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It starts with the scent of coffee.
On their return to base, their car slits through clouds of desert dust like the cut of a shark’s fin. It’s silent as death, though Tamsy wouldn’t have expected any less. It’s inevitable; their run in with a princess, locked in a tower and deflowered since infancy, who claims witness to an angel soaring through the no-man’s-land between the heavens and the earth—of course that encounter would leave a vile residue making grave the airs between them.
His lungs tickle. Tamsy has to breathe through it, focus on the foamy clouds against an aquaviolet evening sky, to orient himself against laughing there and then.
Angel.
If only Miss Empool knew just how fitting that was.
But what concerns Tamsy right now is the same as that which concerns the rest of his colleagues as well. The reason why Delmon is looking so overcast and Riyo so damp and dour. Why Enjin has that steering wheel locked in a white-knuckled grip and why Zanka looks—oh, Zanka looks mortified. Chagrin pools in the cerulean of his eyes as the boy glares with a sort of tangible vengeance over the dunes that slide by outside.
Which makes sense. It doesn't feel nice all, does it? To have your heart dissected… by a most unusual ability.
Oh, when it was all over Tamsy had made sure to poke fun at their most sensitive member. It was irresistible. But Zanka, witheringly and rosy-cheeked, refused to give a real answer and instead flipped the question back on him.
Tamsy had given a safe, liminal answer, too true to be false but not altogether factual. He answered—tiramisu—with a wink and a tiny smile, and left Zanka to puzzle through it.
But in actuality, what he smelt during the confrontation with Amo wasn’t a dessert at all. It was simpler than that.
It was coffee.
The sweet, redolent aroma of coffee that, hours later, clings still to Tamsy like a lovebite.
He thinks that maybe if he himself wasn’t a performer on that stage—that is, if he watched at a distance as his colleagues had their hearts pulled apart by the ventricles—he’d have found it substantially more amusing.
But since that's not the case, Tamsy’ll be the first to admit that it really, really doesn't feel nice at all.
In fact it feels ridiculous. Because there’s no one, on the Ground or the Heavens above, of whom Tamsy associates this strong scent of coffee… apart from the obvious.
ཐི༏ཋྀ
In consequence, Tamsy puts off—procrastinates, yes, okay, procrastinates—doing something he’d told himself would be done immediately upon returning.
He had already, once night fell after that fateful day, returned to the tower; Amo’s stricken screams were left to die against the dome of the pitch night sky. In her desperation, even without her Vital Instrument to draw an effect, scents spilled from her like moonshine. Tamsy was once again caught up in the grounded scent of cocoa, noir, arabica, winding ornately through the air like a genie and making his knees weak.
That is inconvenient.
Finally, one week later, out of necessity to check up on his prisoner, Tamsy takes a deep breath, touching up his appearance in the vanity mirror, and crosses through the sun-tracked halls of their headquarters.
He slows to a stop at Arkha Corvus’s door and knocks three times.
“Come on in.”
When he enters, Tamsy half expects to see Corvus furious behind his desk with Amo curled in the armchair opposite. That's how strong it is, the smell. But no, his boss is alone, spelled into radiance by the gold afternoon that casts sweet diagonal rays over his figure, his desk, and a dark mug the colour of burnt roses.
Tamsy’s eyes trail over every inch of Corvus, who seems a stranger now in light of recent revelations. The incline of his cheekbones, the kind set of his eyes, his firm carriage and stern smile.
He’s handsome, alright. It makes sense, then, that Tamsy—without realising—had been pulled into his mesmeric gravity. Amo’s poetics are adorable, romantic even, but ultimately incorrect. Tamsy is no angel. He’s human. A man.
Yes, a man. As he observes Corvus, looking curious and beautiful, Tamsy has never been more aware of that fact than now.
Oh, Arkha Corvus is an obscurity and Tamsy wants nothing more than to peel through his insides and unearth the multitudes that makes this man a perplexity. From the sky to the ground, not a soul knows a damned thing about him.
How funny it is, for Tamsy to have grown attracted to the man before he’s even managed to ascertain his Vital Instrument.
“You need something, Tamsy?”
Tamsy, angling his head into a tilt and smiling: “I’m here to ask for a day off, Boss.”
“I see.” Corvus nods. “Alright. Enjin told me all about how you and Zanka handled the last mission, so I’d say you’ve earned it. Just ask Semiu to fill in the paperwork.”
Excellent.
Tamsy thanks him and takes his leave.
Well… he should have done just that. But instead, he watches Corvus, whose attention has returned to the computer on his desk, palms curling around his mug as he lifts it to his lips—
Tamsy’s behind the desk in an instant. He pulls the mug out of his boss’s hands and peers into the half-full, frothy darkness. When he takes a whiff, the fragrance is strong and recognisable.
Corvus raises an eyebrow.
At the mug’s edge are stains the shape of lips. Tamsy stares at them. Then he brings it to his mouth, licking the rim clean, running his tongue over that residue and tasting a ghost of an unfamiliar flavour.
Then he tips his head back and takes a long gulp. The lukewarm liquid goes down like bad milk. Its taste is like a nesting cockroach on his tongue, drenched in tar and fermenting horribly.
Tamsy makes a face.
Corvus chuckles. “Too bitter?”
Tamsy smacks his lips together and decides he dislikes coffee. But he takes another sip anyway, and grimaces again soon after.
