Cloverleaf Station: Chapter Twenty-Four, Part one

 Notes: Time to take the new baby for a spin! A few goodbyes--we're moving into the final phase of the story.

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

***

Chapter Twenty-Four, Part One

 

Kieron left the station before anyone arrived for the next season’s work—even before the new operator came in. He could have stayed longer, could have made his goodbyes more properly to those who’d worked with him for years now, could have explained how things actually worked here far better than Elanus would to his successor, but…

The truth was, he hated goodbyes. He was terrible at them, as evidenced by the fact that he’d made Zak’s entire family cry when they left them on Trakta the first time. He was abysmal at comforting people, awful at telling them what they meant to him, deplorable when it came to promises and fond thoughts about the future.

After all, who could know the future? How could he say he was going to see someone again soon when he didn’t actually have any clue whether or not that was true? He could wish it, sure, but when had wishing done anybody any good? No, the more goodbyes and “fond” farewells he could avoid, the better it would be for everyone. Bad enough he had to go through it with Elanus and Catie.

Catie, at least, was straightforward. They weren’t really saying goodbye, after all—she was still modulating her sister’s AI as it came online, and so she would have a presence on the Lizzie for the foreseeable future, even if she wasn’t doing a lot of talking. Talking took power, and power was something they were still working to upgrade on the Lizzie. Elanus had promised a whole slew of improvements for her as soon as they got to Gania— “Starting with the audio system, because don’t think I don’t notice the way you wince every time her voice goes into the upper registers, it’s not her fault, these speakers are shrill”—but until then, she would mostly be a silent partner. The thought of having her with him, though, able to communicate through the Lizzie or even directly into Kieron’s implant, was comforting.

Leaving Elanus wasn’t comforting. Not in any way. It was truly disconcerting for Kieron to look at this tall, lanky, handsome, ridiculous man and feel his throat begin to close up, and his heart ache in his chest like his sternum had just been wrenched open. Catie was…he loved her, but she was a being whose presence went far beyond her corporeal form. She could project herself across lightyears, could send her voice through new and different mediums, could reach out from anywhere in the galaxy and she would still feel like herself, because her sense of presence came from the things she said and did, not the sight of her shell or the warmth of her embrace. Whereas Elanus…

Hugs. Kieron would miss hugs. He would miss the simple side-along hug that he got when Elanus was working with one hand but still wanted to touch him with the other, he would miss the shoulder-clasp-to-arm-slide embrace that always ended with a kiss, he would miss the double-armed squeeze that preceded and followed tough conversations. He would miss that.

And kisses. And…the sex. Yeah, it seemed obvious, but Kieron had never craved these things before. He’d hardly even given them a thought, and without Elanus around to remind him of what desire looked and felt like, he couldn’t imagine craving them with anyone else. His heart was already full. The feeling he got when they were together, when they were intimate, was like nothing he’d ever experienced. Kieron already dreaded the thought of going for months without that.

And listening to him talk. Which was sort of ridiculous, because the man never shut up and Kieron loved silence. You would thing that the two things would be incompatible, but it turned out that his love of silence only applied to people who weren’t Elanus or Catie. A quiet Elanus was a bothered, a sick, a sad, a dangerous Elanus. When he was talking non-stop, it was because he was relaxed and happy. Elanus’s happiness, as saccharine as it seemed, made Kieron happy.

At least Kieron had the Lizzie. No, just “Lizzie” now. Elanus had brough her AI into function earlier in the week, so that he’d have some time to work out her bugs before sending her off under his sister’s more distant care.

“It’s not that I don’t trust you to be an excellent pilot for her, of course I do,” he said as he paced around while they both watched her neural network morph and change as the new programming took. “I know you’ll be great for her, there’s no question, it’s just this is a very fragile time for a baby and you’ve got to be able to help out when things go wrong and we’ve already beta-tested this with Catie and I know she can help her sister out of any jams she gets into, but Catie’s still practically a baby herself and I just—”

“Daddeeee, I’m not a babeeee!”

Kieron had set his hand on Elanus’s arm, pulling him to a stop. “I get it,” he said as he drew him in for a hug—another hug, so many hugs, when had Kieron gotten comfortable giving them? How was he going to get by without someone to embrace? “She’s precious to you. But I promise she’s precious to me too, okay? I’ll do right by her. I swear.”

Elanus had gripped him back tight, some of the tension nevertheless unwinding from his long arms. “I know that. Don’t interpret any of this as me doubting you, because it isn’t, not in any way. This is about me being a hover-parent, not about you not being great at it. Lizzie already loves you, this is going to be fine, it’s all fine.”

