"Falling," seems like a far more accurate description of what he'd managed to accomplish during his short stint in the abandoned patch of ice.
He makes his way to the edge of the bed, the mattress and the cording between the bed's rails groaning faintly under his weight. While John busies himself with the contents of the trunk, Flint gingerly picks free the clasp securing the fur mantle.
Boat. Gwenaëlle may have the dubious honor of Flint's good regard and that cursed thing she's taken up residence in may be of considerable importance to her, but let's not stretch the definition of certain principle nomenclature on that account.
Shrugging free of the mantle, Flint leans after the pot of salve and the roll of bandages.
Mr. DeGroot is, after all, nowhere to be found and John's vocabulary is limited to what can be absorbed secondhand.
A short hop and pivot lands John alongside him on the bed. A passing glance for the thick mantle, amusement flickering across his face, before John catches up the bandages himself. Flint might take custody of the salve, easily applied between two scraped palms without much difficulty. While he waits, John loosens the roll of bandages between his fingers in preparation.
It's not difficult to work the salve's seal free with just his fingertips, and the initial application of its contents onto each scraped raw palm stings exactly as much as it probably should in order to serve as a fine reminder for the next time someone attempts to bait him into acting the fool. Mercifully, there's not much in the way of debris to pick free—just scuffed skin, and tender flesh, the blood that had welled up in the immediate aftermath of his idiocy long since smeared away into a handkerchief.
"But let's default to barge if we're determined to be polite."
The stopper is fit back onto its pot. Flint offers John one greasy, medicinal hand for bandaging.
"Anything interesting?" His nod indicates the papers on the side table not reserved for rolling.
"Only if you've investment in the ship's library."
In this application, library is as misused as John's earlier reference of boat. Or at the least, the meaning is being stretched beyond its usual limits.
"The crew have come up with a number of requests. I'm assuming titles they've picked up from those passing through."
Who had they corralled into writing the list? John hadn't recognized the hand-writing, but has his suspicions.
His thumb runs along Flint's wrist, draws his hand in closer before John begins wrapping the bandages. It's a delicate process; his fingers skim along Flint's palm, catch at his fingertips, minor snags of contact in the process of cinching the cloth securely into place.
No, he doesn't much care what ludicrous pornography the Walrus's men have decided to they require so long as they're still being in some sense mollified by the whole silly song and dance involved with their acquisition and subsequent performance.
"At this rate, you'll turn some of them literate."
Let it be noted that James Flint is at least a perfectly biddable patient. His hand is easy under the attention. Wrist idle, fingertips patient.
"Literate," is echoed in a chuckle. "I think we can say they've developed some appreciation to for the literary arts, if nothing else."
Appreciation.
Another word whose meaning is being stretched beyond its limitations.
"It's the least of their requests," John continues. Newly bandaged, Flint's hand is surrendered as John takes hold of the other. Examines the damage briefly, before repeating his work. "If we're lucky I'll get hold of another trunk of books. It'll occupy them for the whole of the coming year."
"A whole year in exchange for a cache of books. Maker, hands come cheap these days."
There's some rueful note in it, mostly unserious save some nip of irony. Imagine if men always were so easily satisfied.
The pressure of the bandage and the salve on the cuts in combination makes for a consistently dull, unremarkable sting. After a brief flex of fingers, with his second hand still subject to John's ministration, Flint makes to displace the resealed pot of salve to the little side table. He trades it for the list, twisting it round to get a look at the titles and what's written there prompts a low sniff not unrelated to a laugh. Andraste help the taste of fucking (metaphorically and otherwise) sailors.
"I'd wondered whether you might join them tonight."
The roll of gauze is allowed to drop into the space between them, joining the hems of that great furred mantle.
"I'd considered it."
Bandages secured, their loosely linked hands have fallen to John's thigh. His thumb is moving idly, back and forth along the edge of bandage where it overlaps warm skin at the heel of Flint's palm. This stretch of skin, unscathed by whatever abrupt landing Flint had come to on the ice, is subject to the brush of contact as John continues, "I had also considered ascending two flights more."
The motivation behind that exertion would be self-explanatory, surely.
