Chapter 2: Familiarity

A candlemark later found Shift impatiently pacing a hardwood floor in one of the girls’ rooms in the brothel above the basement that Shift and the Shadows called home. He’d given her his shirt to mend, and now held an ointment-covered cloth over the torn skin on his arm as he retraced a line on the floor. Blood had begun seeping out again, but he hardly cared.

“Will you sit down?”

Shift spun towards the young woman currently occupying the bed and glared at the her as she met his gaze with just as much determination as his own. Intense brown eyes stared back at him from a dark-skinned face, her short, stubborn nose and chin raised to give the illusion of seeing eye to eye, and her body language screaming, if you don’t do as I say I will make you. He conceded as the fight left him, knowing he could never win against Kyla when she believed his health was on the line, and dropped his entire weight on the bed next to her with a heavy sigh. He lay back on the covers and massaged temples that were threatening a worse headache than the one he already had. “Kyla, I’m just so confused – and I can’t just fucking sit here while my boys are on that delivery. You know I don’t trust Geren to keep his word, though he should have had enough action for tonight to sate his appetite for pain, that sadistic bastard. I swear, if he’d - ”

“Calm down, love,” she interrupted, rather more softly than he’d expected, and he heard the rustle of fabric as she set down his shirt, needle and thread and laid down beside him. He turned to look at her, still dressed in the revealing shirt and too-short skirts she wore while waiting tables in the bar, her hair still piled on top of her head in the style wealthier people called “catchpenny,” and sighed. He knew just as well as she that once he had exhausted his worries and complaints, her logic would help straighten everything out, just like always. He felt her soft hand brushing against his chest as she reached for the back of his neck and began to caress the stress-tensed muscles below the skin, and waited for her to find the right words. “I know you’re upset, Shift-hon, but there’s not much you can do right now. And there won’t be anything you can do for a while if you don’t get that bleeding stopped and get some rest tonight. The last thing you need -”

“Is another infection like the last one, I know. Believe me, I remember.”

Kyla kissed his forehead affectionately, and returned to her mending as he simply relaxed on the bed next to her, succumbing to that feeling of numbness to the outside world he always seemed to find after Kyla calmed him down. ‘She’s right, after all,’ he thought as she finished stitching up the hole in his shirt and began tying a thin bandage around the deepest part of the gash on his arm. She kissed him again when she finished, this time on the lips, and Shift silently asked for the real comfort he needed by pressing back against her mouth gently with his tongue. Pure physical sensation overcame both of them almost immediately, rending the troubles of their lives invisible for a few selfish, precious candlemarks.

They lay together for some time afterwards, Kyla’s makeup slightly smeared from her eyes towards her hair, but leaving her no less beautiful than before in the dim candlelight. The first glimmers of a gray dawn began seeping in behind the white curtains, casting the room in the fuzzy, comfortable appearance of a new day. Shift only realized he had dozed off when he heard Kyla laugh quietly beside him, and opened his eyes to find her leaning on her elbow, still tucked in the crook of his arm, smiling at him.

“You snore,” she teased, brushing away one of the strands of hair that had managed to come loose from her tie and had worked its way into the corner of Shift’s mouth. His sleepy mind failed to come up with a retort, so he just simply lay there, stroking her back with smooth, supple fingers, enjoying the sight of her naked torso that remained undisguised by the sheets. Her soft hand moved across his stomach in the familiar comforting manner Shift had come to associate with a desire to talk about something she felt hesitant about.

He brought his free hand up to the side of her face, and waited for her to look into his eyes. “Spit it out, Ky.”

She smiled back at him shyly, the same way she always did when she knew he’d read her mind. ‘Though I can’t say I blame her. I’m sure she doesn’t get a whole lot of guys in her bed that have time to lie around for after-sex chit chat.’ Her mouth worked for a moment as she tried to put the right words together.

She apparently gave up on eloquence, and simply stated, “Tylar.”

