Time passed faster than he expected and his body burned through the last of the Omega hormones, returning to the dulled contentment of Beta status. He washed off the last of the sweat and bodily fluids under the cascade of warm, scented water. The floral scent of soaps had muted when he returned to Beta state, but if he inhaled deep enough, he could catch the whiffs of Hawthorn.

When he's dressed, he'd have to return to his normal life. His life as a janitor, living in the tiny cupboard of a room. A part of him wanted to stay in the shower for the rest of eternity, reliving the last few days again and again, but reality was not a kind mistress. He shut the water off, the quick bursts of hot air drying him in an instant.

The original outfit he had worn, the canvas brown jacket, the grey shirt, the grey pants felt heavy in his hands. Dressing took longer than his usual quick shrug, only because the soreness of his limbs lingered from the week long adventure it went through. His lower back pinched while he pulled the coarse material over his skin again. His undergarments had to be disposed early in the week from the ruination, so the material scraped against his tender regions.

A cleaning droid had already begun the scourging of the carpets and scrubbing the walls of the room where they'd left their marks. Hawthorn in the early hours of the cycle had been pulled into an emergency flight mission and had left him with a hard kiss and a promise he'd come back to Hemlock.

Hemlock didn't let himself hang on those words too much.

It was time to wake from this dream and go back to his normal life.

The pneumatic rush of air made his breathe catch as it closed behind him. The hallways were so quiet in this part of the ship. Barely anyone traveled in them it seemed other than droids.

The holovaters were the only way in and out of this sector and he punched in the code for his low level sector. The holovater buzzed and he stepped out, the din of the normalized work humdrum returning to his headspace. Had it always been this loud here? Passing through the mess hall felt like walking through a bombardment of bombs, with conversations thrown here and there around him.

He hurried to his quarters to change and hopefully catch the hubshop before it passed through the sector onto the next residential area. He desperately needed a new set of undergarments.

Yngvir popped up off his bed when he entered the room and he raised his brows, eyes roaming around the marks peeking over the collar of Hemlock's jacket. "Is it true?"

Hemlock stripped off his jacket, and Yngvir's eyes burned at all the marks on his dark skin. "Is what true?" He muttered back as he peeled away the shirt and pants again.

Yngvir whistled. "Hawthorn is one kinky bastard."

He growled in his chest, "Don't call him that."

Yngvir hopped off his top bunk to lean against the pillar next to their shared closet space. "What, kinky?"

"No, the other thing." There was no such thing as bastards now that marriages were an ancient tradition long abandoned for it's archaic purposes. There were also no children who were considered unwanted thanks to the communal child raising system the ship was singularly proud of. Every child received equal treatment in all their early life, until they began showing signs of talent. Every child grew up together in a separate sector away from the matured adults and their biological parents. Parentage was considered just as obsolete as the institute of marriage. It was against ship culture to raise children on your own. You were obligated to enter them to the Education Center once lactation stopped.

Yngvir shrugged, "Fine, I meant his royal joystick-up-his-jacksy."

Hemlock slammed the closet door shut with a bit more force than necessary to close a magnetic closure. "What do you want, Yngvir?"

"Oh, just all the juicy details of your deflowering is all." Yngvir peered at his frayed cuticles with interest and then shot him a smirk. "I think the whole ship knows you synced with Hawthorn."

Hemlock pulled the tee shirt on, wincing as the soreness spiked at the movement, reminding him he had not imagined this entire sync. "It's none of their business."

"I'm surprised you came back alive."

"Why's that?" The fabric of his pants felt stiff, but it was better now that he had some briefs on underneath. He pulled on a compression sock onto his left foot. He only half paid attention to Yngvir's words, his arms and thighs groaning as he bent over to put on his right sock.

"I thought Blackthorn would have disemboweled you."

He paused and glanced up at Yngvir.

"What?" Well, that had almost happened, but not exactly in the order Yngvir was assuming.

"Well, it's kinda common knowledge that you know, Blackthorn and Hawthorn spend every sync together since they started piloting together." Yngvir bit into his nail, clipping off a sharp edge. "But I'm sure it's fine if you made it back. It's not like he's going to come trekking all the way down to these low levels to find you."

