Starman Twelve is coming a little earlier than usual (i.e very shortly) because I have a really fricking intense study period coming up over the next few days and I want it out there
This one has a ton of warnings. Murder, blood, theft, longing and the beginnings of heartbreak, mention of drug taking and depression, deceptions and lies, some flirting, some arousal, fucked up family dynamics, classism, patriarchal nonsense, whipping and disproportionate punishment (non-sexual), m/m dynamics and a handjob. The van Iones probably need their own warning.
Also if you’re in a power cut it’s a good idea to turn off and unplug your electrical stuff
Word count: 5.8k
(I know this is Jay, but this is the look I’m feeling for younger Ezra at this point!)
Oh man. Warnings for gross patriarchy including far-too-big age gap marriage, virginity as a prized asset and talk of breeding in a non kinky and very unhealthy way, mentions of drugging, drug abuse and drug addiction. Murder, war, classism imprisonment, animal bites, injury. There’s a wee nod to Common People by Pulp too, as true today as it was 30 odd years ago.
✨I would like to say that I don’t judge people for taking drugs. That part of the story is drawn from personal experiences and is based on how I ended up feeling after almost a decade of trying unsuccessfully to self medicate.✨
I was so completely absorbed while reading this, and to see that there’s still more torment to come, that Ezra is not finished with retelling his past! It sounds like the worst suffering is yet to come. Bring it on! Dying to know what happens next! Ahhhh there’s so much to say about this chapter! Allow me to blab.
As one of my greatest champions of this fic, I’m so happy you’ve enjoyed this chapter I was nervous about it since there’s a lot of exposition. Obviously there is more to come for our poor bby Ezra (I am very cruel!)
Next chapter (as far as my plans ever go to plan) will be a little interlude from the grief and heartache. Maybe
Oh man. Warnings for gross patriarchy including far-too-big age gap marriage, virginity as a prized asset and talk of breeding in a non kinky and very unhealthy way, mentions of drugging, drug abuse and drug addiction. Murder, war, classism imprisonment, animal bites, injury. There’s a wee nod to Common People by Pulp too, as true today as it was 30 odd years ago.
✨I would like to say that I don’t judge people for taking drugs. That part of the story is drawn from personal experiences and is based on how I ended up feeling after almost a decade of trying unsuccessfully to self medicate.✨
what an incredible part of the story this was, I am absolutely floored every time ! my mind felt like I was really there, experiencing everything just as ezra was telling it, wonderful storytelling, beautiful ending – that pure expression of unconditional love & acceptance just put my heart at ease, as I could imagine it had for him, to just surrender to her love & finally rest from the weight of all of his most painful memories & past. reading this is such a gift, as is all of your work, & I always look forward to reading. thank you for bringing us something truly special to spend time with ! xo
We’ve had a lot of darkness and despair the past few chapters and I just wanted to have a reminder that these two are developing something beautiful (because of it,at least in part.)
Oh man. Warnings for gross patriarchy including far-too-big age gap marriage, virginity as a prized asset and talk of breeding in a non kinky and very unhealthy way, mentions of drugging, drug abuse and drug addiction. Murder, war, classism imprisonment, animal bites, injury. There’s a wee nod to Common People by Pulp too, as true today as it was 30 odd years ago.
✨I would like to say that I don’t judge people for taking drugs. That part of the story is drawn from personal experiences and is based on how I ended up feeling after almost a decade of trying unsuccessfully to self medicate.✨
Oh man. Warnings for gross patriarchy including far-too-big age gap marriage, virginity as a prized asset and talk of breeding in a non kinky and very unhealthy way, mentions of drugging, drug abuse and drug addiction. Murder, war, classism imprisonment, animal bites, injury. There’s a wee nod to Common People by Pulp too, as true today as it was 30 odd years ago.
✨I would like to say that I don’t judge people for taking drugs. That part of the story is drawn from personal experiences and is based on how I ended up feeling after almost a decade of trying unsuccessfully to self medicate.✨
The ending began with greed and fear, as so many endings do.
