[Closed] This Man in My Skin

[Aremu Ediwo]

Night, 29 Loshis, 2720
The Crocus' Stem, Cinnamon Hill

It poured out of Tom like air from a gasbag, as if it had leaked against the edge of a seam, hissing between loosened stitches until something haze, until it swelled and burst and streamed out over them both, with all its pent up force. Dangerous, Aremu thought; a gasbag leak could knock you off the roof of an airship, if you weren’t harnessed. Tom was taut against Aremu, almost trembling with the tension, and Aremu held him close, his fingers still wound through Tom’s hair, clipping them together and holding himself against the chains.

He didn’t know what else he could do; he didn’t think it much.

He had to think about it now, Anatole the father, with his daughter and a nebulous family Aremu didn’t want to picture, in that lovely Vienda home. He thought he could see it, a girl with hair like Tom’s was now, standing on the edge of the expensive rug in the study, bowing as her tutor or governess brought her to see her father.

That study had reminded him of nothing so much as his father’s; it was there his mind chased next, and like a strange nightmare when his mind’s eye went to the desk itself, it was his own father sitting there, uninterested, as if he already knew - and he was bowing in the midst of a different rug of Mugrobi make, barely tall enough to look over the edge of the desk.

He couldn’t, he thought; he couldn’t. If he let himself feel this, he didn’t know what he would do with it; he didn’t know what he would do with Tom.

I don’t want to be complicit in it, Aremu wanted to say, and he knew it was already too late. Worse, he thought, that it had been too late long before this. He didn’t know how to put this in the landscape of things he understood; he didn’t know how to draw a diagram of it and trace it across, connect all the pieces and pipes to figure out what it became.

“The best you can, I think,” Aremu said, because he didn’t know what else to say, because he supposed it was as much as he knew of truth. His thumb stroked over Tom’s scalp, because the idea of stopping frightened him than the idea of continuing.

Does love live in the body? It was an absurd question and nonetheless it shouted itself in his mind. I’ve loved you with my body, but where does my love for you sit? I have no soul, Aremu thought, so it cannot be there - unless, of course, I cannot love.

That was self-pity, he thought. He has only to look at Ahura, Apadha, and Efere to know those of his kind could love; he knew he loved Tom, as much as he knew anything.

Maybe love lives in the body, he wanted to say, but he couldn’t have. It seemed cruel, to suggest to Tom his feelings weren’t his own, that they too had spilled over from Vauquelin into him. It seemed unfair, too, for he didn’t know the truth, and even to couch it carefully seemed too close to the sort of lie he didn’t want to tell.

“I don’t know much about fathers,” Aremu said, quietly, aloud, though he hadn’t meant to. That thought, too, he knew he should have kept inside. He shifted, his arm settling a little more about Tom, and brushed his lips over the other man’s hair once more.

“I’m sorry,” he said, then, turning away from it, and trying to hold to Tom all at once; he felt something in him stretch, and he didn’t know whether it would hold or tear. “I didn’t mean to...” he was quiet. You’ll keep her safe, he thought to promise, but he knew better than to believe care was enough for that, that even love was enough for that.

“Is there anything I can do?” His voice scratched in his throat. He didn’t want the question or its answers, a kind refusal or worse any kind of acceptance. He asked, because he didn’t know what else to say or do; he asked, because Tom was shaking in his arms and he didn’t think he could bear it.

[Tom Cooke]

The Crocus’ Stem, Cinnamon Hill

Growing Later on the 29th of Loshis, 2720

N
o, he wanted to protest, uselessly. I don’t have a best; I don’t even have a good. I told you you’d find out, he thought, but that would’ve been downright damned selfish to say. Even he knew that. Not with him still holding him – like, he imagined, like he’d seen too much grotesquery and it was too late to look away.

The worst part was, he could’ve talked about her all day. He felt it even now amid the tautness of the rest of him, that one string of his heart that wouldn’t stop pulling. It’s like looking in a mirror, he might’ve laughed to somebody else, but somehow it’s not so bad as I thought it would be. It’s like looking in a mirror, except if the mirror was a teenage girl, and insulting you.

