Olivier was pacing. He liked pacing, his mother not so much. There had been several spots in his childhood bedroom—which technically still was his bedroom, even if he preferred the apartment near his former university that he spent far too much continuing to rent in order to stay as far from his mother as possible—that creaked when stepped too close to. Really, they should have been fixed long ago. Olivier wasn’t convinced his mother hadn’t left them simply so she could hear when he was moving.
How dare he want to move while studying?
How dare he wish to take a small break from the piles of books she demanded he read in his every waking moment?
How dare he have anxious energy that needed to be let out
somehow?
Instead, he had been forced to push it inwards. Down, down, down until it was so terrible it had begun to eat him up, thoughts of snuffing his life out taking shape until they shattered under the love of his cousins, other forms of self-harm filling his life because he needed
something
to act as an outlet for his pain, his anxiety, his loneliness.
It had been years since he’d done anything so drastic even he had been concerned for his wellbeing, well over a decade since the thought of just ending it all was even a flicker of remembrance in his mind. Mostly, such thoughts had ceased after he was introduced to other, healthier ways of grabbing control wherever he could. Each little bit of his life he could control was another drip of calm into him—a drip, drip, drip of peace within his mind.
Olivier needed that right now, his mind swirling because what the fuck was he doing!?
He knew what he was doing, of course: acting like an irrational, jealous lover to someone who definitely wasn’t his lover. Maybe Emilia was his friend, but even that was a giant maybe, especially after the way he had acted after seeing her with that Dionese man.
That man… Olivier couldn’t even explain it. Something about Emilia just seemed to make him
feel things.
Some of those things he knew came from within himself—jealousy, desire, ever-growing affection—other things… he had no idea. It seemed like too much to claim that he was being gifted feeling after feeling by the aether. First, there had been that strange feeling that if he didn’t take her case—didn’t make sure she didn’t spend a single day in prison—he would regret it. Then, watching her talk to that man—Caoshun Huiya—Olivier had known—
known
—that if he didn’t keep Emilia with him, she would end up in the Dionese man’s bed. It didn’t matter that Caoshun Huiya was older, nor that he apparently had a child her age; Emilia would have ended up there—might even have turned up to their excursion tomorrow covered in not just marks of his love making but his clothes as well.
The rage Olivier had felt at the idea that Emilia would find her way into Caoshun Huiya’s bed, her body clothed in things that had previously pressed against his skin… He had never felt anything like that before, and as he paced, Emilia tucked into the bathroom to bathe and pamper herself with the obscene number of products he’d bought her because he had wanted to spoil her in recompense for his shit mood, he tried to figure out what was different about
that man.
Even imagining the three Hyrat boys were on board, dragging Emilia into their room, or perhaps that Halen had decided to follow them further into the Free Colonies… No, for them, Olivier didn’t think he would feel this amount of jealous rage. A touch of a desire to—mortifying as it was—join them, perhaps. Some amount of jealousy that they could have her while he couldn’t, yes. Nothing near the hatred he could feel rolling off him at the mere idea of Caoshun Huiya touching Emilia. Just his energy brushing over her had sent him surging towards them, intent to rip the silverstrain away from the Dionese man. If Emilia were to try and join him in bed, Olivier wasn’t sure what he would do.
Nothing good, certainly.
Olivier turned and paced in the other direction. Turned. Paced. The room was far too small for the amount of energy he needed to expel. He could go pace the hallway, but the last thing he needed was someone coming across him when he was like this. Then again, here, Emilia was likely to wander out and find him pacing and ask why—not that she didn’t already know something was wrong, each of her questions cracking a hole in him because he hadn’t trusted himself to answer without bite and none of this was her fault.
No, this was all him being weird and awkward. Communication wasn’t his strong suit in the best of conditions, and this definitely wasn’t that. Honestly, he was just lucky that Emilia was who she was—someone sweet and kind when needed, all of her teasing and tormenting falling away until—
Until she’d been so well-behaved, her eyes turning downwards in submission that had left him fighting his cock down as he wandered the convenience store, prompting his Censor to direct him to things that Emilia would appreciate while staying in his room but might have been a little too much. Not enough to make her suspicious that he was buying things just to spoil her, but enough to make her both happy and a little concerned about what sort of advice his Censor was giving him, he thought.
Fuck had she been happy, reading over the instructions and ingredients on things as she pressed into his side. They hadn’t quite been cuddling, but it had been so close—so much, and yet, not nearly enough.
The worst part was, Olivier knew all he had to do was ask. If he asked Emilia to spend the night with him, she would agree. Probably, she would agree happily and enthusiastically. If they were compatible—and given the way she had submitted so well earlier, Olivier had no doubt they would be, even if she was brattier than he usually preferred in his hookups—Emilia would probably be happy enough to spend the rest of the trip sleeping in his arms.
He could ask, get a yes, and then spend a week enjoying her comfort and spark. Then, the guilt would come—the unfortunate reality that he would have to look at her, knowing what it felt like to be buried inside her, and tell her he still couldn’t take her case.
Emilia wouldn’t hold it against him, but he would hate himself all the same.
Even now, not having given in to her beautiful, disastrous temptation, Olivier found his self-hatred growing moment by moment. Would a stronger man—one who wasn’t so beholden to his mother—have been able to say yes? Would that man be able to follow his heart—follow the
will of the aether
as his father had called it in the short conversation they had had about his heritage when Olivier was barely two?
Olivier didn’t even think his father knew he remembered that, young as he’d been. Reticent as he’d always been, at two, he had still barely spoken, even if he understood practically everything happening around him. So many secrets had been spilled next to his ears during those first years of life, before it had become clear how intelligent he was. Then, lips had sealed as though the adults of his family had known, even then, how he would be their downfall, eventually.
