by Dan Ackerman
“Not like that.” He placed a hand on Arden’s arm, likely meant to soothe him.
It pissed Arden off, that sad look on his face, like Rhys wasn’t the one hurting him. “Tell me this is a shitty joke.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t do this.”
Arden pushed him again, much harder. “Why did you do it if you don’t like me!”
Rhys put up his arms. “It’s not like that. I thought. I thought this wouldn’t go anywhere. I thought it wouldn’t matter if I didn’t love you because I never thought you would love me. I didn’t even think you could.”
Arden shoved him out of the bed. “Get out.”
He stumbled as he went. “Arden—”
“No, get the fuck out! Get the fuck out of my room!” His voice pitched up, nearly a shriek by the time he finished.
Rhys glanced around for his clothes.
Arden scrambled after him. He threw the first thing he could find, not at Rhys, but definitely toward him. He practically chased him out of the room, throwing things and shouting, “I don’t ever want to fucking see you again.”
He threw Rhys’s clothes after him, so he had to scramble around the hall to gather them. “Ever fucking again.”
He wanted to chase him down the hall, he wanted to shove him and scream at him. More than that, he wanted for this to not have happened.
He threw his shoes last.
Rhys flinched as they whizzed by him.
He stormed away, leaving Rhys naked in the hall.
He flipped his coffee table and threw a chair into the bar. He threw the other against the viewing window, where it broke. He threw the pieces around his room, too.
Finally, he couldn’t keep himself from crying any longer. He sat down, curled in on himself, and sobbed. He screamed, too, meaningless things and wordless shouts.
His eyes hurt. His throat hurt, and his chest, and everything else.
Fuck.
He still had cum inside him, sliding down his thighs.
He wanted to fucking die.
He lay on the floor and stared out the window. Dying planet, dying Eden, and something dying inside Arden, too. Hope, or love, or whatever that warmth inside him had been.
Nothing made sense.
He stayed on the floor for hours, until he had to use the bathroom or piss himself. He curled up in bed after that, except he couldn’t stay there. Not when the pillows smelled like Rhys.
He slept on the couch.
Or, he lay on his couch, awake and tired for hours.
Eventually, he got his tablet and watched This Endless Life until he fell asleep.
He woke with drool crusted onto his face.
He used the bathroom, then went back to the couch.
His stomach hurt with hunger, but he ignored it until his guts numbed.
Sometimes he cried, sometimes he stared at his tablet watching episodes he’d seen at least three times already.
He ignored messages. He locked his door, changed the code, and wouldn’t open it for friend or thrall.
He didn’t know how many days it had been before someone forced their way inside. He heard the repeated attempts to guess his code.
Finally, the door opened.
He should have picked a better passcode.
“Go away,” he croaked.
Mace and Cole came in, stepping around the mess he’d made throwing things. “Ardi, you in here?” Mace asked.
Cole flicked on the lights. “Oh, Ardi,” he sighed.
Arden curled up and pulled the blanket over his head. “Go away.”
Mace sat beside him. “What happened?”
Arden didn’t move.
Mace tugged down the blanket. He rubbed Arden’s back. “Are you alright, at least?”
He meant to growl, “Yes,” but instead a weak, “No,” eked past his lips.
“What happened?”
“Rhys ended it.”
“Oh,” Mace sighed. “Oh, Ardi, I’m sorry.”
Cole started to pick things up.
Arden turned and buried himself in Mace’s arms. He thought he’d cried himself out, but he cried as Mace held him.
He went when Cole told him it was time for a bath.
He soaked for a while wishing he couldn’t hear his friends discussing him and the mess he’d made.
He sank under the water so he couldn’t.
Cole helped him wash his hair, which it badly needed, while Mace changed the sheets. The brothers wrapped him up in a robe and made him eat some oatmeal. He went along with it since he’d skipped enough meals to make him weak and lightheaded.
He felt like a child.
He’d acted like a child.
An awful, spoiled brat.
He must have scared Rhys.
That made him cry again.
Mace and Cole stayed for the night.
He’d asked them to stay with him, next to him, which they did without hesitation. He nestled between the two of them, safe between his friends.
He felt like shit. Worse than that, he had to live with the inalienable knowledge that he had acted horribly toward Rhys.
“I fucking threw stuff at him,” he whispered into Cole’s back.
“Did you hit him?” Cole asked.
“That’s not funny!” Mace warned.
Arden started to cry.
“Look what you did!” Mace scolded.
“No, it’s okay,” Arden sniffled. “I’m a piece of shit.”
“No, shh, Arden,” Cole soothed.
He fell asleep again eventually.
The brothers got him up, got him breakfast, and got him dressed. When they left, Cathie stopped by not much later.
She made him take a loop around the Solar Deck with her. They walked arm in arm. She validated all his feelings and reminded him she’d gone through a breakup not too long ago when he said she didn’t know how he felt.
That shut him up pretty well.
After all, she’d been unwittingly sleeping with someone who’d hurt one of her closest friends.
He’d just gotten dumped by someone who didn’t love him and considered Arden incapable of love.
