All material on this site, except where otherwise explicitly stated, is copyright of the author known as Ann Somerville. All art, except where otherwise explicitly stated, is copyright of the artist known as Kiriko Moth

  Second thoughts

Copyright © 2007 Ann Somerville

Dek comes awake in the pitch darkness, his heartbeat rising, his fingers curling into instinctive fists, unable to place where he is and who he’s with. It panics him, for just a second, then it comes back to him, and he puts his hand on the angular, masculine hip rising beside him. Ren.

He buries his nose into Ren’s nape, kisses the fine skin under the hairline and inhales the warmth rising from it, like he can somehow inhale the essence of Ren himself. Twenty-four hours ago, he’d not even hoped for this, and now....

He should be happy, and he is. Something eased in him tonight that he didn’t even have a name for, but which had been an ache all the same, making him unsettled, even discontented, from time to time. That’s all gone as if it had never been.

But now something else has come to trouble him, something that’s making his mind race and sleep elude him, and in the end, it’s too much for him to deal with on his back and in his bed. Years of training in stealth haven’t deserted him, bum leg or no bum leg, and he rises silently, glad he tidied up Ren’s hastily, eagerly shed clothes before they’d finally turned out the light, or he’d be tripping in the dark. He finds his trousers by feel, and pads quietly into the bathroom to pull them on, the wood floor warm and welcoming under his feet. He turns on the light over the mirror and drinks some water from the tap, before standing up, water drops still sparkling in his dark beard. His reflection under the white bulb is cold and unflattering, showing starkly that he’s too old and battered for the magnificent man lying in his bed. Ren’s scarred too, and his eyes show all the pain that was so much more exposed in his expression five years ago, but at forty, with his weight back and no longer being drained by a foetus and mistreatment, he looks ten years younger. All the promise of handsomeness that Dek suspected would come with better health, has been realised, while Dek’s only got more grey and lined and wiry. He’s still pretty damn fit, but he could pass for Ren’s Da. He scrubs his fingers through his winter beard, and resists a silly urge to shave, though it’s something he should do soon. Ren will have a hell of a whisker burn in the morning.

He shakes his head in disgust at his self-indulgent maundering and snaps off the light, using the small safety lamp in the living room to guide his steps out to the armchair by the heater. The heater’s only on trickle, but the room would be warm enough if he was properly clothed – he keeps it cool while he sleeps because he believes it’s healthier, but he’s not a masochist about it. He wishes the real fire was lit but of course it won’t be, not in the middle of the night, unexpected visitors regardless. He feels the need for...comfort...which is stupid because all he has to do for that is stay in bed with Ren, give him a nudge and then he’d have more arms and body warmth than he can handle, most likely. Ren loves to cuddle. Even on the trail, when they were almost enemies at times, he couldn’t help himself. It did Dek good then, and he’s hungry for it now, starving for it, almost. What he doesn’t know is whether that generous comfort and the contact will be enough, if he gives up everything else for Ren.

He pulls the knitted blanket off the back of the chair and wraps it around his bare shoulders, clutching it tight in his fist. It’s finest undyed lemel wool, cream and whisper soft, so warm they use it in hospitals for hypothermia victims. Lomare’s mother made it and gave it to her daughter on her seventeenth birthday. Before they were married, when they were still sharing her single bed and her parents pretended not to know what was going on in their house, Dek and Lomare made love under it more times than Dek can remember, Lomare muffling her squeaks and giggles and stuffing her hand into Dek’s mouth as he came. After they were officially betrothed and they got their own grown-up double bed, her mother made her another, larger blanket as a wedding gift, with the instruction that when it was worn out, she’d make another for them. They never did wear it out, with one thing and another. It’s still on Dek’s bed, as soft and clean and warm as it was the day Lomare’s mother had handed it to her blushing daughter – Ren’s asleep under it right now.

He doesn’t very often use this smaller one, though he nearly always strokes his hand along it as he passes through the living room, just because he loves the feel, and the memories. It’s something that should be shared, wrapped around two pairs of shoulders in front of a roaring fire. He rubs his bearded cheek against the wood-smoke-scented wool, and thinks of his love. His first love, but, much to his surprise, not his last one. Didn’t see that coming, did we, darling? Lomare would never begrudge him a second chance, and he has no thought that he’s betraying her or anything of that sort. He’d never made any stupid promises like some widowers he’s met. Never knelt on her grave and swore there would never be another to take her place. But he never thought there would be, all the same. Not living up here, all alone.

