[Closed] Inhale All You Speak

[Tom Cooke]

Pendulum Hotel • The Stacks

Early Evening on the 9th of Vortas, 2719

T
om had failed, once, and had sunken eyes and trembling hands to show for it. It had been hours ago, before the sun had slunk beneath the rooftops. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed; he knew that he’d managed to hold down what little breakfast Pendulum had sent up, but only just. He knew that for a time, he’d lain on his side, the world spinning, Vita spinning, spinning on its axis.

When it was still enough to raise his head, the room was gold and draped in evening shadow. There was still a trickle of dried blood coming from his nose. He hadn’t thought to wipe it away.

Everything was still in place. He drew his grimoire back into his lap and his shoulders back. The mona were still around him, still fizzing wild. They hadn’t left.

He began again, from the start, which meant finding his breath again. It felt tender in his lungs, at first. His stomach lurched, once; he gasped and stopped and rested his head in his hands for what must’ve been half an hour. Then he began again, from the start, from the outermost line: pull, push; in, out.

The floor had been cleared. It was part of the ritual, just as much as tracing the lines over and over and then scrubbing them clean, regardless of how proud you were of them, regardless of how tired you felt after you got done. It was a part of the process, like anything else, pushing the unwieldy chairs with his skinny arms, shifting the table out of the way.

You’d think he’d’ve been tired, after a night like last, but every fiber of him was full of nervous energy. That morning – he’d made it about twenty minutes after Aremu had left for Brunnhold campus proper, had left him with a kiss and a knowing look. Twenty minutes, he’d sat reading quietly by the balcony door. It had been more out of numbness than any real calm.

He had looked out through the glass, and all he had seen was himself, sitting with the book in his lap, wrapped in his heavy green morning coat. He had not felt frail and old, lying with Aremu, but he thought the man in the glass looked it. The crisp light made the skin it could find even paler, drained his hair of color and caught silver on the grey; it deepened every shadow.

There was no courtyard. The other side of the courtyard was vanished behind the mist, and he could barely see the streetlamp that reared its head just below the level of the balcony. The walkway round and through the garden was lost, too; if anybody wandered down there, there was no seeing them.

The just-risen sun trickled down through the clouds and danced through the fog, at times strangely crisp, but the light it filled the room with had a soul the color pale grey.

When he hadn’t been able to take it anymore, he’d gotten up and tumbled into motion, like he’d known where he was headed all along.

The last thing he had done was roll up the long, wide Hessean carpet. He remembered last night, after, taking a few ginger barefoot steps on the carpet – he had only had time to wrestle his shoes off halfway into bed – and laughing to Aremu how soft it was underfoot. The underside of it had been rough and scratchy against his aching hands as he’d rolled it up; it was thick and heavy, and after he’d done pushing the bulk of it against the wall, he’d worried he wouldn’t be able to get to his feet without help.

But he had levered himself up on the soft arm of the sofa, though his knees had cracked, and had turned to survey the cleared, polished floor with something akin to satisfaction.

Now, a dizzying map of chalked lines sprawled across it.

It was drawing into evening. There was no light but the hearth, the fire crackling a little low, and what must’ve been a dozen candles perched about the hotel room. They wavered and winked on the mantle, on the table shoved up against the far wall, on the window-sill, at the places were key lines intersected; some of them burned low, but all of them burned.

On the bed, tucked a little out of the way, lay a long folding straightedge and a protractor. They glinted occasionally, but for the most part were content to sleep in the quiet dark, their work completed.

At the center of the plot was a smaller circle, large enough for a man to sit in, clear of lines; Tom sat in it, still in his housecoat, with a grimoire open in his lap. An incense burner sat nearby, and smoke drifted on the air, smelling of lavender and oud and lovely burnt things. Near it, half-open, a little case of chalks, a few whole but most broken and scattering white dust.

Tom had failed once, but he’d found his breath again, there in the midst of the plot. As the afternoon had rolled over, the pit in his stomach had threatened to tighten; he’d just redoubled his efforts, because there was nothing he could do but wait – hold on.

So he held, remembering the patience that’d steadied his hand enough to dissect each clause in white chalk; the precision to quarter and place them on the diagram, to map out the rhythm you felt when you spoke them. He could hold all the words in his head, now, and he knew the way they ought to fall around his breaths.

He laid his still-shaking hand flat against the page, feeling the soft raised lines of ink under his fingertips. He raised his face to the cool, dark, candlelit air, breathing in the incense, and he began to incant the ward again. The clairvoyant mona stirred and thickened in the room, drawn to him, and this time he knew he hadn’t fizzled. He could feel it in him, all through him.

He almost didn’t hear it, underneath the monotonous rumble of his voice. Like the click of a shutting door behind him, at the end of the hall. He knew better than to brail, or even to stumble. His breath held steady, and so did his voice, through the very last clause.

It was never easy, after he curled. It was sudden. Tom might’ve said it was cruel, if he’d known the mona were capable of cruelty; he might’ve called it capricious, if he’d known they had a sense of humor. He felt his body locked into place, as if tied down with invisible ropes. This time, he was ready for it, so his breath didn’t catch, but it did come shallower.

