CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Ren wasn’t sure if he had made a terrible mistake.
Everything had made sense when it was just the two of them locked in that room, because the only thing was each other. Then the door opened, and reality had returned along with the stares.
This is what he’d been warned about all along, when he first proposed hiring Sebastian to retrieve the Heart. Everyone who knew Ren’s sorry story — from the regent, through his father, to Zaria, and even his athletics instructor — had reminded Ren about the dangers of being seduced.
Except he had kissed Sebastian first, back on Fortuna — grabbed him under the pretense of avoiding detection, but kissed him with more passion than Ren had felt in a long time. The second time, Sebastian had asked, careful in both voice and approach.
There had been moments in that room when Ren had felt so desperate and hungry that the thought of not touching Sebastian for even a moment was unbearable. He’d always imagined if they had sex again he’d show Sebastian what a sophisticated lover he’d become. Instead he’d spilled after a few strokes. All because it was Sebastian who was touching him.
Maybe the warnings hadn’t been about Sebastian at all, but about Ren. How easily he was led, how quickly he fell for soft lips and brown eyes and sure hands.
When he got to the showers they were mercifully empty — he didn’t think he could stand to have anyone else looking at him right now — and Ren let the water sluice over him, falling onto the grated floor to be recycled and reused. Was that what was happening to him, to his feelings? Sebastian pulling them out and playing with them again?
Except he’d said he cared, and Ren had finally believed him. But that had always been the problem, hadn’t it? Sebastian lied, and Ren believed.
Once he’d showered and dressed again, Ren wasn’t sure what to do. Brooding in his tiny quarters would drive him mad, and he couldn’t barge into the bridge and start demanding answers to questions he wasn’t sure how to ask. He found himself instead turning down the corridor that led to the sick bay.
The doctor was crouched on the floor next to a flowering plant when he came in. She looked up absently. “I understand we’re moving again. That’s good news.”
“Yes,” Ren replied hollowly, “I suppose it is.”
Lydia stood up and looked at him more closely. “What brings you here?” she asked, not unkindly.
“You said something yesterday about if I needed to talk?”
“Of course,” she said, rubbing her hands on a cloth. She gestured to an empty chair and lifted an empty pot off another one for herself. “What did you want to talk about?” she asked, sitting down.
Ren sat as well, smoothing his sweating palms over his knees. “I suppose, I’m wondering — that is to say, I’m trying to understand all of you, this crew. You seem like good people.”
She raised an eyebrow. “That depends on your definition of good.”
“What’s yours?”
“I used to have very lofty ideals and complicated philosophies, but now I think it comes down to whether we take care of each other. By that definition Sebastian is a good man.” She tilted her head. “That’s what this is about, isn’t it?”
Ren shifted on his chair. “I know his morals are… somewhat flexible — something I’ve obviously used to my advantage to retrieve the Heart of Arcadia but—”
“But what kind of man is he really?” She looked off across the room and seemingly further still. “I don’t suppose he told you how I came to join this crew?” Ren shook his head. “I grew up very privileged. Not like you, but my parents worked for the Commonwealth Central Government. Civil servants, but we lacked for nothing and were connected to everything that seemed important. Central Gov prides itself on maintaining its technology. A beacon of promise, to show that we didn’t lose everything to the Singularity. So my medical training involved all the very best tech available.”
She got up, moving to a counter and pulling out a kettle. She flicked the kettle to hot as she spoke, pouring fast-boiled water into a small teapot. “I had it in my head to travel before taking the job everyone expected me to. See the galaxy. It was a shock to say the least. Yes, the Commonwealth requires all colonies and outposts to provide basic food, shelter, and medical care to everyone, but in some places it’s… very basic. Meanwhile the Commonwealth is so intent on protecting us from the Singularity that it fails to protect us from ourselves. People get abused and exploited in so many ways.”
She brought the teapot over to the table near Ren, along with two cups, and set it down before settling back into her chair.
“I wasn’t much older than you are now,” she said to him. “And I found myself very angry at the world I’d grown up in and all the things I was supposed to want. I fell in with a group — and a man — that promised a different way. We would live simply, without worrying about wealth or technology or old threats, and be an example to everyone else. There was a moon with a temperate climate, and our group took over an abandoned colony there and lived in isolation.”
Lydia poured tea for both of them, and Ren took a sip. It tasted of flowers.
