Chiaroscuro

Rysa’s brother. How? What? I mean...fucking what?

“But,” I said, fumbling for decent words, or just any words at all. “But. He’s...he’s a clarbach. Isn’t he?”

I knew he fucking was. I could see it, I could feel it. But what Keyd had said was so surreal and unbelievable that I had to ask the stupid goddamn question.

And Keyd answered the stupid goddamn question. “He is.”

“And how the fuck does that work?” When I looked at Keyd, he wasn’t looking at me. The smile was gone, and now there was tension in his jaw and his shoulders, his fingers tapping restlessly against the side of his leg. His eyes were fixed on Rysa and Ociir, who were still practically squeezing each other to death, talking fast and all excited in each other’s faces.

“Rysa’s family are all clarbach. She is the only one who isn’t. I...this is difficult to explain.” He sounded like he hated every second of this, and that almost made me feel better. Jesus, I was so fucking pissed.

“No, it’s fucking not! You open your mouth and say fucking words! Do you think I’m an idiot, or that I can’t understand? That I’m just not worth telling, or that I’d—I don’t even know why, Keyd, you tell me why I couldn’t be in on this!”

“It didn’t put you in any more danger, to not know,” Keyd said quietly, which was not anywhere close to what I was mad about. So that just meant he had no idea why I was, and it seemed like that should be real damn obvious. But Keyd was a goddamn alien, and sometimes that got a lot more fucking obvious when shit like this popped up. Or maybe this time it was just Keyd being Keyd, and playing everything way too close to his chest.

“I don’t care about danger, I’ve been in danger since the second I fucking met you,” I snapped at him, and Keyd’s face pinched up even more. At least I was sorta getting through to him, even if I had to, you know. Yell at him. Then I realized what he’d said, and how pretty goddamn random it sounded. But it had to mean something, because Keyd didn’t waste his words. “Wait, why is that even worth mentioning? Like, is there a situation where knowing this would’ve make it more dangerous?”

“Not...exactly. It’s only because you’ve...already met another of Rysa’s family,” Keyd said, with a huge pause in the middle of that second sentence.

It took me a long second of going from what to how to just plain wordless shock. Finally, I managed to get one word out. “Ahieel?”

Keyd closed his eyes, and nodded once.

“Jesus fuck, Keyd!”

He finally looked at me, and seemed a little more pulled together. Like he’d had enough of me shrieking at him. “Ahieel is Rysa’s brother as well. Born at the same time, even. But they are two different races, and...explaining that to you, we couldn’t do that before. Not because of trust, not because of the danger. We had reasons, but I’m sure they won’t be good enough for you.”

Okay, fine. I guess I deserved that. I was coming on pretty harsh here, and maybe Keyd didn’t deserve all of it. Rysa hadn’t told me either, and this was her family. Ahieel was her brother. Her twin brother, if I’d understood Keyd right. Somehow that made it even worse.

I dug my hands into my hair, squeezed them into fists until it actually hurt, just to take a second to chill out. Then, “look. I’m sorry. I’m sorry—just...I told you guys I’d back you up here, and I meant it. I still do. But you totally skipped some major information, and I feel like a goddamn idiot about it, and I really thought you guys would have more faith in me than that after all we’ve fucking been through together.”

Keyd sighed and shut his eyes again, just for a quick second. “I know. And...I apologize for that, I truly do. I did want to tell you. It simply wasn’t my place. It was Rysa’s, and Rysa...was reluctant.”

“Christ,” I said, and ran my fingers up through my hair again. Should I have seen this somehow? Had it been staring me in the face and I’d just been too goddamn dumb to see it? Obviously I’d noticed shit was real intense between Rysa and Ahieel and that it was something personal, but they were in a war and I figured it was some kind of like...revenge thing. Like something gone down on a battlefield and now Ahieel was chasing them all around to get even for something they’d done to him or to someone he knew. Something personal, but not this personal. Not that it was about family. If that was really the actual problem here. I still didn’t get how Rysa could be one race and her entire family could be another; that wasn’t how race worked. Right?

Ahieel had always called Rysa a traitor; I’d heard him say it a couple times. That’d always stuck out to me. Was that what he thought, that she’d somehow betrayed him by...being an oenclar? Did they choose? How did any of this fucking work?

“That’s what you never wanted to tell me about Ahieel, isn’t it,” I said. “What you were leaving out when you said you’d tell me everything, what you wouldn’t tell me without Rysa being there. You didn’t want to tell me that Ahieel’s her brother.”

“It is,” Keyd said, and at least he looked guilty about it. “Alan...we didn’t know how you would see us—see Rysa—if you knew. It’s not uncommon for people, even those who are not clar, to see blood as stronger than anything. That no matter what you thought of us, if you knew Rysa and Ahieel were family, then you might see her as irredeemable. Especially after the things that Ahieel has done to you personally.”

“After all this goddamn time, and you think I’d react like that?” I said, seriously fucking stunned. Obviously Keyd and I’d only had a little over two weeks to get to know each other, but fuck. Was that what he really thought about me? “I could’ve handled it! I mean, Christ, I didn’t know you guys were the same, like... species! If that’s even what’s going on here. Why couldn’t you fucking tell me that? You could’ve left Rysa out of it, even!”

Keyd flattened his mouth into a tiny line and looked away.

“Fine, okay. I get it. You didn’t ever really trust me.”

Keyd turned back to me right away, even reached out like he was gonna touch me and then pulled back at the last second. “That’s not it at all.”

“So prove it. Tell me fucking everything. And don’t make me ask, because I don’t know the right goddamn questions! That’s how you got around it the fucking first time, and you know it.”

For a second, Keyd stayed silent and frustrating, staring at where Rysa and Ociir were still talking together just a few feet away, in a smooth and flowing language that wasn’t what she and Keyd spoke together. Then Keyd turned to me with the worst case of puppy-dog eyes I’d ever seen, and I didn’t even know Keyd could do that. I mean, his eyes were always kind of intense to look at, with what seemed like miles of pale blue with all that dark hair around it, but this was a wounded and pleading expression I’d never seen on him before. “I’m truly sorry. I didn’t intend for it to be like this. Please believe me.”

His voice was so soft and real unhappy. He definitely didn’t feel good about this, which was kinda making me feel better in exchange. Little lies, little dances around the truth, yeah, sure, everybody did that. I could handle that. This was a big fucking thing. It changed so much, flipped everything I thought I knew on its head and twisted it around, and stuck me right back at square one for morons who didn’t know what was going on with the aliens that had showed up out of nowhere. And I thought I’d been getting a pretty good picture of all this, figuring it out as best I could with the information I had. Now...I wasn’t sure of anything.

And we didn’t even get to talk about it anymore, because suddenly Rysa and Ociir were coming right towards us. She really had a good couple inches on him, and I wondered if he was a younger brother. Then what about Ahieel; was he the younger or older twin? Did she have any other brothers, sisters? Shit, I knew way less about Rysa than I did about Keyd. I barely knew anything about either of them, apparently. I was a such a fucking idiot, for real.

“Uh, hey,” I said, and managed to look Ociir in the eyes. Just like Rysa—and just like Ahieel—his were a bright pale green. “Sorry about the whole...being kind of an asshole thing. I really didn’t know.”

“Forgiven,” Ociir said easily, making a little pass with his hand. “There was not much to forgive anyway. You reacted in a manner as to protect these two, and I appreciate that more than any...rudeness.”

“I’m Alan, by the way.” I would’ve tried to shake his hand, but didn’t know if that was a thing.

Ociir dipped his head at me. “Soodun Ociir,” he said, even if I already knew half of that already. The other half I had to guess was his last name; sounded like so-doon. Was that Rysa’s last name too? Hell, was Rysanys even her real first name? Because it sure as hell didn’t sound like the other clarbach names I knew.

Speaking of Rysa. She was looking at me, something bright and hard and kind of raw in her expression. Like she was expecting me to get mad at her, or say something awful about her having a clarbach for a brother. But I’d kind of spewed it all over Keyd, as shitty as I felt about doing that. and didn’t have much anger left.

“Christ, Rysa, it’s okay,” I told her tiredly. “I just wish I’d known Ahieel’s your brother, and that apparently you guys are actually like one species or something, but I’m not gonna judge you for it. It’s not like you can help it, right?”

Rysa and Ociir glanced at each other. “It’s not a thing we can choose, or change,” Rysa said then. “It just...happens.”

“Yeah, I’d kinda like to know more about this,” I said. “But maybe we could go the fuck inside first?”

