Work Text:
“Malcolm. Hey, Malcolm. Wake up, it’s okay.”
My body wrenches itself into wakefulness like sleep is a grip twisting my arm behind my back, startling a bitten-back shout from me as my eyes spring open. I sit up in bed as if shot from a cannon, T.F.’s hand sliding from where it’s been resting on my shoulder to fall to the rumpled sheets.
It takes a couple of feverish disoriented moments before I manage to shake off sleep enough to tell where I am. A tiny bit of the tension in my shoulders eases as I recognize the room we’re renting for the job we’ve been plannin’, T.F.’s hat hanging jauntily off the corner of a chair where he’d thrown it last night like he was playing ring toss or something, ‘cause he has to add some flair to every darn thing he does, the showoff. Destiny’s within arm’s reach on my side of the bed, like always.
Still dark outside the windows, which means it’s gotta be some rat’s ass hour of the night when no one should be awake but the cut-throats and the bakers. I give an unhappy grunt and run a shaking hand through my hair. Aw hell, not again. Been a while.
Next to me on the bed T.F. is half pushed up on an elbow and holding a card, feedin’ it enough magic to give off a glow, just what’s needed to see the room by. Say what you want about the magic stuff, but it’s a great saving on lamp oil, you gotta hand it that. He doesn’t want to let on, keeping his face all placid, but I can tell he’s worried, a bit tentative. I think on some level he still keeps expectin’ to be sent off when it gets like this, or for me to leave the room without him to get some space. Well, hopefully he’ll use that big wily brain of his sooner or later to figure out that won’t happen. The Locker gave me more than enough nights on my own. You can drive a man mad just by leaving him with nothin’ but his own thoughts for company for long enough. I’ve had my fill of bein’ alone.
“Thanks,” I murmur after a while, dragging a weary hand down my face.
He makes a ‘don’t mention it’ kinda noise and puts the card down on the nightstand, the light dimming but a low glow still remaining as he maneuvers his pillow behind him so he can sit leaned back against the headboard. There’s a moment where everything’s silent except for the sharp rasping sound of my breathing, which won’t settle down. With the covers pooling around my hips I’m starting to get goosebumps from sitting up like this; I ain’t ready to lay back down and relax yet, but it’s pretty cold in the room and I'm not wearing anything but a pair of ragged old sleeping pants. T.F.’s been threatening to throw ‘em out or quite possibly burn ‘em for years, but I’ve gotten them exactly how I like them, worn all soft and comfortable and okay, maybe a smidge threadbare in places, but me and him are the only ones who’ll ever see it anyway so what’s the big deal about some holes here and there, it ain’t showing anythin’ he ain’t seen before. I rub some of the faded fabric between my fingers, playin’ out years of cheerful bickering in my head. Makes me feel a little better, and a little worse at the same time, my throat suddenly tight and strange as I continue to pant for breath. I glance over at him helplessly, wanting… I dunno. Somethin’ normal, I guess, somethin’ real to hold on to.
Wordlessly he reaches out his hand, his fingertips barely brushing my neck while he looks at me with a hesitant question in his eyes, and I rest my hand on top of his to press it more firmly to my neck as I move closer to him, letting him pull me in until I’m lying half on top of him, my forehead to his collarbone.
His fingers run through my hair slowly, smoothing it away from where it’s sticking to my clammy forehead with the precise gentle sureness of his cardsharp hands. I feel a proper mess, but he doesn’t seem to mind it much, so, I mean. If he’s fine with havin’ me draped all over him when I’m sweaty and wild-eyed and panting for breath like I’ve just narrowly outswum a pack of berserker sharks, I ain’t gonna be the one to scrounge around for the energy to make a fuss about it. For all that he’s mostly bones and sharp angles it’s always surprisingly comfy to rest against his chest; down this particular cleavage is one of my favorite places in the world to be, as it turns out.
The dream clings to my mind like the strange images staining the back of your eyelids after lookin’ straight at an explosion, the echoes contorting into unrecognizable shapes faster’n anyone could keep up with. I can’t remember exactly what I was dreaming, and what little I can make out of those fading afterimages makes me think maybe that’s for the best.
“Shit,” I mumble, shifting the way my head rests against his chest. The dream won’t quite let me go, but it helps to feel the warmth of his skin and the slight scratch of chest hair against my cheek, to follow along with his heartbeat where it’s pressed close to my ear. Makes me remember the real thing, not the distorted nightmare version I dreamed up during the long quiet nights in the Locker, when the rage was all that kept me sane. We’ve all passed a lotta water under the bridge since that, or however that one goes. We’ve been partners in more than the strictly professional sense for years now. (I suppose that in all honesty it’d gone beyond professional about fifteen years before that, but that’s how long we’ve been fucking as well, you see what I’m tryin’ to get across here.) This, the nightmares and the confusion, it doesn’t happen much anymore, not like when I first got out and it was every night — I don’t like to admit it but it’s easier when he’s here, when I can fall asleep with my face pressed against the curve of his neck — but for all its rarity I still don’t particularly enjoy having my mind pulled out from under me like it’s nothin’ but a tablecloth in the hands of some amateur magician, sending cutlery flying and toppling the salt shaker.
It’s taking me longer to calm down than usual, my heart puttin’ in some serious overtime in my chest. I’m about to call it quits on the whole business and get up to get some fresh winter air, maybe go smoke an illicit cigar if T.F.’s not comin’ along ‘cause, listen, I know I said last time that it was the last one for real this time, but desperate times allows for desperate measures, right?
And then T.F. starts singing — just humming under his breath at first, and forming the words properly as he goes along and I don’t interrupt.
It’s a slow song, sorta melancholy, the kind you usually get in the taverns when most people’ve stumbled to bed but sunrise is still a long way off and someone starts singing drunkenly about home, wherever that may be.
