Dan was helping the plumbing crew fix a break in the main dorm’s wastewater extraction system when Bo burst through the door. To Dan’s surprise, he didn’t even bother to say hello.

“You’ve got to hide me!” Bo looked left, then right, searching for a hiding space large enough to conceal his considerable bulk.

Dan didn’t understand exactly what was going on, and what he felt through their link was confusing to say the least; not dangerous, just…odd. “Here,” Dan said, pulling a large plastic tank out of a cabinet and pushing Bo inside in its place.

He’d barely had time to latch it shut when the door opened behind him. What entered the room wasn’t a two headed monster with a medieval weapon in each hand and blood dripping from its fangs, but a charming panda varius holding a clipboard and a med kit.

She gave Dan a pretty smile. “Excuse me, have you seen Mr. Taylor?”

Dan was caught off guard. “Uh,” he stammered, then regained his composure as Bo gave him a swift kick in the mental pants through their link. Dan was miserable at lying so he misdirected instead. “Oh, wow, are you giving everyone a shot? I don’t care for injections. When I was little I went to the doctor and he told me it wouldn’t hurt at all, but of course it did, and I think that was when I started not liking to get shots. I mean, nobody really likes them, but I really hate them, you know? It’s one of those things that nobody really thinks about, but I do. I think about a lot of things...”

He continued to prattle, and it wasn’t long before her eyes began to glaze over. She began to drift towards the door, and the instant Dan paused to draw breath she made her escape. “Sorry to bother you!” she called out as she slipped around the corner and closed the door behind her.

Dan quietly moved over to the door and slid the bolt shut before unlatching the closet and helping Bo extricate himself. “That was an awful lot of trouble to go through just to avoid a little shot,” Dan said, helping Bo straighten his rumpled fur in places the varius couldn’t reach.

“It’s not just a shot, it’s a big shot,” Bo clarified, “and she wants to give it to me in the hiney.”

A wide smile lit up Dan’s face. “I can’t believe you’re being such a prude.”

Bo protested. “I don’t want anyone looking at my butt! Especially her.” Ears tucked, he rubbed his hands nervously. “She wants babies.”

“Oh, please,” Dan scoffed, “she’s a medical professional who’s trying to do her job. Your butt is nothing to her but an injection site.”

Looking exasperated, Bo sent Dan a memory through their link. Dan watched the panda varius who just left the room bend slightly at the waist in front of him in a rather provocative manner, then slowly lift her skirt to reveal her…

“Hey!” Dan yelped, slamming the link shut at the last instant, “I don’t even want to think about that!” He looked horrified. "God," he yelped, rubbing his eyes in a vain attempt to scrub away the vision. "I want bleach!"

Bo chuckled. “Told you! She’s got the urge to merge and won't take ‘no’ for an answer.” He twirled the size-eighteen wedding band on his finger. “It’s obvious that I’m not swimming in her genetic pool, but she won't give up."

Heat flushed across Dan's cheeks. “Then maybe I should try to get the message across.”

Bo had images of Dan unloading on the young varius, and suddenly almost felt sorry for her. He’d only seen Dan go off on someone twice in the past, and both times had left him close to speechless. “That’s probably not such a good idea, buddy,” Bo warned. “It’s probably not smart to piss off the closest thing we have to a doctor, and it’s not like she’s going to get anywhere."

Dan glowered at the door the young woman had just walked through. “I’ll play nice for now,” he growled, “But if she does anything like that again I’m going to give her an...education.”

***

The same group of church ladies who had kept the workers fed and watered while evacuating the cruise liner had moved their operation into the colony’s rudimentary kitchen, and had turned out the first meal mere hours after landing. At first, “cooking” had consisted of little more than handing out aseptic meal packs, but it hadn’t taken them long before salads composed of native plants augmented their ration packs.

Unfortunately, although the salads gave them some variety, they didn’t provide much in the way of nutrition. None of the plants they’d analyzed so far had been rich in anything the human body needed, and had it not been for the expansive vault of Terran seed stocks they’d brought with them, Dan would have been worried. It struck him as bizarre that a world could exist where one might stuff himself full of food, yet still die of starvation. Still, the native salads filled their bellies in a way the ration packs could only dream of, and he was thankful for them.

