A feverish four days came and went. The first of which had been spent almost entirely in the confines of their bed. Hungover, injured, and exhausted from a deprivation of sleep - as well as the immense stress inherent with the beautiful chaos enjoyed in Sharkswell – Meraki barely managed to bring himself to wash and eat before he returned to the comfort that was Lars sleeping beside him. Never had he experienced such relaxed peace before, as in the days and nights he spent sheltered away from the world with the passive. Not even once in his meager life had he ever slept so restful. Not with himself, nor anyone else. Of course, not with Doris, and never with his previous lovers. Then again, it was not all that surprising for none had known him like Lars had grown to know him. The passive had, most expertly, uncovered villainous truths that laid as secret as the wick's name, hidden in the shadows beyond the surfaces Meraki layered over himself to show the world. In the days to follow, he did not regret such vulnerability. Lars cared for what he had given, and as such, he would care for anything and everything that Lars wished to share in return.
Though he had drank the half-bottle of whiskey, Meraki remembered the night well and clear. Memories he didn’t wish to forget. Memories which would sustain him through the years, if he persisted on. Memories of Lars that he collected to hoard so that he might never forget the tragically handsome galdor and all that he meant to the bastard wick.
For Lars did not dismiss him or tell him to leave. Not a single mention through the slow crawl of the hours into days, not the barest hint that he wished for Meraki to go elsewhere out-of-sight. Rather, the opposite seemed to be the case. Whenever Meraki seemed keen to head out of the apartment, the passive persuaded him to stay. He’d slipped away a few times, while Lars slept, but he did not go far. Only up to his own place to collect some items, out for a lonely night’s walk while the wind blew frigid through the harbor, and then earlier in the morning of the fourth day. He didn’t remain gone for long though, afraid that Lars might wake while he was away and be concerned… but when he returned, he found the other man as he’d left him.
Though he slept restful for most of the days, Meraki did not sleep for such long stretches like Lars did. Spikes of fevers were common, as he overheated easily in the bed, and the slightest of sounds or changes in the environment awoke him. In the most quiet and perfect of settings, he woke every hour or so regardless; of which, he attended to different things – stoked the hearth; drank water or tea; rinsed feverish sweat from his body; jotted thoughts down; meditated with the mona in strange mutterings while knelt on the floor in the farthest corner of the apartment; tidied up; smoked a cigarette; and more – before he inevitably returned to slumber. Sometimes, though, he simply sat in the bed and admired his lover while Lars slept. He tried to think of all the ways to describe the pale blond hair, or the ghostly white skin whenever the moonlight streaked through the lace curtains, or how even the sunlight seemed to shine off the healing bruises. How to explain the shape of the delicate bones that lay underneath the muscle, sinew, and skin, and how they made him feel… but nothing ever felt quite right about any of it. No words seemed worthy to encompass the magnificent beauty of the other man.
They kissed, more times than he could ever count. An infinite amount, it seemed, yet never enough. They kissed when they awoke, they kissed when they laid to sleep, they kissed before meals, and while they ate, and while the dishes were done. They kissed when Meraki swept the floor and rearranged the furniture between the occasional dance to practice their waltz. They kissed when Lars got frustrated over his scribblings and blushed so darkly at his caught mistakes of the spelling of Meraki’s name (which the wick didn’t mind, for he thought Meraquis was an interesting way to spell it and perhaps he might use such a thing in the future for some purpose). They kissed when Lars held close and insisted he need not attend to his contractual obligations at the Mad Queen. Meraki didn’t know if he believed such a thing, but he would not bring himself to argue otherwise. For he only wished to kiss more. And so, they kissed.
More than willing to lose his job over their time spent together, Meraki would find a new one if necessary. He did send word, though, on the second morning in the form of a hastily scrawled note. While Lars slept through the morning, he’d gone out and found one of the urchin boys, who frequented the street, to deliver it for him. Meraki was, after all, learning the street that Hot House Glass resided on. He watched, often, from the window to recall the routes people took, the habits they had, and the familiar faces among the crowd depending on the hours. The street proved busiest during the midday hours, and in the early afternoon, but not so in the evenings.
Though a peace had settled in the apartment - a contentment that felt most unusual to the turbulent tsat and even odder as he gradually realized how volatile his otherwise demure lover was in turn - Meraki’s mind did not rest in the same way as his body did. Once past the first couple of days, he started to brood. When not in the bed, or attentive to Lars, he could be found at the window. Cigarette against his lips, a couple journals and a pencil on the ledge beside him, and a stern gaze fixed on the street below. On occasion, he’d glance at the reflections in the window instead. Sometimes, he'd open a journal and jot a few notes down.