To give up that mission—to alter the trajectory of his and his cousins’ lives—all so he could help Emilia…
“Olivier?”
Olivier was sure his eyes were huge when he spun back to Emilia, emerging from the bathroom in nothing but a towel.
Fuck. When had he disappeared so fully into his head that the multiple warnings from his Censor that the water had stopped hadn’t managed to reach him?
“Are you okay?”
Big purple eyes blinked at him, something between concern and amusement dancing in them because he was staring. Currently, he was at least staring at Emilia’s eyes. Olivier was pretty sure he had been slowly taking in the lines of her moments before. Ironically, the towel covered more than that devious ribbon dress had. The difference was that half a dozen ribbons would have needed to be pulled free for that dress to fall off her—a dozen moments for Olivier to recover his sanity and realize stripping Emilia was a bad idea. All it would take was three steps and one tug for that towel to be tumbling to the floor. A few more steps, and Emilia would be falling to the bed, Olivier able to fall to his knees and tug her legs over his shoulders and—
“I’m fine,” Olivier lied. It wasn’t even a good lie, his voice layered in strain and want. Hopefully Emilia would only hear the strain. Given she already knew he was upset about
something
, maybe she would only hear the strain and stress and lingering upset.
Of course, now he was just upset he couldn’t have her. That was still upset, and even vaguely related to his ire at the possibility of Emilia ending up in Caoshun Huiya’s bed. Therefore, if Olivier bent the definition of
lingering
a bit, surely it counted as
lingering upset?
Maybe?
As though she could hear his internal debate over specific wordings and their legitimacy, Emilia lifted an eyebrow, her mouth screwing up into an adorably disbelieving line. Probably, the girl just didn’t believe he was fine. Somehow, it felt like she could see into his very soul and pull the pieces of him out to examine at her leisure.
“Do you have some clothes I can steal? I can put on my other clothes, but since I might not be able to get into my room before we go out tomorrow, it might be best not to sleep in them.”
Clothes. Emilia in his clothes.
Fuck.
What had he done to bring so much of the aether’s cruelty upon himself? He was a good person, most of the time. Sure, he should probably tell his mother to fuck off, but he had plans to disrupt her power which would be far more effective in a few decades. Yes, he could be petty, but he was also excellent at holding his tongue and not telling his students that some of them were wastes of oxygen.
Really, he didn’t think he deserved to be tortured like this!
Olivier motioned Emilia towards his suitcase, not trusting himself to give her anything, his mind already racing towards the sweater that would hang loose around her, cutting off just barely above the curve of her ass and leaving just the barest sliver of skin on display. “Take whatever you like,” he managed to say, turning away and trying to distract himself with thinking about the bed situation.
That was what he had been doing before the pacing, but thinking about the bed and couch—the exceptionally uncomfortable couch—had just led his mind down the path of imagining telling Emilia they could surely manage to share the bed. One of them would inevitably reach for the other in the safe darkness, fingers and bodies brushing together until—
Behind him, Emilia was humming away as she searched through his things. If he turned around, would he find her leaning over, leaving her ass and pussy on display to him, or would she be squatting, everything hidden but her mouth in the perfect position for him to just wander over and—
Yeah, there was no way they could spend the night in the same bed. He was not to be trusted, and even if he managed to hold himself back from just begging Emilia to fuck him, if she reached out first? If she even hinted at an offer to have sex with him? He would break—he would shatter and lose his mind and only come back to himself after an orgasm or two.
“I’ll be back!” Emilia cheered, disappearing back into the bathroom.
A beat passed, two, no click of the bathroom door closing followed Emilia’s bouncing steps across the room.
Olivier shouldn’t look—he
knew
he shouldn’t, that strange feeling that had been chasing him since he’d first seen Caoshun Huiya’s energy sliding over Emilia filling him with a premonition that to look would be wonderful and yet make everything so much harder.
Still, he looked—a small slip in his control that left him staring after Emilia as she frowned down at one of the serums he’d gotten her, the door slowly sliding back open because she hadn’t closed it completely and the ship was tilting slightly. What an odd thing, for the ship to not only tilt, but for the doors to open and close with its movements. Leaving the door open probably hadn’t been purposeful—for as much as Emilia was clearly attracted to him, Olivier didn’t think she was the sort to violate someone’s consent like that—but open it was.
It was barely more than a glance—Olivier had no intention of violating Emilia’s consent either—but his brain still catalogued every detail of the moment. The small frown of concentration as the silverstrain read the label. The way she had crossed one leg in front of the other, her hip resting against the vanity.
It was barely more than a glance, but Olivier took too long to pull his eyes away. Suddenly, Emilia was shifting, her towel falling to the ground and all Olivier could remember was the curve of her ass and hips, phantom images of his hands wrapping around them as he fucked into her filling his mind before he was moving, racing out of the room before he let his dick make all the decisions.
He needed to move—to run before he found himself pushing Emilia over the nearest surface and just taking her, his Censor unhelpfully reminding him that the girl had given him consent that first day they met, when she’d offered to let him fuck her in exchange for help with her case. It hadn’t mattered that he’d said no; she’d never revoked consent. Of course, she could revoke it if he tried fucking her. Chances were she wouldn’t and didn’t that just make it so much harder to force himself forward, out of the room and into the hall so he could bolt, his legs taking him away when all he wanted to do was go back and take what Emilia was offering, things he wouldn’t—couldn’t—let himself take.
.
!
Arc 9 | Chapter 332: Pacing My Anxiety Away
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