Because the four of us were standing in the middle of the complex parking lot, with Ociir looking like some kind of bleached hippie and Keyd and Rysa being their usual huge tattooed intense selves. Wasn’t real subtle.

“That sounds preferable,” Ociir said, and yeah, I guess I’d just invited him along too. It wasn’t like I had a problem with him, exactly, but the last clarbach I’d dealt with had nearly killed me. A couple of times. I couldn’t help being a little wary of Ociir, even if I didn’t think he was a soldier or had any bad intentions. He didn’t carry himself like Rysa or Keyd or Ahieel did, the sense of his energy was quieter and less intense, and he sure didn’t dress like one. How’d he even gotten here, if he wasn’t a soldier?

Well, questions could come fucking later, when we were inside. I led the way back to my apartment, the three of them falling into step behind me.

“It’s good to see you,” I heard Keyd say quietly, and when I glanced back over my shoulder, he and Ociir were walking real close together. Ociir had his hand on Keyd’s shoulder. A bolt of jealousy slammed through me out of nowhere, strong enough that I practically wanted to go rip Ociir’s hand off of Keyd and then punch him in the face as a follow up.

Well, what the fuck, what kind of reaction was that? I knew stuff with Keyd was always more intense than my usual, but wow. I didn’t even think of myself as a jealous or possessive person. They weren’t even doing anything. Ociir just was touching him, that was all.

But maybe that’s why I was so fucking jealous. It looked so casual with them, like Keyd was used to it, comfortable with it. Comfortable with Ociir, in general. He wasn’t like that with me. Touching him was always a game of is-it-okay? most of the time, even when we’d just been getting to be friends. Same with Rysa—anything between them was so easy and natural, and I just wanted that with Keyd too. Not even in a sexy way.

I had no idea if I’d ever get there with him. Not in the time we had, with what was happening around us.

Having all three of these people crowded inside my apartment ended up being a lot weirder than I’d expected, all of us sitting on the couches like some kind of awkward family gathering. Which it kinda was. Ociir stood out like a lightbulb in all his tans and whites and his pale hair, even closer to white than Ahieel’s had been. Rysa had wedged herself right next to him, and I think he had an arm up her back, but it was hard to tell with them sitting so close. How the hell could she hate one brother so much—or have one brother hate her—and the other one was like this?

And shit, I could really feel them, stronger than when it was just Keyd alone or even just him and Rysa. The three of them were like vibrating cores of clashing patterns and feelings, jangling and fighting together all around me. The air was crowding in on me, smothering me with the humming and buzzing, and even though I wasn’t sitting anywhere near Ociir, that sharper and brighter sense of his energy sparked through the more familiar cool thrumming patterns of Rysa and Keyd like a live wire. There was so much of everything, almost as intense as when Ahieel and Rysa and Keyd had been actually throwing huge amounts of energy at each other...and nobody here was doing anything. I could barely concentrate, and sometimes it was almost hard to breathe. It was like a constant pressure on my chest, on my whole body, fighting to batter its way into me.

It was hard to pay attention through all of that, but now that everything I knew was wrong, or at least way fucking different, this was gonna be an important conversation to get in on. But now that I wasn’t busy yelling at him, Keyd was all over Ociir and I didn’t get a damn chance to ask anything.

“How did you know we were here?” Keyd said immediately, which I guess was a good question too. It was fucking weird that Ociir’d just dropped in out of nowhere, nearly exactly where they were.

“I heard news that Ahieel had been returned to Uillad,” Ociir said. “That he had been severely wounded on the world he had been sent to, and even before that he had been behaving strangely, disappearing from his station at odd times, sometimes disobeying the orders he was given and leaving his platoon.” There was a weird wiggle on that last word, like I was hearing another word underneath it at the same time, like when radio channels overlapped each other. “I thought perhaps...he had found the two of you here. I came myself, when I got no response from the whistle.”

“I don’t have it with me,” Rysa said, sounding like she regretted that. Whatever the whistle was. “We didn’t expect to come here to this world at all. But we were forced to, by Ahieel. Then he trapped us here with a stasis spell, and it was Alan who freed us from it. We were fortunate; that he found us, and had the ability to help.”

“Oh,” Ociir said, glancing at me. “That’s…. obviously, you have the ability, and with both types?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Is that weird? I can sorta absorb it from you guys, and I can use both.” And I was pretty sure the absorbing part was happening right now. But it didn’t seem like the right time to bring that up; that just sitting here, without touching any of them and without effort, all their energy was gravitating towards me. They had to feel it, right? Or was the secondary energy the entities gave off something they weren’t as aware of? God, I fucking felt it, how could anybody not? Anybody with any kind of sensitivity to this stuff, at least.

“Not...strange, precisely. Just uncommon,” Ociir said, and it took me a second to remember I’d actually asked a question. “The energies are so opposed to one another, I’m surprised it doesn’t harm you to keep both within you at the same time, if that is what you can do.”

From what I knew, it did suck to have both inside me at the same time. It sucked right now, when I was trying to keep both kinds away from me. But this’d been happening since that fight with Ahieel in the cemetery. I hadn’t mentioned it to anyone, kinda hoping it’d go away...but it seemed like it was getting worse. Or stronger. I’d had some of Rysa and Keyd’s energy in me to make that shield around Ociir, when I’d definitely been completely out of it a day ago. I must have been absorbing it just from being around them, instead of actively needing to take it or be given it. Now I was absorbing Ociir’s too, without even trying.

I’d been so distracted by all this energy shit happening around, that it took this long for what Ociir had said a while back to actually sink in. “Wait, wait, wait. You said Ahieel’s alive?”

Ociir tilted his head at me. “He is,” he said. “Although, I have not seen him personally. He has been sent back to Uillad.”

“Holy fucking shit, thank fuck,” I said, and sunk back into the cushions. Whatever Uillad was, at least it wasn’t death. Yeah, the guy wanted Keyd dead and wanted Rysa...something...but I was just glad I hadn’t killed him. I didn’t have a death on my hands, on my conscience. Even if Ahieel was a fuckstick who kind of deserved it, I didn’t want that burden. It’d been bad enough when there was just a chance that Ahieel hadn’t survived what I’d done to him. I dropped my hands over my face, rubbed at my temples. “Thank fucking Christ. God. Fuck.”

All three of them were kind of looking at me now like I’d completely lost it.

“Sorry,” I said. “I just…didn’t want it to’ve been me.”

Ociir’s forehead wrinkled up, and it was that same kind of mildly concerned look he’d done when I met him, the one that really reminded me of Ahieel, and I couldn’t even look at him.

“Alan was the one who had to stop him,” Keyd said quietly. “He saved my life, and possibly Rysa’s as well.”

“Oh.” Then suddenly Ociir was leaning forward. He couldn’t reach me, because he was on the other couch and there was a coffee table and two other huge aliens in between us, but it looked like he wanted to. “I’m sorry.”

“No, s’fine, I wanted to be there, to help. Just...didn’t want to hurt anybody.”

Ociir still looked like he wanted to come over and give me a hug or something. I really wasn’t sure what to make of this guy yet. He had a quiet reserved thing going on that was completely different from Keyd’s quiet reserved thing, because I didn’t think Ociir’s was from shyness. Then there was that formal politeness that he did everything with, and that reminded me of Ahieel. Rysa really was the odd one out in her family for more than one reason. But he seemed to be like...legitimately concerned about me. And obviously Keyd and Rysa trusted him.

I glanced away to find Keyd looking at me too, but in a real different way than Ociir was. Intense, unblinking, involved. If we’d been alone, I’d’ve almost thought it was...kinda like he wanted to come over and hug me too. Or touch me. But Keyd wasn’t gonna do that in front of other people, even though he was close enough to do the second one, basically an arm's length away on the other couch. Instead we just stared at each other, my mouth suddenly dry and heart pounding, until Keyd blinked hard and turned back to Ociir and Rysa.

Rysa had taken over the conversation while Keyd and I had been...distracted. “—see him?” she was asking, and Ociir shook his head.

“No, he was returned to the main barracks for treatment. The damage done to him is very odd, I’ve heard. But that was all I found out before I decided to come, to see if you were indeed here.”

“Not for much longer,” Rysa said. “We...obviously have to return. Being away for so long, and now with clarbach scouts here…”

“Of course,” Ociir said, like they weren’t talking about being on two opposite sides of a war all polite and logical around a coffee table.

“And, uh, are you gonna be staying here too?” I threw in, knowing it sounded fucking rude, but I had to ask.

