by JD Ruskin
Arthur’s heart kicked hard against his ribs as his face flushed with heat.
“Dragons don’t or you don’t?” Arthur had never been this demanding before or so out of breath. Arthur felt like he’d been riding uphill for miles and miles. He got a huff for an answer, a huff he could only describe as pissy. “Well you should,” he insisted over the rush in his ears and his spinning thoughts and the tiny sparks bolting down his spine. “Think of who it would benefit. Think of what other historians might learn by examining a collection of items, gathered by dragons over the centuries, that have never been seen before.” Bertie had looked at other collections for his books, been to museums, seen other treasures. He ought to understand.
“No, Arthur. It’s mine.”
“I didn’t think a dragon of your blood line would be so pouty.” Arthur didn’t even know where the words came from, but instead of roasting him or tearing his head off, Bertie gasped in outrage and flung his hands wide.
“It’s mine.” He said it like the word alone explained everything. “I can’t have strangers around it. They’ll touch it. They’ll try to steal it.” He fixed his eyes right on Arthur. “I don’t want to lose it to greedy, stupid people who won’t know what it is they have.”
He probably didn’t mean people to mean human, but Arthur flinched just the same. He lifted his chin in the next second, because despite his talk, Bertie wasn’t caring for what he had either.
“You aren’t even looking at them. You forgot they were in here!”
“But they’re mine.” It was nearly a growl. Arthur knew he should back off, but if he didn’t explain it now he was never going to.
His armpits itched with more sweat. He could feel Bertie’s frustration like a shockwave rippling through the air.
“Collecting isn’t the same as preserving or sharing. You should know that.” Arthur was pretty certain Bertie did know it. Some of the artwork in the books Arthur had been reading was from dragon collections. Other dragons had learned to trust. Bertie could too, even if it was only other historians.
But Bertie wrinkled his nose and flicked his gaze away as if Arthur was being slow. Arthur’s mouth tightened.
“What’s the big deal? If it’s all cleaned and catalogued and protected, if people ask to see them, they couldn’t steal without you knowing. That stone in your bathroom alone—”
“Is mine,” Bertie finished for him. No one so hot should ever sound so cool. Arthur snapped, stepping in closer until Bertie looked back at him
“Aren’t you proud of them?” He couldn’t understand it and didn’t try, not even when Bertie suddenly wet his lips uncertainly and then echoed him.
“Proud?” He was whispering. “Arthur, you have no idea how much, even at this moment.”
Arthur looked away from all that warmth and tried to keep his focus.
“Then why don’t you take better care of them? Do you know what the heat and moisture in the air in here does to the paper and wood alone?”
“Arthur!” It came out as a shocked shout before Bertie lowered his voice. His hands came up in a gesture that was almost pleading, brushing Arthur’s sleeves. “But who out there will care for it as I do? Who will love it?”
Arthur almost said it. Arthur opened his mouth to insist that he could, that he would, and stopped himself just in time. He didn’t even have his degree. Who was he to make that offer? He didn’t have the experience, and if Bertie’s treasure was as amazing as Bertie’s tone said it was, then he should have the best.
He stepped back, moving around the jade horse and walking to the fireplace. There wasn’t any fire so he moved on, going for coffee that was probably cold now.
“Sorry.” Now that he thought about it, away from all that smoke and fire, he couldn’t believe the things he said. “I won’t mention it again.” He reached for a coffee cup and saw the dust on his fingers. “I’ll just go wash up,” he offered without looking up and turned to go back to the bathroom.
He had to lower the heavy carved stone back to the floor to use the sink, but he left it on a pile of magazines to protect it the best he could and then splashed cold water on his face without caring about the mess he was making. He dried himself with toilet paper, because laundry wasn’t high on Bertie’s list of things to remember either, especially not the towels from the guest bathroom.
Arthur thought about doing it for him and then thought of his last offer and worked his jaw before opening the door and stepping back into the hallway.
He stopped short at the body in front of him and jerked his head up at the scent of herbs.
