She paced from the countertop to the head of the bed. Not quite a straight line but the longest length of space without interruption. That was only seventeen steps walking toe-to-heel. Thinking about walking around the cabin, along the walls instead. She’d have to leap onto his desk, and then the counter to do that. She supposed it made for a little bit of an obstacle course. But restrained herself from doing so. 

Finishing the deck of cards she’d been sketching. Carefully folding, licking the edges and tearing them into separate cards. Between the fact that the paper lacked slickness and that it didn’t have enough thickness to obscure her drawing on the opposite side, though, it didn’t quite work for playing any games against herself. 

As she was frustratingly trying to figure out how to remedy this problem, the door slid open. She’d been laying on the floor on a spread out blanket and dove to hide under his desk. It was far too early to expect him back. 

Then she heard the blip of his translator being disconnected and peeked back around the corner of the desk.

“Hi!” she said, feeling stupid to sound so relieved and so happy to see him.

“Only quick,” he said. He had another rubber tub with him, like the one he had hauled in her ready-meals with. She was nowhere near running out of meals, however. She was curious but stayed on the floor. 

He rattled it at her, shifting the box back and forth and dropping it heavily on the top of the desk. 

Taking things out of the box, he laid them on the table one-by-one like a dentist setting out tools. 

“Diversions,” he said. 

A blue-gray rubber ball, what looked like a foam cube, approximately 7x5X4”, a plank about 20x8”, a clanking drawstring bag, and another pen. 

He uncapped the pen, shaking it at her. Looking at the tip, she saw it was red. The one he’d given her was a deep inky gray. Now she’d have two colors to work with. 

“Dual game,” he said, pushing the plank and bag toward her. One side had divots. She shook open the bag. Little turtle-egg shaped pieces of metal, with differing amount of divots. But also what she recognized as spilikins.

“Cribbage!” she said, flipping the board upside down and seeing the classic peg board. From his breast pocket, he tossed down a pack of cards as well. Flipping the board back the other way again, he tapped it with his claws.

“Mmishac,” he said. The translator stuttered for a second, finally coming up with game… tournament. 

“Body,” he said, holding up the ball and the cube. The cube was clearly for working out with. The ball was like a kid’s toy, but nevertheless something new. 

“Thank you,” she said, clutching the board happily to her chest. 

“No more restlessness,” he said. She wasn’t sure if that was a command or an apology or merely stating a fact.

“Thank you,” she said again, instead of trying to figure it out. 

He left again and wasn’t back until late. She sat him upright in his bed. Helping him clean his arm-blades. Being used as a cooling sheet again. Set gently to one side after a few hours.

For several days they settled into a comfortable if odd and quiet arrangement. Waking separately. Having her quiet morning alone. Making his chaar. About once every thirty hours or so, he wanted sex. Every time, she orgasmed in one way or another. She decided very firmly with herself to not consider the how or why of that particular situation. 

Sometimes he would come back half-way through a work day– not often. She got the sensation he was still attempting to lull her into a false sense of security. Like he expected to drop in on her one day making a shank to kill him with, or figuring out how to weasel through the air ducts to escape. 

She was keeping a running mental tally of how he’d done her– back of her knees, the underside of her breasts, folding her in half in his lap, and sliding between her thighs and stomach. Wordlessly, they seemed to agree on intercrural sex. She knew he liked her thighs. Because sometimes he would just stroke or grip them. She’d be walking by him, or lying on the floor, and he’d run his hands down them. Grip her and shake her flesh on her bones. It was especially easy for her to come on him in that fashion. Especially facing him, his lower torso a delicious pressure on her when she slid forward. 

If she thrust a hand or arm toward him when they faced each other, he’d oblige, and bite her. When her back was to him, without being prompted, he’d often catch her in a gentle chokehold. She loved hanging from his forearm, body weight riding his shaft until she breathlessly came on him. 

On the days that he came back late, she cared for him. Hygiene, occasionally walking on him again. She found she could also use her elbows to ease out his aches. 

