RP between Degu and Rigby - Part 1
>
Harpur Eberhardt — 08/01/2021
Harpur had woken not only feeling re-energized but... hungry and stronger than he ever had been. The headache was still there, the sadness, the sense of loss but he was feeling better than when he'd gone to sleep. He stirred and ran a hand through his hair, staring at the ceiling. Remembering. He shifts to sit up in bed and something catches his eye on the bedside table.
He read each letter, feeling his eyes grow wet. He longed for them to have had the time to talk about these things, there were so many things unsaid between the lines but Harpur knew that she knew. She had known things about him that he was too chicken shit to admit to even himself. He felt depressed, at the end of his tether, but in a way it was freeing. Why should he care about any of his old hang-ups anymore? he was probably going to lose his job today, probably going to lose everything except this beautiful family. He wasn't sure about Jaxamir, he'd fought monsters too, who knew how he'd feel? But if he had this family he could keep going somehow.
Rising to his feet he set the notes lightly back where they were. He was trying to ignore other nagging parts of what she had said, suggesting the unthinkable...that monsters may not all be inherently cruel. He was a danger to this family, could he even keep them?
Moving to the bathroom he continued his morning routine and shaved as if nothing had changed, trying to cling to his daily routine and then he stepped out, heading for Sandro's room "Sandro, are you still asleep?" he asked and knocked gently before poking his head inside. He needed to talk to him.
Sandro — 08/01/2021
He didn't think he'd sleep.
Everything had been building and building for years now, and while he was sure this wouldn't be the bursting point, that he wouldn't burst at all, the mounting duty to his family, duty to Grimani, and now duty to Harpur seemed increasingly nightmarish and insurmountable in its failure. And that was before he'd factored in the apopleptic attacks and the mess that always seemed to come afterward - he couldn't even get his own head to cooperate when others needed it the most.
His current situation, certainly, was at least somewhat his fault. He could work with that.
But he was only human, after all, and fitful wakefulness eventually trailed into fitful and vivid waking dreams, eventually stilling into sheer exhaustion.
---
Perhaps luckily for Harpur, he was spared the monstrous snores Sandro's wife had alluded to in her aging and unsent letter
But the man had stirred rather easily at the knock and sat bolt awake with a frown, a reflex that never left him even as the need had, eyes yet unseeing as the rest of him struggled to catch up with the reflex. Alarm, gratitude, confusion...and then memory of that night seeped back into his eyes and he very nearly say back down again as it flooded back into his head as a wave.
"Wasn't doing a very good job of it in the first place, honestly..." It trailed into a groan as he sat up properly on the edge of his bed, and after a beat, dragged a hand down his face.
'Are you all right' seemed a little trite after all that transpired, so after a moment - and a small pat on the side of the bed next to him, he settled instead on a "How are you feeling?"
Harpur Eberhardt — 08/01/2021
Harpur frowns as he sees the sharp reaction from Sandro "Sorry. Didn' mean t' startle y'" he rumbles apologetically and makes his way inside, shutting the door behind him.
"Strange. Different." He admits in his answer. "I've ..had a lot to think about. I was thinking about ...Agnes" he wasn't sure if Sandro had put the letters there or not.
He moves into the room, where he might have once been afraid to get too close he instead climbs onto the bed to sit beside Sandro, close to him as offered. A soft, tired smile forms on his lips "There are a ...few things i've never told you about myself. I was thinking about that too..." his breaths comes out as a shudder.
Harpur has to steel himself, but after a moment of this he reaches out to take Sandro's hand in his for perhaps the first time, holding it tightly and looking up to meet his eyes.
"I think i'd like to tell you now, the things ...she knew deep down. But we never got to talk about it either and ...I don't want to make that same mistake again." he says sadly, regretfully.
Sandro — 08/01/2021
Sandro nodded at that 'strange' and 'different' with a hum that was all at once both light and bleary. Then, seemingly realizing that it might have come across as empathetic rather than sympathetic, a knowing rather than an understanding. He hummed again and stretched as Harpur sat down next to him and added a "I can imagine...will take some getting-used-to, yeah?" It was as casual as if it came from a younger Sandro, or any of his kids. It wasn't nudge-worthy quite yet - the fact of the matter and of containment still loomed and needed some time to sink in - but that could wait until after Sandro was dressed.
But then he'd mentioned Agnesina. Agnes, Feyian, his wife...and things she'd known about Harpur. He'd stiffened slightly, predictably, though his expression was one open and curious; he was always thinking about her, but hearing Harpur had been...reminded him of the previous night. He frowned, but it remained an open one.
"Things that...have anything to do with last night, or something else...?"
And Harpur was holding his hand.
His mind went wild in the span of merely a second or two: what would she know that he didn't? (Little did he know she'd also called him out years prior in one of these letters!) Sodomy, fornication, that she and Harpur had been together, that there was any other number of dirty little secrets that they'd shared under his nose somehow?
And then more realistically, after a breath - something horrible that he'd never felt comfortable sharing with Sandro? Agnes had a way of making people comfortable that seemed to dance around convention entirely, sometimes.
He gripped Harpur's hand in return, reassuringly. He understood that final sentiment all too well.
"Talk to me, Harpur."
Harpur Eberhardt — 08/02/2021
Harpur felt himself tremble as his hand was gripped in return. Sandro was so open, so inviting. He could smell things coming off him that he didn’t yet understand, he wondered if it was fear, affection, anxiety? He couldn’t tell.
“Y-you s-s-see I-I- u-uh-“ his voice wavered and wobbled more than it ever had, he could feel himself begin to sweat and his palms become clammy.
“She knew ... I know she -she knew th-that I-I- I’m a-a f-freak” he’s really shaking right now, head turned away. He’s wide eyed, every fight or flight mechanism firing off in his body and brain.
“S-see sometimes I actually u-um- I feel like I’m a-a-a-“ he lets out a harsh and shuddering breath to prepare himself.
“A woman-! A-a woman- a-and y-y-you know sometimes I-I feel like s-something I-in between- a-and s-sometimes that b-brings me a lot o-of pain a-and discomfort in myself” he’s well and truly shaking like a leaf now, head down. He cannot even look at Sandro. He hasn’t ever heard of anyone like him, he thinks it’s a flaw, that he’s broken somehow.
Rigby — 08/02/2021
sandro: With nothing to compare it too, with this seemingly outside what he knew of things like homosexuality and dancing into the business of third-genders, he struggled. What would feeling like a woman even…feel-like?
The nod was slow, and it was one less of acknowledgement and more of an I’m-listening, I’m-processing-this, give-me-a-moment sort of a head-bob. It was a gesture that had expressed itself through Marc and Piero rather often - as was the stare with which Sandro fixed Harpur, now. “Like you wish to do…woman-things?” That at least was an idea he could wrap around a starting-point; his rearing of his children (and the occasional secret training of Cienna) was one of a mind that did not place as high of importance on preordained roles as many.
“Or would you live as a woman, is that something you want for yourself?” Clothes made the man, of course, but if this wasn’t just…relegated to bedroom things, this seemed to run deeper, in a near-spiritual streak that Sandro couldn’t relate to.
It was really throwing Harpur into a panic in the present, though - and rather understandably, Sandro couldn’t picture someone so known as Harpur swapping up and getting away with it under someone like de Ovando - and so that had captured most of his focus.
He gripped at that sweaty hand reassuringly.
“No. Nononononono, don’t do that, don’t do that.” And then the tiniest little spark of a wicked, reassuring gleam in his eyes. “Besides, you aren’t even human right now, this worry can wait its turn once the first thing’s sorted!” It would’ve escaped a more-boisterous person as a playful nudge, and a rather far-reaching attempt to lighten the mood; as it was with Sandro, it was only relegated to tone.
He did cough though, a little apology. "Sorry. Just trying to help."
After a beat, he continued. “Did you tell her?” It may have been a tipoff that it wasn’t he that had found the notes. “You know…if she guessed something like that…I don’t believe she would have thought you were a freak.
“The thing about Agnesina was she had a way of staring right through anyone’s shape. Harpur the man would be Harpur, the woman, would be Harpur the bird…would be Harpur, the wolf.” It was weird talking so frankly about the guard's transformation now…but the delivery was of someone who had Shit To Do, was very tired, and had very little time to do it all. No sense in dancing around anything at this stage.
He bobbed his head and with it came an accompanying lift and bob of Harpur’s hand. The reassurance was a small tentative note of a smile, curling upward, in his next words. “It’s not that simple, obviously. But ‘freak’ would not have been a thought that would have crossed her mind.”
Harpur Eberhardt — 08/02/2021
Harpur was tense in that silence as Sandro processed what he'd told him, shaking, afraid. But then the silence was broken with a question. "Yes- well, sometimes. Like- wear a dress and make up for example, there are plenty other things. It- it changes though. I change a lot more than anyone even knows." he admits quietly. At least Sandro is trying to understand, he reassured himself. This could be going worse. This is the best response he could have hoped for.
"I'd live as a woman sometimes, if I could. But look at me. No one's ever going to treat me like a woman and i'm proud of my body, I work hard for it but sometimes it's ...the wrong body. I wish I could just ...snap! my fingers and change! but that'd be...magic wouldn't it? no man should...should turn to magic." he sinks a little against the headboard with tired eyes drooping, looking up as he felt his hand gripped.
It was easy to see the mention of him not being human anymore made him panic, eyes wide as he looked away and tried desperately to control his freaked out breathing. He didn't want to think about it, he wanted to avoid facing that truth, even if he could feel the wolf inside all the time now. He could smell everything Sandro was feeling though he had no idea how to make sense of it.
"I - I never told her, but she knew. I only found out this morning that she knew...there were- there were letters beside my bed. From her, in the past." He doesn't bring up the mention of Pierro but it weighs heavily on his heart. They're together now, they must be. Harpur silently worries too, Sandro's mind is so tangled lately and here he is trying to confide confusing and perhaps insane ramblings in him.
"She- she noticed the way i looked at her dress once. She knew i wasn't- you know" he shrugs a shoulder. Being a pervert, for lack of better words, he supposed.
"Sandro..." he says with soft, sad eyes and squeezes that hand close to his heart "We're still family, aren't we? after all this."
Sandro — 08/04/2021
What Harpur was saying was, admittedly, very strange to Sandro. He’d heard before and likely had crossed path with people of third genders, or people of one sex living as the other while out among the town. But he’d just…not thought about it, had no reason to think about it, even when he'd no doubt worked alongside them in the Faewatch. His experience was with monsters and exploration and protection, and nobody needed protection from people just being-people; those were the people that needed protection. He'd no idea how to advise around this, but he wanted to help - it was very clearly distressing to his friend!
While he knew he couldn’t trust his own memory, though older memories would occasionally return with unusual clarity while newer ones would often vanish, his mind wandered back through adventure after adventure, wondering now if there had been any moments that they could have talked this through, then - or what either of them would have said or done, and if it would’ve spared years of Harpur, wondering.
Or more accurately, moments that someone like Agnesina would’ve seen and had to go out of her way to tell Sandro.
”No man should turn to magic.”
Magic will betray you. His own thought was sharp, resolute in its agreement, reflexive to the point where he flinched; a thought that tore at his heart from years of experience and battle and fear and disappointment.
“No man should…” He echoed. “They wouldn’t have saved Agnes.” It was resolute, defeated and a murmur all at once. Perhaps one day it would be time for that story; for now, he trailed. The next thoughts were also fragmented, just shy of heresy, but borne of defeat and a quiet desperation. “What if…they did know ways, or have means? Look at us, man.” Harpur’s body was about to be put through the wringer already, through magic - whether he liked it or not. “Cienna is ill.” He wouldn’t admit ‘dying’ aloud, yet - but so much of what she was going through he’d already seen with his wife. “I can’t trust my brain. You can’t…trust your body.” That seemed accurate enough, yeah? Bit reductive, but it helped thinking of a what-if - should he wake up a female one day when he was expecting something else, he’d be pretty betrayed, too. “I didn’t always agree with her before. Still not sure I do. And I’ve wanted to ask you, what you thought during…peacetime. But…”
And he’d let it trail. Harpur was talking directly about his wife, now - and it wasn’t necessarily about her loss or grief, just simply about her. And the sound of those words coming from him, the image of her no-doubt chasing Harpur down insistently just to help however she could and get to the bottom of it did draw a little gasp of a laugh out from him, and he allowed it to happen this time.
“She did do that a lot. Towards the end, I mean. She couldn’t leave without agitating her health and it infuriated her. I know she would’ve found you the moment she could.” Maybe that’s why she’d not sent those letters.
He’d not released Harpur’s hand yet, had allowed it guided, and only squeezed it back, reassuringly. “Of course we’re still family!”
After a moment, he did continue, slowly. “I’m not turning you out because of the wolf business; I’ve already picked my path on that one. What’s a dress or two on top of that?” He’d played it off relatively light and warm, though the next words were far more sober, and a bit more mindful of their respective social positions - another hurdle that they’d yet have to address in the coming fallout.
“I don’t…know what I can do from my position, but I'm thinking, I'll think of something. Your business with de Ovando is still your business.” And the same went for the town - there was no sense in hiding his change from the people, but that meant there were no doubt some growing pains to be had. “But I am here to help…make sense of it all. And you will always have a home, here.”
Harpur Eberhardt — 08/04/2021
Harpur looks up with fearful puppydog eyes as Sandro begins with that 'what if'. But he snaps out of that as Cienna's condition is ill. Perhaps it is wrong of him but he immediately thinks of Marc, how would the young man cope? "He's going to snap." Harpur mutters softly and hangs his head. One man a werewolf, one man perhaps soon(?!) to die of whatever it is claiming his memory, and now the love of his life? was she that ill? it seemed to go without saying when one simply said 'ill'. "M-maybe steeplestone themselves would have-" he starts to tremble all over again, he looks disgusted and turns his head away.
For a moment he just breaths heavily. He's trying to work through this. Everything was different now, he had no choice. The current of the river was stronger than him and all he could do was let it carry him.
It's Sandro discussing his own health that brings his head back up, tears now glistening in his eyes but not yet falling "Sandro" he choked out with naught but raw love for him, he squeezes that hand right up against his own heart "I would walk to the ends of the earth to save you from whatever this is. I would contradict the creed which i've lived by since I was a child just to bring you back, all the way back." He leans forwards "If you want to try something ...just- just say the word. I'll look, i'll look everywhere. Not just you, Lady Cienna. And if i so happen to find something to help me along the way then that's fine.... but I have lived without that help my whole life, I can manage. But...I do not know how I would fare without you"
The tears finally fall and he sniffs back a dry sob as he's told he'd always have a home here. "Thank you, Sandro." he leans forwards without thinking and presses his forehead to Sandro's own, eyes lifting to meet his "I'll be here with you, through it all."
