by Dan Ackerman
Rhys rolled on to the bed beside him so they lay shoulder to shoulder. He nudged Arden. “I kind of had fun today.”
“And normally you have…more or less fun than this?”
Rhys put an arm around him and pulled him over. He kissed his temple. “I really do like you, Arden.”
“But just sometimes,” Arden guessed.
“A little bit more than that.”
“You, uh. You wanna…?”
Rhys kissed him. “Might as well.”
“Such enthusiasm!”
Rhys kissed his neck. “Get undressed.”
Arden kissed him hard, then shed his clothes and slid up against Rhys. He pressed as close to Rhys as he could, until they couldn’t get any closer, one flushed creature moving together, breathing together. A few times it felt like they even thought together, anticipating what the other would want without a sound.
He held onto Rhys long after they’d finished, his cheek against Rhys’s warmed chest. He could hear his heart, a beautiful rhythm beneath a beautiful shell of bone and flesh and skin. He kissed his ribs.
Rhys played with Arden’s hair.
He’d have to redo it.
“You didn’t laugh,” Rhys pointed out.
“It wasn’t funny.”
“Does that mean it was bad?”
“No,” Arden murmured.
“You okay?”
“Think so.”
Rhys shifted to get a better look at Arden. “You sure?”
“Uh. Just.” He swallowed. “I don’t know.”
“Alright.” Rhys adjusted them so he spooned Arden. He kissed the back of his head.
It helped.
He dozed off, then woke with a start in the late evening. He pushed Rhys. “Hey!”
“Uh!” Rhys woke with a start.
“I’m supposed to be at the thing, the…the big…!”
Wide-eyed, Rhys said, “Oh, the…! Shit, the party.”
Arden clawed his way out from under the sheets and hurried towards his clothes. Nearly an hour ago, all the peers had gathered in the Big Room, the same as they did for any formal occasion, for the Giving Day festivities. A lush, themed party where people came together to celebrate, but really to show off their most luxe gifts.
He seized the clothes he’d worn earlier but realized they wouldn’t do.
Rhys got out of bed, pulled Arden into his arms, and kissed his shoulder. “Go wash up. I’ll find you something to wear.”
“Come with me.”
“I don’t belong there.”
Arden squeezed him. One night that he’d attended without a partner for nearly every year he’d been alive, but the idea of going alone tonight made him want to cry.
Rhys squeezed him back. “Wash up.”
Arden washed up, but it didn’t make him feel any better. He climbed into the fancy clothes Rhys handed to him. He wanted to beg Rhys to come with him.
“I’ll see you when you get back,” Rhys assured, which was not the same as offering to come along, but it was the next best thing.
Arden kissed him, shoved his shoes on, and practically ran to the Big Room. People milled around, drinks in hand, and turned towards the door when he entered. He must have been the only peer not in the room, save for the homebound and antisocial ones. He hesitated, then made his way to the podium set up for him.
He’d given a dozen of these speeches, silly things written by Frakes months ahead of time.
He stepped up to the mic. “Hi! Sorry for the wait, everybody. I got a little caught up.”
The crowd rustled.
A nervous chuckled escaped him. He glanced at the speech Frakes had written for him. Unity, peace, blah, blah. He rubbed his nose. “We are…” He took a breath and closed the document with the speech. “We are glad to be here and see you. We all have a new agenda, we’re sure you’ve noticed. And we’ve wasted your time enough tonight so we…I. I just want to say, please, bear with me for a while more. I’m doing my best and I need you to do your best, too. Be kind, not just to the people in this room, but to the ones who don’t have the same lovely things as you and I. Thank you.”
The crowd didn’t make a sound.
A thrall stood frozen near the podium.
Arden stepped down, took a drink from their tray, and raised it. “Cheers!”
A few people near him raised their drinks and returned his salute.
He took a big swig of his drink and delved into the crowd to find a friend. He found, unfortunately, one of his cousins. He engaged in the necessary niceties, then took off as soon as he could.
After that, he found Zira and Alexander, who seemed sort of warm toward each other that night. Lexira carried a stuffed toy in her arms and gazed at it lovingly while the adults around her talked. Arden insisted on getting them drinks, as well as a sweet, non-alcoholic one for Lexira.
Cole wandered their way, which brought Wei and Mia by, too. Arden got them all drinks, too, and more for himself.
By the time he encountered Cathie, he was drunk.
He ran into Winslow sitting with a group of his friends and invited himself to sit at their table. He thanked Winslow at least three times for the gift he’d sent over.
Quietly, Winslow suggested that Arden might want to drink some water.
Arden agreed but never managed to make his way towards any drink not containing alcohol.
He ended up, some hours later, on the dancefloor with Wei Han, not sure entirely how he’d gotten from Winslow’s table to Wei’s arms.
Cole and Mia danced together a few feet away and both seemed deeply amused by Arden and Wei dancing together.
Arden asked, “Did I ever give you a handy in the stairwell?”
Wei frowned.
Cole’s mouth popped open. “Arden!”
“What! They’re identical.”
Cole scowled. “Still, it’s pretty rude!”
