[Closed] To Doubt

[Tom Cooke]

The Vauquelin House • Uptown

Evening on the 6th of Dentis, 2719

E
nough to judge me,” said Tom sharply, staring across the study at Aremu.

He was barely hearing, barely seeing. His face was blotched with crimson and paper-pale between; he could feel his cheeks burning. All he could hear was Aremu gasping with laughter at profane. Laughing at his — presumption? Laughing at his shame.

He thought he might’ve been a house hingle with its leg caught, suddenly, in some trap. One moment safe and free and able, the next a bloody, laoso mess, and nothing to account for it but the bite of metal and the empty-headed pain. None of those words made sense in the places Aremu put them, and the pain he gave them with his voice made even less. Tom didn’t understand a whit, and it made him angrier.

Why? That was the first thing he wanted to ask. He wanted to fling it across the room at Aremu, with all the force of the comfort and love he’d felt on the beach in Dzum. He wanted to return it thricefold in rage, for all it’d meant nothing. He wanted to burn it out of himself.

His mouth even opened, and he made a noise in his throat, but the words in his head were too fast for his tongue to wrangle — you know I know, you know how ashamed I am. I didn’t think you were a man for wanton cruelty. You already had me; why do you care enough to keep on with this?

Why? His lips came together, thin. He studied Aremu’s face.

If it’s hurting you to hurt me, then why’re you doing it? Why are you standing there and not leaving, now that you know what I am, just to be cruel to me, when it’s making you clench your arm like —

Don’t do that, dove, he got the sudden urge to say. He took a quick step forward, half-reaching with a shaky hand. Then he stepped back again, sheepish. Aremu had let go of his right arm and tucked the wooden hand back in its pocket, but now his left hand was clenched in his pocket, the fabric a tight rumple at his hip, and he was shaking all over.

Tom couldn’t help thinking of all the muscles he’d massaged into some semblance of relaxation, and how they were tenser now than they’d been before. He couldn’t help it; his brow knit with concern.

His hand found the arm of the chair again. “I don’t understand,” he started, his voice cracking. I am denied the sacred, Aremu had said. Tom watched him.

Even now, he felt them, stirring against his skin. The feeling of them bled through his skin; he felt it underneath, inside, shot through him like veins through a leaf. It’d frightened him, the first time he’d felt it. He hadn’t been able to do anything for days, because it was all he could feel, all the time, like a second set of nerves. Or like he’d been turned inside out, and all his nerves were on the outside.

Once, a field had just been woobly; now, that feeling was a landscape, and once he’d stuck his toe in the water and adjusted to the cold, he’d found he could wade in and explore it. And when he’d cast — all of him, suffused with it. Like those veins were singing, like they were full of gold. Terrifying, but right. Like that was what they were supposed to be feeling.

And power, something in him whispered. It had felt powerful. His eyes moved over Aremu’s face. The anger had long bled from his; a tear trailed wet down his cheek. “Aremu.” His voice was soft and low. It wavered with fear. “I don’t care what a galdor thinks. It’s you I care about.”

Please, sit, he wanted to say, aching. At least let me get your jacket. I’ll stoke the fire; it’s still raining, and it’s cold out, and I won’t — I don’t want you to go alone — but everything, all of it, he heard in a galdor’s voice. He pushed down a wave of revulsion. “Please,” he breathed, barely-audible. He didn’t know what he was asking for. I can’t give you yourself, Aremu had promised.

.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Evening, 6 Dentis, 2719
The Vauquelin House, Uptown

Enough to judge me. The words reached into Aremu and gouged him out; he thought if he opened his mouth, all that he was, all that he had ever been, all that he had ever wanted would come spilling onto Tom’s floor in a hot, tangled, foul, reeking mess. Is that it, Aremu wanted to ask. Is that it? You think I don’t know what I am? How can you? The lack is as sharp to me as that mess you call a field, and there is nothing I can do, no sacred path I can walk, no journey of meditation and understanding to fix it.

There was silence between them, then. Aremu wanted to look away again; he didn’t want to see. Tom’s face was blotched crimson in the firelight.

Aremu flinched at the sound of his name on Tom’s lips; one tear, then a second, spilled from the edges of his eyes and streaked down his face. He didn’t understand; he couldn’t. He let go of his pocket; his fingers ached, but he pressed them into his eyes, holding the lids closed. The breath he drew in was more like a sniffle than anything, shuddering through him.

No, he wanted to say. No, you don’t. I think you’ve made that clear.

