Part Two #3
Westin began to knit out of reflex, hands quick, thoughts quicker and far less orderly.
Outguards spent a great deal of time alone and all had ways to pass the time, like whittling, or reading, or working with fibers like this.
Westin mostly made scarves, which were easy, and outguards always needed more warm clothes for rough travels.
Westin worried as well, and maybe many of them knew that and were happy to accept his gifts to appease his anxiety.
Sun knew it, even if he hadn’t been wearing the last scarf Westin had made for him. Those cuffs, but no scarf.
“Have you been hiding this from me all this time?” Hely wondered, not giving Westin much of a chance to answer.
“Not him,” he explained before Westin got out more than a quiet objection.
“You weren’t hiding your Sun from me; you were keeping your secret dreams about him to yourself.
But this.” He gestured toward Westin’s furiously clacking knitting needles.
“I never expected you to be the sort to claim territory, but you shouldn’t be ashamed of it. ”
“I have not claimed territory.” That, Westin had never done. Even the family land was for the family and those working on it. It wasn’t his.
Hely ignored that. “You think he will charm himself into a bed tonight. To sweet-talk that jewelry from someone, he must have been quite charming indeed.”
Westin couldn’t summon any anger over that, which was more proof that he wasn’t territorial.
“Yes. He is very charming when he wants to be. Not with me, but he doesn’t need to with me.
” Westin, the soft-touch. “I’ve always liked that.
He can be himself with me. He doesn’t have to put out so much effort. ”
Hely leaned forward. “He tracked you down here. I would say he thinks you’re worth some effort.
He probably thinks that even now despite how you stabbed him with the idea of losing you.
What surprises me, aside from witnessing this side of you, is that he had to track you down.
Why don’t you travel together? The Outguard allows that, doesn’t it? ”
About to insist that he didn’t need someone else with him who had their own assignments to worry about, Westin abruptly stopped.
“He did say something about that once,” he finally admitted, flushing hot with embarrassment, “in his insolent way.” Sun had found Westin sick in the spare room of a public house in a little village.
He had been ranting at Westin at the time.
Westin had agreed that he’d deserved to be ranted at; he should have done better.
But summer and spring illnesses happened too.
Sickness wasn’t only a winter problem. And though Westin had been exhausted when he’d first ridden into that village, and exhaustion made bodies weaker, that didn’t mean he could control catching the sniffles…
or something stronger than mere sniffles.
Sun had been furious. Worried, now that Westin knew for sure what that looked like on the brat. Worried enough to let it show.
Fuck, Westin had messed up.
“Hely, if I set it up, could I cover the costs of his visits here if he wants to come back?”
Hely’s eyes widened. Then he smiled, fond but exasperated. “Wouldn’t it be easier to tell him that you want to care for him? He might need to hear that. He might not have ever heard it before.”
A new hurt in an evening of them, but then, Westin hadn’t really come to Solace House for peace. He’d come to settle himself, and that required the truth. That was always a little troubling, but also always worth it in the end.
“He might get difficult.” The brat was a brat and would stay a brat if Westin had anything to say about it.
“I’ll have to phrase it right. Telling Sun what to do only works while fucking, and even then, he can be stubborn.
” Defiance and obedience at the same time, beautiful and not even remotely peaceful. And yet Westin ached for him.
“He seems to have no problem with other people giving him things.” Hely wasn’t even saying it to be mean; the observation was gentle. “Why would he object if you wish to?”
“Because I’m not his lover,” Westin explained, some tartness in his voice until he heard himself and remembered the look on Sun’s face when Westin had said nearly the same thing to him. “I am his lover,” he corrected. “A regular lover. But only one of them, and as friends without any romance.”
Hely smiled and Westin was surprised at how much he resented it.
“Westin, you are my friend, so I will be kind now, kinder than I could be. You should ask your brat why he came here tonight. Or why he lets you call him brat, for that matter.” Hely lifted a hand.
“Don’t tell me he’s not your brat. He wasn’t going to spend money here.
He didn’t come to Solace House with anything on his mind but you, although he had heard of us.
And why do most people come to Solace House? ”
“For solace.” Which meant peace for some, comfort for others.
