Chapter 7 #2
The silence that followed felt charged, electric. Zor'go's markings had gone completely still, but his eyes. Those ice-blue eyes that usually held such controlled focus were anything but controlled now.
"I did want to kiss you," he said finally, and the admission was so quiet I almost didn't hear it. "I do want to kiss you. I want—" He stopped himself, struggling visibly with whatever he'd been about to say. "But wanting isn't sufficient justification."
"Why not?"
"Because—" He gestured helplessly at himself, at me, at the vast difference in our sizes. "Look at us, Jalina. I'm eight and a half feet tall. My hand could span your entire back. The size difference alone presents physical complications that—"
"So we'd have to be careful. So what?" I was smiling now, couldn't help it, because he was arguing about logistics instead of feelings and that meant the feelings themselves were no longer in question.
"You're the most precise being I've ever met.
You calculate load distributions and stress tolerances for massive structures.
You're telling me you can't figure out how to kiss someone smaller than you without causing injury? "
His markings flickered rapidly, and something that might have been humor touched his expression before he suppressed it. "That's not the point."
"Then what is the point? Because from where I'm standing, it seems like you're manufacturing obstacles to avoid admitting you care about me."
"I'm not—" He stopped, took a breath, and when he spoke again his voice had lost its defensive edge.
"I don't know how to do this. Relationships, attachment, allowing myself to want something beyond duty and work.
I don't have a template. No calculations that guarantee a successful outcome.
And the possibility of failure, of hurting you or compromising my effectiveness or—"
"Zor'go." I reached out slowly, giving him time to retreat, and placed my hand on his forearm.
His skin was warm under my palm, and I felt his markings flicker in response to the touch.
"Nobody has a template. Nobody has guaranteed outcomes.
That's what makes it worth doing. Because it's real and messy and uncertain, and we figure it out together as we go. "
He stared down at my hand on his arm like he'd never seen such a thing before. "What if I fail? What if I hurt you without meaning to, or my obligations to Mothership create conflict, or—"
"What if it works?" I interrupted gently. "What if caring about each other makes us both better at what we do? What if the best designs aren't the ones we can calculate in advance, but the ones we discover by taking risks?"
His other hand came up, hesitantly, and one long finger traced along my jaw with such careful gentleness it made my breath catch. "You make it sound simple."
"It's not simple. It's terrifying." I leaned slightly into his touch, and saw his markings brighten in response. "But I think it's worth being terrified for."
"I've never—" He stopped, started again. "I don't have experience with this. With wanting someone. With allowing myself to be vulnerable."
"Good thing I'm not asking for experience.
" I smiled up at him, feeling my heart hammering against my ribs.
"I'm just asking if you're willing to try.
To stop pushing me away every time you feel something.
To let yourself want this, want us without immediately categorizing it as inappropriate or distracting or dangerous. "
The hand at my jaw slid back, his fingers threading carefully into my hair. His touch was reverent, wondering, like I was something precious he was afraid of breaking. "And if I fail? If I can't balance this with my duties, if—"
"Then we figure it out. Together." I reached up with my free hand, had to go up on my toes even to reach his chest. "That's what partnership means, Zor'go. Not perfection. Not having all the answers in advance. Just committing to work through the complications as they come."
He was looking at me like I'd recalculated something fundamental about the universe. Like everything he'd built his worldview on had suddenly shifted alignment, and he was still processing the new configuration.
"I'm not good at this," he said quietly. "At emotions. At expressing things that can't be quantified or calculated."
"You don't have to be good at it. You just have to be honest about it."
His thumb brushed across my cheekbone, and the tenderness in the gesture made my throat tight.
"Then honestly I think about you constantly.
I dream about your sketches. I redesign my own work to create excuses to collaborate with you.
I watch you adjust your glasses and argue with my calculations and light up over design possibilities, and I—" He stopped, struggling with the words.
"I feel more alive when you're near me than I have in years. Maybe ever."
