Sweet Clematis

by R. Cooper

  “Of course you did.” Lis smiled for a second. “Is David in love with Flor?”

  “I think so?” Clematis thought about. “David has a lot of shine, and a lot of it gets brighter around Flor. But it also does for Tulip, so—”

  “Wait,” Lis interrupted. “Tulip? Is he about my age? Pink?” She chewed her straw thoughtfully. “With a human? That’s so lovely.”

  He really should have guessed that Lis knew—or knew of—Tulip. What had happened to Tulip all those years ago in Los Cerros had been infamous among fairies. A warning of what happened when a fairy gave their heart to an unworthy human.

  “He can trust David, though,” Clematis reassured her. “David is good. He only picked me because he knew I could never really hurt him. Flor should stop being pissed about it. He doesn’t care about anyone else I’ve slept with, and David is off with his true love now. I didn’t break his heart, or anyone else’s.”

  Lis put down her milk, sat back, and crossed her arms. She studied him from the fawn-brown waves of his hair and the pointed tips of his ears, down to his shoulders and his bare chest. “Left plenty of bruised hearts behind you, though, I bet,” she declared finally.

  Clematis scowled. “No one has ever been in love with me. I would have seen.” But he thought of Tulip kneeling on the grass next to David, who had looked so hurt with every word falling out of Clematis’s mouth. He thought of Annabeth and all the people like her, and the times he’d caught Flor rolling his eyes or sneering whenever he saw Clematis talking to someone new, and Stephanie chiding him for not realizing David was shy with his feelings. He swallowed. “But I have made people angry. And I’ve hurt them in other ways.” He blew out a breath. “Maybe they are right to not want me at the institute. Maybe I am harassing Sasha. I didn’t mean to,” he defended himself. “But that doesn’t really matter, does it? What I meant to do doesn’t matter if it hurt someone anyway.”

  “From what you’ve said, it sounds like this Sasha can stand up for himself if you were bothering him.” Lis nodded toward the blended coffee next to him that Clematis had barely tasted. “Drink that. I’d hate Flor to worry. Now….” She waited until Clematis took hold of his cup. “Have you been asking Sasha out after he said no? Does he avoid you? Make excuses not to talk to you? Because you’re occasionally an idiot about people, but you don’t do things like that that I have seen.”

  Clematis did his best to pout around his straw. “He stopped me to talk to me today. He keeps trying to get me to listen to more music.”

  “Like a playlist?” Lis sighed. “A man made me a mixtape once. I tried to tell him I was taken, but….”

  “No. Just music he thinks will cheer me up.” Clematis made a face. “He says my wings don’t sound like they used to and he’s concerned.” Sasha was most charming when he didn’t mean to be, which was most of the time. “He’s so shiny.”

  Lis snorted. “Yeah, and what else? Shiny doesn’t mean much if the two of you don’t get along or have different ideas about the future or if one of you faces immense pressure from family and friends to choose someone else. Everyday details matter too. If the amount of shine was everything, every fairy would be all over him. Weres would sense it and travel to find him. Dragons would be proposing to him whenever he leaves the house.”

  “Flor says our glitter is our shine,” Clematis burst out. “Fairies have shine, and it’s here for anyone to see.”

  “Does he?” Lis didn’t look as surprised as Clematis would have thought. “I’ve heard others say that. How does he know for sure?”

  “He lost his once,” Clematis confided, only to wonder if this was one of those things that he shouldn’t share. Like how David hadn’t wanted everyone to know that he was wonderful in bed, even though he was and he really shouldn’t be embarrassed about it. “I can’t tell you how,” he added to make amends. Flor hadn’t been specific about the whys and hows, but with Flor it was David, always David.

  Clematis finished his drink while Lis contemplated that. He slurped a little, rudely, but Lis didn’t comment, so he did it again, and then licked whipped cream off the straw. “Flor shouldn’t worry so much about my—” Clematis put down his cup and held out one hand. “Do you think… do you think my glitter is okay? I’ve never had a lot. Flor’s just keeps getting brighter.”

