"I've had longer to work on myself...."
"You've had longer to twist yourself into strange shapes, also." Lisinthir sighed, exasperated. "Not everyone will have my love for the fight, cousin, and there's nothing wrong with that."
"Why do you?" Jahir asked. "Love the fight."
Lisinthir let his fingers slacken, trail down to the back of Jahir's neck. There was a smile on his mouth, but beneath the skin the energy that crackled knew no mirth. It was life striving against all obstacles, refusing to be bested. It was glory and power and the fierce elation of survival. It came wound through with lust because it celebrated its own vitality. "There is a moment," Lisinthir said at last, voice low, "When you are in motion, and it is the move that will grant you victory over a foe against whom you might have lost. A moment where their life is yours. Where their death is yours. That moment, that power... that is what draws me." A kiss, grazed against his brow. "I fight to defend the innocent. But I love it for that moment."
"And it doesn't frighten you. To arrogate to yourself a power reserved to the God and Lady?"
"Had the God and Lady not wanted us to exercise it, they would not have made us capable of killing." Lisinthir traced a curve under his eye. "Besides, to guard a life is as heady as to spend it."
"I know," Jahir murmured.
Interest, incredulity, quick as alcohol to the bloodstream. "Oh?"
Jahir nodded. "I have drawn people back from death before."
"I'd thought you hadn't trained to be a physician?"
"No," Jahir thought, and some part of him whispered, Not yet. He said, "No, but our abilities... I have used them to rescue the victims of klaidopin use." At his cousin's curiosity, he clarified, "Wet."
"Ah. The street drug, if I remember right?"
"You do," Jahir said. "It kills within a dose. Two or three at most. Their minds...." He faltered at the memories. "They fall apart. And sometimes, if I was lucky, I could bring them back."
Lisinthir was very still. "Show me."
Jahir looked toward him. "They are not comfortable memories—"
"But you want to share them."
Did he? Yes, he did. Some part of him needed to demonstrate that in some arenas he too had his puissance. That he could choose his own battlefield and prevail on it if need be. He reached for his cousin's face and rested his hand on Lisinthir's cheek, settling the fingers there, and whispered, Come.
And fell back into Heliocentrus's weight, the killing grip of its gravity dragging at his limbs, straining his breath, the constant starvation for air and energy that slowed his limbs and dizzied him at every turn. Saw again the rows of beds with their unresponsive victims, the gray palls that clung to them like the cerements of their funerary biers. Felt the desperation of their certain deaths, the terror of Vasiht'h's conviction that he would die helping them, had almost died twice, his heart stopping while he fought for their minds. His world narrowed to the freneticism of their disordered minds as the halo-arch shrieked its clarion warning—no chimes or music here—and the ripping effort of holding them fast, holding them to life: live, breathe, just a little longer—
The soaring triumph of success, only to wake crumpled on the floor with his partner wound around him, knowing all that he'd given had bought only a few hours for families to arrive and make their farewells.... the desolation and the hollow ache of it, and the knowing that he would do it—did do it—all again—
The grip on his hair brought him back, into a kiss that dashed the memories away with fever and the shock of Lisinthir's ferocious and possessive admiration. Stunned, he could only accept the claim and then answer it, sliding his arm around his cousin's shoulders.
Lisinthir let him breathe only when he was gasping for it, chafing their mouths together. In the bloodwarm silence, Jahir felt the other's respect settle in him, convince him in a way that words never could. It was why the resignation perplexed him. He looked up, hoping he was not sensing the beginnings of regret, or worse, a retraction—
"No," Lisinthir said, sighing. "Never that." Another little chafe, a stroke of thumb against jawline. "Just... observing how quickly you made yourself dear to me."
His heart contracted. "You would confess to feeling so quickly...."
"Did you not love Vasiht'h when you saw him?"
Jahir paused, remembered the shape tangled up in a child's jump rope, the gentleness in the voice, the laughter in alien eyes, and the kindness. "It's not the same."
