Those Words I Dread (Tales of the Tuath Dé #1)

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Ciaran woke first in the morning, his hair stuck to his forehead with sweat. He began to grumble out a complaint, but paused when he woke up enough to feel the slow breath against his shoulder. He turned his head to see Trent’s sleeping face on the pillow behind him, looking far more serene than he ever did while he was awake. For as brusque as he acted, Trent really was quite insecure. Ciaran would have to tread carefully with him, he knew. He would have to tread carefully with himself, for that matter—it had been more years than he could count since he had gotten far enough to admit to someone that he felt more than lust, and even longer since he had believed anyone else’s heartfelt confession. If Trent woke up and decided to ask him for gold or wishes, he would probably give up on relationships altogether.

He was distracted by Trent’s fingers tightening on his hip, and he let out a soft chuckle as the younger man pressed against him with undisguised urgency. So much for taking things slow. Ciaran reached behind him to touch Trent’s hair, and he rolled his hips against the hard press of the other man’s erection. Trent gasped softly behind him, his forehead falling against Ciaran’s shoulder .

“Good morning,” Ciaran murmured as the other man pressed back against him, hands clutching him tightly and pulling him close. Ciaran twisted in his grip, ignoring the pain in his arm as he put weight on his wound, and he caught Trent’s lips in an eager kiss with none of the other man’s previous resistance. Trent accepted him with a soft, breathless groan, his fingernails scraping the fairy’s back as he clung to him. When Ciaran’s hand slipped down between them, Trent jumped, and he broke the kiss without retreating, breath coming in heavy pants.

“Stop,” he whispered, which was clearly contrary to his wishes. “Please.”

Ciaran pulled away from him with a slight frown, though he was relieved to lie on his back again instead of pressing on his injured arm. Trent’s hand held his with a pleading grip. Ciaran reached out for him, running his fingers lightly through the younger man’s hair and letting his hand rest on his neck.

“What’s the matter?”

“I’m sure that this isn’t such a big deal to you,” Trent murmured. “The…sex. But I can’t just…this is life-changing for me.” He glared up at the fairy as soon as he opened his mouth. “Shut up. No dick jokes.” He sighed. “I mean, if I do this with you—not just sex, but everything—then my father will kick me out. I won’t have anywhere to go. Something like that…it has to be because I’ve decided, and not because I just got carried away and slept with you. I know that doesn’t make sense.”

Ciaran smiled at him and tilted his head to catch Trent’s eyes. “You are a tender thing,” he chuckled, earning himself a spiteful frown. “Fine.” He leaned close and pressed a long, lingering kiss to the other man’s lips. “We’ll go slow.”

Trent sat up, keeping the blanket around his hips, and he looked down at the fairy in his bed with a quiet sigh. “I didn’t think I’d be so sentimental about it,” he muttered.

“Well, you’re such a sentimental person,” Ciaran quipped, and Trent shoved a pillow over his face.

“I’m having a shower,” he said as he stood. “Alone. You stay in bed.”

“Slow sucks,” Ciaran called behind him as he shut the bathroom door.

Trent knew that if he lingered under the hot water, his mind would wander, so he scrubbed himself as quickly as possible and wrapped the towel around his waist to keep decent until he could step into his closet. It all felt too surreal. He was half convinced that he would wake up soon, and his entire yesterday would be a lie. He only hoped that the police had actually been able to catch his kidnapper—the man hadn’t shown up at Trent’s door in the middle of the night, so that was something, at least.

Ciaran was watching him from the bed when he emerged from his closet, and Trent could practically feel the fairy’s eyes on him as he buttoned his shirt.

“So what happens?” Trent asked, finally looking over at Ciaran as he fastened the last button. “If we’re…together. If that’s what we’re doing. Is that what we’re doing? Shut up,” he added before the other man could even speak. “Never mind.”

“Do you fret this much about everything? Is this just my special peek into your running inner monologue, darling?”