Arden blew a raspberry, peeled away from Wei, and slung an arm around Cole. “You know I love you, right?”
“I love you, too. Have you had any water?”
Arden shrugged. He honestly didn’t know.
Cole navigated him to a table and brought him water.
“Did I hurt his feelings?”
“I mean, I don’t think so, but honestly, would you want someone asking you that?”
“Fucking, I don’t care, I’m…Who cares? It was like, one handjob a million years ago. Listen, Mia, are they…Uh. I don’t think Mia likes me very much. They keep giving me this look.”
“Before or after you asked Wei if you jerked him off in the stairway?”
Arden rolled his eyes. He drank his water, even though he didn’t think it would do much. He rubbed his eyes, desperately longing for bed now that he’d sat down for a few minutes.
He stood and, without goodbyes, walked out.
He found his way home on his own.
He heard a movie playing and followed the sounds to find Rhys soaking in the bath watching the screen above the tub.
Rhys looked up. “I thought you’d be out longer.”
“Would it ruin your bath if I threw up?”
Rhys sat up. “Do you need to throw up?”
“No, I can wait, I just…if I make myself barf now, I’ll feel better in the morning. Actually…you know what? There’s a bathroom off the guestroom. I’ll be right back.”
Rhys started to stand.
“Nononono, stay, I’ll right…be right back.” He wandered off and returned when he had emptied his stomach.
He sat on the bathmat beside the tub. “How was your night?”
“Fine. Are you okay?”
“Mmm.” Arden couldn’t feel his teeth. He put his chin on the edge of the tub. “What’d you do?”
“Not much.”
“Hm. You like baths?”
Rhys sloshed a bit of water around. “Apparently I do.”
“D’ya mean?”
“There’s no baths in the Quarters.”
“Oh.”
That made sense, as best as Arden’s fuzzy mind could figure. “Where do you live?”
“Quarter Two, you knew that.”
“Uh. No, I mean, what’s it like? Your apartment?”
“Oh. Small. Sometimes…uh, somewhere between crowded and cozy. But it’s home.”
“Who’s making it crowded?”
“Well, no one lives alone in the Quarters. We can’t afford it.”
“Oh. Well. You could—”
Abruptly, Rhys continued, “But it’s nice to have company all the time. You know. I never have to be alone if I don’t want to be. And if I need to breathe, I can always go for a walk. Have you ever been down below deck fourteen?”
Deck fourteen marked the end of the inhabited part of the space station.
“You aren’t supposed to go down there.”
Rhys smiled. “Are you going to send me to lock up?”
“It’s not safe. What if you got hurt? No one would know where you were.”
“Oh, one of the maintenance crews would find me eventually.”
“Or find your body,” Arden warned severely.
Rhys put his hand over Arden’s. “It’s fine. You want to come in here?”
“Mhm.”
Arden struggled out of his clothes and splashed gracelessly into the bath. It was big enough for two, or even three, depending on how close people got. He put his head on Rhys’s chest, the water lapping at the side of his mouth and nose.
The water stayed hot for ages thanks to the heated tub. They could have stayed in all night, though Mother had always teased Arden that he’d boil if he stayed in too long. He’d believed her until the age of eight.
“Both my parents are dead.” A bit of soap foam splashed into his mouth as he spoke.
“Um. I know.”
“Yours?”
“Oh. No. Not dead. Very much alive in Quarter Five.”
“You don’t sound happy about it.”
He ran his fingers over Arden’s side. “I think my parents were a little different than yours.”
“Different how?”
“Like I have fourteen siblings different. Like one of my aunties named me when my parents didn’t. After seven they were tired, after ten exhausted…A few days of maternity leave, and we went off to the care of those too old to work.”
Arden had known, in a vague way, how childcare worked in the Quarters. He knew three days was standard leave, up to seven for a difficult birth. He knew thralls reproduced like rabbits to get their debt split as many ways as they could. He knew it in terms of numbers, not in terms of people. “I’m sorry.”
“You were probably what, seven, when I was born?”
“Six.”
“Things weren’t your fault. Yet.”
Arden whined.
Rhys gave his flank a sharp pat. “Don’t. It’s my turn to be sad.”
“Are you sad?”
“No.”
“Don’t be sad.”
“Are you ready for bed?” Rhys asked.
Arden closed his eyes and considered the proposition. “I might throw up.”
“You already threw up.”
“Mmm. That was on purpose. This time won’t be.” Arden didn’t move. He hoped this wave of nausea would pass if he stayed still.
It worked.
He climbed out of the tub, made sure to brush his teeth, then climbed under the sheets.
Rhys joined him not much later. He smelled like Arden’s soap and shampoo. He put an arm around Arden and said, “There’s a bowl next to you if you change your mind about throwing up.”
“I’m sorry you had a shitty childhood.”
“Go to sleep.”
Arden tried to sleep, alternating between mildly queasy and deeply tired.
He drifted off at some point and woke late in the morning.
A shot of Three waited for him on his bedside table.
He took the shot, checked around for Rhys, and found a message teasing him for sleeping in and reminding him that some people had work to do. He smiled at the note and gave himself the day to recover.