Aremu sniffled again, and lowered his hand, slowly. He looked away, and shook his head, slightly, swallowing hard. He didn’t know what Tom was asking him; he didn’t know why he’d said please. Please what, Aremu wanted to ask. Please, go back to being the good imbala? Please, go back to understanding, to accepting, to never saying anything out of your place? Please, go back to settling your hand in my hair, and kissing me –

Beautiful, Tom had called him, amidst the mangroves. He thought he could feel the brush of slim, pale fingers against his cheekbones, tracing a slow line against them.

Aremu shuddered; a wave of cold rippled through him. He turned; he found it, then, in the corner of his eye, a wastebin at the edge of the desk. Better not to make a mess, he thought, aching and furious all at once. He found it; he was on his knees, then, and he was sick. It came out of him, tears burning in his eyes; he held onto the rim with one hand, the wooden one propped against the ground, holding him up. He gagged, and he was sick again, half-choking on it.

It was over, then. Aremu shook with cold and misery, kneeling on Tom’s floor, his head bowed. He closed his eyes, tears dripping slowly, steadily down his cheeks, and wished, more than anything, that Tom couldn’t see him.

“Don’t,” Aremu said, at the brush of the other man’s porven at the edge of his senses. “Don’t,” he sniffled, easing back slowly onto his legs, his hand shaking on the rim of the wastebasket. He looked back over his shoulder at Tom; there was a clamminess to his face, and his eyes were red and swollen. He could taste nothing but the misery inside him.

Aremu took a deep breath, deep and even. He sniffled again; he let go of the wastebasket, slowly, and brushed his hand over his eyes. He lowered it, carefully, onto his legs.

“Was I ever a man to you?” Aremu asked, quietly. He looked at Tom as he said it; there was no anger in the question. It could have been angry; it could have been furious, hot and rage-filled. He’d felt it, a little while ago, but it hadn’t lasted. It never did. It had been quiet, instead; quiet and understanding. “I thought – ” something like pain shuddered through his voice, and Aremu took a deep, aching breath.

“I had better go,” Aremu said, quietly. He pulled himself to his feet with the edge of Tom’s desk, shaky. He wiped his hand over his face again, and gathered himself, and eased back past the other man. He took his jacket from the floor, and pulled it on, slowly, over the wooden hand. His hand settled on his cravat at his neck, and he shuddered, standing there at the fireplace, still, and felt the tears come again.

[Tom Cooke]

The Vauquelin House • Uptown

Evening on the 6th of Dentis, 2719

I
’ll get your coat. It was on the tip of Tom’s tongue; he just stood there instead, met Aremu’s silence with more silence. It was a swollen sort of silence; he couldn’t’ve said with what, not for him or the imbala. But Aremu was turning — I’ll get your coat, Tom thought, impotently — except he was turning in the wrong direction, toward the desk where he should’ve been turning toward the door.

Tom didn’t realize ‘til Aremu was halfway down on his knees, his wooden hand braced against the floor and the other tight round the rim of the wastebasket. He saw it ripple through him; underneath his thin white shirt, underneath the dark tracery of the harness, he saw all those tense muscles in his back wrench with it.

Don’t, came Aremu’s quiet rasp, after the choked wet noises. Tom hadn’t realized he’d moved, but he had. Somehow, his feet had carried him across the carpet, had carried him close enough to Aremu that his field must’ve been lapping over the other man.

Don’t. His throat hurt when he swallowed. He nodded once, but he didn’t move, not until the imbala twisted to look at him over his shoulder. Then he took a tentative step back.

Tom could smell the sick. Unpleasant memories brushed the edges of his mind, like memories of a dream. He shivered. A goose walked over my grave, he thought, irrational.

Aremu’s eyes were rimmed in red; even in the shadow of the desk, Tom could see the tears thick on his lashes, the drying trail on his cheek. His forehead had a clammy sheen. Still, Tom couldn’t say anything, even as the sick wafted up stronger. Even as the imbala sniffed again, catching his breath audibly.

The worry cooled to embarrassment. Embarrassment he’d been worried; embarrassment he’d cared. That’s what it’s to be, the embarrassment said. That’s what it’s about, after all. Because a thing like me, a monster like me, has one thing you lack. Because even a thing like me — a thing that disgusts you as much as I do —

The question caught him sideways and emptied his head. All the more because it wasn’t angry; it didn’t sound angry, anyway. Tom couldn’t’ve said what it was. Resigned, maybe. Aremu shuddered, and levered himself to his feet, and started over toward the hearth.

