Episode 80: Post Job Fair (Acheron)

Ach stretched his back out and watched Zero fold up the last pieces of his tent he’d done medical work under.

It had been an afternoon. It wasn’t exactly hot, it was just sticky and the air smelled putrid and Ach…

Ach was stressed. He hadn’t given that much thought to Sylem’s poor. He assumed they were like the Dells’ poor – resources available, support available, a kingdom-wide effort to help them be more established, more capable, more wealthy.

Really, there was no excuse for poverty. If someone in the Dells was hungry, at this point, it was either laziness or bad planning. And even then, they’d still get help from the Dragon palace, just by asking.

Here, these people didn’t just have no money, they had no resources, no means of getting money, no one willing to hire or feed them. The few questions he’d asked Spence, and Spence’s new angry brother, over the course of the afternoon had painted a devastating and alarming picture:

There were way more resources available to the poor in Sylem than the impoverished believed. There were way more trust issues between the poor and the wealthy in Sylem than the wealthy believed.

It would go like this.

Spence: But my dad runs a free clinic.
Rhyss: What does he do there though? Why is it so free? What’s the real price?
Spence: ……….He helps people? Because they need help?

Rhyss: What does he do with their genetic samples he collects? Does he sell them? Is that why you’re so rich?
Spence: I don’t think he really checks genetic samples. Sometimes he checks the blood for diseases or mineral deficiencies, but…
Rhyss: Yeah? What does he do with the blood once he’s done with it?

And on and on and on. Rhyss was aggressively suspicious of everything, Spence was aggressively calm about everything. He didn’t feel like either of them was making any progress with the other, but then when they were done Rhyss went over and talked to Zero and helped him fold up the tent.

So there was that.

Spence wrapped his arms around Ach from behind. He kissed Ach’s cheek. “Ready for our date?” he asked.

“What?”

Ach wanted to go home and flop on the floor and detox his body from all the people he interacted with today. He wanted to sit in a familiar apartment with all his familiar books and people, and let all the noise and strangers and smell seep from his pores.

“I arranged for an extra few hours to do a date thing with you. It’s no big deal, I just have been planning it all day,” Spence teased. “Nell helped.” He kissed Ach’s cheek again.

A real date, with no kids?

It meant holding in all the people-stress longer, but it meant alone time with Spence.

“Okay,” he agreed. “Yeah.”

Spence transported them back to the Dells, to the area where the military lived and worked and trained.

He took Ach’s hand and led him into the forge and foundry area. It was hot and dark. “I thought that you may want to do something with your fire. We don’t get to enough.”

What Ach wanted to do with his fire, right now, was see how much he and Spence could light up a room.

But he wanted this too, whatever this surprise was.

The man who ran the foundry and the forge, Eben, nodded to them.

Ach didn’t get why men nodded to each other. What was wrong with saying hi? Bentley was a nodder. He suspected Niels was too, and Ach just wasn’t in on the coded language that triggered head-nodding from Niels.

“Good evening, Prince Acheron, Spence,” Eben said.

When they got married, Spence would be a prince too. The thought sent a happy shiver through Acheron. Prince Spence.

He looked around the forge. There weren’t many forged weapons in here. They must go elsewhere once they were made.

Of course they went elsewhere, they went to the armory.

He knew how to get there. It wasn’t near where the soldiers were, it was in the palace down near the dungeon. In all honesty, there were three armories. There probably was a fourth one near the soldiers. The one he was used to probably just held fancy stuff for the royal family. There were more utilitarian armories farther into the structure of the palace and one along the escape route to the rift.

The escape route to the rift could be accessed through the palace dungeons, and it let out in a part of the rift that was equidistant to the dwarven stronghold in the mountain and the selkie temple on the bay. It was also an easy spot for dragons to land and concealed behind a stand of pines.

Spence was rubbing his back.

Ach blushed. He’d gotten distracted again. He hated when he got lost in thoughts, especially when they weren’t even thoughts he cared about.

“He’s going to show us how to do it,” Spence told him.

“Swords?” Ach clarified, looking around. He saw two plain swords on the bench. “We’re going to make our own?”

“Eben melted ours together and started new ones, yeah.”