It was either hotel staff or Aremu, and Tom had his bets on the latter. Holding the upkeep, he didn’t have the space in his head to think too hard about it. It was tenuous; he knew he had to let go easy, to let it drain out of him instead of cast it off. He couldn’t even afford shame, or worry, or fear. His back stayed utterly straight.

“In here, dove,” he heard himself say. It was calm and even, despite the stiffness of his jaw, if a little labored. “Please, come in.”

Rolls

Self-Ward #1:
SidekickBOTToday at 5:07 PM
@Graf: 1d6 = (1) = 1

Severity/Recovery:
SidekickBOTToday at 5:08 PM
@Graf: 1d6 = (4) = 4

Self-Ward #2:
SidekickBOTToday at 5:09 PM
@Graf: 1d6 = (6) = 6

[Aremu Ediwo]

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

Aremu had walked through the fading day, traced the shadows lit golden at the edges. He had chosen his time, carefully and well; he had stepped onto the bridge amidst a sea of them, students, laughing and chattering, professors tucked here or there among them. There was an overlap of fields, an echo upon an echo, and in the center of it –

If anyone noticed him, they said nothing. He slipped out as he had slipped in, and he did not look back; he walked, and only when he could not turn to see the bridge did he let himself stop. Still, he thought, still; he half-expected to hear the pounding of feet against the cobblestones, voices raised in a sharp yell.

He had learned many tricks, over the years, and he found them all. He had not gone straight back, after all; he had taken an alleyway, and then another; he had lingered, just out of range, gazing into the edge of a polished store window, and watched the street pass behind him, until he was sure. All the while he ached; there was a yearning all through him, and it beat in his heart with a single name.

He went through the doors of the Pendulum; there was the edge of a sharp, startled glance from the side, a taut inhale. Aremu went through it, and went to the stairs, and never looked down as he climbed. The Pendulum swayed from side to side next to him, tracing its inexorable pattern over the ground below. The same, Aremu thought, every time; he thought of oranges, and the taste of one on fingers and lips late into the night, and he smiled to himself, and felt something ease inside him.

It was hard not to rush, as he went down the hall. He did not try; he went smooth and steady, because there was a woman going into her room at the far end, and he was so close already. Better, Aremu knew, not to hurry; better, he knew, not to lose faith at the end.

Aremu opened the door, and went inside.

He felt it; he felt it right away. How could he not? He knew it, what was thick and tangled in all the air. For a moment, he thought it the wrong room; for a moment, he thought it must have been. Fear tangled all through him; it raced down his spine, and left him cold, and knotted every muscle he knew to feel. He almost stepped back, then; he did not step forward.

Tom’s voice drifted through the air, calm and steady.

Aremu came forward.

The room smelled of the house in Quarter Fords. Aremu had never known the scents to name them, but for lavender, which had forever made him think of Tom. The glooming filtered through the window, and cast shadows upon shadows through all the lines of the chalk plot on the ground. He thought of the old worn furniture in Quarter Fords, and the long, shadowy nights he had spent there, and Tom with his face sunk into the shadow of his beard; it blurred before his eyes, mixed with the room before him, and he felt it sink deep into his stomach, and uncoil there.

A plot, Aremu thought, with a sudden, sharp jolt; he thought of Tom painting with blood on the floor in his dreams. His eyes dropped to the floor again, but it was all chalk, here. It was elaborate, whatever it was Tom had drawn, elaborate and precise.

Aremu came in a little closer, booted feet silent against the ground. He knelt, then, too; he couldn’t have said why. It didn’t feel right to stand. He didn’t come around to see Tom’s face; he held at the edge of the walkway, shy of the plot. He didn’t want to profane it.

“I’m here,” Aremu said, soft. He didn’t know what else was in his voice; he didn’t know how to name it. He couldn’t have named all the things he felt, but he knew the one at the heart of it. He shifted, soft against the ground; his coat brushed the carpet beside him, and he crossed his legs, pale brown fabric resting against the mud-dusted edges of his boots. He settled his hands in his lap, the one of flesh and the one of wood.

He said nothing else; he asked nothing else. Aremu knew something of spells, and their upkeep; he knew the feeling of an etheric field, just a little distant, even if he had nothing of his own to be drawn to it. He watched, instead; he did not try to study all the lines, to memorize them. It was Tom he looked at, the long, straight line of his thin back, the heavy overcoat, the tousled red hair.

Can I stoke the fire, Aremu wanted to ask. You must be cold. It was cold in the little room; the warmth had drained from it, and left something else behind. Aremu's eyes fluttered closed, and then opened again, and he did not look away.

[Tom Cooke]

Pendulum Hotel • The Stacks

Early Evening on the 9th of Vortas, 2719

I
’m here, came Aremu’s voice. Through the effort of upkeep, Tom couldn’t’ve said what he heard in it; he was still too tangled up in the lines and the breathing to think. He opened his eyes slowly – breathing in, out; in, out; measuring each breath – but there was only the smoke drifting from the burner and the wavering shadows.

