[Mature] Just as It Was

[Tom Cooke]

Home • Quarter Fords

Nighttime on the 27th of Yaris, 2716

T
om’s head throbbed. Some of it all’d sloughed off, when they’d passed the threshold; he thought it’d fallen off Aremu, too, leastways that which’d been caused by the streets and their people, and not him.

He didn’t look back at the imbala, as he busied himself about the stove and the tea. Incense smells – different smells – sage and patchouli clung about the kitchen counters, about hama’s burners here and there, and the sticks and blocks stacked neat in one corner. Mint, too, when he took the lid off the tin, fresh-ground from a few days ago. The woodsmoke smell of the stove mingled with all this.

He watched the other man still in the corner of his eye, relieved somehow when he came into the tiny kitchen after all. He knew better than to look, but he kept him there, scared if he looked maybe he’d find him gone. He dug the pina metal spoon into the leaves, scooping out spoonful and then spoonful into the old teapot.

Aremu’d eased into one of the chairs, and he noticed he sat a little gingerly. They’d said nothing, the two of them; he’d thought there was more to say, before goodbye, but maybe there wasn’t. Or maybe it was on him to break the silence, and Aremu’d misjudged the sort of man he was – not the sort of man you talk to, in the end.

He took out his matches in the meantime, lighting one and lighting the candles that sat along the kitchen window. The window was open, and they wavered and bowed.

Still didn’t look at Aremu. There’s a story, he half-wanted to say; maybe he’d’ve said it, if he were a smarter kind of man, if he were Aremu’s kind of man. There’s an old spoke story – there was a man, and Naulas’d taken his lover, and he’d gone to find her; and because she wasn’t supposed to die yet, the good god told him he could lead her out of the antelife, so long as he didn’t look back to make sure she was still following him.

Wasn’t sure why he thought of it. It was hot. He wanted to take off this rumpled, dirty shirt and all the shit it’d seen tonight; he thought he was too tired by half to pull it over his head, or else grapple with all the buttons.

When he sat down with the tea, and sat himself down, he found Aremu’s hand on his. There was no lightning to this, no building, tingling charge; it brought a smile to his face, hesitant, and he wasn’t sure whether to turn his hand and hold it.

Pina smile on Aremu’s face, he thought; he knew that face too well, now, to think it was a trick of the wavering light over the curl of his lips. The imbala moved, and his shadow moved too, whispering over the scars on the table. He brought himself closer – close, fair close, ‘til Tom could smell the scent of him, and feel the weight of him settling in his lap, and his face was a blur and the soft press of lips at the edge of his beard, where the aching was the worst.

No wanting left in him. He ached through; he was tender and tired where he should’ve wanted, and he wasn’t sure what he’d do, if he felt fingers – even those fingers – at his belt, or sliding below it. This, then, he thought, this is how you want me, and he hesitated, and he couldn’t seem to bring himself to kiss Aremu’s brow, not even when he felt the lips at the stinging welt on his shoulder and the fingers working at his buttons.

It was a relief to have off with the shirt, though, and have gentle help getting his arms out of it. Steam whisked up from the mint tea; he breathed it in deep, wincing at a twinge in his ribs, then relaxing and easing back when Aremu found that bruise. He thought he felt the gentle brush of fingers at its edge, too, at the strained and sore muscles of his side. Aremu went slow, and easy, and he was achingly grateful.

He shut his eyes. He didn’t want him to go, though he knew he had to. If he had to, one more time – he didn’t know he could.

He felt the husk of a bandage against his skin. He found Aremu’s hand with his, opening his eyes; he shifted, sitting up a pina where he’d eased back, he wasn’t sure how long ago. “Aremu,” he said.

His voice sounded like a stranger’s, hoarse.

Epaemo, he wanted to say, I don’t know I can give you what you want. “We’ve some junia for it,” he went on instead, rasping, stroking his thumb over the dirty crease of the bandage. “An’ fresh gauze, if…” If you’ll stay for that long. He felt a liar; he knew he wouldn’t be able to give him what he wanted, now or at the end of a hundred junia leaves.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Late Night, 27 Yaris, 2716
Tom and Jaeli’s House, Quarter Fords

Tom eased back against the chair; it creaked and groaned beneath their weight, but it held.

Aremu found the tender spots, and made his way around them, slow and careful. He knew Tom’s scars, by now, but he admired them in the flickering candlelight, as his fingertips pressed softly against taut, tired muscles. The other man’s eyes closed, his mouth sinking in to the thick patch of his beard.

