Antonio

The night draws on with the music with the rattata of finger bones on the leather-skin drum and against lute strings. I never considered the difference the sound would make without skin and flesh, but the musicians have obviously spent a lot of time playing with the possibilities, creating their own unique sound. The first hour put my teeth on edge, with its sharpness, but as I inclined my ear, I began to find myself enjoying it. It might have to do with the mead… and with the conversation.

Tolstoy finds me after I keep Sybil company. I’ve evaded him most of the night up to that point, afraid that I might not be able to keep my face and my words to myself. There was something different with Tolstoy these days, and I didn’t understand it – the uncertainty frightened me.

It started in small doses of him smiling or spending a great deal of our work side-by-side talking about things that interested him greatly, where I had started to notice the light in his eyes when something excited him. Then it was the little friendly touches–Tols tended to be physically affectionate with everyone–that bit into my skin like rose thorns. After that, I was thrown into an uncomfortable world of ceaseless self-consciousness. It was a bitter and fearful dance, one that I couldn’t remember ever experiencing before. I worried more than anything that it was a passing fancy–another young person my age that was giving me his full attention was no doubt going to capture some of my feelings, whether misguided or true. And so the strange footwork needed to be slow and considerate.

Beyond that, I had made a promise to the necromancer that I would leave her farm eventually–and taking Tolstoy with me into war was absolutely out of the question. That and bringing him along in the fight against my family… Tols was so pure. He deserved more than being thrown into another land grab war. I wouldn’t put him through that.

So now, as he’s telling me about the benefits of using some sort of fertilizer for the pumpkin patch they’ve recently planted, I am trying very hard not to look him too closely in the eyes, but I can’t help but catch the flecks of gold that shine there. So then I spend far too long trying to avoid looking him directly in the eyes that I lose track of the conversation and he brings me back in with a gentle touch to the arm. “Hey T-man, you alright there?” he asks, eyes bright and his smile concerned. His ears angle slightly downwards and I fight the urge to ruffle his hair.

“Yeah, sorry,” I tell him, trying to remain cool. “It’s just been a long day.”

His ears quirk lower and I feel a bit guilty for the half-lie. “Yeah,” he says, “It’s been a day. Lots of people loved Jun very much.” He gives me a soft smile, “Even I was really lucky to have met them.” I nod and let him prattle on. “The first night I spent up here, I took a walk around the farm, just… to see the sights. They called me in for some hot chocolate,” he smiles at the memory and I find myself smiling, too.

“They were very nice,” I agree, flipping through my own memories of the skeleton family’s atriarch, though I don’t have very many. Most of them are of me shuddering under their sightless-orbed gaze and feeling the distinct sensation of disapproval. Not that I had any cause for thinking as such, they’d not said much in passing to me beyond what was required of my duties, but I knew how much they cared for the other farm and building hands. I’d never want to take that away from others, even if I had never experienced it first-hand myself.

Beyond that, seeing Sybil break down so heavily at their loss was evidence enough to me that they were mightily loved by their family.

“I’m going to miss them,” Tolstoy admits, and perks up a little. “You know what always gets me feeling better?”

“What is that?”

“Come with me.” He tugs my arm and I let him pull me through the room into the night air. He leads me down a rough path into the woods beyond the outer residential buildings of the farm. The tree boughs meet above our heads so that the silver shine of the moon cascaded across our faces in stripes. I look over at Tols and see his lips are curled into a wide smile.

“Where are we going?” I ask him, trying to ignore the fact that he hasn’t released my arm since we left the house.

“My favorite spot. You’ll see.”

“I’m halfway sure you’re just taking me out into the middle of nowhere so that they can’t hear me scream,” I tease as we climb over a fallen log.

I hear him chuckle in the dark ahead of me, hand sliding down to grip mine loosely. “Ah, you caught me,” he jokes monotonously. “Just don’t make it too quick by cracking your head open, I won’t enjoy the thrill as much.”

I laugh and keep my eyes trained on the dimly lit terrain ahead of us. Tolstoy’s fenex eyes are more well-adapted to the dark than mine are, so I trust him to guide me.