Sandro — 08/08/2021
"He will." It was a murmur of vulnerable certainty. Sandro had already been there, after all. Marc losing his love after a mother and a brother (and, he'd probably admitted, himself) would break anyone - and that was before taking into account everything else going on around them. The wolves, the vampires, this constant invisible sense of ramping tension...
"I'd gone to..." there was an odd, slight hesitation "...fae that could help, for Agnesina, before. They'd refused." It was almost a disconnected thought and managed to force an unusual amount of anger and betrayal into the otherwise low and thoughtful statement, one that seemed to peel back the scab of his mistrust for the magical beings. But it reached back to Harpur's own about Steeplestone.
"We could..." And he trailed. A new worry bubbled to the forefront - even with the noblest of intentions, would Harpur's reputation carry over to the academy? How ugly was this going to get?
And now his silence was spacious, allowing Harpur to speak, meeting the own man's eyes, wholly taking in that genuine want, for himself and for Cienna.
"Since you were a child, hmm?" There were hints of a more-playful Alessandro of the past in that slight detour from the heaviness of the conversation as they pressed foreheads - he'd not thought about it, it seemed a Rosa sort of gesture; belatedly he figured it could be a Wolf Thing - but it was also laced with genuine curiosity, as much as it gracefully led into his own concession about the situation. He clapped Harpur on the shoulder then, that hand then parting with a fluff through short hair before sitting up. "Suppose that means it's time for a refresher. And I should stop...avoiding...possible health. Old dogs can learn new tricks, hm?"
It was genuinely touching; it reflected in his eyes that had long been dried from crying far too many times, and it settled in his chest to freely twist at the lord's heart. Poor Harpur's new senses would have to sort through a torrent of confused, conflicted, mournful, hopeful emotions that their owner would have trouble articulating if ever asked. It had been a rough few years. This was the kind of thing that his wife would see so easily from her unusual vantage, that Harpur that wasn't the surly fae-hating guard or that brash adventurer that could so encourage her husband in these things. His hand was led and he did not refuse; the contact was welcome, and for now it did feel as if he wasn't facing building insurmountable tasks, alone. He was Aiolfi, but the strength of the wolf was the pack.
"We could try Steeplestone." He'd no way of knowing Marc and Cienna already had that in mind as well. And Steeplestone wasn't ...them, those that had already been so cruel when his family had needed them the most... "It's worth a try, at least." He'd take the small knock to his own reputation should it get out. It could be built again, and he would do his best to try to keep whatever stink that resulted off of the twins and Jac. There was only one Cienna, only one Sandro. "I don't...know what to do about the other thing. Or where to even start. But I...can imagine something of how it feels, to a point...and I truly wish to help you. I'm not going anywhere, Harp." A small smile was an invitation, a reassurance for Harpur to do the same. It could be so much worse. They were alive for now, after all!
Harpur Eberhardt — 08/09/2021
Harpur nodded with a sad smile, he knew Marc would always make it thought, but at what cost? being alive didn't necessarily mean one was living... he didn't want this world to sap the joy from that young man, he could already see the signs that he was... not doing okay. Maybe he'd talk to him soon, once he was more stable in himself.
It is a strange thing, in a way this tragedy had brought Harpur some strange peace and joy in his life. He had always felt like he was part-time family, now realizing that these people are his family, truly, wholy, and Sandro had heard his deepest secret without even flinching.
But then Sandro explains something, or barely does, and it clicks a lot of things into place. So that was why Sandro felt the way he did about the fae, was it?
He squeezes those hands more tightly "They think only of themselves" he says with sad, sympathetic eyes. Poor Agnes...they could have helped her.
The fluff through his hair makes him laugh softly "We can learn, I'll be with you every step of the way. We can try Steeplestone, and even if they cannot help perhaps they can point us in the right direction."
He leans back a little and smiles sweetly "Thank you, Sandro. Maybe you - could help me try new things. If you wanted" he suggested timidly and left it at that.
"I'll go make us all some breakfast. Don't rush i'll let you know when it's ready" he needed something to keep him busy, food was always the answer. There's a pause as he starts to let go of Sandro's hands where he starts trembling. He grips them again instead and leans towards Sandro, strangely close. It's an odd moment and his palms are clammy but whatever it was he'd had in mind he very quickly closes his eyes and backs away "I'll call you for breakfast" and with that be goes to stand and head off, letting go of those hands in the process.
Sandro — 08/15/2021
"They think only of themselves."
"Yeah..." A shudder of tension and memory ran through that grasp, and for a moment there was something distant about his stare. And something near-imperceptibly changed about Sandro's hold. He had seen, firsthand, how cruel they could be to their own.
And Harpur was solid and real, and as far as the lord was concerned, an anchor.
Though he would be more certain in that assessment if he hadn't watched that solid form break, reshape and be remade several times over the past few evenings, and something of that hold was a semi-conscious desire to keep him here in this shape. He was here, this was his friend Harpur's very human hand, same as it'd been since they were both very young; nothing less.
"Thank you, Harp. For all of it." It was heartfelt and low. If they couldn't help him, they could at least help the children. For however rough this was on Sandro, it was no doubt far worse on them and he hated every moment of it, hated every failure, every time he himself contributed to all of it. It will end, they had to end it.
"I'll help. However I am...able." Yet Harpur's delivery there was odd, and while Sandro had read the suggestion at first as help around the wolf thing, the perspective and the uprooting that'd no doubt come from it, the ... whatever one would call what Harpur had just confessed to him, there was a note there he couldn't quite read.
And then Harpur was close, Sandro's stomach twisted, and he realized what it might be only several very long seconds after it was over. And it was something of a small shock that his next reflexive thoughts were what-ifs: what if that had gone another way, what if they had been seen...and the scandal over a lord and a guard - a lord and this particular notorious guard - not a lord and a man. And he had no idea what to think about THAT, either.
He took a sharp breath, ran a hand down his face. Dipped his head in a vague acknowledgement of Harpur's self-dismissal. Smiled a bit, for the sake of the other man. "Harpur, you and that cooking...! Yeah. I need to...find a couple things, first. Can go get the children soon, too." Maybe Agnesina was right and the guy did need things spelled out for him, sometimes.
Harpur rose, and Sandro had once again withdrawn, looking down at the space left on the bed. They were both sitting on her Spot, of course they had been. And all of this - the resurgence of those letters, that bird, those dreams... it was a lot to take in, and a lot of Agnesina right back at the forefront once more. stark reminders of all of those nights where he prayed the gods would take her, and be endlessly thankful to them in the morning when they hadn't. He missed her. Fuck, he missed her - and he rose to pick through some drawers nearby. Harpur wasn't the only one who'd had letters; there were others...and Sandro wondered that maybe if he stared at them long enough, he'd figure he'd know what she'd say, about all of this.
Harpur Eberhardt — 08/15/2021
He's distracted. Had he almost...? without even thinking about...- or-. The guard sighs and roams the kitchen, sniffing the air and locating the food items he needs before he realizes what he's doing. That new nose was going to freak him out every time.
The kids don't need waking, they'd all smell it and come running he was sure. So he prepped his workstation, he pulled breads, feta cheese, eggs, seasoning and cheese, nuts and honey onto the workstation. He'd make them something tasty and interesting. Of course though when he goes to put the rest of the eggs back he pauses and smells... meat. There's meat stored somewhere. The cellar, obviously. He finds himself drooling and thinking about raw meat, groaning and dragging his attention away to start making the damn food.
It's not long before the smell fills the home and he barks out to the household "BREAKFAST!" a little while before it was done, just to give everyone time to get there. He's still finishing up, humming deeply to himself "Someone needs to set the table." he says to the first person who walks in, unless of course it's Sandro.
He could pretend everything was alright in this moment, before he had to go face de Ovando.
Sandro — 08/28/2021
He'd said he needed to find a couple of things, but Harpur had ultimately left Sandro to sit in silence on the bed, staring at the spot the other man had left - her spot - without actually staring at it. Even when he'd finally rose, he'd only caught himself staring with that same withdrawn expression into a mirror, and internally scolding himself that he wasn't capable of doing more.
She had loved him in spite of what he was; he had loved her in spite of what she was, and their whole selves had so wholly existed within and outside of the time and space of the societies in which they'd found themselves.
And Agnesina had loved Harpur. She'd never told him her history, and loved him, anyway, clawing past the defenses and anger and pain that the guard had thrown up without a second thought and had seen something to save and encourage, with glorious disregard for the fragility and superficiality of human society- even after she'd become one. She'd done it with Alessandro too, after all.
It was fucking insane, her wielding patience and hope that was superhuman, even beyond her origin. It had driven him wild even then - one of many, many things about her.
Harpur had thought about kissing him, he was sure. Would he have kissed back? He was slow to admit it to himself, brain caught in a loop of what-if-he'd-been-seen, what-if a lord and a guard, what-if a lord and a notorious guard...and what-if a man and a man. It would have been a grief-riddled, half-mad impulse, surely.
It would have felt inappropriate after Harpur's confiding something so...*beyond *what he knew, to him, anyway. It was a startlingly intimate and vulerable confession of his, and Sandro would believe that Agnes had beaten him to knowing about it. And what would she do, what would she say - about any of this?
"You ever just...want to stop feeling things for a day, Xīngān? Just one. I don't know how you ever handled as much as you did. Could use a little of that right now." It was to nobody in particular, though he sank back on the bed as he spoke and absently gathered up a pillow into a distracted embrace, clutching at it and resting his chin on it, anxiety and tumultuous thought and memory excising itself in a stubborn fidget at one of its already-frayed corners.
It was only after the voices of Harpur and his children filtered through his thoughts that he finally scraped up enough of himself and headed downstairs.
-- Jac had beaten the twins to rising; normally he would've rubbed it in both of their faces more, but Enrica had been taking incredible amounts of responsibility on herself over the course of their dad's grief - and those ministrokes, Grimani's increasing amount of trouble and Harpur's situation, and Marc would be a little bit, too - the stress had hit him first, and crying took a lot out of a person. And whatever shit Jac liked to dole out, he did understand the severity of Cienna's situation. If he HAD caught Marc crying (several times), he'd never tell a soul.
So Jacomo was alone as he followed the sound and the smell - at least at first. The tigre was right behind him before long, slinking around him with delicate little clicks of her claws. She announced her presence politely with grumbling little hums, offered Harpur a rather forward head-bump and 'rrrr?' of a question, before she took up her preferred position right under the table - perfect for optimal scrap-catching.
Jac, meanwhile, had always looked forward to helping Harpur out with these sorts of things (he'd been practicing those honey-cakes!), but now there was also the tiniest, odd, unshakable feeling that he should. It was new, it was a little weird, and he opted to ignore it if only for the reason that he would've done it in a heartbeat, anyway.
"Yeah, I got you, I got this. Does showing up first get me an extra egg or something?"
Harpur Eberhardt — 09/02/2021
Harpur pretended everything was okay for the duration of dinner. It got easier... but only because he was blocking it all out. Things felt normal after a while, Jac helped with that immensely. It was like nothing ever happened "An extra egg? now you're asking too much" he grins and ruffles his hair.
"Everyone gets an extra egg tonight" He leans in to Jac and whispers "But i'll sneak you an extra extra egg."
He beams, he smiles. Everything comes across fine, perhaps for some that might be more distressing but he finds strength in his family.
---
It's a few days later when Harpur sends the letter. A lot had been on his mind, if he had died that night without ever telling Sandro how he'd felt, could he ever forgive himself when he stood upon the gates of whatever after life awaited him? And Sandro... the kiss that almost happened. He'd felt such an urgency since then, that he needed to talk to the man about it. Needed to write to him, to pour out his heart after years of silence no matter how taboo.
If he died tomorrow he'd have missed his chance, and that near death experience had lit a fire under him. He knew it was mad, of course. A guard, a moon-touched werewolf and a nobleman from a monied background...it was unheard of. The public would tear them a new hole or two if they caught wind, he was sure.
But since being suspended from work he'd had nothing left to do other than dwell on it.
Then Sandro drops the spoon at dinner, those words are said to him in passing and now he lingers outside the mans room late in the evening, feeling himself tremble with anxiety, nerves, excitement.
He has no idea if they'll talk within the privacy of the large room or go for a walk around the gardens, but this is as good a meeting point as any. So he waits, ears twitching slightly in ways they never had before as he listened for the man's footsteps... smelled the air for a scent he'd come to realize was Sandro's own.
Jacomo — 09/03/2021
"My standards are just that high!" Said the noodly kid who was getting his hair ruffled and grinning like a little loon because of it. So noble. "You drive a tough bargain, old man!" Marc's nickname was rubbing off on him, for sure! "Extra-extra egg, accepted."
-
That following evening; the twins were at Grimani. The burgeoning situation there had become a Situation, proper, and the three adults of Aiolfi had taken to a visiting rotation (even as Alessandro was unwilling to let his suspicions of the terminus trading town vanish, no matter how paranoid it might have sounded), bringing each other up to speed as necessary - and assigning some of their own men for protection. And it was becoming plain as day that Marc had feelings and fears for Cienna and was rather insistent on visiting, his 'professional' excuses getting sloppier and sloppier.
Which left Jacomo, who was pretty sure he had better things to do than follow his dad and his friend around...though his curiosity and something else, a weird feeling he couldn't place, was tugging at him anyway. Maybe it was the werewolf thing - maybe he was just unconsciously terrified Harpur would just turn into a giant monster and they'd fight and it would be terrible and he'd have to be there to stop it.
Which made no sense - he couldn't imagine a situation where either WOULD kill the other. Both had been out that same fateful night and it hadn't happened yet. Home free, yeah?
Kids he knew that were his own age were rather frustratingly few and far between, and even Cienna's little siblings were just too little (two years was like TWENTY as far as he was concerned), and Harpur, as he waited, might've heard Jac's immature voice yelling with all of the pent-up frustration he could muster,
"ROSA, WE'RE GOING OUT."
Rosa would eat any kidnappers up, anyway.
--
Aside from Jac's briefly announcing his status to the entire household, it had remained quiet for a while.
Harpur's senses eventually called out Sandro's approaching his door, moments before the man had approached it: there was nerves, uncertainty, fear - but not that sweet and marinating fear that would spice any dish for a predator. Just plain-old fear, one that kept one foot in reverie and the other in mourning, both mired and unwilling to budge so easily.
