maltesefalcon | Pumpkin Hollow Inbox

"I... rather hope you don't have anywhere urgent to be today," he says with a sort of sigh. "My attempts at joking aside, I am actually feeling extraordinarily lazy at the moment, and company would be appreciated."

It's hard to know how to discuss the question of "are we all right after you sort of murdered me, even if I asked you to," or if it needs discussing at all. This somehow has never come up in all of his previous experiences, but there's been a lot of unprecedented experiences lately. Watson runs his thumb over the curve of Cerrit's beak, gently. "Help me into bed the rest of the way, would you? My god, but I hope this part doesn't last."

Could he get into bed alone? Almost certainly, with difficulty and effort and a few muffled curses. Sometimes it's nice to not make the effort.

"Even if it does, I'll be here by your side. You won't have to face pain or fear alone, John. I promise."

He straightens and pulls the blankets aside to gently tuck Watson into bed, then scoots him over to the side in order to join him as best he can. It's awkward, with the wings, but he makes no comment as he contorts as necessary to hold his partner close and reassure himself he's alive and well and doesn't hate him for the murder.

"I'd rather not face it at all, if it's all the same," Watson says, with some irony, but he settles down with a long sigh. His eyes fall shut, and for a moment he just lets his breathing slow. The smell and feel of feathers is a comfort.

He thinks of the way Cerrit had looked when he had killed Watson, and the sharpness of one type of pain over another, and if that's something to be said aloud or to be written down in his diary, never to be seen by another's eyes. He doesn't want to be thinking of it now.

Instead, he says, "Before I forget, while I'm in no condition at the moment to do anything about it -- I really could not stay sitting up one single moment more, I don't think -- the sight of you between my legs with your head on my knee, well. It's very fine."

"Your hand in my feathers is also very fine. Perhaps some evening when we're both off work, we can explore that at length."

He hasn't actually worked out the details of what about kneeling at John's feet is relaxing for him, what it means to relax and let someone else be in control. But it is a heady feeling that he wants more of.

"Mm. I look forward to it. I'll have to think seriously on it."

There, this is better. This is something pleasant to think on, a small project that might drown out everything else for a little while. Watson shifts a little, giving an involuntary grunt of pain, but it's necessary in order to get his arm free.

"Where's your hand, love? Let me take your hand."

Cerrit fumbles for Watson's hand, grabbing hold with a desperation he has been trying to hide.

"I'm sorry if it hurt. I was trying to be quick about it." They can't avoid it forever-ever-ever. At some point, someone has to bring up the bug infestation in the room.

He lets out a long sigh, an almost involuntary sound of pure relief at that tension finally having been broken. Watson wraps both his hands around Cerrit's, and if he's more aware of the talons, well, he's certainly not going to let himself do anything so terrible as flinch, not if he can help it.

"It did hurt," he says, because this is no time for gentling lies, "but it was also very quick. I was in terrible pain already, you know, so it was more a relief than anything. I wish you hadn't had to, but also if it were anyone--" But that thought hardly seems to make sense. Watson brings their hands to his mouth so he can kiss Cerrit's knuckles gently. He takes his time about it. "You did nothing less than what I needed."

"It being necessary doesn't make it any better." His voice is quiet and fond. "I don't like that you know what it feels like to die in that violent a matter, at my hand. But I don't know what to do about it."

"I don't particularly like that I know that either," Watson admits, "but is there anything that could be done? I can't... stop knowing that."

He's silent for a moment, his eyes closed. "And I've nearly had the slow, lingering death already. I know which one I prefer. What worries you? I'm hardly the type of man to carry a secret grudge against you for the rest of my days. If I were angry with you, you'd know."

"I worry that you have witnessed, have experienced my capacity for violence. That how you see me has changed. That you'll think of me as a predator first, a beast."

If he were being more honest with himself, it's not that far from the embarrassment he has at people watching him eat or drink. He has worked so hard, harder than he wants to let anyone see, to be taken as a person, someone respectable. In Avalir, he was a member of a distinguished group of movers-and-shakers, respected by their peers. But he'd had to hide everything that made him eisfuura to do so, fitting himself into a very narrow box to be a member of society.

