Episode 158: Interrogation (Acheron)

He couldn’t breathe. He was going to throw up. And then they’d probably make him clean up his own vomit, like they did in the movies. And then he’d have to touch vomit, because he hadn’t been carrying any gloves or disinfectants when he was arrested.

He made a mental note to start carrying them, everywhere he went.

His dad came in, with a manila file folder which he set on the table between them, and cleared his throat. “Acheron,” he greeted.

Maybe Ach wasn’t going to die in the attack. Maybe he was going to die right now, of misery and anxiety. He was pretty sure those made the list of things that could kill Dragon fairies.

His dad sat down and opened the file. The papers were all in Elesarian, which Ach couldn’t read well upside down.

“I’m really sorry,” Ach told him before he could get started with whatever he had to say. Probably a decade of prison, maybe hard labor. They didn’t do hard labor in the Dells, but he bet they’d make an exception for him since he could heal from almost anything.

“I think we should leave your mother out of this,” his dad said stiffly. He pulled one of the papers out of the folder and studied it.  “You’re being charged. With,” he flipped through a few of the papers. “An attempt to further unite the Dells. How do you plead?”

Unite the Dells? Against who? This was even more serious than he thought…his stomach sank. Maybe he’d be in here forever. Hugh would have to get used to trusting Spence.

“No I didn’t!” he insisted. “I’m not doing anything to the Dells.” He didn’t even know enough people to be involved in some kind of conspiracy against his own family, never mind that he didn’t ever want to rule anyway.

“What did you do?” his dad asked him. “And why did you?”

“I put some books outside your room, because you guys wanted to travel.” He had no idea how that counted as imprisonment, but his new stepmom probably didn’t like him now because of it.

His dad leaned back in his chair. “So you were trying to be a decent son?”

Finally, something that made sense! “Yes!” and then he realized they’d said something about Daisy being in trouble too. Poor Daisy…

“And it was just me,” he added. “No one helped, whatever anyone else says.”

His dad crossed his arms. “Daisy already confessed.” He closed the folder with all the papers neatly stacked inside. “I find you guilty.”

What? What about due process and girls named Miranda and inalienable rights and wasn’t he supposed to get a lawyer? They didn’t have lawyers but maybe if he could just talk to Spence again, he could fix this.

They wouldn’t let him fight this. His dad had his mind made up. “What are you going to do to us? Daisy is lying.” Maybe he couldn’t save himself but he could at least try to help Daisy.

“A hug?” his dad asked, with a little bit of a smile. “Ach, you’re not in trouble.”

His words, his actions, were confusing. Ach stared at him. Maybe it was a trap. A trap to get Ach to prove…something. Something bad.

“Then why did you make Spence arrest me?” he asked carefully. He tried to think like Spence would and study his dad’s body language to figure out what he was up to.

His dad didn’t have body language. Or Ach didn’t know how to read it.

“I wanted the chance to tell you, alone, that I love you and appreciate the gesture. And to thank you for the morning off.”

Morning off? From the sounds of it, he and Giana had been trapped in their roo…

Ewww.

Why had his mind gone there?

“Is Daisy okay?” he asked, to get his mind somewhere – anywhere – else.

“She is,” his dad promised. He stepped around the table and pulled Ach into a hug. “Are you?”

“Yeah.” Ach breathed out a long shaky breath while he tried to regain his footing. He was supposed to be marrying Spence soon. His dad had played a joke on him.

It was pretty hard not to think that Spence was somehow in on it.

“I was about to ask you to keep the kids’ bookshelf alphabetized for me while I was in jail,” he joked. Only he was kind of serious, too.

“Instead,” his dad asked, and he crossed the room so he could open the cell door. “May I have the honor of walking you down the aisle?”

Down the aisle, yeah. Because he was about to marry Spence. In front of people.

He had an idea.

What if he messed with Spence back?

“Yeah, but when we get to the front can you tell Spence he can’t have me?” Ach asked.

