The Key

Chapter 20

“I don’t care that you’re poor,” Dan says. “I mean, I do, but not that way. I know you don’t have a lot going for you right now, but it takes a crazy kind of genius to necromance on a pair of taxidermied griffin wings just so no one notices how old your clothes are. You’re weird and awesome and I f*****g love that you raided the biology department instead of grabbing a tailor. That’s exactly the kind of resourceful the Men of Letters keep around, and that means you’re gonna be set for life.”

“Please stop,” Casper says.

“When I said the job was yours whether you were with me or not, that was for you, all right? Because I’m not trying to buy you here, I don’t want you obligated to me, Cas. I didn’t mean I was going to change my mind, because I’m not. I want you. In my life. In my work. In my bed, whenever you’re ready for that. I wanna see how far we can make this work.”

This far, and no farther.

Casper steps back.

Dan reaches and Casper takes his hands, at once holding him and preventing him from holding.

“I am not calling you inconstant,” Casper tells him. “Or disloyal, or easily turned, or any of a thousand things I know go against your character. I am telling you that circumstances change and we change with them. Should circumstance change, I would not fault you for changing.”

“Do you need me to grab Sam?” Dan asks. “Because I can grab Sam.”

“Why would you– No. I don’t need a seer.”

“Then what do you think is going to change?” Dan asks.

“I don’t know,” Casper lies, his gaze steady, Dan’s hands in his. “All I said was ‘if,’ Dan.”

“But you think I’m going to change my mind,” Dan says. “That’s what’s been bugging you, that’s why all the tension.”

Dan is a protector. Casper knows and has somehow forgotten at the same time. Dan is a protector, and the more vulnerable Casper makes himself appear, the tighter Dan will hold on. Casper knows this, and yet he has erred.

“My insecurities are my own,” Casper says. “Though I should think certain disparities would make them rational concerns.”

“So you get to say you’ll wait for me, but I can’t do the same for you.”

Casper squeezes his hands. “Indulge me in this.”

“Cas, letting you feel like s**t when you don’t need to, isn’t indulging you.”

“The world changes, Dan,” Casper says, more sharply than he means to. “When Anna died, it changed. When Michael died, it changed. When we lost our home, it changed, and that is why I have learned to say ‘if.’ And should your world remain unchanged, then I do trust that you will remain constant.”

Dan looks at him long and hard, but he doesn’t pull his hands away. “It’s not about me,” he says, as if this is a realization. “It’s everything else you don’t trust.”

Casper nods.

Dan looks at him even longer. Releasing Casper’s hands, he pushes off the table and stands. Casper steps back but Dan steps forward, and the other table is still behind him. His wings tap against a chair.

“Can I hold you again?” Dan asks.

Casper nods, because this will calm Dan, and he needs Dan to be calmed. He nods and he opens his arms and he tucks his face into Dan’s neck and he could say everything. He could tell Dan he never wants to see him hurt. He could apologize for how their relationship will destroy his reputation. He could ask forgiveness for every piece of guilt and receive it all, only for Dan to hate him the more for it later.

“I got you,” Dan whispers into his ear. He chuckles a little, and Casper curls into the sound. “I mean, I got as much of you as I can. These things are huge.”

“I think they’re proportional,” Casper answers. “An effective wingspan to body ratio has–”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dan says, and the way he nuzzles in a little serves to effectively shut Casper’s mouth. “I’m sure you researched the crap out of that too, right down to however it is you put a shirt on after.”

“A back flap goes between the wings, and you attach strings to tie it down around the front.”

“So that’s what that lump was,” Dan says. He hugs Casper all the tighter, and slowly begins to let go. They ease away from each other, though there is no ease in the separation.

They look at each other for only a moment before Casper ducks back in for one last kiss. It’s a press of mouths, nothing more. No hands on hands, no fingers on faces or palms upon bodies. Just their lips and the slight nudge of a nose. Just lips and breath and the hint of teeth beneath.

“Ink’s gotta be dry by now,” Dan says, after.

Casper retrieves the pages, and for nearly a full five seconds, there is an entire table between them. Then Dan comes to him. Casper busies his hands with collecting his papers, folding them carefully to place inside his belt pouch next to his invitation. He eyes the unused paper but leaves it where it is. He’s already taking enough.

Dan retrieves his accursed gloves and once again puts them on. He pauses to give Casper one last look at the tablet and, at Casper’s nod, closes the box.

“Thank you,” Casper says again. It’s all that’s safe to say.