"It's never the same," Lisinthir murmured. "Every person comes to you differently, because every person is something different to you. I have been what you needed. And you... what I needed." He paused, then chuckled and lifted his finger, enough to wave it admonishingly. "You are thinking now of fancy jargon and dangerous therapeutic precedents. From one lover now he fastens his attention on the next, to give his lonely heart ease."
Since he had in fact been thinking of codependency and transference, Jahir flushed and answered, "Would you blame me?"
Lisinthir smiled. "Ask me if I would keep to your side, could I return to my lovers."
He couldn't, because between their skins he could feel the truth.
"Ask now if I would keep to your side, did I need to do my duty."
Again, the uncompromising answer.
"Ask me if I would try to pry you from your beloved, or keep you from the woman I believe you must certainly wed, no matter what you think."
He wasn't sure whether to laugh or to lose his breath to the steel core that he sensed beneath the passions at the skin-level. And yet, the tenderness remained, and mystified, and he found himself speaking without consulting himself beforehand. "Am I so little then? The opposite of codependence... a convenience, to be used until you stand on your feet and then discarded."
Gently, "Do you think me capable of such?"
A long pause, because Jahir couldn't fill it. He knew the answer to that too, and found himself wondering suddenly how those who couldn't sense lies and truth through something as simple as a touch could function. To navigate the complexities of a relationship without proof loomed large as an act of bravery he could barely conceive... and yet, did not Eldritch do this, by denying themselves skin?
Was that all his cousin had wanted when he'd pulled Jahir's shirt off?
"No," Lisinthir said, his amusement rippling with wickedness. "Yes."
He couldn't help it... he laughed.
"Better."
The word came with an affectionate nuzzle, and Jahir leaned into it, admitting that perhaps his cousin had become dear to him too. It was not the breathless love he had for Sediryl, but it was close and needful all the same. He sighed, unsure whether to be exasperated, fond, or dismayed. "Lisinthir. You are incorrigible."
"So I am." Lisinthir rested his brow against Jahir's and added, contemplative, "I suppose you could make a milk name of it and use it. No one ever called me by such, so I have no idea what it would be."
"No one? Ever called you by a love-name?" Jahir leaned back to look at him, startled.
"Are you so surprised?" Lisinthir snorted. "Who would ever have felt affection for me to give me one?"
"Your mother... singing to you at the bassinet?" At his expression, Jahir fumbled, "A wet nurse." No. "A nurse? A cousin? Nothing?"
Lisinthir smiled a little.
"God and Lady," Jahir whispered. It was impossible to conceive. His own parents had given him a cradle name for his sacramental name because, as his mother had told him often while seeing him to bed, 'You are so dear that all will love you, so we have saved them the trouble of needing to learn the name they should use to call for you.'
Lisinthir kissed him at the edge of his brow, breath warm against his temple. "No regrets, cousin. I have lived to find love, and it knows my name. I like it better that it is a name known only to aliens."
"And you no longer signal intimacy by Eldritch means," Jahir said, feeling it in his cousin's fingertips, the regret and the peace with it both. "You call me cousin and healer
and heir...."
"Among the dragons, names are contempt made manifest. One strives for a title because a title defines your relationships to others in a way a name never can." Lisinthir rested his hand on Jahir's neck. "So for you, 'Heir' when you are being intransigent and too constrained by our more ridiculous customs. 'Healer' in your strength, because it is your strength. 'Cousin'..." Trailing off, smug, amused, affectionate. "Because it titillates you."
"Augh," Jahir said and laughed, despite himself. "So, what do I call you?"
"You will have to choose."
"'Scion' when you are intransigent, then, and too forgetful of the good that forged us," Jahir said, challenging him and seeing the pleasure at the challenge. "'Ambassador' in your duty, because you have made that title yours and given it power beyond the office." Jahir smiled and lifted his brows. "And 'cousin,' because I accept your right to titillate me."
"Do you?"
"And if I said 'yes'?"
"Then I would be honored." That won him a kiss on the closed eye. "Perhaps later, we will find a few more titles for one another."
Jahir laughed. "Lover of dragons and wayward Eldritch peers."
