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“What would it take to get you not to scowl at me every time I enter the room?”

Ataya, bent over a small vial in the storage room of his uncle’s pharmacy, did not lift his head at the question or the tap of approaching footsteps. “I am not scowling ‘at’ you,” he answered. “I don’t find you merit the amount of attention or effort it would require to actually direct one at you in particular and certainly not at every instance where you enter a room. If I am scowling, I suspect it has to do with something else altogether…” His brow pinched as he lifted the vial, thumbing over its label before moving to replace it.

“Oi, so what’s got you, then?”

“Nothing.”

“You do seem to be perpetually cross about something. You know—”

“Yes.”

A pause. “I didn’t even say what I was going to.”

“But I probably ‘know’ whatever it is,” Ataya quipped, “so you can save your breath. What are you doing in here? Aren’t you supposed to be at the front desk?”

“You know…”

Ataya pursed his lips.

“My gran always said that if you hold a face for too long, you’ll be stuck with it when you’re older. And aye, I was, but Master Fe—your uncle just got back and he sent me back to check on you.”

“He did not.”

“How many fingers am I holding up?”

Ataya gave a withering glower in no particular direction. “None. You’re standing there like an idiot wasting my time and carrying a…box…” He paused, curious. “What’s in it?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know.”

“Yes, that would be why I asked—”

“Gods, you know it is cold every time you do that.”

“Ice,” Ataya muttered, “does tend to be cold, Edmun, yes. How impressive that you managed to deduce that—”

“It’s like you’re touching me all over all at once.”

“…”

“Er, with your magic. That is.” The thhnk of box dropping to tabletop sounded, followed by: “Here.”

“‘Here’ what?” Ataya asked, moments before fingers touched his, and he tensed. “What—” But a moment later, something was being placed in his hand. He pursed his lips. “What is this.”

“It’s food,” Edmun provided unhelpfully. “You know, you eat it. I understand you’re not particularly familiar with the concept, but—”

“I know what food is,” Ataya quipped. “What kind of food is it.” It felt like bread. Sticky…

“A sweet roll.”

Ataya made an indistinct sound, his voice softening subtly. “Who told you to bring me sweet things?”

“Your uncle, mum, sister…basically everyone who’s ever seen you eat anything, ever.” A pause. “You don’t have to eat it, I just thought…”

Ataya nibbled at the edge, stifling a grumbled hum of noise because it was good. Frustratingly. He plucked at it, eating peevishly slowly. He swore he could hear the other boy smile. “And why did you bring me one?”

“‘Cause I heard you like them…? Do you like them?”

“That’s beside the point. Why do you care what I li—”

“You know,” Edmun began, “I think you’d be a lot happier if you didn’t assume every nice thing someone ever did for you was a plot, scandal, or otherwise innately suspicious—”

“But it is suspicious,” Ataya interrupted. “I’ve never done anything nice for you.”

“Well, yeah, but I can’t hardly expect that to change if I don’t get the ball rolling, can I?”

Ataya pursed his lips. “I’m not nice to anyone. What makes you think—”

“And that,” Edmun cut in, “may well be the source of a great lot of your unhappiness.”

“Why do you care whether I’m ha—”

“What are you doing this evening?”

“Stop interrupting me!” Ataya snapped.

“My apologies.” Edmun waited a pause.

Ataya scowled into space in the general vague direction from which Edmun’s voice had been coming. “Now, as you might notice, I am scowling at y—”

“So, what are you doing this evening?”

Ataya’s fingers crimped against the table before him, frost dotting its top before he pulled away from it, snorting. “Plotting to take over the world. And possibly exterminate a few choice ysali in the process,” Ataya said, emphasizing the word ‘choice’ with a two-finger prod to Edmun’s stomach on his way past as he headed towards the door.

“Choice. You think I’m choice?” Edmun repeated, entirely too chipper as his footsteps trailed in Ataya’s wake.

“I think you’re irritating—”

“What all is involved in your plot to take over the world so far?”

“An army,” Ataya said, reaching for the door, “of mindless, undead minions and rotting corpses.”

“That…is sufficiently gross. Really, really gross, actually. Do you know what you could do instead of plotting to take over the world with a bunch of cold dead things?”

“I can’t imagine anything more appealing at the moment, no.”

“We could go to dinner.”

