Tangles

Back at the house, Yergen was gone but had left Baggett a note saying Curry seemed to be equally out of physical danger and out of sorts, with the tongue lashing I’d given him before fleeing, and wanted to be let alone. Thus Yergen had decided to go. Baggett went home, graciously only smirking a little at being proven entirely correct, and I guiltily climbed the stairs to the bath so I could scrub the fear sweat and general grime off myself and shampoo my greasy hair for the first time in days.

It was barely time for when we’d ordinarily have some dinner, but since this had already been about the longest day I could remember ever living through, and Curry hadn’t yet emerged from his room by the time I was upstairs, I couldn’t decide whether this meant he was asleep, or just didn’t feel like talking to me. Which was fair enough, considering that I had screamed at him and called him an idiot bastard in front of a stranger.

I elected the coward’s path, using as my fraudulent justification the fact that it wasn’t any good to start anything that might turn into a tough conversation, when I was this tired and out of sorts.

I did my best not to make too much noise when I went to my room with my still-damp hair and began picking out the knots I’d given myself from washing it too fast and too carelessly, thinking about this awful day and its unwelcome yield and generally leaking exhausted tears.

Not much time had gone by, though, when I heard footsteps and a quiet knock on my door. I’d had it wrong, then—he had anticipated an uncomfortable conversation, one that didn’t warrant being held while one person was unavoidably distracted by her bath, and let me alone until I could finish.

“You can come in, Mag,” I said, swiping at my eyes. “I’m not pissed,” I added as he pushed the door open, moving over to make room for him on the bed. “Bag sorted me out pretty emphatically about that.”

“Want me to do your tangles?” He motioned at the comb in my hand.

“That would be nice.” I scooted over to sit in front of him when he assumed a cross-legged position, and let him have the comb.

Instead of starting with my hair, he set his big hand on my shoulder, giving me a gentle squeeze. “I’m sorry for earlier. I don’t have anything much to say for myself. I just feel really sad I hurt your feelings after everything you struggled through the last couple days.”

“I’m sorry too,” I said, twisting to look at him, and seeing immediately in his face that everything Baggett had lectured me about was completely true. “I’m sorry you almost died, and that your reward for getting through it was I shrieked insults at you in front of the priest and stormed out.”

He squeezed my shoulder again, then gently turned me at an angle so he could comb off a section of hair starting at my temple. “I don’t remember too much from the last couple days,” he said as he began to work on the ends. “Is there any of it you want to tell me?”

I considered this. “Maybe. How are you feeling, now, though? You seem… a lot better.”

“I am better. I feel normal, actually.” We were quiet for a few seconds while he worked, and then he added, “I know it must seem like I take for granted everything you did for me. Do for me. But I don’t. Or, I really try not to.”

Since his hands were occupied and I couldn’t turn my head, I reached down and squeezed his bare foot. “I know. It doesn’t seem that way. When I’m no longer out of my skull in the grip of a full-on screaming fit.”

We sat quietly again while I snuffled tiredly and he worked through the first side of my hair and then turned me to face forward. “I think you were dead for a few minutes last night,” I said finally, now that I didn’t have to look at him. “I fell asleep and when I woke up your shade was standing there just watching me. I know what the priest said, but I was completely fucking useless. It was your mum that turned up and told me what to do. You’d be dead if it wasn’t for her making me get my shit together. She’s… a really good mum,” I added, even though that felt like a peculiar thing to say about someone who had been dead for almost a decade and whom I’d never actually met in life.

“Sure. But you were the one who did it. Turn.” When I did he started on my other side. “I don’t know if anybody else could have managed bringing me round, to be honest, Nan included. I don't remember much but I remember you kissing me and telling me well done and begging me to keep at it a bit longer. I didn’t want to—I was so tired. All I wanted to do was sleep. But I knew you wouldn’t insist like that, if there wasn’t some good reason. Plus I really wanted you to tell me again what a good boy I was,” he added, and when I turned to look at him he smiled in a way that made me think of what Baggett had said about Curry wanting every little bit of my love and approval he could get.

