[Closed, Mature] The Sun Waits to Eclipse

[Aremu Ediwo]

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

Tom was curled in his arms on the rumpled covers of the bed, his back sticky warm with sweat against Aremu’s chest. Aremu’s left arm was wrapped around him, his hand settled soft against the other man’s skin. They breathed together, rose and fell as one, now that the fast-paced breaths of a few moments earlier had faded. It had been long enough to grow comfortable, long enough that the faint brush of air which leaked through closed windows and doors shivered over Aremu’s skin.

Aremu held Tom a little closer; he shifted, kissing the other man’s neck, softly. His head had emptied of thoughts, this last little while; he remembered much of what he had said – begged – demanded – pledged in the midst of it, and he could not find a single lie, combing back through it all.

I want you to stay, Aremu wanted to whisper. I want you to sleep here, in my arms; I want to wake up to the morning light holding you. I don’t want to let go. There were no lies there, either; he could have spoken every word, and known them for true. But he knew, as well as Tom did, that there could be no staying. He did not ask; asking felt as if it would wedge between them the knowledge of what must be, to sour all that they did have with that which they couldn’t.

And what they had shared together between them was everything Aremu could have hoped; if it was strange, still, it was familiar, too, and he no longer had to wonder whether he wanted. He no longer had to wonder whether Tom wanted, to balance carefully on the line between fear and desire. Perhaps he would, again; Aremu couldn’t begrudge the other man that, not with his right arm tucked out of the way beneath him, the marks of his prosthetic’s harness still patterning his skin.

Aremu shifted, not away from Tom but against him, with no purpose except the joy of lingering a little longer. “Would you like tea?” Aremu asked, softly, murmuring the words where only Tom could hear them.

He hadn’t thought much of the Koketa’s Hive offering tea in the room; he’d found it odd, in truth, given that this was the heart of Thul Ka. He understood, he thought, the oddness of the compromise; even roasted beans went stale, and roasted ground kofi was something no Mugobi would bring himself to use. Providing a hearth, or even a mortar and pestle, or freshening grounds daily was something beyond the Koketa’s Hive – and yet, for whatever reason, they had wanted to provide the facility for a hot drink. So: tea.

Just now, Aremu could be glad of it, despite the strangeness and half-measures, despite the place outside which he found himself. Tom murmured his assent, sleepy and thick-voiced; Aremu eased himself away from the other man. He draped the coverlet over Tom, smoothing his fingers through the other man’s hair, and pulled on his pants, low-slung on his hips. He took the kettle with him to the tap down the hall; he came back, and set it to boil, measuring spoonfuls of tea leaves into the battered teapot.

Aremu went, then, and sat beside Tom; his fingers stroked through the other man’s hair, slow and gentle. He smiled down at him, and rose only when the water reached a whistling boil to pour it, slowly. Bitter dark bohea steam washed through the room, mingled with the sweeter smells of cinnamon and cardamom, and the spice of ginger, peppercorn and cloves.

Aremu left it to steep; Tom was stirring in the bed, then, and he went back. The tea was nearly ready, and he knew himself a fool, but he climbed beneath the blanket with the other man, and wrapped his arm around him once more, as if he could wind the clock back and give them all the time they could not have.

[Tom Cooke]

The Koketa’s Nest, Nutmeg Hill

Nighttime on the 4th of Loshis, 2720

H
e had let Aremu take it off, in the end, not sure what to do. He remembered once pushing Aremu gently down as he sank to his knees; he’d found the thin strap across his right shoulder. Without meaning to, his fingertips had crept over it, running along the smooth bumpy texture and feeling the edge. The leather had been almost as hot as his skin. He’d almost slid his finger underneath it, before he’d stopped himself.

“Tea,” he grunted, trying to make sense of the word. He smiled because he could feel Aremu’s breath on the back of his neck; the other man shifted closer to him, and he rumbled a soft laugh in his throat.

In his dream, he’d found the buckle; he’d felt it through the thin fabric of his shirt, though he’d never touched it before. May I–? he’d asked.

