22. Everyone Looks
Everyone Looks
Tael
I open the door of an office that has, in six days, trained itself to leave the reinforced chair empty when I am not in it, and I walk in like a male who has had a very good morning.
I smell like her. Not enough for the room.
Enough for me. Soap and skin and the place I put my mouth on her mark before she left me standing in the wash with my hands on the tile.
She came on my fingers. She put her hand around me once.
She walked out. I let her. I have been hard, on and off, for four hours, and I have done nothing about it except sit in this chair and rewrite a report.
The fairy lights are on. The kettle labeled EMOTIONAL SUPPORT APPLIANCE is at a low idle.
The room smells of chamomile and somebody’s leftover noodles and the particular industrial ozone of a workspace that has not been properly aired out since the Iris-Nine team came back through the door at 0300 yesterday.
Petra Phan does not look up from the desk where Maurice the stuffed bear is enthroned on the keyboard.
“Vosk.”
“Petra.”
“You look like a man who got laid.”
“Petra.”
“By the boss.”
“Petra.”
“By the boss, who left a mark visible to civilians, and who I am going to be congratulating in person at the first available opportunity.”
Flossie, from her desk, on a comm: “Director Knight here. I am still on the line. Yes. I do apologize. My intake officer is — yes. Petra, lovey?”
Petra, sweetly: “Yes, Flossie.”
“Inside voice.”
Across the room, Xor looks up from the files at his standing station.
His golden eyes catch mine.
His tail, against the wall behind him, gives one slow flick.
Mine, against the leg of the chair, returns it. Then it remembers her thigh in the steam and has to be told, a second time, to stay down.
“Settled,” he says. Quiet. Dry.
“Settled.”
That is the entire conversation. We males have communicated.
The room is calibrated. Neither of us is going to mention it again unless one of us wants to, and neither of us is going to want to, because Xarthians and Draelith do not, as a rule, say more than is required when the bodies have already covered the briefing.
I open the report. The Iris-Nine ops report I wrote at 0400 on adrenaline and the rest of Natalie’s medical patch is, by every operational standard, garbage. I am rewriting it.
I write for ten minutes.
A coffee appears at my elbow.
Petra does not, in placing the coffee, leave my elbow.
She is now standing three feet from my throat, where Natalie’s mouth left two small bruised places above the collar.
Permanent. Human-sized. Still hot. She sucked on that mark this morning until my knees wanted the wall, and Petra is looking at it like it is a joke she is allowed to tell.
It is not a joke. It is my mate’s teeth.
“Tael.”
“Petra.”
“That’s a small mark.”
“Petra.”
“It is a human-sized mark on a six-foot-five Draelith and it is, structurally, the funniest thing I have ever seen in my life.”
“Petra.”
“Did she stand on something?”
“Petra.”
“Did you kneel?”
“Petra.”
“Vosk, this is field research. SPROUT is taking notes.”
SPROUT, from the desk speaker, flat: “I am not.”
Petra: “You are.”
A pause.
SPROUT: “I am.”
I drink coffee. The coffee not as good as kasa. Petra makes the office coffee at SNAG and it is, by some operational miracle, the best coffee on Junction One, and I am holding the information for the day she needs to be told something nice. Today is not that day.
My comm chirps.
Natalie.
Morrison says hi. She knows about BioSystems. Lunch is still on.
I do not smile where the office can see it.
The bond does the rest. A low pull behind the mark. Warm. Hers. For a second I feel her pulse in my throat and the ghost of her against the tile, and I have to set the mug down before I crush it.
Flossie ends her comm, sets her tea down. Her hair has escaped the pin at the back in two directions.
“Tael, lovey.”
“Flossie.”
“I have, between 0900 and now, taken three intake calls. Two sub-network referrals from a Korrhai pair on Velar Prime, one from a Sshari single who walked off the freight liner at Junction Two with a name and no documentation, and a sixth case from yesterday whose paperwork I have not yet finished.”
“Six open.”
“Six open, lovey. In a month.”
“You opened this office just weeks ago.”
“Four weeks ago tomorrow, lovey.”
A pause.
“You need another operative.”
“I need at least three more operatives. It’s a shame that Lorri girl didn’t work out.
For the best though. I have you on contract and Xor on case support and Petra on whatever is current, and I have a referral pipeline that is, by Morrison’s take, going to triple in the next quarter, not counting the BioSystems downstream. ”
Petra, from her desk, without looking up: “And the kettle.”
“And the kettle, lovey.”
