st_rikingblueeyes | Mildmay the Fox

Entry tags:

mildmay

Mildmay the Fox

After the visit from Kolkhis, Corbie had set everything to the side for a while. Even if she'd been ready to talk about it, Mildmay just wasn't physically capable for at least a week afterward. She'd tended to him in spite of any protests, spent most nights in the other bed in his room, and made sure he had medicine, that he ate, that he drank enough water. That the sheets got changed so the bed didn't do more harm than good. She did what needed doing without complaining.

Every day he needed less of her. Every day she spent less time hovering and more time out on her own business. The fever did break, but then there was a lot of coughing. And a lot of fluids that if she hadn't seen it before, Corbie would have wondered at something that color coming out of a human body. Jackson had been--for once--a genuinely steadying influence through the whole thing, reassuring her that this was all in the range of normal and Mildmay was on the mend.

And eventually one morning when she woke up, she sensed that he was already awake and alert. Not just awake, but awake in a way he hadn't been since before she'd first bullied him into admitting he was ill.

Eventually, Corbie got herself out of bed, padded over, and slipped into his bed beside him. "Morning," she murmured. "How're you feeling?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"M'awake." But that wasn't what Corbie was asking, and they both knew it. Powers, Mildmay'd been waiting on this ever since Keeper'd... since Keeper'd reminded him what he was, and Corbie along with 'em. On the other hand, even once the fever and the coughing eased off, there was a long time where doing the least little thing meant having to lie down and sleep for a hour or more. So awake was a start.

"Don't feel like I been stomped on by a giant or anything."

He couldn't start the conversation he'd known was coming. He wasn't brave enough to do it, when it'd mean losing the person he was closest to here. She'd have to do it herself. But he was maybe well enough now to hear it, and that was what she needed to know.

The way he wouldn't look at her, Corbie knew that wasting time by asking questions about how he was would only be an insult. Mildmay's speech may be slow, but his mind wasn't. If you were dumb enough to forget that, sometimes you'd find that he was three steps ahead of you in the conversation.

So she didn't try to beat around the bush. But she wasn't sure where to start.

"Who was that woman?" She didn't mean Kolkhis.

"Griselda Kilkenny." Mildmay didn't have to ask to know Corbie didn't mean Keeper, who hadn't made any secret who she was, or who she'd been to him. And it wasn't like he'd forgotten any of the people he'd killed; they wouldn't let him. "She ran girls. Not a lot of 'em or nothing. But she got on somebody's bad side somehow anyways."

He still couldn't look at her. Could feel his face going pink and hot, with guilt and shame this time, steada fever. His voice meanwhile was flat, even for him, but careful enough not to turn the words to mush.

It caused Corbie physical pain to see Mildmay like this, but not thinking he'd accept any comfort from her yet, she did not reach out. But she did snuggle down further in the bed. She wasn't going anywhere. "And you... killed her because... because Kolkhis was running you."

He nodded, 'cause not like he could deny it. Not when Corbie saw all of it. Not when Kee- Kolkhis fucking said it flat out.

"Don't make it right. I still did it."

"Yes." Corbie could hardly deny that.

"How..." she bit her lip. "How long?" She knew if anybody asked her how many fish, she wouldn't be able to say. But she could say how long.

"Had two septads when I did my first murder." Might as well say the word, weren't like she didn't know, and Mildmay couldn't hide what he was. "She'd been training me up since my face got all fucked." Keeper'd gone without an assassin ever since Lettie got sloppy and got herself killed two and a half indictions earlier.

"Didn't leave for a couple indictions more." It wasn't like he was killing somebody every damn night, or even every decad. But two years of killing was two years of killing.

So, assume a couple was two or three. Which would put him at sixteen or seventeen, still very young (which of course Corbie thought, even being only just under twenty). And still two years shy of when he met Felix. Which made the next natural question, "Why did you leave?"

His face went even hotter and redder, and Mildmay started to answer, but even Corbie wouldn'ta been able to understand. So he made himself slow the fuck down, push the words out past his scar and his shame. "Couldn't stomach what she wanted me to do no more."

It wasn't a lie. Not really. He didn't wanna be that guy at all, who he'd let Keeper turn him into. But he'd count it a favor from all the powers and saints if Corbie heard it only about the killing, and not the other things Keeper'd made him do. Or how it wasn't the killing, or the rest that got him to stop, it was realizing, no matter what he did, what he made himself into to please Keeper, to make her love him. Not none of it was gonna work. He was just her clockwork bear, her knife, and you didn't love no knife. Kethe, he didn't think Keeper could love at all.

But it was why he'd done all the shit he'd done for her.

Tears stung Corbie's eyes, but she blinked them away. Mildmay needed her. And she didn't want him to misconstrue what was making her upset.

