Notes: Not quite the
last episode, but close. Don’t worry, I’ve got plenty more planned for the
boys, but all good things must come to an end at some point. Life continues to
be epically busy, but I don’t think I’ll fall behind again. Enjoy, darlins.
Title: The Academy
Part Thirty-Six: Tying Up Loose Ends
***
The worst thing about going back to
class wasn’t the questions, it was the staring.
Questions were something that Cody
could have dealt with. He knew how to talk to people, he knew how to
prevaricate, he knew how to tell them something without really giving them
anything—years with Garrett had ensured that Cody could handle challenging
conversations. The staring, though…that he wasn’t so good at dealing with.
Cody didn’t have enhanced hearing,
but even he couldn’t help picking up a few snatches of conversation as he
walked by. “Did you hear—I thought it was
an accident—What happened to Alexander—Have you seen Valero—Pamela is dead,
he—Maybe lovers, or maybe—What do you think really happened?”
Cody just walked by, making his way
from final exam to final exam and doing his best to ignore his classmates. Just
a few more days and he’d leave all this behind for a while, and he was so, so
ready for that. He was disappointed he wouldn’t get to see Garrett or Miles or
Claudia and the girls before he left but, as his dad had told him several
times, there was no way this side of Hell they were letting him near Liberty
right now.
“Ain’t gonna happen, bucko,” his
dad said, not without a sigh of commiseration when Cody’s face fell. “I know you want to see them, but they aren’t
coming here and you definitely aren’t going there. When you get back from
Perelan we’ll see what we can do about a reunion, but for now you’re gonna have
to make do with me.”
Cody frowned exaggeratedly. “I guess that’s okay, since I can’t get
anything better.”
“Watch it, kid,” his dad had
growled at him, then pulled him close and ruffled his hair before Cody could
escape. They had laughed a little, and things had felt almost normal for a
while.
Of course, nothing was really normal. What the general population
at the Academy did know was that
their quad was making a special trip to Perelan as part of a goodwill
delegation. No one knew about the attack on Grennson, he was wearing a very
good holographic emitter to hide the damage to his quills. So even if Kyle had
stayed and Pamela’s death could have been covered up, they would have been the
objects of mass attention. As it was, though, that attention was a lot sharper
than it would have been, fueled by distress over Kyle Alexander’s seeming
assassination of another cadet and the silences that all of them were forced to
uphold.
Things weren’t perfectly easy
between the four of them, either. Grennson was…well, clingy was the best way Cody had to describe it. He stayed closer
to Darrell than ever before, and always had to know where Cody and Ten were. He
cooked and baked and kept himself busy, but there was a tightness around his
enormous eyes that hadn’t been there before, an indicator of emotional
exhaustion that Cody couldn’t alleviate in any way other than letting Grennson
coddle him.
Darrell was probably doing the
best. He’d suffered the least at Pamela’s hands, and he still looked the same
as ever. Things weren’t wonderful with his family, Cody knew, but he wasn’t
letting that stop him from coming to Perelan with them. Moreover, Darrell was
an absolute rock for Grennson. The empathic bond between them grew stronger day
by day, and Darrell seemed to take it completely in stride. Cody could feel the
edges of a similar connection between him and Grennson, nothing more than
errant feelings of anxiety that he knew didn’t belong to him, faint but
disconcerting. It had to be much more intense for Darrell, but he weathered it
all stoically, and always had a smile for Grennson that soothed the Perel’s
tension. He and Cody talked about it a few times, the strangeness of their
situation, the newness of his bond.
“I don’t mind it,” Darrell
confessed as they sat together on the edge of the paraball field. The sport had
been put on indefinite suspension following their team captain’s arrest. “I
know this is probably going to sound conceited, but I kind of like having
something that’s just…uniquely mine, I guess. Something that was never my
father’s, something my family doesn’t expect. And it’s not like it’s hard to be
best friends with Grennson, after all.”
“Do you think this is…I mean, the
only other time this sort of thing has happened was with his parents, right?
And you’re not…”
“Not interested that way, no,”
Darrell agreed. “But his matriarch thinks this is probably the result of being
isolated from his own kind and needing a surrogate support system. It’s not
about romantic love, it’s about friendship. Grennson has made his own family
here, and we’re it.”
