The Same Type of Animal #3
There was no conceivable way Vanu would not see through that.
Lill nocked the second arrow, raised the bow, and shot, hitting the second ring of the target, just above and to the left of the first arrow.
He glanced at the quiver, counting the remaining arrows, then plucked them out one after another and shot, until the quiver was empty and the arrows in the target were arranged in a rough approximation of a Hawada character—the first one that came to mind, which happened to be the first letter of Vanu’s name.
It was a trick he’d perfected with his knives on the streets of Torakand—with different letters, of course—and he’d never tried it with a bow before, or from such a distance.
He stood looking down the range, assessing how he’d done.
It was a little crooked, the shape could have been clearer, he could certainly have shot faster, and he had taken the time to line up all but the first shot carefully—but it would be adequate. He wouldn’t be punished.
He realized, with a jolt that made the muscles of his back spasm, that he had been standing at attention, holding Mikhi’s bow stiffly in front of him, waiting for the all-clear from the master to go and collect his arrows.
But he was not in fact on the archery range of the Order.
No one was judging whether he deserved punishment or not.
He moved to go down the range and retrieve the arrows.
“Leave ’em,” said Vanu.
“O-oh?” Lill stared at him, confusion probably written on his face. He’d almost forgotten Vanu was there.
“Let’s go in.” Vanu tipped his head toward his house, something purposeful in the gesture.
“Of course. For … to … ?” He was missing something; he felt that he should know what Vanu intended, but he did not.
Vanu paused, raked his hair back with one hand—it was loose, not tied back at all today, which made him look younger, less stern—put his hands on his hips, rubbed a thumb over the scar on his right cheek. If he’d been a boy, Lill would have said he was fidgeting.
“Let’s—” Vanu took a breath and let it out with a huff. “We could mess around. If you wanted.”
“We could do what?”
“Mess around.” He made a vague and yet quite explanatory gesture, indicating Lill’s body and his own. “If. You want.”
“Oh! Oh. Yes, of course.” The only possible answer. Absurd that it required courage to say, but it did.
“Whatever you want. Nothing you don’t want.”
“I … Thank you.”
Realization dawned as he was following Vanu back toward the house, bows and empty quiver abandoned on the range.
“Did you like watching me shoot?” Lill asked.
Vanu shot him a look full of … something. “I liked it a lot.”
“I didn’t think you would.”
“Didn’t want me to know you’re the better archer?” Vanu was going up the stairs to their balcony.
“I’m not!” Lill scurried after him. “I couldn’t even draw your bow.”
“Eh, that’s just muscles. Not saying I’m a bad shot. I’m an excellent archer. You’re better.”
“And you … And that … ”
Vanu swung round at the top of the stairs to look at him. “Turns me on? Makes me want to go to bed with you? Yeah. Like a fire wants something to burn. Shit. I’m scaring you again.”
“No! You’re not.” The only possible answer, and a lie. “I … It’s not your fault.”
“No?”
Lill shook his head. He had to tell the truth, and it felt like turning unarmed toward a weapon. “I am scared, but it is not your fault.”
Vanu was silent, standing with his arms braced on the balcony railing, for so long that Lill thought he was going to say forget the whole thing.
“When I was a boy,” he said finally, looking Lill in the eye, “had a couple of friends, we used to do things to each other—figuring out what we liked, you know? And uh, doing more of it, when we had it figured. Messing around. I guess … you never had that.”
Lill shook his head, willing Vanu not to ask why.
“Used to go in the hayloft,” Vanu said. “But we’re grown up, you and me. We can use my bed.”
“Let’s go,” said Lill.
They went into Vanu’s room, took off their boots, and lay down on the bed, facing each other. The deliberateness of it was terrifying. Lill wanted to curl up into a ball and hide. And also, he wanted Vanu to touch him. It had been two weeks; they needed to get this over with.
He knew Vanu had been trying to put him at ease, talking about learning what he liked with his boyhood friends, suggesting it could be like that between the two of them now.
It wasn’t his fault—he wasn’t to know—that just made Lill think of boys who had broken the rules of the Order being beaten bloody in the main courtyard while the rest of the pupils watched.
