Some Things Transcend

by M. C. A. Hogarth

  Had she? Jahir thought of the letters, the money, his mother's comments, now and then, about Liolesa's having observed his progress through the Alliance. Thought of his few appearances at court, and how the Queen had not drawn him into any of its divertissements though as the head of their House she could have insisted. "Yes," he said, surprised at how long it had taken him to realize it. "Yes, she must have."

  "And you thought it was your idea," Lisinthir said, his smile gentle. "We were too young then to outthink a Queen."

  "Are we that much older now?"

  "Oh, I think we are. Being off the homeworld ages us. We have experiences our brethren cannot imagine." Lisinthir tipped his chin up and kissed him, and Jahir sank into it, letting it bleed the world gold at the corners, crumbling inward like flakes of metal leaf. He felt, very distant, the touch of Lisinthir's fingers moving up from chin to the jaw... made a noise when they paused there, hoping for what—for pain to sharpen the pleasure? To give it edges fine enough to cut him to the quick? Please, he thought, dimly astonished that he was willing to ask, and was he saying it aloud, and in what language: Please.

  Lisinthir caressed the joint and then dug his thumb into it, and it shattered his senses, lightning branching from the nerve, erasing everything until his cousin brought him back with the dim, wet heat of his lips.

  Lisinthir was speaking. "...sin, cousin." Another kiss, pulling at his lip, until he couldn't tell where sensation started and the world ended: was he in this body or in Lisinthir's mouth or diffused out of everything, spreading, soft....

  More clearly now, husky: "Cousin."

  Jahir managed to focus because that had been command. His face was cradled between both of Lisinthir's hands—when had that happened? He felt entirely safe there.

  "Promise me," Lisinthir said, low. "Promise me you'll come to me when this is over." A very gentle kiss on his sore mouth. "Let me make you whole as I was made whole. Let me do that for you."

  "What if..." He had to find words, but he was having trouble. Were they Universal? What had Lisinthir spoken to him in? Their native tongue. He fumbled for it, aware of his cousin's patient regard. "What if I do. And I find that... this is all I am?" He answered the uncertainty he felt through the palms on his jaw. "What if I am ruined for what I long for?"

  To recreate the happiness his parents had. To love children—God and Lady, how he had never admitted until now how much he craved them. And not just any children, but hers, the doomed ones all his society had told him would be impossible. In his heart he'd been unable to believe they would die in the womb. He wanted that life, the sweet domesticity of it... was that ridiculous? Pedestrian?

  "Beautiful," Lisinthir corrected, gentle. "And nourishing. Why would you not want it?"

  "What if... I can't?" He thought back to his cavalier comment to Vasiht'h. "What if the time comes and... it can't be fixed?"

  "What you mean to say," Lisinthir said softly, "Is 'what if I can't be fixed.'"

  The frisson that traveled him was cold, made his skin draw taut, nauseated him. "What if I'm broken?" Jahir whispered. The horror made completely manifest: "What if I broke myself?"

  Lisinthir considered him, thumbs stroking lightly beneath Jahir's eyes. Then, quiet, "Do you trust me with an invasion as intimate as the one you inflicted on me when you found me folded over that table?"

  "I—I must," Jahir stammered, surprised. "But what is this about—" And gasped in when Lisinthir took him down with him, out of the gym, away from the cold and the low red light and the plangent silence... deep into memories, and from them Lisinthir plucked the image of Sediryl, gave her life and breath, and Jahir saw again the flash of her eyes, the proud lift of her chin, the arch of her brows.

  Forgive me, Lisinthir whispered, and then stripped her and put her in his arms in a fantasy more lurid than anything Jahir could have imagined... because it was informed by his cousin's intimate knowledge of another woman's Eldritch body. Jahir found fingers on flesh, lips on his, felt breasts pressed against his ribs as she stretched up to kiss him....

  With all his heart he rushed for her open mouth, poured himself into her, gathered her up and crushed her to him, and no part of him was cold to it.

  When Lisinthir broke him from that, he was panting, cheeks so flushed that his cousin's fingers against them felt cold.

  Gently, so gently, his cousin smiled and kissed the tip of his nose. "No worries on that count."

