Chapter Text
꧁:･☁︎･:꧂
querinous. longing for a sense of certainty in a relationship; wishing there were some way to know ahead of time whether this is the person you’re going to wake up next to for twenty thousand mornings in a row, instead of having to count them out one by one, quietly hoping your streak continues. Mandarin 确 认 (quèrèn), confirmation. Twenty thousand days is roughly fifty-five years. The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows.
꧁:･☁︎･:꧂
“These pearls are flawless,” Sanna Orix murmurs. “I’ve never seen anything like them.”
“Yup,” the Monster agrees distractedly. Sanna Orix is holding each round little jewel up to the light, marveling, murmuring words like translucence and luster and luminosity. Normally, the Monster — Rocket, he tells himself furiously, as if having chosen a name less than two rotations ago could undo a lifetime of thinking of himself as some kind of freakish little beast — normally, Rocket would be marveling right alongside them, but right now he’s only got eyes for the other pearl.
Ever since they’d landed, she’d been distracted. Worse, she’d been distracting. Hands fetched up between her pretty tit*, belly bared for everyone to see the little white hem of the few bandages he’s decided to keep her in, and the faint peppering of half-healed scratches and punctures that had been left unwrapped. That stupid blanket — the flash of her thigh, creamy and soft beneath his hands the night before — and her bare feet. He’d been infuriated by her shoelessness earlier, snarling at her for it when he’d known it wasn’t her frickin’ fault — and then mentally thanking whatever gods there are in this sh*t-hole universe that the streets in this part of the Cyclorade capitol are so frickin’ clean.
At least she’d been wearing his shirt. Already having his scent draped across her chest like a shield might have been the only thing keeping him from rubbing his face all over her belly and throat before they’d disembarked. But he’d hated that the two of them were here, suddenly moonside, and that she was so close to being—
Out of his grasp.
Last night had been the height of frickin’ indulgence, and he feels stupid for getting caught up in it. He should’ve kept his distance. Now, instead, when pearl inevitably decides she wants to stay here with all the soft pretty things and the soft pretty people — now, he’s going to spend every waking moment longing for the silken hollows between her knuckles. He’s not gonna be able to fall asleep without her soft breaths and stupid mumbles. When he claws himself awake after a nightmare and crouches like a hunted thing under the flight controls, he’s gonna ache for the smell of her and the quietude of her little handmade dens — her careful gifts of water, her comforting whispered nothings, and the weight of her head in his lap.
He might’ve been fine before last night. A few cycles of regret — nothing new — and then he’d forget her, except for maybe when he’d had too much to drink. But now she’s been woven like satin threads into his palms and fingertips and — like A95 and L06 and Lylla — he’s never gonna be rid of her ghost.
He’d thought she was a cure but too late, he’d realized — no. Not if she doesn’t stick around.
If she doesn’t stick around, then she’s just another person he has to lose.
“I think they might be from Aladnan sun-oysters, but I can’t be sure,” Sanna Orix says now. They pull out a box that sounds like it’s rattling and jingling with coins, opening it to reveal probably over thirty gem loupes with increasing levels of magnification. Any other rotation, the Monster — Rocket — would have already pocketed a handful of the convenient little jeweler’s tools. Today, though, he just bats Orix’s words away like Sakaaran stingflies.
There’s no way the pearl’s gonna wanna stick around.
He’d been riddled with the certainty of it since he’d woken up. His fingers had still somehow been laced through hers, and she’d been waking up at the same time: silver-gray eyes, luminous and sleepy, dreams still clinging to heavy lashes. His senses had narrowed to three specific, needle-fine points — her pretty mouth and eyes, the feel of her hands knotted in his, and all her softness just a breath away.
Then his awareness had blown wide. He’d felt like he was everywhere at once: breathing in the scent of her, sinking into the dip in the thin scrappy little mattress, feeling their shared body heat under the blankets he’d shuffled up around her the night before. Coasting his eyes over the line of her shoulder, and the fading wreathe of bruises on her throat that still makes his sternum twinge.
He’d rolled away so fast that he’d dragged her hand with him off the bunk, and she’d startled, suddenly coming full-awake. He’d ignored her alarmed stare, the stumbled start of Are you okay—? and had flung her hand from him like it was a gravity-grenade with the pin already pulled.
He grits his teeth, thinking of nothing but his pearl, while Sanna Orix studies some lesser jewel through the loupe.
“What can we get for the lot of ‘em?” he asks instead, barely paying attention. His eyes follow Wyndham’s bride with a sort of sticky neediness that makes his lip curl in self-contempt and his teeth hurt. Sanna Orix’s place is full of textile goods and gemstone luxuries, and he’d told the pearl to start looking at some staples — practical, he’d urged, even though he’d doubted the reminder had been necessary.
For more than one reason.
After all, practical only matters if the pearl’s staying with him. And the way she’s looking around right now? Staring at all the pretty trinkets and fabrics and clothes? Lingering over them with her fingertips?
Yeah. There’s no way in hell he gets her back up in the sky.
He curls his hand — the one that had held hers all night — and tries to saw through his own palm with his claws. Tries to crush out the tactile memory of her satiny knuckles, and the soft spaces between her fingers.
Rotations earlier — when all this had started — he’d thought that he was giving her the bunk to herself out of some kind of penance, and because he’d figured she must’ve been scared of him. But now he realizes that some part of him had maybe always known that if he’d let her knit her way into the fibers of his life—
“A lot,” Orix says mildly. “You could buy everything in my shop today, and I’d still have to pay you out. A lot.” They squint through the loupe. “I’d have to take out a loan.”
The words shift over his head, barely ruffling his fur. They don’t even register. Pearl’s tugging on a handful of rich brown curls in that way that he’s realized means that she’s nervous.
“She needs clothes,” he mutters with a distracted jut of his chin. “Anything she wants. Plus—”
He hesitates. Well, why the f*ck not? Wyndham’s apparently made him f*ckin’ rich — for a little while, anyway — thanks to the frickin’ present that had been wrapped like a noose around his pretty bride’s neck. It’s not like the Monster will be spending the units the way he normally would — gambling, booze, escorts from the Platinum Dahlia — at least, not as long as the pearl’s with him.
She’s not sticking around.
Still. He should get her some clothes for Fron.
Just in case.
“We might hit some of the more — uh, scenic mountains while we’re here,” he lies easily. “You got some good insulated gear? Maybe with heat tech?”
Sanna Orix hums thoughtfully. “It’ll take a couple rotations, but I can get some good boot-and-glove sets in both your sizes. I’ve also got some temp-controlled coats and thermal gear in the back—“
“Armored?” he cuts in, and they raise a brow.
“Now, Stranger,” they say mildly, in a tone that makes it clear she doesn’t really expect an answer, “what would you need armor for while sight-seeing in the Cyxlorade mountains?”
He grunts, and they quirk a knowing brow.