Reading, playing cribbage against herself. Finally finding simple rules for Mmishac and teaching herself. When she felt like she had a fairly good grasp of it, she set it up one day when he made one of his “surprise” afternoon visits.

It was a quick and furious game, so she didn’t feel as if she was holding him up. He beat her roundly, huffing in definite amusement about it. She pretended to pout. 

“Dumb Pet,” he said, almost fondly. 

“I will teach you cribbage,” she said, translator failing for ‘cribbage’ of course. “And we’ll see how good your pegmanship is.” 

“Exceedingly clever,” he warned, hand to his chest. “Treacherous gamesman.” 

She laughed. 

“Special treat, late,” he promised as he was leaving that day. 

He was late. She was nodding off over a game of beleaguered castle on her picnic-blanket style set up in the front room. A pillow propped under her elbow, her jug of water beside her. 

“Hi, Sir,” she yawned when the door bleeped. 

“Forget about special treat?” he asked.

“No, sir,” she said, flopping onto her opposite side to watch him. Hopping quickly to her feet when she realized he wasn’t alone. 

“Hiya, Contraband,” Doc said. 

“Hi, Doc!” she said, clapping her hands briefly together before quickly hiding them behind her back and swallowing her smile. 

“Here to check in on you,” Doc said, settling comfortably on the floor next to her. Folding tentacles every which way and sinking low to the floor. They were more on level this way. 

“And share something nice,” he added. Reaching into the side pocket of his voluminous lab coat, he pulled out a bundle of fluff. Setting a mostly still asleep cat onto the blanket between them.

It wasn’t a fully grown cat, but it was especially dwarfed by Doc. Rolling from one side to the other, it blinked up at her. Unamused and unworried the way only cats could be.

“Oh, baby,” she cooed, almost about to burst into tears again. Running two fingers down its arrow-printed little forehead. 

Her childhood had been surrounded by animals. But as she got older, it was just occasional run-ins with strange dogs. Tugging a thread loose from the wrist of her uniform, she bounced the string in front of the half-kitten for it to play with. It did so lazily, whacking one paw in the air. 

“Pharaoh is a working cat,” Doc explained. “He’s just very bad at his job.” 

“Pharaoh,” she cooed again, watching his little body work. “No, he’s a good boy.”

“The Venusians can carry on some nasty little parasites– especially if they’ve been “out to sea” as it were, for a number of years. They mature, they drop off. The cats are good at hunting ‘em down. Cats are such nasty little killing machines,” Doc said fondly. 

“So you do know cats,” she said, letting Pharaoh nip at her fingers. 

“Cats are always good to have aboard ship, no question,” Doc said. 

She finally became reaware of the Brute. He’d sat at his desk. He had his working tablet in front of him. But wasn’t doing anything with it. Just watching her and Doc.

Doc leaned in very close to the cat's belly, as if he were correcting it. 

“I know we can’t talk,” he said, almost totally inaudible, his words being swallowed by the ground and the cat's fur. “You’re good?”

She nodded shallowly.

“Good, Pharaoh,” she said. 

His beak clicked, sounding like a knuckle pop. 

Returning to normal volume, sitting back up, he clicked again. “You finished your medicine?”

“Long gone,” she said. 

“Did the cards and games suffice?” he asked. “I know they had to be taken from some rowdy Z-Tics– don’t call them that to their faces, by the way– and I think they’ve been sitting in his office since nearly flight day one.” 

She glanced over her shoulder at the Brute. Still just watching them.

“I tell ya’,” Doc sighed. “You let somebody work in space too long, they all develop a gambling habit– Z-Tics in particular just tend to get real mean real fast. Nothing to do but get weird and make bets you can’t cover.” 

“Thank you,” she said to the Brute again. She knew he hadn’t seized the games for her, but it was nice that he brought them to her. 

“He asked what you might like from his little closet of naughty goodies,” Doc said. “And that he wanted to keep you busy so as to make sure you wouldn’t be tempted to go astray.” 

She turned entirely around to face the Brute.

“Best behavior,” she said, hand to her chest. He stayed very still, not responding. So she turned away from him.

