Fantasy, Heist, Romance, Found-Family - Chapter 9: Chapter 9

"Stabbed in the back. Literally."
Ronan landed face-first in the dirt to an eruption of cheers.
Well, one cheer. One explosive, grating cheer.
Ronan turned his cheek onto the grass and said, "Shut the fuck up, Mitch."
Mitch let out a final exuberant Whoop!
"I take it you're done for the day?" came Amir's voice. Ronan responded with a humph into the grass, and Amir chuckled above him.
Ronan hadn't anticipated an audience when he'd taken Amir up on his offer of a morning spar. The sessions had become somewhat of a regular thing, and Ronan could proudly proclaim that he was getting rather good with a knife, but Amir still had the upper hand and it showed in the transient array of bruises and scrapes covering Ronan's body at any given time.
That morning, Felix had noticed them through a window not long after they'd begun, and it hadn't been too long before a crowd of four had gathered.
"We've got breakfast inside, you know," said Tony. "No need to eat the dirt."
"Leave him be," chimed Vito. "He wants a little snack, is all."
A very annoying crowd of four.
"I think you're doing great!" assured Felix.
A very annoying crowd of three and an angel.
Mitch snarked, "I think Felix is a liar."
"Why don't you try it, then?" Ronan suggested breezily, pushing himself onto his knees. "Since you've got so much to say, let's see you do better."
It was a cheap escape, but Ronan didn't feel for fighting anymore. He didn't much mind the heckling, but he was finding that he preferred the sparring sessions in private. He wasn't entirely sure what to make of that, but his gaze was wistful when he glanced back and saw Amir nodding his head toward Mitch, challenging.
Ronan situated himself in the grass at Tony's side. Felix made himself comfortable right away, settling between Ronan's legs. Ronan dared to look over Tony's shoulder and was immediately caught; Vito grinned his way, and Ronan pushed a smile and hoped it met his eyes.
He and Vito had been– fine, lately. The same as they'd always been, at least on the surface, but Ronan was plagued by the ever-present knowledge that they were two trains traveling in opposite directions. They would either sweep past each other or collide, but Ronan couldn't imagine that they'd ever be on the same path again.
He watched Vito throw his head back in raucous laughter as Mitch was flattened in an instant and hoped desperately that he was wrong.
By the third time Mitch had been knocked off his feet, they were all breathless. Red in the face and winded, Mitch admitted, "I may have underestimated Amir."
"Overestimated yourself, you mean?" jeered Vito. He hardly dodged when a – sheathed – knife was chucked his way. "Christ!"
"Your turn," Mitch huffed.
Vito retrieved the knife and approached Amir, but not without disclaiming, "Let it be known that I'm aware of how this will end for me."
He made a valiant effort to avoid Amir's first strike, but sure enough, he was knocked off balance in seconds. Ronan felt Felix flinch against him – that fall had looked like it hurt.
When the knife was handed off to Tony, she fared far better than the rest, too nimble for Amir to trip up. Impossibly light on her feet, she darted out of his range and evaded his strikes with deftness and flexibility he couldn't match. Amir grinned at the challenge.
Tony was fast, but she was on the defensive. If this was a battle of endurance, she might have won, but Amir managed to trap her where he couldn't trip her, and she wound up on her knees with her arms barred behind her back and Amir's knife held to her throat.
Before they had even fully stood, Amir was looking out into the hollering crowd for his next victim. Ronan wrapped his arms around Felix's shoulders and pulled him firmly into his chest. "Don't even think about it," he said, narrowing his eyes.
Felix giggled and shrugged in his arms, and Amir's laugh came terribly fond, and Ronan had a hard time holding his glare.
𓃥𓃥𓃥
Ronan noticed the light, warm and dim, before he noticed the hand on his shoulder.
He blinked his eyes slowly, reluctant but not surprised. It would be another sleepless night, then.
