"Because you are everything your beloved Glaseah says of you," Lisinthir said. "And in addition, a very many astonishing things he cannot appreciate." His cousin rested a thumb on Jahir's lower lip. "I feel I should apologize, however. This was not my intention."
"This..." Jahir trailed off, and caught his cousin's implication through their skins. And was speechless. His cousin had done nothing more than kiss him, and this... this had brought him, completely unplanned. Should he be embarrassed?
"Never," Lisinthir said, stilling him with a finger to the mouth, and that tone brooked no contradiction. Startled, Jahir looked up at him, and Lisinthir finished, "Never be ashamed of a sensitive spirit or body."
"I had been given to understand it was... something of a... a liability." He couldn't decide how he felt. Embarrassment seemed appropriate but he couldn't sustain it while enveloped in his cousin's hands, and through them, his cousin's affection. A very gentle and protective warmth, as if Lisinthir had found something to be guarded from any harm, any at all.
"A liability!" Lisinthir huffed softly, shook his head. "Only for someone without imagination. No, cousin, you are... ah, you are treasure." His eyes darkened as he smiled, a very slow smile. "Have no fears on that account. If I could, I'd keep you for a week to find the limits of this... extraordinary... sensitivity. And I assure you, I do not lack imagination."
Jahir shuddered, skin prickling.
"But to return to the apology," Lisinthir said, and kissed his brow. "I didn't intend to tease you, nor to bring you this way. This wants and deserves a better setting. And when we get back to the Alliance, if you still want it—the full experience—then come to me and I will give it to you. But not here, like this, coercive."
"You didn't...."
"I didn't force you," Lisinthir said. "But the situation is coercive. You don't know whether you will live to see your home again... how can you make good decisions that way?" He shook his head. "No. If you want this, then I want you to make the choice without compulsion. I want you to have no regrets."
This talk was beginning to make him nervous, except that Lisinthir's certitude affected him, shaped him.
"There's drinking water in the bathroom," Lisinthir said gently. "Go wet your mouth, clean up. Then we will pack and you can bring me to your cabin."
Jahir looked up at him sharply.
"I need to live through this." Lisinthir ran a hand down Jahir's arm, turned it to expose the scratch. "To be of service to my beloveds. No alcohol. You and your beloved will have to manage. I'll consent to the interventions."
Jahir exhaled. "Thank you."
"No," Lisinthir said, and kissed the corner of his mouth. "Thank you, for trusting me."
Had he? He supposed he had. He managed the bathroom, though cleaning was easier said than done—better to change once they reached his cabin, since the dry bath should not be casually used. But he sat for a moment alone on the floor without intending to do so, and wondered at his own state. Nothing had changed about what he wanted, and yet, somehow, it no longer felt shameful. The halo of intimacy, perhaps, had lent it a glow that might fade once he was more aware.
Or perhaps he would wake to the understanding that someone had been inside his mind and not shied from what he'd seen there. Maybe that would work on the knot of mortification and revulsion that had fettered him for so long.
Maybe when they got home, he should make the visit. What would it be like, he wondered, to be relieved of his own ambivalence?
A little warm shock. If he could be freed...
He thought of Sediryl and flushed. Ah, God and Lady. To go to her as a man!
...and then to perhaps be rejected! The thought made him smile. Such a normal thing, to pay court to a woman without knowing if he was welcome. Jahir had never felt able to ask. But to be able to ask...!
He pushed himself up on feet that still seemed uncertain, finished his abbreviated ablutions, drank a handful of the water just to feel it on his still warm skin.
When he exited the bathroom, Lisinthir was waiting. His cousin considered him.
"I hope I pass muster," Jahir said with a lopsided smile.
"Seni's impeccable heir," Lisinthir answered, but there was affection in it.
"Seni's impeccable heir needs clean nightclothes, and as much sleep as we may steal from the events that are about to follow," Jahir said. "And so does Imthereli's scion."
"For once, sleep sounds pleasant."
Jahir glanced at him. "Have you nightmares?"
"No." Lisinthir bent, shouldered the bag. "But I am no longer accustomed to an empty bed. Would it surprise you if I confessed to loneliness?"