Rhys stopped by later to see how he was, which Arden really liked.
Arden settled himself into a chair in the back of the room. It had taken a long time for Mara’s case against Paget to come to court. Half a dozen times the courts had dismissed and she had needed to refile, which was normally how thrall cases against peers went.
Each time Mara had refiled her case against Paget, she’d needed to get a certain number of signatures, with at least one from a member of the Council.
Multiple members had signed her petition each time she’d brought it before them.
Arden had signed it, too, for what it was worth.
Today a court had finally allowed her to bring her case before them. It was her last chance, honestly, because she’d filed with all the other courts on Eden and couldn’t file in the same court twice.
The courts had immediately accepted Paget’s charges against Mara, of course. They’d postponed their judgment on that case, though, so they could have one case to settle both sets of charges.
Arden waved to Mara when she came in.
She looked just as tired and pissed off as always, which he liked about her. She waved back begrudgingly.
Paget entered the courtroom looking every ounce the pampered darling of her family. She had bought her outfit within the last week or so because Arden had noticed it on display in one of the remaining Goshawk storefronts recently.
Arden scanned the gathered thralls for Rhys. He wouldn’t miss the case for anything but had declined Arden’s invitation to sit together.
Specifically, he’d said, “I don’t want to be around a bunch of peers for this.”
Arden didn’t blame him.
Shay, Xio, and Istis approached him. “Are these seats taken?” Shay asked quietly.
A sign at the end of the row marked these seats as reserved, so Arden had five or six empty seats on either side. He couldn’t bear the idea of being packed with other people like that. A peer would never dare to ask for permission to sit in a reserved area unless they knew Arden counted them as a friend.
Shay looked a little uncertain that Arden would let her in.
He pushed aside the stand for the cordage barrier with his foot. “Come on in.”
The trio settled into their seats as the last handful of spectators trickled into the courtroom.
Arden had watched a lot of cases. His mother had always kept up with the courts and she’d brought him along. The rooms never got this full unless something really juicy had happened.
The Hmong divorce case a few years ago had lasted four sessions and had played out like an old teledrama.
This one felt a little grittier.
He hadn’t yet decided if he would intervene on the results. He could, of course, but since his Giving Day speech, he’d been on delicate ground socially. Some people had liked it, and Rhys reported that the thralls had thought it very funny. A certain demographic had hated it, though. A few people, mostly older ones who’d known his mother, had deemed it necessary to tell him how much they’d hated it, either through a message or to his face.
“Have you followed the case closely, Your Eminence?” Shay asked.
“Oh, I don’t follow anything closely, but I’m interested to see how it plays out. Have you met Mara?”
“Only to sign her petitions to file,” Shay confided.
“You’d probably like her.” He spotted Rhys among the workers and waved.
Rhys met his eye but didn’t wave back.
Probably too crowded. They’d packed in shoulder to shoulder over there.
Arden listened with half an ear to the court proceedings. He knew this story already, having gotten both versions first-hand from both parties.
Ridea, the peer who’d spoken to Mara in the first place, and the thralls who’d worked with Mara that night came to speak on Mara’s behalf. Even her supervisor went on record to say she had a temp
er but always kept it in check during business hours.
The friends of Paget who’d been there spoke endlessly of Paget’s good character and distaste for low-class activities. They spoke as if brawls represented a common thrall activity, which played into stereotypes but didn’t line up with crime reports.
Either the Quarters had a generally peaceful atmosphere or thralls didn’t report crimes. Both seemed equally likely.
The whole case quickly became little more than one woman’s word against the other’s.
“Get to the bar recordings!” Arden called eventually, bored of listening to various testimonies on personal character and eye-witness accounts from people who’d readily admitted to drinking on the night in question.
As a rule, any place thralls worked unattended had cameras.
People murmured.
Quite a few turned to shoot him a dirty look until they realized who had called out.
The court took a recess to find the footage.
Arden slipped through the peers and found Rhys in the throng of workers. He tapped him on the shoulder.
Rhys turned to face him.
The people around him shrunk back when they saw Arden.
“I think we have time for a quick lunch if you want,” Arden offered.
Rhys looked at the people near him, his unease plain.
“Uh. No, I, you already had plans?” Arden asked.
“Not plans as such, but…” Rhys glanced again at the people with him.
Arden looked at them, too. “You, uh. You all could come, too. If you wanted.” He looked at Rhys. “If you want.”
Rhys’s friends looked deeply uncomfortable, even with their eyes lowered and their hands folded.
“That’s, uh. Thank you, Your Eminence, that’s kind of you, but…” Rhys said.
“We ate at home, Your Eminence,” one of the workers supplied, clearly lying.
“I, alright, well. See you later,” Arden said.
He left before the mix of emotions inside him could get the better of him. Discomfort, embarrassment, anger all rising from his guts to his throat.
Shay called to him as he stalked down a hall, no longer interested in the case. “Your Eminence! Lunch?”
He lunched with her, Xio, and Istis out of something between obligation and guilt. He couldn’t hold up his end of the conversation for shit.