[Mature] Just as It Was

[Tom Cooke]

Night Streets • Basin Court

Evening on the 27th of Yaris, 2716

H
ands ached as he worked at the buttons. Seemed slippery underneath his fingers; he left the top few unbuttoned, tired as he was, and searched for his belt instead. Nevio was on his other side now, long fingers a flash of pale in the dark. It was a sliver of leather at the edges of his fingertips, like he was still reaching out for it – and when Tom bent to get it, his fingers twitched, his silver thumb ring glinting.

Tom’s lip twitched. He massaged his shoulder; the ring’d dug in and made a crescent, still smarting underneath his shirt. The pain whisked up the memory of hot breath on the back of his neck, he didn’t know whose. Aremu was already on his way out; Tom looked at Nevio one last time, before he dropped his spur and ground it out with the heel of his boot.

This place, huh, he wanted to say, moving out into the blue light. Them snoring kov and the heady fug of smoke-smells couldn’t banish it: the mant echo of nothing through the space, the way the tunnel went back into nothing, nothing, nothing, dark.

His eyes moved up over the walls outside. He didn’t much care to watch Aremu climb, though he saw the wrinkle and ripple of his shirt over the motions of familiar muscles. He looked at the stones instead, glistening dewy almost like the scales of a chainmail balloon.

Thought about another evening, thin thread line of an Ever beside this one. When Aremu’d set his hand on top of his, he’d taken it; he’d stood wordless as the stone and drawn him away from the smoke, into the dark or else into the light, and they’d found such things as the stones hid, carved Heshath and bones and crumbling walls to climb.

Was nothing but a fancy; was more like a dream, than anything, a dream he’d’ve had when he was a boch. Out here, he looked down at his shirt and found a smear of dirt along a crease. Couldn’t’ve known whether it was from here or back in the wrecked attic, or anywhere in-between.

He set his hands on the ladder and started up.

He imagined it creaking underfoot; he imagined the ground a mant manna further below him than it was, or maybe just the sea. So he didn’t look down, just up, where Aremu stood.

He wasn’t in the light, not enough it picked out any of his face, anything of him at all. After all that dark, it seemed stinging-bright; it flooded about the dark shape of his head, his shoulders, even his shirt turned to a shadow with the light at his back. He watched one long, lean arm go up, then the other, the breeze tugging at his sleeves, all of his slim frame stretching up and rippling with it.

He was almost to the top when Aremu’s shadow fell over him. He squinted up, eyes bleary; his eyes half-adjusted to the dark, but not enough. The other man was kneeling, a long, thin hand extended. He thought there might’ve been a smile on his face – it was too dark to tell – and too mung to think that.

He hazarded a smile anyway and took the hand. He opened his mouth; he thought of a word he knew the shape of, a word he was still too coward to say, a word he didn’t know’d be welcome. “Thanks,” he said instead.

Knew well enough to know Aremu was whipcord-strong, and had an easy enough time with even his weight; he used that firm, callused grip to lever himself over, then pushed himself up to stand.

Hand let go of his, quick enough.

They’d gone toward Basin Court a fair ways just following the lights; the outflow was on the edge, underneath the last few empty streets. The slim dark shapes of cats skittered through street lamps, eyes flashing. There was lamps lit here and there in the windows of shabby houses and flats.

They kept to the shadows, far apart as any two men. He thought he could feel the ghost of Aremu’s fingers on his, and he pushed both his hands deep in his pockets.

“You like…” he started after a moment, clearing his throat when his voice broke. “You like Hessean?” His voice sounded more like his, now, even if something was still missing.

Oes, he thought, after all that, off to a Hessean stall in some closing-up night market in Basin Court. Would dsoh in West-and-Long be better? Jus’ wait, dove, I got to go clean up. Both he could’ve laughed at. Sure know how to treat a kov, Cooke, you kenser’s erse.

He looked over at Aremu, his brow furrowed; under another lamp, he couldn’t tell what was on the other man’s face. He felt an ache of concern, and wondered if he felt too much or not enough. He still felt something like a banderwolf, or some other animal with a thick hide and sharp teeth.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Late Night, 27 Yaris, 2716
Night Market, Basin Court

Tom’s hand closed over his, warm, calluses rasping against his palm. Aremu held firm, crouched, and pulled Tom over the railing, through the gap between the top of the ladder and the edge of the street. He felt it, the moment when Tom shifted to let Aremu take some of his weight; he felt it in his arm, his shoulder, and somewhere deep inside the pit of his stomach.

He let go, as they both came to standing.

Tom led; Aremu didn’t know which of them it was who put the distance between them, or whether it was both, in the end, who trailed apart, wandering the shadows between the patches of blue phosphor light. Tom’s voice was a rasp again when he spoke; Aremu glanced over, seeing the light gleam on the tangle of his beard, spark in the depths of his dark eyes.

