“Like when you were scared of sex. You don’t have any experience with telling someone you’re dating you love them,” Asher said softly, his palm settling flat against Levi’s chest where the shot had gone through. “I can teach you that, too. We can practice until it’s not scary anymore.” He nodded once, like this was settled, and his palm pressed slightly harder against Levi’s sternum. “And I’ll say it properly next time.”
I don’t know how to respond to this.
“Asher, it’s not that simple,” Levi managed.
“The timing was wrong,” Asher nodded again to himself, as though he didn’t hear Levi. “You were dying. That’s not — you couldn’t enjoy it. You should be able to enjoy it. It’ll be easier to practice if you’re not…”
“Dying?”
“Exactly!” Asher smiled, and the relief in his voice was immediate, like a miscommunication had finally been cleared up.
Levi looked at the utter sincerity on Asher’s face, his mismatched eyes filled with a warmth in them that still caught Levi unprepared every time it arrived. There was still a corpse in the room that smelled like blood, his throat still ached, his scalp burned, and Asher was looking at him like he was the most important thing in the world. All of it was insane, but acknowledging that never helped.
“We’ll practice a lot,” Asher said as he straightened Levi’s jumpsuit, smoothing down and adjusting every trace of the last few minutes with a gentle smile on his face. He tried to pull Levi’s collar higher to cover his throat, but it didn’t work, so he just shrugged and planted a kiss on Levi’s cheek. “I love you.”
Levi’s chest lurched.
“You don’t have to say it back yet,” Asher told him, brushing Levi’s hair back into place with his fingers. “I’ll say it so you can get used to it, like when I used my fingers—”
“We’re going to be late,” Levi said suddenly, his face burning as he realized where Asher was going with the comparison.
Asher just chuckled. “You’re so cute when you get all pink. But fine, let’s go to the boring meeting, then we can practice more stuff.”
What stuff?
Levi just pushed off the wall and nodded. “If it’s quick, maybe there won’t be any monsters to interrupt, so let’s go.”
He was going to have to figure out what to do about everything else later…
4
Clippy, but as a Romanceable Character
Thecorridortothebriefing room was long and the ship was louder here — ventilation running hard, a pressurization sequence cycling somewhere deep in the structure. Levi walked and swallowed, the bruises at his throat objecting while he tried to figure out what the hell he was going to say. He only knew what he had learned from Owen.
Figure it out. You figured out the sanitarium. Figure this out.
The briefing room itself was small and functional, with a table that seated eight, screens on two walls showing ship schematics and orbital data, and a porthole at the far end. Through it, LV-347 rotated slowly — dark and strangely smooth looking for what Levi assumed an asteroid was supposed to look like. The room smelled like someone regularly smoked cigarettes in it, mixed with the particular staleness of a space that got used for two hours a day and ignored for the other twenty-two. A whiteboard on the near wall had a duty roster written in markerthat nobody had updated in at least a week, half the names crossed out and rewritten.
Everyone was already there. Owen had his data pads arranged in the semicircle that was apparently just how Owen existed in this world. Zoe sat beside him with a handheld, already taking notes on something. Jasper was in the corner doing something with a cable that probably had a purpose, but there was also a good chance that he was just messing with it so he could look like he was doing something when the captain came in. Tyler was standing because Tyler was always standing.
Maddie looked up at Levi from the end of the table, her eyes snapping to Levi’s throat, then to Asher, then she started tapping on her scanner. “You look worse than you did earlier. Are you okay?”
“Cryo,” Levi said quickly.
“You’ve said that already.”
“It was a really bad cryo.”
“Is there something you want to tell me?” Maddie asked, not looking up from her handheld. “Medically.”
“I’m fine, Maddie.”
Asher took the seat farthest from the porthole and gestured to the empty seat beside him. Levi looked around the room again and realized what this was meant to be — the first real checkpoint of the game. Sit in a room, absorb information, figure out what the scenario wants. The sanitarium had the van and the lobby. The forest had everything before the meteor shower. This was the same thing with better lighting, and he needed every second of it, but it quickly became clear he was not going to get every second of it because Elliot was already walking through the door.
“Mercer.” Elliot’s voice cut through his thoughts. Levi watched him walk in, and his stomach sank. “A word before Captain Reynolds gets here? It’s about the briefing.”
“Can it wait?” Levi asked, glancing back at Asher.