You want very badly to say yes, to puff up and throw back your horns and assure him yes, yes, I'm brave, I'm strong. "No," you say. "It was a dream, things are different there. Bel, I could hardly manage a matespritship, I was half pet, half charity case, and I still managed to, to shame her for taking me on. I don't know what I can offer you, anymore, there's nothing left to chew on, let alone lock horns with, I mean. I. I thought that was why— I mean. That was why I thought you were just... playing with me. I mean. You're brilliant and steady and fearless and you have a thousand friends and a bloody great sea eagle for a guardian and all this combat experience, and I have, I'm... pretty. It's not exactly a fair fight, you know."
"Is that what she told you? That you've got nothing to offer but a pretty face? That's so not true, wow. I mean, I appreciate the compliments, but wow no, don't put me on that pedestal, it doesn't fit. You're tough as hell, you're a survivor, you've been everywhere! Even if I think it's silly to insist on engaging your dinner hand-to-hand, Erskin, I do respect the skill it takes. And the guts." "Look," you say hesitantly, frowning down at his hand, "I don't... I don't resent spending my stipend. In case I made it sound like that. And I don't think you owe me. It was something I chose to do. You're not a charity case to me. Oh," you add as you realize he might've gotten the wrong impression. "I'm not broke now, I had some savings. I just spent a sweep's stipend is all. Mostly on the prosthetic." A moment's hesitation as you realize you are being cryptic and weird. "I commissioned a new prosthetic. For you. Because you left your old one behind. There's this engineer I met through the Reenactment Society, she owed me a favor, I called it in to bump your leg to the front of the line -- she'll need to fit you for it, but I gave her the old one so she can get the lower leg and foot right. I told her all the options, just everything, you know? Waterproof and EMP-shielded and it'll have programmable surfaces so you can have it be like... camo, or black, if you want, when you're hunting? Or have it match your outfit, if you like." You gesture to his fancy leg, which does indeed match his outfit.
You shake your head again, pat his hand. "That's— alright, that's enormously generous of you, thank you, but. I'm not. I won't. Be hunting. Anymore. Maybe ever. I just said. I don't need camouflage or flamethrowing kneecaps, I'm not any of the bloody things you just said I was, anymore, I won't be riding in to battle or charging off into the woods or fighting anyone or— or anything, I don't want to, Bel, I'm so scared, all the time, you need to listen to me." You sniff hard, wipe your eyes. "You can be pitch for whoever you think I was. But I'm not there anymore. I don't have any of that to offer. And I'm not going to try anymore, it's not working, I just get worse and worse the more I try. So. I'm— I'm going to— go back to my hive, I think. And fix it up. And not come out. That might work. I'll finish my schoolfeeds and see if there's anything else I can offer the empire now that I'm like this." ((he'll steady out once he's got some time to recover properly, without anymore mindfucks, so phew. trembly mouse erskin is a real downer))
Sensing you're venturing into what really should be Jethro's territory, but afraid not answering his fears would be worse -- might be that thing he keeps complaining about, where you ignore his needs or use his feelings against him -- you frame your reply as if you're defusing a bomb. "We can still be pitch even if you don't kill things, Erskin. Think back to when we first met. Do you remember -- the first thing we -- I proposed a climbing competition. I was being an ass about it because I thought that's how you do blackrom, and then you hurt your wrist and couldn't climb, but that's still what happened. I wanted to compete. Not fight. We could just... snark at each other over video games, that was really fun." You offer him a handkerchief and a wry smile. "Do you still want that? Because if you really want to break up, I'm not going to be a weird pushy stalker about it. But I really, really don't."
"We could try," you say hesitantly. "If that's... if you'd settle for that. I missed you. I'd... I would miss you. You're alright, sometimes." You take his handkerchief, scrub your eyes with the back of your wrist, then give the handkerchief back, smiling just a little. ((oof, it is four, i need to snooze after this!))
"You have your okay moments too," you return with a crooked grin. You open your arms uncertainly. ((yikes when did it get so late. good night!))
You ease up against him, then lean your head on his shoulder. The familiarity of his body is sweet enough to hurt, and when he carefully wraps his arms around you you shiver and choke. Your scarf still smells of your Lady's hive, her perfume, and Bel's shoulder smells of sweat and spent bullets and you wanted— both of them— if you could have only managed to keep it together you might have had both of them and Jethro too and you're crying, finally, it's your turn to cover your face and choke on sobs. Your Lady died. Your Lady is dead. You loved her and the boy who came to kill her loves you and you love him back and it's so stupid, and so awful, but you curl your hand around one of his arms and hold on to him. You won't run again, not while he still wants you.
You hold him, curl over him to shelter him, and it's all worth it. "You said I'm terrifying," you say softly. "And that you're scared all the time. Well, we could leverage the former to help with the latter, couldn't we? I mean. I mean I'm your guard monster, if you want. I mean I already am." You chuckle softly. "I warned that gossip blogger not to trash talk you. I couldn't stop them getting pictures but I said they better not print anything mean about you or Jethro or they'd be on my shitlist. And all the rainbow drinkers who abused you in those videos, I -- well, I was planning to kill them all. Pancho made me promise to come home for a jam first. Now that I'm kind of -- arguably sane again? I'm realizing you probably don't want me to kill them, huh?"
