“I’m sorry,” Ray said again, and wasn’t soothed when Cal gave his hair another pet. “I can’t say it. I can’t even hear it.”
“She forgot, I think.” Cal seemed to be enjoying the sensation of Ray’s hair slipping through his fingers. “Or, is that not what’s really bothering you about it? Hold on.” He twisted to the side and removed the washcloth to get it cold again, then wring out the excess water. He pulled Ray back into his arms and patted his shoulder pointedly. “There,” he sighed when Ray came back in to let him fuss. “If I have you, what does one word matter?”
Ray raised his head.
Cal stared at him, startled, then glanced away. “It’s nice.” Cal said it as though it was an admission of guilt, quietly, without meeting Ray’s eye. “I mean, what my mom said was nice. That you chose to love me. That’smore, somehow. Magic is well and good, most of the time. Instinct means a lot to you. But being chosen, that’s—you shouldn’t devalue that. Fuck, Ray, you labeled everything we own for me. That’s devotion.”
“Not enough.” The words took effort to say. Ray tried again. “Not good enough.”
“Hmm.” Cal turned back to Ray with narrowed eyes. “Does that mean, notwereenough? You have such weird standards. You say you should be better as if you weren’t already so good. To me, to everyone around you butthem, I suppose, your coworkers, your superiors. To them, you need to be more like they are. But you’re not them, thankfully, and no amount of trying could fully make you one of them. Like… how you are in public? Thatisyou, a different, more contained version, but still you. You also have this with me. You don’t need to say sorry.” He pushed Ray’s hair away from his forehead and seemed concerned when Ray stared at him without speaking.
“Did you think I was expecting tough, growly wolf all the time? Being bitten and fucked 24/7?” Still serious, Cal nonetheless paused to flick Ray’s forehead with his fingers. “I mean, that is fun, don’t get me wrong. But we have quiet nights. Sometimes, we even get the rare treat of being home at the same time and being bored together and marathoning some TV show years after everyone else has watched it. Or Benny comes over with whoever he’s currently dating, and you act threatening to make sure they are good enough for him. Though you do seem to like Divinity. You said she smells like breakfast, and while that was confusing and a bit alarming for her at first, you clearly meant it as a compliment. We are boring and it’s great. Oh… oh my God, I’m an old person. I’m middle-aged.” Cal blinked several times. “How did that happen? I swear, I was dancing and clubbing all the time just yesterday, and now I work and come home to you and like, pay bills. Well, you pay the bills; I would forget. But we discuss the bills. And it’s still great. Not the bills, I mean. You. You’re great. We’re great. I like us a lot. But yeah, we’re boring.”
“Why can’t I remember?” Ray was too confused and tired to be embarrassed about the whine in his voice. “You’re…”
“What?” Cal glanced away again. “Not what you were expecting your millefeuilles to be? Yeah, I know.”
Ray let out a short growl to bring Cal’s gaze back to him. “I had no expectations. I still don’t. No, I never thought of a fairy, or half-fairy. But that’s because I never imagined anyone. And then I found you, and I fucked it up. I haven’t done enough to protect you. Calvin might have had the right id—”
Cal slapped his hand over Ray’s mouth. “I’m gonna stop you there.”
Ray stared at him. Cal stared back. After a while, Cal pushed out a breath and moved his hand to stroke the side of Ray’s face.
“Ray,” he began, cautious, “you fought a compelled demon for me. You nearly died for me. That’s not enough?”
He was, in his Callalily way, trying to figure out what Ray was attempting to say, and he was being delicate because he took care with Ray, because Ray had accidentally taught him to do that in their time together.
“I should live for you,” Ray said bluntly, then tossed his head and snarled at Cal’s sharp, shocked breath. “No.” That still wasn’t right. Finding words for this was difficult. “I should have done more than fight or bleed. Anyone can do that. And I should’ve made you happy.” That wasn’t it, either, not entirely. “Made youproud,” Ray added. That was better. That was close to the pull in his chest and the warmth in his skin.