Ataya paused halfway down the hall and towards the front desk. “Dinner.”

“Yes,” Edmun said. “It’s a social event, or certainly can be, wherein people consume food and—”

“I know what dinner is. We?” Ataya repeated.

“‘We’,” Edmun said. “It’s a plural pronoun indicating—”

“I know what ‘we’ means,” Ataya cut in, aghast. “Why would you want to do something — anything — with me?”

“Do I need to have a reason for everything?”

“Yes.”

A sizable silence stretched between them wherein both stood still, in the hall, unmoving and unspeaking. At length, Edmun broke it. “I like your hair.”

“You want to share a meal with me because you like my hair.”

“I think you’re funny?”

“You sound decidedly less convinced of that point. As many times as I’ve assured my sister that I am, in fact, hilarious, I have never genuinely expected anyone else to share in my opinion of my own humorousness—”

“I’d like to do something with you that doesn’t involve packing vials and talking to customers and finding ground extract of wyrmroot or lorthvine—”

“That fails to speak to the point of why.”

“Could you just answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’? Please?”

Ataya frowned. He shifted his weight, pulse entirely too erratic and knotted. Finally, he spoke. Quietly. “I don’t want to go anywhere public.”

“So we won’t,” Edmun said, easily as that. “I’ll make something myself, pack it, and we can go down the beach somewhere out where not a soul will bother it but us.”

“You cook.”

“A bit. See, these are the sorts of things we’d learn about each other if—”

“What do you expect to get out of it?”

He heard Edmun’s sigh. Then: “Maybe nothing? Maybe a chance to see you in some other state ‘side from dour and put upon?”

“I don’t—”

“Or maybe I’m just tryin’ to save the world.”

Ataya blinked, brow pinching. “Pardon?”

“From your undead army,” Edmun said. “You know, divert and distract you and all that. I think you’ll find it’s a touch harder to take over the world while going on beach picnics and nibbling steamed rolls.”

“Mm.” The corner of Ataya’s lip twitched in spite of himself. “Easier to do on a full stomach.”

“So is that a ‘yes’, then?”

Ataya’s lashes dipped, shoulders shrugging neutrally. “I suppose it could be construed as one, yes.”

“Magnificent.”

Ataya opened his mouth to assert that he highly doubted the concession amounted to cause for quite so much enthusiasm as all that, but before he got a word out, his space was being invaded. Fingers touching his chin. A body directly before him, leaning in and—

—lips brushing against his cheek.

Edmun withdrew moments later without a word, his footsteps retreating off in the direction of the front desk. Ataya, however, remained behind, posture brittle and stiff, most of his thought processes dedicated entirely to convincing his lungs to breathe. When he recovered, for the most part, he sent a sharp glower — however useless and unseen it was likely to be — in the direction his previous company had retreated.

It occurred to him that perhaps, he was giving the other man a misguided impression of his position on the matter. He dismissed the thought, and opted to deal with further issues as they came.

“Yes.”

Edmun — who had been peacefully minding his own business, thank you very much, most of his weight propped against the course brick exterior of Master Fedele’s shop, and mind on decidedly other things — frowned and turned towards the now-familiar voice at its utterance. Ataya looked as he generally did, neutral with an open propensity towards shifting into the range of being cross at any given moment, and he brought with him a nipping chill that rippled through the previously warm air, ever-strange and out of place in the desert context. Edmun pushed his fingers through his hair, shuffling curly locks and pinning his company with a befuddled look.

“Yes?” he repeated.

“Yes,” Ataya reiterated. “Yes.”

This did not help Edmun’s position. “Yes, what?” he asked, and Ataya gave him a look as though to say he were a fool — which was fairly normal — and that he ought to have known, somehow, exactly what the hybrid was referring to which, under the circumstances, felt grossly unfair. “I don’t—”

“Yes,” Ataya said, interrupting him, “you may kiss me.”

A long pause stretched between them wherein Edmun stared. Wind blew over the desert and the world spun but— “Kiss…you,” Edmun repeated.