He didn’t know how long he sat there, on Tom’s smooth lap. There was no urgency, no desire to rouse the other man; he’d almost have thought Tom sleeping, and somehow he wouldn’t have minded. That kind of peace felt like a gift, and it was one Aremu was grateful to give.

Tom jerked a little, suddenly; his fingers found Aremu’s hand, stroked the bandage there. He offered to replace it; there was something tender in his voice, and something aching, too, something Aremu didn’t know how to place. For once he didn’t want to try; he didn’t want to pry up the stones, one by one, searching for what lay underneath. He just wanted to sit in the warm kitchen, which smelled of incense and which smelled, too, of Jaeli and Tom, and let himself pretend there was nothing to find.

Aremu smiled at him. “Thanks,” he said, quietly. He brushed Tom’s forehead with his lips; he rose, and took his own seat again, comfortably and easy.

Tom rose, shifting through the waving candlelight. Aremu watched him go; he picked up the mint tea. It was warm, now, rather than hot, and he drank it anyway, smiling a little still. He unwound the bandage from his hand, slowly, with a soft grunt. Fresh blood - not so fresh, but hours old and not a day - stained the inside of it. He set it aside, slowly, checking the wound, not quite teasing the edges of it. There was blood smeared on his hand, too, dark against his skin where the stitches had torn, but it wasn’t still bleeding, so far as he could tell.

He didn’t want to think about last night, not here, not just now; he didn’t want to think of the blade at his back clenched in his fist, the harsh chanting of monite and the sharp brightness of Niccolette’s field etheric in the air, the twin whirl of Uzoji’s blades and a flare of warmth from Chibugo. He didn’t want to think of the stains on his clothing, on his hands, or the nightmares that had woken it. Not here, not now, not tonight. He’d have said he just wanted was not to think of it; he knew that now to be a lie, but in the just, and not the wanting.

Fortunate, Niccolette had called him, that the blade had gone in between the fingers, and not cut any of the small sensitive bits of the hand. Fortunate, she had told him, to be able to use all his fingers still. He flexed his hand, carefully; the cut pulled, sharply painful, but there was nothing else to it.

The neat stitches were Niccolette’s, of course. She had not numbed him; she had explained once, sharply, that she could heal him once and make it feel pleasant or she could heal him twice, and which should he prefer? She had burned the infection out first, like setting fire to his veins; his fingers twitched at the memory.

Maybe it was always that way, Aremu thought, studying his hand and glancing up; maybe it always had to hurt to heal. Tom was coming back; Aremu smiled at him, easy still, his shoulders relaxed in their set. “Nothing serious,” he said, softly, turning his hand to let the other man see.

[Tom Cooke]

Home • Quarter Fords

Nighttime on the 27th of Yaris, 2716

T
om shivered. The Yaris breeze was colder against his bare shoulders, even with the stove kindled. Seemed like only moments ago he’d been drifting with Aremu on his lap. Now he was sitting back in front of his steaming tea, and Tom glanced over his shoulder at him – smiling – feeling sure, surer and surer, he wouldn’t vanish at the touch of eyes; trying to write it down on his mung skull, still, the sight of him there, like he’d never see it again. Catching the last of that smile before it went someplace else, out of the soft light.

There was a smile on his own, as he went for the junia. Jaeli’d just picked some leaves a few nights ago; he’d watched him, sitting at the table, pestle clack clack clack, the air full of the bittersweet medicine smell of them. He found the paste in its pina jar by the window-sill, and the gauze in its box underneath the counter, wincing as he knelt to get it. He heard the soft shuff of the bandage behind, and a grunt.

Something made him pause, before he stood and turned.

Maybe it’d been a trick of the light, the look on Aremu’s face when he’d spoken; the brush of his lips hadn’t, for no light felt like that. And when he’d stood, the cloth of his trousers’d fallen slack and smooth at his middle, and there’d been no urgency in his motions, and no lingering or press in his touch, even gentle.

And maybe he was a mung, still, to put it off; he knew himself for a mung, leastways, if nothing else. Something benny in the putting-off, leastways, long as it meant he’d stay a pina longer. He didn’t want to keep him all night; just long enough. Just long enough.

So it was enough he took a bowl out back, to the tap in the yard between his and Ubir’s house. The crickets was singing, and he could hear the faint burble of song and playing and laughter, somewhere. Not the kind as drifted from the public houses, but the kind as drifted from hearths. He thought he smelt kofi, maybe, and maybe cooking, and other fine things.

Sometimes he wanted to join them. He thought of it, sometimes, walking the streets at night or as the light turned gold and lowered itself behind the houses. Bochi with fami, yats, smiling faces. Rapping on the door with a big fist, asking in his quietest voice, have you room for another?