  "God...!"

  "And very much Lady," Lisinthir agreed with a touch of mischief, and at last Jahir managed a laugh.

  "But if that, then... what is this?" he asked. "Between us?"

  "Complicated?" Another amused look. "You're the therapist, cousin. Tell me what you'd say."

  "I'd say 'please enjoy a cup of warm tea while I write this referral to one of our sex therapists.'" He faltered and said, "But I could never have done any of this, or admitted to any of it, or even explained it to such a person. Save that he was also Eldritch. And not just Eldritch, but a Galare, and a peer."

  "No, I imagine not. And in truth, I'm not sure how much I could have admitted to someone, save that he was not also Eldritch, and a man, and another heir." Lisinthir half-smiled. "The Queen had her wisdom at the last." A gentle caress, the backs of his fingers to Jahir's cheek. "So will you come to me?"

  Would he? Not to learn who this Jahir was who had such needs, because he was beginning to understand that for himself, finally. But to allow his cousin to convince him that he could be cherished not just despite what it suggested about him, but because of it? And to take into him that soul-deep conviction that his needs were neither ugly nor perverse to someone of his own upbringing, but merely a facet of the same need to trust and be safe and be loved that everyone possessed?

  In wonder, he said, "I must... mustn't I?"

  "You don't have to," Lisinthir said. "But it would be a great healing if you did. And you would do me great honor allowing me to administer it."

  "I'll come," Jahir said. "Only tell me when."

  "A few weeks." Lisinthir kissed his brow, lingering, lips against skin. Then sighed, warm. "A few weeks. Enough time for the physicians to finish with me, and for me to find some affable Harat-Shar willing to undertake my education."

  "Your education!" Jahir laughed. "Now there is an image! You would have the great cats teach you how to make love after all the practice you've had?"

  Lisinthir smiled and tucked an errant hair back behind one of Jahir's ears. "No... I would have the great cats teach me how to hurt you safely and in a way you'll enjoy."

  He heard the words before he understood them. When he did, the shudder that gripped him closed his throat around his reply.

  "Yes," Lisinthir whispered, dragging the word out, tasting it. Another kiss, on swollen lips this time. "And then you will heal something in me."

  That gave him enough focus to swim back into his body, gather the broken pieces of his concentration. "Oh?"

  His cousin nodded. "To use on you the things that nearly destroyed my sanity, and reclaim them from cruel memories... to know they can bring someone to some more sublime place... I think that would grant me peace."

  Could they do that? Heal one another? Such a beautiful thought. Jahir rested his brow against Lisinthir's. "I'll come," he said, soft.

  "Good," Lisinthir said, and nipped his lip. "And maybe we'll go dancing, yes? The Pelted have dance clubs. You can be less appalled by the music when it's being improvised live rather than extrapolated poorly by an algorithm."

  That shocked a laugh out of Jahir. "You want to go dancing? The two of us! In a crowd?"

  "It sounds a properly sensual experience," Lisinthir said with a grin. "Yes. I want it. So take a few lessons in modern dance while I'm having my internal organs replaced under a halo-arch."

  "Crazy. Incorrigible. Impossible." Jahir laughed, low. "You are insane, cousin."

  "Such an imprecise diagnosis. My healer must finally be tired to be so indistinct, so it is time for him to sleep
."

  "And you also." Jahir let Lisinthir help him up. "How are you not as exhausted as I am?"

  "I am. I've more practice at ignoring it, is all."

  Stepping outside the gym, Jahir paused and looked up at the corridor, at the narrow strips of light running the ceiling's edges, felt anew the chill in the air and the strange silence of the deck beneath his feet. Quietly, he said, "We are walking alongside our deaths, aren't we."

  "Death always walks alongside us, no matter how we might blind ourselves to him," Lisinthir said. "It's only when he is obviously stalking us that we can no longer deny it." He narrowed his eyes, lips peeling back from his teeth. Brief, so brief that expression, to be so lethal. "He is stalking us now. But I am a hunter myself, and he will find no easy quarry here."

  How many times had Lisinthir fought that fight in the past year? All those battles were written in his body, and his eyes. Jahir considered him, then touched his cousin's arm, bringing him back from that place. Not yet, he thought, letting it seep through their skins. Not yet, but soon.