Hemlock gulped, remembering how the force had trapped his body in the air, twisting his own nerves out of his body. "It's just this once. I'll probably never see him again." He admitted while the hole in his chest bloated with every word. He would treasure that time with Hawthorn for the rest of his life, even if it had been like a dream.

"I gotta go catch the hubshop. You need anything?"

Yngvir shook his head and Hemlock checked the clock. The hubshop would be by the far end of the mess hall around this time, about to head into the next sector. He jogged to the mess hall, his covered feet padding silently through the halls. Shoes were strictly prohibited in residential areas as it causes contamination issues, so in these areas everyone wore the antimicrobial compression socks. Thankfully, Beta senses were dull so no one had issues with the smell of feet if there was ever an issue, which the antimicrobial thread usually avoided.

The hubshop glowed across the busy mess hall. It was prime off-shift time. Just before the evening meal when the mess halls would convert into a cafeteria instead once the food dispensers came online.

He wove through the crowd, and reached the hubshop. It was actually more of an ordering kiosk, autonomous center pillar loaded with Vitrual Reality Goggles. He grabbed one and holstered it around his head. The screen lit up and the storefront loaded in front of him. With one hand on the side of the goggles, he twisted around to look for the clothing section.

Swiping through the countless choices, he filter the low-tier options based on credits. He had some saved up, but undergarments didn't seem to be the right place to splurge on his meager wealth. Picking out the cheapest combo set, he clicked the pay button on the side of the goggles with a tap, the system registering both his identity and his credit sum and deducting the tidy sum instantly.

In his ears a voice asked, "Thank you for visiting the Hubble Shop. Please remove device and return it to its designated spot on the pillar once you are complete with your order. Your order will be processed in one cycle and delivered to your residence. Have a nice cycle."

He docked the device back in and turned to pass through the crowd again, but when he'd turned around, every person had been staring at him and the marks around his neck. Maybe he should have also ordered a long neck thermal to hide the markings for a while. A moment later, the gazes shifted, deliberately away from him, pretending they hadn't all just been staring at him.

He moved through the crowd easily, people backing out of his space as he passed.

Unsettled by the attention, he hurried back to his quarters, only to slam into someone turning the corner from their corridor. He was too stocky to be knocked off his footing, but the other individual crashed to the ground, in a splay of fabrics.

"I'm so sorry!" He tried to help the person off the ground, but he was just met with a sharp slap across the face.

"Don't touch me." It was Cassio. The blonde medic Yngvir had been obsessing over for a few months now. Coming from their residential sector. He frowned and Cassio hissed as they pulled the hood over their head again. "If you tell anyone I was here, I will make sure you're found dead the next cycle."

Then as they passed, Cassio added, "Don't think just because you caught the fancy of Hawthorn you have any power to dissuade my wrath if you foolishly decide to speak about this encounter."

He swallowed and nodded, not sure why this was so important not to mention. Cassio disappeared and he returned to his bunkroom. As soon as he entered the room, he knew something was wrong. Mainly because Yngvir was looking pale in the chair crammed in the corner, nursing a bruising welt on his neck.

"Hey, you alright?" He hadn't been gone long enough for an episode to have happened. The realization dawned on him and he clamped his mouth shut remembering how he'd been threatened to death only two jiffies ago for this very reason.

"No," Yngvir croaked.

He sat down on his bunk, "What happened?"

"Cassio… he…" Yngvir's eyes were focused on nothing, peering fiercely at something beyond the realms of physicality. "He said he remembered."

"Remembered…. The sync?"

"No…well…yes?" Yngvir shook his head and cradled his head in his other hand. "I don't know. It was all really confusing and he was so angry."

"He'd said something about how we'd both forgetten everything. How we'd been tricked and that I'd ruined his life for unlocking that part of him and now we're both in danger." Yngvir shuddered, a rare thing to behold.

"He could use the force. I thought I was going to die." He curled into himself, holding his neck. "It was like all the air inside of my lung was being pushed out and into my throat. It was horrible."

Hemlock frowned, slowly coming to a realization. "Cassio's a medic though. He's not supposed to be able to use the force."

"I know. And he couldn't… not before we synced."

Yngvir looked up at him, eyes red with unshed tears. "Hemlock, I think I really fucked up this time."