Jahir paused, then tried his hand at his cousin's easy touch, reaching over to set the backs of his fingers against Lisinthir's cheek. "No. Not at all."
Surprised, Lisinthir caught his fingers and kissed them. "Go on, then, Healer. I follow."
Vasiht'h was still sleeping when they returned, as well he should be... Jahir thought he would miss the full night's sleep himself, but could not find it in himself to regret how he'd spent the time. He put Lisinthir to sleep in the bunk; for his part, he wedged himself between Vasiht'h and the bed's side, stealing some of the cushions for himself. When at last they settled, Lisinthir left one hand over the side, grazing his shoulder, and through it Jahir extended himself to monitor for any possibility of seizure. He didn't expect to sleep well, but the moment he closed his eyes, he did.
CHAPTER 8
The only reason Vasiht'h woke was because one of his siblings had crimped the pillow he was using to keep his shoulders elevated, and it was making him slide forward off his mound of cushions. He tried to plump it back into position and was prevented by an arm. A furless arm. Confused, he opened his eyes... and the world reset. He was not on Anseahla, amid his multiple brothers and sisters, still young, still unformed, still wondering if he'd always be home. He was on a Fleet courier drifting toward eventual disaster, with far too much on his mind and—
—his partner was on the floor alongside him, not on the bed.
As if he could sense Vasiht'h's regard, Jahir's eyes opened. He looked exhausted, but the mindline welled with slow peace, like the tide easing out over a beach. The Eldritch smiled, that lopsided smile that laughed a little at itself, and Vasiht'h's heart squeezed.
/Ariihir./
/You're... you're on the floor,/ Vasiht'h said, and then noticed the extra hand brushing at Jahir's shoulder, light skin against dark blue fabric. /Is the Ambassador in your bed?/
/He said yes to the observation. It seemed easier to put him on the bunk./ The words rode the tranquility, like foam on the water... they struck the strand and frothed with an affectionate amusement. /Probably for the best. He tosses./
Vasiht'h lifted his head, just a little, blinked his eyes to clear them, to make sure he could see evidence of the mindline's ease in his friend's face... and it was there, if masked by weariness.
Jahir moved his arm just enough to set a hand on the pillow beside Vasiht'h's. /You were right./
/About..../ Vasiht'h trailed off, flicked his ears back.
/It really will be fine. And we have a great deal to discuss. But if we don't have to be up yet..../
/No,/ Vasiht'h hastened to assure him. /You can keep sleeping. I'm up anyway, I'll go see what Hea Borden needs us for next./
/All right. If he has a crisis while you're out, I'll call for you before going in./
/You'd better!/ Vasiht'h hesitated, then rested his palm on the hand near his and tested the serenity he sensed beneath the surface. There was puzzlement there, if he pushed hard enough, but no denial, no darkness, no fear or fever or breathless agitation.
/You see?/ Jahir met his eyes.
/I do./ Vasiht'h pressed, gently, then took his hand back. /Go back to sleep, ariihir./
Lisinthir was indeed in the bed, on his stomach with his head in one curled arm and the other arm off the side. He slept with the arrogance that permeated his body language while awake: indolently spilled,
mostly nude, and just a touch twitchy; Vasiht'h could see an occasional flinch of skin at the shoulder. He could also see the faint gray scars over shoulder-blade and across spine, rent in patterns that suggested the hands that had made them. But better here, he thought, then alone in a room where no one could oversee his health. How had Jahir talked him into it? And what had transpired to give him that mandorla of ease?
He was not naïve... which is why he knew that sex wasn't the obvious answer to the question. If nothing else, the work he and Jahir did was ample evidence that sex was as variable in utility and meaning as eating. It could be healthy, harmful, isolating, connecting. It could humiliate as well as uplift. It could be done alone, or in company, used as a weapon or given as a gift or shared as a sacrament or done with absolutely no thought at all.
Something had happened. He hoped Jahir would tell him what, and wondered at his own wanting to know. Where were his sisters and mother now, when he most needed someone to talk relationships with? He smiled a little and went to his Pad bath, his unappetizing breakfast, and then to find Hea Triona.
