“You know…” Gurjin sighs, laid across Troy’s chest, fingers lazily tracing the intricate tattoos across the siren’s body, hand drifting closer to the titanium brace across his shoulder, “In all our trine together, I’ve never seen you without this.” His fingers pause, feeling the cool metal.

“Yeah, well,” Troy brushes away the gelfling’s hand, “you know I gotta keep it on.” He wraps his arm around Gurjin’s waist, gently moving him to his left side.

“But why?” Gurjin reaches up, cupping Troy’s face in his hand. “It can’t be comfortable like this, lying in bed with that big piece of metal on you. But you always do. And you’ve always said you designed your prosthetics to be removable for maintenance.”

“Exactly, maintenance,” Troy clears his throat as he looks away, hoping to change the subject.

“But you’ve taught me how to do maintenance on your other prosthetics,” Gurjin grumbles.

Troy rolls over with a grunt, leaving Gurjin to face his back. The Drenchen stares at the exposed ports of Troy’s spine, eyes tracing the familiar line of scars across his back. He curls up to Troy, planting a kiss on his shoulder.

“Troy, you don’t need to hide anything from me,” he reassures.

“This is different.” Troy’s voice is grim, barely a whisper, and he curls further away from Gurjin, burying his shoulder in the blankets.

“It’s really not. I love you, Troy, every part of you.” Gurjin sits up, leaning over Troy, his chin in the crook of his shoulder, lips brushing the siren markings on his face their red glow pulsing gently in the dim light. “I don’t want you to feel like you need to hide. I wish you could just be yourself, completely.” His hands slide under the covers to Troy’s bracer once more. “Nothing under this piece of metal changes who you are.”

“If it doesn’t change anything, then why does it matter whether or not I keep it on?” Troy snaps. The whole bed shifts as he pulls away from Gurjin and stands up suddenly, sending the gelfling reeling for a moment.

“Because you’ve convinced yourself it’s something shameful…” Gurjin crosses his legs, still on the bed, looking sadly up at his lover. “But you’re only hurting yourself by hiding.” He tries to choose his words carefully, the last thing he wants is to anger Troy about something so personal, so integral to the persona he’s carefully crafted for himself, so vitally important to his survival. “You’ve spent so long wearing this- this mask,” he pauses, his eyes glancing over to Troy’s almost comically oversized prosthetic arm on its charging dock before returning to Troy. “Trying to protect yourself, trying to put on a brave face, but you can’t hide anything from yourself.”

“Like you know anything about what I have to hide?” Troy sneers, arm gripping at his shoulder plate, knuckles white and shaking. “There’s shit you’ll never understand, no matter how hard you try, no matter how nice to try to be.” His tone is conflicted, flipping between anger and sorrow, body trembling with emotion.

“That may be, but perhaps one day I will, if you let me.” Gurjin slides toward the edge of the bed, standing up on it and hugging Troy from behind. “And if you’re ever ready to let me see that part of you, to talk about whatever it really is you want so desperately to keep hidden, I’ll be here for you.”

“Gurjin, I-” Troy swallows, struggling to keep his composure. “I’m sorry, I just…” he sits beside Gurjin, hiding his face in his hand. Gurjin stands behind him, rubbing his back gently, kissing the back of his neck.

“It’s alright Troy,” he whispers, running his fingers through Troy’s hair.

“No, it’s not, and I don’t think it ever will be…” His head droops, hair falling over his face as a dark chuckle escapes his throat, tears pooling in his eyes. “I’ve always been broken, even before I was born. Weak… Sickly… Useless…” He takes a sharp breath, his final words hissing out between his teeth, a lifetime of self-loathing slipping out: “a freak.”

“None of that is true…” Gurjin trails kisses along Troy’s shoulder, wishing he knew the right words. “You’re intelligent, passionate, beautiful.” He hugs him tight, breathing in the scent of his hair, feeling Troy’s shuddering breaths through his frail frame. “Your body, your missing arm, your illness, none of that changes who you are. None of it makes you less. Less valuable, less worthy of love, less of a person. I wish you could see yourself through my eyes,” he closes his eyes, kissing Troy’s hair softly, “see the man I love.”

Troy turns to face Gurjin, pulling him into a deep embrace, towering over the gelfling even while sitting, a loud sob finally breaking free, muffled with his face in Gurjin’s thick locs.

“I don’t deserve you,” he mutters, tears blurring his vision, clinging desperately to Gurjin.

“I love you, Troy.” Gurjin hugs him, thumbs tracing the lines of his jaw mods and kissing him. They hold each other for a few long moments before Troy sighs deeply, pulling away, eyes red and tears streaming down his cheeks, eventually falling to a rather restless sleep.

The next few days pass in near silence, Troy burying himself in one of his projects, Gurjin giving him some space, careful not to bring up their previous conversation.

“Troy?” Gurjin watches Troy stand up from the bed a few nights later, as he begins to dig through his tools on the nearby table, picking up a small wrench and turning back toward the gelfling.

“This…” he swallows, tapping his brace with the wrench, “this is everything I’ve tried to leave behind.” He sits beside Gurjin once more. “When we first came to Pandora, the bandits here didn’t give me a second thought. Nobody even noticed me unless I was with Tyreen. She was a siren, so she always stood out, she’s the center of the universe, right?” he gives Gurjin a grim smile. “The only way to get respect on Pandora is to be feared.” Gurjin leans on Troy’s arm, listening intently.

“So you made yourself into something to be feared.”

“Exactly.” Troy fidgets with the wrench, pouting slightly. “Prosthetics. Tattoos. Even our clothes and personality. I designed all of it wholecloth just so we could survive.”

“But it’s not you, is it?” Gurjin’s asks.

“It is, and it isn’t.” He gives Gurjin a dark smile. “It’s what I wanted. Distract from my weakness, be big and scary, at least in front of a crowd.” He continues toying with the wrench in his hand.

“But you spent so long pretending, you nearly lost yourself. You were ready to throw away everything you had left behind, everything about who you really are when we first met, let your act take over.”

“I would have been lost for good if not for you.” Troy kisses Gurjin’s forehead. He bites his lip, taking a long look at the wrench before he starts removing the bolts anchoring his brace.

“Troy?”

“You’re right. Like always.” He smirks, lips quivering as he tries to smile for real. He drops the bolts one by one on the bedside table. “I’m not doing myself any favors being afraid.” His voice trembles, and he avoids looking at Gurjin for a long moment before taking a deep, shaky breath and looking down at the concerned Drenchen. He turns to face Gurjin fully, reaching across his chest, and with a long shuddering exhale, Troy pries the brace from his shoulder, tossing it onto the bed beside them.

His hand instinctively lingers on his shoulder, and Gurjin notices how much smaller he looks without the brace. His collarbone and ribs are noticeably undeveloped on his right side, and the socket where his arm would be is a surprisingly deep pocket above his ribs, deeply bruised from the bracer, a mess of jagged scars trail down his side and the anchor ports for the brace bolts are grafted onto the bone, causing further scarring. Gurjin’s eyes linger on Troy’s exposed shoulder for a moment before realizing that the siren is again turning away from him, eyes locked on his feet, toes curling nervously.

“Come here.” Gurjin stands on the bed, holding his hands out to Troy, who glances up, slowly leaning over toward him. Gurjin takes his hand, kissing his knuckles and gently pulling Troy closer. He plants a line of kisses up Troy’s arm, lips following the swirling, glowing markings up to his shoulder.

Adding the old sketches because there's just something different about them ??

Probably because the expressions hit differently between the sketch and my 1st attempt at (almost) lineless art

And the previous version before fixes