(Roman remembered the way Marta had compelled the little creature to pace back and forth, from place to place, wearing its will away until there wasn’t any hesitation between order and action. Then, she’d sent it walking into the nearby pond.

He remembered the way its survival instinct had set in late, the way it began to thrash, and still Marta didn’t call it back. He remembered feeling relieved when his mother stepped in and put a stop to the demonstration, scooping the poor beast from its fate with disapproval etched firmly in the set of her shoulders.

He didn’t remember if the creature had lived through the withdrawal, afterwards.)

Virgil was far from a simple animal, though, and despite Roman’s half-formed nightmares, he didn’t mindlessly succumb to the influence of the drug the first time it was forced on him, nor the second or the third.

In fact, every time the other Humans entered his cell with that unsettling green canister, he seemed just as panicked as Roman, if not more, putting up as much of a fight as he could with a battered body and a wrung out mind. No matter how they tutted or scolded, the other Humans still couldn’t get the mask on him until Roux had him forcibly subdued, which was a tiny victory in itself.

That didn’t stop the drug from taking its toll each and every time.

As horrible as it sounded, the worst part was that the effects weren't painful or malicious in nature. At least that would have been easier to fight against; a logical, instinctive response to being hurt.

No, it was far more insidious than that. The haze dulled pain. First, the physical: it eased away the stiffness of sore muscles and the burning of shocked nerves, leaving only a pleasant numbness behind. Then, the mental: it stalled the production of stressful chemical compounds, replacing them with whatever was needed to trick the victim’s mind into believing they were happy, relaxed, pliable.

Roman had never seen Virgil so unwound, so carefree, and he hated how unnatural the behavior seemed on the Human. It was a miserable experience, finally seeing him without the hunted slant to his posture, and feeling sickened by the sight.

What was worse was watching it wear off.

As though a switch had been thrown in reverse, Virgil would be plagued by a creeping, unrelenting sense of panic and dread, pacing around his cell frantically until a sudden hypersensitivity to touch left him crumpled in one spot, breathing harsh and pained.

Time after time, he was shown exactly how painful withdrawal from even a few doses was, until he was left bracing for it well before the next session had even begun.

“The last guys who had me would have killed for something like this,” Virgil said, nearly panting as he laid out on his back. He had his fingers pressed against his neck, feeling his pulse. His heart was racing so hard that Roman could see the veins pulsing eerily under the skin. A heavy spike of adrenaline, unprompted by anything tangible. “Bet she has at least a few people stashed away just to drain for easy cash.”

He spoke more, like this. Out of turn, about topics that were morbid and pessimistic, as though the thoughts were tumbling free of his mind without his permission. Roman never let his negative reactions to the more grim topics go beyond his ears flickering back; it wasn’t like he had the room or right to judge. They didn’t have very many reasons to be optimistic. Besides, he’d realized early on that the more worked up Roman got, the worse Virgil got in turn.

He still didn’t know the exact details of how Dren harvesting worked, and he was fairly sure he was better off for it. The very idea of setting an entire person aside for something like that was reprehensible, and therefore entirely possible for Marta.

“She said she… she gets rid of Humans that don’t break,” he replied after a moment, the words tumbling freely from him for once. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she tried to turn a profit from it.”

He’d been trying to match the distant, dry tone Virgil had used, but he must have missed the mark, because the Human stiffened, and drew his hand back from Roman’s grasp to press it harshly against his eyes.

Belatedly, Roman realized what he’d just implied. Virgil was one of those Humans trying not to break, was at this very moment barely clinging to his composure, and he’d just been informed he was stuck between two horrific fates worse than death. “I didn’t mean—,”

“‘S alright,” Virgil interrupted, voice rough with exhaustion. “It’s not like I didn’t know. It makes me feel a little better, honestly.”

Roman stared at him, bewildered and still slightly aghast at his own stupidity, and Virgil shifted a few fingers to peer back with one eye.

“At least some Humans didn’t fall for it, y’know? At least some of them got out in their own way,” he continued, a thin thread of hopelessness tangled up in the words. “I was starting to wonder if the rest of space was right. If we were all just destined to be monsters with the right motivation.”

Roman should have been more alarmed at the implication that Virgil felt close to succumbing, that he was nearer than he’d ever wanted to be to a Human on the brink of falling under someone else’s blatantly malignant control, but all he could feel was a painful sympathy.

“You’re not a monster,” he said, and then, more firmly— “Humans aren’t monsters.”

Virgil’s eye widened slightly, gaze intent in a way that would have made Roman bristle in the past.

“They’re just people. They can do good or bad, just like anyone else. And sure, these guys are— they’re not doing good.” A pause, and Roman forced himself to meet Virgil’s stare. “But you have. You saved Patton, and you tried to save me, and you’re— you’re not a monster. You’re a good friend.”

Virgil buried his face back in his elbow and was quiet for a long moment.

“…You’re not so bad yourself.”

—

Roman hadn’t expected Marta to show up in person, not with how much she had delegated to her brainwashed underlings thus far, but arrive she did.

“Don’t fret, ghiva’al,” she crooned to him, passing by his cell with the lightest clink of her claws dragged against the bars. “I’m here to meet your little pet, not you.”

“Don’t—,” call me that, call him that, he wanted to snarl, but his throat closed up so sharply that it sounded a little like he’d choked.

Marta made her stilted croaking laugh, sparing him a glance that might have been pitying if it had bothered to reach her cold, empty eyes. “You always did struggle with words when emotional, didn’t you? Not nearly as well spoken as your mother. What a shame to see that hasn’t changed.”

There was a sharp clacking as an aggressive shudder ran through Roman’s scales, but he still couldn’t find his voice. Not even when Marta moved on to grip the bars of Virgil’s cell, her attention shifting to the Human where he stood warily in the center of the cage.

Roman had learned more than he’d ever thought he would about Human body language over the past few weeks. He knew from the slight sway to Virgil’s every shift that the Human was drained, likely barely keeping his feet.

Still, he was upright to face Marta, his height advantage allowing him to look down at her, and that was better than being crumpled on the ground at her feet. Little victories were all they had now, and they clung to each and every one.

Roux wasn’t there, Roman realized with a jolt, and the knowledge was enough to drag his mind into overdrive, a sudden double-edged hope springing to life in his chest.

Virgil must have already realized, because the way he held himself shifted into something taut and coiled, like he was preparing to lunge forward at the first opportunity, weak or not.