“Yes,” Tom said softly, unable to turn. “Always.” He shut his eyes and lowered his head. His lip twitched.

One of his hands found the other and twisted; if he’d had his cravat, he was sure he’d’ve pulled the silk to pieces. He felt his chest tightening again. He opened his mouth and drew in breath to speak; it caught, and he bit down on it.

But he couldn’t stay himself. He turned to the hearth, where Aremu was getting his jacket. “You say something like that,” he breathed, “and then you leave? Godssakes.” He bit down on that word, too, and it tasted bitter. He stared at Aremu, pulling his sleeve over that wooden hand. “Who do you think I am? Do you think I’d’ve — if I hadn’t thought you were a man — did you think—”

Tom broke off, watching him. He thought he was about to tie his cravat; he wasn’t sure what had stopped him. There were tears in the imbala’s eyes again, and the fingertips of his one hand had paused, dark against dark silk.

The set of Tom’s jaw loosened. He looked away, toward the coals, and then toward the floor, and then — he wasn’t sure where to look, so he looked back at Aremu. There’s a lavatory down the hall, he thought to say, bluntly, and it’s got a flooding mirror.

If he wanted to hurt Aremu, that wasn’t how. He swallowed thickly and looked down. “Don’t,” he said softly. “Please. Don’t go, just yet.” He shut his eyes, tasting bitter bile in his mouth. “I should’ve told you sooner.”

.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Evening, 6 Dentis, 2719
The Vauquelin House, Uptown

Aremu’s hand was shaking. It was a hard thing, to tie a cravat one-handed; it was an impossible thing, to tie a cravat with one hand that could not stop shaking. He tasted his limits in the bitter bile on his tongue. Yes, Tom had said, and then, always, and Aremu didn’t know how to fit that into all the rest of it. He stood alone at the hearth, feeling the meager, lingering warmth in it, and tried to breathe through it all, tried to find some stillness.

He lowered his hand from the cravat, when Tom spoke again, because he knew, then, that it was not to be found. He was aware of a few more tears trickling down his cheeks; he licked his lips, and he could taste one, unpleasantly salty after the bitter bile. He was silent long enough that Tom spoke again, as if to try and fill the space between them.

There was a mess inside his head, Aremu thought. There was a tangle of thoughts, too many to count, and he couldn’t – he couldn’t make sense of them. Like a cliff he couldn’t climb; like an of’irukew, like a – metaphors faltered, and failed him, and he took a deep breath. As unpleasant as it had been, being sick, he felt a little clearer, now, somehow, as if the purging had been metaphorical as well as literal. He took a deep, careful breath, and turned to look at Tom, slowly, his hand settling on the back of the other man’s chair.

Aremu didn’t know where to start; he didn’t know where to stop. He didn’t know what to say, at all, and so he went back, carefully, to the bitterness that Tom had said aloud.

“I don’t know,” Aremu said, quietly. “I’ve – ” his gaze flickered down, and away, and he pressed his lips together, firmly, and then looked back at Tom. Aremu looked at him, this time, properly; at the trembling hands twisted together, the soft lips, the way his eyes were shut. It wasn’t the look of a lover who thought him a scrap; he thought of Tom, sitting with him in the kitchen, holding his hand, and something inside him eased, a fraction, just enough to let him think.

Aremu took a deep breath. “You’ve never – ” he tried again, tasting the truth on his lips. He couldn’t smile; his face twisted, and a few more tears trickled down his cheeks. He cleared his throat, and looked away, and swallowed; he loosened his fingers from their death grip on the back of Tom’s chair, smoothing them against the spots he’d dug into the leather.

It was easy to let himself believe; it was easy to push away the hurt, and the ache, and the feelings that had made him sick. Aremu could not quite tame the fear, though. Perhaps, he thought, that was for the best. Perhaps it wasn’t worth doing without the fear.

Aremu took another deep breath, a smooth inhale and a long, shuddering exhale that wracked through him. He closed his eyes for a moment, still holding on to the back of the chair. He looked at Tom again. Qalqa, he thought, and he didn’t know where it fit anymore, not quite; he didn’t know what to do with the galdor in front of him. The raen, he thought, slowly, the deftung word creeping back in. The raen.

“Others have,” Aremu said, into the silence between them. His lips pressed together, twisted; he looked away, ashamed. “Wanted me, had me, but never… saw me as more than a scrap,” he was quiet, and he shook his head, the faintest little shake. “But I shouldn’t have accused you of…” he swallowed, hard. “I do know you better than that,” Aremu closed his eyes for a long moment.