“Hessean’s good,” Aremu said, after a moment. He wasn’t sure how he sounded; he wasn’t sure how he meant it, either. He liked the Hessean food he’d had, well enough; he liked most food, well enough, even though the Anaxi stuff tended to sit, heavy, starchy and bland, in the pit of his stomach.

He’d’ve eaten it, anyway. The walk had taught him he was hungry; his stomach was sticking to his ribs, pressed back against his spine. He wasn’t sure if it was the eza, the hunger, or all the rest that made him feel nauseous, made his head throb, but he thought food wouldn’t hurt, at the least.

The rooftops dropped lower, around Basin Court; the streets went wider. Aremu knew the area well enough, even if not quite like Quarter Fords. Tom took them through a blue-hazed alleyway, past a cluster of men sitting and smoking next to a pile of closed, covered crates. There was a burst of laughter from opposite.

“Best tongue around, kov,” A sharp featured man sitting on a stall, not half lit by a lantern, called after them. “Turn you around till you ent sure which’s yer head and which’s yer erse!”

Another burst of laughter.

A woman leaned in a window overhead, cigarette dangling from her lip; she watched them pass, smoke curling up, and didn’t call out. Aremu didn’t glance up, either.

Aremu’s shoulders ached; his back too, knotted tight. His hands were jammed deep in the pockets of his pants, both of them, and his fingers curled into the fabric there, just a little. He knew to walk with his gaze forward, not to jerk and glance around. He didn’t look at Tom, either; he didn’t look anyway but in front of them, at the dirty ground below and whatever was revealed by the light.

They rounded the corner to a small square; the smell of stale oil wafted towards them, and Aremu grimaced, drawn and repulsed at once. It wasn’t to that tent that Tom took them, though, but another, halfway across the square, where a hawk-nosed Hessean was sharpening a heavy cleaver, his apron well-spotted.

Aremu’s stomach squeezed, twisted and ached.

The square was all lined with blue, phosphor lights washing over it; if some were worn down by time, flickering half pale, none’d yet gone out, and more than a few gleamed new. There were men around, and even a handful of women, sitting on crates and barrels like enough to tables, but it wasn’t crowded, not at this hour; there was space enough to sit alone.

Not quite alone, Aremu thought, glancing sideways.

“What’ll it be, kov?” The Hessean spat onto the ground, grinning, revealing a mouth of teeth as crooked as Tom’s.

Aremu’s eyes searched through the stall. There was long, wide pan full of yellow, raisin-studded rice; there was a spit turning over coals at the back, fat dripping and hissing against the coals. There were bits of onion, too, yogurt, roasted vegetables sitting beneath the lamb with sharp sticks threaded through, long curling green pepper resting nearby, oval flatbreads spotted dark, deep fried bits of something on an oil-spotted plate. There wasn’t much of anything left, but there was plenty to eat.

Aremu shrugged his shoulders; he felt hollow inside. He glanced back at the man again. “Bit of everything,” he said, quietly. He reached into his pocket, turning a few coins between his fingers.

The Hessean looked him over and laughed, but he took Aremu at his word; he began to pile up a plate, slicing thick pieces of meat on top of the rice, putting a skewer, yogurt, the fried balls, flatbread, and even one of the long green peppers onto it.

[Tom Cooke]

Night Streets • Basin Court

Evening on the 27th of Yaris, 2716

D
im phosphor blue; one light at the corner still flickered, dimmed and brightened, seemed like to the pulse of his headache. Tide came in; tide went out. Was noise enough to fill the buzz, now, bustling all round. Sharp Heshath voices spilled out from a nearby cluster of crates, where a few chip sat round, faces painted heavy, one still picking at the bones of rice and meat.

Another pair of gold eyes followed him and Aremu, dark lips twisted in something like a smile. She was playing with an old fan, flicking it open and shut, open and shut.

Oråtha’s stall was underneath the brightest of them. He kept back a ways behind Aremu, squinting – he felt like – like a bat with a lantern in its face.

Soft warm light spilled out round the old man. Limned the silhouette of him and his cleaver, prickled hazy at the edges of his grey hair. Haloed him and his mant shoulder of lamb on a spit like effigies of St. Grumble and the drake.

He didn’t hear what Aremu said, only saw the rumple of his hand in his pocket; he didn’t see the glint of the coin, nor hear the clink. Oråtha grinned and laughed like he’d said something funny, but Tom’d heard no mirth in his voice.

Meant to pay, he realized – for all it was a mung idea, he thought now. Oråtha was already working at the lamb, knotted hand pivoting the handle deft and graceful, shaving off charred meat like a man might shave a few days’ stubble.

