Author’s Note: Tynan is more noble than he thinks, he really is.

“They won’t be able to stop in time,” Luna said, grabbing Alvin and pushing him against her stomach to make him calm down. His wings thrashed against her, but this time she didn’t seem to notice. “I… I can’t watch, and yet I can’t look away.”

He shook his head. He didn’t have time to reassure her, but it was not as bad as she believed. He knew that she could not understand that now, but she would, soon enough. He moved forward, ignoring the limits of his facsimile and reaching the cylinder as it rolled into the other lane. He heard more tires squealing and a bunch of screams—those were younger, they sounded as though they were children, but he did not have time to look at them.

He touched the cylinder, and the hunger took over, the initial wave of pleasure, of being sated, washed over him, and he would have held onto it only he now thought it did not compare to how he felt when he was with Luna, so who needed to fill hunger anyway?

The cylinder vanished. He withdrew, curling into himself, the pain tearing at him, the sensation overwhelming, worse than the last time he’d done this. He had to wonder if he couldn’t keep doing it, if the cost was too much for him to manage—but how else did he stop the hunger once it started?

He did not know.

“Tynan!”

Luna. He heard her. That meant everything would be fine. He had to move before someone got close to him, but at least he knew that she was there, that she would keep the others back and help him get away from here.

“Wow! You’re a hero! How the hell did you do that?”

He did not know where that voice was coming from, and he did not want to answer it. He was too tired, too pained. His body did not want to respond to him, and he didn’t know if the facsimile was working right now. He needed to get up, but he hadn’t let himself eat anything that large in a long time.

“Tynan.”

He forced his eyes open. “They’re okay, right, Luna? No one got hurt?”

She nodded, blinking back tears. “You were a very impressive black hole there, but please don’t scare me like that again. You didn’t move or respond and…”

“The more I eat, the more I want to eat, the longer it takes to stop the hunger, the longer I have to focus on myself…”

“Are you… going to be okay?”

He tried to nod. She closed her eyes, letting out a breath. He needed to move, but he did not seem to be able to rise. “Where’s Alvin?”

“Made him stay at the car. Come on, we need to get you out of here.”

“You can’t touch me, and I can’t move.”

She shook her head. “If you’re right about the whole thing where you’re less dangerous after focused on yourself, then this won’t matter.”

He was aware of her dragging him up, and he heard clapping around him. He frowned, steadying himself outside of her hold. He didn’t understand. Why clapping? What was with the applause? He wanted to ask Luna, but he needed to get away from all of these people. Too many, too much temptation. Too many to see what he was, a monster. He’d destroyed again.

“You’re a real hero, Mister. I don’t know how you did that, but thank you.”

“I am not. I am a mon—”

“Shh,” Luna said. “No arguing. It’s not worth it. Let’s just go. We need to get you out of here.”

Author’s Note: Luna gets all the fun jobs.

“We like this.”

“I’m glad,” Luna said, giving Alvin a tight smile. That was not one of her radiant ones, and he knew that she was still worried. She was afraid of Alvin changing his mind, of him demanding to return to his hive. That would mean that he would leave her, and that seemed something that she was unwilling to let happen, no matter how many times he promised that he would return.

“Friend Luna has the best stomach ever.”

She sighed, running a hand over his head as she tried to get comfortable. “I really wish you didn’t find it comforting to listen to my digestion, but since that’s what you need, I’m doing my best to help you with it.”

“It’s not your digestion that is appealing. It is simply the closest sound to when his people are sleeping in the hive.”

“I know,” she said, letting out a breath. “I just wish that he could hear it without being right on top of me. It’s not—Alvin, what did I tell you about flapping your wings? I can sit still if you don’t smack me with the wings, and I’ll let you stay there until you fall asleep, but no hitting me with the wings, okay? Please?”

“Sorry, Friend Luna.”

“His wings beat in his sleep. That’s how his species works. I know that is not easy to accept, but it is what happens.”

She nodded, closing her eyes. “I think part of the problem is that I keep getting this image in my head of my face plastered over all the supermarket tabloids with a headline about me having an alien lovechild.”

“That would be completely inaccurate. You cannot have his child—or mine—for that matter. The species are incompatible.”

She winced, lowering her head. “Yes. I know that. Hell, you can’t even touch me, so that would make any kind of reproduction impossible, now wouldn’t it? Just—Oh, I need to get up. Alvin, we’ll try and get you some sleep in the hive later. I can’t do this right now. I’m too worked up.”

“What if… Oh, if I could only touch you and soothe you or if I could read to you and relax you…”

She gave him a more genuine smile that time. “I would like it if you could read to me. As nice as it was to read to you, as much as I enjoy it, it would be nice if you could read to me, too, or just read for your own sake. The things you’ve been denied…”

He almost reached for her, but he did not dare touch her while she had Alvin on her. Too much could go wrong. “There are… audiobooks. Perhaps if we got one of those for you to sit through while you were letting Alvin rest against you, it would help. We could try that. Exhaust all our options, right?”

