by SA Payne
He cursed and literally smacked the heel of his hand into his forehead. "Stupid!" He hissed once more and sat on the edge of the bed.
It wasn't stupid because it was a lie or because Rye wasn't ready to hear the truth. He'd struggled for a short while, trying to pin down just what he felt around Ichi. It wasn't easy, it wasn't like pointing to the color blue and asking someone if that was blue or green. He'd needed time to
think about it, figure it out and watch how other couples interacted to know the word to pin on his feelings. There was no doubt, after studying how Amanda and Will and the other Avalon couples
interacted that he was madly, crazily, obsessively, in love with Ichi.
What was stupid was that his idiotic, half screwed up, brain had twitched and when he'd opened
his mouth words he never meant to say came spilling out. It was becoming a habit, saying his thoughts without being able to stop them sometimes, and it wasn't one he liked having. He'd
heard that small whisper of hope last night, that small hint that the relationship he had with Ichi wasn't just physical and his stupid mind, lost in pleasure, had spurted out the one truth he'd tried to bury too deeply to ever escape. He may not have been able to remember life before his
change into a pet, but, like the weapons, some things he just knew. He knew Ichi, made a study
of him and he knew Ichi didn't really know what to do with emotions.
"And what do I do? Dumb ass!"
He stood, there was nothing to be done for it now. He simply had to find Ichi and explain. There
was no point in denying the words as truth, that would be to complicated and painful and Rye
was learning he wasn't the sort of man to be subtle or hidden with things. No, Ichi knew, there
was no back peddling about it now. The task offered him was more difficult, now he had to
convince Ichi that it was okay. That Rye asked for nothing more than what they had, that the
words that had slipped out didn't change anything. More importantly, Rye needed Ichi to
understand that the reserved man wasn't required to do a thing more, feel a fraction more, be
anything more. That was a task he didn't feel he was eloquent enough to achieve.
"Ichi?" Rye asked as he found the darker haired man in the living room. Ichi was not only awake, he was showered, dressed and ready for the day.
"Ah, good, you're awake." He glanced up from where he'd been looking across lab supply
wholesalers and wild crafting companies that should be able to replace most of his collection.
"Amanda has asked to do a follow up exam this morning, I'm on my way over and I've got to
clean up the lab."
Rye stood, uncertain for a moment. Ichi was so cold, so closed off and distant that he wondered
if maybe the creature of sensual moans and shy abandon the night before had just been a very
solid dream. There was nothing in the entomologist's voice or face to betray that less than twelve
hours ago he'd nearly been kidnapped and raped, that he'd been beaten and nearly killed, or that
his entire life's work had been lost. There was certainly no hint to Ichi's outward appearance to
even suggest that he'd then seduced Rye.
"I..." Rye glanced from where Ichi was fussing with the last of the information on the vid screen to where he could still see the rumpled bed. "We?" Admittedly, Rye knew his brain was more
than a touch off but he doubted it could have produced such a real hallucination. Then he
remembered hearing Ichi's voice be so steady, so controlled, while hearing his heart pounding in
uncertain fear inside his chest. He remembered how silently, how coldly, Ichi had mourned his
mother when Will said he was actually broken up over it.
It made Rye frown as he finally put the pieces together. "They can wait." He demanded and moved closer to where Ichi was fussing, moving toward the door.
"I have things that have to be done."
"No, you don't, not more important than this."
"Rye,"
"No, don't you run from this."
"I'm not running from anything." Ichi protested a touch too sharply. Inside he was begging to get away before Rye could carefully explain the many mistakes from the night before.
"You're running away."
"I am not!" He snapped back quickly and it sounded childish and harsh even to his own ears.
"Amanda and Will are busy, it would be rude to put them off."
"We need to talk about this."
"There's nothing to talk about." He was half way to the door. A few more steps and he'd be in the hallway and away from the conversation he wasn't sure he could survive.
"Just tell me, are you running away because we had sex or because I said I loved you?" The words tumbled out in anger and fear and without any way for Rye to stop them. He'd really have
to see if Will or Amanda could tell him if this lack of censorship when he was emotionally
distracted would continue.
Ichi simply froze, more frightened in that moment caught between Rye's words and the escape of
the hallway than he'd been the night before facing a pirate. He couldn't look at Rye, standing with his hair mussed up and without his shirt. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Ichi, you need to understand..."
"I can't..." He turned toward the door, set now to escape before more could be said.
"Don't run!"
"It's rude to make them wait." He muttered but his voice was dead, empty and he wanted to drop and never get back up.
"Ichi!" He moved closer, uncertain if he wanted to physically stop the other man from leaving or not. "Just let me explain."
The breath hitched in his throat. "There's nothing to explain." He hurried out the door, unable to hear Rye take back the words he knew he'd always treasure. Even if they hadn't been meant, he
needed to hold on to them a little longer.
