"And here I was starting to think you knew everything."

"I would've known if it was Miles," he says. "Miles would... not. I mean - maybe - I don't know. But not now, not with me. He'd splutter a lot and it would be very awkward and he wouldn't even seriously consider the option, let alone invite me up to his room to talk about it. And that's leaving aside the part where he's married and would expect his wife to disapprove."

"Yes, well," says Stalas, "I'm not Miles or married."

"No," Mark agrees.

"So—I admit I'm still unnerved by the part where you just know things—how much do you know?"

"...Fair question," he says. "I'm... not sure. It's hard to put into words. But I could definitely tell that that was a thinking-about-it sort of 'oh', and not a rejecting-the-very-idea kind. And now I think... you're willing to let the rest of them know you're thinking about it, especially since Miles already guessed and as much as told you it's your business and he wouldn't dream of trying to stop you, but you're understandably shy about getting into details in front of them. And," he goes on, voicing new insights as they occur to him, "you were worried you might be sort of leading me on, but now you've figured out that I'm hardly going to pick up on all this but fail to notice you haven't decided yet."

"Uh... yeah," says Stalas. "Right on all counts. That's - convenient, yet unnerving?"

"I mean, it's not common. And there's obviously safety concerns. But yes. I - hm, no, I won't apologize, you're starting to get it, aren't you?"

"Yes, let's... leave that one alone for now," says Stalas. "...Immediately disregarding my own advice: I'm not sure exactly where I'm getting the impression that you'd like to lose, but I'm definitely getting it. Is it a correct impression?"

"Uh. Very," says Mark. "I mean, maybe not exclusively, but I'm pretty sure you were on the right track when you were looking at me just now and thinking whatever you were thinking that seemed to involve winning fights with me."

"Wow," snorts Stalas. "So you can't actually pick my thoughts right out of my head, good to know. I'm happy to keep those to myself for a little while longer."

"You could also," Mark suggests slyly, "tell me about them."

Now Stalas is blushing.

"Ha."

"Mark...? Are you all right? I don't know what - " He tentatively tries to draw his hand back.

"Besides how you're crushing my hand, I mean? Not usually," he says. "...But sometimes. Look, I don't—just tell me how to make it better. Please. If you even know."

He hesitates, forcing his grip to relax—and then lets go, only to fling his arms around Stalas and start sobbing hysterically into his chest.

Mark mumbles something unintelligible.

"Um... what was that?"

"Like hilariously shitty lives? Yeah," says Mark. "I think so too." He nestles his head against Stalas's chest and sighs.

"I bet nobody's tried to eat you recently."

"I'll give you that," says Mark. "Bet nobody's - hmm - I'm not sure nobody's had you tortured, actually. Have they?"

"...They haven't."

"Sorry. I mean - I'm not - it hurts you to think about it; I'm sorry for that."

"You're the one it happened to," says Stalas, hugging him gently. "...Look, I have the feeling neither of us is going to want to let go anytime soon and I don't know about you but I don't look forward to standing here for an hour. Bed?"

"I... can't say I'm exactly surprised. Even though I wasn't expecting it."

"...Eh?"

"Someone... in your world. That you wanted but couldn't have. And you don't think you'll ever see again."

"How do you do that? Yes," says Stalas. "My second. My best friend. I loved him, and I... I know he cared for me, but I can't believe he might have cared for me that way. I never - told him anything about it." He sighs. "And now we're both exiled, but at least he was meant to survive his."

"I just know how you work," Mark explains in a murmur. "You're harder to figure out than Miles, most of my life has been spent in an intensive study of Miles, but I'm learning. And everything you do tells me things."

"I think I'm getting used to it," says Stalas. He discovers that he wants to rub the back of Mark's neck, considers this urge for a moment, and then goes for it.

Mark giggles softly.

"Well, that's an improvement on the crying."

"'S nice," he mumbles.

"That was kind of the idea."

"I like you. It's actually terrifying how much I like you," he says dreamily. "At least you're a Miles. I have some hope of figuring you out well enough to avoid absolutely fucking everything up."

"You're such a cheerful, carefree soul," Stalas says dryly. "I like you too."

Giggle-sniffle.

Continued neckrubs.

"Mmmmm."

Mark beams. "You like making me happy," he announces, like this is just about the best fact he has ever learned.

"I. Yeah," says Stalas. "Yeah, I really do."

Mark hums contentedly.

Stalas smiles.

"Mmmmyou're so nice. Teach me to breathe..." he mumbles.

"Eh?"

"Conversation I had with Miles once. I told him trust was like air to him, and I'd lived my life in a vacuum by comparison."

"You can. You will. You are," says Mark.

