Guide to Survival Vol 1 Scion of the House of Garu

Guide to Survival, Volume I - 1

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher. Guide To Survival Volume 1: Scion of the House of Garu SCREWDRIVER An imprint of Torquere Press Publishers PO Box 2545 Round Rock, TX 78680 Copyright 2006 © by H. B. Kurtzwilde Cover illustration by S. Squires Published with permission ISBN: 978-1-60370-070-2, 1-60370-070-6 www.torquerepress.com All rights reserved, which includes the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever except as provided by the U.S. Copyright Law. For information address Torquere Press. Inc., PO Box 2545, Round Rock, TX 78680. First Torquere Press Printing: June 2007 Printed in the USA

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Guide To Survival Volume 1: Scion of the House of Garu By H. B. Kurtzwilde Chapter 1: The Moment They Met It was really Kourt’s fault, deep down, that Jenner had run. There were other factors, certainly, but at the heart of it, Kourt was to blame. There had been a conversation, then a debate, then a full-blown, guns-drawn, completely serious conflict that had nearly ended both their lives. They did not want to kill each other. They agreed on that point totally. Like gentlemen, they drew their lines in the sand and quietly declared war on one tiny detail. Beyond that, everything went back to normal, as far as Kourt and Jenner were concerned. Jenner, by himself, however, had not quite let it go, caused trouble for himself and his best friend, things that couldn’t be excused or ignored. The wounds had been deep, all around, but Jenner was the one who had to wear the scars, and so he’d run. Master Servitor Kourt Crowe no longer counted the years he’d been living in Eab Nanoorn as the personal bodyguard of Prince Bail Blaine Garu and, later, Duke Jenner Garu; over twenty, probably closer to thirty years, all told. That was as close as he really came to an accounting. He’d stopped counting years here and started counting years left when his son, Jenner, had been born. After all, he would have to return to his Order and leave his family, sooner or later. Living with Prince Bail Blaine Garu for so long had sort of set him up to expect the unexpected. Orgies and week-long house parties were a way of life in the Kingdom/Sector of Eab Nanoorn. It was the pleasure capital of the Peoples’ Commonwealth Union. It wasn’t what he thought, when first he had arrived. Nothing cheap or tawdry or ugly was involved in this at all. It was just that Eab Nanoorn was a wonderful place to live. People here tended to enjoy themselves one hell of a lot. The Kingdom formally acknowledged one religion. It was based on a text called ‘The Friendly Helping Book’ and only wanted for people to be happy. They were absolutely unique in the Commonwealth. It was the uniqueness of the Eab Nanoornian way of life that had earned them the personal protection of a Servitor, in the person of Master Kourt Crowe. The fact that he had fallen deeply in love with the object of his assignment had eventually been forgiven. He had never failed his duties outright, though he’d found some creative ways to interpret them, when circumstances dictated. He had been raised to expect a militant, violent life, in literal defense of the Peoples’ Union. He had instead been enjoying quite a spate of domestic tranquility. He was a Servitor, and he did his duty with weapons in hand, or simply by standing guard over a very special Royal Family. It made no difference to him. He had found ways to make the life of a Servitor blend and mesh with the life of a prince, for love. Just being in Eab Nanoorn had actually helped with that. There were more lifestyle philosophies in Eab Nanoorn than almost anywhere else in the Commonwealth.

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Everyone had an opinion, and they were all respected, if gossiped about. The major philosophy, though, was the Way of Deamonett. It essentially taught its followers how to get laid in the very best ways anyone had ever devised. Fundamentalist Hedonism, Kourt called it, in his reports to the Order. He’d learned the entire way from a handbook he’d been casually offered one evening. Kourt’s spouse, Blaine Garu, was of the Deamonett way. Their son, Jenner, had been raised in that philosophy, as well as in the Church of the Book. He was of the royal line. It was almost required that he publicly embrace these teachings. But Jenner did have two fathers, and Kourt had his own lessons to give; quiet, thoughtful ones that didn’t have anything to do with pleasure or friendliness at all. Practical lessons, and they’d saved Jenner’s life on more than one occasion. So there was Jenner. One dad was a prince in a place that gave out religious tracts on blowjobs. The other dad was a member of the Order of Servitors, gunslinger-monks to the last. It made for some growing pains, to say the least, and his current run-off was just one of them. Jenner’s life was very strange. Unexpected things happened to him, like surprise birthday bacchanals and learning how to be absolutely deadly with any edge at all. He rolled with the punches, and Kourt kept an eye out for the unexpected, too. Kourt’s husband, Prince Bail Blaine Garu, was absolutely distraught by his son’s precipitous abandonment of his place and duty to the family. Kourt covered for Jenner, lied, kept secrets, everything he’d been trained to do, to protect his boy. Jenner had no business running off like that, it was very true. He just hadn’t felt there were any other options open to him, when he decided to go. Kourt made it look like everything was perfectly normal in the deputy branch of House of Garu, and few had the nerve to truly question his honesty. It was keeping up appearances, and hanging on hard to love. It was also the only way that they were going to survive this fight. The terms of the disagreement were so bizarre and esoteric; he and Jenner were the only ones who even knew why it was so important at all. It had been, to say the least, extremely unexpected, but it was also what they’d learned to be ready for, when it came to Jenner. So Kourt was ready for it when there were Servitors dragging his son in from the Out Systems with no explanation as to where he’d been all this time. The Boyhaudens were Binarae brothers, and were identical in appearance though not technically twins. The Order called them shippers, when they actually meant smugglers and thieves for the Order. They were the specialists assigned to look after the People of the Home Ships, and they were pirates to the last. The Boyhaudens were acknowledged to have gone native to the People of their assignment, as Kourt had done in Eab Nanoorn. They looked to be taking this situation in stride from what they knew of the Garu family and Eab Nanoorn life in general. They behaved as if a Royal Duke could often be found raising hell outside the Peoples’ Commonwealth Union. “Kourt, man, don’t take it out on him, right?” Nabarun put in. “The Outsys changed him, okay? Totally for the better. Bratboy no more, is what I’m saying.”

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“Whateverthefuck he’s been doing out there, he hit some kind of snag at last and wants to come home,” Jalendu specified. “I don’t think he’ll set foot outside his home star system for some time. Might never go anywhere else in the Union. This shit has done a number on your kid, and he’s an honest to fuck noble now, okay? But he’s got to go home.” “He won’t say it, okay, but that’s where we’re bringing him, okay?” said both together, and they’d definitely been practicing that. “Bring him, and quickly, if there’s been trouble,” Kourt said, unflinchingly. He’d helped Jenner pull his run-off nine months ago and had been worried ever since. He knew full well that his kid could handle himself, wherever he ended up. It was the fallout from the handling that had Kourt concerned. Jenner was tough, but he was no Servitor and that was a fact. He’d not thought Jenner would actually light out for the ungoverned star systems outside of the Peoples’ Commonwealth Union, though. That was a bold move. It told Kourt that Jenner was absolutely serious when he said he needed to test all his skills. Kourt shook his head sadly, glad that whatever Jenner had done, it wouldn’t involve the Servitors. What happened outside the borders of the Commonwealth, pretty much stayed there. “He’s got baggage, and a package with him. You’re gonna need a door that locks on the inside for that one. Calls himself Grey. Jenner hasn’t left his side since we found them.” “How long have you known where Jenner was?” Kourt demanded. “We’re coming right now, okay?” That ended the transmission. People hiding things from Kourt could only mean he was going to want to kill something later. He was getting to be okay with that, the wanting to kill. It was a good sign, as long as he didn’t tell anyone. Servitors in the Commonwealth had all kinds of skills, from negotiator to field surgeon, often in the same actual person. But Kourt Crowe, like the Boyhaudens, did work that nobody really wanted to admit was done by Servitors at all. It was necessary, and people could be made to see that if the need arose. It wasn’t something he wanted to discuss much. Servitors were popularly seen as the remains of an ancient order of warrior spiritualists who’d managed to keep up with the times and technology. The Servitors also did not much discuss how much of the ‘monk’ part really remained. Jenner Garu, Kourt’s son, had caused some problems by dropping off the radar so precipitously. He was the only natural child of any living Servitor. They had very few on record; not much time for families in their daily lives. Jenner had several thousand heavily armed and daring aunts, uncles and otherwise peppered throughout the Union, and they’d started to worry. They would return to benign notice, now that he’d been located. They would trust Master Kourt Crowe to handle the fallout. According to tradition, looking after Jenner was the only duty he currently performed for the Order.

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Kourt was going to need some help on this, nonetheless. “Blaine, love, you have to wake up and listen.” Muffled complaints came from the bed. “That was the Boyhaudens. They’ve got Jenner and he’s coming home right now.” Blaine was up and washing before Kourt could really be sure he’d understood. “What does he need? Is he hurt? What the hell, Kourt? Where the fuck has he been?” “I have no idea. They didn’t say. But he’s coming and he’s got someone with him. Someone who’s been hurt. I think you’d better get Lysander. There’s no telling what’s headed our way.” “No problem.” It wasn’t even dawn yet, but the Garu Emergency Shelter for Lost and Wayward Boys was in full swing before breakfast could be brought up. Jenner Garu had been born to continue and strengthen the House of Garu, Royal Family of Eab Nanoorn. But he was also a Servitor’s son, and that was part of his heritage as well. Kourt could only hope this little jaunt had given him a bellyful of the violence that Servitors dealt with every day, and kept him home for good. *** Lysander Edvard was home on a tour break when Blaine called. There was no one better to deal with traumatized victims. The trick was getting hold of him fast enough. His music had, at some point in his late thirties, transcended the Commonwealth and was apparently being bootlegged across the galaxy. That was more than five years ago, and from politeness they no longer counted how many more than that. The music was full of sex and hope and sorrow and healing, just like Lysander himself. Blaine asked him to come help. They were friends from old times. Lysander dropped his multi-day party schedule and arrived on the hop. He still dressed like he was afraid someone was going to do something nasty to him if they got a good look. Auburn hair hid his face almost constantly, though Blaine had reason to know he was a very handsome man. His eyes were blue like the summer skies over a deep sea, and held only honest patience for anyone who was in pain. They needed him, sometimes, because Kourt had friends who were often hurt and had nowhere safe to go. Servitors brought in victims every now and then, because here they had perfected the art of loving care. Blaine had dressed conservatively, as Kourt advised. They had no way of knowing what their son had been through in the past months. Anything could come as a culture shock to him. So Blaine eschewed even the simplest cosmetics, dressed in jewel tones instead

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of electric ones, and made his hair lie down in a very becoming but subdued manner. They waited in the sitting area of Kourt’s old rooms. They said nothing so hard that the knock on the door made them all jump. “Come in!” Kourt called, not moving from his chair. The door opened, just a hair. Blaine had to hold on to his armrests not to get up and hug whatever body part came in first. Jenner slid in against the wall, keeping his back covered and one hand out of sight beyond the door. He’s fine, Blaine reminded himself, taking in the wild cap of curly blond hair, the pale green eyes that had worry but no fear in them. His face was all soft curves, except his mouth, which he held tightly and under total control. Even his chin, though strong, was softly rounded, as if he were merely a very calm and deadly-looking playboy. His body should have been soft curves, but had been trained to lean muscle. He moved like Kourt, when he was wary; thought like Kourt, when he had to. “Pop? I am so fucking sorry.” That was what Jenner called Kourt. Blaine breathed, knowing he wasn’t going to be the one asked to do the heavy lifting this time. “We’ll take care of it, son. Just tell us what you need.” “The brothers had to go, said they wouldn’t be a party to this any more. Pop, I am so, so fucking sorry.” “We’ll help you, son, just come in and let’s talk about it.” “Dad?” Blaine cleared his throat. “Just come in, son.” “Dad, I am so damn sorry. I don’t know how to make this right.” Jenner nudged the door open with his foot so they could see what he’d been holding on to out in the hall. “This is Grey, fathers. He needs help, and I just don’t know how.” A very young man was cringing against the doorframe, trying to hide behind Jenner. He had been beaten recently, looked more than half-starved. Frightened, pale eyes stared out from behind silvery blond hair. Then something happened, and it transformed him totally. His chin came up, defiant and challenging. His eyes were steady and brave. Blaine was frozen with shock for a long moment. Lysander, however, never hesitated when he saw pain that needed healing. He marched straight up to the boy and said “Do you know who I am?” Grey blinked a minute then, in a heavily accented voice, said “Fuck yeah, I know all your recordings.”

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“I will be your helping witness to whatever has occurred. I believe you, before I even know. I know how real it is. Come on.” And that took care of Grey, but why Lysander would have done that, Blaine didn’t really want to think about yet. Lysander had a method for recovering from almost anything. Blaine had never needed it, though there were plenty who had. Grey looked like a prime candidate for those lessons. Blaine was glad he wouldn’t be the one to give that wisdom, this time. Lysander was really the very best at teaching it. “Thanks, man,” Jenner said, seeming to be relieved to see the rock star. “I was hoping you’d be around.” “No problem,” Lysander said, paying no attention at all while he got Grey out of there. “Son,” Kourt said, pointing to the chair Lysander had abandoned. “Time to ‘fess.” “Yes, Pop.” So Jenner sat down, still smelling of space flut and worse food, didn’t even take his boots off, and had to be reminded about tea. He confessed, to Kourt, that he’d gone to the Out Systems and hired out his gun. Kourt seemed unmoved by that, but Blaine hated to think that his own son had actually put all those lessons from his youth to work. “Why, Jenner? Why?” “I’m from two worlds. You each gave me something to be from. I’m going to live my life here, Dad. I know my duty, and I will see it done. But I had to see what I was choosing not to have,” Jenner sounded way too much like Kourt right now, and Blaine didn’t like it much at all. “What drove you back, son?” Kourt gently prodded. “Grey. Father, I am so sorry, I am so eternally sorry to have used what you taught me this way. All I can say in my defense is that, at the time, I had no idea what I was involved in." Kourt didn’t flinch at that either, just nodded and waited for Jenner to carry on. “Eventually, I was forced to understand. And that’s when I called the brothers, just like you told me, and got a ride home." Blaine cleared his throat. “What, exactly, was done to him?” Jenner shifted in his chair, choosing words carefully. “I absolutely can not tell you that. There simply is no way.” Blaine looked at Kourt, and his spouse wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Jenner, did you have

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anything, anything at all, to do with what happened to him?” “Yes. That is the only, single detail that I can tell you. You are just going to have to deal with not knowing what.” Blaine tried not to let the tears go, put his head back and stared at the ceiling. “Were you the only one involved?” Kourt was all business. Jenner was probably appreciating it, but to Blaine it was hateful. “Pop, don’t. There were promises made. They kept us both alive. I’m going to keep them.” “This kind of thing can’t be fixed with secrets, Jenner.” Kourt tried to be gentle with his son. Always had, but the things between them had never been simple or easy. Blaine knew that Jenner could never have truly been a party to this. Maybe seen, and been damaged by it, but not a party to it, surely not. There was nothing in him that could have made him… unless his son had suffered terribly on his own. Maybe he was keeping these secrets of his for himself. “Sooner or later, you have to tell. You can’t just ‘make the problem go away’ because it doesn’t work like that. Promises can’t change that.” “You can not know these things from me, fathers. I can’t tell and those who might simply will not. It was not your son who was there. It was not the man or the duke before you. You have nothing to appeal to with me in this. At the time… I’d have done more damage if there had been more to do.” Kourt gathered his son up and steered him towards the bathroom and away from Blaine. “You need a wash, and some sleep. Blaine, you see what you can do for this Grey. I’ve got this.” That’s how it was sometimes, and Blaine was glad. He was weeping freely, and had to wait a long time before he could be any use to anyone. *** “Pop, I just didn’t fucking know,” Jenner said again. Kourt let him say it as often as he needed to. Sometimes, lies stopped the bleeding long enough for the truth to heal. “Son, you did what you could when you could do it. Sometimes that’s all we get. Now, I have to face your Dad out there. You need to tell me if you’re going out the window and hitching off again.” Kourt was washing his son. For the first time ever, Jenner was just lying there and taking it. He’d even fought back as a baby. “I’m here to stay, Pop. I understand, now, why you didn’t want me to have your life. I don’t want it, either.”

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“I’m sorry you had to learn that for yourself, but…” “But I did, and that’s what you said when I needed to get blooded. That I’d have to learn for myself why you wanted something different for me. It worked, though. The hesitation is gone. I am absolutely certain now, of what I can do. I am prepared to do my duty as the Prince Bail’s son, if I am called upon to do it.” “I remember thinking I was ready for it, when I was about your age. I’m glad you got that hesitation problem solved. That can get you killed very fast.” Kourt sat down and looked at his son, now that the dirt and other messes were gone. He didn’t like to think of the ugly parts of a Royal Duke’s family duty. “Now, I can see just by looking that you’ve healed up fine. That’s a bastard of a bullet wound, son.” “Eh, I got a set,” Jenner showed him the one in his shoulder, and it was worse than the one in his leg. “I figure after those blade scars on my back that I got in a fucking bar fight right here, I’m never winning any more beach bunny pageants.” “Tell me the situation with that kid.” Jenner chuckled at that. “His name’s Grey, dad, and if he’s a kid, so am I. Grey, for his eyes. Only fact I could get out of him. The pain had been… fairly unreal for some time, but he’s healing well now. He’s got nothing and nobody. You have to know your son would have a soft place in his heart for that.” “I think you got that from your other father,” Kourt smiled. “And… I don’t know, Pop. He’s been awfully brave. I didn’t think he could walk out of there, at first. When shit went down, though, he fucking backed me up, injuries and all. He only trusted me because he actually saw me kill a man that needed to die. It can’t be a good basis for a friendly relationship. He learned Standard off the Boyhaudens, of all things, so you can imagine what he talks like.” Jenner got out of the tub and started hunting up clothes, which was not very difficult in Blaine’s boudoir. The two of them had shared one massive wardrobe for years. Not much had changed in the time Jenner had been gone. “Well, he’ll be dazzled by Lysander’s quiet charm and they’ll get him to eat and sleep. Never saw a Deamonett yet who couldn’t handle someone on their own. There’s a double-team going on down there,” Kourt reassured him. “Yeah, but where would someone from Eab Nanoorn learn how to treat a man who’s been through this?” Jenner demanded. “There hasn’t been a crime on record like this since grandfather’s time.” “People leave and come back all the time, Jenner. You did.”

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*** Lysander Edvard still found it easy to move watchfully, to keep his hands close to his body, to put his back against a wall and leave a clear path to the door. These were old habits, learned early and well. They had saved his life, he knew that firmly. He stayed outside the bathroom. He chose a spot where he could be seen and could hear, but not watch. Grey saw him do it, and seemed to understand what it was for. “So, you like my music?” “Since forever, man.” Lysander slid down the wall and sat on his heels, wrapped his arms around his knees and got comfortable. He shook his hair back out of his face. That had to be done consciously, and it made him feel exposed. He did it anyway. This was not about his personal shit. Grey needed to be able to see his eyes, and the belief in them. “Did he tell you he knew me?” Grey squirmed a bit, he could hear that. Lysander reminded himself that he must, must keep looking at the floor. Grey had no armor whatsoever. Anything could hurt at this point, even an accidental glance. “No, he didn’t say. He didn’t tell me anything, the whole time. First he snatched me, then he was fucking rude to me, then he seemed worried about me, then he got me out. That’s all I know about him. And his name. Jenner. Where the hell are we?” The door opened and Blaine came in. He stayed in the outer room of Grey’s new suite. “Bail Blaine, may I introduce you to a fan of mine? This is Grey, named after his eyes, no last name. He would like to know where the hell he is.” Blaine rolled his eyes. “You’re in Kais City on Kais, in the Kingdom/Sector of Eab Nanoorn.” “Isn’t that in the Commonwealth?” Lysander boggled at that. “You’re from the Out Systems?” “Yeah, I think so. I’m from Underville. That’s all that ever mattered, before.” Blaine tugged hard at Lysander’s sleeve and they put their heads together. “He’s not even a citizen! What the hell are we going to do with him? I can’t be seen as harboring an incursionist!” “Hide him, heal him up, whatever it takes, Blaine. I don’t give a damn about him being in the Commonwealth illegally.” Lysander pushed his hair out of his eyes. “A Servitor’s kid brought him in. I’m sure they can work something out. Now, he needs me, so you either come in and help or go find him some decent food.”

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“I need some clothes, man. Serious clothes,” Grey was saying. “No problem. I’ll be right back,” Lysander told him. He dragged Blaine out into the hall. “Go on, food.” Lysander raided Kourt’s closet for heavy shirts, pants, belts, strong clothes that Grey could hide in. Kais was known for having a tropical climate on nearly all of its land masses. These kinds of clothes were not common, but the Servitor had never given up his ways. Lysander had his own reasons for having a wardrobe in this style, and wanted to show Grey how that worked. Jenner and Kourt were still in the bath. Lysander shouted his intentions through the door and left them at it. Grey had found a robe and was poking at the holovid when Lysander got back. Grey wanted the clothes more than he wanted music. Grey went into his bedroom and locked the door behind him to change. Blaine came back with food and they had a good argument over what kind of music was going to work out best. Grey came out and made a request, which settled it. “I’m going to need some boots, man.” “I’ll arrange for it,” Lysander promised. “Now, where you are and who we are. This is where Jenner comes, when he needs a safe place. It’s a palace. This man, Bail Blaine, is a prince in this sector. He is also Jenner’s father. This is not a prison. He just keeps space open for people who need a place to be for a while. I do, too. If you want to come stay with me, you certainly will be welcome. But it’s not all private, like this place is.” “Private sounds good.” “This kid’s going to like Kourt,” Blaine said. “Who’s that?” Grey demanded, edgy still. “That’s the other guy you saw earlier. He’s also Jenner’s father and lives here, too. He’s completely obsessed with privacy.” Lysander had learned many things from Kourt Crowe. Many of them had saved the musician a lot of pain over the years. “Who’s Jenner’s mom?” Lysander struggled with that for a minute. “There was only ever Kourt and Bail Blaine. That’s all we know. They are his parents, right down to his genetic code. That’s all there has ever been.” Grey looked like he wanted food more than unanswerable riddles. They let him eat all he wanted when they saw he knew to pace himself. He ate quickly, neatly, but used his fingers to do it. He watched the other men using the utensils like he thought it was a neat trick, but didn’t know how it worked. He kept pulling things apart before he ate them, looking carefully like he expected to find something nasty hidden inside. Lysander had no idea what that meant, but was sure to eat a little of everything Grey had taken, to show

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it was perfectly fine. “We are here to help you, if we can.” Blaine was at his most charming, colorfully dressed and very pretty to look at. Grey didn’t seem to really care. “It’s taken care of.” Grey was very final about this. “Really?” Lysander let the skepticism show. “You look like someone beat the living shit out of you.” “Someone did, but Jenner took care of that for me.” “You look like someone beat the shit out of you while raping you. I personally know exactly what that looks and feels like.” Lysander wanted to be gentle, and was. He made himself be blunt, because the truth hurt, and the hurting was part of it. Denial wasn’t going to get Grey anywhere at all. This young man had been left to his own devices, no way of knowing for how long. No way of knowing if this was the first time or only the last. There was no way of knowing what was going on, in his mind. Lysander would be his witness, if no one else could or would. “Jenner promised it wouldn’t happen again. I believe him. You’d believe it, too, if you’d been there.” So. Jenner made promises, did he? Well, that wasn’t going to help one bit, not really. Quite the opposite, and a duke should know better. It had happened, it was real, no matter what Jenner did or did not promise. No vows or oaths could change the pain. All the magic in the world couldn’t make it truly stop. Only healing could do that. Lysander stayed with Grey until he slept, and then went to lay this information on Kourt. He knew exactly what to do about it, so Jenner ended up in another chair, with both parents and their friend standing over him. “Did you promise him, son? Did you really? In those words?” Blaine finally asked. They all knew Kourt’s boy would keep his word if it killed him. “I really did, Dad. I really meant it. It can’t happen to him again. Can’t, or I can’t live with myself. It will be far easier to keep my word here, you know that. You weren’t there. I was, and I have to know what to do now, because I really don’t fucking know. I came home to ask you,” Jenner said, looking a little worried. “Didn’t you know that?” Kourt cleared his throat and said “Son, you made a fairly binding oath to protect Grey for the rest of his life. His belief that you are going to keep that word is all that’s holding him together. Now, you and I both know that you’re not what he thinks you are. Not here, not all the time. How do you think he’s going to handle that?” Jenner sighed and said, “Dad, did you ever in your life from the moment you met Pop, ever have a problem with sexual assault? Ever?”

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“No, not once. You know that wouldn’t happen with your father right there. And we’ve never left Eab Nanoorn, so doubly.” “Okay, so… what’s the problem?” That just floored all of them for a long minute. “Jenner, you need to tell us what you’re feeling about Grey. Right now,” Kourt finally managed. “How long did it take you, Pop? How long, really? I know you guys took a long time to figure out what was going on between you. But how long did it take for it to happen?” Jenner looked down at his hands. “I might be wrong. I surely the hell don’t know. But I feel for him what I see between you two. I am going to have it. I want it. I am willing to wait and pay any price.” Blaine threw his hands up in disgust. “Jenner, you turned him into a boarder runner just by bringing him home. If your father were active, he’d be duty-bound to throw him right the hell out again. You could get us into a lot of trouble with this. It’s Commonwealth business, nothing the Kingdom can protect you from at all.” “He has nowhere else to go, Dad. He can’t go home. His own people might end up killing him. There were others out there who certainly tried, and for no good reason. Nothing I’ve seen him do so far has been easy. I think he can handle the Commonwealth if we give him a hand. He’s a freeman, and he’s been his own responsibility for a long time. You think I haven’t gone over all these details? Now, come on. Look what you did, once you put your back to it and really worked. The magic works for everyone. Right?” Jenner meant the way love made wonderful things happen. They called it ‘the magic’ and everyone knew what that meant. There was a long, unbroken silence. “Right?” Jenner demanded. “Only if it goes in both directions,” Lysander pointed out. “It’s two-sided magic, love. If you truly were somehow a party to this, he may never get to the point where he can forgive you. Sometimes, victims just end up staying that way because they can’t make it stop, in their minds. And he’s here illegally. That has to change or we are all in big trouble, Jenner.” “Fine. I’ll handle his legal status my own self, and see it taken care of. I think he can learn to be a survivor. Then all I have to do is help him find his own beauty, and we’re all set.” Jenner made it sound so simple, though they knew it wasn’t like that at all. Not remotely. “I can not tell you what it is that happened. Lysander, you of all people should understand why.” Lysander came over and looked at him, hard. Thought for a long minute and said “Okay.

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Okay, let me tell you what you do. First off, I am now his helping witness. I am watching every move you make.” *** Jenner went to Grey’s room first thing the next morning. He’d taken the time and effort to shed the dress and habits that had gotten him out and back home again. Lysander had told him that it was time for Grey to see what Jenner really was. It certainly wasn’t the black-leather-wearing, gun-toting, dead-calm badass Grey had first met. Jenner was, by all accounts at home, soft and easily lead. Moody, flighty, petulant, temper like a volcano, these were the impressions people had of him. He was known to handle himself well in a fight. It was assumed he had to because he started so many of them. Jenner liked being in his own, very sexy, clothes again. He’d spent a long time in front of the mirror, looking at nine month’s worth of honey colored curls, trying to come to some kind of decision. Jenner had no Valet at this point in his life, though it hadn’t always been that way. He could have borrowed his Dad’s Valet, but didn’t care to go begging this early in the morning. That left him in the position of muttering the advice of his previous attendant while he subdued the riot of tight spirals into an arrangement that obeyed the laws of gravity. Clothes were plentiful again, but no less a problem. He chose white pants that hugged, clung and slid in all the best places, but still kept certain secrets for him. A loose, thin cotton shirt under a vest quilted in blues and greens did much to show off what he still had, while disguising a great many severe mistakes. White boots, belt, silver jewelry, it looked just like Duke Jenner Garu had never left home. Except for the stiff tension of his spine, the changes didn’t show on the outside. The white would be a trick to maintain, but Jenner had learned that one when he was still a child. Back then, he’d been made to wear nothing but. Nobody in Kais was going to look at him and think anything but ‘Garu.’ Unfortunately, he had no idea what Grey would think of it all. Jenner knocked, and waited a long time. Knocked again, got a noise and knocked some more. Grey finally opened the door, just a little. “Hey,” Grey said. That was in Vantishari, and Jenner was glad he’d picked up a good bit of it. They needed it badly, now. “Good morning. I’m going out for breakfast with my friends. Would you care to join us?” “Will you be there the whole time?” Grey wanted to know. “Yup.” “Sounds good,” and Grey stepped out, very fully dressed. “This is a tropical world, Grey. You’re going to be awfully warm dressed like that.” “I’ll drink lots of water.”

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So they headed down to the beach and went up the sea walk to the Pier. They got a table at the hopelessly misnamed Pier Diner, a swank restaurant that knew the prince as Blaine and had been forced to collect on an unpaid tab long after Lysander hit the big time. Grey sat next to Jenner and watched breakfast get under way around him. Grey was introduced to the Bail Princess Mia, Jenner’s cousin and heir to the throne. He met ten Deamonetts and their leader, Friar Rhys. They had just come in from a night on the town looking very smug in their glitter and glamour. Grey met Brother Jerome, Blaine’s Church priest, by mistake, but was pleased to have, just the same. Every time Jenner introduced someone, Grey just smiled and nodded, like this was all perfectly normal. Well, Grey grew up in Underville. No telling who would wash up there, really. They got a lift with Friar Rhys to the Deamonett monastery, because Grey had asked about Deamonett and it was kind of hard to explain in a public setting. People tended to want to demonstrate. Jenner knew full well that Grey was simply not up for that, yet. They took him through the back halls to Friar Rhys’ rooms. They didn’t think he was up for the shock of the sanctuary just yet, either. He flopped down on the pillows with them and looked fascinated by just everything. “Well,” Jenner tried to think where to begin. “Deamonett is a philosophy. A sexual philosophy, a way of thinking about life and your soul and what your purpose in life is, it’s… just a way of being.” “And it says to dress up like prostitutes and party all night?” Grey was clearly out of his depth. “Sort of,” Jenner said, looking at Friar Rhys. This was really his job, after all. “Look, it’s like this,” Rhys said, turning over onto his back and gesturing with his hands for no real reason, just paddling along with the words. “I was born and raised in a brothel. I was a whore, to be perfectly honest, and that’s just what I was. Jenner was born in a palace, and his first sexual experience was making love to someone he cared about, and that’s what he was. We’re both pure, there’s purity in everyone, but you have to know that and find it. Deamonett says that you find purity through freedom, beauty, truth, love and pleasure. And your pleasures are whatever you say they are. It’s very simple, I don’t know why people find it so difficult.” Grey thought about it very hard, and decided he could deal with that. “So that’s what you believe, Jenner?” “It’s part of some of the beliefs I have, yes.” “And pain isn’t something that you just have to live with?” Jenner kept his mouth shut. That was definitely for the Friar.

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“Well, pain is very real, Grey. Some things that are very real are also very painful. That doesn’t mean that there’s nothing but pain. There are stages and degrees, you see. Some things that are real are also very, very pleasurable. Sometimes, the difference between pleasure and pain only happens in your mind.” “Besides,” Jenner said. “My Pop always told me that pain is just pain, and it can’t really go on forever. Most times, there’s some kind of reason for it. Even if it is meaningless, it’ll be over eventually. Sometimes, you just have to outlive that shit. I’ve told you that one, before.” Grey didn’t have any more questions, and wanted to walk alone with Jenner back to the Palace. “Thank you for being so nice to me,” he said. “I am glad to be able to do it,” Jenner replied, sliding his hands into his pockets. He could feel his knives like that, and it comforted him. “Is there anything you want me to do? I don’t have any gedlt to gift you.” “No.” Jenner didn’t like it, that Grey kept returning to the gedlt issue. It was a big deal in the Outsys, being worth something tangible, spendable. He didn’t want anything remotely like a gedlt gift between them, because he knew it was binding, but little else about it. They had enough to deal with, outside of that. Blood debt, for one, and Jenner didn’t like that they hadn’t got to that at all, yet. That was about to change. Grey stopped walking, watched the sea for a long time. “Why not?” “Because, Grey, I am in your debt. I am repaying you what I owe you, and it’s going to take me a long time. Don’t worry; my pockets are very, very deep.” Jenner didn’t look up. “I’m a duke, you know. I was just out there…” he gestured, taking in everything beyond his real life. “I was just having my late juvenile delinquency days out there. I have a very weird life. But you and I both know what I owe you. I am going to pay.” “I’m getting that impression.” “So, just let me know what you need. We’ll take a peek at getting it for you.” Grey shrugged. “Wouldn’t know what to ask for. I have a place to stay. I’ve eaten more food in two days than I’ve seen in the last month. I’m fucking warm for once. I really have no fucking clue what to say to that.” “Okay, well, think about it.” Jenner got them walking again, and enjoyed watching Grey realize which building was the one they were staying in. He hadn’t really been paying attention, before. Jenner found that falling back into his real life was ridiculously easy. He’d learned to be careful, and how to keep an eye out for the unexpected. He’d learned how to make

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promises and keep them. He’d learned that he could do what had to be done. He’d needed to know that, very much. Jenner knew his Dad would never understand. Pop did, though, and had helped. Grey certainly didn’t have much to say at first. He just watched everyone around him and kept track of Jenner. Jenner invited him everywhere, and that was fine with everyone. Jenner didn’t feel up to jumping straight back into the Kais social scene and that blunted the transition into Eab Nanoornian culture for them both. Jenner started to teach Grey how to read and write in Standard and helped him fill out an application for citizenship. Jenner set Grey up as an existing person within the galacnet, and gave him more than enough credit to qualify as self-sufficient. He screamed at his parents until they put in a good word to Blaine’s brother, King Kyle, and also the Member of the Conference, Toradale Shad; greased the skids a bit. Good day’s work was all Jenner thought. Nobody knew what Grey thought, because he wouldn’t say. Jenner listened hard and answered questions as they came up. He explained that, yes, he was a member of the Royal Family, but only a complete disaster would ever put him within hailing distance of the throne. He wasn’t trained for it, and didn’t want it. He was a duke, the first Royal Duke in four generations, and was proud of that. He had to stop and explain that his family was personally responsible for and in charge of everything and everyone in this and three other star systems. The family had hit a rough patch, and they were more or less counting on him to help out. Grey wanted to know why did everyone fuck everywhere all the time. Jenner found it very hard to explain about the nature of friendliness and helpfulness and freedom that created such an atmosphere to someone from the Outsys. “It’s just the way we are here in Eab Nanoorn; but only when we really feel like it. And that’s really just in the clubs and beaches and parks and private homes and… well, not everywhere all the time.” Jenner tried to picture his life from the outside and drew some startling conclusions. “It’s just fun, and it doesn’t hurt anyone.” “What if you don’t want to?” Grey demanded, edgy and attentive. Jenner shrugged. “Say so. It’s not like where you were before, and won’t ever be again.” There were long silences after those kinds of questions. Long enough for Lysander to finish his tour and host one of his mondo blow-out parties, which Grey wouldn’t have missed for anything. Jenner was going. All was right with the world. Grey’s first view of an orgy had one of his personal heroes at the middle of it, and him having the best time of anyone. Grey sat on the sidelines, interested but remote and fully dressed. People kept asking him if he’d met Kourt Crowe yet. The Servitor had a long history of not playing these games much. Everyone thought he’d just rubbed off on Grey, somewhere along the way. Grey saw what the Deamonetts thought dancing was, too, and got up to learn it. Found out he was a natural and that just shocked Jenner right

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down to his socks. He’d had to come pull Grey out of a pile of bodies, because they couldn’t get coordinated enough to help him up when he’d fallen by accident. That shook Grey up a bit, so Jenner started teaching him how to drink. It takes a long time to learn how to drink properly, though it was hardly Grey’s first lesson on the subject. That burned up a few more weeks. Long enough for Grey’s citizenship to come through, and name him legally responsible for himself. The whole process had been delayed when Grey had pointed out he hadn’t counted his age since he was ten years old. Eight or nine years ago at least, was his best guess, but he couldn’t be absolutely sure. He’d been ten, old enough to look after himself, and his mother had just died. It hadn’t been important to him, after that. The Commonwealth processed the concept, got some professional opinions and pegged his age as best they could. They called him a resident citizen, and that was plenty good enough for just about anything he needed to do at the moment. He was being sponsored by a noble family, and was causing no trouble for anyone. It changed something in Grey, because now Jenner made people treat him like an adult. He looked young, because he was so underfed. They worked on that problem, too. These were the things Lysander told him to do. Get Grey settled in here, get him legal, find out what the law thought he was. Then they could really start the hard work of helping Grey survive what he was trying to pretend hadn’t happened. Lysander didn’t want to offer safety if the damn Peoples’ Commonwealth Union was going to evict Grey the second they found out about him. The musician had been right. Telling Grey he had the right to be here and stay had actually done him some kind of good. Grey asked for proper dance lessons. Jenner got them as a gift, a personal one, from Jenner to Grey. It was accepted. Jenner waited a very long time before he asked his next question. He asked Grey for a date, for dinner, and was politely denied. Jenner went back to his rooms and cried harder than he thought he knew how to. *** It took Lysander a few minutes to recognize Grey, but it was only early afternoon. He’d just gotten up. Never mind that he’d spent almost every minute since the party looking around for Grey; casually, of course. He wasn’t stupid. Grey was sitting on Lysander’s patio, having a morning pick-me-up and watching the wind play on the swimming pool. “Finally got quiet around here,” was what Grey thought about it. “Takes a few days, usually,” Lysander said. “First time it’s gone over two weeks all at once, though. I was gone a while. It’ll stay at about this level for a few more hours, and then continue on a smaller scale.” Grey shrugged; not his business.

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“So Jenner showed you how to get up here? Is he with you?” “I was on the guest list, from the party. They let me back in. Got a lift from some guy at the palace.” Good to know the staff was keeping up with things. “Is there something I can help you with?” “Jenner… asked me to go out with him.” “And?” “I said no. I can’t say yes, man. I don’t know what the hell that means, here. I just found out what ‘duke’ really meant.” “Okay, well, if you want to learn… would you like to go to dinner with me tonight?” Grey sucked in air, and held on to his chair, hard. “Are you shitting me?” “Well, you’re not dating anyone else right now, are you?” “You’re fucking with me. You really are.” “You get ready for a date tonight and see who’s a liar,” Lysander told him, and walked back into the house. He avoided the houseguests. They were constant and necessary to him. They were friends, of course, and he needed those nearby. But mostly they were to fill the awful stone and wood mansion he’d eventually been forced to make into his home, just to get some peace and quiet. The security system alone was subtle and massive, and also very necessary. Jenner had his fair shot, damn it. He’d been right, about it not taking long once you knew Grey. He wasn’t going to live in Eab Nanoorn long before he got noticed. He would want that, eventually. Lysander was old enough not to mind when Grey got to that point with his own set. Grey had a right to know the difference between what had happened, and how it was all supposed to work. And, well… if dinner and dancing got Grey to at least listen to what Lysander was trying to do for him, it would be easier than a blunt confrontation. Just get him talking, Lysander told himself. Listen long enough, and he’ll tell you how to help. And there was the other thing, the fact that Lysander had looked his whole lonely life for just one person who might truly need his love. There was a lot of it, and he’d not yet found anyone to give it to. People thought his songs on love were sad because he’d loved and lost. He would never admit this to anyone, but it really was better if you’d had it and lost it, than to have wanted and searched and never even once gotten close. He did not allow himself the luxury to hope, but got dressed to fit every image his profession pushed

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on him and started wishing as hard as he could. There had been a time in his life, when he’d been too terrified of his past to even leave his house alone. His parents had indulged his fears, never requiring him to do more than stay locked safely away and make beautiful sounds. He’d had to find out for himself, what he was missing in his life. He’d been trying very hard to find it, that one love thing, but something had gone terribly wrong. His music, when it finally did get heard, was loved by almost everyone. People thought they understood him through his songs, even though he wrote and sang almost exclusively about other people’s lives and experiences. There simply had not been enough time between knowing what he wanted and being a public figure for him to find what he’d been looking for. Grey admired his music, that was true and agreed on between them. But Grey had no illusions that he knew anything at all about Lysander himself. It was nice, and Lysander wanted to see what this was like. He’d never done a lot of things that people assumed came easily to him. This was one of them. Grey didn’t look much like he knew how this was all supposed to pan out, either. Lysander suspected they could very easily sort out something agreeable between themselves, when Grey was in any condition to do so. But first, and foremost, Grey had to get healed up on the inside, too. Lysander might be desperate to find love, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew what traumas like these could do to the mind. He’d been through it and come out the other side. Grey was in the middle of it, and the potential for new hurting was profound and deep. He had to come out of it as well, before Lysander could even consider the option of hope. That was what they needed, here: for Grey to go through, and find himself again on the other side. *** Jenner watched Grey leave for his date with Lysander from the highest window with a good view. He knew it was stupid, but couldn’t make himself stop. He told Kourt as much when he was found there, still letting the tears fall. Kourt just held his hand and waited for an opening. “It’s not working, Pop. It’s not.” “Sometimes it takes a while, son. You have to be patient, if you really want it to work. More patient than you think you know how to be,” Kourt told him bluntly. “And there are no guarantees. I know you lied to me, son, about what happened. I can imagine who you’re protecting.” “He’ll want his revenge. It’s the only kind of justice I ever saw out there.” Kourt didn’t bother confirming that. It didn’t need to be repeated. “You made a choice, Jenner. You knew someone would get hurt, probably die because of you, when you left. You went anyway because you had to. That’s what you did. Sometimes you can’t put it right, no matter how you try.”

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Grey didn’t come home that night. He called in to let the general party know he was fine. Nobody called the next day, but everyone knew Lysander hadn’t put his nose past his door since he’d last been seen. Lysander’s semi-permanent house party and most of the staff had been told to go to their own homes for at least a week. Lysander had a recovery working, and everyone at the palace sighed with relief. Grey was going to get the healing he’d been brought here for. They knew where Grey was, and that was going to have to be enough. What feelings anyone might be having for Grey went on hiatus while he started learning to survive his rape.

