[for Biffy; April]

[krempuff]

The better weather and start of some formal season or another with the local school-age citizens meant that Krem's hours had picked up at Bardolf's. He was hardly complaining about the hours, working them in around everything else. There wasn't so much everything else to work around, after all, and beyond having to sometimes supervise the fittings, he was left pretty much alone to do his job and get things done.

That evening, arriving at Bardolf's, he was aching and distracted. The weight of fight club was still on him, and his evening and morning after. But he was there, blissfully and entirely sober for the first time in a surfeit of months, and staring at the list of projects left for him by the day seamstresses to complete as the secondary tailor.

"...you'd think they'd be able to get more done," he mumbled to himself. "With three of them and using machines. Why's the singular hand seamer faster than the lot?"

Comments

[modern_alpha]

"It must still be a little like home, in some respects," Biffy supposed. It was, perhaps, a little bit like Spain in that respect for him. It wove into his name and it was inextricably part of his heritage but Biffy did not so much love his father's country as dance an extremely complex and overly polite dance with it at an uncomfortable party.

He wondered now if he would do that dance in Lord Akeldama's townhouse or in the Maccons'. What place was home to him, anymore?

"I am glad, then, that our paths saw fit to cross."

[krempuff]

"It always will be, I think," Krem said speculatively. "I am always a product of my past, as much as I am a prospect of my future. But, I don't see a particular point in pining for my history, I suppose? Tevinter is who and what I am. I always carry that with me. If I could, I suppose, I would go home. Just to see it. But--"

The but sat between them, filled with unspoken things. But Darrow. But everything Dorian and he had left in Thedas. But that Dorian had been abducted by this place, and Krem had not. There was no point in speaking any of those things.

[modern_alpha]

Biffy smiled a bit sadly. There were days when he still pined terribly for the life he'd once had and for the elegance of the vampires, but he knew no amount of wishing could undo what had been done. "I wish I could be so sensible as you," he said.

And that but hung in the air.

"I suppose, Darrow being what it is, the whole thing is moot."

[krempuff]

"I don't know if it's sense so much as stubbornness and denial," Krem admitted, a bit candid. Not getting caught up in his past made it so much easier to not let his past be too much a danger to him. It meant it wasn't a thing that could injure or torment him. It wasn't a thing that could touch him.

But he had still punched Dorian straight across the mouth that first fight club. Had still frozen in the midst of wrestling Thomas on the beach. He still flinched and retreated when men tried to hand him things too quickly, or pass things around him, or when women raised their voices too rapidly around him. These were things ingrained in his bones and his muscles now, as much as his swordplay was.

"I suppose so, for most of us."

[modern_alpha]

"In some people, they mix well," Biffy said, not dismissing Krem's self-assessment but also thinking there was more to it than plain stubbornness. Krem was a remarkable man, the type of whom Biffy had never met before but for strength and mettle Biffy hoped to meet a great many more.

"I, for one, am glad to have been brought here. Without this place I would never have met Dorian, nor you." That was enough, Biffy thought, to recommend Darrow.

[krempuff]

Somehow, when Biffy said it, it did not seem quite as pithy as it could have from other people. His earnestness won the strength of conviction, and Krem appreciated the sentiment, even if he didn't believe it, on more days than not.

Today was a slightly better day, aching and clarified and feeling closer to whole, closer to how he ought to, if he'd been back home. That made it easier.

"Dorian is certainly a reason, all on his own."

[modern_alpha]

"And you?" Biffy asked, thinking again of the various scents that clung to Krem. "You also have reasons?" It seemed almost an innuendo despite how earnestly Biffy asked it. Krem seemed happy enough in his companionship and, perhaps romantically, Biffy thought that that could often be reason enough for anyone.

"And I do mean it." Biffy was grateful to Krem for many acts of friendship and one great act of courage on a particularly awful full moon.

[krempuff]

"I'm certainly coming up with several," Krem said, a wistful note in his voice. It was probably unsafe to become so attached, in a place that could so easily take from people. He'd seen how it ruined Blue, and Ronan.

He did not think of himself as, particularly, a reason to find Darrow otherwise endearing or desirable. But that was likely the soldiering. He had fixed himself as an object of transience for nearly half his life now. His lot was meant to be discarded in the end.

But it was nice, he supposed, to end up a facet.