Penumbra

by Dan Ackerman

  Rhys came to the door a few minutes later. “Sorry about them. Come inside.”

  As he stepped inside the small apartment, he noted, “They’re very rude, your roommates.”

  “It’s the middle of the night.”

  Arden scowled.

  “Is this a, uh, a business call?” Rhys asked.

  Arden shook his head.

  Rhys didn’t look less worried. He gestured towards a worn couch. “Have a seat.”

  Arden sat. He started to fidget with a frayed patch on the cushion. “I.” He swallowed, then licked his lips. “I didn’t know who else to talk to. And I need to talk to someone.”

  “About what?”

  “About Oggie.”

  Rhys made a clear effort to remain neutral. He’d been better about things lately. Not exactly nice, but less outwardly and viciously disapproving than before. “Go ahead.”

  Arden didn’t tell him everything, but he certainly overshared.

  Rhys listened without a word.

  Finally, Arden said, “I just, I wanted to throw up, you know!”

  “Shh,” Rhys urged. “Baby’s sleeping.” He looked pointedly towards the crib on the other side of the room.

  “Sorry. Sorry, I am, and I’m sorry to bother you like this, but I can’t talk to Cole or Cath or anyone about these things.”

  “Why not?” Rhys asked.

  “Because they don’t understand,” Arden said. “They. You know, Cole, he’s a good guy, he is, and he cares about workers, but he’s not…”

  “He’s not personally involved with any.”

  “No.”

  Rhys made a face. “I suppose this is what friends are for…”

  Arden gave a nervous smile.

  “Knowing what you do about his parents, you can’t be surprised Oggie feels that way,” Rhys pointed out.

  “No, but I just thought…I thought. I don’t know. That things are different.”

  “You think being friends for months makes you stable, trustworthy. Reliable. His parents were together for eight or nine years, as far as I can tell,” Rhys reminded.

  “But I’m not like his mom. I’m…I care about him.”

  “Personally.”

  Arden nodded.

  “What, exactly, do you want from Oggie?”

  “Exactly?” Arden asked. “Nothing, uh, nothing specific? I don’t know. He should probably drink less…”

  Rhys pursed his lips. “Arden, I’m trying to ask if you have feelings for him.”

  “I told you, the whole sleeping together thing was fake.”

  “Oh, side note, was he sleeping with your uncle the whole time?”

  Arden shrugged. “I didn’t ask.”

  “No, no, I just, I mean. Shit! Those videos. Did he really not know?”

  Arden’s doubted that Oggie hadn’t known. He might not have known at first, but at some point, the pieces must have come together for him. A mask only disguised so much about a person. “That’s…that’s not important. That’s not what I wanted to talk about.”

  “No, sorry, but no one saw that coming. I gasped. I really did. I’ve been meaning to ask but…it didn’t seem like an appropriate workplace conversation.”

  “Not really,” Arden agreed.

  “Anyway. Do you have feelings for him?”

  “I just said—”

  “I’m not asking if you’re sleeping with him.”

  Arden quieted. He hadn’t considered it. “I don’t know.”

  “Hmm.”

  “How am I supposed to know? I can’t even spend time with him anymore. Whenever he’s home, he’s recovering and when he’s out, I don’t know where he goes or what he does. I’m worried, Rhys. I don’t know what I would do if something bad happened to him.”

  “You can’t help someone who doesn’t want help,” Rhys pointed out.

  “So, what do I do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be my Chamberlain?”

  Rhys let out a bit of a laugh. “I don’t have time to get into my track record on relationships, but let’s just say you know how my last two turned out. I do better as a friend.”

  Arden whined.

  “Oh, don’t do that. I haven’t heard you do that in forever.”

  He groaned.

  Rhys rolled his eyes. “Why don’t you go home and sleep on it?”

  “I can’t sleep, I’m worked up.”

  “Then at least go home.”

  Arden bit his lip.

  “What?”

  “I don’t want to go home. I don’t want to be waiting for him to get home,” he confessed.

