Cloverleaf Station: Chapter Twenty-Three, Part One

 Notes: Oh my gosh, are we getting close to the end? Are we heading toward emotional fulfillment and personal growth? Could that be what's going on here? *goggles*

Title: Cloverleaf Station: Chapter Twenty-Three, Part One

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Chapter Twenty-Three, Part One

 

They made it all the way to Kieron’s bedroom and shut the door before Elanus began speaking. “You can stop looking like that. Seriously, I’m not about to hit you.”

“I’d like to see you try,” Kieron snapped. “Stop treating me like a child and tell me what this is all about.”

Elanus sat down on the edge of the bed and crossed his legs at the ankles, leaning his long body back on his hands as he stared at Kieron, decidedly unimpressed. “Oh, trust me, this is me treating you like an adult. If I were treating you like a child you’d definitely know it. There would be kinder, more oblique language involved and I wouldn’t tell you things like ‘you fucking idiot, what the hell did you think I was going to do, trap you here without a ship?’”

“As though you’d given any thought to anything beyond Catalina when you got here,” Kieron replied. “You can’t tell me you wouldn’t have blow up my ship on your own in order to save her.”

“No, that’s true. But that’s not what happened, is it?” Elanus persisted in being level-toned even as his eyes spoke volumes, mostly insinuating how unimpressed he was with Kieron’s grasp of logic. “Your ship did get smashed to bits, true, but that was your idea and you offered it up because you love Catie. All excellent, fantastic, the best. But I have another ship, you know. Why wouldn’t I make the Lizzie available to you so that you could do the one thing you’ve devoted the last three years of your life to, especially after the sacrifices you made for me and Catie?”

“Because she’s special to you,” Kieron gritted out between clenched teeth. “Nothing is more special to you than your ships. The Lizzie might not be as advanced as Catie, not yet, but I know you’re working on upgrading her. You’re incredibly possessive of your intellectual property. Why would you ever let me take her away from you, to a place so far from your home and from this place, when you could just as easily tell me to catch a ride on the next mining ship that comes through?”

Elanus blinked. It was as close as he came to evincing astonishment. “You…okay, either you think I’m a really incredible caliber of asshole, or you seriously don’t understand what’s going on here between us.”

“I understand it fine. We’ve learned to get along, that’s great, and Catie likes me, but—”

“No.” Elanus leaned forward and stared at him for a moment, then shook his head. “No, Kieron—Catie loves you.”

“I know she does,” he murmured.

“But do you understand what that means? Practically speaking, that is?” He forged ahead before Kieron could say anything. “I’m sure the answer to that is no, given that you’ve experienced love from probably fewer than five people in your entire life. But love isn’t just a feeling, Kieron. It encompasses a whole range of actions as well. People don’t let the people they love hitchhike across the galaxy holding onto the remains of their bestie when they could give them a ship that could get them there in just a few weeks.”

Kieron felt his cheeks heat. “The Lizzie is too advanced to be trusted in anyone else’s hands. You’ve said as much yourself.”

“Yeah,” Elanus said bluntly. “Anyone who isn’t you, me, or Catie. We’re read-in on how special she is, and how amazing she has the potential to become. Catie already thinks of her as her sister. I wouldn’t let anyone pilot her who wasn’t completely aware of her amazingness, and you are, Kieron. You are.”

“How?” The question slipped through his lips before Kieron could stop it. “How can you be so sure of me? How do you know I won’t betray you, won’t run off with her and sell her secrets to the highest bidder?”

Elanus laughed. “I’m sorry, have you met yourself? I can’t think of anyone less likely to betray a trust than you. It’s like love—you’ve experienced so little trust that every instance of it is golden, engraved in your mind forever and ever. You value it beyond almost everything else, which is how I know you wouldn’t betray it. I trust you, Kieron.” He leaned forward a bit more and reached out for Kieron’s hands, taking one of them in both of his own. “You just need to learn to trust yourself a little.”

“I don’t—I don’t understand,” Kieron admitted, feeling a little helpless.

“I know you don’t,” Elanus replied before pressing a kiss to the back of his knuckles. “And I think that no matter what I say or do, the best way for you to understand is simply to live with my love and trust for a while. No expectations, no specific agreements, no looking over your shoulder. Just do what you have to do, and know that every second we’re apart I’m still loving you, and trusting you, and so it Catie.”

“You love me?” Kieron was stunned. He felt caught between the cresting wave of happiness and the deep undertow of denial. “How?”

Elanus scoffed. “That’s a mystery for the ages, isn’t it? It’s the last thing I thought would happen when I first got here. I admit, I didn’t make it easy on you. I expected you to be a stiff-necked asshole and I tried to roll over you time and again, and it just didn’t happen. You stood up for yourself, but you still helped me. You—Kieron.” Elanus pulled him forward a step and rested his hands on Kieron’s hips. “You brought back my child. You helped save my own life, when my rib collapsed—remember? You’ve proven yourself far more deserving than anyone else I’ve ever loved, and I’m ridiculously attracted to you as well—like, ridiculously. I know it’s hard to believe, but can you at least accept that whatever I’m feeling is real?”

“I…I want to,” Kieron said. Then, spurred by a desire to meet Elanus’s transparency with his own, he continued, “I wish I could, but you said it yourself. I’ve never…I don’t have experience with love, or trust. Not a lot of it. Definitely not the kind of love that goes beyond friendship.”

“That’s fine,” Elanus said calmly. “Do you think you ever could feel that sort of love for me? It’s fine if you can’t, I just want to know.”

“I want to,” Kieron repeated. “I might already, I think I do, I just don’t know that I do, not the way you love me. I know I love Catie, and I do love you, I just worry that it’s not the same love you’re talking about.”

“That’s all right. We can work with that,” Elanus said, kind and patient again. How could he be so patient with Kieron? He was one of the least patient people Kieron had ever met! “You say you need time? You can have time. When the station is in the safe zone again and we can travel, you take the Lizzie to Trakta and give Zak back to his family. Stay there, go somewhere else, set sail for the farthest star—it’s fine. Do whatever you need to do, but promise me you’ll think about it. Okay? Think about the fact that Catie loves you like a father, and I love you like the all-consuming force you’ve proven to be.

“Then when you’ve made up your mind, come back to us. Come to Gania, let us welcome you, let us show you what we could all be somewhere that isn’t Cloverleaf Station.” He smiled a little crookedly. “Who would have thought that an outdated science station in the Fringe would be the spot I’d find the love of my life?”

Kieron surged forward into Elanus’s lap, framing his face with his hands and kissing him desperately. He had to do it—it was the only way he knew to express everything he was feeling in that moment. He was full to the brim with love and fear and hope, and the thought of something better for his future, something he could never have imagined before Elanus came into his life, teased the edges of his brain.

Elanus matched his fervor, and they almost toppled over onto the bed and moved on to other activities before Elanus pulled back and added, “And you better believe that Catie’s going to be chatting the hell out of you two while you’re on your way to Trakta, because distance is no object for her and she’s not going to let you fly off in her sister without a backward glance.”

Kieron thought about it for a second, then smiled. “That’s fair.”

“Damn straight it is.”