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The last job had been a hard one. Saint and their fellow Talons may have laid that spirit to rest, but grief had followed Saint back to Songtooth, and now their mind was a mess. Stirred emotion always kicked up their past failures like silt, clouding their judgement and limiting their outlook. At times like this, the voice of criticism was their clearest thought, and there was no pleasure to be had in nominal success. It wasn't the first time that they had found themself in this particular hole, but they had never quite figured out how to climb out on their own. The best they could do was wash their head out with enough spirits to to muffle reality, and hope that the ensuing stretch of dreamless sleep would reset them back to normal.
So that was the plan as they entered the Scarlet Ibis that night. They had started with a little glass of spiced liqueur at the bar and a request for a corner table to themself. A gold piece in the bartender's hand upfront had ensured that the wine kept coming, and that no one bothered them. Well, mostly. It was natural that a beautiful person sitting alone was going to attract some attention, but it was nothing that they couldn't handle. Aspirant suitors walked away from their table so flattered that they were hardly aware that they had been rejected, and Saint was free to devote themself to the task at hand.
A half-baked bard played for the crowd until the Ibis' dancers took the stage. By that point, Saint was as deep in their cups as they liked to get in public. They might have taken a bottle home and crawled into bed then, but the idea of their empty room didn't hold much appeal. So they ordered a light meal and started on a second bottle, balancing their imbibement to stay just-drunk-enough to live in the pleasantly muffled moment.
The dancers were quite good, but they didn't just watch the entertainment. Even in a claret haze, it was their long habit to keep an eye out for sources of trouble. They noted the most interesting folk at that bar that night, and kept track of their whereabouts without conscious thought: a trio of overdressed men who went straight into a private room; an adventurer duo that must have similar constitutions to Saint, to drink as much as they did; and a fellow with the quick hands of a thief, who flashed them a Cant fingersign to offer trade. (They declined, politely.)
They also spotted a few people that had them picturing a roll in the sheets. At a certain number of glasses, wine did tend to get them craving a warm body, and they suspected that the pair of adventurers would be game. But even with their measured consumption, they were too affected to trust that they could maintain control, and they played only when they knew that they would win.
They were refilling their glass when a chair scraped up to their table and someone dropped into it. When they saw that it was their favourite courier sitting at their table, they swallowed their readied dismissal and gave him a friendly smile. He smiled back, big and open, like he was actually happy to see them. What a sap.
"Edmund! You're looking well." Saint handed out compliments as easily as copper pieces, but this one was truly meant. They usually saw the young man in chance meetings on the street, or met him for drinks after a long shift, when his curls were a mess and his clothes stained by the day's work. Tonight, his outfit was neat, his hair was clean, and his short beard was neatly trimmed. He even smelled nice to their sensitive nose, like herbal soap and mead, and looked better rested than usual.
"And you're looking… relaxed." He looked over the bottles on their table, one empty and one freshly uncorked. "Starting a collection?"
"I'm of the opinion that it becomes a collection when you have three of a thing. Help me out, why don't you?"
Edmund returned from the bar with an empty cup, and Saint filled it to the brim, which made him chuckle.
"Generous of you."
"Black Talons work is paying well," they said lightly, "and I've always been of the opinion that gold is for spending. No point in saving for a rainy day that you may never see, mm?"
Edmund took a drink, his expression going a little funny as he considered the rich, dry taste of the vintage with mixed feelings, but he seemed to settle on acceptance. Then he did a double-take, as if noticing something and wanting a better look at them.
"You alright?"
They sipped from their own cup and called on their lovely and theatrical Lyric Vale persona, to generate the sparkle needed to sell the lie. "Of course I am. I'm warm and dry, I have a decent wine, and now, I even have good company." Their smile was cheeky now. "Don't I look alright?"
They tilted their head, so that the candlelight would play on their jewellery and make their eyes sparkle, and motioned over themself. They were satisfied by the way his gaze snagged at the distraction of their low neckline, and again at their soft lips, before coming back to their eyes.
"You look, uh, good. Just seems strange, that you would be all on your own."