Borden was in the mess. He found her alone, going through a box of rations, looking far more tired than he'd anticipated.
"Alet," she said. "The computer said you asked for me?"
"I just wanted to know when our next clients were scheduled," Vasiht'h said. "I'm beginning to think you should be one of them. You are on the list?"
She paused, ears and tail sagging. "You know... I don't think I even thought of it." Her laugh was hesitant. "Isn't that always the way with us?"
Vasiht'h snorted. "With all healers, yes." He joined her at the boxes and started helping her. She didn't question the aid, and that with the dullness of her gaze made him say, "We can't help you if you're not sleeping, of course."
"I am sleeping," the Seersa said. "Just not well."
"Nightmares like your colleague's?"
She straightened, setting a stack of bars on the counter, neatening them. "I guess. Yes. More or less." She cleared her throat, not looking at him. "This is the first time something like this has happened during one of my deployments. I haven't been this close to the border in a few years, and when I was it was always humanitarian work." She paused. "Funny that word, isn't it? Humanitarian?"
Vasiht'h smiled. "A lot of things come back to humanity."
"Well, this doesn't." She resumed unpacking the box. "Anyway. The people who died... they were my friends. I wasn't close to them, but you don't have to be close to someone to feel their absence when you've been working alongside them for weeks. And like Reya said, there are worse things to fear out here than death."
"Like a life in chains."
"Like a life arrested." She finally looked at him, her fingers still on the box flap. "I went through healer-assist training and practiced for several years before I enlisted. Fleet wasn't a childhood dream, a driving passion for me the way it was for some people. I didn't know I wanted to be in it until I was. Now that I am...." She looked down, smoothed her palm against the flap. "I believe in the work. I believe in the defense of our nations. More than that, I believe there's a place for healers in this fight." She met his eyes, shoulders squared. "If I die in the line of duty, I'll die having given everything for the Alliance. But if the Chatcaava take me and keep me... and I'm trapped, unable to use my skills on our behalf... that...." She twitched. "That would make me insane, alet."
"I don't guess Fleet forces its people to... you know."
She glanced at him, then gave a halting laugh. "Kill ourselves rather than end up in the hands of our enemies? No. Or at least, not at my level of importance. And I wouldn't accept any position that required me to consider it. It's a crime against the gods who made us... and no, I don't mean humans." She smiled a little. "Like I said. Not everything comes back to them."
"No," Vasiht'h agreed. "But I still think you need sleep, and someone to ward your dreams."
She sighed. "You're probably right. No, certainly right. I'm no good to anyone half dead on my feet, particularly if we go through with that crazy scheme your Ambassador threw at the captain."
His Ambassador, was he. "What scheme is this?"
A flash of a grin, almost merry. "He wants to lure in a Chatcaavan vessel and capture it so we can sail home in it."
Vasiht'h almost dropped the bars he was gathering. "He wants to what?"
"I know." She chuckled. "The Captain's been discussing it with the rest of us, working out the kinks."
"Is he seriously going to try it?" Vasiht'h asked, surprised.
"I think so." She paused, then laughed. "Oh, don't look that way, alet. Of all the choices we have, and we don't have many, it might actually be the best one. Or would you rather creep around in the shadows hoping not to be found?"
Saying that creeping around in the shadows hoping not to be found was exactly what he wanted to be doing didn't seem necessary. She could probably read it in his face. Sheepishly, he said, "I'll leave the military matters to the experts, and stick to what I know best. Healers might have a place in war, but I don't think I'm one of them."
She smiled. "Don't worry about it, alet. The Speaker-Singer gives us all the natures He intends."
"Given that... can I count on you to be among the next set of patients?"
The Seersa wrinkled her nose. "I guess I should take my own medicine, shouldn't I."
"It would be wise...."
She laughed. "All right. I was going to ask if you had time in a couple of hours. I'll put myself at the end of the group. How's that?"
"That sounds fine. What are we doing with these bars? And are we almost done?"
"Well, if you really want to be put to work…."