Dan shrugs a little. “Not like we’re using it. The knife, though, that, we’re probably gonna keep.”

Raphael would want him to bargain for it.

Casper decides he doesn’t care.

“Would you wield it yourself?” he asks.

“I’ve always been more for shields than parrying daggers, but maybe,” Dan says. “Unless putting that to use offends your historical sensibilities.” This is said jokingly, but Dan still watches attentively for his response.

“No. I think it would suit you,” Casper tells him, knowing no higher compliment.

“Yeah?” Dan grins.

“Yes.”

They gaze at each other longer, too long.

“We should go upstairs,” Casper says. “Fit in some dancing before I need to turn in for the night.”

Dan frowns before nodding. “Guess you used up a lot of energy keeping those on, with, uh, everything else. Though we could always ask Sam to bop you on the head for a second.”

“Primarily, I meant that my lodgings only keep the door unlocked so late into the evening,” Casper explains.

Dan’s frown turns into a grin. “You mean, if I keep you too late, you have to stay here?”

“Don’t tempt me,” Casper says, but Dan only grins wider.

“Oh, I am going to constantly tempt you,” he promises.

“You’re tousled enough,” Casper says, and Dan looks Casper over in return.

“You too.” He steps closer, which is a bad idea Casper does not resist. “Hold still, gonna at least try to fix your hair.”

Casper holds still. With the reintroduction of the gloves, the experience is greatly dulled. This is, technically, for the best. With this finished, Dan bids him turn around so Dan can straighten his feathers, and Casper has no logical reason to refuse. It’s the clumsiest, most endearing preening of his life, and yet he keeps his feathers from fluffing.

“All right, now me,” Dan says.

His hair is only as mussed as its short length will allow, but Casper grooms him anyway.

“Do I have any marks?” Dan asks. He indicates his neck where a few patches of faint purple have arisen.

“Yes,” Casper says, and feels proud. He understands smiling with teeth now, very well indeed.

Dan rolls his eyes. “Heal now, be smug later.”

“I can do many things at once,” Casper says, and proves it with a touch. They’re such small aberrations in Dan’s life force that prodding them with his grace is unquestionably overkill. Casper has to make sure to alter nothing else; he’s heard humans can be attached to their scars and presumes Dan would notice them missing.

When Casper finishes, Dan inspects Casper’s neck in turn. He finds nothing.

“I don’t bruise easily,” Casper explains.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Dan says, and it sounds like a lewd promise.

Dan puts on his jacket, and they both put on their masks. That barrier, once familiar, turns strange. The horns were once his only reliable means of recognizing Dan, but now the mask irks him nearly as much as the gloves. The idea of Dan hidden from him in any way is anathema.

Openly adoring, a slight quirk to the corner of his mouth, Dan reaches out and smooths down one of the feathers of Casper’s mask.

When they exit, the guards are different. Dan nods to each and gives them a few words before they head past them and up the stairs. They don’t hold hands, although Casper would certainly be willing to, even with the gloves in the way. They don’t speak either, and their footsteps remind Casper of the carrying nature of the stairway acoustics.

Upstairs, they check the hour on one of the hall clocks, and there is still time for dancing. Casper informs him that he needs to leave at least twenty minutes before midnight, and Dan accepts this with a put-upon grumble. Nonetheless, they move to the courtyard by a mutually unspoken decision.

The night air is lovely, the stars faint. The music is strangely loud after so long downstairs with only their own voices and the other soft noises of their mouths, but it seems to draw Dan out of the aching mood from down below. Or perhaps that’s the dancing.

Last night, Casper thought them coordinated. Tonight, they are something new. Touching, moving, eyes forever upon each other; this is how they stretch the remainder of the night. This is how they spend it. They speak only of little things, holding an almost desperate peace. They do not kiss, but they very often almost do.

Too soon, it’s time to go.

He should feel victory. He should feel joy. He has secured their freedom without use of violence, only deception, but the weight of that only is a weight too heavy for even his arms to carry.

Dan walks him to the castle door and, for the first time, for the second-to-last time, Casper kisses him goodbye.

In the morning, there is training, and Dan is trying something new.

“That’s no parrying dagger,” Cleric Jim tells him, inspecting the blade in the equipment shed. It’s a much bigger space than a true shed, but the name’s stuck through multiple renovations. “No cross-guard to speak of, and the hilt’s too long.” He taps the possibly metal surface of the blade with one finger and inspects the lack of fingerprint left behind. “You know what the enchantment on it is?”

