The Aperios (Children of the Sun Book 4)

Kaleth wished they could have spent more time just taking a break, but there were still so many things to deal with that couldn’t be put off as easily as Enor’s research. Such as civil unrest. He hadn’t thought to factor that in with everything else they had to deal with, but he should have.

At least Irithara had a barely functioning monarchy. Enoria and its many states were all democracies. And their parliament was full of people who’d straight up agreed with Enor because he’d promised to make them immortal. And unfortunately for everyone, Enor had kept his word. Unlike those aforementioned politicians.

But the even bigger problem was that there were already groups forming, protesting against the Eternals’ existence. And that was why Kaleth felt a need to both get involved and to stay out of it. It was entirely unfair to blame the Eternals since the current majority of them had had nothing to do with anything. They had been made to follow Enor’s orders, and a lot of them had been severely traumatized. They didn’t need to face an onslaught of hate for what they had been turned into.

But Kaleth wasn’t in a rush to defend them either because even discounting the fact that certain Eternals were truly the reason behind most of their problems, he wasn’t sure he had any right to interfere.

There was no way to tell who was and wasn’t an Eternal without using their powers, and frankly Kaleth wasn’t sure they actually knew how to yet, so most of them would never be found out. They’d been putting suppression bracelets on them, which most of them agreed with.

Yorin had created a version that looks exactly like a watch, just like the one Rayni had worn back before all of this had started, to protect their identity. That seemed to work for the most part as most people were currently protesting the government. They wanted to elect a new one, sans Eternals, which Kaleth could agree with.

Except he couldn’t escape constantly comparing this to his own experiences. Pretend to be normal, don’t show what you really are, or be hated for something you didn’t choose. Those were all things he was far too familiar with, and it made him beyond angry.

But no matter how much he wanted to yell at every hateful person currently spouting their nonsense, the less he was seen publicly the better. He didn’t care what the media said about him, but he didn’t want Mel to be hounded by the press because he would be if they found him.

So Kaleth would just have to grit his teeth and deal with other matters. Like taking care of the many Eternal transformation facilities that were all around the Federation. At least now Kaleth had a map of them.

“It will be okay,” Mel said, as he’d already said a few times. Kaleth really wanted to believe that, but couldn’t help but be skeptical. He didn’t want to care. He’d already done enough for this country. They could just leave, live in a house on the edge of a small town, something close to nature since Mel seemed to like it much more than the city….

But the same reason that made him feel tired of trying to keep Enoria in check was also keeping him from just staying out of the problems currently plaguing it. And Kaleth suspected that Mel had too big a heart to not try to help too.

So now he was stuck somewhere in between. And he didn’t like it.

“This is just new for everyone,” Mel continued as they looked through the underground rooms, looking for crates that could either contain Eternals or Eternal energy. But so far nothing. It was probably safe to destroy the place. “I remember when TVs were invented. A lot of people didn’t like them, but then they did.”

“I’m not sure that’s the same thing, love. But thank you for trying.”

Mel scowled at him. While Kaleth was certainly not glad that Mel had gotten annoyed with him, in a strange way, it was nice that he did now. That he wasn’t afraid of showing it. “Maybe not. But my point was that people get used to things changing.”

It was so hard to stay angry with Mel next to him. He brushed his hand through Mel’s black hair, smiling at him. “Yeah, I know. I’m sorry, I’m just a little....”

“Yeah, I know.”

Mel took his hand into his when Kaleth pulled away and held it, smiling at him with such pure happiness. It sometimes still made Kaleth wonder how Mel was even real, much less in love with him. But there was no reason to doubt either because their bond was a very real proof whenever he focused on it.

“Let’s destroy this place and move on, eh?”

Mel nodded, looking somber for a moment. Kaleth knew he didn’t like destruction, but they couldn’t leave these bases here for someone to find and potentially use. They weren’t only operable by Enor since the people he’d forced into servitude had done most of the work here, so the danger was very real. And there were enough Eternals here as it was. Far too many, in fact.

Kaleth teleported them outside again to a safe distance and concentrated until he found the generator every one of these had. It was strange that he knew instinctively how to overload it with only his mind, but he supposed it must have had something to do with all the other knowledge he’d gotten by taking Enor’s power.

He knew how to ration his energy much better now. No doubt Relioth had learned that from Enor in the first place. But now when Kaleth teleported, he could barely tell he’d used any energy at all. No wonder Enor had said he’d have no one to oppose him.

