It is extremely hard to bake without eggs, or lard, or milk. Harv had been assured they had been somewhere in the kitchen, but he was too nervous to approach anything to do with magic. He was fortunate enough to find some flour, salt and sugar laying out on the counter. The result, a sweet flat wafer, not unlike communion bread. It wasn't the worst thing Harv had ever made, but it was no cake.
"What is that thing?" Finn said with disgust as he reentered the kitchen. Harv looked back at his strange creation. What would he even call it, a cookie?
"It's edible." He said. Finn circled around the kitchen island, giving Harv's hard work a wide berth.
"Then you eat it." Finn poked him in the chest. "I asked for a cake, not an edible." Harv held his tongue. All he asked Harv to do was cook, and he did so with what little resources he had. Finn looked at him with smug superiority, and Harv cursed himself for not thinking of a better lie to get into the house.
"I'm not hungry." Harv said in a short, deliberate pace.
"I guess it'll have to go into the garbage then." Finn sighed. Harv longed to be on the front where punching your problems was the preferred solution. This kind of intrigue was grating at his nerves. It took all his strength not to accuse Finn of acting out of cruelty when he slowly slid his hard work into the trash. Beauty could make people so wicked sometimes. "There must be something you're good at." How delicious it would be to remind him that violence, particularly toward the unjust, was his specialty. That probably wouldn't help him right now, even if it would be funny to watch that perfect face remember Harv's armor wasn't decorative.
Finn led him to a room with three glass walls that overlooked the garden. Tables and shelves were full of plants Harv had never seen in varying states of health. A set of matched outdoor furniture looked caked in months worth of dust. The ground was covered in shriveled dead leaves. Finn had set up with tea and scones in the one clean corner of the room.
"Well?" Finn took a long sip of black tea. "Tools are in the shed over there. You do know how to clean, don't you?" Finn snickered behind Harv's back when he marched over to the tool shed. Harv picked up a broom, five bristles fell to the floor as soon as he moved it. "Make sure you sweep those up too." Finn said.
Harv did his due diligence, sweeping up each leaf and beating the dust out of all the cushions. He may have been too aggressive with the dusting, but each clink of the witch's china irked him. People this wealthy usually had their own servants, and it was clear Finn was doing this on purpose. As he ranted in his head, he lifted the couch to get the few stray leaves that tried to escape. He set it down as easily as a plate.
"Is this all I have to do, or do you need me to walk each leaf to the compost heap?" Harv looked up, and Finn's impish glee had vanished. Had he let the mask slip too much?
"...You didn't hurt yourself, did you?" Finn asked quietly.
"Doing what?"
"The couch." Finn pointed with a soft hand.
"No." Harv shifted uncomfortably when the witch's son hummed something akin to appreciation. He was almost sweet when he wasn't barking orders. Finn quickly masked it behind a haughty air and a sip of tea.
"Well, then, you should have said something sooner." Finn set down his cup. He clicked his tongue and walked out to the garden. "Well, don't just stand there."
One pale lavender shirt swayed in the breeze about twelve feet off the ground. The wild rose trees that sheltered the witches' garden had large imposing thorns. The ax Finn brought seemed heavier in his hands.
"That's my favorite tunic. I want it back." Finn said.
"...How did it get up there then?" Harv asked. There was a ting of blush across Finn's cheeks.
"Doesn't matter, it's stuck up there now." Finn said. Harv looked down at the ax and down at the line of identical perfect rose trees.
"And your mother's okay with you cutting down one of her trees?" Harv asked.
"Of course not!" Finn recoiled at the thought. "That's why you're going to do it."
Harv dropped the ax. His armor was more suited to shield against arrows, so it should fair fine against wooden thorns. He scraped his way up to the tunic, some of the upper branches groaned under his weight. He wrenched the flimsy tunic free.
"That's one way to do it I guess." Finn pouted. He held out his hand expectantly as Harv climbed his way back down. "My hero." Finn rolled his eyes. Harv dropped to the ground, and Finn snatched it up. He inspected it, wrinkling his nose at every tear and hole.
"It was like that when I found it." Harv said. He tilted his head, something sounded like a board breaking.
"If you hadn' treated it so roughly, maybe it wouldn't have become swiss cheese!" Finn blamed Hevvin more than he blamed Harv. He had little cuts for weeks after getting chased up there. A stiff breeze ruffled his hair.
Harv shoved him roughly to the ground. The impact rattle through Finn's throat and rib cage. He cursed, just as a thorny branch connected with Harv's back. The warrior shrugged it off with a grimace.
"Are you okay?" Harv asked. Finn was shell shocked. The branch was bigger than his leg. If it had hit him, he would have been seriously injured. Darren would have loved that. Harv had a hand outstretched to him. "Finn?"
Finn took his hand, he was effortlessly pulled back to his feet. A broad chest to cling to, a rush of adrenaline. Finn had no filter for his thoughts.
"You should stay here tonight." The exact opposite of what he was supposed to be doing. He'd been trying to get Harv to give up and leave. "That wouldn't be a problem, would it?"
"N-no." Harv gently pushed Finn away so he could stand on his own. "I mean, that wouldn't be very proper."
"I don't mind." Finn said.
It's for the mission, Harv tells himself as Finn's fingers creep under his chest plate to tug him forward. He can't get caught in a lie, not this far in. It had nothing to do with the warm breath on the shell of his ear.
