Penumbra

by Dan Ackerman

  “Sorry,” he muttered.

  The Baker brothers giggled into each other’s shoulders.

  Arden covered his mouth but still smiled.

  Rhys flushed. He started to stand up.

  Arden grabbed his arm. He scooted closer. “Don’t be grumpy.”

  “I’m not grumpy.”

  “Then what’s wrong?” Arden asked softly.

  Rhys glanced towards Cole and Mace. He half-whispered, half-hissed, “I don’t belong here.”

  “No, of course not,” Arden agreed gamely, “We’re all idiots and you’ve got more than three coherent thoughts in your head.”

  Rhys tilted his head warily, eyes narrowed.

  “Thank you for gracing us with your company.”

  “Now I know you’re making fun of me.”

  “You make fun of me all the time.”

  “It’s…It’s not the same.”

  Arden smiled. “No. You can go if you really want to, Rhys, you can always leave whenever you want. But don’t go just because you feel like, uh, like you’re not here as an equal.”

  “Arden, you don’t have equals.”

  “Out there, maybe. In here…” Arden shrugged one shoulder. He glanced at the Baker brothers. “Don’t go.”

  “In here, he’s just Arden,” Cole said. “It’s always been like that.”

  “Even to the workers?” Rhys challenged.

  “You’re not a thrall,” Arden reminded.

  “That’s not the point.”

  “What’s the point?” Arden asked.

  Rhys scowled.

  “It’s a real question!” Arden said. “Tell me the point.”

  Rhys clenched his jaw.

  Arden took Rhys’s hand. Gently, he pointed out, “Look, you’ve got a Council member and a supervisor and, well, little old me, waiting to hear what you have to say.”

  “And I really do want to hear,” Cole asked. “You know, it’s…It’s kind of hard to get opinions out of most thralls.”

  “It’s hard to give an honest opinion when disrespect is seen as a come-on,” Rhys pointed out.

  Arden’s face got hot. He adjusted his blanket.

  “Then speak for them, Rhys, so that I can take that to the Council,” Cole asked.

  He looked sweet and earnest, which must have worked on Rhys, because Rhys said, “The point is that I’m not a peer. I never will be and that makes me…that makes me less. An inferior being in the eyes of everyone who lives above deck six.”

  Arden squirmed. He wanted to say it wasn’t true out of instinct, but he knew it was. He knew he was part of it and had been and maybe still was the worst of it.

  “Thank you,” Cole said sincerely. “Can we talk about this more another time? I didn’t mean to put you on the spot.”

  Rhys nodded.

  Arden finished his drink. He absolutely was the worst of it, the worst of all of them. He made himself another drink, straight liquor, and slugged it back. He nearly choked for the tightness of his throat. He thought about taking another drink straight away but settled for bringing the bottle back to the blanket nest with him.

  He set it off to the side, centrally enough that whoever wanted it could grab it.

  Rhys hadn’t worked his way through his first drink yet. He always drank slowly, ate slowly.

  “Do you like it?” Arden asked, nodding towards the glass in his hand.

  “It’s good.”

  “Too strong?”

  Rhys shook his head. “No. Or, if it is, it’s smooth. Not what I’m used to, at any rate.”

  Arden watched him fiddle with the glass swizzle stick. He searched for a word and when it came to him, he declared, “Scuff.”

  “What about it?” Rhys asked.

  “That’s what you drink in the Quarters.”

  “That’s what we drink if we’re not worried about losing our eyesight or slipping into a coma. Scuff is…it’s nasty stuff. You never really know what’s in it. People who hope to wake up in the morning usually stick to rakka.”

  “And that’s safer?”

  “It’s just fruit wine, made from whatever’s no good to eat. Some people have a better hand at it. My auntie made good rakka. But it’s not as nice as this.” Rhys nodded towards his glass.

  “You should bring me some.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Next time you come visit. We can trade.” He jabbed a thumb towards his well-stocked bar.

  “I don’t know where I’d get enough to be worth a trade.”

