Redamancy

by T D Cloud

  Khouri chewed on his bottom lip. Even in the Duskriven what he and Navidae had was considered a fairly serious thing. It was true that they were close, but saying it like that… It didn’t sit well with Khouri. It took him a minute to realize why.

  “You’re important to me too, you know,” Khouri eventually said. He fiddled with the necklace in his hand, rolling the shells between his fingers. Sorin had said it himself; he thought Khouri liked Navidae more than him. What did he think about their relationship as a whole? Khouri was up here with him, traveling with him. Navidae could beg him to come back to their home, but it was Sorin Khouri kept leaving it for.

  Silence answered him. Khouri twitched the longer it lasted, and before long, he made himself look at Sorin. His eyes widened a little when he saw Sorin looking at the sand under his hand, jaw tight as he chewed the inside of his cheek.

  Swallowing, Khouri tipped himself into Sorin’s shoulder, nudging him. It got Sorin to look at him. Khouri smiled weakly.

  “Don’t tell me you’re surprised by that.” Khouri nudged Sorin’s shoulder again, resting his head on it when Sorin softened with a sigh. “I told you from the start that I like being with you. I’m not… I’m not just using you for company while I’m away.”

  “I didn’t think you were.”

  “Good. Because I’m not.” Khouri gripped the necklace in his hand tighter. Sorin was so dumb. How a man that big could have a brain so small was beyond him. “I’m giving this to you,” Khouri decided, squeezing the necklace resolutely. Sorin furrowed his brow, and Khouri made sure he had his attention before continuing. “Because I like you too. I miss Navi, but I’m enjoying being here. I don’t want you to think that… I don’t know. Here, just put it on.”

  He shoved the necklace at Sorin’s chest, flushed from his ears to his collar. Despite it, he still made himself watch as Sorin took it and held it against the sea, taking in the shells and the knot-work that had gone into it. Compared to Yula and Jarrett’s, it was messy. Clumsy. The knots looked like they were tight, but the careful lines and designs it should have made were lost in the fold.

  Sorin turned to Khouri, a big smile on his face. “Not bad,” he said, already wrapping it around his neck. “Tie this for me, will you? It’s impossible to do it alone.” “Do you like it?” Khouri made quick work of the last knot, tying it tight so it wouldn’t slip off while Sorin worked. “It’s not as nice as the kids’...”

  “Well, they’ve had years to get good at it. You did better than I did my first time.” Sorin lifted the low hanging end and turned it, taking in the glistening shells at every angle. “It’s great, Khouri. You’ll have to make another, so you and I can match.”

  Khouri smiled. It felt good making something and having it be appreciated. He got so much from people; Navidae always showered him with gifts, and Sorin had brought him here. “I’ll make a lot more,” he decided, determined to give them things back for once. With a nod of his head, he looked back out at the sea. “The kids were telling me about some shell they thought I’d like. The one that sounds like my name.”

  Sorin took a second to think, and then his eyes brightened as he laughed. He wrapped an arm around Khouri’s shoulders and dragged him between his legs, letting Khouri lean against his chest. “Ah, yeah, the cowrie ones. I’d forgotten about those. It does sound pretty similar, doesn’t it?”

  “Does it mean anything?” Khouri wondered. He rested his hand atop Sorin’s chest, playing with the smooth shells.

  He felt more than saw Sorin shrug. “It’s been awhile since I first heard about them,” he admitted, resting his chin on Khouri’s shoulder. “They were used for protection, though.

  Something about the spirits of the sea. The old wives tale was that if you were good at finding them, then you had some sea- god blood in you.”

  “That sounds nice,” Khouri said, smoothing his thumb over the ridge of a knot and the soft grooves of a shell. “What does your name mean?”

  Khouri blinked. His hand stilled on Sorin’s skin. “Um. I’m not sure.” Drow names sometimes carried meanings, but most were just based on aesthetics. Navidae had told him once that his name had been the latter, just some mashing up of syllables that sounded pretty. It’d made Khouri laugh hearing that. He supposed it was one way to assure yourself of never meeting another with the same name. But, that also had its downsides. He frowned, going on to say, “Khouri isn’t a name I’ve shared with anyone. I don’t think it means anything.”

  “Who named you? You said you never knew your parents.” Sorin chased his avoidant eye and sighed when Khouri didn’t let him catch it. “We don’t have to talk about it. If it bothers you.”