She took his hand--very specifically the hand that had held the knife in that vision, in that long ago time--and pressed a kiss to his knuckles. "I'm here. I'm here and I don't hate you. Talk to me."

It was different with Felix, who was as much a fucked up monster in his own ways as Mildmay. And he still had a hard time seeing how Felix could be okay with the shit Mildmay'd done. Never mind Felix had made him do some of it. Even Kay had understood what it was like being a monster, having too much blood on your hands. But Corbie, she'd been a whore, but that didn't make her a bad person.

So how the fuck couldn't she hate him after what she'd seen him do?

"You shouldn'ta had to see that. Any of it."

"Neither should you," Corbie said. She didn't let go of his hand, holding it loosely in both of hers. "I wanted to get rid of her sooner... but I was afraid of what'd happen if I showed my hand before she gave me an opening."

He didn't understand. She couldn't say she didn't blame him.

"Did you have a choice? When you started? A real choice?" She had heard enough about Melusine to know that even the few options she'd have had if Gran hadn't taken her in didn't exist down south. The orphanages were as good as death traps. A kid on his own had either a keeper or a pack, and the only real difference between the two was how old the person running the show was and how much power they might then have in the city.

Edited 2019-02-11 21:50 (UTC)

How the fuck was he supposed to answer that? Weren't many people in Lower City had any real choices, especially not the kids. But he had left Keeper... eventually, said he wasn't gonna do that shit no more. And okay, it hadn't been as easy as not never killing again, and honest, if there was anything he'd learned after leaving Kolkhis it was that he couldn't be trusted on his own, not and stay alive. But there was the other side, too, how he woulda done anything for Keeper, and how could he admit that to Corbie, when he hated even admitting it to himself.

"Said no eventually, didn't I?"

Corbie's smile was sad. "So. 'Bout as much choice as I had about working on my back when Gran died."

"You weren't hurting nobody." Kethe, whores in Bernatha all had a guild or whatever they called 'em. It might notta been respectable work, but it wasn't wrong like murdering folks.

"Not directly," Corbie agreed. For all that prostitution was legal in Corambis, it didn't mean that hearts didn't break when someone strayed into the arms of paid company.

She'd always tried not to think about it much. Even in carrying on with Jackson, it wasn't her relationship to make choices about.

"It ain't -" Mildmay stopped, looking down at his hands, the network of thin scars marking him a knife fighter and worse, the blood that wasn't there but would never leave him, the strong fingers that could wring the life outta somebody even now when he'd swore he'd given up killing.

Fuck.

Jackson.

He knew the doctor was still alive. And without holding too much of a grudge, with how he'd been doctoring Mildmay through his fever – even if Corbie did most of the taking care.

"It's what I am, though. I coulda killed Jackson without even thinking."

"Yes, you could," Corbie agreed. There was no point in pretending she hadn't seen that truth, that she hadn't been afraid in that moment. But she had not been and she still wasn't afraid of him. "And you didn't. And Jackson don't blame you for it, either."

She went quiet for a long moment before venturing, "Is all you see when you look at me all those men I fucked?"

The sound that came out of Mildmay was more snort than laugh or sob, and he was lucky it didn't start off more coughing from lungs that were still remembering how to work right now they weren't full of gunk.

"It's a filthy business," he remembered aloud, and yeah, he got what she was saying, and he wasn't gonna fight her on it right now. But they weren't the same, whoring and killing.

"And no, it ain't what I see at all." He wouldn't smile, but his eyes seemed lighter when he glanced over to meet hers. "'Sides, you ain't the first hocus used to be a whore, and ends up showing up everybody."

No, she was not. And Corbie wasn't a fool, either, though she felt something inside her ease when he looked at her finally.

"It's..." she chewed her lip. And then figuring she'd never find the right words, she'd just speak and hope it came out okay. "I know it ain't the same. And I don't know what to say, other than I'm sorry she was all you had. I don't know... what that kinda burden must feel like or if it should ever go away because yeah, people are dead and at your hand and that's fucking horrible. But you're not. I only ever knew you to be patient and gentle and loving and I'm not afraid and I'm not disgusted and I'm not ashamed and I never fucking will be."

Ginerva'd never wanted to know who Mildmay really was. Not that he'd done much to try to tell her, but even when he had, she'd flat ignored anything that didn't fit the story she was telling herself. And it'd got her killed.

Least now, Corbie knew, well, maybe not Mildmay's worst, but pretty damn bad anyway. And she wasn't scared off or hating him.

"Reckon I got enough shame and disgust for the both of us," he said finally.

He'd never wanted Corbie to know that side of him or be afraid of him, not once he realized she could help him keep Felix outta trouble when Mildmay was too fucking sick to do it himself, and she had... mostly. There was only so much anybody could do when Felix was determined to do something foolish. And now Corbie was the closest to family he had here. He didn't wanna think what woulda happened to him if she hated him after seeing what she saw.