(Silver must qualify as one whether he cares for it or not, whether he knows the difference between a halyard and a buntline or not.)
With the salve already doing it's work to blunt the sting of the opened skin, Flint raises the loosely linked collection of their hands and presses a kiss to the backs of John's knuckles.
"Among other things," John allows, because certainly they might have shared that whiskey in the course of time spent together.
But among other things is colored too by the attention paid to Flint's mouth, the lift of their linked hands. John's eyes linger there for a long moment before he tips his head towards the faint glow of the bottle in the window.
"We could certainly entertain the alternatives I have on hand before we go up."
Assuming they do ascend the stairs together. It feels a foregone conclusion, that John might turn out his lamp and gather the parcel in this room meant for the man beside him, and they leave side by side. Habit does trend towards the relative luxury of the side room of the Forces office.
His attention follows along the same line. It prompts the unravelling of their hands and a pat to John's thigh that has the same cadence as one Flint might afford that terrible Antivan mare (who has never required any reassuring) before he rises to fetch the bottle down from the windowsill.
"Dealing with the Carta now, are you?"
Presumably there is a cup or cups somewhere in the room that an experienced raider of personal property might successfully scavenge.
Which may well come to the same thing, all aspects of that journey considered.
Regardless, there is a cup near to hand. Dented spectacularly, but still of good use. Clearly in use, as there is some glowing liquid already occupying it.
John is observing him, intent, examining the effect of Flint moving through the narrow space of this room as he continues, "Though there's a trio of very grizzled dwarves who I've had a passing acquaintance with who may well have ties."
"Ah, well," is in a knowing tenor despite the objective bullshit that follows: "You know what they say about trios of grizzled dwarves."
Flint returns to the bed and there makes himself comfortable to the extent that he reclines as horizontal as is possible across the width of the mattress while still retaining the ability to pour a measure of the luminous whisky into the battered cup. There is an air about it that implies a nearly instinctive familiarity with how best to arrange his limbs in the space.
(If he closes one eye and imagines the sway of the sea, this narrow room isn't markedly different from the close quarters of a petty officer's wardroom on a fleet little Tevine naval ship.)
The cup is passed over once it's been properly dosed.
"There's a public house in Qarinus that deals in this stuff." Or once did. "The Red Ribbon."
There is something in the way James Flint embodies a space.
There is something to the way James Flint embodies this space.
John is turning it over, feeling what reactions ripple outwards in response, as he accepts the offering. Their fingers catching over battered tin, John maintaining the contact long enough for a press of thumb over knuckle before taking hold of the cup.
"Have you a taste for it?"
Better than this strange-tasting, glowing liquor: the little ribbon given over with it, winnowing backwards in time. The past, there at the end of it. A tug away.
"My assumption is that then, yes, given how men in the service are ordinarily thrilled to drink anything that isn't three quarters squirming."
The contents of ships' casks being understood to be fucking awful. Surely there is a reason Flint's tastes in this particular field are so reliably rank; the sharper the alcohol, the less likely something is to be living in it. At the very least, there's nothing like a paint stripping scorch to obscure less palatable flavors.
"But I don't recall," he says. The glowing bottle has been tucked into the crook of his elbow. His hand returns from the cup to rub absently at the shadow of makeup black about one eye. "The Ribbon was better known for indulgences beyond its selection of dwarven liquors."
A significant look between fingers. That kind of public house.
Creeping fingers of a bandaged hand find their way to the cup, extricating it discreetly.
"We might say that. But clearly the one added to the general affect of the place."
He raises the pilfered cho in a gesture that's halfway toward a toast, then drinks a respectable measure from it. The contents earn only the slightest face—less critical and more merely assessing. In the end, the dented cup is passed back John's way regardless of what Flint thinks of the whisky.
"There was a woman there. Imelda. Renown for a particular thing she did with her tongue. But I'll confess that I never could get anyone to describe the act, or even saw a woman by that name despite how many sailors swore the reverse. I have my suspicions the whole thing was a fiction propagated by the establishment's master."
And presumably there were other ladies to be had with other tricks of the tongue to make up for the difference.
Has John orchestrated something similar? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe not an exact match of the situation, but to weave a fabrication so enduring that it propagates itself even in the face of so little evidence—
Well, it's an admirable skill. It is an admirable skill to John.
