There was not a single moment to follow, in Firestation Ariadne, that Mirena let me out of her sight. Wherever we went, we went together. Restroom? Together. Shower? Together, and better for it, as the waters were quite cold. There was not a moment in which I was not the focus of Mirena’s gaze, save for when she closed her eyes to sleep in my arms. And throughout all that time, we were also always glued at the hip, or more intimately still. The night of the daemonic incursion and banishment involved very little romanticism, though our bodies were still pressed against one another for its entirety. The nights to follow, however, were very, very sexualized. Was it her trauma that so-motivated that? No, I learned, not exactly. Instead, the closeness of death, that looming sensation that had washed over us both and refused to depart hence, made Mirena treat every day, nay, every hour as her last. And she wanted to die in love, rather than feeling anything else.
I suppose I could not fault her that.
It had been two days when I had saved Mirena from Rannek the second time. It was five when the heat went out, never to return. We grew even closer still, then, by necessity as much as on account of our emotional compulsions. After a week in Firestation Ariadne, while we laid together atop the medicae unit we had been calling home, Mirena asked me if we were going to die there. I told her it was very likely, and half expected another bout of sex to follow. It did not. Instead, she nodded peacefully, then snuggled against me, holding me close. “All the wants and should’ves…and they are many,” Mirena muttered. I nodded in agreement. “Everything we should have said to our friends. But at least there’s you. At least we go into the dark together. There’s no one with whom I’d rather be at the end. Not even Cast. I have you. And…I’m almost happy, I think. I love you, Cal.”
“I love you too, Mirena,” I replied, leaning forward to kiss her forehead. “Hell of a vacation, huh?”
“I’ve had better,” she agreed, then pulled herself up my body to peck my lips once more. “But I think I’ve had worse, too. Without you. Cal…I’m so sorry,” she shook her head.
“What for?”
“You deserve to die better.”
“Better than in the arms of a lover? Better than in a hug from Mirena Law, Queen of Hugs and Kisses? There isn’t all that much better,” I suggested, to which she intensified her hug of me and kissed me yet again. Our lips did not part that night, not while I remained conscious.
The cold was replaced with warmth, uncomfortable warmth, but the darkness and the lips remained. Mine were glued to another, of one far taller than I. Penitent. No, Lucene. Why did I think of the name Penitent?
It should have been obvious: I was kissing Lucene when she went by Penitent. We had not kissed in this scene. I recognized the surrounding area at once: Hestia Majoris. On our way to Thaddeus Scayn’s hab, before he was murdered. Lucene—then Penitent—and I had hid in an alley and faked kissing to fall away to the backdrop of the Hive City, so as not to arouse suspicion of our appearance. As I said, we had not kissed, instead only mimicking the movements thereof. But in this moment, as I lived it then, Penitent was very much aroused, even if our suspicions were not.
She was fervent, passionate, dominating. I came to know all these things of her, in time, in bed, but not then. Not there, not in Abseradon or in the rampant stench and sweltering heat of Hestia Majoris. I tried to object, to note that this was wrong, that this was not how things had gone. But who’s to say? I could not open my mouth to speak, as it was too busy being flattened under the lips of my lover.
I understood what was happening eventually. As Penitent pressed me against the wall of the alley, as she lifted me into the air and pinned me against her body, as she squeezed me until every inch of my form ached, I knew and understood my fate. I was dying. And though I may have been dying in Mirena’s arms, my mind flicked to Penitent, to the first true love of my life, to my wife, to the woman I had so adored for centuries. To Lucene Flint. I was dying. And she was killing me. She was my end, as Ouranos had prescribed.
There are worse ways to go, I should note.
Abseradon darkened, darker than it ever had grown. The great Hive City began to feel small as shadows crept along its spires and condensed the world around me. Eventually, the floor beneath Penitent’s feet was gone. For all I knew, I was underneath her then, she laying atop me as Mirena was in the real. And I certainly felt as though that was the case. Yet still, Penitent and I kissed, every last drop of air fed into the lungs of my lover. I felt like Sigird’s factory had fallen on me again, or that the entire city had collapsed atop us. In the infancy of our romantic relationship, Lucene had often rendered me all but inert, dominating me as only she could. This was so much more than that. Death was unimaginably overpowering, and yet it was welcome all the same. If given the choice to live a life that a daemon wanted me to live or to die in love to Lucene Flint, I do not imagine I would waste much time pondering my decision.
Live, Cal. Live for me. It was not Cronos that spoke to me then. It was Lucene herself. Yet our lips, in this darkened, deathly lovescape, had not parted and she had not spoken to me. I had not heard these words; rather, they simply appeared to me, they became known to me. The words felt so very far. Fleeting, distant. I don’t want you to die here. Live on, even without me.
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No, I thought to myself as the delirium began to settle in. I am quite sure I am dying with you. I reached a point at which I could not move, not even to twitch or open my eyes, and every corner of my body raged in an inferno of pain. And yet it remained lovely as Penitent carried on against me, or atop me, or in some other orientation to me. It did not much matter, and I did not much know.
While I had not heard Lucene speak her unspoken plea for my life moments ago, I did hear a low, heavy stomping approach whatever remained of me in Penitent’s grasp. I imagine that, then, was Death, and this was the foreplay before the end, though it certainly felt a few steps beyond foreplay. The stomping got closer. The world got darker. Penitent’s love grew harder.
