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“You tire yourself too much.” Jasper murmured, and Serge could hear the worry and exasperation in his voice in equal measure.
“I could say the same about you.” Serge rolled his shoulders and winced at their soreness.
“That’s different.”
“I’m sure.”
“Well, it is!” Jasper huffed defensively, and Serge smiled in spite of himself, head tipped back on the musty armchair he and Jasper had salvaged from a burned house some time ago. “I have bigger wings than you do!”
And whole wings, Serge thought before he could stop himself. He heard Jasper’s short intake of breath.
“Well...” He said softly. “Yes. That, too.”
“You’re right.” Serge assured him hastily, cursing himself for even thinking of it. His burnt wing bothered him less and less as time wore on, the pain easing down into a low throb when he flew, and it was easy to forget that he now had limitations that Jasper did not. It didn’t come naturally to Serge to give himself a break, and the idea of inactivity while Jasper worked rankled slightly.
He supposed he should consider himself lucky that he could fly at all.
“You won’t be able to fly at all if you keep this up.” Jasper blurted petulantly, as though he couldn’t help himself.
Serge lifted his head off the armchair to level Jasper with an incredulous stare. This, too, was an adjustment Serge had to make after following Jasper to Crimson. The mind-reading. “Why,” he said exasperatedly, the throbbing in his wing egging him on, “do I even bother to talk to you when you can pluck the answers straight out of my head?”
Serge was sitting in an armchair in front of the hearth, Jasper next to him on a slightly moldy sofa, the fireplace giving the only flickering light in the dark room. The sun had set hours ago, and their shadows shivered against the wall, moving with the flame. They hadn’t bothered to light any candles, tired as they were, but Serge could clearly see the hurt on Jasper’s face before he looked away.
Immediately, guilt sunk in. There he was again, smacking the helping hand away. “I’m sorry. I didn’t-”
“It’s fine.” Jasper smiled a little sadly. “it would drive me crazy, too.”
“No, it doesn’t-” Serge sat up, frustrated with himself. “it doesn’t drive me crazy. I’m just….tired. I shouldn’t have said that.”
Jasper smiled again and Serge wished he would stop. Jasper pushed himself to one side of the sofa as though making room on one side. “Come here.”
Serge obediently stood and approached the sofa, determined to make up for what he said. He gingerly sat down next to Jasper, only to be pulled down (that gives him pause; he sometimes forgets how casually strong Jasper is} by the shoulders. His head is in Jasper’s lap before he even processes what’s happened, and his long, pale fingers are combing through Serge’s hair before he can protest.
This isn’t new, the intimacy. Jasper had no qualms about hugging or hand-holding, and they’ve done this (whatever this is. Whatever they are) many times. But something felt different. Jasper felt fond, almost soft as he combed his hair back from his forehead. Jasper shouldn’t be feeling fond. He should be feeling resentful, and well justified in it.
“Serge, relax.” He murmured. “I’m not offended.”
“I shouldn’t have said that.” Serge repeated, looking up to where Jasper was slightly bent over him. “It…sometimes it’s a relief. That you can hear me without speaking.”
Jasper sighed thoughtfully. “It is for me, too. We need to work on your communication skills, Serge.”
He said it playfully, but the ‘we’ in the sentence caught Serge off guard. He couldn’t remember exactly when ‘I’ became ‘we’. When they became a seamless team outside of wish granting. When they became bound so close together.
Serge pushed into Jasper’s fingers and was rewarded with a light scratching of nails. “I know.” He smiled wryly. “Communication is a difficult thing to work on when you live with a psychic.”
“Empath.” Jasper corrected cheerily. “And don’t you dare use that as an excuse to not work on your communication.”
“Then how about this for starters?” Serge tipped his head back to make eye contact, and Jasper’s fingers stilled, Crimson eyes flashing in the darkness. It should frighten him. It doesn’t. “I’m happy here in Crimson. I’m happy I can make real change. And I’m happy to be doing it with you.”
Jasper beamed, cradling Serge’s head in hands strong enough to crush him. “Me, too.”
Serge allowed his eyes to slide shut as the fire flickered on, warm and constant against the falling twilight.