pigeon talk

[sideways]

Title: Pigeon Talk
AO3: Link
Rating: PG
Series: Widdershins (Jack O'Malley, Ben Thackery)
Wordcount: 3,478
Summary: One week he's the bastard second cousin of the king long kept in hiding, a rumour so far outside anything Mal's ever had hurled his way before that it's almost funny. The next, he talks to pigeons.
Remarks: How did this end up as long as it did. Good grief. Anyway, deeply hypocritical for Mal of all people to complain about Being Perceived on a discomfiting level, but also he totally would.

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One week he's the bastard second cousin of the king long kept in hiding, a rumour so far outside anything Mal's ever had hurled his way before that it's almost funny.

The next, he talks to pigeons.

"Who in hell'd want to do that?" Mal asks incredulously. At his feet, one of his co-accused bobbles in vacant-eyed circles about the cobblestones, hopeful of pastry crumbs. "What's a pigeon got to talk about anyway? Bread, and making a mess on statues."

"I don't know," Ben says, placidly turning a page. "It sounds like you could have rather a lot in common."

Mal flicks the next bit of pastry at him, just to watch the crackle of bright annoyance dance around his shoulders. It doesn't exactly work as planned, though; Ben pulls the book away, glowering, but then in one quick move he picks the crumb from its pages and flicks it right back.

Pigeon's victory in the end. It pounces greedily as soon as food hits the floor, so absorbed in a free meal it doesn't even notice Mal's foot until he shoves gently against it, sends it skittering off a few paces with its cloud of feeling only barely shading over with alarm before it settles back into patient watchfulness. Daft thing. Isn't good for them to get this easy around people. Sooner or later someone will kick out and mean it.

There's not much foot traffic so late in the evening, at least, the daytime crowds thinned into tolerable pairs and stragglers. Mal wouldn't be standing outside Bacchus Hall for anything less, not when he can feel quieter side streets calling like a cracked window slipping breezes through on a summer's stuffy midday. Wouldn’t even be standing here now, only Ben doesn't like to 'skulk’ when he has any say in the matter. His words, mind.

A group of young men trail past, ill-tempered voices pitching towards a row, and it spooks his pigeon at last; it flutters for the safer heights of a sign and perches there, feathers ruffled, bleeding mild reproach into the din.
"Why not cats or summat," Mal mutters, watching it. "Cats know things."

Ben sighs and snaps his book shut, one-handed. Mal catches an M and an N on the cover in a curly script, and something that'll either be guh or juh or nothing at all. Must be a good story; he doesn't often let anything fancy out of the library, let alone the front door.

"You shouldn't let this sort of talk get to you." Ben tucks the book under one arm, then sets his hand on his hip and gives Mal a look over his glasses: lecture pose. "At best it's harmless rubbish, and at worst - well, at least it's hard to believe anyone's trying to start trouble over pigeons."

"Who's got?" The bristle is old reflex, same as the pose. "S'just nonsense, is all."

"As is most of what a layman has to say about magic. Living in Widdershins only raises the bar of general knowledge so far, you know." An eyebrow hitches pointedly. "Of course, if you ever wanted to raise it a little further…"

Mal just phhfs. They've gone around the house more than once on this, and will again. The way Mal sees it, if there's nothing written anywhere saying he has to stand in front of a group of stodgy old wizards and let them pester him for hours on end - and his lawyer hasn't told him otherwise yet - he's not about to volunteer.

The only wizard who can get away with any of it rolls his eyes, coloured unsurprised all over, and adjusts his glasses. "Where did you even hear this latest 'nonsense'?"

Mal jerks his thumb at a carriage standing down on the corner waiting to go somewhere expensive, all full of big hats and silk scarves. Not one of them notices the buggerup slinking eagerly between their wheels. Big Ears itself hasn't been hanging around all that long, but there's always something like it about town, nosy and loud. Might have to do with the university and its crowd of brains that can't leave a question alone. "Where d’you think?"

Ben frowns at the carriage a little, like maybe he's picturing Mal hob-nobbing with the top hats and their ladies. "There's not about to be some sort of extremely public disaster, is there?"

"Nah. Big Ears in't pushy. Mostly."

"Not reassuring," Ben mutters, but the worry tinging the tips of his spirit dims. "If rather exemplary of the point."

Mal snorts. "Getting to one, were you?"

"I just mean that people are bound to be curious about..." He waves a hand. "Well, your ability to get information from roaming malforms, for one thing. Of course, it would be nice if anyone made an effort to at least research some basic theory before deciding pigeons are involved, but it's... human nature, or some such thing."

