A Fluffy Tale (5 page)

“I'm never nasty. I tell people
uncomfortable truths. They don’t care for it much.”

“Especially when you’re so snotty about
it.”

Ledbetter’s smile slipped. “You know what
to do now. You should buy a better pair of shoes of that brand I mentioned, and
a heart rate monitor. There’s a club who run in the park. If you join them,
you’ll get a lot of advice. I need a shower. Good day.”

Julian caught his arm. “Wait! Are you angry
with me?”

The man’s eyes were shuttered, revealing
nothing. “I’ve done what’s necessary, you’ve demonstrated a commitment to good
health and Pyon has already benefited. There’s little more I can add. I see no
reason to detain you further.”

“But…” Julian frowned in perplexity. “Why
don’t you have breakfast with me? My apartment’s just around the—“

“No, I don’t think—“

“Or there’s a coffee shop that does healthy
stuff—I checked. Come on, you can’t tell me you’ve got something more important
to do at six am.”

“No.” But the man still looked as if he
wanted to bolt. “I need a shower and the café won’t be open…” He stopped and
smiled suddenly, confusing Julian completely. “See? Told you they’d be friends
eventually.”

Julian looked down and ahead. “Oh. Oh!”
Pyon was licking Linis who sat sedately as he was groomed, looking as if it was
merely his due. Pyon’s eyes were half-shut in apparent ecstasy. “See? If you go
home now, poor Linis and poor Pyon… Come back to my place. It’s tidy, I swear
and I’ve got all the healthy stuff you could want.”

“I…I really don’t think it’s appropriate.
You’re an assistant.”

Julian gritted his teeth. “And you’re a
snob. Pyon, come on—we’re not good enough for his highness, apparently.”

Pyon bounced over, looked at Julian and
then Ledbetter, and meeped as if distressed. “It’s okay,” Julian said more
gently, picking him up. “Come on, let’s go home and eat.”

He started to walk away, but stopped when
he heard a very faint, “W-wait.” He took another step. “Please?”

He turned. Ledbetter held Linis in his
arms, but though his kem was calm and unruffled, the host was not. “I…that was
rude of me. I didn’t mean…it’s not that you’re not good enough…I…”

“It’s only breakfast.”

“I’ve never done that before.”

“Breakfast?”

“Not…uh…not socially.”

“Oh. Well, I’ve never been jogging before,
so we’re even, right? If you don’t come, then I’ll be at a disadvantage and
that
would
be rude.”

“It would?”

“Oh yes,” Julian said, tucking Pyon up onto
his shoulder and coming back to grab Ledbetter’s arm.

But the bloody man still resisted. “I don’t
even know your
surname
.”

Crap, this guy was uptight. Julian stuck
out his hand. “Julian Godwin, nice to meet you.”

Hesitantly, the man accepted his gesture
with his own big, long-fingered hand. “Uh, Zachary Ledbetter, same.” He shook
Julian’s hand briefly, then let go.

“And never Zach, right?”

“Absolutely not.”

Julian grinned at his distaste. “Well,
Zachary
, how do you feel about poached
eggs and wholemeal toast?”

Ledbetter—Zachary—smiled rather shyly.
“That sounds lovely.”

They stopped at Zachary’s apartment—and how
strange that he lived so close—so he could pick up a tracksuit to throw over
his sweaty clothes. Julian would have been happy to wait for him to shower but
the man seemed rather reluctant for anyone to come into his private domain, so
he didn’t push. It was a big enough victory getting him to agree to breakfast,
after all. A short walk after that and they came to Julian’s somewhat less
swish apartment block. At least he’d cleaned up the night before.

“It’s not as posh as yours, I'm sure,” he
said, letting them into the apartment. “How long have you been there?”

“Not quite a month. I only moved to the
city recently. I wanted a place by the park and the agent found it for me.”

“You own it?”

“Of course.”

Julian shook his head in amazement—the man
didn’t look that much older than him, but he was already out of the rent trap.
“Go sit. Tea? How many eggs?”