Ociiir glanced at me. “I don’t wish to take advantage of your hospitality—”

“Naw, it’s fine,” I said. Too late for that, and I didn’t care anymore. More aliens? Sure, why the hell not. As long as they weren’t Ahieel.

But Rysa had a different idea. She got up from the couch, stretched her arms high above her head, shook out her shoulder, and then said, “let’s take a walk.” It was pretty clear she was mostly addressing Ociir, and he stood up after her, and the two of them headed for the front door together.

Keyd got up too, almost like he was going to follow them, but hesitated. They got to the door, and Keyd was still lagging around the couches. Then he looked at me, almost helplessly, like he didn’t know who to choose. I could help him out with that.

“Hey, c’mere a second,” I muttered, snagging him by the arm and dragging him back into the kitchen while Rysa and Ociir disappeared outside. I ended up trapping him in the corner between the counter and the wall, way closer than I’d meant to be—pretty much right up in his face. Well, now that I had him here, at least he couldn’t run away.

“So. This Ociir guy.” Most important thing; to know who the fuck I’d just invited into my apartment. “You obviously know him pretty well.”

“As long as I have known Rysa.” Keyd said, which wasn't the answer I’d expected. But that they were so cool and comfortable with each other made a little more sense. “He helped her to escape Uillad, and bring her safely to Lojt. They are cities in Clarylon, the place where we come from,” he added, when I gave him a blank look. Right, their planet. The one that was gone somehow. Destroyed, or...something. “Uillad is the largest clarbach city, Lojt was the largest oenclar city. Ociir brought Rysa there, hoping that she could slip into the lower castes of the city, unnoticed and able to survive as she wouldn’t have in Uillad. But they found me first, instead. And I agreed to help her, to do whatever I could, and I brought her to my family.”

That was a lot of information, really fast, which was not a thing Keyd usually did. “She had to escape? Look, man, you gotta start out with this like I’m an idiot who knows nothing, ‘cause I am. I don’t know how this works, how you guys are even the same species or whatever, how Rysa ended up like this and why it’s obviously real fucking bad. I mean, I know you guys are in a war or whatever, but you can just kind of...turn into the other kind out of nowhere?”

Keyd sighed, swiped a hand through his hair. It looked greasy, like he needed a good scrubbing down in a shower. Before my imagination could go too far with that idea, he started talking. “We are one race, in theory. Clar, that is what we called ourselves. It was the entities that made us into two, split us into what we are today. Oenclar, clarbach. We come from the same, but...we are not the same. Not to each other.”

“But you’ve both got the entities, and they’re...sort of the same? I mean, they’re the same things in all of you, they just...what? Work different? Lookdifferent?”

Keyd lifted a shoulder. “They have different effects, yes. That’s not the true difference between us. That is...a much longer story. But we are born unaligned, neither type of entity fully bonding with us until we are of a certain age. But Rysa’s family, the people around her, the clarbach, could not tolerate the entities that manifested in her, and as she said...it’s not a choice. She could do nothing, except leave her home. Even that is rare—escape is truly what she had to do, as they wouldn’t have allowed her to either leave or to live. Ociir was the only one who did not condemn her for what she was, out of everyone. He is the only member of her family she has seen again since she left Uillad.”

This was some heavy stuff, and so weird to hear it from Keyd like this without needing to drag it out of him, and maybe Rysa not wanting to share this with me had been for her sake more than mine. Her whole family had just turned on her? Over the color of her entities? Jesus, that was hard to even wrap my head ahead. But I’d seen what Ahieel was like for myself, so it had to be true. “I’m surprised you’re telling me this without Rysa actually standing right here.”

“She told me it was all right. That if you asked, I should answer.”

Everything he said was just making me so tired. It wasn’t even about the trust thing, it was just that I wasn’t really allowed into their world yet. It wasn’t just Keyd, but Rysa too. They had to talk about it, decide together, weigh the pros and cons of letting me in, give each other permission. After all the shit I’d gone through with them, the danger I’d literally thrown myself into to help them, and they still couldn’t tell me things like this. Important things that were huge parts of their lives and who they were. Even though they’d promised they’d tell me...or actually, Keyd had said he would answer anything I asked. But I hadn’t known the right questions, and so he’d managed to dodge a lot of this shit because of that. But now...

“Is there anything else I should know about either of you? Like huge serious important things that are really really significant about your lives, or you, or your families, in general?”

Keyd took in a little breath, let it out again. I noticed his pinky tapping against the side of his leg, which he usually did when he was uncomfortable or nervous. So, yeah. There was something.

“Keyd, seriously. Just tell me, please.” I couldn’t be angry anymore; it’d all burned out of me and left me with a bitter floating smoke of frustration and disappointment. The stupid thing was, I felt hurt they hadn’t trusted me. That they hadn’t let me in on these huge personal issues.

But did I really have a right to know? We were friends, and Keyd and I were working on a little more than that, but we were people that’d stuck together in a really intense situation where we’d needed each other. We didn’t have much in common; we weren't from the same planet, didn’t speak the same language, had way different pasts, lives, futures. The only thing we shared was the past couple weeks. We were aliens to each other, and why should they tell me their secrets if they didn’t want to?

Keyd was still fidgeting around under the cage of my arms. He could’ve pushed me away easily, but I’d already figured out that he wouldn’t. Other than that one time he’d put me on the floor when I’d tried to punch him, he’d never done anything even slightly aggressive to me.

“I’ll tell you,” he said finally, “But...it might not make sense to you in—between our cultures.”

I shrugged. “Don’t care. Tell me anyway.”

Keyd sighed. “My father is agistar. And I am artaln.”

“Yeah, that doesn’t mean anything to me.” The words hadn’t even translated, so whatever that shit meant, we didn’t have anything even close to it on Earth.

Keyd actually relaxed a little, like he was glad I had no idea. “I didn’t think it would. But I am...more than only a soldier. My family, my position in the military is quite high.”

“Okay, all right,” I said. “And...that’s important.”

“For us, yes.” Keyd glanced around the apartment, then flicked his eyes back to me. If I had weak spots against Keyd, it was his damn eyes and his hands. If he used either one of those things on me, I usually lost a lot of the bad emotions building up against him, or gained a lot of sudden positive ones. The ultimate checkmate was his smile, but I’d bet that wasn’t gonna be making an appearance any time soon. “Your world, at least, here, does not appear to be militarized at all. Ours is, so I’m not sure if I can explain—”

I laughed; I couldn’t fucking help it. Keyd looked both startled and alarmed. “Oh, man, we’ve got a military, believe me. We got a lot of militaries. We’re in fucking wars all the time. We just don’t fight them here.”

“Ah,” Keyd said, frowning. “I assumed… we do encounter cultures who do not war with their fellows at all. I thought perhaps your world was so.”

Wouldn’t that be fucking nice. “Not even close, man.”

“Mm,” Keyd said, and seemed almost...disappointed. I wasn’t sure if I was translating that one little noise right, but that’s how it sounded. “Well. The hierarchy of our military is ingrained into everything. So having a high rank there is…”

“A big deal,” I put in, and Keyd nodded. “So what you’re saying is you’re not like any regular soldier.”

“I am a regular soldier. But I am also...I have a title, duties, responsibilities. I am the only one with this title.”

“The only one in like, your whole world?”

“That’s right,” Keyd said, after hesitating again.

Shit, I’d already yelled at him today, I was making him seriously uncomfortable right now, and maybe I should lay off him for a second. Sure, I was kind of mad at him, but I still liked the guy. So he had some big military title in his world...that meant nothing. While he was here, at least, it meant shit. If his army came to town; that’d be a different story. But they weren’t here, and Keyd was still….he was just Keyd.

“Look, none of this stuff you’re telling me means anything,” I said. “You’re not any different to me. Unless you’re telling me you’re like king of everything on your planet, it doesn’t matter to me.”

Keyd laughed, but not loud and not real genuine. “Not quite.”

“Yeah, then it doesn’t really matter. Sure, I wanted to know, but that’s because I want to get to know you. Like regular people get to know each other. And if this artin thing is part of who you are—”

“Artaln,” Keyd corrected, gently, but he seemed kinda amused I’d fucked the word up.

“Yeah, that. If it’s part of you, I want to know. As a friend, as...whatever we are. And I’m real sorry for being such an asshole today, to all of you. But you most, ‘cause I really was, and you didn’t deserve it. I don’t wanna be mad at you. It’s fucking exhausting.”