  “I hadn’t noticed.” Lis studied him again. “Maybe next time he comes in with you, I’ll look again. What about mine?”

  “Yours is brightest when you talk about your son,” Clematis answered immediately. “And when someone compliments the bakers.”

  She beamed at him. “Thank you, sweetheart. Yours can get brighter sometimes too.” She coughed, then muttered under her breath. “Certain times especially.”

  Clematis smiled but resumed pushing the notebook and running his fingertips over the cover. “I’ve seen some very radiant people, usually human. I once kissed someone who had the purest, clearest light around them I’d ever seen. He was special. Too good for me, obviously. Even one night was taking too much.” Shy smiles and a wonderful, clumsy eagerness that Clematis had done his best to reward, but afterward, all Clematis could think was that he couldn’t remember anything that lovely about the first time he’d had sex.

  “You… you can’t just chase after the shiniest of people.” Lis made an exasperated noise. “You remind me so much of my son when he was younger. Just glimpsing some shine across a street during a parade and deciding he’d seen his happiness even though he didn’t even know who it was. Okay—he wasn’t wrong, but my point stands. You’re supposed to choose the ones who have the colors that you like. Not just whoever is the brightest. Sometimes, yes, it’s one and the same, but even that is no guarantee. Even the shiny can get scared.”

  He glanced up from the book. “You seem to know a lot about this.”

  She wrinkled her cute nose, almost like Flor. “You think you’re the only fairy to be drawn to shine? Anyway.” She stood up and took her cup with her to the counter. “Lock the door, won’t you? And then we can talk more about you thinking you want to move to Los Cerros.” Clematis got up and turned the lock on the front door and was in his seat again before she added, “I could tell you weren’t happy, but has it gotten that bad?”

  Clematis froze.

  Lis looked directly at him. Clematis thought of Tulip again, the curse, the stillness in Tulip’s eyes while he’d stared Clematis down. It had to be the curse that left Clematis this open.

  A tremor went through him, making his wings flutter.

  “Your Flor was right, I see.” Lis was upset now. “How long have you been hiding this?”

  Clematis took a deep breath. “Lis, do you think there’s something wrong with me?”

  “No, no, no. Of course not.” She swept forward and had her arms around him before he could blink. “I’m sorry I never noticed how lonely you were,” she whispered into his hair and didn’t seem to notice how he shuddered at the word lonely. “It’s the way you look. You’re perfect, even for a fairy, and I guess I assumed you were alone because you wanted to be.”

  “That’s kind of what Flor said.” Clematis closed his eyes as Lis stepped away and the warmth of her arms disappeared. She took his empty cup to the counter and insisted she was making him another one even when he said he was fine. He waited until her back was to him before he tried one more time to calm her. “Flor also says we’re friends now.”

  Lis briefly turned to give him a look that was still sharp despite the tears shimmering in her eyes. “Friends?” She huffed but reached for the whipped cream. “Well, friends is good. The foundation of most things is a good, solid friendship. Hang on to that, even if you do move away. Because there are some people in life who, even if they break your heart, you can trust them to be there if you need them.” She turned around again in time to catch him staring. “You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you? Oh, Clematis.”

  “That seems like a lot to ask. I don’t expect that from anyone,” he told her earnestl
y, and for a moment, the way she stared made him think of Flor’s eyes at their biggest and saddest.

  Then she slowly shook her head. “Now I know what you must do to people. You definitely leave scars. No one gets to see the real you, so they never know why you vanished and they are left to wonder. That’s cruel, Dollface, even when you mean it to be kind. Do your friends know you don’t trust them?”

  Her tone made Clematis shrink down in his seat and pull his legs up to wrap his arms around his knees. “Are you mad at me? I’m sorry.”

  Lis approached him quietly and put his new drink on the table and scooted it closer to him. “I wish I was a therapist so I would know what to tell you here. I could show you the truth?” Her suggestion made him twitch, so she raised her hands and stepped back. Lis was old enough, and therefore powerful enough, to do that, to summon the truth from his mind. So was Clematis, probably, although he had never done it with anyone. Most fairies didn’t. The truth was often too much.

