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He brought me back to the tank.

We passed people on the way who stared at us.

The seers manning the security station outside the tank stared at us, too.

Revik spoke to them, but I didn’t hear much of anything he said.

At the very end, I did hear him tell them to leave us alone.

I felt them resist that request, although I didn’t probe their reactions very deeply.

I heard Revik talk to at least one person on the comm on the way there, but I only heard a handful of words. I heard him say to someone, “I have her.” He said a few more things, but I mostly tuned him out.

Not long after he started talking to them, the conversation ended. He clicked off and glanced back at me, as if to make sure I was still the one holding his hand.

I don’t remember him saying anything to me directly, not after he asked me if I was high. For most of the walk across the ship, he led me by the hand, silent.

I think the lack of sleep was seriously catching up to me by then.

When we finally got past all the security protocols and back inside the locked down construct of the tank, he didn’t let go of me. He led me straight to the washroom, through the low door that stood to the left of his desk and into the narrow cubicle.

Tugging me in there with him gently, he didn’t let go of my hand as he leaned down to punch in keys to turn on the water and then to adjust the temperature controls.

He didn’t say anything after he got the shower water on.

Frowning slightly, he just turned to me, and made a motion with one hand, a seer’s shorthand for asking permission.

Seeing him looking at my clothes, I nodded.

He didn’t wait, but started undressing me right there.

I found myself flinching slightly, feeling pain on him, and on myself, but I didn’t shy away from his fingers. He got the heavy shirt off me and started unbuckling my belt, tugging my pants down past my hips and then squatting to take the pantlegs off my feet and ankles.

I saw sand fall to the floor.

I saw it from the pants, then from my underwear. I saw him look down at that, as if stuck on that single fact for a few beats of time, even as more pain left his light.

He still didn’t say anything.

He stuffed my clothes in the chute in the wall and straightened back to his full height, facing me. He remained in front of me as he started to undress himself, beginning the instant he had me naked.

Realizing he intended to shower with me, I tried to decide how I felt about that.

But I didn’t really. Feel about it.

So I just stood there, watching as he shoved his shirt, then his pants through the same hole in the wall. He unhooked the hose from the shower and washed the sand on the tile floor into the drain. I watched it go, still not moving.

Then he took my hand.

He led me into the cubicle and under the hot water. I stood there as he washed me off with soap, then with the same hose he’d used on the floor. He washed my whole body twice, then stood behind me and shampooed my hair.

He still didn’t talk to me.

I heard him mutter a few times, mostly about me smelling like smoke, but I couldn’t tell if that was directed at me or not. I felt pain on him, too, but he seemed to be trying to control that, or at least keep the worst of it from my light. The third time he started muttering under his breath, that time in Russian, I glanced up and back at him.

He didn’t meet my gaze, so I just looked at his face, then his body, then down at his erection. He didn’t try to hide it from me, not exactly, but he took hold of my chin, and moved it gently away so that I wasn’t looking at him there, either.

He went back to scrubbing sand and smoke out of my hair with his fingers.