Family (Dreamhealers 5)
Family (Dreamhealers 5)
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Xenotherapist Vasiht’h always thought himself as lucky to have befriended one of the rare and fascinating Eldritch, a man who’s served as partner in their counseling practice for years without Vasiht’h ever really learning anything of his background… so when Jahir invites him home for a cousin’s wedding, he is eager for the chance to find out more about these enigmatic aliens, and his friend in particular.
Naturally, he gets more than he bargains for. By the end of his trip, he’ll either know all Jahir’s secrets…or he’ll be dead…
Genre (setting): space opera (Pelted)
Tags: found family, space opera, pastoral, low conflict, asexual, furries, elves (space)
Rating: PG for emotional situations
Excerpt from Family
The mindline had gone blank. Not as if it had been cut... but an imitation, complete with soft hissing white noise... the background noise of the universe, as imagined by another mind.
Vasiht'h looked up from the hot chocolate he was making in their abbreviated kitchen. When the mindline didn't swell back to its normal state, he poked his head out the door, feathered ears flaring. "Jahir? Is something wrong?"
His Eldritch partner was seated in front of their comm screen, which had gone dark. He was breathing: Vasiht'h could just see the lift of broad shoulders against the fine white hair that fell past them to the man's ribs. But otherwise, he was so still he might as well have been a statue. Vasiht'h tried again. "Jahir?"
"Oh, mm? Sorry." The Eldritch twisted a little in his seat to face him. "I didn't hear you."
"Apparently," Vasiht'h said, padding into the room, paws hushed on the carpet. "Are you okay? The mindline blanked."
"God, did it?" Jahir said, recovering his sense of humor. Vasiht'h watched animation return to that face, one he'd known for so many years now: human in seeming with a strong jaw and high cheekbones, but with skin pale as salt and eyes so deep a yellow they neared orange. Not human, Jahir, but Eldritch: an esper species rare and xenophobic and almost never found off their world. But this Eldritch had left his, and he was Vasiht'h's.
As far as Vasiht'h was concerned, anyway. He prodded the mindline that connected them gently until some color and life bloomed in it.
"Right," Jahir said, and drew in a deep breath. "How do you feel about a vacation?"
"Away from the starbase?" Vasiht'h asked, catching a whiff of exotic perfume and a hint of green things from their connection.
"Away from the starbase," Jahir agreed. "In fact... all the way home."
Vasiht'h stared at him.
Jahir returned to contemplation of the comm screen. "My mother sent me a message... one of my cousins is getting married. She'd like as much of the family to attend as possible."
"I... I'd love to go," Vasiht'h said. "But... did the invitation include me? I didn't think aliens were welcome on your world."
"Not usually," Jahir agreed. "But I've spoken of you, of course, when I wrote home, and my mother specifically mentioned you coming."
Vasiht'h tried to figure out what was going on in his partner's head. The mindline remained devoid of anything but that tantalizing fragrance and hint of green. Nor did he see anything in the man's face. "You," he said after a moment, "...are blocking something?"
"Not... precisely," Jahir said. He ran a hand over his head, hair hissing away from his hand as it swung back in place. "I honestly don't know what to think of it. I haven't been home in a long time—not since we were in school together." He blew out a breath and managed a lopsided smile. "There's a reason I left."
"You didn't like it," Vasiht'h said, letting his centauroid haunches settle and refolding the wings that covered his second back. "I'd guessed as much."
"But it would be nice to see family," Jahir said. "Some of them, at least. And Mother would not have asked, had she not thought it important for me to be there."
Vasiht'h sampled the new taste in the mindline between them. "She misses you."
"I think she might," Jahir agreed.
"Well, if you really think I'd be welcome..."
"I'd like you to come," Jahir said, the mindline saturating with a smell like nostalgia: Vasiht'h's mind rendered it as the pine-amber scent of the oil his grandfather had worked into wood while polishing it. "It would be a hint of normalcy, you know, amid my lunatic relatives."
Vasiht'h eyed him. "You're not making me feel better about this."
Jahir laughed. "That makes two of us." He lifted his brows. "You're not excited about being the first Glaseah to visit the world of the reclusive Eldritch?"
"Maybe a little," Vasiht'h admitted. "And maybe a little worried. When do we leave?"
Jahir said, "One week."
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