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The concerningly long claws Garin had noticed the first time he’d seen one turned out to be used for digging and climbing more than violence. He’d initially doubted that one of the armored, dense-looking creatures had been what had grabbed and sliced his rope when they’d entered the cave, but after seeing a pair chase each other across the walls and ceiling, defying gravity by anchoring themselves in the rock with their talons, he believed it. After seeing them grab and shake and gnaw on every new thing that caught their eye, he was certain.
It was definitely one of these little bastards that had tried to kill them.
And he couldn’t even be mad because they were too fucking cute.
He’d taken well over a hundred photos on his own tablet to send to Beaty. She’d love them.
While Garin took videos of funny animals and checked the water generator, Sazahk forgot to eat and barely slept.
Garin helped him with the eating, pushing a protein pouch or bar into his hand as he hunched over his tablet. But he could do nothing about the sleeping. Sazahk was an adult, and aside from a few gentle suggestions and reminders about the mental benefits of sleep, it wasn’t Garin’s job to nag a grown man on a mission.
And Sazahk was on a mission.
As curious as he clearly was about everything around them, pure fascination didn’t drive a man the way Sazahk was driven. When he wasn’t peering through his microscope for so long his brow furrowed with a headache and he rubbed his eyes to alleviate the strain, he was running complicated simulations on his tablet over and over and over. Whether he was getting the results he needed, Garin didn’t know.
It occurred to Garin that part of Sazahk’s avoidance of sleep might be to avoid sharing the sleeping bag with him after their last incident, but he discarded the thought. That was wishful projection. That was him fantasizing that the event had affected Sazahk in some meaningful way and Garin already knew it hadn’t.
Sazahk didn’t think of him as anything more than a temporary colleague, but Garin was too far gone to make it back to safe disinterest now.
He didn’t know when he’d fallen, exactly.
He hated to think it had been when Sazahk sucked his cock. That made him feel dirty and crude and worse: it simplified Sazahk into sex as though that was the single thing about him that Garin cared for.
Even if that first time had been what pushed Garin’s feelings over the edge, the catalyst hadn’t been how good Sazahk was in bed. It had been the intoxication of Sazahk’s unparalleled focus, intelligence, and kindness fixated on Garin and no one else. It had been all the things that made Sazahk so incredibly attractive wrapped around Garin himself and making him feel more wildly valuable and fascinating than he’d ever felt in his life.
Sazahk had hooked Garin without even meaning to.
And Garin couldn’t act on it, so he sat on the ground and scratched behind the ear nubs of a Fauna A and worried. He worried about the bags under Sazahk’s eyes, his decreasing food consumption, his lack of sleep, the sad tangle of his beautiful hair. He interspersed his fretting with liberal amounts of guilt about that hair since he’d been the one to pull it out of its braid and snarl it up in the first place.
But maybe that Sazahk would let him fix.
“Do you want me to redo your braid?” Garin offered when Sazahk returned from gathering samples of Fauna A scat.
“No.” Sazahk plopped onto the ground and disassembled his favorite microscope. “I think we should leave.”
Garin blinked as he processed the two statements. “Right now? And it’s really no trouble. I’m good at long hair.”
“Our blood tests have shown that the pollutants ceased to build up in our system the moment we entered the caves, meaning the mycelium is likely the cure we’re looking for. I can’t test whether or not the Insect growth infrastructure is the vehicle through which to deliver that cure from here, so yes, I think we should leave now. Within the next hour or two, unless you have a compelling reason not to. You’ve already chosen our exit route, haven’t you?” Sazahk disassembled his second-favorite microscope. “And why do you have any experience with long hair? It’s an impractical style for military and security personnel.”
“I’ve chosen a route, yeah. And no, I don’t have a compelling reason, so I guess we can leave now.” Garin had, in fact, charted out four different routes in case they ran into obstacles not identifiable on the map. He stopped scratching the Fauna A’s head and began packing. “Beaty went through a princess phase where she always wanted her hair done in a fishtail braid. Why the sudden urge to get going?”
“I thought a young daughter’s follicle management was usually the purview of a mother or other parental figure, and you’ve mentioned that your mother is alive, albeit anti-social.” Sazahk threw his belongings into his bag without rhyme or reason, making Garin wince. “We’re leaving because there is nothing more I can do here and the discoveries I’ve made have massive implications for the future of Qesha and potentially the future of the Insect species. They must be developed and shared immediately.”
“My mother was…” Garin’s tongue stuck on the roof of his mouth. “Sick.”
Sazahk paused his packing and turned to him with a concerned frown. “I’m sorry. Is she recovered?”
Garin carefully transferred the water generator’s contents into canteens, then took the little machine apart. “She’s started a new medication. I’m hopeful.” He’d been hopeful ever since his father died. By now, the feeling might be better described as stubborn denial.
“You don’t look hopeful.” Sazahk studied him for the first time in three days. The whiplash of being the focus of Sazahk’s formidable attention, to being ignored, to being its focus again unbalanced Garin.
“I am, it’s just…” Garin didn’t talk about his family struggles, but Sazahk tilted his head with that brown and forest green on his cheeks and honesty came out, anyway. “Her medication is extremely expensive. More than I can afford, really, and I haven’t…” Garin looked away from Sazahk’s increasingly distressed expression and tucked the water generator into his bag. “I haven’t figured out what I’m going to do about that.”
“Garin, I’m so sorry.” Sazahk stepped closer but didn’t touch him and Garin shook his head. Sazahk had already rejected Garin. He didn’t need to pity him now, too.
“Don’t be. It’s not your fault, and it’s not your problem.” It was Garin’s problem. No one else’s. He felt Sazahk retreat to his own bag.
“Of course.”
