If you need to fall apart, I can mend a broken heart.

[amberdrake]

Who: Amberdrake and Sanzo
What: Hanging out on the roof at night with good tea and good company.
Where: The old dojo in Howl Barrow
When: Night-time, present-day.
Notes: --
Warnings: Vague discussion of past rape.

It's been a long and somewhat wearying day for Baedal's one and only kestra'chern. He's done with his final client of the day long after sunset, and has cleaned up and then...

Well, he's climbed up onto the roof of the dojo. With a pot of tea, and two cups, and a small box, and a blanket, which he wraps himself up in before sitting down and putting the tea things together.

Then, Amberdrake sits back and watches the sky for a while, letting the stars and the strange three moons make his mind drift. It's rather peaceful.

Comments

[amberdrake]

"Open it and find out," Drake seems pleased, anyway!

And inside is a paper pouch of tobacco, and papers and other oddments for rolling it into cigarettes. "You'll have to tell me if it's any good, before I agree to more of it ending up here."

[sanzo]

Sanzo stares down at it, then back at Drake. "Is this... some gift-sharing day?"

Hakkai sometimes pulled stuff like this, but there was usually a catch. And Goku sometimes came back with assorted shinies, but they were rarely anything interesting.

Most normal people would reply with, 'ohmigosh, thank you!' right off, but the dysfunctional monk just needs a round or two to get there.

[amberdrake]

"Not at all," Amberdrake takes a drink of his tea, "this isn't exactly the first time I've given you something just because I could. Unless my memory fails me."

Of course, it isn't failing him, and he knows it. He spent a long time on some of the gifts he'd given the other man in Haven! The robe and the hair ornaments in particular.

"And the wrapping paper was a novelty. We don't have such colorful paper on Velgarth." Drake had never seen such a thing! So of course he had to try it.

[sanzo]

"...Thanks." Sanzo is great at being awkward about nice gestures, and it seems like he's only honed this talent in their time apart!

"This is... tobacco?" It almost smells like tea, sort of, sweet and floral and smoky. He always smokes Marlboros, but this is like switching from Lipton to a high-grade Oolong!

He might be a high-ranking priest, but such luxuries weren't available to those who lived such a spartan lifestyle, and the war between humans and demons had slowed that kind of trade anyway.

[amberdrake]

"Yes, grown by a client," Amberdrake seems pleased, once again, "if you like it, I'm willing to let them pay me partially in a steady supply of it."

Why yes, he does charge some of his clients enough (specifically, the ones who can afford it) that even keeping up with Sanzo's smoking habits warrants a 'partially'.

"I know the ones you arrived with won't last forever, so..."

[sanzo]

"But that's... I mean, this is special occasion stuff, right?" Sanzo likes his shitty smokes, but that doesn't mean that he can't appreciate something like this when it's being all amazing and fragrant in his lap.

That Drake is taking a hit in money for it is also quite moving to Sanzo, but articulating that is, of course, beyond the scope of his emotional maturity.

The kestra'chern sure knows how to pick 'em.

[amberdrake]

"It's for you to smoke as much of as you like," Drake chuckles softly at that into his tea, "this client has fields of the stuff and has made it clear that they'll fill the courtyard a foot deep with it if I want."

Apparently, whatever it is Amberdrake does for that particular client, it's quite well-appreciated.

"What was that look for, earlier?" he's curious. Sanzo seemed... unsettled? at being called pretty.

[sanzo]

Sanzo ponders this, and then declares, "You are the finest among my servants--"

But whatever he might've said is derailed when Drake asks him that. "Hn." His expression sobers-- not that it wasn't very demonstrative before, but it's quite serious now. "When people say I'm pretty, usually it means that they want to peel my face off and put it on a wall, or keep me as a doll, or a pet, or..." Worse, in the usual petty, disgusting ways of people who liked pretty things and liked to take them.

[amberdrake]

"...I've had some experience with the type," Amberdrake slants his own gaze away, for once. Hadanalith was only a short year ago, and his handiwork; his plans; he still haunts the kestra'chern's nightmares.

And it had been such a narrow escape...

"Although I've called you beautiful before," Drake adds, reining in his thoughts, "and you only had a problem with it directly after being..." how to put it? Raped? Assaulted? Brainwashed? None of those would do Sanzo's mood any favors. "...messed with." To put it very lightly.

"Did something new happen?"

[sanzo]

"..."

Sanzo is quiet for a long moment before he slowly admits, "It... it only seemed like a few weeks since you've been gone, but I don't know if that's really how long it was. I... woke up in a vat. I was trapped in there, the rest of the Chosen all were. The guy they sicced on me was a real creep. Kinda reminded me of someone, with his black robes and his hungry eyes..."

[amberdrake]

Amberdrake blinks at him, and then hazards to unwrap the blanket partially from himself and drape his arm over Sanzo's shoulders, half of the warm blanket in tow. It's the most daring thing he's done here besides sit on Sanzo's lap the other day.

"You know I wouldn't do any of those things, of course," Drake says, "would you like me to just not compliment your appearance for a while? I don't mind."

[sanzo]

"...Yeah." Sanzo doesn't pull away, though it takes him a moment to relax.

Maybe now, though, his standoffishness makes more sense.

"Yeah, I know." He stares down at the tobacco, and then carefully wraps it up. It might be for every day use but to Sanzo, it's special.

[amberdrake]

The kestra'chern doesn't have his ornate, open-cut wing-style outer robe on, currently. So the blanket is standing in for the 'wing' he finds quite natural to drape over someone who is distressed. Even if he's distressed in a very wide-ranging and rather low-key way.