And the ways she’s different, I can’t seem to get enough of those, either; to think you can share the flesh and blood of somebody, and their mind and their will’s taking them places you never thought you’d go… To think you’re supposed to teach bochi, when mostly it seems like you spend all your time learning from them – how to listen to them, how to respect them –

He was terrified. The contrast was disturbing: he didn’t know what to do with it. He wanted to tell himself he hadn’t known he had all this shit fluttering round inside his head, but he had, and that was even worse. What the fuck was wrong with him?

He reminded himself of one of those kov that got surprised with a boch and went suddenly moony over it – not even over the chip, over the boch; he’d always laughed at them – except this was so much worse.

Aremu’s words dropped into silence, and into the soft, familiar rhythm of fingers in his hair. And the breeze ruffling against the tight-drawn drapes, and the rustling of the leaves, and the lamp shedding its low glaze of gold phosphor light over everything.

It seemed as if it all should’ve stopped, but it all went on. The room was unchanged; there were still a couple of books at the edge of the bed, nestled in the sheets.

He wasn’t waiting for Aremu to say anything, exactly. He didn’t expect him to say more, not after that. He felt half disbelieving he’d said so much.

I don’t know much about fathers, he said, very quietly indeed.

It wasn’t a gentle sort of quiet; it wasn’t harsh either, though the edges of it might have cut him, if he’d grabbed at it too carelessly. Like the melted remnants of Dejai in Tseli, made sharper with the passing years.

I’m sorry, he said then, his lips coming away from his hair. “No,” he murmured, not sure what else to say. He turned to kiss the bare warm skin of his shoulder, a little tentative; but it didn’t feel wrong, not in any way he might’ve expected it to with that lying between them, so he kissed him again, gently.

“I didn’t know I – uh – I didn’t understand how much I felt for her." Or that it was so obvious, he thought with a wry twist. "I’m sorry.” He shifted to look up at Aremu, trying to force his muscles to relax. “I don’t know much about fathers, either. Nothing, from this side of it.”

He studied the strange expression on Aremu’s face, and for the first time he wondered if there was a man somewhere out there who had the same slope to his cheekbones, the same slant to his eyes, the same expressive lips. The same lines of frowns, worn much deeper. An arata, he thought, feeling strange. Hells, maybe he’d even met – how would he have known? A galdor like, and maybe even of an age with…

He pushed that thought away roughly, blinking and settling against Aremu. “I don’t know,” he murmured honestly. “I don’t know Thul Ka like you do, and I trust you; if anything happened…” His throat was dry. “I can’t make any promises about what might happen. Just that I’d – do my best not to tangle you up in it. Is it too heavy?”

[Aremu Ediwo]

Night, 29 Loshis, 2720
The Crocus' Stem, Cinnamon Hill

Tom was tense and taut in his arms; even the kiss he laid against Aremu’s shoulder was tense, Aremu thought. It was, if he had to name it, that Tom was stiff even as he leaned in, that he didn’t soften as his lips met Aremu’s skin, but sprung back, as if slapped.

Yes, Aremu wanted to say, when Tom asked if it was too heavy. Yes, yes; don’t – don’t make me –

And then in the same thought, no – no, he might have said, no. There’s nothing in me for the weight to fix to; you know that. How can a man who is empty inside be weighed upon so? It must fall through me, because there’s nothing to catch it, nothing to hold.

His fingers were still curled in Tom’s hair, his arm wrapped around the other man, and Tom had eased against him, just a little, finally done something like relaxed. He missed, then, the comfort and peace of silence they’d had just moments ago; it had been easier, then, he thought, a little bitterly, when he hadn’t known.

I want to know you, he’d told Tom, and Tom had opened to him and he – Aremu felt ashamed of himself, then. Who was he, to ask to look and to then turn away from what was shown? His eyes had closed, and he turned and pressed his lips to Tom’s hair, and wondered if that, too, could be a lie; he didn’t know what he meant by it, he supposed, not really, but he didn’t know if that made it more or less likely.

“No,” Aremu said, quietly, in the end. “If you need it from me, Tom, it’s yours. I’m yours.”

Whatever there is of me, he didn’t say, however little clings to the hole in the center of me. My knowledge of Thul Ka, the knife you unharnessed from my back, the hand I still have, my voice and the lies I can tell with it. He thought he was past pretending he could hold any of it back from the other man; he thought he was past, at least, that pretending to himself.