Keyd took a second to look around, obviously making sure we were completely alone. We were, I couldn’t feel anybody’s energy around but his. Then Keyd touched his warm hand to the side of my face, cupping my cheek and threading fingers into my hair while he looked right into my eyes. Well, that was two strikes together. He almost completely had me, if he’d just smile.

“I’m sorry we didn’t tell you the full truth,” he said again. My own hands were finding their way to him, landing on his hips and then sliding up, bumping over his ribs and slipping around to his lower back. He was letting me do it, and that made me grip him harder, clutch my fingers in his shirt and press my knuckles down against the hard warm muscle underneath.

“Sorry I, you know. Yelled at you a lot.” Just touching him, having his hands on me, was calming. Reassuring. “We’re not starting this thing off real well, are we?” If we were still starting a thing. We hadn’t exactly left on a real clear note. But this, right now, seemed pretty obvious.

“I think we can both admit we don’t know what we’re doing,” Keyd almost smiled; a slight twitch at the side of his mouth. Then he leaned down, and rested his forehead against mine. It was just a light touch, barely any pressure, but his hand settled hot and firm around the back of my neck as he did it. It didn’t feel real sexy, but it was...intimate. In a real different way. After a long minute he pulled away again, but didn’t let go of my neck.

“Why’re we always doing this in the kitchen,” I muttered, and Keyd did that hum-laugh of his, put his arms around me and just...hugged me. Since he was so fucking tall he basically curled over me like a big heavy blanket, and I got my arms all the way around his back and hung on. So far, trying to do—whatever this was—had definitely been pretty weird, but he was right. We didn’t know what the fuck we were doing. And we were trying to hide it from Rysa, and now Ociir too.

Keyd didn’t hug me for long. When he let me go, I didn’t try and keep him there. He was still so skittish about everything, I was surprised he’d done that much right in the open. Especially after Martin’d caught us making out right in the living room just a couple hours ago.

Martin. Shit, I still needed to talk with him. And he was here, now, so this was a good time. And I’d seen the way that Keyd had looked at Rysa and Ociir leaving; knew he wanted to go with them.

“We’re okay then, yeah?” I said to Keyd, easing back from him. “I mean, I still got a lot of questions, and we gotta talk about this,” I made a flapping motion between us, “but maybe some of that can wait until we’re really alone. You go catch up with Rysa and Ociir, or whatever you want. I gotta go do some other stuff right now.”

“All right,” Keyd said, looking briefly puzzled but then just….accepting it. “If you’re sure.”

“Yeah, man, it’s fine. Ahieel’s gone now for sure, right, so we don’t even have a damn thing to worry about.”

“Right,” Keyd said, quietly. “Not a thing.”

#

It took me a second to make myself knock on Martin’s door. I wasn’t nervous about this, not really, I just...had no idea what to say. And Martin’d seemed kind of pissed at me earlier about not talking to him. I really didn’t want that to color anything about this, because I wanted to thank him. Sincerely. He’d probably done more good for Keyd’s issues than I even had, and it’d only taken him like thirty seconds and he’d had no idea he’d even done it.

“Yo!” Martin shouted from inside when I finally did knock. He didn’t have any chest-rattling music playing right now, and when I opened the door, he was actually studying. With a textbook and everything.

“Hey, uh—hey,” I said, and Martin shoved himself back from his door-desk and looked at me expectantly. “I, uh. Wanted to say thanks. For earlier. For being really...you know. Cool. About everything. He’s, um—he’s not real comfortable about—” any of it, “—people knowing.”

“Dude, seriously,” Martin said, frowning at me. “What’d you think I was gonna do?”

“I dunno, it’s not like we’ve ever talked about...gay...stuff,” I finished lamely. I really needed a better word for all of this.

“Well, you’ve always had girlfriends, I’ve always had girlfriends. Didn’t figure we needed to talk about it,” Martin said with a shrug. “If you’d wanted to, we could’ve. Wouldn’t have been a big deal.”

“I didn’t think I needed to,” I muttered. “Man, look, I know you were kinda mad that you thought I was hiding this from you, like I couldn’t trust you or you’d freak out or something. But that’s not what it was. I mean, I didn’t really know that I was...that something like this could happen with me. It just kinda... did happen. A lot of shit’s been going on, and there wasn’t even time to talk to you, and—”

“Dude, calm down,” Martin broke in, holding up his hands. “It’s okay. Man, like, we’ve known each other for a long time and we’ve put up with way crazier shit from each other than one of us suddenly going gay.”

“Don’t think it was sudden,” I muttered. Still wasn’t sure if gay was the right category for me, but whatever did fit, it sure as hell wasn’t new. I’d just been too fucking stupid to take a close enough look at myself before this.

“Suddenly having a boyfriend,” Martin went on without missing a beat. “I’m not sure I ever believed you were dating that girl Lisa anyway.”

“I really don’t blame you. It was a shitty stupid thing to say, even if she played along, which she really didn’t have to and shouldn’t have,” I muttered. Not that it’d meant much, but it’d really been such a stupid reaction for me to have. Like I had no better way to explain a woman in our apartment than that I had to be fucking her. God. I was such an asshole. “Anyway, just...thanks. It actually meant a hell of a lot to him. And me.”

“You know why I like hanging around you and Law?” Martin said, out of nowhere, right as I was turning to leave.

“I figured it was because I’m a cool guy,” I said lightly, but the mention of Law had me interested. Law was such an enormous asshole, but Martin genuinely liked him and always had, and I didn’t get it. ‘Course, Martin always said that Law was only like that when I was around, but Martin was a much more forgiving guy than me and probably overlooked a lot of Law being Law.

“You aren’t shitty to girls,” Martin said, which was...what? That was the answer? How was that related to anything?

“...what?”

“I always knew that I could bring Claire over here, let her spend the night, be here without me even, and it’d be totally fine. I know a lot of guys around here, guys I’ve roomed with before, that there’s no way. Like, no way.” Martin scratched at the back of his head and sighed, let his hand drop. “Law, man, Law’s the same way, where I’d totally trust him. I mean, sure, we all say asshole things sometimes but like—that’s kinda what guys do, I guess. But that’s why I totally pushed Chelsea on you so hard, ‘cause she had this last boyfriend who was such a dick, and she was finally getting over how he’d treated her, and I knew you’d be like...real good to her. Like a good person, y’know? I know you turned her down and now I get why, but she said you were really nice about it.”

“Whuh,” I said, stupidly, because where was this even coming from. I had no idea Martin hung out with me partly based on this. I really never had any problems getting along with girls; it was when things went into relationships that I started ruining everything. “And Law?”

“Man, I know you two want to like, murder each other or whatever,” Martin said, “but he’s really not a bad guy. Not where it counts.”

“So I don’t count?” I said, and Martin rolled his eyes.

“Don’t get touchy,” he said. “Law’s just got a special hate-boner for you.”

“Man, don’t say boner and Law in the same sentence,” I said into my hands. “Anyway, he started it.”

“Huh,” said Martin, which kinda usually meant he didn’t agree with me, but it was Law who’d started it. One day he’d just Dr. Jekyll’d on me. Or...the other guy in that story. The one who was the huge asshole. I kinda skipped over that book and SparkNoted it when we’d read it in class. Who wants to read a book that’s just someone retelling a story that happened to other people and in letters? Anyway, Law’d started treating me like shit out of nowhere, after a couple months of being pretty regular and, frankly, boring. I hadn’t done or said a damn thing to him.

“You know, I always get broken up with because I’m a shitty boyfriend,” I said, just to get the subject off Law. “So there’s a huge hole in your argument, here.”

“Yeah, but you’re still not a bad guy. You just don’t know how to be a good boyfriend. Also, you’ve picked some totally questionable people,” Martin said. “Trying to date a girl you hooked up with drunk, at a frat party, on a dare, isn’t gonna work out usually. Also everyone warned you about Karen.”

“...hey,” I said, without any comeback. He was right. That drunk hook-up actually happened in my freshman year, when going fucking wild out on my own away from home had seemed like the best and expected thing to do in college, and immediately hanging out with I-know-everybody-in-every-Greek-house-by-the-first-week Martin hadn’t helped. I’d been a dumb shit back then, and just barely out of my final growth spurt that had made me not ‘the fat kid’ anymore, and girls actually kind of looked at me. At the time, that’d been really exciting and new, and I’d wanted it to be as awesome and amazing as everybody always said it was or how it looked in movies. It never had been.

