by Cari Z.
“Oh, I like.”
Ferran laughed, low and husky, and shifted on top of him, kissing Jason again before sliding down his body. After a few moments, Jason realized that his tongue was just rough enough, and more than long enough, and so wet and so tight that it was impossible not to come for him. Jason returned the favor, they rested for a while, and then, an hour before his shift started, Ferran brought him into his body. The tight, pulsing heat was so familiar, yet so, so alien, and instead of sharply defined human muscles beneath his fingers, he gripped the trembling, crested quills of a Perel. It felt amazing, and with the edge taken off his need, Jason prolonged their coupling until Ferran was crying out and begging and writhing against the bed, and his abandon was so gorgeous that Jason had to give him relief. He touched him, stroked him in a loose grip until his lover came, and then he let himself go. It was glorious.
There was just enough time for the two of them to shower before Jason had to leave. “You can stay if you like,” he offered Ferran as he buttoned up his uniform jacket.
“I should return to my suite to change and greet my cousins, but I’d love to come back,” Ferran replied.
“I’ll come find you after my shift,” Jason promised. Ferran drew him in close for the Perel good-bye, but this time as their temples touched, he cupped Jason’s face with his right hand.
“This is how lovers say farewell,” Ferran husked. Moved, Jason copied the action and then pressed a brief kiss to Ferran’s cheek before turning to go.
IT WAS another thirteen days to Perelan, and Jason spent every waking hour of them either thinking about Ferran or being with him. He’d only felt this way once before, when he’d first met Blake. That had turned into a lengthy courtship, layers of intensity building between them until the tension had been unbearable.
With Ferran, of course, it was different―Jason didn’t feel the same need to outdo himself at every turn, not when their time together was so circumscribed. All he wanted was to be with Ferran, for every tender moment and every mundane action. Ferran seemed to feel the same, passing up the drama favored by his cousins for quiet evenings spent together, talking about whatever came to mind. It was a welcome intimacy, a connection, that Jason had never felt before. He was determined to enjoy it for as long as he possibly could.
While Jason didn’t advertise his relationship with Ferran, he didn’t try to hide it either. His crew seemed to heartily approve, especially Florence. The other two Perels were less accepting of things. It was strange. The first day they had seemed pleased for their cousin, almost relieved, but as the cruise went on and Ferran continued to basically live with Jason, their approbation faded. Ferran ignored it, but it bothered Jason.
“Are they unhappy with me?” Jason asked him over dinner five days out from Perelan.
“Not with you specifically,” Ferran assured him. “More with me. They think I am being unwise.”
“I thought sowing your wild oats was an expected part of this trip for you.”
“It is. My cousins simply wish I were sowing… a little farther afield. They think I’m spending too much time with you,” Ferran explained.
“Ah.” There was some logic to that. “And what did you say to them?”
“That how I spend my time is my business. I’ll never—” He stopped abruptly, his quills sharpening and rising. They settled as he said, “I like spending time with you. I told them that. They are satisfied.”
Despite their supposed satisfaction, one of the two sought Jason out at the end of his shift the next day. “May I speak with you?” he asked with cool politeness.
Jason checked his chrono. “If it’s more than a simple issue, you’ll have to wait fifteen minutes.”
“I will wait.” The Perel retreated to the observation deck below the bridge. Florence was standing with Jason, and watched him go.
“Weird.”
“I think I know what this is about.”
“Yeah?” Florence sighed. “Me too.”
Jason was surprised. “Really?”
“Yeah. Garr actually asked me to bring it up with you, but I didn’t feel comfortable interfering with your private life and told him so.”
“This must be a new discomfort.”
“You’re happy,” she snapped. “I’d like to see you stay happy.”
“Flo… what Ferran and I have is temporary.”
“Yeah, and that’s a damn shame. Fucking Perelan matriarch bitches.”
“Keep that opinion to yourself, Commander,” Jason said sharply.
“Yes, sir. That one’s Neyarr, by the way.”
