[Closed] [Mature] Dancing After Death

[Tom Cooke]

A Courtyard in the Department of Astronomy

Late Afternoon on the 38th of Loshis, 2720

H
e had wondered once if it would ever be easy.

‘Easy’ wasn’t right; nothing about this was easy. It was that he’d wondered, if he looked at it in the face of it, if Aremu would ever recognize him on sight.

He wasn’t sure when he realized it. When he thought about it. Maybe it’d been last time, after Aremu had left the lobby of the Crocus’ Stem and he’d gone back up to his bedroom alone; maybe it had been then, pressing his face to the sheets and smelling their mingled scents and wondering that the other man’s was more familiar than – his own. Shutting his eyes and letting the tears well up, holding the linens and wishing he could hold that scent, familiar-unfamiliar, in his mind forever, wishing men never forgot such things.

Sometimes it felt like forgetting. He thought Aremu hadn’t known him at first, when he’d climbed out of the coach in his robes of state. Or rather, if he’d known him, he hadn’t seen him at first; how could he have? And he wondered with increasing horror if Aremu looked just as much a stranger to him, because there’d never – not even Before – been a time when he hadn’t been able to see that strange liar’s mask he wore, the thing he’d never known how to name, but that’d always given him pause.

He didn’t know, in the end, if Aremu had recognized Tom this morning under the shade of the tsug. He thought he had, though, because Tom had recognized Aremu without a flicker of uncertainty. The Circle seemed damn set on tangling up their feet every time they took a step together, but –

It’d been a very kind morning, Tom thought, and an even kinder afternoon.

He’d recognized the tension in the set of the imbala’s shoulders, for all their polite smiles and bows, for all their secret flashes of grins and tender brushes. Campus was even thicker now, like milk foaming on the stove. They hadn’t spoken of it; there’d been no need.

He thought he’d be able to do something for the muscle tension later, at least, if not the cause of it. He hadn’t told Aremu yet about the room he’d reserved in Three Flowers under a false name, or the fact that he’d cleared the bulk of tomorrow to spend with him – away from prying eyes, just to breathe and be – if he wanted, if he could. He’d thought of it all week, since that strange parting; it was all he could do, he thought, for all the chances they’d missed once.

He’d never been much good at this. It’d been Aremu taking him under the blossoms, Aremu tearing his stitches carrying him back to the house, Aremu with the room in Three Flowers and the pendulum and even now the observatory. He’d never known he was that kind of man, Before, and he ached with every discovery of it.

He’d shared chan with him once. But himself, he felt like he’d forgot how to treat a man, somewhere around the time he’d lost his face; he’d become a creature of thin smiles and distance, of dangers and complications. He wanted to show his love, too, and not fail utterly in the gesture.

The observatory was just outside Es’tsusiqi in the college of Away’qexo. The sky was clear today, Circle thank, and the sun was hot; he was already flushed and tired. But the walkways here were covered with trellises crawling with vines and hanging plants, some with little signs underneath naming and describing them in Estuan and Mugrobi script.

He was full still from the cafe they’d spent the afternoon at, mostly-empty at off hours, another of Aremu’s choices, after kofi and the bookstores. The taste of sour-tangy flatbread and spices and greens was still on his tongue, a taste like contentment, soft bastly shift against the prickle of his nerves.

He was wearing white; his amel’iwe was embroidered at the edges with a band of repeating flowers in orange.

They’d not spoken in a while. Between waterfalls of greenery, shivering strings of green dewdrops, he caught glimpses of the tops of buildings.

There was a round courtyard just before Es’tsusiqi; he only knew where they were for the vines, and for Aremu’s guidance. A small fountain in the middle was encircled by wrought-iron benches. “Do you mind if I sit a moment, ada’xa?” he asked, taking a deep breath. “Only a moment,” he added, looking over finally at Aremu, dappled by the light through the leaves, with a smile that wasn’t quite so thin. “I need to catch my breath.”

[Aremu Ediwo]

Early Evening, 16 Yaris, 2710
A Classroom in Dzeredoqiq, Dzit'ereq College, Thul'Amat

Aremu sat at the edge of the desk, bent over it, his head pressed against his forearms. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw it; even with them open, it seemed to linger like a ghost over his vision. His head ached - had ached, since - and his mouth felt dry and hollowed out; all he could taste was nausea.

It was there; it felt like a brand, seared into him, a tangled swirling mass of colors and shapes and feelings. The feelings were the strangest part of it; he couldn’t have said what they were, precisely, only that they were the colors, too, and that thinking too deeply on any of it made him -

Aremu was hunched over the trash can on his hands and knees when the door opened, shaking; he didn’t have anything left in him to let go, but he couldn’t seen to move, all the same.

