DYING // WISH

                                             DAWNSCNGS—

                                               LAW. / CONTACT. 

It’s in your nature to impose yourself into others’ personal space. Though it began unconsciously, you’ve never made any attempt to correct the habitual behavior. It’s effective in terms of intimidation, yes, but also in catching certain people, those who are used to commanding a surplus of authority and possessing very little fear, off guard. The fact that Vernon Roche is unused to being challenged is painfully clear in the way he tenses when you lean in to loom over him, in the way that his eyes remain fixed and glaring upon the one you’ve got left.

This could have been a normal discussion, but this is far more entertaining. You could watch him grapple with his pride against your proximity for ages. 

His eyes drift far sooner than you expect, however, and it doesn’t quite feel the way a victory should. Vernon doesn’t cast his eyes aside to escape the sight of you. Quite the contrary. His gaze drags its way down, over your cheekbone and the cut of your jaw. It catches on your tattoo, following the leafy branches penned into your skin as if they’re a path laid out for him, spanning the side of your bare throat down to the exposed bit of your clavicle. 

You swallow involuntarily, your flesh heating, burning, in the wake of his eyes and you almost step back. You don’t, of course. You can’t. But the sudden weakness in your knees makes you wish you could. It reminds you too much of that night when you’d only just managed to put it out of your mind.

But Vernon Roche, bl’oede dh’oine, raises his eyes to linger on your lips and you’re struck vividly with the memory of the way his felt against them. The hurried, almost feverish way the two of you had collided-- a false moment-- what should have been a false moment-- of passion, presented to keep your covers intact while in hostile territory. He had gotten carried away with the act, and you have to grit your teeth when you acknowledge you hadn’t been far behind. You feel like you’ve gone mad for how easily you recall it and you’re struck with the sudden urge to shove him away. To turn and leave. To vanish and continue your work alone, without him and his constant reminders. 

Instead, you draw in a sharp breath and twist your lips into as smirk as best as you can. You can’t back down. You will not. 

     “...I hate to inform you, Vernon, but I believe my eye is up here.”

@dawnscngs​ ( regis ) / starter call ( cahir )

Reality has taken some time to set into your mind comfortably. The rest of you should have died too, so it shouldn’t be such a shock, really, but you’ve had a special stretch of time where you had dedicated yourself to believing that you really would never see Regis again.

It’s difficult in a temporary way, and your hesitation had been rooted mostly in the thought that this might be fleeting. That Toussaint would once more feel like nothing but a pleasant dream and you’d move on, incomplete but living. You don’t want to, but fears of this kind are hardly ever rational.

By the gods, you do not want to.

“I’m sorry. I had foolishly lost hope that you could still be alive. And I missed you far more than I deserved to. So, I am sorry.” It feels more like an admission of guilt than an apology, but you do not feel that you deserve forgiveness for your transgressions. Both doubting his ability and his conscience might as well be criminal, with how you have taken them. “I doubted you, and I should not have. But I am glad to see you here, and I wanted to be able to tell you in a way that mattered.”

Contrition is not what you were expecting when coming face to face with any of your dear hansa, particularly not after taking such a long time being pieced back together. In fact, it’s taken you the longest, it seems, and for that you had already rehearsed an apology of your own. Cahir seems to have something else in mind entirely, and you cannot find it within yourself to interrupt him-- not this time, not while he looks at you as if he is still grieving you.

A sigh passes your pursed lips, hiding your fangs as you smile. You can feel the soft fondness in your own expression and you decide not to make any effort to school it. Even amidst mornings of the vicovarian checking for evidence of your fangs on his skin, or the nervous sidelong glances that sometimes punctuated the evenings spent around one fire or the next, your affection grew for him daily, as it did for the rest of your companions. 

Besides, with the far-too-recent memory of blood still slick on your tongue, the idea that you could fault him for doubting you is laughable.