  “We have to work in the morning.”

  Arden pouted and almost whined again.

  “Fine,” Rhys said. “Stay. But it’s going to be awkward.”

  Arden grinned.

  “It’s not a sleepover, stop smiling.”

  “We haven’t had a sleepover in ages,” Arden said, still grinning.

  “You can sleep on the couch or in my bed.” Rhys stood.

  Arden also stood. “Is…is that supposed to be a real question? And why do you even still live here anyway?”

  “My friends live here.”

  “Well, duh, okay, but why not rent a less shitty apartment?”

  “People have debts to pay off.”

  Arden frowned at him. “You could pay the rent?”

  Rhys sighed.

  “Are you paying off other people’s debts?” he asked.

  Rhys didn’t answer.

  “That’s not exactly what I had in mind when I gave you a raise…” Arden murmured.

  Rhys opened the door to a bedroom with several beds.

  “Do you guys fuck in front of each other?” Arden asked immediately. He regretted it and, in that instant, knew he really did need to go bed.

  Rhys turned around to look at him.

  “I’m so sorry,” Arden whispered.

  “I’m so close to making you sleep head to feet.”

  “Well, you know I’m a cuddler, so you’d just end up with feet in your face,” Arden pointed out. “Is this your bed?”

  “Yes.”

  He made himself comfortable.

  Rhys got into bed less enthusiastically.

  “Does Gertie sleep in here?”

  “Other people are trying to sleep. Shut up before I smother you.”

  Arden whispered, “Does Gertie sleep in here?”

  “No.”

  “Rhys, I’m going to kill your friend,” someone groaned.

  Arden opened his mouth.

  Before he could speak, Rhys pressed a hand over his mouth. “I’m so fucking serious, Arden, shut the fuck up and go to sleep.”

  Arden nodded.

  Rhys nestled onto his side of the bed.

  Arden breathed, “How come grown-ups never have sleepovers?”

  “I will kill you,” Rhys breathed back.

  Arden didn’t find anything funny after that. He quieted and snuggled into a pillow. It wasn’t that he took Rhys seriously, it was being reminded of everything.

  Quickly, Rhys whispered, “I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry.”

  Arden shook his head.

  Rhys put an arm around him. “I am. That was shitty of me.”

  “Could you two at least fuck so I can jerk off?” someone demanded.

  Rhys sat halfway up and barked, “Shut the fuck up, Kile!”

  No one said anything after that.

  Rhys settled back down with Arden.

  It took a while to fall asleep and Rhys had to wrest the covers off him in the morning.

  He declined the offer to shower there and told Rhys they could meet up at the Public Chamber.

  Before he left, he hugged Rhys. “Thank you.”

  “No, it’s…”

  “No, I needed someone to talk to.”

  Darcy started to fuss in her crib.

  Arden pulled back. “I’ll let you take care of her.”

  Rhys w
ent to scoop up the girl. “Say bye to Arden.”

  The baby waved to him and said, “Buh.”

  Arden stared.

  Shit.

  Had he ever been this close to a baby before?

  He waved back.

  “You want to hold her?” Rhys offered.

  “No!”

  Rhys smiled. “Nothing bad will happen.”

  Arden eyed the baby. He stepped closer.

  Rhys passed Darcy over without waiting.

  Arden clasped her close instinctively, overwhelmed with the fear of dropping her.

  She immediately started to fuss.

  “Take her back,” Arden demanded.

  “Just bounce her.”

  Arden clumsily tried to bounce the baby.

  She continued to fuss.

  “Rhys, take her back.”

  “I’m actually going to jump in the shower quick,” Rhys said and left Arden alone with the baby.

  Arden stared at her.

  She started to cry.

  “Please stop,” he begged, “Please, or I’ll start too. Please please oh, ow, ouch.”

  She had grabbed a fistful of his hair.

  He extracted his hair from her grip but had the feeling he’d lost a chunk somewhere in the process.

