[Closed] Book by the covers

[Genevieve De Silver]

Evening on the 77th of Roalis, 2719

It was like he had been struck, Tom’s words hurt. He had exposed a part of himself, a self he had only just allowed himself to acknowledge and this was the response. He wanted to strike back to hurt and then to retreat, lock himself away and go back to how he… she had been.

“No, to hells with that."

Jean hadn’t meant to say it out loud. He stood Tom’s words confused him, he had no interest in politics, in either of the guise he lived in.

“Tom, I have no idea what you are talking about. You have been hurt, by someone I can tell that. However not by me."

He levelled a pale finger at him, and looked down it like an aimed pistol, his voice was cold and hard as steel.

“I will not be accused of being a criminal and certainly not a blackmailer. Not in my own clocking home. Not by any man."

He picked up both whiskey tumblers and held one out to Tom, he drained his and let out a low breath, the anger leaving his eyes.

“I know something of the fear of exposure, and I can understand where it comes from."

After a pause, he said, a deep and racking sorrow in his voice.

“I know something about hating the body you have."

He looked away and when he looked back his green eyes shone with tears.

“Tom… Can I trust you? I need to trust someone or I think I may lose my mind."

At that moment he hated himself for the pleading in his voice and the weakness he was showing but to hell with it. Either this man would listen to him or leave, If the latter then Jean would do what he was good at, crawl into a bottle and hide from the bleak and uncaring world.

He said softly.

"We are all but fools.."

[Tom Cooke]

Jean’s Apartment • The Stacks

Evening on the 77th of Roalis, 2719

Tom Cooke found himself staring down Jean de Silver’s long, pale finger, and feeling a pina manna like he was having a gun pointed at him. His left eyelid twitched; a muscle in his cheek flickered. Kov still had the nerve, Tom was thinking, to claim confusion. Godsdamn him and godsdamn how convincing it was. Tom stared into his eyes, met that anger – put-on, he was sure; a performance of indignation – met it with anger and hurt of his own, his teeth grit, blinking back something that couldn’t be tears.

The next thing he knew, Jean was handing him his tumbler of whisky, and he took it without thinking. The half-Gioran downed the rest of his in one go, and Tom couldn’t say he wasn’t grateful to do the same.

In the pause that followed, he found the frenzy in his head quieting. He held the empty glass in his lap, white-knuckled at first; then, his hand started to relax. He heard Jean’s voice again, though he didn’t want to, and the sadness in it surprised him enough he glanced up. There was a faint glisten in the other galdor’s eyes. “You, uh,” started Tom, but his voice came out a croaking rasp, so he stopped.

What in the hell was he talking about? Fear of exposure? Hating the body you have? Jean’s quantitative field, organized as always, lapped against his own, ragged and wild. Tom studied his face, brow furrowing. The pieces floated around in his head, tossed and tangled by the drink; fuzzy and tired, he couldn’t make sense of any of it. Something was still nagging at him, telling him he ought to be careful, that this could be part of whatever game de Silver was playing, but he felt himself slipping. He felt a funny pang, too, seeing green eyes all rimmed with red. Hama hadn’t wept often, but –

Tom cleared his throat, awkward. The leather sofa creaked as he leaned to set his empty tumbler back on the table. A little ting of glass against wood, rattling; Tom’s hands were shaking worse than he’d thought. “Jean,” he said, hesitating. “Maybe it's me needs your patience, after all. I’m a kenser’s erse. And you’re a hell of a man.” He let out a frayed, quiet laugh.

It was as close as he could bring himself to an apology, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to apologize, anyway. He scratched his jaw, clearing his throat again. Gentle-like, he patted the cushion beside him, where Jean’d sat before.

“You can trust me as much as I can trust you. I can’t promise much, but I’m no dobber.” He looked up at Jean, managing a brief, sad smile. “Come on, dove.”