Tea, he thought. Aremu’d asked a question. “Oh,” he mumbled, midway through curling himself closer against Aremu. “Yes.” What kind of tea? he thought of asking, and he wasn’t sure if he did; he thought he must’ve said them, but when he opened his mouth again, his throat was dry with disuse. “Domea domea.”

Somehow, he hadn’t expected Aremu to move; somehow, he’d expected the tea to come to the both of them in a dream. He grunted when he felt the cold at his back, then smiled again when he felt the coverlet round his shoulders and Aremu smoothing his hair.

Soft footsteps padded away from the bed.

He heard the door click. He raised his head, squinting round the room; the lamplight blurred, catching on the bright orange of Aremu’s amel’iwe where he had left it on the table. A loop of leather peaked out from underneath it, and beside it was a pile of white and blue. Closer, Aremu’s tunic was draped at the edge of the bed, almost the same color as the sheets. The kettle was gone from the burner.

In the corner of his eye, he could see rope knotted tight to the metal of the bed frame, and the ladder a dark pile trailing to the window. He smiled; it was dim in the room, and Dziqi’dzo’s roof was low enough, and he could see a swirl of fast-moving clouds and stars. Thul Ka was a hundred dark shapes rising up to block them out.

He had fallen back, almost asleep, when Aremu returned, his weight settling on the edge of the bed, his hand stroking through his hair. The sensations blurred together; for a moment, he thought he could feel two sets of fingers winding through. When the kettle whistled, it didn’t startle him; the imbala went, and the bitter, floral scent of tea mingled with the bedsheets and the smell of drying sweat.

He rolled over when Aremu slid back under with him. He cupped the imbala’s cheek with his hand and laid a sleepy kiss on his lips, and he lingered there, holding him. He felt the edge of a mark against his skin, when he touched his shoulder; his fingertips lingered there, almost following it, and then brushed down to stroke his arm.

“It’s going to oversteep.” His voice was rough, and sounded deeper and stranger to him. He didn’t let go; he shifted closer, running his hand over Aremu’s back. “How long do we have?” he murmured into his neck, shutting his eyes.

You just snuck an Anaxi politician in through your window, he thought. He was just awake enough for the knowledge to prickle; he could feel a cool draught from somewhere. Can we do this again? He didn’t think he could bear to ask. He was awake enough to know what the answer would be; he wanted very much not to be.

[Aremu Ediwo]

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

There was no going back, Aremu knew. Tom was awake now, his eyes sleepy and full; his lips found Aremu’s, soft, and Aremu’s hand curled tenderly around his side. Tom’s fingertips traced along his shoulder, lingering, and then stroked soft and smooth down his arm.

It’s going to oversteep, Tom said. He curled closer into him; for all Aremu didn’t have more than an inch of height on the other man as he was now, Tom felt soft and delicate in his arms, and fit well against him. It wasn’t the same, but it wasn’t bad either, or so Aremu felt; so he hoped Tom could feel. He pulled the other man a little closer, because he could, for all that the thin fabric of his pants lay between them now.

Tom’s words tickled the skin of his neck.

“Not long,” Aremu said, his voice as rough as the other man’s. He’d promised Tom honesty, once; as badly as he wanted to lie, now – for all that there was nothing inside him for it to taint – he couldn’t, with Tom’s heart beating softly against his chest, and the other man’s breath stirring the short hairs on the back of his neck. A lie in a place like this seemed to him a filthy poultice over a wound; perhaps it made things better immediately, but it led to festering not so long after. Maybe he should have, Aremu thought, uneasily, all the same; maybe it was only the part of him which felt ashamed which told him otherwise.

Aremu kissed Tom again, soft and tender. He shifted, untangling himself reluctantly from the other man; he went, and poured the tea into the two metal cups. He carried Tom’s back first, smiling at the other man as he sat up against the pillows and the metal headboard, still nestled in the blanket. He brought his own second, and he sat beside him.

Aremu set his tea down carefully on the ground; Tom’s was cradled in his thin, spotted hands, tucked into his lap. Aremu settled his hand on the other man’s cheek, stroking softly; he tucked it up into the edges of Tom’s hair, feeling the skin there with his fingertips, and pulled them together one more time, for a slow, lingering, lasting kiss.

