The Return of the Lifebringer (Children of the Sun Book 3)
Chapter 22

Kaleth cried out as Mel basically tackled him into a hug. Oh gods, what the hell was wrong with his chest?

“Oh, I’m so, so, so sorry,” Mel stammered out, letting go of Kaleth’s chest but keeping a hold on his hands. “I’m just so happy you’re awake,” he practically yelled, grinning so widely it must have been hurting him. His eyes were still leaking tears though, and that made Kaleth more than a little concerned.

He closed his eyes for a moment, feeling the pain in his head spike. He coughed as he moved up a bit so he could sit up, ignoring the horrible pain that brought with it. Mel ended up helping him.

“W-what…happened?” Kaleth tried very hard to recall anything, but it was all such a blur. He’d fought Enor, hadn’t he? And…he’d stabbed him.

“You…don’t remember?” Mel asked, frowning and worrying his lip. “You, well, you teleported.”

Kaleth blinked at Mel, trying to make use of his muddled brain to process that. Not that it was working. “I…. How?”

Mel just shrugged before starting to babble. “Oh gods, I was so, so worried about you. I thought you weren’t going to wake up, or that your mind was damaged, or something, and I just, I didn’t know how to….”

He didn’t finish his thought before giving Kaleth a kiss and then another one on the forehead. He brushed Kaleth’s hair off his forehead, and then kissed his cheek. Kaleth couldn’t help but smile, albeit very weakly. He was incredibly tired, and in pain. In fact even keeping his eyes open was quite the task. He couldn’t remember feeling this way anymore.

“I missed you so much,” Mel finished, lowering his head, his hands on Kaleth’s shoulders. He sniffed, and finally wiped his eyes. Kaleth’s heart clenched painfully. He hated causing Mel distress.

“I’m so sorry, love, I—”

“No, not your fault, no,” Mel said, looking right into Kaleth’s eyes. Oh gods, why were Mel’s so beautiful? Particularly when he got like this. That determined spark in them was really something. Kaleth realized he shouldn’t be thinking about that right now, but he couldn’t help himself.

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” Mel whispered, his eyes sliding shut as more tears flowed down his cheeks. Kaleth raised his arms to wipe them off, ignoring the sharp pain it caused. Why hadn’t he healed yet?

Kaleth frowned, focusing on the wound. He hadn’t really made a conscious effort to heal himself before, it had always been mostly automatic, but he did know what to do. That didn’t seem to work, though. Kaleth gritted his teeth, trying to heal the wound regardless of that, but he just ended up exhausting himself. Kaleth sighed, a dull ache in his heart because of his weakness. Almost dying by his own blade must have really drained him.

Apparently knowing exactly what the problem was, Mel put a hand over Kaleth’s chest, his eyes lighting up with blue light. “I’ve tried to finish healing you, but I couldn’t do it completely.”

Well, that was ominous. “Don’t worry about it, love. I’m sure I’ll heal it eventually. Just….” He wasn’t really sure how to finish that sentence.

“Yeah, you need time to recover, I know,” Mel finished for him, nodding and kissing Kaleth’s forehead again, stroking his hair. Kaleth smiled, despite the situation. Mel was so damned affectionate.

“Er, Mel, where are we?” Kaleth asked, as he sat up a bit more straight. This place wasn’t like anything he’d seen before, yet he could tell it was clearly Eternal in origin.

“An Umbra base in Imbera,” Mel replied, smiling, his eyes still wet. Kaleth groaned. Why did it have to be Imbera?

“I thought you’d…” Mel started, trailing off almost immediately as disappointment made itself clear on his face. “Right, I guess not.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Kaleth lied, sighing. He didn’t hate Imbera enough to get bitchy about it anyway. What had he been thinking? “We could, um, take a walk, if time permits. I did promise you that much, after all.”

Mel beamed at him, and hugged him again, this time much more gingerly so as to not upset Kaleth’s wound. “But only if you want to.”

“I always want to spend time with you, sweetheart. It doesn’t matter where or how.”

