braymitch thornathy. (grever) wrote in emillion, @ 2014-02-09 20:09:00 |
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Theo had not traversed these streets in some time. His now-returned memories posed no identical image of these snowed-over houses and lawns, each of humble size as they were. (No sprawling, lavish estates of the Nobles District were these, but the difference did not serve to put him ill at ease—not as it might some others, at least.) The little changes around the neighborhood served well enough to throw the man off and allow him to realize more acutely the breadth of time spent from one visit to the other. This particular one seemed now long overdue. It was evening, but not late, as he had planned for this accordingly, and had given himself enough time to change to more casual clothing (that which would not serve to make him stand out here, no weapon strapped against his back to provide others with speculation) and allow him a short stop along the way. The flowers bundled underneath one arm weren’t for Thornton— that was for fucking certain, but Theo wasn’t so thoughtless as to forget the man had a wife, and he walked to their home with the expectation of greeting the woman as well. Pushing aside the hood of his cloak, the berserker looked up and gazed for a moment at the outward state of the Thornton residence, wondering if it too was changed at all from his recollection. Aside the from the snow, however, Theo decided that he couldn’t be sure. Pressing forward to the door at last, he gave a solid, familiar tap with his knuckles and waited for someone to answer. All of the significant changes were indoors, really: the exterior of the building looked the same as ever (the paint on the shutters cracked slightly with the weather, perhaps), but inside it had undergone its own slow rot and transformation. The sofa bore signs of someone having slept there recently; lights in certain parts of the house remained unlit; a particular bedroom was dusty and closed off, a mausoleum preserved to memory. The Thorntons skirted it like one avoided an open wound, excising it from their mental landscape as if pretending that the hole simply was not there. But the door opened speedily enough. Bram was missing the heavy blue overcoat, cigarette in the corner of the mouth, badge pinned to his chest, insignia on his shoulder: all of the symbols and emblems that signaled ‘Detective Inspector’. That uniform was as much a suit of armour as anything else. Tonight, instead, he wore rumpled shirtsleeves and a slightly stained collar. “G’evening,” he said, surprised. The door opened wider, an automatic response allowing the other officer access (few merited that treatment). Bram’s pale eyes flitted to the bouquet of flowers. Bemused: “Assuming those aren’t for me.” “Not so lucky,” Theo said in an amused growl, carefully shuffling his large frame inside the once-familiar home. One hand moved to the pin on his cloak, while the other passed aside the flowers in question. Bought from a vendor in the Nobles District, it was obvious the florist had an eye for elegant arrangements that the berserker himself did not. “For the wife,” he explained, “goes in a vase.” Shrugging out of his frost-kissed cloak, he made care to place it on a nearby hook alongside a certain familiar blue overcoat. Out of the evening cold and into the warmth of the Thornton residence, Theo looked about with his usual frown and wondered if the room was not as chilly as he seemed to imagine. With lights out down the hall from what his eyes could see, and the sounds of others not yet apparent (one less now, he reminded himself), Theo looked back to the older man and asked the most obvious question. “She around?” It had been quite some time, after all, since he had seen Vera, let alone shared a conversation with her (whatever that activity entailed for a man like Theo, at least, who kept his words brief and struggled around courteousness and delicacy like a bull in a china shop). “A vase? That’s what you’re supposed to do with these?” It was a dry joke from the older officer, and feebly offered as a shield against the question. Bram busied himself inside the living room cabinets, rooting out an appropriate vessel (sky-blue but plain, undecorated) and settling the bouquet into its mouth. He’d fill it with water later. He stared at the flowers for longer than he needed to, before answering, “She’s not in. Working late, probably, or maybe visiting a friend.” —accidentally revealing the fact that Bram didn’t actually know. That in itself was more perturbing than the absence. Theo stood in the middle of the room and cast a speculative frown at the man’s reply. He graveled out a low hum of acceptance to the fact of Vera’s absence, but something began to prickle up the back of his neck, a sense again of something shifted from its usual position. He was not delicate when it came to conversation, however, and had no strength in the matters of personal minutiae—thus, no careful question was posed, and the unease the younger man felt was left to stagnate on the air, unvoiced. “Aye, women’s business,” he said. “Well enough.” Theo looked around the rest of the room, surveying with the small nooks and crannies, furniture moved or a picture out of place. Idly, he began to scratch at the back of his neck. “Something to drink?” Bram seized on that suggestion like a lifeline, latching onto tradition and etiquette by which to prop himself up. “Gladly. Coffee?” Beat. “Something stronger?” Without waiting for confirmation, he was already leading the way into their sparse dining room, its side-tables and their rattling assortment of bottles lined up in stringent order, the scotch glasses kept separate from the kitchen. Theo moved along behind, a habit of years following the footsteps of the Detective Inspector and shuffling around the scenes of innumerable crimes through the years. “Been a while since we’ve had company,” he said, still using the instinctive we despite the fact that the house was dark and he was alone with his colleague. Yet something in Bram seemed relieved at the company, warm to the other man’s presence even in his personal space. “What brings you by, Theodore? All’s going well?” Not in uniform and not on duty, the surnames tended to drop, and Bram slid to something more familiar. The effort seemed to draw Theo out of his usual glowering, and instead of leaning against the back of the dining room chair like some sort of gargoyle, the younger man took a seat instead, attempting to