As if, Aremu thought, one more would be enough to last him; as if this kiss, on top of all the rest, would be the one that would remind him, when Tom dressed himself in white once more, what they were to each other. He knew better, and yet all the same he leaned into it, and he offered the last taste of himself to Tom, and took a taste of the other man too. His breath came hard when they came apart, for all that even he was too drained to want any more than a taste.

Aremu eased away, slowly, all the muscles in him aching satisfied. He reached down for the cup, cradling the warm metal between the edges of her fingertips. He took a sip, tasting the tea – not quite bitter, he thought, not yet. As it cooled, he wondered if the flavor would come out, stronger, amidst all the rest.

“I love you, Tom,” Aremu said, softly, looking back at Tom; his heart squeezed and ached like all te rest of him in the emptiness of his chest. He knew Tom knew; the words had lain between them, before, though never quite like this. He didn’t know - perhaps it was no different from the kiss, that it was only that he wanted to carry, too, those words along with them, when this dream ended and they both had to wake up. Aremu smiled a little, all the same, and couldn’t quite banish the sadness of it.

[Tom Cooke]

The Koketa’s Nest, Nutmeg Hill

Nighttime on the 4th of Loshis, 2720

N
ot long.

How long did I sleep? he wanted to ask. You should’ve – you could’ve – woken me up, and we could’ve – he didn’t know what he’d rather’ve done; there wasn’t enough time. He’d wanted to drift off tangled up with Aremu, and he’d wanted to wake up in his arms. Aremu’s voice was a rough rasp in his chest, and his hand was warm against his side.

Aremu left him with a kiss, feet hushed on the boards. He pushed himself up, mattress creaking, feeling faintly dazed. The low lamp caught the muscles of Aremu’s back as he poured the tea; they worked underneath skin traced with faint lines, and he followed those lines with his eyes, feeling something he couldn’t’ve described.

A man changed in three years. To see him at a distance, he might look like the same man. But when you touched him, when you felt the contours of him – when he touched you – it was all just a little different. He’d been too shocked on the beach and in bed on Dzum to think of it, and too afraid and full of his own newness in the hotel last Dentis. Now, he thought of the new scars he’d found, and the shapes of the muscles – some stronger, some softer than he remembered from the Aremu he’d known once.

He couldn’t’ve said how he’d known the man was tense before, but he looked looser now. There was an ease to the way he put down the teapot, swirling steam. It made Tom smile.

He looked down once, and briefly. Aremu’s right wrist was at his side, and the silhouetted shape of it was crisp in the lamplit shadow. The muscles flickered, as if the hand might’ve moved. A long line of scarflesh on the forearm glistened. He traced it up, thinking of blood and mangroves, and took a deep breath.

When Aremu turned, he’d propped himself up, still in a nest of covers. He smiled back and took his tea, then shifted and pushed himself up a little more, crossing his legs. His bare skin prickled in the cool night air. He ran his fingertips along his ribcage until he found the scar, then wrapped his hand back around the cup.

He’d’ve had to move past Aremu to get his shirt again, and it seemed wrong, somehow. He was comfortable; they were both – he dared to think, when Aremu turned and looked at him – comfortable.

Aremu settled himself on the bed again, and he smiled at his touch. He cupped his hand over his tea when he leaned in for another kiss – the last, he thought, maybe. Or maybe not; maybe there’d be one or two more, between now and climbing out the window. Every kiss felt like the last.

The words sounded unfamiliar in Aremu’s voice; that smile, strange and sad, wasn’t. “I love you, too, Aremu,” he said, his voice rasping and almost breaking over the name. As if –

He took a sip of his own tea, pushing the thought out of his head with the bitter taste. It wasn’t too hot, and it wasn’t burnt or clinging-heavy with bitter, either; he’d let it steep just long enough, he thought. He wasn’t sure why the thought made it all ache more.

“What are –” He took another deep breath. “What are we going to do?” He looked back up at Aremu’s face, the long graceful line of his cheekbone caught by the lamp.