If it hadn’t been for Pyon’s sudden
infatuation with Linis, Julian thought that Zachary would have run after a
single cup of tea. That he found the situation uncomfortable,
was painfully obvious. But Pyon could be damn cute when he wanted to be, and he
turned on the charm, enchanting Zachary and his kem both, pouncing from behind Julian’s
arm, begging for a petting with little mewls, and chasing a ball of paper
around the floor and finally curling around the thing as if it was an egg he
was trying to hatch. Then he jumped back onto the table and demanded praise for
his cleverness, which Zachary was happy to give him.

Julian watched from the kitchen and grinned
at Pyon grooming and teasing the sedate and regal Linis, winning a lick or two
in the process and a lot of petting from Zachary. The man seemed to be unaware
of the effect he had on Julian when he did that, and in the circumstances,
Julian wouldn’t mention it. It didn’t seem the right time to bring it up.

Breakfast was probably the easiest meal he
could have offered, and eggs were one of the few things Julian already knew how
to cook. They were both starving, so he served a stack of food—toast, poached
eggs, melon slices and milk—which seemed to pass
Zachary’s exacting standards. Zachary didn’t talk as he ate, but once he was
onto his second cup of green tea, he relaxed a little. Julian felt he could ask
him more about jogging, and how breakfast fitted in around that. He learned
Zachary ran every day, usually in the morning, but never to work.

“What about when it’s wet or cold?”

“I can still run. If it’s truly vile, I use
my building’s gym but Linis hates it.” He scratched between his kem’s ears.
Linis yawned delicately, and lying beside him, almost on top of him, Pyon made
a chirp as if
he
wanted petting too.
Julian stroked his tail and resisted telling his kem not to be a greedy little
sod. Pyon was almost drunk from all the affection he’d received this morning.
Julian had a suspicion that his kem might even go home with Zachary if the man
asked him politely enough—which he better not.

“You know a lot about kems. Everyone else just
takes them for granted.”

Zachary winced, and Linis, apparently
sensing his changed mood, moved closer and butted his head up against Zachary’s
chest. Zachary picked him up and cuddled him close while Pyon pawed lazily at
Linis’s tail. “It’s disgusting. Kems are as reliant on us as a child, and no
one would treat a child with such disdain. Just because they can’t talk doesn’t
mean they’re stupid. We know so little about them, and yet we feel free to
dismiss them as nothing but extensions of our egos.”

“No one knows what they are—or where they
came from. Or where they go when we die either.”

“They die.” Zachary’s green eyes were full
of dark sorrow now and he rubbed his cheek against Linis’s head. “I know people
like to think they’re reincarnated or they go off somewhere…but I think they
die, like we do. So we
have
to give
them as much time as we can.”

Pyon meeped and ran back to Julian for
reassurance at Zachary’s harsh tone. “Hey,” Julian said as he took his kem into
his arms. “Don’t get upset.”

“I can’t…I just can’t help it. The
beautiful kems I’ve known who’ve died too soon because of utter
selfishness
of their hosts. Creatures
with hearts and souls more pure than any human, lost because of idiocy.”

Well this was taking a turn for the worse,
Julian thought. The man looked about to burst into tears. “Lots of people die
young through no fault of their own, you know.”

“And lots of people pay no attention to the
fact they’re responsible for another living creature and behave as if they can
do exactly as they want. Their poor kems have no choice in the matter. I would
never grieve for a human the way I have for those lost souls.”

“You might. If you loved
them. If your parents died, you would.”

Zachary’s eyes turned from grief-stricken
to icy disdain in a flash. “No, I wouldn’t.”

“Oh. Sorry. You don’t get on with them?”

The man looked away. Obviously
a touchy point.

Julian decided to drop the subject.
“Um…more tea?”

Heavy silence persisted for some time,
Zachary stroking Linis with an absent expression, while Julian cleared up and
discreetly comforted Pyon, who clearly knew something was wrong but just as
obviously had no idea what.

Julian made a fresh pot of tea and then
nudged Pyon across the table back to his new friends. Zachary roused as Pyon climbed
his arm up to his shoulder and meeped in his ear. “Oh, hello—are you feeling
neglected? Linis, manners.”

His kem stretched and yawned, and then
climbed up Zachary’s arm to sit on his other shoulder. Julian grinned at the
sight of the two kems bookending Zachary’s head. “You’ve won him right over.”

