I wanted him to love me like I loved him, and I wanted all of the bad things he'd done to be erased from our history.
Most of all, I didn't want him to be my client.I didn't want to do this anymore.I wanted it to be like it could have been, like it had been, like it should have been.
But –
But it wasn't.
"Let's go home," I said, voice hoarse.
Araxis made a soft, affirmative sound, his head shifting in my hands as he nodded.Then, slowly, he eased his eyes open and pushed himself up, his hands steady and certain as he helped me up too.I groaned as I stood, my body screaming in a thousand different places.One hand jerked, unbidden, to my waist, and I had to smother another sharp sound as my elbow blossomed with furious pain.I'd already been sore when I'd left Tam's; this was worse.This was way beyondnormal.This might be – catastrophic, if I wasn't careful.
"I might need a doctor," I admitted, breathless.Araxis moved so that his body was tucked against mine, my arm resting over his shoulder, and he shifted so that he was easily bearing some of my weight.Steady, upright, certain."There's –ow, fuck."
"The ward guards did a medical scan before I arrived," Araxis murmured as I leaned on him more heavily, my head throbbing as dots of black ate at the edges of my vision."These injuries will not kill you, and you can travel in this state.I have a ward shuttle waiting outside.Do you think you will be able to make it that far?"
I nodded, swallowing down the nausea that each wave of pain sent through my body.I took a step, supported by Araxis, and tried desperately not to cry out.Apparently, walking was going to hurt like a motherfucker.And breathing.I forced myself to inhale deeply, breathing into the pain that crackled at the bottom of my lungs.I inhaledintoit, like I'd been learning from Tam, and it sang like lightning along my nerves.
I held the deep breath at the point where it hurt most, counting from five.By the time I got to zero, some of the sharpest edge of the pain – the part that had surprised me – had dulled, just enough to be bearable."Okay," I wheezed."Should be able to walk now."
One of Araxis's hands, which was tucked around my waist, stroked me gently, comforting."I thought – I did not want to take you to the medical ward down here, not without knowing more about what happened.I can call a physician from another creche.Someone we can trust."
I heard what he was saying without saying.
I'd been attacked.I'dbeen attacked, on purpose, and until we knew who had done it or why, we couldn’t know who to trust.I nodded, head still ringing."There's a doctor I've been working with, Rodil.They're crecheless, and they're good.Elethenn knows them.He could – He could get in touch."
To his credit, Araxis didn't ask me any follow-up questions, just nodding along and murmuring sweet nothings to me as I limped my way from the guard station – there was a procession of guards waiting in the hallways, glaring at me as I passed, which I would normally consider a victory but it felt, at that moment, cruel and unnecessary – and toward the ward shuttle that was waiting outside, just big enough for two people and piloted autonomously.They were expensive: these shuttles could access the few interior tunnels reserved for in-station transport.He must have been in a rush, I thought fuzzily; he must have come down quickly.
Araxis helped ease me down into the nearest seat, slipping over me to settle in on the other side.The shuttle lifted up and I let my head tilt sideways, falling to his shoulder while he tapped away at his wristband.Outside, the dim lights of Radiant Ward had cycled through to red shift.I realized, with a start, that I'd been out for a long time.It was late.And –
"Idohave to say sorry," I said distantly, the view outside the window nothing but flashes of reds and yellows, unfocused."You should be – You should besleeping."
"You do not need to apologize," said Araxis, firm."This is my fault.It never should have happened.It is because of me that you felt the need to spend so much time down here, andIshould have been with you, not a –" He stopped, flicking his wristband off, and when I looked up at him, I could see the tension in his jaw and in the way he was blinking, rapid.
"I had time off," I croaked, my throat sore and raw.Must have been from all the screaming."Why would you be with me?"
"If I'd had the integrity to be honest with you, you would not feel the need to keep me at a distance.If I had not ruined, through my cowardice, what we had –"
I didn't want to hear this.I couldn't hear this.My chest was tight, my whole body aching, and I didn't know how to separate what my body was feeling from what my heart was.They were one and the same.I hadn't realized before all of this that heartache could be literal, that it was possible for someone to hurt you so deeply that you felt it in your bones, in your tissue, in your blood; that it became a memory that lived in every cell of your body, a bruise that wouldn't fade.
"I can't talk about this now," I murmured, my head still resting against his shoulder, although I could feel the muscles of my neck start to tighten.I could probably sit up straight if I tried.
Araxis was looking out the window, his face turned away from me, but I could still feel him nod sharply, just once."I understand," he said, strained."And you may never wish to.I know this, Sashen."
And although he fell to silence after that, and I was silent too, for some reason I felt the slow trickle of tears over my cheeks, slipping one by one from my eyes and falling onto my battered hands below.But there wasn't anything else to say then, in the shuttle from the guard station in Radiant Ward to our creche, so I let them fall in silence, unremarked on, and I didn't move to brush them away.
* * *
The first thing I did when we got back to the creche, after Araxis forced some painkillers and a glass of water into me, was go to our closet to change.Araxis followed, apparently unwilling or unable to be anywhere that wasn't by my side.I didn't bother looking at myself in the mirror – honestly, it was probably better not to know – but Araxis hissed when I peeled out of my sweater and down to my tank top, which was still spattered with my own blood from the earlier training session.
"Where –" he started.
I waved a hand, woozy."Not from the alley.It's nothing."
Araxis was silent, watching me carefully as I hauled off the shirt and started inspecting the bruises that had turned my torso into a mottled canvas of blue and purple.I heard his tight subvocal and glanced up, risking a shrug, which didn't hurt as badly as I'd feared."This is more or less what I looked like when they hauled me off the sands.Well, the elbow's worse, but the throat's better," I admitted, trying for a smile that felt as fake as it was."I gave as good as I got this time though.Better.I –"
I had killed someone.I'dkilledsomeone, beaten them to death with my own fucking hands.
I staggered a little, and Araxis was at my side in an instant."Sit," he murmured, nudging me backwards as I nearly collapsed on to the little bench in the closet."Just rest here for a moment, beloved.Let me get you cleaned up."
