[OPEN] When your seams have come unknitted and you cry out to the sky

[maltesefalcon]

Who: Cerrit Agrupnin and you
When: Early December
Where: Yes!
Warning(s): Will be in comment subject lines

1. All the pins inside your fretted head [Patrol route]
It's a dark and stormy afternoon, or perhaps a morning with fog thick as pea soup, and Cerrit is in it up to his elbows. The enforcers' patrol doesn't let up for a little weather. No, Cerrit left his beat cop days in Avalir behind decades ago, but here he is again, starting from the ground up. Perhaps you're in a shop when he ducks in to get a moment's reprieve from the beating rain, or perhaps you're another enforcer assigned to patrol with him.

Get your noir detective drama here.


2. And your muttered whens and hows [The bluffs and the beach]
It is a clear, if crisp day that Cerrit chooses to make an investigation of the barrier. If you're in the area, you might see a large winged figure flying right up to that ring in the water that marks the barrier, or standing on the sand and staring contemplatively.

It's relatively clear what he's up to. Care to discuss the matter with him? He could use a rubber duck.


3. All your mother's weaves and your father's threads [Jean's training grounds]
With the work a certain nugget's put into trying to organize people, Cerrit's thrown a good deal of support behind the project. If someone needs training in basic weapon forms, he's glad to spar with his escrima sticks or a quarterstaff--though he's wary of hand-to-hand, given exactly how sharp his hands are. Or he might simply take someone on a run along one of the trails, because conditioning is just as important as fighting form, and running away will save lives.

Either way, there's a huge-ass bird offering his expertise to anyone who wants it. Perhaps if you get him talking, you can get other types of training as well...


4. Let me rob them of you now [Wildcard]
Find me at darkersolstice to plot.

Comments

[maltesefalcon]

There's almost a little startle, as if Cerrit's surprised that that's what he seemed to be asking. And then a sigh.

"I don't think I'd managed to realize myself, that that was what I was asking for. Yes, I...yes. Sorry."

[lightconductor]

Watson laughs, briefly and silently. "No, don't apologise. It's quite all right. I get the impression that I would enjoy an evening or two with you."

There's a pause, before he admits, "You remind me terribly of a dear friend. I ought to recall that you are not he."

[maltesefalcon]

This time, it's Cerrit who isn't quite sure if that first bit is a flirtation, but he doesn't want to make assumptions about anything, yet.

"You've mentioned him before. I imagine you have some stories of your time together that would be incredible to hear."

[lightconductor]

"I do. I've even published a few of them. Come to think of it, I suppose I won't be able to fulfil my contract, as I am apparently sadly deceased and here instead of London. Damn."

That's... annoying, in a silly way, but also ultimately irrelevant. He shakes his head. "We had ten years of working together, never official agents of the law but operating out of the lodgings we shared. I met my wife through one of his cases. Holmes was a wild eccentric at times, clever and dramatic, an artist, and I mean this in the kindest possible way but he could be equally oblivious about his own motivations." Watson flashes a smile. "You're not the same, no. I see that already. I cannot imagine him ever having children of his own, for one. But you are cut from the same cloth, I suspect."

[maltesefalcon]

"I was never any kind of artist. Though I did see the value in using art to learn something of the artist--their culture, their values. And what art people collect often speaks to their mind as well."

The feathers on his crest lift at the sight of that smile. "And I'm hardly dramatic, of course. No, no drama to me at all. No brooding, no swooping at criminals, no dramatic monologues..."

[lightconductor]

"Certainly you're not," Watson chuckles. "You're the very picture of sober gravity. I look forward to hearing your next dramatic monologue for myself, however. I do enjoy those."

He thinks he's maybe starting to get the emotion behind that lifted crest.

"Are you hungry?"

[maltesefalcon]

"I am, but I've learned that watching me eat disturbs people, especially when meat gets involved." Not that Watson hasn't seen it before, but he still wants to give the warning/reminder/out if the good doctor doesn't want to watch a cooked carcass picked apart with a beak and talons.

[lightconductor]

"Hm, yes. I recall."

But that hardly seems fair. Most of the niceties of table manners seem to be quite impossible for someone without lips or molars. "I shall just have to get used to it, then." Watson says this as though it were the only possible solution. "I'm sure it won't take me long. If I stare -- well, forgive me. You're quite an astonishing sight for someone who's never met a man who was not also human, that's all."

He smiles, a little embarrassed, and shrugs with one shoulder.