“But yes, the leather is already armored. Luckily, I’ve got two that should fit you both already, and if you need any alterations, I can have those done by the time your boots are ready. You’ll also need warm socks and scarves, hats—“
“Yeah, whatever,” the Monster says with a dismissive wave of one hand. “Sounds great. As long as they’re the best of their kind.” His eyes slide back to the pearl, then jump away. She’s migrated to an overflowing wardrobe, where she’s now sifting cautiously through underthings.
He tries not to think about that — not to wonder what pretty scraps she’ll decide to cover her puss* in. Something cloud-soft, he hopes. Thin and frail enough for him to cut through it with his teeth. Maybe some skinny little straps on the hips, or held together by ribbons. There’s a kind of Cyxlorade lace, he knows, made from that soft grass they grow in the Telladore system — he wants something like that rubbing against her little cl*t all day, just a little wisp of delicate, gentle texture—
“Your girl is very pretty.”
He drags his glare up from where he’s latched it to the floor, slowly scraping it upward to meet Orix’s open gaze.
Your girl.
Rocket feels his mouth twist up a dry, bitter grin. “Ah, she ain’t mine.”
“No?” they ask mildly, seemingly preoccupied with examining another of the little gemstones from pearl’s necklace.
He scoffs and lets his eyes flicker back to the dark-haired Terran. “She’s her own.”
Orix looks away from the smooth, satiny gems in their hands and stares down at him with big, soft, liquid-dark eyes. “You know, I wasn’t sure about you at first, Stranger. But I suspect you’re a good person.”
He snorts and is about to reply with something snide and sh*tty when a slow gleam of color catches his eye on the far wall of the tiny shop. Cloth drapes from the tapestry bars there, slowly catching the shifting sunlight — curtains and sheaves of glossy woven fabric.
“Are those blankets?” he asks without thinking. Orix’s eyes flick to them.
“Silk chenille,” they clarify. “Spun right here on Cyxlore. Would you like to look at them?”
He hesitates, eyes drifting over to Pearl. She’s frowning while she holds up a leather thong doubtfully, brow creased like it’s got her concerned, and he feels the corner of his mouth twitch in a grin despite himself. He forces his gaze back to the folds of fabric on the other side of the shop. They somehow manage to look fluffy and shimmery, all at once.
“Yeah.”
They make their way to the wall, where the textiles layer over each other in gleaming waves of color. Rocket hesitates, then runs the pads of his fingers lightly down the cloth — surprised by the softness and plushness of the pile. The thick threads are soft and smooth and woolly, and each sheet of fabric and tasseled border feels like woven clouds and water, dense and satiny under his hands. Plus, they’ve got such a pretty sheen. There’s a deep teal, and a red so rich and dark that it might be made of the inside of a heart. Moondust-blue and gold champagne and faded rose. They all remind him of her, and he suddenly wants all of them, wants to pile them in his bunk so when she goes to bed at night she can sink down into shiny soft pools of cloth, letting them lap at her skin like an incoming tide. She’d probably cuddle them up in her arms and peer at him over the waves of blanket with big star-gray eyes and f*ck, he suddenly thinks he only ever wants her to feel good for the rest of her silly little life.
Silk chenille blankets, he thinks. Cushiony pillows. Downy duvets. Pearl might’ve grown up with starchy sheets and fiberglass quilts but there’s no reason he shouldn’t cocoon her in whatever soft things he can get his grubby little claws on right now.
No reason except it’s not like him.
“I didn’t take you for a man who was interested in this type of luxury,” Sanna says, and he frowns.
“You’re right,” he agrees coldly, and backs up a step. He feels his lip curl in a subtle, instinctive baring of teeth, and his ears lay flat. “M’not.”
They study him with dark eyes. “There’s nothing wrong with a little indulgence now and then — a little comfort.” Her nacreous hand glides down the folds of one blanket. “If not for you, maybe for the girl. Something to make your ship a little — more cozy for her.”
He clears his throat. “Speaking of — the girl. And the ship.” He hesitates, and sucks his tongue against his teeth. “If she wanted to stay moonside, where would you recommend?”
Orix’s hairless brows arch. “You don’t want her around?”
He flinches, startled at the question. “I want — it don’t frickin’ matter what I want,” he says instead. “I’m just thinkin’—“
“That girl’s not leaving your side unless you make her,” they interrupt quietly.
He tries to dredge up a glare, and when he can’t manage it, he rolls his eyes instead and strides past Sanna Orix, headed back over to where the girl in question is chewing her lip and studying the drawers overflowing with undergarments. She looks… nervous: hands clenching fistfuls of the blanket at her waist, toes curling anxiously against the glossy mosaic-tiled floor. He needs to get her in boots as quick as possible — he can’t stand how frickin’ vulnerable her humie feet are. He’ll have to get her a second pair for now, while they wait for the heated ones to come in.
If she doesn’t come with him — well, then she’ll have two sets of boots. And if she does wanna go visit the higher altitudes on Cyxlore, she’ll be ready for them.
Bare toes aside, right now, she seems torn. Or maybe overwhelmed. Her shoulders are high up under her jaw, and her fingers leave the blanket to twist in front of her belly, then rake anxiously through the dark ends of her curls. Her eyes flit from one drawer to another in the wardrobe — leather, latex, satin, lace — and her stare gets bigger and bigger as they go. He can hear her heartbeat trip over itself: frantic little footfalls running downhill so fast that he knows they’re about to send her sprawling.
He swallows, and clears his throat.
“For whatever it’s worth,” he says with a jerk of his chin, “my vote is for those ones.”
꧁:･☁︎･:꧂
Pearl jumps at the sound of her survivor’s voice. He’s barely spoken to her all day — but now, when she’s submerged in uncertainty, his voice calls her out of it.
The words sound almost hoarse.
He gestures to a little pile of frilly underthings draping out of one open drawer. Her vision, which had been blurring with panic, suddenly has something to focus on. She blocks out everything else and just tries to take in the delicate mound of gauzy cloth. All the pieces in that drawer are made of a silky sort of diaphanous, cotton-like material she’s not familiar with, woven into different textures and patterns. They look dainty and thin, and cloud-soft. There are a few dozen pairs, each different: bows and ruffles and pillowy lace, some shot through with iridescent threads or painted with little watercolor hearts. They range from cute to pretty to sexy, a myriad of pastels and rainbows that promise infinitely more choice and fun than the serviceable, elegant, coarse raw silk Herbert had chosen to dress her in.
So many options.
And she’d be lying if she said she wasn’t intrigued by the fact that the survivor — that Rocket seems to like them. She wonders if he’d want to see them on her — if he’d tear them off her again, or maybe let her slip them down her thighs for him.
I ain’t gonna f*ck you, pearl. So don’t ask.
“You do?” she asks, trying not to sound hopeful. She draws her eyes over the pile of shimmery fabric. “They are pretty.”
