, is how it doesn't stop him from being attractive. Oh sure, she thinks he's an absolute asshole when he's sitting across from her in the library, but......

He's still absurdly tall, with large arms that are for more than just show. The conjuration tattoos are both practical and very pleasing to the eye, the almost electric blue of them a pleasant contrast to the softer blue shade of his scales.

The contradiction of those large round spectacles resting on his snout makes him look just dorky enough to go from being just another buff guy to being....well.

Unfortunately, the glasses also do nothing to shield Adaine from the weight of his gaze.

When he looks at her with his full attention, behind those glasses are eyes of molten gold, and trained solely on her that gaze feels searing hot wherever it lands.

 

Or perhaps, the worst part is how much she despises how he laughs.

Sometimes, when she says something as clever as it is cutting, Oisin throws his head back just a little to laugh, bright and warm, all while his throat rumbles. It must be something draconic in nature, reminiscent of a strong purr or distant rain clouds. It's much harder to get him to make that particular sound when he laughs, and the rumble feels unfairly like victory. It’s like she cracked the careful facade he puts up to pretend like he's not a dragon.

The rumble also feels particularly reminiscent of butterflies in her stomach.

(She elects to ignore this part.)
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Oisin is a dragon, and he is admittedly a little obsessed with Adaine even if he doesn't dare to dream of ever going on an actual date with her after everything from the previous year.

He cannot imagine a world where she would ever again believe him to be genuine in affection or intention towards romantic feelings. No instance of genuine fluster could ever be seen as anything but a clever ruse, he tells himself, he certainly wouldn't believe it if it was him.

But he's got her attention now, and he is possessive of that, of what he CAN get. Even if she hates his guts and pointblank threatens to kill him if he steps out of line-

Even if it's because she hates him, Oisin still has, still feels, her eyes on him. Eyes like clear skies before the rolling storm, like they can pierce through everything he is and will ever be and know the truth of it.

Every conversation is like a battle, a verbal sparring that he tells himself is nothing at all like the courtship fights, but oh how sweet does it sound to his inner dragon. She could be cussing him out and he could feel like his heart would burst from his chest from the affection he feels, even as he riles her up further, until she slips into saccharine elven curses that he can practically taste on his forked tongue.

 

Once he dared toss back a clever jape in Draconic at her amidst another fight. When she immediately starts in on him with the guttural words of his native tongue, perfectly fluent but lilted ever so slightly like a refined melody, his tail accidentally knocks over a chair and his crest flares so strongly that he KNOWS his face must be more purple than a ripe plum.

He's lost a battle and her laughter at the way he flees claiming he forgot something haunts him for days. He tries to get revenge by whispering things under his breath at her in Elvish, and her glare is divine, but it's so risky because she might just start talking to him draconic again and Oisin fears he could live a thousand years and still not be able to handle the sound of it when it falls from her lips.

 

It's a lost cause of course, to hope she wouldn’t press this advantage. Adaine has a weakness now, and she wields it with all the precision and intent she's developed on a battlefield. It's the cutest surest way to put him in his place, rile him up with the same burning fire that he seems so expert in stirring up in her.
Oh he might try to argue back in draconic, or even throw a taunt out in Elvish, but he always stalks off first.

(He makes the refined, posh but ancient language of Elvish sound like something Tracker would appreciate, Adaine often thinks. He makes it sound ever so slightly wild, like something else is lurking behind all the refinery. Adaine is well practiced in steadying her breathing, and Oisin always cracks first.)
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Meanwhile, everyone has seen these two bicker back and forth, and everyone knows trying to get them to stop or get between them means the two turn as a united front against whoever interrupted, and that's honestly worse.

The Bad Kids and Rat Grinders have an ongoing bet amongst themselves on if the two will snap and legitimately murder each other, or snap and start making out in the library.

They have an honestly way too elaborate betting system with odds changing all the time, but it is actually probably the most fun, non-tense bonding the two groups have together. They have also gone to great lengths to keep it secret from the two wizards, especially when one of them is the fucking ORACLE.

