Archive of Our Own

Astin frowned as he downed the last of the miq’abob, wiped the grease away from his mouth with the back of his hand. It was slim pickings, as it always was midsummer--the heat was at its zenith, and fewer travelers meant less produce at the markets, less leftovers at the food stalls. No matter, it would not be the first time he went hungry, and he was better off than most. Once he made sure no one was watching he stood, dusted off his arse and shoved the skewer into his pocket, then meandered on light, reed-sandaled feet to crouch just back from the edge of the brothel roof.

He was there again today, right on time. A miqo’te boy of around his age with sun-brown hair pulled back in a neat ponytail, bearing a rusted can full of sand. He watched as the boy crept into the scant shade beneath a sagging awning and upended the sand onto the ground, then crouched and spread the fine grains thin and even. And then, once more as he did every day, he produced a stick and began to draw. 

He was good , and the sight of him at work filled Astin’s impoverished soul with a yearning that he could not hope to define. 

Today the boy was forgoing his usual depictions of famous Ul’dahns for a more ambitious, geometric composition, all elegant shapes and flourishes, as one might see engraved on the windows of the moneyed. He was no less proficient for being unpracticed in this particular art form, and not for the first time, Astin wondered how this street urchin had come by such talent. 

Something crashed at the end of the alley, perhaps a latrine bucket falling off a windowsill, and the boy jumped to his feet, warily scanning for threat. As the miqo’te’s face tipped up in his investigations, Astin leaned forward a little more, brow furrowed. He’d never been able to fully look upon the artist’s face, and the softness and fear he saw there made his stomach hurt.  

That, and the darkened bruise of a black eye. 

When no danger manifested itself, the boy crouched back down, tail swishing with agitation, and continued his drawing. Astin frowned, tapped his fingers against the heated, crumbling stone of the roof, and came to a decision. With a grace born of years fleeing angry merchants, he vaulted himself over the edge and came to a handy landing, right across the alley from his quarry. 

“Gods!” the boy cried in astonishment, pressing himself back against the wall, eyes darting about for an escape. “Where did you come from?”

Astin held up his hands in a show of peace. “Name’s Astin. I’ve been watching you draw these past couple weeks.” It was his turn to start when the miqo’te stamped his foot in the middle of his own composition and raked it away in a flurry of dust. “Wha’d you do that for?” he asked, nonplussed.

“I don’t want any trouble,” the boy said, shaking as he backed into the wall, ears pinned hard and soft amber eyes struggling between defiance and flight. “I can draw elsewhere.” 

“You don’t have to go, your drawing is beautiful.” 

“...What?” the miqo’te asked, as though he’d never been complimented on his work. 

“It’s nice,” Astin said with a shrug, noting how skinny the artist was with another frown. It wasn’t unusual for street kids to be thin, but he looked...pale, or sick, or something. “Are you hungry?” 

“Not really. Well, yes. But why?” 

He sighed. 

“Wait here, okay?”

Though he wouldn’t have bothered for himself, it was easy enough to lift a few more miqa’bobs several alleys over--he hadn’t run through there yet today. His return found the boy waiting as told beneath the awning, which was both charming and sobering. No wonder he had a black eye, trusting heart like that. 

“Here,” he said, thrusting the miqa’bobs forward. The miqo’te stared at them, as though he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. 

“Wh...where did you get these?” he finally asked quietly. 

“From the markets,” he answered with another shrug, expression defiant. “You want them or not?”

The boy sighed, smiled just a little as he took the proffered food. “Yes, thank you, that’s very kind of you.” 

Good manners as well, gods. How did he survive?

“What’s your name?” he asked, watching as the miqo’te tried his best to eat without appearing to be ravenous. 

“Ah, sorry...J’bhen Tia,” he answered around a mouthful of roast meat, nodding in apology. 

“Where are you living, J’bhen?” 

“Oh! Er, anywhere, really,” the miqo’te said vaguely. “How about you?”

Astin jerked a thumb toward the brothel roof. “My mum’s in there. Not that she can care for me or anything, but they let the brothel kids set up on the roof, got a little tent. It’s too hot to stay up there during the day, this time of year, but at night it’s not bad. Pretty good view of the stars.” 

“That must be very nice,” J’bhen said, and it sounded like he meant it. Astin looked away, then back to that pinched face with the soft amber eyes. 

“You wanna come stay with me?” 

