by Kelly Jensen
“We can still look into new follicle patches for your scalp if—”
“It’s fine.” Gael couldn’t define the loss, except to say that he felt less like himself. No one had ever asked him to cut his hair, had made him do anything with it. It had been his and he missed it, but not enough to accumulate any more expenses.
Bram gestured toward his spoon. “I know it probably tastes like crap, but you should eat it. You need the nutrients.”
“Green nutrients?”
“All the damn nutrients.” Bram’s brow got all line-y again. “You do know you almost died, right?”
“So everyone keeps telling me.”
“If you’d been . . .” He breathed in carefully. Bram did that a lot when looking for the right words. “They say you were malnourished. If it’d been me caught out in the storm, I’d have lost the skin across my back. Maybe caught an infection my immune system couldn’t keep up with while I waited for them to grow me some new skin. You? All your organs decided to run a competition to see which one could pack in the fastest. Your whole system was in shock.”
Gael had heard several versions of this from the medical staff. Life on Zhemosen hadn’t been easy. He’d always known that he wasn’t particularly robust, but he’d managed to get by. He had always managed to get by. But he let Bram wind himself up and down. He obviously needed to rant. Get something out of his system. He wouldn’t be wasting words otherwise.
“So you need to eat whatever they put in front of you. Got that? I don’t care if it tastes like hen feet. Alkirak is . . .” Bram slumped into the chair and pushed his hands through his hair. It was longer than Gael’s, now, and it suited him.
Gael picked up his spoon and waved it at Bram. “Alkirak is . . .?” He scooped up another mound of disgusting green stuff and put it in his mouth.
Bram watched him eat for a half a minute before continuing. “Alkirak is unforgiving.” He glanced down at his hands, then back up. “But we can talk about that another time.”
“About Alkirak?”
Bram ducked his chin and put his hands on the arms of the chair as though preparing to stand up. “I should let you get some rest.”
“I do nothing but rest, Bram. And eat crap. Can we talk about the thing you want to talk about?” The subject he’d been waiting for Bram to open, the claim he was going to have to lay for himself: their future.
“We don’t—”
“I want to. I realize I’m not going anywhere for a little while, and by the time I’m able to walk more than two meters without collapsing, I’ll probably be in debt to this clinic for the rest of my life. But it’s not as if I’ve been lying here imagining I’ll be in bed forever, that whatever happens next will take care of itself.” Not being in pain sort of sucked. He had way too much time to think.
Bram had given him a copy of the warrant records to listen to. The beginning had been awful, listening to the list of crimes against his former name. The resolution of the murder charge had landed with a feeling he couldn’t sort out. Relief didn’t quite cover it, neither did disbelief. Gael blamed the medicine dripping into his system for his confusion until he’d listened to the record fifteen times and had heard the same conclusions over and over. He was free, and whether Rufus had been the one to pull the trigger or not, Gael drew satisfaction from the idea he’d been the one to pay for the crime. It felt like justice for his brother, and all the other people who’d died at Rufus’s hands.
The part that tripped him up was the payment receipt. How much it had cost Bram to deal with the three warrants for stolen property: Aavi, the credit chit she’d used to stowaway, and the gun he’d sold to Price. The total made his eyes water.
Bram had been solicitous during his recovery. Small touches, sweet gestures. But Gael knew the warrants, though closed, remained between them. They were a debt and an obligation, and what happened next required so much more thought than he felt able to give. But he had to try, for himself, for Aavi, and for Bram.
“I made Aavi a promise, and I intend to keep it,” Gael said. She reminded him of it every time she visited. You and me, Gael. It’s always going to be you and me. “I don’t know how, but I will.”
“You don’t need to worry about paying for the treatment.”
“You can’t—”
“I didn’t. Medical insurance was part of your contract. Like I said, Alkirak is unforgiving.”
Gael closed his mouth. Borrowed a little brood time from Bram. “Then I only need enough to pay you back for the warrant fees.” And . . . “And then . . .”