“Arthur.” A low, cultured rumble tenderly saying his name…. Arthur shut his eyes but Bertie didn’t stop. “Arthur, I’m sorry.”
“No.” Arthur shook his head and made himself look at Bertie again, at those incredible eyes. Bertie was a dragon, Arthur reminded himself. He was different. He was some kind of aristocrat, though he hadn’t come out and said it directly. He was a doctor and a historian and brilliant. Arthur should remember all of that. “I didn’t mean to… infringe on your heritage or anything. I just….”
“You love history, Arthur, and you love preserving it,” Bertie interrupted him with a serious frown. He leaned in, blocking what little light from the main room made it down the small hallway, and Arthur put a hand up to Bertie’s shoulder just as he’d done before.
He put his other hand to the wall and swallowed, because he couldn’t exactly deny anything Bertie was saying. Bertie studied him for a moment and then glanced down at the floor. He was unusually hesitant. “If I… if I allowed that, would you stay?”
Arthur blinked, not sure what he was hearing. He stared at the feathery black fringe of Bertie’s hair as it fell forward into his face and didn’t fight his scowl. He hadn’t known he’d been going anywhere.
“You can’t bribe me to stay,” he remarked after taking a breath, in voice so level he surprised himself. Bertie’s head came up, but Arthur looked away this time, down the hallway. “If you don’t want your treasure available to the public then you shouldn’t do it.” Just to make me happy, he thought, but it seemed too unbelievable to say out loud.
He turned back, but in the low light he couldn’t make out any of the brown in Bertie’s eyes. He couldn’t tell if he was being studied or what Bertie might be thinking. All he could tell was that Bertie’s mouth was open, and that his breathing was fast and shallow.
The sound was almost too much. In the dark like this, it was worse than waking up from one of his dreams. He was so much hotter, and so was Bertie, burning up through the cloth that was keeping Arthur from really touching him.
“I don’t want to lose it.” Bertie whispered it like a confession, drawing the oxygen out of Arthur’s chest. Arthur couldn’t breathe but he didn’t care. “You don’t know what it is to hold it.”
Arthur supposed he didn’t. He’d never held a treasure, or anything like a treasure, unless he counted the antique books in the university’s collection. But touching Bertie’s books, touching that stone, that horse, had all felt the same once he realized what they were. Awe and electricity traveling up his arms, leaving him almost giddy, then weak.
“It’s wonderful. It was…” Arthur couldn’t think of the word. “I’m grateful I even got to touch them for a second. That they were…” not his, but something like it. “The weight of them. They were… precious.”
He blushed the moment the word came out of his mouth. He was spared by the dark, he thought, but then again maybe not, not with Bertie’s wet breath against his cheek.
“Yes. Yes, Arthur. You do understand. You felt it too.”
“Felt it?” Arthur was close to falling forward, adrenaline and desire leaving him dizzy. He thought he might be leaning on Bertie already, but if he was, Bertie wasn’t pushing him away. He was only speaking more softly.
“So you see I will do anything to keep it, Arthur.” It was practically in Arthur’s ear, and Arthur couldn’t control his shiver of reaction. H
e wasn’t sure what to say to that, and he couldn’t think with Bertie so close. He thought maybe Bertie was still upset at the idea of possibly losing his treasure, and slid his hand up over Bertie’s shoulder when he couldn’t find the words to apologize again.
His thumb brushed the skin of Bertie’s neck. This time Arthur couldn’t tell who shivered, but he pulled his hand back, kept it safely on fabric and not on skin.
“Okay,” Arthur agreed blindly, then tracked back to their argument and thoughts that weren’t about the texture of that skin, the burn of it, the rasp in his voice as he tried to answer. “But you should think about it,” he suggested, because he had to. “Someday. Maybe only show some of the pieces to—” He turned his head. “—to people you trust.”
“You ask difficult things of me, Arthur.” Bertie growled, but he didn’t sound angry, and he didn’t appear angry when Arthur looked back at him.
“I do?” Arthur paused. Bertie had already been too nice to him. “I didn’t mean to. I wouldn’t ask anything of you.”