"This lifebond... it's Velgarthian," Amberdrake muses aloud, "I've had more experience with them, now. Both from the outside and from the inside. I couldn't hurt you, enar ves'tacha. I will never, ever want to."

He'd sworn once on Haven, long before they'd had any sort of bond, that he would never intentionally hurt Sanzo. Now that a lifebond was involved, it was guaranteed.

[sanzo]

"I know." Sanzo's discomfort is clearly audible. "Don't take it personally."

He's not rejecting Drake or his comforting, though to someone less versed in people's damage, it might seem that way. He's just struggling in general.

The fact that he's not reacting violently is probably testament enough that it isn't Amberdrake, but those words.

[amberdrake]

"I'm not offended, dear-heart," Amberdrake chuckles very faintly at that, "I am a kestra'chern, remember? I've dealt with quite a lot of other people's traumas over the years."

It's a very good thing that Sanzo's involved with a therapist, if he's going to be involved with anyone at all.

"And remember when we first met, how I didn't want my skin exposed?" Although Hadanalith was the most recent offense, and in a much more catastrophic way (he'd damn near started a new war)...

Well, Hadanalith hadn't wanted Drake. Except maybe to skin him, because torture was fun.

But those men in Ma'ar's army, all those checkpoints... they'd valued Drake's deep Kaled'a'in skin and his pretty Kaled'a'in eyes. It was why he'd kept that damn whip-scar for so long, to diminish his own appearance the little bit that he could.

"Well, I understand, anyway," Drake said instead of going into any of that. He offered a small squeeze of the arm across Sanzo's shoulders, despite the presence of that damned sutra, and then also offered a topic change, "...You're not planning to stow that away and never try it, are you? I'd hate to end up with a stockpile of it and then find out you hate it."

[sanzo]

"...You're sure you can keep getting more?" Sanzo really isn't taking any of it for granted-- not the fancy smoke, not Amberdrake or his close company, or that they're together again.

Just smoking that away...

Gifts are special.

[amberdrake]

"I'm very sure," Drake chuckles, "my client isn't going to find another kestra'chern in town. And even if they did, there are none who are my equal."

It's not even said arrogantly. It's just truth.

"Keep it," he suggests anyway, because he can tell Sanzo's invested some attachment to the little box. "I'll get you another sample, it's not a problem at all."

[sanzo]

Up a sleeve it goes, perhaps never to be seen again.

A grunt is Sanzo's reply, but it is pleased.

[amberdrake]

"Clearly I should shower you with gifts more often," Amberdrake smiles at him, "you've had so little kindness in your life, there's a lot of time to make up for."

But no more robes and hair ornaments and decorative things like that, he thinks. Not until Sanzo isn't so triggered by how others see him!

[sanzo]

Sanzo flushes faintly.

"Aside from that, it seems like your business is working better now that we've got this place."

The kestra'chern's seemed a lot happier, or as happy as one can be in this place, anyway.

[amberdrake]

"Skan once told me that I should become a full-time feather artist," Amberdrake says with wry amusement, "and that I could work on actual birds when there weren't enough gryphons with snapped feathers to keep me busy. I suggested he start pulling carts."

He really does do better when he's able to use more than one set of talents. Doing massages all the time, discouraged from even talking to clients, forbidden from going over the allotted time, and gods forbid he get someone to discuss what made them so tense to start with...

Well. It was a lot like making a gryphon pull a cart.

[sanzo]

"Yeah. I don't like it when those baldheaded assholes expect me to just regurgitate a few prayers and blessings and then leave, either."

Sanzo understands that, even if Amberdrake's traditional role is not exactly holy, it is in some way sacred. And he can't stand it when hypocrites try to turn such things into something cheap.

He isn't necessarily a devout or a religious man, but some things, just like gifts, are special.

[amberdrake]

"Ah," Drake's response is perhaps unexpected, but heartfelt all the same, "I adore you so, Genjo. You understand."

It's a little amused... but true, too.

"It isn't like it's easy work, of course. I had someone crying in my lap for three hours today while I tried to piece them back together," which was why he had run so late, tonight, "but it's what I'm good at. It's what I was trained for."

And even if he took quite the battering from his clients on a daily basis, Empathically and mentally, at least he was secure in the knowledge that he was doing his job. His real job.

[sanzo]

"...If it were an easy job, then you wouldn't want it. It wouldn't suit you."

Sanzo understands professional pride, even if he considers himself unworthy of his own vocation-- but compared to most people, even he knows he's a better fit.

"...You know, I don't usually take confessions," not that that's stopped people from confiding in him anyway, "But if you need to..."

[amberdrake]

"You don't know the half of it," Drake remarks with dry amusement, and then eyes the monk sidelong. "What, about my clients? You know I can't do that."

If Sanzo means about his own awful shit, he's pretty sure (from previous experience) that the priest will end up knowing about most of it anyway. Two Empaths makes it likely, a lifebond makes it unavoidable, and both...

[sanzo]

Sanzo's reply is just a shrug. He's not going to insist that they all talk about their feels; he's made the offer, and Drake can accept or refuse.

[amberdrake]

"If there's something you want to know, you can just ask me," Amberdrake points out gently, "you're the only person I know who doesn't treat me like I'm a kestra'chern or a leader first and anything else second... including on my own world, my daughter aside."

His expression goes a little flat at that, and he looks at his tea, "And we both know how that relationship is going to end up."