"Yeah, yeah." He slouches in well-practiced disinterest. "Human bloody nature - wasn't raised by wolves, y'know."

"All evidence to the contrary."

Just for that, Mal takes a bigger bite of pastry than actually fits, and says through the flaky mouthful, "Weren't fooled by me being royalty, then."

Ben leans hurriedly out of range, spirit fizzing and arching like a cat caught in a rainstorm. "If you were raised with a silver spoon in your mouth I'd have greater faith in you ever using one - ugh, would you stop that."

Mal's still grinning and sucking the last of the jam off his fingers when another set of feet pass by; the young lady closest takes one polite glance as she passes, then another, longer look, wide-eyed. Immediately she leans towards her companion, whispering, and his spirit flashes blue in a moment - cold blue, the kind that comes with a jump in the step and a cat's bum tightening of the lips. He digs his grip into her arm and hurries them both away, smart shiny boots rapping against the cobblestones. The woman's spirit is pulled along with them like a reluctant balloon, craning back over her shoulders, all huge staring eyes and flexing, lengthening fingers.

Mal looks the other way down the street, watching his pigeon strut and coo and preen its feathers, until the last of them's passed out of feeling.

Paper rustles steadily next to him, pages turning faster than Mal could ever hope to get words off. A quick metronome sound, vaguely soothing in its familiarity, until it's broken by a sigh. "Is it just me, or have they been playing the same few bars in there for a while now?" Ben grumbles.

"Told you they'd be late. Music boss is having fits about the show on Sunday." He scowls down at Ben. "An’ I heard that normal, before you ask, from Wolfe."

"It doesn't matter to me where you get your information," Ben says, but he eyes Mal in a way that makes him wish he'd kept his mouth shut.

Another page turns, slower, then Ben's glancing back again, faintly frowning. "O'Malley, you haven't been hearing - worse things, have you?"

Figures that's still on Ben’s mind. The mayor's people had been right on it too, a whirlwind of headlines and posters and even some speeches, each one firmly diplomatic: witches are real but they aren't evil, isn't it so nice that our witch saved Widdershins and maybe the whole world, please don't ask who broke it in the first place, la-di-dah and so forth.

Hard to know what to make of their guff seeming to work. Maybe just that everyone's too tired after the last few magic blow-ups to be bothered getting the pitchforks out all over again.

Mal shakes his head shortly. "Said I'd pass any o' that on if I did."

“Well, that’s something, at least.” Ben turns to his book again, but his fingers stay still, hovering at the edges, eyes unmoving across the printed lines. Poised and waiting. “I don’t suppose you’d care to share what’s actually bothering you, then?" And then swiftly, before Mal can do more than start to open his mouth: "And don't try to tell me 'nothin', you've been picking at the subject all afternoon."

That locks Mal's jaw right up a moment, sends him slouching lower against the wall. Hadn't been trying to pick.

“'Scuse me for making conversation,” he mutters, sulky, but he's definitely been living with Ben too long and never should have invited him to stay even longer, because Ben just lifts his gaze exasperatedly to the sky and says loudly, “Oh, please.”

He's not big-eyed and staring like the lady, but the prickly weight of his attention is its own kind of pressure, and Mal keeps his gaze fixed down towards the cobblestones mulishly, sticky fingers fidgeting in his pockets. Doesn’t want the word bothered, hates having feelings pinned to him by someone who isn’t even feeling them; but like a finger poking at a bruise, it’s not going away either.

“Everyone talking all the time, trying to figure me an’ being a witch out,” he says at last. "S'weird. Not like it's…" Anyone's bloody business, he wants to say, only he's the Witch of Widdershins, and Widdershins hadn't the sense to put itself on some faraway island or all the way up the top of a mountain. Widdershins likes people - is people a bit, in a way he's not even half through figuring out - so there's no getting clear of them. Or them of him. He shakes his head, bothered and irritated for it. “It's just weird, alright? That good enough for you?”

All the invitation needed for the next round of lectures on how normal it is for everyone to want to stick their nebs in the strangest parts of his life, pointed reminders that he stood in the mayor's office and declared himself the witch and has to own up to that forever - only the prickliness is ebbing, unexpectedly, softening into something more thoughtful, Ben’s brow furrowed as he folds his book closed again. No lecture pose, this time.

“I suppose I thought you'd be a little more used to the attention.” Eyes narrowing, Ben says, “You certainly found it amusing enough when the newspapers were bent on turning us into laughing stocks.”

