February sugar, p.1
February Sugar, page 1
February Sugar
By K.L. Noone
Published by JMS Books LLC
Visit jms-books.com for more information.
Copyright 2022 K.L. Noone
ISBN 9781685500696
Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com
Image(s) used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.
All rights reserved.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Published in the United States of America.
* * * *
For everyone who wanted more Wes & Finn. And for San Francisco PAMLA conference memories.
* * * *
February Sugar
By K.L. Noone
“—and we’ll just end with one more,” Wes said, and put up the last slide of his talk: the beautifully embellished fifteenth-century spur, roses and inscription gleaming. “This one really brings together all the themes we’ve been talking about, desire and war and embodiment and the physicality of all those things, and you can see the inscription there, which says with loyal love and all my heart, and so one of the last things the owner would’ve seen, readying himself for battle, would have been a reminder of both loyalty and love, turned into armor to keep him safe. Thank you—any questions, we’ve got some time, if—”
Applause happened. And scholarly hands went up. Many.
He’d expected that, or at least hoped for it. He’d had fun giving the conference keynote, all about courtly love tokens and adornments. He’d tried to be engaging, and he’d guessed a room full of medieval historians would have thoughts about materiality and emotion.
Speaking of emotion, a flicker of motion caught his eye. Finn was grinning, applauding enthusiastically, right in the front row. Of course he was; Wes looked at him for a second, and felt his own heart threaten to open up and overflow with love. All Finn’s. Like the inscription.
He knew this hadn’t been his boyfriend’s ideal Valentine’s Day weekend, so far. San Francisco was lovely but cold and rainy, and Wes had been honored to be asked to speak but had also been busy with conference obligations, panels and lunches and professional socializing, for two days now. Finn had come to a couple of panels, and had also wandered around playing tourist, but carefully, given the rain.
He also knew Finn had said it was fine, better than fine, even enjoyable. A vacation, if a working one. Getting out of Los Angeles for a long weekend, with some time after to explore San Francisco.
And they were both history lovers, and it was an honor, and a prestigious conference. And Finn had wanted to come along.
And was beaming at him now, shaking shaggy blond-brown hair out of his face, animatedly saying something to the preeminent Arthurian scholar seated beside him, who’d given Wes a very kind introduction. She beamed right back, talking to Finn, because Wes’s other half could talk to anyone, anywhere, readily and with honest interest.
The medievalist currently asking a question cleared her throat. Wes hastily refocused on courtly love and ideals versus reality, and got back to thinking about knightly favors and wearable tokens.
After, as the crowd ebbed, he accepted handshakes and shoulder-claps and even familiar hugs from some friends he’d known since graduate school, and put up with Henry Jones making the same decades-old joke about Wes picking a field based on an enjoyment of fashion and shiny objects. Henry was a friend, so Wes just said, “How’s the Sir Lancelot book coming along, then?” and Henry said, “God, I fucking hate you,” because the book in question had been in progress for six years and counting. After, he added, “Anyway that was brilliant, that connection between emotion and embodiment and magical thinking, can I buy you a drink? Are you coming down to the bar?”
“Sure,” Wes said, and then hesitated. Finn hadn’t gotten up, but gave him a small unobtrusive wave and a smile. Wes wasn’t sure what that meant.
The cane was leaning against the arm of Finn’s chair, too. It was a nice one, solid and sturdy. Good support, but maybe not enough support, on slippery hilly streets.
“Actually,” Wes said, hesitating, “maybe…later? Or maybe not tonight? Let me just…”
Henry glanced that way. “Oh, right, you’re dating a fucking movie star! And it’s Valentine’s Day! Go! Enjoy yourself!”
Several other people looked around, with interest. The preeminent Arthurian scholar blinked, looked at Finn, and said, “Oh my God, you are Finn Ransom! My daughter used to love your show! She had posters of you and Cody Lee! But you were her favorite!”
“Oh, that’s awesome!” Finn said, with every appearance of genuine pleasure at this former teen idol recognition. He was, Wes reflected, a very, very good actor. “I mean, obviously I was the cuter one, so your daughter has good taste. No, I’m just kidding, Cody’s great.”
The professor looked at her conference program and her pen. Then at Finn. Her expression asked the question, while also visibly wondering whether it’d be tactless.
“Here,” Finn said easily, taking the pen, “what’s her name? And how do you spell that? Oh, that’s really pretty, totally original…” A few more interested bodies had drifted his way.
Wes didn’t exactly run over. But he did move fast. “Hey.”
“Hey,” Finn said, looking up. His eyes were oceans, full of affection, blue-green as waves under sun. “You’re fantastic.”
“So’re you.” Wes sat down beside him. The suggestion of small crowd dispersed, gradually, now that Finn was obviously busy. “Sorry, I had to say hi to a couple of people.”
