ovement, behind him. The candles in the kitchen were beyond guttering, and the stove only cast a soft glow; the little room was covered in warm shadows. Tom had smiled at Aremu when he’d said I’ll come, and he hadn’t looked back to make sure. He hadn’t looked at Aremu at all on the way to the kitchen, not when he’d taken the poker from its place, not when he’d knelt by the belly of the old iron thing to shuffle at the glowing embers; not when he’d taken a few more dry sticks from the pile and thrown them in.
He could feel him there, anyway. He didn’t need to look at him to remember the shape of him, slight and well-muscled and covered in silvery scars, padding through the candlelit dark. He could almost imagine, sometimes, what it’d be like if he had a field, though he felt guilty as ever for the thought, and never really let himself think it. It was there, nevertheless; it was there in the way the rustle and breeze behind him — Aremu taking back his sweater and trousers and pulling them on — Aremu moving, silent, to the window — made the hairs on his back prickle, all the way down his spine.
He did look at him, once, crouched by the stove. When he spoke. Tom’s braid was coming frayed; he looked aside, through stray tangled black hairs. He felt the heat of the stove on one side of his face, making the sweat prickle and bead on the skin of his neck. He felt the chill on the other.
He couldn’t make out anything about the imbala’s face, but he saw two of him: the one that stood in his kitchen, and another, darker and hazier, that faced him in the glass. The image clouded, cleared, clouded again.
Tom grunted as he got to his feet, rolling his shoulders again. After the heat of the open stove, the chill of the kitchen was almost a relief. He moved to a cabinet and leaned against it, and found himself mirroring Aremu’s body language: arms crossed, hands tucked in underneath.
He smiled. “I never heard of the stars movin’,” he said, and there wasn’t an ounce of a joke in his voice. “Maybe so; maybe that's how we look, from behind the weave. It’s funny, how everythin’ moves, except when you look straight at it, an’ then it’s still, for a —”
He broke off, glancing away thoughtfully and shifting to scratch at his forearm underneath his sleeve. He looked down at the hardwood, then looked up and found Aremu looking at him. His smile faded, just a little.
“I don’t know,” he said after a moment, “bein’ honest” — and he sucked at a tooth, and started rolling up his sleeves. He took the kettle from off the counter behind him and set it on top of the stove. “Go into it hopin’ for one thing, an’ end wi’ another. I ain’t never got what I expected, but I reckon that’s half the point.” As he moved back to the cabinet, he grinned at Aremu; then, he knelt to open it up, hinges creaking, and shuffle round in the dark.
It was a few moments before he found what he wanted. He took out another metal tin, almost indistinguishable from the other one that sat on the counter now — mint-smelling and dusted with fine little leaves. This one, as he took off the lid, gave off a deep, rich, earthy scent with an oddly sweet twist that was hard to place. Tom looked down into it, at the thick powder; it was beetroot-russet in the dimness, and he knew what color it’d be steeped.
He took out another couple of cups, then paused, like he’d forgot something. The one candle in the kitchen still lit was a drizzly little stub; wetting his fingertip and thumb, Tom pinched it out. He found another, higher, nearer the window, and went to it a misshapen matchbox off the counter nearby. It took his path near to Aremu, and as he lit the match, he looked over at the other man.
“We ain’t talked about it so much,” he said more softly. “What’ve you done before? You ain’t got to say, neither, but…”
There was a pause as he got the candle lit. He stood there in its soft glow for a moment, silent, then reached to brush Aremu’s arm with his hand. “You want to stop, any time,” he added, and smiled. “One thin’ ain’t like another, oes? I know I take it well enough, but there’s some shit jus’ makes me moony. So — any time, boemo, jus’ say the word.”