In the Night Time

Upstairs Curry got an extra bedsheet from the linen closet and we sectioned his bed into two separate sleeping areas by folding each sheet in half and then replacing the remaining bedclothes over that. I had a toothbrush in the downstairs water closet, so I used that and washed my face and used the privy before coming upstairs with my chaunceyhorse quilt and slipping into bed with that, enjoying the soft, sweet-smelling fresh linens. Curry was still in the upstairs bathroom washing up for bed, and I meant to stay awake long enough to say goodnight, especially since it was early yet, but I was so tired that I fell asleep almost right away.

Sometime later I woke unexpectedly and lay there frozen and confused until I remembered that I was in Curry’s room, and why. I lay there another moment still, trying to grasp what had woken me, when my eyes adjusted to the dark room a bit and I realized he was lying on his side, back to me, shoulders shaking. After another second I caught an almost silent sniffling sound and figured out he was crying quietly.

“Magnus?” I whispered, hoping he wasn't one of those people who got upset or angry if anybody caught them crying. “Are you all right?”

His shoulders froze. “Hey,” he said softly after a second. “Sorry. I was really trying not to wake you.” His voice sounded snotty and congested, like he’d been at it a while.

“Don’t be sorry,” I said, shifting over in the bed to move closer to him. “Do you want to tell me about it?”

“I didn’t want to bother you, when you have so much to think about already,” he said in a small voice. “Or influence decisions you have to make in your own best interest.”

“Oh, Mag,” I said, and pulled the folded sheet out of the way so I could move all the way over to his side. “I always want you to tell me anything you feel like,” I said, tucking my chin on his shoulder and hugging myself against his back. “I can handle it. I promise. Besides, my own best interest is the same as your best interest.”

He shrugged heavily. “What if it isn’t always?”

“Let me return a little of the good you did for me tonight,” I said.

Curry made a thick, sniffling sound, then shrugged again. “I feel really sad about what happened to you today,” he said after a moment. “I wish I was there with you so it never happened, or could do something now. I’m really upset I can’t fix it for you. And, um. I’m scared I'll lose you, if you have to leave the guard and move on to something else. I, um, don’t like feeling helpless? I’m not very used to that, I guess? So I feel more scared, because of that. I think it’s mostly those things.” He reached up and wiped at his eyes. “Except then I feel worse because my impulse is, I should protect you, except that feels so fucking patronizing because you’re a watch guard officer same as me. And then I feel gross. You deserve better than some dumbass whose best idea is never let you be alone again.” He drew a hitching breath and gave another loud, shuddering sniff.

“Wow,” I said.

“Yeah. I know,” he said miserably.

“No, I meant wow, like I never knew till now you’re just as good at being mean to yourself as I am.”

Curry let out a funny half-laugh, half-sob. I slipped my arm around his chest and felt for his hand, giving it a squeeze when I found it. He squeezed mine back, hard.

“I’m really glad you told me instead of keeping your feelings in,” I said. “Do you feel patronized that I want to protect you, too?”

He shrugged. “No. But I hate that we both worked so hard to get where we are, only for something like this to happen,” he said thickly. “I know I’m being a baby about it, but it’s not fair. This isn’t supposed to be possible—but it happened and now you don’t get to take your safety for granted anymore? What the fuck—at a fucking watch house!” he whispered with fierce anger. “I refuse to be so selfish as to try to talk you out of the decision if leaving is right for you, but also I feel like I don’t know what to do with the rest of my whole life if I don’t get to work with you anymore because of it. I know I’m acting dramatic but my heart is kind of broken about it.” He gave another defiant heave of his shoulders that felt like it would have been a proper shrug if he hadn’t been so conscious of just how much and emphatically he was shrugging at me. “I don’t know if I want to be in the Guards anymore, if you’re not.”

I sniffed back my own tears at that. “Me too. Everything you said just now.” I hugged him harder. “I’ve never been so happy as I am working with you every day. I feel sick about it, if we had to give that up.”