There was light leaking out the kitchen door; he turned and wove his way back, and he didn’t think enough to wonder if Aremu’d left him. When he came back in, he found the imbala where he’d left him, his bandage off and a tangle of stained white on the table, and his tea a little less in its cup. He smiled, and smiled, and kept smiling; he was too tired to pretend, just now.

He pulled his chair closer by, ‘cause there was nobody to watch them here except Aremu, and his eyes didn’t hurt so bad now. He eased himself into it, and the brushing of their knees and thighs and shoulders – as he leant forward, close, to look – was benny, and he still didn’t want or ache or burn below his belt. They made him want for other things; he didn’t know what.

Couldn’t see it fair well, with the blood smeared and the stitches tangled. “Ain’t a doctor,” he grunted, quiet, taking Aremu’s hand in two of his. “Better for it. Don’t think nobody’d want to see a face like this at their sickbed, oes?”

His soft smile cracked into a grin; he laughed. It’d been hard to talk, before, and now the words kept coming out.

He wet a cloth and dabbed it, gentle-like, at the cut. Deep enough, it was, and fresh; Tom knew nothing of such things, but he knew his cuts and his bruises, ‘cause he’d seen enough on himself.

Nothing serious. “‘Nother scar, hey?” His voice was high and rasping and soft. He was spreading junia round the puckered skin of the cut, just close enough. “Almost looks like it fits into this one,” he added, tracing a shaky crescent of a scar round it on his palm; he smiled up at Aremu, then glanced down sheepishly, reaching for the gauze.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Late Night, 27 Yaris, 2716
Tom and Jaeli’s House, Quarter Fords

Tom’s voice was a grunt, but his hands were soft on Aremu’s, both of them holding his steady. Aremu let his fingers fall slack, sitting back easily in the chair; he ran the fingers of the other around the cup, picked it up and took another sip of the cooling mint tea. Tom was warm against him, his knee and thigh resting against Aremu’s, a tickle of his hair, once, just brushing lightly over Aremu’s shirt.

“I’m not sure I care much about a doctor’s face,” Aremu said, smiling; he looked down at Tom’s hands, steady and sure as he dabbed at the cut with a damp cloth. It stung, but not too badly to handle; it was a cleaning sort of sting. “Steady hands, though, count for a lot.”

Niccolette’s face was beautiful enough, in her angular way, though Aremu had never imagined her that way, and did not think he ever could. Her presence at his bedside had never once made any healing more pleasant for him, though he did not question her methods or their effectiveness. Her hands, though, were steady; he’d been grateful enough for that last night. These stitches were small, neat and even; she’d had time for that, and he knew from long experience it’d help the wound scar less. In a week, maybe a little more, she’d take the stitches out, too; her work was clean and even, and Aremu’d rarely been left with any scarring from the stiches themselves.

He wondered sometimes why, or how, her hands were so steady. He wondered if it was something in her, if she had always been that way, or if it was something she had learned at Brunnhold, if it could be taught.

Tom’s hands were steady, too, even when he pressed down on the edge of the cut. He didn’t think – he didn’t know. He thought Tom would mind, if he hurt him; perhaps it was just that they knew it was for a good cause.

“Ea,” Aremu said, softly, unthinking. He smiled, a little, his fingers twitching, hand turning a little to follow the stroke of Tom’s fingers. “Yes,” he clarified, softly; he was, Aremu thought, very tired. “I expect so,” he looked down at his hands, already a tapestry of scars, and past them at Tom’s hands, too, the silvery scars on his fingers gleaming in the candlelight, the swollen knuckles thickened in their own way, their scarring deeper than the eye could see.

“Maybe they all fit together,” Aremu said, softly, studying the sweep of scars over his wrists and down; he knew the shape of what he had on his forearms, too, and higher up, and down over his body. He knew Tom’s, too, but he looked, unstintingly, admiring the other man’s bare torso; he knew the shape of some of the secret scars, the ones hidden by thick dark hair, with his fingers and his lips. “Maybe we just can’t see the pattern until we have them all.”

His skin tingled beneath the junia; he hadn’t realized it hurt until it began to fade, the pulled skin all around the cut numbing beneath Tom’s careful dabs. Aremu’s eyes fluttered shut a moment. He was smiling, too; when he closed his eyes he could still see the warmth of Tom’s smile, hear the soft laugh – not the bark of what he’d pulled out for the Hessean, but something softer, and more tender. He could hear the difference, now that he listened, for all that he didn’t dare try to understand it.

