All Hope of Repair, chapter 3
Aug. 8th, 2019 08:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shinonFandom: Final Fantasy VI
Characters: Edgar/Locke
Word count: ~6400
Warnings: Strong language, stupid humor, Character Has Weird Relationship With Food, angst, And This Is Where It Gets Mildly Steamy
Notes: ???
Back at the inn Edgar spent a full forty-five minutes in the shower, and another twenty minutes in there doing who knew what, and finally emerged draped in an ornately patterned robe, wet hair fanned out over his shoulders. "I never get to do that at home," he said with a happy sigh, and sagged into the chair by the writing desk.
Where the lapels of the robe parted, a clean white shirt showed underneath. And so what? Locke thought. What had he expected instead, an unhindered view of the royal collarbone? Why would that matter? "You're gonna drip on everything," he said.
"Get me a towel? I'm too comfortable to get up."
"Y'know what," said Locke, "I changed my mind. You can go back to groveling, I liked that guy better." Though he was already up and heading out into the hall. After a long day of nothing but sitting around in various locations, he wanted to be moving around.
Edgar called after him, "That guy had a mustache, remember."
Locke grabbed one of the inn's thick gray towels from the shelf — though the place had seen better days, the proprietor still went all out on linens, which you had to respect — and, returning to their room, dropped it on Edgar's head. "Now I don't have to look at you. Problem solved."
Edgar flailed in alarm and clawed the towel off his face. Once clear, he adopted an attitude of sudden stony dignity, folded the towel neatly, and draped it over the seat back behind him. "Before I get too seriously into loafing around, is there anything else on today's docket?"
"Nah. Dinner, maybe. Then in the morning I'm off again. You got transportation back home?"
"Yes," said Edgar, "at the civilized hour of eleven, thank you very much."
"You're supposed to clear out of this room by ten."
"Well, I no longer believe a word you tell me, but if that's the case, I'll have a private word with the proprietress and pull out one of these." And he smiled. That same radiant, good-humored, extremely stupid smile he'd used that first day, before Locke had known who he was. "I'm sorry for any inconvenience, but the room was so homey I couldn't make myself leave any sooner. Are you aware you have exquisite taste in rugs? All the furnishings are so perfectly balanced —"
"Gross. Does that even work on anyone?"
Edgar frowned, giving Locke a dismissive once-over. "Well. I'd try it on you, but I can't think of anything to compliment. Did I hear you say something about dinner?"
"Not so fast."
"It occurs to me I haven't eaten since yesterday. But if you want me to wait until you have a good comeback, sure. Another hour can't hurt."
"Wait, you haven't —" He thought back. There hadn't been anything to eat at the railyard, even if anyone had been in the mood. And yeah, Edgar hadn't been awake enough for breakfast. "Dipshit. Okay, I'll go see what the innkeep's cooking tonight. You sit tight."
"Well, of course. Can't have me dripping on things, can we." He stretched his legs out and folded his arms behind his head, the picture of laziness. Fucker. He could at least say "thanks."
But it probably was better if Edgar didn't get to talk to the proprietor anyway. He'd just make a pass at her and make everything weird.
So Locke went down the hall into the kitchen, and picked her brain for local gossip for a bit. The fancy-britches tea merchant her sister-in-law kept house for had died heirless and a bunch of his old loot was going to auction — probably nothing Locke wanted, but fuck knew, weird stuff turned up sometimes. Couple local boys had gotten in a duel last month, as if dueling was still a thing people did, and almost killed each other, after which they'd had to be housed together while their wounds were being treated, and now they were best friends and going into business together, go figure. Almanac calling for a good year for onions and a bad year for lettuces, not that she, the innkeeper, could get much to grow in her back garden before somebody trampled it.
Then he remembered he'd kinda left Edgar to starve, so he grabbed the obvious segue. "Never woulda thought you had trouble with that. Those vegetables look amazing," he said, waving toward a simmering stockpot.
"'Cause I didn't grow 'em," she said, and then grinned and elbowed him. "You and your friend want soup? There's bread, too."
It was only when Locke returned with the heavily laden tray that he remembered there was no table other than that writing desk, wedged in the corner of the room. Edgar already had the long side. Locke set the food down and dragged a chair up to the short side of the desk. Kind of a cramped setup. He'd been here ten seconds and Edgar's knee had already jogged his twice.
Oh, well. He'd eaten in weirder places. He'd had worse people invading his personal space.
"Thanks," said Edgar, belatedly.
"Yeah, sure. Go to town." Locke took his own advice, starting in on the soup. "But what's this not eating all day BS? That better not be a habit." Locke had had some lean years. Shit sucked. If he had Edgar's money, he'd be eating nine or ten meals a day. If you could afford it, why wouldn't you?
"No, no," Edgar said quickly, "don't worry. Not anymore." Wait — anymore? He shook his head, smiling crookedly. "I used to be such an embarrassment. For the first couple years after Dad died, I was so suspicious of any proper sit-down meal. I just didn't do 'em. If I ate at all, it was standing up in my workroom." He shrugged. All casual. Like he was discussing some adolescent foolishness on the order of, Oh, you know, that time I broke a window and blamed the dog. "I pity the members of the court who had to cover for me. Lucky for everyone I outgrew that." He was casually tearing a piece of bread into cubes. His hands were steady as ever, but there was something mindless about the motion. "Poisoning is an occupational hazard like any other. Besides, if someone really wanted me out of the way, they wouldn't bother with the food. For me, the quickest path would be to spike the coffee with ergot or something." He frowned. "Or, wait, no. Ergot was the grain one. I guess that's just as well — nasty way to go. But there was some kind of toxic mold, I'm pretty sure..."
"Edgar. What the fuck."
"Oh, don't mind me. I did a lot of research on this at one point. I don't recommend it, for the record. Just made me paranoid." Locke wanted to cut him off before he said anything else horrifying, but couldn't find words. "At one point I was losing so much sleep thinking about poison aerosols, I ended up building something myself just to get the idea out of my head. But I learned a lot from that one, so it wasn't a total waste. Kind of a neat project, thinking back. I had to build a fume hood, too, though I'm not sure I'll need it again." Abruptly he noticed what he was doing to the bread, dumped the improvised croutons into his bowl, and started eating.
Locke set his spoon down with a clink. He was a lot less hungry than he'd been five minutes ago. Edgar carried on, unperturbed.
But was he really? Locke remembered last fall. Edgar had had to go to that party with Gestahl, and beforehand he'd taken Locke up on the ramparts and said By the way, here's what to do if I die, and the staff said he'd been weird when he came home, and he'd stayed weird for over a week. He'd been wandering around shitfaced during the dinner hour. He'd been —
He must've been terrified.
"Uh," said Locke. "Hey." Edgar looked his way, expectant. "Are you... okay?"
No change in expression. "Sure. Why do you ask?"
Locke bristled. "Are you shitting me?"
"Not at all." In the face of Locke's indignant disbelief, he looked away, smiling faintly. There was no distance to stare into — opposite him was a wall with a painting of some mountains — so he stared off into the painting of mountains. "Someone in my position can't afford to be precious about that stuff. The kingdom needs more."
Locke kept staring. Did Figaro know what they had in Edgar? Years ago when some dumb teenage fancy boy had taken the throne, had they expected a mess, or a brat, or a figurehead — or had they understood what kind of king they were getting?
Edgar elbowed him. "It's good soup. Try some."
Oh, yeah. Right. Eating. It was a decent enough soup, sure. Now, try not to think about poison, or how much Edgar, in those shitty early days of his reign, could probably have used a fucking hug. Locke racked his brain for some more normal topic of conversation. "So — is that the weirdest machine you've ever made? The aerosol thing. Or is there anything crazier?"
"Ooh. Excellent question." His eyes glinted. "Define 'weird' as it applies here."