"...I'm still adjusting to the idea that I'm not going to die horribly, alone in the dark, without ever seeing another friendly face," says Stalas. "So I want you know I'm speaking with empathy when I say you need to raise your standards."

"...What?" says Mark, half-laughing.

"I like you. I like the faces you make when I give you neck rubs. I care about the horrible shit you've apparently gone through. Those are all fairly basic things! I mean, I'm not going to forbid you from appreciating me - just - this is not the best it can possibly get."

"It's the best it has gotten. It's pretty close to the best I can imagine," says Mark, closing his eyes. "Disregarding any thoughts I may or may not have had about you and daggers."

"I'm like... two, three years older than you are," says Mark. "Dwarf boy. What if I want infinite neck rubs?"

"Then I guess we'll be up here for a while."

He giggles.

"Dwarves don't dream," he feels the need to explain, after a moment. "Well, I dream, but I'm a pretty fucked-up dwarf."

"Hmm... mostly because I'm imagining myself with them, I think," he says. "But also, it means you hurt all the time. And I don't want you to, I wish it was me and not just because I like pain, but watching you handle it like it's nothing... yeah, I like that."

"...I can kind of see your point," Stalas admits. "I hadn't thought about it that way. It's just life, for me. Things are going to hurt."

"Now that's familiar," Mark says wryly.

Stalas rests his hand on the back of Mark's neck and lapses into a thoughtful silence.

It's still nice. He doesn't complain about the lack of neck rubs.

"Some. You were definitely thinking about me liking pain for a little while there. I'm not telepathic, though, I just have a well-trained intuition for people who are you."

"I... was thinking about that, yes."

"Any thoughts you'd like to share?"

"I'm. Curious in ways I'm not sure I actually want to indulge," he says.

"Well that sounds promising."

"You are an intensely self-destructive person."

"It's been said."

"No, but really," says Stalas. "I kind of want to hurt you but I don't want to hurt you. It's a conundrum."

"It's a nice conundrum."

"...I like that I can say things to you and you can tell what I mean," says Stalas. "The benefits are starting to seriously outweigh the drawbacks."

"That makes me happy."

"Well, good. I guess."

"I'm wondering... how fragile humans actually are," Stalas admits. "No Stone in you. I'm used to fighting dwarves; I know how to win without killing anybody. I don't know if the same knowledge applies to you... you don't bruise as easily as I do, but that's not saying much. You're probably still easier to injure."

"Mmm," he says, smiling. "I like this train of thought. I liiike it."

"A little. Mostly just how into it you are. How you're thinking about finding out, and it gets you going even though you don't want to injure me. You could try it," he says. "If you wanted. I won't mess around, promise. And it's okay if you get it wrong. I've had worse, and modern medicine can fix a lot of shit."

"See," says Stalas, "when you say you've had worse, it doesn't make me want to hurt you. It makes me want to cuddle you and give you neck rubs and maybe kiss you a little."

"You can do all that too," says Mark.

"...Mm."

"You're bluuuushing."

"Shut your face."

"Make me."

Mark contemplates this delightful occurrence for a few seconds, and then wriggles closer and kisses him.

Stalas is hampered in his ability to kiss back by the fact that he's still laughing, but he does put forth a noticeable effort in that direction.

Giggly kisses!

That's good too.

"You can get upset and protective," says Mark. "I won't mind. Even if it kills my chances of getting to experiment with you and pain today. I... hell, Stalas, I don't even know where to start."

"It's okay," he says, "if you don't want to..."

"No, fuck no, I have been aching to unload this on somebody since I first realized that was a thing I could potentially someday do. It's just there's a lot of... background required. I could just say the man who had me made was a vicious, emotionally incontinent control freak who hated me equally for succeeding or failing at the things he wanted me to learn, but that doesn't cover the half of it. He had reasons, and his reasons go back a long way, and I grew up knowing them..."

"Okay," says Stalas. "So what are they?"

"It all goes back... more than six hundred years, if you really want to start at the beginning," he says. "When humanity first discovered they could transit the horrifying void - I love that phrase, by the way - fast enough and far enough to get to other livable planets and back. The definition of 'livable' was pretty broad, as broad as they could make it, because it was hard to find any planets so they had to work with what they could get. That's when humans first came to Barrayar. Fifty thousand of them. And pretty soon after, the wormhole linking Barrayar to the rest of humanity collapsed. A collapsed wormhole isn't like a collapsed tunnel; you can't dig it back out. Gone for good. Rare as hell, but devastating when it's the wrong one. Barrayar lost touch with everyone else, lost hold of technology, government, social structure, everything. The Time of Isolation was hell in a lot of ways. They had to build themselves back up."