Her gaze shifts to his, curious, just in time to see a flurry of expressions chase each other over his face, too fleeting for her to identify a single one. He gestures helplessly, ears flattened against his head — almost anxiously, she’d think.
“They look soft,” he stresses, and something underneath her heart flutters, like the little bird at the base of her sternum has just woken up and feathered its small wings. He mutters something just under the range of her hearing, but she thinks his lips frame the words — poor puss*. He clears his throat again. “F’you’re gonna be on the ship with me, you should at least be in somethin’ frickin’ comfortable.”
It melts her heart a little. She drifts closer to them and pluck up a pair and it’s true that they are soft: almost misty, and feather-frail. They’re all slightly different cuts — some high at the hip, and others that ride low. A few that probably would cover everything but the soft undercurve of her asscheeks, and one that doesn’t really cover anything at all. There’s a pair with shimmery multicolored stars printed on them, and another that’s a pure confection of pillowy, frothy lace and strappiness.
In short, she’s spoiled for choice.
Another little knot of tension rises up inside her, and she’s not sure if it’s good or bad. The wealth of pretty options before her is daunting. She drops the undergarment back in the drawer, fast as she can, in case her fingers start shaking.
It’s just underwear, she reminds herself. As much as she’d like to imagine otherwise, the survivor probably doesn’t care much other than that she have some. There’s no-one to please but herself. She’d have thought that would be reassuring.
And still.
“You like ‘em?” Rocket asks. His voice is rasping. “Or you want to look at something else?”
“I like them,” she says quickly, immediately. “I’m just… trying to pick.”
He shuffles his weight to the other foot. “How many are in your size? Ten? Twelve?”
She sifts through the whispery little pile. “Twelve,” she confirms, and he hitches a shoulder.
“Get ‘em all,” he says easily.
She blinks, guilt already chewing its way through her belly. “But—“
He cuts her off with a grimace and a wave of a clawed hand. “Rather spend the extra units than the extra time,” he tells her roughly. “Better to get ‘em all so you can you figure out what the f*ck you like than to hafta stand around here for another two hours while you make up your frickin’ mind.”
“Altogether, they’re a fraction of what even one of these little jewels you brought me is worth,” Sanna Orix intervenes delicately, as if they’ve already assessed the pearl’s concerns about a pricetag. “Your Stranger here can definitely afford them today — but I might even end up throwing them in for free, simply based on the magnitude of how much I’m going to make off these.” They roll a little sphere between their fingers, and their skin glows with almost the same iridescent luminosity.
Pearl chews her lip, and then offers a hesitant half-smile and nods. She likes Sanna Orix — could probably love them, if she were going to stay on this moon for any length of time. There’s a kindness to the Cyxlorade that pearl would have loved to have in her life — and a deep wisdom that she’d like to be able to emulate someday.
Of course, Herbert would have hated Sanna Orix — would have hated all the luxe inelegance of this little shop, and the clutter of treasures that seem to serve very little purpose beyond making life a little sweeter. He’d hate the quiet sagacity of Orix’s presence and bearing, unpinned to pursuits of whatever the High Evolutionary considers glory. Instead, the Cyxlorade merchant’s only goal seems to be creating and sharing comfort, and pleasure.
And to pearl, that seems deeply honorable — and deeply necessary — in a universe that hosts monsters like Herbert.
“Thank you, then,” pearl says — first to the Cyxlorade, and then again to Rocket, with perhaps some extra warmth. Delicately, she plucks up the panties in her size, beginning to bundle them up in her arms until Sanna reaches out with slender, shining hands and takes them from her, stowing them away on the little counter where purchases are finalized.
“Stranger here says you need a full wardrobe, sweetberry,” Sanna Orix says, and takes pearl’s fingers in their own, leading her to a tiered table of pants and skirts and various other assorted bottoms, depending on the patron’s anatomy. “What colors do you like, dewdrop? Do you prefer pants or skirts or wraps? Dresses? Robes, like mine?”
“Yours are lovely,” pearl says quickly, barely restraining her fingers from reaching out and coasting the hem of the shiver-thin satin that cascades off Orix’s frame: a watercolor wash of gold and champagne and ice-blue, as iridescent as his skin. “But I think—“ her eyes dart to Rocket’s red-gold stare “—something, uhm, less flowy?” What does practical mean? She imagines, if Rocket is going to let her stay on the ship with him, that it means clothing less likely to get caught up in machinery — something more suited to the bitter climes of Fron. “Pants, I think?”
Orix tilts his head. “Pants it is, then.”
But Rocket makes a little sound in his throat. “You can get whatever you want, p— doll. You want skirts or whatever? Get a couple skirts.” He coughs a little. “We won’t be in the mountains all the time.”
Sanna Orix raises a brow at pearl, and the Terran girl flushes.
“Okay,” she agrees, a little breathless with the freedom of it. “Maybe — one skirt? And uhm — however many pairs of pants.” She flicks her eyes to Rocket again and he shrugs.
“I got three armored jumpsuits,” he tells Sanna Orix. “Get her at least as many pairs of pants. Whatever style she wants, but they gotta be armor-weave.” Something flickers in his face and he grimaces. “Soft, preferably. Somethin’ comfortable.”
Soon enough, Sanna Orix has ushered her back into a little curtained area. Pearl hasn’t worn pants in years, and she’d missed them at first — before she’d learned that all of the things she might want to do in them, like climbing trees or spinning cartwheels, were unseemly anyway.
She’d forgotten how nice they are.
“I like these,” she admits from behind the curtain, smoothing the buttery, snug black leggings over her hips and tummy. They wrap her up like a hug, and it’s so nice to be so free, to be able to stretch and move and run without a million layers of fibrous silk getting in her way, or rigid folds of thick violet-dyed wool.
“Come on out, sunberry,” Sanna Orix calls. “Let me make sure they don’t need any alterations.”
Pearl ducks back out from behind the sweeping curtain, and Orix clucks and tugs at the waistband and thighs.
“Are they comfortable, berry? Have you tried sitting in them, kneeling in them? On Cyxlore we make sure clothes fit the body, not the other way around, so you just tell me if anything needs to be adjusted.”
“They’re perfect,” pearl says instantly, turning and looking over her shoulder at herself, then crouching low. She shoots back upright when her survivor makes a throttled, sputtering noise in his throat. “Are you—“
“Those got fiber-armor woven in?” he interrupts her, crimson-fire eyes looking anywhere but at her, his voice rasping around whatever has suddenly gotten stuck in it. Sanna Orix lifts a hairless brow and nods, and her dark eyes glint, as if she’s entertained by the whole scenario.
Rocket is still coughing.
“Do you need some water?” pearl asks her survivor worriedly.
“Three pairs of those?” Rocket inquires instead, voice hoarse and crackling. He ignores her question. “Or you want something else? We can—“
“Three is fine,” pearl says quickly, flushing. “Thank you, but do you—”
“Gotta get you some shirts too—“
“Oh,” she says, trying to keep track of her concern for him while also balancing his questions — and hang onto the little things she wants. Heat rises in her throat, shimmering into her cheeks. “I—“ She falters. “Okay,” she agrees softly, but apparently the survivor can hear the disappointment on her voice, and apparently it bothers him.