[Genevieve De Silver]

Evening on the 77th of Roalis, 2719

He stood there watched Tom's face, searched those strange eyes. At his words 'a hell of a man' Jean's heart lurched and the tears he was trying to hold back started to fall and he hung his head in shame.

So long a life as a lie, so many people had been taken in and for what? So he could hide, alone. A life without the hope of love, what kind of life was that?

He took a breath, saw Tom pat the sofa beside him and he was tempted to sit. To continue to lie, and what? Stop himself from getting any closer to Tom.

'You can trust me as much as I can trust you.' Well, it was about time to stop living in the dark. He remembered what his mother had been so fond of saying, ‘Do not let your emotions rule you, but do not ignore them either’. Heart pounding he let out a shaking breath, took the handkerchief from the pocket of his smoking jacket and wiped his eyes.
When he spoke his tone was soft and it took all his will to keep it steady.

"Tom… I am going to trust you. I beg you do not prove me a fool for doing so."

With trembling hands he undid his cravat and smoking jacket, he almost lost his nerve then and his legs seemed weak. However closing his eyes and letting out a breath he steeled himself, searched Tom's face one more time. His heart thundered in his ears blood sang in his veins, here it was the possibly last great gamble of Jean De Silver.

He unbuttoned his shirt and shrugged it off, along with the smoking jacket. Bare to the waist but for the chest bindings, and then with trepidation he unwrapped those and let them fall.

"Do you see me now Tom? Do you understand? I am not truly Gioran and I am not truly Anaxian. I am a prisoner of a body I do not want. However no one will choose how I live but me."

He stared Tom in the eye, back straight and head held high.

"Judge me as you like, but I will not be ashamed."

There he stood, without armour of fine clothes and robbed of fair words. Heart bared, it was then he knew his choice had been right. It was Genevieve who had been a lie, and he would not let anyone take that from him.

He was Jean Cyrus De Silver and he was no longer afraid.

[Tom Cooke]

Jean’s Apartment • The Stacks

Evening on the 77th of Roalis, 2719

Somewhere in the back of his head, he was starting to understand, even as Jean started to undo his cravat. It was a funny, creeping feeling, those pieces, drifting closer together. He felt like he was in over his head, but he reckoned it was too late now. When he saw the bundled shape of linen underneath Jean’s shirt, he started to raise his hand, breath catching in his throat – he started to tell him to stop, that he didn’t have to, whatever it was; that men were allowed their secrets, oes, that some things were best left unknown.

And then, because his breath was all frozen in his lungs and he couldn’t speak, it was too late. The pieces had already fit themselves together. The sister Jean hated, the sister he shared so much with. Like Jean de Silver in a frock, Tom thought, and his heart hurt, and he didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know a single godsdamn thing.

He blinked at Jean’s slim, pale shape in the lamplight, and he didn’t let his eyes linger anywhere he thought they oughtn’t. He blinked, then he glanced down at the empty glass in his lap.

What was he feeling? He didn’t know. He felt like somebody’s fist was knotted in his gut. Relief, that the kov wasn’t out to get him after all. Disappointment, maybe. Even now, shutting his eyes, he could smell the dark, fragrant cigar smoke, the soft, cool waft of pine. He could picture Jean’s sharp green eyes. Not the green of the Tincta Basta, not like hama’s; the green of the trees on some far-off mountain, he thought. Tom and his green-eyed men. Except –

He didn’t know. He’d’ve been a right hypocrite, wouldn’t he’ve? Jean was as much a woman as he was a politician. Somewhere in the confusion of his thoughts, he pictured Shae. He'd known other such folk, though most of them'd been tyat.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, he drew in a deep breath, then let it out slow-like. He raised up a thin hand. His head ached, like always. His mouth was damned dry; he needed more to drink, he thought, another glass, another five glasses. The whole handle, or what was left of it. As if there was enough Gioran whisky in Jean de Silver’s entire store for this.

