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Will was, on the whole, none too pleased to be dripping a combination of rainwater and something far fouler onto his lover’s boss’s expensive-looking rug, least of all with said lover lying half-insensate on a nearby chaise longue, stripped to his drawers and wrapped in blankets covered with violently geometric patterns. If there was a blessing to be found here, it was, somehow, the stolid and remarkably comforting figure of Curtis, ferrying blankets and dry clothing far too large to be anything other than his own.
“You’ll do no such thing,” he’d said, holding his umbrella out over their thoroughly drenched heads, when Will had muttered about how they were, truly, not all that far from Kim’s flat. “It’s my—it’s Daniel’s fault you’re a mess, I’m sure. You’re nearly on our doorstep as it is, private.”
Will hated demobbed brass, as a matter of course, and their pathetic ways of attempting to reinstate the service hierarchy to make up for their pointlessness in civilian life; he hated even more that he could not hate Curtis, who seemed to have never been demobbed a day in his life and whose generosity was entirely too sincere. As Curtis passed him a blanket that appeared to be embroidered with purple vines, he wondered, for roughly the hundredth time in the past few months, how on earth this man had ever ended up in the same century as DS, never mind the same flat.
“A bath, Darling?”
Will’s ears were still thoroughly waterlogged, and it took him a moment to realize Curtis was indeed speaking to him, gentleman to gentleman. He manfully ignored the flush rising in his cheeks and jerked his head in Kim’s direction. “For him, at least, sir.”
Curtis rolled his eyes, as he did each time Will ignored Curtis’s repeated orders to not stand on ceremony, and folded an extra pair of trousers over his arm. “Follow me, soldier.”
The tub was larger even than the one in Kim’s flat, and quicker to fill, with a nearby cabinet full of bath oils and floral-scented soap disconcerting to consider Curtis’s and horrifying to think might belong to DS. Will selected a lavender-scented bar and a remarkably sturdy brush and spent his time scrubbing a moaning Kim and, eventually, his own limbs, carefully ignoring the sound of raised voices outside the bathroom door.
They were clean, at least of the more grotesque water, and dressed in Curtis’s workaday castoffs, Kim’s thin frame comically swamped by the folds of cotton. The tub was greenish-brown, even with the water drained, and Will considered cleaning it rather than face whatever skulked in the rest of the flat. Kim was still shivering, however, saying nearly nothing at all, his face only slightly pinkened from the postbath warmth that finally suffused Will’s limbs, and the glimpses he’d gotten of the sitting room had been too cozy to be chilly.
They thus tiptoed into a very quiet hall, Kim leaning against Will. Will paused for a moment, listening with head cocked.
“I will wait until he’s halfway sensible before I debrief him, Mr. Darling.”
DS’s voice was rich, in this comfortable domain he’d carved out for himself and his Curtis. It also held a hint of a whine, something that Will had never heard before, and he could feel Kim twitch in response under his arm. They shuffled into the sitting room, Will carefully avoiding looking at anything aside from the empty chaise longue, which, like the now-rugless hallway, bore few signs that a secret agent had been dripping the contents of a sewer all over it not half an hour before. He kept his eyes on Kim as Kim threw himself onto the furniture, grunting thanks at Curtis when he placed a steaming mug nearby.
“Sir.”
Kim’s voice was rough as he forced himself partially upright. He held himself delicately, face pre-winced in anticipation of the barrage of scorn Will knew they were in for, and stared into the contents of the mug as if divining their future.
Bloody brass, Will thought, and turned.
Curtis, sleeves rolled to his elbows, was leaning against the back of an elegantly winged armchair, observing with perfect disinterest. The chair itself was, of course, filled with DS, nearly unrecognizable in shirtsleeves and absurdly soft, curling hair, his lap occupied by a lump of black fur that stretched under the gentle motions of DS’s long fingers.
“Curtis tells me you very bravely refused his offers of help.”
Will, out of the same heart-thudding instinct that had made him as a schoolboy ignore his teachers in the shops, kept his eyes on the cat, which lifted its head enough to fix him with a curious amber stare before blinking. “Of course, sir.”
DS sighed. Will watched the cat lean in against DS’s chest, rubbing its cheek along one of his shirt buttons. DS’s fingers transferred to behind the cat’s ears as Curtis coughed.
“Darling was very proper. The rain surely won’t end until late, so—”
“We’ll go,” Kim said, looking up from his tea, at the same time as Will’s “Some umbrellas—”
DS laughed, harsh. The cat got to its feet and marched in place across his lap, kneading white-tipped paws against one of the chair’s arms.