If one looked over his shoulder into his room, there were scores of untidy piles of letters, journals, drawings and sketchbooks. Most were hers, some were his; he'd retreated into memory and uncertainty, with perhaps the vain idea that he'd guess the advice she'd have ready about this whole thing, if only he'd stared at these things long enough. And, more direly, they had helped him remember.
A beat. Finally, a halfhearted smirk.
"I don't think I am worthy of any vows, Harpur!" Another moment and he'd clapped the other man on his shoulder. "You don't have to look like you're facing down a coven of vampires." Because 'pack of werewolves' - the more reasonable flocking option - seemed a bit trite, now. "It's just me.
"We will walk. And talk. It's a nice evening out."
And unless Harpur had any objections, they would, and Sandro led him outside.
Grimani had always had the edge for decades as far as beautiful gardens were concerned, but Sandro had to admit - since taking that troll on as groundskeeper and giving him free rein, he'd finally felt as if they were competing. It was nice. The fae's work...was nice. Nice and unselfish.
And there was plenty of grounds on which to have a walk. Their pathing avoided the stables - only now just finishing the repairs that the moonborn wolf had inflicted upon them (and screaming horses probably weren't conducive to whichever direction this conversation was about to take.)
And when they were rather far from the main house, Sandro stopped. He'd chewed on the inside of his bottom lip a moment, one hand slipping to grasp at an elbow (a nervous tic that had manifested so easily in one of his sons). Finally he raised both eyebrows and cut to the chase, looking back up and looking Harpur in the eye, his own expression unreadable.
"The whole time?"
Harpur Eberhardt — 09/04/2021
Harpur was glad everyone was out the house. He had no idea how this was going to go, and even if it went well he didn't know what sort of state they'd be in at the end of it. Stressed at least.
His head lifted, Sandro's there. He tries not to tremble, with anticipation? Fear? both probably.
He laughs a little stiffly "...I think you are" he says quietly and leans into the hand on his shoulder. When they move out he simply turns to follow him from the house to the garden, catching a brief glimpse of those ruffled papers all piled atop one another in a chaotic mess.
"I feel like i'm facing a hydra...though that's not because of you." he chuckles quietly, looking away as they walk.
They stop eventually and Harpur feels his heart start to palpitate. He knows something is coming, can see Sandro 'bracing' himself.
Dark iron eyes turn to meet Sandro's own, full of love and worry.
"Y-yes." he utters softly.
"I just never felt it was my place." he rumbles and takes a nervous half-step towards the man.
"It still isn't my place. But my heart doesn't know its place, Sandro." his eyes softened.
"And as the years go on I find it hard not to consider these children our children rather than just yours. Perhaps that's too far... but I love them, Sandro. I love y-" he lose his nerve, realizing he was overdoing it. It's his turn to display his own nervous tic, his hand roughly runs through his own hair a couple of times.
"..you."
Sandro — 09/04/2021
He remained rooted to the spot.
But his breath hitched and he made a rather indistinct noise not unlike another tic of Marc's, and flushed at the confession, fingers digging into his arm like claws. He didn't say anything for a long moment, but he didn't leave, either. And there was something new, something rather like an unusual guilt in his tone and bearing.
"It's not your place," Sandro echoed. But it wasn't unkind. Rather it was growing withdrawn, turning inward even as the delivery became more emphatic and broken. "It would destroy you. It would probably destroy me. And...there is still...so much you don't know."
"You've been so good with the children..." It trailed. "She loved you for it, you know. I loved you for it. Remember Piero? He had those...crying spells where he would scream and nothing at all would help." 'Colic' was still several centuries out from being articulated. "And neither of us knew what to do and you kept your head and she'd keep calling you over. She was so excited, she'd loved children and we'd tried so long for him. And then he was here and neither of us knew the first thing about what to do or where to start." He'd seemed somewhat aware that he was rambling, but there was a distinct directed quality to it, a frantic and muted need to articulate things and unpack and sort things out and work up to what he was aiming for. "And you showed up like a fantastic knight and instead of ...slaying monsters, you brought that energy to changing his swaddling and stay with us and the nannies for those crying spells and we kept trying to come up with an appropriate monster-slaying babysitting title for you that didn't have to...do with diapers or anything rude." He stopped, rolled his head; they likely hadn't after all this time and three babies later.
"And I kept telling her, Xīngān, you're ridiculous, a big family like yours, and you'd never once seen a baby?" The story stopped there, then. There was some strange truth hiding just beneath that straying story and that odd little ending. He picked up again after a breath.
"I've never been with a man, so you're going to have to contend with that. In...the world where this happens." He tried to shrug that one off with a little snort, but even jabbing at his own relative inexperience on the matter didn't have the same airy game and bite it would've had at any other time. And then he sobered, and the sentiment was more direct, warm and entirely serious. "And you know these sorts of things...It will be very, very hard to go back to being friends.
"Harpur...I had not lied all of those years. But I've withheld things. She had withheld things. And you will think differently of me and of her if you knew them." And you probably won't love me like that if you knew them, was the unspoken implication.
Harpur Eberhardt — 09/04/2021
Harpur knew Sandro hadn't meant it unkindly, but he still felt his heart sink at those words.
"Destroy me...? Sandro ...I... I thought this would destroy me" he motioned to himself "Surely it cannot be worse than that."
Talk of the kids makes his face soften even further. But talk of Piero in particular, and memories of him when he was young, they made his eyes glisten and he had to turn away and quickly wipe at his face as subtly as he can manage (it's not subtle), sniffing harshly.
"I remember." he missed Piero more than the family maybe ever realized, he kept it quiet, tried to be strong for them in their loss. He almost hadn't really ever properly mourned what had happened.
He laughs softly though, through the tears that threaten to break free. She had been a little clumsy at first but she was an incredible mother regardless.
And...the talk of going back to being friends. Sandro was right "Why do you think I've kept it to myself?" he looks up with sad eyes "I've always feared i'd ruin this...ruin us, by telling you."
He steps even closer to Sandro, until he's barely a foot away from him "You don't know that. If there are things you need to tell me, then I will listen... if there were any time to drop something heavy on me ... it would be now. I am a werewolf, Sandro" he sighs, heart hammering in his chest in anticipation of what he might be told. He's afraid of how he'll react, he admits, but he tries to breath deeply to ready himself.
"My whole world has fractured, everything I knew seems not to...hold as much weight as I thought it did." he sounds broken, head hanging. He'd always been so sure he'd simply kill himself if this happened... but he cannot leave a family. He's forced to think of all those he has killed who may have had families, just like him. Forced to challenge his lifelong perceptions. He feels sick just thinking about it all.
Sandro — 09/04/2021
Harpur laughed and he laughed as well, wiping one eye with the back of a curled fist. Even Harpur remembering was such a small, good gesture.
"I don't want it ruined." It was frank, but he could always be frank around Harpur. It was just strange that it was about this. "It's all I've known," was quieter, all at once full of love and gratitude and apology and fear.
Still, he hadn't chased Harpur off yet. But now it was his turn to be afraid, to talk his way into confessions and fears.
"I'm dying. I'm sure of it, my head...is not what it was, they had thought it was the aftermath of an old injury or a spell that lingered in it or something may be growing inside. But if I am to be with someone..." He would be with a close friend. The rest of the man's statement remained unsaid. Sandro was the one that closed the distance first - but it was to clasp Harpur's shoulder and upper arm.
He squeezed the other man's shoulder...and then broke, squeezing his eyes shut and drooping his head. "You've been so good with them, Harp. And when I go, I know they will be safe with the house and safe with you. So many of you need me. You need me, the children do, and there's what happened to Tomm, I'm not letting THAT go, there's something more there, I know he's still around...
"All of you need me and I need help and I'm broken and it would have to be quiet, wouldn't it? Everything considered. And I have withheld things from you for so long and what if I can't...give you what you need?"
He was inwardly grateful as the ramble got away from him, and with how little he did to stop it, that the children weren't here to see him break down like this.
"You are a werewolf." He quietly, absently itched at one of his older burn and claw scars at his chest. "And I...and our family. Well...it could've been worse. We can handle werewolves." The tone was odd, there; far from one that implied they'd put them down. "You are a werewolf...
"And Agnes had been fae."
Harpur Eberhardt — 09/05/2021
Harpur nodded in agreement though, he shared the same sentiment. He couldn't bare to lose their friendship, but on the same hand ...Sandro would always know, now. Even if they tried to carry on as normal.
The talk of health was expected, but it didn't hurt any less. He had gone over the fact that Sandro may be dying in his head so many many times. He'd tried to process it, he wanted to fight it through any means but he knew there was no guarantee anyone could save Sandro. His heart hammered with talk of 'being with someone', everything was so tense, this conversation felt like it could turn either way. With them together, with them apart, perhaps even with a wedge between their friendship.
But then Sandro closed the distance and Harpur's breath hitched nervously, eyes peering deeply into Sandro's own until his eyes shut and his head dropped. "You put too much weight on your own shoulders. Sandro... they'll all be alright, we will... we all want you, but no one wants you to suffer from the stress. I'll help you, no matter how this goes." he says tenderly.
Witheld...? what could he possibly have withheld that matters now?
He worries. "My love for you transcends my needs, Sandro" he tells him softly "And don't forget your own needs" he knows Sandro may be feeling inadequate at times, Harpur had felt that rush of inadequacy the moment he'd changed. No longer suitable for his job, maybe it wasn't the same thing but he can't imagine the impact of knowing your own mind is betraying you. But Sandro still had his own wants and needs, he musn't sell himself short.
A hand lifts to squeeze gently at Sandro's upper arm, rubbing it softly with his thumb. He listens, wondering if he caught a strange lilt in the mans voice but it's all forgotten at the confession. He can't help it, it's a sharp reaction as he releases Sandro and steps away to pace like a caged animal back and forth, circling back to Sandro repeatedly.
"Fae?" he says a little too sharply. He runs a hand through his hair again and again, eyes wide as he tries to process that. If they had been in less serious a conversation he might have thought it was a joke. "And neither of you ever told me? damn it Sandro-! This- this is-" he shakes his head in utter disbelief. How can he believe it? his whole world is turned upside down.
His family?
"That means...the children?" he turns towards Sandro again and stays looking at him this time.
"And what of Jac? what is it you're not telling me about him? I smelled it today, you know." he growls softly, not threateningly of course but his voice is so serious that it seems to hold a wolfish undercurrent.
Sandro — 09/05/2021
"You put too much weight on your own shoulders. Sandro... they'll all be alright, we will... we all want you, but no one wants you to suffer from the stress. I'll help you, no matter how this goes."
"Yes - I. Harp, that's all I wanted...that's...the most 'you' answer to this I can-!"
It was nice, so nice to hear it, that for one moment he'd dared to be hopeful, that this conversation would turn out well no matter the direction he took, that he and Harpur will be all right. It only twisted the knife, then, knowing that that he, himself would crush it in a matter of seconds.
And Sandro remained rooted in place when he was sharply released, staring down at his feet, one hand traveling up to squeeze where Harpur had just been holding, and remained there. It was an unusual position for the old condottiere to affect, hardly seemed correct at all.
"We told nobody. I'm sorry. The children don't even know." He finally met Harpur's eyes; was flushed, he was upset, this may have been the first time he'd actually given voice to any of this situation all, and the emotions and fears leaving him in a tumultuous tangled ball would no doubt have been an heartfelt and confusing assault on Harpur's senses.
"She'd given it all up. We never told anyone, it wasn't something...my family would have liked. It had taken ages for either of us to admit to ourselves that...what was happening was happening. She'd given it up, and when she'd fallen ill, we'd returned to her home, and they'd refused our asks for help. We were thrown out by her own fae brethren, and she died mortal." Whether giving up immortal status meant giving up unusual genes seemed rather up in the air - but there it was; admission of his single, damning hypocrisy that had been his first and overwhelming love - and reinforcement of his mistrust of the species as a whole.
A frown, then, and his expression and tone took on a new urgency, tone subconsciously reflecting Harpur's own growl. "What did you smell on him?"
Harpur Eberhardt — 09/05/2021
Harpur listens, a low and inhuman whine rising from the back of his nose. He hates this, he wants to be angry, to be outraged that he'd been 'deceived' when Sandro knew how he felt about Fae, but his heart hurt. He hated to see Sandro standing there like that in that moment, he came to the realization that despite what he'd learned in that moment, barely seconds ago... he still loved Sandro, and Agnes. But this realization didn't come lightly, it fractured his whole world a second time and this time the fracture was larger. If he could make 'allowances' for just the 'fae he liked' then his personal creed that he had stood by his entire life was not as strong and steadfast as he'd always believed. He's left wondering who he even is, and if everything he has ever known has been a lie.
"But she was fae, your dislike of them has been that? but if you know that someone so good as her can come from fae then surely they cannot all be-" he growled and paced "what am I SAYING? there was an entire war Sandro, th-the faewatch-!!" he paced now to try and get out the energy, fur bristling and forming along his jawline.
Then he lows to a stop, looking over at Sandro. Surely the man knew something was different about the boy? but he sensed no lie, nor would he ever expect Sandro to lie to him in this moment. This was all about honesty.
"He smelled like me." He answers simply, eyes serious.
Sandro — 09/05/2021
"There was a war. A war's where we're headed," it was a rather frank and fatalistic diagnosis, spoken as if Sandro believed there was no other outcome, "and it's a matter of time before tensions boil over again. And there are many who want a war, and it is our duty to put it off as long as we can. If we're lucky and successful, it won't happen in our lifetimes." It may have been too much to hope for 'ever.'
"She was good. Many of her family were not. And know what? I fucking loathe that Queen Mother for rejecting her." He'd never let that go. Worst kind of fae, really. "And there's worse, still." Carnieros had reappeared, after all, arm in arm with what could have only been a dragon queen - and noting seemed more of an omen than that.
He watched Harpur pace, and allowed him to get that energy out. Sandro was still working it all out, himself; it was best to let Harpur work these thoughts out on his own - especially now in this humbled shape of his, where his job and an already immense reputation was on the line. "I believe and have believed a lot of things, and she has made me question many more things. And..." He gestured to all of Harpur in a 'well, you-know' sort of motion. "Aiolfi thrives in war, but the Faewatch flourish for the sake of peace. Our house is not paid for our values, but I'd like to...hope that wherever I end up, whatever I end up passing along to Marc and the others, it's the right place to be." Like sparing Harpur; certainly not the wise or preferred thing to do, but he was still so sure it was the right thing.
Harpur came back around and Sandro ventured something rather bold - and likely something so mad that only an Aiolfi would do it: he ran a brisk finger along the fur at Harpur's jaw. It was quick and odd, could have been one of his many tics or fidgets, but there was some fascination there in the motion as well. It could haveserved no small reminder, too - look, Harp. You're fuzzy.
