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[maltesefalcon]

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[maltesefalcon]

"I know what you mean. The calendar here doesn't line up to my world's at all. It throws one off, not to be able to account for the time."

Cerrit's eyes linger on Watson's hand.

"Sherlock Holmes. A strong name. He was the detective you knew, back home?"

[lightconductor]

"He was, yes. We met when I came back from Afghanistan and the war. I was a wreck at that time," Watson confesses. "I was still recovering, and he was trying to make it as an independent consulting detective, and the pair of us barely had two shillings to rub together. We rented some rooms together, and eventually he offered to take me on a case, I think mostly to prove to me that his powers of observation were not a mere parlour trick, because I did not believe in him. And then, of course, I often went with him."

He pauses, looking at the woodgrain in the table, tracing it with a fingernail. "The police in London were often less interested in finding truth than they were in finding a convenient scapegoat so they could call the case closed and be done with it. I have to assume the official forces are less terrible where you're from."

[maltesefalcon]

"At least some were, considering I was involved in policing. But I know of the tendencies you speak of. Wash your hands of the problem, find a solution that keeps the people happy. It happens everywhere, at one time or another. I'm glad you and Sherlock were most interested in justice, though."

He reaches out with one of those scaly hands to cover Watson's, as usual so very precise and not letting the doctor feel how sharp his talons are.

[lightconductor]

Not too long ago those hands were very alien to Watson. They're far more comforting now.

"He met his end in that work," he says. "He destroyed the criminal empire of a mastermind, and then they died together, when I had been tricked into leaving." Watson's expression goes slack, pained; his eyes see nothing. "I didn't see the trap for what it was. He was alone for the first time in weeks, because I left and he let me, and as a result he died."

Watson's voice goes softer as he speaks. He lifts a hand and covers his eyes, and takes a shaky breath.

[maltesefalcon]

“He let you. And now it’s his birthday and you’re sitting here with your guilt.”

Cerrit understands, though. Mourner’s night wasn’t long ago, and he remembered his people, everyone he had let down because he’d been too busy obsessing over other problems to realize what was going on with his friends.

“Zerxus used to say my feathers are very nice to cry into. Would you like to try for yourself?”

[lightconductor]

The offer is something of a surprise to him, in the way an entirely new sentence sometimes catches you off guard, and Watson is startled enough to give a puff of laughter, and then pauses as it occurs to him that laughter alone could seem insulting. "I daresay that's an offer no one's made me before. Not at the moment, my friend."

He had been very close, for a moment. He wipes at his eyes.

"And yes, he absolved me and let me go and I'm still sitting here with the guilt. I suppose I always will. Damn it." The last comes out in a sort of gasp, and he takes a drink of his port.

[maltesefalcon]

Cerrit doesn’t push, but he doesn’t know what to do, either. Emotionally constipated cop is emotionally constipated, but he knows he needs to stay here, if for no other reason to make sure Watson makes it home safely.

“His final cruelty, really, leaving you to hold onto that sort of pain.”

[lightconductor]

"Oh, no." Watson shakes his head. "No, Holmes was never -- not cruel, no. I... think sometimes he might have seen it as being noble, as keeping me out of danger. We'd already fought about whether or not I ought to leave him and go back to London and be safe with Mary," another painful thought to wince at, and his voice catches a moment, "but I'd refused. I'm very angry with him, and I miss him terribly. These are both true statements."

[maltesefalcon]

“It’s very clear that you miss him.” Cerrit squeezes Watson’s hand, and then let’s go, picking up his beer pitcher to drink from it. Y’know, dunking the whole beak and all.

“But to deny you the choice to be there was still a dick move.”

[lightconductor]

... oh. They are no longer holding hands. This is unfortunate and yet he is not yet sure how to make it happen again without revealing that he is a lovesick fool.

Silently, Watson curses himself.

"And yet, one does not like to speak ill of the dead," he says. He watches Cerrit drink idly, wondering when that became so normal to him. "On the other hand, I suppose I'm dead too now. So they tell me. There are a few symptoms that seem to contradict that theory, if you ask me." He shakes his head, and has another drink.