     “ You have done me no harm and you deserve far more than it appears you are willing to grant yourself, ” you reply, shaking your head as your eyes find his. Striking blue and kind to the same degree-- he doesn’t look at you with the same kind of trepidation as he once had. If only you still deserved that sort of trust. “ As for myself, I dare say that the state I was in would have warranted a bit of doubt from anyone. I am, of course, terribly stubborn, but I am...far from infallible, as much as I may enjoy pretending to the tune of the contrary. I will be the first to admit that it is a bit much to ask anyone to have unconditional faith in me. All of that said...”

You take a beat to look him over and note that there isn’t a single scratch on him, not one scar left in Stygga’s wake. Perhaps you should be surprised, but all the energy you can muster turns to relief instead. You accept this-- his safety, his unsevered life-- because despite it feeling like a faerie tale, too good to be true, it is the one thing you spent your dying moments begging for.

Their lives. 

You cannot help the initial feeling of panic that overtakes you as Jaskier begins to break–though you had wished for this, privately, to be able to see what he had been feeling in that moment because you knew at least that it must be as badly as you, you had not expected the ease with which your actions would coax a reaction out of him, and past that you do not know that you have ever heard him stumble over his words in this way. It is unfamiliar to you, but all the same he is so entirely Jaskier in his quiet, tearful passion.

You think you must love Jaskier, for the way that you want to take the tears from his eyes and promise him your company for the rest of time if only it will make him happy.

Grief makes monsters of beautiful, wonderful people, you think. You are reminded of your mother, eyes red and swollen with tears and begging you to hate because of what her grief had done to her. Jaskier does not cry–not wholly–but he looks oddly fragile. Feels oddly fragile even as he pulls you to him, and you would swear a thousand oaths if you knew it would get you any closer to vanquishing that monstrous grief of his that dims his bright glow so terribly.

“I am a vagrant,” you say, the first time you have voiced such a truth and it is mumbled so close to his skin while you desperately wish you never had to move again. “There are very little places in the world I could go. But you almost always allowed me to walk beside you so kindly. You did not treat me as a soldier but as a companion. Even if I had free choice of anywhere in the world, I would have always come back to you. That, I promise you sincerely and without regret.”

Really, you had not even considered that Jaskier might have felt that way. Whether because of his expert facade or your own lack of awareness at times, you had always thought Jaskier to be someone who was confident in his place with the people around him. He had never betrayed any hint that he might be so frightened of being abandoned, which perhaps is why you had even been able to wait the few days you did before trudging back, putting yourself back together. If you had known, you wouldn’t have waited even that long. You’d have walked back still bleeding if you needed.

“It will be easier together.” You think of Milva, unwilling to admit she was frightened in the forest. You think of your own delirium, and the way you placed your delicate life in Geralt’s hands. “So I am glad you would let me in like this.”

You’ve never held on to someone this long, but you have no desire to let go and you make no move to. Holding Jaskier close is every bit the comfort you had imagined it would be, and so long as he seems like he is doing well in your arms, you will allow him to stay there. If it takes an hour or a night, you would let him stay through it all.

“I am not a poet, so I cannot spread lovely words through memoirs or write my feelings so beautifully into song. But I can tell you them just fine, because I am never going to stop living in fear that I will no longer be able to say these things to anyone. I am terribly frightened for the future and I sometimes catch myself speaking to any number of people who I remember too late aren’t there. I still get unreasonably upset with myself when my grip on my sword falters because I’ve lost full functionality of my sword-hand. And I care for you deeply, and wish only that whatever you must go through to heal, you will go through alongside me and not on your own.”

Ever and always, you have known the world to be filled with duplicitous and cruel people-- a stark contrast to the undeniable radiant beauty of life itself. You had learned long ago, while literacy was still being beaten into you and your hands were still stinging from countless strikes from the switch-- one for each superfluous movement, every last fidget-- to see what lies beneath friendly masks while never allowing yours to slip. You had learned many things, but most importantly, you had learned who to trust and who not to. Handsome men who make handsome promises are all the rage in sonnets, but in life those promises are as good as the fool’s gold that encircles your right pointer finger. Despite your sordid and decidedly amorous history, you are far from the type to fall for a pretty face.