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Chapter 2: A Unique Solution Grey crawled out of the pile of cushions he’d made of the sofa and went out in search of food and stimulants. That was easy to find at Lysander’s house, especially when there was just the two of them, plus staff, knocking around in it. He could remember the last time he’d been this high, but it had been an awfully long time ago. It hadn’t been as good a high, and it certainly hadn’t lasted this long last time. It didn’t matter. Lysander said that, for every eight hours of crying, Grey had to do four hours of sleeping and a few hours of feeling really fucking good. These little colored stick-ons were his drug of choice. Grey approved of its easy euphoria and lack of addictive properties very much, and it was free. He did lots, and Lysander just laughed at him and reminded him to eat. He had no idea how long this had been going on; days, at least. He remembered telling Jenner he couldn’t date him, and not wanting to think about why. He remembered dinner someplace… distant and clean. That was it. The crying had started at some point in there, under Lysander’s patient insistence. Grey hadn’t really been thinking of Jenner that much since then. The promised days of alternating haze between sorrow and chemically induced pleasure had arrived on schedule. Grey’s host had been sure that he understood this to be natural and normal. A good thing, in fact, and it somehow was making Grey feel stronger, a little bit at a time. Lysander had been talking at him for hours, telling him very fine differences in perception, struggling with words in Standard until Grey really understood what was happening to him. Why the pain went on and on, even though he only wanted to forget and get on with living. He was going to have to face up to something soon, something big and ugly. He hadn’t been prepared before, but right now he felt more than ready for it. Lysander’s closet was just stuffed with the kinds of things Grey liked these days. Lysander dressed like Grey wanted to, and taught him how to make it look good. That was tricky; going it three layers at a time. Lysander called it his daily wear armor, and he’d had practice. Lysander would fuck anyone who was invited to the parties, but wouldn’t so much as look at Grey sans armor, and that suited Grey just fine. Grey knew how to say yes, or to ask for sex, and didn’t care to at the moment. It was very different from home, how people got together, and he wasn’t feeling quite that bold yet. He knew that saying ‘no’ actually worked here, and it was a punishable crime if it didn’t. Lysander was dating him. He still wasn’t sure what that was, exactly, or what it meant. So far, pretty much like back home, but these people were very strange. Nobody tried to hurt him, and had better never try or Lysander’s staff would rearrange their body parts into an alphabetical system. It was as safe as he was going to get, since he couldn’t really look at Jenner right now. There was one hell of a lot of debt there. Grey just wasn’t quite ready to go collecting, yet. Grey was fascinated by Lysander. He’d known Lysander on sight, had seen pictures or

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holos of Lysander in different places back home. He hadn’t known that, under that auburn hair was a handsome face. It wasn’t true beauty, or masculine power, but delicate features made still and remote by his own life experiences. There was never more than a fraction of Lysander’s face revealed in any of his images, and it was on purpose. Lysander had been frank and open about the abuses he’d suffered at a distant school for musicians. He’d explained the hiding and the fact that hardly anyone had a good idea of what he really looked like. Then he’d flip his hair back and smile crookedly. He was fucking beautiful, long lines of jaw and cheekbone, elegant nose and full, soft mouth. His eyes were blue like natural things, the ocean, the sky, beautiful and delicate flowers. Then Lysander made it all disappear again, crossed his arms and slouched deeply, laughing while he took on his public persona of disaffected artiste. Grey had only heard Lysander’s songs before, full of sorrow and hope. He hadn’t understood them; hardly anyone in the Outsys had anything like a translation available on the lyrics. But everyone agreed that they felt like that, pretty much all of the time. They’d been fascinated from afar by a man who had found beauty in some kind of pain. Now Grey was looking that isolation and loneliness in the face, every day. He finally began to understand where the hurting really came from. Lysander was surrounded by happy, fun people, and not one of them knew or understood what he was living with. The loneliness and isolation had never been out-run. It held Lysander Edvard, still. Grey wanted to be able to talk to Lysander, but when he tried, all that came out was his own fear and hurt. Grey liked this idea of facing his fear while he was in a safe place. Fear did bad things to Grey’s nerves. It made him mean, violent. This had saved his life in the past. Now, he had nothing to be afraid of except his past. That was plenty to handle, right by itself. He needed a safe place to be while he took it on. He was glad that Lysander understood that so perfectly. The musician had plenty of his own pain without a violent houseguest on top of it. The past couldn’t be fought, Grey was finding. It had to be dealt with, and he had to make it happen. He had to cut some deals with himself and move forward. He had to know what he was dealing with, tell the truth and understand it, before that could happen. That’s what he had to face, and that’s why he wanted stimulants and not a patch right now. Food was easy, Lysander had these massive boxes of food that never seemed to rot. Grey had full permission to take whatever he wanted, any time at all, no questions asked. Cav, the real stuff, still worked just fine. Finally, Lysander wandered in looking for the same. “Howdy.” Grey looked out at the sky, wanting to be more specific about the time, but couldn’t really draw any conclusions. “How are you?” That was a tough question, these days. But Lysander was teaching Grey all kinds of things, different things from what Jenner thought were important. He’d learned the meaning of a new phrase on their first date, ‘helping witness.’ He’d been thinking about that idea for a while. Lysander had cleared his mansion, sent everyone away, and waited

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for him to think about it. “I think I’m ready to tell you, now.” Grey liked how strong he sounded, even with the fear and panic clawing up his spine. “Are you still coming down?” “Just a little, I think.” “Okay, shoot.” So Grey sat there in that brightly-lit kitchen, eating cookies and talking about the most horrible memories of his life. He started with the very first time, years ago and kept telling his truth right up to when he got yanked out of hell and carried off to the Commonwealth. He stuck to pronouns, because so often, he had no names. It came out of him at last, like filth, so he kept eating the cookies because they were something sweet. It was strange. He’d always guarded these events like secrets, but just in telling them, they became sharply focused… then somehow, became less urgent and immediate. So he kept telling, wanting that fading to happen all over his history. Even that much relief was more than he’d known he could get before. There was weeping in there, grief, but that was something that could end on its own. His grief for his mother had felt like this, in the beginning. Grief, he could survive. Not like this other pain that he’d never known he could just dull with the truth. Lysander ate and listened, focused on every word. It took a long time, because Grey remembered everything. Who’d done what, when and how. All the way from when he’d been too small to fight hard enough, to the time that started with Jenner showing up and making him disappear from an alley. That was the thing, because he knew it, knew Jenner helped it happen. Sure, he’d done death on some vicious bastards afterward but that was revenge, hence justice. Any freeman of good will would have done that, if they could. Grey had been given up by his cierc. He hadn’t been worth the cost of saving to them. Jenner had thought differently about the situation. He could have made it stop, but hadn’t until he snatched Grey and ran, long after the damage was done. That’s what scared Grey, made him need Jenner’s blood. It was the same thing that made him crave revenge on his cierc. They had distance to protect them; Jenner didn’t, hadn’t tried to avoid Grey and seemed to just be waiting for something. Grey just didn’t have any answers. These were questions he certainly didn’t want to have to ask. He’d known why Jenner said he owed Grey, and Grey very much agreed. “Here’s the thing,” Grey finally said. “I’d kill him if I knew how to get away with it.” Lysander brought a bottle and they passed it back and forth for a while. “Well, from what I understand, he actually didn’t know what was going on, or something. He really didn’t. It’s not his way at all. He wouldn’t have done it if he’d known. He truly had no understanding about what was being done to you. No frame of reference, you see.

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Killing him won’t change a damn thing.” “So why did he just up and grab me like that? What changed his mind, after everything?” “I have no idea. He won’t say a word. He’s keeping it all a secret, like any victim I ever saw. That is going to bite him in the ass if he was involved at all. It’s just not in him to let that happen, once he’s made to understand what it is. He’d simply never seen anything like it.” Lysander drank deeply. “And between you and me, I wouldn’t want anyone to be able to recognize it on sight. Not worth the price of learning.” So they talked about consent and sex and rape and what bastards people always were and got on very well together. Grey didn’t decide what to do about Jenner, not in any specifics, but he was feeling stronger every day. He already knew the depths of Jenner’s will, and his own. He was actually thinking this might have some kind of happy outcome. He was pretty sure that Jenner had been trying to tell him he knew, and was simply waiting for it to come. It took a long time for Lysander to make his move. When he finally did, he did it Eab Nanoorn-style. If he hadn’t been so careful, so perfectly educated in his personal philosophy, he might have startled Grey very badly. Grey had just about decided that ‘dating’ did not actually mean what he thought it had, but actually meant hanging out with a good friend. Friendship was such a very big thing, here in Eab Nanoorn, he’d started to think it might be as ritualized as gedltcierc and marriage were, back home. Not true. Lysander was of the opinion that Grey was worth taking one hell of a lot of time on, and this actually was an extremely elaborate courtship. All of this buildup was for something very simple, really. Something they might do, even if they were just friends. Lysander started his move very slowly, in a safe place, somewhere other than where Grey slept. It was in the basement, in the recording studio, actually. Grey was sitting in a very large and comfortable chair watching his assumed boyfriend play drums. Lysander finally got sick of chasing that particular dragon and came to share the chair. He asked to be allowed, like this would be very kind to him. Grey wanted to be kind. Lysander sat there chattering about music until Grey looked right in his eyes. They were both very quiet for a long moment. Lysander moved slowly, letting Grey see what was coming, letting him decide and have time to say whatever was on his mind. “Yes,” Grey said, and kissed him. It felt good, and just that. It was just like Lysander had said. If Grey couldn’t put the genie back in the bottle, he might as well start making wishes. If it was consensual, and between equals, that was what Grey was looking for. So Grey put his hands into Lysander’s hair and wished hard for something worth having. It was nothing he’d ever even come close to, not something like this, where he had lived

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his whole life. He’d had nothing to offer anyone, and barely enough just to take care of himself. It was something he would have to wait for, just like every other dirt poor runner he knew. Certainly, he’d never been courted, and probably never would have been. But in the Commonwealth, nobody cared that there wasn’t a scrap of gedlt in his ear. Here, they wanted to talk to him, ask him about his feelings, not his profits. Lysander tried to make him happy, like he was special right by himself. Lysander had the funny idea that love could not be bought. He thought it had to be earned, and he’d been trying very hard. Grey was finding, through observation, that in the Commonwealth this was true. Back home, Grey had only just found the solution to his own problem. He’d found out he could make some gedlt. There was something he was very good at, that he, in fact, loved to do. He could make real bank doing it, if he was good. He’d barely gotten started, when Jenner happened to him. Lysander was teaching him all kinds of wonderful things. That was the day Grey learned how to kiss, Deamonett style. It was absolutely nothing like at home, practicing with friends. They sat there together, holding each other and learning about each other’s beauty, one kiss at a time. Lysander kept his hands above the waist and only went under Grey’s shirts when given specific permission. Grey was free to do whatever he wanted to Lysander, and did. Grey would later learn that the practitioners of Deamonett thought of good kissing as if it were something very spiritual. They’d made a very thorough study of it, but not in the manner of clinical terms. That wasn’t beautiful at all, trying to sort out the biology of kissing, and they laughed at anyone who tried. Everybody knew where kissing came from: it was how babies were fed if people had solid food and the babies couldn’t chew for themselves. A very natural thing to do, Grey happened to know, and therefore a very ancient art. How could anyone forget where the whole idea came from? Deamonett was interested in where it was going, and how best to get there. They had, quite literally, written the book on the subject. Naturally, its format was a collection of erotic poetry. What they did that day, though Grey didn’t know it at the time, was a sort of performance interpretation of Lysander’s favorite poem. The kissing was patient, and kind, and very tender, mouths finding comfortable places together and then looking for new ones. Grey could taste the sharp citrusy sweetness of Lysander. Grey had not really thought about that. There was a thing with candy that he’d learned, long ago, but this was just the way it tasted to kiss Lysander. Apparently Grey could just enjoy it for as long as he wanted, without paying Lysander anything at all; odd, to say the least, but very nice. It was like having candy that made him feel warm and soft and very special. He put his arms around Lysander and enjoyed it for a very long time. But then he started to wonder. Did Lysander taste like candy anywhere else but his mouth?

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Nipples were nice, he liked them a lot. He liked the way Lysander writhed when they’d been kissed and nibbled and licked for a very long time. He liked the way the back of Lysander’s neck smelled so perfectly like him, and tasted that way, too. Lysander’s skin was soft as flower petals, and warm. His hands were strong but lay still all the time Grey kissed his body. “You can have me, if you want me,” Lysander said, not moving his hair out of his face. It hung down in a rich, auburn curtain, all around, and stopped at the shoulder. It was all of his body that Lysander wanted to cover, even after all this time. He’d told Grey that, straight away, about the armor. About how hard it was to stop that, after the reasons for it were gone. Being a survivor meant knowing what you had to do, to go on with your life, and making damn sure that shit got done. But some prices had to be paid, for healing, and only Lysander’s hands were available for public consumption. People thought that this might have been because he hated so to be on camera. Grey knew better and wished the media would leave the poor, lonely man his privacy. Week-long parties weren’t fooling anyone, least of all Lysander himself. The hair, though, was just as famous, maybe more, than the face, really. Lysander liked the fact that half the time, all he needed was a hair tie to go incognito. Grey simply could not believe that he could reach out and touch it, just like that, and had been kissing under it for some time now. “I don’t know how to have you,” Grey finally said, and meant it. He had an idea, sure, but hadn’t had the chance to find out for himself. This chance might never, ever come again for him from anyone, and he was certainly going to try. He wanted to try, at least. Lysander adjourned their lessons to his bedroom, safe still, because Grey had never been there before. Grey wasn’t sure, but he was wishing very hard that somehow, it would all work out properly. Grey got comfortable against the pillows and watched Lysander settle in at the foot of the bed. “Now, I’m going to take some of my clothes off, okay?” Lysander asked. “Sure. Just stay right down there, and that’ll be fine.” Lysander nodded, and took his time. There was a sweater, and a flannel shirt and a tee shirt, pretty good armor. He lay down on his back and unbuckled all three of his belts. They ran every which-way, and had very pretty chains looped through them. His clothes never came off by accident, no matter what kind of party he was at. Lysander said he’d not gone straight into armor either, but had adopted it as subtle defense from his friends, who didn’t understand. It had become more important after that, somehow. Grey was still in their full gear, right down to the boots, and pretty much intended to stay that way for now. Lysander slid his pants down off his hips, taking all the layers under with them, but left them covering his legs. He let Grey look at him, aroused and lying perfectly still. He

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looked right at Grey, right into his eyes, and never said a word. He was fucking beautiful, there was no other way to say it, but Grey felt a bit queasy. Something ugly and raw was trying to crawl up his spine. He fought it, hard, and tried to be brave. He wanted this, but didn’t know yet if he could actually have it, for a number of reasons. “Turn over, please,” Grey said. Lysander did, never breaking eye contact. “You can touch me if you want, Grey. Just… if I say move, you have to stop.” “Fine, fine, I…” Grey leaned forward, put one hand on Lysander’s shoulder and ducked his head down to kiss Lysander. It wasn’t very comfortable, but it was nice, just the same. Grey lay down on his stomach, too, so they could work the noses out better. It was very, very good, and he wanted to touch some more, so he did, feeling all that smooth skin over ribcage that rose and fell very fast. “You’re fairly worked up, here,” Grey observed. “It’s okay. We can stop any time you want.” Lysander’s eyes were very clear, though the eyeliner around them had seen better times. He raised his hands slowly, and cupped Grey’s face. Kissed Grey once, with his mouth closed. “You are my friend, Grey. I would never do anything to hurt you.” “I want to try it. I want to, because I’m afraid of it, even thought I want it.” “Okay, sure. Chase your dragon, Grey. I’m right here with you,” Lysander promised with another kiss. Grey took his shirts off and lay down next to Lysander. He didn’t like his skin being out, but was trying to follow along as best he could. He kissed Lysander some more, and touched Lysander’s hips. They were sharp in his hands, but Lysander’s ass was perfectly round and smooth. It was sweet and warm, when Lysander put his arms around Grey, and kissed him deeper. Grey let himself breathe, and felt his body start to relax. Something warm was building in him, something he’d liked before but hadn’t paid much attention to lately. “Oh, fuck,” he whispered, and pressed his erection against Lysander’s thigh. “Oh, oh fuck, what the hell…” Lysander didn’t mind that Grey had broken down crying again. Lysander just got his clothes back on and held Grey and said it was just fine. They could try another time, any time Grey wanted, or never again. It would take time, and they both knew that. But now Grey knew for sure that his body was his own again. He could tell it to start, and when. He could say stop, and it worked again. He was still a freeman, like he’d been born, and nobody’s property, never had been. That much, he knew for certain now. ***

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Lysander returned to the land of the living the next week, and took Grey with him. Jenner was keeping an eye on them, though. He kept his distance from them like he knew he’d made a mistake with Grey and was looking for an opening. The one that presented itself was unusual, but he took it anyway. Lysander didn’t like the watchfulness, and made that clear as quickly as he could. “Lysander,” Jenner had to shout over the music, but that was par for the course at the Scarlet Letter. They specialized in music that was angry, violent and almost certainly damaging to the ear. Weapons were accessories in the Scarlet Letter, and everyone did well to remember that at all times. “Hey Jenner, how’s it goin'?” Lysander was sober, which was a fairly odd feeling for him. “I could ask you that. How’s Grey?” “He’s coming along nicely, but you need to keep the hell away from him, Jen. He’s making himself as dangerous as he can, and he’s not looking for a repeat.” Lysander tried to sound casual about this, but made Jenner see it for the warn-off it was. “I need your help.” “I didn’t do anything to him, Lysander. I didn’t. What do you need?” “He’s asking me for a gun, says he never lived without one before. I can’t ask your Pop for that.” Lysander didn’t like having live weapons around him. They gave him bad ideas. Grey had promised it wouldn’t be a thing he’d need to notice. Weapons were a way of life for a certain kind of person. Grey had made it clear that he was that kind of man. Jenner gave Lysander the one he had on him, no hesitation. “It’s one of my holstered pair. Tell him it is his to use as he sees fit. I’ve seen what he can do. I did not do anything to him; I swear to you on the lives of my fathers, I never did. That is between us, though, Lysander, and I don’t expect it to be repeated anywhere.” “It doesn’t matter, Jenner. You helped, and that’s enough.” Grey had seen them talking. Since Jenner stayed away, he didn’t seem to care much. Lysander gave him the gun and told him what Jenner had said. Something happened behind Grey’s eyes, like the things that went on behind Kourt’s and Jenner’s eyes. He’d asked Kourt what it was, long ago, and the Servitor had told him. “That is the look of a man who… well, look. If I ever tell you a man is a shooter, don’t cross him. I’m teaching Jenner to be one. It means that you are physically capable of pulling the trigger, if you have to. It’s the difference between being merely armed, or being armed and dangerous.”

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So Lysander knew that Jenner knew Grey wanted to kill him, knew he was capable, and had handed Grey his own gun to do it with, if Grey wanted to. Lysander had no idea what had happened between the two of them, and was afraid to try and find out. He was no ‘shooter’ and he had no place in their doings. Grey didn’t have anything to say until the ride home, when he bluntly told Lysander “I want to try it again.” There was some inconvenience, getting everyone out of the house for the night. There had been a party that started a day or so before, and people were expecting it to gear up again. Lysander eventually cut the power to certain rooms and rounded up all his party favors, to show that he meant business. He gave every single staff member the rest of the night off. Grey just stood on the patio and waited for him. They were both in need of a bath, and Lysander pointed that out. Grey wanted to think about it, so Lysander went to his own room and settled into his tub, planning to check back on that later. He was soaking when Grey turned up. “Hey,” Lysander offered, maintaining eye contact. “Hey,” Grey returned, and went around the room lighting candles. Lysander wanted, more than anything, to watch Grey get undressed. Instead he closed his eyes the whole time and promised himself that it was going to be worth the wait. So he did wait, until he knew for certain that Grey was in the tub and under cover of bubbles before he opened his eyes and looked at Grey. “Okay, Grey?” “Yeah, so far.” They weren’t touching anywhere, were both curled up in opposite ends of the tub with plenty of room between them. Tubs were not exclusively for bathing in Eab Nanoorn. It was fairly silly to assume you’d be doing it alone, even if that’s why you were actually there. Bathrooms tended to take this into account. Lysander saw no reason to tell people his bathtub was way too big. Hardly anyone had ever seen it, and it didn’t come up much in conversation. "Is there something you wanted me to do?” “Sing to me.” So Lysander laid his head back against the tub and sang a love song he’d learned from one of his Outsys roadies. He didn’t know what the origin of the language was. He had simply learned it by rote. It was about love, and that was always beautiful. “Again,” Grey said, sliding across the tub to reach Lysander. He knelt over Lysander’s legs, and touched him carefully, petting his forehead and cheeks. Lysander closed his eyes and kept on singing to Grey. For some reason, a certain kind of person found this very attractive. Lysander had certainly never complained about it. Grey kissed Lysander’s eyelids, then his lips, but not for long enough to really interrupt the song.

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Lysander made himself focus on his voice. He’d never done this alone, with just one person, before. He stuck to parties and orgies and the Deamonett monastery, where he was always welcomed, even if he’d come in by himself again. He didn’t know how to let Grey understand how long he’d been waiting for this. It had just been simpler, even in the beginning, to find some sex in progress and hop on the bandwagon until he’d had enough. Intimacy was… not his ideal state, honestly. He wanted to know what it was like, and this might be his only chance to even peek at it. Grey would figure out, sooner or later, that those warm bodies downstairs would let anyone play along. He’d be fine, once he did, but Lysander had no illusions about this kind of attention coming back his way once Grey finally got the picture. Lysander put his arms up along the edge of the tub and enjoyed the feeling of Grey having a good look around. Grey was fascinated by Lysander’s sensitive nipples, and had him twisting under strong, slender fingers with very little effort at all. That did interrupt the singing, though, so Grey continued his explorations elsewhere. Down over Lysander’s flat, smooth belly, along the edge of his hips and over his thighs, Grey touched and thought about it all. “Turn over, please,” he finally asked, sitting back. Lysander got up on his knees and leaned over, resting his face on his arms against the edge of the tub. His cock was rock hard, of course, but Grey didn’t seem interested in that. It wasn’t about that, Lysander knew. He was prepared to wait for it to be, later, if he could get that chance, too. Not now, maybe not tonight, but maybe later. He could be patient when he wanted to be. Grey rubbed Lysander’s back, starting at the shoulders and working his way down. He hesitated at Lysander’s hips, but carried on after a long moment. No one had ever taken any kind of time with Lysander like this. He had certainly never required anyone do so. He’d been making wishes of his own, lately, to maybe find out what this was all about, while Grey found out answers to his own questions. Lysander’s song had tapered off to very excited breathing. Grey didn’t seem bothered by it now, though, and slowly parted Lysander’s ass. “Little Gods,” Lysander moaned, when fingers touched his opening. “It doesn’t look like it would work,” Grey said. “Between men, there’s some preparation that has to happen,” Lysander went for clinical, but failed utterly. “Do you want me to do it?” “I want to do this myself,” Grey firmly replied. “Okay,” Lysander agreed, and told him what to do. Lysander made himself be still when one hesitant finger slid in, and heard Grey make some surprised curse behind him.

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“It’s so tight,” Grey said. So Lysander relaxed all his muscles, and let Grey figure it out for himself. “How did you do that?” “It takes practice,” Lysander said. “But not much.” “Now what?” Grey asked, leaning over Lysander’s back. “Now keep doing that until you’re ready to do something else.” It was the longest, most tender opening that Lysander had ever experienced, and it almost drove him mad. Lysander knew Grey had no idea what he was doing. He was only reacting to Lysander’s very enthusiastic responses and didn’t understand that this could go on for a long time, if he wanted it to. Finally, though, he stopped and sat back at his end of the tub. Lysander waited, and then sat down as well. “Is there anything else you want to try?” Grey nodded, then shook his head, then looked away. “I… that was so damn hot. I feel like… it won’t last very long, if I try now.” “It never does, the first time. But if you want to try a few times tonight, that could be possible. You’re still young, Grey. It gives you an advantage.” Lysander didn’t like to remind Grey about the differences in their age, and that Grey could do much better if he wanted to. But even now it didn’t seem to matter to Grey. Lysander got the feeling it didn’t count for much, where Grey came from. “Then I want to try something else, first,” Grey decided, and stood up with no further preamble. Lysander sucked in his breath to see Grey, wet, with long lines of bubbles clinging to him, sliding down him under the glow of candle light. It made Grey’s skin, normally pale from being constantly covered, look golden. Lysander didn’t want to stare, but couldn’t help looking at how beautiful Grey had become under steady application of regular meals and careful attention. It was no longer that shadowed emaciation he’d started out with. Grey had come into clean, compact lines of a body that knew what hard work was. There was some softness and curve coming to him, at the hips, and at shoulder. He looked like he’d been designed by an engineer, built to last and take some serious damage. It was the kind of beauty old trees had. Lysander didn’t know how he was going to make Grey understand that. Grey looked back at Lysander, then hopped out of the bath and got a towel. “You need to stay right there for a minute,” he said, and went to hunt up a robe. Lysander did what he was told, and got out only when Grey called in through the door that he could. Grey was standing in the middle of the bedroom, wrapped in a thick, winecolored robe. Lysander had simply dried himself off and stopped in the doorway of the bathroom. He shook his hair back so Grey could see what he’d ended up with. “Do you want me to get dressed?”

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“You’re fucking beautiful, Lysander. It’s not just your eyes or…” Grey sounded surprised. Lysander shrugged a little, and it took a minute to look up again. When he finally did, he left his hair in front of his face. He preferred to see the world from behind that auburn fall anyway. "What did you want to try first?” Grey hesitated, and then asked “Will you put your mouth on me?” Lysander nodded and, when Grey didn’t move, went to him. “I’d like to kiss you first.” Grey agreed, and put his arms around Lysander’s neck. Their mouths met, hesitant but hungry. Then Grey yielded just a little and Lysander drank in the taste of him, held him tight and explored his mouth for as long as Grey would let him. Grey tasted rich, it made Lysander think of fields where healthy things grew wild and beautiful. He thought there might be a song in that, somewhere, and hoped he’d have enough time to at least get it down. When Grey stepped back, Lysander let him go. Lysander dropped to his knees and said “I’ll put my mouth anywhere you want it, Grey.” Grey rested his hands on Lysander’s head and urged him forward. Lysander twitched the edge of the robe out of the way and closed his eyes. He brushed his hair aside and opened his lips, waiting until Grey touched the tip of his cock to Lysander’s mouth. It was hot and hard, but trembling. Lysander was willing to bet Grey was shaking all over right now. He kissed gently, licking just the tip until Grey’s hands tightened, pulling him forward again. He took the head of Grey’s cock into his mouth, being very careful to lick and swallow around Grey, letting Grey feel how very good this could be. Grey’s taste was salty and warm, rich, and Lysander’s mind ran off to images of bread and sunshine. Mostly he thought about sucking gently, then taking more of Grey’s cock into his mouth and starting again. There were so many ways to do this, and he had no idea what Grey thought normal was. Deep, wet sucking seemed to be perfectly fine, and Lysander was very good at that. Grey’s hips rode forward, and Lysander went with it, letting Grey thrust slowly in and out of his mouth. Grey wasn’t going very deep, seemed lost in just this little moment, and was moaning with it already. “More,” he finally said, finding the word for what he wanted, and Lysander gave it to him. Lysander didn’t swallow Grey to the root, but by stages and steps, letting Grey feel every inch of his cock being loved and caressed. It wasn’t particularly large, but neither was Grey. Lysander kept his hands down, felt it when his own cock lost interest for the moment, and concentrated only on Grey. He smelled sweet, no fragrance or perfume to cover the rich scent of his body. Lysander stopped moving only when he did have his lips sealed at the base of Grey’s shaft, and swallowed for Grey. Grey’s hips jerked, and he cried out “Again!” Lysander did, and then it wasn’t under anyone’s control anymore. Grey thrust forward, holding hard to the back of Lysander’s

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head, crying out every time Lysander swallowed around him. Lysander sucked a little harder, swallowed again and again. Then Grey said something that might have been from some language somewhere. Lysander had to swallow fast to keep up with the seed that flooded his mouth and throat, and that was just too much for Grey. Grey let him go and took a couple of steps before going to his knees near the foot of the bed. Lysander cleaned himself up in the bathroom, then went and carefully cradled Grey where he’d fallen. “Was it any good?” he asked, not actually certain at that moment. He was out of sorts, with only one lover who was letting him have so much attention at once. He’d had a suspicion that Grey wasn’t terribly experienced, but was starting to think it was more than that. He was starting to think that no one at all had ever touched Grey and shown Grey his beauty. Lysander had to be careful, and sure. Grey answered by grabbing Lysander and kissing him hard. He pushed Lysander over onto his back and kept kissing him, rubbing hard all over him. Lysander held on to Grey, wanted to ask what the hell was going on, but couldn’t. Grey pressed a knee between Lysander’s legs, so he let them spread open. There was some arrangement of the robe, and then their cocks were rubbing together, waking up to each other and suddenly, sharply, quite interested in the situation. “Fuck!” Grey said, pressing down hard against Lysander’s hip. “I didn’t know I could do that!” “Slow down, just a little, Grey,” Lysander said. “This will be easier for you if I turn over.” So Grey let him, and was even convinced that lube was actually a good thing before he began trying to enter Lysander. He was far too worked up, and Lysander had to talk to him, guiding him. The whole time Lysander wanted to be begging to be fucked hard, now. It was surreal, in its way, one person wanting this, just with him and no aphrodisiacs or other interesting people to pay attention to at all. Finally, Grey found the angle he needed, got the leverage he wanted and slid, just a little, into Lysander’s body. “Oh… damn, man,” Grey said, hands tight on Lysander’s upturned hips. He pressed forward, pulled back a little, and grunted when he thrust again, jarring Lysander with his forceful taking. Lysander would have liked a second to catch his breath, but Grey was learning things very quickly now. He discovered all by himself how to make Lysander push back against him. “Yeah,” Grey panted, and curved his body over Lysander’s back. Lysander braced his arms under Grey’s slight weight, and just tried to stay with Grey. “Please, Grey,” Lysander managed to get out actual words, instead of simple moans of pleasure. “Please, please, help me,” he said, a little shocked that he was actually pleading with Grey at this point. The roughness of Grey’s inexperience was doing nothing to dull the tenderness with which he had asked for Lysander to give him this.

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“What?” “Will you touch me, please?” Lysander’s voice was high and thin, but it did the job and Grey took Lysander’s cock in his hand. That was all the help Lysander needed. He rocked his ass back over Grey’s cock, then thrust forward into Grey's hand, letting Grey do whatever Grey wanted to him. What Grey wanted, apparently, was to come again, and straight away. His cock drove hard and fast, deep into Lysander’s body. Grey cried out with the pleasure there, never hesitated and never paused once he’d discovered what he could have. Lysander felt his whole body stretching out for Grey, moving with urgent need. Grey’s cock was not waiting for anything. Lysander moaned, laughing, trying to keep up with youth and need. He shivered with the feel of perspiration sliding down his back, and he bit his lip, riding harder to feel it again. Grey was trying to say his name. That never worked, even if he had been slowing down long enough to get a good breath. Grey wasn’t, and his hips started smacking sharply against Lysander’s ass. It reminded Lysander of other kinds of passion, and he drove his body back against it. Grey was laughing now, too, but Lysander couldn’t have said why, exactly. Grey had done everything Lysander had asked him for, and was taking what he wanted with easy good will. Lysander arched his back, pressed down into Grey’s hips, made Grey go deep and stay there, pumping hard. Grey kept his fist tight around Lysander’s cock, but that felt more like reflex than reciprocation. Lysander sat all the way up on his knees, pushing Grey down under him, and letting his head roll back. Grey moaned against Lysander’s shoulders, jabbing up with all the strength he had. Lysander undulated against Grey, thrusting his ass down again and again, stroking his prostate against Grey’s hard shaft. Grey had no clue what Lysander was up to, and wasn’t helping at all. Lysander just fucked Grey the way he wanted it, and Grey pretty much did the same. It would get even better for Grey later, but it was going to be damn sexy for him right now. Grey put his hand between Lysander’s shoulders, pushing him forward, and Lysander went, stretching out on the floor. He kept his knees under him, rolled his hips up and gave Grey a tight and needy body to enjoy completely. Grey was back to trying for Lysander’s name. He was mispronouncing it badly, with that rolling, lilting accent, but the damn thing did come out, and Lysander screamed for his lover. His cock thrust hard into Grey’s hand, and Grey’s body kept up with him, the whole way over the edge of pleasure and into climax. It was hot and wild and Lysander heard the stuttering of Grey’s orgasm just before his own spilled out of him, with a high, keening cry. Lysander’s knees went out from under him, and they lay still for a long moment, trying to make their eyes and lungs work again. “Fuck,” Grey said. “At least,” Lysander agreed. “That rocks,” Grey pronounced. “Why are people such bastards, man?”

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“No idea, Grey. But we aren’t, so this is what we get instead.” Lysander turned over and held Grey close to him. “What did you do to my name, in there? Do you remember? It sounded… something.” Grey blushed. “I can say your name properly. Lie-zaan-der. But I had to try. It came out Ly’sindre before, and it was easier to say that way…” “I like it,” Lysander told him. “Take your pick.” “It is prettier, my way,” Grey told him. Grey’s accent really was very pretty, once Lysander could work his way through the thing. “Almost everything is. I’d much rather hear sur salebthe eturic any day. Standard is… well, efficient, I guess.” “What does that mean?” “Roughly? The way you say it? ‘I love you’ would be correct. Doesn’t come close, but it’s correct. And I do, Lysander,” Grey said it his way, and Lysander hoped he would carry on doing that. “I don’t know if that’s right, but I’m only telling you the truth.” “I love you, Grey, and I really want you to know I’ve not loved before. It will seem strange to you, when you finally understand that. But it is the truth, and I’d like to know how to say it, so you think it is lovely to hear.” So Lysander learned his first phrase in Vantishari. It was hard, because there were meanings implied in the inflection. They talked for a long time, about how exactly Lysander felt for Grey, just to get the pronunciation right. It was intimate, and took a very long time. By the end of it, Grey was kissing Lysander for long, long intervals and calling him beautiful in any number of ways. But they were careful. This was very new for both of them. There were other concerns that they were aware of, but did not wish to discuss at that precise moment. They did get up, eventually, and washed themselves again. They ate and went to their separate beds, but Lysander lay awake for a long time, touching himself gently in all the places where Grey had found his purity. *** Blaine watched his son in action with something like envy. He’d never seen such determination, such will, and Jenner was certainly setting himself up to top his own fathers’ escapades. Grey had reappeared, firmly affixed to Lysander’s side now. Jenner said nothing, but thought very, very hard about it. Blaine was the one to suggest the solution, but it was, more or less, by accident. “Just because your granduncle got cut off without a credit when he couldn’t make up his mind doesn’t mean you will,” he’d calmly informed his fretting son. Jenner hadn’t replied, but really didn’t need to. Two generations before, a dispute about personal lifestyles had cost House of Garu a son. They simply couldn’t afford that now. The Royals were being very

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kind to one another about such things at the moment. Kourt thought it was the dumbest thing he’d ever heard, which made Blaine think he was on the right track. Kourt’s solutions to romantic problems were… conservative, even when they were unique. Jenner was in love with Grey. Grey clearly had something going on for Lysander. Forget for a minute that Jenner had thought of Lysander as his parents’ friend all his life, and the solution was obvious to anyone. It wasn’t as if this were going to end in a white wedding anyway. Jenner had to get married, eventually. It would probably be by order of the Crown when it happened. He was one of two living children of the Royal House and that was simply not going to work. His cousin, Mia, was the heir and was already in deep discussion with physicians about what she could expect in the way of progeny. Blaine’s brother, King Kyle, had been looking very tense. Blaine was already plotting to protect Jenner for as long as he could. This thing, whatever it was, couldn’t be a normal love relationship, no matter how it happened. Blaine didn’t question for a second that Jenner loved Grey, the real, honest thing. It was completely obvious, every time Jenner had any reason at all to say Grey’s name. This sort of thing had its own place in the protocols of succession, and for all the obvious reasons. It would be cruel not to make it as fun as humanly possible for Grey. It was all part of the game, and Jenner was an excellent player. “Nab them both, Jenner. Go for it. Wouldn’t be the first time a Garu went out setcollecting,” Kourt finally said, not liking it, but not knowing how to argue that kind of logic. So Jenner dove into the game again, happily playing the royal duke on the chase. He made it clear to everyone just what had nabbed his attention this time. Lysander caught on right away and gave a firm warn-off, straight out of the blocks. Jenner deferred to him, and the race was on, in elegant slow motion. Blaine didn’t quite get what was happening between Lysander and Grey. Lysander was saying no to everything lately, and that was certainly new and different. Grey was just hanging around to watch, like he was taking notes. Sometimes they got up and left very fast, but more like they were in need of a cold shower than anything else. It was very curious. Jenner spent one afternoon with ink and brushes, composing an invitation. This was a formal play, very bold and not easily ignored. When a member of the royal family started signing titles and all to ask for a date, people, simply and correctly, noticed. Jenner had it delivered and ran to hide in the bathroom every time the comm chirped for the rest of the evening. Blaine was in the happy position of receiving the reply, dutifully passed it on. “They will expect you to pick them up on time and take them directly home again.” “I hope you told them I agreed.”

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“I would have said you agreed if they wanted you to piss off a balcony on Main Street. You’re making us all insane with this shit, Jenner.” Blaine made himself stop. His mother used to say things like that, and he didn’t much care for the tone on himself. “Would you care to borrow the Wraith?” “Yes, please,” Jenner replied very meekly, because that skimmer didn’t go just anywhere, mister. Kourt still didn’t like it. But he admitted to not understanding it, and was therefore discounted from the debate. *** Jenner went to Lysander’s house, glad of the long drive out of Kais City and up into the hills. It was much cooler up here, and he supposed that appealed to a certain type of fasionista. Jenner wasn’t that kind of person, and dressed to incite lust. He didn’t think it was going to work, but it would be a shame to fail just because he hadn’t tried. His hair, instead of living out its own existence as a fuzzy and ill-mannered guest, had been persuaded to lie down and help for once. The other glamours weren’t going to be spotted. That was the point of them, and they’d be missed if they weren’t seen to. Blaine had been extremely precise in his advice on this occasion, and Jenner bowed to his father’s expertise. Jenner was certainly in no condition to do his own detail work tonight. He knocked and was left waiting. Stood there and took it. He had flowers for each of them, which were graciously accepted by both parties. Good enough. Lysander had music he wanted to play, so that went on and was cranked up to full blast straight away. He and Grey got in the back seat and made themselves extremely comfortable. “Is that for the new recording?” Jenner asked, when he recognized the voice. “Yup, think it might be a single,” Grey unexpectedly put in. “What’s it called?” “Two-Faced Motherfucking Life.” “Good title,” Jenner said, and meant it. “I have reservations at Solsuda, and tickets for the Scarlet Letter. It is merely a suggestion.” “Food sounds good,” Lysander allowed, and they were quiet for a while. Jenner just watched them both in the mirror, smiling at each other. This could work, he realized. It really could, if I’m good enough for them. Dinner was superb, of course. The Scarlet Letter was in full swing by the time they arrived, and he knew he’d scored a hit with Grey. They got a table, but Grey only stopped by long enough to drink and kiss Lysander. He spent the rest of the time slamming

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around the dance floor with dangerous results. The DJ spotted Lysander and played his most recent single with a wave and a nod. “So, where do you want to go next?” Jenner shouted over the noise. “Home, Jenner. You’re taking us home after this.” “Just checking,” Jenner replied, and kept an eye on his drinking. He wanted to throw himself into it, but wouldn’t. He did have to carry Grey to the skimmer, eventually, and Lysander just looked tired of the night. Grey got to the front door under his own power, and they both gave Jenner a good-night kiss. Good enough.

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Chapter 3: Long Road Home Grey had taken some time to think. He wasn’t sure he was very good at it yet, but he’d drawn a few conclusions, conducted some experiments and the results were all coming back very positive. He’d come to terms, in a working fashion, with some facts of his life. He didn’t like people looking at him much; didn’t like to show a lot of skin or attract attention; didn’t trust people for shit. That was okay, there were people, and then there were friends. He was still learning about friends. Jenner was a friend. Grey called him for a place to stay when he found out Lysander had to go do something to do with the newsfeeds for about a week. Grey didn’t want to be with Jenner, particularly, but didn’t have any other option, besides solitude. Grey had asked Lysander what the best way to keep people from putting his picture on the newsfeed was going to be. There was always some asshole snapping away at Lysander, though the rock star did a lot to pretend otherwise. Lysander had introduced Grey to a strange man named Raul de Seco. Raul asked Grey to name the impossible. Grey had asked for his hair to be blue and purple, but shimmery. The colors flowed together so that people couldn’t really tell what color they were seeing. Raul had also put green where it was needed. The colors were fast, never faded. Raul knew how to make the roots keep up with everything else. He said it had to do with proteins, but Grey had no idea what those were. Grey had decided to go for this ‘closure’ thing between himself, Jenner, and the way they had met. Even Lysander said it had to be settled. They were both very interested in this thing Jenner was doing with them. Lysander kept begging Grey to be forgiving with the duke. The musician could not understand that Grey simply wanted what he was owed, before anything else, with Jenner. Grey looked at himself in the mirror for a long time before he got dressed. He hadn’t known, before, what he looked like to other people. It hadn’t been the reason, but it couldn’t have helped. Lysander had taught him a few things about that problem, how Grey was under no obligation to advertise what was so clearly not on offer. Now Grey no longer wore mere clothing. He got his armor on, three layers at a time. Belts and chains were a big part of his accessory selection. Long shirts, made of strong cotton and strange net material or metallic and shimmery, all of it went together and kept his secrets. Heavy canvas pants, tights, shorts, these he piled on and secured until he felt safe in his own skin. He didn’t care that everything was inches too big on him. These were actually Lysander Edvard’s cast-offs, and Grey had certainly never worn better. “You’ve got some learning to do yet, Grey. You’ll find people to help you along,” Lysander had assured him. That hadn’t been the same conversation at all. That had been the night Lysander had thrown everyone out of the house and spent all evening tenderly helping Grey lose his virginity in all the ways he cared to. That was being lovers, not just friends. It was private and personal. Lysander was truly courting him. There was love. They both agreed they weren’t sure what kind, yet.

