trange to be kissed after such an admission; stranger still to taste the same on his lips, to feel it in his breath. He wanted to kiss him again, but he didn’t want him to stop speaking. He felt godsdamnably selfish for both.
Is it the fear, he wanted to ask – is it the fear that makes us –?
Aremu drew back, looking at him; he looked back into the other man’s eyes, uncertain. Us, he wanted to say, and didn’t think he could. It’s different, he wanted to say, what you are. You shouldn’t have to fear. You’re a man; you’ve always been a man, even with what you can do – with what gets done to you. I wouldn’t hurt you, he remembered absently, was the first thing Aremu had ever said to him about it. Had it been true?
I’ve made ley channels now, he wanted to say. Do you know how it –? It’s more powerful than any I’ve ever seen; there’s a word for the kind of scrying you do, and it’s something only a master could do. The thought might’ve sent a chill over him, but he stayed himself. He hadn’t been sure Aremu wanted to know, really, what he thought.
He found Aremu’s hand cupping his cheek, and he stroked Aremu’s. He wasn’t sure where to even begin pulling at the string, so tightly was it knitted, but he brushed the backs of his fingers over the other man’s cheekbone and listened.
He hadn’t expected it, the question.
The rain was pounding the window panes now. The Turga must’ve been gorged with it, spilling out over the banks. Too much for even the great river to drink.
“I thought you’d been told,” he said quietly. “I kept wondering if you knew better than I did.”
I did think of you, sometimes. Did you ever guess? he wanted to ask. Surely you must’ve, he wanted to say; everybody knew. They were saying it years before I kicked the can.
He hadn’t even said it, and he thought the cruelty of it left the taste of blood in his mouth. He tried to separate it from what was true; slowly, achingly, he let himself look directly at it, and he didn’t look away.
“I don’t remember it,” he said, almost softer than the rain. “What happened. How it happened.” His voice was thick with shame. “When I told you it hurt, I meant – the after. The… in between. But for it – I wasn’t, uh…”
He shut his eyes and felt a few more tears slide down. “That hurt, too. It still hurts.” his fingers curled into the sheets; he felt a few warm tears patter into the back of his hand.
Itself, it stuck in his throat. It wouldn’t have been a lie to take that last step off the edge; it wouldn’t’ve even mattered, for all he’d already admitted, for all anything he didn’t remember would’ve been his fault. I know how it happened, he almost said. I don’t remember, but I know.
He went so far, but no further. He couldn’t tonight. Wordless, he reached up to brush Aremu’s shoulder again, stroking it gently.
“I am sorry,” he said soft, hoarse. For laying it on him? For not? For the grief? “I’m not the man I was, but I carry… I don’t know what I would do without it, either.”
He swallowed thickly, opening his eyes. “Was there anything else you wanted to know? That I never…” His hand tightened in the sheets. After all Aremu had told him. “I’m sorry for that, too – that I never – offered to explain, or to…”
He had, maybe, once, in the study. The moment had snapped like a gunshot. He looked at Aremu uncertainly now. Is the fear in not knowing, he wondered, or knowing too much?
Or is it all just fear?