Xe loved and hated this feeling of helplessness, but above all, xe could not go on as xe had been. Something needed to change, some decision needed to be made, and Okka knew what Waverly wanted. All of that drew Okka to lean in, light and untethered as dust in a sunbeam, and touch xir lips to Waverly's.
Waverly gave a soft, startled whine and so, so carefully put his arms around Okka, drawing xem in to make the press of their lips a thing that surrounded, and overwhelmed.
So close to merging, to truly being one, and yet so far. There were no thoughts truly shared, no emotions surely felt, no sensations passed from one skin to the other.
It must be so shallow, this human mating dance. Always only so close, and nothing more. But this was xir life now. This was all xe had. It would need to be enough.
It wasn't enough.
Okka pulled away, near tears, and ran from everything xe wanted.
Chapter Six
Xe came into work the next day as if nothing had changed. Okka could not stay away. Could not give up what xe did have with Waverly, with Toto, with David, with everyone there. It was completely insufficient, but apart from xir habitual weekend chess lessons with Kat, it was all xe had.
Even if xe had decided to walk away from Waverly and the others, Kemp Technology was where xe had access to the kinds of equipment that xe needed to find out what the Imperium were up to, how close they were to this planet. And maybe find other Mimica here, undercover, waiting to be woken up.
The elevator doors opened on a very subdued office, no music at all, and a Waverly who was looking at xem hesitantly, as if wary of scaring xem away.
"Good morning," Okka ventured.
"Morning," Waverly replied. "Come into my office? Please?"
"Of course," Okka said. Xe followed Waverly through the door.
Waverly was slow and careful and subdued, the very opposite of everything he should be. He held out a basket lined with a napkin and filled with fresh baked goods, from the smell.
"I don't know what I did," he began, "but I find my apologies go better in combination with sweets or other baked goods, so… double chocolate chip! And I'm sorry?"
Okka looked down at the basket, which Waverly appeared to be holding like a shield between them, and then xe looked back up at his face. "You didn't do anything wrong, Waverly," xe said.
Waverly frowned. "But you still look… not happy with me."
"I'm not happy," Okka said, sighing. "It is nothing either of us is capable of changing, and it's certainly no fault of yours."
Waverly's gaze sharpened. "I'd like to help with that," he said.
"Why? It's not your fault," Okka said, confused.
"It usually is," Waverly said, shrugging. "I’m not gonna make you blame me, but… I'd like to fight the idea that there's nothing I can do about it."
"There is nothing." Okka dearly wished xe had something to give Waverly, here, something that would ease the sting of everything that Okka's life had become. But that was the plain fact.
"Try the cookies," Waverly replied, as calm and as matter-of-fact as Okka's proclamation.
Okka turned xir eyes to the sweet-smelling brown lumps, but xe knew there was nothing that could replace what xe really wanted—to be one with another creature, as only Mimica could. As Okka might well never be again.
"What's the harm?" Waverly asked. "I know it's not allergies or anything. I saw you eat a Snickers last week. Trust me. These are better." He waved the basket under Okka's nose. "Come on, they're still warm and everything. Yummy. Chocolatey." He reached into the basket to take one for himself, bit into it. "Mmm. Yeah. I did good."
"What are you trying to accomplish?" Okka asked.
"I'm trying to figure you out."
"You're testing me. You're experimenting on me." That still woke old memories, buried in the lives of ancient Mimica, before they'd learned how to defend themselves.
"Well, yeah," Waverly admitted readily. "That's how I interact with everything I want to understand. I want to understand everything. If you don't study people, if you don't learn everything you can about them, how on earth can you expect to make them happy?"
To study, to experiment, to poke and prod was hardly the same thing as to communicate. Communication was only possible between two open and willing participants. Prodding or testing could never be part of that. Waverly's experiments were a hollow echo, a human's poor, narrow understanding of connection. It could never be anything like the becoming one that only Mimica shared.
