Chapter Text
February, year 345
“Besha said he’d unelect one of his best friends in the Council?” Bror whooped with laughter. “And you had to tell him to cool it and be careful? Damn, Rishka. What kind of sorcery did you use on him?”
Tilrey was a little embarrassed to see Bror so impressed, but he had to admit he enjoyed it, too. It felt good to be reminded that Bror liked him for more than his looks. “Just a hand job,” he said modestly.
They’d taken advantage of a slightly warmer-than-normal winter day to stroll around Ring Six, fighting off cabin fever. Snow fell thickly in purple twilight, but at least there was no stinging wind, only cold flakes dripping down their cheeks. With their thick coats, padded mittens, and scarves over their faces, it was almost tolerable. The western sky had a pearly glow that promised more daylight someday.
“Oh, c’mon!” Bror said as they skirted a factory, a gray hulk in the gloom. “Was that really all you did to Besha?”
“Well, no.” Tilrey still felt weird discussing the details of what he did with Councillors; Malsha had hammered the gospel of “discretion” into his head. But this was Bror. “He, um, he asked me to ‘turn the tables’ on him. So I pushed him down and held him until … well, until he got hard. Then I let him go.”
“So Besha likes being on the bottom? I wondered about that. He certainly spends enough of his time licking Verán’s boots.”
“I don’t think he’s admitted to himself just how much he likes it.” Tilrey let himself smile slyly, remembering how excited and red-faced Besha had been.
For a few moments, with the squirming Councillor underneath him, he’d felt almost powerful. Not because he was on top—he’d experienced that with Malsha, but he had never actually been in control. No, it was exciting because Besha both did and didn’t want it. Because Besha hadn’t been in control. Remembering all the ways Malsha had tormented him, Tilrey had an unsettling feeling that Malsha would have enjoyed Besha’s squirming, too.
I’m not like him. I’ll never be like him.
“And then you seized your chance to turn Besha against that shit Makari!” Bror hooked his arm through Tilrey’s to steer them clear of a dozen or so workers in gray parkas who were pouring from the factory’s entrance. “You’re a clever one, Rishka! Ansha’s not the only one who can wind Councillors around his little finger.”
“He can handle Verán. I can’t.” But Tilrey didn’t like talking about Verán. “It’s not the end of a shift yet, is it?” he asked, changing the subject, as more people milled around them in the snowy street.
“No.” Bror’s smile faded as he guided Tilrey through the crowd. “Look at them.”
Instead of walking to keep warm, as any normal person would do, the young workers had joined ranks and now stood facing the street, tightly packed enough to block the door. Their expressions ranged from blank to disgruntled. “I don’t get it,” Tilrey told Bror under his breath.
Someone must have given a signal. Suddenly all the workers raised their hands to chest height and held them palm-up, as if to emphasize their idleness. Two of them carried a banner on which names had been roughly hand-lettered in red.
“They do this when they’re steamed,” Bror said, heading for the opposite side of the street. “I heard some poor lineworkers got mangled in an accident—the third in three years.”
Tilrey couldn’t help being fascinated by the sober-faced young people. “Are they refusing to work?” Sometimes you heard rumblings of a strike in Thurskein, but nothing ever came of it. Everyone was too afraid of lockdown, of rations being cut off.
“Only for a few minutes,” Bror said dismissively. “It’s a tradition here—‘silent actions.’ They make their point about wanting safer conditions, and then back to work they go.”
As he spoke, he collided with a young woman who’d drifted across the street. “Sorry!”
“Traitor!” she snapped back.
Tilrey pretended he hadn’t heard. But Bror stopped in his tracks, giving the girl a good stare. “ ’Scuse me? I know you—one of the Artunei kids, right? I doubt your grandma Bronja raised you to be rude to your own kind.”
“Our kind?” The girl gave them both a scathing once-over, speaking loudly enough to draw the attention of other workers nearby. “Like you’ve ever worked an hour on a line? You look like a fucking Strutter.”
“They’re Strutters’ whores,” a young man explained.
“Lighten the fuck up, okay?” Bror was moving again, shielding Tilrey with his body. Over his shoulder, he called, “No one’s getting in the way of your statement.”
“A whore is a whore,” another boy taunted. “Look at ’em, dressed up like dolls in those fancy wool coats.”
“Fake Strutters! Fuck-pieces!”
They were nearly past the factory, but the far edge of the protest had drifted toward them. Something struck Tilrey’s back with a soft ploomph.
