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Captain Illyan, chief of ImpSec and the Emperor's Voice, was free again.
He had five minutes alone to pull the hated prison overalls off his shoulders and dress in his green uniform. The tunic smelled musty, too, with preservatives and the lack of freedom. His uniforms had spent a month and half hanging in limbo, just like he had. Five minutes to sit down for a bit, his face buried in his hands, and pull himself together, smooth the wrinkles on his tired face, calm his heart to its usual sixty beats per minute. He wasn't up to par--damn the physical inactivity. Or the thrice-be-damned nerves. He'd put on a good show when the guard opened the door of his cell and walked in, not knowing why he'd come, hoping for release--and logically expecting his sentence. His hopes, however strangely, had won out. The ink wasn't dry on the Imperial decree for his release yet, but the door to freedom was open. He should feel happy and energised. Why was his heart pounding so?
As soon as he came out, back in his uniform and armed, Aral unceremoniously caught him by the shoulders and turned him around carefully, as if making sure they'd brought the right one out.
"Come on," he said shortly. "I need you."
"Has something happened?" He paused for a second.
"Nothing." Aral seized him by the elbow, propelling him towards the stairs. "Miles is vindicated, all alive and well, we're all going to keep our heads on our shoulders, excepting Vordrozda. Of course, he earned it. Drawing a needler in the presence of the Emperor, in front of the Council... it wouldn't have been much better if he'd been doing a sheep in the Great Square. Twit."
"A charged needler?" Illyan couldn't help asking.
"Does it matter?"
"It matters to me, if I'm going back to work."
"Charged."
"Definitely a twit."
"It all went like a ballet. The Council couldn't have done better if they'd spent two years rehearsing. No, don't stop, I'll tell you in the flyer."
"We're going somewhere?" Illyan belatedly realised when they turned to the door after the lift-tube.
"The flyer. To Vorkosigan Surleau."
"Wait," he protested weakly. "I've got work. I need to get to the office."
"Your office will have to do without you for another day. And the empire without me, for that matter. I'm requisitioning you."
"Why?" Illyan asked stupidly. The dark polarised canopy of the flyer, standing on the ground near the gate, stood open, like a huge black and white gull's wing uplifted. Vorkosigan stubbornly pushed him in the back, and he landed on the seat. The canopy swung closed, cutting them off from the outside world.
"Because you look like a ghost, and I've been worried sick," Aral snapped. "Or the other way around, I'm not sure. Come here, hold me." He pressed Illyan to him, gripping him in his arms. His hot dense body smelled of stress and burnt-out terror--there was no other word for it. Then he pushed Illyan to arm's length, holding him by his shoulders, and spoke distinctly and with authority. "I will not let anyone rob me of you. You are mine."
"Then I'm yours. But everything went well."
"I've realised I'm too used to seeing you, not only at work, but at home too. And I had no idea what a black hole your absence would leave in my life." The strong warm hands moved from Illyan's shoulders to his neck, just above the edge of his collar, holding him, not letting him move back. "You're one of my family. You have been for years. You must remember it."
"I remember..." Illyan nodded, and his traitorous heart raced again. It was completely inappropriate.
"You do have a good memory." Aral grinned, still holding him, not loosening his tight fingers. "And you must remember that you've been more than a friend and colleage to me for all these years."
But that was a thought he couldn't have. That had been eighteen years ago, long overgrown, as the proverb said, even though he remembered every gesture and breath perfectly. It had burned up, fuelling their common work, but sometimes a private tongue of flame flared up beneath the ashes...
"And I remember this." Illyan put his hand over Aral's. "That you are a married man, and your wife wouldn't exactly enjoy these memories."
"Cordelia ... is no ordinary woman."
"I know. That's why I really don't want to annoy her."
"I don't fool around behind my wife's back," Aral said simply, and he didn't lower his gaze.
"Obviously." Illyan nodded helplessly, and wondering whether he'd need to hear this platitude spoken aloud. And I love you for it, he wanted to say, but decided that would be too much sentimentality for this situation.
"One hour ago," Aral told him, "she was sitting next to me, as close as you are now, and she looked me right in the eye and announced that today it wouldn't be a betrayal and gave me permission."
Illyan swallowed. "For what?"
"For what you and I used to be, Simon, until I got married. I told her about it after the wedding. Even with no permission. She... you know, she ordered me and asked you..."
"Better not be the other way around!"