And it was all fine. Lizzie’s upgrades gave her full AI capacity, but it was clear from the beginning that her personality was a little quieter than Catie’s. She was more mature, perhaps a little less curious, but still an avid learner. She was talkative when asked questions, but did a lot of deep processing on her own. She liked to play, but she also liked to sit and be still and listen. They were all madly in love with her, and her affection for them was as easy and sweet as Catie’s.

And now it was time to go, to take Lizzie and travel to Trakta and get Zak back where he belonged. The station had only been back in the safe zone for twenty-seven hours, but that was long enough for Kieron’s brain to start itching. He had one huge task left to accomplish, before anything else could happen. It was time to get it done.

“I’ll see you soon,” he promised Catie, whose hull glowed with every shade of the rainbow, including drippy blues and dark, swirling indigos of sadness. “This shouldn’t take more than two standard months if everything goes well.” Which it would. Xilinn was expecting him, he had his visa lined up—it was going to be fine.

“Okaaay, Keeeron.”

“I’ll miss you.”

Her harmonic whine was enough to make his teeth buzz. “I’ll miss you tooooo!”

“Aw, baby.” Elanus patted Catie’s doorframe. “Don’t cry. You at least get to hang out with him from a distance; I’m the one that’s suffering here.”

“But you still haaave meeee!”

“Thank god for that,” he agreed, then turned to Kieron. He didn’t touch him—they’d discovered that morning that prying themselves apart was almost more than they could handle. To start that up again now would just make both their moods plunge. “This place will be up and running with new management in three weeks, tops,” he reiterated. “It’ll take three more to get back to Gania, and then we’re full speed ahead. Everything will be ready for you when to come home.”

Home. It was the promise of a place he’d never seen, but that held the two people he loved most in the universe. “I’ll be there,” Kieron said. “Soon as I can.”

“Good. Message me. Every day, if you remember to.”

“I will.”

“Great. Fantastic. Okay.” Elanus wiped his eyes with the edge of his thumb, then swirled away in a flurry of activity before Kieron could say anything. “Time to take the baby on her first space walk! Lizzie, be good for Papa, okay?”

“Yes, Daddy.”

“Good girl.”

Kieron had already loaded his things into Lizzie’s cargo hold. Now he just had to step on board and leave. He stepped, he turned, he looked back—

His hands twitched. His heart ached and ached His eyes watered fiercely. “Soon,” he promised. “Soon.”

“Good.” Elanus forced his face into a smile. “Go. Quick.”

Kieron closed Lizzie’s door, strapped into her pilot’s seat, and went.

Cloverleaf Station: Chapter Twenty-Three, Part Two

 Notes: We're winding up to a goodbye, followed by a hello, followed by a--well, just read and see ;)

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

***

Chapter Twenty-Three, Part Two

 

Even if Kieron wasn’t entirely sure he trusted Elanus to keep his word, even if he might change his mind and decide he didn’t want things to go anywhere between them, their talk changed the last few months before Cloverleaf Station was back in relative safety from something painful to something truly enjoyable. Every care, every worry was quiet now, tucked into the back of his mind like the memory of an old wound—it twinged from time to time, but was easy to ignore.

Elanus made it easy to ignore everything but him and Catie. His liveliness increased, his chats with Catie took her learning to new heights, and he spent a tremendous amount of time with Kieron. Everything from sex to simple conversation to the occasional talk about their pasts, and the things they wish had gone differently, or that they’d done better. Those talks happened in Kieron’s room, where Catie didn’t listen in. Everything else—even the sex, after a make-out session in the control room got out of hand—happened all over the place. Cloverleaf Station might be shamrock green on the outside, but the inside had been cold and sterile before this, and now it felt…well, like a home. Like a place for family.

“What’s your home like on Gania?” he asked one day while Elanus and Catie were debating over a new skin for the Lizzie. The ship wasn’t sentient yet, and couldn’t pick for herself, and Kieron, as Elanus put it, was “no fun when it comes to aesthetics, I could paint her black or orange or leave her matte gray and you’d just say it was fine when it’s not, it’s going to clash with her interior, like this shade of pink, Catie!”

“It doeeeesnnn’t! It’s beauuuuutiful!”

“My home?” Elanus asked, returning Kieron’s attention to the moment. “It’s lovely. Growing up I lived on the ground level in Chelen, but as soon as I registered my first patent and began my company, I bought a suite in the highest skyscraper in the city. Upper mid-level, but every year after that I bought another, and now my home rises all the way up to the top of the building. I’ve even got a space there for Catie, if she gets tired of living at the lab.”

“I waaant to live with youuuu,” Catie said firmly. “You and Keeeeron.”

“How does that work?” Kieron asked, moving the conversation onto firmer ground. He wasn’t afraid of the topic of living spaces now, not exactly, but he didn’t want to get his hopes up too high either. “Vertical housing.”