"I dunno. Wacky and impractical?"
Apparently that was the right thing to say. Edgar tented his fingers, grinning deviously. "Okay, how much do you know about acoustics?"
"I've heard of them," said Locke, affecting a thoughtful squint. It was a look meant to say, I definitely know at least four things, just gimme a minute.
"Well, I knew surprisingly little about the field until recently." (Only Edgar would look at some nerd shit and be surprised he didn't already know it.) "So I decided to rectify that the best way I know how. Actually — do you mind?"
"Mind what," Locke started to say, but Edgar had already grabbed a pencil and paper from his bag, and carefully moved the food aside. "Hey, I wasn't done —"
But Edgar was already drawing a bunch of squiggly lines and saying, "It turns out, in a uniform medium, and holding temperature constant, sound waves propagate in a predictable manner." And then he was drawing different stuff, and saying all this science stuff that had nothing to do with Locke's original question. But he looked happy, and he wasn't talking about his dead-parents baggage anymore. Every so often he would gesture a little too broadly and his arm would jog Locke's, or they'd bump shoulders, but Locke could tolerate that much. It was only when he thought of the soup getting cold that he bothered to reclaim his bowl and scoot a few inches away.
Now Edgar was talking about soldering something. This must be the part where it stopped being a random science lecture and started being a machine. And now it was, "My ears didn't stop ringing for three days," with an expression indicating that was what he'd wanted to happen. How hadn't this dipshit hadn't died yet? "But I made some adjustments to the bell. I can't totally shield the user from the vibrations, so I can't totally say it's unidirectional —"
"So let me get this straight," said Locke, sopping up the last of the stew with a piece of bread. "It's loud. And it doesn't do anything else. You just built a loud thing."
"Yes, admirably put. I built a loud thing." He looked down at the drawings in front of him and blinked, as if surprised at the scale they'd reached. "And I'm very proud of myself, if you couldn't tell."
Locke snorted. "I knew that a year ago. By the way? Finish your fucking dinner."
"What? It's your fault for distracting me. Asking me about my work is the most counterproductive thing you could've done." He crumpled his diagram up and pitched it into the fireplace. And finished his fucking dinner. "Do you plan to scowl at me like that the whole time? I am an adult, you know. You'd be amazed, the things I've accomplished without your supervision."
"Given the dumb shit you get up to when I am supervising, yeah, I'll believe that when I see it." Locke picked up the empty bowls and loaded them back onto the tray. "I'm assuming you expect me to take these back, since I do all the work around here."
Edgar blinked at him guilelessly. "Well, I'd do it myself, but I can't. Our hostess won't recognize me divested of my brilliant disguise. If she mistakes me for an intruder and clobbers me with a saucepan and I die on the spot, you'll have a lot of explaining to do."
"Aw, c'mon. I'm sure you take more killing than that."
"Thank you for the vote of confidence." Locke held the tray out toward him. "I'll need three hours to get fully dressed again, but if you're willing to wait, just leave it there."
Locke snorted. "I'm surprised you can get dressed at all without your army of servants."
Edgar nodded gravely. "That's why it takes me three hours. I don't know how to do up all the laces. But everyone's proud of my progress. Someday I may even be trusted to cut my own nails."
Locke's gaze automatically fell on Edgar's hands. The fingernails were cut short and blunt, except one thumbnail that looked recently torn. There was a partially healed scrape across the back of his left hand. He took pains to keep clean and presentable, but the man did his own dirty work.
Unless he thought it'd be funnier not to. And it wasn't even like this was a huge burden, but it was the principle of the thing. Locke made a point of sighing as he got up, and a bigger point of struggling to get the door open while carrying the tray, and Edgar just stared at him with an unchanging expression of mild interest. Ass.
When he returned, Edgar was standing before the fireplace, his back to the door. "You moved three whole feet while I was gone," Locke said. "Be careful your new active lifestyle doesn't wear you out."
Edgar looked back over his shoulder. The firelight picked over his face and set a gleaming aura around his hair. No human being had a right to be so… shiny.
"You didn't realize I'm nocturnal?" Edgar was saying. "In fact it's a common strategy in desert fauna."
"Since when are you fauna?"
"Oh, no. Oh, Locke. Stop, your ignorance is just heartbreaking." He turned the rest of the way around. "My point is, today was just a prelude. Now I'm awake."
"What, and now you expect me to entertain you?"
"I never said that, but now I'm curious about your plans."
Locke made a show of mulling them over. "Well, you said it took you three hours to get dressed, so a pubcrawl is out. All the bars'll be closed by the time we get there."
"Too bad," said Edgar. "Another time?" Was that — a note of genuine hope in his voice? Man, sometimes he just looked like a big dumb kid. (Very big, and very dumb.)
"I mean, if you can give your whole citizenry the slip once, why not another time?"
Edgar frowned in thought. "Well, I wouldn't want to make a habit of it. Being drunk on power and third-rate beer at the same time — one shudders to contemplate the morning after."
"You think I'd take you somewhere third-rate? You? My best friend?" Locke went to stand next to him and dropped a hand heavily on his shoulder. "'Cause it's gotta be fifth-rate or worse. If you're slumming it with me, I'm not letting you half-ass it. We're gonna be drinking stuff one step up from drain cleaner, and so help me, you're gonna like it." Edgar laughed. "I'm serious. Won't hurt me any. I have no class. I'll eat off a manhole cover. Don't even try me, I'll drink mud and sleep in a rotten stump."
"My goodness. How can I resist?"
Jokes aside, it occurred to Locke that this might, actually, be great. Edgar outside the castle was more interesting — something like a real person. And how much better, if they got a chance to hang out when lives weren't at stake? What would that be like, being out and about as a couple of normal dumbasses and not a king and a spy?
Edgar said, "Any idea where you'll be in September?"
"That's a bit..."
"It's a ways off, yes. But I think somewhere in that timeframe I could disappear for a good week." He held up a hand to forestall comment. "I got here on such short notice because you said it was urgent. And when it's urgent, I promise, I'll always try to respond this quickly. But it takes a certain amount of contrivance. If we're only going to be gadding about making nuisances of ourselves, I'd rather wait for an opportunity than further abuse everyone's goodwill."
That almost made sense. Almost. "But you're totally fine abusing my goodwill."
Edgar was all smiles. "What are friends for?"
Locke rolled his eyes. "Whatever. September, huh. It's hard to plan that far ahead in my line of work."
"I understand. Given how rapidly the situation is changing" — he stopped. For a second his face was wiped clean of all expression, and something dark passed behind his eyes. He didn't say it, even in jest, but it came into Locke's head all the same, and he suppressed a shudder. Who knows? We could be dead by then.
"Well," Locke said briskly, "I'm still planning to come by in a couple weeks as scheduled. We can hammer out the details then. Throw darts at your wall calendar, or whatever."
"I look forward to it." Edgar turned back toward the fire.
Locke frowned. "What about tonight, though? We still haven't settled that question." He elbowed Edgar in the side. "You just gonna stare at this until your eyes dry out?"
"I wanted to be sure everything burned. I wouldn't want the innkeeper to have any questions." He prodded the embers with a poker, then, satisfied, returned it to its stand. "Or, if anyone else should have questions, I wouldn't want her to have answers."
It took Locke a second to remember. "What, your weird nerd drawings? Could they give us away?"
"There's no harm making certain. Though I'll grant you the chance is pretty remote."
You could've taken them with you, Locke thought, and then, ridiculously, Or you could've given them to me. As if he'd have had any idea what to do with them? What a weird damn thing to get sentimental about. Instead he said, "I used to know a guy who'd get really high and stare at open flames and say he saw the future."
"Hmm. Are you suggesting we get into divination?"
