#and also wrong

In that first moment it was hard to remember what, but he knew there was something. He was immediately aware of the pain in his stiff knees and legs, and then of the immediate comfort of– oh.

Jainan’s arm was slung over his back. They were curled up next to each other, and now Kiem located one of the minor aches as Jainan’s other elbow digging into his side, but he didn’t care, he hadn’t even noticed. But no. This wasn’t for him to prolong. Kiem stayed still for a couple of seconds, storing this fragile moment somewhere in his memory, then pulled to as decent a distance as he could in the confined space of the sleeping bag.

Jainan’s eyes opened the moment Kiem moved away. He woke more quickly than Kiem: his eyes focused in a split second, assessing the situation. Kiem’s leg was still touching his, despite all his precautions; he could feel the tension coil up in Jainan’s muscles as Jainan registered their closeness.

No sign of it showed in Jainan’s voice. “Better?”

Kiem had to clear his throat before he could answer. “Uh, yeah.” It was an uncomfortable position, trying to press back so they had minimal body contact. He was very aware of his nakedness. Jainan had stripped down to a T-shirt, which made sense; he wouldn’t have been able to share his body warmth in too many layers. “Yeah. Yes. Much better. See, no shivering.” His voice sounded weird; he tried to clear his throat again. “Um. Thanks.”

Jainan wasted no time in unzipping the side and rolling out. He was so graceful and matter-of-fact about it that he was back on his own sleeping bag, sitting cross-legged and unwrapping the rations, while Kiem was still catching his breath. Kiem struggled into a sitting position himself. The only light was the residual glow from the heater and the faint grey of a moon through the tent roof; it must still be a while until dawn.

“I am sorry I took the liberty,” Jainan said, neatly opening the wrapper and folding it back. “I thought you were in danger of hypothermia. I may have been wrong.”

Kiem’s first instinct was to strongly deny that had been any kind of liberty. But that would then reveal unfortunate things about his own feelings about being in the same bed as Jainan, which it wasn’t fair to put on Jainan. “Er– no, really don’t be sorry. I was definitely getting that way. You did everything right – actually, my Prime Five teacher would be pretty proud of us, I guess. Of course, she never taught a module on how to win fights with bears.”

“No,” Jainan said. He was still looking down at his hands. He folded the wrapper back over itself again.

Kiem realised belatedly that he was comparing Jainan’s skills to a twelve-year-old’s and kicked himself. He needed to stop talking. He wasn’t thinking straight. He was groggy, hungry and thirsty, and maybe he should get more than an arm’s length away from Jainan and get his head on straight before he said anything stupider. “I’m just gonna have a quick look around,” he said, grabbing the other rations pack. “Scout the next move. Back in a moment.” He located his trousers and coat, pulled them on and clambered out of the tent.

It was still dark. Fog drifted around in swirls, freezing and clammy on his face, only catching the faintest of grey light from the moon above. He walked a little way to try and work the aches and shivers out of his legs. The mountains were dark shadows against the star-strewn sky. He absently tried to trace the route into the next valley, but the fog hid any detail, and his eyes were as tired as the rest of him. He could feel the remnants of the last stim tab wearing off. His questing fingertips found one more in his pocket and he decided he might as well take it. He was building up to a crash, he knew, but they just had to keep going until they could find the rail line.

Whatever else he tried to think about, everything returned to Jainan. Everything returned to the fact that Jainan had saved his life yesterday, and maybe again last night, and in return all Kiem did was keep him trapped in a marriage he obviously didn’t want.

Jainan himself had suggested semi-exile in a monastery just to get his own space. Having to be intimate enough with Kiem to share body heat must have been difficult to endure, but you wouldn’t be able to tell it from anything Jainan had said. Somewhere in there – not far below the surface – was a core of steel when it came to duty. And Jainan had decided that Kiem was his duty.

Kiem rubbed his forehead with his hand. He wasn’t great at duty at the best of times. Surely there was a way he and Jainan could work things out so that Jainan didn’t feel like he had to exile himself.

When he returned Jainan was bent over the heater, replacing the used cylinder with a new one. The tent was a cocoon of warmth. “I’m not sure when you want to set off,” Jainan said. “But I assumed we would wait at least until it was light enough to see, so we may as well keep warm. And I think we can use the heater to warm water?”

“Yes,” Kiem said. “Good idea. Yeah.” He suspected it might be for his sake, since Jainan hadn’t wanted to use the canisters at all before he’d fallen in that stupid river. He was feeling fine now, though every burst of energy he got from a stim tab was more nerve-tingling than the last, and he suspected the crash couldn’t be that far away. “There’s tea powder somewhere, did you find it with the food?”

“Yes,” Jainan said. As usual he was several steps ahead, already pulling out the cup attachment. Kiem reached outside the tent and filled it with snow.