They ended up walking for hours.
He felt better. A little empty, still tired, but better after hours of talking with Cathie.
A few days later, he took slightly too much Twelve in preparation for a Council meeting. Cole had to half-carry him there. He didn’t know what he would do if he saw Rhys, but vomiting seemed a good option.
Except Rhys didn’t come.
They waited for him, but he never arrived.
They held the meeting without him.
And kept holding meetings without him.
Arden fumbled his way through the meetings, not any more confused than usual, but certainly less confident without Rhys by his side.
Arden hung around the bar.
He’d hung around this bar a lot lately, but Mara’s scathing reports cheered him up and getting them from her in person cheered him twice as much.
The drinks helped his mood, too.
“People aren’t going to say anything about you if you’re sitting right there,” Mara pointed out as she placed a drink in front of him.
“What’s this?” He didn’t recognize the pale blue concoction.
“Oggie’s freak of the week. He calls this one High Water.”
He sipped it. “That’s nice.”
Oggie came up behind Mara and put his elbows on her shoulders. “It’s the mulberry syrup. Glad you like it, Eminence.”
Mara glared at Oggie more kindly than she glared at anyone else. She elbowed him in the stomach and walked away.
Oggie rubbed his stomach. He leaned on the bar across from Arden. He confided happily, “If she wasn’t my sister, I’d probably kill her.”
Arden smiled. He sipped the drink. He liked the siblings quite a lot. The pair looked alike in some ways, though they’d never be mistaken for twins. Mara had a lighter complexion and narrower features, as well as t
ighter body language. Oggie had a languidness about him, a luxurious sort of boredom complimented by his tawny skin and golden hair.
Arden liked that they talked to him instead of to the floor. He drummed his fingers. “Can I ask you a personal question?”
“Open book.”
“The two of you, you’re not…” He tried to choose his words carefully. “You’re not scared of peers like everyone else.”
Oggie smiled. “Do you want to know a secret?”
“Always.”
Oggie leaned close. “Our mother is a peer.”
Arden raised his eyebrows.
“Her and Pop had quite the affair, long enough to have both of us. Mam kept us in her rooms, away from the other kids, and never let Pop come around during the day. I guess he got sick of it, and she got sick of him being sick of it. Booted us all out.”
“Oh.”
“That! That was a wake-up call. Going from a nice peer apartment to the Quarters. I guess we’re poorly socialized.”
“You seem pretty well socialized.”
Oggie smiled, a brilliant, handsome smile. “That’s all outside. Inside I’m spare parts. Ask Mara. Oh! Sorry, Eminence, there’s orders waiting.”
Arden waved his hand to indicate Oggie could leave.
Not that he ever waited for Arden’s permission.
Arden sat with his drink, watching the people around him. People stopped to say hello and chat, but most didn’t stay long.
He glanced at the time. He had a breakfast date with Winslow tomorrow, so he couldn’t stay out too late.
Except he would.
He always did. He hated going home these days.
It felt empty.
He hadn’t seen Rhys in months. He’d stopped coming to work. He hadn’t sent Arden a single message, not even to tell him off for acting like a beast or to apologize for breaking his heart.
The thought of sending him a message made Arden sick to his stomach. He’d learned to function without a Chamberlain.
Eden had elected a functional Council this time. Arden had become uneasily thankful for each member, fond of even the ones who argued with him.
Productivity had even climbed a hair in the past few months.
People were happier at work and happy people simply did better work than stressed, exhausted ones.
He had bought Eden a few more years, he hoped.
If he could get peers to stop being so ridiculously wasteful and bellyaching about the shortage of luxe items, he could die happy.
Or he could die right now, still raw and feeling like his insides had gotten scooped out.
“Nother one?” Mara asked.
His teeth had started to feel funny. “Water?”
She served him a glass. “Don’t you have friends?”
“I have a few positions open, actually, if you want to apply.”
“I’d rather spit on you.”
“You can spit on me when I’m dead,” he offered.
She scoffed and walked away.
Several hours and drinks later, he wandered home.
By some stroke of luck, he made it to breakfast with Winslow on time. His uncle told his usual stories as Arden picked apart his food.
“You look tired,” Winslow told him.
“I am tired.”
“You should get some rest.”
Arden rubbed his nose.
He couldn’t sleep.
One night, on an empty stomach he’d taken enough Nine to knock out a person twice his size, which he was told could have killed him. He doubted that, but the doctor had insisted he needed to lay off the formulas for a while.
He’d agreed to when his friends had threatened to start keeping an eye on him.
He’d also agreed to go to practice with Mace and Cole when they’d pulled him into a group hug and refused to let go until he agreed.
All of it was fine. Food, drinks, practice, his friends. Sometimes, things dipped firmly into ‘not fine’ when he couldn’t sleep, or he drank too much, or he spent all night staring at Terra One. But for the most part, he was fine.
He needed to be.
He kept busy.
He had to.
During his third night at the bar in four days, Oggie came up to him. “So.”
“So?”