"I've heard it alluded to," he says. "Go on."

"Right, so then another wormhole opened up, through Komarr. Komarr's another broadly livable planet, even farther from ideal than Barrayar - Barrayar has breathable air. Komarr not so much. Everybody has to live under huge domes that rebalance the air for them so there's enough of the parts people need to breathe. Their main resource is a lot of wormhole connections through the system, so they can make people pay to come through. And a little while after Barrayar was rediscovered, the Cetagandan Empire made the kind of stupid decision to invade 'em, and Komarr made the even stupider decision to let the Cetagandans bribe their way past. I mean, I'm sure everyone thought Barrayar would be easy pickings, but they should've thought about it harder first."

"They didn't go down easy," Stalas guesses.

"Occupied for twenty years, resisting the whole time, and then they finally kicked the Cetagandans out. And the first thing they did afterward was invade Komarr. Right? Because there's nothing else they could have fucking done. It was easy pickings - Miles's father wrote a book on it. Didn't have to fire a shot, just show up in force and offer good terms of surrender, because those domes are a huge vulnerability and everybody knew it."

"Something went wrong," he says. It's not hard to pick up on the rhythm of Mark's storytelling.

"Straight to hell. One of Aral's underlings had two hundred people killed, nobody's ever gonna find out exactly why, revenge is likeliest, but of course Aral took the heat for it because he was in charge. Suddenly instead of the most peaceful conquest you could ask for, it was... not that. Komarrans are very, very bitter about the name Vorkosigan. I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this."

"A Komarran decided to make... you?"

"Yeah. Not as a first resort, he blew up some buildings first. But eventually he decided he was going to replace Aral Vorkosigan's son with an indistinguishable copy who was loyal to the cause, fill my head with stupid ideas about becoming Emperor of Barrayar, and have me kill Aral, the Emperor, and anyone else who got in my way, to wreck 'em badly enough that he could lead a successful revolt on Komarr while Barrayar was dealing with me. Except that the person he decided to clone was Miles Vorkosigan. Incredibly smart, high-energy, twisty, intuitive, pathologically determined Miles Vorkosigan. And he had to get me as much real information about my original as possible, so I could impersonate him. I did nnnot grow up as loyal to the cause as Galen hoped. It was pretty clear to me who was the better role model."

"I can't imagine that went well."

"Ha," he says darkly. "When I got anything wrong about being Miles, he'd punish me. When I got everything right, he'd tell me what a good boy I was and then punish me anyway because it was the closest he could get to hurting Aral. When I showed the least little sign of not agreeing with him perfectly about everything, he'd punish me. When I sounded too much like I was just reciting the party line to save my skin, he'd punish me. When I did anything unauthorized - midnight snack, trip to a museum... I'm sure you get the picture."

"I'm getting all upset and protective," Stalas says wryly. "As predicted."

"There's plenty of horrifying details. I'd have to explain what a shock-stick is... it doesn't matter that much. He hurt me, a lot, until I was so fucking terrified of him that if I did anything I expected to piss him off I'd be too scared to think or move. Learned to work around that as well as I could. And then, oh happy day, he had me and Miles and a deadly weapon all together close by and he handed me the nerve disruptor with obvious intentions and I shot him before I could freeze up. Thus ends Galen."

"Good riddance. I think I might hate him more than I hate my brother Bhelen, and that is saying something."

"Story you want to share? I've heard some pieces, I think."

"So, King Endrin Aeducan has three sons by two mothers. Trian, Stalas, and Bhelen. I'm the odd one out, mother-wise. Trian was a fucking clod, nothing in his head but propriety, tradition, and the joy of exercising power. He would have made a shit king. Bhelen... Bhelen was always a little quiet. Good long-term planner. Smart. Knew how to avoid offending anybody. And me, well, you know me. So one day, not too long ago, our father made me a commander. I was excited about my first mission, even though all I got to command was my own second and a couple of scouts, heading into the old Aeducan Thaig to retrieve Aeducan's shield from his tomb. Bhelen took me aside the night before and we had a little talk. I asked him if he'd ever thought of petitioning Father to make him heir, told him I'd back him in a hot second given that the other options were Trian and me and even if Father could ram it past the Assembly I'd hate to have to rule Orzammar one day. Rather command armies. We joked around a little. I thought, you know... he was my brother. We were never close, but I was glad we were getting along. And then he warned me that he thought Trian might be making a move against me."

"Which Trian wasn't."

"Ha. There were some mercenaries between me and the shield - had to kill 'em all, I hated that, I hate killing people - and then when we headed back to the rendezvous we found Trian's body. And I knew. I knew instantly. I didn't want to know. But I knew exactly what had happened. And Bhelen burst in, dragging Father behind him... he'd bribed both the scouts to lie and say they'd seen me kill my brother in cold blood. I have never been so angry in my life."

