Ravi was the last one left on the lawn as the crew dragged themselves off to sleep. He lifted his hand in a mute gesture to Jossen as the subal glanced back to wave before disappearing into one of the residences. Then he was truly alone. Night glazed the sky in starless shadow.

No point trying to plan further until the Commissioners made their announcements. At the very least, it'd be clear where they all stood tomorrow. At least in regards to assignments. He wasn't sure that the announcements would do anything at all to clear up the mess in other parts of his life. Reluctantly, his gaze slid to the door to Lio's room. The round window beside the door was dark, no lights on within.

He took a step toward it anyway, and then stopped, fingers drumming uncertainly against his thighs. Lio had tried to warn him over and over again that once he went back to his family, things were over. On some level, he understood it. Painful as it was to admit. The ride back from arguing with the Commissioners for hours had given him plenty of time to consider the weight of the expectations on Lio's shoulders. Expectations for his whole life and the way he would live it and what kind of person he would live it with. Lio reached out and grabbed the things he wanted, but he wasn't reaching to keep Ravi. Not a surprise that the Suzerain's son couldn't see a future with him.

And yet.

Lio cared about him. When he'd pushed Ravi back to speak to the Commissioners, fierce belief had been written all over his face and vibrated in his voice. Making Ravi demand the recognition that he might've otherwise spent his whole life waiting for and missing. Asking him that question. Lio's swift, "what are you waiting for" had speared into his guts and slammed up his spine and unraveled all of his uncertainty. That same question still echoed in his head. He drifted closer to Lio's door.

It was possible he was about to encounter a man who saw no way forward with him. But if that was the truth, he'd know tonight or he'd know tomorrow and it would eviscerate him all the same. Ravi had faced the Commissioners and fought for his crew's right to the lightship. Being with Lio mattered more than a million lightships, and damn if he didn't want to fight for that chance too.

Holding his breath, he tapped his knuckles against the door. No answer. Another try, a little louder, and he heard a faint stirring inside the room.

"Can we talk?" Ravi asked through the door.

A paralyzed heartbeat of silence followed, and then the barrier skimmed out of the way.

Lio retreated from the threshold to let him in. "Ravi," he started, and cleared his throat. Then he just nodded, as if agreeing with something that hadn't been said.

"Hey," Ravi said. Lio looked like shit. His eyes had a feverish sheen and the delicate skin beneath them looked bruised. "Are you—" He didn't finish it. Lio was not alright. His dream had been stripped from him.

"I suppose I need sleep."

"Yeah. I...won't keep you long." He winced even as the meaningless phrase left his lips. It was so perfectly wrong. He wanted to keep Lio for every single minute of their lives. "I just...Thank you. For what you said."

"What I said to the Commissioners wasn't half the praise you deserve."

"No, I—that was wonderful of you. But I meant for...for making me go back to them. For not letting me give up. For asking me why I was waiting."

Lio gave an exhausted shrug and fumbled a smile. "I was raised in family that believes in arguing until you get your way." His smile collapsed a moment later, and he rocked backward. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you more about them. Not that it matters now—"

"Wait, hang on, please." Had to speak before Lio said something terrible and final and mashed out the possibility of a future. "I need you to listen to me. Just...I need to get something out."

He jammed his back against the door, hard enough to feel the spine he wasn't sure he still had. He could do this. Even if it felt like putting his barely-repaired heart right into the path of a swooping ten ton hammer.

"I know that this entire situation is fucked up. I have no good plan that'll see us through it. And I know that...maybe you don't see your life, your real life, with me in it. There was no point telling me about your family if we were always going to end once your service was up. I get that."

Lio huddled into himself, shaking his head. "I tried...to think of you and I somehow continuing...but you'd hate it. You'd hate everything about it."

"If it means being with you, I can't hate it," Ravi said.

Lio stared at the ground and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "You won't recognize me when I'm living that life. I'm not the same. I was only myself at Opalina, and I'm supposed to be growing out of that self. Growing up."

A bubble of pain welled up into Ravi's constricting throat. If there was anything the past three years had taught him, it was that desperately wanting a relationship, wanting a future, pouring out all his love for someone wasn't actually enough to keep them if they didn't want that too. Lio turned from him, shuffling to the back of the room to sit heavily on the edge of the bed. The sudden space between them made him quail back against the door.