“Not really,” Dan admits. “Theoretically, it should hold shape no matter what. No breaking, no dulling. Beyond that, not so much.”

Cleric Jim hums to himself and passes the blade back before working through the variety of training weapons at their disposal. “Here, Prince. This is the most comparable we have for length. Are you considering that for a main-hand or off-hand weapon?”

“Figure I’ll try out both and see what feels right,” Dan says. It’s of a length where it could be either. “I’ll start main-hand.”

“Then you’re partnered with Jo today,” Cleric Jim decides. “I’ll let Rufus and the commander know.”

“Thanks,” Dan says. Then, indicating the angel blade, he asks, “Any chance you’ve got a sheath to fit it?”

“Might do,” Cleric Jim says. “Let me take a gander.”

“Awesome. One thing first, though?”

Cleric Jim pauses. “Getting to be a lot of things. What’s this one?”

Dan holds the blade by the business end and offers the hilt to Cleric Jim. “This is gonna sound weird, but try to heal this.”

Cleric Jim looks at him with raised eyebrows before taking the blade back. “That’s not even organic matter, Prince.”

“Indulge me.” He knows what Cas told him last night, but he still wants to verify. There’s such a thing as confirmation bias.

Shrugging slightly, Cleric Jim holds the blade in both his hands and focuses. His eyes widen. He looks up at Dan. “What is this?”

“What did you feel?” Dan asks.

Cleric Jim looks at him with all the seriousness of the world and says, “Eggs.”

Dan says, “What?”

“Feels like eggs,” Cleric Jim repeats. “The bit before they hatch, when they’re not quite alive just yet.”

“So there’s life force in it?” Dan asks.

“More like, there’s something in it that wants to be life force,” Cleric Jim says. “Or, rather, that could be. There’s something related to life here, no doubt about it.”

“But you don’t know what.”

Cleric Jim shakes his head, eyes back on the blade. He might be casting again.

“Does it feel human?” Dan asks.

“No,” Cleric Jim answers without pausing to think. “It’s giving me that push-back you get from healthy skin, once it’s already healed up and doesn’t need tending to. But human? No.”

“No sense of species at all?”

“It’s not dog or horse, those I know well enough to say. My first instinct is still eggs. Been longer than you’ve been alive, Prince, since I’ve minded my mother’s coop, but I still know the feel of a hatching egg from an eating egg.”

“Does it...” A thought strikes him. “Does it feel like something with wings? Or more like a lizard or a fish.”

Cleric Jim looks up at that. “You know, I’d have to say wings. Then again, I’ve never tried to heal a lizard or a fish, only Mother’s hens.”

“But that’s your first instinct,” Dan says. “Eggs and wings.”

“It is,” Cleric Jim answers. “I don’t have the first clue as to how that got in there, but that’s what I’m picking up, and in no small amounts.”

“So the power that went into this thing was big?”

“Enormous,” Cleric Jim tells him flatly. “Magic and life force, but all one flavor, so to speak.”

“How do you mean?” Dan asks.

Outside, a whistle blows.

“I’ll tell you during drills,” Cleric Jim promises, passing the blade back. “Now stow that wherever you stow it.”

Dan stows it. Training goes as per usual until they break down for sparring, and then it’s Dan with Jo, with Cleric Jim guiding. Jo proceeds to hand Dan’s ass to him with no small grin, but that’s only to be expected with the weapon change. Cleric Jim sets them up with a two person drill and keeps Jo down to just the one knife for now. They begin at a reasonable speed before truly syncing up, and then the soothing repetition of exertion takes over.

Even with laps and stretching, even with breakfast and fetching the blade from the vaults, he’s still a little groggy from a late night of thinking too much. Finally, that fades. How much of that has to do with Jo smacking him in the fingers each time he messes up, he won’t say.

“Jim, you were saying?” Dan prompts, once he’s certain enough conversation won’t cost him more bruises.

“More weight on your hind leg,” Cleric Jim says. “You’re expecting a sword’s reach, and you’re leaning forward too far.”

Dan corrects his stance accordingly. “I meant about the blade.”

“What blade?” Jo asks, eyes lighting up predictably.

“Thing I showed Cas last night,” Dan explains.

Jo hits a little harder. “Tell me that’s not a d**k joke.”

“Not yet,” Dan says, countering just as hard.

“Children,” says Cleric Jim.

They behave, for now. “It’s an enchanted short sword, or maybe a long dagger.”

“Hence this?” Jo asks.