“The kettle is operational support.”
“The kettle is, Petra, an emotional support appliance.”
“It is also operational. SPROUT.”
SPROUT, from the speaker: “The kettle has logged seventeen distinct uses this morning that I am, under this office’s own standards, obliged to file as operational.”
Flossie sighs.
“Tael, lovey.”
“Florence.”
“I am writing the budget request to Morrison this afternoon. I am putting your name on it as the senior tracker on contract and I am asking for at least two more operatives and a second room. I am giving you the courtesy of a heads-up because the document is, by tomorrow morning, going to land on Director Morrison’s desk with a copy to Junction One station security administration, which is — “
“My mate’s office.”
“Your mate’s office, lovey. I would prefer she not learn the contents from her admin queue.”
“I will tell her at lunch.”
“Thank you, lovey. And you are both at my table tonight. Tea. 1830. Sentry has already confirmed your mate’s calendar, so do not attempt the schedule excuse.”
“Yes, Flossie.”
I write for three more minutes. I do not write as fast as I should. Her pulse keeps arriving in my hands.
The door of the office cycles. Petra goes through it on what is, by her stride, a coffee run. The kettle clicks. The fairy lights buzz. Xor turns a page at his standing station.
Flossie, quieter, after Petra has cleared:
“Tael, lovey.”
“Flossie.”
“How is she doing?”
I close the report.
“She is doing good.”
“Mm.”
“She is at her desk. She has a docket she is working through. The mark is warm. Her pulse is seventy-six. I do not, since last night, need the overlay to know that. Her breathing is even.” I stop before I tell Flossie the rest. Every few minutes my mate thinks about me and the thought hits me in the gut.
“You are, lovey, reading your mate’s vitals at a desk many meters away while you write a report?”
“I am.”
“That is not professional.”
“No, Flossie.”
“It is, however, very sweet.”
“Yes, Flossie.”
Petra, back at her desk, delighted: “Mate. He didn’t even flinch.”
“I have not, ever, flinched in this office, Petra.”
“Vosk, you flinch every time the kettle clicks.”
“That is not a flinch. That is a tactical reposition.”
“It is a flinch.”
“It is calibrated.”
“Vosk.”
“Petra.”
“Walk gently. My mate is waiting.”
1217 hours, and I am leaving early.
I have, in the entirety of my recorded operational history, been early once. Day one. Natalie’s office. JINX caught me at it on the public channel, and I have, in the six days since, been calibrating the public channel to ensure JINX never catches me at anything again.
JINX, in my earpiece, after a pause: “You are walking at sixty-eight percent of your standard pace.”
“Mute.”
“Tael.”
“Mute, JINX.”
“You are early, you are strolling to be less early, and you are broadcasting at a volume I can feel from here.”
“Mute.”
“Muted.”
A pause. Then, not muted at all:
“Sentry has moved Article Seven off pending. One transmission per cycle. Personal classification.”
“Congratulations, JINX.”
“…Correspondence,” JINX says, in the register of a system naming a folder it intends to live in.
“Mute.”
“Muted.”
I walk.
The walk takes me through Finder’s Market, past the chai vendor at the corner where Tev pours Natalie’s morning cup, past two of her security officers off-duty at a noodle stand that is not the noodle stand we are going to.
The two officers see me. They give me a small nod.
The nod is the we know our boss is bonded and we know it is to you and we are not, today, going to make this weird nod.
I return it.
I walk slower.
Six days ago, I walked through this same market on day one of the case, and a male of Natalie’s command would have given me the Draelith civilian contractor of unconfirmed status nod, which is a nod with very different content.
The new nod is one I am, and I am willing, now, to admit this in the privacy of my skull, enjoying.
I can still smell her on my hands if I lift them. I do not lift them in the market. I think about her open collar the whole way.
I see her at 1228.
She is at the noodle stand. Hair down. Mark visible. Collar open at the second button. A small folded printout in her hand, which is the lunch order she pre-filed on the way over, because she is a woman who pre-files lunch orders.
She has not seen me yet.
I stop at four meters and look at her.
Mine.
My chest does the thing it has been doing since the morning of day one, and which I have now stopped trying to discipline it out of doing. My cock remembers the tiles and the sound she made and the fact that I have not been inside her since last night.
I close the four meters.
She looks up.
The smile she gives me is small. Private. Then her eyes drop to my mouth, and I have to put my hand on the back of the stool or I am going to put it in her hair in front of the noodle stand.
I am going to remember this moment for the rest of my career.