Empyrean Iris Story Collection Vol. 4

Filling the Gasps

Author's Note: the story ended around a year ago, but oddly enough there are certain parts of the internet where it hasn't died. You guys keep things alive, and every time someone comments I get a notification. Often this results in me reading my old writing, and I have recently noticed this very annoying gap that I completely glossed over.

The first time Adam admits his feelings for Sunny we never see the aftermath, and it ticked me off. He admits his feelings and then later they are dating, and a lot of stuff just goes missing in between. I know it was because I wasn't ready or comfortable enough with the subject to write it at the time, but tonight when I got all annoyed, I realized that it's still mine, and I can write whatever and whenever I want.

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A lot of you have moved on, but if some of you found this annoying then I hope this helps fix it.

"Are we going to talk about it?"

"I don't know if I can."

"If we waited for you to be ready, we might never talk. I don't want to grow old waiting for you to figure it out, Adam."

Adam turned towards Sunny, away from the viewscreen, but paused halfway between. His head was down, and from the corner of his eye he could see a part of her body, blue carapace glittering like starlight in the late evening.

He couldn't see her face.

"Okay, but not here, not where people could walk in."

He was stalling. His heart hammered in his head. His stomach twisted into knots like his guts had become snakes.

He turned away from her and headed towards the door. He could hear her walking behind him glad that she couldn't see his face. Had he ever felt worse?

Yes.

That was an unfair question. He had felt worse, but he had never felt like this. There was some special kind of torture in social vulnerability — in confrontation. Adam knew what was coming, ever since their duel in the cargo hold, this inevitability had hung over his head like a sword suspended on a wire.

He had admitted to his feelings for her, admitted them to himself.

And then he ran away.

But even the universe, and a space dragon, could not patch up the cracks in this leaking dam, could not shove the words back in his mouth.

The walk to his rooms were too short despite the size of the ship, and before he knew it he was stepping into a familiar, safe darkness. As the door slid open, soft blue light bloomed from the strip lighting on the floor bathing his personal effects in cool ambience. As the door hissed shut behind him; he immediately regretted coming here.

He had brought her back to his space, to where he slept.

It felt intimate, too intimate.

Unsafe.

As if he was opening the walls of his mind and letting her peer inside.

They were alone now.

He heard her move behind him, and chose to walk over to the window, hands clasped behind his back as he stared out into the nebulae. Nothing could be heard here but for the distant thrumming of the engines.

He didn't want her to see how nervous he was, how sick he felt, but he knew she could.

His hands trembled.

It felt like embarrassment but somehow much worse. There was anticipation there too, the kind he didn't want to admit to.

A part of him was excited for this, hoped that something would happen, hoped that this would go the exact place the rest of him hoped it wouldn't. Even as he stared into the star field, he could feel his own walls dissolving. Thoughts and feelings he had carefully packed away were now impossible to ignore. Hiding behind the appearance of the space dragon was only a temporary fix and now there would be a reckoning.