“What?”
She looks down and fingers the soft, worn hem of Bzermikitokolok and the Knowheremen, where it floats somewhere just around the edge of her ribs. “I was kind of hoping I could keep wearing yours,” she confesses, cheeks burning. “I’m sorry — I know that’s selfish; they’re your clothes—“
“You wanna keep wearing my shirts.”
The sentence is delivered flatly — still hoarse, but with no inflection — and when she looks up, Rocket is staring at her with hard, hot eyes — bright red embers, as glowing as the night they’d shone at her from the shadows of her HalfWorld cage. She winces, the crushed debris of mortification starting to fill up her ribs like rubble.
Sanna’s eyes dart back and forth between the two of them, rapt.
“I—yes? I’m sorry; it’s okay, I can—“
“That’s fine, doll.” The words are clipped and short, but quick. “Gotta get you a — somethin’ to make sure you stay warm, but — that’s just fine.”
“I have something perfect in mind,” Sanna Orix says, and they disappear around a corner of the little shop before returning with an armful of something that pearl assumes must be the galaxy’s softest sweater: big and blanket-like with massive pockets, to be buttoned over the survivor’s cottony little t-shirts if pearl gets cold. It’s thick and heavy, and the weave feels like cream against her skin. Rocket crosses his arms — eyes dark and intent on her when she snuggles into the shawl-lapel collar — before he strides across the little space and pinches his fingers in the loose elbow of her sleeve. She startles, then watches with big eyes as he massages the fabric together between his thumb and forefinger like he’s testing its texture.
“This’ll fit under the jacket?” he demands, and Sanna Orix disappears again briefly to bring out an armored-leather coat with an internal heating system woven into the lining. The soft, silken fluff of the cardigan collapses easily inside the jacket sleeves.
“It should actually work together better than the coat on its own,” Sanna admits. “It crushes down quite easily, and will add an additional layer of insulation while wicking away any moisture.” Their narrow hands pinch a fold in the fabric, as if the gesture could illustrate its wicking properties.
“You want one or two?” Rocket asks pearl abruptly, running his eyes from her ankles and up the velvety, painted-on leggings to the place where the cardigan puddles over her hips, a little rectangle of her midriff peeking through.
“Oh,” she stammers, “I only need one—“
“Two,” he decides. “You got a favorite color, doll?”
She blinks. “Uhm — I haven’t thought about it in a long time,” she admits. “I haven’t really had a— uhm—“
I haven’t had a reason to have one, she thinks. Herbert had dressed her in whites and purples, and all the cages where he’d kept her had been in shades of neutrals.
“Not — I think, not purple?” she says, and she can hear the question in her voice. The uncertain lilt of it makes her flinch, but her survivor is watching her with burning red eyes that suddenly fracture, and somehow they feel unbearably patient.
He knows, she realizes in that moment. He knows.
“I have a soft silver-gray that would match your eyes,” Sanna Orix says. “But—“ She tilts her head. “I think you might like at least one in color, sweetberry. You’d look pretty in yellow, or perhaps teal.”
“I like gray and teal, I think,” pearl says, and she can hear the reediness in her own voice. She knows her own eyes are fastened to Rocket’s crimson-fire stare like silver buttons, nervous and wide. “Or r-red, maybe? Instead of the teal?”
“f*ck it,” Rocket says abruptly. “The girl’s got no frickin’ clothes—“
Pearl flushes, and Sanna Orix’s brows arch in surprise.
“—and apparently we ain’t buying shirts today, so just get her all four, Orix. Teal, red, yellow, gray — whatever.”
“That’s so much—“
He ignores pearl’s protests. “You wanted a couple skirts too, didn’t you?”
“Just one!” she squeaks, but Sanna’s already disappearing around the corner again.
Rocket rolls his eyes. “We ain’t gonna get a chance to get you anything else for a while, doll. And m’not generally the generous type. So just enjoy this while it lasts.”
“What about you?” she asks, and he raises a brow.
“What about me?”
“I thought these might be to your taste,” Sanna Orix interrupts delicately, coming back into view, gently herding pearl back toward the dressing area before she can respond. There’s a stack of sleek fabrics in his arms: soft and cool and smooth, too matte to be satin or silk but with a strange luminosity nonetheless. They’re long on pearl, fluttering around her ankles, with a lower waist band that rests softly against her hips — even lower than the blanket had — and slits that rise to mid-thigh on both sides. The survivor is watching her with half-hooded eyes when she leaves the curtained dressing-area, and it feels like his gaze licks over her knees when she rustles the panels of fabric and the slits flare open at the sides.
“Berry,” Sanna Orix says softly, “are you all right?”
Pearl startles at the sudden, dense worry in their voice, then sees Rocket wince: ears flattening, shoulders hunching, head ducking. Her heart suddenly twists behind her ribs and climbs right up to her mouth, beating against the back of her tongue — because her survivor looks like he’s waiting to be hit. It takes a moment for pearl to process, but then she follows both sets of their eyes to her belly.
The white bandage, almost fully visible. The faint remnants of scratches and spark-shaped splotches, nearly healed.
“Oh,” she says quickly, and she tries to usher up her very softest smile, keeping her eyes on Rocket. Her fingers linger over the edge of white. “In all honesty, I’m certain I’ve never been better.”
Something in Sanna Orix’s face softens, but it’s the survivor that pearl is watching. His ears ease, hesitantly half-risen, and he flicks an ember-eyed glance up at her face. She’s only seen that hunted look on his face once before — pressed into the shadows under the flight control panel, eyes wide and wounded. But there’s something else in them now, something uncertain and raw.
Orix smiles. “Try this one on,” she says, and they hold out a skirt in the same style in muted, silvery pale rose. They flick their eyes toward Rocket and drop their voice into a stage whisper. “I happen to know your friend here is partial to pink.”
Rocket’s lower jaw drops a little and he flashes betrayed, accusing eyes toward the merchant, who only chuckles softly.
But pearl doesn’t need to try it on. She already loves the color and the sheen of it, all on her own. With her survivor’s worn gray and black band shirts and any one of her new sweaters, it’ll be a dream of candy-sunrise-colors.
And knowing Rocket might like it? That just sends an extra golden trill up through her belly: something hopeful and warm, and as springlike as her new clothes. The joy of it all — soft comfy clothes in a watercolor wash of colors she likes, pretty and warm and gifted to her for no reason other than she needed them — it flushes high in her cheeks and down through her throat, warming her belly and tensing in her calves. Without thinking, she bounces on her toes.
