Chapter Text
Ishmael keeps attacking Heathcliff during Corrosion. It happens, no big deal, whatever grudge happens between the Sinners because of that can be solved by smack to the head (fatal or otherwise–immortality has its benefits. Though, he’d prefer to avoid using methods that cause Clockhead to take on more pain than they already do…). But… Thrice? Really? How much is a coincidence until it’s not?
First was with Blind Obsession–okay, that one hits multiple people, so whatever. He got hurt juuust a whole lot more than the others did, but okay. Second–Wingbeat. Well, that one hits multiple people, too, so… No! That time, she squeezed the others into a pulp while she feasted on him! Held him down, laughed, even! Enjoyed him like a proper feast, alright!
Third time’s the charm, and in this case, Roseate Desire finally ran Heathcliff’s patience thin when it wrapped its silk ribbons around him, and only him, and circled around his arms and hands so that one was wrapped around Ishmael’s form while the other’s hand was forced into hers. Ishmael laughed, grin wet with dribble and eyes lit a heated pink as she began an attempt at a dance, dragging Heathcliff screaming and kicking away from the battle as the rest of the combatants looked on in confusion.
“Oi! Let me go, ya crazy bird, we’re in the middle of a tussle!”
“Ahaha, Come, come now! Isn’t this so much nicer?” Ishmael hollered, effortlessly picking Heathcliff up off the ground as she spun him around, her ribbons digging into Heathcliff’s arms and cracking bones that could be easily mistaken for the clicking of her heels. “Look, feel how warm I am! The distance has been killing me…! Shall I enwrap you and just make you mine?”
And she’s the one always telling him not to get too touchy with her in front of others! Pah!
A sudden thwack is delivered to the side of Ishmael’s head, and Heathcliff is fated to tumble into the dirt with her before the ribbons completely fade, freeing them both. Heathcliff sits up first, Ishmael recovering from her stagger and de-corrosion, and sees Ryōshū adjusting her grip on her sheathed ōdachi, probably what she used to knock Ishmael into shape.
“P.D.A.” Ryōshū hisses with such contempt she almost spits out her cigarette.
By the time their regular Mirror Dungeon run was over, Ishmael wouldn’t even look at him. Or anyone, for that matter. And sure, maybe she needed some space to cool off so she wouldn’t explode when someone confronts her about it, but Heathcliff knows more than anyone that whatever's going on is just a ticking time bomb that’s gonna go off either way. If you ask him, better set it off now than later.
So, when the activities were done for the day and everyone was heading towards their respective rooms, Heathcliff grabbed Ishmael by the elbow, opened his (well, their) door and dragged her inside his room.
“What’s your problem!?”
“What’s your problem?” He counters, spinning them around so he’s blocking the way out in case she tries to storm off. “You’ve been attackin’ me way too much for it to be a coincidence! If you’ve got an issue wit’ me, then say it, woman! Don’t expect me to read your mind every time!”
Ishmael seems stunned for a bit, eyes darting away and cringing when Heathcliff puts up an arm on the wall she was about to take a step to, probably to try and escape anyway.
“Talk to me. Did I do somethin’ wrong?”
“You didn’t.” She crunches up her eyebrows, head turned away. “It’s a ‘me’ issue.”
Heathcliff’s shoulders sag in relief. Well… at least that’s good. “What is it then?”
“I can handle it myself.”
“Whatever it is, I clearly have somethin’ to do with it. Come on, luv.”
“No.”
“Why not?” He sighs, frustration building. Is this how she feels whenever he’s being difficult? Wings almighty, woman’s got the patience of a saint. Heathcliff himself has to pray to whatever’s out there for even an ounce of calm so he doesn’t start shaking Ishmael to just talk to him already holy shit why is his type difficult women specifically.
“...Embarrassing...” She eventually murmurs, more into her shoulder than anything before she bites her lip.
He blinks. “Am I like… Making you uncomfortable or something? With all the foolin’ around, or…?”
Heathcliff tries to tone down his affections whenever they’re on the job or in public. Not because he isn’t clingy (he absolutely is. It’s a problem, though not one he’s willing to fix, not with everything that happened), but because whenever someone catches them brushing shoulders or hands, or sneaking in a kiss (Ishmael’s buoyant hair makes it easy for Heathcliff to give her a peck away from the sight of others. At least, from his perspective), the other Sinners start whispering and giggling to themselves, making Ishmael uneasy and Heathcliff self-conscious–like it was bad, shameful for him to be affectionate at all with his…
Whatever they are.
But Ishmael shakes her head and waves her hand in dismissal, finally meeting his eyes. “No, nothing like that…! A little embarrassing maybe, but it doesn’t make me angry or uncomfortable.” She lets her arm flop to her side before it comes up again, this time to massage her neck. “...I should be asking you that, given earlier today...”
“Me? Why? You know I got no shame.”
To further support his own claim, and to get her out of her shell, Heathcliff wraps an arm around Ishmael’s waist, distracting enough to make her turn her head and allow him to place a kiss on the corner of her mouth.