"I definitely did not expect this much of us crying on each other," Stalas mumbles.

"It's okay. It's good. It's okay."

Cuddles.

"Yeah," Mark says softly. "I know what you mean. I don't have a home the same way, but I know what it means to you."

That's okay. That was pretty predictable.

"I... Ancestors, Mark, I don't know what to say. You're welcome? I like you, I care about you, I still think your standards are for shit but I understand them much better now..."

Mark starts giggling helplessly. And sort of tearfully. Giggle-crying.

After a minute, the weepy giggles trail off. Mark hiccups.

"It's not like I did it on purpose!"

Mark closes his eyes and vents a sigh of deep contentment.

A cozy silence ensues.

"That sounds like a fine idea," says Stalas, and proceeds immediately to implementing it.

Stalas produces no objections. In fact he produces a grin.

"...You could... tell me about them," Stalas suggests. "I wouldn't mind hearing what put that amazing look on your face."

"Amazing? What happened to creepy?"

"Creepy was when I felt like you were looking for things I didn't want you to see, and finding them," says Stalas. "Now I don't mind you looking, and the way you look... it's like... I can't even describe it."

"Like I want to find out everything you've ever wanted, and give you all of it," says Mark. "Like you're the most gorgeous thing I've ever seen. Like I can't believe I'm allowed to touch you and I want to do as much of it as possible."

Stalas laughs shakily. "Yeah. Like that, I guess. Ancestors..."

"Good wow?" hazards Mark; he has a pretty good idea, of course, but he feels like making sure.

"Good wow, amazing wow, get-up-here-and-kiss-me-immediately wow," says Stalas, reaching out to haul Mark closer.

"Oh. Good," says Mark. He is delighted to oblige.

"I just had a bath, curse it," he mutters between kisses, but the complaint is heavily undercut by his enormous grin. "C'mere, you... it's my turn."

"Ooh," breathes Mark, and a moment later: "o-ohhh..."

Stalas giggles. "Have I mentioned you're adorable?"

"You have," says Mark, beaming at him. "But you have my full permission to mention it again. And again. And again."

"Understood," laughs Stalas, sitting up. "And now that we've made a beautiful mess of one another—bath? There's towels, promise."

"Bath," Mark reminds him, grinning. "And the mysterious significance of towels."

Mark giggles. "I see. You, of course, head this off by bathing with the assassin."

Stalas gives Mark a look, and reaches into the half-full bath to splash water at him.

Naturally, Mark splashes back.

So soft! So cuddly!

"You look like you want to marry that thing," Stalas observes.

"It's soft," Mark explains, cuddling into his towel with a blissful expression.

"—Sorry, should I not—?" He lets go and draws back slightly.

"No, it's fine," says Mark, although his wide-eyed breathless tension suggests otherwise. "You can. You can hug me. If you want."

"...You look anything but fine," he says, but he hugs Mark again anyway.

"You don't know, do you," he murmurs, shivering. "You don't know what you were going to say... maybe you weren't. Maybe I was imagining things."

Mark cringes slightly, but makes no attempt to break away from the circle of his arms.

As gently as he can, Stalas murmurs, "I love you, Mark."

He collapses, bursting into tears. If he didn't have Stalas to lean on, Stalas to hold him up, he'd sink straight to the floor.

Mark giggle-sniffles and shakes his head. "Nooo," he mumbles into Stalas's chest. "I like it."

"You have a funny way of liking things, friend."

He dissolves into hysterical, slightly weepy laughter.

"That's better. Sort of," says Stalas. "Do you and your towel want to come sit on the bed with me again?"

Mark manages a nod.

"...Miles might object," says Stalas.

"Yes, well, fuck him. He'll get over it. He's made it clear enough that he wants me in his family; if he kicks up a fuss about the circumstances, I can always go over his head."

"Eh?"

"To his mother," Mark elaborates.

"Also your mother, if I understand the situation... and this will work?"

"Oh yes. I only don't want to call her that yet because I haven't met her. I've heard enough to know."

"Well... I'm not opposed to trying," says Stalas. "I'd miss you, if you didn't."

Mark hugs him tight.

"Oof."

"Sorry, did I...?"

"A little bit. Don't worry about it."

"I love you," Mark declares.

"I love you too," says Stalas, and when this does not produce an immediate explosion of tears, he follows up with a gentle kiss.

"As opposed to staying here and doing most of that over again? Yeah, all right," he says. "We can always come back up. Particularly if Miles is a tough sell on letting you follow me following him home. Give him some time to get used to the idea."

"Good plan."