The next morning was not a happy one, but to his credit, Tay did not once try to get out of the promise he had made to Cour to speak with Sol about the cub's welfare. He blamed tiredness for the making of it, complaining incessantly, yet in the end he went with his newly promised husband when the day's work was done, down the path from Vayrsila's house to Sol's little one on the southern outskirts of the village. Cour appreciated the lack of outright argument, but he did wish that Tay might look a little less like a doe about to be slaughtered.
They talked on the way, about many things. For a while they tried to decide on the day of the wedding - if it was going to be soon, preparations would need to be started even sooner, and nothing like that could be done until they had a date. They got nowhere, mostly because neither of them was sure what time would be best since neither of them cared beyond 'soon'. After a while of going back and forth over things, they decided to ask someone how long it would take to prepare the kind of small wedding Tay had in mind, and leave the date at that.
As they neared Sol's house, talk turned to things nearer at hand.
The little house was decorated warmly on the outside, and it looked friendly enough to Cour, though he had never gone inside. Tay didn't seem to think so at all. His fingers tightened, almost frantically, on Cour's left hand as the corolaith in training began to knock with his right, and it occurred suddenly to Cour that Tay had been here before. Sol was polite; Sol would have brought Tay to a comfortable place for his first time. Brought Tay home.
Where did all my tact go? he wondered, heart sinking.
But there was no help for it now. Trying to be encouraging, he cast Tay a soft look of reassurance and rapped his knuckles twice against the rough wood of the weather-worn door. They waited a few moments before the door swung open, Sol's quizzical face poking out and falling first into slack shock before easing into a genuine smile. He pulled the door open wider and motioned them both inside.
"Come in! I don't really have anywhere to sit..." he trailed sheepishly, turning every direction almost all at once in search of a suitable seat. Tay choked off brief nervous laughter in spite of his traces of resentment.
"Here!" Sol finished suddenly, pouncing into a corner and pulling a stool out, apparently from nowhere. "Tay, you can sit here. Cour, I guess you and I will just have to stand," he offered, smiling a weak apology. "I really didn't expect you to come..."
Cour waited. Tay, still standing up, squirmed in place because he knew all too well what Cour was waiting for. They had spoken long and hard about it, first the evening before and then again right before they set out for Sol's. Cour was not going to talk unless something came up that he had a say in. In the end Tay had been forced to admit that, whether he liked it or not, Sol was the blood father of his cub, and there were things that needed to be cleared up just between the two of them. Tay had not liked this either, but once again, he had agreed.
He floundered a moment, trying to think of something to say.
"Cour says..." he began slowly, and the hand of the person in question tightened around his own. Impatiently he squeezed back, arrowing a dark look upward at the older Kindred. "Hush, let me talk.
"Cour says," he started over, "that I need to talk with you about... what you'll be to the cub. What I mean is... I know you're his father, but I want to keep him. I need to keep him. Cour says you agreed," he offered haltingly, peering up from under his eyelids with a look that turned what would have been a statement into a question. He got a nod in return, which seemed to steady him. "But Cour and I are getting married," he finished, "and I don't want him to be - confused, about who he is or why I'm not married to you. It will be hard to explain why I did... what I did... when he's small... Am I making any sense?"
"Enough," Sol told him, hesitating to think. "You mean, you don't want him to see Cour as an extra?"
Tay nodded, relieved that someone had been able to straighten out his thoughts. "Yes."
"But I don't want him to see me as an extra either," Sol pointed out, crossing his arms and beginning to rock back and forth on his heels, the soles of his bare feet making tiny slapping sounds against the packed earth of the floor in the silence created by his words. The barely audible sounds went on for a few minutes, then were drowned out by Sol's deep sigh.
"Maybe that's something we'll have to deal with when we come to it." Here Tay opened his mouth, eyebrows bent contentiously, but Sol cut him off. For the first time, the elder male's voice was almost sharp. "I am going to have some say in my own cub's life, Tay, if I have to fight you to do it. Maybe you are his da and maybe you do have first claim, but I can try, and even you know I'd be right to. I shouldn't have slept with you, and you have every privilege to hate me for that. I knew you loved Cour, and I knew he loved you, and I shouldn't have gotten between no matter what I thought was best for you. Unless it was to kick you both.
"Not that I'm really that good at matchmaking," he admitted, softening suddenly. "But at least it might have been better than this has turned out to be."
"Probably," Tay agreed softly. There were tears stinging in the back of his throat, but he swallowed them as best he could. "I don't want to fight with you, Sol. I don't... I'd lose, wouldn't I? You have your da, your whole family, and all the village besides. I only have Cour, and we're not even married yet," he choked, bringing his hands up to cover his face; his eyelashes felt damp under his fingers. Cour's arms slid around him and squeezed gently.
"Maybe you'd better sit down now," Cour murmured, brushing wisps of hair back to speak into Tay's ear. Short steps sounded on the floor, the sounds of Sol coming forward, and together they settled the cub-bearer onto the provided seat before kneeling on either side of him. Tay kept his eyes closed and his hands over them. His head ached dully, and the silence that began to stretch on made it worse instead of better.