In possession of the cup, John takes a slow swig. Lets the flavor sit, earthy and bitter.
"You know, I am near certain at least one of the books on that list features an Imelda."
To be remembered in the pages of a water-speckled bit of pulp, destined to be read-aloud at various points in the course of an evening by a pack of sailors—
There are worse legacies.
(Was John ever meant to be remembered at all?)
"Perhaps if we shared such awe-inspiring skill," is all humor. They have other virtues. John has certainly spent enough time embellishing them in Kirkwall's alehouses, not to mention the decks of certain ships.
"Though I imagine you've a headstart if you intend to make a habit of the paint."
This warrants a wearier grunt, long suffering. He doesn't deserve to have his holiday spirit mocked in so relentless a fashion.
"Don't ask what became of the mask." Lost. Or flattened, maybe, in whatever disaster had produced the skinned palms. Who can say?
Maybe all stories are like this past the margins of their publication—at loose ends, makeup smudged to nearly nothing and their ominous heavy furs masquerading as throws at the foot of beds in exceptionally narrow rooms. It's been a pleasant evening, so he finds the idea pleasant. Were the night colored by some other light, he might judge it otherwise.
The answering chuckle is low, thick and fond. All these things in combination are easily appreciated, just as Flint occupying the space alongside him is easily appreciated.
In the space that follows, John makes a study of him. Comfortable, or appearing so. Bottle in the crook of his arm. Remnants of his costume lingering behind. The looseness of his limbs, the weight of the day’s responsibilities shed. John tips the cup to his mouth, draining the last of it before returning it to Flint’s custody.
“I’ve something for you,” John says into the quiet between them, rather than a request for further libation. “But it’ll keep, if we intend to continue an upwards climb.”
Flint hums low, extracting the bottle from the comfortable crook of his arm to slosh a fresh half measure into the cup. This one he drinks—more smoothly now that he's braced for the low, earthen flavor.
"I don't mind the room." That it temporarily saves them the trouble of navigating stairwells is merely an added benefit. There's so much of his work lingering in the central tower, the division office stacked high with reports to be read and orders to sign and every possible task between those two points besides. The distance between here and there seems to legitimize the luxury of delay in a way a single closed door hardly does.
To say nothing of the comfort to be found in a narrow bed and close quarters, the night sharp beyond the cracked shutters.
"Though if you want your things tonight rather than wait on them, we may as well."
Suffice to say, he isn't carrying John's Satinalia present in his pockets.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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He makes his way to the edge of the bed, the mattress and the cording between the bed's rails groaning faintly under his weight. While John busies himself with the contents of the trunk, Flint gingerly picks free the clasp securing the fur mantle.
"How went the rest of the party?"
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A rarity, when it comes to Riftwatch.
Considering their poor attendance record at celebrations past, they've picked the right year to register an appearance.
A little pot of salve is pitched backwards to land on the bed beside him. The bandages follow, so John might lever himself upwards.
"How went Gwenaëlle's boat? Still afloat?"
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Boat. Gwenaëlle may have the dubious honor of Flint's good regard and that cursed thing she's taken up residence in may be of considerable importance to her, but let's not stretch the definition of certain principle nomenclature on that account.
Shrugging free of the mantle, Flint leans after the pot of salve and the roll of bandages.
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Mr. DeGroot is, after all, nowhere to be found and John's vocabulary is limited to what can be absorbed secondhand.
A short hop and pivot lands John alongside him on the bed. A passing glance for the thick mantle, amusement flickering across his face, before John catches up the bandages himself. Flint might take custody of the salve, easily applied between two scraped palms without much difficulty. While he waits, John loosens the roll of bandages between his fingers in preparation.
"Or preferred term, as it might be."
Ha, ha.
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It's not difficult to work the salve's seal free with just his fingertips, and the initial application of its contents onto each scraped raw palm stings exactly as much as it probably should in order to serve as a fine reminder for the next time someone attempts to bait him into acting the fool. Mercifully, there's not much in the way of debris to pick free—just scuffed skin, and tender flesh, the blood that had welled up in the immediate aftermath of his idiocy long since smeared away into a handkerchief.