Mal shrugs dismissively. “That wasn't ‘bout us. Not really.” He pauses, remembering. “‘Sides, the pictures were funny.”

With a distinctly sour edge, Ben says, “Not so funny.”

“Eh.” He draws a cigarette out of his breast pocket, rolling it between his fingers. Hadn't ever been Wolfe or Mal on the front page, done up for mockery in ink. He clicks his tongue, tucks the cigarette between his teeth. “Might have a point, there.”

Surprise flickers over Ben at the concession, and he blinks his gaze across the street to the Hall, thumb tapping at the spine of the book in his arms. “Well. At least we've avoided a repeat of that debacle so far.” He glances at Mal, an awkward sort of almost-sympathy drawing his spirit down into a low guttering. “If it’s any consolation, based on these rumours, I'd say it'll be a while yet before anyone could claim to have, er, ‘figured’ anything out at all, let alone the nature of being a witch.”

"Nnh. Maybe.” There's still sharpness in the air, the way there always is around Ben, and it's enough to pull a spark of heat out between his fingers; Mal holds it to the end of his roll-up, puffing gently until the ember catches. “Not used to being in a place long enough for people to get ideas. Least not so many of 'em." At Ben's querying look, he curls his lip and adds, "Someone decides you're a thief, you think you wait about t’ see what they come up with next?"

Thief, swindler, pervert, crackpot. The lover of that nice German man, and the hero of the Deadly Sins Crisis. All his life there's been a host of Jack O'Malleys that never lived anywhere but people's own minds, and if he can't say he's ever liked it, at least it never mattered, because they never knew him and never would.

Let them think what they wanted, he'd always said. Wasn't anything real - until it was.

The smoke's not doing as much as he'd like to settle the twisty feeling in his stomach. The pastry might have been a mistake, sitting in a great sugary lump down the bottom. Should have let his pigeon have its due.

“Don't matter anyhow.” If Ben's the only one saying it, it'll just piss Mal off, so the mature and responsible thing is to say it himself. He feels vaguely pissed off by the obligation instead, which he supposes is an improvement. “Humans an’ their flipping natures, right? Nothin’ anyone can do about it, so it don't matter.”

“Well,” Ben says, because he's a contrary little bastard sometimes. “Not exactly nothing. They are trying to be accommodating, you know. No instatement ceremony, no major public appearances, no portraits or interviews…”

“‘Til someone rich enough wants one,” Mal grouses.

“At which point they will still need to go through the appropriate channels,” Ben says sternly, chin raised high. Mal'd laugh in his face, except Ben's the reason there's By Appointment Only stamped on the door of the Witch House, and at least part of the reason anyone pays it any mind - having Wolfe standing behind him, with rolled-up sleeves and a pleasant smile, tends to do the trick for the rest. “As for what people talk about between themselves...” The staunch stance falters, Ben's shoulders dropping on a sigh. “Believe me, if there was any means of stopping gossip, they'd have it bottled and on apothecary shelves around the country. And then the walls of every building in England would fall in for lack of air, one assumes.”

Mal just grunts agreement, and tips his head back against the brickwork. English. Never been anywhere in the world people didn't talk, but not everyone had invented sixteen different ways to peel out the details of your neighbour's doings without so much as shaking hands with them.

Ben huffs a quiet laugh to himself, and at first glance Mal knows that shade in his spirit, so isn’t at all surprised whose name comes falling out next.

"Eliza would probably suggest, ah - 'counterintelligence' is how she put it." Mal doesn't bother with more than a blank look and, sure enough, Ben keeps going. "I mean, clearly people can't tell facts from fiction at the best of times. You could say almost any sort of nonsense you wanted and they’d likely take it up, no matter how far from the truth it was.”

Now he has Mal's interest. "Tell great flamin' porkies and keep ‘em chasing circles, you mean."

Something about hearing his own idea in Mal's words makes Ben pause, as if suddenly doubting the wisdom in having voiced it to begin with. "It was just something Eliza mentioned in dealing with that obnoxious Gentleman’s Theoreticals group. Apparently they kept trying to poach the Society’s notes... I'm not saying the same tactic necessarily applies here, of course.”

“Would serve ‘em all right, though,” Mal says, eyeing a group of tittering women, gathered to watch a lamplighter set his ladder up against the corner post, his spirit squirming under the attention.

“Yes, well.” Ben struggles briefly with some better impulse, then concedes to his own pettiness with a muttered, “Perhaps just a little. It might impress the value of asking an actual expert, instead of their local... street-sweeper.”