Aremu’s eyes fluttered open, and he watched Tom wrap the gauze around him, slow and even. “Do you want any junia?” Aremu asked, softly. His eyes skimmed Tom’s jaw, down to the bruising on his side. His hand turned, and caught Tom’s, his thumb brushing steadily back and forth over the inside of his wrist, sweeping softly against his pulse. No bandages, he thought, but something for the pain or bruising seemed well enough, seemed like something he could offer the other man. “Or arnica, if you have it?” Aremu suggested, softly, smiling at him.

[Tom Cooke]

Home • Quarter Fords

Nighttime on the 27th of Yaris, 2716

A
remu made some kind of noise, ea, and Tom didn’t pause or lighten his touch – knew better than either of those, the kind of men they was – but he glanced up at his face, his brow knit. Aremu was smiling, anyway; yes, he said, and Tom smiled a pina back, for all he didn’t understand.

He looked back down at the hand in his when Aremu did. Easier now to look past his own big, blunt hands. Wasn’t sure he believed that about steady hands; wasn’t sure he thought the steady mattered, when the qalqa was so bloody.

But easier, still. Hand was just close enough to blur at the edges, but scars was easier to follow than printed ink. With the blood all cleared up, he could see them now: the scar as traced round the new cut, and one below it, the skin a little lighter and redder than the rest of his palm, glistening as Aremu turned his hand and it caught the light. He traced them with the light brush of his thumb, still soft with junia paste.

He nodded, quiet. All of them. Now there was a benny thought, some kind of finished piece. Maybe someday his’d all blend into each other, and he’d be one mant lump of scarflesh; he didn’t much like the thought, even if he was already uglier than a kenser’s erse end.

Aremu was looking over him, slow and easy, and he thought he didn’t mind. He knew what the other man was seeing well enough – he saw his eyes flick over what must’ve been the deep twist of a mark on his stomach, where the hair was just starting to come back in, and other, smaller, older scars of all shapes and sizes, them he’d felt Aremu’s fingertips and lips finding and following.

He smiled, whatever’d tightened in him easing off. He didn’t mind it none at all. Aremu shut his eyes, and Tom paused after he’d cut some fresh gauze, not wanting to disturb him or cover up that palm with all its lines he’d only just started to remember.

He followed the shape of a burn scar disappearing under the cuff of his sleeve. Got a funny urge to unbutton it as he fell asleep, to roll back his sleeves and look at the ones there. He’d felt them well enough, and seen them too, but always on the way to other benny things, never for its own sake.

But he wrapped his hand, and Aremu opened his eyes. Ne much reason for him to stay after this, Tom thought. Maybe this was goodbye enough; maybe…

“Uh,” grunted Tom, looking up from his strange qalqa. Arnica, Aremu said, and it took Tom a second to figure what he meant. Why would I?

He smiled, taking his hands away from Aremu’s bandaged palm. The bruises, he thought; he saw Aremu’s eyes move down, to the one on his ribs. Fine kind of strange, this feeling, like his pain was worth the easing.

I can’t offer you that, after, he thought to say. He felt like he was cheating, somehow, like he was taking and taking what he couldn’t give back. He’d let Aremu down sometime, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it now; that was it, he told himself, and nothing more. “Oes,” he said, “I’ll…”

Started up from the chair; he felt a twinge in his ribs, and something in his eyes softened, and he eased back down. “‘s’over by the window, dove,” he said, nodding his head, “wi’ the yellow twine.”

He’d not had none of his tea, and it was getting lukewarm now. But he took a sip, shutting his eyes, and opened them back to the crisp-clean whiff of arnica. He thought of Aremu running his long fingers over yellow flowers, and smiled.

“Think there’s an end to ‘em, then?” Wasn’t sure why he spoke; wanted to keep talking, wanted to stay awake, wanted him to stay.

There was more bruises than there’d been that morning, and the marks left by teeth and nails. He wondered if there was any he’d left on Aremu’s skin; the thought of taking off the imbala’s shirt, of finding them and easing them however he could, wasn’t so hard now.

He let himself think it, easing his head back against the back of the chair, and he found more words spilling out.

“Lucky the last kov as scars either of us,” and he laughed, frayed, “for he gets to see the whole pattern.” He went on, softer, “Get to thinkin’ about retirement, sometimes. Nothin’ but a fancy – chen my qalqa, an’ may it take me – but...”

He lost track of the thought. I can’t offer you nothing for this, he didn’t say, shutting his eyes. Nothing but this.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Late Night, 27 Yaris, 2716
Tom and Jaeli’s House, Quarter Fords

Aremu watched Tom rise, watched a wince shudder across his face. He knew better than to flinch at the sight, better than to look away. Tom eased back down, with something like a grunt, with a quiet murmur of dove. Aremu smiled at him, and rose, more easily than he had before, and went to the window.

