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Sebastian grabbed Leon’s fist and let out a shaky breath. He opened his mouth to speak but then had to close it and swallow and inhale again before he could manage it. “I—” Another swallow. “I hear you.”
Leon loosened his grip on Sebastian’s shirt, and Sebastian felt like he might shatter as he settled heavily back onto his feet. His hands shook. Leon moved his hand to Sebastian’s shoulder and brushed his thumb over Sebastian’s skin just above his collar. Sebastian could feel him trembling through the touch.
“I need you, Sebastian.”
Sebastian’s heart seized painfully in his chest, and he squeezed his eyes shut. “I know.”
Leon cupped Sebastian’s cheek with his other hand. “I need you to do this for me, Sebastian.”
Sebastian opened his eyes and had to blink against the sting. “I know.”
Then nausea rolled up Sebastian’s throat, and he pushed Leon’s hands off him. Immediately, part of him wanted to yank them back and clutch the warm, calloused palms back to his cheeks. But the other part of him couldn’t breathe in the suffocating little room.
“I know,” he choked out again before turning and fleeing back into the hall.
* * *
Leon watched Sebastian go with the greatest sense of self-loathing he’d ever known.
Self-loathing had been his near-constant companion since the Klah’Eel had invaded his hometown and he’d left his mother and father behind, never to be seen again. And yet this was the first time he thought he might be physically sick with it.
He turned and braced his hand on the wall. Then he dropped to his knees as he gagged and clamped a hand over his mouth. He gagged again, squeezed his eyes shut, and pressed his forehead to cold concrete.
He was not going to be sick.
He was not.
Martha set a hand on his shoulder.
Leon reached up and grabbed it tightly. “We win if we do this.”
Martha squeezed his hand back.
“We don’t just not lose. We win.” Leon swallowed. “Kaston is still where the majority of the Klah’Eel forces are. It will break them. The Klah’Eel people will never keep funding this bullshit war when that catastrophe hits. And the intergalactic community won’t even let them. It’ll be too far even for them to turn a blind eye.”
Martha still didn’t reply.
“The fact that we shot down the ship ourselves won’t even matter.” Leon shook his head, and the rough concrete scraped against his skin. “They’ll understand we did what we had to, and besides, we’re not a recognized state. They won’t hold us to the same standards they’d hold the Klah’Eel to. We would win.”
When Martha only squeezed his hand again, he pulled his forehead from the wall and looked up at her.
“Martha. We would win, am I right?” Leon could hear the shake in his own voice, and he ignored it.
Martha took a slow, deep breath and let it out just as slowly. “I think you’re right.”
Leon stood, but he didn’t take his hand off the wall, too certain he wouldn’t be able to stand on his own two feet if he did. He stared at a crack in the plaster, dark and jagged and crumbling around the edges.
“It wouldn’t make any difference to Sebastian.” Leon closed his eyes as he thought of the broken look in Sebastian’s eyes before he’d left the room. The broken look that Leon had put there. “And it wouldn’t make any difference to the people of Kaston.”
“No. It wouldn’t.” Martha stroked his shoulder with her thumb.
“It would make a huge difference to Farlon, but he”—Leon broke off and fisted the hand he had on the wall and pounded it lightly against the concrete—“he’s not here anymore.”
Martha’s hand on his shoulder clenched. “No, he’s not.”
“He’s not here, and so he doesn’t matter.” Hess banged his fist harder on the wall and then turned around. He and his stupid fucking speech that he’d hung around Leon’s neck like a goddamn millstone. “Him, Hilda, my parents, the people that died in the invasion and the occupation, and the people we’ve already lost at Kaston, none of them matter—”
“Leon!”
