4[+]
A/N: This is my shortest fan-fic piece to date, and also the first one I'm choosing to post all at once, despite there being multiple chapters. Watch out-there's a little profanity ahead.
I ASKED like I'd asked him at least a dozen times, in timelines when I bothered to care. Knowing that it wasn't my last chance. Knowing that I could stand to see his slashed, murdered corpse again under the firework-studded sky, even if I'd rather be spared. Now it really was the last chance, though, and I couldn't afford to neglect the little things.
"If it's that important to you," I suggested, "why don't you just watch it regardless?" Trying to sound easy about it, compelling without trying too hard. I knew he'd take the suggestion to heart. He always did, when I'd treated the department right.
But his eyes narrowed and he shook his head, moving on to some paperwork. "We've all got to do our jobs."
Oh god, this hurt. What? He dismissed me so casually, like a guy shrugging off a half-joke, a bad idea. He'd never done this. God damn it, was I going to lose Sebastian? There was only so much deviation I could risk, and this was the last time—the one time through I knew I couldn't do it all over. "No, really," I improvised. "You should treat yourself. Just sneak away for half an hour."
He gave me his irritated look. "You're telling your escort to shirk his duties."
Why this time? What had I done wrong? "Yes," I doubled down, "that's what I'm telling you. Please, Sebastian. Watch the fireworks. It would... mean a lot to me."
Suspicion. Something about the way his cap cocked on his head. "Why exactly does it matter to you if I enjoy my night?"
Because I like you, you dope. Because I don't want the salvation of your race and mine marred by the death of someone who, after all these times, all these trials, can only be described as close to me. Damn it, the coordinates are gone, this time is the time, there's no going back. "Please. Just do it. Don't ask me why. Don't be at the portal when the show starts."
His eyes narrowed. "What is this about? You're acting weird."
My mind swam. How much could I say before I screwed everything up? The truth was, I'd probably said too much. Any deviation from the course of events I knew was a risk, and apparently I'd already deviated somehow or he wouldn't be acting like this, and the stakes were high, curse it, way too high-they were everything. I couldn't risk it. Fuck. I couldn't. I was going to lose fucking Sebastian. "Never mind," I mumbled. "Forget it. Just... think about it, okay?"
He stared. His eyes weren't piercing, exactly. They weren't hungry. They were demanding. Demanding purple eyes, like he knew he deserved answers and the world wasn't serving up. Maybe he'd forsake his duty at the last moment and save his goddamn life. It was possible. Adine had pulled out of the flying competition thanks to a seed I'd planted—couldn't this guy do the same?
His voice got lower. "What is this to you?"
"Nothing," I replied, sitting down and breaking eye contact. "We should discuss the investigation."
"Bull. You know something you're not telling me. Are you planning to visit the portal?" He took a step closer. "Are you about to skip out on us, Taylor?"
Back to eye contact, fervent. "No. I promise, I am absolutely not going to do that. I was just worried... worried that if you're on duty, Reza might show up there and attack you." Shit, was I really ad-libbing? How badly was I about to screw things up?
"You know I'm not a rookie, right? You know I'm a seasoned officer?"
Why the hell don't dragons ever carry weapons? I wanted to yell. "Fine. Forget it—I'm being an idiot. Let's get back to business." I saw his body before my eyes—bleeding, lifeless, tragic. A harbinger of the tragedy to come in the generator building, no matter how things unfolded. But I kept my mouth shut. I had two worlds to save. I had to let this officer go. I had to mourn my friend then and there, because he was about to die and I couldn't save him. Unity would begin on a bitter note, and we'd just have to push through anyway, and god, I realized. I loved him. I loved this guy. Maybe not like I loved Adine, or Lorem, but I loved him like a buddy, and man, this was going to be tough. I wanted him to be there to turn to in the months ahead. To have a hand in keeping things under control.