It was only a snowball, shattering on impact. But it gave him a jolt. He forced himself to keep an even pace, knowing the crowd would want to see them run.
“Traitors!” someone howled.
“Strutter pets!”
“How many dicks did you suck today?”
Bror kept tight hold of Tilrey’s arm. “Kids,” he muttered. “Let ’em have their fun—no, don’t look back. Pretend you don’t notice. They’ll learn manners sooner or later.”
Behind them, the catcalls continued. Was Tilrey trembling? He supposed he was. Shame was nothing new, but he wasn’t used to being mocked publicly by other Laborers.
In the distance, a siren shrilled, followed by another. A raw yell sounded: “Constables!”
That was enough to dissolve the protest into chaos. The crowd rushed and shoved, some workers trying to retreat into the factory while others shouted at them to stand their ground. The two kettle boys were forgotten.
Bror yanked Tilrey up a side street, then down concrete stairs into the echoing warmth of the Underground City. At a soup kiosk, he stopped and stripped off first his own mittens, then Tilrey’s. “You’re freezing!” he said, rubbing Tilrey’s hands between his. “We shouldn’t have walked so far. Let’s get tea before we hop on the tram.”
Tilrey allowed Bror to sit him down at a table and bring him a steaming cup of fragrant green tea. He did feel shell-shocked, his fingers and cheeks numb from the cold.
When they were both seated, he asked, “Will the Constables arrest those workers?” Put them in a dark cell like me? Ask them questions?
“Doubt it.” Bror slurped his tea. “They only do that if shirkers stand their ground, and those kids weren’t real shirkers. They scurried back inside like rats, I’ll bet, and got back to work.”
If that was supposed to make Tilrey feel better, it didn’t. “Will the Bureau of Labor do anything?” he asked, feeling an unfamiliar mixture of anger, shame, and helplessness. “Will they inspect the factory to make sure it’s safe?”
“They do semiannual inspections. Accidents happen, though. One more reason I didn’t want to end up on a line like my dad.” Bror smoothed a lock of hair behind Tilrey’s ear. “Hey. You okay? I’m used to it, but I’m sorry you had to hear that stuff. Especially here in my Ring.”
Tilrey nodded, but he couldn’t meet Bror’s eyes. If he’d met those workers by himself, he thought, he could have borne the taunts more easily. Gone numb inside, the way he did with Upstarts. But seeing Bror take the abuse was different.
Bror wasn’t a coward. Bror usually fought for things he believed in. This time he hadn’t fought, because he knew the young workers weren’t entirely wrong.
“They hate us.” Tilrey thought of his mother and Dal. When they saw him again, would he look to them like a whore, a traitor, a pathetic dressed-up imitation of an Upstart?
“They’re bored and angry.” Bror’s knee nudged his under the table. “Their lives are a treadmill—eat, sleep, work, drink, fuck, pop out some kids, work some more. They’re jealous of anyone who managed to jump off the track.”
“You said your family doesn’t mind that you’re a kettle boy.”
“They don’t! But my family’s not malcontents. Don’t let those losers get under your skin.”
Tilrey squeezed Bror’s hand as if agreeing. He couldn’t say what he was thinking: To everyone in Redda, I’m just a fuck-piece. I accept that. But you—no one should ever call you those things. Not in your own home!
And Bror had said, I’m used to it. This wasn’t the first time.
Tilrey almost wished he could have the old Bror back, the one who had ripped him out of Ansha’s arms and forced him to walk off the sap and lectured him on self-respect. For so long, Bror had always been stronger in Tilrey’s eyes. He had always known best.
Now Tilrey knew there were problems Bror had to laugh off because he didn’t even know where to start solving them.
“Have you ever wondered if they have a point?” he asked as they took a lift up to the tram. “When they call us traitors?”
“Those are just names. No one can tell you who you are except—”
“Yourself. I know.” Tilrey wanted to believe in Bror’s familiar lessons of self-reliance, even now. “But we have abandoned our own kind, haven’t we?”
“No,” Bror looked him in the eye. “When we better ourselves, Rishka, we’re able to help the people we love. That’s the most anyone can ever do in this world.”
Tilrey nodded, but he wondered if that was the most anyone could do. Were all the factory protesters really just “malcontents,” rebelling for the sake of rebelling? Or were some of them holding secret meetings like the one he’d attended in Thurskein? Trying to change things?
