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It has taken three attempts to get where they are, finally: kneeling face to face on the floor of Isaac's borrowed suite at Koniortos Court, Jeannemary holding a needle-thin stiletto swiped from the armory.
(Attempt number one: Jeannemary working herself up to ask the Captain of the Elpida Regiment where she’d gotten it done; the Captain had looked Jeannemary up and down briefly before smiling, not exactly kindly, and telling her that she was too young to know. Jeanne had fumed all the way back to Isaac’s rooms:
“...the nerve, so what if she’s already deployed, I’m not a child, I’m the cavalier primary and she can’t talk to me like that --”
“She did though? She’s an actual Captain--”
“I outrank her!”
“Not technically? Not until we ship out?”
“Shut up, Isaac.”)
In the front room of the suite, Isaac has laid out two handkerchiefs on the floor, one with a barbell waiting on top, the other to catch the blood. He’s fiddling with the other piece of jewelry, walking it back and forth across his knuckles -- an old practice habit, warming up the fingers for casting wards. Jeannemary is cleaning the stiletto carefully (they’d learned, after the sensationally gross infection in her right helix piercing), and he watches her movements closely until she pauses and looks up at him.
“You ready?” she asks.
“Are you?” Isaac replies.
(Attempt number two was over nearly before it began: Isaac made a careful plan to sneak out to a shop in the city, a place discussed by the older cavaliers in Jeanne’s training lineup. Jeannemary faked a sprain; Isaac skipped class; and they were both caught no more than ten steps from the barracks exit. Jeanne ground her teeth shut against all questioning and Isaac tried to pull rank, but they were brusquely marched back to their rooms regardless.)
Jeannemary rolls her eyes. “Obviously I’m ready. You first? Or you want me to go first?”
Isaac shrugs, as casually as he possibly can. “Whatever.”
Jeannemary just stops herself from rolling her eyes again, and flips the stiletto knife in her hand. “Then it’s your turn.” She points the knife at him. “If you’re sure?”
“Aren’t you sure?” Isaac says, raising his chin.
“Yeah, of course.”
“Fine, then. Let’s do it.” Isaac sets his barbell on the handkerchief next to the other, and settles into a cross-legged position. “Oh! Wait. I had an idea.”
“Uh oh.”
“Shut up,” Isaac says, “it’s a good one. I looked up a theorem for numbing the nerves.”
Jeannemary’s eyebrows go up. “Okaaaaay,” she allows, “show me.”
Isaac grins, and lifts his hands, and reaches out to prick his finger on the point of the stiletto knife. He wipes the blood across his tongue, building the flesh magic and warding between nerve fibers, until his tongue feels heavy and dulled.
“See?” Isaac says triumphantly-- or tries to; his now impossible tongue turns it into something closer to “thwWeee?”
Jeannemary absolutely loses it. Years of training keep the weapon in her hand from clattering out of her grip, but she falls back on her ass, howling, her free hand pointing at her necromancer. “Say it-- aha-- say it again!” she demands, in between loud snorts of laughter.
“Shut up, Jeanne,” Isaac retorts, but of course it doesn’t come out that way, and the spluttering syllables of “thupup thonn!” set Jeannemary off again, gasping for breath. “ ...eh ian punny!” Isaac protests, but despite himself he’s starting to grin; Jeanne’s laughter is infectious, even when it’s directed at him (a not-uncommon occurrence).
“Wrong,” Jeannemary gasps, “it’s very funny, oh my days, I can’t--” she waves the knife weakly in the air, “I can’t pierce your tongue like this, I can’t stop laughing--”
By this time Isaac is giggling, trying and failing to move his tongue into any feasible position to talk, and only laughing harder at each failure. Jeannemary manages to catch her breath, and then Isaac looks at her and opens his mouth -- and he doesn’t even have to try for words before they’ve set each other off again, Isaac’s numb face turning even his laughter into a different, and obviously hilarious, noise.
Three more cycles of delirium slowly fizzling out and then one or both of them collapsing all over again go by before Jeannemary’s laughter slows with more finality, and she wipes at her eyes. “You can’t,” she says, still breathless, still trying not to cackle. “I can’t look at you like this, Isaac, I’ll just --” she makes a gesture with the stiletto, encompassing the last five minutes of their simultaneous inability to function.
Isaac attempts to say, “I don’t know if I can undo it,” but stops halfway through at Jeanne’s gigglesnort. She claps a hand to her face to hide it -- although there is no hiding the expression behind that hand -- and she’s trying, she really is, so Isaac closes his eyes and settles his breathing and begins to pick apart the warding.
It takes a minute; he’d built it to fade naturally, not be pulled apart a few moments after casting, but he mostly manages it. He can move his tongue independently again, anyway, which is a marked improvement. “It’th thill a little numb,” he says, shrugging. “It’th the betht I can do.”
