Dreamspinner Press Year Six Greatest Hits

by JD Ruskin

  Drew looked at him and then up over his head, just for a second. Arthur straightened, trying to block the entire house from Drew’s sight. He was shaking, but he didn’t think Drew saw it. Then he gestured out at the street.

  “Stay away from Bertie or I’ll have you fired.” He meant it. He’d never threatened to fire anyone before but he could do it, and would, if Drew said another word. “He’s not for you.”

  “Just you, Arthur dear?” Drew was stupid and defiant even though he was quaking with fear. Arthur grabbed the door and slammed it closed. He breathed hard behind it for a second and then locked it. The air moved around him. It felt hot on the back of his neck and he turned.

  He knew before he looked that Bertie was there, but he looked anyway, all the way up the stairs to the landing. Bertie was watching him, his eyes dark and fierce beneath low eyebrows. He did not wink and there was no sign of a grin.

  “I wasn’t taking it,” he insisted instantly, staring back at Bertie because where else could he look? Bertie was unmoving, almost a statue, until he opened his mouth, exposing rows of pointed teeth and that tongue that even now was tasting everything Arthur was trying to deny. “He was wrong, Drew was….” But Drew hadn’t been wrong, so Arthur stopped. Arthur had come here partly for that scale.

  Arthur dropped the scale and knew as he did it that it only made him look worse. He was standing there fully dressed, like he’d been ready to run, and he was holding that scale while Drew said every horrible word.

  The room was getting hotter, and Arthur didn’t think it was just due to Bertie’s presence. He stepped back from the door as if that was going to do any good and felt something brush against him, a force almost like hands or that dizzying feeling when strong magic was close.

  Arthur had never felt anything stronger than the kinds of spells kids tried out on each other for fun. He took another step back and shuddered at the rush of air on his skin when the room itself was so hot and still.

  It wasn’t coming from Bertie, he realized in one tense moment. It was coming from the house. Whatever magical wards Bertie had put on the house were reacting to something, probably Arthur and the guilt that wouldn’t even let him look at the scale anymore. He raised his head and flinched again at the way Bertie was looking at him, as if he didn’t know Arthur at all. If he hadn’t known Bertie so well, he would have said that Bertie was waiting for him to make one wrong move so he could roast him on the spot.

  “It’s beautiful, but I don’t want it.” Arthur spoke up again, then frowned and shook his head at the answering silence. “It’s yours and I wouldn’t… I wouldn’t do that to you. Not just because I….” It was all out there anyway, it had to be, but maybe the scent was drowned out by the dry, singed smoke drifting downstairs. Arthur put a hand out and then dropped it because why should Bertie believe him? He had lied. He’d lied from the second he walked in this house.

  “Not just because I know you,” he finished, though the truth raced through his blood like panic, making him flushed and sick and more scared than he’d been when he met Bertie and thought he might end up charred and eaten.

  “I… I thought about it, though. Before I knew you. Before I worked here. A scale like that is worth money and I thought it would be harmless. If one fell off, you probably wouldn’t even miss it and then I could take the money and pay off enough bills to give myself some breathing room, maybe go back to school.”

  He looked down because no way could he look into Bertie’s face while he admitted to thinking about selling off a part of him through someone like Dante. He didn’t want someone like Dante to come near Bertie any more than he wanted Drew to. Drew didn’t see what made Bertie special; he just saw a dragon, a monster from a story that repulsed him, but one that he still wanted to use.

  “You aren’t… what he said. You aren’t that, you’re so much more. You’re incredible. I didn’t realize that when I first had the thought, because I hadn’t met you.” Arthur didn’t even deserve to be this close to Bertie. He took another step back and for the first time, Bertie moved. The scrape of his claw against the balustrade made Arthur glance up.

  Bertie had one hand wrapped around the railing, his grip hard enough that a claw was digging into the wood. The repairs would be costly, though that would mean nothing to Bertie. Of course it wouldn’t.