  Arden shook his head. “A bottle for a bottle.” Not a fair trade, but also somehow the fairest deal that had ever been made on Eden. Before Rhys could say anything else, Arden got up, rummaged through his desk, and came back with a game. He emptied the little sack of pieces. They clattered and pinged against the floor daintily. “You know how to play jumble?”

  Rhys started flipping over letter tiles. “More or less. At least, I’ve watched enough supervisors play.”

  “Not Mr. Baker, I hope.”

  Mace leaned over to smack Arden. “Don’t be mean.”

  Cole took the pack of cards and started to shuffle. He set down the stack facedown, glanced around to see if the others were ready with their first ten tiles, then flipped the first card to show a picture. All the cards bore an image and the first person to make a word related to the image would win the card.

  Tiles could be swapped, but only one at a time.

  Arden's fingers itched already. He wasn’t as good at making words as other people, but he always remembered where people had put back letters.

  The first card showed a bathtub.

  Mace won the first card by spelling soap and they flipped the next to show a picture of a woman. Cole spelled a word, tight, which Arden readily called bullshit on. They debated the merit of the association and ruled that tight couldn’t be played based on the argument that women wore tight clothes sometimes.

  Jumble could become a game of alliances just as easily as it became one of wits or memory. With an even number of players, the odds weren’t so bad, unless three decided to gang up on one.

  That didn’t happen tonight.

  They played a few dozen rounds and interspersed drinks, gossip, and some mild philosophizing. Nothing serious, just the sort of thoughts people indulged when they drank.

  After the last round, they counted the cards, declared Arden the winner yet again, and settled in among the cushions.

  No one voiced their tiredness or made mention of getting home, but slowly, they trickled to the bathroom and came back in more comfortable clothing, or no clothing at all, in Cole’s case.

  Cole glanced towards Rhys, who’d taken Arden’s velvet robe and cocooned himself in blankets an hour before the rest of them. He caught Arden watching Rhys sleep. “You really do like him.”

  Arden tightened the blanket around his shoulders. “I wasn’t trying to hide it.”

  Cole settled on the cushion nearest to Arden and started making himself cozy. “No, no, of course not, I…you know. There’s rumors and I’ve never, uh. It’s been a while since you’ve spent time with anyone, Ardi. Longer since you spent time with someone new.”

  “Most of the people I wanted to spend time with ended up not wanting to spend time with me.”

  “You were an awful shit for a while there.”

  Drunk enough to be openly self-pitying, Arden said, “Come back to me when both your parents are dead.”

  Cole rubbed Arden’s arm. “Ardi, I’m sorry.”

  He shook his head. “I just. I never know…I mean. I do know, I guess that’s the problem. I know I disappointed Mother. I wonder if Mama would have been disappointed, too, eventually.”

  “The last Autarch was hard to please,” Cole offered.

  Arden glanced at Rhys to make sure he was asleep. He could hear Mace’s soft, even breathing. “I think I stopped pleasing her as soon as she realized…”

  “Don’t,” Cole warned gently.

  “Just, you know, she
picked me out. Everything about me, I think, she designed. That I would be this height, with this skin, and hair and…and I think she would have sculpted my very face if she could have. Picked out the exact shade of brown for my eyes. But she didn’t design a son.”

  “She designed you. She designed a son.”

  “You know what I meant.”

  “I know that we’re more than our parents’ expectations. My parents don’t even read my poems. Not a single one since I was ten.”

  Arden sigh as dramatically as he could and swooned back onto the cushions. “I hope I’m not like that. If I have kids.”

  “No, me neither.”

  Arden snuggled deeper into his nest. “Goodnight, Cole.”

  “Goodnight, Ardi.”

  Arden woke up with a sticky mouth and his forehead butted up against someone’s chest. He didn’t care who, anyone who’d been here last night would be a fine person to cuddle. It was Rhys, though, he realized with a pleased flutter in his stomach.

  He’d have felt more pleased if he didn’t feel so thirsty and greasy and generally unpleasant.

  Rhys didn’t wake when Arden got up.

  He called for enough breakfast for everyone and showered. By the time he emerged, the thralls had delivered the food and the other three had started picking at it.

