Chapter Text
A trip; a sparring session; a round of drinks; a walk of shame.
“I have something I must discuss with you.”
Solar's gaze was somber, and it sent Kate's heart up to lodge in her throat. “What is it?”
“I have to leave for a time. It will be longer than any time before; perhaps thirty cycles.” He came around the table to her, her head tipping back and back as he did so. “There is some unrest in our clan territory on Yautja Prime, and I have been called back to act as a sort of... representative. A mediator.”
Her heart settled back into its normal place. “Oh. I thought...”
His feet spread apart, and he pulled her between them, hands linked over her lower back. “Thought something dire?”
“I don't know. You said it so seriously.”
“I say everything seriously,” he replied, and so true was that pronouncement that it took her a moment to spot the amusement in his eyes. She sighed and swatted his abdomen.
“You aren't on the clan council, though,” she queried, once he'd caught and secured her hand between them. “You're a navigator, not a negotiator.”
“No. But the Vizier involved is a good friend of my bearer, which gives me some positive sway, and Olora trusts me to accurately ascertain the situation and perhaps smooth it over.” His smile was subtle. “And I think the ship will manage not to crash into any celestial objects in my absence.”
She elected not to question him any more, lest he think she was questioning his fitness to perform this duty. He was not overly sensitive or quick to take offense, but in yautja culture such harmless comments often inadvertently translated to passive-aggressive slights.
“When will you leave?”
“I have not been told yet. Not immediately.” His champagne eyes softened as he considered her, drawing his thumb over her knuckles. “I would have liked to bring you to my home-world, but this is not the right time.”
“Someday.” She'd like that, too. Not only visiting Yautja Prime, but it had been too long since she'd walked on terra firma. “It's not going anywhere, and neither am I.”
“I hope not. I happen to love... my planet quite a bit. Hush,” he added, tightening his arms around her as she opened her mouth indignantly, and instead she laughed into his chest.
“When was the last time you sparred? Before your chiva?”
T'kicta ignored Luar's playful heckling and sprang away from him, keeping himself light and ready on the balls of his feet.
“At least mine was in living memory, elder.”
Despite the retort, Luar was not really that much older, but he was broader and brawnier. The smartest approach would not be to launch a full-on assault, which T'kicta would likely lose, but to stay out of reach; make him work for it, tire him out, and wait for an opening to land a well-placed blow or grip on a pressure point.
He pushed off from the mat and feinted left, ducking from Luar's right hook and darting back to the right.
“Easy now with the punches,” he taunted. "You'll mar this handsome face.”
Luar's laugh was a low rumble in his throat. “If it will knock you down a peg or two it's a sacrifice I will make.”
There was a rhythm to sparring that T'kicta found both electrifying and centering: the pound of his heart, the rapid cadence of his breaths, the tunnel-like focus on his opponent and the mental shuffle of potential moves as if through a deck of cards. There were rules for fighting in a training setting like this: tress, genitals, eyes, and neck were off limits, no strikes when your opponent was down or had his back turned, no biting, no deliberate bone-breaking. Other than that, anything to bring down your partner was permissible.
T'kicta faked an opening on his right side, to lure Luar in and allow him a hit in order to use his momentum against him and bring him to the floor. As intended Luar zeroed in on the metaphorical chink in the armor and sidled that direction, then asked conversationally, “I assume you and your cousin trained together when you were younger?”
“On occasion,” T'kicta panted. “What of it?”
Luar surged forward, aiming for a blow to the ribs – but as if psychically predicting the strategy he stopped just short, and instead mirrored the quarter-rotation T'kicta did in anticipation of intercepting Luar's momentum.
“Because he uses that trick, too.”
T'kicta regrouped fast, lunging forward to try to hook his leg behind Luar's and force him off balance – not fast enough. Luar hit him with upward elbow strike to the jaw and while he was reeling spun him so they were flush together, back to chest, T'kicta's arms crossed in front of him and his wrists securely in each of Luar's hands.
“Ready to yield?” came Luar's rasp in his ear.
T'kicta brought his heel down hard on the top of Luar's foot, raking his shinbone with his hind claw as he did. “You first.”