I don’t want to think about it now. I don’t want to waste these last moments thinking about it, he wanted to say.

He sucked at a tooth, then shook his head. “I can bear it,” he said quietly, “you seeing me like that. I can, if it means I get to see you.” His smile went crooked. I’m very good at it, he could’ve said. I could do it for hours; sometimes, I can’t stop being him. “But I don’t want to – it’s damned selfish, Aremu. I don’t want to be him so much with you that I forget what it’s like to be me with you.”

He reached out, tentative, and touched Aremu’s left forearm; he pressed it, running his thumb along his warm skin. He blinked the prickling away from his eyes and breathed in deep.

[Aremu Ediwo]

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

Aremu looked back at Tom when he spoke of it, I love you too still aching somewhere inside him. The good sort of ache, Aremu thought, like the softening of some muscle he’d held tight in the strengthening. It hurt, but the hurt would fade, and the soreness too, and he’d be left a little stronger than he was.

What are we going to do? Tom asked. Aremu looked at him, all the sharp contours of his face – not so strange, anymore – gleaming in the lamp they’d never blown out. Tom’s lips and tongue moved inside his mouth, the soft creak of him sucking on a tooth, the old little habit Aremu didn’t think he’d quite shaken. No, he thought; no. He didn’t think the man riding in that carriage had sucked his tooth, after all.

There was something painful in the other man’s face, something which looked like it ached as much as the one on Aremu’s. He took a deep breath; he shifted, looking down at the gentle touch of Tom’s fingers against his arm, the stroking of his thumb over the muscles of it. He looked up again, his face soft beneath his frown, the cup of steaming tea still in his hand.

To be him with you prickled uncomfortable over Aremu’s skin, made the pale slender thumb with its manicured nail strange and foreign against the old burns and nicks which traced out his history. He almost wanted to shrug the hand off of them. What does that mean, Aremu wanted to ask, to be him with me? Who is he?

I can bear him, Aremu wanted to say, if it means seeing you; I’d rather have him than no one. He didn’t think that was what Tom wanted to hear; he didn’t know what Tom wanted to hear. I brought you here, he wanted to say, because I wanted to be with you. Was it a mistake, after all, for you to come? Was it too dangerous, in the end? Love’s not enough, I suppose; we can be honest with each other about that.

Aremu’s breath shuddered in, and out, and something like leiraflesh rippled over him. He didn’t shrug the hand off his arm, or pull back, or shift as if to drink his tea, which would have made Tom pull away all the same.

You can have me in the dark, then, Aremu wanted to say; you can have me however you like, Tom. Don’t you know that? If it means me climbing the walls late at night – if it means sneaking you into my room – what is there in me to debase? Don’t you know by now I’m empty? If you want me like this – just this – and not at Thul’Amat with you, after all – I’d give it to you, still.

Damn, Aremu thought, and then: damn me.

He took another breath, deeper this time, and looked at Tom, frowning. What am I supposed to say? Aremu wanted to ask. Am I meant to be selfish, to tell you that I’d rather have him than no one, or selfless, to tell you that I’m yours, however you want me, whatever scrap of me you want? He looked down at Tom’s hand on his arm once more, still frowning.

“How do you want me, then, Tom?” Aremu looked at him, his lips pressed together for a moment, then softening. “I thought – I thought I would show you something of Thul Ka; I thought you wanted to see the places I’d…” his jaw tightened, and he trailed off into silence.


You can have me how you want, Aremu wanted to say; the words pressed, ugly at his throat, and he thought he’d spill them out for a moment, as if he couldn’t hold them in. I love you, he wanted to protest, weakly, for all he didn’t feel it made a damned bit of difference, just now.

Aremu’s eyes fluttered closed, then opened again. “If this is all I – if this is all we can have,” he said, his voice rasping, “then I’ll do my best to be grateful for it.” He set the cup aside, easing his arm away from Tom, and rose, crossing to the lamp to fiddle with it, his fingers just shy of the hot glass.. His right wrist tucked itself into his pocket, shifting out of sight.