“I love it,” she says without thinking, and she’s sure the proof of it must be all over her face. Wyndham would hate her showing so much juvenile excitement, but she doesn’t care. She thinks she can feel her eyes sparkling. “Thank you—” she adds, turning to Rocket, just missing the fact that his eyes have been bouncing with her: following her bare toes to her ankles and the flounce of her hips, the jostle of her breasts beneath his shirt, the rumples of soft new sweater.
“He needs something too,” she says eagerly to Sanna Orix — missing Rocket’s strained swallow entirely. “Something more comfortable than a — than an armored jumpsuit.”
Sanna’s brows raise and they cast a mildly challenging look toward the survivor, who grimaces.
“Yeah, yeah,” he concedes grumpily, looking deeply unsettled by the shift. “Just some pants to sleep in.” He brandished a claw and a raised eyebrow in Pearl’s direction. “Just ‘cause I’m lettin’ you wear my shirts doesn’t mean I’m giving ‘em up.”
Pearl has no complaints. If he’s wearing them to bed, that means they’ll be dosed again with his resinous, warm, almond-cake-and-campfire smell between washes. She’s more than happy to rotate through their little shared wardrobe.
They leave an hour later, with pearl happily swirling her petal-pink skirt around her ankles and the tops of her short new boots, which are a dusty lilac-blue. Her blanket-skirt has been tucked into a bag along with their other new belongings: her sweaters, along with scarves and hats and a plethora of wool-warm socks for both of them. They’ll need to come back in a couple rotations, Sanna Orix explains, for their altered leather coats, heated boots, and thermal pants, and for Rocket’s pair of soft trousers to be modified to accommodate his tail. In fact, the only items that Rocket had really dictated are the armored, heated jackets and thermal gear, and sets of paired boots and mittens that are able to store up to fifty hours of heat provisions, all recharged and powered by the kinetic energy of their own footsteps. Everything else has been her choice. Pearl’s head is whirling with the freedom of the whole experience — the liberation of it — and she can barely focus on anything else.
The two of them drop their bundle of new belongings at the runabout, and then Rocket is weaving her through the streets of Cyxlore. There’s so much to look at: cupboard-shrines set into the glittering stone walls of the city, carts where merchants sell foods from all over the universe, kiosks full of textured pottery, and scrolls embossed with tactile Cyxlorade lettering. At some point, a wave of something warm and sweet washes through the air. It reminds pearl of the marzipan-scent clinging to her survivor’s fur — nutty and buttery and rich as brown sugar — and maybe something like cinnamon, and something like chocolate. She hasn’t thought of hot chocolate in years — since she’d left Terra, actually — but the memory of it steams to life prettily in her mind. The woman next door had made her some — twice. Creamy and dense, with nutmeg and and cloves and allspice. The sudden recollection startles a breath out of her throat, and when Rocket darts an angle-eyed, red-glimmer glance up at her — one brow raised in dry inquiry — she lets out a little laugh.
“Something smells good,” she says only, but his ears flick and he scowls before striding up to a stall and saying something to the Krylorian working there. The pink-skinned man laughs and Rocket rolls his eyes and scans a thin piece of glass — a datacard, he’d told her the rotation before — and the Krylorian hands him an insulated bottle full of something cream-colored and steaming.
Rocket pushes the warm bottle into her hands. “Cyxlorade morningtea,” he grunts. “S’good. Not synth, but it didn’t kill anything to make it. Nuts from a kinda proteaceae tree here that overproduces, mostly. It’s more like — fleecing a woolly f’saki than anything else.” He shrugs. “Know you didn’t ask, but everything we ordered today ‘cept the leather coats were made like that. Most of the textiles here are — the grasses in the Telladore system make good cloth, and they’re part of a connected root-system. Didn’t have to kill nothin’.”
He’s edging around the words, tight and tense, but she feels herself soften, the breath seeing right out of her lungs and lighting up like slow-glowing summer fireflies. “You did that for me?”
He flinches and shoots her an appalled glower. “No — I told you. It’s just the way most sh*t is made here. You got lucky.”
If anything, his defensive glare just softens her more. What he’s saying is probably true, she supposes — that most of the fabrics here have been created from materials that required no loss of life. But that he’d wanted her to know, while claiming no credit for thinking of it — that makes her heart shift and float high in her chest, bumping gently against her collarbone like an iridescent bubble. Or a peony, unfurling. Herbert would have used that truth to manipulate her, to claim space in her head and heart, to tie her knots over his meticulous thoughtfulness, his detailed and attentive care.
Herbert is a monster who’d wanted to make her believe he cared, and her survivor is a caretaker who’d rather her believe he wasn’t.
“I did get lucky,” she only agrees, her voice melting all over him. She thinks all her old ice must be as warm as the morningtea in her hands by now. When his ears flatten and he hazards another uncertain glance up at her — vulnerability quickly covered by a scoff — she tries for an impudent wink, unable to help but bounce on her toes again.
Rocket’s scoff immediately turns into a sputter.
She takes a sip of a morningtea and almost moans. It does remind her of her neighbor’s hot chocolate, and something richer and nuttier and spicier besides. Once, the same neighbor had given her a slice of chocolate-pecan pie, and she thinks that’s what this drink tastes like.
And though the memory and the drink don’t warm her up the way Rocket does, it’s a close, close second.
“Don’t you want some?” she offers, reaching out to him with the glass bottle. He blinks down at it, then up at her as pedestrians trickle around them: rivulets of water in a spring thaw.
He hesitates, tilting his head, then plucks the bottle from her hand. His eyes stay on her, ember-bright, as he puts his mouth over the same spot hers had been and takes a drink. Something golden spirals up inside her and she lets out a shuddery little breath.
Cautiously, he hands it back to her — fur bristling just a little, and tail tucked as he waits to see if she takes it.
Of course she does — why wouldn’t she? she wonders fleetingly — and she takes another sip. Some small part of her tries to decipher where the lip of the bottle is warm from the drink inside, and where the smooth glass has been heated by his mouth.
It still tastes like a hug.
She asks a million questions as they go, and he rolls his eyes every time — but he answers, and more than once she thinks she sees amusem*nt twitching the corner of his mouth. His spine pulls up as they walk, and his shoulders look like they become even broader — his tail sways indolently behind him and at some point, he starts to sound… smug. Prideful.
That makes the gold coil in her belly glow brighter, too. Her heart bumps merrily against her ribs and everything is full of sunlight and starlight, and she thinks maybe this is the happiest she’s ever been: band-shirted, pink-skirted, and lilac-booted — sipping her morningtea, tagging along behind her beautiful survivor through the mosaic-paved streets.
꧁:･☁︎･:꧂
Pearl pauses at almost every stall, exactly as he’d expected: hands caught up between her breasts in little fists around the warm glass bottle. It’s just like when she stares at his weapons and tech: like she’s fascinated, but she knows that touching could be dangerous. The Monster had originally thought she’d just had a healthy fear of explosives when they’d been on the runabout — but now, he’s wondering if Wyndham had done something to train the pearl to keep her pretty fingers to herself at all times. Somehow, it makes him hate the bastard even more.