“If you decide to go, I’ll make sure she can go with you.”
“If I decide?”
Bram lifted his chin. “Isn’t that what we need to talk about?”
Bram was going to make him say it.
Gael pushed his plate away and sank down into the pillows. Thought about rolling over. In the chair beside the bed, Bram made the equivalent gestures, leaning back and pushing his legs out. Letting his head rest against the wall.
Gael snuck a quick look at him, and their eyes met and parted as each glanced away.
“It sounds . . .” Gael sucked in a breath. “I’m just going to put this out there. It sounds like you don’t want me to go.”
“I don’t. But I figured you might want to.”
“I don’t.” So why was this so awkward? Why weren’t they melting into each other’s arms, his inability to melt anywhere notwithstanding?
Bram looked up. Met his gaze again. “Your nightmares, they’re not all about your brother, are they? They’re about more. Something you couldn’t or didn’t do.”
Gael closed his eyes. This. This was what they had to deal with. Orfeo’s accusation and the fact Julius Trass had thrown him to the rats. “The job I couldn’t do,” he murmured. Opening his eyes, he stared at the blanket across his lap. “I had no idea why they wanted that man dead. Aavi’s owner. But I think I knew the minute I pulled that damn rifle out of the bag that I wouldn’t be able to do it. Setting it up didn’t feel real and . . .” He glanced at Bram, who was nodding. “What?”
“I didn’t think you’d killed him.”
“Why?”
“I tried to imagine it, maybe a hundred times. I never could.”
“Burning sun.” Why was he embarrassed by this? “Then why ask?”
Bram had the decency to look chastened. “Because I needed to hear you say it.”
“I told you I never killed anyone.”
“That was before I knew everything.”
“What do you mean?”
“I wondered if maybe you saw a chance to—” Bram’s cheeks colored “—to replace Loic. To avenge him. Make Rufus pay for killing him.”
Gael thought about getting angry, but anger took way too much energy . . . and hadn’t he all but rejoiced in Rufus’s fate for just that reason? He didn’t know how Price had managed it, only that it would have been Price’s doing. He hoped his old friend had made a good deal. The undercity was not a kind place.
Gael lifted his chin. “You took a lot on faith bringing me out here,” he said quietly.
“I did.”
“Don’t know if I’ll ever understand why.”
“I already told you that. It was your HV. Whatever prompted you to record it, I could see you needed something.”
“I needed you, Bram.”
Bram seemed about as startled as Gael felt. It was true, though. He’d needed exactly this man and none other.
Bram swallowed and it looked painful. “I wish I could show you a proper sun.”
“You did. First day I got here, even though you already figured I was some sort of con artist.”
He’d seen the sun over Zhemosen, finally, the day the Lennox moved out of the Bhotan system. Before then, he’d been unable to find a view port facing the right way. It wasn’t the same as seeing it from the ground on Alkirak. Knowing Alkirak’s was overhead, nourishing, if a bit too vigorously. Making it possible for them to be here. To thrive. B
ut while the sun over Alkirak was tangible, someone brighter sat beside him. Closer and more necessary. Bram nourished him every day. Encouraged him to grow stronger. To live.
Gael extended a hand, reaching for Bram. Bram lifted his hand and allowed his fingers to be caught and laced.
“I want to stay.” Gael’s throat threatened to close. “I love you, and I want to stay here with you and with Aavi.”
Bram tipped his head toward their joined hands, cheeks flushing.
“This is where you tell me you want me to stay.”
Bram shook his head, still hiding his face.
“Bram, look at me.”
He peeked up.
“You want me to stay, right?”
Bram laughed, the sound sudden. His cheeks reddened, and he scrubbed at his eyes before standing up. Then he got all solemn. “I’m sorry I had to ask about the warrant—”
“It’s okay.”
“I’m sorry about—”
“Bram, you saved my life.”
