by CB Conwy
"I was so scared." Those were the only words he could get out, his voice nothing but a whisper this time.
The segment ended with him being helped into the black van, and then it changed to a female newsreader, looking serious. He couldn't hear what she was saying, though. A strange buzz was filling his head.
I'm so sorry. There was shame and anger and compassion in Pietr's mind. I'm so fucking sorry.
"I thought I was going to die. That's what I was thinking outside the van. That this was the last moment of my life."
Pietr's arms were around him, and he was being helped down on the sofa. He laughed, the sound odd.
"I seem to spend more time in shock than out of it." He blinked, looking around. Robbie was talking to him, and Aki was looking worried in the background. "This is a really familiar scenario. Me freaking out while you're trying to talk me out of it."
"We won't let you slide, Matt." He hadn't heard Aki this confident since the first days when the Himiko had been Matt's mentor.
"No? Promise?"
"We promise." Aki's voice was firm. "Robbie's going to do his magic, Pietr is going to catch you, and I'm going to yell at you until you stop freaking out."
Matt laughed again, the sound loud to himself. "It's a good thing there's three of you."
"Yes, we can take shifts. Speaking of which, Matt, let Pietr in again."
Matt shook his head to clear it. He hadn't even noticed that he was blocking his mate, and he didn't mean to. He wanted Pietr, needed his mate so badly.
About time! I really need to get better at kicking your ass. The feelings behind Pietr's acerbic comment were fear and desperation, Matt's attempt at shutting him out having renewed Pietr's fear of losing Matt.
Matt let himself be filled up with his mate, the empty place in his mind suddenly feeling all right again.
You really do. He let himself be held. I'm okay. I just need to breathe for a moment.
Is he telling the truth, Robbie? It was Aki asking Robbie.
Yes. He's really got an uncanny ability to shield, though... Matt could hear Robbie start thinking about that, the physician muttering about the pros and cons of that skill.
Jesus, Aki, take your geek with you, will you?
Matt couldn't help snorting as he heard Pietr's words. He opened his eyes and saw the familiar look of exasperation spreading across the doctor's face.
"When Pietr's back to offending people, then his mate must be okay. Do you agree, Matt?"
"Yeah. Sorry about that. It was just tough seeing that again."
"Yes, I can imagine." Robbie's expression was sympathetic for a moment. Then he got all businesslike.
"The video isn't getting much traffic yet. I only found it because, well, a friend of mine looks for this stuff."
Matt had a clear feeling that there was a story here, but he didn't ask. He might be getting the hang of Himiko good manners, after all.
"I think the commentary might be causing trouble," Robbie continued.
"I didn't hear it." Matt looked at the surprised faces around him. "I only saw the images."
"Okay. Well, the last phrase about 'sentencing yet another human being to death' is one likely to be widely quoted. There were already quite a few comments on YouTube when I found it, and it hasn't been there for long." Robbie looked a little sick. "I'm so sorry for this, Matt. Both for it happening in the first place and for this."
"I think it's Jones' doing." Matt was sure of it.
"Jones? Your ex?" Aki looked skeptically at him.
"Yes. He had been doing a major campaign to have me set free before I came to see him; he could easily do something like this. He put the campaign together with Benjamin, by the way, and Benj was there when the recruiters took me. Benjamin would know if anybody had a cell phone filming the lecture and how to get the security videos. It fits."
"But why would Jones want to show people this? He doesn't exactly sound like a fan of yours anymore. Why would he try to make people feel sorry for you?" Aki wasn't convinced.
"But that's the point exactly. Were any of those comments actually sympathetic toward me?" He looked from Aki to Robbie. Neither of them met his eyes. "They weren't, were they? They were probably somewhere on the scale between disgust with the Himika and outright rebellion against you, am I right?"
"Yes. You're right." This time, Robbie looked straight at him, eyes unwavering.
We just have to wait and see. There isn't much we can do about it anyway. Pietr's words were directed both at Matt and at the others.
"I have a bad feeling about this." Aki looked serious. "But you're right, there's not much to do about it. We'll just have to see how it goes."
***
They did see. The video spread, slowly but inevitably, across the social media. In the beginning, the comments were almost secretive, carefully disguised as something someone else had said. Since the rebellion in the Midwest right after the Himika arrived on Earth, there had been laws against encouraging hostility between the races -- laws that were taken extremely seriously by the authorities. Nobody wanted a repeat of what had basically been the slaughter of the mutinous humans.
Matt sometimes thought that this censorship was where the real problem lay. If only people had been able to openly discuss the matter of sharing their planet with another race, much of the dissatisfaction could have been prevented. Ignorance was a dangerous thing.
Over the next couple of weeks, the comments became less restrained. They were still all anonymous, of course, but they were there. It seemed that people no longer feared retribution.
***
Matt came home from his run one day to find Robbie and Aki there again, sitting with Pietr around the computer. They looked worried.
"What's up?" Matt spoke out loud; with all four of them around, it was easier than communicating mentally.