“I’m afraid,” Aremu said, his eyes still closed. “I’m so afraid,” his face caught, and broke – shattered, and his shoulders tensed, although he didn’t cry this time; it was worse than that, as if the tears longed to get out, struggled beneath his face, and were held back somewhere inside.

[Tom Cooke]

The Vauquelin House • Uptown

Evening on the 6th of Dentis, 2719

I
’ve never what? Tom wanted to fling back. I’ve never treated you like a man? Say that to my face. Say it, so I flooding well know. Aremu was looking at him, now, and the brush of those dark eyes over his face and his clothes and his body — the whole of him — was like a physical touch. It made his skin tingle unpleasantly; he felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle with goose flesh.

You’ve never been a galdor before, Tom imagined him finishing. That one felt more likely. That one explained what’d changed, from the precious world of a few minutes ago to now, precious for all its falseness.

I see you, Tom heard in his head. Aremu’s eyes swept over him; he shivered and shut his own eyes.

The taste of bile in his mouth mingled with the smell of sick; he couldn’t forget where he was, not anymore. He felt less than a man himself for it, but he couldn’t open his eyes as Aremu went on, couldn’t bear to.

It should’ve been easy to put everything aside. To go to him? Tom didn’t know if that was what he’d want, not anymore. But it should’ve been easy to feel nothing but sympathy, to let the anger melt away to tenderness, to ache for him rather than against him. To ache with him, to turn all that anger toward the kind of man who’d use instead of love. It should’ve been easy to reason through, to tell himself: it’s not you; it’s how he’s been hurt — and how many times. You might’ve guessed; you might’ve already known.

A flinch flickered across Tom’s face at the word scrap, and his lip twisted, as if the echo of it was still a nail driven into him. He had never heard Aremu say that word. It made him think of sitting at the breakfast table on the Uccello di Hurte, only there was no engineer, no captain — just Aremu.

Still, he felt Aremu’s eyes on him. He knew what a man who used instead of loved looked like; he knew every line that traced the face of a man like that, every contour of his body. Every tug, every rush of power a man like that felt when he casted. I know you better than that, Aremu said, and Tom knew it was a lie.

Tom felt a sharp prick of pain in one hand, and it jolted his eyes open. He’d been digging his thumbnail into the skin of his other hand; both hands were white-knuckled. He forced them to relax, slowly, and fall to his sides.

I’m afraid, Aremu said, I’m so afraid. Tom watched him, his eyes softening. The imbala’s eyes were shut, and his shoulders were drawn up the tensest Tom’d seen them that day. He didn’t know what to say; he didn’t know what to do. He blinked, raised a shaky hand to his forehead and massaged his temple.

He thought a moment. “It’s — not your fault,” he rasped, “any of this.” He pressed the heel of his palm to his forehead for a moment; his head was aching. “Will you sit, at least? A little longer,” he said, taking a shuddering breath and lowering his hand. “It’s cold out there, and I can — at least stoke the hearth. Can I get you some water?” I’ll send for a physician, you’ve been sick — the words died in his throat. I’m so afraid, Aremu had said, and his response was to call in another Anaxi galdor?

Who was he? He felt wrung dry; he felt scattered. He needed —

To meditate. His stomach turned over; he swallowed it, because he still knew it was true. The thought solidified in his head. He needed to meditate. As soon as Aremu left, he’d find his chalks, his books of Monite —

The thought of the empty study stilled his thoughts again. His lips pressed thin, his brow knit, he watched Aremu. He wanted to — go to him? He didn’t know. He wanted to tell him not to go to Brunnhold; he wanted to tell him never to come back to this godsforsaken place. “I’m afraid, too,” he said, very softly, just a scratch of a voice.

.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Evening, 6 Dentis, 2719
The Vauquelin House, Uptown

Aremu had seen the flicker on Tom’s face at the word scrap, the flinch. He thought of Niccolette, her anger at the use of it, and he knew the expression for what it was. Scrap, he wanted to say, suddenly; scrap, scrap, scrap. He wanted to shout it into the quiet, handsome space; he wanted to fling it about, to wield it like a knife, to cut himself open on it. Scrap, he wanted to say. It’s what I am, isn’t it? Imbala, passive, crimp – they’re all just words. They all mean less, don’t they? What does it matter, in the end, what I’m called? Don’t we both know what I am?