Bram inhaled enough air to make his chest expand. “I love you, Gael. And I want you to stay.”
Sunshine, clear and bright. This man standing next to him, squeezing his fingers not-quite painfully, leaning in with the most tender expression a man could make. Gael lifted his chin, and it was like their first kiss—sweet and full of promise. Then Bram was holding him and that was even better. Being held by Bram was everything. Home might be a place for some, but Gael had his right here, wrapped all around him and telling him over and over how much he was loved.
Six Months Later
Bram didn’t know where the tradition of not seeing his betrothed the night before a wedding originated. He half suspected Aavi had made it up, along with the ritual of kissing snakes, stepping on wrapped glassware, stitching their wrists together, and eating only green things for a period of six weeks while abstaining from “sexual relations.” So not happening.
He’d agreed to the thirty hours, and it was about twenty-nine hours too long. And this jacket could get cut down for tunics the minute they were done with it. None of the fastenings would sit straight. They’d be a nightmare if he had to put an environmental suit on.
“Oh stop fidgeting. It’s bad enough you’re making me stand up here on the edge of the crevasse in a rebreather.” Maia tugged Bram’s fingers away from the shiny buttons.
“This jacket is completely impractical.”
“Honey, weddings are impractical. You could have just done your bit in front of a digital JP, but no, you had to drag us all up onto the plateau.”
“You told me you’d be delighted when I asked you to officiate.” As the new mayor, she was qualified to preside over most everything that took place on Alkirak.
“‘Delighted’? I’m fairly sure that word isn’t in my vocabulary.”
“Fairly sure it is.”
“And I figured you’d be doing it at the saloon.”
Bram smiled. He’d figured that too. Or maybe out at the farm. Somewhere that felt like home for both him and Gael.
“Gah, that sappy smile is nearly as bad as the fidgeting.” Maia checked her Band. “Where’s Gael? Dusting sun is going to pop up and roast us where we stand if he doesn’t hurry.”
As if in answer, the low whine of a rover drifted up from the road as the vehicle itself pushed around the last bend, headlamps searching the predawn light. Bram couldn’t see through the tinted viewports, but no one other than Gael and Aavi were due at the top of the crevasse right before sunrise. They’d booked the saloon for the reception, but this moment? It could only take place here.
He adjusted his mask, then drew in a deep breath and held it, almost afraid to let it out again. Maia took his hand. Bram turned his attention from the approaching rover to her and smiled. “It’s a mite too late to ask me to run away with you.”
She scoffed. “You’re not my type. I just wanted to tell you to remember this day.”
“I don’t think I’ll forget it in a hurry.”
“We all think that, Abraham. We schedule these moments, and then they pass too quickly and we forget the details. It’s not such a bad thing. Happy memories will pile on top, but if there was one moment I could live all over again, it would be the day I married Hersha.”
Bram tugged her into a brief, gentle hug. The sort they could both deny if necessary. To his surprise, she wrapped her arms around his ribs and attempted to squeeze all the breath out of his lungs. He squeezed back.
When she stepped away, she was back to herself. General busybody and . . . “You’re a good friend, Maia.”
She smiled behind her mask. “Damn straight.”
Gael’s rover finally tipped out onto the plateau. Bram probably didn’t hold his breath until the canopy opened, but it felt as though he had. His lungs ached by the time Gael was helping Aavi out of the passenger seat.
She was now their daughter, legally and officially. Bram had discovered another deposit of crystal about two kilometers past the first. He’d considered mining it himself for all of minute before adding it to the claim he’d sold to Muedini to cover the warrant and adoption fees. Gael had objected to Bram paying for everything, but the idea of adopting Aavi, making her a part of their family in an official capacity, quieted his complaints—that and a promise he could contribute to the adoption fees. Bram didn’t want Gael’s credits, but he allowed the monthly deposits from the small income Gael received for making clothing and linens for colonists.
One day they’d spend the money on something nice. Probably something for Aavi.