Of the pain of unrequited love it was often written, but to J’bhen’s mind the theme of unrequited friendship deserved equal exploration. For a brief, bright week, he’d thought that perhaps he’d made a friend, someone that he might speak to of his troubles, someone who would be as the family he didn’t have, who would enjoy his company. 

After nearly a moon, he wasn’t sure that Astin was any of those. His attempts at conversation were met with silence, more often than not, and though he tried to praise Astin for his agility, for his diligence in procuring food, his kind words were met with indifferent shrugs. He offered to help with procuring necessities, but was told his company was not necessary. 

Well, the hyur was probably right. 

J’bhen knew he didn’t have the same fortitude as the other urchins, and they could probably tell he’d come from a rich family fallen on hard times. He didn’t remember much from back then, just going outside to play one day and returning to find the door locked...and it never opened for him again. He didn’t know if his parents had left, or if something had befallen them, but in what he could remember of his hazed search for them in the weeks after, it was as though they’d never existed. And Astin probably saw it, that weakness, no matter how hard he tried to cover it. Certainly he’d given himself away last week, when there was a fight in the middle of the night outside the brothel and he’d lain trembling beneath the sheets to hear the shouting. Astin had turned over, fixed him with a hard stare...and reached out to pull him close. 

“You’re fine,” the hyur had said gruffly against his ears, and J’bhen’s heart had given a funny little tumble of happiness mingled with shame. 

At least Astin cared about him in his own way, even if he wasn’t interested in friendship, and he did seem to like J’bhen’s drawings, even if he never said as much anymore. Also the brothel kids looked out for one another, and he could trace his temporary murals on the roof in peace. 

Another week later, Astin returned to the tent around sunset with an uncharacteristic spring in his step. 

“Got a job at an Ala Mhigan food stand making lahmacun and borek, we ought to have some steady gil coming in now,” he said with a rare smile, crouching down to cast an appreciative eye over J’bhen’s rendition of Belah’dia. 

“They hired you?” he asked with surprise, trying not to read too much into Astin’s ‘we’. Did he think of them as friends, after all?  

“Ala Mhigans don’t care if you’re a street brat if you’ll work hard. I should be able to bring back leftovers at night, plus I’ll learn how to cook, might be able to branch out on my own, someday.” J’bhen smiled at his enthusiasm, glad to see that Astin didn’t mean to make a living off thieving after all. 

“When are you gonna get off your arse and do something, J’bhen?” another of the urchins called, and his burgeoning mood was promptly dashed. 

“Leave him alone, he picks up odd jobs just fine,” Astin shot back angrily. J’bhen started, surprised and grateful for the support even as shame wormed in his heart. 

“She’s right,” he muttered, tears stinging at his eyes as he dragged a hand through his composition. “I don’t contribute anything worthwhile.” Astin made a sound of frustration.

“I wish you wouldn’t do that!” he exclaimed. “Anytime you get moody you ruin your work.”

“It’s just sand,” he answered. Nothing meaningful, nothing that was going to bring food to the tent or help better their conditions. 

“Then...then we’ll get you some paint, first thing, when we get some gil.” J’bhen stared at him, heart giving another tumble. That ‘we’ again, and to have paint, real paint…

“We can’t waste money on that...not if I don’t learn a trade,” he said, ears canted back as he dared to try out ‘we’ for himself. He had to get a job, had to be useful. He wouldn’t get sick this time, he wouldn’t. 

“I’m so sorry, Astin,” J’bhen said for what felt the hundredth time. He sighed, willed himself to be patient as he pressed the damp rag to his friend’s forehead. The miqo’te was cooler than he’d been the day previous, thank the gods, but it had taken all of his first stipend and what little earnings J’bhen had managed to buy the medicine. 

“It’s alright, J’bhen, you’re just not cut out for that kind of work,” he murmured, kicking himself internally for allowing the miqo’te to take on the burden in the first place. He would have been perfectly happy to make the money for both of them and come home to J’bhen’s art each night, but his friend had dug his heels in, insisted that he must contribute to their livelihood...as if he weren’t already contributing.

Astin wished he had the words to explain how it made him feel something...more, to come home and see perhaps Ul’dah and Sil’dih side by side, or a depiction of Nald’thal, or even one of those kaleidoscopic patterns rendered lovingly in the sand alongside their tent. The beauty of those pictures stirred an emotion in him that he didn’t know he’d possessed, an appreciation for efforts turned not toward the daily grind of living, but a hope for something better. To be able to dream, even in these squalid conditions. Looking at J’bhen’s work made him feel like he could accomplish something, actually be someone, but he’d never be able to explain that properly to the miqo’te, and so he held his silence.  