Ravi traced his gaze across Lio, searching for some hint that maybe there was still a spark of hope left. The slumped line of Lio's shoulders, the bow of his spine, his arms propped on his thighs, empty hands dangling, all of it was its own answer. Lio had already made his decision. He already knew what would happen to them.

He groped for the pane behind him, ready to back away and stumble to his own room so that at the very least Lio wouldn't see him completely come apart. It was foolish to wait for a sign that would never—

The thought stopped him. He was searching Lio for some hint that erased the possibility of rejection. Made it safe for him to go to his knees and beg because if he got everything he wanted it was romantic instead of begging and still losing and just being pathetic. He wanted some silent guarantee before he tried. Which meant he'd gotten himself in the door, but he was still waiting. Waiting for Lio to reach instead of trying to reach for him. No more waiting.

"Lio." His voice wavered into the gap between them. "Is there any possibility, any chance, that you want to be with me?"

Lio's gaze lifted at last. His eyes were huge and full of tears and Ravi couldn't decide if that was a good or bad sign, so he stumbled away from the door, taking jerking, unsteady steps to the foot of the bed. His heart felt like it was plummeting ahead of him into a wild and unknown dark.

He kept talking anyways. "I want to be with you." Kneeling beside Lio, he looked up into his face. "We can figure all the other shit out if you want to be with me too."

Tears spilled down Lio's cheeks, and Ravi stroked them away. "Please talk to me," he whispered.

Lio closed his eyes and hooked his hands around Ravi's forearms. His voice was thick and so clogged with despair it was unrecognizable. "I'll disappoint you. And we'll likely end up so far away from each other—" He stopped, shaking his head.

Everything he was saying was steeped in misery, but it sent an absurd drop of hope shivering down Ravi's spine. None of this meant he wasn't wanted.

Say it, say it, go right off the cliff, fall and fall and let him see, just say it, no more waiting—

"Please." He cupped Lio's face in his hands. "I love you. I want you. Do you...do you—"

Lio let out a sound somewhere between a wail and a laugh and flung himself forward. Okay, actual falling. Ravi shot one arm out behind him to keep from going over backward while the other wrapped around Lio and kept them both from landing in a heap on the floor. Although that suddenly didn't sound so bad.

"Ravi." Lio was barely propped on the edge of the bed, his head nestled against Ravi's chest, words muffled. "I've been falling in love with you forever. I'm already so far in I can't—I don't even—"

Fuck it, floor it was. He sprawled onto his back, dragging Lio fully off balance and into his arms. They were a tangle of limbs and pokey elbows and Lio's tears dripping onto his chest. It didn't matter. He was not alone in love.

"Then we're not over." He closed his eyes, pressing kisses into Lio's hair and trying not to cry from the deafening, staggering, colossal relief.

Lio propped himself up on an elbow, the rest of him still blanketing Ravi. "You don't know what you're agreeing to. We could end up in assignments on opposite ends of the territory. For years, Ravi."

Eyes fluttering back open, he traced the worried lines in Lio's beautiful face and slipped his fingers through the shifting strands of his hair. "I don't care. I want you, more than anything. And"—he tightened his hold slightly, tugging gently— "I hear you get a fuck ton of extra dispensations approved. We'll find a way to see each other."

Lio let out a chagrined laugh. He nuzzled along the bend of Ravi's neck, sighing against his skin. "Perhaps I can visit you on Opalina."

A new thought dawned. "I hope not." It slipped out before he considered how it would sound.

In his arms, Lio tensed. "You'd rather I didn't—"

"No, I didn't mean that I wouldn't want you to visit, I meant...I'm not sure I...want to be on Opalina at all."

Lio pulled back to gape at him. "What?"

Ravi chewed the inside of his lip. For one thing, it just wouldn't be the same without the whole crew. But it was more than that. The thought of Lio hurting, listless, and unhappy in some glossy posting while Ravi worked in and lived on and commanded Opalina was impossible. He knew too well how bitter the regret of opportunities set aside for someone else could be. It would chip away at their hearts, driving a lightship-sized wedge between them. And even if it somehow didn't, he didn't want to make Lio endure it.