"There's just one teeny, tiny thing I'd need you to do first." Finn murmured. No one in their right mind would play along with the lewd things Finn whispered to him. He had to, for the mission. "You smell like a battlefield." Finn pulled away with a wicked grin. "If you're going to stay, you need to bathe first. I don't want dirt smell in my sheets." A bath? "Harvey?" Finn waved a hand in front of Harv's face. "Harvey, did you hear a word I said?"
"Sorry, I- I just-" Harv struggled to come up with the right words as his body shifted gears. That was not what he expected to say. He should be offended, but not so offended that Finn caught on.
"Do you need help?"
"NO!" Harv tensed.
"So you know where the bathroom is already?" Finn raised a brow. The warrior was flustered, his head turned away. He was fun to toy with, but it was really starting to seem like he was somewhat telling the truth. If that was the case, things could be really fun. Harv muttered something under his breath. "What was that?"
"Would you show me where it is, please." Harv said.
"Of course." Finn said with a deceptively sweet tone. He had Harv walk in front of him, to make sure he didn't try to slip away. Small dots of red were seeping through the back of his shirt. "You went and hurt yourself, after I explicitly told you not too." Explicit in his own way.
"It's just a scratch." Harv winced when Finn slapped his back. "What was that for?"
"You're a bad liar." Finn opened the bathroom door with a salty glare. The bathroom was in disarray. Stray, half empty bottles were on every bit of open counter space. Harv had never seen a tub built into the floor before, like an artificial hot spring. Finn slipped in the bathroom behind him.
"I just said I don't need help." Harv spun and saw the bottle of salves Finn was reaching for.
"What are those?"
"Antiseptic." Finn said. He shook his head and sighed. "Healing potions." He loaded up his arms with a couple of other tins. "I forgot, you people usually rub mud into things and hope for the best."
Harv refused to remove even as little as his armor until Finn was on the other side of the door. It was bad enough to have Finn barking orders over inane things. A racing heart could easily be attributed to anger at that point. He'd already wandered into dangerous territory entertaining Finn's invitation. Like a small child poking at an anthill, he feared he may have tempted something dangerous to come out.
Harv stood in the center of the room, uncertain where to put stuff while Finn disappeared behind a wooden changing screen. Finn had shoved the bottles and tins he'd taken from the bathroom into Harv's unsuspecting arms and bullied him up to Finn's bedroom.
When Harv had stepped out of the bathroom he still looked pretty much the same. Finn was a little disappointed, he had hoped a little self care would bring out a more sophisticated side of the warrior. Now he was damp and suspicious instead of just suspicious. Still, he was determined to make lemonade out of lemons.
"Well?" Finn stepped out from behind the screen in a silk nightshirt. Rendering someone speechless was normally a good thing, but Harv looked ill. Defeated, Finn gestured to his bed. "Take off the shirt."
"I don't think-" Harv stuttered. Finn took one of the healing potions and dangled it in front of his face. "That's not necessary."
"Harvey, you're not being courageous by rejecting help." Finn droned. "Who are you trying to impress here, me? I'm the one trying to help you." Harv let Finn take the rest of the healing supplies. He turned grumbling to himself the whole way as he pulled the tunic over his head. Half off the bed, he sat down, with his arms still in his sleeves and with as much as his chest covered as he could.
The small gouges from the thorns really were nothing compared to the vast deep scars that lined his back. Finn felt his stomach twist as dug a blob of salve out of the jar. Blades and arrows didn't leave winding pathways like this. Where the branch had hit him was already starting to leave purple streaks along his shoulder blades.
"Did Darren do this?" Finn asked. Harv was silent when he traced the lines down his ribcage.
"...no." He said nothing feeling of gentle hands wandering down his back setting his cheeks on fire. The slight sting from the had abated. "Don't worry about those, they're old."
"Okay…" Finn said. He still used his mother's scar cream. He capped everything off, letting the bottles form a small pile at the end of the bed. With a single hand, he reached around to Harv's chin, tilting his face to lay one deep kiss on the man's lips. He broke contact, and Harv looked at him like a cornered animal. "You love me?"
"...yeah." Harv had leaned away, his back caught up against the headboard. It was for the mission. It'd just been so long since he'd approached without a weapon in hand, that's why his body was reacting to any of this.
"Even after everything today?" Finn narrowed his eyes, studying each shallow breath and wandering gaze.
"I knew you were doing it on purpose." He said. Letting Finn crawl on top of him was for the mission.
"This is what you want?" Finn asked again.
"Yeah." He was just that good at his job.
"Okay then."
In the dead of night, Harv slipped out into the main hall. He'd been dragged all over the castle enough to know roughly where the witch's study was. He couldn't leave empty handed. Otherwise he would have given into temptation for nothing.
He paused, berating himself. Not temptation, there shouldn't be anything tempting about Finn, he was an insufferable mule of a person. Who had asked for permission an insufferable amount of times before laying a hand on him.
Harv felt along the wall, with nothing but moonlight to aid his sight. He found the heavy oak door, a simple iron lock barring his entry. One good shove with his shoulder was enough to dislodge it. The room was full top to bottom with arcane objects. On the far wall, a familiar configuration of images with red strings.
A plan to fill the castle pond with some sort of fanged fish. A similar drawing of a present filled with spiders in funny hats. Something about finding a cursed object in the amazon. It seemed the witch planned on sending a trapped gift to the princess instead of attending the party. It was unusually sneaky given the witch's previous motives. The walking stick cupboard was open. He scribbled down the shapes of the remaining staffs and put it in his pocket. He had everything he needed now.
He opened the window he'd tried to peak through earlier that day and slipped off into the night.