That, apparently, was enough to urge Ataya over the tipping point between ‘neutral’ and ‘cross.’ “You asked if you might do so,” Ataya quipped, words picking up and taking on a notably defensive air, “and if you’ve changed your mind that’s within your right but if you have done so there’s no need to act as though it is so shocking or unheard of when you brought it up and I merely—”

“No—no, no, no,” Edmun blurted. “It wasn’t that I wanted to say that I didn’t, I just—it’s been two weeks,” he said. “And you hadn’t said anything on it and we hadn’t talked about it and hadn’t done anything else and hadn’t even—”

“Should I apologize for ‘taking too long?’” Ataya grumped. “I said I would think about it…”

“I thought you had been done thought about it,” Edmun insisted. “You gave me no indication you still were and I thought you didn’t want more to do with me is all — that you hadn’t liked any of it or didn’t want me bothering you—”

“Why would you think that?”

Edmun stared, deadpan. “Are you…serious? Or sarcastic? ‘Cause I can’t tell if that’s—”

“If I say I am going to think about a thing and indicate I will give you an answer, then I will give you an answer,” Ataya said. “If I had decided I didn’t want it, then I would tell you so. Don’t you think I would?”

“I…don’t know? You actually tend to be a touch confusing and I can’t say I always know what you might do in any given instance…”

“I like to think I’m fairly straight forward.”

Edmun made a noise, something between a laugh and a snort. Then, a pause ensued. “So…”

“So?” Ataya repeated.

“I just, uh…” Edmun frowned, hesitating and eyeing him. “Did you…did you want me to do that here…? Now? Or—”

“If you’ve changed your mind—” Ataya made to take a step back, but Edmun jerked forward, catching at his neck and shoulder.

“No, wait, I—that isn’t what I meant—I didn’t say that, I just—”

“You don’t have to,” Ataya quipped. “And you certainly needn’t act on it here or now. You were the one who requested to begin with. I don’t care when or where, I am simply informing you that if you decide you should like to, then you have my permis—”

Edmun kissed him.

It was a lingering, pulling kiss wherein he used the catch of his grip at the niche between Ataya’s neck and shoulder to tug and guide as he dipped, thumb to the hybrid’s jawline in order to tilt his chin up, and he supposed it should not have surprised him that Ataya’s lips were cold. Or that the startled press of breath from Ataya’s exhale that skirted over his mouth as their lips caught was chilled as a winter frost, but Ataya’s fingers — long and bony that they were — clutched and crimped in the cloth at his front, holding him there. It was a very still first attempt. After spending several moments in wait to see if Ataya would respond, which he didn’t, Edmun let the contact drop, though he did not withdraw far.

Ataya’s pinched expression indicated…confusion? Displeasure?

Edmun opened his mouth.

“Is that it?” Ataya asked before he fit a word in.

“Er…well, I mean…nominally, you kiss back,” Edmun said. “And then things get more interesting…?”

“Kiss back,” Ataya repeated.

“Yes, like…you…” Edmun nudged lightly, guiding Ataya around so that his back was to the brick of the shop wall despite the tension in his shoulders. He placed one hand to brace at the side of the hybrid’s head and then caught again at his chin.

“What are you—”

“Just…relax a half bit,” Edmun said. “And—”

“You’re making it difficult to—”

But then, Edmun was kissing him again, this time catching Ataya’s lower lip between his, tilting his head and attempting to ease the concept of ‘kissing back’ out of him. This time, Ataya seemed more receptive. For all that he was tense in Edmun’s hold, the grip of his fingers tight and breath crisp with uncertainty, he moved this time. His lashes flit, dipping to fall shut against his cheeks and his mouth moved, rising and pressing into the kiss.

“Now, just…please don’t freeze my tongue to yours, eh?”

“Pardo—?”

Edmun flicked his tongue out, teasing the seam of Ataya’s lips, and the sound Ataya made — in conjunction with permission granted in the form of an open mouth and narrow hips twitching to arch towards his — was decidedly encouraging. He made the most of it.

As Ataya’s nerves, apparently, waned, his lips and breath warmed, the frosted edge to his responses easing off in favor of more wanting pushes and kisses. By the time Edmun’s lips made it to veering off-course, from Ataya’s mouth down along his jawline and up to the long, long stretch of his ears, the hybrid’s face was notably warm and flush, the rest of him squirming in a way that made it evident he was wholly ‘interested’ in the proceedings, and much of Edmun’s uncertainty about his welcomeness in the matter was disposed of.

Then came speech.

“Edmun—”

“Mmm…?”