"It never occurred to me to check the minor sites; I guess I took it for granted that the big international sites were representative." Robbie appeared slightly ashamed. "But the big sites are almost all American, and that means they're censoring the comments. Outside of USA, they haven't got laws against provoking dissatisfaction like you do in the States."
"Why don't they have laws against that?" Matt interrupted him. After the massacre following the Himika's arrival, the government had enforced the exception to the First Amendment of "incitement to riot or imminent lawless action" rigidly and had passed several other laws to the same effect -- out of pure necessity in order to protect Americans against another massacre. The lack of preventive measures in Europe and Asia puzzled him.
"They don't have to -- the reaction when we came to Europe and Asia was very different. Their citizens were far more positive toward us, so the authorities there never needed to worry about violent protests."
"They don't mind the kidnappings?" It didn't make sense to him that things would be any better in Europe and Asia than they were in America. Almost all of the Himika were centered on those three continents, so it made sense that their arrival on Earth hadn't had so much influence on Australia, South America, and Africa. But Matt didn't understand how Europeans and Asians could be less hostile toward the Himika than Americans were.
Pietr winced when Matt used the word "kidnapping."
Sorry.
Pietr just nodded and started explaining. Matt and Pietr did that all the time; avoiding the tender subject in favor of speaking of something else.
"We don't do much harvesting there. It takes a lot of resources and facilities to train somebody, so it's a lot more cost-effective to center it in one place. And Europeans and especially Asians just don't see that many Himika on a day-to-day basis; there aren't that many of us there. When I go there, I get the feeling that they feel we're exotic more than threatening."
"Apparently, not anymore." Robbie sounded glum.
Matt was speechless. "And it never occurred to you that they might like you better because you don't do any re
cruiting there?"
Pietr looked helpless. Believe me, I've tried to propose that idea at the committee meetings. In vain.
Matt just shook his head.
"Well, whatever the reason, they don't have any censorship," Robbie continued. "That means that they can comment on the video all they want. It isn't good, Matt."
Matt leaned over Pietr's shoulder. His mate didn't complain about how sweaty he was, just pointed at the screen. Matt let his eyes run down the comments on a British website and felt himself go cold.
"Not good" was an understatement.
"This must stop" was the mildest comment. From there, it went quickly downhill to hateful comments about the alien monsters. The worst part was the number of comments encouraging an open rebellion. "It has been done once already. Those people weren't properly prepared then, but we will be." The last comment so far read, "There's only a few thousands of the freaks here; how hard can it be?"
"Oh, fuck." Matt froze.
"I think that's an adequate description, Matt." Robbie looked at him. "This is getting serious."
***
Just how serious the situation was dawned on Matt the next day. He had been drawing, working on an extension to a public administration building, while Pietr was preparing for a meeting the following day.
Matt did hear the car outside, but he knew the sound of Robbie's car by now and didn't look up. He just had to have the specifications of that wall put down... He felt the consternation in his mate's mind and looked up.
"Robbie! Are you okay?"
There was blood running down Robbie's face even though he was pressing some tissues against his forehead.
"I'm fine. Well, I'm bleeding, and you have to help patch me up before I go home."
"What happened?"
Robbie was more shook up than he wanted to show, but he couldn't hide it from Matt.
"They threw stones at me!"
Matt got an all-too-clear image from Robbie of the Himiko running to his car outside the supermarket, teenagers and a few adults throwing things at him. Robbie was shaky, incredulous that something like this could happen.
"Fuck! And nobody did anything?"
"Oh, yes, they did something." Robbie sat down on the chair Pietr had pulled out for him, wincing as he sat back.
"It wasn't just stones!" Matt saw in Robbie's mind that he had been hit in his back by a can; that was why he was sore now.
"The scary part was that nobody seemed to mind that I was hurt. They just watched. This is getting out of hand, Matt." Robbie looked into Matt's eyes.
"Here, let me have a look at that." Pietr had returned with the first aid kit, and gently lifted the tissues.
"It doesn't look that bad, but you're the expert on that. Here, have a look." Pietr had brought a hand mirror.
Robbie examined his wound in the mirror and nodded. "It's fine -- head wounds always bleed a lot. I just need to clean it and get a bandage on it. I didn't have a first aid kit in my car. I know I should have had one, but I just never got around to get the box filled up..." He was chattering nervously, clearly affected by the attack.
"Sit still and let me do it for you." Pietr's movements were skilled and surprisingly gentle, and Matt sat down next to Robbie, taking his hand.
"You're going to be fine, okay?" He squeezed Robbie's hand in his.
"Yeah." Robbie still seemed shook up. "You have to go home with me. Aki is going to go ballistic when he sees this."
Matt frowned. "He can't be that bad."
Pietr snorted but kept on wiping blood off Robbie's face.
"He is that bad, and worse." Robbie looked straight at Matt. "He's had a very hard time just relenting enough to let me go out on my own. There's a real risk that this is going to bring back some bad tendencies in him."
"He doesn't hit you, does he?" Matt felt a little out of his depth here.