Because there was no room for doubt or shame, it was hard to let go. He trusted the mona; he relaxed his muscles, even as they held him rigid. Like the first time, the field around him was as organized and calm as any galdor’s. He didn’t think them cruel, this time, but he didn’t know what they were. It expanded around him, warm and etheric.

It was like learning, for the first time, that Vita was a sphere and turned on an axis. It was like having the patience to sit and watch the arc of a pendulum shift; and knowing – knowing! – the path hadn’t moved by half of a centimeter, knowing that it was everything else in motion.

The thought of quiet voices late into the night, of the bright, sweet taste of orange slices, filled him – etheric. You gave me that, he ached to say, you gave it to me. Even to move his lips would’ve broken his concentration, now, and he was far past speaking. His field pulsed gently; he found himself trying to reach through it, to search the room for Aremu, to...

He didn’t know.

Slow and easy, Tom let go of the upkeep. He held with his measured breaths as the mona let go, but only just. His field washed back; the pressure ebbed, and the muscles in his back twitched and spasmed and tensed. His breath hitched, once, before he found the rhythm again. When he looked down at the grimoire, his hand was shaking slightly on the page.

There was a crisp chill in the air, despite the incense and the distant glow of the hearth. He brought his fingertips to his upper lip; they came away clean, far as he could tell, so there’d been no fresh bleed with this cast. He smiled, but the smile was fleeting. “Aremu,” he said, a little breathless.

Gods damn him. It sunk in, sure as the cold; it sunk into his bones, and sunk in his belly. The room behind him was utterly quiet, and he was almost afraid to turn. He’d expected the other man to say something, to move round the spell circles, to do – anything. Now he thought about it, he wasn’t sure what he’d expected, and the fact that he still didn’t know was a knot inside him.

“I lost – I lost track of time,” he fumbled, half-turning; he tried and failed to sound steady and even. What the hell was he doing? Circle knew what’d happened on campus, and here he was – Tom brushed his lip with his fingertips again, but there was still no blood.

He’d’ve felt strangely embarrassed, if there had been; he wondered what kind of spell Aremu must’ve thought him casting. He thought of how Aremu had stiffened and drawn away from him in the study, in Vienda, at the word ward. It’s not profane, he wanted to protest; you felt it, just then, you must’ve, and it’s not wrong or grotesque.

Does it disturb you? Do you mind if I keep meditating? Can I show you–? It all felt so selfish.

Tom met his eyes through the flickering candlelight, taking a deep breath. He couldn’t read Aremu’s face; it was full of shadows. He didn’t look angry. He’d just sat himself, cross-legged, at the edge of the chalk. Tom’s brow furrowed, faintly confused. “It’s cold in here,” he said softly. “Damn me, I meant to have it warm for you. I lost track of time. I was – you were – I got worried, so I…”

The smell of lavender and patchouli eased his nerves. Listen to you, he thought, stumbling over your words like a schoolboy. It's not like you. It's not what he needs of you right now.

The light caught the curves of overlapping circles, the lines that shot through them. Suddenly Tom was conscious of himself, nestled inside a sprawling maze of circles – and Aremu, outside of all of them.

“Are you all right?” He was about to shut the grimoire, but he didn't; he ran his hand along the page, feeling the old paper crackle underneath his fingertips.

[Aremu Ediwo]

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

Aremu sat, for a while, and only watched. He couldn’t have said; he didn’t know what forces held him there. It was as if gravity had him pinned to the edge of the circle; he felt effort of calling breath to his lungs, each time. He could see the faint rise and fall of Tom’s green coat, the shift of it against his back. He could not know more than that; he could not make sense of what held him there, the feeling in the air all around them.

Aremu did know when it changed.

He saw Tom shift beneath the coat; he felt something change in the air around them, something he couldn’t have defined. Something lifted in the air, and Aremu could breathe again, a little more easily than before. Still, he didn’t move; he knew the spell had lifted, but it wasn’t ever the spell which had held him in place. Tom’s voice was soft on his name; it shuddered through him.

It wasn’t the name, really, which shifted him. It was Tom’s turning – the sight of his face, smeared with blood above the upper lip, the drawn, sunken look of his skin, the bags beneath his eyes. Aremu jerked, faintly; he reached out his hand before he could stop himself. He could see the faint brush of its shadow against the lines on the floor; he lowered it, slowly, back to his lap.

“Yes,” Aremu said, quietly, when the question came. He didn’t quite know if it was true; he didn’t quite know if it was a lie. He knew that it was the answer he wanted to give, all the same.

He sat, still, at the edge of the circle; he breathed in the lavender scent of the air, and watched the candles flicker. One went out, with a little shudder, burnt down too low. Aremu swallowed; he looked down, slowly, down at the sweeping circles, the straight-edge lines carving through them, strange and incomprehensible. Chalk, he thought; chalk.

He wanted to know; he wanted to ask. What are they? He wanted to look at Tom, and close the space between them with a question. What were you doing? He did not know. Warding, Tom had said. Warding; he knew it for clairvoyance, but not beyond that.

