[Closed] Inhale All You Speak

[Tom Cooke]

Pendulum Hotel • The Stacks

Early Evening on the 9th of Vortas, 2719

I
am denied the sacred; what can I know of the profane?

Tom sat in the water, watching Aremu. It would’ve been hard to say what was on his face; he couldn’t’ve said what he was feeling. He’d felt Aremu’s hand tense, the lines of the bones sharply-defined underneath his fingertips, the tendons taut. He’d felt it tremble; he’d felt it go rigid; he’d felt it relax, and he’d stroked it gently with his thumb.

“It was never that you –” The words came out before Tom was ready for them, before he’d got done chewing them and rearranging them in his head; he broke off when they toppled over the edge, when he realized that what was going to drop from his lips couldn’t do anything but hurt.

What might he’ve said? It had cut him to the bone in Vienda, that question, was I ever a man to you, and still he’d thought the same of Aremu, without realizing it. His lips twitched, bitter. He looked down into the water, scattered with bits of orange, clouded enough all he could see were vague shapes.

What happens to me, Aremu had said. Then: what I did to you. He remembered, once, a very long time ago, learning of it for the first time. He’d felt no revulsion, then. He tried to think how he felt about it now. It’d given him a scare, and he thought he’d been angry, for a time – quiet-angry; private-angry – that someone, that anyone, had seen into that space in his mind. But that anger had come from embarrassment and fear, and it hadn’t been for Aremu, not really.

To hear him say he shouldn’t’ve asked, now, to hear him decline to apologize, like he was expected to apologize in the first place – Tom felt a flare of irritation, and it must’ve twitched across his face; he couldn’t help it.

What I did to you, he thought. Do you get to decide what’s been done to me, he wanted to demand. Do you get to decide what’s profane to me?

He was aware of the hypocrisy, then; not even he could sustain that anger. He patted Aremu’s hand, then used the edge of the tub nearby to lever himself to a sitting position. In spite of all the steam, the air was chill against his bare shoulders. For a little while, he wasn’t sure what to say. He lay his hand on Aremu’s again and held there, through his silence, through his thinking.

Plots to contain backlash, Aremu had said. A chill went through Tom, body and soul. He wondered if the imbala remembered him, stepping gingerly around the broken plot in the refinery. I knew less than you, then, he wanted to say.

He looked back up at the imbala where he sat. “I did not take the question lightly,” he said softly. “It was precious to me. For you to listen to me. For us to share it.”

He stroked Aremu’s hand again, a light, rhythmic motion; he traced the same line over the back of his hand, over the bones, over the flickering tendons, over the scars – traced a line of damp over the dry skin.

What had he meant, forbidden? He knew it was forbidden, legally; just about everywhere you went, it was illegal for anybody but a galdor to own a grimoire, so it made sense. Once, it’d been forbidden for Tom to read without a writ, and he’d done it anyway, because he’d had to. In Anaxas, it was forbidden for the two of them to share a bed, and he didn’t think it’d’ve been smiled upon in Mugroba, either.

This was a different kind of forbidden. Forbidden to Aremu, or to him? Which was he apologizing for? For which of us, thought Tom, shouldn’t you have asked?

He turned over the words in his head; he’d never spoken them aloud to anyone, and they felt alien, they felt like another man’s words. They felt like a step into becoming somebody else; he didn’t feel that soft Deftung word in them, so much as Estuan galdor, Mugrobi arata, and all the things those words carried on their silk hems.

“What I have with the mona is mine. It’s – sacred to me.” He shifted a little more out of the water; the chill prickled his skin, and he shivered. “The plots, the monite, the incense, it’s all – it’s all sacred to me. And it’s not very tekaa, no. I know what I am, now.”

A flicker: a wistful smile, or a grimace.

He folded both his hands atop Aremu’s. “There’s not much I can hide from the mona,” he said. “If they were troubled by my love for you, I’d know. You can’t come to the mona with doubt in your heart. I knew you were there, and I reached out to you through them. It didn’t feel forbidden. To me.”

[Aremu Ediwo]

Early Evening, 9 Vortas, 2719
Tom Cooke's Room, the Pendulum Hotel

Aremu couldn’t read what was on Tom’s face as he finished – curled, he thought, with an unpleasant bitter taste – and fell silent. He watched the other man all the same, intently, as if it might make itself known. Tom was stroking his hand, gently; he began to speak, and stopped himself, and Aremu could not being to fill in what was missing.

