“Look,” he said, both regretting what he was about to say and steadfastly saying it anyway, “I know things are weird between us right now, and I’m not trying to play with your emotions or anything, but I think—I think I’d sleep better if you slept in my bed with me. If you’d even want to, I mean.”
“Yes!” Al said enthusiastically the second Jude was done speaking. He let out a little cough and adjusted the lanyard around his neck as he composed himself. “What I intended to say,” he said more calmly, “is that I feel desire to be joining you in unconsciousness.”
“Okay, cool.” Jude swallowed hard. “Well, I’m going to take a nap. Don’t feel obligated to join me for that, you can just come lie down whenever you—”
“I will join you now.”
Jude wasn’t sure why he’d expected otherwise.
“Cool,” he said again. Then, “We have stuff we need to talk about, I know that, okay, but let’s just… let’s just deal with it later? Could we do that?”
“I feel agreement about this.”
They nodded at one another, and were about to head to Jude’s room when Jude remembered the birthday candle still lit, dripping wax onto his cremated chicken breast.
“One moment,” he told Al, who only grimaced a little at the vagueness of the turn of phrase.
Jude hovered above the candle and wondered if wishes granted from blowing out candles still got counted if it wasn’t actually your birthday.
Well, the last time he’d made a wish, it’d come true, and it hadn’t exactly been a shooting star he’d been wishing on, had it? This misplaced birthday candle was worth a shot.
If it can’t be the same between us,Jude thought to himself,then I wish for it to still be good.
He blew out the candle and watched for a second or two as a thin tail of white smoke rose from its wick, then went to the bedroom to be with Al.
15
Al
When Al woke, Jude’s bare chest was pressed against Al’s bare back, which would not have been so unusual had it not been for the way Jude was clinging to him as though he was afraid that Al might disappear into thin air should he let go. Al spent an increment of time in silence, listening to Jude breathe, and determined that he was still having his nightly unconsciousness. It was not a conscious action, then, to hold on to him so tightly, and Al felt disappointment to know it—but that disappointment was minor compared to the joy of being close to Jude.
A week had passed since that awful day when Jude had told Al there was no love for him in his heart, and since then, life had been strange. Jude had allowed Al back into his bed, but did not want to be touched. He had his unconsciousness as closely to the edge of the bed as he could and kept his arms folded and his legs together in order to take up less space, but his efforts—as valiant as they were—were always wasted, for as soon as his conscious brain turned off, he always came to seek Al out and would not leave his side for anything until he woke and feigned disinterest again.
It was a painful experience for Al, who wished Jude would wake up one day and realize he had made a mistake, but as painful as it was, Al couldn’t say that he minded, because touching Jude a little was better than not touching him at all. He had missed feeling Jude in this way, both physically and telepathically, and these stolen moments of skin-to-skin contact were a balm to Al’s injured soul. With Jude’s arms around him, it made it seem as though none of the terrible things that had happened over the course of the last week were real.
It made it all so easy to forget.
And wanting very badly to forget all of it, Al allowed himself a small indulgence—he scooched back to increase the points of contact between his and Jude’s bodies and concentrated on his touch telepathy. Every morning since Jude had invited Al back into his bed, Al had tried to do this in order to make sense of what Jude was truly feeling toward him, but every morning he had failed. It seemed to him as though Jude’s emotions were a thick fog, impossible to penetrate, and Al could not get a read on what Jude was feeling about anything, least of all what Jude might be feeling about him.
Unfortunately, this morning’s reading was not much better. Al picked up on some fuzzy happiness, but it was not attached to any one particular thing—Jude must have been having a good dream. However, happiness was better than impenetrable fog, and Al exhaled as a pleasant wave of comfort and relief washed through him. Perhaps, if he focused a little harder, he would be able to follow the feeling and access other, more complicated emotions that would help him make sense of what was going on in Jude’s head.
Spurred on by his small success, Al ventured deeper with his telepathy. Unfortunately, he did not find what he was looking for, but he did discover something else—many little prickles of very faint sensation that were distinct from Jude’s inner emotional state.
Al recognized them at once as their offspring.
The eggs were maturing, and their cognitive abilities were beginning to manifest.
It would not be long now before they were born.
Al’s heart constricted.
He wished to meet his offspring very much, but he knew what would happen after Jude laid their eggs. Everything bad and wrong would become badder and wronger, and a very short increment of time after that, Al would be forced to part ways with Jude and they would never see each other again.
It made Al wish Jude would never wake up and simply spend the rest of time clinging to him as tightly as a Sand Dweller’s mucus web, but he was aware that in reality, it was unlikely such a thing would happen. Jude did not feel love for him, and there was nothing to be done about it. Love was not something Al could make Jude feel, not even were he the most skilled telepath in all the known universe. These fleeting moments of happiness spent touching Jude as he did now were not the sparks of a protostar about to be born—they were the death knells of a star about to go supernova. The last few glimmering bursts of light before everything went dark forever.
True Mates no more.
Al felt great discomfort to think about it, but instead of stressing himself out by dwelling on the inevitable, as he had done each time thoughts like these had previously occurred, he decided to strike the thought from his mind. Perhaps he did not feel understanding about why Jude’s unconscious brain sought him out for cuddling when his conscious mind did not want Al at all, but that did not mean he could not enjoy these moments. In fact, it would be wasteful not to. In many years from now, reflecting on these morning cuddle sessions, he would surely feel regret should he deny himself contact with Jude.
