6. Stop That #2
“It’s like I was made to be a general,” he said without any emotion.
“I see people like numbers, all the little pieces stacked in place, and I move them around like markers on a board. A nudge here, a word there, and the world is lined up a little more like how I think it should be.” He shuddered and looked away.
Another tear slid down his face. “Nyland says I’m cold.
Unfeeling. He’s not wrong. I don’t even feel sad when other people are grieving.
I see a problem, something I have to fix—”
“What you are is observant and thoughtful,” I said forcefully, cutting Alluin off before he could work himself any further into despair. “So what if you were made to be a general? How is that possibly a bad thing? The world needs generals—”
“Well it seems that nobody loves generals, whether or not we’re needed,” Alluin bit off, his voice raw and eyes reddened. “How is that fair?”
I let out a sharp breath. “For fuck’s sake, Lu, you must know that isn’t true.”
“Name one person who—”
“Me,” I snarled. “Do you think I spend all this time with you out of duty or something? You’re my favorite person in the world, you fucking martyr.
Maybe you were born to be cold and calculating, but you walked out into the world and decided to love every fucking ‘stack of numbers’ you ran across.
Don’t you get it?” I said, wanting to shake him but not in a great position to do so with my legs on his lap.
“You’re kind, and good, and gentle, and absolutely, outrageously altruistic, and it’s a good fucking thing you’re a born general because if you weren’t you’d surely get taken advantage of every day of your gods-damn life—”
“I’ll stop fucking him if you sleep with me,” Alluin said, barely breathing the words.
I froze. My dick throbbed, all my blood rushing to my groin. My heartbeat ticked in my throat so hard it itched.
“What?” I croaked.
Alluin let out a shuddering breath, his eyes open too wide and his ears dropped down as low as they could go.
“I— I’m so tired of being alone. Of sleeping alone,” he said, the words tumbling out of his mouth and a tear falling out of one unblinking eye.
“It’s not even really about the sex with Nyland.
It’s just— If we fuck, he holds me after, and says sweet things, and then for one night it’s like someone… like someone still loves me.”
All my skin went hot. I had to swallow, the adrenaline making me shaky. “Oh. Right. Of course. Not—”
I’d thought Alluin couldn’t look more embarrassed. I’d been terribly wrong.
“Oh—Oh, no, I—”
I squeezed my eyes closed and gritted my teeth, willing my dick to stop being interested in the topic. “You don’t have to sound so appalled at the idea, Lu.”
He whined, a sound I’d never heard him make before. “Zhi, I didn’t mean—” He fell silent. Then, like it was new information, Alluin said, “You called me ‘Lu.’”
I growled and squinted at him. “Not a new development,” I informed him. “I called you ‘Lu’ last time we were together, too. You didn’t seem to mind it, and you’ve been calling me ‘Zhi’ for decades, so…”
Alluin swiped the back of his sleeve across his face. “You can call me whatever you like. As long as you’re calling me something.”
I sighed and flopped backwards onto the couch to stare up at the ceiling.
I wasn’t going to touch that poetic declaration.
It was how he sounded in letters, too, and he was something of a maudlin drunk.
“So. You want to sleep with me. The literal sort of sleep with me. A very normal kind of sleeping together.”
He rested his arms on my thighs, leaning some of his weight onto me. “It’s too much, isn’t it?”
“I didn’t say that.” Gods. I was too drunk for this conversation.
My dick still wanted to get involved, even though that was clearly not on the table and an entirely bad idea, anyway.
I should have had fewer glasses of the very excellent whiskey Alluin had brought me, but in my defense, it had been very excellent.
He rested one hand on my thigh and started sweeping his thumb back and forth, which didn’t help my horniness settle down.
I heard him swallow. “It’s only… I think you’re the only person who’s ever said anything like that to me, and I’ve been alive for almost fifty thousand years.
And I… I remember what your allure geas feels like.
You could make me forget, too, if you wanted. ”
The words fell over me like a bucket of cold water. Of course it came back to my allure. It always came back to my fucking allure. “Right,” I said dully. “That.”
“Zhi,” Alluin started, sounding concerned.
“No. Don’t. I accept the deal.” I swung my legs off his lap and sat up in the same motion. “If you need a drug, fine. I can be that for you. It’s probably better than orgasms from hateful Nyland—”
“Stop it,” he said, ears pinned back.
I shoved myself to my feet. “Why? You’ll be just as fascinated and in love with me once we’re in bed and I let my allure out to play. That’s what you want, right? The feeling? To pretend that someone loves you, and that you love him back?”
He sat there, his expression going flat, and said nothing.
I couldn’t bear it. I whirled and stalked into the bedroom, tearing at the laces of my shirt as I went. “Whenever you’re ready,” I bit off. “You know where to find me.”
I waited until dawn. He never came to bed.
He didn’t even say goodbye.