He shrugged. "I've had worse ideas. I mean, we're basically having a sleepover, right, so why not do dumb sleepover shit?"
Edgar looked at him sidelong. "A category that includes...?"
"Let's see." Locke tapped a finger against his chin, thinking. Long damn time since he'd done anything that normal. "Already covered fortune-telling, so... arm wrestling. Vandalism."
"Nix that. The innkeeper doesn't deserve it."
"Agreed. What else... Petty gossip. Penny-ante poker? Nah, there's only two of us. Knife tricks. Cheese on toast. Or if you're really bored, we could always just make out."
Edgar slowly turned to face him, eyebrows raised almost to his hairline.
Locke hadn't known he was gonna say that until he heard the words, but — hey, why not? "I mean, what the hell? I wouldn't mind. You're not ugly."
Edgar laughed, incredulous. "Oh, yes. Right. I'm not ugly, that was the pivotal question. How magnanimous of you, Locke Cole from nowhere in particular, to think of throwing your favor away on me."
"Fine, wiseass. Forget it. I gave you, what, six other options?"
"No, no." He was grinning hard enough to set a personal record for smugness. And his previous record had been pretty fucking smug. "I'm curious about this one."
"What, like you don't know how it's done?" Locke folded his arms and stood back, smirking. "Or don't you? Maybe you just skip right to the main event? Tsk, tsk. That'd explain why you have so few repeat customers."
Edgar drew himself up snootily. "Delicacy and tact forbid my issuing the full rebuttal that deserves. Such disclosures are not mine to make. That aside" — his voice sank low — "let's pretend you believe what you just said. Pretend you exist in a world where it's remotely credible that I'm not good at what I do."
What the fuck was that voice? "Modest, aren't ya?" said Locke, with more effort than a half-ass quip was supposed to take.
Edgar went on in the same measured, thoughtful tone: "What does it say about you that, in this outlandish fantasy universe, you nonetheless made an advance on me? It smacks of a certain... oh, what's the word..."
"Fuck off."
"'Desperation?'"
Locke bristled. "It wasn't an 'advance.' I was joking. Get over yourself."
Edgar looked confused, and almost — but Locke must be imagining this part — disappointed? "Sorry," he said, sounding normal again. "I misunderstood." Then he shook his head. "No harm done, I hope. What else was on the list again? Snack food? General mischief?"
He let it go so easy.
And wasn't that what you wanted if you were just gonna fool around? Someone who'd be that cool about it. No expectations, no judgment. No harm done. You could trust him, and he wouldn't go making it all weird.
Locke said, with studied casualness, "Just wondering, if it had been an advance —"
"Then I'd make fun of you. As you've just seen."
"Oh. Right."
"But it doesn't mean I'm opposed." He propped one elbow on the fireplace lintel and shot Locke a wry look. "Is that lukewarm enough for you? That's what we're doing today, right, damning with faint praise? Given the choice between an intimate embrace with some impertinent treasure hunter and falling down a flight of stairs, I marginally prefer the former."
"You wanna go find some stairs, smart guy? We can test this scientifically."
"We could. But it'd be hard to run repeat trials. I assume any injury is compounded over time, which would tend to affect the outcome of later runs."
"What injury? From the stairs?"
"I was thinking more from this." Edgar reached over, and scraped a fingernail over the two (maybe three?) days' worth of stubble on Locke's jaw. "That's going to burn," he said, with an air of scholarly detachment.
Holy shit. Locke suppressed a shiver, whether at that faintest ghost of a touch, or the much closer contact those words suggested. That's going to burn. Great. Cool. Any preference where?
Edgar drew back, looking thoughtful. "So. Not a joke, then."
"Sure it was," said Locke, not as evenly as he would've liked to. "So's your face. And so's this." And he grabbed a fistful of expensive bathrobe and fucking went for it.
Edgar was taller than him. He hadn't accounted for that, in the maybe twenty seconds he'd been imagining how this would go down. He wasn't used to being the short one, and had a second of panic wondering if this was gonna fuck up his whole game. But — no, why worry about it that much? The whole point was not to worry. The hell was Edgar gonna judge him for? Edgar, for fuck's sake. This didn't have to be a big deal. They were chest to chest and Edgar's breath was hot in his mouth, but like... casually.
He wanted to be closer. He let go of Edgar's lapels and threw his arm over Edgar's shoulder, pulling him in tighter, shoving up against him with an urgency that should've been embarrassing — but whatever. Edgar hardly moved — except with one knuckle under Locke's jaw he gently adjusted the angle where their lips met, and then as he lowered his hand he let his fingertips graze Locke's throat, a touch so light it almost never happened, so light Locke was going to feel it for days.
And then —
And then he got serious. Locke had seen this change before, but he'd never gotten to feel it, and now Edgar's tongue was tracing the contours of his mouth with the most exquisite care. With the same unhurried deliberation Edgar ran one hand down Locke's side and lingered a while, stroking his hipbone, before easing that arm around Locke's waist and under his shirt. His hand, warm and capable and more callused than you'd expect, came to rest snug against the small of Locke's back.
Locke shuddered and leaned harder into Edgar and buried his free hand in that sun-colored mane up to the second knuckle. Toward the back of Edgar's skull it was still damp from the shower, but it was exactly as soft as he'd wanted to believe. Except for this slight coarsening in front of his ear where it stopped just short of shading into sideburns — where had he found time for a shave this smooth while traveling? Or maybe he was a naturally glossy person. Maybe somewhere in his ancestry there was a pane of window glass. Whatever. Didn't matter. Locke slid his hand a little further down and took Edgar's earlobe between his thumb and forefinger, and felt Edgar draw in a sharp breath. He smirked into the kiss. Gotcha. He kept toying with it, and pressed the advantage by sliding his knee in between Edgar's legs. Closer. He still wanted to be closer. He wanted every inch of Edgar's body against every inch of his, and he had no memory of not wanting it. Edgar — stubborn bastard — was still taking his time. But for all that outward calm — the methodical exploration of the kiss, the firm pressure of his hands — Locke could feel Edgar's pulse thundering to match his own.
If only this idiot would shut up more often, and do more of this instead, he'd be basically irresistible. And in one sense that wasn't even surprising. Locke had seen what he did with machines — the way he did anything that mattered to him. This same veiled intensity. This same meticulous attention.
Wait, fuck. Did that mean this mattered?
It wasn't supposed to. It was supposed to be —
But if it wasn't, then —
Edgar broke the kiss. "Everything okay?"
Locke pushed him away, and stumbled back until the bed caught him in the knees and he fell back onto it, sitting down hard.
"Locke, what's wrong?"
Locke shook his head mutely. Getting your rocks off was one thing, but — if that wasn't all this was, then — "Rachel," he choked, and put his head in his hands.
"Oh." Edgar swallowed audibly. "I'm so sorry. I wasn't thinking."
Locke's voice came out higher and sharper than he wanted: "Do you ever? Or do you just go wherever your dick leads you?"
No reply.
Locke looked up again, and wished he hadn't. Edgar's eyes were wide and his mouth hanging open in shocked betrayal. He said, "I —" And stopped. Thought about it. Started again. "Admittedly, I —"
"Shit. Shit shit shit, Edgar, I'm sorry —"
"No, hang on, I've almost got it." He held up a finger and drew in a breath with his eyes closed, composing himself. He opened them and smirked, almost convincingly, and said, "Admittedly, I never leave home without it."
It felt like swallowing splinters. "I didn't mean — no. I did, but I was — I was talking to me —"
Edgar softened, his shoulders slumping. "Locke, it's okay. You're... bereaved. I understand. It's fine."
"No." Locke scrubbed his hands over his face and stared at the wall, because that was the place it hurt the least to look. "It's not." He was shaky and sweating and, worst of all, his stupid fucking dick hadn't yet figured out that the moment was over. What? he thought, scathingly, You wanted it that badly? Then how did you not notice until now? How the fuck did you not figure it out?
