Chapter 4 #2
"I'm busy," I said, crossing my arms hard across my body.
She smiled at that, inclining her head. "You are right, of course. Here." She tapped at her wristband – a sleek, gold model that screamed wealth – and I felt my own band buzz against the inside of my wrist. "For your time."
I didn't need to look at my interface to know that she'd just tipped me, like she might have if she'd come to Alet Trident's den to fuck me.
My chest tightened, and something strangely similar to shame fomented there.
But I wasn't ashamed, I wasn't: I'd needed work and I'd found it and I'd been good at it.
And there was nothing wrong with fucking people and there was nothing wrong with doing it for money.
How was that any worse than being paid to work in a refinery?
And why was there a little voice from some shadowy corner of my soul that still insisted that it just was?
There weren't any marn dens in Xitera. Were there abayan whores? You had to wonder.
"I can see I've upset you," murmured Crozani.
"My apologies. It was not my intent. I merely wished to keep you company on your walk, Sashen.
You should be better guarded and more closely tended to.
I will take my leave." She stepped back, but I couldn't let that be the impression she walked away with, even if it was all bullshit, which I expected it was.
"You don't know the first thing about me or the first thing about my relationship with Araxis, and I don't know you," I said, the words coming out like jagged glass.
"So I'd kindly ask that the next time you'd like to speak with a member of Creche Thiel, you reach out to arrange a formal meeting like every other respectable creche on Sozamia has done. "
Crozani ducked her head in faux apology, still smiling in a way that made my skin crawl.
"Of course," she said, low. In the distance, I could hear the chime indicating the end of day for the children.
I didn't let myself look in that direction.
She straightened, nodded once, and said, "I will leave you to your walk. "
I stood there, watching Crozani of Creche Naival vanish into the distance, waiting until she was far away before I turned toward the school and met Sadin, Adrathi, and Talvi out front, where they were hovering near their auvril teacher, Kekobu, looking distressed.
The moment Adrathi set eyes on me, she made a victorious cry.
"I said our Sashen wouldn't forget about us! "
"I didn't forget." I smiled reflexively and drew close to their teacher's side, her head tilting in curiosity as I leaned in. "I just – I think I need to send a message before we leave. We might need to stay here for a little bit. Sorry. I don't mean to intrude."
Her glossy black feathers ruffled but Kekobu didn't ask questions, instead suggesting to the children that they go back inside and help her gather items from the grounds for tomorrow's nature art.
While they were busy, I stepped inside the short wall surrounding the school and pulled up Araxis's contact information.
I didn't even bother messaging, flashing up a vid call instead.
"Hey," I said when the call went through, his features tight with concern where he hovered above my wrist. "So you're not going to believe who was just a major creep all over me."
He met us at the school in almost no time at all.
The kids, burbling with excitement, chattered the whole way home as we walked carefully along the ward’s pristine boulevards and I kept an eye out for Crozani of Creche Naival.
"Are you well?" Araxis asked as we cut through the park we could see from our bedroom window, the children stopping to look at a public art display that had just been installed and mostly looked like someone had crumpled up some metal into unattractive shapes and then dumped it in the park to catch the artificial sunlight overhead.
What he wanted to know, I thought, was if I was rattled. If I'd been afraid. If having a sinnenthi I didn't know come up to me and make a few shitty comments had left me frightened and trembling.
"Yeah, it was nothing," I said with a shrug.
And then, seriously, "But if she comes up to me when I'm with the kids, I'm going to punch her in her fucking throat, and you'll just have to deal with the political ramifications.
" Because I would. It's what I was working toward.
I didn't want anyone's first thought about me to be that I might have been frightened of someone talking to me and paying me for my time.
A warm trill slipped from Araxis's throat, and he smiled as he angled his head toward me – and that smile was so bright, there in the open air of the park, that I nearly lost my footing. Like a beacon, drawing me in.
But I couldn't let it. I couldn't let him. I knew that.
