Chapter 20

Chapter Twenty

Garin fled down the side hallway.

Pride aside, he was fleeing. No way around it. By habit, he'd marked out the escape routes the moment he'd entered the ballroom, and now he escaped down one.

Where he was escaping to, he hadn't decided. He'd spent most of the past week in one of three places: his shared recovery room, his family's apartment, or among Squad M, particularly in Sazahk's temporary lab.

His recovery quarters were out because the last thing he wanted was to be stuck in too small a room and too uncomfortable a bed while Todd yapped about his goddamn gallbladder. Sazahk's lab was out of the question for obvious reasons. But as much as Garin loved his family, he didn't have the fortitude to sit there and be Kev while his heart broke, and he definitely didn't have the fortitude to withstand all their coy questions about Sazahk, which had grown increasingly pointed every time they saw him.

So Garin found himself on one of the grandest space stations in the sector, with no plan and nowhere to go other than away, just away, somewhere he could be alone, and maybe somewhere that had something to numb the open wound in his chest.

Which all left only one sort of place, and fortunately, it was the sort of place no one would look for him in, because it was the sort of place he never frequented.

His mind made up, Garin moved quickly through the halls, striding down the twisting side corridors that surrounded the gala venue, as though he really were being chased by a hostile enemy. The layout had been designed for the skilled servant class of Qeshian society. The halls twisted and doubled back and opened into weird places and hit dead ends in closets.

Despite Garin's great pride in his sense of direction, he got turned around more than once. It didn't help that his primary goal was simply not to be found, and he backtracked and took turns every time he heard footsteps.

Eventually, he made it out, exiting a nondescript door onto a bustling street.

He headed for the military district, where he knew he'd find exactly what he was looking for. Every species state and every station was different, but every military district was the same.

His pace far too fast to be casual but slow enough not to draw attention, Garin wound through the streets until robes and glitz and glam gave way to pants, patches, and a certain grittiness he hadn't realized he'd missed.

From there, it didn't take long for him to find the lighted sign above an entryway. Around here, the owners of the establishment hadn't bothered with a fancy name. The sign simply said "Bar", and that was all Garin needed.

He hesitated before pushing open the door, realizing at the last minute that he still wore his suit from the gala. Then he decided he didn't give a fuck, and once he ordered his drink and found his corner, no one else would either.

He entered and inhaled the familiar smells. He'd never been so comforted by the tang of alcohol. The smell of smoke wasn't as heavy, qesh not having quite the same nicotine receptors that humans did, but Garin had never cared for that anyway, and the biting scent of liquor was more than enough for him.

He bee-lined for the stool against the farthest wall, not lifting his head until he secured it.

"Coming in here dressed like that? I'm guessing a double." The qesh with the shorn hair minding the bar, leaned his elbows on the dull metal as soon as Garin took his seat.

"For starters, at least," Garin confirmed with a grim smile. As the qesh pulled something down from the top shelf, Garin spun on his stool to survey the room.

There was a near even split of the three main species, which made sense considering the sector-wide negotiations that had just concluded.

Klah'eel drank and arm wrestled in a corner. A group of humans squabbled around the pool table. Two qesh in sleek black outfits matched each other shot for shot in another corner while their comrades looked on.

There truly was no place like a bar to bring out stereotypes. And Garin was more than ready to step into his current trope: the heartbroken drunk hunched over by himself. He turned back into his corner, crossing his arms and resting his elbows on the metal bar. There was no one here he knew or recognized and no one likely to recognize him, so he was free to lick his wounds in peace.

The bartender thumped a heavy glass in front of Garin. "I took the liberty of picking your poison for you."

Earth-style whiskey. They really were leaning into stereotypes then. Garin wasn't complaining.

The bartender sensed his mood like a practiced professional and didn't comment when Garin swallowed half the glass in a single gulp. He simply nodded and moved along down his line, checking on the other customers, most of which seemed to be enjoying life just fine.

Good for them.

Garin swigged another devil-may-care-sized mouthful, then took it easy. He wasn't actually much of a drinker and the whiskey burned enough in tiny sips. He nursed his drink slowly, contemplating how long he'd have to sit at the bar if he drank at his current rate until the pain dulled.