Ezra’s childhood education had not been entirely on his own terms. When he had developed his interests in the universe and the physical and chemical world, he had been allowed to study them at will so long as he did not neglect his other subjects. These included what he would eventually come to realise was an extremely biased and untrue history of the seven systems and the families that presided over them, law and politics, and economics, business and accounting. The latter, along with his insider knowledge of his father’s investments and the increased freedom he had been granted to strike business deals once he had proven he could turn a profit meant that he could secretly siphon off a decent haul into several private accounts that were locked behind false business fronts, all the while making it seem like profits were healthier than they were in the supposedly legitimate side of the business. Rien’s intelligence, charm and his deep understanding of people’s psychological make up were invaluable resources and he conducted many of the face to face meetings that these business opportunities necessitated under the guise of being a legal advisor. Not only did this free up Ezra’s time to meet other, less licit contacts, but it had the added benefit of divorcing him from the subterfuge somewhat, gave him a veneer of plausible deniability should anything go awry. The fraudulent businesses masked the true face of what was occurring, the movement that both men believed so passionately about in part due to the violence and deprivation they had witnessed and endured.
The first few explosions were dismissed as accidents. After all, mining and prospecting were notoriously dangerous occupations, and these kind of things were the accepted risks of such business. Besides, there were more than enough workers to replenish those who had perished. But after a while it began to be noted that more guards than miners were dying in these explosions, and when reports of an abandoned mine that contained a mass grave populated exclusively by overseers emerged, whispered rumours began to spiral out of control.
“Shot in the back and left to bleed out in the dirt is what I heard,” Ezra’s uncle announced gleefully over dinner a few weeks later. “Pierpoint has lost control. Got a saboteur on his hands. Now is the time to try to poach any assets we can of his and publicly bring them under new management. Show these upstarts that we can keep a tight leash.”
“Ezra has said much the same,” his father replied.
“Has he now?” said his uncle appraisingly, redirecting his attention accordingly. “Perhaps there is some hope for you yet.” Ezra forced a smirk to his lips and gently raised a glass in acknowledgment to his uncle. He swore he could feel a piece of him die as he did it and he swallowed his bile along with the expensive wine.
When his uncle heard Ezra had returned he had taken his personal hovercraft and arrived with all possible speed at the house. After he had all but kicked the door down and barged his way inside, he had sought out Ezra in the library and trained dual antique hunting muskets on to his chest, advancing on him until the muzzles were pressed directly against his head, one at each temple. Heedless of his sister’s frantic pleas he had barked the same sort of questions that his father initially had. Somehow, Ezra had kept his head, both metaphorically and literally. He did not doubt that his uncle would pull one or both triggers and happily go home for tea afterward. In this face of this imminent danger, he had forced his voice to almost bored calm, looked his uncle directly in the eye and informed him that if he were to commit murder, then he would follow him into the void extremely shortly and at this signal Rien appeared seemingly from nowhere, his blade pressed silkily against the skin of his uncle’s throat.
“If I am to perish, why should you not be my companion in death?” he had asked in a low, even tone. “My valet is willing to die for me. Are you?”
His uncle had looked at him, eyes gleaming with malice and hellfire before he had huffed a barking laugh and put his guns down. “Finally grew some balls, did you?” he asked rhetorically before roughly pushing Rien aside and stamping back out of the room. In the intervening weeks between that day and this dinner, Ezra had done his best to ingratiate himself with his uncle by adopting a similar sneering, slippery persona as him when he was around. The fact that he was apparently making the family an obscene amount of money didn’t hurt at all and he felt he was on the cusp of having access to at least one of his uncle’s businesses too. He just needed something extra…some way of demonstrating his loyalty to the family beyond all question, and the answer came sooner than he had imagined it would. After dinner his mother retired to bed, and after another glass of wine his father had dozed off in the large comfortable lizard leather chair by the fire. His uncle chose this moment to broach a subject Ezra thought dead and buried.
“If you wish to stay here you will still need to perform your other duties you know,” his uncle offered perfunctorily and without preamble. “If you can bear to unstuff your valet for a night or two and stick it into a girl that is.” At seeing Ezra’s alarmed face, his uncle chuckled darkly. “Its not exactly a secret. I see how much leeway you allow him. Any valet of mine that lax would be lucky to merely lose their job. And I saw the footage from the first day you arrived, or did you forget about the cameras trained at the door? No servant touches their employer in that way unless they’re fucking.” Ezra forced himself to keep his gaze steadily trained on his uncle, but said nothing. “Let me be clear, boy,” his uncle continued. “I don’t care about you or what you do in private. You could be fucking the kookas for all I give a shit. But if you took a wife, publicly joined yourself to another house…don’t you see the business opportunities that could flourish from such a union?”
Ezra forced himself to swallow. His mouth was suddenly very dry and his tongue felt like it was three sizes too big. “Do you have anyone in mind?” he asked in a falsely casual tone.