[Tom Cooke]

The Koketa’s Nest, Nutmeg Hill

Nighttime on the 4th of Loshis, 2720

I
–” It died on his lips, and dove too, when he rose. His hand stayed hanging in the air, his fingertips still tingling with the touch. A little drift of steam still came up from Aremu’s cup, where he’d set it aside on the floor. The muscles in his back were tight again, and he watched him tuck his wrist into the pocket of his pants, though the tan cloth fell slack against his thigh.

His hand returned to his lap, and then went to his knee, not sure where to go. He rested it there, feeling dizzy-headed and vaguely confused.

How do you want me?

He squeezed his eyes shut, frowning deeply. He thought the press of Aremu’s lips was burned against the backs of his eyelids, and then the frowning set of them, as if he were outside the hotel again – no. As if, he thought, they were among the mangroves; as if they were amid the wreckage of a Cat’s Paw tenement, with moonlight creeping in through the rafters. He ached with the familiarity of it, as if he’d stepped on a loose board and plunged into darkness.

He shifted, then stopped. You flooder, he thought. Don’t go to him; he doesn’t want you. If this is all, he’d said. If this is all I. If this is all we, he’d amended.

This.

His throat tightened; he looked down at the blankets bunched in his lap, and the skinny, freckled knee, and the veins that traced the backs of his hands.

It didn’t make any sense. He shut his eyes, hating himself for the burning underneath his lids. He never could seem to help it, godsdamn it. And he couldn’t help it now, the way the tears budded and clung sticky to his lashes, the way they were hot – and then cold, ice-cold, when the air hit them – against his cheeks. He took a shuddering breath, gritting his teeth. When he opened his eyes back up, Aremu was still over by the damn lamp, doing gods knew what. The light flooded around him, making a silhouette of him.

“Aremu,” he said sharply, frowning down. It still didn’t make any Circle-damned sense. What, then? he wanted to demand. How the fuck do you want me, Aremu?

Like that? he wanted to demand. This, he’d said, this, like this was nothing to him. Like he’d’ve preferred leading that thin-smiling, straight-backed old shit around the Thul’amat campus, like he liked saying sir and treating an old Anaxi politician like some kind of polite tourist. He tried to imagine it. Here it is, sir, one of the six – truly a marvel of engineering, ada’xa…

He had knotted his fist in the blankets. He unfurled his fingers with an effort, then looked back up at Aremu.

If you don’t want that – and you can’t, he thought, you can’t possibly; and you don’t want this… He didn’t know. Why did you ever care for me? If it hadn’t been the sex, he didn’t know what it was. He thought of his stumbling mung mouth and burnt eggs; he didn’t even have to think, now, for all he could just look down at his thin chest and his thin arms and his hands.

“I want to – I want to flooding talk to you,” he said quietly, setting his cup of tea beside Aremu’s and easing off the bed. He wrapped the blanket around his waist, taking a few small steps toward Aremu. His back was rigid straight; the air prickled against his skin. “If I have to climb the walls, if I have to – to go through the godsdamn sewers – I want you to show me the pendulum, and then I want to hold you and tell you what it means to me, and I can’t…”

He shivered and looked down, cursing. “How do you want me, Aremu?” he said. “I don’t know how you can want me like that, or even see me, through all that –”

He broke off with a pained grunt; he shivered again, wishing he could climb out of his skin.

[Aremu Ediwo]

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

Aremu stared at the reflection of the thin wavering flame on the heat-seared glass, without the least idea what he’d come over to do. He’d thought to – clean the glass, perhaps, which was idiotic given how hot it was, how hot he’d known it’d be. He’d thought absurdly of turning it off, as if this would be even the least easier in the dark, without even the clues of Tom’s unfamiliar face to guide him, all straight sharp lines.

He thought, absurdly, of Tom grinning up at him, his face sinking lower and lower; tears prickled in his eyes.

He felt the brush of his field after the first few words, sage soft, lapping over him. He stood, mute and unable to respond. His jaw clenched tight, and he thought perhaps he wouldn’t answer at all. He didn’t know what would come spilling out if he opened his mouth; he didn’t know what to say, here, on ground that had seemed even moments ago and was suddenly crumbling beneath his feet.