He felt the field before anything else, and he flinched from it.

It wasn’t the first he’d felt, in the hours he’d been sitting in Dzeredoqiq; he’d woken up to a crowding of them around him, pressing around on all sides, and the feeling of it had been enough to make him sick again. There had been living conversationalists, then, two of them – from Ivuq’way, from the hospital, no one had told him – and by the end of it, he’d been sitting upright, at least, and they’d told him he seemed as if he would recover in full.

Recover from what, Aremu had asked, his voice sharp and throbbing in his throat, and they had neither of them answered him. I just want to stay here, he’d said, in time, sinking back into his seat, and maybe it’d been a lie; he didn’t know. They’d let him stay, all the same, let him wait there rather than in some infirmary.

This field was clairvoyant, soft and a little slippery; he heard the whisper of fabric, and saw gleaming white in the corner of his gaze.

Aremu was panting for breath; he rubbed his face with his hands, sitting back on his heels, and looked up sharply.

The arata crouched nearby was – Aremu was struck first by the thought of how handsome the older man was, and something about it made him clench his jaw and look away. He didn’t know how he felt about such feelings; they felt like something which happened to him, and not something which he had chosen. He liked girls, too; he knew he liked girls. He didn’t know how to reconcile that with the fumblings he’d shared with Perdhe, or the pounding of his heart, just now.

“How are you feeling, ada’xa?” The arata asked, smiling.

“Fine,” Aremu said, sharply; he rose, swifter than he’d meant to, and lost his balance.

The arata caught him, carefully, with both hands; Aremu felt more than a little muscle, pressing against him. He pulled away a moment later than he should have, sitting once more, his head lowered as he stared down at his hands.

The arata came and sat as well, not so distant. “Tell me what happened to you,” he said, after a little while, his voice gentle.

Aremu clenched his jaw, his shoulders hunching in tight. He didn’t know that he could describe it again; he thought of the look on the living conversationalist’s faces, and he felt a wave of nausea in his throat once more. You don’t care, he wanted to say; none of you care.

“Forgive my manners,” the arata was saying, smiling. “I’m Tsofo pez Erfuan. I’d like to know, ada’xa, what happened to you.”

Aremu’s gaze shot up, back to that handsome face; he frowned, just a little, swallowing, and shifted against his seat. “I’m Aremu,” he said, quietly, after a moment, and began.

Late Afternoon, 38 Loshis, 2720
A Courtyard Away’qexo College, Thul'Amat

This was a mistake, Aremu wanted to say, more than once; we should never have tried to reach for this. He had wanted to say it when they’d met the handful of Anaxi from the delegation in the midst of the courtyard – just a quick word, Incumbent, the blond had said, smiling-eager, pulling a sheaf of papers from his elegant satchel.

This was a mistake, Aremu had wanted to say, when they edged around a crowd of Hesseans, talking loudly in Heshath, and the conversation had dropped to utter silence; they’d been a few steps away when a burst of loud laughter had broken out, and Aremu had not dared look back and see his suspicions confirmed.

I’m glad to be here, Aremu wanted to say, more than once; I’m glad to be sharing this with you. He had wanted to say it when they stepped into the second of the bookshops, and he’d caught the gleam in Tom’s eye as the other man looked, smiling, between the shelves, and went immediately to some volume which had caught his gaze.

I’m glad to be here, Aremu had wanted to say, when Tom’s hand, hidden between their bodies, had just barely brushed against his shoulder as the other man went to his seat at lunch. It had been the outside of it, the meanest glance, and it had raced through Aremu like fire, and he’d spent a few minutes wrestling with himself like a boy.

“Of course not, sir,”Aremu inclined his head when Tom asked to sit, wresting himself from his thoughts. He met the other man’s gaze, smiling evenly, and he wasn’t sure, in that moment, whether it was the one carved on his face or the one beneath it, or whether, in the end, they had lined up. He didn’t know what was in his eyes, and he didn’t know either, not quite, what he wanted to be there – whether the softness he felt for Tom had leaked out at the edges.

Tom sat on the bench, straight-backed; the shade dappled over his hair and all the rest of him, the patterns of the leaf cast against his white clothing. It was clear, clearer than Aremu had hoped for, when they’d dared to plan such a visit; he glanced up once more at the sky, and stepped around to the side of the bench – not sitting, but tucked somewhat into the shadows at Tom’s side.

It seemed, Aremu thought to himself, more tired than he wished to be, oddly fitting.

“Anatole!”

The voice ripped through him, familiar and strange at once; Aremu did not move, and was not quite sure he breathed.

