Work Text:
When Aidan sees them, his whole face breaks into a beaming smile.
“Jet!” he calls out across the tent, and the bell-clear pitch of his voice cuts straight through the chatter. He's climbed up on one of the long benches to wave them down, head and shoulders bobbing above the crowd. Jet has already changed course toward him, covering swift ground on their metal legs, shouldering and shoving their way through the press of revelers, Lullabye swinging against their back. Gaining half a foot in height hasn’t been convenient in every circumstance - stowing away in floor compartments and the like, for one - but Jet can’t deny the benefits of the extra leg joint, and now they use that height advantage to keep Aidan in sight, gaze fixed on the pale flash of his hair.
On the elevator up from Ceres, squashed in between a trio of grease-scented shipbreakers and a boisterous family of five, Jet briefly considered not attempting to find him. Just waiting - to see if the universe would tumble them into each other, as it seemed to have a habit of doing. That idea had lasted as long as it took for Jet to duck into the fridge compartment of a food truck and hitch a ride through the service gate. The moment they stepped foot inside the orbital proper and found themself presented with stalls and attractions stretching off in every direction, all they wanted to do was see it with him, watch him try some type of fried food neither of them had ever heard of, take him up on the big metal wheel with the swinging baskets hanging from it and make fun of the tiny people below, play a stupid carnival game with him and let him win, just to hear him laugh. They wanted to see him - that smile, bright-hot as a solar flare. Wanted to (embarrassing, but they couldn't deny it) bask in it, or some shit.
So they had given up immediately and followed the main thoroughfare to an information kiosk, located a map of the fairgrounds, and set off in the direction of the drinks tent, where, Jet was positive, the visiting Peregrinationals would be sure to congregate.
And Jet had been right; fully a third of the Fleet seems to be present for the event (a good number of the Free Traders and the odd Hearthship, gathered on the other side of Ceres for one of those all-hands meetings, Aidan will inform them later), and of those, another third have packed themselves into the drinks tent, which has turned out to be several very large tents set up in a block, with a sort of open-air uncovered section in the middle. A representative selection of the folk Jet has seen clustered in tight groups, laughing and drinking and slapping one another's backs, wear a ship's patch somewhere on their person. Jet squeezes past a gaggle of hooting young midshipmen wearing the patch of the Carry A Light That Casts No Shadows, never taking their eyes off of Aidan, who even at a distance stands out beacon-bright, exactly as blonde and smiling as Jet remembers him, and Jet finds themself pulled helplessly toward him like a pebble flying headlong at the sun, just like last time, just like every goddamn time.
They lose sight of him for a moment - he must have jumped down from the bench. “No way. Your fake boyfriend is real ?” one of Aidan’s friends says, loud enough to be rude, as Jet body-checks their way through the few people still blocking their path, takes two long strides forward, and catches Aidan in their arms, bending to tuck their face into the soft curve of his shoulder.
“They've always been real! It’s not my fault if you didn’t believe me!” His laugh - it's like a bell, high and bright and clear. Jet can feel the ringing of it in their chest, with Aidan pressed this close. The two of them have clearly become a spectacle - Aidan's friends are tittering amongst themselves - but Jet really couldn’t give less of a fuck. They’re too busy breathing in the dirt-and-sunlight smell of him, burying their fists in the back of his shirt. His arms are tight about their middle, and he might be joking around and teasing the fake-boyfriend-believer, but Jet can feel the desperate strength of his grip, and some deep fragile part of them is wildly gratified. He missed me. He proper missed me.
Aidan is still laughing, that high sweet chiming laugh, and there's no sound like it in the world. “Go and get us another round of drinks, Amara, will you? Actually, hang on, take Neilskin along, I don’t trust you to carry them all.” And then he’s drawing back just a breath, just far enough that Jet is obliged to remove their face from the side of his neck, though his arms are still tight about them.
“Hey, stranger,” he says, a bit impishly, smiling up at them - he has to crane his neck back, Jet is tall now, on their new legs - and Jet has to remember how their voice works before they can reply, “Hey, big eyes.”
Then they dip their head down and kiss him, and he smiles against their mouth, so sweet.
(Last they had seen one another, at one of the smaller Family meetings on Arcturus nearly three months ago, they had kissed each other on the boarding ramp of a freighter bound for Io, and Jet had said, all in a tumble, almost against their will, Come with me , breathing out a long wavering exhale there against his face, knowing the answer and dreading it. And Aidan had smiled, but even with their eyes closed as they kissed him, Jet could tell the smile was sad. Jet, I can't. )
Sometimes Jet wonders if they'll ever manage to stay gone. Wouldn’t that be easier for them both? They wonder if the wrenching sensation they feel every time they leave Aidan behind is love. Or is it the magnetizing force that always draws them back to him, even when they decide, no, this time I stay away , maybe that's love. Or maybe it's this, right now, the sweet shape of his mouth, the rhythm of his pulse against their chest, his arms around them so tight it's like he means to never let go, even though he will, he always does, he has to. (They don't name it, not aloud. They say things like, I'll miss you , and Fly safe, and Don't be a stranger. They both know what they really mean, and this way it seems to hurt less.)
