Chapter Text
“Caeneus! I’m home!” Kirschtaria Wodime’s voice rang out clear through their apartment, accompanied by the jingling of keys as he dropped his into the little ceramic bowl by the door.
The servant in question merely lifted his head enough to look over the arm of the couch he was currently sprawled across. “Hey blondie. You’re back early.”
“It’s four thirty on a friday. I’m late. Are you well?” The Master carefully toed off his shoes and made his way into the apartment, shedding his suit jacket and messenger bag in their designated spots as he made his way over to his servant.
“Just underestimated the timing a bit. It’s not like I’m sitting by the door waiting for you to come home, you know.” He promptly dropped his phone onto his stomach as his Mage came over and hovered anxiously over him for a moment. “Take a chill pill, Blondie, I’m perfectly fine.”
“I know, just after last month with the mission, I-” He caught a glimpse of the phone screen and saw the little puzzle game, halfway through a selection cycle. “Oh. I see! This is that gardens vs undead game that Peperoncino showed you, yes?” Kirschtaria made a move as if to kneel in front of the couch and Caeneus rolled into a sitting position, quick as a flash. He
despised
seeing his Master struggle to be mobile, and kneeling, especially with nothing under him to support him, was one of the things Kirschtaria still had significant trouble with. It never stopped him from doing it, but it did make his Servant worry.
It turned out that this whole caring thing was a two-way street. Caeneus didn’t hate it as much as he should have.
“You mean plants vs zombies? Yeah, it is.” For a half moment, Caeneus searched Kirschtaria’s face for any sign of mocking. When his master just looked vaguely puzzled at the distinction, he promptly pulled Kirschtaria down next to him on the couch and held his phone out for his mage to see. “See? You use the plants to shoot at the zombies. It’s real handy, too bad none of it works in real life. It’d make trying to keep this place safe a whole lot easier.”
“I am sure I can arrange for a garden out front if-”
Caeneus burst into raucous laughter. “No, dumbass, the plants I can get here won’t be killing people. So there’s no point. Get it?”
“Ah, yes, I see. My mistake.” He examined the little phone screen, watching the little dancing sunflowers produce little cartoon suns as Caeneus collected them. He seemed just a little bit crestfallen, and that would absolutely not stand.
“I’d rather have your telescopes cluttering up the place than have to worry about watering something before it dies. The telescopes are functional and they don’t get dirt everywhere.” He shrugged, and leaned into his Master, pressing him into the arm of the couch in such a way that he didn’t really have an option besides putting his arm around Kirschtaria. It was a dirty trick, but it made Kirschtaria smile, and so he’d do it over and over.
That smile made an appearance, a gentle, satisfied sort of expression that Caeneus had never seen him make at anyone else. That realization had hit him heavily the first time he’d recognized that fierce possession in his chest. He made this man happy. He’d never made
anyone
happy like this before. Not even the one who had destroyed and made him again had looked at him with that kind of settled peace in his eye.
Sure, Caeneus had seen it other places. Jason had looked at them all that way when the Argo was full and Hercules had been at his side and they were all getting along for once. He’d seen it on the faces of the women around him on themyscira, growing up and watching them twine their hands together as they followed children through the market.
It had taken him weeks to find words for the emotion. Devotion. Domestic bliss. Contentment. Trust. Peace had come up in a google suggestion, but he would never find it in him to believe that he had found himself peace. Still, there were things here that had never
been
before. He was certain of it. People like him simply were not meant to have someone whose simple touch quieted an anger that had scared the gods themselves.
Yet as Kirschtaria leaned into Caeneus’ shoulder, peering over at his phone as his gloved hand braced on his lap, something settled between them. Whatever that thing was, Kirschtaria let him have it for the moment, let him hold his master close and without comment as the other decompressed from the school day.
And then-
“Caeneus, do you know how to sail?” The question was overly innocent in that way that only spoke of more problems.
“Course I know how to fuckin sail. I have all the blessings of that accursed sea bastard, don’t I? I’m as close to a sea god as you can summon without getting him. I can sail us anywhere in the fuckin’ world and you have the nerve to ask if I can even sail?” Caeneus stared down at Kirschtaria in utter disbelief.
“It was a rhetorical question my dear Lancer,” Kirschtaria smiled, doting and fond even in the face of his Servant’s annoyance. And then he held up his other hand, still gloved as it was, and opened it. Around one of his fingers was hooked another ring of metal, and on it dangled a key and a keychain, something that appeared to be a pair of entwined roses. One yellow, one red.
“That’s a key. Am I supposed to be impressed? We’ve got a whole bowl full of those fuckers.” Caeneus grumped, still unhappy about the sailing question.
“The keys get us onto Lord El Melloi’s boat, my dearest Lancer. Your fellow Lancer likes to sail as well, it seems, and there are supposed to be clear skies tonight in the atlantic. I did my homework. If we leave as soon as we’re done packing, we should make the coast before dinner and I have an ice chest full of food that our friends are putting into the boot of the car as we speak.” Kirschtaria grinned, excited as he dangled the key in front of Caeneus like someone might bait a very large cat. Not without caution, but with the intent to tease all the same.
Caeneus looked down at his Master, assessing the situation for a minute before reaching out and poking at the key around Kirschtaria’s fingers. “You did all this for me?”
“I wanted to do something fun together. Seemed like a clear weekend to do it, just you and me. Well, you and me as soon as we reach the marina, Myst. Peperoncino volunteered to drive us there so that we don’t need to worry about parking the car. What do you think?” He dangled the keys again, giving them a little shake. They jingled merrily as they shook there, and Caeneus let them tangle around his fingers.
“And I assume you’re all packed?” Caeneus shifted his hand to trail along Kirschtaria’s and watched as his eyes closed in pleasure at the gentle touch.