Aremu was a bundle of tense lines. Might’ve looked over once, a flash of a profile; he never looked back, that Tom saw, never at him. And Tom didn’t look too close at him, neither. Kept far enough back they might well’ve been strangers. Maybe they was.

Another chatter of Heshath, another laugh. He darted a glance toward the lasses, but they wasn’t looking at him; they was looking at another table, dotted with sweat-stained Anaxi kov with hooks at their belts.

When Aremu turned away, it was with a plate piled high. Tom glanced at it; he blinked, and his lips twitched in his beard.

Maybe he hung there for a second longer than he had to, maybe he didn’t. Tray looked heavy and hot. Tom knew where he was going, when he turned from the stall and started away; he knew the seat in the corner of his eye as he stepped up and gave Oråtha his broadest grin, and asked the Hessean what the hell he’d been up to these past months.

He felt like a cloth twisted by knobbly, rough hands. He felt the last of it dripping out of him and onto the ground like so much sap.

The smile fell off his face soon as he turned away; the last of whatever he let possess him – like a ghost from a boch’s story – had flown away like so many birds. He was scared, as he went to sit, he’d open his mouth and there’d be nothing left to come out.

Aremu was sitting with his plate at the edge of a soft blue glow, crouched over a few crates shoved together. He eased himself onto the crate across, in the end, though he didn’t know he ought to’ve. Half wanted to ask, d’you mind if I – like they didn’t know each other, like there wasn’t no other place for him. He didn’t know, not with all their talk earlier, if that’d’ve been more like the thrust of a riff than not asking at all; he didn’t know nothing.

His plate was piled mostly with lamb, a mant manna lamb, vegetables and rice. So close, the smell twisted and writhed in his stomach. He was hungry; he was ravenous. When’d he eaten last? Sometime, sometime…

He thought to say something. Anything. He opened his mouth; nothing came out. He cleared his throat, and then set about at the lamb, with its charred bits and its glistening grease, like the banderwolf he must’ve looked like.

He watched Aremu, too, for all that; he watched the way the other man ate. He raised his eyes to the kebabs slowly emptying, the rice and meat, and then dark, deep-fried edetheiñ and yogurt and herbs wrapped up in flatbread and drizzled in sharp sour sauce, to the long, graceful fingers that worked at all this, less like a banderwolf, Tom thought, and more like a chimneysweep at a banquet.

There was no point telling him to slow down; Tom was eating just as fast.

When his stomach ached, when he had to leave some space between bites – enough space to talk through – he spoke, finally. “How d’you feel?” he asked, and immediately felt like a fool for it. He looked down at the bones of his yats, and wondered what ghost he heard in his own soft rough voice then.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Late Night, 27 Yaris, 2716
Night Market, Basin Court

Aremu left the coins in the man’s hand; the tray was heavy, a solid, reassuring weight in his hands, the warm, spicy smell of the food washing up at him. There was a burst of chattering Heshath laughter, and Aremu didn’t look. He didn’t, quite, look at Tom either; the other man was standing back, out of the circle of the lantern light, and Aremu felt a faint pinch of uncertainty.

He didn’t wait, then; he didn’t look either, but went to a quiet corner, one at the edge of a dim blue lantern, where no one’d sit behind him and no one’d be able to see him too well, either. As he turned, he heard Tom’s voice behind him, lively and almost laughing, and it churned through him, chewed him up and spat him back out. He didn’t look; he was ashamed of wanting to, ashamed that he liked the idea of seeing Tom grin, even if it wasn’t at him.

Aremu kept his gaze squarely on the food before him. He ate as if he thought of nothing else, as if every bite needed his full concentration. He pulled pieces off the bread, wrapped bites of the lamb in them, added the vegetables and the yogurt sauce, tucked it all together with fat-bright fingertips, and ate it with the enthusiasm it deserved.

He didn’t look up, when Tom came and sat. Something tightened in the set of his shoulders.

If it’s so important to pretend, Aremu wanted to ask, why come sit with me? Or is it that it isn’t important? Or did you think you couldn’t laugh like that, if I was there?

He didn’t ask any of it; he didn’t say any of it. He kept at his eating; the skin of the pepper split apart, hot and dark, and the Mugrobi tore off strips with his fingers, seeds and all, and laid them down alongside the lamb, and ate it unhesitatingly. It hurt, at first; it ached, somewhere deep inside, in a way that told him it’d been too long. He knew to eat through it, and he knew, too, when he reached the point where he had to go slow, if he didn’t want to be sick.

Tom hadn’t said anything; neither had he. Aremu’s mouth was aching dry; the Hessean had added a cup of something to the meal. He picked up the cup, tentatively, and he sipped at it; it was thick, and dark red in the gleam of the blue light, as tart as it was sweet. Aremu took another sip, a long swallow.