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Lysander admitted to feeling that their time together was extremely special to him, but wouldn’t say why, exactly. After Grey really did decide he trusted Lysander about these things, it felt wonderful. It was nothing like what he’d come to expect of his future, back home. Jenner, apparently, wanted to try for it with Grey, too. Grey had heard all the dirty, exciting things that boys talked about, but hadn’t been in any position to really find out much for himself. He’d been a freeman. All he’d ever needed was enough gedlt to pay for anything he wanted. He’d never had it. He’d been a runner most of his life. He had never been without a weapon until Jenner had come up on him and stripped him out as neatly as anyone could have asked for. Grey had always fought back, even the first time, because he was a freeman and nobody took shit from him without paying at least a little blood. He’d fought back when he’d been outnumbered, outclassed. The time he’d finally, really had enough of that shit, he pulled his gun and took far more than mere blood in payment. People pretty much left him alone after that. He had a weapon again, but that had taken some doing. It was Jenner’s. Grey had recognized it the second he held it. He’d used it before, and it was an extremely fine piece. So, he was back where he’d started, with some bonuses. Lysander loved him, and the feeling was extremely mutual. Lysander did not give one single damn that Grey didn’t have a scrap of gedlt to his name. It was why Grey had been a virgin. He knew it, and had been waiting as patiently as he could. He hadn’t wanted to sell it, not really. He’d wanted to do right by somebody, and have that for his own, free and clear. Instead, he’d met a beautiful man who wanted Grey to learn from him, instead of coming with all those lessons learned correctly and well. Grey knew about rape. That was different from sex, and he’d learned all those lessons the hard way. He’d never been taken care of afterwards, and he’d certainly never ‘dealt with it’ the way Lysander had made him. But now he had, or still was, and part of that was getting his head around sex, and grief, and, of course, revenge. He’d always known about revenge. That wasn’t about sex or rape; that was about justice. That left him with the problem of Jenner, and what he was owed. He was starting to have some ideas about that, but he hadn’t told anyone yet. Some secrets were still his to keep. Jenner picked him up exactly on time, carried all the bags, said nothing and asked no questions. Grey stretched out in the back seat and watched the city slide by him until Jenner said they were there. He’d been put back in the same rooms he’d had when he arrived. Someone had gone to the trouble to spruce the place up a bit. Grey dumped his piles of crap all over the place and called it home. Jenner left him alone when he wasn’t invited to stay. Then someone knocked on the door. Grey was surprised to admit Jenner’s father, Kourt. “How are you, Mister Crowe?” Grey asked, as politely as he could.

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“Please, call me Kourt. I came to ask if you needed anything,” he said, taking a seat. Grey took him in with an eye to tactics. Brown, curly hair was firmly secured in a coil on the top of his head. There was a cluster of long metal pins, black, with gold colored ornaments on the ends, thrust through it. Kourt’s eyes were purely, totally, green, as dark green as grass and trees. Behind his eyes lived a man who looked absolutely capable of anything he decided to do. The body was pure, raw strength, under total control and somewhat disguised by the heavy clothes he wore. “You’re a Servitor, aren’t you?” Grey demanded, remembering something about it from before. That was a problem. A Servitor’s son would surely be avenged. They were legendary fighters, had weapons of their own design and making. They were called hotguns, and were some kind of hybrid between projectile and energy weapons. That was all Grey knew, except that Jenner had been absolutely unstoppable with regular old cold guns. Grey thought he was probably looking at the reason why. “Non-active at the moment,” Kourt said. “But I asked about you. How are you settling into life here?” Grey shrugged. “I don’t know. Lysander had to bail. I don’t know what to do with myself. I don’t know what’s going on, half the time, much less what I’m supposed to be doing, here.” Kourt looked out the window, staring at the narrow wedge of ocean view it allowed. “My son is in love with you.” Grey closed his eyes. “Fuck.” “Indeed.” “Well, I really don’t know what to tell you. I absolutely am not trying to lead him on, Mister Crowe. I like Jenner. He’s nice to me. He’s one badass fighter. I just don’t trust him for shit. It’s his own fault. He is in debt to me. I really don’t know what the hell is going on around here, but it isn’t making any sense to me. He should die for what he did.” Grey leaned back and lifted up his shirts, showing his gun. Kourt barely moved, but had two hotguns trained on Grey. There was absolutely nowhere on Kourt’s body that they could have come from. Jenner said Servitors had secrets that nobody understood. Some of these secrets, the Servitors themselves no longer understood, but kept them, just the same. Grey looked into Kourt’s eyes and knew that those secrets didn’t stop at fancy concealment techniques. Those weapons were absolutely a part of the Servitor himself. After a long minute, Kourt made them disappear again. “Grey, I know the debt between you two is in blood. I am asking you, one shooter to another, please, collect in blood. Collect in service or honor or plain old cred. If you like, I’ll pay my son’s debt to you myself. I have a duty to protect him by any means. I am asking one thing, so that you can live through this. Let my son keep his life. You have

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absolutely no idea what we went through to get him here in the first place. I can’t let his affection for you interfere with my duty.” Grey thought it over. “I really don’t stand a chance if I try. He has a father who loves him. I would never survive. He owes me, though. I’m going to collect. I have to, Mister Crowe. I can’t walk away from him. There’s too much between us. Because it is you, his father, asking me, I will of course try to honor your wishes. I will find some other way to be satisfied.” Kourt twisted a curl of brown hair around his finger and tugged at it, staring right through Grey for a long minute. “I know a little about the Outsys. I know what it is you are trying to tell me. I’m watching you, Grey. You have attracted my notice. I don’t think you’ll enjoy it, if you lie to me.” *** Jenner took his father’s assessment in a coldly professional fashion: Grey wasn’t going anywhere with him without Lysander. They pretty much ended up hanging around in their separate rooms for four days. They avoided each other, but never misunderstood what they were doing. Blaine called Lysander to complain. The musician had been too fropped out to be any help. Then, one very late night, Grey knocked on Jenner’s door and asked for gedlt. Jenner asked how much and Grey told him a number that he obviously thought was a lot. Jenner dumped credit chips on the table and counted them out. “There you go. Have fun. Where are you going?” “Nowhere. It’s coming to me,” Grey said. “If you’re having recreationals run in to the Palace, you really need to let Dad know. He’s the one that bribes the guards,” Jenner said, watching carefully. “Okay,” Grey said, and went to knock on Blaine’s door. Jenner covered his mouth to hide his smile when his fathers answered the door together, stark naked. Grey gave them his all-purpose appraising glance and said “I need to buy a shitload of drugs to make some gedlt. Is that okay?” Kourt absented himself from the conversation. Blaine was the one who had to ask “Why do you need to make credit?” “I want to do something, and it looks expensive.” “Jenner, take this child out and buy him whatever he wants. Now, we’re busy,” Blaine closed the door on Grey in a very final way.

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Jenner sat down on the edge of the table and said “How much do you need, really?” “This isn’t working,” was all Grey would say. “Why?” “Because you have so much gedlt that taking it from you doesn’t hurt you.” Jenner snorted at that. “I owe you. Keep going till it looks like it hurts. How much?” “This isn’t working.” Grey wandered over to the table and picked up whatever he thought looked good. Jenner had never minded him munching on leftovers, though he had reason to know it bothered Lysander. “I heard you told my Pop you were a shooter. You shouldn’t have let him know. You might have got away with it. Are you hot, right now?” Grey crossed his arms over his chest and just looked at Jenner. “Okay, fine, I just wanted to have a look at it,” Jenner said, and slipped off the edge of the table. “Why?” “I know what I’m doing,” Jenner said, and stripped the weapon out from under all those damn shirts. He broke it down and took a hard look at it. “Needs work, Grey. You can’t rely on it like this.” “You filthy motherfucker,” Grey said, and swung hard. Jenner let him, and his eye exploded with pain. “Fuck, Grey!” He shook his head hard and cleared his vision. “If you want to beat the shit out of me, at least let me take the silk off first!” “Take it off, then!” Jenner put the pieces of the gun down and took his shirt off. He pulled every single weapon he was wearing, and laid them on the table like an offering. Grey ignored them. Jenner dropped to his knees and tried to relax, like his Pop told him. Relax into it, let it happen, and let it go. That was the way to take a beating, and Grey certainly wanted him to have one. Grey was giving him a chance to pay with his blood instead of his life. Jenner was going to accept. He’d always kind of had a thing for pain, when it was mixed with pleasure. This was something else again. His mind tried to do the trick of turning the hurt into something like flying, but this was mere brutality, and vengeance. He felt his skin breaking, didn’t

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try to stop or slow it, only wanted to keep broken bones to a minimum because they were such a pain in the ass to heal up again. This was paying in blood, and he was more than capable of giving it. Jenner managed to take most of the hits where he wanted them, and didn’t lose anything that would cost him time with a dentist. Beyond that, he just let Grey collect on his sorry ass. Got himself a busted head and lips, broken nose and a lesson in Outsys cursing for it. He thought, though, that more was coming. Grey finally paused to rest, and just stood over Jenner, cursing him and blaming him and Jenner sat there and took it. Bled quietly, waiting for Grey to be done with him. Finally Grey wound down to “Well?” and looked to be working up the nerve to really take what he was owed. Jenner checked the status on his jaw, decided it was good enough and said “Do you want me to suffer what you did? I have the blood for that.” He stood up and stripped out of his remaining clothes, lay down on the floor, face down. That was the thing, he had to pay the price; it couldn’t be taken from him. That’s how men like him settled a debt, not with theft. “I can’t do it by myself, though.” For a minute, they were completely still, Jenner looking up at Grey and waiting. Finally Grey said “You really are a freeman.” “And I pay what I owe.” “You have lost your mind.” “Getting close, yeah,” Jenner admitted. “Yeah,” Grey agreed, “Getting close.” Jenner thought it might stop there. For a minute, he thought it might just end right there, but something happened inside Grey, something ugly. Jenner had always known, really, that he’d be the one to take the damage for that hate. He made himself be calm, because he really had no idea how far this could go, now. As far as Grey wanted it to, he guessed, and it seemed fair. He knew they’d crossed the line and were heading into insanity. Jenner tried to make himself ready for it. Grey landed on his back like a pile of very angry bricks. He beat every inch of Jenner’s shoulders and the back of his head until even Jenner couldn’t ignore the fact that he was crying out from it. Jenner crossed his arms under his face and tried hard to understand how things could have got this bad, so fast. His father had warned him that there were prices to be paid, and he wouldn’t get to negotiate the terms. Grey had, apparently, a great deal of experience, collecting debts. He had the nerve, to take what was his to take. Jenner respected that, even down in that hell of pain. He closed

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his eyes, listening to everything he’d made Grey think of him, and believed it all. It’s not forever, he reminded himself, like his father always had. Things that hurt can’t last forever, and there’s usually a reason for it, if you look. Jenner knew the reason, and just waited for it to be over. Grey made a strange noise, and then sat up over Jenner’s body. “I can’t.” “What?” Jenner managed, knowing where this was supposed to be going. “Get up. I’m not done with this, but I’m… I… fuck! Fucking bastard!” Grey was off kicking something other than Jenner now. There was a long silence, and then something shattered against the wall, and more shattering, from all over the place. “Get up damn it!” Jenner tried, had to stop and start again. It was a good thing he had dark carpets. He could see where the stains were going to be. “Can I go get a bath?” He sounded tired, even to himself, but made himself wait for an answer. It took a while. Jenner just stood there, watching red patterns draw themselves on his skin. Grey hadn’t been terribly discriminating in how he made Jenner hurt. He’d just… stopped short of the line. Jenner didn’t trust it at all. Finally Grey said ‘yes’ but in an odd way. Jenner made himself walk to the bathroom, but couldn’t have hidden what kind of pain he was in if his life had depended on it. He wasn’t surprised when his Pop came in and looked him over with a practiced eye. “You want me to fix up your eye for you?” Jenner laughed, the only thing that could help him now, and said “Yes, please.” It was a Servitor trick, using their weird arts to make bodies heal up almost instantly. Kourt wasn’t very good at it, but he could help a lot if he could make it work right now. Kourt did, without looking into Jenner’s eyes. “You get this extremist streak from your Dad you know.” “I know.” There had been a lot of laughing on the way home, because it overrode the pain, mostly. He’d learned that from his Pop, too. “If he’s going to do this to you often, you’d better start lubing yourself up before he comes down. There’s symbolic gestures, and then there’s fucking stupid. This one could go for fucking stupid, easy.” Kourt finished what he was doing. Jenner blinked experimentally and was very grateful to his father once again. “I can’t do more than what I have. Now, you want to wake up the doctor and talk her into coming over, or will some Servitor sutures do you?” Jenner laughed at that, too. He’d forgotten that funny thing where Servitors knew how to sew their skin closed to make it heal up. They knew lots of ways to heal wounds. They

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had to. “I’ll call the doctor, Pop.” “He’s trying to be satisfied with blood, Jenner. It might not be possible for him. You need to think about that.” “I know, Pop. I’ll take care of it.” Kourt left him there. Jenner washed everything, let the pink water drain out and washed again. Grey was still sitting at the table when Jenner came out in his bathrobe. Jenner called the doctor and she agreed to come straight over. He sat down to wait, hoping she brought something for the pain. Grey watched Jenner lie with a straight face while his face was being reassembled for him. Jenner knew he wasn’t going to be looking his best for a while, but had already decided that it was fair, too. He got up when the doctor had left, went to take a good look at himself in the one mirror Grey hadn’t found and broken. About right, he thought. “You did a good job, Grey. You want me to fix that gun for you now?” Grey didn’t answer. Jenner took out his kit and sat at the table, cleaning and filing and oiling until it was in perfect working order. “There you go,” he said, holding it out to Grey. “Now, I promise when you unload it on me, it’ll fire straight.” “What the hell are you talking about?” Grey asked. “Well, where do you think all this is going, Grey? You’re going to kill me over this. You want to, and you’re going to. I just wanted to make sure it was quick when it happened.” Jenner sat back and looked at the young man across the table from him. “What makes you think I’m going to kill you?” Grey asked, leaning forward but not yet taking the gun from Jenner. “I don’t think you’re going to let the blood be enough,” Jenner told him. “You haven’t got that kind of discipline.” Grey sat back at that. “I don’t know where this is going, Jenner, but I’m not going to kill you. Your father asked me, very nicely, to find another way. You’ll have to live with it, like I have to live with what you did to me.” “I already live with what I did to you. I guess I can live what you do to me, too,” Jenner shrugged. “If those are the only terms you’re offering, I’ll have to.” Grey left fast then, and kept clear of Jenner’s stone-cold shooter gaze until Lysander came to get him. *** Lysander had gotten a very confusing report from Kourt upon his arrival. He decided

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he’d better talk to Jenner first. The duke answered the door with wounds on his forehead and mouth, nose obviously broken, and a sheepish expression. “What the hell happened to you?” “Grey beat the shit out of me,” Jenner calmly explained. “I held still for it. He’s okay, but he needs you, man.” Lysander felt the color drain from his face. “He beat you? Jenner… you’re stuck on him. How could he?” Jenner shrugged. “I think he actually may have decided to let me live, so in that sense, it helped.” He sounded like he hoped the musician would let it go, but was about to be sadly disappointed. “That little fucking prick,” Lysander said. Jenner had to walk fast to keep up with him. “Don’t be mad at him, Lysander. Don’t, it’s okay. It’s actually very fair. He hasn’t done it but the once so far. I can take it. Lysander, I know I have no right at all, but I need to tell…” “I have other things I have to deal with, Jenner.” “Please, Lysander, it’s in me and…” “No, Jenner.” Lysander wasn’t listening to this insanity, not even a little. He beat on Grey’s door until he opened it. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Grey started to close the door but Lysander pushed his way in and dragged Jenner with him. He put the duke down at the sofa and rounded on Grey. He kicked the door shut and everyone jumped at the noise. “You little fucking bastard! How could you do this?” It took a lot to make Lysander angry enough to yell. This brand of bullshit was at the top of the list. He had been stupid enough to leave a couple of volatile victims alone together. He cursed himself for his own idiocy. “He fucking deserved it!” Grey shouted right back. “Hell, he held still for it. He’s a fucking man, Lysander!” “What the fuck is this? Some bullshit shooter displaced aggression trip?” Lysander was no shooter, and could never understand what kind of deal they’d tried to make with the past. He didn’t fucking care. This was seriously dangerous shit, for both of them. “Fuck you, Lysander! He made it happen to me! I just managed to happen back to him. Shit, I fucking let him live, and he knows it.” “Jenner!”

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The duke jumped, but wouldn’t look at them. “Jenner, did you ever, have you ever in your life put your hands on Grey?” “Only to carry him places, when he couldn’t walk,” Jenner said, going for accurate. Now was not the time to try delicate subterfuge. Lysander was glad he could see that much. “Grey, Lysander’s no shooter and never has been. He has no fucking clue what you’re talking about. He’s not talking about the same thing. You should probably listen.” “If he doesn’t understand it, he should stop acting like he does!” Grey said, still at full volume. “I know what you meant, you little fuckwit,” Lysander was standing over Grey, very angry and focused. “I’ve been trying to help you, all this time, so you didn’t turn out to be the kind of man who would go out and do this shit to other people.” He pointed at Jenner, and the duke actually, physically hid his face in shame. Lysander felt his anger reach whole new levels. “Victims become abusers, Grey. They want to make the whole universe suffer, for what happened to them. That’s why I’m trying to show you how to be a survivor who can let it go.” “Let it go when I’m looking at him every day? When we’ve both been waiting?” Grey screamed back. “I was fucking owed, Lysander!” “If you’re looking so hard, why don’t you see that you’ve beaten the living hell out of someone who never did a fucking thing but help, once he understood?” Lysander was beyond angry and into the realm of blind fury. “Jenner has done absolutely nothing but try and make amends with you and just look what you handed back to him, for his remorse! What the hell are you going to do if he decides to fight back? What if he decides he’s not sorry at all? Are you trying to make him hate you?” Grey stood there for a minute with his mouth hanging open, staring at Lysander like he’d never seen him before. “He let me.” “Well, think of it this way, Grey: What choice did you give him? He doesn’t want to hurt you. He never did. Are you trying to change his mind?” “Stop it, Lysander,” Jenner finally put in. “Stop it. He can do whatever he wants to me. I told you I would wait and pay any price.” “How does this get settled, Jenner?” Lysander demanded. “When he says it’s over, it’s over. But I think he liked it, and doesn’t want for it to stop.” Jenner hunched his shoulders a little. “I can take it.” “Is that true?” Lysander demanded in his coldest tone. “Did you like it?”

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Grey started crying, saying ‘no’ in that broken way that Lysander didn’t quite know how to fix. Lysander pulled Grey to him, and held on hard. “You can’t fix it this way, Grey. Jenner will let you try, but it won’t work. You’ll just end up breaking yourself worse. You’re hurting other people now, too.” “He scared me,” Grey said, very defensive. His fist came down softly on Lysander’s chest. “You know how I get when I’m scared. He could have done anything to me, right then. It scared the shit out of me.” “You get mean, Grey. You know you do, and how easily frightened you are right now. You let that control you. You let yourself act like an abuser. You hurt someone else so you could run from your fear. Is this what you want to do to people? What if you can’t make it stop with him? Am I next? I have sex with you, Grey. That’s going to scare you sooner or later. Look at him, Grey. Take a good look and see what you did.” Lysander turned and looked hard at Jenner, absolutely terrified that he had completely screwed up for good this time. It happened sometimes, in a recovery. One instant of inattention, one mistake left ignored or unaccounted for, and the whole thing started again. They watched while Jenner tried to disappear into his shoulders, like a turtle caught without his shell. “It’s okay, Grey. It’s okay, you said I deserved it, for what I did. I believe you. I believe anything you say. I know how real it is. But you have to get better to make it stop.” “You walking around naked much lately, Jenner?” Lysander gently inquired. “Nope. That started in the Outsys.” Jenner’s chin came up. “That’s my personal shit and has nothing to do with Grey’s.” “How’s your sex life these days?” “Pop always said shit like this would just wear off, for me. It really isn’t the same thing. He taught me everything I needed to know, to survive.” Jenner sighed. “I took my own kind of damage, Lysander. I’m not a survivor quite yet. I just didn’t think about it.” “You’re some kind of victim in there, Jenner. Grey still is, too. He’s making himself an abuser. I’m sorry he came after you. You’re seeing him act out his trauma,” Lysander carefully explained. “Stop it, Lysander. You’re not my witness,” Jenner shot back. Lysander realized Jenner was right and returned to his actual responsibility. “This isn’t debt, Grey. This is the cycle of abuse and you have got to stop.” Grey just cried harder and held on to Lysander. Lysander got them all on the sofa together. Jenner wouldn’t let anyone touch him. It was

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the first time in his life that Jenner recoiled from a friend’s hand. Lysander almost cried over that, himself. “It’s okay, Lysander,” Jenner kept saying. “I’m still working. This isn’t stopping me. You’d better not let it stop Grey. We’ll find a way to settle this. He’s never going to forgive.” *** Jenner liked living at Lysander’s house. Lysander had decided that Kourt and Blaine needed to be left out of this completely. Grey had admitted that Kourt had contributed to his behavior. He didn’t want to make any more mistakes. The guys would just have to work it out themselves. Grey had gotten his anger back, but not as hot as it had been at first. It was like he was hanging on to it, afraid of letting it go. Jenner wished he could get Grey out under some trees, in a good forest, where he could just stop and think for a while. That wasn’t going to happen. Jenner was still suffering Grey's hate, and had no idea what to do about it. Even Lysander was running out of good tricks. Grey hadn’t touched Jenner again. He wasn’t offered any options or choices on the question. No more hurting Jenner was Grey’s new rule. Lysander said Grey’s recovery had been set back and had cleared the mansion. Now it was just the three of them, rattling around that giant house on the hill. Jenner was on his own. Nobody had a word to say to him. He’d called every single person he knew, begging someone, anyone, to witness for him. He’d been ready to tell. He found out too late that there were limits to what he could expect his friends to give him. He’d known he’d fucked up bad when even Lysander refused him that night. Now Jenner had to method this motherfucker to death by himself. He knew how. Kourt Crowe had never pulled a punch in his life, not once he’d decided to throw it for real. Jenner was crying a lot, but couldn’t have said over which thing at any one moment. Lysander refused to touch Grey until some kind of resolution was reached. Lysander was a survivor. No asshole running around with Grey’s attitude was coming within miles of his heart. He’d been very, very vocal about that. He still loved Grey, but he was not as crazy or as stupid as Grey was currently being. He took Grey back to step one of his recovery. They spent a lot of time arguing about the difference between collecting on a debt and acting out an abuse drama. Grey was very pissed at himself when he finally understood. Jenner was pissed at himself for falling into that trap. Lysander, recovery expert unparalleled, was pissed at Jenner for acting like a victim. He offered no sympathy whatsoever. Jenner’s heart was absolutely crushed. Lysander loved Grey, and had forgiven his mistake. Lysander had apparently decided Jenner’s mistake had been much worse. Jenner kept his head down, stayed out of the way and did his own work. It didn’t surprise Jenner that he was having quite a few victim-like behaviors cropping up just now. He, a Royal Duke of Eab Nanoorn, had seen a rape happen and could not lay hands on a fucking witness for love or money. He found himself flinching and hiding and burning with shame, all the time. It had been going on in the Outsys. The

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Boyhaudens helped it stop so they could take him home. Now it was back, he needed some help again and it wasn’t happening. He’d not asked his fathers. After Lysander, only they were left. He could not face them denying him as well. He wasn’t actually sure he could face them knowing. He’d made himself not ask anyone else, and now knew he never would. He’d considered a professional for about ten minutes, shuddered and made his decision. He would do it like everything else. He would do this alone, for himself, for however long it took, because that was how they had made it stop for everyone. Grey was pretty horny, three days into this experiment. Jenner made himself get up and get ready as best he could. He whistled to himself, shaving and washing and lubing up, like for a hot date, but couldn’t ignore how his hands had to be forced steady. He would consent, whatever it was, and not let Grey hurt himself or anyone else. He actually could take this, wanted to, as long as Grey was going to be reasonable about the situation. Grey came prowling through the house and found Jenner sitting on the sofa. “Jenner,” he said, his voice very rough. “Jenner, I need something, man.” His hair was poking up in back, in multicolored wisps, like odd feathers. It was actually quite becoming, messed up like that. “All right, name it,” Jenner said, standing up. “You don’t have to force me.” “Just a blowjob, man. A quick one. Friends do that for each other here, right?” Grey had something in his eyes, something that looked calm, and very clear on what he was doing. Jenner went to his knees, kept his hands down while Grey did his trick with all those pants and got himself out. It was the first time Jenner had really seen how beautiful Grey’s penis was. He kissed it gently, hoping to keep something like control over this. Grey just put his hands on Jenner’s shoulders and waited for it. Jenner licked carefully, all over, tasting the skin and liking it, very much. Please, Grey. Don’t make me pay for this, for wanting to be with you, however I can get it. Please, Grey, he thought, over and over, wishing harder than he’d ever done in his life. I’m going to survive this, right along with you. I want this, and we could have it. I want this, for real. Jenner opened his mouth and steadied his breathing. It was easy to swallow and wait for a minute until Grey decided he wasn’t going to do anything about it. Jenner lifted his hands slowly, looking up at Grey to see if it was okay. He put his arms around Grey’s hips and held Grey as closely as he’d ever been allowed to. He swallowed around Grey’s cock, again and again, breathing carefully while he rocked Grey closer, holding Grey gently. Grey moaned softly, and petted Jenner’s hair, and let his hips roll forward. He thrust into Jenner’s mouth delicately. Jenner let him, and plunged his mouth over Grey’s cock in long, wet swoops. Jenner’s tongue found sensitive spots and worked them with precision and strength while his lips made firm

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resistance for Grey to enjoy as he would. It was the kind of thing that should have gone on for a while, but Grey came, just like that. That was good, Jenner mentally congratulated himself. “Thank you, Jenner,” Grey said, stepping back. “I’m trying to let it go.” “Tell me how to help you, Grey.” Jenner did not care that he was literally on his knees begging. “I have to help you. I want to.” “Hurt me if you have to, but… don’t let me…” Grey couldn’t finish the sentence. “Help me remember what consent means.” “I’ll do what you want, Grey. I’m trusting you not to lie to me about what you’re going to do. You’re the one who can’t abuse my trust,” Jenner gently pointed out. “This is what you get, if you do.” Grey walked away, looking confused but determined. Jenner headed down to Lysander’s studio, feeling very fine. There were some drum tracks lying around. Jenner dragged his old guitar out of its place on the storage rack. The taste of Grey was still clinging to the back of his mouth when he locked himself in the solo track booth. The music that he found to play with was simple, straightforward. He made his song be brilliant, like the way he felt inside. He knew it made no sense at all, to be this pleased with himself for getting to suck Grey off. He’d never even kissed Grey, not really. Jenner knew it was just a fuck. But it was something pure, something sane, and it gave him hope. Not just for Grey, but for all of them. Lysander wandered in and cut the track out, listened to what Jenner was laying down. He went in to his drums. They made it blend, stopping and talking it over intensely, not paying attention to anything other than what they were creating together. Jenner had been making music with Lysander Edvard since he was a child. Lysander wouldn’t ignore it, even if they were otherwise having not much to say to each other. “You got some lyrics in mind?” Lysander finally asked, when they’d got everything down well enough for starters. “Yeah, let me change out the mike.” Jenner popped out the equipment and set himself up to sing. He didn’t have a clear voice, not like his Dad, but it did well enough to demo a song out. Hilltop, not much sleep I got a crazy young man who’ll be the death of me--

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And it’s a bright blue summer day In a long stretch of rainy nights for meBut I swear by the skies That’s raining down on this head of mine That I can make it right And maybe soon he’ll see That I’ve got both hands in my pockets and I’m waiting to know what he needs One chance one hope one last shot And two souls waiting for me--Oh, I got my love and it’s starting to branch Growing from my heart Who knows what one day this will be? But I swear by the skies That’s raining down on this head of mine That I can find the rhymes And maybe soon they’ll see That I’m standing on the edge of reason Watching fifty stories below! He lost himself in making it as right as he could. Eventually, he decided to pitch up and really hammer it out for once, instead of trusting some later singer to figure it out. Lysander went into the control room and helped. Then he said, “Grey said he didn’t know you could sing.” Jenner was out of the booth like a shot. “Erase it, Lysander. Erase it all, right now,” he said, feeling suddenly out of breath and staring hard at Grey. “How long have you been sitting out here?” “Couple of hours,” Grey answered, shrugging. “FUCK!” Jenner said, and headed out. “I need a drink, dammit!” *** Grey looked at Lysander. “Don’t erase it,” he said. “You want to hear it again?” Lysander asked, not sure if this was at all a good idea. “Yeah, I think so.”

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They sat and listened, not saying anything, and Grey heard for the first time what Jenner sounded like when he thought nobody was paying him any mind at all. He sounded hopeful, but very sad at the same time. “What’s all that about having both hands in his pockets and watching fifty stories below?” “He’s talking about being in a love so hard he’s going to kill himself, if it doesn’t kill him first,” Lysander said, understanding all of Jenner’s odd allusions. He hadn’t dared leave Jenner alone once the lyrics had been presented. Drinking, though, was a good sign from Jenner. He clearly needed some feeling good time. “He’s armed, has been since he was ten, and sort of… fondles his weapons through his pockets. He’s considered suicide before. Cliffs give him bad ideas. We have a bad habit of locking our feelings up in songs around these parts.” “So he’s singing about something that really happened?” Grey asked. “From his reaction, I’d say he was singing about you, and maybe about me, but didn’t want you to hear it yet, if ever.” Lysander delivered this news as gently as he could. “Play it again.” Grey listened hard, and tried to understand. “He’s talking about me, the man that’s going to be the death of him?” “Yes, Grey. How the hell do you think he could have done what he did, is still doing for you? You never knew him before. I mean, he was nothing like his Dad, really, but he got his licks in, right enough. Never waited around for anyone or anything. Never needed to.” “What does that have to do with me?” Grey asked, totally out of his depth. “He did it for love, Grey. That’s the only way he ever could let something like that happen to him, and not even fight back. We do these things, for love. He thought it was what you needed, and he gave it to you. For love.” Lysander shrugged. “He takes after his Pop, really, where his heart is concerned.” “He let me do that to him because he’s in love with me?” Grey said, completely incredulous. “It was supposed to be about justice.” “Well, it doesn’t look like any justice I understand. Maybe he does. But he let you do it. He’s still in love with you, like me, despite what you did to him. Problem right now is, he’s following his father’s example. I’ve seen Kourt stand there and let Blaine knock the crap out of him for almost no reason at all. Jenner’s seen it, too. It must seem normal to him.” Lysander shrugged again. “I’ve seen this kind of thing happen to victims before, like a defense mechanism. Consent and consent and consent so that they don’t end up being forced. I did it for a while, actually. It’s not your shit, Grey. Jenner has to make that stop for himself. You really are abusing him, you know.”

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Grey scrunched down in his seat. “I’m trying, Lysander. I want to get better, like you. He says I can have… something with him, if I can do this. It’s working, so far.” Lysander leaned down and looked Grey in the face. “Did something happen today, between you two?” “I let him give me a blowjob,” Grey admitted. “A nice one, like for friends.” “That’s his idea of a sunny day in a line of rainy nights, Grey. You heard him crying at night, yet? When you cried and begged for help, and there was no one who cared, he came to you. He didn’t even know your name and he risked his life to help you. Now, you have had a lot to say about what he owed you. You need to think very, very carefully about what you owe him.” *** Jenner didn’t turn up for dinner, didn’t turn up for evening drinks, didn’t turn up at all. Grey finally went and looked for him. Found him holed up in the back of a closet, cursing steadily and weeping hard. “How many languages can you do that in?” Grey asked, to let Jenner know he’d been found. “Nine, but only the swearing.” That came through the sobbing, like Grey’s question was more important than the broken man who answered it. Grey put a plate down on the floor and pushed it at Jenner. “Eat your dinner.” The food quickly went away. Grey could only clearly make out Jenner’s hands in the deep shadows. “Go to bed.” Jenner crawled out of his hidey-hole. Grey could see for himself that the duke had been crying, a lot, for a long time now. “I haven’t got one here.” “You need some sleep, then you need to get high,” Grey advised. That was the method. Get it out, get rested, and take a break to feel good and go back to point one. Repeat. It fucking worked, too. But it was damn hard to get done, as Grey himself would attest. He’d needed a shitload of help from Lysander to get it done at all. Jenner was up here in a closet, right by himself, no clock, no way of knowing how long he’d been stringing himself out on this shit. “You shouldn’t do this alone, Jenner.” “All right,” Jenner agreed, getting to his feet with a few wobbles and false starts. “Where do you guys want me to go?” “You come with me, then,” Grey said. Once he’d said it, he remembered it was exactly what Jenner had said, when he offered to bust Grey free. Grey finally understood it, right then. He stayed close, not really wanting Jenner wandering around loose in his current

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state of mind. “You’d better bring Lysander, Grey. Please, I’m… a little afraid of what you’re going to do to me.” So Lysander got an invitation, too. They all piled into his bed, because it was the biggest. Jenner took his clothes off, though he didn’t much look like he wanted to. Grey didn’t dare say anything to him, didn’t want to be cruel. The Boyhaudens had been very cruel with Jenner, forcing him to go on. Grey wanted to help Jenner, but not like that. He knew a way now, but Jenner had to want it. Grey didn’t understand Jenner’s song yet, but Lysander had forced him to look at the damage he was doing with all his anger and hate. Jenner lay still between Lysander and Grey, looking straight up at the ceiling. He didn’t ask any questions, just waited for whatever was coming at him. Even Grey could tell there wasn’t anyone home behind his eyes. “Jenner,” he finally said. Green eyes slowly tracked in Grey’s direction, fixed on some point in the middle distance beyond him. “Yes?” “Where are you?” “Inch, mile, gone, away, away,” Jenner murmured, blinking very slowly. Grey’s heart clenched. Jenner had said that, over and over, making their getaway happen from miles away behind his own eyes. Lysander put his arms around Jenner. “It’s safe here, Jenner. I won’t let anything hurt you.” Jenner cringed from that. “Don’t, Lysander. It’s supposed to hurt.” “It’s not supposed to, and you know it,” Lysander shook him a little. “You need to come out from there, Jenner. I know it feels safe, but it won’t work forever. What the hell would your witness think? We should call and ask.” Jenner turned more towards Lysander. “I just want to make it right, man. I didn’t mean to do it, but that’s no excuse. I’m trying to deal, but the thing won’t hold still for me. It goes on and on, and I’m making mistakes…” “It’s over,” Grey said. “It’s over. All I ever had to do was trust you, from the minute you asked me to. I have to remember you’ve never lied to me or broken your word. Other people hurt me, and you were there, but… it’s over.” “You don’t know my truth, Grey. This isn’t about your personal shit. Do what you need, to survive. What I let you do is not what I’m trying to deal with.” Jenner told him. “That’s the truth. I knew what I was agreeing to when I did it.”

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“Then you paid your price and we’re square,” Grey said, very relieved. Jenner didn’t have anything to give back to that. They turned the lights out and took him in their arms, holding him there for a long time. “Grey?” “Yes?” “I really didn’t know. I didn’t understand, or I would have gotten you out of there faster. I thought I could make them leave you alone. I really did try.” “How?” “That second night? When they didn’t bother you? That was me.” It was silent for a long time. “What happened?” “Don’t Grey. You’re not my fucking witness.” “Well, who is?” Grey demanded. “Piss poor job they’re doing. Even I can see that.” Jenner didn’t answer, didn’t move, and barely breathed between them. “Jenner, did you… ever talk to anyone about what happened out there?” That was Lysander at his most concerned. “No. I have lied and misled and covered up. I have let some people think I did it to him myself, because it is better than what really happened. You did think that Lysander, until I swore on my fathers’ lives that I hadn’t. But now everyone has the idea that I’m the first abuser in my generation. They’re afraid it’s all starting again. Nobody will witness for me, because nobody can face that. I’m having to teach myself how to survive. It’s difficult, but I’m not taking my dick out of my pants for anyone until I’m sure.” “But, Jenner…” Lysander hesitated. “No. I am honored to be a duke. I will live by those oaths. All of them, including this. I have to be a survivor, so that I never make another victim. Not a blowjob, handjob, kind caress from any person near my cock. You can make that publicly known. Hell, Lysander, I can consent to bottom all day long, it’s no problem. I am not doing anything to anybody. That’s my rule. I am living it, every day.” Grey hadn’t known that Jenner had been standing in front of family and everyone, letting them think that, to protect Grey’s truth. He didn’t know Jenner had been carrying that awful weight, of what had to be done, right by himself. He’d thought he’d have his family to help him, two fathers to listen and hold him. Grey had gotten that here, and from a man so famous that his music had transcended the Commonwealth.

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But Jenner hadn’t. Nobody would give him what he needed, so badly now. He’d borne it, to protect Grey’s truth from being anything anyone would ever know. “Are you telling me,” Grey had to know. “Are you telling me that you have gone all this time, with what you saw, and you have no helping witness?” “Grey,” Jenner sounded so patient, every time he said that name. “It was epidemic in our kingdom, before we knew how to stop it. It took generations for it to work at all, but we damn well healed anyone that we could make hold still for it. People are scared. You can not have a witness that doesn’t want to listen. I can’t get them to listen unless I say first that I didn’t do that. It’s not supposed to be like that, conditional, but that’s what I’m getting. Nobody will help me unless I betray my promise to you. I can’t do that, so I’m alone on this. I’m getting my work done, and I’m keeping my word to you.” “Well, yeah… but…” “No. There are no ‘yeah, buts’ for me. A promise is what it is. Otherwise, why the fuck even bother saying the words?” “What the hell are you talking about? Promises are made to be broken,” Grey told him that old, simple truth. Lysander cleared his throat. “No, Grey. If Jenner, or Kourt Crowe, ever say the phrase ‘I promise’ to you, it will happen. Jenner, why the fuck did you not ask me to witness for you? I knew the truth already. I’m witnessing for Grey.” “I did. Right after I told you what Grey did to me. I was ready to, then. I said I had to tell, and you said no. I didn’t want to. You’re in the middle of one recovery already, but I’d already asked everyone else. Except my fathers. I saved them for last, then couldn’t face the suspicion from them, too. So I sat down, got very drunk and started work alone, just like we all swear to. I am sorry for the mistakes I made, Lysander. I am. I just don’t have any way of seeing from the outside,” Jenner coughed very hard. “I’m stuck in the middle again.” Lysander made a noise like deep sorrow. “No, Jenner. I… wouldn’t… I never…” “You didn’t listen. I tried to tell, and you wouldn’t listen. Just like everyone else,” Jenner said. “Even now, you won’t believe that I tried to tell you before. Talk about your helpless witnessing, Edvard! You really take the cake. I’m the first man alive you thought wasn’t worth helping. I don’t care what you think of me any more. I can’t. I’m going to show you I’m not what you think I am. I don’t care how long it takes…” “Jenner, I never thought…” “Bullshit, Lysander. You’re not my fucking witness. You said no. I can’t tell you my

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truth. I wouldn’t be believed.” Grey wished he could cry, but he couldn’t. He had to be strong, because he owed Jenner, badly, and now he knew how much. “You never asked me to listen. Tell me what happened.” “You were there, Grey. You know what happened.” “You have to say it.” “Are you serious?” Jenner sounded strained, like he was holding something in; something that he wanted out of him, badly, and had found no help at all to guide him. Lysander whispered, “Jenner, you have to say it, and be believed. I swear to you, like I never needed to with anyone before. I give you my oath that I will believe anything you say, Jenner. I do, in fact, know how real and ugly it was. I absolutely believe that it is real. Just let us know what we already believe.” Jenner took a deep breath and got up, got dressed, and didn’t come back to the bed. They could only hear him moving around in the dark, and Grey waited, listening. That was his job. “From the time I was ten years old, I had to know how to fight back against something I might not be able to stop. Promises had been made to me and my Pop, but the people who promised had broken their word before. We didn’t trust it, so we got ready, just in case. I was born under a veil of secrets and lies, you really have no idea. I’ve never been safe, if he wasn’t right there watching me. It took about twelve years, and then I had to find out if I really was ready. So I did a runner, to get blooded, to see if I really was a shooter, and could survive even if Pop couldn’t be there to help me. I have duties ahead of me, hard ones, and I had to know I could see them done. “I went to the Out Systems. I found out I could knife someone, easy, but that wasn’t enough. That was clean, and it wasn’t the same. It happened without me thinking about it, pure reflex, and I’d always had a little problem with hesitating if I saw it coming at me. The trigger, you know… if you can’t pull the trigger, you might as well just stand there and take what’s coming at you. “So I stayed, and I waited to find out. I got in with a kingpin, joined a gang, got pulled into some very fucked up shit but it was not what I’d come for, so I waited. I got sent to pick up someone, wasn’t told why, just bring him in and forget he exists. I did, but I knew something was truly fucked up because the next night I had to go into the dining room and there he was. He shouldn’t have been alive, but he was there, on his knees, completely naked and being fed like a dog on the floor. “I knew he couldn’t possibly have done anything to deserve what was being done to him. This was certainly no fun for him, that was obvious to anyone. He was too little and a

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nobody, no threat, and all I could think was that I couldn’t let it happen. So I looked at him like I thought something was wrong with him. Nobody was really paying attention to what I was doing, so I said ‘I think he’s going to be sick.’ “They just laughed, and ignored it. I went over, grabbed him, turned him away from everyone and stuck my finger down his throat. He threw up and I held him while he did. They didn’t catch it, just thought I’d noticed something they’d missed. I did that a lot around there. I told him to run to my room, where it was, and lock the door, told him fast and he did, just lighting out like he’d take any out he could get. And things got very quiet. “I turned around and they were all looking at me. ‘What?’ I asked. ‘That was our game for tonight,’ they told me. “Well, I didn’t want them even trying anything on him, and I’m very good at games. I asked them, ‘What do you want to play?’ Then I did that thing where I look like I’m soft as butter instead of hard as steel. They went for it, like a shot. I was on that table for like… I don’t know. Hours, maybe. “I waited until I was absolutely certain that not one of them had anything more to give that night. I took it all, and really, it wasn’t anything on bottoming a seriously swinging Deamonett puppy pile. They slapped me around a little. I guess that’s fun for them, but I can take any old beating anyone wants to dish out on me. Besides, I sort of dig pain, and let them know I thought they were very funny with all that. They couldn’t make me scream so they stopped. It was very weird, but I had some choice in the matter. I knew it would have been devastating to that other guy. “I took food back to my room and put it where he’d find it when he woke up. I slept in my chair, needed rest to build a plan. But I must have forgotten to lock the door or someone had a key I hadn’t been able to find and steal. He was gone when I woke up, and there was nobody around. I knew where they went, when somebody wasn’t coming back with them. “So I got my gear, put together something like a trauma kit and I went there, too. Downstairs, into this basement, where there was this little room that no sound or life had ever, ever escaped. They were all sitting around, drinking and joking and I didn’t see him anywhere. I had to know before I made my move. I listened, inside, because sometimes if I’m close to someone, I can hear what’s happening in their mind. It was important, because I’ve only ever been able to hear my Pop. He says it’s kind of a Servitor thing, and I might have picked up a scrap from him, when I was a kid. “He told me, a long time ago, if it was very, very important, and I just let it happen, instead of trying, I might be able to hear people other than him. So I listened, and it was nothing but the most godawful screaming and begging and hate that I have ever known. I stopped relaxing, got very calm and walked to the door.

