[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]

"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.