Mishka and Joan

Raef’s wedding went nicely. She was happy for him.
Mishka, though, was so pleased by the events he’d gotten drunk off his ass, as
usual, so she sighed and hauled him upstairs.

“Hey Joan,” Mishka said, drunk, into her neck,
as she dragged him.

“Yes?”

“I met someone, lebiyahi,” Mishka said. “Someone
special. A man. Love him more than anything else in the world.”

“Lebi… Le-hih… leb… the fuck is that word?”

“Lioness. My lioness,” Mishka sang.

“Mm.” Not a bad nickname, if he had to give her
a nickname. “Who’d you meet, mousie?”

Mishka sighed dreamily. “His name’s Hansel
Granger.”

“Ah, your husband. You’ve met your
husband.”

“Mhm.” Mishka stared, glassy-eyed, at the
ceiling. “Y’know-- y’know, we live multiple times, all of us. We come
back.”

“Oh, not this shit again.” Joan cursed as
she tried to pull him up the last few steps.

“We do! We do. And I bet… I was something super
cool in a past life, like, a dragon, or something. And you… you were probably a
dragon too, and we were probably friends. And… if I ever die, I’m gonna find
you again. And find him, too. And. Goro. And. Roddy. And Raef and—everyone
else. Over and over.”

“Uh huh,” Joan said, oddly touched. Mishka
finally got his feet under him as they reached the landing. “I don’t know,
Mishka.”

“Mm?”

“Hm.” She unlocked her room. “I don’t know. I
just… I feel old, Mishka. I feel—tired, somehow. If people do come back… I’m
not sure I want to. Maybe I’ve already been through a lot of lives, or
something. I’ll rest for a few centuries and then come back. I wonder if that’s
an option.”

“But I’ll miss you,” Mishka said, and started to
cry.

“Uh,” Joan said. Mishka buried his face in her
shoulder, weeping and clinging to her. Joan delicately levered him up. “Let’s
get you home, Mousie.”

Later, in the morning, she’d take Mishka to Hansel,
and she’d explain: He said something about how we all reincarnate when we die,
and next life he’d come looking for me. Then I told him I wasn’t sure I wanted
to reincarnate next time and he started crying.

Not tonight, though. Tonight she was going to
bed.

She gently lowered him into bed.

“Joan,” Mishka said. He started singing,
“Joanne, Jo-Anna, my lioness, my darling, my sword and shield. Will you bear my
children? Let me live in your den and sleep in your fur. I love you, d’you know that? I love you.”

“Mhm.” She took off her boots and plopped
down in bed next to him.

Mishka rested his head on her shoulder. He
looked oddly sad, for some reason, staring blearily at her. Then, apropos of
nothing, he suddenly said, “D’you love me?”

“What?”

“D’you love me.”

Joan shifted uncomfortably. “Uh.”

Mishka stared at the ceiling instead of her,
blinking at it, looking oddly sad. And, with a jolt, Joan realized: he was
being serious. Her face felt hot. “The fuck brought this on?”

“Wine,” Mishka said.

He didn’t say anything else. Joan sat there for
a few minutes in silence. Mishka always told her he loved her... in a sarcastic
voice, raising his eyebrows just a little, or rolling his eyes. Or he’d say it
offhandedly, like it meant nothing. Or he’d exaggerate like it was all some
fucking joke to him.

She always thought he was being a sarcastic
asshole.

But. Oh. He…

Actually meant those things. Didn’t he?

He was just **pretending** to be sarcastic.
Waiting to see if she’d say it back, or show some kind of vulnerability.
Testing the waters. Mishka always had such a fucking weird, backwards way of
communicating. And Joan never said it back, never picked up on it.

It still unnerved her how quickly they’d gotten
close after being locked up together with Diva. People like Mishka weren’t
supposed to like Joan. Back when Joan was small and she worked for the temple
of Io, there were pretty merchant girls who wore fine clothing and mocked Joan
for her oafishness. Mishka was pretty, and… clever, and… funny, like those
girls she’d grown up with, the mean ones. Part of her still could not believe
Mishka liked her.

“Yeah,” Joan said.

“Mm?” Mishka was half-asleep against her neck.
She curled an arm around his waist.

“I like you when you’re drunk,” Joan said, in a
roundabout way. But it came out embarrassed and uncomfortable and awkward. She
cleared her throat. “I, uh. Mean. I like you when you’re sober, too.”

“And when I’m a dick?”

“Especially when you’re a dick.”

Mishka made a gloating sound.

“Shut the fuck up,” Joan said,
embarrassed.

“I tricked you into liking me. Admit it.”

“You didn’t trick me into shit,” Joan said.
“Maybe I just liked you on my own.” She sighed, and she let herself drift
off.

She was glad Mishka had found Hansel. Maybe Mishka
could go around the next few times with him while Joan took a fucking nap in
the afterlife. Assuming all of Mishka’s kooky bullshit was true, of course.
Which it wasn’t.

“I love you,” Mishka said one final time.

“Shut the fuck up,” Joan said. Then, once she
was sure he was asleep, she muttered, “I love you too.”