Chapter Text
Chapter 1 Finding words
Jimmy had not had an easy life. Oh he knew of people that had it far worse than he had. He never had parents or family but the orphanage he had grown up with was clean and fed him well. They tried but they had too many kids to take care of to do much more than that.
As an adult he traveled around a lot just trying to find a place where he belonged. Nothing ever felt right but he was able to find work when he needed to. He knew his good looks and charming smile could get a place to sleep or a warm meal. Sometimes there were strings attached and he didn’t mind if it made these other people happy.
Everything he owned he could carry in one bag and he usually had just a few coins on hand. He hadn’t made any friends and certainly no one he would call family but he had seen some amazing things in his travels and he still felt hopeful that someday he would find it, the place he belonged.
Though he had never expected to wind up in the situation he was in now. He knew the vibe had been off in that village and he should have just continued on. He had heard the kids whisper about a monster in the hills but what small town didn’t have kids telling that kind of spooky tales? The inn keeper had seemed all too happy to see him and gave him a very good deal on a room. Too good a deal. But a place this small likely didn’t get many travelers. He ignored the little tickle that told him to continue on the road and find another place to stay even though it was already dark.
He remembered the inn keeper’s pretty daughter bringing him a bowl of rich stew and an ale. He must have fallen asleep after that but he didn’t really remember.
He woke up slowly, first becoming aware of a dull throbbing in his head and being cold. He tried to bring a hand to his forehead but found he couldn’t. His arms couldn’t move and there was a throbbing in his shoulders.
As he opened his eyes he realized he was no longer in the village. He was in the middle of some forest. He was on his knees on some kind of stone platform and his arms were chained above him to pillars on either side of him. All his belongings were gone including every stitch of clothing he had been wearing.
“Well fuck.” So the town folks were sacrificing him to their monster. He should have taken his chances with bandits on the road. Best case there was no monster and he dies of exposure out here.
He tries to see if there is enough slack in the chain to stand up but when he moves a sharp pain shoots from his left knee. He may have fallen onto it at some point as it was bruised and bleeding. He shifted his weight slightly off it but that made his shoulders hurt more and he was pretty sure he didn’t have the slack to stand up.
He twisted his wrist to see how much space was in the shackle. Not much it seemed. He wasn’t going to be able to use his slender wrists like he had in that prison down south. He tugged a little at the chain to feel if there was any give or if the connection between the chain and the pillars might be loose. He didn’t feel anything yet but he couldn’t see the ends of the chains clearly. It was a pretty bright night with the moon almost full and no clouds. Still he couldn’t quite make out the seams on the pillars to see if there was any weak point there. That might have to wait to be checked again when morning comes.
If he was still alive come morning.
Jimmy had been in many tough spots before and he hadn’t yet given up hope for getting out of this one. Maybe one of the villagers would have a change of heart? Maybe the gods would have mercy on him for once in his life and give him a break? No he was probably going to have to get out of this on his own like usual.
It was hard to twist his hand but he started to feel around the shackles for the seams and keyhole. He was in denial after the first check but after the third there was no doubt. There was no keyhole and no seams. He was chained to a Bloodstone. Old seldom used alters that worked by old magic most didn’t understand. There had been one famous one outside the city he had grown up in. According to legend criminals would be chained there and fed to a dragon and the chains would not let go until the criminal bled. So many had been killed there that the stones were now stained red.
Jimmy had not believed that story even as a child and assumed it had been made out of some kind of red stone. He had heard enough stories in his travels to know that each of them seemed to run by their own rules. At least that was what he had heard in taverns and wharfs and town markets.
Well he could rule out this being one of the ones that bound virgins before they were taken by a demon lover if those existed outside of smutty books to start with. Also this one clearly didn’t want blood because his knee was already bleeding.
He just had to stay calm and figure out how to get out of this. There always was a way. A gust of wind stirred the fallen leaves around him and made Jimmy shiver. His toes and fingers were starting to get very cold and that made Jimmy realize something.
“Those jerks took my boots!” Somehow that annoyed him more than chaining him up in the forest to die. He had almost broken those ones in. Third pair this year. Well he would have to worry about that later.
