by R. Cooper
“You still should have known what David would be like. He’s serious and devoted, Clem, and you knew it.” But Stephanie sighed. “Although he was never going to date you.”
“I know,” Clematis agreed.
She leaned over the bed to gently smack his arm. “I meant, he’s been in love with Tulip forever.”
Clematis nodded. “He shimmered for Tulip. He’s bright for Flor, but he doesn’t shimmer like that.”
“Maybe that’s love without longing,” Stephanie remarked thoughtfully. “They’d all be happy if they just banged, but Flor is Flor, and Tulip is….”
“Older,” Clematis filled in. “Powerful. Scary.”
“Tulip scares you?” Stephanie demanded in disbelief. “Gentle, soft-voiced, pink Tulip?”
She really shouldn’t judge power based on colors and their current cultural connotations. But Clematis didn’t call her on it.
“Is Flor going to the party?” he wondered aloud. “Oh, of course he will. It’s probably going to be uncomfortable for him, but he’ll go. He keeps trying to care for David out of habit and he… he talks to Mishi and his other friends about it, so I know it bothers him.” Clematis clasped his hands. “Do you think he’ll be okay?”
Stephanie drew in a small, sharp breath. The bag crinkled as she once again set it down. “You’re worried about Flor?” she asked slowly, with a little hitch in the words. “So, maybe ask him?” she suggested. Her gaze was intent on his face when he looked up. “He might want to talk about it with you too.”
“Really?” Clematis wasn’t sure about that, but he could try. “Okay. If you think so. But he probably would rather talk to one of the others. Or maybe…. He’s seeing a troll? The one from the library where Tulip works. He says it’s not dating, but it’s Flor, so he probably likes the troll a lot.” Stephanie nodded to show she was listening. Clematis still hesitated before he went on. “Trolls are strong, possibly even as strong as Flor. Flor will probably talk to him about it. But I can ask if you think I should.”
“God.” Stephanie closed her eyes and shook her head. “You’re always cutest whenever I want to be mad at you.”
“What?” Clematis frowned until her attention was back on him. “What did I do?”
“Oh, honey,” she said softly and then didn’t add anything for several moments. “Hey, I’m going to order in a sandwich and I can get some cookies too, if you’re hungry.”
“You aren’t going to study?” He looked at her hair again and how dressed she was. She didn’t like distractions when she was working. He usually left.
“It can be put off for a little while,” she told him, quiet and gentle. “Want to paint my toenails for me while we wait?”
Clematis perked up at the thought of sitting at her feet. “Do I?” He’d never done that before. “Will I be good at it?”
She held out her hand to take his and help pull him from the bed. “Absolutely. You’ll be great,” she insisted. “But get your pants on. We don’t need to startle the delivery person.”
Clematis nodded seriously and followed her down the hall.
DESPITE WHAT Stephanie had told him, Clematis didn’t mean to immediately bring up the dangerous subject of David the next time he saw Flor. But David was always with them, and there would never be Flor and Clematis without David too. Clematis wouldn’t have minded, if just speaking the name didn’t spark such strong reactions in Flor.
“Maybe you should find out if David is on campus and pay him a visit,” Clematis had suggested after sitting down on the grass behind the MCC table and noting that Flor was in a mood.
Flor, officially manning the table with Mishi once again, had turned around to give him a look of outrage. “Excuse me?”
Clematis recognized Flor’s spitfire tone and shut his mouth too late.
“You know what’s funny?” Mishi turned toward Clematis as well. “A few months ago I would never have dreamed I’d be saying this, but Clematis, can you please calm him down?”
Flor gasped loudly. “I don’t need to be calmed down!”
Clematis considered him and the strangely subdued distant group of hateful humans before returning his gaze to Flor. Flor met his stare. His wings gave an agitated snap.
“Flor.” Clematis leaned back on his hands and made his words a soft plea. “Flor, I need your help with something.”
Flor went absolutely still, then made a start in his direction before stopping again to glare at him. “You’re doing that thing!”
“But I really do have a problem,” Clematis continued sweetly. “And you can help me. Isn’t that better than worrying about those humans over there?”
