Spliced: Part 5 - Chapter 9
TITLE: Spliced 5-9
AUTHOR:
flighty_dreams
WARNINGS: NC-17. slavefic. scifi setting. M/m. some graphic violence.
WORD COUNT: 4,668 (this chapter), over 200k so far
SUMMARY: In a world where clones are made and sold as commodities, Matt Muldane can't resist purchasing an intriguing slave.
NOTES: The index to this story available here. Special thanks to
aurila for neverending (>.>) beta work.
Chapter Nine
The bathroom door opened.
About damn time, Alex grumbled, scowling against the pillow. Unless in a hurry for work, Matt hogged the bathroom longer than Sharra on her worst day. Sometimes he walked in there after Matt finally vacated half-expecting to find a nest erected inside. What the hell did he do in there for so long?
The mattress dipped under familiar weight, but Alex didn’t turn around. One time on The Cutter the crew had spent a rough few days with only one functioning bathroom-Acto jokingly blaming Alex’s hair for clogging the ship’s hydra system-and he shuddered at the thought of a similar problem happening here. It wasn’t even like Matt had long hair to justify his loitering, for Flame’s sake.
Matt slid closer behind him then with a murmured, “Hey.”
Shutting his eyes, he realized he was harping on stupid crap again. That heart-to-heart or whatever the hell that conversation had been seemed to have made these occasional black moods worse. He’d admitted his damn feelings to Matt about the whole situation, and now he couldn’t shove them off to some deep, dark space in his head.
They’d argued, then talked out their issues, and started to have makeup sex like how he used to… in a relationship. It teased at them so close, though Matt was blind to it still. Not that they were about to have dinner under the stars or whatever other bullshit. Alex didn’t need that. What he needed was Matt’s idea of commitment to be something other than a fucking slave collar.
Flaming hell. Was he whining about commitment now?
Matt’s fingers brushed his tense back, still seeking acknowledgment. It was almost a welcome distraction, but not enough to make him receptive. The awareness of what had been said always lingered faintly between them now, sharpening at times. It had been nearly a month, and he’d noticed how at these moments Matt would tiptoe around him like a man crossing a frozen river. While Matt’s new caution wasn’t unjustified, he couldn’t help feeling exasperated, among other things.
“Min,” Matt said, a tentative note to it. Pressed to Alex’s back, skin to skin, Matt traced the curve of his shoulder. His mouth followed, nuzzling him, but Alex still didn’t respond. At least here in private he had a choice.
Lately the thought of going to work with Matt and kneeling like a good little slave left this panicked feeling billowing in his chest. Thankfully Matt hadn’t asked so far this week, but his restlessness hadn’t gone unnoticed.
His arm rose, curling around the pillow. The movement disturbed Matt, his mouth lifting away from his skin. Something burned through Alex, desperately trying to burst out.
He turned, dragging his teeth against all that gratifyingly bare flesh and seizing Matt’s arms. A gasp flew out at this sudden aggression, but Alex ignored it, channeling his turmoil into rough pleasure. He pressed Matt against the bed, leaving a line of bite marks all the way down to his navel. Just the scent of Matt could drive him crazy, let alone the taste of him.
Matt lay strangely passive through it all, as if sensing the fragility of his control. That acceptance somehow calmed him, taking the edge off his frustration. His grip loosened and he sat up, confused. He didn't know what he wanted at the moment, and the look on Matt’s face right now was utterly unhelpful.
Straightening, Matt tugged him close, their foreheads touching. The nearness was soothing, Matt’s breath brushing his cheek, warming him deep inside even before their lips met.
Alex surrendered to the kiss, deciding he wanted this at least. He let Matt guide him back to the bed, allowing him to pin his hands above his head too. The pressure inside him eased as he yielded, letting go of his anger along with everything else. For a while he could forget.
Afterwards they caught their breaths, Alex belatedly noting that they’d knocked most of the pillows off the bed. When had that happened?
“Come to work with me tomorrow,” Matt said, a lilt at the end of the statement.
“I can't,” Alex replied after a pause, “not tomorrow.”
Disappointment, quickly hidden, but he didn’t push the issue further. Asking, not demanding, was a rare show of patience from Matt.
“Sorry,” Alex said, turning onto his side towards him.
Maybe he’d suddenly developed a nasty case of Tyrran measles, because Matt looked at anything but him now. “Want me to drop you off at Hollis' instead?”
Alex hesitated. He’d gone there the past two days, and he didn't want it to seem like he kept choosing Nuit over him.
