Chapter 33 #3
Elethenn shook his head once, firm. "Those who do not see your value would not be allies to Creche Thiel regardless."
That was one way of looking at it. Behind Elethenn, I saw the flash of a helmet and heard Vateni's buzzing voice. "This one wishes to remind you that we are departing very shortly."
"Of course," Elethenn said, and then he looked back to me. "Thank you for coming to say goodbye. I am fortunate to have you as a friend, Sashen. I will endeavour to be worthy of your friendship."
Then Elethenn carefully, awkwardly made an unfamiliar gesture with his arms. I blinked at him, there in the cold airlock, and realized with a shock that he was waiting for me to hug him, although he held himself like he thought I might decide to hit him instead.
And both of those things – that he wanted me to pull him tight; that he was still so fucking touch-averse – broke my heart in two separate, tender ways.
I surged forward and wrapped my arms around his broad shoulders, pulling him in as his hands settled, uncertain, against my back.
"I'm going to miss you," I said, throat hot and tight. "But I'll see you in Sol before too long. And you'll write?"
Against me, Elethenn's chest expanded as he inhaled deeply; his breath ghosted over my neck as he exhaled. "That is part of what I am required to do for my atonement," said Elethenn, pulling away, shoulders stiff.
"Yeah, but you'll write to me," I insisted as he took a step back toward the ship, my hands dropping away.
"I have told you," said Elethenn, and for a moment, there was the flicker of a smile on his lips.
"I have been informed that I must write to you.
It is what I am dreading most. I am at peace with being sent across the galaxy into close quarters with unfamiliar humans who may, as you've said, be a great deal to manage.
But writing to one human who seems set on befriending me and who I fear will not leave me alone even when I am in an entirely different quadrant of space? I expect to suffer greatly."
I laughed, throat tight, and waved Elethenn off.
The shuttle door slid shut, the airlock door next, and I didn't stay to listen to it depressurize; I didn't stay to watch through the small window as Val's ship winked out of the abayan empire and headed for the distant solar system that was home to my species.
Instead, I went upstairs. I found Araxis in the kitchen, making a tray of tea.
Resting on the tray were two familiar, objectively awful mugs that Araxis had immediately fallen in love with the moment I'd pulled them out of my pack.
I drifted in close to him, pressing a kiss to his temple while he hummed contentedly, my hands settling at his waist. "We have been given a time to speak at the Hall of Records," Araxis murmured as I nuzzled my face against the side of his neck, my body slotting into place behind his.
"Our numbers are excellent, Sashen. We have had messages from several creches we did not anticipate would support our petition.
Tomorrow, we will dock in Adralne and enter the Hall to finalize our cause.
" He smiled, head ducking as if he wanted to hide it away, as if he was afraid to be pleased this early.
"By this time tomorrow, Creche Thiel will be fully reinstated to our rightful place. "
"I'm proud of you," I said, kissing the line of his shoulder. "One thing, and then the next."
Araxis shifted, turning around to look at me as he leaned against the counter, my arms moving so that I was bracketing his body.
His black eyes stared into mine, his cool fingers tracing the hem of my sweater, slipping beneath its pilled edge to trace the shape of my ribs.
I shivered a little under his touch, but I also shivered under the quality of his stare: warm, certain, steady.
"Will you come with me tomorrow?" he asked. "It will be a long process, the voting. I am afraid that the proceedings in the Hall, while important, are often quite dry. I would understand if you did not wish to join me, particularly after this burn."
I exhaled, the start of a laugh. "Of course I'm coming with you. There's nowhere else I want to be."
When I kissed him, there in the kitchen on our ship which hung in the central system of Xitera, as I touched his face with my violent hands, I knew it was true, down to the darkest corner of my soul.
There wasn't anywhere else I wanted to be.
Whether we were on Adralne or Thelessia, whether we were in the Thenat Cluster or on Sozamia, whether we were on Yellow Fin or in far-flung Sol, the only place I wanted to be was by his side, my hands touching him, my heart holding him.
I kissed him then and I poured all of the best parts of who I was into him, so that he could have all of the most beautiful and tender parts of me – the parts he had first illuminated, the facets I hadn't known existed until he'd walked into my life.
He could have all of it; it was, all of it, his. My truest desire.
And together – together we were going to change everything.
You make me feel hopeful, I'd told him. And, at his side, I could see a future worth dreaming of: not just the emptiness of space or the distant drifting of space dust, but something worth the struggle. The labour of my choosing. The labour of our choosing.