• • Sunset: Heroes of the Milky Way
• January 19, 2025

Sunset: Heroes of the Milky Way (Chapter 14)

Alloya Ra’non

Awkward

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It’s been about a week and a half since the attack on Noland. Since then the people here have finished most of the clean-up, we’ve finished off the invaders, and the engineers have begun work on modifying the Shatter drive. Commander Starden offered for Team Sunset to stay aboard until the Noland is ready for transport and we agreed. He believes that our presence here makes the people feel safer. 

For now we’ve been finding things to do. Once Terra’rork was done resting after a few days, he went to work and cleared out the infirmary, Hideo opened communications between Acoustica and Noland, and Aleti, I guess, mingled among the people. Not sure how to describe walking around and talking all day. 

Clay and I… we finally got around to that sparring match.

BOFF!

BWAK!
I jump over Clay’s sliding kick as he tries to kick my feet out. As he slides under me, I bring my legs and feet together to kick down at him. He brings his arms together to block my counter-attack, and  allows me to instead use his arms as a jumping pad to go into a backward flip away from him. I land on my feet and quickly turn to face him back in my fighting stance. Once I am facing him he is already facing me, in a fighting stance mirroring my own.

Now, that probably sounded like a lot of mambo jumbo, and it is. When you have superpowers, it’s hard to not have them. We try to slow ourselves down, pull our punches, and not move like we’re flying, but as long as we’re healthy, there’s a part of us that’s going to what to glide, and — in all honesty — show off. 

When you’re flying the cool, shiny acrobatics actually do help with controlling where your limbs will be in any one time. Doing things that feel showy help you master your body in when you’re capable of true 360 degree movement, no longer bound by gravity. 

Even when we’re on the ground, it’s hard to not do the same. It probably makes fighting more difficult should we lose our powers, but it’s better to avoid that. Not that we’re helpless without powers.

I had signed us up to use the weight room after Terra’s surgery.  We just needed a place to spar, a room built to not be dented by all the weights being thrown around sounded like a good idea. So we just cleared everything to the side and laid down mats. 

That being said, we still aren’t using our powers… mostly. It was hand-to-hand fighting where Clay lost, and we’re not gonna have that happen again..

Right now as I look at Clay, I see that he’s in my usual simple fighting stance, rather than his. He holds his weaker hand out like a claw. Sure, it blinds himself, but it also partially blinds me as it gives him a way to protect himself and strike with the dominant hand he holds back. 

If he’s using this, he’s on the defensive, and by the look of sweat in the pits of his shirt, I can tell he’s losing steam. Clay isn’t a defensive fighter, but he’s gotta be better. Chronos isn’t going to get the drop on him again, even if there are hostages and the void of space just out the window.

We’ve been sparring for an hour already and neither of us has really gotten the edge. I was worried that he let himself go in the months he had spent on Earth, but honestly, I was worried about myself to. It had been years, and I hadn’t fought anyone of real worth without relying on powers. 

Today has certainly made me feel better. 

I’ve landed a couple grapples where I could have broken his arm or leg, but he’s always managed to squirm out… and we’re not actually going that far. Just when he’s close to striking my elbow or knees, which would see me crumble to the ground, I’ve been able block in the knick of time with my shin or forearm. So while we’re getting nowhere…

… it’s hard to say I’m not having fun.

I smile at Clay, and receive one in return. Then I rush him. I run at him at top speed and jump in the air for a downward strike. I cheat a little here, it’s hard to not do so instinctively. 

I twist and bring down my leg like I would if I were flying… because I was. I slow my descent just enough to give myself enough time to gather even more momentum and make sure my kick lands perfectly.

I look like I’m going for his left leg, which he makes look deceptively weak to counter-attack me. In actuality, I plan to go for his right shoulder so he can’t punch with his pulled back fist. 

He pivots on his leg to get away from my kick, but I plan for that and lift my elbow, knowing my kick is going to miss. Rather than kick him, I just made a fancy show of stepping within punching range.

I have to be faster than him with my elbow, which is easier said than done considering he’s much faster. Thankfully, everything about me is longer. I am over a foot taller than him. 

Whack!

So yeah, I clean his clock with my elbow, which slows the punch digging into my ribs considerably.

