Chapter Ten
Trill
It turned out that Trill’s fantasies had been prescient, and he got to do a lot of what he wanted in the morning.
(He couldn’t say everything because his list was pretty exhaustive and couldn’t possibly be accomplished in one morning.
Or even several mornings, actually. He liked sex, all right?
A lot. But it was several more checks off that long list.) Molun and Arvus had been entirely happy about having sleepy sex with him, cleaning him up in the water closet, taking him out to the sitting room and feeding him actual food—and then Arvus had leaned him over the table and used his mouth and fingers on Trill’s ass before Molun sucked him.
Trill shivered happily.
It was lots of wonderful sex, and Trill had kept a hold of himself; he hadn’t fed on any of that satisfaction or desire.
It was so different from what he’d thought might happen.
He’d worried a little that he might need to make a discreet exit, like they’d just be done with him once they’d had sex.
He wasn’t even sure why he’d worried that; they seemed like wonderful people, entirely open about what they liked.
While Arvus had to head off to some Mage Warrior training—ooh, Trill wondered what Mage Warrior training looked like!—Molun said he had some reading to do for the morning.
“I don’t suppose you’d like to keep me company?” he asked hopefully.
Trill beamed at the man. “I’d be happy to do that.”
Once he’d learned that Trill didn’t know any of the Old Tongue, he asked what Trill liked.
He’d laughed, but not in a mean way, when Trill had confessed that silly novels were his favorite—he liked the happy endings—and he’d escorted Trill all the way to the library so he could pick out a book he’d enjoy.
He’d been slow on the stairs, but he’d been determined, and one look at his face had told Trill it wouldn’t be helpful to say that they didn’t need to go.
He’d brought his cane today, although it didn’t look to Trill like he was leaning on it very heavily, which was good.
Trill would figure out how to touch him some more and keep up that slow, incremental, safe healing.
He wanted Molun to be happy, and he could see that while he wasn’t happy with his injured leg, he wasn’t happy being restricted by it, either; if they simply avoided occasions where his leg needed to be used, that didn’t make it better.
Molun signed out several books for Trill once he’d made his selection.
(He’d almost picked at random, in the end, because the selection was so big.
He’d never seen a library as enormous as this, and he was delighted that there were romance novels in addition to serious Mage Warrior books.)
And then they carried their bounty back to the room, Trill apologizing for not being able to carry Molun up the stairs.
This made Molun laugh, and some of the strain disappeared from his face.
“Yes, well, we can’t all be Arvus, can we?”
Trill shook his head. “I mean, I know I look all right, but the two of you and all the muscles are amazing.”
“You look more than all right,” Molun assured him, still looking amused. “And it takes a lot of training to be a Mage Warrior. I actually used to look, uh, more muscled than I am right now.” He seemed to make a conscious effort to push those thoughts aside. “But I’m working on getting fit again.”
Trill scoffed. “You must not think I look more than all right if you think you don’t look fit.”
Molun laughed again. “Oh, we’re always more critical of ourselves than anyone else, aren’t we?”
Trill shrugged, and then nodded after a moment. “I suppose we are. I don’t care much about how people think I look… maybe because I think I look good? Which makes me seem very conceited, doesn’t it?”
But he’d genuinely never worried. If he wanted someone, he could usually get them.
To the best of his knowledge, he’d never had anyone not like the way he looked if they were someone that he chose to pursue.
He pondered this. Did he instinctively not pursue those who didn’t like him?
Was Yannoma right, and there was actually no one he couldn’t get if he put his mind to it?
He paid attention to everyone’s desire, though, so perhaps he did naturally get attracted to those who were attracted to him.
Molun was laughing. “It makes you sound confident, and that’s not a bad thing.”
Trill smiled back at him. “Thank you for that.” His smile faded. “Sometimes I’m not… My mother wasn’t a very happy person, and she didn’t… like me very much, sometimes.”
The amusement fell off Molun’s face with what would have been comical abruptness under other circumstances.
“Oh, Trill, I’m sorry.”
Trill shook his head. “No, it’s all right.
She’s gone now. Grandmother, too. They liked to blame me or one another for the bad things that happened in their lives.
I like to make people happy—even though I know that I’m not actually to blame for what happened to my family.