Thoughts swirled through his mind, eddying around, but they floated only on the surface. Beneath was empty, and deep, and nameless; Aremu let himself stay in it, feel the bitter shock of cold as he broke through, all the thoughts washed from his head. He could breathe it, somehow; he hadn’t known himself capable.

He sat, feeling the warm metal of the tub through the side of his damp pants, feeling the brush of Tom’s hand against his, all the steam curling through the air between them. Once, Tom let go, and sat up, and then his hand settled back on Aremu’s, comfortable. The silence was stifling, choking, and then it settled down once more, and Aremu found his breath again, though it trembled, briefly on his lips.

When Tom spoke, in time, Aremu listened. He smiled; it was a faint, soft thing, tentative. He did not ease, not yet; he did not think Tom was done. Whatever would come, he thought; he was glad to know that. He did not know what he thought was waiting, lurking, what he thought there would be. He knew that he was afraid, still.

An apology rose up in his chest; he could, now, Aremu thought. He was sorry; he was sorry that he’d asked for more. He was sorry that he’d –

And then it flickered and passed, and Aremu felt a bitter anger in its place, a brief flash of it. I’m not sorry, he wanted to say. I’m not sorry; what is it you’re afraid of? How can I be such an awful, polluting presence, that even to know – that even to speak of it, to me, might –

Tom spoke, then, and Aremu felt it lay atop the track of his thoughts, and guide them gently into place. Aremu shivered with him, and wondered how the other man could hold his hand as he said it; he wanted nothing more than to pull away, but his fingers were locked against the rim of the tub, soldered into place. He watched Tom through the steam anyway, and Tom set another hand on top of his, weighing him down.

He didn’t stop. The words dropped into the water between them, one at a top, and Aremu listened, his breath shuddering in his chest, and felt himself empty out of thoughts once more. Oh, he thought, then, very simply. Oh. Things spun, and they settled once more, and he felt the cloud of steam all through him, washing him clean.

I’d know, Tom said.

I thought we were searching together, Aremu wanted to say. But you – but I – there was a flash of bitterness, of ache, a yearning for that certainty, but Aremu knew it, well enough, by now; he could set it aside from Tom. You know, don’t you?

He thought of Brunnhold’s walls, and all the passives inside; he couldn’t picture any but Aurelie, not really. A thousand faces, with tentative smiles that bloomed, suddenly, tangling their jokes around their own feet and tripping over them. And the bridge, leading out of the campus, stone arches over the aqueduct below. Reaching out, Aremu thought, breathing slowly. Reaching out. He hadn’t felt it, but it didn’t matter; he couldn’t find it in himself even to ache for it.

“I trust you,” Aremu said, softly, then. He looked down at their hands; he smiled, slowly. “I can’t understand, I think,” he said, looking back up at Tom; he frowned for a moment, but it smoothed out, slowly. “But I can trust.” Aremu breathed, deep; he shifted, and he eased himself off the rim of the tub. His hand held beneath Tom’s, but he lowered himself to eye level; he leaned forward and brushed Tom’s lips with a kiss, his wrist holding him steady against the bathroom floor.

“I can love,” Aremu promised, into the warm steam, with his kiss, with his words, with everything he had to offer. He said it aloud; he set it between them, and let it draw them together.

He pulled back, then, and his smile was sheepish, a little hesitant and then, maybe, at the edges, just a little playful. “May I join you?” Aremu asked, softly. “I think the tub’s big enough to share.”

[Tom Cooke]

Pendulum Hotel • The Stacks

Early Evening on the 9th of Vortas, 2719

A
remu kissed him, before he could argue. Tom kissed him back, anyway. When Aremu said, I can love, there was no room for anything in him but warmth and certainty. Like the moment the mona listened, and responded. Like the moment his field went still. He tilted his head and shut his eyes, and one hand slipped from Aremu’s to cup his cheek. Now wasn’t the time to stutter; he didn’t know what brailing, here, would do. And he could love, too.

But when the other man drew away, Tom felt like Aremu had placed the ribbon and shut the book before he was finished reading. He thought he could taste dismissal on his lips. More than anything, he was confused.