It’s a part of you, Aremu could not say. I want to understand. It’s not for my own sake; it’s not because of the lack inside me that I would ask. It’s because it’s yours; it’s because you’re mine, and I’m yours, and this, too is yours, because that makes it a part of me. He felt it shuddering inside his chest. He could not think of what to say.

There were bits and pieces of understanding inside him. There were plots that Niccolette or Uzoji had explained to him, because they were central to the running of the Eqe Aqawe; there were marks that he understood, systems he had helped design to contain backlash. They were only diagrams, Aremu thought, and he felt something like anger stirring in his chest. It was only finding a pattern, and following it.

“Are you all right?” Aremu asked, softly. He didn’t come any closer; he couldn’t. He started to shift, and then he stopped, and settled back down.

It’s backlash, he wanted to say, or at least casting strain; I can see it on your face. I can’t feel it, but I know something of what it looks like; I know something of the price the mona make you pay, whatever I lack.

“I'll run you a hot bath,” Aremu said, softly. He looked at Tom; there was a little frown etched onto his face, worry written between his brows. “Some tea, maybe, I’ll…” he stirred; he managed, this time. The tea seemed more distant; he didn't know if he had the courage to summon the staff for it. The bath; the bath, he could manage. He rose onto his knees, and then up, slowly. He eased back, towards the water closet, towards the claw-footed tub. “For the strain,” Aremu added, quietly.

He went, then; he could not quite bear it. He didn’t take off his coat, or his shoes; there was mud brushed onto the sides of his pants. He made it inside before he began to shake, at least, but he was glad to have something to do; he turned on the tap, one-handed, letting the water stream out.

Oils, Aremu thought, glancing around. Or else – there was the incense burner, Aremu thought, slowly. Was it secular, or sacred? He didn’t know; he didn’t know if Tom would want him to touch it. He didn’t know, Aremu thought, aching, with an odd, pinching clarity, standing alone in the bathroom with steam trickling into the air around him, how much of a galdor the other man had become.

[Tom Cooke]

Pendulum Hotel • The Stacks

Early Evening on the 9th of Vortas, 2719

W
hen Aremu saw him, he jerked. Tom’s eyes widened slightly. They flicked over the imbala as he reached out his left hand, hesitated, let it fall back; his brow furrowed when Aremu shifted again, as if to reach for him or come to him, and then settled back. Tom brushed his upper lip with his fingers again, then licked his lips and tasted dry copper.

That bad, huh? His hand flickered back down to the grimoire and rested there, back on the page, as Aremu spoke.

He didn’t think Aremu would lie to him, but all right meant a lot of different things to a lot of different kov. It was an easy question to answer without lying; you could tuck a lot into all right and stay just this side of a lie. He hadn’t wanted to put that on Aremu, either, because he already knew it must’ve been tsuter – the walk across campus, if nothing else – and if anybody was after him, if he was in danger and he needed Tom to know, he’d’ve already told him.

He had, more than anything, wanted to tell him he cared. So when Aremu turned the question back around on him, his eyes softened. He opened his mouth, but he hesitated too long; the set of Aremu’s face was full of worried lines, and he was clambering to his feet and speaking again – offering to run a bath, fetch tea…

And there it was. Tom’s fingers curled round the edge of the grimoire. Aremu was edging back away from the outermost sweep of chalk. There was mud smudged on the leg of his trousers; Tom's eyes widened even more. Take your coat off, at least, he wanted to offer, but the other man had already disappeared round the corner to the lavatory and the bath.

Tom looked down at the grimoire in his lap and shut it. He held it; he ran his thumb over the cover and shut his eyes. Muffled, he could hear water running.

Alone, it seemed even chillier in the hotel room, and darker too. It felt like the casting’d drained a lion’s share of life from him, and he had to sit there, because he wasn’t sure he’d be able to get up. His field hung round him, and he thought it was calmer than it’d been that morning. A little less porven, every time, though he couldn’t’ve said how it was starting to feel; he wondered if anyone was a good judge of what their field was like.

Sitting here, he could remember what it had been like etheric. It washed through him again; he remembered lapping out toward the edges of the plot, reaching for Aremu Ediwo through the etheric particles. His brow furrowed, and his fingers tightened on the book.

He had known where Aremu was sitting. He cast about in his mind, trying to remember if he had ever felt that way before. It seemed like he always had a sense for where Aremu was. Not like the caprise of another field, mind, but it was always easy, somehow, to know. There had been a sense to Aremu, almost.

It was hard to focus on; the memory was tinged with shame. What had Aremu made of it? Had he hurt him? Did it hurt a passive, to–? He didn’t know. And the last thing he’d meant to do was worry the imbala. He thought, to walk back through Brunnhold campus alone, every muscle in your back tense, to climb up three floors to the hotel room, and find –

“Bajea,” Tom husked under his breath, pressing the heels of both hands to his forehead. “You ersehole.”

He opened his eyes. A few of the candles had burned out. In the dark, he could see the first tendrils of steam drifting round the corner. Sighing, he set the grimoire down by the burner and pushed himself to his knees. They ached sharply against the floor, and his thin wrists shook to bear his weight, but he pulled himself to his feet at last. Careful of the plot, he picked his way to the water closet himself, his hand brushing the wall for support as he made his way past the lavatory and to the bath.

