[Closed] [Mature] Dancing After Death

[Tom Cooke]

A Hotel by the River, Three Flowers

Early Evening on the 38th of Loshis, 2720

I
’ve never thought of them that way, he’d wanted to say, then; I’ve never thought of them as…

Patterns – Aremu’s soft voice had echoed through his head. He might’ve put them down to lovers’ nothings, if he hadn’t known Aremu, known how he weighed his words.

What do you see, he’d wanted to ask when the shock had worn off, finding himself wanting to take it with a boch’s seriousness. What do you see in them, do you see – I’ve never looked at them like that, never even thought –

But he’d been too busy dividing his attention, between his attention to Aremu and Aremu’s attention to him. He was aching with it, hotter than fire; somehow, the simple brush of Aremu’s lips and fingertips on his shoulder, his arm, his back – the lovely newness of it burned him worse than anything. And more, when he felt him lose his place: a shudder of breath, a spasm and slip of the hand, and he was finding his place anew.

Patterns, he kept thinking. He remembered that night years ago, speaking of weaving and engines and how to touch a man, and climbing, and – stars – he almost laughed then.

We can’t, he thought, and then, what can’t we? He wasn’t drunk; he was so sober it scared him.

He didn’t understand at first, feeling Aremu shift against him. He hadn’t been sure what to expect. Like this, Aremu was saying, his hand gentle in the small of his back. I’ve wanted to… Even gentler with his hip – he laughed, at first with surprise, and then softer, more tenderly. His brows raised; he met Aremu’s dark eyes, close enough he could see the gleam of lamplight and the shadows of his eyelashes on his sweat-damp cheek.

“Ah,” he said softly, understanding, almost lost underneath Aremu’s heavy breathing.

You’ve been wanting to, he wanted to say, you’ve been… He wondered that he’d never even thought. It wasn’t that he’d never done this before, but never with Aremu, and never like this.

Is it too different for you? he’d asked him once.

They’d always tried to find the familiar, to fit the new pieces into the old… He breathed heavily, daring to think he might understand.

Aremu was pressed against him; he couldn’t not be aware of himself, and he knew Aremu must’ve been aware of him, all of him. And because it was different, he found himself thinking how Aremu felt different, too: not like a different man, but unfamiliar; stronger – he’d thought that before, but – almost easier, more comfortable.

He could’ve asked a hundred things, given the breath. He’d asked if it was too different; he hadn’t known what different meant, then. He still, he realized, didn’t know what it could mean for them, and he found that he wanted to find out.

“Yes,” he said firmly, because some longing something in Aremu’s eyes told him he needed to. “Yes,” he said when Aremu caught him with a kiss, and another yes bubbled out then, unintelligible. He’d a feeling he said it a few more times after that, but he lost track. “I love you,” he was saying then.

It was a deeper gold than bastly in the air around them, and he could taste it. He felt something else underneath it, something he could just barely grasp; he knew better than to reach for it, but he felt it still.

His spine arched underneath Aremu’s fingers, cat-happy; he shifted against him and panted and laughed at turns, and he was running his hands over those long, graceful muscles of his back, tight with a different kind of strain now, both of them full of motion. His hip ached, and he rather thought that was good.

He was trailing kisses up Aremu’s jaw, up his cheek, brushing his lips over the shell of his ear. “Aremu, I –” He shuddered, grinning suddenly. “What if we – what if we broke into it? After hours? The… Just the two of us,” he breathed, “and all the stars…”

[Aremu Ediwo]

Late Evening, 38 Loshis, 2720
A Hotel by the Turga, Three Flowers

Yes, Tom said - yes; Aremu kissed him, and he kissed back, and every inch of them pressed together, unmistakable. Tom’s eyes were open, Aremu thought, and he saw - they both did.

“I love you,” Aremu promised, and they were raised together. He thought, absurdly, of what he’d seen when they did chan together, Tom bright purple and him gold; for all that he was sober, he felt almost as if he could see it in the air around them, their twining together.

Tom was laughing; his hands were stroking up and down along Aremu’s back. No tension now, Aremu wanted to say, over the laughter warming in his chest; and your hip? His fingers curled around it, not for the first time and not for the last, holding steady.