"Ichi," Rye sighed as the door shut. "You're running away, you fool." He could make the choice to follow. He could force Ichi to face what he had to say but something told Rye that backing off
was a better choice. Ichi was obviously upset and needed space and it was only fair to offer it. It was simple, it was a small station and Ichi couldn't avoid him forever.
He was halfway to the med lab before his hands stopped shaking. When he walked in Ichi was
pretty sure he looked, outwardly, as normal as ever. Mary passed him on her way and smiled
gently but he dropped his eyes and couldn't return it.
"There's our next victim." Amanda teased and guided Ichi into the lab.
Ichi just nodded and meekly sat on the edge of one of the beds.
Amanda tossed a look to where Will sat, his head tilted a little and where he was trying to hide a
frown. "Sleep well?"
Ichi shrugged. "Well enough."
"Any pain?"
"I took something this morning." He'd woken up with a pounding headache and sore muscles
from both the attack and the unusual occurrence of really great sex.
"Any blurred vision? Dizziness?"
"No." He held still while she did her job, wanting to get away as soon as possible.
"Nausea?"
"No."
She tossed another worried look to Will but finished what had to be done. "Before you run off, I need to speak as station leader for a moment."
"Okay."
"Your lab unsealed about an hour ago. I've told the other's to leave it untouched. I did some
research this morning. No one's had access to the early stages of a swarm's attack on humans.
It's either they've gotten out in a lab and the kill switch was automatic or they've gotten people in the wild and the bodies are found much later. You're the only one crazy enough to give yourself
two minutes. Chance like this might not come abou
t again. The bodies are still there, did you
want to autopsy them before they're disposed of?"
He hadn't thought about it. "The toxin that was released will make it difficult for me to distinguish between the swarms toxins and the gas' effects. My background isn't in humans. I'd like to collect
samples if I may?"
"I'll help you with the autopsy if you wish? I can help you sort out what is from the gas and what from the swarm." She smiled gently but Ichi's eyes were still down. "Will's no use, the bugs creep him out."
"It's a generous offer."
"One that you'll accept, right?"
It was generous and it would be just the help he needed. Not only technical help but personal,
Ichi needed the time to focus on logical work and not his emotional unease. "Thank you."
"Good! Give me a moment to grab some things and we'll head over. Okay?" She stepped back
and waited for Ichi to nod. They'd discussed it and figured it wasn't a good idea to let Ichi back
into his destroyed lab alone.
"You should tell me what's wrong now before she gets back. You know, you'll be elbow deep in
lower intestines later today and you'll tell her and she'll go all girly on you." Will spoke with only the slightest teasing.
"There's nothing wrong."
Will stood and came to sit next to his friend on the med lab bed. "I've known you for four years, Ichi, don't lie to me. I can see behind that stupid mask you wear, something chewing on you."
Will was his friend, maybe his first real friend ever. He blushed a little. "You've... been... with other women right? Not just Amanda?"
That made Will smirk a bit. If Ichi knew the half of his history he'd blush for a year. "Yeah, you could say that."
"Did you ever, I mean..."
"It's okay. I'm not ashamed of my past. I'm from Avalon remember? We think sex is fun." He did grin now, knowing most Concord citizens thought of them as a colony of sluts.
"Yes. Well, did you ever say anything to one of them that you didn't mean?"
Will sighed. "I think everyone has lied to lover at one point or another. But, you're not asking me if I ever lied when asked `does this dress make me look fat?' Are you?"
Ichi shook his head.
"What did Rye say?"
"It's nothing."
"Bullshit it's not."
Ichi sat silent, trying to figure out how to speak about something so personal, so painfully private, without speaking about it. "Your mother loved you, yes?"
The sudden change of subject caught Will off guard but he was used to how Ichi would often
attack a personal issue from another angle. "Of course."
"How did you know?"
Will shrugged. "She'd tell me and I just knew."
"She actually said, I love you son?"
"No, she'd say `Willy, you're a goofball but I love you to pieces.' Just like that, like a dozen times a day until the day she died."
"That's normal?"
"On Avalon? Yeah, we're a little obvious with our feelings. Difficult to hide things when half the population is a high enough psi to at least be mildly empathic. But, yeah, I hear it's normal."
"My mother never said anything like that." Ichi whispered, unable to say something so personal in
a normal voice.
This wasn't about his mother. Will knew that but it was about her at the same time. The pieces
and clues fell into place and he blinked, surprised. "Rye told you he loves you?" Will hissed out
in a whisper too.
"I didn't say that."
"You don't need to!"
Ichi started to protest again but sighed. "I hate when you do that."
Will grinned and nudged the sullen man with an elbow. "No you don't, you like not having to pry the words out."
"Stop it."
"Okay, but seriously, I'm right, aren't I?"
Ichi just nodded.
"About time one of you got your act together and started talking." But all the pieces had clicked in
and Will hide a grin. "You and he, he told you during didn't he?" He was trying, really trying, to be delicate.
Ichi nodded again.
"Wow, great sex and a confession of undying love all in the same moment."
"This isn't a joke, Will." He meant to snap and be angry but he couldn't bring himself to feel it.