“I—” Flor’s eyes were huge sparkling pools of swirling black. “How do you know I was— I wasn’t only worried about—” He dragged his attention from Clematis and looked at Mishi, who smiled apologetically but turned her back on him. He slumped into his seat and crossed his arms for all of ten seconds before getting up and stomping over to Clematis.
“Campus security assholes came out and yelled at them to stop with their hate speech,” Flor ranted. “Then the humans started insisting that we started the hate speech by implying humans are less than us, and that we shouldn’t call ourselves beings to be different from them!” He huffed as he sat down. “Do they not know their history? Humans called us beings, not the other way around. Assholes. So now they are stewing and probably plotting some stupid next move.” He drew circles with his thumb on his knee. “And I… this is stupid, but I don’t know what to get David for his birthday, and I feel like I haven’t really talked with him in forever, and I just—don’t do that thing with me. You don’t need to go all—” He paused to wave his hands jerkily at Clematis. “—to distract me.”
“I’m sorry those humans upset you,” Clematis told him sincerely, albeit with a slight pout. “And about David. Maybe you can’t help me after all.”
“What?” Flor asked in a dizzy, distant tone before snapping to attention again. He pinned Clematis with a fierce glare. “Of course I can help you. Or I can at least try. And I said stop doing that.” He growled like a tiny version of a were. “Stop tricking me into paying attention to you. You don’t need to do that!”
“Is that what I’m doing?” Clematis asked pleasantly. “You really think I’m that clever?”
Flor’s expression went thoughtful, while also staying just a little pissed off. “I think you know what gets my attention.” He gaped the second he said it, then shut his mouth hard and looked away. “Oh my God. Oh my God, how did you do that? How do you do that but then also manage to not notice when you’re about to say the wrong thing?”
Clematis shrugged. “Maybe I need a keeper.”
Flor wheezed. Mishi made a small, shocked sound.
“You absolutely need someone to keep you,” Flor said, strain in his voice. “Oh my God.”
“Not you, of course. I’m not asking you to keep me, Flor.” Clematis slid a sideways glance his way. “But you’ll still help me now, right?”
“Yeah,” Flor agreed instantly, quiet and earnest before meeting his eyes. “Please stop doing that… that version of you that you know I—I’ll talk to you without it. Of course I will. But it makes me feel… like I’m using you somehow.”
“Only for distraction,” Clematis assured him and sat all the way up. “I’ll try not to. But people don’t usually complain. And I don’t always do it on purpose.”
“I don’t need distraction,” Flor insisted. “I’m upset, which I should be.” He stared into the distance, probably at those humans, before hanging his head. He breathed carefully in and out, like someone trying to calm down. “What… what did you need help with?” he asked at last, in a small, slightly shamed voice.
Clematis dropped down gracefully in front of him, lying on his side in front of Flor’s feet. He would be gentle with Flor.
“My friend Flor is worrying about a lot of things, and I don’t know how to help,” he answered honestly. “So Stephanie told
me to ask him.”
He studied Flor’s knees and his calves and the traces of dust on the bottom of his feet. Flor smelled of vanilla and sugar, and a bit like root beer and crushed grass. Clematis could have touched him, or raised his head to rest his cheek on Flor’s knee, but all he finally did was look up in question at Flor’s silence.
“There’s another way I could distract you,” Clematis added, because something about Flor always made him want to keep talking and that was what got him in trouble. “But you wouldn’t like that.” He dropped his head and rolled farther onto his side to bury his face in the grass below Flor’s knee. “And I don’t mind listening. I really don’t.”
If they had been a different kind of friends, Flor might have run his fingers through his hair. Instead, only his glitter touched him, falling on the side of Clematis’s face like misty Los Cerros fog. He wondered if Flor noticed Clematis was half-hard. If Flor minded.
“You’re asking me to use you?” Flor finally spoke, very, very quietly. “As if you’re my friend? You are my friend. We could have talked.”
“But now you’re distracted.” Clematis smiled to himself. “You want to fix me.”
“I don’t want to fix you,” Flor said harshly. “You’re not broken; you’re just… different.”