His stomach twisted when the image of his father’s dead body came back to him. It made his concentration slip completely but by then there were already the dull booms of the generator exploding under their feet, making the ground shake.

“Are you all right, honey?”

Kaleth blinked, nodding. He knew that wouldn’t be enough for Mel. He could definitely feel that Kaleth wasn’t all right. But as Kaleth had been hoping, Mel didn’t push him and just squeezed his hand, looking at him with his big amber eyes full of support.

Kaleth couldn’t help but smile at him. He’d get over this.

“How many are left?” Mel asked gently, probably as a bid to change the subject for Kaleth’s sake.

Kaleth took out the Eternal tablet from the pocket of his suit, unfolding the screen to four times its folded size. It was still such a strange thing to him, but it had been incredibly easy to use from the moment Relioth had given it to him to put Enor’s files on it since apparently their normal tablets and phones wouldn’t manage. It was just odd to use a device with a foldable screen that created a seamless, incredibly thin screen. He was sure Yorin could explain it to him, but he didn’t care enough to try to understand.

“Only eleven, apparently,” Kaleth replied after checking. There seemed to be more of these facilities in Irithara, but at least there were only eight. “So with the ones not in Enoria, that’s nineteen.”

“I hope we don’t find more Eternals,” Mel said, sighing. And Kaleth definitely agreed. Thankfully, so far they hadn’t. But there were already thousands of them. Thousands. As far as he knew, Mereria and Rayni had started registering them into a database as they put the suppression bracelets on them. But Kaleth had no idea if that would be enough.

Kaleth was about to teleport them to the next base when Relioth appeared before them. Mel flinched while Kaleth sighed. And to think he’d gotten away from him for now. This wasn’t the first time Relioth had done this, and it probably wouldn’t be the last, no matter how much Kaleth wished it were.

“Kaleth! Hi!” he said, grinning ear to ear. He’d been in a far too jovial mood for Kaleth’s liking. But maybe yelling at him would improve Kaleth’s mood. “Just thought I’d check—what do you think about my offer?”

Kaleth narrowed his eyes at him. “Which one?”

“You know, the traveling the universe one.”

Relioth shifted his weight, his smile growing a little awkward as Kaleth continued to scowl at him. Sometimes he really wondered just what went on in Relioth’s head. Had he not already made it more than clear that he wasn’t leaving, and especially not with him?

“When did I ever say I was interested in that in the first place?”

Relioth pursed his lips, giving Kaleth puppy eyes. And Kaleth’s patience was reaching its end. In fact, he was getting very angry, and for little reason. But it was definitely just due to having to deal with Relioth for far too long for one lifetime. Which for Kaleth was forever, but it was still very true.

“Did I mention that you could bring your boyfriend?”

Relioth flashed another smile that made Kaleth fantasize about knocking his teeth out. He couldn’t help but laugh at him, though, just due to the ridiculousness.

“Did you actually expect me to leave Mel behind?”

Relioth hung his head and sighed. “No.”

Kaleth took a step closer to him, letting go of Mel’s hand as he glared at the other Eternal. “If you want to leave so much, why don’t you just do it? I guarantee no one will mind.”

Relioth actually looked hurt by that, but it just egged Kaleth on. “I don’t want to leave without you. That has always been the plan.”

“And I don’t want to go anywhere with you. Or do anything you want.” He took another step forward, looking Relioth right in his hurt eyes. “And if you think I owe you anything for you helping us deal with Enor—you should be thanking us for helping you deal with the mess that you made, you bastard!”

“Kaleth!” Mel yelled at him, pulling on his arm and pulling him away from Relioth. Kaleth blinked, a little taken aback by how much he had wanted to hit Relioth just now. And by how serious and tense Mel was. Though that was fair, he supposed.

“You really hate me, don’t you?” Relioth muttered, looking almost heartbroken. And Kaleth enjoyed the sight of it far too much.

“Yes, of course I do!” Kaleth snapped, but despite his anger he let Mel hold him back. It felt wrong to fight him. “The whole damned world does.”

And just like that, with one last wounded look, Relioth disappeared again with a flash of his white light. Kaleth let out an angry breath, shaking his head.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Mel said, looking incredibly sad. And Kaleth felt his heart clench. Dammit, it was so hard to stand his ground when Mel made that face. He sighed. Mel had let go of his arm, but Kaleth could still feel his hand, as if it still was there.