"Where's your redhead?"

The familiar voice, spoken so quietly and so closely, startled Garin out of his skin. He'd been so intent on burying himself in the corner, he'd turned his back on the room's points of entry. He supposed that went to show how emotionally fucked up he was, which went to show how emotionally attached he'd gotten.

Idiot. Foolish, foolish idiot.

He stole a look over his shoulder, knowing who he was going to see, but reluctant to put himself through the pain of it. Sazahk stood behind him, looking resplendent and awkward in his flowing golden robes. He was so fucking pretty and adorable. It wasn't fair. Garin's grip tightened around his glass and his chest spasmed. It wasn't fair.

Then the shock of seeing him wore off, and Garin registered his words.

Redhead? What the hell was he talking about?

Finally, Garin remembered the flirtatious young man that had sidled up to him at the champagne tower. His intentions and interests had been plain enough, but Garin had barely been aware of him.

He hadn't even seen his pretty smile through the looping memories playing in his mind's eye of his time with Sazahk. He'd analyzed them over and over, searching for exactly where he'd mis-stepped, where he'd made the fatal miscalculation that had resulted in him being heartbroken at a gala.

But he remembered the redhead now, and he remembered the soft touch of the man's fingers on his forearm, and when he realized what Sazahk was getting at, he spun around on his stool, indignity yanking his shoulders back.

"Are you…?" Garin gaped at the black wisps escaping Sazahk's collar. "Sazahk, you do not get to be jealous!"

"I am well aware of that limitation on my emotional rights." Sazahk pressed his lips together, but despite his words, the black wisps only grew darker and crawled up his throat. "I merely… I apologize."

Sazahk's pout and his valiant effort to change his colors softened Garin's heart. He turned back to his drink and pounded the rest of it. He didn't want to soften. Softening had gotten him into this mess.

"The alcohol in that glass is more than double the standard drink for a human male." Sazahk still stood behind Garin, not having taken a single step closer or away.

"I know that." Garin hadn't actually known that, but he'd known the drink was a lot. "And I want another one." He waved to the bartender, who eyed them both.

"Do you have a particularly high tolerance for a human man of your weight and body composition?" Sazahk's voice lilted in that unbearably curious way he had, and Garin almost laughed. God, why did it still feel so good for Sazahk to show an interest in him?

"Not particularly," he admitted. The softening taking hold despite his best efforts, Garin kicked out the stool beside him in the universal bar room gesture for "have a seat, if you want it."

Sazahk hesitated. Because he didn't understand the gesture or because he was debating whether or not to accept it, Garin didn't know, but after a few moments, Sazahk sat. He looked even more out-of-place sitting on the stool than he had standing behind Garin, and more eyes flickered toward them. The humans at the pool table especially muttered amongst themselves and gestured, but didn't approach.

"Given your general preference for rules and regulation, and a predisposition for discipline, I didn't expect you to be a drinker." Sazahk rotated in his seat to face Garin, but Garin stayed facing the bar.

He shrugged. "I'm not." But he still reached for the glass as soon as the bartender set it down for him and swallowed half of it.

Sazahk watched him, gray and pink playing over his collarbones. "You've now had the equivalent of at least four standard drinks, assuming the one you had when I arrived was your first."

"Sazahk, you don't get to ask about redheads, and you don't get to criticize my drinking." Garin dropped his glass back to the counter harder than he meant to.

"Of course." Sazahk clenched his hands into fists in his lap. "I apologize."

Sazahk's apologies didn't make Garin feel any better. In fact, they made him feel worse. He didn't actually mind that Sazahk didn't want him hanging out with redheads, and he didn't actually mind that Sazahk didn't want him drinking.

And in Sazahk's defense, he hadn't told Garin he didn't want him to drink. He had only asked a question and verbalized an observation. He hadn't even said Garin couldn't hang out with a redhead.

He had asked a question, because that was how Sazahk communicated. He asked questions.

Garin used to think that was how Sazahk expressed affection. And maybe it was. But it turned out affection wasn't all Garin wanted.

And, yeah, it was Garin who had read too much into everything and built up fanciful delusions in his head, but it was Sazahk who had chased him into the bar.

