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One thing Octavio appreciates about Jurard—among his many, many flaws—is just how far he will go for money. A tongue born cradling a silver spoon still remembers the taste, and all it takes to wrap Jurard around Octavio’s little finger is a couple of dented coins clinking together like a dinner bell. Hardly even worth calling it puppeteering.
But then, he’s not asking much. Two silver for a moment of Jurard’s time, and just a peek. A check up, almost. Practically free healthcare, as Octavio’s gloved fingertips settle firmly on Jurard’s jaw and his forceps press indents into the tip of that self same tongue whose taste for cold hard cash is what got Jurard into this situation in the first place.
If only Jurard would stop squirming.
“Can you shut up?” Octavio punctuates the order with a sharp tug of his forceps, effectively silencing Jurard mid-incoherent babbling by making him yelp instead. “You’re not even saying words.”
Jurard looks at him reproachfully. A pout, were his mouth not open and his tongue not out. Octavio rolls his eyes.
“Don’t look at me like that. You got your money. Be good or I’ll take it back.”
That gets his attention. All the heat behind Jurard’s glare evaporates in a second and Octavio smirks to himself, returning to his inspection.
It’s not really a health check up. Jurard isn’t sick or injured or suffering from anything other than the general state of being himself—which, while Octavio imagines is miserable at the best of times, also happens to be permanent and incurable. So he’s not about to waste his time deep diving into I can fix hims.
What Octavio is here for is much simpler. Jurard’s hybrid reptilian physiology is a rarity even in the Badlands, and frankly speaking Octavio has been itching to study him like a bug in a jar since the first time he got an eyeful of tail.
And before that, for other, less professional reasons.
He’s starting small. Two silver to test the waters by poking around inside Jurard’s mouth—no needles, no scalpels, no blood, cross his heart. Jurard had seemed sceptical at that last part, so maybe he’s more perceptive than Octavio has been giving him credit for. Regardless, money had won out in the end.
And now Octavio has between his forceps something rather unexpected. The teeth are hard to miss, but Jurard’s tongue…
“Interesting,” Octavio mutters to himself as he pulls with his forceps, and Jurard’s tongue comes out, and out, and out. Much too far, a good inch or two past his lips before Jurard squeaks a crushed little sound in the back of his throat and Octavio feels resistance enough to give him pause.
Only pause. His forceps still pinch down on the pointed end as he turns it under the light.
It's not forked like that of a snake—wrong kind of reptile, Octavio supposes—nor sporting any of that funky UV reflectivity that looks blue in the right light, either. The only difference between Jurard’s tongue and Octavio’s own tongue is its sheer inhuman length and its entirely normal colour, much pinker with living blood than Octavio’s has ever been.
But he digresses.
“I can’t believe you can talk around this thing,” he muses, thumbing at Jurard’s chin to urge his mouth further open and ignoring the glare Jurard gives him in response. “Your skull seems relatively human in terms of shape, so… how does it even fit? Does it retract into your throat, or like, roll up somehow?”
He’s not really asking for an answer from the man himself, but Jurard, being Jurard, gives him one anyway. Tries to, at least, in the form of a series of indistinct gurgling noises and a string of drool spilling past his parted lips onto the front of Octavio’s freshly pressed jacket.
Octavio grimaces.
“Ew.” His forceps clatter softly against his other instruments as he releases Jurard’s tongue and sets them aside. “Do you want to say that again without slobbering on me like a dog?”
A moment passes. Jurard pants heavily, catching his breath, and Octavio watches with interest as that curious tongue slinks away behind his jagged teeth.
“I said,” Jurard eventually huffs, petulant, “that I don’t know, okay? What kind of question is that? Do you know how your tongue fits in your mouth?”
Octavio gives him a look.
“They literally have books on how the human tongue works, Jurard. If you were normal I wouldn’t have to ask.”
“Well you don’t have to say it like I’m some kind of freak,” Jurard snips back, pouting again. He’d refused to sit on Octavio’s operating table for this endeavour, opting instead for the single armchair in his small study corner, and it gives him the air of a sulky child as he sinks back into the plush midnight upholstery. “And if you’re going to keep being an asshole then I want more cash for my trouble. You almost yanked my tongue off.”