“Uff!” I cough up air, as Clay doesn’t hesitate to hit me with another gut shot. 

He uses being smaller than me to his advantage, just eating my elbow and staying on my side to just hammer me. I try to step away, but I open up my guard doing so, a risk that backfires.

Clay reaches up and grabs the inside of my arm pit. He pulls me backwards as I feel his foot hit the back of my heel. In one fell swoop, he grabs the top of my shoulder and slams me to the ground on my back.

Before Clay can attack me again I quickly roll backwards, forcing him to either let go of my arm or roll onto his back. He lets go, but as I roll onto my heels he swings his leg around to kick me in the face. I turn with his kick so he grazes my cheek instead of my nose. It leaves this sharp sting, and I’m reminded of how objects don’t have to be the sharpest thing int he world to leave a cut.

Superspeed definitely eekes in here too, letting me grab the back of his calf and pull him back towards me so he slips onto his stomach. 

As Clay is trying to balance on both hands, I lower my left hand to hold the inside of his knee so that I control his shin and everything below it. I lift my leg over his back as I pull, and bring down my heel directly down his back.

SQUICK!

The sound my strike makes doesn’t sound like it should. Neither did Clay’s scream of “Fuck!!” but that doesn’t mean we let up. I move to get behind Clay’s neck and hold him down to the ground. I let go of the inside of his knee and get  on top of his back. I grab his right arm with my left and hold it behind his back so he can’t push himself up.

“Tap out!” I yell to him. I wait for him to struggle and grunt some. I’ve won, I still got it. Now I need to wait for him to give in as I hold down his head, and his moist arm.

Wait, why is his arm moist?

I look down and I notice that his red blood is spreading out from a spot on his lower back. I didn’t cut him, I couldn’t have. I must have reopened a wound that didn’t heal, one he didn’t tell me about.

“We’re done, you’re bleeding a lot,” I say as I release him. I quickly, while still on top of him, lift up the back of his shirt to get a look at his back. 

“I’m fine, it’s just stitches they put in to stop scarring, I’d heal faster without them,” Clay yells at me. I don’t buy it, on account of him never seeing a doctor. He’s never been the best liar. 

“I said we’re done, end of discussion.” 

He tries to push up with both arms as I try to wipe the blood off his back to look at his wound. I put my left arm on his shoulder and force him back down. I lay my palm flat against his back, and create cosmic energy out of my palm’s pores. Then I gently expand the energy to push the excess blood onto the floor. 

Now I can see his wound, and it is ugly. In the lower right hand corner of his back is a portion of skin that had healed into a hole with a small flap over it. It should have healed when he went supernova. If it didn’t, even after that, that must mean it he had a lot of healing to do, or something worse. Did Aleti stealing Sera’s power affect his healing? 

Just looking at this wound, it’s surprising it doesn’t bleed all the time. I poke it with my finger to see if it hurts still, and lo and behold he hisses when I touch it.

“What happened to you?” I ask him. This doesn’t match any wound from a blaster, and as I inspect his back, I find scars from similarly shaped circular wounds. With barely hidden concern I ask, “And what are these scars all over you. Who did this to you?”

He didn’t have them before, and I was certainly close enough to tell. The big wound is from the fight, but these small ones… what the fuck happened on Earth that could do this? Or was he being careless?

“Eh,” he grunts at first, and I press into the wound for a better answer. After he hisses, he tells me, “It’s the consequence of not being careful around shitty Humans. They’re bullet wounds.”

I move off of his back, and stand up. As he crawls onto his hands and knees, he notices the amount of blood on the floor. With a weak blast of heat, he heats the floor to evaporate the blood. “Wouldn’t want someone else to have to clean up after me,” Clay says before he rolls onto his butt. 

I sit down next to him, and lean over my knees.

“What have you been doing that leads into a hailfire of bullets?” When the Rango picked him up, his neighborhood wasn’t particularly hot with weaponry. He’s been seeking it out.

“Don’t worry about it,” he says as he looks me in the eye.

Out of habit, I tilt my head. I raise my fist to his chin, and make a point of wiping it across his face to annoy him. “Too late, you’ve never been ashamed of battle scars.”

“Well most of my battle scars weren’t from picking pointless fights that don’t make a difference,” he admits. 