I’ve never told anyone that, Tom got the urge to say. Every sensation was vicious: the air prickling against his skin, the warm water, the damp in his hair. The faint lingering tingle of Aremu’s lips on his, as he drew away. The pleasant tingle through all of him. It was jarring.

Do you know what it meant to me to say that, he wanted to demand. I undressed in front of you, just then.

Who do you see, when you look at me? What the hell sort of galdor have you got standing in for me? I’ve clawed every little piece – every little scrap, he thought, bitter – everything you’ve given me close to my heart and turned it over and over and over in my head – I’ve read nothing but poetry from the Turtle this past month, but it can’t help me, if I don’t know what those words in those poems, forbidden, empty, soul, honor, lie, empty, truth, profane, empty – mean – to you –

And you can’t understand. You can love, you can trust, but you won’t even try to understand.

That wasn’t fair, and Tom knew it. Maybe he’d tried. Maybe it was forbidden for him, and that was just a line Tom could never cross. That, Tom would’ve understood. He didn’t know, then, why Aremu had even asked. Maybe that was why he’d apologized, in the end; maybe it was because he knew he wasn’t willing to cross the threshold, and the hope between them had nothing behind it.

Nothing inside. Another shiver ran through Tom; it sent ripples through the water. Aremu was smiling at him, something playful in the quirk of his lips. Tom thought he ought to caress his face, to return the kiss with a little more force. He couldn’t seem to do it, after all. Aremu was smiling, but the smile hadn’t caught up to Tom; he was just sitting in the warm water, wreathed in steam, watching Aremu smiling at him, his own face blank.

And he got the strange urge to cry, just then. I would trust you with the chalk in your hand, he wanted to say, if you knew the lines.

Tom took a deep, shuddering breath, his hand slipping off Aremu’s and splashing gently back into the water. He glanced down, at the thin, freckled knee just brushing the surface of the water. He realized with a jolt the dried blood must still be on his face. He realized how tired, dizzy-tired, he was. He’d cast twice that day. One hand came up out of the water; there was still a tremor in it.

When he looked back up at Aremu, he’d found a smile, come up from somewhere; he wasn’t sure where. “Please,” he said softly, tilting his head. “While the water’s still warm, dove.”

He’d find it, he thought. A kiss, a caress – something, he’d find it. Or his body would remember, even if his head couldn’t; he’d remember the shapes, the lines, when Aremu was close enough, when the angle was familiar, and he wouldn’t need to figure out how to say it. He was too tired to make love, but there were other ways of pretending all the lines in the plot connected, for a time.

The thought was more bitter than he could bear, mingled with the sweet, sharp scent of the water and the steam. He reached to cup Aremu’s cheek again. He met his eyes and held them.

“After,” he said, even more softly. After we’ve rested. After you’ve had something to eat, he thought suddenly, and his brow furrowed with concern. “Will you join me in the plot?”

[Aremu Ediwo]

Early Evening, 9 Vortas, 2719
Tom Cooke's Room, the Pendulum Hotel

Aremu was kneeling at the side of the tub, his hand still beneath one of Tom’s. The other had lingered on his cheek, damp from the bathwater, warm. He had smiled, at first, easily; he had felt it all through him, that smile. He knew where to put things; he knew where they belonged, in the pattern. Tom, sitting, beautiful, in the center of those circles, the mona thick in the air around him, and Aremu, just at the edge, watching him – but not, he thought, not alone, not excluded, not with Tom reaching for him from the inside.

He didn’t know if he’d found the words to tell the other man how much it meant. He couldn’t, somehow; he had tried, with words of love that they’d never spoken between the two of them, never before; he had tried, with a kiss that he thought Tom must have found familiar, by now, even in this new strange shape, even with the difference in angles, in lips, that he thought Tom must have understood, by now.

But there was a long moment when Tom was not smiling; there was a longer moment still, when his hand slipped away, when he looked down.

Aremu held, very still, then; he didn’t know what else to do but wait.

Tom looked up, in a few moments more, and smiled, and invited him into the tub. 


Wait, Aremu had the strangest urge to say. Wait – I didn’t – I don’t –

He knew he was still smiling; he felt it in the ache of his cheeks. He thought he should have moved, that he should have started to find the buttons left on his shirt, to ease his pants off too, and come join Tom in the water. While it’s still warm, dove, Tom had said, and Aremu understood, by now, he thought, what it was to be Tom’s dove.

