Cloverleaf Station: Chapter Twenty-Two, Part Two

 Notes: Hoo boy, time to gear up and get into high avoidance mode! Or...maybe that won't be an option. Hmm. Curse these people and their insistence on talking through their problems!!!

Title: Cloverleaf Station: Chapter Twenty-Two, Part Two

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Chapter Twenty-Two, Part Two

 

“What’s wroooong?”

Kieron looked up from where he was staring at his tab, doing…well, there were things he ought to be doing, but he wasn’t actually doing any of them. He was just staring, his body on autopilot as his mind ran through dozens of scenarios for the future, each one less appealing than the last. “Nothing’s wrong,” he said after a moment.

“Not truuuuue.” Catie sounded petulant. “You shouldn’t lie. Daaaaddy says so.”

“Your daddy should learn to take his own advice.”

“Keeeeeeron!”

“I’m really fine,” he assured her. “I’m just thinking, that’s all.”

“About whaaat?”

Should he answer her? What should he even say? What could he say? He didn’t want to upset her, or get into a conversation that he didn’t have answers for, but…then again, Elanus was still sleeping after a late night yesterday, so this was probably the best chance Kieron would get for a while to speak solely with Catie. “I’m thinking about the future,” he said at last. “About what’s going to happen next.”

“What’s going tooooo haaappen?”

“Well…” He should go with what he knew for sure. “I’m going to take Zakari’s remains back to Trakta.”

“Hooooow?”

That was a good question. The Daring Do, his stalwart ship of many years, was no more. She’d been crushed in the asteroid field a week ago, after sailing around aimlessly for three weeks prior. Had it already been that long since Deysan’s attempted escape? Time is flying, and this dream is flying with it. “I suppose I’ll need to borrow a ship. I’ll probably ask Elanus if I can use the Lizzie.” Otherwise he’d be paying for a fare from a miner from here to Trakta, which would probably consume most of his savings, given how out-of-the-way they were.

“Lizziiiiiie!!! She will love to help you!”

Kieron smiled. “Oh she will, huh? How will she love it, exactly? She doesn’t have a mind like you do.”

“She’s getting smaaaarter all the tiiime! Lizzie is going to be soooo smart. Just like meee.”

“Ah.” Kieron should have guessed that the Lizzie would be the next ship Elanus would try his technology out in. There was no way the man would let him take one of his babies all the way to Trakta. They were too special for that. “Well, I’ll come up with something.”

“Yes…Lizziiiie.”

“No, not Lizzie. Your daddy won’t want to let her out of his sight.”

“Dadddeee will, for you,” Catie assured him. “Dadddeeee looooves you.”

Kieron’s voice froze in his throat.

“I love you toooooo,” Catie went on, her hull turning a hundred different shades of pink. Tiny projections of hearts fluttered in and out of existence around her, some of them spinning, others sparkling, yet others wearing tutus and snapping with sharp teeth at each other. Dinosaur ballerina hearts, of course. “It’s okaaaay if youuu take Lizzie, because you’ll briiiing her baaack. And we caaaan talk through herrr! I can sing you my sooongs. Do you want to hear my new sooong?”

“I would love to hear your new song,” Kieron managed, and the hangar began to fill with a sound that was somewhere between syntharmonics and an ancient children’s choir. It swung from chord to chord in an almost random progression—almost. There was enough of a link between the chords in there to make it beautiful to listen to, rather than a random mishmash of sound. It was lovely, and youthful, and fun and sweet. It was beautiful, just like Catie.

She was going to be upset when she realized Elanus didn’t feel the way she thought he did. She’d become attached to Kieron, despite him knowing it would be better for him to push her away and leave her affections solely focused on her father.

But how could he, after he saved her life? How could he let her think he felt anything but affection for her, when she’d been treated so terribly? Kieron knew what it was to have someone you loved so much, with all the innocent earnestness of a child, not love you back. He knew what it was to be considered a disappointment, to have someone wish that he’d been born someone else. He couldn’t let her think that. It would have been too cruel not to return her infatuation with a soft touch and kind words.

He hadn’t meant to love her, but he did. He loved everything about her, but especially the pieces he could see she’d inherited from her father. Because…

Because…

Because he loved him too.

Kieron shut his eyes and resisted the urge to bite hard into his lower lip. He’d been doing such a good job of not thinking it! Not while they were working together, not while they were eating together, not while they were having sex, not while they were sleeping side by side and Elanus was snoring and Kieron could just poke him in the side and he’d automatically roll over for him. Shit. Shit. It was one thing to have to deal with the feelings, it was another layer of awful to have to deal with the words too.

He loved Elanus. He loved Catie like a parent loved a child, but he loved Elanus. That lanky, too-tall, too-smart, too-pretty son of a bitch.

Maybe you don’t. You’ve never been in love before, after all. Not even with Zakari, and you know he would have married you and brought you into his family if he thought you wanted that. He loved you so much. Xilinn loves you. Those were the only adults Kieron could think of who had ever loved him, so it wasn’t much of a sample size to draw from, but the way he felt for them—and it was love, it was—wasn’t the way he felt for Elanus. Elanus inspired different, bigger, grander feelings. He inspired something that could be almost as dark as it was light, yet at the same time made him want to set all darkness aside. Bigger than hate. Bigger than lust.

Damn it to the far side of the universe, why did I let it happen?

“Are you thinking of me?”

Kieron’s eyes snapped open. He stared up from his seat at Elanus, horrified that perhaps everything he’d been thinking about was written on his face. “What? Why would you think that?”

“Because you were frowning,” Elanus said lightly, not letting it get to him. When did anything ever get to him, when it wasn’t connected to Catie? “I simply assumed that frown was for me. Nine times out of ten they are, right?”

“No.”

“But this one was.”

“No, it…” Kieron didn’t want to lie—it seemed like too much effort for not enough reward, since Elanus would see through it anyway. Evasion it is, then. “I’m going to go check the experiments from the control room, excuse me.”

“Catie’s song isn’t over yet, though.”

Oh, that was true. “I’ll…ask her to play it again for me later.”

“No, later won’t work.”

Kieron paused in the middle of standing up. “Why not?”

“Because we’re going to be talking later, so you might as well listen to her song now.”

Kieron looked warily at Elanus. “What…exactly…are we going to be talking about?”

“Oh, lots of really uncomfortable things that make both of us want to run away or start a fight or lock ourselves in places where we can be alone for a while,” Elanus said. The words were light, even mocking, but his expression was serious. “And we’re going to do it because we’re goddamn adults who can avoid the stupidities of their pasts by being honest with each other. No big misunderstandings right now, not between you and me. Do you hear me?”

This was the last thing Kieron wanted. Couldn’t they just…enjoy each other’s company for the next few months before quietly parting ways once the radiation dimmed?

Apparently they couldn’t. A frisson of fear went down his spine…followed closely by anticipation. “All right,” he said at last.

“Good.” They both sat and listened to Catie’s song all the way through to the end. It was beautiful.

What was about to happen probably wouldn’t be.