Chapter 16
Chapter
Sixteen
It took Mercury nearly two weeks to feel as though he could speak to Kami without either yelling or bursting into tears.
He was—Mercury sighed as he shifted his box of cupcakes to his other arm so he could knock on Kami’s door. He’d never had friends before. He didn’t know how to be one. He didn’t know about teasing, or about testing friendships to see if they were real or…
Or any of it.
Talon had explained that Kami wasn’t much better at it than he was, thanks to how he’d been banished from his keep, so Mercury was willing to give it another try.
Kami answered the door, and his eyes went wide when he saw Mercury. “Oh. Hey, Mercury. Hi.”
“Hi. Can I come in?” He thrust the half dozen cupcakes at Kami, no fish flavors in the mix, and waited.
“Um. Sure. Of course. Come in.” Kami peered at the cupcakes. “Are these for us to share? Reno isn’t here, so…”
“Yes. There are red velvet and yellow cake with chocolate icing. They told me in the canteen they were your favorites.”
One of Kami’s eyebrows rose. “Well, thank you, but why are you bringing me cupcakes?”
Mercury shrugged. “I wanted to apologize for—”
“Uh-uh.” Kami shook his head. “No, no, that’s not how this is going to work. You didn’t do anything wrong, Mercury.”
Mercury blinked, and now he was really confused. He thought he was supposed to be being nice, and the temptation to throw these cupcakes at Kami was huge. Thank the goddess he didn’t still have them in hand.
“I guess I suck at this friendship thing, I thought—”
Kami shook his head. “Listen, I’m the one who screwed up. If anybody’s a shitty friend, it’s probably me. But as terrible as I am at it, I’m super-duper good at loving the people that are my family and friends. I just wanted to see what would happen, if you would tell me no for him.”
“But you could have just asked. You didn’t have to be mean!” That had hurt him, and he hadn’t wanted to be harsh to Kami.
“I sort of didn’t know how to do it otherwise.
Trust me, Talon has explained lots about how I should have done things.
And I’m sorry I hurt your feelings.” Kami put the cupcakes aside and took one of his hands.
“I’m not sorry that I did it though because you were amazing.
And now I’m super confident that if something awful happened, you would just rip someone’s throat out just to defend Talon.
I love that for him, but I am sorry it hurt your feelings, and I do think that we’re both probably weird as fuck friends.
But that’s okay because we can be weird as fuck friends together. ”
Mercury was pretty sure that he was just going to be confused forever. He would complain about it, but he’d been confused for a really long time, so why stop now?
Kami chuckled, leading him to sit on the couch, and then grabbing the cupcakes. “Do you know how hard it was when we settled down here? For me and Talon both? We were loners. Not used to people thinking about us at all, let alone wanting in on our lives. It’s tough to adjust.”
He nodded. “That’s why I was trying to be friends.”
“Yes, and I’m sorry. Honestly, I’m sorry I hurt your feelings. This is new to me too, fair? We can—Talon and I are best friends, but we have been together through so many hard things that it’s difficult to remember how not to be fierce about everything.”
How sad was that? Seriously, how honestly sad was it that Kami didn’t know a better way to be friends?
Still, Talon had explained all of this, and that was why he was here. He wanted to be Kami’s friend. And more than that, Talon needed him to be able to get along with Kami.
Hell, he was fairly sure they were all going to be working together. So this was a thing.
“Oh, and I’m new at this. I’m trying to learn how to be friends with other dragons.”
Kami chuckled. “I think you’re doing a fabulous job. Seriously. You’ve got this. I mean, you brought cupcakes. Would you like tea?”
Kami’s mind moved so fast it made him dizzy. “Please?”
“Cool. I know you take it with lemon and sugar, right? No milk?”
“Exactly.”
He could almost hear Talon in his head saying, “See? Not a bad friend. Just an odd friend.”
He shook his head at himself. He just needed to learn, and so did Kami. They both needed to learn what their rules were, together.
His big rule was don’t mess with Talon.
He sort of thought that was one of Kami’s big rules too. And no one messed with Reno. And Kami believed in heartstones for all. Not just for some.
Mercury could get behind all of that.
Kami brought over two cups of tea. “If this one doesn’t work for you, let me know. I know how sometimes things can all get twitchy.”
He nodded and sipped. It was yummy, citrusy and sweet. “Pregnancy is weird, it’s wonderful, of course, but weird.”
“It is. I was all over the damn place with it.” Kami winked. “Oh, I hope this one goes with cupcakes!” He looked a little stricken, and Mercury shook his head, daring to tease.
“No, no, it needs to contrast to break up the sweet.”
“Okay, okay, thanks! I don’t know if you can tell, but I really feel bad that I hurt your feelings.”