His uncle gave a serpentine smile. “In fact I do. Her father is a high stakeholder in the Pierpoint mining corporation. Or was. His investments are looking less and less secure these days. So he’s begun to parade his daughter a little early instead. Passably pretty. Young. Demonstrably fertile according to the family physician.”
Ezra started to feel nauseous. He had to ask this question. He really didn’t want to ask this question for fear of the answer, but it was necessary. “How young is young?” he enquired, hoping that his voice was still airy and light.
His uncle leaned forward, his smile now descending into decided lechery. “Put it this way,” he said quietly, “Perhaps your youthful mistakes have served you well in this incidence. While the other men of your age are now saddled with their fading blooms you can take an unspoiled thing for your very own. She has bled, and would have been put forward to other families within the next year. That should tell you that she is old enough to bear for you.” He shuffled forward on his seat, coming even closer to Ezra who had to fight against every instinct not to recoil in disgust and his voice was low and conspiratorial when he spoke again. “In addition, if you take a younger wife she will be more easily moulded to your own whims, your own desires. And she cannot possibly object to such a longstanding…arrangement with your valet now can she? As long as you breed her successfully and are discreet in your assignations, the rest is your own business. We have always preached this. And when she is with child, all of her energies and attentions will be directed toward bringing the pregnancy to term anyway. You will be free to do as you wish once your seed takes.” Ezra forced a smile and prayed to anyone that might be listening that it did not appear as queasy as he felt.
“I should be delighted to meet the young lady,” he acquiesced, his voice sounding faint and reedy to his own ears.
“Excellent,” proclaimed his uncle robustly as he took another swig of the foul spirits that were in the hipflask permanently affixed to his belt. “I shall arrange everything.”
“And when the day comes I’ll bring you down hardest of all,” Ezra promised himself, a hot streak of rage flaring through his abject disgust.
A few short weeks later on a large balcony that overlooked the van Ione gardens, the wedding took place. Hasty though the planning had been, it went off without a hitch and -
She shifted in her seat, twisted to look at him and her hand came to rest on his chest above his heart. Though the electricity had been restored to the house, they had not bothered to turn on any lamps as they sat together, and by the small and flickering light of the fire he could see the consternation in her features.
“Wait, you actually went through with it? You married her?!
"Indeed I did. It was necessary for the deception and to ingratiate myself back into the familial bosom. I kissed her cheek after I spoke those vows and from that day I never touched her. Not once.”
Her gaze eased from shock to trepidation as she asked “So, how old was she?
Ezra swallowed hard. "Sixteen,” he said, the word soft with pain and regret. She blew out her cheeks in an exhalation of shocked disbelief. “Her seventeenth birthday was two days before we wed. The poor girl,” he continued. “She wanted to please so badly. Clearly her parents had made it known just how much was dependent upon the success of our union. She was shaking with nerves the whole day of the wedding and It couldn’t have helped that I was twice her age. I took her father aside and told him in no uncertain terms that while I was intent on providing the child that everyone so desperately wanted, I would not force the matter and would not take her to bed until I thought her willing and ready for such a thing. I hoped to buy some time before the inevitable decision that had to be made.”
“And how did you get around it?” she asked. “And what happened with the money and the sabotage at the mines?”
He smiled sadly at her impatience to get to the crux of a matter that still pained him so much, and kissed her forehead. “We shall get there my love,” he promised.
Throughout the whole rigmarole that he and Rien were perpetuating he had been constantly surprised, as what he had anticipated would be difficult tended not to be and vice versa. The actual theft and fraud for example, was easy. Even when they managed to expand their scope of deception and begin stealing from both Ezra’s uncle and his in-laws, the combined abilities of the two men were such that they were able to maintain the necessary facades. It helped that no one suspected that anyone would have the audacity and capability to do such a thing, let alone the only child of two of the most respectable people in the seven systems and his lower class associate. While the family believed all lowers to have a propensity toward criminal behaviour of all kinds, they also did not believe them to possess the mental faculties to plan and perpetuate something of this magnitude. The men were walking a wire, but the longer they got away with it the more bold and expansive their plans became.
