Disclaimer: Ronin Warriors is not mine, but they have my love.

Warning: Yaoi. Het. Complicated interpersonal relationships.

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Persuasion – chapter four

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Sunday, the present:

Rowen left his shoes by the door with his coat, absently slipping the picture frame into one large pocket. He didn't think he needed to hide it. Cye had the decency to be blunt and would ask him about it when he wanted to know. But when Rowen drifted into the sitting room where Cye stood awkwardly by a dark armchair, it wasn't the picture Cye asked about.

"Why are you moving?"

The question was weeks late if Cye hoped to change anything by it.

"Why?" Rowen asked.

Cye counted off, finger by finger. "You have a nice apartment, it's big enough for you, you're moving farther away from your friends, and nothing has changed in your job."

"I don't know," Rowen said. "I wanted a change?"

Cye hesitated, pursing his lips. Inexplicably, he seemed to forget the question, and vanished down the hall, reappearing with something in his hands, which he casually tossed towards the couch. Rowen lifted his hands from his thighs and caught the box neatly in front of his face.

"Chocolates." Rowen turned the box over, staring at the swirling French letters across the maroon cover. It was dark outside by now, and the lights in the apartment glinted off the plastic wrap.

"You went to France?" he asked lamely. Cye had turned his head, watching Rowen thoughtfully out of his sea eyes.

"Mia bought it at a mall somewhere," he corrected. "She likes to buy presents."

"Oh," Rowen said, pulling at the plastic wrap. His fingernails were chewed too short to make a hole in the plastic, so he bit at it with his teeth.

"Need any help?"

Rowen shook his head. He opened the chocolate box, staring at the descriptions mirrored on the lid above the small brown and white sweets. Cye took a sheet and a blanket from the closet behind him, leaving them on the couch next to Rowen. "I'll get a pillow," he said.

Rowen watched him disappear through a door in the short hallway off the main room. He assumed it was Cye's bedroom, but Rowen had not been here before to know. He didn't notice Cye hitting him with the pillow until there was something soft against his face.

"Am I supposed to go to sleep?" he asked, tossing the pillow to the edge of the couch with the folded blankets. "It's only eight o'clock."

"Is it?" Cye said breezily. "That's actually more awareness of the world than I expected you to have."

Rowen held up his left wrist absently, biting into a praline in his other hand. "I haff a wotch."

Cye only watched him with eyes that held a sudden depth. When he opened his mouth, it was like the oven door swinging down in the candy house of the hungry witch.

"What?" Rowen asked sharply.

"Did you know that Ryo's coming back on Saturday?"

Rowen hesitated, forgetting to be snappish. "...No."

"He called Mia a few days ago. If you weren't in seclusion, you'd probably already know. Do you want to go the airport to pick him up? He'll be jetlagged, but he'll be glad to see you anyway."

Without really meaning to, Rowen took another chocolate from the box, turning it in his fingers, studying the spiraling white chocolate drizzled over the dark base. "Will Keisuke be there?"

The other man sighed. "Yes."

Rowen tossed the chocolate back. "I'll probably stay home."

"Rowen," Cye started.

"I don't like Keisuke. Tell me when Ryo dumps him, but I'm not going near him before then."

"Do you expect Ryo to be chaste for his entire life? Should we send him to a monastery?"

"This has nothing to do with him. I just don't like Keisuke."

"Oh, bullshit."

"Says who? Did I miss something?"

Cye jabbed a finger at the doorway and Rowen's coat hanging neatly with the picture frame in its pocket. "That," he said.

Rowen didn't respond, and slowly, like from a sieve, the anger seeped away, and he bent over his knees, sighing.

"Yeah," he said, "That is a little incriminating."

There was nothing left to say. Rowen sat with the pillow under one hand, watching the chocolates on the table, and Cye retreated silently. Rowen found a book underneath the newspapers on the kitchen counter, reading until he remembered what to do with the blankets at the end of the couch and went to sleep.

----

He dreamed of waking on a bed of stone and knew that he was hiding, deep in a cavern inside the earth. That it was very important that he not be found.

"Rowen, are you okay?" Ryo was leaning over him and his head was in Ryo's lap. This was odd because Rowen remembered this, but their roles were switched. Kayura had tried to possess Ryo's armor, not his. Stupid fairy dust.