“Does this—” Whatever Ataya had intended to say petered out, trickling instead into some form of breathy whine as Edmun’s lips skimmed the outer shell of his ear, and Edmun decided that of all the sounds the hybrid did make — snapping and fussing and quipping out insults and general derogatory commentary about this, that, the other, and the world at large — this particular boxed set was among the most pleasing.

“Yes?” Edmun asked, leaning back to eye the result of his handiwork. Blushes, he concluded, looked interesting on a mixed patchwork of two-toned skin, and Ataya was decidedly less eerie and intimidating when pushed to a brick wall, hair catching at the textured surface and lips parted and glossy with use.

“Do we ******** now?”

Oh.

Edmun blinked, a half-strangled, sputtered sound catching in his throat on its way out. “Do we—what?”

The sheer speed with which Ataya managed to go from warm, flush-faced, and interested, to stiff, defensive, brittle and cross was almost unsettling in its immediacy. “Unless this was all you wanted and I’m too ugly to—”

“Wait, wait, wait.” Edmun covered Ataya’s mouth, ignoring the decidedly more cross — arguably deadly — look he received at that point. “Could you just—can I ever get the benefit of the doubt here? I didn’t say you were ugly, I didn’t even—”

“Mmtydnnt—” Ataya pushed at his hand, shoving it off. “You didn’t say I wasn’t either, and isn’t that the point of beginning relations like this with someone in the first place? Isn’t the purpose of kissing to—”

“No. No, no — alright, first off…hadn’t you ever been…? Was that your first kiss?”

“I don’t see what this has to do with anything, but what part of—”

“It was, wasn’t it.”

“Of course it was,” Ataya snapped. “Such a shock to you I’m sure seeing as I clearly have a great line of persons waiting who would actually want to—no one wants—”

“I wanted to.”

“Would you like a prize for that?”

“Look, Ataya—” Edmun cut himself off, huffing and shaking his head. “I’m getting off track. My point was that no, no the point of kissing is not to go and go at it — of course sometimes you could — but the point of kissing is to kiss, and kiss someone you like and enjoy that kiss. It doesn’t have to go to more than that and not going to more than that doesn’t mean any foul thing—”

“If you didn’t want to, you could just say—”

“—but all that said,” Edmun cut in sharply, touching fingers to Ataya’s lips again and ignoring the bite of frost that nipped them on contact, “I…would like to…eventually…”

“Eventually…”

“Yes, eventually,” Edmun said. “We only just now kissed, we ought to…I mean nominally, there’s a bit of space there, you do that some more first, you get to know each other—”

“Don’t we know each other?”

“You kiss more and do things together—”

“We could kiss again if you like.”

Edmun gave a grunted huff and leaned in, catching Ataya’s lips briefly before leaning back again. “If you…would really like to do more…sooner,” he said, “…I could show you by my house some evening…? I don’t know how your parents would take to it, but ah…”

“If my father finds out, he’ll empty a quiver into you.”

“…oh.”

“I will think about it,” Ataya said. “In the meantime, we may ‘kiss more’ on occasions you see fit to do so.”

Edmun blinked, and then grinned. “Alright. I can work with that…”

“I want you to ******** me.”

A pause followed the words, long and empty, filled only by the brush of desert night winds down the streets of Taliuma as they stirred up dust, and Ataya could only guess at Edmun’s expression. But he knew the other man was there, standing in his doorway. He had heard him open it moments prior and greet him. Just as Ataya was about to tip, however, snap or turn on his heel and leave, Edmun finally spoke.

“You—what?” Edmun’s voice was, predictably Ataya supposed, as dumbfounded in tone as he might have guessed. “Ataya, what are you—it’s the middle of the night. And frigid out, nearly winter, aren’t you cold? What are you doing h—do you even know what time it is? I thought you were leaving to home soon…and how did you find my house?”

Ataya’s brow furrowed, pinching in a tight frown because really, what did any of that have to do with anything of relevance? When he opened his mouth, however, Edmun stepped forward, fingers catching lightly at his wrist and ignoring the initial stiffness at the touch. “Edm—”

“Come on, then, at least get inside. Your skin is freezing, I’ll make you a tea…and then you can explain yourself.”