"Beautiful servant," Lisinthir countered in their tongue, shading it white and holy, bringing with it echoes of the catechism, chapel bells singing silver through the mist shrouding dawn. So long as there is breath in me, I will serve life—serve life—serve life.
Stunned, Jahir froze.
"And beautiful servant," Lisinthir finished, shading it red for blood and fever, tinting it with willingness and yielding and the strength of carnal trust. He smiled at Jahir's shudder, finger tracing his lower lip. "Just so."
"Tease," Jahir muttered, and wondered why the words made the skin under his hand stipple when so little else seemed to affect his far more experienced cousin.
"Only a little." Lisinthir nipped his nose. "We should sleep. It won't be long now, before the decision."
"Yes."
"Off the bunk. And put your shirt back on. You're cold."
Jahir shook his head. "Are you always so autocratic?"
Lisinthir reached over, grabbed him by the braid, and kissed him silent. When they parted, he said, "Do you always talk so much?"
Jahir huffed past his racing heart. "Go to sleep, Ambassador."
CHAPTER 10
When Vasiht'h woke and found the pillows alongside his empty, his first thoughts were rotten through with panic. He'd pushed his partner into the practice with Lisinthir, had all but demanded that Jahir do something he found uncomfortable while also fighting far too many other pressures. When it had been over, the mindline had been so dense with aching exhaustion there'd been no room in it for additional information, and the Glaseah had been forced to watch his partner fall asleep instantly, as if dropping unconscious. It had been difficult for him to lie down himself, without the chance to apologize, to explain, to tell Jahir he loved him and it was just the stress of their situation that was making him like this—
But the mindline was not blank, and it was not thick with discomfort or cold with fear and distance. There were numbers in it, and frustration, and the suggestion of mercury flashing: the Eldritch at work on something, thoughts quick-flowing. Vasiht'h rolled onto his paws and checked the bunk—the Ambassador was still asleep—and then he headed through the door into the other room.
Already dressed, Jahir was sitting in front of the table with a hand to his temple, a pen hanging lax from his fingers in a way somehow reminiscent of Lisinthir and his cigarettes. Spread before him were several sheets of paper, a data tablet, and the leather case where the Glaseah had found the hekkret, now missing several rolls.
"Arii?" Vasiht'h said, hesitant.
Jahir looked up, smiled—true warmth, though marred by frustration and concern. "You're awake. How did you sleep?"
"As well as I could, I guess." Vasiht'h padded closer, encouraged by the normalcy in the mindline. Not just normalcy… but intimacy and warmth, an openness that reminded him of their best days. He sank into it the way he would have a sun-warmed nest of pillows. "What are you doing?"
"Trying to divine whether we have a problem." Jahir rolled the pen between his fingers, and the mindline communicated its texture to Vasiht'h: cool and smooth and somehow rewarding, as if sensation had become something new and worthy of analysis. "In this case… how long this supply of the drug will last."
Vasiht'h's ears flicked back and his fur bristled. "I hadn't thought of that."
"I hadn't either until I woke." Jahir sighed and leaned back, resting his booted foot against the table's edge. While it wasn't rare for his friend to have such looseness of posture, it was unusual when they were 'out.' Somehow, this cabin had become a place Jahir felt safe. "But it appears he's going through two of these a day, and unless he has another package of them secreted in his luggage…."
"You could maybe synthesize more?" Vasiht'h offered, sitting with his tail folded over his paws.
"Not likely. The genie eats power. It was the first thing they shut off, do you recall?" Jahir rubbed his brow. "And that is without the analysis that would have to be done first, which would also require the clinic's machinery to be available."
"Maybe we could risk a few seizures? We managed to bring back the wet victims…."
"It's not the seizures that concern me… or at least, not only." Jahir shook his head. "There are too many unknowns, arii. I still don't know what the hekkret does to him, so how can I plan for how his body will react in its absence? I am guessing at the effect on the nervous system, and perhaps that has been corroborated by the seizures we've seen him undergo. But there are inevitably other symptoms, and I am no healer to predict them. He may live quite ably for a month… or the taper may kill him without warning."
