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Category: Future/AU
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Not mine, no profit.
Spoilers: None. Takes place “sometime” in the future.
Feedback: Always welcome.
Beta-Readers: A huge THANK YOU to scrubschick and imloco2, who got to see my worst case of the dithers yet. Insecurity when facing the “Post Article” button is a horrible affliction. Thank you for helping me through it.
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He wipes the glass dry, spinning it lazily around the towel in his hand, and slides it into its slot on the shelf, waiting for the Sebacean to start his mournful blathering again. The dark-haired head is bowed over his raslak, the cheapest drink in the bar, weaving slightly from side to side as he stares into the glass. The Sebacean isn’t a noisy or a belligerent drunk, but he’s boring. The man has been here every afternoon for the past five solar days, moaning out his sad tale of rejection and loss again and again. He isn’t in uniform, so he probably isn’t from any of the Alliance bases on the planet.
“Another?” he asks, reaching for the nearly empty glass. The Sebacean’s bloodshot eyes come up, staring at him in confusion for several microts, then he nods and shovels his money across. Cretmars. Good almost anywhere in this galaxy. Not like the Alliance credits, which will be worthless the minute the Scarrans decide to resume their aggression and the destructive onslaught rolls inexorably toward this headquarters planet. He shoves the raslak back, careful not to spill any, and moves down the bar, checking on other customers.
“Ascoltor,” someone yells, waving a fistful of empty mugs at him. He gestures back and sets out another round, relying on one of the group to come pick up the drinks and pay for them. The floor is too crowded tonight for him to be wending his way from one table to the next, dishing out drinks and gathering in five or more types of currency. “You take good care of us, Ascoltor,” the lieutenant exudes as he arrives to gather up the round of drinks. “Come have one with us tonight.” The Alliance officers all tend to invite him for a drink from time to time, secure in the knowledge that he’s never accepted. Not even once.
Ascoltor. He can’t even remember who gave him the label. They just got tired of trying to get his attention without using a name, and one night someone yelled it out. His microbes still can’t seem to provide a translatable version of it. It means “Listener” in some language he’s never run into in all his travels. He is the listener. The one behind the counter who stands for arns, letting their stories of war, love, family, loss, and adventure wash over him. A look, a nod, or a raised eyebrow is all that’s needed to encourage them, and they’re off on another tale, punctuated by wild gestures and flailing drinks. He’d been almost the same before he’d come here.
A howling chorus of laughter from one corner draws his attention back to the customers. The place is bulging tonight, Alliance uniforms outnumbering civilian attire by almost five to one. Two Peacekeepers are keeping to themselves in a corner, scaring no one with their belligerent glares. The Scarrans have taken care of the Peacekeeper problem in the quadrant, decimating their numbers until the civil war broke out among the various Scarran castes half a cycle ago. The internal civil war did what no one else could do. It brought their slaughtering advance to a halt. The hastily formed alliance of various species has held together since then, and their ranks continue to swell as they prepare for the day when the Scarrans stop their bickering, and turn their beady eyes back on the space around them. No one knows when it will happen, but they all assume it’s inevitable. He’s the Listener, after all. He hears the intelligence officers talking, and he remembers. They never drop their voices when he’s nearby because he’s part of the furniture now.
“I miss her,” the Sebacean mumbles as he drifts back down. “I didn’t think I’d miss her this much.” Same song, same tune. It hadn’t changed at all in the last five planetary days.
The building shakes, every bit of glass and ceramic rattling for one microt before the rumbling explosion is heard. The Sebacean swings around, looking alarmed.
“Nothing to worry about.” Ascoltor tips a little more raslak into the half empty glass, draining a container, which clinks into a bin for refilling later. A happy customer spends money, the management claims, but this guy will never be happy. No matter. He gets to finish off another container and lists it on a data chip for his percentage. The Sebacean is still looking jumpy, so he explains. “Sheyang fire ball range out back. They get a bit carried away from time to time.” He reaches under the counter for the takaar serum, knowing they’ll be in for more soon. “Tell me more about her.” He hadn’t always known how to listen, which is part of what had brought him to this place, but he knows how to listen now.
“Nothing to tell. We couldn’t communicate. I left.” Ascoltor looks at the Sebacean in concern. Whenever the man doesn’t want to talk, he’s on the verge of getting sick or passing out.
“Why don’t you step outside and get some fresh air. It might make you feel a little better.” He doesn’t want to have to clean it up if the guy vomits in here.
