A pause.
"Then why?"
Tav watched him steadily.
"Because I want to," he said. "That's different from need."
Alistair looked at him.
Then he kissed him again, and this time the patience gave way to something that had more heat in it — Alistair's hands moving with the focused intent he had decided to be direct, and Tav responding with the reciprocal directness.
They moved to the low couch, then the rug in front of the fire, it was warmer and had the considerable advantage of more space. The storm continued outside with cheerful indifference. The fire was hot and the room had enclosed warmth that felt, to Tav, like a concept he had not previously had available to him.
He learned Alistair again in the firelight.
Found the things that made him quiet and the things that made him anything but, and attended to both with the same thorough focus, and Alistair attended to him in kind — equally specific, equally unhurried, with the pleasure of someone who had found something worth the attention.
He had always been precise. Here, precision meant attending to every response and using the information — the sharp intake of breath when his mouth found the line ofAlistair's hip, the way his hands gripped when Tav took his time, the low broken sound he made when Tav's attention moved exactly where it needed to. The sound was nothing like his public register. Raw and unmanaged and entirely honest.
Tav was methodical about producing it again.
"You're very—" Alistair said, at some point, his voice rough and low and not organized.
"Thorough," Tav said. "You've mentioned it."
"It bears—" He stopped. Tav kissed the hollow of his throat and he stopped making complete sentences for a while.
Afterward they lay in front of the fire.
Alistair was on his back with one arm over his eyes — the same position he'd taken, Tav recalled, in the apartment. The position of someone allowing themselves to simply be, without management. Tav was on his side looking at him.
The fire crackled softly. The storm was no less present but had acquired the sustained sound of weather that had made its point and continued making it. After a while Alistair moved his arm and looked at Tav.
"Hi," he said.
"Hi," Tav said.
"How's the shoulder?"
"Still manageable."
"You'd say that if it was on fire."
"I'd manage it."
Alistair made the sound that was close to a laugh. He turned onto his side and they were face-to face in the firelight, close, and his expression had the honest version — no layers, nothing managed, just him.
"This," he said quietly.
"Yes," Tav said.
"This is the thing." He studied Tav with the amber eyes. "Not the Protocol and not Ablation and not—" "Just this. Is what I mean."
Tav found his face.
Then he reached out and touched his face — the scar, the jaw, the warmth of him — with the same deliberateness that Alistair had said he noticed. Because it was deliberate. Everything Tav did in this direction was deliberate, was chosen, was exactly as intended as it appeared.
"I know," Tav said. "Me too."
