Summary:Recovery comes in pieces, even if the Hound and Jackal are finally free of trouble in Shanghai. For now. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
Related LogsTheme SongNone |
  |
Another night's rest in the guest bedroom of the house has Ambrose fitter than a fiddle — the Bane's insistence in a healthy host bodes well as always. Of course he made certain to reverse the woundings left on Kent by the throwing knives during the spirited brawl atop the Rue Quai, with the expected results of silvery scars and a dramatically-decreased need for opium.
A jawdaw arrives on the windowsill not two days later, pale eyes beady and a simple message slipping from its shiny dark beak: most unfortunately — and the greatest apologies are offered on a silver platter — the Council needed to leave Shanghai post-haste after hearing of a resurgence of trouble in southern Spain, Alvarez's own backyard as a Warden — as such, the removal of Kent's brand will need to wait, but please know the Council treats it as priority upon their next encounter.
Ambrose frankly rises from the breakfast table with a throwing knife that came out of SOMEWHERE with a thunderous expression and teeth pulled back in a snarl to showcase all of his teeth. The bird SQWARKS?! and takes off so quickly, it loses a few feathers.
"God…fucking ruddy damn them to all the hells," he manages before instead burying the knife in the floor next to his chair and sitting down with a finality begging someone else to interrupt their repast.
*
Kent's been a languid presence, eating, sleeping, and drugging himself in the big bed. Oh, he's dealt with his lieutenants - hey, look, I'm not dead! - and business. But for the most part…..resting.
The message was greeted not with anger, but a weary lack of surprise. "Yes," he says, calmly. "They never meant me anything….." He trails off, closing his eyes. It was a short-lived phantom, the hope of his exile rescinded, this mark wiped away….and he far too cynical to really expect it. But nonetheless, it hurts him. Especially….to find a place still raw that he thought had scarred over a long time ago.
*
"It is — "
Ambrose is honestly beyond spoken words. Kythed anger breaks like a sudden welter of lightning, electrical and tinged with the blood-red threading of the Bane, rolling beneath with its thunderous primordial growl. Bitter resentment is a hard lump for him to swallow down. His throat works nonetheless.
"Do know that I harbor no affection for them and should their shadow cross my path, I will take full advantage of it," he informs the crimelord with a frightening coolness of promise. The breakfast on his plate, nearly finished, has no lure for him anymore. Instead, he surges to his feet after leaning to pluck the knife from the floor and slip away into its hidden sheath behind his left hip. The morning was chilled enough to warrant a long-sleeved thermal shirt along with his dark fatigue-pants, though his feet remain bare. The Jackal takes up a prowling pacing along the wall with windows — his pupils wink red, as if he might stare down the entire damn world in his pique.
*
He can't manage real indignation about it, anymore. Mental head bowed with resignation…..and the balm of relief. They survived. The Council has left them alone, at least for now. He's recovered, but the aftermath of pain is there, like a weight.
Though Ambrose in anger makes him smile to himself, despite it all. Watching that prowling pace with an affectionate, admiring gleam in his eyes. "Don't risk yourself, but….I will not argue in their favor. Their ineptitude nearly cost the world dearly, but they're beyond my power, save in this city."
*
"I will stoop as set should they dare return, my lord," the Jackal assures curtly, he a paused silhouette before one of the windows. Again, his pupils flicker carmine at Kent before he seems to cycle through a pattern of breath. The crackling ire able to be sensed in the kythe appears to recede slowly, as a tide might pulled by the moon.
"Well then." A roll of shoulders is akin to a dog shaking out its coat free of water or stress. "I believe we have rested enough. The city is free of the Council's interests." And how Ambrose hisses through the word with maximal derision. "Have you errands to run?"
A gnarled ball of anxiety tightly shoved away into a corner of his mind is rattling about as if possessed by an internal hamster and he's very firmly attempting to shove it away, eyes resting upon Kent in a barely-hidden manner of Ying Ko himself as an anchor.
*
As if he could fool his Hound, his shadow. And in the kythe, a shadowy dog shape pounces on that ball, seizes it with soft mouth, looks to him, its own eyes shining silver-green, like coins. And what is this, oh my good lord? he asks, gently.
Even as his body answers, "Some. I should get dressed, show the flag," in that lazy voice. In no real hurry to do so. Dreaming is such a beguiling temptation after all. "Well, had you somewhere *you* wished to go, my angel?"
*
Another hard swallow. Ambrose's fingernails scratch at his jawline even as his eyes slide away; a physical attempt to deny the thorny train of thought in Kent's dog-like mental jaws is clear as day. His stomach clenches into something nearing a knot. There's no verbal reply.
…I… The proud stature of the Jackal wilts visibly, he still unable to meet Kent's eyes. I was beyond you, my heart. It scares me yet. The impression of wanting terribly to quiver himself into a rattling pile of nerves and tears on the bedroom floor is countered by him literally locking his knees. Relief mingles with acidic anxiety: he's alive, yes, but where did he go when he hit the cobblestones?
Even Ambrose doesn't know, and by now, there's a blindness overtaking him where memory leeches away his perception of reality. His stare to one side of the room is too focused, his pulse beginning to jump.
*
Oh, dear. Kent, dismayed, lays down his fork and rises to come to him, wrap sinewy arms around him. The kythe is a warm of wave comfort, the unseen furry body pressing against that incorporeal form. But you are here with me now, my beloved one. Be at ease. We won. I will always find you. Always come to you, life after life. Let it go, if you need. Don't hang on to your pride.
Kent nuzzles his face into the Jackal's throat, animal comfort offered in the real world, as well. Hands stroking the line of his lover's back.
*
Ambrose flinches when hugged, proof of how far away he'd gone into the depths of his own frazzled mind. It's like tearing a patch from a quilt to come back to the present, like plucking stitches, and relief flows even if it hurts somehow — as if the uncertainty wanted to pull him down into the stygian darkness he was lost in for a light-year's eternity.
A hiccup to jostle Kent's hold on him and then the Jackal wraps arms around the Hound tightly enough to perhaps test full expansion of ribs. He mirrors the burying of nose in neck, searching out the pulse of his mate and centering himself on its regular cadence. The warm wetness of a tear can be felt against the skin at Kent's jawline.
I am blessed beyond measure in you, my impossible spindleshank, blips the thought followed by what must be half-laughter, half-tears by the husky sound of it.
*
The scent of him: fine soap and talc, incense and myrrh, over the sweet animal musk of his own skin. At the very root, he doesn't smell *quite* human. Offering his strength, strong as a pillar, bearing up the Jackal as the sea bears a boat.
A wheeze of breath at that, then he's turning to lick the tear away, unthinking. My brave heart, he says, softly. Come to bed. Lie with me. So many layers of meaning in that simple request.
*
"Blrk?!" A quiet wincing sound for the swipe of human tongue suddenly on his face. Ambrose takes a half-step back even as the request comes, dragging the sleeve of his shirt diagonally along the stripe of cleaned tear with another husky laugh to follow. A sniffle as he knuckles at his other eye and then the soldier appears to regain his spine.
How to resist? Silly me, thinking there were errands to run. Grateful fondness sprinkled with chagrin suffuses the thought; Kent knows him far too well in his propensity to over-estimate his own bounds in terms of healing, both mental and physical. A firm kiss to the lips is given before Ambrose separates from him to head for the bed.
There goes his shirt…and there goes his pants…and there goes the Jackal beneath the covers, away from the coolness of the bedroom's air. He disappears to his nose and sighs in contentment. Mmm. Warm.