“Why can’t you?” Aremu asked, turning back to look at Tom, swallowing. “Why can’t you? That’s what I don’t understand, Tom. That’s what I want too; I want to – floods,” he took a deep breath, shaking. There were glimmers of wetness caught in the other man’s eyelashes, absurdly picked out by the wash of lamplight.

“That’s what I want from you,” Aremu said, more evenly. “I want to show you the pendulum and listen to you tell me what it means to you with us tangled together, and I…” his jaw clenched tight again, and he exhaled, slowly, and steadily out. “Why can’t you?” He asked again, looking at Tom.

“I don’t understand,” Aremu went on; it was as bad as he’d feared, he thought dully, once he’d started. He didn’t seem to be able to stop himself; it was a hot gush of pent-up fear he hadn’t known he’d felt, an ache of frustration that seemed to well from a place so deep he hadn’t thought he had it. “I don’t know what it is about… the way you are now, about being a raen, that means you can’t come to see the pendulum with me, and later that night we can’t find somewhere to talk about it.”

Aremu looked away again, feeling the ache of a frown in his forehead, all through him. He gritted his teeth, thinking to stem the flow, and then kept going, instead, for all that he wanted so badly to stop. “If you tell me you can’t because it makes you him – if you tell me you can’t because it’s not safe,” Aremu swallowed, “then I’ll accept that but I can’t – I can’t like it. I want that, Tom; I want that so badly. I want to take you to Three Flowers, and all the other strange corners of the city no one else will. I tried tonight, I thought - I thought it went well,” his chest was heaving a little with the force of it.

Aremu took another deep breath, settling himself. His arms were both tense, all the corded muscle standing out against the skin. He forced himself to unclench his left hand where it had buried itself in the fabric over his thigh; his right arm ached, fiercely, where his hand used to be, as it always did when he tightened so.

Aremu closed his eyes, exhaling, and opened them again, looking at Tom. He tried to smile, and he didn’t think he could. “I want as much of you as you'll give me,” he said, finally, softly, and he thought, at last, all of the words had finally drained from him. He didn’t know what was left behind in their wake; he couldn’t find it in himself to look.

[Tom Cooke]

The Koketa’s Nest, Nutmeg Hill

Nighttime on the 4th of Loshis, 2720

H
e froze when Aremu turned. Heat prickled in his cheeks. Why? He hadn’t thought. He’d said it, but he hadn’t thought what he might say if Aremu asked why. He hadn’t thought Aremu would say anything at all, not now, when there were too many pieces to pick up. Or maybe he’d expected Aremu to say, I don’t want you at all, or – I don’t want you like this, not anymore.

He wasn’t sure he could’ve answered that question, which was fine enough, since he went on.

He thought Aremu’s hand was shaking; the muscles in his forearms were tensed, the veins stark-ridged with shadows. He thought to go and take it, but the other man was still speaking – somehow – and he didn’t want to stop him, not for Vita, not when he was trying to make sense of it.

So he stood and listened. The coverlet slipped around his waist, and he took it and folded it and tucked it in, feeling a little silly. He was cold; he wanted to crawl back into Aremu’s bed, better yet with the man beside him, sharing their warmth between them and the warmth of the tea. The tea’s going to get cold, dove, he got the strangest urge to say. You don’t have to stand over there alone and tell me this; if you’d have me, I’d listen and hold you at the same time.

He watched Aremu’s chest heave, the light catching the tightness of the muscles. Aremu looked like he’d just spilt sap, or like he’d just scrambled out of Naulas’ antlers; or, he thought with the tenderness of memory, like he’d woken from a laoso dream.

It’s always you alone, he thought, struggling.

But the word raen on Aremu’s tongue again widened his eyes. He didn’t think the other man’d ever spoke to him like this. He remembered the clipped, breathless way of him in the study last fall, and in that godsawful-strange dream among the mangroves – giving him words here and there, bits and pieces he couldn’t sew together.