Then Karen was just a whole other ugly story. And Martin was right about that too—people had warned me. But she’d been into me, and that was still such an unbelievable thing at the time that I hadn’t wanted to hear anything else about her. But she was the one who’d got me putting myself on a relationship hiatus afterwards, because of what a mess that whole relationship had been. If it could be called a relationship.

“So, uh,” I said to Martin, scratching at the back of my hair. “What does any of this have to do with...earlier?”

“I guess it doesn’t,” Martin said, shrugging. “But you’ve always been real cool with my girlfriend, so I wanted to be cool with yours. Boyfriend. Whatever, you get what I mean.”

“I’m not sure if that’s what he is.” How the hell were we actually talking about this? Martin was acting like it wasn’t even surprising he’d caught me making out with a guy. Was it not surprising? Or maybe just because this was Martin, who accepted everything like he’d already known it for years. “He’s probably...leaving soon. Going home. So it doesn’t matter.”

“Dude, really? How’re you not sure? He’s pretty hot.” Martin looked at me totally casual until I flailed some kind of what?! gesture at him, and he added, “not that that’s my thing. But if it was, I would not let that guy go anywhere.”

“I—wow,” I said. “Really?”

“Dude, he looks like he could bench-press both of us at the same time, but he’s all polite and quiet and so obviously totally into you, like the way he looks at you—shit, man. I hope Claire looks at me like that even once in a while.”

“When have you even been around to see how he looks at me?” Suddenly I’d gone all weird and hot in the face and my chest felt tight and unsteady. It was still sinking in, slowly, that Keyd was into me too. That other people could pick up on it, see it. Like Martin somehow had. That it wasn’t only me and my one-sided overwhelming crush anymore.

“Dude, I live here,” Martin said.

“I’ve barely seen you!”

“I’m ninja, clearly.” Martin grinned at me. “Look, man. I’d say the same thing if this dude—Keyd? that’s really a weird fucking name, by the way—was a chick. Obviously, I don’t know him, but I know you and you have never made out with someone where somebody could walk in on you. That totally says something.”

I pushed my face into my hands, laughed helplessly. ”He’s just from...really far away.”

“So? Internet, dude. Skype chats.” Martin hiked an eyebrow. “Naked Skype chats?”

“Man!” I kicked at Martin’s chair and sent him spinning around in a circle while he laughed. “Is this what I get for teasing you about your huge obvious crush on Claire that you denied for like...five months?”

“Yeah, totally,” Martin said, yanking himself to a stop by catching his foot on his desk. He was still grinning. “But, honestly? You’ve been so weird and stressed out since Halloween but you seem really, like, happy about him. Not just when you were all over each other, either. ‘Cause you’ve been smiling this whole damn time.”

Fuck, really? It’d been a long time since I’d had a legitimate crush on anybody, and I kind of forgot that I was really bad at not looking like a goofy smitten moron. If Keyd was actually any good at figuring out emotions, he’d’ve picked up what I felt a long time ago. Probably before me. It had to have been all over my face whenever I’d been around him.

“I’m just saying, you know. You should give it a chance. Couldn’t hurt, right? Might work out better than...some other people.” Martin gave me kind of a pointed look again.

Yeah, he’d really seen a few of those train wrecks personally. After the last disaster, with Karen, I’d pretty much labeled myself as world’s official worst boyfriend and decided to cool it on dating for...basically as long as I could. That’d been almost a year ago, and not being interested in any girls since then had been way easier than I’d thought it’d be. Bizarrely easy. But then Keyd had crashed into my life and thrown that all out the window. But he wasn’t a girl.

“Yeah. I guess. I do...really like him.” It was hard to say those words, even with Martin who was being so laid-back and cool about this. The more this stuff started happening out loud, outside of myself, involving other people, the more real it was getting. And part of that was terrifying. I could kinda get where Keyd was coming from, and I hadn’t had a whole lifetime of denying this kind of thing or hiding from it.

“All right, then there you go. Now go away and make out with him,” Martin said, and leaned back in his chair. “I’ll stay in here case you wanna do it right on the couch or something.”

“Oh, Jesus. Asshole.” But I laughed anyway, and felt better, and was real glad that I had Martin for a buddy. Even if he was almost the only one I had, he was better than a lot of other people put together. “But seriously. Thanks.”

“It’s not a problem,” Martin said, almost with that same frustration as before. “Or even a thing. Don’t even worry about it, man.”

“Okay. Still, thanks.”

“Dude, stop thanking me and get out of here.” Martin threw a stray pen in my direction; I managed to slap it away from hitting my forehead. “I didn’t do anything.”

I ducked out of his room before I ended up thanking him again—or getting another pen in the face—because he really didn’t understand how much it meant. But I didn’t expect him to. He just thought Keyd was some foreign guy with some closet issues. Not an alien from an oppressive society that’d terrified him into barely being about to talk about being gay.

That was right about when I walked out into the living room and found Keyd and Ociir sitting almost knee to knee on a couch, leaning their heads close and talking real quietly with each other. It was such a weird and unexpected thing to see that I stuttered to a halt at the end of the hallway, just kind of...staring at them.

Were they friends? Obviously Keyd had no problem with the guy, they’d been friendly yesterday and they’d known each other for a long time, but this looked...intense. Involved. Practically at the level that Rysa and Ociir had been with each other. And Ociir wasn’t a soldier, but he was still one of their enemies, technically, and it wasn’t like Keyd was related to him. But I’d guess it had to do with the whole knowing him for a long time thing.

Ociir reached out and touched Keyd on the arm again, and I felt an aggressive jolt in the air, a dry electrical clash of their energies. It was fucking weird that they were the same race, had the same entities that just worked kind of different, which reacted to each other like this. Was that why they all had to hate each other? Because their entities did?

Ociir said something then and Keyd gestured over his shoulder, sort of in my direction. It made Ociir get up, and come right around the side of the couch, and he nearly bumped right into me.

“Ah, excuse me,” he said, steadying me with a hand on my shoulder. Energy leached out of him and straight down through my skin before I could do anything about it. “I was only looking for a washroom.”

“Oh, yeah, just right there,” I said, pointing him towards Martin’s bathroom. Ociir dipped his head at me and moved past, disappearing through the door and shutting it behind him. Keyd and Rysa had figured out sinks and the toilet and everything on their own, so he’d probably be fine.

Meanwhile, Keyd had stood up and moved to the sliding glass door, standing there with his arms clenched tight around his waist, his back to me. It’d finally gotten dark—this had been the longest fucking day ever, seriously—and the orange glow of one of the parking lot streetlights peeked in between the blinds, glinting off his hair.

“So,” I said, and Keyd whirled around on me like I’d caught him stealing cookies before dinner. “Can we talk about Ociir again?”

“...all right,” Keyd said, real carefully, his eyes flickering over my face.

“Is he really planning to stay here, or what?” I said, and Keyd lifted his hands and let them drop back to his sides.

“I don’t know. It’s been very long time since he and Rysa have seen each other. Usually it’s once every year, or two. Now…” Keyd’s throat rolled, and it took him a second to go on. “It’s been twelve years.”

Right. Shit. I’d kind of forgotten about that, with Ociir showing up and everything. That Keyd and Rysa had been stuck in Ahieel’s weird spell for twelve years. That was really a hell of a long time, and really—

Okay, wait a fucking minute here. Ociir barely looked older than Rysa; maybe his mid-twenties. If twelve years had gone by...had he been younger than her before? Wouldn’t it have been really fucking weird to him that Rysa hadn’t aged since he’d last seen her? Or had she aged? I mean...Keyd and Rysa really couldn’t be that old. Not old enough where they could have been hardened badass warriors and then age twelve years and still look this young. Unless that statis spell had stopped time, but Ociir might have had something to say about that. None of this made any fucking sense.

Unless...they aged differently. Hell, they were aliens. I’d always been going off the assumption that just because Keyd and Rysa looked my age, they actually were. But that sure as hell wasn’t how stuff always worked in books and movies. Man, they could be immortal for all I knew. Oh my god, I didn't even want to think about that. Weird enough that Keyd was an alien, what if he was like five hundred years old or something? I didn’t think I could handle that.

“Twelve years,” I said, and Keyd’s eyes slid to me. “Hell of a long time.”

He sighed, shoulders deflating, and gave a slight nod.

“You gonna go back? I mean, Rysa said you should.”

“I should, and I will.” Keyd drew in a long breath and turned to look at me. Almost studying me, like he had to decide something. “Probably very soon. But I don’t get the opportunity to see Ociir often either.”

“You’re friends, then. Like, actually friends.”

