Page 29 of Potions & Pints
He crossed the deck in what felt like three strides, retreating below deck into his cabin in what even he could see was a tantrum reminiscent of a petulant child. At that point though, he felt he had nothing left to lose.
“Let Pili figure out how to steer around the Heaving Sea,” he muttered to himself and he shut his cabin door loudly behind him.
“In fact let him steer right into it for all I care.”
With that, he threw himself down on his bed and stared angrily at the ceiling, hoping the sea would swallow him before he had to face Vir’s look of complete and utter disappointment.
14
“Tan?” came the voice at the door and Tan shot up from his bed just as Vir stepped inside the cabin. “Are you okay?”
Tan, for the second time that day, was struck completely speechless. He was sure Vir would never want to speak to him again, and yet, here he was, chasing Tan down to his cabin and asking after him. It was enough to send Tan into another spiral of confusion.
The orc stepped further in and closed the cabin door behind him, but his usual smile wasn’t plastered on his face. In fact, Tan had noticed he’d been wearing a look of concern the whole time Pili had been talking up on deck, and apparently he’d worn the same expression as he’d followed Tan below since he was still looking concerned now.
“Um, yeah,” Tan finally uttered. “I’m fine.”
He cursed himself silently. Maybe Pili was right — apparently he couldn’t go five minutes without lying. He didn’t know how to tell Vir what he was really feeling though — shame, embarrassment, confusion, fear, among other things. In fact he hardly knew how to admit those things to himself.
Instead, the emotions sat just below the surface, swirling incessantly like the waters of the Heaving Sea. And like the sea, they also threatened to drown Tan if he didn’t steer clear.
Vir was still looking at Tan and it made the elf feel incredibly exposed. For a second, neither of them spoke but then Vir frowned — not angrily, but as if he were grappling with his own emotions. When he finally spoke, his voice was soft.
“It all that true?” he asked. “Is that the real reason you didn’t want to take me to Sunfall?”
Tan felt suddenly as if he’d been struck in the chest. Vir was disappointed, Tan realized. Not about what Tan had done, apparently, but by the fact that he’d lied to him. He’d blown him off and now both of them knew it.
The thought was enough to bring a wave of uncomfortable emotions crashing upon Tan’s conscious mind and he couldn’t stand it. He dealt with it the way he dealt with most things. He lied.
“No, that’s not why,” he answered hastily. “I didn’t want to take you to Sunfall because I was busy and it was far and it’s not a good place anyway. Overrated, if you ask me.”
He felt the words rushing out too fast and too forcefully but he couldn’t stop himself. Somehow pushing Vir away now felt safer than touching the feelings that threatened to consume him if he let them. He saw a light of compassion in Vir’s eyes but the only thing he could do was fight against it.
“And I didn’t have time to haul a country orc around the ocean in a damned vest and trousers so bright it’s a miracle I still have my eyesight,” Tan continued without even thinking. As soon as the words came out he hated himself for it, but it was better this than the alternative. At least that’s what he kept telling himself.
The cabin was silent for a moment, only the creaking of the ship and the lapping of the waves against the hull making any sound as Tan and Vir stared at each other.
Slowly, Vir made his way to Tan’s bed, sitting himself down gently as he kept his eyes on the elf. Whatever Vir was doing, it was making Tan panic a little — in ways he couldn’t quite put words to.
“My father made these clothes for me,” Vir finally said gently.
There was a slight hint of sadness in his voice, along with something soft — love perhaps, admiration maybe. Or possibly just longing.
“Before I was turned we made clothes together, but orc fingers aren’t so good at sewing. Anyway, I had to leave not long after.”
Vir looked away for a moment and Tan could hear his own heart beating loudly in his chest above the sound of the waves. Most of him hoped Vir couldn’t hear it too.
When the orc turned back, he looked sadly at Tan.
“You know, I can see you trying to push everyone away. You don’t mean half the things you say, mostly because you’re scared of really revealing yourself. I think you’re afraid that if you do, that people will think you’re inadequate somehow.”
Tan could feel his heart beating even faster and louder until Vir’s words were mixed with the sound of his own overwhelming pulse. But Vir went on.
“The thing is, Tan, nobody thinks that but you. I can see you’re more than good enough. And I don’t mean just deep down under all your baggage. I mean all of you.”
This was more than Tan could take. Much more. The whirlpools of emotion and his beating heart and Vir’s too-bright vest and the sound of his gentle voice and everything that was coming from the orc’s mouth — all these things suddenly culminated in the feeling that Tan was about to burst out of his own skin.
“You’re a fool if you think that!” he suddenly yelled. His voice cut through the noise of all that was building in his heart and mind and body, and it almost made him feel in control again.
