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“If you want your wine so bad pick the lock and come get it,” Jean said from the other side of the door.
Locke grit his teeth and fit the picks into the lock, twisting them gently trying to get the door to open the way he’d practiced so much in his youth.
After a little while fumbling with his unpracticed fingers the lock clicked and Locke wrenched the door open only to be met with a wall of boxes.
“What the hell Jean?” Locke shoved experimentally at the boxes but they didn’t budge. Weather that was because they were too heavy or because Locke was too weak was hard to say.
“Meet me outside,” Jean said.
“Outside? Move these bloody boxes and I’ll come outside coward.”
“No can do. Guess you’ll just have to use the window,” Jean said.
“Use the window, my wrist—”
“To hell with your wrist. You fought the Grey King with your wrist worse, you jumped out of a window from Ravens Reach, you can manage.”
“Jean no! I can’t do it Jean!” Locke cried, but he heard footsteps leading away from the door. “Fuck you!”
Locke started stripping the bed of it’s sheets, tying them into a long rope which he threw out the window. When he looked out, about to climb down the height seemed dizzying, but he swallowed the bile racing up his throat and started climbing down.
He had nowhere near the grace of his youth but the sheet rope held and his feet finally touched the ground.
Jean was there, because of fucking course he was, and he handed Locke a cloak to guard against the night chill.
“I didn’t ask for this! I didn’t ask to live! I didn’t ask you to save me! I think I recall telling you to leave me for dead! Bet you regret not listening now! I don’t owe you anything!”
Jean had tried so much over the past few weeks, both at sea and in the town they ended up in. He’d tried being patient, but his patience quickly wore thin, he tried fighting Locke’s words with his own harsher words in return and then finally he’d tried ignoring Locke entirely. What he hadn’t tried was the honest to gods truth.
“Have you ever thought for one single second that maybe I saved you because I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I didn’t?” Jean asked.
The anger faded from Locke’s face in a flash.
“If you had died Locke I would have been alone, utterly alone, for the second time in my life. I couldn’t take that again.”
“Well, you found replacements soon enough,” Locke mumbled, referring to the new gang Jean had been telling him about becoming the leader of.
“Do you seriously believe they’re replacements? Nothing could ever replace them. I teach them things but I wonder if the twins would have explained it better. I look at the younger members and all I can think of is Bug. I think about them every day and it hurts. But I can’t let myself be dragged down by it. That’s not what they would have wanted. And I can’t lose you too. Not after all we’ve lost. Not when you’re still here.” Jean reached out a tentative hand as if to cup Locke’s cheek but stopped halfway.
Locke met Jean’s eyes but quickly looked away.
“I don’t know if this will change anything but if this is the end I feel I should tell you,” Jean said. “I don’t know when, I don’t know how and I certainly don’t know why, but. . . I think I fell in love with you,” Jean said.
Locke looked up, bewildered. Love?
“And you don’t have to say anything, but I do want you back. I want the old Locke Lamora back. The smart Locke who came up with all sorts of schemes. The brave Locke who wouldn’t run from danger. The kind Locke that I grew up with. The Locke I fell in love with.” Jean finally raised his hand again, cupping Locke’s cheek.
He was so hollow. So skinny as to show the outline of bones through his pale skin.
“I don’t know what to say,” Locke said.
“Say you’ll try. Say you’ll come with me to meet the Coves tomorrow.”
“. . . Ok.”
Jean pulled Locke into a hug perhaps a little too tight for the state of Locke’s injuries but he didn’t protest. He would try.
***
A month later Locke sat watching Jean teach fighting maneuvers to the gang. He’d done his lesson in accents earlier in the day and it had gone quite well. Locke was starting to like it here as reluctant to admit it as he was. He still missed Calo and Galdo and Bug, but these people needed him. They needed him and Jean both.
He watched Jean spar with one of the initiates. They were practicing swords today, trying to find out which weapons best suited which bruisers.
Locke sighed. Jean was a wonder to watch in action even when just sparring non lethally. After Jeans talk a while ago and a little bit of time Locke had finally gotten his shit together, though one thing was still up in the air.
Locke couldn’t stop noticing Jean in the smallest ways, the way his eyes crinkled when he laughed. The way he whistled softly as he cooked. The way his eyes squinted when he tried to read something quickly without his glasses.
