Archive of Our Own ^beta

"Never," said Aral, then paused to swallow, gag, and heave. "Again."

"You say that now," said Ivan, thumping him helpfully between the shoulder blades. "But then there'll be a bottle of brandy between friends on top of the port after dinner and three glasses of wine during, and the next thing you know you're playing holoball in your underwear out in someone's front garden." He pulled up short. "Er. Not that this has ever happened to me or anything."

Aral turned one malevolent, bloodshot eye his way. "Stop talking about brandy and port and wine," he said. "And holoball. And moving."

"Yes, Your Grace," said Ivan, and Aral looked as if he just might miss the toilet on purpose next time.

"Never never never," he chanted, bracing on his hands, eyes squeezed tightly shut. He just about matched the white lavatory tiles, with a bit of green mixed in.

"Drink water," said Ivan, pushing the glass at his hand. He eyed Aral with alarmed speculation. "While you can."

Aral sipped gingerly, and there was a moment of blessed peace for the first time in nearly half an hour.

"You know," said Ivan, shifting on his aching knees, "when most people get ImpSec pounding on their door in the middle of the night, it's because they're about to get arrested. I, on the other hand, get my cousin's imperial offspring working on their very first cases of alcohol poisoning."

Aral cautiously opened one eye. "Sorry. Didn't have anywhere else to go." He paused, frowning confusedly. "You said . . . have you done this before?"

"Your brother was along over a year and a half ago," said Ivan. "Precocious beast. I should ask Natasha when she's planning to make an appearance – I can arrange to be on Komarr. Oh no you don't–" he neatly snatched the glass from Aral's suddenly inattentive fingers, and gave him a push in the right direction. "Don't you just hate it when it gets up your nose?" he said to the trembling back, after an unpleasant-sounding interval.

"I hate you," Aral said wretchedly.

"Oh come on," said Ivan. "This is much better than you'd get at home. They'd be sympathetic, sure, but it'd be the sort of sympathy that makes you feel about three inches tall." There was no response, and Ivan sighed. "So, what's the story?"

"Got drunk," said Aral succinctly.

"So I gather. Any particular reason, other than just because you could?" That had been Vasha's reason, though that was Vasha's reason for doing just about everything that came into his head. At least according to Miles, and Ivan had to agree, to a point.

Aral slowly collapsed in on himself until his cheek was resting on the tile, one hand curled in front of his face. "They'd do exactly what you're doing," he said obscurely. "Except father would do it with less talking, and Da with a lot more."

"They mean well," said Ivan, floundering a bit.

Aral breathed out a long sigh. "Yeah, they do," he said. "Um, do you think I'll be okay by noon? I've got to go watch the Council of Counts in session. Da's expecting me."

"You might be up and walking," Ivan said judiciously, "but if you don't want him to take one look at you and know exactly what you've been up to, I'm afraid you're out of luck."

"Oh," said Aral listlessly, "I figured you'd just tell them anyway. At least this way I've got some prep time."

Ivan blinked, disconcerted to find himself so casually lumped in with the powers that were. "Hey," he said, laying a hand on Aral's bony back. "Seriously – are you okay?"

"I think I'm going to be sick again," Aral said, and lurched up.

Ivan waited it out, then pressed more water on him when he was through. "I never told them about Vasha," he said into the proceeding silence. He neglected to point out that he hadn't needed to – Vasha had failed to take the lesson to heart, hauled off and done the exact same thing the next week, and gone home that time.

There was a long silence. "I got my marks from school," Aral said at last.

Ivan blinked. "They can't possibly be all that bad," he said disbelievingly. "Not with the way you go at the books."

"Top of the class," said Aral dully.

"O-kaay," Ivan said.

Aral turned slowly, painfully to face him. His breath was truly vile when he leaned close, as if to impart a secret. "I want to be a doctor," he said.

Ivan blinked. "Hey, that's great. We all thought it might be something like that, given your interests. You know, they've just been waiting for you to say the word about what sort of schooling you want."

Aral looked, for the first time all night, as if he might forget that he was a young man now and burst into tears. "Great," he said. "I can spend the next decade at Vorbarr Sultana University, then take up Da's proxy in the Council as soon as I graduate. I might have time to slip one or two patients in between there."

Oh. Ivan hissed out a breath between his teeth. He can't even come right out and say it.

"You want to be a doctor and you don't want to be Count Vorkosigan," Ivan said, doing it for him.

Aral shuddered, looked away, and gave a small, jerky nod.

"Okay," Ivan said slowly. "Um . . . any particular kind of doctor?"