When we emerge in a small clearing, it’s all I can do to stifle my surprise. The moonlight falls into the nearly perfect circle filled with flowers that were in full bloom under the silver light, filling the space with pinks and whites that glittered with lightning bugs. I must let out some sound because Tolstoy grins up at me, his ears perking up and twitching with pleasure. He stands up on his tiptoes to whisper in my ear. “I thought you’d like it, it’s my favorite place.” His breath tickles my ear and I suppress the warm shiver that bubbles up through my stomach and raises goosebumps along my skin. I’m glad it’s dark, because I know I’m blushing.

“It is beautiful,” I reply, feeling inclined to match the level of his whisper. His grin widens and he releases my fingers. My hand immediately reaches for him, seeking the warmth in the chilly summer evening, but he’s already thrown himself into the bed of grass and flowers with a happy sigh.

I smile and gently crawl into the grass beside him, laying on my back so I can see the stars and moon above.

“It’s perfect,” I whisper and he stills, his head popping up through the grass.

He crawls over to my side and rolls onto his back, stretching his arms over our heads so his fingers can wriggle in the soft blades of grass. “It is, isn’t it?”

“Are we whispering for a reason?”

“I don’t want to disrupt the moment,” he teases.

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I roll my eyes. The man who could never stop talking unwilling to ruin the silent serenity of the glade. The irony. I close my eyes and let the breeze slide over me, cooling my warm skin.

We lay side by side for a long time before he whispers again. “You know what makes this more perfect?”

“Hmm?”

“You’re here.”

My eyes shoot open and my stomach clenches into a tight knot. Did he mean that? What did he mean by that, exactly? “Really?” I ask, my voice wry. I don’t want to believe him.

He props himself on an elbow and looks down at me, and there’s a gentleness in his eyes that makes my heart thunder painfully. He reaches for my hand, folded on my chest, and the world dims into a dim thundering noise as the blood rushes through my head. My mouth goes parchment dry. “Really. Tony, I–”

“There’s something you need to know,” I rush blindly, cutting him off as his eyes flicker across my face, lingering briefly on my lips. I feel like my skin is on fire, warring with the bitter guilt that has become thorn-stuck in my gut. Was he going to kiss me? The thought scares me, but not in the way that I thought it might. I realize that there’s very little I would rather have than to silence this frustrating, talkative, gentle fox with my mouth.

He closes it, though, and my eyes return to his eyes where his eyebrows furrow in confusion. “You don’t like me?”

My heart creaks. “I do!” I sit up, squeezing his hand in mine. It’s built some calluses since we met from all of the manual labor, but it's warm. It’s steady. He isn’t shaking like I am, he’s assured. I’ve never felt so far from steady. “I… You don’t want me.”

His gaze flashes in a hungry gaze that rolls my stomach in a hot syrup. His fingers squeeze around mine, “I’m sure that I do.” Gods.

“Even if my name is Antonio?” I ask, and I feel like it’s a breath.

His head cocks to the side. “Well, you call me Tols and my name is Tolstoy…”

“De Cardenas?” I add, bitterly hoping he doesn’t jolt away from me.

He doesn’t, though. His face evens and a slow grin spreads across his features. “I know.”

I frown. “What?”

“You’re the mad prince.”

I stare at him, speechless. “You… knew?”

He points at his ears, “You think these are decorative?”

“No? But when…?” Sybil had kept it a secret from the rest of her staff, as much as sometimes Haven would shoot me ugly looks now and again, so I knew she’d relayed it to her partners. Not that I’d ever met the second one. Lasis said that it was hard for him to make the trip up the farm. In any case, I hadn’t recalled any time she and I had discussed it besides– “At the party?”

He laughs, and the sound fills me with warmth. Being here fills me with self-consciousness, the sensation made worse by the steady weight of his hand on mine. “Well, then, too. But you and Sybil talk about it. I’ve known for a few weeks. She calls you princeling, and her amores–is Maggie one of Sybil’s amores?–give you strange looks. It didn’t take much to put the pieces together. I thought about it for a long time, but–”

A few weeks? “Does Simon know?” The idea of my mentor knowing set my teeth on edge.

