Sweet Clematis

by R. Cooper

He carefully did not touch the glass as he peered inside. At his side, a tiny half-fairy child, with equally tiny and probably brand-new wings, stared ravenously at the candies as well.

  “I have three dollars, and I don’t know what to get,” the child explained as though Clematis had asked. He had straight, glossy black hair that just reached his ears, a steady fall of white and black glitter, and his eyes were grays and greens, with a fold at the corner.

  “Three dollars?” Clematis repeated seriously. Budgeting for treats in a place like this was always difficult. “What’s your favorite?”

  “I don’t knooow,” the kid howled in a tone Clematis understood perfectly.

  He glanced up and found the woman behind the counter, Audrey, watching them with a small, amused smile. She probably witnessed something like this several times a day.

  “Is this the display you like the best?” Clematis pressed gently. It was a lot more fanciful than some of the others. No adult truffles or heavy wedges of fudge. This case had sugar castles and frogs, wax bottles and old-fashioned gumdrops, bins of lollies and boiled sweets. Clematis didn’t think the child really wanted a humbug, but the classic candies came in wonderful colors.

  He held out his hand over the display and laughed a little when he saw the small flare of light. Clematis wasn’t very skilled at consciously using his magic, but to find the candy this one child would like best out of this display didn’t take much.

  The boy gasped. He probably couldn’t do that yet.

  Clematis considered what he’d found and then turned to his companion. “There is a giant jawbreaker in this case,” he said softly, although the one he had in mind was only about two inches across and nothing compared to the one almost as big as a hand. “I’m not sure you’re ready for it. What do you think?”

  Gray and green eyes went wide. “Is it three dollars?”

  It was just over four, but Clematis looked up as Audrey came over to help them and pulled two more dollars from the pocket of his sweatshirt to show her. She just continued to smile as she bagged the jawbreaker, handed it over, and gravely accepted three dollar bills and the little half-fairy’s gratitude. Clematis gave her his money when the boy was gone and then jumped when arms wrapped around him from behind.

  He relaxed immediately, embarrassed, because of course it was Flor.

  Flor buried his face in the back of Clematis’s neck and mumbled something Clematis couldn’t make out.

  “What?” Clematis tried to twist around to see him, but Flor wasn’t letting go.

  “Clematis.” The tip of Flor’s nose brushed the top of his spine and made him shiver. “Clematis,” Flor said again, in a tone Clematis didn’t recognize.

  “Did you finish shopping?” Clematis asked hesitantly. He liked Flor’s arms firmly around him, Flor’s breath brushing his skin. “I got you something.”

  “I’m supposed to be treating you,” Flor raised his head just to complain, then dropped it again. “What did you get me?” He ended that with a soft kiss that stole the words from Clematis’s head. “Clematis,” Flor said again.

  Clematis let him feel the delighted shudder in his wings and enjoyed Flor’s pleased little wriggle in response. Then he reached into the bag Audrey had given him and pulled out the small brown paper box, wrapped in pink ribbon, Zucchero’s signature colors.

  He held it up and Flor released him to take it without moving away.

  Clematis listened to him open the box, and then his indrawn breath.

  “They were pretty,” Clematis explained quickly. He didn’t think candied violets meant what fresh violets meant, not really, not in Flor’s flower language, but they could, and he had to be careful. “I’ve thought before that you probably eat flowers, so when I saw them, I thought of you.”

  If they meant the same when candied that they would have if he’d picked them himself and handed them over, it wasn’t as if it mattered. As long as Clematis didn’t say it, and Flor didn’t either, then they could stay just candies.

  “Sweetheart,” Flor whispered and wrapped one arm back around Clematis’s waist. He didn’t say anything else for several moments. He just held him and breathed until Clematis couldn’t stay tense anymore and had to breathe with him.

  “They weren’t even on sale,” Clematis added quietly, several minutes later, and Flor choked on a laugh and pulled back.

  “Come here,” Flor ordered, fussing, and turned him around just to urge him down and kiss him on the mouth. “Let’s have our lunch and then go home,” Flor told him with all the warmth in the world in his voice. “I just want to be alone with you.”

  “Flor,” Clematis answered that with a gentle whine and shut his eyes for a moment when they started to sting.