The odd hookup was fine, he'd told himself. It wasn't disloyal. He had told himself this because in the first couple months after Rachel died he'd stuck his tongue in a lot of different mouths and he had to rationalize it somehow. The odd hookup was fine, as long as he didn't forget that she was the love of his life, and the only one who really counted. And he'd stopped doing even that, when he'd realized it didn't help.
This, specifically, was not fine. Because if he didn't love Edgar now, he was more than halfway there. And Edgar — okay, sure, he was good at what he did, but how far did that get you on its own? Hadn't it felt for a second like he meant it? Hadn't Locke, like an idiot, like a traitor, like a spineless son of a bitch, wanted it to?
Edgar sat down on the other bed facing him, a little off to the side, and they stared past each other.
"I'm sorry," Locke said again.
"Don't beat yourself up about it. You couldn't have known until you tried."
The fuck did he know about it? Where did he get off trying to be so reasonable? "You're the king of fucking Figaro. Have a little pride. What does it matter to you if I —" He heard what he was saying, and choked on it. The King of Figaro. He had just made a move on a reigning monarch, and probably burned an important alliance to the ground.
"Not out here, I'm not," said Edgar. "I'm here as a machinist." He leaned forward. Locke could feel that steady gaze on him again, and didn't meet it. "On your recommendation. As a personal friend." A measured pause. Did he have to be so oratorical about everything? "If we're honest, an increasingly concerned personal friend."
Locke owed him better than this. There was no fixing what he'd done to Rachel, but this, at least, he had to make an accounting for.
And so, haltingly, he told him. Way more than he'd ever planned to, but then, he'd never planned to tell anyone anything. The same guilt and shame that had stopped his mouth all this time were now squeezing at him to spill everything.
So he spilled. Everything.
He told Edgar how he'd carried her to her parents' home, not knowing if she'd ever wake up. How the door slammed in his face as they took her in. He told him about the waiting, all the goddamn waiting, pacing in the flower garden under her window because it was the closest they'd let him get to her bedside. And he told how, when she woke, he begged and pleaded his way past her mom and dad, I have to see her, I have to make this right, Rachel will back me up —
But she couldn't. And the door closed forever, until the Empire battered it down and he lost her again. And he couldn't lose her again. And he took her to that old man's basement workroom and wondered if the feeling of her limp and heavy in his arms was going to be their only legacy. He felt like he'd been carrying her forever, he couldn't remember her smile or — there was some gesture of hers, something she'd done with her hands, that had always gotten to him, and it was gone now. It had been cut out of the world and he didn't know how to put it back.
"She's still there," he said. "And I have to save her this time. That's all there is to it." He was surprised to find that his eyes were dry. Part of him was impressed he'd kept his shit together, and another part thought, The fuck is wrong with you? You don't even miss her that much? Do you even love her?
There was a long silence. Finally Edgar said, "Um, just to be clear — she is dead, correct?"
"He called it 'suspended animation.'"
"Right, right, but — when you found her, was she —" Locke stared at him bleakly. "Look, I'm not trying to be insensitive, but as I understand it there's a significant difference between true resurrection and just, say, waking someone up from a coma. Not that even the latter is easy! But the former — what's your plan? What evidence do you have —"
"I have a couple leads," said Locke. "There's — supposed to be this rock."
Out loud it sounded stupid. For one seething instant he hated himself for pinning his hopes to something so feeble, and hated Edgar for making him hear it.
"Of course there are rumors," said Edgar. "Every person alive has a ghost they want to talk to. Of course we have stories about cheating death, but that doesn't mean —"
"We're entering a new Age of Magic. For all the heinous shit Gestahl is doing, maybe I can get some good out of it."
"Yeah. Okay. Just so you know, the previous Age of Magic called this practice necromancy, and they didn't have great things to say about it, on the whole." He shook his head. "Living systems are a little too complex for me, so take this with a grain of salt, but — I don't think you can just knock the rust off and expect everything to work again."
"Edgar. I'm not asking for troubleshooting. I'm telling you how it is. The old man said there was a way to call her spirit back, and I'm gonna find it. End of story. I owe it to her. I wasn't — I should've been there."
This silence was even longer. Then, "Forgive me. Bad habit. This is… a lot to absorb."
"You think I'm crazy."
"No," said Edgar, wide-eyed, in a tone that had more than a little "yes" in it. "Look — if you want, I'll give you full access to the castle library. We've got a good store of old records — there may be leads there. I suggest caution about letting anyone see what you're researching, but —"
"Thanks, but no." Locke looked away. If he didn't look, he could pretend the offer was legitimate, and that Edgar actually thought his books would help. He could pretend it was that, instead of pity.
Or fear. Maybe when you learned this much fucked-up shit about someone you'd trusted, you just offered whatever you thought would keep them occupied so they wouldn't fuck up more shit on your watch. And while they were distracted, you quietly cut ties.
"So that's my story," he said, as he stood up. This was the end. "I'm gonna go get some air."
"I appreciate your candor," said Edgar. "That can't have been easy." Locke shrugged one shoulder. "We don't need to discuss this any further if you don't want to." Which "this?" Rachel? Necromancy? The kiss? "If you do, you know where I'll be."
He went out. There was a scraggly, unkempt little arbor to one side of the inn, and he barely made it there before he was shaking too hard to keep walking. What the hell had he just done? Well, obviously, aside from betraying Rachel, making selfish use of a good man, and torching his most significant friendship, all in about twelve minutes. Real efficient. Nice fucking job.
He could see just a sliver of the night sky from this bench — but small as it was, it was soft and full of stars. Rachel loved the night sky, and he'd forgotten that until right now. And she couldn't see those stars. And he was bound to forget more.
He knew he couldn't travel in this state, and the room was already paid for. He went back in. Eventually.
Edgar was sitting at the desk writing something, but looked up when Locke entered. "You okay?"
What do you think, genius? "What are you doing?"
He waved at the documents spread out before him. "Catching up on paperwork. I can leave the kingdom for a few days, but the kingdom doesn't leave me."
Locke shook his head. "You brought royal business with you? Edgar, that's dangerous. We're trying to be sneaky here."
"You know what else is dangerous? Signing stuff I don't understand." Then he looked grave. "Seriously. Will you be all right?"
Locke stared at him. He wasn't asking just for the sake of it. That wasn't how he operated. He wasn't expecting assurances that everything was fine. He was asking, Can I fix it?
But people weren't machines.
"I shouldn't have insulted you like that earlier," Locke blurted out. As if he hadn't done a lot worse. "I'm sorry."
"Not to worry," said Edgar, looking down to scribble a note on the document before him. His tone was airy; any window for seriousness had closed. "As you've noted in the past, I barely even have feelings." Locke winced. Edgar looked up again. "Oh. Was that mean of me? I think that might've been mean. Well, case in point, I guess. Are you going to bed? I can turn the light off."
"Nah, don't let me stop you. I can sleep with it on." As he pulled off his shoes and got into bed, he tried not to notice Edgar watching him, and he tried not to notice the slowness of his own movements or how his joints hurt like he was a thousand years old. He lay down and turned his back on the desk, and the light where his friend was still working.
He thought about saying, "Don't stay up too late," but he didn't know if he was allowed to care that much anymore. He'd probably forfeited that right. Edgar didn't need looking after anyway.
He wouldn't go back to Figaro until they made him. That simple. When there was official business, he'd pay the castle a visit, and otherwise he wouldn't. That was what he was supposed to be doing anyway. His stupid decisions shouldn't jeopardize the relationship between the Returners and the king of an allied nation (what the fuck had he been thinking), but the best he could do now was try to keep shit professional. Impersonal.