"But let's default to barge if we're determined to be polite."
The stopper is fit back onto its pot. Flint offers John one greasy, medicinal hand for bandaging.
"Anything interesting?" His nod indicates the papers on the side table not reserved for rolling.
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In this application, library is as misused as John's earlier reference of boat. Or at the least, the meaning is being stretched beyond its usual limits.
"The crew have come up with a number of requests. I'm assuming titles they've picked up from those passing through."
Who had they corralled into writing the list? John hadn't recognized the hand-writing, but has his suspicions.
His thumb runs along Flint's wrist, draws his hand in closer before John begins wrapping the bandages. It's a delicate process; his fingers skim along Flint's palm, catch at his fingertips, minor snags of contact in the process of cinching the cloth securely into place.
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"At this rate, you'll turn some of them literate."
Let it be noted that James Flint is at least a perfectly biddable patient. His hand is easy under the attention. Wrist idle, fingertips patient.
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Appreciation.
Another word whose meaning is being stretched beyond its limitations.
"It's the least of their requests," John continues. Newly bandaged, Flint's hand is surrendered as John takes hold of the other. Examines the damage briefly, before repeating his work. "If we're lucky I'll get hold of another trunk of books. It'll occupy them for the whole of the coming year."
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There's some rueful note in it, mostly unserious save some nip of irony. Imagine if men always were so easily satisfied.
The pressure of the bandage and the salve on the cuts in combination makes for a consistently dull, unremarkable sting. After a brief flex of fingers, with his second hand still subject to John's ministration, Flint makes to displace the resealed pot of salve to the little side table. He trades it for the list, twisting it round to get a look at the titles and what's written there prompts a low sniff not unrelated to a laugh. Andraste help the taste of fucking (metaphorically and otherwise) sailors.
"I'd wondered whether you might join them tonight."
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"I'd considered it."
Bandages secured, their loosely linked hands have fallen to John's thigh. His thumb is moving idly, back and forth along the edge of bandage where it overlaps warm skin at the heel of Flint's palm. This stretch of skin, unscathed by whatever abrupt landing Flint had come to on the ice, is subject to the brush of contact as John continues, "I had also considered ascending two flights more."
The motivation behind that exertion would be self-explanatory, surely.
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(Silver must qualify as one whether he cares for it or not, whether he knows the difference between a halyard and a buntline or not.)
With the salve already doing it's work to blunt the sting of the opened skin, Flint raises the loosely linked collection of their hands and presses a kiss to the backs of John's knuckles.
"For the whisky bottle I keep in the cabinet."
Obviously.
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But among other things is colored too by the attention paid to Flint's mouth, the lift of their linked hands. John's eyes linger there for a long moment before he tips his head towards the faint glow of the bottle in the window.
"We could certainly entertain the alternatives I have on hand before we go up."
Assuming they do ascend the stairs together. It feels a foregone conclusion, that John might turn out his lamp and gather the parcel in this room meant for the man beside him, and they leave side by side. Habit does trend towards the relative luxury of the side room of the Forces office.
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"Dealing with the Carta now, are you?"
Presumably there is a cup or cups somewhere in the room that an experienced raider of personal property might successfully scavenge.
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Which may well come to the same thing, all aspects of that journey considered.
Regardless, there is a cup near to hand. Dented spectacularly, but still of good use. Clearly in use, as there is some glowing liquid already occupying it.
John is observing him, intent, examining the effect of Flint moving through the narrow space of this room as he continues, "Though there's a trio of very grizzled dwarves who I've had a passing acquaintance with who may well have ties."
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Flint returns to the bed and there makes himself comfortable to the extent that he reclines as horizontal as is possible across the width of the mattress while still retaining the ability to pour a measure of the luminous whisky into the battered cup. There is an air about it that implies a nearly instinctive familiarity with how best to arrange his limbs in the space.
(If he closes one eye and imagines the sway of the sea, this narrow room isn't markedly different from the close quarters of a petty officer's wardroom on a fleet little Tevine naval ship.)
The cup is passed over once it's been properly dosed.
"There's a public house in Qarinus that deals in this stuff." Or once did. "The Red Ribbon."