“I don’t know,” he admits. “You would have to ask him.”

I lay back down on the grass, my mind reeling. “But you like me?”

“Sure, unless that’s a problem…?” Tols’ voice meanders, then returns, firm. “No, actually, no unless. I like you.”

“Why?”

His tail flicks in that way it does when he’s laughing inwardly. “Why shouldn’t I?” I turn my head and find his eyes staring fondly into mine. “You’re the same Tony who apologized for staring at us in the wagon. You’re the first to admit you’re wrong about something, you spend so much time learning to do things outside your comfort zone. You’ve grown. You’re not the mad prince that everyone thinks you are.”

“Oh.”

He nods.

“So you like me?”

He nods again, his features pulled into a silly grin. “I do.” His tail flicks again, waving in the air. “And you like me, too. You said so yourself…”

I smile even if my chest feels like it’s falling out of me. “I’m scared,” I tell him.

He slips an arm across my chest and I lean into him. He tucks his forehead against mine. His ears brush against my hair. He doesn’t speak, and I realize he’s opened up the space for me to explain.

I don’t want to speak, I want to enjoy the magical night, and I’m afraid that if I explain myself, it will end. I want to kiss Tolstoy. I want to hold him tightly and forget that I need an army to take on my brother. But I also can’t mislead the fenex. I needed to fix my mistake, to give him a life where he could return to his family that he misses so much. I needed to give him his life back–the life I had stolen away from him.

“I can’t,” I tell him, and my voice is still the whisper-tone we’ve been exchanging. “I can’t like you. I have to go to war.”

He giggles. “That sounded funny,” he whispers back. “I know. You have to fix things. I won’t go with you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

My eyebrows shoot up. “You’ll stay here?”

He nods and slides a leg over my waist so he can hover above me. My breath feels like it’s caught in my lungs. There’s the sound of crickets and the moon catches on the golden strands of his hair, and the flowers all around us are glowing silvery bright, and his breath smells like honey-wine against my cheeks. My hands have reflexively circled his thin waist, as if they are returning to a natural place–as if they had always been meant to rest there. “Are you going to kiss me, then?” He asks, nose brushing against mine, shocking a jolt of pleasure through me, and if he feels me stiffen, he says nothing.

“Don’t wait for me,” I pray, desperately.

“I won’t,” he promises and presses his mouth against mine. My body shudders beneath his lips, as if they are the hinge that the universe hangs on. They’re soft and hungry, searching but patient. Tolstoy, the beastman filled with delightful contradictions. Who calls me “T-man,” and drives the other hands crazy with his neverending streams of dialogue; who picks flowers and holds people when they cry. Who in one sentence says he wants to be with me and will not wait for me to return from a madman’s conquest.

I turn us over, losing my sense of thought and letting my body give way to feeling. This man who continues to give of himself, no matter if he is a prisoner or a courier or a field hand or a construction worker.

He hums low in his throat, letting me know that he likes that I’ve moved us, and his tail wags in the grass in slow brush strokes, and I trace my hand over his face and neck. He doesn’t need to give in this moment, and yet he does by emitting small noises that set my nerves on a precarious edge. It frustrates me as much as it turns me on. I want to give him one moment where he can relax and just take, but he’s always giving. A growl raises at the back of my throat and he sighs into me, the conflict in me rising with the heat in my body. I break the kiss to scold him, to admonish him for the strain, but he stares up at me with a dewy gaze that crumbles my resolve, and like a man in the middle of the desert, I am drawn back to his mouth. His fingers grasp my chin and I find myself dissolving into him.

It’s a give and take, I realize, this exchange–even as I lose track of myself in his hungry love. Each hitch of breath he takes, I return; every press exchanged; every moan–and it is the purest, most unconditional thing I have experienced in all of my life. As our fingers dart under one another's' clothes to explore, I know that whatever tomorrow brings, this pocket of space for just the two of us will exist forever.