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Ravethae had been good for them. It wasn’t just that nobody had tried to kill either of them for weeks. Settling into the house, now that they’d decided to make it their primary residence, was an unlooked-for joy. They moved furniture around and argued pleasantly about colors for storm shutters that needed repainting. Cae suspected that Velasin had, maybe unconsciously, felt like a guest for a long time.
The gardener asked whether the yaserans had any requests as thei planned annuals and replacement plants for the coming year—favorite vegetables, fashionable flowers. Caethari watched Velasin’s face as it sank in that he had a garden, and was going to be there long enough to see the results. He glowed.
The second it was tolerable to linger in the winter air, Velasin started spending part of every day outdoors. He would sit in a rattan lounge chair in the garden with the aid of a lap blanket and a magic heat brick, eyes protected from strong sun with a pair of green-lensed eyeshades Markel had pushed on him. He read books, or took a lap desk and answered correspondence. He was trying to draw a little, in a journal he’d started.
Velasin had been lectured extensively on still needing to rest and heal, and Cae thought he looked healthiest and most animated during these times in the fresh air. Caethari started sitting with him sometimes, each quietly doing their own activities more often than talking. The household started referring to the place where they could be found as the garden study.
Caethari came home one day from meeting with some of their people who had reported flood damage to a public bridge. He knew Vel was curious about how bad it was, but Cae also felt weary and on edge. He was inescapably reminded of watching Velasin dive into a river when the sabotaged bridge gave way, weeks ago, and chose to deal with it by going directly to his side.
Vel was reading with his head bent over a book on his knees. He looked up with obvious pleasure at Caethari’s approach, slammed the book shut, and pushed his loose hair behind his ears before gesturing for him to lean in for a brief kiss. Cae settled on the side of the chair.
“The bridge is bad, but not a total loss,” he reported, idly taking a section of Velasin’s hair between his fingers and tickling Vel’s neck with it.
“Would it be better to build a new one than repair it?”
“Not if the structural report says the frame is sound. I didn’t notice your hair had gotten this long.” Velasin had been wearing it tied back most of the time, and it was easier to notice the change with it falling across his shoulders in the sunlight than it was spread across a pillow.
Vel smiled. “I think it’s growing faster, so maybe I’m almost well.” Caethari smiled back, but kept his agreement to himself. Velasin didn’t need any encouragement to strain the absolute limits of his health by prematurely deeming himself recovered.
“It looks beautiful.” He stroked the hair, loosely measuring. “Have you tried braiding it yet?”
Velasin glanced away. “A little.” He looked at Caethari again, oddly shy. “I didn’t realize how much harder it would be to braid my own. I’m used to being able to see what I’m doing, with horses and you.”
Cae opened his mouth to offer to do it for him, but all that came out was, “Cute!” He suppressed a grimace, his husband failed to suppress a fond snort of laughter, and Cae dropped his face into his hands. Velasin apologized unnecessarily, petting the back of Caetheri’s head and neck. “It isn’t your fault,” Cae mumbled. He straightened. “What I mean to say is, well. Um.” He hadn’t expected it to be this difficult. It wasn’t as if hair was a private topic; it was just that he’d asked several people over the years may I suck you off? and the like, but this was the first time he’d tried to ask to do someone’s braids. The significance mattered.
While he tried to put his words into a tidy row, Velasin moved his hand to stroke Cae’s cheek instead. “Markel told me what you said about who’s allowed to do it for you. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want you to feel like it had to mean something, or worry that I didn’t understand how you saw it.” Then, sheepishly, he admitted, “I didn’t want you to stop.”
Vel nodded, mischief in the corners of his smile. “Ah, in ancient history. But I’ve loved you for positively weeks now.” Caethari laughed at his dramatic tone. “Can I ask you to braid it? Is that done?”
“You can ask me for anything,” Cae agreed, “but not this time. I want to get the words out.” He brought his lips almost to Vel’s ear, tweaking the teal and brass flower earring with a fingertip. Velasin’s hand was warm and comforting on his knee. “Would you let me braid your hair?” he asked, and even after all that, knowing that Vel wanted him to ask, Caethari felt his cheeks burn and his stomach flutter like he’d proposed marriage.
The way Velasin beamed with his whole face suggested he felt the same. He kissed Caethari, pulled away to speak, apparently forgot what he was going to say, and kissed him again. Cae laughed silently into his mouth. “Yes,” Vel whispered, lips still brushing against his. “Thank you, yes.”
Caethari sighed with deep reluctance. “I need a comb. Do you have a tie? Right, I’ll just…I’ll be right back,” he promised, feeling cold as he stood up.
+++
When he returned, Velasin fumbled while closing his book and something fell out. Caethari bent to pick it up for him, smiling kindly when Velasin accepted it with a wide-eyed wince of mortification. He waited until after Vel had slid forward to the foot of the lounge chair, letting Cae sit behind him, to ask. He stroked Vel’s hair, making sure none of it was snagged on earrings or the arms of his sunshades. “Why are you so embarrassed?” He had recognized the pamphlet the moment it was in his hand: it was an often-reprinted, dry little introduction to the various ways someone might have children, or avoid doing so. Riya had made Caethari read a copy when they were growing up, and quizzed him afterwards. Most of his friends had similar stories about their own family members or teachers.