Then he felt it, a nudge against his shoulder, and his eyes jumped open. Amir leaned over him, holding a candle with one hand and shaking Ronan's shoulder with the other. Illuminated orange from below, he reminded Ronan of those first weeks out of the orphanage, when they were still getting the hang of things and were driven more than once to run into the woods to shake the police. Ronan and Tony had huddled together, both for heat and for fear, as Mitch and Vito took turns leaning over a hastily-made fire, telling the scariest stories they knew.
Ronan's hand was heavy as he rubbed it over his eye, and his vision came back blurry. He was acquainted enough with interrupted sleep to tell that he couldn't have been out for more than an hour.
"What th–"
Amir held a finger to his lips, nodding in the direction of Felix's bed. Ronan settled for glaring.
"Get dressed," Amir whispered. "Then meet me out back."
"Why–"
But Amir was already rising to his feet. He left the candle behind for Ronan and walked out without offering any context. Ronan was tempted to turn over and ignore him, but he doubted he'd fall back asleep anyway. And, well. He was curious.
So he fumbled around in the dim light for a shirt and trousers and followed after Amir with one shoe half-on and one arm of his jacket hanging off.
Amir failed to stifle a laugh when he saw him. Ronan turned on his heel to go back inside.
He was pulled back by the wrist. Amir smiled apologetically – though he was still snickering, the bastard – and made quick work of smoothing out Ronan's bed-hair. Ronan's expressionless stare was met with two thumbs up, and then Amir was leading him across the yard and into the woods. Ronan kept quiet while the house was in sight – he could recognize secrecy when he saw it – but as soon as the trees closed in behind them, he was asking questions. What? Why? Where? Why?
Amir seemed to have lost his hearing.
They kept on until they reached a small clearing. Amir stopped, turned to Ronan, and had the audacity to say, "Call your monster."
All Ronan could manage for a moment was to stare. "Amir," he said finally, slowly, with feeling. "Tell me what's going on."
The nerve of him, to look exasperated of all things. "I'm surprising you."
"What does that–"
"Call her. Please. I would, but I don't really know– that whole whistle thing you all do, it just seems very specific, and I'm still sort of new and also terrified of them so I haven't really learned it yet, so–"
Ronan whistled around his fingers, loud and severe, to shut him up.
Bandit descended like an angel only a few minutes later, silhouetted against the moon and framed by a circle of trees. Amir gave a whistle of his own, low and impressed.
"Let's hope you're right, and they really can understand us," he said. With the fear with which one might approach a feral mastiff, he came to stand near Bandit's face, flinching out of the way when she ruffled her wings. "Hey, girl. Think you could take us to Prism Square?"
Bandit huffed. Amir looked to Ronan as if asking for a translation. As Ronan was not able to speak horse, he merely shrugged.
Still only half-awake, it wasn't until Bandit started beating her wings that anything stood out to him. When it did, Ronan couldn't tell if the dropping feeling in his chest was from liftoff or from the realization; as far as he knew, the Royal Orchid Festival took place around this time each year at the island's center – Prism Square.
Amir's grip was tight and uneasy around his middle, face buried to hide from the view beneath them. Ronan could feel Amir's heart, beating fast and hard out of fear. He could feel his own heart, beating fast and hard for entirely different reasons.
"Vito would be livid if he knew," he said as they landed. The square was several blocks away, but he could already hear the noise of the festival, music and shouting and excited chatter that floated down the street like a summons. Ronan felt it in his chest, an ache that drew him nearer. He was all-too familiar with desire. "Why are you doing this?"
He had never been to a party before. Not one he wasn't robbing, anyway.
"You said you wanted to see the fireworks," was the last thing Amir said before pulling his scarf over the bottom half of his face. Muffled, he added, "Are you hungry?"
Ronan had been to Prism Square once before, back when the Merry Men was just a group of bitter kids house-hopping across the island. It had seemed nothing spectacular then, a wide, circular space lined with shops. There were half-assed attempts at presentation: a stage at one end, a statue of the Royal Beast at the other, a great fountain at the center. It was the heart of the island, after all.
