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It was the smell of smoke that woke him. It tickled at his nose, offending his sharper senses.
Well, sharper than Laios's and Marcille’s, anyway– Chilchuck was not so sure he’d have Izutsumi beat, but, then again, it did not matter. That kid was going to sleep in every morning no matter what. The entire dungeon could be burning down, Chilchuck thinks, and he would still have to manually extract her from her (or, more likely, his ) bedroll.
Senshi was likely methodically scraping together a fire– presumably for cooking breakfast– with his flint and kindling. The mental image of his friend crouched down, gently blowing life into the flicker he tended each morning, was sweet enough to make Chilchuck scowl.
He wasn’t sure why; the saccharine conscientiousness of Senshi tended to cause him to pendulum from oddly giddy to muddled and perturbed at his own inspired lightheartedness. It was dangerous, in a way– dangerous in the same manner in which Senshi’s cooking tempted Chilchuck to break his restrictive eating habits. The habits he’d curated for years now– the habits that kept them all safe from weight-triggered traps.
It all left Chilchuck feeling decidedly wrong-footed and skittish, which only served to deepen his foul mood. If there was anything to gripe about, it was his own griping itself, after all.
He cracked his eyes open to find them painfully dry; closed or open, the discomfort persisted. He decided that means he may as well join Senshi and make himself useful to the party. With the fire now well-lit, it was getting much too hot to have Izutsumi’s weight on him, anyway.
Extracting himself with practiced ease from the purring mass of black-and-white fur, he slipped into his gambeson, gloves, boots, and belt before sidling over to the small fire.
“Hey, Senshi,” Chilchuck rasped, still blinking.
“Mornin’, Chilchuck,” Senshi rumbled, smiling up at him from where he crouched, tending the small flames.
Chilchuck grabbed for his waterskin, desperate to hydrate. Between his eyes like sandpaper and throat catching uncomfortably, he was clearly in need of some water. He flexed his fingers around the waterskin, marveling at the twinge of tendons shifting seamlessly within. Marcille had done a surprisingly decent job putting him back together after the bicorn had done its best to leave him with a stump and no picklock job.
“I’ll make something hearty for you today, don’t ya worry,” Senshi said, round eyes earnest in the gloom. He had been watching Chilchuck, tracking him in that quietly observant way of his. It made Chilchuck bristle.
“Why would I be worried,” he groused, uncomfortable with the attentiveness and care and the too-early hour.
“Well, turn of phrase, I s’pose. But I mean to say, I’ll keep in mind ya need some extra sustenance today. Yesterday was hard on ya.”
Oh. So that’s what this was about. Chilchuck ground his teeth, feeling his molars squeak.
Waterskin forgotten, he turned to face Senshi with a hand on a cocked hip. He glared daggers at the back of his mane of hair. Senshi continued to crack eggs into his pot, completely unaware.
“I’m fine, Senshi. Seriously.”
Senshi did not look up from his task, merely humming in acknowledgement. The lilt and the twist of his mustache conveyed his skepticism well enough, however.
“Look, Marcille’s not a healer really, not like Falin anyway, but she knows enough, clearly. I’ve got a functioning arm and hand now and everyone is fine. It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”
Senshi finally paused his ministrations to their would-be meal, looking up to level Chilchuck with an unwavering stare that seemed to lance straight through his unaffected air. Hell, even he was buying it. Why did Senshi have to be so annoyingly perceptive?!
“Mmm. Healing takes a lot of energy. And energy stored as fat helps your body to be able to be healed. I may not like magic too much, but there’s some things it excels at. I’m willing to admit to that. And from what our resident mage has told me– and what we all learned with Falin– it takes a lot of calories to heal good and proper.”
Chilchuck winced at the mention of Marcille’s dark incantations, unable to keep his eyes from darting to her well-bundled sleeping form.
“I’m healed, Senshi. Look!” Chilchuck flexed his fingers at the dwarf, shaking his arm out. “Satisfied?” He scowled openly now, making his annoyance clear. “I thought you were over this whole treating-me-like-a-youngster shit. I thought you knew better, now.”
Senshi’s eyes went wide at that, and his hands rose, palms out, at an attempt to pacify Chilchuck’s righteous anger. Quick as a lash of flame, his indignation that always simmered somewhere below the surface took far less stoking than their campfire to burn– and burn hot.
“No, no, nothing like that. I just mean to say– well. Yer pretty thin, Chilchuck, and–”
“What!”
“–healing takes lots of calories. I don’t want you to be more underweight than usual–”
“Don’t patronize me, Senshi. I can take care of myself. In fact, I did it perfectly fine for nearly 30 fucking years so far–”
“Can you two old men shut the fuck up, please?!” Izutsumi hissed from the tangled mess of Chilchuck’s bedroll.
Without waiting for an answer, she pointedly flopped over until she was facing away from them. They had a perfect view of her tail lashing angrily from where it stuck out from the bedding, white tail tip like a particularly crazed moth in the gloom.
Chilchuck, briefly arrested in his tirade by the flicker of guilt that he had taught her to speak in Common like that– oops – blinked back over to Senshi to see his friend steeling himself. Something in Chilchuck quailed at the sight.
“Chilchuck, I’m not trying to be patronizing or talk down to ya or even nag ya. I’m trying to take care of ya. I care about you and part of that is making sure you’re okay and doing well. And it’s– it’s not just about the calories. I want to make you a nice meal because you had a rough time yesterday. And I don’t mean just physically. So, please, Chil, just hear me out. Can I make you an omelette?”
Chilchuck felt a wave of heat rise from his chest to his cheeks and all the way to the top of his head. Senshi’s declaration of devotion and genuine care– there was no other word for it, no way to dance around it or write it off in his head, not now– left Chilchuck feeling a little to the left of his body. It frightened him, but, somehow, the fear felt good. It felt like a fear borne of thrill, not terror. It was thrilling to hear Senshi speak about him so plainly. He felt all at once exposed and paradoxically safe, enclosed from the harshness of the outside world and the horrors of the dungeon by Senshi’s earnest declaration of care.
Without replying, Chilchuck stepped into the soft glow of the firelight, let it dance across his own face. He imagined it revealed to Senshi his flushed cheeks and his wide eyes. He hoped what Senshi saw there would convey the depth of his feelings.
Chilchucks eyes darted between Senshi’s, round and open and earnest and steely gray with determination. He huffed a quiet laugh at the ridiculousness of the entire thing– that Senshi should have to look as if he were about to do battle with a dragon just to convince Chilchuck to accept his care.
All the fight and ire left him at once. Waterskin still sagging heavy in his hand, nearly brushing the dungeon floor, he stepped closer. He smiled at Senshi, and noticed the tension leaving the dwarf as well. Chilchuck let his head fall, neck stretched out. If Laios were watching them he would probably make some sort of comment about physical shows of trust, and Chilchuck would be forced to chuck the waterskin at his stupid head. But Laios was snoring in the corner, and Chilchuck and Senshi were here, alone.
So, relishing this thought, Chilchuck let himself tip forward into Senshi, grounding himself in the smell of the smoke caught up in his thick beard.
Gingerly, as if afraid Chilchuck would bolt or rear back and spit at him, Senshi’s arms came up to rest around his back. Chilchuck found himself instinctively gripping at Senshi’s front with his free hand, fingers twisting in his hair.
“Yes.”
“Yes?”
“Yes, you can make me an omelette. This morning.”
Senshi beamed.