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“And he said we are, so, all done here.” Bar’in threw up his hands and backed away from Tar before Tar even sat up.
His eagerness to leave had Patrick snapping his finger up at him before he thought it through.
“No, I didn’t.”
Bar’in’s nose scrunched into a pout, but he stopped his retreat.
Fal’ran was right, Bar’in needed to be stretched, but more than that, he needed to be a part of this team. And if he was going to keep fighting it, then Patrick was going to keep fighting back. “You’re participating. Get on your back.”
“What about Sazahk?” Bar’in still didn’t lie down, hesitating outside of Tar’s reach. Tar still knelt on the floor, and he dropped his chin to his chest and hid his face as Bar’in argued.
“Sazahk is busy researching trees, aren’t you, Sazahk?” Patrick took off his jacket and lay on his back where Fal’ran had been moments ago. He ignored the pulse of excitement in his belly as he bared his throat to him to look up at the qesh.
“Yes, very busy,” Sazahk turned back to his little desk shoved against the side of the tent between his and Bar’in’s cots. “I’m trying to ascertain whether their root systems anchor them into the ground with enough stability to act as apartment block proxies. They’re certainly tall enough and even buildings sway, but if they sway too much, then they’re hardly a useful comparison and obviously if their root systems are too shallow, then they’ll simply fall over when we climb them and that doesn’t really bear thinking about, but of course I’ll think about it, anyway.”
“There, see, he’s busy researching root systems.” Patrick pointed at where Tar knelt on the ground. “Down, Bar’in.”
Bar’in clenched his fists, and Patrick readied for battle. With Fal’ran fighting him for dominance and Bar’in fighting to get out, keeping this team together and functional was fucking exhausting.
He missed Mal’ik.
He understood why Mal’ik had left him, was proud of the decision Mal’ik had made, and grateful for his friend’s happiness, but that didn’t stop the festering hurt in his chest from bubbling to the surface every few days. Especially these days. Patrick had stood by Mal’ik’s side for years. Hell, he’d stood by him for decades. And Patrick liked to think he’d helped Mal’ik as much as Mal’ik had helped him, but the truth was Mal’ik was all Patrick had. The army, his country, and his duty were the deeply held values that filled out Patrick’s core, but at the end of the day they were abstract concepts, not companionship.
Patrick was friendly and tenacious, and he made friends and he had colleagues, but the only people who’d ever given a shit were Lar’a and Mal’ik. Lar’a had left them early and Patrick had been happy for her.
Then Mal’ik had left him.
And Goddammit, Patrick was happy for him too, but now he was alone in an army he’d given his life to, who thought he was human trash, with the only people in his world this dysfunctional team that hated each other and him most of all.
A warm hand squeezed his ankle and stopped his thoughts.
Patrick escaped out of his mental storm cloud to see Fal’ran kneeling at his feet, his brow furrowed, and his nostrils flared. Great, and now his opponent had smelled his weakness. Fal’ran parted his lips, but Patrick twisted his head around toward their other teammates and cut him off with a bark.
“Bar’in, if you don’t—”
“I’m going!” Bar’in threw himself to the floor with a huff and raised his hands. “See, I’m down.” He lifted his right leg straight towards the sky. “Let’s get this over with.”
Tar approached, kneeling beside Bar’in’s right leg, reaching out for him as though he were reaching for a cornered animal. As much as Patrick didn’t blame him for handling the prickly little klah’eel with kid gloves, there was something about the way he moved or looked at Bar’in that didn’t look quite right to Patrick. Something about it was like a pattern out of alignment, uncomfortable for his brain.
“I’m not gonna fucking bite, Tar, calm the fuck down.” Bar’in waved him over. Tar’s shoulder relaxed a little and Patrick dropped the back of his own head to the ground and looked up at the tent ceiling. There had always been something off about Tar, but Patrick had attributed it to the incongruence of his size with his shyness. Yet another mystery about his complicated teammates for Patrick to unpick in his copious amounts of free time.
“Alright, we’ve spent more time arguing about this than it’s gonna take to do.” Patrick lifted his leg and forced himself not to react when Fal’ran caught it and knelt against the inside of his other thigh. “First side, first stretch. Let’s get this over with.”
Fal’ran hooked his leg around Patrick’s ankle and his hands around Patrick’s knee and heel as though he’d already done this a thousand times before, even though Patrick would bet money he hadn’t. The kid was a keen learner. Mal’ik would love him. Especially since Fal’ran would never have tried to out-alpha Mal’ik.
Pain wrenched up the back of Patrick’s leg as Fal’ran forced him into the stretch and yanked Patrick out of his self-deprecating thoughts. He clenched his jaw against the pain, then let it out in a slow exhale, his mind relaxing with his muscles.
Patrick closed his eyes and sighed as the sharp pain eased into something low, manageable, soothing. “Can you check Bar’in and Tar’s form?”
“Yeah.” Fal’ran’s thick hair rustled as he turned his head and Patrick imagined his shrewd orange eyes sweeping across their teammates. “Flex his foot more, Tar. Yeah, like that.”
Bar’in growled and said without all that much heat, “Fuck you, Fal’ran.”
Fal’ran chuckled back. “What, Bar’in? I thought you were flexible.”
“Yeah, more than you’ll ever know,” Bar’in sniped back with a certain tone in his voice that made Patrick raise an eyebrow. Bar’in’s past as a prostitute had been verboten when he’d first arrived. A comment that even implied hinting at it had been a sure-fire way to have a fight on your hands. But in the past week, Bar’in had been less cagey and more mouthy and quick-witted lines about his own past had slipped into his repertoire. Patrick was no psychological expert, but he thought that was healthy.
“Ha, or want to.” Fal’ran pulled in on Patrick’s knee and pushed his heel forward to increase the stretch. Patrick pressed the back of his head hard into the ground and hissed as the pain increased. There it was. He forced his spine to relax, sighed as his mind melted into contentedness. He’d missed this. It had been months since he’d last experienced the mental freedom of having nothing to think about but his own body. He leaned into the pain and relished his ability to lessen it, to control it, to control himself.