Gael settled their giggling daughter on her feet and reached to adjust her rebreather.
Bram twitched his rebreather down a little. “How am I going to kiss him when we’re both wearing these ridiculous masks?”
Maia cackled. “Should’ve thought of that sooner!”
Then Gael stood in front of him, dressed in a matching jacket. He’d ordered the fabric the day after Bram asked him to extend the term of their contract to “forever.”
There was a moment to inspire poetry—or maybe not. Gael’s recovery had been slow. He’d suffered a couple of setbacks at the clinic, which had kept him there for twelve long weeks. Even then they hadn’t wanted to let him go until he’d promised to keep up with his physical therapy at home. Gael being Gael, he had worked through every exercise as though failure would result in harm to those he loved. Bram had cautioned him constantly to take things more slowly. Told him he had time, told him he had forever . . . and then there he had been, down on one knee like someone out of one of those dramas Gael liked to watch on the HV, promising Gael that forever and asking for it in return.
Now they were here, wearing matching suits.
Gael looked beautiful in his.
Six months had seen the return of the nascent curls, enough to cover Gael’s scalp. He was still too thin. The official word was he’d always be slender and as he aged, he might encounter problems stemming from the neglect of his childhood. But for now he was healthy and should be for a long while. They’d agreed to let tomorrow take care of tomorrow. Bram reluctantly, but more optimistically as he watched Gael recover with the same determination that must have kept him alive on Zhemosen. The grit that had helped him care for Loic and Aavi, and had carried Gael across the galaxy to make a home with Bram.
Heart spinning in place, Bram moved forward to take his beloved’s hands and bent forward to set his forehead against Gael’s. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
“Sun’s about to happen, people,” Maia said.
Stepping back, Bram opened his arms to receive Aavi—resplendent in her matching blue dress. She’d been the one to tell him the significance of the color.
“It’s like the sky.”
“But the sky on Alkirak is yellow.” Mostly.
“He always thought the sky was supposed to be blue.”
Gael and his notions. Suns and skies and stars. He’d be wanting Bram to grow trees, next. Pointy ones and round ones.
Bram would do it, of course.
Aavi knocked her mask gently against his and grinned.
Time wavered and rippled after that. With Gael’s hand in his, Bram listened as Maia recited official words that seemed to have sprung from the same legend as blue skies and yellow suns. He gripped Gael’s hand hard, probably damn near breaking his delicate bones. Behind Gael, the pale Alkirak sun nudged apart the blue and purple night, spreading its amber glow across the horizon.
Maia nodded at him to speak, and Bram died several times while gathering enough breath to share the poem he’d written and rewritten:
“I never considered color before you,
Whether gray, amber, purple, or blue.
Dust was dust and sky was sky,
I never thought to question why.
Now here you are, with all you bring,
Color and brightness, and a meaning to every thing.
I didn’t really see the world before you came,
Now all of it sings an echo of your name.”
Gael made a hiccupping sound, his mouth opening and closing. Behind his mask, he blinked and tears rolled down his cheeks to collect along the bottom edge. “You wrote that for me?”
“There’s more, but I was going to save it for later.”
“It’s beautiful.”
Bram’s cheeks heated, and he adjusted his mask. “You’re beautiful.”
“And you’re my sun. I tried to write something else, but that’s what I kept coming back to. You heal me, nourish me, help me grow.”
Hearts couldn’t spontaneously expand, but Bram’s suddenly filled the confines of his chest. “I like being your sun.”
He pulled his mask away at the same time as Gael shifted his. Bram bent to kiss his love, his spouse, deciding that being breathless for a spell would only make the moment more memorable. His head spun and his big puffy heart kicked, and the scent of Alkirak—dirt and iron—would forever take him back to this moment, this kiss, as would the heat of the rising sun and the changing colors of the dawn sky. Gael’s breath against his cheek, his lips. The promise of this, every day for the rest of his life.