“Well, your voice sounds better,” Doc said. “Is this what you sounded like before?”

“Not quite,” she said. Still hoarse, voice occasionally rocky. When she tried to sing now, she couldn’t hit the high notes she used to be able to reach easily. Nor could she raise her voice very loud. 

“Sleeping all right?” he asked.

Her eyes slid from his. Not liking that she was avoiding him. She had frequent nightmares. Far more worrisome, sometimes she woke up enraged– like she’d have to fight Jack. Like she’d wake up and find herself in the casket again. She slept best if she was jammed between the wall and the Brute– a false enclosing. She didn’t like that she was most comfortable in cramped spaces now, at least to sleep. If she tried to sleep on the floor, stretched out, or in the Brutes bed alone, she got senselessly nervous. If she fell asleep like that, she’d have nightmares of drifting loose in space. 

If she took a nap during the day, without the Brute there, she’d cram herself in the knee well of his desk and sleep curled up in there. 

“You need to exercise,” Doc said.

“I exercise every day!” she said, quite offended. 

Doc reached out, wrapping two tentacles around her upper arm and giving a squeeze. She couldn’t help it, flexing back.

“Skinny,” he remarked. “Soft.”

“Huge!” she shot back at him, gesturing to his body. “I’m getting it back… I was on IV… I’m eating and everything.” 

“You’ve got a block now,” he said. “Look up some workouts on the deck.”

“Pfft,” she said, crabbing away from him and scooping Pharaoh into her lap. 

“Remember pirates?” Doc asked. 

She looked up at him again, unwillingly drawn back in by him and smiling. Nodding. Remembering kids cartoons– yohoho and striped shirts.

From his pocket, he took out a big sack. Peeling it open. Handing her what reminded her of a very large-sized gummy candy. With a similar sort of texture and weight in her hand. 

Curling the delicate tip of one of his tentacles against his beak, he mimicked swallowing. She bit into it, and it jetted across her tongue. Instant citric contraction activating her salivary glands and making her almost drool. She swallowed quickly and threw the second half of the gummy into her mouth too. Chewing for a long while. 

“Argh, don’t want the scurvy, now do we, my pretty?” he said, doing a passable if bad imitation of a cartoon pirate. 

She laughed, choking around the final bites of the gummy. He set the sack on the floor.

“When you want one, eat one,” he said, uncannily shrugging like a human. “Can’t overdose on lemon squeezees.”

He let her play with Pharaoh until the cat passed out, half on her knee, half on the floor. Little belly still full of whatever he’d had to eat before being brought here. Doc gave her a brief scan. 

“Fit as a fiddle,” he declared toward the Brute. And then, “Perfectly fine.”

“Healthy as a horse,” he whispered down at her, making her laugh.  

He stood up. She lifted Pharaoh off her knee, uncomfortably close to weeping again. Rubbing her face into its soft fur, trying to hide her tears. Sneezing viciously several times in a row as she inhaled his dander and fur. 

Doc wrapped a tentacle around the cat in several soft rounds. Tucking him gently and securely back into his pocket. 

“Eat, exercise, sleep,” Doc cautioned her.

“Meh, meh, meh,” she sassed back, mimicking his clacking beak with her fingers.

“See ya tomorrow, mate,” he tossed toward the Brute. Who huffed in return. 

And he was gone. And the energy in the cabin was askew. Not bad, but tilted off its axis. They’d been together in such a weird little orbit. This odd fuck-prisoner situation they’d created out of nothing but the two of them being near each other. And the oddness was just so throbbingly highlighted by having an interloper with them. Even a wanted one. Even one that she mostly trusted. Even one that he clearly mostly trusted.  

She didn’t know how to get it back. And was nervous about it changing. Not wanting to readjust or learn anything new. 

“Sir,” she said. His head snapped toward her. She crawled over to him. Wrapping her legs around his ankle, sitting up on his boot, getting as close as she could. Resting her chin on his knee again. 

After a long and frozenly awkward silence between them, he rested a hand on top of her head. 

“Code?” he said suddenly.