Ach blushed even more. This was a profoundly erotic thing. He tried to think of somewhere to look that wouldn’t betray his thoughts, and landed on a spiderweb in the corner.

Eben held up a bunch of weird-looking heavy clothes and put on a pair of gloves and a face shield too. “This is the protective gear neither of you should need, but if you want it go ahead.”

Spence needed it too, he wasn’t Dragon. Ach opened his mouth to protest and then saw that Spence was relaxed. Ach watched in silence as he reached for his sword and started to heat it with his fire.

Ach loved Spence’s fire. Even if he had it because of Talise and not because of Ach, he loved it. It made Spence strong and it meant intimacy could be unrestrained.

“That fire will need to be hot enough that the sword loses its magnetism,” Eben warned, “or it won’t harden right.”

Hot. That was as hot as lava.

He set to work with the second sword, standing beside Spence and adding his own heat. When he worked, Ach liked to let his fire flow and melt into things, which had always felt subtle to him, but Spence’s was so subtle that Ach only noticed the shift if he was looking for it.

When Eben decided the swords were hot enough, he had Ach and Spence each submerge theirs in water, which produced a ton of steam and an intense swish-sizzle sound for a minute. Then he gave them a stack of coarse paper and told them to clean the blades, working from most coarse to finest-grain.

They sat there, polishing their swords, and Ach tried not to laugh.

Niels said there was no point in making a joke when it was obvious and easy. Making jokes was supposed to be about pointing out something that everyone else couldn’t see.

So, bright red, Ach didn’t do anything more than make eye contact with Spence while they worked.

“So?” Spence asked. He leaned and kissed Ach’s cheek.

“So.” No, he wouldn’t make the joke. Spence was probably thinking it already anyway. “This was a good idea.”

They talked about everything while they worked – the job fair, Spence’s new brother, Ach’s parents’ divorce, the kids and what they worried about with each of them, what they hoped for.

Before Ach knew it, a couple of hours had gone by and their swords shone.

“Those look pretty good,” Eben said, coming over. He’d been working on other swords, to give them privacy, but now he held his hands out for theirs. “I’ll soften these and get them cleaned up for you. They’ll be ready by morning.”

“Soften?” Ach asked.

“I heat them up again in the fire,” Eben explained, “not as hot. I work them, and put them in the water again. If I don’t do that, they’ll shatter in a battle.”

Like most of the people in and around the palace, Eben had probably been in the war. He’d probably known Ach’s dad.

Someday, Ach was determined, he was going to feel good enough to deserve to be his dad’s son. The oldest male heir of someone who would die for kingdom and family.

As it stood right now, his idea of a battle loosely involved a few video game experiences, an aerial view of himself with a sword and a little red circle around him on the ground.

“Thank you, Eben,” Spence said.

“Yeah, thanks!” Ach handed Eben his sword, and left the forge just behind Spence.

As soon as they were outside, in the dimly-lit training grounds, Spence spun Ach toward him and kissed him.

This was a different heat, hotter than the swords. Spence lost his subtlety and Ach laughed a little at that transition.

“Do you want to get a fresh can of piroulines before we go up to the chaos?” Spence suggested. He reached for Ach’s hand, and they held hands while they walked. Spence tapped his fingers lightly against Ach’s and passed sparks between them.

“Piroulines?” Ach joked, incredulous. After all that work in the forge, he could probably eat an entire warehouse of Piroulines. Maybe two.

“Chocolate cake?” Spence suggested, playful. “Maybe a chocolate piroulines cake?”

If there was something like that, it had to be one of the most delicious things ever made in a kitchen. “Yes,” Ach said.

“I’ll never get tired of hearing that word,” Spence said. He kissed Ach again, with more fervor and this time it was Ach pushing for more, wanting more.

Eventually, Spence broke away and they resumed their walk to the kitchen.

While they walked, Ach worried.

Once upon a time, long ago, after a war, his mom had said yes to his dad. It was a word every couple said to each other.

And now his parents were divorced. They hadn’t seen that coming. No one went into a marriage intending to divorce in a few years. Well, probably no one, but fortune-hunters didn’t count because the divorce didn’t bother them.