“I did nothing. Linis is the one with all
the charm. Not that Pyon isn’t charming too,” he added, reaching up and
scratching Pyon’s tummy. Pyon squirmed with delight and tried to burrow into
Zachary’s hair, his fluffy tail swatting the man in the face as he wriggled
about. Zachary didn’t seem to mind the indignity in the least—and yet if a
person had taken that kind of liberty…

“He’s like another creature altogether. I
wish I’d met you years ago.” Julian stopped, embarrassed, as he realised how
that sounded.

Zachary didn’t seem to notice. “I didn’t
live here years ago, so you couldn’t have. At least you’ve started well. Just
don’t become slack because it seems easier. You owe it to him.”

“I know. I won’t.”

“Good.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s
eight o’clock and I’ve imposed long enough. I should go home and change. Thank
you for breakfast…it was…pleasant.”

“Surprised at that?”

“Yes. I…yes.” He smiled a little shyly.
“I…don’t know anyone here.”

“Now you know two of us. Hey, I’ve got an
idea. You said I’d be too sore to jog—but I promised Pyon I’d take him out to
the country tomorrow, by train. Want to come? If you don’t know the area, then
you could—“

“Uh…actually, I'm busy.”

It was said too fast for it to be the
truth, or the whole truth, but Julian tried not to be offended. “Oh. Oh, right.
Yes. Well, maybe next weekend or something. There’s a big country park about
forty miles from here. You can get there by train. I keep meaning to go there
when the weather’s good but I never get around to it. You’d like it.” He shut
up—he was babbling.

“I’m sure I would.” Zachary stood. “I…uh…I
might be able to rearrange things. When will you be going?”

“In the morning sometime? You could drop
over and let me know after you go for a jog. Ring the bell or something and
tell me. I can wait.” Damn it, he could just give the guy his telephone number,
but he had a feeling that would just send Zachary running for the hills.

“All right. I, uh…thank you for the
invitation. And breakfast.”

“Thank
you
for the torture.”

Zachary grinned a little. “It’s fun.”

“I bet. Let me walk you out.”

Pyon rode on Zachary’s shoulder all the way
down to the street, and only very reluctantly climbed back onto Julian at
Zachary’s urging.

“See you tomorrow, maybe?” Julian said.

“Yes. Maybe. Thank you.” Zachary hurried
away from him as if his arse was on fire.

Julian was now convinced that the guy’s
problem wasn’t that he was a terrible snob but that he was terribly shy. Which,
wow, if Julian looked like that and had his advantages? Would really not be a
problem.

He turned to go back into the building.
Pyon squeaked and then dematerialised—hungry, Julian guessed. It had been a
long morning and it was still earlier than he would normally get up on the
weekend.

An engine revved and he heard a horrible
squeal of tyres. Bloody traffic morons. That was the worst part of living on
this—

Then came a screech, and a dull, glassless
thud. A second later a woman screamed.

Not a fender-bender. The car had hit a
person, not another vehicle. And the woman screamed again, this time for help.

Zachary!

He pelted down the street,
desperately hoping he was wrong, that he hadn’t just heard—

Near the corner crossing, Zachary lay in
the street, bloodied and horribly broken and not at all alive. Already people
were clustered around, one crouched at Zachary’s side.
A car was stopped a little across the intersection, the driver surrounded by
other people.

Julian paid him them no attention as he
dropped to his knees beside the too still body. “Somebody, call a bloody
ambulance!” he yelled, staring desperately up at the sea of faces. “Call an
ambulance!”

They wouldn’t let him ride with Zachary to
hospital but a nice woman gave him a lift in her car, following the ambulance
as closely as possible, and offering words of comfort that Julian barely heard.
His hands were covered in Zachary’s blood—a passing nurse had stopped to offer
assistance, and Julian had done what he could using his own workplace first aid
training, which wasn’t much. Identifying himself as the victim’s friend meant
the paramedics asked him a lot of questions he had no idea of the answers for,
then the police wanted more information. He could help them a little more since
they wanted to know where Zachary lived and why he’d been on the street. But
once Zachary had been loaded into the ambulance, Julian insisted on being
allowed to go with him. The police let him leave—he wasn’t a witness, and there
were plenty of other people who’d seen the accident who could help instead.

“Are you going to be all right, love?” the
kind woman asked as she let him out at Emergency. “You look very pale.”