Finally he turned away, but he kept that look. The cop's look, good at reading people. He was suspicious, but aware that I'd shut down and wouldn't give him any answers. We fell back to the script, thank god, and things for the rest of that day went the way they always had.
I went to bed wondering if I'd managed to plant a seed, and what monstrosity it would grow into if I had.
Had I doomed the world? If I'd just gone around a few more times, would it have made a difference? The more times I lived this story, the better I understood it... but I knew there had to be a point past which I'd tip toward lethargy, and beyond that insanity. Was that point still far off? Should I have just followed Izumi's plan, or even Reza's, and chosen one world or the other?
Drifting off to sleep, my priorities were clear. Sacrifices were necessary to keep civilizations running—I'd been prepared to be one myself. But as I drifted through a cloud of unanswered questions about the upcoming confrontation and the struggles ahead into a landscape of dreams, it turned out my subconscious was concerned a good deal less with the confluence of civilizations and more with the welfare of individuals.
As is so often the case, I forgot all the important, serious dreams only to be left with sunshine and silliness. I found myself kneeling, to some embarrassment, on soft dirt surrounded by short grass, regarding a large nest that Sebastian had apparently built on the open ground, a clutch of fine oblong eggs within. He sat there looking annoyed at me, and I didn't doubt I deserved it.
"Do you need me to go gather food?" I asked, imagining the eggs would hatch soon.
"That'd be nice, yeah. I can't really keep brooding and hunt for food at the same time."
"Do you... need some kind of wild meat, or... can I just go to the store and get a sandwich or something?"
"Sure. A sandwich. Make it something with meat."
I turned to go, but lingered to ask: "Does this mean we're parents now?"
He smiled wryly. "Couldn't think of anyone I'd rather be parents with."
That note of kindness, breaking up the irked tone, was like the sun coming out. That was why I loved this runner. That was why I'd married him. I savored it all the way to the butcher shop, where I bought a box of worm sandwiches and an aurochs carcass between two giant slices of bread. I tried to think up names for the kids on the way back but all my ideas seemed wrong, somehow.
Blackness seemed incongruous, but that's waking up for you. A blinking light showed mercy. The light on the answering machine. Probably Anna calling me back. She was the hardest one to win over, over and over, the toughest leash to hold, since she didn't really care about me. At least she didn't think she did. I didn't know if I wanted to shuck my warm nest of a bed in the middle of the night just to listen to it, though.
I fell back into dreams. They were dreams of home, though, and the struggle for survival and stability. The electric grid failing; battering rams smashing at the walls, though we didn't know who was behind them; alliances crumbling into a state of every man for himself. Things slipping away. I woke up gasping and yearning. But for what?
Sitting up, I lunged for the answering machine to assauge that still-blinking light. It wasn't Anna.
"Taylor? Sebastian here." I know your voice, I muttered subvocally; you don't need to tell me. "I've been fretting about this all night. I know you're keeping something from me. And that's your right. You're an ambassador, and ambassadors keep secrets. But it's about me, isn't it? That's what's kept me up to this hour. That's why I can't sleep. You've got a secret about me, haven't you?"
Fuck. Yes, Sebastian, I have a secret about you. It's not even a complicated one. Should I call him? Should I include him in the group plan? If I'd been planning to tell Bryce, why not his deputy? But damn it—I'd told Bryce before. I'd laid the groundwork in other timelines—for all of them. Why had I never told Sebastian? Did I think he wasn't important enough? Had I been trying to protect him?
A chilling thought occurred. If I let him go, I was never going to beat him in a legitimate game of Bastion Breach. I'd been subconsciously looking forward to doing that, I realized. It hurt way more than a simple card game should have. Damn. I had to beat him at Bastion Breach, or at least try.
My heart was pounding harder than it had during the conversation at the station. I paced the room. Smashed eggs in my hands. Peered out into the temperate night, looking for the comet in the sky.
Fuck it all. I wasn't going to let my 'bastian get breached. I picked up the phone.
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