[Mature] Knock, Knock

[Meraki]

Meraki glanced over the other man, and he easily noticed the evasion of the actual question. He didn’t mention it, yet, though. What it meant to him, while he brought over his cup of coffee and took a sip without adding any sugar in it, was that Aremu considered silence better than anything else. Which meant he probably knew something worth knowing. People who knew pointless things, things not worth knowing, usually were eager to share such things with others. Sometimes to make themselves seem important, or to simply converse, but not Aremu. Not for this. Only a single statement and a return of a question.

A question asked with such neutrality it sharply contrasted with the previous good humor. Meraki’s dark green eyes narrowed for a moment. The mona gathered around them, then he lightly scoffed. He shrugged and looked away to glance up at the ceiling. His thoughts raced to adapt, to adjust for the reticent attitude.

“Well…” he answered slowly. His gaze lowered and he picked up the small spoon to collect some sugar and stir it into his coffee. Meraki hated sugar in his coffee, but he suspected it’d be better if he used it now for Aremu to see. “…I think you’re a man who knows far more than he says.”

Meraki glanced over the Mugrobi. He surveyed the incredibly dark, velvety skin and then the pitch black eyes. He added, “But you already knew that. ‘sides what’s it matter what I think? If I’m wrong… wouldn’t be the first time.”

“But I believe that you understand exactly what I’m gettin’ at, kov.” He forced a thin smile, then hid it behind a sip of coffee. When he lowered it, he continued – more than willing to do the bulk of conversation for them both. “It’s okay, we ent out in the streets or nothing. All safe up in this golly house, otherwise, wouldn’t chat about it at all, eh? Not like this.”

He nuzzled his own head against his hand, and closed his eyes in a drowsy manner, while he quietly sighed. With his eyes shut, relaxed in the overly casual posture, he murmured, “Just don’t know what I’m gonna do is all… don’t want to end up drownin' in the muck like in Brunnhold. But that’s all I’ve known.”

Meraki opened one eye, to peek at Aremu, and he added, “Don’t think I’d be very good at it, though. I ent one for lying to get people to sweeten up to me or to make ‘em think I like ‘em. Ent that part of the job when it comes to that? What do y’ think? Worth a try? If the pay is good...”

[Aremu Ediwo]

Afternoon, 36 Dentis, 2719
Kitchen, The Ibutatu Residence, Quarter Fords

Aremu watched Meraki take a first sip of the kofi without grimacing or making a face, before pulling the sugar over and stirring a spoonful into the cup. He’d let go of his own, by then, tapping his fingers lightly against the table, before sitting back.

Meraki responded with careful flattery, and Aremu’s brows lifted, briefly, before settling back into place. He did not answer the wick’s assertion that Aremu knew precisely what he meant; Meraki went on, and Aremu ran his tongue over his lips, slowly. Men like us, Meraki had said, on the heels of his little performance with the nuts. Yes; Aremu thought that was what the wick had meant, but he had needed to be sure, all the same.

The Mugrobi watched Meraki settle comfortably against himself, his cheek nuzzled into his hand, his elbow propped on the table. Meraki peeked open one eye to study him, and asked if Aremu thought he’d make a good prostitute, or close enough. Aremu raised his eyebrows, slowly; something like amusement twitched over the sharp planes of his face.

I’m not human, he might’ve said, and you know I’m not Anaxi. You’re asking the wrong man, Meraki; there’s nothing taboo about us, for men like me. He knew it too for a rebuke, whether Meraki’d meant it that way or not; he knew he should be more careful with what he let show, here in the Rose. It wasn’t the islands, and they weren’t all pirates or brothers, here; there were more things than just the desire for coin which could lead a man to bleed. He thought, wincing somewhere inside, that he should have learned his lesson a week and a half ago. It didn’t show on his face.

“I think once Scarlett gets her claws in a man, she doesn’t like to let go,” Aremu said with a shrug. “Or so I’ve heard.” He settled his elbows against the table, his left hand gently closing over the scarred stump of his right wrist. “Never heard anyone call it a good strategy for the long,” Aremu said, studying the wick half curled up against the table more than a little curiously. “How many old tumbles’ve you met?" He raised his eyebrows, lightly.

