Even when Shouta finds his partner's scuffed bonding bracelet, the hidden tracking chip still intact in the hidden compartment, with absolutely no trace of Hizashi, he refuses to believe that the end of his search won't end with them reunited. He could bring himself to do anything, throw his moral code away without a second glance, spit over the hard lines he drew and promised he would never cross.
He'd risk having Hizashi look at him differently, as long as he can ensure his partner's safety.
Waking up next to Hizashi and admiring his partner's beautiful plumage. His glossy scales reflecting beads of light on their walls when his tail whips behind him, as he goes on about a new musical instrument he discovered. His lithe body nestled between his scarf, a comforting weight as Shouta plans their next market trip.
The weeping Feczoit begs for mercy they haven't granted to Hizashi. He pulls his scarf taunt until bones start grinding on each other, ignores the pleads and panicked cries, until the tension in his scarf severs as their limb snaps clean. Their wounded howl makes Tensei flinch.
"Where is the gold See'krtsh?" he asks again. They start to crawl away, but Shouta doesn't have time to play. He digs his steel toed shoe in their lower back, putting more of his weight until they start gasping in pain. He bends to their height, waving the bonding bracelet in their face. "The one who was wearing this. Where. Is. He."
Just a little bit more pressure and their ribs will crack. Shouta won't go that far, it might puncture their lungs accidentally and he needs them to be able to talk. The Feczoit doesn't need to know that though.
"The See'krtsh, we sold it to another branch, it's not here," they babble.
Shouta wraps his scarf around one of their hind limbs, looping it so it pulls their tibia in opposite directions. Just as a small incentive. "What branch? Where are they heading?"
From there, information pours out of their mouth like a waterfall. Nemuri's spray cuts off their begging when they don't seem to have anything relevant to say while he pings the nearest ISC center. Tensei finishes copying all the data from the ship's computer, and they're off.
He ignores the shared weighted look between Nemuri and Tensei when he heads toward their stolen clipper without saying another word.
Tensei's claws dig into his elbow. He tries to pull him back, but Shouta doesn't budge.
He can't take his eyes off the red and gold headpiece, beautiful feathers arranged into shapes that evokes gentle flames. When the underground shopkeeper talks, they flutter and sway, selling the illusion of having fur made of fire.
He wants to rip it off the Qeow'Fiu, preferably with their head still attached.
Nemuri subtly moves in front of him, gives him a warning look—she isn't done sweet talking them into revealing when the supplier stopped by this trading post. Tensei leans on him to stop his low hiss when the Qeow'Fiu takes off the headpiece and his tentacles bend the smaller feathers lining the base.
Intellectually, he knows Nemuri's friendly demeanor is to foster trust, that she's only trying to prevent Shouta from ruining this and that she's not defending them, but he can't stop the slow stir of betrayal from fuelling his resentment.
Shouta tries to diffuse his aggression by yawning. He should follow the conversation, try to read their non-verbal cues. He has to stay objective—look at this like one of his usual trafficking cases. Stay calm, stay logical, find the victims.
But the victim is Hizashi, how can he swallow his emotions when Hizashi has such a hold on him?
He can't quite tamp down the way his scarf wants to lash out when Nemuri laughs along one of their jokes, not when they're still holding Hizashi's plumage. It hits Tensei on the back of his head, putting him on the receiving end of an angry glare. "I'm sorry shopkeeper, but my good friend and I must part ways with this wonderful shop. He is feeling unwell, and I must attend to his side. Thank you for your hospitality."
Shouta grits out a Thank you for your hospitality, unwilling to go through the entire polite Qeow'Fiu farewell, and then Tensei rushes him out of the market.
He tunes out Tensei's lecture. It doesn't hold a candle against his own self-loathing.
His thumb traces Hizashi's bracelet, following the delicate grooves. There is a deep scratch slashing through the swirls representing their lives after their bonding ceremony—Shouta doesn't believe in signs, but he can't help but read it as a bad omen.
Just when he's about to send Tensei back to help Nemuri, she comes back, brandishing her padd with a smug look. "Who wants to visit TRE's third quadrant?"
The ship is huge. Shouta knew it would be, it had to hold a fighting ring, stadiums, and all of the victims after all, but it's one thing to know it through blueprints, it's another thing to actually see it. "You all know the plan."