Tsofo strode towards them, a wide smile on his face – as handsome, Aremu thought, his right wrist shoved tight into the pocket of his tan slacks, as ever.

“What a pleasant surprise,” Tsofo said, bowing; Aremu felt the two clairvoyant fields meet in the air as he came a step closer, all his attention still holding on Tom. “What brings you to campus, adame?”

[Tom Cooke]

A Courtyard in the Department of Astronomy

Late Afternoon on the 38th of Loshis, 2720

A
h,” he sighed, lowering himself down onto the thatched wrought-iron, “thank you.” The metal was still cool where they were shaded by the trellis. In the sun, he’d felt nothing but the heat beating down on him, but now he could feel the breeze. It whisked through, rustling the leaves on the vines.

He smiled up at Aremu.

He wasn’t sure if he could’ve separated the face from the mask; perhaps there wasn’t one or the other now, and that, at least, was a qalqa to which he was quite accustomed.

What he knew was that there’d been warmth in Aremu’s eyes, when he’d turned to look at him first. He’d known in a way he couldn’t even say: he knew the other man’s face so well now that it wasn’t a matter of a wrinkle here, a curl at the edge of his lips. There was usually something troubled in Aremu’s smile, when it was genuine. As if the softness hurt, or maybe as if the softness allowed for the hurt. He didn’t know. He just knew that he knew it, and he was achingly grateful for it, regardless of what it meant, regardless of all the things it could still mean.

He’d thought Aremu might sit beside him, but he’d stopped short of patting the seat. It was a small courtyard, tucked into the midst of all that greenery; they were alone, he thought, but they weren’t alone. They might not be alone, any minute.

Even cat-happy and full from the cafe, he wondered if they’d get the chance, if they’d steal even one more moment, before the observatory. Something for reassurance; something like a talisman. He wasn’t sure if his own mask was fitted onto him so tightly nothing crept through, or if it even mattered. He could’ve thought of a handful times their hands had brushed – a dozen times he’d caught a look from Aremu that he’d tucked in his heart for safekeeping – and he pushed back against the creeping worry that it wouldn’t do any good against whatever they were about to face.

Aremu was already moving round the bench, tucking himself into the shadows by a waterfall of leaves.

Anatole! came a familiar voice, soon as he’d settled himself.

Shit, he thought first; the ache in his hip rose up to meet the pleasure he felt at hearing that voice, and he wasn’t sure which would win. But he stood up in the end regardless, still ramrod-straight, for he had never really sagged against the bench. He met the clairvoyant field with a warm, bastly pulse for a caprise, smiling.

“Tsofo,” he said, his eyes sweeping over the arata, brows raised. “A pleasant surprise indeed.”

He didn’t think, at first; Tsofo’s voice was warm, and he thought he cut a particularly graceful figure today in his deep teal amel’iwe. He remembered the color he’d worn at the cafe last time – a sort of burnt orange, less citrus and more like the heart of a low-burning flame, he’d thought then. He remembered the place he’d told him about, the bar over on Tsel’atuun, with a pleasant prickle. He’d meant to ask Aremu if he’d ever been; something had…

Stopped him. Aremu was still standing beside the bench, the slim line of him draped in tan. “Ah – this is my good friend ada’xa Aremu Ediwo,” he said, gesturing. We were just on our way to the observatory, he thought to say, and something stopped him there, too. “As an alumnus, he has graciously offered to show me around campus when we have the time.”

[Aremu Ediwo]

Night, 27 Dentis, 2710
Outside of Dzifap Hall, Thul'Amat

Aremu waited, shifting, fidgeting in the dark, outside of the circle of pale blue phosphor light which gleamed above the top of the steps. He was tucked against the back of one of the pillars; he crossed his arms over his chest, first, and then lowered them and tucked his hands into his pockets. He turned, resting his shoulder against the marble ridges, and did not quite lean, but swept a glance back over the pathway, down the pounded down dirt tucked beneath the overhanging screen of branches.

He hadn’t known much of Thul’Amat’s secret places, the quiet rooms tucked back and out of the way, garden sheds and abandoned classrooms, basement closets and other, stranger places. Tsofo seemed to know them quite well, he thought, and pushed the thought away with a well of something he didn’t want to think about: bitterness, fear, hurt, all tangled in a heavy mass in his chest.

There were footsteps on the marble steps, then, sandals slapping against them. He glanced over his shoulder once more, and Tsofo came into the light, the white of his clothing gleaming beneath the lamp. Tsofo paused on the top of the steps, glancing around.

Aremu thought he would turn and go, suddenly – hop off the edge of the platform and disappear into the greenery – but he was already moving forward, hovering just at the edge of the light.