His husband made a self-deprecating noise, slipping it back between the pages of the larger book. “I feel awkward about my ignorance, and, well, I haven’t gotten used to the idea that I’m ‘allowed’ to think about it. You remember I didn’t even know we could have children when I arrived?”
Cae was enjoying running the comb through the smooth hair. “But you didn’t even want me to know you were curious?”
“Well, I already told you ‘no’ once, and then I realized I had very little idea what a ‘yes’ would even look like, at least not in enough detail to have an opinion.” He laughed. “The clearest opinion I have at the moment is that you’re right about Riya choosing the most complicated route.” Caethari chuckled too. He started separating Velasin’s hair into sections, gently running the flat edge of the comb against his scalp. “Mostly I realized I needed to think about children in general on my own a bit, since I never have before.”
“It’s hard for me to imagine that,” Cae admitted. “I understand why you thought you’d never have any, but I’m sure you were around children sometimes. I knew I wanted children when I was still a child myself.”
“You do want children!” Velasin repeated.
Cae could have kicked himself. He twisted a piece of green ribbon into the braid he’d started. “Yes, but I don’t need them. It can be up to you. Whenever you decide whether you want your own, I’ll be fine. I’m happy as we are.”
They sat in contented silence for a time, Cae finishing the left braid. He was doing a more complicated style than Velasin or Markel would be likely to know, something a little formal. There were designs for celebrating someone’s first braided hair, but Caethari associated them wholly with small children. A stranger who saw the design he’d chosen instead would just think Velasin had something to celebrate.
Caethari changed the angle of Velasin’s head, reaching around him to guide the tip of his chin. Vel’s face was hot to the touch. Cae turned him further to look at his profile, worried he was growing feverish again. Velasin looked at him sidelong, eyes dilating, and stuck his tongue out. “It feels nice!” he told Cae, prim and defensive. Cae kissed his cheek and turned his face back to the right position.
“I like it too,” he told Velasin hoarsely. If Vel was flustered from the attention, Caethari was as preoccupied with folk songs and lines from popular romances about braiding a lover’s hair. Velasin was his first, and he was Vel’s first, and it was all very sentimental and wonderful and his cock needed to get itself together and soften up because now was not the time. “I love doing things for you,” he added.
“If you didn’t need me to keep still, I’d be climbing in your lap right now to kiss your neck,” Vel said. Cae grinned foolishly and stroked Velasin’s neck with the side of his little finger, making him shiver.
“I’m almost finished,” Cae promised softly, his fingers moving more quickly through the pattern this time.
Velasin sighed happily. “On the other hand, I feel like I could sit here all day with you playing with my hair. Aren’t I impossible to please?” he joked.
“I’ll just have to do your hair tomorrow, too. If you’re very good and don’t pour your medicine down the sink.”
“Oh, you’re wise to that trick, huh?” Velasin did not sound abashed.
“You are the worst patient I have ever known,” Caethari assured him fondly.
“I only do it with the painkiller. I don’t like how it makes my thoughts fuzzy,” Vel complained.
Caethari tied off the second braid and handed him a wood-backed mirror the size of his palm. Velasin studied himself, touching his own face as if the new style had highlighted something about it he didn’t expect. Cae put his arms around him. “You’re so handsome,” he gushed.
Vel put the mirror aside and shifted to rest his cheek on Caethari’s chest. He still looked pink and pleased with life. “I worry,” he murmured, “and then I worry about worrying, and that’s just no good. But every time, whatever ugly or stupid thought I have, you’re always safe.”
Cae rubbed a reassuring hand across his back, not immediately finding the words to respond. He could say he loved Velasin, but people who didn’t care about Vel’s safety had also told him that. Cae wanted to say something more personal. “You make me kinder to myself, too,” he whispered at last. “I’m so glad—” He stopped himself from saying he was glad Velasin had been sent to him. It was true, but insensitive. “Thank you for letting me braid your hair.”
The hum of acknowledgement Velasin made against his chest suggested he was falling asleep in Caethari’s arms, but when he spoke again, his voice was clear and alert. He had been thinking hard all this time. “What you said before—when I was old enough to be part of the litai world in Farathel, wanting children would have been more than impossible, more than emotionally vulnerable, it would have been like saying I wanted something the other side of society had. Perhaps self-hating; certainly a lack of solidarity with everyone else. And that absolutely did put men like you, whose relationships were more varied, in a difficult position, but I…never had incentive to unpick this particular knot. I don’t feel like I ‘should’ have children, now that I can. That isn’t an opinion,” he stressed. “I know it isn’t based in fact, let alone desire. I might have to fight it my whole life, because the thing is—stop making soothing noises, I’m not being hard on myself. I want to fight it, because the thing is that I don’t know about children of my own, as you put it, but I very deeply want to know children of yours.”
Caethari put his head against Velasin’s. “Oh, love.”
“And even a child of my body would be yours,” Velasin added, because he was Ralian and the distinction was very real to him.
“That’s how I see it,” Caethari assured him. “However we go about it.”
“Not right away,” Velasin said quietly. “That’s all right, isn’t it?”
“Of course it is.” Cae understood he just needed to hear it, after exposing so much of himself. “And I really will braid your hair even if you don’t want your painkiller tonic, if that wasn’t clear.”
Vel nipped very lightly at Cae’s throat. “Maybe I’ll have a little bit, so you can throw me around,” he flirted, which made Caethari cackle so loudly with delight that a moment later, Spoons the cat padded through the moon gate to find out what was causing the racket.