“What do you mean by ‘pointless?’” 

He sighs and looks up at the ceiling. “By pointless, I mean that I only saved some people who are probably going to be hurt again. I didn’t change anything, I didn’t fix the cause, just treated a… a…

“A symptom?”

“Yeah, can’t believe I forgot that word.”

“It’s a big word.”

“No, it’s not.”

Now he’s doubly embarrassed. I’ve thought for the longest time that he may have a learning disability of something. On Earth, he was poor, he couldn’t get help from what I understand, and had practically failed out of school when we pulled him out. And here in the rest of the galaxy we don’t exactly have a strong understanding of Human psychology. We barely understand their biology. Like, how do they just have an appendix that doesn’t do anything and just randomly explodes?

But the first problem, the one where he feels like he’s not making a difference, that’s beyond Humans. That’s a Guardian problem. 

I understand that defeated feeling that’s weighing on him when he admits, “The problem still exists despite my scars.”

I lean forward and place my hand on his knee, a simple sign that I’m here for him. He looks down at my hand and flashes a slight smile. “Sorry if I’m depressing you.”

“You can depress me anytime,” I joke, which spawns a more permanent smile that I return. “I wouldn’t beat yourself up too much about it now. When we’re done, retired, we can work towards fixing whatever problem you think seems unfixable. No problem is unfixable.”

“Alloya, I’ve found that Human nature isn’t a problem we can fix with fists, or science, or spywork.” 

He now speaks in a laugh, and leans back onto the floor. He then places a hand behind his back and avoids his wound. If before wasn’t long enough, he should take a dip in the sun again to heal it. Right now though, he’s avoiding my gaze, and I won’t have that. I lean forward to crawl on my knees towards his head. When I get around him, he groans and asks me what I’m doing. I then lay my legs out and lift up his head. I forcibly move his head from lying down on the floor to laying in my lap, that way he has to look directly up at me. No avoiding me.

I look down at Clay, straight in the eye. “If we can’t fix it with fists, or science, or spywork, we’ll do something else.”

At first, he looks like he’s gonna cry as his face turns red, then he chuckles instead. “Alloya, what else could we do?” I can hear the doubt in Clay’s voice. Where does it come from? “There’s nothing else.” His voice carries so much hesitation, like he knows what he wants to say but won’t.

“What are you talking about?” I ask gently. I move my right hand to wrap around his right cheek. 

“I-, I- can’t…” He won’t finish his sentence.

“Tell me, please.”

“I can’t do anything else!” he admits. “All I know how to do, is punch and kick stuff. I can’t fix my world’s problems, my people’s problems!” Then he sits up partially, his lower back still to the ground. “You talk about retiring, Alloya, I can’t do that! I didn’t even finish fucking high school! What am I going to do? Team Sunset? That’s all I’ve ever had, and I’m just the muscle.” 

His face is one of sorrow and loss. He is lost.

I bring my knees close to me, causing him to have to come closer to my chest. I wrap my arms around his head and smother him. “Shh, that’s not true, you’re more than just a warrior, we’re more than just warriors,” I say to calm him down. 

I hadn’t noticed the pain he must be in. Clay didn’t have a fancy domestic life at home like I did, and he won’t allow himself to create one. That’s not who he is. 

“I didn’t even finish school,” he repeats again. “I can’t fit in, I don’t have basic skills. All I am is a killer,” he goes on. 

No, he can’t think like that, this is how I was when I was his age. Not only that, if this is how he thinks of himself, how should anyone think of us? 

Clay grasps my wrist with his hand and holds himself closer in my embrace. “You’re more than that. This pain, this doubt, it fades,” I try to tell him.

“How? When? How do you know?!”

“Because it happened me! I got past this and I promise you will to.” 

“You got past it with Aleti, your family, I have none.” 

“No, that’s not true,” I tell Clay as I let go of his head and lift his face to look at mine. “We’re all your family, I’m your family, and I won’t abandon you again, ever, I promise.” 

He looks at me, into my eyes, my soul searching for something to prove that I mean what I say. In reality, I can’t really promise anything, I was the one who abandoned him in the first place. Not Hideo, not Terra, not Jackal, it was me, but I need him to know that this is what I want to do for him. Eventually, he stops looking into my eyes, and then looks at my face, then looks down.