"He's twelve." It was an odd thing to say after a long beat, more to himself, spoken like twelve would make Jac somewhat less stinky. At least - apart from the usual way so typical of young boys. Unconsciously he scratched at burn and scratch scarring at his chest again.
"Harpur, you have to stay. Please watch him. I don't...know what to...do about what you're saying at all, but I am glad you've told me."
Harpur Eberhardt — 09/05/2021
Harpur's face burns rather suddenly as a finger seems to come out of nowhere and run itself along his jaw. He flinches but only in surprise, staring wide eyed at Sandro before looking away and ....well he accidentally smiles despite trying to stop himself. This is too serious.
He's twelve
It works to pull on Harpur's heartstrings, pull them against what they'd always been guarded against before. "Sandro..." he breaths. The fur seems to retract, a sign that Harpur is calming down.
"I could never leave. This is... it's going to take some time to process." he steps in closer again. "You know how i have been for so many years and what I believe ...d, believed." he says it past tense with a choke of difficulty, he had been a slayer, what would they all think of him now if they had not been disbanded?
"... I cannot simply stop... loving you and you- our..? family." his heart hammers in his chest and he lifts one meaty hand to gently cup Sandro's face, brushing a calloused thumb across his cheekbone tenderly.
"Things just...aren't how I thought they were. I can still learn.." he almost whispers that last line, tired, loving eyes gazing into Sandro's own.
Sandro — 09/05/2021
He watched the fur retract, and while he'd attempted the act with clinical eyes, it was still strange to see it happen, borderline distressing. That fur was Harpur's just as much as the rest of him was, those feathers had been hers... It was all a theater of bodies breaking, reshaping and changing ... perhaps it was the madness borne of grief that he'd not wanted to believe Agnesina had gone at all at first, that just like the bird shape she'd so often worn before giving that up, too, her own little body had seen so much stranger than illness, that she was not dead, simply changed like always.
It was worryingly, staggeringly impermanent. She had left him, Harpur could go, he could go and leave these people, and Jac-!
He'd said something very concerning about Jac.
A deep and shuddering breath followed. There would be no more secrets.
"If Jacomo really does...smell like you. I don't know what you can do when you change again." Which was coming up quickly, wasn't it. "Or if...he...does." That was a weird suggestion, the possibility was uncharted territory around which they appeared to be dancing. Sandro certainly didn't know, hadn't touched upon worrying about blood-curses on top of everything else; other Aiolfi were killed, they were cleansed, they were taken away when the errant gene arose. But "...it's not unheard of," was all he'd said aloud regarding that. "Just tell me, please, what you smell, what you see, if anything strange happens, especially if it's...like you."
"Things just...aren't how I thought they were. I can still learn.."
"So can I. Learn. I can still learn, too."
And his face was cupped; it was strange and tripped another onslaught of emotion that it was incredibly difficult to pick through in the heat of the moment, and the way he'd tensed, the way he tried picking through them anyway in a flash of withdrawn stubbornness was so very like Marc, too. He knew what Harpur wanted. He wanted, he didn't want, he didn't know what he wanted at all, and all sounded so good and so terrible and so new in the moment. But Harpur was real and this touch was an anchor in that maelstrom, and he could only imagine what this was doing to those wolfish senses of his right now.
After a moment he placed his hand on Harpur's. Not...yet. He needed a moment.
"Harp. I...dropped that spoon." He snorted, but it was a snort of a misplaced humor, one that said more towards his current mental state than anything else. "This is all new, it's so very new, and it was so...unimaginably brave for you to tell me.
"I love you. But I don't know...how I love you." It was a love that he'd had difficulty even articulating, and he hoped his own struggles spoke where his words were not.
He'd often heard of peers remarrying quickly in situations like his, or courting indiscriminately and cultivating rather fleeting relationships, teasing Lady after Lady with no plans in sight, much less passion. Many just went to the cathouse. The relationships that immediately followed a loss were simply that - a rebound, an express, passionless and selfish purpose to get over the old love, and Sandro didn't want that either.
"I don't...know if there's any...romance left in me after everything, if it's fair to you to start anything like...that, and force you to even more secrecy than you're already facing. But I can't imagine a world without you in it,for however long that's left. But Harp. You have always been family. I do not want to destroy something beautiful and perhaps there is some...other world where we could do this, where everything isn't out of control. Whatever we are from here, whatever venture this might become, it will be slow." He lowered his head. He was broken; he was overwhelmed. He was sorry.
"It's not...what you were looking for with that letter, I'm sure. And I am sorry. But I would like to hope it's a start."
And met his eyes again. "Love our family. Help me...protect our family."
Harpur Eberhardt — 09/06/2021
He can't help but worry then "Change? how could he- he hasn't been bitten, has he? did I...?" he can't remember doing so but then again he can't remember much. Lets face it, Jac was small, if he had bitten him that night there would be nothing left of him but he'd been perky and fine when Harpur had woken up "No- that was a stupid question" he sighed and looked aside as if feeling guilty for something he hadn't done. He knows that he can bite and change someone on a full moon now, everything he'd always hated.
"I will...I'll tell you. But I still don't understand." how could Jac change? how? was it even a possibility?
--
He smells every emotion coming off Sandro in droves but he cannot for the life of him decipher the code written into it. What it meant was still a mystery to him. He stayed steady, looking into Sandro's eyes with that same patience as he went through every emotion there before him. That hand places itself atop his and he understands what it means. He's disappointed, but he hardly shows it. More worried than disappointed, he hopes that the other man will give this a chance ... but only when he's ready.
If Sandro weren't dying he might feel comfortable with the mention of taking it slow. Terrible images that had played in his mind before now played again, Sandro on his death bed and only then do they confess, or do their lips touch. Or worse, they never do. But it's what Sandro needs, and Harpur respects it, he understands...he's just as fearful of losing what they already have.
He keeps saying that. Referring to their love only in another world. It seems like outright rejection but then it isn't. So many mixed messages and Harpur can only steel himself against them as best he can.
"I always have loved them." He felt his heart flutter at that 'our' "our family."
He lowers his hand and slowly turns to start back towards the house, placing his palm at the center of Sandro's back to walk with him. He speaks softly.
"If we are going to give this a chance, Sandro... will you give it a chance?- we must figure out what you would be comfortable with. I...I'd like to cook a dinner, just for the two of us. But only if that sounds alright. Does it sound alright?"
Sandro — 09/06/2021
"It's not so stupid. You're the only wolf here right now." 'Right now' seemed a weird extra thing to tack onto it. He took a deep breath. "He has not been bitten, no. It's something I'll tell you. But not here. I will tell you," he added emphatically at no prompt at all. "No more lies, no more withholding, Harp. But this is something that...needs a little more than a garden walk and I trust you...so much, should this become an emergency."
--
They'd walked, Harpur's arm at his waist, and Sandro wrapped his own arm around Harpur's shoulder.
And for a while, despite it not having been the answer Harpur would have wanted in the moment, it did feel correct. Harpur was steady and solid and an anchor, and for now that was just fine.
And somewhere between steps, everything - Harpur's confession, Agnesina, the whirlwind of feelings, his own condition, the children, Grimani - hit him all at once and his step faltered and buckled, and he pulled Harpur into an embrace, pressing his forehead into Harpur's shoulder, his grasp curling into him like claws, and only barely holding back any sobs that dearly wanted to flow freely. And then another moment and there they came. Sorry, Harpur.
Luckily not many were witness to the sight of two rather built men together, one crying into the other's shoulder. Yet.
"I will give it a chance. Just. " And then he snorted with a breathy, brief, open-mouthed smile, betraying some tears and dampness that he'd been holding back with a little gasp. "Always a dinner, you're just the...dinner person, always have been."
The rather distinct scents of two small beings that were distinctly wolfish suddenly spiked into sharp relief behind them.
"You were talking about food." It was Jac, piping up at whoever turned around first, mildly defensive, and seemingly making a preemptive excuse as to why he and Rosa were there before anyone actually asked.
Harpur had woken not only feeling re-energized but... hungry and stronger than he ever had been. The headache was still there, the sadness, the sense of loss but he was feeling better than when he'd gone to sleep. He stirred and ran a hand through his hair, staring at the ceiling. Remembering. He shifts to sit up in bed and something catches his eye on the bedside table.
He read each letter, feeling his eyes grow wet. He longed for them to have had the time to talk about these things, there were so many things unsaid between the lines but Harpur knew that she knew. She had known things about him that he was too chicken shit to admit to even himself. He felt depressed, at the end of his tether, but in a way it was freeing. Why should he care about any of his old hang-ups anymore? he was probably going to lose his job today, probably going to lose everything except this beautiful family. He wasn't sure about Jaxamir, he'd fought monsters too, who knew how he'd feel? But if he had this family he could keep going somehow.
Rising to his feet he set the notes lightly back where they were. He was trying to ignore other nagging parts of what she had said, suggesting the unthinkable...that monsters may not all be inherently cruel. He was a danger to this family, could he even keep them?
Moving to the bathroom he continued his morning routine and shaved as if nothing had changed, trying to cling to his daily routine and then he stepped out, heading for Sandro's room "Sandro, are you still asleep?" he asked and knocked gently before poking his head inside. He needed to talk to him.
Sandro — 08/01/2021
He didn't think he'd sleep.
Everything had been building and building for years now, and while he was sure this wouldn't be the bursting point, that he wouldn't burst at all, the mounting duty to his family, duty to Grimani, and now duty to Harpur seemed increasingly nightmarish and insurmountable in its failure. And that was before he'd factored in the apopleptic attacks and the mess that always seemed to come afterward - he couldn't even get his own head to cooperate when others needed it the most.
His current situation, certainly, was at least somewhat his fault. He could work with that.
But he was only human, after all, and fitful wakefulness eventually trailed into fitful and vivid waking dreams, eventually stilling into sheer exhaustion.
---
Perhaps luckily for Harpur, he was spared the monstrous snores Sandro's wife had alluded to in her aging and unsent letter
But the man had stirred rather easily at the knock and sat bolt awake with a frown, a reflex that never left him even as the need had, eyes yet unseeing as the rest of him struggled to catch up with the reflex. Alarm, gratitude, confusion...and then memory of that night seeped back into his eyes and he very nearly say back down again as it flooded back into his head as a wave.
"Wasn't doing a very good job of it in the first place, honestly..." It trailed into a groan as he sat up properly on the edge of his bed, and after a beat, dragged a hand down his face.
'Are you all right' seemed a little trite after all that transpired, so after a moment - and a small pat on the side of the bed next to him, he settled instead on a "How are you feeling?"
Harpur Eberhardt — 08/01/2021
Harpur frowns as he sees the sharp reaction from Sandro "Sorry. Didn' mean t' startle y'" he rumbles apologetically and makes his way inside, shutting the door behind him.
"Strange. Different." He admits in his answer. "I've ..had a lot to think about. I was thinking about ...Agnes" he wasn't sure if Sandro had put the letters there or not.
He moves into the room, where he might have once been afraid to get too close he instead climbs onto the bed to sit beside Sandro, close to him as offered. A soft, tired smile forms on his lips "There are a ...few things i've never told you about myself. I was thinking about that too..." his breaths comes out as a shudder.
Harpur has to steel himself, but after a moment of this he reaches out to take Sandro's hand in his for perhaps the first time, holding it tightly and looking up to meet his eyes.
"I think i'd like to tell you now, the things ...she knew deep down. But we never got to talk about it either and ...I don't want to make that same mistake again." he says sadly, regretfully.
Sandro — 08/01/2021
Sandro nodded at that 'strange' and 'different' with a hum that was all at once both light and bleary. Then, seemingly realizing that it might have come across as empathetic rather than sympathetic, a knowing rather than an understanding. He hummed again and stretched as Harpur sat down next to him and added a "I can imagine...will take some getting-used-to, yeah?" It was as casual as if it came from a younger Sandro, or any of his kids. It wasn't nudge-worthy quite yet - the fact of the matter and of containment still loomed and needed some time to sink in - but that could wait until after Sandro was dressed.
But then he'd mentioned Agnesina. Agnes, Feyian, his wife...and things she'd known about Harpur. He'd stiffened slightly, predictably, though his expression was one open and curious; he was always thinking about her, but hearing Harpur had been...reminded him of the previous night. He frowned, but it remained an open one.
"Things that...have anything to do with last night, or something else...?"
And Harpur was holding his hand.
His mind went wild in the span of merely a second or two: what would she know that he didn't? (Little did he know she'd also called him out years prior in one of these letters!) Sodomy, fornication, that she and Harpur had been together, that there was any other number of dirty little secrets that they'd shared under his nose somehow?
And then more realistically, after a breath - something horrible that he'd never felt comfortable sharing with Sandro? Agnes had a way of making people comfortable that seemed to dance around convention entirely, sometimes.
He gripped Harpur's hand in return, reassuringly. He understood that final sentiment all too well.
"Talk to me, Harpur."
Harpur Eberhardt — 08/02/2021
Harpur felt himself tremble as his hand was gripped in return. Sandro was so open, so inviting. He could smell things coming off him that he didn’t yet understand, he wondered if it was fear, affection, anxiety? He couldn’t tell.
“Y-you s-s-see I-I- u-uh-“ his voice wavered and wobbled more than it ever had, he could feel himself begin to sweat and his palms become clammy.
“She knew ... I know she -she knew th-that I-I- I’m a-a f-freak” he’s really shaking right now, head turned away. He’s wide eyed, every fight or flight mechanism firing off in his body and brain.
“S-see sometimes I actually u-um- I feel like I’m a-a-a-“ he lets out a harsh and shuddering breath to prepare himself.
“A woman-! A-a woman- a-and y-y-you know sometimes I-I feel like s-something I-in between- a-and s-sometimes that b-brings me a lot o-of pain a-and discomfort in myself” he’s well and truly shaking like a leaf now, head down. He cannot even look at Sandro. He hasn’t ever heard of anyone like him, he thinks it’s a flaw, that he’s broken somehow.
Rigby — 08/02/2021
sandro: With nothing to compare it too, with this seemingly outside what he knew of things like homosexuality and dancing into the business of third-genders, he struggled. What would feeling like a woman even…feel-like?
The nod was slow, and it was one less of acknowledgement and more of an I’m-listening, I’m-processing-this, give-me-a-moment sort of a head-bob. It was a gesture that had expressed itself through Marc and Piero rather often - as was the stare with which Sandro fixed Harpur, now. “Like you wish to do…woman-things?” That at least was an idea he could wrap around a starting-point; his rearing of his children (and the occasional secret training of Cienna) was one of a mind that did not place as high of importance on preordained roles as many.