“Don’t call me—I don’t fret ,” Trent insisted. “I just want to know what to expect.” He sighed. “I don’t know what you expect. From me.”

“I expect that you’ll fret and fuss for another day or so, and then you’ll give in and finally let me ravish you properly.”

Trent frowned at him. “I didn’t think it was just about sex.”

“Of course not,” Ciaran laughed, “but we’ve gotten the difficult bit out of the way, haven’t we? Feelings are complicated; sex is simple.”

“It isn’t simple to me.”

“Come a little closer and I’ll explain it to you.”

“I’m serious!” Trent snapped. He hesitated and bit his cheek. “I haven’t ever—” He didn’t want to finish the thought. Ciaran would definitely laugh at him. The fairy was—supposedly—four thousand years old; his sexual history would probably be incomprehensible to someone like Trent, whose entire experience consisted of rushed, fevered touches and awkward kissing after school.

Ciaran sat up in the bed with a deadly serious look on his face. “You haven’t ever what?”

“Shut up. ”

“You haven’t ever what?”

“Nothing.”

“Haven’t ever what, Trent?”

“I haven’t ever had sex!” he finally snapped, his face burning red.

Ciaran let out a single laugh and then covered his mouth to stifle it. When Trent scowled at him, he said, “No no, that’s amazing.” He let his hands drop back to his lap and looked across at the younger man with a predatory smile. “That means you’re all mine.”

Trent’s stomach tightened at the fairy’s low voice, and he took a small step backward out of instinct. “You said we’d go slow,” He reminded him, only slightly wary.

“Oh, I’ll go so slow you won’t be able to stand it,” Ciaran promised.

“I was trying to ask you a serious question.”

“Well you can’t lead with ‘I’m a virgin’ and expect me to keep paying attention,” Ciaran chuckled.

Trent gave a short huff, feeling a flush in his cheeks as the fairy spoke the word he’d been trying to avoid. “It’s not like I’ve never done anything,” he objected in a grumbling voice.

“I’m sure. I was there for our interlude on the couch, remember?” He perked up slightly. “Was that your first blowjob, in the shower?”

“What—no,” Trent sighed, and Ciaran seemed slightly deflated by the response. “Look, I’m just trying to ask you—what this means. Aside from sex. I know it’s all easy for you, but you aren’t the one who’s going to have to tell my father that I’m giving up his money and most likely having to quit school and be homeless.”

Ciaran’s face softened slightly. “You think I won’t be standing right beside you when you tell him that?”

Trent paused, the other man’s words causing an uncomfortable throb in his chest. “I hadn’t…thought about it.”

“You aren’t alone, Trent.” Ciaran pulled himself out of the bed, though it was clearly difficult for him, and he stepped over to the younger man and took both of his hands in his. “That’s what this means.”

Trent looked down at him and gave a quiet sigh. “You aren’t wearing any pants.”

Ciaran leaned his head on the other man’s chest. “I took them off while you were in the bathroom. It was hot. ”

Trent smiled at the fairy’s soft weight against his chest. “Get back in bed. You’re burning up.”

“You aren’t going anywhere, are you?”

“No. I’m not going anywhere.”

Ciaran nodded and let Trent guide him back to the bed, then burrowed under the covers like a child. Trent sat beside him to check the wounds on his arm and stomach. The old injury seemed to have been reinvigorated by the new infection—the bruising looked darker than it had before. The fresh cut had almost sealed, but the spiderweb of black veins was troubling. Trent looked up at Ciaran’s drowsy face, slightly flushed and beginning to show dark circles under his eyes.

“Are you…going to be all right?” Trent asked as he pulled the blanket back up over him.

“I’ll be fine,” Ciaran assured him, though his eyes were already closing. “You just got me a bit worked up with all this virgin talk.” He smiled despite Trent’s sigh. “I am going to absolutely ruin you,” he promised. It was slightly harder to be embarrassed when the words were half-mumbled into a pillow.

