Crest looked at Orin’s hand, then grabbed it and pulled Orin into an embrace. They stood there in the first rays of the moonlight before Crest backed away just enough so he could look into Orin’s eyes. Keeping one hand on Orin’s waste, the man traced Orin’s jaw. ”You have Laviku in your eyes, you know, and that means you have the sea in your blood,” Crest said in an almost reverent whisper. Orin froze, entirely unsure of the turn of events the night had just taken. He didn’t know where to put his hands, so he just kept them where they were, on Crest’s shoulders where they had come to rest after the hug.
Crest closed the distance between the two of them and kissed Orin softly, the barest hint of pressure on Orin’s lips. When Orin didn’t react or pull away, Crest leaned in closer. The hint of stubble rubbing against his cheek and the way the moonlight played in the Svefra’s hair and caught in his eyes mesmerized Orin. However, when Crest became more insistent and tried to slip his tongue into Orin’s mouth, Orin panicked. Pushing the man away Orin backed up until he nearly tripped and fell over a rope. ”What, what was that? What were you thinking? I don’t like men like that; I don’t even think I like women like that? Why why why would you kiss me?” Orin was hyperventilating. The kiss had been so unexpected and Crest had been so kind to Orin all-day and gentle as he led up to it that Orin hadn’t fought. But two men didn’t kiss one another. And Orin had never kissed anyone before in his life.
Oh gods above, I just had my first kiss. Thoughts were tumbling through his brain too fast for Orin to process and Orin felt something in him rebel against the confusion that Crest had just brought into the world. ”I have to, I have to go, I have to get out of here.” Orin’s voice was breathy and clearly displayed the inner turmoil. His earlier lethargy and pain was completely ignored as Orin searched for a way out.
Crest grabbed his arm. ”Orin wait, I’m sorry. I misjudged the situation. Can we just sit and talk for a moment. This is my fault.” But Orin couldn’t sit and talk and even look at Crest right now. Orin ripped his arm out of Crest’s grasp and began stumbling towards his clothes. ”I told you I have to go!” Orin almost growled, with much more force that his earlier statement. Crest, though, wouldn’t take no for an answer, and blocked Orin’s escape route. Eyes narrowed, Orin shoved the Svefra with all of his might. Not expecting this, Crest was knocked over and landed on his back. Orin quickly stepped over him before he could recover, gathered up his clothes and the jumped over the railing, landed in an almost sprawl on the docks. Orin caught his balance on the last second. Crest’s head appeared above him. ”Orin, seriously wait! We can work this out, you don’t need to leave!” In Orin’s mind, though he was already gone.
Ignoring Crest’s increasingly more desperate pleas, Orin broke into a jog, ignoring the signals his muscles were giving him. It didn’t matter if he was unable to move in the morning as long as he could not be here, on these docks, now. Even if Crest tried to follow, chances were that Orin knew the streets of Syliras better than the Svefra who had only been here for a few days and would be sailing out with the morning tide soon enough.
Orin couldn’t, wouldn’t didn’t stop or even look back at the ship, at Crest, at the place where he had so naively assumed that he could ever be carefree or let his guard down for an instant. As he sped away, he left his hopes for a life without worry behind without regret. It hadn’t fit him anyway.
Still, after he had turned enough corners and the sounds of Crest’s yells had faded to nothing with distance, Orin couldn’t help but feel a keen sense of loss, although he couldn’t say over what. Coming to a halt, Orin lean against the cold, stone wall and let it sap the heat of the run of the night of everything that had just happened away. He sank down until his knees hit his chest. Tears were streaming down his cheeks as Orin tried to catch his breath and will life back into his unwilling limbs. But they refused to move and Orin didn’t have the strength of will right now to overcome them. So he sat there in the flickering torchlight. Passerby were giving him strange looks but left him to himself. Orin bowed his head. ”Good night, Crest,” Orin mouthed to the deaf corridors. ”May you have fair winds at your back and few storms in your way. Smooth sailing.” With that, Orin pulled himself to his feet using the cracks in the wall, and started shuffling his way back to his apartment.