He could feel Mel melt against him. Kaleth chuckled softly to himself. So adorable.

“Yes, you are,” Mel whispered into his ear, a teasing tone entering his voice. Kaleth drew himself away from Mel’s embrace, staring at him for a second.

“Did you just…?”

Mel grinned proudly, and Kaleth snorted. Seeing Mel come out of his shell like this made his heart soar. Unfortunately, the current situation always managed to clip its wings.

Mel’s eyes went wide suddenly. “Oh, speaking of this base, um, there’s someone you might—”

“Ah, you are awake, Kaleth,” said a voice Kaleth really hadn’t expected to hear again. He just frowned at his former superior, trying to comprehend…well, anything. She hadn’t changed a bit, but he could clearly see she wasn’t a mere mortal, like she’d appeared. That was hardly shocking though. Why would Relioth had put someone other than an Eternal in charge of Luxarx?

The real question was why she was here.

“Director,” Kaleth forced out, acknowledging her presence. He had no idea what else to say. His mind was forming half thought out assumptions and judgements, but he couldn’t put together anything to actually say. So he waited for her to react instead.

“Tira, please. I’m hardly your superior now,” she said, laughing in that warm way of hers. It had always made Kaleth uncomfortable, but he wasn’t sure why. He’d never managed to make sense of that. And calling her by her first name didn’t exactly appeal either.

Only then did Kaleth notice the almost protective stance Mel had taken. Kaleth didn’t have to check their bond to know Mel wasn’t happy. He supposed that made sense, with Elrin being who she was—at least Kaleth assumed—a soldier of Relioth. But given Elrin’s earlier position, and the way Mel was reacting to her, he was sure he was right.

“I didn’t expect to see you again. Especially not here,” Kaleth commented, exchanging a look with Mel. Or at least he tried to. Mel was too preoccupied with frowning at Elrin, it seemed.

“I do what I can with what I am given,” Elrin replied, shrugging. “I didn’t expect Kara and Alor to replace you two, but I’m glad they did. I was very worried about you.”

Kaleth frowned. “They are here?”

“Oh yeah, they agreed to help me with fighting Enor. I am hoping you two will as well.”

The memory of being stabbed by his fath—Enor—flashed through Kaleth’s mind as pain stabbed through his wound. Dammit. “I tried. And failed.”

Elrin raised an eyebrow. “Are you saying you’re giving up? You?”

Kaleth let out a wry laugh while next to him, Mel started projecting even more resentment. “Kaleth needs to rest.”

Elrin gave him one of those wise, understanding looks that had always annoyed Kaleth very much. But right now he was too impressed by Mel’s back talking that he couldn’t manage it. “Yes, definitely. Didn’t mean to imply anything. I’ll, um, come by later.”

Elrin tucked her hair behind her ear. “I’m very glad you’re awake, Kaleth. I was worried about you.” And with that she left the room again. Kaleth kept his eyes on Mel, watching the Eternal relax as his shoulders sagged a little. When Mel noticed Kaleth watching, he turned back towards him, and ducked his head.

“Uh, sorry.”

Kaleth grinned. “Don’t be sorry. I’m proud of you, Mel.”

Mel just gaped at him for a while, his eyes filling with tears, before he beamed at Kaleth. “R-really?”

So, so adorable.

After hearing that he’d been in a coma for four days, Kaleth decided enough was enough and despite Mel’s protests, got out of bed. Or tried to. It turned out to be much more difficult than he’d thought it would be.

Mel ended up helping him stand up, even though it was clear he wanted nothing more than to make Kaleth lie down again. But he didn’t say anything as he helped Kaleth get dressed. Apparently there was an extra shirt around here, though it seemed quite old fashioned. Kaleth wasn’t sure about the last time he’d seen anything with nine buttons.

However, first Mel decided Kaleth’s wound needed a bandage change, so he had to endure that. Surprisingly though, Mel seemed to know what he was doing as Kaleth watched him, trying not to flinch as he worked.