Matt sensed his answer anyway. “I'll let Hollis know.”
“Thanks,” he said, rolling away to retrieve the scattered pillows.
*
“We aren’t going straight to Hollis’,” Matt said the next morning, pulling the Spectra out of the driveway in the opposite direction. “I think we both need a change of scenery.”
Odd, but Alex was more focused on his customary survey of the street than Matt’s latest whim. The usual cars, including a black Vieda parked a block down. Out of careful habit he’d noted the plate number when he first spotted it two months ago. Not that Matt couldn’t have new neighbors, but as they reached the corner he glanced back and saw the Vieda pull slowly away from the curb.
Suspicion stirred. He hadn’t seen anyone in the car when they passed by it.
After a few minutes it was still behind them, though it had dropped much farther back. “Where are we going?” Alex asked, suddenly far more interested.
Matt gave him a Now you care? look. “Figured we could take a drive along the coast for a while.”
Alex’s tension unraveled a little at the suggestion. If not for the Vieda, he would've appreciated it more. “What about work?”
Matt shrugged. “I'm caught up. I can afford to come in late today.”
Not surprising. Without him around to cause distraction, Matt probably had gotten a lot more done.
He kept an eye on the side mirror as they drove. If he was seeing flames out of simple sparks, he didn’t want to get Matt worked up into a frenzy over nothing. As if the Vieda's driver could hear his thoughts, the car fell out of sight then.
After several minutes of not seeing it, Alex allowed himself to relax some. Matt’s paranoia must be rubbing off on me.
“We drove along the coast once before,” Matt said then, breaking the silence.
“Yeah. A long time ago.” A month or so after the slave market, they'd gone to the beach for a walk. Since Matt had been even more of a controlling asshole back then, he’d kept him on a damn leash the whole time.
“We'll go in the other direction today.” Matt had obviously detected his lack of enthusiasm. “Do you like the ocean?”
“Yes.” He preferred the vastness of space, but he could see why ancient adventurers on Earth had been drawn to the open waters. Not to sound curt when Matt was being so accommodating, he added, “The first time I ever saw it was from a ship though, as we flew off-planet.”
“Really?”
Alex nodded. “Made me determined to see it for real.”
“I can imagine.”
They were both being so careful not to offend. He might’ve thought having an honest conversation about their relationship-finally-would’ve brought them closer together, but things were never that simple between them.
They passed the Bay of Alister, reaching the Telina Coast. It was famously breathtaking, cerulean water meeting rocky cliffs dotted with avaya trees and sunstone houses. Round in shape with matching circular doors, the houses contrasted sharply with the severe angles and typical Monlean archways all over Matt’s neighborhood. From a distance, Alex thought they looked like giant fruit sitting on the hillsides. The little column of power cells at the top of each one even stuck out like a stem.
Up the coast a ways he spotted Parad. Its famed oval-shaped homes floated above the town, tethered like the archaic hot air balloons they faintly resembled.
Matt put the top down on the Spectra, and Alex breathed in the smell of the ocean, the wind whipping his hair about his head. It was worth the knotted mess it’d be later.
Relaxing, he focused on the positives. Matt was doing his best-well, not his best, which would've been having an epiphany or three-but he was trying. Alex had to let that count, and give him more time. Unfortunately his patience was a well run dry, desperately in need of fresh rain. He glanced up at the clear skies, which perfectly complemented his predicament, and sighed to himself. At least the view was spectacular.
He’d let Matt do most of the talking so far, filling in the silence with details about Telina and its history. Matt pointed now to a large building clinging to the cliff ahead of them. “That's the most expensive hotel in the Alister area, the Breeze.”
Elitist crap. “Why are the most expensive places usually innocuously named? Is there some fancy club like Hollis’ where they get together and-”
The first spike of adrenaline pumped through his blood. Rounding the cliff behind them was a car distinctly shaped like a Vieda.
“Oh forget it. It’s just dumb,” he said, covering for his brief lapse. “Can you pull over at the next place where the road widens? I like this patch of coastline.”
“Sure,” Matt said, sounding pleased by his interest. Guilt stabbed at Alex, but he'd fix the misconception shortly. The driver was leaving a careful distance between them, but it wasn’t enough to hide him with so few hovercars out on this road.
“No, not this one,” he said, as Matt started to slow down. This spot was too exposed; that they'd parked would be obvious to anyone a kilometer behind them. The next few opportunities weren't any better, but finally he found a suitable one, coming right after a hairpin bend in the road with some nearby bushes.