“It’s Relioth. Every time I yell at him, he bounces right back.”

One of the most annoying traits of Relioth’s. And he had so many.

“You could have just said no.”

Kaleth looked down, his shoulders slumping. Yeah, Mel was probably right, as usual. “Sorry, love. I just….”

Despite finding it hard to put his feelings into words, Mel nodded at him, looking painfully understanding. “I know.”

He proceeded to hug him, which shocked Kaleth by its suddenness, but he immediately leaned into it anyway. “I know Relioth did a lot of bad. He killed a lot of people, he hurt you.... But he’s trying to be better. For you.”

Kaleth wanted to scoff at that. Yes, he was clearly trying, but unfortunately for Relioth, he had no idea what a normal, positive relationship was supposed to be like.

“I know you don’t like him,” Mel continued as he pulled away, keeping his hands on Kaleth’s shoulders. “But maybe try not to be so cruel to him. It worries me when you do that.”

Kaleth frowned. He hadn’t been cruel. Right? Or at least not more so than usual. But Mel’s sad gaze told him the opposite. He sighed again. He didn’t want to worry Mel if nothing else. And he certainly didn’t want him to think Kaleth was cruel.

“You have a good heart,” Mel said, putting a hand on Kaleth’s chest. And that was a very effective way of getting Kaleth to the verge of crying immediately. He blinked, avoiding Mel’s eyes as the other man kissed his forehead. “I hate to see it overshadowed by anger.”

Kaleth nodded, not trusting his voice to stay composed right now to say anything. But Mel knew. Of course he did.

“Do you want to take a break?” Mel asked, giving Kaleth his signature puppy eyes that never failed to make Kaleth’s heart melt.

“No, no, I’m fine. Let’s keep going.” Kaleth almost teleported immediately before remembering that he hadn’t actually asked what Mel thought. “Um, assuming you want to, I mean.”

Mel smiled and took Kaleth’s hand before he leaned in and kissed Kaleth’s nose. Kaleth felt his cheeks flush. He had never dated anyone this affectionate. Although he’d dated one person, so that didn’t really say much. The point was that Kaleth hadn’t gotten used to it yet, but he wanted to.

They proceeded to destroy more of the facilities, but Kaleth couldn’t shake the bad taste the memory of his father’s dead body had left in his mouth. And whenever he thought about it, the feeling just got worse.

He could tell Mel was trying to stay silent and not ask him about it, but he couldn’t bring himself to talk about it. He wasn’t sure it would ever be easy, but right now he just couldn’t.

“Okay, this should be the last one in Enoria.”

Mel nodded, looking encouraging but also worried. Kaleth avoided his gaze. He needed to divert the topic. “Do you think people will want to change that name?”

Mel shrugged, though he now looked thoughtful. “I guess they might? But if they do, it will be odd getting used to that.”

That it would. And the more Kaleth thought about it, the less he was sure about it making sense for the country to keep its name. But what else would they name it? It had always been called that, for reasons he only now began to really realize.

Kaleth shook his head. “Let’s finish this.”

He teleported them, just like he had many times in a row, but they didn’t end up where he’d wanted. Instead they were now standing in the lab where he’d killed….

The blood was no longer there, but Kaleth could see it, just like he could see himself killing him. Oh gods.

For a moment all he could do was stare at the floor, the scene replaying itself in his brain over and over before Mel pulling him away managed to break his trance. Kaleth swallowed down the urge to vomit, letting Mel drag him out of the room.

“Are you okay, honey?” Mel’s urgent voice and big, worried eyes were enough for Kaleth to get a handle on himself. He nodded, putting a hand over his mouth. He wasn’t even sure why he’d done that because he didn’t feel as sick anymore, but he couldn’t bring himself to put it away.

“You didn’t mean to bring us here, did you?” Mel didn’t sound like he was accusing him of anything, nor like he actually wanted an answer, but Kaleth shook his head anyway. Why was this so disturbing to him? He’d killed people before, many times. And he hated his father. This shouldn’t bother him nearly as much as it was.

Mel pulled him into a tight hug, letting Kaleth relax a little. He was shaking, and he hadn’t even realized until now. This was ridiculous. He was stronger than this, goddammit. But apparently he wasn’t, with how he was hanging onto Mel like a lifeline right now.

