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Sol’s got a frown on his face and his shoulders hunched practically up to his ears when he walks up to Geoponics, which is so uncharacteristic that Cal has to do a double take. “Hey, bud, you okay there?”
“Been better,” Sol says, shoulders coming down barely half an inch, which is somehow even more bewildering. Every single time Cal’s ever asked that question before today, the only answer he’s ever gotten was, “I’ll cheer up soon, don’t worry! ”
Okay. Well. Time to think of it as, like, future teenage parenting practice. Cal puts his shovel down, walks a little closer. “Wanna talk about it?”
“No,” says Sol. “I mean yes, but I shouldn’t.” He reaches up, scrubs his hands across his face, and when he pulls them down he looks so tired that Cal’s heart hurts, suddenly, for his oldest friend. “I just… you know I love you, right?”
“Of course, bud!” It’s like, a law of nature, practically: from the land flows life and from Sol’s heart flows love. Cal’s not once, even when they’ve fought, ever believed that Sol doesn’t love him -- and not just him, but everyone else around them: Tammy and Anemone and Tang and on and on and on, an infinite river of it. “Of course.”
“And you know….” There’s a pause, Sol gnawing on the side of his lip, before he says, “You know I’d do anything to protect you.”
Oh. Okay. “Yeah,” says Cal, deliberately slow so it doesn't come out short, trying really hard not to think about Sol walking into the lounge with blood flecked on his shoes and Vace’s arm locked around his shoulders. “I know everything you’re doing is because you love us.”
And that -- that seems to hit something, deep in Sol. His head snaps up, eyes meeting Cal’s, so wide and suddenly unsure that any annoyance washes away all at once, replaced with a feeling deep and warm and gentle as the ground under his feet. “I know,” he says again, trying to put as much of that feeling into his voice as he can, “that you want to keep us safe, because you love us.”
Sol’s lips part then draw back closed, before he smiles at Cal, finally, still tense across his shoulders but much closer to the Sol that Cal’s always known. “Yeah,” he says, quietly. “I do.”
Cal smiles back. Sol looks better like this, his usual overconfidence not quite in place but closer than before, and for a moment he thinks that’s maybe all Sol needed until the smile drops from Sol’s face and he adds, “And if I told you to do something… or rather that you shouldn’t do something, because it’s dangerous… would you trust me?”
Cal blinks. “Yeah, bud.” This one’s way easier to answer than the last -- no matter how weird Sol gets about Vertumnan stuff, he knows more about what’s dangerous than nearly everyone in the colony, first out the gates after every Glow and last in at Wet, with all the scars to prove it. “Respecting nature doesn’t mean letting it eat you.”
Sol laughs at that, but then rubs his hands across his face. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, okay. Cool. Nice to know someone would.”
Oh, yikes. Cal glances back up the hill that Sol just came trailing down, at the figure by the gates who startles away when he sees Cal’s head turn upwards. “Did you have a fight with Dys?”
Sol flinches, and Cal backtracks instantly: “We don’t have to talk about it --”
“Yeah,” says Sol. He’s rubbing his face again, tension creeping clearly back up his body. “I mean, yeah, we had a fight. I just…. I wish he trusted me like you. I wish he fucking listened when I said something was dangerous, instead of just thinking that some fucking --”
The cutoff is so abrupt Cal startles, glancing around instinctively… but it looks like Sol interrupted himself, for whatever reason. “Thinking that some…?
Sol just shakes his head. “Ignore me,” he says. “Ignore me, ignore me, ignore me. Ugh.” He reaches up, ruffles his hair. “It’s just… it’s like he doesn’t even care how much I care about him . How much I’d do for him! How much I --”
Oh, boy. Sol’s relationships with the entire male population of the colony (save Cal himself) are so messy that Cal mostly just stays out of the way, but even he knows how weird Sol can get about Dys. Even Vace, who Sol’s bizarrely nice to, isn’t immune -- he and his cronies leave Dys alone solely because the one time they didn’t Sol almost punched him in the fucking jaw.
And yet he won’t even touch him, which is somehow even weirder. It’s not even that he just doesn’t like sex -- ever since he hooked up with Rex he’s had a hickey on a new and more embarrassing spot each time Cal sees him -- but for some reason with Dys he’s got this bewildering look but don’t touch policy.
But the weirdest part is that Sol is definitely really into him, still wearing that bracelet around everywhere that he’d gotten last Vertumnalia. He’d shown it to Cal and Tammy the night after the festival, telling them I think Dys might’ve made it for me with a smile so warm and glowing Cal had reached out and taken Tammy’s hand so he could feel even a fraction of that love.
Still, though. Not the point. “I think he does, bud,” says Cal, touching the back of Sol’s hand. There’s only one person Dys ever comes into the actual colony to see these days, and it’s not his sister. “But you know how he is, no one’s ever allowed to tell him what to do. Remember when you wanted him to join the SFC, and he just totally shot you down? It’s the same thing.”
Sol smiles a little at the memory, which was the goal, but the expression slips from his face sooner than Cal would like. “I don’t think he doesn’t care about how you feel,” says Cal, a little softer, taking Sol’s hand in earnest. “I just think that maybe you guys are butting heads right now, y’know? No one can agree on everything, no matter how much you love each other.”
Their eyes meet, and for a moment Cal knows Sol’s thinking not about Dys but the two of them: about how Sol doesn’t work at the greenhouse anymore, about the way Cal sees the hunting trucks load up and turns away with a scowl.
“...I know,” says Sol, twisting his hand to hold Cal’s back. “But this isn't like that. It’s dangerous. Like, really, really, dangerous. And he doesn’t get it, even though I try to tell him, because like, no matter how good it looks, it’s still….”
Cal waits, but there’s no follow-up. “Hey,” he says, squeezing Sol’s hand. “Maybe he just needs some time to think about it. Or maybe he’ll figure out the same thing, all on his own, right? Dys is a pretty smart guy.”
Sol smiles, still a little glumly. “Maybe,” he says, sounding unconvinced. “I just…. I dunno. If something happened to him….”
Cal… doesn’t want to think about what Sol would do, if one day Dys didn’t come back. He’s always been kind of reckless, ever since they were kids, and each year it’s only ever gotten worse. Without Dys…. “He’s a smart guy,” Cal repeats, a little helplessly. “He can take care of himself.”
“I hope so,” says Sol, head tilting back towards the gates, closed now and empty of any skulking figures. “I really, really hope so.”