Welcome to Gaia! ::

September. He was always restless in September, more so than some of the other months. Summer was getting on. It was time to bring the harvest in. A few of the senshi had planets with thriving fields, now, and the island flitted tirelessly between them, grateful for its return to work. As Dionysia, he felt that pull, too -- the desire to sweep off and celebrate, to listen to loud music and wear bright colors and dance in the streets.

There was no time and no call to really do so. In September, he usually filled in the gaps with extra work instead. More trips into the city, both in uniform and out -- more shifts picked up from coworkers to give them extra rest.

This one at least was a welcome visit. Camlann of Saturn has news. Does someone want to go topside and pick it up?

Irenei.

Dionysia had volunteered for the rendezvous with a telling immediacy. My cover's got a known connection with him, he'd offered. I'll go.

Getting into the city, with the Mainstay, tended to vary based on the person and on the nature of the job. Strike missions were often the sewers, mostly sneak jobs past the DC cordons -- but information pickups often left little in the way of a timing trail and didn't jeopardize covers. Eli drove into the city in a dinged-up Mitsubishi, was stopped at the cordon, and made conversation with his favorite lieutenant of the south gate till she was satisfied that, as usual, he was off to one of his nude modeling gigs again (a subject that interested her to no end).

There had been the searching of the car -- the Mitsubishi yielded up no secrets more incriminating than a fleece robe, a space heater, and most of a 24-pack of unopened bottles of Poland Spring -- and then the searching of his person, which -- in Eli's case, when it was Lt. Voyeucite, tended to involve the back-scatter X-ray followed by a pat-down and sometimes a strip search. If he'd had any bodily secrets to keep from Voyeucite, that time in their relationship was long past. He did his best to put on a smile.

There was always an energy draw at the cordon, just to further discourage mischief. Voyeucite was handsy, as usual, and took more than was required -- always her thing, with him. This was the part Eli liked least -- exhausted and at her mercy, delayed at the security checkpoint until he had enough energy to safely drive again.

It was still better than some of the other hassles a person could run into, trying to get into or out of DC. Voyeucite was thorough but not serious: she'd already catalogued Elijah Bell into what she wanted him to be, rather than a possible Order Resistance member. She never asked any particularly dangerous questions. She just wanted the chance to throw her power around and grope an artist's model.

That had been hours ago. Now he got to see Irenei.

He parallel-parked the Mitsubishi in a free space down the block, tucking the robe and the portable space heater under one arm. There was no point in blowing his cover when he was only fifteen feet away, after all, even if there was no guarantee of how much free time Irenei would have to share what he'd learned. Coordinating handoffs and exchanges was not a perfect science.

He found Irenei around the back of the building, as promised. In the growing dark, under the helpless yellow of a flickering streetlight, he looked as he always did: fierce and small and very, very beautiful -- a kestrel defying the Earth.

"New place?" he asked by way of greeting, stopping to stand a few feet off. Irenei, in his experience, was not someone you picked up in a hug and swung around, no matter how fiercely the urge sang within you. He was someone to be approached in stages, once he signaled he was comfortable with it. "I don't remember your crowd holing up here before."

Life's treasures, in Eli's experience, were chiefly of human creation. Not necessarily the toil of their hands, but in the one human resource that was nearly universal in its abundance and incredibly difficult to steal unearned: connection. Caring. Fellow feeling. Whatever you wanted to call it. Those gifts of what human beings categorized as love -- in all its forms -- had a value that was difficult to monetize.

What was a smile from Irenei worth? Or two smiles, he dared to suspect, looking closely -- what was it worth to earn that subtle, half-suppressed quirk of his pretty mouth not once, but twice?

Was it worth the Destiny City security checkpoint, Voyeucite's glittering eyes and groping hands, the risk of blowing his cover, the risk of being captured?

Probably, he decided, it was.

Irenei's smiles were rare delicacies, briefly flashing. Eli's, by contrast, may as well have been hors d'oeuvres, they were given out so freely, and so often as a social lubricant. His face naturally tended to fall into a smile. He'd read somewhere that if you smiled even when you were unhappy, it would actually make you happier. Since that seemed like such an easy solution to otherwise unsolvably negative emotions, Eli had embraced it with gusto.

Today, Eli's happiness didn't require manufacture. It just required Irenei -- and there he was.

Did he look thin, or was it just the light? Was he eating? Was he sleeping?