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There is something to the way James Flint embodies this space.
John is turning it over, feeling what reactions ripple outwards in response, as he accepts the offering. Their fingers catching over battered tin, John maintaining the contact long enough for a press of thumb over knuckle before taking hold of the cup.
"Have you a taste for it?"
Better than this strange-tasting, glowing liquor: the little ribbon given over with it, winnowing backwards in time. The past, there at the end of it. A tug away.
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The contents of ships' casks being understood to be fucking awful. Surely there is a reason Flint's tastes in this particular field are so reliably rank; the sharper the alcohol, the less likely something is to be living in it. At the very least, there's nothing like a paint stripping scorch to obscure less palatable flavors.
"But I don't recall," he says. The glowing bottle has been tucked into the crook of his elbow. His hand returns from the cup to rub absently at the shadow of makeup black about one eye. "The Ribbon was better known for indulgences beyond its selection of dwarven liquors."
A significant look between fingers. That kind of public house.
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A slanting glance in answer, the corner of John's mouth pulling up.
"I see."
Another sip, and the cup is offered. Or lowered, within easy reach, to the space between them.
Three quarters squirming indeed.
"So we might say that offering made a more lasting impression than mushroom-flavored liquor?"
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"We might say that. But clearly the one added to the general affect of the place."
He raises the pilfered cho in a gesture that's halfway toward a toast, then drinks a respectable measure from it. The contents earn only the slightest face—less critical and more merely assessing. In the end, the dented cup is passed back John's way regardless of what Flint thinks of the whisky.
"There was a woman there. Imelda. Renown for a particular thing she did with her tongue. But I'll confess that I never could get anyone to describe the act, or even saw a woman by that name despite how many sailors swore the reverse. I have my suspicions the whole thing was a fiction propagated by the establishment's master."
And presumably there were other ladies to be had with other tricks of the tongue to make up for the difference.
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Has John orchestrated something similar? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe not an exact match of the situation, but to weave a fabrication so enduring that it propagates itself even in the face of so little evidence—
Well, it's an admirable skill. It is an admirable skill to John.
In possession of the cup, John takes a slow swig. Lets the flavor sit, earthy and bitter.
"You know, I am near certain at least one of the books on that list features an Imelda."
Ha, ha.
the world's shortest tag
"Would that any one of us could be so enduring a fabrication."
+applause
There are worse legacies.
(Was John ever meant to be remembered at all?)
"Perhaps if we shared such awe-inspiring skill," is all humor. They have other virtues. John has certainly spent enough time embellishing them in Kirkwall's alehouses, not to mention the decks of certain ships.
"Though I imagine you've a headstart if you intend to make a habit of the paint."
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"Don't ask what became of the mask." Lost. Or flattened, maybe, in whatever disaster had produced the skinned palms. Who can say?
Maybe all stories are like this past the margins of their publication—at loose ends, makeup smudged to nearly nothing and their ominous heavy furs masquerading as throws at the foot of beds in exceptionally narrow rooms. It's been a pleasant evening, so he finds the idea pleasant. Were the night colored by some other light, he might judge it otherwise.
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In the space that follows, John makes a study of him. Comfortable, or appearing so. Bottle in the crook of his arm. Remnants of his costume lingering behind. The looseness of his limbs, the weight of the day’s responsibilities shed. John tips the cup to his mouth, draining the last of it before returning it to Flint’s custody.
“I’ve something for you,” John says into the quiet between them, rather than a request for further libation. “But it’ll keep, if we intend to continue an upwards climb.”
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"I don't mind the room." That it temporarily saves them the trouble of navigating stairwells is merely an added benefit. There's so much of his work lingering in the central tower, the division office stacked high with reports to be read and orders to sign and every possible task between those two points besides. The distance between here and there seems to legitimize the luxury of delay in a way a single closed door hardly does.
To say nothing of the comfort to be found in a narrow bed and close quarters, the night sharp beyond the cracked shutters.
"Though if you want your things tonight rather than wait on them, we may as well."
Suffice to say, he isn't carrying John's Satinalia present in his pockets.
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writes a brick followed immediately by 3 lines that's PACING or something
variety is the spice of life i hear
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my irl lol
✨
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