“We are,” Keyd said, but there was a hesitation before he said it. “I know it must seem strange. Contrasted with Ahieel, especially.”

“Well, Ociir’s not a soldier or anything, right? It’s different.”

“He isn’t a soldier, true. But our entire people are at war, not just our militaries. It affects all of us, every civilian, every person of either race. If we were found to be in contact with him...it would be the worst kind of treason. For all three of us. I don’t even know what kind of punishment we would be subjected to.”

“But you do it anyway,” I said. I couldn’t decide if that was brave or insane or loyal, because at least Rysa and Ociir were related and had a reason. Keyd was involving himself just because. Maybe he really was just brave and insane and loyal like that. It fit what I knew about him.

Keyd lifted one shoulder in a semi-shrug. “I...never considered doing otherwise. I made a promise.”

“To...what?”

“Take care of her.”

“Of Rysa? I think she can take care of herself just fine, man,” I said.

“Of course she can. But she was a child when she came to Lojt. As was I. It meant much more then, that I had some influence to protect her and was oenclar myself. Now...we take care of each other.”

“Yeah. I’ve noticed that.” Envied it, even. A lot. “And Ociir’s part of that?”

“He’s important to Rysa. And because I upheld my promise, he sees me as…” Keyd’s eyebrow wrinkled in for a second, like he wasn’t sure how to word this, “I suppose, something like family as well.”

“Oh.” Okay, that was weird, but...I guess it explained some things. Before I could say anything else, the front door opened and Rysa walked in. I had no idea where she’d been this whole time. And then a couple seconds later, Ociir showed up from the hallway. Oh good. We were all here now, and I had no idea how to deal with this.

“Uh, so,” I said, just jumping the fuck in. “You need a place to sleep tonight?”

Ociir looked surprised. “I—if that’s all right.”

“S’fine. You can have the couches,” I told him and Rysa. “There’s plenty of space in my room for me and Keyd. I got a sleeping bag, so it’s not a big deal.”

Keyd was looking at me real nervously, like he thought this was some kind of trick to get him into my bed or something. It wasn’t, I actually had a sleeping bag, and I really planned to use it. Keyd could have my bed; wasn’t like he hadn’t slept in it before.

“That sounds fine,” Rysa said without any hesitation. Good. Awesome. No alarm bells going off. Because we were still lying to her. But I was gonna do it for Keyd, because I owed him at least that much.
#

Keyd almost couldn’t make himself walk through the door of my room. I actually had to put my hands on his back, ease him gently inside feeling the hum of the oen marks on his back strong against my palms.

“We don’t have to sleep in the same bed,” I said, as I aimed him towards it and gave him a nudge. “I really meant that. You take it.”

As much as I’d’ve kind of liked to—at least try it out—there was no way I was going to push something like that on Keyd. And hell, maybe I wasn’t ready either. Keyd and I had made out a couple of times and that was it. Usually I didn’t end up sleeping—just sleeping—in bed with a girl until at least hands had actually gotten under clothes, if not more. Things usually got sexy before they got casual. But I thought Keyd was gonna have to be not like that. We were already taking this slow as hell and we hadn’t even really talked about what would happen here. Other than we both wanted something, and were gonna try.

So I went and dug the sleeping bag out of my closet. I had this thing for one reason—it’d acted as a blanket back when I lived in the dorms. My bed at home was a double and I hadn’t wanted to buy a new blanket that would fit the stupidly narrow and long dorm beds, so I’d just borrowed a sleeping bag from my brother Aaron and still had it with me. It’d been floating around with the boxes of stuff I lugged back and forth to campus every year and it’d ended up in this apartment, too.

The bag was a little dusty from being crammed in the back of the closet for a couple months, and I shook it out a few times before flopping it out onto the floor behind my desk. There, that was fine. I could handle a night of this.

“Hey, toss me a pillow,” I said, stretching an arm out towards Keyd, who was now sitting real awkwardly on the very edge of the bed.

“I should be sleeping there,” Keyd said instead, his fingers doing all kinds of nervous tapping against his legs.

“Naw, it’s fine. ‘sides, I really don’t think you’d fit in this.” Aaron had hit six feet by the time he was about sixteen, so it was a long sleeping bag, but Keyd had a half a foot at least on that. Plus it was pretty narrow. I’d fit fine, but Keyd wouldn’t.

“You’re certain?”

“Yeah, Keyd, I’m certain.” Was he not gonna let this go? I ran a hand through my hair and then shoved my glasses back up my nose. “Do you want to be on the floor?”

“I would rather you… be in the bed.” Keyd couldn’t even look at me when he said it, so I didn’t really buy that. If he meant what it sounded like; that he wanted me in there with him. Then again, the guy was shy as fuck about all this, and maybe it was just hard for him to say it. He wasn’t the best talker, after all.

So, why not check. Couldn’t hurt. “In the bed with you.”

Keyd still wasn’t looking at me. “If…that is comfortable for you.”

“Dude, what about you? You don’t have to offer if you don’t want to, I can handle the floor.”

“I wasn’t talking about myself.”

Fuck, this guy was difficult sometimes. “Sure, I’d be fine with that.” I thought I’d be fine. It’d be a good thing to find out. If Keyd was really making the offer, I’d take it.

All Keyd did as a reply was scoot backwards on the bed, obviously making room for me. Well. Well, okay then. Cool sweat broke out on the back of my neck, looking at that little spot of empty space. Okay, so it made me a little more nervous than I’d thought. But it was just something different and new and kind of exciting. I didn’t want to mess it up and I wanted Keyd to be comfortable with it. But he’d pushed for it, so...

“Okay then, man.”

I left the sleeping bag where it was, turned off the lights, stripped off just my jeans and made my way to the bed in the dark. I felt my way onto the edge, climbed into what little space there was left even with Keyd basically pushing himself against the wall. There was shuffling, shifting around in the dark, bumps of knees and arms together until we got ourselves more or less settled, and more or less not touching at all. But there was only an inch or two of space between us.

It’d been a long time since I’d slept in the same bed with somebody. And Keyd was real different from those other somebodies. He took up so much room, he radiated so much damn heat, he smelled like leather and earth and sweat, and then there was the light hum of energy that hung around him constantly. The familiar pattern and feel of it. This close to him, I could feel some of it dragging towards me again. I gave it a little nudge away, but when I fell asleep I wouldn’t have any control over that.

Keyd’s eyes were open, watching me in the dark. We were directly face-to-face, which...probably wasn’t necessary. I could turn around. He could turn around. We’d still be really damn close together in this twin bed either way. Keyd didn’t even fit on the damn thing; he was probably hanging off the end from the shins down. And he couldn’t bend his legs up, because now I was in the way.

“You’re really cool with this?” I said, just to make sure. “I mean, the sleeping thing.”

Keyd nodded. “Common for soldiers. Rysa and I have often shared a bed.”

“Of course you have.” I had to laugh at that. Wasn’t any weirder than showering together, really. I was getting more used to this kind of stuff with them. “But I’m not a soldier.”

“No,” Keyd said, much softer.

“Still cool?”

A wordless nod.

“Okay.” I closed my eyes, heard Keyd’s careful slow breathing, felt warmth glow off his body like the low heat of a stovetop burner, and felt totally and happily comfortable with all of it. Hopefully Keyd really was fine with it too. Because it was one of the nicest, calmest things that I’d done with another person in a really long time.

It didn’t take long before I faded away into sleep, listening to the steady sound of Keyd breathing.
#

It really was just sleeping. We didn’t end up all tangled together in the morning or on top of each other like some sort of bad romantic comedy. Keyd was still on his side and me on mine when I opened my crusty eyes to weak morning light. Not that my twin bed really had sides. We’d both flipped around in the night, and Keyd was facing the wall with his back pressed firm and hard against mine. That was actually what woke me up; the feeling like soft little bees buzzing through my shirt and down against my skin from the marks of his wings.

This was nice too, waking up with him. Or at least next to him. I wasn’t sure if he was awake with me. He wasn’t moving much and his breathing was pretty slow and even, so he seemed asleep. Even though his oen marks felt weird and I was nearly tipping off the edge of the bed, I liked this. Having him right here with me, close and warm and calm. Comforting. For just a couple minutes I stayed right where I was, not moving, letting all of this soak in and form a real nice little memory. I wanted to roll over and put my arm around him, not just to keep myself from falling out of bed but just...to do it. But it didn’t seem like a good idea, for a few reasons.