"No! No, he's just being a possessive asshole." There were both exasperation and a certain fondness in Robbie's mind. "But it's not good for him. He might pull us so far back that I'll have to dig us out with a shovel, and that took a while and a lot of shouting last time. God, he's hard work." Robbie rolled his eyes, the annoyance clear on his face. The love was equally clear in his mind, though, and Matt huffed.
Mates. Can't live without them...
...but luckily they're close enough to kill easily. Robbie finished the sentence for him. His friend did seem a bit calmer now.
"I have a feeling that I'm missing something here." Pietr wasn't concerned, though, and Matt gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.
"Just discussing how to distract Aki's attention."
"Of course you are." Pietr had refined his sarcasm to perfection by now. He placed the bandage on Robbie's forehead and stepped back. "As good as new. Now let's go keep Aki from killing any furniture."
***
Matt had thought that they were both exaggerating a bit. He didn't think so anymore when he heard Aki's roar. Quicker than lightning, Aki scanned Robbie's mind to see what had happened.
"Jesus, Aki! Will you take it down?"
Aki was completely oblivious to Matt's words, lost in patting his hands down his mate's body to ensure that Robbie wasn't hurt anywhere else before he finally embraced Robbie. It didn't look like he was ever going to let go.
"Aftercare, Aki!" Pietr was speaking loudly and very clearly. It didn't make Aki move at all. "You need to know how to take care of your mate."
Those words made Aki pull back slightly, head turning to look at Pietr.
"Good. You need to listen. Otherwise you can't take care of your mate. Let go of him." Aki obediently took a step back, staggering slightly. Pietr steadied him.
"I... I can't do this." Aki paled, shaking his head.
"What do you mean?" Matt frowned. Aki looked as if he was about to keel over.
"I can't let go! It's too hard, I can't lose him." Aki was shaking, and he was unsteady even with Pietr's arms on him. Matt reached out for him before Robbie could touch him.
Matt felt something like a slight shock of electricity going through him as the connection bound the three of them together again. It was the strong bond between mentor and student, but multiplied into their strange triangle of energy that included Pietr. Matt gently sought out Aki's mind, keeping his mentor from flight and centering Aki securely in the connection with Matt and Pietr.
You're not letting him go, you're just letting him live his life. It's a good thing, Aki. Matt tried to comfort Aki, a surge of compassion going through him when he felt how hard his mentor was fighting to make this work.
Aki was wound so tight that the Himiko was close to shattering, but he relaxed a fraction as he felt Matt and Pietr's presence. Then he tensed again as if he missed something.
I'm right here for you. Robbie had Aki's back, carefully embracing him from behind, supporting him.
You see? Matt was intent on having Aki understand this. Nothing comes between us, and nothing comes between you and Robbie.
Aki slowly relaxed, letting Robbie hold him and Matt and Pietr stay connected to him. His breathing evened out, and his painfully tight shields loosened a little. It felt healthier, as if he wasn't going to fall apart at the slightest touch anymore. Matt leaned into it, assuring him that this was how it should be.
Yeah? Considering how many people I've taught, I'm completely useless at this. There was bitterness in Aki's inner voice.
You mean you aren't perfect? Matt kept his inner voice light, teasing.
I want to be. I should be. Aki's shields had loosened enough that Matt could feel how his mind was filled with desperation and a burning desire to keep his mate protected, away from anything that could hurt Robbie. Matt realized for the first time what Robbie had been worrying about. Aki was tearing himself apart over this, and he wanted to keep Robbie so close that they would both suffocate from it.
You know that Robbie taught me about stretching our bond, right? Matt had ha
d a hard time extending his bond with Pietr enough to enable them to be apart.
Aki's mind was curious.
I didn't understand that our bond wasn't going to be weakened because we were apart.
Matt felt a shudder go through Aki at the mere thought of being separated from Robbie.
"Jesus, Aki!" Matt rubbed Aki's shoulder, and Robbie tightened his arms around his mate. "You need to understand this, or you're going to fall apart."
Then teach me! Aki's inner voice was filled with a desperation so deep that it shocked Matt. This was his unflappable mentor who knew everything.
Well, everything but this, it seemed.
Okay. Matt took a moment to gather his thoughts. What you need to understand is that the flexibility makes your bond stronger, not weaker.
The incomprehension was clear in Aki's mind.
Hasn't Robbie shown you? Matt didn't get this; he had had problems, but Robbie had taught him this in a few minutes.
Robbie tried to, but his mate wouldn't listen. Robbie was worried enough that his banter had lost its usual lighthearted tone.
I did listen -- we can be apart just fine. If it hadn't been the fearsome Aki talking, Matt would have said that the Himiko was pouting.
You obviously missed the point, Aki. Not for the first time, Matt felt exasperated by all this alien-stuff. It was a never-ending battle to get things right.
Really? Then tell me how it can ever be a good thing when I can't reach my mate, when I can't feel what he feels except when he's in mortal danger!
Well, when Aki put it that way... Matt pulled himself together.
Because your bond is stronger that way! You're not dependent on being within physical reach, and the more you can do this, the closer you get. Look, I'll show you. Matt showed Aki the same image that Robbie had showed him back when he had to learn, of a bond made of elastic with an unbreakable core harder than any metal.