There was a small container there, the lid wrapped in yellow twine. Aremu took it, unscrewing it carefully as he made his way back to Tom. The other man’s eyes were shut already, sunk deep into his face. Aremu crouched next to him, his hand resting lightly on Tom’s thigh, thumb stroking gently along the outside of his knee. He adjusted himself, holding the container in one hand and dipping his fingers into the oil with the other.

He began with the swath of bruising along Tom’s side, slow and even and careful. He used it to gauge the pressure, slow and careful, finding the sweep of his fingers over Tom’s skin. The oil gleamed, caught in thick hair, and seeped, slowly, into the dark, purpling bruises. He caught a whiff of something else, mixed in to the oil; he didn’t know what. He hoped for something soothing, something to ease the deep pain of them, where the bruises had gone through the skin and into the muscle beneath.

I learned about arnica in the desert, Aremu wanted to say, from some of the wicks we met there. Maybe there are doctors in Thul Ka who use such things, but they’re none as I knew as a boy, nor even as a man. Bruises are only pain; they heal in their own in time, and there’s no danger but their ache in the doing. I’ve known that a long time; I never thought of easing them.

That, he thought, he could have said; he didn’t know what kept his mouth shut. It was, Aremu told himself, that he needed to focus; what worth were his words, compared to the careful precision of his hands?

He felt it beneath his hand when Tom spoke, the soft rumble of his voice in his chest.

Aremu came up, then, slowly, setting the battered metal tin on the table; he eased himself back onto Tom’s lap. He dabbed his fingers into the oil once more, and gently swept them over the darkening bruise from Nevio’s ring, the skin swollen and throbbing hot around it. There were other marks, here and there, swaths of red beneath the skin; he found one on the muscle of Tom’s shoulder, and traced the space between the small, square marks, and knew himself. There, too, head bent, he dabbed the arnica oil.

“One way or another, in time,” Aremu said, quietly. He didn’t look at Tom, just then, his fingers as gentle and careful as his teeth had been rough, earlier. When he was finished, he looked up, slowly. Tom’s head was lolled back against the chair; Aremu could see the thin line of his newest scar running down along the edge of his throat, gleaming red in the candlelight. He swallowed, shaking the thoughts away.

“But?” Aremu asked, softly. “What would you do?” He dabbed his fingers in the oil once more; he set to work, slowly, gently, on the bruise at Tom’s jaw, his fingertips finding their way through the thick hair of his beard.

“I’m not sure what the point would be,” Aremu said, very softly, his fingertips tracing the bruise as carefully as he could manage, only just enough force to let the oil cling to Tom’s skin, “if I wasn’t useful.” They were soft, candlelit words; he didn’t think he’d ever said them aloud before. They ached enough that he thought they couldn’t be anything but true. He bent his head to the task, then, still curled in Tom’s lap.

[Tom Cooke]

Home • Quarter Fords

Nighttime on the 27th of Yaris, 2716

H
adn’t opened his eyes when he felt Aremu’s touch. Careful-like, the fingertips tracing along his side; he knew these hands, oes, as he’d known them before. Somehow he’d known, too, where Aremu’d start, remembering the soft brush of his kisses there in the Cat’s Paw in the darkening light – later, the tight squeeze of fingers on the muscle, the bite of a callused thumb, just hard enough to wrestle a rasping grunt from his throat and ne hard enough to let him forget it.

Hadn’t opened his eyes, still; had known, now, he didn’t need to. Wasn’t pain so much as dancing the edges of it, like lines traced atop a skin of pain, and him underneath, feeling the touch in the shape of it. Must’ve been the eza still slushing round in his head, or maybe the herbs he’d smoked.

Once, where he knew the bruise was at its purplest and darkest, the muscles underneath Aremu’s fingers tensed and the skin with them, but he never opened his eyes.

He breathed in deep the scent of arnica – mingled, he reckoned, with junia. Aremu’s fingertips wasn’t tingling pain, then; they was cool numbness, spreading out.

After he trailed off, he couldn’t be sure if he’d spoken aloud or not. Maybe he hadn’t. He thought maybe he should’ve said something cheeky and olio, something about the engines Aremu worked on, something about them hands keeping them running hot.

Maybe later, he thought. There was time, still. Aremu settled again in his lap, and he thought he’d’ve known one way or another what his hands were and weren’t doing. The engine was running, but it wasn’t too hot. The hands, too, were moving up instead of down; he felt the tickle of breath, and then Aremu was working at his shoulder, at the worst of the bruises there and then the various others he’d kissed.