“It’s okay, Kally, it’s okay,” Mel said, stroking his back. Kaleth swallowed, taking in a deep breath before gently pulling away from Mel. He gave him a grateful smile, though he had a hard time meeting his gaze.

He didn’t want Mel to see him like that, even though he knew it was probably inevitable. They would hopefully be together for a long time, and there would unfortunately be a lot of ups and downs. And he would definitely be responsible for most of them.

Mel was now frowning at him, which meant he’d probably overheard some of these thoughts. Great. Kaleth had already been preparing to defend his point when Mel’s gaze softened.

“Why don’t we go to that apartment of yours? You need rest.”

“I’m fine, love.” Damn, even to him it sounded like a lie. And Mel wasn’t buying it for one second, judging how he narrowed his eyes at him.

“No, you’re not. We can finish getting rid of those bases later.”

Kaleth heaved a sigh. He didn’t even want to argue back anymore. Taking Mel’s hand into his, he closed his eyes, focusing more intently on where he wanted to go this time. Thankfully, just by the heavy smell he could tell he’d managed to get them to his apartment. He really needed to open some windows. That would help with the dust too.

He was about to say as much when he noticed Mel was staring at everything around him, looking all starry-eyed.

“Your apartment is...so much bigger than I was picturing.”

Kaleth cringed, trying to hide his grimace from Mel as much as he could while the Eternal started exploring with an adorable amount of excitement, disappearing into the bathroom at one point as well. The fact that Mel had lived in poverty for most of his life made Kaleth straight up angry. And guilty, even though he couldn’t have helped him at all, despite having a lot of money he was never going to use.

He actually hadn’t checked if he still had any access to the money on his account, given that the last time he’d used money was right before he’d been pretending to help Relioth. But even if he didn’t, he still had some money laying around here.

He knew Mel didn’t need money, but Kaleth wanted him to get some nice things for once in his life, assuming he wasn’t completely against the idea. But Kaleth had no idea why he would be.

He blinked when Mel hugged him again, having apparently returned from his brief inspection of Kaleth’s apartment.

“Do you want to lie down?”

Kaleth sighed. He wanted to say no. They had plenty of work to do. Or at least he did. He still wasn’t done going through Enor’s files, not by a long shot. But he also didn’t feel at all like actually working on anything right now.

“Do you?”

Mel looked away, pouting, which was about the cutest thing Kaleth had seen all day. “I like sleep.”

Kaleth chuckled, giving Mel a kiss. Despite still feeling a bit shaken from what had happened just minutes ago, he was feeling much less on edge. Maybe it would be nice to turn his brain off for a while. And he also appreciated that Mel had spelled out that he only wanted to sleep because Kaleth wasn’t sure he was equipped to handle that definitely awkward discussion right now.

He showed him to the bedroom and while Kaleth busied himself with opening the window, Mel sat down on the bed, grinning ear to ear. “It’s so soft.”

Kaleth really was trying not to get angry at the universe for statements like this, but it was hard. Shaking his head, he took off his shoes and his suit jacket, which he threw over the bedpost, before lying down. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually slept. Maybe it really was getting to him.

“Oh, I should take this off, shouldn’t I?” Mel asked, gesturing to the Umbra uniform he was still wearing. He had been wearing it for so long that Kaleth hadn’t really thought to question that he was still wearing it.

Kaleth tried to avert his gaze at the possibility that Mel wasn’t wearing much under the armor and he didn’t want to assume things, but as it turned out, he was still wearing the outfit he’d bought before they’d killed Irif. The plaid shirt still bothered Kaleth by itself, but he had to admit that on Mel it looked very cute.

He took it off right after, though, and finally joined Kaleth, draping an arm over his chest and getting comfortable on his side next to him. Suddenly Kaleth was really glad that he’d let Mel talk him into this. Though there hadn’t been much convincing needed. Cuddling felt really nice. He could already feel his eyelids growing heavy.

“You like purple, huh?” Mel asked, his eyes practically closed already, though there was a big smile on his face. Kaleth felt his cheeks heat up as he looked away, right at the dark gray bed sheets with the random, circular, purple shapes on them.

“A little,” he admitted, feeling incredibly stupid for getting embarrassed over liking a color of all things. The fact that most of his ties were purple had probably been a dead giveaway, anyway.

“Me too,” Mel said, grinning, closing his eyes, and nuzzling Kaleth’s shoulder. And with that, Kaleth somehow managed to fall asleep, despite the memory of killing Enor still haunting him in the back of his mind.