Lying’s not so hard, Aremu could have said, once you get used to it. There’s a knack to it, much as there’s a knack to anything. There’s no lies, really, told only with the voice; any lie’s told with the face, the body, the hands, the eyes; any lie’s told with whatever you have to offer alongside it to make it seem true. A good liar knows that, and learns the knack of it.

“Why ask me?” Aremu asked, sitting back. His face twitched at a grin, some of the hardness to it easing, replaced with something very close to a smile. He let go of his wrist and took the cup of kofi again, taking another sip. “Your flattery’s welcome, but I’d rather have an answer.”

[Meraki]

Don’t say anything, don’t say anything, don’t say anything. Meraki did his absolute best to keep quiet when he heard Aremu answer. It was a plain answer. Simple, really. The sort of answer anyone could give without much fuss. Prostitution wasn’t a good strategy for long (no shit), and there weren’t any old tumbles, and… it was the very start of the answer that caused Meraki to hold back any outward reaction. He tried to mask it, and that attempt came in the form of bringing his coffee back up and taking a very long sip. The wick ignored the rhetorical question and gazed down at the coffee, as if in thought…

…at least, a different sort of thought than the one he was actually turning around in his mind. Or so I’ve heard. He turned it over again. Or so I’ve heard… Scarlett. What an interesting way to refer to the lady. First name, without any respect, and maybe it was simply the Mugrobi’s manners from the foreign place that Meraki knew hardly anything about. It wasn’t like Scarlett Jezebel was unknown in the harbor. It was still a meager scratch on the surface of what Meraki knew lay depths underneath. He just had to figure out how to break past and dive down.

“…desperate,” he answered the question as to why he asked Aremu, without hesitation or pause. He turned the (now awful tasting) coffee about, then forced himself to take another sip. It was terribly too sweet. He picked up his cigarette case, then, and collected a new smoke from it. Meraki simply tapped it between his fingers and stared down at the smoke instead of lighting it, or daring to look at Aremu this time. He elaborated, “Ent got no one else I can ask.”

“Don’t mean to… uh…” He rubbed his eyes, then pinched the bridge of his nose. “…make you uncomfortable. Got bad manners, I do. I should go…”

Meraki stood then. He placed the cigarette between his lips, just over the bruise, and he returned the matches and cigarette case to his vest. He glanced at Aremu with a twitch of a smile that wasn’t from amusement. “Yer a proper good host. Y’ shouldn’t bother wit’ me like this. Nothing I deserve, eh?”

“I am relieved to…” he paused, and his words slowed, his accent steadily smoothing out in his enunciation. “…see you faring well. Thank you.”

He offered a polite nod of the head, fidgeted with the edges of his vest, and then waited… he waited just a moment, lingering at the table to see if Aremu had anything to say. Anything at all. In everything Meraki had said, in the past words, there was far more truth woven into the words than he’d care to admit – or even that he realized himself. Don’t say anything.

Meraki turned away and started toward the kitchen door, to leave. He hesitated at the threshold and looked over his shoulder. Gaze on the ground, but he had turned his head to look at Aremu, and he said, “Maybe I’d see y’ there, eh? Maybe I’d get the chance to host, instead. Show y’ some better manners.”

The Anaxi didn’t know how Mugrobi viewed such things. Perhaps, even with all the humor and light-hearted banter, Aremu had gotten offended. Meraki wasn’t sure, he’d never paid close attention to people from the foreign lands with the sole exception of tourists who flitted through the Stacks. Maybe they showed offense differently, he supposed. He nodded, again, and muttered, “Right then.”

Only remaining if there was something to hear, if words were spoken, Meraki walked away and started to trace the path back through the hall.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Afternoon, 36 Dentis, 2719
Kitchen, The Ibutatu Residence, Quarter Fords

Whatever he thought of the rest of Meraki had been saying – and Aremu was not, in the end, quite sure what he thought of it – that word rang true. Aremu shifted again on his seat, a little differently this time. He frowned, slowly, the smooth plane of his forehead forming familiar-looking lines, and he studied the wick.

