Part Two #4
“Did he tell you about how sick he got last year?” Sun gave Westin’s general direction another accusing jab.
“I bet he didn’t, and not only because he barely remembers most of it.
” Westin stopped knitting and straightened, although of course they both ignored him.
“I found him, and I had to walk the delirious idiot back to the nearest village because I couldn’t get him on his horse.
I’d only even found him off the road because I had a feeling he’d collapsed somewhere.
They’d told me all about him when I’d reached the village in the first place. When I was…”
“Looking for him?” Hely guessed.
Sun nodded without pausing. “They told me that they thought the last outguard had shown signs of the fever many of them were sick with, but they hadn’t been able to convince him to stay. ‘People are expecting me,’ he’d told them.” He rounded on Westin. “It could have waited.”
“Not for that much longer,” Westin argued, although since it had ended up waiting anyway with him too weak to continue on, it was a fool’s argument. But since he was already a fool, he didn’t care as much when he heard himself asking with obvious surprise, “You were there looking for me?”
Sun stared at him, his lips parted.
“What else?” Hely was having a good time. “How else does he need to be selfish, Sun? He might need to hear it and I don’t mind listening.”
Sun tore his gaze from Westin, looked at Hely, and then closed his eyes long enough to say, “The frostbite.” When Sun looked at Westin again, he was bubbling up with fury. Worry, Westin knew now. Fear.
Sun took a breath and focused on Hely. “That was when I was still new to being out on the road on my own and we barely knew each other, but everyone heard about it. Years later, I find out that it was because he gave away his blanket and bedroll!” He gestured his outrage while Hely nodded understandingly and gave Westin a displeased look.
“‘Someone needed it more,’ he said. Everyone in the barracks scolded him or rolled their eyes and not one of them offered to go with him to ensure he didn’t do it again! Not one!”
“The blanket wouldn’t have made that much of a difference, Sun,” Westin explained, not for the first time, “not in that storm.”
“You shut up.” Sun was back to glaring at Westin. “I asked why he didn’t have someone to go with him as some outguards do. They said he never asked for one. I couldn’t get over it. I still can’t.”
“You travel alone.” Westin had to point it out because Sun was smaller and had a temper, something Westin worried over.
Sun huffed. “I can take care of myself. I’m not soft like you.”
“He is, isn’t he?” Hely reached out to encircle Sun’s wrist. Sun let him, seeming confused but not angered by the gentle touch. “You noticed that early on, I bet. It’s a remarkable quality for someone who has been an outguard for as long as he has.”
“Remarkable,” Sun echoed quietly. Then shook himself and began glaring again.
“He shouldn’t even be an outguard!” It was said with finality, and not even Westin’s wounded gasp slowed Sun down.
“He’s so good when he’s asked to make decisions.
He’s incredible at resolving disputes, which isn’t officially our job but it does make things easier.
He’s so good at it that a lot of the others think he ought to be in charge.
But he doesn’t like a fight. He will fight—and he will end those fights.
” Sun gave Westin a hot look. “But he doesn’t like it.
And he doesn’t like seeing some of the things we see. ”
Hely made a disapproving noise. “Do you?”
“No, he doesn’t,” Westin answered for Sun before Sun could dismiss the question. “He has a kind heart despite how he likes to act.”
He expected more outrage, a hotter glare. Instead, Sun dropped his shoulders. “You see? I don’t even know why he joined.”
“I wasn’t really needed at home for a while,” Westin said truthfully. “And I wanted to see more places, and it was decent money.” He ignored Sun’s scoff. “I could have left earlier, I suppose. But others were expecting me to keep going.”
“Too. Nice.” Sun growled both words then appealed to Hely again.
“The sickness was the same. He had fever dreams… nightmares. He was in that village for a fortnight to recover, and he kept trying to leave earlier out of some stupid idea about duty. As if he’s a noble or something. He’s smarter than that.”
Hely gently held Sun’s wrist again, then released him. “Were you with him the whole time?”
Sun’s eyes went wide. With no shirt, the faint color rising in his cheeks would be visible as it spread down his chest. Well, if they’d had more candlelight, it would have been. He glanced to Westin. “There was no one else. I’m no healer but I can fetch water and clean messes.”
“Sun.” Westin sighed the name.
“I stayed,” Sun told Hely, glancing to Westin again. “I could do that. I even offered….”
“To continue on with him.” Hely didn’t need to guess since Westin had told him. “And he smiled and insisted he was fine on his own?”