Next Mel helped Kaleth put the shirt on, which really hurt much more than Kaleth had been expecting, but he felt much better once the ungodly amount of buttons had been, well, buttoned. He couldn’t say that he was entirely comfortable in only one layer, though. He already missed the familiar weight of a tie around his neck.

During his musing, Mel sat down next to him on the bed and kissed his nose. Despite himself, Kaleth chuckled at that. If this were anyone else but Mel, Kaleth would point out how ridiculous the action was. And that wasn’t just because he didn’t want to hurt Mel’s feelings. Something about Mel just made this only endearing.

“I have to admit to something,” Mel said, sighing. His smile was gone, replaced by guilt. “While you were comatose…. I looked inside your head. I wanted to make sure you were still there.” Kaleth couldn’t help but feel a little violated by that. But he quickly pushed that away. This was Mel. He trusted Mel with his whole heart. Not to mention that their very minds were intertwined—if there was one person Kaleth could hide nothing from, it was Mel, and he didn’t deserve to be lied to either.

“What did you see?” Kaleth asked, sounding tired even to his own ears.

“An argument you had with Alor….”

Kaleth let out a short laugh. Oh, was that all? There were so many worse things Mel could have seen. This wasn’t even about anything Kaleth had done. Well, not directly anyway. At least Kaleth assumed he knew which argument Mel had seen. He and Alor hadn’t argued much over the years, mostly because Alor wasn’t the type to argue, and Kaleth was more likely to glare at whoever he was angry with for two weeks than start an argument himself.

“It’s fine, Mel, I don’t mind,” Kaleth replied, but Mel didn’t seem convinced.

“Well, I’m still sorry,” Mel said miserably. “I could have just not looked, but I did anyway.” He rubbed his hands as he stared at the metal floor.

Kaleth put an arm around his waist, doing his best to ignore the pain. Mel looked up at him at that, smiling weakly.

“At least now you know what happened,” Kaleth said, sighing. He didn’t like thinking about his early Luxarx years. Thankfully, his alcohol consumption at the time had managed to make the worst memories blurry enough to make them easy to ignore.

“Well, I understand a little more,” Mel said, shrugging. “But I don’t know what happened.”

He didn’t? Well, Kaleth supposed it was possible that the exact details hadn’t been mentioned during that fight. “Well, the short story is that during a mission, I messed up, and Alor’s father saved me by sacrificing himself.”

Mel was now frowning at him. “Was that really your fault, or are you needlessly blaming yourself again?”

Kaleth couldn’t help himself. He started laughing. Though the stabbing pain in his chest quickly forced him to stop. Still, it felt good to laugh like this. Mel knew him a little too well. It was very charming. Mel didn’t seem to replace any of this funny though—his frown had just turned disapproving. Almost scolding. It almost made Kaleth want to look away in embarrassment. He would have to hope Mel never realized the power of his stares.

“That’s not funny.”

“It is a little,” Kaleth argued, but his heart wasn’t in it. If Mel wanted to win this one, he would gladly let him. Mel for the most part just gave me another disapproving glance, which honestly worked just as well. Kaleth looked away. “Fine, it isn’t. And yes, it was definitely my fault.”

Mel’s mouth formed an unhappy frown, but he didn’t say anything. Kaleth assumed that he either disapproved and he couldn’t replace a counterargument, or he straight up didn’t believe what Kaleth was saying. Kaleth really hoped it was the former because he didn’t want Mel to doubt if he spoke the truth or not.

“I’m sorry,” he finally said, drawing Kaleth into a hug. Kaleth sighed, letting himself relax into it.

“It’s okay. It was years ago,” Kaleth tried to assure him, stroking Mel’s shoulder.

“How does that make it okay?” Mel grumbled, squeezing Kaleth even more tightly. Kaleth tried not to wince at that. Mel’s arm was quite close to his wound, so that wasn’t all that easy. He clearly wasn’t looking for an answer, thankfully, because Kaleth didn’t have one, and just stayed like that, wrapped around Kaleth, his face in his shoulder.