“Or would you live as a woman, is that something you want for yourself?” Clothes made the man, of course, but if this wasn’t just…relegated to bedroom things, this seemed to run deeper, in a near-spiritual streak that Sandro couldn’t relate to.
It was really throwing Harpur into a panic in the present, though - and rather understandably, Sandro couldn’t picture someone so known as Harpur swapping up and getting away with it under someone like de Ovando - and so that had captured most of his focus.
He gripped at that sweaty hand reassuringly.
“No. Nononononono, don’t do that, don’t do that.” And then the tiniest little spark of a wicked, reassuring gleam in his eyes. “Besides, you aren’t even human right now, this worry can wait its turn once the first thing’s sorted!” It would’ve escaped a more-boisterous person as a playful nudge, and a rather far-reaching attempt to lighten the mood; as it was with Sandro, it was only relegated to tone.
He did cough though, a little apology. "Sorry. Just trying to help."
After a beat, he continued. “Did you tell her?” It may have been a tipoff that it wasn’t he that had found the notes. “You know…if she guessed something like that…I don’t believe she would have thought you were a freak.
“The thing about Agnesina was she had a way of staring right through anyone’s shape. Harpur the man would be Harpur, the woman, would be Harpur the bird…would be Harpur, the wolf.” It was weird talking so frankly about the guard's transformation now…but the delivery was of someone who had Shit To Do, was very tired, and had very little time to do it all. No sense in dancing around anything at this stage.
He bobbed his head and with it came an accompanying lift and bob of Harpur’s hand. The reassurance was a small tentative note of a smile, curling upward, in his next words. “It’s not that simple, obviously. But ‘freak’ would not have been a thought that would have crossed her mind.”
Harpur Eberhardt — 08/02/2021
Harpur was tense in that silence as Sandro processed what he'd told him, shaking, afraid. But then the silence was broken with a question. "Yes- well, sometimes. Like- wear a dress and make up for example, there are plenty other things. It- it changes though. I change a lot more than anyone even knows." he admits quietly. At least Sandro is trying to understand, he reassured himself. This could be going worse. This is the best response he could have hoped for.
"I'd live as a woman sometimes, if I could. But look at me. No one's ever going to treat me like a woman and i'm proud of my body, I work hard for it but sometimes it's ...the wrong body. I wish I could just ...snap! my fingers and change! but that'd be...magic wouldn't it? no man should...should turn to magic." he sinks a little against the headboard with tired eyes drooping, looking up as he felt his hand gripped.
It was easy to see the mention of him not being human anymore made him panic, eyes wide as he looked away and tried desperately to control his freaked out breathing. He didn't want to think about it, he wanted to avoid facing that truth, even if he could feel the wolf inside all the time now. He could smell everything Sandro was feeling though he had no idea how to make sense of it.
"I - I never told her, but she knew. I only found out this morning that she knew...there were- there were letters beside my bed. From her, in the past." He doesn't bring up the mention of Pierro but it weighs heavily on his heart. They're together now, they must be. Harpur silently worries too, Sandro's mind is so tangled lately and here he is trying to confide confusing and perhaps insane ramblings in him.
"She- she noticed the way i looked at her dress once. She knew i wasn't- you know" he shrugs a shoulder. Being a pervert, for lack of better words, he supposed.
"Sandro..." he says with soft, sad eyes and squeezes that hand close to his heart "We're still family, aren't we? after all this."
Sandro — 08/04/2021
What Harpur was saying was, admittedly, very strange to Sandro. He’d heard before and likely had crossed path with people of third genders, or people of one sex living as the other while out among the town. But he’d just…not thought about it, had no reason to think about it, even when he'd no doubt worked alongside them in the Faewatch. His experience was with monsters and exploration and protection, and nobody needed protection from people just being-people; those were the people that needed protection. He'd no idea how to advise around this, but he wanted to help - it was very clearly distressing to his friend!
While he knew he couldn’t trust his own memory, though older memories would occasionally return with unusual clarity while newer ones would often vanish, his mind wandered back through adventure after adventure, wondering now if there had been any moments that they could have talked this through, then - or what either of them would have said or done, and if it would’ve spared years of Harpur, wondering.
Or more accurately, moments that someone like Agnesina would’ve seen and had to go out of her way to tell Sandro.
”No man should turn to magic.”
Magic will betray you. His own thought was sharp, resolute in its agreement, reflexive to the point where he flinched; a thought that tore at his heart from years of experience and battle and fear and disappointment.
“No man should…” He echoed. “They wouldn’t have saved Agnes.” It was resolute, defeated and a murmur all at once. Perhaps one day it would be time for that story; for now, he trailed. The next thoughts were also fragmented, just shy of heresy, but borne of defeat and a quiet desperation. “What if…they did know ways, or have means? Look at us, man.” Harpur’s body was about to be put through the wringer already, through magic - whether he liked it or not. “Cienna is ill.” He wouldn’t admit ‘dying’ aloud, yet - but so much of what she was going through he’d already seen with his wife. “I can’t trust my brain. You can’t…trust your body.” That seemed accurate enough, yeah? Bit reductive, but it helped thinking of a what-if - should he wake up a female one day when he was expecting something else, he’d be pretty betrayed, too. “I didn’t always agree with her before. Still not sure I do. And I’ve wanted to ask you, what you thought during…peacetime. But…”
And he’d let it trail. Harpur was talking directly about his wife, now - and it wasn’t necessarily about her loss or grief, just simply about her. And the sound of those words coming from him, the image of her no-doubt chasing Harpur down insistently just to help however she could and get to the bottom of it did draw a little gasp of a laugh out from him, and he allowed it to happen this time.
“She did do that a lot. Towards the end, I mean. She couldn’t leave without agitating her health and it infuriated her. I know she would’ve found you the moment she could.” Maybe that’s why she’d not sent those letters.
He’d not released Harpur’s hand yet, had allowed it guided, and only squeezed it back, reassuringly. “Of course we’re still family!”
After a moment, he did continue, slowly. “I’m not turning you out because of the wolf business; I’ve already picked my path on that one. What’s a dress or two on top of that?” He’d played it off relatively light and warm, though the next words were far more sober, and a bit more mindful of their respective social positions - another hurdle that they’d yet have to address in the coming fallout.
“I don’t…know what I can do from my position, but I'm thinking, I'll think of something. Your business with de Ovando is still your business.” And the same went for the town - there was no sense in hiding his change from the people, but that meant there were no doubt some growing pains to be had. “But I am here to help…make sense of it all. And you will always have a home, here.”
Harpur Eberhardt — 08/04/2021
Harpur looks up with fearful puppydog eyes as Sandro begins with that 'what if'. But he snaps out of that as Cienna's condition is ill. Perhaps it is wrong of him but he immediately thinks of Marc, how would the young man cope? "He's going to snap." Harpur mutters softly and hangs his head. One man a werewolf, one man perhaps soon(?!) to die of whatever it is claiming his memory, and now the love of his life? was she that ill? it seemed to go without saying when one simply said 'ill'. "M-maybe steeplestone themselves would have-" he starts to tremble all over again, he looks disgusted and turns his head away.
For a moment he just breaths heavily. He's trying to work through this. Everything was different now, he had no choice. The current of the river was stronger than him and all he could do was let it carry him.
It's Sandro discussing his own health that brings his head back up, tears now glistening in his eyes but not yet falling "Sandro" he choked out with naught but raw love for him, he squeezes that hand right up against his own heart "I would walk to the ends of the earth to save you from whatever this is. I would contradict the creed which i've lived by since I was a child just to bring you back, all the way back." He leans forwards "If you want to try something ...just- just say the word. I'll look, i'll look everywhere. Not just you, Lady Cienna. And if i so happen to find something to help me along the way then that's fine.... but I have lived without that help my whole life, I can manage. But...I do not know how I would fare without you"
The tears finally fall and he sniffs back a dry sob as he's told he'd always have a home here. "Thank you, Sandro." he leans forwards without thinking and presses his forehead to Sandro's own, eyes lifting to meet his "I'll be here with you, through it all."
Sandro — 08/08/2021
"He will." It was a murmur of vulnerable certainty. Sandro had already been there, after all. Marc losing his love after a mother and a brother (and, he'd probably admitted, himself) would break anyone - and that was before taking into account everything else going on around them. The wolves, the vampires, this constant invisible sense of ramping tension...
"I'd gone to..." there was an odd, slight hesitation "...fae that could help, for Agnesina, before. They'd refused." It was almost a disconnected thought and managed to force an unusual amount of anger and betrayal into the otherwise low and thoughtful statement, one that seemed to peel back the scab of his mistrust for the magical beings. But it reached back to Harpur's own about Steeplestone.
"We could..." And he trailed. A new worry bubbled to the forefront - even with the noblest of intentions, would Harpur's reputation carry over to the academy? How ugly was this going to get?
And now his silence was spacious, allowing Harpur to speak, meeting the own man's eyes, wholly taking in that genuine want, for himself and for Cienna.
"Since you were a child, hmm?" There were hints of a more-playful Alessandro of the past in that slight detour from the heaviness of the conversation as they pressed foreheads - he'd not thought about it, it seemed a Rosa sort of gesture; belatedly he figured it could be a Wolf Thing - but it was also laced with genuine curiosity, as much as it gracefully led into his own concession about the situation. He clapped Harpur on the shoulder then, that hand then parting with a fluff through short hair before sitting up. "Suppose that means it's time for a refresher. And I should stop...avoiding...possible health. Old dogs can learn new tricks, hm?"
It was genuinely touching; it reflected in his eyes that had long been dried from crying far too many times, and it settled in his chest to freely twist at the lord's heart. Poor Harpur's new senses would have to sort through a torrent of confused, conflicted, mournful, hopeful emotions that their owner would have trouble articulating if ever asked. It had been a rough few years. This was the kind of thing that his wife would see so easily from her unusual vantage, that Harpur that wasn't the surly fae-hating guard or that brash adventurer that could so encourage her husband in these things. His hand was led and he did not refuse; the contact was welcome, and for now it did feel as if he wasn't facing building insurmountable tasks, alone. He was Aiolfi, but the strength of the wolf was the pack.
"We could try Steeplestone." He'd no way of knowing Marc and Cienna already had that in mind as well. And Steeplestone wasn't ...them, those that had already been so cruel when his family had needed them the most... "It's worth a try, at least." He'd take the small knock to his own reputation should it get out. It could be built again, and he would do his best to try to keep whatever stink that resulted off of the twins and Jac. There was only one Cienna, only one Sandro. "I don't...know what to do about the other thing. Or where to even start. But I...can imagine something of how it feels, to a point...and I truly wish to help you. I'm not going anywhere, Harp." A small smile was an invitation, a reassurance for Harpur to do the same. It could be so much worse. They were alive for now, after all!
Harpur Eberhardt — 08/09/2021
Harpur nodded with a sad smile, he knew Marc would always make it thought, but at what cost? being alive didn't necessarily mean one was living... he didn't want this world to sap the joy from that young man, he could already see the signs that he was... not doing okay. Maybe he'd talk to him soon, once he was more stable in himself.
It is a strange thing, in a way this tragedy had brought Harpur some strange peace and joy in his life. He had always felt like he was part-time family, now realizing that these people are his family, truly, wholy, and Sandro had heard his deepest secret without even flinching.
But then Sandro explains something, or barely does, and it clicks a lot of things into place. So that was why Sandro felt the way he did about the fae, was it?
He squeezes those hands more tightly "They think only of themselves" he says with sad, sympathetic eyes. Poor Agnes...they could have helped her.
The fluff through his hair makes him laugh softly "We can learn, I'll be with you every step of the way. We can try Steeplestone, and even if they cannot help perhaps they can point us in the right direction."
He leans back a little and smiles sweetly "Thank you, Sandro. Maybe you - could help me try new things. If you wanted" he suggested timidly and left it at that.
"I'll go make us all some breakfast. Don't rush i'll let you know when it's ready" he needed something to keep him busy, food was always the answer. There's a pause as he starts to let go of Sandro's hands where he starts trembling. He grips them again instead and leans towards Sandro, strangely close. It's an odd moment and his palms are clammy but whatever it was he'd had in mind he very quickly closes his eyes and backs away "I'll call you for breakfast" and with that be goes to stand and head off, letting go of those hands in the process.
Sandro — 08/15/2021
"They think only of themselves."
"Yeah..." A shudder of tension and memory ran through that grasp, and for a moment there was something distant about his stare. And something near-imperceptibly changed about Sandro's hold. He had seen, firsthand, how cruel they could be to their own.
And Harpur was solid and real, and as far as the lord was concerned, an anchor.
Though he would be more certain in that assessment if he hadn't watched that solid form break, reshape and be remade several times over the past few evenings, and something of that hold was a semi-conscious desire to keep him here in this shape. He was here, this was his friend Harpur's very human hand, same as it'd been since they were both very young; nothing less.
"Thank you, Harp. For all of it." It was heartfelt and low. If they couldn't help him, they could at least help the children. For however rough this was on Sandro, it was no doubt far worse on them and he hated every moment of it, hated every failure, every time he himself contributed to all of it. It will end, they had to end it.
"I'll help. However I am...able." Yet Harpur's delivery there was odd, and while Sandro had read the suggestion at first as help around the wolf thing, the perspective and the uprooting that'd no doubt come from it, the ... whatever one would call what Harpur had just confessed to him, there was a note there he couldn't quite read.
And then Harpur was close, Sandro's stomach twisted, and he realized what it might be only several very long seconds after it was over. And it was something of a small shock that his next reflexive thoughts were what-ifs: what if that had gone another way, what if they had been seen...and the scandal over a lord and a guard - a lord and this particular notorious guard - not a lord and a man. And he had no idea what to think about THAT, either.
He took a sharp breath, ran a hand down his face. Dipped his head in a vague acknowledgement of Harpur's self-dismissal. Smiled a bit, for the sake of the other man. "Harpur, you and that cooking...! Yeah. I need to...find a couple things, first. Can go get the children soon, too." Maybe Agnesina was right and the guy did need things spelled out for him, sometimes.
Harpur rose, and Sandro had once again withdrawn, looking down at the space left on the bed. They were both sitting on her Spot, of course they had been. And all of this - the resurgence of those letters, that bird, those dreams... it was a lot to take in, and a lot of Agnesina right back at the forefront once more. stark reminders of all of those nights where he prayed the gods would take her, and be endlessly thankful to them in the morning when they hadn't. He missed her. Fuck, he missed her - and he rose to pick through some drawers nearby. Harpur wasn't the only one who'd had letters; there were others...and Sandro wondered that maybe if he stared at them long enough, he'd figure he'd know what she'd say, about all of this.
