[Closed, Mature] The Sun Waits to Eclipse

[Aremu Ediwo]

Evening, 4 Loshis, 2720
The Koketa's Hive, Nutmeg Hill

Without putting him in danger too, Tom said. Aremu’s face tensed in a frown, his back tightening briefly beneath the other man’s hand. I can take care of myself, he wanted to say; do you think I don’t know - he thought of knives flashing in the dark, and the scar that ran down his right arm throbbed, for all that the wound was long since healed.

If I can be scared for him, Aremu thought, very slowly, then - perhaps it isn’t so wrong if - he didn’t quite know what to make of the thought. It pried at something inside him. He didn’t know why it should be different, this sort of care from Tom, than the worry he knew Uzoji had felt on his behalf, or Niccolette’s stern sharp lectures when he had been a fool. It was different, all the same, and Aremu set the tea on his lap and kissed Tom’s neck once more, feeling the soft flutter of his pulse beneath the skin.

Tom went on, wandering through it. Aremu shuddered a breath when the other man said he wanted to sleep the night through together. We didn’t know, he wanted to say, half-laughing, what fools we were to waste a single night we could have had - I was a fool too, Tom, a scared fool - but they didn’t speak of such things, even here and now with all the rest laid out in the open between them, they shied gently from such talk. Aremu thought it might hurt Tom; he found he didn’t want him to think he was comparing him to as he had been, whether it was true or not. Surely some silence could be a gift, between lovers.

I’m sorry, Tom rasped, and when Aremu glanced at him he saw glittering tears like scars on his cheeks.

“It’s not easy,” Aremu said, quietly, and he tasted the faint memory of bitter nausea on his tongue, some ache he didn’t want to place too deeply. “But if it‘s me you’re worried about, then let me choose. Don’t protect me by trying to take the choice away.” His head was still on Tom’s shoulder; he relaxed into the other man rather than pulling away, and he found it easier than he had expected.

“I want you,” Aremu said, softly. “I want all that we discussed and more and if the only way I can is with you as - him,” he frowned just a little, struggling still with how to speak of it, “then I’ll bear it, and gladly.” To his dismay he found himself sniffling, just a little; he wasn’t quite crying, but he wasn’t far from it, either.

His arms settled around Tom and held close, and he pressed a kiss to the other man’s neck, and then his cheek, and then his lips, once more, as if he hadn’t just gorged himself to the brim on the taste of the other man. He was always hungry, Aremu knew; he could always have more.

They frighten me too, Aremu couldn’t quite say, all these places I haven’t been in so long. You’ve changed, and I know it isn’t the same, but I’ve changed too. My hand, perhaps, to start, but more than just that I think. I don’t know who I was then, that Aremu who needed Ediwo on his name, and I don’t know who I am now, either. Maybe it’s the lack in me that makes it so hard; maybe whatever emptiness is inside me swallows that up too. You’d think that’d keep me from fear, if it were so, but it doesn’t seem to help.

I want it, all the same. That was all Aremu could think just then, really. I want it all the same.

[Tom Cooke]

The Koketa’s Nest, Nutmeg Hill

Nighttime on the 4th of Loshis, 2720

H
e’d felt Aremu’s back tense underneath his arm; he’d thought – any minute – the other man would pull away. He remembered lying in Aremu’s arms in his study, and how he’d gone very still, as if he’d suddenly realized there was some mant bug in his lap instead of a man. He thought it’d been politician when Aremu had tensed up, or somewhere around there, and yet still he’d gone on. He’d spoken of spending the night, and he’d felt a shudder go through Aremu.

He’d yet, he thought wryly, to get to the worst part. Now he had, and he couldn’t seem to open his eyes. His fingers were still soft on Aremu’s shoulder, but his head was bowed.

It’s not easy, Aremu said, and he nodded. He swallowed tightly, listening.

Aremu shifted and nestled closer under his arm. He nodded again; he was too numb – too tired – for relief. All the same, he kept nodding like a mung, and he shifted to wrap his arm closer about Aremu. He could feel the other man’s voice rumbling gently through both of them, with a hoarse edge.

He might’ve been angry, had he the will. He wanted to ask, why? Why would you make this choice, when it’s only going to get harder? This isn’t the last of the pain; this isn’t the last of the pleasure, either, but it sure as hell isn’t the last of the pain.

He nodded anyway; it was all he could do.

His fingertips drifted over the lines on Aremu’s shoulder. He massaged the muscles there gently, evening out his breath. The skin underneath his fingertips was warm, and the muscles were a little softer than they’d been moments ago.