Lying there, in Ryo's place, Rowen realized something. As the invalid here, he was free of that cold knot of fear which had plagued him, watching Ryo's uneven breaths, expecting each time that it would be the last. He was struck by the monumental unfairness of it all.

Ryo spoke again. "Rowen, could you get up? There's someone at the door."

Of course, caves didn't have doors, just rocks. But before he could tell Ryo this, something had come in through the open French doors across the room. Mia's doors, from her pretty European house. It was huge and black and shadowed with sinister glowing eyes like a cartoon. It tottered towards them, arms straight out, groaning in a fleshy voice, "Arrrrmorrrrr... Arrrmoorrrr for my massster..." It squished as it stepped like watery cheese.

Rowen burst into hysterical giggles, pointing and shaking. He had never seen anything so funny in his life. Ryo whispered urgently, "Rowen, I can't stop it by myself."

But he only rolled away from Ryo, still laughing uproariously at the mockery of zombie and demon. He stayed that way until the thing reached over and smashed Ryo through a wall.

----

Rowen didn't realize the bedroom door was open until Cye came out of it, blinking away sleep and wondering loudly why the kitchen lights were on at three am. He noticed the dirty pan crusting over on the range with an angry mutter, the egg carton left out, the open refrigerator door. Rowen looked up sheepishly from a plate of burned eggs and didn't explain why.

"Cye," Rowen said, pleading for the familiar face to turn, to glower down at him from eyes that changed like ocean weather. He remembered restless high school afternoons, the silly havoc he could wreak with Kento's help to the sound of Cye's laughter.

"Cye," he repeated, putting his hands to Cye's waist, feeling his friend's back gone stiff with annoyance. He rested his cheek against the wrinkled nightshirt that, as all Cye's things did eventually, smelled faintly briny. There was a moment of hesitation while the irritation drained away. Then slowly, gentle fingers brushed at his hair.

"Bad dream?"

He struggled with speech. His voice sounded soggy and dead, like a monster in a cave. "Zombies," he said. "You know."

The hand on Rowen's hair stilled, sliding down to rest coolly on the nape of his neck. "Actually, I... I expected something more meaningful."

Rowen pulled away, staring up at him. "Meaningful?"

Cye grimaced. "Well, I doubt you've been depressed about zombies."

"Dreams don't mean anything, Cye, and I don't have nightmares."

"About zombies?"

It was a tease, but the answer required that Rowen remember the dream itself, pull it back from where he'd layered over it with the taste of bad eggs. He sighed, turning his face into his hand, propped up on the counter. "Maybe occasionally."

The comforting weight was suddenly gone from his side. Rowen dropped his arm to his lap, leaning over the cold breakfast he'd made in the middle of the night. The picture frame made a little clattering sound against the countertop when Cye set it next to his plate.

"It's actually a very silly picture," Cye murmured thoughtfully. "I mean, it surprised me at first, but when you look at it again, it's not actually what it seems to be, is it?"

It wasn't a big frame, simple and of cherry wood. The picture inside showed the side of a house and two boys. The first, with blue hair, leaned over the second, his head dipping like he meant to whisper secrets into the other's dark hair, their faces nearly too close to separate. The camera hadn't seen his face; he was too focused on his companion, who watched him with eyes the color of the other's hair.

It was very much like the moment before a kiss. Which was of course why Rowen had refused to have the thing is his apartment in the first place, and why at the same time, Mia had been so insistent that he should.

"No, it is," Rowen said. He smelled Cye's shampoo without looking up, watching the wood stained like Cye's softly curling hair. "What it seems to be."

He felt Cye's stare, the eyes of a water wizard watching him over a picture of two boys standing too close together. "It is?" Cye asked, surprised, after he'd gone to all that trouble not to leap to conclusions.

Rowen nodded at his younger self, bent in two dimensions over a dark head with bright eyes. "I was going to... Until I remembered I was just worried about him. I didn't..." He flushed vividly, sitting up suddenly like he'd forgotten where he was and who he was talking to.

"Didn't...?" Cye prodded.

Rowen looked away, but his hand closed on Cye's when soft fingers brushed his wrist. "He wasn't going to stop existing just because I wasn't personally involved. Does that sound stupid? OCD?"

"No," Cye said, and Rowen believed him.