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“One of them went ‘Hey, wait your turn.’ I looked at him, and I knew right then I would have no compunction whatsoever with killing him. But not yet. I said ‘You can have him next if you are faster than a speeding bullet.’ They knew something was up, but I went in, they hadn’t even bothered with the locks. I did. All of them. Because one was holding him up against a wall and he was still fighting back as hard as he could. “I pulled Sean off of him. I said ‘What’s your name?’ and he told me. I said ‘Blood or life?’ and he chose the life. My hand had never been as sure on my trigger. I squeezed it and blew that motherfucker’s head into a very messy memory. “I asked him if there was any reason he could think of to stay here. Obviously, not. I said ‘You come with me, then. Are you a shooter?’ He told me he had been for years, so we got him cleaned up. I knew they had no idea what I was thinking, couldn’t have heard and wouldn’t be ready. It would be a bloodbath. I was so ready to make it happen. “So we got him dressed. I did what I could for his injuries, but I could tell he wasn’t going to let piddly shit like that keep him there. I had everything, and I mean everything loaded up and I clipped him out until it looked like he was wearing bullets as a belt. There were, maybe, thirty or forty people when we started. We came out of that door like an assault team, I went high and he went low. Most ran, but a few died. “I got him to cover the door and I got my knives out and picked the bodies. We had to fight our way out of the building, too. We would have to be able to get away after, so I stopped and picked bodies. It went on like that all the way to the front door. Hallway, clear, clean it and step forward. He didn’t seem to know how to do it right when we started, but he picked it up fast. Doorway, room, clean, clear and step forward again. They died and died and died. My hand was burned from how hot my gun got when I had to reclip. But my weapons are perfect and never failed either of us. “They never really had much of a chance to get organized, but they were all shooters, every last fucking one of them, and wanted to live. I took one in the shoulder, and one in the leg that was meant for him, but he kept himself so small and low, he never got tagged. He never asked what I was doing behind him, because he was watching sharp. I hid it from him, later. It was fairly fucking gruesome, considering how they keep their valuables out that way. “But we made it out into daylight, which I had thought I might not see again. I stole a transport, nobody left to need it, and I got us the fuck out of there. I bribed and bought and lied and fought, I used what I’d collected to get us on a ship and closer to the border. Then I pulled out my comm link. I yelled like hell for the Boyhaudens to come and get us, the second I pulled a signal. “I begged them not to take us home, not yet, I wasn’t ready. They agreed, because they didn’t want Pop thinking that they’d had something to do with this. I was fine, I’d gotten some medic to work on me and I would heal up fine. But there hadn’t been enough gedlt for both of us, and I was the one trying to bleed out. I got the medical, and he lived with

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the pain. As soon as the Boyhaudens gave me permission, I took care of that, too. I can’t tell you how, Lysander. It’s a secret, but Grey knows what I did. “And they hid us; I have no idea where to this day, until they could see that I could go on. Then they took me home and made me do it. And I have, and will forever. The end.” “Almost,” Lysander said. “What were you doing behind me, Jenner? What’s so ugly that you don’t even want to say it now?” Jenner chuckled. “Oh, it was just nasty. I almost puked over that, instead of the rest. I cut off their ears, and brought their gedlt with us. I collected every last fucking valuable they owned, and that’s what got us out. I didn’t have anything else, and I’ve always been good at finding ways to pay for things. We spent it all, all of it, except one thing. I recognized one of them, and kept it. I didn’t know how to give it back to you without telling you what I’d done, but I guess it doesn’t matter now. Close your eyes.” Grey did, and the lights came back on. He waited, and then opened them again. Jenner was holding the only piece of geldt he’d ever had, that he’d won himself, in a runner’s street race. It had helped him get a little closer to what he really wanted in life. It was small, a thin golden ring, and he put it back in his ear, up at the top of it, in the cartilage so it couldn’t just be ripped out. It didn’t belong up there, but he was taking no damn chances. He knew why Jenner had recognized it, because he’d never seen one with a clasper shaped like a skimmer bike before, either, and had played rough to get it. It was a few minutes before he could even remember the Standard words that meant gratitude. “Are we done?” Jenner asked, clearly hoping hard. “That’s up to you,” Lysander reminded him. Jenner looked out the window, and was very quiet for a long time. “Yeah, fuck it. I’m done.” Jenner turned the light off and lay down between them again. Jenner and Grey held on to each other very hard, Lysander held them both and they stared into the darkness of shared silence together, waiting for the dawn. *** All three of them were dressing out of Lysander’s closet now. Blaine nearly did have a heart attack when he happened by one day. They just slouched sullenly at him, and made it look good. Kourt just grinned at his son and showed him new ways to hide a multitude of weapons. Grey watched them and learned a lot. He’d had no idea how many knives Jenner wore almost all the time.

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When asked, Jenner just shrugged and claimed his weird life defense. Grey had to know. Just how dangerous was Jenner, really, and why? He took to leaping on Jenner at odd moments, making his reflexes kick in. He never even got close, when Jenner wasn’t expecting him to do it. Jenner really had just sat there and consented to everything Grey had dished out. There was no other explanation for it. Then came a long string of why questions, while they all sat on the roof and watched the guys on the skimmer bikes down in the valley. Why was Jenner such a good fighter, if he was a duke in a very peaceful Commonwealth sector? “There are several reasons. None of them make much sense. For one, I could have been a Servitor,” he explained. “I have the Telsma sense, you see. I was born with it. That’s rare, really. But Pop said I was born to be Dad’s son. He spoiled me rotten by the time I was ten. Then he admitted what he’d done to his Council of Servitors. By then, I was completely unsuitable for their training.” “And why does that make you a fighter, exactly?” Lysander wanted to know. “Ah, well… that’s the thing. Pop doesn’t trust his Council any farther than he can throw them. They aren’t really the only people a guy in my position has to be concerned about. Anyway, Kourt Crowe taught me how to fight, just in case the Servitors tried to change their minds later on. Blooded fighters simply can not be trained to their arts. For them, it’s all different. It sort of… rolls off them, or something.” Jenner laughed humorlessly at that. “I was pretty good at fighting, as long as I stuck to certain things. It was stupid for me to be out there in the first place. Pop told me I was being an asshole.” “He did? Why?” Lysander sounded shocked. “Not in so many words. He said there was going to be trouble from it, and I’d have to pay the price.” Jenner sighed. “I didn’t think about other people paying for it, too.” Grey smacked him in the back of the head. Jenner took it without a flinch. Lysander told Grey off. Jenner made him stop. “Some things, you just can’t make right,” Jenner finally concluded. “You just can’t. All you can do is walk away from it, and not go back.” “So what are you going to do?” Lysander asked. “What’s next?” “I have to go forward,” Jenner told him, like this was the most obvious thing in the world. “I have to be done with what went on out there, and get back to my life. There are things I have to do yet, for my family… for myself. It has to happen, and it isn’t going to wait for me much longer.” Grey agreed, and said so. They watched the valley in silence, glad of the peace they’d managed to negotiate. “What the hell are they doing down there, anyway?” Grey finally

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asked. “Stunt biking,” Jenner supplied. “They used to do races down there. They figured out they could do stunts when they come over the hills. Now, we get this instead.” “I want to do that,” Grey said. “I liked the dancing, but that shit looks cool. I was the best runner. That’s why they took me. I am badass on a bike, but I’m not sure I’m that badass. I’m going to find out.” “Tell me if I can help,” Jenner said. He sat back in shock when Grey kissed him on the mouth. “Fuck…” he breathed, completely taken by surprise. “Best runner what?” Lysander asked. Jenner and Grey laughed at him for not knowing. “I was a smuggler, Lysander. Mostly, I ran hard drugs. That’s how I lived, and I’m still pure. But I think I’m done with sticking to the ground. I want to find out how to fly.” “You should take us out to dinner, Jenner. We have to go celebrate you becoming a survivor, and let people know,” Lysander put in. “I’ll get the skimmer,” the duke said and headed for the ladder. He looked back at Grey and Lysander, smiled at them for a long minute. “Is this going to work?” They nodded at him, and smiled at each other as he climbed down. They needed each other, all three of them together, to make it work. It would sort itself out, if they were patient. Maybe the magic worked in three directions at once, if they really tried. Grey still wasn’t sure he was any good at the thinking, but he was getting better at the feeling. He would take that, for now.

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Chapter 4: A Place to Be Jenner knew that Lysander and Grey were getting one hell of a lot of mileage out of being chased by a duke. They were commoners with a noble hot on their trails. Why not have fun with that? It was part of the game, playing it for all it was worth while the pursuit was still on. There were lots of rules to how this went, in Eab Nanoorn, and none of them were written down. There was no handbook for this kind of relationship, anywhere. They were improvising a lot. But they stuck to the rules of the game, as much as they could. There were rules for the drugs, and the sex, and the dating and anything that might come up in this game they’d made of being in love. Jenner learned the rules, more or less, from his family and friends. If people weren’t told, they could hurt themselves. Don’t do all that fun shit that can kill you, was a rule. There are many, many very fun things that don’t hurt you at all, and you can do lots. Don’t have so much fun you end up starving to death. That was a really good rule, but people had to be told. There should have been a rule about not tormenting people just because they were after you and you could, but there wasn’t. There should have been a rule about not gossiping someone’s sex life to death because they were a noble and you could… but there wasn’t. Jenner played by the rules, tried to ignore the whispering, drank heavily… by the rules, and did his best to prove his love. Lysander and Grey were having a blast together. Jenner was always welcome to come along and pick up the tab. He had one huge pile of cred to back him up on this. It didn’t bother him at all to spend it on random strangers, much less these guys he was so in love with. Nobles were supposed to do this, when they were serious about people. They had formal ranks that these lovers sometimes ended up with, if they were good at the game. Jenner did not want a consort, much less two of them. Kourt Crowe had been one, for a time. His Order had found out, raised a stink and forced the crown to allow Blaine and Kourt to marry. Jenner knew, personally and with illustrations, all the reasons why he would never settle for that. No contracts, no white weddings, the options for this relationship were very limited. Jenner didn’t want them to be political pawns if things went badly for him later. His final option was next to impossible, as far as he could see. There were protocols to protect the boys if they truly did love him, just him, fuck the title and the power. The problem was, they had to demonstrably care about Jenner, right by himself, to make it fly. There wasn’t a Deamonett that didn’t know he was being held at arm’s length by the guys, but with iron grips on both sides. This was all very funny, of course. They’d seen it happen hundreds of times before. It was part of love. Jenner could even give them the correct quote from the Way of Deamonett. “It is beyond my control.” He’d learned the game from his father, Prince Bail Blaine Garu, an acknowledged master. He had to be. He was born a noble on a planet whose whole society was based,

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essentially, on the game of love. It was tempered by freedom and friendliness and helpfulness as spiritual ideals. But Blaine Garu had never had a duty to the family that was hard to live up to. He’d always had Kourt Crowe to help him see it done. Jenner was facing something, one day. He would have to arrange for it by himself. A hereditary monarchy, obviously enough, was a family, and Jenner had to have one of his own. In a normal situation, he would have a second to back him up on it. He’d had one once, but it had been taken from him. The most he could hope for was a lover who would help him through it. He would now never have a Valet to cover his back, when it was time to write prenuptial agreements and get down to legally binding promises. Even if this was it, even if this was his personal magic, he still had his duty to family. Jenner had no idea where all this was going. White weddings were not at the end of it, no matter how he calculated. He did not know, as most people did, what exact biological function had brought him into the world. He had been assured, and promised, and sworn to again and again that he would never, ever be able to repeat the feat. His fathers wished he could, because it had saved their love, once. But Jenner was an Earth human, more or less, and it couldn’t be done by him. Kourt Crowe was not, technically, a human. That was how it had worked. He was a xenobio, or, more rudely, an alien being. That fact had made it work. Somehow. Kourt went to some trouble to blend in, because he could and wanted to. The same went for loving and marrying a human. Their child, that somehow had arrived, was a human. That was what made the trick work. Jenner was human, with some extra stuff in the mix that made him exist at all. It happened a lot, if one looked around the Peoples’ Union long enough. There were so many sentient races; they just started fucking each other after a while. Xenophelia was still considered a perversion, even here in Eab Nanoorn. That didn’t stop it happening, or the as-widely-criticized products of such union. There were crosses and out-crosses. That was perfectly natural, if usually accidental. If it wasn’t natural, it wouldn’t fucking work. That was biology. Jenner wasn’t really xenobio, was the point. He was human, and had the official DNA record to prove it. If children were needed of him, and they were, somewhere in the future was a female human being. It was starting to look like it would be a wholly impersonal arrangement. Jenner had understood that, from the second he fell in love with Grey. It hadn’t been a shock. He knew how weird his life was. With that being the case, he was damn well going to get his hands on at least a taste of the love right in front of him. He’d floated his Dad’s one-time plan of a surrogate past his Uncle Kyle. He had been politely asked to try very hard to see to his duty in the most traditional fashion available. King Kyle was talking about a Making, a publicly loveless union for the purposes of children. Kyle himself had one, once. It had been arranged for by the family, because he had been a prince and had a Valet to look after his best interests. Even with all that on his side, there had only been one woman who’d been pronounced suitable. Nobody had known why, exactly, she’d been the choice until about six months later, Kyle and Hestia fell madly in love with each other. The story was that Blaine had walked around looking

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very pleased with himself, and happy for his brother, for years afterwards. That had lasted about as long as it took for Hestia to die while trying to bear a second child for her husband. Everyone had then looked at Prince Bail Blaine Garu and expected him to produce a child. Because of politics, the best he could provide the family with was a child who qualified to be ennobled, and called a duke. Soon, eyes would be looking at Jenner as well, and he would have a Making when it happened. The necessity hadn’t fallen that far in generations, and wasn’t supposed to this time. It was Jenner’s fault, at the heart of it. He loved someone he absolutely could not marry. He had to have children for the deputy branch of his House. There had never been so few Garus as there had been in his father’s generation. Jenner didn’t want to be a regent when he grew up. Not really, but he would damn well have someone to stand the regency for, if the rest of his family died. Only the Garus were ‘worthy to lead’ the Kingdom of Eab Nanoorn. Even the title ‘Bail’ meant that. Every king and queen had been one so far. Their legacy was not mere pride and family tradition. It was a solid, historical, current and actual fact. Usurpers to the throne had found that out in four short months, long ago. Nobody had ever tried again. The citizens still publicly loathed House of Regency for having been stupid enough to try. House of Garu had come up with a plan and set things right. That was the only bump in their lineage. The whole thing had been their idea to begin with. Regency was still out to get the throne, of course, but they knew they had to learn how it worked in Eab Nanoorn, first. The Bails were certainly not going to tell them. They’d kept the fucking name, even after all these years. There were three Bails. Bail King Kyle was the most obvious. Then there was the heir, Bail Princess Mia. And then there was Prince Bail Blaine Garu, who was the ‘spare prince’ for his generation and was still the spare prince now. He shouldn’t have been. It should have been handed to Jenner when he was born, to have an heir and a spare in the next generation. Bitterness and old family anger had prevented this very simple political function. The Bitch Queen Brittany (who married in and above herself, all the Garus wanted that to be clear) Blaine’s mother, had blocked any formal, public tie between the Servitor and the Prince from the beginning. Jenner had been born a bastard. He’d been formally acknowledged. He remembered his parent’s wedding; it had come so far after the fact. Jenner had been good enough to continue the bloodline, but not good enough to qualify for Bail. Blaine had stepped up to the plate and held on to a title he should have been able to grow out of. They’d tried for kids again after the wedding. It had only worked right the first time. That meant a duke who’d been born a bastard and, technically, a whoreson, was going to have to build a deputy branch of the House right by himself. The ghost of Queen Brittany must have been thrilled to have hurt her grandson at long last. It had been part of her life’s dream, at the end, when she’d never managed to hurt Blaine or Kourt.

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People were already calling Kyle a ‘virgin king’ during the first year of his reign. He’d loved and lost, tragically. He’d done his duty as heir, to the best of his personal ability. His brother had done the same. It simply hadn’t been enough, between the two of them. They needed more Garus, desperately. Mia’s mother had died, trying to get them before. They still didn’t know why, exactly, and were terrified for Mia. No chances were being taken with the health and well being of the Heir to the Throne. If nothing else, the deputy branch would become the natural line and everything would go on, through Jenner’s children. He would have to get them first, legitimately and with all honors possible. That was the duty of the deputy branch, so a couple of boyfriends were going to be no help whatsoever. The Making was really not a big deal to Jenner. Eab Nanoornians had long ago stopped saying the word ‘monogamy’ with a straight face. It was a bad idea, they thought. Didn’t help, wasn’t friendly and certainly complicated the game something severe. Deamonetts used the word like a one-liner. A biological urge, Eab Nanoorn said, and one past its prime. But a Making takes two, and someone had to agree to do it with him. The problem was, he was in love with not one, but two other men. That was going to look sway as hell. The negotiation of a Making contract was going to be very hard if that perception was a factor. Sway was weird. Not kinky. Kinky was fun if he did it right. Turning down an entire gender was just fucked up. People really thought that way. Throw some bastardry on top, and the thing would never get done at all. Lysander had his houseguests. A random selection at any time could come out either way. Lysander Edvard, of all people on the planet, was not sway. Grey, well… nobody really knew anything about him, and couldn’t say what went on behind that multicolored hair anyway. He watched everyone and seemed as interested in both as he should be. He reminded everyone of Kourt Crowe when he’d first arrived on the scene. Kourt quietly suggested that, perhaps in the Outsys, they also had strict ideas of modesty and propriety, like the Servitors had. Jenner was in love the real, honest-to-fuck thing, and it had hit him very hard. He just couldn’t be bothered to notice other people. Not with Grey and Lysander right there letting Jenner hang out and enjoy their company… and it looked bad. He didn’t even bother attending services at the monastery or hitting clubs. He had two boyfriends. It took a hell of a lot of chasing to catch that. He was very horny. They knew it, and thought it was funny. They sent him home to look after his own affairs, every damn time. He knew they thought he was getting laid. But he also had a duchy to look after and, well, there were limits to what he could fit into a day. He wanted this. It was very strong. He had plenty of cred to grease contractual skids later, if he had to. This, though, this thing here, he had to have it, if only in his memory, to get him through what was coming at him later. So Jenner rolled out of bed and called Grey. Asked him if he knew what shopping was, had he ever tried it? He hadn’t. “Ask Lysander to come. He likes it when he bothers to do it.”

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*** “Lysander, Jenner wants to know if we want to go shopping with him. Do we?” Grey asked, digging his toes in the carpet and waiting to have his weird new home explained to him again. “Yes, indeed we do,” Lysander assured him. “Lots of fun, you’ll like it.” “Good. It sounded like one of his great ideas. I said yes when he said you liked it.” Grey went out to get more dressed. Lysander really was starting to see that Jenner was chasing him just as hard as Jenner was chasing Grey. Jenner gave equal invitations to both, treated them like they came together, like a package deal. The flowers were for Lysander and the candy or whatever else was for Grey. Jenner was, in the Deamonett way, wanting to be noticed; trying to be someone with a face and a name, not just a conveniently warm body. The flowers said it all. Lysander liked it, and wondered if he wasn’t just getting what he’d missed all in one big lump. Lysander had thought the younger men would tag off together. He’d been ready for that. He was over forty. This shit simply didn’t happen to men like him. Not for real, so it was hard to accept that it was, in fact, taking place. He was truly involved with men half his age. He knew how badly this could turn out for all of them. He was careful to do everything with them from love. Leave no regrets, no bitterness behind, and they might all get out of this with no further damage. Jenner was very skittish about what he could expect out of the boys. Kept things casual, low key, asked for nothing at all, ever. Lysander knew it was his own damn fault. He’d left Jenner to take the damage for Grey’s hate. Jenner had then asked Lysander for one simple thing. Something Lysander did for strangers and criminals, through translators and letters, for anyone at all who needed him. Jenner, who cared for Lysander, personally, had been bluntly and carelessly denied it. Jenner had taken it like a man. He refused to find fault with Lysander or Grey for their part in the compounding of his pain. Lysander could find no way to show Jenner he’d been cheated, wronged. Jenner wouldn’t blame anyone else for his personal shit. It was good method, but it made Lysander feel like dirt every time Jenner showed up with his begging eyes, terrified of being turned away again. Jenner only tried to please them, apologized again and again for a mistake that Lysander, not Jenner, had made. Jenner pulled up in his skimmer, a sleekly silver jobbie with sun roof and very wide back seat. The sun roof was always open. Lysander didn’t know why Jenner didn’t just get one of those convertibles like almost everyone else had. Grey thought it had something to do with ‘lines of sight’ and couldn’t explain more than that. His Standard really was something that had to be heard to be believed. Jenner never had a problem, though. Got the accent, because he knew some of the

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language it came from. If worse came to worse, they would just drop into Vantishari and off they went. It still surprised Lysander that Grey could correctly use the term ‘blowjob’ in a sentence but would look at Lysander blankly if he asked Grey to pass the butter. Butter, they did not have in the Outsys. Blowjobs, they did. It was strange where the blank spots ended up being. ‘Candy’ had translated early and to great success. So Lysander wasn’t surprised when they ended up in front of a huge shop that sold nothing but. They were the only nonparental adults near the place. Grey stopped outside, having a good poke around at the windows. Grey loved how many colors there was everywhere. He would chat brightly about things like laundry cyclers and socks in conjunction with them. Great ideas, he thought, and wanted to learn them all. This whole building full of candy had stumped him. Jenner hung back near the skimmer, waiting for questions. Lysander followed his lead, because he had no idea what to do with Grey when he got all excited and curious like this. Jenner had learned patience from a Servitor, and Lysander left him to it. “Will they let us in?” was the first question Grey had. “They will.” Grey came and sat on the hood of Jenner’s skimmer to talk it over with the boys. “It doesn’t work like that at home. I think you’d better tell me.” So Jenner did, sounding for all the world like he was taking a foreign dignitary on some exotic Eab Nanoornian outing. That’s it. That’s how he does it. Fuck, he was raised to help strangers understand us, Lysander realized. Jenner explained about the credit system, and the technology that supported it. Grey explained that theft was not a crime at home, there was no government. It was more like a growth industry, when it was properly understood and agreed on; short jaunt into social graces. They found commonality on rules about not taking things that hadn’t been paid for. Jenner then handed Grey off to Lysander for the fun parts. That was his thing. Jenner led them to fun, and then hung around watching them have it together. Or he wandered off and came back when they’d had enough. He kept his hands in his pockets and a sharp eye on anyone who came near them. That was saving Lysander a fortune in personal bodyguards. Kourt had told him, long ago, Lysander was just as protected with Jenner as with the Servitor. Jenner had calmly diffused a small fan-riot one evening, right by himself. Lysander loved the fact that his dates did not have a hovering bulk of violent employee involved now. Jenner did his thing, sat back and smiled a little, like he was hoping hard and didn’t want anyone to know yet. He was invited to help with the fun parts of this adventure. “I had enough candy to last me my whole life by the time I was seven,” he said, but had some suggestions.

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Grey wanted things that tasted like things he already sort of knew about. Fruits, nuts, these he understood and bagged lots out of the bins. He hadn’t thought to eat a spoonful of sugar out of the bowl yet. He’d thought it must be very expensive and used it sparingly, it was so good. They got him straightened out on that, and a good chunk of rock candy to get him caught up a bit. There was a problem with the chocolate. Milk was making Grey sick. Lysander didn’t know why, just told him not to drink it, then. Well, with all those darn ‘milk chocolate’ labels everywhere, there was just nothing doing, as far as Grey was concerned. Jenner solved that one with ‘dark chocolate’ and a sample. A very big bag of that, please. Then Grey wanted to wander around touching things that people weren’t going to put in their mouths later. Jenner said he could if he wanted. That took almost an hour. They followed him around, watching him fondle boxes and bags and stuffed animals indiscriminately. “This is just so weird to do!” he explained. Lysander went to Jenner for a translation. “Oh, well, you touch something that isn’t yours in the Outsys, you need to either steal it fast or fight hard to survive.” Lysander was realizing, slowly, that all of Grey’s odd habits had very practical reasons behind them. He wouldn’t take food from the coldbox until Lysander, himself, not the damn staff, told him he could when he wanted. If things were left lying out, he’d have some fast and figure it out later. Clothes were taken from the closet but not from anywhere else, just in case. Offer a given thing to him, and he’d say yes, whether he knew what he was getting or no. Not offer it, and he wouldn’t think to find out if he could have it, or even what it was. Curiosity about other people’s things could get Grey hurt, Lysander concluded. Menus had been a delight and an issue to Grey. Jenner was still working out a system with him on that. They got back to that in the skimmer, when Jenner said he’d found a way around the issue related to menus. Grey was very excited to hear it, and so was Lysander. “What we need to do here, is build up your food vocabulary. We went too far, going into fancy restaurants where it doesn’t really look like food any more. We’ll start out somewhere else.” So Lysander held Grey’s hand very hard while they walked the bars in a Shoshusi barbecue shack. “I saw something like this out there, at one of the bazaars,” Jenner was explaining to Lysander. “You take your bowl, you go along to the stalls and get what you want, and then this guy at another stall will cook it for you, for a little haggle. Safest place I’ve been outside the Commonwealth was an Outsys bazaar. Very polite place, too.” Well, Lysander just couldn’t figure out how Jenner had made the connection between a situation like that and the mechanics of Shoshusi barbecue, but it worked like a charm. The food was laid out on bars, raw. Grey knew what he was getting before it was cooked and served to him. He even knew what kinds of oils he wanted to season with, when he

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was given some good correlating examples. The guy at the grill was very charmed to be tipped so politely, instead of grudgingly as was the norm. Grey wanted to do that himself, got credit chips off Jenner to do it, so there was no mistake. Lysander sat there and enjoyed watching Grey eat his first-ever in-Commonwealth, nonmistake-related restaurant meal. They ate with chopsticks. Grey carried his own everywhere and was developing fine mastery of cutlery with great speed. Jenner had picked the habit up somewhere out there. They liked to do it in front of Lysander because he couldn’t. Grey could eat damn near anything with them, or his fingers, and had; neatly, politely, and very quickly, though he never quiet gobbled, not like Jenner did. He certainly did pack the food away, and needed to, yet. He was just edging up on the bottom end of his natural weight, and was maybe going to be a fairly healthy guy soon. Jenner kept following him around, explaining things and where they came from and what Grey might think they tasted like. And that, pretty much, took care of the whole meat/vegetable/fish etc issues they’d been having so damn much trouble with. Grey knew the words he needed to get what he wanted. He knew who to tell, when he did want things. Then he went to Lysander for kisses and to show off a little. That was the Intro to Eab Nanoorn Cuisine class for the day, and on to shopping for things you don’t actually need. They happened to pass a toy store on the way to somewhere else. Grey got caught by the colors again. Lysander was starting to understand that color, brightness, had probably been in short supply in Grey's life. Jenner explained that toys were made for children, but that adults had their own kinds of toys. He took Grey in to show him these toys, first. Grey found out he had an aptitude for puzzles. Jenner got him a couple to take home and mess with. Logic puzzles, Jenner suggested, because they didn’t need a language, just a thinking mind to work them. And lots of colors going on all over the place, when they settled on the hologram games that were nothing but. “Are all these things cheap, Jenner?” Grey asked, looking through bags and getting a little worried. “No, they are not. If I had a regular job, I would have to work a lot of hours to pay for these. But I don’t, I get my cred in a different way, and I get lots of it. I like to spend it.” Jenner could see that he hadn’t answered the question. “Okay. How about, ‘Grey is dating a very rich man’ for starters?” So Grey understood that this was actually all about him and Lysander. It wasn’t something that everyone in the Commonwealth got to do. Jenner was making it happen for them, because he was rich and could. “Lysander’s rich, too, Grey,” Jenner had to tell him. “He pulls major bank from his music. You are dating two rich men, so the cost of

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things doesn't much matter to you, right now.” Grey asked something in Vantishari, and Jenner looked hurt. He answered in Standard. “You’re fucking priceless, Grey. Don’t ask me that again. You are worth something different, here.” “Gedlt is falling from the fucking trees,” Grey said, and swung his bags hard, all the way back to the skimmer. Lysander got the shock of his life when Jenner popped into a flower shop and came back out with a little vase of narcanium. He gave these directly to Lysander, one Deamonett to another. It meant gratitude. It meant that Jenner wanted to love Lysander, and had no way of knowing if he should even keep trying in his obvious and dedicated pursuit. Lysander snapped a blossom off and stuck it in Jenner’s hair. This was telling him that he’d been noticed. Lysander wished he had some ivy, but Jenner hadn’t been that brave. Jenner looked thrilled with what he’d got. Lysander contented himself with kindness, for now. *** Grey surveyed his candy stash with great pride. Houses like Lysander’s and Jenner’s, the kinds of clothes they wore, what they looked and smelled like… it was hard to tell what was privilege and what wasn’t, here. Jenner admitted to being rich. Grey had asked, trying to be casual, how much Jenner would be willing to pay for use of Grey’s body. It was pretty obvious that Jenner wanted it. Lysander had taught Grey some things that might be worth a solid haggle from a rich man who wanted it badly enough. Grey hated, so much, that he had damn near nothing, even in the middle of all this kindness. He didn’t really care what he was worth any more. He wanted to know what he could actually expect to get for himself. Lysander Edvard was all about love. It was wonderful, and precious, but it simply did not spend. “Grey, my medic exam came back with something I wanted to check with you. I picked up some worms out there somewhere. You could have some, too. We ate a lot of the same things, on the way home. That could be slowing your weight gain, so we need to check it out.” Jenner was being casual. Grey knew this was one of those things that people here knew, but Jenner hadn’t had time to tell him about yet. “What about them? Had ‘em for years, can’t shake ‘em,” Grey told him. Jenner handed him a packet of little white pills. “Medicine, knocks ‘em right out. You try it, one a day, three days, and see if there’s not a vast improvement. Getting rid of them sucks, of course, but they’ll stay gone. You won’t find many chances of them getting another shot at you, here.” Well of course he would try it. He would try anything, and had in the past. He needed his food more than they did. Three little pills, and his life would be saved from the eating

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starvation. It wouldn’t save him from the wither and fade, but it could maybe stretch his life a little. “Hey, why the hell don’t you guys have any kids? I mean, you fuck all the time, but there’s only one or two kids for every adult. I hope you’re not culling or something. That’s nasty.” “Implants,” Lysander said. He lifted up his shirts and pulled the top of his pants down, showing a little lump on his hip. “Jenner’s got one, too. They stop our bodies from making the babies. If we want one, we take ‘em out, make a kid and put ‘em back in.” “I want one,” Grey said, instantly. “I don’t care if it hurts like a motherfucker. I want one now.” So Jenner turned the skimmer around and just drove until he ran across a walk-in clinic. It was in the middle of a weekday. There were very few people waiting a turn. Jenner explained what they were after. They got jumped ahead of everyone, just to get them the hell out of there when real sick people would need more time. A lady asked for Grey’s id card and thumb print, asked him to scoot his pants down and poked him very hard. That was it. “Three days,” she said, “Then go for the ladies all you want. And jerk off a few times, to be sure you clear everything out.” Well, no problem there. “Just that little thing, and you have solved one of the biggest problems I ever faced in my life.” The guys didn’t seem to get how big a deal pregnancy could be in the Outsys. He didn’t want to upset them with the facts. They found his past way of living disturbing, so he tried not to tell them much about it. Grey was starting to understand they wanted to make up for what he hadn’t had. Well, he would certainly let them try, if they wanted to. He hadn’t been suffering any more than anyone else was, out there. He hadn’t known about how they lived in the Commonwealth, and was glad. Knowing and not having would have been a misery. All he’d known was what his mother told him. If he ever got into the Commonwealth, and could find a place to hide until he figured out how to live there, do it. Something was going on across the border that could make his life better if he could figure out how to get it. He had. He was going to take everything he could honestly lay hands on. It was all he could do now. He had to try to catch up to this, fast. He’d imagined slums, having to work his way up if he ever did make a run for the border. Somehow by sheer luck, he’d ended up with the one guy on this planet that could skip him ahead, if he wanted to. Jenner wanted to, because he was hoping Grey might love him for it. This had to be cwara, luck, the most decisive force Grey had ever personally dealt with. It had to be respected if it was going to work at all. Love, Grey was learning, was the one thing that the Commonwealth could still not manufacture and sell. They didn’t buy and sell their commitments to each other, as was necessary in less ideal places. Love still had to be gotten the old way here, and Jenner was trying like hell. The Outsys hadn’t rubbed off on him much. Jenner wanted his love the way he’d been raised to

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expect getting it. The thing was, Grey didn’t know what would happen once Jenner knew he had it already. Grey didn’t quite know how that had happened. But somewhere in there, after letting go, he’d really stopped and had a look at how he felt about Jenner. He couldn’t predict how such a revelation would be taken. Didn’t like to ask, in case it would make all this fun stuff stop, didn’t know how to say that he would have loved a poorer man if he had been such a man as Jenner. Grey would have worked hard to win him, but Jenner was doing the chasing. All Grey could honestly do was let him. He hoped things got sorted out somewhere along the way. Lysander and Jenner… well, somehow, Grey thought there was going to be trouble about that somewhere. They had history, and he had no way of knowing what. Jenner got a call on his comm link right as they were pulling up to the house. He hung up, swore hard and said he was going to his estates, would be gone a few days and would be in touch when he got back. Jenner apologized profusely, as if he were shattering all their big plans, got his kisses at the door and drove away, smiling big. Lysander didn’t get it either, but said it happened, sometimes. “We need to give him something,” Lysander said. “He does everything for us. I know he’s not playing the game with anyone but us right now. Between us and his duchy, they say he hasn’t hit a party, club or orgy in weeks.” “So, what do we do?” Grey asked. “Well, I think all things considered, the polite thing would be for us to fuck the living hell out of him, next time he turns up.” Lysander put his arm around Grey and led him into the house. “Now, this is something I can teach you about, right by myself.” *** Lysander spent some time laying plans with his staff about how this was going to go down. They were surprised, then excited when they realized Lysander was planning on making Jenner a private lover. They knew about Lysander’s life, better than most of his friends did. Grey was merely confused and paying attention. Lysander explained about the difference between fucking someone because they were there and willing, and doing it because you actually cared about them. He explained that this was how Deamonetts showed each other the difference. “Are you sure he’s going to understand this?” Grey asked, munching his way through some of the foods the cook had presented as suggestions for the event. “I don’t see why not,” Lysander said. “He’s had lovers before, many times. I’ve never done this myself. The only other lover I ever took wasn’t a Deamonett.”

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Grey stared blankly, not getting it. “You, Grey. You’re the only other person who loved just me, and didn’t give a fuck about the music.” Grey went from blank to insensed in a second. “I do care about the music, Lysander. It’s fucking great and you know it. But it isn’t about you, much, I can tell that now. I know you, and I understand what the songs say. They’re sad, sure, but they aren’t your sadness. The ones about fuck, that’s you, though. Why haven’t you had a lover before now?” “I just told you. People meet me, think they know me and go around treating me like I’m fragile or… something.” Lysander touched his head. “They think there’s something wrong with me that can’t be fixed. Or they don’t want to fix it, in case it makes the music sour. I don’t know, but… you just wanted to kiss me, and share private, intimate time with me. I think Jenner wants the same thing. He’s known me his whole life, and knows better than to believe the press.” Lysander was very excited about all this, but tried not to let it show. Grey paid attention to everything Lysander told him about intimacy and the way that changed a friendship in the Deamonett philosophy. He was certain, and hopeful, that Jenner was offering that to them. It was a good move, bold, saying he could handle the two of them together and wanted to. He’d thought Jenner was trying to poach him, at first, with Grey. Hadn’t planned to stand still for a second on that point, but Jenner had far broader plans. Lysander had been watching Jenner closely on their last outing together, and he’d confirmed his new suspicions. Grey agreed that Jenner was trying like hell to bag them both, and hang on to it. “He’s rich, Lysander. I think more than you are, actually. He could look after us both if he wanted to. I don’t see any reason why he should be made to choose. That would be awkward, because we love each other. Don’t we?” Lysander went to some lengths to answer that question in the most positive manner possible. Grey had cuddled up to him after, and asked about his parents. An unusual non-sequiter, but Lysander told him the truth. The Edvard family had been court musicians to the Crown from the minute the throne had been established. They were proud of their ancient tradition of artistry and propaganda on behalf of House of Garu. Into this family a child prodigy had been born. Lysander’s parents had done everything they could to make their son live up to the legacy. They had watched him nearly die trying. They were both dead now. They had died within months of each other, one from disease and the other of loss. They had been very much in love. Lysander had said goodbye to his father, told him he understood and would be fine on his own. They had not been close after Lysander came home from that music school they’d sent him to. They had thought his genius, his promise, would protect him from the very common abuses known

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to happen there. They didn’t realize that other people simply would not care what they were destroying with their anger and hate. They had been guilty for their part in it, and gone to extremes to protect him, even right here in Kais. They’d had no way to understand it when, after all their years of giving him the finest musical education they could find, he’d picked up a guitar and started making loud noises for a living. They couldn’t hear the music in it, and hadn’t wanted to live with him doing it. He’d been young when it happened. Not quite twenty when he found out what he could do with a deep emotion and his talent for song. Only Blaine Garu had ever stooped to look after Lysander. Even he had never taken the rock star into his household in more than a vestigial way. Lysander had discovered that people outside of his Kingdom thought it was beautiful. He had made his choices. Lysander had to break his own isolation, go out and find people who would treat him like something other than a precocious child genius. It had bothered his parents, that he’d poured so much time and talent into rock music, when he could have been anything he wanted. He tried to make them understand that it was in music loaded with blood and reality where he’d found his purity. They’d wanted him to stick with vyole, or even purely acoustic guitar, and play tricks with sound that would impress their friends. He had refused. They had made him leave his first instrument behind. There were only nine or ten pianofortes in all of Eab Nanoorn. He wasn’t allowed near any of them, anymore. Somehow, they couldn’t understand that it couldn’t be about them, his teachers, his parents, any more. It had taken three wildly popular recordings for them to even listen to what he was doing. Grey wanted to hear the blood, then. “I only ever heard the sadness before.” Lysander laughed. “I don’t record it, Grey. There was a woman, a young girl really, who heard the blood and tried to die, while I was playing a concert. I stopped playing my guitar for people then. That was a very long time ago. I don’t think anyone really noticed when I did. I play it for myself. Out there, it’s my voice and my drums. They never hurt anyone, that I heard tell of.” Lysander went and got his favorite guitar, one that was not wired for electronic music, and sat on the bed with Grey. “What do you want to hear?” he asked, flexing his hands and preparing to go over some old thing he was sick of playing, but would for Grey anyway. “Play what it’s like, to want love so much you can’t tell anyone,” Grey said, going straight to the point like always. “Oh, Grey. Come on, let me do something for you that you’ll like. You like ‘said the prince to the King’ and I could…” “You almost broke the vid, last time I tried to listen to that.” Lysander sighed. “I’m sorry. How about…”

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“No. You said you don’t record what you feel. That’s what I want to hear.” So Lysander played his longing, let it flow out of him, through wood and string. How he’d known he had pure love and giving that nobody wanted from him. Grey tucked his knees up against his chest and wrapped his arms around his legs. He listened for a long time. Lysander watched him carefully. Lysander played his own heartbreak, sharp, warped notes that came so close to blending, but didn’t, quite. Grey shivered, and his eyes went soft. He crawled forward on the bed, pushed Lysander’s hair back and then settled into his former pose. Lysander smiled at him, and let his hands wander off onto a little tune that Kourt Crowe had played for him a long time ago. He’d had help off a kid named Alin, and it was a peculiar and dissonant expression of the love Kourt felt for Blaine. Lysander had poached the tune ages ago. It was a bit of song he came back to again and again. Kourt and Blaine shared the kind of love that Lysander wanted. This was the only way he’d had of telling them that. Lysander was more than toying with the idea of trying to get it with their son, as well as with Grey. He knew their friendship would have to become something else, and hoped it wouldn’t end in bitter enmity. Parenthood had changed them both, and not all of it was for the better. Grey was nodding, very focused. “I know that. That’s us, we feel like that together. Did you notice yet?” Lysander just smiled at him, very wide and real. They laughed at themselves, how silly this was. Lysander cleared his throat, and wrenched the music off into another direction. This was a crunchy rhythm, with little thumps of the soundbox to imply the noise of his bed under them in their deepest passions. Grey caught it right away, and laughed even harder. “You said there was music in it, but I never could hear it.” “That is why I’m a musician, Grey. I hear it everywhere, all the time, in everything. I don’t even have to try very hard to hear it. But the hearing isn’t the hard part. It’s catching it, and letting other people hear it that’s the trick.” Lysander grinned. “Ideas are easy. It’s the execution that’s always the bitch.” Grey nodded. “Yeah, I had that problem back home. I was a runner, on a skimmer bike, one of the best. I could always see how I wanted to do something. It was getting it to happen that got me spread across three miles of desert road.” “I assume you found a way, since you’re sitting here across from me now.” Lysander picked up tunes, put them aside, and fooled around a little. He ran a few fingering exercises, because he always needed more practice. “Yeah, but it lost me a chunk of time. I got hurt, then sick, then… well, nobody knew exactly how long I was lying there, trying to survive it,” Grey shrugged. “Long time, is all we really knew for sure. Couple seasons, at least.”