He let himself be lost in the rhythm of it, a knowing without knowing, a knowing without thought, without a why. They searched for it together, and found it and lost it and found it again, and the seeking could have been enough all on its own, though Aremu couldn’t deny he liked the finding too.

There was no one path; there was the cliff before them, and they chose a way together and climbed, higher and higher. There was only the last step and the one to come, the feeling of it beneath his fingertips and the steady placement of his feet, bare toes gripping tight. He knew every inch of himself, every muscle, and every inch of Tom too, and he held to it all, as tightly as he could.

Aremu was breathing hard, harder and harder. He groaned; he pressed his forehead to Tom’s, and kissed the other man, his hand lifting to wrap around the back of Tom’s head, fingers curling into his hair. The stars, Tom said; just the two of us, his breath ragged and full of joy.

“Yes,” Aremu gasped, feeling as if he saw stars now, lightless and gleaming, as they had been once when he was a boy, before he had understood what he was to them, and what he would never be. He saw them, and they reached for him, and he was washed in their light, bathed in them; it was all around him, bastly gold and sage soft, and something in him glowed with it.

“Tom!” He kissed the other man again; all thoughts fled from him, driven out in a haze of need, and he surrendered to the climb, unhesitating.

It was some time before Aremu thought of it again. He thought he must have slept, at least a little; the last light of day through the window was long gone.

Tom’s hands were stroking over his back; the other man pressed down and Aremu grunted, and shifted against the tangled sheets, lifting his cheek from the pillow. He knew every inch of himself, all of him glowing warm and satisfied, all his muscles soft now, soft and yielding. He felt tired, but not weary. It was the sort of tired which was well-earned; it was the sort of tired which seemed to energize him, not drain him.

“Mmm,” Aremu sat up; he caught Tom in his arms and kissed him, for no reason but that he wanted to. He smiled, combing his fingers through the other man’s hair, teasing the damp red curls, streaked with gray; his right arm curled around the other man’s back, because just then he wanted to hold Tom more than he wanted anything else, and he couldn’t bear to do otherwise.

“Just the two of us,” Aremu asked, “and the stars?”

[Tom Cooke]

A Hotel by the River, Three Flowers

Early Evening on the 38th of Loshis, 2720

H
e wasn’t sure if he slept; he must’ve, because he woke, and you usually didn’t wake up unless you fell asleep in the first place. He couldn’t remember having done it: he could remember Aremu settling in beside him, warm and satisfied, and he remembered saying something about keeping his promises, so roll over, I’m not done yet…

Only he’d woken up to Aremu’s deep, even breathing, and the pleasant smell of drying sweat and lamp oil and herbs.

He’d watched Aremu for a while. He’d studied the soft, peaceful curl of his lips, his long eyelashes, his cheekbones, the flicker of a muscle in his throat as he stirred in his sleep.

You look happy, he’d thought wryly, shifting up against the bed – testing the muscles he’d been using all day, but particularly in the last gods knew how long. It was still pleasant, worn out rather than wrung out, with the chafing of the sheets and the ache in his hip and between his thighs; but it wasn’t exactly what it had been once, and he’d resisted the urge to groan as a sharp pain went through his head. Too much walking in the sun, and not enough water. Never enough water, these days.

He’d sat up and stretched, and tried to do it quietly, stealing glances at Aremu; it had seemed a horrible shame to wake him.

But he had, in the end, watching him shift against the pillows. Roll over, dove, he’d murmured, soft; he wasn’t sure if Aremu was still too wrapped in sleep to hear him.

He’d sat by his side, on his knees, legs folded up underneath him. He’d applied himself to familiar motions, finding the worst of the knots, running his fingers gently over the muscles and pressing his thumbs in, leaning down occasionally to brush a kiss over the nape of his neck or the ridge of his spine.

His hands were pale and long-fingered against Aremu’s skin; his eyes caught on a spray of freckles over the knuckle, and he remembered Aremu’s words with something like a smile, confused and sad and hopeful all at once. Aremu’s back was smooth underneath his uncallused fingertips, except when he found and followed the glistening curve of an old burn scar, or a thin winding pale thing, even older, almost lost to time. With Aremu shifting underneath him, still half-asleep, he explored them.