Surprisingly, Clay then brings his hands to hold my face, and then smashes his lips into my mine. At first, I don’t reciprocate. 

I used to be on the other end of this. I used to seek him out in my frustrations, looking for comfort, pleasure, something to dull the pain that comes with just thinking.

Clay feels my resistance and starts to pull away, and when it was me being met with resistance, I pushed harder, like that could make him want me. 

When Clay tries to pull away from me I wrap my arms around his back and bring my hand to the back of his head. I stop him from pulling away from me and I return his ferocity in a kiss of my own. 

This is what we can do for each other, we can escape. Clay has been here for me, and now I’m here for him. People need someone like this sometimes, and now I’m taking this partnership back.

I want it back.

Aleti Ra’non

I don’t know how to process this. I wanted to see if Mom and Clay wanted to go get something to eat. I’ve been walking around while everyone has been doing their own thing, and I found this really good place to eat. Thought I should bring them there, so I went to go see if they were done sparring. I entered the gym and saw from the sign-in window. They had been sparring, then Clay got hurt, Mom helped him, and it got emotional.

Then they kissed, he kissed her. 

Clay liked my mom, and then she kissed him back. I don’t understand why this would happen. She’s decades older than him. She has me, and I’m his age, maybe older and it just…

It makes me feel this sense of… revulsion. 

I run out of the gym before they can even realize I’m there. No one goes to into the gym when they’ve rented it out for their own safety. They’re going to be alone for awhile, and I don’t want to see how far they go. 

I try to hold in my disappointment. You hear about older members of authority in power preying on their underlings, and to think my mom is doing the same. When someone you have that much authority over tries to kiss you, you don’t kiss them back.

“Ugh.”

I couldn’t help but voice my disgust, much to the confusion of people I pass by.

I try to head back to the center, but that’s where more people are. They’ll ask what’s wrong, why I look upset. I can’t go there. I need to be alone, I should be alone.

The Rango. No one should be there, everyone has something important to do, or someone to do right now. 

I wrap my arms around me and keep my head down as I traverse the halls. 

I kept moving towards the Rango. The halls begin to feel cramped, getting smaller and smaller the longer I’m stuck in their dull, white void. 

I’m bring crushed, but I’m folding in, there’s nothing to collapse in own. It’s like my body is searching out for something but can’t find it. Something is near the edge of my grasp but I can’t seize it. This feeling is something more than just me being upset. I actually feel sick.

My body feels slimy and clammy when I knock into the landing legs of the Rango. My mind is too foggy to even think about how I got here, I only try to get inside. 

Thankfully, the AI of the Rango recognizes me immediately before I say a word and opens the hangar ramp for me. I half walk, half crawl into the ship and to the door. I go inside and walk down the hall to find the lounge, I don’t bother to go to the room where I technically sleep since it still has Jackal’s things in it. Things that are never going to leave.

When I get to the rec room, I faceplant into the couch and I grab the nearby pillow to hold it to my face. I’m not gonna cry, I shouldn’t.

Then I hear the elevator open nearby, and then loud footsteps. Someone is here? Only Terra’rork uses the elevator, it has to be him.

“Hello? Is anyone there?” I hear Terra’rork say. Shouldn’t he be in the hospital? I wanted to be alone, I don’t want to talk to anyone. I become real quiet and hope that he doesn’t come here and see me. 

“Rango, is someone here?” I hear him call out to the computer.

‘Aleti is in the lounge,’ I hear the Rango’s computer respond. Damn you stupid spaceship.

Terra’rork comes around the corner and sees me staring at him from over the pillow, the look on my face expressing all kinds of negative things. “What’s wrong, Aleti?” he asks with the concern of a mother. 

In a different situation I would find it humorous, but now I shake my head at him. 

He rushes towards me and sits down on the floor next to the couch. “Come, little one, you can tell me anything. Your mother does.” 

I then shove my face into the pillow. I don’t want to hear how my mom deals with her problems! 

“What? What did I say? Aleti, please tell me what’s wrong.” 

I have to admit that I can tell why my mom entrusts in him. His voice is so soft and concerned, despite the crackling noise his lips make. I do want to tell him all of my problems, and I feel like he would really listen.