He isn't one of the wild eisfuura who roost in remote mountains and eschew both civilization and clothing. He isn't a hunter who feeds himself only on what he can catch. He is genteel. Really, he is. Domesticated, even.

~~But is he, truly?~~

He shifts, fractionally, just enough to glance up in the direction of Cerrit's face, then returns to gently kissing his knuckles.

"There was nothing predatory about it. For that matter, I have seen my share of human predators," Watson adds, his voice slow and even as he tries to walk through this idea. "None of them had talons, but that never stopped them from being utter beasts. Perhaps you don't need a knife to do any of it but the tool is hardly the point. If -- oh, Cerrit, love, I haven't given the impression I think of you that way, even a little?"

It seems a valid question. Watson is not sure where this worry is coming from, not entirely.

"No, you haven't."

Cerrit bristles slightly, trying to think of how to explain everything and not really wanting to explain.

"Is there any group of people in your world, about whom the default assumption is that they are primitive and savages, who live outside cities and divorce their culture from the civilized world? Where if one does live in a city, everyone is going to assume they're potentially dangerous? So someone hoping to be treated with respect must be perfectly genteel, as polished and polite and harmless as possible. Make the right friends who can vouch that 'no, no, that one's not a beast, that's our friend who knows better than to rip into raw carrion on the nice rug'. Raise one's children to be as well-behaved as possible, aware of what prejudices they'll face otherwise. I am the only eisfuura who has ever been named Sightwarden before. Part of that, honestly, is that for a lot of important city roles, they prefer longer-lived races. Elves or dwarves who will be able to keep everything stable for the centuries they live."

It's all spilling out now, because he's never laid this out before for anyone, not so directly. He could never have explained this to Patia and Laerryn, elves who were set to be working their magical miracles for perhaps two hundred years after he was gone. Or Nydas, whose mercantile empire would have been much harder to build if he weren't a respectable human. Perhaps Loquatius might have understood, but Cerrit had always found the changeling slippery. A prejudice of his own.

"Oh," Watson says, with dawning understanding, "yes. We do have such groups of people, to my shame. I didn't realise that was the situation for you, as well."

He threads their fingers together, all soft touches and reassuring caresses. No wonder Cerrit has, on occasion, seemed to be treating him with kid gloves, something that had been mildly frustrating at the time. It makes sense now. "I never expected you to be harmless, you know, nor would I want you to be. I'm not so harmless, either, for that matter. I always thought that was something we had in common."

"I know you're not harmless. I don't think I could love anyone harmless. There's a wildness in you, a deep pool of strength. I admire you, for being able to be both fierce and gentle, without it seeming contradictory at all." It's a balance he doesn't think he'll ever achieve. He doesn't do gentle easily, and has instead settled for meticulously careful.

Watson smiles, flattered, and kisses Cerrit's knuckles several more times, for good measure. There is something a bit overwhelming about being so thoroughly seen, though in a good way. For a moment, he can't speak.

"Thank you," he says at last. "I love you, too. But do remember how we met, my dear fellow. You were eating in the Oak and Iron, and I knew I had to speak with you at the soonest possible opportunity to discover what you were like, and that feeling has never gone away. I am interested in you, not the version of yourself you think I want."

Cerrit leans in quietly, to press his beak to Watson's throat. Oh, mostly that gentle front curve of the hook, but it's a very intentional sort of motion, sort of gesture.

"I'm not sure I remember, what I am like."

He goes still, waiting to see what Cerrit will do, but there's no tension in it, just a sort of patient expectation. Watson lets out a soft sigh, and lifts a hand to stroke his fingertips over Cerrit's face, his feathers, the bare skin at the base of his beak.

"We'll find out, then," he murmurs, and shifts to kiss Cerrit's beak before returning to his previous position, with it against his throat. This is beautifully intimate.

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