They did not have much longer.

The light outside had long since darkened, but the noises that drifted off the quiet street outside the Crocus’ Stem were, too, winding down.

Aremu strapped the knife to the center of his back, and pulled his pants on over his hips. He drew his right wrist through the harness, settling it against the clasp of the prosthetic hand, and pulled the buckles tight against the lines carved into his skin; there hadn’t been time for the marks to fade, though he knew by the next morning they would.

He didn’t know if Tom watched him; he couldn’t quite look to see. He pulled his shirt on as well, his amel’iwe too, and turned to look at Tom, taking him in, the smile on his thin lips and the rumpled mess of his hair.

“There’s one…” Aremu cleared his throat, standing there and feeling more bare than he had a moment ago. His jaw tightened, then softened, and he came back to the bed, and sat carefully on the edge of it. His clothing had been damp, he thought, a little idly, that morning; it seemed like a season ago that he’d stood waiting for Tom in the rain. He heard the quiet slush of it outside; the first droplets scattered damp against the window.

“There’s one other place I’d like to go together,” Aremu said, quietly. “Next week, if you’re free,” his hand came out and settled on Tom’s hand, carefully. He was quiet a moment more.

“I liked the stars when I was a boy,” Aremu said, quietly. “I’ve…” his gaze searched Tom’s face, then flickered down to their hands; he nearly drew his back, though he couldn’t quite have said why. He went on, as steadily as he could. “I’ve never been to the observatory,” he said, evenly. “I tried, once; I was told the door was closed to those like me, and I did not seek further to open it. I’d like to try again; I’d like to take you there, if you want to go.”

[Tom Cooke]

The Crocus’ Stem, Cinnamon Hill

Growing Later on the 29th of Loshis, 2720

H
e watched – in snippets, mostly in the corner of his eye. He still didn’t know how Aremu felt about it. He knew how he felt about himself, and he’d never want to make another man feel so. But he couldn’t seem to help it: every graceful line of him, every long muscle, was limned in the gold phosphor lamp, reflecting through his dark skin. He saw the knife go on first, a weight, a reminder. He sat looking at the book at the foot of his bed, at the columns of poetry on the page. He glanced over briefly once, in time to see the leather straps glide into place along the lines.

There had been no saying no, once he’d asked and Aremu had offered. He wondered if there’d ever been the chance of it. He wondered what else he might’ve done; it felt like walking down a path in pitch darkness, and he didn’t know where they were going, only that they were going, and they were tied together now in some way beyond his control.

It might’ve been in his control. He might’ve said no. But then, he might’ve said no at the start of this; he might not’ve sent those letters, might not’ve gone with him to Brunnhold in Dentis – for that’d never been about need or power, but about love – might not’ve let him kiss him that first night on the beach. He might not’ve taken any of those risks, if what either of them wanted was control.

Neither of them had let go yet.

Aremu turned to look at him. He might’ve wanted to hide himself away once; some part of him still did. But he didn’t. He sat in the tangle of sheets, feeling barer now than he’d been. He smiled up with the only face he had.

One, Aremu said. His face didn’t fall, but his brows rose. His eyes flicked down – briefly – taking in the tightening of the muscles at his throat, the bob of a swallow. The flicker of a muscle in his jaw. He tilted his head, eyes softening, when Aremu settled himself again on the edge of the bed. Aremu’s left hand found his, still-warm. He watched and listened, and his brows raised a little more.

I know that, he thought, smiling. The hammer, all the stars you named. He thought he knew what Aremu was going to say before he said it, but there was something strange in his manner. He almost would’ve said it himself – the observatory, dove? We spoke of it not too long ago – if not for that strangeness, if not for the tightness of his jaw and the way he kept pausing.

Aremu held his voice like a man trying to hold a ship steady in a storm, though his eyes were dry and now the set of his lips was soft. Understanding washed over him. He couldn’t help the slight widening of his eyes; his lips pressed thin, and he nodded.

“Yes,” he said, “I do.” He pressed Aremu’s hand with his; he hesitated. It didn’t seem enough to leave it there.

And what if–? What if the door is still closed to you and not to me? What do we do? How will that feel?