  Chapter 16

  FLOR WALKED with him from the bus stop to his apartment. It didn’t seem to occur to him to suggest they go to his place, or maybe he felt his place was too far away. The express back had been crowded with people on their way to some sport game at the university. Flor had curled up on Clematis’s lap rather than sit apart and no matter what anyone else might have had to say about that, Flor had seemed content.

  He was quiet now, by Flor standards. Clematis almost suspected he had fallen asleep during the ride back, except he’d felt Flor shift and stir against him, the warmth of his every sigh.

  “I wish I’d gotten to know you sooner,” Flor volunteered suddenly as they reached the back entrance to Clematis’s building. “I mean, the parts of you that I’m allowed to see now. I wish I’d been allowed to see them before.”

  They were not holding hands. They had started to as they walked, but then Flor had wanted to use his hands to articulate a point he’d been making about an advertising campaign on the side of the bus that had used an image of a troll as shorthand for “ugly.” Clematis kept hoping Flor would notice and gently take hold of him again, but Flor had one hand on his bag and the other was in motion whenever he spoke.

  Clematis dug around for his key but then Flor pushed open his door, which he hadn’t locked, and waved him through after giving him a knowing look.

  Flor closed the door behind him after coming in. “I should have gotten over my bullshit and paid more attention to you.”

  Clematis shuddered hard in the middle of setting his bag down on the couch. He could hardly stand Flor’s focus on him now. It made him want to run away but also fly into Flor’s arms. Back then, he probably would have done just that and fucked it all up at the very beginning.

  “You had no interest in me for the first year of our knowing each other.” Clematis looked around for something, anything, to do. He got the impression of startled silence.

  “Not like how you’re used to being seen, no,” Flor said at last.

  Clematis turned. “I didn’t exist to you,” he blurted and then stared at Flor in shock. Flor was motionless. Clematis swallowed to push the words down but they came right back up. “And when you did finally look at me, you didn’t like what you saw.”

  Flor flinched back and bumped into the door, his bag almost falling from his shoulder. For a second, they were both startled, and then Flor put his head down. “I told you about that.”

  “Then last year. With David.” Clematis could not stop. “You loathed me. You stopped speaking to me except to make it clear I wasn’t wanted. David would talk to me, but you wouldn’t. You hurt me.” His wings tried to snap open, trapped in his sweatshirt. “You wanted to hurt me. But… you were also looking at me.”

  Flor rushed forward to wrap him up in his arms and hug him tightly. “Sweetheart, no.” He spoke into the gray cotton of Clematis’s sweatshirt. “I’m sorry. I was mad, but I shouldn’t have taken it out on you when it was all my issues and my guilt. That wasn’t how I should have been looking at you. I should have….” Flor lifted his head to catch Clematis’s eye. “I should have realized that David thought you were special, and I should have thought about why. And I should have noticed that I—I really didn’t like it when you told everyone
how happy David had made you. I did notice! But I thought it was all about David and now I know it wasn’t.”

  Flor carefully placed his hands on Clematis’s chest. “I like you the more I see you. But you’re right. I don’t think I really let myself look at you before. In the beginning, it was always people talking about how hot you were, or mad at you for getting bored with them or leaving them or whatever it was. But—” Flor frowned. “—when I think about it, that’s all they ever said about you. No one ever talked about you reading human teen historical romances. Or what classes you were taking. Or that you like kids. That would have been… I would have found that interesting.”

  Clematis stared at him, his uncertainty so embarrassingly obvious that Flor kept talking.

  “If you didn’t trust me enough for me to know that then, I get it. But you trust me now, and I love it.” Flor gave him a warm, fleeting smile. “And I think other people would love it too. Mishi, for one, would be all over those teen romances. Your Sasha might like to know.” Flor studied him intently. “As a friend or….”

  “He’s not ‘my’ Sasha.” Some of Clematis’s tension eased away at the flare of heat in Flor’s eyes.

  “But you like shiny.” Flor said that and smiled again, a nervous falling star of a smile. “And he is very shiny and would probably only get brighter in the care of a loving fairy.”