  “It doesn’t bother me,” Khouri said, dropping his hand to hold Sorin’s arm closer to his chest. “It’s just… It’s sad, I guess. My parents... Well, I think they named me. Tried to, anyway.

  I’d been found with some paper in my hand. Just some scrap torn from something. It had Khouri written on it, so we assumed it was my name. Lucifin was something the ratfolk called me. I think it meant ‘one-without-light’ in their tongue, one of their words for Drow.” He’d just gone with it. It was easier than making up his own.

  He went back to playing with the necklace. Silence. After a minute of it, Khouri couldn’t take it. He looked up and asked, “What does Sorin mean?”

  It took Sorin a minute to answer. He held Khouri a little tighter before he did. “It’s an old name around here,” he said, lacing his fingers with Khouri’s. His were so much bigger, calloused and scarred here and there. Khouri’s eyes drooped as Sorin stroked his fingers and palm, playing with his hand soothingly. “It belonged to one of my grandfathers. It means something like sun-walker or sun-chaser. So… the opposite of your surname, funnily enough.”

  Khouri gave a quiet laugh. “That’s fitting for you,” he decided. “Your parents named you well.”

  “Yeah, well, they care a lot about things like that. Remembering our ancestors and keeping their memory alive in the ones who come after.” Sorin shrugged a little, his tone blase. “They’re very traditional. The name’s about the one thing we agree on suiting me. The rest they could probably do without.”

  It sounded like they were approaching dangerous territory. “...Why did your parents leave this place?” Khouri asked, resting his head against Sorin’s chest. It just made Khouri’s curiosity burn hotter. “It’s so nice.”

  “Neana lives in Trenton now with her husband,” Sorin explained. “She’s always been in poor health, and when she had her kids, it took its toll on her. Mom went to help take care of her. Dad went to be with Mom.” Sorin shrugged a bit, running his fingers through Khouri’s hair. “They’re getting up there in age anyway. Made more sense for them to be closer to a doctor if something happens. It can get dangerous living this close to the ocean.”

  “Mastha doesn’t seem to mind it.”

  Sorin snorted. “Mastha will outlive us all,” he said. “Even you.” Based on all Khouri had seen of her, he couldn’t doubt that a bit. He closed his eyes for a moment and listened to the sound of Sorin’s heart beating atop the gentle flow of the surf. Warm arms enveloped him, the scratchy prickle of Sorin’s beard an odd accompaniment to the kiss that fell against his temple. It was nice, being held. Things weren’t as exciting here as they were on the road, traveling around and catching bounties, but… Khouri had to think this sort of life was nice too. It had its charms.

  “Would you…” Khouri trailed off, biting his lip. He tightened his hands in Sorin’s shirt, wondering if he should ask it at all. Sure, Sorin had brought him here to meet Mastha and the kids, but to go that far?

  “Would I what?”

  Khouri let out a breath. “Would you ever take me to meet your parents?” he asked, opening his eyes to stare at the necklace resting on Sorin’s chest. It was a heavy, warm bump against his cheek, thick and strong and confident as Sorin inhaled and exhaled steadily. “Your other sister. Her children. In Trenton.”

  S
orin let out a low sigh. When Khouri looked up, he saw that Sorin was staring out at the sea, face passive and eyes distant as he thought about it. “My relationship with my parents is… complicated,” Sorin said finally. He glanced down at Khouri and gave him a quick smile. “I visit Mastha most because she’s the one who is the most open about doing her own thing. We’re alike in that way. My parents… Well, they aren’t. It’s not the sort of place I’d want to take you.”

  “Oh.” “Oh?” Sorin raised a brow. “What’s ‘oh?’”

  Khouri shrugged. “Nothing,” he said. “Navi just never tells me about his family either.” There was probably a reason for that too. Just… one that he’d never bothered to tell him.

  “That’s probably because Navidae was spawned from some deep pit in the depths of the Duskriven,” Sorin said, nudging Khouri a bit until he smiled. “You might get along with his parents better than mine if they’re Felbrite giants. Those probably don’t lecture nearly as much as mine do.”