Ataya pursed his lips, fully prepared to assert that he was generally freezing and didn’t feel a thing — it wasn’t exactly a cause of concern for an aiskala — and he not only didn’t need tea, but didn’t want any…

But then, Edmun was guiding him in, and Ataya allowed himself to be lead, listening to the door shut and latch behind him and then standing in wait as the grip dropped from his wrist and sounds of movement — ceramic clinking and tapping, shifting and pouring — sounded. Edmun began to speak as he moved about the space that Ataya guessed was his kitchen. Questions. Concerns. A good lot of useless trivia and babble, small talk, which he largely tuned out, his mind on other things. Actual important things.

Not sex, despite his initial assertion. But the actual reason he had sought Edmun out: a want for distraction from all the things plaguing his mind. His sister, mainly. Ever since her admittance to him that she carried Nesrinn’s child in her, his mind had haunted him with all the worst possible imaginings for how things might play out after. How his father would react. What he might do on finding out that his daughter harbored an infant of orderite blood in her. Each time he thought on it, darker scenarios spun their way through his mind and his gut lurched with nausea. For all that he knew that their father loved them, he didn’t trust the man.

Not with this.

With anything else, perhaps.

But not this.

Not his sister, vulnerable, carrying something which their father had made no secret of loathing and thinking fit for instant death. Brutal death. It didn’t help, of course, that Akara refused to see it. Refused to even consider that he might—

A hand touched his, and Ataya jerked, bristling.

“Woah there, easy, oi?” Edmun’s voice was warm. Why was it always warm? “You’ll spill if you’re not careful. Come on, then…” When fingers brushed up along Ataya’s hand, he allowed it to be guided out, and Edmun placed warm ceramic in his grip. This time, when Ataya murmured a spell to check for poisons, Edmun said nothing of it. Instead: “There is a touch of mallowsart in it. Dunno if that’ll show up in your check, but it’s just a relaxant, very mild.”

“Mm…” Ataya shut his eyes. “It doesn’t. Show up detected, that is,” he said, lifting the cup to his lips, blowing and sipping inspite of himself. “Does it seem I need it? The ‘relaxant’…”

“It does a bit, yeah.”

The liquid trickled warm down his throat. Hot, even. Almost enough to burn, but Ataya wasn’t of a mood to care.

“Are you going to tell me why you’re here?”

“I seem to recall making that fairly clear from the outset.”

“I don’t think that’s why you’re here.”

“Don’t you?” When Ataya took another sip, his mind took the silence as an opportunity to provide him with a recollection of his sister, what it sounded like to hear her cry, what it might sound like to hear her scream, and he grit his teeth, lowering the cup from his lips as his gut roiled anew.

“I don’t.”

Ataya exhaled sharply, exercising force of will so that his fingers did not — in his mood — frost up the edges of his teacup. “You’re mistaken, then.” His voice was flat and unmoving. “Which direction is your bedroom?”

“Ataya…”

Ataya opened his mouth, but then fingers were on his again, taking from him the teacup that was — damn the gods — gilded with a layer of frost and setting it aside. Edmun’s grip came to a rest on his forearm, rooting him loosely.

“Can’t you at least tell me what’s wrong?”

“Nothing is—”

Lips brushed his. Lightly. Fleeting.

Ataya reached, gripping at Edmun’s shirt front and tugging, hard, pushing into the kiss. Edmun’s hands skimmed down from his arms, along his sides and to his hips where they came to a rest, holding as he kissed back, and then Ataya’s back was to something solid. The door? A wall? He leaned, parting his lips and then biting at Edmun’s — sharply enough, apparently, to earn a muffled yelp of sound and a small jerk back before Edmun relocated to his throat. Ataya’s heart felt like foreign machinery in his chest, some bastardized version of an orderite mechanic’s monster, and he tilted his head sidelong, baring the column of his neck to Edmun’s advances.

“Still don’t want to talk?”

Ataya gave a frustrated, muted fuss of a sound, accompanied by a sharp twitch of his head in the negative. When he parted his lips again, though, to voice the assertion, Edmun’s kiss silenced whatever he might have said and—

Ataya yipped. Arms snapping forward as he was unceremoniously uprooted from the ground, he wound them around his base of support, clinging, before immediately following the action with a scowl. “Edmun, what are you—”

“Taking you to my room?”

