Fox in the Henhouse [Eitan]

[Florian]

Eitan had once claimed not to be psychic, but as if he'd read his thoughts, he had taken his hand and helped him up, keeping the contact he wanted. Where he put on a shirt, Florian undressed enough to be comfortable. By virtue of being skinny as a rail, there was room enough for both of them, though by virtue of his horn, he had to lie close and facing him. His arms were tucked in front of him, and he had wormed his way into being held, Eitan's arm over him. He wondered if he would be able to sleep, and further realized that he had not slept so close to anyone since he was a child plagued with nightmares. But he had grown out of those nightmares, and it had been years since he had shared a bed with anyone. If anything was to change this, he supposed it was tonight.

Florian didn't fall asleep right away. He didn't close his eyes right away. He watched Eitan, felt his breath. It wasn't necessarily that he didn't want to sleep, but that his attempts were foiled by anxiety. But he was still, and even he started crying again, he was quiet. In his mind, any plausible deniability that Eitan cared about him had been dashed. He would not be sharing a bed with someone who didn't care.

He was so tired, but sleep still wouldn't come. In the dark, if his eyes wandered, all he could see was her face. It had not been an accidental murder; no one could create such horror on accident. In the dark, if he closed his eyes, all he could see was her face.

He didn't remember falling asleep, but he woke up again in a panic. It was still dark; he hadn't been asleep long before he had been terrorized with the nightmare of his mother, who turned to look at him with impaled eyes. And she spoke, and she blamed him for his death, because if he had come earlier, if he had been better, she would still be there. He believed her.

[Eitan Angevin]

Angevin had dimmed the lights to make sleep easier, but not so dim that his quarters would startle Albrecht, who wasn't used to them. When it was clear that Albrecht was done talking for the nonce, he let his eyes drift closed so they wouldn't have to stare at each other, even though the Lysanrin's strange eyes looked past him as if to find ghosts in the gloom of his room.

But he only dozed lightly, unused to having a warm body in his bed with him. And so he was instantly awake when he felt all Albrecht's muscles seize up against him. He saw Albrecht seeing someone else before he recognized Angevin. Though he was unaware of just how gruesome the sight had been, he knew there was no such thing as a pretty murder.

"I'm here, Albrecht," he said, limbs tightening around the skinny private, though not tight enough to make him feel constricted. He didn't want the panic to continue. People did stupid, violent things while panicked. "I'm here. It's me."

When he was relatively sure he wouldn't get headbutted or kneed in the sack, he held the grieving Lysanrin closer. Of course, he immediately wanted to go through his litany of questions again to see if there was anything specific he could do to help alleviate the pain and misery, but he was starting to learn how to act in this abominable situation. He cared about Albrecht, which was strange enough. But a part of him was realizing that this was also a part of leadership. When there were men under his command, he had to be there for them when under fire by enemies and when under fire from life itself. Existence itself could be a challenge.

His hand slid up from Albrecht's back and into his hair. Petting had seemed to soothe him earlier.

[Florian]

Florian's breath was shallow, his eyes wide and black with fear and not particularly focused on anything. He felt like he was going to die. Was his heart supposed to beat so fast? His fingers dug into his palms and he found it hard to swallow or think or do anything but sob. But Eitan held him, and he felt another sudden rush of undue, unfamiliar guilt for burdening him with this.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry." He sobbed, even as he was pulled closer to the man. "I'm sorry. I don't know what to do." A part of him, even through all this, found it funny that he still didn't call him Florian. The rest of him was too distracted with finding a grasp on reality to think about it.

Eitan pet his hair and Florian sobbed, just as they had done earlier. He didn't know what else to do, or what else he could do. His heart felt like it was going to beat right out of his chest, and he didn't understand. He had never felt like this before, the pure panic and uncertainty and fear. He had always thought he was good at getting a grip, but he couldn't. He couldn't. One of the hands he held close to his chest reached up to touch Eitan's face, an attempt to discern that he was real, that he was who he was. Florian felt his cheek and his chin and his hair and his ear and his neck and then, satisfied that Eitan was Eitan, let it rest on his cheek.

"You're here?" He asked, and he ran a thumb over Eitan's cheekbone. "You're here." He confirmed, and his breathing began to calm. Even the black receded from his eyes, leaving the grey of grief. He had to believe he was safe there because he did not know what else he had to hold onto. "You're here."

[Eitan Angevin]

"You did the right thing," he assured him. "You came to me. I'm here."