“Shut up and go to sleep,” Trent said as gently as he could manage. When Ciaran was still, Trent leaned over to check the clock on the night stand. He should have been getting ready to go to class. There wasn’t any point anymore, was there? He’d never really cared about banking in the first place—it was just to make his father happy. His father wasn’t going to be happy about anything anymore.

Trent stood up from the bed with as little jostling as he could, and he moved into the living room and pulled the door shut behind him to let Ciaran sleep. He looked at his phone, abandoned on the kitchen counter, and he felt a strange churning in his stomach that was somewhere between anxiety and excitement. The worst possible end scenario was that he told his father to screw himself and then it didn’t work out with Ciaran—he’d be alone on the street. If that happened, would he go back? Would he apologize to his father on hands and knees, beg his forgiveness, and have a wife after all? He couldn’t imagine caring what else happened to him if Ciaran decided he was a mistake.

He shook his head as he leaned his hands on the kitchen island, staring down at his phone. He felt like a coward. It was the right thing to do to stand up to his father, even if Ciaran had never existed. He should stand on principle and be strong. Maybe someday he would make his own YouTube video about how it got better. Maybe it never would get any better. Trent put his elbows on the counter and let his head rest in his hands.

He had already decided. He had seen the warm smile on Ciaran’s face and felt it in the pit of his stomach when the fairy softly whispered to him. If he was ever going to take a risk on anything, it had to be this. This had to be worth it.

Trent picked up his phone and unlocked the screen, then scrolled through his contacts to his mother’s phone number. He had never spoken to her about that day. When he had tried to explain, she shut him out, practically plugging her ears rather than have to listen to him. His father had informed him repeatedly how much he was upsetting her, but she would never talk about it herself. His infrequent phone calls with her were the usual superficial pleasantries—she asked about his school, if he was making many friends, if he was getting enough to eat and had enough money—but she never asked him about his “problem” the way his father did, as though it was an illness he was having a particularly slow recovery from.

He touched her number and lifted the phone to his ear to listen to the ring. He fully expected to get her voice mail like he did nine out of ten times he called her, but she picked up on the second ring. She worked for HSBC just like his father did and had just as little free time, but it was late evening in Hong Kong now.

“Mou chan,” he started, but she cut him off with rapid Cantonese.

“Yunxiang, what is going on? Your father called me; aiya, he was so upset! What did you say to him?”

Trent sighed. His mother always called him by his middle name; what she called his “real” name. She was much more attached to Hong Kong than he and his father were; her English was still spotty and she had protested him staying in Canada for university. She was the reason he had spent every summer as a child back in Hong Kong, until he was old enough to stay home by himself. Whenever he had visited as a teenager, it had been because she prodded at him for weeks on end and claimed that he was losing his culture .

“We had an eventful visit,” he answered her in Cantonese. “He didn’t tell you what happened?”

“He was so pleased when I spoke to him before. He said you had a girlfriend! But then yesterday he calls and says that it isn’t true and that you’ve been lying to him? What is going on?”

“Mou chan, I did…meet someone,” he began carefully. “But it isn’t like he thinks.”

She was silent for a moment. “What is it like?”

“I told him the truth. He wants me to be this person that he thinks I should be, and I’ve tried, mou chan—I’ve really tried—but I can’t. I can’t be that person. I can’t fake it and I don’t want to. I know you don’t want to talk about it, but—”

“Aiya,” his mother sighed. “You told your father these things?”

“Yeah.”

“And what did he say?”

Trent hesitated. “He basically told me that if I didn’t fall in line, he’d cut me off.”

“And is that what you want?”

“Of course not, but—”

“Yunxiang, you must have known this would make your life harder. You must have known from the moment you realized it about yourself.” She paused. “You said you met someone. Is that why there’s all this talk all of a sudden?” Trent didn’t answer right away. “I thought so. And this person, they’re going to support you if your father makes you homeless?”