It was a free-night. Evening was only a few hours away, leaving them no time for the Vacants. Tilrey stayed quiet on the tram, gazing out the window. He didn’t want Bror to see what he was thinking.
When they got off, he suddenly couldn’t bear to say goodbye. As they entered the warm enclosure, he pressed Bror up against the wall and kissed him passionately, fingers knotting in the close-cropped hair.
Normally they avoided public displays, but the tram had been almost empty. Aside from a few embarrassed titters that vanished as people passed, they might as well have been alone.
Bror returned the kiss with fervor. His big hands ran over Tilrey’s back and lower, to squeeze Tilrey’s ass and draw him closer, till there was no space between their bodies. “Damn, I want you.”
Tilrey rubbed his groin against Bror’s thigh, shuddering with need. He released Bror’s head so he could untie his friend’s scarf and nuzzle and nip the soft skin underneath. Bror gasped with an abandon that only made Tilrey harder.
He’d just opened his lips to receive Bror’s burning tongue when a voice behind them said sharply, “What the fuck are you doing, Nettsha?”
Vlastor.
Tilrey twisted to face the driver, without loosening his grip on Bror. “Not working yet,” he said, feeling and probably sounding a little drunk, “so I’m doing whatever I feel like doing. Why are you up my ass?”
“Remember the talk we had, Vlastor?” Bror’s hands cupped Tilrey’s hips protectively. “You leave us alone, and we leave you alone.”
“Not in public.” Vlastor spoke firmly, though his cheeks were splashed with red. “What if one of the Fir’s colleagues saw you two like this? Or the secretary for a Councillor from the opposing party? It would be all over the Sector like that.” A finger-snap. “Nettsha, you better come with me.”
But Tilrey could see the clock above the sliding door, and he knew they still had a few hours before work. “Not yet,” he said, disentangling himself from Bror. Luckily the coat was bulky enough to hide his hard-on. “We’ll be discreet from now on.”
Vlastor looked doubtful, so Tilrey added, “I’m nearly twenty-two, not twelve. You don’t need to tell me my responsibilities.”
“You heard him,” Bror rumbled. “Anyway, I’ll make sure he gets home in time.”
Vlastor glanced around, as if gauging the risk of making a scene. Then he snapped, “You better, Birun. I don’t like the way you were just … all over him. It was unseemly.”
And he turned on his heel and marched away.
Bror and Tilrey waited until the driver was out of sight before they dissolved into laughter so hard they had to hold each other upright.
“Unseemly!” Bror wiped his eyes. “I’ve been called a lot of things, but never that.”
Remembering what the Ring Six workers had called them, Tilrey yielded to another bout of helpless laughter. Vlastor’s injured dignity was almost absurd enough to help him forget the rest of the afternoon.
“I guess that’s it, then,” he said, leading the way down the passage toward the lift where they usually parted. “Better be more seemly from now on.”
“No, fuck that!” Still breathless from their shared mirth, Bror tugged Tilrey around a corner and into a maintenance alcove. “First we have unfinished business,” he said, shoving him up against the grooved concrete.
Then they were kissing and necking as if Vlastor had never interrupted, ripping coat buttons open to get hands on each other properly, pausing only long enough for more wild laughter at their own daring. The alcove hid them from passersby, but only just.
When they were both frustratingly hard, Bror tore himself from Tilrey’s clinging hands and knelt on the granite tiles. Tilrey tried to object. But Bror said, “Shush” and reached up to unhook Tilrey’s fly.
Tilrey closed his eyes. He heard the nearby murmurs of people waiting for the lift. Meanwhile, Bror teased his cock with a clever tongue and drew it deep into the velvet of his throat. Every sensation was familiar and yet newly exciting. He clenched his fists to keep from whimpering as Bror sucked him off with ruthless, exquisite efficiency.
Finally Bror rose to his feet and told Tilrey to come, fingers clamping his cock like iron. Tilrey obeyed instantly, gasping into Bror’s mouth. A whore is a whore, he thought, feeling trashy and wanton but very happy.
He tried to reciprocate. But Bror said they might be pushing their luck. So they tidied their clothes, took the lift up dozens of floors, and snuck back into Verán’s apartment, tiptoeing through the coldroom as if Vlastor were waiting to pounce on them.
Vlastor made no appearance, however. In Tilrey’s room, they threw themselves on the bed, not bothering to switch on the lights because they were too busy laughing hysterically, this time at their own precautions.