"Oh, don't worry about that, I can have company whenever I want it. I'm just enjoying my night off. And what brings you here? Grolub's heart would be broken to know that you're drinking somewhere else."
"Business meeting." It was his turn to motion at himself. Saint noted that his vest was nicely made and new, but snug, the buttons straining a bit over his broad chest and belly; he must have wanted to make a good impression, but hadn't had enough time to get something bespoke, or even to get his purchase tailored. "Hence being primped and polished."
"You are looking particularly pretty tonight," they teased, "and look, you have freckles! I suppose they're usually hidden under all that road dust that you like to wear."
"Fuck off," he laughed. "Anyway, this place is nice, but I do prefer the Boar, even if the beer is watered something fierce. Just feels more comfortable."
"Fair enough," they said, taking another drink. That seemed to remind Edmund of his own glass, and he mirrored them. "And how did your meeting go?"
Saint might have been pleasantly in their cups, but they still caught the flicker of anxiety in his face and the tension in his hands. They thought about the kind of discussions that happened in private rooms of bars like the Ibis, and about the three monied men who had left shortly after Edmund had joined them at their table.
"Fine." He looked down into his cup, brows furrowed. "Pretty well, actually. Now I'm just… thinking over the offer."
They raised an eyebrow, but when no details were forthcoming, they dropped it. He might seem young to them at times, but he was a grown man who knew his business. And it was actually nice, to shoot the shit and work on that second bottle together. Edmund complained about work, Saint commiserated, and they joined in the last hurrah of applause when the dancers made way for a four-piece band. They were feeling lightheaded now, but still within acceptable margins of drunkenness, and Edmund seemed a little tipsy, too. So when he brought the topic back around to Saint drinking alone, they just gave a good-natured shrug.
"It's as you said. Sometimes you just need to take the edge of a rough day."
"It can't be easy work, Talon business. I hear stories enough to know it's dangerous," Edmund ventured, seeming unsure of his words even as he spoke them. "And what you said before? About how it's not worth it to save up gold for a day you might not see…"
Saint didn't help him out. They just settled back in their chair and watched him try to find words while they rolled a coin along their knuckles, forward and back, forward and back.
"Are you really alright?" he finally blurted. Then he leaned forward over the table, so he could speak more quietly but still be heard. "Did something happen?" His cheeks were pinked by wine and the heat of all the bodies in the place, and his face glowed with sincerity. That expression made the most petty part of them want to be cruel, just to get him to cut that out.
"Something on your last job, maybe, that made you want to forget it?"
"Oh, please." They rolled their eyes, but tried to keep the rest of their face agreeable and their tone light, which took effort. That was the trade-off, of course. Drunkenness made maintaining their masks more difficult, especially when someone was poking at them. "Tricky situations are the sea that I swim in, and I always manage to slip the net before it closes."
"Still, a close call can stick with you. There's no shame in that."
Saint flicked the coin into the air and snapped it up in their offhand. "Sure. But I don't dwell on my missteps. I learn from them. 'That's the difference between run-of-the-mill skill and excellence,'" they quoted, their wine-warmed tongue taking on their mentor's cadence. "'Excellence looks ahead, and it doesn't quit.'"
The voice of criticism returned, speaking in the same cadence that they had just mimicked. But you do quit, don't you?
Yes, when things got hard, it was their way to turn tail and run. For every successful job they had pulled off or con they had run, there had been two that they needed to cut their losses on. Those failures piled up heavy in their record. And of course, there had been times when they couldn't quite outrun the consequences of their actions. They had suffered difficult lessons, indeed, and would bear those scars forever.
Keeping their smile up was beginning to strain. As Edmund considered their words, Saint finished off their wine in one deep swallow and tried to press their rising memories back into the shadows of their mind.
"I didn't mean to say you're not good at what you do," he finally said, looking a little strained himself. He rubbed his palms on the tops of his thighs, a self-soothing gesture that spoke volumes.
Saint figured that if he hadn't wanted the conversation to take an uncomfortable turn, he should have kept his questions to himself, and part of them wanted to let him squirm. But they bolstered their smile and laughed it off, instead.
