Page 76 of Cloverleaf Station

“What the fuck,” he croaked out once he could make his throat work again. Elenus grimaced and held a bottle of water up to his mouth. He drank, and it made his throat feel better but sloshed uncomfortably in his stomach.

“I think you had a panic attack.”

“I don’t get those.”

“Oh, sweetheart.” Elenus’s eyes were a little sad—not pitying but filled with a melancholy compassion. “I think if anything, you’re overdue for them. That’s not a criticism,” he added quickly, “I’m not saying anything bad about you, and you’re very tough and smart and everything admirable, and you know you can believe me because I would never leave you in charge of one of the girls if you didn’t have your shit completely together.

“The thing is, you’ve lived almost your entire life under immense stress—life-or-death, do-or-die stress. Obviously, you’re going to do in that situation because you don’t want to die. You’ve managed yourself and everyone around you like a fucking pro for years, and now … you’re here. With me.”

“Why should that make me panic?” Kieron didn’t understand. “I’m happy to be here with you, I swear I am.”

“I know! I know you are; you think I don’t know that? I’m fully convinced of just how amazing I am, you don’t even have to tell me because I know it.” That look on his face said he well and truly did know, and Kieron relaxed a little bit further. “But for the first time in years, you don’t have any major responsibilities. There’s no one to save, there’s no station to keep running, no concrete goal to pursue. You spent five years living on a fucking death trap in one of the deadliest corners of space that humanity has ever been stupid enough to attempt to colonize; you think that didn’t leave some marks in your psyche? It did.”

Elenus tapped the side of Kieron’s head with two fingers. “And that’s fine. It just means you’ve got a few bumps in the road ahead of you when it comes to learning to live without constantly looking out for ways you could die.”

It made sense. Kieron hated that it made sense. “Bullshit,” he muttered.

“Aw, listen to you and your quaint, old-fashioned swear words. Do you even know what a bull looks like? Also, why were ancient humans so concerned with different kinds of shit—it’s so redundant? They could have been far more creative with their cursing as far as I’m concerned. Then again, I’m not a historian, so for all I know, there are plenty of ancient cultures with a lot more imagination than that, but I don’t know the examples personally and clearly neither do you—”

“Please shut up.”

“First tell me you get it.”

Kieron sighed. “I get it.”

“Will you see a psychologist for it?”

“I …” Kieron hated, hated, hated psychologists. He’d been forced to see them at several critical junctures in his life and had always felt that they were looking for reasons to tell him he was broken. Who the hell wasn’t broken in some way? But the glimmer of concern in Elenus’s eyes was enough to sway him. “Fine. But I refuse to be locked up.”

“Why the fuck would you be locked up?”

Kieron laughed. “Are you kidding me? I’ve been the primary subject of several scientific papers. I was in a psychiatric hold for three months on Trakta when I first arrived, they were so excited to investigate my psyche.”

Elenus’s lips thinned. “That won’t be happening here.”

“Swear it.”

“I swear. I will ruin entire GDPs if anyone tries to do that to you.”

Kieron laughed again, and this time it felt easier. “You’re so dramatic.”

“Only when it comes to the people I love.” When Elenus reached for him, Kieron went, letting himself be pulled until he was lying half on top of Elenus. He traced the lines of the man’s immaculate facial hair, the swirls and curves, the plane of his jaw, and down his neck.

Elenus inhaled sharply. “Sooo,” he drawled, “are we starting something here? Because it’s fine if we’re not, I just want to know so I don’t make the wrong move, which I know seems impossible, but lo and behold, it does happen sometimes, and—”

Kieron leaned in and captured his mouth in a fierce kiss. “Yeah,” he breathed when he finally pulled back. “We’re starting something.”

***

Kieron had to give Elenus credit for how unflappable he was. They’d spent months apart, coordinating a dramatic rescue operation that had resulted in bringing over a hundred refugees here to Gania while taking care of a pair of very intelligent and opinionated beings at the same time, and as soon as they were together again, Kieron had broken down. He’d never, ever broken down like that before. He thought he was better than that, needed to be better than that, and he wasn’t.

So maybe the only thing he could do right was sex, then. That was fine—he wanted that, he was good at that, they were good together. Except this time around …

Kieron, sweating and horny and frustrated, covered his face with his hands. “It’s not you.”

“I know,” Elenus said, sounding as even-keeled as ever. He was stroking Kieron’s cock, which was resolutely staying soft no matter what they did. Not even being fucked had brought Kieron off even though it felt so good. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not!”