The day was a complete wash.

Cass couldn’t get the energy to do anything. Not leave the house. Not read a book. Not even eat. Edgar and Gideon were the ones that really took care of him, Sam making sure that everything else was going well behind the scenes.

Even with Cass and the others worried, that didn’t mean that the rest of the world stayed still.

The King responded to Aunt Alysora’s letter, didn’t respond to Cass’, and they received other mail from an unknown sender. Sam was the one who sniffed out that the unmarked letter amongst all of the other letters that Cass got was important because it was addressed to all of them.

Cass, Edgar, Lucian and Gideon.

However, now was not the time for Cass to read anything. Edgar brought him up to his bedroom, tucking him into bed while trying to get his own answers to his questions. Surprisingly, this was all related to Cassian as well.

What would happen to the contract if Cassian...disappeared? Was the contract tied to his soul, or his body?

That wasn’t something that Cass was considering, but it was something that Taniora, the only one who had truly experienced death outside of Cass, asked. After Ailia spent time with the nursery tree, Taniora went downstairs and spent hours with the nursery tree. They were locked in a heated conversation that Aunt Alysora was the only one who could come in and out of.

Cass was busy collapsing in on himself.

What had he done? What had he done to hurt Cassian? There was no way that Cass could think that anyone else had harmed him. It had to have been Cass at this point. It could have been the gods, but Cass didn’t think that they would. He was pretty sure that they had their own deal with Cassian so that they could use his body.

Cass’ mind kept spiraling as he thought about the ramifications of what he could have done and what that meant for Cassian himself. If Cassian couldn’t speak to him, and he was a fraying rope like the nursery tree implied, did that mean that Cassian wasn’t strong enough to take over his body once Cass finished this damn mission?

Cass hadn’t even wanted to consider that he would be remaining in this body after everything had happened. It wasn’t even something that had crossed his mind. Intentionally. He knew and had read plenty of stories where the person who came in took over the body for good, but Cass hadn’t wanted that to be the case for him.

He wanted to be able to make Cassian’s life better so that he could live it for himself. So that he could experience it for himself. Cass essentially had wanted to be a nursery for Cassian himself. A nursery of the soul. Take care of the body, the soul, the image and then give it back to the original owner once he was done.

If Cassian couldn’t come back, or was too weak to do so, or hell, if the rope finally snapped, what was Cass going to do? It felt comfortable to have Cassian with him. He didn’t want him to leave.

Being able to speak to him, know him, and have him there as a silent sounding board had been nice when Cass had first come into the body. His body. Cass still didn’t think of this body as his. It was too...foreign. Too strange.

Too weak, too skinny, too white haired, frail, petite, with soft hands that had never seen a day of hard labor. It just didn’t feel like his own.

He’d been able to get through most of the weird shit that was going on because he had been able to tell himself somewhere in the back of his mind that this wasn’t his problem. He was dealing with it at the moment, but he wouldn’t have to deal with it forever. If Cassian disappeared, or Cass wasn’t able to hear him ever again, what was Cass going to do?

These kinds of thoughts plagued him and he wasn’t able to sleep or stay awake or even really function outside of it at all.

Thankfully, Edgar was there, along with Sam and Gideon. Byron was acting more as a go between his family, the nursery tree, and a protective force that told anyone who visited to go fuck themselves.

They didn’t have many visitors, ever, but it seemed that as soon as Cass wasn’t well someone decided to try and visit. Nobles. Stupid, idiotic nobles were trying to come visit.

Byron didn’t care why they were coming, or who they were, he knew that he was under strict orders to send them away. At the very least for today, and at the most?

No one was allowed to come onto the property. Byron didn’t even hide the fact that he was a dragon either. He didn’t tuck away his powers like normal. He made himself to be the second big bad that was keeping Cass safe. Keeping everyone safe.

It was also a good distraction to keep the noble’s eyes away from the fact that there were fairies crawling all over the property. A big, bad dragon with eyes at dark as night looming over the property was a good distraction from the growing flora and fauna on the property.

Everyone might not understand what was wrong with Cass, but no one blamed him for it. No one thought it was strange, or unusual.

Maybe it was because Cass had been working himself to the bone in the place of the others, and had been doing it for a long, long time. Gideon and Edgar had come to the slow realisation over the time that they had spent with him that Cass truly was a force to be reckoned with.