Tsofo grinned at the sight of him. “Come on,” he murmured. “I haven’t much time.”

They went inside the building, and down the steps; Aremu didn’t hover at the edge of his field, not anymore, and he didn’t make conversation, not anymore, not when he knew what the response would be: we need to be quiet here, dzepie.

Tsofo held the door for him; Aremu went into the narrow closet, and turned back to the other man. Have you been climbing, he wanted to ask, thinking about the conversations they’d had about it once, what felt like long ago; they’d never been together, but Aremu imagined it, sometimes, what it might be like with Tsofo holding the rope –

Tsofo was there, then; the other man pressed against him, Aremu’s hips caught back against the edge of an abandoned desk. The words he’d meant to say drifted away, dried up in his throat, swallowed down to sit churning in his empty stomach. He groaned instead, and listened to Tsofo laugh at the sound. In between the gasping, grunting sounds of the two of them there wasn’t much room to think; with whatever he had left for it, Aremu thought, vaguely, that it was better that way, and then that thought, too, swirled away and left him behind.

Late Afternoon, 38 Loshis, 2720
A Courtyard Away’qexo College, Thul'Amat

Tsofo hadn’t seen him, or at least hadn’t registered him, Aremu thought; he didn’t know. The other man’s gaze was fixed evenly on Tom, and there was a handsome, warm smile on his face.

Don’t, Aremu thought, when he heard the first note of it in Tom’s voice. Don’t, don’t, don’t; he thought it, loudly, with his whole self, though he knew there was no point to it. It was inevitable, dragging through him like the tides, pulling him out to a place he didn’t want to go, and he couldn’t swim against it; the best he could was to turn sideways, not to fight the current but to try, in time, to slip out of it, before he was too weak to keep from being pulled under.

Tsofo’s gaze followed Tom’s gesture; his eyes widened, his lips parting slightly.

“Aremu,” Tsofo said, his voice warm and friendly; he smiled.

“Ada’xa,” Aremu said; there was no sense in hiding, and he came a step forward, and then another, like the third angle in a hideous triangle. Adame, he kept thinking, adame, and he couldn’t bring himself to look at Tom, not quite. He bowed, deeply, letting the drape of his amel’iwe help him, and straightened back up, both his left hand and right wrist slipping into his pocket.

Tsofo laughed. “We are already acquainted, as you must have guessed,” he told Tom, smiling. “I knew Aremu in his student days – I was a graduate student myself, at the time! I had undertaken a project on clairvoyant diableries – quite a fascinating topic, though sadly nothing which ever led to any publication.”

Aremu didn’t think he’d flinched, when Tsofo said clairvoyant diableries, with his warm, easy smile. He didn’t think he’d flinched at the sight of the other man, either; he knew he was still smiling, that it was carved smooth into the wood of his face, and all the rest which he felt was locked behind it.

There should have been nothing else to feel, Aremu told himself, smiling still. It had been ten years; it was a long time ago. There was no sense in anger, or shame, or any of the rest of the feelings that threatened to capsize him, as he turned his smooth polite smile to Tom.

“What a pleasure,” Tsofo said again, smiling, turning back to Anatole. “It is a Circle-blessed man who finds joy in life’s suprises.”

[Tom Cooke]

A Courtyard in the Department of Astronomy

Late Afternoon on the 38th of Loshis, 2720

I
n spite of the heat and his flush, gooseflesh crawled over the back of his neck. It was the breeze, gusting through the leaves; it rippled Tsofo’s smooth white hems and tugged at Aremu’s amel’iwe, and seemed to cut right through every bit of the white he was wearing, so he felt like he wasn’t wearing much of anything at all.

And still he smiled, because they were both smiling. Tsofo had looked surprised at first. Aremu, he had called him, the set of his lips soft and pleased. Ada’xa, Aremu had replied, in a tone of voice he thought he knew well.

Something in him curled. Aremu was not looking at him.

It was vicious and sudden, that feeling, like an undertow. He remembered the taste of honey wine, thick and sweet, and Aremu’s sheepish smile; he remembered his own laughter, and – felt mung. Not just mung, he thought, and then tried not to think. He tried not to watch the soft ripple of Aremu’s amel’iwe as he bowed. He glanced briefly at his profile, at the polite, smooth smile that was now on his face, but his eyes did not linger. He did not let himself search it. He did not think that Aremu was comfortable.