They all see the bickering and tension, and are waiting to see what way the coin falls. This is perhaps a blessing, as beyond this narrow view, Adaine and Oisin have just enough space to find something more.
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It's not all bickering and scathing words. Sometimes, when nobody else is around to see behind this precarious curtain...it’s soft and tender too, just like a young Oisin once dreamed.

 

Sometimes, when Adaine is genuinely having a bad day and feels one wrong moment from truly snapping, she feels the magic of a conjured summon passing by whatever table or nook she stowed herself away to hide in. The smell of arcane-tinted petrichor lingers afterwards, and settled nearby is a warm drink that hadn't been there before. Sometimes it's a tea she's fond of, sometimes a warm peppermint mocha from her favorite coffee place downtown.

Against her better judgment, she is increasingly fond of the smell of rain.

 

Sometimes, the rage feels like it never left Oisin's body. It burns him inside and out, and he's so exhausted fighting back these aftershocks. He is trying every day to make up for what he's done, but the feeling of unbridled rage stalks him. To indulge in it is to fail, fall off the wagon, and he will not falter, even if he squeezes his hands so tightly they bleed beneath his claws.

A message cantrip blooms to life in his mind. Melodic, lilted draconic, giving not words of comfort, but familiar unafraid taunts. It's a challenge, he knows it, and somehow that makes it easier, rage giving way to fondness and the desire to prove himself worthy of walking side by side with-

 

There are more late nights in libraries and sitting close at tables in out of the way restaurants working on difficult projects then either of them would ever let anyone know, not that they let anyone know that this happens at all.

It's quiet, honest conversations over dusty tomes and scattered papers. They couldn't know how to make the most cutting of remarks if they knew nothing about each other, after all. The excuse is feeble, they both know.

 

It's Oisin, laying his head down in his arms over the library table, eyes watching Adaine sitting next to him with hair falling in her face like it always does when she’s bent forward focusing intently on her work.
There are many, many times when Oisin does nothing but watch in silence. Sometimes, rarely, when it's late and nobody will come by except to kick them out-

He reaches a claw to gingerly tuck the silken gold hair behind the bright red ear of a girl who doesn't say anything about it, before he looks away entirely, trying to ignore the way he can feel his crest fluttering up and down as it seemingly contemplates flaring out.

 

It's Adaine, rolling her eyes with no heat, as she steps into his personal space and is enveloped in his ever lingering smell of petrichor. Calloused fingers lingering on rough scales as she, ever so gently, corrects a stance or spell casting motion that the unfairly tall dragonborn boy next to her had been working on perfecting.

They both know she doesn't have to be so close for this, that another demonstration from beside him would work just fine without needing her to position his body herself. Oisin similarly doesn't have to bend ever so slightly, dip his long draconian neck down so he can better hear her murmured words. So close they can feel the heat of the other's breath.

He casts the spell perfectly, and Adaine steps back out to a respectable distance, and neither of them say anything about it.

 

Neither of them ever mention any of it.

It feels taboo, like the triggering of a spell that will destroy both of them.

The fighting, the bickering, the cutting words and sharp swords aimed at jugulars?

That's easy, that's familiar and safe. It's what's supposed to happen between them, safe territory they can walk with eyes closed.

It's the tenderness that's hard. It's the yearning and soft touches aborted at the last moment-

This is what would be their ruin, and the threat of it lingers above them, rolling clouds heavy with rain that just won't fall.

 

Days, weeks, months pass by and they do not mention it.
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Until….
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Adaine, flush with Oracle-sure certainty, gestures for Oisin to slow down, to bend down low so she can tell him something. He protests, it's about to rain any second and really Abernant, they're going to be late-

 

Adaine kisses Oisin first, soft and sure as her hands cradle his scaled jaw, just as the dark clouds above them break open.

The kiss tastes like rain, and the loud, pleased rumble in her ears certainly isn't from the storm coming down on them.