But he won’t be up here or alone for much longer, and that’s what’s making it impossible to sleep. He doesn’t know how he can walk away from this house, this land, this astonishing, dangerous, beautiful place, that’s become a second spouse in a way. Become friend and comfort and occupation, a way of forcing him to look after himself, come to ease the emptiness in his heart that losing Lomare had created. But it was all illusion. When Ren came crashing into his life, Dek had been forced to realise the void had been there all along, still yawning and unbridgeable, and all he’d done was fill the emptiness with more of the same.

The empty fire place and the need for distraction tempts him, and finally he gives in. The blanket still around him, he crouches down and begins the familiar ritual of laying it – the grass tinder, the smaller pieces of wood laid neatly in a circular pattern, a couple of small logs to be getting on with. He watches the tinder catch as he sets his match to it, the flames licking the pale wood chips, the white smoke and cosy scent rising, the crack of expanding sap sharp and gunshot loud in the darkness. He sits back in the armchair, letting the ever-changing, ever-repeating pattern of light and shadow, flame and coals, mesmerise him, hoping it’ll ease his anxiety enough for him to get back to sleep.

A footfall on wooden flooring – quiet, unexpected – makes him snap upright, automatically reaching for a weapon that’s nowhere near him. “Easy – only me,” Ren whispers.

Dek’s breathing still jerks fast and painfully, and he can do nothing about the beating of his heart, but he relaxes again, manages not to jump as two big hands settle on his shoulders, gently massaging through the wool. “Wake you up?”

“Yes. You weren’t there. I got worried.” Ren bends and kisses the top of his head. “You all right?”

“Sure.”

“Liar.” His shoulders are released, and Ren moves in front of him, settling down between Dek’s legs, sitting on the gekel hide rug, facing the fire. Like Dek, he’s bare-chested, and without stopping to ask, Dek drags the blanket down so it’s around Ren’s shoulders too, like a little tent. Their own warm world, here in the middle of nowhere. Ren tugs it tighter around himself. “Mmmm, thank you. Nice blanket. Did you make it?”

His voice ensnared in his throat, Dek shakes his head, forgetting Ren can’t see it, But Ren doesn’t need words with his talent. He twists and looks up, his eyes dark and wide in the firelight, then he kisses Dek’s hand, and leans back solidly against Dek’s leg in silent understanding. He probably thinks Lomare made the blanket. The difference isn’t important.

They sit like that for a while, Dek’s arms resting lightly around Ren’s neck. It’s still astonishing, miraculous, to have him here to touch, to hold, feel the warmth of against Dek’s leg, his body, and yet, for five years before this night, Dek had never let himself want it at all. Bad enough to miss Lomare’s touches, without missing Ren’s too. Strange that he still misses Lomare’s hands, even in the miracle of having Ren’s upon him. And that’s part of what’s making him afraid, because if he can still miss her with Ren here and no hope of her ever coming back, how will he feel about losing his home when he’ll know he could come back if he wanted to?

“Is it something I can help you with, or is it something you need to work out on your own? Because you don’t have to do it on your own. Not any more.” Ren’s voice is soft, respectful of the quiet and the darkness, and of his own gloomy thoughts.

“I...don’t think I can go, Ren.”

Ren nods, his hand resting carefully on Dek’s foot, squeezing it a little as if to confirm it’s not by accident his hand is there. Dek entangles his fingers in the long tail of hair hanging down Ren’s back. It’s fine and smooth, almost like a woman’s, but there’s so much of it. If Dek were to weave it, maybe he could make a blanket even softer than the one around them. “I knew it was a big thing to ask. To tell the truth, I was sure you’d say no.”

“So you’re not disappointed?”

“I didn’t say that. I didn’t say I was done trying to convince you either. But it’s a choice that has to be yours entirely. I know what it’s like to have my life destroyed, my home taken from me, to lose all that I loved and valued and that was familiar to me. I’d never do that to you.”

Dek’s fingers tighten in Ren’s hair. Somehow putting it into words makes it seem even less likely, more impossible that he could leave. But there’s Ren, right here, under his hands...and Ren can’t stay. He has a child, a precious second chance, like he’s Dek’s second chance. But Ren’s daughter can’t survive without him, and Dek certainly can.