But no matter how hard you’ve looked, you have never been able to find a single seam in the face he presents to you. Roaming the continent with the man has shown you that Cahir Mawr Dyffryn aep Ceallach...simply does not wear a mask for you to look beneath. 

He is no poet, or so he says, but you don’t think that any lines you could ever weave would hold a candle to the gorgeous sincerity that falls from his lips. Lips that are warm, and alive, and that brush against the scar at your temple when Cahir moves them to speak. Truly, nothing compares.

Your eyes flutter, a tear slipping free to caress its path down your cheek and eventually drop onto the fabric of the Vicovarian’s tunic, and you feel yourself smile in spite of the lingering weight between your ribs. “ I...am pleased beyond measure to have earned myself such a loyal vagrant-companion, however I may have managed it. ” You aim for light-hearted, though you’re sure the state you’re in does you no favors. “ I fear you’ve sealed your fate with me now, with your timely returns and your lovely vows-- Anywhere in the world and you would choose me, hm? However could I resist? ”

You manage a laugh, though there lingers a weak sob hidden away beneath it, and you dip your head to find rest against Cahir’s shoulder. One of your hands slips from his back to settle over his heart instead, longing to take note of the rhythm of his pulse beneath your fingers. He’s real, you remind yourself, and not for the first time. He’s here. 

     “ I care for you as well, my dear valiant Non-Nilfgaardian...” You cannot refuse yourself a gentle tease, even as you raise your head from his shoulder and your hand to his cheek. You cradle his face in your palm and you feel the pain twisting your expression begin to ease as you meet his gaze as he had yours moments ago. 

“I would not change that time if it would make it easier for me now,” you admit, following clumsily behind Jaskier’s sentiments, feeling a fool for voicing what you think. “You should know, one of the first choices I had ever made for myself was following you three. I had spent my whole life waiting for someone to tell me what to do, following order after order and doing only as I was told. And when Geralt told me not to follow…”

You sigh softly, looking over at Jaskier–searching his expression for any reaction, any sign that you might need to extend the comfort he has given you back in his direction. It is difficult, with him–you struggle to read him at the best of times, but though you know he must be hurting he presents no help as to what you should be doing to help.

It aches within you, the desire to hold him. Is it really for the sake of his comfort or is it for your own selfish wants?

You continue to speak.

“I could not stay behind. I thought about it, really, and I spent some time still in that position I had been in when I was freed. But something was calling me to continue. I thought then that it must have been a selfish desire to see Ciri once more, but I know now that I was a fool.” You tentatively–and very gently–reach up to rest a hand on Jaskier’s shoulder. He is neither warm nor cold under your touch, and smaller than you in build in a way that really does make you want to hold him until he no longer allows it.

Is this wrong? You wonder. Is it selfish to be here, giving comfort and company, for the selfish reason of wanting Jaskier? Even if you do want to be there for him, is wanting him enough to make this wrong?

“It feels like destiny,” you say, the word making you feel like grimacing as it leaves your mouth, a reminder that your destiny has always been tied with death, with losing others. “Even now as I sit here and grieve alongside you, I think it must have happened this way, and that there is a reason it did. And I despair over that because I think I might be meant to live a life of losing people, but I feel comforted as well, because even in the gloomy, quiet hours after the storm has cleared, there is still you. I will be forever grateful that you are here still.”

You are not the kind of person who makes confessions, who hinges your hopes on a singular person. The world is far too fragile for that, and you are a Dyffryn, and Dyffryns do not feel. 

But you are also Cahir, son of Ceallach, who pled at the feet of his emperor for his son to be given a second chance. Son of Mawr, who broke so badly from the death of her first son that she drilled her hatred and mourning into the other two. Companion of the hansa, with whom you learned to feel things the right way. And you are both content and hurting, fine and not, and you think nothing will ever make sense enough for you to let go of the singular person you have left.

