Work Text:
Portia mentions it so casually one day at lunch, when you tell her how her idiot brother sweeps you off your feet the moment you get home, twirls and dips you before you even get your coat off and peppers you with kisses, and what she actually says is, “Ugh, and when he’s happy, he never stops singing.”
The problem is, you’ve never actually heard Julian sing. Maybe a sea shanty or two at the Raven, but that’s more shouting (and slurring) than anything, and more often than not, he steals an instrument from the band - they keep an extra vielle under the stage - and climbs up on the bar.
He never stops talking, that’s for sure - you hear him mumbling to himself while he putters around the house, wake up to the sunlight streaming in on a lazy Sunday morning and him chattering to the mirror while he shaves. But for the life of you, you can’t think of a time you’ve heard him sing.
It tugs a little in your chest on the walk home from the Palace, because Julian’s better, now - the shadows are fainter around his eyes, he has a healthy, rosy glow instead of the pallor of a corpse, and he doesn’t talk about Death like they have one clawed hand buried in his shoulder. He’s still a little erratic, a little morbid - it’s Julian - but he’s better. He’s smiling, he’s thinking about the future, and he’s better.
Isn’t he?
Malak peeks up from his perch when you enter, letting out a gravelly screech and blinking his beady little eyes. You get your coat off and hung up without a single twirl, and you smell something cooking, warm and buttery and just starting to turn acrid as it burns. In the tiny, cramped kitchen, you hear the bubbling of the stove, the clink of dishes, and
“Tell me, why does my heart skip when I’m with you...”
So he doesn’t have the greatest voice.
“Tell me, why does it sink, when you are gone...”
Actually, he has a beautiful voice, warm mellow baritone that shoots up when he’s excited and brays out when he laughs, soothes nervous patients like a warm hand on a shoulder and cradles your name like a prayer.
“Cries the sea as she rocks, ‘gainst the empire’s docks...”
But it is a baritone, and this old sailors’ melody isn’t giving up her high notes easily. Or at all.
“To summon her dear sailor home...”
Still, it’s bright and jovial and utterly unrestrained, and you can’t help but hover in the entryway and listen until Malak squawks again to cut him off.
“Oh, you grouchy old bird - “ Julian pokes his head out of the kitchen, holding a frying pan in a ratty, faded dish towel, and gives the raven a withering look. “I told you, we’ll do a duet when I’m done.”
Grrk, Malak replies.
He sees you and brightens, flushed and sweaty from the stove, dark red curls tied back in another worn-out towel. “Ah, there you are, my love, my light - Malak, you’re off the hook.”
The pan tips as he swoops forward to greet you, sloshing the almost-burnt sauce all over the floorboards. He grins sheepishly, drops the pan entirely, and dusts off his hands. “Dammit.” A hand on your back, the other on your arm, he spins you into his arms. “Wouldn’t have been very good, anyway. Shall we go out instead?”
You kiss him instead of answering, beaming, because when he’s happy, he sings.
And so are you.