  He took a piece of toast out of Cole’s hand.

  Cole smacked him on the leg.

  Arden grinned and flopped down next to him. “Be kind to us, Councilmember Baker, if you’re wise.”

  Cole took the toast back and took a bite. “Cut it out.”

  Mace reached over his brother and took a carafe of water. “Fuck,” he groaned.

  “Shower,” Arden offered.

  “No, I’ve got to go, I’m supposed to see Lourdes for lunch.”

  Arden sniffed him. “You still might want to shower first.”

  Mace punched him lightly in the back. “You’re such a shit, Arden.”

  Arden smiled at him.

  He gave the brothers both long, warm hugs when they left and congratulated Cole again. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Cole groaned and tightened his arms around Arden. “See you tomorrow.”

  When they’d gone, he cautiously approached Rhys. “Are you doing anything today?”

  “I have a few things to do at home.”

  “Mmm.”

  “You’ll come to Council tomorrow?” Arden asked.

  Rhys nodded, his mouth too full of pear to speak.

  “And, I mean, don’t think I’m rushing you, but consider that Chamberlain job!”

  “I will.”

  Arden kissed his cheek, then settled his chin on Rhys’s shoulder. “You have to go right now?”

  “I wouldn’t mind a shower.”

  “Mm. Anything else?”

  Rhys kissed Arden’s forehead. “You could come in the shower with me.”

  Arden wrapped his arms around Rhys’s waist and squeezed. “That sounds nice.” A second shower did sound nice, even nicer with Rhys.

  It was nice, though relatively tame, mostly kisses and soapy hands. Arden didn’t mind. He liked just touching Rhys, any kind of closeness the other man afforded him. He stepped out of the shower and Rhys followed right on his heels.

  Arden glanced back. “Hm. Oh!” Rhys had pushed him up against the counter from behind. The abruptness of it sent a ping of warmth through him.

  Rhys drew back a little. “Sorry, was that…?”

  Arden assured, “No, it wasn’t! It’s…that’s fine.” He reached back and took one of Rhys’s hands. “Really good.”

  Rhys knotted his fingers in the loose bun of Arden’s hair. “And that?”

  “You could probably do anything to me and I’d like it,” Arden admitted breathlessly.

  Rhys gently butted his forehead against the back of Arden’s skull and let out a little laugh, more disbelieving than amused. He kissed Arden’s shoulder. “Tell me if you don’t, in any case.”

  Arden arched back against him. He pulled open a drawer. “Check in here. Or the one underneath.”

  Rhys rummaged around and came back with a bottle.

  Arden understood, in a way, Rhys’s impulse to treat him roughly and his desire to give in to it. It didn’t really matter, the whys of it, because it felt wonderful. He eagerly let Rhys fuck him against the counter, his cheek against the cool stone of the countertop. He played into the roughness of it, which had them both moaning during it, then panting afterward.

  Rhys kissed his shoulder again.

  Arden giggled.

  “Do you always laugh after?” Rhys asked.

  Arden turned around and leaned against the counter. “Only when it’s funny.” A look he couldn’t interpret crossed Rhys’s face. “Which it usually is! The whole thing is…I mean, don’t you think it’s kind of funny? Unless it’s really bad, I suppose that isn’t so funny…” Arden pulled his hair out of its bun and finger-combed it over his shoulder. It needed redoing now. “You don’t think it’s funny?”

  “I never thought of it.”

  “The whole thing is ridiculous. In the best way.”

  “Hmm.”

  “I really like being ridiculous with you.” He tossed his braided hair over his shoulder, then hugged Rhys.

  Rhys sighed wistfully.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I wish things were different.”

  Arden smiled. “Well. We’re making things different, aren’t we?”

  Rhys smiled without it reaching his eyes.

  Deep, dark eyes, beautiful as the vast emptiness outside Eden. Maybe more beautiful. Arden could lose himself in those eyes. He pecked Rhys on the lips. “Get dressed. You have better places to be.”

  Rhys dressed without saying anything.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Mmm. See you.”

