Misconstrued, p.13
Misconstrued, page 13
“It’s got to be his choice, Tybalt,” I pointed out.
They both shook their heads in disagreement.
I crossed my arms and frowned. “You get bodily autonomy!” I insisted. Neither of them showed any sign of understanding. “You get to say what happens to you as long as it isn’t hurting anyone.” I thought for a moment. “Romeo!” I called.
He joined us in an instant.
“You were protesting for equal rights. Can you explain that I don’t get to say if Iago wears his boots in the house or not?” I asked.
“No!” Mac called from the kitchen. “If you have no shoes, then we have no shoes. You have cute toes. Easy to crush under boots.”
Iago blushed darker grey again and turned to go. Romeo stepped in front of him and growled. Iago chest-bumped him and snarled right back. I tried to remain calm. It was just how they talked, I told myself.
When it didn’t stop in a moment, I interrupted. “That’s enough! We need books or a movie or a game or something to do! Cabin fever isn’t good for any of us.”
Iago pushed past Romeo and headed to the door, stomping on his boots and heading out into the rain a moment later. I sagged.
Tybalt pushed Romeo in my direction. “His hair, too?” he suggested.
Romeo looked confused for a moment. Tybalt flipped his braid at the guy, making me chuckle.
“Sure, if you don’t mind?” I asked Romeo.
He nodded and sat down in front of me. He got a french braid that ran over his skull and hung part of the way down his back by the time I was done.
“Is Iago coming back?” I murmured.
Romeo nodded, making me curse as I tried to keep hold of his hair. “He’s getting things for you to do.”
“That’s nice of him.” I thought for a moment then added, “How do I get him to be part of the family?”
Romeo shrugged. “You don’t touch him. All of us, you touch sometimes. Not him.”
I frowned. I was sure I did. Just little social touches, the same as any of them, but at that moment, I couldn’t think of an example. For a long time, he had been the scariest. The killer in the group. Until I found out Romeo had been involved in bombings. I didn’t really think about how many people he had killed. Or how many might have died at Mac’s hands either on purpose or by accident as a doctor. And Tybalt had to be lying to me. It didn’t seem possible that you could stowaway on a spaceship.
Iago had been the one to talk me through all the stress and horror of ending up as a glorified pet, and I resented him for it.
Objectively, that was unfair. I just hadn’t thought about it objectively before.
Romeo absolutely did not help when he added, “Unworthy.”
“Not unworthy,” I corrected, under my breath. Tybalt handed me a mug of hot water. Damn, I missed coffee. “Can I go get him?” I asked.
“I go,” Tybalt offered. “You stay warm.”
I shook my head, “That doesn’t seem right. I’m the one that made him leave.”
“He made himself leave,” Tybalt corrected.
I nodded. “Yeah, now I should go get him back.”
The remaining three just laughed. “He will come back,” Mac assured me. “He just needs to go be … grumpy for a while.”
- - - -
I wasn’t waiting for him to come home. Except that I kind of was. It was entirely too blustery of a rainstorm to be out walking around. I was sitting on the couch, cupping a mug of hot water, watching the rain beat against the window. Mac was sitting on the chair watching me.
“I’m not an idiot,” Somehow it felt important to open with that. “I remember when all the technophobes burned the cell phone towers.”
Mac snorted. “They thought that was what brought us.”
I nodded and tightened my grip on my mug. “I get that the infrastructure is gone, but you are technologically advanced to the point of interstellar space travel. How do you not have some sort of cell phone equivalent?”
He shrugged. “Orcs do. The important ones do.”
“But you aren’t important enough to get one?”
Mac nodded while eying up the window. “Tybalt will go get him for you.”
I snorted. “But you aren’t stupid enough to go out in the storm when you can delegate that?”
He flashed me a tight smile. “I’m starting to understand you. You want us to be safe. All of us. No favourites. You don’t want to risk Tybalt to get Iago because you value them both.”
It started to hail. I winced. “He’ll be inside somewhere, right? He’s not out in that, is he?”
Mac looked me dead in the eye and shrugged.
“Ugh! You’re no help!” I grumbled.
“He come back at lunch.” Mac stopped to correct himself, “Iago will come back at lunch. I think. Soon.”
I had to ask, “Do you think I should have let him keep his boots on?”
Mac looked up at the ceiling as he considered this. “No,” he finally decided. “You did not shame him. You do not care about his foot. He cares about you seeing his foot. He needs to stop that.”
“It’s kind of cool,” I admitted. “I want to see it in action more, but I know he doesn’t want me to stare at it.”
Mac was back to watching me impassively.
“What?” I demanded.
He just shrugged.
