Jon claimed cheeky and creepy with a passive smirk. He would have said he’d predicted every tick of Colin’s response, called him simple to figure out, but, in reality, it was a pleasant surprise, Colin’s ease with him and, to an extent, the reverse.
“I didn’t say I had been checking on your dreams. You say I’m not the biggest feature anymore, but it is, unfortunately, telling that was the first assumption as if you’d seen me recently, something I’d rather not dig into for my own comfort.” Jon undoubtedly had gone cheekier as his old friend had said, because even those words were pitched with amusement, not the old undercurrent of defensive disgust. “I may have checked on you once or twice that way though.”
“Not a tower, no.” He didn’t so much as twitch a smile at Colin’s forced laugh. “Did she tell you much about the months she spent with me on the run? I made a few miscalculations. I would do better if given another chance. I’ve told her so.” It was gravely upsetting he hadn’t seen her tonight.
“I was not.” Jon annunciated every word. His humor wasn’t that good and he felt wetness that said his nose was beginning to bleed as he stared Colin down. It was a long second frozen, then he pinched the bridge of his nose briefly as he shook his head as if simply in annoyance and not making sure the blood wasn’t going to run out of it and make him obvious, and came back with a smile of too many teeth that didn’t reach his eyes, ignoring the previous staredown and giving Colin some version of the comeback that was supposed to enter into male banter when both sides were too secure and knew each other too well to get offended. ‘’I suppose it’s fair. I didn’t confirm whether I’d ever slept with yours.” He was the one forcing a chuckle now and it sounded like he’d never even heard one before. The intensity he’d tried to shake off settled again, Jon truly unable to let the joke slide and move on despite knowing better than to show anger or look unstable tonight. He kept his tone low, about all he could do. “If I ever thought you had slept with Delphina, I would flay the skin from your body, strip by strip. I would grow plants inside your lungs while you were still alive and let them burst from your throat. Not the most intimidating death threat, I’m aware, but it would offer a sense of completion since I’ve set murder scenes by air, fire, and water, and burying you alive would be less satisfying since I would not get to watch. That would not be the end, but I do have to contain even the hypothetical right now. Just say you understand.” He wiped the blood from his upper lip and summoned a napkin. Unfortunate he had reacted that way. He was already berating himself.
“Not under the table, but sometimes at a few you occupied.” After he’d gotten to complete his outburst, he was jovial again, though still more muted than before.
‘‘I assumed. After it keeps happening, it becomes evident.’‘ Perhaps Colin’s mind was just working very well in the dreaming department, but it certainly also helped that Scorpius used his trick on him back when the Maytes had him caged. Now, the water elemental felt experienced enough to tell when his mind is being intruded. ‘‘It’s nicer in person,’‘ he found a pleasant way of saying it, not exactly fond of people in his head and the ease that took them to get there.
He didn’t want to be Delphina’s guardian angel or intrude in Jonathan’s marriage with her. He hadn’t even spoken lately with the red head, to know what she had in mind. Yet, almost instinctively, it was on the tip of his tongue to advise Jon to better drop it and pick it up from an entirely new angle. Delphina never discussed the possibility of a divorce, rather than the trust she had that Jonathan would come back, apologize for everything and miraculously return to his seventeen year old image. Colin was no realist, but this seemed off market entirely, not that he had the patience or the interest to explain it actively to Del. Maybe now that Jonathan hoped to return, he might reconsider, though. It was difficult to meddle into their business but, more or less, he felt like it was some sort of his duty to weigh in. ‘’She told me just a bit,’’ he confessed, with the same distracted and airy attitude he usually carried himself with. ‘’But I don’t know what makes you hold onto it so tightly. The whole eating death thing might not be Del’s type of diet. It would be silly to ask anything like that from her.’’
Colin missed Jon’s reaction for what it was, though he was silly enough to think that nothing really changed between them, while Jonathan changed in the past years. Like the zoo-keeper reckoning wrong the loyalties of the panther he’d witnessed grow up, Colin shook his head, filled with empty certainty on that. ‘’I highly doubt it, cupcake, not that I would have a wife anymore,’’ he sighed sweetly, tone gentle even though condescending. Mercy was an old bruise, but not one he couldn’t control past nose bleeds. Besides, violence was hardly Colin’s style.
The next was beyond Colin’s understanding. He had the ease to ignore threats generally, but this was explicit and serious enough, to the background noise of blood dripping out of Jonathan’s mouth and noise subtly. It was impossible not to freeze at the sight. Very attentive, very relieved to be lucid in that moment and still composed, Colin replayed some of the ideas that his old friends put into words in his mind, to figure out what to say. He still had the arrogance to say he was able to tame Jon’s temper, even now that it was revealed - even to him, now, very personally - the extents of it. ‘’I’ve read poetry about flowers in lungs, but it’s usually unnecessarily sentimental. I’d have thought better things about you,’’ he commented, voice as lowered and rushed, though his tongue was stalling for his mind to decide on an appropriate behavior.
Instead of anything else, his fingers reached for his pockets, searching desperately for Colin’s real best friends. He offered the packet to Jonathan, first, open and only half empty. ‘‘Do you want a cigarette?’’ He was briefly reminded of another conversation they had back in Hogwarts. ‘‘It really does help with the frustration or whatever it is you’re feeling.’‘ Easy-going and apparently less than bothered, he indulged the blood wiping closing his eyes and allowing a simper on, elegant and forgiving.
It was moments like those that defined one’s character, he thought. He reminded himself of how he spoke to Darius back when everything was a playground and he didn’t realize what was to potentially fear. Back when he’d threatened Roxanne and back when Roxanne seemed, and possibly was, defenseless. ‘’Don’t ever threaten me, Jonathan. I’m not merely relying on the sentimentalism and saying you’d miss me if I ever took these empty threats to heart, but I’m one of the few people who still speak kindly of you. You should value that more. People have been saying awful things lately.’’
He was calm, calculated, putting everything in order. ‘’If I make a joke, I don’t expect a duel on whose cock is bigger. If I make a joke, it’s natural we laugh. Or I laugh while you pout, because you’re always a little rigid and I’m always a little over the top and that’s always been the comedic relief in our dynamic.’’ He felt like he was suddenly preaching manners, and that pissed him off too, but there were a few moments in life when you had to say something, even if the whole concept of speaking in this manner to a serial killer seemed out of this world. Well, Jon as a serial killer threatening to kill him was close to out of this world as well. This was called for, and still friendly, in a way. ‘’If you don’t like my tasteless joke, you say, Colin, your humor is off and you couldn’t even sleep with your wife let alone another’s. I understand you’re bothered by my tasteless joke, maybe I apologize, maybe we laugh it off, maybe I don’t go home thinking you’re a psychopath all the way down.’’ Colin nodded at himself, pleased with the eloquence and with how he stood up for himself without trying to compare dicks or elemental power capacities. He thought it was best if this was never to be discussed with Roxanne, for her reactions would heavily exceed his and, besides, there was no reason to, when he drew the line in his own manner, slowly maturing even against his will.
With a margin of error of a second, Colin returned to the polished, out of the box, fresh, distracted, charming smile as if it’s been a mask to tie all along. Truth be told, the mask was the rest, but the smiling, if anything. He didn’t understand what that meant, but it could have meant many things. Colin was momentarily too stressed out to get into details. Still grinning, he nodded, again graceful and indulgent. ‘’Hopefully it was a table worth of your time,’’ the polite closing remark was delivered with a matching head nod as Colin was getting ready to subtract himself.
