Zale

"This is good, right?" Fen asked sleepily.

"Mm?"

"That Kyra's soul mate is mer. And royal. And from a family her dad approves of."

Fen made the situation sound ideal, but my mind swam with all the ways this was actually more complicated. There was a reason her parents had tried to arrange for Kyra to marry the younger brother and not their heir. If Kyra and Castiel were to be together, one of them would have to abdicate their position. It wasn't quite as bad as my situation, where I was the only person in the direct line of ascension. Both had younger siblings who were technically qualified, but neither of them seemed particularly suited to rule. Astrea lived in horror of the notion and Benny was... well, Benny.

But it had been a long night and I really didn't want to get into all of that. "It's good," I assured him. Because it could have been so much worse. At least their countries were allies. At least he was in the same social class as her. At least he seemed like someone with a backbone, someone who could match Euripides venom for venom.

"Good," Fen sighed happily. He pressed his lips to my neck and I nuzzled my cheek against the top of his head. We were still in the theater, dressed in our formalwear and laying in the dark across one of the long, plush seats. Astrea was snoring from a few feet away and there was something precious about this moment. I was exhausted, but I wasn't ready to let it go.

"Fen?" I whispered.

"Yeah?"

"Will you stay tonight?" I asked.

His head snapped up. "What?"

"I just want to hold you. Stay with me?"

His answer was teleporting us into my bed. Damn, I loved his magic. It was tempting to sink into sleep just like this, but I'd regret it in the morning if I didn't brush my teeth or change my clothes. I reluctantly extracted myself from the tangle of his arms and pushed a hand through my hair.

"Let me get you a toothbrush and something to wear."

"I can just go brush my teeth and change at home," Fen pointed out. I snatched his arm before he could leave.

"Stay," I protested. It was stupid and I probably should have just let him go, but for some reason, I was reluctant to have him leave even for a minute.

Fen looked up and I saw his confusion, but he didn't press me. He just smiled a little and said, "Okay."

I felt self-conscious as I gathered what he would need, like I had revealed too much of myself. Or maybe it was just the way Fen's eyes followed me around the room that had me hyper-aware of my every movement. Perhaps it was that this was unfamiliar territory for us. I wasn't sure, and it didn't really matter what the reason was. What mattered was that I felt exposed and raw.

I handed Fen a stack of clothes and a toothbrush, and we took turns using the bathroom and changing. As I waited for him in bed, I thought about how different this felt from when Harlow used to stay the night. Harlow had never been here. In fact, this was the first time I'd ever had anyone stay over in the castle. It felt like a bigger step than if we were back at the school. This place was more my home than anywhere else ever had been, so maybe that shouldn't have been surprising.

Once we were back in bed, Fen tucked himself back against my side and I relaxed into him. It was getting easier all the time to let Fen into my life. Being with him was effortless when I wasn't standing in my own way.

"Zale?" Fen's voice was soft in the darkness, and I could just make out his features. His eyes glinted gently, and I wondered if they were always just a little bit lit up.

"Yes?"

"Who's that man? The one in your photos?"

Just like that, I felt cold. Why did he have to ask about that now, when we were settled in and when things were so good? I didn't want to talk about it tonight. I wasn't sure I'd want to talk about it ever.

Only, as the initial denial died down, rationality descended on me again. It wasn't surprising Fen would want to know. It was only surprising he'd waited this long to ask. And he deserved answers. Did I want to give them late at night after the grueling evening we had? No. Of course not. But this conversation would suck no matter when we had it. Might as well get it over with.

"His name was Harlow."

"Was?" Fen whispered.

"Was." I swallowed the lump in my throat that was already forming. Why wasn't it getting easier to tell this story? I had barely been able to explain Harlow and what happened to him to my therapist, and now I felt just as wretched at the prospect of going through it again for Fen. "He died last year."

Had it already been so long? I still didn't understand it. I didn't understand how one day, Harlow could be with me and the next, he could be gone with the world going on just the same as it ever had. As though it hadn't lost anything. As though it wasn't a darker place without him.

It made no sense at all.

"Oh. And he was important to you?"

My arms tightened around Fen. I didn't want to hurt him, but I couldn't manage to restrain the anguish in my tone when I said, "He was everything."

My eyes watered, so I squeezed them shut. My throat worked and I could already feel my sinuses stuffing up. Why was it that biology punished you for sorrow? As if feeling such grief wasn't hard enough without your body betraying you, too.

Fen kissed my cheek and I felt his fingers in my hair, combing through it and massaging my scalp. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

And his gentle words, so full of understanding, sent the tears pouring down my cheeks.

When I thought I could speak again, I said, "It was a condition he had since birth. Cystic fibrosis. We always knew our time was limited."

My throat tightened again as I choked back another wave of grief. I usually did such a good job not thinking about it, but it was impossible not to relive the pain of his death when I talked about it. The rush of loving him, the constant agony of knowing just how little time we might have.