Fifteen minutes later, Jason joined the Perel on the observation deck. “How may I help you?”
“You may please stop encouraging my cousin.”
“Encouraging him to what?”
Neyarr’s quills flared. “To intimacy.”
“That’s a surprising statement coming from you.”
“Emotional intimacy,” he clarified. “He is too close to you. It will make his reintroduction to our world much more difficult. Ferran has enough challenges facing him when we reach home again. He would have been better off accepting a betrothal before leaving. It would have kept his mind more focused.”
“I don’t understand what specifically you’re asking of me.”
“To stop seeing him. Stop sleeping with him. Stop caring for him.”
Jason drew in a sharp breath at the pain he suddenly felt in his chest. Stop? Now, before Perelan? “I don’t think I can do that.”
“You are not good for him, Captain,” Neyarr insisted. “We are sent away knowing that this is the end of our adolescence. It is to be our one great look, and afterward we put aside the frivolity of childhood and dedicate ourselves to our families and our people. Ferran comes from a powerful family, and his marriage contract will be worth much to his mother despite his sterility. He must be able to enter into a contract with a clear mind and an open heart, with the memories of this time to sustain him. If you engage with him further, I fear the memories will not suffice. He will be in love with you, and he will not be able to dedicate himself to his home properly.”
“Why aren’t you telling him this?”
“My brother is, as we speak. We have tried several times already, but Ferran will not hear us. I come to you in the hopes that you can keep his best interests in your heart, and do what is right for him. You are a thoughtful man. I know you will consider my words.” Neyarr inclined his head, and then turned and walked off the deck. Jason turned and stared out blankly into space. Give Ferran up. Now.
He had known it was going to end, of course. He’d gone into it knowing that, but now? He didn’t feel ready. He hadn’t prepared himself to let go yet. He couldn’t let go yet. Even as he thought it, Jason knew he was in real trouble. “Hell,” he muttered under his breath. He needed to get back to his quarters.
Ferran beat him there. He was sitting on the couch, his legs curled tight against his chest, his big amber eyes fixed unwaveringly on Jason as he opened the door. “He spoke with you.”
“Your cousin? Yes.” Jason took his jacket off, rubbed his aching neck. He felt far too tired.
“He told you to leave me alone.”
“Yes. For your sake.”
“Garr said the same thing to me.”
Jason looked straight into Ferran’s eyes. “They’re not wrong.”
“They feel wrong.”
“Feelings aren’t always the best indicator of what’s right and wrong.”
“I don’t want to leave you. Alone.” The pause wasn’t lost on either of them. “Please don’t make me go.”
“Ferran….” Jason toed off his shoes and socks, undid the top button of his shirt, and came over to the opposite side of the couch. “No, stay there,” he said when Ferran made as if to join him. His lover looked wounded, but obeyed. “Can you convince me they’re wrong? Neyarr didn’t sound like he was making things up on the fly. I had no idea your life would be so circumscribed when you ret
urned to Perelan.”
“I told you the fate of sterile males.”
“Can’t you pursue an education? Your people are well-liked, couldn’t you become a diplomat?”
Ferran shook his head. “Our mothers feel the need to keep us close and well in hand. They fear another great shift in our society might lead to our extinction next time.”
“They don’t trust you.”
“No. They don’t.”
Jason leaned his head against the back of the couch. “Ferran, I don’t want to make returning to Perelan hard for you.”
His lover shook his head. “It was always going to be hard. The tour is more than a gift to keep us content. It is a trial of our character. Not everyone can return to Perelan and reintegrate into society.”
“What happens to those who can’t?”
“They usually kill themselves. My older brother was one such.”
“What!” Jason was shocked out of his exhaustion. He sat up and stared at Ferran. “Why did he do that?”
“He said he missed the stars.”
“You have to go.” Jason’s heart felt like it was going to pound out of his chest. “You have to leave. Right now.”
