Khoth tentatively cupped Jace’s cheek. Jace turned and looked at him. Wide eyes. Lips parted. Pink flush coating his cheeks. Pain for him. Desire for him. Caring for him.
Family, Khoth thought.
But he said, “That is not your--”
“If you say it is not my responsibility I am going to… to… I don’t know, Khoth!” Jace’s mouth twitched into a smile. “You’re crew. You’re--”
“Family. Yes, I know. You made this so much easier than it could have been,” Khoth assured him, his thumb running along Jace’s cheek. “I thought I would be devastated. That my Xi and Xa would be split in two. But… It is like a weight has lifted.”
“I’m glad. I’m so glad.”
Khoth caressed his cheek again. Jace turned his head into Khoth’s hand, hot breath gushing over Khoth’s skin, nuzzling him. And Khoth could not help himself. He didn’t want to deny himself of this pleasure, of this comfort, of this warmth, of Jace for any longer. He kissed Jace for a second time.
Willing lips melted beneath his. Jace molded against him. His arms wound around the young man’s lithe body and he brought Jace up onto his lap. Jace’s arms were around his neck. He ground down on Khoth’s lap. Arousal flared inside of Khoth. He hadn’t lost his family and his past for this, but he realized in a moment that he would have done it.
“Oh, God, shut up, Osiris,” Jace murmured against Khoth’s lips as he dove in for a deeper kiss.
“What is--what is Osiris saying?” Khoth asked as they broke for air even as his hands went to push Jace’s coat off of his shoulders.
Jace stayed his hands and grimaced. “We need to stop, because,” another grimace, “your mom is here.”
One Reason
Jace caught Khoth reaching up to where the selchilite had hung from his head. But each time he did his Commander dragging his hands back down to his sides and fisted them as if to weigh them down so that they could not traitorously lift up to shorn places on his scalp. Jace gritted his teeth and forced himself to say nothing. Even though there was so much wrong in having Khoth be punished for what Nova had done. What the whole of the Alliance had done.
They value logic allegedly, but what is logical about punishing the one person who is doing what is right, Jace thought.
But he would not say any of this to Khoth. This was his culture. This was the Thaf’ell way. And Khoth did not have to be answering for his mother as well as the Thaf’ell. He was suffering. That much was clear to Jace. And all Jace wanted to do was fix it. But screaming about it to Khoth would only hurt his Commander more.
The elevator doors silently whisked open to take them down to the meeting room that the Osiris had prepared for their conversation. His parents and General Intoshkin were already there. Gehenna and Thammah had agreed to meet Nova and the Alliance contingent and bring them to Jace and Khoth. Even if Jace had been inclined to greet them himself for reasons of strategy he was too angry right now to do so. He wondered if it was wise to even have this meeting now.
And he wasn’t just pissed that Nova had interrupted some alone-time with Khoth. Though his body still tingled at the memory of it. Everything about Khoth was exciting and arousing to him, but it would also be the first time that Jace would be able to be physical with someone without being in agony. Not having to manage his pain while kissing was… unique. He now understood the big deal about sex. Or he would. If he and Khoth ever had enough time between crises to be alone.
The elevator doors whisked shut and Khoth’s right hand lifted towards the bare skin on the side of his head. He jerked it down again. His knuckles whitened from the tenseness of his grasp. So Jace reached up and lightly brushed his thumb over the bare space. Khoth jerked away in surprise, but then slowly moved back into touching distance.
“Your hair is so soft,” Jace murmured. His Commander held himself very still as Jace touched each and every bare spot. “The short strands here are even silkier.”
“We take great care of our hair, especially those the selchilite are attached to,” Khoth answered.
“Because of the importance of the selchilite? If you neglect your hair you’re neglecting your family and accomplishments?” Jace inferred.
“Yes,” Khoth answered, still without moving. “The Khul have been known to remove the scalp of Thaf’ell and leave them behind as if to say that they are not important. That all the Thaf’ell is meat.”
Jace grimaced and shut his eyes for a moment. “Of course they would do that.”
The Khul were not dumb bugs. They were incredibly intelligent in that they understood other cultures vastly different from their own and what would offend and hurt them most. It was almost malicious.
No “almost” about it, Jace thought. The Khul don’t just destroy other species, but do so almost gleefully.
To Jace that sounded like a culture that had devolved into a decadent period, an old culture that had gotten to the point where feeding people to the lions was entertainment at its finest. For some reason he had assumed the Khul were less civilized than the Alliance, but, in truth, they were acting like a species that was far older and had fallen into jaded brutality.
The door to the elevator whisked open again. He lowered his hands from Khoth’s hair. That was actually incredibly hard to do. Khoth had watched him with utmost intensity as he did it. He wondered if Khoth had liked the touch or if Jace had just made him more self-conscious about the lack of selchilite.
The hallway stretched out before them in brightly lit antiseptic white and black. Jace liked the cleanness of this design. There was something a little Star Wars about it and he wondered if the Osiris wasn’t emphasizing that and subtly--or in the case of Khoth’s quarters not so subtly--changing things in the interior to suit its occupants.
Orange arrows appeared on the floor, lighting up the space with a sunshine-like glow, leading them towards the meeting chamber. Of course, Finn didn’t need the visual cues. He was starting to be able to sense the Osiris’ intent now almost like intuition. He bet he could have gotten to this room blindfolded. Jace stopped though outside of the door and put a hand on Khoth’s chest.
“My Xi and Xa are in balance, Pilot. You need not worry that I will make a scene,” Khoth again used an English idiom.