She stiffened for a moment and forced herself to relax. Wondering if he’d caught Doc checking in with her. 

“Fit, fiddle, healthy, horse,” he said, thinking she was just confused.

“Oh!” she said, relieved. Hoping he wouldn’t recognize it as relief. “He knows things… You know… He knows human things… Like jokes and stories and–”

She drifted off. Wondering if the Brute felt left out, or third-wheeled. Knowing that it was absurd, but unable to stop herself from thinking that might be the case. She’d experienced that herself, unfortunately done it to others. Telling inside jokes over and over when she knew another party wouldn’t be in the know. 

“MD is old,” the Brute said, sounding thoughtful. “Veteran… Good memory… Inquisitive. Foreigner detective.” 

“Alien investigator,” she said, laughing. 

He paused, huffed. Definitely amusement. Glad her joke landed with him. They fell into silence. This time the natural, normal kind between them. She melted into his leg. Relaxing, brain going flat. Overwhelmed and tired out from seeing Doc and the cat. 

“Was it happy or sorrow?” he asked. 

“What?” she asked.

“With the fruit, with playing with the tiny hunter, when you wept. MD said weeping can be either,” he said. 

She stiffened again. Dropping her face and nuzzling into his knee. Hiding her eyes. She would be embarrassed talking about this with a human. She’d be embarrassed talking about this with anyone. But especially him. Still uncomfortable that she’d cried in front of him at all.

“It can be a lot of things,” she said. “Happy or sorrow or both at once… It was both at once… With the fruit, with the cat.” 

“Rest,” he said, after another long minute. Reaching down and scooping her from the floor like Doc had scooped the cat. Dropping her into his bed. She got him undressed, undressed herself. 

It took a long while to fall asleep. But at least his wild engine of breath, his heat, were soothing. 

Routine settled for several more days. She made herself a hoop out of an empty chaar tin. Playing ball games against herself. Hoping that nobody could hear the whackitawhackita of her bouncy ball on the floor or walls as she played. But she heard no complaints, and the Brute didn’t take it from her. 

Trying some new workouts. Doing two a day now. Making sure to eat more than just one meal while the Brute was out. 

He brought her fresh food from the mess hall often– nearly every time he left for work, he brought something back. No more Earth food, however. 

Found herself drawing oppositional things. Attempting to recreate the transport maps of the city she lived in before leaving Earth. The Brute’s leg. A cup of chaar, a tall glass of beer. Her nose ring, his boots. 

He increased the frequency with which he did his midpoint drop-ins. For thirty or forty minutes, never long. Mostly, they just played a game. He’d eat a cube of protein, she’d drink powdered tea. 

She taught him poker– he was bad at it. Gin frustrated him. He was good at king’s in the corner and golf, though. Much like Mmishac those were games of lowest points. 

The evenings proceeded as they usually did, all things remaining much the same. They spoke even less frequently– communicating mostly with grunts and physical touch. She knew they watched each other often when they were together. She felt his eyes on her, when she was turned away. If her face was bent over his forearms, helping him do picking and cleaning. Or if she was setting up the cribbage board or dealing cards– she was faster and could do far more tricks than him– he’d be watching her. She did the same to him. When he was drinking chaar and reading, she watched him. When she sat in his lap and brushed his horns for him. 

She wasn’t articulating any particular thought when she did this. Formulating no plans or categorizing any behavior. It was just like childhood. Sitting on her windowsill, watching birds flutter, squirrels ducking around, farm animals standing and breathing and resting. She wasn’t watching him out of fright, or unsureness about his next move. Simply becoming used to him and watching out of relaxed curiosity. She couldn’t be sure about the way in which he was watching her, however. 

It didn’t feel like the bored and anxious watching of a prison guard, but she was sure that played a part. She knew if she said to him, “I intend you no harm, I’m planning no deception” he would be even more inclined to fear betrayal. Still, she was sure the bulk of it was curiosity and that he was cataloging behavior. After Doc said that he’d asked what she might like for activities, and after the Brute himself had said he’d asked the Doc about tears, she was sure he was taking mental notes. Questions to ask, observations he’d made. 

