Author's Note: the story ended around a year ago, but oddly enough there are certain parts of the internet where it hasn't died. You guys keep things alive, and every time someone comments I get a notification. Often this results in me reading my old writing, and I have recently noticed this very annoying gap that I completely glossed over.
The first time Adam admits his feelings for Sunny we never see the aftermath, and it ticked me off. He admits his feelings and then later they are dating, and a lot of stuff just goes missing in between. I know it was because I wasn't ready or comfortable enough with the subject to write it at the time, but tonight when I got all annoyed, I realized that it's still mine, and I can write whatever and whenever I want.
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A lot of you have moved on, but if some of you found this annoying then I hope this helps fix it.
"Are we going to talk about it?"
"I don't know if I can."
"If we waited for you to be ready, we might never talk. I don't want to grow old waiting for you to figure it out, Adam."
Adam turned towards Sunny, away from the viewscreen, but paused halfway between. His head was down, and from the corner of his eye he could see a part of her body, blue carapace glittering like starlight in the late evening.
He couldn't see her face.
"Okay, but not here, not where people could walk in."
He was stalling. His heart hammered in his head. His stomach twisted into knots like his guts had become snakes.
He turned away from her and headed towards the door. He could hear her walking behind him glad that she couldn't see his face. Had he ever felt worse?
Yes.
That was an unfair question. He had felt worse, but he had never felt like this. There was some special kind of torture in social vulnerability — in confrontation. Adam knew what was coming, ever since their duel in the cargo hold, this inevitability had hung over his head like a sword suspended on a wire.
He had admitted to his feelings for her, admitted them to himself.
And then he ran away.
But even the universe, and a space dragon, could not patch up the cracks in this leaking dam, could not shove the words back in his mouth.
The walk to his rooms were too short despite the size of the ship, and before he knew it he was stepping into a familiar, safe darkness. As the door slid open, soft blue light bloomed from the strip lighting on the floor bathing his personal effects in cool ambience. As the door hissed shut behind him; he immediately regretted coming here.
He had brought her back to his space, to where he slept.
It felt intimate, too intimate.
Unsafe.
As if he was opening the walls of his mind and letting her peer inside.
They were alone now.
He heard her move behind him, and chose to walk over to the window, hands clasped behind his back as he stared out into the nebulae. Nothing could be heard here but for the distant thrumming of the engines.
He didn't want her to see how nervous he was, how sick he felt, but he knew she could.
His hands trembled.
It felt like embarrassment but somehow much worse. There was anticipation there too, the kind he didn't want to admit to.
A part of him was excited for this, hoped that something would happen, hoped that this would go the exact place the rest of him hoped it wouldn't. Even as he stared into the star field, he could feel his own walls dissolving. Thoughts and feelings he had carefully packed away were now impossible to ignore. Hiding behind the appearance of the space dragon was only a temporary fix and now there would be a reckoning.
"Adam."
Her voice was low and smooth. He had picked that voice for her, a long time ago when she had first been granted the translation equipment, but he could still feel her real voice underneath: a gentle humm that sent vibrations through his ears, morphing to a shiver that traveled down the sides of his neck. He closed his eyes feeling as his body broke out into a nervous sweat despite the ideal temperature of the room.
"Are you feeling okay?"
He laughed, and even to him it sounded nervous, lurching upwards from his throat in awkward sputters, "No."
He heard her take a seat on the edge of the bed, listened to the blankets shifting as they brushed over each other.
In his mind he could see her poised at its edge. He could imagine the light as it fell over her body. The entire image was penned into his head in such exquisite detail he didn't need to look at her.
"So, are we going to talk about this?" She said, She sounded so calm, and he wondered how she was doing it. He felt so small all of a sudden, a child compared to her and he didn't know how to take the sensation back.
"Then talk." His voice felt tight.
"I'm not the one who needs convincing."
He closed his eyes. "What do you want me to say?"
"I want us to talk about what is going to happen moving forward. I need to know where this goes."
His hands continued to shake. "I don't know. . .I've never. . . I don't know if I can."
"Why don't you start with telling the truth. I think we both need to hear it."
He paced two steps to the right and then two steps to the left, "Why, you already know."
"You're not exactly convincing."
He laughed again, another nervous laugh and turned away from the window, still refusing to look at her. His feet carried him back and forth over the floor in short, quick steps. The walls spun past him. Every time he turned he caught sight of her out of the corner of his eye and his heart picked up in pace.
"Maybe I don't want to be convincing." It felt like a hand around his throat.
"Why not?"
He threw up his hands. "Because!" His voice cracked. No, not now, not like this.
His eyes stung and his face grew hot and he turned his head to the ceiling.
"Adam. . ."
He squeezed his eyes shut. Every time she said his name it was like being branded, each time a new wave of heat washing through his body.
"Why can't you say it?"