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“You are one tough guy, Grey.” “Had to be. I like being it.” Grey’s chin came up at that. So Lysander played that, too, and made Grey laugh again. They talked about the problem with Jenner. He just would not understand some very simple things. That he was always welcome to spend time here, always wanted. They missed his easy care when he was gone. He didn’t even seem to know he was doing it, much less that they had noticed and liked it. There had been a few impasses that had happened around language that had to be put aside until he could help them work their way through it. The cold box had been one of those things, and very frustrating to them both. Jenner had sat in the kitchen, listening to Lysander rant about how Grey wasn’t eating enough and kept stealing other people’s leftovers. Grey had waxed eloquent in his own tongue, passionate about something or other. Jenner just nodded, cleared his throat and asked Lysander to give Grey his direct permission to eat any damn thing that would hold still for it, no matter where he happened to come across it in the house. Lysander had. Jenner explained something to Grey, who looked disgusted but agreed. And then the staff had needed to restock damn near every sweet in the house. They needed Jenner, badly, to even make this thing hang together at all. That had happened smack in the middle of Grey’s recovery time. It was just one of many little knots Jenner had undone for the three of them. He had walked out of the room and was actually gone from the house before they figured out what he was doing. He was good at that, wandering off and just… not coming back. He did it at parties. They would find him waiting to pick them up, hours later. He’d done it in a restaurant once, just quietly slipped off to leave Lysander and Grey alone in a romantic setting he’d chosen and arranged for them. Somewhere between door and table, their party became two. They hadn’t had any way to react to it, except to enjoy the occasion and wait for him to come back. He always did, if they waited long enough. This little run-off was really part of a larger pattern. They tried to get Jenner to talk about where he went, but he never had any good answers. He asked if they’d enjoyed their evening or whatever. They always had. He didn’t really see what there was to discuss. He’d had a great time and was glad they had, too. They simply could not make him understand that they had a better time when he stayed with them. That was why they kept asking for new things, no repeats. They’d sorted out that Jenner would hang back with Grey and make sure he understood what was going on, first time anywhere. That was starting to backfire on them. Jenner was starting to run out of ideas. He was starting to space things out, trying to stretch for time. They both knew he was, and they needed to make him understand that he was in this with them, that they wanted him here. Lysander hoped like hell Jenner got what he was saying. Jenner wasn’t much of a Deamonett, but he should at least be able to look at a seduction and pick it out from a line of standard-issue dates.

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Grey started laughing very hard. “Do you realize we’ve been sitting here talking about Jenner for, like, an hour? We must love him, at least a little.” *** Jenner knew that the Deamonetts were buzzing about his new private lifestyle choices. He had not, however, expected his father, Bail Blaine Garu, to call him and bitch a blue streak about family duty. He hadn’t been able to answer his Dad’s questions. He knew what he had to do better than Blaine ever would. Jenner went to his estate, hung out with the trees and the squirrels for a while, and cooled off. It took a couple days. His temper really was something hideous. He dodged the entire staff running the estate until he’d done it. He didn’t want to mess up that credit source if he didn’t have to. Pissing off the staff was a great way to shut the whole operation down. He hung around having tea and making nice with the guests who provided said credit for the privilege of relaxing where the Royals, nominally, lived. It took time, that was the thing. He wasn’t sure he had time to take. Had to do it, and hated the necessity. Yelling at Lysander and Grey about his family would do nothing to please or charm. That was all he had, there. Lysander had plenty in his own bank to not be impressed with mere gifts and trifles. Grey had too little for it to make much impact at this level of giving. He’d settled on experiences that he gave as gifts to them, to make them feel special. He didn’t dare say love to either of them. They had that already, and certainly didn’t need his to make them happy. Stages and degrees were going to be the key, here. He knew all about scope and scale, how to plan and see the thing through. He had to convince them to let him try. It was not going well for him at all. After he and Grey got their debt sorted, Jenner had gone back to the palace. It was too difficult at Lysander’s, with so many people around drawing attention from him. He was still knocking to let them know he was there at all. The house guests could walk right in. They had security privileges, party favors, whatever the hell was in there. All Jenner could think was, the guys hadn’t figured out how to scrape him off yet, and were trying to go easy on him. Lysander had noticed Jenner, nothing more. Jenner had no idea what he could possibly try next, to attract Lysander's attention. When he was able to make himself be calm about his life again, he went back to it. He called from the road, and asked permission to come by. He was given it before he even mentioned what he was planning to do with them when he got there. Surely, that was a good sign. He brought flowers and wine with him, just in case he was way off his game. The bribes got him past the door. That was new. They usually just put them down and wanted to be off to whatever he’d planned for them. This time, Grey came to the door, actually smiled at his gifts and thanked Jenner for them. That made Jenner suspicious. It could be the lead-in to an easy letdown. There were very few people in the house. It was almost quiet. Jenner was taken up into the private portion of it, which he’d never seen before. Well, once, but they were witnessing for him at the time. He hadn’t been in any condition to really take it in.

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There was a lounge set up, leather sofas and chairs, a nice bar, and a low table in the middle of it. There were plates of food and candles just everywhere. Ivy was the theme, a sign for being personal and intimate with someone young and precious. Jenner stopped at the door, suddenly embarrassed. It looked like they’d been planning something private and special that his call had interrupted. “I’m sorry,” he said, and backed out into the hall again. “I didn’t mean to intrude on your evening…” They wouldn’t let him go. Wouldn’t let him do anything but sit and eat with them, right there around the table. They were leaning up against the sofas and chatting away like this was all perfectly normal. Maybe they were dropping hints about what he would need to do here. He paid close attention, would take any help he could get. He’d tried things like this; larger scale, of course, and they’d liked it then. Maybe they wanted more of that. He felt profoundly grateful to finally know, but couldn’t think how to say that. Grey wanted to know if Jenner would eat from his fingers, if this was polite. It was something nice to do at home, with people he cared about. Hell, Jenner would crawl on broken glass, if it would make Grey truly care about him. He sat there, taking food from Grey’s hand, then Lysander’s. Then his brain went completely numb. Lysander kissed him. Not those closed-mouth things between friends. That would have been nothing new. No, Lysander kissed him, tenderly, and parted his lips. Jenner wanted to ask what the hell was going on, but couldn’t. Lysander’s mouth was hot and soft, and he held Jenner in his arms while he did it. “Wait,” Jenner said when he finally could. “What?” Grey asked. “Wait, I… need to know what’s happening here, please, I… wasn’t expecting this.” Jenner knew he was sounding out of his depths and looking for a good clue. “I thought we’d go out, or…” Grey shut him up by kissing him, much harder and deeper than Lysander had, more urgently. Jenner kissed back, tasted deep. That had never come close to happening before. He made himself keep his hands down, not grab or take. Jenner kissed with all the skill at his command, and wanted to remember at least this thing, these kisses, later. “Come on, Jenner. You were raised a Deamonett. Don’t you know a seduction when you see one?” Lysander asked. “Nobody ever wanted to play that game with me,” Jenner frankly admitted. “Why would they? Tell me how this goes, please, Lysander. Do you want me to seduce you?” That stopped them fairly cold. He wished he’d kept his mouth shut. He blushed, because they were looking at him so funny, and saying nothing. He wanted to get up. His instincts to run were very strong right now. He held still for it, though. He thought he

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might get another kiss if he could brazen this out. It would be worth it. “You’ve had lovers, Jenner. I know you have,” Lysander said, but was thinking about it now. “Didn’t… even one of them want you at first?” Jenner shook his head no, and made his curls fall down over his face as far as they would. “But you’re beautiful,” Grey protested. “And rich, a duke…” Jenner shrugged. He had no good answers for this, either. Never had, didn’t want to really know why he was so hard to care about. He was afraid he couldn’t change it. He preferred to stick with what worked. He made the words come out right, so that they would maybe understand his situation. “I know how to pursue. It’s all I’ve ever known how to do. I’m rich, I’m a duke, and it just doesn’t help. Tell me if I’ve lost this game, please. I’ve played by the rules, all along, with both of you. I just can’t tell if I’m getting anywhere. I want to do well for you. For us… if there could ever be such a thing.” Jenner looked at them closely then. They could just tell him to get up and leave, and he’d have to. That was the rules. They didn’t tell him to, though, just went back to finishing the food. They didn’t feed him any more either. He figured he’d ruined the whole thing with the fucking truth. He was polite, didn’t hurry the meal, made jokes and got them laughing again. Someone came in and took the plates away. He enjoyed his drink, then began easing himself out, wanting a way to get back in later, when he’d thought of something good to try. Lysander caught him. “You really don’t know what we’re trying to do here, do you?” Jenner didn’t, but wanted to be allowed in later. He sat still, waiting to see what thing they needed from him. He’d do it, if they’d just tell him what. “I’m sorry for my ineptitude, gentlemen. If you’ll only tell me what you are asking, I’ll certainly do what I can to make it happen for you.” “We like sex, Jenner,” Grey said, as if this were obvious. “We want to have some, with you.” Jenner worked his way through this. If they needed a third party, there was a whole roomful downstairs, so that couldn’t be it. This was private, like between lovers, and they’d asked him about his before. Well, they were lovers. This had to be something about them. Nothing else made any sense. Something about them. They were going to let him play along. “Are you serious? With me? Did I miss something while I was gone?” “We decided,” Lysander said, coming in very close on one side “That you had been very patient and gentlemanly in your attentions to us. We intend to return them. Here. Tonight.”

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Well, sure, if they wanted it. That was fine with Jenner. “You want to share me between you? Okay.” That was actually, from a certain point of view, romantic as hell. Jenner was awfully glad they’d picked him to help. “I don’t do much nudity, Jenner. Is that okay? Lysander doesn’t mind, and it does work out…” Grey was looking a little shy. “Sure. Fine, whatever you like,” Jenner agreed. They were both very dressed, but they all were these days. It made Jenner feel safe, the same way it did them, and they all knew the deal. Jenner didn’t mind getting naked, but when dressed, he wanted to be very much clothed. It was taking some time to wear off. He was trying to be patient about that, too. Jenner was treated to a very long, slow disrobing and was glad he’d had time to work on his tan recently. He knew Grey thought he was beautiful only because he hadn’t been paying any damn attention to Jenner’s body when he’d seen it. The attention, in those instances, had hardly been towards the aesthetics. There were scars everywhere, from all kinds of horrible things. It would never be smooth again unless he had cosmo work done. He wasn’t vain enough to do it, but knew he probably should. The finely crafted muscles he had looked… funky, abused, because of the scars. The tanning, though, that blunted all but the worst of it, and he could see it was working again. They didn’t mention the long double-rake along his ribs. It hadn’t healed right and needed work badly. They didn’t mention the bullet wounds. They knew what that was about and they didn’t really bear mentioning. Jenner arranged himself in a pose he’d figured out pretty much left his cock and chest to be ogled. His arms were a crisscross pattern of white lines; nothing to be done for that. He was a knife fighter and this was part of it. They didn’t say anything, but he could see them noticing. “See why nobody ever chased me down before?” He wanted them to be able to say what was on their minds. It was better than struggling to hide disgust. It hadn’t always been like this, but it certainly hadn’t helped, after they started happening to him. “No,” they frankly told him, one after the other. “Okay.” He turned over onto his stomach, and let them see what nine inches of good steel could do to a man in the right hands. There was only one single reason that Jenner was not dead at this moment. That reason had been banished for preventing the death of the duke. Jenner did not know why Kyle had been so angry to see his nephew alive. He was missing information. Jenner knew, better than his own name, that his liege had not betrayed him until after he saw the damage done. Kyle had banished the man responsible for the wounds. It had effectively stripped Jenner of the only protection that had made

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any difference at all. He could not forget he was alone, and wore his scars to remind himself that he had to do it on his own, from now on. “See?” “What am I looking at?” Lysander asked. “Badass knife fighter wearing his skills on his skin,” Grey told him bluntly. “It’s a walking job referral, some places. I bet he learned that fast. He thinks they’re ugly. They all do.” “They’re not skills, Grey. They’re fucking up bad and barely surviving it, okay? You gunslingers, you got no romance with your bullet. We love our blades, and look at this shit. It’s fucking sick, man, what I did to live through this.” He made himself stop. “They are ugly here, Grey. I don’t do beaches much on the biggest beach planet in the Commonwealth. People stare at me.” “You think they’re staring at these scars, Jenner?” Lysander made him turn over on his back again. Jenner was glad to. “Why the hell else would they stare? I’m usually right there with my fathers.” Jenner lay on his back and hoped like hell they could look past what he’d had to do. He almost hoped they might see that this was all he’d had to do it with, and had taken it like a man. “Most happened right here at home, so don’t tell me I did this being a fucked up postadolescent. It was a hesitation that got me that fucking thing on my back. I almost died. Worrying about some other bullshit, when my life was on the line and the edge of a blade. Right here in the Commonwealth. Nobody ever put a blade on me in the Outsys. I would have been too ashamed to come home, if they had. You don’t keep bodyguards for fun.” Grey could see that, if he would look. Lysander… well, maybe he could content himself with ignoring it. “People, every now and then, for their own reasons, think I’d be better off dead. I have to live. This is how I do it.” Grey kissed him very hard. “Jenner, these fucking things, you know they just make me feel like I can trust you to keep to your word. You know shit like this doesn’t matter much to me. I got a dozen of my own.” Lysander didn’t have anything to say about it yet, except that they looked like music to him. That had to be some kind of acceptance. Jenner would take what he could get. “I thought getting my face scarred would make me do the cosmo jobs, but it didn’t so I’m not sure what will. It’s just not worth the trouble, trying to make myself less unattractive as a whole. The scars aren’t the half of it, with me. I’ll never have Pop’s height or build. I’m too trained to be like Dad is, so I’m stuck like this. Halfsies, right down the line. And that’s just the stuff that shows on the surface.” They did look, then, saw the fine line scar that tugged his lips just slightly off-center. There was one that he’d started hiding with his hair. “They healed good,” Grey told him. “Can’t see ‘em unless you look.”

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“That’s my plan for all of them,” Jenner said. “One day, maybe somebody will stop seeing them, for real. Inside and out. That’s the magic. I am trying like hell.” Somehow, that got him a couple of very hot guys on top of him, kissing him wherever they could reach. He let it happen to him. “Did you want to share or take turns?” he finally asked. He was very hard, and got up on the end of the sofa where this could be worked out to some kind of comfortable degree. “We’re not taking turns on your body, Jenner. This isn’t some fucking puppy pile.” Lysander was very firm about this, so Jenner got up on his knees and rested his elbows on the arm of the sofa. He smiled at them. They were looking at him like they couldn’t decide where to start. It was very flattering, and he tried hard not to preen. He didn’t have much to show off any more, with little flirtations like that. In the end, they split him in the middle, and Grey got on the sofa with Jenner. “I really wasn’t expecting this,” he had to admit. “I’ve not prepared myself for you, Grey. I truly wasn’t thinking of a hot date. There was a concert…” Well, Grey knew all about doing that for someone else, if they could make their muscles relax. Jenner did, and enjoyed the process while Lysander kissed him deeply. “I love your mouth,” Lysander told him, staring into his eyes. “Take it,” Jenner offered, and got another kiss. “No, really, it’s yours.” Lysander looked like he wanted to say something, but Grey was really doing a job on Jenner. He couldn’t really ignore it. Soft moans, he just couldn’t believe that was Grey making his body feel so fine and high. “Please, anything you want, just take it. I want to be able to give it to you.” They could tell he wasn’t going to be talking much more sense tonight. Hell, he could tell it. His cock was harder than it had been in a very long time and now Grey was touching him there, too. He asked Lysander to be able to suck him, and was allowed. The taste of Lysander was… citrusy, something. Sharp, and good and he sucked deep, and then swallowed. He knew what Lysander liked, because everyone did. This was it. Grey entered him slowly, like he was worried about something, but surely Lysander had taught him how to do it right. Could be nerves, Jenner let it go and waited for them to have what they wanted: inside him, and he wanted them there. Finally they were joined, and still. Jenner wrapped his arms around Lysander’s hips, pulled him closer, encouraging him to thrust. He swallowed, easy and deep. Lysander moaned, petting Jenner’s hair to show how good that was. Grey was just going to work, riding hard on Jenner’s prostate, making him almost cry out, would have but couldn’t get the breath to do it. They were both going deep, and hard, like they were trying to meet somewhere in the middle. He felt like a conduit for their passion, couldn’t believe how much love he felt. Sex was like that for him. He always felt loved, right in the middle of it, and right now it was simply unreal. It didn’t

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matter if he didn’t even know names, it made him feel special. Right now, the men he loved more than himself were making that happen for him. He tried not to let it show, just rode and sucked and wanted it to go on and on. This was something about them, and he was just going to enjoy what he could, while he could. He rocked his hips, pushing himself through Grey’s fingers and onto his cock. Lysander found the other side of the rhythm and it flowed, hot and sweet until Grey took himself a little too far and came, hard. Lysander took another couple of minutes, but Grey didn’t give up on Jenner like some would have. So when Lysander cried out, Jenner was right up there with him. They went on together for a long time, and came back gently down into their bodies, slowly. Grey waited for them, and Jenner was left leaning over the arm of the sofa, panting for breath. “That should have taken longer,” Lysander complained. “I’m sorry,” Jenner said. He was the new one here. It must have been his mistake, and he’d missed it. He could go again, easy, always could. Funny thing about his body, but he knew a couple other guys who could, too. They were fun to know. “Fuck you,” Grey said. “That was hot.” Jenner couldn’t tell who was having an argument and decided to shut up. “Both. It should have taken longer and was hot,” Lysander said after a minute of silence. “Just tell me if you want to try again,” Jenner said. “I can do better than that.” There was another weird pause. He got a lot of that, with his reset thing. “Did you want to sleep here tonight?” Lysander finally asked. Jenner looked around. Hadn’t moved and didn’t want to, yet. It happened here, right here. I don’t want to go anywhere… He cleared his throat. “I’d just like a little crashtime. I won’t be any bother to anybody here, will I?” He knew he wouldn’t. Nobody but Lysander and Grey would come up this far into the house. And me, now. Maybe they’ll let me do this for them again. They were talking. He missed it all, was getting sleepy and couldn’t help it. They didn’t want to press the reset button. He’d had a rough couple of days. He slipped down on the sofa, curled up and it was certainly more comfortable than a tree branch. He could sleep here fine, if they let him. The lights went out, something soft was on top of him, and they let him do just that.

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Chapter 5: Nothing for Free Jenner woke up stuck to leather. Instantly he knew he’d spent the night at Lysander’s house again. They had a habit of leaving him where he fell. Someone had given him a blanket, so that was good enough for him. It was a long, painful process to peel himself off of the lounge sofa. Not helping at all was the number and volume of body fluids that had been left to create an adhesive-like relationship with his skin and the upholstery. What he needed was a bath. He wrapped the blanket around himself. There was no way of knowing where his clothes had ended up. Grey had waylaid him over the banister early in the evening and preferred for Jenner to be naked while he himself remained clothed. It wasn’t personal; Grey just wasn’t doing a whole lot of nudity lately. Who could blame him? Since he hadn’t had the foresight to finish the evening in a bedroom, Jenner went down to Lysander’s door and knocked. At least the lounge in question had been in the private part of the house. If they’d been in the other lounge, using the other leather couch that he frequently woke up glued to, he’d have just had to go home like he was. He’d done it before, and didn’t doubt he’d do it again. Hell, his Dad had taught him how, so they didn’t have to have those conversations. Oily hinges, bribed guards, nobody said a fucking word. Private life had a very literal meaning in the Garu palace these days. He knocked quietly, waited. Knocked again, got a noise. “I need a bath, please,” he said through the door. “Enter!” very clear, for the security system to hear. It didn’t fool Jenner, Lysander would have his head under the pillow and be asleep again before the tub was full. He grabbed clothes at random from the closet and went into the bathroom to survey the damage. No bruises, no scratches, no sprains or strains to be found. Good. Nice night’s work, he thought. The red marks would fade in a few hours, so a bath really was all he needed. He settled in for a good soak, only his face above the surface, and waited for his lovers’ semen and saliva to disengage itself from him. Something was going on, about them not seeing the scars. He was fucking thrilled about this. He got dressed and sneaked out quietly, not wanting to wake Lysander. Grey’s door was firmly shut and would be for hours yet. Jenner took himself out the front door and pointed his skimmer towards the palace, trusting it to get him there as quickly as possible. He needed his gear before he went north, and he would need to leave notes. He didn’t like to stay at Lysander’s for too long at a stretch. It made him feel like part of the crowd. The boys did go out places with him. He was constantly chauffeuring them all over the city to whatever they thought looked interesting. There were other complications though, problems with the current round of rumors in the Deamonett monastery. Ugly things that his Dad was apparently listening to.

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Of all the people in the world to listen to gossip about the Royals, Jenner would have put his Dad at the bottom of the list. That didn’t stop Blaine from hanging around looking worried, these days. Jenner blamed himself, really. He hadn’t thought to lock the doors once, when the boys had been over. Blaine hadn’t remembered to knock. He’d walked in while Jenner was half-off of the bed, Grey fucking him hard while Jenner sucked Lysander off. It was a favorite position, and the ocean view had been very inspiring. It didn’t seem to soothe his Dad, who’d said Lysander’s name like they were doing something… dirty. Jenner had never heard that tone on his Dad before. When he realized what it was, he went off on Blaine like a fucking missile. Blaine had never taken being yelled at without fighting back. The boys weren’t going to leave Jenner without backup. It hadn’t been pretty, to say the least. So now Jenner went to Lysander’s, stayed a while. Came home, stayed a while in complete silence, being ignored by Blaine and only silently supported by Kourt. When he’d had enough of that, he’d take off to his estate and be alone in the silence/song of the forest, where only the squirrels were disapproving towards him. And who listened to squirrels, anyway? Then he’d go back to Lysander’s or somewhere he’d be sure to meet his boyfriends. Sometimes he mixed it up a little. It was all very weird, but he’d come to expect that. It was also very tiring, and he cried a lot these days. Couldn’t make himself stop, when he was alone. He stayed alone until he needed other people around him to make the crying stop. His parents were disappointed in him, or upset with him for sleeping with a friend of theirs. His boyfriends apparently didn’t notice if he stayed or left. Nobody told him to go away, but he felt sent off most of the time. Blaine heard him come in, exchanged complaints about mornings with him and offered breakfast. Jenner went in and sat down at the table, taking whatever had been left once his Dad was done with it. It was a gesture, and he wanted to make up with his parents very much. “Those aren’t your clothes,” Blaine observed. “They’re Lysander’s.” “Where are yours? You borrowed my pants.” Jenner looked up, surprised. “I must have lost them, Dad. I didn’t know the wardrobe got divided. I’m sorry.” Blaine didn’t answer that. Jenner certainly wasn’t going to press. Instead, the Bail said “I wanted to ask you something about Lysander, son.” “Lysander Edvard will never be my consort, Dad. He’s known Kourt too long. Neither

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will Grey. He’s a freeman, right to the bone. It won’t work and will never happen,” Jenner said, very even and polite. “That wasn’t what I wanted to know,” Blaine lied, looking away. Jenner braced himself for it. “What?” “Did he ever… mention… when he first knew he was attracted to you?” “Now what the fuck kind of question is that?” Jenner knew he’d been too loud, because his Pop sat up in the bed and rubbed his eyes. “What kind of question is what?” Kourt asked, trying to catch up to his family again. “Dad wants to know if Lysander’s been secretly lusting after my body since I was a kid,” Jenner told him. “That is not what I asked,” Blaine defended himself. “It’s just that Grey’s terribly young, Jenner, and he’s known you for so long. Sometimes, when people suffer traumas as children…” “You shut your filthy mouth right now, Prince Bail Blaine Garu, or I will shut it for you,” Jenner offered with deadly calm, standing up and leaning over the table at him. “Yes, I actually know the precise instant that Lysander, a fucking card-carrying survivor, first found me sexually attractive. It was important and I wrote it down. It happened at some point after my eighteenth birthday, and beyond that I will not be more specific. How could you even pause to consider an Edvard thinking anything remotely that ugly about a Garu? Now, I am going to my estate. Do not fucking dare to ever broach this subject with me again. Pop taught me things that would turn your hair white, just to hear about it. And let me just remind you, while you’re up there On High, that this was your fucking idea in the first place.” *** Lysander woke to someone shouting his name, and Grey’s, from the driveway. He went to the window and stuck his head out. “What the hell is wrong with you, man?” he yelled down at Jenner. “Don’t talk to my parents. At all. They’re being assholes. They’re trying to mix you up in it. And Grey. Just stay the hell away from them. I’m going up to my estate. I’ll be back in a few days. Maybe a week.” “Like hell you are,” that was Grey, yelling down from his window. “If the prince of this planet is pissed at me, I want to know why.” “I can’t get in, and you guys are still asleep. I just didn’t want to leave without warning

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you in person,” Jenner said. “I’ll come by first thing, on my way back into the city.” “Jenner, wait!” Lysander yelled, but the duke just gave one of his little smiles, waved to them both and drove away. “What the fuck?” Lysander yelled to Grey. “Fucked if I know!” Lysander shut the front gate and met Grey in the hallway. “Come on, he’s going to be pissed. I just locked him in.” “Good move.” They had to drag Jenner bodily from the skimmer, left it sitting right where it was, and frog-march him back into the house before he would understand that they wanted more information. They put him down on a chair in Lysander’s office. He’d gone on a long string of curses directed mostly at Blaine. “He halfway accused you of being a pedophile, Lysander. I thought I’d tear his throat out, right there over breakfast.” “What’s a pedophile?” Grey wanted to know. “Somebody who rapes children,” Jenner told him, keeping a very close eye on Lysander. Lysander was livid now, but wanted to know why. “What, exactly, did he accuse me of?” “Oh, he was very polite about it. Asked if I knew when you were first attracted to me, mentioned the youth of our little Grey in passing. You know, that kind of thing.” About that time, the dataset pinged an incoming call. Grey was sitting behind the desk, to put something between himself and Jenner’s anger. Jenner was dangerous, had a temper. It was always good to have something to duck behind. Grey opened the call and sucked in his breath. Lysander looked over and saw Blaine staring at Grey like he was some kind of ghost. Grey was always the first one to say what was on his mind. “You listen to me, you slag. You ever, ever dare to say anything that even rhymes with ‘child rapist’ about Lysander again, you will need the protection of that Servitor of yours,” he told the Bail, and shut the call off. “Nice one, Grey,” Jenner congratulated him, looking very impressed. “Fucking prick. This whole thing was his idea to begin with. Look, I need to get the hell out of town for a while. I threatened to kill my father in there somewhere, and Pop heard me. This might take a while to blow over.” “You can stay here, if you want to,” Lysander offered. Jenner brushed it aside. “That’s not going to look so great right now.”

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“Fuck how it looks, Jenner. Your parents are being assholes and you need a place to be,” Grey said. “I have a place to be,” Jenner patiently explained. “I have a private estate, acres and acres of woods, country house, more security than you can shake a stick at. It’s rented out, operates as a resort year-round. Once I’m in there, even my Dad can’t pry me out again.” “I could come with you,” Grey offered, but looked uncertain. “You’d hate it. Chamber music, high tea, people insulting your clothes. It’s cool, guys. I just didn’t want to leave you uninformed, and by the look of it, I was right.” They let him go. He didn’t want to stay, and the Little Gods knew Lysander didn’t like forcing people to do things. He hadn’t been gone an hour when Blaine and Kourt drove up in the Wraith and started pounding on the door. Once again, Grey got the drop on them, this time from his window. Grey had been waiting there, knowing he’d only withstood the first wave, and told Lysander the instant they arrived. Lysander had already suspended their security privileges, so was on the scene of the defense when it happened. “Fuck off, Royal Prick! Jenner’s gone, and if you don’t know where, he didn’t want you to!” This was delivered with all the crass bravado of a street rat, and Grey certainly knew how to make that threatening. “Where’s Lysander?” Blaine yelled up. “Right here, Blaine. I don’t have a fucking thing to say to you,” Lysander told him. “I don’t know what Jenner told you, but he was very angry when he left. It can’t have been right,” Kourt said, trying to strike a balance and failing badly. “Did you actually ask him whether or not he knew if I’d been after him as a kid?” Lysander demanded, very hurt and pissed off. “It wasn’t like that,” Blaine began. “Was that what you were thinking, though? That I must have bided my time, waited until it was legal? And maybe I just held off a few extra years or something? You thought about it. You considered the possibility, didn’t you? Out loud. To Jenner. Get the fuck off my property.” He slammed the window closed, and didn’t much care if they sat in his driveway and rotted.

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*** Jenner had been up trees for three days, and was feeling very fine when Kourt walked up under him. Out here, it was Kourt and Jenner, and had been for years. This was where they came, to talk about things man to man. Kourt gave Jenner no slack for being his son. Jenner gave Kourt no quarter for being his father. It was much simpler out here, and they both liked it very much. “So, there’s a major meltdown happening in Kais,” Kourt reported. “Tell me about it,” Jenner said, but not as an expression. “Let me first just say that your Dad is, in a very clumsy way, trying to look out for your best interests. He comes by it honestly. He learned it at his mother’s knee.” “He’s actually pulling the ‘concerned parent’ defense in the middle of all this?” Jenner asked. Kourt came up the tree and found a comfortable position in which to recline. “No, he thinks you’re a fucking moron for not listening to him. I’m telling you what’s really happening. The Deamonetts are buzzing about you finally getting Lysander to hold still for a proper lover, and of course are speculating like mad about how you did it. One theory is that he’s secretly bent, and doesn’t that just send shivers down their little spines? Another theory is that you’re over there for weeks at a time living up to my legacy.” “That’s got to be fun to listen to at night,” Jenner commiserated. “Enthralling, I assure you. My personal favorite is that, since Lysander is assumed to have privately conquered both Blaine and I, he must be going for the ultimate in setcollection. All of which is bullshit. The one time I was with Lysander, we had an audience.” “More than I wanted to think about, Kourt,” Jenner backed him off the subject. “I notice how nobody’s going ‘Well, he’s Blaine’s son. Why not fuck everyone who will have him, all at the same time?' Shit, these people were at his twentieth birthday party. Isn’t that the one where the birthday boy gave each guest his very own, personal blowjob?” “The point is your Dad is hearing speculations from all sides, and no real facts. It’s got his head turned around something hideous. He’s talking about pressuring the Edvards into something. He’s talking consorts, Jenner. He wants to make this official. He doesn’t know what they’re after with you, and every supposition is crazier than the last. He really does sound like his mother, these days.” Kourt rubbed his eyes. “That bitch simply will not lie down and die for me. Anyway, he’s back to consorts again. He did it to me, once. You know how that ended up. I haven’t got a leg to stand on, son. I signed the contract, took the cred and position until the Order found out and made him marry me

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instead.” Kourt spat, cleared his throat and did it again. “One of the worst mistakes I ever made, signing that fucking paper. We have to shut him up before he sends Sarad Rowean mincing around with promises of wealth and wild times. I’m going to have to give him something, Jenner. I’m sorry.” “I’m going for the plain old protocols of seniority, Pop. It’s fucked up, but there it is. You never gave me a sibling to second me in arranging a Making contract. Nobody said a cross word when Dhalli Rowean was banished from me. I’ll take lovers who can back me up, instead. Love is sacred and protected. I am now and will always remain extremely devout within our Church,” Jenner reminded him. “Consorts have no power and no say in official matters. They have personal influence, which I would be pressured to ignore in the one moment when I need someone looking out for me. House of Garu has been no help at all to me in this, so far. I won’t let Lysander and Grey make your mistake, no matter what Bail Blaine thinks he’s protecting. Help me, Father.” “You have to help me head your dad off, son. Help me make a case for their seniority as your lovers. I haven’t got much proof, right now,” Kourt pointed out. “Sex isn’t enough. Dates aren’t enough. You being desperate to be with them isn’t enough. They look like they’re holding out on you, from where the palace sits. I need more.” Jenner thought about it. “Okay, well, you’re better at this than I am. You ask, I’ll tell what I can.” “Can you categorically state to me that what’s happening here has nothing to do with me or Blaine or House of Garu? Can you state it is an extremely recent development?” “The crown is not even a topic of conversation for us. It’s certainly not a motivating factor. Probably more of a deterrent, really. Lysander’s only doing me as a favor to Grey, I think. Blaine’s going to get nowhere through the Edvards. They won’t even admit there’s a connection with him anymore. It isn’t about the cred or the title or anything beyond our own little selves.” “Fine.” Kourt sighed. “How can you be so damn sure, Jenner? I believe you, but how can you be so sure?” Jenner wanted to tell him. If anyone could keep a fucking secret, it was Kourt Crowe. “You’re sure you can hear this and not be my father? You have to understand, this is private, just from me to you.” Kourt nodded carefully, and went very still all over. “I know it because nobody would treat a gold mine the way I’m treated in this relationship. Nobody would dare. Nobody’s trying to win me, here. I am barely in this thing with a fighting chance. Dad’s bullshit is really fucking me up.” Kourt nodded, and Jenner knew he’d never hear another word about it. “I’ll take care of

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it, Jenner. You’ve still got a Servitor in your pocket, backing you up with everything I’ve got. I’m just a lowly little commoner spouse, and an officially barren one, at that. Keep me posted on what you need. I’ll divorce your Dad and make him get married to a noble breeder, if I have to.” “You don’t have to, Kourt. I wouldn’t stand for it, anyway. You’d need my approval at this point,” Jenner grinned crookedly at him. “I out-rank you, big time.” “I know,” Kourt smiled back. “What else do you need?” “Peace and quiet.” “Sure thing.” And like that, Kourt was gone. Jenner wished he could move with half, or even a quarter of Kourt’s speed and agility. He just had to make do with what he’d got of it. *** Grey had never much cared for the way Jenner just came and went all the time. Grey never knew what he could count on out of Jenner, that was one problem. The way he turned up on the doorstep, flowers and candy or wine or some ‘little thing’ in hand and a shy smile that… hurt, somehow. Grey had given up trying to figure out what the hell was going on around him. Someone would know sooner or later, and would explain it to him. He’d asked Jenner and Lysander. Neither of them knew what the hell this was, either. It was too delicate to examine much. He certainly hadn’t signed up to be the one to yell at a prince, not once but twice. It had been fun, sure, but it also had made him feel like he was going to throw up everything he’d ever eaten. Reparations would be required. He got armored up one day and hiked down through the valley, crossing scrubland and carefully tended gardens alike to do it. He came up, eventually, onto a dirt road that lead down into a giant hole in the earth. Machines had done irreparable damage at some point. The raw soil had been left to fend for itself. It hadn’t survived. There was a kind of gate, broken and falling apart, with a sign nailed to it. It was badly lettered. Grey stood there and stared at it until the Standard words finally sorted out for him. “The Clay Pits,” he said, like he’d found his new favorite phrase. He walked on down the road, between piles of dirt that towered over him like sentinels. The noise was tremendous, even from this distance. It called to him like a welcome home. He came out into the clearing and looked straight up. A skimmer bike flew through the air, high over the red clay that made up the bottom of the hole. The rider kicked his legs backwards, became perfectly aligned with his machine for one bare instant of delicate balance, and then sat down hard to control the landing. So this is love, Grey thought to himself.

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He took a minute to look around, find the people he’d need to talk to. His instincts were still good, finely honed on street corners and bars he shouldn’t have been in at all. There. The riders, at one end of the pit, gathered in a knot of comradeship, envy and animosity. That was where he wanted to be. He made his way up slowly, worked his way around the parked bikes and the clusters of friends. These weren’t those soft, spoiled children at Lysander’s house. He saw men here, like him, who knew something about speed and noise being the only joy worth pursuing. “Oi! Kid! What the fuck are you doing?” Grey’s eyes went straight to the speaker, a tall, lean, strong guy with a shaved head. He’d been broken in lots of places, that was obvious. He still had his helmet under his arm, though, so Grey said “I want to find out if I have what it takes to do that.” He pointed at the ramp, and the danger that it implied. “Can you ride?” “Yeah. I was a runner, back home. Did some street racing, made some gedlt. Never saw anything like that until I moved here.” Grey kept his eyes on the rider, but still felt the crowd coming in around him. He settled his feet into his boots, in case he had to fight or run. “Where you from, kid? Hell of an accent.” The question sounded curious, and that was a good thing. “Out Systems.” Grey was hoping like hell that had the same impression here as it did everywhere else, and was glad to see it did. “I had to leave my bike, though, and these look like custom work.” “Bet your ass they are. Now, this isn’t racing, kid. It takes more than just speed. It’s ability, strength and style, too.” The rider looked him up and down. “I’m Fandy, okay? And you?” “Grey.” “Okay, Grey, can you do a handstand on the ground? Cause you’re talking about doing one twenty feet up, going fifty or better on nothing but thin air and twice your weight of technology. Shit breaks up there, and sometimes it’s bodies.” Grey was glad the walk had warmed his muscles up. He popped his neck, stretched out good in all directions and put his hands on the ground in front of him. He shifted his weight forward onto them and lifted his right leg up. It took a second to find his balance, and then the left leg went up, perfectly vertical.

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“Na, aright. Point your toes, and then flat out.” Grey forgot the name of the guy who used to do this in the park. Grey had wanted to learn it, and almost every other trick he could do with his body. Everybody had at least one trick they could do, and Grey had learned them all. “How long can you do that?” Fandy asked after a minute or so. “I don’t know,” Grey told him. “Nobody ever had a watch to time me.” “Is that your only trick?” Grey let his legs pop down into a split, found his balance again and said “I never timed this one either. Or this.” He folded his leg into his chest and held it. He put one leg out and one up. He split his legs side-wise, and lifted his left arm, the weak one, that had been broken once. His body twisted a little, and it hurt like fuck in his shoulder until he got balanced again. He stood up. “Is that going to do?” “You’re going to need a bike,” Fandy told him. “You’re going to need a serious bike, man, because you are going to want some massive hang time.” “No problem,” Grey told him. “My boyfriend owes me, the second he gets home.” *** Jenner had brought candy and liquor with him from the estate. This was going to be no time for flowers, of that he was already certain. He wasn’t given time to knock, but was instead yanked in the door almost instantly by Lysander. “Grey’s been waiting for you for days now. You were gone longer than a week.” “I was?” “He’s not very happy with you right now. He’s found a new love, down there in the valley. I don’t think either of us stand a chance against it.” Lysander grinned. “He went down and talked to those bikers. They’ve been teaching him Little Gods only know what since last week. He’s about to put himself into orbit, with wanting you to come home.” “Why is he waiting for me?” Jenner wanted to know. “Jenner! Don’t you fucking move, asshole. I am coming down to you!” That was Grey over the intercom. Lysander took the treats from Jenner and grinned a grin that said they wouldn’t be any help now anyway. Grey skidded onto the scene in his stocking feet, boots in hand. “Where the fuck have you been?”

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“My estate, I told you.” “You told me a few days, maybe a week. That was, like, ten days ago. Don’t you ever turn your comm link on?” Jenner shrugged. “It was on. I ignore things, sometimes. I didn’t know you were trying to call me.” “Well, I was. For, like, days now, man. Everybody’s starting to think I made you up.” “Lysander, do you have any idea what the hell he’s babbling about?” Jenner looked around for some help. “He brazenly told his new biker buddies that when his boyfriend got home, he would buy Grey a stunt bike,” Lysander said. “Why didn’t you go buy him one, then? You’re more his boyfriend than I am,” Jenner said. “That’s kind of mean, man.” “Lysander doesn’t owe me,” Grey told him. Jenner froze and instantly wished he hadn’t. His reflexes were very high strung, and he kept reacting to things like they were dangerous. Maybe it was, but the way to be around the boys was casual. “Okay, Grey. Stunt bike it is.” He was getting in his skimmer when Grey finally caught up to him. “I didn’t mean it like that,” Grey immediately began. “Don’t give me any of Lysander’s little coached speeches,” Jenner said. “You want a bike and I am buying it for you. Let me worry about the reasons why.” “It wasn’t about that,” Grey said. “Fine. I’m not getting it for you because of that. Okay?” “Okay.” “Where am I supposed to take you?” Jenner asked, pointing them down the driveway. “Valley road, and down pit road. Godda get some backup, man. Fandy said he’d come help me himself, if you ever showed up. You really are an asshole, you know,” Grey told him. Jenner knew he was. Grey told him, all the time, no matter how Jenner tried to do better for him. He drove down into the Clay Pits and made a mental note to have the skimmer washed. It needed it anyway, but the thick cloud of red clay dust was just no help at all.

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He parked where he was told to, and hung out by the driver-side door while Grey went off to find whoever the hell Fandy was. Fandy turned out to be older than Jenner by maybe a few years. He’d taken a hell of a beating on his bike. It was clear that Grey was deep into the throes of hero worship. Fandy, it was explained, had a trick named after him. That’s how cool he was. He came with an entourage. One was a mechanic named Grease Patch, call him Grease for short. The other was an extremely angry, muscular woman named, appropriately enough, Pixie. “Don’t mess with Pixie,” Grey advised, upon introduction and right in front of her. “She’s, like, aggro, man.” Pixie bared her teeth and growled. Jenner asked her to ride shotgun and they were instant friends. “Grey never tol’ us yer name, man,” she informed him. “Calls you ‘my boyfriend’ all the time.” “I’m Jenner,” he said. “Garu.” “Fuck no you ain’t,” she said, and punched him in the arm. Jenner punched her back, just as hard. “Fuck yes I am, check it.” He pulled his hair back behind his head. It was always a little wild when he walked out of the woods. “My hair gets a little manky. I just spent ten days in the woods. It needs a good wash.” She looked at him carefully, went ‘fuck no!’ and hit him again, finally recognizing him. “I never had a chance to come by and meet you before, Your Grace, bro.” “Wait, Pixie and Fandango Marteen, right?” Jenner asked, mentally fishing through the rolls of his duchy residents. “That’s us,” Pixie agreed, very proud. “Born and raised in the duchy of Eastern Arc, both of us. Grease, too.” “What were you doing in the woods?” Fandy wanted to know. “Communing,” Jenner told him, hoping it would be lost in the confusion of loading up the skimmer. Grease heard it loud and clear. “That’s like, very cool, man. Nature kicks ass. I heard you was a tree-talker. Guessed it must be true, nice as things are up at home.” So now Jenner had three new friends. “Where to, fair gelasni?” Jenner asked Grey, using an endearment in Grey’s Vantishari. “Into the city,” Grey told him in the same language. “There’s a very excellent bike shop there. Fandy knows the man that runs it.”