What they were stealing was channeled into weapons and sabotage but also into education, and programs to assist workers to remove the spirit-shattering drugs from their lives that had successfully ensnared both Rien and Ezra as well as millions of others over the years. This last was a much harder sell than merely picking up a gun and shooting. Both Ezra and Rien knew well from personal experience that oftentimes the only beacon of hope that lit the dark, backbreaking, miserable days was the thought of the comfort that certain substances provided once their weary bodies collapsed into their bedrolls. But the cycles of despondent misery that followed these indulgences allowed people to bow their heads to the supposed inevitable, to give up in the face of the enormity of relentless misery. There was a reason that the drugs were so cheap and readily available and why the overseers were spectacularly disinterested in doing anything to stop the trade. From the redirected profits of the lowers’ labour came a wellspring of guerrilla war that trickled through several of the most industrialised and poverty stricken planets. One that the higher orders neither took seriously nor saw the immensity of until it was too late. The Pierpoint mines were just the beginning, and the desire of the other families to protect their own businesses and money from that end at all costs - even if that meant abandoning their peers to their fates - worked in Ezra and Rien’s favour.
Ezra found that the hardest part was the maintenance of pretence - both as a devoted son and dutiful husband, and even that became somewhat easier over time. But soon after the wedding he realised that the girl would begin to cause a fuss and draw attention to his distinct lack of interest in her if he did not at least attempt to make a show of desire. She had been given her own bedchamber within the household - the reasoning being that once she was pregnant, she would need her own space. On their wedding night Ezra had sat delicately on the edge of her bed, reassuring her that he knew how overwhelming this must all be for her, that he would not touch her until she was ready and that he wanted them to stay in their respective beds until that day came. She pleaded with him that he must be mistaken, that he was her husband sworn and she had no other desire than to take him fully in every way.
“I can see in your eyes that is an untruth,” he had said gently. “And I do not judge you for it. I am sure you are aware of my…unconventionality as regards to my own presentations when I was your age. We will take this at a slow pace. Surely any child that comes from us should be made as lovingly and tenderly as can be to give them the best chance at life?” He felt a pang of guilt that he was giving her false hope of a child that would never be, but that was swiftly overruled by his knowledge that he was sparing her more grief and misery this way. She acquiesced to his wisdom initially, but soon grew impatient and instead began to come to his chamber in the middle of the night in billowing, gauzy nightgowns that barely stayed on her shoulders and were slit far too high, pleading to sleep in his bed to stave off the nightmares she was supposedly having. Her clumsy attempts at seduction did nothing but remind him of how young she was. Words were no longer enough to delay what their families were so fretful about. And so he and Rien took on the roles that had gotten them back here once again - Ezra stealing some of his mother’s sleeping pills and Rien concocting his pharmaceutical wonders. Her evening wine was drugged and a marriage bed hastily fabricated. All it took was a tiny pinprick on the back of her thigh. Something that could so easily be attributed to an insect bite, but whose red blooming over the bedsheets would be hailed as proof positive that Ezra had indeed finally performed his husbandly duties.
“Why don’t you just fuck her, Ez?” Rien had asked as they had artfully arranged the covers and cushions to give the impression of a night of passion. “She’s pretty enough, she’s certainly willing. So why not?” In the face of the casual air of Rien’s question, Ezra’s voice deserted him and his chest felt like it had been hollowed out. They had never really verbalised their relationship and certainly not mentioned any kind of exclusivity. In fact they had actively both fucked other people, sometimes together. But there had been love between them, the others merely an aid to their already good time. What had started as hedonism and fire and lust had grown into something softer, more generous and understanding. More of a necessity for them both. And so Rien’s question wounded him, brought him right back to that knowledge that he was withdrawing from Ezra emotionally for some unknown reason. Ezra wanted to cling, he wanted the rock of Rien right beside him as he had been for so many years, was desperate for more than just the shape of his physical presence. More than that, this girl was a proverbial line in the sand that he would not cross and he didn’t know if it was her age or her innocence or both, but he was appalled at the idea of actually going through with it. Before he could try to formulate a reply Rien was in front of him, running a delicate hand down to Ezra’s crotch and stroking a finger over his cock “I wouldn’t mind watching you fuck her if that’s what you’re worried about. It doesn’t matter to me that she’s your wife-”
Ezra pulled away from Rien’s touch, and answered with an indignant bite to his words. “I’m not worried about you watching. Its just wrong Rien. She is barely more than a child and I will not be her first foray into physical intimacy when it is all based on lies,” he hissed. “At least once its all over they can prove that I never touched her, and she will have a chance at a truly successful marriage. She is an innocent, I will not break her more than I have to.”