The back door slams open, startling everyone in the room -- if the wave of jumps and fast looks is any indication. A Sheyang captain and a lieutenant waddle in, heading straight for the bar, and he puts another bundle of the serum syringes on the counter, ready for them. Their fat fingers roll out fifteen, and they ask “How much?” They know how much the cartridges cost. They’ve been coming to the range for the last quarter cycle, but it isn’t his job to tell them that they’re being a nuisance by asking every time. When the Luxans want to go shoot things, they just slap their currency on the counter and barge back out the door, shoving everyone aside as they force their way through the crowd.
“Fifteen syringes. Seventy-five cretmars.” Takaar serum is cheap now, produced in plentiful supply since the Sheyang joined the Alliance and everyone discovered that their fireballs could turn even the heat-loving Scarrans into a smoking skeleton.
“We have only Alliance credits,” the captain rumbles, shoving the hydrosteel chips forward.
Ascoltor sighs, and sweeps almost the entire pile into his hand, shoving back the spare change. It isn’t his recreation and refreshment center. He doesn’t care if the owners want to accept the credits. He dumps them into the throat of the counter, watches the tally come up to make sure he’s done it right, and then waves them away. They lumber happily through the crowd, headed back to the range. Target practice and happy wagering. They love to scorch things.
The Sebacean is back, looking pale but more in control. “You feeling all right?” he asks. The nod is scarcely a move, but the guy shoves the empty glass forward, waiting for a refill. “Cretmars,” Ascoltor prompts. The Sebacean begins patting his pockets, looking for more currency. “Oh, frell, never mind. This one’s on the house.” He leans under the counter, and pulls out the stuff he likes, snagging a clean glass for himself on the way.
“What’s the occasion?” the Sebacean asks. “You haven’t bought a drink since I’ve been here. Not for anyone”
“Left a woman behind,” he says succinctly, “like you. It’s been roughly a cycle. Today’s as good a day to celebrate as any.” He tosses it back, enjoying the long burn as it works its way down. “Happy anniversary.” It incinerates his blood vessels all the way to his toes, leaving a pleasant glow behind. The Sebacean sticks his nose into the glass, sniffing carefully, then flips the alcohol into his mouth. His eyes bulge for a moment, his throat muscles rippling as he forces it down, then he coughs, trying to cover up a gasp of pain. Putting the bottle back on the bottom shelf lets Ascoltor cover up a near-laugh.
“Why’d you leave her?” the drunk asks, tears brimming as he takes in a long breath. His fist is rubbing his sternum, and Ascoltor remembers his first encounter with the flaming sensation.
“Why’d you leave yours?” He’s supposed to listen, not talk. It was his job at first, but now it’s what he does all the time.
“She wasn’t being honest with me. I never knew when she was going to break my heart. We couldn’t seem to talk about anything anymore.”
“Good reasons.” Ascoltor's hands return to polishing metal drinking flasks. “Love her?”
“Yes,” he whispers. “I wish I hadn’t left. What about you?” The fumbling fingers finally find more currency in a pocket, and flick a few more rattling cretmars across the counter.
He snakes several toward him and pours the next drink. Raslak this time because it will stretch the guy’s money further. Ascoltor debates not answering, then decides that giving the guy a little of his own story might open him up. “It was the wrong thing to do, but I figured it out too late.”
“If going back is the right thing to do, why don’t you?” the Sebacean asks. The guy has been singing the same refrain for five planetary days, but now he’s asking questions instead of returning to his repetitious moans. Ascoltor doesn’t know whether to be relieved that he doesn’t have to listen to it again, or disappointed that he has to do the talking one more time.
“A Scarran offensive got between us while I was off some place, deciding whether she loved me. I don’t know where she is. Go back to yours now. Work things out.” The dark head shakes. “Give her another chance. You have plenty of time ahead of you to break it off, use the time together to try harder at making it work. You don’t ever know when it’ll be too late to turn back. Do it now.” It’s probably the longest thing he’s uttered to a customer since he started working here. At first, he’d never known what to say to the endless progression of talkers. Later, he’d figured that his advice was garbage. And finally, he’d learned that listening was an art, and he’d begun hearing what people had to say in their silences.
Before he’d stormed out in a fit of anger, he’d listened to his own problems through the single conduit of his ears. Over the past cycle, he’s slowly mined his memories to discover the messages he hadn’t heard because he was listening incorrectly. Tears welling in her eyes had been missed because he’d turned away, enfolded in his own hurt feelings. There was the rigid posture that he’d taken as reserve, but he knew now that it had been pain. The silences that had been her grief rather than a coldness of heart ring loudly in his new senses. These remembered shouts, and more, he can finally hear for what they were supposed to have been. But now it’s too late.