His dad met his eyes, amused. “I can. You’ll have to give me a sign you still want that when we get there.” He ducked into the hall and handed Ach a full tuxedo on a hanger, with a blue-green vest that would bring out the blue of Ach’s eyes. He hoped Spence would be wearing amber to bring out all the different shades of his hazel.

He dressed while his dad waited in the hall and left his other clothes in a neatly-folded pile on the table. Either his dad or Spence – he suspected Spence just because the clothes fit him so well – had selected this outfit. It made it feel extra special.

His dad hadn’t just been playing a trick, he’d been keeping him busy for Spence. The idea filled Ach with warmth.

He stepped into the hall and let his dad figure out how to make the bowtie look nice. Even if Ach had ever worn one before, he didn’t have a mirror right now.

“Ready?” his dad asked, and then before Ach had barely had a second to assess if his clothes were straight, his dad used a special travel pack to transport them out of the jail, to the middle of the rift valley.
The obsidian, where his dad dad had died. There weren’t too many people there, which was a relief: His parents and Spence’s, Nell and Konrad, their kids, Talise and Niels. Nice and perfectly small, all of Ach’s favorite people plus Niels.

It wasn’t really an aisle, per-se, but his dad did walk him to the front where Spence waited, in front of Nell and Konrad. Ach almost wasn’t nervous at all because it wasn’t a big group. He could just relax, let himself bask in the tingling excitement that danced through his body.

Married. He was going to be married, to Spence, finally. And not just any marriage; a pixie marriage.

When they got to the front, Ach looked down at the dusty volcanic glass so Spence wouldn’t be able to see much of his face.
His dad said to Spence, “I don’t support this union. I’m sorry.” Then he pulled out another travel pack like he was about to leave with Ach, and Ach grinned down at the obsidian.

“What?” Spence breathed.

That’s what he got for arresting Ach. “We talked,” Ach told the obsidian as firmly as he could manage with that grin still on his face. “You should put me before your job.”

He heard a deep rumble from Spence a second before the laughter escaped Spence’s mouth and the next thing he knew Spence had pulled him into his favorite place: Spence’s arms.

“Did I worry you?” Spence whispered, teased. He kissed him lightly, not enough to let Ach get into it.

From in front of them, Konrad cleared his throat. “I believe that’s for after the ceremony,” he said. He was smiling, so Ach thought he was probably joking or at least didn’t mind.

Spence was more sure of that fact: He kissed Ach again and said, “So?” to Konrad, who laughed.

Then Nell cleared his throat.

This was it.

A little panicked, Ach looked at his mom where she stood, Greg’s arm around her. She smiled at him, tears in her eyes.

Okay, he could do this. It was just a bunch of words, and then Spence would be his forever until he died.

Nell explained to them the process and had them practice the movements a few times without words, because the movements were like the knots on pixie shirts, representative of things.

They started with each of their palms on their own opposite shoulders, facing each other, eyes locked.

He loved Spence’s eyes, the subtle flecks of color that only showed from up close, the things they shared with Ach and nobody else.

“Wo,” Nell greeted everyone in Elesarian. Ach’s palms started to sweat. He was glad they were on his shirt still and not on Spence’s.

Nell did the same position with Konrad, so that Ach and Spence would have something to mirror, and he said in Elesarian, “Nil uuzgol, nil oenol, nil paozol, nil waernol sa draezert.”

Two souls, two hearts, two minds, two paths behind you.

Nell moved his palms to Konrad’s chest, flat on his pecs.

Ach blushed. He wasn’t used to touching Spence like this in front of everyone, especially not his mom, especially not Talise, and now his palms were sweating even worse.

But Spence met his eyes again, with a little challenging smile and put his own hands on Ach’s chest. It was okay. There wasn’t anything to be this anxious about. Ach relaxed his shoulders and put his hands on Spence’s pecs.