Rien paused then laughed, a reaction that did not entirely reach his eyes. “You’re too good Ezra,” he purred. “That’s your problem, too full of a subjective morality that no one else subscribes to. How can she be an innocent? She perpetuates the misery that they inflict upon us by her very existence and will continue to do so once she does manage to birth the next generation of these leeches.”
Ezra had no good answer to that truth, so he merely shook his head and repeated darkly that it was wrong and he would not do it. Rien had shrugged and they had slept in their respective beds that night, the fact that Ezra’s wife was taking up space in his the excuse rather than the reason.
The delight and celebratory mood that spread through the house the next day was proof in Ezra’s mind that his family had instructed the chamber-servants to tell them immediately they suspected consummation had taken place. Nothing was said out loud of course, they were all far too refined for that, but Ezra’s father clapped him heartily on the shoulder when he arrived for breakfast and his mother airily mentioned to the room at large how they might best decorate a nursery. After the breakfast things had been cleared, Ezra’s wife surprised him by asking him to join her on a walk around the gardens. Not wanting to arouse suspicion, he agreed immediately, shooting Rien a look that clearly told him to also accompany them at a distance.
The day was full of a yellow tinted mist that had drifted from the nearby sea, the tendrils of cloud muffling all sound and lending a slightly eerie feel to the gardens as they strolled, while the heavy moisture in the air occasionally made it difficult to breathe freely. She didn’t seem to notice any of this and slipped her arm through his as they walked through the grove of enormous everleaf trees, making pleasant small talk by observing the small animals darting around and trying to identify the bird calls that they could hear. Ezra could feel a tension emanating from her every time they fell silent - a spectre hovering over the conversation. He paused, extricated himself and turned to her.
“What is the matter?” he asked, bluntly. “You can tell me. Whatever is on your mind, I would prefer to know.”
She startled at his candour and her eyes slid from his face to over his shoulder where he knew Rien was lounging against a tree, mostly out of sight. When she spoke it came out harshly and in a rush, as if she were forcing the words past her lips, and she was no more subtle about it than he had been.
“Is it true? Are you in love with your valet?”
Now it was Ezra’s turn to be taken aback. “Would it make a difference if I was?” he asked gently. “He is not my husband. I am not making a child with him.”
Her face fell, crumpled just for a second before she regained her composure. “And what of me?”
“What of you?” Ezra frowned in confusion.
She visibly steeled herself before answering, her hands twisting in absent minded anxiety in the lush silken material of her skirts. “I was given to understand that at the very least I would be sore after my first time. The blood on the sheets would certainly suggest as much. Yet I feel exactly the same as I did yesterday and the day before.” Ezra’s scalp was beginning to prickle uncomfortably and an icy drop of sweat ran down his back as he began to realise that she was more astute and less reserved than he had given her credit for. “I confess, I remember little of last night,” she went on. “I thought…I thought I would remember more-”
Ezra placed his hands on her shoulders and they all but swallowed her small, girlish frame. “You were inebriated,” he told her. “You came to my room and we had wine and talked for a time. And then you reached for me and while I did not want to take advantage of you in that state, you were very…persistent.” Her eyes dropped from his face and a hint of shame and embarrassment tinged her features. Its made him feel slightly ill to lie to her like this, but he ploughed on. “You do not ache because I prepared you well to take me,” he said softly. “I told you before, it is not in my interest to hurt you or attempt to make this child in any way other than through love. And if it does not take this time then we shall try again-”
She looked up sharply, appraisingly. “Husband, we should try again as soon as possible,” she said, a slightly panicked edge to her voice. “The window for conception is now. We should take every opportunity while it is open.”
He didn’t know what to say, didn’t know how to get out of this mess he had managed to land himself in and the excuse he came up with sounded appallingly weak even to his own ears. “I must attend my other duties too. I have several meetings-”
“Do I not please you?” she whispered, unshed tears gathering in her eyes. “Have I not waited in vain for you to come to me every night since our wedding? Have I not tried to be appealing and beautiful for you? Do you only like men? Is that it?”
“No!” Ezra protested, and then sighed his resignation to the partial truth he was about to give her. “No, I enjoy both women and men. But you are still so young, a child to my eyes. I cannot lie freely with you in all good conscience. It feels…wrong to me.”