You hiccup a wet laugh, nudge his jaw with a sore horn. "No, hell, please don't. You get one murderous rampage free, alright, but you go around potting everyone who ever looked at me funny and I'll, I'll really have to give you what for."
You pout. "No vengeance at all?" Before he can respond, Paw scrambles to his feet, ears pricked, and a moment later a hand flops over the rim of the recuperacoon. A wobbly voice says, "Bro? I feel lower'n a bowlegged grub, I don't reckon I can get out."
You jump to your feet and make it over to the recuperacoon before the headrush catches up with you, and you brace your elbows on the rim, panting. Jethro peers up at you, looking very pale and small, but you're not sure if you can carry him around much longer without your leg dropping off again. The way it's complaining at the moment, though, you'd hardly mind. "Er," you say, and look back at Bel, who doesn't look as if he's feeling up to all that much hauling, either. "I think we're all just a trifle indisposed at the moment, love. Is there anything I can get you...?"
"I'm real thirsty," Jethro rasps, "An' I want hugs." You say, "You're probably hungry too -- we all are -- so how about -- I can get you outta there, give me a second." But while you're still steadying yourself on your feet, Paw rears up and plucks his charge out of the sopor like he's picking a carrot. From the way Jethro gives a weak giggle and pats his lusus's muzzle, it's neither painful nor unusual. You revise your plan. "What if Paw helps us all into the saltwater bath, and we order room service, and watch a video on my husktop? I think maybe we could all stand to rest up a little." With one arm around his custodian's neck and the other around his moirail's, Jethro gives a wan but genuine smile. "Turn the heat up a lil' bit an' you got a plan." He bumps his forehead gently against Erskin's cheekbone. "We're alive, baby," he says. You think maybe you should be embarrassed to witness that, but you're not. You've all been through the fire, and now you're deep-down family. At least, that's how it feels.
You'd forgotten, of course, how blissful the first breath of saltwater always feels, how it pours silver down your throat and sets your little piscine hindbrain into giddy spasms of relief. This water's blood-warm and you sink in over your horntips after Jethro's settled, then thrum with purring, pumping proper salination across your gills for the first time in ages and ages. All the dried salt in the world doesn't make up for too much time away from the medium you've been made for. The bath has enough tiers and steps that the landdwellers can sit arms and shoulders above the water and you can do a few short, stiff little circuits around the deeper bit, then roll over, skim back along the bottom, and nip Bel's unsuspecting toes.
You tell room service just to bring everything into the 'water chamber' (as if Alternian needed more words for bathroom) and it turns out they even have a special poolside tray for that sort of thing. You're all ravenous, so you order far too much food -- and somehow manage to make it disappear anyway. You introduce Jethro to the concept of a properly-made Bloody Maryam, and he sucks down nine of the non-alcoholic version, which can only be good for his recovery. He's texting with Sigmah, and you're playing some weird, lazy version of tag with Erskin, where he tries to bite your toes and you twitch them away at the last moment and try to poke his belly. Since you're both so slow your reflexes are more like doubletakes, you get nipped a lot and he gets poked a lot and neither of you do much evading. Vaguely, off in a corner of your brain, you're aware that this luxury suite is chewing away at the last thousand caegars or so of your eighth-sweep stipend, and in a couple nights it'll start digging into your savings. You're surprised by how little you mind. If the rest of your family were here it would be perfect.
You grow tired of the game, eventually, and surface. Unlike the food, which you could pull off the tray while floating underneath, the drinks require a different oxygenation schema to process. You swallow the last of the saltwater and clear your airsacks with an awkward glub, hack once or twice, and climb on to the sitting ledge. "Urgh," you say, thickly. "Gills still aren't a hundred percent. I'm not taking a freshwater dip again for a hundred thousand million sweeps or so, I can tell you that. Where's the vodka?" ((btw he probably still looks strikingly pale and thinned-out, and i think also all the fresh bites on his neck and wrists have soaked open and look gruesome))
"Don't drink it neat, honey," you fuss, "lemme spike up one a these spicy green things. They're like a damn salad in a glass, I swear." You pour a shot of vodka into a clean glass, shovel some ice in, and fill it the rest of the way from the Bloody Maryam pitcher. "I dunno what's in 'em but I feel ten thousand percent better." "Veggie juice," Bel supplies. "Spinach and stuff. Lots of iron. Good for your blood." He sounds a little bit stupid; he's been spiking his as well. "Well, there ya go." You decorate Erskin's drink with a little umbrella.
"Eurgh," you say, "salad." But you dutifully toss it back, then make an exaggerated bleh face. It earns you a laugh and you settle in to Jethro's warm side, hooking the vodka closer and refilling your glass with something less disgustingly herbaceous. You keep the tiny umbrella, though: you adore tiny umbrellas. "How's your neck?" you ask him, touching his jaw very gently to examine the bandage. "You haven't gotten it wet, good. I don't think I should change the dressing until tomorrow."
"I'm wonderin' if we should put sumpin on your bites," you say, taking his wrist to do a little tender examination of your own. "We should definitely feed him up," Bel points out. "You're not lookin' so chubby yourself, Big Blue," you return. "My ash sister'd kick my ass if I handed you back to 'er lookin' all run-over." He picks up the room service menu again. "So that's a yes on dessert." "Hell yeah." Still examining your moirail, you touch his horns delicately and wince. "And horn cream."