“I know, pearl.” Bertie sighed again, regretfully this time, before he backed away and let Arthur’s hand slide away from him. “I know.” He left Arthur in the cold and dark and then surprised him by turning back. “You….” Arthur wanted to say Bertie was being shy, but that seemed impossible. But Bertie glanced down again before asking his question. “You loved them, didn’t you?”
“They were amazing.” Arthur didn’t try to keep the awe from his voice. “But I don’t need to see more,” he added quickly. Bertie instantly tossed his head, giving Arthur the impression of him shaking his mane, like a dancer in a New Year’s parade.
“Arthur.” In much the same way, he got the impression he was being teased now. “You have only to ask me.”
“Now that sounds like a trick,” Arthur answered back quietly, trying to make it a joke. “I’ll probably find singed suits of armor from foolish knights, and I don’t want to end up a bunch of bones alongside them.”
There was a moment of silence before Bertie let out a small, unsteady laugh and then continued to put distance between them.
“I assure you I’d hate myself with every bite.” He stepped into the main room, his body lit from above and tense, and then he walked on, almost out of sight. Arthur followed after him, putting his hands to his face to judge how red it was.
Bertie was standing still when he got there, holding the wolf brooch in one hand and staring hard at it. Arthur cleared his throat to ask the question he had to ask.
“Should I keep going?” It didn’t sound like he’d been fired, but maybe it was something else he didn’t understand. Bertie twisted to give him a sideways look and actually rolled his eyes.
“Love, asking you not to organize would be like asking a siren not to sing.”
Arthur wasn’t entirely sure that was a compliment. Before he could think of a response, Bertie held up the brooch. “Lovely isn’t it? I know a were who would love to examine it.” He huffed and then set his shoulders. “I will think on what you’ve said, Arthur.”
“You don’t have to.”
He got another dramatic and obvious eye roll.
“I know.” Bertie put it down on the end table and fixed Arthur with another long, searching look. “In any event, they won’t do anyone a bit of good covered in dust and lost in this room, will they?”
Arthur took a very noisy breath and met Bertie’s gaze.
“I’ll just…” Arthur’s head was swimming and he was smiling, he knew from how transfixed Bertie seemed. “I’ll just make you some more tea first,” Arthur got out, and the bright, happy grin he glimpsed on Bertie’s face before he turned around to dash into the kitchen was going to keep him up late tonight and every other night for a very long time.
“WHAT DO you mean ‘how can I forget what he is’?” Arthur unlocked the door and made a face, though Kate wouldn’t see it over the phone. Kate was worrying on the other end, once again under the impression that Arthur was the one who would need her advice about anything man-related. “I know what he is, he’s a historian,” he hissed as he pushed his way inside, lowering his voice so at least Bertie wouldn’t know he was the topic of conversation.
He had no idea what brought on Kate’s surge of protectiveness but figured she must have found one of the books on dragons. Probably the one with the lithograph of a mythical wyvern surrounded by very human bones.
“He’s more than that, Arthur.” Kate sighed as if she thought Arthur was dense. Arthur knew what she meant and chose to ignore it as he put down his backpack and closed the door.
“My boss?” Arthur didn’t exactly play innocent, but Kate snapped at him anyway.
“A Being and a dragon, Arthur. They’re different and they have different rules and you don’t even know the human ones.”
“Beings aren’t that different,” Arthur whispered furiously, glancing up and around to make sure that despite the heat in the house, he was alone. He considered telling his sister that he’d been with a Being before—not that he was with Bertie now—but she’d probably say he had a type and his type was Beings, and Arthur really couldn’t think of an answer, except to point out that Bertie would probably find this funny and that he didn’t like all Beings because he hadn’t liked Zeru at all.
“Just be careful.” Kate wasn’t backing off. It could have been her anxiety, or it could have been because she hadn’t seen Arthur much in the past few days and it was making her worry more. But she should know that he’d been working. He had a busy Friday and Saturday night delivering food and spent Sunday at the library tracking down books and the e-mail address of a particular author Bertie wanted to contact.
