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Enzo ran his thumb over Fiore’s knuckles. “Then I shall.”
Fiore’s taut frame relaxed just the merest fraction—the sight of which made Enzo’s heart overflow with disproportionate joy.
Enzo withdrew to dress for bed. He tried not to notice how Fiore’s good hand tangled in the bedclothes when he slipped out of his grasp. Disrobing, however, seemed to at least draw Fiore’s notice away from the window. And there seemed a ghost of the appreciative gleam Enzo loved so well as Fiore’s eyes trailed up and down his bared flesh.
The nightshirt Enzo drew over his head was a twin to the one Fiore now wore. There’d been no time to fetch any of Fiore’s things from theKingfisher, nor any opportunity to ask Fiore’s permission to do so. Fiore must have realized by now that he’d been clad in one of Enzo’s own nightshirts—indeed, his small frame seemed to drown in it—but he’d made no comment on it. Doubtless his mind had flown far off to other matters. Enzo only hoped he might draw it back in due course. And as Enzo returned to his bedside, Fiore did seem to perk up a little.
“May we have a light?” Fiore asked as Enzo neared.
“Of course,” Enzo replied easily.
Fiore hesitated again. “May we keep it burning?”
The threads came together for Enzo in a flash. The setting sun. The descending darkness. The horrible sunless, moonless, starless void Fiore had plunged into and dwelt in when his captors dragged him down to the catacombs and held him there for hours, where he’d suffered wounds and mutilations and fled into the deepest and darkest crevice to escape.
“Of course,” Enzo said again, though it hardly felt sufficient. He’d set every lamp, torch, brazier, and candle in the whole palazzo ablaze throughout the night if it meant his Fiore could rest without fear.
But just those two words seemed enough to ease Fiore’s woes, as his rigid body relaxed and sank further back into the pillows.
And the simple act of lighting the oil lamp on the nightstand provoked a small and slight yet unmistakable sigh of relief.
Dr Venier returned for one final round of termometro, stetoscopio, and anodyne before bed. Then she departed for the evening, which seemed to relieve Fiore more than the anodyne itself.
Enzo made his way around the bed to the other side, keenly aware of Fiore’s gaze fixed on him all the while. He drew back the blankets and slipped between the bedclothes beside him. At first he’d intended to merely lie alongside, as near as he could without touching him and bringing pain to already wounded flesh, but Fiore’s desperate haunting gaze begged him, as did the feeble gestures of his bandaged hand, to draw still nearer, until he found himself on his side curled around Fiore’s frail form, with Fiore’s wounded hand entangling in his hair. Fiore’s good hand reached for him as well, and at its bidding Enzo laid his arm across Fiore’s chest to clasp him as tightly as he dared.
“Like this?” Enzo murmured.
Fiore nodded and buried his face in Enzo’s collar just as he’d done when Enzo had carried him out of the catacombs. Slowly yet surely his shuddering breaths deepened until, at last, he drifted off into true sleep.
Enzo ought to have dropped off as well. His mind raced on. Half of it ran on elation. Fiore had awoken. Fiore still breathed. Fiore lived, and he had him in his arms again, and no foul monster could tear him from Enzo’s grasp.
The other half wallowed in melancholy.
The sight of Fiore’s wounded face had pained Enzo only so much as he knew how a blade to the face felt—twice-over—and though it might prove the least of Fiore’s agonies, still he would’ve spared him it.
But to have Fiore demand a mirror, and for Enzo to be weak enough to give it to him, and to watch how his beautiful features, no less beautiful for what they’d endured, crumbled in hopeless misery, was more than Enzo could well stand.
It wasn’t vanity, that much Enzo knew. It was the look of an artisan who’d lost his hand—or his finger, Enzo reflected bitterly—and knew he might never ply his craft again. Certainly never to the same acclaim.
And so at last, by force rather than by choice, Fiore had accepted Enzo’s offer.
The cruel twist of fate in granting his fondest desire did not escape Enzo. His heart held no blame for Fiore considering him the last resort. All his bitterness stemmed from wishing Fiore weren’t compelled to settle for him and could instead choose as he pleased.
Still, having been chosen, he would do all in his power to ensure Fiore lived a life of ease and comfort for all his days.
And it was this resolve which allowed Enzo to finally shut his eyes and claim some sleep of his own before dawn.
He awoke at daybreak as Dr Venier came in to perform the morning’s examination. Fiore, mercifully, slept through it. He likewise slumbered on through Enzo’s breakfast. Enzo forced himself to swallow the coffee but couldn’t manage more than a few bites of the brioche. Fiore continued sleeping throughout Enzo’s ablutions and dressing.
Pulling on his own fresh hose and drawers made Enzo think on what Fiore had to wear. Since his departure from theKingfisherhad been unplanned, nothing of his had found its way to Ca’ Scaevola, including clothes. For shirts he could probably borrow Enzo’s, as he’d done for the nightshirt, though the sleeves were a touch over-long, and so would be any breeches or hose. Nothing Fiore had worn in the catacombs remained fit to wear again.
Enzo was still puzzling over the matter when Fiore awoke at last just before midday. It began with fitful stirrings, the limbs coming to life again in jerks and starts, the flickering ghost of a grimace passing over the handsome features, the bleary eyes blinking open beneath a furrowed brow, and the body which moments before had fallen soft in languid slumber going tense and rigid with uncertainty and fear, until at last those dark eyes fixed upon Enzo, and the hunched shoulders descended just a hair. The eyes smiled. The lips did not.
Enzo tried to smile enough for both of them. “Good morning.”
Fiore’s mouth echoed the greeting, though his voice didn’t join in. He swallowed hard and raised his hand towards Enzo.
Enzo gently accepted his grasp and slipped his free arm behind his shoulders to help him upright. Fiore stood, trembling like a newborn foal, and leaned heavily against Enzo as they walked to the window. There Fiore paused, as he had yesterday, and so Enzo relented and settled him down onto the window seat rather than putting him back to bed straight off.