“I can kind of tell.” Mercury grinned a little bit. “Have a cupcake. We’ll talk about what friends do.”
“Well, we eat together and chat. A lot.” Kami grabbed a cupcake, obviously pondering. “Do you like to play games?”
Mercury shrugged. He wasn’t really trained on those. “I don’t know any.”
“Well then, I think we should learn to play some games. Talon loves to play cards. This would be something you two could do together, or we could do with three or four of us. You can play cards with all number of people.”
He nodded. He could learn things, in fact, he loved it. And he was good at math. “All right, that sounds like fun.”
“We should make a list—things that friends do. Hold on.” Kami went to a desk and found supplies and then he handed Mercury a pad of paper and a pen. “Do you know how to write?”
The question seemed honest, not mean-spirited.
Mercury nodded. “Yes. I went to school. I can write and read and do math.”
“Good. Good deal, then you’re doing better than a lot of people.
” Kami’s wink was almost naughty. “Let’s start a list. We’ve got play games, go flying—although probably we should wait until you’re not pregnant.
We could go flying, and swimming is also something we could do. We could have a book club.”
Mercury tilted his head. “What do you do there?”
“We read a book, each of us on our own, and then we come together and we talk about it.”
“Oh, I like to read.” He explored the library often. Eyv was generous with the titles there, but it might be interesting to share books together.
“I do too, so let’s put ‘book club’ down.”
Mercury wrote that down, blushing as Kami complimented his handwriting. “Do you think other people would like to read a book and talk to us?”
Kami shrugged. “I don’t know. I know that Lake likes to read, but I also know that he has something like twenty-four children.”
That made him giggle and he clapped a hand over his mouth to hide the sound. “It does seem to be a popular thing to do around here, having babies.”
Kami rolled his eyes. “That’s because we have so many damn alphas. They really like this whole baby thing. Seriously. They want to carry on their legacy or whatever. Maybe it’s just because they like knotting their mates too. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I like being knotted.”
Listening to Kami say that word so casually in conversation made him blush a little bit, but Mercury had to just keep grinning because it was true. Talon loved doing that to him as well.
And he certainly wasn’t opposed to it.
“You know it’s true. It’s—” Kami rolled his eyes. “It’s wild.”
Mercury nodded. “It’s like being as close as you can be, and yes, it is wild and wonderful and magic. Do you think you’ll want more babies?”
Kami shrugged, nodding, then shaking his head. “I didn’t think I wanted this one, but I love her. And I love how she changes all the time. There’s so much magic in her. I have to tell you I was scared when I first met her.”
Mercury leaned forward because this was one of the things he wanted to know, maybe needed to know. “Was it scary? I mean, the giving birth part. Was it terrible?”
“It wasn’t fun. It was hard work, and it hurt, but it wasn’t the worst thing that had ever happened. And it had a reason. I was working for something.”
Mercury licked the frosting off his cupcake. “I’m worried that I’ll be a bad soffar. I don’t know how to do so many things. I’m so different. Dex, Lake, Elowyn, and Eyv are so brave and natural. Not like me.”
Kami reached out and touched his wrist. “You and I are way more alike, huh?”
He nodded, swallowing hard. “That’s why it hurt my feelings when I thought we weren’t going to be friends. We’re more alike than different.”
Kami nodded. “You have that right. We’re outliers, you and me. I love that for us. We don’t have to follow the rules.”
“I guess they don’t follow any rules either; they just are who they are.” Mercury shrugged, trying to find the words for what he really meant. “But you and I, we have these weird talents, and we’re both a little socially awkward.”
After grabbing another cupcake, he turned it inside out, pulling the bottom off, and putting it on top of the frosting, so it was like a cookie sandwich or something. “A little? We’re more than a little socially awkward, honey.”
“I guess we are, but that’s okay. As long as you don’t poke me like that again.” Mercury deadpanned the last sentence, staring at Kami with what he hoped was a dead expression.
Kami cracked up, laughing so hard that he almost dropped his cupcake. “That was perfect. That was absolutely perfect, Mercury. You just tell me all about it when you think I’m out of line.”
Mercury beamed, feeling so much better than when he’d walked through the door to begin with. “I will. I promise. And you can teach me about teasing, but only if it’s not in an awful way.”
Held out a hand to shake. “Deal.”
Mercury took that hand, and a flash of golden light surrounded their clasped fingers. It felt like it burned with a cold sort of fire, and he grunted, his eyes widening.
“Now see, that was a friendship pact.” Kami let go of his hand, shaking his out. “We should totally order more cupcakes. Six isn’t going to be enough.”
Mercury grabbed the house phone because he thought Kami was absolutely right. Friendship pacts required at least an even dozen.