Aremu was alone in the dim, blue phosphor light, alone with the great claw-foot tub. Tom couldn’t see his face, but he could see he was shaking. To the side, a small round mirror hung on the wall; as Tom stepped into the bathroom, he saw himself in it. Both red eyebrows shot up.

“Circle, I look like shit,” he said softly, pulling his housecoat closer about him and shivering. The steam was warm, but the chill prickled his bare ankles.

A hot bath did, he had to admit, sound benny. But he turned his attention to Aremu, his brow knit. “Thank you, dove. For this. I’m all right,” he offered, with another step into the room, and reached hesitantly to touch the imbala’s shoulder. “It looks worse than it is. I didn’t think how it must’ve – I didn’t backlash. I – almost did, earlier, but that ward was…”

There was a note of excitement in his voice, for a moment; it flickered and failed. His hand slipped from Aremu’s shoulder. “Does it disturb you?” His voice was quieter, muffled by the water. But it was steady, and there were no tears in his eyes.

[Aremu Ediwo]

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

Disturb me?” Aremu asked, softly, frowning, not understanding.

Of course, he wanted to say; of course seeing you with a bloody nose disturbs me. Of course seeing you looking as if – as if – he couldn’t quite bring himself to say like a corpse; it wasn’t true, not really. There was a red flush to Tom’s cheeks, a little more now that the bathroom was warming. He hadn’t been able to feel the other man’s hand, not through his coat, the jacket beneath, the shirt under that; all of it was stifling, suddenly.

It disturbs me to see you look like shit, Aremu might have said. The longer he thought about it, the less he thought that was what Tom meant. He’d been excited, Aremu thought, slowly; not upset by the backlash. Amused, even, Aremu thought; it wasn’t in Tom to be upset by a black eye or a bloodied nose, not that sort of existential upset. If anything, he thought the other man would be proud; he thought he'd heard something like it, when he'd spoken of nearly backlashing, a brief flicker.

“To… see you cast?” Aremu asked, hesitant, a little confused. His eyes flickered over Tom’s face; he frowned, trying to make sense of it, trying to put the pieces together. He felt something sink into his stomach; he felt something else come together, a little click, something he couldn’t have named. He couldn’t bring himself to reach back into understanding; he couldn’t bring himself – he felt a nauseous ache at the thought of just how much understanding there was to do.

“No,” Aremu said, then. “No,” he swallowed, shaking his head; his hand was trembling, but he settled it against Tom’s cheek; he pressed his lips to the other man’s forehead. “You were beautiful,” he whispered, quietly.

It was a little more than Aremu could bear, just then. He swallowed again, hard; he eased back. His breath was coming a little harder than he might have liked, a little faster. There was too much, just then, to try and put together; he felt the pieces turning to sand in his fingers, tumbling and streaming through. “See if it’s a temperature you like,” Aremu said, softly. The hotter the better, he knew, for Niccolette, but he hadn’t thought Tom would want to scald himself.

Aremu eased a little further back. He couldn’t - “I’ll take my coat off,” he said, quietly. He went, then, from the bathroom. He knew himself for a coward. He took a deep breath, outside; he pressed his fist against his forehead. And then he was easing the heavy coat off, hanging it up in the little shoebox of his room, and the suit jacket besides. He unbuttoned the shirt just enough, reaching his hand inside, undoing the straps, and set the prosthetic hand behind. His boots, too, he left behind, the laces loose enough to slip his feet from them.

His fingers were slippery on the buttons; he couldn’t quite manage to do them back up. He let them be; he went back out to the main room, instead. Aremu’s gaze settled on the bowl of oranges, and he smiled, faintly. He went over; his fingers grazed, gently, the orange with the marks still scored against it, the pith as white as the chalk on the foor. He took another of them, instead, and let it remain.

He carried the orange into the bathroom with him, through the blue-hazed steam, and peeled it one-handed, leaning his hip against the counter. It was cold in the room, but warm, now, in the bathroom, but for the cool tile against his bare soles. Aremu set the fruit down, and took the peel in his hand. He offered Tom a shy little smile, and crossed to the bath; he squeezed it, hard enough that all the muscles in his torso tightened, and gently lowered the handful of crushed peel into the hot water, just beneath the still pouring tap. Faint, the smell of orange trickled up to fill the air, seeping into the steam. Aremu washed his hand beneath the water, and eased back.

That ward was? He wanted to ask; he wanted to ask more badly than he could name. What were you doing? He rested back against the counter; even through his shirt, he could feel the coldness of the marble. He looked at Tom, through the steam hazy room; he tried something like a smile, instead, and found it easier than he’d expected.

“Your field feels calmer,” Aremu offered, quietly, a little hesitant. He wasn’t sure; if he felt it, surely, it was all right to ask? All the same, there was a faint flicker of tension through him, a little stiffening. He breathed it back out, and tried to ease himself into something like comfort. “I think,” the smile went crooked, and he looked down, instead, and a little away.

[Tom Cooke]

Pendulum Hotel • The Stacks

Early Evening on the 9th of Vortas, 2719

B
eautiful,” Tom mouthed slowly, skimming the hot water with his fingertips.