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“Just tell me where to turn,” Jenner told him, sticking to the Vantishari. Grey was still working up to full speed in Standard. This was going to be no time for confusion. “What the hell are you guys talking about?” Pixie demanded. “I was telling him where we were going,” Grey said. “Among other things. You guys really don’t speak Vantishari? Fuck, does no man love a good language anymore?” Jenner laughed. “I’m sorry I dragged you back from the Out Systems, Grey. You will only hear your Vantishari from me, ever again.” “You have got to work on your accent, then,” Grey told him, then fell into describing directions as they came up on the city. “Man, you can’t last ten minutes on the Outsys without a good smattering of Vantishari.” He really wasn’t going to let it go. “How’s it work?” Fandy wanted to know. Grey started telling him, and taught him a couple of really dirty words. “Hey, did you say you dragged him back from the Outsys?” Pixie asked. “Yeah. I was kind of in a hurry at the time. He got pulled out with me,” Jenner told her. They all laughed at it, as if they’d been in similar situations on, he assumed, a smaller scale. They pulled into the bike shop parking lot and he had a good look around. Maybe not a smaller scale, then. “Is this going to take a while?” he asked as they piled out. “It’s, like, an art, man,” Grease told him. “I’m gonna go get the skimmer washed. You guys want food?” There was general agreement. Jenner went about his little errands and came back bearing greasy bags from Honkin’Burger. Grey had to be served his food while he sat on the bike he was really, totally, thinking might be a good place to start. The salesman looked askance at the grease stains on the showroom model, so Jenner took his lightslate from him. “Now, you can just fill in what I’ve bought and add it up correctly for me, can’t you?” he asked the man, going for suave playboy and succeeding quite well. “Yes, sir, of course,” the salesman assured him, scenting quite a lot of credit indeed. Jenner put his print on the receipt and wandered off to enjoy his burger in peace. He stretched out on the hood of the skimmer and worked on his tan. He would need to be far

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more dressed now than he had been in the last few days, so he wanted one last good soak. Nobody objected in the slightest. Actually, quite the opposite. Guy came over and pointed to a nasty mistake on his upper arm. “Six inches, cold steel,” he said, companionably. Jenner rolled over just a little. “Nine.” Fandy did stop by to make a few interesting remarks. “Jenner, man, listen. Grey could be really good at this. He could go pro, if he wanted to. I’m not shitting you, man, because this is a crazy damn sport. You get into it, you’re pretty much guaranteed a serious injury in your first year. It varies after that, but they’re going to happen. I think that little man might just have the balls for it, though.” “Does he want to, or is this going to be a very expensive phase for me?” “You come watch him ride sometime, man. Grey was meant to be up there, doing what he does. I never said that about any grind before, but I never saw it before, either.” Fandy made a truth-swearing sign. “What I’m saying is, this bike here, it could buy him a career if it was done right. I don’t know what’s going on between you two, but for a streeter like Grey, it could change his life. If you can spare the bank, he might just get by when you move on.” “Did he say something about me moving on?” Jenner asked. “You’re gone a lot, he says.” “You’re a good friend, Fandy. You go in there and remember you’ve got a Royal Duke out here in the doghouse, trying to make up to his boyfriend. Make him very happy, and keep me informed. I’ll make it worth your while.” Jenner stretched slowly, and continued “I assume he’ll need some sort of coach or lessons.” “Yeah, all right. I’ll talk to him about it,” Fandy said, and edged off. Jenner didn’t really like buying people. He’d learned a long time ago how important it was to keep informed, though. If a little credit greased the skids, fine. But he didn’t have to like it, and never had. Grey came out a few times, letting him know how much longer and telling him how much he totally rocked. Grey smiled all afternoon. Jenner just lay there and took it. Grey had real armor, and a proper helmet when he left the shop. The trunk of Jenner’s skimmer was loaded with he dared not ask what. Of course, Grey must ride his bike back to the Pits. That was to be expected. Jenner only belatedly realized he had wasted a perfectly good wash when they were half way back down the dirt road. He parked, shook everyone’s hand and climbed a dirt hill for a good view.

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It was getting a little late in the day, but the light was steady and good, so Grey went ahead and put his bike through its paces. Jenner was stunned. He had no idea where Grey had learned it, but it looked like he’d been doing it an awful long time. Grey pulled up to the bottom of Jenner’s hill and yelled up at him “This fucking thing will race and jump, man! I can put together entry fee in, like, no time!” Off he went again, and Jenner filed that away. It certainly looked like true love to Jenner, from here. Grey went down to the approach end of the pit. Jenner made himself be calm. So much speed, so compactly built, should not have looked so elegant, and certainly shouldn’t have flown like that. Grey kicked both legs back and twisted his hips, in a near-handstand as the bike arced up over empty air. The noise, even in flight, was astounding. He could just barely hear Grey yelling ‘fuck yeah!’ in there somewhere. Grey came to earth as steady as a stone and went back to the rider’s end of the Pit, much congratulations happening from all over the place. Jenner decided that his job here was done. He went back to his skimmer and drove to Lysander’s place, determined to actually get his shower this time. *** Grey didn’t bother locking his bike down. His friends were right there in the driveway anyway. Nothing was going to happen. He ran up the stairs, screaming for Jenner. He was in Lysander’s office, looking very serious about something they had up on the dataset. “Knock that bullshit off. Jenner, come on. You godda get armored up.” “Do what?” Jenner asked. “Come on man, we’re going night riding and everybody said to bring you. Where the hell did you go? I only thought to come here and look because Pixie said you wanted to wash your hair. Did you?” “I had a shower earlier,” Jenner said, gamely trying to keep up with the conversation. “Get up, damn it. You can’t ride a bike like that in street clothes. That’s just begging for a serious pain day.” Grey grabbed Jenner and pulled hard. “Isn’t this something more for Lysander?” Jenner asked. “Rock and roll, skimmer bikes, all that?” Lysander held his hands up. “Don’t blame me for the people who listen to my music. Some people with good taste are just nuts.” Grey got a good grip and some leverage, got Jenner up and moving and then it was easy. “Come on, where’d you put the stuff from the bike shop?”

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“In your room,” Jenner said. Grey got him into his jacket and boots, much better pants that were leather and lined with something guaranteed not to give under him, no matter how far he slid. Grey showed Jenner how to lock down the helmet and dragged him out the door. Grey sat on his bike, which had acquired a number of new stickers in the last few hours. “Come on Jenner! I’m not going to let anything happen to you.” Jenner’s expression was completely hidden by his helmet, but Grey just knew he was going to like it, once he got used to it. Grey himself had nearly wet his pants the first time somebody let him play bike bunny. “This is going to be cool,” he told Jenner and off they went. There was no point trying to talk with seven high-performance bikes roaring all around them. No point at all. Jenner held on tight, and Grey had to move his arms, to get them out of his way. He could feel that Jenner was pressed to his back like a burr, just like he needed. Jenner moved with him, hanging on to Grey for dear life, and Grey just laughed, thrilled. It wasn’t like Jenner was going to hear him. His gloves needed roughing, but he could do that in the morning, shouldn’t make enough of a difference, on the road. He followed Fandy’s bike lights onto the coast road, and they came out from under a stand of trees and started racing the moon. Grey lowered himself over his bike and really opened her up. They went by the speed signs too fast to know how many laws were being broken at the moment. Grey wouldn’t have cared if he had known. The moon was running ahead of him, and he was going to catch that bitch one of these days. There was little traffic on the coastal road, and what they found they left behind them as quickly as possible. His cells were fully charged, and he just let himself go in the feel of being a very small, very fast, very agile object on a long stretch of road. He pushed to the front of the pack and came up on Fandy. He held his hand up in a fist, and then planed it out for a second. Fandy pumped his fist at him, and Grey let his bike do whatever the hell it thought it could, speedwise. He had no idea how far they’d gone, when he finally knew for sure how fast his bike would take him. He pulled over at a roadhouse, put his bike at the end of a row and sat to wait for the others to catch up to him. Jenner climbed off, pulled off his helmet and said “You are an insane little man.” “You bet your ass,” Grey told him, stowing their gear. “You actually have no fucking idea.” “So, now what?” Jenner asked. “Now the others catch up to us, and owe us beer.” Grey saw them coming up the road and waved hard until they had actually pulled in.

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Fandy was first to pop his helmet and call Grey a badass. Jenner ended up bracketed by Grease and Pixie, was given sketchy and confusing introductions all around, and was bodily dragged into the bar. Grey stuck hard to Fandy. They stopped inside the door to have a good look around. There were tables open, so that saved a conflict right there. The beer was good, served cold, which Grey could never get used to. The music was bad, but it was a roadhouse and they could never really be sure, ahead of time. Grey listened to the talk, made sure Jenner had plenty to drink, treated him like the bike bunny he was. Grey was completely unstartled when one of the other patrons decided he didn’t like Fandy’s face. “Hey, fuck you, shit brain,” Fandy freely expressed himself. Grey was startled at being jerked backwards out of his chair, but Jenner had put himself between Grey and the table. “You get down, Grey. If I go down, you need to make sure I get out of here.” “Fuck you. I can handle myself and you know it,” Grey shot back, very pissed off now. He got to prove it about three seconds later when he had to duck under a wild swing and punch someone in the throat. He got his back up against Jenner, but wasn’t able to keep himself out of the corner. He was behind everyone else, too, and they were getting pushed. “Get the fuck out of my way!” Jenner yelled. There was a slight parting, and he was out front. “Holy shit!” Grey said. He’d forgotten about the knives, though he should have known. He could never catch Jenner tucking them away. They stayed away most of the time. Jenner had a short knife in his left hand and a longarm in his right. He punched the first person that came at him, and left a long, open gash on the guy’s face. Jenner whipped the blood off the blade, right on the guy. He caught someone coming up behind him with a nasty gut wound. He moved lightly, swiftly, leaving no openings. Nobody got within two feet of his body. He smiled at Grey, feral and elegant in his violence. Grey could not believe how hard that made him. The sight of someone getting sliced wasn’t enough to really slow down what had started. Jenner didn’t seem to care, and helped Fandy clear a path to the door. They were on their bikes and gone, leaving a couple of ballsy followers moaning in pain out in the parking lot. The pack split up. Grey lit out for Lysander’s place, passing all kinds of first responders as he raced the moon again. Grey didn’t make it back to Lysander’s. Not directly. He spotted a deep stand of trees and a pretty good trail. He took them up into the hills and found a quiet spot to pull over. “Jenner?” “Yeah?”

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“Take your helmet off, man. I need a break.” Grey shucked out of his riding gear and went into the bushes. It was easier to pee when he was this hard, if he had a good range to work with. “I don’t think I can ride back to the house, yet.” “Are you okay? I didn’t see you get tagged back there.” “That’s not the problem. The problem is, I can not ride a vibrating machine with this kind of wood, man. I need to give it a minute.” “You get hard from riding this bike?” Jenner asked, sounding speculative. “I got hard watching you kick some serious ass back there. The bike just isn’t helping the situation.” Grey stayed in the bushes, tried to think boring thoughts but could hear Jenner shucking out of his gear. That made him think of peeling Jenner out of other things, and certainly did not assist in any way. “You got hard watching me fight?” “Made me want to bend you over right there, mayhem and all.” There was a long silence, and Grey kept trying to think boring thoughts. He said things wrong sometimes. Jenner would try to figure it out for himself before he asked for a repeat. “Grey? I think you’re going to want to come see this.” Grey put himself away, with some difficulty, walked out of the bushes and wished he hadn’t bothered. Jenner hadn’t ditched his gear. He had stripped down, put all that black leather over the seat of the bike and was straddling it backwards, like some kind of pin-up boy. “Jenner?” “I saw a holoposter,” Jenner told him. Grey couldn’t move for a minute. This was not what they normally did. He didn’t quite know what to think. “Are you serious, Jenner? Lysander’s got to be ten miles from here.” Jenner fished his comm link out of a pocket and flicked it on. “Lysander? We need an outside decision from a witness. Grey wants to know if it’s okay for him to walk three feet and fuck me on his bike. The question is fairly urgent.” Jenner threw the comm link to Grey. Grey only just caught it, and stood there staring while Jenner tried a new pose. “Grey?” Lysander’s voice came from very far away. This was what made Jenner a survivor and Grey still trying. Jenner had the instincts. Not sure about a sex thing you’re about to do? Get outside opinions; try the helping witness if you can. It was such a simple, simple system. “Grey?” He lifted the comm link. “Grey, what the hell is going on?”

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“I stopped for a break,” Grey told him, and heard his own voice shaking. “Jenner… he’s sitting naked on my bike, offering to fuck me. Just me, right now. I want to, but I can’t choose. My brain has gone numb with hornyness. Judgment call, man.” “And you need advice? Go nail that crazy son of a bitch and get home.” “Lysander, I never did without you before,” Grey told him. “Not really.” “No time like the present, and it’s just Jenner being Jenner. He’s been very modest with himself around us up till now. I can’t help it if you’ve been so hard on him, he’s becoming a bit bold. If your dick noticed what he was up to straight away, no hesitation, and you want it bad, this is a good sign because you can and have trusted him with your life. Questions?” Lysander sounded like he was literally in the middle of something, and talking fast out of necessity. “I didn’t ask him for this, Lysander. What’s the word I’m looking for?” “Implied consent. You’re in the clear.” There was a long pause, with mostly heavy breathing from Grey. “Have fun.” Lysander hung up on him and Grey put the comm link in his pocket, but more from reflex than anything else. It wasn’t ‘just Jenner.’ Grey wished he’d known enough Standard to make the situation clearer. Jenner turned around and looked at Grey for a long minute. “Damn scars again?” Jenner pulled his jacket on and sat up, leaning forward on the handlebars. Grey didn’t remember moving, only deciding to. He didn’t know how he got his cock out of his pants again and didn’t much care. He straddled the bike like second nature, and rubbed himself against Jenner. “Are you ready?” “I’m always ready for you, Grey. I thought I told you that. I try to be, anyway.” Jenner had, often: repeatedly. Grey was never, ever going to touch Jenner again unless he was absolutely certain he knew what he was doing, and why. Grey got Jenner to stand up a little on the pegs. Jenner’s ass was always tight and hot, but now it was also leaning over the best damn skimmer bike Grey had ever seen. Grey felt just then that everything he was touching belonged to him, fair and square. Jenner had to work himself back and forth on Grey’s cock for a minute, before he got himself settled on it. Grey gritted his teeth and moaned, held on to the back bar and waited for Jenner to sigh with pleasure before he moved. Grey’s right foot found the peg by sheer reflex and he had plenty of leverage to lie Jenner down against the bike. The stunt grips on the handlebars were fitted to his hand, and that gave him an advantage, too. He dug his left knee into the seat and thrust, sliding his whole body along Jenner’s. It was like flying, taking Jenner deep and hard, but slow, building up to the moment. Yes,

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he’d thought about it before, but damn. His nipples were rubbing against leather and Jenner’s writhing body through a couple of shirts, but that didn’t seem to be making much of a difference to them. Grey kept his eyes wide open, rubbed his cheek against Jenner’s hair and said “Hell yeah, man,” when Jenner found a way to undulate back against him. Jenner cried out in response, surprising some birds into flight somewhere away to the left. “Faster!” he begged. Grey could always do faster. The whole bike was rocking under them, now. Grey held hard to his machine and his lover at the same time, feeling like he was racing, feeling like he never wanted this to stop. Just thinking about the end was enough to make it happen to him, hard and sharp and clear. Jenner was laughing and coming under him. All he could do was cry ‘yes’ over and over, and try to hold on for one more second of hang time. It was Jenner who moved them, at last. Something was digging into his arm, he said, and was very gentle when he did it. Grey started chuckling, as he eased back down on the seat. “What’s funny?” Jenner asked. “I just fucked you nacky,” Grey told him. “Is that some stunt biker joke?” “Yes.” “Don’t explain it to me. Just promise if I ask you to fuck me nacky again, you won’t make me beg you.” Grey couldn’t think of an answer to that, so he got up and tried to shake off the leg wobbles. Jenner got dressed without saying anything, and sat down on the ground to wait. “Okay. What’s nacky?” Grey hopped on the bike and said “Okay, you hit the top of the ramp, right? And then you move your hands from accelerator to grip.” He showed Jenner, just like Fandy had showed him the first day. “Then you stand up on your right peg, okay? And then, you kick your left leg up over the back of the seat and touch it with your knee.” Grey showed him, and held the position for a minute. “That’s a left kickback, nacky.” “What other kind of kickbacks are there?” Jenner asked, seeming genuinely interested. “Well, you can clear the seat with your knee and kick your leg out over the right side,” Grey said, twisting his leg under himself and pushing it out towards the back of the bike.

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“That’s fakey.” “I assume there are reasons for these terms,” Jenner said. “You wouldn’t get it,” Grey bluntly told him. “Might as well be a foreign language to you.” “Fine. Are you in any condition to get us home now?” Jenner stood up and dusted himself off. “How fast do you want it?” *** Lysander had thought it prudent to wait up for Grey to get home. No telling what Jenner had got him up to out there on the side of the road. He was surprised, then, when it was Grey hauling Jenner up the stairs this time. “What happened to him?” “He got rode hard and put up wet,” Grey told him, thinking this was very funny. “He’s your problem, then,” and that was all for that night. Next morning, Lysander wished he’d paid attention. Jenner was asleep in the lounge again, stretched out on the sofa and looking embarrassed, even in his sleep. “Jenner.” “Whassat? Whachaneed?” Jenner wasn’t even close to awake, but trying hard. “I need to know what’s going on with this biking thing,” Lysander told him. “I got him a bike. I hired him a coach, trainer, something. Big bald guy who can clear a barroom with his bare fists. Fandy says Grey could go pro if he wanted, and he looks like he wants to, if he can.” “You need to get his health insurance in order before he does,” Lysander told him. “I had me a surfer friend once, cost me a hell of a lot in medical bills.” “Anybody I’ve heard of?” Jenner wanted to know. “Yes.” Lysander headed out to the kitchen for breakfast. Jenner came down later, and after him came Grey. “Did you just get here?” Grey asked. “Stayed the night,” Jenner told him, still trying to remember how to work the sugar spoon for his cav.

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Grey looked at Lysander, almost accusingly. “I’m not the one who left him in the lounge to sleep,” Lysander defended. Grey looked confused, then guilty. “I asked if you needed a place to crash,” he finally said to Jenner. “I had one. Sofa, in the lounge. I wasn’t in any condition to go much further, as you know. Now, I have to get spruced down and head home. His Hiney Bail Blaine is still going to want to yell at me before he’s done with all this.” Jenner essentially inhaled a full breakfast and looked ready to face the world. “Do you want some backup?” Lysander asked him at last. “I got this, don’t worry about it,” Jenner said, and headed out to the garage. People were starting to stir in the house, so Grey stuck by Lysander in the kitchen. “Do you get the feeling he’s hiding stuff from us?” “All the time. If you come up with any ideas about it, let me know.” Lysander made sure that Grey had credit chips on him before he left, and went back upstairs to his office. His label was trying to fuck him again. That shit was just not going to fly. Jenner would come back. Grey was now happily entertained, if he could survive his newest passion. Lysander turned on some music and tried to be patient while the magic did its thing. *** Jenner went to the Palace and took the yelling. Didn’t return it at first, couldn’t make himself care very much. Blaine’s fear and anger had nothing on his boys’ acceptance. Kourt stood there staring at Blaine like he’d lost his mind, and then stared at his son standing there and taking it. Finally he said “Jenner, just because I have to take this shit off him, doesn’t mean you do. Stand up and fight like a man.” Well, that did start a fight; three ways, only Kourt not yelling at the top of his lungs. Jenner had stepped out of it when they got back to things that had happened before he was born. “Pop, you’re welcome under my tree any old time. Eight more days without you might do him some good. Seems time for it, at last.” “I’ve got trees of my own son, thanks,” Kourt returned, looking ready to do it. Jenner left. He did not want to know if that actually took place later because of him. So it was the estate for him, again, because Grey was tied up with bikes, Lysander was fucking always busy with something and he just couldn’t dump any more of his family on them right now. Went and told the trees all about it. They agreed he should just sit around and be calm for a while. Told him to go ahead and cry, they’d keep his secrets, too. They were very good listeners, trees, if he just slowed his mind down enough to hear

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it. He knew this was no solution, this running back and forth between problems and havens. He had no way of changing things, though, not without asking for an awful lot. So for now he did this. It was doing wonders for his tan, and was probably doing wonders for his personal life as well. Up a tree a few days, then down back to where people wanted him to do things. No telling how long he could hold this crazy thing together. But he would do what he had to. This was love, for him. He wanted as much as he could get for himself, whatever it took.

Chapter 6: Grey’s Kindness Grey still didn’t understand Jenner, but he wasn’t ready to give up yet. Jenner still did his runners, sometimes bothering to remind them that he had a duchy to run. Once, when he’d come back, Grey would be soothed by nothing but the very best skimmer bike credit could buy. Jenner had taken Grey and his friends from the Clay Pits down to the city and bought it for him. Everyone now thought that Grey had the ultimate in boyfriends, and envied him an awful lot. They didn’t give him a lot of sympathy for not liking how Jenner ran off. He always came back, they pointed out. Somehow, Jenner had just casually stopped chasing the boys. Jenner slipped in and out of their lives, so quietly and unobtrusively they could hardly ever catch him before he was gone. Lysander had floated a theory that Jenner was trying to make them look forward to seeing the duke. Grey could see that it simply wasn’t true. Jenner didn’t have the right kind of nerve to play that angle. Lysander Edvard probably did, but Jenner was too openly apologetic to be playing a game with his absence. He was still afraid of Grey’s anger, even after all this time. The biker tried to keep it verbal, but the fact was, when he got scared, he got mean. It wasn’t temper, exactly. He just had a purely mean streak left over from his previous life. Lysander had never once frightened Grey, but Jenner didn’t have that luxury. Grey happened to be the one to answer the door when Jenner turned up with flowers and wine. Grey didn’t say anything, just left the door open and walked back into the house, yelling for Lysander. The party room was in full swing, of course. Grey was used to that. It was just the way Lysander liked to live, and nobody messed with Grey. To them he was that feral guy from the Outsys that Lysander and the duke kept as a pet. Nobody wanted to deal with him. Except Jenner, who followed him upstairs into the actual private part of the house. Grey kept yelling for Lysander until he got a response from the office. Jenner stopped in

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Grey’s rooms to deal with the flowers and wine. “Jenner’s back,” Grey said, flopping down in a chair in front of Lysander’s desk. “What the hell are you doing?” “Making sure nobody’s fucking me without my permission. Just like always,” Lysander replied, very focused on the work on his dataset. “What do I do with Jenner?” Lysander looked up. “Well, what do you want to do with him? I just got laid not ten minutes ago. I have to do the accounting.” Grey squirmed. “That’s not funny, Lysander.” “I wasn’t joking.” “Grey?” Jenner stopped at the door, just coming in enough to be seen. “You said you wanted me to go to the Clay Pits with you today. I came back, especially.” “That’s right,” Lysander said. “You have your quals today. Take Jenner with you. I’ve got to do this bullshit, man, and I really mean now.” So Grey got his gear together, not liking Jenner’s memory for all the things Grey said he wanted. It was getting on his nerves, but he couldn’t say why. It was like being watched in short but intense bursts, spaced over extended periods of time. Jenner never asked him for anything, not even forgiveness. Jenner just kept his hands in his pockets and a sharp eye out for weirdoes. Jenner had gone back to dressing sort of like he lived in a palace, but sure as hell didn’t act like it. When they got to the Clay Pits, he just climbed up one of the perimeter dirt mounds and sat down on it. Never mind the fact that he could have paid someone’s rent with what his pants cost. Never mind that the chains on his belts were actual silver. Never mind that the shirts, looking like they had come through a war zone, had been hand stitched on some distant planet. ‘I have a shitload of credit and don’t give a fuck’ was what his every move said. He really didn’t care much these days about where he was from, and it was pissing off his parents something awful. The two words most heard in the palace these days were ‘fuck you’ and it was directed at anyone remotely connected with House of Garu. It wasn’t enough to make Jenner move out to his estates permanently, but he was certainly making it known that he didn’t need his family’s support. They kept trying to work shit out, and always ended up yelling at each other. Grey had finally seen Blaine haul off and slap Kourt, and Kourt stand there and take it. The Servitor had been twisted out enough to tell Blaine he sounded like his mother. Grey hadn’t liked how it looked, Kourt just standing there looking at Blaine with an expression of ‘do you feel better now?’ in his eyes. Grey had seen Jenner look like that once, and

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now he understood what it meant. They could bear anything for love, and did it on pure reflex. Grey stopped picking on Jenner for fun, then. It wasn’t a fair fight, because Jenner wouldn’t defend himself. Had never defended himself, not against anything Grey wanted to dump on him, no matter how insane. Wouldn’t forget he was gone a lot, felt bad about it but never stopped it. All Grey wanted was to let it all go. Then something would happen and he would yell at Jenner for fucking up his life. Somehow, Grey couldn’t make it stop, either. Lysander was spending hours trying to think of ways to get Jenner’s attention, but never quite got to the point of doing it. He hadn’t liked something about the way the first try had gone. Lysander spent a lot of time with the Handbook on the way of Deamonett. He said he just couldn’t figure out where he’d made his mistake. Apparently it had something to do with a game. Rules had been broken, or something. Lysander was trying to make it right, but his mistake had been bad, deep… something. It made no sense to Grey, wasn’t about him. He stayed out of it as much as he could. The thing they had was very good, when it worked. It got confusing, and sticky, and sexy as hell. It had changed what had always been friendship between Jenner and Lysander. There was history there, things that Grey didn’t understand and no one had bothered to explain to him. They hadn’t thought to be discreet at the Palace, and certainly hadn’t expected Bail Blaine Garu to scream at them for it. Grey thought there was more to it, something about the very fact of their weird tripod situation. Who knew how many secrets Jenner could really hide? This was just the stuff that sort of showed on the surface. It was really getting on Grey’s nerves, but he hadn’t a clue how to change it. Grey shoved all that aside and focused on his qualifying run. Jenner had casually paid the fees to get him into training, was basically sponsoring him, privately, to become a professional rider. The season was a long way off, but he was going in, and they were qualling out the grinds right now. He was the only one with the nads to get the tag, though. The other grinds were just too green yet. They would have to wait for the preseason quals. All Grey had to do was actually be good enough to win comp, and he was a freeman all on his own again. *** Jenner didn’t much like seeing Grey flinging himself over hills of dirt at speeds in excess of sanity, but figured if he could pay for it to happen, he’d better be able to watch. The kid was still young enough and agile enough to make it look casual, and he always got high marks for style, even just from his friends. Lysander hadn’t come down to watch, and nobody seemed to have made a connection between Grey and the rock star. That was fair enough. Jenner and Lysander had privately agreed to draw the eye of the media off of the young man. It wasn’t anything that needed any scrutiny, that was certain. The Duke and Lysander were plenty glamorous enough to make the reporters

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drool when that kind of thing had to be done. Jenner, though, was making it increasingly difficult for the spotlight to find him at all. He didn’t need to hit the clubs; there was always a damn good party at Lysander’s. He didn’t miss the beach; never much liked it since he was about nineteen. The Deamonetts were always out in force. They were not speaking to him or Lysander at the moment. Nobody knew what to say. It wasn’t that there was anything wrong with what they were doing, not as such. Jenner might have fucked Lysander without thinking about it, before at the monastery. He didn’t know, and certainly knew better than to ask around. It was all Lysander’s fault, for having waited so damn long to take a lover. A real one, the way Deamonetts thought about it. Lysander had lived his whole life as the butterfly of the game. And who did he end up lighting on at last? Kourt and Blaine’s kid. Kourt’s one visit to the monastery had lived on in rumor and comparison. Everyone knew who had been there that night, and what Jenner’s Pop had done. It wasn’t a secret, really, that Blaine and Kourt had also done something, years ago, to help Lysander deal with the trauma of his childhood abuse. Not witnessing, they knew that. Something else entirely, and it had worked very well. Nobody knew what, exactly, but this being two Deamonetts and Kourt Crowe, there were some fairly broad conclusions drawn. It had made Lysander’s music real, and nobody had missed that when it finally happened. Home was not particularly peaceful right now, needless to say. Grey got his qualification and headed home, saying he was riding out tonight and not inviting Jenner. The duke took it with a smile and turned his skimmer towards the city again. Nowhere to go but safe haven, and at least he had one still. Blaine had been casual about saying he wouldn’t disown Jenner for going poly. Skies knew Uncle Niklas had never, ever apologized for his life choices. He’d ended up with sisters. Got stripped of title and holdings, sure, but where had that gotten House of Garu? Out a perfectly good backup line, which they needed at the moment. Jenner was getting the feeling, though, that Blaine hadn’t quite looked past the idea of Jenner collecting a set, and the reality of him actually succeeding with that particular set. Jenner had been fixated on Grey at the time. He certainly hadn’t stopped to think about what a task he was setting himself, going for Lysander Edvard, the man who had rebuffed the entire congregation at the Deamonett monastery at some point or another. This was not an expression. This was literally true: everyone had tried at least once, and not gotten anywhere with him at all. But Lysander liked Jenner. He seemed as surprised by it as Jenner was by his own deep feelings for the musician. They were going to call it love out loud sooner or later, but there was still time to think about it; time for Jenner to work on it, and make sure. “Jenner, uh… Lysander left you a message, asked if you were free for dinner?” Blaine

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was trying to sound normal, and Jenner was grateful for the effort. “Thanks, I’ll call him back,” Jenner said and went on into his rooms. The door to the end suite was open, and Kourt was sitting down there at his table, working on his knives. “Hey, Pop,” Jenner said, settling across from him. “Did your dad tell you Lysander called?” “Yeah, I’ll call him back. I said I would.” They edged their blades in silence. Jenner enjoyed the feel of normalcy. He’d not carried any firearms since coming home, except when he’d been expecting to be asked for it by Grey. No point, really. The knives were just to make him feel better. He wasn’t really expecting any kind of trouble, outside of the odd bar scrap. He just felt safe, with eight knives tucked away about his person. He didn’t care to think why. “How was the estate?” “Peaceful.” “Feeling balanced again?” Kourt sounded very hopeful. “Fuck no.” There was nothing but more quiet scraping, more deep silence until finally Jenner did something he hadn’t quite dared to do since he came home. He spoke with his mind, alone, to his father. //Pop?// //Yes?// //I think I’m in some serious shit, here. I think I fell in love with two people at once. For real, Pop. I’m in love with them both, and it’s real. I was looking for a taste, and… it’s bigger than that.// //Is the magic working?// //Almost. Lysander’s being very Lysander about the whole thing. You know that Deamonett’s been his whole life. Grey’s still fighting it, pretty hard. He wants it, though, I can tell.// //And how are you doing?// Jenner thought about it for a long time. //It’s weird, man. Like, anything either of them wants, I just want to go do it. Doesn’t matter what it takes. I just want to make them smile.//

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Kourt sat up sharply and looked at his son, suddenly very attentive. //How’s that again?// //I’m serious. Grey told me, like, a month ago that he had a race thing today and… I was in the middle of the estate this morning. I woke up and went ‘Time for a bath. Grey has a thing today.’ First thing when I opened my eyes.// //And the same thing happens with Lysander?// Jenner nodded. //I can’t figure it out. It’s very, very weird, Pop. I’ve never felt anything like it. I know pure love when I feel it, of course. But I’ve never felt like this about any one or any thing. Now it’s happening in stereo, all the time.// “Oh, son. Shit, I just never actually thought about it!” Kourt said, looking very cross with himself. “Can we start with ‘you get it from my side’ and work out from there?” “You actually know what I’m talking about?” Jenner’s voice was strained, but with surprise and relief. “Is this something you’ve got that Dad doesn’t?” This was the method they’d privately devised to help Jenner deal with his dual heritage. The parts of himself that he’d gotten from Kourt were very strange, and almost none of them showed up on the outside. Kourt had some things that Blaine didn’t, and vice versa. It was just something that Jenner had to deal with, because nothing was going to change it at this point. “This is part of your personhood, I’m betting,” Kourt said. “You know how you figured out that your sexual… interest is pretty much off the chart, compared to your friends?” How could Jenner have forgotten about that? His mind was just a little… weird, off, something. Kourt had been hoping for intelligence at the time, but had also passed on his capacity for deep feelings, passions, strength of will and his Telsma senses as part of the package. His particular race of xenobios called their minds their ‘personhood.’ It was extremely advanced, compared to human personalities. It was consciously organized in its pure form, which Jenner did not have. In that instance, Jenner had ended up with the physical bits of human sexuality, and the mental bits of, well… something that absolutely was not human. There were things going on in his mind, the way he shifted attitudes and behaviors in a calculated way, hiding out behind perfect counterfeits of whatever took his fancy. This was his personhood at work, protecting his true self from the traumas of real life. Jenner would trade around until he found something that worked for him. Never mind what he really felt. Even his temper hid one hell of a lot. He’d called it making masks, when he was a kid. And here was yet another damn thing he’d have to either cover up, or explain fully when he didn’t really understand it himself. Kourt had grown up a Servitor, and had never had much trouble keeping his emotions in check when he wanted. He’d dodged that bullet by sheer luck of profession, or something. Jenner had been spoiled rotten from the moment he was born, and his

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passions often ruled him when his will failed. The sweetener in this deal was that he was as quick to deep happiness as he was to anger. Sex had been something else again, once he’d gotten interested in it. It lit his head up like fireworks, for one thing. He didn’t have to stop at one or two rounds, if he didn’t feel like it, for another. That had scared the hell out of his first lover and sent Jenner running to his fathers for an explanation. Kourt had known what it was, then, and had told him that parts of his mind and body thought of sex in terms of hours, not minutes. Now, he calmly explained more of his son’s heritage to him. “You’re just in love with Lysander and Grey the way I’m in love with your Dad. Sometimes, you’re going to be absolutely driven to do things for them.” “But why, Pop? This really doesn’t make any sense.” “Jenner, the reasons why don’t apply to you. They apply to a race of xenobios who are very happy pretending you don’t even exist. It’s that damn drive for perfection thing, if you want to know the truth. This is what it is, to try and love perfectly. It is simply there, part of your way of loving, and as hardwired into your body as your reflexes are. Just be glad you didn’t get stuck with an extremely weird mating ritual, okay? It could have happened. It’s a lot like what you’re actually doing, but it never, ever stops. You will feel compelled to please the ones you love, instinctively. Just as strongly, I suspect, as you have always felt compelled to nail anything that caught your attention.” “I always thought I got that from Dad,” Jenner said, blushing. “You forget who caught your Dad. Now, do you want to know my secret?” “What secret? I mean, which one?” “Everyone always wanted to know what it was I did, that made your father love me deeper than he loved himself. It was remarkable, you know. Before he met me, everyone laid hard cred that it would never happen. Do you want to know what I did?” Kourt said again. “Yes,” Jenner said, instantly. “Complete, total focus, every time I could give it to him. That’s what you are, quite instinctively, trying to do. But you’re right. It feels weird, the fixation and the longing and the drive all together. Powerful. Frightening. It took years for me to find any comfort at all in it. It is worth it, if you can. That’s all it is, though, Jenner. An ampedup version of love, deeper and clearer than any other emotion you’ll ever feel. I thought I was literally going crazy, when it happened to me. You aren’t crazy. You’re halfsies with your good old Pop.” Kourt wrapped up his explanation the same way he always had, and Jenner came around the table for his hug. So that was it, and Jenner was relieved that he wasn’t actually losing his mind. It had been very strange and worrying to be up for absolutely anything, as long as it was

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Lysander or Grey’s idea. He’d had limits before, but they were gone now. If he’d been asked a year ago, would he bend over a bed and masturbate one of his parent’s best friends while a teenaged stunt biker took turns between them, the answer would have been a very shocked ‘no’ and perhaps a call for security. He hadn’t even stopped to think about it, when Grey made the suggestion. Hadn’t struck him as odd, until he realized he was putting it in his journal like a cherished memory. That had sent him running, at the time, but it was just one thing in a chain. He knew he’d be back. That had never been in question. But the fact was, he couldn’t stop himself from saying yes, and the only way to have any peace was to get the hell away. “I think I need to talk to the boys,” he told Kourt, and headed into his room for a change of clothes. *** Lysander hadn’t liked the sound of it, when Jenner called back and said he’d like to talk over dinner. Of all the things Jenner did willingly lately, talking was not on the list. Lysander got hold of Grey and made him come along, though he had the feeling Jenner thought Grey wouldn’t be interested in anything he had to say. Jenner had called from some clam shack way the hell up the coast, in the direction of Eastern Arc. That was where his estate was, and it worried Lysander. For years, Kourt had taken Jenner there, for what he’d called camping trips. They would go up there with Sarad Rowean, a Valet in the service of House of Garu, and his son. The four of them would stay for days. Jenner always came back very subdued and thoughtful, and that was always a welcome change in him. Lysander was only beginning to understand what that place must represent to Jenner, and what he must have learned there. They pulled up in front of the clam shack, picked up some food and walked out onto the beach. They knew Jenner would never sit in a building if he could peacefully watch the ocean, instead. He watched the ocean through binoculars, when he had to. He was out there on a blanket, with wine and fresh fruit. Plates were laid out for the greasy fried clams. The sweet tomato sauce that Grey was always dumping on everything before he ate was in a cut crystal bowl, with a lid to keep the sand out. Jenner looked to be wearing a very nice suit, from behind. Lysander very much doubted there was a shirt under it. Lysander looked at Grey and they sighed. “No candles?” Grey sarcastically asked. Jenner didn’t even turn around. He just held up a device and pressed a button. Chiplights had been scattered in the sand. They made a glittering carpet of their section of shore. Lysander scored it ten for style, but minus several million for sanity. Jenner did this kind of stuff all the time, casually, like it was nothing at all. Jenner finally looked over his shoulder, and then did his head-ducking thing. “You don’t like it.” He cut the chiplights off and didn’t have anything else to offer. He sounded just like he did when he turned up on the doorstep. He would go

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incommunicado for days or weeks then refuse to admit that he’d been driven away by something, again. He’d stand there, smiling at them, somehow thinking the problem was that he’d brought chocolate instead of wine. If they tried to tell him the problem was that he’d been away again, he pointed out that he was back. As if that was any kind of answer. “Make ‘em twinkle,” Grey said, and plopped down on the blanket. Jenner fiddled with the controller and the chiplights twinkled gamely in the darkening sand. They sat and watched the sun embrace his lover, the sea. They ate the clams, which Jenner told them were the best fried clams on the coast. He knew this, because he had checked. He had checked, because Lysander had told him of a fondness for fried clams. Did this strike the others as odd in any way? There was no way to hide that it did. “It’s not that there’s anything wrong with it,” Grey said. “I just don’t get it.” “I didn’t either, until today. I get it from my Pop’s side of the family, apparently. Nobody thought to mention this to me, but apparently there’s a sappy, romantic, desperate-to-please streak in my genetic code.” “Now, is that a literal thing, or a metaphor or something?” Lysander asked. He’d heard Blaine do that at Kourt off and on over the years, and it seemed to get him to talk sense. “It’s literal. I just have this instinct to find out what you two want, and a drive to see it done. I can’t help it, and it doesn’t seem abnormal to me until after the fact.” Jenner shrugged a little. “I still don’t get it,” Grey told them. “Jenner isn’t all human, Grey. There’s some xenobio in him somewhere, and it comes from Kourt’s side of the family. Right?” Lysander asked. “Right,” Jenner agreed. “And this is something from that part of me, and it isn’t going to go away. So, may I put this up for discussion?” Grey shrugged. “Well, I guess it explains a lot of your weirdness,” he said, getting straight to the point as usual. He just happened to use the rudest word possible, also as usual. “It’s not weird,” Lysander said. He was absolutely not a xenophobe. He still owned a ‘weird alien pride’ button from back in the days when people were giving Blaine shit about his lover’s species. “But you do go to an awful lot of trouble over it.” Jenner shrugged.

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“How many hours did all this take you, just this one meal tonight?” Lysander pressed. “I dunno. All of it? Couple hours tonight, half an hour at a time four times a week over the last month for research. Something like that. It doesn’t feel very difficult,” Jenner said. “It feels like what you two deserve.” Grey lay down on the sand. “I’m not actually sure I can handle this, Jenner. I figured it would wear off after a while or something. This isn’t what my life is like.” “It is now,” Jenner said, in that final way that they’d learned not to argue with. “And it’s just that easy for you?” Lysander asked. “You’re dating Grey, ex-drug dealer, one-time street racer, and therefore he gets the very best a Royal Duke can give him?” “Pretty much.” “I really have no idea what to say to that,” Grey said, sounding a little frightened. “You had no idea what to say to food, shelter and clothing when I met you. If you ever do think what to say, I’m sure you’ll let me know.” Jenner was very calm about this. “Though common courtesy would suggest that ‘thank you’ might be appropriate.” “Well, fuck you, too!” Grey said, and Lysander tried to shush him, but Jenner was up and gone. Just strolling casually down the beach like he had nothing better to do, but so fast he might have been running. “Come on, twerp. If he gets a lead on us, we might not see him for weeks.” Jenner was angling for his skimmer, so Lysander and Grey ran straight for it. They made it just before he did. Grey held the door closed even when Jenner tried to push them aside. “Please, I’m sorry. I thought you wanted it, Lysander. There was ivy in this thing somewhere, I remember something like that… no. I forgot. That wasn’t about me. I just like the way you guys smile, okay? It makes me feel so damn good. You guys hardly ever smile at me now, no matter how I try. I’ll come home tonight, I promise. Just let me go.” They wouldn’t be budged. Jenner apologized profusely, jumped up onto the roof of his skimmer, slithered in through his sun roof and waved goodbye. “Bastard!” Grey yelled after him, crying and upset by now. “I don’t think that’s what he wanted to hear,” Lysander said. “Why can’t you just be nice to him for once?” Grey didn’t have any answers, or ideas or suggestions so they went home. Jenner said he was going to be there. He always came back.