Once they separated after what felt like forever—in the best of ways, of course—Kaleth suggested taking the walk he’d promised Mel so long ago. Although, technically it hadn’t been that long. It definitely felt that way, however. He also felt like he needed some fresh air, so it was appropriate.

As Kaleth stepped out of the safehouse and into the old, empty streets of the abandoned town, he felt like he could calm down a little, finally. He could pretend that he hadn’t just almost died at the hands of a being that looked like his father, or that said being was now in control of both Enoria and Irithara, as he’d found out from Mel.

They’d really lost in a spectacular way. But Kaleth couldn’t focus on anything concerning strategy right now. Or fighting in general.

He tried not to blush when Mel took his hand in his, and they started walking around aimlessly. Kaleth was fine with letting Mel take the lead. Surprisingly it wasn’t raining for once, though it was quite cold. Fascinating. He really must have been drained.

After a few minutes of passing by buildings in various stages of falling apart, they found a surprisingly well-preserved car that Mel quickly explained was the one Kara and Alor had used to fly him and Kaleth over here. Shrugging, Kaleth sat down on its hood, Mel following right after.

Kaleth closed his eyes for a moment, letting the little sunlight that passed through the cloud hit his skin, breathing in the cold, fresh, earthy air. Even though he wasn’t entirely comfortable being out here in only a shirt, it was still quite nice, and the sun managed to keep him from shivering. He didn’t want to worry Mel even more than he already had.

“Do you…remember anything from when you were, um, not awake?” Mel asked, taking Kaleth’s hand in his once more. Kaleth frowned at him and narrowed his eyes. Had Mel seen another memory besides the one they’d talked about? No, surely Mel would have said so immediately.

“No?” Kaleth replied, feeling more than a little confused now that this had been mentioned. Why didn’t he remember anything? He couldn’t even remember teleporting from Irithara, even though he’d clearly managed that. Who else would have gotten them to Imbera? Though this particular piece of information was still quite shocking. Since when could he teleport? Relioth hadn’t explained anything to him concerning it, so how could he have figured it out when it had been needed?

“Well, when I was in your head, you were having a nightmare,” Mel said, staring at the gravel road dejectedly.

“What about?” Kaleth asked, morbidly curious. He generally remembered his nightmares, so this was quite novel.

Mel grimaced, looking back at Kaleth. “Me, um, leaving you.”

Kaleth almost flinched. Right, he’d had a few variations of a similar nightmare. While pretending to be on Relioth’s side in particular. That was why he preferred not to sleep at all. Though his body didn’t appreciate that, no matter how much Eternal energy he’d absorbed.

“I don’t know how conscious you were,” Mel continued, his grip on Kaleth’s hand tightening. “But when the nightmare me left, I wanted to comfort you, but you…. You didn’t really let me.” Kaleth really didn’t appreciate how Mel pouted just then, mostly because he thought it was adorable. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that I won’t leave you, unless you want me to. Okay?”

Mel waited for Kaleth to meet his gaze. When he did, he felt his heart clench.

“Okay?”

Kaleth nodded, not feeling up to talking right now. Dammit. Why did Mel have to be so sincere about everything he said? It was making Kaleth’s eyes sting. Thankfully Mel managed to distract him with a kiss, which almost made Kaleth yelp with how much he hadn’t seen that coming. Mel was really getting much more confident. It made Kaleth proud. Mel apparently decided to deepen the kiss as well, and Kaleth just let it happen with a hum, melting into it. He really didn’t have the energy for much more, but Mel didn’t seem to mind.

After they separated, a bit breathless on Kaleth’s end, Mel kissed his forehead and apparently decided to fix Kaleth’s hair. Kaleth just smiled to himself as Mel threaded his fingers through it, a look of utter concentration on his face.

“I love you.” The words left Kaleth’s mouth before he could even think about them. And Mel grinned at him, letting go of his hair and taking Kaleth’s hands into his own instead.

“I love you too.”