Which honestly shouldn’t be possible.
She looks so much better already. He’d thought she’d been gorgeous in an evil, ice-queen sort of way when he’d first seen her, but the difference now is almost painful. He knows she still hasn’t been eating right, but she looks so much healthier: moon-gray eyes constantly aglow, cheeks all rosy and kitten-smile perpetually just a dimple away. Curls bouncing recklessly and freckles suddenly copper-bright on the tawny rose of her skin, instead of fading monochromatically into pale marble-cold flesh.
And every once in a while she does that little dance: bouncing on her toes, breasts bobbing all sweet and tauntingly, face lit up like a rosy lantern at the Indigarran sky festivals.
Rocket’s never been interested in spending his hard-earned units on almost anything before. Music, maybe. An escort if he’s near an Ore Garden brothel — maybe even two, if he’s feeling rich. Otherwise, he only begrudgingly parts with money: usually just enough for a leaky roof over his head and booze in his belly, and fuel for his damn runabout. A spicy meat-stuffed pastry if he can’t knick one. Maybe extra tech that he could turn into something new, though he’s more likely to swipe what he wants if he can. Gambling, maybe, if the other players look drunk or stupid or easily-duped. Everything else, he steals: not because he’s always broke — though he often is — but because it’s f*ckin’ fun.
Hell, even the Bzermikitokolok and the Knowheremen shirt had been snatched from a merch stall at a Lux-Crystal Fantasy festival in Inix a couple years ago. His general policy is to avoid stealing from musicians and sex workers, but he’d been in dire straits at the time, and the jackass working the kiosk had stepped on his tail and then called him a plague-ridden goblin when he’d gotten mad about it. As far as Rocket had been concerned, that dickhe*d had owed him more than a new shirt, and he’d just shrugged and hoped that the band had taken the cost outta that sh*tbag’s wages.
But here? With pearl? Rocket sort of figures gambling ain’t that fun anyway — just a thing to do when he’s bored and lonely or wanting to f*ck up someone else’s day. And he can’t really imagine a universe in which he hires a courtesan while he’s still got such a pretty thing already sleeping in his bunk, even if he’s gotta stop himself from putting his hands on her the way he wants to.
Better to put a half-unit toward getting her a taste of her very first morningtea. It’s a well-known, widespread beverage for frickin’ commoners, especially in the Telladore system, so he’s sure she’d never had it before. Wyndham woulda never allowed it.
At first, the Monster thought — she should get a chance to try it. She’ll like it. Then he’d thought, let me show her all the things she can have if she sticks with me. M’not like Wyndham. I’m not. Then he’d figured it had been a mistake to introduce it to her at all — Cyxlore’s the only place she can get it fresh every morning, so he’s giving her even more reasons to stay behind.
But…
…the look on her face when she’d tried it?
He’d buy her a hundred frickin’ more if she asked for ‘em.
He knows some of the shops out here sell a powdered blend that can be mixed with hot water — not as good as having it fresh, but if she ends up coming with him — if she does — it could help keep her warm on Fron. It’s just — pragmatical, really.
And if she had wanted that cheap, delicate little gold necklace with the fake Spartaxian crystal in it? If she’d asked, he’d have gotten it. Stolen, maybe, but secured around her pretty throat nonetheless. The watercolor Indigarran silk scarf at Linna Fennex’s stall? It would look pretty as hell on pearl’s dainty neck, maybe even make him feel a little better by covering up the sunflower-shadows of bruising still left by his hands.
The uncharacteristic urge to snatch up every pretty and tasty and soft thing he can for her — it’s just because she clearly hasn’t had anything of her own before, he reasons. Not even her own choice of jewelry, or food, or clothes. Hell, she’d had to give herself an allergic reaction just to get out of wearing — to get out of wearing—
Lylla.
Not Lylla, he reminds himself. Some other poor, fur-covered bastard.
But if she’d told him she’d always wanted pink-floral-printed rainboots, or had suddenly expressed a desire for a set of the fake Shi’ar costume-wings that the kids sometimes like to wear on their backpacks, or asked for one of the stupid flower-crowns woven from Telladorean indigo-and-sunshine irises, he thinks he’d have found a way to make it happen.
And he’d probably still wanna f*ck her in all of ‘em.
At some point, she finishes her drink, and the Monster gestures her roughly toward one of the little recycling compactors built into the building walls every few blocks. He stops at Nola Doren’s shop and picks through a clutter of old parts and repurposed tech, eyeballing a few pieces he might come back for tomorrow. Normally he’d just swipe ‘em, but he can’t be sure pearl won’t have an adverse reaction to his less-than-exemplary shopping habits.
Eventually, they make it to the food and provisions market, and pearl’s leaning over his shoulder at every stall. The softness and the waterlily scent of her — combined with the resinous, woodsy scent of him on her tit* — makes his chest puff up like an idiot. He stops caring when people glance dubiously at the strip of white bandage peeking over the waistband of her pretty pink skirt — he just grins sharply at them, daring them to even try to put hands on her.
It’s unnecessary, of course. And he’s got no right to her anyway.
But still.
She’s fascinated by the food market, too — like she is with damn near everything. There’s some Cyxlorade natural food he convinces her to try — mostly vegetables and fruits from trees and other plants that don’t suffer from the harvest. She predictably shies away from yaro and other root-vegetables, since the whole plant dies in the reaping. The synth market is rich here, though, and he’s able to stock up on all sorts of proteins and snacks for the two of them — a synthetic smoked Moraggian moonfish that he likes, and three different kinds of artificial auroch; lab-made woolly-boar bacon and more fake Aladnan snowfish. A meat that mimics purple chicken from Indigarr. Imitation eggs and wedges of lyophilized stonefruit and melon, berries and pomes.
Every other stall, his brain turns over. At one, he’ll forget that she’s not his — take for granted the eagerness with which she follows him and stands at his side, silver eyes sparkling. He takes for granted the togetherness of the moment, and the idea they’ll be sharing these rations out in the Beautiful Forever. But by the time he pays and they move on to the next provisions merchant, he’s regretting every single minute of the day — showing her what an indulgent moon Cyxlore is, treating her to their pretty clothes and their tasty foods.
He figures he’s practically pushing her out of the hatch, when all he really wants to do is keep her in his bunk.
Inevitably, the regret grows more bitter and he starts hating that he’d let her become such a need in such a short time. He’d called her spoiled, but it’s him who got ruined fast. ‘Cause… who’s gonna make little moans from the shower when she’s gone? Who’s gonna kneel so prettily next to him when he’s fixing something? Who’s gonna beg him to unfold his dreams about a future where he does nothing but build ships, and air them out like soft clean bedsheets on the quiet flightdeck?
Who’s he gonna imagine chasing Acanti migrations with?
And why does he suddenly feel the want for any of it?