He was sitting on the edge of the bath, looking down through the steam into the steady-rising water. The word got caught in his chest; he couldn’t seem to breathe around it. He shuddered and squeezed his eyes shut, but there was already a tear on his cheek. It was stinging-cold in the warm air. He sniffed. When he opened his eyes, he saw a droplet hit the water.

He remembered the kiss against his forehead; he could still feel it, almost. He also remembered the trembling in the hand that had cupped his cheek, and the sharp rise and fall of his breath as he’d left the room. He remembered the line between his brows, the slight downward tug of his lips – disturb me? – the long pause he couldn’t put any words in, no matter how hard he tried.

Beautiful, Tom thought again, and it emptied him of thoughts. He wiped the tears away dully, mechanically. It must’ve been a mercy from Roa, but no more came. There was a vague reflection in the water – just a swirl of orange and red and muddled dark. He trailed his hand through the water, breaking it up with ripples.

It was warm. He slipped the robe down around his shoulders, loosening the tie, and paused for a very long moment. Then he eased one arm out of its sleeve, then another, leaving the housecoat gathered at his waist. The steam was like a balm to his bare skin, his aching muscles.

He shivered and breathed in deep, and breathed out, and in again. He found himself counting the spaces between his breaths.

Other thoughts slid in to fill the gap, easier to pick through. He thought again of the mud smudged on Aremu’s trouser leg, and all over his boots too; he put it beside the shallow breath and shaking hand, and it made sense. It was a worry he could bear, if nothing else. He frowned down into the water. The hot water and steam would do them both good.

The thought of Aremu’s quiet presence at the edge of his ward crept back in, too. Tom knew less what to do with it, but it wouldn’t seem to leave; it kept coming back. He didn’t think he’d ever felt it before. He tried to remember whether he could feel humans, whether he could feel Ava, like that. He’d never cast around her, but he remembered sitting on her couch with his eyes shut. If she hadn’t spoken, he wouldn’t’ve known she was there.

Same with all the human servants in his household, at least as far as he could remember. Except something did tug at his memory. Something recent. He reached for it, but it slipped through his fingers like sand; he had to let it go.

He found himself trying to remember what, exactly, it had felt like. His hand stilled against the water. Aremu would be back soon. He shut his eyes, waiting quietly as the tub filled up with water, as the room filled up with steam.

He opened his eyes the moment before Aremu stepped through the doorway. Had he heard his footsteps? Aremu had a light step; the running water was loud enough, especially now the tub was half full, and the bathroom was a muffled world to itself. Perhaps he’d heard his footsteps. Perhaps.

He didn’t have long to think about it. He remembered himself the moment he felt Aremu’s dark eyes on him; his hand flickered up away from the water, but he caught himself from pulling the housecoat back around his shoulders. His heart leapt, but he swallowed it, and when he saw the orange in the other man’s hand, he offered him a shy smile to match his own.

The smile widened and warmed as Aremu crushed the orange and lowered it into the water. With one hand, mind; he raised his brows, and his smile went a little crooked, watching the long, lean muscles of his arm and his back work underneath his thin cotton shirt. Tom watched bits of pith and skin scatter from it, faintly fragrant, juice unfurling through the water like thin tendrils of smoke.

The imbala was leaning against the counter, smiling at him; with his shirt mostly-unbuttoned, he could see the soft blue phosphor light glancing across the bare muscles of his chest. He didn’t have to look down to know that Aremu wasn’t wearing the wooden hand.

The question, quiet as it was, caught his breath again. He hadn’t quite chewed through beautiful; it burbled back up in him, joined by your field feels calmer, joined by I think, and the dart of his eyes down and away was the last nail in the coffin.

He tried to speak, but it choked him. He cleared his throat, scratching the back of his neck. He smiled at Aremu.

“You can feel it?” he asked, then paused. “What is –” He took another deep breath. “They're clairvoyant, mine. I don’t know if you can feel them, but they’re clairvoyant.” he said. His smile went crooked, this time. “What does it – feel like? When it’s not porven.”

He hesitated. Could you feel me reach out to you, he wanted to ask, suddenly, with the force of desperation. Can you feel it around you, or in you, whatever it is I felt when you–?

But he felt precarious; he needed to know more. He needed to think on it more, he felt sure.

“I don't mind talking about it,” he added. He thought of the way Aremu had looked away. He wasn't sure why; he wasn't sure if, like everybody else, Aremu was wont to tiptoe round the subject with him, in the same way you wouldn't draw attention to a man's wart to his face. “Not with you.”

[Aremu Ediwo]

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

Tom was perched on the edge of the tub, his robe half open, his thin bare chest with wiry red curls on display. Aremu knew it, by now; he knew the sight of it in moonlight and what light filtered into a room when the lamps were out, the feel of it beneath his fingertips. Now, through a haze of blue tinged steam. He saw Tom start to cover it up; he saw him stop. Aremu didn’t look, but he didn’t quite look away, either. Most of all, he felt, a warm glow in his chest that felt like trust, that felt like something done right.

Tom was smiling at him, too, and that felt good too.