“Jean,” he murmured, “uh.” His hand hung in the air, trembling faintly. He held up one finger, then, as if to say, Give me a floodin’ second, ye chen? His mouth opened, tongue clicking impotently against his teeth; his lips moved, but nothing came out.

Finally, he looked back up at the half-Gioran, mouth set in a deep frown. He studied that pale, delicate face – glanced down – glanced back up again, clearing his throat and shifting in his seat.

His brow furrowed. “No shame, Jean,” he said, rough, more than a little uncertain. He cleared his throat again. He sat still, tapping the rim of his glass with a fingernail, then made to stand up; he grunted uncomfortably as he put his weight on his hip.

The half-Gioran was still at least a head taller than him; Tom lifted his chin and raised one red eyebrow, and looked him in the eye like he was still wearing a shirt. “I’m drunk, and I’m fair confused, but what you’ve given me, it’s not going to leave this room. I’m not a dobber, any more than you’re a fool.” He shot a brief glance at the pile of clothes on the floor, the rumpled twist of the discarded bindings, then looked back at Jean’s eyes. “And I’ll be the last man to stand in your way.”

He paused.

“Let me pour us another round, ’cause I think we both need it.” He tried a smile, and found it wasn’t too hard; it was a messy, wry, sad sort of smile, but a smile nonetheless. “Sit. All right? And you can tell me as much as you see fit, and I can try to understand.”

[Genevieve De Silver]

Evening on the 77th of Roalis, 2719

Jean stood, awaiting judgement, ridicule or disgust. He studied Tom’s face, he didn’t see those things, he thought he saw realisation, understanding maybe? He thought he looked pained and tired though, circle but Jean knew that feeling. He nodded at Tom’s words a let his shoulders sag.

"I’m sorry, I’m drunk as well and.. Well."

He gestured to take in the sitting room, but also everything that had transpired.

"Yes, I think I am in need of a drink. Thank you Tom, I’m sorry again, you must be disappointed."

He picked up his discarded shirt and pulled it back on, re buttoned it and tucked it back into this trousers and put the smoking jacket back on and left it undone and slumped onto the sofa. Jean looked at the discarded bindings on the floor and scowled, blasted things. He took the cigar from the ashtray from where he had left it and took a couple of deep drags to bring it back to life and exhaled a cloud of smoke.

"Honestly Tom, I’m not sure what to say or even where to start. I like you, though I imagine now you know the truth, seen the truth. I am suddenly less appealing."

Strange as this Tom was, he was still an Anaxian, as Jean knew all too well a Anaxian man, especially a galdor, would not take kindly to being lied to and by someone he perceived as a woman. Maybe though he would keep his word, maybe Jean would be able to stay in the Stacks carry on with his life.

Jean let his head rest on the back of the sofa and took another drag on his cigar and held the smoke for a time.

"You know you are one of the only two people who know ."


He laughed then, took the cigar from his mouth and just laughed uncontrolled. He sat forward hands on his knees and laughed at the ridiculousness of life. The whole damn thing was a great and terrible joke and here he was Jean De Silver the punchline. When he got his breath back he wiped his eyes and shook his head.

"I’m sorry Tom, but sometimes you just have to laugh."


It was Jean’s turn to pat the sofa beside him.

"I would like it if you sat with me for a time, but if you want to leave. I would understand."

[Tom Cooke]

Jean’s Apartment • The Stacks

Evening on the 77th of Roalis, 2719

While Jean picked his shirt back up off the floor, Tom took his glass from the table. He drifted on unsteady legs over to the table on the far side of the room. The decanter was still there, merrily half-full, as if oblivious to everything that’d passed. Tom took some strange comfort in the glint of the light on the tinted glass, the way it echoed down through the whisky.

The two tumblers clattered as he set them down on the polished wood. Then, it was like all the blood had drained out of him, left him slack and ashen. Before he knew it, he was slumped, holding onto the edges of the table. He had to fix his mind on drawing the breath in and out of his lungs, just then; he felt like he was pushing the air through a bellows. He was almost to the point of gasping, before he got himself under control. Jean’s voice, soft and high, wafted out from behind him; the sound was distant and muffled.