"Are you getting a drink?" he demanded, feeling raw and vulnerable with Sazahk there next to him and irritated to be feeling that way after fleeing those very sensations.

"Oh." Sazahk looked up at the bottles lined up behind the bar as though he'd only just realized they were there. "I hadn't planned on it. I've never had much of an inclination toward mind-altering substances."

"Well, this is a bar, so you should probably either get one or get out." Garin cringed as soon as the words left his mouth. "I didn't mean that."

"Yes, he did." The bartender appeared in front of them and braced both his hands on the dented metal. "Buy or beat it."

Sazahk hesitated, his wide eyes flickering across the dizzying array of bottles. He looked at Garin as though pleading for help, but Garin only lifted his eyebrows expectantly.

"Pony up, pretty boy." The bartender rapped his knuckles in front of Sazahk. "Pick your poison or I'll pick your ass up and toss it out."

"Hey." Garin stuck a hand between them and gave the bartender a stern look when his tone crossed a line. Garin was allowed to be brusque with Sazahk because Sazahk had broken his heart, but no one else got the same privilege.

The bartender raised an eyebrow at him but backed off and dropped the posturing.

Garin jerked his chin at a light teal liquor. "He'll have a finger of that."

"All right then." The bartender grabbed the bottle, uncorked it, and poured the alcohol into another heavy glass. "I'll add your drink to his tab."

"Works for me." Garin tipped his glass to the qesh as he left.

"He's very perceptive." Sazahk watched the bartender walk away, his drink untouched in front of him.

"Yeah," Garin grunted and swigged his whiskey, even though he knew he was drinking too much too fast.

"He recognized that your negative mood was linked to me." Sazahk bit his lower lip and dropped his gaze to the bar between them.

Garin looked back at the other patrons, still shooting them shrewd glances. "Yeah, I think most people in here recognize that."

Sazahk nodded mutely and stared at the light shimmering through his drink.

They said nothing for a long while, Garin's glass emptying slowly, and Sazahk's evaporating even slower.

Garin glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, still reluctant to fully face him, but achingly drawn to him, nonetheless. "What, you're not even a tiny bit curious about what that drink tastes like?"

"Oh." Sazahk blinked. "No, I hadn't considered it. My mind was elsewhere." He pulled the glass toward him and peered into its depths. "Is it alcoholic?"

"A little. Not much." Garin shrugged. "I think you'll like it."

"Why?"

"Because it's complex."

"I'm not much enjoying complexity at the moment, to be honest." Sazahk turned on his bar stool to face Garin. "I recognize that I am expected to apologize, but I don't actually understand what I am meant to be apologizing for."

Garin sighed and rolled the base of his cup around on its edge. "Try your drink, Sazahk."

Sazahk sagged and took a sniff, then a small sip. He swallowed, cocked his head, swirled his drink, and sipped again. "This imparts an impressive variety of distinct flavors for such a translucent liquid."

Garin tapped his glass with a smirk. "Told you."

"Could you also tell me what I've done wrong?" Sazahk wrapped both hands around his own glass and stared at it as though intense scrutiny might yield the answers to both its flavor and their fraught relationship.

Instinctively trying to spare his feelings, Garin almost told Sazahk he'd done nothing wrong. But if Sazahk had done nothing wrong, then why was Garin so damn angry?

"You…I thought you…" Garin tipped his head back to glare at the ceiling, summoning the strength to say the words, to expose his raw feelings to Sazahk's meticulous examination. "You could have at least told me you didn't want me to stay." He dropped his chin down and glared at Sazahk, letting him see the anguish and anger in his eyes. "At least then I would have had a clearer understanding of our relationship, and I might not have been so goddamn blindsided."

Sazahk pressed his lips together. "You think I should have told you about Patrick's offer?"

"Yes!" Garin pounded his palm on the bar. "And then you could tell me that you didn't want me to take it, and I wouldn't, but you could have at least told me about it. You should have told me about it."

Purple swelling up his throat, Sazahk shoved his glass away from him. "You had an established prior obligation."

Garin leaned in, finally giving in to the fury of the betrayal. "But you should have still told me."