While Jainan melted it Kiem tested several ways of introducing the topic in his head. There wasn’t really a good one. He took a deep breath. “So, uh, can we just talk for a moment about. Stuff.”

“Stuff,” Jainan said neutrally, releasing the cup.

“I know you didn’t choose this marriage,” Kiem said. The words came out too fast. “But, you know, long-term, it doesn’t have to be so much like a marriage. I mean, we’re – we’re friends, right? Sort of?” He tried not to make that pleading, and was relieved by Jainan’s slow nod. “Right! Yeah. So we can just stay like this, can't we? Being married won't stop you doing anything you want to do. If there's someone you– if either of us was to start seeing someone on the side, that's – that's fine, right? We can both keep it quiet. So we can make sure the marriage doesn't get in the way of, of either of our lives.”

Jainan finally lifted his eyes, and for one instant his blazing gaze locked on Kiem's. Then it was gone, and Jainan was looking down at his hands again. “I see.”

“Right,” Kiem said. There was an uncomfortable silence. Kiem picked up the rations pack and wrapped it back up just for something to do with his hands, while mentally trying out and then dropping at least three lines of argument. It wasn’t fair to argue too much with Jainan’s monastery scheme. If he really wanted to leave the palace, Kiem shouldn’t get in his way.

“This is an impolite question,” Jainan said tonelessly, “but may I ask who it is?”

Kiem’s hands slipped and the wrapping tore. “What? Me?” he said. “No, wait, there isn’t anyone! This isn’t me telling you I’m seeing someone!”

“Why not?” Jainan said. He sounded calm, but he wasn’t looking anywhere near Kiem’s face. “Your marriage isn’t fulfilling. I don’t mind.”

Somehow I don’t mind hurt more than anything else in this conversation. Of course Jainan didn’t mind. Kiem used the excuse of stowing the rations pack in the backpack to try and get hold of himself enough to say something coherent. “It wouldn’t be fair to them. It wouldn’t be fair to you.”

“I see,” Jainan said, with the air of someone picking impersonally through a problem. “So you would like to see someone in future.”

“I just thought—I thought you—” At the moment Kiem mainly just wanted the world to end, right now or possibly sooner. “Look, otherwise neither of us is going to sleep with anyone else for the rest of our lives.”

The tea was starting to boil. Jainan looked at it, but neither of them moved to take it. Kiem’s arms felt like lead. He had gone about this so badly.

“Sorry,” Kiem said, unable to bear the silence any more. He didn't know what he expected. A yes or no, maybe. At the edges, a selfish hope for a don't be sorry.

Jainan was still looking at the stove. “Is there anything I can do,” he said, “to make myself less repellent to you?”

“Repellent,” Kiem said blankly. Then the enormity of it hit him, and he said, “What?”

Jainan was already turning away to take the water off the heater. “It doesn't matter.”

“Where the—what the—Jainan.” Kiem leaned forward and Jainan stopped, tense and prickling. “What do you mean, repellent? You can't mean you. We're not talking about--” He realised he was making some sort of hopeless gesture towards Jainan – a gesture that said Have you even seen yourself? – and aborted it as fast as he could.

Jainan pretended he hadn’t noticed. He put down the cup and reached out to fix a hissing noise coming from the heating canister, thwarting every attempt Kiem made to catch his eye “I know you’ve tried to spare my feelings and I am grateful. But you don’t have to pretend.”

Kiem’s stock of words had completely dried up. Everything was oddly silent. He looked at Jainan, the slim lines of his body softening in the dim light, and tried to process it again. Repellent.

And slowly, like creeping ice water, he realised what staying away from Jainan had done.

Kiem groaned and covered his face with his hands. “Jainan,” he said. “You're beautiful.”

In the silence that followed Kiem felt like his intestines were being strung out on a rack in front of him. That might be preferable to this wait. “It’s really distracting,” he said, as a hopeless attempt at explanation. “Not that that's your problem. That really isn't your problem, sorry, I will get over it.”

“I don’t understand,” Jainan said at last. “If you think I’m—” He broke off, apparently unable to finish. “If you think – that, then why…?”

“You were grieving!” Kiem said. “Are grieving, I mean.” He stopped himself before he said anything more. Questioning Jainan’s grief for his partner would verge on the obscene.

Jainan pulled in on himself as he did whenever Taam was mentioned. That was it. Wherever they had been going with this, Kiem had ruined it.

Then Jainan looked up and said, “I haven’t stopped living.”

It took Kiem a moment to understand. He tried to say something but stopped himself, for once, out of terror it wouldn’t resemble a normal human word at all.

“I tried to show you,” Jainan said. “The night we were married.”

Kiem’s mouth was completely dry. He had to swallow hard before anything would come out. “I thought you were just doing your duty,” he said, in something that sounded miraculously like a normal sentence. “I thought you weren’t interested.”