The anger had cooled to fear, and it was fear he felt now, most of all, standing in the midst of Tom’s study with his eyes closed. Aremu wished he could see the stars; he felt empty inside, hollowed out, in a way he couldn’t name. He needed something to climb, something to see, something to read – something to take him away from the thoughts that circled like vultures, diving and plucking at him.

Tom asked him to sit. Better not to, Aremu wanted to say. It won’t get warmer, Tom, no matter how long I stay. He opened his eyes, slowly, looking at the other man. Tom looked as sick as he felt; Aremu couldn’t find any words to reassure either of them. I’m afraid too, Tom whispered, softly, into the still air.

Aremu nodded, then, slowly. He shifted around the chair, and he sat; he curled himself into the side of it, and closed his eyes again. He had thought there would be some warmth in it still, something lingering from where they’d held each other close so long; he had thought he would still be able to feel it. But there was no heat left from the fire; there was no heat left from the chair. Aremu was trembling, still, and he didn’t know how he’d manage his cravat.

Let me go, he wanted to say, Tom. In context, he had said. He understood, now; there were times when words were spoken and became a lie. And there were times when words were truer than one could know. If one didn’t know, upon speaking the truth, was it any better than a lie?

Aremu was not sure how long he’d sat; he couldn’t find a path through his thoughts. They wandered; they circled, and where the pathways were new, they became familiar, and he was worn down by them even as he wore them down. The brush of Tom’s field at the edges of his awareness caught him off guard; Aremu opened his eyes. He looked up at the other man, and he took the glass of water, cradling it in his hand.

“Thank you,” Aremu said, quietly. He took a sip; he grimaced, faintly, at the taste, and swallowed it down anyway. It was no worse than what he had already tasted; still, it was strange how even the slightest change could bring it up anew, how the awareness could catch you off-guard. He took another sip, then, easier, and settled the glass between his thighs.

He didn’t know what to say; he doubted there was anything he could say, now. He didn’t know – he couldn’t know – what kind of damage he had done, nor who he had done it to. He ached for the innocence of a few minutes – half an hour? An hour? A house? before, in any case; all of it before. He didn’t know if he’d muddied the waters or cleared them; he knew what he wanted to believe, and he knew, too, that wanting did not make it so.

Aremu took a deep breath. At some point, his hand had stopped shaking; at some point, it had all settled in, calmed in his chest, and he could look at it a little more evenly, though the taste was no better than it had been. He looked up at Tom, and tried something that he thought might have been a smile; whatever of it he’d managed seemed to float away inside him, and he looked away, instead, back at the drowsing coals.

“It’s not your fault either,” Aremu said; he did not try to clear the rasping ache from his throat.

[Tom Cooke]

The Vauquelin House • Uptown

Evening on the 6th of Dentis, 2719

H
is hand was steadier, now, on the handle of the decanter. The lamp on the desk caught the glass; soft gold echoed through the water. He let his nerves settle on the soft trickle of the water into the cut-glass tumbler. When he set the decanter back down on the desk, he had to shut his eyes. He leaned there for more than a few breaths, his palms braced against the cool, smooth wood.

You shouldn’t go, was the first thing he thought to say, now he thought to say anything at all. I have to go, he knew, would be the response – or something like that.

Why?

There was no point asking that.

Tom took the glass from the desk, because he couldn’t see Aremu at the hearth behind, though he’d seen him sit. He’d seen the imbala curled into the side of the chair; he’d heard the leather creak with his weight. Still, the other man seemed to him like fog, or like a ghost. It reminded him of the first time he’d ever seen him in Ishma’s house. He’d thought if he turned round and then turned back, he’d be gone without a trace.

Aremu opened up his eyes when Tom came within a few feet, and he supposed it was because he’d felt his field. He tried not to think too hard on it, not now. He was careful not to let their hands brush as he passed Aremu the glass; it was reflex, by now, for all the times he’d done it.

The smile he gave Aremu in response to the thanks wasn’t much of one; it was more a twitch of his lips, a tightening of the lines around his eyes. It’s not your fault, either, Aremu said; the words wrapped round him and drifted away, and he shivered in the chill. Tom didn’t think that was a lie, but he didn’t know.

But he nodded, grateful, and turned to the dying coals. He grunted as he knelt by the fire; his knees popped, and ached. His back ached, too. He took the poker and shuffled round at the coals, and that sound eased his nerves, too.

