Aftermath

I love how, despite his snarling at Durth about prying into his past, Una still shares all kinds of information. Just not the parts Durth wants to know about.

Ayan, when he comes in the trailer, just about says it all.

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Una sighed as Ayan slid through the crowd and towards the stage. Obviously Ayan was the type that when he set his mind to something, he did it.

“Just say no to him,” Durth said, “just because he was raised to be a brat doesn’t mean you have to put up with it.”

“Ayan was not raised to be a brat, dealing with one who was raised as he was can be difficult at times but it is still easier than dealing with a stubborn, arrogant person,” Una muttered, “besides, I never said that I didn’t want you in my bed.”

“But we’re. You said a relationship.”

“Yes, I did. The culmination of most relationships ends up with the pair, or trio, in bed together. But I don’t plan to have you, Durth.”

“You. Don’t?” Durth swallowed as Una motioned to him to follow and walked off, “then what are you…”

“Sleep beside one another, it is a laying of trust. You can sleep beside me and I will not touch you unless you want me to. You can sleep in my bed without fear of my mounting you.” Una said.

Which sent an odd little shiver down Durth’s spine. The man rushed to catch up to Una, “Who said I was going to let you mount me? Maybe I was going to mount you.”

“It takes many years of friendship and building of trust before I allow anyone to mount me,” Una said before adding with a mutter, “unless of course they do it without my verbal permission.”

“Why not?”

“Because I said so,” Una snarled, hand on the door handle of his trailer, “in this troupe, Durth, we do not pry into the pasts of others, least we want others to pry into our past.”

“Ayan already knows all about me.”

“And he has said nothing to me of it, that is the key point there, Durth,” Una opened the door, “few have learned of my past and even fewer still have survived to tell the tale of it.”

He still didn’t see what that had to do with … being the man of the relationship. Durth didn’t like the idea of always being on the bottom, it didn’t sound appealing.

Durth stepped into the trailer behind Una and watched as the immortal breathed on a snuffed out lamp and brought it to life. He decided not to say anything about the use of power and looked at the ceiling instead. Carvings were working their way from the doorway and towards the bed. An idle hand had brought vines and little creatures out of the wood.

“You should strip off your pants and shirt and wash.”

“What?” Durth squeaked and looked at Una. The immortal made a motion to the small table the lamp sat on and the pitcher of water and bowl, “That must be cold by now.”

“No, it is quite warm, trust me,” Una said, stepping away from the table and towards a cupboard, “I do not allow dust nor dirt in my bed. Thus you need to wash and,” Una dug around in the cupboard for a while and produced a pair of linen pants, he held them up and judged the size against Durth’s own, “put these on, they look like they’ll fit and you can’t sleep in those dusty old things.”

“My pants are not old,” Durth muttered, stripping off his shirt as he approached the bowl of water. He folded his shirt, setting it on the table beside the bowl and away from the lamp, “do you make a person wash before you have them, as well?”

“That depends. I must admit, I do enjoy standing up…”

Durth frowned and picked up the washcloth, not understanding for a long moment. The instant he realised what Una meant was the instant the trailer became far too hot. He washed his torso but couldn’t reach his back. Una stepped up and took the washcloth from Durth, very gently wiping at the man’s back.

“Why are you scarred like this? This looks like a rod bit into your back,” Una murmured, washcloth tracing the scars as if that would wipe them away, “a pity, your flesh is otherwise unmarred.”

“You’ve never disciplined a person?”

“Oh, I have, but there are cleaner ways of disciplining, that leave no scars. I’ve not resorted to physical punishment since before your civilization arose. Just the threat of discipline is enough to send people scurrying to obey.” Una murmured, handing the washcloth back to Durth, “and your legs, please.”

“Afraid I carry lice?”

“If you did, you would not be sleeping with me,” Una said quickly, stepping away from Durth.

The immortal walked to the bed and began pulling back the blankets, adjusting the pillows and adding a third. Durth, figuring Una had turned his back for a reason, stripped off his pants and washed his lower body before donning the pair of pants. They were light and airy and he could hardly tell he was wearing anything at all.

“What is taking him so long?” Una muttered, stripping off his own shirt and pants as if Durth was not there.

Durth swallowed and turned his attention to the little easel hanging from a hook on the wall, to the little wood case that had symbols scratched into it, “Well you did basically give him a reason to be alone with Raya. And Raya seems interested in Ayan.”

“No. Raya’s not one to like Ayan,” Una muttered before he started talking to himself, for Durth didn’t understand, in another language. At the end of it, Una sighed and dropped the washcloth into the bowl of murky water, “Well, no helping it I suppose.”

“No helping what?”

“Going to bed, you look like you are about to fall over…” Una stepped close to Durth and Durth turned his attention to the cupboard, “is there something wrong with me?”

“You’re naked.”

“Yes… we are all born naked. Surely you’ve seen a naked man before.”

“I have,” but this somehow embarrassed him. Like it was inappropriate for him to see Una thusly, “please put on pants.”

Una shrugged and walked to the cupboard, giving Durth a view of his backside. Durth felt his face heat up and turned to study the carvings on the ceiling.

“Ayan wouldn’t waste his time on Raya. Even if the young man has a nice tight ass and those eyes.”

