Chapter Text
Prologue
'...Because you had him first, and you would let the world
break its own neck if it means keeping him...'
- Caitlyn Siehl, 'Start Here'
When Jay was twelve and living on Catta, a family moved in next door.
He remembers their faces now in a dim, distant, way: the sweet smile of the husband, the kind hands of the wife. The cheerful, mischievous face of their son. He was younger than Jay and brimming with curiosity.
For one whole summer the boy followed Jay around, apparently fascinated by a human who was seven cycles older than him.
All that Jay remembers next is this: the smoke and screams that woke him from his bed. The way his mother wouldn't let him near next door. The way the neighbourhood stood together and honoured the wife and husband who had run back into the house to save their son.
The way the son was never found.
*
The outreach programme is meant to foster some goodwill between two species that were, until very recently, trying to kill one another with extreme prejudice.
Jay is standing in a line with four other men. Their backs are straight, their uniforms crisp and he is fully aware that none of them have moved their eyes away from the four creatures standing opposite them in the hangar. Off to one side he can hear the diplomats talking – words like ideals and learning are being thrown around. If he hadn't been trying to kill these creatures three weeks ago, he might be more open to such ideas.
If they hadn't been trying to kill him three weeks ago.
Minutes pass and he is becoming more and more aware of the creature standing opposite him. It is examining him, gold eyes bright with curiosity in the face of a handsome, petulant, boy. At its hip its salzon sword is sheathed, but Jay knows this means nothing. One wrong move, one unfortunate turn of phrase by politicians too stupid to realise the danger, and that blade will flick from its sheath and decapitate the nearest two people before anyone can draw breath. He's seen it before and he's achingly aware that he is closest.
The idea of the outreach programme is simple: without giving away military secrets, four pairs of humans and Sirens will live and work together in a secluded compound. This will foster a better understanding of each other and all eight humanoids will act as ambassadors in the years to come. It is a simple, clever plan. From the smallest of starts, great relations may grow.
But the boy is still watching him and an itch is beginning to build under Jay's skin.
Jay realises that calling the creature a boy is probably foolish. He is young – younger than Jay by at least five years – but it is clear he has killed and it is equally clear he has reached adulthood, based on whatever strange and obscure rites Sirens hold to. He wouldn't be here if he hadn't.
As the boy's gaze has not left him, Jay decides it is unlikely to start an intergalactic incident if he studies him in return.
The boy is taller than Jay by at least a head. His hair is a mop of curls and he has a lean, tanned face. His posture is relaxed and he is dressed from neck to foot in the traditional black of the Lenian army. He is wearing a faint expression of amusement, evident only in the corners of his mouth and the tilt of his head.
Almost absently Jay shifts his jaw slightly, dropping his eyes to stare hard at the dip between collarbones, where the boy's pulse beats light and fragile in the hollow of his throat. Sirens are alien: incomprehensible and vicious and almost terrifyingly human all the same. Jay can feel the translator wedged in his ear and is unbearably glad for it. He has seen men go mad from the sound of an unfiltered Siren voice – has watched as comrades and friends took up their guns against their own kind, helpless and blank in the face of the fundamental urge to obey a song that told them to.
Jay is stronger than his rage, his hate, of these creatures. It is why he has been chosen and why he is here now. But it doesn't mean he has forgotten and he is certainly not planning to forgive.
Almost against his will his gaze drifts up again and this time it snags on the look the Siren is giving him.
Slowly, deliberately, the creature winks.
*
Mornings on Mas-Hain are cool, the heat of the day not yet risen to an unbearable degree.
Jay stands in the meadow gardens, bare toes curled into the earth as he breathes slowly. There is a mist still lingering and the dew on the grass has not yet evaporated. Through the soft linen of his shirt, he can feel the gentle kiss of a breeze against his skin.
“How can you expect me to resist you,” a voice says close to his ear, “when you are looking so delicious this morning?”
Jay releases a slow breath and closes his eyes for a brief moment, praying for patience.
“Try,” he says curtly.
Samiel laughs, low, and doesn't move away. Jay can feel the heat of him against his back now, and resists the urge to step forward and place some distance between them. The spot between his shoulder blades itches and his instincts are telling him to turn and face his enemy.
Samiel is not an enemy, he reminds himself. Samiel is... is...
“I could devour you,” Samiel says gently, and Jay can feel the heat of his words sinking into his translator. “Won't you let me, pretty human? I'd make it ever so good for you.” His voice is intimate, filthy, that of a lover; of a predator that has caught its prey.
“Go away Samiel,” Jay says. “Go and talk to Grant. He'll let you get away with this nonsense.”
Samiel laughs and his heat finally moves away from Jay's back. “You're no fun, my master,” he says.
The nickname is a honeyed insult; barbed wire in a velvet glove. The first time they had spoken – properly spoken and not just eyed one another cautiously from opposite sides of a hangar – Samiel had asked Jay what he did.