He was setting the cup down when Tom spoke. He glanced up, hesitant, sitting back a bit. There was still some food left to eat; he’d cleared out all the lamb and bread, but there were the small fried balls, still, enough rice to be worth mopping up with his fingers, charred bits of vegetables; he’d be able to eat it all, Aremu knew, if he let himself rest a moment or two.

How do you feel, Tom’d asked. Aremu shifted on the edge of the crate. He’d felt the other man’s gaze on him as he ate, on and off; he didn’t know what to make of it. There was something soft in his voice, too, something more like dove than kov.

“Empty, still,” Aremu said, quietly. He hadn’t meant to say it; his gaze flicked up, and then away, because he was cowardly enough not to want to watch. He let himself hope maybe Tom hadn't heard him, though he knew it wasn't likely; it was too empty in the square, too quiet, for such hopes.

Should be full, he thought to say, as if that might ease it. I always eat a lot, he thought to say, absurdly; he knew how he looked, and he knew the way men and women both looked at him, when he ate. He’d finished Niccolette’s plates, nine meals out of ten, the whole second half of the first year they spend on the Eqe Aqawe, when she liked him enough to offer him the leftovers and they hadn’t quite yet sorted the portions.

I’m always empty, he thought to say, all the more absurdly. He was too tired to lie, and too tired, too, to be honest.

Aremu mopped up a bit of rice with his fingertips instead, rolling it up, and ate it; he rested his hand on the edge of the tray, watching the light gleam on the smears of fat left behind.

[Tom Cooke]

Night Streets • Basin Court

Evening on the 27th of Yaris, 2716

O
ne of the dockers’d gone back up to the stall, a lumpy silhouette against the light. He heard Oråtha’s voice, Rose brogue with its sharp Heshath edge, and behind him out leaked the deep-fried hiss of a last batch of something or other. Docker was laughing, old man grinning and rubbing the back of his sweating neck; one of his lads was a shadow behind him and what was left of the lamb on the spit, carrying a tray of something in a blur. There was the sound of pennies clacking on the counter.

Wasn’t looking over there, or not for long; wasn’t looking over at the ladies, neither, though he kept hearing the clack of a fan open shut, open shut, and tittering laughter at intervals.

Was looking down at his plate, mostly, wondering what’d come through like a fucking hurricane. Always like this. Wasn’t much left; pina rice, pina wedges of squash and zucchini and carrot, all blending together in the ghost-blue light. Some yogurt stuck to a shred of lamb. Aftertaste clung to his mouth; the beforehand, couldn’t say if he’d enjoyed it or not.

Managed to glance up at Aremu the second Aremu glanced up at him. Maybe it was that light glinting off the whites of his eyes, or maybe something’d moved in his face. Maybe he’d known, somehow.

Tom blinked when he did. He wasn’t sure if he’d looked him in the eye proper since the canals, since – before that, even, when he’d leaned to kiss him, when he’d tried to hold those eyes like he’d never feel the touch of them again.

Aremu’s crate creaked; he shifted at the same moment, ne before or after, and the one he sat on gave a pop. He glanced sharp-like down at his plate again. Thought maybe he hadn’t spoken out loud, or if he had, maybe Aremu didn’t want to answer.

He didn’t glance up. The imbala’s voice was soft underneath the chatter of the market. He was picking up some rice with his fingers, now, glistening with grease and specks of char. He felt his eyes on him again, except he didn’t look up this time; he was fair still, and quiet, and he wrestled whatever it was that tightened in his chest.

“Leaves a man feelin’ – that way,” Tom rasped, more in the direction of a clump of rice and a scatter of parsley than Aremu. “Sometimes,” he added, quieter.

Shifted where his forearm rested on the crates between them; he thought the edge of it sat along the line where the railing’d been, not too long or forever ago. He’d a fork in one hand, and he turned it, just enough he saw the raw scuffs along the heel, where he’d grabbed onto the stone.

He went for the last shred of lamb; his face twitched, tightened in a wince. Couldn’t much stand the tap of those twisted metal tines against the battered metal plate.

Wasn’t sure why he’d said that. Aremu’d meant yats, he reckoned. Always yats, it’d been. His brows furrowed together, and he looked over at the other man’s plate again, still with some more vegetables and rice and deep-fried balls.

Still empty, here. Like hell’d he meant the food. Tom set his fork down, careful-quiet enough it didn’t make a noise, this time. He frowned, pressing his other palm to his forehead.

He wished he could make light of it; he wished he could make anything of it except what it was, except he didn’t know what it was, didn’t know what any of it was. What this was. What they was. When he looked up, finally, he looked up first at the lamp spilling blue light, and the moths that swept through it.

“Been a while for me, too,” he said, looking back down at Aremu. He still wasn’t smiling; his brow was furrowed. “Felt –” He sucked at a tooth, and looked down, ‘cause he couldn’t look at the other man. “Ne like us,” he said, quiet.

