#have you considered emmrich's body hair situation. let's zone out and do that for a while. let's be soooo normal about it.

[rauferes]

thinking feral thoughts about Emmrich with an unbuttoned collar. Rook has him on a research project, maybe, and sees that his rooms are still lit, even at 2am. Impatient, they go in to see what he's found out.

Rook processes exactly none of Emmrich's progress report.

Rook has been to Antiva, of course. They know that objectively, the single undone button, with his carved skull pin laid neatly to the side on his desk, is positively demure. But Rook can see the hollow of his throat, framed so elegantly by the V of his shirt. They can see the barest hint of chest hair. Just enough to know that it's dark, but sprinkled with silver. It's a knowledge that sends a flash of heat through them; it will haunt them for weeks.

When Emmrich turns his head, the muscles of his neck flexing, Rook dizzily understands what drives sculptors to spend hours painstakingly carving and polishing unyielding stone.