----

It was morning. He was half-awake and so made the mistake of answering Cye's phone. Sayoko took it the wrong way, hearing a voice she didn't recognize so early in the day when she'd meant to dial her brother. Rowen choked on air as soon as he realized that the curiosity on the other end of the phone line had entirely too much to do with sex.

"Rowen?" she repeated when he finally introduced himself. "I remember you. Your hair used to match my game boy."

"It probably still does," he said mildly, "unless you got a new one." He stood over the kitchen counter, nervously sliding the pen through his fingers as he pressed it against the countertop. The bathroom door was closed, water running faintly.

She asked suspiciously, "You do have a job don't you? That's not why you've moved in, is it?"

"No. I mean, I do."

Now she laughed self-consciously, "I'm sorry – it was rude, wasn't it? – but I don't know very many offices where people are allowed to dye their hair like that. Cye used to completely go for it though, so maybe you're on to something."

"I've tried dyeing it," he explained, rather than muddle through Cye 'going' for his hair. "It won't dye." He listened to her decide she hadn't heard that (nobody ever believed him), pushing air out through her pursed lips. It was same sound Cye made, when exasperated.

"Anyway," she went on, "tell Cye that mom and I are staying home for Christmas this year. Actually, you might think about coming down with him. I know you've done it before, but now that you're... with my brother - I suppose you'll have to meet my mother all over again."

"Now that I'm with–? Oh," he said and put the phone back on the hook without saying goodbye.

The apartment was oddly silent. He realized that the shower had been shut off. Cye opened the door, barefoot in jeans, pulling a shirt over his head. Light from the bathroom window hit the water beading on his neck and back and scattered. Cye had big, muscular shoulders from swimming, though the rest of his build was slight. It was easy to forget unless the other man was half-naked and wet and Rowen had just hung up on the guy's sister because she thought they were sleeping together.

"Rowen?" asked Cye.

"It was nothing," he said. Cye just shrugged and told him where the extra towels were.

He came out of the shower slowly, fully dressed, dropping the sleeping pants he'd borrowed over the back of the couch. Cye had put on a long sleeved blue shirt, his coat folded over a chair at the table while he busily packed a shoulder bag with books. Cye looked up.

"Class?" Rowen asked dumbly.

"Yes," Cye agreed, and left, patting Rowen's shoulder as he went. Rowen stared after him, a little bit confused by the suddenly empty apartment.

"Oh," he said. He found the remote but didn't feel like turning on the TV. Sayoko's voice was rebounding through his head, laughing at what she found there. He thought of Cye's eyes hiding the unexpected power of his armor, and the sudden grace of diving beneath a waterfall. In his mind, Cye stood in the hall, pulling a shirt over bare skin.

Kento said they were flirting. It hadn't occurred to him before. How could it? Ryo took up too much room. Ryo who he couldn't imagine sleeping with, couldn't imagine kissing, but who took up so much room all the same.

He was asleep, in the mostly clean clothes he'd worn the day before, when the apartment door opened. He turned over, gesturing vaguely, expecting to see Cye, but the hair of the woman standing in the doorway was a darker red and her pretty face was not Cye's.

"Mia?" he asked. She jumped, not expecting anyone on the couch. There was a package in her hand.

"Rowen?" she said, dropping her purse into the chair. "Why are you here?"

"Why do you have keys to Cye's apartment?" he countered, feeling mysteriously possessive.

"Friends do that sometimes," Mia said, hanging her coat by his own. "In case someone gets locked out."

"You live way the hell over there." He waved a hand in the wrong direction entirely.

The look she gave him was unsympathetic, her hands on her hips. "No, I'm not sleeping with him."

Rowen flushed. Mia took in his rumpled shirt and the blanket hanging off the couch, and Rowen wondered if she was about to second Sayoko's accusation. "Sorry," he said, standing, hitching up his jeans and looking where she wasn't.

"No, it's alright."

He glanced at her, saying cautiously, "Why are you here?"

She lifted the package. "It's a present for his mother. He left it at my house."

"You know he has class, don't you?"

"He'll be home in an hour or two. I sometimes make a late lunch for him. It's a nice thing to do."

He stared at her.

"Rowen," Mia said, exasperated, stalking past him, "some of us are still friends!"

He caught the wrist she was waving angrily in his face and then the other when she turned, pulling at her so she stopped when her body hit his, hip to hip. Her expression was hard. Hair fell into her face, pulled messily up like it had been a year ago when he'd taken her drinking after her reunion, but her clothing was practical instead of seductive, khaki pants and a green sweater.