Harpur Eberhardt — 08/15/2021
He's distracted. Had he almost...? without even thinking about...- or-. The guard sighs and roams the kitchen, sniffing the air and locating the food items he needs before he realizes what he's doing. That new nose was going to freak him out every time.
The kids don't need waking, they'd all smell it and come running he was sure. So he prepped his workstation, he pulled breads, feta cheese, eggs, seasoning and cheese, nuts and honey onto the workstation. He'd make them something tasty and interesting. Of course though when he goes to put the rest of the eggs back he pauses and smells... meat. There's meat stored somewhere. The cellar, obviously. He finds himself drooling and thinking about raw meat, groaning and dragging his attention away to start making the damn food.
It's not long before the smell fills the home and he barks out to the household "BREAKFAST!" a little while before it was done, just to give everyone time to get there. He's still finishing up, humming deeply to himself "Someone needs to set the table." he says to the first person who walks in, unless of course it's Sandro.
He could pretend everything was alright in this moment, before he had to go face de Ovando.
Sandro — 08/28/2021
He'd said he needed to find a couple of things, but Harpur had ultimately left Sandro to sit in silence on the bed, staring at the spot the other man had left - her spot - without actually staring at it. Even when he'd finally rose, he'd only caught himself staring with that same withdrawn expression into a mirror, and internally scolding himself that he wasn't capable of doing more.
She had loved him in spite of what he was; he had loved her in spite of what she was, and their whole selves had so wholly existed within and outside of the time and space of the societies in which they'd found themselves.
And Agnesina had loved Harpur. She'd never told him her history, and loved him, anyway, clawing past the defenses and anger and pain that the guard had thrown up without a second thought and had seen something to save and encourage, with glorious disregard for the fragility and superficiality of human society- even after she'd become one. She'd done it with Alessandro too, after all.
It was fucking insane, her wielding patience and hope that was superhuman, even beyond her origin. It had driven him wild even then - one of many, many things about her.
Harpur had thought about kissing him, he was sure. Would he have kissed back? He was slow to admit it to himself, brain caught in a loop of what-if-he'd-been-seen, what-if a lord and a guard, what-if a lord and a notorious guard...and what-if a man and a man. It would have been a grief-riddled, half-mad impulse, surely.
It would have felt inappropriate after Harpur's confiding something so...*beyond *what he knew, to him, anyway. It was a startlingly intimate and vulerable confession of his, and Sandro would believe that Agnes had beaten him to knowing about it. And what would she do, what would she say - about any of this?
"You ever just...want to stop feeling things for a day, Xīngān? Just one. I don't know how you ever handled as much as you did. Could use a little of that right now." It was to nobody in particular, though he sank back on the bed as he spoke and absently gathered up a pillow into a distracted embrace, clutching at it and resting his chin on it, anxiety and tumultuous thought and memory excising itself in a stubborn fidget at one of its already-frayed corners.
It was only after the voices of Harpur and his children filtered through his thoughts that he finally scraped up enough of himself and headed downstairs.
-- Jac had beaten the twins to rising; normally he would've rubbed it in both of their faces more, but Enrica had been taking incredible amounts of responsibility on herself over the course of their dad's grief - and those ministrokes, Grimani's increasing amount of trouble and Harpur's situation, and Marc would be a little bit, too - the stress had hit him first, and crying took a lot out of a person. And whatever shit Jac liked to dole out, he did understand the severity of Cienna's situation. If he HAD caught Marc crying (several times), he'd never tell a soul.
So Jacomo was alone as he followed the sound and the smell - at least at first. The tigre was right behind him before long, slinking around him with delicate little clicks of her claws. She announced her presence politely with grumbling little hums, offered Harpur a rather forward head-bump and 'rrrr?' of a question, before she took up her preferred position right under the table - perfect for optimal scrap-catching.
Jac, meanwhile, had always looked forward to helping Harpur out with these sorts of things (he'd been practicing those honey-cakes!), but now there was also the tiniest, odd, unshakable feeling that he should. It was new, it was a little weird, and he opted to ignore it if only for the reason that he would've done it in a heartbeat, anyway.
"Yeah, I got you, I got this. Does showing up first get me an extra egg or something?"
Harpur Eberhardt — 09/02/2021
Harpur pretended everything was okay for the duration of dinner. It got easier... but only because he was blocking it all out. Things felt normal after a while, Jac helped with that immensely. It was like nothing ever happened "An extra egg? now you're asking too much" he grins and ruffles his hair.
"Everyone gets an extra egg tonight" He leans in to Jac and whispers "But i'll sneak you an extra extra egg."
He beams, he smiles. Everything comes across fine, perhaps for some that might be more distressing but he finds strength in his family.
---
It's a few days later when Harpur sends the letter. A lot had been on his mind, if he had died that night without ever telling Sandro how he'd felt, could he ever forgive himself when he stood upon the gates of whatever after life awaited him? And Sandro... the kiss that almost happened. He'd felt such an urgency since then, that he needed to talk to the man about it. Needed to write to him, to pour out his heart after years of silence no matter how taboo.
If he died tomorrow he'd have missed his chance, and that near death experience had lit a fire under him. He knew it was mad, of course. A guard, a moon-touched werewolf and a nobleman from a monied background...it was unheard of. The public would tear them a new hole or two if they caught wind, he was sure.
But since being suspended from work he'd had nothing left to do other than dwell on it.
Then Sandro drops the spoon at dinner, those words are said to him in passing and now he lingers outside the mans room late in the evening, feeling himself tremble with anxiety, nerves, excitement.
He has no idea if they'll talk within the privacy of the large room or go for a walk around the gardens, but this is as good a meeting point as any. So he waits, ears twitching slightly in ways they never had before as he listened for the man's footsteps... smelled the air for a scent he'd come to realize was Sandro's own.
Jacomo — 09/03/2021
"My standards are just that high!" Said the noodly kid who was getting his hair ruffled and grinning like a little loon because of it. So noble. "You drive a tough bargain, old man!" Marc's nickname was rubbing off on him, for sure! "Extra-extra egg, accepted."
-
That following evening; the twins were at Grimani. The burgeoning situation there had become a Situation, proper, and the three adults of Aiolfi had taken to a visiting rotation (even as Alessandro was unwilling to let his suspicions of the terminus trading town vanish, no matter how paranoid it might have sounded), bringing each other up to speed as necessary - and assigning some of their own men for protection. And it was becoming plain as day that Marc had feelings and fears for Cienna and was rather insistent on visiting, his 'professional' excuses getting sloppier and sloppier.
Which left Jacomo, who was pretty sure he had better things to do than follow his dad and his friend around...though his curiosity and something else, a weird feeling he couldn't place, was tugging at him anyway. Maybe it was the werewolf thing - maybe he was just unconsciously terrified Harpur would just turn into a giant monster and they'd fight and it would be terrible and he'd have to be there to stop it.
Which made no sense - he couldn't imagine a situation where either WOULD kill the other. Both had been out that same fateful night and it hadn't happened yet. Home free, yeah?
Kids he knew that were his own age were rather frustratingly few and far between, and even Cienna's little siblings were just too little (two years was like TWENTY as far as he was concerned), and Harpur, as he waited, might've heard Jac's immature voice yelling with all of the pent-up frustration he could muster,
"ROSA, WE'RE GOING OUT."
Rosa would eat any kidnappers up, anyway.
--
Aside from Jac's briefly announcing his status to the entire household, it had remained quiet for a while.
Harpur's senses eventually called out Sandro's approaching his door, moments before the man had approached it: there was nerves, uncertainty, fear - but not that sweet and marinating fear that would spice any dish for a predator. Just plain-old fear, one that kept one foot in reverie and the other in mourning, both mired and unwilling to budge so easily.
If one looked over his shoulder into his room, there were scores of untidy piles of letters, journals, drawings and sketchbooks. Most were hers, some were his; he'd retreated into memory and uncertainty, with perhaps the vain idea that he'd guess the advice she'd have ready about this whole thing, if only he'd stared at these things long enough. And, more direly, they had helped him remember.
A beat. Finally, a halfhearted smirk.
"I don't think I am worthy of any vows, Harpur!" Another moment and he'd clapped the other man on his shoulder. "You don't have to look like you're facing down a coven of vampires." Because 'pack of werewolves' - the more reasonable flocking option - seemed a bit trite, now. "It's just me.
"We will walk. And talk. It's a nice evening out."
And unless Harpur had any objections, they would, and Sandro led him outside.
Grimani had always had the edge for decades as far as beautiful gardens were concerned, but Sandro had to admit - since taking that troll on as groundskeeper and giving him free rein, he'd finally felt as if they were competing. It was nice. The fae's work...was nice. Nice and unselfish.
And there was plenty of grounds on which to have a walk. Their pathing avoided the stables - only now just finishing the repairs that the moonborn wolf had inflicted upon them (and screaming horses probably weren't conducive to whichever direction this conversation was about to take.)
And when they were rather far from the main house, Sandro stopped. He'd chewed on the inside of his bottom lip a moment, one hand slipping to grasp at an elbow (a nervous tic that had manifested so easily in one of his sons). Finally he raised both eyebrows and cut to the chase, looking back up and looking Harpur in the eye, his own expression unreadable.
"The whole time?"
Harpur Eberhardt — 09/04/2021
Harpur was glad everyone was out the house. He had no idea how this was going to go, and even if it went well he didn't know what sort of state they'd be in at the end of it. Stressed at least.
His head lifted, Sandro's there. He tries not to tremble, with anticipation? Fear? both probably.
He laughs a little stiffly "...I think you are" he says quietly and leans into the hand on his shoulder. When they move out he simply turns to follow him from the house to the garden, catching a brief glimpse of those ruffled papers all piled atop one another in a chaotic mess.
"I feel like i'm facing a hydra...though that's not because of you." he chuckles quietly, looking away as they walk.
They stop eventually and Harpur feels his heart start to palpitate. He knows something is coming, can see Sandro 'bracing' himself.
Dark iron eyes turn to meet Sandro's own, full of love and worry.
"Y-yes." he utters softly.
"I just never felt it was my place." he rumbles and takes a nervous half-step towards the man.
"It still isn't my place. But my heart doesn't know its place, Sandro." his eyes softened.
"And as the years go on I find it hard not to consider these children our children rather than just yours. Perhaps that's too far... but I love them, Sandro. I love y-" he lose his nerve, realizing he was overdoing it. It's his turn to display his own nervous tic, his hand roughly runs through his own hair a couple of times.
"..you."
Sandro — 09/04/2021
He remained rooted to the spot.
But his breath hitched and he made a rather indistinct noise not unlike another tic of Marc's, and flushed at the confession, fingers digging into his arm like claws. He didn't say anything for a long moment, but he didn't leave, either. And there was something new, something rather like an unusual guilt in his tone and bearing.
"It's not your place," Sandro echoed. But it wasn't unkind. Rather it was growing withdrawn, turning inward even as the delivery became more emphatic and broken. "It would destroy you. It would probably destroy me. And...there is still...so much you don't know."
"You've been so good with the children..." It trailed. "She loved you for it, you know. I loved you for it. Remember Piero? He had those...crying spells where he would scream and nothing at all would help." 'Colic' was still several centuries out from being articulated. "And neither of us knew what to do and you kept your head and she'd keep calling you over. She was so excited, she'd loved children and we'd tried so long for him. And then he was here and neither of us knew the first thing about what to do or where to start." He'd seemed somewhat aware that he was rambling, but there was a distinct directed quality to it, a frantic and muted need to articulate things and unpack and sort things out and work up to what he was aiming for. "And you showed up like a fantastic knight and instead of ...slaying monsters, you brought that energy to changing his swaddling and stay with us and the nannies for those crying spells and we kept trying to come up with an appropriate monster-slaying babysitting title for you that didn't have to...do with diapers or anything rude." He stopped, rolled his head; they likely hadn't after all this time and three babies later.
"And I kept telling her, Xīngān, you're ridiculous, a big family like yours, and you'd never once seen a baby?" The story stopped there, then. There was some strange truth hiding just beneath that straying story and that odd little ending. He picked up again after a breath.
"I've never been with a man, so you're going to have to contend with that. In...the world where this happens." He tried to shrug that one off with a little snort, but even jabbing at his own relative inexperience on the matter didn't have the same airy game and bite it would've had at any other time. And then he sobered, and the sentiment was more direct, warm and entirely serious. "And you know these sorts of things...It will be very, very hard to go back to being friends.
"Harpur...I had not lied all of those years. But I've withheld things. She had withheld things. And you will think differently of me and of her if you knew them." And you probably won't love me like that if you knew them, was the unspoken implication.
Harpur Eberhardt — 09/04/2021
Harpur knew Sandro hadn't meant it unkindly, but he still felt his heart sink at those words.
"Destroy me...? Sandro ...I... I thought this would destroy me" he motioned to himself "Surely it cannot be worse than that."
Talk of the kids makes his face soften even further. But talk of Piero in particular, and memories of him when he was young, they made his eyes glisten and he had to turn away and quickly wipe at his face as subtly as he can manage (it's not subtle), sniffing harshly.
"I remember." he missed Piero more than the family maybe ever realized, he kept it quiet, tried to be strong for them in their loss. He almost hadn't really ever properly mourned what had happened.
He laughs softly though, through the tears that threaten to break free. She had been a little clumsy at first but she was an incredible mother regardless.
And...the talk of going back to being friends. Sandro was right "Why do you think I've kept it to myself?" he looks up with sad eyes "I've always feared i'd ruin this...ruin us, by telling you."
He steps even closer to Sandro, until he's barely a foot away from him "You don't know that. If there are things you need to tell me, then I will listen... if there were any time to drop something heavy on me ... it would be now. I am a werewolf, Sandro" he sighs, heart hammering in his chest in anticipation of what he might be told. He's afraid of how he'll react, he admits, but he tries to breath deeply to ready himself.
"My whole world has fractured, everything I knew seems not to...hold as much weight as I thought it did." he sounds broken, head hanging. He'd always been so sure he'd simply kill himself if this happened... but he cannot leave a family. He's forced to think of all those he has killed who may have had families, just like him. Forced to challenge his lifelong perceptions. He feels sick just thinking about it all.
Sandro — 09/04/2021
Harpur laughed and he laughed as well, wiping one eye with the back of a curled fist. Even Harpur remembering was such a small, good gesture.
"I don't want it ruined." It was frank, but he could always be frank around Harpur. It was just strange that it was about this. "It's all I've known," was quieter, all at once full of love and gratitude and apology and fear.
