Archive of Our Own ^beta

“It’s shallow,” Dorothy says, as she places a final piece of tape over the dressing she applied after removing the buckshot from Cornelia’s abdomen, “but I would strongly recommend that you abstain from drinking for the next few days.”

“Thank you, Dorothy,” Cornelia says, while privately thinking how soon can I get out of bed. One did not simply endure an ordeal like the one they had without some form of liquid ministration, and Cornelia knows that they have a crate of whiskey safely hidden in the kitchen downstairs, liberated from the farmhouse they’d escaped earlier that day.

“Sleep,” Dorothy orders, not unkindly, and Cornelia nods in what she hopes is an appropriately cowed fashion.

Once Dorothy retires, Cornelia finds that she does not, in fact, move immediately. Indeed, whatever sedative Dorothy had administered to ease the process of removing the shot from Cornelia’s belly makes her wobbly on her feet when first she tries to rise. Adjusting her nightgown, she subsides back into the bed with an indignant sigh. Perhaps just a little bit of recuperation is in order; perhaps if she rests her eyes for just a moment...

Cornelia does not know how much time has passed when she wakes. It is dark outside the window, that much she can tell, and Dorothy’s numbing agent has long since worn off, if the dull but constant pain in her side is anything to go by. She is, she finds, ravenously hungry, and though there is a covered tray by her bedside, she finds that its contents are stone cold, and wrinkles her nose in disgust.

Thus motivated, she rises from her bed (finding that her legs are, this time, much steadier), and seeks out her slippers on the cold floor, as well as a dressing gown for modesty.

This house is as yet unfamiliar (Dorothy having brought them all back to her home in the aftermath of the night’s events), but Cornelia manages to find her way downstairs to the kitchen by the light of the moon reflected off the snow outside. Once there, she notices that there is already activity in the kitchen - a narrow strip of light is visible beneath the door. As she opens it, she finds that she already knows who she will find there.

Sebastian St. Battenberg is sitting at the kitchen table, a glass of whiskey clutched in one hand, and, in the other, a sandwich almost as large as his head. The table is spread with the array of utensils and ingredients he’d used to construct his monstrous snack, and when he looks up at her, he doesn’t look remotely abashed at having raided the larder, possibly owing to the already considerable depletion of the whiskey bottle by his hand.

“Hello, Mrs Cavendish,” he says, raising his glass to her and offering a laconic smile. “Are you haunted by your ordeal as well?”

Cornelia can see the evidence of Dorothy’s care on his person as well - he is wearing a robe that is stretching open over his broad chest, and beneath it a square of padded dressing is visible, stretched across his shoulder.

“Haunted by hunger, perhaps,” Cornelia says, moving forward to the table. She chooses not to admonish him for making a mess. He has saved her the trouble of seeking out the food herself, after all - even if, she notes with a sigh, he has cut the bread unevenly.

Cornelia sets about making herself a sandwich, choosing from Sebastian’s wide selection of preserved meats and cheese, relish and lettuce to construct an altogether more modest snack. As she finishes, Sebastian drains his glass and picks up the whiskey bottle again.

“For you?” he asks, eyebrow twitching, and Cornelia reads both camaraderie and challenge in the gesture, hears the unspoken against doctor’s orders?

“Naturally,” she replies, turning from the table to source herself a glass from one of the cupboards.

“Left,” Sebastian supplies helpfully, and a moment later Cornelia is sitting opposite him as a generous serving of whiskey is pushed across the table into her hand.

Cornelia raises her glass in thanks. “To silencing the ghosts,” she says, and Sebastian gestures his glass toward her before joining her in a drink.

Whiskey is not Cornelia’s usual drink of choice, but she has to admit this one is rather fine, warming all the way down and with enough of a kick that she feels her mind flutter almost immediately. She takes another sip, just to enjoy it, then picks up her sandwich and takes a bite.

As she eats, she surveys Sebastian. Despite being patched up (and not a terrible sight, with his robe entirely failing to contain his muscular chest) he does look haunted. His whiskers are less kept than usual, and his eyes, which usually sparkle with good humour, are shadowed with dark circles and seem far away.