I turn my head onto the side of my face. I look up at Terra’rork, his face full of care. I try to say, “I saw my mom making out with Clay. I saw my mom sleeping with someone half her age. I saw my mom sleeping with someone I would feel weird sleeping with.” 

I keep taking pauses to keep from feeling sick and Terra’rork starts trying to examine me with computer diagnostics that appear over his face. He shushes me to say, “Take your time. Don’t try to speak if you can’t.” 

This man is a good one.

I take some deep breaths to try and slow myself down so I can speak. “I… I feel sick…” I try saying again. I see Terra’rork’s face sort of droop to pity for a second I can tell that he has an idea where this is going. “I walked in on Clay, and my Mom,” then I bury my head in the pillow.

“Oh, did your mother not tell you they’ve been together before?” Terra’rork asks sweetly. 

Wait, they’ve been together? 

I slowly lift up my head to look at Terra’rork suspiciously. “What do you mean, they’ve been together?”

Now Terra’rork goes from caring to nervous realizing that maybe he spoke too much. Lucky for me, Terra’rork is too honest a person. “Well, before you were born, before Team Sunset split up, they were, how do the kids put it? I guess, friends with benefits, I think? I don’t really understand any of it, but I just leave everyone to do their, uh, thing.”

My mother has been sleeping with him since before I was born? “She never told me that. Was he always her underling?” 

Terra’rork is now very shocked and confused. “I… I supposed, she was still the Captain. Uh, maybe she figured you would never meet?” 

When I develop an annoyed look he honestly tells me, “Listen, Alloya has never been the person who shares her feelings with most people. That’s something I’ve worked into our relationship for years. She’s more about painful sacrifice, and physically distracting herself from painful thoughts and memories. I’m sure you’ve noticed this?” 

I don’t know much about how my mom physically distracts herself, but for the most part she never entrusts anything to me. Terra’rork adds, “She probably figures that she should keep things that might hurt you to herself so you can be happy. She’s doing what parents do, what good leaders do, which is to make sacrifices, even ones that may be unnecessary. Maybe she’s finally doing something for herself. That’s the kind of person she is. Being with Clay was her outlet. Let her have her outlet.”

“A guy half her age? A guy my age?! That’s disgusting, and he has to obey her. She always warned me about protecting myself against that stuff. Turns out, she knows about it because she does it.”

Terra’rork leans back and considers that. “Huh, I… I didn’t really think of it like that, and sure, she probably shouldn’t be doing that, but she’s not perfect, she can make a mistake now and then, but… it’s not like she’ll hurt Clay.”

“And how do you know that?”

Terra’rork doesn’t have answer for me, not right away, not after staring back at me for a few seconds, and then a minute. He doesn’t know that.

“I just do,” is all he says, and then it’s confirmed for me that he is definitely someone’s dad.

Clayton Knight

“We’re going to need to shower after this,” Alloya tells me. I can hear her above me as I rest my head on her chest. 

I grumble something in response, about not really caring about how we smell. 

“We’ve been laying on these mats naked, you don’t think so?” she asks after she laughs..

I roll off of her, and lay on my back besides her. I remind Alloya, “No, I said we still have a solid half hour before we have to give this place up.”

Alloya then rolls onto her side and take my shin in her hand. There’s no one else who can really do this, hold me still, make me feel like their going to just scoop me up. 

She gets this smile on her face, one I know. It’s been too long since I’ve seen it.

Then kisses the corner of my mouth. She slips her tongue in the corner, teasing me and pulling away as I try to turn towards her, but she holds me still as she keeps massaging the corner of my mouth her hand. 

At least until she kisses down to my neck, and then her slides down my chest. I can’t help it, I try to get up, grab hold of her somehow, but she gets on top of me and stops trailing down my body with her hand. 

In fact, she grabs my wrists and holds them over my head she runs her tongue up my neck. I can’t help but squirm as she tastes me as much as she wants. I’m too busy trying to turn and lock my cheek against hers, so she wont’ stop swirling her tongue in a way that… tickles? It makes me twist and turn but I just want to pull her in closer, to feel more of what she’s doing. 

I grind my teeth to stay quiet, though, I guess I don’t have to be here. I’m so used to it, trying to be quiet so we’re not heard in her quarters, but we’re not in her quarters.

