**Chapter 52**

“I think we’re here for Fate’s Fortune’s fleet,” Brigid says. “I think it’s big.”

That, she says like the dickgirl from the holovids. That, she says with calm, studious confidence. That, she says to all of us, all at once, in my fuckpad’s lounge area. We are six.

Okay, fine, we’re eight. Damona and Selene are locked in the guest room and enjoying all of their amenities, which include some perfectly synthesized catnip from their aunt Jade. They’re bigger, but still cute. They also followed us back to my place with a minimum of fuss, which was both a surprise and a relief.

Now that that’s out of the way, we can be serious again.

As soon as Brit saw Brigid’s expression at the berth — followed by Clara’s and Rina-kat’s, and probably glossing somewhat over Breeze’s — she knew in her heart something that probably isn’t completely true. She forgave them all. She knew they hadn’t known. I was selfish and let her have it. I soaked up the immediate and obvious change in her — a port bitch becoming communal property. I was more than awake enough to recognize the irony in that. To the four of them — again, give or take some pissiness from Breeze — she already had been. I was the outstanding issue. I was the old-and-new-again shit on their plates.

As to what I saw in their expressions: they probably didn’t and don’t know, but they collectively harbor a range of suspicions. They’re just too smart. What happens next is a lot more about what they want — and don’t.

“Less than one rote before we ship out again,” she continues. “If I’m right, we’ll be reupping a full space combat loadout, plus all the hackfuel we can carry.”

“More like snackfuel,” I say.

“A lot of that, too,” she says, like I’m just another cocky recruit who said something trivially true.

Brit gets even smaller in Rina-kat’s arms. She’s suckling kitty-titty milk. It’s helping, but it’s not a true, medical drug trip. My port bitch has been clean and clear for a few rotes, and she’s hearing the second-worst thing. She already heard the first. She could be hearing it again soon. It’s really not fair.

Everybody clocks it. Eyes go from her to me. Breeze’s twin emeralds flash something else besides petulance: If she’s here right now, she signed up for it again, so let the little sissy be the big dickgirl she needs to be. Clara’s stormy blue message is similar, but more measured. She thinks it’s more on me, and she’s not wrong. Rina-kat’s violet gaze refuses to assign blame. She doesn’t try to bullshit me or anybody else, but she silently insists that the Wolves will take care of Brit if the worst happens. It’s more than just confidence. There’s a nugget in there that I need to tease out later.

Brigid’s gaze lingers longer on the discomfited little sissy girl. When it finds mine, it’s inscrutable. It’s an overload. I can’t even sum it up as confusion and conflict. Sometimes the many parts form a whole that has no name and doesn’t make sense.

“I don’t know if I’ve killed a single person,” she says. The window of time is clearly implied. She doesn’t need to say what that itch has been doing to her. It was all in there already, tightly and densely packed. She has promises to keep, and one of them is completely at odds with who she wants to be. Our enemy is dangling a genuinely strange possibility that is uniquely suited to torture her: Maybe you’re just breaking a bunch of easily replaceable toys.

Breeze and Clara let themselves fall away. They don’t have to leave the room or even their seats to do it. It’s Brigid’s story, and they and I are just living in it. I try not to read too much into the seating arrangement, but it’s laid out in a line on the big couch: Breeze on one side, Clara on the other, Brigid in the middle.

The two of them might very well have their own thoughts and feelings on the subject. They may want things from me, or need to tell me what they don’t want anymore. They’re setting them aside. From where I sit, it looks like they might even surrender them, depending on what else the demigoddess decides.

Rina-kat is different. On the smaller couch opposite me, she’s caring for Brit. It’s active and confident. She’s a port in a storm. She’s the plate of combat armor hiding in the pillow. The Wolves are bigger than any of us, and even all of us combined. That’s what she stands for, sitting down with a cherished piece of company property in her lap and at her kitty-titty.

“You missed a lot, Syd,” Brigid says.

“I know.”

“We missed a lot, too.”

That, I don’t reply to. It’s a single step down the road towards letting something slip. If I’m going to do that, it’s going to be on my terms and to a purpose.

I can see Brigid struggling to loosen her death grip on poetry and philosophy. She knows they’re coping mechanisms. She wants to do a straight shot. Her pale turquoise eyes drill not into me, but into another dimension. She considers and discards and reconsiders snippets and speeches and questions and demands at light speed. It’s hurting her. She’s scared that saying any of them will hurt more — and, even worse, be completely fucking pointless.

