In the same second, he took inventory: two exits, the front door he'd just come through and the balcony, whose glass slider stood cracked precisely two inches. Intentional ventilation or deliberately accessible escape route — unclear for now. Knife block on the kitchen counter, one blade absent. No visible weapons on the man's person, but his sleeves were pushed back and his hands were where Tav could see them, and the placement told its own story.
The stranger glanced up.
Warm amber met cold grey.
Something beat beneath Tav's ribs in the fraction of a second before his training caught up with it — a system-level alert, sharp and immediate, the kind his body produced before his conscious mind had finished processing. Not attraction, or not only attraction. Something more structural than that.
Danger.
The man smiled. Easy and open and precisely one beat too fast to be entirely unguarded.
"Please tell me you're not maintenance," he said, in a voice that managed to sound pleasantly conversational and subtly watchful at once. "Because if this place costs what I think it does and the kitchen sink pressure is still that embarrassing, someone owes me a very serious conversation."
Tav stepped fully inside and let the door click shut behind him.
"You're in my apartment."
The man tilted his head. The smile didn't move. "That's interesting," he said, with the tone of irritation. "I was about to say the same thing."
Tav swept the room again — habit, not panic. The absent kitchen knife. The balcony gap. The weight distribution of the figure on the couch, casual to the point of performance: positioned with his center of gravity forward enough to rise quickly, his legs angled correctly to do it. Not military trained, or not primarily. Something else. Something that had learned similar lessons through a different and more oblique curriculum.
"You have ten seconds," Tav said quietly, "to explain why you're here."
The man blinked once. Then, without hurry, he set the coffee mug on the low table and swung his feet to the floor. He rose with a fluid, controlled ease that bore no resemblance to the lounging posture that had preceded it — smooth and economical and quietly wrong in a way most people would never notice.
"Alistair Keaton," he said, extending one hand. "Your apparently unwanted roommate."
Tav studied the hand.
Did not take it.
Alistair's smile adjusted — not offended, recalibrating — and he let the hand drop without embarrassment. "Right then." He glanced around the apartment with the proprietorial air of someone assessing inherited furniture. "I have a key, a signed lease, and what I feel is a very defensible claim to the left bedroom. Would any of those be useful starting points, or are we committed to the intimidating silence approach?"
"There's no roommate listed on my lease."
"Funny. There's one on mine."
Tav regarded him steadily. That was not possible. Ablation had placed him here for the isolation — this building, this unit,this floor. The management had been selected in part for their discretion, their institutional willingness to not look too closely at paperwork that appeared correct.
There was no version of this in which the agency had simply miscommunicated. Which meant this wasn't a miscommunication at all.
Alistair had already moved toward the kitchen, navigating the space with the unconscious ease of someone who had mentally mapped it hours ago. He lifted the coffee pot with a question in the gesture.
Tav didn't answer, but he crossed toward the island anyway.
"You unpacked before confirming the situation," he said.
"You say that like confidence is a character flaw."
"I said carelessness."
"No." Alistair poured a second mug and slid it across the marble without asking whether it was wanted. "You meant confidence. Carelessness is ignorance. Confidence is a decision."
"Which was it?"
Alistair held his gaze over the rim of his own cup. Something flashed behind his eyes — assessment running alongside amusement, both visible and both intentional. "Both," he said pleasantly.
"Depending on what you do next."