Meraki looked down at his cigarette, tapping it between his fingers, and didn’t look back up at he gave the rest of his answer.

Aremu ran his tongue over his teeth again. He nearly sucked at a tooth, and caught the smile somewhere in his chest before it showed on his face; it wasn’t the right time for such indulgences, however he might have felt about them.

There was, Aremu thought, little he could say. He didn’t want to lie to Meraki and tell the wick he hadn’t made him uncomfortable, although he understood that the silence was as good as a confirmation. Aremu’s lips pressed together for a moment, flattened out, and he glanced away, taking a half-breath. Was it lies or truth in the silence? What if he, himself, didn’t know?

“It was nothing,” Aremu said, quietly, again. If it was a lie, he thought, this was one he didn’t mind. He hesitated, shifting on the stool; his lips quirked into a half-grin at Meraki’s careful enunciation. He held, again, a little too long, his hand curling around the rough stump of his wrist against.

Aremu lifted his eyebrows at Meraki’s half-offer. It was somewhere approaching flirtation, but there was, Aremu thought, an edge to it, something –

“Wait,” Aremu said. He shifted; he rose, leaving his cup of kofi behind as well. Meraki had turned half away in the doorway already, and Aremu touched his shoulder, and then drew back, jaw clenching for a moment.

“You don’t have to stay,” Aremu said, a little distance between them still. He was close enough to feel the brush of Meraki’s glamour, although not closer than that; his hand had drawn back and down and away after touching Meraki’s shoulder. “But you don’t – uh – you don’t have to go, either.”

There was an obligation between men, he thought slowly, when one saved the other’s life. He didn’t know if Meraki felt it; he didn’t know if it weighed on him. It was two-sided, always, whoever had done the saving. It was on them both, whether the other man wanted it to be or not. As hesitant as he was, Aremu had heard the edge in the word desperate; as hesitant as he was, Aremu could not just let the other man walk away.

Neither did he quite know what he had, in the end, hoped to offer. Aremu stood, frowning faintly, just inside the kitchen door, studying the taller man with something between curiosity, appreciation and concern; he could not have said, himself, how he weighted them. He cleared his throat; he shifted; he said nothing, in the end. He did not know what to say, or at least so he told himself; he didn’t let himself wonder if it was a lie.

[Meraki]

Desperate. Meraki was desperate. Out of all the words he’d spoken, since arriving on the doorstep and seeing Aremu, none had been truer than that single word. In so many ways, the wick yearned. He sought information, of course. He always did. Ever since he’d been a little bother of a boy, running through the maze-like streets of the Stacks with rumors on his tongue, gossip in his hands, and the precious few clues of truth in his pockets; ever since then, no matter who he was with, or what he was doing, he absorbed information. Further than that, he prodded for it. He tapped along the edges, then tried to wiggle his way under just to find out what was inside. Meraki liked to discover the things that people tried to hide, the things that people tried to squirrel away, their true treasures.

Wait.

What did Aremu consider his treasure?

Meraki wondered this when he felt the other man’s hand grasp his shoulder. He looked at the shorter man, and for a moment, the green in his eyes lightened with all the shimmer of sunbeams crossing past a forest of pine and fir trees. A slow, closed smile curled on his cupid’s-bow lips. The cigarette lifted slightly, pointed upward instead of downward. He didn’t look surprised, nor avoidant like only a minute before, rather he looked… mischievous.

He noticed the tension though, the muscles in Aremu's jaw that worked and the way that the other man drew back so quick. Meraki slowly turned back to face the other man. He rested an arm up on the door frame, in a languid stretch. His cigarette rolled from one side of his mouth to the other while his tongue smoothly played with it. The wick's gaze flitted down and then up to survey Aremu's form.

Don’t have to stay, don’t have to go. His gaze lingered at the hand that had touched his shoulder before he brought it up to look the other man direct with eye contact. The other man seemed… hesitant, perhaps... or was it curious? Nervous? Whatever it was, he did not turn Meraki away. He didn’t shout at him, or posture ridiculously like some men were prone to (himself included, at times).