Another couple of coins land in Jurard’s lap. Copper, this time. Octavio isn’t made of money.
“It’s because you’re a freak that I’m paying you for your oh-so-precious time right now,” Octavio reminds him. “No need to get defensive about it. Just take your tip and open up so I can get a closer look.”
Ding, ding of the dinner bell again. The coins are gone as fast as they’d appeared, snatched up by greedy claws and slipped safely inside Jurard’s coat, and though he rolls his eyes and mutters, “Jerk,” the sting is all for show. A gecko styling itself a viper.
“You’re welcome,” Octavio smirks. “Now say ahh, Jurard.”
Unhappily, Jurard complies. His mouth falls open around pointy pearly-whites and he fails to hide his flinch as Octavio’s gloved fingers find his jaw again, tilting his head back towards the light.
Huh.
“That,” Octavio says slowly, squinting, “is so weird.”
Jurard’s tongue should be rolled up, or coiled, or maybe folded over on itself given how just moments ago Octavio had tugged it out of his mouth like a numbered ticket from the machine at the bounty hunter office—but it isn’t. Behind his sharp teeth his tongue sits perfectly flat and ordinary against his lower palate, and even when Octavio tips his head back further—paying no mind to Jurard’s yelp of protest at the manhandling—there’s nothing to be seen but dangling uvula and the rest of his tongue disappearing into the darkness down his gullet.
It’s just strange. Octavio readjusts his stance, leans in closer. Prods his fingertips into the flat of that tongue and only relishes the tiny choked squeal he gets in response a little more than he should.
“I’m just checking something, don’t bite my fingers off,” he says brusquely, probing further. “And like, warn me if you’re about to throw up or something.”
Another unhappy noise, and Jurard’s eyes narrowing at him down the length of his nose. But that two-copper tip is paying dividends, because no teeth crunch down on Octavio’s fragile fingers as he walks them back along Jurard’s tongue, pushing, pressing just to feel the flesh spring back a touch too elastic to be human.
“Oh. Oh, it stretches. Of course it does.” Octavio resists the urge to take Jurard’s tongue between his fingertips and yank again to be sure. “Just at the very back. And maybe the underside?”
Jurard squeaks indignantly as Octavio unceremoniously slips his fingers between teeth and tongue to peer at the root of it, close enough to feel the warmth of Jurard’s breath on his own face. Under his thumb cradling Jurard’s chin the pulse is hummingbird quick. Not fear, though it would be gratifying were that the case. Not fear, not with all that blood ferried to his face blooming dark in his cheeks. Not with his slit pupils gone oval where Octavio glances up to meet them.
Interesting. For another time.
“It does,” he continues, still idly poking around in Jurard’s mouth. “But what are you even using it for? Can you use it for anything—like, I don’t know, catching bugs? Cleaning your own eyeballs?”
A huff around Octavio’s fingers that sounds like a decided no.
“No,” Octavio agrees with a small chuckle, “I suppose not. If you could, we wouldn't have half the fly trouble that we do around here. Maybe you should give it a try—Gibby would love you forever.”
Jurard mumbles something garbled by way of answer that definitely contains the words “fuck” and “off”, which Octavio pointedly elects to ignore, continuing, “So it’s just… a vestigial organ, then? Huh. Damn. I thought, like—with your teeth, the claws, the tail, they’re all kinda useful, sometimes. For combat and stuff. But this thing—”
This, Octavio punctuates with a parting pinch to the tip of Jurard’s tongue as he releases it.
“—is a little disappointing, if I’m being honest.”
A rope of thick saliva follows Octavio’s fingers on their way out of Jurard’s mouth, but he makes no move to peel off his damp gloves.
“Well,” he says with a resigned sigh, furtively wiping his gloves on Jurard’s cravat, “I’d say we’re done here. You’re free to go.”
Jurard blinks. Shakes his head as if to clear the flush in his cheeks, and then frowns. “Wait,” he says slowly, “hey, wait. Disappointing? The hell do you mean disappointing?”
Octavio shrugs as he straightens up and turns to tidy away his medical tools.
“Well, I mean… it’s just a bit of a let down, is all. Like, wow, weird tongue. Does it do anything? No. But it’s cool, I guess. Useless, but cool.”