And then it all ended.
And so did I.
***
Beep.
Nothing. An interminably long nothing.
Beep.
Well evidently there was something, Callant, you moron. It was beeping. And how ear-piercingly loud it was at that. Though anything was deafening compared to nothing.
Beep.
It was a heartrate. Mine, I assumed, though I could not feel it within myself and it felt as though there were decades between the pulses. But the tone of the medicae device was unmistakable; I had awoken in a medicae unit all-too often and familiarized myself with the sensory markings of its care.
If it was a heartrate, I heard it thousands of times, at least, before hearing anything else. That something else, when it arrived, was but a murmur at first. Eventually, it grew into voices and speech, both speakers that I recognized but could not find the wherewithal to reply to. “Are you jealous?” Castecael asked.
“Of who? Her?” Lucene replied, seeking clarification. There was a pause. “Not really. Are you of him?”
“No. I don’t imagine they enjoyed themselves much down there, save for the physical. I’m content to let them have that, that sliver of happiness, in light of the unknown horrors they must have faced together,” Castecael answered.
“Agreed. I only worry about the guilt Cal will inevitably feel. He’s at his worst when he feels he’s wronged me,” Lucene said.
“Ugh, Mirena’s the same way; she’s insufferably repentant—pardon the word choice—whenever she indulges elsewhere,” Castecael replied, a hint of fluster in her voice.
A pause followed. I could not speak to the time, as I did not feel I had a firm grasp of it. But, eventually, Lucene added, “She is very pretty, though.”
“And he very handsome,” Castecael returned. “Lucky us, hm?”
“Truly,” Lucene laughed. Castecael joined her in that.
“Having…fun…you two?” Mirena croaked out. Her voice was much nearer to me, and yet felt as though it was above and behind me. I had been trying to speak the whole time, too, both physically and mentally. But it seemed I was not getting through.
“Ah! She’s awake! Quick, stop talking about them!” Lucene joked, laughing further.
“Funny,” Mirena grumbled. “Where’s…Cal?”
“Well currently you’ve buried his face in your chest, doll,” Castecael answered.
“I wanted…to keep him…warm,” Mirena muttered.
“Oh, I’m sure you managed that in spades,” Castecael chuckled.
“You…left us…like this?” Mirena managed.
A pause, perhaps occupied by a shrug. “You’ve used him as bedding for a good chunk of each of your lives. And as it was on Hestia Majoris, you were not negatively impacting his recovery. I figured we may as well let you lovebirds roost together until you both wake,” Castecael suggested. “Never a good thing, ecologically, to pluck a bird from its roost.”
“Alas, Cal always was a heavy sleeper. At least with me; I suppose I had that effect on him,” Lucene offered, still giggling to herself. “So you can have him for a little while yet.”
“How…long?”
“The Atticus crashed upon Quintus ten days ago,” Castecael reported.
Lucene offered a more thorough explanation of events after Castecael’s introduction. “We scrambled survey teams immediately, but we focused on the wreckage of The Atticus at first. We surveyed that wreck, but found no survivors. Plenty of daemons, though, which I’m sure you’re not surprised by,” Lucene offered.
“Unfortunately,” Mirena muttered.
“Right. It was three days before we found the glimmer of hope in the vessel you piloted out from The Atticus. Your bioimprint was in its handler logs. We knew you had flown it, we knew you wouldn’t have left Cal behind, and we found the tracks—snowed over though they were—that you two left behind you. Five days later, Galen found you, on Zha’s instructions. We found you all but frozen together in the position you’re in now,” Lucene explained. “You’ve been here for the other two days, recovering.”
“We…tried…to…vox…you,” Mirena whimpered, short of breath as much from the difficulty of speaking as from the trauma of the last few days.
“We figured. But the radioactive emissions from the reactor core of The Atticus scrambled vox communication on a continental scale. I’m sorry,” Lucene answered.
“You’re here now, Mirena,” Castecael added, and I felt increased pressure upon me, if only slightly. I imagine Castecael was rubbing Mirena’s backside encouragingly. “Both of you. Together. Still. You’re both safe and sound, together.”
“As ever,” Lucene added, getting a snorting laugh from Castecael. “Can I trust you to keep my husband in one piece for me?”
“Forever,” Mirena answered, on the verge of tears.
“Good. Thank you for everything you’ve done for him, Mirena Law,” Lucene said, and then left the room, content with the state of my care.
“And thank you, Cal, for everything you’ve done for her,” Castecael told me. I think I heard her blow me a kiss, too, before pecking one of Mirena’s cheeks. “I’ll be back in a bit, doll. Will you be OK on your own?”
“I’m not…on my own,” Mirena answered in a sniffle. Castecael kissed Mirena’s other cheek, then, before departing after Lucene. “Am I?” Mirena asked then.
+No,+ I managed, if only just.
“Good boy,” Mirena giggled, and somehow found the strength to hug me more tightly than she already was. “We made it home, Cal. Throne knows how we survived this vacation of ours.”
+I…get to plan…the next one,+ I messaged her then, prompting a blurting laugh from her. This one had been her idea. All of them had been so far. +Your chest…is very warm…by the way,+ I told her then.
“Glad to hear that. You’ll be staying there a while yet,” she said, giggling again. “Somewhat because I can’t move much, and I can’t imagine you’re in a better state. But mostly because you’re right where you ought to be, so get used to it.”