“Back of the cell,” Marta commanded, voice turned brisk and blunt in a way it hadn’t been with Roman. Like she was speaking to a beast instead of a person.

Virgil didn’t move, barely deigned to acknowledge the words beyond a brief flicker of his pupils upwards.

Marta waited, letting the silence stretch for a brief moment, and then clicked her teeth together in a mild reprimand. “The hard way, then.”

Despite her apparent annoyance, the words held a sort of anticipatory delight, and Roman felt the thick tar of dread slide under his scales as he watched her slide a small, triangular remote from a pouch at her side.

When she pressed the button in the center of it, she was looking at Roman.

It was Virgil who went rigid and fell.

Despite knowing it would undercut every lie he’d tried to sell about how little he cared, despite the fact that he was playing right into her claws, Roman couldn’t help but rush to the bars separating them, a shout of horror catching in his chest.

The Human hit the ground hard but stayed chillingly frozen, with every muscle locked into hard lines. He didn’t make a sound until Marta shifted her thumb away from the button, the motion somehow allowing him to finally go limp like a puppet with strings cut.

“Virgil!” Roman managed, though the sound of it was nearly lost in the sudden loudness of the Human’s gasping breaths. He hadn’t been breathing before, Roman realized with a terrified shock.

Whatever Marta was doing, it hadn’t countered Virgil’s natural stubbornness, and he climbed back to his feet with less staggering than Roman would have expected.

His gaze caught on the tremor to Virgil’s hands, the shuddering of his pulse, and he understood. Adrenaline.

The fight or flight instinct, Virgil had called it while talking with Patton. Roman had seen him choose to fight once, at their very first meeting, but even that couldn’t compare to the speed and ferocity of the way the Human lunged now.

Marta didn’t flinch back when he made loud, skull-rattling contact with the bars, but she didn’t blink, either, keeping her eyes firmly locked on Virgil as she pressed the button once more.

Instead of letting him drop, however, she reached out and seized him by the face, claws digging in on either cheek and holding tightly.

Virgil couldn’t so much as flinch away from the pain, and Roman slammed his arm against the door of his own cell with force, furious at his own helplessness.

Marta released the trigger again, and this time, every gasping inhale Virgil took was dosed with her haze. He tried to jerk back, but it was far faster acting straight from the source, and he had barely a moment before his expression dropped to something hollow and smooth, his desperate strength wavering and then extinguishing like a flame with nothing left to burn.

“Down,” Marta commanded, releasing her grip, and Virgil stood in place for a few long heartbeats before his legs collapsed underneath him.

She waved a hand absently down at him, still scattering her haze thick in the air. “There you go. It feels so much better when you listen, doesn’t it?”

Virgil twitched, a ripple of discontent crossing his face, but didn’t respond. He was shaking relentlessly now, his entire body trembling in a way that had Roman deeply concerned.

“You’re safe with me,” Marta lied, reaching down to glide the palm of her hand over the side of Virgil’s face. “You’re only safe with me. Everyone else wants to hurt you, but I’ll make the pain go away. Always do as I say, okay?”

Virgil didn’t move away, even as her rough skin caught on the wounds her claws had left only moments ago. His breathing grew wispier, slower, until he appeared almost calm, his eyes dazed and distant.

“Let’s try this again,” Marta straightened, and when her hand left Virgil’s cheek, he strained after it for a handful of seconds. “Back of the cell.”

Virgil climbed back to his feet, and Roman closed his eyes as the Human quietly began shuffling across his stretch of cell. He felt all of six winters old again, watching his aunt lead something fuzzy and helpless back and forth, closer and closer to the water’s edge.

“Good. Now, heel.” More shuffling, wordless as a corpse.

How long did he have before Virgil took his own plunge?

—

It took longer than before for Virgil to regain coherence, afterwards.

Roman knew the moment he’d come back to himself, because the soft grip around his hand had instantly vanished, yanked away so sharply that he’d barely registered the movement before Virgil was up on his feet and backing away.

“Virgil,” he tried, and the Human shook his head, the motion harsh, his hands lifting up to grip roughly at his hair in a distressed motion Roman had only ever caught glimpses of back on the ship.

He’d continued to retreat until he hit the furthest corner of the cell, where he slid down and curled in on himself, utterly unreceptive to any of Roman’s stilted calls. Roman caught his expression crumpling into a miserable grimace before he buried his face in his knees and hid that away too.

The silence stretched.

If there were some right words to say here, Roman couldn’t find them. Even if he did, he undoubtedly wouldn’t be able to say them. The helplessness sheared against his scales like rough sand, but how could he allow himself to wallow in it when he at least still had his mind, his existence still unarguably his own?

Freshly taunted by the knowledge that he didn’t have even that much, Virgil remained still and taut and quiet in the furthest reaches of his cell for what felt like a very long time.

When he did finally stir, Roman was appalled to see the faint streaks on his face where his tears had washed away the sweat and grime.

Patton had described Human weeping as arrhythmic vocalizations, much like Ampens, but with a physical manifestation as well. Roman hadn’t known that Humans could cry silently, like a pup gone still and quiet in the face of danger, with only the barest hitching of breath to indicate distress.

The expression on Virgil now was creased into firm lines, but it didn’t seem agonized or crumbling at the edges. Rather, as he climbed to his face, he seemed to hold the same bitter resolution Roman had seen in him a few times before: during the tail end of their first meeting, and after the fight with the raiders, both times when he’d thought he was about to be left alone again.

“Roman,” he started, and then worked his jaw tersely, once, twice. Rather than continue, he held out a hand, palm-up in silent offering.

Things had changed a lot over the course of their captivity, Roman reflected as he reached out and set his own hand in the Human’s grasp with barely a shred of hesitation. It felt like second nature by now, to reach out and cling on whenever his stomach was roiling with stress.

Virgil watched him for a moment longer, and then wrapped his fingers around Roman’s hand and drew closer, slowly pulling his arm up until he had positioned Roman’s claws just above the skin of his neck.

“This,” Virgil said, each word resolute, “is the best place to sever if you want to kill a Human quickly.”

The words took a dull, ringing moment to sink in, but once they did, Roman jerked back sharply. “Virgil, what—?”

For the first time, Virgil held on, keeping his hand pinned in place with ease even as he had to grip the bars with his other hand to remain upright. Roman could see the way the Human’s pulse fluttered under the skin, a heartbeat racing visibly exactly where Virgil had indicated.