Aral turned back to him, eyes huge and startled. He looked rather as if he'd expected to be struck by lightning. "Uh." He coughed, licking his lips. Ivan silently nudged the water at him. "Neurology, I think," Aral said, after several long swallows.

"Hey," said Ivan. "Brains. That's really interesting."

"Yeah," said Aral. "I think so." He hesitated, opened his mouth as if to say something more, then leapt convulsively for the toilet.

"What did you drink?" Ivan asked, impressed despite himself.

"Everything," Aral said breathlessly. He huddled over the toilet, waving the water away with a horrified look.

Ivan sat behind him and rested a hand at the back of his neck. "You can tell them, you know," he said. "They won't be angry – how could they be? And you know how much they'll do to make sure you're happy." That was putting it mildly. Ivan rather thought that Miles and Gregor would collectively send the entire political inheritance system crashing down with a swift kick, just to get Aral off its ungainly top. It would be a mess, even more so because . . . oh. Miles still agonized over all the ways the delicately negotiated social contract of his union to Gregor had forced him to all but forsake his title. It would split the wound wide open again to discover that by doing so, he was hurting Aral.

"Yes," said Aral to the toilet. "I know. That's exactly why I can't tell them."

"Wow," said Ivan. "You know, when I was your age, I could hardly see past the tip of my own nose."

"Don't try and tell me I'd be good at it just because I care," said Aral. "I'm politically useless. I like most people's Medulae Oblongatae a lot more than I like them."

"I wasn't going to say that," said Ivan slowly. "You're one of the smartest people I know – I don't think it would work on you like it did on – erm." He hesitated. "I'm really not the best person to have this conversation with, you know. I've spent a lot of time wanting exactly the things I'm supposed to want. I guess I'm just—" he paused, never having put it this way before "—I guess I'm just lucky that way."

"Father does his duty every day," said Aral. "Even though I figured out a while ago that sometimes he'd really rather not. And Da gave up some of his, just so they could have kids in the first place, even though it makes him furious. I could never tell him that I . . ."

Yes, you can, thought Ivan, and you're too smart for your own good, and why did you come to me with this?

"Have you picked a school?" he asked.

Aral gave a tiny shrug. "The Betan Medical Praxium is the best in the nexus," he said. "And I think I could maybe get in. But it's on Beta and I don't know if I'd like to spend that much time . . . for an internship, though, their teaching hospital would be amazing."

"And for school?" Ivan pressed.

"Solstice," said Aral at once, lifting his head. "It's one of the best, but it's closer to home, and I could maybe practice there for a little while before coming back here."

You've been thinking about this for a while now. "That's what you want?" Ivan asked. "To practice here?"

Aral nodded, almost shyly. "I could do nerve regeneration for a military hospital," he said. "Or longevity research, or disease prevention -- try and bring us up to match the longer nexus lifespan."

"Okay," said Ivan. "Do that."

Aral blinked. "But—"

"No," said Ivan firmly. "If there's one thing your parents understand, it's making sacrifices for the things you really care about."

"But—"

"You don't have to tell them right now," Ivan carried on, swept along on a flood of . . . was this wisdom? "And you know there really are a lot of compromises between misery and disaster, even though it might be hard to believe at your age. Go to school. Learn about brains. And in the meantime," he saw, as if in a dream, his hand reaching out to ruffle Aral's dark hair. "In the meantime, there are a few things that we can do."

"Like what?" asked Aral, eyes narrowing in some suspicion.

"I said I wouldn't tell them, and I meant it," said Ivan. "Now come on, your digestive system hasn't backfired in nearly five minutes – how're you feeling?"

"Awful," said Aral.

"Well stay here then," said Ivan. "I'll get the coffee started and hunt up a change of clothes."

He creaked painfully to his feet, reminded all over again of the difference between fifty and fifteen as he looked down at Aral, whose joints weren't aching and who was smart enough to see the nasty corner he was backed into but not quite grown up enough to see all the ways out that didn't involve blowing things up.

Ivan found himself astonished by a number of things as he went out to assure the solicitously hovering ImpSec that the Prince would be fine. He crept through the darkened bedroom so as not to wake his wife again, digging up some clothes so Aral could get a little sleep and wondering when exactly he'd started thinking like . . . this. Like if Aral was going to be in school for a long time and come out still not wanting the duties of a countship, then someone was going to have to take up the slack and it couldn't be Miles, even now. Like someone was going to need to tell Aral that it wasn't desertion when you were just finding another way to serve, and really make him believe it. Like how long it had been since Ivan had last drunk himself sick – and when had he started counting time in decades instead of just years? Like maybe the person taking up the slack could be him, though the thought was daunting and a little exhausting.

The things you really care about, indeed.