But he hadn’t; he hadn’t moved, when Tom reached out to cup his cheek. Aremu knew he was not smiling now. He watched the other man through the steam; his eyes traced back and forth on Tom’s face. No, he wanted to say; no – but he had promised trust, only a few moments before, and he ached at the thought of making himself a liar.

“Yes,” Aremu said, then, instead. He said it slowly; he didn’t think he could contain the worry on his face. He eased away, then, just a little; he let go of the rim of the tub, and let some space come between himself and the warmth of Tom’s hand. He came up to his feet; it wasn’t smooth and easy, but slow, and aching. He felt it all through him; his back hurt, from his shoulders down to the base of it, and his knees too. It wasn’t anything specific, nothing like an injury, but a weariness that seemed to have sunk into all his muscles and bones.

Aremu had never felt shy of himself in front of Tom; even his arm, he thought, he had – for a moment, his fingers trembled on the buttons left holding his shirt closed, and he worried he didn’t have it in him. There had been nights, one or two, that he had gone to sleep half-clothed, had woken with the imprint of buttons against the tender flesh of his stomach or below, because they were too much to wrestle with. For a moment, he thought – but his fingers knew what to do, and they eased the buttons through their holes, and Aremu pulled his shirt off and folded it over his arm.

He eased himself out of his pants, next; he set them off to the side.

For a moment, Aremu just stood, all the bare lines of him wreathed in blue steam. He rubbed the back of his neck with his left hand, squeezing lightly against the ache in his shoulders. Even in the dim, steam-filled blue light, the scar on his right arm was unmistakable; it had healed, and well, but there was a long, thick line down his forearm, still rough, where the skin had closed once more. It hurt, still, sometimes, there and beneath, but a light ache in the muscle, not the deeper, painful throbbing that might have meant it needed to be pulled apart. He could still remember, Aremu thought, looking down at it, the painful, searing light of Niccolette’s magic burning through him, hollowing him out and cleansing him.

The water was still warm; more than warm, even coming from the steam. Aremu lowered himself into the tub, slowly and carefully; he found a place against Tom, adjusted and re-adjusted himself, searching for comfort that seemed just out of reach. He couldn’t find it, Aremu thought, and he didn’t know why.

In time, Aremu settled in to the discomfort, and there was still tenderness to be found in it. He reached for Tom’s hand with his; he wanted the other man’s fingers tangled with his. Aremu closed his eyes; he knew he was trembling, even wrapped in the warmth of the bath. With how close they were, he knew Tom couldn’t help but feel it.

He didn’t know what to say, Aremu thought. He knew – he was sure, now – that he had said something wrong, done something wrong. Or was it – was it he himself that was wrong? Nothing said, nothing done; nothing to be fixed, because he was what he was, and he could not change it. Did Tom – it ached even to think of it – did Tom wish it was a galdor, in his bed, tonight? Someone he could share this with, properly; someone who could understand. He closed his eyes; he could not face such thoughts.

“I was jealous,” Aremu said, quietly. It was easier, wrapped in warmth, feeling the press of Tom’s skin against his own; it was easier, with his eyes closed, and the warmth of steam against his face. “I meant it, what I said in the kitchen. I thought you had a light in you.” Aremu was quiet, then, and a little shudder went through him. “A soul.” He said, soft.

“But it was one thing to think it, and another to - suddenly – unexpectedly - to know,” Aremu took a deep breath. “I am glad of it,” he said, quietly, “because I should be sorry, for your sake, otherwise. I should know better; I should be used to it, by now. But I was surprised, and jealous,” the word was no easier to say the second time, but he bore through it, trembling again, “and I am ashamed, whether you think I should be or not, and I am sorry.”

[Tom Cooke]

Pendulum Hotel • The Stacks

Early Evening on the 9th of Vortas, 2719

T
he worry was plain on Aremu’s face, and it made him realize what he’d done. He would need to be absolutely certain, before he did anything, he knew; he wasn’t sure if he ought to cast again. There would be no blaming it, he realized slowly, on strain. There would be no blaming it on himself, if he tried and failed to cast with Aremu sitting in his plot, or lighting the incense, or holding the grimoire. Failed? Backlashed? The thought was vaguely nauseating.

And what if, a voice whispered, the mona did object to him? Because–?