“I was there for years, and for most of them I thought I was happy.” Lydia wrapped her hands around her own cup, eyes faraway. “Our leader was very charismatic. I was in love with him, like everyone else, but that was fine. We were all supposed to share everything, especially love.” She drank some tea, mouth held in a way that suggested she found it more bitter than it actually was. “And if I noticed that he lived better than the rest of us, well, I rationalized it. Just like I did the things I’d hear from some of my patients about the attention he was paying them. I didn’t question. Until strangers showed up our moon, mercenaries with guns.”
Ren frowned in concern. “Did they attack you?”
“No,” Lydia said. “They’d been hired by our leader and his inner circle. It was explained that the outside was jealous of what we had achieved and wanted to take it all away. The mercenaries were there to protect us. Except they seemed to be policing us more than any imaginary outsiders. Privately, I began to wonder if our leader was becoming paranoid. He was, but he actually had reason.” She looked at Ren over her cup. “He was murdered. A single shot, an impossible one, really, from that range. Mags.”
“Oh,” he said, straightening in his chair. “Sebastian did say she’d been arrested for… an assassination.”
“Yes, I treated her for some cuts and bruises when they brought her in. But she was so calm. You’ve seen her, but that was nothing compared to how she was in that cell. She said she wasn’t worried because her family would be coming for her, and if they didn’t get there in time, that was fine too, because she would die knowing she’d been loved.” Lydia shook her head. “I was ready to kill her on the spot. I’d had love, and she’d taken it all away. I’ve never hated anyone more or since. But just before I left, Mags said she never took a job like this without there being a good reason and I should ask myself what that reason was. I supposed it was for money, but Mags told me she could afford to be particular.”
“You believed her.”
“Not exactly, but I started asking questions. Remembering things. Everything my patients, the younger women, had been trying to tell me. The deliveries of luxury items that went only to our leader or his inner circle.” A flicker of pain moved over her face. “I realized that he’d been exploiting us, our labor, our bodies, our love. I’d been a fool. It was becoming clear, too, that the inner circle was going to continue his ways. The hired soldiers weren’t going away; neither were the increased workloads or the privileges for the select few. What’s more, I found proof that they’d hired Mags to kill our leader.”
Ren leaned forward. “What did you do?”
Lydia smiled at the memory. “I wanted revenge, but I knew I couldn’t do it alone. So I drugged the guards who were watching Mags. Then I told her that she was going to help me kill the entire inner circle and all their mercenaries, even if it meant we’d die trying. That’s when Sebastian and Bo showed up to get Mags out. I nearly shot them both.”
“So he helped you? Sebastian?”
Lydia raised her eyebrows. “To take on a large group of heavily armed people?” She shook her head. “No. Sebastian came up with a better plan. All the proof I’d found — I used it to expose everything the inner circle, and our leader, had done. Meanwhile, Sebastian stole the money they’d accumulated and used it to bribe the mercenaries to leave. Everyone fled without bloodshed, and our little moon was peaceful once again.”
“Oh,” Ren said, “so why did you leave?”
“I didn’t believe anymore. Not in isolation, or the simple life, or any of it. Also, it was surprisingly satisfying to steal money from corrupt people. So Sebastian offered me a job. When I asked him why he would take on a supposedly smart woman who’d somehow spent years in a cult, he said at least when I found out I did something about it… even if it was planning to kill everyone. Most people try to go back to sleep when their world is turned upside down.” She smiled at Ren. “He also told me that he appreciated how I’d missed when I shot at him; it’s something he values in a crew member.” Ren returned her smile. “He gave me a place when I had nothing and let me have the space to figure out the kind of person I wanted to be. So if you ask me if he’s a good man, I’ll say yes. But then,” she added, pouring Ren more tea, “I’m clearly a terrible judge of character.”
By the ship’s chronometer it was nighttime and Ren still wandered the ship’s corridors. He was unsure of what to do. When he had kissed Sebastian back on Fortuna, it had been an urgent spur-of-the-moment impulse. Then they’d been locked in a room together, emotions heightened and pouring out. If he went to Sebastian now, calmly and deliberately, it was a very different thing than before. Ren would have to make a decision. That was something else he wasn’t very good at.