  It made Khouri laugh, bad joke that it was. Sorin grinned and nuzzled his neck, tickling him with his beard until Khouri was forced to pull away before he laughed himself into the oncoming tide. Sand stuck to his feet and his bloomers, and then to his hair when he ran his fingers through his fringe to move it out of his eyes. “You’re so dumb,” Khouri breathed, looking at Sorin— handsome, mean Sorin. “I don’t even know why I like you. You’re just a mean jerk.”

  “And you’re the most spoiled brat I know,” the man returned, pushing himself to his feet with a grunt. He stretched out his arms and settled his hands on his hips, looking down at Khouri with unreadable intent. “I brought you here because I wanted to share this part of my life with you. The rest…” He paused, crossing his arms as he looked down at the sand. “Well… Let’s just enjoy this visit for what it is first.”

  Khouri smiled so wide that his cheeks began to burn. Sorin grumbled something under his breath, looking away to hide his expression. Which was okay, Khouri thought. He didn’t need to see it to know Sorin cared.

  “I really appreciate you bringing me here,” Khouri said, taking another long look at the endless stretch of blue before him. “I’m… really happy you shared this with me.”

  Sorin shuffled his weight from foot to foot, giving Khouri a strange little half smile. His eyes rested heavily on Khouri for a moment before softening. “It’s about time for dinner,” he said. Something in his voice made it sound like an offer.

  “Yeah?” He was getting hungry, so dinner sounded good. Khouri held out his hand and let Sorin tug him to his feet. The hand held tight to his, though, not letting go. Instead Sorin drew him close, pulling him into his arms. The warm water bathed their feet, creeping up the beach as it sought to envelope everything in its waves. Khouri looked into Sorin’s sharp blue eyes. He wet his lips, reading the want in them as easily as any sign.

  “Yeah,” Sorin echoed, kissing him gently. “But why don’t we be late this time?”

  Khouri smiled into the next kiss, giving him his thoughts on that idea with a parting of the lips and a soft sigh. The sun lit Sorin from behind, bright even when he closed his eyes. His stomach growled, but it could wait.

  They had this moment to themselves, and that was what Khouri wanted to savor.

  Chapter Four

  The hour was late, and Sorin was tired. But still, he sat with Khouri half draped over his lap, watching the fire burn itself out in the fireplace. By all rights, he should be in bed. Why was he still sitting here? Sorin chewed the inside of his cheek and stroked his hand down the length of Khouri’s bare shin, savoring the soft skin beneath his hand. He gave a squeeze to Khouri’s knee and earned a sleepy little mumble in return.

  Ah. That was why. God, he was such a sap.

  The house was quiet this late at night. Dinner had long since been cleaned up, and the toys the children had occupied themselves with were scattered about, forgotten in the wake of bedtime. Mastha had followed soon after, putting her knitting aside in its little basket with a fond smile thrown Sorin’s way. Her eyes had laughed at him, but her good night had been sincere. This suited him, she had said. Sorin felt like he agreed.

  It was a strange thought, that. Domesticity had never been his cup of tea. He’d made it a habit to keep his visits short when he came home, and for the first time in a long time, Sorin wondered if that’d been because he was searching for someone he got along enough with to bother staying longer. Khouri’s soft hair brushed his arm, his cheek nuzzling his skin gently. Sorin let out a humored huff and squeezed his knee again, hating that it took a little brat like this to make him think of settling down.

  His hand froze on Khouri’s knee when the cheek against his arm shifted. Khouri’s ears twitched a little, and his nose wrinkled. “Mmm,” he hummed, blinking himself awake. “Sorin? What… What’s goin’ on?”

  “You finally awake?” he murmured, allowing himself to shift into a comfortable position on the sofa. On one hand, Sorin was grateful that he could finally move. On the other, he had been sitting like this for nearly four hours. He had to wonder if he should be angrier about it. “Your hair is a mess, brat,” he settled on saying. As uncomfortable as it had gotten, he couldn’t begrudge Khouri the intimacy of it all. “Bout time you woke up to fix it.”

  Khouri managed an inarticulate grunt. He rubbed at his tired eyes and looked around the room, nuzzling Sorin’s chest with his cheek. His legs were tossed over Sorin’s lap, his body tucked under his arm. They hadn’t started out sitting that way, but over the course of the evening, he had slowly migrated into it, much to Mastha’s amusement.

  “Where are the kids?” Khouri mumbled, noticing that they were all alone. “What time is it?”