The only movement around Cal was the trickle of his glitter and the swirl of his eyes. Then he dragged in a shaky breath. “You did.” He was quiet, studying Ray and Ray’s colors intently. “Watching you with people… watching youcarethe way you do. You care so much, all the time. And people don’t see it—well, people who aren’t fairies don’t see it. Because you’re big, and your eyes get like that, and they know you have fangs and claws and the whole shebang. But you care, and you feel everything, and you notice everything. You can’t tune the world out.” He brushed his fingertips over Ray’s ear. “I must have driven you up a wall. God, Ray, I used to rub myself all over your stuff just to get a rise out of you, to make you look at me. But you were looking already. I… You keep putting it in terms of howIshould be the one. HowImight leave, or implying that if you aren’t good enough, I’ll go. Butyouare the one who doesn’t have to choose me again if you don’t want to. And you’re the one who keeps finding me anyway.”
Ray stared at Cal so long it was a shock when a droplet of water slowly fell down the back of his neck and he realized the washcloth and water had grown warm again.
“Wolves don’t say no,” Ray answered at last. “Not for this.”
Cal huffed, but let Ray reach back and take the washcloth then toss it into the sink. He poked Ray in the chest. “Pretty sure they can and they do, Ray.Youdidn’t.Youchose not to, for reasons of your own. But you could. You’re strong enough, no matter what you think.Two yearsyou resisted me. And if I hadn’t chased you, well,” he paused to smooth his hands down Ray’s sweatshirt, then fiddled with the pocket as if he wanted to stuff his hands inside, “you probably would have been okay, eventually. Okay-ish. Happy even, someday. You would suffer if you left me, but you would live, I think.”
The pull in Ray’s chest didn’t care for that idea. He grunted.
“Words, Ray,” Cal snapped, just a little, and tugged on the sweatshirt pocket.
“I can’t say the word,” Ray snapped back at him, just a little.
Cal yanked on the kangaroo pocket hard enough to bring Ray in another inch. Then he threw his arms around Ray’s neck and put his face to Ray’s throat. He growled, sweet and charming.
Ray tipped his head up without thought.
“Oh,” Cal murmured and put his lips to Ray’s skin. “Ray.” He gave Ray a hint of a kiss and then spoke with his mouth hovering over Ray’s carotid. “Marks don’t last on you, either. Although you never seem to mind my insignificant attempts at hickeys and bruises.” His voice became a pleased whisper. “When and if you meet other weres, they know you are taken, like how Penn knows. I rub my scent all over you every chance I get. There is nothing you own that I have not touched. They all know and it pleases you so much you glow like daybreak.”
“I do?” Ray unfurled a tightly clenched hand and put it at Cal’s waist.
Cal hummed. “You like being kept, Ray Ray, whatever you tell yourself about it.” He parted his lips over Ray’s pulse, then hummed again. “So, no, I don’t need the word from you.” The rest seemed to fall out of him, clumsy and strained and far too quiet. “As long as you’re here. Or you try to stay here. I guess I am like my mother, because you don’t have to be with me, you just have to be alive.”
Ray glanced up to his reflection in the mirror above the sink, then looked down to Cal’s shivering wings. He moved his head, an act that made Cal move too, pulling back to stare at Ray with wide, hurt eyes until Ray leaned in inhale behind the tip of his ear.
Cal’s heartbeat was quick, the flutter of it warm beneath his skin. He was aroused and worried and had an echo of grief in his scent, or anticipation of it. Ray splayed his hand over the side of Cal’s throat to feel Cal’s pulse against his palm and the velvet of his skin. He could feel the sound Cal made before it slipped from Cal’s mouth.
Some of theiron/saltleft Cal, left the air, although Ray could still taste them when he licked his lips after brushing them against the shell of Cal’s ear. Ray tightened his hand, carefully, with no more strength than a human might use to tease. He inhaled again. Cal smelled of things humans called sinful, chocolate and rum, fucking, if Ray wanted to think of his scent that way. Cal breathed harder, and his pulse was under Ray’s hand, and he stayed that way, unmoving except how he trailed a hand down Ray’s chest to curl his fingers into the sweatshirt pocket.
