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Allen isn’t a man who lets his emotions run away with him. Connor has rarely seen him experience outright joy, the kind that rolls off of him in waves strong enough to feel like a living energy of its own even without the magic of a binding. True, he laughs and smiles, and sometimes when he looks at Connor while they are walking together through the yellow grass of the prairie there is a warmth behind his eyes. And, like any human, he is often exhausted or put out. Frustrated, maybe, when a tool breaks or a trader refuses a deal that would have benefited him.
But the emotion Connor has never seen Allen succumb to before is upset. He faces the ills of the world with a calm that would seem almost supernatural if Connor didn’t know him to be of mortal flesh and blood through and through. He has weathered sickness with the patience of someone who has no fear of pain, despite Connor having watched him wince and pant as his body was wracked with cramps and fever. Even in the early hours of the morning, as he digs a grave for someone he was unable to save, Connor has watched his hands, steady as ever, and seen his eyes clear and unwavering in their gaze.
Allen is an enigma, because Connor knows humans to be ruled extensively by their emotions. The way they feel so deeply is often their downfall - war, corruption, violence. All of it weakness caused by humans who cannot control the way they feel. In a way, he is lucky, because Allen is incredibly tolerable to be around. He never snaps in anger, never weeps in grief, never does anything terribly out of control that Connor would have to deal with.
Which is why, tonight, things have gone in a direction Connor couldn’t have predicted. They had...exchanged words, earlier. If a simple question and answer could be considered an exchange. A silly thing, really, a question Allen shouldn’t have asked if he didn’t want an honest answer. It wasn’t the responsibility of a god to coddle anyone’s feelings, especially not nosy mortals. Connor wasn’t about to dress up the truth - he and Allen were frank with one another, otherwise he would have tired of their conversations long ago.
“Do you have a home, Connor? When you roam, is there a place you return to?” The question had been seemingly out of the blue, but Allen sometimes gave in to the curiosity that was so common in humans.
“No. Some of my brothers have places they are tied to, but I am free to roam the earth as I please. I have no need for a home.”
Allen’s jaw had tightened almost imperceptibly, and he had turned away from Connor abruptly. The anger was unexpected, if it was indeed anger. But he had been silent all throughout dinner. Not in the way he was usually silent, only remarking occasionally on some small oddity or another. That silence was pleasant, pleasurable in its lack of pressure to provide constant chatter. This silence is hard and uncomfortable, an intentional barrier placed between the two of them. It’s annoying, really, that Allen is making such a big deal out of nothing. It’s not like it’s his business if Connor has a home or not. He’s not desperate or forlorn without one. He never has been, and he never will be.
Now, as they sit together on the bench in front of the fire, the dishes from dinner empty and dirty on the ground, Connor watches Allen’s hands. They twist in his lap, the motions oddly practiced like all of Allen’s movements. He is plucking away the skin around his nails, picking the cuticles back and tearing them off. Some of his fingers are bleeding, but he is ignoring them. When one finger no longer has any skin to be peeled away, he simply moves on to another. Allen’s eyebrows crease together as he puts his thumb to his mouth, teeth pulling at a piece of skin too stubborn to sever with his fingernails.
It is an odd sight, this self mutilation on a small scale. Connor wants to huff and turn away, leave Allen to his childish fussing, and walk out the door. It’s not his responsibility to handle this foul mood that’s upset the human sitting next to him. He could make good distance across the land in the dark of the new evening, see the expanse of the prairie under his paws, and return in the morning, when the fresh day will no doubt have calmed Allen’s mind.
Instead, Connor reaches to cross the distance between them, taking Allen’s calloused, bleeding fingers in his. “That’s bad for you, you know.” He says, his thumb sliding across tanned knuckles. Allen doesn’t speak, his mouth drawn into a tight line, but he doesn’t pull his hands away. Connor looks down and thinks of the bandages Allen will need to wrap around his fingers in the morning, the way the little cuts will sting from the dirt that will inevitably get caught in them. He slides his own fingers between Allen’s and squeezes gently, stilling their anxious movements. Connor won’t allow any more injury to come to him.
“I need no home. I stay where it pleases me most to be.” Connor says eventually, his voice unusually soft in the still hush of the moment. It is the truth, just as it was when he answered before. No lies, not between the two of them. He feels Allen’s hands tremble for a moment before finally squeezing his in reply. The silence is no longer oppressive. They sit in it together until they wrap their bodies around each other under the blankets of Allen’s bed.
In the morning, Connor wraps the bandages around Allen’s fingers and nods, content in the knowledge of a job well done.