"The villagers find us strange. Are you not worried?" Leofric asked, his gravelly voice gone soft and airy in the twilight air. The room was thick with stillness, neither of them having moved for such a long while that it felt they had become part of the furniture. Shifting onto his side, Leofric looked up at Wulfstan's reclining form.
Furrowing his brow slightly, Wulfstan looked down at Leofric, his body covered in a thin blanket. They had, soon after Ita and Donngall's funeral, shoved their beds together in Wulfstan's room and stayed side-by-side every night henceforth. Of course, Wulfstan didn't sleep but it was the principle of it all – it brought Leofric comfort to have the thought of a living being sleeping beside him. It had been a couple of years since then and they had never felt the need to sleep separately in that time.
Wulfstan obviously knew that the villagers had treated them poorly since the passing of Leofric's parents. That was evident enough by their struggles to keep themselves alive in the last years – it came from disdain of outsiders and the unknown. However, Wulfstan didn't think had anything to do with them being particularly odd or peculiar, just 'foreign', so he asked, "Strange? In what way?"
Seemingly frustrated, Leofric sighed. "We're nearly thirty years old and unwed. It's unheard of." What he was saying was logical, but it stung to hear – it hurt even more because it didn't even sound like Leofric really meant what he was implying. A hitching in the back of his throat, uncannily reminiscent of tears waiting to be shed. "Is it not what we should do? Find wives?"
Wulfstan couldn't find his voice for a moment. Long having become used to the faint tugging always around his heart, he had never – even when he had gone so far from home all those years ago – experienced such an acute wrenching as he did at the moment that Leofric suggested taking wives. Especially as it was not at all an expected turn of conversation – they had not even uttered a thought about no longer living together for many years now.
Frustrated, but unwilling to take it out on Leofric as it
wasn't his fault, Wulfstan turned away from him and stared out of the window. While they had exclusively spoken in Gaelic with each other since Leofric's parent's funeral, in his upset, Wulfstan slipped back into English, his first language. "Why? Do the opinions of those who don't even like you matter so much? I'm content. What company would a wife give you that I cannot?" He still couldn't look at Leofric, for fear of the expression he knew was contorting his face hideously. It was taking all his power to soften his tone, to curb the bite within his words. Wulfstan did not want to take his indignation out on Leofric, but he could not help it. "Have you grown tired of me? I will leave, if that is so – nothing but you holds me here and, if you do not want me around, I have no reason to stay." Anger seeped into his words, petulant, childish but he couldn't deny how hurt he felt.
"Wulfstan, please don't say such things." Leofric sat
up quickly, throwing off his blanket in his hurry. His hand grabbed onto Wulfstan's arm, tugging at him in an attempt to get the man to turn around and look back. It was the first time that Wulfstan put any resistance up against Leofric's tugging, so the man was startled slightly by the stone statue Wulfstan had become. Completely unmovable. "I- I don't want you to leave. But you must know the difference between our relationship and one of man and wife. The importance of… fitting in."
Once again, he cursed and thanked his wicked being for being unable to cry. Wulfstan wished he could sob, release his wanton feelings, get Leofric to understand why that was so torturous a suggestion to him but he was glad he couldn't because it meant he could keep his composure. He curled his hands into fists, gripping the fabric of his sleepwear tightly in his fingers. It would tear if he held it any longer, but he didn't care. With great force, he slowly turned his head back around and pinned his gaze on Leofric's sorrowful face. "I don't know the difference, nor do I care. Does it matter if we stay unwed and live together until the end of our days? It is a simple wish." His voice dropped from his normal hush into something almost entirely inaudible. "I don't understand what more you want."
"You misunderstand me… I am happy to live with you, but can't you understand how peculiar it is for us to remain unmarried? Us marrying into another family would maybe help us… I don't know." It was a question that didn't really need to be answered – of course, Wulfstan knew how judgemental the village was so he knew that this would be yet another thing that would bring scrutiny. As if one more problem really mattered at the point they were at. It was simply that he didn't care because the only person he needed was Leofric. No one else's opinion mattered in the slightest when the man was by his side. Leofric had yet to remove his tight grasp on Wulfstan's arm, though it had become softer, his thumb rubbing repetitive, anxious circles on the cold skin there. "Do… Outside of material gain, do you truly not know why men take wives…?"
Tilting his head slightly in confusion, Wulfstan looked at Leofric. It felt strange to have that question levied at him. Long had he stopped thinking of women and the concept of wives, not since he realised that the only person he needed was Leofric. When he lay his gaze on a woman, he never felt anything towards them beyond the same indifference he felt towards other men. He rarely spent time at the tavern, so he never heard much of the exploits between men and women outside the rigid confines of marriage, so he had never gotten a clear handle on why men and women bound themselves together. Tempered slightly, Wulfstan finally switched back to Gaelic, wanting their conversation to feel like it was on a level playing field. "No, I don't."
For some reason, it suddenly became horribly embarrassing for that fact to be said so seriously. Wulfstan felt exposed, ridiculously stupid, but he knew Leofric wasn't going to judge him. At the very least, the explanation of this concept was not going to hurt his heart.