A pilot, Jay had said, and, when needed, a soldier.
Oh dear, Samiel had replied. A bit of this, a bit of that. No true calling. A jack of all trades; a master of none.
The nickname had stuck.
There is a rustle of cloth and Samiel moves into view. He is still wearing the customary black of his order, but in deference to the rising heat of the day he has forgone a shirt and is in only his tunic and leggings. His shoulders look wider when not buried under a layer of fabric and Jay scrubs his palms against his trousers in a moment of unaccustomed nervousness.
“What do you want?” he asks and watches as Samiel tilts his head, curls falling across his forehead and into his eyes.
“You promised you would take me to the waterfalls,” he says.
There is an underlying reason for this request, but what it is Jay can't see. In the weeks they have all lived together he has learnt that, out of the four of the Sirens on the base, Samiel is most likely to have an ulterior motive. He is sharp, clever, and, from the one occasion Jay has happened to be in the practice room at the same time as him, clearly incredibly competent with his salzon. In the privacy of his own head Jay admits that if he was pushed – really pushed – he would not be able to swear with complete confidence that he would win in a fight against Samiel.
“I'm not taking you anywhere,” he says at last. “And I promised no such thing. If you want someone to play tour guide go and ask one of the others.”
The width of Samiel's mouth curves into a smile and Jay's heart beats faster at the sight of it.
“Oh, my master,” he says, “why would I do that?”
*
“No,” says Samiel from where he is sitting cross-legged at the edge of the practice mat. “Do it again.”
Jay uses the sleeve of his shirt to wipe sweat from his forehead and glares at him, breathing heavily.
“I am not designed for this,” he says, resting the tip of the salzon on the floor. He watches, trying to calm his breathing as Samiel scoffs and gets to his feet. The Siren's nose wrinkles slightly as he steps into Jay's space.
“You stink,” he says as he wraps his fingers around Jay's and corrects his grip on the salzon. He is uncomfortably near, as usual, and his chin brushes Jay's temple as he speaks. Two weeks ago this would have made Jay far more irritable than it does now. Now, he has watched Samiel's open delight at the sight of the Gellion Falls, has eaten with him, trained with him and argued with him.
“This is payback for the shooting range last week, isn't it?” Jay asks.
Samiel chuckles against his ear and then taps the inside of Jay's ankle with a bare foot. “Feet wider,” he says. “And I have no idea why you'd think that.”
“Of course not.” Jay adjusts his stance and raises the salzon again. “We've been at this for hours and you've been relentless. Not a punishment at all.” He steps carefully into first guard, waiting for Samiel to correct him. When he doesn't, Jay moves into second.
“Breathe,” Samiel reminds him after a moment. His tone carries all the superiority of someone younger and not at all wiser. “Inhale with the step, exhale with the lunge.”
“Right.” Jay retreats to first guard and tries again.
He makes it to third guard this time and pivots, moving into the first set of attacks Samiel has shown him. The blade hums over Samiel's head and he ducks the swing and steps gracefully out of range. He is laughing, even as Jay bares his teeth in a triumphant grin, pleased at making it so far with so few corrections this time.
“Better?”
“Better, my master.”
Samiel retreats to the edge of the mat and sits, folding his long legs under him. Jay waits until he is properly settled and then begins again.
This time it is different. The forms sing through his body with no proper direction from his mind. He lunges, then steps sideways, carrying the salzon with him in the basic sets he has been taught. For a brief moment Jay enjoys the steady exhale of his own breath, the quiet tempo of his heartbeat and the precise, delicate arc the salzon makes as it glides through the air. There is nothing but the quick movement of his own feet and the strength of his own arms.
He moves again, flicking the blade into the final form and glances towards Samiel to see if he has anything to comment on.
Samiel is staring at him. His hands are clasped loosely in his lap. The collar of his undershirt is open and his head is tilted slightly up as he watches Jay, exposing the long, tanned line of his throat. His eyes are a bright, curious gold. His lips are slightly parted, as though he will speak. For one brief moment he and Jay look at one another.
Then Jay stumbles, tripping over his own feet in the final movement and dropping the salzon in the process.
There is an almost imperceptible pause and then Samiel smiles.
“Not quite,” he says and gets to his feet again. “Here, let me show you again.”
*
“We may have problem,” Yram says sometime during week six. He and Palek are sitting together at a table in the canteen. Yram is watching the opposite corner of the room.
“I think you're worrying about this too much,” Palek says, shovelling food into his mouth as though he is expecting it to be taken away from him.
“Am I?”
Palek pauses in his eating, fork halfway to his mouth, and looks again at the opposite corner.
Samiel is leaning across the table, eyes glowing with amusement as he waves a spoon in the face of the human. Commander Jason Lane is laughing, ducking his head as he tries to avoid the pile of unidentifiable mush hovering in his eyeline.