“No, no….” Ferran extended a hand toward him, his voice soothing. “I am not like him. I will not hurt myself. The only thing that will damage me is being forced to leave you earlier than I must.”
“Ferran….”
“Please, trust me. Trust me to know this much about myself.” Ferran pulled his hand back to his chest. “Unless my staying hurts you. I never want to cause you pain.”
“It’s too late for that,” Jason murmured. “You know, don’t you? You can feel it.”
“Yes. I love you too.”
“Damn it.”
“Jason….”
“Come here,” Jason said tiredly. Ferran came immediately into his arms and curled around him, almost protectively. “I’m sorry.”
“Why?”
“For this, for us. I should have known better than to get involved with you. I did know better, in the beginning.”
“Don’t be sorry for us,” Ferran whispered. “Would you really rather we never meant anything to each other? You are worth every challenge being with you brings me. I hope I’m worth it to you.”
“That’s not in question,” Jason replied. “I’m just… hell. I’m just sorry. This is going to get very difficult.”
“I know.”
They stayed curled together on the couch for the rest of the night.
THE FINAL few days of the trip to Perelan were subdued for Jason. He didn’t give Ferran up, to the obvious discontent of his cousins, but he didn’t lose himself in him like he had before, either. He couldn’t. He was too busy mapping his lover’s body, fixing it in his memory and trying not to think about what he was heading back to on Perelan. An arranged marriage. So he could be a glorified servant. That was probably unfair, but then Jason wasn’t feeling like being fair. He felt like taking the ship to Jacksonville and shutting the two of them away in his house forever. He felt like showing Ferran all the places he’d never been to, of taking him back to the home system. He felt like staying in bed and never having to get out again. All lovely thoughts, and all completely impossible.
Their last night together was incredibly tender. Jason spent hours making love to Ferran, teasing him and opening him and taking him, and then he gave himself for the first time. He hadn’t bottomed often, not even with Blake, but Ferran had been slow and cautious and so, so gentle, and it had been wonderful. Ferran had curled around him like he always did afterward, but this time his grip was tight, and he murmured muffled words in his language into Jason’s hair. Jason wanted to ask him to translate, but he refrained. It probably wouldn’t help him to know.
The next day, the Silver Star docked at the trading station in orbit around Perelan. The station’s manager came to meet them and welcome the three wayward travelers home. Jason was on hand to greet her and bid farewell to the Perels.
He had already said a more emotional good-bye to Ferran that morning in bed. Neither of them had slept for more than an hour, and his lover’s eyes had been dilated and slightly panicked.
“Not like this,” Jason said firmly. “You have to pull it together and convince me you’re going to be okay, or I’ll never forgive myself.”
“I am sorry,” Ferran said. “It’s harder than I thought it would be.”
“Yes.” Jason didn’t have to say I told you so; he got no satisfaction out of it.
Ferran shut his eyes briefly, and then unclenched his hands from Jason’s pillow and relaxed some. “I’ll be fine.”
“Better.”
“I miss you already.”
There was nothing Jason could really say to that. He pulled Ferran into his arms and held him close for a long time, breathing in his lover’s exhalations and pausing every so often to kiss him.
He couldn’t do that now, at the gate, not if he wanted to maintain any sense of dignity. The manager was a Perel, and undoubtedly empathic enough to know what was going on, but he felt no desire to break down in front of her. Jason shook hands with Neyarr and Garrell, and then it was Ferran. Eyes down, Ferran leaned in and touched their temples together, and then clasped Jason’s face in a lover’s caress. Jason did the same, ignoring the offended yip from one of the other Perels, and then pressed a kiss to Ferran’s cheek. They parted, Jason looked at him one last time, and then he turned and walked back into the ship.
JASON TURNED command of the Silver Star over to Florence, who, for once, didn’t have anything to say. He took a small passenger cruiser to Hadrian’s Rock, where his personal ship was berthed, loaded it with supplies, and then made his way back to Jacksonville. It took less than a week, but it felt like much longer to Jason. He barely slept, keeping himself alive on stimulants and vitamin injections and flying constantly. He was fortunate that there were no storms on the surface when he touched down inside his compound, because he probably wouldn’t have navigated them very well.
