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Jalil isn’t gone half an hour when Theodor finally stops pacing under duress by the ants under his skin, swearing under his breath as he pulls out a sack and starts stuffing it with some clothes, a bit of money, a weapon, and his mask. He ties the string around it just as he hears the door open and shut behind him.
“What are you doing?” his guest asks, and Theodor turns around to look at him.
Jalil swipes at his hair, moving bronze-coloured locks away from his eyes – blue, so blue, bluer than the sea Theodor had pulled him out of, half-dead and trembling like a restless spirit.
“I have been thinking, my lord, that you might, after all, require a guide,” Theodor replies, throat slightly parched. Jalil seems surprised at that, but nods absently, going towards his own cot to pack the supplies he’s picked up and secure his own bag.
(He has, strictly speaking, nothing in this house; Theo owns everything in it, up to and including the other man’s clothes and the food he’s procured. And yet, in the past months that Theo’s been nursing Jalil back to health, the latter seems to have taken up every bit as much space as the owner himself.
Theo finds that he doesn’t mind. What he does mind, though, is the fact that he can’t imagine things any other way now.)
“Theodor? Are we leaving?”
Theo stuffs some food in his sack as well, then slings it over his shoulder and tries to clear his thoughts. “Yes, indeed.”
“Why are you so averse to walking around?”
Theodor looks to the side, half-aware that he’s raising a hand to cover his neck. “I once had an encounter at sea with some of the count’s men,” he replies, conscious of Jalil staring at him intently. “There was not a bloody fight involved, but there may well have been or still be, for all we took from them, and I... fear that it might not do well to meet them again.”
He looks over to the other man to see him pursing his lips. What comes out of them next isn’t why did you come, then? (they both know the answer to that already), but rather:
“Very well; best not walk out in the open, then.”
Theodor thinks he can hear a slight offer of dejected (and it stings–it does) companionship, so he reaches into his sack and pulls out his purse before Jalil can say anything further.
“Here,” he says, handing the latter all of his money save for five gold coins he keeps for himself. “Have this. I know a place in the south of town called the Elephant; I will make arrangements for our dinner while you go around and have a look.”
Jalil’s eyebrows crease. “Why should I have your purse?”
“In case something nice catches your eye,” Theodor replies, coughing in his hand. “I believe you have the sight to make good use of it.”
Jalil nods, expression still slightly perplexed. “Alright. I will see you in an hour, then.”
“At the Elephant.”
“At the Elephant, yes.”
Theo inclines his head and turns around, stalking off with perhaps more haste than necessary.
(The burning of his face far overshadows the apprehension in his chest.)
There is something strange about Jalil’s eyes when he looks at Theo, more so than his new change of clothes or style of hair. It twists a blade within Theo’s ribs as the officer seizes him, and words, half-desperation-half-cynicism, tumble out of his mouth:
“I do not understand why you would deny–” us “ – our friendship? My service to you? Your debt?”
The youth grows visibly more discomfited by the second, but still his eyes do not light up with the flame of recognition, and no, this doesn’t make sense, Jalil is neither an actor nor a villain, why –
“Come, now,” the officer says, pulling at his arms, “the Duke’s cells await you.”
“Halt,” Theo’s eyes are very, very dry. For now.
He blinks several times at the ground before looking up at the boy before him. “It would not do me much good right now, but could you at least give me my purse back? That, at least, would resolve one matter before us,” he lets some more bitterness seep in, watches the youth shuffle his feet awkwardly.
His voice, however, is steel. “I do apologise, sir, for you have shown me great kindness just now,” he says, reaching into his jacket and pulling out–a different purse. When did he get one? “I have not the slightest of the acquaintance you refer to. Please do accept this money, however.”
Theo can hear his voice crack when he says: “Is that all? Is that truly all?”
“Sir, please, we must go,” the second officer pulls at his arms as well, but Theo shakes him off with a sudden vengeance and gives him a crude look.
He opens his mouth to say something more, anything more, but when he turns to Jalil again, his expression stops him dead. There is pity in it–the pity of a stranger, not of a regretful friend or scheming master, which was Theo’s last hope – if Jalil was doing this for a reason he could not communicate right now, he could understand, he could forgive, but…
Theo bites his tongue, swallows, and lets himself get pulled away. He doesn’t know what his face shows of his emotions, but the look in the face before him turns ever so slightly hurt, before acquiring that kind but uninvolved politeness society requires. It does not fit his eyes.
(Later, in his cell, Theo realises why: they weren’t the same shade as before.)
Theo looks from left to right, from one pair of blue eyes to another, and his voice comes out raspy when he hears it:
“Jalil? Is this you?”
The man looks at him as if he is one of the things in the room that simultaneously make the least and the most sense, and says: “Do you doubt it?”
“But how...” Theo replies, looking back at the mirror copy to his left. The countess exclaims somewhere to his side.
“I am curious as well,” Jalil says, voice strained and tentative. “I never had a brother.”
“No,” his not-brother replies, eyes glistening in the afternoon light ( sky-blue, Theo suddenly realises, not sea-blue ). “You don’t. I do, though.”
Theo looks back at Jalil to see tears escape his eyes, a smile that looks both broken and renewed on his lips.
“Oh, Viola,” he chokes, raising a hand to wipe at his face.
(Everything after that is a blurred sort of chaos that Theo cannot speak over; the first moment of calm comes after they sit for dinner at the Duke’s table. He can see the countess holding Jalil’s hand under it and their eyes meeting shyly over a toast.
Theo knows what that thing in her gaze is called: adoration.
But he doesn’t dare analyse the one in Jalil’s.)