  Arthur scowled again and felt his chin go up. “Not that I expect you to understand not having money or working all the time. Why would you? But let me tell you, it’s exhausting. It’s so exhausting you can’t think about anything else but work and money and how you don’t have any, and if you do it too long, you just know your dreams are going to be just that… dreams. Dreams don’t come true without money, and I wouldn’t change having Kate with me, but you get desperate sometimes, tired and hungry, and I thought… I thought it wouldn’t hurt.”

  “Stupid,” he added a moment later, his brief moment of anger fading away when Bertie didn’t say anything. “But I really thought… if you didn’t want it. They said scales just fall off.” He exhaled. “I guess I just wanted to think that. But it didn’t matter. The second I got here I saw you and I knew there was no way.” He took a step back.

  “Arthur.” Bertie spoke for the first time, his voice so rough that Arthur knew it was a sharply growled warning that Arthur was treading on dangerous ground. Arthur shook his head again at the blast of heat that followed the word, the sensation of too much magic or the ground itself rising to trip him up or shove him forward.

  “I’m sorry.” Arthur stood where he was for a moment longer anyway and stared through the growing haze. “I’m sorry for thinking it at all, though I never ever would have done it. You should believe that.”

  He couldn’t tell if Bertie did or not, or if the magic in the house did. He was so hot he was shivering and Bertie was looking at him as if Arthur had failed him, as if Arthur wasn’t the honest, fearless warrior that Bertie had thought he was. Arthur supposed he wasn’t. But he wanted to be. That made it so much worse.

  He looked up and did his best anyway. “I want you to know… I couldn’t breathe the first time I saw you, and it hasn’t gotten any easier since then. In fact, the more I’m around you, the stronger it is, this feeling in my chest. It’s not fear. I’m not even a little bit afraid of you. Not like that. You aren’t going to devour me. You wouldn’t have to because I’m….” No, he wasn’t that and stopped himself. He changed his words. “I want….” He was revealing too much, but it wasn’t anything that Bertie didn’t know already. He had to know, and if he didn’t, it was out now, belly up and waiting to be gutted. Arthur couldn’t take the words back, but then, why should he bother if he wasn’t coming back? Arthur wasn’t just a nobody, he was a potential thief. Someone who had thought about money, no matter his reasons. Bertie wouldn’t want him.

  He straightened and turned away before the house could make him. He couldn’t look around; he just kept his eyes on the door. He grabbed his bag and his laptop and kept on going, throwing open the door before he dared to glance back.

  The room seemed to shimmer, as if his vision was swimming, and he thought Bertie was changing form but couldn’t tell.

  “I’m sorry I’m not your boy, because I wish I was,” he admitted the truth, the whole truth, quietly and then turned to push his bike out the door so he wouldn’t have to hear how Bertie wouldn’t call him back.

  HIS CHEST was tight, though it wasn’t just the fast race across town back to the apartment that made breathing painful. The morning air was cold, colder now that he was outside of Bertie’s house, but he didn’t let himself think about it. He just carried his bike up the stairs and fumbled for his key and got inside with enough noise to bring Kate’s head up from the couch.

  She looked sleepy and startled for one second, and then just concerned. Arthur turned away before she could say anything because he knew what it looked like, having spent the night there only to come crashing back home way too early in the morning. He also knew he was probably
flushed and that his eyes were probably just as red. The sting made him blink as he shoved his backpack into a corner and hurried past her into the bathroom.

  A shower made him feel clean and kept Kate from asking him questions, but that was all it did. He could still feel the ache when he moved, sore muscles getting sorer by the second and reminding him, every time he moved, of what he’d just lost. He tried to distract himself by thinking of what he had to do next: dry off, get dressed, eat, look for new jobs. Practical items on a simple list, things to be checked off in order that wouldn’t give him time to think. It might have worked if he hadn’t run the soapy washcloth over his thighs and thought of Bertie, and then thought give Bertie his key back.

  He discarded that mental note, then the entire list, and tried to start over. He’d left the tea things in disarray in Bertie’s kitchen. He… Bertie would… have to take care of that, if he didn’t forget. Maybe Arthur should write out a list, a list for Bertie, that he could drop off with the key.