He didn’t want to tell her that technically his someone was homeless too. “I just can’t lie anymore, mou chan. If he’s going to kick me out, then fine. I’ll manage.” He sounded braver than he felt.

“You should let him overlook this,” she pressed. “If you insist on throwing it in his face, you really will be homeless.”

“Throwing it in his face? When would he even be here to see anything? I could be giving blowjobs in the street for as much as he’s here.”

“Aiya, watch your mouth!”

Trent sighed and leaned against the counter. “I’m going to tell him. I’m going to tell him that I’m gay and that’s not changing, that I met someone and I want to be with him and it doesn’t matter what dad thinks. It doesn’t matter what you think, either.” He waited for the barrage of noise telling him to reconsider, but it didn’t come.

A long silence passed between them before his mother asked quietly, “What’s his name?”

Trent was almost too stunned to answer. “Ciaran,” he finally said.

“He’s not Chinese?”

He laughed softly despite himself. “No, he’s not. He’s…he’s Irish.”

She let out a faint sigh through the telephone. “And you’re sure about this. This is what you want to do?”

“Yeah. It is.”

“Make sure you empty your bank account. Before you talk to your father. I’ll put some extra in for you. And take whatever you need from the apartment. Will your Irish friend have a place for you to stay?”

He glanced over at the bedroom door. Ciaran was in no condition to be out on the street, especially when that hunter could still be loose. “Yeah,” he lied. “I just…we need a few days.”

“Warn me, okay? And let me know where you’re going.”

Trent frowned. “Mou chan…why are you doing this? After that—after that time, I figured you…felt the same way dad did. You were crying, but you would never let me talk to you.”

“Yunxiang,” she answered quietly, “I cried because I knew what it would mean for you. I knew this day would come. I didn’t want to face it. If you cannot pretend, if you cannot put this aside, then this is the way it has to be. I don’t understand you when you say it’s who you are. I will never understand, and I can’t stop your father. But you are my son. So no matter what he says, if you are ever hopeless, don’t think I’ve forgotten you. You can always ask me for help.”

Trent couldn’t quite make his voice work. His mother wasn’t angry at him. She didn’t hate him. She was offering her support, in a weird, dysfunctional way. As small a gesture as it was, it lifted a weight that had settled on his shoulders since that day.

“Thanks, mou chan,” he said at last. “I’ll let you know before I leave.”

He heard her take a single deep breath. “Okay. Well, I hope your Irish friend is worth all this trouble.”

“Me too,” he admitted softly. She made him promise once more to take whatever he needed when he left the apartment, and then he ended the call, dropping his phone back to the counter with a short sigh.

Trent checked in on Ciaran more often than was really necessary; he tried to distract himself by cooking lunch, preparing a disgustingly sweet meal for when the fairy woke up, and gathering up his textbooks to count how much he would be able to get by selling them back. He was anxious for Ciaran to recover, but just as hesitant at the thought of leaving behind his home and his support system. With Ciaran in his arms last night, everything had seemed perfect and simple, but in the light of day, it was a little more difficult to let go of his doubts. Ciaran had told him before that he was transient; could he trust the fairy not to lose interest in him and leave him stranded and penniless in some unfamiliar place?

He stood from the sofa where he had stacked his books and stepped over to the bedroom door, cracking it quietly to look in on Ciaran’s sleeping form under the blanket. There was no point in asking questions like that anymore. Ciaran had come for him. He had put himself right in the hunter’s hands when it would have been easier to run, and now he was sleeping peacefully and trusting Trent to take care of him. He slipped into the room and sat at the edge of the bed, his hand moving automatically to touch the fairy’s face to test his fever.

Ciaran stirred at the touch, and his green eyes found Trent’s frowning face. Trent could feel the tightness in his chest unraveling as he watched the slow smile on the fairy’s lips. No more questions. When Ciaran smiled at him, he didn’t want to ask them anymore. Trent held Ciaran’s cheek to tilt his head and leaned over him, pressing a long, earnest kiss to his lips. He wasn’t going to run anymore.