Discord

His brother’s ship is strung like a jewel over a planet so inconsequential that it hasn’t a name, only a number. A homely kind of place, and the vessel hangs off its orbit like a limpet.

The monstrosity himself is waiting for him in the bathroom at the heart of the ship, to which a dozen winding walkways lead and where the decor is as melodramatic as the lighting. All black glass and black tile everywhere, shot through with gilt wires. They’re heated — this Titus can tell even through the soles of his shoes — and the air itself simmers with a dry heat, in contrast to which the centrally-placed pool of water gives off a palpable coolness. It would be inviting, if not for his brother’s presence in the midst of it like the stone at the middle of a plum.

Why couldn’t it have been another one of them? Someone who hadn’t wormed himself into the role of chief negotiator. He had no business in the current expansion campaign, lolling around on the outskirts of their vast holdings — all previous understandings held that that was to be Kalique’s territory. It should have been her that day; she’d have handled it decently and with no fuss. Kalique is as all-consumingly vain as any other woman of equivalent station — there are no women of equivalent station, she’d say if she were here, not any more, not for millennia — but even she had taken structural damage more lightly than this. A few infusions to the wound site, a few visits from experts — she’d been boiled alive in an assassination attempt a few centuries back, and had taken it gracefully. A mauling at the teeth of some jumped-up Legion splice constitutes a trifle to be shrugged off, with no real harm done except to the dignity. There isn’t a thing that can’t be fixed, for the right price.

This prolonged lying-in is completely unnecessary; he’s sulking. Titus shoos away an assistive droid, which flees in a burst of synthesized apologies. (If his brother needed an interpreter he should have chosen one less offensive to aesthetics.) He has to speak up to be heard over the burbling of the pool and the thrum of the ship’s engine.

“What happened to your manners on that planet? I had to bribe my way on board, and the fee alone was an insult to the dignity of this house. Really, Balem. What would mother say?”

Titus raises his eyebrows and inclines his head, mock-expectant; his brother gestures crossly toward his marred throat. He doesn’t stand up, which would only have been polite, but his freckled shoulders square a little above the water and there’s the suggestion of a stirring beneath the surface as he slides his hips back on the ledge. (There’s a pitcher beside him, no doubt spiked with some noxious curative that even a pack of doctors couldn’t get him to ingest without an incentive attached. He’s been drinking all day, at this rate.)

Satisfied, Titus continues, confident that at least the snub has registered even if he can’t have the satisfaction of a lamed rejoinder. “You’re certainly growing luxurious. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you liked being an invalid. Do you mind if I join you?”

For Titus’ own part, he himself has never been sick a day in his life — he has continued crucial dispute proceedings with a gut full of poison and not let it impair his adherence to decorum. (It made a favorable impression on the other party, who’d been the ones to commission the poisoning in the first place, and once the sixteen hours of negotiation were over he could be sick in a basin at his leisure.) Health is this family’s stock in trade. It wouldn’t do to nurse an injury like a grudge.

He does not wait for an answer from a man incapable at the present juncture of verbalizing one. Titus sheds his coat and boots, wades in after him with an easy and buoyant step. The serum sends not-unpleasant prickles cascading over his skin like a chain reaction — Balem has his cut with perfume, the natural scent of the stuff (which Titus has long since come to think of as sharp but clean — money, after all, hardly stinks) is occluded with flowery contaminants, the odors of bygone planets. Long-dead meadows — whole gardens reduced to ash. Thinking on this, Titus looks him over with easy and unimpeded familiarity, gaze rolling over old deviations and new wounds.

Balem is in shabby shape indeed. Titus wonders if in future days he will wear his scars as easily as Kalique wears her wrinkles — haughtily, flaunting what could have been flawlessly repaired in a heartbeat with their family’s resources. Of course, Balem may not live that long. His body shines pale except for the unbandaged mess of his throat — faded from red to pink to gray, a half-opened web of scars and torn nerves. His larynx is a complicated little piece of reconstruction — not only the right dimensions and the right look (which have been well-documented in three dimensions) but the right sound, fine-tuning the acoustics to something recognizable for accounts purposes. Voice profiles are terrifically antiquated, in every respect but sentimental value. Everything important is done by geneprint these days. Perhaps this is his brother’s own costly ode to vanity. But how gratifying to finally have the last word with him.

“This sullenness must end here, brother. If you let this mishap affect this month’s quotas, your sister will have your head. You know that, don’t you? This is an economically significant season for us. What you do to amuse yourself is your own business, but next time I’d suggest something less detrimental to your health.”