“Huh.” Cody thought about his own
family, so far-flung and dislocated, and wondered how bad the distance would
feel if there was actually an empathic bond to stretch and sever between them. “I’m
glad we can help, then.”
“Me too.”
If Darrell was coping well and
Grennson was a little desperate, Ten was downright driven. Ze was back to
ignoring the world, insisted that ze should be allowed to take hir finals in
isolation since ze was clearly still
suffering from the trauma of being controlled by a psychic sociopath, how could
you expect hir to just waltz through the crowds here without being scarred for
life, are you insane? So ze knocked all hir tests out in one day, then spent
the rest of the time poring over data from the coronet, muttering to hirself
and occasionally coming out of hir room to badger a very sheepish Bartholomew
or eat a meal forced on hir by Grennson or Jonah. Ze was a lot better at coming
when Jonah asked, actually, despite hir intense new interest in empathic bonds
and the differences and similarities between them and psychic interference.
Every day was spent locked in their
room at hir little lab, but every night Ten spent in Cody’s bed. They didn’t
really do anything, much to Cody’s consternation, but it still felt good to be
wrapped up in Ten, who seemed to know just how to hold him to keep his
collarbone from hurting, and who counted his heartbeats and shaped the numbers
with hir lips. “Later,” Ten promised, kissing Cody’s shoulder and curling in
ever closer. “When we’re actually alone, without your dad sleeping on the couch
and Grennson keeping such close emotional tabs on us. The only person I want to
be sharing an orgasm with anytime soon is you,
thanks very much.”
“You get that he might not stop
anytime soon, right?” Cody asked with a sigh.
“Yes, but he also won’t be so
distraught in the near future. Trust me, I’m monitoring this, I know exactly
how strong Grennson’s connections are and they’re already tapering off a little.”
“I guess I’ll survive.”
“If a stupid human boy couldn’t
survive not having sex every now and then, one half of the binaries would have
murdered the other half for being insatiable bastards long ago,” Ten muttered
sleepily. “Now stop talking, you’re messing up my count.”
The night before the Perel
delegation was set to arrive and whisk them away, Jonah took Cody out to dinner
in town. They had some distant bodyguards, but they were discreet enough that
Cody almost felt like he and his dad were actually alone. They ended up at a
posh place that was so outside of something Jonah would normally have chosen
that Cody actually said, “You’re kidding, right?”
“Not my choice, kiddo,” his dad
mumbled. “Just—bear with me for a minute.” They introduced themselves to the maître-de,
who led them to a private room deep within the labyrinthine depths of the
restaurant. It had a crystalline theme that made Cody’s head spin a little,
there were so many reflections on all sides. The private room was fortunately a
little less sparkly, enough for Cody to tell that someone was already waiting
for them there. He knew who it was even before the man could stand up and throw
off his hood, and rushed forward and into his arms, feeling breathless and
strange and young and so, so grateful.
“Garrett!”
“Hey Cody,” his dad said, sounding
a little breathless himself, and it felt like forever since Cody had seen him, so long, too long, he was close to
his quad mates and he was fine, really, just fine after everything that had
happened, but Garrett was his dad,
and he was here, and he had both of
them here and it was really just—
“How?”
“Experimental transit technology
and a very brief window, darling,” Garrett said, pressing a kiss to his head. “But
I thought that even if it was just long enough for dinner, it would be better
than nothing.”
“Yes,” Cody said emphatically,
relaxing a little more when he felt Jonah’s hands on his shoulders, heard the
brief kiss that passed between his parents. It was so much better than nothing.
***
Darrell’s coda:
After his last call with his
grandparents, Darrell had known better than to be in the same room as Grennson
for a while. They were insistent that he come home; he was just as insistent
that he would be going to Perelan, and the call had ended with his grandmother
tears and his grandfather telling him if he was going to be this way, he could
just not bother coming home at all for the forseeable future.
Which, fine. Darrell was tired of
forcing himself into a mold that had never fit him very well, tired of trying
to be his father and failing again and again. He was finally figuring out how
to be himself, and thanks to his trust and his Legacy status he had options for
taking care of himself, in case they really decided to cut him off. He almost
hoped they would. If his mother didn’t care enough to even speak to him while
he was calling home, then he didn’t need her. He didn’t need any of them, he
had Grennson now.