Vorkosigan grinned. "Well, Cordelia might. So, she said she gives us leave for a day, and asks us to return at the end of the day as her husband and her friend, just as we were before. Whatever she wants, every time, this woman just does it to me, like a boy. It's common knowledge how henpecked I am. I wouldn't dare disobey her."
Illyan spoke as evenly as he could. "You don't think she's wrong with her ... chosen methods?"
"In all honesty, no." Aral sighed. "You know, I realised suddenly that I felt like I was losing myself. Faced with losing them forever, I realised I ... I was incomplete without the people I care for. And not just Cordelia, or my son. You, too. When I realised I was losing you, I was truly afraid."
He fell silent. Illyan calmed himself, afraid of interrupting what Aral was struggling to say.
"You know all women are witches, not least Cordelia: she just knew. And she understood you can only really be afraid of losing someone when you love them. She told me that physical fidelity is all well and good, but it would be unfair to add another fear on her behalf. What fear, I wondered, and she said, the fear of breaking my oath to her, through yielding to my feelings. Cordelia knew that something had happened between us, before her time. And she respects our ... our feelings, dammit. And that you'd loved me all these years and still never tried to get between us. So my wife gave me leave for the day, and just to make sure of it, she took the ring off my finger and put it away somewhere. So there it is."
Aral sighed helplessly, paused and said in a determined voice, "But I want to take you to bed, and not just because my wife thinks it's a good idea!"
"What, and it's better not do to anything, just because she thinks it's right?" Illyan said, feeling as though a great weight was falling from his soul, and his mouth widened in an unwitting smile.
"Of course not. More than anything else, I want to be together with you.... and this isn't the worst way," said Aral firmly, and reached out for a kiss.
The kiss was strong and deep and drawn-out, like a grav-parachute drop.
"You smell like prison," Aral said, catching his breath.
"Yes?" Illyan moistened his lips.
"Usually you wear a different cologne."
"I didn't know you paid any attention to it. Sorry."
"Not at all. I get it. A man who spends a month in solitary confinement..."
"With his hands tied behind his back?"
"With round-the-clock surveillance cameras is near enough. Such people usually have a great appetite and are very easy to satisfy."
"I'm picky. Of the hundred-odd million Barrayarans, less children, women and old men, only one suits me. You." Illyan drew Aral closer.
"Any longer and you'll be able to count me as one of the old men."
"Shut up and don't be an idiot." They kissed again--the most straightforward way to get Vorkosigan to shut up, and he didn't seem to mind. Without opening his eyes, Illyan added, "You haven't changed over the years."
"Nor you. And your lips are the same, and you smell just like you. Mine."
"Soon I will be," Illyan promised, relaxing into a smile. He felt suddenly light as a balloon. The flier wasn't holed, nor were they descending rapidly from their suborbital flight, but his damnable heart was in his throat.
"And will you lie down under your best friend and your commander, for old time's sake?"
"I'm not complaining," Illyan sighed, "about what I remember."
"Mm. Though I haven't been with a man for all these years. I hope you can't say the same for yourself?"
"I don't intend to talk about it at all."
"Good."
They were talking nonsense, like silly children, he thought. Like two lovesick teenagers in the back seat of a car, squeezed breathless with happiness. Though there weren't so many other possibilities right now, only to run his fingers through his hair, to unfasten his uniform collar, bite his ear lobe, kissing and kissing, his trousers uncomfortably tight despite their age and the inappropriate location. They were landing, the flyer descending.
"Pull yourself together. You don't want to get out with your face so glowing that it will be completely obvious what we've been up to."
"Ah... how?" Aral asked hoarsely.
"Think about football," Illyan advised, and swallowed, trying to return the familiar mask to his face. It was an effort.
"Football? Why?"
"Well, there are two dozen good-looking guys with a ball..."
"And naked knees?" Aral suddenly burst out laughing, probably loud enough to be heard in the soundproofed driver's cab. "What a sight... oh, my dear freed prisoner. Only you would think of that."
They laughed, leaning against each other as the flyer landed.
"And you know," Illyan got out through bouts of laughter, "it's helped..."
Has helped. Or will help. He understood now what Aral had told him, that the invisible threads that had bound them together for so many years had been burned, cut through during his forced imprisonment. And now they had to heal again. Through laughter and grumbling, awkward fears that trying to go to bed together might not work out, hot sex and vulgar jokes and honest conversation, shared memories and future plans, tender touch and snoring under their shared blankets. They had a whole day to put their world to rights.
But just before the flyer touched the ground, Simon pressed his lips to Aral's, and breathed three words.