  Lisinthir nodded once, and led the way to their quarters. Beside him, and one pace behind, Jahir followed, hands clasped behind his back, and thought it was a very comfortable place to walk.

  CHAPTER 13

  Dread fogged Vasiht'h's slide out of sleep, and opening his eyes didn't dispel it. The low lighting, the acrid scent of the Chatcaavan drug, the gnawing pangs of hunger... reality was almost more nightmarish than his nightmares. He rubbed his face slowly against the pillow, a halfhearted attempt at denial that didn't work, and then rested his cheek on it.

  Lying near his eye was the Galare unicorn. Sometime in the night the knot he'd tied in the chain had loosened enough for it to rest apart from him, and staring at it he wondered how much he'd been tossing for it to wind up near his face where it could rear, its hooves pointed at him as if in accusation. You didn't mean it, when you vowed. You're willing to give everything, as long as it's on your terms.

  Vasiht'h pushed himself up, fur bristling at the chill. Someone had thrown a blanket over him. Where was Jahir? He pulled on the mindline, and that brought his partner to the door into the sleeping chamber as if he'd tugged on a physical rope. The link welled with a gentle greeting, warm as any embrace, and startled, the Glaseah looked up.

  His partner was exhausted. He was also... glowing. Like the ember at the tip of a stick of temple incense, promising a long, slow sweetness, perfumed like amber. And he brought that warmth and light to Vasiht'h with his approach, and when he went to one knee beside the mound of pillows. That was close enough that Vasiht'h could see the lines around his eyes, the fatigue that reddened the edge of their lower lids. And yet, that peace...!

  "Ariihir," Jahir said, and from his voice he'd been up too late, a touch of gravel in that low tenor. What would he say next? Vasiht'h thought his heart would break open, waiting....

  A smile, a hint of fondness. "You're hungry. You should eat."

  The turnabout was so unexpected that Vasiht'h couldn't help a laugh. He covered his mouth.

  "Better," Jahir said, and something about the way he said it made Vasiht'h think of Lisinthir. "Come with me? You really should break your fast. And then I fear we have work to do."

  "More clients?" Vasiht'h asked, confused. "Did Hea Borden schedule us to cover the morning shift right after we did the evening?"

  Regret, sounding like distant rain in the mindline. "Nothing so easy, I'm afraid. We are now at the point of planning for any... undesirable... outcomes to the transmission. And you and I must be part of it, because we will have to know where to go if there is trouble."

  Every muscle squeezed in protest, as if to harden themselves into armor against the words. "Can't they just decide and tell us what to do?"

  "They could, yes. And they will. But we need to be there. I fear it won't be as simple as 'hide in a storage closet.'" Gentle teasing now, like a breath blowing his fur against the grain. "We would not fit in one anyway. I am too tall and you are too long."

  How could the Eldritch make jokes? Where did he find the strength? And this radiance... oh, how Vasiht'h wanted to bask in it. If he was certain of his welcome....

  Goddess, what had they become that he was no longer certain of something so fundamental? How could he distrust—no, disbelieve—the evidence of the mindline? The love in it was as palpable as the light of the sun, and yet he couldn't bring himself to reach toward it.

  And Jahir saw it. He knew. A shadow dimmed the mindline, and Vasiht'h looked away.

  "How many ways must I say it, my love, before you will accept that it matters not a whit to me that you want no part of this fight?"

  The 'my love' shocked Vasiht'h out of his guilt and shame. They knew their feelings for one another, but rarely did Jahir refer to them so baldly.

  "You don't understand," he managed.

  "Then explain it to me." A smile. "As we would say with our most inexperienced clients: we need to begin with communication. Yes?"

  Vasiht'h slicked his feathered ears back. "Sometimes communication makes things worse."

  "Before it makes them better."

  The anguish in him threatened to break loose, flood the link between them. "Sometimes it breaks things, Jahir."

  Those golden eyes met his, steady, but Vasiht'h could feel the compassion behind them, taste it in his mouth like honey. "It will not break us."

  "I don't want to fight this war for your Queen."