Considering the view here was less impressive than the last stretches of coastline, Matt threw him a suspicious look, but he still followed his directions. Sharp enough to know something was wrong, but not yet annoyed enough to protest.
As the hovercar's skids touched the ground, Alex jumped out, gesturing for Matt to do the same. He hurried over to Matt's door, opening it. “Come on.”
“What are you-”
He pulled Matt into the bushes a few steps from the car. They were big and clustered enough to conceal them from sight.
Matt balked at dropping down beside him, probably because he was wearing a nice suit. “What the fuck-”
Alex overrode him. “We're being followed. Now get the ashen hell down.”
That got him into hiding, though even in an urgent moment like this Matt crouched carefully, none of his clothing touching the sandy ground. “Followed?”
“Shh,” Alex said, eyes on the road. “I'll explain after. He wasn't far behind us.” He glanced over at Matt. “Got your PC on you?”
“Yes.” Matt dug it out of its customary place in his pocket, along with a small rectangular device.
“Get a picture of whoever’s inside.” He weighed their options. “If we’re spotted-”
Too late. The car came around the far corner slowly, giving Alex time to confirm that it had the same plate number as the one he'd seen earlier. Months of waiting left him eager, hoping this was Hayeston's doing.
The deserted stretch of road was risky though. If this guy was armed they'd be vulnerable, but its privacy also allowed him to take action. His hand slid into his pocket, palming the mini-taser there that matched the one in Matt’s hand. While small and easily hidden, they only carried one charge.
Matt had bought the two tasers and a plasma gun months ago, but the gun was locked up in his safe at the house. Useless now. Alex had argued they should leave it more accessible, but Matt had drawn the line at keeping a gun under his pillow.
Alex sighed inwardly. Their fights weren’t that bad anymore. At least he’d relented on the idea of them carrying something to defend themselves with, weak as these were.
The car hesitated, the empty Spectra evident now. “Him. Camera,” Alex prompted.
“Got it,” Matt snapped, sliding the pocket-comm between the branches for a better angle.
When the Vieda hummed past them, Alex caught a glimpse of the driver before it disappeared around a curve. Only one occupant visible. He debated their next move.
Matt thrust the PC under his nose. “This good enough for you, princess?”
A withering look, then he glanced down at the photo. Matt had timed it well, and caught a clear image of the man: dark hair, sideburns and a pronounced jaw. He had also taken a photo of the car’s plates as it drove away. Maybe he could make an annoying spy out of him yet.
“What exactly was the point of getting out of the car?” Matt asked.
“To see who’s tailing us, and to cause confusion,” Alex told him. “He'll be back.”
This bit of news didn’t inspire Matt to put on his happy face. He rose to his feet, taser still in hand, and tugged Alex's arm. “Then let’s go now.”
Alex resisted, pulling back with a shake of his head. While the most cautious thing to do, it wasn't necessarily the best. But there wasn't time to explain; the Vieda rounded the far curve, back in sight again.
“Too late,” he said in an undertone, slipping away when Matt tried to drag him into hiding again. “Hide the taser and turn your PC off,” he urged, darting out onto the road.
Matt's ensuing panic was a tangible presence behind him. “Min,” he hissed, “get the fuck back here.”
Ignoring him, Alex waved at the car approaching them. “Look neutral, don't glare at him,” he whispered as Matt walked up and grabbed his arm.
Something brushed Alex’s back, the taser, he realized. Fingers reached under his untucked shirt, stuffing it into the back of his pants. Gotta be shitting me. If I end up with my ass zapped, I’ll fucking strangle him. Then the car slowed, stealing Alex’s focus. He hoped Matt had downgraded his expression from outright hostile to annoyed, but he didn’t chance looking.
The driver window lowered and Alex tensed, ready to thrust Matt behind him or charge the fucker if he was brazen enough to attack them. It was almost disappointing when no weapon appeared. He stepped forward, and Matt's hand spasmed, grip tightening for a moment before abruptly letting go. Even up close now he didn’t see any obvious threat, though he noticed the man kept his hand down at his side.
“Sir,” he said, slipping into the pretense with an ease he wouldn't have thought possible an hour earlier. “Thank you for stopping. Something is wrong with my master's car.”
“So call it in.” The man was burly yet not intimidating with it, looking up at him with casual inquiry. But something in the set of his shoulders triggered warnings in Alex's gut. A professional, he'd bet money on it.
Alex turned to Matt, sending him a silent message.
Matt took his cue admirably. “PC's fucking dead. Been meaning to replace it.”