“Yeah,” he said, and he sounded so sad I had to withdraw my hand to wipe my eyes again.

“Well, how’s this for an idea,” I said finally, letting him have my hand back. “Do you think we can trust the lieutenant to just give us some advice? He seems decent to me, I don’t know.”

Curry shook his head in that way that meant he was thinking over whatever question he’d just been posed. “Maybe? Blanks doesn’t seem like the type to fuck somebody over. I think people trust him.”

“Then what if we ask him what to do? We could go tomorrow. I think if we asked him not to let it past his office he would, at least. Maybe we can ask him not to transfer only one of us in future. Maybe if we explained he would be willing to do that. That’s a start, maybe.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad,” he said after a moment.

“And how’s this,” I said, “if Blankenship thinks I better be done with the watch, I'll just marry you so you don’t have to go a single day without a cruel slagging from yours truly.”

Curry made a ridiculous snorting sound. “That's… so nice of you,” he said dryly.

“Hey, it is nice,” I told him. “I just made us both so **** to avoid that pathetic union that we’ll do anything now to help me stay in the Watch.

He giggled despite himself, then let my hand go and turned over, twisting around to look at me in the dim streetlight filtering in through the window. “Well, Nan would be happy with that outcome even if neither of us was. Two young ones to fatten!” He wiped at his eyes. “I feel a little better,” he said.

“Me too. I’m sorry I don’t have any better ideas,” I said.

“Me too. Hey, you forgot to tie your hair back before bed.” He reached over and smoothed some of the messy tangle out of my face.

“Yeah.” I offered him my hand again and he took it, resting our clasped hands on his chest. “Did you really mean that thing about never letting me be alone?” I asked after a little while.

“I know, it barely resembles a solution,” he said, a bit glumly. “You deserve not to feel dependent on me for your basic safety.”

“I think you’re overlooking how unimportant my independence feels when I stack it up next to how afraid I am to ever encounter Lydell again,” I said to the ceiling. “So if you didn’t think it was a lot of bother sticking to me then I don’t think my ego would suffer for it. Maybe he won’t be quite so eager to look me up again, if suddenly I’m never without my physically imposing counterpart.” I made myself shrug, so I wouldn’t seem pushy. “If it isn’t too much trouble for you.”

Curry’s grip tightened on my hand. “It isn’t. From this hour I will cleave to you like a barnacle,” he promised.

“Oh, my gods!” I hadn’t meant to shatter such a momentous-feeling, solemn moment, but this dramatic pledge made me laugh with outsized delight. “You took that from the story about the whale!” I accused him happily. “Didn’t you! I didn’t know you’ve read that! Just about nobody has!”

“Which is why I didn’t say I was borrowing it from something!” Curry countered, laughing too. “How in all the hells did you ever wind up reading that? I only have because Nan considers it important historical literature.”

“The kids at the home have to do service assignments,” I explained, wriggling to get more comfortable, “and one of mine was helping with a library sale at the College of Rava. The collection supervisor gave me that book. I asked what it was about and he said it was a four hundred year old novel about dear friends who go to sea hoping to **** some innocent whales but get more than they bargained for.”

“That might be the most misleading and yet unassailably accurate description I’ve ever heard of a story,” Curry said. “Nan was pissed when I liked that line about the barnacle so much that I underlined it in her copy. It was the last time she ever threatened to spank me, only we both realized that I was embarrassingly too old for that, and she abruptly switched it to taking away my pocket allowance for two weeks.”

“I think you have it backwards, though,” I said when we were both done giggling about that. “You’re so clearly the big, pure-hearted harpooneer who gets clove-to,” I pointed out. “Cloven to?”

“Let’s call it becleaved,” Curry suggested, then added, “And, what, that makes you our narrator? Who decided that?”

“I promise to represent you in only the most favorable light,” I told him. “Something suitably reflecting my ample positive regard for you.”

Curry pretended to think about this, then made me laugh again when he concluded humorously, “You are considerably more barnacle-like than me. I’ll allow it.”