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Ferros hadn't even tried to sleep in the bed. He was too large, too heavy, and had too many hard metal surfaces and sharp angles for anyone else to be comfortable if he was there. Instead, he had stretched out on his side behind the couch, angling the pipes on his back so that nothing would catch on them. Faint, fragmentary memories suggested that he had once slept on something less solid, but no softer than the floor; a pile of something metallic, though he couldn't identify what it had been. The elusive thought awakened a vague yearning, but it was a familiar one, and one that he could ignore or redirect. It wouldn't keep him from sleeping.

The humans and the other two weapons were settling sleeping arrangements. Ferros let the glow of his eyes dim, curling his tail comfortably and not paying much attention to the sounds.

Ferros drew in a breath, scenting the air as a slight sharpness made itself known to his senses. Blood, but not blood; it carried an earthy undertone that some uneasy instinct said was all wrong, should be delicate and light, something sweet overlaying a pale and feral musk. Where that thought came from he didn't know. His imagination, perhaps. Perhaps not. "Do not injure yourself," he said, lifting his head and opening his eyes again.

"Traciel," Ferros said. He half sat up, the unhappy roiling confusion reawakening in him. "Come and sit with me. Please? I miss you," he found himself saying, and the metallic fins on the sides of his head folded back slowly. Who had he been, what had he been to Tracey, that the fallen angel could wake such powerful echoes of memories he no longer had?

Comfort and misery all at once. Ferros laid his head on his arm again, shuffling almost automatically into a position where he would be a good backrest. "I am good at supporting," he replied gravely.

His tail curled around to form a neat half-circle around Tracey, and some of the unhappy tension eased with the protective gesture. Echoes upon echoes. "It is very strange being in a body again," he admitted, his voice almost inaudible under the quiet constant rumble in his chest.

Ferros nodded, his tail curving closer in response to the light touch. "I knew you. I know I did. I must have." The glow of his eyes shuttered, dimmed. "I have never regretted being a weapon. That I can recall. I am not - lonely." He fell silent, thinking, chasing fragments of memory and feeling that slipped out of his claws.

"It is all tied up in you and I do not know how," he said finally, plaintively. "I want to protect ... " The words trailed off, and Ferros sighed a soft cloud of steam. "It was easier not knowing but I cannot go back to not knowing."

Again Ferros wanted to grow large, to coil around and protect what he valued with the bulk and barrier of himself. He was made for destruction, he knew, but he was made too to serve, to help. He sat up carefully and wrapped his arms around Tracey without asking, cradling the smaller boil carefully against the warm metal of himself. "I am still here," he said. "I am not so very far away. We will protect you. I promised. I promise."

Hurt, so much hurt, kindling a deep, painful answering impulse to protect, to make promises he didn't know if he could keep.

Ferros nodded solemnly, something of the inexplicable ache easing slightly, somehow. "I am here," he said again, very quietly. He didn't understand what he felt, but he could accept it. When the golems deactivated again, they would not be able to talk any more, or to touch, but he could still protect. That promise he could keep and would.

"I will always be your friend." He'd said it before, many times, Ferros realized; the words were familiar and right in his mouth, just slightly bittersweet. "I'm glad I had a chance to know it," he admitted. To touch and hold, however briefly. Some of the other weapons he'd met had stirred fragmentary recognition, absent memories of one type or another, but none had woken such a powerful storm of emotions. His friend.

He could be satisfied with that.