Cerid Creed was currently very confused. The love of his life was beside him not saying a single word and seeming to hate and not hate him at the same time.

“Erm, Shark? I believe I heard your… Are you hungry?”

“No,” they clipped, though their stomach growled again.

“Well, if you change your mind, I would be happy to accompany you. Some things have changed since you left, so I could direct you to the best places.”

“I don’t need your concern.”

“My apologies,” Cerid mumbled.

Shark frowned. “Besides,” they said quietly, “it’s not safe for you to be seen with me in public, is it? People know what I am. A deserter, and… Either way, not a good look for you.”

That they showed concern for him at all made Cerid want to hug them. “There should be no problem if I simply escort you.”

They shook their head. “I’m staying put. You do what you want.”

Deserters were not looked upon favorably in Sacer; it was important to hold on to the nation’s strongest soldiers due to Ghurian threat. The entire nation had been on lockdown after the epidemic, clinging to its scattered, scarred people. That was with the exception of a single day that Cerid’s father had allowed anyone who wished to depart without the risk of being hunted down and punished as a deserter to do so without fear. Anyone who remained would dedicate themselves to the fight; those who left would be ostracized forever.

Shark had left then, but now they were back. They and Cerid were, somehow, together again. “Then, if you permit it,” Cerid said, “I would like to stay put with you.”

Shark balled their hands up into fists. “Don’t you get it? Being around you makes me feel like I’m tearing out of my own skin!”

Cerid’s breath caught painfully in his throat. What could he possibly say to make any of this better? He couldn’t take back the deliberate choice he had made to hurt Shark for his own benefit. Sorry? Something as meager as that could never amount to anything. Still, that didn’t mean an apology wasn’t deserved.

“Shark,” he said quietly but firmly, “I am sorry. I will never stop being sorry for everything.”

“Don’t give me that!” Shark snapped, then looked around at the expansive mansion, all the places someone could be listening from. But Cerid knew no one would be there, not anymore. “You know what, screw it. I came back here to confront all my shit, so we’re gonna talk. What’s it gonna be, Cerid? Last chance to pretend nothing ever happened.”

“I would like to talk.” If Shark wanted to, if it would help them in any way, he had no desire to refuse. “Please follow me.” He led the way through the myriad of winding halls on the first floor where the bedrooms of the Creed children were located, belonging to him and his eleven full and half siblings as well as many other inlaws, elders and other branches of the family tree. Or they had, before the epidemic.

Shark hovered against the wall while Cerid closed the blinds, leaving them in a yellowy daytime darkness he wished they could hide in endlessly. “Can I lock the door?” they asked, awkward.

“By all means.” Cerid matched the softness of their voice. His heart skipped a beat at the lock’s soft click. “Now.” They stood on opposite sides of the room. “Please do not hold anything back. Say anything you feel you need to.”

Shark didn’t need telling twice. “You’re sorry?” they snapped. “We were together for three years and you break it off because you get named the next family head? I never would have stayed in Sacer as long as I did and put myself through so much bullshit if it weren’t for me wanting to stay with you! So if it was going to come to that all along, why didn’t you just let me go earlier?!”

“If I had known I would get into that position, I would never have courted you in the first place. I made a mistake.”

“Oh, so now I’m a mistake! Thanks for that.”

“That is not what I meant.” Cerid’s voice was shaking. The binds he had put over the past, the corner he’d locked it in so he could move forward, it was all unraveling.

Shark crossed the room to seize his arms. “Just tell me why.”

Cerid felt dizzy at their closeness. He’d made Shark feel unloved and abandoned while knowing everything they’d been through. He would never forgive himself for that. “I have ambitions, Shark.”

“That’s not good enough! Tell me what was so important! You were…” Their grip loosened, their hands clutching Cerid’s sleeves now. “I loved you.”

“I love you too!” Cerid cried out, then put his hands over his mouth. This wasn’t what he wanted to happen. He wanted to help Shark let go of the past, not get them both trapped in it.

“You…?” Shark gaped. “Present tense. That was present tense, what the shit, Cerid?”

No turning back now. “It was never about not loving you.”

“Are you kidding me? If that’s the case, then why break up with me at all?”

“I had to end it when I did. The grace period would have passed you by. That was your chance to escape, Shark!”

Shark’s eyes widened as realization dawned. “You did it to force me to run from the war. You knew fully well you were the only thing keeping me in Sacer.”

“Yes.”

“Cerid. I need to hear you say this for sure. Are you still in love with me?”

“It is not that simple, Shark."

“It’s more of a yes or no question.”