“It’s important. You need to know,” Virgil insisted, and lifted their joined hands higher, to his temple. “Head wounds bleed a lot. Gashes up here are valuable because the blood runs down and drips into their eyes, which will work pretty well as a distraction—,”

“Stop it!” Roman demanded, yanking harder as his panic increased. “I’m not going to— stop talking like that! I don’t need to know how to hurt you!”

At the start of their voyage, Roman would have done just about anything for information like this, anything to feel safe on his own ship again. So why was he learning it only now, when each word and accompanying gesture made him feel ill and rotted down to the tip of his tail?

“It’s not— Roman, it’s not about me,” Virgil said, frustration seeping into his voice. He let Roman drag his hand away from his face, but still didn’t let go. “It’s about them.”

Roman wasn’t sure he believed that. “I don’t need to kill anyone. They’re brainwashed, this is Marta’s fault! I know the truth, now.”

Virgil shook his head, ghosted the fingers of his free hand over his implant scar with a distant, sickened expression. “It’s not that simple. I don’t want guilt to be the reason— Look. If it’s them or you, I want it to be you. I want you to make sure it’s you.”

And what if it's me or you? Roman thought, but the words lodged firmly in his chest until he could barely breathe around them.

“They all made their choice,” Virgil continued once it became clear that Roman wouldn’t respond. “They’ve kept making that choice, every time. You have to want to survive, too, okay?”

Mutely, Roman nodded, trying to ignore the creeping sense of horror. He pulled Virgil’s hand back towards himself, fumbled for speech for a long moment before finding the words and hoping they didn’t feel like a betrayal when spoken aloud.

“The underbelly,” he started, and Virgil’s expression— shut down. Every hint of body language went flat like stone, and just as unyielding.

“No.” The word was final, a sentence all its own, and Roman scowled mulishly.

“But—!”

“Roman.” Virgil lifted his other arm over so that he was clasping Roman’s hand between both of his own. “You’re the only one left, right? You told me that.”

The thought was still a wound-like pang in his chest, even after all this time. “Yes,” he admitted. “But, even still—,”

“No way. I don’t want to hear it, man. There’s nobody I would be willing to use it on, anyhow.” Virgil kept his gaze locked firmly on a point past Roman’s shoulder, but his shoulders were set, his voice steadfast.

There was no point arguing. Not now, when the both of them were one wrong move from collapse.

“Okay,” Roman finally said, and forced himself not to protest when Virgil reclaimed the position of lecturer. It was a struggle not to wince away with each gory anecdote, a full guide on the quickest ways to make the Human body stop functioning or even turn on itself.

“Gut wounds are slow to kill, but they can be painful enough to debilitate. There are vulnerable organs here, below the rib cage, and damage to them is difficult to treat without surgery if the wound is severe enough…”

Still, he held himself at attention, did his best to memorize every word.

If Virgil wouldn’t accept knowledge about Roman’s own vulnerabilities as a gift of equal exchange, Roman would simply have to treasure this information with the same dedication that he applied to the rest of their small crew.

After all, knowing all the individual weak points of a Human would make it that much easier for him to protect each and every single part of Virgil.

The pallid skin and dark circles only added to the effect, especially since none of the other Humans seemed to have them. Virgil had waved off his questions, and obviously the Humans working under Marta couldn’t be trusted on word alone, but the physical differences between them and Virgil were striking.

Struggling not to let phrases like ‘malnutrition’ and ‘severe vitamin deficiencies’ echo in his mind, Roman shifted a thumb to rest over Virgil’s wrist and let the steady rhythm of the Human’s pulse soothe his nerves.

They’d burned through the time like that, switching who was awake and who was asleep with relatively little fuss, like a beast with two heads from one of Roman’s old bedtime stories.

When the sound of footsteps heralded their next visitor, Virgil was already conscious, and he wasted no time in springing to his feet and shuffling, slightly off balance, to stand near the other side of his cell.

Roman had snorted himself awake, bewildered at the abrupt sensation of cool air where warmth had been, but didn’t say a word as the cellblock door swung open.

He’d been losing his voice more often, the stress of the situation binding his mouth closed more effectively than any muzzle. Virgil had been understanding about it, had even picked up on a few signs commonly used on the Mindscape, but it didn’t stop Roman from feeling miserable that he couldn’t even bring himself to explain the truth of their situation.

It was Roux, again, who came to retrieve Virgil, and it was still them who came out on top when Virgil lunged at them.

“Nice try,” they said, waiting out his thrashing with a knee pressed squarely against his spine. “You know, you have a pretty interesting way of moving. Self defense classes?”

Virgil hadn’t responded, only heaved shallow, strained breaths from where he was pressed into the cold floor.

Roux shrugged, hauling him back up to his feet with his arms wrenched behind his back. “I guess we’ll find out soon enough. Either way, once you’re a little less pathetic, it’ll be fun to see you in the ring.”

They left the same way they’d come, dragging Virgil off to some unspecified fate without even glancing at Roman, and the door sealed after them with a pneumatic hiss.

Roman was left there, alone. He hadn’t even managed to stand up. He didn’t know when Virgil would be brought back. If he would be brought back.

He lost track of himself in mere moments, mind slipping far away from his numb body.

—

The clang of the cell door closing snapped him back with a jolt, though it took him a few long moments to recognize the sound and what it meant.

Virgil hadn’t come back cleaner this time.

His limbs were scraped raw and bloody at the joints, streaks of dirt stained his clothes and hair alike, and there was a visible sheen of sweat along his skin.

He hadn’t come back drugged, either.

Despite the way his body was trembling, he was already pushing himself back to his hands and knees, barely seeming to notice the way it put pressure on his scrapes.

Roman’s ears flattened back on his behalf, making a low kh-kh of sympathy in the back of his throat as he drew closer. “What happened?”

“They called it— training,” Virgil replied, yanking ineffectively at the clothes they’d put him in. “This huge, brutal obstacle course—,” he muttered a low Human swear, “I don’t even understand how big this place is.”

His hands were shaking, Roman noticed, and they didn’t seem to be doing much of anything to the clothes despite all his efforts to tear at the fabric.

“What is it?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”

“There’s something on me,” Virgil hissed, gliding his fingers along the seams of the bodysuit. “Something sewn into the clothes, or something, because— Every time I tried to stop, or even just pause, they’d shock me. The obstacles weren’t all metal, there weren’t any wires, so there has to be something on—,” he stopped short, going predator-still.

Roman was still trying to grasp what he’d been told— obstacles? training?— so he didn’t fully notice the way the Human’s eyes flickered down until Virgil was already tearing at the bandages wrapped around his upper arm.

