Page 22 of Festive Fugitive
The fresh scent of the forest hits me with so much intensity it’s distracting, and the darkening sky makes it harder to work out where Eli is, but I finally spot him. He didn’t stay on the porch, as I suggested.
He’s much farther away, and there’s an obvious trail in the snow where he’s waded through it. Close to the treeline, he’s… is he making a snowman?
“Eli?” I call out, admiring the heaps of untouched snow surrounding the cabin. It’s bitterly cold, but I won’t freeze if I stay outside for a couple of minutes. Him on the other hand? The man’s barely got any padding on those bones. No wonder he’s eating mayo and peas just to fill that void.
He turns almost too fast. The dusky light catches wet streaks on his cheeks. He rubs his eyes the moment he spots me.
“Oh, hi. I… I’m not finished,” he points to the large snowman with twigs for arms as if to distract me, but I still catch the stifled sob.
What. The. Fuck?
I’m moving before I can even consider going back for a jacket. The cold pinches my bare arms, but I don’t care.Eli is unwell, and I’ll be damned if I let that stand for a moment longer than necessary.
“Is it your leg?” I ask, following his tracks in the snow.
“N-no. It’s just… allergies,” he says and rubs his face again with fingers so pale they look blue in this light. Was he making this snowman with his bare hands? What is this madness?
“You will make yourself sick!” I won’t let this continue. If Eli needs to sulk for some reason, he can do that on the couch, resting his ankle and covered by a thick blanket. I don’t bother asking for permission before picking him up, but his slender, elongated body melts into mine despite the tension pulling at his muscles.
If he said I’m free to use his body, I’ll carry him whenever I damn well please.
He gasps, but doesn’t protest, just sobs again, making all the hair on my body bristle in panic. Ineedto know what’s going on and fix it.
He’s unhappy, and he chose to hide that from me, because he’s a good person and doesn’t want to upset me. I’ve fucked up. I don’t yet know how, but I have, and I won't find peace until I know.
The cabin feels shockingly warm after the brief time outside, so I kick off my snow boots and carry Eli to the couch. He’s so cold to the touch it’s fucking with my head, and once his boots are off, I sit alongside him and pull his head to my chest before covering him with one of the folded blankets. “You’ll be comfortable here. Give me the wet jacket.”
He takes it off with another sob. “I’m sorry. I’m so dysregulated everything overwhelms me. I promise I can be normal.”
A sharp pain passes through my chest, and I kiss the top of his head, then breathe in his lovely scent. “I’msorry. He deserved to die, but it must still have been a shock. But don’t worry. I’m here to listen.”
I forgot he’s not like me. He can’t kill someone and forget about it by dinner time. There’s a gentleness about him that I need to protect.
Eli stares up at me and I’m so desperate for him to stop crying that I want to kiss his eyeballs. “Ah. Sullivan? No. He did, he really did…” he mutters, and I’m at my wits end.
If it’s not that, then what is it? I’ve never had a boyfriend. I don’t know how to provide emotional support. I wasn’t even allowed to make friends. This is uncharted territory for me, and this inability to decide what I’ve done wrong is killing me.
“I’m sorry… Just tell me what went wrong, and I’ll never do that again,” I promise and pull his face close. My tongue tastes his tears, and while I hate that he’s upset, their flavor makes my toes curl.
His gaze meets mine from up close, his expression cutting me so deep I could probably extract the implant out of my heart if it actually exists. “No, it’s stupid, I… I’m the one who is sorry. I know I’m too clingy. My exes said that, some of my family said that, and here I am again, feeling sorry for myself because you don’t want to be my boyfriend after one fuck. It’s fine, really.”
I stall and pull away, with the salty flavor still lingering in my mouth as the world around us fades. “But I thought you said… wewere…boyfriends,” I mutter, now even more confused. “I don’t understand. Do you want us to be or not?”
He stares at me as if I’ve just showed him that the puppy he thought was mauled by wolves is alive and well. “But then you asked if that’s what we are, and you sounded sceptical. Like I got ahead of myself but you didn’t want to be rude.”
Anger claws its way up from deep in my chest, because he didn’t get here on his own. The people who called him clingy and refused to give him what he needed made it so, and this sweet, sweet man deserves better.
He deservesme.
I shake my head. “It’s my fault. This is very new to me. I wasn’t allowed to date in the past, and I might blunder again, but I promise that I’ll try my best to make you happy,” I say softly, and my heart constricts at the sight of the subtle change in Eli’s vulpine face. “And you’re not ‘clingy’. You’re lovely, and excited, and that’s hot.”
I can almost smell some of the cortisol leaving his body. He sniffs and rubs his face, but there’s no new tears, which reassures me. “Why were you not allowed to date? Were your surroundings that homophobic?”
I feel ridiculous. Of course a normal person wouldn’t understand. I’ve already lied to him about my profession, and it’s not as if anyone polices how much sex soldiers have in their free time. There is no good way to answer this question, and I shrug, feeling the weight of my embarrassment drag down my shoulders.
“It was… a matter of discipline. When I worked for Sullivan, he wanted me on standby at all times. I would only have sex on Fridays and was meant to use the rest of the week for self-development and training,” I admit, looking away from him. Living it doesn’t mean I don’t understand how insane that all sounds. There’s a reason why I’ve never revealed this to any of my hookups, but as embarrassing as it is that I let someone dictate such intimate details of my life, if we are to be together, then I want Eli to know.
He reaches for me from under the thick blanket and strokes my side with his cold fingers. As though I’m the one who needs comforting when he was the one cryinghis eyes out. “Oh my God… Cesar. That’s messed up. I didn’t know it was possible, but now I hate Sullivan even more. Why didn’t you quit? Did he have something on you?”