…But speaking of her kneeling on the grates — he does need to find some mats for the floor, to protect her knees. And before he knows it, he’s right back to the beginning of this whole cycle: forgetting she’ll be leaving him, forgetting he doesn’t get to keep her. By the time he’s ready for them to head back to the runabout — arms piled high with crates of goods — his head feels lightning-struck: pulsing and throbbing, thoughts all twisted up together and biting. That old frenetic pulse behind his heart is throbbing, tangling everything with the jagged buzz of electricity, just waiting to be discharged.
He’s not so distracted that he doesn’t notice when Pearl’s soft-soled boots falter behind him, though. He stops so quickly his fur keeps going, ends of each strand swaying with momentum while he casts a sideways glance behind himself. Pearl’s staring at an arched doorway — Wona Beax’s salon. Rocket hasn’t been there before, but he’s heard of it, and he raises a brow before following the Terran girl’s silver stare. She’s watching, entranced, as a Luphom*oid exits — they spin their long, luxurious mane of midnight-dark hair over one shoulder, and the underside is a rainbow-aurora. It practically glows.
The pearl’s eyes are drawn to it, and there’s something faint and yearning in the set of her mouth — regret clinging to the corners of her lips, tugging at them.
“You like that?” Rocket asks before he can stop the words. His voice gets stuck in his throat, splitting up the middle, fractured by how wistful she looks — almost affectionate, almost sad.
But she doesn’t seem to hear the cracked edges of his words. She only nods mutely, eyes wide. He shifts the crates in his arms and reaches up — all impulse — to pinch her hip. The silky weave of the new pink skirt is smooth and cool under his fingers, but he can feel the warm give of her flesh underneath. He makes sure it’s not a bruised spot — he’s memorized all her little wounds — but she jolts anyway, and that’s when he realizes, too late, how intimate the gesture is.
He snaps his arm back so hard that his knuckles smack against the crate, stinging, but before he can spit out any panicked and furious excuses, she’s already answering.
“When I was a kid, I used to want turquoise hair,” she tells him softly, her voice caught up in an expression that he’s starting to recognize as the indulgence of one singular memory that doesn’t hurt. He goes still as she speaks, and his eyes catch on the kitten-smile half-curving her mouth. “Like a mermaid’s.”
He feels the sides of his nose crinkle, and her eyes flicker down to him — then focus, and grow warm. The moonsilver of her irises goes molten, like she’s seen something in his face that she’s found endearing.
He whuffs against his will and tries to distract her. “What the f*ck’s a mermaid?”
The sound of her little chuckle ripples over his fur. She turns her gaze back to the salon and lifts one shoulder dismissively. “Terran myth. It doesn’t matter.”
He studies her, head tilting and ears twitching toward her. He remembers the conversation about cutting her hair — about all of Wyndham’s rigid rules. He snorts. “You wanna get your hair colored turquoise, doll?”
Her brow crimps in the middle and he winces. The statement has clearly tweaked something for her, though he’s not sure what; she tucks the crate of groceries more firmly against her belly and her shoulders curve a little, like she suddenly wants to make herself small. But then she offers him a fleeting, self-conscious smile and a half-shrug before watching as another person steps out of the arched doorway. The stranger waves at someone down the street and then hurries away, hair burning like a banner behind them: sunset ombré, all oranges and scarlets and plums.
“I — I haven’t thought about it in a long time.”
The Monster muffles a noise. f*ckin’ Wyndham. “Well, think about it now. And quick.”
She blinks, eyes swiveling toward him, and it’s his turn to offer up a half-shrug. “Should be getting you a disguise anyway.”
Another blink, and her lashes are starry, silver eyes wide. “What?”
He juts his chin toward the salon. “You want red hair? Blue skin? Wona Beax can get you dyed whatever colors you want, doll. Give you supplements to keep the new layers growing in the right colors. Might make the High Evolutionary less likely to spot you.”
She stares at him, and he watches as her expression melts: apprehension sparking and softening into fascination. “How do you know all this?” she asks, those pretty eyes starting to brighten with intrigue. “Have you —?”
He feels his own eyes go wide, and then — unexpectedly — a cackle rises in his throat and bursts from his mouth. At least three passers-by shoot him startled glances. “What? No,” he snickers, imagining himself with pink fur. Or maybe she’d pictured him in blue and orange, to match his jumpsuits. “But I do know a few escorts — from Contraxia, mainly — who come out to Cyxlore for dye-jobs if they got the units. They got nothin’ but praise for a Cyxlorade dye-job. Wona Beax in particular.”
The pearl tilts her head, watching a cluster of three Krylorians enter.
“What color do you think would look good on me?” she asks cautiously.
You heard Sanna, he thinks — I always been partial to pink. For a second, he imagines some of those silky curls of hers: tumbling past her shoulders, glossy and almost-matching her rosy nipples. He closes his eyes for a second, then wrestles them open. “You should pick,” he says flatly.
“Oh.” She readjusts the crate in her arms. “I wouldn’t know what would look right —“
He snorts. If his hands had been free, he’d have waved her worries away with clawed fingers. You’ll look pretty no matter what, pearl. “All you baldbodies look the same anyway. Just pick something.” He gestures with his chin and rolls his eyes. “Get in there.”
She only hesitates for a moment more — searching his eyes like she’s looking for something, though he has no idea what. Then she gnaws her lip, and jostles the crates in her arms, and steps up to the doorway — so resolutely, he’d almost think he’d asked her to face down a Kree Accuser all by her lonesome.
“Hey,” he snaps out sharply, and she pauses on the threshold and looks down at him. And yeah, she’s nervous — eyes all big and alarmed, heart tripping softly against her ribs. Reckless impulse tightens his throat and forces a rush of air through his surgically-augmented vocal cords.
“M’right behind you, doll.”
Everything in her face goes so soft and grateful that he feels it like a fist in the belly and oh sh*t, he’s frickin’ ruined; he might as well be leashed. He’s tethered to her by the heartstrings; he’s a meteor, bonded and bridled to her happiness.
Oh, he f*ckin’ hates it.
But he stays true to his word and follows her in anyway.
The salon artists here are all trained by Wona herself. Colloquialisms aside, the practice isn’t really a dye job so much as careful augmentation of the pigment in the hair follicles and the skin cells — changing the receptivity to light on a structural level, altering the way the visible spectrum is reflected back to viewing eyes. Rocket tries to ignore the leftover thud in his chest so he can focus on figuring out how to pocket some of the tools floating around the shop — he’d love to dig into the tech. Refractor guns and melanocyte adaptors, particulate ‘fusers. It all might be used for aestheticalistic purposes here, but he’s sure he can redevelop it into something far more cool and devastating. Still, he keeps half an eye on pearl, where she stands and stares at a series of small screens mounted on the wall. They scroll through different hair styles, and scale colors, and a rainbow of patterns printed like tattoos onto flesh.
He’s distracted from his mission when it isn’t a random artist who approaches the little Terran, though. Instead, it’s Wona Beax themself.