Luar roared in pain and T'kicta pushed hard off the mat with both feet, throwing himself backwards into Luar and forcing both their weight on the gouged leg. Luar buckled on one knee and they went down in a tangle of limbs, each struggling for the upper hand, and T'kicta bit back a grimace as Luar trapped his legs under his own and yanked hard on his still-crossed arms.
“How about now?” he growled. “Say it.”
Luar had effectively shackled him. T'kicta hissed and bucked up, but to little avail; he flung his head back, hoping to hit mandibles, but as if in anticipation Luar had his own head down and T'kicta got nothing but solid crest.
“Say it and I will let you breathe again,” Luar promised, compressing T'kicta's lungs with a flex of his biceps. H'chak – “mercy” – the customary surrender. There was no shame in losing to a superior fighter, but T'kicta didn't have to like it, and he rattled out his displeasure.
With the sound the last of his air left him and his vision started to fuzz. Obstinately he clung to consciousness, and when his ears began to ring and head lolled forward Luar finally released him, shaking him by the shoulders to let the blood rush back into his arms. T'kicta sucked in a wheeze and coughed, sitting forward with his head between his knees.
“Gods, you are stubborn!” Luar crawled around in front of him and lifted his chin with his knuckle, turning it this way and that. Whatever he sought, he seemed to find it satisfactory, and leaned back on his heels. “A rougher fighter than myself might have blacked you out.”
“Maybe I was taking advantage of that,” T'kicta replied wisely, drawing back his arm as if to deliver a punch. “You have let your guard down now, and – ”
He extended his fist forward in demonstration. Luar put up a lenient palm to catch it.
“I suppose that is a strategy.” Luar looked skeptical. “You have to gamble that your sparring partner likes you enough to release you while you're still conscious.”
“'Gamble' implies risk,” T'kicta trilled. “There was never a question you'd let me go in time.”
Luar had not dropped his hand, claws slotting into the dips between T'kicta's knuckles. “You think I'm too indulgent?”
“I think weak spots should be sought and exploited.”
“I agree,” Luar shrugged, “And I happened to find one I liked very much in the form of your respiratory system.”
“Oh? So you liked leaving me breathless?”
By way of response Luar pounced on him, knocking him backward and straddling his waist. T'kicta was agile and swift, but such skills were little use beneath Luar's bulk. He bucked his hips up anyway, reclaiming his fist and sending it into Luar's stomach.
“I should have finished the job if only to shut you up,” Luar sighed deeply, and gleeful satisfaction bubbled up in T'kicta's throat to spill out in a peal of laughter.
After another two rounds they showered, and ate, and when Luar suggested something stronger than the water and herbal infusions available in the meal hall T'kicta agreed almost before he'd finished his sentence. The lounge was reasonably full, which neither minded. T'kicta had sent a message to his cousin asking him and the ooman to join them, and it was not long before they appeared in the doorway, Solar casting his gaze about until he spotted Luar and T'kicta at the bar.
The ooman – Kate – looked shy, and Luar suspected she must not come here often. But though she earned a few glances her novelty aboard the ship must have worn off by now, as the attention did not last long. Solar's presence, however, and the subtle way in which he oriented himself around her, undoubtedly helped dissuade anyone with a less than charitable philosophy about her.
“I must say up front,” Solar began, “That if you two are on the prowl for females I will decline any more than a single drink. But if this is only a friendly outing –
“Can it not be both?” Luar proposed.
“I suppose for some of us it is inevitable.” Solar cast a glance at T'kicta, who blinked over the top of his tankard.
“Why are you looking at me?”
“Your feigned innocence might be convincing if you could so much as pass a female in the meal line without flirting with her, Kiki – ”
“I make my own opportunities!”
For half a moment Luar wondered who 'Kiki' was.
“Kiki?” he echoed, cutting his eyes between Solar and T'kicta. The former smiled wryly, and the latter hid his face in his drink.
“When he was very young he could not say his name for the longest time,” Solar explained. “It only came out as Kiki.”
T'kicta glowered at him. “And I'm sure you with your heap of syllables did not say your name at all until you could pronounce it flawlessly?”
“Naturally.”