The lines of the harness were still pressed into his skin, only a little lighter now. He wondered for the first time if one day they’d never fade.

Aremu stirred finally, sitting up with a creak of the mattress. He was smiling when he caught him with a kiss. I wasn’t done yet, he wanted to tease, still drowsy himself; not that I mind, particularly…

He was combing the long fingers of his hand through his hair, teasing apart the tangles. He felt another arm slide around his back; he didn’t let his surprise show, but he eased himself closer, finding – again, strangely – that he fit very well into the other man now.

“Mm,” he grunted, and laughed into Aremu’s chest. “I, uh…”

I did say that, didn’t I? You must think I’ve lost my mind, he thought, then, No, you already knew that; wonder what could’ve tipped you off.

“I had an idea,” he murmured. “If we – broke in after hours, the observatory. Just you and me, the whole thing to ourselves.” He leaned his head on Aremu’s shoulder. “It’d mean just as much to me, I mean, to go there with you on the busiest evening in the Exhibition. But I thought…”

His fingertips crept up the warm plane of Aremu’s chest, finding their way round the muscle, the collarbone. He looked up. “Hell of an idea, huh?” he offered, a little apologetic. “I know it’s a risk, dove; I, uh – I know what I’d be asking of you.”

[Aremu Ediwo]

Late Evening, 38 Loshis, 2720
A Hotel by the Turga, Three Flowers

Tom curled comfortably against him, bare skin settled against bare skin, both of them a little sticky, still, with the dried remnants of the sweat they’d worked up between them, even in the quiet cool dark. It was late enough, and the hotel close enough to the river, that Aremu could hear the faint distant chirping of river bugs or else the birds that hunted them, the bugs rippling in the surface of the water as the swallows dove to catch them.

Tom laughed; Aremu grinned, pressing his lips to the other man’s hair. He couldn’t have said how long Tom must have spent kneading the knots from his back, only that he felt, all of him, loose and relaxed as he hadn’t before – only that he felt, Aremu thought, with more than a slight ache, loved for more than what had passed between them, and even just putting such a thing to words – no matter how many times he’d done it, no matter how many times Tom had tried to show him – ached in some bruised corner of him, deep down along the edges of him.

Aremu listened, and he thought it over. Tom was cuddled against him, his head on Aremu’s shoulder, his long, slender fingers sliding over the skin of his chest, tracing the contours of it. Does it feel different, now? Aremu wanted to ask, at least some part of him. Do I feel different, now? But he couldn’t imagine understanding it, if they did; whether it was really true that the feeling of him changed with another man’s body to feel it, or else whether over these last years, he himself had changed so much; he could have believed either.

There’s no need, Aremu wanted to say, to take such a risk – not for me, my love. He swallowed the words, though they scratched at the depths of his throat, and pounded in his chest. I can’t, he wanted to say, too; I can’t go there with you, Tom, on the busiest evening in the exhibition; didn’t we learn that today? He thought of the Anaxi standing outside, talking and laughing, and felt a surge of tightness in his chest that he thought they’d banished.

After my session, Aremu thought to say, we could try again.

We’ll go back tomorrow, he wanted to offer, in the morning, when you’re free. I’ll grit my teeth – if we hadn’t seen Tsofo, he wanted to say, I think I’d have been able to bear it.

“I want to,” Aremu said; he cleared his throat against a sudden, lingering scratchness, against the ache in his chest. He looked at Tom, aware he was frowning, a little, as he hadn’t been before. He tried to smile, though it was hard against the furrowed ache in his brow.

I shouldn’t be surprised, he wanted to say, to make a liar of myself.

“It wasn’t,” Aremu said, and his voice was tight again; he cleared his throat once more, “it wasn’t that I didn’t want to be seen with you,” he looked down at Tom; he was trembling, a little, and his arms tightened around the other man. “Perhaps it means too much to me that... I wasn’t, and I’m still not, sure how to look at you amidst such things without…” his lips twitched at a little smile.

“I’m afraid all I feel would be written across my face,” Aremu said, quietly, “however hard I try. What’s more I… I don’t want to look at them from behind a mask.” He swallowed again, still holding Tom close; his breath shuddered out, and he found, again, a little of the peace Tom had worked so hard to coax back into him.