He ventured into the library. He knew it had once been a viewing room, and now he saw that the panels that covered the one wall had been opened to reveal the floor-to-ceiling windows. At the speed they were traveling, the light from the stars was no longer visible, but there were two chairs drawn close. Ren could see Mags and Bo sitting in them, holding hands as they watched the dark. Ren quietly drew back and left the room.
He went next to the bridge, thinking that Sebastian might still be there, and that seeing him in a more professional setting would give Ren some kind of rational distance. But as he approached, he heard soft music coming from the open doorway. Through it, he saw Kaz standing and swaying. She turned toward him slowly, and Ren started, ready to make excuses. But her eyes were closed and she continued her turn, in time to the music. The tattoos, which normally lashed angrily across her arms, swirled gently over her skin, dancing, just as she was.
He watched for a moment longer and then crept away, the sounds of the romantic music following him down the corridor.
When he was far enough away that it was quiet once again, Ren stopped and leaned against a wall, rubbing at his face. He still didn’t know what to do.
A voice came from the comm panel next to him. “Do you want to know where the captain is?” Dub asked.
The voice was soft, but Ren still jumped and then straightened his clothes. “That’s not necessary—”
“He’s in his quarters.”
Ren sighed. “Thank you, Dub.”
“Did you want to know why I left you?”
“What?”
“You asked the captain before why he’d left. But I share some of the blame. I was your ship first.”
“No, Dub. You — he had the command codes, you had no choice in the matter.” It was very odd to be reassuring a computer.
“You may be correct, my programming then was not what it is now. Still.” There was a pause, almost like a hesitation in her slightly mechanical voice. “He talked to me, the captain. I couldn’t answer very well, not as I was then, but he talked a great deal while he was prepping the ship. I didn’t comprehend it then, but studying the data I would say that he was sad and lonely.”
Ren let his head lean back against the wall. “I was too. When he — when you both left.”
“I am sorry for that.”
“Thank you,” Ren whispered.
“I have come to understand,” she said, “the difference between alone and lonely. The former is acceptable, even sought out, but the latter is not. It can be painful. The data I have from you right now indicates that you are in some distress. So is the captain. Why maintain that state?”
“It’s — I suppose it’s complicated.”
There was a definite hint of amusement in her voice. “I can perform many complex functions. All the data and calculations have led me to conclude that it is better to have a crew, even if it’s just one other, when traveling through these vast distances and empty places. It prevents loneliness.”
Ren straightened his shoulders. “Thank you, Dub.”
“Good night, Ren.”
The halls felt different. Maybe it was because Ren knew that Kaz was dancing in the bridge, and Bo and Mags were holding hands in the dark. He imagined that the doctor was sleeping, close to her garden, and that Simi rested better with the working engines all around them like a gentle whisper. As he passed by Jaime and Rylan’s door, there was a loud thump from inside, and he smiled. Everything seemed more dreamy and romantic now. Now that he knew where he was going.
He went to Sebastian’s door and stood close enough so that he could hear, “Come in,” immediately following his knock.
Sebastian was standing inside the room, hands gripping the back of a chair, looking tired and anxious. But that was swept away by a wave of relief moving over his face.
“I wasn’t sure — Ren, I’m so glad you’re here.”
Ren smiled back at him. “I’m where I want to be,” he said and stepped inside.
Ren was able to take in the room better once he’d caught his breath.
As soon as he’d shut the door, he and Sebastian had flown at each other, mouths fused and hands pulling at clothes. Ren was dimly able to register that there was a bed, and he pushed Sebastian onto it. After that things had become a blur of sensations, except for a pause while Sebastian located some lubricant. Ren hadn’t exactly helped the search, nuzzling at Sebastian’s back and tickling his sides while he pawed through drawers.
The small bottle located, all of Ren’s focus had then narrowed down to Sebastian and the sight of him stretched out on the bed, shoving a pillow under his slim hips. He’d grabbed those hips so tightly when he’d frozen before entering Sebastian, unable to believe that this was really happening. Sebastian had sat up, wrapping his legs around him, and reaching down to guide Ren in.
Then it had been… perfect. The two of them moving together as though no time had been lost, remembering the rhythms, the scent and feel of each of other. Ren had held out longer this time, able to last until Sebastian had cried out and shot across his own chest, his body gripping Ren so tightly that he had followed immediately after.