He came in one evening– earlier than usual, but not so early that she thought he would leave again. Rolling his arms and neck like he did when he was in pain. She went on to her toes, doing a twist, grinding the ball of her foot into the ground, miming massage for him. 

“Hard training?” she asked.

“Yes. Such that the longer I spend away from home, I’m concerned I’ve lost gains. Routine and consistency remain, but adjustment is difficult,” he said. 

She frowned, whipping her head around. Realizing his translator was still tagged on his jaw. She frowned very wide, mimicking ripping the sensors off. She hated to hear the radio-announcer voice come from him. Making her have a nightmare shiver of the cargo hold. Of feeling like she was in her cell with a stranger. 

He detached the translator.

“Weird, don’t do that,” she said. 

Huff.

He joined her in the middle of the room. She flapped out the blanket she’d been laying on, then reached out to undo his buttons. After he was undressed, he settled onto the floor. She started walking him. After feeling him ease, she settled onto his back, digging her elbows in along his spine, down his neck, traveling down to his thighs.

“You can’t be the Too-Big Warrior,” she said, trying to joke to see how it would land with him. One of the kids' story; a parable warning about pushing yourself too much. The Too-Big Warrior fighting everything that disrespected him, or was bigger or seemed stronger than him. Never backing down, but always seeking out another problem. Since he never rested, and always persisted, he died. “Heart ever drumming, fists ever pumping, claws always dripping, until it all came to a stop.”

He froze underneath her. Flipping quite suddenly like an alligator going for a kill. Grabbing her, crushing her waist between his legs, talons buried in her hair. She gasped, trying to take in breath as he kept crushing her. Hands patting at his stomach, an attempt to tap out of the wrestling hold.

“Spying,” he said.

“Learning,” she exhaled heavily. 

He let her go, and she collapsed between his legs. Letting the side of her face come to rest on his lower stomach, trying to catch her breath. 

“Why?” he asked.

“Like Doc,” she said. “Foreigner detective.” Repeating back his words at him. 

“Why?” he repeated.

“What else would I be doing? Alone, no work,” she said. 

“Human things,” he said. “Books.” Gesturing at her notebook. “Travel log.”

Had he flipped through her sketchbook? She hadn’t been precisely hiding it, but leaving it in different out-of-the-way places. Places she assumed he wouldn’t look. Behind the toilet. In between the folds of her uniform shoved under the bed. Folded in half and tucked under the lip of the desk. In her tub of food. 

She started to wriggle away from him, and his limbs clamped down on her once more. She wiggled harder and he exerted more pressure. Her breath shallow, becoming frustrated and angry. She snarled at him and he crushed. Feeling herself bruising and collapsing. When she couldn’t fight any more he let her go. She immediately crabbed away, crouching a few feet away from him, still laying on his back on her blanket. Ready to duck under his desk if he wanted to keep fighting. 

But he didn’t, just watching her. 

“Mine,” he said. He gestured suddenly to the room. It used to be, when he indicated something, all of his fingers were together, too-long thumb folded in tightly to his palm. Hand like a spatula, held low at his waist. As they spent time together, he started moving like her. Using one finger to point. Twisting his wrists to indicate motion. He did so now, waving airily about the cabin. Pointing in turn to the back room, his desk, the food, where she was currently hiding her notebook (stuffed alongside the rehydrator) and finally her. 

She bared her teeth at him and immediately scrambled into the knee well of the desk, pulling the chair in behind her. Knowing it was both childish and animalistic, and unable to stop herself. 

She heard his breath starting to cycle up. She was unworried but angry. Feeling spied on. He might have thought he was being spied on, but he wasn’t, not really. He had the entirety of his privacy, an entire life outside of her. Friends even, if they were counting Doc, which she was. Coworkers, and things to do. He might, she thought suddenly, have a whole family and something waiting for him back home. He hadn’t mentioned it, by why and how could he? They didn’t talk about anything at all. He knew nothing about her– from before. And she wasn’t allowing him in to her internal life now. But her notebook was her inching back toward creating an internal life. Something beyond the surviving little animal in his space. 

