But I just did.
And worse?
Iwant to do it again.
After a long beat, I reach up and release my helmet seal. The hiss is loud in the quiet. Cool air rushes against my damp scalp and the sweat sticking to my neck.
Naull watches me but doesn’t speak.
Then he pulls off his own helmet, and I’m struck—again—by howalienhe is. Not just the obvious things. The scales. The horns. The gold of his eyes that glow even when they shouldn’t.
It’s the way hemoves.Like a predator. Like someone made of muscle and impulse and instinct.
But right now, he looks—tired.
And somehowgentle.
He shifts in his seat, stretches his neck. There’s a red burn mark tracing across the line of his collarbone from where the neural interface fed back too hard during the final strike.
Without thinking, I lean forward.
My fingers brush it—soft, searching.
He goes utterly still.
“It’s not deep,” I say, almost to myself. “But it’ll sting.”
“You gonna kiss it better?” he asks.
His voice is low. A rumble.
It’s a joke.
Sort of.
I don’t laugh.
Because for one breathless moment… I want to.
I want tolean in.
But I don’t.
I drop my hand. Sit back. Put the metaphorical walls back up.
Barely.
“You should get that looked at in medbay,” I say.
He exhales. Long and slow. “Yeah.”
But neither of us moves.
Because something’s changed, and we both know it.
When the ground crew comes knocking, we startle like kids caught passing notes in class.
Naull calls out something snarky, and I pretend to be annoyed. The routine kicks back in like armor. Safe. Predictable.