But? he said, and – Tom couldn’t remember, being honest, what he’d said. He went on, and he blinked and opened his eyes, remembering. He didn’t look at Aremu; he’d the sense of something precious, something he was afraid to hold onto for fear it’d slip between his fingers, because he didn’t know the why of it.

So he woke his head up enough to think harder on what he’d said; it was a few moments, he didn’t know how long, ‘til he spoke again. Useful, he thought wistfully. “Reckon a man can be useful,” he rasped, “in a lot of ways.”

Aremu was working at a crescent sore on his arm. Tom couldn’t remember, now, which of the men’d left it.

“Some men. Don’t know what else I’d be good for. Want to –” The cool touch brushed along his jaw, startling; he realized he’d shut his eyes again, and he found himself smiling under Aremu’s fingers. “Want to use my hands,” he grunted, “want to… want to grow shit, maybe.”

Get better at reading, he thought. Wasn’t sure he ought to say that; wasn’t sure what Aremu thought about his kind reading, after all. Didn’t know if natt read in Thul Ka, for all everything else was upside-down there. Mung thought, too. Want to see other places, he thought to say, and that was even more mung. Knew by now Aremu wouldn’t laugh, but that didn’t mean he’d no pity.

He shrugged his shoulders. “‘S’why I say, I know my qalqa. Nothin’ but a fancy, dove.” He sighed. “These hands ache from so many years of what they done, it’d be a damn shame to stop now.”

His eyes was bleary when he opened them; he rubbed them, careful of the arnica. He thought Aremu’d got to all of him, near, but he didn’t want him to move; even with the stove warm at his back, it would’ve been cold without him.

He shifted, sitting up straighter, and brushed the first two buttons of Aremu’s shirt with his fingers. “Can I see? Let me be useful – before…” Before what? He hadn’t meant to say it; he smiled, still. “Let this be my qalqa, too,” he murmured, starting to undo the buttons.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Late Night, 27 Yaris, 2716
Tom and Jaeli’s House, Quarter Fords

Grow shit, Tom said, half-asleep again beneath his hands. Aremu smiled at him; it wasn’t, he thought, so hard to imagine as Tom’s sleepy voice made it sound, the tightness in it warring with the fond little smile curling over his lips.

Aremu couldn’t see himself growing things; he wanted to ask – he wanted to ask, very badly – if there was a point at which your hands had seen so much blood that they any hope of growing. He didn’t; he couldn’t. It would have been cruel, even if Tom hadn’t already been half asleep; even he could see that it would be cruel, no matter how much he meant it about himself, and how little he wished to aim it in Tom’s direction. It was a question like a bursting engine, one he couldn’t control, and he knew better than to voice it.

“You’d be good at it,” Aremu said, softly.

He didn’t know if Tom heard him. The next thing he felt was a shrug beneath his hands, a shifting of Tom’s face, something not quite a smile anymore on his lips. Aremu looked down at those hands, one resting on Tom’s own lap, the other dangling. He reached down, and lifted it up, and kissed Tom’s knuckles, softly, before settling it alongside the other.

Air whistled crooked through Tom’s nose, and for a few moments, as Aremu brushed his fingers over the last of the bruises, he smiled at the idea that he’d put the other man to sleep, this way. His lips brushed Tom’s forehead, again, and Tom didn’t even stir.

Better, Aremu thought, aching, to go. Tom’d given no indication he wanted him to stay. That wasn’t how it was, between them; they both knew it. He’d said he wanted to come and say goodbye more tenderly; hadn’t he said it? Wasn’t he only dawdling, now, waiting for a question he knew wouldn’t come?

Tom shifted before he could get up, his eyes opening. Aremu smiled down at him, afraid of all that must have been written on his face. Tom’s fingers brushed over the buttons on his shirt, for the second time that night. Before, Tom said, and Aremu searched his face, wondering, and gave it up all the same. Aremu nodded, voiceless, afraid of what words might come spilling out if he tried to answer.

He helped, shifting his arms to ease the shirt off, and grunted a little at the brush of cold air against his skin. He had bruises of his own, but they’d always been hard to see against the dark color of his skin; there were cuts and scrapes he hadn’t had a few hours ago, a rough spot on one shoulder and another line of crescents at his hip, where nails had dug in, and scattered between them the marks of his trade and what he was, inside, when he didn’t know better.

Tom’s hands were soft, softer than he had any right to. Aremu made a half-protesting noise; he was lying in the circle of the other man’s arms, then. He liked the look of it, Tom’s hands brushing soft over his skin, but his eyes fluttered closed without him asking them too, and he gave himself over to the feel of it, soft and tender.

