[ That is different. Something that immediately has Wash curious, that has the part of him that sees everything around him as a puzzle to be analyzed and taken apart alert and interested. He does quite like Byerly now despite everything, saving him from the Cetagandans was a choice, after all, but that doesn't mean he dislikes him any less. And he certainly doesn't like him enough to back off on something curious, not when Byerly's clearly trying to dig his fingers into him in turn.

Byerly's found nothing of his yet, though. The sadism, the lack of self-trust, all things he guards but not quite that fiercely. He doesn't like his friends knowing exactly how awful and broken he actually is, but they're at least a little aware, and Wash himself is very, very self-aware and strangely comfortable with it. What he guards is why he's the way he is. But he's found something that Byerly is guarding, for one reason or another. ]

We just have something in common here. My sisters were good people, somehow, despite the hell around them, despite what they were living through. It sounds like Nadine was the same. [ Using her name, now. Quite deliberately. More personal, a reminder that he knows about her, now. ] Something precious, right? Allies against your cousins . . . You protected her from them.

Do you just hate that I know about Nadine, now? Or is it just that you don't like anyone knowing about the even slightly good man that you just might be, buried deep as he is?