“Enough, Freyja.” Curtis bent to pick up the cat, tickling its chin. “Or I’ll have your claws.”
“You’ll do no such thing,” DS drawled, shooting Curtis a glance that Will found bewilderingly inscrutable until he realized what he was seeing was fondness. “And that goes for you two as well.” He crossed one leg over the other, brushing some invisible speck of hair from his trousers as Will met his gaze at last. “Somehow we will survive this trial, even if my rugs do not.”
“Daniel,” Curtis said, warningly, as Kim made a distressed sound and Will, as ever, willed the name to go in one ear and out the other. “You hated them anyway.”
“I feel ill,” Kim whispered, replacing the mug upon a posh saucer with a jittering hand. Will reached back to squeeze his thigh.
“You will stay.” It was as clear an order as any they’d heard from DS, remarkably not undercut by the cat batting at DS’s ear. “You will eat my food. You will tell me how you trailed your prey into what appears to be the most vile underground, and lost him, at that.” He shuddered, reaching up to scratch the cat’s whiskers, his hand lingering against Curtis’s. Will looked away at Kim, still trembling. “We will evict you before closing time with my shoddiest umbrellas, and I will not miss them when you fail to return them, or to mention you ever saw the inside of this building.”
“Sir,” Will agreed, too heartily, watching Kim’s darting eyes. “Might we have some of that food?”
DS’s answer was tight and elegant disdain, the specific words lost on Will as he kept his attention fixed on Kim. There was cross-talk between DS and Curtis as both headed toward the kitchen, accompanied by a yowl.
“It is not your dinner, Mardöll,” DS admonished, voice drifting down the hall. “Please don’t—cursed girl!”
Will snorted and stretched. Kim remained fixated on the empty chair, licking his lips.
“We’ll survive,” Will murmured, taking one of Kim’s hands in his and running his thumb along the knuckles. “I’ll think up new forms of blackmail while we’re here. That soap has promise.”
Kim shook his head, minutely, as if shaking off a fly.
“I think that’s my—I think I did that.”
“What, sent DS poncy soap?” Will smiled. “You need to warm up still. We’ll eat and then—”
The cat padded into the sitting room, eyes narrowed, the tip of its tail twitching. Kim swore. “No.”
The cat sat in the doorway and yowled. Will was glancingly familiar with cats at best, but it did not seem like a particularly welcoming tone.
“Oh come on.” Kim was leaning as far away from the doorway as he could, half sitting on Will’s lap, shoulders shaking. “He said you went to some blasted lady friend—”
DS, hands on hips, dark eyes snapping, appeared behind the cat. “If you address my cat or any of my other very fine lady friends that way again, Secretan, I’ll have your balls.” Kim sputtered as the cat blinked and DS reached down to pet its spine. “I shall let her decide what is to be done with you, you beast.”
He marched back down the hall, gait swishing in a way that violently reminded Will of how Kim had apparently first encountered DS in some den of gin and queers. The cat, after a moment of staring, followed. Kim himself was at last very red in the cheeks again, a fact rather deflated by his cringing against Will’s neck.
“What in God’s name is going on?” Will asked, hands far softer than his words as he stroked the back of Kim’s head. “You have history with a bloody cat, I take it.” He shifted so that Kim’s weight was better balanced against his side. “You have history with DS’s bloody cat. Is there a creature in this city you have not annoyed?” When Kim only groaned, he prodded the inner crease of Kim’s thigh, ignoring the nearly drunken giggle and spasm this provoked. “Hmm?”
“Daniel did wonder where on earth you found her, Secretan.” Curtis, tea tray in hand, stood where his partner had just been, his face far more amused than Will had ever seen it. “Perhaps you might clear some things up before you leave.”
“Yes, Secretan,” Will agreed, dry, voice pitched halfway toward the more stentorian end of DS’s range as the man himself, tsking, slid back into his chair, arms around the cat in question. Curtis, biting back what appeared to be a most surprising titter, set the tray on the coffee table. Will cursed inwardly but forced himself to continue with the gag. “I think you owe this gentle lady a very grave apology, don’t you, Secretan?”
“Appalling,” DS murmured, rolling his eyes, as the cat flopped over to expose a white and very sated belly, her eyes huge and liquid. One of DS’s hands obediently began administering a belly rub. “But you have the lady’s attention. Proceed.”
Kim, shuddering, sat up once more and began to speak.