“Mara slides you little tasty bits of gossip, right? In exchange for something.”
“Something like that.”
“What could a boy like me do to get a deal like that?” Oggie asked.
“You have information?”
“I might. I might have other things, too.” Oggie winked, but it was strangely dead-eyed. Most of the emotions on his face never affected the look of his eyes.
“What kind of information?”
“What’s in it for me?” With each word, he walked his fingers across the bar towards Arden’s arm.
“What do you want?”
“Money.”
“Ah. Well. I have that. What do you have?”
Oggie slid up onto the bar to whisper into Arden’s ear. “Your uncle asked me to do something.”
Arden met his eyes.
There were too many people around to talk right now.
“Come to my room later,” Arden murmured back.
Oggie slid back and tapped Arden’s nose. “See you soon.”
Arden watched him discretely as he whispered something to another man, someone Arden knew as a friend of Morris’s. If Morris even had friends. Maybe accomplice would better describe him.
He waited up late for Oggie to stop by.
As soon as he stepped inside, the thrall surveyed the apartment. “Oh, how nice, Eminence. A little austere…” His eyes flicked over Arden.
Arden hadn’t replaced most of the things he’d broken when he’d had that hissy fit. “What’s the information?”
“Aren’t you even going to invite me to sit?” Oggie asked. “A fellow might think you didn’t like him very much!”
Arden gestured to the couch. “Drink?”
“Never touch the stuff. I see too many people on the wrong end of a bottle.” Oggie settled into the couch as if he belonged there. He crossed his legs.
Arden sat next to him. “So?”
“Your uncle—”
“Just call him Morris.”
“Morris has noticed that you, uh, are currently pet-free.”
Arden grunted.
“And he may have noticed you being super extra nice to me and my sister. Big tips, always talking to us, knows our names…”
“The point, Oggie?”
“You don’t go for foreplay, do you?” Oggie asked.
Arden, to his surprise, blushed. “Get on with it.”
With a serious eye roll, Oggie said, “Morris asked me to seduce you so he could use me to feed you his ideas.”
“I wouldn’t get involved with him.”
“Mmm, but I’m going to because he offered me money.”
“You’re not doing a very good job of seducing me.”
“Morris is a bastard and I don’t think I’d like whatever his vison for Eden is. But if you give me information to give him…” Oggie made a hopping gesture with one finger, then shrugged. “I think it’s smart.”
“It is.”
“So?”
“So fine.”
Oggie shimmied his shoulders and flashed a smile. “Good. You’re going to have to start giving me nice things, then, if you want people to think you’re keeping me.”
Arden rolled his eyes.
“And I could give you nice things, too,” the younger man purred. It really didn’t reach his eyes that time.
“I don’t think we need to do that.”
“No?”
Arden sighed. “We can pretend we do. But I’m…”
“If you say you’re heartbroken, I’ll throw up.”
“You’re sort of rotten.”
Oggie grinned. His green eyes sparkled. “Spare parts.”
“Do you want to st
ay tonight?”
“That’s sort of soon! No, I’ll just tell people you had your way with me.”
“I suppose.”
“Would you like to provide some details?”
Arden didn’t. “Tell them whatever you want.”
“Well, did we go all the way?”
“Not on a first date!” Arden scolded. “I’m a nice boy, you know, from a good family!”
They laughed.
“Blew you behind the bar, got it,” Oggie said. “See you soon, sugar.” He let himself out with a delicate wave that was mostly wiggling his fingers.
Arden stayed on the couch watching his tablet.
He worked up a good sweat at practice the next day.
Xio waved to him from the sidelines.
He waved back.
Cole waggled his eyebrows at him when she looked away.
“Shut up,” Arden grumbled.
Mace hip-checked him. “You two playing or scouting the sidelines?”
Arden gave him a push.
In the showers, the brothers teased Arden a little more, but in a kind way. Arden thought they might be happy for him.
After all, he’d felt ecstatic when Mace and Lourdes had started going out officially and he bubbled with delight whenever he saw them in public together. He adored them together. Sometimes, Lourdes came to their group lunches and Arden couldn’t help teasing Mace extra then. Mace would blush and tell him to cut it out, but he would also grin.
He strolled through the shops after practice to get an idea of what kind of gifts he should get Oggie. Rhys had never wanted things like that, but Arden had wanted to give him things. Maybe this would be fun. He held off on buying anything until he knew Oggie better. Nothing worse than giving someone something they didn’t want, that awkward sinking feeling when they opened it and their face changed.
He stayed in that night, trying to think of which lies would be most beneficial to send his uncle’s way.
He couldn’t think of much, mostly because he didn’t know Morris’s plan. He’d have to wait and see.
He wished his mother had coded more patience into his genes.
Then again, he didn’t know if that was possible. He’d never investigated the process used to make designer children. He didn’t like hearing about it, any more than most people liked hearing about their parents making them.
He stayed up late reading the most recent reports about Terra One. Bio scans and satellite images. People still lived down there, scavenging, huddled together in a few small groups. Barely clinging on to life.