“I am perfectly capable of walking, put me dow—nnnnh…” The last word morphed midway into a less-verbal more-guttural grunt of sound as Edmun shifted his hold, rearranging him in his grip but notably not setting him to the floor. “Edmun.”

“Mm?”

“…” After several moments of debate, Ataya left everything which remained unspoken, holding to the more solid frame beneath him instead and waiting out the process as they moved. When they reached their apparent destination, Ataya allowed himself to be lowered, carefully, to what felt like a mattress and pointedly ignored the new lurch and drop of his pulse in his chest. He opened his mouth, but then came the thunk, thunk of — ‘Boots? Something else? Surely boots…’ — to the floor and the dip of the bed under Edmun’s weight over him, and Ataya’s hands were not shaking. He bunched them at Edmun’s front. “If y—”

Edmun’s mouth was warm when it closed over his, his body heavy and soft and looming, pinning him to the sheets. Fingers grazed up Ataya’s front, working with the cloth at his chest, opening it and baring skin, guiding it off his shoulders and touching. Ataya’s legs were not shaking. His breath, however, quivered on its way out, and when Edmun’s touch stilled at his ribs, Ataya’s throat bunched, teeth grit.

“Ataya…”

Something brushed over the rocky nub of a scale triggering a ripple effect of sensation up and under his skin, and a strangled whine crawled from between his lips despite his best efforts.

“You’re so…skinny—”

Ataya jerked, shoving at the hands on him and pulling away. “Get off. Don’t touch me—”

“Ataya—”

“I said get off,” Ataya snarled, scrambling back across the mattress and away. Edmun obliged, initially, but then, after a few moments of space as he turned his back to slip his legs off the edge of the mattress, hands caught at his hips. Ataya stilled, back rigid and breath stiff. “Get off…”

“Maybe I don’t feel like it…”

“I’ll freeze your internal organs.”

“I don’t think you’re going to.”

“No? And why ever not.”

“‘Cause I’m not holdin’ you that tight, and if you really wanna go, y’can, aright?”

Ataya released a slow, chilled exhale, his expression tight and pinched. But he did not move.

“I would rather, though…if you told me what I did wrong,” Edmun continued. “Have you…not done this before…?”

“I’d never kissed before,” Ataya spat, sparing no venom with the words. “Did you really think I had ******** could all but hear Edmun’s frown. “I…suppose that was a foolish question…”

“It was.”

“Did I hurt you?”

“Don’t be an idiot.”

“You just…you pulled away so fast — did I scare you? We could go slowe—”

“I’m not frightened of you, you blundering—” Ataya drew a sharp breath at the press of lips to his throat and held still, frozen for a moment in place before jerking away and pulling his hair around, over his shoulder to cover his neck. “What are you doing.”

Edmun made a sound that might have been a snort or a sigh, but when his chin came to rest on Ataya’s opposite shoulder, he didn’t immediately pull away. “I’m not sure anymore. I thought I was doin’ what you wanted, but that seems to have changed again, so forgive me if I’m a bit lost. Perhaps you could—”

“Is that why?”

“…pardon?”

“Is that why you’re ******** me—”

“I’m not ******** you yet.”

“—because that’s what I asked for and you pity me just enough to—”

“Oh, come off of it Ataya…”

Ataya yanked away, out from under Edmun’s hold and off the bed, several bare-footed steps across the room. “‘Come off’ of—?”

“Not everything is about pitying you, has that ever occurred to you? That maybe not every single thing I or anyone else does is focussed on—”

“You said—”

“—judging or picking apart or over analyzing or belittling you?”

“You—”

“That maybe I just enjoy your company enough to want have a bit more of it?”

“Why w—”

“And maybe attracted enough to you that I’d like to sleep with you just because I ********’ want to and not out of some pity favor to you? And that yeah, sure, it’s a little faster than I’m used to moving, but you seemed pleased enough with it to start with that—”

“You think I’m ugly.”

“…”

Ataya folded his arms, bare toes crimped on the floorboards and tongue tapping against the backs of his grit teeth before he spoke again. “You said—”

“I said you were skinny.”

“You complained that I—”

“I’m heavy,” Edmun snapped, “in case you didn’t notice. And you’re a bit small. I was a bit worried? And you know it’s…I mean, I knew you were slim before but I’d never actually seen you…shirtle—”

“And when you did you were disgusted—”

“Gods be damned but you only hear what you want to, don’t you?”