“Kiki,” Luar repeated, tapping the base of his tankard on the bar top and watching T'kicta's mandibles twitch a little in embarrassment. “You should have introduced yourself as that from the start because from this night on I will not call you anything else.”
“Aside from family I don't let anyone call me that.” T'kicta's eyes took on a sly glitter and he fluttered his lids. “Except in bed. So go ahead and use it, but I will have no choice but to assume you have designs on me – ”
He was interrupted by Solar's roll of laughter, and cocked a brow in response. “And I suppose you make females call you by your entire name,” T'kicta accused. “First, last, and honorific – ”
“You should try it sometime,” Solar suggested placidly. “You might be surprised at how they like the honorific. Oh, forgive me; I just recalled you don't have one.”
On the end of the foursome lineup Kate listened to the banter, nursing her massive tankard and taking occasional sips of the unexpectedly savory brew. Though it looked like dark beer, it was more reminiscent of broth than any beer she'd ever tried. She couldn't decide if she liked it.
The voices beside her were rasping and alien, but the atmosphere of the conversation was familiar – the good-natured ribbing, the comfortable back-and-forth between friends. She didn't have much in the way of those here. And even though she sat without speaking, Solar's body language was not turned away from her, and she did not feel ignored, or superfluous at this gathering of comrades.
“I am a hidden gem,” T'kicta was saying now. “They will be begging for my kisses – ”
“Given what you told me about your encounter with Atal,” Luar reminded him, “I don't imagine you have kissed anybody, eh?”
“Yautja kiss each other too?” Kate wondered aloud, conveniently sparing T'kicta from having to answer. She'd never seen that in action.
“We do,” Luar replied. “Look, I will demonstrate – ” He slung his arm around Solar's neck, swaying in exaggeratedly close as if to plant one one him. Solar chuffed, blocking him with his elbow.
“No second chances.”
Luar snorted knowingly, releasing him, while T'kicta's brow knit together. “Have I missed a joke?”
Solar and Luar exchanged a subtle but meaningful look. The latter shrugged. “It would not be the first time he and I exchanged a kiss.”
Kate did a double-take between the two yautja. “You... you two were...?
“Not the way you are thinking,” Luar assured her. “We were younger; before our chiva. It was merely a fleeting experimentation one late night in an otherwise empty barracks. I initiated, and he indulged me.”
Solar leaned back on the bar. “The moment passed, and I confirmed I did not like males in that fashion – ”
“And I learned that I did,” Luar winked.
T'kicta's eyes were flicking back and forth between the two of them, torn between surprise and fascination – his expression was not one of shock, but reflected the sensation of discovering something you never knew about someone you'd known a long time.
“I kissed your cousin, and your mate,” Luar teased T'kicta and Kate without looking directly at either of them – though they looked at each other, weighing that, and then back at a very unruffled Solar. “Do not be jealous!”
“If anyone should be jealous, it's you of me,” Kate informed him, with tentative but alcohol-fueled bravado. “Since I know his kisses all too well.” For a few awkward beats she feared her attempt at joining the banter had failed, as Luar's face went blank – but then he laughed uproariously, throwing his head back, tress slipping off his shoulders.
“Now how can that be?” he queried, his golden eyes – a darker shade than Solar's – fixating intently on her mouth. From beside him, T'kicta's own gaze followed suit. “I see nothing in your anatomy to allow for it.”
“Mouth to mouth kissing can be a bit clumsy,” she admitted. “I spoke figuratively, of his many... charms.”
“I understand fully,” Luar responded sensibly. “And besides, you cannot help the deficiency of your facial structure.”
“He would not use that word to describe it.” Was that boasting in her tone? She so rarely imbibed of yautja alcohol that she forgot how strong it was. She pushed her tankard away but Luar and T'kicta's eyes were alight with curiosity now, and while Solar's coloring did not allow for a blush Kate would've sworn she could almost see one anyway.
“Speak plainly,” T'kicta demanded, leaning forward as if in anticipation of being gifted with a juicy secret.
“It would push the bounds of decency to do so,” Kate replied, enjoying how the more formal yautja speech added to the humor of her faux haughtiness. At least to her ears.
