Page 44 of Inferno
“No, but…” Nerik wiggled his hips against Yorin’s leg. “It still worked out pretty well.”
Yorin sighed – a happy sigh – and let his eyes slide closed for a moment. There were going to be plenty more complications to deal with, but he let himself believe that one way or another, the two of them were going to work things out. Life had its ups and downs – and Yorin had seen more than his fair share of downs – so perhaps this time, fate could give him a break and just let him enjoy this for now?
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Yorin ended up dozing for half an hour or so, and when he woke, Nerik was asleep, warm and relaxed against his body. He dared to stroke his fingers through Nerik’s hair, not wanting to wake him, but astonished all the same by how normal his hair felt – given the fact that it didn’t really exist. Were there witches living in Minia? If they had magic this powerful, then surely some of them had survived crossing the gate. And if one could make an infernal appear human, then imagine what the rest of them could do for humankind.
Outside, a cart rambled down the street, the wheels clacking against the cobblestones. A pigeon landed on the windowsill, cooing briefly before flying off again. The shrill sound of a woman’s laughter drifted up from the street, before being lost in the dull drone of the city again.
Yorin reflected that aside from the few times he’d been sick, he’d never spent this much time in bed during the day before. The room wasn’t what he would have called dark, with plenty of light filtering in around the edges of the curtains, but it was dim enough to give the place a quiet, relaxed feel. As if of its own accord, his hand traced up and down Nerik’s jaw, teasing the stubble there… and he was somewhat pleased when Nerik slept on, secure enough in his arms to not be disturbed by such a gentle touch.
Some time later – Yorin guessed it might have been fifteen or twenty minutes – Nerik tensed suddenly and let out a faint, disgruntled sound. He blinked and lifted his head, and then a smile curved his lips as he saw just what – or who – he had been sleeping on. “Oh. Hey. Morning.”
“Or rather, afternoon,” Yorin corrected him. “Enjoy your nap?”
“Mmm.” Nerik stretched, yawning as he did so, solid biceps and the strong column of his neck on display for Yorin to appreciate. Then he propped himself up on his elbows and leaned up to kiss Yorin briefly. “This is not the way I expected to be spending the afternoon. Not that I’m complaining. Not at all,” he added, a wry look on his face.
“What did you think was going to happen when you came over here?”
“Best case scenario, you’d listen to what I had to say and then tell me to leave. Worst case, you’d just tell me to leave and never come back.”
“You didn’t think I was going to hand you over to the army?”
“Maybe it’s my naïve optimism talking, but I figured that if you were going to do that, you’d have done it already.”
“You seem to have me all figured out,” Yorin said, idly stroking Nerik’s hair. “Which is a little disconcerting, given that we’ve only been on two dates. And arguably, one of those doesn’t count.”
“There’s still plenty I don’t know about you,” Nerik said, settling back onto Yorin’s shoulder and snuggling in closer. “I know basically nothing about your childhood. I don’t even know where you were born. Did you grow up in Minia? How did you learn to be a tailor? What about your parents? You never talk about them… Wow, yeah, maybe not. Sorry. I just realised there might be a good reason for you not talking about them.”
“No, it’s okay,” Yorin said. “It’s not exactly a warm, fuzzy story, but it’s not hugely traumatic, either.”
“You don’t have to tell me,” Nerik said, peering up at him. Gods, he looked so adorable there, half-buried in the blankets, like a cat curled up in front of the fire. “I don’t want to drag up any bad memories.”
“Sometimes I think there’s no one at all in Minia with a really happy story. So many people here have come from other towns or cities. And if someone’s uprooting their whole life and moving somewhere else, it’s rarely for a pleasant reason. And then there’s a whole lot of locals whose lives are wrapped up with the warriors. Plenty of people have had a father or a brother or an uncle killed by… Killed at the gate,” Yorin corrected himself. He’d been about to say ‘killed by demons’, but that was hardly appropriate anymore. “So my story is no better than most, but in a lot of ways, it’s no worse, either.
“I was born here, in Minia. My mother was a bartender and my father was a tailor. My childhood was largely unremarkable. My mother taught me to read and write, and then she sent me to a local tutor to learn about numbers, when she’d taught me as much as she could. There were a handful of local children I was friends with. Not so much now – most of the ones I knew have either left Minia to go travelling, or as far as the boys went, most of the rest of them joined the army. And given the way I feel about the warriors, I didn’t see the need to stay in touch. So life was fairly ordinary, up until I turned twelve.”
Nerik was stroking soothing patterns up and down Yorin’s chest, and he paused in his story, contemplating whether the physical distraction was enough to inspire him for round two… and eventually dismissed the idea. The stress and chaos of the last couple of days had left him feeling drained, and it was more tempting to just lie there, naked, and enjoy the warmth of Nerik’s body next to his.
“And then what happened?” Nerik prompted him, when Yorin didn’t immediately return to the story.
Yorin sighed, rubbing Nerik’s shoulder. “A couple of weeks after my twelfth birthday, my mother left.”
Nerik muttered a curse. “Shit, I’m sorry. Why? I mean, if you don’t mind talking about it.”
“It’s okay. It was a long time ago. And I guess I have a bit better perspective on it now than I did then. Mum worked in the Broken Plough pub. It’s closed now. But I remember when I was young, she’d always be complaining about it. There were too many fights, too many men hitting on her – it was worse before she got married, but marriage didn’t stop the rogues and scoundrels completely. Everyone was too loud, and too stupid, and at the time, I wondered why she kept working there, if she hated it so much.
“She used to tell me that she’d fallen in love with my father because he was the complete opposite – calm, reliable, with a steady income and no unexpected surprises. He was her rudder in a wild storm, she used to say. And as a child, I believed her. It made sense that she’d want something dependable, instead of living off tips and having her bottom smacked ten times a night.
“But in the end, she ran off with a merchant. She came home from the pub one day, packed a bag, and told us she was leaving. She was going to travel to far away places and have adventures. Nothing like living with a boring tailor, who did the same thing all day, every day.
“All sorts of rumours started up after she left, with people making up reasons why, judging me and my father for all manner of imaginary crimes. For what it’s worth, I blamed my father, at the time. It was boring, going to the shop every day. By that age, I was learning to make simple things, like scarves or socks, and helping serve customers in the shop, and it seemed like the most awful drudgery I could imagine. I thought he’d let Mum down somehow.
“It was only years later that I realised I had it backwards. Dad was who he was, and he’d never pretended to be anything different. It was my mother who’d been fooling herself. She claimed to hate the noise and chaos of the pub, but she actually thrived on it. It made her feel alive. And when she couldn’t replicate that at home, she decided to abandon us and find her adventures elsewhere.
“I think she’d thought that having a child would make her want to settle down and have a quieter life, but it just doesn’t work that way.
“Anyway, my father never really recovered from the shock of losing her. He let the business slide. He kept making orders for the regular customers, but he wasn’t putting much effort into finding new customers, or experimenting with any of the new fashions. I tried, as much as a teenage boy could. I would point out someone in the street who was wearing a new style of coat, or a new pattern for a dress. Or I’d talk about going to the festivals to find new customers. But he wasn’t interested.