Horgox makes a sound that's halfway between a laugh and a groan. His amusement layered over a warm, deep satisfaction that makes my toes curl.
The shower is joint, because after last night the pretence of separate showers would insult both our intelligences. His hands in my hair, working through the curls that have reverted to their natural state of chaos now that they're clean. My hands on his chest, tracing the circuit traceries that glow faintly in the steam. Every touch registering in both our nervous systems, the drag of soap across scars, the temperature contrast of his heat and mycooler skin, the specific peace of caring for each other's bodies without urgency.
Not urgent doesn't mean not charged. The bond makes sure of that. By the time we're clean and towelled off, the feedback loop is humming at a frequency that makes getting dressed feel like an act of heroic self-discipline.
Then we hit the clothing problem.
The station requisition terminal offers two hundred and forty-seven options for male humanoid clothing in Horgox's size range. He stands in front of it in a towel, his hair dripping, the claiming color visible in his markings, and he doesn't move.
For thirty seconds, I think he's reading the options. Then I catch it — not reading. Frozen. The specific paralysis of a male who has been told what to wear for his entire captivity and is now standing in front of two hundred and forty-seven choices with no framework for making any of them.
His hands, which held me with absolute confidence an hour ago, are trembling.
"Hey." I step beside him. Don't take over. Don't choose for him. "Pick a color."
"There are sixty-four colours."
"Start with one. Any one. What do you want to look at every day?"
He's quiet for a long moment. The dissonance is visible in his body: freedom is what he fought for, and freedom is what's overwhelming him. The paradox of choice after a lifetime of none, the vertigo of standing in a space where no one is going to tell him the answer.
"Dark green," he says finally. "Something close to—" His hand brushes his own forearm, the jade markings.
"Close to you."
"Yes."
Something in my chest cracks. He wants to wear his own color. Wants clothing that looks like it belongs tohim, not to a facility or an arena or a station's generic supply. The first thing he chooses is himself.
"Dark green," I confirm, and filter the options. "Three sets enough to start?"
He nods. His hands have stopped shaking.
The pants fit better than last night's disaster, though the waistband still sits low because Varkaani hips don't map to human tailoring. The shirt stretches across his shoulders in a way that I choose not to comment on because we have a debrief in three hours and I've already used up my self-discipline reserves for the morning.
"Better?" I ask.
He looks at himself in the viewport's reflection. Dark green against emerald skin, the claiming color threading through his markings, the circuit traceries visible at his collar and cuffs. Not a uniform. Not assigned. Chosen.
"Yes," he says. Quiet. "Better."
The station cafeteria is controlled chaos during shift change, and it nearly breaks him.
I see it before I feel it: the spike of hypervigilance that hits the moment we walk through the doors. Multiple species, conversations in overlapping languages, the clatter of trays and the hiss of beverage dispensers and the sheervolumeof civilised life hitting enhanced Varkaani senses like a wall.
His hand finds my wrist. Not gentle. Gripping. The instinctive response of a male whose body learned that crowds mean arenas, and arenas mean fighting, and the noise and press of bodies is the prelude to violence.
His heart rate has doubled. His breathing has gone shallow. Every muscle locked for combat, fighting the response with a discipline that cost him decades to build, visible in the clenched jaw and the dimming markings and the way his gaze tracks every moving figure like a threat assessment algorithm running on maximum power.
I don't pull him out. Don't suggest we leave. Don't rescue him, because rescue would confirm that he can't handle this, and hecan. He survived worse than a cafeteria.
Instead, I thread my fingers through his. Press my thumb against his pulse point. And through the bond, I send the steadiest thing I have:this is not an arena. These are not opponents. You are safe, and I'm right here, and we're getting breakfast.
His grip on my wrist loosens by degrees. His breathing evens. His markings shift from dim to cautious jade, then warmer as my calm seeps through the connection.
"Okay?" I ask quietly.
"Adjusting." Clipped. Tactical. The voice he uses for things that are hard and that he won't admit are hard.