There’s a flash of a pale-skinned figure at the open front door, seen out of the corner of his eye. When he turns, there’s no one there. He lets one hand fall beneath the counter, checking on the pistol to make sure it’s within an easy reach. The few remaining Peacekeepers don’t mix well with the Alliance troops, and if they’re reconnoitering before coming in to make trouble, he wants to make sure he can break it up in a hurry. The old pulse pistols are just about right for a bar fight -- a reliable close-range weapon now that they’ve regained control of the planets that grow tannot. They’ve also found other planets where it can be cultivated, further away from the stalled front. Some of the intelligence officers think that when the Scarrans turn their attention back to the infant Alliance, they’ll find an enemy they no longer wish to engage. Ascoltor snorts a small laugh at the thought.
He reaches for the empty glass in front of the Sebacean, checking to see how drunk the man is before pouring another one out. The guy has turned an odd shade of green and he’s sweating. “Out! Don’t do that in here,” he orders. The drunk shoves himself off the stool and staggers a rushing, erratic course to the door. He’s still upright and moving fast as he disappears from sight.
Ascoltor serves a variety of flaming drinks to a quintet of Luxan recruits, and then tries to make a Delvian Nova for the trio of Hynerian intelligence officers. Although he gets the blue swirling tones right, when it comes time for it to burst into a sparking explosion from the oxidizing effect, it merely sizzles and hiccups out a cloud of smoke. They like it almost as much, and pay him anyway. He makes a mental note to get the first shift bartender to show him that drink one more time.
The Luxans move on, and he wanders down the line to pick up the soot-streaked glasses. He’s right by the pistol when the light streaming through the front door disappears and black leather moves in, so his hand is on it in a flash, waiting for the fun to begin if it’s Peacekeepers. His hand jerks with surprise, and he almost blows a hole in his foot before getting his finger off the trigger.
The roar of the clientele continues unabated, but the noise seems to die to a hush in his ears as the black leather moves straight for the bar. Long hair, swinging unfettered to drift in shining waterfall-sheets wanders down her shoulders, enveloping her throat and neck. Behind her comes a flare of gray skin, followed by braids and tanktas framing an anxious frown. They move steadily toward the bar, a gaudy three-part anachronism in the room full of uniforms. People move out of their way almost without thinking, stepping aside from the path of what he sees is competence in battle, expressed as a threat of violent action. She leans on the bar, glancing left and right, and waits.
He clears his throat, finding it inexplicably tight, and ventures the first words. “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the universe, she walks into mine.” Winona slides into the holster easily despite his shaking hands.
“It took us a long time to find you, John.” She’s frowning, but he watches the muscles jumping with tension in her shoulders, and the white knuckles of her clenched left hand as she waits, and he hears the love that he never knew how to listen for before. And he knows the words now. He’s heard them going unspoken time and time again over the last cycle.
“God, I’m glad to see you, Aeryn. Is Moya here?” Her posture doesn’t change, but she seems to sag onto the bar, grabbing on with both hands even while the pale gleam of her knuckles eases away into ruddy normalcy. She nods, and the first drawing of muscles in her face means there’s a smile lurking where he’d never known it waited. “Can we go right now?” For the first time in almost a cycle, he’s doing all of the talking because Aeryn only nods again.
“Ascoltor,” someone yells, waving a glass in his direction. He yanks the heavy waterproof smock off over his head and wads it into a bundle.
“I quit. Get it yourself,” he yells back, and vaults over the bar. His breath whooshes out painfully as D’Argo yanks him into a hug, and he doesn’t care if the next noise is his ribs cracking because they’ve found him, and he can go home with them now.
“What the frell happened to you, Old Man?” Chiana asks, hugging him next. “We tried to come pick you up when we had arranged, but we were cut off. It took us forever to even figure out which way you went when the Scarrans came through.” Her shaggy white ruff smells like Moya’s amnexus fluids.
“Later. Let’s get the hell out of here. I thought I’d never see you guys again.” Aeryn’s hand fits into his as though the two had been designed as parts of a whole. She’d never liked public displays of affection before, but the rigidity in her body isn’t talking to him about appearances, it’s screaming a complaint that she has been excluded from the hugs. He yanks her hard, and she comes into his embrace easily, fitting herself against his ribs, chest, and tucking in under his chin. “I love you,” he whispers for her ear only, and the last of the tension flows away, easily heard despite the hollering, whistles and cheers around them.
As they move out of the building, they pass the bleary eyed Sebacean sitting morosely with his back against the wall, looking pale but less sick. John tosses the bundled smock at him, startling the young man. “Take this. They’ll need a new worker in there if you’re interested. Listen for a while. Eventually you’ll hear what’s important.” Aeryn is under his arm, and he can hear her speaking to him in the warmth of her soft surfaces over firm muscle, and the way she presses against him. He’ll have to tell her a few things of his own, but that can wait until they’re alone in her chamber aboard Moya.
