milliways_bar | (no subject)

After talking to Faith until Richard turned up and she could complete her important errand, and conjuring lots of building supplies, Asar-Suti goes for a walk outside again.

Not female-shaped this time, and not smoking - it would be a waste of beautiful fresh air. There is definitely spring about now; in the middle of the mud, you can guess that grass is making ready to grow, and if you look askance at the bushes, then you see a ghostly glimmer of fresh green as the first buds are thinking about appearing on them.

What a difference a day made!

Asar-Suti doesn't know that song, but he would agree with the sentiment if he did.

He feels just about ready to jump and run and caper and hop, until he comes to the place where the igloo used to be. There is just a heap of broken-down slush now. This used to be a place where he's had some of the most special and important moments with Gil, and it's already history.

The blankets are on his own bed now, and the immortal iris flower is on Gil's dresser, in his own room that he temporarily shares with Gil; the melancholy is mingled with a sudden surge of Gil-related happiness. Gil might even sense some of that through the Stone...

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...and in the kitchen Gil, busily beating eggs into a butter sugar and flour mix because he has the urge to make fairy cakes, pauses and smiles.

He finishes mixing, spoons dollops into little paper cases in bun tins and puts them in the oven with a word to the nearest cook-rat.

Then he goes outside and makes his way unerringly to Sooty's side.

"'Lo," he says, coming up behind him and putting his arms around his waist and his head on his shoulder. "Oh - the igloo! So sad isn't it."

Asar-Suti nuzzles his cheek against Gil's arm, glad to feel the familiar slender arms with their little wiry muscles that you get when you beat dough every waking day.

"Gil," he says with a little sigh that is both happy and sad. "Yes, it's a pity about the igloo - we had such special times here. We must find some moonless and velvety summer night and make love at this very spot again."

Then, he lifts his head and looks around. "But look - it's trying to be spring already! There might be grass soon, and leaves, and the water is gurgling from the heaps of ex-snow. I had fogotten how wonderful spring is..."

"Of course!" Gil says, delighted. "You've spent a millenium as a purple puddle locked in a cellar! How marvellous! I can be the one to share all the new seasons with you almost as though it's the first time for you to see them."

Then his smile fades. "Sooty - I didn't mean that quite the way it sounded."

"But Gil - I am delighted to see them for the first time in ages, and I am delighted to have you with me for it. I want to share all of them with you, as I see them for the first time in aeons."

Asar-Suti turns around to kiss Gil.

"I want you to be there for the first snow still, you know, and then for all the seasons another time, and more, noting the differences from year to year," he adds, with a very small voice.

Talking of monogamy might be pointless. But talking of an open-end kind of future might be permissible?

Gil smiles and kisses him back, then steers him back towards the Bar.

"Yes, that would be nice," he agrees. "No two springs are the same. Shall we see if we can find some violets and primroses tomorrow? we could give them to Claire. I'd suggest we look now but I've got fairy cakes in the oven and don't want them to burn."

Asar-Suti takes Gil's hand, ready to walk in with him again.

"Fairy cakes?" he asks. He has never heard of them.

"Yes, little light sponge cakes in paper cases. I'll show you what you do with them when they are cooked. These are nice - flavoured with orange zest and they'll have orange icing too. But they mustn't burn."

Gil squeezes Sooty's hand.

"In the summer maybe we can go for long walks at the edge of the Forest - maybe the fauns will come to play. Sometimes I miss them - their silly chatter and the chases. I think you'd like them - they are pretty."

Asar-Suti senses the melancholy, and squeezes Gil's hand back.

"Who knows, one day you might get the option of faun-shape back at last - Pan won't punish you forever! And then we can play with them, and we can cavort in the woods in faun-shape, all by ourselves. Making love in faun shape must be easy and beautiful..." he muses.

Oh dear, Asar-Suti and his one-track mind. Well, two-track; the other track is magic and books on it.

He holds the door open for Gil, kissing his cheek as they step inside.

"Oh no, I don't want my faun-shape back," Gil protests. "I just miss seeing them, they were fun, but being a faun in Milliways was terribly lonely. Fauns need to be with people and need to cuddle. The only people I ever got to hug before were Richard, who's married now, and David, who may as well be. I wasn't unhappy exactly but I wasn't happy either - just ticked along from day to day."

He kisses Sooty back. "I'd not know what to do with hooves and horns now. I've only just got used to feet again."

He squeezes Sooty's hand and goes to the oven and takes out three dozen cakes.

"There," he said with satisfaction. "There's the cakes, now let's turn them into fairies."

"You've got me now - I would take faun-shape with you. As I said, shapes are not important, as long as you are you, and I am me, and we love each other. But I am glad to be with you the way you are - people might call us ugly names if you were a faun, I was human most of the time, and we still were lovers."

He looks at the little cakes. "How do we turn them into fairies, then?"

Gil nods soberly at Sooty's fears but fetches his bowl of icing with a smile.

Taking a sharp knife he neatly slices the top off one of the cakes and cuts the disc of cake in half. He slathers on some orange icing then embeds the two half circles into it so they stick up like little wings.

"Fairy Cakes," he says with a wave.

Asar-Suti nods imperceptibly at the point of not pursuing what they thought people might say about them if they had different shapes; there's no point in pursuing it.

"Oooh, how charming," Asar-Suti says instead. "May I try making one as well?"

"Of course you may," Gil says, handing him the knife the bowl and the spoon. "And we can scrape out the icing bowl afterwards - cooks' perks."

"Hmmmm," Asar-Suti says, smiling happily and getting to work.

Gil leans back on the table and watches him, arms folded, and completely content.

He looks down at his feet and wiggles his toes in his shoes with great satisfaction.

Pan really knew his business.