Who the hell are you?

Eric was on his horse once again. He had just delivered an important message from the Lord Commander to the queen herself and he was now leaving king’s landing. He was once again on the path toward the tavern where he had left Sinbad just a couple of days before, after a furious fight they had. Sinbad just didn’t want to understand that he couldn’t show what kind of relationship they had in public…
He had been tempted to take another path, but for some weird reason he just kept heading toward the tavern. He was still mad at Sinbad for some nasty things he had said about his family… but he was still so terribly tempted to see him…
He wasn’t sure himself what he was going to do, the more he go closer the more he thought he should have just walked by without stopping, but as he approached more the tavern his attention was captured by some voices and noises coming from the back of the building.

Since Eric left, Sinbad had been drinking, flirting and gambling. Screw the boy! He had said or done nothing wrong! He just wanted them to enjoy their time together without the constant fear that someone could find out about them, why couldn’t Eric agree to that? To just let go of all his nightmares, of all the stupid ideas of sin and wrong that his family fed him? He didn’t understand it and once again they had ended up fighting over it. The crow had left him to finish his mission and Sinbad wasn’t sure if he was going to see him again any time soon. And now… now, apparently, he had gambled against the wrong people…
Sinbad was roughly pushed out of the tavern by a group of four people who insisted on the fact he had been cheating. Fucking assholes, all of this just not to pay him… if he hadn’t been drinking so much he’d show them… but, as a matter of fact, he had been drinking too much and now he didn’t have the strength nor the focus for a fight. But the bastards didn’t seem to care…
“You can keep your fucking money, ok? Just leave me alone”
he tried to convince them to let him go, but apparently the assholes were really looking forward to beat him up
“Hey did you hear that? We can keep our money! What a nice thing…”
The men laughed before one of them punched Sinbad in his stomach…

Eric moved his horse to slowly turn around the corner and check on what was going on. He grimaced as he noticed a group of men beating up another man, he was already intentioned to stop them, but as he saw who was the victim of the group his heart skipped a beat, his eyes widened in horror and he could feel a wave of rage flood his heart. He didn’t even need to think: he spurred the horse to reach the group and then he got down in one agile and fluid movement, right next to the group, pushing them away and pulling Sinbad out of their reach. He could hear them complaining but he didn’t care.
“You thugs better find someone else to beat up. That is, if you care for your life.”

Sinbad took a moment to realize what was going on. He was so confused and the dizziness given from the alcohol didn’t help one bit… At least the alcohol muffled the pain…
When he felt someone pulling him away, he thought he had only imagined Eric, but as he fell on the ground and stared up at his assaulters he could see the male was really there, sword in his hand, staying between him and the violent group. Why was he there? He could get himself hurt, those men were not playing… He wanted to stop him, but he felt like the world was moving so terribly slowly and just couldn’t catch up with his mind…
Like in slow motion, he saw the thugs attacking Eric… and surprisingly his sweet, fragile Eric managed to handle them all! Sinbad widened his eyes: in the past he had trained with Eric more than a couple of times, they had fought together… but he had never seen him like that! Eric had hinted at the fact that real fights for him were another thing, but he had always thought it was a bluff!
Eric fought with a fury and with a rage he couldn’t believe possible… He had never see that expression on him, with his eyes darkened by the rage… he looked like he didn’t have a soul!
The fight didn’t even last long, it didn’t take much time to Eric to injure two of the men, push on the floor a third man and away a fourth one before he perforated the cranium of the last man skewering his left eye. As he removed his sword from the man’s head Eric was soiled by the blood that spilled from the now dead man’s wound. The other men ran away in terror.

Cowards and idiots, that’s what they were, just coward and idiots. Eric wasn’t even tired, he wasn’t even sweating. Regaining control over himself, he rushed toward Sinbad, remembering the reason of his fight.
“Are you ok?” he asked concerned stretching a hand toward him, but at Sinbad’s expression he had to blink in surprise a couple of times. Sinbad looked absolutely horrified and he was staring at him in shock. It was in that moment Eric realized he still had blood on his hand.
He faked a smile “Wait here…” before he left him and walked into the tavern.

Sinbad couldn’t believe his own eyes: was that… that killer the same person he knew? He was left alone just for a short while, because after just a couple of minutes Eric had left, the innkeeper and his son came to help him to get back in his room, where he could lay down. The innkeeper checked his wound, but luckily there was nothing serious.
Eric showed up only a little later, all cleaned up and still a bit wet.
“Are you ok?” he asked once again, still faking a smile.
Sinbad just stared at him frowning and nodded. He could sense that Eric’s smile was only a facade, but he was still shocked for what he had just witnessed. Was that really his Eric?
He could see him feeling uneasy, shifting his weight from one foot to the other… what was that all about?
“Well, if… if you are ok then I can leave…” Eric smiled shyly starting to turn toward the door.
Hell, no!
“You’re not going to run away now, are you?”
Eric stopped, giving Sinbad his back, but he didn’t reply: he didn’t know what to say.
“Cause I think I deserve at least an explanation.”
Eric remained still, without speaking. What could he possibly say? What explanation could he give?
His silence, though, was angering SInbad
“Cause I’ve known you for nearly three years and that never popped up! You never mentioned you could be this… this cold-blood killer! Who the hell are you?”