They would take his memories, Ren said. Dek would never know what he’d lost, just as he’d had no knowledge of how his letters and gifts were getting to Ren, until Ren had explained. Ren wouldn’t be a regret, a sorrowful wound like Lomare. Ren would never have existed so far as Dek was concerned. “I knew something was wrong,” he says, as if Ren can know what he’s been thinking about. “They blocked my memories, but I knew something was missing. I could feel the hole.”

“It wouldn’t be like that this time,” Ren says, no emotion colouring his voice. “That was because I asked – begged – them not to take them permanently. If they erase them, you won’t feel a thing. I...wanted to be sure I understood the process.”

“So you’d know what would happen to me if I chose that?”

Ren twists around to look at him. “No – if I did.” He rubs his cheek against Dek’s hand. “I tried...I really did try, I swear it...to convince myself that Misa would be all right with Jinase. Jinase considers her a daughter same as I do.”

“Is she?”

Ren turns back towards the fire. “No. We did the testing because it’s important we know that, for Misa’s sake. But it’d make no difference to her anyway. Misa calls her ‘auntie Jin’ but Jinase’s the only mother she’ll ever have, no matter what happens to me. I couldn’t do that to Jinase. We’ve sewn it all up tight legally. If I stay up here, she’ll get everything I’ve saved, the house we bought together, and custody of Misawenu. And I...would never know. I would forget them both, all of it.”

Dek’s fingers curl in sympathy at the pain in Ren’s voice. “And have to start from scratch again.”

“I guess. If you threw me out, I’d be fucked.” He makes a sounds like a laugh, only it’s not. “But hell, not the first time, right?”

Dek bends and lays his face against the top of Ren’s head, warm strands of hair against his skin. “No. I won’t let you do that. Won’t let you wreck three lives for me. No one’s worth that.”

“You come fucking close to it, Dek,” Ren says, voice tight and not joking in the least. “But I couldn’t convince myself to do it. They need me. Jinase needs me. I need her, I need Misa. You...you I only want. Want like air to breathe, but....” His hand squeezes Dek’s foot again. “I know how much your home means to you.”

No, you don’t, Dek thinks. He probably can’t. Ren’s a people person – he sees the world in terms of who he knows, who he loves, the relationships between those he cares about. Dek’s always measured himself against the landscape, always needed to know where he fit in the universe, needed to be able to touch the earth and see the sky. He’s rooted here like one of those big old trees out back, all gnarled and immovable. He doesn’t need people to live, the way Ren does. But like Ren, he wants. He’s only wanted two things this bad in his life before and both of them were connected to Lomare. “If I give it up and things go bad, I’ll have nothing. It could go bad. I don’t get on with people.”

“You do, you know. I saw you in that camp, and even with the people we met on the trail. You’re not charming or easy, but people respond to you. They respond to your honesty. And you’re not as crazy as you think you are, or even as crazy as you used to be.”

The fire cracks as a lump of wood burns through with a splatter of gold-white sparks. Ren leans forward, fetches a couple of logs from the basket and lays them careful across the flames. Dek nearly tells him not to waste the fuel but there’s a whole forest at Dek’s back door and if he’s going to move south, then it doesn’t matter anyway. “This is my home.”

“Yes, and you love it. It’s right that you do.”

Ren’s voice is still flat, calm, like they’re discussing if he wants toast or porridge for breakfast, and not plans for the rest of their lives. Dek, perversely, wishes Ren would fight harder to get him to change his mind. Maybe that’d make Dek mad enough not to want him any more – unlikely, but better that than being tugged equally hard in two directions. “Do they have to take all the memories? Could they leave me...with this? You being here these few days?”

“I could ask them. But...won’t that hurt you? I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Lived with worse. You think I regret a second of my life with Lomare just because she’s gone?”

Ren turns around, the pale blanket sliding off paler shoulders. He leans up into Dek’s face, and his eyes are shining, his nostrils flaring as if he’s forcing back some strong emotion. His fingers dig into Dek’s thigh, painfully, truthfully. “Are you trying to break me?” he whispers, the words harsh as his breathing. “Damn you, you expect me to leave you, knowing you remember this, knowing you’ll be alone?”