He spent a few months in Maranda and practiced not thinking about Edgar's hands.
Characters: Edgar/Locke
Word count: ~6400
Warnings: Strong language, stupid humor, Character Has Weird Relationship With Food, angst, And This Is Where It Gets Mildly Steamy
Notes: ???
Back at the inn Edgar spent a full forty-five minutes in the shower, and another twenty minutes in there doing who knew what, and finally emerged draped in an ornately patterned robe, wet hair fanned out over his shoulders. "I never get to do that at home," he said with a happy sigh, and sagged into the chair by the writing desk.
Where the lapels of the robe parted, a clean white shirt showed underneath. And so what? Locke thought. What had he expected instead, an unhindered view of the royal collarbone? Why would that matter? "You're gonna drip on everything," he said.
"Get me a towel? I'm too comfortable to get up."
"Y'know what," said Locke, "I changed my mind. You can go back to groveling, I liked that guy better." Though he was already up and heading out into the hall. After a long day of nothing but sitting around in various locations, he wanted to be moving around.
Edgar called after him, "That guy had a mustache, remember."
Locke grabbed one of the inn's thick gray towels from the shelf — though the place had seen better days, the proprietor still went all out on linens, which you had to respect — and, returning to their room, dropped it on Edgar's head. "Now I don't have to look at you. Problem solved."
Edgar flailed in alarm and clawed the towel off his face. Once clear, he adopted an attitude of sudden stony dignity, folded the towel neatly, and draped it over the seat back behind him. "Before I get too seriously into loafing around, is there anything else on today's docket?"
"Nah. Dinner, maybe. Then in the morning I'm off again. You got transportation back home?"
"Yes," said Edgar, "at the civilized hour of eleven, thank you very much."
"You're supposed to clear out of this room by ten."
"Well, I no longer believe a word you tell me, but if that's the case, I'll have a private word with the proprietress and pull out one of these." And he smiled. That same radiant, good-humored, extremely stupid smile he'd used that first day, before Locke had known who he was. "I'm sorry for any inconvenience, but the room was so homey I couldn't make myself leave any sooner. Are you aware you have exquisite taste in rugs? All the furnishings are so perfectly balanced —"
"Gross. Does that even work on anyone?"
Edgar frowned, giving Locke a dismissive once-over. "Well. I'd try it on you, but I can't think of anything to compliment. Did I hear you say something about dinner?"
"Not so fast."
"It occurs to me I haven't eaten since yesterday. But if you want me to wait until you have a good comeback, sure. Another hour can't hurt."
"Wait, you haven't —" He thought back. There hadn't been anything to eat at the railyard, even if anyone had been in the mood. And yeah, Edgar hadn't been awake enough for breakfast. "Dipshit. Okay, I'll go see what the innkeep's cooking tonight. You sit tight."
"Well, of course. Can't have me dripping on things, can we." He stretched his legs out and folded his arms behind his head, the picture of laziness. Fucker. He could at least say "thanks."
But it probably was better if Edgar didn't get to talk to the proprietor anyway. He'd just make a pass at her and make everything weird.
So Locke went down the hall into the kitchen, and picked her brain for local gossip for a bit. The fancy-britches tea merchant her sister-in-law kept house for had died heirless and a bunch of his old loot was going to auction — probably nothing Locke wanted, but fuck knew, weird stuff turned up sometimes. Couple local boys had gotten in a duel last month, as if dueling was still a thing people did, and almost killed each other, after which they'd had to be housed together while their wounds were being treated, and now they were best friends and going into business together, go figure. Almanac calling for a good year for onions and a bad year for lettuces, not that she, the innkeeper, could get much to grow in her back garden before somebody trampled it.
Then he remembered he'd kinda left Edgar to starve, so he grabbed the obvious segue. "Never woulda thought you had trouble with that. Those vegetables look amazing," he said, waving toward a simmering stockpot.
"'Cause I didn't grow 'em," she said, and then grinned and elbowed him. "You and your friend want soup? There's bread, too."
It was only when Locke returned with the heavily laden tray that he remembered there was no table other than that writing desk, wedged in the corner of the room. Edgar already had the long side. Locke set the food down and dragged a chair up to the short side of the desk. Kind of a cramped setup. He'd been here ten seconds and Edgar's knee had already jogged his twice.
Oh, well. He'd eaten in weirder places. He'd had worse people invading his personal space.
"Thanks," said Edgar, belatedly.
"Yeah, sure. Go to town." Locke took his own advice, starting in on the soup. "But what's this not eating all day BS? That better not be a habit." Locke had had some lean years. Shit sucked. If he had Edgar's money, he'd be eating nine or ten meals a day. If you could afford it, why wouldn't you?
"No, no," Edgar said quickly, "don't worry. Not anymore." Wait — anymore? He shook his head, smiling crookedly. "I used to be such an embarrassment. For the first couple years after Dad died, I was so suspicious of any proper sit-down meal. I just didn't do 'em. If I ate at all, it was standing up in my workroom." He shrugged. All casual. Like he was discussing some adolescent foolishness on the order of, Oh, you know, that time I broke a window and blamed the dog. "I pity the members of the court who had to cover for me. Lucky for everyone I outgrew that." He was casually tearing a piece of bread into cubes. His hands were steady as ever, but there was something mindless about the motion. "Poisoning is an occupational hazard like any other. Besides, if someone really wanted me out of the way, they wouldn't bother with the food. For me, the quickest path would be to spike the coffee with ergot or something." He frowned. "Or, wait, no. Ergot was the grain one. I guess that's just as well — nasty way to go. But there was some kind of toxic mold, I'm pretty sure..."
"Edgar. What the fuck."
"Oh, don't mind me. I did a lot of research on this at one point. I don't recommend it, for the record. Just made me paranoid." Locke wanted to cut him off before he said anything else horrifying, but couldn't find words. "At one point I was losing so much sleep thinking about poison aerosols, I ended up building something myself just to get the idea out of my head. But I learned a lot from that one, so it wasn't a total waste. Kind of a neat project, thinking back. I had to build a fume hood, too, though I'm not sure I'll need it again." Abruptly he noticed what he was doing to the bread, dumped the improvised croutons into his bowl, and started eating.
Locke set his spoon down with a clink. He was a lot less hungry than he'd been five minutes ago. Edgar carried on, unperturbed.
But was he really? Locke remembered last fall. Edgar had had to go to that party with Gestahl, and beforehand he'd taken Locke up on the ramparts and said By the way, here's what to do if I die, and the staff said he'd been weird when he came home, and he'd stayed weird for over a week. He'd been wandering around shitfaced during the dinner hour. He'd been —
He must've been terrified.
"Uh," said Locke. "Hey." Edgar looked his way, expectant. "Are you... okay?"
No change in expression. "Sure. Why do you ask?"
Locke bristled. "Are you shitting me?"
"Not at all." In the face of Locke's indignant disbelief, he looked away, smiling faintly. There was no distance to stare into — opposite him was a wall with a painting of some mountains — so he stared off into the painting of mountains. "Someone in my position can't afford to be precious about that stuff. The kingdom needs more."
Locke kept staring. Did Figaro know what they had in Edgar? Years ago when some dumb teenage fancy boy had taken the throne, had they expected a mess, or a brat, or a figurehead — or had they understood what kind of king they were getting?
Edgar elbowed him. "It's good soup. Try some."
Oh, yeah. Right. Eating. It was a decent enough soup, sure. Now, try not to think about poison, or how much Edgar, in those shitty early days of his reign, could probably have used a fucking hug. Locke racked his brain for some more normal topic of conversation. "So — is that the weirdest machine you've ever made? The aerosol thing. Or is there anything crazier?"
"Ooh. Excellent question." His eyes glinted. "Define 'weird' as it applies here."
"I dunno. Wacky and impractical?"