  “I’m not mad at you,” Lis went on, and fell down into her seat like humans did when exhausted. “You had those kind of fairy parents, didn’t you? The absent kind.”

  Clematis watched himself arrange the notebook on the table. He put his hands over the binding to feel the texture, but the bumps and ridges barely registered.

  “I’m glad you love your son so much,” Clematis answered, dropping his feet to the floor and straightening his posture. His voice seemed to echo in his own head. “Thank you for the coffees, Lis.”

  “Don’t you do that with me.” Lis looked alarmed. “Dollface, don’t you dare.”

  Clematis pulled out his phone. “My friend Stephanie was messaging me earlier. I should probably go see her. This seems like a good time. See you tomorrow!” He took the notebook and the shirt from work he’d draped over the back of his chair, and smiled at her before walking out the door.

  STEPHANIE’S BEDROOM had a small window that didn’t have a view of anything but the street below, but did briefly let in the evening sun. It made the room cold in the winter and perfect in the summer.

  He stayed in the fading beam of light while Stephanie padded into the kitchen to get a glass of water and then went into the bathroom. She might go back to studying soon, which she had likely been doing when she’d messaged him. She claimed he was good for stress relief, provided he didn’t have to hold an adult conversation with anyone else.

  She was still bitter about her birthday party back in March, although Clematis hadn’t been the one to make it awkward. David and Tulip and Flor had made it awkward first. All Clematis had done was talk about it.

  Not in the best way. He knew that now. He’d known it then too, but only after seeing David’s wide eyes and Flor’s pissed-off glare. It wasn’t as if anyone had filled Clematis in on the situation before the party. Nobody had told him Tulip and David weren’t talking to each other at the time, or why, or why Flor had been all over David even more than usual.

  He could guess—now—that Tulip had still been afraid to date or keep a human and that as a result, David had been trying to keep his distance. Flor had been protective as usual. But no one had told Clematis.

  Of course, no one had because the one person in that triad who had once liked him—David—had been upset and thought Clematis had treated him badly, and the other two had agreed.

  Clematis sighed.

  Stephanie poked her head out of the bathroom. “There’s juice in the fridge, but I’m trying to avoid unnecessary sugar, so that’s it for sweets right now. Quit sighing melodramatically and languishing in the fading sunlight.” She smiled to soften that, then paused. “You look stupidly pretty lying there. Quit it. I just cleaned up and you’re making me want to get sweaty again.”

  He glanced over what he could see of her clothes. Whatever she said, her T-shirt and bra indicated she was done with him for now. Stephanie was a formal sort of human and focused best when dressed. She was definitely going to return to her books soon.

  He winked at her anyway. “You’re stupidly pretty.”

  She narrowed her eyes, then shut the bathroom door again. “It’s weird when you flirt with me,” she complained through the door. “In fact, it’s weird when you flirt with anyone. It’s like you learned from TV. All you really need to do is stand there and people will flock to you. No need to get cheesy.”

  “Maybe I like cheesy.” He crossed his arms and kicked at the sheet wrapped around his ankle.

  “I can’t recommend you to people if you sound like a virginal freshman.” Stephanie popped open the door again when he said nothing. “Not that you are a piece of candy to be passed around. But people have asked me about you, and I like to provide an accurate review.” She put her nose in the air to declare loftily, “Five stars. Would fuck again.”

  “So why not now?” Clematis tipped his head to one side and smiled, but the look she gave him was disgruntled, if anything.

  She opened the door a little more. “Look, I know I can’t match a fairy’s stamina, but that usually doesn’t bother you.”

  “I don’t mind that,” he immediately insisted. Just because fairies could have marathon sex didn’t mean always, or even ever, although younger fairies could be pretty frisky.

  “So then what’s up with you today?” Stephanie put her shoulder to the doorjamb and crossed her arms. “You need more attention? Did you have a shit day? My poor baby.” Her mouth went soft. “You were good. You were very good today.”