  “Sasha is my friend.” Clematis shook his head before reaching up to stroke the tip of Flor’s ear, just once. It helped calm him for no reason at all. “And he’s not the only shiny person around.”

  “Yeah?” Flor’s smile widened and stayed in place this time. “Well, I’ll do my best to stay that way,” he finished, angling his head as if he wanted Clematis to touch his ear again. “I might need help. Someone who can make me listen. I mean, okay, I’m young, and ‘a force,’ or whatever,” he quoted disdainfully. “Someone wouldn’t exactly be getting a deal here. But I am trying. Today was good, wasn’t it? You had a good time?” Flor trailed a hand down Clematis’s arm, then pushed up his sleeve to curl a finger beneath the bracelet of braided pastel pink ribbon.

  Flor had made it while they’d eaten lunch, weaving together four of the ribbons Zucchero used in its packaging and then tying the bracelet loosely around Clematis’s wrist. The ends of the ribbons trailed across Clematis’s skin. Flor had declared the shade perfect for him. Blushing pink, he’d called it. It was nothing like the bold color of Flor’s jacket.

  Flor glanced up to the asters, surely wilted by now, but still tucked behind Clematis’s ear. “You look ready for spring.”

  Last spring, Flor had danced around with white daisies in his hair. He had officially given up David and gone into the crowd of fairies celebrating the end of winter with glittering tear tracks on his face, but he hadn’t looked back.

  “Can I kiss you?” Clematis hadn’t asked that then, but it fell out of him now.

  Flor lit up like birthday candles. “You’re asking?” He stood on his toes. “I love that you did, but you don’t have to,” he whispered with their mouths very close and the excited beat of his wings almost louder than Clematis’s heart.

  He parted his soft lips and kissed back with a hungry, insistent sound that traveled down Clematis’s spine. His jacket was open. Clematis put a hand to the warm, bare skin of his stomach, and Flor made the noise again before sliding a touch up Clematis’s chest to his neck. He splayed his fingers over the side of his throat and surged up to make the kiss deeper.

  The small of his back was smooth, hotter, beneath Clematis’s palm. He pushed, lightly, without thinking, but Flor drifted forward easily. He sighed before initiating another kiss.

  “Clematis,” Flor whispered, just as he had in Zucchero. He wrapped his hand around Clematis’s wrist, twisting the ribbon between his fingers.

  Clematis’s pulse throbbed against the binding. He moaned and fluttered his eyes shut. Flor made a sound like a laugh, but kind and approving.

  “Clematis.” Flor was almost amazed as he kissed Clematis’s lower lip and then his chin. He didn’t have to pull on the ribbons or tighten the loop. He kept his hold firm and Clematis leaned into him, weak. He offered his mouth and Flor gave him kiss after kiss. “Sweetheart.” Flor scratched Clematis’s scalp to make him shiver and tugged the short hair at the back of his neck. He trailed kisses along Clematis’s throat, slowly making his way up to his lips again. He tasted of vanilla caramels and milk chocolates but he smelled faintly of earth and greenery, and his voice was rough. “Clematis,” Flor said his name like it was magic. “I love you.”

  The light was pale, half the apartment in shadow. Clematis realized he’d opened his eyes and that he’d stopped moving.

  Flor had said—

  Clematis fell to the floor and slapped his hands over his face. Behind his clenched teeth was an ugly sound.

  Flor was talking, voice high with alarm as he started to kneel down with him. Then Clematis opened his mouth to tell him no and a dry sob left him instead.

  All the motion around him stopped.

  “Oh.” Flor was soft, but Clematis could not look, could not let him see.

  “I’m sorry,” Clematis tried to tell him, but the sounds were barely more than air.

  “I shouldn’t have said that.” Flor should not ever seem small or pick through words like they were shards of glass. “It was too soon, wasn’t it? I always—today you made me so happy. I looked over at you, and I just realized. In that moment and all the time, it’s you, and I wanted you to know. Fuck. I should have been careful, like David said.”

  “David.” Clematis could speak that one word clearly. He could spit it out to make Flor go silent. “What did David say? Why didn’t you listen?” He was so hot inside that he felt like a dragon, except even dragons weren’t allowed to strike back. Humans took that from them too, left them beautiful and helpless.