He felt like he was being repetitive, and he was, but it seemed appropriate still. From what he understood, grief didn't go away. It was like a stone in one's pocket that could eventually grow less heavy, but one's hand would still fumble across it sometimes when reaching into one's pocket. And that was after years. This was fresh still. This grief wasn't something Albrecht could just snap out of, and as they weren't in the middle of a battle, Angevin figured he could make time and space for him to release whatever he was feeling.

At some point, he knew, rage would come, and he would let Albrecht batter himself against him as though it would change the world and the caprices of the so-called gods.

For now, he would be a shoulder to cry on and—most likely—a shoulder to blow snot into. He was actually worried that Albrecht was going to dehydrate himself with all this crying, poor bastard. Perhaps he ought to go fetch him some water to keep by the bed to be prepared for the eventual dehydration. He was obsessing a bit too much over the level of water in the Lysanrin's body, which he thought was likely due to the fact that he felt like he wasn't accomplishing anything, wasn't making headway against the immovable reality of Albrecht's grief.

He supposed these sorts of things were trying for those tangentially linked to those who actually grieved—not to compare the suffering, but it was true.

"Do you want me to tell you the story of Sir Florian?" he asked, an instinctive, desperate grab at something that might help from his tired mind.

[Florian]

The story of Sir Florian. The Butterfly Knight. It was the second — and last — time that Eitan had met his mother when he told him about his namesake. Eitan had said he had read the book, and Florian had read it dozens of times. He had parts of it memorized, every beat in the story stuck in his head. The book brought him hope and comfort, and he nodded, his thumb still slowly running over Eitan's cheekbone. Back and forth, as if he needed more to remind himself that he was in the arms of someone flesh and blood.

Florian wondered how much Eitan remembered of the book. His own copy was lost in that apartment that he dared not return to, along with everything else. He didn't think he would ever be able to bring himself inside to collect her things. He'd rather leave it to thieves than face the scene he saw, even if it had been cleaned up again. Maybe he could buy the book again someday.

Here, now, he did not feel like a man destined for great things. She had always told him as much; that his future was held in his hands. Perhaps it was a thing that mothers just said. She meant it, though, and he tried his best to live up to the expectation. It felt like it didn't matter anymore, but maybe that was the despair talking.

His hand still didn't leave Eitan's face, even as he spoke. It helped to see the contact of skin on skin, even as a heavy arm lay over him and pet his hair. Why he was so focused on the idea of touch bewildered him still. He did not normally like to be touched, to be close to anyone, but at that moment, that night, he so desperately wanted to feel close.

[Eitan Angevin]

Angevin was quiet for a bit, just letting Albrecht touch his face while he kept his limbs wrapped protectively around him. He sent his sleep-addled mind back into much earlier memories. He hadn't had a nurse for long; the Admiral had wanted him to toughen up and so Delia, older than him by a year or so, had stayed in her care while he began the slow process of becoming a man. But his nurse had told him this story, whether from the book or from her memory.

Inhaling, he began with, "Once upon a time..."

Then he gave a fair approximation of the story. There were lines snatched directly from the book, but a good deal of it was summarized or put into his own words. They weren't bad words, though they might not appease a purist. His mind wandered a bit, but he kept schooling it back into wakefulness.

There was a silence at the end, and then, "I know, I know. I won't quit my day jobs."

He brushed a thumb under Albrecht's eye again to gauge whether he was crying again or numb.

Then, quietly, he inhaled as if he would speak again, but exhaled through his nose because he couldn't think of anything to say and didn't want to blow his night breath into the Lysanrin's face.

[Florian]

Florian let Eitan tell the story as he remembered it. He didn't correct, even where his retelling drew contradictory memories unbidden of the book he loved. The best part of being told a story was being told a story, and he didn't care how well it was told. His hand still stayed on Eitan's cheek, and, at the very end, when he made the self deprecating joke about his storytelling skills, Florian managed a teary smile. The story also brought the passage he had quoted just a week prior to Anton into his memory.

"And it was there, among the boughs of the trees, where the shimmering wings of fate spread before him, that he saw. His future was not carved into the blade of a sword or a hangman's noose; it flit among him, and landed upon him, and tickled his nose with brazen fragility. There was no path carved into rock for Sir Florian, as it was his alone to choose. He knew there, among the boughs of the trees, where the shimmering wings of fate spread before him, that he chose life." His favorite part, burned into his memory. Unlike his meeting with Anton, however, he continued. "It was life, too, that chose him. For that moment he stood, unburdened by the world and the history he carried on his shoulders. He may have entered the grove a bandit, but within its arms, he was safe. He may have entered the grove a rogue, but when he left, he left reborn. Shed was his history like a chrysalis, and he knew then that he could redeem himself." Florian blinked. His focus on reciting it had at least quelled his tears for the moment.

