I'd looked at him then, although he couldn't meet my stare."Yeah, it's not like I'm doing that anyway," I'd admitted, pretending I couldn't feel the heat of embarrassment prickling up my neck.
Araxis toyed with the trailing garlands of leaves, arranging them so that they draped artfully from the plant's new perch."It is not that, Sashen," he said."It is important that you spend time here.That we spend time here together.If you were to sleep elsewhere, the room would not smell like you.The…" he paused, something tense flicking over his profile before he smoothed it away, "deceptionwould be noticed."
I'd glanced again at the sliding door to the meeting room, where I knew we’d be spending hours and hours; we’d pretend to be a couple, and then we’d come back in here and – what, try and figure everything out?I’d let myself look back at him then, as he stood in a sliver of artificial sunlight that made the white of his skin glow, and my chest had ached with that familiar, awful pulse of tenderness.
I didn't want to feel that, not when I knew I couldn't trust it and I couldn't trust him yet either, so I swallowed it down and folded it up.I made it into a crane that I could put somewhere safe."Makes sense," I'd said."So we'll keep doing what we've been doing.Just don't get any ideas if you wake up and I'm wrapped around you.This bed isnotdesigned for, uh,professionalsleeping arrangements, that's for sure."
He'd been quiet, still pretending to look at his plant."I understand, Sashen," he said finally."I will not have any ideas that are not outlined in our contract.Only –" And he'd looked at me then, just a quick glance before his black stare flicked away again, "If you wish to reopen negotiations at any point, please tell me.I am amenable to adjusting our terms."
"Are you now?"I moved to poke my head into the closet.The floor of the entire room was carpeted, plush and soft and pale.Who was going to clean that?I hoped it wasn't me.
When I looked back, I could see the corner of his mouth twitch, just slightly – the memory of a smile that I hadn't seen in a week.More than."You certainly have the upper hand.Any negotiations would surely go in your favour."
I wanted, very badly, to make a joke about what kind of hand I had and what I might do with it but –
But.I couldn't.So I didn't.Instead, I asked him if we could coordinate our schedules so that I knew when he needed me; I asked him if we needed to get anything before we headed to Xitera and the Hall of Records and if I could help by arranging any appointments with tailors, jewellers, ship provisioners.
In short, I got to work, and any of the lightness that had been creeping into to the edges of Araxis's expression drained away, and he got to work as well.
That night, the nightmares came back.I'd like to blame the bed: the more I tried to roll away, the more it wanted to tip me toward Araxis, and something about sliding like that, the relentlessness of gravity, seemed to trigger whatever awful thing it was that lurked inside my subconscious mind.I could struggle, but I couldn't escape.Or maybe it was just the trauma.
It doesn't matter though.What matters is that the nightmares wereback, and that Araxis got to see them.
At first, when I woke choking on nothing at all, wheezing in breaths that refused to fill my lungs as I struggled, desperate, to crawl my way free from the bed that kept dragging meback, Araxis had no idea what to do.He kept asking me what was wrong, reaching for me in a panic, looking stricken when I wrenched away.He tried turning on the lights, then shifting them to a familiar, soothing pink; he got me water, he talked to me, he tried to drape a blanket over my shoulders while I shivered.
"What can I do?"he asked when I finally calmed down enough to stop gasping for air.
"Nothing," I wheezed."Just – it justhappens."
He didn't push; I didn't offer more.Eventually I drank my water and crawled back into bed.And the next night, we went through the same song and dance again, Araxis looking devastated and wide-eyed and hopeless, all at once.
Which was frustrating: I didn't really want to be worrying abouthisemotions in the middle of my – episode.Not when I could still feel the shards of broken bone radiating from my orbital socket; when I could feel the prick of Andiri's claws around the back of my neck.
He must have figured out the particular quality of my nightmares.Maybe it was the way I rubbed my neck, an attempt at self-soothing – the physical reminder that Andiri didn't have her bone-white fingers around my neck, that her claws weren't gouging punctures into my skin.Maybe it was because, sometimes, I pressed a hand hard to my own face, assuring myself that it was still in one piece – firm, unbroken, not soft and pulpy.
In any case, he figured it out and the next night that I woke, unable to breathe with my mouth tasting like blood and my own imminent death, he'd threaded his fingers through my hair – certain – and murmured, "You are here, safe with me.You are far away.No one will touch you again.No onecantouch you here."His fingers were cold against my scalp and stopped me in my tracks as I fought against the tangle of blankets.
Instead, I'd curled inwards and he had pulled me to him until my head was resting on his chest and his words were a rumble I felt more than anything I could hear.
Of course, it was a lie – although, admittedly it was a nice one, and it was nicer still because he believed it.But none of us can promise safety, can we?
In the morning, I'd still felt like I'd been run over by a shuttle, but it was definitely a smaller shuttle than it had been in the days before.
As always, it was like Araxis had shone a light on some dark, hidden corner of my soul and lit it up for us both to see.This time, though, it was helpful rather than just – painful.
Well, it was painful too.God, it was painful, because by the light of day, it became clear to me: I was scared.I wasterrified.I didn't feel safe.HowcouldI feel safe, when I'd gone through what I'd gone through on Seraphim, scrambled to scrape by, had everything I'd known yanked away from me by someone who I'd then fallen in love with, and I'd nearly been murdered twice for intergalactic broadcast because I was a dancer, not a fighter, and, worse, I was a fuckingliability.
So the next day, when he'd reminded me that it was aPersonal Day, of course I'd decided to start looking for a trainer.And then I found Tam and Inmadra and began, inch by inch, to carve out the shape of my life here on Sozamia Station and here as part of Creche Thiel.
My life quickly fell into two bisected halves.When I was working, I slotted into the creche's life as if I were a piece designed to fit into their puzzle.It was what I knew how to do: to be helpful, pretty, entertaining.Agreeable.I woke every morning and reviewed the plan for the day with Araxis on the large display in our bedroom that was perpetually glowing, whether with our schedule or the missives that Araxis seemed to get in an endless stream from creches throughout the empire or with the news that came every day on the morning burst, a selection of important updates from Xitera.I woke, I dressed, I laid out my day, and I walked the kids to school.When I came back to the inevitable onslaught of meetings and guests who would sit in the meeting room off of our bedroom, I would sit at Araxis's side and smile, tilting my head attentively and peppering in little comments that never failed to win me some pleased laughter from whoever was sitting across from us.
During our first week on station, I'd expected I would be lost during those meetings – after all, I hadn't magically learned abayan through proximity to a creche, and I hadn't yet found Inmadra then, although even she couldn't cram an entire language into my brain in a few meetings – but when Vivith had started speaking in melodic abayan during our first meeting, Araxis had gently cut them off."It would be best if we use Standard," he'd said, "so that we might all understand."
The entinn and cinelaat from Creche Eshos who sat across from us for our very first in-person meeting had both beamed at me – absolutelyglowedin my direction – and easily slid from their language into one I could follow while I murmured about my appreciation and their kindness.
Vivith's face flashed with a tight expression before they smoothed it away and business continued apace.
That night, Araxis had offered to help me with the language, if I was inclined, after the dinner's conversation had yet again slid into abayan before he'd reminded my creche-mates to speak in Standard while I suppressed a wash of awkwardness and pretended like I wasn't disrupting everything."I'm fine," I'd said, already skimming the Sozamia forums."And you're busy anyway."