“They don’t have the right to take it off me. They can protect themselves without it, but I want something left. I want it to be real.”

Ren bends down, kneeling back slowly. He puts his head in Dek’s lap, his arms going tight around Dek’s waist, his shoulders bunching as if he’s clenching his fists. His breath is hot against Dek’s crotch, through his trousers, and it would be arousing if it weren’t for the desperate little sounds he’s making. Dek strokes Ren’s back, and refuses to cry. He doesn’t want to spend this time, this precious time, weeping, but it still aches like a knife wound, and they have to be honest with each other now because there won’t be a chance later. He wants his memories to be truthful, wants them to be real, even if it’s agony.

He drags the blanket around Ren again, and pets him as much for Dek’s own comfort as Ren’s. Why does it have to be this way? Why does he have to be this way? Because it’s him who’s the problem. Just him and his stupid broken brain, and his lack of courage. Surely they could.... “Uh....”

Ren lifts his head. “What?” he asks, his voice all throaty and clogged. Dek runs his thumb carefully down Ren’s damp cheek.

“Could they maybe...let me...uh...visit? Try it out?”

Ren’s expression changes instantly, eyes and smile wide. “Yes. Yes, of course.” The relief in his voice is painful to hear. “Dek, I know how big a deal this is. I told them that when I was trying to convince them to let me bring Jinase and Misa with me.”

Dek shakes his head. “You don’t want to do that. People were sniffing around. Too dangerous.”

“Yeah, they pointed that out. They’re not cruel, Dek. Just cautious. But of course you could come and see if you like it.”

“And if I don’t, they’ll....” Dek swipes his hand across his face.

“Yes. They’d have to,” Ren says regretfully. “They might let you...but no, I can’t let you. Dek, I don’t want you grieving for me.”

“Don’t want not to remember you,” Dek insists. “Anyway...been through worse than losing you.”

There’s the slightest tightening of Ren’s mouth as he nods. “Yes, I know.”

Dek cups Ren’s chin, forces him to look up. “That’s not saying you’re not important. I’m saying I’ve been through some bad shit, survived it.”

Ren blinks slowly at him, his mouth still tight. “Yes. I know. It’s the idea of adding to that which I can’t bear.” He reaches up and touches Dek’s chest over his heart. “Empaths don’t remember hair colour or height or weight – we look at a person’s emotional ‘sound’, the feel of them. Your distinguishing characteristics are your courage and your pain. I can’t ignore the one and I won’t increase the other.” He climbs to his feet, his movements slow like he’s exhausted. “I shouldn’t have come. You were at peace, now you’re not.”

It’s true, but that doesn’t mean Ren shouldn’t have come. Dek shrugs the blanket off his shoulders and gets up, faces Ren as he takes his cold hands. “We can talk about it some more later.”

Ren’s mouth lifts a little, despite the lurking sadness in his eyes. “Now those are words I never expected to hear from your lips. Dek – this has to be your decision completely.”

“It will be. Come back to bed,” he insists, tugging on Ren’s hand.

“The fire?”

“It’s fine.”

Ren stops and picks up the little blanket, folds it carefully and puts it back on the armchair. Dek watches him, says nothing. Ren straightens up. “Made with love?”

“Used with love.” He takes Ren’s hand and leads him back into the bedroom, turns on the bedside light because he’s not had his fill of looking, and neither of them are sleepy. Ren stands in front of him, and Dek strips his trousers from him, running his hands down warm hairless skin, lean hips and long, long legs.

Ren kicks the trousers away and when Dek goes to pick them up, he grips Dek’s arm to stop him. “My turn,” he says in a husky voice, and his fingers deftly unbutton and unzip, sliding the trousers down before he takes hold of Dek’s cock in one broad, long-fingered hand. Dek thrusts hard against the grip, pressing determinedly against Ren’s body because he doesn’t need to be careful any more about hurting him. Ren’s whole and healed and strong now, and Dek’s always liked big guys who can match him toe to toe, hip to hip. He grinds against Ren’s hand as Ren pushes back, holding his shoulder in a painful grip, fingers digging deep, more like they’re fighting than fucking. “What do you want?” Ren whispers, and it’s more like a growl, his voice’s gone so deep.

“You.”