A sob welled up in my throat. “Bag thinks I should wait till we’ve both slept to talk to you about some of the stuff that scared me so bad. I told him a bit of it. I think maybe he’s right—I’ve been crying about this shit all day. But maybe in the morning? We can discuss some of it?”

“We can talk about whatever you want.” Curry’s eyes moved up to mine, then back to my hair. He was better at this untangling work than me, and almost done already.

“Part of it was, I dreamed you died. I only made it three weeks before I decided to drink a bunch of laudanum and hop off the Blackchapel bridge. It was a really peculiar dream and it kind of fucked me in the head. I think that’s part of why I screamed at you earlier. Maybe I can be more clear headed tomorrow.”

Curry put down the comb and made the rare gesture that meant I was welcome to climb into his lap if I wanted. We hadn't done this in years. Then again, he'd never almost died before. “Three weeks,” Curry said when I obliged, leaning against his chest and feeling grateful for the steady, thudding rhythm of his heart. “Gods, you’re tough. I don’t honestly know whether I could make it through eighteen days without you. Not if I knew you were never coming back.”

“I still feel pretty upset about it.”

“That’s understandable. I wouldn’t feel over it either.” Curry stroked his fingers up through the roots of my hair, which was drying quickly now that it was fully unknotted, ruffling it in his fingers the way I usually did, to keep it from drying flat and limp against my head. This felt so nice it nearly brought me to tears again, wishing the moment never had to end. “I think the reason I laughed so hard earlier,” he said softly, “was that the notion of you being merely my wife struck me as so ridiculously hilarious. What a flimsy, inadequate way to try to sum us up, I thought. I think he sensed we weren’t exactly married, but had no idea what other word he could use. I thought you understood I was laughing about how impossible it was for him to slap a name on whatever we are. I’m sorry I made it seem totally different to that.”

“I’m sorry I was so out of my head I couldn’t interpret it correctly.”

“Well, hey. Sorry I almost died and made you that way.” He bent his head and kissed my hair. The simple affection in the gesture gave me a funny pang of something I couldn’t identify, and made me wonder just how long Baggett’s remarks today would stay ringing in my ears.

“In one of your fever delusions, you thought I was your wife,” I offered. “That’s a bit funny, now that you aren’t actively dying.”

“Oh, gods. Really?” he winced.

“Yeah. Apparently we were going through a rough patch because you refused to take any cough syrup on account of, this divorce was your idea! And, all right, but you were astonishingly dramatic about it, Mag. You scolded me for breaking your heart. I never could work out how many children you thought we had—it kept changing. I had to apologize and beg you to take me back before you agreed to cooperate with me, but then as soon as our estrangement was ended you were so pleased you did every little thing I asked.”

Curry made a face. “That’s embarrassing.”

“I know. I was pretty embarrassed for us both. But it did give me to think you'd make a good dad if you ever had a shot at it. I have no idea how many daughters we had but you put a lot of mental energy into their well-being during your time as a single father. Your only mistake was thinking I was a suitable person to have them with.”

He laughed. “Just so you know, that is not on my agenda.”

“Oh, I know,” I said breezily. “If it was you’d never be able to handle me sitting in your lap like this without getting a world ending hard-on.”

Straight-faced, Curry immediately shoved me off him, while I choked with laughter that felt impossible only a minute before. “And just like that, cuddle time ended,” he announced. “Maybe forever.”

“Mag. Don’t say that.”

“Fuzzy. Don’t carelessly joke about inopportune erections to anybody who’s actually experienced that awkwardness.”

I caught up his hand in mine and kissed it impulsively. “Sleep in my room tonight? I think I’ll rest better if I’m not waking up worried about you.”

“Yeah. Of course. I was hoping you’d ask.”

I let go of him to reach up and cup his cheek in my hand, which was an unusually intimate gesture for us, but, well, it had been a sort of fucked up day. “Thanks for not dying.”

Curry stretched out on the bed and let me curl up next to him. “Thanks for not letting me.”

We lay there in pleasant, drowsy silence.

“Fuzzy?” Curry asked me a little while later. “In the morning… would you tell me about my mum?”

“Yeah, Mag.” I reached up and gave his arm a squeeze.