Alex did everything but bat his eyes at the stranger. “May my master borrow your PC for a minute, sir?” It wasn't an uncommon tactic for the owner of a bedslave to order the slave to do the asking. Favors sounded prettier from their mouths.
The man actually started reaching into his pocket before catching himself. Maybe not so professional then. “Left mine at home actually.”
He pulled off the lie well enough. Alex allowed his face to fall. “Thank you anyway, sir. Sorry to bother you.”
“Yeah, thanks anyway,” Matt added, pure disdain in his voice. Hopefully it'd be mistaken for frustration with the 'broken' hovercar.
They both stepped back from the car, and the man gave Alex one last assessing look before driving away. He’d barely spared Matt a glance the whole time.
“What was the point of that insanity?” Matt burst out, practically yanking him off the road once the car was gone.
Alex ignored the snideness. “I wanted a better look at who we’re dealing with. He’s a pro, gives off that merc vibe, yet he saw an Andorian as a threat. Eyed me like I was about to jump him, and not in the let’s-have-sex way.”
“Not fucking funny,” Matt said, latching onto Alex’s arms and shaking him. “He could’ve been armed! And if he knows you’re different, he might’ve abducted you right here!”
Possibly, but regardless of whether the man carried a weapon or not, Alex had instinctively doubted he was an immediate threat to them.
“Matt, I know recon when I see it,” Alex said, not resisting as he tried to soothe him back from the brink of neurosis to maybe a block away from it. “I’ve noticed that car around the neighborhood before, though I never saw it following us. If he was going to do more than that, he would have by now.”
The guy obviously didn’t have orders to take things further. For now, Alex refrained from mentioning.
Hold slackening a little, Matt still gave him a look scathing enough to slash panels off a ship. “Even if that’s true, it’s still incredibly stupid to run up and talk to him. And worse, now he knows we’re on to him.”
“No, he suspects, but isn't sure. We can assist with creating doubt.” After a beat Alex drawled, “Starting with the car.”
Any thought that Matt was growing calmer was proven very, very wrong. “First risking yourself, and now the car? You’re fucking unbelievable.”
Alex winced at his ferocity. “I'm not saying that we should total it, but some minor problem that would still justify taking it to a car tech would work. If we just drive off in it he'll know there's nothing wrong. And before you even mention him being gone now, I think he's placed a tracker on it.”
“What?!” Rage darkened Matt's features at the news that someone had already violated his precious baby.
Alex slipped free, and the first thing he did was remove the Flaming taser from the back of his pants. Palming it, he surveyed the car. If I were the asshole stalker spying on us, where would I put it?
Walking around the Spectra, he told Matt, “I saw him when we left the house, but he disappeared after a few minutes. Then we get out here and suddenly there he is again.”
Now that outrage fell back onto him. “You knew he was there the whole time and didn't say an ashen fucking thing?”
Alex took a moment to find where he’d misplaced his patience. “Like I said, he disappeared. I thought I was just being paranoid.”
“But you didn't say anything when he reappeared either.” Matt wasn’t letting this go. “You had me pull over and get out of the car first.”
That much was true. “We needed to act, and I didn't want to waste time arguing.”
“No,” Matt said, his voice dropping to a low, furious note. “You wanted to give me multiple heart attacks instead of explaining what the ashen bloody hell was going on.”
Alex sighed, wrestling with his own lousy cocktail of emotions. “I didn't tell you sooner because I don't trust you to trust me. Shit, this sort of intrigue is what I was created for, but you still don't believe I can handle it.”
“You’re Andorian. It's what you were trained for maybe, not created for,” Matt countered.
Alex searched for more careful words. “Most of my friends, and my family too, I could have just given them a heads up and they would've either worked with me or followed my lead. I couldn't trust you not to argue.”
Matt shook his head. “Because you’re stupidly reckless. You proved it again today by going up to that bastard, not even knowing if he was armed.”
“I did check, and I wasn’t unarmed myself.” Alex tossed the taser back at Matt. “By the way, were you trying to taser me accidentally or on purpose?”
“Maybe next time it will be on purpose,” Matt snapped, putting the Flaming thing away. “I was making sure it was easily reachable.”
And my ass was the first place you thought of? Well, not like that was surprising.
“There's a difference between crazy risk and calculated risk," Alex said, willing Matt to see that he had analyzed the situation. "This might've been our only chance to get any information at all."
“Maybe.” Matt’s tone was dubious at best. “Or you could’ve gotten yourself shot before you even pulled out that ashen taser.”