“Yeah.”

“And pillows and to make you more comfortable, too,” he said, walking around her to see if he could find other ways to make it easier for her.

“I wonder if they make things that allow you to listen to babies at home.” She put a hand to her head. “I mean, listen to the ones in your stomach—not that I—Well, it might help amplify the sound so that he doesn’t have to sit on me all the time. Or we could make a few tapes for him to hear whenever he wanted. That would also help.”

“Then… we will find one of these things or the nearest equivalent to it. Anything to make you happy and more… cozy.”

“Oh, Tynan, I know exactly what would make this… cozy, but that doesn’t mean that I can ever have it.”

He frowned, about to ask her what that was when Alvin started snoring, loud enough to wake his whole hive even though they were galaxies away. At least he was asleep, wasn’t he?

“Earplugs. I definitely need earplugs.”

Author’s Note: Just because it’s an option doesn’t make it one that makes anyone happy. It might not be for the best.

“I can think of only one solution to Alvin missing his hive.”

Luna looked up from her coffee, frowning even as she fought a yawn. “I’m not sure I like what I think you’re going to say. You’re going to say that we have to get him back to his hive, but the only way to do that is to tell people he broke the rules and came here, and that’s not a good idea. He’ll be arrested and tortured and—”

“If he told them he was taken here by a vortex, then he would be in no trouble.”
“Do your people generally abduct their food?”

“Um…”

She leaned forward. “Not only that, but you’d be telling them that you’re here. If you did that, even if you escaped from helping him get back to his hive, you’d make it so you could never come back. They’d be watching for you. Hunting you. You can’t do that. They’ll never listen to you. They won’t see what I see—and that is not a monster. Oh, Tynan, you are so much more than your appetite. You have moved and grown and learned to lo—I mean, you feel—and you’re a good person, even if you are a black hole.”

He frowned, but he did want to touch her for some reason. What was it about that sensation that meant so much? Why did it matter? He didn’t understand it. He didn’t know that he ever would. “If he is unhappy, it is not for me to force him to stay. I brought him here. I am responsible for returning him. I must find a way to do that.”

Luna looked out the window, biting her lip. “Isn’t there any way to do it without risking yourself? I don’t want to lose you.”

“If I leave, I will come back to you.”

Her head jerked back to him. “Leave?”

“If we are to get Alvin back, I would have to. The only way to do that is for me to go back to let someone know that Alvin was here, allowing them to take him. That’s what must be done. It will not take long. All I have to do is tell them that someone ended up here, and then they’ll come for him. He can go home.”
“No. No, this is his home. We’re his hive. We can make this work. You don’t have to go.”

He shook his head. “I think I do. Alvin is lonely, and we are not his hive. We’re not his people. If… I have never had a home before, but you have given me one. I just don’t think that you can give one to him, no matter how much you try. He is not the same.”

She closed her eyes. “I know he is different, but there has to be something… You can’t just go.”

“I said I would come back.”

“You know you can’t. They’d look for you. They’d take you away. What you are terrifies them, remember?”

“Luna, are you… crying?”

She shoved her coffee away and rose, heading to the back of the restaurant. He looked down at the table and sighed. He needed to find Alvin again. If Alvin wanted to go home, he would make sure that Alvin got there. He should never have brought the creature here in the first place. It was not right that he had trapped Alvin here.

He started toward the door, but he stopped when he heard Luna’s voice.

“Tynan! Wait!”

He turned back. “I was going to look for Alvin.”

She wiped at her cheek. “Yeah, I—Well, that’s not what I thought, but two things first. One, you have to ask Alvin what he wants. Two, I think even if Alvin wants to go, we should try and make a real effort at making him happy here. If it takes music that vibrates, then we’ll get music. We’ll take him other places. We’ll give him white noise or whatever he needs. We need to try first.”

“I don’t—”

“I can’t lose you any more than you can lose me. So… we have to try as much as we can first, exhaust all our options. Please.”

He nodded. “Very well.”

She smiled, and once again, he wanted to touch her, but he knew he could not.

Author’s Note: Luna still doesn’t get any rest…

“Are you rested?”

“Tynan…”

“Alvin is outside, and he seems quite distracted by the music coming out of the car that is parked next to yours. It is… vibrating, and I think he finds it quite soothing, reminding him of the hive in some way. I do not know how that matters, but it does seem to help,” he said, sitting down on the edge of her bed. She had her head under the blanket for the most part, but he could see just a bit of her hair. “If you would like me to go, I can. I do not want to keep you from your rest.”