(And why should he be, to be seen with him? Tsofo won’t know, he thought peevishly, as if in argument; he may know where my interests lie, but he doesn’t know anything else. You, with me? It’s about a damn book, Aremu, no matter how much I may try to deceive myself. If it weren’t that, it would be pity. If he knows you, he wouldn’t picture it in a thousand years, you with me. Look at me; who would? H––)

He was straight-backed still, and he found his hands clasped in the small of his back. His field was indectal and friendly. He breathed the warm air in deep – smelling of the flowers – focused on the lingering taste of turmeric and fenugreek on his tongue, and managed another whisper of bastly at the edges of his field, just enough.

He tucked himself delicately behind Anatole. At student days, he smiled, inclining his head. “Ah,” he said politely, glancing over at Aremu with a raise of his brows, only briefly again. He looked back at Tsofo, blinking.

Clairvoyant, Tsofo said, as brightly as if he were talking about the weather, diableries.

Diablerie. This was Risha’s qalqa, this face; he had made it so. But his mouth still came open slightly, his tongue perched on the roof of his mouth, as if to start a word that could never come. Di-ab-le-rie, Tsofo had said, quite clearly, lilting over the consonants in his Cinnamon Hill way.

This was his qalqa, but he didn’t think there was anything either of them – Tom or Anatole – Risha, any of them, all Anaxi as they were – could have done to lessen the surprise of hearing that word here. He caught himself quick, with only a brief flutter of his eyelids; he shut his mouth. He was still smiling. Nothing which ever led to any publication, Tsofo went on, and Anatole’s face did not move so much as a half-centimeter.

Aremu was looking at him then. He looked over just enough to see that polite smile turned on him. His left hand, he noticed, such as it was, had barely left his pocket; he couldn’t remember seeing it when he bowed. Oh, he thought, I am a fool.

He could barely think. “That it is,” said Anatole softly. “We say there are no coincidences, in Anaxas; each moment lays out a path for the next. So it is Lady-blessed, we say, when time brings old friends back together.

“Ah –” His smile brightened; he looked at Aremu, then back. “Ada’xa Aremu is also an old friend of mine, and a business associate. I’m very grateful to have him as a guide. We were just resting here for a moment,” he said, meeting Tsofo’s eye and inclining his head again and shifting as if to move past him.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Late Afternoon, 38 Loshis, 2720
A Courtyard, Away’qexo College, Thul'Amat

Tsofo smiled. “Lady-blessed indeed,” he repeated, nodding in agreement. He looked between them once more, his smile not shifting when his gaze settled on Aremu.

Aremu was still smiling, his lips stretched out evenly into it. He didn’t want to be, he thought; he didn’t want to smile. It was a strain, to hold it to his face, the muscles in his cheeks locked in place. There was nothing easy about it. He did not know if this was the liar’s smile, but he supposed it must have been, for he was a liar.

He was a liar, Aremu thought, and Tsofo a man of honor. Standing there, bathed in the edges of two clairvoyant fields, feeling the buoyant softness of their caprise, Aremu held his smile and shifted his gaze back to Tsofo. Tom, he thought, trying to push the thought away and failing, was a man of honor too.

Tsofo’s smile was warm and friendly, polite. Polite, Aremu thought; he had always been polite in public, those scant few times. Ada’xa, Aremu had called him then - professor, he supposed, looking at him now, would have been better. He didn’t know; he couldn’t find it in him to ask. Tsofo had not corrected him, but he thought that meant little. He couldn’t think about it any further.

He was aware of - afraid of, Aremu thought - something at the edge of Tom’s gaze. He might guess, Tom, Aremu wanted to say; he can’t know. And Tom? What might Tom guess? What could he know?

“Of course,” Tsofo murmured, when Tom shifted as if to go. “I am sure your schedule is quite full, Anatole; I look forward to seeing you on the ten.”

Tsofo bowed first.

Aremu followed suit.

“Your hand!” He heard, quietly, as he rose; Tsofo’s eyebrows had lifted.

Aremu knew it too late then; his right wrist had nearly sunk back into his pocket, but not fully. He eased it the rest of the way out, letting his arm dangle as his side. The sunlight gleamed off the polished wood of it, the fingers neatly carved separate from one another, lightly curled, delicate down to the cut of the nail and the careful lines etched in where they bent.

“The currents are truly unpredictable,” Tsofo murmured. He looked between them once more; his eyes lingered a little longer on Anatole this time, something at the edges of them.

Aremu inclined his head. He had lost his smile, he thought; something like gratitude had swamped it. He did not think he had made a mistake in his bow, not deliberately; perhaps subconsciously he had done it, had been a hair - a shade - slower than usual. What had he wanted, if so? Not this; surely not this.

“I apologize,” Tsofo said, smiling, turning to Anatole. “Aremu had two hands when I knew him; yet we can none of us know where our paths shall lead. It is a shame about your climbing, Aremu; you were quite good.”