“Maybe not,” Palek acknowledges, watching the distasteful display of emotion. “A Severne should know better than this.”
The two Sirens watch as Lane grasps Samiel's wrist, pushing the spoon away. Palek suppresses a frown at the way Samiel's expression changes, his gaze softening as he presses his wrist into the touch.
“Do we do something?” Yram asks, deferring to Palek's judgement in this matter.
Palek looks away from the pair opposite. This is not in their orders. Compliance is expected, an effort at diplomacy has been agreed. This is...
“Not yet,” he says. “We wait. If this regrettable behaviour continues, then we tell her.”
“Alright,” says Yram. “But you are going to be the one making the call.”
*
One of the things that no one – not even the cultural attachés or diplomats – had warned the four humans about, was meshala.
The first Jay knows about it is when Samiel thoughtfully presses one long, strong finger into the dimple of Jay's chin, over a game of bakesh one afternoon.
“You haven't shaved today,” he says.
After nearly four months of sometimes uncomfortable personal observation and contact, Jay is used to Samiel invading his personal space. He knocks Samiel's finger away and looks back down at the board. He 's losing, but isn't quite prepared to give up without a fight.
“Well observed,” he says. He moves one of his counters and sits back, satisfied that he has at least staved off defeat for the next three turns.
When Samiel fails to make his next move, Jay looks up. He is being observed from under the thick fringes of Samiel's lashes with surprising intensity.
“Me not shaving can't be that much of a shock,” Jay says dryly, when it becomes apparent that Samiel isn't intending to either take his turn on the bakesh board, or follow up on his observation with another cryptic remark. “You've seen this before. Adult human males can, in fact, grow facial hair when they put their minds to it.”
“Did you know you have red in your stubble when it catches the light,” Samiel says which is, quite frankly, a non-sequitur as far as Jay is concerned. “It's in your hair, too.” He smiles slowly. “Plain-haired Jason, hiding those surprising details.”
“I think,” Jay says mock seriously, “you are reading far too much into this.”
“Am I?” Samiel is still smiling. “I don't think I am. You have hidden depths.”
There is something off about the way Samiel is looking at him now; a strange intensity in his eyes. Jay scratches his cheek uncomfortably and shrugs.
“If it provokes this much of a reaction from you, I'm shaving tomorrow morning,” he says lightly.
Jay always forgets how fast a Siren – how fast Samiel – can move. In a blink he is out of his chair and has pinned Jay's wrist to the table with one hand; his other hand grips Jay's chin in firm fingers, tilting his head back to meet Samiel's gaze.
“Don't do that, my master,” he purrs. He is still smiling and Jay is beginning to become unnerved. He tries to move the wrist pinned to the table and feels Samiel's fingers flex their hold and then tighten, almost to the point of pain.
Something is not right.
“Let go of my arm,” he says calmly.
There is a brief ripple of confusion across Samiel's face, before his expression smooths again.
“Why?”
“It's making me uncomfortable.”
“Is it?” Samiel's grip is unrelenting. “Do elaborate.” He leans closer, even as Jay leans back, and there is an odd look of hunger in his eyes.
Jay wrenches his wrist free and moves to stand, but Samiel is faster and hands are clamping down Jay's shoulders, pushing him down into his seat before he can move more than an inch.
“No, my master,” Samiel says and his lips are brushing the thin skin under Jay's ear. He presses closer still and Jay can feel his heart beating faster – knows Samiel can feel it too. “Stay still,” Samiel murmurs. “Don't move, my darling. Of course it was you; it was always going to be you.” There is a low, helpless quality to his voice, even as his grip stays tight on Jay's shoulders.
Jay swallows hard and turns his head away. “What are you doing?” he asks, amazed how evenly his voice comes out. He wants to lean in, to pull Samiel close and this is... this is not right. His translator is still wedged in his ear; there is no explanation for the hot, dizzying swoop in his stomach, for the vibration of Samiel's voice against his throat.
“Tell me,” Samiel says and – oh – he is sliding slow and heavy onto Jay's lap. He is taller than Jay; must look faintly ridiculous from the way his legs are too long to perch comfortably. But the solid heat of him is...is... “Would you let me?” he asks, nuzzling the side of Jay's face, his curls tickling Jay's nose. Then he answers his own question. “Of course you would, pretty man.”
They are having two different conversations, Jay thinks, and finds he cannot breathe properly with the whisper of Samiel's mouth against his.
“This is nonsense,” he says, not turning his head away again; not even trying.
“Of course it's not,” Samiel says, the crest of a thumbnail running the length of the tendon in Jay's neck, making him shiver uncontrollably. “Of course it's not.” His lips brush Jay's and his lashes flutter closed. “Just let me, my darling. Let me, please.”