Still, the anger was too fresh and
too bright to make him want to be around Grennson, so Darrell took himself off
to the paraball field, sat down in the stands and let himself fume for a while,
working through the emotions so he could get over them. He felt the bond
between him and Grennson press a little, then recede when Grennson realized he
wanted to be alone.
Except alone wasn’t in the cards,
because a little further down in the stands was a girl with short, pale hair
and pink skin, and before he could think better of it Darrell called out, “Valero?”
She turned, and—yes, it was Valero,
but not the Valero Darrell remembered. Gone was the hauteur, gone was the
precise grooming and flaunted beauty. This was a thin, haunted girl, who
blanched when she saw him but didn’t retreat. Darrell’s anger melted away into
morbid curiosity, and he came down and sat next to her. She let him, but didn’t
speak for a few minutes. He waited for her.
“They still don’t feel like mine,”
she said at last. “The legs,” she clarified, prodding one of her calves with a
slender finger. “They grew on my body, they should feel like mine, but they don’t.
The doctors say I’ve got issues with dissociation now, I’m seeing them twice a
day for treatment.” She smiled humorlessly. “Hasn’t helped so far.”
“You lost your legs?” Darrell felt
kind of stupid for asking it, but he hadn’t realized she’d been hurt so badly.
He should have, being set on fire was more than enough to kill you, shit, he
was being an idiot—
“Yeah. And a few other things. All
my hair, obviously.” There was a hint of the old Valero there as she brushed
her hand over the short strands with a disdainful look. “I can’t stand short
hair, but they won’t let me grow it out any quicker yet. Something about
overwhelming my reserves. Bullshit.”
Darrell didn’t know what to say to
that, so he changed the subject. “When did you get out of the infirmary?”
“Last week. Just in time for
finals, hooray.”
“Yeah, I hear you.”
“Yeah.” She stared down at her feet
for a moment, wiggling her toes curiously, then looked back at him. “I know he
didn’t do it. What they say he did, killing her…I know it wasn’t like that. I
wish I could tell everyone, but I’m not allowed to. And now he’s gone.”
He
must have been Kyle. Kyle had been Valero’s mentor, if anyone had known what he
was up to, it was her. “I’m sorry,”
Darrell offered, actually genuine.
“Me too. For everything. I’d tell
your quad mates myself, but…” She shrugged. “I don’t think they’d care to see
me right now. I don’t think I care to be seen, really.”
“I’m sorry,” Darrell repeated.
Valero ducked her head and looked away, but stretched her fingers out toward
him. He took her hand, carefully, and they sat together in silence until the
light was gone from the sky.
***
Grennson’s coda:
“I am unsure of the wisdom of this
course of action,” Matriach Grenn said, her quills bristling slightly as she
shifted her weight. She was sitting on an x-legged stool, the same stool that
Grennson had seen a thousand times in her den back on Perelan. She was only
here as a projection, but even so she exerted a powerful presence that made Grennson
want to bow his head. She was his matriarch, and her disapproval was a blow.
Fortunately for Grennson, he had
Jason Kim on his side.
“This is what makes the most sense,”
Jason said, his own projection on Grennson’s right, between him and the matriarch.
“Grennson needs the support, the boys need the distance from the Central System
and it will be a good opportunity for the Perel to interact with new people
while under close supervision.”
“It also sends a message that the
Perel are coming down on the side of the opposition forces, and we do not
benefit from staking a claim for either side in a purely human conflict right
now,” Matriarch Grenn argued.
“The Perel were relegated to the
opposition’s side without the need for their input,” Jason said frankly. “The
Libertarians support a closed, uniform, decidedly human empire. The Mazzi have
already been removed from several planetary embassies, and you know about the ‘pirate’
attacks. Whether or not things come to open conflict, it doesn’t make sense for
the Perel to keep their heads in the sand about this.”
Matriarch Grenn’s quills fluffed up
again. “What is this ‘sand’ and why would anyone put their head into it?”
Jason sighed. “It’s an old human idiom,
Grenn, forgive the confusion. It just means that ignoring the problem won’t
make it go away.”
“I don’t propose to ignore it, but
I would not have it made worse either. Bringing human cubs to Perel, especially
ones that are the children of well-known politicians, could bring undue
attention to our home. We are not equipped to fight a war with the Federation,
Jason.”