There was no point thinking about it. It was Aremu getting to his feet brought him back to himself. He didn’t look, exactly, but he didn’t look away, either – and this time, he saw the strain, even in those long, deft fingers. He didn’t know what it was like with one hand, but he knew well how it felt, doing up buttons with shaky hands. He had never thought of Aremu that way, somehow.

You look like you’ve been through the wringer, too, he thought. Not like shit, though; never like shit. There was a ghost of a smile haunting his face; his eyes swept over his slight frame, the blue light soft on his dark skin, glancing over every graceful muscle. Familiar, except.

He didn’t linger on it; he didn’t look away from it, either. He was pleased, at least, to see the wound from Yaris'd healed up nicely, but he remembered why Aremu had taken the blow.

He didn’t think he’d ever seen the wrist this clear, either. He wasn’t sure he’d ever touched it. He wondered, not for the first time, what’d happened.

There were a lot of things that could lose a man his hand, Tom knew. He thought of Corwynn’s trigger finger. Even the old galdor had been lucky. It must’ve been clean – by the rumors, it’d been fair intentional, on the King’s part – but even if everything went right, even if he had the best living vroo in Vita, a lost finger could lose a man his hand. Or his arm. Or his life. Tom knew of it, just from what the winter could do.

It wasn’t pleasant to think about. The past was the past, but he wondered, sometimes. If there was an Ever out there somewhere that had Tom close at his bedside, after. But there was an Ever out there, presumably, where he had two hands; there was an Ever out there where he’d studied quantitative conversation at Thul’Amat. There were a lot of Evers, and they had nothing to do with this one.

Tom sank and rested his head against the back of the bath. He shut his eyes, and in time, the water was full of stirring; in time, Aremu joined him and settled against him. The water was like the dark, and it was easy to put aside everything but holding.

He wasn’t sure how long it’d been, or when he’d become aware of the shaking. He held Aremu closer, and the imbala’s hand found his; they held tightly, under the water. He didn’t know what to make of it, when he finally spoke.

Jealous. He frowned, at first, but then he went on, and Tom half-understood. He wasn’t going to tell Aremu not to be ashamed, this time – that shame was his, fair enough – but he laid a kiss in Aremu’s hair and nestled closer in the warmth.

“Thank you,” he said quietly, after a few moments. He laid his cheek against Aremu’s head and took a deep breath; he furrowed his brow, shut his eyes, thought. “I didn’t think – I thought,” he admitted, sighing, “it was because you thought it was wrong. Me, casting.” A mockery, he didn’t say, or any of the other things that came to mind.

There were a hundred things he could’ve asked; he couldn’t sort through them. Somehow, the only thing he could think of was –

Could he feel it, now?

A little blue seeped into his field, the clairvoyant mona shivering with it. It deepened, spread, and then eased away. “I didn’t understand,” he said, “in the kitchen. I’ve read about it in poetry; I’ve read about it plenty, since we – met again. It’s hard for me to wrap my head around. For an Anaxi, the soul is just what goes back to the Cycle. Most souls, anyway.” He squeezed Aremu’s hand.

I thought it was a metaphor, he knew better than to say. Or I thought – you’re empty, in the way that I’m dead. I’m not dead; I’m dead on a technicality, maybe. Maybe you don’t have honor, on a technicality, but I’ve never known a more honorable man. Don’t you know that? I breathe and eat and sleep; you tell the truth, a reasonable amount of the time; humans read.

“I can’t… feel a lack. In you. I don’t know what you feel,” he added, sighing. “I’ve tried to understand, and I want to respect it, but you’re a man, and I care about you. Hearing you say you haven’t got – a soul – or light inside you – it tears at me, worse than a banderwolf’s teeth.”

[Aremu Ediwo]

Early Evening, 9 Vortas, 2719
Tom Cooke's Room, the Pendulum Hotel

Aremu rested against Tom’s chest, in the warm dark damp; the other man shifted, and he found it, then, without trying, the place where he fit. Tom’s lips brushed his hair, and he whispered words of thanks - words of love - into his ear, and Aremu felt the shivering ease. Tom’s head was resting on his own; he smiled, and wondered if the other man could feel it in the brush of Aremu’s cheek against his skin. He didn’t know, quite, where he rested, but it was comfortable and easy, and everything he wanted.

Aremu had began to understood, before, but Tom’s words now made it plain. He had apologized, he thought, without knowing it; however late, this, at least, he had made right. He was achingly grateful Tom had had the courage to ask him aloud; he understood, even better now, how hard it must have been. He was grateful that he had been able to understand, even if it had been incomplete.