Still, he hadn't chased Harpur off yet. But now it was his turn to be afraid, to talk his way into confessions and fears.
"I'm dying. I'm sure of it, my head...is not what it was, they had thought it was the aftermath of an old injury or a spell that lingered in it or something may be growing inside. But if I am to be with someone..." He would be with a close friend. The rest of the man's statement remained unsaid. Sandro was the one that closed the distance first - but it was to clasp Harpur's shoulder and upper arm.
He squeezed the other man's shoulder...and then broke, squeezing his eyes shut and drooping his head. "You've been so good with them, Harp. And when I go, I know they will be safe with the house and safe with you. So many of you need me. You need me, the children do, and there's what happened to Tomm, I'm not letting THAT go, there's something more there, I know he's still around...
"All of you need me and I need help and I'm broken and it would have to be quiet, wouldn't it? Everything considered. And I have withheld things from you for so long and what if I can't...give you what you need?"
He was inwardly grateful as the ramble got away from him, and with how little he did to stop it, that the children weren't here to see him break down like this.
"You are a werewolf." He quietly, absently itched at one of his older burn and claw scars at his chest. "And I...and our family. Well...it could've been worse. We can handle werewolves." The tone was odd, there; far from one that implied they'd put them down. "You are a werewolf...
"And Agnes had been fae."
Harpur Eberhardt — 09/05/2021
Harpur nodded in agreement though, he shared the same sentiment. He couldn't bare to lose their friendship, but on the same hand ...Sandro would always know, now. Even if they tried to carry on as normal.
The talk of health was expected, but it didn't hurt any less. He had gone over the fact that Sandro may be dying in his head so many many times. He'd tried to process it, he wanted to fight it through any means but he knew there was no guarantee anyone could save Sandro. His heart hammered with talk of 'being with someone', everything was so tense, this conversation felt like it could turn either way. With them together, with them apart, perhaps even with a wedge between their friendship.
But then Sandro closed the distance and Harpur's breath hitched nervously, eyes peering deeply into Sandro's own until his eyes shut and his head dropped. "You put too much weight on your own shoulders. Sandro... they'll all be alright, we will... we all want you, but no one wants you to suffer from the stress. I'll help you, no matter how this goes." he says tenderly.
Witheld...? what could he possibly have withheld that matters now?
He worries. "My love for you transcends my needs, Sandro" he tells him softly "And don't forget your own needs" he knows Sandro may be feeling inadequate at times, Harpur had felt that rush of inadequacy the moment he'd changed. No longer suitable for his job, maybe it wasn't the same thing but he can't imagine the impact of knowing your own mind is betraying you. But Sandro still had his own wants and needs, he musn't sell himself short.
A hand lifts to squeeze gently at Sandro's upper arm, rubbing it softly with his thumb. He listens, wondering if he caught a strange lilt in the mans voice but it's all forgotten at the confession. He can't help it, it's a sharp reaction as he releases Sandro and steps away to pace like a caged animal back and forth, circling back to Sandro repeatedly.
"Fae?" he says a little too sharply. He runs a hand through his hair again and again, eyes wide as he tries to process that. If they had been in less serious a conversation he might have thought it was a joke. "And neither of you ever told me? damn it Sandro-! This- this is-" he shakes his head in utter disbelief. How can he believe it? his whole world is turned upside down.
His family?
"That means...the children?" he turns towards Sandro again and stays looking at him this time.
"And what of Jac? what is it you're not telling me about him? I smelled it today, you know." he growls softly, not threateningly of course but his voice is so serious that it seems to hold a wolfish undercurrent.
Sandro — 09/05/2021
"You put too much weight on your own shoulders. Sandro... they'll all be alright, we will... we all want you, but no one wants you to suffer from the stress. I'll help you, no matter how this goes."
"Yes - I. Harp, that's all I wanted...that's...the most 'you' answer to this I can-!"
It was nice, so nice to hear it, that for one moment he'd dared to be hopeful, that this conversation would turn out well no matter the direction he took, that he and Harpur will be all right. It only twisted the knife, then, knowing that that he, himself would crush it in a matter of seconds.
And Sandro remained rooted in place when he was sharply released, staring down at his feet, one hand traveling up to squeeze where Harpur had just been holding, and remained there. It was an unusual position for the old condottiere to affect, hardly seemed correct at all.
"We told nobody. I'm sorry. The children don't even know." He finally met Harpur's eyes; was flushed, he was upset, this may have been the first time he'd actually given voice to any of this situation all, and the emotions and fears leaving him in a tumultuous tangled ball would no doubt have been an heartfelt and confusing assault on Harpur's senses.
"She'd given it all up. We never told anyone, it wasn't something...my family would have liked. It had taken ages for either of us to admit to ourselves that...what was happening was happening. She'd given it up, and when she'd fallen ill, we'd returned to her home, and they'd refused our asks for help. We were thrown out by her own fae brethren, and she died mortal." Whether giving up immortal status meant giving up unusual genes seemed rather up in the air - but there it was; admission of his single, damning hypocrisy that had been his first and overwhelming love - and reinforcement of his mistrust of the species as a whole.
A frown, then, and his expression and tone took on a new urgency, tone subconsciously reflecting Harpur's own growl. "What did you smell on him?"
Harpur Eberhardt — 09/05/2021
Harpur listens, a low and inhuman whine rising from the back of his nose. He hates this, he wants to be angry, to be outraged that he'd been 'deceived' when Sandro knew how he felt about Fae, but his heart hurt. He hated to see Sandro standing there like that in that moment, he came to the realization that despite what he'd learned in that moment, barely seconds ago... he still loved Sandro, and Agnes. But this realization didn't come lightly, it fractured his whole world a second time and this time the fracture was larger. If he could make 'allowances' for just the 'fae he liked' then his personal creed that he had stood by his entire life was not as strong and steadfast as he'd always believed. He's left wondering who he even is, and if everything he has ever known has been a lie.
"But she was fae, your dislike of them has been that? but if you know that someone so good as her can come from fae then surely they cannot all be-" he growled and paced "what am I SAYING? there was an entire war Sandro, th-the faewatch-!!" he paced now to try and get out the energy, fur bristling and forming along his jawline.
Then he lows to a stop, looking over at Sandro. Surely the man knew something was different about the boy? but he sensed no lie, nor would he ever expect Sandro to lie to him in this moment. This was all about honesty.
"He smelled like me." He answers simply, eyes serious.
Sandro — 09/05/2021
"There was a war. A war's where we're headed," it was a rather frank and fatalistic diagnosis, spoken as if Sandro believed there was no other outcome, "and it's a matter of time before tensions boil over again. And there are many who want a war, and it is our duty to put it off as long as we can. If we're lucky and successful, it won't happen in our lifetimes." It may have been too much to hope for 'ever.'
"She was good. Many of her family were not. And know what? I fucking loathe that Queen Mother for rejecting her." He'd never let that go. Worst kind of fae, really. "And there's worse, still." Carnieros had reappeared, after all, arm in arm with what could have only been a dragon queen - and noting seemed more of an omen than that.
He watched Harpur pace, and allowed him to get that energy out. Sandro was still working it all out, himself; it was best to let Harpur work these thoughts out on his own - especially now in this humbled shape of his, where his job and an already immense reputation was on the line. "I believe and have believed a lot of things, and she has made me question many more things. And..." He gestured to all of Harpur in a 'well, you-know' sort of motion. "Aiolfi thrives in war, but the Faewatch flourish for the sake of peace. Our house is not paid for our values, but I'd like to...hope that wherever I end up, whatever I end up passing along to Marc and the others, it's the right place to be." Like sparing Harpur; certainly not the wise or preferred thing to do, but he was still so sure it was the right thing.
Harpur came back around and Sandro ventured something rather bold - and likely something so mad that only an Aiolfi would do it: he ran a brisk finger along the fur at Harpur's jaw. It was quick and odd, could have been one of his many tics or fidgets, but there was some fascination there in the motion as well. It could haveserved no small reminder, too - look, Harp. You're fuzzy.
"He's twelve." It was an odd thing to say after a long beat, more to himself, spoken like twelve would make Jac somewhat less stinky. At least - apart from the usual way so typical of young boys. Unconsciously he scratched at burn and scratch scarring at his chest again.
"Harpur, you have to stay. Please watch him. I don't...know what to...do about what you're saying at all, but I am glad you've told me."
Harpur Eberhardt — 09/05/2021
Harpur's face burns rather suddenly as a finger seems to come out of nowhere and run itself along his jaw. He flinches but only in surprise, staring wide eyed at Sandro before looking away and ....well he accidentally smiles despite trying to stop himself. This is too serious.
He's twelve
It works to pull on Harpur's heartstrings, pull them against what they'd always been guarded against before. "Sandro..." he breaths. The fur seems to retract, a sign that Harpur is calming down.
"I could never leave. This is... it's going to take some time to process." he steps in closer again. "You know how i have been for so many years and what I believe ...d, believed." he says it past tense with a choke of difficulty, he had been a slayer, what would they all think of him now if they had not been disbanded?
"... I cannot simply stop... loving you and you- our..? family." his heart hammers in his chest and he lifts one meaty hand to gently cup Sandro's face, brushing a calloused thumb across his cheekbone tenderly.
"Things just...aren't how I thought they were. I can still learn.." he almost whispers that last line, tired, loving eyes gazing into Sandro's own.
Sandro — 09/05/2021
He watched the fur retract, and while he'd attempted the act with clinical eyes, it was still strange to see it happen, borderline distressing. That fur was Harpur's just as much as the rest of him was, those feathers had been hers... It was all a theater of bodies breaking, reshaping and changing ... perhaps it was the madness borne of grief that he'd not wanted to believe Agnesina had gone at all at first, that just like the bird shape she'd so often worn before giving that up, too, her own little body had seen so much stranger than illness, that she was not dead, simply changed like always.
It was worryingly, staggeringly impermanent. She had left him, Harpur could go, he could go and leave these people, and Jac-!
He'd said something very concerning about Jac.
A deep and shuddering breath followed. There would be no more secrets.
"If Jacomo really does...smell like you. I don't know what you can do when you change again." Which was coming up quickly, wasn't it. "Or if...he...does." That was a weird suggestion, the possibility was uncharted territory around which they appeared to be dancing. Sandro certainly didn't know, hadn't touched upon worrying about blood-curses on top of everything else; other Aiolfi were killed, they were cleansed, they were taken away when the errant gene arose. But "...it's not unheard of," was all he'd said aloud regarding that. "Just tell me, please, what you smell, what you see, if anything strange happens, especially if it's...like you."
"Things just...aren't how I thought they were. I can still learn.."
"So can I. Learn. I can still learn, too."
And his face was cupped; it was strange and tripped another onslaught of emotion that it was incredibly difficult to pick through in the heat of the moment, and the way he'd tensed, the way he tried picking through them anyway in a flash of withdrawn stubbornness was so very like Marc, too. He knew what Harpur wanted. He wanted, he didn't want, he didn't know what he wanted at all, and all sounded so good and so terrible and so new in the moment. But Harpur was real and this touch was an anchor in that maelstrom, and he could only imagine what this was doing to those wolfish senses of his right now.
After a moment he placed his hand on Harpur's. Not...yet. He needed a moment.
"Harp. I...dropped that spoon." He snorted, but it was a snort of a misplaced humor, one that said more towards his current mental state than anything else. "This is all new, it's so very new, and it was so...unimaginably brave for you to tell me.
"I love you. But I don't know...how I love you." It was a love that he'd had difficulty even articulating, and he hoped his own struggles spoke where his words were not.
He'd often heard of peers remarrying quickly in situations like his, or courting indiscriminately and cultivating rather fleeting relationships, teasing Lady after Lady with no plans in sight, much less passion. Many just went to the cathouse. The relationships that immediately followed a loss were simply that - a rebound, an express, passionless and selfish purpose to get over the old love, and Sandro didn't want that either.
"I don't...know if there's any...romance left in me after everything, if it's fair to you to start anything like...that, and force you to even more secrecy than you're already facing. But I can't imagine a world without you in it,for however long that's left. But Harp. You have always been family. I do not want to destroy something beautiful and perhaps there is some...other world where we could do this, where everything isn't out of control. Whatever we are from here, whatever venture this might become, it will be slow." He lowered his head. He was broken; he was overwhelmed. He was sorry.
"It's not...what you were looking for with that letter, I'm sure. And I am sorry. But I would like to hope it's a start."
And met his eyes again. "Love our family. Help me...protect our family."
Harpur Eberhardt — 09/06/2021
He can't help but worry then "Change? how could he- he hasn't been bitten, has he? did I...?" he can't remember doing so but then again he can't remember much. Lets face it, Jac was small, if he had bitten him that night there would be nothing left of him but he'd been perky and fine when Harpur had woken up "No- that was a stupid question" he sighed and looked aside as if feeling guilty for something he hadn't done. He knows that he can bite and change someone on a full moon now, everything he'd always hated.
"I will...I'll tell you. But I still don't understand." how could Jac change? how? was it even a possibility?
--
He smells every emotion coming off Sandro in droves but he cannot for the life of him decipher the code written into it. What it meant was still a mystery to him. He stayed steady, looking into Sandro's eyes with that same patience as he went through every emotion there before him. That hand places itself atop his and he understands what it means. He's disappointed, but he hardly shows it. More worried than disappointed, he hopes that the other man will give this a chance ... but only when he's ready.
If Sandro weren't dying he might feel comfortable with the mention of taking it slow. Terrible images that had played in his mind before now played again, Sandro on his death bed and only then do they confess, or do their lips touch. Or worse, they never do. But it's what Sandro needs, and Harpur respects it, he understands...he's just as fearful of losing what they already have.
He keeps saying that. Referring to their love only in another world. It seems like outright rejection but then it isn't. So many mixed messages and Harpur can only steel himself against them as best he can.
"I always have loved them." He felt his heart flutter at that 'our' "our family."
He lowers his hand and slowly turns to start back towards the house, placing his palm at the center of Sandro's back to walk with him. He speaks softly.
"If we are going to give this a chance, Sandro... will you give it a chance?- we must figure out what you would be comfortable with. I...I'd like to cook a dinner, just for the two of us. But only if that sounds alright. Does it sound alright?"
Sandro — 09/06/2021
"It's not so stupid. You're the only wolf here right now." 'Right now' seemed a weird extra thing to tack onto it. He took a deep breath. "He has not been bitten, no. It's something I'll tell you. But not here. I will tell you," he added emphatically at no prompt at all. "No more lies, no more withholding, Harp. But this is something that...needs a little more than a garden walk and I trust you...so much, should this become an emergency."
