“Now you’re trying it on me,” Jainan said as Kiem crossed the room.
“Is it working?” Kiem said, and before Jainan could reply, he kissed him.
It was light and tentative, as if now that they were back in the palace, they had to learn how to do this all over again. Jainan took hold of Kiem’s shoulder and deepened the kiss. There was a long moment of intense silence, and then Jainan took a breath and said, “It’s working. Are you trying to bribe me into letting you use the shower first?”
“Is that working?” Kiem said. There was a laugh in his voice for no good reason. “Promise I’ll be quick.” Jainan waved him in. Kiem stumbled on his next step, but he quickly righted himself and shot Jainan a grin. “Too much mountain climbing.”
As Kiem shut himself in the shower, Jainan occupied himself with undressing. In the heat of the palace his outdoor layers felt grimy and unpleasant. He hung them up in the wardrobe’s cleanser and turned toward the bathroom, debating whether or not to get Kiem’s clothes. The door was shut, but the light indicated it wasn’t locked. It might be an invasion of privacy.
The dilemma was solved for him by an abrupt crash from inside. Jainan opened the bathroom door without thinking. “Kiem?”
“Meant to do that,” Kiem said from the floor. He had managed to get his trousers off but was now sitting in a corner—if being half collapsed against the wall could be called sitting. One look at his face and Jainan realized Kiem had somehow been managing to hide the extent of his exhaustion.
Jainan took his wrist—Kiem didn’t resist—and attempted to help him to his feet. “Kiem,” he said. “You’re not in a state to wash. Go to bed.”
“I’m showering,” Kiem said to the towels. “I’m getting in the shower.”
“You don’t need—” Jainan broke off. It wasn’t as if he didn’t understand the feeling. He considered whether or not he could take a liberty and decided that he probably could. “Very well. In that case.” He pulled Kiem the rest of the way to his feet and let go of him—Kiem propped himself up against the towel rail—and stripped the rest of his own clothes off. He turned the shower on and the sensors lit up. “At least this way we don’t have to fight over who gets to go first.”
“Right! Right.” Kiem caught on to what they were doing and yanked his shirt over his head, nearly losing his balance again. Jainan steadied him. “More tired than I thought,” Kiem said, in what might have been an apology. He stumbled into the shower, keeping himself stable with a hand on Jainan’s arm. The way his eyes tracked to Jainan’s exposed chest was gratifying even though neither of them were in much of a state to do anything about it.
The sensors beeped in confusion when they registered two people. Showers were highly personalized things, and Jainan hadn’t been using this one long enough to get to know it, but he managed to wrestle one of the jets into manual mode. Kiem sighed when the water hit him, as if all his breath was running out of him. He dropped his face into the curve between Jainan’s neck and shoulder and stood there as the water coursed down his back, his weight against Jainan.
“Kiem,” Jainan said. “Really.” It felt good in a low-key way, even through Jainan’s own fatigue, and though it was thoroughly inconvenient, he couldn’t quite bring himself to move Kiem’s head.
“Mrh,” Kiem said. “You have so much hair.” He brought up one hand and ran it through Jainan’s rapidly soaking hair—or tried and stopped, because by this point Jainan’s hair was badly knotted. Kiem made another wordless noise and shook his head as water ran into his face.
Jainan had to suppress the urge to laugh when it occurred to him that Kiem could very literally drown in his hair. He must be tired if he was finding that funny. He took hold of Kiem’s hand and disentangled it, inexplicably gratified. “Try not to fall over for two minutes, and I promise you can go to sleep.” Kiem made a noise that might have indicated cooperation.
Jainan did a reasonable job of rinsing them down, given the circumstances, and managed to get Kiem dry afterward. Drying Jainan’s hair was a lost cause even with the heater, but he was too tired to care about it being damp. Kiem was now unapologetically leaning on him to stand.
When they emerged from the bathroom, Jainan was tired, strangely content, and not expecting it when Kiem attempted to pull away.
“What is it?” Jainan said.
“Need to get out the bed,” Kiem said.
Jainan stopped where he was. The folding bed. Kiem’s eyes had darted to his face as he’d said that, and though Jainan had once thought he would never be able to read Kiem, he could now take a confident guess.
“Kiem,” he said deliberately. “You’re my partner. Come to bed.”
Relief broke over Kiem’s face like sunlight. “You mean that? You mean that.”
“Obviously,” Jainan said. “Apart from anything else, you’re going to be asleep before you can even turn over.” He guided Kiem to the bed, and Kiem half collapsed on it, tugging Jainan down with him.
Jainan let himself fall. A bone-deep exhaustion rolled over him as he settled beside the weight of Kiem. They had to catch a shuttle tomorrow. They still weren’t confirmed by the Resolution, and the whole sector hung in the balance. He was so tired. He turned his face toward the warmth from Kiem’s skin and slipped into sleep.
CHAPTER 21
In the vast silence of deep space, Thea hung like the chime of a single pure note. Its ultramarine seas glittered and shifted under a delicate ring of silicate and ice, rotating imperceptibly behind the observation window of Carissi Station. Kiem had seen a couple of the Empire’s planets from space—Eisafan, Rtul—but he was prepared to award Thea the prize for first impressions, with a bonus entry for Planet He Might Consider Dating.
“You’re humming,” Jainan said from beside him.
“Am I?” Kiem hung over the observation railing. He must have picked up the habit somewhere. He couldn’t remember where; he was tone-deaf, but the urge was irresistible. “I’m in a good mood.” He leaned slightly too far and had to push himself back. Carissi Station kept eight-tenths of full gravity, which made every movement an adventure. They’d been stuck on a shuttle for three days—a budget shuttle Bel had picked for them, which didn’t even have real-time comms—and he should be worrying about the treaty, but with Jainan there he’d barely noticed the time pass. Of course, sleeping through the first twenty-four hours might have something to do with it.
Jainan didn’t smile, but the line of tension between his eyes relaxed. He rested his hands on the rail to keep himself steady in the lighter gravity and lifted his eyes from his wrist-screen to the five-story-high viewing pane in front of them. The station’s Observation Hall was ringed with similar windows. Jainan wasn’t gawking like Kiem, since he must have seen this view before, but every time he glanced up his eyes went half-clouded, half-longing. His sister Ressid would be arriving with the Thean planetary delegation in another four days. Kiem got the impression Jainan was nervous.
Congratulating himself on his sensitivity—what if he didn’t try to make Jainan talk when he obviously didn’t want to?—Kiem left him to catch up on his messages and moved around to the next window, where a cluster of blocky industrial habitats were rising into view in the wake of the main station. One of those must be the Kingfisher refinery Aren had mentioned, fed by minerals from asteroids farther out in the sector. Kiem winced at the reminder, and wondered if Professor Audel had made it to the station yet. He still had a fundamental hope things might all sort themselves out—maybe Taam’s crash really had been an accident—but even he was finding it harder and harder to hold on to that idea.