He was like an engine now, and Tom thought that to touch him he might’ve burnt his hand, the other man was running so hot. The things he was saying didn’t make a whit of sense, except that they were what he’d wanted to hear all along, and he couldn’t’ve imagined him saying them. And it seemed as if Aremu was cutting them out of himself with the edge of a riff, so pained was the set of those familiar lips.

“Three Flowers?” he repeated, his brow knitting, confused. The industrial –? His chest tightened and ached. I thought it went well, Aremu said, and the knot was so tight he didn’t know he could’ve pried it free.

Aremu’s hand wasn’t shaking anymore; it was clenched in his trousers, and his eyes were shut. He always looked like he – Tom didn’t know. Like he expected a blow, maybe.

When he opened them, his lips stretched uncomfortably on his face, and there was something like a wince in the muscles about his eyes. “I’ll –” Tom broke off. “I’ll give you all I have,” he said into the quiet. “I’m just afraid –” I'm not enough.

It’s not about me being a raen, he wanted to say. It’s about me being – it’s about you being – he couldn’t think of any way to say that.

“It went well,” he said, padding another step closer to Aremu. “It’s still going well. It went so well I don’t want to leave,” and he managed a soft laugh, if a sad one.

Not safe? Makes me him? “I should’ve – it’s not like that. Even if every bit of me were him, I’d still want to be with you.” He looked at Aremu, frowning again. “You look so tense,” he murmured, reaching out hesitantly. “Come and sit beside me. I don’t know how to talk about it, and we don’t have much time left, but – come, please.”

[Aremu Ediwo]

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

Tom was frozen wide-eyes, watching him. He didn’t say a thing, though there was red washing over his pale cheeks. Aremu went on anyway, stumbling blind through the mangroves, blood trickling from his wounds, toes gripping at the roots. If he thought he knew where he was headed - if he thought he knew where he wanted to go - he wasn’t certain this was the way, but he knew he had to keep going.

Something strange went over Tom’s face at the word raen. Some tiny corner of Aremu’s mind wondered if he had misunderstood - if he had misremembered - he knew he hadn’t. It was plunged back into the roiling froth if all the rest, subsumed, swept up into it all.

Three flowers, Tom asked, as if to stop him, but he couldn’t stop; he had forgotten how. There was only the long slow dragging of himself forward to the end of it, but no rest, now, to be found there. He held still, there, drained of whatever it was which had come through him, afraid to look more closely or to name it, more afraid than he had been to ask Tom to his room or to Thul’Amat or even to tell him he loved him.

I’m just afraid, Tom said. Afraid of what? Aremu wanted to ask, but he was done with words, emptied out of them. He ached, all through his shoulders and down his spine, all along the muscles of his arms, deep down into his forearms and hands, the one he had and the space of the one he didn’t.

Tom came a little closer, and managed a soft, slow laugh. Aremu shuddered, faintly. Tom’s hand crossed the space between them; Aremu looked down at it for a long moment, and then, because he had already known he wouldn’t do otherwise - because he had already promised to take what Tom would give - he took it in his, and laced his fingers through. Tom eased him back to the bed, still wearing the coverlet, his hands tender on Aremu’s bare skin.

Aremu leaned in to him, slowly, relaxed; he found himself trembling, and Tom’s fingers skated softly over him, over the hard and the places which he knew so well how to find.

I don’t know how to talk about it, Tom said. Aremu sank a little more into them, and turned, his hand wound through the other man’s, and pressed his lips to Tom’s neck, soft and feather light.

He sighed, a little; the ache of it had passed, and he felt himself every inch a fool for being upset so. At the same time he couldn’t regret a word he had spoken; if they had been filled with gasping tense passion, they had been no less true for it.

“What is it that scares you?” Aremu asked softly. He didn’t think he’d said such words to the other man before; he couldn’t imagine having said them in life. Nothing scares you, he might have said then: not fists, not tears. He knew now it wasn’t true; he would have known then too, if he hadn’t been too frightened himself to see.

Just try to tell me, he wanted to say; just try. I embarrassed myself before you just now; I can scarcely think worse of you. He didn’t have any right to know; he knew that. The only claim on them were those they had made themselves; he had always liked being bound so, for there was a part of him which remembered he could escape. Rightly, Aremu thought, aching, or wrongly.