“Never a throw pillow around when you need one,” I muttered.
“What?”
“People used to have small pillows on their couches,” I explained. “They were called throw pillows, which is weird because we didn’t really throw them. But just now I’m tempted to throw one at you and see if I can get you to tell me what is going on.”
“You want to attack me with pillows?” he demanded, sounding shocked, but there was a twinkle in his eye.
I just snorted.
“Iago will be back with lunch,” Mac assured me. Then he added, “I think.”
- - - -
There was a whole lot of nothing to do, but there was also plenty of time to do it in.
Hurry up and wait.
The guys were restless too, but Tybalt and Romeo were in their rooms, and Mac was just serenely watching me. I was looking out the window and ignoring the staring. I had no idea what to try to talk to him about.
Then I did.
“You told me once that there was reversible male birth control. How does that work?”
Mac blinked in surprise.
“Or was that not true?” I muttered, turning back out at the window and picking the lint off of the blanket in my lap.
Mac coughed. “Is true. Implant under the skin at the base of the penis. Females wanted something they could check for. No cheating allowed. No unwanted pregnancy.”
That pissed me off. “There certainly are unwanted pregnancies! There were half-orc babies in the camp that went missing. Hell, there are accidental pregnancies between the humans in camp!”
Mac stopped looking at me then. “Bad orcs, now dead. Humans don’t ask for birth control.”
I was rapidly getting annoyed, but I tried to tell myself it wasn’t his fault. “Mac, I couldn’t get a hypoallergenic dinner. There is no way the warden was going to give us birth control. I have no idea what is going to happen to Miriam when she goes into labour.”
Mac frowned. “Human doctors sent to help.”
“I hope so,” I muttered, turning back to the window.
I jumped when the front door opened. There was the sound of someone taking off his boots.
“Iago?”
“I brought lunch, and books, and cards,” he called. “Game cards,” he added, sounding hesitantly proud.
I climbed off the couch, trying to avoid tripping on the blanket I had somehow ended up tangled in, and hurried over to the entryway. Iago was holding a box that I took from him and brought over to the table. I shouted for the others and started unpacking lunch.
Iago’s card game was a deck of tarot and I wondered how I was going to explain that to literal space aliens. Behind me, Tybalt gasped and Romeo started to cough. I turned to look at them and Iago had sagged. He was still trying to look calm and confident, but he wasn’t good at faking it anymore.
“Romeo, get the silverware,” I directed as though nothing had happened. Then I tried to sneak a peek at Iago’s foot as I turned back to the table.
He was wearing a pair of sports socks. It was weird and sad. I resolutely ignored it. I wasn’t going to call him on his footwear in front of the others.
“Home in time. She wanted Tybalt to go in the rain to find you,” Mac commented.
Tybalt pushed him in a not entirely playful way.
I ignored that and focused instead on, “It’s raining so hard, you look like you’ve been standing in the shower. Romeo? Can you finish setting the table? I’m going to go help Iago get changed.”
“Changed into what?” he asked warily.
I rolled my eyes. “Dry clothes.”
“He doesn’t need help,” Tybalt grumbled.
I ignored that and held out my hand to Iago. He looked at that suspiciously, too.
“Can I hold your hand?” I hinted.
He glared at me for a moment and I fought not to flinch. Then, very slowly, he reached out and took hold of my fingers like a bad handshake. Still, I thought, good enough. I gave him a gentle tug and led him to the room he shared with Romeo.
He flinched when I closed the door.
“Do you have towels in here somewhere?” I asked.
He pulled one out from under the bed. He was alternately staring at me and trying to avoid eye contact.
“You ended up out in the rain for me twice today,” I pointed out. “Thank you.”
He just shrugged.
“Iago?”
“Wilhemina,” he replied flatly.
“Can I—” I stopped. I was pretty sure that help wasn’t the politically correct word to use here. “Can I undress you?”
“Why?” he mumbled.
I blushed and looked at the door. “Because I wanted to touch you. Which is rude and demanding and you probably don’t even want me in—”
He didn’t touch me, no, that would be too straightforward for these weirdos. He held up his hand as though he were cupping my cheek, but left a good half inch between his skin and mine. Enough that he very definitely wasn’t touching me, but was still close enough for me to feel the heat radiating from his body. I caught his wrist and tilted my head to press my cheek against his palm.
He was still watching me as though he thought this was a trap, but now I could see that he was hoping it wasn’t.
“Will you let me?” I asked.
He swallowed and nodded. I stepped up close and started to unfasten his coveralls. He was trembling slightly and I didn’t want to guess if it was the nerves or the cold.