“This isn’t that sort of
escalation. If anything, it’s a symbol of sanctuary, not an insult. Beyond
that, before you let any of your sons go out into the universe, you promised
you would help them when they needed it. I’ve rescued five Perel in various
dangerous circumstances since I became your council’s traveling diplomat,
Grenn, and you didn’t care about the circumstances or humanity’s impressions
then. This is no different.”
Matriarch Grenn’s quills finally settled.
“One would think that I would have learned the futility or arguing with you
after so long, Jason.”
Jason smiled. “I’m persistent.”
“You are stubborn. But you are also
possibly right. Grennson,” she turned to her foundling, and he snapped to
attention. “You have suffered much. Are you sure you would not rather simply
return to Perelan for the foreseeable future, to be with your own family again?”
Grennson gave the question the
consideration it was due, but answered at length, “No, Matriarch. I don’t want
to run away. In order to be trusted by humanity, we must show trust as well. I
wish to return here, for the next year, but to bring my friends home with me in
the meantime. Please. They are important to me.”
“So it seems.” Finally she inclined
her head. “Very well. Ferran has informed me that the two of you are already on
your way there, Jason. You did not give very much weight to the possibility of
my disapproval.”
“I knew you would be reasonable, as
always,” Jason said, and Matriarch Grenn grunted with laughter.
“You are so…what is the human word
your mother uses…cheeky, Jason Kim
Howards Grenn. And your attitude is catching. Grennson, try not to imitate your
foster father too much. I can only
take so much.”
Grennson beamed at her, feeling a
little more of his fear wither away with her approval. “I’ll try,” he said
disingenuously.
***
Ten’s coda:
Being marched to Admiral Liang’s
office wasn’t exactly confusing—Ten was sure he’d caught hir out on something,
ze just wasn’t quite sure what is was this time. His damn sergeant refused to
tell hir, so ze waited for a few minutes in perturbed silence before finally
getting permission to head into his office.
Figuring the best defense was a
good offense, ze walked in saying, “Whatever you think I did, I absolutely did
not do it and I’m sure you can’t prove it, and even if you think you can I’m
sure I can explain it, don’t you understand anything about the creative
process, it’s not like I can just stop myself from having these ideas!”
“Relax, Cadet St. Florian,” Admiral
Liang said dryly. “I’m not here to address any of your recent experiments,
although your reaction has me questioning whether or not that’s a good idea.”
Ten rerouted in an instant. “Of
course I’m not doing anything wrong, I just told you that. What did you want to
talk to me about?”
“I don’t want to talk to you about
anything, actually,” the admiral said. “I want to give you something.”
Ten was about to make a snarky
remark about inappropriate relations, but a second glance at the admiral’s face
had hir reevaluating. He looked completely serious, his hands folded on the
desk. Next to them was a tiny vial, with a rotating series of numbers and
letters around it. It glowed the glow of cryosetting, which meant that its
contents were perishable, which meant… “What is that?”
“Something that might help you, if
you’re still interested in cracking the code on naturalism,” Admiral Liang
said. “I know you’ve been working on other things lately, and if you’ve given
up then our conversation ends now.”
Ten’s eyes jerked from the vial to
his face. “I haven’t given up, I’ve just been distracted,” ze snapped. “By insane psychics, or have you forgotten
about that already?”
“Not at all. Answer the question.”
“Yes, I’m still interested in
finding the cure for naturalism.” For
Cody. “What’s in that?”
“Just another possible pathway,”
Admiral Liang said. “Before I give it to you, I need to know you will keep the
contents of this vial, and its provenance, completely private. You don’t write
papers on it, you don’t toy with it, you don’t do anything other than use it to
work toward a cure. Otherwise I cut off your source for it, and knowing how you
experiment, I forsee you needing plenty of samples. This substance doesn’t
synthesize well, so don’t even think about circumventing my restrictions that
way. It can’t be duplicated, not currently. It can only be manufactured in one
place, and I control access to that. Do you agree to my terms?”
“Yes,” Ten said immediately, hir
mind already spiraling off in a hundred different directions. A vaccine, maybe,
or a cellular bath, or a new Regen prototype, or a— “What is that?”
“You’ll find out,” Admiral Liang
said, and handed the vial over into hir hands. Ten cupped it preciously,
watching the notations spiral around and around the outside. Genetic markers…a
chemical blueprint for something…
Ze was determined to find out
exactly what.
