Page 239 of Red Scale Daddy
“Don’t move,” I tell him.
He looks down at himself, then back at me. “I wasn’t planning to dance.”
“I said don’t move.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I kneel beside his seat, already pulling the med-kit from the side compartment. The cockpit smells like overheated circuitry, recycled air, old fear, and him—sweat, smoke, blood, something clean beneath all the wreckage that my body recognizes before my mind permits it. His sleeve is torn near the shoulder where the Reaper caught him, and the wound beneath is ugly but shallow enough to leave my lungs working.
He watches me cut the fabric away with medical shears. “You’re doing the face.”
“What face?”
“The one where you decide whether to scold me or save me.”
“I can multitask.”
“Lucky me.”
I clean the wound with antiseptic. His muscles tighten under my hand, but he does not pull away. The solution foams pink against his skin, and the sharp medicinal scent slices through the burnt-metal stink of the cockpit.
“You should have told me it reopened,” I say.
“Between the space walk, the Reapers, and your father committing mechanical crimes, it didn’t feel like the right time.”
Dad’s voice crackles through the open channel. “I hear slander, and I reject it on procedural grounds.”
“You rewired my ignition bus with a field clamp and prayer,” I say.
“Prayer had nothing to do with it. That was craftsmanship.”
“That was vandalism.”
“That was parenting.”
Dux looks between the comm panel and me, expression softening in a way that makes my hands slow against his arm. “You two sound like home.”
The words slip into the cockpit and change the pressure.
Dad goes quiet first, which is rare enough to be alarming. I press the sealing bandage across Dux’s wound and smooth the edges down carefully, buying myself the time required to remember how speaking works. Dux does not look away. He sits there with blood drying at his temple, exhaustion carved into every line of him, and still he looks at me as though I am not a blade, not a weapon, not a problem to solve or a danger to survive.
He looks at me as though I am a place he intends to return to.
“That is a dangerous thing to say,” I murmur.
His voice drops. “I know.”
“I have not been safe for anyone.”
“Neither has most of space. I’m still fond of it.”
“That is not a sound comparison.”
“It’s the one I’ve got.”
I should stand. I should check the drive temperature, answer the Alliance hail now pulsing patiently at the edge of my console, confirm shield integrity, verify Dad has not introduced a new and artistic flaw into my ship. Instead I remain kneeling beside Dux’s chair with my hand still resting against the bandage on his arm, feeling his body heat through the edges of the dressing, listening to the soft rhythm of his breath through the filtered air.
The comm light blinks.