Eric had remained in silence, clenching his teeth and tightening his fists. He wished he could explain himself to Sinbad, but how to find the words? Beside, could he understand? But enough is enough, at Sinbad’s last question Eric bursted out in a mix of anger and angst “Look, this is who I am, ok? This is what I am, what I have to be. It doesn’t matter if I like it or not, because I don’t have a choice. This is what I have to be. And do you want the truth? I hate it. I always hated it. But it doesn’t matter, because it’s what my father wanted me to be, and it’s what I need to be to survive on the wall.” he was shouting, venting his frustration. Now that he was facing SInbad again and that his fake smile was gone, SInbad could see all the pain in his eyes…
“And you know what? Today for the first time I’m actually happy to be like that, cause at least I could save you. Cause I might be a monster, but… if that saves you… i don’t even care…”

Monster… that was what he considered himself, a monster? Sinbad could see how troubled he was… his poor Eric, he cursed himself for attacking him, like he didn’t know how many problems the boy had already… like finding out he was good with his sword actually made any difference to him…
With a sigh he simply stood up, reached Eric and, raising his head, he kissed him passionately.
His wounds weren’t bad enough to hold him from fucking the boy many times that evening.

It was only many hours later, when they were both spent and laying naked on the bed, Eric resting his head on Sinbad’s chest and Sinbad with his hand tangled in Eric’s hair, that Sinbad decided to bring up the subject again.
“So… how did you learn to fight like that?”
he could feel Eric tensing up, but as he kept caressing the boy’s hair he could feel him relax again.
“My father wanted me to be a warrior…” Eric finally started talking after a while, hiding his face against SInbad’s chest. Why did he always have to do that? Sinbad liked looking into his eyes… but since Eric was always more comfortable talking like that, for once he let go.
“As a kid, I was quite… delicate… my father considered me weak, I was a shame for the family…” to Eric, talk about those things was everything but easy. He didn’t like remembering or acknowledging some parts of his life… But with Sinbad… with Sinbad was different. Sinbad saw who he really was, and he didn’t turn his back on him, he didn’t abandon him… Sinbad care for him, he really did, and Eric felt safe with him… if there was one person, only one in the whole wide world he could share his past with, that was Sinbad. And as painful as it was to tell such hard memories… he wanted Sinbad to know… swallowing, he kept talking “He wanted me to be stronger… he took a sword master to teach me… he was… quite… rough… I spent almost two years crying every day before I realized it was pointless…” to Eric it was quite shameful to admit that, he could feel himself blushing in embarrassment, luckily SInbad couldn’t see that. But no matter how shameful and painful it was, he wasn’t going to hold back, he didn’t want secrets with Sinbad… it was hard enough to have secrets with the rest of the world…
“I had to toughen up… I guess in a way the master’s lesson worked…” he sighed against SInbad’s chest, curling up more next to the male.
“The first time I took part to a duel and defeated my opponent… I think it might have been the only time I actually saw my father being proud of me…”
Sinbad could feel his warm breath against his skin the whole time, tickling him in a delightful way. He kept caressing the male’s hair, listening carefully, letting the news sink in… his poor, sweet Eric… what had they done to him? And he still wanted to protect the assholes he called family! It was no time, though, to fight over that. His priority, now, was to reassure the man curled up next to him.
“And now you think you are a monster”
It wasn’t a question, Eric had explicitly said that before, and now he stiffened once again.
“Eric, look at me” Sinbad force Eric to face him, even if the boy still moved his eyes so to avoid eye-contact “You are not a monster. In all fairness, I think you still are that sensitive kid you used to be… your father, your master, they didn’t help you, they didn’t toughen you up… they just wound you…”
Eric shifted uncomfortably, trying to move away and hide again but Sinbad didn’t allow him to do so
“This is still who I am though…”
“This is just part of who you are, Eric. It might not be the best part of you, but it’s not as bad as you think. True, I was quite shocked, but you took me by surprise.”
Eric wasn’t really convinced, Sinbad could still read the uneasiness in his eyes.
“So you can fight, and you are… quite rough when you do it, big deal! At least I know you’re safe up north!” he half teased him, though he was really glad to know Eric was actually able to protect himself. Resting his forehead on Eric’s forehead, he smirked at the male “Eric you might not be perfect… but you are still perfect to me, and that’s all that matters, ok?”
Finally Eric smiled, looking Sinbad in the eyes, blushing a bit at his comment.
They didn’t need to say anything more. After a brief kiss, Eric put again his head on SInbad’s chest. I didn’t took long for them to fall asleep like that.