  Sorin let out a breath and drummed his fingers on Khouri’s knee. “Late,” he said after a moment. “Everyone’s been in bed for a few hours now.”

  “And you just let me sleep out here?” Khouri said, embarrassment coloring his voice. “Why didn’t you wake me up?” He wriggled until Sorin let go of him, putting his feet on the floor. He began to shiver immediately as the chilly, drafty air wrapped around him instead.

  A resounding of pops and cracks sounded as Sorin stretched his legs and arms. He grunted and sagged, rubbing his tired eyes. The last thing he wanted to do was say why he’d done any of this, so he settled on mumbling instead. He knew well enough that Khouri wouldn’t buy the deflection for a second.

  Like clockwork, Khouri cocked his head and frowned, drifting closer. “What was that?” he asked. He raised a brow when he noticed how Sorin squirmed.

  “I didn’t want to wake you,” Sorin repeated reluctantly, giving him a weak glare that didn’t sting at all in the soft darkness between them.

  The sweetness of Khouri’s sleepy little smile erased the embarrassment Sorin felt. “You’re so sweet to me sometimes,” Khouri whispered, crawling into his lap so he could wrap his arms around Sorin’s shoulders. His warm chest was a gentle weight against his own, his lips a near magnetic force in the darkness. Sorin’s eyes slid shut as Khouri leaned forward and pressed their lips together, his hands encircling Khouri’s narrow waist until there wasn’t an inch of space between them.

  It was intimate like this. Just the two of them alone in the dark with the world asleep around them. Sorin’s fingers slipped beneath the worn hem of Khouri’s borrowed shirt, dancing along his endlessly soft skin. Comfortable, really. They broke the kiss slowly, drawing their lips against cheeks and chins and the vulnerable length of willingly bared throats. Just like teenagers, Sorin thought lazily, necking while the tide came in.

  As they breathed against each other’s lips, eyes heavy with the thrum of want, Sorin was hit with the overwhelming quiet around them. The house settled and shifted in the dark, but it was a comforting sort of white noise, one that highlighted the stillness of the night. They were the only ones in sight, but the knowledge of the ones sleeping upstairs lurked in the back of Sorin’s mind regardless. It felt like home in a way that took Sorin b
ack to his youth. Back to the time when he would sneak out while his parents slept to do exactly what Khouri’s lips promised with every searching kiss.

  Sorin felt young right now. Young, wanting, and impulsive enough to chase the thought of more.

  “Wait,” Sorin said, moving his head away when Khouri tried to turn it into something deeper. “Hold on.”

  “Oh.” Khouri panted softly against his neck as he pressed his forehead against Sorin’s shoulder. “You’re right. We’re not allowed to do it here.”

  Sorin tightened his grip on Khouri’s borrowed clothes. “No, no,” he whispered, pushing Khouri by the hips until he climbed out of his lap. “Come on. I want to show you something.”

  “Show me something? It’s past midnight,” Khouri mur- mured, watching him with curious eyes as Sorin got up and grabbed a blanket from the rack in the corner of the room. He followed Sorin into the kitchen, tilting his head to the side as Sorin opened the cabinets. “Mastha’s going to be mad if you break something, you know.”

  Sorin rolled his eyes. “Go wait out on the porch, okay?” he grunted, pulling open a drawer and smiling when he saw the candles he knew were lurking around here somewhere. “I’ll only be a minute.”

  He could practically hear Khouri’s pout behind him. “Fine, fine,” he muttered, walking to the door and shoving his boots on his bare feet. “Don’t take too long, okay? And don’t break anything!”

  Sorin waved him off with a hand, grabbing up a handful of candles with the other and the small book of matches beside them. He shoved the matches in his pocket and bundled up the candles in the blanket, going over it all in his head as he moved. It’d been a long while since he last tried to do this with a partner. A few decades, give or take. He snapped his fingers and darted through the house as quietly as he could, running up to the guest room where his pack was shoved in the corner. He dug through it and palmed the familiar little bottle, shoving that into his pocket as well.

  That was all he needed, right? He glanced around the dark room, and when nothing else stuck out to him, he carefully made his way back down the stairs, placing his feet carefully to avoid the creaky floorboards along the way. Khouri was waiting for him on the front porch, sitting on the stoop with his elbows on his knees and a frown on his lips. He perked up when Sorin came through the door, his eyes raking over him as if trying to see what it was he had brought down with him.