“Hey!” She fwips her reddening face around to him so fast her hair almost slaps him, but he leans away just in time to shoot her a self-satisfied grin.
“See?” He chuckles, “What? You said you wanted to be close, didn’t ya?”
“Don’t bring that up!”
“You brought it up first, ya loon! How’d that one saying go? Drunk words, sober thoughts?”
“Highly dependent on the context.” She grumbles, but doesn’t push him away. Just seems hesitant. Heathcliff pats her back with the hand not already on her waist, essentially telling her to stop squirming. She eventually relents, burying her face into his chest.
Almost automatically, Heathcliff’s arm wraps around her shoulders, navigating through thick locks so they’re enveloping his arm, like a clingy beast of the depths whose fondness he somehow managed to win. Resting his cheek against her head, he’ll admit it’s not any better than the softness of a proper pillow. But the warmth of another, added with the vague hints of salt and dew in her scent, like grassy plains after the rain, make him want to fall asleep right then and there, better than any bed he could have slept on. Well, the pillow back in his own room was no better than a sack of stale flour, so not like it’s much of a contest… still!
It was hard to put a name on what they were. They squabbled, then gave each other support and comfort in the form of advice, a listening ear, a shoulder to cry on, or an anchor to hold on to throughout the night.
Whenever they sleep in the same bed, they tend to alternate over who uses who as a pillow that night. Because of Ishmael’s hair and Heathcliff’s less-than-graceful thrashing during his sleep, he tends to help her braid her locks so it wouldn't get too in the way while they sleep. It’s become routine to the point that when they’re getting ready for bed, she sits on the edge of the bed while turned to the side, with space for Heathcliff to sit and start styling it. It gives him a form of satisfied giddiness–an unspoken routine they naturally fell into.
(Heathcliff has experience with similar, dense locks. The other recipient was never really satisfied with his work, though. Unlike Ishmael, who always deemed whatever he ended up doing with her hair good enough.)
The times he uses Ishmael’s chest as a pillow, awake or asleep, his hands tend to wander, thirsting for the sticky feeling of skin on skin. Her waist, stomach, back and sometimes her chest, too. Ishmael surprisingly never got angry when she woke up to Heathcliff’s hands beneath her shirt, moreso just a tad peeved. His touch was curious at most, and never invasive, having no complaints when Ishmael silently moved his fingers away from a spot too intimate for her to ignore. Unless said spot was ticklish. In that case, they arrived on the bus with frowns, contrasting their red-soaked cheeks from earlier bouts of laughter.
He did give her privacy while changing into their respective uniforms by turning his back to hers. He wasn’t the one being invasive in those moments–she was. She’d sneak peeks as she combed her hair, glancing at the myriad of scars on his back, more plentiful than on any part of his body. Her stare was so piercing he managed to feel it, catching her ogling more times than what could be considered mere curiosity.
(He wonders if a certain other scarred friend comes to mind when she looks at him, and has to keep from gnashing his teeth.)
“...Do you mind if I strip down a bit?”
“Huh? I mean, sure. It’s your room, innit?”
Preferring her room to sleep in due to Heathcliff’s ramshack of a living space, Ishmael has slept shirtless with him before. He thought it was only fair and shrugged it off. He keeps his pajamas on in his own room due to the cold, and while Ishmael’s place isn’t much better, sometimes it’s just so downright humid that he has to strip down. Makes sense that she would find it stifling, too.
Despite being the one to propose it, she would always go to bed with him stiff as a board, falling asleep after Heathcliff did, which was incredibly rare. Weird.
“Wanna go to your room?” He speaks up after a long while, low and raspy, to hopefully not break their shared reverie too badly.
He seems to have done well all things considered. Ishmael adjusts her hold on his waist and buries her face further into him. “Not yet. My head’s still kind of a mess.”
“Would pro’lly be less of a mess if ya told me about it.”
“Goodness, you’re stubborn today. …Well, when are you not?”
Heathcliff shrugs, smiling into Ishmael’s mane as she sighs into his collarbone, sending an involuntary shiver down his body that causes his hands to tighten his grip on her for a moment.
“...Have you done this kind of thing before?” She finally speaks up after a while. Took long enough.
“What thing?”
“This… Whatever this is. The kissing, the bedmate thing.”
“Ahh… to the first one… Not to this extent. The bedmate thing… Also not to this extent?” He awkwardly rolls his head to the side. “I roomed with n’ sometimes slept in the same cot with some blokes in my former syndicate, but that’s about it I reckon.”
“I see…”
“Some of ‘em did somethin’ like this though, I think? Like bunkin’ up for the night, or several. One of the guys owed me drinks ‘cause he made me leave so he could shag his mate.”
“Oh, huh.” Ishmael perks up... for some reason. “You never were on the other end of that?”
“Nah. Preferred bashing stuff as stress relief.”
“And that worked?”
“Hell yeah.”
“Hm.”
…Something’s telling him she wants to keep this conversation going. “..Uh, and you?”
“Queequeg had her own quarters as Harpooner, so I didn’t need to pay anyone off, thankfully… But–” She continues, lips pursing in a pout, “She was also prone to flirting even with other people around, so it was always kind of embarrassing.”