  "Neither do I—"

  "You don't understand," Vasiht'h said, before he could lose the courage. "Jahir... you don't want to fight this war, but you will because you feel it's your duty. But I don't believe it's mine."

  Like a sword laid between them, the violence implicit. The potential for a wound... worse, for severing. Even in Vasiht'h's heart, something changed. Saying it aloud had made it real. It's not mine.

  "Then," Jahir said, hesitant, "what will you do?"

  "I don't know!" Vasiht'h cried, and he could hold it back no longer: the agony of it, of being torn between his need to be true to the beloved, the Goddess-blessed union, the partnership they'd built together... and his absolute rejection of where that could take him. Was he crying? He at least knew he was shaking because his wings were scraping his back. "Oh, Goddess, Jahir... I don't know! Tell me, please, I'll listen to anyone who'll tell me what I should do!"

  Jahir gathered him into his arms, and the answering pain from him was almost unbearable, and Vasiht'h shocked himself by wishing he couldn't feel it. Not that he could fix it, but that he couldn't sense it. Oh, Goddess, he was going to throw up—

  /Sssh./

  Somewhere in him, barriers were being woven between himself and his terror and grief. He knew Jahir was erecting them, that Jahir hadn't asked permission to separate him from his emotions, and he didn't care. He didn't even care that they would have told their own patients that pushing pain away only deferred the task of dealing with it. Maybe his partner knew that he couldn't work through it now when they might die today, or tomorrow. Everything was too close, too real, too much.

  "If need be," Jahir said against his forelock, "then I will go to the fight and come back to you when it's over." Leaning back, the Eldritch said, "It will be no different than any other bonded couple who loses a love for a time to the warfront, only to regain him when the deployment is done."

  "You might die without me," Vasiht'h said.

  "I fight better with you at my side, I think," Jahir said. "But I learned to fight before I knew you, and I can fight that way again."

  How to express his panic at the thought that Jahir could get on without him? Worse, that he might push Jahir into it with his own refusal to help? "I... I don't know how it would feel, to stretch the mindline across that much distance. We've done it once or twice and it feels—" Awful, is how it felt, and he caught Jahir's reflexive anxiety at the notion before the Eldritch suppressed it. And now, Vasiht'h thought, they were hiding things from one another. Because of him!

  "Ma
ybe the Queen will not send me," was what Jahir chose to say finally.

  And if she didn't... would it matter, now that Lisinthir had involved them? Now that Jahir cared about what happened in the Empire? Now that Jahir cared about Lisinthir?

  There was no way out of this. None. Vasiht'h choked back a moan. Maybe he should go with Jahir anyway. Surely going and being terrified but with Jahir was better than any of the alternatives—

  "I would rather," Jahir said, the words slow to leave him, "that you remain at home, and safe... than to be consumed with worry and guilt at having dragged you into something you could not bear." His partner lifted a hand as if to touch Vasiht'h's cheek... then let his fingers graze the fur there under the eye. The caress of his concern, the aching love underlying it, was more real than the physical touch. "I would not have your sanity broken for the sake of a vow."

  "But if I break my vows, how can I be worthy of you? Or anyone?"

  Jahir shook his head, the minute little twitch of chin he'd mostly abandoned for more legible mannerisms adapted from the Pelted norm. "One broken promise does not make you unworthy of love, Vasiht'h."

  "It is if it's this promise." Vasiht'h closed his eyes. The emotional blocks were working on him: what he felt now was numb. Numb and hopeless.

  "Oh, my brother," Jahir said. "Please... please don't go from me. Not like this."

  "I'm trying," Vasiht'h whispered. "But I'm afraid."

  "We'll get through it." Jahir gathered both of Vasiht'h's hands and cupped them in his, pulled them to rest against his chest. "Vasiht'h... arii. We will."

  What could he say? Save that he didn't believe it? So he didn't say anything at all, and he grieved. Beneath their joined hands he could feel Jahir's heart racing, and the mindline brought him the Eldritch's vivid worries, streaked red like blood from gashes. They'd been through so much, and yet it had always felt external, pressures that pushed them together. This was the first time Vasiht'h felt as if those pressures were pushing them apart.