“I will stay with you, Jaskier.” A promise, delivered firmly, your hand still on his shoulder. “I’m not leaving here.”

The weight of Cahir’s hand finding purchase upon your shoulder nearly buckles the resolve you are struggling to hold yourself to. You did not see what he saw, you didn’t fight as he’d fought, so you try your best to keep your front strong-- as steady and sure as you can make it in the face of this hellish loss-- because you believe that if your heart appears strong, it will help. It is, perhaps, your only true strength. 

You wish desperately to be strong for Cahir, after all he’s been through, but you nearly crumble under a single touch. You curse yourself for the way that his hand brings down your carefully crafted walls-- as if you’ve built them from sand! You could not be there for him in the midst of all the horror and the blood and the death-- you long to be here for him now, but you are nothing but fucking sand.

You catch yourself beginning to tremble under his palm and you hold your breath to try and still yourself. It only half works. Even with such efforts, you can feel yourself fighting to hold back. You feel the sorrow crawling into you like some great beast seeking shelter and your body has no choice but to strain to contain it. 

“ I-- had always wished he would have gone easier on you, you know. I am glad that you didn’t listen to him when he told you to leave. I am-- I am so very glad that you traveled with us, Cahir. ”

By your standards, you may as well be weeping, but to his eyes... what must he see as you begin to crack open into raw, unpracticed sincerity? Irreparable damage beneath a crumbling facade? Or perhaps a pearl within a pretty blue shell? Will now be the moment he turns away?

As that fear, that uncertainty, begins to climb up your spine, his words take a turn and you can’t help the way your reaction shows clearly on your face. 

He’s grateful for you and you... are stunned. 

Your lips part, as if to speak, but for once in your life, you are unable to find the words. Your eyes search his face for a lingering moment and the lines of him become hazy as your eyes begin to sting. The tears that fill them do not fall, but linger precariously upon your lashes as Cahir strikes home once more with his declaration.

I will stay with you, he says. I am not leaving, he tells you with his beautiful, honest eyes alight in his beautiful, honest face-- worn from stress and grief, most definitely, but no less achingly, heart-wrenchingly beautiful-- and his hand on your shoulder that behaves as though it is holding the very world in its palm and not just you.

     “ You-- ” You find your voice, but you begin lamely, pathetically, in a voice that wavers as if drowned out by a harsh wind. you clear your throat and swallow hard, blinking away your tears ad best you can as you inch yourself forward, towards the soldier adjacent to you. You settle in closer than you think you’ve ever been to him-- at least outside of sleeping arrangements in camp-- and you reach out to wind your arms around him. You guide him into your arms and yourself into his, though you struggle even now with feeling as though you cannot comfort him if he is busy comforting you. 

@dawnscngs​ ( jaskier ) / cahir starter call.

You find him alone, the soft sound of a lute’s strings slicing the otherwise somber silence into many pieces with their intrusive yet not unwelcome sound. It is unusual to see Jaskier so quiet, yet entirely expected, given the circumstances; you feel as though you’ve stumbled across something you were never meant to see, some private moment you’ve ruined because of your own curiosities.

But you think you are perhaps the only person who could understand this. Who else? Geralt, who had left without saying a word or staying back to make sure you had survived even after you fought beside him? After you had tried to die for the girl you all had dedicated yourselves to saving?

No, certainly not him.

“I did not spend longer with the hansa than I have spent with other people in my life,” you admit, joining Jaskier and spoiling his lonesome song with your hoarse, rough voice. “But in many ways, I felt like I was closer with everyone there than I had been for the years of my life I spent among comrades in Nilfgaard.”

An admission of vulnerability. That’s all it is. You are sure you don’t feel things as strongly as Jaskier does, or at least you do not express them as poetically, but you know that you’re hurting, too.

