Chapter 8 #4
He shook his head. "I'm not going to blame you for not endangering yourself after being married to a stranger." His grip tightened on a piece of firewood.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I had meant to get away before this could hurt you."
He stopped moving, his hand still on the log. "Before this could hurt me," he repeated.
I was foolish. My apology was selfish, and I said it anyway, my voice a whisper. "Before you got in trouble, because of me."
He didn't move. "That makes sense," he said, "that you'd plan to run. Since you were sold." His face was impassive, frozen. He turned to the fire, abruptly, his back to me, busied himself again with the logs.
I should stop now, but I let the words out, anyway. "Are you angry with me?"
His hands slowed. "I wish you didn't have to ask me that."
Should I apologize more? A little groveling seemed appropriate.
"No,” he said. “No, I'm angry with a lot of people right now, but none of them are you." His hands started moving again. "And none more than myself."
I leaned against that wall. "But you haven't done anything wrong."
The breath that broke out of him was bitter. "Someday you will figure out how to blame me for this, and when that day comes," his shoulders were tense, "I'll understand if you light me on fire."
I was shaking my head. "He repaid your loyalty with lies. He lied to you. He gave you false medicines, and a false…" I lost my voice.
A branch cracked. "You keep fixating on that, that a man I never should have trusted broke his oath. You want to focus on that, like I wasn't the one of us that had a choice."
"I had a choice."
"Your sister or yourself is not a choice." His voice had risen. Heat rose in my face. I hoped they couldn't hear us outside.
He pulled apart another log with his hands.
"Any good man would have canceled the deal the moment he saw rope burns on your wrists.
You keep focusing on my wounds and ignoring your own, like the thing with the shoes all over again, like it's another way they broke you not to speak about pain, but the world doesn't work that way.
I can have been harmed and still done terrible wrong.
I can be the idiot your father lied to and still have hurt you.
And it's sad that you don't think I could have done better, but I know myself.
I know I could have." He straightened, tension still in the lines of his back.
Still not facing me. "I didn't choose to trust you because you were convincing.
I chose it because I wanted to, against the evidence.
I let myself be deceived. So please stop acting like I'm the victim here, when I let myself be the brute your father thought I was. "
But I kissed you. I wanted to say it, but self-loathing muzzled me. It was nice, perhaps, to let him believe the fairy story where I was not the villain. But I knew I was lying, and I'd kissed him anyway. "It seems like I should at least get to choose that," I murmured.
"Choose what?" He broke a stick.
"Whether to be angry with you."
He stopped.
"Besides," the nausea rose again, almost a stupid laugh. Or was I crying? "It wasn't only you who chose the wrong people to trust. In Rowton I…got…you hurt, too."
"I'm fine," he answered, automatic, expressionless. "I didn't even have to fight anyone. I still forced you to handle it."
Handle it. The nausea and the horror rose again, images of the melting street thugs and the flames licking around Khal. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to stop thinking, stop remembering that I was me.
The floor creaked. "You're shivering."
I opened my eyes.
He rummaged through a chest, stopped. "We only have the one blanket."
"You had one with your bedroll."
"I must have left it." He was lying. Why was he lying? "Let's move you closer to the fire."
I tried to push off the wall. My head spun again. He hesitated on my periphery. "Can…" he cleared his throat. "Can I help you?"
I nodded, squeezing my eyes shut again. I felt his arms encircle me. He half-led, half- supported me to the floor by the fire, and I let myself sink into the wood planks, my teeth still chattering. Whatever in a person lets them stay warm, it was like magic had leached it all from me.
Khal paced. "I should go borrow more blankets, but…can you bar the door behind me?"
"Maybe." Even sitting up sounded arduous, but I didn't want him to feel abandoned. "But I'm not sure I could get up again to let you in."
"I could take you with…" he cut the words off, looked at the door. No, that wasn't safe for him right now. Wasn’t safe for either of us.
"You could hold me," I whispered. Was it selfish to ask for what I wanted, if it would stop him from putting himself at risk? "You're warm."
He hovered, still standing, his face lit by the flames. "Are you sure?"
Sure of what? That I was a poisonous leech, and I needed him? Sure that the heat of his body was what I craved more than blankets, or fires, or whatever rat-like survival I deserved? "I'm sure."
He lowered himself down, ginger, and I felt the warmth, the solidness of him at my back, his arm slowly settling over my waist, like he thought I would break.
Or bite. The weight of his arm was nice.
I realized I was staying too still, like I’d scare him away, and that was foolish.
He was being charitable with me. And yet…
I think I knew on some level that he didn't feel the way I did about me, that I didn’t disgust him now.
I should ask him. I should just ask him.
“Does this bother you?” I tried to keep my teeth from chattering.
“What, this?” His voice was thick. “No. You don’t bother me.”
I wished I could roll away from the flames, hide in his chest. But that would be presumptuous of me. “That’s good,” I whispered. They’d almost stopped chattering.
“What about you?” he murmured, his breath warm by my ear. “I would understand, if this was too much for you. You have…no reason to feel safe with me.”
Some sort of sound came out of me, like a cough, or a snort. I froze.
“...what?”