But the stage had looked like it was almost never used, and the fountain likely hadn't flowed with water in Ronan's lifetime. At the end of the day, it was still a Diverran city, dingy and poor and gray like every other. Ronan had scoffed at the sight of it, some years back.
It was unrecognizable now.
The entire square was brightly lit by painted lanterns. Booths lined the street and created a maze within, vendors and recreations and the sort of food most Diverrans scarcely saw in their lifetimes. Ronan couldn't even see the center of the square from the entrance, the space was so packed, but he thought the music must be coming from there, because the stage was taken up by an elaborate rendition of some play.
And the flowers, they were everywhere – blue and purple orchids pouring out of baskets, dangling from booth ceilings, clutched by children in hasty bouquets and tucked behind the ears of charmed women, the only chance the likes of them would ever get to wear such regal shades. The floor was chalked in their image, swirling with blue-and-purple lines that moved beneath Ronan's feet as they walked.
He was so focused on them, he nearly collided head-first when Amir stopped in front of a booth. Ronan looked up and saw a pair of hands holding a honey tart out to him, then looked up some more and saw Amir looking down at him, inviting.
Ronan knew what the Royal Orchid Festival was. He was well aware of its role as a distraction, a shallow offering to keep the Diverran majority content with their station.
Reason #8 I can't stand the rich: Their gifts don't mean a damn. They throw their charity balls, toasting to the 'hardworking poor' with one arm and digging our graves with the other.
Ronan hated everything this festival stood for.
But he took a bite of the sweetest tart he'd ever tasted and watched Amir's eyes glow at his surprise, and he wondered if he was allowed to enjoy this, just for tonight.
They passed exotic bird displays and herds of children working on crafts, stopped to taste desserts and play games – Amir was predictably good at accuracy challenges, but Ronan destroyed him in anything strategic. Amir spent an exorbitant amount of time hunched over a booth making a lopsided crown of orchids that he ultimately placed on Ronan's head, only for it to be knocked off and trampled by a trio of racing kids with cookie crumbs smeared around their mouths.
They sat for twenty minutes while an artist painted a portrait of them side by side, and Amir insisted on keeping the result even though Ronan's face had come out rather off-putting. He didn't understand how Amir could sit still for so long.
It was fun – the honest kind that didn't involve lying and cheating and stealing.
Ronan couldn't muster the nerve to thank Amir for bringing him here, but he thought Amir knew, anyway.
They had wandered the festival long enough for Ronan's interrupted rest to catch up to him when something caught his eye. He was stifling a yawn – he didn't want Amir to see, didn't want to hear him suggest that they leave – when he laid eyes on a dainty chain of gold, and he blamed his waning energy for the way his steps slowed.
At the center of a booth that glowed from several tiny lanterns, encased in a glass display and watched over by a man in uniform, was a gold cameo necklace. The pendant was carved with the shape of the royal orchid.
It was a perfect, fragile thing. Technically for sale, not that anyone there could ever afford it.
"That would look nice on you."
Ronan startled. He hadn't realized he'd stopped to stare.
He started off again, refusing the urge to look back. "That's a woman's jewelry," he said curtly.
"It's only a necklace," said Amir. "And what of your earrings, then?"
By now, Ronan knew the answer to this by heart. He recited the same line he'd used for years to justify it, to the Merry Men and to himself. "One is a memorial, the other is a trophy. That's all."
Amir didn't press it.
In the corner of Ronan's eye, his frown morphed into something contemplative, then something devious. Ronan only had a second to be wary before Amir was taking off with what was left of Ronan's half-eaten scone.
"You–!" Ronan shouted.