“Not a problem, I was just hanging out with Beatrix.” Finn handed back pen and program. Professor Beatrix Knight, author of three required-reading books on Arthurian lore and medieval swords, terror of graduate students undergoing PhD exams, said, “If you ever want to sit in on a seminar you’re more than welcome, that was an excellent question about rings and gemstones!” and then, to Wes, “Insightful as always, Doctor Kim; when’s the new book coming out?”
“November?” Wes said, and tried not to wince at the way his voice had turned into a question. Suddenly his suit felt inadequate, and his hair too messy and too young.
“Well, I’ll look forward to it.” She patted him on the arm, getting up. “We’ll be in the bar, if you’d like some continuing discussions.”
“I—”
“Here,” Henry said from behind him, holding out Wes’s bag and lecture notes. “I got everything, including your flash drive. Hi, awesomely cool person who’s somehow dating Wes. The rest of us should be so lucky. Go off to be a historical consultant on one single film, come back with a hot boyfriend who actually learned how to pronounce Middle English correctly. Unfair.”
“The Middle English?” Finn said, amused. That film, the one where he’d met Wes, had been one of his first cautious ventures back into acting. It’d done well. Lots of praise, and some for Finn specifically. “I did try to get it right. And I think I was the lucky one, honestly. Hi, I’m Finn, and you’re…?”
“His name’s Henry,” Wes said, “he pretends to work on chivalric romance, and he’s leaving.”
“I am,” Henry agreed. “Unless you want a hand with anything?”
Wes winced on Finn’s behalf; but Henry wasn’t in fact looking at the cane, just at Wes’s overstuffed bag and sheaf of printed notes. “No, thanks.”
“Go enjoy Valentine’s Day,” Henry said. “Pretend the rest of us don’t exist, we’ll see you at the morning session tomorrow anyway. Exchange some love tokens and burning passion. Have fun.”
“Cite me when you actually work on the chapter you’re not writing,” Wes retorted, and Henry made a cheerfully rude gesture at him, heading over to gather a few more friends on the way to the hotel bar.
Quiet fell like a gentle veil, bridal-tender and full of hope. The hotel conference room wrapped them up in nondescript camaraderie, inoffensive chairs and carpeting and walls all doing their best as good hosts. Wes couldn’t hear the rain—they were too deep inside the hotel—but impressions of dampness and coats and wet boots lingered, as they had all day.
He glanced at Finn’s cane, because he couldn’t help it. Resting near his own tidy professorial shoe, the placid everyday end of it stuck a small dagger into his heart. Right past all the armor.
“I’m all right,” Finn said, shifting weight, ready to stand. “You could go down to the bar, if you wanted. Be social. I know you don’t see most of them in person much, just at these big conferences. And you really were awesome. They’ll all want to talk to you.”
“Don’t tell me it’s okay,” Wes said.
“It is, thoug
“You can read my draft now if you want.” He’d snuck in a tiny dedication to Finn, not by name, just initials, in the first footnote. It was all about love, after all. “Did you have a good afternoon?” He wanted to ask the other question, too, but Finn would tell him if anything hurt too much. Wes knew that. He believed that.
“Totally. I went down to Fisherman’s Wharf and wandered around, and ate basically everything, and also there were sea lions and historic ships, and then I just hung out on the cable cars for a while so I could see everything—and I met some really cool people, too, this family from Manila, they’re doing a whole tour of California thing and visiting relatives, and they gave me some restaurant recommendations if you want to think about dinner—and also I might’ve ended up at Ghirardelli Square and done terrible things for my diet. At least my next job is just voice acting, that animated holiday movie, after we get back.” Finn leaned in to kiss him, warm and sure. “Before you ask, no, my knee’s not thrilled with all the walking, but it’s been worse before. I’m okay.”
Wes sighed. “Want a massage? Also, there’s no universe in which you need to be on a diet, with all the swimming, and also which one of us was in that magazine article about superheroes…”
“I wasn’t even featured,” Finn protested, grabbing the cane and also using Wes’s shoulder as leverage. “The whole cast. Everyone on the show, even us recurring roles. And I’m in the background. But I did get to wear a cape for the photo shoot, so that was…oh, what word do I want…cape-tivating.”
“Super-terrible.”
“I don’t get points for heroic effort?”
“I’ll leave you back at Fisherman’s Wharf with the sea lions.” He balanced the bag in one hand, let the fingers of the other hand brush Finn’s. They wandered out of the conference room, toward the elevator, leisurely.
The carpet muffled footsteps, and was kind to cane-taps. The evening, still early, was cool but comfortable in the way of a luxurious temperature-controlled hotel. Rain flecked the windows near the elevators; Finn glanced over at the drops and smiled, and also waved to a few scholars with conference badges as they disembarked through elevator doors.
“I don’t even know them,” Wes said.
“I met them yesterday when we were getting coffee and you were talking to Beatrix, I mean Doctor Knight, about the setup for today. They’re nice. Andrea, with the blue hair, said she’s using your first book a lot in her dissertation. She also has two cats. I like cats.”
Wes leaned back against the elevator rail, put his head on one side, looked at his boyfriend. Finn, reflected in brass and bronze and dark wood, was casually wonderful as usual: fascinated by every single person, eyes all big and bright, sleeves pushed up in order to feel more of the world.