"I'm still friends," he said. She touched his hair, shook her head.

"With who?"

He frowned. She turned, going into the kitchen, opening cabinets. He watched, worried somehow when she knew where everything was. She set a bowl down on the granite between the kitchen and the dining room and stopped, startled.

"What?" he asked before he saw the picture on Cye's kitchen counter. "Oh."

"You really did get a nail?"

He remembered that, the day after. He'd borrowed a hammer from a neighbor he barely knew, afraid of asking the favor of someone more familiar, who might ask awkward questions and understand the answers. "Yeah. I did."

Her annoyance had melted into that cherry frame. She touched the 2-D faces, smiling wistfully. "I thought you'd throw it away."

"I did, kind of. I forgot to take it out of the apartment. Cye found it."

"Cye? Oh, Rowen, I hope he didn't give you a heart attack."

"Almost." He pulled himself up on the counter, legs kicking into the dining room but leaning back so Mia's hair was against his shoulder. He grinned at her and suddenly Mia's eyes were teasing him again. "I hid it behind my shirts," he offered.

"Did you?" she asked politely.

He moved his hand across the room to encompass an entire closet of business attire. "I had a whole system all set up. Forgot about it completely."

Mia sighed. He'd said something wrong. Then she was moving away again, tired instead of delighted. Rowen felt a catch at his chest. He had never wanted to steal her energy. He wanted to share it.

"And what good did that do you?" she asked finally. He didn't know how to answer, just stared at her.

"We missed you," she added.

"I didn't go anywhere." She leveled a glare his way she usually reserved for male chauvinists. He spun on his rear, flipping his legs over the bowl she'd pulled from the cupboard. He took a hopping step towards her, catching her up in an embrace that wasn't comfortable so much as restricting.

"I'm dating a TA from International Relations," she said suddenly. It didn't sound like a rebuff.

"Um?" he said, lost.

"It's small talk," she said, sounding a little stupid, putting her head on his shoulder. "Now you tell me what's up with you."

"Why aren't you dating Ryo?"

She laughed into his neck. "I did."

He fumbled. "You did? When?"

"When you all thought it was happening. Those steamy affairs you kept insinuating..." She trailed off. Rowen didn't finish the sentence.

"This is going to sound really stupid," he mumbled, "but...uh... what was it like?"

She was resting her weight against him, his arms around her waist. "Only you," she whispered. He could feel her smile. "Only you would ask me if Ryo was good in bed."

He swallowed. "Well, I'm asking."

"He's gorgeous... just gorgeous." She didn't elaborate, and he shifted, lifting his chin from her hair, staring at the cabinets over the stove.

"What happened?"

She shrugged. "Ryo had a soccer game. There was a man on the side of the field letting the kids play with his lighter, teaching them tricks with cigarettes. He started a shit fit with the parents, and Ryo broke it up. The game rained out. The jerk stuck around, gave Ryo a ride a home."

Rowen snorted. "I really hate that guy." He poked his chin against the top of her head. "Why don't you?"

Mia laughed, slipping her hand up his back, palm resting under his shoulder blades. "I don't know. I just... wasn't jealous." She smiled mischievously. "I still get kisses sometimes."

"From Keisuke?"

"Rowen!" She laughed again, pulling away.

"Where are you going?" He followed out of the kitchen, hesitating when she pushed open the door to the bedroom. "Mia?"

She waved his protests away, not paying attention, a little like she was drunk and falling over his apartment floor. She poked around the shelves with their books and trinkets. "I'm looking for my chocolates."

"Oh. I think I ate those last night." She blinked at him. "Some of them," he amended.

"Cye gave you those?" she asked, a smile tugging at her lips that had little to do with anything Rowen understood.

"Yes," he said warily. There was a crumpled piece of paper on Cye's floor. He bent down to swipe up the trash.

"Never mind," she said. "Maybe I'll tell you later. Rowen? Are you okay?"

He stared at the wrinkled ball that had opened as he picked it up. Cye's quick, skilled handwriting covered it in an inexplicable list.

Sage

Keisuke

Ryo

The fiancé (whom I never met)

generally a neuroti – it degenerated into scribbles and blacked out, indecipherable items

He's probably just sexually repressed! Serve him right.

