Page 34 of Fought and Found

Watching him work is not helping the other problem — the one that has been humming under my skin since the bunk. I press mythighs together under the console and bite the inside of my cheek. Not now. Not when something is clearly eating at him.

The routes he’s running are excellent. His analysis of SRS patrol rotations is surgical. The corridor timing is tight but viable, and his cross-referencing of traffic density in the Reach is the kind of work that would have Morrison nodding with grudging approval. He is doing everything right.

His tail has not uncurled from his left calf in two hours.

He is in my chair. I registered this the moment he moved to it and I have not un-registered it in two hours. My pilot’s chair — the one worn to the shape of me after twelve years, the one that has held exactly one person’s impression until today — now holds his much larger frame like it was waiting for him. He settled into it the way you settle into a space that already knows you, and the sight of it does dangerous things to my chest.

This is not the arsehole reboot. I know that pattern — I watched him rebuild the weapon casing after the first touch, after the purr, after I called him beautiful. That was performative distance. A male shoving himself back into the SRS box because the alternative terrified him.

This is different. Quieter. Heavier. Like he’s carrying something he doesn’t know how to set down.

This is a male who is not performing distance. He is radiating it. The difference is the shaking. His hands haven’t stopped since the notebook — I saw the tremor when I came back with the tea, saw him ball his fists on his thighs, and that tremor is still running beneath the tactical proficiency like a fault line under a road. He’s professional and productive and his hands are vibrating, and his tail is wrapped so tightly around his own leg that the fuzz is compressed flat against the muscle.

And his body is still reaching for me.

That’s the tell. That’s the thing that confirms this isn’t retreat. His nostrils flare every time I walk past — the deep inhale, tracking my scent, the involuntary lean of his torso toward my warmth before he catches it and corrects. His eyes track my hands when I check the fuel gauges, and when I reach across the console to adjust the scanner calibration, his pupils dilate. I can see the gold deepen from three feet away. He looks away. Swallows. Returns to the tactical display.

There is other evidence. Not the tail, not the eyes — the other kind, the kind I spent six hours pressed against in the dark and do not need a manual to identify at three feet. I know what I’m looking at. I know what the tension in his lap is and what he’s been managing since the bunk and what the shift in how he holds himself means when I cross the cockpit. He’s holding very still in my chair, which is either operational composure or the specific stillness of a male who is not going to stand up right now, and I would bet Betsy on the latter.

I look at the scanner array. The scanner array needs calibrating.

I am also not unaffected. This is relevant information that I am choosing not to examine in great detail right now, because we have a four-hour departure window and my hands are already less steady than I’d like, and the wanting has been running low and persistent in my belly since the bunk and I don’t need it sitting in my chest where I can’t think around it. But it’s there. It has been there since he came through the airlock and has been getting worse and better in equal measure ever since.

His body is saying come here. His behavior is saying stay away.

I know what this looks like. Twelve years of courier work, reading clients and customs officers and the specific silence of someone who owes you money and can’t make the payment. The body wants onething. The secret demands another. The gap between them is where the lie lives.

“Scanner array’s calibrated,” I say, keeping my voice even. “We’re tight on the port-side bandwidth, but Sprout can compensate once we’re in the corridor.”

“Acknowledged.” He doesn’t look up.

“The fuel mix is running lean. I’ll need to recalibrate at the Meridian junction, or we’ll burn through reserves before the fifth marker.”

“I have adjusted the route timeline to account for a recalibration stop.”

“You know,” I say, still not looking at him, making a small unnecessary adjustment to a dial that does not need adjusting, “for a male running covert tactical analysis, you’re remarkably visible from the co-pilot’s station.”

A pause. “I am not aware of any visibility error in my —“

“That’s not what I meant, lovey.” I do look at him then. Just for a second. Let him see that I’ve clocked everything — the tail, the jaw, all of it — and look back at the dial. “Back to your route planning.”

The marking along his jaw floods dark. I keep my face completely neutral and log the reaction for later.

“You haven’t looked at me in two hours.”

His fingers stop on the display.

“I am conducting tactical analysis. Visual contact with —“

“Xor.”

His name. Not lovey. Not pet. The blade version, the one I used in the bunk when my fingers were at the base of his horn and his body was pressed against mine and the word came out like a key turning in a lock. I use it now with the same precision and different intent.

He looks at me.

The gold eyes are wrong. Not flat — that’s the mask. These are open and underneath the tactical composure is something I haven’t seen before. Not anger. Not arrogance. Not the contempt of a male who thinks he’s better than the room.

Fear.