“I’m a little broken.” Clematis exhaled. “Even Lis thinks so.”
“Maybe.” Flor sounded as though he was frowning. “And maybe sometimes you know exactly what you’re doing. Look at me,” he commanded softly, only to blink in surprise when Clematis rolled onto his back to obey. “Why did you think I needed to see David? To do this? He didn’t… I was allowed to take care of him to a point, but not like this. He had—has—boundaries with me. We’re friends and he listens, but it’s not like I was ever properly keeping him, or even playing at it like this.”
Clematis started to protest, but Flor shook his head to cut him off. “I wanted to keep him, obviously, to really keep him. But he would never allow it. Even though he did want to be kept, because now he has Tulip to do it. I don’t blame him for it, though. I fucked up with him, so bad, Clem. I messed up so bad. So he doesn’t trust well, now.” Clematis was very aware of that. Flor wasn’t done, however. His expression hardened. “I’m the reason David doesn’t trust well, and the reason why what you did hurt him like it did. You should know that. You shouldn’t trust me so much.”
Seconds went by, or minutes, while Clematis stared at the magnificence around Flor and tried to reconcile that with what Flor had just said. “David loves you,” he said first. “David thinks your good opinion is essential. If you don’t approve, he’s crushed.” Clematis wasn’t sure how Flor could not know that. “You were keeping him, even though he didn’t sleep in your bed. And he did so well with you. Look how smart and respected he is already. Sasha is in awe of him, and he can’t even see the shine around David.”
“Clematis,” Flor whispered in shock.
“Whatever happened, whatever you did, maybe David just wanted to be somebody’s happiness, and he knew he wasn’t yours. David’s very smart,” Clematis added. “Smart enough to know what he wants. If he hadn’t met Tulip, then he probably would have let some dragon scoop him up so he could be treasured like that.” He frowned. “Dragons are sort of terrifying. But so is Tulip, so…. Whatever. That’s what he wants. You’re Flor, but you’re not terrifying. You’re not like a fairy-tale fairy at all, except for maybe the blessing kind.”
“The blessing kind?” Flor echoed, voice faint with surprise.
Clematis lifted a hand to wave it vaguely. “You know, not out to kidnap and keep humans. The kind who bestows fairy gifts on princesses or who provides the lost knight with the sword he’ll need later in his quest. That’s you.” He closed his eyes. “David wanted the place in human stories where fairies take their human beloveds, a bower of pillows and flowers and nectar and whatever. A place out of time, where he can trust in Tulip enough to finally relax—he’s never really relaxed, you know, David. But you, you fed him and loved him and took care of him, but you’re not about hiding from the world. You are about getting him back on the right path. So he needs you, but you aren’t the fairy to keep him. You shouldn’t think that means you’re less than Tulip. Tulip probably knows that. Tu is… as smart as David, possibly smarter.”
Mishi’s voice cut into the air between them. “I thought you were calming him down!”
Clematis opened his eyes to see Flor on the verge of tears, wings beating slow and steady despite the sparkles clinging to his eyelashes. “Are you blessing me?” Flor asked in a tight, shaky voice.
Clematis shook his head. “I wouldn’t even know how to do that. I’m only saying the truth.”
“The truth?” Flor wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “It’s more than that. All these years I’ve avoided you and you say that to me now?” Flor flopped down onto his back and exhaled with a heavy shudder. “You’re so good with feelings, and I’m so fucking bad at them.”
“I’m so good?” Clematis hesitated, then pushed himself upright. Mishi was watching them anxiously, but Flor didn’t seem inclined to go back to the table to join her, or even to sit up. “I don’t think that’s true.”
“You’re very good at reading people when it suits you to notice them,” Flor said dully as if he’d thought it before. “I can grasp things from their colors, but I’m an insensitive jerk a lot of the time. I had a girlfriend and didn’t notice she was insecure about David. I had David and didn’t realize how much he wanted to be only mine. And I’ve known you for, what, half a decade, and did we ever talk like this before? Ever? No. I am bad with feelings, Clem.”