I hurt her in a way that she can never hurt me. She hates herself for thinking about me in those terms — how she could, in theory, hurt me. She could fuck up my body. She could deny me hers. She could sing. She’s probably not thinking about that last one. You know what, though? I hope she is.

I think she’s finally understanding what it means to be with someone who is so fundamentally different on the inside. All it took was to not be with them for a while, and maybe to think that they were dead — maybe. I still don’t have the full story on that.

The next thing I see is a titan and legend who’s tired of being both. I see the sad spark and the twitch of a smile. Brigid turns to Clara, takes her hand, and squeezes it. “She missed it,” she says. “It’s still okay?”

Clara comes back into the conversation. She betrays only a hint of surprise. She looks at me, not Brigid, and nods. “It’s okay,” she says. “It’s been okay for a long time.”

Brigid turns her head back towards me. “We’re a couple and a couple,” she says, “but we’re also a family — three dickgirls, one cat girl, two cats. It isn’t like your fairy tale, Syd. It’s real. It’s not perfect. It’s also ours, not mine.”

She turns and pointedly regards Breeze, then Clara again, then Rina-kat. I get myself up to speed in a hurry. Brigid can be outvoted, but it’s not that she wants to be. I don’t know what she wants. Neither, I think, does she.

Rina-kat goes first. “I don’t talk about my patients, Brigid,” she says, “but I am a wartime psychtech, and you are more than smart enough to know what I am saying without saying it. I want to belong to Syd — not just, but also, after Clara. I want to be her kitty-kat. I want her in our family.”

Clara’s next. She looks down for a tick and does a classic strength-as-weakness play. “Rina-kat’s happiness always comes first. If I led with anything else, it’d be bullshit.” She looks at me and gives me The Nod; it’s a thing from the banks, and we all recognize it. Then she nuts up and looks at Brigid. “She hasn’t changed, Bridge. You know it. It’s part of what’s driving you crazy. She’s still cool. She’s still my bro. My vote is that she’s in — or back in. Whichever. Family.” She says the final word on purpose, and easily. That’s a good change. It adds to my itch about Rina-kat from before. My modern-civilization spycraft skills are reasserting themselves, even in wordless places.

Breeze doesn’t wait any longer. With a shrug, she has her family’s attention — the ultimate relationship power move of caring the least. I do note the whiff of bullshit attached to it. It’s not like she said anything before Brigid gave them all permission to. “You guys are all so fucking serious — and Brigid, I love you, but you’re the worst fucking one. Stop being a whiny little bitch. You want her cock back in your ass, so you know what? Listen to your asshole for a change.”

She looks over at me. “It was you and me until the end, Syd. You ended it. You went long distance. I’m not your bitch anymore.” I acknowledge it with a slight nod and wait for the twist. She delivers it with the aloofness of a cat, taunting the rest of her family. “I’m not anyone else’s either, though. That was their choice, so now they have to live with it. You’re back, you’re you, you’re rich, and you’re hot, so fuck it. Let’s do it all over again. It’s not like I stopped being a dumbfuck in love. It just got a little weird there for a cycle.”

Beside her, Brigid’s head and heart have finally stopped running at light speed. Her eyes well up, and her mouth twitches and curls. “In the ancient days,” she says, “that would’ve been the perfect setup. Oh, well.”

She gets chuckles and snorts instead of laughs. It’s a fair compromise. Implying I’m her asshole wouldn’t be an insult. Worse, it wouldn’t even make sense. I’d be her fuckstick.

Brigid looks over to Brit — and then, once she realizes that the petite cutie is still in a happy place a little too far away from reality, to Rina-kat. The violet-eyed cat girl eases her patient back to us and whispers a gentle summary in her ear.

“If Syd is in your family,” Brit says, “then in a way, I am, too. I would like that very much, please — but only if it doesn’t make anyone sad.”

“For as long as the Wolves exist,” Rina-kat says, “you will be taken care of.”

Brit nods. “Thank you, Rina-kat. I believe you. I only mean to say that if nobody gets sad, we could have so much more, and sooner.”

“We could have it for as long as it lasts,” Breeze says with another shrug. “Aren’t wars supposed to make people say, ‘Fuck it’ and then they just fuck? We’re back at port for one rote. We’re all back. We’re all here. What the fuck is the fucking issue? Let’s fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, and get fucked.” She looks over to Brit and makes the grand concession. “And also get fucked.”

“I’m sorry, Breeze,” Brigid says. It calms the emerald-eyed ninja down immediately. “I promise I won’t drag it out. I’m outvoted, and I respect it. I admire it. I even love it.”