Meraki considered, for several seconds, listened to the cleared throat, watched the nervous motion of balance, and waited. Nothing more said between them, silence grew…

…and the wick stepped away from the door frame. He stepped toward Aremu. He reached out and place a bandaged hand, lightly, on the other’s shoulder. A friendly, almost brotherly, grasp. At least, it started that way. He hesitated, only to test if Aremu would move away, but then he grazed his hand downward over the worn and patchworked sweater. His calloused fingertips pressed the fabric against the Mugrobi’s chest, then the digits curled in a gentle pull for Aremu to come closer.

“Y’ sure y’ don’t wanna kick me out? Told y’, I got bad manners…” he warned.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Afternoon, 36 Dentis, 2719
Kitchen, The Ibutatu Residence, Quarter Fords

The slim roll of paper held between Meraki’s lips shifted; it had pointed down a moment ago but rose, slowly, as his lips curled into a smile. Aremu was left with the feeling he’d played into the younger man’s hands; he wasn’t entirely sure he minded. He was not smiling, not quite, but some of the lines of tension in his frown had smoothed out, slowly, leaving something more neutral on his face.

Meraki studied him, deliberately letting him see it, and Aremu lifted his eyebrows lightly. There was silence between them; it stretched out between them like the glass-smooth surface of a lake and Aremu could not quite bring himself to ripple it. He was not sure what he would find beneath the surface, not entirely; he was not sure either whether he wanted to know. The cool, still water of silence was easy, even if it was Meraki’s face, and not his own, that he saw reflected in the pool of it.

Meraki came forward, slowly; Aremu felt a thrill run down his spine, a prickling, beneath the warm fabric of his sweater, despite the runoff of Niccolette’s meditation still echoing heat through the house. Even here, so far from her study, he was aware of it; it hadn’t lessened in intensity since they had come inside. He could feel all the heat; Niccolette’s, wafting out, somehow with an odd intensity that Aremu knew for magic; the stove, warmed enough to heat the kettle, pressing at his back; and Meraki’s, growing slowly closer.

Meraki’s bandaged hand settled comfortably onto Aremu’s shoulders. Aremu didn’t move; didn’t shift back or forwards. Meraki explored, slowly, his hand tracing a careful path over the sweater; his fingers curled, tugging Aremu a little closer.

Aremu did not quite resist; he came forward, slowly, tongue tracing lightly over his lips. His left hand curled at his side; his right wrist, carefully, he tucked away in his pocket – out of sight, as if he could separate it from himself, and go on without it. I used to have two hands, he wanted to say, absurdly. Maybe then, he wanted to say, I’d have believed you.

“Terrible,” Aremu agreed. His solemn face eased, slowly, into a broad grin, as wide and easy as anything he’d showed Meraki so far. Carefully, his left hand settled on Meraki’s hip, fingers slowly curling into place against the other man, feeling the warmth of him against his palm. His gaze flickered over Meraki’s face, at the locks of reddish blonde hair against his forehead and the slightly wicked curve of his lips.

“But I don’t mind a little more hospitality,” Aremu murmured, softly, close enough now that the other man could breathe in the kofi-rich scent of his words. The grin softened, but didn’t quite fade; it became something else, instead. His thumb moved, lightly, over the other man’s clothing.

[Meraki]

Afternoon, 36 Dentis, 2719
Kitchen, The Ibutatu Residence, Quarter Fords

How many times had Meraki done something like this? How many times had he recognized a similar confusion in another man? How many times did he, upon such recognition, toe the waters to see if they were swimmable? Only ever in the corners, in the hidden backrooms, in the alleys and behind locked doors. There was a strangely exhilarating thrill that he knew a golly was in the house. Perhaps because it was likely safe, in an odd way, even considering the other woman’s power. Gollies did not feel the same way about such activities and did not find themselves so terribly offended by confused men as to bring a truly dangerous risk onto those discovered. How many men had Meraki discovered, all on his own and left it unspoken but not untouched?