I sat up instead, put my feet on the floor and fumbled around for my glasses with one hand while rubbing at my eyes with the other. Bathroom time. To take care of a couple of things. Was it weird that it wasn’t weird to wake up with a semi-boner next to a dude? I mean, the first part was pretty normal, the second part not so much. But it didn’t bother me. I would have stayed in the bed, but nature was calling.

When I came back into the bedroom a couple minutes later, the bed was empty. So was the room. The blankets were all rumpled up and the door to the hallway was open. Well. That was less nice than before. We hadn’t even done anything and Keyd’d run out on me. I probably should have expected that, given how nervous he was about all this. Still. Kinda sucked.

I pulled on my jeans and changed my shirt, then went out into the living room. I had no idea what time it was, but it felt fucking early. The sunlight through the blinds was too pale and weak to be anything else. And I wasn’t that surprised to see all three of them, Keyd and Rysa and Ociir, awake and dressed and standing in the living room in a tight little huddle and talking.

Keyd was facing my way, so he was the first to see me. He met my eyes and turned away immediately. Great. Great. I’d fucked up with the sharing a bed thing. Keyd’d basically insisted, and now it was a problem. I knew I shouldn’t’ve done it. The floor would’ve been fine. Goddammit, I was a fucking idiot.

“Good morning,” Rysa said to me, and Ociir turned my way. Surprisingly, he gave me a friendly smile. Man, I’d been pretty shitty to him yesterday and he really didn’t seem like that bad a guy. I should really give him a chance.

“Hey, morning,” I said to both of them, while Keyd kept on completely not looking at me or saying anything. Jesus, if he was worried about Rysa catching on that we’d slept in the same bed—which was normal according to him—acting like this around me was gonna be the fastest way for her to figure something was different. I’d’ve thought Keyd knew how to be subtle after a whole life of hiding this part of himself. This was not subtle.

“Yo, Keyd. You sleep okay?” I said, and Keyd threw a panicked look at me that no one else saw. I’m trying to help you, you fucking idiot. “I know the floor isn’t that great.”

“...it was fine,” Keyd said, after a painfully long time.

“Awesome,” I said, and went past the three of them and into the kitchen. Keeping shit casual, and normal, and super awkward.

This was not gonna work if we kept at it like this. Rysa needed to know, because I couldn’t do this cover up stuff for real long. It was just a real long lie, and I hate lying. And Keyd needed to get some of this burden off his back either way. This was for the rest of his life. Rysa was permanent in it, and me...well, not so much. But that was exactly why she needed to know. If there was one person in the damn universe who should know the truth about him, it should be her. She was gonna be with him long after they were out of my life.

I wasn’t even counting Ociir. He was here for Rysa and probably wouldn’t be sticking around for long. So, until he was gone, I’d cover for Keyd. And then try and talk some fucking sense into him about how Rysa would never in million years abandon him because he was gay. I knew that a lot of it was just blind fear, that he’d convinced himself that was how she’d react and couldn’t imagine anything else. But I really was the only person who could convince him otherwise. I was the only person who knew.

I grabbed a granola bar from the box—somebody’d cleaned them up after I’d spilled them everywhere yesterday, probably Martin—scarfed it down, then grabbed another one. I was gonna take a walk this time. I needed it. And Keyd and Rysa and Ociir sure didn’t need me right now. I was just getting in the way.

“I’m going for a walk,” I told to—well, whoever the hell was paying attention—as I headed for the front door. Nobody said anything to stop me, and so I went outside into the early morning light. It was cool and nice out here, and I stopped to take a deep slow breath before turning to head for the gate out of the complex.

Two fucking seconds later, Keyd was on me. The door hadn’t closed all the way behind me and suddenly he was through it, right there, catching me gently by the shoulder. “Wait,” he said, as I heard the door click shut. “Wait, please.”

I didn’t shake him off, even if I kinda wanted to. “What?”

“I’m sorry,” Keyd said, in this quiet and sincere voice I couldn’t even stay mad at. I wasn’t even that mad, just...frustrated. Confused. Tired. “For this morning. I...I suppose I panicked.”

“Yeah, I kinda got that.”

Keyd closed his eyes for a second. “Thank you. For not saying anything. For… keeping it to yourself.”

“Dude, we didn’t even do anything.”

“I know. I know.” The control slipped, and Keyd put his face into his hands for a real fast moment, before he leaned back and swept his fingers through his hair. “I know. That’s the worst part. It would be acceptable and I still...acted that way. And if that’s how I behave with something so reasonable, how can I ever do anything else?”

Well, I couldn’t fucking answer that. But it definitely wasn’t the kind of thing I wanted to hear. We were supposed to be giving this a shot, even though nothing had happened between us since Ociir had showed up. It kinda sounded like Keyd was…not so sure about the whole thing now. And that was pretty shitty, not just because that’d end anything between us, but because I was pretty sure I’d spend the rest of my life wondering about him. Thinking about how miserable he might be where ever he was, pretending to be somebody that he wasn’t and hiding the truth from every single person in his life. I’d never forget a person like Keyd, and I just wanted him to be okay. With me, without me, didn’t matter.

But Keyd didn’t seem to actually want an answer to his sad little question. He sighed instead, took a step back and leaned on the wall next to my door. After a second, I joined him there, in the small space left between him and the patio fence. He glanced at me, and for a second I thought he might touch me, but he didn’t.

“I just wanted to speak to you before I...left,” he said, pressing his arm flat against his side like he had to keep it under control.

That got me. “You’re leaving now?”

“I assume I’ll return eventually. But I have to go back to my people, as I should have done already with Rysa. I have to know what’s happened in the years we were gone and, I expect, assure people that I am truly alive still.”

“Wouldn’t Rysa have told them that?”

“Of course. But she is not always...believed.”

“Because she used to be a clarbach,” I said, and Keyd frowned.

“She was not ever one. She only grew up in their capital city, and when the entities fully bonded with her...they manifested as oen instead. She has always been oenclar.”

“Okay, Keyd, you gotta remember I really have no idea how any of this works. You’re just throwing words and shit at me like I’ll understand what you mean. I don’t.”

“If—when I return, I’ll make sure that changes,” Keyd said. Again, that look and tiny jerk of his arm like he wanted to touch me. And again, he didn’t. “I want you to know anything that you wish to.”

“And I’m guessing Rysa’s going back with you, so she can’t fill me in.”

“She is.”

“And Ociir?”

“We thought...we asked him to remain behind, with you. He is not a soldier, but now we know there are clarbach in your world, scouting here, and he could protect you just through his presence more than Rysa and I could on our own in a fight. That is, if anything were to happen, while we are gone.”

“Right, okay.” That made some sense, actually. And Ociir was decent, I guess. I didn’t really have a problem with him, despite the bad start. But that was his own damn brother’s fault for being such a douchebag. Talking with him might be interesting, actually. I could learn some shit. Or maybe he’d be like Keyd, and clam up if I tried to ask him anything about Rysa and her past. “Did you mean you’re leaving now now, or—”

I stopped. The look on his face was a good enough answer.

Even if he’d said he was coming back, I wasn’t sure on that. Not that Keyd was lying or didn’t mean it, but there were probably more important things to deal with where he came from than some dumb kid on another planet he’d kissed a few times. If he didn’t come back, I’d get it. I wouldn’t like it, but I wouldn’t blame him.

So this really might be the last time I saw him.

“Hey, before you go, can I do something?” I said, and Keyd tilted his head. I put my hand against his neck, used him to pull myself closer to him along the wall. Kissed him, not real gentle and not real hard. Just something solid; purposeful. Keyd’s breath hitched and I felt sudden hands on my sides, and I thought he was gonna stop me. But then his fingers twisted up in my shirt, he tilted his head and pressed back into me in a real serious way. Not anything crazy or even that passionate, but just…intense. Slow, and intense, and real.

Things never seemed real with Keyd until they were like this, because he was so damn good at separating himself into two people; the intimidating and stoic soldier who barely talked....and this guy, the one who was suddenly kissing me like nothing else mattered. The one who had a weird little sense of humor and was sweet and awkward and loyal and absolutely nothing like the other version of him; the emotionless soldier I’d thought he was when we met. Not that I minded the tough badass thing anymore; it was actually kinda hot now that it didn’t terrify me. I just wanted this version of Keyd more.