  He wasn’t sure the house would let him in, but he could leave the key in the mailbox with the notes Arthur hadn’t had a chance to share and the names of people who would take care of Bertie’s books if Arthur couldn’t. He could do that. Not today, but he could. He had to make sure of things.

  Tomorrow, he decided, though he wasn’t sure he could tomorrow either. But he made himself think about it, adding household items Bertie was running out of instead of looking at the bruises and hickeys on his chest and the marks of fingernails at his wrists, and mentally writing out the order to the stacks of books around Bertie’s living room so Bertie would understand them, instead of thinking about how hollow he felt inside and how that dragon had looked, clinging to the balustrade and staring sadly down at him.

  When he finally came out of the bathroom in just the same pair of jeans, Kate was standing in his bedroom doorway with her eyes averted and a cup of coffee in her hand. The fact that she’d actually made coffee from their carefully saved supply made him stop to swallow back everything but “Thanks.” He took the cup after throwing on a new shirt with long sleeves and Kate finally looked at him.

  “Want breakfast?” she asked nicely, without any indication that she could see how upset he was. He shook his head, but it didn’t stop her from turning and heading back toward the kitchen.

  “I’ll make eggs. They were on sale yesterday at the mercado down the street. I walked down to get some,” she explained over her shoulder, leaving Arthur to follow her. He took a sip of burning hot coffee and then put the mug down as soon as he could.

  Kate reached up into the cabinet for one of their two pans.

  “You went out?” Arthur cleared his throat. “That’s good.”

  “Yeah, well. I felt like celebrating.” She rolled one shoulder, making the old T-shirt of his that she was wearing as pajamas fall a little bit. “They called me back to interview again. At the shop. I guess whoever they picked the first time didn’t work out.”

  She was trying to keep the excitement from her voice, but Arthur turned toward her after the first part and he could see the smile she was trying to fight.

  “You’re serious? That’s great!” He didn’t care what she thought. He came forward to wrap his arms around her shoulders only to freeze when Kate reached up to put a hand on his arm.

  “I don’t have the job yet,” she added after a few seconds and then pulled her hand away. Arthur took longer to step back, and by then she was watching him, so he spun around to go back to his coffee.

  Kate didn’t let him take a sip before she spoke again. “What happened, Arthur?”

  She sounded older than she was, a lot like their mother, and Arthur spent a minute thinking about what their mom would have thought of how they lived, what Arthur had done. It wasn’t any less painful than what Kate was asking.

  “I’m in love with my boss,” he admitted to the cup after a while, and Kate made a sad but not exactly surprised sound. “Or ex-boss,” Arthur corrected himself and hated having to, “since I guess I can’t go back there.” He couldn’t go back to that house or to those books or to Bertie. They weren’t his. Maybe he’d been right all along; he wasn’t worthy of them. “He….”

  “What? What did he do? Fucking Beings, just because they have some magic…,” Kate started but shut up when Arthur raised his head to glare at her.

  “He didn’t do anything. I did it. It’s got nothing to do with his magic. Or….”

  Arthur paused, frustrated and sick at how stupid he was. “I suppose it does.” He turned away when Kate looked startled so he could direct his anger back at himself where it belonged. “If there’s anything you should know about dragons, it’s that they love treasure.” He wanted to put a hand to his mouth but knew Kate was watching him. “They love it, but their treasure isn’t what everyone thinks it is.”

  “Then what is it?” She was listening attentively now, not really as prejudiced against Beings as she’d pretended to be. She wanted to know about them as much as Arthur had.

  “It’s… beautiful things, but it’s not gold or silver. It’s not jewels either. It’s not about money at all, just things bold and pure and brave.” He closed his eyes and ignored the crack in his voice. “He wanted that to be me. He wanted me and I’m not… I failed him.”

  “You’ve never failed anything in your life.” Any other time Arthur would have thought about teasing Kate for how fast she answered, but Arthur only opened his eyes to stare at the carpet because she was right. He’d never failed anything before. Naturally, he picked the worst time to come face to face with his limits. The moment he had an entire dragon naked and his for the taking, he’d focused on a single scale.

