Canary in a Coal Mine, ii. [Florian]

[Eitan Angevin]

80th Searing, 121 Steel
continued from Canary in a Coal Mine.

"Don't be," he said, responding to Albrecht's apology. "I was incapacitated and you made a call. The right one, it seems."

"I can see that." He was glad the bleeding had stopped, but a nosebleed wouldn't kill Albrecht so he figured they could tend to it when they were somewhere safer, and then it took care of itself. They were a mess and they reeked of unnatural things.

But the man didn't seem like he wanted to make small talk, and they were largely quiet getting out of the Warrens and out of the Mines. The Druskai and Mortallen eyed them strangely; some with respect, others with sneers. They had survived, obviously, though they were humbled by the experience. At least, it seemed that way to the outside observer.

When they were on Albrecht's street, he at least clarified his plans. "I'm going to get you home and make sure you're all right, and then I'll leave you alone."

It was probably best that way. The rage wraith had been destroyed by the one-two punch of abjinurium and aetheric discharge, but the rage demon that lived in him was still struggling against the bonds he was trying to reforge as they walked.

"Or I'll... I can just get you home and leave if you'd rather." Still gruff, there was a strange hint of vulnerability there. He might treat Albrecht as lesser than him—legally, he was—but he was self-aware enough to know that if he let his anger get control of him, Albrecht was the likely target and he didn't deserve that.

In either case, they turned a corner and he could see the entrance to Albrecht's building. Still supporting him, he ignored the strange looks they got, the wide berth people gave them. If anything, their smell was as disturbing as the sight of them.

[Florian]

Florian was used to ignoring stares. It was like second nature. But soon enough they were up the stares and at his door, and he bade Eitan come inside. Once they were inside, he didn't really say anything, but he had closed the door behind him and he expected Eitan to stay for a few minutes at least. He washed the blood from his face, his ears. He was too exhausted for anything close to a full bath, so a change of clothes had to suffice. The Lysanrin stripped and found something clean to wear without shame — they'd fucked, after all, and he didn't give a shit if Eitan saw him naked. Finally, he retrieved water for the both of them, both placed on the table.

Florian sat, and before Eitan could make his escape, he gestured for him to sit, too.

"You're going to sit down, drink your water, and talk to me." It was a gentle command, but a command nonetheless. A sip of his own water did nothing to abate his splitting headache, but he wanted to understand Eitan more than he cared about the pain and fatigue he felt. "You don't have to tell me everything," he took another sip, and then placed the cup on the table. "But you have to tell me something if we're supposed to, you know, work together. Instead of bottling it up until the appearance of a wraith enrages you into trying to kill me again. You're still upset, too, but the thing is dead. So what's wrong?"

His eyes betrayed the pain he was still in, but more, as much as he tried to keep his voice even and calm, it trembled. Now that they were out of the Warrens and the little adventure had begun to settle in, Florian realized he was already on the brink of tears. He refused to let them escape.

[Eitan Angevin]

It was his own fault. He could have left while Albrecht was naked. Since they weren't engaged in a game of chicken, he doubted the Lysanrin would have chased him down the stairs and into the street with nothing on. He almost smirked. The anger was mostly an echo now, though he knew from experience that once it surfaced, it would take some time and vigilance before he could quell it into submission once more.

And so he remained long enough for Albrecht to attempt to command him. He bristled, but he was too tired to reestablish dominance. To compromise, he picked up the water and sipped it, but did not sit down.

"You're an expert on Warrens wraiths now?" he asked, a dark eyebrow soaring. He shrugged. "I can still feel its filthy... influence inside me. I'm trying to deal with the anger instead of taking it out on you, which is what it wants me to do. Wanted me to do." He took another sip of water, trying to pace his words more than his hydration.

"I have a problem with anger. Discipline helps me keep it in check, channel it. I was sloppy and I let it get into my head, so now I have to deal with the consequences. So I'm going home, taking a bath, burning these clothes, and I'll wrestle with it until it's directed inward where it belongs."

Then he downed the entire glass of water and set it down on the table.

"Thanks for that. Good talk. I'll leave you to rest up. Check on you tomorrow. I really ought to have a key to this place..." He looked around as if that statement were entirely plausible to anyone and everyone who was a right-thinking person.

[Florian]

Florian stared at Eitan. The man seemed not at all eager to reassure him, nor did he seem as eager to leave as he said he was. Though he was standing, he'd yet to make a move for the door. And while Florian was against the idea of Eitan having a key to his apartment, he had no idea what made him think of that in the first place. Was he really so worried about him that he thought he would need to get inside without Florian's assistance?

"I want to know if I'm doing something to piss you off badly enough that the first thing you can think to do when you're enraged is to direct it at me." It may not have been the best time to have a conversation like this because Florian was in pain and irritable and Eitan was still wrestling with anger, but timing was not one of his strongest skills. "You wanted to kill me, and I really don't want you to want to kill me, and if you're . Just because I expect it someday doesn't mean that I'm eager for death by your hand." The tears he had refused to fall just a minute before now watered his cheeks.

