Chapter 7 #2
“I will admit, I assumed my parents would have made it known to your father before securing the betrothal agreement.” Laurel waits. “I was startled to have been wrong.”
“You’re delaying, Beacon.”
“Working up to it,” he corrects.
Laurel crosses his arms. “Building the atmosphere?”
“Yes.” Beacon hazards a small smile. “I’m a man.”
“I can see that,” Laurel parries dryly.
“No, you can’t. That’s why I ran. I was taken by surprise that you didn’t know.”
“Know what, Beacon?”
“I was born a woman,” he confesses, feeling very much like the words are wrenched free of his chest, leaving shredded bits of his pride behind.
“That’s not possible,” Laurel says.
“I know I don’t look it, but that was magic’s doing, not nature.”
Laurel gestures to demand Beacon’s silence. “You weren’t born a woman. No one is. We’re all born as babies.”
Gritting his teeth against the urge to snap, Beacon says, “You know what I meant.”
Laurel rolls his eyes. “You weren’t born male?”
“Exactly.”
“Okay.”
Beacon waits for what’s next, but nothing comes.
“You favor men,” he says, almost like an accusation. Needing to do something with his nervous energy, Beacon works on the buttons of his white long-sleeved shirt, the arms of which are rolled to his elbows due to the heat.
“And you are a man, as we just established.”
“Yes, but men have—”
“Penises? Is this about— I’m sorry, you look so scandalized. You’re worried I’ll react poorly to learning you don’t have a prick?”
Beacon frowns. “When you put it like that…”
“It sounds fucking dumb.”
“Ah… yes, it does.”
“So you know why I’m upset, then. You could have told me then and there knowing I would find out eventually, but you chose to run instead, leaving me to wonder what I did wrong.”
Grimacing, Beacon admits, “I didn’t intend for you to…”
“Take it personally?”
He shrugs.
“Well, I did. And now that I know, I’m even more cross.”
Beacon’s face goes hot. He doesn’t want to take off his kilt during a conversation about his lower body, but the sweaty shirt has already cleared his elbows.
He has no choice but to shake the cuffs off his wrists, fully exposing his well-muscled chest, dusted with red hair. “I’m sorry you weren’t warned.”
“You still think that’s what I’m angry about?
Beacon, I couldn’t care less about what you’ve got under your kilt.
I’m upset that you didn’t trust me; you didn’t even give me the chance to prove myself.
” Laurel wrings his hands in front of his stomach, obscuring the precious spatter of green freckles above his navel.
“I spent two days worried—including our wedding—all because I thought you liked me until you saw a more mature example of my work.”
“I didn’t know how to tell you what I was lacking.”
“I don’t see it as a lack, which you would have known if you’d given me the chance.”
“I’m sorry.”
They both fall silent, half-dressed and staring at each other from across the room.
Suddenly, Beacon is overcome by the urge to sweep Laurel into his arms, to embrace him like they’re proper lovers rather than two men thrust together by expectations beyond their control.
Not for the first time, fear keeps him rooted to the spot.
“Beacon…”
He should say something. He should.
But he doesn’t.
Laurel sighs. “I need to wash. I’m disgusting.
” He doesn’t break their locked gaze when Beacon nods, still waiting for words Beacon just doesn’t know how to produce.
Finally, Laurel adds, “You should join me.” It’s bravery Beacon doesn’t have, breaking the stalemate that’s been cutting Beacon off from the intimacy he’s begun to crave.
“Are you sure?” Beacon chokes out.
“I wouldn’t have said it if I wasn’t.”
Beacon hesitates, forehead furrowing in a sign of his frustration.
His head begins to ache from the pressure generated by nothing other than his own stubbornness.
The same pride that motivated him to sabotage his last betrothal rather than simply communicate to his parents and his intended that he believed they were incompatible.
Somehow, Laurel’s expression softens. His trousers are sagging halfway down his thighs; he fingers the waistband of his small clothes underneath. “Do you need me to force the issue?”
The suggestion is alarming, and yet its brilliance is… well, something Beacon, for once, is not expected to verbalize.
“Please,” is all he has to say.
In a movement nearly too smooth to follow, Laurel sheds his lower garments with one hand and spins the index finger of the other.
Beacon’s remaining clothing moves without his say-so, stripping him bare before Laurel’s eyes.
He’s relieved for the ungroomed thatch of hair protecting the space between his legs, but Laurel doesn’t so much as glance down.
He strides forward, tail whipping behind him as an irate cat’s would, grabs Beacon’s upper arms, and pushes with all his strength.
It’s feather-light, Laurel’s best effort, but Beacon follows the pressure fluidly. He allows Laurel to turn him toward the door to the washroom and steer him with confidence in Beacon’s silent consent to follow.
Whatever restraint Laurel has to keep from inspecting Beacon’s naked body, Beacon does not share.
The moment Laurel raises the lights—it’d be too much to ask for them to do this in the dark—Beacon’s gaze drops.
His participation in Laurel’s game hiccups when he sees the smaller elf’s nude form, sleek and toned, a bit shiny from sweat.
The most surprising element is his cock, somehow erect and rosy just from manhandling Beacon. It sends a shock of arousal from Beacon’s throat down to his groin, an electric sensation unlike anything he’s experienced before.
Laurel likes this. He’s not uncomfortable or forcing himself to engage to save Beacon’s pride. No, he’s forcing Beacon to save him from confronting his ridiculous hang-ups. At least for now.
Beacon resolves then and there to properly thank his parents for choosing the most precious of elves to match him with. And that will be the last time he thinks about his parents during this activity.
The moment cools when Laurel is faced with the fixtures in the bathing-closet. There’s the tub for a bath, which Beacon is familiar with, but overhead is a spigot with its own set of handles.
Back in Stehr’s Peak, the athletic compound doesn’t have hot water or plumbing. They wash the day’s sweat in cold runoff from the nearby falls, rerouted over the land to lessen the pressure. An established schedule sends the athletes to a hot spring to soak their muscles, but Beacon never lingers.