“Oest ad taewin e waernol, e paozol, e oenol, e uuzgol,” Nell said.

Twine together the paths, the minds, the hearts, the souls.

Something tugged at Ach. It felt like it did years ago, when Zero had made Ach’s familiar for him. The pull, at the center of himself, except this time it was Nell doing it, binding him to Spence.

Nell and Konrad slid their palms along each other’s collar bones until they were on each other’s shoulders, and then slid their hands down each other’s arms until they held hands, still facing each other.

Ach looked at Spence. Because of the tugging, he knew this movement would be more significant. No going back from this.

It was everything he wanted.

He mirrored their movements with Spence until they both held hands. He grinned at Spence, because Spence’s palms were sweaty too.

“Oest ad szhenchin ok uuzgol, ok oenol, ok paozol, ok waernol olla volzert,” Nell said. His eyes had moved off Ach and Spence and were looking at Konrad when he said that line.

Form one soul, one heart, one mind, one path before you.

Nell and Konrad pressed their foreheads together.

Ach did the same. He could smell Spence, the scent that was just Spence’s and no one else’s. This was them, coming together in a new way. He could feel it tickling at his mind, trying to pull them together, but Spence wasn’t there. Not yet.

He enjoyed the last moment of being with Spence, but separate.

Nell and Konrad looked at each other and said in unison, “Uuzgol ma podol, uuzgol olla vish.”

My soul apart, our soul together.

Ach couldn’t see Spence’s eyes anymore, but they squeezed hands and repeated the words, and then there was a new place in his mind, something that was complex and laid out in an order markedly different from Acheron’s.

He could feel Spence in that place, the love and the connection between them.

It was intense. He lost himself in it, in the place that was Spence, that felt like standing in a cedar closet with a fireplace, all warm and masculine and a just-for-them space.

“I love you,” Spence said into his mind.

Ah.

“Hi,” Ach answered. It was so crisp and unexpectedly clear.

He was so happy, to share this place with Spence, anywhere and everywhere forever.

“Sest ad paksorikin sa,” Nell said, in a teasing tone. He was probably teasing, anyway – Spence was amused by it and didn’t think it was part of the ceremony, just Nell telling them to kiss already.

Kissing.

This was so much more than a kiss, this intimacy between them. He realized that his fire, which he usually held so well, burned in the air outside of himself, joined with Spence’s fire and mingled there.

In the air surrounding them, their fires intertwined in an intimate dance of spiraled flames, weaving and teasing and becoming one.

Their foreheads were still pressed together, but Spence moved now, changed the angle of his face so that their lips touched.

Flames shot out from both of them, filling the space around them completely. It should have been embarrassing, but he could feel Spence’s happiness, his teasing, his love, the thrilled feeling that he got to have Ach and Ach got to have him.

“Hi,” Spence teased. Ach could feel Spence’s hunger to be alone. He shared it. They needed to deal with the pants problem, either by getting bigger pants or getting rid of them altogether.

Ach was in favor of the second one. “We’re free for a while, right?” he nudged.

Spence’s mind jumped to envisioning somewhere he knew, somewhere tropical. “Just us?” he asked, “or should we save that for next time.”

Next time. They were doing this again, because Ach was supposed to die.

He could live with that.

But right now, he wanted Spence to himself. He’d never survive the day otherwise.

Spence laughed subtly. He transported them to the place in his mind, the tropical island that seemed empty of everyone but them and a few animals.

He burned their clothes away in the next instant, solving the pants problem.

They kissed again, calling the flames back into the air around them. The intensity of the kiss, the way each sensation and emotion amplified itself when it was shared in their mind, told Acheron that this would be their most fervent and fiery encounter, by far.

He pulled away from Spence a little. “I could get used to this link thing,” he said aloud. “Feeling everything together.”

“Same,” Spence breathed against him. “You’re everything, Ach.”

Everything. That was the best word.

He pulled Spence against him and let their fire consume them both.

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