It takes about a week for Morgan to get ahold of a complete copy of Tiago Lu’s journal, and he can’t even look Valentine in the eye as he wirelessly transfers the file to his tablet. He cancels their next few meditation sessions, says he knows that Valentine’s going to be too caught up in reading to even pretend at any ability to focus. He says that the next time they meet Valentine had better be ready to put in his best effort.

The next few days are a blur as Valentine marathon reads the journal, mechanically moving between the dorms, the exercise yard, the classrooms, the dining hall in his regularly scheduled loops.

The conclusion to the river spirit escapade is beyond anything he could’ve imagined. As it turns out the village council had withheld payment, claiming they had issues accessing the funds. It was an all too transparent attempt to extend Lu’s stay until they could convince him to marry at least one of their daughters. Lu had been fully prepared to just say fuck it and give up the payment as a loss but then he was approached by the youngest son of one of the councilmen.

The young man, Sasha, had used his father’s credentials to withdraw Lu’s payment. He’d brought Lu his money and in return he’d asked if he could accompany him on his travels. Lu agreed then told him to go pack. While Sasha was busy packing Lu deliberately left him behind.

It’s cold hearted, even for Lu and Valentine is shocked. He’s in his bunk with the blanket pulled up over his head to hide the light from the tablet and he eagerly skims ahead trying to find any sort of reason for Lu’s appalling betrayal.

Sasha is young, recently turned twenty and he just stole a large amount of money. Lu is worried that if he takes Sasha with him the council will send someone after them for the stolen funds. He doesn’t want that sort of trouble and he also seems to be very uncomfortable with the idea of traveling with a devastatingly handsome young man that is nearly 15 years his junior.

For a guy that isn’t very descriptive unless he’s talking shop he sure does spend a lot of time writing about Sasha’s looks, Valentine thinks.

But he still doesn’t understand why someone had decided that any of this needed to be edited from the journal. Sure it shows Lu in a bad light but so does a lot of the journal, the guy was a grumpy asshole.

Valentine keeps reading, hoping that he’ll be able to figure it out.

On the way to the next job Sasha catches up with Lu. Lu is exasperated but also oddly flattered. Valentine gets the sense that he’s really thrown off by the fact that Sasha doesn’t seem to hold a grudge over getting left behind.

If anything it only seems to fuel his admiration for Lu.

What a weirdo, Valentine thinks. He drifts off to sleep halfway through Lu’s manifesto on how he just can’t seem to shake Sasha loose and the kid’s got a big enough crush on him that it can practically be seen from space and every time he tries to push him away it’s like kicking a puppy.

The next day Valentine’s even more distracted than he’s already been. Lu complains and complains about Sasha but gives up on trying to ditch him and instead decides teach him what he knows. He claims his change of heart is because Sasha’s stubborn refusal to be sidelined puts them both in danger.

Sasha proves to be a quick study and an able assistant. He also seems to be oddly charmed by Lu’s complete lack of charm.

Lu continues to go on and on about Sasha’s looks to the point of being…well, borderline obsessive. It’s not particularly flattering, more just constant complaining about how distracting Sasha’s eyes are, or how his hair is just a touch too long and is even softer than it looks.

Wait how does he know how soft Sasha’s hair feels, Valentine wonders.

It all comes to a head during an incident where Lu almost dies. He very nearly gets the shit clawed out of him by a perfectly normal bear, of all things. But Sasha manages to grab the sword that he’d dropped and by some miracle manages to hamstring the bear with his first swing and stab it through the throat with his second.

That’s when the journal takes a surprising and pornographic turn as Lu gets into some very granular detail about how grateful he is to Sasha and the methods in which he chooses to express his gratitude.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Valentine flails in an effort to switch the tablet off. He’s sweating and his heart is racing. He can’t seem to catch his breath and oh god, he thinks. This is why it was edited, and Morgan knows.

He’s never going to be able to look Morgan in the eye again.

Now that he’s got his answer, Valentine’s not sure what to do. He’s still got about a week until his next meditation session with Morgan. He could finish the journal. But he doesn’t really need to, he’s pretty definitively got his answer on why the journal was edited so heavily in the first place.

Which would mean…

Holy shit.