"Street-sweepers know things," Mal says absently. "S'like cats." He sucks on his teeth thoughtfully for a moment, then lifts his chin towards the darkening rooftops. "Me? I jus' read things in the chimney smoke."

Ben gives him that look again, which Mal meets with bland daring. It's Ben's own fault for suggesting it to begin with, after all; and besides, now they both know Ben's girl would get on board even if he won't.

Not anything that needs saying, of course. Despite half of everything about him, Ben's always been an alright bloke in the end; and he proves it when he sighs, his spirit churning around him in theatrical resignation, and says, “Really.”

“Yep.” Mal tilts his head back pointedly, blowing the stream of smoke skyward. “‘M a natural.”

“Well, that's very interesting, because I heard… Um.” Ben's eyes fix across the street, where strains of music are still rising from the hall. “I heard you used to play the clarinet?”

"You're going to be proper rubbish at this, aren't you," Mal says, rather cheered by the thought. "Was never born at all, you know. They found me at the anchor, all swaddled up in one of them curtains."

"Oh, be quiet.” Ben drums his fingers. “Fine. Alright. You're… repelled by the colour orange."

"Which 'un's that again?"

"Ah, you remember when we went to the Hunter's Folly, right after Voss had… you know. There was a lot of orange that night. It seemed very - loud."

"Aye, that's a fair enough fib then. Nothin' wrong with orange. Better off telling them I'll melt if you douse me in water."

"If the water happened to be hot and soapy, maybe. You, uh - let's see. You can turn into a pigeon. On full moons."

Mal snaps his fingers. "Here, now that'd be useful. Free bread."

They look at each other; and then Mal's grinning around his cigarette, and Ben's got his hand pressed to his mouth as if it can hide his smile, and up on the eaves and windowsills the pigeons are untucking their heads from their wings and blinking down at the sound of their snickering.

The orchestra wraps up its practice not long after the sun falls below the horizon, musicians gradually filing from the hall in a steady stream to head for carriages or distant lamp-lit streets, sturdy cases in their hands. Wolfe's one of the last out, of course, looking tired but not dragging upset along behind him. Which is good, because it's been impressed on Mal more than once that siccing buggerups on people for the crime of being wankers doesn't come under acceptable use of magic, even for the city witch.

"Oi, Wolfe," Mal says in greeting, watching him flush a gently pleased sunset overhead as his eyes pick them out against the brickwork.

“Mal, Ben.” As always Wolfe sounds like it is delightful chance to have found them here, instead of a near-daily event. His jacket is folded over one arm, satisfaction a rich thread through his spirit. “You have not been waiting too long, I hope.”

“Mm, a little while,” Ben acknowledges, closing his book for the last time. “How was the rehearsal?”

“Terrible,” Wolfe says, beaming. “Very normal, before a big performance. It means the evening itself shall be a great success. Ah, but I did warn you we may be finished at a later hour, did I not, Mal?”

“Yeah, yeah. No matter,” Mal says lazily, pushing off the wall. “‘M the witch, aren't I? Means I got control over all o’ time.”

Wolfe blinks, pausing in loosening his shirt collar. "Pardon?"

"Oh, ignore him," Ben says haughtily; he makes it all of two seconds with lips twitching and amusement showering off him in bright sparks before he adds, in a rush, "He isn't even the real witch, just an imposter brought in so the royal family doesn't have to publicly acknowledge the true witch from France."

Wolfe looks between them with open bemusement and fondness in equal measure. "I… feel as though I may have been in that hall for even longer than I thought."

“Bloody well seemed like it.” Mal bullies the violin case out of his hands, exchanges it for a second pastry squashed in its brown paper bag that makes Wolfe’s eyes light up appreciatively. Best part about having a stipend; not so much a waste to put a shilling or two towards the little pleasures now. “You're still playing for us after Sunday's do, yeah?”

“Yes, of course,” he says, and laughs when he peers inside the bag. “Mrs Farley's again, I see. She will claim you as bakery patron, at this rate.”

“She can ‘ave it.”

“Don't say that too loudly,” Ben says dryly as they turn for home. “They were discussing the matter of official endorsements just the other day, you know. ‘Complicated’ doesn't begin to describe it.”

“As always, we shall be careful to avoid misunderstandings,” Wolfe promises solemnly, and Ben snorts so indelicately that he pulls his nose out of the bag and squints at them both, a smile starting. “No - I have definitely missed something.”

“Aye, well,” Mal says easily, slinging the case over his shoulder. “Bet you'll hear about it soon enough. Y’know how pigeons talk."