Or was that Myrdu's xenophobia still plaguing xem, but in reverse? Could there be true connection in the way humans did things, just as there was something precious between Myrdu and Nifu, despite the fact that they'd never merged?
Maybe the cookie was a piece of Waverly, a piece of who he was by being his work and his traditions and his desires, all rolled up into a tiny package that could become part of any human, as easily as it could become part of Okka.
Maybe even this small connection would be worthwhile.
Xe took a cookie, and it was warm, the edges pleasantly dry and delicate. Xe'd already smelled it, but xe did so again, taking in everything, the rich and sweet, the dark tones and the bright, the edge of caramel where the heat had been most intense. The sound as xe broke it was soft but satisfying, and the way the warm chocolate separated, slow and fluid, trying to remain one piece.
The taste was sweet, first, but quickly the bitterness of the chocolate came to the fore, rich and intense and reminding Okka of xir own feelings, the bitterness of longing and impossible distance.
There was truth in it, truth Okka did not want to face. But Waverly had given this experience to xem as a question, as a stimulus that wanted a reaction.
Okka shook xir head, unable to come up with any worthy response. "I don't have anything to give you in return."
"It's not about that. I promise. Please. Just tell me it's okay." He shrugged helplessly. "I just wanted to give you something real. Give you all I can without making you feel uncomfortable."
"I imagine discomfort is an unavoidable part of life."
"Yeah," Waverly agreed. "I hate that. It's a bug in the system. Let's track it down and fix it." He'd stopped looking quite so worried now, and instead he seemed frustrated but fond. And all together, between the words, the cookies, and the light in his eyes, Okka thought xe could catch just a glimpse, through the narrow aperture of xir five humanoid senses, of Waverly's self.
There was so much uncertainty in this human dance, but for the first time Okka truly understood the human saying, absence makes the heart grow fonder.
There was no knowing how much Waverly wanted xem. There was no knowing how good they could be together. Okka only knew that xe wanted to know the answers to those questions, that xe wanted to be one with Waverly as much as xe possibly could.
Xe knew that xe couldn't simply dive into the deep end of the human way of being intimate. Okka needed to have patience with xemself. Xe needed to work up to the full experience of love across a barrier, the experience of carrying hope and longing. Those were heavy, destructive emotions that seemed so barbaric when Okka was Okka and knew there was an alternative.
For so many of xir lives, this was all xe had had, but for Okka, the knowledge that the steady reassurance of a merge was possible made it so much harder to endure.
Okka had done this before, countless times, but then, it hadn't exactly been Okka.
"Waverly." How could xe explain this? English was insufficient, but it would have to do. Xe would make it do what it needed to. "I'm upset with myself. Impatient with myself. You've been patient enough with me. I haven't been. And I need to learn."
"So that's a 'it's not you, it's me'?"
Okka could tell that the phrase had implications beyond the obvious and could make a guess as to what they were.
"That's not all it is," xe said. "It's also a 'help me'. If you're willing."
"Of course."
The freedom with which Waverly offered that an
swer was both warming and worrying.
"This is not an 'of course' sort of request. It's unusual and difficult and I need you to think it through."
"Okay," Waverly said. "Well, I've given this a lot of thought. I know you aren't an easy prospect. To be honest, you probably wouldn't fascinate me nearly so much if you were."
Xe contemplated the weight of the cookie in xir hand, the bitter longing and uncertainty it represented. Patience was only necessary because Okka wanted so much, so strongly. The first small step was what bewildered xem.
Okka turned xir eyes on Waverly, earnest and helpless. "I don't know how to do this slowly. I don't know where to start."
Waverly shrugged. "Humans, historically, are all bad at this part." He smiled self-deprecatingly. "I am, historically, worse than average. But yeah. I'll give it my best.Do you want to spend the evening with me? Socially. No work. No surprise touching, cross my heart."
Okka took a breath, pushing the words out. "Yes, I would. Very much."
Waverly beamed like the light of Sol rising.
*~*~*
The workday in between wasn't quite easy. Okka was giddy and nervous, and it was terrifying, but xe knew xe needed to practice living with that hope, that volatile and frightening feeling.