Ne what I meant, he should’ve said. Ne like what we been doing. Ne like what it felt like before. He was too tired to. He shut his eyes and found the fingers of one hand curling to a fist.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Late Night, 27 Yaris, 2716
Night Market, Basin Court

Aremu didn’t look, but he knew, somehow, out of the corner of his eye, that Tom wasn’t looking either. There was the gleam of blue phosphor on the crown of his head, soft on dark thick hair.

Lovely hair, Aremu thought; Tom had lovely hair. He’d thought so from the first time he’d seen him; the other man knew it, too, Aremu thought, remembering Tom winding it up into a bun, or drawing it back into a braid with careful dexterity. He remembered, with a wrench, how it’d felt around his fingers, holding tight. I don’t know, he wanted to say, how hard to pull it; I didn’t mean to -

Hadn’t he meant to?

Leaves a man feeling that way, Tom said. Sometimes

Eating after too long always did, Aremu thought, his eyes shifting away. Gnawing emptiness in the pit of your stomach up until you were so full you could scarcely move. He kept waiting for the fullness, but he couldn’t seem to find it, not tonight; there was only a churning feeling.

He knew better than to think they were talking about food. He picked at one of the fried balls, turning it over; he eased it apart with his fingers. It was still warm; a little steam drifted up into the night air, revealing crispy yellow-green insides, soft crumbs stuck together. He thought to eat it; he couldn’t manage it, and just sat there, instead, thinking about it.

Been a while, Tom said. Aremu’s eyes flickered shut. He’d never really thought Tom hadn’t understood.

His eyes opened again, slowly, when the other man kept on. Aremu shifted on the edge of his crate; he wiped the bit of it off his hands. His jaw clenched, and then softened, and he found he was looking at Tom.

Tom’s eyes were closed now; his face was all blue-washed, the light casting strange shadows from his brow and his hair, all around his eyes. Deep shadows, Aremu thought, like bruises.

The bruise itself, the one along his jaw, looked worse than it had before; the swelling looked worse. Aremu thought of the bruising along his ribs, too; he’d thought of it then, and he’d been careful. Nevio hadn’t, and he hadn’t stopped him, and he supposed that wasn’t any better than being careless himself.

Us, Aremu wanted to say, what us?

Half a day ago maybe he could’ve; he couldn’t, now, in all honesty.

He didn’t know what to make it of, the frown on Tom’s face, the tight, downward sweep of his mouth, the hand clenched to a fist at his side. Disappointed, maybe, Aremu thought. That Aremu hadn’t enjoyed himself more? That Tom himself hadn’t?

Not like us. And? Aremu wanted to ask. And so? What the flooding fuck does that mean, Tom, because I’ve got no idea. You took me there; you - you wanted -

I wanted, too, or I thought I did. Aremu felt his stomach churning; he closed his eyes. He didn’t like to throw up; strong emotion had taken him that way, ever since he was a boy. The smell of grease soured, turned his stomach. He breathed in and out through his mouth, settled, slowly.

Best to leave it, Aremu thought. His hand was a fist, too; it was clenched tight at his side, squeezing the edge of the crate so hard it cracked. Best to leave it. Didn’t he ever learn? He looked down at himself, a long moment, breathing evenly.

“Is that how you want me?” Aremu asked, quietly. He looked back up, and didn’t look away from Tom’s face, this time; he thought he needed to see the yes, if it came. He wanted to remember it; he wanted to be able to hold on to it, when he gazed at the stars and thought of being alone.

[Tom Cooke]

Night Streets • Basin Court

Evening on the 27th of Yaris, 2716

I
f he kept his eyes shut, the market and the lights and his scraped-at wreck of a plate and wreck of a night and wreck of what he’d set down between them might bleed off like so much sap from a cut. He hadn’t meant to say it like that. Didn’t know what the fuck he was on about. Us, us, us, it’s just a flooding word. Aremu took it that way, that was Aremu’s problem, and he could turn it right round on him – he felt a bloody surge of something like satisfaction at the thought – what d’you mean us, Aremu’d snap, and he’d say, how the hell d’you mean Us? ‘Cause that ain’t how I meant…

Like a fucking boch.

He breathed in; his fist didn’t relax, no matter that he felt the night breeze whisk over his face and brush through his hair – carrying whiffs of deep frying and lamb and spices, heady perfume, dockers’ sweat, rumors of sugar and frying dough from other stalls. Voices he couldn’t understand, some he could.

Could’ve stood up, without another word. Here, you could feel the draw of it. Market’d close up soon, but there was other places you could find yourself in a city like this. Was plenty of bars still spilling out light and laughter, places he’d never been, men who didn’t know him.

