Page 23 of Two Rogues Make a Right
“You’re not another invalid, you idiot.”
“See,” Martin said, his mouth curving in the beginnings of a smile, “now I know you don’t really think I’m dying because you wouldn’t have called me an idiot.”
“That just goes to show how little you know. I’m sure I called you an idiot ten times a day that first week we were here, and I couldn’t have been more positive that you were about to die.”
“You’re a terrible liar, Will, so don’t even try. I remember you calling me sweetheart, and love, and all manner of soft things.”
“I did.” Will swallowed. “And you told me to stop.”
Martin rolled his eyes and then slid his hand across the table so his fingertips brushed Will’s.
“What’s this?” Will raised an eyebrow. “Is this your way of telling me I can call you those things again?”
Martin was blushing and Will didn’t think it was just because of the fever. “If you insist.”
Will grinned and got to his feet. “Time for supper, love.”
“Insufferable,” Martin muttered.
Martin’s fever crept throughout the evening, and Will tried to tell himself he was overreacting. After all, Martin wasn’t coughing blood, and he ate half a loaf of bread along with his stew for supper, so maybe it really was just a cold. But for a consumptive, mightn’t a simple cold be truly dangerous? Will wished he knew what he was supposed to be doing. He was gripped with the fear that he was doing wrong by Martin, and that anybody else could have done better.
It was a rare cloudless night, and Martin could only catch the most futile of glimpses of the starry sky through the cottage’s tiny windowpanes. When Will’s breathing finally grew deep and steady, and the arm he had flung over Martin loosened its grip, Martin eased across the mattress and then gingerly set his feet on the floor. Carefully, he managed to stand without the bed frame squeaking. He cracked the door open just enough to slip outside.
It wasn’t so very cold, and besides, he had a fever. Being in the cool night air was probably a good idea, even. Tentatively, he took a deep breath and found that he could almost fill his lungs. His head ached, but that was nothing new. Even his fever wasn’t particularly troubling—it wasn’t like he was actually seeing things or fainting. He was almost certain that this wasn’t a worsening of his consumption. Probably this time, at least, he’d recover. He was less certain about the next time, and the time after that. Because there would be future illnesses, and eventually there would be one from which he couldn’t recover. Even if it were forty years away, it still would come. It probably was the fever making the obvious seem profound, but Martin felt struck by how finite and precious his time was.
Behind him he heard the door open and the sound of Will’s bare feet on the ground.
“What the hell,” Will said. “It’s the middle of the night and you don’t even have on a dressing gown. Or shoes. Jesus Christ, are you trying to kill yourself?”
Martin forbore from pointing out that they didn’t have a dressing gown. He crossed his arms and gave Will his best glare. “I thought I saw a shooting star.”
“You thought—the sky will be teeming with shooting stars in the summer. And it’ll be warmer. We’ll make a regular picnic of it, I promise. Just get inside, all right?”
It wasn’t often that Martin actually got angry with Will, but now he was. “No,” he said, clenching his fists. “I want to look at the goddamn stars. They may still be here in the summer, but maybe I won’t, and I don’t want to wait.” Will stood perfectly still, his eyes dark circles reflecting the moon. “I don’t want to wait for anything anymore.”
“Right,” Will said after a moment. “Right.” He went indoors and returned with the pillows and blankets from their bed, and arranged them on the ground against one wall of the house. “Mrs. Tanner will think we’ve taken leave of our senses,” he muttered. “Come here,” he said, sitting with his back to the wall. Martin lowered himself to sit beside Will, but Will stopped him. “No, it’ll be warmer like this.” He guided Martin to sit between his legs, and Martin leaned against Will’s chest, no fewer than three quilts pulled up to his chin. It was lovely just being this close to Will, just knowing this was something he was allowed. He could feel Will’s heartbeat against his shoulder blade, could feel him breathe. Even without the stars, this would have been enough.
“You can see Ursa Major,” Will said, gesturing to a patch of sky near the plane tree. “And if you look for Polaris, which is right over the overhang on the pig pen, you’ll find Ursa Minor.”
Martin supposed that if he squinted he could detect a star that was brighter than the others, but as for the rest of them, he’d have to take Will’s word for it. “Did you learn these at sea?”
“Not those. Everybody knows those. I remember showing them to you when we were boys.”
“I always suspected you made half of those up, like you made up the stories you told me.” Martin was wondering if perhaps he needed spectacles—if, somehow, in decades of being tended by various nurses and medical men, they had all missed something as obvious as that.
“I made some of it up, sure,” Will said, and Martin laughed. Will kissed his temple and Martin found himself pressing into it, curling his body even closer against Will’s. He let out a sigh, something between relief and anticipation, because he had wanted this for so long, just a sign that he wasn’t the only one who wanted. He knew he was wrong to want this, knew that Will would be throwing away all his goodness and honor on someone as unworthy as Martin. Then, as if that sigh had given voice to everything Martin felt, Will kept kissing him—first his forehead, then his cheek, then the side of his neck, all while stroking his hands up and down Martin’s sides.
“God,” Martin said. Every nerve in his body felt alive with sensation. This—whatever it was, this heady combination of arousal and affection—didn’t quite push away all the unpleasant illness-related sensations, but rather coexisted alongside them.
“Is this what you wanted?” Will murmured into Martin’s shoulder, his voice raspy.
Something about that question brought Martin up short—he imagined Will doing all this to humor him, and it made him want to shy away.
“I mean,” Will said, “are you all right with me holding you like this?”
“Yes,” Martin said immediately.
“Good.”