Conversation relegated to Lars’ guidance and control in their time together. Though he felt so close, and their hours were spent most intimately, Meraki did not talk much anymore. Certainly not about what had happened in Sharkswell, not about himself or about Brunnhold again. He avoided the topic of their mutual home that they’d left behind. Whenever it seemed they might discuss something especially new, or potentially vulnerable, he brusquely stopped talking at all. His focus would drift, and then he’d find something else to busy himself with. Often, he chose to care for Lars as a means of distraction. He often took to the task and cleaned, then bandaged the jagged wounds on the passive’s palms.
Meraki attended to make sure they were both clean as could be, through baths and frequent rinses of washcloths over each other. The wick insisted they eat certain foods, such as garlic and honey, to ward away potential infections. He observed while Lars’ bruises healed, and he paid distinct attention to not cause any further bruising on the pale skin. While he thought to use magic, from time to time, he did not wish such a thing. Already, he’d correlated the collapse of the hovel to his repeated use of healing. It seemed to him that it was most likely that while the mona had granted the spell, other intentions had sent them down into the cellar… and he did not wish to see what the mona aimed for when it came to them. So, the wick avoided healing, though it would have been so simple and quick, and perhaps he also excused it by the fact that the longer Lars needed to heal, the more rational of a choice it was to stay away from the Mad Queen. Regardless, he did not use magic for anything in their four days...
…and he interacted with the gentlest of touches towards Lars. Even when Lars seemed to want him to do otherwise, he only teased the passive by his touches turning lighter and kinder. On the occasions when Meraki sensually embraced Lars, he’d gotten into the habit of staring into the other’s eyes. Not that such embraces were frequent, past the natural progression of their nestled closeness in the comfort of their bed.
What more, Meraki found he not only cultivated an ever-deepening love for the fair man who he shared a bed with – but that he also enjoyed his company past the usual boundaries of a lover. Perhaps he had grown quiet in the days that followed their wild murderous romp, but that was not because he didn’t appreciate what conversations they did have. Perhaps he slipped away, sneaking unnoticed out of the apartment in the aim that Lars would not realize he had done so, but he always returned and quickly so. Meraki helped Lars with his reading, as patient as he could be, though he soon learned to only offer such advice when it was requested from the older man. He set to reading poetry while Lars practiced such things, and the scribblings with chalk. Meraki practiced his own vocabulary, in a small journal where he penned swift notations of terms and their possible meanings from the context in which he found them. It was, he discovered, an impossible task to know every word in existence but he still enjoyed the hunt of them as much as he had when younger. Some words were more valuable than others, and a rare few were treasures indeed.
With Lars, the tsat did not have to pretend to be anything but what he was. He did not have to fulfill some role of guttersnipe, or bumpkin, or gypsy, or servant, or ragamuffin, or any number of varied countenances he offered to the people of the Stacks. Lars had seen him with blood upon his face. He had watched as Meraki had slammed a bound man’s face into the ground – a rather dishonorable and violent act given the prone nature of his opponent – and still, Lars expressed such love for him. He did not have to concern himself with the fear of mockery from the passive, for learning beyond his station or as Doris called it: pretending to be some sort of fancy golly for nothin’.
Meraki didn’t see it that way. He knew of humans who could read, and write, just as well as any golly. He knew it had less to do with blood, and a great deal more to do with wealth. Observations over his chaotic years provided him a heady insight about such matters. Even so, he knew he wasn’t anywhere near the sort of learning that golly students had. He knew there was still so much closed off from him, kept behind walls and locks, in the privacy of homes and institutions. Galdori certainly liked to keep their secrets… and he supposed he could not blame them for disallowing half-breeds such as himself onto the university campus. For Meraki knew if he were able to freely walk through the campus halls, he would seek knowledge as if it were intended for him. He would hunt it down, and devour every book, and he would learn far more than a wick like him should ever know.
So, he helped Lars learn to read and he wondered about what sort of things Lars would’ve liked to learn about through books. He seemed set on fiction, for the time, and Meraki could not fault him for that. He’d also enjoyed fiction thoroughly while he’d first learned to read, before he had delved into poetry, Anaxi news, and whatever scraps he could find of monic theory. He, also, enjoyed reading about history. About how things once were, how things changed, and he liked to imagine what they might be in the future given the accounts in the newspapers and periodicals that he sometimes read.
After his most recent excursion, while Lars slept, he’d brought back with him some fresh tea leaves, a few pouches of spices, a full case of cigarettes, and a bundle of newspapers. It’d hailed the night before, and the temperatures continued to drop. Dense gray clouds textured the sky from horizon to horizon, blown across by the sharp winds that gusted through the harbor.