Amir heaved a great laugh and shoved one end of the scone between his teeth. Ronan started after him, earning dirty looks from men and women who had to skirt out of his way. Amir had hidden himself in the festival crowd, but Ronan quickly closed the distance. He spotted the scone dangling from Amir's mouth and let out a triumphant yell, latching onto Amir's shirt as soon as he reached a clearing in the crowd.
For all of that effort, Amir didn't put up any fight when Ronan ripped the scone from his teeth. He looked oddly pleased for someone who had lost, and Ronan realized two things:
1. Amir's only goal had been to make Ronan laugh
2. It had worked
Ronan shoveled the entire scone into his mouth and said around the mouthful, "You duh worft."
Amir flashed a charming smile. Ronan flicked his forehead.
They had wound up at the center of the square, where the music was loudest. Looking around, the only reason the crowd was thinner here was because everyone was clustered around a commotion at the very heart of the festival.
He took Amir's wrist and pushed through the crowd for a better look at the growing group, unaware that the front of the circle was a danger zone. They breached the crowd and nearly stumbled right into a man and woman whirling past, locked together in a swinging dance to the lively song coming from the band.
They were one of several pairs cutting a wide berth through the crowd. Ronan watched as men and women, children and elderly, came together in this dance that they somehow all knew, skipping about with linked arms and intertwined hands, twirling each other in dramatic circles and kicking to an upbeat tune. He remembered the Van Doren masquerade and the strict, uniform way those people had danced, and proudly thought, we have something you don't.
Across the circle, a cheering man was snatched by the hand and swallowed into the dance. Ronan hardly had time to exchange a panicked look with Amir before they were separated, dragged suddenly by their elbows into the circle.
"I don't know this dance!" Ronan shouted over the music to the older woman who had stolen him.
"You'll learn!" she shouted back, kind down to the crinkles by her eyes. Her dress swished around her feet.
So Ronan did. It was a clumsy start, but the steps weren't too complicated up close, and the dance was repetitive. The woman beamed as he quickly caught on, and her laugh as he twirled her made him feel light.
Then she was skipping away, and a girl Ronan's age with wildly curly red hair was seamlessly slotting into her place, one hand clasped around his.
"How do you do?" she yelled, throwing her arm around his neck.
And Ronan answered, honestly, "I'm having the time of my life!"
He caught sight of Amir across the circle, dancing with a boy half his age and half his height. Ronan was laughing at his situation when Amir looked up, as if he could feel the attention. He shrugged sheepishly, struggling to execute the steps with a partner so small, and they disappeared behind another pair.
The next time Ronan saw them, Amir held the boy under the armpits, swinging him to the beat as the boy shrieked with laughter, and Ronan's chest felt impossibly full.
Amir popped in and out of sight as he danced from partner to partner. Ronan caught him attempting to get closer during a swap, but he was swept up by a surprisingly spry old woman and vanished once more. Ronan took it upon himself during the next transition, as the one of them with more experience sneaking around, to slip between bodies toward what he hoped was the back of Amir's head.
He reached out, and then Amir was before him, huffing a surprised laugh and stumbling to get into hold.
Ronan leaned forward so Amir could hear and said, "Looks like I caught you."
Amir tugged him closer with an arm around his back. "Lucky me."
Narrowly avoiding the other pairs, they danced their way toward the edge of the circle until they were a reach away from the audience. Amir flung Ronan out in a spin then pulled him back in, and they ducked into the crowd right as the partners changed.
Winded, sweating, and several safe rows from the front, they watched the end of the dance with shoulders still shaking from laughter. The throng forced them close together, and Ronan didn't mind one bit.
As the final notes of the song rang out and the crowd roared with whistles and applause, a sound like a massive bell being struck rang out over the entire square. There was a sudden hush; then, just as quickly, an eruption of excited chatter, and Ronan and Amir were rustled and nearly separated again as everyone started moving.
Ronan grabbed onto Amir's sleeve. "What's going– oh."
The entire festival seemed to have come to a pause. Everywhere Ronan looked, people were heading in one direction: toward the lake.