Her gaze hardened and her jaw came forward in an expression of displeasure. “I am old enough to bleed and bear,” she said, the words a recitation of what she had clearly been coached to over many years. “I am your wife and if you can’t bring yourself to love me, I will at least have your seed. Your family and mine both wish it and I will perform this duty willingly. Can you do any less for them?” Ezra grasped for an answer but before he could her voice and eyes narrowed to sharpness. “I will attend your chambers tonight and this time there shall be no wine, no outside influence.” She threw another dark glance over at Rien before she continued. “This time I shall remember every moment.” She marched off through the grove back toward the house and Ezra ran a hand through his hair in frustration.
“Fuck,” he said softly. “Fuck”
“No, that is the problem beautiful boy. You won’t.” Rien came up behind him and slipped a hand around his waist, resting his cheek on Ezra’s shoulder as they watched the girl depart. “And if you truly can’t bring yourself to then we have to get out of here.”
Ezra spun and turned to face Rien, an incredulous look on his face. “But…but we are so close to a tipping point, so near to-”
“We have a lot of money stashed away, Ez,” Rien interrupted. “We should go. Disappear. Join the fighting on the ground and leave them here to burn when their time comes.”
Ezra hesitated. He knew the wisdom of Rien’s words, knew that the longer they stayed the greater the possibility of discovery. But they had done so much good already, and he was loath to give that up, not to mention the deeply satisfying feeling of deceiving these horrendous people right under their noses. While he felt tension and anxiety at the prospect of getting caught, the thrill of what they were doing together was every bit as heady as some of their more hedonistic days, and he suddenly realised that it reminded him of how they had used to be in the early months - eager and excited and full of fire. Before imprisonment and drugs and unending, unyielding labour had broken his youthful exuberance. He was just about to speak, to try to talk out a way through the mess that would allow them just one more week to siphon off what they could, but he had been silent too long and Rien’s face darkened.
“You are too comfortable here,” he stated dully.
“Excuse me?” Ezra replied incredulously.
Rien folded his arms and cocked his head appraisingly at Ezra. “You are too comfortable,” he repeated. “After all the stories you told me about how miserable you were here you have embraced this life more readily than I thought you could. You share your scraps with me, your leftover food and wine. And the scraps of your attentions also. You dismiss me from your mind when I am not in your line of sight. You shy away or tense up when I try to touch you. Perhaps being here has made you realise that you are not so different from them after all. Perhaps this is where you are supposed to be.”
It felt as if Rien was punctuating each sentence with a punch to the head. He was so appalled, so outraged, and so desperate to inform Rien that it had been him withdrawing his affections and not Ezra that he just stood there staring, struck silent by the unfairness of it all. Rien huffed a noise of disbelief and shook his head. “Tonight, Ezra. I am leaving tonight. Come with me or don’t. It is time to make a choice.” And with that ultimatum he stalked back through the grove, leaving Ezra distraught and alone once again.
Ezra made his choice. There was no real choice to make.
And so he found himself in his room at twilight after the evening meal, cursing the fact that his skill with measuring powders and liquids and pills was decidedly less impressive than Rien’s. Since she had specified no wine and tonight would be the last time he would have to stoop to this deception, he had surreptitiously put the crushed up pills into a cup of herbal tea, telling her it was an old family recipe that was both aphrodisiac and aid to conception. He too partook of a cup and then begged a moment to clean his teeth. He waited in the bathroom for a few minutes and when he returned he was relieved to find her fast asleep on the chaise lounge, her head resting on her arm and her feet tucked underneath her long silken robe. He covered her with a blanket before moving to his wardrobe and resuming packing his bag.
He was almost finished when a quiet, yet urgent knocking came at his door. The beat was rapid but he recognised it as one of his and Rien’s private codes and he uttered a silent prayer that the man hadn’t left without him. Rien had been right about one thing today at least. They should leave. Disappear underground and assist in the struggle in a more immediate way. And hopefully when it was just the two of them again they could rekindle how it used to be - revive the love that they had for one another without politics and history and his family getting in the way.
He opened the door and Rien immediately hurried in, his beautiful eyes bright and sparkling. “Its happening, Ez. Its happening now. The servants are all muttering about a disturbance among the wharves and there are rumours that the docks are alight. I have managed to secure us a flight offworld but everything is so volatile that we have to go this instant!”
Ezra nodded his agreement and had just shouldered his pack when he heard the distinct sound of a pistol being readied to fire. He spun to find his wife staring at him wildly, a dazed look to her face and when she spoke, her words were slightly slurred. “I knew'wit,” she muttered. “I knew you wer'gon’ drug me again. Didn’t…didn’t swallow it all. An’ now you’re leaving? No. No.”
