Work Text:
Obviously he couldn't tell her what a precious thing she actually was.
His self-absorbed mien more than suited him; it was a trademark, a bait-and-switch, and as such, part of an intricate web of defense- and survival mechanisms that had served his aims well.
It wasn't the sex. Well, it wasn't just the sex -- which was obviously superlative, since he was involved, and she was not only creative and cheeky but quite the acrobat, really. At first, he'd tried leaving her tent after -- casual, rakish, smirking.
But the little gremlin always pulled some sort of trick -- asked him some question too ridiculous not to answer, hid his smalls or his boots or his favorite shirt, or simply draped herself over him as though it were the most natural thing in the world, and it always felt like she belonged there.
And how galling it was, at first, to have to attach himself to someone who not only committed their little band of miscreants and misfits -- and consequently and most importantly, him, to acts of kindness, generosity, and selfless heroism, but was a damned bard, and too witty and clever by half to dismiss.
Yes, pretty and witty, and despite her do-gooder leanings, indisputably an agent of chaos with a penchant for mischief that... well, how could he help but appreciate it? She was worth her weight in entertainment value, that much was obvious to anyone.
But although it was a rare quality indeed for such a little altruist to be likeable, charming, and interesting enough for him to overlook -- or at least tolerate -- her benign shortcomings, that wasn't it, either.
Well, not all of it.
Part of it was that she was deceptively, appallingly observant. Keenly so. Quietly so. She saw what she oughtn't; past the misdirection, distraction, past the profundity of violence and darkness and rage that pulsed at his core to something... else. Something she had no business looking at, to be frank, but...
He actually hated that. Hated all that she saw and the strange version of it mirrored in her honestly absurdly large eyes and soft soulful melodies and the audacity of her unguarded sadness that in the briefest of moments, he saw. Hated the way it made him ache, the confusion of unsettling softness it evoked.
But saw it he did, despite her performance of the clever, playful, pretty, witty mien that suited her even better his own fit him.
Because somehow it was all genuine, it was all her. Like her warmth. Like her kindness. Like her ferocity and tenderness and feral, demented glee. And though he hated those moments when something in her eyes or voice or touch suggested she saw every pathetic, stunted, debased nuance of his being, the magnitude of his deficiency, his weakness, she never exploited it. Never exposed it, never spoke of it.
He strongly suspected that it had never even occurred to her to do so, and that it never would.
Because she was good. Immutably, implausibly, irrevocably good, no matter her impish insouciance, her reckless intemperance, her convivial subversion. No matter whatever shadows or grief haunted her even as she reveled in joy and color and life.
That such a creature could look at him, see him, and see something worthy... it was almost enough to give him hope.
And the rarity of that for one such as him made her precious, indeed.
Or at the very least deranged beyond reckoning.
Either way, entertaining such thoughts and... feelings (eugh) was troublesome enough. Actually speaking them could be ruinous.
No matter what she thought she saw in him or how good she might be, he could only entice if he was always just out of reach.
It would hardly do for her to know that she was perilously close to having him in the palm of her dainty, lute-calloused little hand.
Besides, the little gremlin would never let him live it down.