"Of course not. We both know that I'm very good at what I do. And you're no slouch, either. There's no one else that I would trust my most sensitive deliveries with."
They winked and flicked the coin again, flipping it towards Edmund. He caught the silver piece between his thick palms, but he barely spared it a glance and didn't bite on the bait of their flattery. He was staring at them with an expression on his face that was new to Saint, and which made a mental alarm sound.
"You're pretty hard on yourself, aren't you?"
They arranged their features into an arch expression that conveyed just how little they thought of that question. He ignored their efforts at dissuasion and forged ahead boldly.
"You're skilled, but not just that. You always have a kind word, or a bit of advice, and it seems that you can make anyone feel special." Edmund's cheeks went even pinker, his eyes soft. The voice in their head laughed mockingly at his earnest affection, and Saint bit their tongue, trying to keep from saying something unkind.
"But I think, maybe, you're not very kind to yourself?"
What kind of liar are you, that this oaf can call you out?
"If you're going to accuse me of something, at least make it a statement," they snapped. They regretted it immediately, but everything was suddenly too much. Their skin was too hot, the music was overwhelming, the crowd was full of threats, and they couldn't find their footing.
You're botching this extravagantly, little Sparrow. Was all my teaching wasted?
"I-I'm not accusing. I worry sometimes, is all. I'm just…"
"Whatever you think you're doing," they said, speaking more loudly than they meant to as they went for their coin purse, "I advice that you don't."
"Saint, I'm-"
"Don't bother." They were barely restraining their worst urges, and an apology would only make it worse. They did not look directly at his face, but the hurt radiated off of him like heat from a stove. "No harm done, right? Thanks for the company. I'll see you around."
They slapped down what was surely an overly generous tip, unwilling to slow enough to count coinage, and spun away from the table, bottle in hand and heart pounding. Edmund was calling after them in an urgent tone, but they ignored him, and the curious patrons whose heads turned as they passed. They hurried towards the exit on unsteady legs. A memory of cruel laughter chased them past a set of stairs and into a narrow hallway. When they stumbled over a threshold and had to catch themself and the wine, their favourite courier caught up to them.
"Saint, wait!"
His hand on their arm made them halt. Everything that they had washed out with wine had been brought close and made vivid again. Edmund and his questions were to blame, and although the contact between them was more of a touch than a grip, it made Saint feel snared. It was all too much, Edmund and the voice and the noise, and their greatest desire was to make it stop.
They spun, batted away Edmund's hand, and slipped on the hardened mask of their mercenary persona in one smooth action. Nik Thorn had officially died in a fire, but the steely threat of him was too good a defence to retire the persona entirely. They took two strides forward to enter his personal space, and his good Songtooth instincts prompted him to back up as far as he could go. He moved so quickly that his head bumped the wood panelling with a soft thok.
"What?" Saint/Thorn demanded. Their palm was pressed to the wall next to his head, and they leaned in so close that their pendant necklace swung and bumped against Edmund's chest. They could feel his radiating body heat and smell anxious sweat beneath the smoky smell of his clothes and the vetiver-scented soap still clinging to his beard. He was perhaps five inches shorter than them in their boots, and his own hands were flattened against the wall. He looked up at them with wide amber eyes and swallowed hard.
"What, Edmund," they repeated, feeling cruel and heated, "what is it that you want? Do you want me to show you my vulnerable heart? Tell you my deep, dark secrets? Cry on your shoulder?" They laughed, a short and scornful sound. "Not everyone needs to go around weeping about their feelings all the time."
Edmund looked very hurt. Half of their heart relished in that hurt. The other half cringed in sympathetic pain, and felt a little sick.
"I-I just wanted to say," he said, swallowing again, "that I'm sorry for pushing. But Saint, you… You're always saying that we don't have to keep everything inside. That we need to lighten the load, sometimes. I just wanted to be a listening ear. Like you are, for me."
It seemed that, despite his propensity for all kinds of soft, wet emotions, Edmund had a core of strength to him. More dangerous and calloused men had faltered before Thorn, and yet he gathered himself, looked them directly in the eyes and added, "An' that's enough of that. Don't try to scare me off. We're friends, you and I."