“I haven’t mourned for anyone in a long time. War is war, people will die. As a soldier, you learn to either stop grieving for too long or stop getting too attached; it is unbearable otherwise. But now there is nothing else for me to do.” You don’t know why you’re telling him this, exactly. Ah, but you’ve already started. “Will it always ache so terribly?”

Cahir’s presence at your side is unexpected, but far from unappreciated. Your remarkable sense for sound had picked up on the steady rhythm of the soldier’s approaching footfalls long before he’d appeared in the periphery of your vision, yet you expected him to catch sight of you and depart the way he’d come. You aren’t perturbed by his decision to stay, however. Far from it. This time, you welcome being wrong.

For someone so terrorized by loneliness, you’ve always done your grieving alone. Perhaps because the people you grieve for are most often the ones who would be likely to sit with you during the times where your songs scream of loss rather than revelry. No one goes to a bard for pain, after all. No one seeks a songbird to hear it weep.

You’ve taught yourself never to ask. The kind of people you’re drawn to have their own burdens. They should not have to shoulder the ones that bend your back as well. That sort always has their own precipice, their own ledge they’re balancing on. Geralt seemed to have a new knife’s edge to walk every other week. You can bear to walk your tightrope by yourself.

And yet, when Cahir sits at your side, the breath you exhale carries with it all the relief of a freezing wanderer being brought to another’s fire. You straighten your spine from where you’ve curled yourself over the body of your lute and lay the flat of your palm gently atop the strings to quiet their mournful hum. You want to hear his voice more in this moment, you think.

His admission sinks heavy into your heart, entwining with the thread of emotion you’ve been pulling at yourself for the last little while, and you nod your head. You remove your feathered cap and set it aside, running a hand through loose curls as you work to swallow down the lump in your throat enough to speak.

     “ I-- understand how you must feel. Compared to the long stretches of years I’ve spent elsewhere and with others, I think I’ve only ever made such a home of people once before, ” You wrote a song for her as well. One no one has ever heard. Her life had ended and no one but you had even noticed. How could you not notice, though? How could you ever forget the weight of her cold body in your arms, the smell of smoke and burning flesh, the dirt beneath your fingernails...

But you aren’t the only one left to remember your hansa. 

     “ Our hansa was a rare joy in all our lives, or so I believe... and unfortunately, in my experience, there is no method to easily combat the loss of a true rare joy. ” You draw yourself closer to his side. Your knees and shoulders brush and you feel the weakest part of you longing to fall against his shoulder and sob. You do not. You keep your voice as steady as you can, though it’s far more subdued than is usual for you, and you continue, eyes lowered to the strings of your lute as if they will give you both the answer. “I am afraid that the ache will never truly leave you. Over the years, there will be moments where it feels as if it eases it’s grip, but perhaps that night you will think of something and it will return to choke the breath from your lungs. It is what infests the gap left in your heart, the absence of someone, ever reminding you that the space was once filled and all of the sorrow in you now is all of the love you had left over that now lacks a place to go, ”

(italics for things they could learn to do or do if they were in a verse where those things existed)

bake  a  cake  from  scratch.  ride  a  horse.   drive  a  submarine. speak a second language ( and a third, and a fourth, and fifth, and so on ). dance. catch a fish. play an instrument. throw  a  punch.  build  a  deck. ice  skate. unclog  a  drain.  program  a  computer. change  a  flat  tire. fire  a  gun.  sew.  juggle. play  poker. paint. fly  a  kite.  sculpt.  write poetry. change  a  diaper. sing.  shoot  a  bow  &  arrow. ride  a  bike. swim.  sail a boat. do  a  back  flip. play  chess. give  cpr. pitch a tent. flirt. stitch a wound. read  palms. use chopsticks. write in cursive / calligraphy. use  an  electric  drill. braid hair.  make a campfire. make  a  mixed  drink. do sudoku puzzles.  wrap a gift. give  a  good  massage. jump start  a  car. roll their tongue.  magic  tricks.  do yoga.  tie a tie. skip a rock. shuffle  a  deck  of  cards. read  morse  code.  pick  a  lock.