“It is not that simple!” Cerid insisted.

“I’ll take that as a yes, and that really is all that matters. You’ve severely underestimated me if you think I’d let anything get in the way if you told me you wanted to be together.”

They didn't understand. There was no way Cerid could make them happy. “But Shark—”

Their hands cupped Cerid’s cheeks, bringing his face up to meet theirs.

*

There was power in reaching out to another person with sympathy and understanding. This was what had made Shark fall in love with Cerid.

Sacer had strict rules for the members of its noble houses. Those who entered the ranks had a responsibility to protect their nation, and part of this was doing what was necessary to prepare for the future. If the future was to be one of war, then the army needed bodies. It needed nobles to breed.

Shark realized two things early on. The first was that they were not a boy. The second was that they only liked boys. As a noble, that presented a few problems. At first they resigned to faking it and pretending. After all, they couldn’t have been the first to do so and they wouldn’t be the last.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

But then they saw a boy looking at them one day, looking at them the same way Shark looked at boys when they were sure no one was watching. So they took a risk and befriended that boy. They got close with that boy. They kissed that boy, were seen with that boy, got reported on and then never saw that boy again.

Shark going against order threatened everything their family had worked to build. If they didn’t comply with Sacer’s laws, the Olyens would be off the council. It wasn’t a matter of just the respect and monetary benefits the position gave them. It was about honoring the sacrifices and hard work of their ancestors that had brought them to this high place with their blood. That was how Shark’s parents explained it to them when they created their new way of life.

Curfews, not going out unaccompanied, no male friends. They were to court, wed and reproduce with a female partner chosen by their parents when the time came. Shark was to live only for the Olyen name. Early attempts at rebellion were quite literally slapped out of them, so they learned to stop trying.

Damn, had they wanted to die. No one around them seemed to understand the sheer humiliation and degradation of being reduced to a shadow of one’s desired self. A puppet, that’s all they were. A puppet had no will of its own, not even the will to die.

Something in them always held on, demanded that they crawl towards the next day. Someday, they had to believe, there would be a new path. Until then, all they could do was hold on.

Then they met Cerid, four years after their new way of life had started when the both of them were seventeen.

He struck Shark as weird at first. They met at a party held in the Creed mansion for the adult nobles to make plans. Courting would begin now that their children were almost of marrying age. They would spend roughly a year forming a relationship before marriage and children entered the conversation at age eighteen.

The children—and they were children, without the control over their own lives that adults seemed to be granted—were left to themselves in the library on the upper floors while the adults plotted over tea in the downstairs parlor. Shark didn’t notice at first when someone sat beside them, but then they felt a light touch. After they jumped, they saw fingers pressing a folded note to their trouser leg. A cautious glance revealed a boy with a book facing upwards to conceal himself as he hunched behind it. A small notebook sat in front of him, and he was idly doodling as if not aware of Shark at all.

Confused, they slowly took the note and unfolded it. Small, neat script read:

Good day. My name is Cerid Creed. You are Shark Olyen, yes?

The strange formality of it made them snort, and they nodded. Cerid’s pen went flying, and Shark shook their head in disbelief. What was going on?

Still, they couldn’t help but smile as Cerid folded the next note into a perfect square and pressed it to their leg. Amusement changed to shock as they started to read.

I heard tell of you today over breakfast. I am sorry that I did not know earlier, more sorry than I can express. I am not much on my own, but my family’s name carries some weight. If I expressed a desire to befriend you, do you believe your parents would refuse?

It wasn’t romantic yet, but they loved Cerid starting from that moment. They loved the person he was, the person who would reach out to someone who had been lowered so much simply because he didn’t like seeing them in pain.

And Cerid was exactly right. When a son of Sacer’s leading house wanted to be friends with Shark, their parents couldn’t pass up the networking opportunity. After supervising their interactions for half a year, they seemed content to let them alone, though they would regularly be checked on by servants of the Creeds.

Their talks became more intimate once they could speak honestly between themselves, and over the course of a year Shark started to notice everything about Cerid. The freckle in the shell of his right ear, the way he snorted when he laughed too hard, the way his emotions always showed so clearly, so many dear little things.

The terror of falling in love with someone when Shark’s desires were what had almost led others to destroy them was beyond describing. They would never have broached it if Cerid hadn’t acted first.

He did so in his typical awkward fashion. They sat in the orchard on the Creed property, having raided the blackberry bushes for Cerid’s favorite treat.

“Cerid,” Shark laughed as he stuffed his cheeks full like a squirrel’s, “you look deranged.”

He held up a finger as he laboriously chewed and swallowed. “You talk as if you look any better.”