"He should have had longer," I said. And that was part of what hurt so badly. The life expectancy for someone with cystic fibrosis was in the early forties, and improving as science improved. Harlow never saw thirty. I had been counting on that extra decade. "He got pneumonia. His lungs couldn't take it."

"I'm sorry," Fen said again, and I could hear how truly saddened he was. In fact, I would have sworn he could feel my grief. Not grief on my behalf, not sadness that I was sad. I felt him in that way I sometimes did, with a sense I couldn't grasp. And his sorrow was just as real as if he had experienced the loss, himself.

He didn't say anything else, and that was okay. Words couldn't make this better, and it was enough that he held me as firmly as he did, and that he was so truly with me in body, mind, and emotion. There was a comfort in not being alone in your grief. In someone else feeling it just as keenly as you did.

We laid there in the darkness holding each other for a long time. Long enough that the grief eased back into the familiar ache that had become a constant companion since Harlow's passing. Long enough that Fen had somehow collapsed on top of me, his whole body completely free of tension as he played with the collar of my shirt.

"I probably should have waited to ask until morning," he said quietly. "I kept us up late."

I laughed, and the motion jostled him. Still, he remained completely relaxed against me. "Don't worry about it." Maybe it was easier to talk about these things in the darkness, anyway.

I was a little surprised Fen hadn't pressed for additional details. I would want to know if I were him. Above it all, I would want some kind of reassurance. Instead, he let me share as much as I wanted and didn't push for more.

Something inside me quaked. It wasn't physical, but I was just as shaken as if it had been. If I had to describe the sensation, I would have said the disruption was in my soul, in a part of myself I never expected to sense. The source quivered and grew, and I clutched Fen to myself instinctively as if he was a life preserver.

When the feeling faded away, I wasn't the same. Something integral to my very self had changed. I could feel Fen now, could feel him keenly. He still felt a deep grief, but it was quickly being overtaken by giddiness that I knew he was trying to contain. He nuzzled his face into my chest and wiggled happily.

"Fen?" I whispered.

"I didn't do anything!" he said defensively.

This was another remnant of my dickishness when we first met. I wasn't completely clueless about what had just happened. What I had just felt was the bond between us, the one Fen had told me I would start to feel over time as we grew closer. I knew that, and I wasn't about to accuse him of anything... but that had been my first instinct when we were starting to grow acquainted, and my behavior had left its mark on his psyche in a way that made me feel a little sick.

I smoothed down his hair and sat up, then pulled him gently back against myself. "Ssh, I know. It's okay."

And I could feel the way Fen relaxed under my ministrations with that new sense. "Is this permanent?" I wondered aloud. Would I always feel him so keenly now? And had he always felt me this way?

Fen hesitated, but I waited while his nerves calmed and he was ready to talk again. If I hadn't already felt bad about how I treated him in our early days, this would have done it. "Yes," he finally whispered, and it took me a moment to recall my original question. "I can turn it off for you if you want, though."

And I felt just how much it hurt Fen to even say those words. Even if that's what I had wanted, I couldn't have taken Fen's offer when I knew what it cost him to make it. But it wasn't. "That's not what I want."

He looked up at me, his eyes full of vulnerability. "Really?"

"Do I feel uncertain? Or like I'm lying?" I asked pointedly.

He released a breath and smiled shakily. "No."

"Well, there you go."

He leaned back against me and we settled again.

"Why did this happen now?" I asked.

"I'm not sure," Fen said. "Usually, bonds grow when people are feeling really close and connected. That wasn't the kind of conversation I would expect it to happen during."

Yeah, it probably was a little strange for us to grow closer when talking about the other man I had loved... but as Fen's breathing evened out with sleep, I lay awake reflecting on everything that had just happened and it started to make sense to me.

Fen had been entirely focused on me, I knew that much. And something about sharing your grief with someone does bring you closer together. How could I not feel more connected to him at a time like that?

I slid down so I was laying with Fen and clutched him against myself.

He's perfect, I thought. The only thing he lacked was confidence in himself. Euripides' spiteful words came back to me and it almost seemed funny that he could be so blind. He didn't think Fen was fit for polite company; I knew the truth. "Polite company" wasn't good enough for Fen. Neither was I. In a moment of self-indulgence, I accepted that. It was okay that Fen was too good for me because he deserved to have what he wanted, and somehow – miraculously – that was me.

It felt so good having him here with me like this, lying in my bed at night wrapped up in my arms. My bed had always felt like a haven to me, but I realized something had shifted. What was so comfortable wasn't that I was in my bed... it was that Fen was here.

Had I ever doubted that I loved him? It seemed laughable now. How could I not?

The realization that, somewhere along the way, I had fallen in love with Fen set my mind racing. I needed him with me, and still he hadn't committed to moving in with me when the school year ended. I needed to find a way to convince him. Something was hanging him up. I would find it, and I would fix it. That was about as far as my planning got before I joined Fen in slumber.