Chapter 19 #2
It was another two days before the rods were pulled from Iris’s arm and another two days before he could stand unassisted.
In that time, Yan wrote three more reports and was outlining a fourth, including a paper on the ship’s use of organics as batteries and conductors when all the wires had long rotted away.
He had compiled another page of all the things he wanted to show Iris and ranked them in order of anticipated enjoyment.
Neither had broached the subject of why Yan had stayed around or where Iris would be going after his discharge.
The med-bay had become a place out of time, and both silently welcomed the reprieve.
Giving in to Iris’s protests, Yan withheld from purchasing him new clothes and instead brought in what Yan already had in his storage.
But while they nearly matched in height, Iris had grown even more slender while he recovered.
“I’m getting this tailored,” Yan said, stepping back and admiring his work. Iris stood in the middle of the room, dressed in black slacks and a grey sweater, drowning in both. “You look ridiculous.”
“I assure you, this is quite all right,” Iris insisted and methodically began rolling up his sleeves. He paused for a moment and gave Yan a small bow as thanks.
“I could also see what can be salvaged from your robes. The medics had to cut through what was left. If you’d like, I’ll have a new set made for you. All you have to do is give me your measurements.”
The same agonised look flashed across Iris’s face. He exhaled sharply. “That’s quite all right, engineer Yan. I won’t be needing those anymore.”
Still engineer. Despite proximity, despite countless, albeit reserved, conversations over food, Iris remained distant.
When left alone, he sat unmoving in his bed, tracing the outlines of the med-bay in silence with his gaze.
With each passing day, he grew quieter. With each passing day, he stood a little farther and spoke a little more formally.
Iris deliberately skirted all discussions about the Nicaea and had not mentioned his construct a single time.
Yan almost cursed out loud. Where neither of them could shut down the Nicaea, Iris’s construct could.
There were no more half jokes, no more detached smiles as Iris conversed with his construct.
When they spoke, Iris no longer disappeared with a glassy-eyed look as his AI presented him with some piece of trivia it had pulled from the feed.
It was just the monk now, a single person with no recollection of ever being alone, experiencing the boundless space of his consciousness for the first time—alone.
Yan couldn’t make the hollowness left by Iris’s missing AI any less cavernous.
He couldn’t replace a lifelong friend. It had cared for Iris, kept him safe.
And in the deciding moment, it had given its life to protect Iris and Yan and Jesi.
Yan wondered if it had felt fear, if in its last moments it had wanted to turn back.
He was eternally grateful that it hadn’t.
Perhaps there was something Yan could do: be of service.
Iris was still fumbling with one of the sleeves when Yan violated the unspoken distance they’d established and reached out for the fabric.
He folded the sleeve over Iris’s forearm and then once more over itself.
“That way it doesn’t roll down,” he said.
Iris didn’t move, his expression remained unchanged, but the vein pulsing along his neck gave away his anxieties.
Yan left his hand on Iris’s forearm, fingers relaxed.
They were so close now, closer than they’d ever been outside of immediate danger.
Iris looked up with eyes blacker than the farthest parts of unexplored space, challenging, and Yan could swear that if he looked into them long enough, he would find every constellation to ever exist in any sky.
There was an old and faded scar cutting across Iris’s upper lip, and anyone else would surely miss it unless they knew where to look.
There were no right words to say, but Yan tried anyway.
He dug deep into a childhood memory, one lodged between when everything was still all right and when he learned death.
The memory was blurry and emotional, but in it, Yan found the right sentence from a sutra.
He hoped it was from a sutra. “Death is the shift in the tide, the crashing of a wave, never, even for a moment, apart from—”
Iris kissed him. It was with complete abandon of caution and discipline that his lips collided with Yan’s. Every frustration, every instance of helplessness and dismay were poured into that kiss, far too precise for someone a decade out of practice.
Iris tasted of that morning’s hot and sour soup, and smelled of antiseptic and sandalwood, and if Yan could breathe and taste nothing different for the remainder of his life, then it would be a good life.
The fingers of Iris’s left hand raked through Yan’s hair, hard enough to hurt.
But what a wonderful pain it was, yearning mixed with grief.
Every muscle in Iris’s body sang with tension as if to prove that despite the injuries, he didn’t need or ask for a shoulder to lean on.
Yan was only beginning to understand this strength, but he already knew not to mistake it for boundless.
Yan’s thumb brushed over Iris’s bruised temple, featherlight, careful to avoid the stitches.
He deepened the kiss, pulling Iris into him, offering himself up to take most of the weight.
Their chests now pressed against one another, Yan felt Iris’s heart slow from its maddening pace, the tension bleeding away from already strained muscles.
All Yan could do was bear the weight. After a moment, he pulled away first, but not before brushing his lips against the faded bruising on Iris’s face.
Once along the eyebrow, once along the temple, and once along the cheek.
Instantly missing the closeness, Yan softly nuzzled the bridge of his nose against Iris’s cheekbone.
“You should eat,” he said softly. “We should eat.”
He would provide care, yes—fetch food and order for clothes to be tailored.
He would be the idle chatter that kept silences at bay, a comfort in any way that Iris needed it.
And if Iris found his presence tolerable enough, perhaps—Yan nursed a futile hope—he would stay. Yan didn’t dare hope for more.
Iris nodded stiffly. His left hand found the space between Yan’s shoulder blades and settled there, his fingers clutching at the fabric of Yan’s sweater.
“The soup again? Or something solid?” Yan asked.
“Soup.” Iris pushed himself away from Yan with what looked like overwhelming effort. “Soup would be lovely.”
Soup was halfway across the station, a twenty-minute walk one way. Yan gave Iris a small smile. “I’ll be quick.”
He was a step out of the door when Iris called to him. “Yan?” No engineer. No manufactured distance, only his name hanging in the air like a bubble waiting to burst, and Yan never could have imagined how much it would scare him to hear it without the habitual prefix.
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
The bed was already neatly made up, along with Yan’s own blankets. The cups and teapot too were all washed, dried, and stacked on the bedside table. Everything was clean, orderly, and vacant. Yan stood in the doorway with the takeout bag in hand, looking over the now empty room.
There was no letter, no farewell.
The chair where Yan had spent the first nights sleeping in was graced with a neatly draped sandalwood mala. A pair of shoes that Iris had refused to wear earlier that day were tucked below, polished to perfection.
The shop was out of hot and sour soup, so Yan had bought beef broth and noodles instead, thinking Iris was well enough to stomach them.
He placed the two bowls of soup on the bedside table.
Spice mixed with sandalwood as Yan passed the mala beads between his fingers.
A mixture of rage, and grief, and self-pity, and loneliness, and fear, and affection swelled in his stomach.
But it was mostly affection, painful and bitter affection, the kind that sprouted from time and distance and missed opportunities.
It was a reminder that he had been so close to something he had been searching for his entire adult life.
Everything else, every other emotion, was just seasoning.
Yan passed the mala between his fingers over and over and over, like he would never move from the spot again. He replayed a moment from the ship. Iris, bloody and dying, the memory forever seared on his mind.
“My dear Yan,” Iris had whispered, “please show me your home. My dear, my dear—that’s the word, isn’t it? That’s what I’ve been trying to say all along.”
Yan gave the mala one last look and wound it around his left wrist.