“Hence this,” Dan agrees.

“You could always let me use it,” Jo says. “What’s it enchanted for?”

“Jim?” Dan asks. “You were saying something about the ‘flavor’ of the magic?”

“It’s all the same one,” Cleric Jim says.

“Why’s that weird?” Jo asks. “Most things are enchanted by a single artificer.”

“Not with this much power, they aren’t,” Cleric Jim says. “You might be able to squeeze that much power into a slow enchantment, but the consistency is wrong for that. Even I know that.”

“Even choppier?” Dan asks.

“Much too smooth,” Cleric Jim says. “Feels like a single session spell, not something that was layered on over years.”

“Years?” Dan asks.

“That’s a lot of power,” Jo says. “So what else did the artificer say?”

“Haven’t had an artificer check it out yet,” Dan says, although he does plan to consult with Ash next.

“You didn’t tell me you were learning artificing,” Jo accuses Cleric Jim.

“I haven’t. I’ve only heard this sort of thing described before. But I could feel the, er, the magic in it.”

Jo frowns into her next block. “Who would enchant a dagger with healing magic?”

“Someone very powerful,” Cleric Jim says. “With enough power to waste on it, even.”

“Is this an angel thing?” Jo asks Dan. They switch roles, switch stances, and begin again. “If you showed it to Cas, it’s gotta be an angel thing.”

“He thinks it’s an angel thing,” Dan says.

“Never heard a*********s about angels forging weapons,” Cleric Jim says. “Then again, they must have had them…”

The life force mixed in with the magic. The way Cas described that “grace” thing angels were supposed to have.

It’s a little unnerving, the way Dan is almost starting to believe. All the more reason to seek out other explanations.

“It was in a box Cas says is warded against angels,” Dan says. He’s thinking about putting the same design on the sheath, once he has one. He’s already memorized the pattern on the blade’s box – he didn’t have much else to do, besides torment himself staring at Cas and furtively petting those wings. The longer design should fit well on a sheath, just in case the warding is against something else that it really does need to be warded against. “It was in with a bunch of other stuff we looted out of a demon stronghold, a couple centuries back.”

“So, like ‘ha ha, got your weapon, you can’t have it back’?” Jo asks. “Kind of a trophy box?”

“I guess,” Dan says. “Good quality work, but not showy, though. This really wasn’t the kind of box meant to impress.”

“I would have gone showy, if I were a demon,” Jo decides.

“Don’t think you need to be a demon for that, Jo,” Dan says.

Jo grins a bit. “Maybe mount it over the fireplace, put the warding on the plaque instead… C’mon, if you were a demon who’d stolen an angel’s blade, wouldn’t you show it off?”

“I’d use it,” Dan says.

“Yeah, I noticed,” Jo says. “Like that isn’t just another way of showing it off.”

Dan would shrug, but he’s a little busy.

Cleric Jim corrects his stance again, and in truth, it could be a lot worse. Jo’s shorter reach is definitely a help. If he were going up against Victor, Dan would be compensating even harder. It’s not like he isn’t used to a certain amount of knife work – they all have to be, in case of being disarmed of their primary weapon, because, as everyone knows: ghosts – but maybe he’s been letting it slide a little too long.

Of course, when it’s time to switch partners, Dan naturally ends up back with Victor. They quickly determine, through perfectly civil collaboration, that Dan really needs a shield to go with that blade. With the addition of the shield, they’re much more evenly matched. Not all the way, though. Someday.

They run through the remaining drills, making good time. Training officially ends around mid-morning, and Jo wastes no time in catching Dan’s arm.

“Can I see it?” she asks.

Dan looks down at her, this short blonde warrior, and it really is the perfect opportunity. “Yeah, of course. Meet me in Bobby’s office.”

“Still want that sheath?” Cleric Jim asks.

“Please,” Dan says. “I, uh. Y’know, if you’ve got a fancier one, that’d be cool too.”

Cleric Jim looks at him quizzically, but Jo immediately gets it, judging by her grin.

“You’re gonna wear it tonight?” she asks. “An angel’s sword to match an angel?”

“Shut up,” Dan tells her, which isn’t a no .

He’s not showing off, not really, but it would be impressive as f**k. And maybe he wants Cas impressed tonight.

Maybe he wants a lot of things with Cas tonight.

“You are so gone on this guy, it’s ridiculous,” Jo tells him, not knowing the half of it. She can’t know what Dan spent the rest of his waking hours last night mulling over, and yet she looks at him like she suspects.