"I'm sorry I argue with you and I'm too emotional and I'm too familiar! But all you've told me is that you were angry and you are angry and you don't want to direct it at me and, I don't know, I guess maybe I was hoping you'd try to reassure me a bit that you don't actually want me dead?" He slumped forward in his chair, his gaze dropped to the floor. "Is that too much to ask? Am I supposed to trust you to protect me when I had to protect myself from you?" He cried, but it was quiet. He also mostly expected Eitan to just leave — he wasn't going to try and stop him by any means. Maybe it was just his headache and soreness making him overdramatic.

[Eitan Angevin]

Angevin observed Albrecht's hysterics with a vague frown. In the end, he was too tired to sugar coat things. The possibility that he would have to kill Albrecht was a known quantity, as was the possibility that Albrecht would try to kill him to either prevent that or seek to break his covenant with the High City as most of its citizens suspected was inevitable from one of his race.

"I don't know that I wanted to kill you," he corrected. "I wanted to hurt you. The rage wraith caught me unaware and I was no longer in control of myself. You were the only possible target for the rage at the time. I apologize for threatening you and scaring you and I commend you for taking action that likely saved us both." He paused and reiterated that to make it clearer. "Thank you for saving my life, Albrecht."

And then there were tears. Oh, excellent.

Angevin sighed.

"I don't want to kill you," he said, and it was more snappish than he intended. He was weary too. He wanted to bathe and drink himself silly so the burn of the spirits would burn away the feel of the spirit within him. "I want you to be a model officer who leads a decorated career, paving the way for further beneficial integration of the Lysanrin into Zaichaeri society. But that isn't entirely up to me, is it?"

Tears were much easier to deal with when one was soused. This was making the desire to drink even stronger.

"We tested ourselves against the Warrens. We faltered, but we succeeded. We can learn from where we faltered and do better in future." He was already considering how he might ward against the influence of wraiths. He would ask the question when he returned to the Hall of Reconciliation.

[Florian]

He fiddled with his hands in his lap, He was right, maybe. If he'd really wanted to kill him he would've had his gun and pulled the trigger instead of a dagger. The thanks and the apology were nice, but they weren't what he had wanted. Not really. Florian didn't even know what he wanted, and even if he did, he wouldn't have said it. Instead, he stood up and walked to the clothes he had left on the floor, digging through the pocket until he pulled out a key. Back at the table, he placed the key down and slid it towards where Eitan stood

"There was never a chance, Eitan. I didn't join the military to become an experiment, and I was made one, anyway. There's no chance that this will last long enough. I will be useful, or I won't, but I've never heard of any efforts from any other Lysanrin leading the way for integration. I wonder why?" He was cynical about his future, and about the future that Eitan supposedly wanted for him. He slumped back down in his chair, still with the tears he had desperately wanted to hold back. As soon as he sat, he wished he'd gone to bed. "I'm not leaving for the rest of the day. You can lock the door behind you and let yourself in tomorrow. Or don't. It's not like I'll be doing anything."

After the initial brutal reaction came the rest of the symptoms. Florian had only experienced it once before, and his emotional outburst only seemed to worsen it. His headache held steady, but his face felt hot and he knew he just desperately needed to sleep it off. He stood up from the chair and closed the curtain to the one window in the apartment. His eyes drifted to the horn in its little display. His patience was tested by the day, and he didn't have much of it. What good was a lesson if he didn't retain what he learned?

"Maybe we're lucky, because what would you have done if I were the one enraged? Shot me? Knocked me out, with no way to kill the thing?" He waved a hand dismissively. "I don't know how your magic works, not entirely, but it doesn't seem particularly offensive. So maybe we're just lucky it's not monsters in the dark that make me angry." Florian moved over to his bed and sat on it, though he didn't quite lay down yet. He was also lucky he'd sustained himself enough that he didn't think he'd have to eat for the rest of the day. Not that supper was in his plans, anyway, but with his headache and growing fever he didn't think he'd even wake up until the next day.

[Eitan Angevin]

There was no reasoning with the Lysanrin right now; he might have been able to be more patient were he not so exhausted and feeling violated and all sorts of other unpleasantness. But he gritted his teeth and soldiered on. Albrecht was, after all, his responsibility.

"There always has to be a first," he said by way of encouragement, though there wasn't much energy to it. He didn't have much to give. "In any case, you aren't under arrest. I'm not locking you in. I just thought you might want me to let myself in if you don't show up for duty rather than let the captain have someone kick down your door." He sighed, the exhalation taking a bit of his strict military posture with it. He wanted to sit down. He wanted to lie down—preferably in a hot bath with a tumbler of whiskey and a buxom lass washing the stench off of him, but here he was.

"I would have figured something out," he said. That was what officers did. Between a ward and his agility, he probably could have danced around so that whatever Albrecht discharged had hit the wraith and not him. Or he could have kept stabbing, letting the abjinurium poison the thing. Between that and jamming a ward into it, he was sure he could have managed. It was easier with Albrecht, but he wasn't going to continue to extol his virtues. In any case, it would only piss him off.