Arthur stopped at the thought, knowing exactly how it felt to worry like that, and smiled into the phone so she would hear it in his voice.
“I love you too.”
Kate made a startled noise at Arthur’s unusually honest statement, but Arthur didn’t hear if she said anything back. She probably didn’t: things like that tended to freak her out. She described it once as the sudden return of emotions she’d been too numb to feel when she was drunk, but Arthur was only distantly thinking about that when he heard the sharp cough from upstairs and looked up to see Bertie frowning down at him from the landing.
“Do go on, Arthur, don’t mind me.” Bertie’s tone said he very much would mind. He sounded absolutely forlorn. It was especially strange when he was scowling so fiercely that Arthur was surprised that the room wasn’t bursting into flame. Arthur hadn’t done anything wrong, but he went motionless anyway, only moving again when Kate spoke in his ear.
“Okay, I admit he sounds hot.”
“You have no idea,” Arthur told her seriously, if faintly, because he didn’t think Bertie had ever looked at him in quite this way before, disappointed and saddened and hungry enough to leap over the railing to grab Arthur that very second.
Arthur straightened, not sure what else to do, with sweat prickling under his arms.
“That’s not the fairy, is it?” Bertie turned to come down the stairs, leaving one hand on the railing as he did in a way that seemed sophisticated and ridiculous at the same time. He must watch soap operas in secret too.
Arthur let out a small breath because Bertie wasn’t any less upset than he’d been a minute ago; he was just pretending that he was. Arthur met his gaze the moment Bertie was downstairs with him and thought about how it would be nice if that melting stare meant Bertie was jealous.
“What fairy?” Kate was still on the phone. Arthur almost hung up on her but controlled the impulse in time.
“I’ll talk to you later, Kate,” he said instead and then hung up on her before she could add anything.
“Kate?” Bertie stopped for a second’s thought before his frown faded away and he swept forward. Arthur had the fleeting thought Bertie was going to grab him again, or at least hug him, but he stopped again before Arthur had to think of what he’d do if he did. “Your sister? You didn’t need to hang up on h
er on my account, Arthur.”
“I know.” Arthur was only just starting realize that he hadn’t been breathing normally. He sucked in air, because he had a question to ask. If Bertie hadn’t been jealous, he’d been doing a good impression of it and that was almost unbelievable. “But, um….”
“Is she well?” The anger, if it had been anger, was completely gone from Bertie’s expression and voice now. He was just softly rumbling concern far too close to Arthur’s space. “You two are close, aren’t you? I could hear it.”
“We are. We kind of had to be.” Since he hadn’t meant to say that, Arthur looked away. He put his phone in his pocket and then went back to his bag to get his laptop out. “I mean, she’s fine. She was actually worried about me.” He realized what he’d been about to say and cleared his throat. “She worries a lot these days. That’s all.”
“And you worry about her.” Bertie didn’t make it a question and Arthur turned to glance at him.
“She’s had some problems, mostly with alcohol,” he admitted carefully, watching Bertie’s expression go thoughtful before he went around the table to sit on the sofa. He was studying Arthur with that same curious look he got for any story. For a second, Arthur wondered if that was all it was, and then Bertie exhaled.
“The poor thing. And you, too, because you took care of her. Don’t deny it, Arthur.”
“I wouldn’t.” Arthur blinked and lifted his chin. He wasn’t ashamed of anything. “But it wasn’t so bad.” Bertie made a small sound of protest, so Arthur shrugged and fussed over his laptop as he brought it to the table. “So I skipped a few meals. If you saw how she’s improving, you’d see it was worth it.”
When he dared a glance up, he got a doubtful stare complete with pursed lips, but then Bertie leaned forward.
“I should like to meet her, Arthur.” He was so warm Arthur was almost sure he meant it, but he knew his frown was still in place. “If you would ever allow it.” There was something so careful in his words that Arthur looked down at himself. His hands were in fists at his sides, as tense as his shoulders.