“Okay,” Breeze says, folding her arms beneath her titties. She’s extremely unhappy that they’re still covered up. “If you admit it, then it counts as teasing. You can tease a little. Hurry it up, though.”

“I’ll try, my love.” Brigid turns her eyes towards me again. They radiate and drill in equal measure, and the mysteries are falling away. “We were at a crossroads for a very long time, Syd. It wasn’t perfect, but it was so, so good. We’re at a different one now. Paths diverge. One is to do anything it takes to get inside of me. T-“

“That one,” I say. I stand up quickly to convert my flippancy into a genuinely turned table. I quick-walk to one of two locked rooms. It remains one that nobody can enter without my permission; Brit only got access to the bugout treasure while I was dead, not the trophies. I grab the box, bring it back, and set it down on the table. It’s enough to keep Brigid quiet. Everyone else is interested, too. They can hardly be blamed. It’s a mystery box; that’s a time-tested cliché.

I flip the latches and open it up. I retrieve the dagger, stand back up, and brandish it. “Two hundred forty rotes ago, Chief Armorer and Quartermaster Saoirse MacPherson of the Romulus personally delivered into my hands this box, and this blade.” I keep the flashy ninja shit to a minimum, but I set the dagger to horizontal just below titty height, then lower my gaze to read directly from it.

“‘Hey, I also existed! Sorry I also died. Glad I got to love you. If I can, I still do.'”

Brigid is already sniffling. I flip the dagger around.

“‘Not just waiting up; cheering from the sidelines. Winners get to fuck me. Stay in the game.'”

I look up and all around. I make sure my green, feline gaze is combat-grade alloy, beyond the metaphor of any simple metal. There’s a time for empathy, and there’s a time for tough love. “I heard the five of you say the words with me. ‘Fucking war.’ ‘Eat shit.’ ‘Wolves.’ We said it to each other, and we said it to the coach. She put you in. You played your positions. You did the job. Right?”

I point the long, wavy dagger at each of them in turn, daring them to contradict me. I get nods instead. Brit’s giving me her full attention, even though I’d rather have her back on that kitty-titty. I soften up just for her. She’s smart. She knows what I’m telling her. She’s not bound by the same titanium chains. She doesn’t have to stare down the length of the blade.

Satisfied with the rest of them, I skip to the end. I point the dagger at its ceremonial container.

“The shit we eat and the fucking war is going to go in this box.” I hold the dagger up again. “This is going to be the lock.” With all due reverence, I replace the dagger, close the lid, and snap the latches. “This is me ruining the metaphor, but shut the fuck up about it.”

When I’m done, I retake my commanding, standing position. I fold my arms beneath my titties. I get my first vote of the second round from Clara. Instead of reaching out to support Brigid, she folds her arms, just like I’m folding mine, and just how Breeze already has — though not for exactly the same reason. “Not just her second-pass shit in there, Bridge,” she says. “Not just her fucking war.”

If anyone else intended to speak, Brigid preempts them with a nod of surrender. She wipes her tears and lets her biotech clear her out. She looks at her family, at Brit, and finally at me. “I still want both,” she says, and then she reads my mind, just like a demigoddess should be able to. “Losing you hurt me, Syd, and in a way that nobody can ever hurt you. Getting you back hurts, and it’s the same. To strike the ocean; to scream at space; to see a pure thing and be torn apart — wanting it, loving it, fearing it, wanting to be able to change it, and denying all of that by turns whenever it gets too hard.

“For all the childish things I said about my choices and my mistakes, you still found a way to break my heart. You surprised me, impressed me, and told me the truth one last time, as an echo from those golden rotes that are gone.

“As revenge, I’m not going to let you be right about the rest. As revenge, I’m going to want you again, love you again, and let you fuck me again, even though you can never tell me all of the true things again.”

She gazes at the box and nods again, finalizing the new story that she’s going to actively choose to live inside. “Tales. If she’s the lock on that box, then she’s family forever. She’ll help keep us together. That’s good, Syd. That’s somebody you did something for that had absolutely nothing to do with me, or with getting to fuck someone — anyone. That’s more revenge for me. I wasn’t completely wrong.”

I suppose she has a point — unless, of course, Tales is actually waiting up and will let me fuck her if we win hard enough.

I had a whole speech ready that walked a tightrope between revealing some serious, personal shit and being impossibly vague about all the innocent dickgirls I killed down on Cassandra. It was pretty good, in my opinion. The part about hunting and killing animals for food is exactly the kind of hard truth Brigid craves. The part about only wanting to be Syd Sharp again because Syd Sharp gets to fuck them would’ve hit hard, too.

