Page 63 of Feast of Sparks (Thornchapel 2)
For a minute, Auden looks like he wants to argue, like he wants to say something unkind, but he swallows it back. “No. It wasn’t for mistake.”
“What then?” St. Sebastian asks. “Masochism? Morality? Money?”
The word money seems to roll through Auden like a cold wave; his head snaps up and his eyes narrow. “The money wasn’t until later.”
“Maybe you had it planned all along.”
“Jesus Christ, Saint—all along?” Luckily, they’re alone in the building, because Auden’s voice has risen. Risen louder than St. Sebastian’s ever heard it before, excepting that day in the graveyard. “I didn’t even know about it until you were in Texas—I had no earthly way to know until my father was in the accident and I had to take over his finances—I can’t believe you’d—”
St. Sebastian finally snaps. “I’d what? Accuse you of planning to steal from my mother? How dare I, clearly, of course the great and moral Auden Guest would only steal spontaneously from a single mother, he would never stoop to planning it—”
Auden takes a step forward, stabbing his fingers through his hair. “She was taking from us,” he says, agitated, cheeks glowing. “She stole first—”
“No,” St. Sebastian seethes, also taking a step forward, “she didn’t steal, she took because your father gave—”
“My father was sending money to a woman he didn’t know for no good reason, and she took his money also for no good reason, and all I did was put a stop to it.”
St. Sebastian could levitate, he’s so angry, he could breathe fire, he could incinerate this spoiled twat who’d never felt any privation, who’d never seen the inside of a bare cupboard, who’d never stared at a stack of bills and had to decide which ones to pay and which ones to leave for a better month which might never come. “Her good reason was that she needed it,” he says furiously. “Her good reason is that she couldn’t afford to live without it. You putting a stop to it meant she had almost nothing left to live on! She needed what he sent!”
“For eight years?” Auden demands. “You’re telling me that you think it’s normal and fine that my father was sending her money for eight years? She couldn’t find another way to m
ake ends meet when she had eight years to come up with it?”
“You sound exactly like your father—”
“Fuck. You,” Auden bites out, but St. Sebastian isn’t done.
“—except your father still had more decency than you, because at least he was helping—”
Auden takes another step and they’re literally toe to toe, scuffed leather boot to gleaming brogue. “Don’t you ever compare me to my father. Not ever.”
St. Sebastian leans forward, he jams his finger against Auden’s chest. “Admit it: you hurt her so that you could hurt me, so that you could hurt me because I hurt you, just fucking admit it—”
“Fine!” Auden roars. “I admit it!”
There’s silence after this, a silence that seems to fill the whole library, the air itself is ionized with silence. St. Sebastian realizes that his finger on Auden’s chest has moved, he now has his palm flat against the thin cashmere sweater Auden’s wearing and he can feel the angry pound of Auden’s heart against his hand.
“It wasn’t the only reason I did it,” Auden says. His voice is quiet now, brittle but no longer angry. “In case you were wondering.”
St. Sebastian should shove him right now, he should fist Auden’s sweater in his hand and shake him until he apologizes, until Auden admits he was wrong, he was an arsehole, that if he wanted to hurt St. Sebastian, St. Sebastian would have forgiven any other way than the way Auden chose. Any other way that didn’t also hurt Jennifer Martinez.
He doesn’t shove him. He doesn’t shake him. In fact, he’s about to drop his hand altogether when Auden reaches up and traps it against his chest. Thump thump thump goes Auden’s heart against St. Sebastian’s hand.
“I thought,” Auden says in a whisper, his eyes closing, “that if I hurt you enough, maybe you’d come back. Maybe you’d come home.”
The silence returns, filling more than the room now, filling St. Sebastian’s entire body, his entire mind. Auden’s words have killed any and all thoughts dead and now there’s only room for the silence and the feel of Auden’s heartbeat.
Maybe you’d come home.
Auden opens his eyes, and for a moment, St. Sebastian can’t think about anything else except how much he wants to kiss that mouth, that wide, nearly perfect mouth with its hitch on one side of the upper lip. What St. Sebastian did in the graveyard, what Auden did after to his mother—none of it matters when his mouth is that kissable, he thinks. How could it matter?
But then he remembers that it does. It does matter.
He and Auden could fuck seven times a day for the next seven years and it would still matter.
“You should apologize,” St. Sebastian whispers.
“You first,” Auden says back.