His mouth is warm and wet. Jay cannot help the way he sighs, lips parting to let Samiel lick blood-hot into him, humming contentedly. This is madness: there is no other word for the way Samiel melts against him, fingers tight in his hair as he guides the kiss. He is devouring him and Jay is going willingly, fingers clenched tight in the softness of Samiel's tunic, even as the movement of their mouths slows briefly.
Samiel catches Jay's lower lip between his teeth and tugs carefully, with an aching tenderness. “My master,” he says between gentle, painful kisses, and the sound of his voice makes Jay's toes curl, makes him gasp for air. “The things we are going to do together.” There is a promise there, dark and certain, and Jay doesn't understand it, doesn't care, he just wants more of the slow, tender press of lips against one another; the slide of Samiel's tongue against his teeth, his palate; the way he can breathe air that is not his own and stay dizzy with the lack of oxygen.
The door to Jay's room crashes open, causing the pair of them to flinch back from one another in surprise. Palek is standing in the doorway, his expression uncharacteristically furious.
“Samiel,” he hisses, gold stare unforgiving and angry. “Pritaya caresh no matta.” He is talking too fast for Jay's translator to catch up.
Samiel hisses and it is a formless, sinuous sound of rage. Wordlessly, helplessly, Jay presses his palms flat against Samiel's chest. He can feel Samiel's heartbeat thundering under his fingers and clarity is returning to him with painful and embarrassing intensity.
His behaviour is not normal. This situation is not normal. Samiel has done something to him, even with the translators and the training they have all undergone.
“Get off me,” he says quietly and Samiel tears his furious gaze away from Palek to look at him. “Get off of me right now.” He shoves Samiel once, ineffectually, and drops his hands to his sides.
Samiel sways closer, as though he will kiss him again and Palek lets out a growl of warning.
With another frustrated hiss Samiel stands and the loss of his warmth is almost shocking to Jay in the cool of the room. Before Jay can open his mouth Samiel is gone, and Jay and Palek are left staring cautiously at one another.
There is an uncomfortable silence.
“Are you alright?” Palek asks at last. “He didn't...bite you, did he?”
Jay frowns. “Bite me?”
“It's...” Palek rubs the back of his neck, looking awkward. “It's...meshala. Mating.”
It feels as though someone has poured a bucket of ice down Jay's spine. For a moment he can't breathe, can't speak. All he can hear is the way Samiel had said Of course it was you; it was always going to be you. It makes a sickening kind of sense.
“I think you had better come in,” Jay says at last, “and tell me everything.”
*
In the end they have three more weeks.
Three weeks of Samiel avoiding him; ducking out of the room when Jay approaches; turning his back and talking loudly to someone else whenever Jay draws breath to speak.
Three weeks and not enough time.
All Jay will remember later is this:
“I'm sorry,” Samiel says against his mouth. His gaze steady and his hands careful. “I'm sorry, I was meant to kill you too. I couldn't, of course I couldn't.”
The air is thick with the smell of hot ash and burning flesh and Jay cannot think, cannot speak beyond the pain. He can feel the slow, searing drip of blood from his side and the pressure of Samiel's fingers on his face.
'I hate you,' he wants to say. 'Look at what you've done, I hate you.'
He can't. He is choking on blood and that awful smell.
“I have my orders,” Samiel is saying, and out of all of Jay's pain, it is the careful press of Samiel's fingers on his cheek that makes him flinch back. The agony in his side roars with the movement.
“Stay still!” Samiel says, hands firm as they push him into the dirt. “Stay still, please don't move.”
Jay closes his eyes, summons his strength. “Leave me alone,” he says, around lips numb with pain. “Go. The next time I see you, I am going to kill you.” He is empty. There is nothing left in him but an aching void where, until three hours ago, there had been tentative hope.
Samiel inhales sharply, once, and Jay remembers nothing more.
*
The massacre on Mas-Hain causes a diplomatic uproar, the likes of which hasn't been seen since the start of the Carrion Wars.
There is only one survivor on each side – Samiel by design and Jay by strange accident. The Sirens blame the humans, the humans blame the Sirens and the tension in the galactic Parliament grows to almost unbearable levels. Each side circles the other, waiting for a show of weakness, a slip, that will allow fighting to break out with legitimate excuses.
In those first painful months after, Jay ignores all news and shuts himself off. Once he is recovered enough he volunteers for a peacekeeping mission in the outer belt, then spends the next six months juggling diplomatic details between a group of Medusae and Galtics. The pistol strapped to his hip is a comforting weight and the reliance on his training and own good sense goes a long way towards restoring his confidence.
The mission is such a success that he is almost immediately assigned to another peacekeeping effort and the next three years are spent staying well away from any Sirens and throwing his not-inconsiderable efforts into being exactly what the Air Force wants him to be.