Page 67 of Paladin's Hope

“Piper…”

“You could stay here tonight, if you wanted. I don’t mean for—I mean, we’re both exhausted, obviously. I could make you up a pallet in here. If you wanted.”

You’re babbling again because you’re afraid of what he’ll say if you let him get a word in edgewise. Because no one ever has that look in their eyes when they’re about to say, “This is interesting, let’s see where it goes.”

“Piper,” said Galen, a little louder.

You’re an adult. This is not the first time you’ve been rejected. You can handle having a man say he doesn’t want to see you anymore. Yes, a very sexy man, yes, a brave decent man who saved your life several times over, but it’s not as if you’ve known him for more than two weeks. Try to keep what little dignity you have left. Piper began filling the kettle resolutely.

“I think,” said Galen, very carefully, “that it would be best if we do not continue seeing each other.”

He’d been half-expecting it but it still landed like a blow to the chest. “Ah,” he said, and pressed his lips tightly together to keep anything else from escaping. He focused on pouring water from the jug into the kettle. He might not have dignity, but at least he would have tea.

When he was absolutely certain that he would not babble or weep or cling to Galen’s ankle, he said, very carefully, “May I ask the reason why?”

Even with his eyes locked on the kettle, he could feel the paladin wince.

“You’re a good man,” said Galen. “You deserve better.”

“Ah,” said Piper again.

From anyone but a paladin, he’d have considered that one of the classic lines, up there with, “I’m just not ready for anything serious” or “I’m sorry, I have suddenly been called to the priesthood.” The hell of it was that Galen might actually mean it.

He took the kettle over to the hearth and began trying to start a fire. It would have been easier if his hands weren’t shaking. It was two weeks and one quick toss in a corner. There’s no reason to feel like your heart is breaking. He pushed the emotions away, the way he had become so skilled at doing. When you’re both on a slab, none of this will matter anyway.

“You are also a good man,” he said. He sounded calm, which was good. All that practice finally paying off. The wound might be mortal, but there was no sense letting the patient see you panicking. “I can accept that you don’t want to see me in particular, but don’t give up just because you have an inflated sense of your own unworthiness.”

He heard the paladin move closer, and his nerves prickled with awareness of the other man’s closeness. Stupid nerves. What did they know about it?

He finally managed a decent spark onto the tinder and breathed gently onto the flame. It flickered, nearly going out, and if he were a different sort of man, he’d think it was a metaphor but Piper was a lich-doctor so he took a deep breath and thought about a burn victim he’d seen on the slab. No matter how you feel, you’re still doing better than they were.

This was less comfort than one might expect.

“You don’t understand,” Galen grated. “There’s no happy ending. I can never sleep beside another human being again. I’ll always be dangerous.”

“So what?” Piper finally turned to look at him. “My god, man, great love poems aren’t written about how lovers get eight hours of sleep a night and no one steals the covers. So maybe we fuck and then go to separate beds. So what?”

He wished immediately that he hadn’t mentioned love. It wasn’t love that he felt. It was much too soon for love, wasn’t it?

The cold knot in his chest made him horribly afraid that it wasn’t.

Galen opened his mouth, closed it again, and then looked away. “Piper,” he said, almost gently, “you are kind and you care very much about people and you don’t give up even when things seem lost, and that means that you wouldn’t give up on me. And I am already a lost cause. All I could do is drag you down with me.”

“Ah,” said Piper, for a third time.

The silence stretched out, beyond strained into unbearable. “Perhaps you should go,” said Piper finally.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“I believe you.”

Galen let himself out. The door clicked quietly behind him. Piper sat in front of the hearth and made a cup of tea and didn’t drink it until long after it went cold.

* * *

“I am going to guess by your face that it didn’t go well,” rumbled Marcus, as the three paladins walked toward the Temple of the Rat.

“It went fine,” said Galen. Was that a lie? Maybe. What did you expect Piper to do, smile and nod and say, “You’re so very right, let’s never speak of this again?”

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