Jeannemary tries very hard, and succeeds in only one giggle. “ Whoooo,” she says finally, letting out her breath in one long go. “Okay. Okay. It was a good idea, though.”
“I thought tho,” Isaac replies. He settles back into his cross legged position and reaches out a hand to the barbell, then pulls it back, a slightly nervous flutter.
“Do you…” Jeannemary shifts onto her knees, twirling the knife. “Do you want to wait til it’s gone? I don’t want to get in the way of the thanergy or something.”
“Only if you want thoo wait,” Isaac says, and his articulation is almost back to normal this time.
“No, I’m ready!” Jeanne protests. “But if you want to. We can.”
Isaac shrugs, but Jeannemary notices the slight hesitation beforehand. “I’m in if you’re in.”
“I’m obviously in,” Jeanne says, nearly an instinctive response. In return, Isaac picks up the barbell properly, and sticks out his tongue, eyes locked on her in a dare. “Okay,” Jeanne says. “Okay.” She shifts her grip on the stiletto for more finesse, and reaches out her free hand to steady her necromancer’s tongue, and it is this damning tableau onto which Abigail Pent opens the door.
“Hello, dears, I was wondering if you had -- Jeannemary Chatur, what are you doing?”
Despite those years of training, Jeannemary almost drops the knife. Not onto Isaac, luckily, and she catches the slight wobble, but still. That slip might be more embarrassing than being caught holding Isaac’s tongue.
“Nothing,” she replies automatically, and lets go of his tongue.
“Isaac,” Abigail says darkly, that one word carrying five questions and a demand all at once.
“Nothing!” Isaac repeats, but his voice still sounds slightly numbed, and Abigail narrows her eyes over her glasses, flicking her gaze from the barbell on the handkerchief to the knife in Jeanne’s hand and then back to Isaac.
“Right,” Abigail says. “Jeannemary, Magnus is waiting for you in the salle, it’s nearly past time.”
“We don’t have training today,” Jeanne says, scrambling to her feet and reaching for her rapier and offhand anyway.
“You do now,” Abigail replies, and Jeannemary swallows down an argument, looking away from her guardian as she straps on the weapons.
Isaac has shoved the first piece of jewelry into his pocket and is picking up the other, along with the handkerchiefs, when Jeanne starts out past Abigail. The older woman reaches out a hand to stop her, and looks between the two of them. “Whose idea was this?” she asks.
“Mine,” they say at exactly the same time. Jeanne glances back at Isaac, a tiny smile almost on her face, before looking back up at Abigail. “I’d better go meet Magnus, hadn’t I?” she continues, the picture of innocence.
Abigail sighs and drops her hand, letting Jeanne go. “We’ll talk about this later,” she says, stepping into the room, and missing Jeanne, behind her, making a face.
Hours later -- after training, and classes, and a cringingly awkward dinner at which Magnus tells stories of his teenage escapades to distract the Fourth from Abigail’s full force dressing-down they had just received before eating -- after the stiletto had been returned to the armory whence it came -- Jeannemary and Isaac are back, alone, at the site of their earlier delinquency.
Jeanne is braiding her hair before sleep, and Isaac is sitting on his bed, surrounded by three of the five books Abigail had brought him earlier.
“Probably,” Isaac starts, and then falters as Jeanne turns to look at him. “Probably better that we wait anyway?” he finishes.
Jeanne sighs, and ties off the end of her braid. “Coward,” she says, but she’s smiling, and Isaac knows she doesn’t mean it. She comes over to fold herself onto the bed beside him, propping her chin on one hand. “It’s gonna happen, though.”
“It’s gonna be cool,” Isaac says, grinning.
“So cool,” Jeanne agrees, and flops over onto her back, an edge of one of the books digging into her scapula. She wriggles off of it and reaches up one hand to her necromancer. “Before we ship out,” she says, her tone full of promise.
“Definitely,” Isaac agrees, clasping her hand tight. “Gotta look as badass as we are.”
Jeanne laughs, a fraction of the gigglesnort from earlier. “Dork,” she says fondly, and folds an arm behind her head, closing her eyes against the light.
Isaac leans over to dim the lamp, focusing it to the book in front of him, and Jeannemary dozes off to the sound of pages rustling and Isaac scratching notes beside her. So they didn’t quite succeed today; that’s all right. They have years, yet, Jeannemary thinks as she drifts. Years for more piercings and for sneaking around Abigail and Magnus and maybe, once they get old enough, making them proud, too. Isaac’s pencil scratches across a piece of flimsy next to her ear and Jeannemary rolls over, dropping off to sleep properly. Plenty of time.