It was familiar – not the stoking of a fire, but the stoking of this particular hearth. It’d been a year, after all, and it was imprinted on him from last winter, last spring, last rainy season. Most of the months in Vienda were warm fireplace sort of months. It had been a steady progression from blind terror to some semblance of balance, and the hearth and the study had been there through all of it. The hearth, and the chairs, and his creaky knees, and the window seat with its pile of cushions and its rotation of the books he loved so much.

The first little fingers of flame were remembering what they were there for; they were waking up from their nap, and curling themselves over the logs.

Is it my fault? he wanted to ask, watching the reds and oranges deepen. He shut his eyes; he wasn’t sure if it was the heat stinging them. He remembered the grove on Dzum suddenly – how earnestly Aremu’d told him of the kofi growing in the tsug’s shadow. It’s all right if it’s my fault, he ached to say. I know you’re angry; I felt it in your voice. I’m angry, too. It’s all wrong, all of this. We have to be angry, we have to –

He rose and set the poker aside. The fire was crackling back to life, now. It hadn’t taken much urging. When he turned, Aremu was still holding the glass of water in his lap, quiet. He looked wan. Better than when he’d sat down, but still – sick. Tom didn’t know if he’d done the right thing, asking him to stay; he didn’t know if he was doing the right thing, now.

Tom took the seat opposite him, wondering if it would’ve been better to have this conversation over a desk after all. He hated how much of a relief it was to sit again, to take the weight off his hip.

He opened his mouth, and he was afraid, for a moment, that the words that came out of it would be I still love you, but then – “If,” came his soft, deep voice, still edged with a rasp; he cleared his throat. “If we leave soon… On an eight, nine, ten – campus won’t be crawling.”

His eyes fluttered shut; it was almost like a wince. He felt tears prickling in them, and swallowed thickly.

“I don’t know what to do.” His voice broke; he cleared his throat and tried to smooth it out. “I want to find a path with you, but I don’t think either of us have much more in us tonight.” He opened them and looked at Aremu. “And if this changes too much, I respect that.”

.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Evening, 6 Dentis, 2719
The Vauquelin House, Uptown

Aremu watched Tom’s back, quiet, sitting in the leather chair. He hadn’t thought there was much light coming from the coals, not anymore, but there was enough. It limned the other man, cast him warm and golden. It caught a flicker of red in his hair, and echoed the thin lines of him, and shivered when he did, soft and blurred. There was a crackling of the coals beneath the poker; Aremu could not feel a change in warmth, but he understood that Tom had to try.

When Tom rose, there was a small fire crackling behind him, flames licking warmly at the logs. Aremu watched it, still; his gaze stayed on the light, and he let Tom drift out to the edges of his view. He thought he could feel the other man looking at him; he felt as if his gaze was a touch, as if it stroked his cheek – cupped his chin with cold fingers, turned his head gently, softly –

And then Tom drifted out of sight, and he was no more than a faint blur at the edge of Aremu’s awareness, and the soft creak of a leather seat.

When Tom spoke, Aremu turned to look at him. He didn’t know what was coming, in the pause as Tom cleared his throat; he was too empty to try and guess. He didn’t know if it would have been worse to be wrong or right. He nodded, simply, at Tom’s words, and looked away again.

The second half of it, the continuation, caught him by surprise. Aremu flinched; his hand tightened on the water glass, and the level jumped nearly to the rim. He eased it out of his lap, and set it on the table next to the chair; the firelight glowed against the glass. He looked back over, up at Tom, quiet.

If this changes too much, Tom had said. What is this, Aremu wanted to ask. The knowledge that you have a soul? The knowledge of your anger? The knowledge of mine? He was quiet, still, a little longer.

“I would rather not wait,” Aremu said, quietly. I think the tension will tear me apart, if I wait, he wanted to say, but the words were too heavy to speak; they filled his mouth and numbed his tongue. “The eight, I think, if…” he had looked down again, and he didn’t know when. He lifted his gaze back up to Tom, steady, or as close to as he could claim, now.

Aremu understood what silence would mean, now. He understood; he could not pretend otherwise. There were silences which were vague, uncertain; there were silences which had meaning. There were silences which could lie, and silences which could be honest, too. A man could lie with his silences; he knew that, in his heart, whatever the priests said.

“I don’t know either,” Aremu said, quietly, into the silence. He took a deep breath. “But I want to, Tom,” he found the other man’s name on his lips; it was easier than he’d expected. He tried another smile; it flickered a little longer, before it dimmed and faded away, like a red popping spark made ash in the cold autumn air.