“Now that you have intrigued him he will not rest until he has solved the puzzle,” Solar murmured in English, hand slipping to the small of her back. It was the lightest touch, almost imperceptible as he moved behind her, and then falling away – public displays of affection required caution, but somehow that gave her an extra private frisson.
“What did he say?” T'kicta asked nobody in particular. Luar shrugged, but his eyes refocused on Kate's mouth, and as his brain worked she felt heat creeping up in her own cheeks.
After a long pause Luar's mandibles tugged up, and he drew T'kicta close to him, muttering in his ear. T'kicta let loose with a stifled yip of dismay and disbelief, all but cringing, and when his alarmed stare dropped to Solar's groin Kate knew Luar had sussed it out.
Solar took a calm but very lengthy drink.
Not long after Kate and Solar left the lounge started to fill up further than before. The crowd consisted of mostly males, but there were some females in the mix, with one in the nearest sunken lounge who was drawing more than a little attention. Her coloring was unremarkable but her demeanor was stately and striking, her laugh loud and hearty, and Luar found his interest piqued.
“No, let me,” T'kicta implored, following Luar's eye-line. “I know her. Somewhat, at least. She is a friend of Atal.” And his eyes glimmered, and Luar knew he was recalling their conversation in the bathhouse.
“Go on, then,” Luar acquiesced, though he had not seriously intended to pursue her, and observed with mild interest as T'kicta abandoned his half-finished ale and wove through the crowd toward his target.
When he reached her there was no hesitation before he crouched down behind her and leaned forward to say something. She startled, and Luar winced in anticipation of a scolding – perhaps he should have given him pointers – but instead she laughed once more, this time with friendly recognition, and reached back over her shoulder to touch his forearm.
There was another male at the opposite end of the bar with his eyes trained on her, Luar noticed – he was brutish and bulky, and if it came down to a fight T'kicta would not win. Well, he could no doubt run circles around the challenger, but he would lose the female.
Just as the male pushed away from the bar Luar vacated his own spot to step in front of him.
“That specific female is busy right now,” he said, his tone both courteous and meaningful.
The male bristled, at once suspicious and perplexed. Luar couldn't blame him. It was generally accepted that if you cannot fight for a female, you don't deserve her. It was a principle that Luar himself subscribed to – usually. T'kicta himself no doubt would agree, and be offended if he knew of Luar's interference.
“Allow my friend this,” Luar entreated, aiming for honesty rather than intimidation. “Do you not remember being young and untried? There are other females.”
The challenger frowned, and grumbled, but at last relented, going instead to the upper balcony where a knot of females stood conversing and observing the goings-on below.
Luar's place at the bar had been taken and he turned now, eyes finding T'kicta again. He had joined the group in the pit, sitting with his knees spread and one arm boldly draped on the couch behind the female. Either Atal truly had complimented him to her friends, or whatever he'd said to this one when he approached succeeded in sparking a connection – either way, both were fully absorbed in the conversation. In that unique way of his T'kicta's face was simultaneously bright with enthusiasm and shadowed with cocksure, heavy-lidded intention. Such blended emotion suited his features, as if they'd been specially designed for such a wealth of feeling.
Once his rank increased and trophy wall diversified Luar predicted T'kicta would be popular with the females. Quite popular indeed.
Speaking of them, there was only one here he could detect in heat; and as Luar was not prone to random encounters without either breeding or more intimate personal attachment as a motivating factor, she was his sole objective. He finished the last of his ale and slid the empty flagon onto the rack for used drinkware.
She was an aloof one, that was for certain. To the point that he almost gave up, and that was something he rarely did – but the heat scent was enticing, and T'kicta was fully occupied and Solar had a mate and Luar refused to be the only one returning to a cold and empty bed. As it turned out she was acquaintances with another chiva master he'd worked with on Yautja Prime, and knew Luar by reputation if not by name, and once she made that connection she warmed toward him considerably.
Very considerably.
On their way out of the lounge, arm in arm, it occurred to Luar he should let T'kicta know he was leaving; but he did not want to interrupt. He glanced back - the couple sat more closely now, T'kicta's mouth curving in some flippant and conspiratorial joke. If the female was particularly receptive, they might be leaving soon enough on their own.