"Why? So you could decide I wasn't worth it?" Sazahk burst from his stool, rising above Garin in a trembling tower of purple and blue, mottled like a bruise. "So you could think I was someone that didn't understand you? So I could be just another selfish man trying to hoard you for himself?"

"What?" Garin reared back, his own anger blown away by Sazahk's accusation. "I would never think that. That's not…" He shook his head and pushed his drink away. Maybe he really had had too much. "That's not what I'd think."

Sazahk took a deep, shaking breath, then sat back down and folded his hands in his lap. "You have thought it about others. It was reasonable to assume you might think the same of me were I to make the same mistakes."

Garin rubbed his temples. Shit, Sazahk made sense. When he put it like that, how the fuck could he have done anything differently? Given everything Garin had ever done and said? It wasn't like Garin had been forthcoming with his own desires.

"You couldn't take the offer, so I didn't give it to you," Sazahk murmured in a small voice.

Garin dragged his hand over his face, then stared at Sazahk with eyes he knew were too desperate. "But did you want me to?"

Pink and brown swirled up Sazahk's elegant neck and over his cheeks. "Did I want you to take the offer? Did I want you to stay?"

"Yeah" Garin half-hid his face in his hand, and he clenched his other into a fist on his lap, struggling to keep it from reaching out to the qesh. "Everything else aside…did you want me to stay?"

Sazahk broke in front of him. "Of course I wanted you to stay. I want you to stay. I—" Sazahk reached for him and Garin met him halfway and tangled their hands together. "I have come to the irrefutable conclusion, based upon the evidence provided in numerous sources, both philosophical and scientific, that I—" Sazahk's deep breath caught in his throat like a sob. "I love you, Garin."

The thread of caution that had pulled tauter and tauter in Garin's heart with every one of Sazahk's words snapped, and he lunged for the man.

Sazahk captured him in a kiss halfway. He cupped the back of Garin's neck and sealed their mouths as he stood and loomed over him on his stool.

He loved him.

Sazahk loved him.

Garin nearly shook apart with the cascading implications and realizations, but Sazahk held him together, pinning him back against the bar as he devoured him. For someone who had been so reluctant to kiss in the first place, Sazahk kissed him now with an enthusiasm that bordered on ferocity.

But that was what Garin needed to believe him, to believe his own cautious hope. Sazahk bracketed him in, pushing him back against the bar, and the hard edge digging into Garin's back drove home the heady realization that this was real.

This was happening.

All their dancing around each other in the Dead Zone, all their longing looks and careful touches, all the hope and attachment and adoration Garin had fought and lost to. It was all?—

A sharp rap on the bar jarred up Garin's spine. "Whoa there, you two. We got rooms upstairs for that."

Sazahk stepped back quickly, breaking them apart. Garin stayed bent backwards over the bar, staring up at him and marveling at how wrecked he looked after a single kiss. He didn't dare consider how he himself looked.

"Um, I don't…uh…" Garin straightened and pulled his suit jacket back into place, his cheeks burning. The bartender raised an amused eyebrow at him and Garin glanced at Sazahk. "I don't think that we want…do we?"

A part of Garin definitely wanted. A part of him concentrated a bit below the waist thought a room upstairs sounded like a great idea.

Sazahk looked past Garin's shoulder to the bartender. "I'm sure the facilities in your establishment are very nice?—"

The bartender snorted. "They're really not."

"But I've recently come into possession of a location that I think would be more appropriate." Sazahk bit his lip and focused back on Garin. "And that I would like to take you to."

That piqued Garin's interest enough to interrupt his raging libido. "A location?"

Sazahk smiled and held out his hand. "Will you come with me so that I may show it to you properly?"

Garin lay his palm on Sazahk's and laced their fingers together, numb with shock. They were holding hands now, too? But as Sazahk tugged him toward the door, he realized what he'd forgotten with a jolt.

"Shit, I—" he turned back to the bartender, reaching into his pocket.

But the bartender waved him off. "Don't worry. You paid your tab in entertainment value."

Garin flushed and suddenly felt all the eyes on his and Sazahk's linked hands. He supposed they had made quite a spectacle.

The shot glasses of the qesh in the corner sat empty as the qeshian soldiers openly stared at them. The klah'eel arm wrestling tournament had paused. Only the humans didn't blatantly watch them, instead dithering around the pool table, and very clearly not watching them if anyone were to check.