Ataya frowned. “What is that supposed to…?”

“What could I say to you,” Edmun said, the bed and then the floorboards creaking under his weight as he shifted and approached, drawing up behind Ataya, “…to convince you that I do not find you disgusting…” His fingers threaded through Ataya’s hair, guiding a few loose strands away from his neck and over the shoulder that he had already tucked most of it, “…that I do not think you ugly, that I do not care about your mixed blood, or your eyesight, or your weight other than to worry that it’s not totally healthy…that I do like spending time with you, when you’re not being impossibly difficult, and that even then it’s engaging if nothing else, and I like having conversations with you and that…I would like to sleep with you at some point, not out of pity, and preferably without being shoved off the bed or having my internal organs frozen?”

Ataya shut his eyes, brow still furrowed. Edmun’s presence was warm at his back, his fingers soft on his hips, but he shook his head. “Nothing,” he said at length. “There is nothing you could say to me to make me believe all that. Some of it, perhaps. But certainly not all of it.”

Edmun’s sigh brushed through his hair. Gentle and close. Like a summer gust. Then, he let his grip drop and the space directly behind Ataya was vacated. “Good to know, I guess…if a little depressing.”

“…depressing…?”

“Did you come here for a quick go, then? Or did you want to talk about something,” Edmun said, ignoring the question, and Ataya pursed his lips.

The question reminded him, though, of what he had come for — or why he had — and, before he could think better of it, Ataya said, “My sister is pregnant.”

A pause. “Your…what?”

“My father is oblivionite and hates those of Serenian lineage as much as you might imagine the most stereotyped and vicious of his blood would. My sister is carrying a part-bird child and she refuses to do away with it. I am afraid for her and if you speak a word to anyone—”

“You’ll kill me.”

“Slowly.”

“I’m sorry,” Edmun said.

Ataya frowned.

“About your sister, that is. That…sounds terrifying. So…is that what I am, then?” he asked, stepping back in closer. “A distraction?”

“Yes.” This time, Ataya turned towards him.

“Sorry I didn’t do a better job of it.”

Ataya breathed out, shoulders relaxing in a loose shrug in spite of himself. “Your performance was worth at least honorable mention.”

A half-laughed snort sounded. Then: “Good to hear, I guess.”

Fingers touched beneath his chin, tilting it up, and Ataya shut his eyes, allowing himself to be lead into a light, lingering kiss. Edmun left it at that.

“Come on,” Edmun said. “I’ll teach you how to play five-hand pakkan.”

“Teach me…what?”

And so it was that, some minutes later and for some hours after that, Ataya spent the night cross legged on the floor of Edmun’s bedroom, learning to play a board game which seemed to have as many ways to cheat as there were to win and lose, and talking about nothing and everything until the moments blurred one into the next and dawn threatened at the windowsill. He left, then, but not without another kiss and question, and he decided that — even if he didn’t and couldn’t believe all the things Edmun said — they were not so terrible to hear and perhaps, when the opportunity arose properly, they could try again.

For now, he worried he had far more pressing matters to attend to of a less pleasant sort.

“What do you look like?”

The scent of something akin to incense, but more potent, wound its way through the morning air. Lethelbark root, maybe. Or a mix of it and several other herbs, some completely novel to his senses. Ataya lay on his back, eyes shut and hair in a loose spill over the sheets, his body still bare from the night previous. He deduced Edmun’s presence from a combination of the smell and the more obvious dip in the mattress where his weight rest on the opposite edge, upright in a sit, but there.

His question seemed to take the other man by surprise. “You’re awake.” A moment passed. Then: “Pardon? What do I…?”

“I’ve never seen you,” Ataya said, stating the obvious as he stretched, arms moving to drop above his head and legs pulling up to a half bend. “What color is your hair? Your skin? Your scales? Do you have freckles or scars I can’t feel…some obscure birthmark somewhere, tattoos?”

Another pause. Then, the mattress shifted slightly, dipping a bit nearer to him. “Blonde. My hair’s a sort of…pale yellow, white-blonde. Green around the nape of my neck and the tips close to my ears—”

“What shade?”

“Hn?”

“Of green,” Ataya said. “Like the forests just before nightfall in late summer, or new grass coming up through melting snow in the first weeks of spring?”