Vasiht'h smiled. "I'm betting if you don't get this done before time, you won't want to sleep."
She glanced at the ceiling, pursed her lips. "True. All right, then, help me get these separated out. They're not supposed to have any allergen-inducing ingredients, but Pulinette has a weird problem with fruits in the terrien family. We need to isolate everything that has ingredients sourced from Karaka'Ana or Seersana."
"Got it."
Almost an hour later, Vasiht'h returned to the room they'd been assigned, nursing his troubled thoughts. He'd been glad to be able to help someone accomplish something useful when he'd spent much of this voyage feeling so impotent. And he was relieved—nearly ecstatic—that Jahir might be better… truly better, not hiding away things he'd rather not deal with. But the pall of the situation continued to oppress him, and it was hard to keep his spirits up in the face of certain peril. Was the captain of their ship really planning an attack? Where would he and Jahir hide in the middle of something like that?
Stepping into the room, Vasiht'h paused.
"He's still asleep," Lisinthir said from the couch. He was recumbent, as usual, on his back this time; Vasiht'h didn't think he knew how to maintain the rigid posture and stiff limbs of most Eldritch he'd seen. The smoke off the end of his cigarette was falling toward the floor in curling waves. "I thought he'd earned it and left him there."
"And if you'd had a seizure?" Vasiht'h padded all the way into the room, cautious.
"Then he would probably have berated me when he woke and found me, and a fine tirade that would have been, born of a healer's sensibilities and informed by an Eldritch peer's knowledge of all my flaws. Fortunately I would miss the lecture, being unconscious." Lisinthir quirked a brow. "I'm fine, alet."
"You're not fine," Vasiht'h said, exasperated. "You've got lines around your eyes as if you're trying not to squeeze them shut. How much pain are you in?"
The Eldritch was staring at him now, bemused. "Are you always so attentive to small details?"
"I've been living with one of you for over a decade now. If I didn't pay attention to small details, I'd never know what was going on with him." Vasiht'h paused. "Well, other than what the mindline reports. But we didn't always have the mindline."
"Yes, that is a story I want to hear. How did a Glaseah end
up yoked to an Eldritch lord?"
Vasiht'h scowled. "You're doing it again and I'm not going to enable the behavior. You tell me how you're feeling first and then you can hear about how I met Jahir."
Lisinthir managed a laugh. "Were you always so fierce or did it bleed into you from him?"
Vasiht'h folded his arms.
"Fine," the Eldritch said, reaching over to tap the ash off the end of the roll... onto a used wrapper for one of the ration bars. The bar itself was uneaten, sitting alone on the end of the table. He rested a hand on his stomach. "I have persistent nausea. Some days it's worse than others."
"Today?" Vasiht'h sat by the couch, folding his tail over his paws.
"Today is a more trying day than others have been."
"Mm. Any other symptoms?"
"The headache is bearable. It's been worse." Lisinthir looked at the ceiling. "I feel uneasy in my skin. I was not so aware of it before your cousin decided to invite himself into my mind."
Vasiht'h mantled his wings, looked away. "We are sorry about that. He said he was going to apologize...?"
"He did. Rather prettily."
He couldn't imagine what 'rather pretty' looked like from Jahir. At least, not by Lisinthir's standards. Vasiht'h continued, "But I haven't apologized either. I'm sorry about that. But I trust Jahir's judgment on these things, and if he said you needed intervention...."
Lisinthir smiled. "I was never angry at you."
"Just at him," Vasiht'h said. "Because he was Eldritch, and a lord like you, and there's history there, even if you never met one another."
"You must know, ah?" Lisinthir glanced at the medallion on his chest. "No foreigner would be wearing Liolesa's unicorn otherwise."
The medallion felt so much a part of him now that he rarely thought about it. He even bathed with it, after Jahir had assured him it wouldn't be harmed by water. Most days it was the only clothing he wore. Vasiht'h lifted it, turned it in his hands, remembered the circumstances that had won him the right to wear it. "I know more than most foreigners. But I don't kid myself into thinking I know everything, or even enough, for what's ahead of us."
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