“I was fine!” Westin defended himself but hurried to calm Sun.
“Not that I didn’t want your company, lark.
But you had other things to do and didn’t need to be polite to an…
.” He trailed to silence at the flare of hurt Sun didn’t hide in time.
“The offer was made in earnest. I apologize. But it really wasn’t necessary to burden yourself. ”
“Oh, I see.” Sun crossed his arms. “You can pay for me to have the nicest bath of my life—”
“Surprised you left it so early,” Hely cut in.
“I couldn’t trust you with him.” Sun stopped short, then narrowed his eyes at Hely, who stared back, a subtly pleased matchmaker.
A moment later, Sun let his arms fall. His expression was all silky displeasure and it was aimed at Westin.
“If you can pay for that, and for tea, and offer your room, I can offer to ride with you to make sure you stay alive. Unless you think I’m not capable? ”
A challenge.
Westin’s palms itched with the urge to haul the cocky brat into his lap, which was when he remembered he was holding knitting needles and put them aside.
“Of course you’re capable. You’ve been an outguard since you were eighteen.” Still too young for it, in Westin’s opinion. Especially to be out there alone, even in times of peace as they were fortunate enough to live in now, bless the current queen. “I would never doubt you.”
Hely reached out again as if to stop Sun before Sun could release some of the steam clearly about to burst from him. His tone was measured and professional. “Then why is he not allowed to care for you, Westin? Is it hard to believe that he’d want to?”
Sun immediately stopped, explosion forgotten, a puzzled line between his eyes. “Why would that be hard to believe when I’ve followed after him for years now?”
He met Westin’s stare and whatever it held, then snapped his mouth shut.
Hely rose to his feet, not asking for room but smiling faintly when a distracted Sun moved to make way. Hely gave Westin one last look of warning, then leaned in to whisper something into Sun’s ear, lips almost brushing the fae-cursed cuffs.
“Words first,” Westin thought he heard among whatever else Hely told Sun, and then Hely slipped out from the curtain and tugged it back into place so that not even a sliver of light showed from anywhere except along the top.
“Why did you rush through your bath?” Westin wondered immediately, not demanding because he didn’t make demands. He asked, though in this case, with an edge . “Are you cold like that? Were none of your shirts clean enough?”
The last question had an edge to it and Sun clearly heard it, because he dropped back into his slouching, sulky posture and gave Westin a defiant look.
“Maybe I’m trying to get a new ear cuff.”
Westin inhaled deeply, finding traces of citrus and something herbal. It wasn’t soothing. He didn’t really want it to be.
“Then I’d wonder why you’d waste time in here with me. The best I offered was a bath.”
Sun lifted his chin, about to snap back, but then glanced away to study the candles as if the candles were all that interesting. He shrugged. “It was a pretty good bath.”
Westin didn’t laugh but he did make a rough, half-stifled sound that brought Sun’s attention back to him.
It was strange how little Westin felt like apologizing. “Unless you’ve been fucking a very wealthy beat-of-four, that’s the nicest bath you’ve like to have had in years, maybe ever.”
Sun smiled, mean and pleased. “Are you asking?” When Westin stared at him, momentarily lost, Sun rolled his wrist in an exaggerated manner. “Are you asking if I’m fucking a very wealthy beat-of-four?”
“You aren’t.” Westin wondered what Hely would make of his tone. “None of those cuffs are gold.”
Sun’s eyebrows went up. “You think I could get gold?”
“I think you could get gold.” Westin was confident of that if nothing else. “And more than a cuff. Maybe you should work here.”
Sun blinked several times before humming thoughtfully. “Would that mean I’d still see you?”
“Ah.” The fight, such as it was, left Westin.
He met Sun’s challenging stare and wondered absently just when he’d begun to realize that with Sun challenging meant vulnerable.
Later than he should have. But then he recognized that he must have known years ago, because he had begun responding to Sun’s demands and impertinence with patient indulgence.
He had just never pushed the matter. He should have.
“I wasn’t going to leave you.” The truth said at last, and he would make Sun recognize it even if Sun never wanted to see him again.
“I’m leaving the Outguard.” The words still pulled at his heart, but Sun was what mattered now.
“I didn’t want to leave you. But… I didn’t think you’d be this upset. ”
Sun’s chin went up higher. His smile grew brighter. “Who’s upset?”
Westin’s palms itched again.