Chelen City: Chapter Six, Part Two

 Notes: Hey darlins! Here we have children behaving like, well, children, but not in the cute and fun way. Hoo-boy.

Title: Chelen City: Chapter Six, Part Two

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Chapter Six, Part Two

By the time Kieron got back that evening, Elanus had retreated from brain work after a headache threatened to knock him flat. If there was one thing he despised more than the broken bones and ruptured organs he got from Elfshot Disease, it was the migraines. As a child, he’d had to be left in sensory-deprivation spaces hooked up to nutrition lines for hours, sometimes days on end before the side effects were under control. The pain was controllable, but the ways it affected his vision and balance were much less so. Aging had helped bring them under control, but days like today threatened to bring those headaches roaring back.

Luckily for him, he’d made good progress on the encryptions. He ought to be able to break through by the end of the week if he kept at it—another five days or so. Of course, he couldn’t work like this every day—he needed to show up at the office now that he was here, not to mention make some other public appearances and give his brain a break, so…

Ten days. Ten days, conservatively, until he had access to Deysan’s research. Ten days without involving anyone else, keeping the girls safe, keeping everything on an even keel and giving nothing away…he could do that.

“I would really like to kill that fucker.”

Apparently, he also needed to keep his lover from committing murder. “Really? How would you do it?”

Kieron stopped in the process of taking off his boots to stare at Elanus. Eventually he raised one eyebrow. “Really? That’s what you want to say right now?”

“It sure is.” Kieron scowled harder. Gods, he was just too fun to play with sometimes. “Because I know you actually won’t kill him,” he clarified. “You just want to imagine it in full and unsettling detail, and I want you to be happy, so this is me engaging with your interests. How would you do it? You’d never stoop to poisoning him, you’re more of a ‘mano a mano’ kind of guy, but you also aren’t likely the kind of person to indulge in repeats. So no stabbing, not shooting…hmm, choking maybe? Nah, too intimate for you, you don’t care about him one way or the other that much.”

Elanus snapped his fingers. “Blunt force trauma! A nice blow to the head in the right place, which might even be cover-uppable because of his recent stroke, you could—oh, hey now—”

“You are fucked in the head,” Kieron said as he straddled Elanus’s lap. “Do you know that?”

“Mmm, maybe.” Elanus grinned up at him. “Do you mind?”

“Mmm, maybe.”

“Liar.” Kieron’s lips found his ear, and Elanus tilted his head and practically purred as the attentions continued down his neck. “You love me in all my perversities, admit it.”

Kieron kissed his way around to Elanus’s face and pressed their lips together, then whispered, “Never.”

Holy shit, Elanus was so hard now. All he wanted to do was pick Kieron up, take him to their bedroom, and fuck him so hard neither of them woke up until tomorrow morning.

Unfortunately…

“We have to stop.”

Kieron shook his head. “I’d rather not.”

“You’ll miss the call with Xilinn if we don’t stop now.”

All of a sudden he sat straight. Elanus mourned the loss of contact and tried to pull him back down, but Kieron’s brain was already on another path. “She got permission to call? I thought I was supposed to have at least one more therapy session before that was allowed.”

“Apparently you impressed your therapist, because the go-ahead came through a few hours ago.” Elanus sighed remorsefully as Kieron got to his feet. “She and Pol should call in about two minutes.”

“We ought to loop the girls in,” Kieron said. “At least Lizzie, because she and Pol are friends.”

Awww, their baby had made a friend! “We can do that. I’m sure Catie will want to be part of the conversation to.”

Kieron reached out and pulled Elanus to his feet. “Let’s go join them, then.”

They ended up in Lizzie’s hangar, which Elanus could tell pissed Catie off if the sharp, staticky feelings she emitted were any indicator. “I said you could listen!” he defended himself.

“I waaaant to see!”

“You can look, too!”

“Do iit heeeeere!”

“No, this is Lizzie’s friend, so we’re taking the call in Lizzie’s room.”

“Noooot faaaair!”

Gods, he needed to renovate and get them into the same hangar before sibling rivalry drove him insane. “It’s completely fair,” he snapped, “and you know it. Stop acting like a spoiled brat.”

“Iiiii’m not a braaaaat! You’re a braaaaat!”

The second the call signal lit up their implants, Kieron connected almost desperately. “Xilinn!”

“Kieron!”

Elanus did a few things with the house camera system, and a second later the image of Xilinn and Pol was displayed in front of them—and in front of Catie, not that she was acknowledging that in the middle of her huff.

“Look, Mama, it’s Lizzie!” Pol pointed at the ship excitedly. “Hi, Lizzie!”

Lizzie’s skin turned a pale pink with pleasure. “Hi, Pol.”

“I want to come see you!”

“Quarantine won’t last much longer,” Kieron assured them. “And then we’ll all be together again.”

[No,] Catie grumped. Thankfully Elanus had her muted. [I don’t want them here.]

[Catie,] he thought warningly.

[I don’t! I don’t knoooow them!]

[You’ll get to know them.]

[I don’t waaaant to. They’re stuuupid.]

Oh, for fuck’s sake. The migraine was coming in full swing. So much for picking up where he and Kieron had left off once this call was over. [You don’t always get what you want,] Elanus snapped.

[Lizzie is my friend!]

[She can have more than one friend!]

[No!] There was an immense surge of power, and all of a sudden the house went dark.

The call cut off.

And Lizzie began to cry.

Aaaand now we’ve reached the un-fun part of parenting.

Discipline.