"I'm not kidding, okay, maybe I am teasing you a little but you're such an easy target." He nudged Ichi again. "I'm happy for you."
"It's just, no one's ever said that to me before and he couldn't have meant it and Will, I can't, I just can't hear him take it back. I can't. I know this won't surprise you but I don't know what to do in these situations."
"Yes, I'm shocked beyond words to learn you have no clue how normal humans interact." He
teased dryly.
"I'm serious."
"I'm sorry." He tilted his head again. "You really mean it don't you?"
"What?"
"That no one's ever told you that they loved you? Not your parents, not your siblings, not a lover or friend?"
Ichi shook his head.
"Ichi, I'm sorry. Might not mean anything now but you're a brother to me, I love you as much as I ever loved them. I know Amanda feels the same way, you're family to us and to a lot of the
people here. We're stupid for never actually telling you."
The confession floored Ichi. "I..."
"And your family is messed up. The only thing a child needs is to know it's loved, really, deeply, loved. That's how you raise a kid, not to be a little scientific machine. What they did was
unforgivable, Ichi, I'm sorry." It broke his heart and was close to one of the cruelest things he'd ever heard. "But help me see the problem here. Your family is a bunch of cold blooded pricks
and I have to get you formally adopted into mine and Rye not only loves you, he's told you and
you got steamy hot man sex. Why are you giving yourself an ulcer?"
"Because he doesn't mean it."
"What ever gave you that stupid idea?"
Ichi blushed. "Because of when he said it. It's not like he was thinking clearly, he couldn't have meant it. It just was so nice to hear." He finally confessed and hated that he felt like a child.
"Goofball." Will grinned and nudged Ichi harder with an elbow. "Look, you two have been doing just about everything but actually sweaty man sex for weeks, right?"
Ichi nodded.
"And not once, ever, did he say that he loved you, right?"
Again he nodded.
"Okay, so if it was like a reflexive thing like òh god, oh god, oh god' something mindless that he says and doesn't mean, you'd have heard it before now. Right?"
"I don't know."
"Isn't it far more likely that the moment was so overwhelming, after such a difficult night before, that he let the truth slip out by accident?"
Ichi sat silent, unsure. "I don't know." He finally admitted.
"Well, you've heard my advice, think about it logically and than talk to the poor man about it." He knew that both men had fallen for each other and that neither one was speaking about it. That
had to change or Will was going to get headaches from all the suppressed emotions floating
around them. "You'll think about it right, and talk to him?"
"I'll think about it." Ichi agreed.
"And, no, I've never told any woman I was with that I loved them when I didn't." He confessed softly as Amanda returned. As Ichi followed Amanda out of the lab, Will could almost see the
cogs in the dark head turning, thinking, trying to figure out what to do next.
Chapter Nineteen:
Will took a guess and found Rye at the third location he checked. The space was ready for
expansion and was technically labeled as cargo storage overflow. It was, in reality, a mostly
empty, fairly dimly lit, large open space with grey walls and no personality.
It had been left as a place for growth but it was out of the way and mostly forgotten.
Rye was in the center, moving with fluid ease. Will stood in the door he'd opened and watched
the lithe red head glide easily from one posture to another, stretching, moving, not even having
to think. It made it pretty clear that the fighting skills the former pet had displayed weren't a mere fluke as Will caught postures from at least three separate and very different fighting styles. It
wasn't just grace, but strength and speed and it made Will shiver a little bit, grateful that Rye was a friend and not a foe.
"Thought I might find you here." Will spoke carefully into the room, interrupting the seemingly endless stream of moves.
Rye froze and stopped. He found himself almost falling back into the same submissive stance of
a pet, head bowed, eyes down, braced for punishment. Will had caught him, found him and seen
what he'd been doing and it oddly made him uncomfortable. "I'm sorry."
"For what?" Will lightly tossed toward Rye one of the bottles of water he'd snagged to take with him on his search.
Rye snatched it out of the air without looking up. "Thanks."
"What're you sorry for?"
He glanced up and half shrugged. "Not sure."
"So, you're a fighter, huh?"
"You too." Rye tossed back.
"Retired and only semi-trained, what was that? Three different styles?"
"Five I think, might be six, I'm still trying to straighten it out." He cracked the seal on the water and happily downed several long swallows. "How'd you find me?"
Will shrugged and dropped to sit on a forgotten crate, letting Rye move closer to him not the
other way around. "I thought, if I were Rye and I just recalled that I could kick serious ass, what would I want to do? I'd want to see just what I knew but not where I'd be too easily found. That
limits where you could have gone." He slid over and made room for Rye to sit on the crate next to him. "So, you remember huh?"
He shook his head. "No, just know things, not how I know them."
He shrugged. "It's a start." He took a sip of water. "Ichi was a little upset this morning."
"He told you why?"
"I guessed. Amanda says it's not my place and to stay out of it but she's helping Ichi cut up those dead pirates his swarm ate so she can't stop me. You don't fool me, Rye, I know you really do