“Ky, sweetheart, I thought we’d decided – you know – that it was best for us not to be – that it was best for us to stay friends – you - ”

She laughed, breaking the sudden tension that had grown between them during Shift’s comment, but leaving him confused. “Oh no, love, I don’t mean that. It’s just, well, the way you talked about Tylar last night sounded…” now she paused because she didn’t want to hurt him, though both knew what she was going to say. “Well, you talked about him the same way you talked about Geren when you first met him.”

Shift instinctively began denying that in his head, but stopped himself before he let the words escape. He had found both instantly attractive, and, because of that attraction, he had become one of Geren’s Crew the same way Tylar had become one of his. But besides that, the circumstances seemed so different. “What do you mean?” he asked suspiciously.

Kyla sighed and began stroking the tips of her fingers across his stomach muscles, admiring his body as she stalled, wanting to delay the pain she knew her comment would cause. “There have been others,” she began, trying to make him see her point logically, “after Geren, but you haven’t talked about them at all the same way you told me about Tylar. They didn’t affect you like this, making you feel as hurt as you described to me earlier. But this one – Shift, just be careful, love. I don’t want to see you get hurt again. Not like that.” And by “that,” he knew she meant, “the way Geren hurt you.”

Shift sighed, letting all that sink in before responding. “I think you’re jumping to conclusions,” he decided finally. “He’s young and attractive, I’ll admit, but I’ve told you before, I’m still not ready for that. I’m in no danger of falling in love anytime soon.” Her expression turned into a sort of concerned smirk at that last comment. “What?”

“Don’t be so sure,” she half-teased, and a sadness he couldn’t understand came into her eyes. “These things always happen when you least expect them.”

He grinned roguishly at her as he pulled her into his arms for a long hug. “I guess I’ll just have to start expecting them then.”

At midmorning, Shift woke again and carefully maneuvered himself from beneath Kyla’s sleeping body to find his clothes. He dressed quietly as she continued to sleep, and gave her a quick kiss on the forehead before he left, closing the door silently behind himself.

Returning to the basement, he found the entire Crew still asleep, except, of course, those who were keeping guard over the building. The watchers he had assigned to neutral territory had been called off as the sun rose and the streets began to fill with merchants, customers and sailors, and now lay curled up on top of straw pallets with the others. Shift made his way over their sleeping forms, most huddled two to a pallet, and, contrary to finding his own pallet empty, he saw Tylar lying there, wide awake and staring back at him with no little fear in his eyes.

Kneeling down, he whispered quietly, “They take care of you?”

A shameful expression replaced some of the fear on Tylar’s face, and he awkwardly pulled his hands out from beneath the covers so Shift could see the rope tying his wrists together. Shift shrugged. “Not surprising,” he commented, then wondered why he felt bad for the boy and still wanted to trust him. The implications of his conversation with Kyla had yet to leave him at ease, and this sentiment made him very uncomfortable. “’m afraid it’ll have to stay that way for now, until we get what happened last night straightened out.”

Tylar maneuvered his hands back beneath the thin covers, and the sight of the his bare chest suddenly reminded Shift that he’d ordered Tylar’s clothes sent to the Wolves. ‘Which means he’s unarmed, and hardly dangerous with his hands tied like that. He’s already sleeping among the rest of the Crew, so he may as well be sleeping with me. The only other alternative would put him on the cold floor, and it wouldn’t do to have our tutor falling ill just as he got here, would it?’ These thoughts were more selfish than concerned, he knew, and hated the fact that he wanted so badly to curl up with the boy and fall asleep. He’d thought after years of sleeping alone on and off he’d get over the loneliness that brought, but the chance to feel that again was a temptation he couldn’t resist. ‘But last night… he betrayed me… oh hell, he certainly can’t do that again here. Especially if I don’t get to close. Emotionally that is.’

“’d they give you clothes?”

Tylar nodded, and whispered, “Just breeches.”

“Better than nothing,” Shift replied shortly. “Shove over.”

The boy’s eyes widened in confusion. “What?”

“All the other beds already have two people, and I gotta sleep, too. So shove over.”