Which meant–
"We should probably follow," said Amir. By the excitement in his voice, he must have realized, too.
He started after the masses, but Ronan tugged him the other way, past stalls and families until the festival was behind them. He ducked behind the trees close to the bank of the lake and didn't stop until the noise was across the water from them. Amir followed without question, pulling his scarf down once they were out of sight. When Ronan settled cross-legged in the grass at the edge of the lake, Amir sat close enough that the line of his arm pressed flush against Ronan's, even though they had the entire space to themselves.
With so many people in the square, Ronan doubted there would be much to see on the other side of the lake. But here, where it was quieter . . .
It happened slowly as the moon sank from its highest point. A flicker of yellow-gold light hovering near the shore. Another, this time powdery pink, swirling close to the water's surface. Blue and blue-green and green-yellow and yellow-orange, emerging one-by-one and then in groups, until there were droves of them floating around the trees and over the water.
"Oh," Amir sighed next to him.
"Just wait," said Ronan.
The moon's reflection was broken by a black, snakelike figure that burst straight up from the water to catch a periwinkle firefly in its mouth. The creature lit up purple from the inside out along two stripes down its body before sinking back down, leaving a dimming glow beneath the surface.
Prism Square may have been named after its lake, but Prism Lake was named after its eels.
Ronan had seen them before, once– they had been passing through town and Felix had exclaimed, "We have to stay the night! I read about this place, this is where they have those eels– the prism eels!"
More creatures breached the surface– wide, flat-looking things that snatched fireflies from the air with shocking speed yet took their time resubmerging, almost as if they were showing off. It was hypnotizing, how they wore their kills like jewels. The lake looked like something out of a dream, lit up every color imaginable and reaching toward the moon with an ever-growing number of black, slithering arms.
It was hard to look away, but Amir hadn't made a sound – hardly felt like he was breathing. Ronan couldn't resist the urge to peek at his reaction.
And Ronan knew he was at Prism Lake, beholding one of the most magical sights Diverra had to offer, but–
But he thought Amir might've been the loveliest thing he'd ever seen.
Amir stared out over the water in slack-jawed awe, with a light in his eyes that had nothing to do with the colors dancing across his face.
And it occurred to Ronan, I care for him.
He cared for Amir in a way he'd thought he never could, trapped as he was in Vito's orbit. But that's what this was, wasn't it?
He let it wash over him like the light of a thousand fireflies and thought, this was inevitable.
The only surprise, really, was that he enjoyed it. Ronan had never faced affection without the immediate urge to flee. But he looked at Amir, at the peaceful smile that played across his lips now that the shock had worn off, and wanted to sink into the feeling. He wanted to drape himself in it, drape himself in Amir – he wanted to cover him from head to toe and be covered in return.
Loving Vito felt every day like a betrayal of trust, a shameful secret that Ronan could either fight or learn to live with, but never indulge. But he thought . . .
He thought Amir might care for him, too.
"Hey," Ronan said. The spectacle was coming to an end; the flies were dwindling in number, dispersed or consumed, and the eels were rising fewer and farther between as they lost interest. Amir turned to him, and Ronan wondered how it had taken him so long to realize it, when Amir walked around every day with a face like that.
Ronan didn't know why he felt like sharing all of a sudden; just that he wanted to know Amir, and for that to happen, he had to let Amir know him.
"I'm going to tell you something."
So Ronan shared about a woman who fell in love with what she couldn't have and the heartbreak from which she never recovered. He shared about the smell of liquor and a pair of pearl earrings and a man who hadn't wanted him until he'd seen his face, who had cared enough to be a part of Ronan's life but not enough to defend it. He shared about a girl, young and sweet and so fond of him, who had held the truth behind a pearly-white smile for reasons Ronan still didn't understand. There were so many parts he didn't understand, and he hated having to guess, and he shared that, too.