Mirrors he liked better than this one. Thought came into his head; he hadn’t asked for it, nor’d he wanted it. His hand tightened, and the bruises on his jaw ached from the clench of it.

He heard a quiet wooden crack. Aremu spoke, then, soft. When he opened his eyes, he’d expected him to be looking down or someplace else; he met his eyes instead, straight across, studying his face like – Tom thought – he might’ve studied the metal shell of an engine for cracks.

Tom’s eyes widened slightly. He didn’t look away, but his mouth opened a crack, and nothing came out except the air. He wet his dry lips, and he thought he could taste something else mixed with the Hessean yats, like the last burning-sweet cling of eza or cloying incense smoke. He felt it all under Aremu’s eyes, tingling in his skin, prickling in his beard.

“No,” he said after a moment, slow-like. He cleared the husk out of his throat, looked down at the fork he’d left on the plate.

That how I – want you?

He knew better than to pretend. He swallowed, loosening his fist, spreading out his aching fingers on the crate. “Thought…” He studied the warped, greasy metal, spotted dark. “Ain’t many men as…”

As touch me like you, he thought. He flinched; he thought he could feel the eyes of the women, could feel the broad backs of the dockers. His fingertips had found the handle of the fork. The flinch had softened his face. He didn’t pick it up; he just ran his blunt, scarred thumb over it, gentle-like, frowning.

“...ain’t many men want me like you,” he finished after a fair long, fair quiet moment, hand leaving the fork, easing back. He looked at Aremu’s plate, where one of the balls was crumbled open, no longer steaming now the air’d hit its insides.

He looked back up at Aremu, one forearm still resting on the crate. He smiled faintly. Fuck the lasses, fuck Oratha, fuck the dockers too, if they swing that way.

That how you want me? he wanted to ask, sudden-like, but he thought Aremu’d already answered him. Felt a maw ago.

Aremu must’ve thought he was asleep, a couple nights ago; he’d lain awake with his eyes shut, with the imbala curled against his side for just so long he might’ve been there to stay. He’d felt him ease away, felt the cold whisper into the shape of him still in the mattress, felt the pressure of him sitting on the edge of the bed and then rising and then gone.

“That ain’t how you want me, is it?” he asked instead, voice low. He didn’t know which way he meant. How do you, he ached to ask, want me?

[Aremu Ediwo]

Late Night, 27 Yaris, 2716
Night Market, Basin Court

Tom’s eyes came open when Aremu spoke. He met his gaze; he held, just a moment, because he didn’t want to be the one to look away, not this time. He felt better for the asking, like taking the bandage off and letting cool air wash over something healing, not sure whether it was still too tender, but unable, all the same, to bear the covering up any longer.

Tom didn’t look away either, not for a long moment. When he spoke, it felt like it slipped between Aremu’s heartbeats; they were pounding in his ear, one after the next, faster than he’d’ve liked. He swallowed, hard. No, he thought; no.

He’d been prepared for yes. He didn’t know, Aremu thought, if he was prepared for no. He didn’t know what no meant, just now, except that it hurt a different way than he’d expected, somewhere other than where he’d made himself ready, where he hadn’t expected it.

Tom was looking down, now. Aremu watched him still, for all that he felt like maybe he shouldn’t. Tom’s hand came loose, slowly, fingers spreading out. Aremu wanted to take it, suddenly; he didn’t so much as think about moving towards it, not just here, not just now.

He didn’t know how Tom would finish the sentence. Ain’t many men as would want you? No, Aremu thought, no; he knew Tom better than that now, didn’t he? He felt an ache in his shoulders, all down his spine.

Want me like you, Tom said, and Aremu swallowed, hard. He understood; he couldn’t pretend he didn’t. For once, the soft blue light glancing off Tom’s hair, the tiniest little smile creeping up at the edges of his lips, he didn’t want to.

That, Tom said. Aremu watched him. He didn’t know what the question was; he didn’t know if yes would be the lie, or no, or if there was any way to answer at all that would be honest. He didn’t need to be; Tom didn’t know to expect it, or not to expect it. Tom didn’t know a godsdamned thing about it – if Aremu had ever doubted, he didn’t anymore – and it didn’t matter in the least; he didn’t want to lie to him, not with his words, not with the lack of them, not in the spaces between.

“Can I come over?” Aremu asked, quietly, instead, and he hoped Tom would know it was an answer, would hear the honesty in it, because he wasn’t sure he knew what honesty sounded like. He didn’t know if he ever had; how could he. “Tonight? It’s – “ He swallowed, hard; he didn’t think food could be sticking in his throat, suddenly, but he wasn’t sure what else could be lingering there. He took the dark red juice and sipped at it, tart-sweet, his heart pounding hard in his chest once more.

