Hi-vis Wire
Milton had once complained (yowlingly, for a half-adolescent Gormotti boy) about the strain and the bore of the farm work. More than once, but mostly just the once, because Addam had called out from amid their shuffling bundles of straw mix and grasses, "Whistle while you work, Milton, come on!" and Milton had yelled back, "I can't!" and Addam had made quite an embarrassed face and said, "Well, I can't quite teach you, then, because I can't myself. But maybe Flora can." And of course she could, because Flora always can, and Milton shrilled through the gaps in his fangs, and eventually it was he taunting his foster over the bore of the strain, but joyfully and playfully so, for a near-adolescent Gormotti boy.
Addam had never been particularly perturbed about it, and still isn't. While that's the perfect sort of thing to teach from an older brother to a younger one, if one can't, one can't, and the embarrassment had really been about the silly fact of it, in the moment.
The farmer sings, anyway. Gleeful and tender, boisterous as can be, but gentle and grave when his mood desires it; Flora loves to listen to him mindlessly croon.
Then there's Minoth, who can whistle like a devil, and who can sing, too, but not, he's morose to admit, with any sort of artful shape to it. He can carry tunes, and he can paint lyrics, but he doesn't have what Addam has.
Does it grind his gears, Addam wonders? It only makes the crooner chuckle, when the whistler stops to wander through song woven by another as he digs up another nameless treasure. Funny we should complement each other so. Quite pleasing, anyway.
Whistling and singing don't really mix, either, do they? Sort of like oil and water; different arts, different textures. The wavelength of one cuts through the other and disrupts the sonority of the sound (and then there's Jin, who pitches his vocalizations middle-reedy and Lora who's basically singing regardless while Haze virtually hums).
One advantage of singing: it keeps your mouth wide open, like speech, so you can't be stopped with a kiss. Or perhaps that's a disadvantage? Rather, Addam figures it an inverse advantage; so long as Minoth's the one persistently puckering up, Addam's in fine shape, since he's the one likely to attempt such a thing, while Minoth rarely would or will bother.
Still, with a little provocation...
"No, no, you have to lick your lips first, Prince. I bite mine the same way you bite yours, and just pinching 'em together ain't really gonna do squat with the equipment we've got."
"Rhyme," Addam comments softly, because he can. He can't help but have his own metaphorical lights dimmed slightly when up so close to Minoth, everything a little fuzzy and warm. Yes, it rhymes, but it's a stupid rhyme, and Minoth probably didn't like it, but haha, wasn't it lovely?
Minoth rolls his eyes. "Right. Now try again."
Addam licks his lips and does obediently as directed, closing his eyes in a light faux concentration the better to aid his delusions of being prince-charming'd himself by his dashing tutor.
No appreciable sound comes out, instead a lackluster stream of air that threatens to jettison spittle onto Minoth's cheek, right below the scar (which would be fine, if Addam's lips followed close behind it, nothing wrong with a little wet kiss, sometimes, and oh, this is horrible, isn't it, why can't you be normal, Aegis Driver fair?).
Not much use in being normal - Minoth's not normal. Minoth's wonderfully strange. His singing voice shouts and his shouting voice sings and his every movement is music but he's better at drilling out warning stings than actually delivering a melancholy lullaby. Oh, think of him with kids, would you?
A man can dream, can't he? And a man does dream.
There are other things Minoth can do, of course. Card tricks and certain double-twisted joints (like all of his marvels, seemingly not so much a Blade or half-Blade thing as a quintessential Minoth thing) and all the arachnid-whispering the women and children and man-children could ever desire, and is having gorgeous hair a hidden talent? Addam would say so except that he has the fine luck to continually see Minoth's head unhidden by cloak or mask or helmet. Wonderful stuff, really.
There are other things Addam can do. He's good with knots, which Lora and Hugo both also are, as well as languages, which the same two take with delight, and his own hair's stand-on-end quality is something to be behold, but...he's not Minoth. No one could ever be, but Addam least of all.
Once again: lucky that he should know the man, then! Lucky that he should donate his admiration!
Lucky that Minoth should deliver him a dig so sharp it drives right up around Addam's skull into the whichever-cortex-it-is that makes his heart go batty and prompts the prince to interrupt wry nonchalance with a determined pucker of his own.
Here, another hidden talent, but nothing Addam didn't expect.
Pulling away, Addam doesn't hesitate, and rather even makes a point, to lick his lips.
"Thanks," he says after a beat and a breath.
Minoth, stunned, just tips back on his center of gravity a bit.
"Sorry," adds Addam.
"No, no..." now the rubbing of the lips "...that was nice."
"Just nice?"
Minoth raises brow. "I won't say spectacular."
Addam shrugs. "I'll just have to try again later, then."
"Damn right you will, your form needs some work."
"How about I sing you a song, loosen you up, and then maybe you won't think so?"
"Air's free, my prince."
"Is yours?" Addam asks slyly, sweetly. That gets Minoth to really shrug up a grin.
"You're lucky I like you."
"I'm lucky you love me!" Addam corrects, pouncing with a song in his heart.
Milton, watching, elbows Mikhail, and disdainfully mutters, "Wasn't planning to do all that to teach you, Mik."
Mikhail nods. "Thanks loads."