Apparently that was the right thing to say. Edgar tented his fingers, grinning deviously. "Okay, how much do you know about acoustics?"
"I've heard of them," said Locke, affecting a thoughtful squint. It was a look meant to say, I definitely know at least four things, just gimme a minute.
"Well, I knew surprisingly little about the field until recently." (Only Edgar would look at some nerd shit and be surprised he didn't already know it.) "So I decided to rectify that the best way I know how. Actually — do you mind?"
"Mind what," Locke started to say, but Edgar had already grabbed a pencil and paper from his bag, and carefully moved the food aside. "Hey, I wasn't done —"
But Edgar was already drawing a bunch of squiggly lines and saying, "It turns out, in a uniform medium, and holding temperature constant, sound waves propagate in a predictable manner." And then he was drawing different stuff, and saying all this science stuff that had nothing to do with Locke's original question. But he looked happy, and he wasn't talking about his dead-parents baggage anymore. Every so often he would gesture a little too broadly and his arm would jog Locke's, or they'd bump shoulders, but Locke could tolerate that much. It was only when he thought of the soup getting cold that he bothered to reclaim his bowl and scoot a few inches away.
Now Edgar was talking about soldering something. This must be the part where it stopped being a random science lecture and started being a machine. And now it was, "My ears didn't stop ringing for three days," with an expression indicating that was what he'd wanted to happen. How hadn't this dipshit hadn't died yet? "But I made some adjustments to the bell. I can't totally shield the user from the vibrations, so I can't totally say it's unidirectional —"
"So let me get this straight," said Locke, sopping up the last of the stew with a piece of bread. "It's loud. And it doesn't do anything else. You just built a loud thing."
"Yes, admirably put. I built a loud thing." He looked down at the drawings in front of him and blinked, as if surprised at the scale they'd reached. "And I'm very proud of myself, if you couldn't tell."
Locke snorted. "I knew that a year ago. By the way? Finish your fucking dinner."
"What? It's your fault for distracting me. Asking me about my work is the most counterproductive thing you could've done." He crumpled his diagram up and pitched it into the fireplace. And finished his fucking dinner. "Do you plan to scowl at me like that the whole time? I am an adult, you know. You'd be amazed, the things I've accomplished without your supervision."
"Given the dumb shit you get up to when I am supervising, yeah, I'll believe that when I see it." Locke picked up the empty bowls and loaded them back onto the tray. "I'm assuming you expect me to take these back, since I do all the work around here."
Edgar blinked at him guilelessly. "Well, I'd do it myself, but I can't. Our hostess won't recognize me divested of my brilliant disguise. If she mistakes me for an intruder and clobbers me with a saucepan and I die on the spot, you'll have a lot of explaining to do."
"Aw, c'mon. I'm sure you take more killing than that."
"Thank you for the vote of confidence." Locke held the tray out toward him. "I'll need three hours to get fully dressed again, but if you're willing to wait, just leave it there."
Locke snorted. "I'm surprised you can get dressed at all without your army of servants."
Edgar nodded gravely. "That's why it takes me three hours. I don't know how to do up all the laces. But everyone's proud of my progress. Someday I may even be trusted to cut my own nails."
Locke's gaze automatically fell on Edgar's hands. The fingernails were cut short and blunt, except one thumbnail that looked recently torn. There was a partially healed scrape across the back of his left hand. He took pains to keep clean and presentable, but the man did his own dirty work.
Unless he thought it'd be funnier not to. And it wasn't even like this was a huge burden, but it was the principle of the thing. Locke made a point of sighing as he got up, and a bigger point of struggling to get the door open while carrying the tray, and Edgar just stared at him with an unchanging expression of mild interest. Ass.
When he returned, Edgar was standing before the fireplace, his back to the door. "You moved three whole feet while I was gone," Locke said. "Be careful your new active lifestyle doesn't wear you out."
Edgar looked back over his shoulder. The firelight picked over his face and set a gleaming aura around his hair. No human being had a right to be so… shiny.
"You didn't realize I'm nocturnal?" Edgar was saying. "In fact it's a common strategy in desert fauna."
"Since when are you fauna?"
"Oh, no. Oh, Locke. Stop, your ignorance is just heartbreaking." He turned the rest of the way around. "My point is, today was just a prelude. Now I'm awake."
"What, and now you expect me to entertain you?"
"I never said that, but now I'm curious about your plans."
Locke made a show of mulling them over. "Well, you said it took you three hours to get dressed, so a pubcrawl is out. All the bars'll be closed by the time we get there."
"Too bad," said Edgar. "Another time?" Was that — a note of genuine hope in his voice? Man, sometimes he just looked like a big dumb kid. (Very big, and very dumb.)
"I mean, if you can give your whole citizenry the slip once, why not another time?"
Edgar frowned in thought. "Well, I wouldn't want to make a habit of it. Being drunk on power and third-rate beer at the same time — one shudders to contemplate the morning after."
"You think I'd take you somewhere third-rate? You? My best friend?" Locke went to stand next to him and dropped a hand heavily on his shoulder. "'Cause it's gotta be fifth-rate or worse. If you're slumming it with me, I'm not letting you half-ass it. We're gonna be drinking stuff one step up from drain cleaner, and so help me, you're gonna like it." Edgar laughed. "I'm serious. Won't hurt me any. I have no class. I'll eat off a manhole cover. Don't even try me, I'll drink mud and sleep in a rotten stump."
"My goodness. How can I resist?"
Jokes aside, it occurred to Locke that this might, actually, be great. Edgar outside the castle was more interesting — something like a real person. And how much better, if they got a chance to hang out when lives weren't at stake? What would that be like, being out and about as a couple of normal dumbasses and not a king and a spy?
Edgar said, "Any idea where you'll be in September?"
"That's a bit..."
"It's a ways off, yes. But I think somewhere in that timeframe I could disappear for a good week." He held up a hand to forestall comment. "I got here on such short notice because you said it was urgent. And when it's urgent, I promise, I'll always try to respond this quickly. But it takes a certain amount of contrivance. If we're only going to be gadding about making nuisances of ourselves, I'd rather wait for an opportunity than further abuse everyone's goodwill."
That almost made sense. Almost. "But you're totally fine abusing my goodwill."
Edgar was all smiles. "What are friends for?"
Locke rolled his eyes. "Whatever. September, huh. It's hard to plan that far ahead in my line of work."
"I understand. Given how rapidly the situation is changing" — he stopped. For a second his face was wiped clean of all expression, and something dark passed behind his eyes. He didn't say it, even in jest, but it came into Locke's head all the same, and he suppressed a shudder. Who knows? We could be dead by then.
"Well," Locke said briskly, "I'm still planning to come by in a couple weeks as scheduled. We can hammer out the details then. Throw darts at your wall calendar, or whatever."
"I look forward to it." Edgar turned back toward the fire.
Locke frowned. "What about tonight, though? We still haven't settled that question." He elbowed Edgar in the side. "You just gonna stare at this until your eyes dry out?"
"I wanted to be sure everything burned. I wouldn't want the innkeeper to have any questions." He prodded the embers with a poker, then, satisfied, returned it to its stand. "Or, if anyone else should have questions, I wouldn't want her to have answers."
It took Locke a second to remember. "What, your weird nerd drawings? Could they give us away?"
"There's no harm making certain. Though I'll grant you the chance is pretty remote."
You could've taken them with you, Locke thought, and then, ridiculously, Or you could've given them to me. As if he'd have had any idea what to do with them? What a weird damn thing to get sentimental about. Instead he said, "I used to know a guy who'd get really high and stare at open flames and say he saw the future."
"Hmm. Are you suggesting we get into divination?"
He shrugged. "I've had worse ideas. I mean, we're basically having a sleepover, right, so why not do dumb sleepover shit?"