Jean thrust forward, point of his sword resting against his opponent’s neck. He paused for a moment before he relaxed. “Good fight, you’re getting better. Try to use your speed to your advantage. You’re smaller than I am sure but that means you’re faster. Death by a thousand cuts is still death.”
The younger boy nodded, and went off to practice sparing with someone else.
Jean smiled looking out all of his students. They were all learning fast, but they were also working hard. The gang brought in double the money they used to which they’d so far used to upgrade their hideout, installing a proper kitchen and getting proper weapons. It was nothing like what the Gentleman Bastards had lost but it was something. It was enough.
Jean turned and found Locke looking at him. He had an odd little smile on his face, one that Jean had been seeing more in more recent weeks.
It had taken a while for Locke to get back to his old self, but the gang had helped some. It was something Locke could put his mind to. Something that had obvious visible progress, and it maybe helped a little that the gang was completely enamored with Locke.
They loved listening to his stories, of his wildly convoluted plans that always seemed to work out because he was Locke Lamora, the Thorn of Camorr, even if he wasn’t in Camorr anymore.
“Hey,” Jean said, coming over and sitting next to Locke.
“Hey,” Locke said. He shifted a little, almost nervously when Jean sat down. “You done beating the piss out of them?”
Jean laughed and Locke felt his heart swell. When did Jean’s laugh start feeling like the sun itself? “They’ll beat me soon enough. We’re getting old, maybe our glory days are over.”
Locke thought on that. He hadn’t pulled off any big job since the Salvaras and he had hardly thought about planning another one. He looked around at the gang. It was much bigger than the Gentleman Bastards had ever been, but it was just starting to feel like family.
Locke glanced back at Jean who was staring intently at him. “Maybe they’re just beginning,” Locke said at last.
“Yeah?” Jean too looked out around their hideout. He saw friends. He saw brothers.
“Thanks by the way,” Locke said.
“For what?” Jean asked looking back to Locke who suddenly found a pebble on the ground that was remarkably interesting.
“For pulling me out of my own head. For reminding me that the world didn’t end after we got our revenge. For. . . for a lot Jean, thank you.”
“No need to get all sappy on me,” Jean said, lightly elbowing Locke, being careful to avoid his injuries. Locke had been better about exercising his wounds, but they still hurt more often than they didn’t.
“Did you mean what you said?”
Jean gave Locke a sort of nervous half smile. “I did. But it doesn’t have to change anything. I’m just happy to have you back. Truly.”
“And if I wanted it to change things?” Locke asked.
Jean’s eyes snapped to Locke’s. “You. . . are you leaving?”
Locke laughed and flicked Jean’s forehead. “No, shit-for-brains, I’m not leaving.”
“Then. . .” Jean trailed off as Locke leaned in, their faces separated by only a few inches.
“Then. . .” Locke teased, eyes flicking to Jean’s lips.
Jean closed the gap, pressing his lips to Locke’s. He reached out and cupped Locke’s cheek, pulling him closer and Locke happily obliged.
“You owe me two copper,” someone said, and Jean and Locke seemed to remember that they weren’t quite alone.
“I knew it!” a second said.
“You owe me five copper,” said a third.
Jean and Locke looked around to see their entire gang looking at them. Most of them looked quietly amused, some annoyed that they’d lost money in their bet and others overly pleased at their windfall.
“You were all taking bets?” Jean asked the group utterly bewildered.
“Well yeah,” one of the winners said. “You’re the only one who can make Locke laugh.”
“And Locke always stares at you when you’re teaching us fighting,” another said.
“And Jean always stares at Locke with this look when Locke’s telling stories.”
“And Jean always makes sure Locke’s plate is extra full at dinner.”
“And Locke always gives Jean his apple cores—"
Locke laughed then, a sound rarely heard since they left Camorr but now it was real. “I shouldn’t have taught you all to be so observant. Good job to anyone who won money and to those who lost it, well, I can’t really blame you, it took a lot for me to see it myself. Now run along, your betters have much they need to discuss.”
“What is it we need to discuss?” Jean asked.
“Well dinner of course. Out. Somewhere nice, and after possibly a bed at an inn where we can. . . discuss.”
“Oh well how am I to say no to that?”
Locke got up with a flourish and offered his arm to Jean. “Shall we be off?”
Jean smiled and took Locke’s arm as the two of them left the hideout for the night.