  Arden walked him to the door, gave him another kiss, then called, “Oh, and start thinking about what you want for Giving Day!”

  Rhys glanced back, his mouth pulled into a frown.

  Arden grinned at him and closed the door.

  The holiday was a few months off, but Arden always had a hard time thinking of what he wanted. As a child, he’d wanted a lot of things, toys and games and trinkets. Now, peers all sent him gifts in hopes of currying favor, but he never wanted any of them and did a lot of strategic regifting. He had piles of things he hadn’t gotten rid of yet in his guest bedroom.

  He hoped to spend the rest of his day recovering from last night, but in the afternoon, Cathie came by looking absolutely awful. Her normally bronze skin had gone sallow, she had bags under her eyes, and she still wore what she’d worn last night.

  “Cath, what…” He stopped himself from asking the obvious. “Come in.”

  She hugged him and he sank into her arms. “Why didn’t you tell me!”

  “It wasn’t my business to tell.”

  She squeezed him harder. “You didn’t have to tell me who, Arden, but you didn’t have to let me date a rapist!”

  He hadn’t thought of it that way. “I’m sorry, Cath. I…I never thought of it.”

  “All these years thinking you two were just…bickering over something stupid. Something petty.”

  He rubbed her back. “I’m sorry.”

  “Mace wouldn’t even talk to me.”

  “He doesn’t like to talk about it.” He brought her over to the couch. “Just tell him you love him and he’ll tell you he loves you too and leave it at that.”

  “I feel so disgusting.”

  Arden held her hand and talked her through what he could while she vented. Mostly, he told her it wasn’t her fault and that no one was mad at her, which was what he always said when someone felt bad about something.

  She stayed long enough that they ordered dinner.

  Arden met the thrall at the door to talk the tray and made sure to say, “Thank you…” He squinted at the youth.

  The thrall squirmed as Arden struggled to rememb
er his name.

  “Thank you, Peter?”

  “Of course, Your Eminence, whatever you need.” Peter hurried away.

  Arden thought the thralls disliked his attempts at manners as much as Arden disliked making the attempts. He didn’t know how much it mattered, either, but all those little things Rhys had whispered to him hadn’t seemed to matter when he’d started either.

  Small things mattered.

  They had to.

  After they ate, he walked Cathie back to her room. He visited Winslow because they sort of lived near each other. He regretted it within ten minutes.

  Winslow gave him an earful about starting fights and acting uncivilized.

  Arden tuned him out and elected to lay on Winslow’s couch and study the carpet pattern.

  “You aren’t listening!” Winslow accused.

  “I’m not a little boy.”

  “You acted like one last night.”

  “Winnie, are you really mad at me?” Arden asked, pushing himself up on one elbow to study his uncle.

  “I thought you’d outgrown this sort of behavior.”

  “Bull isn’t a nice person, you know. It’s not like I attacked a stranger.”

  “That doesn’t mean you have to roughhouse like some thrall.”

  “Winnie.”

  “No, no, Arden, I’m quite disappointed in you. I don’t condone violence.”

  “I’m sorry, Winnie.”

  “It’s so hideous.” Winslow came to sit beside him.

  Arden moved his legs and sat up all the way. Winslow always had been sensitive to these kinds of things, but Arden hadn’t understood how sensitive until now. He’d tuned out most of the scolding he’d gotten as a youth. He didn’t like the way Winslow looked at him.

  His uncle took his hand. “It’s just ugly.”

  “I’m sorry.” He hated seeing his uncle so distraught.

  “You ruined that man’s eye, you know.”

  “I…” Arden hadn’t known. He didn’t even feel bad. He wished he could put out both of Bull’s eyes. “Well. He was being awful.”

  “Don’t go saying people deserve things like that.”

  Arden sighed. He wrapped his arms around his uncle. “I’m sorry, Winnie, don’t be mad at me.”

  “Don’t try to soften me up.”

  “Don’t be mad,” Arden insisted, “You’re my only family in the whole world. You know I couldn’t bear if you were mad at me.”