Jacksonville was remote, a dying community on a deadly planet. Those who stayed did so because they had the means and they’d found something to love in the beautiful savagery of the place, not because it was in any way convenient. For the first time since he left Perelan, Jason started to feel again. It wasn’t comfortable. He moved through his rooms, exhausted feet hitching slightly on the hardwood floors, his hands moving over everything he owned, as though trying to convince him that it was enough to have things and not Ferran.
Jason stayed out of the greenhouse. He couldn’t go in yet and see the butterflies. He went onto his deck instead, little more than a strip of concrete and a foot-thick metal railing, and watched an electrical storm move in. All the storms of Jacksonville were dangerous, but the electrical storms were something special. They combined the power of thousands of lightning bolts with the beauty of royal purple clouds, cerulean skies, and the pale green mist of the crashing ocean. It was suicide to stay out during one of them, but Jason felt oddly detached from his body. The rain poured down, hitting him like nails, but his face was already wet. It rained, and it thundered, and the sky broke into a million bright and jagged pieces above him, and all he could do was mourn.
When the hail came, he felt himself begin to bruise, and reluctantly reentered the house. A few moments later, his deck was inundated with enormous hail, splitting into slush against the concrete until enough was built up so that every new piece was cushioned on the bodies of its brethren. Jason stayed and watched, soaking wet and shivering, until the storm let up an hour later. His shoulders and head stung with the hail’s impact, and he reluctantly headed into the shower.
Jason had done something similar when Blake left him, deliberately given himself over to the fury of a storm. It seemed like a fitting way to say farewell to a piece of himself, and the last time he’d done it, he’d felt… different. Better, a little more at peace. This time, he only felt sore, tired, and the need and the anger inside of him
were still there, not exorcised like he had hoped. When sleep came, it was like it had been before, filled with Ferran, and he woke up to a bleakness that clenched his heart tight and wouldn’t let go.
PEOPLE VERY rarely visited Jacksonville, and no one had ever visited specifically for Jason before. He couldn’t quite believe his ears when the colony’s control tower hailed his home’s com. “Who wants to meet with me?”
“It’s a Federated Colonies diplomatic cruiser, sir, currently registered under Ambassador Giselle Howards.”
Jason’s lungs froze for a moment. “She’s assigned to Perelan.”
“Yes, sir.”
Too many scenarios began to spin through his mind, and none of them were optimistic. “I’ll open my compound for her cruiser.”
“Yes, sir, thank you.”
Jason closed the com and opened his compound’s personal shields. Moments later a sleek, elegant cruiser was touching down twenty meters from his front door. It held ten people at most, but it held them in absolute style. He slipped on his sandals and went out to meet his visitors.
The ambassador was a tall woman, taller than him by several inches, with dark brown skin and white hair trimmed very close to the scalp. She wore a blue silk pantsuit and a white silk scarf around her neck, and if Jason had possessed the energy to feel self-conscious about being seen in his simple cotton house clothes, he would have.
“Captain Kim,” she greeted him, shaking his hand.
“Ambassador Howards,” he replied. “Would you care to come inside?”
“Please.” She followed him inside and took his invitation to sit down at the table. “No tea, thank you,” she continued when he offered. “What we have to discuss hopefully won’t take long.”
“What exactly do we have to discuss?” Jason asked as he sat across from her.
“There’s a situation on Perelan. A good situation,” she quickly reassured him after seeing him pale. “For the first time in our combined histories, Perelan is considering opening itself up to new alliances. Formal alliances, requiring diplomats and negotiators. They are considering diminishing some of the tariffs that make trading so difficult and allowing aliens with the right qualifications access to places on their planet that we’ve never seen before.” She paused, clearly expecting a question.