---
Tango would say that he had a pretty good life. He grew up close to his family and had great friends that he cherished even to this day. True that he didn’t get to see them very often any more. That was just because he was traveling so much. He had gotten to see so many wonders. It was only to his closest friends that he admitted that he was lonely, that he longed for someone to accompany him. A partner, a lover, a companion, someone who he could share his travels and life with.
Of course so far all his attempts to date had ended in disaster. It didn’t matter if he dated women or men or what race of being they were, it always ended with Tango heart broken and his friends helping him put his life back together. As a fire spirit he couldn’t help his nature. He had a nurturing warmth and a fiery passion and so for he had found that no one could love both sides of him. They either found him suffocating or perverted.
He hadn’t tried dating for several years now. He had silently accepted that it was never going to happen. He had his ship and his travels and his books and his contraptions and all the mystery he could ever hope to puzzle through in this world.
Right now he had been hid away in a forest doing some tuning to his ship while checking out some ruins. This would probably be his last night in the area so he was taking advantage of the nearly full moon to forage for the delicious nuts and mushrooms that grew in this kind of forest. The last time he had done that in the day some of the locals had spotted him.
He hadn’t been far from his ship when he spotted something very confusing that he couldn’t quite make sense of.
There is a man chained up in the forest?
There is a naked man chained up in the forest.
There is a hot naked man chained up in the forest.
There is a very hot naked man chained up in the forest.
There is a very hot naked perfect man chained up in the forest.
Brain stop adding adjectives.
Despite himself Tango couldn’t help but stare. He knew his own type quite well at this point and this strange man was just too perfect, too everything he wanted to not stare. Blond hair that he wanted to run his fingers through. Pale skin he knew would look amazing covered with hickies and love bites. Tall but slender and with a very nice looking ass. He was just perfect.
For a moment he wondered if this was some delusion or perhaps some sort of trick from his friends. No Impulse and Skizz would never be that cruel.
Then he noticed the man was shivering and the faint smell of blood reached his nose. All the horny feelings got shoved away as concern bubbled up.
He rushed forward to offer help without a second thought. “Are you okay? Do you need help? You look cold.”
The man screamed and started struggling to try to get loose from the shackles desperately. Too late Tango remembered two things. First he hadn’t bothered with a disguise charm as he hadn’t expected to run into any humans. Second, being a human there was no way he understood his language. Tango understood the human language but couldn’t speak it.
The other man wasn’t calming down and Tango was worried he might hurt himself more in his panic. He gently touched the man’s cheek and tried to make him look at him while making his expression as calm and as friendly as he could. He smiled, worried for a moment that his sharp teeth might come off as threatening. It seemed to work however the man calmed as their eyes met.
“You’re not going to eat me?”
Tango recoiled slightly and looked a little disgusted at the idea, shaking his head. “I’m here to help you. You’re hurt and dang is this a bloodstone you’re chained to? Who would do something like…and you can’t understand me.”
He held up his hands to the man in a way that he hoped would come across as asking him to wait.
“Where would I go?” The human said with a grin getting the message.
Tango smiled and rushed back to his ship.
---
Jimmy thought this night couldn’t have gotten any weirder. He had been trying to figure out how to not freeze when this creature had come out of the woods. He hadn’t been able to stay calm assuming that this was the monster the villagers were so afraid of.
A gentle touch by the warmest hand Jimmy had ever known guided his attention to the most beautiful ruby eyes and he calmed down right away. He asked for confirmation but he already knew this was not some monster that was going to eat him.
He figured out that the sounds he was hearing that sounded like crackling flames was him trying to talk. Jimmy didn’t understand one lick of it but thought it was the most comforting sound he had ever heard.
As the figure ran off he tried to make sense of things. An impish face with long pointed ears. Flames on his head and the top of his ears. A long dextrous tail that also had a flame on the end. He had never met one before but he was pretty sure that was a fire spirit. He did meet some water spirits in his travels and knew from stories that elemental spirits were not aggressive and were generally helpful unless wronged. He hadn’t heard that spirits could be that attractive. It had only been a brief interaction but he wished he had leaned into that touch on his cheek. It had felt better than it had any business doing.