He’d dressed up, at least for him: nice dark jeans, and a light blue sweater over a darker blue button-down, a compromise between the desire to fit in at Wes’s academic conference and Finn’s own Southern California flip-flops-and-sunshine style. He’d come up to their room to change, after roaming around in San Francisco rain, before popping down for Wes’s keynote.
He was leaning more weight than usual on the cane. On good days he didn’t need it; on the worst days he needed more than that. This was somewhere in between, Wes judged. Exertion, the weather, walking around, unstable ground. But not too bad.
And there was that irrepressible grin, hovering in smile-lines, in eye-crinkles, in the way Finn looked at Wes right back, up and down and appreciative.
Wes raised both eyebrows at him. “You do like watching me work…”
“I like watching you in charge of a whole room. My genius. Everybody, all those scholars, listening to you.” Finn paused, added, “And I like you in that suit, Professor.” He even threw in batted eyelashes, though his lips twitched: half laughing, half serious about the liking. “I got you a present, too.”
“I hope that means you naked,” Wes said. They had the elevator to themselves, and a few floors to go; he put down his bag, stepped in closer, put a hand in Finn’s hair. “Because that’s what I want.”
“Oh, well,” Finn said, “you can have that whenever—”
Wes kissed him. Not roughly, not pulling them off-balance; but deep, profound, enough that the blood pounded in his own ears.
Kissing Finn Ransom in a hotel elevator, in a world of history and passion and love. The taste of Finn’s mouth, lightly mint-flavored lip balm and sweet coffee and heat. The softness of Finn’s hair tangled into Wes’s hand, and the way Finn’s eyes slid shut, savoring each sensation, as Wes’s tongue delved into his mouth.
It was all wonderful. Full of wonder. Like the man in his arms.
Finn always kissed with wholehearted devotion, every drop of attention given to the experience. Wes loved that about him, had loved that from the start, always would love that: that determination to be present, to appreciate, to dive with eagerness into joy.
So he kissed Finn more. Harder. Equally eager, making sure Finn knew it.
The elevator stopped at their floor, with a pointed ding! of arrival.
Finn, being kissed, started laughing; Wes tipped their heads together, grumbling, “No sense of romance…” at the mechanics of the world.
“Oh, I don’t know.” Finn followed him out of the doors, amusement palpable. “I think it’s telling us to get a room. Which we have in fact done. So it’s on our side.”
“Because it likes you,” Wes told him—it was true; elevators and babies and cats and old ladies all liked Finn—and found a room key in his pocket. Their room was fairly close to the elevator bank; he hadn’t asked for that on purpose, but it’d been helpful.
He opened the door. And stopped.
Finn, behind him, said, “Surprise?” and waved the cane at the room. Theatrically.
“So…when you said chocolate…”
Sugar bloomed in a holiday fantasia across the desk, low table, the arm of a chair. Dark chocolate salted caramel squares shimmered from a cable-car-shaped gift box. Raspberry-filled hearts beckoned from a box, surrounded by pink ribbons. A cellophane-wrapped tower of brownies and hot chocolate mix crinkled at him. Exquisite tiny cocoa-and-almond truffles overflowed from a mug. The mug had a heart on it, for good measure.
“Wow,” Wes said, weakly.
“Um…it’s because you’re very sweet? And I like chocolate and history, and Ghirardelli is historical. And also it’s Valentine’s Day.” Finn wandered over to the closest chair and sat down, a fraction too hard to be graceful, with an exhale. His hair flopped into his face again; he batted it back, and glanced down at his dress shoes.
Wes came over too and sat down on the floor, heedless of suit-wrinkles. “Let me.”
“I can, you don’t have to.”
“Shh. I want to.” He did. He also wanted to help. “Unless you tell me not to.”
“No, go on.”
The tiny vulture of guilt came back to dig small talons into Wes’s shoulder. He’d left Finn alone to wander around the city all afternoon, and then he’d wanted his boyfriend at his keynote lecture. On Valentine’s Day. While Finn had bought them chocolate.
He eased Finn’s right shoe off, set it down. Untied the left.
“I’m really fine,” Finn said, watching him. “Maybe a little tired. Not too tired.”
“Massage and room service? Actual dinner, not death by sugar.”
“Well…naked massage?”
Wes laughed, and very very lightly kissed Finn’s knee—the left one, the one he knew hurt more, as he sat on the floor at his boyfriend’s feet, hand loosely curled around Finn’s calf. Holding on.
“Love you.” Finn reached down, stroked a hand through Wes’s hair: sun-kissed fingers against grey-flecked black. “You know, if you wanted to hear it.”
“Always,” Wes said, leaning against Finn’s leg, not with much weight. “Always. Come lie down?”
“Sounds nice, as long as you’re naked too.”
Wes’s heart ached and healed and fluttered all at once. Hummingbird wings and raindrops. Gold as love tokens, seen through rain.