Perhaps he should have spoken up. 

When it turned out that there was no further work to be found at the food stalls, J’bhen set to looking for delivery work, and found it hauling questionable parcels to the dealers in foreign wares that frequented the alleys behind the Quicksand. It was hard, unforgiving work in the late summer heat, and beyond that, Astin could not stop worrying. He knew the sorts of activities that went on behind the Quicksand, but as far as he could tell J’bhen did not, and he was so proud of his new job that Astin couldn’t bear to tell him, aside from warnings that he should watch himself back there. 

Thankfully nothing untoward had come upon his friend, but within a fortnight’s time he’d worked himself sick. Astin had come home from the stand to find the miqo’te curled up and feverish on his blankets, and they both knew without speaking of it that his missed deliveries would mean he’d lost his chances at further work for the time being. 

“I’m not cut out for much of anything, really,” J’bhen replied in a low voice, and rolled away onto his side, tail curled up behind him and ears low. “I always get sick, and I’m not very good at theft. When you...when you found me, I’d given up. Honestly, I thought I’d just make pictures in the sand until I starved.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he scoffed before he could stop himself, trying to quell the alarm in his heart. “Your art is amazing. I...I’m sorry I don’t tell you. It is,” he added more quietly, color rising to his cheeks. 

“You...you really think so?” J’bhen asked, rolling back over to look at him with big amber eyes. 

“I said it before, didn’t I?” he grumbled, and the miqo’te smiled. 

“Thank you Astin,” he murmured, then looked away for a moment. “Astin, are we...am I...are we friends?” he ventured, with the air of someone frightened to ask. 

“What?” he asked incredulously, then winced as the artist’s face fell. “Yes, yes, we’re friends,” he amended hastily. Seven hells, was he always going to need things spelled out for him like this? 

At any rate, the miqo’te’s brilliant smile was worth the admission. 

“If that’s the case, then...you can call me Bhen, if you like,” he said, ears pricked hopefully. Astin’s heart gave an odd shift in his chest--he’d never really had a friend, come to think, much less a Seeker offer to be called by his real name. 

“Alright, Bhen,” he answered simply, trying to keep his own smile at bay. The miqo’te grinned and gave a happy lash of his tail, then took on a more serious expression. 

“If we’re friends...then even more, I want to pull my weight. When I get better, I’ll look for work again.”  Astin sighed. 

“Okay, but this time, let me do some asking around and see if we can’t find you something that’s easier on your health.”

Five years later found them at sixteen years of age, standing side by side at the Sultana’s Breath, proud owners of neighboring apartments. Well, almost owners--there would be monthly notes to be paid for years to come, but they’d both made good on their down payments, signed their papers side by side. Sweet Azeyma, he was so proud and terrified at the same time. The money didn’t worry him anymore--the job Astin had found him as a scribe kept him mostly indoors and afforded him his own schedule for his art. As for Astin, he’d saved up quite a bit of money in his own right and was thinking perhaps to invest in opening a food stand himself.  

No, he thought as he grinned nervously and perked his ears at his dear friend, he wasn’t worried about getting by, for a blessing. 

More that they’d never been apart since they’d met, and he wondered what it would mean for their friendship. He was used to Astin’s warmth beside him at night, used to greeting him in the morning, looked forward to his rare smiles whenever he showed off his art...But the hyur had suggested separate apartments from the beginning, which seemed odd to Bhen at first considering that it would certainly cost more gil that way. 

Then again, maybe Astin had noticed what Bhen couldn’t voice. He knew his eyes were beginning to linger on the hyur over-long, that he was developing an appreciation for sunlight on white-blonde hair, that the boy’s bare skin against his back at night was starting to evoke embarrassing urges. Maybe Astin realized, and he didn’t like it. Or, maybe it was that neither one of them had ever had any real privacy in their lives, and perhaps they needed that for a while before any decisions were made. Bhen felt the latter was probably wishful thinking on his part, but it could be. As much as he wanted to hope, he found himself swallowing back tears as he looked to his own door. 

“Got something for you,” the hyur said gruffly at his side. “Kind of a celebration present.” 