[maltesefalcon]

Cerrit lets out a little self-conscious chuckle. "We could pick something up at one of the shops or restaurants and take it back to my place. Or yours, if that's more comfortable. Not everyone should have to get used to me, if they don't want to."

[lightconductor]

"Well. I happen to have a flat not too far from the Oak & Iron. It's quite humble, but it's convenient, it's clean, there's room for a guest by the fire, and there will be no prying eyes to bother us. How does that suit you?"

[maltesefalcon]

"That would be very nice, I think." He offers an arm to escort Watson, careful not to place himself on the cane side.

[lightconductor]

The offered arm is a small surprise, but not an unwelcome one; Watson slips his arm through Cerrit's without much hesitation. It's been some time since he walked like this with anyone. Will people stare at them? Let them stare.

[maltesefalcon]

If it helps, Cerrit has no self-consciousness about the matter at all. Like, he might have had a wife, but there's no stigma about men being with men or gendered expectations regarding chivalry here.

Dinner is acquired--Cerrit insists on carrying the package home for Watson.

[lightconductor]

To be fair, Watson wonders more about the gossip that will come of walking about so friendly with a bird more than the gossip of two men. In this case.

Watson's flat is up a flight of stairs, and he leads the way up to his door feeling a little self-conscious about it. It's clean and it's warm and it's dry, but it's also very plain at the moment, just a few rooms with few personal belongings: a kitchen, a bedroom, a small sitting room. He leads the way into the kitchen and gestures to the little table and chairs in the corner.

"Have a seat, make yourself comfortable," he says. "Let me light the fire. These rooms are humble, but they're cosy enough with the fire lit."

[maltesefalcon]

Chairs and wings aren't always the best of friends. Cerrit tries to be subtle about turning a chair sideways to sit in. He could do the full butch and turn it backwards, but straddling the chair always gets him weird looks in human society. At some point, Patia had gotten the hint and made backless stools available at her formal gatherings.

"Reminds me of the first time I had a bachelor pad, when I'd just been hired by the Eyes of Avalir. My place isn't any bigger. I was able to bully my way into windows large enough to fly out, though."

[lightconductor]

Watson lights the fire with the ease of someone who's started hundreds of fires, and turns back to see Cerrit trying to settle into the chair. The most polite thing seems to be to not comment on it, but it's clear to him that yes, the furniture is not made for someone like Cerrit.

Obviously, if Cerrit becomes a regular guest, Watson will have to find a better chair for him. Or knock the back off of that one.

That's a problem for another day. "There's a French balcony in the sitting room," he says, joining him at the table, "which I think is quite nice. No, this will suit me fine, I think."

[maltesefalcon]

"French?" The word holds no meaning to Cerrit, for obvious reasons.

He helps to unpack the food, setting up a plate for Watson, one for himself.

[lightconductor]

"Oh, ah," no, of course that wouldn't mean anything to him, so Watson scrambles for a moment to find a description he hadn't expected to give. "It doesn't come out from the building, I mean, no additional floor. Sort of a long window with bars across the lower half, really. I don't know what summer is like here, but I think I may appreciate it then."

Look, he's a doctor, not an architect.

"I think I may honestly be beginning to settle in," he adds, wryly. "Listen to me. Thank you," he adds, as he takes his plate.

[maltesefalcon]

“It is amazing what a mind can adapt to. What can become one’s norm.”

There’s both wistfulness and sympathy there.

[lightconductor]

"Indeed," Watson sighs, with the same energy.

He's trying to give space, to avoid crowding. He was, after all, allowed to express some miserable history, and the proper thing is to offer space in turn. "Here, and elsewhere. Apparently that is true in all our worlds."

[maltesefalcon]

Cerrit nods, turning his attention to the food. There's a hesitancy, because yes, he knows what this is going to look like. But he is hungry, and eventually just sort of dives beak-first into the meal.

[lightconductor]

He'd been preparing, bracing himself, but at the end of the day, Watson is just not a very squeamish person. He is a doctor, and he has seen worse. Relaxing somewhat, he settles into his own meal, with knife and fork.

This is normal, companionable.

[maltesefalcon]

"This is nice. We could do this more often?" He glances up quietly, almost hopefully. "I mean, when our work doesn't have us too busy."

[lightconductor]

Watson's smile is warm, though a little shy.

"Yes," he says, "I think I would like that very much. We could make it a regular appointment, even, circumstances allowing."