“Grass,” Edmun said. “Very bright, light green…some’ve called it a ‘poison’ green, though I like the new grass analogy better. Pale skin…burns easy in the desert, unfortunately. Very sensitive. No freckles on my face, but some on my shoulders and back…no tattoos or interesting scars or the like. Fairly ordinary, I think.”

“And your eyes?”

“That color, like my hair and scales,” Edmun said. “Bright…I’ve been told they’re a touch unnerving on occasion, actually. So perhaps you’re off better not seeing me.”

Ataya made a dubious snort of a sound. Then, he rolled, shifting his weight lethargically before pushing up, first onto an elbow and then to a full sit behind Edmun’s back. “Somehow…” he said, propping the weight of one arm over Edmun’s shoulder and reaching with the other to trail his fingers up Edmun’s and catch at what he held in his fingers — a smoke, “…I highly doubt you compete.”

“Compete…?” Edmun asked, though his voice seemed to peter off when Ataya guided his hand in, pulling it close enough for him to brush his lips up the line of Edmun’s fingers before catching them around the tip of his smoke.

After drawing a slow, careful breath, not wanting to overwhelm his lungs, Ataya held the inhale on his tongue a moment, eyes shut as he attempted to further identify the contents. Bitter. And yet almost sweet somehow. Coarse with an odd, dry mesh of scent and flavor. Eventually, he blew out in a narrow funnel before resting his chin on Edmun’s shoulder.

“Compete,” Ataya repeated. “With my hideous visage, mm?”

Edmun scoffed. “You’re not—”

“And why did you not make the most of the opportunity, mm?”

“The…what? What opportun—”

“To describe yourself to me. You could have said anything, within reason of what I can tell by touch alone. Described the most…outlandishly handsome, fantastical, wild…”

Edmun gave something between a snort and a laugh, short but vaguely amused. “And you would have believed me?”

Ataya shrugged. “I am looking to build a mental image, that is all. Since I may never see the truth of it, what does it matter? You could have…” Ataya walked his fingers up the span of Edmun’s back, noting the shiver that trailed in the wake of his touch without comment, “…skin sweeping tattoos of intricate detail…an entire map etched across your skin, or some garish battle scar…”

“I…suppose,” Edmun said. “Though…I kind of think I’d rather have you imagining me as I am, not some other strange fantasy man. Besides…I wouldn’t even know what to say, if I were trying to appeal to your ideal. Is that what you like? Massive tattoos and scars…? What do you find attractive?”

“Mm…a variety of things, I suppose…” Ataya let his fingers drop from Edmun’s skin to the mattress and leaned back against his palms, eyes shutting. “Size, strength…power, in general…extremes, often. Great, broad and dangerous things or petite and lovely things…”

“Petite and lovely?”

“In women, primarily, though I suppose it could carry over as an interest in an especially small, delicate and unusual man…”

A snort sounded. Then, fingers pressed to his chest and Ataya allowed himself to be nudged down, onto his back in the sheets. “You’re a small, delicate, and unusual man if I have ever seen one…”

“Me? I’m not ‘deli—’” Ataya’s lashes flit against his cheeks as Edmun pressed into a kiss, like the wings of a perched butterfly, uncertain whether it wanted to take flight again or not. Eventually, they lay still, his fingers in a loose, half crimp at Edmun’s chest.

“And what of talons and eating rocks for breakfast?” Edmun asked.

Ataya gave a drawn huff, shoulders stiffening a fraction. “Oh, yes, Edmun. Nothing makes me wanton and eager to spread my legs like the thought of copulating with someone with dirt in their teeth…why do you persist on—?”

But then, Edmun’s fingers were skimming down his chest, his grip relocating Ataya’s minimal frame back to the center of the bed before he leaned, following the trail of his fingers closely with his lips, and—

Well.

Suffice to say that Ataya found he didn’t particularly care how much Edmun wanted to fuss about his friend so long as his complaints remained relatively brief and came followed closely after by attention from his mouth in favorable locations. If he happened to make some combination of breathy, unintelligible, and embarrassingly whined demanding noises during the course of events that followed, there was at least no one to hear but Edmun. He considered the morning, on the whole, a relative success.

To whom it may concern,

Words words words.

To whom it may concern,

Words words words.