Chapter 22 #4
And if my thoughts had taken a bleak turn, Araxis had it worse.
He shrugged out of his clothes, silent and distant, emptily pulling on his sleepwear while I followed suit.
I watched him, waiting to see if he wanted to speak first – but words seemed beyond him.
His jaw was tense, throat working; if I really tried, I could hear some subvocal buzzing in his throat.
I dropped into bed, expecting him to follow.
Instead, Araxis drifted into the closet again and, when he returned, he was holding the golden disc from Nizanin.
The room was dark so when he flicked it, the startling golden letters flared up across the walls, casting the room in yellow light and slices of black shadow.
He studied the script silently, craning his head, and then he clamped his fingers down on the disc's metal edge and the lights winked out in a flash.
"I thought about telling him," Araxis said in the dark, standing somewhere near the foot of our bed. "About the way that I am. Perhaps I should have. Do you think – Would that have been –" He stopped trying to ask me what I thought, and instead fell to a jagged, hurt silence.
I shifted, the sheets rustling around me. I could make out his outline, just barely. "You don't have to tell him," I said. "You don't have to tell anyone if you don't want to. But if you do, if you want to, you know I'm with you all of the way, no matter what. Whatever you decide –"
"But the risk is incalculable." His words were low, almost hoarse. I heard his nails clicking against the disc. "It is not the kind of thing that can be spoken."
I swung my legs out of bed, wondering if I should go to him.
"You told me," I tried, gentle. "Pretty early too.
That was instinct, right? Because you knew you could trust me, or…
" Or maybe it had been on purpose, sharing something he was vulnerable about so that I'd trust him.
Although, in that case, he could have made something up.
Instead, he'd given me what I now understood was a grenade that was also the most tender, vulnerable part of himself.
The sound Araxis made was pained, almost like he'd been punched.
"You cannot say it, but of course you're right, beloved.
I – I told myself at the time that sharing something I was terrified to speak of would…
help. I wanted you to trust me, and so I thought I should begin by trusting you, and – who would believe you, if you told anyone?
But – Sashen, that is how I justified it to myself then.
I can see now that I wanted desperately for someone to know who would – who could – who –" His throat whined, sharp enough to hurt my ears, as he choked on his own words.
I pushed up out of bed and went to him, there in the dark.
"Come here," I murmured. "Come to bed. I'm not upset.
I'm glad you told me. I'm glad I get to know all of you.
I'm honoured." Carefully, I nudged him into bed, setting the Unbound's disc on my side table as I sank down next to him.
I pulled Araxis's head against my chest, holding him tight, stroking my hand down his crest.
"Sorry I can't purr at you," I murmured as I held him, not knowing what else to do. "It always makes me feel better when you do that."
"When I – Ah, the kelthil. Hm." He let the weight of his head rest more fully on my chest. "I like the sound of your heart."
"Yeah?" I pulled him even closer.
"It's steady," he mumbled against me.
I held him like that for ages, wanting to be that for him: to be steady, reliable, someone he could trust. I'd wanted that, way back on the Creche Thiel ship before the Tournament.
Now, I knew a lot more about what that trust meant, and what he was gambling with when he placed it in me.
I would be worthy of his every confidence.
After a long time, Araxis shifted, just barely; I could feel the brush of his eyelashes against my skin as he blinked.
"I could have told him," Araxis said, so quiet it was barely more than a whisper.
"It was – It was a risk that I decided not to take.
He might have left, and he could not with such a secret.
" The abayan word had the weight of holiness, a pearl hidden away from unworthy eyes.
"If I had told him, he would have felt compelled to stay.
It was better not to. But I am not ashamed, Sashen. I am not."
It was the kind of thing you told yourself when you wanted it to be true, the kind of thing that could become true if you repeated it enough times.
But I understood, and I promised myself then that I would be the person who would repeat it back to him – that he was not ashamed; that he did not need to be; that he was perfectly formed, entirely enough, absolutely radiant – until he believed all of it. Until he knew it in his bones.
I shifted so that I could kiss his forehead.
"I know," I murmured, moving so that I could kiss his perfect mouth next, so that I could kiss him a thousand times until he felt as cherished as he made me feel.
And then, in abayan, "You are my greatest treasure.
" As he shivered against me, I knew it had been exactly what he needed to hear.