They kept catching each other's gazes at odd moments. The resulting feeling gave Okka a moment's pause every time as to whether xe was succeeding at staying in xir humanoid shape. It made xem feel liquid, and like xir internal organs weren't staying where they were supposed to be.
Okka came back to xemself after one such incident to find that the file in front of xem was now host to several unbroken lines of the letter "G."
"I haven't gotten any work done all day, have I?" xe asked, partly to Toto, who was walking by, but mostly into xir own arms where they lay across the desk.
Toto tilted his head/hand to the side. "Not really," he said, "but then Waverly's hardly any better off."
Almost involuntarily, Okka glanced in the direction of Waverly's office, catching his eye again. Waverly smiled fondly, then promptly dropped his stylus, and had to go scrambling after it.
That did make Okka feel better.
*~*~*
"Okay, I can't do this anymore. Wanna cut out early, start our evening already?"
"Yes," Okka agreed emphatically, shooting up from xir chair and nearly overturning xir keyboard.
"Awesome," Waverly said. "So what do you want to do? Any ideas?"
"You know I asked you for help because I haven't got the faintest idea what I'm doing, right?"
Waverly laughed nervously. "Yeah, okay," he said. "I could take you out on a date somewhere nice? That's usually a good way to slow things down: witnesses. Although to be honest, I'm not really in the mood for crowds. Hope that's okay; I know you like to get out into the city as often as possible."
Going out in the city was always another kind of work, another kind of hope. Okka thought that being able to forget about all of that, however briefly, was just what xe needed to figure out how not to be overwhelmed by what xe felt for Waverly.
"Just the two of us sounds lovely."
"Great. Let's order in. How about that sushi? And. I don't know. A movie? That's a normal date thing, right?"
"I don't really care whether it's normal," Okka said. "If it's what you want to do, let's do it."
"Alrighty." Waverly's steps drifted towards the elevator, and Okka followed. "What have you been wanting to see? Anything on your radar?"
"I don't watch a great many movies. You pick something you like."
"Kinda in a Miyazaki mood. You seen any Miyazaki?"
"Not that I know of."
"Ah, how do I narrow this down? I'm thinking cute and relaxed rather than dark and dramatic is the order of the day?"
"I think I'd appreciate that."
"Ponyo." Waverly grinned. Then he frowned, looking worried. "But maybe Ponyo and sushi isn't the best combination?"
"Why?"
"Some of the characters are fish."
Despite xir care for the fola, Okka hadn't been making a great deal of effort not to eat other animals. Humans and most others like them were omnivores, and along with accepting a form, Okka accepted its nature, carnivorous or otherwise. Many of Okka's lives had been as carnivores. Okka, as xemself, would kill one creature to feed another, although xe would try to make it a less sapient one.
"I'm not in denial about the fact that my food was once alive," xe told Waverly. "The reminder won't bother me."
Waverly shrugged. "Most people I've met are in a little bit of denial," he said. "I like your stance, though. It's refreshing."
When they got upstairs, they both surveyed Waverly's domain with slight trepidation. It was a broad, open space, with more windows than walls and two or three islands of furnishings in a vast sea of floor.
"You wanna do dinner at the table and then the movie afterwards," Waverly asked, "like civilized people, or do you wanna watch and eat, like a couple of dirty heathens?"
"Don't let me change the rhythm of your life unnecessarily," Okka replied. "Let's do whatever you'd do if I wasn't here."
There was an edge of wonder to the affectionate look Waverly gave xem that xe wasn't sure how to feel about.
*~*~*
Once the food arrived, they each settled into a corner of the soft leather sofa that faced the TV.
"The decorator had the white one here originally," Waverly commented, gesturing between the two sofas, "but I was like, 'you know I'm gonna eat on whichever one faces the screen, right?' and she was like, 'Yes, fine, destroy my vision, hmm, maybe if we switch out the rug it can still work', and I gave her a bonus, and she got to keep the first rug."