“I have memories of Raya from another life where he looked just as good…”

“Raya knows how to take care of himself. He washes every day and doesn’t believe in lazing about. He‘s not afraid of work or even hard labour, which means,” Una made a motion to the door of the trailer, “well, you’ve seen him.”

“He’s always like that? How is that fair?”

“Not always. Sometimes his teeth are crooked, sometimes his nose doesn’t sit quite right. Once he had a lazy eye. But when the gods like to watch you, you tend to get a better body than everyone else.”

“He’s never been sick or diseased…”

“No. Not particularly. Heart disease quite a few times. Weakness in the wall of the heart or some such,” Una sat on the bed and cleared his throat, drawing Durth’s attention to him, “others are not so lucky.”

“Like who?”

“You, for instance. At least, the lifetimes I’ve seen you remembering. One you were a cripple, couldn’t move your legs. In another, a fire had scarred most of your body. Another you were one of the unlucky few to catch a wasting disease to which there is no cure.”

“I’m not Tyz,” Durth blurted out.

Una blinked at Durth, “I never said you were. And he didn’t die of a disease, he simply died. It was not a bug or bacteria or a chemical that ate away at his insides, it was a curse of the gods. You may be the soul that was once Tyz, but. He’s gone forever. I can never have my doe eyed, innocent lover back,” the immortal slipped under the covers and motioned to Durth, “and I make no allusion to wanting him back.”

“But, everyone else,” Durth sighed and trailed off as he stepped up to the bed and sat on it, “they all say you think I’m Tyz, they think you want Tyz back.”

“If I thought there was even a remote possibility of getting him back the way he was before? I wouldn’t take it,” Una murmured, shaking his head as Durth lay down beside him, “his village tortured and abused him so much that even after centuries together, he could not bring himself to fully trust me. Do I want his soul back? Yes. And for that I am selfish because it was promised to me, it is mine to keep, not the gods’ to. To do whatever they do with him. In reality his soul is not mine to keep, but I still cling to the idea.”

“What if I, being Tyz’s soul let’s say, recalled all of his memories? What then?”

“You can’t. I found Tyz once, as Illuva rose. He was a distraction, a flash over here while Rahl-ta snuck up behind me and slammed a blade into the base of my skull.”

“What?”

“They wiped Tyz so clean that I hardly recognised him. Short of someone more powerful than Rahl-ta stepping in, there is no way for Tyz to recall his first lifetime. There is no one more powerful than Rahl-ta left in the heavens or hells.”

“I meant, what’s this about a blade?”

“Oh,” Una cleared his throat, “I told you every god must give something up to ascend.”

“Yes.”

“Rahl-ta killed me in front of Illuva, or at least he tried his damnedest. Slammed a blade in,” Una’s hand moved instinctually to the spot and rubbed, “broke the blade off inside my head, then shattered the blade then and there. Some things are still fuzzy and there’s a piece floating about that vibrates everything during bad storms. I awoke some thousand years later to Illuva’s harpies digging about inside my head. Literally digging. Illuva hid me for a good long while, but eventually Rahl-ta found out and a war started over it. Even as the heavens were being overrun by daemon, Rahl-ta and Illuva were screaming and trying to kill the other.”

“Oh,” Durth shifted closer to Una, so their arms were touching. It sounded like a painful memory.

Una immediately moved his arm up and over Durth’s head. Durth slid against the immortal’s side and placed his head on Una’s shoulder, “I’m still a bit bitter about the whole thing.”

“I can’t imagine why,” Durth responded sarcastically.

They were quiet for several minutes. Durth’s eyes began to drift close. It was comfortable being beside Una. Early summer was not the warmest time and Una’s body heat took the chill out of his bones. He could hear the music from outside, but it was well muffled by wood. His mind had just begun to drift off when the trailer door opened and in pounced Ayan, shaking the trailer quite badly. The young man closed the door loudly and clicked a lock into place.

“Oh my, am I inter-” Ayan stopped talking as Durth turned towards him sleepily, “you two didn’t have sex, did you?”

“No,” Durth said as Una sighed.

“But Una hasn’t had sex in months, he’s due for a good romp. I all but ordered you to have sex, you should have been going at it like bunnies.”

“Not with how this trailer shakes,” Una muttered, “I’ve been meaning to get that fixed.”

“I’m sorry,” Durth sat up, his body groaning as he left the heat of Una’s side, “did you just try to whore me out?”

“What’s a whore?” Ayan looked around Durth to Una.

“Someone who takes money for sexual favours.”

Ayan made a dismissing sound, “Like I’d pay you for services not rendered.” The young man stripped down to nothing and approached the water, “it’s not clean.”

“It will have to do for tonight, Ayan,” Una murmured quietly.

“But I always use clean water.”

“Ayan…” Una said like an exasperated father.

The young man looked honestly hurt by the idea that he had to wash with dirtied water. He washed but it was not a very thorough scrub. Dressed in a pair of pants similar to Durth’s Ayan crawled into bed and planted himself directly between Una and Durth. Una wrapped an arm around the young man and kissed his forehead. Durth glared for a moment before he settled down and against the small body between he and Una.

Ayan was shivering from head to toe. Eyes squeezed shut, the young man wpressed tight against Una’s side. Una pulled the blankets up further and gave Durth a pleading look. Don’t say anything.

Durth shrugged and set his head on the pillows. He wasn’t going to ask why someone who was brought up ‘virgin’ was afraid of the dark.




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