Pushing his way through the flaps of their improvised dining hall, Dan saw a face he recognized sitting near the back of the space. On his way there, he recognized a few of the people remaining in the tent after breakfast as administrators who had gathered with their planning teams. But others he knew as those whose bellies had not yet become empty enough to join a work crew. Some of these hold-outs remained convinced that Earth was going to dispatch a rescue team, others considered physical labor to be beneath their station. Dan had even overheard a few malcontents attributing their lack of contribution to “civil disobedience against the tyranny of the new ruling class,” whoever that was. Dan shook his head, did his best to reserve judgment, and wondered how hungry they’d have to get before they began to help build their new home.

The man Dan walked toward belonged to none of these groups. Jon Dexter hadn’t joined any of the construction crews or planning groups, yet had earned himself extra rations by seeing a need and filling it with his own unique talents. He was, as Dan called him, a “fixer.” Not a repair man, because that implied the return to functionality of a broken part. What Jon did was far more than that; he found solutions to what initially seemed impossible. Once the problem was solved Jon quickly grew bored and walked away, content to let others implement his ideas. His total self-absorption could be maddening, but what he had done so far had been so helpful that Dan found it easy to overlook the man’s peculiarities.

Other people in their group weren’t as willing, and Dan thought that part of their stubborn dislike had to be attributed to the orange jumpsuit Jon had been wearing when he set foot on their new planet. Dan, however, had no qualms about giving anyone a second chance. Jon had been incarcerated for some sort of white-collar crime and the man didn’t have any desire to associate with the half-dozen other ex-cons, but that was all Dan knew for certain of his past.

What Dan guessed was that the shock of separation from society, combined with the ordeal of slogging through the legal system, had taught Jon whatever life lessons he’d needed to learn. The man who had emerged from that experience had never seemed to be anything but helpful and friendly, and Dan trusted him.

“Mind if I sit down?” Dan asked.

Jon looked up from the technical manual he studied and, while he didn’t exactly look pleased, he at least didn’t seem to be annoyed. He waved permission to Dan and poked the screen of his reader to set a bookmark. “What’s up?”

Dan shrugged. “I had a few minutes between projects and thought I’d see what you were up to.”

“Checking up on me?” Jon instantly sounded suspicious.

Dan warmed his hands around his mug and shook his head. “Nah. You’ve got the most interesting work, that’s all.” He peered at the other man’s tablet and read slowly aloud what he could make out above a page of dense text and equations that looked more to him like Sanskrit. “Derivation of the Friis transmission formula,” he read, slowly. “What the hell is that?”

Jon turned his reader around so that Dan could better see what he was reading. “I’ve been working on extending our comm system,” he explained. “The Friis equations calculate the power at a remote antenna as a function of of power density of the incident wave and the effective aperture of the receiving antenna…” Noticing Dan’s blank expression, he started again. “I’m making it better.”

This, Dan understood. “Yesterday I heard someone telling Bo that cranking up the transmitters would blow out the radios, and most of the hardware is locked and can’t be moved over to another frequency that takes less power. So what were you thinking about?”

Jon tossed his comm on the table between them. “Consumer comms have a range of maybe twenty-five kilometers, tops. I think I can double that, probably more, not with a single, big improvement, but a bunch of small ones. Frequency and power are pretty much stuck where they are, but there are a bunch of other improvements we can make.

“The manufacturers do everything they can to make these things pretty but they do very little to make them actually work well. They took away the antenna and gave it this.” He pointed to the shiny, metallic strip running the circumference of his comm. “I don’t give a shit what it looks like, so I’m going to put the antenna back. And your everyday worker bee wants to be able to move around while they talk, so the beam pattern’s omnidirectional, which is a huge waste of power. Ours will be directional, for better distance.

“But that’s still not our biggest problem,” he said.

“Satellites?” Dan guessed.

Jon nodded. “Or lack thereof. Most of Earth’s communications grid runs through at least one satellite. All that fabulous technology orbiting the planet is what allows the equipment on the ground to be so simple. Since we didn’t happen to bring any satellites with us, we’re going to be limited by the horizon. I think we can pull one of the signal repeaters out of a shuttle and put it on top of that big mountain to our south, where it has a clear line of sight for a hundred kilometers.”:

“Theoretically,” Dan said, slowly. “Will it really work like that?”

Jon shrugged. “Feed the output of a big receiver into the input of a big transmitter, and you’ll make a big noise.”

“Feedback?” Dan guessed.

“Probably,” Jon shrugged again. “Who knows? We’re going to have to do some tuning, one way or the other. We’ll just try it and see what happens.”

As always, Dan was amazed by this man. His unflappable sense of self-confidence was utterly alien to Dan’s experience. From the trivial to the monumental, nothing seemed to rattle him. He notice Dan’s gaze. “Whatever it is, go ahead and ask.”

