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“Over a slight,” Violet hisses, and that’s how Pavel knows he’s really angry. Red tinges his cheeks, and his gestures turn erratic and jerky. “You did this,” he continues, waving the swab doused in ointment about, “over a slight?”
Pavel ducks his head, hands curling into fists. His silence does Violet’s ire no good, when already Violet talks enough to fill most of their silences. That’s how they’ve always worked, but Pavel doesn’t remember a time when Violet’s shaded his words so harshly. “I expected better from you,” Violet concludes, voice hard.
They’ve argued. Tossed each others’ emotions callously between clumsy hands the only way friends—friends?—can do. But this is the first Violet’s ever been disappointed in him. Shame churns his stomach, makes him feel sick. Makes the bruises peppering his body seem paltry in comparison. And still, like a cornered animal fighting for its life, Pavel seeks to defend himself.
“It wasn’t just a slight,” he says.
Violet stares at him. “What?”
He called you things I would not suffer from anyone’s mouth, Pavel doesn’t say, and I would sooner cut their tongue out than let them defame you so, he doesn’t add, and If my life were to amount to something, it’d be because I lived it in defence of you, in service wholly of you, and so forth. Intuition tells him such declarations would only stoke Violet’s righteous indignation.
So he keeps his explanation brief. “It wasn’t a slight at all,” he asserts, more forcefully this time. “You can even argue that their words were tantamount to treason.”
At this, something breaks in Violet’s stern expression. Like the dawn peeking over the jagged outcrops at the far end of their border, Pavel can’t help but ruminate, before he mentally chides himself for comparing Violet’s countenance to the sunrise in this godawful instance. “Really, Pavel,” Violet sighs, “if we executed every single person who spoke lowly of me Perland would be divested of her entire noble lineage.”
No complaints there, Pavel thinks sourly, and Violet must read that on his face because his lips twitch upward. He goes back to cleaning Pavel’s wounds; they’re insignificant, and Pavel’s done worse to himself after a round of training, but Violet treats each one as if they’ve personally offended him.
“Have you been slacking off?”
“Huh,” Pavel says, dragging his attention away from where Violet’s wrapping a bandage around the cut in his forearm, fingers so fine and sure. So capable of death yet gentleness.
There’s an edge to Violet’s grin. “You step up to defend my honour, and then you get beaten up? Seems rather pathetic, if you ask me.”
“Hey,” Pavel grouses. “You know I’m hardly the best at close-combat. I couldn’t very well shoot them in the face, could I?”
Violet snorts, a poor attempt to hide his giggle, and something eases in Pavel’s chest. He’s been forgiven already, this he knows.
“Unless you’re giving me express permission, here and now,” Pavel muses. “To shoot them in the face.”
“Have you not been listening,” Violet shakes his head exasperatedly, but his eyes are so, so fond. “I won’t be responsible for your murderous rampages.”
“Fine.”
“What I will be responsible for,” he slips in nonchalantly, finally tying off the bandage with his usual flourish, and did his fingers linger a touch or is that just Pavel's imagination, “is your training.”
“Training,” Pavel says flatly.
“Yes, training,” Violet returns, arching an eyebrow because he apparently enjoys being a right pain-in-the-ass. “Daily training at sunup. We’ll make a combat artist out of you yet.”
Pavel opens his mouth to protest, but Violet curls his hand around the back of his head, and brings their foreheads together. “I won’t be the reason you get hurt,” he says, low and intent. “If you’re going to endanger yourself by going off on thick-headed nobles and their thick-headed guards, you’ll grant me the reassurance you will be able to stand your ground. Without your gun.”
Ah. The reason why Violet was so angry in the first place. Pavel curses at himself for forgetting about his tendency to care and to be kind and to be all the things Perland has tried to stamp out. Oh, how undeserving she is to call Violet her own.
“Alright,” he promises, voice thick in his throat. He'd resolved ages ago that his body would be a coin for Perland—Violet—to spend, what's early morning training in comparison? “I’ll be there.”
Violet relaxes, but his hand stays. For a sacred moment, they don’t speak, just lean on each other as they’ve done so many times before. Pavel wonders if thoughts can flow through skin, if feelings and secret hopes and desires can be imparted to another without him ever having to say a word. But then Violet pulls away, and Pavel is reminded that warmth is a transient thing.
“It’s a date, darling,” Violet winks.