You can feel it? Tom asked. Aremu nodded, and swallowed the desire to caveat, to hedge. I slept with you in my arms, he thought, twice. I know it, Tom, your reminder; I can’t feel it the way a galdor would, but I can tell you it’s changed, just a little, at least for now. He knew he would not say it; he understood, without needing to dissect, that Tom had not meant it in that way.

What does it feel like, Tom asked.

Aremu shifted; he frowned, thinking it over. He would have guessed clairvoyant, if Tom had asked. He knew the ways such a field was described. Soft, he thought, or slippery. But those weren’t the words he wanted to bring to Tom, not in the quiet blue space or the bathroom, with the steam warming them both. He breathed in the scent of it, the orange, a faint lingering lavender scent that he thought must have been from the robe.

“Like sage under your fingertips,” Aremu said, quietly. He smiled at Tom. “Just the... the faintest brush of it. Not enough to bring the smell out but... enough to feel it.”

I don’t mind talking about it. Not with you. Aremu came closer, then; he couldn’t help it. It? He wanted to ask. It? What is it? Your field? Your casting? The clairvoyant mona? He sat himself on the edge of the tub, feeling droplets of water cool through the fabric of his pants. He looked at Tom, quiet.

Yes, Aremu thought, suddenly. Yes. I want to know. Fear was cold all through him; it raced along all his nerves, and something ached in the hand he no longer had. He looked at Tom, so close on the rim of the tub, and he wanted to know.

What are the boundaries? Aremu wanted to ask. I know there a place where you end, and I begin. Is this past it? Is this part of you closed to me? I understand; a man deserves to have his secrets, to have the private places inside. I am sorry, already, to have -

But this - not this - if this is closed to me, because of what I lack -

Aremu thought of the excitement in Tom’s voice, and the way he had veered away. He thought too or the quiet voice inviting him to come, to watch. He couldn’t bear it, he thought, not to know where he stood.

His fingers settled around the smooth iron rim of the tub; he held on tight. His other wrist was tucked into his lap, hidden by the cuff of his sleeve. Aremu had lost his smile, somewhere; he couldn’t summon it up again. When he spoke, his voice was soft; it was a murmur over the hum of the water, and the blue steam reflected dark in his eyes.

“What did you cast?” Aremu asked. He asked the question; he floated the words out into the air on the steam. So soft, he thought; as if they might drift away. He knew, in the squirming ache in the pit of his stomach, that they would not; he knew, in the tension all through his shoulders and his back, that there could be no going back.

[Tom Cooke]

Pendulum Hotel • The Stacks

Early Evening on the 9th of Vortas, 2719

T
om had to shut his eyes. He wouldn’t call Aremu a liar, not here, not now, not after he had run him a bath, not after he had called him beautiful with tousled hair and a nosebleed and monite on his tongue.

He managed to hold the tears back, but only just. It was almost too much. He imagined running his hands over the sage in Ishma’s garden, lined with peach-soft down. It was a hard sensation to hold in your head; it slipped this way and that, when you tried to pin it down. Aremu had chosen his words so carefully.

Aremu was sitting next to him on the edge of the bath, when he opened his eyes. Tom wasn’t sure when he’d moved, but he thought he’d’ve been able to tell you, even with his eyes shut, that the imbala was sitting there.

It was more the way the question was asked than the question itself. Tom couldn’t help the look of surprise that flashed across his face, or the pause that followed.

I didn’t know you were interested. He bit back the words; he didn’t think, somehow, they were a good idea. Not with how soft Aremu’s voice had been, not with the weight of his steady dark gaze. The back of Tom’s neck prickled. He glanced down at Aremu’s hand on the iron between them, the bones of his knuckles standing out faintly pale underneath his dark skin.

He didn’t look, but he knew the other wrist was tucked in his lap, in a rumple of shirtsleeve.

Are you sure you want to know? He swallowed those words, too. His eyes flicked back up to the imbala’s face, searching. He saw only the glint of the blue lamp in his eyes. I don’t know how much you already know, he thought to offer, and couldn’t quite bring himself to.

But the thought of sharing it with Aremu, despite all the messy uncertainty between them. He had been aching for it ever since he heard the soft click of the hotel door behind him, what could’ve been only a quarter of an hour ago.

Aremu had asked, and he thought maybe if he could just make a case for it. If he could just explain himself; if he could just show Aremu it wasn’t something to shun. If he could show him how much it meant to him.

“A type of ward,” Tom said, very softly. At first, he was tentative; he planned, anyway, to speak with caution. But the word lit something up in him, and he couldn’t help the fox’s smile that spread across his face, or the glitter in his eyes when he met Aremu’s.

He felt a dozen explanations scramble up to his throat, and they fought so fiercely none of them managed to get out. He hadn’t realized it, but he’d leaned closer to Aremu by a hair’s breadth, a thin bare arm between them, hand curled round the iron lip of the tub. He shifted; his eyes flicked down and away, skittering across the tiles.

There was a pause. The smile had gone, though there were still echoes of it in the lines round his eyes. “Most wards – universal counterspells – it’s about asking the mona to thin out, so inside the warded area, there’s less particles to do what another caster wants.” He shifted away, frowning. You probably already know that, he thought, feeling like a fool.