“Finished this morning. Just have to put the telescope into its bag.” His skin was hidden, as always, but Caeneus’ fingers curling around his wrist still made him shiver pleasantly. “Are you interested in going with me?”
“I’m sure as hell not letting you go alone. Do
you
know how to sail?” Caeneus pulled the hand down to his level and gently slid the key ring off of Kirsch’s finger and examined them. “I don’t trust you not to capsize and drown out there. Obviously I’m coming with. Like I’d ever let you on a boat without me. You’d probably fall right off the side.”
“It’s true, I don’t have any experience with this sort of thing. I’m grateful for your expertise!”
“Can it, pretty boy. I just don’t want to discorporate this weekend.” Caeneus rolled up, gently letting Kirsch’s wrist fall back into his lap as he got to his feet. The servant made the move look utterly effortless, the strength in his form powerful in all the ways that Kirschtaria was not. They were matched like that. There were gaps that they each filled, and it made them complete in ways that Kirschtaria hadn’t even begun to explore fully.
The others had said similar things, of course, that the Servant they had summoned fit against them like a puzzle piece they hadn’t known was missing. Except for Himi- Yu Meiren. She had known that piece of herself was missing all along and wasn’t afraid to scream it at them at all hours of the day. They’d all been happy for her, if startled by first the Prince, and then the… mechanical horse. Still, if she was happy that was all that mattered.
His own summon, though, had promptly threatened him and then tried to kill him. And it had taken every ounce of his not-insubstantial magecraft to fight Caeneus to a defeat. Since then, it hadn’t been what he’d called peaceful, but it was still breathtakingly perfect. Caeneus had grown from wary to skittish to tentatively settled to- to whatever pleasant warmth they had between them now. And after the heart-to-heart they’d had about avoiding a certain part of London’s back streets and his own chronic conditions, well, it had been almost nine months straight of fierce protectiveness couched in defensive snarling. He also hadn’t walked anywhere alone since that conversation. He’d come back from class today escorted by Daybit and the Berserker with cornsilk hair that accompanied him like a smoky shadow. It had been practical, yes, but it had also been under his own Lancer’s request of the pair of them.
So even as Caeneus disappeared into their bedroom, cursing and throwing things into a bag, there was no doubting that Caeneus was just as excited about their outing as Kirschtaria himself was. A true rejection of the idea would have been far harsher on the Lancer’s part than simply agreeing with light threatening. It meant that when he started to break down the telescope and set it gently into his carry bag, he wasn’t unduly shocked by the second pair of tanned hands that appeared to help fit things in.
“Your hands are shaking. What happened?” The question was brusque, tactless, and yet it was Caeneus through and through.
Kirschtaria’s hands found the zipper of the bag, and tugged it smoothly, relieved when the teeth fed together without much urging. “I’m just a little tired, that’s all. We did some work today on casting without preparation in El Melloi’s class and I suppose I tried about as hard as I reasonably could.”
“You’re an idiot, you know that? You’ve gotta quit doing that.” The bag was jerked out of his hands before he could protest, though it was safely slung over his servant’s shoulder. He’d even taken the pains not to jostle it in its case.
Kirschtaria merely smiled up at his servant, who was now standing above him rather ominously. “I do try to be careful, I just get carried away.”
“You’re a dipshit and I bet you’d have crumbled to dust without me here. You’re falling apart at the seams, ‘Taria.” The words were softened somewhat by the nickname. Caeneus only ever called him that when he didn’t want the words to hit as hard as he thought they might.
Still, the sting of the reminder that he was indeed falling apart was still there. No matter how hard he worked, there would always be that horrid knowledge that he could just… fall to pieces. That wasn’t Caeneus’ fault though. Far from it. But from the look on his face, he’d still felt the backlash of the sudden hurt as it rebounded through Kirschtaria’s heart. Not that it had shown on Kirschtaria’s own face, no, just where nobody could see it. Old habits die hard, and he was still first and foremost a mage. Easier to pretend the hurt wasn’t there than to make a big deal of it.
Caeneus turned away from him for a moment in the tenuous silence that had grown between them. He picked himself up and looked to the door, as if gaging the distance there. Then he shifted the bag, pulling it under his other arm and without looking down, extended the now-free hand to his mage. “Come on, let’s get going. We have distance to cover if you want to make it into the open sea tonight.”
It was an olive branch. Of sorts. Caeneus would never apologize, would never allow himself to be weak in front of anyone, not even his own Master. He would never take back what he had said, and it was never something Kirschtaria would expect from him. But still, there was an apology in the gesture. A bend where there normally would have been rigidity.
It required a careful response, but it was easier to know how to walk those paths now. Especially with the bond they shared now. “Thank you for taking the bag.”
I forgive you.
“It’s nothing. I’d carry you too if you wanted.”
I really am sorry for what I said.
Kirschtaria took his hand and allowed his Servant to gently haul him to his feet, letting Caeneus’ immense strength do most of the work. It felt better, somehow, for Caeneus to acknowledge the mistake even if the words never left his mouth. They didn’t need to, as far as Kirschtaria was concerned. So he did his best to stay steady as he got his feet underneath him and gave Caeneus’ hand a little squeeze when he was good. “Are you ready to go?”
“Yeah, I’m good. Did you get the lights?” Caeneus peered into the kitchen to check and make sure they hadn’t left anything on, or any perishable food out. He still hadn’t let go of Kirschtaria’s hand, and had carefully kept it cradled in his own as he cast about the room. Despite the fact that he was carrying his bag, the bag Kirschtaria himself had left in their room and the telescope, he showed no signs of letting go.
The quick little return-squeeze was proof of that.