It was an impossible sort of question. Pointless to attempt to quantify. It didn’t matter how many, all that mattered in the moment was Aremu. The way that the velvet-dark man stayed quiet but didn’t retreat. Aremu’s tongue even made itself known; the pink flesh contrasted wonderfully against ebony umber lips. Meraki noticed, without needing to glance, the Mugrobi tuck his right wrist in a pocket. Given the nature of the limb, he didn’t have to concern himself with the chance that the other man might be grabbing something untoward. Wouldn’t be the first time something went sideways so quick, for Meraki. And not the fun sort of sideways.

He returned the other’s broad grin with a foxlike smile, as if when he bared his teeth, they might be little fangs rather than their actual tobacco-stained appearance. As if he were softly laughing, even though not a single sound of such escaped him. Meraki didn’t move away from the hand that went to his hip. Instead, he moved toward. A slow tilt, another step closer, the grip on the sweater released so that his fingertips could travel lower. How many times had he done this? Enough that he could fully appreciate the scents of fresh tobacco and coffee that intermingled between them.

Enough that he knew exactly what to do. Perhaps it might loosen those tight lips and refusing tongue of Aremu’s, but he didn’t assume such a thing either. Meraki slowly blinked, his smile remaining in his eyes though he got rid of it from his lips.

“Oh, I can be right hosp-… hah-spit-ab… hos-pi-” a quiet frustrated noise rose from him, when he didn’t seem able to pronounce the word properly. He scoffed, grabbed his cigarette and set it in his vest pocket for the time being. As if the unlit smoke had been causing the problem.

He opened his mouth as if to try the word again, but instead he leaned forward, and his parted lips landed on Aremu’s plush lips. It wasn’t the best of kisses, as far as kisses went, as if Meraki had gotten nervous in the last second. As if he weren’t certain. As if he already regretted it. No blush showed on his cheeks. When he broke away, both of his hands gently but hurriedly pulled at the hem of the sweater to reveal the skin underneath. His heart raced with a spike of adrenaline, though.

“Here?” It was all that he asked, with a small glance upward to look at Aremu, before he returned his gaze down to find the style of waistband and try to figure it out. This was familiar to him. Far more so than the unusually sensitive time he’d spent with the harlot and…. A small frown showed on Meraki’s features, unknown to him, when he tried to banish those thoughts. He licked his own lips, then returned his gaze to look at the other man. Meraki took a few careful steps, backing them up in an instructive dancerly guidance, toward the table. His hands had slid under the sweater, already in exploration of the taut muscles that he’d seen before, several days ago, when he’d undressed the man to clean the wounds from their helter-skelter introduction to one another.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Afternoon, 36 Dentis, 2719
Kitchen, The Ibutatu Residence, Quarter Fords

Meraki came a little closer, his scuffed hand wandering along Aremu’s sweater. Aremu’s grin had faded, but it lingered in his eyes, in the edges of his lips. Something about Meraki’s smile prickled through him, and he could not but think of the way the other man had pulled his cheek back to reveal the gaps between his molars. Here - now - in his sharp little grin, there was no sign of them, but Aremu knew, all the same, what was there.

The air between them tasted like kofi and cigarettes, not in the least unpleasant. Meraki had opened his mouth to speak again, and instead -

Aremu tasted his own uncertainty on the other man’s lips, and it was bitter. But a kiss was a kiss, and Meraki’s hands were tracing over bare skin beneath his sweater, and Aremu did not quite bother biting back a faint groan. His skin was soft between the scars, although Meraki’s questing fingers would find more than a few - long lines left behind by knives, faint rough patches of burns, though no sign of the vicious beating he’d taken just a week and a half ago.

Here, Meraki asked, glancing up and him and then down at Aremu’s belt. The tousled hair on the other man’s head gleamed in the light, a warm reddish blond glow.

Aremu licked his lips again, and wasn’t sure what he tasted. “Here,” he agreed, quietly. It was private enough; Niccolette would be meditating a while longer, like as not, and he knew she would go to have a bath, after; it would be some time before she would think of food or drink. The wick had been in his bedroom before, and it wasn’t - he wanted, yes. He wanted. It wasn’t a desperate, urgent sort of longing; he could have taken Meraki by the hand and led him to his bed. Aremu knew that.