bake  a  cake  from  scratch.  ride  a  horse.  drive  a  submarine. speak a second language. dance. catch a fish. play an instrument. throw  a  punch.  build  a  deck. ice  skate. unclog  a  drain.  program  a  computer. change  a  flat  tire. fire  a  gun. sew.  juggle. play  poker. paint.  fly  a  kite.  sculpt.  write poetry. change  a  diaper.  sing.  shoot  a  bow  &  arrow. ride  a  bike. swim.  sail a boat. do  a  back  flip. play  chess. give  cpr. pitch a tent. flirt. stitch a wound. read  palms. use chopsticks. write in cursive / calligraphy. use  an  electric  drill. braid hair. make a campfire. make  a  mixed  drink. do sudoku puzzles.  wrap a gift. give  a  good  massage. jump start  a  car. roll their tongue.  magic  tricks.  do yoga. tie a tie. skip a rock. shuffle  a  deck  of  cards. read  morse  code.  pick  a  lock.

Tagged by: @veritcs​​

 “ guess  you  didn’t  expect  me  to  show  up,  huh,  liam? ”  a  playful  tinge  dots  the  detective’s  words  as  his  body  leans  against  the  frame  of  the  door  leading  inside  the  auditorium  a  class  was  held  in  minutes  prior.  “ i  suppose  i’m  a  little  too  late,  though. ”  he  adds,  amused  as  he  glances   at  empty  chairs,  eventually  allowing  his  gaze  to  settle  neatly  on  the  man  one  may  consider  an  enigma;  the  biggest  mystery  of  them  all.  and  sherlock  is  itching  with  desire  to  find  out  what’s  hiding  beneath  all  the  layers  of  william  james  moriarty.

small starter for @dawnscngs​  /  sherlock & william

     “ good day, mr. holmes, ” william’s head turns at the sound of the detective’s voice, scarlet eyes flitting from the half-erased chalkboard, partially covered in his own neat writing, to find him in the doorway at the top of the amphitheatre. the professor smiles.  “ if you were hoping to catch the lecture, then indeed you are unfortunately a bit behind schedule. but you aren’t here for mathematics, i imagine. ”

what a clever man, william muses, a strange affection blooming in his chest, always where i least expect him. there’s a thrill in interacting with sherlock, one that even the infamous lord of crime cannot resist.

     “Don’t mind if I do,”

He doesn’t need to ask you twice. You find that no hesitation grips you at the sight of the knight’s extended hand and yours falls into it as easily as if drawn by a string. Cahir’s hands are larger than yours, you notice idly as your fingertips glide over his palm, and warmer, though equally as calloused ( from drastically different pursuits, of course. ) The toughness of your skin is localized to reflect decades of lute strings and writing and horse’s reins, kept from growing too unpleasantly rough by regular use of a nice rose-scented skin cream you had developed an attachment to. 

His are far from unpleasant themselves, though they bear the wear and tear of a soldier, complete with plenty of scars-- one of which you’re familiar with the origin of, though it lies on the hand you aren’t grasping. Your thumb strokes over another mark etched into his skin, near his knuckles. Old...perhaps from his training, perhaps from something in his childhood entirely unrelated to the horrors of war. When you consider them closely like this, Cahir’s hands tell as many stories as your lips, and an unquiet voice in you tempts you to bring the two storytellers together.

You restrain yourself, though you are unable to restrain your thoughts-- the way they drift to imagining the feeling of his skin beneath your kiss is only natural progression, after all. As is wondering how these hands might feel against your skin in turn. Yes, such are the most vexing questions that fill your head...