“Virgil!” he yelped, startling forward. “Wait, you can’t—!”

The Human obviously could, though, because the bandages were off and his arm exposed before Roman could even finish the sentence.

They both stared at the short, precise line of dark red that sat a few inches above his elbow. An incision, with neat stitches across it.

There were a few numbing patches stuck to the skin above and below it, but that didn’t stop it from being horrific. Was sewing wounds up like one was mending fabric common for Humans?

Virgil settled his fingers around the wound, prodding delicately at the skin for a few seconds— and then going still.

“They put something in me,” he said in a faint voice, his eyes wide and unfocused.

Then, as though coming back into motion all at once, he started ripping at the stitches in a frenzy.

“Virgil, no!” Roman cried, louder this time, and shot forward to stick his arm through the bars as far as it would go, just barely managing to snag the Human’s wrist and pull it towards him.

The damage was already done; what he could see of the wound had been reopened, sickeningly deep, and it was bleeding heavily enough that Roman felt a little dizzy just looking at it.

Virgil tried to yank his wrist free, and when that didn’t work, he turned towards Roman with a frightening intensity, eyes wild. Roman hurriedly clasped the Human’s hand with his own, hoping his limb wasn’t about to go the same way as the stitches.

“I’ve got you, okay? We need to hold on to each other, right? It’s important, you have to hang on to me, we have to hold on. I’ve got you and you’re alright, you’ll be alright, I swear it.” Roman was babbling now, frantically searching Virgil’s face for a trace of comprehension. “Are you with me? Can you feel my hand?”

Dull Human fingers started to squeeze, the grip intensifying to the brink of unbearably painful— and then loosened, leaving him intact.

Virgil’s gaze was a little clearer, flicking between Roman’s face and their clasped hands. His chest was rising and falling too quickly, breathing shallow. He began to turn his head, as though to look at his other arm.

(There was only one question to ask himself when the Human was freaking out: What would Patton do?)

Running on pure, unadulterated panic, Roman tugged Virgil forward before he could see the injury, ignoring his shrieking instincts to try and replicate one of those all-encompassing Human ‘hugs’ that Patton had taken to as enthusiastically as a fledgling to an ice pond.

He clamped his free hand over the wound to try and stem the bleeding, making an apologetic churr when Virgil full-body twitched in response, and with both hands occupied, he poked his snout through the bars and sharply curled his chin down over Virgil’s shoulder.

After one long, heart-shuddering moment, he felt the weight of Virgil’s head drop onto his own shoulder— as much as he could with the bars in the way— and let his tail flatten against the ground in relief.

(Stars above, this position put the vulnerable underside of his neck far too close to Virgil’s teeth. Humans really did this for comfort!?)

Pushing past unhelpful thoughts, Roman started taking big, deep breaths, keeping their interlocked hands pressed against his abdomen in hopes of encouraging Virgil to follow along. His lungs weren’t as big as the Human’s, but anything would be better than the frantic little gasps Virgil was currently making, like a fish pulled from the sea.

Bit by bit, the panic eased. They’d only barely reached a state resembling calm when the door slid open and the four Humans from before came striding in.

A low, defensive rumble started up in the bottom of Roman’s chest, but Virgil pushed away from him, breaking the odd, stilted hug to face them.

“It’s okay,” he muttered under his breath, the words wobbling strangely “I’ve got it, I’m okay.”

Roman didn’t believe that for a moment, but he also wasn’t willing to tighten his grip and force him to stay. He let Virgil’s wrist slip free without a word. They didn’t need to be any more trapped than they already were.

Instead, he stood and watched as the older Human washed out the wound with disinfectant and bandaged it up and two of the younger ones clung to Virgil as though competing to see who could make the most skin contact.

The bystander— Iris?— watched him back briefly, with a strange, indecipherable expression, before turning her face aside.

The others were far easier to read; they kept casting the same sharp, resentful looks over at him. The glaring had previously sent a chill of fear through him, an almost tangible force that he’d ducked his head away to avoid.

This time, he met them head-on.

He had nothing they could shame him for, not now. This wasn’t a matter of unnoticed illness or lack of care. This was an invasive injury that had been inflicted by their boss, purposefully and maliciously.

Of everyone there, he was the only one not complicit in Virgil’s wound.

And if the Humans wanted to take his eye contact as a challenge, so be it. Right now, Roman was too angry to be afraid.

His growl had dropped to subsonic levels, but he could still feel it vibrating in his chest. Maybe it should have felt strange, to develop such stalwart protectiveness for Virgil so rapidly, after spending so much longer regarding him with wary resentment.

It didn’t. It felt right.

“Don’t try and get it out again, okay?” one of the Humans whispered to Virgil as they packed up, like he thought he was imparting sage advice. “They’ll only end up putting you under and sticking a new one in where you can’t reach, and I’ve heard that the back ones are way more painful.”

Virgil kept his head bowed, hair falling around him and blocking his face from view, but it couldn’t conceal the way his muscles were pulled painfully taut, a stubborn rigidness against every word and touch.

He could have been carved from stone, for how little he had let himself react to their presence, but Roman knew a thing or two about making oneself hard and sharp to survive, enough to recognize it now.

Sure enough, the moment the door closed after them, Virgil shuffled back to where their cells joined and collapsed onto the floor, burning through the last of the resolve that had carried him through it all.

Roman offered a hand, palm-up, because it was all he could give.

It was still bloodied, but Virgil latched onto it without hesitation anyway.

—

With no clocks or windows to see the passing stars, they filled the time with conversations.

“I thought it was going to be like before,” Virgil confessed after another ‘session’, forehead pressed against his knees as though he didn’t have the strength to hold it up himself. “The smugglers, they’d put me through… stuff. To spike my adrenaline before harvesting.”

Roman didn’t ask for specifics. He already felt ill enough at the very thought.

“That’s not what this is.” Virgil’s voice was troubled. “They’re wearing me down and I don’t know why, it’s– I didn’t expect them to target my mind.”

Roman squeezed his hand, gently. Between Virgil’s behavior and the way the clingy Humans always leaned so heavily on him, he’d quickly picked up on the Human affinity for pressure. “This never happened to you with the smugglers?”

Virgil barked out a low, unamused sound. “No. Messing with my mind would have required them to acknowledge I had one. To them, I was more like a particularly dangerous and valuable animal than a person. If it weren’t for Patton…”

He trailed off into silence.