Leofric's face creased into confusion. He mumbled to himself, "Was it because you were fifteen when you were found that Da never thought to tell you…" Relaxing his face, he let out a little, perplexed noise before continuing, actually talking to Wulfstan again. "Do you not know what fucking is?"
"…I have heard of it." A non-committal answer that
gave away more than Wulfstan liked. He darted his eyes away from Leofric, feeling strange about having this conversation with the other man. He knew ofthe vague mutterings of the act of fucking, but not the specifics – just enough to be aware that it was special.
"Men and women wed so they can fuck and produce children. It works like that as men are hot and dry, while women are cold and wet – opposite but complimenting humours that keep both parties healthy." Leofric earnestly explained it, his hand still clasping Wulfstan's arm, as if he was trying to keep the man from running away. "To know someone carnally outside of marriage is sodomy, of course, but that doesn't really stop anybody. You've heard the tales of the men in the tavern before, haven't you?"
That part about humours briefly stuck in Wulfstan's head – hot and dry? Cold and wet? He was a man, but he was not hot; he was cold. Frigid, bloodless, and dry. A merging of the humours of man and woman. That didn't make sense at all, but it was not something he had the ability to dissect. Wulfstan shrugged, not entirely interested in the happenings between men and women. There wasn't going to be anything of the sort in his life ever, his eyes only for the man sitting next to him. "Somewhat. But if fucking is for children and marriage, why do those men have so many stories?"
"God will forgive if people pray for it. I suppose they
would rather commit a sin, feel lust, experience earthly pleasure and ask forgiveness after rather than live celibate." It was an earnest, intelligent response that Wulfstan had not expected from Leofric. He was incredibly devout, going to church whenever there were services he could get to, so Wulfstan had thought he would be more unforgiving of sinners.
A memory he'd purposefully shoved to the side, one somewhat obscured by time and circumstance, but one Wulfstan had never been able to forget flashed across his mind. That night, Leofric lit by the moonlight, lost to himself as Wulfstan found himself swept up too. That was a sin. Sodomy. It made some sense why Leofric did not judge lustful sins – he partook in earthly pleasures too.
That thought sparked a question. A bubble of jealousy sprouted in his chest, a deep warning in him telling him not to ask but he couldn't help his morbid curiosity. "Have you known a woman carnally?"
Leofric's face grew a deep red, redder than fresh blood, and he jolted away from Wulfstan, his hand flying off his arm. "N-no, I never have! I have… I have no interest in that. I don't even really want to marry."
Relieved, Wulfstan relaxed, though Leofric's specific wording of having no interest in 'that' sparked a ridiculous hope in the back of his mind. An odd confidence surged through Wulfstan, though. "I'll believe you, we're together so often. I would probably know. I am still curious, though." He waited for Leofric to calm down once he heard his words. "I… Sodomy, beyond just fucking, is something I know – have you partaken in any of that?"
That calm that had descended on Leofric surged away all at once. While the last response had been from shock over the question, this one, Wulfstan knew, was from a guilty conscious. "Why- why are you asking? I… I…" It seemed he was genuinely considering whether it was something he could admit to. "…Yes. I've enjoyed the pleasure of my own flesh and… ah, well. N-nothing else! I know it's wrong but…"
The stuttering in Leofric's answer did not go unheard, but Wulfstan wasn't intuitive enough to know what would have come after that 'and'. He believed Leofric, truly, when the man said he'd never known a woman carnally so he simply didn't know what the other option could be – it was not like sodomy was ever explained, simply just said to be a heinous sin against the Heavens. Nonetheless, he pressed on. "If it's so horrible, why does it feel so natural?" Wulfstan couldn't help but finish the train of thought Leofric was too terrified to utter. "I understand, Leofric."
Leofric's tensed body relaxed, realising that Wulfstan was not going to revile him or call him a sinner for partaking in something that was so wrong. "So, you've done… it as well?"
"Once."
That confession seemed to confuse Leofric more than assuage his guilt. "Why just once, if you enjoyed it? You can beg for forgiveness, so there's no difference between doing a sin once or doing it many times."
Wulfstan smiled for a moment, an awkward, strained smile, feeling it peculiar to admit to his sin in front of the object of his strange, unnatural desire. While he'd read most of his past life's diaries by now and he knew that yearning for Leofric was normal for him because of their soul bond, Wulfstan had still not fully processed how he felt about that desire. He could not even feel he could comfortably call it 'love' because how could two men love one another – their humours clashed and, if a marriage could even take place, there would be no children. Is that not what 'love' entails? Wulfstan stared at Leofric, taking in his features that were obscured slightly in the dim midnight. "I have only been tempted by the pleasure of the flesh once. There was a moment... a moment when an object of my desire was made clear to me. I was overcome with that realisation. Since then, I've been conflicted, and I have not gone out of my way to see him in that state again—"
Stunned by his own words, he froze. He'd admitted something he had not intended to. The idea of the object of his desire being a man, let alone Leofric, which had fortunately remained unuttered, was a sin far greater than simply just partaking in sodomy. It was disgusting and unnatural. Punishable by death, not just penance. Leofric was going to revile him, kick him out of the house, run him from the village. This was unforgivable, especially to such a devout man as Leofric was.