“I want to,” Aremu said, slowly, “if we can, risk and all.” He looked back at Tom, a little ghost of a smile clinging to his lips; he bent his head and kissed the other man once more. He was a hypocrite, Aremu thought, but that was scarcely new; he was a liar, Aremu thought, but he’d been a liar all his life, and known it the better part of two decades. I didn’t mean, Aremu wanted to say, to lie; but he didn’t want to drag the conversation away to such things, not here and now, and he thought Tom knew that, by now; he hoped he did.

[Tom Cooke]

A Hotel by the River, Three Flowers

Early Evening on the 38th of Loshis, 2720

I
e didn’t study Aremu’s face; his eyes crept down, though he saw familiar lines working their way into his brow, saw his lips pressing together in a frown. It was a while before either of them spoke. He found the hollow of Aremu’s collarbone with his finger, tracing it and following it down to his sternum. He felt a muscle tighten in his chest.

Damn, he thought. I know how you worry, he wanted to say; don’t worry, don’t think more on it. Me, this, I – dragging round a golly politician in Thul Ka – this evening was supposed to be for you, and I’m moony as a moa with its head on backwards; I have been since the day we met.

I’d be just as pleased, he wanted to say, to spend the night here with you, and the morning too, though we haven’t got a burner for kofi or eggs. I’d sneak down to the kitchen, maybe. He shifted against Aremu, nuzzling closer. I come out to the estate again, he wanted to say, soon, and it’ll be us, if that’s what you want: no fussy politicians, no fear, no eyes in every direction; no assassins this time, I hope. No mad ideas, or at least – well, you know me – at least, only to make you laugh. Just us, just us and the sea, eyo’pili, and I finally get to try your cooking…

I want to, Aremu said softly. That familiar sound, him clearing his throat.

He shifted again, pushing himself up; he looked at Aremu’s face, at the frown that’d settled deep on his lips. Aremu’s voice was tight, and it came in starts and stops. He lay in the crook of his arm and listened, one hand flat on Aremu’s chest, still.

He smiled a little; his brow furrowed. Aremu went on, and he breathed in deeply, nodding. Aremu’s arms had tightened round him, both, and he settled closer, holding on tight. He felt him shaking.

Aremu’s chest rose and fell once under his palm, and he thought the muscles loosened, softened, just a little. He was still tight, even when he kissed him again. His hand slid round to his back, stroking the muscles gently. Aremu’s lips were warm, and nothing like a mask’s. He supposed his were, too.

“I don’t, either,” he sighed when they came away, the taste of him still on his tongue. “I didn’t, back then. I’ve – every moment we’ve spent out in Thul Ka – it’s all precious to me. But this…”

Dangerous, this, he thought again; he thought of Silk. He didn’t say how worried he was that his own face wouldn’t betray him. He knew Aremu understood that, too.

But he sat up a little more, looking in his eyes. He could smell the river from the window, underneath everything else – and the unfamiliar, newly-familiar sounds of insects whispered in to fill the spaces between the words, and the distant calling of boatmen.

He shook his head, blinking down. “I understand,” he said softly. He understood that, at least, if nothing else. He found Aremu’s left hand and bringing its knuckles to his lips.

He squinted down through the lamplit shadows, sucking at his tooth for a long moment. “I was thinking of those trees by the fence, in the courtyard,” he said; “I saw you looking at them. And I know my way round a lock, at least. It’ll have to be deep in the night, so we’ll have time to rest up before then…

“Do you know if it’s guarded?” One hand slid up to Aremu’s shoulder, an almost teasing smile on his face, thumb rubbing the muscle gently.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Late Evening, 38 Loshis, 2720
A Hotel by the Turga, Three Flowers

It was more dangerous, Aremu thought, smiling at Tom, to break into the observatory than it was to risk being seen glancing at one another with love, even in the midst of the crowd. He knew it, and he knew Tom knew it, too; it wasn’t, he thought, aching, about that. It wasn’t about doing the safest thing; it wasn’t about taking the least chances. It was about searching for joy, together.

As, Aremu thought, they had done tonight, too. Tom was still curled against him – just the right size, now, to tuck his slim frame into Aremu’s; for all that Aremu had never minded, before, cuddling into Tom, he liked it now, as it was. He brushed a kiss over the other man’s hair; Tom caught his hand and brought it up to his lips.

