Hendrik sighed and opened his eyes, so, so glad Dagan had said that but also a little bit terrified.
Dagan was undoing his braid. He didn’t, usually, when they slept outdoors. It was black and smooth as dark water down his back as he shook it out. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly.
“For what?” Hendrik asked. He wasn’t being a smart ass; he really wanted to know what Dagan thought was worth an apology. Hen wasn’t sure he was owed one at all.
“For being petty.” Dagan slumped to the ground and curled up on his side, facing Hendrik. “Even as I was doing it, I knew it was the silliest, stupidest thing possible. I could’ve stopped myself, and once more, I didn’t.”
Hen rolled over to face him. The moonlight was pale and thin tonight, but enough to see that Dagan’s eyes were troubled, the corners of his mouth downturned.
Was that really all it had been? Had Kajja been right all along? “I don’t understand,” Hen admitted.
This time it was Dagan who sighed. “Kajja gave me an earful.”
Hen flushed with sudden and wholly unexpected embarrassment. “She didn’t.”
“Oh yes. Told me to stop ‘hedging my bets’ with her brother.” Dagan smiled lopsidedly.
That little shit. Hendrik would’ve laughed if he hadn’t been so annoyed and about a million other things that didn’t leave room inside him. “I’m sorry. She shouldn’t have—”
“No.” Gently, almost gingerly, Dagan touched Hen’s lower lip to stop him mid-sentence. He traced downward to his chin, then stroked the line of his jaw.
Hendrik only barely resisted the urge to rub against his hand like a cat desperate to be petted.
“I was trying to get a rise out of you. Again.” Dagan looked properly ashamed of himself, too, glancing away almost nervously. “I got twisted up in my head and told myself it wouldn’t matter to you, since you expect me to fuck around. I wanted to prove it. It was mean.”
Hen took Dagan’s hand and pressed the palm to his lips, lost for words for a moment. On the one hand, it stung to hear the admission that it had been intentional. On the other hand, it was oddly satisfying. Not anything he’d like to repeat, but still.
“You think I’ll drop you like a hot coal,” Dagan nearly whispered. “Not tonight, but in a week. In a moon. If we survive the City. You want to imagine a future but you can’t let yourself imagine it with me.”
“I can’t imagine it without you,” Hen corrected, just as quietly.
Dagan blinked, almost as if he’d just experienced a sudden, full-body shock of cold water. “I…what?”
“I do think we’re all going to die,” Hen admitted. “But I’ve never been able to stop myself wanting to live. I guess that’s human. We’d never survive the shit parts of life, otherwise.”
“No,” Dagan said slowly, carefully. “That much is true.”
“I’m frustrated that I can’t imagine a future where the Heart Wood and the City are free of whatever’s eating them alive. Yeah. But I could live with that if I could imagine…” He kissed the back of Dagan’s hand, now.
“Say it,” Dagan whispered.
“I don’t want to influence you, though,” Hendrik tried to reason. “Your freedom, your choices, they mean everything to you.”
“You fucking idiot.” Suddenly, Dagan smiled. “Of course you can influence me. I hope I can influence you. How else could we find a way forward together rather than one that leads us apart? I’m not suggesting we merge personalities; of course we’ll still be ourselves, but...” He seemed at a loss, there.
“You want that?” Hendrik wanted to laugh, too, but he couldn’t yet. “With me?”
“Yes.” Another little laugh, this one faintly hysteric. “Of course I do.”
Hendrik’s heart hurt, it was so glad. So relieved. “I’m sorry for acting like you might want to move on from me so quickly. I know better. I just…It’s scary.”
“After last time,” Dagan whispered.
Hen nodded. “And I knew it would end, with Kass, so I’m not sure why it has me so fucked up about this.”
“Oh, lovely, of course it does. Between that and me running headlong into danger, of course you’re looking for an excuse not to—I don’t know. Attach to me.”
“But I am attached.” Hendrik took a deep breath, steeling himself for what he knew he had to say, now. As irritating as it was that Kajja had been right. “I don’t want to share you.”
With another helpless laugh, Dagan replied, “All you had to do was ask.”
Hendrik reached for him, and Dagan came close, burying his face in Hen’s neck and tangling their legs together. If the first time they’d touched like this, on the cushion in that cozy cottage back in the settlement, had been a relief, this was twenty times greater. This was a wash of emotion tearing through Hen’s entire body like a wave, leaving him weak and clinging to Dagan to brace against the undertow.
“Is it selfish of me?” he mumbled into Dagan’s sweet-smelling hair.
“It’s what you need, and it’s what I want,” came the reply from somewhere near Hen’s collar bone. “There’s nothing selfish about that.”
“It feels selfish,” Hen admitted. “But I don’t care.”
“That’s the spirit.” A little sigh from Dagan, now. “I’m sorry we could’ve had this conversation days ago, but I decided to be petty and childish instead.”
“You were working things out in your head. I get it.”
“I’m usually much quicker. You muddle my brain.”
“What did I say?” Hendrik wondered. Now seemed as good a time as any to find out, because whatever it had been, he did not want a repeat. “Or did I do something?”
Dagan gave a more thoughtful hum, now. “It wasn’t really you. It actually was Bartolo. I wasn’t making that up.”