"I don't want you to have to sacrifice anything for me, Lio. And this...it's yours. I wouldn't even have it without you."

"I wouldn't have it without you, either." Lio's gaze was soft, his fingertips whispering along the collar of Ravi's uniform. "But I didn't give up the lightship command because I'm in love with you." He kept speaking, explaining something, but Ravi was completely distracted.

Hearing Lio say he was in love wiped out everything else. His dazzling, gorgeous, lightning-bright man was in love with him. It unraveled all the knots in him, echoed in his ears, left him light-headed, pulse fierce and quick with joy.

"Are you listening to me?" Lio cocked his head.

"I...might've gotten distracted by that last part."

"The part where I said I'm in love with you?"

Goddess, he couldn't help himself. He cupped the line of Lio's jaw and drew him down to kiss him. So fucking good. It didn't matter that he didn't know what would happen tomorrow and that he had failed to fix it all. It didn't matter, because he was kissing Lio. The kiss demolished what little control remained. Lips and tongue and teeth unleashing a coiling heat that spread until he was making desperate little sounds against Lio's mouth.

With a reluctant groan, Lio broke free of the kiss. "I want you to hear the rest of what I said, too." He traced the shell of Ravi's ear. "Are you listening?"

Ravi shuddered and turned to kiss Lio's hand. "Yes. Listening."

"I gave up the position because it wasn't mine to have. It was always yours."

He squirmed a little under Lio's weight, unwelcome anxiety cutting like a laser beneath his ribs. "But it's...everything you wanted. Isn't it?"

Lio swallowed. "It was, at one point. I still...I don't imagine I'll immediately stop caring about it. But I'm utterly unqualified and would make a terrible com, and whoever ends up crewing a lightship is going to need a great commander." He drifted down to kiss Ravi's cheek. "I happen to know of one." He pulled back again and attempted one of his carefree, easy smiles, but something about his expression was too tremulous to pull it off. "Besides, Teres and Jossen and Orvaska and Duhar need you. You can't give away their spots, too."

Lio knew all the weak spots in Ravi's argument. Giving away the com position if it only impacted himself was easy. Giving four other people's chances away because he was more concerned with his own relationship was another thing entirely.

"But," he whispered, "I want you to be happy. I want you to be the most happy."

"Then if they assign it to you, don't give up the position. And stay with me tonight. And help me figure out my damn life once we know the news tomorrow."

Staying the night was reckless. Although he wasn't technically Lio's com anymore. If anyone saw them leaving the same room tomorrow, it wouldn't matter. At least that one problem was over with.

"Yeah. I'll stay. But...bed, maybe?" He made half-hearted gesture up at the mattress, and Lio laughed. They parted long enough to stand up and peel out of their uniforms. Ravi twitched back the blankets and flopped onto the too-small bed, holding his arms open.

Exhausted as he was, his heart still galloped when Lio climbed in and settled half on top of him. Lio's hands smoothed across his chest and tucked around his waist, and Ravi surrendered to another kiss. It was overwhelming, how much he craved the feeling of it.

Lio shifted, lips ghosting along his collarbone. Ravi arched his head back, closing his eyes again as soft kisses touched his throat.

"We should—" Whatever Lio was going to say was interrupted by a massive yawn.

"Sleep?" Ravi smiled.

"And waste having you in bed with me?" Lio tried to hide a second yawn behind his hand.

Ravi smacked a kiss against his forehead. "We need to sleep. And this isn't the last time I'll be in bed with you."

"Thank all the goddesses. I have so many things I need to do to you still. I should make a checklist."

Ravi snorted. "Go to sleep, Lio." He snuggled down so that they were level with each other. "Just, before you do, one more," he murmured. He got another slow, long kiss, the kind that felt like he might already be dreaming.

"I adore you. And I want you forever." Lio whispered it against his lips, and Ravi trembled.

No reason to hold anything back. He would give Lio anything and everything he could. "Then I'm yours. You can have me forever."

He lay quiet in the dark, Lio cuddled against him, falling asleep. Tomorrow might be a fucking mess, but this was a sliver of perfect. Together, they could get through whatever came next.