Ach looked at Spence casually, out of the corner of his eye. His jawline, his stubble, the familiar cowlick that stood out just above his ear, the serious way he walked…

Ach couldn’t imagine a time he would ever say no to Spence, turn his back on Spence and want a life without him in it.

He imagined most engaged couples felt that way.

So what happened? Life. Life happened, and it changed people, and sometimes it pushed them together and sometimes it pulled them apart.

He didn’t want life to pull him and Spence apart.

He made a decision, no matter what, to stand by their marriage. It felt like a naive promise to himself.

In the kitchen, Spence pulled a round layer cake out of the refrigerator and set it on the table.

Ach laughed again. Spence knew this cake was here the whole time.

It was frosted in chocolate with pirouline crumbs sprinkled on top, and in flame-colored letters someone had written, “Happy Pavish, Ach and Spence.”

Nell. Nell must have done this.

“Does it explode?” Ach asked, a little wary. Nell’s surprises were usually more surprising than they seemed at first glance.

“Your mom made it,” Spence said.

Ach’s gut dropped a little. His mom baked when she was stressed. It was like eating her misery…

“She’s been making chocolate things,” Spence continued, “with whatever candy and snacks she can find since the breakup.”

“And the human,” Ach added.

He didn’t get the human at all. Why did she want a little girl with no twin, someone who couldn’t be an heir, someone whose body was weak? What was the appeal, outside of the possibility that his mom just liked her personality?

“Yeah,” Spence agreed. “So I put in a request. I love you, Ach. Thanks for doing all this Sylem stuff with me.”

It was good. It was the first time in his life that he understood maybe why his dad had chosen to die instead of being his dad. The difference between the Dells and Sylem was clear as day. If his dad had died to give that to the Dells, then Ach understood.

“I think you’re doing something good,” he told Spence. He shifted against the counter, closer to Spence. “So,” he said.

He wondered about the odds, this late at night, of someone wandering into the kitchen for a snack.

“I still love you,” Spence said. He used the serving knife to smear the words on the top of the cake. “For the kids too?” he suggested.

“Can we sneak home, or will they be there already?” Most nights they ended up with kids in their bed, so privacy was difficult to come by.

Spence picked up the cake on its plate. “They’ll want to see us, but we could be a few more minutes late.”

They went into the secret passage and held hands as they walked. Ach loved when this kind of tension lingered between them. The air felt electric and wanting, and he felt like he could sense the exact distance between his body and Spence’s.

All of those distances were too far, but they’d be in their bedroom soon. They could lock the door and no one would even need to know they were home.

Ach held open the passage door for Spence, since he had the cake, and followed.

“Daddy!” someone bellowed. Emma, excited, in their bedroom.

He was going to murder Talise. Somehow, he would manage it, even if she was unkillable.

Emma jumped up and down on their bed, where Ach had wanted to jump up and down with Spence alone. “We’re watching the doggy movie! Just like the doggies watch their doggy movie!”

They were, too. A movie about black and white dogs watching a movie about black and white dogs.

Ach had a headache behind his left eye.

“I like the black and white one,” Fort announced. He pointed to the screen, where there were several dozen black and white dogs.

Spence set the cake on the bedside table and hugged the army of kids that occupied their bed. While he did so, he met Ach’s eyes and mouthed the word sorry.

Ach shrugged. It was how it went. Someday, they wouldn’t have kids and they’d miss this.

Instead of getting frustrated, Ach smiled. “Who wants the smallest slice of cake?” he teased.

“I want the six smallest slices!” Jax demanded. He held his bare hands out like Ach was going to just give a toddler cake with no plate or silverware, in his own bedroom.

Ach laughed and hugged him instead. They needed plates and forks and napkins.

“What’s cake?” Olida asked.

She had been watching everything, a little wary.

Ach knew it was best to be patient with her so that she had time to adjust, but sometimes that was hard with him. He wanted her to be comfortable and she kept holding off.

“The best in the universe!” Emma told her.

Ach felt obligated to give a better explanation than that. Emma might have been right with her summary, but there was more to it than that. He grinned at Olida. “Cake is happiness made out of food.”

This wasn’t really what Ach had wanted out of the night, but sitting on their bed, nested against Spence with their children all over them, eating cake and watching a dog movie…it had an appeal.

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