Page 6 of A Suitable Brat
“Oh,” Westin said again, warm with some shame.“I didn’t realize it bothered you.I’ll stop.”
“Did I tell you to stop?”Sun scoffed to the ceiling, puffed out a breath, then gestured toward Hely.“Too nice.”He gestured again.“Too generous.”
He made no sense.Westin nearly gestured in appeal to Hely too.“Thatis why I still you call you that.”He paused, but had no real fear of the knives up Sun’s sleeves or in his boots or his belt or wherever else.“Brat.”
He made the ‘t’ especially crisp.
Sun lifted his chin and straightened his shoulders, but didn’t have a single, snarling reaction to the nickname, though there was some color in his cheeks.
His blushes were subtle, but Westin had gotten into the habit of looking for them, even if he didn’t always understand them.Sun could suck his cock on the bank of a river not far from a public road, but would flush ever so slightly darker when gently teased about his hair growing too long, or whenever someone—Westin—would buy him an extra cup of something or wait for him at a market stall while he debated which treat to get himself.The color looked good on him, made him seem youthful but not young.Excited, Westin supposed was a better way of describing it.Innocent or happy in a way Sun rarely got to be.
Hely coughed.
Abruptly aware that he was staring,again, Westin forced himself to look at Hely.
Hely was hiding behind his wine without drinking it.He arched an eyebrow.
Westin heaved a breath and gave in, admitting the truth with a nod.
“Well,” Sun broke in as thunder sounded, “I could probably go for something to eat, judging from the delicious smells coming from the kitchens.”
“And a hot bath,” Westin added, firmly ignoring Hely, although aware Hely probably had both eyebrows raised now because Westin had nearly made that an order.Westin quickly tried to make it sound better.“You’re wet and the night will be cold.”
He was prepared for Sun to bristle.Anyone would have in his place.
Sun did stiffen, but then shook his head and leaned in.“I won’t freeze, West.”His tone was gentle.“But all right, I’ll have a hot bath.”He didn’t glance down as if to look through the table to Westin’s boots, and Westin’s feet inside them with a shortage of toes, or in any way overtly acknowledge Westin’s fears and the reasons for them.He was gentle, but that was all.Agreement out of the way, he inched in even further to sniff the air around Westin.“Can I choose perfume for the water too?I’ll feel like a noble’s pampered pet.”His eyes were wide and breathtaking, dark enough to sparkle in candlelight.“Please?”
Westin had last seen Sun’s eyes like that on a late summer’s evening in an inn not far from a cool river.
“A room’s better than a barn,”he’d said, mischief in the smile he’d directed at Westin.The room hadn’t cost a lot in the end; Sun had charmed the innkeeper too.“Think of the sense of safety visitors will feel with two outguards nearby,”he’d argued, getting the price knocked down within moments.Then he had stacked his things next to Westin’s in a tiny room, by a tiny bed.Westin could have spent the night in a barn, which would have been free and where he would have had room to stretch out.Instead, he had pinned a gloating Sun to a sliver of a mattress and then slept restlessly in the heat with Sun passed out on top of him.
An uncomfortable night, Westin reminded himself, if a dear one.
He wasn’t actually sure why Sun had requested the bed, except possibly to prove that he could.Sun probably got most of what he asked for from people, and Westin was no exception.But Westin had more money than Sun and he didn’t really mind.Sun only ever asked for things like that from him anyway.Practical gifts.Certainly not jewelry.
“‘Pampered pet,’” he echoed, gaze sliding to Sun’s ear.The words flew out, quietly, if not sensibly.“I’m surprised there’s no necklace or collar to go with those sparkles.”
Blessed fae.It was not his business what Sun got up to when they were apart.It never had been.
A moment passed, Sun perhaps staring at him or perhaps frowning or perhaps considering getting up and leaving Westin at the table with Hely.
Then Sun slipped back into a slouch and reached up to stroke the cuffs at the shell of his ear.“You noticed.”He smiled softly, possibly at the memory of receiving his gifts, and touched them again.“Theyareshiny, aren’t they?”He turned his face toward Hely, but darted another look at Westin.“Do you think they suit me?”
“Oh yes,” Hely agreed, calm, but then, he had no reason not to be calm.“You’re a glittering, pretty thing even without them, and will likely only be more so after a bath and a meal have warmed you.”
Sun shimmied at the praise before frowning delicately.“And the cost of those would be…?”
“Don’t worry about it.”Westin spoke without thought again, because he was an idiot.The idea of Sun in a bath in a real tub, with steaming, hot water and perfumes and soaps was distracting enough.The idea of Sun in such a bath while decorated with shining jewelry was apt to make anyone say foolish things.Westin blamed the knowledge that he would likely not see Sun much, or at all, once he retired.Sun wasn’t even trying to charm him.Westin had no excuse for his behavior.
He picked up his cup of tea and downed it though it was cool and bordering on unpleasant.When he set the cup back down, it was to silence and two handsome men watching him with questions in their eyes.
“What?I’m not ‘too generous’ now?”Westin didn’t snap.He was a patient giant, after all.He didn’t even frown.Which was why he made himself add, almost pleasantly, “If you need a place to stash your pack and that sword, I have a room.”
Westin didn’t snap and he didn’t angle.He made the offer to store Sun’s belongings sincerely and Sun would know that.Sun would find his way to a room tonight almost certainly, and it very probably would not be Westin’s.Westin was foolish at the moment, but he wasn’t so foolish as to forget that.
“You got a room?”Sun prompted, voice rising.“For sleep or something other than sleep?”He glittered more than his many cuffs did as he turned to Hely.“That costs too, here, does it not?Or are the stories wrong?”
“Just a bed, Sun.”Westin rubbed his wrist, irritable at the ache that meant the rain wasn’t over, and that he was an aging man with injuries and pains, and all he had wanted to do, even in Solace House, wassleepin a nice, warm bed.“But if someone did decide to offer solace, even to me, what of it?The house has bills to pay, the same as everywhere else.”