I believe that is the planet Phaeta, sir. It hit him, then. It’s covered in craters. There’s an observatory at Thul’Amat, where they say you can see them... He remembered, sober-sharp, the sight of him turning his face away, climbing one-handed up the rigging –

“Let’s go, dove,” he said, smiling, sitting up a little; he ran his fingers over the back of Aremu’s hand, letting the strange and bitter memory wash through him. “The eight, the nine, the ten – I’d planned on spending time with you. When the weather permits.” There’d better not be a flooding rainstorm, he thought with a wry gleam in his smile, bringing the other man’s hand up and kissing it. “I’ll be in touch.”

Did not seek to further open it, he mused, shifting to the edge of the bed and standing. Had it really been closed? It seemed a disrespectful question to ask, and a pointless one anyway. Regardless of whether it had been, regardless of whether it was to this day, they were going, and if they wouldn’t let him in this time – there was no use thinking about it. He held Aremu’s hand and gaze ‘til he moved away finally for his clothes.

“I’ll walk you out,” he said, beginning to dress again. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror on the washstand, his hair all mussed; he’d need to comb it back again, if not oil it. It felt like a mask, still, but less uneasy. “At least to the lobby, to be safe.”

[Aremu Ediwo]

Night, 29 Loshis, 2720
The Crocus' Stem, Cinnamon Hill

Aremu smiled; not at the yes, not quite, but at the soft word dove, at Tom’s sitting up and the smile on his face. When it came it blossomed through him, and he felt some of the aching tension seep slowly from his shoulders and spine. He relaxed into it, yielding, sinking into the curve of the yes, not pulled taut but something which could bend, and easily, without losing the knowledge of his shape.

He exhaled out some nameless fear, and let love seep in to fill the space it left, and smiled at Tom a little wider, through all the strangeness; whatever he was, Aremu thought, inside, whatever he had or didn’t have: he was here, and Tom was here too, and this good bye would not be the last. For all the rest which he couldn’t ask – will you come to Dzum? will you come back to me? – he had asked this, at least. He wasn’t such a fool, he thought, as to think it would be easy, but they had been fooling themselves when they had ever thought it was easy between them.

Perhaps, Aremu though, standing and not watching as Tom began to rifle through his clothes, unable to escape the gleam of pale skin brushed with freckles, stretched taut over ribs and spine, and found that he could not quite go further, not here, not tonight. Perhaps, he thought, and it was a nebulous sort of future he reached towards, and he couldn’t have said what his fingers brushed.

He shifted to the window, careful to stay out of the line of sight of it; the rain was still pattering down, not the vicious exhale of the sky when it had first fallen, but more than a misting all the same. It began to pick up once more, and droplets of water bounced at strange, improbable angles against the windowsill to splatter his face. Tom was combing his hair in front of the mirror, putting the strands back into order, as neat as if Aremu’s fingers had never wound through, had never held tight as they both gasped, or stroked, soft and tender, and found new patterns to call his own.

They walked down the stairs together, ada’xa and sir, and Aremu bowed, deeply, and thanked Tom for his consideration, and meant every word. There wasn’t much more to say, and they knew better than to look too long. Aremu pushed open the door of the hotel, and did not look back as he stepped out into the dark rainy night, great sheathes of it falling once more, splashing like waves against the street, lashing through the gold circles of phosphor light.

Aremu draped his amel’iwe around his head, and tucked his left hand away once more, and began to walk. There were no carriages out, and he would not have stood waiting for one all the same. He liked the streets drenched in rain; he would dry, he knew. Rain never stopped his running on Dzum, though he had learned the hard way to let storms do so. But rain – just rain – he could walk through, and whatever it left behind would dry and fade, in time.

He went on; long before he crossed the distance from Cinnamon Hill to Nutmeg Hill, long before he reached the Koketa’s Hive, long before he had to settle into an empty bed without even the trace of lavender to remind him, he was soaked through; water dripped from his hair, and the line of his clothes, and itched in all the places where his straps clung close to the skin. He walked on, anyway, as the light went from gold to blue, to laughter and warmth which drifted from overhangs and the insides of buildings; he walked on, and let himself think of nothing more than putting one foot before the other and the memory of Tom’s smile, and thought that if that was all which held at the edges of the emptiness inside him, that he could be grateful for it, all the same.