Work Text:
This is how Kiln gets you:
A moment when you realize, suddenly and irrevocably, that you care about your team, and that this is unusual, borderline unthinkable, because the Mandate does not care, except in the abstract. The Mandate cares for the big picture (according to the party line), and the little man (again, according to the party line) but you are Vertegio Keev and you (silently, stubbornly) know better.
Your very sensible response, therefore, is panic. Because you have adapted. You have evolved. You have thrown away (dismissed, Kiln suggests; politely shown the door, told thanks but no thanks) - you have gotten rid of all the bits and parts of you that weren't going to help you survive.
Because you may live in willful ignorance of how Kiln gets you (just another symbiont element to toss into the incinerator: how anyone could make this difficult for themselves is beyond you) but you know that in order to survive, you can never forget how the Mandate gets you. And even if you haven't yet realized how wrong you are, about everything, you know enough to be aware that you're in trouble.
And here's the perfect solution, like they've been waiting for you all along. Like they're holding up a sign, saying 'will trade gentle affection and security for similar', and while gentle affection isn't your specialty, you do have a specialization in protection, which is almost as good.
You hold hands and reassure yourself that physical contact isn't a bridge. It's basic human behavior. Likewise, kissing isn't an exchange of genetic material. You and Ilmus aren't about to merge into something anyone could mistake for a composite. You're just two people who happen to need one another. Maybe one day you'll even call it love - although that would mean getting rid of a number of passengers who have been with you for a long time.
All of that is a later concern, anyway: for the moment, you are reassured. You're still human, and normal. Your self is inviolate.
This is how Kiln gets you.
(And one day, you will realize that this is how Kiln wants you.)