Fraul, 19

In a few weeks he had gone from three steps to ten. He practiced in Kenneth’s house daily, where no one could see if he collapsed. He couldn’t spar with the brace on, which was his biggest regret so far.

Raru appeared like a phantom each night and left with the sunrise. Fraul looked forward to his visits. Within a few weeks, he could welcome Raru’s hunger. He had gotten sick of his body’s limits, but the body was kind and the limits soft.

Raru appeared on his doorstep that evening, and Fraul stood up and walked to the door. He was beaming like a child though he leaned on the doorway. He favored his right side heavily, and Raru ached to scoop him up but let him walk back to the couch and ease himself down.

The younger man crouched and worked at the buckles on the brace, negotiated it off, and grinned with delight when Fraul leaned back and took his weight. Raru devoured his neck, his collarbone.

“Okay?” he asked, and Fraul hushed him. He moved quicker, pushing clothes aside, making sure the door was closed, and he waited for any sign of pain. But he couldn’t tell what was pain and what was pleasure, and at some point he knew it had to hurt and he stopped.

“No.” Fraul’s voice broke, and Raru heard his longing and felt hot to his ears. His brow creased but he felt a hand pressing on the small of his back, so he breathed into Fraul’s neck and kept going. He was glad the walls were thick. Broken cries echoed off them and rebounded back to the couch. At some point they left the couch and Raru’s knees hit the stone floor, which gave him leverage, and still he hesitated. “Dammit, Raru,” Fraul said, and Raru remembered their fight. So he showed no mercy, and he kept Fraul’s gaze.

He collapsed on top of Fraul, who winced in his laughter.

“Are you all right?” Raru demanded, lifting his chin off Fraul’s chest. He felt cool hands in his hair and he relaxed again, eyes closed. Fraul’s voice was dreamy.

“I wish…”

“What?”

“I wish we could have a Tali. Is that strange?”

Raru turned his chin so that their gazes met. “I think about it sometimes,” he said.

“It is strange, isn’t it?”

“I’m sure we’re not the first to think it.”

Fraul smiled. Raru got off him and sat against the couch, and his head tipped back. He reached out and put a hand on the other man’s belly.

“When will you spar?” he asked, and Fraul rolled over and smiled.

“Soon,” he said, pushing himself up.

*

At first it seemed Fraul wouldn’t spar for ages. Raru wrestled with him, and none of these fights were very long.

Fraul struck up a low fever one day, and though he insisted he was fine, Raru wouldn’t fight him or fuck him. The fever abated, and all seemed well, and Raru gave in. Fraul’s appetite for pain had grown; he seemed not to know how to live without it.

So the younger man was troubled. He sat up and lit a pipe of tobacco and said heavily, “I don’t like hurting you.”

Fraul turned his head. He had almost been asleep, but at the troubled voice he lifted himself onto one elbow.

“What’s the alternative?” he yawned, and Raru sighed.

“I don’t know.”

“I’ll be fine.” Fraul flapped a hand. “Don’t worry about me.”

But he wasn’t. The fever came back with a vengeance, and Raru dared not leave him, since he slept at every turn. Raru felt that he himself had brought this on. He went to Heath and sat in the cabin come lunchtime, and said, “He’s not doing well.”

“Is he ever?” Heath asked.

“I mean…he’s not eating. He keeps acting like he’s fine. But he’s not. He won’t even come see you.”

“You just watch out for yourself. I forget what it’s like to worry about someone the way you do.”

“You mean, to love someone.”

Heath cast a dark look over his shoulder. “You keep that under wraps, Raru. Even in here.” He was putting together a pack. Raru caught his shoulder as he passed. Heath grunted, annoyed at being stopped, and turned to the other man like a bull.

“You were already going,” Raru said in wonder–Heath had been packing when he had come in.

“I’m a healer,” Iron growled. “It’s what I do.”

Raru smiled. “You two are the same.”

“Don’t you dare compare me to Dreaux. I am nothing like him.”

“I only meant,” Raru called as he left, “You can’t leave your place in the army.”

Heath paused, the words falling heavy on him, and he said, “Don’t leave the lamp burning,” as he closed the door.

He muttered to himself as he walked, nasty things, things about Raru and things about Alice.