That, and the man might know how to relax, he just didn’t.

With how crazy his life had been over the last few months, his life changing completely against his will, becoming a hero, having to live another lifetime and then come back to this body, try to save the world, pick up the pieces that Fiona left behind all while trying to fight against every enemy that they had?

Who wouldn’t break under that when something like this happened?

Edgar intentionally didn’t tell Gideon what had happened. He told him as much as he needed to know, that it was probably related to something that the gods had done. Cass wasn’t sure if going to the temple would help or hinder him because the gods were busy working on something else for him, and he was in no state to go at the moment. Gideon, a smart man, knew that he shouldn’t ask.

He wouldn’t get an answer anyways, and he could tell that it pained Edgar not to be able to tell him everything, but Gideon understood. Cass was allowed to have secrets, just like the next person. Invading his privacy, even when the man was collapsing in on himself wasn’t something that Gideon was entitled to. Nor was it something anyone was entitled to.

It was also clear that Edgar had some guilt over the situation as well. Like he was worried that he was the reason it was even happening in the first place. So, Gideon stood by and helped where he could.

He even took a turn reading one of Cass’ favourite books to him, much to the surprise of Edgar and Sam, but Gideon was fine with it. If Cass responded even slightly then this was the right thing to do. He didn’t, but Gideon didn’t mind.

Any little thing to be of help, since he couldn’t tend to Cass the same way that Edgar and Sam could. He didn’t have the same level of trust from Cass that the others did. That was okay. He was working towards it. If there was one thing Gideon was good at it was working towards a difficult goal, and to him, that’s what this was. A difficult, but very fulfilling goal.

He sat on the bed, Cass’ head on his thigh, his fingers slowly running through Cass’ hair as he read one of the most surprising scenes that had ever graced his eyes before in his life, but he didn’t react. Edgar and Sam were in the room, whispering to each other about what they could do to comfort Cass, take him out of the place that he had retreated to inside of himself, but Gideon just sat there.

Kind, thoughtful, being there for the man even as he felt like a dead weight on his thigh.

Cass’ eyes were blank, red discs with nothing behind them. If his chest wasn’t rising and falling, Gideon would have panicked for completely different reasons. But since he was still breathing, Gideon just kept doing what he was doing. Reading his favourite book, petting his head and just being a warm spot where Cass could rest his head.

When night fell, Edgar offered to stay awake for them. Gideon wanted to protest, knowing how deeply that Edgar usually slept, but Edgar wasn’t going to have it. He wanted Cass to be sandwiched between them, warm, taken care of, and not a single worry that he was alone as he was going through this.

Taniora hadn’t come up yet from speaking with the nursery tree. Things had been going on for hours, and since Edgar couldn’t enter that space he didn’t know the truth behind what was going on. Alysora kept them in the loop, letting them know only the basics, but that didn’t mean that Edgar fully trusted her.

She was Cass’ family, not Edgar’s, and while Cass trusted and believed in fairies completely, Edgar had grown up in a family that had been fed propaganda about fairies since he was young. He just...didn’t trust them as much as Cass did. They accepted Cass because he was of fairy blood. Edgar could feel how they looked at him sometimes, like they were examining him and his worth, and Edgar just...didn’t trust that.

He was worried that they wouldn’t give them the full picture because Gideon and Edgar didn’t have fairy blood. He didn’t let his fears fuel him, he was just cautious.

Which played into why he wanted to watch over Cass while he was asleep. What if he came to while the others were asleep? What if he panicked and tried to run away? What if he tried to do something drastic? Edgar didn’t want that, couldn’t handle that, so he wanted to be awake.

Plus, Gideon didn’t know everything, and Edgar wasn’t sure if Sam knew everything either. Everything was confusing, everything was up in the air. Until Cass came back to them, things would be that way.

It was times like this that Edgar wished that Lucian was here. He would be able to pinpoint Cass’ fears right now, and he would also be a huge support in making sure that nothing terrible happened to Cass either.

Edgar just missed the big dragon, but he wouldn’t tell him that ever.

Instead, Edgar hardened himself. He would be the support that everyone needed right now while Cass was indisposed. He could do it, and it wasn’t like he was alone. Not truly. They would all get through this, even if the worst came to pass.