“Look at me,” Clematis begged, then lifted his chin when Flor sighed but looked at him. “You’re Flor. You always do the right thing once you see what it is. So stop worrying that you aren’t sensitive enough, especially where I’m concerned. It’s… it’s weird.”
Flor roughly wiped his eyes again. “How do you always manage to ruin a moment?”
With a huff, Clematis turned his back on him. “I’m hungry,” he declared sulkily, and waited.
Flor growled again, a bitty, baby fairy growl, and shoved himself to his feet. “Doing it again,” he mumbled as he approached the table, shorts tight around his ass. “Mish, have you seen the—”
Mishi pushed his bag from under the table with her foot and pursed her lips when Flor picked it up and pulled out small bunches of red and green grapes.
“Clematis likes fruit,” he explained at her bewildered expression, and then carried both bunches over to Clematis and dropped them gently in his lap.
“Seriously feel the need to kinkshame you both.” Mishi was not quiet.
“It’s not kink; it’s how fairies are.” Flor returned to the table and sat backward in his chair to face Clematis, as if he planned on making sure Clematis ate every last grape.
“It’s sometimes kinky.” Clematis wasn’t hard anymore, but it wouldn’t have taken much to get him going. He popped a grape in his mouth while Flor scowled at him. “At least for me.” He qualified that statement so Flor would quit it with the death glare. “But he’s right. You look at any fairy relationship and you’ll see something similar.”
“So the myth about fairies is the whole free-love, incapable of fidelity, sluttiness thing and the reality is domestic fluff?” Mishi asked, leaving Clematis to wonder what fluff meant in this context.
Whatever it meant, he shook his head. “No, some fairies are also like that,” he said over Flor’s objection that there were many different fairy cultures and comparing all of them to human stereotypes was a waste of time.
“Domestic fluff,” Clematis repeated, trying out the sound of it as he ate. The grapes were seedless. “Thank you for these, Flor. You’re very thoughtful.”
Flor exchanged a glance with Mishi, then quickly ducked his head.
“The weird thing is, he means it,” Mishi commented, amused. “To think, if you two had made friends years ago, I would hav
e gotten used to this by now and not the sound of Flor complaining about you hitting on his friends. Then again, could anyone get used to this?”
“Anyway,” Flor began loudly, wings fluttering like mad as he scrubbed the last of his tears from his flushed face. He stood up restlessly only to sit on the edge of the table.
“Why don’t you just get David something similar?” Clematis switched from green to red grapes and then back again. “Some food he likes?”
“Because that’s what Tulip will do,” Flor cut in, voice a touch too high. “And I can’t get him a plant because I would have to take care of it for him and that’s impossible now. Or… it would make me his gardener and not… yeah.”
“Blowjob’s out too, I suppose,” Clematis remarked through his food. “How about one of those donations made in his name? You could put it on a card and stick it in a flowerpot. Tulip will take care of the flower.”
“Holy shit.” Mishi whirled around to stare at him with wide eyes. “You’re actually good at this.”
Flor regarded him in silence long enough for Clematis to finish one of his tiny grape bunches. Then he quirked one side of his mouth into a soft smile. “Yeah, he is. Hey, Clematis,” he went on a moment later. “Can you come here for a sec, please?”
Clematis considered his remaining grapes, but left the empty stem on the ground and got up. He dusted off his work pants and glanced around for his shirt before he remembered he’d left it at the table.
He popped a red grape into his mouth as he came over, then went still when Flor snaked his arms around his waist and pulled him into a hug. Flor was sun-kissed and warm, and his hold was gentle as he buried his face in the back of Clematis’s neck. “Thank you,” he said in a sweet little whisper.
“For what?” Clematis asked just as quietly and found he couldn’t look Mishi in the eye. Or maybe she couldn’t look directly at him. Her cheeks were darker.
Flor moved his head, and his breath tickled the top of one of Clematis’s wings, sending light shivers down Clematis’s back. Maybe he felt them or sensed his confusion, because Flor splayed his fingers over Clematis’s waist, then clucked his tongue. “Just be quiet and let me thank you,” he murmured, not nearly as cranky as he probably wanted to sound.