  He tried putting her down, which turned her crying into screaming. He brought her back up close to his chest, shifted her around, bounced her and cooed to her.

  She stopped crying before Rhys returned.

  Arden had broken out in a nervous sweat.

  “Oh, she likes you,” Rhys noted as he toweled his hair.

  “Please, take her back,” Arden whispered.

  Rhys took the baby. “See you soon.”

  “I hate you so much.”

  “Well, maybe next time you’ll shut up when it’s time for bed.”

  Arden took a step toward the door, stopped, and asked, “Did you use your own child as a tool for punishment?”

  Rhys shrugged. “Yeah.”

  “And you thought I was a monster.”

  “I’ll see you at Council.”

  Arden left and didn’t realize he’d let Rhys dismiss him until halfway through his shower.

  He checked on Oggie before he headed to Council.

  At least he’d come home last night and made it all the way to his bed. He didn’t even smell like vomit.

  Not that Arden usually smelled him while he slept, but today he’d had the overwhelming urge to kiss his forehead.

  He didn’t like the urge, it felt weird and awkward and stupid, but he did it anyway.

  He almost had to do it.

  He kissed his forehead.

  Oggie smelled clean and sweet. His skin was warm and smooth beneath Arden’s lips.

  He thought about that for the entirety of the Council meeting.

  It sort of made him want to cry.

  He sat through the Council meeting feeling weepy and strange.

  “Your Eminence, are you alright?” Rhys leaned in to whisper.

  He still didn’t talk too openly at meetings.

  Arden nodded. He handed his tablet over to Rhys. “Here, you basically wrote this anyway, why don’t you present it?”

  Rhys stared at him. “Are…If that’s what you want, Your Eminence?”

  He nodded.

  Rhys smoothed out his clothes excessively, then turned toward the Council members. He cleared his throat. “Uh. I.”

  Arden touched his arm. “Go ahead.”

  Rhys cleared his throat again and then launched into the report they’d prepared on proposed adjustments to maintenance teams. It would, in theory, free up workers for more necessary jobs without compromising the safety of Eden.

  Rhys did fine.

  Better than Arden would have. No surprises there.

  Arden couldn’t sleep.

  He’d had a lot of weirdly sleepless nights. Sometimes he went to bother Rhys, which Rhys claimed to absolutely hate but tolerated a little too well for that. Other nights, he stayed in bed watching shows or thinking stupid, useless thoughts about things he couldn’t change.

  He got up tonight.

  Oggie had come home already.

  Arden went to check on him. He sat on the side of Oggie’s bed and watched him sleep for a while, like an absolute fucking creep.

  He sighed.

  A few days ago, they’d tried again to go out with Arden’s friends. He’d had to beg, really beg, to get Oggie to agree.

  Nothing bad had happened but his friends had been so cold toward Oggie.

  Everyone thought Arden was still overusing formulas and that he’d only pardoned Oggie because of it, which had made everything awkward.

  Oggie had turned into a shaky mess after about an hour. He’d said, “I’d rather be in lockup than have them look at me like that anymore!”

  Arden had taken him home and asked, “What did they do to you in lockup anyway?”

  Cheeks red, Oggie had admitted, “Nothing, just put me in a back cell and left me there for a few days.”

  “They didn’t feed you?”

  “No, no, they did, they just…all alone like that in the dark, sugar, I couldn’t stand it.”

  Arden hadn’t known what to say to that.

  He felt like he never knew what to do anymore.

  He knew what he wanted, which usually counted for something, but felt meaningless these days.

  He stopped watching Oggie and went out to watch Terra.

  He sat for a while in front of the window with his tablet on his lap.

  Oggie found him there.

  “You’re up early,” Arden noted.

  “I turned in early last night.”

  “I saw.”

  Oggie sat next to him but leaned against the window and looked at Arden instead of at Terra. “Vortex is winding down.”

  “Hmm?”

  “Places like that burn out quick. A new place will pop up in a few months, but I hate to be around when things fall apart. It gets ugly.”