“Jealous much?” Dan shoots back.

“Nah,” Jo says. “He can keep you.” She winks and Dan laughs. He laughs and he keeps grinning after, all the way to the barracks.

Yeah. Cas can keep him.

Dan doesn’t bother changing into his civilian clothes first. He simply grabs the blade from its place on his shelf and nods Jo towards Bobby’s office. He’d prefer them both in their full uniforms for this, but their training gear is almost as good.

Jo knocks. Bobby calls her in by name despite the lack of window in the door, and so Dan isn’t entirely surprised when Jo halts in the doorway and says, “Sorry, I can come back later.”

It’s further confirmation when he hears a voice besides Bobby’s say, “No, I was waiting for you two.”

“You heard my brother,” Dan says, poking her in the back. She enters the office in front of him, Dan follows, and when he closes the door behind him, it’s pretty cramped. Bobby’s in the chair by the overloaded desk. Unlike everyone else in the world, Bobby doesn’t stand when Dan enters the room. The office’s other chair – and all the leg space before it – is busy holding Sam.

“Hey,” Sam says brightly. He hops up from the chair and he grins at Dan and he doesn’t stop grinning.

Dan starts grinning back.

“So,” says Sam.

“Shut up,” says Dan.

Sam grins wider.

“I take it you two have discussed… whatever this is,” Bobby says.

“No,” Sam tells him. “But I felt it coming and I didn’t want to miss it.” He looks back to Dan, halfway to hesitant. “Is that all right?”

Dan’s throat is too tight to answer, so he just nods.

“Something tells me this isn’t about the knife,” Jo says, her attention nevertheless on the blade in Dan’s hand. “Is that it?”

Dan passes it to her by the long hilt. She makes all the appropriate noises of admiration, but Dan’s attention is on Sam and Bobby, mostly Sam.

“Did you tell Mom?” Dan asks. He doesn’t bother asking if Sam told their father.

Sam shakes his head. “Neither of them. I know you want this private. Small scale.”

“Yeah,” Dan says, nodding. The thickness in his throat tries to transfer itself into a pressure behind his eyes, but he fights that back too.

“Enough mystery,” Bobby says. “What’s this about?”

“I was talking with Cas last night,” Dan explains. “Dad offered him a Man of Letters position, what with, y’know.” He nods at Sam and everyone in the room nods along. “And Cas is gonna take it.”

“Poor idjit doesn’t have much choice,” Bobby muses. “Once that old man of yours thinks there’s a threat to one of you boys, it won’t go uncontained for long.”

“Even if people found out I’m a vessel, how much harm could it really do?” Sam asks. “Don’t get me wrong, the gloves are annoying, but it’s not like anyone’s gonna get at me without me letting them. Not without all of you letting them, either, plus Dad.”

“Guys, my moment here,” Dan says.

“Right, sorry,” Sam says, and he f*****g bounces on the balls of his feet. “You were saying.”

“So he’s gonna take the position,” Dan says. “Without any arm twisting from Dad. He’s just gotta finish up his project first and close his arrangement with his patron. Thinks it’ll be maybe six months, which sucks, but hey.”

“As much as I enjoy the intricacies of your love life,” Bobby says dryly, “is there a point to this story?”

“He promised to wait for me,” Dan says, his insides squirming warmly. The look on Cas’ face. The almost desperate need for Dan to believe him. So f*****g earnest. So entirely Dan’s. “But I- I don’t know, man. He basically tossed his heart into my hands before saying he’d understand if I wound up dropping it.”

“Reasonable,” Bobby says. “A stupid kind of reason, but reasonable.”

“Bobby,” Dan says.

Bobby shrugs. “Everyone in twenty miles knows how fast your head just turned. Farther, by now. Can’t blame him for thinking it could turn again.”

“I’m not changing my mind,” Dan says. He thought about it last night, hard and long. He’s thought about Cas and he’s thought about everyone else, and there’s no comparison. Not with this gorgeous, awkward genius with the tentative smile. Cas smiles like he’s not sure how, like he’s had so little practice at joy and knows it.

Every single time he smiles, he looks to Dan for approval, as if to be sure he’s doing it right.

And Dan… Dan doesn’t love him. Not yet. But he’s sure as f**k going to. He knows what impending love feels like, and this is it. He’s going to get letters written by those long, broad fingers, and he’s going to read them too many times. He’s going to hate the ache of separation until he learns to love it, and then he’ll keep hating it anyway.