The marks were smoother, too; he could feel two thin, light lines where the edges of the leather had bitten into his skin, slowly fading, like healing scars. He stroked across one, back and forth, wondering – with an aching sort of irony – if Aremu knew what he was touching. Not now, he thought, when it’d been off for so long.

Maybe it was some kind of blessing from the Circle, that men couldn’t know what their lovers thought and felt of them. He was coming to think it was stranger than he could’ve imagined.

It washed through him slowly, this thing that wasn’t quite relief and wasn’t quite sadness. Him, Aremu said, like he was getting a feel for it. Don’t say it, he wanted to say. But if the spectre didn’t dissipate, he didn’t manifest, either; nothing changed in the air. A small hitch went through Aremu’s breathing, and he heard the other man sniff.

He squeezed his own eyes shut against more tears. He felt Aremu’s arms – both of them – wrap around him, and the soft brush of lips and breath on his neck. He leaned in, when Aremu kissed him; he could taste the bitter tea on his tongue, and so many other things.

“We’ll bear it,” he murmured into Aremu’s lips, “we’ll bear it together.” He pressed his forehead against the other man’s for a space, then kissed him again.

He didn’t pull away just yet, but rested his head on his shoulder. “I should go soon,” he said quietly, after a long moment. “I hear there’s a – a convention for kofi houses and suppliers,” he added, “in Windward, on the thirteenth. Near the Old Gate, and the cableways. I thought I might run into you there.”

He shifted, now, to look at Aremu; he thought he mustered up a quarter of a mischievous smile, and that was what counted.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Evening, 4 Loshis, 2720
The Koketa's Hive, Nutmeg Hill

Tom kissed him back, pressing back against him; there was no urgency in either of them, no longing, warm coals instead of bright flame, but it was no less pleasant for the slowness of the burn. Aremu’s hand came up, his fingers tangling into the soft curls of Tom’s hair, rumpling it just a little more.

They stayed like that for a little while, tangled together as if there was nothing to the world but the slow rise and fall of their bare chests, the soft pressure of Tom’s cheeks against his shoulder, the warmth of his arms around the other man. Even then, Aremu was careful; he found Tom in the crook of his elbow, and held his forearm just a little away from the other man. If there was a hint of pain, there, of bitterness, laid alongside the pleasure of holding him, then it was the sort of ache Aremu knew he could bear.

Aremu smiled down, meeting Tom’s gaze. “Yes,” he said, softly. “Perhaps you could arrange to get a bit lost, towards the latter half of the event,” he cupped Tom’s cheek with his hand, and bent softly to kiss him. “It’s quite easy in Windward Market – say – by the fountain, around the twenty third hour? Just go towards the bookseller with the red tent, and follow that path around, and you’ll surely lose your way.” He was grinning, now.

There were more kisses, then, soft and tender. Aremu found he nearly could have risen again, as tired as he was, as much as he ached all through in places with and without names, for all that the words had drained him more deeply than he’d expected. They trailed off into a comfortable lingering silence, but that, too, was brief.

Aremu steadied the ladder once more; he swung down to the staircase, landing silently, and held it for Tom. It was well dark now, though laughter still streamed from the bar next door, and smoke too. He straightened the edge of Tom’s amel’iwe, then took his hand and went down the stairs with him, that last little distance. One more moment, Aremu told himself; just one more.

He waited in the alley, in the depths of the dark by the stairwell; Tom glanced back, once, standing in a pool of gleaming blue phosphor light and then he was gone into the night. Aremu turned, and went back up the stairs; he went up, and up further, half running, until he was on the long flat rooftop, amidst the white sheets rustling in the night breeze and the spray of plants. He went to the edge, and bent himself over it, gaze washing over the street below.

There – just there – Aremu found him, a head of pale red hair and a seagreen amel’iwe, climbing into a carriage pulled by two moa, their short tails twitching in the night air. Aremu smiled, swallowing, and fixed his gaze on the spotted pair, and let himself watch them trot back towards Cinnamon Hill, until the last drop of Tom had vanished from sight.

You fool, he told himself, but it was affectionate, and almost kind.

Aremu went back down the winding staircase, and back up the ladder. He eased out of the last of his clothes, and did all which needed to be done to prepare him for sleep. Finally, at last, when the teapot was cleaned up and he himself was washed and ready, he buried his face in the lingering lavender scent of his sheets. Aremu smiled, then, swallowing hard, and curled up in the midst of them, and drifted off to dreams, for all he knew they would not be quite as sweet as the one which had just passed.