“Why did you come after me?” Roman asked, unable to help himself.

Virgil stiffened slightly, shoulders drawing up like he thought he was going to be scolded again, and Roman hurried to elaborate. “If you thought it was going to be like before. Why risk putting yourself through that again?”

The question was apparently surprising enough that Virgil’s eyes flicked over to meet his, forgetting himself for a moment.

“I wasn’t going to leave you alone there?” he replied, as though it was as simple as that. As though it was obvious.

Maybe for him, it was.

‘If it weren’t for Patton…’

Maybe for Virgil, the only thing more horrifying than the memory of that torment was the thought of going through it alone.

Roman inhaled deep and slow, flexing his hands and forcing himself to remember that they were his, that he was here, in this moment and in this body, no matter how much he wished otherwise.

Virgil had come here to keep him from being alone. The least he could do was not leave him in the dark.

“The one in charge–,” he started, and found that the words he needed were too painful to speak aloud. That would make them too real. “Mind games are how she gets what she wants. Manipulating people. Do they say anything to you? During the… sessions.”

“They test my…,” Virgil paused, searching for the right word. “The reaction of my body and my mind. To see how tired I am. They won’t let me stop unless I’m completely exhausted.”

His hand twitched, the way it always did when he was thinking about clutching the bandaged part of his other arm. Roman interlaced their fingers more firmly.

“Do they… Do they give you anything?” Roman asked. “Put anything on you, or…?”

Virgil rolled his head to the side to look at him, brow scrunched up at the abrupt topic change.

“Not really? They just scrape me off the floor, push me through some ‘sterilizing chamber’, and then I’m escorted back here.”

Roman’s scales clacked, his heart jumping. “Hold your breath. In the chamber.”

“Why?” Virgil asked. His voice hadn’t changed, but Roman thought his pulse had grown just a bit faster.

“There’s something– I think they’re going to put something in there.” Roman floundered for the words again, frustration with himself prickling at the base of his spine. “Just– please?”

Virgil let out a long, exhausted breath, but nodded shortly. “Okay.”

–

Roman had guessed correctly: Whatever Marta’s plan was, it had started with simple, repetitive exposure to her haze, without the victim even aware of its presence.

He’d thought it was lucky, at first, that he’d figured it out early. Maybe the situation wasn’t as dire as it seemed. Maybe he’d manage to get the two of them out of here safely, after all.

Unfortunately, it had taken their captors practically no time at all to notice Virgil’s noncompliance and resort to alternate measures.

Once again, the gaggle of medical Humans seemed to be Marta’s weapon of choice. They normally only appeared when Virgil had taken a fall or gained some other injury in the process of his ‘training’.

Seeing as Virgil had barely a scratch from the last session, both of them were on high alert from the moment the door allowed them in.

By the time Roux broke routine to follow them into the cell, they were well beyond knowing something was wrong.

“Get away from him,” Roman growled, and was steadfastly ignored by every Human there as the guard boxed Virgil into the corner.

Whatever else the sessions were really meant to do, it couldn’t be denied that they’d certainly served their purpose of wearing Virgil out. His movements were sluggish and weak compared to how he’d fought when he first arrived, and his attempts to strike out were brushed off with seemingly no effort.

Unlike before, Roux didn’t drag him out of the cell when they got ahold of him. Instead, they settled onto the ground, Virgil forced in front of him, his limbs twisted into a hold that barely even allowed him to twitch.

“You’re really set on making things hard for yourself, huh?” one of the clingy Humans commented, and Roman dragged his gaze away from his trapped companion to see that the other Humans had busied themselves with setting up a new and unfamiliar piece of medical equipment. “The missus is going to love you, that’s for sure.”

‘I do so love to repair the broken ones,’ Marta’s voice echoed in his mind, and he struggled to keep his feet, to stay present while Virgil so clearly needed him.

“This is for your own health,” the older Human told Virgil, not even seeming to notice the way he tried to snarl and twist away from the plastic mask she was settling over his face. “Relax. Deep breaths, now. Once you’ve accepted our lady’s grace, you’ll feel better.”

The mask was connected via tubing to a canister, painted a shining emerald green, and Roman knew what was inside even before Virgil’s face started going lax and dull.

The sight of him slowly going limp in Roux’s hold was terrifying.

“You don’t have to do this,” he choked out, his gaze jumping from Human to Human, trying to find some sort of remorse or hesitance. “Please. She’s using you.”

He landed on Iris, who was staring at Virgil with lips drawn thin and bloodless.

“Please,” he repeated, shuffling closer to the bars, trying to fight off the dizzying feeling of helplessness.

Iris’s hand clenched, and she turned to him with the muscles of her jaw jumping. Her eyes flicked towards the others before she spoke.

“Everyone wants to use us,” she said, holding herself rigid. “Our lady at least gives us something in return.”

Roman’s hope sank low in his chest, and he didn’t say anything more until the Humans had finally finished their damned task and left, leaving Virgil sprawled out across the cell floor.

“Virgil,” he tried. “Can you hear me?”

To his surprise, the Human responded, stretching his limbs out grotesquely before rolling to face him. “Mmghm?” he asked, looking more relaxed than Roman had ever seen him.

He barely seemed to register their surroundings, or remember that he’d been writhing in panic mere moments ago. It was like a fog had descended upon his mind, obscuring everything in a heavy, relentless haze.

Roman let out a little choked noise, but he didn’t yell or snarl or rage. He didn’t have the will to try and shake Virgil out of it, not when there was nothing he could do to remove the heady poison from the Human’s lungs. Not when he’d failed to do anything but get him exposed to it even faster, in the end.

Virgil made a small, nonsensical sound back, the tone confused but not particularly concerned, and then shuffled sideways along the ground until he was close enough to stretch a hand out to Roman.

Time passed like this for a while, Virgil curled up on the floor quiet and still, Roman staring at him without actually seeing him. Every time his mind began to clear, his physicality began to return, his thoughts only had to return to the true fate of his colony, of his mother, and he’d fade away again.

Unfortunately, it was more difficult to remain unfocused when the person he was staring through began to actually stir.

Roman had seen Virgil wake before. Not often, but there had been a few rare occasions where Patton coaxed him out into the commons of the ship and proceeded to fall asleep sprawled against his side, and pinned in place with nothing else to do, the Human had slipped into a doze as well.