Meraki was frowning a little; his tongue seemed to linger over the scab on his lips. He moved forward; Aremu went back, but he was uncertain, uncomfortable. He didn’t look, he didn’t stumble, but his hand tightened on Meraki’s hip, fingers digging in.

He felt the table against his back, and Aremu relaxed, just a little, where his shoulders and all the muscles in his back had tensed. His right arm had come up, instinctively, and Aremu tucked his wrist away again. He let go of Meraki’s hip; his fingers played over the other man’s shirt, tugging it up, callused fingertips exploring the bare flesh beneath.

Almost carefully, Aremu kissed the other man a second time, a tangle of lips and teeth; his mouth was open too, this time, and there was a wanting there, a searching. Enough? He didn’t know; he could feel the heat between them, the quickening of his own pulse and Meraki’s too, and he did his best to yield to it. He wanted this, Aremu told himself. He did.

[Meraki]

Afternoon, 36 Dentis, 2719
Kitchen, The Ibutatu Residence, Quarter Fords

Some part of Meraki recognized that Aremu didn’t have the sort of wounds he should have had. He had been the one to undress and clean up the Mugrobi, so he’d gotten a good look at what had been left behind by the thugs. Yet, he didn’t think too far about this. It was a golly’s house after all, and he easily assumed the golly must know how to patchwork flesh. Though that meant they cared enough about the other man to do so. That or they cared about the work he provided them and didn’t want to be out a worker. Either way, it didn’t make much difference to Meraki other than he didn’t have to be so delicate or careful with the task at hand.

He ran his calloused fingertips over the lines of scars, lingered his touch in an erratic pace that went from slow caresses to rough hurry while he got a feel for the lean muscular silhouette of the other man. The more prominent scars seemed to interest him as he returned to a particularly long line of raised scarred skin. Meraki knew that Aremu wasn’t aware he had his own collection of old wounds, hidden behind the fabric of his clothes.

Their shared path to the table hadn’t gone smoothly, even though Aremu didn’t stumble, and neither did Meraki. Not physically. Uncertainty was plain. Discomfort felt obvious. It was a rushed escalation. There would always be awkwardness inherent with that. Meraki had done such things enough, to know that. One wouldn’t find romance in these moments, but one could find the thrill of release in the company of another. A hedonistic act of practicality, almost. When there were so few confused men, in the greater scheme of the world, he had to take what he could when he did recognize someone willing. It wasn’t the sort of lifestyle meant for to-be-married folk, nor polite society. Courtship with other men was a losing game, a pointless endeavor, and a dangerous weakness. This wasn’t courtship though. This was simply mutual understanding.

Meraki glanced at the stump of a wrist when it was brought up only to be returned quickly to the pocket. He hummed quietly, when he felt the other man’s hand start to explore. His own scars were not so noticeable by touch, flat in complexion and in some spots, smoother than his actual skin. The second kiss was… wasn’t any better than the first. A tangle of lips and teeth, and awkwardness, and slight discomfort. He could feel Aremu trying, wanting, yearning. Meraki tried to respond to that, he tried to provide back, but he kept feeling… disconnected, and no longer wanting to kiss. His body reacted to the heat between them, and his disconnect grew, the chasms between the physical and the mental and the emotional widening with every shared breath.

His short nails scratched against the other’s torso, in a slight expression of growing frustration due to the disconnect. He wanted to appreciate the other man. He wanted to enjoy him because he was so freely there for the taking… Aremu was handsome, and his muscles were tight and fit, and he had a slender bone structure that Meraki tended to enjoy… and yet, as he broke away from the kiss, all Meraki could truly think about was the damnable harlot.

He didn’t say anything. He didn’t try to kiss again. Instead, he ran the flat of his tongue along Aremu’s neck in a rough sensual lick. If his mind was elsewhere, and his heart stubbornly refused to engage, then he would do what he always did. He would focus purely on the body and the physical connection. He did not need to feel allure or romance to do such things. He could continue, without the slightest physical delay, in a trance-like state devoid of divergent feelings or excessive thought. It was a talent cultivated over years.