  “Clematis.” Flor might have been on the floor with him.

  “Did David tell you to leave me alone?” Clematis knew the answer.

  Flor let out a shuddering breath. “He said… I should slow down and think through things before I make any decisions—but it wasn’t about you. Not you…. Sweetheart? Do you hear me? He said I’m stubborn, and I have too great a pull for my own good, and I don’t realize the effect I have. Clematis? You don’t have to say it back. I know you… I know you don’t understand yet. But I wanted you to know. The second I realized—no, even before then, I wanted to blanket you in good things. Which is how you make me feel. How you made me feel right then. If you don’t ever feel the same—” Flor’s swallow was audible. But then he steeled his voice. “—you should still know I love you.”

  Clematis closed his eyes so nothing could escape. He kept his jaw clenched.

  “You don’t have to say it back,” Flor repeated himself, but gently. “But please say something? Ask me something, or tell me what you do want?”

  Clematis dropped his hands but turned his face away. “Since when has what I wanted ever mattered to anyone?” He was anything but soft or coaxing. He twisted two fingers in the ribbon at his wrist and pulled hard enough to make it hurt. The distracting pain let him breathe, and the ribbon reminded him of Flor. Flor cared about what he wanted. He trusted that. But he didn’t believe it. “What do you want?”

  Flor didn’t hesitate. “For you to be happy.”

  Clematis turned back to see Flor crouched in front of him, but at a careful distance, the black in his eyes still and serious.

  “I don’t know how to give you that,” Clematis answered honestly.

  Surprise flickered across Flor’s face. He took a moment, then another, before licking his lips. “Were you happy today? It was good? Tulip seemed to think—”

  “Tulip?” Clematis stiffened. “You talked to Tulip about me?”

  “Sort of.” Flor watched him warily. “David and I were outside the library on a bench, but at the end Tulip came out. Tulip said—” Flor frowned. “—that you weren’t going to tell me what wo
uld make you happy, and that if I didn’t know, I should leave you alone.” His frown increased in intensity. “But I don’t take directions from Tulip, even if he is older than you. Why does Tulip get a say in this? Why can’t I ask you what you want and try to give it to you? You like me, don’t you? Even if you don’t love me? What’s wrong?” Flor pressed when Clematis started breathing harder, panicked like a child alone in the dark. “Clem, no. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable or scared. If you don’t feel the same, it’s okay.” He said it clearly, the truth, although his voice was hoarse and the light in his eyes seemed to dim.

  “I’m what’s wrong.” Clematis turned away again. “I’m cursed,” he confessed to his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

  “What?” Flor was a flurry of motion, fierce breezes stirred up by his wings. “Who the fuck cursed you? They had no right! I’ll—”

  “It was Tulip,” Clematis broke in quietly. Flor would know what that meant. To fairies, Tulip had every right, and in his way had been kinder than most would have been. “I deserved it. And he didn’t know I—he didn’t know.”

  “Were you hurt?” Flor demanded after a long silence. “Are you okay?”

  “I can’t hide anymore,” Clematis complained unsteadily. “I keep trying, and it only gets worse. I push and push but more rises up. You’re going to know soon, everything there is to know. You’re so good, Flor. This will upset you, but it’s not your fault. You can’t help who you are.”

  “What are you talking about?” Flor sounded lost. “Do you need to tell me something?”

  Clematis twisted the ribbon until it was taut. “You shouldn’t give me a day like today, make me feel worth keeping, and then say—that.”

  “Oh,” Flor said softly. “You don’t believe me.”

  “You care for me.” Saying it made Clematis shiver. It was too much for one person. It spilled into dark places and terrified him. He shook his head once more, firmer. “But someday you are going to find your happiness and that is not me.”

  “What?” Flor snapped, then crawled closer to him. “I don’t care about some happiness I may or may not ever meet!” He smacked the carpet for emphasis. “I love you! I want to keep you!” He stared hard when Clematis twisted to look at him. “Happiness is… I know it’s real. My parents tell me their stories, and I was there when Tulip met David. It’s real, but so what?” Flor reached out without making contact. “You make me happier than I’ve been in years, and I realized in Zucchero that I love you. That’s real too.”