Cornelia says nothing. It’s difficult to speak about the things they’ve seen; one is almost afraid to articulate the horror lest it gain even more power. Besides, they’re English - one does not discuss one’s feelings.

Sebastian seems to be sharing similar thoughts. Finishing his sandwich, he rubs the crumbs off his fingers then surveys his glass, lifting it to eye-level and tilting it in his hand to inspect the play of light through the liquid. Glancing up, he catches her watching him. She averts her gaze quickly, turning her attention to her sandwich and taking a hasty bite. Sebastian just sighs, though.

“Funny old world, isn’t it, Mrs Cavendish?” he asks, and Cornelia finds herself looking at him again, a wry laugh escaping her lips.

“Rather an understatement,” she says.

He tilts the glass again, glances at it, then back at her. “Alcohol is illegal, but demon creatures inhabiting the bodies of women are not.”

“To be fair,” says Cornelia, taking a sip of her drink, “they probably are. There must be some arcane law in a book somewhere that outlaws possession.”

Sebastian snorts. “Yes,” he agrees. “It is rather unacceptable. I’ll take a monster made of hands any day, but that...her…” He trails off, shudders, takes another swig that drains his glass.

“Mm,” Cornelia agrees. “The human is definitely more...real.” She hears it again, then, in her head, the wet gurgling sound that the thug in the barn had made when she’d slit his throat. She suspects she’ll be hearing that for a while.

Tipping her head back, Cornelia drains her glass as well.

“Another?” Sebastian asks, refilling his own, and Cornelia nods, picking up the other half of her sandwich as she pushes her glass across the table toward him.

“You know,” Cornelia says, “in my travels I heard tell of a tribe of natives in Fiji who must undertake an ordeal and face the darkest parts of themselves in order to become warriors. Perhaps that’s what we’re doing.”

Sebastian takes another swig of his drink, snorts, and glances at her sideways. “I’ve faced my darkest self more times than I care to count, Mrs Cavendish.”

“I wasn’t only talking about you, Sebastian.”

He looks at her properly, then, fixing her with a steady stare. “Seems to me your fiercest self comes out when someone threatens Joy. Is that your worst, though, or your best?”

Cornelia smiles, but it’s a wry twist, because oh for that to be one’s best, being willing to murder someone in cold blood in defence of another. It’s strange, though. When she thinks of her darkest self, it isn’t that moment in the barn that looms large, it’s something else, something imagined or half-remembered, one face underneath another in Hong Kong, and the cadence of Vinnie’s voice when he addressed her, almost as if he was familiar with her name, but in another context. What might she do, what might she allow to happen, to know…?

She drowns the thought in whiskey, tips the whole glass straight back.

“Another one, please,” she says to Sebastian, pushing her glass across the table again. He obliges, and she nurses her third glass a little longer, finishing her sandwich in silent contemplation.

“What kind of warriors are we, do you think?” Sebastian asks, after a time.

“Hmm?” Cornelia murmurs, pulled from her reverie.

“You said these natives have to face their darkest selves to become warriors. What sort of warriors do you think we are? I’ve been a soldier for my country, but this is bigger than that - you saw that city, just as I did. I thought it might have been about God, but when I threw my brother’s holy water on Angela Gresley, she just laughed at me. What are we fighting? What sort of warriors are we?” His brows are furrowed in frustration, or concern, or both.

Cornelia sighs. She shares his feelings, but she’s been around long enough now that she accepts that sometimes there just aren’t any answers - not for how she’d once woken up in a hotel lobby in Saigon fully dressed and corseted except for the chemise that should have been between her laces and skin, nor regarding the size and scope of the unimaginable evil they’ve found themselves fighting.

“I think,” says Cornelia, mustering up all the conviction she can (and that is not an inconsiderable amount, given that it once convinced the entire crew of a cruise ship in the Greek Islands that she was minor royalty), “that we are the kind of warriors who are doing our best, and will face whatever comes with as much shrieking or stoicism as is needed.”

At that, Sebastian smiles, and it’s the first light that’s reached his eyes all night.

“Well said, Mrs Cavendish.” He raises his glass to her. “Tally ho.”

And they drink until the bottle is gone, or until Dorothy comes downstairs and chases them back to bed. Cornelia can’t remember which happens first.