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Eustace is starting to regret letting Gran convince him to bring a team with him.
"I know you can do this assignment on your own," they had wheedled, "but that's what makes this more important! You know we have people on board who don't have battle experience - they'll have someone reliable to watch over them, you'll get stuff done and make sure they don't get into any big trouble. It's a win-win situation!"
It really wasn't, and Eustace had wanted to argue that he hadn't joined the Grandcypher to be some sort of mentor. (Besides, he wasn't good with people. Why couldn't Beatrix have gotten the rookies instead?) But it was difficult to win an argument against Gran, especially when they were looking at Eustace with those pleading eyes…
Maybe he was getting soft with age.
A crackle in Eustace's left ear brings him back to his present situation. "Left side's all taken care of!" Beatrix's cheerful voice declares, and Eustace almost relaxes for a split second.
Almost. Unfortunately, the monsters in front of him won't be giving him that luxury anytime soon.
"Then do you think," Eustace grunts in between reloads of his gun, "that you could send some people over here?"
"Yeah, it's not like we're doing anything else right now…wait, are you still fighting?!?"
"Someone disturbed a whole monster den in search of treasure, and now we've got more than we bargained for. Send one person back to the ship to give a report, and everyone else over here for backup."
"On it!"
That gets Eustace to smile a little, even if he would never admit to it himself - he can almost imagine Beatrix's overly enthusiastic salute. "The sooner I get home the better," he mumbles.
"Home?" he hears in a tone of voice that he really does not think he likes. Damn, Beatrix had never cut communications, had she?
"Quiet," Eustace says, and shuts off his earpiece.
In total, it takes Eustace a whole four hours past the original estimated time to complete his assignment.
He's a little peeved by it, since he only gets paid per task completed and not by the hour. Four extra hours of fighting, travel time, report writing…
No matter. It was all over with now. Both Gran's and his own goals were met, so at the very least it was a job well done.
Eustace makes his way up the gangplank of the Grandcypher, past the many hallways of rooms (Is it too late to grab dinner? he wonders briefly), until he stops at one familiar, weathered door.
Second floor down from the main deck, six doors in on the right hand side of the hall. Room 212, occupied by one vice captain of the Order of the White Dragons.
"Vane," Eustace calls out quietly as he unlocks the door and swings it open. "I'm…" Home, he thinks. "I'm back," he says instead.
No response.
Not cause for immediate alarm - there had been plenty of times where both men has just missed each other while coming back and setting out on separate assignments. In addition, it was rather late - if Eustace could manage to get some light into the room, he's fairly certain that he would find -
"Hmm………..mmm? That you…….'stace?"
Vane is sprawled across his table, documents creased and pressed into his face. His eyes flutter open for just a second, but it's clear that he's not actually awake. Eustace chuckles at that sight, fondness filling his heart, and lets the cabin door fall shut behind him.
"Should've just gone to bed, if you were that tired. Go back to sleep, now."
Vane mumbles something that sounds like "okay," and Eustace huffs out a laugh.
First order of business: getting Vane into some pajamas. It is much harder doing this, Eustace quickly discovers, when the other party is mostly asleep and a dead weight in his arms, and also keeps trying and failing to help. He loses count of the amount of times he has to undo Vane's buttons to redo them correctly, along with the amount of times that he has to readjust Vane's position because Vane keeps slumping forwards.
(Eustace doesn't mind though. Not now, and he doesn't think he ever will.)
Second order of business is cleaning everything up and getting himself settled. Eustace fully disarms and changes into his own pajamas, laying all of his weapons out neatly on the bed and retrieving his cleaning rag from where he stashed it last. Adds a bit more oil to the still burning lamp. Locks the cabin door and latches the windows and double checks them because Ilsa had taught him that you can never be too cautious.
Third is getting Vane out of that chair and into bed, so that neither of them have to suffer through complaints of a stiff back the next morning. This is actually the easiest step - despite only using a gun, Eustace's upper body strength can still win him arm wrestling contests, and within minutes Vane is settled in bed with his head on Eustace's lap. Vane continues muttering in his sleep as Eustace tucks him in the best he can and kisses Vane's forehead gently, and he thinks that he hears the tail end of a "love you" as he straightens back up, but.
Well, Vane is already too far gone for Eustace to return that.
So instead, Eustace picks up his first gun from the bed, leans back, and settles in for the night.
The first thing that Vane notices when he opens his eyes is that his lamp is still burning.
Which is strange, because he always puts just enough oil in to last him the night. Even if Vane forgets to put it out before he goes to bed (which is rare enough in itself), it'll burn itself out by the time he wakes.
And speaking of strange things, isn't he in bed? But nothing is cleaned up, and his pillow feels a lot different, and someone is running their fingers through his hair - oh, that feels really nice actually -
"You're awake," a voice speaks up from right behind Vane, and he startles so badly he nearly falls off the bed.
He rolls over as fast as he can, fearing the worst, but fully relaxes once he makes eye contact with one very amused Eustace. "Eh, I didn't notice - when did you - " No, no matter, it wasn't important now. Vane shakes his head, grabs Eustace's hand from where it's resting next to Vane's head, and presses a kiss to the back of it while grinning with every ounce of excitement in his body. "Welcome back, Eustace!"
And to any outsider, Eustace would have looked cold and uncaring. But Vane knows what to look for - a corner of Eustace's lips tilted up just slightly, a twitch of an eyebrow.
"I'm home."