  Bertie should be disappointed in him. Arthur shivered and leaned into the counter at the memory of Bertie’s eyes. He couldn’t think of them without seeing the shining disappointment, the heavy expectation that hadn’t lessened when Arthur started his rambling explanations. Only in those last few moments when Arthur had been so incredibly stupid to say what he did had he glimpsed anything else in those liquid depths. The world had been wet and shimmering, the air thick with heat. Arthur hadn’t seen anything clearly, but he knew that Bertie was kind, not fierce, and softhearted when he should be angry. It had probably been pity that stopped him. Pity for Arthur admitting that he loved him, for Arthur not being good enough.

  “What?” Kate stepped closer as if Arthur had said some of that out loud. He glanced over and resisted the urge to wipe at his stinging, hot cheeks. His eyes burned. “Not good enough?” she repeated furiously and came at him with her fists clenched at her sides. Arthur had the fleeting thought that he must have looked similar in the second before he punched her boyfriend in the face, but forgot about it when she raised her voice. He hadn’t seen her so emotional in a long time.

  “Kate, you don’t understand what I did,” he tried.

  Kate shut him down with a brutality that shocked him quiet. “I don’t need to, because I get that you messed up and that you’ve never done that before, Arthur. You don’t disappoint people; you’d wear yourself down to nothing first. But trust me, messing up? The rest of us do it all the time. You only failed when you ran away.” She crossed her arms. “If your writer dragon boss is as smart as you insist that he is, if he is as smart as I know you are, he should know that.”

  “I—” Arthur swallowed, not sure what he wanted to say at all. He frowned, but Kate’s glare didn’t let up. “I could have stolen from him.” Not that he had. He wouldn’t, and he’d realized that his first day, in that first minute. He had realized that before he knew the truth about dragons and their scales. It wasn’t in him, and he would never have risked hurting Bertie, not for anything.

  “Did you?” Kate’s eyes went wide but she relaxed slightly when Arthur shook his head to deny taking anything from the house. “Then why did he tell you to leave?”

  Arthur felt his throat lock up. The house had been an inferno, raging with everything unspoken, feelings strong enough to
knock him from his feet. But Bertie himself, a midnight black dragon with wounded eyes, hadn’t done anything but say his name. “Arthur,” he said in that rough bark after his gaze swept over Arthur’s shirt and jeans and shoes and after Arthur flinched away from him. He hadn’t told Arthur to leave at all.

  “He didn’t,” Arthur realized out loud, then turned to blink at his sister for one panicked second before spinning around to find his shoes. “Shit.” He had to go back.

  “Arthur?” Kate followed him with a question in her voice but she handed him his jacket without a word and pushed his bike back toward the door while Arthur was struggling to hold onto the helmet. So much for him being smart. Whatever Kate thought, Arthur was clearly an idiot. He flung the door open wide and stopped dead to see Bertie across the threshold.

  “Arthur.” Bertie froze too. He had one hand up as if he’d been debating knocking on the door when Arthur had opened it, but he lowered it after a few seconds and ran a nervous touch along his coat.

  It was a chilly morning and Bertie was his own furnace, but of course he was wearing a long coat and a scarf. They were both probably impossibly soft to the touch and cost more than Arthur’s rent for two months and would have made Bertie stand out in their dirty old apartment complex even if he hadn’t been glittering and beautiful.

  Arthur thought Bertie had showered too, or at least cleaned up. His face was dark and shadowed, but he had on one of his dress shirts and black dress pants that looked crisp and pressed. Arthur was conscious that he was in a T-shirt and jeans and his skin and hair were still damp. He wasn’t blushing; he was too terrified for that.

  “You’re here,” he said faintly, and remembered his sister only when she shifted behind him.

  “You said you wanted to be my boy.” Bertie exhaled it as if it was the only thing he could think to say and then left the words to drift through the air without qualifying them. Maybe to him that was reason enough to get dressed and drive across town after someone who had run away from him. But even with the heat in his voice, Bertie was shivering.