(They all knew Patton was a heavy sleeper. Virgil could have carefully shifted him off and left at any point. How telling it was in hindsight, that he instead sat there, as though the mere presence of a small, fluffy friend leaning on him was more than enough to keep him immobile. How could Roman have been so dull-witted, so unyielding–)

The moment he or Logan stepped into the room, however, no matter how quiet their steps were, the Human would wake. His head would snap up with a sharp inhale, eyes roving until they found him, his gaze just the slightest bit wild before he remembered where he was. Roman had thought it downright creepy to witness.

(He remembered Patton telling them about how Virgil had kept him safe through an array of ship ports and wild terrain, jumping from planet to planet, never settling in one place long for fear of being caught again. Every moment of rest would have been a risk, a chance for someone to approach with malintent.

Had Virgil always been a light sleeper, or had necessity made him into one?)

Now, however, his cellmate woke slowly, with a low groan and seemingly none of that frenetic need to check his surroundings. It was almost as though he was weighed down by something, a strange slowness to his movements.

Roman was coming back from that faraway nothingness now, despite himself, despite everything, because it wasn’t just him. ‘It wouldn’t be the first Human I’ve been forced to put down,’ she’d said. Because she’d called Virgil an ‘it’, saw him as a pet, a tool, a means to an end. Because she had a way to strip the will of one of the most feared species in the universe, and overlay it with her own.

Virgil needed to know what Roman had gotten him into.

He forced himself to focus, trying to drag his attention to all the little details around him the way he’d been taught. There weren’t a surplus of options he could use. Not the cell, not his scales, nothing that would drag him back down into that bottomless desolation.

Virgil. Virgil looked different.

He looked cleaner, the dirt and grime of being shuttled through the black market’s trafficking system all washed away. His clothes had been changed from one of the makeshift & patched together outfits he wore on the Mindscape to a well-fitted set of Human clothes, with near-invisible seams and expensive-looking fabric. Most notably, there was a thick layer of bandages wrapped around the lower part of one arm, presumably from the procedure.

(At least their non-consensual mystery surgeries came with clean bandages. Still, Roman couldn’t help but notice that none of the other injuries that Virgil had gained during his ill-fated rescue attempt had been treated.)

“Virgil,” Roman mouthed silently, sorely wishing he’d told the Human anything about Crav’on sign language. With his ears flicking back flat, he forced his voice into existence, ignoring the fact that pushing himself into being verbal would only mentally tax him more in the long run. “Virgil. Virgil. Can you hear me?”

Virgil lifted his head up after a short delay, but his eyes were hazy and dull, his face slack in a way Roman had never seen before. It took him several long moments to focus on Roman, and once he did, his face flickered into one of those odd human expressions Roman couldn’t quite parse.

He could parse the way the Human’s body stiffened up, the way he shoved himself backwards until his back hit the bars, the way his strange legs drew up to act as a shield between himself and the rest of the world.

It was the same thing he’d done back on the ship, shortly after being in the throes of some terrible dream. A fear response, a show of terror.

One that surfaced at the mere sight of Roman.

“Easy,” he said, voice still dragging on softer consonants, putting stress on the wrong parts of words. “I’m not going to hurt you. Can… can you understand me?”

Virgil continued to hold himself in that terrible stillness, gaze flickering from point to point on Roman’s face. For the first time, it struck him that the Human probably had just as difficult a time reading his body language as Roman did his.

He smoothed his scales out from their prickle of alarm, angled his ears back but not flattened, and tilted his head up slightly, angling his crown of horns back. The motions were all Crav’on, broadcasting not a threat at every level.

After only a moment of hesitation, he lowered himself slowly onto the ground, hunching over and holding his hands in front of him, palms up.

These weren’t Crav’on. These motions were alien, uncomfortable in nature, nothing he would be soothed by. Crouching was a precursor to lunging or sprinting, his palms should be down, claws pointed away and tucked in.

But Virgil was blinking now, eyebrows drawing together slightly, a relief to see in place of that frozen, wide-eyed stare. His shoulders, which had drawn up like a pale facsimile of defensive scale bristling, slowly eased back down.

“I won’t hurt you,” Roman repeated, and then again in Patton’s warbling home tongue.

Virgil jolted at the sound of it, but it didn’t drag him any further into coherency. Rather the opposite, his head abruptly began to turn this way and that, his hands reaching as though searching out something that should have been in the corner of the enclosure.

Roman abruptly remembered the last time Virgil had been drugged in an alien cell, and more importantly, who he’d been with.

He leaned forwards, trying to draw the Human’s attention back from the search, which was growing frantic. “He’s not here,” he said, and whistled Patton’s name-call. “He’s safe, though. You made sure he was safe, okay?”

Virgil asked something, the words slanted and guttural in what was either his own language or an attempt at Common that was too mangled to parse. Roman dipped his head in a Human-style affirmative, hoping that it was the right answer.

It must have been, or at least it wasn’t the wrong one, because the Human only dragged his hands up to his face and pressed his too-wide palms against his eyes for a long moment, saying something else in a low voice that wobbled, the noise pitiful enough to make Roman feel all tangled up inside.

“It’s going to be alright,” he tried, an echo of Patton’s cadence in the words. He huffed nervously before trying the one Human word he sort of remembered, one oft-repeated between Virgil and Patton like a murmured promise. “Safe. Safe.”

One white-edged eye peered through the curtain of fingers clasped over Virgil’s face, careful and assessing, before he slowly breathed out. “Safe,” he said back, not a question, but not really reassured, either.

He nodded a couple of times, head bobbing like a seabird’s, and then shifted to curl back up so tightly that Roman could finally see how he’d shoved all those gangly limbs into such small hiding spaces.

A brief moment later, and he was still again, asleep or unconscious or somewhere in between.

Roman couldn’t be too surprised; whatever had been used to drug the Human, it must have been extremely potent to cause this level of incoherency. Logan believed sleeping was a particularly vital recovery method for Humans, and Virgil would need all the recovery he could get.

“Safe,” Roman mouthed to himself again, and wished that it wasn’t a lie.

—

Virgil didn’t get to wake again— this time, he was woken.

Roman’s voice had gone again, so he couldn’t speak when Roux reappeared, this time with several Humans crowded behind him. A mixture of terror and fury fueling him, he pulled out every physical threat display he could think of, attempting to draw their eyes away from his vulnerable crewmate, but didn’t earn a single glance for his troubles.

Instead, he was forced to stand aside and watch as Roux rapped a metal rod harshly against the cell bars, the clanging noise enough to jerk Virgil awake and probably give him a headache as well.