” Trill cleared his throat. “So, really, all I was trying to say was that I understand what you mean about being hard on ourselves. It seems to be more difficult, somehow, to give ourselves grace.”
Molun squeezed Trill’s shoulder, and they resumed walking.
“Still, I’m sorry to hear that. It sounds like it must have been difficult growing up.”
“It wasn’t easy, sometimes,” he agreed. “But it wasn’t terrible, either. Mother had her better days. We managed—until we didn’t, anyway. It was worse with Grandmother, but then Father came and got me.”
“So you live with your father?” Molun asked.
“Oh, no,” Trill said, as they finally made it back to the floor where Molun and Arvus’s rooms were and began to walk down the hall. “He didn’t keep me. He’s not really the parental sort. But he found someone for me to stay with.”
“So you do have a home?”
“Yes, of course,” Trill told him. “I’m just visiting the city, like I told you. I’ve never been to the capital before. I’ve never seen a Mage Warrior up close.”
He leered, and thankfully, Molun laughed.
“Yes, well, good job on that, you can most definitely say that you’ve seen several Mage Warriors very close indeed.”
Trill crowded Molun closer to the wall, but then paused as he felt a leap of desire and something that was not desire. He pulled back.
“Oh, of course. You like to do things together.”
Molun looked uncomfortable. “I’m sorry, we, uh—”
Trill held out his hand and pulled the other man back into gentle motion down the hall.
“Not at all. I greatly admire your attachment to one another; I should have thought of that. I would never pursue one of you without the other, but I was thinking—or not thinking—in a short-term moment of arousal. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable, and I apologize.”
Trill had known better, but he’d apparently already gotten used to being able to touch when he wanted, and that was definitely a problem. It had been one night—all right, and one really nice breakfast—and he shouldn’t be used to anything. None of it was his to keep.
They made it back to Molun and Arvus’s room, and Trill wondered if it might not be better for him to go after all, but Molun moved towards the comfy chairs and carefully settled himself in the one that already had a book on the table next to it.
“Come on,” Molun told him. “I need to get reading, so you should, too.”
Trill sat down in the other chair, and he set the books aside on the little side table after picking one at random. He was pretty sure he didn’t read a single sentence, and if he’d been smart, he would at least have decided to flip the pages now and again so Molun wouldn’t know he wasn’t reading.
After a few minutes, Molun said, “Come here.”
Trill looked up from where he’d been staring sightlessly at the book. “What?”
“Come here,” Molun repeated, holding out his hand.
Confused and a bit wary, Trill went. Molun captured his hand and then patted his right leg.
When Trill just stood there, he gave a little tug.
“Come, sit.”
Trill just looked at him, so Molun tugged a bit harder. “Come on.”
“But—” Trill protested.
Molun patted his leg again and pouted. “Are you going to make me beg?”
He really was good with the pouting. Trill wasn’t sure he’d met anyone who pouted as well as Molun did.
Trill sat down gingerly, making sure to put as much of his weight as possible on Molun’s right leg.
He wasn’t as big as Molun was, but he also wasn’t a child, so some of his body was balanced on Molun’s left leg.
“Are you sure this is all right?” Trill asked.
“Well, not when you sit there like you’re about to hop off,” Molun complained, and Trill could hear the pout.
Trill leaned back, and then Molun was squirming, and a moment later, they were suddenly comfortably arranged.
Molun had widened his legs a little, so then Trill could actually straddle his right leg and wasn’t stressed about putting too much weight on his left.
Trill was leaning back against the right side of his chest, too, so that he wasn’t in the other man’s face.
“There we go.” Molun hummed a happy noise. “Much better.”
It certainly gave him the chance to push those small tendrils of energy into the man’s leg.
“What are we doing like this?” Trill wanted to know.
“Reading, of course.”
Trill twisted his head so he could give the other man a look. Molun darted in and pressed a kiss to Trill’s cheek. Trill felt his breath catch.
“I didn’t mean we couldn’t still spend time together. I’m not ready to do anything sexy without Arvus, that’s all. But we can still cuddle. You like that, don’t you?”
Trill could only nod, because he definitely did like that—and he appreciated more than he could say that Molun appeared to have figured that out and hadn’t let him just sit in his own chair awkwardly, certain he’d messed everything up.