She heard him moving, and he was suddenly crouching by the desk. Beginning to tug the chair away. She pulled it back. Holding on with all her weight and strength for a few seconds before he flung it across the room in a fit of frustration. 

Still, shockingly, not at all scared of him. Unsure about how he was feeling, and what he would do, but oddly unconcerned about what he would do to her. She didn’t feel death rolling off him the way she had in the past. Mostly she just wanted to kill him. Wishing she could sink her teeth into him, burn out her jaw on his poison blood. Rip something away from him in some meaningful way. Hurt him. 

He stayed in a crouch, watching her. Shoulders and chest heaving with his breath, exhaling through his nostrils heavily. Snarling, she growled at him. Hating herself for making the noise. And that frustration caused her to kick out hard, heel catching in his shoulder. He let the blow land. The still-thinking part of her knew he had better reflexes. Was faster and stronger and very capable of dodging it. 

“Learning,” he said, dodging her next kick. “Taking care of Pet.” 

It wasn’t an apology– it was an explanation for his invasion of her privacy. 

“Surveillance,” she hissed. “Subterfuge and bad behavior.” 

She kicked again, making contact with his jaw. He turned his face toward her, catching her heel between his teeth. Not biting down, just not letting her have her flailing leg back. 

She tried to take a deep breath, bury her anger. Knowing it wasn’t serving her at all, but unable to think straight. There was a world of difference between knowing he owned her and him saying as much. He grabbed her by the knees and wrists. Letting her foot drop from his mouth, dragging her out from under the desk. 

“Trying,” he growled, chin toward his chest. “Trying,” he repeated, indicating her with out thrust chin. 

She breathed heavily herself, catching up. 

“Trying,” she agreed finally. His hands eased on her but didn’t let go. “Ask,” she finally added, letting the rest of her frustration drain out with that word. 

“Ask for what?” he questioned her after a minute. Letting her go. She sat upright, facing him. 

“Ask the questions instead of spying,” she said. 

“Is Mmishac fun?” he asked.

She laughed helplessly and bitterly. 

“Yes. Pet likes games, especially hard ones,” she said. 

“Picking and cleaning… appalling?” he asked. 

Now she was actually chuckling, and shook her head.

“Tranquilizing for him, tranquilizing for her,” she said. 

“Pain sounds during draining, but she doesn’t stop…?” She heard him almost mimicking that uptick in speech to denote a question that she herself used. He never had before. She wriggled closer to him, dropping her elbows into his upper thighs, pushing down and out in the way that seemed to soothe pain for him that always made him exhale. 

“Good pain,” she said, as he breathed. “Like weeping. Good and bad.” 

“The special treat in your travel log?” he asked, sounding almost… hesitant.

She shook her head in a shallow ‘no’ at him. A denial, a boundary laid. She didn’t want to discuss the fact that she still had the fruit wrapper carefully folded inside her notebook. Nor that she’d drawn the strawberry in between his eyeteeth a number of times. Or that sometimes when she lay still and lonely, she’d think of how it felt to have him take it gently from her fingers, leaving no mark or hurt on her, though he could have. 

He huffed, sounding exhausted. 

“Early rest,” he said, after another few minutes of silence. 

She nodded, also wanting to lay down and close her eyes in the dark. Not necessarily sleeping, but just no longer doing this. He started to grab her, and she began to move away. He faltered and she moved back into him. He lifted her– not the way he usually did, like a sack, or a misbehaving animal. Not draping her over his elbow like an inanimate thing. But taking her to his chest. Almost newlywed style, but one armed. At first, she didn’t know how to handle it. Almost overwhelmed with tenderness. Realizing then that he was likely just emulating how she’d held Pharaoh the cat. 

It made her laugh– at once terribly lonely and feeling favored as some especial thing. He carried her into bed, leaving her on her preferred side. She turned her face to the wall, forehead to the slick metal. He lay beside her, snapping for the lights. Laying his arm along her ribs, hips and thigh. Warming her under his heat until they were both asleep.