Suddenly the list made a little more sense. Rowen didn't know whether to be flattered or insulted to be the subject of Cye's amateur psychoanalysis. He collapsed onto the bed, laughing absurdly.

"What is that?" Mia half-reached for it, but Rowen snatched it back, shaking his head, unable to form words.

He held the paper between his hands, pressing it to his forehead. "I... I can't believe he wrote 'whom'."

"Are you going to show it to me?"

Rowen shook his head, settling into the bed, laughter subsiding. He said instead, "Cye wants me to meet Ryo at the airport this Saturday."

"Are you going to? Keisuke will be there." Rowen slanted his eyebrows skeptically. Mia rolled her eyes to the ceiling, sitting next to him on the neat bedspread. "You really should give this up."

Rowen grumbled, trying to ignore the fact that they'd spread themselves across Cye's bed like an invading army. "I don't like cocky, rich brats."

"Rowen," Mia said patiently. "I'm a cocky, rich brat."

"You're not cocky."

She kept a smile back, biting her lip, looking too sweet and too young. "You've never seen me in class."

He nodded reluctantly. "You're right. I usually see you trying to get into Ryo's pants."

She hit him, but she was laughing.

"This TA guy, this person who isn't Ryo... if you were going to do that, why him?"

She pushed a strand of hair behind her ear, cocking her head at him, curious to what he was really asking but for once not already knowing. "He's a nice person."

"So am I."

She was kissing him before he'd finished the sentence. Her breath was minty, different from the strawberry smell of her hair. He stiffened, and she pulled back. "You see? You feel taken."

"I can't have Ryo," he said automatically. She stared at him until he flushed red.

"You never used to admit that."

"Yeah, well." He raked a hand through his hair, staring at the table lamp.

Mia patted his knee. "By who then?"

He considered that, remembered a weird phone call from a nosy sister. "I... Maybe no one. Don't ask me."

She waited.

"Don't ask me yet," he clarified. She nodded and stood, leaning into his ear as she left.

"You know," she whispered like there was someone who could overhear, "Cye used to really like your hair."

Then she was disappearing through the open door and he couldn't quite manage to get up from Cye's bed. "Hey," he called a little desperately. "Weren't you going to make him lunch?"

"I'll let you do that. Remember to tell him about that package I brought, all right?"

"I..." he fumbled. "Okay. I will. Mia?" She stopped, tapping her fingernails against the door. Even with the window shades down, the green sweater brought out the red in her hair. "What do I make for lunch?"

"I don't know. Cup ramen? You can't possibly do wrong unless you make dolphin-unsafe tuna, and he's not going to have that."

Rowen nodded absently. "Right. And Mia?"

"Yes?"

"Thank you."

She smiled. "I love you, Rowen. Have a good time."

----

Cye didn't get back until well after six. Admittedly, Rowen hadn't known when to expect him, but Mia had said one hour, not three and a half. He was uncertain how to bring that up without sounding accusatory. Somehow, he hadn't really been bored left alone by himself.

"Rowen?" Cye was blinking at him. "Why are you still here?"

He froze, hands in his hair, shifting his weight awkwardly. "Uh... what?"

"I didn't think you'd stay. What about your new apartment? Your car?"

"I was waiting..." he explained, sheepishly. Cye was mortified.

"I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. I wouldn't have stayed at the library..."

Rowen put up his hands, trying to stop Cye's apologies. "Um, no, it's okay. It's good you were gone. I'm not really great at making lunch anyway."

Cye looked at him quizzically. "Lunch?"

"Mia was here. She left a package." He gestured vaguely at the table, wandering over to stand nearly shoulder to shoulder. The proximity hummed along his nerves, making him feel he was being weird and blatant.

Cye looked up, but he only tapped the box, explaining, "My mother's Christmas present," like there was nothing odd about Rowen standing right there.

"Oh," Rowen said apologetically, "Your sister called. She said they'd be home for Christmas. Also," he added, "she thought I should come too."

Cye waved a hand at him, paying little attention. It was unclear whether he meant to acknowledge his sister's suggestion or dismiss it. He discarded bag and coat onto the floor in one messy, graceless motion, pushing past Rowen's invasive shoulder into his apartment. "Did she say anything else?"

"No... I hung up on her."

The counter was clear. Rowen had put away what Mia had taken out when he had realized Cye would not be home as predicted. The refrigerator was well-stocked, and Cye looked up from browsing, suddenly focused. "Hung up on her?" he repeated.