He wandered back through memories of other hands, Niccolette’s fingers pressing sharp down on his skin as her other hand pressed the needle through his flesh; Ahura’s, called from years of knives and grating and grinding, shaking against him as the arata doctor Uzoji had called stood across the room, calling instructions to her through a grim, downturned mouth, when they all knew the rest were asleep.

Further back, to tender hands on his bicep in the desert, wandering down, sliding his pants off over his hips, not one or the other but somewhere in between. There, distant, the bitter-sharp desert smell of an herb he’d never learned the name of prickling against him; he’d cried out in the midst of the crew. Chibugo had laughed, and Willie too, and Aremu had smiled, embarrassed, and offered whatever lies he’d had to, and the wicks had used arnica, instead, and taught him the name of it.

Further back; Efreet’s hands, soft, uncallused, and her sharp voice laughing at him even as she tutted at the state of his leg, after some particularly disastrous trip across the roofs. A pinch of guilt there, an ache; further back, to bitter-sharp desert smells, when he’d been too young to know there was no use in crying, that it did nothing but drown you in yourself. He remembered callused hands, then, too, by some trade he still couldn’t know; he remembered them as disjointed, remembered himself and darkness and the hands and the smell –

Aremu jerked against Tom; his eyes fluttered open, and he realized he too, had fallen asleep. He pressed his face into the other man’s neck, shaking. A nightmare, he told himself, his hands coming up to cling at the warmth of the other man, until he remembered himself.

“Sorry,” Aremu said, then, hoarse and rasping, letting go. He eased away, not off Tom’s lap, but far enough that his back rested against the table, his arms coming down. He swallowed; he pressed both hands to his face, bent over, and unwound himself, breathing deep. He couldn’t quite look at Tom; he didn’t know where he looked, instead, other than that it was away.

[Tom Cooke]

Home • Quarter Fords

Nighttime on the 27th of Yaris, 2716

H
is hands ached much as ever, when he undid the buttons. Easier somehow, this, and harder all at once – going one at a time, no urgency, nothing but the work. He watched them, casting bulky shadows on the wrinkles and furrows of white linen. Blunt nails, thick and lopsided knuckles. The sight of them made him feel something he couldn’t’ve said; it was some kind of bitter feeling, ‘cause he thought he’d dreamt Aremu’d said something, and it ached, and he couldn’t remember what it was.

He didn’t look at Aremu’s face, not even when he was helping his arms through the sleeves of his jacket, silent and intent.

Was a long time brushing his bruises and scuffs with the arnica and junia paste, finding places familiar and – strange enough – unfamiliar, careful with his mant mung hands.

He’d wanted for this, he realized, with a funny tug all through him. Couldn’t’ve said what this was, but he knew now he had it, even for these few moments, it was something he’d wanted. He went slow as he thought he could, finding the imbala’s eyes fluttering shut at the corners of his sight, feeling like he was getting away with something. Like he was opening a book with his mung natt hands, looking at the pictures, even if he couldn’t understand the words.

There was scars he’d missed. He found the bruises, here and there – some he thought he’d made, or else Nevio’d made, at the kint; some he thought he hadn’t, in places he couldn’t remember touching. One light bruise, blossoming up from the lip of his trousers, he remembered vivid: he thought he saw the shape of the press of his thumb, coming out more in soft faded red than purple, and he traced it again, gentle-like.

But there was scars he’d missed, scars he’d never seen before; and he found all the rest, the reddening scuff teeth’d left at Aremu’s ear, and then followed the older scars with his eyes, feeling the soft and slowing rise and fall of his chest.

Aremu’d leaned into his arm, just a pina. He shifted to take the weight of him; he felt the press of his shoulder-blades, and all the tight and tired muscles. He eased forward, reaching with his free hand to cap the tin and push it away.

They smelt of arnica and junia, both of them now, and the mint tea half-drunk and left cooling on the table. Wasn’t sure about nothing, Tom wasn’t, nor sure how he was supposed to feel. Was easier just to settle back, to let his own head rest on the chair.

Soon he’d go – soon.

Aremu jerked in his arms. He snorted himself as he woke; he knew nothing then but hands on him, warm against his skin, and a face buried in his neck.

He froze, ‘cause he wasn’t sure about nothing; and by the time he thought, the other man was easing away, disentangling himself and leaving cold where he’d been. He was still sitting in his lap, but he was looking away. Tom reached with a hand, thinking he’d –

Sorry? Tom looked away too, down somewhere at the old scarred floorboards. Sorry to’ve – done that? Sorry to’ve mistook me for somebody else, he reckoned.