Ren’s eyes narrow and suddenly he shoves Dek backward. As Dek trips over the trousers around his ankles, Ren’s already there, lowering him to the bed, kicking the trousers away, and then lying on top of Dek, making it clear who’s in charge, one hand caging his head, fingers curling and firm. His erection’s digging hard into Dek’s hip and he thrusts against him, tight against Dek’s belly, as Dek grips Ren’s buttocks and squeezes. He’s trying to get a knee in between those massive thighs, trying to use his leg to rub Ren’s cock, and with all the struggle and tussle, there’s some really nice friction going for both of them. Ren’s grinning at him like that fucking kildit, baring his teeth with his shadowed eyes devilish and weird. Dek arches his throat back and Ren attacks, teeth and lips, sucking under his jaw, on the hollow of his throat , biting and nipping hard enough to hurt, while those hands of his press Dek down into the mattress and his body moves above him like he’s on oiled springs, smooth skin and rasping pubic hair and big, big cock sliding and pushing and demanding on his stomach and his hip as Dek fights him and tries to push back just as hard, though he’s at a disadvantage and never more glad to be.

Dek’s come once tonight so he’s a little surprised he doesn’t last longer than he does, but it’s been a while for both of them, so Ren told him earlier, and sooner than he’s hoping, he comes in scalding spits against Ren’s hot skin. A few seconds later, Ren grunts and grips his neck in a bite that’s near to breaking the skin, while his back arches and he spends with his head thrown back and his eyes squeezed shut. Dek sticks his nose under Ren’s jaw and inhales hard, smelling sweat and semen and smoke. Damn, it’s been too long.

He holds on tight until the last tremors fade, then he pulls Ren’s face towards him and kisses him with all the gentleness that was missing from that little bout of rutting. Ren smiles against his lips, his body now limp and heavy over him, like a thick and valuable pelt smoked and cured to butter softness. “Mmmm, nice,” Ren murmurs, lazily thrusting a couple of times, slickness between them that’ll be sticky and messy in a bit, but not yet.

“It’ll do,” Dek allows and Ren chuckles. “Hey – how did you even know I was bisexual?”

Ren shakes his head, as if Dek’s a little slow. “If you were straight, you’d have knocked me down with all the touching I was doing. Besides, empath, you know?”

“Huh,” Dek says, sceptically. “I never jerked off thinking about you.” But that’s mostly because he hardly jerks off at all. He got out of the habit when he left the army and his source of occasional, willing sex partners disappeared.

“I did,” Ren whispers, low and dirty against his cheek. Dek’s cock twitches wearily, willing but incapable. “You’re a fine looking man.”

“But my brother’s cuter.”

“He had his moments, but I don’t jerk off thinking about Tik.”

Dek brushes away a long red strand of sweaty hair, tucks it behind Ren’s ears. “You been seeing anyone? It’s been five years.”

Ren groans a little and rolls off, lies flat on his back with his arm over his eyes. Dek fetches his handkerchief from the side table and wipes them both off, before wrapping himself along Ren’s body, his arm slung over Ren’s flat, scarred stomach. Hard to remember now, what it looked like all that time ago, or that this man, incredibly, has given birth to a living child. “I wasn’t up to it for ages – not physically or mentally. I could just about bear Jinase or Misa touching me, but anyone else, I pushed away.”

Dek strokes one of Ren’s pale nipples – they’ve gone flat too. He’s glad of that because they looked kind of funny while he was pregnant. “But?”

“But...my contact – my mentor, if you like – in the Elected, the guy who’s helped me work through some stuff along with their psychs. He’s a telepath, minor talent, but really clever. We became friends. We fuck sometimes, just for...just for the comfort. And so he can get into my head and fix stuff too.”

Dek leans up a little so he can stare at Ren, who’s uncovered his eyes. “You let him do that?”

“I kind of have to, Dek,” Ren says, his expression a little defensive. “I didn’t do so good for a long while. They tried drugs, and therapy, and it helped, helped a lot, but in the end, Teji had to unscramble some crap before I could move on. He’s very kind.”

“Right,” Dek says, unconvinced, and also now irrationally and wildly jealous of this ‘Teji’. Which is just stupid because Ren’s here, and says he loves Dek. “Are you done with that now?”

