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The first night that Federated Planets Ambassador Tamlin Rye spent entirely in Valentine Perrin’s captain’s cabin, on that beautiful space-washed courier starship, Val did not have a nightmare. In fact, Val slept well and easily. Or so Tam hoped.
Gazing at those shut eyes, at the fall of blue-violet-onyx ink swirl hair against his own shoulder, he thought that Val looked peaceful. Tam had certainly done his best to ensure they both ended up worn out. Pleasurably so.
The captain’s bed—indeed, the entirety of the captain’s quarters—settled comfortably around them. Standard Federated Planets courier-ship walls and lines, but transformed. Hung with glimmering chime-silk in color-shifting hues. Glinting with a heap of jeweled hairpins and bronze earrings and tiny bells strung on chains. Highlighted by pretty rocks that served as bookends for the few actual physical books and notebooks on Val’s shelf, by the desk.
So many stories. So much Tam didn’t know, and wanted to dive into.
A week, they had. A week, for Val’s slim star-dancer Calliope to deliver him home, after this last peace-brokering mission and his own ambassadorial success, or what he hoped had been a success. A week to get to know Val, to learn Val, to memorize every detail: colorful, shy, literary, wounded.
He rested his head against Val’s, there in the bed, and shut his eyes.
Of course the peace didn’t last. That night, yes; that first night. But Tam should’ve known. Val had told him. No secrets, nothing held back.
Val was the sort of person who told people stories. The stories were true, but delivered in a gentle or amusing or teasing or self-deprecating way, such that the listeners never felt uncomfortable or afraid, not even when Val casually mentioned the disastrous Cronus evacuations and his own first ever mission as a captain, because if Valentine Perrin was good at anything, he was good at being a courier: in motion, charming, easing people along. Flitting from place to place, dyed hair shimmering in the evenings when he took it down from serious pins and let it fall in a rhapsody of black and purple and sapphire, summoning a lover’s hands for this week, this joy.
Tam got to be his lover. That was still a new thought, sparkling.
Tam had not met him before this, before the day Val had run down the Calliope’s ramp and announced himself as the ambassador’s ride home from that successful mission, hair swinging, eyes sparkling, long limbs graceful in the way of someone used to slightly different gravity. Val moved like ballet, like veils, like ribbons, Tam had thought even then. Like flying thistle dancer seeds in Eridian’s winds, thin and swift.
Of course he’d fallen head over heels. Val, on the other hand, had tried to behave: breathlessly enthusiastic but achingly polite to a distinguished senior ambassador. Val had, at first, tried to apologize to him on the night they’d found each other on the observation deck, even though Tam had been the one interrupting him under dark late celestial swirls.
That’d been the night they’d realized they liked each other, not just as ambassador and courier. In starshine, in swiftspace, bathed in light.
The first time Val accidentally woke him happened on the fourth night they spent together, into the second half of the journey back to Terra. Tam had guessed it might be one of those nights. He knew they occurred; Val had told him that as well, the two of them alone on the observation deck, confessing quiet words and wants. No secrets, no concealment. Once Valentine had decided to open up, it was that simple.
In the captain’s bed, after shared mutual pleasure—Val was gorgeous, uninhibited, flexible, playful—he’d watched Val try to fall asleep. On the first few occasions, this hadn’t been a problem. Tam had felt a mild sense of smugness about that: despite being older and less weightlessly graceful, he could wring quite a lot of satisfaction out of Valentine’s body.
He held Val against him, there. With Val’s head on his shoulder, and Tam’s head tipped that way, a strand or two of colorful hair snagged on Tam’s beard. He did not mind. He rather liked it.
Drowsy, he floated along the edge of sleep himself; after some uncounted time he heard Val’s breathing soften, and then catch, and not settle into a rhythm. He felt Val’s tiny movements against him, the shifts of someone trying very hard not to disturb another person.
Tam, awake now, ran a hand along Val’s back, tracing smoothness and distress. “All right?”
“I just can’t sleep.”
“You can stay up if you want. You get some writing done when you can’t sleep, you said.”
“I’ll keep you awake.”
“I can sleep through anything. Useful trait in an ambassador.”
“Thank you, but I shouldn’t. I’ll need to be on the bridge in the morning. Awake and alert.”
“What might help?”
“You,” Val said, and reached for him. “Distract me.”
After that second round, naked and replete in Tam’s arms, he murmured into Tam’s chest, “You can play with my hair,” and Tam nodded and did, and hummed softly while doing so, an old lullaby he didn’t know all the words to but recalled one of his parents singing.
Val did fall asleep, and Tam counted that as a win; but he wondered, and he was proven right about an hour later. He’d mostly managed to drift off himself—tired, but wanting to stay awake in case—and the fantastic bed was soft and the captain’s quarters were quiet and dark, stars flowing in the viewscreen, lights down. Val’s hair held the scent of oceans and sweetness, clean water and salt and honey, and Tam liked the buoyant slim strong weight of him, growing familiar now.
Val tensed against him, and stirred, and made a sound; Tam snapped to full awareness. Before he could do much, Val made the sound again, a scream that didn’t escape, a gasp; and then jerked upright. The night limned his hair, the tumble of his emotions.
“I’m here,” Tam said, sitting up too. “I’m here.”
“I…” Val hesitated, glanced away: at a crumple of blanket, at Tam’s knee. “I’m so sorry.” He tried for a smile, a joke: “Well, I did say I like sharing things…recipes, stories…bad dreams, apparently…”
“Do you want to talk about it?” He held out an arm. “Or not. Either way. But I’d like to hold you.”