Luar silently wished him good fortune before turning away, and letting himself be all but lead out the doors.
“Oomans are very social,” Solar said without preamble once he and Kate were back in their rooms.
“Yes,” she agreed, without asking why he'd remarked on it. She'd learned that if she only waited, he would typically clarify his thought process in his own time.
“I sense you enjoyed this outing tonight,” he added, as she toed her boots off and curled up on the couch with her notebook. “We will do it more often.”
“I would like that.”
For a while there was only leather creaking and the metallic click of compartment doors as Solar removed and put away his armor, and the scratch of her pen as she jotted down some of the evening's more humorous points. She'd bought the notebook right before that life-changing hiking trip, and since then she deliberately kept her handwriting small and only included things of interest, so there were many blank pages left... but the pen was going to run out soon. She'd tried a yautja stylus and found it uncomfortably large for her hand, but eventually she'd have no choice but to use one.
Solar came over on silent bare feet, looking over her shoulder. He'd never questioned the journal – sporadic though she was about writing in it – seeming to find it perfectly reasonable for her to keep a personal record. Like bio-mask recordings, just in another format. He couldn't read any of it, or any English aside from his own name, since she'd once spelled out her best approximation for him. He'd found it bizarrely long. The yautja alphabet was based more on phonetic letter groups – apparently her name translated fairly well, with only two symbols needed, while his full given name somehow fit into just five.
Now he put his hand lightly on her head, only his claws touching her scalp and palm just barely brushing her ponytail. “Neither Luar nor my cousin would find it amiss if you contacted them while I was away.”
“Are you telling me that in case I need protection?”
“I am telling you so that you feel safe and have resources.” His hand drifted down to her exposed neck. “Luar likes you. He likes most everybody, of course, but I can tell he does not think any less of you for your... origins.”
“How generous of him.” Her sarcasm had no bite to it, though. Luar seemed genuine, and warm – he would have even if he was a man, but especially so for a yautja. He was probably the most social and human-like in personality she'd come across so far. She'd never share that conclusion, though, in case it insulted him. She had no doubt he could rip out a spine with the best of them.
Kate shivered a little as Solar's knuckles grazed her nape, tickling the fine hairs there. “If you keep touching me like that...”
“Then...?” he prompted.
“Then,” she repeated, adopting a more authoritative tone than usual, “I'll expect you to follow through.”
“If you command it,” he intoned gallantly. Both big hands spread along her arms to slide her tank top straps down and when the air hit her bared breasts, she heard the low resonance of his purr.
Primary shift had not even begun the next morning when Luar found himself unceremoniously expelled from the female's chambers, standing in the corridor clutching his half-tied loincloth to his crotch.
He hoped he'd at least left a pup in her. That would be an auspicious beginning to his time aboard.
He had just enough time to return to his own rooms for a shower, but not for a meal, as he was due in the kehrite for class. He dressed anew, and went to wait for a lift – and as he stood there one opened, and T'kicta came out of it. He must have spent the night on the sororal deck. Welts latticed the pale creamy green of his chest and his gaze was unusually tired, fixed on nothing in particular.
“Greetings, da'qinna,” Luar offered with a smile. At his voice T'kicta lifted his head, lethargic eyes lighting up as he exited the lift. “Why so glum?”
“'Sunlight'?” T'kicta parroted the term back at him; it had been used ironically but now the clouds cleared from his face, expression realigning as if to fit the teasing word. “Glum? Me? How could I be glum when I have passed the night in the very bosom of heaven?”
“You two are blocking the lift,” someone groused as he pushed between them. Several other yautja wanted to board also and so Luar let himself be carried into it, turning as he did to maintain eye contact with T'kicta.
“Eat something,” he called over the other passengers' heads. Though there was no artifice in T'kicta's sudden shift between moods, there were still dark circles under his eyes. “Brag all you like but you look like c'jit.”
“C'jit!?” T'kicta's grin was breezy once more; he spread his hands as he stepped backward away from the lift, short tress dancing with the shrug of his shoulders. “I thought I looked like sunlight?”
And then the door swished closed, and Luar chuckled to himself, and though it was only under his breath the sensation seemed to fill not just his body but the entire oblivious lift.