Meraki pulled Aremu’s sweater up and off the other man, to reveal the bare torso. His licks traveled down into kisses over the collarbone, then the stomach as he gradually lowered himself onto his knees. The Anaxi knelt in front of the Mugrobi, and he slid his fingers over the waistband to figure out the style and how to undress it. His hands caressed to bother the other man in the most stimulating of ways. And he looked up at Aremu, with a calm expression. Almost vulnerable in the way he stared upward, as if waiting for permission.

“Can I- uh…” his raspy voice escaped, and he worried his scabbed lower lip against his front teeth. One of his hands went to Aremu’s pocket, then to the man’s right wrist. Meraki guided to bring the amputated limb back out. His gaze flickered between it and upward, then he nervously ran his fingers over the stump in exploration. He dryly swallowed, a curiosity seeming to have overtaken the calm. As if he’d forgotten about the usual purpose of such an intimately knelt position, his attention fixed on the handless spot. He traced around the ellipses shape of it, then he moved forward, and he landed a small light kiss on the wrist. His dark green eyes flitted up to catch Aremu’s expression.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Afternoon, 36 Dentis, 2719
Kitchen, The Ibutatu Residence, Quarter Fords

It was a relief when Meraki broke the kiss, when the wick’s head lowered to his neck, his tousled blond hair close enough for Aremu to breathe in. He let Meraki pull his sweater off, arms lifting; his right arm settled back down where it had come from, wrist resting against his pocket once more. It was easy enough to lose himself in the sensations, to leave behind the need for thought; he could put aside most of his skepticism, at least, for a little while.

Most of his fear, Aremu admitted to himself, closing his eyes for a brief moment, and opening them again. Hadn’t he done this enough times to be sure? Not just before – not just when he was a man who could, at least, pass for whole. Since, too, there had been more than a few lovers. This wasn’t unfamiliar, none of it; as self-conscious as he felt, Aremu knew it was, at least, partly the tricks of his own mind.

Aremu thought, briefly, longingly, of the warmth of bath water against his skin, and the smell of oranges in the air; unexpectedly, he thought, too, of pale red curls, and slightly shaky hands which, nonetheless, he would have put his life into.

But he was here, in Niccolette’s kitchen in the Rose, and there was a very handsome wick drifting kisses, slowly, over the skin of his chest. Aremu’s fingers had explored the lines of Meraki’s body, the mix of scars on the other man. His hand drifted up as Meraki sank down, and tangled in the other man’s hair. Aremu shuddered in pleasant anticipation, his lips parting softly.

There was a pause, a beat between them; Meraki looked up, and asked half for permission. Aremu began to nod, but Meraki’s hand was moving towards his pocket, then, towards the long line of his right arm, with the recent raised scar down the forearm. Aremu froze, forgetting the nod, forgetting all the rest of it. Meraki’s fingers traced the still-sensitive skin of the wrist; Aremu could scarcely breathe as the other man leaned forward, feeling his lips brush his right arm.

Meraki glanced up at him, a sharp sort of curiosity in his green eyes.

Something unfroze inside Aremu. He jerked back; his back slammed hard into the table, and he scrabbled away from the Meraki, sliding along it. Kofi sloshed over the edge of both cups, splattering onto the wood; the bowl where the two of them had stubbed their cigarettes clattered noisily against the wood.

“No,” Aremu said, his voice a harsh rasp in his throat. “No, you – ” he bit the words off, his jaw clenching. The table ended behind him, and he stepped back and to the side, putting more space between himself and the kneeling wick, his breath coming quick and fast. He was still shirtless, and abruptly cold; he closed his eyes for a brief moment, and then opened them again, looking at the other man.

Aremu tucked his wrist back into his pocket, slowly, not resting it on the edge so much as jamming it into the cloth, his arm shaking. His left hand ran through his hair; he was still shirtless, old scars and new all illuminated by the pale autumn light creeping in through the window. The latest, still rigid against his skin, was a line of scarring along his back, sideways, left from a stabbing; there were no bruises left against his dark skin.

Aremu didn’t say anything else; he didn’t look at Meraki either, his gaze fixed solidly on the window, on the drift of half-bare tangled branches outside, and the last of the red leaves clinging to them, ruffled in the wind.