the journal of r. cooper

Okay so, like, I got an anon, who donated, and made a sort of vague request. (No offense, anon, it’s just that vague prompts are kind of like too specific prompts, in that my mind just sort of… stops.) Anyway, the current political climate, and my mood, would make Tank/Simon too painful to write. And even Zeki/Theo would be a little sad (I mean, they don’t live in our universe, but still, neither of them would be happy.)

So, at someone’s suggestion (ahem) I tried to write a Zeki/Theo vaguely historical but not really arranged marriage AU. Only, well, I can’t even do that right. Anyway. Here you go.

Zeki’s father was insistent that Zeki did not have to consent to the marriage. The alliance with the small northern kingdom would hopefully foster trust between Zeki’s people and the people of the north who had offered them refuge. It was important, Dov had said, but the war leader who would not call himself a king had made it clear this city-state would take anyone who asked for aid, as long as aid was given in return. This marriage was a suggestion only.

Or so they claimed. Stories about the war-leader, Neri, made him out as a murdering beast or a fair and wise ruler depending on who did the telling. But in their weeks camped near the walls of the city, negotiating for farmland and access to the rivers and streams, Zeki hadn’t seen any evidence of Neri’s cruelty. What he had seen were many bands of refugees, like his people, fleeing the tyranny of the southern wolf people. What he had also seen, was that the northerners here were like their southern kin in many ways, with odd behaviors he could not explain.

Like why they would choose him as their spouse, or mate, for one of their own. Zeki’s people had been conquered too long ago for any royalty to remain, and Zeki himself was hardly of pure blood. The signs of his mother’s heritage were in his darker skin and wild hair, and the methods of their magic that he mingled with his.

He was not a powerful wizard either. Perhaps he might have been, if the southern wolves hadn’t driven his people north, leaving him no time for apprenticeship and learning. He was also not a warrior, or handsome. At least, not to his eyes. The rough journey had taken most of the softness from his body, but he verged on too thin, now, and his hair was nothing but untameable dark curls.

But it was Zeki who the offer had been made to. Zeki, who had been approached by a tall, brown skinned northern wolf woman in warrior’s clothing, and her more quiet companion, and told that he and his father were invited to eat with their family that night.

Zeki had been distracted by the woman’s knowing grin, and the utter beauty of the shy man. He hadn’t realized until they were gone that he’d been invited to dine in the great hall where these people had their feasts, or that the woman, and the wolf with her, would be at a table of honor, as if they were nobility.

They had brought his father there to discuss the idea. No one had thought to ask Zeki. They had seated him next to the shy northerner, the one who dressed as a hunter, not a warrior, but who stole honeycakes and left them on Zeki’s plate whenever Zeki was distracted. He was about Zeki’s age, perhaps older, and so handsome Zeki had tripped over his own tongue more than once. The hunter had smiled back, speaking rarely, but in a soft voice when he did, so soft Zeki had to lean in to hear him—at least until the two younger wolves across the table had snickered. Then Zeki had straightened up and done his best not to make a fool of himself in front of anymore pretty northern wolf men.

For all the good it would do him, if he was to be married to one of them anyway.

He had not said yes. He held onto that thought tightly as he waited in Neri’s house, while his father and others talked in low voices in another room. He did not have to say yes. Even if the marriage was likely a noble one, and better than he ever would have done even if he had worked hard to become a powerful wizard. Even if it would help his people. Even if he did not think the marriage would be cruel.

But he had cleaned his finest—least patched—robes before putting them on to come here, and he had tried to brush his hair after a long bath in a cold stream, to be presentable to the northerner who had apparently wanted him enough to ask, or, more likely, had not objected when his parents had suggested the match.

So strange for the northerners to offer Zeki to another man, but they were like the southern wolves, who had odd practices. His own people didn’t condemn it, but he didn’t see how a union with no children would cement any alliance.

“Are you going to say yes?” a soft voice broke through his troubled, tangled thoughts, making Zeki raise his head.

The hunter stood before him, wearing only loose pants despite the weather. His hair was down to his shoulders.

Zeki’s mouth ran dry as his skin flushed with heat, and the hunter took a sharp breath.

Zeki tore his gaze away. Then he quickly looked back. “Should I? Will I—is it a joke?”

“A joke?” The hunter put his head back, and seemed suddenly so much taller than Zeki would ever be. “You believe it’s a—” he frowned as if trying to translate “—a jest, or a lie? You don’t know it’s real?”