Eventually, Tom took up the decanter and poured more Gioran. Glass clattered on glass – whisky pattered on the tabletop. “Shit,” Tom grated under his breath, fumbling his kerchief out and mopping it up. He tried again, and the second tumbler gurgled full.

Tom turned and carried the two glasses back, slow and careful-like, without much incident. This time, there was a violent tremble in his hand when he passed the glass to Jean, but he offered him a tired smile.

He just about spilled more whisky on himself when he sat down beside Jean, but it jumped to the lip of the glass and no further, thank the Circle. “I’m not going anywhere.” It came out hoarse. Settling in his seat, his eyes wandered back over the room, lingering on the rumpled strips of linen still lying on the floor. He blinked his eyes once, then took a drink, putting back about half the glass.

The pleasant tingle of it still in his throat, he took a deep breath and rolled his shoulders. It took him a second to hear the soft wheeze of laughter; he looked over to see Jean slumped over, hands on his knees, shaking with it. Struck him sad at first, that sight, but laughter’d always been catching with Tom, and he found his tired smile breaking into a tired grin.

“All you can do is laugh, kov,” he sighed, sitting back. He rested the back of his head on the back of the couch, then took another drink for good measure. “One of two – your man Cadoc’s the other, I’m guessing?”

He folded his hands over top of his glass, trying to staunch the tremor. His head was aching, but his pulse wasn’t a stampede in his ears anymore. The whisky softened it all, and he reckoned that’d have to do.

His head lolled so he could look at Jean again. It was fair strange, seeing him sitting there, with his shirt on but no bindings; the shape of him was different. He didn’t say one way or the other about disappointment or appeal, because he didn’t reckon the honest answer was the kind one. Instead, he just smiled again. “Why the hell did you trust me with this? I'm a stranger to you.”

[Genevieve De Silver]

Evening, 77th of Roalis, 2719.

WJean took the tumbler gratefully and took a deep drink of whisky and sighed. He looked at Tom, took in the shaking hand.

“Thank you Tom.”

He took another sip and sat the glass down, fortified and calmed by the fine liquor. Jean smoothed his hair back and regarded Tom.

"Are you alright?"

His own worries pushed aside for the moment, the other man did not seem at all well. At Tom's question he nodded.

"Yes, Cadoc and I practically grew up together. He is my closest friend and a man I would gladly trust with my life."

Jean didn't care what Tom would think of that, and he had no energy to explain to a galdor how he could hold a wick in such high regard. Circle but Jean hated society at times. Though so far seemed to have ideas almost as strange as his own.

"He's a good man and I honestly think I would be lost without him."

Why did he trust him with this, Jean wasn't sure he had an answer, not one he could easily explain. A feeling, a kindred spirit perhaps? Jean stood and retrieved the cravat and chest bindings, he felt strange without them. He looked back to Tom, smiled slightly and said.

"I am not sure Tom, there is a strangeness to you. That and as I said, I am a gambler. I can't help but roll the dice."

Something of his old dashing grin came back.

"Now if you'll excuse me a moment."

With a slight bow, he went into his dressing room. A few moments later he came back out, cravat and bindings in place. His postures return and confidence renewed, somewhat.

Jean sat back down, took a sip of whisky and regarded Tom again quizzically.

“You know, your are unlike another galdor I’ve met in Anaxas.”

He smiled and took a drag of his cigar.

"And that my friend I mean as a compliment.."

Smiling Jean raised his tumbler in a toast.

[Tom Cooke]

Jean’s Apartment • The Stacks

Evening on the 77th of Roalis, 2719

It was when you were alone you really realized how drunk you were, and this was no exception. Tom watched Jean pick up his jacket, his cravat, his bindings; Tom watched him move through the warm glow of the sitting room, disappearing into the hall. And then he was alone, with his head all fuzzy and empty, with the room moving just a little – with all of it fixed in his mind. The flash of Jean de Silver’s charming smile, the glint of his cool green eyes. He took another drink of whisky, and he sat in the quiet, breathing in the cigar smoke, and he thought about it.