"It is your home," Okka said with a confused frown. "Shouldn't you get to choose?"
"Yeah, theoretically, but, like, I'd already agreed to let her have someone from the style magazines come up and shoot photos once it was finished. So, her reputation on the line, you know?"
Okka shook xir head. "People are strange," xe said.
Waverly grinned in satisfaction. "Yep," he said, popping open his container of sushi. "That we are. So. Ready to witness more strangeness?" He gestured at the TV.
Okka nodded absently. Xe'd looked up sushi the first time Waverly had mentioned it and was interested to try it. And apparently the film came from the same area of the world.
Stylized art was always fascinating to Okka. It could tell you so much about a person's view of themselves and the people around them, or the attitudes of a whole culture. Okka knew vaguely that Japan was an island nation, but the style of the drawing in the film gave xem a new awareness of how large the ocean must loom in their consciousness.
When Ponyo first stole a piece of ham, Okka laughed.
"What?" Waverly asked.
"Well, it's only fair," Okka explained, pointing at the screen. "She eats mammals." Xe popped a piece of sushi into xir mouth.
Waverly snickered, eyes twinkling.
Okka soon became thoroughly invested in the film.
Ponyo was a shapeshifter, a curious explorer, and experiencing human love for the first time. The ocean was her home, a whole seething mass of life that seemed to move together. But Ponyo chose land. She chose her human boy.
He and his family gave her simple gifts, food and shelter and warm sweet tea and their company, even if they spent a lot of their time in mutual incomprehension. It was still warm. It was still love.
"Hey, you okay? You wanna take a break?"
Okka wanted to ask what Waverly was talking about, but xe found, abruptly, that there were tears streaming down xir cheeks.
"How much more is there?" xe managed to ask.
"Little more than ten minutes," Waverly answered, consulting the paused screen.
Okka shook xir head. "No, I want to see how it ends."
Xe ended up being glad for it. The ending didn't pretend that everything would be easy, and things were lost, but it was joyful. The tears xe wiped away as the cr
edits rolled were happy ones.
Waverly looked over at them with a contemplative frown. "Guess I messed up on the whole 'light and fun' attempt, huh?" he asked.
"No," Okka objected immediately. "I'm just… I'm spilling emotions everywhere now that I'm trying to let them have a little more sway over me. It probably would have happened with anything."
Waverly's eyes narrowed as he considered that. "That's an outrageous lie," he decided.
That surprised a laugh from Okka. "Maybe a little," xe said.
"You wanna talk about whatever got ya?" Waverly asked, soft enough that Okka knew he didn't really expect an answer.
In the end, that was why Okka tried so hard to give him one. Xe waved xir hands vaguely as if trying to pull words out of the air. "They just love her so much," xe ended up saying. "And they've got no reason to."
"Yeah," Waverly said with a sigh. "Sometimes love doesn't come with reasons."
Okka shifted over and leaned into Waverly then, taking comfort from his presence, despite all their mutual incomprehension.
Waverly froze for just a moment, then wrapped a tentative arm around Okka. When Okka just smiled, Waverly relaxed and gave a contented sigh.
"This is okay, right?" he asked.
"Yes, Waverly. This is perfect."
Snug in the corner of Waverly's couch, wrapped in a very fluffy blanket, they talked for hours.
Xe didn't even realize xe'd fallen asleep until Waverly was very gently nudging xem awake, prodding xir blanket-wrapped shoulder with a hand.
"Hey, sleepyhead," he said once he had Okka's attention. "We should get you home, huh?"
Okka was very comfortable. Xir tiny apartment was far away, and smelled a little funny, and also didn't have Waverly in it.
"Do I have to?" xe asked.
Waverly's face went even softer and more fond. "Absolutely not."
*~*~*
Okka woke slowly; it was too early and too dark. Though it wasn't morning, Waverly was sitting up on that white sofa that was at right angles to xir own, fingers darting across the glowing touchscreen of a tablet. Xe gave an incoherent grunt of protest at the light.
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