Ezra raised his hands in a placating gesture. “I’m sorry,” he said sincerely. “I am not the husband you need, nor the one you deserve. I have never touched you, you have to know that. You can still be matched with-”
“Don’t care ‘bout tha’,” she said fiercely. “You won’ shame me this way. You won’ shame my family.”
“We don’t have time for this!” hissed Rien.
“An’ you,” she said with derision, her attention and the gun both landing on Rien. “You’re the problem. Why…why do you get to share his bed when his seed is so useless to you?!” With every sentence, her voice was growing both clearer and louder and Rien and Ezra exchanged a desperate look. “If you weren’t here it would have been fine,” she continued, moving closer to the two men. “If you weren’t here it would have been good-”
“I told him to fuck you, you stupid girl,” Rien spat. “He refused. Too good for the likes of you and for me I guess. Just let us go without a fuss and you can live your life with some empty headed rich boy like you were always destined to.”
“I don’t want-” she began, and too late Ezra realised the trap Rien was about to spring. She had grown careless, walked too close to him and he leapt upon her, muffling her cry of alarm with one hand and wrestling the gun from her with the other. At least that was what he intended, he told himself as he relived the moment in slow motion a thousand times in the years afterward. In fact, as he moved toward her, she dropped the gun in her fright and her hands fumbled for it. Which meant that instead of clapping one hand across her mouth and his other over her arm, Rien’s aim was slightly off. He struck her hard across the jaw with the heel of his hand and she spun on the spot, her head colliding with the wrought metal bedframe of Ezra’s bed as she fell. The thump as she hit the floor was the loudest sound Ezra had ever heard in his life and he found himself biting down hard on his knuckles to keep the cry of shock and horror from leaving his lips.
There were several seconds of total and complete silence. And then Rien pulled his pack on to his shoulders. “Come on,” he whispered in a hoarse voice. “We have to go.”
“Rien,” Ezra whispered. “Oh Rien. What have you done?!” He knelt down beside his wife, her body suddenly looking even smaller than he remembered before. He turned her over gently, so that she faced the ceiling and cradled her as he put his face next to her mouth, desperate to feel her breath on his cheek and when he could feel nothing, his heart ached and tears blurred his vision.
“For fucks sake Ez, we have to go!” Rien grabbed Ezra’s shoulder and roughly pulled him to his feet. “How much worse will this be if they find us like this?”
“She was a CHILD-”
“She was one of you!” Ezra staggered back from the venom in Rien’s words like they had been a physical slap. Rien shook his head and set his jaw and when he looked at Ezra again there was no trace of the man he had once loved. “Coming back here was such a mistake. How soon you forget the misery these people inflict when you are living among them again-”
“How fucking dare you! I have risked everything to get us to this point,” Ezra hissed. “And its happening, right now. Everything we have worked for is happening and we are a part of this-”
“No, Ezra,” Rien retorted, now calm and collected as ever. “You can moralise all you want about what’s wrong and what’s right, but all it does is expose you for who you really are. There is no true peril for you, not while you can still run back to your parents’ mansion if you say and do the right things to gain their approval. You’ll never truly understand what its like to live as we do.” He moved to the door, opened it and stepped through.
“Rien!” Ezra begged, the plea and sorrow clear in his broken voice. He was incapable of saying anything else, his heart reeling with rejection and his mind paralysed from fear from all possible futures - both with Rien and without him.
Rien paused, looked back and met his eyes and seemed to stare into his very soul for the last time.
“Goodbye Ezra. I really did love you, you know,” he said, the tremor in his voice the only betrayal of any emotion. And with that, Rien vanished.
Ezra’s senses blurred - his vision and his hearing and his sense of touch, they began to shut down - all around him became dulled and muted and only snatches of his experiences over the next few hours were able to penetrate the painful hazy fog of his mind. His blind panic as he ran from the dreadful scene. The howling alarm of the gate as he belatedly realised his father must have acted on his barbed advice and changed the code from his mother’s birthday. The scrape of bark and brick under his palms as he attempted to climb the blood ivy instead. The searing pain of animal teeth in the meat of his calf. And the triumphant, sneering face of his uncle above him as he lay breathless and defeated on the lawns of his childhood home. The next time Ezra came to with any kind of clarity it took him long, painful moments to understand where he was, to make sense of the howls of pain and suffering around him.