He hadn’t meant to; the words slipped out, as if something inside him which held them in was too loose to hold. “Just try, please,” Aremu said, softly. “After what I just,” his throat moved in a tight swallow, “I can hardly have any place to stand for judgment.” He kissed Tom again; he lay his head down on the other man’s shoulder, Tom’s fingers settling into his hair, and reached for his neglected tea.

[Tom Cooke]

The Koketa’s Nest, Nutmeg Hill

Nighttime on the 4th of Loshis, 2720

F
or a moment, he’d thought Aremu might pull away. He’d seen the other man shudder, as if hearing him laugh in this voice were… He didn’t have room in his head to chase the thought, with Aremu’s hand in his; he’d’ve chased it in circles, anyway. All of him filled up with the motion of guiding Aremu back to the bed.

Aremu’s lips brushed his neck. He hadn’t expected the other man to lean into him so, either; he rested his cheek against the top of his head and held his hand, shutting his eyes.

Aremu’s back muscles were tense to the touch of his fingertips. There was still a tracery of imprints over them where the leather straps had rested; the muscles there were even tighter, the knots so deep he thought they must never come undone, not all the way. He tested them with his thumb, then massaged over them gently, one at a time. Some of them went a little looser, and some twitched and went taut again.

He realized it must hurt. He’d never thought of it before. He’d always thought – he didn’t know – he’d heard of the things a man felt when he lost a leg or an arm, or even a finger, but he’d never thought of what it did to all a man’s other muscles, picking up the slack. He’d been curious once or twice, why it took so many straps to hold a wooden hand in place. He’d only ever really looked at the place where the prosthetic met the stump once, and he’d been full of fear, the air reeking strangely-sweet of blood and flowers and mud. He remembered it now like a dream, sliding Aremu’s wet shirtsleeve over it, his thumb brushing over scarred skin and then wood.

He was sitting on Aremu’s left, as always, and he couldn’t see it anymore, but he thought his right arm must’ve been damned tense. He thought he could’ve tried to work the knot out there, too, if he’d dared; he didn’t dare. He wasn’t even sure how to try.

He held Aremu while he shook, and he steadied his own breathing against the other man’s, in and out, deep. He smiled a little when Aremu leaned to take his tea.

He wasn’t sure how to answer Aremu’s question at first, either. His voice rasped in his throat, as if he hadn’t spoken in a hundred years. After what I just – Tom shifted, resettling himself and holding him close. I owe it to you, he thought; I was never the sort of man who paid his debts. Ask all the bars in Voedale.

When Aremu went on, he shut his eyes, understanding; he turned his head to kiss Aremu’s hair. “All right,” he said softly. “I’m afraid of a lot of things. I’m afraid there’s only so many times a man can climb through another man’s window – a politician, a man who’s got attention on him... without bringing attention to his lover. Without putting him in danger, without putting a target on him, too.”

You already took a knife for me, he thought. “And even so – somehow – I still want more. Like I have a hollow back, for you. Because I’m afraid I’ll never sleep a whole night with you, afraid I’ll never again wake up in your arms.”

His hand had stilled on Aremu’s head; he remembered himself, then, and kept stroking his back.

“I can’t know what it’s like,” he murmured, then rested his cheek against his head again. “Being with me when I’m – like that. It’s me in there,” he went on, “I think. I have all the same feelings, all the same – wants. But I’m getting better at talking like him, walking like him, smiling like him, and I’m afraid that’s – it can’t be easy, Aremu, can it? Even if you know it’s me, even if you know it’ll be me wherever we find to be alone together, it can’t be easy.”

The words tasted foul on his tongue. Him, him, him. He couldn’t seem to stop saying it, as if he were a man on his own, as if he were sitting in the corner of the room and watching them.

His skin crawled; he shut his eyes, feeling a few tears roll shamefully down his cheeks. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, “gods damn me, what a thing I am.” He held Aremu, but his fingers were curled on top of his shoulder, and he was shaking.