“I don’t know,” Aremu said, ruefully. “I never thought to break in,” he grinned at Tom, suddenly, eyes bright. “I’d doubt it; not much at Thul’Amat is. There’d be a greater risk of some researcher making a visit at night, but – I think with it an eight, that shouldn’t be too likely.”

The trees, he thought, remembering the way they’d grown up and through the fence, practically intertwined with it; it was a lovely ambiance, and, as Tom had neatly pointed out, rather undid the fence’s purpose. “It’s good you had some climbing practice earlier,” Aremu said; he grinned, not quite able to help it. There was something mischievous about it all, a sort of whimsy that he couldn’t think when he’d last had.

Of course, he did things he didn’t have to; he did things, Aremu thought, for the enjoyment of them. He climbed, he dove, he swam, he ran; of late, before Thul Ka, he’d been occupying himself with his baking projects, and there was no rationale for those but that of enjoyment. This, he thought, all that aside, felt different; it was the riskiness of it, Aremu thought, an almost boyish sense of mischief, when there had been no tree too high, and no door which was shut, if one wanted through.

Aremu’s stomach interrupted both of their planning, a deep, aching rumble. Aremu laughed, unexpected, and grinned down at Tom. “Maybe some dinner first, as well?” He leaned down and kissed the other man, once more. He lingered in the kiss, because – however hungry he was – he was sorry, too, that to go outside meant to ease apart, to look away, and smile as was polite, and no more.

There was something bittersweet about putting his clothing back on, Aremu thought, for all that he knew they’d be back here soon enough. It wasn’t the sort of redressing that filled one with strange, awkward shame, that was done in quiet, uncertain silence – for all that they were mostly silent, Aremu thought, as they dressed. He reached out and smoothed Tom’s amel’iwe, his hand lingering on the other man’s chest, more because he could than because the fabric needed it; he smiled at the other man.

Thank you, Aremu wanted to say, the words tight in the center of his chest. He didn’t, though he thought perhaps he should, but he couldn’t, quite, until he knew how to finish the sentence. Thank you, he wanted to say, for planning all this; thank you for letting me cry without shame, and holding me through it; thank you for listening, earlier, to what I had to say; thank you for massaging my back.

Thank you, he wanted to say, for caring.

“I love you,” Aremu said, quietly, instead, again, and he leaned to kiss Tom once more. The last, he scolded himself, because his stomach was grumbling again, not so quiet as it might have been.

[Tom Cooke]

Riverside in the Three Flowers

Evening on the 38th of Loshis, 2720

H
e knew that spark in Aremu’s eye; he knew the grin, too. Whatever was turning in his own head was turning in the engineer’s now – and, he thought, would keep on turning. So he nodded, already grinning himself, daring to begin piecing it together.

He felt the koketa-wing rumbling underneath his fingertips. It was when Aremu laughed that he laughed, surprised.

Always hungry, he thought, leaning into the kiss, fingertips curling into Aremu’s hair. He could feel Aremu’s arm against his back, muscles tightening; his other hand was flat against the warm skin of his chest. When he broke away, he almost didn’t want to let go. Always hungry, he thought, and he wanted to bury his face in Aremu’s chest. To memorize the scent of him and the sound of his breath and the thrum of his heartbeat – again with that clawing fear of losing, of forgetting, of…

But Aremu was up in time, and him too, slower, testing his feet against the cool hardwood floor. Which climbing practice, he wanted to ask, wry. He almost groaned as he got to his feet; it seemed to him he could feel himself creak. He got glimpses of Aremu limned by the flickering warm lamp, settling the straps across his skin again and buckling the harness, pulling the soft tan linen of his shirt on. Once, he watched, unabashedly admiring.

He felt sheepish, picking his shirt and trousers up off the floor, finding his amel’iwe where they’d left it in the tangle of bedsheets. Sheepish, but not ashamed; he caught Aremu’s eye only once, warmth prickling in his cheeks.

He smiled finally when Aremu smoothed the length of scarf against his chest, long fingers lingering.