By late morning, he’d well returned, and it seemed that Lars had not realized he’d ever been gone. Whether the passive entertained such a notion, or truly wasn’t aware, Meraki would not test to see which it was. Surely, Lars did not think he was acquiring all the items, that appeared on the table, from his upstairs apartment… though perhaps he did.
Whatever the case, Lars fed him all the same (and Meraki could not complain. Everything that Lars cooked or prepared for him was absolute perfection. He enjoyed each bite, even if he ate a bit fast at times, and every meal placed him in good spirits no matter what he might’ve been thinking before) and then the passive took to studying another book. Meraki followed without bother, though he brought some things with him. He set a cooling cup of tea on the nightstand. The tsat had gotten quite clever and skilled at maneuvering around the passive, to share the neighboring surface from what had become his spot in the bed.
Dressed in his black trousers (washed clean of all the blood that’d seeped in them days ago), and a white sleeveless undershirt, he still had bandages around his shoulder for the healing injury. He kept bandages around his fingers, palms, and wrists for compression to the bruises as well. Legs stretched out, crossed at the ankles, he sat with his back upright against a pillow. Relaxed but alert, rested at the headboard of the bed’s frame. A cigarette balanced between his lips, smoke drifted lazily around him.
He read one of the newspapers that he’d grabbed while out. A frequently printed serial, the edition was the most recent, and he searched for one thing – and one thing in particular – any mention of homicides. There was, of course, a section for that exact thing but nothing stood out to him. There was far more outcry about a robbery in the wealthier section of the harbor, that requested any witnesses or information to come forward about the matter. Meraki wondered what had been stolen, as that detail had been left out of the article snippet.
While he smoked, and read through the various editorials, his fingers gently caressed Lars’ hand while their bandaged palms held close between their bodies. Other than the muffled sounds of the usual crowd out on the street below, it was pleasantly quiet. He could hear the occasional flip of a page while Lars read, and the slightest noises of suppressed frustration that Lars kept hidden in his throat, but Meraki could hear anyway.
Meraki’s eyes slowly shut, in mid-read of a rather scathing critique of a composer’s newest symphony that’d presented in Vienda. Cleverly disgusting, hideous, it is a wonder about the mysteries of the world as- why the audience redemanded a repeat of the noise- and the tuning of the notes were far lower with a shriek of violi- He fell asleep, fingers drawing still against the other’s hand. His cigarette threatened to fall, embers still aglow with his breath. The ash fell on the edges of the newspaper as the thin paper wilted in his eased grip.
“Hm? Yes?” he woke immediately when he heard his name grumbled. The newspaper crinkled as his grip tightened again. He let go of the paper, then quickly fixed his cigarette and held it between his fingers. Meraki looked over, upon request to help with reading a word. “‘Course, love.”
The freckled Anaxi set aside the newspaper, allowed it to fall to the floor nearby, and then rolled over to lightly lay against Lars. Lying on his side as well, he peered over the passive’s shoulder at the book. His leg carefully entwined with the other’s leg in an affectionate cuddle. Meraki ran his finger along the inked text, then recited in a hushed voice against Lars’ ear while his calloused fingertip traced along each word spoken from the passage, “For all those who witnessed the scene, a crowd of curious faces looked upon the girl in her shameful spec-ta-cle and the ri-di-cule most deserving of her born mal-form-ity that kept her fallen in the mud of the market-place.”
“A deformed cry set forth,” he continued, reading aloud in a low and steady rhythm with care to pause between the words just enough for Lars to hear while he tapped underneath each respective word as he said it. “from young Jenny’s breast and she refused to lay in the muck as if some ugly minstrel per-for-mance to ease the tedium of those neighbors who had little else to forget their own misfortunes that – unlike her own – lay hidden from the stark judgment of the market folk.”
He lowly exhaled, then kissed Lars on the temple before rolling back to his spot. Meraki stared up at the ceiling, finishing his cigarette, then he asked, “Would you like to go out? There's a bookshop I've heard of, but haven’t gotten the chance to visit yet. Perhaps you would like to come with me, and we can find something a bit cheerier to read.”
Meraki reached past, to collect his tea, though he remained in the bed as he sipped the darkened water. The wick nudged the passive’s leg with his bare foot, in an affectionate touch, and glanced at him. Though he knew what he was to say next would be a sensitive matter, he said it anyway. “We can’t truly stay in here, forever, love. The world must delight to see your pretty face among the common rubbish again.”