The confession broke something open in my chest. I'd been hoping for acknowledgement, for honesty, but this was more than I'd dared imagine.
"Then stop fighting it," I whispered. "Stop telling yourself that caring about me makes you weak or incompetent or dangerous. Just... let yourself feel it. Let yourself want this."
"I already want this. That's the problem."
"No." I pressed my hand more firmly against his chest, felt the strong steady beat of his heart beneath my palm. "Wanting isn't the problem. Denying yourself what you want—that's the problem. That's what's been making you miserable and distracted and ineffective these past few weeks."
His other hand joined the first, both of them cradling my face now with a gentleness that contrasted sharply with his size. "What if I'm not capable of this? What if my dedication to duty is too ingrained, what if—"
"Then we work around it. We build something that accommodates both your sense of duty and your capacity for caring about people.
They're not mutually exclusive, Zor'go. The best leaders care about their crew.
The best planners understand that beings are more than functional units to be organized.
You already know this, I've seen it in your work. You just have to apply it to yourself."
He studied my face for a long moment, those ice-blue eyes searching for something I couldn't name. Then, slowly, carefully, he leaned down.
The kiss was tentative, questioning. His lips barely brushed mine, as if he was still asking permission, still uncertain whether this was allowed.
I answered by rising on my toes, by threading my free hand into the short hair at the nape of his neck, by pressing closer even though closer was logistically complicated given our size difference.
He made a sound low in his throat as surprise and relief and want all tangled together, and the kiss deepened.
Still careful, still gentle, but with growing confidence.
His hands slid from my face to my waist, spanning it easily, and he lifted me up to make the angle less awkward.
I wrapped my arms around his neck and let myself fall into it, into him, into this thing we'd been circling around for weeks.
Zor'go's markings were blazing so bright they cast blue light across the entire workshop. He looked stunned, undone, like he'd just recalculated the fundamental architecture of his entire worldview.
He set me down carefully, kept his hands on my waist like he wasn't quite ready to let go. "I'm still going to be terrible at this. At balancing duty and personal attachment. At expressing emotions efficiently."
"Good thing I'm not grading you on efficiency." I smiled up at him, and saw his expression soften in response. "And good thing I'm stubborn enough to keep pushing when you try to retreat into professionalism."
"Stubborn." Something like amusement flickered across his features. "An interesting characterization from someone who argues with my load-bearing calculations regularly."
"Your load-bearing calculations are sometimes wrong."
"They're mathematically verified."
"They don't account for aesthetic considerations."
"Aesthetic considerations don't affect structural integrity."
"They affect whether beings want to live there, which I'd argue is integral to the entire point of—"
He kissed me again, effectively ending the argument. When he pulled back, there was definite amusement in his expression now, warmth breaking through the usual controlled intensity.
"This is going to be complicated," he said.
"Everything worth doing is complicated."
"The project deadline is in three months."
"Then we should probably stop avoiding each other and get back to actual collaboration instead of dancing around our feelings."
"Logical." He paused, his markings flickering in a pattern I was learning to recognize as uncertainty. "Should we... inform anyone? Establish protocols for managing personal relationships within command structure?"
"Or," I suggested, "we could just keep working together and let people draw their own conclusions. We're not doing anything wrong, Zor'go. We're two adults who happen to work together and also happen to care about each other. That's allowed."
"Dana and Er'dox went through formal bonding protocols."
"Dana and Er'dox wanted formal bonding protocols. I'm not asking you to bond with me. I'm just asking you to stop pushing me away every time you feel something."
The relief that crossed his face was almost comical. "So we're not, this isn't a formal commitment requiring ceremonies and witnesses and—"
"Not unless you want it to be." I studied his expression, saw the panic receding. "Did you think I was demanding some kind of immediate permanent bond?"
"I didn't know what you were demanding. I'm not good at reading interpersonal subtext."
"I'm demanding honesty. And that you stop treating your feelings for me like they're some kind of catastrophic design flaw. That's it. Everything else we figure out as we go."