( A chaotic mix of book-based, show-based, and headcanon-based )

【 𝕚𝕔. 】♙ THE TROUBADOUR

【 𝕞𝕦𝕤𝕚𝕟𝕘𝕤. 】♙ HALF A CENTURY OF POETRY

【 𝕙𝕖𝕒𝕕𝕔𝕒𝕟𝕠𝕟𝕤. 】♙ NOT LYING-- JUST EMBELLISHING! ( THERE’S A DIFFERENCE )

【 𝕧𝕚𝕤𝕒𝕘𝕖. 】♙ CORNFLOWERS & MORNING SUN

【 𝕒𝕖𝕤𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕥𝕚𝕔. 】♙ COWARDS DIE ALL THE TIME-- A BRAVE MAN ONLY ONCE.

【 𝕒𝕦𝕕𝕚𝕠. 】♙ AND HE NEVER SANG IT. NEVER. TO NO ONE.

【 𝕕𝕣𝕒𝕓𝕓𝕝𝕖𝕤. 】♙ WHO YOU REALLY ARE

「 ☠ 」 Of all the potential outcomes of this endeavour, Moran ranked fire among the easiest to deal with—-so long as William didn’t get hurt in the process. Louis may eventually forgive the colonel as long as his brother remained unscathed, and he wasn’t that intent on testing his fate; after all, he wouldn’t put it past the youngest to poison his food ( with something nonlethal, of course, but it’d still be far from pleasant ). If they merely made a mess and ruined some food, then he’d be able to get off with a stern scolding and the silent treatment.

Years of making himself a nuisance led to acquiring some useful knowledge, at the very least. He learned how far he could push the envelope without tearing it.

“I’ve dealt with my share of fires,” Moran dismissed with a wave of his hand, quieter now that they weren’t secluded in the study. Someone might hear them if they weren’t careful, after all, and that simply wouldn’t do. He’d never been one to give up once he set his mind to something. Opening up the cabinet doors, he began rummaging through for dishes—-setting any ones deemed unnecessary on the counter to get them out of the way. “We should start with something easy. Y’know how to crack eggs, yeah?”

If William didn’t… well, that wouldn’t be too surprising, everything considered. As self-deprecating as the professor could be at times, he surely wouldn’t consider himself so terrible in the kitchen without proper cause.

Finally finding the bowl he wanted, he pulled it from the cabinet and set it down closer to William, then haphazardly pushed the unused dishes towards the wall instead of putting them away. Then, he sought out the basket of eggs, bringing it over once he found it.

And maybe, just maybe, he’d be nice enough to not try and use all of them.

In a moment of mercy, Moran opted to demonstrate first instead of making the professor guess—-but he didn’t choose the most helpful way of doing so, considering he cracked the egg swiftly and skillfully with only one hand before tossing the shell aside. “Think you can manage that?”

Watching Moran root through the cabinet like some sort of feral animal forces the professor to press his lips together in a tight line, barely keeping the laugh bubbling behind them in check. There’s a moment, while the Colonel’s back is turned, where William is tempted to put the unused dishes away again but resolves to do it later, not wishing to spoil Moran’s fun, nor make too much noise in the process.

     “ While I’m not certain I can match your technique, I am familiar with cracking eggs, at least. ” William is fairly competent when it comes to the basics of preparation, especially in the processes that cooking shares with baking. Where the two skillsets begin to stray, however, is where his ability dissipates-- knife skills, seasoning, the proper application of heat, and so on. baking is simple chemistry, you follow directions and you receive the proper result. There’s too much room for error and variance with cooking, and it is unfortunately not an area to which the professor’s remarkable intuition extends.

Regardless, he nudges himself into Moran’s space, gently shouldering the taller man away from the bowl and plucking an egg from the basket. “ If you’re finished showing off, I’ll have to ask you to discard that shell properly, Colonel Moran. ” A smile plays at his lips, warm and fond, despite a certain heaviness lingering in his eyelids, and he cracks the egg carefully-- with both hands. He sets the shell to the side, intending to form a pile for the sake of easy clean-up.