“Mhh,” I managed to say when Keyd tried to pull away, and caught at his head, getting my fingers in his hair and yanking him back to me. I got a little more aggressive about it this time, pushing at his lips and coaxing his mouth open just a little, teasing him with just a tiny push of tongue, and he didn’t seem to mind it at all. I slung a leg around his while I was at it, so I was straddling one of his thighs, pushing him up against the door of my apartment instead of us just leaning against the wall next to each other. This was like a classic make-out-in-the-hallways-in-high-school position, and I didn’t even care. Keyd kind of made me feel like a teenager with a first crush anyway. Everything felt new, exciting, overwhelming and like I couldn’t hold it all in, all of it just boiling up eager and hot in me and bubbling over. At least, when we got moments like this.

And this one was still going. Whenever my wrist brushed over the mark on his face, tingles ran down into my skin and through my hand, and his hair was thick and soft. Energy hummed between us, thrumming out of him and drifting my way. I didn’t bother to push it back. It was part of him, and I wanted it as much as anything else he had.

Fuck, why was this so good? Why did he have to leave; why couldn’t he be some human guy I’d met who didn’t have to go back to an alien planet to fight his alien war and we could just have time to figure this out together? I was such an idiot at relationships that I had to pick somebody like thisto go and fall for? Martin was right; I really made fucking bad choices. They were never bad for the same reasons, either—Keyd was actually a good guy. A great guy. Just… probably impossible to be with.

When I tried to ease off slowly, Keyd was the one who grabbed me back. Christ, I was gonna get hard, right out here in the open in front of my apartment and with a guy who might be semi-dumping me, only because we’d only semi-been together. Keyd changed the kiss up again, everything slowing, going gentle and careful. His hands were just light tickles against the sides of my face, soft brushes down my neck and back of my spine, his mouth just far away enough that I could feel the heat of his lips, his breath, but there was almost no touch. Even with Keyd’s body firm and hot and solid under me, it felt like kissing hot smoke and air. Fuck, I was so turned on I was getting light-headed, and I had to press my hands against the wall to keep myself grounded.

“Stop,” I finally breathed out, because if we didn’t I was gonna dry hump him right against this goddamn wall. “Stop, we gotta stop.”

Keyd did, but he kept on clinging to me long after I’d let him go, one hand fisted up in the back of my shirt and the other in my hair, the side of his temple pressed against mine.

“Hasn asdeman bahn ehaisa,” he said, so quiet that it was hard to hear. Not that it mattered; I couldn’t understand what he’d said.

“Okay,” I said, rubbing a wide circle on his lower back, because it was all I could do. That whole thing’d felt way too much like a goodbye. Keyd knew it too; that him coming back here to me wasn’t really in the cards. He might come back to fight a war, but what good was I gonna be to that? Maybe I could give them some useful info about Earth, but I had a feeling Keyd wasn’t in the diplomatic alien relations squad. Or if he was, he’d been seriously mis-assigned.

“I’m going to get Rysa,” Keyd said suddenly, and pulled away from me, flipping us around with no effort, sliding out of my grip and putting my back against the wall. For a couple seconds he stayed there, holding me at arm's length. The way he was looking at me was more thoughtful than anything, thoughtful and...maybe something else. But he still wasn’t an easy man to read, even if I was getting better at it. “I have to go.”

The lump in my throat was hard to swallow past, and I closed my eyes. “Okay,” I said, and breathed out. Keyd’s hands drifted off me. “Okay.”

I still knew when he moved away from me even with my eyes shut, because of the sense of his energy. Maybe I should ask Keyd and Rysa about this new weird thing my ability was doing before they took off forever. Then again, if they left...it wouldn’t matter. I really only had the abilities because of them. Maybe it’d all just fade away after a while. Maybe all of this would fade away after a while. Like a memory or a dream.

Except Keyd. And Rysa. I’d never forget them. Or Ahieel, because it’d be fucking hard to forget a guy who tried to kill you a couple times. So, yeah...maybe it wouldn’t go away. Ever.

God. I needed to take that walk, clear my head, get some time to process what was happening. What I was losing. Try and come up with some way to handle it. My life had already changed pretty drastically in the last few weeks, and if it was gonna change again I definitely needed a plan to cope.

I wasn’t even out of the parking lot before I felt...something. In the air, distant, behind me, but getting closer. Energy, definitely energy. There was someone else around. Someone not Rysa, or Keyd, or Ociir, or even Ahieel. Different energy, a different pattern, a different person. It was strong and almost kind of aggressive; almost like the energy wasn’t contained to them, that it was spreading out and almost...searching. It was kind of invasive and uncomfortable, actually, and I didn’t like it. I definitely didn’t like the fact that there was obviously another goddamn alien here.

Shit, maybe I wasn’t just feeling somebody’s energy, but a spell they were using, too. Ociir had been searching for Keyd and Rysa too, but his energy was so mild and quiet compared to theirs I hadn’t felt anything like this. This person had crazy strong energy, maybe even stronger than Rysa or Keyd’s. Were they looking for them? How the fuck did they know they were even around here? All of the goddamn planet available and all these aliens managed to zero in on my apartment.

I turned around and moved deeper into the parking lot, towards the back of the complex, edging carefully towards where the energy was coming from. Stupidly, I had my fists up, like that would fucking help. If I needed to fight somebody, or defend myself, it wouldn’t be like that. Energy. I had a ton of it now, just from being around Rysa and Keyd and Ociir. I’d managed to sorta mentally elbow them apart from each other like trying to control squabbling kids, so at least I didn’t feel as unbalanced and overwhelmed as I had when all three of them had been sitting next to me.

Then, out of nowhere, there was a guy in front of me. I think he’d slid out from behind somebody’s oversized macho truck in one of the parking spots. He was suddenly just there, walking towards me, and radiating a whole shit-ton of energy my way.

This dude was an oenclar for fucking sure. His hair was short, black, swept backwards off his forehead, and there was a pattern of dark curving triangles on his face that started above his right eyebrow and curled down in a C over the ridge of his cheekbone. It looked a lot like Keyd’s mark, except it was just on the other side of his face.

He wasn’t wearing armor, but I got the idea he was a soldier. The way he held himself, the way he was walking, it all just screamed military at me. The clothes he wore were some crazy combination of dark leather and fabric; there were like full on gauntlets on his lower arms and a high collar on the detailed leather vest, a sword at his side and a glint of bright red fabric tied around his waist under a wide belt.

As he got closer—because he was coming right for me—I got a better look at his face. He was maybe in his late thirties or early forties, or at least looked like he was. I wasn’t gonna assume at this point. But he was a really good-looking forty; tall, broad-shouldered and actually kinda handsome. Strong jaw, narrow arched nose, light blue eyes.

It just really didn’t end around here. And I was getting really tired of fucking aliens showing up around my apartment and always finding me.

“All right, who are you?” I said to the guy, planting myself right in his way. He was oenclar, so probably not a threat, but I still wanted to make sure. Plus, there was a clarbach in my apartment, and there was no way that’d work out well for Ociir if this guy saw him, or look good on Keyd and Rysa.

The guy lifted one eyebrow at me, like he could hardly believe I’d just talked to him like that. But he didn’t seem mad; more like I’d said something almost funny.

“Frequency,” he said, in it. “Interesting.” His voice was smooth and kind of light, not the booming intensity I’d kinda expected just from what he looked like. Still, it was a voice with power and control; somebody who didn’t have to overcompensate by getting all intimidating, because he was used to being listened to.

“Seriously, who the fuck are you?” I said again. “If you’re looking for somebody here, then—”

I didn’t have to say anything more, because the sense of Keyd and Rysa’s energy was starting to get stronger, coming closer. Good. They could deal with this guy better than I could. Obviously he didn’t even think I was worth talking to.

I felt instead of heard Rysa and Keyd leave my apartment and walk up the pathway to the parking lot. I half-turned, not wanting to take my eyes off this new guy, but hoping Rysa and Keyd would see or feel this dude and get the hell over here. They did. As soon as they came into view around the corner of the laundry room, both of them whipped around in my direction and then headed over, fast. Not outright running, but definitely hustling. The whole time, this new guy did nothing. Just stood there, watching them. And me.

Then, almost at the exact same time, both Keyd and Rysa practically skidded to a stop. They were only about ten feet away.

“Sho uyej,” I heard Rysa say, soft and almost breathless. But it was nothing compared to the way Keyd’s expression turned dead, flat, and pale. Like he was seeing a goddamn ghost. Shit, who was this guy? I took a step back from him, closer to Keyd and Rysa, trying to catch either of their eyes but neither of them was looking anywhere at me. Neither was the oenclar dude.

It was Keyd who finally did something. He gently moved Rysa aside and stepped forward, moving past me to stand right in front of the guy.

“Father,” Keyd said softly.