“I know it’s late,” Aremu said, as softly as he’d spoke all along. The back of his neck prickled; he wanted to look away, to look down, not to let them see him looking – not to let Tom see him looking - because he was desperately afraid of what he might be letting show. “I don’t… want that to be how we say goodbye tonight.”

I don’t know if I can – again, he wanted to say, but I’d like to hold you for a little while; I’d like to kiss you, in the places that bruised. There wasn’t any place for tenderness, there, and it’s -

“I’m sore,” Aremu said, and his hand twitched, and then settled back down, because he’d wanted to touch Tom’s hand so badly he hadn’t thought, just a moment. “I think you might be too.” He was trembling, a little; he took a deep breath, and went back to teasing at the deep fried ball with its bits of green, watching it intently, as if it mattered, very much indeed, where his fingers touched it. He pressed the two parts together, but he thought if he squeezed too hard, the whole thing'd come apart between his fingers.

He couldn’t keep it up; he looked up again, and Aremu knew, then, that he was hungry still.

[Tom Cooke]

Night Streets • Basin Court

Evening on the 27th of Yaris, 2716

H
e didn’t think he’d asked it aloud, or with any part of him – the look of his eyes, the set of his lips – ne, vrunta, he’d not asked it with his hands tonight, and nor’d the other man. Come over, he didn’t know what was in that; he could turn it round in his head, look underneath it, and he was scared to look inside, scared doing so’d mean to open it and spill its guts.

Not a fine thought with the smell of yats all round. Wasn’t so hungry, ne more. It’s, Aremu started, then, stopped, then took a drink. Tom caught a whiff of something sticky-sweet and sour; he looked at the cup when Aremu lowered it, blue light glinting off wine-dark ripples.

It’s –

Late, he said. Tom looked back up; easier to meet his eye, now, somehow, for all his skin prickled. “Ne too late for me,” he murmured, easy-like. Then, slower, “I don’t, uh… I don’t, either.”

Qalqa wouldn’t busy him ‘till a few days from now, earliest, ‘less somebody came calling tomorrow-day about last night’s job, and he felt he’d fair finished that. So he could sleep in, maybe, however late the night took him after Aremu left.

Something about the thought of waking up with the early Yaris sun flooding through the glass, with the empty bed – for Jaeli was away, today and tomorrow at least – sat strange with him. Some fool part of him’d not gave up that strange hope of wandering in the kitchen to find a familiar face perched on his couch, pina nose stuck in a book. Empty house always sat strange, these days; it was worst when he woke up alone, and it took him a while to remember.

Sore, he’d said. I’ve the hide of a banderwolf, he didn’t say, knowing it for bitterness; you know that, now.

Tom looked down at Aremu’s hand; he couldn’t help catch the twitch of movement, almost like he was – he didn’t know what, he reckoned, he really.

He watched Aremu trying to put the two halves of fried chickpeas together, he didn’t know why. Wasn’t like he’d fit ‘em perfect and give ‘em back to Oratha. He noticed the tremble of Aremu’s fingertips.

You got to get back to the Eqe Aqawe, he wanted to say, and it’s halfway across the Rose; you leave in a couple, three hours – and however long it takes us to get there – you’ll have a long walk before you. It’ll not be a last goodbye if you leave me here, he wanted to say, but he couldn't make that promise. When’re you leaving? he knew he couldn’t ask.

Selfish, fair selfish man, he was. “Catch a cab, oes?” he said, soft, a peep of a smile cracking his face. He wanted to reach for Aremu’s hand; he knew better here, and he hated all of them and their eyes. “Fords is a ways,” he added, instead of everything else he wanted to say, and leaned forward slightly, and –

Busied his hands about his plate, about his cup and things. When the imbala finished, he’d offer to take his, wordless.

He felt the lasses’ eyes on him; he heard the fan clack open shut, and he caught another sort of look from one of the dockers, a funny set to his jaw, a twist to his lip. He grinned and laughed again with Oratha, found more where he thought he’d been wrung dry.

Somehow they was walking again.

Maybe they was closer together, off and on beneath the lamps; maybe they wasn’t. Tom kept his hands shoved in his pockets.

A dog barked somewhere, and another dog barked after it. Down an alleyway, he caught a glimpse of a lass in a dark, low-cut dress, wrapped in a thin coat, pounding at a back door with her skinny fist. “Robert!” she snapped. “Robert, ye son of a bitch, let me in!” He caught a frantic, angry glance. “Fuck’re ye lookin’ at?”

Main thoroughfare at Basin Court wasn’t far. The lights got brighter and closer together; they stung his eyes, and the noises – the laughter, the song – slurring-drunk voices – stabbed at his ears.

When the crowd thickened, he took the excuse to walk closer to Aremu, and he found the muscles in his own back tensing, for all he thought they’d taken all they could bear. He didn’t need to look at Aremu to know how he stood, how he held his body and his face and his eyes in this place.