“It’s not useless, you fucking asshole,” Jurard protests, arms crossed petulantly where he sits. “Just because all you can think about is eating bugs and shit doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of other advantages to having a flexible tongue. If,” he adds with an excessively salacious lilt to his tone, “you know what I’m saying.”
Octavio tries and fails to suppress a snort. “Didn’t ask, but sure, Jurard. Sure there are. I totally believe you.”
“Screw you, I can prove it!”
“I don’t have any more change on me.” Octavio tosses a sideways glance at Jurard as he folds his instruments away in their linen wrappings, making to step away. “Charity hour is over.”
“That’s not— I’m not asking you for more money!” A clawed hand catches Octavio’s wrist. “This is about making a point.”
“And that point is…?”
Jurard grins up at him, all sharp teeth and shaky bravado. “Come here and find out.”
All it’s missing is the crook of a finger. Embarrassing, really. That this could work on anyone who doesn’t have a marked interest in poking Jurard with dull instruments just to watch him squirm seems laughable, even offset by his objective good looks as it is. Faux charm laid on awfully thick where Octavio would rather peel him back layer by layer.
How fortunate that he’s offering himself up for just that.
“Okay.”
Slowly, digit by digit, Octavio pries Jurard’s grip from his wrist. Jurard is taller than him standing but sunk into the depths of the armchair it’s a simple thing to loom over him, to take him none too gently by the chin again and tilt his face up.
Jagged teeth worry at Jurard’s lower lip. The apple of his throat bobs with a swallowed jitter. Still not fear, though it would be gratifying.
“Jurard,” Octavio breathes, dead air against Jurard’s mouth, “I’m not going to tell you to say ahh a second time.”
Nor does he have to. Reptiles are cold-blooded but Octavio is colder still, even the parts that are flesh and blood, even his lips where they meet Jurard’s. It can’t be pleasant for him, his lukewarm body born to leech warmth rather than bleed it, but Octavio can’t particularly bring himself to care. Jurard gasps at the chill, a low, shaky thing, and Octavio only swallows the sound, nose bumping nose as he slots their mouths together deeper.
“You—” Jurard bites out in the scant moment Octavio allows him breath, fingers scrabbling for purchase on his lapels, “—you’re fucking f-freezing, what the fuck.”
Octavio huffs a laugh against his lips. “You aren’t exactly the poster child for body heat either, you know.”
Still he’s bearing Jurard down into the armchair, one hand braced next to his head, one knee between Jurard’s legs on the seat. Close, almost. Yawning space between them save for the gloved hand tracing Jurard’s jaw and the lock of their lips, too purposeful from Octavio’s part to ever be mistaken for affection, too chaste from Jurard to stack up to his claims.
But those scrabbling hands catch finally on the front of Octavio’s jacket, hold tight and there’s pushback. Pushback, and then sharp teeth grazing his lip and finally the clumsy slide of tongue on his own.
Octavio isn’t about to claim mastery when it comes to the carnal. He’s dallied, certainly. Here and there, and all in all enough to immediately clock that Jurard is wholly winging it.
Points given for trying and for the novelty of that strange, long tongue licking into his mouth. Several points deducted for the equally bizarre sensation of Jurard’s tongue slipping far enough in to kiss hot against the back of his throat. He’d gag, he imagines, if he were anyone else, if he’d been re-created with a set of living reflexes. Lucky him.
“Jurard,” he tries, muffled, thick with saliva—again, minus points—as he thumbs at his jaw, tips his head to fix the angle, “here, just—”
Slower. There’s potential in slower, at least, and Jurard’s always been good at following directions. A nip to his persistent tongue has him drawing back, the frantic slide of his lips easing. Octavio leads, and Jurard follows, panting broken breaths between until they separate.
Only one of them has to catch his breath. Octavio straightens up. Fixes his ribbon tie. Digs a handkerchief from his pocket and wipes his mouth, his chin. Jurard blinks up at him from the armchair, flushed to his ears and looking entirely too self-satisfied. His ridiculous tongue is still hanging out of his mouth.
“Well?” he manages once he finally decides to put the damn thing away in favour of speaking. “I told you it has its uses.”
Octavio tosses the handkerchief at his head.
“Six out of ten,” he deadpans, “and next time, I’m examining your tail.”