Aremu took another breath; he sat upright, a little more. He didn’t look at Tom; he didn’t challenge him to watch. He didn’t look away either; for a little while, at least, he was too tired for shame or embarrassment. He found the silky fabric of the cravat between his fingers; the hand he had moved, steadily, and carefully, and slowly, and eased it together. He did not need a mirror, he thought; the motions were in him, and he knew them in his hand as well as in his eyes. He brought the last fold through, and straightened the knot, and smoothed the dark silk against himself.

And then, slowly, Aremu eased himself to his feet. He took a few steps, and he sat on the edge of Tom’s chair, perched on the arm of it, not close enough to touch, but not much further either. He smiled faintly this time, looking down at Tom. He swallowed, a little.

"Thank you,” Aremu said. “It means very much to me, to do this with you, rather than alone.” He shifted; he breathed, carefully. “Not because of… how you look, or what voice you have,” Aremu continued, carefully, looking down at the tousled red curls on Tom’s head, the well-cut suit jacket, the thin white shirt over his thin chest, “but because of who you are.” Aremu reached out, then; his fingers brushed the left side of Tom’s chest, a heartbeat of a touch. Who you are to me, he couldn’t quite bring himself to say. He didn't know if Tom understood; he didn't think he did. He thought that if he were a better man - a braver one - perhaps he could have said it, then; even if Tom understood, Aremu knew, it should be said aloud. He could not; he did not try.

Aremu rose, then, again, and eased away. He took another sip of water, and did not sit, but stood in front of the fire a moment longer. “I do need to go,” he said, then, watching the firelight bathe Tom, and breathing the warmth of it deep.

[Tom Cooke]

The Vauquelin House • Uptown

Evening on the 6th of Dentis, 2719

T
he sound of his name on Aremu’s lips was like a thin trickle of cold water down his back. He didn’t know why; he didn’t know when it’d changed. He knew why, and he knew when it’d changed. It was all he could do not to shut his eyes against the small, flickering smile Aremu gave him, and he thought with a lurch of terror that he might never be able to smile at Aremu again.

But he found one, slowly, in the way he always found smiles; he found it and fit it to his face, though it failed at almost the exact same moment as the imbala’s.

He didn’t watch, not exactly, as Aremu did his cravat up. He didn’t look away, either. He looked occasionally – more at the deft motions of Aremu’s fingers, pulling and folding the glossy dark silk like it was the strings of an oud. Tom swallowed a lump in his throat; he didn’t know where to put the tenderness. When Aremu was finished with the cravat, it was just as if he’d done it with two hands. You’d asked Tom to do it with one, he’d’ve been mung; he was sometimes mung with two, when it came to silk. Aremu hadn’t even needed a mirror.

Tom thought he might’ve got up to leave, but then he crossed to him, round the footstool. He watched the other man get closer and forced himself not to stiffen; he forced his legs not to tense where they were crossed, his hand not to tighten on his knee. The hearth was shedding more light and heat, and the panes of Aremu’s face were picked out wavering and warm, painted in oranges and reds. The flame glittered twicefold in his eyes, dark and tearless.

Aremu sat on the arm of his chair, creaking the upholstery gently. Tom felt the warmth of him and the shadow he lay over the chair. In that silent moment, he was weak, and he couldn’t look up. He rested his hands in his lap and focused on not wringing them. The light caught his wedding band.

With his eyes shut, he thought he could feel Aremu’s eyes in his hair like fingers. Tousling the golly-red curls, tracing through the silver of an aging statesman. His jaw was clenched, and he was glad Aremu couldn’t see his face. He thought of how Aremu had said, I would rather not wait.

I’m so afraid.

Don’t thank me. Godssakes, don’t thank me.

A shiver ran through him; he suppressed it best he could. He was worried he’d said it out loud, and he held still, fair still, but then Aremu went on as if he hadn’t, so he must not’ve. He collected himself, drawing in a deep breath, and looked up at the imbala. He studied the other man’s face: it was hard to tell in the half-glow, but he thought he might’ve been smiling, just a little.

Not because of how you look; not because of what voice you have. Tom should’ve been comforted, if either of those things were what frightened him now. He smiled back, and he felt the smile in the lines on his face, in the strain round his eyes.

Aremu’s arm came into his space, and his fingers brushed the thin fabric over his chest. It nearly broke Tom; he felt the tears prickling hot in his eyes, and they weren’t good tears, they weren’t tears that washed the soul clean. There was something trapped inside his chest, and it leapt and banged against his ribcage at the brush of Aremu’s fingers.