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*** Grey sat up with Lysander in a den that was off at the end of the open part of the house. Lysander’s security system was quite refined, and knew who was allowed to go where. Jenner would knock until someone let him in. He would hang around, waiting for them, if he had to, so they’d kind of trained him to try here first. Grey was beginning to see that this whole situation was putting pressure on Jenner that was close to cracking him, and he wasn’t going to ask anyone to do anything about it. “What are we going to do?” Grey finally asked Lysander. He wasn’t the thinker around here, that much had been established. “Grey, please, I am asking you as a friend, will you just lay off the guy a little? He’s not asking you for much, just a cease fire.” Lysander sounded very tired of all the drama, and Grey felt bad for being a party to it. “I don’t mean to!” Grey said, hurt. “You don’t mean not to, and that’s just as important. You’re like the little boy that keeps kicking a dog just to see if it’ll come back when you call it. What the fuck are you going to do if he doesn’t one day?” Lysander seemed to think this was very important. “He always comes back,” Grey had heard it often enough to repeat it. “He’s already considered suicide over this shit once, so could you just please…” “Leave him alone, Lysander,” Jenner said, like always, excusing just anything that Grey wanted to dish out. Not even caring what he was being scolded for. Jenner just walked in and defended Grey, out of pure reflex. He looked like hell, but that was pretty normal. Or maybe not, Grey thought. Maybe it was just the way Grey usually saw him. “Don’t worry about your security. One of the house guests let me in. So, here I am. As promised. No flowers, no wine, no treats.” Jenner shucked off his jacket and spun around, to show he had nothing hidden up his sleeves. Not even a shirt. “I did stop and lube my ass before I came in.” There went the trousers, and maybe Jenner was a little drunker than he looked. He went to the leather sofa and knelt at one end, his upper body draped over the arm. He smiled at them, peacefully, and waited to see what would happen to him this time. Grey looked away, knowing very well what Jenner was doing. He couldn’t begin to count the times when Jenner had ended up just like that, between his lovers and sharing himself willingly. Nudity wasn’t something that they did a whole lot of together, though sex actually was. Not Grey and Lysander, anyway, but Jenner had never paused or

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balked when they wanted him out of his clothes. But then, Jenner never defended himself from much of anything. He’d seen Jenner pull something like this before, and it had been very exciting the first time. Jenner had also done his little strip-and-lie-down routine on Grey’s skimmer bike, the very first time out. It had looked different from this, but Grey couldn’t say how, exactly. They didn’t say anything for a very long time, and eventually Jenner gave up. He put his clothes on and just stood there, looking at them like he felt very embarrassed. “I love you both. Very much. That’s what it comes down to. I’m sorry that the way I tried to love you wasn’t… normal. I, myself, am not very normal. I have tried to be a good man for you. Obviously, I’m not man enough by half. I thought I was in with a fighting chance. I thought I was winning, just a little. I thought… I thought I’d come here, and maybe you’d at least still want me for my body.” He sighed, and clapped his hands together once, sharply, and looked around himself. “Okay, well, later.” *** Lysander still couldn’t figure out how Jenner managed to disappear like that. He figured he knew who to blame for teaching him to do it, though. Lysander couldn’t put a name on Blaine’s expression, beyond ‘not thrilled.’ That was going to have to be what they were dealing with. He’d been called in from the clubs, and looked to have been making a night of it. Kourt just looked concerned, but that was pretty normal. “We need into Jenner’s room,” Grey informed them. They were ushered in through Blaine’s boudoir. “We need your help,” Lysander told them, and now came the storm. “What have you done to my boy?” Blaine wanted to know. “Did he tell you the thing about making you guys happy? Because that’s probably going to be bothering him,” Kourt asked at the same time. Both parents looked at each other and asked variations on ‘what are you babbling about?’ “It’s my fault,” Grey surprised the hell out of them all by saying. “Now, Grey, you know you didn’t mean to,” Lysander started, knowing that Jenner was going to hurt someone if he thought they’d been coming down on Grey on his behalf. “What did you do, you little brat?” Blaine demanded, instantly making himself a prime target for Jenner’s temper.

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Kourt said something that sounded like ‘dittany’ but wasn’t, and everyone knew it. Blaine reigned himself in and said “What the fuck is going on?” “Sweet Blaine,” Kourt said, sounding like he was writing a letter. "Your only son is desperately in love with the men you are currently badgering. This method never worked for the queen, whom you are impersonating. You will fare no better with your son than she did with hers. How do you think this is going to work out, if he walks in on you screaming at his boyfriends? Think back, now.” “I think he thinks we dumped him,” Grey admitted. “He’s kind of bugshit right now.” “You just don’t know how to talk to him,” Kourt assured them. “Jenner does not go bugshit. He just uses extremely esoteric logic. It is my fault. It’s a matter of specifics, right Blaine?” “Extreme specifics, if he’s got one of your moods on him,” Blaine replied. So they waited for Jenner. They did a lot of that lately, and had gotten pretty good at it. Lysander took the opportunity to tell Blaine and Kourt that, yes; he actually cared deeply for their son, but had come to no real conclusions yet how this was going to pan out. It wasn’t about them. It was just sheer dumb luck that Jenner had grown up right under his nose. Kourt looked like he’d figured something like that and Blaine looked relieved, but neither seemed to have prepared remarks for this event. Jenner walked right into their trap, but didn’t look particularly surprised. “Bring it on.” He dropped into one of the chairs and looked around, clearly wondering what kind of trouble he was in. What he’d have to do next to get out of it. He looked at Grey most often, his little half-smile the exact same one he had when he was following Grey around and paying for things. Lysander suspected that he’d had that little smile in place the very second that Grey had decided to kick the living crap out of him. Lysander was starting to wonder if it had ever wavered, the whole time. “What does that little smile mean?” Lysander surprised himself by asking. Jenner looked startled, and ran the question over in his mind. “I guess it means ‘I love you. What do you want?’” That silenced them all for a long time. “I want you to stop thinking you owe me something,” Grey told him. “I don’t know what you’re doing because you like me and what you’re doing because you can’t stop hating yourself. It’s too confusing.”

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“I don’t hate myself,” Jenner told him. “I hate what I did to you, but I paid that debt. I only keep thinking I owe you things because you keep telling me I do. The rest, I told you. Love.” “What about me?” Lysander asked. “Why are you doing this for me?” Jenner shrugged. “You let me. I’m in love with you, Lysander. I didn’t know what would happen because of it. I never meant to hurt anybody. I hope like hell I haven’t. I played by the rules. I never did anything to make either of you think I was less than serious about this. Now, if you want me to fuck off, that message has been received. You need not do this before my fathers.” The duke looked rather out of sorts and embarrassed as hell. “Pop, would you just explain it? I never asked for a fucking thing. I swear to you, I never did.” Kourt didn’t look like he thought that needed much explaining. Blaine called a brief huddle with his husband. After a moment, Blaine sat back in his chair and blushed hard. Kourt held his hand and thought for a long moment. “He just wants to love you the way he does. He hasn’t got more to offer than what’s on the table. If it’s not enough, he will leave you alone. Totally. Forever. Because he wasn’t good enough to be with you, to start with.” “Yeah, that’s it,” Jenner agreed. Both father and son looked very pleased with themselves. “It’s enough,” Grey got out, but it was a near thing. “You do what you need to.” Hardly a rousing declaration of support, but Lysander went for understatement as well. “It’s not what I’m used to, but it’s certainly welcome.” Jenner looked a little discouraged, but, as usual, didn’t complain. “Look, I’m sorry. I don’t care if you guys decide Grey had the right idea the first time. I want this. I’m going to have it, however I can get it. Runs in the family. If the best you can do is benignly tolerate my feelings for you, it’s more than I thought I had when I left earlier.” It would have been easier, Lysander thought, if Jenner had sounded hurt. They would have been moved to comfort him, to care for him. But he was stoic, calm, and just sat there being very much in love with two men who didn’t look to care one way or the other about him. In the end, that broke Lysander’s heart just as surely as tears or pleading would have. “I want to love you, Jenner. I didn’t expect to. But I do. Please remember it, even if I forget to tell you.” “Okay.” “I forgive you,” Grey told him. “We need to have that out, before anything else happens, here.”

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“Okay.” “Will you come back to my place tonight?” Lysander tried to make it sound inviting, like something wonderful might be in store if Jenner agreed. Lysander hated that he’d never extended such an invitation to Jenner in as many words before. He had no idea what might impress the duke, that was hardly his strong suit. He wanted to at least try, though. “Okay.” It sounded just like he had when he’d invited them to do their worst. Lysander started thinking, very hard, how to play this one out. *** Jenner sat in the back of Lysander’s skimmer and was being firmly cuddled by Grey. Jenner kept his hands on the seat and tried not to look as nervous as he felt. He’d much rather be driving them around, watching them smile at each other in the rearview mirror. Lysander had wanted to drive, which was beyond weirdness. Grey had put his arms around Jenner instead of Lysander this time, like he wasn’t sure about it, but intended to try. “I hate it when you leave,” Grey told him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know it bothered you.” Jenner thought they were probably pretty happy to have him out of their hair on a regular basis, but wasn’t going to argue with anyone tonight. He had no clue what rules everyone was playing by, and didn’t know if it was time to run or hide. What had happened was, he froze. He was still waiting to see if the danger was going to pass him over. “You’ve never been very pleased that I came back. I…” “Fuck you, Jenner. You take off. I think back and I’ve just been an asshole to you for days. I’ve barely spoken to you, except to ask for things or tell you what to do. Then I have to wait for you. By the time you get back I’m so scared you weren’t going to that I start being an asshole again. This isn’t working, man.” Grey sighed. “We can’t even find you when you take off.” “I had no idea you might be looking for me,” Jenner said, a little surprised by this revelation. “I always come back for whatever you wanted me to do next.” “What the hell do you think is going on here, between all of us?” Grey wanted to know. Jenner tried to be honest. “You love Lysander, and he loves you. Anyone can see that, if they just look. I’m trying to keep to my place in this as I understand it. It’s nothing you have to notice, Grey. You don’t have to put up with it for a second, if you don’t want it. Ask Lysander. I know what’s beneath his notice. I can be so silent, so invisible, whatever it takes to please you.” “That’s not it,” Grey said. “That’s not it at all. I don’t know what the hell this is, but

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Jenner, damn it; you’re a part of it, too. Equal shares for everyone, or this is going to kill one of us.” “Probably me,” Jenner said, trying to make Grey laugh. “Yes. Probably you. You were the one who wanted this bad enough to try and make it work.” Jenner shrugged. “You can tell me to go to hell any time you want. You can call me back from it again on a whim. You know that. I’m nowhere near being what’s happening to you, Grey.” “You are a part of what’s happening to me, Jenner. And you leave, and I can’t get in touch with you, can’t even find out if you’re still alive without calling your parents and looking like a lamer. And...” Grey stopped, and then continued in Vantishari “And my Standard still isn’t up to scratch. Nobody else understands a word I’m saying, half the time.” Jenner replied in the same language. “Your Standard improves every day, Grey. You did pretty good, picking it up from me and the Boyhaudens.” “Which means that when I speak Standard, I sound like a cross between some Servitors cum pirate spacers and a noble. This isn’t working for me, Jenner. And I… like knowing I can talk to someone who understands where I’m coming from, literally.” Jenner popped his comm link open and pulled up his list of callers who could ring through to him at any time of the day or night. He added Grey’s name. “Lysander’s, too,” Grey insisted. Jenner complied. “And you have to keep it with you all the time.” Jenner put it back in his pocket, where it constantly was, anyway. He ignored it a lot, but didn’t think this was the time to bring that up. Surely, they wouldn’t really need him for anything between visits. They had love, and each other. He had to remember that, and his place in all this, no matter what Grey tried to comfort him with. He had one place in his family, and kept to that. Surely it wouldn’t be hard to do the same thing for his lovers. They had true, pure love. What he had wasn’t remotely the magic. It probably wouldn’t work right for him, like so many things. He had to remember that his thing was like he, himself: weird, illegitimate in the face of their purity. At this point, he just wanted to see how it worked. It was beautiful just to watch happen, as far as he was concerned. Lysander pulled into his garage and went to the security pad mounted on the door into the kitchen. He did something on it, not just printing in. “Come here, Jenner.” Jenner did, and was surprised when Lysander grabbed his hand and put his thumb on the pad. “That’s everything, front door to attic storage.”

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Jenner pulled his hand back, feeling like he’d been branded. “Thank you.” “It used to be funny, you having to wait for us to let you in. Joke’s over.” Lysander led him upstairs, into the secured area. Not to their bedrooms or the lounge, which was where Jenner ended up sleeping when he was allowed to stay. Instead, Lysander opened a door to a room that faced out over the back of the house. It had been decorated in midnight blue, gold and dark woods. “Whoa,” Jenner said, very impressed. “This is your room here, Jenner. Don’t argue with me,” Lysander told him. Jenner hadn’t planned to, anyway. There was a little table and very soft chairs set by the window. Jenner made himself comfortable and looked out over the city. He hadn’t turned the lights on, because the city was glittering up at him in a dazzling display. After a minute, he looked around the room, taking in the sofa, the massive bed, the work space. He saw Lysander and Grey still standing there in the dark. He stood up; ready to follow them wherever they wanted to take him. Grey shut the door. Everything was shadows on darkness, shapes moving quietly towards him. He could just make out the silhouette when Grey pulled all three shirts off at once and threw them on the floor. Lysander didn’t hesitate on that lead. Jenner sucked in his breath, completely confused. They held him between them, arms around his shoulders and kissed him, both at the same time. It was simple, not a thing he needed to be told. Just kiss the lovers that held him. Jenner held on tight, completely terrified but trying like hell. How the fuck was he supposed to keep his stupid love to himself, if they were going to do this to him? Grey stepped back. “Can you see me?” Jenner took a breath, tried to think how to explain. “Grey, I can do anything you want, anything at all, brightest day or darkest night. I don’t need to see.” Lysander kissed Jenner, right by himself and it was sweet and hot and passionate. He kept holding Jenner when he was done. “You have got to help me show you the difference between those warm bodies downstairs and what I’m having with you. I’ve tried to show you, but I don’t think you’re seeing it.” “You always let us do what we want to you,” Grey was a warm weight against Jenner’s side, and he talked into Jenner’s chest, in Vantishari. “Tell me what you want us to give you.” Jenner stepped back, surprised, and covered it by going to close all the drapes. “Can you guys see at all?” Definitely not. Good. Jenner had an advantage here, at long, long last. He stripped down and lay down on the bed, liking the velvet on his bare skin. “I am lying on the bed, very naked and very hard. Sex, in and of itself, makes me feel loved.

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You need not care for me at all. Take your pleasure of me, for yourself. Let me be what I have been. Even just one of you, for a few short minutes of your time. I won’t even ask who you send to me. I’ll never even try to figure out who it is. I will do anything you want from me, in return.” Jenner listened to them whispering. Neither of them wanted to be let off. He’d wanted to leave them an easy out. They could just walk away from this, he could take it. But they told him it was a package deal. Then belts started hitting the floor. He listened to the clothes, counted in his head and could not believe they were both taking off every stitch, together and at the same time. “Okay, Lysander, did you move even a step to do that?” “No.” “Okay, take four steps forward and stop. Grey, I know you didn’t move. You take three steps to the left. Good. Now, both of you, two steps forward and raise your hands up from your sides.” “Bad ass!” Grey said, and Jenner chuckled. He listened to them work their way up the bed and put one arm around each of them as they came in on his sides. They leaned over him and kissed deeply, trading around, together, whatever felt good. They touched him softly, petting him like they truly were going to share something between the three of them, something just for Jenner, as a gift. Grey wanted to learn something the boys did for him. He hadn’t bothered before, but now he wanted to catch up on some of what he'd not returned. “Lysander,” Grey whispered. “You have to tell me how.” “No problem,” Lysander whispered back. “Just keep kissing me, okay?” “Now, look, guys. I know you need some practice, Grey, so just take your time. But listen, if it’s okay, I’d like to go ahead and do something a little weird. It’s like clarity, but different. It seems the time.” Jenner was absolutely thrilled, he’d wanted to do this again for so long now, but hadn’t gotten the attention he needed. He lay very still, wishing hard. “Jenner, you can’t do clarity like this. Grey doesn’t know how,” Lysander said, like he was apologizing for something. “No, it’s just for me. It’s just something I can do. I can go a few rounds. It kind of works the same,” Jenner hastened to explain. “Just keep going till you’ve had enough. I’ll be right here with you.” “But clarity is something I can learn, and be able to go a few rounds any time?” Grey demanded.

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“How the hell do you think I keep up with two men half my age? I’m fucking over forty years old, Grey,” Lysander sounded irritated, but amused. Jenner laughed so hard he had to sit up. They all did, hanging on to each other, and loving how ridiculous their sex lives were together. There was lots of laughing, between them. It just didn’t show much. Jenner lay back down and breathed deeply. “I hope I didn’t break the mood with this. I really just meant that you can take your time. I can do a few rounds or turns or whatever you want. There was an offer implied somewhere in all this.” Jenner listened to them kissing, relied on past experience for the image in his mind. Sweet mouths, both of them, and very accomplished. They stopped. “Okay, Grey, here’s how this works. We’re going to keep kissing, and we’re going to kiss Jenner, too, but this time, we’ll kiss his cock instead of his mouth. That’s how it starts.” What a unique way to phrase the objective. Maybe now Jenner knew why they said if you wanted to give a world-class blowjob and didn’t know how, ask Lysander to show you. Nobody had ever had a negative word to say about his own ability, so he’d never asked. Jenner sighed, hot lips and tongues making no sense, but a lot of pleasure on the head of his cock. It was fabulous, and he’d been with Lysander’s disciples. There was, clearly, a reason he was their teacher. Lysander and Grey kissed, licked and tasted every square inch of Jenner’s cock, in unison. It was like sliding in and out of something very unique and wonderful. “Okay, Grey, we need to switch sides. They’re different, every one, and you have to learn it all to do the thing justice.” They did, very quickly, and Jenner cried out, hips lifting under them. “Skies!” he moaned. He rode it, twisting happily as his lovers made it last and last for him. Their kissing was unspeakably passionate on him. He cried out his love, showing it in his surrender to their desire. He put a hand on each head and stroked, softly, crying out again, sobbing, apologizing hard for how wonderful he felt. It had been a long time. He didn’t really expect much out of himself, and didn’t much care about anything else when he came, hard, all over his own belly. He raised his hands, begging them to let him rest, just a little. They sat up. “What the hell was that?” Grey asked. “That’s not what you… oh. Something different.” Jenner laughed, completely buzzing. “Oh, yes, indeedy, Grey. You are going to dig this. But you have to give me a few minutes.” Jenner hummed to himself while Lysander was patient for Grey to practice the next part. Grey was a fast learner. There had been some mention of him liking to do tricks with his body. He'd meant acrobatics and stuff like that, but this had possibilities. He’d not wanted to learn anything before. Maybe he thought he knew. Most did, at that point.

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Something happened, and Lysander came very loudly, and for a long time. Jenner had to make Grey understand that this really would be enough. Lysander was apparently going to do a practical demonstration of clarity, right here and now. Jenner told Grey, and kissed him to taste Lysander on his tongue at last. They kept kissing, deeply, and Lysander got his voice back. “We really do have to start teaching him some more about this whole fucking thing. We’re obviously missing out on a lot here.” “I can tell that someone around here is,” Jenner said. “Are you sure he’s ready for it?” “This is sex and it sounds damn hot and I want it,” Grey said, no hesitation. “I want to know that thing Lysander did, where he relaxes his muscles in his ass. I can practice.” It simply hadn’t occurred to Jenner that Grey would not have seen how someone was opened, for the first time. “Were you thinking you had to do that, to have that kind of sex?” “It’s the only way I ever even heard of, where it might not hurt like a motherfucker the first time.” A reasonable assumption and good logic. He just didn’t know Jenner Garu well enough. “Well, you are just in the right bed tonight, mister, because I have something very cool indeed to show you.” He had Grey lie on his stomach, got lube, came back and said, “Now, Grey, you just need to relax a little, and trust us. You know you can, and we only want this to be very, very good for you. They made a very big thing of massaging Grey all over, touching him wherever he would let them, showing him that he was the point to all this. It was special, a first time, because they would be the last people to touch his body before it became something new for Grey. It was to be carefully done, and with love and pleasure. Grey was twisting for a while, then sighed and sank deep into himself, hips stirring on the sheets. They spent a long time massaging Grey’s ass, letting him get used to being touched there, with intent. He liked it almost immediately, rubbing against them and parting his legs slightly when they asked him to. Jenner and Lysander took turns, giving little pleasures that helped Grey relax and let them inside. Grey was very excited, twisting hard under Jenner’s hand as Jenner pressed deeper, and oiled him carefully. “I can’t… I want… Jenner, please… I need something, I don’t…” Grey was not going to be talking any more sense, and the near-panic was not going to be helpful to him. “Okay, Grey, now, calm down,” Jenner and Lysander took their hands away until he did. Jenner thought carefully. “Are we still on for this?” “Yeah,” Grey said, sounding a little high-strung, that needy kind that Jenner recognized. “Wonderful,” Jenner kissed the back of his neck. “I’m going to do something. It’s going

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to be… a little weird, but it’ll help you. I just need you to trust me a little.” Jenner oiled two of Lysander’s fingers very thoroughly, and pressed them lightly to Grey’s anus. Jenner put his other hand on the base of Grey’s spine and petted slowly, drawing Grey’s attention until he relaxed again, and murmured a low, edgy need. Jenner guided Lysander’s fingers right on in. Grey moaned appreciatively as Lysander amped up the pleasure factor. Jenner left them to it. So Lysander took his time, opening Grey and showing him hidden things that he’d not known were there to find. Jenner stretched out on his stomach, kissing Grey and tasting his sighs. Between the two, Grey started asking for more. Lysander just kept going until Grey was actually begging them to show him the next part. “Which will you have?” Jenner asked. It was all Grey’s choice. He needed to make it. If Grey was a Deamonett, he’d have had the whole damn monastery trying to be good enough for this, let alone the scads of practitioners trying to get involved. He would have had a lot of choices. They told him this, and asked if he wouldn’t rather wait a little. Grey said he had the pick of the men he wanted, right now. Jenner was just glad he was one of the options. He knew it would be Lysander. That was love between them, and he still had things to do. “My duke, of course,” Grey absolutely floored him. “I want you. I really do, Jenner. This all feels so good. But you’re not as… big… as Lysander, and I’d prefer that right now.” Well, Jenner just hadn’t thought of that, and Grey was right. It had been a very long time since Jenner had seen a cock he didn’t think he could handle. He’d forgotten what the impression was like. He was glad Grey had the thought for himself. Lysander didn’t really have any business trying to deflower virgins with what he had. Not guys like Grey, who were nowhere near what Jenner had been in his late teens. Jenner was gentle, slow, getting Grey onto his back. Jenner kissed Grey so tenderly he started straining for more. Jenner parted his legs and lay down between them, prepared himself and found the angle he was going to need. Again, Jenner kissed Grey, hard, deep, hands buried in hair and Grey put his arms around Jenner, holding him tight. Jenner got his foreskin to cooperate. The tip of his cock slid in, just far enough, and stopped. “Breathe deep,” he said. “Through your nose. Stay with me. You are so beautiful. Breathe, now. If you want to stop, I will. Just breathe very deep. You’ll feel how good this is.” Grey did, and moaned a moment later. Jenner eased back, waited, and slid in a little more. Grey cursed, sweetly, in his own language, and then breathed again, relaxing with the pleasure. Jenner entered him totally. They lay still together, joined and kissing deeply. Jenner shifted, minutely, taking his time. Finally, he pressed against something that made Grey twist under him, and try to make it happen again.

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“Jenner, may I?” Lysander asked, touching Jenner’s ass. “Please,” Jenner said, turning to kiss him. “I can not believe how much I keep loving you guys,” Grey told them, very softly. Jenner cleared his throat. “Us?” “Well… yeah. I love you, Jenner. I love you both. I thought that’s what we were doing here…” “I love you very much, Grey. I just didn’t know you returned it.” Lysander could have taken that entry slower, but this was no time to nit-pick. “Remember about breathing, Grey.” They moved together, stroking and petting, joined and crying out names at random. Jenner touched Grey’s cock lovingly but with great enthusiasm, thrust with precision but deep passion, and guided him straight up to the edge of that place where the pleasure went on for miles all around. Jenner wanted to make it last, thought it would be easy to do. Grey had other ideas, and lost his tension and hesitancy with very little help. He found an angle he liked, and a speed. Jenner was in no position to stop him. Lysander knew what was going on, and held Jenner firmly against his body, impaled on his cock. Jenner let his knees slip apart, shifting his weight until they could both have him exactly the way they needed him right then. Grey’s ass was tight, almost painfully so. That was to be expected. Jenner tried to ease off of it, and couldn’t. Lysander was driving him forward, deeper, because that’s what Grey was crying out for. Unreal, Jenner thought, realizing that it wasn’t passing through his body, from Lysander to Grey with him as the conduit. He’d felt that before, and it had been magnificent. He was in this, part of this. They were both making love to him at the same time. He was their lover, and they called out to him again and again. He thrust his ass back against Lysander, let his head fall back and was surprised when he was kissed, deeply, and not let go. Grey writhed on the bed, one hand on Jenner’s, showing him how he wanted to be touched. The other hand was on Jenner’s hip, pulling him closer, deeper. It was easy, simple, a long undulation of his hips that made them both encourage him, call him so good. He wanted to give more. There just wasn’t any time. It was too damn good to last. Grey came hard. Jenner let his body go, and a minute later, Lysander did, too. The bed was shaking hard. Grey was just screaming with it, but they all were, because it kept going for more than just a few heartbeats. It went on for a very long time, echoing back and forth as their separate pleasures were put onto one another’s flesh. It was clean and pure. Jenner let his body arch easily between them, part of it all at last.

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Jenner knew he was trembling, knew Lysander’s arms were the only thing holding him up, and then felt velvet under him. It took a long time to do more than breathe and lie still, pressed tight to his lovers’ skin. They stirred from time to time, finding kisses and soft words until their bodies were no longer on fire from what they had created together. There was cuddling to be done, of course: kissing and petting and dressing, and good night. Jenner lay in his bed a long time after, though, touching all the places of his body where the three of them had found their purity together.

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Chapter 7: To Be Remembered Grey walked into Jenner’s room and saw something he simply couldn’t explain. Light and color was dancing around in Jenner’s hands. “That’s badass, what is it?” Jenner looked up, surprised. Whatever toy he’d been playing with went still in his hands. “Nothing.” Grey came at him, dodged left, came up on the right and snatched it from his hands. “What the hell is this? “Grey, please, don’t. It’s the only thing I have…” Jenner tried to argue. “Bullshit, you’ve got all kinds of toys,” Grey reminded him, and went to ask Lysander what the hell it was. Jenner had wanted to hide it; he sure wasn’t going to explain it to Grey. “Lysander, do you know how this works?” Grey plopped down on the sofa in the lounge and watched his boyfriend get sucked off by one of the houseguests. Pretty girl, good technique, but Grey had never seen her around before. “What?” “This,” Grey said, holding up the device he’d picked off of Jenner. “How do I work this?” Lysander looked hard at the object, recognized it, swore, came up off the sofa and dragged Grey by the arm back to Jenner’s room. “Give it back to him right now.” “I just wanted to know how to play with it…” Grey whined, bouncing a little on his toes. Lysander grabbed him by the chin and made him look at Jenner. Jenner was standing at the window, looking out over the city, but even Grey couldn’t miss the long line of tears, once he’d been made to look. “Shit.” He went quietly then, and held the thing out to Jenner. The duke’s fingers closed over it, so gently that Grey thought it might be far more delicate than he’d originally assumed. Jenner didn’t open his eyes, just stood there weeping hard and not complaining. He didn’t take it, though, just touched it, like it was very special. “I’m sorry, Jenner. I thought it was a toy.” “It is. I’ll give it to you, if you really want it. It won’t work for you, but you can have it if you like it. I have lots of toys.” Jenner didn’t move, and sounded like the words were being torn from him, bloody. It made them no less sincere. “I don’t want it anymore,” Grey told him, and meant it for real, this time. “I just wanted to see how it worked.” He pushed the thing back into Jenner’s hands and took a couple of steps away from the duke. He was always hurting Jenner’s feelings, and never knew about it until it was too late.

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Lysander came up behind Grey and held him tight, making him stay in the room. “It’s not your fault, Grey. You couldn’t have known what it was, or what it meant, to Jenner.” “He asked me please not to,” Grey shot back at Lysander. “That should have told me right there.” He pushed away from Lysander and tried to think how to make this right. He dug out his wallet, chains clinking as he got his little bag of valuables loose from his pocket. He pulled out what he kept in the lining, and went to Jenner again. “Here.” Jenner looked down at the holo. It was scratched, and had faded something awful over the years. It hadn’t been very good quality, to begin with. The image looked more like a ghost, now, but Grey knew every feature by heart. He’d known his clothes when he’d seen them, everything about his break-out had been crystal clear. He’d seen his clothes, grabbed what he needed. There had been a moment when he could. It was the only thing he’d been able to keep. Jenner looked for a long time, and then went to the dataset. “Hey,” Grey said, a little strained, when it was stuck in the reader slot. “Hey, what are you doing?” Jenner didn’t answer, but the machine clicked and whirred for a moment. Jenner picked up a little holodisk from the delivery slot and brought it back to Grey. There she was, in living color, like Grey hadn’t seen in years. He couldn’t stop the tears, then, just like Jenner could hardly ever stop his own. “Oh, fuck, man. Thank you so damn much.” Jenner was always taking what Grey pushed on him, and making it better. Always taking Grey’s mistakes and handing them back like they were gifts. In Vantishari, Grey said “This is precious to me.” “And this to me. It’s the only thing I have from my Pop, from his real life, aside from what he taught me.” “Who is the holo of, Grey?” Lysander asked in Standard. “It’s my mother,” Grey told them, surprised that they hadn’t somehow known. “See? I have her smile.” His lovers came close then, and looked at her. He knew they were seeing a dumpy, middle-aged woman who was worn out by too much life and hard work. He didn’t care. She was beautiful, to him, and always would be. “You look just like her,” Jenner said, hugging him. “She must have loved you very much, to give you that.” Grey nodded, knowing Jenner was just saying what sounded right to him, trying to make Grey smile. It was what he needed to hear, though, and Jenner always gave him what he needed. “She did. She loved me more than she loved herself. And when she was gone, nobody ever cared about me again, until I met you. There was the boys, the other runners, but it’s different out there.”

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Jenner looked down at him, concerned. “Grey, I… I pulled you out of there because I didn’t think you had anywhere to go. Was I wrong? Did I take you away from something?” Grey dashed the tears from his eyes and lifted his chin. “I had a cierc out there, Jenner. Gangs, you call them. I was part of it. My whole damn cierc left me to die. If you’re asking if I had anything remotely like what we have here, no. No way, and there’s nothing there I’d trade this for. Maybe I’d go back for my mother, but she’s dead and there’s nothing to go back for but ash.” “How long ago was that?” Lysander asked him very gently, and held him that way, too, from the other side. “Ten years ago? Nine? It’s hard to remember. I was ten. I was alone and a freeman. I stopped counting days and started working. I lost some time, in there. I got hurt and was sick for a while. I don’t really know for how long.” Grey hated being asked about time, age, distance, years. He didn’t know, hadn’t been in any position to try and keep track, and now had no way of really figuring it out. The guys took his generalizations as if he were giving dates and details, and Grey appreciated it. They held him for a long time, listened to what he remembered about her: the way she laughed, how she’d always gone to such trouble to make things easier on Grey, though they had nothing. She was the one who made sure he could read, write and speak correctly, because that would help him later. She had taught him all the social graces a freeman needed to stay that way. Being able to read directions and take notes had been the only reason he’d been allowed to work for the drug runners, even with her last gedlt to buy protection. They’d called him smart, and brave. Grey had learned to survive with them. He had never gotten into debt, earned his own keep and kept his freedom. Grey had seen the Commonwealth now, knew he didn’t have even a sliver of the education most people got here. His was all in the wrong language. He’d learned to play bass guitar, figuring it out on his own in the middle of the night, and then asked Lysander for a job. He was smart. He was brave. But he was tired of learning only how to survive. He wanted to know how to make a life for himself. They surprised him by sitting him between them on Jenner’s sofa and asking him about home. They hadn’t cared before. Grey didn’t like to tell them. Everyone here was so clean and happy. He didn’t like his boys knowing how people hurt and suffered in other places. Somehow, they felt guilty because there was nothing they could do about it. He told them about the place he’d been born, the child of two freemen. He used words like ‘slum’ and ‘ghetto’ because they meant what the boys would understand. He tried to explain that everywhere he’d seen before coming here was like that. He told them about the fact that the land around Underville was so alkaline nothing grew there but weeds. He ate the garbage of the rich and tried hard to be one of them. All the richest people were high up in a cierc. Grey had been trying like hell, since he was ten years old. He’d

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become a shooter pretty early on, and had a good head on him. It had helped a lot. His ears had been pierced, eight holes to a side, the day he was born. His father hadn’t lived long enough for Grey to remember him at all. Long enough to see his son circumcised, so that no matter what, he knew he was born free. His father hadn’t been. That was about what Grey knew of him. His mother, though, had gotten good gedlt for them when she accepted Grey’s father. She left him with just enough, to buy into a cierc on his own. He knew enough to be able to read maps and make runs. He was brave enough to make one of those machines his own. He’d seen almost every other boy that came into the cierc with him die. One in twenty was the odds out there and he’d been damn lucky. The guys looked upset by that, so Grey had to explain it. The other boys had been either stupid, or owned. They didn’t have anything in their minds that was worth more than their bodies were. They got handed the worst of the work. If they survived it, they got taught something else to do. For Grey, he started out marking books for the cierc and wanting to know where all those runners were going. One had laughed, put him up on the back of his bike and showed him. The runners didn’t need to be able to write. They had to remember, flawlessly. They taught Grey how. He’d been given freeman’s work, instead of being treated like some stupid owned who couldn’t read, write or talk worth listening to. It meant he was strong enough and fed enough to have the time and energy to learn new things. It was, essentially, the difference between life and death for him. He finally got the guys to understand that. He tried to impress upon them the true nature of his status back home. “Look, I’m enjoying the hell out of living here with you. I understand that this is privileged. But I’ve been privileged compared to other people for a long fucking time. Yes, this is more than I’ve had in my whole life. I certainly like it. But I’m not going to crawl to you and thank you for treating me like I’m your fucking equal. I’m not freebought, I’m a freeman, and a citizen. You keep telling me I am just like you.” Jenner assured him that he was, most certainly. “But isn’t this what would have happened if rich men loved you, back home?” “Of course,” Grey told him, a bit snappishly. “I never sold myself, not once, not for any price. Eight years is a fucking long time to hang on to your freedom out there. I’m too old to fuck around much longer, if I’m ever going to be rich, too.” “Isn’t living here with us the same damn thing?” Jenner asked. “As being free and rich, I mean?” Grey frowned at him. “I guess so, if I have the right to sell this house and take the cred. I don’t know enough to do the kind of things people do here to make cred. I can barely read Standard, you know that. I am learning what I can as fast as you guys teach it to me.”

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Lysander sat forward. “You’re expecting us to give you an education?” Grey blinked, shocked and a little hurt to think they might hold out on him. “Well… yeah. You know all kinds of things. I’ve seen you doing math. Like, writing it down, not in your head. Hell, I’ve seen you write music down. I go to the Pits six days a week and learn everything Fandy will show me. I can do the fucking work, man. I can do any kind of work you want to hand me. I’ve learned everything you’ve taught me so far.” Jenner held up his hand. “Wait, Grey. Did you just learn what people taught you, every day? Is that how you picked up so much Standard from the Boyhaudens?” “I learned anything anyone knew. I didn’t want to be a pest and bother you for more Standard lessons, but I’ve got to be able to do better than this. Fandy tried to show me that contract you wrote with him. It was about me and I didn’t understand it. I had to just trust you to look after me, like some dumb owned. Fandy and Pixie promised me it was a good one. They said I needed to be able to read things like that and understand them.” Grey sighed. “If it was in Vantishari, I could have. I know I could, because I did understand when they told me what all the words really meant.” Jenner and Lysander exchanged very significant looks. “Grey, listen,” Lysander finally said. “You remember how I told you there were places I used to go, to learn music? That’s what Jenner’s talking about. School, where you go to learn. You don’t have to hang around waiting for us to teach you, anyway.” “Wow,” Grey was completely impressed. “No wonder you guys have all the good ideas. So, where do I go?” Jenner smiled. “Well, you’re a little old to be going to school for the first time, Grey. Let’s try something else, first.” Jenner got him up and took him into his own bedroom. He was sat in front of the dataset. He looked up at Jenner, surprised. “Turn it on,” Jenner said. Grey did what he was told, for once. He could do that much, and knew how to make the dataset give him games to play. He just wasn’t very good at reading Standard, and hadn’t known how to get more lessons out of Jenner. The guys knew so much. It was hard to choose, sometimes. Jenner knelt down on the floor beside him. “Okay, now bring up the galacnet. Ask for basic education.” Jenner spelled it for him. Grey entered the request carefully. Something with bright colors and big writing popped up, and played a happy little tune. “Level Ones Enter Here!” suggested a very perky voice. Grey looked at Jenner, confused. “Year one, that’s you, Grey. You’re smart and brave. I’m going to help you get what you want.” Jenner looked very excited about the whole thing. “It’s free. Take anything

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you can wrap your mind around.” Grey made him bring a chair for himself, and stay until Grey was very certain he understood exactly how this worked. “You’re telling me there’s a teacher in this box? All the time?” Jenner nodded. “Everyone has access to a dataset of some kind in the Commonwealth. Everyone can get on the galacnet, if they really try. Everyone gets an education if only they’ll take it, Grey.” Where Grey came from, knowledge was the only thing more valuable than gedlt. He thanked Jenner, made a run to the kitchen and closed his door. Double locked it, because this was going to take some time. It took a couple of hours to understand that, basically, they told him what he would need to know, then just made sure he understood it. This was going to be too easy, like hanging out with Jenner, but without the weird sideconversations. Grey settled in to get hold of one more thing he’d never heard of before throwing in with Jenner. He didn’t want to tell the boys that he didn’t like being poor while living inside a web of wealth. He loved them. He trusted them. There was that, and then there was his freedom. He’d put food in his own mouth from the moment his parents had stopped being able to do it for him. They were his boyfriends, not his cierc or his family. He didn’t have the right to expect anything from them. There were very real reasons that they might decide to just take it all away from him again. His own cierc had left him to die, simply because he had not been worth the expense and bother of saving. He knew what betrayal was, and the realities of expedience. He loved them, very much, and trusted them with his life. But he was by fuck going to take care of himself, like the freeman he’d been born. *** Lysander came up the stairs, whistling a happy tune and feeling very pleased with himself. He’d known Jenner hadn’t thought of this, though he probably would have before long. It hadn’t been Jenner, though, who’d been home when Fandy came by to ask if Grey was sick. Lysander had known Grey was spending a hell of a lot of time on his dataset these last few weeks. He hadn’t known Grey was skipping his bike practice to do it. Fandy had been let into the house, on the basis that he actually knew who Grey was and was worried about him. Grey was locked up in his rooms. Lysander had been brought by the staff, instead. Nothing was to interrupt Grey’s studies. If that meant room service around the clock and bothering the boss, so be it. “Holy fuck, you’re Lysander Edvard!” Fandy correctly identified his host. “I am. Welcome to my house. I heard you were worried that Grey was sick. He’s fine.