I swallowed. "So," I said, looking away and instead thinking of the credits Crozani had flicked toward me, and the credits that Araxis would be dropping into my account in a couple of days. "We have that call with Creche Ceravin in an hour. What do I need to know?"
That beatific smile faltered, and then fell, and Araxis folded his hands into the small of his back, his shoulders straight and upright.
"There is nothing you need to know," he said, turning to look at the children as they darted between sculptures, chortling.
"Vivith and I have prepared. If you would like to be elsewhere –"
"I don't want to be elsewhere," I said, pulse picking up like it had with Crozani. As if my body read what he'd said without saying it – that he didn't want me there – as the same kind of threat. "I'd like to be there. I'd like to help."
Araxis drew up short, gravel crunching beneath his boots.
"I'd like to know more," I continued, heart still galloping along for some reason.
"I don't know anything, Araxis. I feel stupid at so many of these meetings, like I'm fumbling around in the dark.
If I could just know some basics, like who's in the Concord and who has a seat in the Assembly.
Or if I could know a little about each creche before our meetings – who they are, what they want, what they might do for us – I'd like that.
I know I'm just supposed to sit there and be quiet, to speak when I'm spoken to, but… "
His dark eyes studied me, the light from the artificial sky above reflecting in their inky depths.
"I always welcome your voice, if you wish to contribute," Araxis murmured.
"Of course I could prepare this information for you.
You did say, in your judicial interview, that having access to information, to reference data, is important for you.
It makes you feel more secure. This would… help you?"
I hated thinking about Araxis sitting on the judiciary ship, listening to me spill my guts, sharing every private thought and hidden feeling. I hated that it had left him thinking of me as – weak. I hated that I'd had to sit there at all. I hated that any of it had happened at all.
And I really fucking hated that this is where we'd ended up.
He wouldn't touch me. He didn't want me around. And even though he looked at me sometimes like he was starving, I understood that what he was craving was something I couldn't give him. And all the while, when he smiled in the sunlight, I felt like his radiance might destroy me.
"Yeah," I said distantly. "That would help me. Maybe it's private. You don't have to tell me anything."
If he did, at least I could share it with Perseus.
I was increasingly sure that they were going to be pulling me out in a year and taking me to some corner of the galaxy that was supposed to feel like home even though I'd never been there, with a culture – or cultures – I couldn't relate to any better than abayan culture.
"I will see what I can compile," Araxis said, earnest and certain next to me.
I faked a smile, helped gather up the kids, and together we walked back to our creche suite for the string of meetings still on the day's docket.
And all the while, all I could hear in my mind was Crozani's sharp voice, repeating, again and again, for your time and the distant, echoing chime of my wristband.
* * *
"I'm going to head out for a run." I peeled out of the high-collared shirt and blouse I'd been in for the three (three!) meetings we'd had since getting in that evening, although they had felt a little better after Araxis sent me some bullet points on each creche the moment we'd gotten in from the park.
Even so, it had been a lot of sitting and I was still antsy after the encounter with Crozani of Creche Naival and needed to burn some of the energy off before bed.
My evening had been helpfully marked as Personal Time when we'd gotten back to the creche that afternoon.
I'd started suspecting that Araxis added free time into my schedule when he wanted me out of the way – he certainly seemed eager to encourage me to leave and always looked startled if I stuck around when I didn't have to – so that was my cue then.
Araxis's dark eyes tracked my movements from where he stood by the glowing screen, a dozen messages up at once while he cross-referenced them. He'd gotten lost in the middle of some reply the moment I'd started untying my pants, his fingers hovering above his wrist – stuck. "Hm?"
I snorted, down to just a dark pair of briefs, pleased despite everything.
It was comfortable to be admired in this particular way.
It was almost a relief. At least I understood the looks he shot me when he thought I wouldn't notice, or when he was too tired to try and hide them away.
At least he still wanted me in this way.
And after that kiss –
I couldn't think about it, or I'd get a hard-on and I really didn't want to try to navigate that with Araxis, not now.