“Oh, Astin, you didn’t need to,” he exclaimed, excitement conflicting with dismay. “I...I didn’t get you anything.” 

“You don’t need to give me anything, you give enough,” the hyur said firmly, reaching out a hand to pass him a small wooden box. 

“Can I open it?” he asked faintly, and at a terse wave of permission he carefully worked off the lid, and took a breath through parted lips. 

It was a single earring, silver, shining, and beautiful, and certainly a luxury of the sort that neither one of them had ever been able to afford. 

It was also a traditional opening gift to Seeker courting. 

“I...Astin, I…” he faltered, mouth dry as he looked from the offering to his dear, beloved friend. 

“Do you like it?” the hyur asked, and he gave a speechless nod. “You...uh...do you wanna wear it? I was thinking to wear the other one,” he followed, looking away, hands clasped behind his back in a rare show of nerves. 

“I’ll have my ears pierced tomorrow,” he said breathlessly. 

“Alright...alright then,” Astin said, looking to him once more with a wobbly grin that he tried his best to hide. Bhen watched, half in a daze, as his friend (?) fumbled with his keys, set about unlocking his door. 

“Well, I suppose this is goodnight,” he said, tail swishing behind him as he held the box close to his heart. Astin paused as his door swung open, regarded him with an unreadable expression. Before he could register what was happening, the hyur took a quick step forward and pressed a warm, firm kiss to his cheek. 

“G’night, Bhen,” he said, then turned and fled to his room, leaving the stunned miqo’te to stand in the hallway, ears swept back and heart somewhere in the stars.  

As he did every night after work, Astin gave his love’s door a precursory knock before letting himself into the brightly lit quarters, which were permeated as usual with the scent of oil paint and canvas.

“Be right there!” Bhen called from the little loft alcove he’d set up for his art. Astin nodded even though the miqo’te couldn’t see him, and not for the first time cast a rueful eye about the apartment.

Two years they’d been living here, and Bhen’s room was still so bare. Just a mattress on the floor, and a faded old armchair he’d picked up from some noble’s castaways, a rickety table and two chairs that he expected to collapse under their weight any day now. 

Compared to his own increasingly comfortable quarters, the sight of the miqo’te’s meager possessions made him feel bad. Not so much that he was looking down on Bhen, just...he wanted more for the man than to eke by like this. To be fair, it wasn’t as though the artist was struggling. His job as a scribe paid well enough for him to eat and keep himself in art supplies, and Bhen seemed happy enough. At least his paintings stacked and leaning about the place kept it colorful. 

He smiled as the miqo’te made his way down the ladder, pink paint smudged on his cheek and green in his tail, then gave an ‘oof’ of surprise as his boyfriend flung himself into his arms, smiling like a fool.

“I sold my painting of the sultana!” he crowed. “For seventy thousand gil!” 

“What?” he answered blankly, absently returning the embrace. Bhen had loved that piece, had worked on it for moons. It was arguably his best yet. Astin hadn’t known he’d been meaning to sell it—or any of his paintings, for that matter—and in his opinion it was worth a sight more than seventy thousand. 

“Yes, to a friend of Lord Sesemo!” Bhen gushed, referring to his employer. “It seems he put a bit of a word out about my work, and when I turned in my manuscript today they asked about it, and one thing led to another, and...that’s a lot of gil, Astin!” 

“It is! It is,” he agreed, trying not to show his discomfiture. Luckily, Bhen was too excited to notice, nuzzling at him with uncharacteristic directness and a happy purr.

“Do you think maybe I could make a living with my painting someday?” he asked, looking up to Astin with perked ears and bright eyes. 

“What? No!” he exclaimed, then winced at the shocked hurt in the miqo’te’s face as he stepped away from the embrace.

“W-well, I suppose...I mean, perhaps...can you excuse me for a bit?” Bhen asked suddenly, pointedly looking away, tail stiff behind him.

“Bhen, I didn’t mean...that came out wrong, I’m sorry,” he said, and the miqo’te flicked a glance his way at the apology. 

“Pray tell what you do mean, then. I know you think I’m wasting my money and possibly my time, I can see it in the way you refuse to stay here, how we always have to eat in your room. And obviously you’re not pleased I sold the painting either. Sometimes I don’t know what you wish of me.” 

He hunched in on himself a little, aghast that his beautiful miqo’te had interpreted his actions so.