“Iago? You don’t have to let me do this, if you’re uncomfortable. You can tell me to stop, if you want. I won’t be mad.”
We just stood there for a moment, to the sound of him dripping gently on the floor. Finally, he nodded and said, “I will tell you.”
It really was me undressing him. He was very still and just let me do all the work, as though I was undressing a life-sized doll. His head was bowed slightly and he was watching me intently. The jumpsuit was all one piece, so when I got to his hips, it slid the rest of the way down his body and fell to the floor with a crash. I winced, then looked up at him. He was wearing a slight frown.
“Sorry,” I mumbled. “I guess you had more weight in your pockets than I was expecting.” That, at least, got a half-hearted smile as I started to pull at his undershirt. It was sticking to him like paint. As I started to pull it up, an extra shiver went through him. “Can you help me with this?” I asked.
He pulled it off and dropped it in a soggy pile on the floor. I wrapped the towel around his shoulders.
“Why?” he whispered. Then before I could he reply, he added, “Why did you want to touch me?”
“Because I don’t,” I mumbled. “You don’t get too close to me, and I don’t think to pull you in.” He didn’t say anything, just stood still watching me. “I’m not trying to exclude you. It’s just that your body language has been telling me you need your space, and I don’t want to crowd you.”
“Someone told you to touch me,” he grumbled.
I shook my head. “Don’t be an idiot! Can you really see ANY of them saying that?”
He looked up at the ceiling and considered it. “Tybalt fed you first. You wouldn’t send him out into the rain to find me.”
“I was going to go get you!”
He laughed and adjusted the towel to around his waist. “At least they stopped you. Cold and wet humans become sick humans.”
“What about cold, wet orcs?” I countered.
He shrugged.
I gritted my teeth. “I’m trying to keep an open mind that none of you are actually trying to hurt me,” I blurted out, not managing to be subtle at all.
Iago stiffened. “We are not.”
“Can you … just … try to remember that I’m not trying to hurt you, either?”
That made him spin and stare at me in shock.
“I’m not,” I assured him. “Romeo thought he was disposable. He isn’t. Neither are you. So just,” I trailed off, not even sure what I was trying to say. “Don’t go doing anything stupid. You’re mine now, right?”
He narrowed his eyes at me when he nodded.
“Okay. I need you to help me take care of my guys. All of them. Including you. Got it?”
Iago chuckled, but nodded again. “Dry clothes yet?”
I ran my hand down his chest. His muscles jumped under my touch, but he didn’t move away. Most of them looked like gym rats. Iago looked like someone who built his muscles from work, rather than as a hobby.
“That thing you said about hunting for others so they could get the girl, instead of trying to impress her yourself? When did you decide to not try on your own?”
He considered that. “Always. I’m small.”
“You’re at least a foot taller than me.”
He frowned. “Foot?”
“People are stupid, a foot is about the distance from my wrist to my elbow,” I explained.
He considered my arm.
“Smaller than other orcs,” he countered.
“Me, too,” I countered. “You aren’t too small for me.” That got me a sad smile. “Okay, let’s get you into dry clothes and go eat some lunch.”
He nodded and turned his back on me. His shorts hit the floor revealing a very nice, if grey, ass. As he was pulling on his new ones, I realized he was still wearing the socks. I debated calling him on that, then chickened out. Maybe that was enough soul-baring for one day.
- - - -
It turns out that you can make a deck of tarot cards into a deck of playing cards by removing some. After lunch, I took over the table to do that.
It was complicated because I didn’t want to teach them poker, but my repertoire of non-gambling games was somewhat limited. I didn’t really play cards other than on casino nights at work. But Iago had gotten them for me, so I should try to figure something out.
I wondered if we could play without anyone cheating or stealing cards, or just having this go badly.
“Why not these ones?” Tybalt asked, looking at my discard pile.
“They just aren’t needed for this game,” I answered as I carefully laid out the cards, checking for missing ones.
“Hmmm,” he mused. “Lots of knives.”
I shrugged. “I think they’re spades on a regular, not-as-pretty deck.”
Tybalt just frowned harder. “Not many colours.”
I stopped to look at him. “Are you worried?”
“No,” he sulked.
I stared at him for a moment. “Are you sad because Iago doesn’t have naked feet anymore?” I teased.
He shook his head. “Yours nicer than his.”
Were they? My feet were alien to them, but Iago’s foot was really interesting. When he didn’t have it covered, I could see the mechanics of how the part worked together to make it move. It was really interesting and I wanted to know how it worked. That wasn’t maybe the most tactical response, though, and it didn’t say anything about why Tybalt was sulking. Was he jealous that I liked Iago’s gift? “Is it hard to share?”