“Pretty much. I’d never have come up here if I wasn’t stable. Teji didn’t want me to – he was worried what it would do to me. I was sure I could manage. I guess I forgot what it would do to you.”

“Never mind about that,” Dek says impatiently. “If your friends don’t want me down there – your lover doesn’t want me down there....”

Ren grips his wrist and stares into Dek’s eyes. “You’re my lover. Teji’s a friend, no more. Jinase wants you, I want you. All that matters is what’s right for you.”

“And your girl. I’m too crazy to put near a child.”

Ren lets out a startled laugh. “Were you listening to me a minute ago? Her Da’s barking mad, or was.”

But Dek persists. “You might be crazy, but I’m dangerous. I could hurt her, your sister. I hurt you – hurt you twice.”

Ren reaches around and pulls Dek’s face close to him, kisses him with heartbreaking tenderness. “You saved my life. You saved Misa’s – and Jinase’s, probably – by doing that. You’d never hurt a child.”

“You don’t know what I might do if something sets me off.”

“Look....” Ren sighs and strokes his cheek, his finger calloused from work Dek hasn’t had a chance to ask him about yet. “I’m not discounting the PTSD, not at all. And we’d need to be careful, make sure you weren’t put under more stress than can’t be avoided with the move and all that. But they can help you – it’s one of the reasons I want you come back with me. They really do have some astonishingly brilliant psychs down there, and even Teji, who’s not a professional, would help you if I asked.”

“Yeah, sure. Like I’d let him inside my head – he’d probably turn my brains into porridge for sleeping with you.”

“Teji’s got his own lover. Stop being jealous – if he’d wanted to stop me, all he had to do was make me forget I’d ever known you. He had plenty of chances to. This isn’t your attractive side, Dekan.”

Dek rolls onto his back and doesn’t answer. He doesn’t even know where this is coming from, because he’d never seen himself as a jealous man at all. Never came up with Lomare, and he’d never ever considered cheating on her. Never looked at anyone at all while she was alive and it was two years after she died before he took up one of the offers he got from time to time from officers passing through or newly posted. But Ren...maybe it’s because he’s a guy and Dek knows what guys can be like. Or maybe it’s because Ren’s just fucking gorgeous and Dek knows he’s not, certainly not now. “If I didn’t go back, you’d get offers.”

“Sure. Always did, always will. You’re not replaceable.”

“Bet you thought that about Geya, once.”

“Bet you thought that about Lomare once.”

Dek’s nostrils flare in instant anger. “You’re not a replacement for her,” he grinds out.

“Yeah. Exactly.” Ren goes up on one elbow and looks down at him. “All right, your wife was chaste and loving and never sold you to the authorities for a guaranteed lifelong research grant and her name on some publications, and maybe I was a fool to love her like I did, but she’s the mother of my damn son, and the first person I ever fell in love with. You’re in a different part of my heart and my brain completely. Dek...I wasn’t looking for someone to fill the hole you left in me. Teji’s a friend, and kind, and uses his talent to mend my broken mind. But he’s not you. I love you. I never cheated on Geya, I’d never cheat on you, not even in my thoughts. I don’t work like that. If you think I do, then you don’t know me at all.” He lays the back of his hand against Dek’s face almost like he’s taking Dek’s temperature. “Do you think that?”

“No. But I do barely know you.” He’d spent three months with Ren and seen him at his lowest ebb, but he’d spent ten years loving Lomare and learning all her secrets, her foibles, her flaws, her loveable heart. He knows he wants Ren, how he feels – but it’s too soon to say he can predict him the way he could predict her.

“Well, I was hoping we’d have a chance to get to know each other better,” Ren says, smiling slightly, though there’s something guarded in his eyes.

“And if I don’t go, or I don’t stay? Will you make them make you forget?”

“No.” The answer’s so fast, so sure, Ren has to have thought about it. “I’ll move on, because I owe it to Jinase and Misa to do that. But I won’t forget you.”

He lies down, his head on the crook of Dek’s shoulder, and their fingers lace together on Dek’s chest. “Do you still love her?” Dek asks, because if they’re going to get to know each other, they should start with the big things, like the ex-wives and lovers.