"That was always my favorite part of the book." He offered by way of explanation. It had always felt like a metaphor for him, and his life, and now was none the different. It did little to lessen his grief, but it was something to hold onto. His hand left Eitan's face to cover his mouth and he yawned, and he briefly wondered if Eitan would ever be so willing to accept him into his arms again. Still, he was too tired to think more about the future when he could barely exist in the present.

[Eitan Angevin]

"It will mean more to me from now on because of you," he said. It wasn't apropos of nothing, but it might have been surprising to hear. The dark was a good place for secrets, though. He had been skeptical of Albrecht at first, but he had proven himself as dependable. If he had a temper, well, there were humans with tempers as well. He allowed Albrecht to search his face in the dark like a blind man, and his hand slipped under Albrecht's shirt. There was nothing truly untoward about it, no transgressive touching as there had been in the training salle. It was just a human desire for skin, and they were wrapped up in each other's limbs and bedding and it felt natural to do so.

Perhaps it wasn't a purely human desire.

Whatever the future held, it didn't seem as though Eitan was keen to kick him out of his bed anytime soon.

There might have been a faint gleam to his eyes, borrowed from whatever dim sources of light there might be. He was peering at the Lysanrin's face, some visible in the low light, some mere silhouette, and some likely being filled in by memory.

"Do you trust me, Albrecht?" he asked. The answer ought to be obvious; Albrecht had come to him to weep about his mother's gruesome death. But it was also obvious he had something else in mind; something more. And with Albrecht's track record with his superior officer and personal Watcher, that could as easily be a bad thing as a good thing he was pondering under that mop of curls.

[Florian]

Florian was taken aback by Eitan's earnest admission. He opened his mouth to reply, but closed it as soon as he realized he had nothing to say. He mimicked the movement and rested his hand on Eitan's side, under his shirt, as if the hand on his own skin had revealed the concept that there was the rest of a person there. He watched Florian, and he watched him back, a failed attempt to discern what was going on behind those dark eyes.

His own eyes fluttered closed after a moment. Exhaustion was hard-hitting, and as much as he dreaded more nightmares, he couldn't hold sleep at bay forever. But while he was still awake enough to talk and to listen, he knew that wouldn't be true for too much longer. With any luck, sleep would be a relief from the anxiety and grief that wrenched at his heart, but he suspected he would be plagued with more nightmares, and he dreaded his future where sleep did not come easily.

"I trust you," he replied, quieter than when he had recounted the story, eyes closed. In truth, now Eitan was the only one he trusted. It was an odd position for both of them, if the other man even realized that was the case. Time seemed to have little factor in their relationship. It had been just less than half a season, even, since they had met. He had never allowed himself to grow close to someone like this, but he had had little choice in the matter once he realized what position he put himself in with the state. Having no choice made choosing easier, but he had trusted Eitan long before he found himself in his bed.

[Eitan Angevin]

"All right," he said, confirming something in his mind. "Good."

That was that, however, at least for the time being.

Albrecht closed his eyes and once his breathing became regular, Angevin closed his eyes, as well. There were other nightmares and he soothed the Lysanrin every time. Angevin woke at dawn as he often did unless he had been out on a bender the night previous. Extricating himself from the bedding and the bedded young man, he quickly dressed and went to have someone deliver a message to Vigilant Richter regarding the murder of Ava Albrecht. The Order would look into things and secure her apartment; Angevin would look after Florian Albrecht, who was his responsibility. Only now he was trebly so: as Watcher to Lysanrin; as Commander to Private; as friend to grieving friend.

He brought back breakfast for two from the mess hall, and was pleased to find Albrecht still asleep when he arrived. The food stayed on the table for the time being. It might not be piping hot when they ate it, but that would be fine. The half-breed folded himself up to sit at the foot of the bed, opening a book to read a bit until Albrecht returned to the land of the waking.

Even if the book turned out not to hold his attention, it was better he be a little bored and Albrecht remain blissfully asleep a while longer. Reality would not be kind to him for the time being. Angevin was not the best with feelings, but he knew that much. Albrecht would need time like this to be comatose or to fall apart so he could white knuckle and stiff upper lip his way through workdays and the upcoming expedition. At least on the airship, he could stay in his berth. When the time came to explore the Warrens, he would have no privacy unless the two of them scouted ahead.

It wasn't a perfect solution, but it would have to do.