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By the time Balem starts to frown at her over his shoulder, Jupiter knows what will come next. Her name, the syllables of which seem somehow more ornate when he says them. Always Jupiter, never Jupe. It isn’t meant to chastise, she doesn’t think, but the feeling that she’s done something wrong is inescapable. He blinks in that curious way he does, sometimes, one eye, and then the other.
“What are you doing?” A meaningful look darts to her hand on his bare shoulder, where she had meant to rub the tension out. He shrugs her off and stands from the bed. Jupiter has never known anyone who gets as tense after sex as Balem Abrasax, and it seems that this time has done nothing to change that.
“You need to relax. I’m not going to bite you. We’ve done that part already.” She winks. Humour, she’s learned, is usually a reasonable tactic. Not this time, apparently. Balem makes no answer, slipping into a glossy black robe. “Hey. Come back here,” Jupiter beckons. “Please?” She’s surprised when he settles back on the bed, but she doesn’t question. Instead, she scoots to the end of the bed, where he’s sitting, stormy-eyed and distant. His shoulders tense, again, when she lays her hands on them, and she can almost feel the anger simmering just underneath the skin. It is always there, that roiling fury, and all of Balem’s energy goes into keeping the bit in its fiery mouth.
“There’s no need for that,” he says. Measured. Careful. It doesn’t last for even the half-second it would have taken for Jupiter to lift her hands. “Take your hands off me!” It’s a hiss that pulls his lips back from his teeth as though he could spit venom and blind her. “What do you mean to accomplish? Do you think that if you touch me softly enough that I will spare your Earth? Do you think that I will wither and die with you?” Balem is on his feet again. “Is this what you made me for?” He doesn’t see her, anymore, and his hands are quivering.
“Balem –”
“Don’t!” he shrieks, his damaged voice filling the room. “You know precisely what you are.”
“Hey!” Sometimes the only way to get through was to shout, to cut his tirades short. “I am not your mother. You hear me?” He seethes, and doesn’t soften. “What’s my name, Balem?” His eyes slip closed and he pushes a rasping breath out of his lungs.
“Jupiter.” Another breath scrapes its way out. “Jupiter.” The reminder seems to help, but a minute passes in silence before he dares to open his eyes. “You mustn’t be so gentle with me.”
“Someone’s got to be.” The sound that comes out of Balem is caught somewhere between a scoff and a chuckle, which is, either way, an improvement.
“You?”
“Why not?”
“‘Why not.’” This time, Balem beckons her near when he settles on the end of the bed. Jupiter puts a cautious hand on his shoulder.
“All right?”
“We’ll see.”
“All right.”