Dan waved him off, tiredly. “Sorry. Has nothing to do with the project. My mind was wandering.”

“That just makes it interesting. Go ahead.“

Dan thought for a moment, then chose his words carefully. “What did you do before? In your previous life?”

“Computer research,” Jon said, instantly. “A.I. It was the one field I could find where everything could be new, every day.”

“You obviously know your stuff,” Dan said, “You could have been making a hundred-thou a year working at any company you wanted.”

“So why was I in the belly of that ship wearing an orange jumpsuit that chafed at the crotch instead of playing shuffleboard above decks with the paying passengers?” Jon asked the question that Dan was dancing around, then nodded and leaned back in his chair. After a moment, he sat back up. “I didn’t need a hundred thousand credits a year because I was already making double that working as a systems analyst for the second-largest network security firm in the world.”

“Why not the largest?” Dan ribbed him.

“Because the largest security company is in Poland, and the man who’s in my chair is a nasty old Asian dude who won’t quit and refuses to die.”

Dan laughed and gestured for Jon to continue.

“Anyway,” Jon warmed to his story, “there I was making a quarter-million a year at the tender age of twenty-six. I had what every computer geek dreams of, and I was bored out of my mind. Then one night I was watching the news, and there was this terrorist scumbag bragging how he was so smart, nobody could catch him.” Jon took a drink, washing down the last of his lunch. “I must have seen a hundred guys like him before, but something about this guy really pissed me off. He was just so fucking arrogant! So I got on the net and tapped into his personal files. I sent a copy of what I’d found to the feds, and within twenty-four hours he was in custody.”

“And they arrested you for that?” Dan asked, incredulous.

Jon shot him an impish grin. “Well, no. Not exactly. Right before I turned him in, I drained his accounts and made big donations to every victim rights group I could find. Turns out, the feds were closer to catching him than I had thought. They already had monitors on all of his accounts and they were able to trace the data stream back to me. I have no idea how they did it, through all of my proxies and ghost accounts and shells, but they did. They must have had some truly amazing hardware to play with.

Anyway, you might be surprised to learn that stealing from a terrorist asshole is still considered stealing, and even though I didn’t make a penny on the job they threw my ass in jail.

“He didn’t get the money back, did he?”

“Hell no,” Jon grinned proudly. “They ended up recovering less than three percent. But to be honest, I don’t think they were looking very hard for the rest of it. I think the only reason they arrested me was because someone higher up told them they had to.”

“No good deed goes unpunished?”

Jon shrugged. “Maybe. But you know what? I’d do it again in a heartbeat. Not only did I get the satisfaction of putting that pussbag away, I helped a bunch of people. And in prison, I learned more about nefarious coding than I could ever have in a university. Some of the guys in here-” he stopped for a moment, remembering that he was now a free man. ”In there, I mean, are absolute geniuses at running a con. If they had half my talent with computers they’d be unstoppable.”

“So back to the original subject - how long do you think it’ll be before you can have the new comm grid up and running?”

Jon made a face as he gathered up the remains of his lunch. “Everything seems to be working and the tests all come back fine, but there’s some sort of periodic interference that keeps forcing the system to reset.” He pushed a few buttons on his reader and turned it around to show Dan. “Here’s a graph over time.” He pointed to a short, pulsed burst of noise that stood out on the chart. “Every twenty-three point two eight seconds, we get this massive wad of static that blows everything out.”

Dan pulled out his personal comm and held it to his ear for a few seconds. “I don’t hear anything…” he said quietly, as he listened.

“You won’t,” Jon said. “That’s a digital device. If it’s not clear as a bell, you hear nothing at all. Radio waves are inherently analog, so any noise that big could leak in through the back end of the system.”

“Could it be sunspots?” Dan asked, hopefully.

Jon shook his head. “Naw. They’re too regular.” He got up to go back to his workshop. “Probably just a broken timing device on a goat milking machine, or something.” He said, frustration putting an edge in his voice. “Who knows? Whatever it is, we’ll figure it out.”

As Dan followed him out the flap that served as the tent’s door, he almost ran into Bo.

“He’s not here,” Bo announced.

“What?” Dan asked, puzzled.

“Victus.” Bo raised an eyebrow. “You were supposed to be looking for him?”

“Oh, yeah!” Dan exclaimed. “That’s why I was in there!” He turned around and went back into the tent, feeling Bo shaking his head through their link. “Not having any ADD meds isn’t doing me any favors,” he said, over his shoulder, as Bo followed him in.