She sighed. “Could you believe… I can’t sleep? After all that, I can’t seem to fall asleep. My brain just won’t quit. I don’t know what to do to help Alvin, and I don’t know what we’ll do about money, and I don’t know what I’ll do about you…”

“Why am I troubling you? Did I do something wrong?”

“No. You don’t… You have no idea what I’m talking about, and maybe that’s for the best. It’s impossible, after all, and why complicate a good thing with the impossible?”

He frowned, wishing he understood her more. He did not know what she was talking about, but if he did, perhaps he could stop her from feeling this way. She talked almost as though she was depressed again, and he did not want to have her back on medication. “What we do is not… impossible, is it?”

“No.”

“What is wrong, Luna?”

She closed her eyes. “Just having one of those moments where I wish you could hug me even though I know you can’t.”

“Would you like me to try?”

She frowned. “I thought you would never do that, never risk it, that you’re convinced that you’d kill me or destroy everything and…”

“I am. I still worry about it, but I would like to be able to give you what you want.”

She sighed. “Sometimes I think you make it all worse when you try to be nice. It just makes it that much harder to remember that it is impossible. Still, I know it is. I do. I just forget every now and then. You know what the funny thing is? I think I couldn’t sleep because I was alone.”

“I can go get Alvin—”

“No.”

“Um…”

“I don’t want Alvin. I… just want you.”

He smiled. “I can remain if you like. I might have to move, though, and when I do, I’d disturb you again. Would you mind, or should I stay where I am for now?”

“I want you to stay.”

He studied her. “Is this a moment where humans would have something called… a bedtime story? Should I attempt to tell one? I don’t know much of what they’re like, but I am not unwilling to try. I would do anything for you, Luna.”

“Oh, Tynan…”

“Am I being impossible again?”

“Yes, but…” She reached out from under the blanket and put her hand over his, just for the briefest of moments. “Don’t stop.”

Author’s Note: Well, this one took a couple odd turns on me. They were talking about one thing, and then it was about something completely different. Poor Luna, though. She gets stuck solving everyone’s problems… and never gets enough rest.

“Friend Luna?”

“Luna is sleeping. Go away,” she said, pulling her blanket over her head. He smiled, amused by her antics. She was not asleep, and that was obvious just by the fact that she spoke. She should know better, but then he expected she was very tired after all the driving and traveling. She did not have the limitless energy of a black hole or of a member of a hive.

Then again, she had seemed to lose some of her radiance after her father called her. She had argued with him over money, and that seemed to have lowered her spirits. She’d ignored several signs along the road that he thought she would have turned off for, and he didn’t know that their road trip could continue for much longer.

The money. They didn’t have the necessary funds, not to keep up with the car and the food that Luna and Alvin needed. Not every novelty stop was free, and that took money, too, and he did not know how much Luna had left with, and she might not have enough now. He should ask her.

He would, when she was more rested.

He didn’t want her getting sick or anything. He wanted her to keep her safe and healthy.

“Luna?”

“Not you, too. Take Alvin somewhere and amuse him so that I can get some sleep.”

He knelt down next to her. “This is not because of your father, is it? About the money?”

“You don’t have to worry about money, Tynan.”

“You do, and I don’t want you to miss out on what you want to see or do because you do not have the funds for it, nor do I want to be a burden upon you since you are traveling mostly for my sake. I would not want to harm you in that way, either.”

She pushed down the blanket. “All I want right now is to sleep. I’m just a bit tired, and I don’t want to think about money or fight about it. You know why people are always so unhappy? Money. It’s always about money. They don’t have enough, or they spent it foolishly, or they think they need to make more, always pushing for things that don’t matter…”

“Were your parents like that?”

“No. Well, sometimes. Everyone is.”

“I cannot handle money, and it has no value for me,” he told her. “Does that make it… better or worse, do you think?”

“In some ways better. In others, not as much. Look, I paid for the motel room for a change. I’m tired, and I want to sleep. You and Alvin don’t have to stay with me, but you have to let me sleep.”

Alvin sighed. “We miss our hive.”

Luna sat up, frowning. “Are you saying you want to go home, Alvin?”

The wings stopped beating, and he settled on the table, sighing. “We do not know. We just know it is not the same. We are… lonely. We have friend Luna and Tynan the vortex, but we are lonely.”

She put a hand to her head, her hair a mess, painted strands caught together and twisted in odd ways. He thought she did look very tired indeed. “Oh, Alvin. I don’t know what we can do about that. I’d say you need a girlfriend but—”

“You are girlfriend. You are a friend. A girl. So, girlfriend.”

She groaned, putting her head down on the pillow. “I’m not anyone’s girlfriend, Alvin. Just… Let me get some sleep, and I’ll try and figure out something in the morning, okay?”

Alvin nodded. “Yes, Friend Luna.”

“Come with me. We will find some way of amusing ourselves—and making you less lonely—that does not disturb Luna’s rest.”