Oh, well. Into the box it goes. As long as I get to fuck her, I don’t need it.

Brigid pats Breeze’s leg. “I’m done, my love. Thank you for being patient. You know how I get. Thank you for loving me and being with me anyway.”

“Until the end,” Breeze says, “and you haven’t left yet, so you’re in the lead.”

“Would you leave the box out, please?” Brigid asks. “The metaphor’s already ruined. I think later, I would like to touch it — the dagger. She left a few other gifts, but I think you may have gotten one of the best. It’s special to me. You made it even more so. Please?”

“We’re family,” I say. “It’s not mine. It’s ours.”

“Same goes for your other dagger, Syd,” Breeze says with a grin, “but I think you’re going to have to prove it.”

“Sword,” I say, grinning right back.

“Whatever.”

“The synthesizer’s been working,” I say. “Kiss and Mag are feeling generous. Wigs, snacks, and drinks for all. Drugs in the drawer. Costumes in the ones below it. Let it never be said that my fuckpad isn’t the place to fuck.” I looked pointedly at Clara, and then at Rina-kat. “And get fucked.”

Rina-kat soaks it up with a happy smile. Clara gets a little glum and shakes her head. “I didn’t earn it, Syd.”

I hone in on the invisible, persistent connection between the twin sisters and get a little bit closer to that nugget that’s been making my brain itch. Then I push it aside and put my foot down. “First class. Took care of Brigid. Voted for me twice just now. You more than earned it, Swift. It’s a special occasion on top of that. All the drugs, all the sex, all the positions, all the family members.”

“And the property,” Brit says. It’s both funny and adorable. I love her. How could I not? She’s hot, she lets me fuck her, and she does a shitload of boring shit so that I don’t have to.

“And the tiniest, cutest, most pathetic little sissy girl in the ‘verse,” I say. “Now be a good little cuck and bitch and do anything Brigid, Clara, and Rina-kat tell you unless and until I say otherwise.”

“Yes, Syd,” she replies, genuinely happy to have received the demeaning instruction.

“Chopped fucking liver,” Breeze mutters.

“Bitch,” I reply simply.

“Bitch-kitty?” Rina-kat asks hopefully.

“That’s how you balance things properly,” Breeze says. She blows a loving kiss to Rina-kat, then darts off ahead of us to the bedroom to turn into Val-kitty.

For ints and ints that I deliberately lose track of, I fuck and get fucked every which way that the cap’s standing orders allow — not just in every position, but with every messy combination of underlying emotions, intentions, and messages. All of us lose ourselves to various moments. All of us struggle-fuck through difficult shit. All of us indulge our kinks and other people’s, and we do it like fully trained planetside sextechs who have been squeezing extra credits out of tourists for cycles upon cycles.

Clara and Rina-kat each send me one half of a complex message through sex, silence, and words that cover up others: they sort of knew. Not only that, but we share a new bond because of what’s locked up in that box. Clara did things that she fears would cost her Brigid, were she to know-know. Rina-kat’s message is harder to parse, but I have a good guess. Clara chose love over duty at least a few times. She opened the loop. Rina-kat chose love right back, and thus risks Brigid finding out about that double dose of secondhand betrayal. The cap probably suspects, and is probably willing to turn a blind eye. Loopholes twist around and in on themselves. Maybe Clara officially went to Rina-kat as a psychtech patient. Maybe that’s not technically allowed.

Breeze — no, not Val-kitty — is at her very best, layering and mixing characters across multiple spyrals that extend in every direction. I just don’t care — not one bit. Her mouth, throat, tongue, fingers, and asshole are gifts, and this is not that final rote when they’ll be rigged up to kill me. Her titty milk is beyond delicious. It’s nature and science existing in perfect harmony at the intersection of food and sex. I’d stopped myself from missing it. When I let myself feel that horrible ache the split tick before it’s soothed, it’s an orgasm after a cycle of edging. Then I get to do it again with Rina-kat’s. Then I think about doing it with Brit’s, if I live.

Brigid wants to be used, but not all the time. War has ruined that just a little bit. The old bargain can no longer be fulfilled to her satisfaction. I can’t give her enough honesty, so she’s demanding some of that normal bullshit instead — the kind that has lubricated or even sustained billions of human relationships across time and space. It’s not enough anymore to do anything to fuck her. I have to make her feel like she’s loved. Well, I can do that. It’s not even all that different. It’s just a little bit more shit on my plate with a slightly different stink. The next time I publicly demean myself for her, I won’t have to change as many song lyrics.