“Thank you,” Tom said as Aremu stood again; his voice was so quiet it was barely a breath, barely more than the movement of his lips. “I am” – Tom knew better than to say honored, by now – “I’m moved that you thought of me in this.” I want to be there for you, he wanted to say. Not because of what I am – not because I think I can –

The imbala turned his back, and Tom mastered himself. There was something else to turn his mind to. He gave one last look to the slim dark figure silhouetted by the firelight; then he cleared his throat, pushing himself up on the arm of his chair. “Before you go,” he added, his voice still rough. He cleared his throat. “We should…”

Make arrangements – make arrangements. That was the qalqa for a heavy mahogany desk; that could be done nowhere but a desk. And that was done at a desk, in the end.

Tom couldn’t remember how many times after that he looked Aremu in the eye. He knew he had, but he remembered nothing of what was in the imbala’s eyes, and nothing of what he felt, except for the growing ache in his chest. He had drawers and papers to distract his eyes. The short notice was a double-edged sword, but – he remembered sucking at a tooth until his jaw ached; he remembered staring down at the desk top with a furrowed brow – this time of year, Brunnhold wasn’t rife with visitors, and he knew of a few quiet hotels for politicians and suchlike –

– and it wasn’t hard to get a round trip by airship, either, not in Dentis, though they’d’ve been flooded even in late Yaris because of the – because –

– and it was quick, and quiet, and before he knew it, he was alone in his study again. The hearth still crackled merrily; the Dentis chill bit and wrangled for dominance, but warmth was spreading through the room.

The ache in Tom’s chest was unbearable. He wasn’t sure how he’d got round the desk; he must’ve come round to see Aremu off. He looked over at the dark hulk of the chair by the fire, the leather smooth, unmarked.

His eyes went to the brandy, first, and he almost did it. It would’ve been easy; his glass was already sitting there on the desk, the cut glass catching the light prettily.

He took it up in his hand, and he found the water decanter instead. Then he eased himself up onto the desk and sat sipping water. It was cool on his parched throat. He found it easy to shut his eyes and let his cheeks be painted with somebody’s tears.

After a time, he set the glass down and took a deep breath. The tears had stopped; he wiped the remnants of them from his cheeks.

Then he found his chalks and set to work, in the small – but just large enough – section of the study’s floor that was not carpeted, over by the shelves with the grimoires.

He drew this ward whenever he meditated, though he’d only cast the spell once, or twice, if he counted with Ezre. He could feel them in the air around him, stirring against his skin, inside him; he centered himself on them, and he found his lips moving through the familiar Monite.

He didn’t think of Aremu out in the rain. He emptied himself of everything. It would have been dangerous to bring those feelings to the mona; it would have been dangerous to be ashamed, to doubt.

There was a rhythm to the language, as there was a rhythm to every language, to every way you could speak or move, like fighting or laughing with the dockers down at Marlin’s, or making love. There was a way of breathing, a way of moving. He slid into the casting with his lungs, with the whole of his body.

The plot helped; the plot always helped, he thought. He was not a quick caster. But he found there was a sweet spot, an in-between, a rhythm to the drawing, too: if you drew a line too fast, it went skewed; if you drew a line too slow, it wavered and shook and was brittle. You drafted them with broad, sweeping motions of your arm, not your wrists or your fingers. You moved at the joint of your shoulder, and you felt it through the whole of you, just as you felt the stirring inside you.

He didn’t let himself doubt, because there was nothing about this that he doubted, not in his heart. There was plenty else he doubted – but not this. This ache he let himself feel, all through his body, all through his voice, because it was an ache of certainty, not doubt or shame.

There was a quantitative exclusion clause you could use to keep yourself free, if you were a raen trying to bind other unrestful dead; Tom didn’t speak it, and nor did he weave it into any of the chambers of his plot. When he sat himself in the middle of the plot, he went on, unhesitating, his voice thick with the ache.

He needed to be certain; he needed to know what he was, and who he was. Aremu would need this of him. He would need it of himself.

He curled the spell and took a deep breath, and he felt it settle through him, clamping him in place, as startling now as it’d been the first time – more so. Startling like a knife to the throat. A reminder. His stomach threatened to lurch; he felt them all around him, the air thick with them, inside him, and he remembered the terror.

His breath caught and then evened out. He held the upkeep.

Roll

SidekickBOTYesterday at 9:05 PM
@Graf: 1d6 = (3) = 3

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