Cabbies for their kind – leastways, his kind – haunted Brandon’s and thereabouts, night like this on a ten. Time he hailed one down, it ached to lift his arm up, mostly in his ribs. Cabbie said something, laughing, before he climbed in, something he was too tired to hear; the whole box creaked under his weight, and he took up a good half one side, head ducked a pina.

He wasn’t mung enough to think they’d not pick up more folk, before they got to the Fords. But he was looking down, smiling into his beard; he didn’t think he could bear to look at Aremu, and he didn’t know what he’d see in the flickering dark, anyway. He reached to brush his hand, and then hold it, for as long as until the cab rattled to a halt again. Was all you could do.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Late Night, 27 Yaris, 2716
Night Market, Basin Court

Tom’s fingers wove between his in the dark of the cab. Aremu had sat opposite him, thinking – Tom was cramped, but there was space enough, and it was natural – unavoidable – that his knee should rest, lightly, against Tom’s, with no one to look otherwise at it.

The walk through Basin Court had drained something from him, something he hadn’t known he had left – something he thought, perhaps, he didn’t have left, really. It emptied out everything except the ache through every muscle of his back, the faint, tight throbbing in his head, the faint throbbing fullness in his stomach. He’d eaten the fried balls, in the end, and the last of the vegetables and the rice; he couldn’t remember the last time he’d left food behind. He’d let Tom take the plate, and they hadn’t need to speak about it.

He almost jumped, at the brush of Tom’s hand. He didn’t know why, but for the surprise of it. He realized, though, and his fingers wound back between the other man’s, and he squeezed, softly. Tom’s thumb brushed, slowly, over his skin.

Aremu smiled; something was tight in his chest, and he was grateful in the dark.

They came apart, naturally, as if they’d never been together, when the carriage rattled to a stop, when a man a head shorter than Tom and taller than Aremu came in, squeezing himself into the corner. They stopped again, and then again, and then they climbed out onto one of the main streets in Quarter Fords.

Aremu shivered in the chill night air, breathing deep; it smelled like tsug trees and frying spices and kofi, and something eased in the tense set of his shoulders.

They didn’t hold hands, walking the last few streets, for all that it was dark, but they walked together, close, close enough. Tom led them through the gate, and through the garden – his dream of home, Aremu thought, half-smile and half-ache – and into the cold house. Tom went to stoke the stove, and Aremu could hear him rattling around, kettle banging about.

Aremu followed, after a moment; he eased himself down into a seat at the old worn table, taking a deep breath. He watched Tom’s back, the shape of his movement in the dark; the only light was whatever came in through the window, spilling soft through the room. It was late; he didn’t have the least idea what the hour was. He knew only that dawn hadn’t yet started creeping over the horizon.

I’m free in the morning, Aremu wanted to say. I’ve some work to do on the ship, but it’s minor enough, tinkering more than anything. I could stay, if you wanted – if we wanted –

His gaze dropped to the scuffs and stains on the wood; for all that the table was clean, it showed the marks of its batterings, and its age.

I’d like to stay, Aremu wanted to say. No, he thought, that wasn’t quite true, or maybe it wasn’t quite whole. I’d like you to want me to stay. That was what he really wanted to say; he was too tired to pretend to himself. And he was tired – he thought they both were – tired all through himself, and tired, too, somewhere deep inside, in a place that clung to the edges of his emptiness, in some part they both had. Maybe not – but he only had to think of Tom’s face in Basin Court, the brush of his hand in the dark, to know.

He didn’t speak, and neither did Tom; the kettle jumped, and rattled, and the water bubbled inside, and it began to whistle, steam leaking out into the air.

“Thanks,” Aremu said, quietly, when Tom set the cup of tea down before him. He ran his fingertips around the edges of it; his other hand settled over Tom’s, slowly. I want you like this, he thought to say, but he couldn’t bring the words past somewhere in his throat. Tom wouldn’t – couldn’t – want that. This wasn’t the type of being together they’d been speaking of; Aremu felt grateful and strange, almost guilty, as if he’d taken something meant for someone else.

But his gaze lifted to Tom’s face, slowly, and a little smile curled over it. He left the tea aside; he came forward, out of his chair; he hesitated, a moment, and he settled himself into Tom’s lap, easy enough with the difference in size, although nowhere he’d ever sat clothed.

Slowly, carefully, Aremu leaned down; he brushed his lips around the edges of the bruising on Tom’s jaw, tender and careful. He made a journey of it; when he took the other man’s shirt off, to kiss at the bruise left by Nevio’s ring, the blue-purple splash over his ribs, it was slow and careful, no urgency or heat left in him.

This, he tried to say, with every brush of his lips; this, too, this is how I want you. He didn’t know if Tom understood; he didn’t think he could say it any clearer. This; I want this.