“It works very well, for the most part. Each level consists of one or two rooms, and there are several lifts to take you up and down as needed. There are stairs that transition to a ramp as well, in case the power goes out for some reason.” Elanus’s face relaxed as he spoke, clearly thinking about the home he’d left behind without a second thought months ago. “I’ve got an amazing view of the city. Chelen is the second-largest city on Gania, but it houses two-thirds of the universities. There’s always something to do there—opera is a favorite attraction, but there’s everything from zoomball fields to fight clubs for people who just have to get their aggression out in other ways.”

“Tell me something else about your home.” Kieron was trying to build a picture in his mind, and finding it hard.

“Here, let me show you. Catie! Can I have a projection with slide, external to internal?”

“Yes, Daddeee.” An image appeared in the air, a picture of a massive building, larger than any skyscraper Kieron had ever heard of before. It had to span ten kilometers or more at the base, and hardly got any more slender as it got higher.

Elanus laughed. “I see that look on your face. Remember, Gania has less gravity than Earth, or most of the planets that humans find tolerable to live on. Something that would collapse elsewhere can stand there without issue. This building is Sunface South. There are two other buildings like this in the city.”

“How can anyone stand being in that much shade all the time?” Kieron asked.

“You haven’t spent much time in cities, have you? It’s very well-lit,” Elanus assured him. “And there are reflective systems in place that help with lighting, I actually designed one of—wait, I’m getting distracted. Closer please, Catie.” She drew their attention to a glowing line near the top of the building. “These are mine,” Elanus said with pride as they got deeper into the image. “I see the suns rise at least once every day, twice some days depending on the season. There’s nothing quite like it.” He kept talking, drawing Kieron’s attention to the color of the walls, the art, the furnishings “—and it’s all changeable, of course, except for that chair which was literally molded to fit my form, that’s got to stay.”

It was fun to look at, but it was more fun to listen to Elanus and Catie. The truth was, Kieron knew how little he really knew about homes. He knew that he’d never lived in one before, not really—this place was the closest he’d come. Trakta had been too uncomfortable, filled with rules he wasn’t allowed to follow and people who knew they shouldn’t get too close to him because he was “other.” Cloverleaf Station was much the same—fine enough when Zak had been alive, a purgatory when he wasn’t, and only now just starting to become something he could see himself missing once he was gone.

“So that’s basically it.” Elanus finally finished describing his ridiculously elaborate home. The hologram disappeared. “Do you think you’ll like it?”

“I can’t wait to see it in person,” Kieron said.

“Good.” Elanus wrapped an arm around his shoulders and pulled him in for a tight hug. “Good. You will. I’ll make it—it will fit you, I swear it will. You might not see it yet, but I do.”

Kieron turned his face against the base of Elanus’s neck and nuzzled the warm skin there. “I know it will.” He tilted his face up and got an affectionate kiss in return.

“Aawwwwwww!!!” Pink and red hearts began to blink in and out of existence all around them. “Daddeeee! Keeeeron! You’re so cuuuute!”

“Aaand it’s time to take this somewhere else,” Elanus said with a chuckle. “Catie, will you help your sister get her logarithms tidied up?”

“Yess, Daddee.”

“Thank you. And you—” He made to pull Kieron up from the chair he was sitting in, but Kieron beat him to it.

“Let’s go,” he said, and led the way out of the hangar and toward his room.

It was easy now to sink back on the bed, easy to undress and let the weight of his partner on top of him ground him, easy to kiss him until his lips ached, easy to prepare himself and relish the slide of Elanus’s enormous cock in and out of him. There was nothing to be ashamed of; not the wanting, not the having, not the aftermath. Grunts and sighs, swear words and blessings, begging and pleading—some of it made him blush, but he never turned his face away. He just loved it. Reveled in it. Used his body to make himself happy, rather than forcing it to move despite itself.

The happiness wasn’t fleeting either, not the simple physical release he knew from other people. In fact, what came after—lying together, wrapped around each other with no urge to leave or different place to be, was blissful. It wiped the anxiety from Kieron’s mind faster than anything else he’d ever experienced.

“The station’s back in the safe zone next week,” Elanus said softly.

“Mmm.”

“I found a person to manage things here. They’re not as good as you, but they have a lot of deep space experience.”

“Hmm.”

“I’ll get them settled, so you can leave for Trakta first thing.”

That was enough to prompt an actual reply. “I could do it.”

“Let me. You’ve got a long way to go, so it’s better you get started as early as possible. I’ll still probably beat you to Gania by weeks.”

“Where you’ll be waiting for me,” Kieron murmured, his lips touching Elanus’s collarbone. He shivered, and Elanus’s arms tightened around him.

“Where we’ll both be waiting for you.”

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

***

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.”