I didn’t even notice that she was holding my hands above my head with one hand until her other was slowly running down my abdomen. Just as she takes hold of me, I finally let out the moan I’ve been holding it. 

Alloya lifts her head from my neck, a small saliva trail on it as looks down on me, failing to contain her smirk.

“You want to go again?” 

The weird thing was… I actually didn’t.

Like, yeah, I’m obviously hard, my hot friend turned MILF is holding my dick in her hand and probably just gave me whole other hickey, but I kind of what to talk to her. 

“Yeah,” is my go-to answer, but clearly I wasn’t convincing by the way her eyes flutter, and her smile falters a bit. “I mean, I… I actually…”

She starts stroking me, I think she’s getting the wrong idea. 

“You can tell me, is there something you wanted to do? We have time.”

“No I — oh.” 

I’ve never had such a difficult time talking in my life.

“I… actually I… wanted to talk…” Alloya slows her roll a bit hearing that, “about us.” 

I want know her feelings are towards me. Us getting together just now isn’t because of any kind of romance, but more loneliness. I… actually… I’ve always felt a way about her.

Alloya’s smile drops and her face becomes curious, not sad or disappointed, maybe confused? Jesus Christ. 

“What about us? I figured we’d go back to the way we were. I mean, if you rather not…” she starts trailing off on an unwanted tangent, even letting go of my arms which she still held over my head.

She even moves get out of my lap, and when I tell you, I hate myself right now, in this moment…

“No! No! That’s the opposite of what I want for us,” I try to backtrack. Then I realize that I called us, an ‘us.’ Which I hope she doesn’t notice.

“Us?” 

She noticed. 

“What do you want?” 

She leans back, but when I go to sit up she pushes me back down, and comes down with me, suddenly, we’re back where we started. I’m laying on my back, and she’s propped up on her elbow, looking down.
The only thing keeping me sane during this conversation is that she still doesn’t look disappointed, just… curious. 

“I, ah,” I start, but then I let out a loud sigh. “I want something more,” then with a motioning of my finger between her and me I add, “between us.”

Alloya’s eyebrows arch, and her eyes widen as she is slowly grasping what I am talking about. 

“You want something more, like, for us to be romantically involved, not just sex?” 

I nod my head. 

She breaks our gaze to look down at the ground, and that doesn’t send me a good signal. My heart gets ahead of me, it feels like it’s slowing, and I struggle to take a breath. 

I’ll admit, in this moment I can tell that this may have been a mistake. Then she looks back at me with this confused look on her face. 

“How can we have a relationship like that, Clay?” she asks. “To grow to care about each in a way like that, and you said that Humans have children with those they love. If you grow to feel that way with me, how can you have a kid? We can’t, we’re two different species, and there has to be someone to carry on your Guardian bloodline.”

You know, that’s a… not the reason I was expecting. In fact, it kind makes ‘us’ feel like a math problem I didn’t get right.

“I honestly hadn’t thought about that,” I admit. I realize that there are things that still need to happen that can very well get in the way of a relationship with Alloya. Then absentmindedly I add, “I guess I figured since we were Guardians we could have kids with anyone, but I guess then you would have gotten pregnant by now.”

I hear Alloya jerk her head when I say that. “Uh, what?” she asks. 

I don’t know why she’s confused, I mean it may have been stupid for me to absentmindedly think that we could have kids, but I’ve made dumb mistakes before. “What do you mean what?”

“What do you mean I would be pregnant by now?” she asks with what I now realize to be suspicion. 

“We haven’t exactly ever used condoms, and unless you’re on a pill, if we could have kids together you would have gotten pregnant by now. What’s so confusing?” 

Alloya’s eyes open wide and her jaw drops open before she screams, “What?!”

I recoil back in surprise to her sudden outburst. “What?! What’s the matter? Why are you yelling?” 

Alloya looks at me sideways with her jaw wide open. “Clay, is that how Humans reproduce? Through sex?” 

Uh, is she dumb?
“Yeah, why? Do you not?” I ask sarcastically. 

With a firm shake of her head, “No, it’s definitely not.” 

Oh, well damn, that is surprising. 

“Wait, aren’t you a mammal?!”

“No!” she keeps yelling, “Humans are?!” 

“Yeah! What do you do?! Why can we even have sex?!” 

