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He saw Hess first, sitting in a chair at a small desk with his broad back to Sebastian. The scratching was from him writing with a proper pen on a proper piece of paper, and the creaks were from him shifting his weight in the chair. He muttered quietly to himself as he worked, and Sebastian could imagine the gears whirring away in his mind, but he still looked calm and almost peaceful.
He had put clothes back on, which was a shame since the only better sight Sebastian could imagine waking up to would be a view of the muscles rippling over his shoulders. Still, the content and almost domestic quality of the sunlight on his dark hair and the quiet sounds of his working made Sebastian reluctant to break the silence.
When Sebastian realized he was staring at the back of Hess’s head and the glimpse he had of his hand holding the pen with a dreamy, stupid little smile, he yanked his eyes away and looked around at the rest of the room.
The little space had clearly been an office at one point and not the office of anyone important. To make it a bedroom, a cot had been shoved in along with a standard resistance footlocker. A few well-cared-for weapons lay here and there. The only things of note were a few pictures propped up on a shelf that looked too out of place to have belonged to the former occupant, but they were still too far for Sebastian to make out.
Beyond the pictures, the tiny space contained nothing else of note. Fittingly utilitarian.
The most notable thing about it was, of course, the enigma of a man sitting at the desk.
Sebastian stretched with a heavy sigh.
Hess’s entire body tensed.
Sebastian pushed himself up to sit and put his feet on the ground. “What are you working on?”
Hess’s muscles loosened back out after a beat, but Sebastian could still see a tightness in his neck that hadn’t been there when he’d thought Sebastian was asleep. Hess glanced at him over his shoulder. “A speech.”
“For what?” Sebastian bent down over his thighs and touched the floor to stretch his back. Oh how he’d missed this body and its flexibility.
“Media event tomorrow.” Hess’s voice muffled as he turned back to his work. “The Ralsdis got ahold of some footage and first-hand accounts from the gas attack on Kaston. They’ve packaged it up and released it and raised holy hell in the intergalactic community.”
Sebastian snorted from where he was still bent up over his knees. “Sounds like them. They ask you to give a speech on that big balcony out front? Beam it out to the whole system?”
Hess rustled some papers. “That’s right.”
Sebastian straightened and stood. The concrete chilled his bare feet, but the air had enough warmth that Sebastian could justify being naked for a little longer. “Who’s protecting you?”
“While I’m on the balcony?” Hess didn’t turn to face Sebastian, still bent over his speech, though he hadn’t written anything since Sebastian had spoken.
“Yeah.” Sebastian put his hands on his hips as he trailed his eyes along the back of Hess’s neck and the curious rigidity there.
“I don’t know, though I’m sure Joan has it figured out.” Hess paused, then tapped the end of his pen against the desk and turned around. “Actually, I’d”—Hess cut off with a swallow when his eyes fell on Sebastian, and a grin spread over Sebastian’s face as Hess’s eyes roved over Sebastian’s bare body. But then Hess yanked his gaze back up to Sebastian’s face and continued as though he hadn’t stopped—“appreciate it if you’d be my guard. Now that you’re back.”
Sebastian nodded crisply. “Of course.”
Sebastian usually guarded Hess during these events if he was available. He could blend in and move fast and had better eyes than most. All his time being an assassin had made him good at spotting others. Still, it made Sebastian ridiculously giddy to know that Hess wanted him at his side.
“Thank you.” Hess turned back around.
Sebastian tried not to let the dismissal get to him. He had something he wanted to investigate anyway. So as Hess scratched away on his paper, Sebastian wandered over to the pictures that had been calling to him.
He realized as he padded over that he knew so little about Hess that he had no idea who to even expect to see. A mother? Father? Siblings?
Lover?
No, Hess wouldn’t have a picture of a lover. Sebastian would have heard if Hess had had a lover in the Resistance. They’d both been in the Resistance for years, and he had never heard of Hess taking a lover. But probably no one had ever heard of him and Sebastian, so maybe clandestine lovers were what Hess always did.
If Sebastian even counted as a lover.
Sebastian scowled and shook his head as he got all tangled up, getting jealous of the possibility of another lover while simultaneously not even sure what he counted as and if he wanted to count as anything anyway.
In the end, he shouldn’t have worried because the shelf didn’t have any pictures of any lovers.
It had a picture of a young—very young, still with the soft nose of a child—Hess with a much younger Farlon and Martha.
And another picture from around the same time, judging by Hess’s age, with a woman Sebastian could only assume was Hilda based on her similarity to Farlon.