  The sunlight was too weak for Clematis’s skin to burn like this. He put his back to it and dragged one of her pillows to his chest. “Thank you,” he said quietly.

  “Thank you,” she snipped at him, pleased again, and went back to whatever she was doing, but with the door open between them. “But go get some juice, Clem. This moodiness does not become you.”

  “This is just how I am,” he griped at her, but low, so she couldn’t hear. He huffed and hugged the pillow tighter. Stephanie turned on the taps in the sink, so he finally sighed and got up. He was thirsty, and his pants were in the living room, and he should check his phone.

  He shuffled back to the bed a few minutes later and sat cross-legged in the center to check his phone. Several of his reminders had popped up. Frangi had sent him a link to something, and he had a few messages from Flor.

  He opened Flor’s messages first. They were each about an hour apart.

  At work?

  You still aren’t home.

  Nm

  Clematis stared at nm for a few seconds, trying to figure out what Flor had been going to ask for before saying never mind. He messaged back, Are u on my couch again? Although it had been a while and Flor had probably gone by now.

  Flor surprised him by responding immediately. Was thinking about it but started to walk home. Didn’t want to be weird.

  Clematis really had to remember to lock the door. But since he hadn’t…. You can use my place if I’m not there. I don’t mind.

  For real? Flor asked and then left a string of light brown smiling faces and two yellow sunflowers.

  Ofc. I trust you, Clematis replied, and rolled his eyes at the number of sparkle emojis Flor sent.

  “Wooow,” Stephanie drew out the word. “That is quite the grin on your face.”

  Clematis glanced up. “Flor doesn’t hate me anymore.”

  Stephanie paused as she was about to come out of the bathroom. She had shorts on and had clipped her braids up into a fancy sort of bun. “I don’t think Flor could hate anyone.” She finally swept out of the bathroom and left the bedroom to go back down the hall. “You were close, though,” she called as she went.

  “Yeah,” Clematis agreed. “But now he talks to me.”

  “What was that?” Stephanie yelled from the kitchen area. “I mean, he wasn’t a huge fan of yours before you hurt David.”

  Clematis tugged his earlobe and realized the sunlight was no longer enough to warm the room. He would have to get dressed soon.

  “So,” Stephanie reappeared in t
he hall, munching the salt and olive oil pita chips she loved that Clematis wouldn’t eat if paid to, “you and Flor are friends now?”

  Clematis tapped his phone to check for any new messages, then ducked his head and shrugged. “He says so.” He had another look at the stream of sparkles Flor had sent him and smiled to himself.

  “So you’re going to David’s birthday thing?” Stephanie stood by the bed to continue snacking. She had rules about eating in bed.

  “What?” Clematis turned to look at her and thought distantly that his reminder for David’s birthday hadn’t popped up yet. It would a couple of days before. “Oh,” he murmured a moment later, because parties were planned more than a few days in advance, weren’t they? No one had mentioned it to him. “I’m not invited,” he realized out loud and then rubbed the tip of his nose again. “That’s funny. Back when he talked to me, David would have said something about human fairy tales and what happened in them when you forgot to invite fairies.” Except no one forgot—Clematis wasn’t wanted. Stephanie made a sound as if she was going to speak, so he shrugged. “No, I get that. I do. And it’s good. Tulip is… mad. At me.” Clematis put down his phone. “I never thought I could hurt him—David. I shouldn’t have mattered,” Clematis insisted. “He never really wanted me, and anyway, I’m fairy. He should have expected it.”

  Stephanie went still, then moved her eyebrows in something too annoyed to be a frown and too confused to be shock. “He’s with a fairy. He’s probably going to marry that fairy.” She put the bag of chips on her bureau and slowly came forward. Her tone was almost cautious. “Fairies are not like that. Not always. You’re a fairy. Don’t you know that?”

  Clematis tightened his jaw and ignored the question. “He wasn’t… casual. He was a friend, like you. But he needed… I’ve known him for years, and he knew I was available that whole time, but he never did anything until then. I got a couple of weeks of his shine and sweetness, and nothing happened in the end except Flor loathed me more than ever.”