“I just want you to be happy, Bhen,” he said plaintively. 

“I am happy, Astin. Well, not right this moment, but generally speaking I’m happy here, with you, doing what I’ve always dreamed of. What is it that you find lacking?” the artist asked, fixing him with a serious expression that would brook no distractions. 

Shame threatened to overwhelm him as he looked into those proud eyes fighting back tears that he’d caused.

“I...I want to look after you,” he admitted in a small voice, not knowing what he was going to say until he spoke, shamed all over again that this might be more about him than his dear Bhen. “I want you to have nice things, and not have to worry about working for a basic living...so you can just relax and paint to your heart’s content. When I…” He swallowed, composed himself before he could continue.  “When I watch you paint, it reminds me that there’s beauty in the world, right next to me...there was never anything beautiful in my life until I met you. Otherwise...well, I don’t really have anything to...I don’t have anything.”

“And you don’t want me to sell my paintings because you want them, and me, all to yourself?” the miqo’te asked, the question sharply edged even as his eyes softened. 

“No! Well, yes, in part, if I’m selfish, but what I meant was...in the first place, it was worth more than that. I mean, I think I could’ve…you could’ve gotten more for it,” he said clumsily, narrowly avoiding that he felt Bhen had been cheated. “And also, doing what you love as work...I can’t help but feel it won’t go how you think. Of course you’d make money, but you’d be painting for other people day and night, and not what you like, but what they’ve commissioned, and I...I just don’t want to see your passion crushed, Bhen.”

“Oh Astin,” the Seeker murmured, moving forward to hold him again. “I love you, but you can’t make these decisions for me. You can’t take care of me like when we were in the streets,” he said, bunting up under his chin.

“Of course,” he answered, swallowing back tears. It was true, and he knew it, but what use did that make him? The miqo’te sighed.

“I know you mean well, I do. But if we’re to move forward, I need it to be side by side, not with you always worrying and fretting about me. I need you to accept that we might measure happiness on different scales but our individual success is no less viable for it. I’m proud of what I have, what I’ve accomplished.”

“I’m proud of you too, Bhen, I always have been. I’ll do better,” he said hoarsely, daring to rub his cheek against silky ears. 

“This isn’t about doing better, it’s about reframing your thinking,” the miqo’te corrected gently. “I know you work hard for both of us, and that you care for me. And for what it’s worth, I’m proud of you as well. You have beauty within yourself, even if you can’t see it.” 

“I love you,” he replied, because it was true, and he didn’t say it nearly enough. And also, if Bhen started trying to list his qualities he would expire of embarrassment.

“I love you too,” the Seeker murmured, resting his head against the taller man’s chest and running comforting hands down his back. “Do you really think I could have made more on it?”

“Absolutely,” he said without hesitation. “It was a beautiful piece.” Bhen smiled, tail swishing. 

“Well, what’s done is done...but perhaps next time, I’ll ask for your advice. You’ve always been better at business and finances than I.” He couldn’t help his puff of relief, glad to hear he would be needed for something, that the miqo’te at least somewhat forgave his shortcomings. 

“I’d be happy to help, if you’ll allow it,” he murmured, gathering his love close. There was a long quiet as they calmed from their discussion. “Did you finish your work for today?” he asked presently, and the miqo’te nodded. 

“Turned in the manuscript, like I said.”

“What was it this time?”

“Romance novel.”

“Eugh.”

“Oh come now,” Bhen said, stepping back to look him in the eyes with an expression he’d never quite seen the miqo’te wear. “What’s wrong with a little romance?” 

“I...uh...those things don’t happen in reality?” he ventured, and the Seeker raised his eyebrows, twitched his ears suggestively.

“Do they not?” he asked, and Astin’s heartbeat surged. 

“Well, maybe sometimes they...I mean, of course, in our case, we--” he fumbled as his love’s tail began to lash in a purposeful metronome.  

“I don’t suppose you’d care to bed me?” the artist asked with a straightforward confidence Astin didn’t know he had in him. “I’ve just spent the last moon copying some truly sordid passages, and to say I’ve been distracted these past nights would be an understatement.” 

He swallowed and nodded, mouth dry. They were of age, after all, and he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t wistfully thought of it, but he had no experience of his own, and what his mother had gone through in his childhood tended to distance him from considering the act overlong. His hesitation must have shown, because Bhen’s expression gentled considerably. 