He tapered off with a self-deprecating laugh that came out more like a sigh and a trailing mutter of, "I just wish . . . I don't know. I just wish."
Amir had scooted away, just enough to look at Ronan properly as he spoke. Right now, all Ronan wished was that he'd come back.
"You want to be chosen. I understand that."
Ronan had been staring down at his lap – it was too embarrassing, his history of rejection – but he looked at Amir now, waiting.
"My father is rather pale, and my mother– well, she's Shaelan, but she's much fairer than I am," Amir began. "It was obvious from the moment I was born that I was illegitimate. I've never met the man who created me – all I know is that he's Shaelan, too, and that my mother loved him.
"My father didn't come from the same, ah– station, as yours, and they already had other children to worry about. They didn't separate, but my father retaliated by immediately getting my mother pregnant again and cursing me my whole life, and my siblings took me for their punching bag and their scapegoat, and my mother only stood up for me as long as it took her to realize she could garner my father's favor by shunning me as well. So I know how it feels, to go your whole life and never be chosen."
Ronan had wondered for so long what he would have to ask or give or scheme to steal a glimpse at Amir's past, and here Amir was, offering it up.
"I used to think my father might try to kill me or have me killed some day," Amir admitted. "That was why I learned to wield a blade, at least at first. But the instructor who worked for the family I served, he was good to me in a way nobody else had been, and fighting– well, I'm sure you've noticed by now. It takes some of the edge off, at least for a whi– what's wrong?"
Ronan released his bottom lip from his teeth. It stung, but not so badly as the guilt biting at his throat. "I . . . haven't been very kind to you," he said.
They were friends now – good friends, even – but he had been cold to Amir when they first met, and suspicious of him for so long after, when all Amir had wanted was a place where he would be accepted. He had been seeking a family, just like the rest of them.
"Now that's just not true, is it?"
Ronan frowned. It definitely was–
"I had to earn your friendship, that's fair," Amir conceded. "You were the most wary from the start, but I can't blame you for that, and even then– Ronan, I never had to struggle for your kindness. You thought me a threat, yet you still deemed me worthy of fair treatment, and that . . . It said a lot, and it meant a lot. Made me a bit desperate to know you." Amir tucked his knees up. "You, ah. You may have noticed."
Ronan had. It had taken him a while, but he had realized that, for some impossible reason, he was something special to Amir. It had taken him forever, it felt like, but now it was all he could think about.
"On my first night, you looked just . . . just peeved that I was around. Even more so that I was sleeping in your room. God, you were storming."
"I do not storm."
"You do. Stomping around and everything. I'm sure all you wanted was to punt me halfway across the island, and yet– when I was all settled and ready to sleep on the floor, you showed up with a mattress you'd dragged up from the basement, and then you disappeared again, and you came back with two pillows in one arm and a glass of water in the other and a blanket thrown over your shoulders like you had to get it all to me in one trip, and you were glaring at me the whole time, and it should have been ridiculous, but you were sort of . . . wrapped up, and it was really . . ."
Amir trailed off, suddenly interested in the durability of the grass around his ankles, but Ronan refused to let it go.
"Really what?"
"Really–" Amir started, then cut himself off and looked Ronan in the eye, which looked like it took every ounce of his willpower, and it was really . . .
"Really cute," Amir said finally.
Ronan didn't know what it looked like, to want to kiss someone as anything but a prelude to sex, but he thought it might be something like Amir's face right then, bashful and embarrassed but so determined. And Ronan would allow it, was craving it, thought he might need it.
If he were braver, he would make the push himself, but Ronan had only ever known affection that came unrequited.
So he waited, cowardly and hopeful, for Amir's move. But instead of closing the distance between them and giving in to what Ronan wanted – what they both wanted, if Ronan was reading this right, but this was a language he'd never gotten the chance to learn – Amir asked him,
"If you could go anywhere, where would you go?"
Taken aback by the sudden switch, it took Ronan a beat to come up with an answer.
