Chapter 14 – A Waystation Awaits #2
His smile softened, and he looked back toward the broad windows out front where everything was black except for the smallest pinpricks of light, the glimmers of planets in the distance.
"I am glad, Sashen, that you will be there with me.
I am not happy that you have been forced into this by the unjust debt claim…
but if you had to be, I will admit to some relief that I will have you at my side. "
Now it was my turn to shrug, to pretend that this soft admission didn't make my heart patter against my chest. "You'll have me by your side on Day Eight anyway," I said breezily. "You know I'm going to play coy for that first week."
"Hm." His smile hooked a little more at the corner, sharpening. "Yes, a week does seem to be about the length of time you are able to play coy." He silvered a little, looking self-satisfied in the sweetest way.
He was pleased with himself, wasn't he? And why wouldn't he be? For someone who'd apparently thought he might not be interested in sex at all, he'd certainly taken to fucking like a fish to water. He was practically a prodigy.
"Listen," I protested, "I can't be held accountable for being charmed! That is entirely your fault. Stop being so hot and nice. It's too much!"
"I cannot help the way that I am," he said dryly. "Perhaps you should simply accept the inevitable."
I grinned. "And what's that?"
His smile faltered as he looked at me out of the side of his black eyes.
I saw his hand tighten, just for a moment.
"That if anyone is going to struggle with our timeline, it is you, Sashen.
Who were you concerned about making eyes, hm?
" I laughed, delighted, as he fluttered his pretty lashes at me before we turned our conversation elsewhere.
We arrived too quickly and also not quickly enough.
The longer I sat with Araxis in the shuttle, the more impossible it seemed that we'd be parting.
As we sat next to each other, chatting idly, I was struck by how easy all of this was with him.
I was good at talking; I could talk to anyone.
But I didn't have to try with him – it came naturally, and I liked falling quiet and listening to him too.
He told me about hiring a voltaari swords-master three years ago and spending a month learning the forms, which is why he was so much better than me, though he admitted he had still learned a few things about making the movements pretty from my instruction.
He talked about other instructors he'd worked with in hand-to-hand combat, species-specific tactics, even how to make the media do what he needed it to do.
He admitted that he'd been working on this plan for nearly five years, since the eggs had hatched; he and Vivith had planned to such granular detail that I was bowled over.
It was pretty different to my approach: panic, grab a desperate chance, sign without reading, and throw myself in the general direction of Thenat-6.
I might have stopped to wonder how, in such a careful plan, they had stumbled into an amenable ally for the arena.
The ideal character for their little drama that would play out on galactic broadcast. The odds were impossible, and I should have noticed.
I should have had the thought that perhaps it was all a little too perfect.
But Araxis told me so much of the truth that I didn't hear the silences that are, in retrospect, deafening.
Instead, I listened and I laughed at his jokes and wished desperately that our shuttle would never arrive, that we could stay in that liminal space forever.
Safe and together while the endless black of space slid by.
Thenat-2 was a small green planet with several cratered moons and a good-size travel waystation, which offered refuelling from the gas fields on the planet below.
Plumes of smoke drifted into the planet's thin atmosphere from the refinery, and the spidery travel station was humming with activity this close to the Tournament.
Cruisers and shuttles zipped around the station like ants around spilled syrup.
Araxis turned his attention to communicating with the station's traffic controllers, getting permission to dock at a smaller berth.
The shuttle sailed to a line that threaded its way in an arc by one of the jagged moons spinning slowly around the sickly green planet below.
I left the co-pilot's seat as we inched closer and sat instead on the bench by my bag.
Carefully, I took the quill Araxis had given me – long and mostly white, the tip darkening to black, and thinner than I'd expected – and I threaded it between the stitches in a seam at the side of my swords' sheath.
Once it vanished into the dark fabric, I ran my fingers over the seam, pressing, and I exhaled softly: I could feel the ridge of it, just there.
Any time I touched my swords, I'd be touching some part of him. Something real in the middle of all the bullshit.
God, I was insufferable. I was embarrassed, just thinking it.
How had I become so absolutely pathetic?
Maybe I could blame it on a decade of being lonelier than I'd been able to admit.
Araxis had come along and been kind to me, had cared for me, and I was so starved for affection, for real affection, that I'd wanted to lick every scrap from the plate he offered me.
No one took care of me. I didn't need them to. I took care of myself, even if I did a shit job of it sometimes – but it was nice to know someone wanted to. And even if I didn't need someone to take care of me, maybe I could admit to myself that I might want someone to. That I might want Araxis to.
"Nearly there," Araxis said, his soft voice disrupting the spiral of my thoughts.
"Great." The word was strained. "Good." There was a flash as the shuttle winked through the waystation's shielding, and then we jostled as he set us down.
A waystation didn't need airlocks, too busy for such a slow process.
Instead, the atmospheric shielding let ships through while keeping the air technically breathable in the shuttle bay and docking areas.
It would be thin and unpleasant, though, and I was already preparing myself for a quick walk to the passenger's concourse, which would be a hell of a lot more breathable although it would have its own array of mystery fumes too.
I forced myself to my feet as soon as the shuttle settled down at the dock. Araxis surged upward, our movements in sync. "Well –" I started, heat prickling in my throat.
"Could I have those papers after all?" he asked in a rush. "It is a good idea, Sashen."
"Oh." I nodded, slung my bag down off my shoulder and dug out my old journal, tugging out some of the loose pages and handing them to him. He reached with both hands and clasped my hand between them, the pages crinkling as he touched me.
"I will win the Tournament," Araxis said, his eyes bright, his touch firm against me. "Stay alert, but do not worry."
Of course I was going to worry. How could I not, when all it would take for Araxis to die, for those children to die, would be a moment of inattention, a slip, a stumble? But if I was there, at least I could make sure I got in the way of any errant blades.
I wanted to kiss him, one last time. I wanted it so much that my bones ached.
But I thought it might break something inside of me that was barely holding on, so instead I pushed the papers hard into his hand and hauled my bag back over my shoulder.
I had the chip from Vivith tucked safely in an outer pocket of my bag, so I had everything I needed.
Even if I didn't have everything I wanted.
Who got everything they wanted anyway? That was a fairy tale. Pure fantasy, especially for someone like me.
"Alright," I said, working hard to keep my tone even and relaxed even though my heart was fluttering against my ribs. "See you soon."
With that, I left the shuttle and stepped into the thin, greasy air of Thenat-2's waystation and tried to pretend that I hadn't spent the best thirteen days of my life with someone who had to become, once again, a stranger.
I tried to pretend I hadn't met him at all.