“N-nothing. I’m fine. I feel fine.” Heat bloomed across my face. “I don’t mind. When you touch me.”
He was silent. I should say something, I should stop this quiet. I should-
“What really happened? To the blankets.” The words were in a rush, then, quieter, “You’re obvious when you lie.”
He inhaled, breathed slow. “They got burned.”
“Burned when?”
“You sometimes…you caught fire, a few times. While you were sleeping. I think it’s when you have dreams.”
I tried to scramble up, stopped as the flood of weakness took my forehead to the floor. I thought I was going to vomit.
He hurried to say, “It was fine. No one got hurt. You didn’t…you don’t burn me. Like at the tower, you don’t burn me.”
I breathed shallow, my face still pressed against the ground. “How many times?”
He hesitated. “I think…only three.”
I rolled onto my back, fighting the vertigo to face him. “Three?”
“It was okay. I handled it.”
“This is a wooden house!”
“I don’t think you’re doing it anymore. Vrathgar doesn’t like this house, much. …you haven’t been screaming, either. ”
I stared at the ceiling. “This isn’t safe. I’m not safe.”
“When Gernaz lost his brother, he had nightmares too. Sometimes he’d lash out at us.
It took him a long time to be in the same kind of terrain, to do the same kind of things.
” He was resting on one forearm, his face calm.
"It is normal to feel unsafe when you're not.
It's normal to lash out when you're…suffering.
But it doesn't last forever. You get through. "
I was shaking. "I shouldn't even be the one who's broken over this." It was like a dam breaking, the emotions drowning me. "You're the one they hurt."
"Being helpless is terrible. Not being able to save someone is terrible." He looked away. "And when you saved me…it wasn't you making decisions. They were burning. You were screaming. It looked like we were all going to die. It's alright, to be scared."
The distance between us was less than a foot, but I thought what a fool I was for pulling away, when I needed him so badly.
I wanted his warmth. I wanted to pull close to him, to cling to what should never have been mine.
There were tears dripping down my face, and he was the only one who didn't think I was a fool.
"I thought we'd be safe. And I almost got you… " my voice broke.
He moved, slow, deliberate. "Can I hold you?"
I turned into his chest. I clung to him, let the tears come, wracking sobs. I clung to his shirt, and his arm was under my head, and I…
"This wasn't your fault," he murmured. "It wasn't fair, and it wasn't your fault."
My voice shook, my face buried in his chest. "I trusted them."
His hand stroked over my head. "How old were you, when you left the city?"
"I don't know," I whispered. "I was small."
"You can't blame a child for not seeing the reasons not to trust people. You saw the best in people who'd been better to you than your father had." His arms held me a little tighter. "You told me you'd never seen an orc before. You couldn't have known how they'd react when they saw me."
“But I should have.”
His fingers brushed over my shoulder. “We have enough to deal with without adding should-haves. You’re here with me, and we’re safe. Let’s just…” He went quiet.
“Just what?” I whispered. My throat was so tight.
He swallowed. “Let’s just be here. Alright? I’m glad…to be with you.”
I felt the tears slip down my face, but I didn’t speak, didn’t make a sound, because it was too strange that I was the problem, I was the one who’d lied to him, hurt him, I was bringing him all these problems, but somehow, right now, I was something that he wanted.
I rested against his heart, with his arms around me, listening to him, the strong pulse of him, the even, steady breathing, till my own shallow breaths slowed with his, till his warmth seeped through his skin to me. I felt…safe.
“Khal?” I said.
“Yes?” His voice was husky, rough, but he didn’t mean to scare me. This wasn’t anger, this was some other feeling. I knew that.
“Why are you wearing a shirt?”
He sighed, deep, and I felt it on my hair. “I didn’t want to startle you.”
“I’ve seen your chest before,” I mumbled. “It’s odd to get modest, after…”
He took a breath, and I think I felt heat spread across his skin. “Not like that,” he rasped. “Just…you didn’t burn me. But there were…I took some damage. There are some marks. I didn’t want to scare you.”
I brushed my fingers over his upper arm, where some harder cloth bunched beneath the sleeve. He flinched, just a little.
“Sorry.”
“You’re fine.” He shifted, carefully, whether so cautious for me or for these unknown injuries, I didn’t know. “The scars will be good, with treatment. I mean…our people wear them with honor. I don’t know if your people admire…” He flushed again. He was nervous.
I craned up, to kiss his cheek. “They’re attractive. We’re the same.” It wasn’t much of a lie. Probably orc women had an easier time navigating having scars than we did. But they didn’t seem to hinder the human men much, when they weren’t on the face.
He let out a breath, closed his eyes. “I wish I didn’t get so tongue-tied with you.”
I laughed, softly. When I thought of being tongue-tied, Khal was the last person I thought of.
A heaviness was dragging at my eyelids, pulling me down, into the sweet, drink-like warmth of him. “I wish…” I mumbled into his shirt, but then I was drifting away.
His voice tugged me back. “What do you wish?” He sounded, still, so awake.
I gathered myself back, the thoughts, the sorrows. “I wish…I could have been real for you. That I could have been what you were looking for.”
And I don’t know if it was real or imagined, as sleep took me, but I thought I heard him murmur, “You were. You are.”