And then another sip. Ew.
Another sip. Yuck.
Another sip. People actually like this stuff?
God, this vile drink is impossible to put down. Snapping himself out of it, Tamsy returns the mug to Corvus and takes a step back for good measure.
Corvus smiles curiously. “Verdict?”
“Hm,” Tamsy gives Corvus, looking so brilliant through the bronze-coloured afternoon, a once over. Then he shrugs and folds his arms. “Awful.”
And then, with a sweep of his robes, he leaves.
ཐི༏ཋྀ
Tamsy, Semiu and Tomme are the usual early birds of the Cleaners. As the young morning turns pale and blinks alive, it becomes impossible for Tamsy to sleep, and so during mornings whilst the sun peers tentatively out of a pink horizon, the three of them have breakfast together.
His usual is a cup of tea; honeyed, milky and scalding. He sits now waiting for Tomme to make it—their routine is rock, paper, scissors, with the loser brewing two cups—when gloved hands suddenly slide an unfamiliar mug into Tamsy’s line of sight.
And everything smells so familiar.
Tamsy glances over his shoulder, to Corvus and his folded arms and knowing eyes, raising an eyebrow:
“Dishing out favours, are you, Corvus?”
Semiu, seated opposite, observes in wordless interest; Tomme, too, from a distance near the stove, also pauses.
“Thought you'd appreciate a cup, Tamsy,” Corvus’s eyes twinkle at him. There’s something behind it; something raw and fresh and it bugs Tamsy that he can’t make a good reading of it. “Especially one freshly made.”
He’s toying with him.
With a smile that threatens to break into a yawn, Tamsy picks up the cup. It’s hot and comfortably warms his chilled palms. He lifts it to his lips and takes a long sip. That same unpalatable flavour, sloshing over his tongue and teeth—but this time it’s paired with heat that burns and soothes his throat and chest. And it’s sweeter than Corvus’s was; sugar had been added, and milk as well if the cloudy texture is anything to go by.
Corvus tilts his head. “Verdict?”
Tamsy licks his lips. He peers into the froth that seems like a tawny sky through a sand-storm. And then he shrugs: “It’s growing on me.”
ཐི༏ཋྀ
On his day off, Tamsy watches behind bars as Amo writhes and weeps. Corvus’s fragrance spills from her in perennial waves that do strange, strange things to his heart.
Nursing a mug of coffee, Tamsy brings it to his lips, his grin stretched wide and almost splitting his face.
ཐི༏ཋྀ
Through the following weeks, his morning tea is replaced almost entirely by coffee, and Tamsy starts to wonder what that means for him.
ཐི༏ཋྀ
And of course there’s Rudo. Blackened like snow, scorched raw, infernally damned Rudo—rattling Tamsy’s web with his thrilling fury and bullheaded naïveté.
They're going to the Doll Festival, and Tamsy needs to be there.
But of course worming his way out of his duties will prove difficult. He had just asked for a day off not even two weeks ago, and, though their boss was kind, he was also stern.
Tamsy sips his coffee.
He is a man though.
ཐི༏ཋྀ
When Tamsy knocks again and is admitted inside, his request is met with scepticism:
“I just gave you a day off, Tamsy.” Corvus thrums a pen against the wood of his desk. “You got a secret sweetheart you’re trying to meet on the clock?”
Oh, that’s hilarious. Tamsy bites his lip to smother the grin. No, Rudo is no sweetheart, but, yeah sure, the love Tamsy feels is real, real as trash rain. It claws through him and makes sawdust of his bones, this love—and therefore he cannot, will not allow Corvus to forbid him this.
“Have you ever tried tiramisu, boss?”
“Can't say I have.”
“It’s a popular dessert. They say the recipe originated from a Spherian cookbook found in The Pit. Give it a try. You'll enjoy it.”
“Hm.”
Ah. Ironclad.
“About the day off,” Tamsy begins.
“You've just had one, Tamsy. If I start giving in to you, what would that mean for the rest of them?”
Tamsy smiles. Oh, he’d expected this, and was readily prepared to go lengths to change Corvus’s mind. The him of pre-Amo Empool would’ve used his words, slithered machinations and hissed sibilance into his boss’s ear until compliance was coerced out of him.
Now, though, Tamsy sees there is a much, much simpler solution.
Corvus is a man, after all. And Tamsy would be damned if he isn’t one either. His new coffee-laden routine has brought with it ecstatic dreams that leave him breathless and dizzy in the twinkling morning. And he feels appalled and fascinated by them.
Tamsy supposes he's doing it just as much for himself as for his grand cause. He could use his words—but he’s a man, and Corvus is simply radiant. His stormcloud eyes and his pavonine hair and the angular set of his bones rage turbulence inside Tamsy.
His eyes follow the slope of Arkha’s shoulders, his lean torso and arms. He imagines slipping off that oversized jacket and running his palms over that neck and collarbone—before following it with his mouth. He imagines tasting, sucking coffee directly from those lips—and he imagines his tongue trailing along a row of teeth before meeting another’s.
He imagines ungloved hands smoothing along his bare back and his loose hair pulled to thrilling pain. He imagines sweet, sweet friction and ardent sounds pulled from him which bubble through the champagne coloured afternoon.
So Tamsy smiles through the jolt these visions give him, tilting his head with a sultry smile.
He undoes his hair.