“A shame,” Aremu repeated, quietly. In that moment, he did not care if the repetition was taken for agreement; he couldn’t have said how he meant it, or why he had spoken at all. A thousand things he was too afraid to name flickered to life and crawled over his skin, and shame was threaded thick through them, prickling and teasing at him. It sunk beneath the surface, following familiar paths, and made itself at home inside him. If it was an infestation, it was one he had long since given up driving out.

Aremu shifted, and tucked the prosthetic into his pocket once more, so his wrist pressed against the edge of it. His dark yellow amel’iwe fluttered softly in the wind, and settled back against his tan clothing once more.

[Tom Cooke]

A Courtyard in the Department of Astronomy

Late Afternoon on the 38th of Loshis, 2720

H
is mind might well have been a knot. No thought could push its way through; he felt like, in standing up from the bench, he’d been knocked off balance, and there was nothing to grab onto but the air. “Of course,” Anatole said politely, “we have much to discuss.” He already felt something was slipping out of his grasp, like the wind shaking leaves from a tree; his own feelings – he kept his field indectal, though they threatened to catch fire inside him – and –

Your hand, Tsofo said, with his brows raised.

It felt like swallowing the shard of a riff. He turned to Aremu without meaning to; his eyes caught on the other man’s face, which was no longer smiling. He did not look, though he had the wild, awful urge to, at Aremu’s – hand, when he slid it out of his pocket and out from under the sweep of his amel’iwe. He could see the dark wood gleam in the light that filtered through the trellis.

He jerked his eyes away from Aremu’s face, feeling a rush of shame and anger that he pushed down into his belly. He smiled at Tsofo, but he thought it was the wrong smile: it was Anatole at dinner, Anatole at a party, Anatole with a drink in his hand when somebody had said something amusingly vapid.

He rifled through himself like rifling through a closet for a costume. He couldn’t – find it. What was it he was looking for? What sort of smile? What was appropriate? He felt more like a machine than a man.

He couldn’t think.

Tsofo’s eyes lingered on him. His brows were elegant arcs, and there were little lines round his eyes, the same little lines he had admired in the steamroom. His white tunic hung off his shoulders, accentuating all the lovely lines of him. His shoulders and back were a straight line underneath his amel’iwe.

He felt very small in his own white clothes, as if he weren’t a line but a blurry scattering of things. He felt at the same time like the white was unflattering; he kept wondering if he should’ve worn something underneath it, if he should’ve substituted his crimson wrap, the folds of which he thought hid him much better. Aremu ached at his side like a throbbing wound, and all he could think of was if he smelled too strongly of lavender, if he had tried too hard…

He wasn’t ready for Tsofo to address him again, but he did – he did. I’m sorry? he got the urge to blurt out.

“I – see. Ada’xa.” He hadn’t meant to use the honorific. It was scarcely a breath. A shame, Aremu said at his side, in his even, Cinnamon Hill accent, almost at the same moment.

His heart flipped over.

He shook himself, but there was nothing to shake; he felt as if every nerve and ley line were exposed. Who was this man, if he hadn’t known? Had he been a –? He felt ashamed of his assumption, and every shred of it was selfishness. “I hope to accompany ada’xa Aremu on a climb, one of these days,” he found himself saying. “I’ve much to learn from his technique.”

(He wouldn’t climb with you; he barely thinks of you as a man, and he handles you with kid gloves –)

Cold fear dropped through him.

“Do forgive me, Tsofo, we really must – I have an appointment later this evening,” he said without thinking, even though it was honest, “and I shouldn’t like to be late for it. What a blessing to see you here, all the same.” He flashed the same shallow smile at Aremu, and moved again to pass Tsofo.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Late Afternoon, 38 Loshis, 2720
A Quiet Path, Away’qexo College, Thul'Amat

Aremu remembered, still, how they’d done it; he’d asked, and he’d asked perhaps too many times – too many times, he knew now; if you had to ask, he understood, now, so many times, it was because, in the end, they didn’t want you that way – and Tsofo had agreed to climb with him. They’d arranged it to meet as if by accident; they hadn’t gone together, and Aremu had waited until Tsofo needed a spotter, had hooked himself in and stood back and watched – not too closely, Tsofo had cautioned him – as Tsofo climbed.

The worst part, Aremu thought, now, looking back at it, was how excited he had been – how pleased – and how he had felt as if he were flying, climbing with Tsofo as his anchor.

