Page 61 of Odder Still
He huffs and turns on his heels, marching back to the kitchen.
Tavish lets me go and finds his beer. He doesn’t drink it, just holds the near-empty glass, chewing on his tongue. “Ruby.”
I don’t like the tone of his voice, too serious, too ominous, too eternally warped around words likeonce this is overandgood-bye. I can’t hear it now. So I distract us both. “The problem with Glenrigg’s ignit must be related to whatever’s causing your ignation mutants to form. And maybe the reason my aurora decided to bind to me instead of a proper host, too. It feels like there’s something wrong with the whole system.”
Tavish sips his beer. “It does all seem a bit extraordinary, doesn’t it?”
“I bet your secret Findlay lab is exploiting it, somehow.” I refill both our glasses. Mine is half empty again just as quickly. I feel the buzz of its combined effects softening my world around the edges.
“Aye,” Tavish mutters. “If only we had gone to Ailsa sooner.”
“You didn’t know, Tavish.”
He only chews on his tongue in response.
By the time we conclude dinner, I’ve drank through most of one pitcher, Tavish finishing off the last bit. He already wobbles more than I, slack and a little overzealous in his movements, enough that I have to guide him through the now half-filled dining hall as he swings his cane a little too precariously for it to be of use. Beileag sits at a table with two other translucent-haired finfolk and an ancient-looking pixie, but she points us toward the disgruntled server as we near.
“One room or two?” he asks, his voice flat as a board.
“One,” Tavish replies.
I don’t question him. If he needs me there, then that’s where I’ll be. Even if it ends with me staring at his back, wanting more of him than he’s willing to offer, his shoulders rising and falling just beyond my reach. Maybe there’s a bathroom I can slip off to while he sleeps—fuck knows I’ll need some kind of release after the mess my body keeps trying to make of me.
The server directs us to room three, up the stairs and to the left. It takes a bit of searching with a bioluminescent orb to find the number, painted in lilac on a piece of bark to one side of the curtain doorway. The room holds nothing but a washbowl of cold water and a central mattress placed, like Tavish’s, directly on the floor and covered in furs. Thick cords of bark grant us privacy from the rest of the lodge. The external barrier of dangling dried flowers looks out over a shimmering town and distant mountains obscured by a stream of silver rain. Except for the occasional laugh, only its heavy pounding can be heard.
“Well?” Tavish asks.
I set our light on a little wire holder in the ceiling. “There’s a bed.”
“Fantastic.” He detangles himself from my grip. With an overzealous helping of dramatics, he unloops his scarf from his neck, folds it into a neat square, and holds it out. I take it from him. He removes his coat and boots next, doing the same with each. I pile it beneath his scarf as he slips out of his pants and hands those over too.
I shake my head, but a smile encroaches on my lips. “I’m putting them beside the water bowl.”
“Dear Ruby, exactly how terrible of an idea do you ken that is?”
Pausing, I glance between Tavish’s cane and the wide-rimmed basin and amend my decision. “I’m putting them as far from the water bowl as possible,” I say, settling the bundle in the corner beside the door.
“Which iswhere?” he demands, playfully. The pretentious twist of his nose looks ridiculous when he wears only a half-buttoned, silver shirt that brushes his thighs like a toddler’s nightdress.
I can’t imagine a reality where he saidtwo rooms, please, a reality where I don’t watch him, brash in his vulnerability, and feel so warm and vibrant that the affection seems to fill in all my melancholic valleys until I overflow with it, while the lust fills something else entirely. I want him the way a river wants to run downhill, ever seeking the sea. And I’m just tipsy enough that it’s a damn struggle to try to swim upstream.
As I watch him, I’m glad he isn’t clinging to his grief the way I did mine. I can still make out the edges of it, the way it mellows and softens him slightly. But it seems a part of him, unlike the darkness I held to my chest after my mother’s death. He is proving that while a hole taken from a heart cannot be refilled, new joy and warmth can still be added elsewhere.
My own heart wants so badly to do the same.
“Where isn’t important,” I growl, soft and teasing. And I tackle Tavish onto the bed as a friend. A friend who wants him desperately.
He yelps. His cane clatters across the floor, knocking into the pile of clothes. “Ruby!” By the time he finishes shouting my name, he’s laughing, high and light and perfect, a set of wind chimes in a downpour.
We sprawl where we land, bundles of fur beneath us and the simple wooden ceiling above. Tavish’s back pins down one of my arms, but instead of rolling off, he scoots closer, laying his head over my shoulder. In our silence, the wind picks up. It churns the rain, pounding it sideways against the roof, and ruffles Tavish’s hair. But the water never reaches our open room, its frosty presence just a thrill against the combined warmth of my parasite and Tavish’s body.
“The rain’s not coming inside,” I mutter.
Wonder shines on Tavish’s face clear. “Times like these, I do believe there’s a bit of magic in this world.”
“Says the man who’s turns into a seal.”
“Och! That’s science! We’re practically just humans with a good helping of deactivated genetic coding.” He pokes me in the ribs. I arch away from him, laughing, but somehow he ends up nearer than before, almost pressed against my side as he plays with one of my little braids. “Your ghostly feet, on the other hand? Nothing in the natural realm can be that soundless.”