He walked—rather, he shuffled—to the table and reached out to the candle, weaving an anchor into the wick and fashioning a little globe of a ward. It wasn't tasked yet, and so it leaked a bit of energy in the form of light, much as it had when he demonstrated for Ava Albrecht.

"A snack for later," he said, "if it will help." He shuffled toward the door. "Get some rest, Albrecht. You've earned it."

[Florian]

Florian sighed. "I can still get out of my apartment if you have the key." He refrained from appending dumbass at the end. "What I meant is that I'm going to be sleeping for the next 16 hours and if you want to come back tomorrow, before that, I won't be getting up to open the door." He stood up and pulled back the blankets from where they were tucked. "And because I'm very tired and I don't want to have to walk across the room and lock the door behind you."

"I'll see you tomorrow, Eitan." If Eitan insisted on not taking the key, he would get up and lock the door after he left. As much as he felt the conversation did not accomplish much of anything that he wanted, they were both too tired, and Florian just wanted to get back to a functioning state. Almost as soon as Eitan left, he collapsed into bed in an exhausted sleep. It was restless and painful and lasted for most of the day, and even without a clock, every time he awoke he knew that he would still be in bed well into the next.

In between bouts of sleep, Florian lay awake in feverish concern about how much danger he had put himself in. He had given back the dagger with no real knowledge that Eitan would not then try to hurt him, and he had put himself at his mercy with his overuse of magic just moments after he had to subdue the man. It was not a good, reasonable course of action; it didn't make sense why he did what he did. Florian cared about Eitan, though, and considering how he had been thanked, maybe he did the right thing after all. He risked himself in the process. He just hoped that they would both be in a better mood in the morning.

[Eitan Angevin]

Angevin stared at him for a moment, then realized his mind was too tired to process basic communication, so he nodded, bid him a quiet good night, and took the key with him. In his state, he opted for the barracks. He took a long, hot shower, bundled his soiled clothes to be laundered and donated to the poor. Though he would not wish to wear them again, there were those less fortunate than him, and their needs were his honor to see to when he could. He slept like the dead, plagued by rage-filled nightmares.

It hadn't been late when he had fallen asleep, and he slept in. Though he took some light refreshment first, he made himself presentable and then returned to Verowa End, the makings of a late breakfast in hand. Of course, he bought the food in a nicer neighborhood. Albrecht deserved a treat.

He knocked softly and then let himself in. If the Lysanrin was still asleep, he would just leave food and coffee for when he awoke. Angevin had certainly laid awake in bed for a time, processing his dark dreams and reclaiming himself for the light of day.

Being quiet about it, he just set things out on the table. If the smells enticed Albrecht from his bed, then so be it. If not, he might just sneak his own second breakfast in before he quit the premises again. The savory pastries were still hot and stuffed with egg, sausages, and cheese. There was fruit and coffee. Angevin's stomach growled and he froze, glancing at the bed. He wasn't certain whether he wanted Albrecht to wake up or not. A part of him was ashamed that he had let a wraith get the better of him, even so briefly. He wanted his approval of Albrecht's actions and his expressed gratitude to be enough to move on, but they had been out of sorts the previous evening.

He poured two glasses of water and then sat down at the table to quietly break his short fast.

[Florian]

Florian woke up when his door opened. He didn't move, though, but he listened to the movement, the setting out of food and the pouring of water and the scrape of chair against the wooden floor. He could smell hot food and coffee. He hadn't been expecting breakfast, and while Eitan could be a dick, he didn't think he'd be so much of a dick to bring food only for himself just to eat it in his apartment. He finally pulled himself to sit up in his bed. He was sleepy and disheveled, but at least his headache had disappeared and he didn't feel so fucking miserable. A yawn and a stretch later, Florian untangled himself from his blankets. At some point in the night he'd kicked off his pants, but he pulled them back on and moved the curtain away from the window to let more light into the room.

"Good morning," He yawned again, and immediately he reached for coffee as he sat at the table. He took a sip and placed the cup back on the table, his sleepy brain taking in the breakfast in front of him. "I didn't know you'd bring breakf—" His train of thought was immediately demolished upon sight of fruit. Blueberries and strawberries. Summer fruits, seasonal fare, not especially expensive, but the memory of when his mother would manage to scrounge up a few spare coins to buy a pound of blueberries for them to share briefly flitted through his memory.

"These are for me?" He asked. But he knew the answer, and before he even touched the savory pastry, he had consumed a small handful of berries. The smell of the food only reminded him that he'd barely eaten a meal the day before, and he began to split his attention between fruit and coffee and pastry. He absolutely devoured the meal, a far cry from the usual way he picked at his food until the meal was over.

"Thank you for breakfast," Sheepish, he rubbed his arm and looked at Eitan across the table. "I don't think I ate much but aether yesterday." The ward left by him on the candlestick was untouched still — Florian had no desire to do anything with aether since they had left the Warrens. Now that he wasn't exhausted and upset, he was able to actually consider what Eitan had said the day before. The anxiety that he had done something wrong ate at him still, despite the reassurance that he had done the right thing the right way and likely saved the both of them.