A shame, Aremu had said, aloud, with his words; a shame, Tsofo had called it, and he knew that the other man only spoke truth. Did he make it a lie, by lending his voice to it? He didn’t know. It was true, wasn’t it, in any case; he wasn’t as good with one hand as he’d been with two. I still climb, he wanted to say, instead.

Tom, at his side – he didn’t know what the other man was saying. You hate heights, Aremu wanted to say, and he might have smiled if it wasn’t so deadly serious. How is it you want to accompany me on a climb now?

Tsofo’s eyebrows had lifted at Anatole’s words; his gaze shifted between them. “Of course,” was all he said, smoothly. “There are those who say time is the most precious resource of all.”

Tom walked past him – small, red-haired, straight backed, beneath the gleam of his white clothing and the drape of his amel’iwe, the orange flowers folding back on themselves as he moved. His smile was thin on his lips, polite, meaningless.

“Good day, ada’xa,” Aremu said, just as politely. He didn’t think he was smiling again; he didn’t think he was frowning, either. Stillness was easier than either, just then, and he sought refuge in it even as he shifted to follow Tom, his left hand and right wrist tucked into his pockets. The fingers of his left hands curled around the fabric, gripping it, though not so tightly as to pull the fabric of his pants too far across.

Tsofo said nothing to him; Aremu had not thought he would. Perhaps he might have expected the last decade to change the other man. He hadn’t; he couldn’t have said why. He didn’t look back at Tsofo, either, though the temptation was there – as it always had been, though he didn’t think for the same reasons.

“This way, sir,” Aremu said when they had gone a few steps down the main path, out of the courtyard. His voice was quiet; he could scarcely hear it over the pounding of his heart in his ears. They shifted, taking one of the narrow cut paths between the greenery, off the main path; it wasn’t a short-cut – in fact it was a slightly longer route – but after standing aside a moment to let a frantic-looking arata student dash past, they were alone on it, at least.

Aremu didn’t look at Tom; he couldn’t. How do you know him? He wanted to ask. How do you know Tsofo, Tom? If he asked, he thought, feeling something churning in the pit of his stomach, Tom would as well, and he wasn’t sure he could bear that, just now; he wasn’t sure he knew what he would say, here, in the midst of one of Thul’Amat’s paths, the sun bearing down on them.

Aremu thought he might be sick; he clenched his jaw against it, and held still for a moment, long enough to let Tom close the last of the gap he’d put between them, without meaning to. Aremu closed his eyes, and opened them again, and swallowed hard against the ache of it. He turned – he hadn’t meant to – back at Tom, but he couldn’t meet his eyes, not quite, when the time came.

“It’s not so far,” Aremu said, as evenly as he could manage beneath a face which remembered neither how to smile nor how to frown; he turned back away, and made to continue down the path.

[Tom Cooke]

A Courtyard in the Department of Astronomy

Late Afternoon on the 38th of Loshis, 2720

A
remu outpaced him. His hip ached, as it always did; he felt sure there was a flush in his cheeks, and he couldn’t think if it had been there when they’d said their farewells to Tsofo, when Tsofo’s eyes had still been on him, edged with something like – he couldn’t think. He was burning up inside and outside both, and his hip hurt, and even on this even-paved path, he couldn’t keep up with Aremu.

Perhaps it was because he didn’t want to.

He wasn’t sure if it was a lie now, what he’d said. It was stupid, regardless of what it was. Climb? He thought of the rope ladder jerking underneath his hands, one rung sagging under his heavy boot, the wind plucking the braid from his hair. He thought of being lifted up to the Uccello di Hurte in a sling, and nearly throwing up on the deck. He shouldn’t have thought of that. Aremu had seen it, he remembered, even if he hadn’t known him then: he had seen him staggering pale and shaky; he had seen him crying like a child in the engine room, worse – crying like a pitiful old man over him. Crying, like he always had.

He blinked and swallowed a lump. Another arata, arms full of books, surged past them. There was the clatter of her sandals on the stones, then – quiet. Aremu’s rhythmic gait was quiet, as it had always been. The set of his back, which he could recognize even under the deep yellow folds of his amel’iwe, was rigid. He could imagine every muscle taut, but worst under the straps.

When they were alone, he almost reached out and touched him. He couldn’t close the gap with his arm, and he was afraid. He felt time, the most precious thing of all – Tsofo’s words echoed in his ears, a warped mockery – slipping away. Just as it had slipped away the first time; just as the gap had widened, and they had grown apart, one in life and one in death.

Both, he thought pathetically, grieving.

But when Aremu turned, he didn’t meet his eye. His face looked vacant; he was holding his jaw like a man about to be sick.

“Aremu?” tumbled out of his mouth, almost before Aremu’d done speaking. His brow was furrowed. They were alone, but suddenly he didn’t care; he didn’t know if it was out of spite, or concern, or both.