“I missed you,” Aidan is saying now, softly, only for Jet to hear, and some kind of horrible huge balloon expands inside them, crowding all the air out of their lungs, and how can they do anything but kiss him again?
He darts the tip of his tongue against their lower lip this time, sending a jolt through them, and then dances back a step even as Jet tilts into him, helpless and hungry. “You're a terror,” they say, hoarse with want, and he only laughs, eyes twinkling, reaching for Jet's hands with both of his, arms outstretched in a way that makes his tits bunch together at the open neck of his shirt. He's teasing them on purpose, the little brat.
“Come back to the Carry with me,” he says, with a smile as soft as a secret. “Tonight. If you want to.”
He always qualifies like that. Just this one night. Only if you want to. You're not trapped, you can leave anytime. Jet always feels like a skittish cat being coaxed into a cardboard box that's far, far too small for them, except the box also happens to contain their favorite person in the world, who loves the box, and has no desire to leave the box.
Never once since the Settle has Aidan said, Stay.
(Aidan traveled with Jet once, briefly, in that first year. He’d flinched when Jet slipped the LSIV into the tender underside of his wrist, lied that it hadn’t hurt, only startled him. He’d followed Jet through the NoGo jungle in the belly of Gany City with both hands fixed tightly in the back of Jet’s jacket. He liked to make friends and ask questions, which was not the NoGo way, and as he was rebuffed again and again, Jet watched him curl in on himself, a storm shutter closing down behind his eyes.)
Jet doesn't ask if he wants to come with them anymore. He can’t. He’s not built for it.
They're leaning in for another kiss when Jet hears Aidan's friends returnings with beer (Aidan makes friends so quickly, Jet feels like they meet a totally fresh batch every time they see him) and Aidan takes Jet by the upper arms and spins them around to make proper introductions, and they go a bit rigid under the scrutiny of strangers but they allow it, as he keeps the warm palm of his hand on their back, accepting a beer in his other hand. Aidan’s friends are suitably impressed by the legs; Jet obligingly stretches them out, one and then the other, flexing the metal claw-feet, letting Aidan answer the questions about where Jet got the legs and why, as he’s better at dramatizing the retelling in a way that makes it sound like some grand adventure and not the most frightening thing that has ever happened to either of them. Jet stands by as he regales the others, remembering how their body had moved without thought, flinching toward Aidan in the half-second before the gunshot sounded, two magnets snapping into alignment, inevitable. Remembering the way Aidan had gulped back tears as he clung to Jet’s hand, promising them they’d be able to move again as soon as the doctor got them fixed up. Jet had known, lying there in a spreading pool of their own blood, that they weren’t getting the legs back. They couldn’t feel them at all; it didn't even hurt. Aidan had always been a bad liar. (The meat doctor had given them the choice; take the legs off at the top of the thigh, with the understanding that repairs to their original flesh could be imperfect, or lose it all to the waist. Jet had chosen the former. No, listen, Doc, you can't take that stuff, I ain't even - I still - I need it, okay? Even if it don't work all the time, I - I still need it. )
“Oh, and they’ve got a thing called a fairy wheel,” Aidan is saying, gesturing with his beer, eyes lantern-bright. “We’ve gotta go ride it, Jet, it’s crazy tall and you sit in this bucket-looking thing and go waaaay up and around, it looks like such a great time-”
Jet scoffs, never mind the literal fantasy they'd had about taking him up in that stupid contraption. “Passed it on the way here. You know it goes around dead slow, right? You get to the top and then you gotta just sit there swinging, ‘til they run the wheel to put the next bloke on.”
“What, you don’t think that’s better? How disappointing would it be if they put you on it and just zipped you around in two seconds?” The blinding beam of his grin is nearly too strong for Jet to withstand at this close distance. “I bet you can see the whole fair from that high, doesn’t that sound cool! Wait, you’re not afraid of heights or something, are you?”
“No.”
“Then you’ll love it.”
“Awfully sure of that for someone who ain’t never been on no fairy wheel.”
Aidan laughs and nudges his shoulder into them, his body soft and loose with drink. Jet used to jerk away from those casual touches. Now it’s embarrassing how they crave the warm press of him, anywhere, everywhere, it doesn’t matter, they’ll take whatever of him they can get and they’ll treasure it, tucked like a blessing into the closest inner pocket of their much-mended coat.
They'll go with him back to his ship tonight. Remain at his side, until the fair ends and the Carry returns to the Black. Aidan won't ask them to stay, but his eyes will be wide and wet, when Jet kisses him goodbye. And then Jet will go out alone again. And maybe this time, they'll be strong enough to stay away.
(They won't. They never are, and never will be.)