“Oh, I’m sorry Astin, I should’ve...I mean, I’ve been hinting for a while now, and I thought you just didn’t realize, but...perchance, are you not interested in that sort of thing?” his love asked carefully.

“I...I don’t know. I just...I’ve thought about it, but...It doesn’t come to mind much?” he admitted, cheeks burning with humiliation. It was odd that for as long as they’d been together they hadn’t even chanced to experiment with one another, and he could see more clearly now that his silent indifference toward the act might have been hurtful. “The idea of making you feel good does have its appeal, though.”

Bhen favored him with a gentle smile, reached out to take his hands.

“Would it be okay to try, to take it slow and see what you’re comfortable with?” 

“Y-yes, that would be nice...if you don’t mind, I know it’s…” he faltered, unable to finish that he felt pathetic for his insecurities. What if he was a disappointment? He certainly wasn’t going to live up to whatever Bhen had been reading. 

“It’s alright, Astin, we’ll learn together. Everything in life is a lesson, after all, and there is far more to love than this.”

That night, he allowed himself to learn what it felt like both to guide and be gently led, to trust someone with the depths of his vulnerability...and in turn experience the tremulous joy of being easily accepted and loved for who he was.

Two moons later, Dalamud fell and Bahamut rained fire upon the lands. As he rested his head in Bhen’s lap and wept for the loss of the world he knew how to navigate, as the miqo’te quietly consoled him, he wondered how he had ever construed in his heart that he was the one protecting Bhen when it had always been the other way around. 

Bhen gave a shaky sigh as a rock sailed too close to his window for comfort, put his brush down and clasped his hands in his lap. 

“I can’t paint like this,” he said tonelessly, watching the rioting crowd seethe just outside the safety of his walls. Astin frowned, stood from the table and made his way across the room to clasp his shoulder.

“It’s okay, it’ll come back to you. Perhaps come away from the window for now?” the hyur asked, eyes distant. 

“I don’t know if...painting just feels so worthless at the moment,” he said, pushing himself up and following Astin to sit, tail curled low behind him. 

“Come on Bhen, you know better than that. Your art gives people hope, myself included,” his love said with a weak smile, and Bhen let the corners of his lips curve upward in response. In truth though, he was quite worried, and not just for the loss of his muse or the rioting in the streets brought on by the growing disparity between the rich and poor. 

His Astin’s heart was not well, and he knew not what to do to ease his troubles aside from offer his supportive presence.

For two glorious, wonderful moons after Bhen spoke to Astin of walking side by side, the hyur had blossomed into a happier man. He smiled more, tried harder to communicate what he felt,  and was more overt in his affections. The Seeker had been only too pleased to let Astin enthusiastically see to him on every surface that would hold them—as well as a few that didn’t—and sometimes he even got to return the favor. Most importantly, they’d come into their own as true companions, soul mates, and Bhen didn’t believe he’d ever be capable of loving another in his life as much as he did Astin. 

But with the Calamity the world had burned down around them, and he watched with a sinking heart as the hyur withdrew further into himself by the day, speaking more and more of--

“I don’t want to see you in the streets again, especially not in this,” his love said quietly, eyes fixed thoughtfully on some distant point as he rested his chin in his hands at the table. 

There it was again. It was as though with everything familiar to him removed, the hyur could only fall back on the one cause that had driven him for most of his young life--keeping Bhen safe and happy so that he could paint. The miqo’te didn’t have the heart right now to chide him back into line, and anyroad he didn’t know what he could say, being so out of sorts himself. They’d never truly faced a situation with both of them lost to depression or melancholy--usually, one always rallied, always held up the other, but this time…

It was going to be a struggle, but Bhen was determined not to let the breaking of the world break them , especially not after he’d had a glimpse of the height of what they could be together. 

“I’ve been thinking,” Astin said, drumming his fingers on the tabletop. “There’s not much in the way of jobs right now, and everything’s bad...but between us, we’ve got money saved up--thank the gods we didn’t put it in the banks. After all this, people are going to need to rebuild, but a lot of them won’t have any funds to do so.”

“Astin…”

“I won’t charge much! I’m not in this to gouge people, just to make sure we’re safe for a while. I’ll set a low interest rate. It’ll accomplish two goals at once--we stay off the streets, and we contribute to the rebuilding of the city. What do you think?” Bhen shifted in his seat, but he didn’t have any other options to offer at the moment.