“Can’t leave the army,” he said aloud, laughing, and a woman in town looked over. Heath scowled at her and knocked hard on Feira’s door. Being on this porch was strange to him–he remembered Kenneth’s late wife, disapproving always, Kenneth trying so hard to prove her wrong. Heath missed the old captains. He remembered Kenneth summiting Cheshire Peak on his own. He had done it, too, but he had lost a few toes. The healer smiled grimly as he remembered sawing them off, little blue pieces of corn. He looked behind him and his gaze traveled upward through the spine of land, to the peak and its coat of snow, where countless souls lay buried.

He heard the creak of wheels and the door opened. Fraul sat, coffee in-hand, smiling at him, looking like the fever had broken.

“Welcome,” he said, as Heath shouldered inside and dropped the pack.

“Do you know what that boy told me?” he asked.

“Who, Raru or Captain Tere?” Fraul smiled pleasantly, his face a little red, but he knew the answer already. He rolled to Feira’s kitchen where he had set up a little station for coffee. Other than the blanket on the couch, the house looked the same as it always had. Heath was momentarily distracted by some smell in the air.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“What?” Fraul seemed surprised, starting to pour his coffee. “Nothing.”

“Something smells sick.”

Fraul rolled his eyes. “I don’t smell, Heath.” He had that patient tone he always got when the other man insulted him. Heath shook his head but first accepted the coffee, and sat down on the chair beside the couch. “What did Raru say?” Fraul asked.

“Well, never mind that,” answered the short, bearlike captain, wanting to put it out of his head. “How are you doing?”

“Are you asking me as your charge or as your friend?”

“I dunno, dammit, but tell me what I’m smelling.”

Fraul took a long breath through his nose, sipped his coffee, looked elsewhere. The healer waited. Finally the other man said, “I think something’s wrong.”

“I knew it.”

“Yes, yes.”

“If you were still at the cabin, I could have figured this out earlier.”

“I’m not going to make either of us sleep on the floor.”

“Cots are cheap.” Heath pulled his chair up and said, “Finish your coffee and get on the couch.”

Fraul smiled. He loved this man. Meekly he took a sip of coffee and then, with Heath holding the chair still, he gripped the arm of the couch and rolled himself onto it. At the impact, sweat broke out on his face and he clenched his teeth. When he finally rolled onto his stomach, he remembered the red-hot needle, remembered laying on his stomach and staring at Raru’s boots.

Heath, having the same thoughts, said quietly, “I should have told you no. I shouldn’t have done it.”

“It helped for awhile,” Fraul muttered. Heath rolled up his shirt and his hands were warm and prodding, testing for the places where the body tensed. Fraul chewed his lip and tried valiantly to relax.

“It’s just inflamed. Everything’s inflamed,” Heath muttered. “What’ve you been doing?”

“Fighting.”

“You can’t do that. I told you not to do that.” The healer rolled the shirt back down. “You’re lucky it’s not swelling any more. But that’s why you’re feverish.” Fraul sat up. Heath sighed and drew something out of his pack. “I was working on something else, it’s going to look strange.” He gave a dry half-smile. “Fancy a corset?”

“I’ll wear a gown if it’ll help,” Fraul answered. Heath handed him the whale bone brace, which would encircle his ribcage. He took it. “All right.

“But don’t–spar. This is my advice to you as a healer. Don’t spar. Not yet. Give your body time. If it hurts, you’re doing something wrong.”

Fraul laughed. “I can’t just lay in bed all day.”

“I wish you would.” Heath watched the other man lift his arms and roll the shirt over his head. He said, “A few months ago you wouldn’t have been able to do that.”

“I know.” Fraul frowned.

“Just…” Heath sighed, casting his eyes outward. “Raru told me that neither of us could leave our places in the army. He’s right, too. And it made me think, on the way here…you have a place here. You don’t need to live in camp, or spar, or use a sword, to have a place here. You earned it.”

Fraul’s face was soft when Heath lowered his eyes to it. They both looked away.

“I do want to rest,” Fraul breathed. “I am sick of finding things to do.”

“Look, I’ll never say this again. But let Raru help you. He wants to.”

Fraul was silent. Heath passed him the whale bone brace and watched him buckle it. “It’s strange, you being in the family quarters,” he muttered.

The taller man’s lips tweaked. “It feels fine to me.”

“Long’s you know I can always find an extra cot.”

Fraul reached out his hand and Heath gripped it. “You know you’re my dear friend.” he said. Heath scoffed and concealed his face behind his coffee.