Are you that ashamed of us? the awful burning inside him wanted to demand. Clairvoyant diableries, he kept thinking in Tsofo’s voice, strangely confused; climbing – two hands…

He was still handsome when I knew him, he imagined Aremu saying matter-of-factly to Tsofo, as if in defense of himself. Like a strange nightmare. And good in bed, too; it’s a shame. A shame, he imagined agreeing. His stomach gave a lurch, and he almost gagged.

What the hell is wrong with you? he asked himself. Aremu’s back was turned again, and he got the sudden horrifying urge to weep.

He had thought Tsofo a man of tact. He had always handled him so delicately, as delicately as he handled his Mugrobi Estuan; every word had seemed a flower in his long, deft fingers, unfolding petal by petal, spilling out soft colors.

He remembered, unbidden, Aremu in his study, telling him – not that he ought not to, he though with an awful sinking. That he didn’t have to treat him like a man.

And still he felt like his skin was on fire; still he felt like if Aremu looked at him, he’d turn to stone. He knew one thing, but he couldn’t shake the other, as if all that greenery had reached its tendrils down into him and snared him. Without him even knowing it.

“Aremu,” he said, “stop, please. We have time. We have – we have time.”

[Aremu Ediwo]

Late Afternoon, 38 Loshis, 2720
Beneath an acacia tree, Away’qexo College, Thul'Amat

Aremu stopped.

He didn’t turn back, didn’t look over his shoulder at Tom once more. He could have; it would have – should have – been easy to turn back and look the other man in the face. He didn’t know why he didn’t, and yet at the same time he did: shame. He was ashamed, of – of himself, Aremu thought, of the fool he’d been a decade ago with Tsofo. He was afraid, he thought, facing it, that Tom would understand, now, as he’d insisted he didn’t before, why it was he couldn’t – they couldn’t –

Aremu’s shoulders were tight, tensed almost to his ears. He exhaled them down, listening to Tom speak quietly over the tightness of the breath in his chest and throat. We have time, Tom said.

Until your appointment, Aremu wanted to say, and even the thought tasted bitter on his tongue. He closed his eyes. Hadn’t he told Tom he’d take whatever the other man could give? What right did he have now to rebuke him, to demand anything more? None; he knew he had none. The hurts of a man he would have said he wasn’t, anymore, tangled together with sharp sour new fears, and he swallowed through the lump in his throat.

Aremu’s eyes opened again, and he titled his head up, just a little, looking at the broad screen of acacia leaves overhead, stretching out along the path. He glanced up the path, and then back over his shoulder, managing to not quite look at Tom as he glanced down behind them. It was empty, still; there was no guarantee that it would be, for long.

“We shouldn’t stay here,” Aremu said, quietly, and couldn't find the words to fill in the rest: if you want to talk about it, if you want to speak, if you want to call me - Aremu. His left hand came out, and gestured towards the tree; if Tom wanted, it would be easy enough to find their way through the tangle of bushes around the path, towards the narrow split trunk of the tree. There was a small bench with an uneven, handcarved look to it at the base, a little low to the ground; Aremu hadn’t known it was there, and he couldn’t bring himself to gratitude, or anything else. Thul Ka has a lot of secret places, he thought, unbidden, and clenched his jaw against the urge to be sick.

He pressed his foot into the space between the gaps in the trunks, and went up; he eased himself onto the flat part of a branch and sat, there, his back pressed against the trunk a little over Tom’s head, one leg stretched out along the length of it, and the other dangling towards the ground. His left hand was in his lap; his right wrist he tucked there, too, looking down at the wood and the flesh set next to one another.

He looked down at Tom – it was easier, he thought absurdly, from above – at his thick soft hair, red mingled with white and gray. Aremu breathed in, and out again, and straightened his back against the tree, glancing out over the branches, able to see only the barest hint of the path beyond, between the long, fern-like leaves and all the bushes beyond.

He thought he should speak; he thought he should press the pieces of his mask back to his face, find the smile he had fitted to them – the liar’s smile, he thought, tiredly, and the liar’s mask. He’d thought after Tsofo he would be unable to remove it; he found instead that he couldn’t seem to find it, after all, that he was afraid of what his face would show, if he let Tom see it, if he looked into the other man’s eyes.

He thought he should speak; he lingered in silence, instead, waiting, uncertain what or whether he wanted to know. Whatever time you can give me, he’d said, and this is how he was spending it, hiding on a branch – but he couldn’t seem to bring himself to climb down, either. He looked up again, instead, his jaw clenched tight against all that he didn’t want to say.