He went on, “But that ward, it asks them to get closer. Like thickening a broth.” He tucked a short curly tuft of hair behind his ear, ineffectually. “Monic interference,” he said, and let himself feel proud at how it rolled off his tongue. “For protection. Not against spellcasting; against anything the mona might see as a threat.

“But the mona aren’t sure how to feel about me, yet, so I end up warded, too. It’s a way of – showing I’m willing to let them decide how to feel about me. Getting comfortable with each other.”

He bit his lip, looking away. Ohante, he heard Uzoji say, two lifetimes away. Like cozying up to a cat, he thought, but would’ve felt a fool for saying. It’s like the trust of a man you fight with, he could’ve said, though that wouldn’t’ve been true. Nothing he said would’ve been quite true.

Despite the lump in his throat, it was easier, once he was in motion. Like fighting, or like breathing. The water was high and warm and fragrant behind them. Tom reached to turn off the faucet, then slipped out of his robe, his hands shaky on the tie and the embroidered hem.

Breathing evenly, he stood and let it drop, a strangely easy, graceful motion; then he turned to climb into the bath.

He winced as he submerged himself. I feel like shit, too, he thought happily, sinking down into the water. He had to take a moment, breathing in the steam and the smell of citrus, feeling his muscles come uncoiled.

He opened one eye, then the other, slowly. He looked at Aremu over the iron rim.

“Aremu,” he said. “You know you can – you know I want to share this?” he asked more than said, reaching up to slide his hand over Aremu’s on the edge of the bath.

You went to Thul’Amat, he wanted to protest, feeling something akin to irritation. You ought to know more about this than me; don’t act like you didn’t grow up in the heart of clairvoyance, with more books than I could’ve ever imagined, could’ve ever had use for, when I was alive. His brow furrowed, but he left it there and said no more.

[Aremu Ediwo]

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

You know it’s forbidden,” Aremu said, quietly, with a faint wavering trace upwards of his voice. He looked down at the slim hand on top of his, with its freckles and veins and the soft slicks of damp red hair; he swallowed, and took a deep breath. It didn’t do much, not for the tension in his knuckles; they were taut enough to tremble beneath Tom’s touch. “Don’t you?”

Aremu looked up at the other man, then, slowly.

He wanted to say how precious those words were; he wanted to say that he liked the idea of it, the thought of the mona in the air all around Tom, settled in thick and close. Like a blanket, he thought, or perhaps a smothering. He wasn’t sure he could imagine how it would feel, but that was all right; he didn’t need to. He had gauged enough from the smile that had lingered in Tom’s eyes after he had found control of his mouth, from the faint, satisfied involuntary grunt as the other man lowered his aching muscles into the hot water.

The steam was pooled around them, cool blue light filtering through it. It had washed up from the bath water in gusting clouds when Tom lowered himself in. There was orange scent all through the room, bitter and sweet mingled together.

He thought of Tom sliding the robe off, slow and graceful, and the covered mirror on Isla Dzum. He thought of him saying there was too much light, in Vienda. He knew the taste on his tongue. Aremu breathed it in, and found that he could go on, slowly and carefully.

“I know something of what it is that happens to me,” Aremu said, quietly. “Of what I did - to you,” he faced it, out loud, for the first time. Not the first time to Tom, he thought, faintly dizzy; the first time he had let himself say such words aloud, to claim it. This, he said, I did. I am sorry, he could not quite manage; the words were lodged somewhere in his throat, beneath it.

“I know something of plots to contain backlash,” Aremu went on, quietly. What I needed to, he didn’t say; what could not be avoided, those four and a half years. His hand softened on the rim of the tub. He looked away, now; his eyes fluttered shut.

“I should not have asked,” Aremu continued. He brought himself to look back at Tom, to face it squarely. “I cannot apologize,” he said, and he owned that too. “It was precious to me to learn more of you.”.

There, he thought, he could leave it. Aremu shuddered; a little of the tension went from him. He could face it, he thought, what he had done to Tom. He had thought - it wasn’t easy to know. The Tom he had known in the Rose had not known; he had not known the word imbala, though he had wanted to learn. He had not, Aremu thought, looking at it squarely, known that Aremu lacked a soul. Aremu had never been able to bring himself to tell him, and that fear had lingered between them, always, and made the distance even greater.

This Tom knew; he could cast. He knew the words ada’xa and ada’na, and he had been to Mugroba. He knew so much, now, and Aremu no longer thought he understood the boundaries of it. Perhaps he never had, not really; perhaps it had been hubris all along.

He had thought, when he asked, that Tom understood the magnitude of it. He had never meant to trick him; he had never wanted that. He had trusted Tom to weigh it, to know what it was he did, and only as the answer trickled icy-cold down his spine, slowly, had Aremu realized he might not. Even still, he had drunk the words in, greedily; he had held them tight, every one. He had let them thicken in the air around him, and sit close.

He had taken, he thought, aching. He could not be sorry, but he had done his best to make it right. That, at least, he had done.