Edgar looked at him sidelong. "A category that includes...?"
"Let's see." Locke tapped a finger against his chin, thinking. Long damn time since he'd done anything that normal. "Already covered fortune-telling, so... arm wrestling. Vandalism."
"Nix that. The innkeeper doesn't deserve it."
"Agreed. What else... Petty gossip. Penny-ante poker? Nah, there's only two of us. Knife tricks. Cheese on toast. Or if you're really bored, we could always just make out."
Edgar slowly turned to face him, eyebrows raised almost to his hairline.
Locke hadn't known he was gonna say that until he heard the words, but — hey, why not? "I mean, what the hell? I wouldn't mind. You're not ugly."
Edgar laughed, incredulous. "Oh, yes. Right. I'm not ugly, that was the pivotal question. How magnanimous of you, Locke Cole from nowhere in particular, to think of throwing your favor away on me."
"Fine, wiseass. Forget it. I gave you, what, six other options?"
"No, no." He was grinning hard enough to set a personal record for smugness. And his previous record had been pretty fucking smug. "I'm curious about this one."
"What, like you don't know how it's done?" Locke folded his arms and stood back, smirking. "Or don't you? Maybe you just skip right to the main event? Tsk, tsk. That'd explain why you have so few repeat customers."
Edgar drew himself up snootily. "Delicacy and tact forbid my issuing the full rebuttal that deserves. Such disclosures are not mine to make. That aside" — his voice sank low — "let's pretend you believe what you just said. Pretend you exist in a world where it's remotely credible that I'm not good at what I do."
What the fuck was that voice? "Modest, aren't ya?" said Locke, with more effort than a half-ass quip was supposed to take.
Edgar went on in the same measured, thoughtful tone: "What does it say about you that, in this outlandish fantasy universe, you nonetheless made an advance on me? It smacks of a certain... oh, what's the word..."
"Fuck off."
"'Desperation?'"
Locke bristled. "It wasn't an 'advance.' I was joking. Get over yourself."
Edgar looked confused, and almost — but Locke must be imagining this part — disappointed? "Sorry," he said, sounding normal again. "I misunderstood." Then he shook his head. "No harm done, I hope. What else was on the list again? Snack food? General mischief?"
He let it go so easy.
And wasn't that what you wanted if you were just gonna fool around? Someone who'd be that cool about it. No expectations, no judgment. No harm done. You could trust him, and he wouldn't go making it all weird.
Locke said, with studied casualness, "Just wondering, if it had been an advance —"
"Then I'd make fun of you. As you've just seen."
"Oh. Right."
"But it doesn't mean I'm opposed." He propped one elbow on the fireplace lintel and shot Locke a wry look. "Is that lukewarm enough for you? That's what we're doing today, right, damning with faint praise? Given the choice between an intimate embrace with some impertinent treasure hunter and falling down a flight of stairs, I marginally prefer the former."
"You wanna go find some stairs, smart guy? We can test this scientifically."
"We could. But it'd be hard to run repeat trials. I assume any injury is compounded over time, which would tend to affect the outcome of later runs."
"What injury? From the stairs?"
"I was thinking more from this." Edgar reached over, and scraped a fingernail over the two (maybe three?) days' worth of stubble on Locke's jaw. "That's going to burn," he said, with an air of scholarly detachment.
Holy shit. Locke suppressed a shiver, whether at that faintest ghost of a touch, or the much closer contact those words suggested. That's going to burn. Great. Cool. Any preference where?
Edgar drew back, looking thoughtful. "So. Not a joke, then."
"Sure it was," said Locke, not as evenly as he would've liked to. "So's your face. And so's this." And he grabbed a fistful of expensive bathrobe and fucking went for it.
Edgar was taller than him. He hadn't accounted for that, in the maybe twenty seconds he'd been imagining how this would go down. He wasn't used to being the short one, and had a second of panic wondering if this was gonna fuck up his whole game. But — no, why worry about it that much? The whole point was not to worry. The hell was Edgar gonna judge him for? Edgar, for fuck's sake. This didn't have to be a big deal. They were chest to chest and Edgar's breath was hot in his mouth, but like... casually.
He wanted to be closer. He let go of Edgar's lapels and threw his arm over Edgar's shoulder, pulling him in tighter, shoving up against him with an urgency that should've been embarrassing — but whatever. Edgar hardly moved — except with one knuckle under Locke's jaw he gently adjusted the angle where their lips met, and then as he lowered his hand he let his fingertips graze Locke's throat, a touch so light it almost never happened, so light Locke was going to feel it for days.
And then —
And then he got serious. Locke had seen this change before, but he'd never gotten to feel it, and now Edgar's tongue was tracing the contours of his mouth with the most exquisite care. With the same unhurried deliberation Edgar ran one hand down Locke's side and lingered a while, stroking his hipbone, before easing that arm around Locke's waist and under his shirt. His hand, warm and capable and more callused than you'd expect, came to rest snug against the small of Locke's back.
Locke shuddered and leaned harder into Edgar and buried his free hand in that sun-colored mane up to the second knuckle. Toward the back of Edgar's skull it was still damp from the shower, but it was exactly as soft as he'd wanted to believe. Except for this slight coarsening in front of his ear where it stopped just short of shading into sideburns — where had he found time for a shave this smooth while traveling? Or maybe he was a naturally glossy person. Maybe somewhere in his ancestry there was a pane of window glass. Whatever. Didn't matter. Locke slid his hand a little further down and took Edgar's earlobe between his thumb and forefinger, and felt Edgar draw in a sharp breath. He smirked into the kiss. Gotcha. He kept toying with it, and pressed the advantage by sliding his knee in between Edgar's legs. Closer. He still wanted to be closer. He wanted every inch of Edgar's body against every inch of his, and he had no memory of not wanting it. Edgar — stubborn bastard — was still taking his time. But for all that outward calm — the methodical exploration of the kiss, the firm pressure of his hands — Locke could feel Edgar's pulse thundering to match his own.
If only this idiot would shut up more often, and do more of this instead, he'd be basically irresistible. And in one sense that wasn't even surprising. Locke had seen what he did with machines — the way he did anything that mattered to him. This same veiled intensity. This same meticulous attention.
Wait, fuck. Did that mean this mattered?
It wasn't supposed to. It was supposed to be —
But if it wasn't, then —
Edgar broke the kiss. "Everything okay?"
Locke pushed him away, and stumbled back until the bed caught him in the knees and he fell back onto it, sitting down hard.
"Locke, what's wrong?"
Locke shook his head mutely. Getting your rocks off was one thing, but — if that wasn't all this was, then — "Rachel," he choked, and put his head in his hands.
"Oh." Edgar swallowed audibly. "I'm so sorry. I wasn't thinking."
Locke's voice came out higher and sharper than he wanted: "Do you ever? Or do you just go wherever your dick leads you?"
No reply.
Locke looked up again, and wished he hadn't. Edgar's eyes were wide and his mouth hanging open in shocked betrayal. He said, "I —" And stopped. Thought about it. Started again. "Admittedly, I —"
"Shit. Shit shit shit, Edgar, I'm sorry —"
"No, hang on, I've almost got it." He held up a finger and drew in a breath with his eyes closed, composing himself. He opened them and smirked, almost convincingly, and said, "Admittedly, I never leave home without it."
It felt like swallowing splinters. "I didn't mean — no. I did, but I was — I was talking to me —"
Edgar softened, his shoulders slumping. "Locke, it's okay. You're... bereaved. I understand. It's fine."
"No." Locke scrubbed his hands over his face and stared at the wall, because that was the place it hurt the least to look. "It's not." He was shaky and sweating and, worst of all, his stupid fucking dick hadn't yet figured out that the moment was over. What? he thought, scathingly, You wanted it that badly? Then how did you not notice until now? How the fuck did you not figure it out?