settle into his surroundings (regardless of the shadows lingering down the halls and the silence that permeated a once livelier space). “Aye, well enough,” he declared, and Theo straightened up in his seat slightly as if to prove that he was, indeed, no longer ailing in any capacity. Proving to Thornton—to Bram, that he was as strong and capable as he’d ever claimed seemed to be ingrained. “Enough time’s passed. Didn’t remember when I’d visited last.” An honest admission (after all, who would ever believe that he was simply in the neighborhood at this hour, when his own home was far across the city). “Neither can I. Tend to get swallowed up in our work, don’t we.” A thump as the pair of matching glasses hit the table, a clink as they met, a slight slosh as Bram set out the bottle of whiskey. “We’re out of beer, unfortunately,” there was a stack of empties piling up in a closed crate behind the kitchen, “but I promise this one’s a good year.” Old habits still ran deep, and so Bram found himself assessing the sight of his coworker (friend, perhaps; a man he’d seen grow into his mantle, fitting the mould more and more as the years went by, not an untested noble but instead dutiful officer). “You look good,” he said, pulling up his own chair to the table. “Head still clear? No further lapses since?” What ran the risk of only seeming like professional curiosity—are you functioning, are you fit for duty —instead sounded sincere, a paternal concern creeping in. Theo frowned into his own glass, knowing he ought to answer properly before taking his first drink. He’d had enough time to wonder, after his recovery, whether Bram and the others in the EKP thought less of him for his wounds incurred in the fight during that blistering snowstorm (and beyond even that, a tiny, unacknowledged fear that others might eventually catch on to the concerning reason for it). “No troubles,” he said, with emphasis. “Examined enough by healers to be sure.” And he had taken a heavy drink after that, recalling the number of times the white mages hired by his family had poked and prodded and scribbled notes on his, thankfully fucking temporary, condition. “Aye, not bad,” he said of the drink. “Good,” Bram said, and it could have applied to either. The glass clanked heavy on the table as Theo set it back down. Sitting across from Bram as he now was, the berserker gave him an assessment of his own—but for all his eyes could see, no ailment was apparent (and yet). “And you? Up to eyes in paperwork, council business?” It was the nearest estimation of asking about Bram’s general well-being as Theo could hope to muster, and he grumbled most all of it up at the ceiling. “As always. My birthday not too long ago, too, though we didn’t do anything for it. Seem less and less a reason to celebrate, the older you get.” Amongst other issues: the adamantoise in the room that no one could bring up, the subject and void that led to others averting their eyes rather than discuss it (which Bram was, for his part, perfectly fine with). The detective clutched his drink, grip tightening ever so slightly on the glass. Theo let his gaze wander across the expanse of the dusty, shadowed ceiling before returning back to the older man, his frown shifting back into place once again. His large hands cupped over his glass, swirling the liquid inside as he thought. He had spent the past several months (save for the time spent in painful recovery) attempting to construct himself into a man that others could rely upon. His friends, his squire, his colleagues. But figuring out how he might attempt to do the same here, for a man he had looked up to for so many years (whom he, it might be argued, even had admired as a knight of the peace), seemed a much more difficult task. But the silence of the Thornton house continued to ring in his ears, urging him to do, or say, something. He took another small sip of his whiskey, feeling that his throat was suddenly parched. “Time to be remedied yet,” he said on the matter of celebration. “Ought to invite you both for dinner.” Theo allowed himself to ruminate on the prospect of having the Thorntons over to the estate, and how removing them from this house (and its heavy ghosts) might or might not serve any particular use. A man of deeds over words, it had been the first gesture to come to mind. The offer took a moment to fully absorb, like a heavy stone sinking in and out of sight—but once it did, Bram’s face finally softened, some of the muscles loosening into gratitude. “Much appreciated,” he finally settled on saying. There was more he could add, other troubles lurking beneath the surface, but that door was still firmly closed. In need of expressing something stronger, however, Bram added, “That would be good.” The two men were tiptoeing across unfamiliar territory, both of them blind explorers labouring without a map. And so the inspector eventually drew back to more recognisable land: “Can set something up in the next month or so, if you’re not too busy with the caseload. Things been quiet, aye, with your current cases?” It would presumably change soon (perhaps even immediately, now that Bram had made the mistake of saying it aloud), but the holidays had granted them all a brief respite from the more gruesome sides of their work. Some complaints about thefts, a near-miss with the Fox: simply business as usual. “Aye, nothing strange to note,” he confirmed, relaxing as the conversation slid back to more familiar territories and content enough with Bram’s token of assent. It was a boon to be able to truthfully admit as much, Theo knew, and thanked the mercy of Faram for it. Falling into old routines, returning to training with his squire, checking up on old acquaintances—he had found these tasks were not unwelcome. “And a hope for it to last,” Theo said, raising up his glass in a toast of sorts. Another ginger sip of his drink, and he wiped his mouth with the back of his palm. After a moment, he decided to allow the talk of work to guide the route of their conversation. “Meant to ask your thoughts on my current case.” Bram leaned back in his chair and raised his own glass, draining it quicker than the younger man had. “Go ahead,” he said, and they soon fell back into the pulse and rhythm of their discussion, dissecting and analysing the details of Theo’s work. Talking out the facts often clarified them. And the time wore on like this in something passing for contentment, as the winter night tightened its grip around them and the wife still did not come home. |