Vanu shifted a little closer, so his forehead was almost touching Lill’s. Lill could feel his warmth.
“What’s your favourite part of your body?” Vanu asked in a whisper.
“My brain,” said Lill readily. “The Sukiyan sages say it’s the seat of intelligence, and if so, it’s always served me well. Though in Suna they maintain—”
“And your tongue, because you like to talk?” Vanu suggested.
“Yes, yes. That too.”
Vanu put his hand to Lill’s face and slipped his thumb inside Lill’s mouth, past his teeth, onto his tongue. Lill felt caught, suddenly, like an animal in a trap. And not like that at all, because it felt …
He started trying to say something around Vanu’s thumb and made incoherent noises instead. Vanu withdrew his hand.
“I’m sorry,” said Lill. “You meant a part of me that you could touch. I think I’m so clever, but sometimes I’m … just an idiot, aren’t I?”
Vanu shook with silent laughter. “No. Well … ”
He shifted closer and kissed Lill. His tongue slid into Lill’s mouth, and it didn’t feel like an invasion. Lill could feel how careful he was being. Don’t think, he told himself sternly.
Now Vanu was taking Lill’s hands—still kissing him—and drawing them up to his face, so Lill felt the hard line of Vanu’s jaw under his palm, the prickle of stubble against the pad of his thumb.
“Thank you,” he murmured against Vanu’s lips. “I didn’t—know—what to do with my hands.”
Vanu lifted a hand to make a sign that Mikhi had shown Lill the other day: a rude way of saying “I noticed.” Lill wriggled closer and stroked his hands over Vanu’s face, clumsy with tension.
He should let Vanu take the lead, remain in charge; of course he should.
Honour, prudence—everything demanded it.
If he let Vanu take the lead, his mind would wander to horrors.
He would tense up or gasp in the wrong way or shout “No” and whack Vanu in the head, and Vanu would shut the whole thing down because he didn’t want Lill like that.
He wanted Lill like his childhood friends—the ones he couldn’t accidentally get pregnant—eager like he was.
Lill reached down with both hands and seized fistfuls of Vanu’s shirt, tugging it loose from his sash.
“Off?” Vanu signed one-handed. He looked pleased.
“Mm-hm.”
Vanu obliged, pulling his shirt over his head and tossing it off the bed.
He lay down on his back. The sun came in the window and made the hair on his chest gleam like flecks of gold.
Lill sat up and looked at him, thinking how complicated it was, when what you wanted to do and what you thought you should do for your mission were the same thing—how hard to still feel you were in control.
Not something that Master Moon ever addressed in his treatise.
He laid his hand on Vanu’s chest, fingers spread. He could feel Vanu’s heartbeat. The curls of pale gold were rough under his palm. Outrageous sentences formed in his mind.
You’re lovely.
Everything about you is beautiful.
He moved his hand slowly, lightly, smoothing over the swell of pectoral muscle.
He looked up into Vanu’s face. Vanu was watching him, his eyes heavy-lidded, his smile soft.
As if he might let Lill take all the time he wanted.
He shifted under Lill’s touch, like a warm landscape moving, tucking one hand under his head, and lifted the other to toy with one of Lill’s braids.
He wound it gently around his hand and clenched his fist—the muscles in his upper arm tightened thrillingly—but did not pull.
My Lion.
Lill leaned forward.
Someone knocked on the door downstairs, rapping out a jaunty rhythm. Lill and Vanu both started; maybe talking about messing around in haylofts had put Vanu in a state to be wary of interruptions, too. He dropped Lill’s braid, and they looked at each other and shook with laughter.
“Helloo!” came Halza’s voice from downstairs. “Lill? Are you in?”
“Yes, but I’m busy,” Lill signed.
“Should I go scare him away?” Vanu moved to rise from the bed.
“No, no.” Lill scrambled up.
Somehow the idea of Vanu going down there half-dressed … It wasn’t embarrassing; everyone knew they were married. It was something else.
“I can scare him myself,” he added as he backed toward the door of the room.