“Hello, dewdrop,” Wona Beax says gently, approaching pearl from behind. The dark-haired girl startles, then shuffles the crate of rations in her arms. “Why don’t you put your supplies down over there—” They gesture to a nearby chair “—by your friend, and tell me what you’re looking for today?”
Rocket nods once, sharply, when pearl’s eyes meet his, and she carefully settles her crate down on the chair next to him.
“Are you wanting your hair or skin done? Or both?” Beax asks pearl quietly, tapping lightly at her shoulders and guiding her into a circle. Rocket’s surprised by the Cyxlorade’s gentleness — like they’d read pearl from a distance and had known she was gonna be skittish. “You have gorgeous curls. What’s your name, dewdrop?”
Pearl looks at the Monster, eyes wide. He blinks at her and shrugs. They’d focused on what he should call her but not on an actual name, and Rocket feels like an idiot for it.
“Uhm,” she murmurs, her hands fluttering to trace the white bandage over her lower abdomen. She twists her fingers together anxiously. “Doll.”
Rocket’s stupid, manufactured heart nearly detaches itself from its synthetic valves and arteries and ligaments, and practically falls right out of his chest and onto the tiled floor.
Beax chuckles, hefting pearl’s hair in her hands. “Just Doll?”
“Just Doll.” The words are a softly-crackled whisper, like dead leaves underfoot, shy and nervous. The Monster’s tongue feels thick and swollen, throat tight and strangled, chest aching. He can see the second that Beax reads the trepidation and vulnerability in his pearl’s voice, because their dark eyes soften and they just say, “Well, Doll is a cute name, sunberry.”
The Monster winces and scrawls a mental note to tell her pick out another name — her own name — for the next place they go, so she doesn’t have to use some pet-name he’s painted on her.
But he does like it.
He watches as pearl murmurs a few responses, and Wona Beax glides their fingers over the screens. They switch back and forth between lilac and a pale, icy blue for a few breaths, and then pearl nods and smiles, stars bright in her eyes and her teeth, and Wona Beax is guiding her to a chair.
Rocket sets down his own crates and meanders around — sleight-of-hands a refractor-gun into one of his pouches and smuggles a light-scatter ‘fuser and a melanocyte adapter into one of the boxes of rations. Beax is murmuring to pearl as she smooths a ‘fuser through the curls.
“I haven’t had a comb for a few days,” pearl says back, all hushed and apologetic, and he feels one eyelid flicker in a quickly-hidden grimace. He’d been too slow — a dozen steps behind, ever since he’d opened her window. Since before — hadn’t seen how miserable she was out in that rainy marble courtyard, hadn’t paid any attention to the details, small or large, ever since. Otherwise he’d have had a pair of boots ordered and ready for her before they’d ever stepped off of the docking ramp, and a comb waiting for her.
“We’ll get one on the way out,” he rumbles casually, nodding at Beax. “Along with some supplements to keep her hair growing in the way she wants. If she wants.”
Wona looks down at pearl, a handful of silky curls gripped loosely in their palm. “You okay with that, Doll?”
Pearl looks at him with her little, uncertain smile, and nods. “I’d like that very much, actually.”
He nods to Wona Beax. “Three circs’ worth.”
Wona stills. “Three—?”
He tilts his head. “Will they go bad?”
“No,” they say slowly. “We just don’t usually get such large orders.”
He considers that. “Can you fill it?”
Pearl’s already cutting in — not wanting to be a bother, he’s sure. “It’s okay if—“
“We can,” Wona Beax says quietly. “She shouldn’t be forced, though—“
He waves a clawed hand and turns his eyes to pearl. “You can stop taking ‘em any time you want, doll. You know that, right?”
She’s looking at him like he’s offering her the entire Bank of Xandar and the Spartoi royal jewels, combined. “Yes,” she says softly, and he tries to keep his grunt from sounding too pleased. She turns her eyes to Beax. “Three circumrotations’ worth would be wonderful.”
Wona Beax tilts her head consideringly, then nods once, firmly. They start rattling off how the supplements work — suppressing or stimulating melanin production in targeted organic systems, altering structure and particulate concentrations in the translucency of skin and hair cells. “If you take the supplements, your hair will start growing in altered,” they caution, and tug a wayward curl. “The supplements will target your scalp, but the rest will eventually grow in a little different too. Dark still, most likely — the melanin shift tends to stay localized — but your eyelashes and brows will probably end up a dark blue, after some time.” They cough delicately. “Lashes and brows and — elsewhere, perhaps.”
Rocket tries not to linger on that comment, and Wona Beax goes on like they haven’t just set a gravity-mine off in his brain. If he stumbles a little, he doesn’t think anyone notices.
“When you stop, any new hair will start to grow back in its natural color—“
The Monster tries not to listen anymore.
They’re done before he realizes it, and more quickly than he’d have imagined. His head snaps up when he hears pearl’s footsteps approaching, and smells her waterlily scent as it softens the bright ozone-sting of the salon.
“What do you think?”
Her hair’s a color he can’t possibly describe: something between smoke-blue and pale lavender, too silvery to be a true pastel. Her skin looks even more golden under the halo of curls, gleaming like a starlit Spartoi peach, and her gray eyes somehow look darker and more luminous at the same time: satin chrome, like the bolts and caps on a clean starship before its engines ever ignite — just waiting to reach up into the sky.
He swallows.
“‘Least I’ll be able to tell you apart from the other humies around here,” he mutters, as if he couldn’t have picked her out by the sound of her heartbeat, or the clean sweet fragrance of her breathed into his lungs. As if he couldn’t find her just by letting the whiskers above his claws sketch over the bones in her wrists, kissing the silk between her knuckles like they’re little valleys for his touch to come home to.
She takes his dryness in a stride though — seemingly unperturbed, just looking pleased by the whole thing. He pays for everything — well, everything but the small arsenal of tech he’d lifted when no-one was looking. And then — just because it’s Wona Beax and the Ore Garden escorts love them, and because he figures maybe pearl will want to come back and he doesn’t want to f*ck that up for her — he tips an absurd amount that he figures should be more than enough to cover the cost of the sh*t he’s stolen. Beax schedules someone from the salon to deliver Pearl’s supplements to the runabout tomorrow, and then Rocket gruffs a hoarse order to pearl, gesturing to a spinning rack of hair accessories.
“Pick out a comb,” he tells her, trying to sound casual about it.
Predictably, she spends too long pouring over the damn things, but even though he’s rolling his eyes and tapping his clawed foot on the tile, he can’t bring himself to rush her. She fusses over the price like she’s afraid to spend even a quarter-unit. Still — when she finally chooses, she clutches the wide-toothed comb to her heart and then slides it lovingly into the pocket of her skirt like it’s the universe’s most tenderly-kept secret, even though it’s only made of cheap pink opalite swirled with veins of fake gold—
so pretty and silly and ultimately worthless that it makes something inside him twinge.
꧁:･☁︎･:꧂
