(no subject)
Swift was homesick.
Not that this was anything new. On average, he spent an hour a day being homesick - and that was on average. Depending on how his week was going, he spent whole days brooding about it; some days he didn't think about home at all. When he'd first gotten into camp he'd mostly worried about how things were going in his absence. Paperwork didn't get done without a governor to do it, and tensions were still high between hara who'd supported his father and hara who had just decided that they'd go along for the ride, as long as the Gelaming didn't get too nosy.
After a while, he learned not to worry about that. The paperwork wouldn't get done and the Varrs - sorry, Parasiel - were always spoiling for a fight, no matter who governed them; worrying wouldn't change a damned thing. Nowadays he just wondered what his family were doing. Whether Cobweb had forgotten to water the plants, whether Azriel was starting to walk on his own, whether Seel had finally cracked and murdered Cobweb. He remembered how quickly his own adolescence had gone, now that he thought about it, and wondered how old Tyson would be if - *when,* Swift, when - he finally got back.
The last thing he should do when he was homesick, he'd learned, was visit Cal. But he did anyway.
Cal looked annoyed, but that wasn't anything new, either. "What do you want?" he said before Swift could even sit down, taking his pencil out of his mouth and closing his notebook.
"Can I see what you're writing?" Swift asked.
Cal smiled. He had several kinds of smiles, and each kind had its own myriad subgroups. This was Condescending Smile, subgroup I wish a comet would fall out of the sky and land on this kid and get him out of my hair. "No."
"Why not?" Swift winced. That had come out a lot whinier than he'd intended. He tried again. "You've been writing in that thing ever since I met you. Aren't you finished - whatever it is you're working on by now?"
"You can't rush genius," said Cal, tossing his head. "I'm writing the great Megalithican novel. Besides, I keep adding more sex scenes, and those take a long time to write."
"Right," said Swift, breaking out his own secret weapon: Disarming Smile, subgroup You're avoiding the subject.
Cal parried easily with Condescending Smile, subgroup You're a fucking moron. "You can't rush those, you know. Those're the parts that people skip straight to."
Swift conceded defeat. "Of course, Cal. Do you mind if I eat my lunch here?"
"It's your cabin, isn't it?"
Yes, it was. Swift had been surprised when Cal'd accepted his invitation to stay with him, but then, he didn't quite understand how Cal had survived sleeping with human women for as long as he had. He seemed to view females as a completely separate, possibly hostile species. For his part, Swift liked them because they usually reminded him of Cobweb. He sat on down on an empty bunk across from Cal and spread out his lunch, stealing looks at Cal in between bites.
Cal had opened his notebook again and was writing furiously. He filled ten pages while Swift was still working on his sandwich. He turned another page, started to write something, paused. "So what do you want?" he asked, writing something else down.
"The pleasure of your company, what else?" Swift said around a mouthful.
Cal's mouth twitched a little. "The pleasure of my company," he repeated, snapping the notebook shut. "Well, I won't deny that I have a certain perverse charm, but if you really wanted someone to have a nice, enjoyable lunch with, you would have gone to see our dear Caeru."
"Your charm isn't perverse," said Swift, guiltily.
"I enjoy hurting people and most of our conversations make you end up with a certain look on your face, the one that says I just drowned your favorite puppy in the lake and you're thinking about joining it to end your misery. Yes, Swift, my charm is perverse. I like pain. Also," Cal said, looking at him thoughtfully, "you haven't tried to touch me once. Usually you'd be piling on the bed with me and getting crumbs all over me. Feeling vulnerable today, are we?"
"I didn't want to get my crumbs on you," Swift shot back.
"Yes, because you care *so* much about not making me angry. As a matter of fact, you usually avoid me as a whole. Look, I can pretend this is an alternate universe, too."
"I was homesick." Swift stuffed the last bite of his sandwich into his mouth and chewed it slowly, past the lump in his throat, glaring at Cal.
"Well, what a surprise, the baby misses its mommy. I'd call him for you, but the reception isn't very good here." Cal put his arms behind his head, crossing his ankles.
Swift took a deep breath. "Don't you ever get homesick?" he said.
It was a misstep and he knew it; the smile that Cal gave him was pure nastiness. "Here's what you're going to do, Swift," he said, closing his eyes. "You're going to leave. And you're going to get dessert from the mess hall. And you're going to share it with Caeru, and you two will giggle and simper and get to know each other better. And then you'll be insipidly cheerful for a couple of days and you'll leave me alone."
Swift didn't move. Cal opened his eyes, widened them, lifted a hand and wiggled it in a shooing motion, then pulled the covers over his head. "Good*bye,* brat," he said, voice muffled through the fabric.
Swift sighed and stood up. He tossed the remains of his lunch into a trash bin - no sense in littering - and stood over Cal's bed. His bed, actually. It had just taken a couple of days of Cal sleeping there for it to start smelling heavily of cigarettes, and for crumbs to gather in the cracks (Cal loved eating in bed). He bent down, grabbed the covers, yanked them off Cal's head.
Cal glared at him. Swift glared back. Cal crumbled first. "If you get that dessert," he said, "I will eat it all and I won't give you any and I won't simper, either. I have a strict no-simpering policy. It's kept my life on-track."
"Great," Swift said. "Remind me to start taking lessons from you, because your life is *so* obviously on the right track."
"Ouch." Cal's eyes widened a little. "That hurt."
"No, it didn't. You don't let anything hurt you."
"It's true," Cal said. "My defenses are impenetrable. Especially here at camp, what with the no-sex rule and all - "
"Shut up, Cal."
Cal shut up and Swift got into bed with him, kicking the covers down to the far end of the bed and scooting until one of his legs was lying over Cal's. The movement had hiked up Cal's pant leg, revealing a brown ankle; Swift's skin refused to tan, even in this heat, but Cal had always been naturally tanned. When he compared their arms, the darkness of Cal's wrist made Swift's seem whiter than usual. He almost didn't recognize it as being his.
Cal had lit a cigarette, and the cabin was beginning to fill with hazy smoke. "I hate that fucking no-sex rule," he said after a while.
"Me, too." Swift took his hand. Cal opened his mouth, then swallowed whatever he'd been going to say and settled for rolling his eyes expressively. "I love you, you know," Swift said.
"Yes," Cal said. "I'm aware."
"Good. Just checking."
"It's hard to miss. You get this vapid, doe-like look in your eyes sometimes and they get really soft, like you're about to cry. God, it's embarrassing when you get like that. I always look around to see if anyone's watching."
"It's your perverse charm," Swift said dryly. "I just can't help myself."
Cal smiled and patted his cheek. "Don't be embarrassed, my dear," he said, breathing a puff of smoke onto Swift's face. "It's happened to the best of them."
"And the worst," Swift said, thinking of his father.
Cal's smile curved. He said nothing, just offered his cigarette to Swift.
Swift took it, pulled on it, closed his eyes when he realized it was damp from Cal's mouth. He heard Cal laugh softly. "I do love you, though," he said, taking the cigarette out of his mouth and ashing onto the floor. "Really."
"Yes, I know. Shut up now, Swift."
Swift shut up. He realized that Cal's hand was still in his and smiled slowly.