I shift to look up at him, moving at inchmeal speed so I won’t prompt him to stop. His eyes are half-lidded and that special brand of nonchalant that means he’s waiting to see how I’ll react, reading my face. I tilt my head a bit to show I’m payin’ attention, which makes the corner of his mouth twitch with a smile between verses — I think he might’ve been half-expecting me to make fun of him, which is deeply unfair ‘cause I only make fun of him when he deserves it — and then I brush my fingers absently back and forth over his skin while I listen.
His voice ain’t bad at all — decent enough that he probably could’ve made something half serious out of it, if he’d had any sort of interest in that direction. Guess it’s lucky for me he doesn’t, though, that’s one road I definitely couldn’t have followed him down. Except maybe as a bouncer or something, I guess, I dunno. Just as well he was born a disgraceful scoundrel, probably, I can match his pace there, at least.
The lyrics are in the soft lilting tones of one of the old river tongues. He doesn’t speak it too often; in all our years running together I’ve heard maybe a handful of phrases from him, and I’ve got some, uh, let’s call it circumstantial evidence to suggest that most of ‘em were swears. He doesn’t take too kindly to people trying to dig around in that stuff, so I mostly just leave him be about it unless he wants to volunteer somethin’ on his own.
Between us we talk about a dozen languages, all on a sliding scale of ‘could make a drink order or threat of violence comprehensible with the aid of some gestures’ to actual fluency, some of ‘em overlapping and some don’t — when it comes to melting pots you don’t get many more putrid than Bilgewater, so I sorta got some of that for free, and T.F. grew up travelling from place to place and likely picked things up as he went in much the same way. But we haven’t really strayed too close to anywhere we’re likely to run into anyone he’d have to use what I’m assuming must be his mother tongue with. I’m pretty sure that’s intentional on his part, and it’s perfectly fine with me ‘cause it ain’t like there’s a dearth of gold or fools elsewhere in the world for us to go after, so the few times I’ve heard it out of him have been over the occasional stubbed toe or job gone south.
It’s… sorta nice to listen to, though. I can hear now where he got that barest hint of an accent he used to have on some words back when we were barely more than kids, before it got sanded off his voice for good by the years and his parrot-like ability to pick up the mannerisms and ways of speaking that’ll help him ingratiate himself to the locals wherever we go. (As for me, bein’ a big man carrying a huge gun is the kinda lingua franca that gets you understood anywhere, I leave the finesse to him most times.)
Tobias looks down at me as he sings, not tryin’ to hide anything in his eyes when I look back. His hair’s falling into his face and there’s a fading pillow crease on his cheek. I reach out to touch his hair, sticking my tongue out of the corner of my mouth in concentration as I stretch a bit to tuck it behind his ear so I can see him better, which makes him grin. My breath has settled down without me quite noticing.
“What was that one? ‘S got a nice tune to it,” I say once he’s done.
He gives an absent-minded breath of laughter through his nose. “Just somethin’ my grandpa used to sing to me sometimes before I fell asleep. Sorta thought I’d forgotten it, but I — guess not.”
I adjust my head where it’s resting on his chest, rubbing my cheek against his skin absently. “Yeah? What’s it about?”
He’s silent for so long that I start wonderin’ if he didn’t hear me, somehow, or if he’s ignoring me for some reason, though his fingers are still stroking through my hair.
“It’s about two old, old friends who meet up on the river after a long time away and decide to never be parted again,” he says quietly, his thumb running gently along my eyebrow.
Oh.
I stroke my fingertips in slow circles over his shoulder, his heartbeat pressed to my ear. “…sing it again?”
He chuckles, his other arm tightening around me. “Yeah, okay. I can do that. Hey, you’ll catch a cold or somethin’ like this, first let’s just...”
With a grunt he bends forward to grab the corner of my comforter and pull it over me properly instead of it only half-covering my legs.
“Quit your fussin’,” I grumble, even as I shift to make it easier for him to tuck it around my shoulders.
“Who’s fussin’, I just can’t stand lookin’ at your awful pants a moment longer,” T.F. says airily, settling back against the pillow again and tugging me in with a satisfied sigh.
“There it is, I’ve been wonderin’ if you weren’t feeling quite yourself. You ain’t complained about these even once this week.”
“Oh, they remain an abomination to god and man alike, I’m tryin’ to lull you into a false sense of security so you won’t notice when I dispose of them under the cover of night, maybe replace them with something that’s not barely above rags and makes me embarrassed to know you,” he assures me, runnin’ the backs of his fingers along my jaw and the curve of my neck. “A work in progress, obviously.”
I snort, my eyelids growing heavier. “Keep dreamin’, sunshine. Constant vigilance is my watchword, you ain’t slippin’ past me.”
“I guess we’ll find out, won’t we,” he says, a grin in his voice.
I turn my face just enough to press a kiss to his collarbone and close my eyes. It ain’t half bad, having a partner. Even when you get one who talks as much nonsense as mine does.
“You good like this?” he asks, gentler as he returns to stroking my hair again, clearly settling in for the long haul.
“Mhm. Just… shove me over to the side if I nod off and get too heavy. ”
“Sure.” There’s somethin’ in his voice that tells me he has no intention whatsoever of doin’ that. Which is cute, even if I doubt his resolve or his scrawny frame will hold up the whole night. It’s okay, though, it’s the thought that counts, no matter how silly and sappy and overconfident that thought may be. I fumble for his free hand so I can twine our fingers together and give it a little squeeze.
After a while T.F. starts the song again, his voice close and familiar over the rarely heard syllables like a stream playing across the riverbed. I let myself drift along with it, and nothin’ else seems to matter that much.
I’m pretty sure I’m asleep before we get around to the last verse again.