The odd hookup was fine, he'd told himself. It wasn't disloyal. He had told himself this because in the first couple months after Rachel died he'd stuck his tongue in a lot of different mouths and he had to rationalize it somehow. The odd hookup was fine, as long as he didn't forget that she was the love of his life, and the only one who really counted. And he'd stopped doing even that, when he'd realized it didn't help.
This, specifically, was not fine. Because if he didn't love Edgar now, he was more than halfway there. And Edgar — okay, sure, he was good at what he did, but how far did that get you on its own? Hadn't it felt for a second like he meant it? Hadn't Locke, like an idiot, like a traitor, like a spineless son of a bitch, wanted it to?
Edgar sat down on the other bed facing him, a little off to the side, and they stared past each other.
"I'm sorry," Locke said again.
"Don't beat yourself up about it. You couldn't have known until you tried."
The fuck did he know about it? Where did he get off trying to be so reasonable? "You're the king of fucking Figaro. Have a little pride. What does it matter to you if I —" He heard what he was saying, and choked on it. The King of Figaro. He had just made a move on a reigning monarch, and probably burned an important alliance to the ground.
"Not out here, I'm not," said Edgar. "I'm here as a machinist." He leaned forward. Locke could feel that steady gaze on him again, and didn't meet it. "On your recommendation. As a personal friend." A measured pause. Did he have to be so oratorical about everything? "If we're honest, an increasingly concerned personal friend."
Locke owed him better than this. There was no fixing what he'd done to Rachel, but this, at least, he had to make an accounting for.
And so, haltingly, he told him. Way more than he'd ever planned to, but then, he'd never planned to tell anyone anything. The same guilt and shame that had stopped his mouth all this time were now squeezing at him to spill everything.
So he spilled. Everything.
He told Edgar how he'd carried her to her parents' home, not knowing if she'd ever wake up. How the door slammed in his face as they took her in. He told him about the waiting, all the goddamn waiting, pacing in the flower garden under her window because it was the closest they'd let him get to her bedside. And he told how, when she woke, he begged and pleaded his way past her mom and dad, I have to see her, I have to make this right, Rachel will back me up —
But she couldn't. And the door closed forever, until the Empire battered it down and he lost her again. And he couldn't lose her again. And he took her to that old man's basement workroom and wondered if the feeling of her limp and heavy in his arms was going to be their only legacy. He felt like he'd been carrying her forever, he couldn't remember her smile or — there was some gesture of hers, something she'd done with her hands, that had always gotten to him, and it was gone now. It had been cut out of the world and he didn't know how to put it back.
"She's still there," he said. "And I have to save her this time. That's all there is to it." He was surprised to find that his eyes were dry. Part of him was impressed he'd kept his shit together, and another part thought, The fuck is wrong with you? You don't even miss her that much? Do you even love her?
There was a long silence. Finally Edgar said, "Um, just to be clear — she is dead, correct?"
"He called it 'suspended animation.'"
"Right, right, but — when you found her, was she —" Locke stared at him bleakly. "Look, I'm not trying to be insensitive, but as I understand it there's a significant difference between true resurrection and just, say, waking someone up from a coma. Not that even the latter is easy! But the former — what's your plan? What evidence do you have —"
"I have a couple leads," said Locke. "There's — supposed to be this rock."
Out loud it sounded stupid. For one seething instant he hated himself for pinning his hopes to something so feeble, and hated Edgar for making him hear it.
"Of course there are rumors," said Edgar. "Every person alive has a ghost they want to talk to. Of course we have stories about cheating death, but that doesn't mean —"
"We're entering a new Age of Magic. For all the heinous shit Gestahl is doing, maybe I can get some good out of it."
"Yeah. Okay. Just so you know, the previous Age of Magic called this practice necromancy, and they didn't have great things to say about it, on the whole." He shook his head. "Living systems are a little too complex for me, so take this with a grain of salt, but — I don't think you can just knock the rust off and expect everything to work again."
"Edgar. I'm not asking for troubleshooting. I'm telling you how it is. The old man said there was a way to call her spirit back, and I'm gonna find it. End of story. I owe it to her. I wasn't — I should've been there."
This silence was even longer. Then, "Forgive me. Bad habit. This is… a lot to absorb."
"You think I'm crazy."
"No," said Edgar, wide-eyed, in a tone that had more than a little "yes" in it. "Look — if you want, I'll give you full access to the castle library. We've got a good store of old records — there may be leads there. I suggest caution about letting anyone see what you're researching, but —"
"Thanks, but no." Locke looked away. If he didn't look, he could pretend the offer was legitimate, and that Edgar actually thought his books would help. He could pretend it was that, instead of pity.
Or fear. Maybe when you learned this much fucked-up shit about someone you'd trusted, you just offered whatever you thought would keep them occupied so they wouldn't fuck up more shit on your watch. And while they were distracted, you quietly cut ties.
"So that's my story," he said, as he stood up. This was the end. "I'm gonna go get some air."
"I appreciate your candor," said Edgar. "That can't have been easy." Locke shrugged one shoulder. "We don't need to discuss this any further if you don't want to." Which "this?" Rachel? Necromancy? The kiss? "If you do, you know where I'll be."
He went out. There was a scraggly, unkempt little arbor to one side of the inn, and he barely made it there before he was shaking too hard to keep walking. What the hell had he just done? Well, obviously, aside from betraying Rachel, making selfish use of a good man, and torching his most significant friendship, all in about twelve minutes. Real efficient. Nice fucking job.
He could see just a sliver of the night sky from this bench — but small as it was, it was soft and full of stars. Rachel loved the night sky, and he'd forgotten that until right now. And she couldn't see those stars. And he was bound to forget more.
He knew he couldn't travel in this state, and the room was already paid for. He went back in. Eventually.
Edgar was sitting at the desk writing something, but looked up when Locke entered. "You okay?"
What do you think, genius? "What are you doing?"
He waved at the documents spread out before him. "Catching up on paperwork. I can leave the kingdom for a few days, but the kingdom doesn't leave me."
Locke shook his head. "You brought royal business with you? Edgar, that's dangerous. We're trying to be sneaky here."
"You know what else is dangerous? Signing stuff I don't understand." Then he looked grave. "Seriously. Will you be all right?"
Locke stared at him. He wasn't asking just for the sake of it. That wasn't how he operated. He wasn't expecting assurances that everything was fine. He was asking, Can I fix it?
But people weren't machines.
"I shouldn't have insulted you like that earlier," Locke blurted out. As if he hadn't done a lot worse. "I'm sorry."
"Not to worry," said Edgar, looking down to scribble a note on the document before him. His tone was airy; any window for seriousness had closed. "As you've noted in the past, I barely even have feelings." Locke winced. Edgar looked up again. "Oh. Was that mean of me? I think that might've been mean. Well, case in point, I guess. Are you going to bed? I can turn the light off."
"Nah, don't let me stop you. I can sleep with it on." As he pulled off his shoes and got into bed, he tried not to notice Edgar watching him, and he tried not to notice the slowness of his own movements or how his joints hurt like he was a thousand years old. He lay down and turned his back on the desk, and the light where his friend was still working.
He thought about saying, "Don't stay up too late," but he didn't know if he was allowed to care that much anymore. He'd probably forfeited that right. Edgar didn't need looking after anyway.
He wouldn't go back to Figaro until they made him. That simple. When there was official business, he'd pay the castle a visit, and otherwise he wouldn't. That was what he was supposed to be doing anyway. His stupid decisions shouldn't jeopardize the relationship between the Returners and the king of an allied nation (what the fuck had he been thinking), but the best he could do now was try to keep shit professional. Impersonal.
He spent a few months in Maranda and practiced not thinking about Edgar's hands.