The laughter made Tilrey ache, delicious and painful at once. He worried about what would happen when it ended.
He tried again to jerk Bror off, but Bror said it was okay, the moment had passed. He wrapped Tilrey in his arms. They lay there in the dark for a while, on top of the covers, Bror’s heartbeat under Tilrey’s cheek.
“You know how to treat me, Brorsha,” Tilrey said. He was fairly sure he’d said the words before, yet each time they took on new meaning.
“In an unseemly way, you mean?” But this time neither of them laughed. After a moment, Bror kissed the top of Tilrey’s head and said, “You know I love you.”
I love you, too. It had been so much easier to say the words in an isolated cabin far from Redda. In a very low voice, Tilrey asked, “So you’re not ashamed? Of … us?”
Bror kissed him again. “No, I’m not ashamed of what we are, and you’re not allowed to be, either. Promise me you’ll forget what happened with those idiot kids? Rishka, you’re better than that. Nobody as smart and sweet and … as wonderful and perfect as you should ever be ashamed.”
Bror sounded truly worried, so Tilrey promised.
He wondered how long Bror had been lying to himself. They were both getting good at it.
***
It barely even gave him a jolt when Vlastor showed up, hours later after Bror had left, and said, “We’re off to the General Magistrate’s apartment tonight.”
So. At last. The threat of Fir Linden had been hanging over Tilrey for more than a year now. This was almost a relief.
He didn’t pause in blow-drying his hair, only met Vlastor’s eyes in the mirror. “Just for the night?” He hadn’t forgotten Vlastor’s warnings about how Verán might send him to live with Linden if he didn’t behave. “Or should I pack my things?”
“Just for the night. I didn’t tell the Fir, you know.” Vlastor looked a little unsettled by Tilrey’s calm. “About your public display. Don’t do it again.”
“I won’t.” Unless I feel like it. Next time, though, Tilrey would be more careful.
In a strange way, he felt ready for the night, as if everything that had happened today had prepared him.
He dressed in a plain blue tunic with white piping rather than one of the more interesting color combinations Malsha had favored. Clearly the GM was conservative in his tastes. After a final glance in the mirror at his own impassive face, he followed Vlastor out to the car. The journey to Linden’s apartment would have been quicker through the innards of the two connected buildings, but a Councillor’s piece couldn’t travel on foot.
He hadn’t forgotten what Linden had told him on their first night, in between blows. He speaks when he’s spoken to from now on. He looks where he’s told to look. It had been Tilrey’s first time being addressed in the third person, in the archaic form that spared a lord from speaking directly to his inferior.
Everyone had fussed over Tilrey’s bruises, but they’d faded quickly. No permanent damage. And he didn’t feel afraid now, only a little frustrated by his lack of control over what was coming.
Every man had a key, likes and dislikes that dictated best practices for handling him. Tilrey already knew Linden didn’t want him looking or speaking out of turn. He would decode the rest of the Magistrate’s wants and needs sooner or later.
“You’ll be okay,” Vlastor said as they trudged from the car into the dim coldroom. “Just no backtalk this time, right?”
Tilrey opened his mouth to say he never talked back—or only to Vlastor himself, which didn’t count.
But before he could speak, the inner door hissed open. Linden’s driver strode out. “Hey there,” he greeted Vlastor. “You can go—I’ll take it from here.” And to Tilrey, “How’ve you been, Nettsha?”
“Not bad … Jorning, right?” It was the big, brown-haired Skeinsha who had allowed Tilrey to share his bed after Linden kicked him out. Tilrey was relieved to see him. The man was rough but seemingly good-natured, and his strong accent was a little piece of home.
Jorning ushered Tilrey into the apartment. To the hovering Vlastor, he said, “No worries. Not a mark on him this time, I promise.”
The door closed behind them before Vlastor could reply.
“That guy bugs me. He acts like your nursemaid,” Jorning said, leading Tilrey into the brightness of the sitting room
“He does!” But words caught in Tilrey’s throat as Jorning turned, revealing a purple bruise streaking his cheek. He’d almost forgotten Jorning saying the Magistrate hit him sometimes, too.
Their eyes met. “’S nothing,” Jorning said a little too heartily. “A word out of turn—you know how it is. Strutters can be so damn sensitive.”
He led Tilrey briskly toward the bedroom, as if he were afraid Tilrey might try to get away. “I got a plan. You just follow my lead, everything’ll be fine.”