Rowen tucked his fingers under his arms, shrugged casually. "She... uh... thought I was here so early because I'd... spent the night."

"You did spend the night," Cye said mildly.

"That's not what I meant." He realized Cye was grinning at him, arching an eyebrow suggestively over leftovers. Cye shut the door, setting a plastic container beside the sink.

"I was..." Rowen cleared his throat, leaning back against the counter. "I was going to do that."

Cye punched open the microwave, entering a time before washing his hands at the sink. "No reason. It's just take-out. Unless you want something better," he added quickly.

"No. S'okay."

"What did you do while I was gone?"

"Sleep mostly." Rowen hesitated.

"What's wrong?"

He shrugged. "I ditched work today. I probably should have told someone."

"Oh, that. I called you in sick before you woke up."

"You what?"

Cye mimicked his shrug, but there was a certain smugness in his smile before he turned away, pulling two plates from the cupboard.

"So, Mia was here," Rowen started awkwardly. He was determined suddenly to lay several hitherto unmentionable facts on the table. Cye's shirt sleeves were rolled up to his elbow, wet to the wrist. Water never dried very well on Cye; it just seemed to stick around. Cye reached up, left a damp streak in his red hair that been cut short in back since high school. His bangs were still longish, batting at his eyes, but that was fashion.

Rowen noticed for the first time that it was kind of sexy.

"I know," Cye said, sounding like a response to Rowen's thoughts and nearly stopping Rowen's heart. Legitimately so, since Cye was occasionally psychic.

"Uh, what?"

"I know Mia was here. You mentioned it." He took the container from the microwave, transferring noodles and chicken to the plastic plates, popping a piece into his mouth when it tumbled onto the counter. He didn't have Rowen's bony fingers, his stick thin arms. Rowen's body never seemed to show muscle, even back in high school when he'd been able to draw that big golden bow without the armor's help.

"You like Thai food?" Cye asked.

"Yeah."

"We could call Kento, ask him to bring a movie. He could drive you home then. I don't have a car."

Rowen took the plate, staring at the graceful bones in Cye's wrist. He didn't understand how strange bumps under the skin came together into something humanly attractive. "Does your sister always think you're sleeping with anyone who's here before nine?"

"No... not usually." Suddenly Cye's eyes were slip-sliding to the walls. He retreated to the dining table near the door, but Rowen saw the blush anyway. He hurried after, reaching from behind to put down his plate, clattering against the wooden tabletop. He bent down, staring into Cye's face.

"Why me then?" he asked. Cye clasped his hands in front of his face, hiding his lips behind his curled fingers. His eyes were shut, like it wasn't obvious he was avoiding the question.

"It doesn't really matter, does it? Sit down, Rowen."

"No." He was close enough to see Cye's eyelid flickering with the breath of his speech. "Why'd she assume...?"

After a long moment, Cye responded lightly, "Probably because she holds gossip like some people hold grudges." Then, after a moment. "I had a terrible crush on you in high school."

"Oh," Rowen said. He didn't sit down. He hadn't realized before, but Cye had kind of a pointy nose. Beaky even, in a good sort of way. There must have been something different in his voice because Cye opened his eyes. They had gone from kelp-colored to stormy blue, suddenly alive with a secret sense of humor that most people never saw.

"Sit down or kiss me," he suggested sarcastically like he knew which option Rowen would choose. There was a foolhardy smile behind his hands.

"That was the plan," Rowen admitted, and almost lost his nerve.

He pushed Cye's hands away from his face and put his lips against the other man's, wondering somewhere in the back of his head whether Cye would taste like chicken. But the kiss might as well have been chaste except for the searing elation that rose from the pit of his stomach up to his brain.

He stopped, not knowing what was supposed to happen next, and Cye pulled away. His face held an eerie calm. He was staring at his food. For all the world as if nothing unusual had happened.

Rowen was disheartened.

After a second or two, Cye glanced at him with a very serious expression. "Are you going to kiss me again? Or was that just a joke?"

Which solved a whole lot of problems, since Rowen couldn't think of any conversation starters aside from 'I'm carrying your child' which was overdone and not true anyway. Also, Cye sounded like he might - just might - be fond of the idea.

"Okay," Rowen said.

He did much better the second time.