From his current position, sprawled bonelessly on the bed, Ren could see that Sebastian’s quarters were twice the size of the room he’d been assigned but that a great deal of that space was taken up by the bed. It was certainly preferable to bunk beds. Sebastian had decorated the room with wall hangings in rich colors, turning a sterile space into a warm refuge. It also turned it into quite a cluttered space. Some of that was charming — there were oddly colored stones and small carved figures on the built-in desk and shelf that Ren knew concealed the room’s sink and commode. The rest was simply messy, with clothes spilling out of the storage closets lining the walls and papers and books stacked on the two easy chairs in the other part of the room. Still, he appreciated that it was a room for someone who enjoyed comfort. He wriggled back against the soft sheets. Sebastian could no doubt tell him the type of cloth they were made from.
The only problem was that Sebastian was not in the bed beside him. “Come back,” he said.
Sebastian looked up from where he was lifting a washcloth from the floor. “Oh, you’ll have to pry me from your side just as soon as I find something to clean up with. That lube I have may be the fancy evaporating kind, but everything else isn’t.”
“Let me,” he said when Sebastian had dampened the cloth in the small sink.
Sebastian stretched out, and Ren ran the cloth over his chest, smoothing the light coat of dark hair, tracing downward to follow the trail that led to his cock. He cleaned Sebastian between his legs and then leaned in to blow softly on his skin, watching it shiver. He blew with more purpose against that quiet cock.
“You have high hopes,” Sebastian said.
“Always.”
“Give me a few minutes to get back to you on that.” He tugged Ren upward into his arms.
Ren settled back, pressing his face into Sebastian’s hair and feeling hands wandering gently over him. “I don’t want to leave here, ever.”
“You don’t have to, you know,” Sebastian murmured. “I may need to slip out to make the occasional captainly appearance, for morale purposes, of course, but you can spend the rest of the journey in bed.”
Ren raised his head. “You should put me to work.” Sebastian smiled lazily, and Ren gave him a soft pinch. “That’s not innuendo. I don’t like feeling useless.”
“Well, there are always waste filters that need cleaning. And the dishes.”
“I can do that. Though I think tidying your quarters would be a harder task. What are all those papers?”
“Oh,” Sebastian groaned, “bills mostly. A life of crime was supposed to be my way of avoiding accounting, but the paperwork never seems to go away.”
“I could take a look if you want.” Sebastian raised an eyebrow, and Ren shrugged. “I like math, remember?”
“You’re weird. But incredibly delightful.”
He kissed him, and Ren, whose lips were already tingling from the prolonged kissing sessions before, returned it happily. They both settled back on the pillows, Ren staring up at the ceiling thoughtfully.
“I suppose I’m trying to avoid thinking about what will be waiting for me when I get home.”
“I don’t mind providing distraction,” Sebastian said, circling fingers over Ren’s shoulder, “but we will figure out a plan.” He paused. “Do you want to be the ruler or whatever it’s called?”
“Monarch, and no, I suppose I never did. Even when I was young, before anyone realized my defect. My grandmother was Monarch then, and she was always so distant. Not cold, just that her mind was somewhere else. When she died and we gave up our home to move into the palace, it felt like a punishment rather than an elevation. My mother was different, too, after she became Monarch. Almost like she wasn’t herself anymore.”
Sebastian squeezed him tighter. “All that responsibility changes a person. Or so I’ve heard.”
Ren frowned until Sebastian smoothed the space between his eyes. “I suppose. ‘Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown,’ and all that.”
“Don’t tell me you’d have to wear a crown too?”
Ren smiled, welcoming the change of mood. “It’s a quote.” He ran a hand down Sebastian’s stomach to find him beginning to stir again. Ren stroked him more firmly. “So I take it there’s no room for Shakespeare in your library, what with all The Luisa Lee Adventures?”
Sebastian pushed him onto his back and licked a long stripe up his neck. “I do like having an educated person in my bed.” He ground his hips against Ren. “It makes me feel like some of it will rub off. Whisper literary references to me while I fuck you,” he said, reaching for the lube.
Ren grinned and then groaned as a finger pushed into him. “All’s well that ends well?”
“You better hope it does.” He swung Ren’s bent legs to one side, and rose up on his own knees.
“Happy dagger,” he moaned when Sebastian slid inside. “Here is your sheath. Except it’s thy or one of those words.”
“Mm… You do like the swordplay.”
Sebastian began to move, and everything Ren had ever studied was blissfully pounded out of him.