They settled together into the silence, and Aremu realized, only then, how hard he had been holding on, how tightly he had clenched himself. He didn’t know when; he didn’t know if it was all at once, if it had come and gone, if it was something he had done, consciously, at some point, to keep from coming apart. He hadn’t felt it, before; he did now, and it was easy somehow, to let go, to come – just a little – undone.

We both felt, Aremu thought, through an odd, hazy clarity, that the other found us unworthy. He turned and pressed a kiss to Tom’s bare skin, sudden and fierce and loving. You are worthy, he whispered with his lips, and perhaps so am I. There was an ache of sadness all through him, and he shivered, and settled again.

Tom squeezed his hand and began to speak. Aremu shifted, and listened; he did not look. Perhaps it would have been harder, if he had; but in the dark, they were only words, and Tom’s heart was beneath him, and it beat all through them both. Most souls, Aremu thought, and he gave Tom’s hand a little squeeze back.

“I don’t know either,” Aremu said, quietly, frowning, “what I don't feel. Sometimes that’s the worst of it, that I - I can’t imagine what it would be like. Sometimes I’m glad of it.”

“With my hand,” Aremu said, careful but sure. These were well-trodden paths, to him, though they were not words he had ever imagined speaking aloud, “I know what I lack. I know what it was, to have two hands; I know the shape of what it is I cannot do, or where I must behave differently from other men.”

“With my soul,” Aremu said, and he knew he could not mask the ache in his voice, but he leaned into Tom, instead of away, and it was not so hard to continue, “I do not know. I thought I had one, once. I never felt any different from other boys, and yet I was, all along. It frightens me, sometimes, because I don’t…” he was quiet; he was wrapped in the warmth of Tom’s arms. “I don’t know the places where I might misstep,” he said, soft.

Aremu sighed, softly. “It tears at me too,” he said. “I cling to that, sometimes. I should not like to lose that ache, I think, that – that fear. Without it, perhaps I would have nothing at all.”

“What is it you want to respect?” Aremu asked, then, quiet; he thought perhaps he should have been afraid, but he couldn’t summon it up. He had turned Tom’s words over in his mind, even as he spoke; he had thought he understood them, at first, but they had grown strange, in time, and he could not set them in quite right. He thought perhaps he had been setting too many words in wrong, for a long time; he thought perhaps there was no shame in asking. Perhaps the answer would be worse than the uncertainty, but, then – at least – he would know. “I’m… I’m not sure I understand.”

[Tom Cooke]

Pendulum Hotel • The Stacks

Early Evening on the 9th of Vortas, 2719

T
om nodded slowly, his cheek still against Aremu’s head. There was no shaking, and some of the tension seemed to’ve gone out of his muscles, and Tom was glad of it. But he could feel the ache in Aremu’s words, raw and unexpected. At my hand, he took care his breath stayed even, though he felt the weight of it all through him; he counted the breaths, in and out, as the imbala shifted closer to him. He let his lips brush Aremu’s scalp and held him closer, more grateful than he could ever say.

Different lacks. Oes, Tom thought he understood one of them well enough. The other wasn’t so easy, and by the sounds of it, it wasn’t so easy for the imbala, either. He didn’t think it’d been easy for Tsadi pezre Awameh; he didn’t think it was easy for any of them, much less the ones caught between. He knew that much, from the questions ada’na Tsadi asked in verse.

It was hard to picture Aremu as a boy, and harder as a galdor boy. It was hard, too, to understand – to try and reach through the thick layer of bitter anger, anger Tom hadn’t known he had. You were a boy, he wanted to say. How could you misstep?

He knew the shape of the Problem as well as any Anaxi; he knew the reasoning behind Brunnhold and the Turtle. Tom had seen the logic. He always had. But it had nothing to do with souls, or lacks of honor; it had everything to do with reality. If something’s dangerous, well – but Aremu’s wasn’t –

It didn’t matter, he thought then, and felt a sinking in his stomach. The diablerie was something known; Aremu spoke of something unknown. He hadn’t thought of it that way, hadn’t thought to draw the line between his missing hand and his missing field. He had never even asked himself why a galdor would be unable to speak to the mona.