Balem shifts, sending off ripples that lap at Titus’ waist. He’s hardly in residence just now — his head is lolling on his neck, his hair draggling in his eyes — but from the set of his mouth alone, he looks every bit the chagrined child. There has been talk about the legionary incident and its repercussions for the business — of course there is, what good is it being the richest family in the universe if whole worlds don’t gasp when you stumble? They’ll forget it in less than a century, forget that Balem ever was his lady mother’s obedient mouthpiece — they’ll forget Balem, and good riddance, he never did know how to have a good time.

Titus reaches into the water and finds Balem’s cock and balls, catching them up in one hand. The expression alone that crosses his brother’s face — the spasm of shock mingled with the sheer contempt that he knows so well, after so long — would have made this visit worth the while. A recriminatory rattle escapes his shredded throat, but that’s all, and he scrambles back against the smooth stone walls of the tub. His limbs are as well-sculpted as any member of the elite’s, but he’s weak as a kitten, can scarcely keep his eyes open; Balem puts up a trembling hand as if to halt him, but Titus only slinks closer, unimpeded. The water itself seems to bear him up.

“No harm done here, I hope? You never were inclined to make use of what your genetics gave you. Not for fun, anyway.” Titus adjusts his hold from a pinch to a businesslike grip, and starts pulling him off in short, cruel strokes. Balem hisses indignantly, and his grip tightens on Titus’ upper arm.

“Whatever it is that’s got you in such a mood, it can’t be that dire. You really must visit me some time,” Titus says affably. “What’s mine is yours.” If his brother likes to trifle with splices, let him have a whole stable of deer-girls, swan-girls, splices with bears and snakes and herons alongside a dozen wholly original inventions.

His brother goes rigid at the mention, broken voice straining on what might be a no, might be a never — his throat can scarcely make any sound at all but hoarse breaths of complaint, little better than croaking and just as dignified. He’s hard within moments but not happy about it — his long thighs strain as if a struggle is imminent. But they both come from the same stock, after all; Titus is just as strong as he is and far more able, certainly more nimble-fingered. He presses hard on a particular juncture. Balem inhales sharply, white with pain and eyes ground shut.

Titus persists, more forcefully now and less playful. “Stop struggling, you parasite, or I’ll put a thumb through your windpipe instead. I’m doing you a service.” Oh, it’s near-impossible not to laugh — whether they were ever children together, Titus doesn’t remember, but petulance has always been his main mode. He braces his arm and twists into another motion, a merciless kneading pressure coupled with something more decorous above.

Balem arches against him furiously, face pressed to Titus’ shoulder — he can feel the hard line of his teeth through his lip, every sputter and gasp sublimated into hardly more than a wet rattle and a ragged inhalation of breath through his nostrils. His thighs lock against him so sweetly, wet slippery legs and sharp heels digging in — it makes the little spasms that jolt him sweeter still, and if he draws himself up hoping to contend against his brother for some shreds of dignity it’s with the desperation of a drowning man.

It isn’t difficult to figure out how his brother works — just like old times, in fact. The sexual mechanism being one of the least subtle ways of making an impression, but it’ll at least give him a jolt, the slippery action of smooth palm against wet skin. More than his arousal, he hopes to incite his wrath, and results are promising — he flinches and digs at him like a clawed animal. His rings pinch and scrape at skin; he is blood-flushed with fury, terribly close and terribly warm. Titus’ lips brush his as he turns his head, and Balem presses against him with bruising harshness, as if to get some small revenge. Such savagery in those lips, and the dull burn of alcohol, and the sharp spark of immortality. This is his brother, as he recognizes him — cruel.

When he’s spent, Titus releases him and lets him drop. He gives him an encouraging clap on the thigh, without another word, and disentangles himself completely — clambering out like a diver to brush off any stray droplets as they hang on him, and shrugging into his clothes.

The water level stills itself and re-adjusts to the absence. Slack limbs stay put; in repose his brother lies back awful and freckled like a dead thing. There is no complaint but the animal sound of breathing, stunned and raw.

“Now then, back to work. You’ll be making an appearance at 0800 hours — best to be presentable.”

Balem has sunk low in the water now, up to his raw red mutilated throat, and the water has begun to spread in tints of scarlet. Titus leaves him there to stew in his own genetic material and to patch himself up at his leisure. He’ll humor him no further.

Titus does glance back, once, before making his way out the door; the trail of his own perfect wet footprints lies stretched out behind him, shining on the black tile like a track of stars.