The Glasshouse…the-the Glasshouse-
Her warm hand caressed his face, gently turning him toward her. Tear tracks that mirrored his own streaked her cheeks and she pressed her forehead against his before cradling his head against her chest and holding him close, his hand coming around her back to cling to her as he choked out his sorrow. She murmured something, and the rumble of her voice as he felt it through her chest was the most comforting thing in the world to him. He glanced down at the translator, the words across it seen through the blur of his tears.
“No more, love. No more tonight.”
She held him for long minutes in that way, stroking his hair, planting soft, sweet kisses against his forehead until he quieted, regained control of the panic and grief that had gripped him as he relieved his darkest of days for her. The fire was down past its embers and emitting almost no light anymore, and she poked at it to check it was fully extinguished before holding her hand out to him in silence. He took it and followed her up to her bedroom once again, Dog trailing in their wake. The room was warm, dark, full of her scent and so welcoming. She deposited the translator on the table at her beside, leaning it up against the lamp that was there so it could more readily be seen.
She closed the curtains against the black void of the ocean in the distance and then lay fully clothed on her bed with her head propped up by one hand, patting the space next to her in an invitation for him to follow, which he did without hesitation. The tender sadness of her beautiful smile as he moved to join her was enough for his eyes to begin to prickle with tears again. She manoeuvred him so that he was lying on his side, so he could see a portion of the now-clear and magnificently starry sky through the small window set into the roof above him. She pressed herself against his back, her arm wrapped around his middle, her nose rubbing softly at the back of his ear and the curls at the nape of his neck. He felt her soft breath, felt her inhale him and take joy and comfort from that simple yet most intimate of gestures. Her hand slipped under his shirt and stroked lightly over his stomach, the small shiver of the feeling of their skin connecting still so new and such a delight. Her body at his back and the aura of her presence warmed him inside and out and he found himself full of gratitude once again that she was here with him and that she would not send him away. He felt the mattress dip a little as Dog jumped up to join them and settle himself between their feet with a small sigh of contentment. In the grand scheme of the strangeness of the past few days this was a small moment, but it was one that Ezra had dreamed of many times, when he was lonely and heartsick and wondering if there was something truly wrong with him that he could not find a mate like so many others. To be here, completely present in this moment of solace. With her.
The words appeared slowly across the screen of the translator, chasing her soft words from at his back. “I want to know the rest,” she said. “But its a lot to deal with emotionally.”
“I know, my love and I’m sorry,” he interjected,. “I should have given you more of a warning-”
He felt her shift against him, felt her move up his body a little until her chin rested on his upper arm, and when she spoke next her voice was full of pain “Not for me, Ezra. It was too much for you. I could feel it coming from you. The sorrow, the anguish, the guilt and regret. You don’t have to relive those things for me. I don’t want you to. I don’t want you to ever hurt again.”
He turned slightly so he was resting more on his back and gazed up at her with eyes that slowly filled with tears in the face of her compassion and care for him. He opened his mouth, moved his lips but no words that could come close to adequately explaining how he felt in this moment made themselves available to him. She shushed him gently and stroked a light finger over his cheek. “Its okay. I’m here. You’re here. And that’s all there ever needs to be. You never have to be alone with these things ever again.”
The tears began to stream freely down his face again and she kissed him softly, his lips trembling against hers in his grief. “My life,” he sobbed shakily. “My heart. I thank whatever happenstance or deity conspired to bring us together. I do not deserve your kindness-”
She kissed him again, stifling his negativity about himself with her lips. “You are a good man, Ezra,” she proclaimed. “And you deserve happiness and kindness and gentleness.”
“You have yet to hear all,” he warned. “There is still more-”
She stopped his words with her lips again, and this time he was more able to respond in kind, his kisses growing more fierce as his heart urged him to capture her, to keep her. “And I will still be here to hear it,” she promised. “But for now, you need rest. You’re still recovering from your time in the pod, and tonight has been so intense in so many ways. Just…let me be close to you. Let me hold you as we both sleep.”
She kissed his forehead, his nose, his mouth, and then buried her face in the crook of his neck again to pass her lips gently over the slightly ticklish skin there as well. After everything he had confessed to he was initially unsure if he would be able to sleep, or if the faces of all he had left behind would haunt him when he closed his eyes as they so often did. He stared up at the night sky, at the smattering of glowing lights that were so familliar yet arranged so strangely to his eyes. But then she began to sing softly and he allowed her voice to soothe the very core of his soul. As his eyes began to flutter shut and fight against the sleep that would claim him, they were drawn down to the burning imprint of the words she was uttering into the dark as they appeared across the screen.