Often quiet or calm, but not always. The critical requirement was to feel at ease, and for that, people needed to trust. They had to feel safe.
For some, Solace House was one of the few places where they might do so, which was why they gladly paid higher prices.
And Sun had come here for him.
“And he came here for you.” Hely echoed Westin’s thoughts as though he could read them on Westin’s stunned face.
He continued to smile but now with satisfaction.
He sat back and said nothing else while Westin stared blankly at the curtain to the common room and grew so hot he could feel it in the toes he no longer had.
After a few moments, Westin began to knit again, slower.
“I don’t believe it,” he finally murmured, although Hely probably knew that already.
“Even if I admit that my future will be dull without him, it would be dull with him. For him, surely. That is to say, he wouldn’t be a captive.
He could leave. I can’t make him do anything.
I don’t want to, but I just never could.
Except for….” The needles went still. “He’s furious with me and you think I should try to convince him to marry me? ”
“I didn’t say that,” Hely remarked, beyond satisfied. “You did. I merely pointed out that you would make a good husband.”
“Dull,” Westin insisted.
“Does he seem like someone who would allow things to get too boring?” Hely’s amusement was audible, then drowned out by a rising murmur from beyond the curtain.
Westin turned toward the trouble, absently reaching for the weapon he wasn’t currently carrying. It wasn’t much of a commotion, but raised voices in Solace House were so unusual that he had tensed before he recognized the sounds of Sun being stubborn and rude.
“Where are they?” Sun demanded, not shouting, but loud for the Solace common room.
“Not so charming now,” Hely remarked.
“Are they in there?” Sun asked again, leaving Westin to wonder which worker had darted a look to or gestured at the booth he shared with Hely. He didn’t blame whoever it was; Sun was every inch an intimidating outguard when he chose to be.
Then the curtain was torn open, and Westin accepted that a worker might have been flustered by Sun for entirely different reason.
Sun stood in the booth’s entrance with no pants and no shoes.
His hair was damp and slightly curled from the heat of the bath.
His bared skin looked warm to the touch, the trail of hair from his chest to his stomach dark with water because he apparently hadn’t bothered to fully dry himself.
His breeches clung to his wet legs as well, as though he’d flung himself from the bath, barely attempted to dress enough for decency, and then stormed into the common room in search of them.
In search of him. Westin’s eyes were stinging, dry because he was staring, struggling to look away from all of the damp, hot skin being displayed for anyone who cared to look.
And plenty did.
Alit was blushing fiercely in the distance, visible over Sun’s shoulder, although Westin was more interested in the shoulder itself, and then Sun’s chest again, before he belatedly remembered that Hely was watching him pant over Sun and brought his gaze up.
Sun was frowning, glancing from Hely to Westin with a brief, deeper frown at the unfinished scarf in Westin’s lap.
“Honestly.” Hely stood up, shooing away the oglers and shutting the curtain again behind Sun so briskly that Sun jumped. “You may as well come all the way in.”
“Does that cost extra?” Sun returned, but with distracted interest and not attitude. Then he seemed to correct himself, bowing his head to Hely. “Sorry, I…”
“You’re not sorry.” Hely sat back down and gestured for Sun to do the same, but Sun seemed stuck where he was. He frowned down at the knitting as if absolutely confused, so Westin began to use his needles again although he wasn’t counting a single stitch. He could take the mess apart later.
Sun finally turned that frown on Hely, his contrition short-lived. “What, he’s not good enough for you?”
Westin didn’t get a chance to comment. Hely beamed a smile which Sun riled up further, though he turned that wrath on Westin.
“Are you spending the money you would have spent on a tumble on me and my bath?” He jabbed an accusing finger at Westin.
“That is enough. You can’t take care of yourself even when it comes fucking or…
or… talking or whatever they call it here?
You grew up adored and cared for; I can tell because you refuse to be selfish.
Selfish is useful! If you were selfish, maybe you’d… .”
“What?” Westin prompted, mesmerized by the impatient, embarrassed, half-naked brat who hadn’t even taken the time to dry off before he’d sought Westin out. “Maybe I’d what?”
“Yes, go on.” Hely was nothing but encouraging.
Sun raked his gaze over Westin as if looking one last time for some sign of a passionate encounter, then turned forcefully to Hely.