"The castle, I reckon," he said. It was silly, but ever since they'd become the Merry Men, the castle had been something of a fantasy of theirs, half joke and half pipe-dream. Ronan had too much sense to call it an ambition, robbing the most powerful, most protected people in Diverra, but, "I think I'd like to just . . . go inside. To see what it looks like to have so much."
Grinning, Amir said, "I meant anywhere in the world, Ronan."
Oh.
Sometimes Ronan forgot that there was more than this, and the world was bigger than their secret house in the middle of the woods on their shitty, hopeless, divine island.
"I would go anywhere," said Ronan. He didn't know anyplace else, but he knew there were lands across the water where life could be different. "Anywhere but here. Somewhere I'd actually stand a fighting chance."
Ronan dreamed every day of leaving. Diverra was a country built on stagnace – Ronan could work his whole life and never be more than he was now.
And because of the nature of the island, isolated by harsh waters on all sides, it wasn't as if he could simply pack up and leave. "There are whispers, you know, of sailing crews and trade ships taking on passengers. I've heard rumors of people getting away with strange crews to search for a new life elsewhere. But they charge a heavy fee, those sailors. More than most here could ever afford. Turns out it's a lucrative business, ferrying Diverran getaways."
"But you make that sort of money easily, don't you?" asked Amir. "If you saved your share from a few heists . . ."
Ronan gave a downhearted smile. If only Amir knew how many times he'd thought the same thing, how many times he'd saved the money just to have his hopes thrown back in his face.
"I couldn't do it by myself," he admitted. He didn't know how to be alone. "If even one of them wanted to come with me, I'd do it in a heartbeat, but . . . We're all Vito's. And he'll never give this up."
Amir had been right: Ronan had never known what it felt like to be chosen. His father hadn't chosen him over his reputation, his mother hadn't chosen him over her vice, his sister hadn't chosen him over their father. And none of the Merry Men would ever choose him over Vito.
"I know this won't mean much, but . . . I would go with you. If you wanted to leave."
Ronan's breath caught. Amir smiled at his reaction, and Ronan wondered how oblivious he had to be to think that wouldn't mean much.
"Are you– you're serious?"
"Come on, Ronan," Amir laughed. "You must know by now."
"What of the others?"
"I'm not here for them."
Do it, Ronan thought, nearly begged. Kiss me.
"You would only have to say the words. That's a promise."
Ronan waited for the other shoe to drop, but Amir's face was earnest as he waited for a response. He didn't take it back, didn't add any conditions or expectations or deadlines. Ronan searched his eyes for second-guessing and found sincerity.
"Okay," he managed, just barely.
Amir smiled full of promise, and Ronan was brave enough to return it.
"Oh!"
Amir shoved both hands into his pant pockets. "I have something for you," he said, then furrowed his eyebrows as whatever it was eluded him. Ronan could tell when he found it by the smile that lit his face brighter than the fireflies ever could.
He held up a gold-chain cameo of the royal orchid.
Ronan went still as the lake. "How did you . . . when did you . . .?" He stared at the necklace, expecting it to disappear after his next blink, but it persisted, swinging like a pendulum in Amir's grip.
"I'm getting pretty good at this thieving thing, eh? And now it's a trophy, so you can wear it."
Ronan thought his heart might just crash out of his chest.
Whatever showed on his face must have been enough, because Amir wasn't fazed by his silence. "Can I put it on you?"
Ronan nodded.
Amir crawled behind him. Ronan knew he must be blushing all the way down to his chest, because Amir's usually-warm touch was cool against the back of his neck. Ronan undid the top couple buttons of his shirt and felt Amir's fingers pause – Ronan wanted to see the pendant against his skin, was all.
Amir came around to Ronan's front to look at him head on. When Ronan finally looked up from the charm that sat lovely and soft against his chest, Amir's smile had shrunk back down to something self-satisfied and admiring.
