Everything had happened so quickly the thought that his master worried for him didn't even enter his mind until those radiantly warm hands were at his cheeks, blazing yellow eyes wandering over his form for somewhat other than simple lust. If it had been anyone else he might have been tempted to dismiss the gesture as an assessment of the damage to their property, but it was so much more than that. Scott looked like a ghost had just stepped over his grave, and his heart twisted for the second time that afternoon. Of course his master would be worried for him, given his sordid history and the ever growing pile of bodies he left in his wake. Hermes could have been anyone, for all he knew.
Alcuin sank down in his seat on the couch as his master tended to Hermes, having snapped out of his frenzied compulsion to protect, and primly flattened his hands on his lap. He found that it was much easier to fall back on a whole lifetime of decorum than it was to confront the shadows of his past and his friend – darling that he was – made that very easy for him. “Not always so,” Alcuin quipped with the straightest face he could manage. “Sometimes, he comes wrapped in ribbons.”
A moment later, his composure drained from him almost as quickly as the blood rushed to his cheeks at the thoroughly unabashed way Hermes spoke of his master. “Hermes...!” Alcuin scolded with a bowed head, hoping the curtain of his hair would conceal the worst of it from view. Now it was his turn to chuckle at the sheer absurdity of their predicament, though he had to admit: “He is very handsome, isn't he?”