He thought about this for approximately thirty seconds.
Then he returned to the Voss financial notes.
But the thought had been noted.
CHAPTER NINE
They went back.
The city was wet and cold outside, and they walked through it at a pace that balanced urgency with sense — fast enough to be purposeful, slow enough not to register, two figures moving through the rain-slicked streets with the particular inconspicuousness of people who had learned to travel without being noticed. They didn't speak. The silence between them had a different quality from their usual silences — less combative, more saturated.
Alistair was managing his right side with the practiced subtlety of someone experienced at concealing physical limitation, and Tav was tracking it without comment.
The apartment was dark when they arrived.
Tav checked it twice before unlocking the door — habit — and Alistair noticed and said nothing, which itself communicated something. He crossed the kitchen to the cabinet under the sink and retrieved the medical kit with the efficiency he had used it before, who kept it stocked and organized for reasons that a finance graduate student would have been hard-pressed to explain.
Alistair leaned in the bathroom doorway and watched him.
"That," he said, "is not a recreational first aid kit."
"Bathroom. Sit down."
"You say romantic things to me constantly."
Tav set out the supplies in order of intended use: antiseptic, gauze, surgical tape, suture thread, needle driver. Clean and deliberate, each item positioned with the economy of someone working to a practiced sequence.
"Shirt off," he said.
Alistair complied, pulling it over his head with the carefully managed movement of someone protecting an injured side. He sat on the closed toilet lid and Tav crouched in front of him, which placed them in closer proximity than either of them acknowledged, and examined the wound.
Knife graze, recently stitched. The stitching was uneven, the tension inconsistent across the closure, the angle suggesting it had been done one-handed in a moving or otherwise compromised environment.
"You closed this yourself," Tav said.
"In a moving vehicle, yes." Alistair's voice was steady. "I feel your assessment could open with anything other than professional critique."
"The tension is wrong." Tav reached for the antiseptic. "You pulled the skin edges together under too much tension and the tissue has reacted."
"That sentence shouldn't be as reassuring as it somehow is."
Tav cleaned the wound with methodical precision. Alistair stayed still beneath his hands — genuinely still, the practiced quiet of someone accustomed to enduring discomfort without performance. It was, Tav reflected, a quality that distinguished people who had experienced real injury from those who hadn't.
Tav threaded a needle.
"I'm going to correct the stitch angle," he said.
"Warn me."
"That was the warning."
"That was—" A short sound as Tav placed the first stitch. "Alright. Yes. I see."
"Breathe normally."
"I am breathing normally."
"You're not."
