#also i know at this point it's obvious this is a spacechild fic so i'm going to start adding that tag after the next chapter

[mxliv-oftheendless]

Twist of Fate, Chapter 5

We’re back again! I’m thinking I’m going to post new chapters every other day so I don’t overwhelm myself with stuff I have to do. So without further ado, here’s the next chapter! I’m sure y’all want to see what happens after that cliffhanger I ended Chapter 4 on lol. Tagging @cosmicrealmofkissteria and @tanookiroxx. Enjoy! 

In which Starchild is stressed out, and Amalthea provides some information that does not help at all... or does it?

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

When morning came and Starchild opened his eyes, the first thing he recalled from last night was…

“Tomaziel…”

Starchild went still and stared at the wall in absolute horror. Oh Gods… what had he done?

He rolled over onto his back and dragged his hand over his eyes, groaning. He couldn’t believe he had done that. He couldn’t believe he had moaned out Tomaziel’s name.

Even if… Even if the memory of hearing it on his tongue made his heart beat a little faster in his chest, because in that moment it had felt so incredibly right to say it out loud.

No! No, he couldn’t. He couldn’t do this again—fall in love with someone and ultimately get his heart broken. First it was Nikki, then it was Ace, then it was Nikki again… He couldn’t fall in love with Tomaziel, just to get his heart broken when he inevitably learned Tomaziel didn’t feel the same way about him.

Or was he even in love? Maybe it was just a lust attraction. If he was being honest with himself, Tomaziel was handsome. He obviously spent time grooming himself, and it showed; he couldn’t help liking that about him. But maybe he was simply attracted to how handsome Tomaziel was, not Tomaziel himself.

He winced. That actually sounded worse… If it really was that, he couldn’t ever tell him. He didn’t want to be the one that broke a heart, especially if it was Tomaziel’s. Tomaziel was too kind, too patient, too empathetic to deserve that.

And anyway, if he was for a moment to pretend that maybe it wasn’t a lust attraction and that he really did like Tomaziel himself… Tomaziel couldn’t possibly feel the same way.

… Or could he?

Suddenly Starchild thought back to the day he arrived. When he held out his hand for Tomaziel to shake. When Tomaziel had touched his hand and accidentally shocked him. But hadn’t he said it was because he was still learning how to control his lightning?

And yet at the same time, a memory resurfaced, of years and years ago at the party where he met Ace for the first time. When their hands touched, and he felt the same kind of electric shock.

“Don’t you worry your curly little head about that, Starshine. It’s a good thing on Jendell… trust me.”

What did that mean?

-JENDELL-

For the first time the entire week, Starchild was incredibly distracted the entire meeting. He stared off into space, trying to think and figure things out. What could the electric shock mean? It wasn’t a painful shock; more of what happened when someone rubbed their feet on a carpet and then touched you.

Thinking about what had happened when Tomaziel touched his hand made his hand tingle at the memory. It felt so pleasant…

But what was he supposed to do? How could he tell Tomaziel, when Tomaziel probably only saw him as a friend. Did he even want to be with Tomaziel in a romantic way, or was he simply attracted to him because of his looks? And no matter what the answer, there was no way it would go anywhere—he had two more weeks before returning home, and both he and Tomaziel would be busy for most of the days.

He suddenly felt an elbow nudge him and glanced up. Ace looked at him in slight concern and discreetly pushed a piece of paper at him. Starchild looked down and found Ace had written on it. Everything okay?

He picked up his pencil and wrote back. Yes, I’m fine. Is Monique joining us for lunch today?

Ace smiled. She was on her best behavior all day yesterday, so yes, she is.

I can’t wait to meet her.

Neither can she.

It seemed like hours, but finally the meeting ended. Ace and Starchild immediately stood up, as did Tomaziel, who was sitting on Ace’s other side. “Shall I go begin the preparations now, my King?” he asked.

Starchild had to turn away and pretend he was looking with interest at the lights hanging from the ceiling. Ace paid him no attention. “Yes, that would be good, Tomaziel.”

“Preparations for what?” Starchild asked as they headed out of the meeting hall.

“For the party at the end of the three weeks you’re here,” Ace explained. “It’s to give a nice send-off to the KISSterians.”

Starchild smiled; he did like the sound of that. “That sounds fun,”

“Well, I hope it will be,” Ace chuckled. “But enough about that. Lunchtime!”

-JENDELL-

When they arrived in the smaller dining room, set for the two of them, the Elder, and Amalthea, they found the Elder and Amalthea already there. Sitting with Amalthea was a little girl who… actually, who looked like a spitting image of Ace. “—when will they be here?” she was groaning impatiently to Amalthea.

“Right now,” Ace said aloud, grinning at the sight of the girl.

The girl whipped her head around and immediately lit up. “Father!” She got up to run to Ace as he knelt down to her height.  

Laughing, Ace hugged her, then tapped her nose. “Were you a good girl all morning, Moni?”

“Yes, Father!” she nodded her head and smiled proudly, perhaps proud of herself.

“Good, because there’s someone who wants to meet you.” Ace turned her to gesture up to Starchild. “Monique, I’d like you to meet Prince Starchild,”

Just as Ace had said yesterday, Monique looked up at him in awe. Smiling, Starchild went down on one knee and offered his hand to her. “Hello, Monique. I’ve been waiting all week to meet you.”