He didn’t know how he’d expected tonight to go, but it wasn’t like this. It wasn’t bad, exactly. He didn’t know all of Jean’s intentions – couldn’t fathom them, where kissing him was concerned – but he at least knew now that the kov’s motives were as far from political as Kzecka was from Vienda. Somehow, that made everything the more baffling.

Lip twisting sourly, he took another drink of whisky, rolling it round in his mouth and not paying much attention to all the benny notes. He cast a glance round the fine sitting room, eyes skipping from spine to spine on the bookshelves, from armchair to armchair, and then down at the carpet. He followed the patterns on the carpet with his eyes.

He knew he liked Jean, blast it all. He liked Jean a little too much, with his taste for good tobacco and his propensity for doing mung shit, and the way he’d said a wick servant was the closest friend he had, and the flamboyant manfulness of it all. And he liked him better, he thought, knowing what was behind it.

The half-Gioran came back out again, and settled himself back on the couch. Tom smiled at him tiredly, and there was a mant manna less strain in his smile, this time. At his words, Tom grinned; their glasses clinked together. Tom fumbled when he brought the tumbler back, and a drop or two pattered on his waistcoat. He snorted, then laughed harder, suddenly taken by the strangeness of it all.

“Me an’ my clumsy fuckin’ hands,” he slurred. When he looked back at Jean, he laughed again. “I’d take that as a compliment whether it was meant as one or not. And I’d say the same to you, dove, and mean it just as well.”

Tom threw back the drink he’d meant for the toast, figuring it was better late than never. He sat quietly for a space afterward, and some of the mirth went out of his face. “Listen, don’t – on my account,” he fumbled, waving a shaky hand at the other galdor. “I don’t know if it’s easier to breathe, without the...”

He trailed off.

“It wasn’t you.” He turned in his seat to face Jean more fully. “Hell, I can’t say it wasn’t a surprise, but you’re still a hell of a man. It wasn’t you.” He frowned deeply. “It’s been a long time since anyone’s, uh, done anything like that to me. I’m not who you think I am – I’m not even who I think I am, half the time – and I don’t…”

With another long drink, he muttered, “Epaemo,” and sat back. “It wasn’t you, is all.”

[Genevieve De Silver]

Evening, 77th of Roalis, 2719

Jean did his best to keep his concern for Tom from his face, the man's shaking worried him. However, if he was any kind of judge, concern would make Tom retreat and throw up barriers. That was the last thing Jean wanted, there was some manner of connection here, even if he did not understand it.

Jean let out a laugh of his own in reply Tom's and smile. When he called Jean dove again and that bought a confused heat to his face, no one had called him such before or if they had not for a very long time.

At Tom's next words Jean smiled slightly, how could he explain to this man? Yes it was physically uncomfortable, but there was a different kind of discomfort he could not name if he did not wear it. All he said was.

"I prefer it this way, thank you though Tom."

As Tom turned to him, he turned as well. Face to face then Jean listen to Tom's words and looked into those strange beautiful eyes. Jean found he felt a heat behind his eyes at his words. This man, this Anaxian, who now knew Jean's greatest secret would still call him a man. He searched those eyes for any hint of a lie, a clue to the great cruel joke, but he saw none. Once Tom finished speaking the words echoed in Jean's mind as they could have been his own. His lips parted slightly and he could only whisper.

"Tom, I…"

Jean reached out a tentative hand and touched Tom's cheek.

"I would like to know."

He burned to turn the man's face to his and kiss him again, but he was afraid. Jean bought his hand back and let it rest on his knee and looked at it. He looked back to Tom and said, voice still soft.

"Though I will not pry, but I will say this. You can trust me Tom."