It was always hard to pry too much in the wrong ways. They weren't -- the two of them weren't -- Well, it was difficult. Irenei was such a private person. He bridled at solicitousness. You couldn't just brush your thumb across his lower lip and --

The point was, you couldn't.

But caring about him meant accepting that -- so Eli took what he was offered, which was the bare telltale of a smile, and he counted it precious all the same for its rarity. And told himself: if this is all there is, it's enough.

It was more than most people got, and that meant it wasn't nothing to Irenei. That was all that mattered -- that he gave, not what he had to give.

"I've got time," Eli allowed, stepping in to retrieve the second beer, settling on the milk crate with the feeling that his legs were more than slightly out of proportion to its size. "The story goes that I'm modeling for you tonight, so they'll expect me back in about three, four hours. Next time I'll make a note to bring the wine to you, if you're going to be this woefully unprovisioned."

He studied Irenei's clothing. Was it new? Old? Could he afford new? Really though, had he been eating enough?

"How's business?" he summed up these fussy concerns in a way that wouldn't sound nearly as fussy.

Eli took a swig of beer and grunted. Beer was less than fit for a harvest celebration, but it was the right drink for a dingy night in September, in Destiny City. There were only a handful of visible stars overhead -- and a few that he was pretty sure were just nearby satellites in low orbit. The moon was half-visible over the roof of a building. Otherwise, the galaxy above seemed only grudgingly willing to acknowledge Destiny City's forsaken existence. Most of the night sky shunned this place.

"I forget sometimes how loud the city can be," he said, listening to the persistent urban white noise of passing cars, barking dogs, taxis honking at each other. He'd been so used to it a few years ago that he tuned it all out -- he assumed Irenei still did. Now every noise seemed like an interruption.

He tried to ignore how Irenei's answers -- I eat, I replace what has holes -- didn't feel sufficient even though they were technically the right answers. He'd have rather sat Irenei down to something elaborate and filling -- candlelight and a roaring fire, chicken marsala and about seven different side dishes, good wine, proper stemware. He'd have rather seen Irenei in . . . well, probably if he was honest with himself, he'd have rather seen Irenei drowning in one of Eli's hoodies, something soft and fleece, the morning sun glinting off of his bare knees. Hugging a mug of coffee, hair half-rumpled . . . That line of thought was getting a little off-track. He pulled himself back to the present.

"That's the rumor," Eli admitted. "Not that we didn't hear the same s**t two years ago -- but there's been a lot of chatter in that direction, yeah. We'll pack up and run if we have to, spring up somewhere else. Like you guys do."

Eli reached out very carefully, holding his breath, for Irenei's outstretched hand -- too unsure of how much was allowed to risk fully clasping it: but gently and very tenderly touching the tips of his fingers to Irenei's. "I missed you," he said, because no one could really stop Eli Bell from saying he cared.

Eli gave Irenei's hand a faint squeeze -- but on further consideration, that didn't seem sufficient, either: so he carefully raised Irenei's knuckles to his lips, watching Irenei over his hand for any signs this was too far.

"A thousand years goes very quickly when you're dead," he said. "Someday, someone'll call in my number. Or yours. We'll try again in the next lifetime, that's all." He sighed, closing his eyes momentarily. "This one doesn't belong to us anymore."

He lowered Irenei's hand again, though he didn't feel the need to actually let it go. Instead, with his other hand, he raised his beer and took a sip. (Dry. Beer was so inferior.) "What's your sense on the new depot -- are they closing down any of the other collection sites? Or just increasing their total intake?"

And just like that, the shutters closed. Eli had hit his limit with Irenei, he guessed -- the point beyond which the smaller man began withdrawing again, reestablishing his distance. It was fine, Eli reminded himself; it wasn't personal. It didn't mean -- well, it probably didn't mean Irenei didn't care. He was just incredibly private. Every person had their own boundaries.

He hadn't taken his hand back. That counted for something.

"New transport routes mean security spread thinner," he said. "We can use that, anyway. We've still got a few people working some angles in the job market, too. Not as many, these days . . . most of our civilian assets are already accounted for on other things -- but we keep tabs on what we can."

None of that was cheery. None of it was anything that might give Irenei hope. They'd all run out of that, he supposed. Hopeful lies were just for the children in the camp, now. No one else tried.

"Do you have any new work?" he asked instead. "I don't get to go to your shows."