"Is that the only reason?" Sol asked presently, sounding hopeful and hurt at once. "Because you'd lose? But you wouldn't lose. In your tribe maybe things were like that - I don't know much about them - but it's not like that here, Tay. Everyone in this village would agree that you have first right over this cub, no matter what your circumstances are. You're his da, his nurturer. And you do have Cour: even if you're not married yet, you will be. You and I and all the rest of the tribe knows that he'll take good care of you both. Short of you going mad and killing half the village, I don't see how he's in any danger of being taken from you. It's me that has a problem. If you don't let me in, I might never get in. I won't try to take him! I just want... to see him, and to have him know I'm here. I don't want to be a stranger to him, Tay."
"I don't either!" Tay blurted, sitting up straight and swiping the moistness from his eyelids before turning his head to catch Sol's gaze. His head protested loudly; he ignored it. "I don't want him to grow up wondering who his father is, and I never wanted to punish you for what I did. It's not like that. Someday, Sol, you will want something more then just visits, and when that day comes I'm not letting you have it, but if what you say is true, about this tribe backing my claim up, then you can have the visits." His head dropped into his palms again, as if the words themselves had drained him of what energy he'd had left.
"I was always going to tell him about you."
"Then what's left to fight over? Visits, the chance to know him, was all I wanted. Maybe you're right and I will want something more later, but if I do, I swear to you I won't make a fuss over it," Sol promised, reaching to place a hand over the exposed back of Tay's head. "I can keep things to myself. Ask Kelper. He watches everything, he would know."
Tay cracked an eye open, peering out between his fingers at Sol and considering. He was right; Kelper did watch everything, and he would know whether or not his brother would stick to a promise. But Tay didn't need to ask him. There was something in the other Kindred's voice that made things too clear for doubt, and for the first time since the whole fiasco had begun, Tay was almost ready to believe that the situation might work out all right.
All at once he felt so light he could have floated. Nothing left to fight over.
"He'll grow up knowing you," Tay decided, half to himself. His eyes closed again, but even without sight he could see the change in Sol's whole presence. Something in the room, some tension that had been roiling in the corners, lifted; the hand on the back of his head that he hadn't shaken off relaxed. Cour let out a thin whistling breath of tired relief, like a man whose hard labor is done and over with, leaning in to kiss Tay's tear-dampened cheek, and Tay shivered half in relief of his own, half in fear of what he had agreed to.
"You can see him, and he can know who you are, but Cour and I will decide what's to be done with him," he finished rapidly before Sol could get any other ideas. "Until I know what you'll do."
"That's good enough for me," Sol sighed, and the bright elation in his voice convinced Tay more than the words did. The cub-bearer lifted his head and sat up again, somehow forcing a watery smile through the tears that persisted no matter how much he rubbed them away.
"Cour and I are getting married. Soon," he blurted abruptly. Sol lifted an eyebrow in surprise, making Tay blush and hasten to mend the sentence. "I don't know how soon exactly, we haven't decided on a day or anything like that..."
"Soon," Cour echoed wryly, clasping the one of Tay's hands that was on his side as if to say that he didn't mind. "As soon as we can, I think," he went on, facing Sol now and biting his lip thoughtfully. "I, for one, would like the cub to be born to a married couple, even if he isn't mine by blood. It's better for everyone."
Sol nodded, curling in his lap the hand that Tay had knocked off when he sat up. "Of course," he agreed seriously. "It would be a wonderful thing to do, if you're both ready."
"I am," Tay whispered firmly, though his lashes fluttered half-shut with shy nerves. His embarrassment at sharing such a private emotion was soothed a little by Cour's quick assent.
Sol smiled. "Well then, if you're sure, you'll need help with the wedding! As soon as you find a date, tell Kelper. He'll spill it everywhere, and you'll have all the people and the trimmings you need in no time at all. Which reminds me, if I may ask..." His face smoothed into gravity.
"When are you going to tell Vayrsila about the cub?"
"I don't know. There are so many things to do, and I don't know when I'm going to do any of them," Tay murmured, feeling lost once more. "He won't be angry with me, but do you think he'll accept it? I mean really accept it, and not think it's strange?"
Cour spoke up first this time. "I don't think he'll see that he has any say in it. He sees you as another son, Tay, and by this age all of his were making their own decisions. All you're really doing is what most of the village thinks is normal. You don't have to keep backtracking and apologising just for being independent."
"I know. It just feels so strange... I don't know what people do here! I had just gotten used to what cubs here do, and now I'm growing up, and I still don't know what's expected of me. I have this horrible feeling that everyone is waiting for me to turn out badly, and if that's true then I don't know what else to do! And now this! I keep spitting things out without thinking!"
"Maybe you need to stop thinking about what others want of you, and start doing things for yourself," Sol suggested."Stick to what Cour thinks of you. There's no need to go any further than that, is there?"
Cour took a moment to admire the way the other male stood up under the force of Tay's miserable glare before agreeing.
"You should, Tay. It's none of their business any more than it's Vayrsila's. Like you said, you're growing up. You know raising a cub's not easy, but it's even harder when you try to stick to what everyone else wants you to do."
"So I should choose for myself," Tay whispered, and his mouth twisted. "But what about Cunelbren? What am I supposed to do with him while I'm choosing?"
"It will take a while. Maybe a long while, and a lot of Cunelbren's time, but that's no different from what any other parent does, is it? You and he will have to come to an understanding, just like any other family. And you'll learn, in time," Cour told him.
"Everything takes time, Tay."