“Hey, try having teeth like mine and then lecture me.” Shark grinned, noticing how Cerid’s gaze lingered on their mouth. They’d been catching him staring a lot lately. “Captivated by my beauty, are you? My, Cerid, I’d thought you were immune to my charms.” They wondered if Cerid appreciated how significant it was that they’d grown comfortable enough to tease him.

Cerid was always one to blush easily, and it spread in an instant from his neck to his ears. “Um! Well!”

“Buddy? You okay?” Normally he’d laugh it off. He turned away, mumbling, so Shark touched his shoulder. “You gonna be sick?”

“Mmnot…moon…” Cerid’s mumbling was incoherent.

“Okay, you’re starting to worry me.”

“I said I am not immune!” Cerid cried out, drawing his arms up to hug himself.

Shark registered his meaning slowly. Once the dots connected, they jumped to their feet in a panic. It was so scary. Being back in this position, caught between what they needed to feel whole and the restrictions of their world.

“I am so sorry!” Cerid looked up at them plaintively. “I did not intend for this to happen, I swear. I wanted to be your friend and do whatever I could to help you, but I…” He hung his head. “I am sorry. I have overstepped.”

“No, that’s not…” Feeling weak, Shark sat back down beside him, daring to edge a bit closer than they had been before. “There are too many risks, and you have so much to lose.”

He shook his head. “That is not true. You know, I will never be named the next family head. My father knows of my…preferences. He discussed it with me recently. He said that if I chose this…lifestyle, in his words…then I would be forfeiting my place as a true noble, but I would still be his family. I will still have a place in this home even if it means my station will never be above what it is, and even if it means I must…hide this. My life has still been much kinder than yours, Shark.”

Shark couldn’t understand what he was trying to get at. “So what have you decided?”

“I… Back then, I could not believe no one else reached out to you. So I did, and I never meant to… Please do not feel like our friendship is at risk. That is, I understand if you want nothing to do with me, but nothing will ever stop me from wanting you to be happy. Er, whether that is with me or someone else, or somewhere else, or by yourself even, is none of my business I suppose, but it would be nice if we could still be friends, and…” He trailed off as Shark laughed at his rambling.

“I guess I was so wrapped up in being grateful that I never noticed you’re just as much of a mess as I am, Cerid.” They looked around; the two of them sat here specifically because it was hidden from the view of all windows in the house, it was so far back on the property. Someone had checked on them not too long ago, so they trusted they were good and alone for now. Still, Shark whispered. “I like you.” The words felt so relieving and powerful to say that they almost started crying.

Cerid took their hand and held tight. “I do not take any of this lightly.”

“I know.”

“And I promise to never abandon you. No matter how anything between us might turn out, I will never stop doing whatever I can to protect you.”

Shark believed him. The next three years weren’t without hardship, of course, but they spent them together. Still, circumstances changed, they always did.

The epidemic left Cerid an only child. The day after this tragedy, Cerid had delivered the news of his promotion to the head of his house and consequently the nation’s next leader to Shark and topped it off by ending their relationship in the same sentence.

Five years since then. For five years, Shark had been left to wonder, at first every day, then just every once in a while, why Cerid had done it. Now they understood that Cerid’s promise hadn’t changed. He’d wanted to protect Shark, and he’d been willing to hurt them both to do it.

The turmoil of their emotions in the present—anger, hurt, confusion, sadness, fear, joy—overflowed as they took Cerid into their arms and kissed him. They bit his lips and tongue gently, constricted his body as their entire being ached with bliss at being kissed back. They licked and kissed the freckle in the shell of his ear they loved so much, held him close and listened to his ragged breathing.

“So,” they said softly, “do you still doubt me? I’ll do anything to make it work if you say that’s what you want, Cerid.”

“I…” Cerid faltered as they both jumped at the sound a familiar voice. Dorothea was calling Shark’s name carefully and quietly as she stepped down the hallway, her having gathered where they and Cerid must have gone if they weren’t in the entrance hall.

“Shit,” Shark muttered, rearranging their rumpled clothes and hair. “Cerid, we can pick this up later.”

“We will not.” He shook his head as Shark started to protest. “You have your place in Sirpo, with her. I have my place here, protecting my people. Unless you are intending to come back to Udara, to Sacer?”

Shark’s heart plummeted. “I can’t leave Thea. I won’t.”

“And I will not leave my family or my homeland.” Cerid turned away. “Please. Let us leave it at that.” His voice broke. “Please.”

What choice was there? What did the depth of their affections matter when life had taken them in completely different directions?