That word pierced them like a barbed bolt, the kind that you have to cut out of yourself. Friends. Saint had never said that. They had said friendly, sure, but never friends. Even in their own mind, they were careful to call Edmund an acquaintance, when they thought of him as anything at all. Part of them railed against the unasked-for responsibility, this designation that they had not agreed to. You don't even know how to have friends. Another part of them—the long-neglected place where their own soft, wet emotions lived—was touched. Going soft, Sparrow? The internal conflict had their head spinning, and they felt the Thorn mask slip, giving Edmund a glimpse at something Saint did not want him seeing.
When they thought back on it later, they would blame it mostly on wine-addled judgement. In truth, it was a cresting wave of panic that made them close the gap between their faces and catch Edmund's mouth in an urgent kiss.
He was surprised at first, but his mouth yielded warmly to theirs, and after a beat he kissed them back. They felt his body responding favourably when they pressed close, and so they believed that they had successfully misdirected; that they were in control. When they felt him grip their waist, they expected to feel their shirt being untucked, or to feel his hands slide down to their hips. They didn't expect him to break the kiss and gently, but insistently, push them away. And when Saint looked into his face and read the turmoil of mixed emotion there, they reeled back.
"Fuck, I didn't-"
"S'okay, don't-"
They spoke over each other as they parted, and then fell into constricted silence. Saint hid their face behind their hand and breathed through the panic in their chest while they decided what to do. They could see the back exit of the bar in their peripheral vision, and the urge to simply run run run was a difficult one to resist.
But if Edmund was something like a friend (or, if he thought he was) then there might be worth in trying to salvage this relationship. And if nothing else, he really was the only courier that Saint could trust with their donations to Sunbee Home. So when he broke the deadlock by tentatively asking them if they were alright, they pulled themself together. They donned an expression that was appropriately apologetic and only splashed with embarrassment, rather than boiling over with shame.
"Gods, the wine really got to me tonight." Their self-deprecating laughter was emptier than they were trying for, and they hated how sincere they sounded when they added, "please forgive my bad behaviour, Edmund. I truly regret it."
Little was as bitter on Saint's tongue as an apology, but at least Edmund's expression of confusion and concerned sympathy—pity, their mentor corrected—was replaced by relief and a supposed understanding. They couldn't be sure if what he had just bought was even a lie.
"Then we'll forget it," he quickly offered, unaware of his tell as he rubbed his mouth with his thumb. His face was deeply reddened and he couldn't quite make eye contact with them yet, but his tone was gracious as he patted them on the bicep in an awkwardly friendly manner. "No harm done."
That wasn't true, of course—harm is what you're very best at doing—but what else was there to do in this sort of situation, except work together to stack up lies like bricks?
And so they assured Edmund that they would be just fine, that they were meeting someone, anyway, and that they would certainly get home safe. For his part, he assured them that they would meet again soon, and let them disappear into the night without any further proclamations of friendship. Probably because he had just experienced for himself what happened whenever anyone tried to hold onto them.
Saint shut the door to their room and slumped back against it, giving the back of their head one good knock against the wood. What a mess. If only Edmund had stopped asking when they had discouraged him. If only his simple kindness wasn't incompatible with what festered at the heart of them. If only they had grown under a better sun and become the person that they might have, if not for…
All these echoing if-onlys were starting to make them feel ill. They sighed into the cool dark of their room and wished, as they had so many times before, that they could make a true new start. But if they had learned anything, it was that no mask could last forever, and that they couldn't run far or fast enough to leave themself behind. Songtooth was where they were now, and Saint was who they had chosen to be. They were surprised to find that they wanted to stick with it, that they were motivated to make something of Saint Teleptamba that they could be proud of.
And as they moved to stand at the small window and find the moon above the rooftops, they resolved to make it up to Edmund, somehow, and thusly repay him for the grace that he had given them tonight.
You never could stand owing anything to anyone, could you?
They kept their eyes on that changeable silver face as they raised the bottle to their mouth. "I've heard more than enough from you," Saint said, and they drank deeply to the blessings of silence, and grape-sweet oblivion.