Aremu caught him with a last kiss before he could say the words back. He cupped Aremu’s cheek, standing up on his toes; he wrapped him up in an embrace, sighing against the warm folds of his scarf. “I love you,” he murmured into it, wondering at the growing ease of the words.

The grumble of Aremu’s stomach against him made him grin, and he felt a little lighter breaking away. Thank you, he wanted to say, for – for what? For humoring my moony ideas? For understanding? For handling me gentle, but like a man all the same? For letting me in? For love?

“Come,” he said out in the quiet of the hall, after he’d put out the oil lamp and gone; he fumbled the key from his satchel and it rattled in the lock.

It was dark, and the paint was a glossy swirl in the moonlight. Clear night skies, clear as they’d been during the day; he could see little of the sky out the window, still, for the spread of lights below, out over the Turga and beyond. The bugs were louder now, and other things croaked and whooped in the night. Music drifted from somewhere, a muffled drumbeat, though nowhere close to Tsuh’aqay.

Down the stairs, their feet were the only sound. He tackled them slow, holding to the railing. “It’s a quiet place, almost on the water,” he said, grinning back anyway. “Ipaq’tsa Úpe,” he pronounced carefully. “Ada’xa Dzid’oz and his son are from Mere Tautho, I’m told. I haven’t been yet; I wanted to see what you thought of it.”

Damn me, he thought despite himself, pushing open the door to the narrow alleyway. He tried not to seem winded; he wasn’t, he thought – not as much as he’d been once, on the isles – he’d walked a great deal since then, even just since coming to Mugroba, and learned a great deal more about his limits and where they lay.

The water lapped at Tsuh’aqay, but now a step or two lower than it had been. Light rippled over the water. “Have I ever told you about the first place I broke into? When I was a lad,” he said, stepping out onto the mottled stones, looking back at Aremu with another smile. “I was no professional, but it kept me afloat awhile.”

[Aremu Ediwo]

Late Evening, 38 Loshis, 2720
Riverside, Three Flowers

Aremu had glanced up and seen Tom watching him, once, as he’d put his clothing on. Forget about food, he’d wanted to say, suddenly; forget about all of it. He’d wanted to kiss him again, then - to lie curled in the other man’s arms a little longer, the two of them apart from the world, nothing to hide or show to all the rest.

He didn’t want again, or if he did it wasn’t that sort of wanting; he wanted to hold and to be held, to have nothing between him and the other man. For all the tenderness and caring he could put into words, there was that still he did not know how to show but with his hands and his lips, but with the warmth and strength of his arms. There was that which he did not know how to hear, either, he thought, not with his ears alone.

He was hungry, though, deeply, genuinely hungry in a way he hadn’t expected after their full lunch. If they meant to stay up - or to be up - late, Aremu thought, it would be best to eat. Of late he had thought perhaps it had a bad effect on his mood, when he went too long without eating.

He’d wanted not to put the hand back on; he nearly hadn’t, thinking - but he didn’t want to be caught unprepared, and he didn’t, either, want to leave it in a hotel he’d never been to before. It was a precious thing, not so easy to replace; irreplaceable, in that it had been a gift from Uzoji. In its lighter moments he could be grateful for that, that he had a tangible reminder of the other man’s goodness to carry at his wrist.

They went out into the dark hallway, back past the doors which hinted only at the colors which had been so vivid hours ago. They went down the stairs, Tom with one pale hand on the railing and Aremu following behind him, what light there was gleaming in the tan folds of his clothing, though not so brightly as against the white of Tom’s.

It might, some part of Aremu wanted to say, warning, be best if we go in dark clothing. He didn’t think it wise; he wasn’t sure where the feeling came from, not quite. It was right for Tom to wear white, as it was for any galdor. If anyone was close enough that the clothing in the moonlight should give them away, it would already be too late, and Thul’Amat was exposed enough that a flash of white clothing was unlikely to be a problem.

We could go, Aremu wanted to say, fumble fingered and eager, when Tom looked back up at him. He smiled, though he didn’t say it, in the end. If you come, some part of him wanted to say. Please, said the rest; please, Tom, say you’ll come.

Yet, he thought a moment later; I haven’t been yet. To Ipaq’tsa Úpe, he realized, with no small pinch of disappointment.