Despite everything, Roman felt almost reassured by the resulting groan and swear. Virgil was obviously still suffering the effects of whatever they’d dosed him with, but this was leagues better than the tremulous, barely-there demeanor from before.

“Rise and shine,” Roux announced nonsensically. (Humans couldn’t glow. Roman would have noticed by now. Probably.)

“Bite me,” Virgil snapped back, an invitation that would be lethal for practically any other alien. Roman immediately lowered his previous estimation of how much the drugs had worn off.

Roux laughed, the sound nothing like Virgil’s barely-there chuckles or snorts. “Aw, did someone wake up on the wrong side of the prison cell? Poor thing.”

Their mocking cadence set Roman’s hackles on edge, but one of the other Humans cut in before any snippy responses could be offered.

“Enough, already. You’ve done your part,” the Human said firmly. “It’s time for us to do ours.”

Roux rolled their eyes but pulled the door to Virgil’s cell open with a sarcastic flourish, allowing the four new Humans to crowd inside, pulling a small cart with them. “Back in an hour,” they said, and then locked the cell once more before striding away.

Leaving Virgil locked in a cell with four other Humans.

The anticipatory horror settled on Roman like too-heavy armor, his heart thudding painfully in his chest. Virgil seemed to feel the same way, shoving himself back into the far corner of the cell and struggling to get his feet underneath him, teeth bared in a back-off snarl. (Patton was right. This close, the expression looked nothing like a Human smile.)

Roman shuffled closer to the bars separating them despite his screaming instincts, hoping he could reach out and claw at one of them once they started attacking, draw their attention onto a more suitable target.

“None of that, now,” the first Human told Virgil, utterly unperturbed by his threat display. Their hair was wispy and grey, with firm lines pressed into their face. “This isn’t an attack. Quite the opposite.”

“You’re in no shape to be fighting anyhow,” the second Human piped up, stepping forwards into Virgil’s space and grabbing onto his wrists. “I bet you can barely feel your face, huh?”

“Back off,” Virgil demanded, but his attempts to yank his wrists free were clumsy and futile, and only served to prove their point. Even that small effort left him visibly shaking.

“Tanner,” the first Human snapped, and the second Human’s hold on Virgil snapped away automatically. “The poor thing’s been terrified enough.”

“Sorry, Matron Carmela,” ‘Tanner’ replied, a well-recited tone to the words. “We’re gonna have to touch him eventually, though.”

“Leave me the hell alone,” Virgil spat, his wrists drawn close against his chest. The brief hold hadn’t seemed painful, but it had drawn up something extremely unsettled in Virgil’s demeanor.

“Oh, honey,” the third Human said, a cloying pity to their words. “It’ll be alright. We’re here to help you.”

Virgil didn’t respond, only glaring, but that seemed to be enough expression for the others to read plenty from.

“Everyone takes a little convincing at first,” Matron Carmela said matter-of-factly. “Afina, hold onto him, please.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

Virgil went rigid, but even with this blatant warning, he wasn’t quick enough to prevent the third Human from ducking behind him and sweeping him up into their grip. Whatever they’d drugged him with had eliminated all of his usual strength and speed, his writhing struggles easily contained by an arm around his shoulders and another looped over the bend of his legs.

Afina patiently waited for his resistance to die down before settling into a seated position on the floor, casual as anything even as they continued to restrain him. Tanner grabbed something from the cart before bounding back over to crouch beside them, reaching one hand out to Virgil’s face with… a small white rectangle?

Virgil seemed just as bewildered as Roman felt, his face scrunching up as the other Human carefully pressed the soft pack against the more swollen side of his face.

It was a temp pack. To reduce swelling. Why?

“What a nasty bruise.” Matron Carmela clicked her tongue. “Honestly, Roux should know better. Making more work for us.”

“Those guards really have no tact, treating you so harshly when you’re one of our own,” Afina said with a frown.

Virgil opened his mouth, presumably to object to being one of theirs when they’d literally imprisoned him, but was immediately distracted by Matron Carmela moving forwards and grabbing one of his hands, pinning his fingertip against the nozzle of a device.

“Don’t worry, it’s just a little prick,” Afina reassured, completely misinterpreting the way Virgil had stiffened. “Like a glucose meter, but for checking a bunch of different things! Can you even believe all the crazy space tech they’ve got out here?”

“It took some fiddling to recalibrate it for Humans,” Tanner added, still holding the temp pack steady. “Super useful now, though.”

Matron Carmela pulled the meter back, studying the screen for a long moment, her displeasure growing. Tanner snaked his free hand into Virgil’s, replacing the presence of the meter with interlaced fingers.

Strangely, Virgil didn’t pull away.

“As I thought. We’ll need to get you on a nutrition plan immediately,” Matron Carmela said, and began jotting down notes in a looping scrawl as she spoke. “Severe vitamin deficiencies, pernicious anemia, clear malnutrition— we’ll have to be careful to avoid refeeding syndrome. A bone density test is in order, I wouldn’t be surprised if—”

“What are you talking about?” Virgil cut in, his voice equal parts angry and incredulous.

“We’re in charge of medical treatment for new arrivals,” Afina provided helpfully. “It’s hard to get what we need while being space fugitives, so most new folks need special diets for a while! No need to be ashamed!”

Tanner nodded. “That’s just what happens when you’re an interstellar fugitive surviving in the wilderness of foreign planets.”

“Of course, not all of us end up in that situation,” Matron Carmela said. “However, even amongst civilization, the needs of humans are rarely met. For cases like yours, they’re outright neglected.”

For the first time, her gaze shifted over to Roman, frown deepening and eyes going icy. He recoiled slightly with a reflexive bristling of scales.

“It’s monstrous, the way aliens treat us,” Afina added mournfully, curling in closer to Virgil. “All you did was exist, and they starved you of everything you needed to thrive. It must have been so hard.”

“You’re here now,” Tanner added, scooting forwards a bit so that his arm curled around Virgil’s shoulder. “We protect each other here. We’ll make sure you never feel so weak again.”

Virgil stared at him for a moment, and then his gaze trailed down to their joined hands, and when he looked back up it was Roman’s eyes that he met, a hint of that wide-eyed terror visible at the edge of his expression.

He looked away again before Roman could respond, swallowing thickly before speaking again. “Who’s that?”

Roman followed the tilt of his head to the fourth and final Human, who stood stiltedly near the entrance to the cell, arms crossed tightly in front of their chest. They’d been so quiet, he’d barely registered their presence amid the shrieking wrongness of watching Virgil be manhandled by a bunch of strange Humans.