That’d explain why she’s more reserved on the bus…
…Oh, something just clicked in Heathcliff’s head.
“So what? You think you need to get laid?”
“I don’t–need to.” She spits out after a stutter in her sentence, responding too quickly for that to be the whole truth. Not to mention how she leans back, as if she’s ready to try and bolt from the room again.
Not a chance, not yet. Heathcliff tightens his grip around her waist. “But you wanna?”
“I can control myself when needed.”
He opens his mouth to say something else–then remembers what Ishmael said earlier. About making him uncomfortable.
It makes him feel a bit dizzy, because… huh? Is that what this is…?
“You want to shack up?” He cranes his neck, trying more to get a look at what she’s feeling than to meet her gaze. “With me?”
Glancing up at him far too slowly, eyes almost smoldering, Ishmael looks away too quickly for Heathcliff’s heart to calm down. When did it start beating this fast?
“...Is that a problem?”
Um. Huh. Well. “Not a problem, but…”
He doesn’t really get it–well, kind of. After all, they’ve been cozy and dallying for a bit now, so if it were anyone else, that’d probably be the next step in a relationship… So yeah, looking at the big picture, it makes sense. But still–
“Why?”
Now that actually gets Ishmael to frown and blink up at him in agitated confusion. “‘Why’? What do you mean ‘why’? It's not so unthinkable, is it?”
“I… guess not? I dunno.”
Ishmael is about to say something, but stops, probably remembering Heathcliff has a negative amount of self-esteem and by questioning him more about this would be like talking to a brick wall. Moreso than usual, as it tends to be with Heathcliff. “Well… anyone else wouldn’t do… no, that sounds bad.” She quickly retracts, shaking her head, though some of the damage had already been done as Heathcliff wonders if he’s just an end to a means for her.
She ponders a bit more on what she wants to say, probably wanting to put it in a way without bringing too many personal feelings into the conversation. Why can’t they just be honest with each other? Why is it so difficult?
“I trust you with myself, and would like to try with you. …How’s that?”
Heathcliff hums. Trusts herself with him… huh.
Did anyone ever put that much faith into him in anything?
Taking his silence as hesitation, Ishmael pats his hip as a signal to start letting her go as she steps back. “Look–give it some thought. Take a shower, give me an answer later–we can even put this off until tomorrow, if you want, just–don’t leave me without an answer too long!”
“Which one is it!? You know I’m slow.”
“Just–think about it, okay? There’s no wrong answer here, so just figure out what you wanna do.”
“Thought you wanted to.”
“Yeah, but it’s a two-person thing. If one of us doesn’t want it, then what’s the point? And don’t even think about pitying me. I’m a grown woman, I know when to step down.”
“Do you, though? Don’t really need to step down anyway, with how small you are, don’t ya think?”
The disgusted frown gets a good enough laugh out of Heathcliff that he finally lets her go, allowing Ishmael to stomp to his door and clasp the handle.
“Whether you decide to or not–” She says, “You’ll still be welcome. Don’t distance yourself if you don’t have an answer yet. We’re both too old to tip-toe around this.”
‘Am I?’ Heathcliff asks himself. ‘I should be.’ Comes the quick answer. He wonders when he’ll learn.
“Yep.” He responds, and Ishmael looks back at him one more time, as if to make sure he’s being sincere, before opening the door and leaving, an exit as simple as his response.
Is it really that simple? Can it be that simple? It’s supposed to be something special–or at least the whispers and tales he’s heard told him so, as he was growing up. But he never thought much of it–neither did Catherine, really, now that he thinks about it.
Would it be betrayal? She’s not here anymore. Not in a way he can grasp.
His happiness… She wanted his happiness, even in a world without her.
Then the only obstacle left would be himself.
Rather than what Catherine would think of it, what does Heathcliff think? Of this? Of Ishmael?
What did all these nights of playful and not-so-playful fights mean? The helping hands, the nudging shoulders, the brushing of hands and the lingering embraces?
The momentary sanctuary, the feeling of belonging?
“You’ll still be welcome.”
Even Catherine couldn’t open the door to the rickety shed he was trapped in. The gates remained closed until she snuck out and opened the gates while constantly looking over her shoulder. She could never guarantee his welcome until everything was over.
She did all she could for him, and he will always love her for that.
Now…
…He always went into things head-first, and with someone now there to catch Heathcliff’s fall in case things go wrong, will it be safe for him to risk baring his cracked heart?
He and Ishmael have come back from worse, and still came out leaning on each other, trusting the other to protect them while they were asleep. That even in unconsciousness, they would have someone to hold on to during nightmares.
He’d trust her in any world, waking or otherwise. His faith in her is so strong that if she ever broke it, he’d shatter just as much.
…Well, there’s the answer, right?
He could never bring himself to be fragile.
If there’s ever a moment to be… He’d be fine if it was her.
More than fine.
(It wouldn’t be fine if it was anyone else.)
Heathcliff has his answer ready before he even gets in the shower. And with a head both clear and clean, he steps out in his pajamas and opens Ishmael’s door–
–their door.