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He’s just got one of his fits on him. It’ll pass, I guess,” Lysander told the man, recognizing his name and not much else. “That doesn’t sound like the Grey I know. Are you sure I have the right house?” Fandy looked around himself, trying to memorize everything. “I’m sure. You’re that guy teaching him how to chase dragons down in the Clay Pits?” Lysander ushered Fandy out of the front hall and into one of the more quiet public rooms, where they could talk. “Drink?” Fandy made himself at home with the bar, and brought one back for Lysander. They were instant friends. “I wouldn’t have come and bothered you, but he was getting damn close to landing his Timberland Invert. He’s losing skills, skipping out so much. This was the only place I knew to look for him.” “I’ll be sure to let Jenner know,” Lysander promised him. “He’s the only one of us who seems to know what the hell Grey’s doing down there with you.” “Us?” “We’re together, me, Grey and Jenner. As to where Grey’s been, Jenner showed him where the educational programs are on the galacnet. He’s become a hermit for the moment,” Lysander hoped Fandy could understand what an education could do for Grey. “Well, hot damn. If you guys are making him go to school, the fucking Timberland can sit there and wait.” Fandy looked as pleased about Grey studying as if he’d had something to do with it himself. “Though, if you want to send him with, like, pit work, he can do that while he waits for his runs. We spend an awful lot of time waiting around for turns, down there. That kid stood under a cloud of dust and understood legalese. Just can’t read what’s right in front of him. Needs work on it.” “I’ll see if we can work something out. I didn’t know he was cutting lessons with you to take more lessons here at home,” Lysander told him. “I guess that’s why the credit kept rolling in,” Fandy joked. “You promise me you’ll help him get class work done down there, and I’ll see about getting him to all his lessons, deal?” They shook on it, and Fandy had shit to do. Lysander told him he was welcome, any time. That sent the biker bouncing down the front steps like he’d won some kind of prize. Lysander didn’t even really need to think too hard to arrive at a solution. He drove down into the city and back, as fast as he could push his skimmer. It made him think of Jenner. That was when he’d realized he’d got the drop on the duke. “Grey?” Lysander knocked. Only he or Jenner did that, these days. Grey had been

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learning an awful lot of new swear words from his Standard as a Second Language classmates. “Fandy came by a little while ago. We need to talk.” Grey came and let him in, looking like he’d been caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to. “Is he bitching about that Timberland? Because I’m going to nail that motherfucker the first chance I get to go back down there.” “That’s going to be tomorrow,” Lysander told him firmly. Grey looked at his dataset, looked at Lysander and then just stood there, looking confused and waiting for it to be explained to him. Lysander got Grey to sit down at the table with him, and put his package on the table between them. “What’s that?” Grey asked, not even touching it, he was so suspicious. “It’s a present. I just went and got it. Now, listen. By the time I was your age, I was doing six hours of music lessons a day, and five of higher ed. It was a pain in the ass. I wanted both so I made myself do it anyway. Now, how bad do you really want to be a stunt biker?” Lysander asked him. The schooling wasn’t changing the way Grey talked or acted much. Still, he dished out a pretty good math lesson, if you ignored the swearing. “Bad. Totally. Completely. But I need to know this other stuff, too, man.” “Okay, so here’s how you do it. Open your present.” Grey did, laying the lightslate and the compact desk kit on the table. He looked at them like he didn’t know what they were. “Explain it to me,” Grey said. That came a lot easier to him these days. He’d had lots of practice, with the dataset. “This is a lightslate. The very best, top of the line technology available in the Commonwealth. They were developed to be used by Servitors in the field. They’re lightweight, compact, versatile, will do everything a dataset will, and a couple extras on the side. The Servitors have a right shit time of it, mostly, so these things are damn near indestructible. You can access the galacnet from anywhere you can pull a signal with it. Here on Kais, that means the entire surface of the planet, even at sea. Definitely down in the Clay Pits, if you take my meaning.” Grey did, and bounced hard in his seat, trying to think what to say. “Fuck, Lysander! Thank you! So damn much, I just can’t tell you!” Lysander sustained a severe hug, but got no injuries from it. “Why doesn’t everyone use them instead of datasets?” “They’re fucking expensive, Grey. They’re literally the very best technology all of the sectors in the Commonwealth put together can produce. The Servitors once asked to be able to yell for help from anywhere they might be sent. This is what the Commonwealth gave them. Comm links weren’t cutting it. They had to be able to send all kinds of details back and forth. Kourt guards his like he guards his hotguns. If that isn’t a seal of

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approval, I don’t know what is.” “Bad ass.” Grey got up and went to his desk, dug through his art supplies. From what Lysander understood, he was burning through the basic ed materials like a man possessed; all of it; everything in each level, just because it was there and he could. Grey found what he was looking for and brought back a fat, black ink marker. “I never asked you, before, but I want to now,” Grey said, holding out the lightslate and pen in the universal sign for ‘may I have your autograph?’ Lysander took them with more grace than he had in years. He turned the lightslate over, and wrote where it would be seen at the top, whenever Grey used the thing. ‘To the smartest, bravest man I ever met.’ He underlined ‘man’ and signed his full name under it. “There. I just added four hundred credits to the value of your lightslate.” “You totally rock,” Grey told him, and put a serious kiss on the musician. “Hey, even the critics tell me that,” Lysander smiled at him. “Now, I also got you a desk kit. It has your datachips and your slides and your holochips and all that. I got you a secured package, so you can also press credit chips with it. You can finally use that credit line Jenner gave you. You hardly ever do.” Grey figured out by himself that the thing would teach him how to use it. Lysander was utterly forgotten within minutes. Lysander snuck from the room, feeling he’d done a very good day’s work indeed. Jenner was going to have a fit when he found out he’d missed it. *** Grey wanted to see Jenner, very soon, but had gotten up early and gone down to the Pits without bothering him. He’d not got the Timberland right. He’d actually got it wrong enough that Grease was still down there trying to repair the damage. He’d lost his place in the rotation, and had been sent up a mound to sit with all the other grinds. They were the younger riders, like Grey. Some were being made to study right there in the Pits while they waited their turn. Grey had never noticed them before, but wished he had. He sat down on a comfortable patch of dirt and had a look around. Everyone else was working from printouts, so he tried not to be conspicuous when he took his lightslate out. Having the very best bike credit could buy was one thing. Showing up with the very best data technology credit could buy might be something else. Nobody paid him any attention, so he put his earpiece in and got down to work. Nobody interrupted him for a long time. There was a lot of waiting involved in biking. Fandy was the one that finally kicked the bottom of his boot and said “Are you pitching in for food today?” Grey put his hand in his pocket and came up empty. “Shit. I forgot to ask for chips

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when I left the house. Everyone was still asleep.” “Well, fuck. Everyone’s short, and you’re not the only one coming up bone dry today. We can’t stay out here with no food or drink, the sun alone would kill us.” Fandy looked down at the Pit. He kept an eye on everyone. It was the only order they needed here. Grey remembered something that Lysander had said, in passing. “How much do we need, exactly?” Fandy counted what he’d collected. “We’re short almost seventy-five, man. We need fresh fruit, water, you know.” Grey saved off his work and took a hard look at the options his lightslate presented him with. “Hang on, I’m going to try to pull something, here.” There was something called ‘CreditServ’ listed, and he opened that. It presented him with a small, white box outlined in green and asked for his credit id. The box reminded Grey of the security things at Lysander’s house, so he tried his thumbprint. The lightslate gave him back his picture, and asked him for a withdrawal amount. He looked up this new word and figured it out. The lightslate seemed to get what he meant. It asked him to insert a blank credit chip. There was a loud click, and the chip popped back out again. “Here you go, man.” “Heavy, Grey. Where’d you get that thing?” Fandy looked at the lightslate with interest. “Lysander gave it to me, so I could do my schoolwork down here. I just didn’t think about printing it up and hauling it down. He’d already bought this, so…” Grey shrugged. “Who’s Lysander?” one of the other grinds, Cason, wanted to know. “My boyfriend,” Grey told him. “I thought Jenner was your boyfriend,” Cason said back. “What’s this Lysander got that a duke doesn’t?” Grey held up his lightslate and let them read the autograph there. “They say it’s called being poly. Jenner banked me to get my citizenship, bought my bike and all. Lysander gave me a place to stay. It works.” There was a long silence. “What do they make you do?” someone asked, very quietly. Grey didn’t like the tone of that, not about what he and his boys had. “They don’t make me do a damn thing, and never have. Never will. I’m with them because I want to be.” “And you can just walk away, any time you want?” Cason asked.

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“Hey, fuck you, little boy. Lysander and Jenner are tight with Grey. You can run your repressed, wannabe ass right on out of this Pit if that’s a problem for you. The magic works for everybody, period,” Fandy said, ending it right there. Fandy was very big on the magic of love, because of Pixie. Nobody argued with anything that had to do with Pixie. Pixie herself came to collect Grey when his bike was ready. She seemed to be making some kind of point to the grinds, and they took it manfully. When he thought about it later, he realized he’d been distracted and should have hung back a little. But he’d been waiting all morning, and was by fuck going to nail that damn Timberline. The bike ditched out okay. He felt it, when his neck should have snapped, but somehow didn’t. That meant he could feel what hadn’t held up to the fall. He’d broken his left arm once before. It certainly didn’t hurt any less the second time, but long instinct kept him quiet and down. Fandy was the first one to reach him. “Grey? You here with us, man?” “Broke my cwara damned motherfucking stroke arm again,” Grey told him, and knew he wasn’t going to be tough for very long with this. It was hurting much worse, this time. That was going a piece, considering how he’d done it the first time. His body armor had pretty much done its job, keeping his skin on him where it belonged. “I think I should have just died.” They got him rolled out, checked him over carefully. They popped his helmet when they were sure that first bounce really hadn’t broken his neck. He was able to finally turn his head and throw up. Somebody held his hair, somebody else helped him not choke while that happened. The pain trebled, and the world got very, very distant. “We have to move you out of here, Grey.” He knew they had to. Knew they’d never mention again how he’d screamed, and begged them to stop. He was glad when he was put down and given water to drink. Everyone gathered around, using their bodies to make some shade for him. Someone gave him fruit to suck on while they called a medic transport. “You got insurance, man?” Fandy wanted to know. “What’s that?” Grey cleverly asked. Fandy just stared at him, dumbfounded. “Who do we call for you?” Pixie asked him, but kindly. That was definitely odd. “Jenner,” Grey said, and saying his name was all it took to make him start crying. “Jenner fixes everything when I fuck it up.” *** Fandy hated calling sponsors to tell them their rider was going to miss the season. He’d

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never hated it more than when he had to call Duke Jenner Garu. He’d thought he was going to get a purely emotional reaction. The duke had surprised him. He calmly asked about the extent of the injuries, probable career impact, and had given Grey’s insurance information, apparently from memory. Didn’t stop the duke from skidding his skimmer into the pit in a mound-high plume of dust. Didn’t stop him running to the crowd, knowing exactly what was in the middle of it and coming to face it anyway. Fandy only then remembered how Jenner had looked in the bar that night. The medics didn’t even beat Jenner to the scene. It was a good thing, too. Grey had lost his grasp on Standard when they’d moved him. The only sense they’d been able to get was when he’d said Jenner’s name. Grey didn’t seem to know that he was crying for his lover in Outspeak. Fandy figured he didn’t care. Jenner talked to him for the medics, for the riders, for anyone who had anything to say to the kid. Fandy climbed into the medic transport with them. Jenner had asked him what the hell he was doing, twice, so Grey could catch it the first time. “That’s my rider you got on that stretcher, Duke Garu. You think I’m going to just leave him lying there?” Fandy had strapped into the back of the transport with practiced ease, and helped Jenner get ready, too. The speed was incredible, for something this big. Fandy hated it. Every time he rode in one of the things, one of his friends was broken or bleeding. Either that, or he was. Jenner looked unconcerned. He just kept chatting away with Grey, making him laugh somehow. The medics finally gave the kid a little something for the pain, and he faded on them. “Okay, Fandy. Honest assessment. Can he come back from this?” Jenner finally asked him. “We’ll see what the doctors say, man.” Fandy shrugged. “Jenner, he broom handled the fuck out of that arm. He said he’d done it before. I have no idea why he’s still breathing. I thought I was running to a dead man. This shit, it depends on how it healed the first time.” “Like hell it does,” Jenner said, looking very determined. Fandy decided to let Jenner handle the medics, to just stand behind him and look threatening. That wasn’t too hard, with all those white coats and college graduates hanging around. Jenner was shouting instructions at doctors, sounding very much in charge and not letting go of Grey’s good hand at all. Fandy just stuck to Jenner like a burr and dared anyone to move him. Nobody had the balls to try. “I told you that nobody’s holding him down!” Jenner was saying for the tenth time at least.

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“This is going to be very uncomfortable, when we put this on him. He’s a little shocky, so we can’t give him more pain relievers than we already have.” That was universal doctor-speak for ‘this is going to hurt like a motherfucker, and we’re not going to do a damn thing to make it any easier.’ “Jenner, man, what the fuck?” Grey had reconnected with Standard, at least. “Grey, now, listen to me this time. This is about to hurt really fucking bad, okay? It’s just pain. It can’t last forever, and there’s a reason for it. So you need to hold still.” “Sure, man. Go for it.” Jenner turned an incredibly regal look on the doctor. “You may proceed.” They did. Grey held still for it, but Fandy certainly didn’t know how. He’d had those bone-knitters put on. The designers didn’t seem to care that it was to help an injured person, and hadn’t taken that into account. Grey just lay there, staring at the ceiling and screaming fit to bust a lung. He didn’t fight back, didn’t resist. It was a very quick process, to the alternative. He even managed to wait until they said he could move, before he turned over and threw up from the pain. Jenner held his hair back and rubbed his neck while he did it, like this was perfectly normal for them. “You are the bravest person I have ever met,” Jenner said. “Somebody already beat you to that one,” Grey told him. It sounded like they were trying to joke with each other again. It sounded like they’d spent a long time, just like this, before. The medics did something else that apparently hurt one hell of a lot. Grey came out the other side sounding a little confused. “Where are we going again?” “I’m taking you home. My home, it’s called Eab Nanoorn. When you’re there, the only pain you feel will be what can’t be helped. I’m going to look after you my own self, Grey. I promise.” “What was your name again?” “You call me Jenner. I call you Grey, because of your eyes. You told me that, a long time ago.” “Is it over?” “It’s over. It’s been over for a long time, Grey. We’re in a hospital, on planet Kais, in the city of Kais, the capital of Eab Nanoorn. You got hurt on your bike. Do you remember?” “I was trying to Timberline…”

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“Right.” “I fucked it up, man.” “It fucked you up, man. You’re going to be just fine, though. You can tell me I owe you anything. Deal?” “Why?” “You were brave when I needed you to be, and always were, Grey. Even when we had to run, even when we had to fight, you were brave, and stuck with me. That’s worth something. I owe you.” “I still owe you, Jenner, for thinking to grab me when you were going.” Grey was looking a little more lucid, now. “Fandy came. He’s right here,” Jenner said, not looking away from Grey to pull the biker forward. “What are you doing here? Who’s running the Pit?” Grey asked. “Pixie can handle those snot-noses for a few hours, bro. You’re my fucking rider. That’s like blood, man.” Fandy had never talked like that to Grey before, but certainly felt like he had earned it. “That’s terminally cool, bro,” Grey told him, looking pleased despite everything. “What the hell are they doing to my arm, man?” Jenner looked nervous. “They said you broke your arm in two places. Once where it broke before, and in a new place. Some of the bone came out through the skin. Some just shattered. They said I could choose: hurt you a little, and you never ride again, or hurt you a lot and you’re back in the Pits in six months.” “I hope to hell you told them to hurt me a lot,” Grey said. “It’s only pain, Grey. That can’t last forever. The bike is love, for you.” Jenner shrugged. “I did what I had to do.” “Thanks.” Fandy took a close look at the duke. He looked soft, sweet, like he could be put down by a harsh word. But his eyes had solid knowledge of blood and pain. He thought about Grey, and what little he knew of Lysander Edvard. He looked at the young man on the gurney and decided that, between the three of them, they’d probably had enough. Flying was great fun, but this thing was definitely love. Prices had to be paid for that shit, and

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blood usually wasn’t enough. *** Lysander woke up in a chair he didn’t recognize, and had to go through the process of realizing he was in a hospital, mostly from the smell. He hated hospitals with a violent passion, for his own personal reasons. He couldn’t think what he was doing in one for a long minute, and then had to suffer through remembering what had happened to Grey. He finally realized what had broken his sleep. Someone was talking to Grey, and it was someone Lysander knew. He kept quiet, because if he was supposed to know Kourt was here, he’d have been woken and informed. “I’m sorry, Grey. I’m just not very good at it. All I can do is help things along a little,” Kourt was saying. “There are… other people… who are better at this than I am, but we can’t do what he does here in a hospital. He’s not supposed to be able to, at all.” “I know, Mister Crowe. I’m keeping my secret, I swear to you I am. Thank you, just for trying,” Grey whispered harshly. “You need to know it isn’t going to change things much. This is just too big for me.” Kourt sounded honestly apologetic about whatever it was. “It doesn’t come naturally to me. If we wanted to know something about your future, I’d be a much bigger help.” Grey was quiet for a while. When he did finally speak, it was the most deferential tone Lysander had ever heard on him. “I want to ask you something. Then I want to tell you something.” “Okay.” Kourt sounded at his most patient. That was going a piece, for a Servitor. “How much is all of this going to cost? I got hurt once before. Just getting the bone put back right was almost more than I was worth,” Grey told him. “I need to know.” Kourt was quiet for a long time. “I would say, with the hospital care and the drugs, with everything you’ll need at home… it’s a lot, Grey. They’re using some pretty advanced technology, just to make it heal at all. Twenty thousand credits, at least.” “Fuck.” That sounded small, frightened. “I thought maybe this was something people just got to have, here.” Kourt sighed. “One day, it will be. One day, the Commonwealth will be so prosperous, that it will be able to do that. Today is not that day. It’s left to the sovereign Sectors to do what they can. You’re pretty lucky, Grey. Eab Nanoorn happens to be rich enough to actually have this kind of medical care available at any price.” “This is costing, like, a quarter of what Jenner pays Fandy for a whole year’s worth of work,” Grey sounded angry now. “What the fuck am I going to do?”

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“Well, Grey, my son isn’t stupid. He knew you could get hurt doing this. He already paid somebody to make sure these bills got covered if you got hurt. The credit’s already spent, so I don’t see what you need to be worried about.” Kourt was speaking with an odd cadence, something precise and pitched in a tone that encouraged belief. “Well, how much does that cost? Making sure the bills get paid. This is all too confusing,” Grey gamely pursued the topic. “It’s part of regular household expenses, Grey. Like your food or clothes.” Kourt kept up with the hypnotic rhythm. “It might cost as much as it does to feed you every month. Why does it matter so much? Jenner’s hardly impoverished.” “Jenner’s only my boyfriend, Mister Crowe…” “I told you to call me Kourt,” the Servitor reminded him. “You are my boyfriend’s father. I owe you respect. So, please, Mister Crowe, I wouldn’t ask you if I could ask anyone else and know I was getting the truth. I need to know, because this could happen again. I might have to take care of it by myself.” Grey was still sounding very small, but Lysander was starting to think it had more to do with the fact that he was talking to Kourt than anything else. “All right. Without my son, the bald fact is you absolutely could not afford this.” Kourt was being flat and emotionless. Acting like a Servitor, and that was very rare for him. “You would not get your arm back as good as it started.” Grey was quiet for a very long time. “I want to tell you something. Before I do, please just remember that I’ve already got one broken bone. It’s costing one shitload of cred to fix it. If you need to hurt me for this, I’m begging you to let me pay in blood. You asked me for that once before. Now I’m asking back.” “I agree. I’m listening.” Kourt didn’t sound dangerous, not like Jenner sometimes did. He sounded calm. That was actually more frightening to Lysander. When Kourt got calm like that, not even Blaine or Jenner would cross him. “I love your only son, Mister Crowe. I’ve been sleeping with him for months now, with nobody’s approval but his. You already know I don’t have any way of supporting him.” Grey swallowed loudly. “I don’t have any right, except that he accepted me, just the way I am. I need to know if you’re going to want me to leave him alone now. Lysander’s parents aren’t around to run me off, but you are.” “Well,” Kourt said, but paused before continuing. “Grey, I’m not going to take a blood price off of you for this. Not right now.” “Thank you, sir, please, I will make this right. I am doing everything I can…”

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Kourt cut him off. “I’m not finished. Because Jenner accepted you, I’m going to bow to his decision. It’s his to make. But if you ever, and I mean ever, hurt my son again, I am going to collect on you. If you make him bleed, or scream, or cry, and I ever hear of it, much less have to sit there and listen to it, you will pay.” “Yes sir. It will never happen, sir.” “My hearing is extremely acute.” “I’d expect you could hear his pain from the Outsys, if you had to,” Grey told him. “I don’t mean to upset him, Mister Crowe. I honestly don’t…” Kourt took a deep breath, let it out. “Try harder, Grey. Stand up and act like a freeman. You want to keep calling my son your boyfriend? You want someone to hang some gedlt on one day? You’d better shape up, if it’s my son you’re talking about. If you physically hurt him again, your body may never be found. I have a duty to protect him. I shouldn’t have let you go as far as you did. Honestly, for what you did, you needed to die. Any father would tell you the same. I let you live, because you let him. Is that clear?” Lysander held his breath, and wished like hell he hadn’t woken up. “I didn’t know when I did it,” Grey said. “I did not know what I was doing to him, when I did it. I thought it was justice. Now it’s something I’ll have to live with, forever. Seeing the man he is… you’re right. I deserved to die. I am only glad I had a way to buy my life from you.” Kourt chuckled. “Unreal. That is almost, to the word, what he said about how this whole thing got started. That he didn’t know what he was doing to you when he did it.” “He told me.” “All right, then. Grey, I know a little about how this works where you’re from. I don’t think you can actually do what you’re setting out to do, on that bike of yours.” “I’ve got nothing else I can do,” Grey defended himself. “I love Jenner, I swear I do. This is all I’ve got, to do it with.” “You almost died up there, Grey. Then where would my son be? Are you actively trying to break his heart, right in front of me? That could be dangerous. I went from Servitor to prostitute, for my love. What would you do, for yours?” Kourt demanded. “I’m going to be watching you. Do not doubt I will be everything you ever feared in a father, if you make me.” “Yes, sir.”

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“We’ll just have an understanding between us on this point. It won’t matter who else gets it. Will it?” “No, sir.” “Get some rest, now. Jenner’s not going to rest long if you don’t.” “Yes, sir.” Kourt left, silent as a shadow. The musician waited for a while, to see if Grey was going to obey or not. It sounded like he tried, but his breathing got tight and quick. Lysander knew what that was, and got up to see about it. “Grey?” “I’m sorry, man.” “How do you want it?” Lysander got the sheets out of the way and did something about the pajamas. Lysander hadn’t thought how helpless Grey must have been feeling. He was glad that Jenner was always dangerous enough to deal with anything the world threw Grey’s way. “With your mouth, please,” Grey was very sweet about asking. He wasn’t even wanting anything special, just enough to make him come and let him sleep. Lysander could have done that without actually waking up first. He cleared his throat, took a couple of deep breaths, and gave Grey what he needed. He sucked hard and deep, swallowing very fast because that was working right now, and didn’t take long. Grey thrust up into Lysander’s mouth as best he could. He was on some pretty good drugs. It just didn’t take that much to satisfy him. This was something Grey would normally have done for himself. He clearly didn’t want anyone making a big deal about it. Lysander didn’t. He just swallowed when Grey came and got him back under the covers when he was done. “Good?” “Thanks, man,” Grey reached out for Lysander, and gave him a deep kiss when he could reach him to do it. “I don’t really want to be asking Jenner right now.” Lysander decided to try for some of that tricky double-talk Kourt was always doing at him. “Well, he’s got two fathers,” Lysander said. “I haven’t even got one left. It’s probably safer.” “That’s what I was thinking,” Grey said, without actually doing that. He caught Lysander a second later. “How the fuck do you know that?” “You’ve said something about being afraid of fathers before,” Lysander said, nimbly stepping over implied meanings. “I haven’t got one. It seems to make a difference.” Grey yawned again. Lysander got no polite apology for the lapse. “It’s too much to

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explain. I’m fucking tired. I’ll tell you about it some other time. But yeah, it makes a big damn difference and… I can’t say what I mean without sounding cruel.” “You’re glad there’s no one in the way between us?” Lysander kissed him again. “Grey, if my parents hadn’t wanted me to be with you, I’d have told them to go straight to hell. I told them that over less, now that I think about it.” “You people are very weird,” Grey told him. “You called Blaine a royal prick. I heard you myself. You can’t be that scared of him,” Lysander pointed out. “I was backing Jenner’s move. You have to do that, sometimes. I almost threw up from it, it scared me so bad,” Grey was perfectly frank about this, like it was normal. “There’s no point in pleasing fathers if you piss off the person you’re actually after by siding against them.” Well, that made sense to Lysander. “You get some sleep, Grey. You need to behave like the doctors tell you, to get out of this place. Trust me on this one.” “Lysander… what about you and Jenner? I’m trying to play fair now. I don’t know if I really can, but… you’re rich, too. What are you going to do? We can’t go on like this.” Grey looked away. “He’s the one taking all our damage, Lysander.” “Jenner has what he wants from me,” Lysander tried to comfort the younger man. “When did you tell him you loved him?” Grey asked. “Did I miss something?” Lysander opened his mouth, closed it again. “Get some sleep, Grey. This will all still be here in the morning.” *** Jenner wasn’t sure when his Pop had been coming to the hospital. They were there for three very boring days, before he had any sign that it was working at all. It might not have, actually, until maybe his third try. Finally, something happened. The doctors were properly astounded. With a healing rate like that, Grey could certainly go home right away. Jenner bore the triumphant hero home, carried him right up the stairs and put him to bed. He knew what was coming, and had cornered Kourt to ask permission. His father had agreed, on certain conditions. It was up to Jenner to get promises on the point. The Boyhaudens had given him permission last time, and had demanded similar oaths from Grey. “I didn’t ask, at the hospital, because you said it was a secret,” Grey said, first thing.

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“I know, thank you,” Jenner replied. He sat down on the bed and looked at Grey. “This isn’t like before. People know what happened to you this time. They’re going to expect you to take a while to heal up. I need to cut a deal with you.” “Tell me a number lower than six months,” Grey gamely returned. “Half that. Three months, and we can make it look good. I’ll do it in three months’ time. Can you handle that?” “Fuck yeah.” Jenner had been born with the Telsma sensitivity by accident. It had never done him much good. That didn’t make it any less real, so he had a hallmark. It expressed well, and was fairly strong: a total accident, but not unique. Hallmarks were usually how people found out they had Telsma sensitivity, unless another sensitive walked up and told them. For Kourt, he was pretty good at knowing what was going down before it actually did. For Jenner, it was healing other people, but never himself. Jenner was only allowed to do it if Kourt or one of his Servitor friends said so. The Order was dead serious about nobody using their secrets for evil. An untrained but minimally informed civilian might count, considering what else Jenner knew from his father. Not all of their disciplines happened in the mind. Jenner, without training but having a fairly strong talent, was vulnerable to some of the nastier tricks the Telsma could play on people who used it. The Servitors had rules, and training, so that their minds were not bent or broken by channeling the basic energy that drove the universe. That training had been denied Jenner. The simple fact was, he could be driven mad every time he tried to touch that energy. The bright and pure light of Jenner’s mind, and possibly his soul, could be snuffed out and replaced with something made up of his ugliest, darkest parts. However, if he merely let it happen, became nothing more than a conduit, his mind was safe. He had to have a Servitor tell him if it would work, before he tried it. Otherwise, all bets were off and he was playing with his life, as far as the Order was concerned. He obeyed his father’s word on this matter, totally. He was thereby permitted to live right like he’d been born, instead of having had that sensitivity burned from his mind the second a Council knew it existed, untrained and untrainable. It was nothing Grey needed to know about. “Jenner? I godda get off this bike, man. Your Pop isn’t going to put up with my bullshit any more. I have to do right by you,” Grey said, sounding a bit intimidated. “What the fuck did he say to you?” Jenner demanded. “He said ‘Stand up and act like a freeman.’ He’s right, Jen. I wanted off that fucking bike my whole life. I only got on the fucking thing out of desperation. Now I’m out there risking my life for fun,” Grey sounded near panic. “I thought my luck would hold me up there. What the hell am I going to do, man?”

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“Do what you like, Grey. Bike, don’t, whatever. What do you want to do, exactly?” Jenner sat down on the edge of the bed. “I can’t do what I want. I have to be free and clear, all my own, with my own life before I can,” Grey said, no hesitation. “Find a way,” Jenner said. “I’ll help. I want to.” “Lysander loves you, Jenner. I don’t think he’s found a way to say it. I don’t know what the hell’s going on between you two. You have to take care of each other, though. I almost died up there, being a fucking asshole because I don’t know any better. Truly, literally, that was nearly my day to go. Only your love and care of me made any difference at all. Your Pop will not forgive me hurting you like this a second time. Lysander’s lost his whole family already, Jen. There’s nobody looking out for him, with me. Can’t you do something?” Grey sounded near tears. “I can’t give him what he deserves. Please, Jenner, I need this thing to work.” “All right,” Jenner said, and gave Grey the drugs that were to make him sleep through the pain. “You want it, I give it to you. I will make this work.” “Thanks, man,” Grey said, fighting the sleep hard like always. “Truly, I do love you. And I thank you,” that was in Vantishari, very sharp and clear in its meaning and intent. Jenner walked through the mansion, turning off lights, closing drapes, shutting down the party rooms. He found Lysander on the patio, watching the sea and the city below. “Grey’s asleep. He… my Pop said something to him about us. Do you know anything about it?” “He’s just being a good and faithful father to you, Jenner,” Lysander said. “Grey wants…” Jenner put a hand on Lysander’s arm. “Lysander, listen to me. I would marry you, right this second, if only I could.” Lysander turned around, looked into Jenner’s eyes like he’d never really seen the duke before. “Why?” Jenner pulled back, frightened by the cold tone. “I… I love you, Lysander Edvard. But your family has been in service to mine for centuries. You know the crown would never allow it.” “Jenner, you won the game. Kicked my ass all over the field, from the moment you even tried. Why didn’t you take your prize and run?” Lysander demanded. Jenner faded off a couple of steps, not sure what he’d done wrong this time. “What do you mean? Do you want… I thought you wanted me to stay. You’ve been so kind to me,

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Lysander, to notice me at all. Please, tell me if it’s only kindness, because of Grey. He thinks you love me.” “It was him you wanted, Jenner. I knew that from the start. Why didn’t you take him and run? You could have.” Jenner started to reach for Lysander, stopped himself. “I want to be clear on this. I might not have been, before. I would have loved you sooner, if I’d had the nerve to try. I… you never wanted anyone for real, Lysander. If Grey cuts and runs on you, though, I’m still right here.” Lysander just stared and stared at Jenner. “Grey isn’t going anywhere. He’s cutting deals with your family to stay with you.” “This isn’t about me and Grey. This is about what I feel for you.” Jenner blinked hard, looked down. “I can’t even make you notice me when he’s around.” Lysander’s arms came up around Jenner, holding him close. “You asked for both and we came to you that way. You had such respect for our love, Jenner. I’ve never even heard rumors about something like that high-wire act you did.” “What else would you have expected?” Jenner put his face on Lysander’s chest and held him tighter. “You love each other. I can’t get between that. I just wanted to get close enough to feel it happening between you. And now… please… can’t I love you, Lysander? Grey doesn’t want me for myself. He wants all of us together. I have to make this work, or I have no business being here at all.” Lysander tilted Jenner’s face up, kissed him deeply. Jenner clung to Lysander hard, pleading with his whole body for the chance to try. “Jenner, Grey’s young enough to be passing me by. So are you…” “Tell me that the door is open. I may have to go, for my duty or my sanity. But if the door is open, I will always walk through it to you.” Jenner kissed Lysander again. “I have no control over my duty or what my family demands of me. I can have some control over this, between us, as long as it is personal, private and real,” Jenner explained. “That’s the rule?” “I will stand up to my own uncle if I have to, for you,” Jenner said, letting himself sound like an actual duke for his lover. “I will not be allowed to marry you. They can’t stop me from loving whom I love. It’s sacred. But, Lysander, it has to be real, or they won’t let it happen at all,” Jenner made his voice be steady again. “It feels real to me. I love you. I always will, right here beside you. Or up in the palace, if you want…” “I won’t be your consort, Jenner. No amount of cred in the world could make me. I’ve known your fathers a long time. There is just no way,” Lysander calmly informed him.

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Jenner stiffened. “I will never, in my life, make you or any other person my consort. Don’t ask me to do it for Grey, either, because I simply will not.” “I want your time and attention. All of it you can give me.” “You have to share me with Grey. One day, you may have to share me with a total stranger. But if you are with me now, and stay with me, and mean it… there are protocols.” Jenner made himself stop and think it through. He hadn’t thought they would actually get this far. “Call me your lover. At least play like you’d be my spouse, if it were legal. It would give me a leg to stand on, with the crown. I could protect you then.” “Oh, Jenner. I just… forget that you’re a damn duke. I forget that your family arguments are about more than just our relationship. What are they really saying to you up there?” Lysander asked, sounding distressed. “That I shouldn’t put so much time and effort into something that can’t last. Historically, they’re right. I looked it up. No duke ever held on to their love when they were facing what I’ve got in front of me. Nobody ever tried it like this, though. I didn’t come around offering contracts and wealth and a lifetime of privilege. Grey has what he wants with you. You have what you want with him. You are both taken care of, without me being involved at all. What we have is demonstrably real. You are both safe, even if they confine me.” “What’s that?” Lysander sharply inquired. “That’s Uncle Kyle putting me away for my wife. Cloistering, is what they used to call it. To prevent me spoiling myself for my duty.” “Kyle can do that to you?” Lysander sounded genuinely surprised. “Any time he pleases. He doesn’t know the half of what’s happening here. Kourt covered for me with him when I ran off. They didn’t put me in prison when I got back, so it must have worked. That has nothing to do with you. The protocols are clear. You become my lover, yet refuse to be my consort. That means I might marry you one day. It protects you, even though we all know I can’t marry you. I’ll give you some title like retainer or adviser… court musician would work for you. Do you want it? That’s still a retainer. I need a household. Garus function poorly on their own. We’re not put together right for independence. I, personally, have nobody backing me up. Kyle banished the only man who ever had personal fealty to me. Right now, I’m totally alone. They’ll force me, if they have to. I need somebody who loves me, to see me through,” Jenner stepped back and held out his hand. “You should think about what you want from me, Lysander. You could literally ask for anything at all.” “Time and attention.”

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“Granted.” “What about Grey?” “I’ve done my duty by him. My family will never dare to question his place in my household, even if he never knows about it himself,” Jenner assured him. “I can protect him, and you, even if they won’t let us be together.” Lysander shook his head slowly. “I can not believe you’ve done all this for us, and never said a word.” Jenner made himself be humble, and spoke in the language of the courts, Anglois, just to be sure Lysander was absolutely hearing the meaning and intent. “What words shall I say to you, my love? What must I do? What proofs must I give? Where have I failed, that you do not know my love for you?” “Come to my bed. Yourself, alone, and let me be your lover,” Lysander whispered. “I am deeply honored to be allowed,” Jenner bowed over Lysander’s hands, kissed them in his most courtly manner. He slipped Lysander’s arm through his own. They walked together, kissing and touching tentatively, feeling the newness of their unspoken connection spin out between them. Lysander undressed Jenner slowly, wouldn’t let him help at all. The room was brightly lit. Watching the musician disrobe was a slow and erotic tease. Lysander twisted his hair up, pinned it and smiled. He looked at Jenner with eyes shining and proud. “How will you have me, Your Grace?” Jenner blinked, surprised at that formal address. He and Lysander had never truly acknowledged their relative positions before. But Lysander Edvard hadn’t known Blaine Garu by accident, though the Edvard family had long wished otherwise. “Are you a Gentleman, Mister Edvard?” Lysander looked away. “No. I played at the command of your grandfather once. After… well, after the rock happened, only your father would have anything to do with me. He’s been my patron and protector for decades. I have never been honored by him.” “He’s a damn fool, Lysander,” Jenner reached out and touched his cheek. “If I truly do poach you off his household, are you going to fight back?” “What does Your Grace offer me?” Jenner knelt down on the foot of the bed, wrapped his hands around the bedpost and looked over his shoulder. “The one thing nobody thinks to give you. Time and attention. I’ve got your number now, Mister Edvard. I can pay that price and love the cost.”

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Lysander came up behind Jenner, kissed his shoulders and began to oil and open Jenner’s ass. He knew what Jenner liked, because everyone did. This was it. “Do I play at your command? Fuck? I’ve never truly been in service, Jenner. What are you wanting from me, really?” “I need love,” Jenner jerked his hips back, thrusting urgently onto Lysander’s hand. “I feel it, when you make love to me. I need it. It is all I have ever and will ever need.” “I know you’re keeping secrets from me,” Lysander told him, never pausing his preparations. “I must, to protect you. Please, Lysander, let me be what I am. I love you. Can’t you notice me?” Jenner twisted his hips, flexed his ass, and showed his less obvious attractions to great effect. “How can you ignore the pleasure? I’ll never leave you to those warm bodies unless you prefer them. I think you like this better, though.” Lysander lifted Jenner higher up on his knees and pressed his cock against relaxed muscles. “Do you like this?” “I love your cock, I love you…” Jenner gasped as Lysander thrust deeper. “Please… lover…” “Let me do this.” Lysander essentially ordered Jenner to hold still for it. Lysander tilted Jenner’s head back, swallowed his sighs and pleading while he gently, patiently worked Jenner open. Lysander stroked along Jenner’s back and sides, kissing deeper as his cock slid forward and back. It took time when he did it right, urging Jenner to want more, then need more until it was Jenner’s own longing that brought his lover fully within him. “Skies above,” Jenner whispered, feeling tight, narrow, stretched to the limit, to accommodate his lover’s deliciously generous member. “How did you do that?” “Time and attention,” Lysander whispered back. “Is it good?” “I haven’t felt like this in years,” Jenner admitted. “When was the last time you had a little clarity happen to you?” “Years, Lysander. I just said that.” “Okay,” Lysander breathed in against Jenner’s hair. “Deamonett lovers, all the way.” “Let’s break some records,” Jenner casually challenged. Lysander closed his hands over Jenner’s wrists, curved his body to fit tight against Jenner’s back and started slowly. Jenner forced himself to breathe correctly, keep his eyes open and hold his body still. Lysander had asked to do this, so Jenner waited for his

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lover to do as he wished. This was clarity, a physical and lasting expression of honest love, when shared between followers of the Deamonett way. It was private, nothing found in a wild orgy or pile of warm flesh. This, what they were trying to do, was personal, only shared between lovers who had nothing to fear from an open, pure connection. A sharing of purity was what it came down to. Jenner cried out when that white hot energy sparked hard inside him. Lysander cried out a moment later, but never sped up or changed his sharing. Jenner breathed slowly, deeply, just the way Lysander’s cock pleasured him. With clear and total intent, their bodies slid along each other, sensitizing skin and waking need. Jenner rocked gently on his knees, drifting on the ebb and tide of pure, physical, tangible love. Sex was just like this for him. But in clarity, in this place and time, he absolutely knew his lover felt exactly the same way he did. The reasons were different, but the love was the same Lysander shifted minutely, changing the pressure and stroke within Jenner’s body. The thick, stone-hard shaft pressed firmly against Jenner’s prostate, making a sensual gift of every breath, every motion. Jenner held hard to the bedpost, spread his knees wider to better receive what his lover delicately created for him. This and nothing more was what he needed to find the place where passion and love went on for miles around. Somewhere between one slow, synchronized breath and the next, the white passion flowed up Jenner’s spine, into his brain and rushed out all over his body. Like an orgasm trapped and burning under his skin, it spilled all over instead of merely out and away from him. He writhed hard, screamed with it. Only Lysander’s hands kept him from touching his cock and shattering the clarity that made him feel so bright and pure. “Breathe, Jen. Hang on, man. Breathe,” Lysander crooned, ever the accomplished lover. He was never satisfied with good enough or nearly there. He chased this dragon with the same intense dedication as his songs. Jenner did breathe, hung on to the technique with true and honest piety, making their union a holy practice. His body burned with it, this sacred expression of his own pure soul. He felt the presence of his lover, not merely in the place they were connected, but in the echo of Lysander’s brightness. Like waves of light happening behind his eyes, he saw the shameless glorification of himself in his lover’s arms. “Echo union,” he breathed, body going limp under the profound desire. His cock was so sensitive he didn’t dare touch it now. His ass clenched hard around Lysander’s body, and he begged for it to go on. “Keep going,” Lysander encouraged him, and pulled his hands away from the bedpost. Their hips moved in slow synchronicity, Jenner trying to engulf his lover and Lysander trying to fill his. There was a balance to their focused goals. Jenner felt his second orgasm pooling up in him. It came through him not as a rush, but as a languorous, extended build. His ass drove back, stronger than Lysander moved within him. His lover

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kept up with his need, held him tight and breathed his name into his hair. Jenner circled his hips, churning his ass roughly, craving that hot connection like he craved his own breath. The air was cool and soothing around his cock, a pleasant counterpoint to the turgid ember that made him feel so fine and high. The bed shook hard under them and Jenner cursed with sweet gratitude as his breath stuttered over the pulsing strength of climax again. His body shook with it. Lysander put him down on the sheets to ride it out under his weight. Jenner writhed and twisted, hands scrambling to find Lysander’s and hold on for even one more moment of it. “Breathe,” Lysander said, very sharply. Light came back behind Jenner’s eyes and he laughed. “Shit.” “Now, don’t pass out, Jenner. You have to stay with me for this to work,” Lysander scolded. “I’m sorry,” Jenner began. “Breathe,” Lysander repeated in his firmest tone. It sounded sexy, like Lysander was saying to suck harder or spread wider. It sent something straight to Jenner’s cock. He let his legs slide away from his lover’s body. Lysander held Jenner’s hands against the sheets. Lysander thrust into Jenner at an angle to hold him pinned. The smooth softness of the bed was a gentle touch, all over Jenner’s body. He lifted his hips and Lysander moaned as his cock was taken in to the root. Jenner felt pierced to the core, perfectly filled and wanted. Lysander’s chest bore down on Jenner’s back, exciting and arousing their bodies everywhere they touched. Jenner pressed up into it, turned his face to the side and welcomed his lover’s kiss when it happened. Lysander was setting a quick, deep rhythm between them. Jenner was in no position to keep up, and wasn’t meant to. He welcomed that as well, opening wider, arching up, and up again. Suddenly, sharply, he gasped in air, struggled with the burning ache of a short, edgy orgasm he hadn’t expected to happen so soon. He felt sweat rolling off of him, realized how damp the sheets felt under him and tried to shift off of that. He came up immediately against the total claiming that Lysander was offering to him. Jenner sighed, utterly helpless as his body relaxed again, reacting to patient hands soothing his body. Lysander slipped from Jenner, turned him onto the pillows for kisses and smiles. Lysander’s auburn hair was somehow still pinned up neatly. Jenner reached up to trace a smile with his fingertips. “You are the purest person I have ever seen. It makes you so beautiful. This has got to be love, Lysander. It’s too beautiful to be anything else.” “This is real,” Lysander confirmed. “This is what I wanted, for so long. How do I keep this?” “You have to fight for it, Lysander. By the rules,” Jenner told him. Lysander turned over on top of Jenner, gently parted his lips to kiss sweetly, with total

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focus and care. Jenner opened his legs again. Lysander slid inside again, as easy as the breathing now. Jenner bent one knee, and tucked one arm behind his head. He hung his other arm around Lysander’s shoulders, smiled easily, with complete foreknowledge that it was wanted, would be accepted. Jenner let his love and desire show in his smile, his kiss, the slow flexing of his ass around Lysander’s cock. Lysander hooked his arm under Jenner’s knee, lifted him up and began again. The soft curve of his belly made tender work of pleasuring Jenner’s cock. Their bodies burned with a raw, living sensitivity that made every touch electric. Jenner felt his moans rolling out of him as he arched his body into Lysander’s touch, surrendering eagerly to the completion they sought together. Lysander kissed Jenner for as long as he could. At last, they both had to turn away, gasping for air. The bed slammed hard against the wall, rocked by the strength of their loving. Jenner twisted hard, using every muscle in his body to drive closer, go deeper into that passionate effort. Lysander’s cock burned deep within, stroking and slaking every hidden place that ached for touch. Jenner saw the pure, erotic vision of his lover striving with every fiber of his body to give expression to what they shared between them. Jenner looked up, saw pure and total love burning in Lysander’s eyes, and knew his lover saw the same in his own eyes. Lysander touched his forehead to Jenner’s and they breathed in together, one last look, one last kiss and closed their eyes. Jenner screamed, feeling the clarity shatter and burn away. He heard his lover’s cries above him, close enough to taste and feel, absolutely real and as pure as their love together. They held to one another for a long, hot time, barely daring to breathe. It was Lysander who got them into the bathtub. He held Jenner on his lap and gently washed his body with reverent attention. Jenner just smiled and kissed and thanked him, over and over. “You say you need just my love, Jenner,” Lysander stopped him. “Don’t you know that it’s free for the taking, between us?” Jenner nodded, then shook his head, gave up on the question and splashed water on his own face. “I should stay with Grey. He gets nervy when he’s scared. Pain scares him, so…” Lysander agreed that Grey shouldn’t be left alone just now. He kissed Jenner good night. Grey was soundly asleep when Jenner grabbed a chair cushion and stretched out on the floor. He’d borrowed pajamas from Lysander. The room was plenty warm enough. Better than any tree branch, anyway. For now, Jenner had a very good reason to be right where he was. He listened to Grey’s drug-sleepy breathing, felt the passionate vibe still buzzing his body and smiled to himself. It wasn’t what he had thought he was getting, when the boys let him in. This was all totally unexpected and completely weird, this love they shared. Jenner closed his eyes, smiling still, feeling that he’d found his place at last.

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End.

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