Ever since the crash, Victus had been a virtual blur of activity, his anguish propelling him from crisis to crisis behind a masquerade of tranquility. Spending time in the other man’s mind had given Dan insight into the Kenzine’s personality, and he knew without a shadow of doubt that as normal as Victus might look to anyone on the outside, his calm efficiency was a façade. Victus was doing everything he could to distract himself - and everyone else - from how much he was hurting. Dan had no idea why Victus would not permit himself to grieve the loss of his partner, and this time, Bo could provide no varius insight.

Dan spotted a young woman seated at a table, pecking away at a portable data terminal. One of her legs, broken when her shuttle hit a nasty pouch of turbulent air, was wrapped in an electric blue cast and propped in front of her on an empty crate. “Hey, Cindy,” Dan greeted her. “You seen Victus?”

“No,” she murmured, as she scanned the almost empty room for the Kenzine.

“Did he pick up his lunch?”

“I don’t think so.” She checked the display of her portable terminal. “Nope. He hasn’t been through here. In fact,” she said, looking more closely, “he hasn’t picked up either of his rations today.” Her voice held genuine concern. “Is he okay?”

“I’m sure he’s fine.” The smile Dan gave her was meant to be reassuring, but he was afraid it came out looking too forced to look authentic. For over a week now, Dan had watched as his friend worked tirelessly, slept fitfully, and when required to do so, shoved food into his muzzle with mechanical determination. Missing a meal was not uncommon for the man, but now that he’d missed two in a row Dan became more concerned than ever.

“He’ll be all right,” Bo reassured him, but Dan wasn’t so certain.

“I should find him. He needs to eat.”

*threatened*

Bo looked annoyed. “Can you still feel him in your head?” In spite of the fact that Victus had only entered his mate’s mind to help cure them of their debilitating nightmares, Bo disliked the thought that anyone besides he would be privy to Dan’s thoughts.

*calm*

“Don’t worry about it, babe. I don’t think this is anything he left behind on purpose, and it’s fading every day.”

*disgruntled*

“Do you think I should go find him?” Dan asked, pointedly ignoring his husband’s suspicions.

“Has he asked for your help?” Bo asked, bluntly. “If he hasn’t, he probably doesn’t want it.”

“Hmmm...” Dan had always made it a point to follow Bo’s advice where other varii were concerned, but this time felt different somehow. Not only was this personal, Victus had been raised by sapiens and might react in ways different than his genetics might suggest. Not everyone, not even every varius, was as independent as Bo.

He made up his mind. Just because he and Bo could see each other's thoughts didn’t mean that, given the same data, they always came to the same conclusions. “I’ll be back in a little while,” he said, slapping Bo’s shoulder reassuringly on his way out. “I’m going to find him.”

“You want me to come along?”

*hopeful*

Dan paused to consider the offer. As much as he enjoyed having Bo nearby, he thought that Victus might appreciate a little privacy right now. “Let me find him first, then give us a few minutes, okay?” he compromised. He walked out the door, feeling vaguely guilty that he was spending time searching for his friend instead of putting his time in on a crew. His dinner ration would be cut in half, but there was nothing he could do about that. Family came first, and Victus was family. Perhaps an extra portion of native “salad” would fill his growling belly when the time came. In the meantime, Dan thought he knew where Victus might be hiding...

***

Thin tendrils of incense smoke rose straight as reeds through the still air, drawing gray lines between the white, ceramic pots on the altar before him and the heavy-beamed ceiling above. Seven identical porcelain bowls, filled to the rim with clean water, had been arranged across the altar with almost mechanical precision. Reminding himself that perfection was found in imperfection, Victus carefully moved one of the bowls ever so slightly from its place before taking a step back and sitting on his cushion.

To his right, Victus could see a picture of a handsome pair of lupine varii, resting on a similar but smaller altar upon which was placed fruit and candles. This was the shrine he had constructed decades earlier as a way to honor his dead parents. These two lovely people had made him the center of their lives, until their untimely deaths left him drowning in an ocean of confusion and pain.

His adoption by Master Dagen had done much to restore balance to his world, especially after the man had encouraged him to celebrate the lives of his mother and father instead of relegating them to the dustbins of history as Victus feared he would. The young varius’ sense of loyalty had rebelled at first, refusing to allow his current and past families to blend. But eventually, he’d accepted the wisdom of accepting both families as true, and of loving them both without reservation.