He thought of It again, itching at the back of his mind. But before he could ask himself to pay attention, to see if he could feel it against the burgeoning calm of his field, Aremu asked him a question.

“You,” murmured Tom rightaway, a little surprised.

But he turned the word over in his head. He thought of all the times he’d said it; he’d taken what it meant for him for granted.

“What you believe,” he amended carefully, opening his eyes. “The – the ache, the fear that’s important to you. If you tell me you lack a soul, and I say you’ve got one, I’m calling you a liar. Or else, telling you I don’t trust the way you look at yourself, the way you look at Vita. Telling you it means nothing to me.”

He heaved a sigh against the other man. The room was bleary with the tiredness; he ached in every muscle, and deeper than that, though the warm water eased his body and the holding eased his soul.

Maybe he’d been too light a touch, with all his careful respect. With all the words he’d held inside, maybe he’d let Aremu go on filling up the silences by himself, filling up the shape of him with somebody else. But he couldn’t imagine what Aremu’d thought he was thinking, or how he’d gone on thinking it – of him, an Anaxi natt, now an unfeathered Anaxi galdor feeling his way through the nestless dark.

“I know something of being told who you are, over and over, ’til it shapes you,” he murmured, thinking of a little gray cat. His own breath shuddered in his chest; the rhythm broke up. He held Aremu closer. “That’s not respect. You don’t tell a man you respect he’s wrong, even if you disagree with him, even if you think what he believes is giving him pain. That pain is his. It’d be like –”

He frowned, swallowing thickly.

“Like naming his stars for him,” he finished, more softly.

He was aware of a burning in his eyes, and a tear on his cheek; he wasn’t sure Aremu could feel it, but he was too tired to be embarrassed. “Do you think you’ll misstep here? With me? I couldn’t imagine – I never knew.”

I’m searching, he thought. You can ask the mona questions until your throat’s raw and bloodied, and they don’t actually answer, not really, not in words a man can understand.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Early Evening, 9 Vortas, 2719
Tom Cooke's Room, the Pendulum Hotel

Aremu listened, careful, quiet and attentive. He had shifted, a little, curled deeper than he thought possible against the other man; it was enough to displace some of the water in the tub, and it shifted against him, lapped warm at the edge of him, and he sighed a little, softly content. He let Tom’s words make a schematic in his mind, trace lines and bring them together; if he couldn’t quite see the whole thing, if he didn’t know the littlest details, Aremu could see the picture of it.

He felt it, there, a glimmer of understanding; he wondered how long Tom had been trying to tell him, before Aremu had shown his ignorance. It was there, in the middle of all the rest; it lay nestled in the heart of it. I think you have a soul, Tom had said, furiously in the mangroves, subtly since, carefully and respectfully now.

It’s not the way I look at Vita, Aremu wanted to say; he wanted to argue, quarrelsomely. It’s the truth; believe me, I wish it weren’t so – I wish that I could – do you know what I would give, to have a soul? But he understood, now, that it wasn’t Tom he was arguing with; perhaps it never had been.

Like naming his stars for him, Tom said. Aremu shuddered; he felt it through him. He lifted his cheek to look at Tom, and opened his eyes; there was a glimmer of a tear on Tom’s cheek, and he thought he felt it on his own. He frowned a little; he let go of the other man’s hand, and curled his fingers against Tom’s cheek. Aremu kissed him, then, because it was not only that he could not find the words; he could not, in his heart of hearts, believe that they exist.

“Yes,” Aremu said. He curled back against Tom’s chest; he found a place where he was comfortable, and he couldn’t have said if it was the same as before. “Always.” He added, still frowning faintly.

“Even now, I…” Aremu breathed in, deep, and he exhaled as well. He didn’t know what to make of it, this new, sharp knowledge; he thought he could cut himself on the edges of it, as easily as he breathed. Like naming his stars for him, he thought, again, and he felt something in his throat, a lump it ached to breathe through.

“I trust you,” Aremu said, softly. “You have asked me to join you in your plot and I shall. I will take whatever it is you wish me to share with you; I cannot do otherwise. But I am afraid. I am afraid that I have mistaken my selfish desire to be closer to you for holding true to my word; I am afraid that I have prized my desire to be truthful too highly against you. I am afraid that if I were a better man, I would refuse you rather than risk doing harm to something you hold precious.”