--
They'd walked, Harpur's arm at his waist, and Sandro wrapped his own arm around Harpur's shoulder.
And for a while, despite it not having been the answer Harpur would have wanted in the moment, it did feel correct. Harpur was steady and solid and an anchor, and for now that was just fine.
And somewhere between steps, everything - Harpur's confession, Agnesina, the whirlwind of feelings, his own condition, the children, Grimani - hit him all at once and his step faltered and buckled, and he pulled Harpur into an embrace, pressing his forehead into Harpur's shoulder, his grasp curling into him like claws, and only barely holding back any sobs that dearly wanted to flow freely. And then another moment and there they came. Sorry, Harpur.
Luckily not many were witness to the sight of two rather built men together, one crying into the other's shoulder. Yet.
"I will give it a chance. Just. " And then he snorted with a breathy, brief, open-mouthed smile, betraying some tears and dampness that he'd been holding back with a little gasp. "Always a dinner, you're just the...dinner person, always have been."
The rather distinct scents of two small beings that were distinctly wolfish suddenly spiked into sharp relief behind them.
"You were talking about food." It was Jac, piping up at whoever turned around first, mildly defensive, and seemingly making a preemptive excuse as to why he and Rosa were there before anyone actually asked.
Part 2
>
Harpur Eberhardt — 09/06/2021
Harpur grunted and nodded. He'd wait to understand, there was no rush. They had time.
---
He feels that falter and looks up in alarm moments before Sandro turns into him all at once. There's no hesitation, no pause, he throws his arms tight around him and cups the back of his head. Big hands rub the man's back, sink into his hair, just holding him comfortingly.
"I'm here. I'll always be here" he tells him softly and kisses tenderly at his temple as he cries.
Their eyes finally meet and his own are wet, but he still smiles through his tears at Sandro, nodding in silent agreement.
Harpur closes his eyes, but his nostrils flare and his head lifts suddenly to peer at Jac. This must be a strange sight for the boy, he keeps Sandro in his arms regardless "Lets ...get you something to eat then." he says softly.
He turns with Sandro to head towards the house, walking slowly with him and rubbing his back.
"I'm here." he tells him again softly, reaching out with his free arm to rest a hand on Jac’s back too if he comes close enough.
Sandro — 09/08/2021
He'd remained there for a long time; Harpur was an anchor the feeling of hands in his hair and that kiss at his temple was something real in a sea of surreality and loss, and he was rather suddenly aware that he'd not been able to let the bottled feelings of the last couple of years fully to anyone. He'd bottled around his children even through his memory slips, he'd bottled around his staff, he'd certainly bottled around his associates like Aeson, he'd had no family left on his side he'd trusted. This was different, and this was okay.
He'd walked with Harpur almost mechanically, remaining at his shoulder; the second voice of his youngest was what finally snapped him back to something tethered and strong-enough, and he straightened up to grip Jac's shoulder.
If he were more present, he would've tried to gauge Harpur's reaction in the moment at Jac's reappearance. But that could wait; if there were no more secrets, then he'd have to know too, eventually.
Just not now.
"Yes. Yes...dinner sounds good, Harp."
--
Jacomo — 09/08/2021
Jac eyed his father warily. Then slid his gaze to Harpur, a question evident and forming within it. Which had to compete with a second question he was also doing his best to articulate within his head, even as he bit down on voicing that too.
He finally opted instead for a more open-ended, "...what's happening, are you guys okay?" It was echoed with an "rrrrr?" and a perpetually flicking ear from the tigre at his side.
He'd known very well his father had not been lately, however best he might have attempted to hide any issues he was able from the youngest. Jacomo didn't mind being coddled to an extent, of course that was his duty as the baby, obviously! But not like this - when it was a matter of life and death, or regarding his dad acting like a dad again, he was downright insulted!
But two grown men crying at the same time was way outside of his wheelhouse, and he soon fell silent, utterly at a loss at how to assess this thing, and instead slunk up close into the embrace of the two men, finally offering a "y'letting me pick, or what?"
Harpur Eberhardt — 09/14/2021
Harpur and Sandro walk with Jac between them and it's the first time Harpur feels like he might actually be a parent rather than a stand in parental figure. That he's being allowed to do this, even though he's not of noble blood.
Jac finally asks the question he'd been anticipating, smiling softly and pulling the boy a little closer "Sometimes you have to not be okay before you start to feel okay" he looks up at Sandro lovingly, he can't help it. He's just happy the man has cried, he can't truly know if he ever has before but it had always seemed like his friend had simply bottled it all up.
"We'll be okay." he tells him tenderly "And yes, go on and pick Jac. Whatever you want to eat. What you feeling?"
His hand slips from Jac slightly and places itself on Sandro's hand where it is placed upon the boy's back. They're in this together. He feels electricity from the contact, realizing just how long he'd wanted to do this.
"So what do you want? chicken? eggs? beef? pork? Want a tomato sauce?" he grins almost ear to ear.
Jacomo — 09/17/2021
He was pulled closer, and he let it happen; both men in turn would get Jacomo leaning against him, but here it was Harpur's turn - perhaps for fear that leaning against a crying father would only confirm how wildly out of control things were.
"It's been a lot, Har-Mr. Eberhart. Harpur." There'd been the sense of a tail, tucked. The words had just slipped out, really, a rather feeble explanation for all of the strangeness and crying dads and vanishing Grimanis. "It's just...been a lot, y'know? None of this is right." It all started with Mom leaving, really, but he couldn't just say that in front of dad, could he? It was like her death had broken everything else and it was all moving faster and faster, and now he wasn't feeling so well - but like hell he'd ever mention that in front of either of them when Piero was gone and Marc was acting weird and they were trying to get Tomm back! (He was totally, absolutely alive, and Jac wouldn't believe otherwise! HE believed his father!)
He took a deep breath with a small shudder, smiled through it as best as he could.
"That one chicken dish you'd made the other night, yeah? Extra egg." Always an extra egg!
Sandro — 09/17/2021
Rosa flanked all three, keeping a dutiful eye on them as they'd moved, on occasion switching sides or slinking around in a circle to double back and ensure she'd checked everything in the path they were leaving and the path they were approaching.
Sandro's eyes were wet, swollen and red, and with that awareness that brought those tears now came another: he was suddenly, sharply aware of how terrible it looked. If he hadn't already been flushed from the emotions running high and wild from the evening...
But he'd needed it. He needed all of it.
He didn't say anything at first, but as Harpur spoke with Jac, Sandro's fingers wove through Harpur's own and he gave that hand a small squeeze.
He'd remained quiet, but the motion and his expression was warm and nearly fit to burst with gratitude and feeling. It was exhausted, but the cry had been freeing in a sense.
Thank you, Harp.
Harpur Eberhardt — 09/17/2021
Harpur smiled at the correction, glad to be called by his name. Maybe one day he'd be 'dad' too. Maybe. He didn't like to get his hopes up but he couldn't say he hadn't dreamed of it.
"I know, Jac" he says softly and squeezes the boy between himself and Sandro gently in comfort.
"But we all have each other, we're a family" he tells him with a smile, maybe the first time he'd ever felt safe to include himself openly as family.
"Things won't always be right, but we can get through it together. Yeah? ....Do you want me to come see you before bed tonight?" he looks down at Jac "If you want to talk, we can."
Heavens knew this family bottled a lot up, he figured Jac might not want to say certain things that might upset his father as well. In that sense Harpur was a good go between. Sandro could confide in him without upsetting the children and the children could confide in him without upsetting Sandro.
"And ...well, always an extra egg" he grins almost ear to ear at that, reaching with his free hand to ruffle Jac's hair, a rumbling sound that's slightly inhuman rising from his throat.
He feels Sandro's hand tangle gently with his and feels his heart skip several beats, his eyes flit up to look at the man with a soft smile before he rubs his thumb softly across the back of the man's hand.
His eyes are full of love in that moment, and then he returns to looking ahead. They reach the house and Harpur holds the door to let them into the kitchen directly.
Harpur grunted and nodded. He'd wait to understand, there was no rush. They had time.
---
He feels that falter and looks up in alarm moments before Sandro turns into him all at once. There's no hesitation, no pause, he throws his arms tight around him and cups the back of his head. Big hands rub the man's back, sink into his hair, just holding him comfortingly.
"I'm here. I'll always be here" he tells him softly and kisses tenderly at his temple as he cries.
Their eyes finally meet and his own are wet, but he still smiles through his tears at Sandro, nodding in silent agreement.
Harpur closes his eyes, but his nostrils flare and his head lifts suddenly to peer at Jac. This must be a strange sight for the boy, he keeps Sandro in his arms regardless "Lets ...get you something to eat then." he says softly.
He turns with Sandro to head towards the house, walking slowly with him and rubbing his back.
"I'm here." he tells him again softly, reaching out with his free arm to rest a hand on Jac’s back too if he comes close enough.
Sandro — 09/08/2021
He'd remained there for a long time; Harpur was an anchor the feeling of hands in his hair and that kiss at his temple was something real in a sea of surreality and loss, and he was rather suddenly aware that he'd not been able to let the bottled feelings of the last couple of years fully to anyone. He'd bottled around his children even through his memory slips, he'd bottled around his staff, he'd certainly bottled around his associates like Aeson, he'd had no family left on his side he'd trusted. This was different, and this was okay.
He'd walked with Harpur almost mechanically, remaining at his shoulder; the second voice of his youngest was what finally snapped him back to something tethered and strong-enough, and he straightened up to grip Jac's shoulder.
If he were more present, he would've tried to gauge Harpur's reaction in the moment at Jac's reappearance. But that could wait; if there were no more secrets, then he'd have to know too, eventually.
Just not now.
"Yes. Yes...dinner sounds good, Harp."
--
Jacomo — 09/08/2021
Jac eyed his father warily. Then slid his gaze to Harpur, a question evident and forming within it. Which had to compete with a second question he was also doing his best to articulate within his head, even as he bit down on voicing that too.
He finally opted instead for a more open-ended, "...what's happening, are you guys okay?" It was echoed with an "rrrrr?" and a perpetually flicking ear from the tigre at his side.
He'd known very well his father had not been lately, however best he might have attempted to hide any issues he was able from the youngest. Jacomo didn't mind being coddled to an extent, of course that was his duty as the baby, obviously! But not like this - when it was a matter of life and death, or regarding his dad acting like a dad again, he was downright insulted!
But two grown men crying at the same time was way outside of his wheelhouse, and he soon fell silent, utterly at a loss at how to assess this thing, and instead slunk up close into the embrace of the two men, finally offering a "y'letting me pick, or what?"
Harpur Eberhardt — 09/14/2021
Harpur and Sandro walk with Jac between them and it's the first time Harpur feels like he might actually be a parent rather than a stand in parental figure. That he's being allowed to do this, even though he's not of noble blood.
Jac finally asks the question he'd been anticipating, smiling softly and pulling the boy a little closer "Sometimes you have to not be okay before you start to feel okay" he looks up at Sandro lovingly, he can't help it. He's just happy the man has cried, he can't truly know if he ever has before but it had always seemed like his friend had simply bottled it all up.
"We'll be okay." he tells him tenderly "And yes, go on and pick Jac. Whatever you want to eat. What you feeling?"
His hand slips from Jac slightly and places itself on Sandro's hand where it is placed upon the boy's back. They're in this together. He feels electricity from the contact, realizing just how long he'd wanted to do this.
"So what do you want? chicken? eggs? beef? pork? Want a tomato sauce?" he grins almost ear to ear.
Jacomo — 09/17/2021
He was pulled closer, and he let it happen; both men in turn would get Jacomo leaning against him, but here it was Harpur's turn - perhaps for fear that leaning against a crying father would only confirm how wildly out of control things were.
"It's been a lot, Har-Mr. Eberhart. Harpur." There'd been the sense of a tail, tucked. The words had just slipped out, really, a rather feeble explanation for all of the strangeness and crying dads and vanishing Grimanis. "It's just...been a lot, y'know? None of this is right." It all started with Mom leaving, really, but he couldn't just say that in front of dad, could he? It was like her death had broken everything else and it was all moving faster and faster, and now he wasn't feeling so well - but like hell he'd ever mention that in front of either of them when Piero was gone and Marc was acting weird and they were trying to get Tomm back! (He was totally, absolutely alive, and Jac wouldn't believe otherwise! HE believed his father!)
He took a deep breath with a small shudder, smiled through it as best as he could.
"That one chicken dish you'd made the other night, yeah? Extra egg." Always an extra egg!
Sandro — 09/17/2021
Rosa flanked all three, keeping a dutiful eye on them as they'd moved, on occasion switching sides or slinking around in a circle to double back and ensure she'd checked everything in the path they were leaving and the path they were approaching.
Sandro's eyes were wet, swollen and red, and with that awareness that brought those tears now came another: he was suddenly, sharply aware of how terrible it looked. If he hadn't already been flushed from the emotions running high and wild from the evening...
But he'd needed it. He needed all of it.
He didn't say anything at first, but as Harpur spoke with Jac, Sandro's fingers wove through Harpur's own and he gave that hand a small squeeze.
He'd remained quiet, but the motion and his expression was warm and nearly fit to burst with gratitude and feeling. It was exhausted, but the cry had been freeing in a sense.
Thank you, Harp.
Harpur Eberhardt — 09/17/2021
Harpur smiled at the correction, glad to be called by his name. Maybe one day he'd be 'dad' too. Maybe. He didn't like to get his hopes up but he couldn't say he hadn't dreamed of it.
"I know, Jac" he says softly and squeezes the boy between himself and Sandro gently in comfort.
"But we all have each other, we're a family" he tells him with a smile, maybe the first time he'd ever felt safe to include himself openly as family.
"Things won't always be right, but we can get through it together. Yeah? ....Do you want me to come see you before bed tonight?" he looks down at Jac "If you want to talk, we can."
Heavens knew this family bottled a lot up, he figured Jac might not want to say certain things that might upset his father as well. In that sense Harpur was a good go between. Sandro could confide in him without upsetting the children and the children could confide in him without upsetting Sandro.
"And ...well, always an extra egg" he grins almost ear to ear at that, reaching with his free hand to ruffle Jac's hair, a rumbling sound that's slightly inhuman rising from his throat.
He feels Sandro's hand tangle gently with his and feels his heart skip several beats, his eyes flit up to look at the man with a soft smile before he rubs his thumb softly across the back of the man's hand.
His eyes are full of love in that moment, and then he returns to looking ahead. They reach the house and Harpur holds the door to let them into the kitchen directly.