Dagen had helped him build a physical shrine to his dead parents’ memory, not to worship the past but to remember their love. Maintaining the fruit, candles, and incense was an easy, daily duty for a child, allowing him the opportunity to both honor them and ease a portion of the damage caused by their passing. Whenever his travels took him away from the abbey, this altar in the sanctuary of his mind ensured that they always would be near. Taking a deep breath, he admitted that, loathe as he was to do so, it was now time to add another picture.

Concentrating, he brought to mind the image of a german shepherd varius with distinctly rottweiler features, wearing a jaunty kilt and a roguish smile. It was Lucas on their last day together. The kilt not only showed off his physique at its peak, it added to the air of fun and cocky self-assuredness the man wore like a badge of honor. It was Victus’ last good memory of his mate, remembered at a time when their world seemed so full of hope.

The picture of his parents slowly slid to one side, making room for the new one to take its rightful place of honor beside them. In this new picture Lucas had an eyebrow and one ear playfully raised. From that first day in the dungeons, dirty and bedraggled though they were, Victus had always loved those ears. It was a good memory, and it was how the wolf wanted to remember him. Jesus Christ, he thought, feeling moisture wetting the cheeks of his physical body, I’m crying again.

He rose from his cushion. His mind visualized the space around him as a simple box of bamboo flooring and paper walls, ornamented by nothing more than the altar on the wall and a red kneeling cushion. Only the basics were here, now. The subdued art that used to adorn the walls was gone, his strained mind unable to maintain it in the midst of his grief. The paper screen whispered open at his touch to reveal a traditional courtyard, complete with garden and pond. Determined to return some normalcy to his life, he forced there to be koi carp swimming between the stems of the pond’s water lilies.

Quietly, as he navigated the stepping stones traversing the pond, he pondered where life was taking him. His relationship with Lucas had been utterly unexpected, and he doubted he would ever find his like again. He would very much have liked to discuss these things with his father, Dagen, but that was no longer possible. The one man he’d been able to trust with his innermost secrets was a million-million kilometers away, perhaps never to be seen again.

He walked back to his altar of memory. The lit candles offered an almost holy glow, nearly as yellow as his eyes. His inner vision started to blur at the corner as if a tear had formed, but there could be no tears in the eyes of the mind. …Interruption.

What Dan had told Bo was true - his connection with the Kenzine was indeed fading. But it was still strong enough to guide him to where the man had isolated himself. The bright spark of Victus’ mind led Dan to him like a compass pointing north, and Dan found his friend sitting on a large, flat rock overlooking their impromptu colony. He didn’t seem to be meditating, he appeared to be just sitting there, as still as if his mind had turned itself off.

Victus was aware of Dan’s approach because the man made no attempt at stealth, but neither man made a move to speak. Leaving a respectful space between them, Dan quietly sat next to the Kenzine.

The sapiens man faced the same direction but was far enough away to be just outside Victus’ field of view. If he had wanted, the wolf could have pretended that he was still alone. He knew that by doing this, Dan was offering support without demanding his attention. More than anything else Dan could have done, Victus appreciated this discretion. No verbal commiserations or physical attention could have provided the comfort of his silent presence. Dan had taken the time and made the effort to seek him out, and wanted only to be in his presence.

Victus felt wanted.

The Kenzine had been prepared to shut out anyone who approached to give sympathy, to keep his stony silence and deny himself any relief from his vigil, but without intent he found himself rising to one knee and turning to Dan, whose arms were already open wide to comfort him. Victus needed this human contact more desperately than he was willing to admit, and he allowed his carefully constructed walls to fall.

It was strange, Dan thought. Even when he mourned, the Kenzine was the model of decorum. He was not racked with ugly sobs, but expressed his grief through tears and a tight hug. If it hadn't been for the wetness on his neck and shoulder and the slight catch in the man's breathing, Dan would not even have realized what was happening.

When Victus had calmed, he found the barriers to his speech had disappeared. “When my parents died, it hurt so much that I thought it burned out the part of me that could feel this way.” His eyes were darting all around them, but he saw nothing but his loss. “Now it’s back, and it’s even worse.

“We were together every day for almost a year, and he taught me to see the world in a new way," he continued. "He stretched out my heart, and now that he’s not there to maintain the new shape, it’s just...collapsed.”

Victus was so used to being in control of his emotions that letting them run free this way felt like spinning wildly out of control. He knew that he was jumping from thought to thought with abandon and probably didn’t quite sound sane, but his friend regarded him with the same compassionate attention he would have, had the varius been in control. Unable to remain still for one second longer, the Kenzine stood and began to pace.

“The saddest thing is, I used to counsel people through their grief so I know exactly what I’d say to someone in my position.” He looked up, and Dan thought the expression in his eyes reflected more than a little self-loathing. “I should be happy for the time we had," Victus paraphrased. His bark of laughter was bitter. “If we ever get off this rock, I’m going to find every person I ever told that to and beg their forgiveness, because it was such a fucking stupid thing to say.

“This is killing me, Dan,” he admitted, balling his fists in anger. “I should be happy for what we had, but I’m not. I should be content with the amount of love I’ve received in this life, but I’m not. I should be more concerned about the living than I am the dead, but I’m not.” He stopped pacing and stared over the promontory overlooking the encampment.

“Fifteen years ago I took an oath of peace and service, and since then I’ve lived every waking minute of my life believing that all life is sacred. But right now...” he turned to Dan, eyes filled with what could only be fear as he gestured to the people milling around below them, his fangs bared in confused aggression. “Right now I’d sacrifice every stinking person in that camp if it would bring Lucas back.”

Shame burned his ears. “To think like this...” he trailed off for a moment, thinking carefully before starting again. He gathered Kenzine calmness about him like a cloak. When he spoke again, his voice lowered and had regained its control. “To think like this is contrary to everything I’ve learned and everything I’ve taught.” He reached a handpaw down to Dan, but paused in mid-motion. Even through the haze of his grief he realized that he might not look quite sane right now, and the last thing he wanted to do was alarm his friend.

But he very much needed the contact, and after a moment his hand finished its journey to Dan's shoulder, albeit more slowly, hoping that the man would understand him well enough not to flinch away. The sapien’s eyes did hold a kernel of trepidation, but they were also bright with compassion. “If this is what it’s like, I don’t know if I can ever trust myself to love someone like that again, Dan. It’s too dangerous.”

After a brief moment’s consideration, Dan nodded somberly and said what Victus dreaded to hear.

“You’re a monster.”

And after a second’s pause to let his words penetrate, Dan shrugged off Victus’ handpaw and did the last thing the wolf expected. Walking fearlessly into the varius’ space, Dan embraced him like a mother might comfort a damaged child. Dan’s right hand reached up and behind the warrior’s head and pulled it gently down until it rested on his shoulder, releasing a flood of emotion from the larger man.

Victus sank to his knees, embracing his friend and soaking up the compassion he offered. Dan tucked the massive lupine head under his chin and spoke softly into the grey-furred ear. “We’re all monsters when we lose someone we love, Vic.” He petted the ferocious-looking wolf’s head in long, tender strokes. “You’re one of us, now.”

After a few more moments in silence, Victus gave Dan a hug and a pat on the back, the universal sign for, “Thanks, but I’ve had enough,” then pulled back slightly. He gave his nose a healthy sniff in an ineffective bid to clear it, then turned to walk down the path they’d come up what seemed like a lifetime earlier.

The next time Victus spoke, his voice was closer to its normal tone. “He taught me that life is something I can live instead of always watching from a distance.” He sighed, sounding very tired. “There’s a huge hole in my life where he used to be, Dan, and it scares the shit out of me.”

“You’re not alone, Vic,” Dan said, earnestly, “don’t ever think you are. I’ll be here for you, and so will Bo. I’ve kept what you’ve said private, but he knows you’re hurting and he wants to help.”

Victus couldn’t help chuckling softly. “He’s been kicked so many times, but he still cares, doesn’t he?” He shook his head, almost sadly. “You’re perfect for one another. You and Bo, you two... you're seamless together. A single entity.

"Lucas and I?" He sighed sadly, "We were like a pulsar, two stars endlessly spinning in each other's gravitational field, throwing off tons of energy but never able to connect.” He looked at Dan expressively. “I was very much looking forward to having that sense of one-ness with him. It felt so right," he admitted, “and for the first time I can remember I let myself covet something.” His gaze unfocused, staring off into God-only-knew-what. “But it never happened."

He shook his head ruefully as he changed the subject. “I’m sorry Dan.”

“About what?’ Dan asked. “There’s nothing to be sorry about.”

“Even in the short time we've known each other, I feel like I’ve provided you more than your share of burdens.”

A burden? To the contrary, Dan felt honored to be the person Victus had confided in. “Any friendship worth having is like any other investment,” he said, quoting what his grandfather had told him decades ago. “It’s never free, but it’s usually worth the cost.”