Jun’s face hardened. Theo had not realized how relaxed the captain had been until suddenly he wasn’t anymore. His whole body shifted into something bigger and meaner, and oh, stars, Theo really ought to be concerned with his own lack of self-preservation instincts. Because a bigger and meaner Jun looked absolutely scrumptious to him.
“No details. Just tell me how much is left.”
Theo concealed his shiver at the rolling depth of Jun’s voice by fidgeting with his pad. He shifted to cross his legs in his chair. “It isn’t an entirely linear process, you understand. Sometimes, I can translate bits and pieces that lead me on a meandering path to entire phrases, but the initial translations tend to be quite scattered.”
“Percentage,” Jun barked, sending Theo jolting in his seat and scrabbling to catch his pad.
“Oh, well, maths are hardly my area of expertise, but I would say perhaps 20 percent of the passage has been translated. Given considerable room for error in my statistics.”
Jun continued to stare him down, face hard and shoulders square. Theo did his utmost to avoid either melting into the floor or climbing those shoulders. He had the distinct impression that neither response would be appreciated.
“Acceptable.”
The release of pressure when Jun cut his eyes away left Theo inhaling shakily as he squirmed in his seat.
His mind drifted through poetic raptures over the captain’s spectacular rear view when he turned to bark at Boom in Patch, sending her swiping through vid feeds of the ship exterior with a frown.
Theo explored new ways to sit in his chair after he refocused on the passage, curling one knee underneath himself as he lay on his side, head propped against the armrest.
The rest of the crew settled into acting as if he wasn’t there. Axel provided running commentary on everything from funny animal vids to exotic cuisine while Jun and Boom answered with monosyllabic grunts and the occasional mild threat.
Theo rather enjoyed the novelty of being the quiet one in the room. It had never happened to him before. Possibly due in part to the constant presence of his painfully shy twin.
There was a sharp twinge in his chest at the thought of Ari, back home and alone. By now, he must have spoken with everyone who Theo usually interacted with so Ari didn’t have to. Even their gregarious postman, whose insistence on small talk practically gave Ari hives. Poor darling.
Theo hoped Ari was not holed up in his laboratory, gazing lovingly at his rocks while he wasted away from malnourishment. Never mind the fact that it was typically Ari who had to remind Theo to eat. Without Theo bustling around, would Ari ever consider leaving his beloved laboratory at all?
He had always preferred rocks to people. “Minerals,” he would have corrected Theo scathingly. Honestly, one would think he had never—
Theo straightened in his seat, fingers flying across his pad as words slotted neatly into place within his mind, each one building upon the next as they sharpened and honed down into coherency. The familiar thrill of discovery coursed through his veins, sending him to his feet as he finished decoding a new chunk of text. “Jun?”
Jun’s shoulders tightened as he glanced over his shoulder with eyebrows so daunting Theo might have thought twice about approaching. Had he been the type to think twice about anything. “Pardon me, Captain.” He corrected himself with a roll of his eyes, ignoring Axel’s snort of amusement. “Would it please you to know the translation of the first significant portion of this passage? I can always return later if this is an inopportune time. You do seem to be terribly busy with distributing your unpleasant disposition evenly amongst your crew.”
Boom’s snort outshone Axel’s in both volume and duration.
Jun didn’t spare her an ounce of his attention. Instead, he made a sharp gesture with his chin toward the door, then stalked through with the clear expectation Theo was to follow.
Scrambling after him, Theo knocked his elbow into a switch that thankfully did not seem to trigger any lights or sirens. He flipped it back to the original position as discreetly as possible, just in case.
Jun waited for him in the corridor, arms crossed and brows lowered.
Theo held up his pad as he approached. “If you would care to look here, I can explain the—”
Without a word, Jun snatched the pad and turned away. He stepped into the battered lift and slapped the control panel. Theo barely made it inside before the door banged shut behind him. Had he been wearing his jacket, his tails might have been caught. The near miss spiked his heart rate as he stumbled into the lift.
When the door opened onto the second level, Jun tucked the pad under his arm and slid his hand loosely around Theo’s wrist. The line where Theo’s shirt cuff ended and their skin pressed together buzzed with awareness. He found himself staring down at Jun’s rough hand around the fine bones of his wrist.
Theo barely noticed where they were headed until another door shut behind him, this time with a generous inch to spare. Jun released his wrist, and Theo shook his head to get it out of the clouds.
Jun took a step into his bedchamber, tucking his Honor hand into a fist as he held up the pad with the other. “Show me.”
Suppressing a shiver at the memory of those words in this room, Theo rolled his lips in his teeth against a smile. He must not have been entirely successful, judging by the flash of heat in Jun’s face. Jun shut it down with visible effort, and his expression went hard and cold once again.
“Sometime today, Doctor.”
It wasn’t an endearment, not really. More a statement of fact, the use of Theo’s academic title. But that didn’t stop his heart from doing a happy little skip as he took the pad and pulled up his translations. “I’ve been working on this passage, and it seems to be part of the notes for