“No,” Aremu said, stepping forward to catch the door. He was smiling; he was still smiling, and it was easy. He wasn’t sure what was in the smile, what Tom - what anyone - could see in the softness of his look at the other man.

“What sort of place was it?” Aremu asked, following Tom out of the narrow alleyway, along the street; the river still lapped at the edges of it, and spilled wide into the dark; distant lights were thick on the other side.

He knew more of Tom’s boyhood than he had once, some which had been spoken and some unspoken. He wanted, Aremu thought, to know more; he wanted every bit of Tom which the other man could share and which he could hold, the good, the bad, the strange, the painful, the joyous. Maybe that, too, was love; it felt selfish, Aremu thought, and so he didn’t like to ask; all the same, he hadn’t quite hidden the eagerness in his voice, the gladness that Tom had brought it up.

Aremu’s shoulder brushed against the other man’s as he came to walk beside him down the street, following him into the dark.

[Tom Cooke]

Riverside in the Three Flowers

Evening on the 38th of Loshis, 2720

I
t was – on the shinier end of Lionshead, I think,” he said, “but it might’ve been closer to the Court… Well, we didn’t call it the Court then.”

Aremu joined him on the walk. There was a breeze whispering up off the water, enough to raise leiraflesh on his skin. The brush of Aremu’s shoulder was warm through linen, and he smiled over, just long enough to see the scattering of lights over the water cast his profile cool and dark.

No, he’d said, and Tom wasn’t sure he’d expected him to go on. He might’ve told him anyway, just because he wanted to talk, and he didn’t think Aremu minded. The question, when it came, surprised him; perhaps it shouldn’t’ve, by now. He smiled all the same, because he heard an edge of curiosity in Aremu’s voice that wasn’t quite teasing, and he felt more of that dangerous warmth bubbling up inside him.

Aremu was still smiling, a hint of a thing about his lips, soft. Maybe he should’ve been worried; he didn’t know. It’s like this, isn’t it, he thought, weighing what’s safe and what you can bear? He felt a pang. What you have to do to be safe, he thought, and what you just can’t live with doing.

They were alone here, at least, and would be for a while. He had the path mapped out in his head, even if he couldn’t’ve given you directions by word of mouth, or drawn it out. He remembered it; he remembered the little alleyway they passed then, from which a threadbare shadow of a cat had skittered when he’d first gone to check out the hotel. He remembered the buoy bobbing out on the water. He knew where they’d turn onto another street, no less quiet, and where they’d finally break out onto the docks, where ada’xa Dzid’oz’s shack was.

He breathed in the smell of the river, let out his breath with a puff. “I was twelve, thirteen maw, maybe. I fell in with a group of lads that ran in Sharkswell – older than me, but not by much. I wonder now none of us got caught,” he sighed. “It was a merchant; a golly in the tea business, I think. It was the first big house I’d ever seen the inside of.

“Not much of it, mind. One of the lads sent me in while they kept watch. Picked the lock on the servants’ door, snuck in through the kitchens. But then I got this –” He laughed softly. “It was a test; I was just supposed to lift whatever I could and get out. But I got this glimpse of the dining room, all beautiful wood paneling, and then – I suppose it was a sitting room, with the most beautiful tapestry I’d ever seen. Some kind of hunting scene, but with Naulas the stag and Roa astride him, fleeing.”

They passed another wall marked with water levels, this one with a scrawl of Mugrobi he couldn’t read; it looked to him almost like verse. He remembered it and turned, letting his arm brush Aremu’s again.

“A maid caught me. It could’ve been bad, but it wasn’t. She let me go, and I was hiding a candlestick and some silverware under my coat; she must’ve heard it jangling. I wasn’t good at thieving, if you can believe it. I was already – well, I wasn’t a small lad, by then.” Noise leaked down the alleyway, and they were getting closer. “We woke up the dog on the way out. I wasn’t very fast at that age, either. Maybe you remember that scar.” He smiled, coy.

He looked over once, curious. At that age – he tried to imagine Aremu in the Turtle, or after. Preparatory schools, he remembered, and Uzoji. But – he wondered about a lad who knew his way round these parts of Thul Ka so well. It couldn’t’ve been easy, could it? he thought, studying Aremu’s face, glancing away as they broke out into Iz’tsasú street, and the creaking of the docks and the calling of the seabirds.