  “Does that mean you’re mine again?” Arden asked.

  Oggie smiled. “We all are.”

  The sentence Arden meant to say faded as it got towards his lips. He glanced at his tablet. “Do you want breakfast?”

  Oggie shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “You okay?”

  “Getting there. Or, as close as I get. What about you, shug? You’ve been…” Oggie studied him. “Quiet.”

  “I keep wanting something I can’t have. It’s hard for a spoiled peer like me to deal with, not getting what I want all the time.”

  Oggie shook his head. “Are you two back at it?”

  “Who?”

  “You and Rhys. You’ve been going to see him in the middle of the night. I figured you were trying to keep it on the sly. Bad idea, going back to someone who left you, if you ask me. But then again, people do change…”

  Arden shook his head. “No, I, uh.” He shrugged. “We mostly just talk.”

  “About what?”

  “What the fuck I’m doing with my life. Or about Darcy.”

  Arden spent more time with Darcy than he’d anticipated. The girl didn’t sleep well and often woke during their late-night talks. He had even stopped being afraid of holding her. He saw her during the day, too, when Rhys stopped home for lunch and Arden followed him. She recognized him now.

  Once, he’d tempted Rhys easily with a free meal, but he had food and a child he adored at home now. It made Arden wonder exactly how much of the time they’d spent together had been endured rather than enjoyed.

  “He doesn’t like me either,” Oggie pointed out. “They all want me out of here.”

  “It’s my home and I want you here,” Arden said a little too forcefully.

  Oggie looked away. After a bit, he said, “It’s still early. You look tired. Maybe you should lay down for a bit.”

  “I’m okay.”

  Arden’s tablet dinged.

  “You look tired a lot these days, sugar.”<
br />
  “I need a vacation.”

  “A…what, like a trip? Where would you go?”

  Arden’s tablet dinged three times rapidly.

  “Terra One.”

  “Uh.” Oggie glanced toward the planet behind him. “Isn’t everything dead down there?”

  “Not everything. Just the things that make it possible for people to live there,” Arden said. His tablet let out another flurry of dings. “People still live there, though. Barely hanging on. Sometimes they send out messages asking for help.”

  “Doesn’t sound that great.”

  “It’d be better with company,” Arden suggested. His tablet had practically broken into song and dance.

  “Sugar, your, uh, your tablet is going wild over there?”

  Arden turned off the sound and flipped it over so the screen faced down.

  “Is something happening?”

  “No.”

  “Arden.”

  “Nothing to worry about,” Arden assured.

  “Not some kind of asteroid heading our way?” Oggie asked nervously.

  Arden smiled. “No. Do you want to go on vacation?”

  “Uh.”

  “We could go, right now. The shuttles still work.”

  “Are you serious?”

  Arden nodded.

  “You can’t…I mean, I have to work, you know, and you’re, you’re Autarch, you can’t just pop down to Terra,” Oggie reminded.

  “You don’t need to work.”

  “I sure fucking do.”

  Arden picked up his tablet, cleared all his notifications, and showed Oggie his account. “No, you don’t.”

  Oggie stared. “What did you do?” he whispered.

  Arden shrugged. “Cleared your debt.”

  “I! I didn’t ask you to do that!”

  “I know.”

  “I’m! This is an awful fucking come-on, you know! I never agreed to anything,” Oggie nearly screeched. He scooted further toward the window, away from Arden and looking objectively terrified.

  “Og, hey, shh. I’m not asking you for anything. I’m not. Take a breath.”

  Oggie pulled in a shaky breath. “I don’t want to do this. Not like this!”

  “You’re not doing anything,” Arden assured.

  “Then why’d you do that?”

  Arden swallowed. He took his tablet back. He hadn’t expected Oggie to look so betrayed. He understood Oggie’s misinterpretation of his actions, though. “I did it for everyone.” He looked at the screen instead of at Oggie. He had literally a hundred messages waiting for him.

  “You did what for everyone?”