Work Text:
Aloth looks at Eder in their shared room at The Wild Mare with some hesitation--seeing Ymir earlier today had unearthed a roiling mess of awkward emotion, the kind he’d like to keep down the same way he once tried to keep Iselmyr confined inside himself. A suppression of emotion like a contained tide. Fye if ye fen-sucked figlet’ll ever gain that again, she says. He’s worked hard and long to ensure that things are different now, that he is different about them, that he acts--in some ways clandestine, in some ways direct--to ensure the destruction of any force that would cause unspeakable harm. Even the forces within himself, even when himself is the only one he’s saving. So when Iselmyr speaks, he listens. He speaks to her, too. You keep an eye on me, if you’d like--I won’t allow myself to be like that again. And because things are different now, because he is more than what he once was, and because the moon is unlike to let the tides rise this high again, let him meet Eder again, that plain gift of a man, Aloth speaks.
“That man we just met, Ymir,” Aloth says, voice steadier than he is, “back in our academy days…”
Eder settles back on top of the covers, too, arms behind his head, looking up at the cracks in the walls, at nothing at all, until his eyes slide towards Aloth. Eder winks. “He sure had a thing for you, didn’t he?”
Aloth fights the betrayal of his face flushing as Iselmyr laughs aloud, “Now that’s a right lad.”
Aloth sighs as he gently settles into bed, curling up atop of the covers, not yet ready to slip inside. Tangling his legs inside the sheets would trouble a hasty escape, should he need one. He might need one, after this. Eder’s more perceptive than he’d like anyone to think. I know you know. Aloth knows Eder knows Aloth’s been watching him with no small amount of quiet attention just as Aloth knows Eder would never act on it. For every declaration of, “We’ve gotta take better care of Aloth!” that Aloth’s pretended not to have heard in the fleeting seconds before unconsciousness, Aloth knows that such a statement has felt self-dealt, a promise Eder makes to himself to be a better fighter, a better defender, a better protector. It’s a declaration to himself that he’s gotta take better care of Aloth, and the care in such a statement tears Aloth apart.
Aloth says, “Well, yes. I’d found myself caught entirely unaware when he acted on what he’d believed to be a mutual attraction. In such matters, I have discovered myself to be unfortunately oblivious.”
Eder snorts.
“I’d missed all the signs--the coy glances, the shy smiles, the too-loud laughter. I had simply thought we were fair acquaintances and thought nearly nothing of it.”
Eder cocks his head as if to say, Really? and then he nods.
“And then Ymir tried to kiss me, and what I had taken for revulsion in the moment was something I realize now to be closer to surprise, a kind of distaste in being startled, in experiencing the unexpected, not an inherent disgust for the act.”
Eder’s gaze grows intent.
“What I had repressed, what I had turned into a kind of decisive, absolute repulsion in overcompensation, was indeed actually a frightening spark of real pleasure, that if the situation were right I might enjoy it.”
Eder raises an eyebrow. He doesn’t say anything, but he watches in a way that Aloth knows is with his whole heart. There’s just something in the way his body turns towards Aloth like night-blooming cereus towards the moon. There’s every subtle sign that Aloth has his entire attention, that he is waiting for the right moment to speak, letting Aloth continue uninterrupted in this, letting Aloth have these moments and share them. It’s like Eder is holding this time, treating it as something precious with his plain listening presence.
Aloth clears his throat. “After a time, even I...What I am trying to say is--what I once had taken to be a lack of attraction to other men in the general, I realize now to be a lack of attraction in the specific. Not between me and him, but. Perhaps between…”
“You and me,” Eder says, his still-water eyes meeting Aloth’s.
“Yes. If--if I am incorrect or overstepping, you may--”
Eder gets up and out of his bed, walking over to Aloth where he lies prone, almost stunned, in place atop the scratchy inn quilt. If there was a time to escape, it’d be now. Ye foolish boy, stay put! Iselmyr says.
Aloth fists the quilt in one hand, heartbeat racing rabbit-quick. He closes his eyes for a second too long to steady his breath, and then Eder is right there. Eder sits on the edge of Aloth’s bed, one of his large, sturdy hands near Aloth’s thigh. Close but not touching. It takes everything for Aloth to admit even this--he’d rather they be touching. He can’t help but be aware of Eder. He can’t ever help but be aware of him.
Eder is a large man, his appearance like a plain and simple truth with his mussed, raw-gold hair, his clear-well eyes, his fight-broad shoulders. Eder emanates a presence of familiarity, of welcome, a forgiving sight against all the strangers Aloth’s been with in the five years since they traveled together. Aloth’s been a stranger even to the friends he’s had since on his quest to eliminate the Leaden Key, so just being around someone who knows about him, his history, his Iselmyr--it’s like something Aloth can’t even place, the sense of overwhelming belonging.
So when, this time, Eder leans in for what Aloth knows to be a kiss, it has nothing of the repulsion, the distaste, the binding fear that Ymir’s kiss had. Aloth watches Eder close his eyes, his weight sinking the edge of the bed, and Aloth reaches out with both hands to cup Eder’s rough cheeks and pull him closer as their lips meet. And Aloth is home.