"And you don't want him to die," Vasiht'h said, quiet.
"No." Jahir glanced at him, puzzled at the question, and it tasted like cardamom on kerinne: unexpected but not unpleasant. "Of course not?" And then, as if seeing the expression Vasiht'h was keeping hidden, "Oh, no. Do you think me angry at you? Or angry at him?" Jahir reached and rested a hand on Vasiht'h's shoulder, surprising him. "No. How could I be?"
"I don't know," Vasiht'h said, rounding his shoulders and ducking his head. "Forcing you into fighting with him wasn't very nice of me."
"But it was a needful thing. You were both right. Shall I hate you for it?"
His partner's certitude was better than any cookie. More like soup, the kind of soup you craved when you were sick and needed something unctuous and easy to complete all the hollow places in you that demanded nourishment. Vasiht'h shivered, then chuckled. "No, but I expected resentment. It would have been natural."
"It would have been, but not productive. And not fair either."
"And… Lisinthir?" Vasiht'h asked, hesitant. "You've forgiven him?"
"Have I needed to?" Jahir sounded surprised, but more at himself than at the question. "He is acting according to his nature. And he is fond of me, and I am of him."
Fond of him! Vasiht'h tried to curtail his surprise at what felt like understatement and received for his pains the faint bubbles of his partner's mirth, tickling at his paws as if to make him dance on them. His grin was reluctant but he couldn't help it.
"It is fondness," Jahir said. "Though there is… a dimension to it that I am unaccustomed to feeling."
"And… that doesn't make you uncomfortable?" Vasiht'h asked carefully.
Jahir's smile had a whimsical quality. "How can it, when he treats me as he does?"
Vasiht'h couldn't help his confusion. "You mean the baiting and the fighting."
"I mean," Jahir said, quieter, "the tenderness, and the absolute certainty that I am precious and in need of protection." His smile grew lopsided. "It's rather difficult to maintain shame in the face of such aggressive admiration."
"He really treats you that way?" Vasiht'h asked, softer.
In reply, Jahir slid that hand down Vasiht'h's arm to the hand and cupped it between both
of his. Through that touch he offered a memory: nothing too distinct or sexual, for which the Glaseah was grateful, and that in itself was a surprise, that there was any memory of something non-sexual. A kiss at the corner of the brow, the rue and sweetness in it mingled like nettle tea swirled with honey: bracing, medicinal, stinging him to life and assuring him of its value.
"Oh!" Vasiht'h whispered. "Is he like that with you?"
"With me?" Jahir repeated, emphasizing the last word with interest. And gave a soft 'ah' in response to the memory Vasiht'h shared, of the embrace when he went alone to the Ambassador's room and the safety he felt there. "Yes. I see. And it is entirely typical of him, now that I understand him well enough to see it."
"That he needs someone to protect," Vasiht'h guessed.
"He is what our culture strives to shape a man of our station into. A sword set in defiance against all that would cut down the family and the House." Jahir glanced at the paper and Vasiht'h followed his gaze. He knew enough to recognize titration schedules, but not much more than that; as usual, what distracted him was the refinement of his partner's penmanship. It remained a revelation to see something as modern as chemistry and as spontaneous as jotted notes rendered in calligraphy that elegant.
"You're thinking," Vasiht'h said suddenly into the silence, "that your culture failed to make you that way."
"No," Jahir admitted, the mindline seeping more numbers. "I am fretting at the biology."
"It could turn out fine," Vasiht'h said. "He didn't have a seizure yesterday, after all?"
"We think he didn't. By his own report, he spent some time here with his head in the lieutenant's lap—" That observation accompanied by a rising curl of mirth that somehow evoked the hekkret smoke, "—long enough probably to use one of those in its entirety. But there are seizures that don't produce grossly observable symptoms. She might have believed he was lost in thought when in fact he was in the throes of one." Jahir pressed his thumb under his brow-bone. "We will have to set Hea Borden to any further watches. She'll have the training to recognize any partial seizures."
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