"But I'm trying, don't wanna be what I was anymore."

Now Corbie did snuggle close, more certain that the gesture would be accepted. "Okay. Then I'll have to have enough gentleness for both of us." Someone had to be kind to him, if he wouldn't be kind to himself.

It hadn't been about Mildmay not accepting her close, so much as he hadn't been able to fathom her wanting to, after what she'd seen, what she knew about him she hadn't before. Yeah, she'd stuck around, taken care of him while he was sick, but that was Corbie. He slipped an arm around her, so she was tucked up close.

"You got...," his free hand ran through the front of his hair, "There anything you gotta ask?" He couldn't promise he'd have answers, but if she wasn't running off scared of him or hating him, least he could do was try.

Corbie went quiet, chewing her lip as she thought about that. Of course there was more she wanted to know, but she didn't know where to begin. And she'd missed moments of lying quiet like this when he'd been ill. She'd rubbed his back not infrequently when the coughing got bad, but it wasn't the same thing at all.

Finally she ventured, "She make you do anything else I should know about?"

It was Felix liked word games so damned much, not Mildmay, but Mildmay heard the out she was giving with that 'should'. 'Cause if you asked him, wasn't nothing about him and Kolkhis Corbie should fucking know. Not here anyway, where mosta the time, Keeper couldn't hurt 'em. And the other things Keeper'd made him do, but not none of the others while he was around... nope, he wasn't gonna tell Corbie any about that.

"Nuh-uh. She's the queen bitch of bitchkitties, but at least she mostly kept her kids alive and outta trouble." Which was more than you could say about some keepers, like Felix's – and if he hadn't already been dead in The Fire, what Mildmay woulda wanted to do to him woulda made what he did to Griselda look like a hug and cuddle, forget his plan not to kill nobody no more.

Corbie nodded. "So plenty of shit I shouldn't know. Okay." But for the time being, she was willing to let that be. "You know it'll be okay if you ever do tell me, right?"

She shouldn't oughta know any of it, if you asked Mildmay. And it wasn't like he wanted to talk about that shit. Powers, he didn't wanna remember it. Never mind it was the kind of shit you couldn't well forget.

He made a sound, not really a word, but something that kinda sounded like agreement anyway.

Corbie only tucked herself closer, tangling her legs with his and pressing soft kisses to his unscarred cheek. She'd have kissed his scar, too, if she thought he'd let her, but she rarely dared to touch it. "You gonna be okay?"

Mildmay thought about how he was here. How he'd felt... Kethe, pretty much since he and Felix got kicked outta the Mélusine. And yeah, Felix'd been the one exiled, but even without the obligation, wasn't nowhere else Mildmay was gonna go but with him. All the time Corbie'd known him and a bit more. How it had felt knowing he was, mayb for the first time, really okay.

He thought about how he'd been before that. When he hadn't been okay at all. All that time wandering around in a fog not even remembering what all had happened. About putting together the Rabbit and the Snake, and trying to show Septimus how much trouble he was in for if things didn't change.

"Long as I don't go tramping around in the snow or jumping into icy rivers... yeah, I'mma be okay."

Corbie snorted, then pressed another kiss against his temple. "Well, lucky for you it don't ever get that cold naturally around here anyway."

Her voice got smaller and shyer when she added, "I'm glad you're feeling better. I missed you."

Wasn't nothing really to say to that, except trying to explain how when he'd been lucid enough to remember what had happened with Kolkhis, he'd been bracing for Corbie to leave him, missing her before she was even gone. Only now he was better, and they'd talked, she wasn't gonna leave the way he'd expected, and there weren't words for how grateful he was about that.

Instead the arm around her tightened some, and he dipped his head down against hers, trying to say with touch what he couldn't in words.

"Shhh..." she said softly, hearing at least some of what he had not said. "You're my friend. Fuck that, you're... you're practically family and I love you. You ain't getting rid of me so easy."

Mildmay kissed the top of her head. He'd missed her, and this was part of it, just being able to lie cuddled up together and know they were okay. "You too."

More than her words being heard, she knew they'd been accepted--believed--when he gave her that kiss. And while under other circumstances that might have nudged her towards a more intimate gesture, instead she nuzzled her head under his chin and for a while she didn't say anything at all.

"I might have other questions later. I mean, you don't need to answer 'em or anything, but... is that okay?"

They were gonna be okay. And least they had each other. Mildmay was quiet a moment before answering, "Never met a wizard who didn't come up with more questions."

Corbie giggled softly, letting her eyes fall closed. It was not a no. "All right."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Mildmay the Fox

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject