Page 4 of Dax: Gratefully Bonded

I turned to head for my bedroom, expecting that to be the end of the conversation. For now, at least. But to my surprise, I heard Kade speak.

“When was the last time you left the apartment?” he asked, in a surprisingly soothing voice. And from his tone alone, I knew he was talking to Dax. I often addressed him in that same tone, hopeful that somehow, I wouldn’t discourage him even more. I paused, suddenly curious about the answer. It wasn’t something I had thought about in... well, ever, really.

Dax’s reply came soft and tremulous. “I haven’t left since my master brought me home.”

Aiden’s muted gasp said more than the most thunderous curses ever could. I felt that soft sound cut straight through me. Never? In a whole year, Dax had never left the apartment? He hadn’t spoken to another person in a whole fucking year?

I half turned back, and something on my face must have got Aiden’s attention, because whatever rage was boiling inside him was forestalled as he met my eyes.

“Fuck,” I muttered. Jesus, I was an even worse human being than I’d thought I was. I’d been trying to look after Dax? Bullshit. I’d been pretending he didn’t exist and now I thought I had the right to be surprised about how depressed he was?

“I’m going to get dressed,” I said, striding quickly out of the room. Running from my own mistakes. The same way I had been for the last year.

Two minutes later, I was back, dressed in faded jeans and a clean t-shirt – nothing fancy, but at least no one was going to think I was a homeless bum when we got to the café. “Are you paying for breakfast?” I asked Aiden, just to see if I could get a reaction out of him.

“Yes,” he said, without hesitation. Then, in the oddest segue I’d ever heard, he asked, “Have you heard much about the Culrads’ intentions to join the Alliance?”

I shrugged. “Bits and pieces. I haven’t been paying a huge amount of attention to it.” Or to anything, really, but I wasn’t going to say that. I glanced around the kitchen, wondering if I had anything left to drink. Not that Aiden would be impressed if I pulled anything out in front of him.

“Hmm. Well, long story short, about six months ago, the Alliance Parliament was looking at inviting the Nwandu into the Alliance. Except it turns out that the Nwandu weren’t planning on peacefully joining us; they were intent on enslaving us instead. The Culrads intervened and saved our collective asses, and now the Alliance is looking at making a deal with the Culrads instead. But one of the conditions the Culrads have set in order to consider joining us is that we start taking better care of our dimari.” He glanced over at Dax, still waiting dejectedly by the wall. “So any expenses I incur in the process of teaching people how to look after them are paid for by the Alliance.”

I scoffed. “Must be nice having the… Wait, hang on,” I said, pulling myself up as his words hit home. “You said it’s paid for by theAlliance. Not the Rendol Parliament?”

“Nope. The Alliance itself.” The Alliance Parliament, based out of the Drazig system, was the powerhouse of the local galactic sector. The Alliance had collectively colonised over forty planets and laid claim to about three hundred star systems. Meanwhile, Rendol 4 was one lonely planet on the fringe of Alliance space, with only about one hundred million people, and just over forty per cent of the land area terraformed into habitable territory. We were a speck of dust on the Alliance’s collective radar. And somehow, Aiden had personally got their attention?

“Wait, you don’t mean that… If I fuck this up, does that mean that an entire interspecies treaty negotiation is going to go to shit?”

“No,” Aiden said, with a laugh. But then he sobered. “But at the same time… yeah, it kind of does. The Culrads are very aware of the cultural differences between us and the dimari, so they understand the difficulties we have in assimilating them into our culture. But at the same time, they’re of the opinion that the Alliance needs to start standing up and taking responsibility for our own failings. Which, for what it’s worth, I agree with. So they’ll be sympathetic to genuine difficulties, but intolerant of bullshit excuses.”

“Then you may as well give up now,” I told him flatly. “I’m not capable of-”

“You are going to hear me out in a sensible frame of mind,” he interrupted me sharply. “And you are going to think about what you say in front of your dimari before you say it.”

Fuck. That hit home. I’d got so used to Dax blending into the background that I was starting to genuinely forget he was there.And I’d been about to denounce the idea that either of us had a viable future.

“Now would you please help your dimari get ready to go out?” Aiden prompted me. I glanced at Dax and realised he didn’t have any shoes, and his thin shirt would leave him prone to getting a chill, in the early spring weather.

Fucking hell, was that the same grey shirt he’d been wearing when he’d arrived? He’d come with a couple of changes of clothes, but I honestly couldn’t remember if I’d bought him anything new to wear. Had he been rotating the same three sorry outfits for the entire year?

Well, I could stand here wallowing in my own failings, or I could start trying to fix some of this mess. I went into Dax’s bedroom and fetched his shoes. When was the last time he’d had cause to wear them? The thought filled me with shame. Then I got one of my own jackets out of my closet and brought both items back to the living room. “Put these on,” I told Dax, handing them to him. “We’re going out for breakfast.” If he was anyone else, I would have assumed he’d already have picked up on that from listening to the conversation. But Dax rarely did anything these days without being specifically prompted to do it, and for the first time, it occurred to me that perhaps that was my fault. Though how we’d ended up in this bizarre stalemate was beyond me.

Dax took the jacket and shoes, staring at them as if he’d never seen clothes before. “You… want me to come with you?” he asked, sounding entirely confused.

I felt a twinge of pain in my chest at his stark disbelief. “Yes, I do,” I said, attempting to be both gentle and decisive. “And I’m sorry I didn’t get around to getting any food-”

“As harsh as this might sound,” Aiden interrupted me again, “don’t bother apologising to him. It won’t make any sense tohim. I’ll explain more about that later. Right now, we just need to go get everyone something to eat.”

Don’t apologise? But I had so much I needed to apologise for. I scowled at Aiden, but got my own feet into a pair of shoes, then grabbed my keys off the table by the door.

It was a short walk down the hill to the nearest café.Sunrise Choruswas a quaint place, owned by a Solof couple, which was far bigger on the inside than it looked from the street. I recognised the purple-skinned woman behind the counter, though I didn’t know her name. I’d been here for coffee often enough, on the days when I decided not to start drinking at the crack of dawn, and she greeted me warmly.

“Hello, Zeke. You brought friends today. That’s wonderful. Do you need a table, or are you getting something to take away?”

“We’ll need a table, please,” I muttered, wondering just how much of my life she’d observed over the past year. Had she smelled the alcohol on my breath? Taken note of the stained and scruffy clothes I so often wore? Had she noticed all the times I hadn’t bothered to shave, or worse, to shower? I’d never really thought about it before, the impact I had on the few locals I saw on a regular basis.

“How about you take number three, up in the corner,” the woman suggested. “Here’s some menus for you.”

I took them and was about to lead Aiden and our dimari to the table… but then I hesitated. “I’m sorry, I’ve never actually asked you before,” I said, turning back to the woman. “What’s your name?”