Page 25 of A Suitable Brat
Westin was off him in a heartbeat, reaching for a towel before gently helping Sun lower his legs and get comfortable.The brat lay back with his thighs open and his posture loose, allowing—expecting—Westin to clean him with his chin ever so slightly in the air.
“West,” Sun called after a while of Westin straightening his clothes and setting the towel aside andnotthinking about the world beyond the curtain.He wasn’t ready to leave yet.But Sun must not have been either, because he curled a finger to get Westin closer, then patted the spot on the bench next to him.
Westin sat with his hands on his knees, glancing briefly and with some small despair to his knitting, which had been shoved to the floor.But he forgot it again quickly, startled by Sun curling up along the rest of the bench and using one of Westin’s thighs for a pillow.Westin snatched his hands out of the way only just in time.
“Tired?”he probed gently.“You didn’t have to travel hard to find me.You know I’d never ask that of you.”Sun reached up, found Westin’s hand, and dragged it down to his head.Westin nodded in understanding of what Sun apparently didn’t want to say.“You needed this?”He clucked his tongue when Sun tensed and began to gently scratch Sun’s scalp to make that tension go away.“I’m sorry.”He scratched and soothed and petted while their heartbeats slowed and their breathing grew even.
“You’re too nice.”Sun was very quiet.“Always resolving the problems of others.What about you?”
Westin paused, then lightly stroked down the back of Sun’s neck to one faintly freckled shoulder.“I didn’t say what I said to appease you.I said it because it’s what I wanted.I’m perhaps as soft as you think I am, but even I wouldn’t swear myself to someone simply to be nice.”
Sun rolled over to stare at Westin for several tense moments.“Swear yourself?”he asked at last, even quieter than before.The rain was just audible.
Westin pulled his hand away and was only mildly comforted when Sun reached for it to make Westin put it back.
“Forgive me.”Discomfort had Westin glancing away, to the curtain that held back the rest of the world.“I’ve never asked before—never even considered asking before.I got ahead of myself, didn’t I?I keep trying to tell you what a fool I am...”
“Shut up,” Sun interrupted.He placed Westin’s hand over his ribs.“Keep going.”
Westin gestured apologetically with his free hand.“I had a regular lover and didn’t realize.A lover who offered to stay with me.Who has chased me down more than once, from the sound of it.Who initiated everything between us, every time.I have much to make up for if you give me a chance.And I cannot even offer jewelry.Well, I suppose I could, although it wouldn’t be gold.Perhaps someday, but certainly not now.You’re not only interested in that, but you should have it if you want it.You’re worthy of it.And if some other beat-of-four can offer you that, then…”
“What in the name of the fae are you talking about, West?”Sun frowned up at him.
The snap returned some of Westin’s sense.He hadn’t babbled like that around a lover since he’d been younger than Sun.He inhaled and let the scent of their fucking mingled with cress spice and orange and rosemary be his focus and not the fears and desires and need filling his chest.
He exhaled.
“If you wanted, if not today then someday, I would marry you, Sun.”
Sheltered from the candles and the hint of light from the common room by the bench and Westin’s body, Sun’s face was in shadow, his eyes wide and near black again.His lips were pressed tight together and no words escaped them.
Westin nodded because he needed to do something and he couldn’t yet get up and walk away.“I want you to have a place you can call home if you don’t like the barracks, and to know you can count on me to be there for you.And though I didn’t admit this to myself until tonight, when I’m traveling and alone, I look for you and am disappointed when you aren’t there.Of course, you’re also welcome to visit me or stay with me even if you don’t imagine our hands tied together.But you should know it’s a future that’s available to you.I’m… I’m available to you, lark, whenever you need.”He cleared his throat.“But I know you will be on the road a great deal, and I wouldn’t expect you to think only of me.”Most marriages, when they occurred, did not demand that, but Westin wanted to be clear.“I know you’re fond of me but I won’t have you burdened by what I’ve realized is in my heart.”
“In your heart?”Sun echoed faintly, then scrambled to sit up.He looked around the booth and Westin had the wild thought that Sun was hoping Hely would appear.“In your heart?”he charged again, rounding back on Westin.“Available?”His eyes were huge.“Marry?”
“It’s an option,” Westin explained,almostreasonably.Sun wouldn’t be fooled but a stranger might have been.
“Anoption?”Sun’s voice went a little higher.
“You can say no,” Westin continued while that put-off and tamped-down stirring in his chest began to grow and deepen.
“No?”Sun didn’t howl it, but the murmurs from the common room paused as though the sound had carried.“West, you….West.”He quieted with his hands at his cheeks and his gaze on Westin.“Are you drunk?”he asked again, very low.
“No, lark.”Westin reached for him and got a lapful of warm, naked Sun, who pressed his face to Westin’s shoulder and kept it there.Westin settled and steadied him, his arms around Sun’s back.“I’m retiring, and I treasure you so much that I want you to know the truth before I go.Which Hely helped me realize—don’t growl.”
“And the truth is that you are ‘available to me?’”Sun didn’t raise his head but the growl remained in his voice.“Am I not available to you?So obviously that everyone in the guard knows it and your handsome friend too?I rode here for you.In a storm.”That was added with a hint of a pout and Westin nuzzled Sun’s hair without thought.
“You did,” he agreed.
“In astorm, West,” Sun said again, more than a hint of a pout about him now.He angled his head so he could look up at Westin.“I was wet and cold.”He shivered to demonstrate.“And you asked why I was here.”
“You drank that tea for me.”Westin was warmed by the memory.“You tolerate my fears so well, Sun.”
Sun blinked.“Tolerate?Oh yes.Because you are a burden to me.And I am to find others on the road while I’m away from you, my proposed husband.”He smiled with teeth and turned his head again, letting the cuffs find the light.“When I find all these others, should I try for gold?”
Words stuck in Westin’s throat.The stirring in his chest returned.He closed his eyes.“You deserve gold.”
“Hmm.”Sun was very pleased about something.He wriggled in Westin’s arms, settling firmly into Westin’s lap before humming again.Westin opened his eyes.Sun’s gaze was intent on him.“Too generous,” he purred.“You need someone to be selfish for you.”