“Oh.” Zeki was less reassured by that than he should have been. “So it is real. But then, why me? That’s what I don’t understand. Why me? You’re big and fiercely beautiful—I mean, your people are.” The hunter ducked his head, as shy as Zeki had first thought he was. “Apologies. I speak without thinking sometimes.”

“You are quite pleasing to my eyes as well,” the hunter told him, while facing the wall.

Zeki put a hand over his heart, as if that would stop its hammering. He didn’t know if this was dangerous, but it felt that way, like standing in a storm while lightning crashed around him. The voices from the other room seemed far away, but he recalled the stories of the great hearing of the wolf people, and tried to keep his voice low.

“When I sat next to you, I almost could not be still with how much I wanted to touch you.” Zeki slapped a hand over his mouth, but it didn’t stop the flood of words. “I’ve never wanted to touch anyone else as much as you. I know I shouldn’t say that. I’m sorry. But if I… if I do this, then I shouldn’t ever say it again. And I wanted… I never thought I would find love as my parents had. In the normal course of things, I would have been a scholar, then a wizard, and probably not very wealthy, even with my magic. I probably wouldn’t have married. So I didn’t think… I didn’t think. And now I won’t be able to say these things to you anymore, but I should, don’t you think? A person should get to say what’s in his heart at least once in his lifetime.”

Zeki closed his eyes tight.  

“You speak more words than I am used to hearing.” The whisper was close, as if the hunter had moved without making a sound. “Does it pain you say all of that?”

The hunter seemed sad, so Zeki opened his eyes, and looked up into the man’s handsome face, with his gentle gaze and soft mouth and high cheekbones. Zeki could feel the heat from his body, the way he had at the feast. He was even closer now than he had been then. And Zeki could not touch him.

“It is not a pain,” Zeki lied, and a small frown crossed the hunter’s face. “But being near you makes me wish—” too many things to name.

The hunter inhaled deeply, and then his eyes went half-lidded, and he swayed toward Zeki before he caught himself. “I wish for things too,” he confessed, with a quick, darting look toward the room where Zeki’s father was discussing his fate.

Zeki would have to decide. He wet his lips. “Could I… could I kiss you? Now? While I still can?” He’d never kissed anyone before, but he should get to choose who would receive his first.

“You’re asking?” The disbelief in the hunter’s voice would have stung, but then he leaned down, and Zeki’s hands were at his sides of their own volition. His skin was smooth and hot to the touch. His hair brushed Zeki’s cheek, ticklishly soft, and if he paused to put his nose and mouth first to Zeki’s neck before kissing Zeki’s lips, Zeki did not mind.

He shivered for it, and made a small noise that brought the hunter closer. Zeki could wrap his arms around him, and did, and tipped his head back without complaint when the kiss ended, or moved, down the side of his neck, becoming wetter and louder as Zeki panted.

“Will you say yes?” the hunter asked, with a scrape of teeth across Zeki’s skin that had Zeki grabbing fistfuls of his hair to ensure he would do that again. Then the words sank through the warm, delirious fog in Zeki’s mind, and he stopped.

The moment he did, the hunter pulled away with a low, mournful sound.

Zeki was colder without him, and wrapped his arms around his own chest instead. “How can I say yes now? I can’t be husband to a stranger when all I want is you!” He went on, miserably, turning away. “I have met men I wanted to kiss and lie with before, but never this much. That’s probably foolish, to you, isn’t it?”

“Husband?” the hunter finally asked, in a strange tone. “Did they not use the proper word? Do you not know what you’re feeling? Zeki—” Hearing his name for the first time made Zeki face him. “Zeki, you are my mate. If you want to be. If you will have me. We can be married in your people’s way if you wish. But I thought you understood. I thought you were allowing me to woo you.” The hunter took a breath. “You asked to kiss me. Perhaps your kind have rules against that?”

Zeki belatedly turned toward the room where the others were—or so he had thought—discussing his fate. But they were silent now.

“No,” he said faintly, at last. “No rules against that.” Then he blinked. “I don’t know your name.”

The hunter stared at him, possibly offended, or merely confused or worried. Then he shook his head. “I have several. The one that people like you, from foreign places, use, is Theo.” Theo hesitated for another moment, then sniffed the air before continuing. “I can… I can explain mate to you, if you would like that.”

Zeki licked the taste of Theo’s kiss from his lips, while his mind ran in circles. Then he gave one quick, jerky nod. “Yes,” he added, in case Theo hadn’t understood, but Theo was already smiling.