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Not that it mattered if he did look at it. Or what he thought of it. Or if it made him uncomfortable.
Mal’ik turned his back on the mirror as he brushed his teeth, turning around only long enough to spit, and then he stalked back into his room. He removed his prosthetic, stripped off his clothes, turned off his light, and fell into bed and an almost instant, dreamless slumber.
In eight hours precisely, he woke up.
He turned on his light, brushed his teeth, put on his prosthetic, made his bed, put on his clothes, slung his gatlung over his shoulder, and opened his door.
He nodded in greeting to the second-shift night guards.
“Anything to report?”
“No, sir. All quiet.”
“Good. Get some rest.”
Once they left, Mal’ik knocked on Turner’s door. “It’s Mal’ik. I’m coming in.”
Without waiting for a response, Mal’ik unlocked the door and stepped inside. The living room was empty and exactly as Mal’ik had left it. The study was also untouched. He heard running water and movement coming from the bedroom and its bathroom.
“What’s the point of knocking if you just barge in anyway?” Turner called out from the other room. “Humans consider that rude, you know. In fact, I consider that rude.”
The point of knocking was to give the assignment a moment to escape embarrassment if they were without clothes or in some other compromising position. The point of not waiting was to take away any moment of escape from any potential hostile. But Mal’ik didn’t think Turner really cared about the reasons, so he kept quiet.
“I’m not done yet, so sit down or something. I can hear you hovering from here,” Turner called again, and Mal’ik heard what sounded like bare feet on tile and the closet door opening. His mind suddenly supplied the image of Turner—smooth, creamy bare skin on display and his hair still dripping—standing in front of his collection of clothes, smelling and looking like sunlight.
He bared his teeth and shoved the image away.
After a moment, the closet doors squeaked shut and booted footsteps approached the bedroom door. Turner stepped out, fully clothed but still looking like sunlight, his hair slicked back from his high cheekbones and one blond brow cocked.
“Still standing, I see. That’s lovely and not awkward at all.”
Mal’ik didn’t reply, his brain still wrestling with the discomfort of having his eyes perceive something that his nose could not. A complete olfactory void occupied the place where Turner stood, redolent in his pristine white-and-gold trimmed pants and a collared shirt. Nothing to scent at all. He had gone very heavy on the scent-neutralizing cream. Looking at Turner’s throat, Mal’ik saw swirls over his pulse points where he had lain it on too thick for it to be absorbed.
Mal’ik saw a flash of movement and looked back up at Turner’s face just in time to see the tip of his pink tongue swipe over his lower lip. But before Mal’ik could get to his hazel eyes, Turner swept into motion and strode past him.
“Let’s go then.” Turner yanked the door open before Mal’ik could stop him and remind him of proper protection protocol. “I’m hungry, and I hate to play politics on an empty stomach.”
Turner didn’t rebel against protocol again, and for the rest of the morning and through lunch, the operation fell into the regular routines of a close protection assignment. It was even duller than the operations Mal’ik used to run back when he’d been protecting politicians and aid workers in Southern Tava during the occupation.
He mostly watched Turner have tea parties with the upper crust of Klah’Eel society. Mal’ik wasn’t such a musclebound fool that he didn’t understand what was happening, though. Turner and each official he spoke to were probing each other, feeling each other out, deciding weaknesses, strengths, and whether they were allies or adversaries.
Turner might be finding some allies, Mal’ik couldn’t say, but he certainly wasn’t finding any friends. The man found fault with everything, and when he didn’t find an explicit fault, he certainly implied it had one. The tea was too sweet or not sweet enough. The comfort of the chairs would do, he supposed. Was this the usual spread of delicacies he could expect at a diplomat’s private lunch then?
Mal’ik almost laughed at the waves of baffled indignation rolling off their hosts. Klah’Eel didn’t complain, and they didn’t know what to do with someone who did.
“And is that how your young are educated then? All of them?” Turner asked in the same tone he had asked if that was really how they arranged their silverware. He was meeting with the education minister now, charged with educating the next generation of Klah’Eel citizens, whether klah’eel, human, or other. It was the first time Mal’ik had heard that scathing tone applied to something of consequence.
“Yes, of course.” The minister drew himself up. “All of them. We don’t discriminate by species here.”
“That’s admirable, I’m sure, but you do realize they’re not all the same person, don’t you?” Turner raised an eyebrow and managed to tilt his head in such a way that he looked down his nose at the much larger man. “You’re treating them like cardboard cutouts. You can’t expect to get the same outputs from a single process with different inputs. I’m no scientist, but even I know that.”
The minister gaped for a moment, but Turner was already continuing.
“And why would you even want to?” he asked, clearly rhetorically. “A society takes all sorts to run properly. If you were only providing one, I’d say you were failing.”
He hadn’t exactly said the minister wasn’t failing, and judging by the pungent odor that filled the room, the minister had noticed that. Turner didn’t so much as flick his nose, his weak human sense completely oblivious. It didn’t take a klah’eel’s nose to see the minister’s thunderous brows, though, and Turner didn’t seem bothered by that either.
Mal’ik almost smiled.