"Shouta—"
"You comm me immediately if-when you find him," he interrupts.
Nemuri places a hand on his foreleg, stopping him in his tracks. "Shouta"—she exhales on his face—"even if he's not here, we still have a lead with Overhaul."
They both know the odds of finding Hizashi in one piece decreases drastically if that lead came to be. He looks away, not wanting to see his friend's concern. While he may lose his partner—he has to believe he won't or he might collapse under the anguish—Nemuri and Tensei have two friends' lives hinging on Hizashi's survival. Eer'ahseer loved few, rarely chose to share their entire lives with a chosen one, but when they did, they loved hard and with their entire being until every atom sang for their other, and Shouta had always scoffed at his parent's stories, believing them to be wild exaggeration to entertain children and romantic fools, but after Hizashi he has become one of those lovesick fools, and he had finally understood how one could stare at their life partner for hours, because even after their almost 200 years, Shouta doesn't tire of drinking in Hizashi's sight, and when his partner is in the same room, Nemuri would send him teasing looks while Tensei huffed in exasperation when he'll find himself turning toward his other like he's the sunstarsmoonswaterair.
(His parent had tutted at him disapprovingly, reproaching him of giving his heart to everything that moved. He hadn't cared at the time, drunk on exhilaration as he felt like he was orbiting around two supernovas, his body tugged here and there by passing comets, but always, always brought back to his own system by his accumulative two stars and two planets.
It had been too good to be true. Loss was inevitable for a species like his, but Death had taken the one that was supposed to live just as long as him.)
Shouta lets his forehead fall on her's to share their breaths. Tensei joins them, knocking his limbs against theirs. Their casual affection almost makes him tangle his scarf around their necks, but he feels too flower-fragile. Instead, he gathers his self-composure and pats their shoulders with it before stepping back, feeling a little bit less unsettled for the first time since Hizashi's capture.
"Let's do this."
Nemuri grins and activates a detonator.
The Feczoit ship's solar panels and main generators immediately go out with an explosion.
While Nemuri and Tensei take care of the remaining Feczoits that aren't trying to fix their power supply, Shouta slips through the elevators. He's supposed to head to the containment cells first, but before he reaches the area, his keen eyes spot flakes of shedding swept to the side. On an urge, he inspects them, making sure he doesn't blow them all away. Cautious hope flutters in his chest that he promptly stomps, but it rises again—it looks like Hizashi's molt. Emboldened by his discovery, Shouta presses his rhinarium on the floor, uncaring of the grime joining the rest of the filth in his fur. Under the pungent odor of chemicals and various bodily fluids, he can glimpse the familiar smell of his partner. Despite his growing apprehension—Hizashi's smell is mingled with nose-burning biliverdin, he hopes it's not See'krtsh blood—pride radiates through him. Even without him, Hizashi managed to escape. His partner's ingenuity always impresses him, and he can feel himself fall a little more for him.
He follows the scent trail and has to stop to bury his nose into his scarf too often for his liking. His sense of smell has been shot since one of his missions to find a kidnapped Iodahc when he got a faceful of acid from the scared kit. He hadn't been that bothered by it at the time—he had enough self-awareness to admit his approach would have been terrifying to the young, and that he's far from a comforting sight—only grateful he could hand the child safely to her parents. His eyesight hasn't been affected, and olfactory fatigue alongside losing a few nerve cells hadn't seemed that bad at the time.
He doesn't hold any ill-will toward the kit, he still has her little thank you card pinned in a scrapbook, but he would exchange an eye for the ability to accurately sniff out this trail right now. At least, he could thankfully deduce where Hizashi is heading to compensate for his inferior sense of smell.
The scent trail leads him toward an elevator he couldn't call, the entire panel broken in two. "Hizashi potentially heading toward the life shuttles in B-27."
Nemuri whoops, and he can hear Tensei yell insults at someone. "Okay, we're going to—YOU FUCKER—we just need to finish up here and we're on our way—TENSEI BEHIND YOU, GET THAT, YOU B—"
He mute's Nemuri's line for a few clicks before she can burst his eardrums.
Soon Hizashi, we'll be reunited.
A fucking Human just took Hizashi.