Sazahk's fingers started to slip from his grasp. "Are you embarrassed?"

"No." Garin tightened his grip before Sazahk broke their connection. He grinned at him despite the blush he felt staining his ears. "But I am eager to get out of here." He swept his gaze up and down Sazahk's lean body and let his grin widen for obvious reasons.

Sazahk beamed back, a level of expressiveness on his face that Garin had never seen. It was gorgeous and Garin had put it there. "I share your enthusiasm." Sazahk pulled Garin out of the bar and into the street. "It's not far, and I think you'll like some of the amenities it has to offer."

Garin raised an eyebrow. "I'm not exactly high maintenance." Or at least he'd never thought of himself as high maintenance.

"No," Sazahk agreed as they passed groups of soldiers giving them odd looks. "But in our time together, I believe I've detected certain preferences that I would be better equipped to satisfy with the tools available at this location."

"What does that even mean?" Garin laughed. "Come on, you have to give me something."

"According to what rules?" Sazahk didn't untangle their fingers as he tugged him along the streets despite the strange looks they got. "I admit I am unaware of the general guidelines governing trysts of a spontaneous nature or of any nature whatsoever, and particularly those undertaken with someone for whom I have a deep and abiding attachment."

"Sazahk, you silver-tongued son of a bitch." Garin ducked into a dark alley and pulled Sazahk in with him. He pushed the taller man up against the wall and cupped his sharp jaw. "Fuck, no one's ever made me feel as incredible as you do."

"Despite our brief time together, I flatter myself to think I've devoted an unusually large amount of energy toward deciphering you." Sazahk pressed their foreheads together. "But the fact that no one else has is still beyond my comprehension."

"Sazahk." Garin took a deep breath, the now familiar scent of the qesh in his arms swirling around him and into his being, warming him from the inside out. "I love you, too."

Sazahk's lips quirked. "I had begun to suspect that the evidence indicated as much."

Garin breathed a laugh across those gorgeous lips. "Of course you had." Unable to stop himself and not having a reason to, he kissed them once, twice, softly. "I've never met anyone like you."

"Admittedly, the sector doesn't contain many individuals similar to me." Sazahk's temple bloomed with the tiniest bit of gray. "For better or for worse."

"For worse." Garin pushed a wayward lock of Sazahk's long hair behind his ear. "You're amazing and fascinating and inspiring."

Sazahk scoffed. "What could I possibly have inspired you to do?"

Garin dragged his fingertips over Sazahk's sharp cheekbone. "Take myself seriously."

"You take everything seriously." Sazahk wrapped his arms around Garin's waist and pulled him close. "Based upon most of my observations, you're a very serious person."

"I do take everything seriously. My work, my responsibilities, my duty, discipline, but not myself." Garin shook his head and clenched his jaw, frustrated with himself and frustrated that he didn't know what to do differently. "Myself, and whoever the fuck I am, comes last."

Pink swirled around Sazahk's dark eyes and he nuzzled Garin's temple. "That doesn't seem fair."

"I don't know." Garin rubbed his thumb over the pink of Sazahk's skin as though he could scrub it away. "But you…You know who you are, and you don't fucking compromise." Garin pressed his lips to Sazahk's ear and hooked his hand around the back of Sazahk's neck, pulling himself flush against him. "It's fucking awe-inspiring, and it makes me want you so fucking bad."

"I am happy for you to have me." Sazahk slipped his cool hands beneath Garin's suit jacket and untucked his shirt. He pushed his palms up along the small of Garin's back. "For as long and as often as you want and can spare the time for."

Garin's heart spasmed in his chest. "I wish it was more. You deserve so much more, Sazahk, I just… I don't know what I can give you."

Sazahk shook his head and kissed down Garin's jaw, one hand slipping down below his waistband to palm his bare ass. "It doesn't matter. You can give me tonight, can't you?"

Garin gasped and bucked into Sazahk at the feel of his long fingers digging into his muscle. "Yes." Garin tangled his hands in Sazahk's hair, already panting in anticipation.

Fuck, a whole night.

The things they could do in a full night.