He’s never made much of an effort to seek out porn. It’s always seemed like more hassle than it was worth, his imagination works just fine on the rare instances he’s actually in the mood and not passing out the second he lies down in his bunk. But this, this practically fell into his lap. It feels like it would be a waste to not finish the journal.

He decides to wait at least until he’s got some privacy before picking the journal back up again. Now that he has a pretty good idea of what’s in store it’s not something he really feels comfortable skimming through during his classes.

The next time he has lunch with Gee is unusually awkward. He can’t really tell Gee about the journal but he wants to, if only because not having anyone to talk to about it is just killing him. He’s certainly not going to discuss it with Morgan.

He often relies on Gee to carry the conversation but today Gee’s unusually quiet, contemplative even as he takes small unenthusiastic bites of his lunch. The meals at the center have been aggressively adequate to date but Valentine can’t even guess at what the meat portion is supposed to be, it’s so overcooked and dry despite being drowned in a greasy and unappetizingly gray sauce.

Valentine starts and stops a few times, trying to find something to say. He very much wants things to be normal but he’s not going to get any help from Gee and he’s having a difficult time corralling his thoughts away from the journal. He startles quite badly when Gee finally does speak.

“You ok?” he asks, gently nudging Valentine’s shoulder with his own. Valentine chokes on a bite of overcooked and incredibly limp green beans.

Valentine nods, a bit frantic as his eyes water. “Fantastic,” he wheezes. Gee laughs. He raises a hand as if to pound on Valentine’s back and raises an inquiring eyebrow. Valentine shakes his head and waves him off.

“Sorry about that,” Gee says. “Was trying to make up for being shitty company, not trying to kill you.”

Valentine nods, still trying to catch his breath. “Everything okay?” he croaks.

Gee smiles that small smile of his, the one that’s warm and genuine and not the big showy one he uses to keep everyone else at arms’ length. It’s not that the way he is with everyone else is so completely different but with Valentine he’s less bluster, more intensity. “It’s just really hitting me lately I guess. It’s really happening, you know? And I’m ready, I want to get out of here but at the same time I’m not.” He laughs self consciously, runs a hand through his hair. “Guess I’m not making much sense huh?”

Valentine shakes his head. “No man, I get it.” He gets this feeling that Gee’s talking about the cores, and he wishes not for the first time that he could tell Gee that he knows, that it’s something they can talk about. His fingers itch with the impulse to reach out and touch Gee, to give him a reassuring pat on the arm or something but he’s never really been good with initiating contact. Gee’s the tactile one, it’s like breathing to him the way he’s always casually reaching out.

Valentine tries to make an effort to reciprocate but it’s never casual for him the way it is for Gee, it’s always calculated and recalculated and more often than not he talks himself out of it.

The moment passes him by and they make small talk, winding their way around the things they’re not allowed to say.

When Valentine does pick the journal back up he’s half anticipatory, half anxious about it. He can’t help but be curious but at the same time he wonders if Lu ever thought someone would end up reading what he wrote or if he’d always intended his journal to be private. Valentine certainly wouldn’t want anyone reading about his personal life but he also thinks he’d never write any of that down in the first place.

Lu is still very prickly about most things and he still complains endlessly about Sasha but it’s very obvious that he’s got a soft spot for the kid that’s a mile wide. He goes on and on about how Sasha could be doing anything with his life but instead he’s dedicated himself to being Lu’s partner in every sense of the word.

Then there’s the sex bits. They start off being to the point and explicit but as time goes on Lu’s writing on the topic becomes oddly poetic. He writes about how their cores seem to be in sync and how what they do with their bodies seems to echo the flow of magic through a core and it’s, well. It’s still incredibly filthy but almost worse, the way Lu goes on and on about how what they do together feels like the best kind of magic.

Valentine can’t help but feel jealous. Not about the mind blowing sex although that stings in an abstract sort of way but he still can’t figure out how to even sense magic properly let alone channel it through his core. Lu makes it all sound incredible and it all seems so far out of reach.

He finishes the journal but there’s no satisfaction to be had. In a few more days it’s going to be time for meditation with Morgan again and he’s just dreading it. Morgan knows what’s in the journal and he knows that Valentine’s read it and shit is just going to be weird.