"Pretty," he said, and Ronan didn't think he was talking about the necklace, and he wanted him so badly it made his head hurt.
Kiss me, kiss me, kiss me kiss me-kiss-me–
A sound like an explosion went off, and Ronan startled so hard he would've rolled right onto his back if Amir hadn't caught his shirt.
Ronan watched, dumbfounded, as sparks showered the lake.
From the very edge of his vision, he saw Amir grinning at him. "Do you like–"
"Turn around!" Ronan demanded, shoving blindly at Amir's shoulders as another light shot into the sky with a whistle. The next explosion drowned out his cry of, "You're missing it!"
Ronan vaguely registered Amir laughing at him. Still, Amir turned obediently as more fireworks went off. Ronan waited breathlessly for each one, flinching regardless at the noise, until there wasn't enough time between the blasts for any waiting at all. The night sky was under siege, and Ronan watched the destruction with wonder.
Then there was warmth, settling over his chest and his legs like a blanket, as Amir leaned back against him. He lay over Ronan like it was okay, like it was easy– like everything Ronan had been feeling, for Amir and for Vito and for his whole life, was as simple as closing the distance between their bodies.
Ronan fell deaf to the fireworks. He looked down at Amir's head resting against his shoulder, and Amir smiled up at him, so close yet so unafraid. Ronan had lived nineteen years believing this wasn't allowed, but Amir leaned into him like it was natural.
"You're missing it," Amir said smugly.
Ronan made a face at him and spitefully turned his eyes back to the sky, but he was fighting down a smile of his own.
When it came to Vito, he and Ronan had butted heads the first day they met and never stopped since, and Ronan had been enamored with the thrill of it. It was the kind of passion novels were made of; he'd fallen in love with the highs and the lows and the heat they carried. In Ronan's most impossible dreams, he and Vito had come together suddenly and violently, sort of like the fireworks devastating the sky right then, raining fire on still water.
Amir was making Ronan believe that passion could be gentle.
He settled further against Ronan's chest, and it wasn't a kiss, but it was affection that Ronan didn't have to fight for, and it was warm, and bright, and calm, like the light of a thousand fireflies slowly crawling over a lake.
"I've always thought they looked like hundreds of shooting stars," Amir said as a single spark shot into the sky and burst into color.
"I think . . ." Ronan mused, "It looks like a single shooting star, exploding."
Ronan wasn't sure what time it was when Bandit touched down in the woods, but the moon hung low in the sky, and Amir was half-asleep against his back.
"Come on," Ronan nudged gently. "Before she boots us off."
Amir's hold around Ronan's waist had gone slack since they'd landed, but he hadn't let go. Ronan looked down at the arms around him and felt dizzy; he couldn't believe it was this easy. He dared to trace his fingers along Amir's forearm, from his elbow to his wrist. He spread his fingers over scarred knuckles and felt Amir's pleased hum all the way down to his fingertips.
Ronan expected Bandit to start shaking them off any time now – she wasn't the most patient mare – but she seemed content to plod about in small circles until they dismounted. Ronan suspected she had noticed Amir's growing comfort with her and was feeling proud of herself.
"I'm going to get off and tell her to fly away with you," Ronan threatened when Amir slumped further against his back.
"Mean," Amir murmured into Ronan's neck, but that, at least, got him moving.
They went back the way they'd come, picking through the forest until the back of the house was in sight.
Ronan paused at the edge of the treeline when he saw somebody sitting against the back steps.
Amir cursed behind him. "Should we go another way?"
In lieu of an answer, Ronan stepped out of the trees, directly into Vito's line of sight. It wouldn't do them any good to hide, and Ronan was in far too good a mood to care.
Vito looked up as they neared. "How was the party?" he asked evenly. Ronan wondered who he thought he was fooling with eyes so livid.
Ronan didn't so much as slow to face him. "Terrible," he deadpanned as he stepped around him to the door.