“Really?” Monique asked, blinking in surprise.

“Yes, really. Your father’s told me a lot about you.”

Monique smiled and took his hand to shake. “It’s nice to meet you, Prince Starchild,”

“Oh, please, just Starchild is fine.”

“Really?” Monique looked starstruck, and it made Starchild smile even more.

“Yes, really.”

Monique smiled so wide he thought it would split her face in two. “Can we sit together while we eat?”

“As long as your parents don’t mind,”

To his amusement, Monique scoffed. “They won’t mind. Come on!” She grabbed his hand and pulled him over to the table.

Starchild laughed and started walking. “Lead the way, Princess,”

He spent most of lunch talking with Monique—or, rather, him answering all the questions the little princess was firing off at him. She wanted to know everything about KISSteria, his life, what it was like being a Prince, what it was like being in a band on Earth, if she had meant anyone cool, and so forth and so forth and so forth.

It was easy to distract himself from what had been plaguing his thoughts all morning. All he could think about was that shock. Was he just overthinking it? Was it really just Tomaziel’s powers briefly losing control? And how “good” exactly was the shock?

When lunch was over, Ace volunteered to take Monique back to her room. “Alright, c’mon, you little troublemaker!” he lifted her up off the ground.

Monique giggled and gave him an innocent look. “I’m not a troublemaker, Papa!”

“Yeah, I’m sure,”

Starchild smiled at them. Then he noticed Amalthea getting up to leave. “Amalthea,” he said quickly, standing. “Could I speak to you for a moment?”

Amalthea looked surprised but nodded. “What about?”

“Nothing,” Starchild turned to smirk at Ace. “I just wanted to know how much of a pain in the neck it is to be married to Ace.”

“Hey!” Ace protested. “I’m not that bad, am I?” He looked at Amalthea, who pretended to be engrossed at looking up at the sky. “Amalthea!”

Amalthea laughed. “I’m only kidding, dear,”

“I’m being ganged up on!” Ace proclaimed dramatically. “Monique, you still love me, right?”

Monique hugged his neck. “I still love you, Father,”

“Hah, see? Moni still loves me!”

Once they had walked off, as had the Elder, Amalthea turned to Starchild. “Now, what did you wish to speak about? I get the feeling it isn’t about Ace.”

Starchild shook his head. “No… Well, actually, he does have something to do with it. When…” How was he going to phrase it? “When Ace touches your hand, do you ever feel a… an electric shock?”

Luckily, Amalthea understood immediately. “Oh, you mean the Spark?”

“The Spark?”

“Yes, that is what we call it. Yes, I do. Truth be told, it… it took some time. Nothing happened when we were first married, because we hardly knew each other. But as we spent more time together, one day…” Amalthea seemed to be smiling at the memory. “One day, it happened.”

Starchild nodded. “All right. But… what does it mean?”

“Well, when we Jendellians are… attracted, you might say, to someone, more static electricity builds up in their bodies. And when they are close to that person, the one they are attracted to, the electricity discharges. Often if they touch the person, it can feel like a static shock.”

Starchild’s heart began to nervously beat faster. “Oh… I see…”

“Why do you ask?”

He immediately panicked. What was he supposed to say? “Oh, no reason, just panicking that your aide might have given me a static shock that was actually the Spark all along, nothing major,”? “… I saw a mention of the Spark in a book and wanted to know what it was,”

“Did the book not explain?”

“No, it didn’t,”

“Ah, I see. It is not as common in KISSteria, I imagine.”

“No… No, it isn’t. Thank you, Amalthea.”

Amalthea smiled and nodded, and he wished he could be as happy as she was. “You’re quite welcome.” She gathered up her skirts. “Now, if you will excuse me, I must go see where my husband and daughter went off to.”

A laugh burst out. “No doubt they’re causing trouble,”

“No doubt. She takes after him far too much.”

“Oh, I could tell,”

As soon as she walked off, Starchild turned around and tried to think of what to do. He couldn’t believe what he had been told. Was Tomaziel attracted to him? Was there even a possibility of it? Or had it just been an accident? He wasn’t sure which was worse…

You need to tell him, his mind said aloud. But what if Tomaziel took it the wrong way? What if it wasn’t the Spark and he was overthinking things? You still need to tell him. At the very least, tell him you might be falling for him. There’s no need to tell him you moaned out his name last night.

There was still a large part of Starchild that didn’t want to tell Tomaziel anything at all. He wanted to keep his mouth shut and not say anything, so he wouldn’t ruin whatever friendship he had formed with the man. He actually valued his and Tomaziel’s friendship; he liked having a friend who he could talk about anything with. He liked having a friend who knew he used to be someone he probably wouldn’t have liked, but didn’t care. He liked Tomaziel… as a friend.

“Tomaziel…”

Or did he?

Starchild rubbed his temples, groaning helplessly. This wasn’t getting him anywhere. He needed to go hit something. Wasn’t there a training hall somewhere?

After a brief period of wandering aimlessly, he got directions and made a beeline down the hall. Perhaps some time in the training hall would let him take his mind off things. Who knew, perhaps he would even be able to think more clearly after working out? He could hear the sounds of crackling electricity as he got closer; someone was already in there. But it wasn’t until he opened the doors and walked inside that he saw who it was, and he froze and stared.

Because once again, fate had decided to make him encounter Tomaziel.