A hesitation. “I love who she used to be. Who I thought she was. I don’t know her now, and I don’t love what she’s apparently become. I can’t love or forgive someone who could hurt my boy like that, let alone me. But she’s Meram’s Ma, even if she gave him up. Damned if I know how she could do that,” Ren mutters. Still a running sore after nearly a decade, it seems, but then why would it ever heal, when he’s never had an explanation for why she did it.

“What if...she came back into your life and said it was all a mistake, she wasn’t behind it, they forced her or something? Would you take her back?” Then Dek holds his breath because he’s almost certain he doesn’t want an answer to this.

Ren doesn’t speak for some time, and Dek figures he doesn’t want to answer this one. He reaches over and turns the light off – they need to get under the covers, it’s too cold not to, but right now he’s comfortable and Ren generates an extraordinary amount of heat.

“It wasn’t a mistake. The Elected found proof she was involved.” Dek tightens his fingers in sympathy – he’d been hoping, just a little, that Ren could have been spared some of the horror, but it wasn’t to be. He’s surprised Ren never mentioned it, but then they’ve hardly had a chance to talk about it. “But even if it was, I’m not the man I was when we were married,” Ren says, his voice barely a whisper in the dark. “Even if she came back by some amazing set of circumstances, she’d have to accept that. And you. Because the man I am now, isn’t married, has a daughter, loves you. None of these things can be put aside like they don’t matter.” He shifts. “Want to get under the blankets?”

They rearrange things and Dek picks their clothes up off the floor because after surviving Denibwe and the mountain trek with Ren, and eleven damn cold winters here in the north, he does not want his fucking headstone to read ‘Broke his neck tripping over a pair of pants in the dark’. Ren claims him as soon as they’re under the covers, holding him tight, almost desperately, and Dek wonders how he copes on his own down south. Maybe this Teji just helps to fill that emptiness in Ren, a man who has to touch and love and be loved, or he’ll die. “It’ll take some sorting out, me moving down with you.”

“Yes, I know, and you’ll get help.”

“Can I tell Tik?”

Another long pause. “You’ll have to tell him you’ve moved. You can’t tell him my real identity. Especially since he knows me. We’ll have to cook up a cover story that’ll stand up to Janil’s talent. The only other alternative is to fake your death and I’d hate to do that to Tik.”

“And that would mean I couldn’t come back.”

“No.” Ren goes stiff, a little, against his body. The idea of Dek not staying with him, hurts, that much is clear. “Let’s leave your options as open as we can. I meant it when I said I didn’t want to destroy your life.”

“You won’t.” He fumbles around and finds Ren’s hand, then leans in and kisses him. “Get some sleep.”

He feels Ren’s smile. “Yes, sir.”

“Idiot.”

“Always.” Then Ren snuggles down, the covers wrapped tight around him, and holding onto Dek’s hand like he never means to let go. Dek never means to let go either, but there are so many unknowns.

Ren rumbles again. “You keep that up, I’ll use my talent on you to make you sleep.”

“Go ahead. Been a while.”

“Are you sure?”

“I trust you.”

Ren kisses his neck, under the beard. “Courage,” he murmurs. “Courage big enough for ten men. Now, close your eyes, be still.”

Dek obeys, and Ren lays his hand on Dek’s forehead. In very little time, a peaceful languor builds in his chest, radiates outward slowly, like the warmth of hot spiced beer on a cold night. His limbs go heavy, his mind calms and he starts to drift into sleep. But as he feels Ren’s hand lift from him, he reaches up and catches it. “Got a better idea.” He fumbles and finds Ren’s face, near to his. He cups his jaw, nudging him down, and as Ren’s lips get near enough, he leans up and kisses him, tongue delving lazily, his hand burying itself in the mass of hair at Ren’s nape. “Put me to sleep this way.”

Ren doesn’t answer in words but his actions do, his lips slick and inviting on Dek’s. He shifts so his big body is half on top of Dek’s, heavy, lush and warm, enfolding him like Lomare’s blanket, made with love and used with love, protection against the coldness and uncertainty of the future. Dek surrenders to that sweet embrace. If he falls, Ren will catch him. If he wants to fly, Ren will be there too. And Ren can be his new home, if Dek will only let him. “Don’t let me go.”

“Never will. Trust me to get you across this mountain, Dek.”

And he will, even if it’s hard and it hurts, and he has to lose some things along the way, because if they make it, the reward will more than make up for all of it.

And in the morning, he’s definitely going to shave.

The End