“As long as the rates are low,” he acquiesced, ears drooping. 

The Sultana’s speech a few days later made his doubts that they were on the correct path even stronger, but it was too late now--Astin already had five different customers, and that there were no jobs at the moment was a stark reality. For a while though he stopped buying paint, uncomfortable with using the coin from Astin’s endeavors for such frivolous purposes. When the crowds finally cleared, he took himself outside for a desperately needed breath of fresh air, and listlessly set about cleaning up the broken glass littering the ground near their apartment. After a while, his hazy mind noted the different colors in the shards, and every once in a while he would hold one up to the light, watch the yet dimmed rays of the sun refract through the glass and throw color on the ground. 

He bit his lip, ears perking as inspiration struck.

Maybe he could make something meaningful with this, something hopeful out of the discarded wreckage born of bitterness, anger, and sorrow. He crouched down, sorted the glass into colors, ran his eyes over the potential. 

Yes, with time and practice, he could probably make something with this. 

Some years later, Astin found himself squinting at the backs of the two miqo’te Bhen had sent after him to wheedle him into attending the exhibition of the Sultana’s Seven. He might have been less inclined to consider their words if the Seeker had sent just anyone to talk sense into him, but that he’d roped the Warrior of Light himself into his errands gave him some pause. He watched as the starry-skinned Keeper left the Quicksand arm in arm with a redheaded Seeker, and his heart twinged to see that it couldn’t be clearer that they were in love. 

He missed that. Gods, how he loved Bhen, and how little he’d shown of it lately. When was the last time he’d taken his love’s hand for a walk down the streets, or praised his work? When was the last time he’d beheld the miqo’te’s genuine smile, or even chanced to see him at his ease? He was staying away from the exhibition for all of the reasons he’d listed to the Warrior and his partner, but at what point exactly had he become a man who had to distance himself from Bhen to spare the artist’s reputation? That his dear Seeker didn’t even feel confident enough to speak to him directly about this anymore? And wasn’t this what Bhen had dreamed of, what Astin had wanted for his love all along--to make what he wished, to be proud of his work, to share it with others who would find meaning in his efforts…? He shifted uncomfortably on his feet, pushed himself away from the wall.

Perhaps this was something he needed to go and see in person, after all.  

“I still can’t believe you came,” Bhen murmured as they walked side by side back to their apartments. 

“Well, you did send the Warrior of Light after me,” Astin replied, venturing a smile. 

“I did! Not purely intentionally mind you, but apparently he shows up this time every year anyway, seems to have some kind of connection to the Wandering Minstrel. I have to say, I did rather hope that I’d run into him.” 

The silence between them was just a touch awkward, but it was better to be close and uncertain than distant and caught up in their own concerns. 

“Did you mean it? All that about quitting the moneylending and helping me find buyers for my work.” Astin made a low noise at his side. 

“That you have to ask me that at all speaks volumes as to my neglect,” the hyur said sadly. “But yes, I meant it, and I’m a fool for not coming up with the idea for a joint business sooner. In retrospect I...I’ve been very self-centered, again. I don’t know why you’re still with me, to be completely honest.” 

“Well, I am rather fond of you,” Bhen said, offering his love a conciliatory smile. “And your cooking is quite good.” 

Astin snorted. “For all the years I spent in that food stand, I’m sure I could make borek in my sleep. Maybe I’ll open a restaurant, seeing as the Ala Mhigans have all left...Everyone loves Ala Mhigan food, there’s sure to be some demand.”

“That sounds like a lovely idea,” Bhen said warmly, cautious comfort stealing over his heart. It had been so long since he’d dared to hope that they might return to what they were, standing side by side in an equality of cause and support. 

“Bhen,” Astin said after a bit, a furrow in his brow. “If...if we can make this work, if I can prove to you that I mean for us to walk side by side...if in a year’s time you like where we are in our relationship...would you be interested in perhaps getting a house together?” 

The miqo’te sucked in a breath, heart leaping in his chest. There was a good deal of lost time to make up for, and issues that needed discussion and reconciliation. But they’d never stopped loving one another, and he could never imagine wanting to live with anyone else. He let go the breath he was holding, tentatively reached out for Astin’s hand. 

Their fingers laced together just as well as he’d always remembered, warm and secure. 

“Yes,” he replied, butterflies fluttering in his soul at the hopeful light in Astin’s eyes. “Yes, I think I should like that very much.”