He reached out and laid a hand on Tom's shoulder.

"Clocks and bloody bastard chimes but I am bad at this!"

Jean laughed again, well it was as Tom said. You have to laugh.

[Tom Cooke]

Jean’s Apartment • The Stacks

Evening on the 77th of Roalis, 2719

He preferred it that way. He watched Jean, feeling something he couldn’t explain. He could understand that, in his way; there were choices you made, he thought, choices that made your life harder, sometimes, but choices you had to make so life was livable. He swallowed thickly, looking back down at the tumbler in his lap. He shut his eyes for just a few seconds, and in those seconds, the room tilted around him, and the warm shadow of the lamplight washed over the backs of his eyelids.

He liked this man, he thought. He liked him very much. And yet –

Tom felt the brush of his knuckles against his cheek, soft and inviting, and he forced himself not to jerk his head away. The memory of it came to him again, the sudden, unexpected press of Jean’s lips against his. Some awful fear rushed up in him, tightening his throat. A great dizziness took him.

Tom wasn’t the sort of man who shied away from another man’s touch. That wasn’t the way of it. He’d wanted him at the Plover. He’d imagined kissing him then, hadn’t he? Hadn’t he wanted to? What right had he, not to want any of it, now that it was happening? That wasn’t the way of it.

Tom was a man who – he was the sort of man – he was a man – what was he? That name, Tom, didn’t feel like his; he thought the Tom on Jean’s lips must be somebody else. He thought Tom must be somebody else, somebody from a long time ago. He, nameless he, was just a trapped little soul. He felt like a wild thing. He didn’t think he was a man; he didn’t think he was anything. Certainly none of the things he used to be; none of those things fit. He wanted to climb free, had wanted to for a long time, but the gods had told him no.

He opened his eyes, dazed, at the sound of Jean’s voice again. He looked at Jean, and Jean looked at the face he wore. He didn’t know who Jean was looking at; he didn’t know what Jean wanted. You can trust me, he said, as if it were a matter of trust, or a matter of Jean at all.

Why did Jean want him? Whom did Jean want?

“I – I’m –” He fumbled, looking round him, setting the tumbler on the end table with a chattering clatter. “I don’t – I can’t.” A waft of something cool and fresh, like the pines on a mountain somewhere far-off, grounded him; he shut his eyes again, holding onto the arm of the sofa, and forced himself to breathe through his nose.

When he opened them, he saw a man’s hand on the sofa where he thought he’d put his. It was familiar to him, with its thin, fine bones, its veins and its freckles. A scattering of thin red hairs caught the lamplight. It was a soft hand, no scars or callouses to speak of. He knew he was holding onto the sofa, because he could feel the leather under his fingertips, under the fingertips of that man’s hand.

He was so far out of himself that when he half-turned to look back at Jean, he couldn’t feel much. “I’m sorry,” he breathed, and he heard another voice, much too deep to be his, murmur, I’m sorry. He felt it rumble up through his chest and his throat like it wanted to claim him, and he hated it, and he wanted to claw his way out of it. “You’re a good man, Jean de Silver,” Anatole’s voice went on, “and I haven’t a single doubt you’re worthy of my trust, and I hope to the gods you believe me when I say your secret’s safe with me. But I’m not – I shouldn’t’ve come. I’m not made for this.”

And he knew it for true he shouldn’t’ve come, knew it even as he moved away from the couch, quick-like, leaving the whisky and cigar smoke behind, and all the books. Jean’d bared himself before him when he’d been barely able to handle a kiss without warning, much less another man’s most intimate secret. And now, how did it look, that he was leaving him? Better not to’ve come in the first place. Better not to have feelings that he couldn’t afford.

He knew he had to harden himself, but he paused at the doorway, turning to catch one last hazy glimpse of Jean’s long, handsome face and the way the light played in his white hair. “Forgive me,” said that voice, and he disappeared into the hall, fleeing through a drunken dream.