Wasn’t fair, he thought, watching the other man’s face. Wasn’t that kind of sorry; he knew that well enough. Something about his hands on his face’d reminded him of that night sitting beside him on the wharf.

His hand settled on Aremu’s arm. He half-opened his mouth; he knew better than to ask. I wake so, sometimes, he could’ve said; I’ve never slept, not hard, with you, so you ain’t never seen it – I got these dreams – a man, he thought rather, a man gets dreams of the things he’s done… a man…

He stroked it with his thumb. “No,” he said, soft. Was all he could say. “No,” he repeated, rubbing his back gently with a hand. He thought of the sharp shrug of his shoulders at Ipadi’s; he knew the other man would rather him not touch him, not like this.

I’m tired, he thought, aching. Another cup of tea, he thought; he didn’t think he could stay awake for it, no matter how much he’d’ve liked to, and he wasn’t sure Aremu could either. I’m so flooding tired, but I don’t want you to go, but I don’t know what the hell you want from me.

“Ain’t no place to sleep, this,” he murmured, looking down, looking back up at his face. “Would you – lay down wi’ me?”

Like a banderwolf, he thought. Grabbing on where he should’ve let go; digging his teeth in deeper where he should’ve backed away. And he grabbed on and grabbed on and held, ‘cause he’d didn’t want him to go, ‘cause he thought maybe he’d buried his face in the stiff bristling fur ‘cause he wanted him – now and here and for this – and if that was so, he didn’t know the first thing about anything, least of all a man’s nightmares or how to hold him after.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Late Night, 27 Yaris, 2716
Tom and Jaeli’s House, Quarter Fords

No, Tom said, no. His hand was on Aremu’s arm, his thumb stroking softly; he didn’t touch him otherwise, and Aremu was glad of it, because he didn’t know whether he could have born it, because he did not wish to feel that way at the brush of Tom’s hand.

No, he thought to ask - No? But he didn’t; he didn’t know if he wanted the knowing, just now, whichever way it fell.

Tom’s voice was thick, sleep-roughened; Aremu shuddered a little, breathing in deep.

For a moment, they both sat there, intertwined, and he could feel the rise and fall of Tom’s chest, or maybe his own.

I should go, Aremu thought to say. He had closed his eyes at some point, though he wasn’t sure when; there was cold air pricking all over the space between them. It’s late; he thought of the walk long back to the Eqe Aqawe with some mix of things he couldn’t seem to untangle. The walk would help; it would clear his head. He’d be tired by the time he reached the ship - he was tired now, so tired he wondered he was still sitting upright - but he’d be clear, at least, in his head.

Tom’s voice was a rumble in his chest, soft and high and always unexpected. Aremu held; Tom’s thumb was stroking his arm still, and when he opened his eyes and dared to look, the other man was gazing down at him, smiling softly.

“Yes,” Aremu said; he swallowed through the lump in his throat, and his hand came up and caught Tom’s. I might not sleep, he wanted to say; I don’t know if I can but I want to try. I’d rather lie awake beside you, tonight; I’d rather that to the rigging, to the stars, even if I know better. I’d like that very much, he wanted to say, through the sticky dryness of his tongue.

They were moving then, through the house; Aremu’s hand was clasped in Tom’s, as if neither of them knew what would happen if they let go. The bedroom, then; he’d been there before. He didn’t know when he realized he didn’t hurt, not in any of the places so small he had forgotten about them individually, and only knew the weight of them together. He didn’t know what to make of their disappearance; he didn’t know what he was without them.

Aremu eased himself free of the last of what constrained him; for a moment he felt a prickling worry that he hadn’t understood, down below, what Tom wanted of him. He could bear it again, he thought - if - if -

But Tom’s hands were soft against him, with no urgency. Aremu curled up in the circle of his arms, and he found he could bear it, after all; he found that he was glad of it, the warmth of them together beneath the blankets, soft and easy with nothing to do but sleep.

Tom’s breathing evened out behind him, slow and rasping, whistling through his nose. He shifted, and one arm curled closer to Aremu, wafting with it the scents of arnica and junia both.

You might not sleep, Aremu told himself; his eyes were closed too, and it was all one darkness, and he had no need to worry about where he belonged. That’s all right; this is all right.

In time those thoughts too swirled away to nothingness; he didn’t know the moment when he slid over the edge from reassurance to sleep, and he didn’t mind, either, the not knowing. There was only warmth, and the deep even rhythm of two sets of breaths, just a little apart from one another, and if, in the middle of it all, came a sense of holding on tight, this too Aremu would gladly bear.