“We lay eggs!” 

What the fuck.

She’s still yelling too. 

But seriously though, what do you… are Regamorphs birds? Or reptiles? 

Alloya has to sit up to try to calm down, running her head through her hair. 

“I mean, I guess a male could… inseminate our eggs while there… you know.” Alloya holds her hands out like she’s holding something round and keeps gesturing forward  like I’m going to get what she’s saying. 

“I don’t know,” I tell her.

“Passing through our uterus and vagina, or even before hand I guess, the sperm could… hang out. It’s not the norm, I don’t do that, I didn’t do that. I just laid the egg and let then just used a syringe to get the sperm in there, it’s just way more efficient. Let’s men do their business elsewhere into a cup, away from me.”

I… I did not expect to learn about how Regamorphs reproduce…

So that’s why Alloya made it seem like she never slept with Aleti’s dad. She didn’t have to!

I should not be excited about that.

“Wait,” Alloya says as she starts waving her hand before her face, and then starts pointing at me, “if Humans are mammals that means the woman has to carry and push out the young?” 

I nod my head yes and then she cringes. 

“Ugh, that’s sounds so painful, and you thought Regamorphs did that?” 

I nod my head again, and then her face changes to one of realization. I wait for her to tell me what she has realized because of this biology lesson. 

“If Humans associate love with procreation—” 

“Usually but not always.”

“—but procreation is through sex, then is love associated with sex for…” she trails off as she starts to match my gaze. Then with a softer, but also more pitying tone, she begins asking me, “Clay, do you….?”

I realize then that Alloya is catching on to something I wasn’t ready to talk about. I try to stop her but it’s a futile effort. 

I start waving my arms back and forth as I say, “No, no! Humans can sleep together without being in love, that’s perfectly normal, it’s just….” 

I stop as she looks me in the eye and conveys to me that she doesn’t believe what I am trying to say. I look at her face, and it seems like she’s just sorry for me. 

She’s… pitying me.

And that makes what I have to say next, absolutely nauseating. “Yeah, Alloya, I love you. More than my leader, or my teammate. I… I love you, like, one is in love… I think.” 

Alloya stares at me and seemingly doesn’t know what to say. She honestly didn’t know that I feel this way, and it’s pretty clear what she doesn’t feel. 

She reaches over to touch my shoulder, but then stops, and decides against it. Her recoiling of her arm, that’s the moment. That’s when it really hits me, when the feelings I put so much effort in hiding just stab me in the heart. 

“Clay, I’m sorry but, I don’t know that I feel the same way,” Alloya tells me. Still trying to protect me, as she doesn’t give me a definite answer, but I know that she knows she doesn’t love me like that.

I need to get out of here. I start to stand up and look for my clothes. 

As I pick them up and start to put them on I tell her, “Don’t worry about it. No reason to be sorry, just… let’s just forget this happened.” 

She quickly stumbles back to her feet to ask me, “How can you say that? Clay, the last thing I want is to hurt you, but-”

“You didn’t,” I interrupt her, “this, this was a mistake,” I quickly add, “on my part. I should have just kept this to myself. There’s much more important things you should be worrying about then trying to deal with some kid.” I try to walk away, but she hugs me from behind. 

I feel her chest press against my back as she puts her chin on my head.

“Clay, this isn’t what I wanted, I’m not saying that I don’t care for you, of course, I love you, but—” 

“It’s not the same.”

She squeezes me tighter. “Is that not enough?”

I move my hands to remove her arms, and I tell her, “No, not it’s not.”

I can’t quite meet her eye, and if I did I may have broken down again, and tried pretending to feel something I don’t.

Her hands just hold there, in their air, as I rip away from them.

“We have more important things to worry about than me,” I remind her, “people don’t always love someone who loves them the same, that’s just life. You can’t protect me from that.” 

As I take a step away from her embrace, I tell her, “Just… let me be. Don’t try to talk about this, because, well… that just hurts.” I start walking to the locker room to get changed, to be alone. 

“I’m so sorry, Clay,” I hear her call to me.
I don’t answer, I just get to the locker room and shut the door behind me as quickly as I can.I can’t take another step before I’m falling back against the door, gripping my head in my hands. “Clay, you… you fucking moron.”