I can’t get it out of my head. It echoes louder than the cheers, louder than the machines powering down, louder than the scrape of Whiplash’s hull cooling in the bay behind us.
Somehow, he says it like he means every syllable.
And gods, I wish I didn’t care. I wish I could chalk it up to exhaustion or battle hormones or the psychological fallout of deep neural tethering.
But I can’t.
Because Ifeltit. In the Meld. In the grip of his fingers. In the look he gave me when the evac pod took off and left just the two of us standing there, the world burning quietly in the background.
He looked at me like I wasn’t part of the wreckage.
Like I was what made it allworth it.
I should’ve gone to my bunk. Slept. Decompressed.
That’s what I told myself as I stripped the Meld suit, scrubbed sand from my scalp, powered down my console.
But my feet didn’t listen.
Instead, they led me down the back corridors, past flickering diagnostics panels and coolant hisses and the faint hum of generator cores.
Toward the mech bay.
Toward him.
I don’t know what I expected to find—maybe him gone, asleep, somewhere far from me and everything I can’t say. Maybe the bay dark. Empty. A place I could pretend I wandered into by accident.
But it’s lit.
Not bright—just the kind of golden-dim that makes shadows stretch and metal gleam.
And he’s there.
Naull stands beside Whiplash’s extended arm, a rag in one hand, smoothing grime from the plating like it’s sacred relic instead of battle-scarred alloy. His shirt’s gone. Just the undersuit tank now, clinging to every line of his back, every curve of muscle that moves with slow precision.
He hums while he works.
Not loud. Not tuneful, really. But... soft. Foreign. The cadence of the song isn’t Terran. The intervals slide, hover. Vakutan, maybe. Something old.
Something important.
I stay in the shadows, my back to the wall, just out of range of the glow panels. I don’t even try to step closer.
I should.
Iwantto.
But I just stand there and watch.
The way he moves is different now. Not tense like before battle. Not shattered like after. There’s peace in the way he handles the mech. Not just mechanics. Not just duty.Reverence.
It hits me harder than I expect.
Because for all the strength, all the bravado and brawling and bravado, Naull treats Whiplash the way he touched my harness.
Like it matters.
Like it’s something heprotects.
