Heir of Dust and Wind

Chapter 37 - Confrontations

Trygve woke to the delicious warmth of another body being pressed to his.

His eyes flying open, he was disoriented for a moment not knowing where he was or who he was with.

Soon, however, his body also registered the chill from the tiles that were pressed to his back and bottom in addition to the pain from his tailbone. 

Now he remembered. 

He was still on the bathroom floor. Apparently, he had fallen asleep while sitting on the bathroom floor. Gainor in his arms.

After another fit of nausea had shaken the other male, Trygve remembered, and the Dracaeni had finally allowed him to help him, clean him up and then just to hold him until his sobbing had stopped and his tears dried up. 

They had sat like this for a while, Trygve with his back to the wall and Gainor leaned with his back to Trygve's chest, crying silently. At some point, they must have dozed off since the light that shone in from the bedroom revealed that it must be morning already.

Yesterday he had simply been too exhausted and too concerned for Gainor's well-being to feel anything else. Today, however, the realisation that another male was sleeping in his arms and basically on his lap, made him feel odd.

Odd but good, he thought. During the centuries after the war, Trygve had led a life in solitude. His mourning of Duane and Frode's discouragement or even friendship among his Dracaeni had contributed to that. 

Although he had never actively pursued any companionship, for fear that Duane's and his relationship to uncovered and used against him. It would have made his service to the Alderman even more unbearable.

Strangely, there were no feelings of guilt. Even though he had loved Duane and still missed him, this didn't feel wrong at least not because of him. Ever since he had sworn himself to Ava and even more so since they had settled their business with the Council, that all-too-familiar emptiness inside him, the hole that Duane's death had left inside his heart hadn't seemed so big any longer. Something that made him feel puzzled. 

Even though he enjoyed the body heat and the smell of another male being so close, he needed to get up. Although there strangely were no feelings of betrayal regarding Duane, it was still wrong to enjoy this on Gainor's account. 

Only the stars knew what he hadhad to endure at Frode's hands and Trygve knew that both the Aldermen and his raven-haired spy master revelled in making males perform acts to other males against their wishes. 

Had they done that to Gainor too, he wondered? He would probably never know. But he knew for a fact that he wouldn't want to be the cause of dragging those terrible memories back to the surface. 

To him, Gainor's acceptance of his love for other men meant a lot and he didn't want to jeopardise that. Actually, it hadn't been Trygve's intention at all to share this with his fellow Dracaeni, but Gainor had somehow thought that Trygve's hostility towards the Fae had something to do with him harbouring romantic feelings for Ava. 

It hadn't been until his admission of interest in other males that Gainor had finally stopped bugging him. In fact, he had fallen silent immediately after, making Trygve worry that the other male would think less of him. Gainor however, had just chuckled nervously and assured him that he had nothing to worry about.

Still, that didn't mean that he would be okay with being as close as they currently were. IT was something that Trygve would never dare ask for even though he had to admit that this felt ... good. 

He chided himself for admitting as much, feeling ashamed for exploiting Gainor's nightmares in such a way. That hadn't been his intention at all.

Slowly and carefully, he tried to wriggle out from underneath his roommate, who - for once - seemed to be sound asleep.