He eased apart a little more now. There was no Estuan on the sign; it was painted in Mugrobi, in a swirl of blue and red. The wooden doors stood open, and steam and light drifted out. It wasn’t much bigger than Tsoya’tezuq, and what tables there were were makeshift, set out and put away as needed.

There was a scattered crowd, mostly tired-looking duri, but laughter enough; folk sat and ate on the docks, on posts or out on the pier. A couple of tiny boats were moored nearby, bobbing on the gleaming water.

A young man in Muluku dress was carrying out a steaming metal tray; he caught Tom's eye, looking surprised, and vaguely confused, when he waved. “I smell curry,” he said, grinning, as the lad darted back in.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Late Evening, 38 Loshis, 2720
Riverside, Three Flowers

Aremu listened, marking the words in his memory, trying to imagine the Tom he’d known as a boy. It should, he thought, have been easier now, now that he’d come to understand that Tom was more than just the shape he held; perhaps he, and all men who knew of the cycle, should have always known it, but there was knowing and knowing.

Did you have a beard, then? Already? He wanted to ask, thinking of the thick dark hair that had swaddled Tom’s jaw, that had hidden bruises, sometimes, and the sharp, stubborn set of it – remembering, strangely, the prickling of it against his fingers as Aremu drew them through, thinking of other ways they’d fit together, a long time ago.

He didn’t, because Tom was already finding the rhythm of the story, and he didn’t want to interrupt. Maw, Tom said, thoughtfully, nostalgic, though his accent didn’t drop back into the brogue of the Rose, but held, instead, Uptown precise. Aremu thought of it, and then went back to his listening, as they walked down along the river.

“At least the picking of the lock went well,” Aremu said, with a little grin at the other man. It wasn’t, he thought, the most auspicious story to tell before they meant to break into the observatory. He was smiling, though; he couldn’t quite help it, not with the warmth of rememberance in Tom’s voice, and the cheerful delivery of such things.

They turned, out, onto one of the docks that ran along it, damp with spray and swell, but not underwater, not today.

Aremu weighed the thought of words, slow and careful. Tom, he told himself, hadn’t asked. He thought he was past being able to pretend that the other man didn’t care, and perhaps it had never been easier to do so, in the end, not really. So, Aremu thought – so. Twelve, he thought, or thirteen.

“I was about that old,” Aremu said, “the first time I put a piston ring in an engine.” He glanced up at Tom, half-waiting for something; his tongue ran over his lips. There was a gleam of a smile on the other man’s lips – enough, Aremu thought, finding it catch on his lips. Enough.

“It wasn’t the first engine I’d seen,” Aremu said, ruefully, “or even the first one I’d touched.” His left hand tightened, reflexively, and then relaxed again. “But it had been a few years, then, in which I’d had only dreams, and thought there was nothing left to feed them, and no hope of more. There was a weekend program, at our preparatory school, meant for boys who wanted to be pilots, engineers or scientists. I wasn’t…” he shifted, a little, the boards creaking beneath his feet.

The lad came back out empty-handed, glancing between them, uncertain, and then dashed away once more; there was a quick burst of Mugrobi from inside, little more than sound over the background.


“We should sit,” Aremu said, glancing at Tom. There were a handful of stools around a yellow-painted table, bright amidst the peeling and rust; Aremu sat on the edge of one, adjusting his amel’iwe over his shoulders.

“Uzoji and I went together,” Aremu said, with a little smile playing over the edge of his lips. “The instructor brought this enormous engine over, wrapped up in metal, and showed up a piston ring and asked if any of us knew what it was. I said I did, and they all laughed,” Aremu’s jaw tightened; a muscle jumped at the edge of it. He smiled, ruefully; he swallowed through it.

“I said I know what it was,” Aremu went on, a little sheepishness creeping into his voice, “that it was a piston ring, and I could put it back where it went, if he’d fetch me a footstool. I wasn’t, uh, tall enough to see over the edge, you see. Well – with the footstool I could only just see, and I…”

The boy came back, standing just at the edge of the pale lantern light circle pooling against the wood of the dock. “You… eat… sir?” He asked in halting Estuan.