Aremu sighed, then. He wondered how much Tom had understood, already; he could not know. The words had not been easy to speak, but he was grateful to lay them between the two of them, even if there was not much space in which they could fit. It didn’t matter, somehow; he didn’t feel as if they took up space. If anything, he thought the weight of them drew them together.

It seemed so easy, Aremu thought. What should a man prize most? His word, or the risk to his lover? Tom had the right to endanger himself, and that which he held dear; Aremu understood that Tom wished to show him something, although he held himself back from asking what. Trust, Aremu thought, was believing that Tom had that right, and allowing him to exercise it. Where did the selfishness lie? Was it fear for Tom, for himself, or for the honor he did not have? He had no right, Aremu thought, aching, to let Tom put himself in harm’s way for the sake of something he lacked.

“Why did you ask me?” Aremu put the question between them; he had shied from it, but he understood that that, now, was cowardice too. “I would not wish you to choose between the mona and myself. If there is the slightest chance – if you doubt, Tom, even a little – ” He breathed in deep the orange-scented air, and shivered against the other man’s chest, and could not go on.

[Tom Cooke]

Pendulum Hotel • The Stacks

Early Evening on the 9th of Vortas, 2719

A
lways, Tom thought sadly. Aremu’s kiss lingered; he could still feel the warm dampness of his hand cupping his cheek, the press of his lips, his breath. The faint chill, even in the steamy air, when he drew away. Tom’s eyes had stayed closed for a long moment, as if holding onto the upkeep of it. When he opened them and found Aremu’s dark eyes looking back at him, his breath caught in his chest before he could even it out.

The other man settled against him again. Tom shifted against the back of the bath, resting his head against the warm iron. He cradled Aremu’s head against his chest.

Always. Tom hadn’t known how little he’d understood. Not a whit, he thought now, not a whit.

All men had reminders; he knew this. Scars, missing things, porven fields, strange lines on their faces that deepened with age. Not only men, Tom thought with an ache in his chest, not only scars as you could see. But this was not a reminder; this was a world full of them. This was a field where every step could find a trap hidden in the grass.

As Aremu went on, he traced his fingertips across his scalp, stroking gently through his hair. He tried to think of the man in his arms, bafflingly, blindfolded in a glass-blower’s shop. His careful, patient lover, engineer, balancer. He hadn’t known what he was asking of him, then.

“No doubt,” he promised. He could feel Aremu’s breath. He hoped Aremu could feel his; his chest rose and fell with it, easy, and if his heart beat a little fast, it was even. “I wanted to share this with you. I wanted to be closer to you.

“And I’m afraid I’ve been selfish, too,” he murmured, “because I didn’t want to be in the middle of that big plot, and you just outside it. Sitting there, all of me – me, and the mona too, all of me wanted you closer.”

He paused. He wasn’t sure if he ought to say it. He wasn’t sure, now, if he could withhold it and remain true. Godsdamn it, he thought, the way you make me think about this shit. Used to be, I could lie without a second thought; now, I have a third, and a fourth, and a fifth too.

But there was no withholding if there was no knowing. Still, selfishly, he ached to know. What is it? He wanted to ask. He thought surely Aremu knew. Maybe it was part of the lack he spoke of; Tom was afraid bringing it up would just prod the bandage.

And what if—? He felt himself blindfolded in a glass shop. Some kinds of seeking, he thought drily, were harder than others.

He couldn’t lay those questions on the imbala. He didn’t know what the other man knew; for all he knew, some part of all this was common knowledge. Even if it wasn’t, he didn’t know what it would mean to Aremu. Not the questions, not the answers. Not the seeking or the finding, or all the risks in-between, all the ways a man without a soul might misstep.

What they’d shared had filled some of the gaps, oes – and Tom felt fool enough for letting his own fears fill them, first, and for letting the silences stand. But how strange, now, to know – in admitting, in setting out aloud – they’d only scratched the skin of it, and to know there were more silences, more gaps, yet to come.

Tom took a deep breath, opening his eyes, staring up through the blue-tinged steam. His hand found the curve of the imbala’s ear, the slope of his cheek. He stroked his cheek.

“I never meant to hurt you, with your word, with your trust in me. You can say no, anytime. I can cast, or I can sit and meditate. You can light the incense and the candles, or you can watch me. No choosing; just – feeling what it’s like. I’ve always liked the seeking,” and he smiled faintly, remembering. “If it’s seeking together.”