"Because I'm not supposed to feel like this!" He couldn't stop it, the words tumbled from his lips, and even he could hear his voice shaking. He kept his face pointed up and away.. He wished he could sink through the floor. He wished the window would open up and suck him into space.
He looked at the door.
Could he run again?
He heard her shift behind him, knew she could tell what he was thinking. She always knew.
His cheeks flamed with heat.
"I don't understand, why can't you feel like this?"
His hands dropped from behind his back and he turned down to look at them, anything to avoid looking at her. Suddenly he felt distant, detached from his body as he stared at his hands. He never expected this would happen, but now here it was, and somehow he was having trouble comprehending that fact.
"You've always supported LFIL, so I don't understand. Do you find them disgusting? Is that why?"
He took another deep, shaky breath and turned his eyes back to the ceiling, "No! I didn't say that. Of course I support them , but that. . . for other people, not for me."
"I don't get it." her voice was calm, but he knew her enough to know the undertone of frustration there. Not at him but at his words for not making sense.
He breathed in, but it wasn't smooth, it stuttered and stammered like his voice, "I know it doesn't make sense, I know it's stupid, I know, but it's okay for other people to do it, I support them in what they are doing, but when it comes to me. "I" can't do it. They are allowed to do it but I am not because if I do it, it would be wrong."
His voice choked.
His heart clenched.
How must this make her feel? It's okay for other people, but my feelings about you make me feel disgusted. Is that what she would hear?
Would he drive her away, insult her?
Is that what he wanted?
To his surprise, she laughed and he could feel goosebumps erupt over his body at the noise.
"It's not stupid. Nothing you think is stupid, not to me."
He felt the emotion then, prickling behind his eyes and nose. He valiantly struggled to keep himself in check, and kept his face turned away from her.
He took a deep breath. "Admitting to this feels like. . . feels like admitting they're right."
"Who?"
He flung out a hand in an angry arching gesture trying to make up for the emotion with aggression, "Everyone, everyone since I was young. All of the people on the news who accuse me of it, all the people I grew up with calling me a freak, certain members of my family. If I admit to this they win and I prove them right and I. . ." He dashed a hand across his teeth, teeth gritted in frustration and embarrassment.
"So, let me get this straight. You don't get to be happy because people you don't care about would be right?"
He was pacing in circles now, so fast he was making himself dizzy, like he could replace one feeling with another.
"Adam."
He walked past her.
"Adam."
He went to go past her again, but that's when her hand struck out, catching him by the wrist.
"Look at me."
He didn't want to. He kept his head turned to the side, but then she reached up a hand touching his cheek and turning him to face her. His skin felt hot, and her hand cool. His heart hammered in his chest. He met her eyes for the first time in days.
"How are you so calm. . ."
Her hand slid down his wrist, catching his hand. "Adam, All of my life I have been a disappointment and a freak and an embarrassment. I have been rejected time and time again, the object of hatred and mockery. I am an expert in handling how you feel right now."
His chest ached, his tongue caught on itself. "I feel like I've missed my window for that. Everyone figured it out early and I. . . I thought I was supposed to be alone."
"Oh no, it seems I get you all to myself. What a tragedy."
"I don't know what to do," he whispered.
She tilted her head. 'Well, neither do I, but it can't be that hard. Idiots figure it out all the time." her fingers slid between his, four fingers slotting perfectly into place. His hand felt numb. With another hand she pulled him closer.
He couldn't ignore it now: the feeling rising in his stomach, the way his eyes were drawn to the curve of her cheek, the turn of her neck into her shoulder, the curve of her leg.
Her eyes.
"You know what we Drev do, instead of kissing?"
He shook his head afraid to speak. She pulled him even closer the outside of his leg brushing against the inside of hers. She leaned up and he bent his head down. Then their foreheads brushed against each other. Static erupted through his face and down his cheek. She pulled him to sit next to her, mattress sinking so his leg was pressed into hers. She turned her head, the corner of her mouth and face brushing against his cheek, and then his ear.
The static sensation rushed down the back of his neck and into his shoulder before stopping at his lower back.
His hands fluttered uselessly unsure of where to go and what to do.
His stomach writhed.
Her head dipped and she briefly brushed up against his jaw sending the static into his face and chin.
And then she let him go, pulling away.
He was left, unsteady body buzzing.
Sunny chuckled, "Hmm, interesting."
"What?" He managed.
"You aren't dead, didn't dissolve into a puddle, the ship didn't explode." They weren't touching anymore but he now wished they were. It was getting easier to admit that. "So, is this something you would like to move forward?"
He couldn't find the words. His tongue still felt thick, whatever part of him which had been holding back still clinging to the tatters.
But where his tongue was tied his body was not.
He nodded.
It was only then did he see the tension leave her shoulders. She took a deep breath.
Had she been nervous too?
How had he missed it?
"Good. I had hoped you would say that."