Carnival

That shudder might have been relief, or pain. Or the flinch of a guilty conscience. But Vincent nodded and shifted his weight, moving back, pulling his warmth away. Kusanagi-Jones stopped him, tightening his fingers on Vincent’s head.

“I can counterfeit anything,” he said, and waited for the realization to settle in. He knew it would, although it took longer than he expected. But he felt it take hold, felt Vincent understand what he meant, felt his grief turn to disbelief.

“You’re amazing,” Vincent said, quiet voice vibrating with excitement, suppressed laughter, his breath both warming and cooling Michelangelo’s skin. “A therapy team. A cursed therapy team. You beat reeducation. You son of a bitch.”

“S’what I do. Not just you who’s good at his job.”

Vincent shook his head. “I see why you would be mad at me.”

“It’s done.” And it was. Gone and past mending, but maybe leaving room. If Michelangelo decided Vincent was worth more than his ethics.

Michelangelo drew one knee up and pressed his palm into the coarse, rich nap of Vincent’s braids, urging silently. And Vincent, after a thoughtful pause, acquiesced.

Later, he slid over Michelangelo, lithe body warm as he straddled his hips, fumbling their bodies into connection before pinning Michelangelo’s hands to the bed. Fingers flexed through fingers and the sheets bunched in strangely materialways as Vincent exerted the strength that had always excited them both, and Michelangelo pushed back, spreading his arms to draw Vincent’s mouth down on his own. Vincent groaned, breath rasping, and Michelangelo slurped sweat off his neck—quickly, before his wardrobe could wick it away—and left banners of suck-marks purpling on Vincent’s golden-brown chest. The Gorgon’s radiance, bright as moonlight, cast diffuse shadows rather than razored ones, colors layered on Vincent’s skin like a Secunda sunset, and Vincent’s meticulous nails gouged crescents on the backs of Michelangelo’s hands.

It was good.

But it wasn’t what it had been. It couldn’t be; there was too much moving under the surface now, and Kusanagi-Jones couldn’t set it aside. Vincent was a professional, but he wasn’t a Liar, and he was keeping back something. Once, Kusanagi-Jones wouldn’t have minded. Once he would have known it was orders, and Vincent would tell him when he should.

But that had been before Kusanagi-Jones learned just how badly he’d screw Vincent over, when it came down to orders. And not even official orders.

No. Orders on behalf of Free Earth, in opposition to the Cabinet.

Angel walks beside giants. The nearest is warm and smells sour, sweat and fear, but under the scent is the warmth and the familiar spices of home. Mama holds his hand to keep him close, but it isn’t needed; you couldn’t pry him from her side.

Her palm is cold and wet, and her hand is shaking. She calls him On-hel,like she did, a pretty nickname. She shushes him. They come into a bright room and she picks him up, swings him off his feet and holds him close. Not balanced on her hip, but pressed to her chest, as if she can hide him in the folds of her wardrobe.

Someone says big words, words he doesn’t understand. They boom, amplified. They hurt his ears, and he hides his head in Mama’s breast. She cups a big palm against the back of his head, covering his ears, making the hurt go away. He knows not to cry out loud. He curls up tight.

Mama argues. Her arm around him is tight. But then someone else speaks. He says they won’t take the boy,and Mama staggers, as if someone has struck her a blow, and when he looks up she’s swaying with her eyes closed. “The boy is not to blame,” the man says, the man Angel’s never seen before. “The Governors say, let the punishment fit the crime.”

Then someone pulls Angel away from her, and she lets him go as if her arm has numbed. She turns away, her round brown face contracted. She seems caught midflinch.

He cries her name and reaches for her, but somebody has him, big arms and a confused moment of struggling against strength. He kicks. He’d bite, but whoever has him is wise to that trick. He’s held tight.

“Close your eyes, Angel,” Mama says, but he doesn’t listen. She’s not looking at him. He dreams his name the way she said it again, the fond short form nobody else has ever called him.

Whoever’s holding him says something, some words, but he’s screaming too loud to hear them, and then Mama takes a deep breath and nods, and there’s a pause, long enough that she opens her eyes and turns as if to see why what she was anticipating has not come to pass—

—and she falls apart.