om’s head throbbed. Some of it all’d sloughed off, when they’d passed the threshold; he thought it’d fallen off Aremu, too, leastways that which’d been caused by the streets and their people, and not him.
He didn’t look back at the imbala, as he busied himself about the stove and the tea. Incense smells – different smells – sage and patchouli clung about the kitchen counters, about hama’s burners here and there, and the sticks and blocks stacked neat in one corner. Mint, too, when he took the lid off the tin, fresh-ground from a few days ago. The woodsmoke smell of the stove mingled with all this.
He watched the other man still in the corner of his eye, relieved somehow when he came into the tiny kitchen after all. He knew better than to look, but he kept him there, scared if he looked maybe he’d find him gone. He dug the pina metal spoon into the leaves, scooping out spoonful and then spoonful into the old teapot.
Aremu’d eased into one of the chairs, and he noticed he sat a little gingerly. They’d said nothing, the two of them; he’d thought there was more to say, before goodbye, but maybe there wasn’t. Or maybe it was on him to break the silence, and Aremu’d misjudged the sort of man he was – not the sort of man you talk to, in the end.
He took out his matches in the meantime, lighting one and lighting the candles that sat along the kitchen window. The window was open, and they wavered and bowed.
Still didn’t look at Aremu. There’s a story, he half-wanted to say; maybe he’d’ve said it, if he were a smarter kind of man, if he were Aremu’s kind of man. There’s an old spoke story – there was a man, and Naulas’d taken his lover, and he’d gone to find her; and because she wasn’t supposed to die yet, the good god told him he could lead her out of the antelife, so long as he didn’t look back to make sure she was still following him.
Wasn’t sure why he thought of it. It was hot. He wanted to take off this rumpled, dirty shirt and all the shit it’d seen tonight; he thought he was too tired by half to pull it over his head, or else grapple with all the buttons.
When he sat down with the tea, and sat himself down, he found Aremu’s hand on his. There was no lightning to this, no building, tingling charge; it brought a smile to his face, hesitant, and he wasn’t sure whether to turn his hand and hold it.
Pina smile on Aremu’s face, he thought; he knew that face too well, now, to think it was a trick of the wavering light over the curl of his lips. The imbala moved, and his shadow moved too, whispering over the scars on the table. He brought himself closer – close, fair close, ‘til Tom could smell the scent of him, and feel the weight of him settling in his lap, and his face was a blur and the soft press of lips at the edge of his beard, where the aching was the worst.
No wanting left in him. He ached through; he was tender and tired where he should’ve wanted, and he wasn’t sure what he’d do, if he felt fingers – even those fingers – at his belt, or sliding below it. This, then, he thought, this is how you want me, and he hesitated, and he couldn’t seem to bring himself to kiss Aremu’s brow, not even when he felt the lips at the stinging welt on his shoulder and the fingers working at his buttons.
It was a relief to have off with the shirt, though, and have gentle help getting his arms out of it. Steam whisked up from the mint tea; he breathed it in deep, wincing at a twinge in his ribs, then relaxing and easing back when Aremu found that bruise. He thought he felt the gentle brush of fingers at its edge, too, at the strained and sore muscles of his side. Aremu went slow, and easy, and he was achingly grateful.
He shut his eyes. He didn’t want him to go, though he knew he had to. If he had to, one more time – he didn’t know he could.
He felt the husk of a bandage against his skin. He found Aremu’s hand with his, opening his eyes; he shifted, sitting up a pina where he’d eased back, he wasn’t sure how long ago. “Aremu,” he said.
His voice sounded like a stranger’s, hoarse.
Epaemo, he wanted to say, I don’t know I can give you what you want. “We’ve some junia for it,” he went on instead, rasping, stroking his thumb over the dirty crease of the bandage. “An’ fresh gauze, if…” If you’ll stay for that long. He felt a liar; he knew he wouldn’t be able to give him what he wanted, now or at the end of a hundred junia leaves.