He could hear footsteps that he was pretty sure was the spirit running back. Then a moment later he felt something soft and warm being draped over him. It was a large red blanket made out of the softest material Jimmy had ever felt. It felt like how he had imagined clouds felt. Draping over his back and shoulders it fell to his knees in the back and touched the ground in front of him. It was enough for modesty and instantly made Jimmy feel a whole lot warmer. Then he felt woolly socks being put on his feet and then a pair of boots. They were a bit too big for his feet but it sure did feel a lot better to have something on his feet again.
Then the spirit came around in front of him and put a basket on the ground. He filled a cup with water and put a straw in it and then held it to Jimmy’s lips. Jimmy didn’t even realize how dehydrated he was until he started to drink the water. He drank the full cup and half of another.
“Thank you. I think I would have died if you hadn’t found me.”
He picks up a notebook and pen from the basket. “Are you hurt?”
It was strange but Jimmy could see a bunch of very precise writing in some other language on the last page used on the notebook. This writing was shaky and a little hard to read. Any curved letter was particularly hard and he had to make it out by context. He noticed the e was written as a capital letter likely to be able to do it all in straight lines.
“I may have fell on my knee, it's bleeding and bruised. I can’t tell how bad. My shoulders kind of hurt but I think it’s just stiffness. I’ve had worse.”
The spirit wrote out another message. “Can I touch you to treat your injuries?”
The question surprised Jimmy so much he didn’t know how to answer it. He wasn’t used to being taken care of. “You’re a fire spirit right?” He asked instead of answering.
The spirit nodded.
“Do you have a name?”
He wrote and then held up the book but it was a little hard to read.
“Tanoo?” Jimmy asked questioningly
The spirit made a frustrated noise that Jimmy found adorable and started to darken some of the lines on what he had written showing it again.
“Oh that’s a G. So Tango?”
Tango nodded and smiled. Jimmy couldn’t help but smile back. Tango pointed to him.
“My name is Jimmy.”
Tango took a moment to write it out and showed it to him. He had written all the letters in capitals but the J looked like a T.
“No, that's Timmy. Not with a T a J. Jimmy.”
Tango corrected it on the paper and showed it to him again.
“Yes, much better.”
Tango smiled and said something sent shivers down his spin. Because he had been looking at the paper when he said Jimmy was pretty sure all he had said was his name in Tango’s language but it had given him chills.
Tango pointed to the question about if it was okay to treat his injuries again.
“Okay, just be gentle, okay. Normally I take care of that kind of stuff myself.”
Tango nodded and snatched up a first aid kit. He sat in front of him on the ground to treat the knee first. He looked for a moment to see the best way to do this and then carefully lifted the leg before scooching forward a bit and letting it rest across his leg so that the knee wasn’t pressing into anything anymore. He cleaned and bandaged the wound. Then placed a towel on the stones and eased Jimmy’s leg back down so it was on the towel.
When Tango stood up and looked at him Jimmy looked away knowing there had to be the strangest look on his face right now. He didn’t know what he was feeling but he liked it even if it left him a little flustered.
Tango moved behind him to check his shoulders next. He had to pull the blanket back and gently felt along the muscles there. He rubbed any knots he found in the muscle and then used an ointment that warmed on Jimmy’s skin though Jimmy found Tango’s warm hand more soothing than the ointment.
At one point Jimmy could swear he felt Tango’s breath against the back of his neck. It gave him chills but he was pretty sure he was imagining it. Jimmy hadn’t mentioned the chafing around his wrists from the shackles figuring it wasn’t that big a deal. Tango noticed however and rubbed some cream into the raw skin to soothe it.
Tango then walked around and picked up the book again. “Everything feel good now?”
Jimmy nodded. He didn’t trust his voice at the moment as his brain felt like jello. As long as he could remember he had to take care of himself for everything. Being taken care of was so new to him and was doing something mushy to his brain.
“Are you hungry?”
Jimmy shook his head.
“I’m going to work on figuring out how to unlock the bloodstone okay? I don’t know how long it will take. If you can sleep you might want to do so.”
Jimmy nodded and closed his eyes. He couldn’t have imagined sleeping while still being chained up but he was so warm and his brain was so fuzzy that when he closed his eyes he fell into a peaceful sleep.