“That’s Iris!” Afina said, smiling. “She’s—,”

“She’s a trainee,” Matron Carmela cut in. “Don’t mind her, she’s still learning her bedside manner. Now, the first priority for your recovery…,”

The other two Humans obligingly returned their attention to her words, but Roman caught the way Virgil and the newly-introduced Iris held eye contact for a long moment.

Virgil’s gaze flickered between her and the cell door, some silent question in them. There was a brief pause, and then he watched as Iris’s mouth pressed into a flat line, her chin dimpling slightly before she averted her eyes entirely and turned away to rifle through the cart. Virgil’s expression twitched the slightest amount before smoothing back to a flat scowl.

The ‘appointment’ continued on like that, Roman’s nerves rising with every barbed statement the Humans made about aliens and the mistreatment Virgil had clearly gone through at their hands, his worry growing with each gentle touch that Virgil didn’t shy away from.

He had reverted to a numb silence for the most part, only speaking up when Matron Carmela approached with a pair of scissors, flatly refusing to let them cut his hair.

There had been a taut stretch of silence, glances Roman couldn’t understand exchanged between them all, and then she had acquiesced without a fuss, placing the shears back on the cart and moving on.

By the time Roux returned to retrieve the attendants, Roman was huddled in his cell, having worked himself into a near-frenzy of stress. He barely even registered their amused jab at him, too busy watching as the Humans carefully untangled themselves from the knot they’d created around Virgil, leaving him sitting there on the cell floor.

A few discordantly cheery farewells later, they were alone again.

Roman’s voice had been all but intangible with the presence of other Humans in the area, but now the words seemed to fall from him so quickly they almost tripped over each other.

“Virgil, why were they talking like that? Like you have— Like you’re— Are you sick? You would tell us if you were sick, wouldn’t you? You said you’d been eating enough!”

Virgil shot him a strange look, shaking his head slightly. “I’m fine, Roman. That’s not what we need to w-worry about right now.” Even as he spoke, he was folding in on himself, arms coming up to wrap around himself in a mirror of Iris’s earlier posture.

He was trembling, Roman realized with a start, hard enough that his breathing was off, his words coming out slightly stuttered. He felt a sudden surge of panic. “Oh, stars, what did they do to you? Are you dying?”

Virgil’s laugh came out half-choked. “No. I’m alright, I just wasn’t e-expecting that.”

“‘That’?” Roman felt a sense of foreboding slide under his scales. “Virgil, please, you can’t believe what they say. There’s more going on here, this isn’t what you think—,”

“I don’t believe them,” Virgil interjected, and Roman felt a weight ease away. He hadn’t realized just how worried he’d been about the possibility until it was so swiftly struck down. “They tazed me. They d-drugged me. I’m in a cell. We’re obviously not cool.”

“Right, of course,” Roman said, attempting to scrape the remains of his composure from the ground. “Then, what’s wrong?”

“It’s— I’m—,” Virgil grimaced, curling in on himself further. His hands were digging into his sides, fingers curled in sharply. “Look, it’s not about what they’re saying, not yet. It’s about w-what they’re doing.”

“Lying to you?” Roman guessed halfheartedly.

“Holding me,” Virgil bit out, like the words were painful. “It’s just— touch is important to Humans, okay? It’s— It’s manipulation, they’re taking advantage of that. Trying t-to lower my guard.”

‘They crave connection,’ Marta had said. Roman shuddered, his scales giving a sharp rattle.

“… Is it… going to work?” he asked, still entirely uncertain on how Humans worked, what they really needed.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Virgil replied, which wasn’t a real answer. “It doesn’t matter, I just– it's just been a while, that’s all.”

He was still trembling, shudders working their way through him one after another, like aftershocks.

Roman felt a twisting in his gut at the sight. He might not have known about this, but the other Humans must have. They’d made a point to hold him, to crowd in close and press their hands to him in the guise of medical aid, to give him a taste of something he needed and then rip it away. They’d flipped him on his back, bared his weakness for the whole world to see.

“Come over here,” he requested, giving into the impulsive urge to try and fix it.

Virgil’s eyes flicked over to him, and his posture was distinctly wary, like a wild animal coaxed to the edge of a torch’s light. Bit by bit, he pulled himself back upright, edging forwards until he was in reach.

Forcing himself not to overthink it, Roman offered his hand in that strange, palm-up Human way.

Virgil hesitated, clear as day, his gaze once again flicking about, searching Roman’s face for something. Roman held still and waited, his hand never wavering.

Ultimately, he wasn’t sure Virgil found what he was looking for, but the Human reached out and set his hand in Roman’s anyway.

The thought came unbidden: Humans were strong. If Virgil wanted, he could probably crush the plates on Roman’s hand to dust.

Roman slowly folded his fingers around the soft, unarmored hand, trying to replicate the way the other Human had held it, and forced the idea out of his mind. Virgil had never tried to hurt him before; why would he abruptly decide to crush his hand now?

“What are we doing?” Virgil asked in a low voice, his hand twitching nervously.

Roman’s tail thumped against the floor in embarrassment, and he let his nose wrinkle in irritation before sighing and lowering himself to sit against the corner of the cell.

“You need touch, right?” he grumbled, pointedly pressing as much of his side as he could against the bars, scales slicked down. “Or… does it only work if it's other Humans?”

Virgil stared at him long enough that he began to prickle, and then his fingers curled slightly around Roman’s. “No, this– it should work. I think.”

He slowly lowered himself into a seated position as well, scooting closer when Roman tugged meaningfully on his hand. This close, he could feel the warmth that the Human radiated, chasing away the chill of the cell bars.

They were both tense at first, but as time went on and Roman remained quiet and still, Virgil almost seemed to melt, the stiffness slowly leaking out of him as his shoulders slumped and his head tilted to the side. He’d witnessed it before, when Patton was curled against him and chattering away and neither of them knew Roman was watching the security vidfeed, but he’d never thought it would happen in close proximity to him.

Still, there Virgil sat, slowly letting his body relax from the battle-ready tension that he wore like a second skin. Making himself vulnerable, showing his soft side, even though Roman was right there in striking distance. Even though all Roman had ever done was despise him.

It was a show of trust. Even after all he had done, Virgil wanted to trust him.

Roman held on long after the trembling eased, long after Virgil’s laxness turned to the limpness of sleep, as though if he clung on long enough, he could make up for the time that Virgil had spent without this.