[maltesefalcon]

Cerrit tilts his head to one side. “Do you remember how you died? What you were doing?”

He does. Intimately, like it’s been seared on the inside of his eyelids. That entire night weighs heavy in his heart, and might always do so.

[lightconductor]

He takes a moment to answer.

"No," he says. "I've been trying to remember, but I have a rather vivid imagination and it's far too easy for me to invent something. It's all rather a blur. Perhaps I was run down by a carriage in the street and I never saw it coming. Perhaps I had a sudden and severe aneurysm, or an assassin came for me in the night when I was sleeping."

The last is unlikely, but not impossible.

"Do you?"

[maltesefalcon]

"Yes. I do."

His feathers droop visibly and he dunks his face into his beer again, this time taking longer to drink.

[lightconductor]

It's Watson's turn to reach out to put his hand over Cerrit's.

"I'm sorry," he says, and does not press.

[maltesefalcon]

Cerrit feels that hand against his and gives Watson a long, quiet look. If his expression is normally hard to read, right now it's even worse, because he's trying to keep from showing everything that's on his mind on his face. Not a muscle moves, and he doesn't seem to blink for a very long moment.

[lightconductor]

Watson is equally still; he's not sure what he's waiting for, but there is nevertheless a sense of waiting for something. He is used to inscrutable men, perhaps, but he can't help thinking that here, at least, he's overstepped, that he's misread something. That this maybe is not welcome.

He gives Cerrit's hand a gentle squeeze, and pulls his hand back.

[maltesefalcon]

Cerrit's hand chases his for just a second when he pulls away, and then he stops. Glances off to one side.

"I'm sorry." He doesn't know what he's apologizing for, specifically, but he ruined it, that moment. That sliver of peace and warmth.

[lightconductor]

"It's all right," Watson says, though he's not sure what they're talking about, either. "You have nothing to be sorry for."

But he aches, because for a moment -- no, there's no point in torturing himself about what he thought he had seen there.

"I'm the one who's sorry."

[maltesefalcon]

Cerrit takes another large glug of beer before responding to that aloud.

"...well, if you're sorry, then give me your hand back. And I'll be more careful not to scare you off again. I promise."

[lightconductor]

Watson looks at Cerrit for a long moment, then places his hand back, slowly.

"I though it was unwelcome," he says, and reaches for his drink with his spare hand.

[maltesefalcon]

"You thought wrong."

And if that comes out with a slight huff, it's because Cerrit's mad at himself, for not knowing how to communicate what he wants, what he needs. Not knowing how to use his words--he's usually so good with words!--to get everything in his head out in the open.

There's a moment, as he reclaims Watson's hand, where just the back of a talon brushes the pad of a fingertip, before he settles with the same care as ever.

[lightconductor]

Watson takes a sip of his port, his eyes on Cerrit as he considers his words.

"I confess that I find you difficult to read," he says. His tone lacks an accusation; this is just a fact. The sky is blue, the sea is wet, bird beaks do not emote in a way he is familiar with. He speaks softly, in a tone that would not be overhead easily. "I could easily believe that we may not share all the same customs. At any rate, at times I am not sure whether you are aiming to be my friend or... something more."

[maltesefalcon]

Cerrit laughs quietly.

“I…imagine it would be hard for you to discern, when I don’t even know what I want myself. But, you’re human and you’re grieving and drinking and so it doesn’t really matter, in the end, what I want. Besides wanting to make sure you make it home safely at the end of the night.”

[lightconductor]

Watson grunts. "I don't seem to be the only one drinking," he says. He also suspects he's not the only one grieving but he has enough sense to know better than to say that. That would be unkind. "And yes, I am human, and I don't -- look, you do realise it's only humans where I am from? You say that like I'm meant to understand what you mean. I could guess, but I would hate to be wrong."

[maltesefalcon]

“Most humans prefer to pursue those of species more…um. Anatomically compatible.” If he were capable of blushing in the standard manner, he absolutely would be. Instead he conveys bashfulness through body language, but it’s a somewhat deliberate display.