Not likely. Unless the man had planned to somehow blast through his car door, Alex would’ve thrown himself and Matt out of his line of sight as soon as he raised his weapon. He’d had the perfect spot picked out, just in case.
“I was prepared to act if he tried anything,” Alex said to him.
“I believe you thought you were,” Matt scoffed.
I did fine on Festun, Alex almost said before thinking better of it. Among other things, it wasn’t even a good example: Matt had been unarmed and not a trained fighter. He just hated that Matt still gave him so little credit.
“We can't undo what's been done,” he replied instead, taking the route of neither agreeing nor disagreeing. “But we can choose whether to work with it.”
At Matt’s puzzled look, Alex leaned inside the car and popped open the hood.
Matt visibly seethed, first at him, then the car, and back to him like a magnet. “We are not fucking sabotaging anything.”
“Fine, me then,” Alex said, deliberately irrepressible.
“Minril-”
“Look,” he cut in. “I can’t search for the tracker here. Our scanners obviously didn’t find it, so we’ll need to use more advanced tech.” Their devices had also been tuned primarily for bugs rather than trackers, since being overheard would be far more disastrous.
“Ashen hell,” Matt cursed after a long moment. “If we can’t get rid of it, then he’ll know if we don’t take it in for repairs now.”
Right, that settled it then. Alex turned to the open hood, scanning inside it with his PC. He jabbed at the screen when it didn’t respond quick enough, component names finally popping up in the magnified view.
Matt followed him, of course, after taking off his coat and laying it along the back seat. “What are you doing?”
“Taking a look around, not breaking your car.”
“Yet,” Matt said, hovering over his shoulder like a Tamrikan cat, ready to swipe at him if he tampered with anything.
“Matt,” Alex finally said after a few minutes of this, nearly doing some spiraling of his own. “Either help me, or go watch the road.”
Matt glanced over at the street, then began rolling up his sleeves. “What are you looking for?”
“No idea,” Alex admitted. The names on the PC’s screen were Flaming gibberish to him. He'd always been more fascinated by ships, which really flew, instead of being chained to the ground via mag-lev. “Find me something easy to break and easy to fix.”
“How about nothing,” Matt muttered under his breath.
Valiantly keeping a straight face, Alex finished sweeping a corner of the engine, fairly certain there was no tracker in that particular area. He tapped a cable there, not wanting the car tech to stumble across the device later. “What would happen if we cut this?”
Matt said nothing for a minute, and Alex slid in close, stretching his arm across Matt's waist and nuzzling his neck. Enjoying the familiar warmth, he waited, glancing at the road once when a car passed. Not a Vieda, and a woman driving.
At last Matt reached forward almost unwillingly, fingers skimming along the cable he had asked about. “This one won’t work.”
Buy in achieved. Alex grinned against Matt’s neck.
“Stop smirking.”
His smile widened before he focused back on the task at hand. He’d no plans to throw out a welcome mat to Mr. Vieda if he decided to pass by a third time. “So what is it?”
Matt leaned closer. “Looks like the main connection between the engine and the mag-lev system. No way we're messing with that.”
He traced a hose running parallel to the cable. “This one's a better choice. A hole in it would cause the engine to overheat after some time, but as we aren't planning to run it once it's broken, there shouldn't be any risk of damage. It's also a common weakness in the Spectras, so if I tell a car tech that the engine overheated, it's one of the first things he'll check.”
“Perfect.” Alex held out a hand. “Got your pocketknife?”
“I’ll do it,” Matt said, keeping it out of reach. “You’ve done enough damage for one day.”
Alex barely repressed an eye roll. He watched Matt bring the knife up to the hose reluctantly, puncturing a decent sized hole in it. Giving the opening a ragged edge was a nice touch.
“That should do it,” Matt said unhappily, closing the hood. He grabbed an old towel from the trunk next, wiping his hands. “This wasn't exactly what I had in mind this morning.”
Alex decided not to tell him about the smudges his fingers had left on the back of his shirt. He liked Matt a little dirty for once.
“If it helps any, I do feel better,” Alex replied, leaning against the car. After a pause he added, “Thanks. For trying.”
Matt shrugged, scrubbing at his hands too intently to fool Alex.
It was a mostly quiet, tense hour of waiting by the side of the road for the hovertow to arrive. Alex scrutinized every car that passed, amped up from the morning’s events-and now that he had time to think about it, pissed at himself for not noticing their stalker sooner. What a fucking lapse.
“That tech was a total moron,” Matt complained two hours later when they finally got back into the Spectra.
Alex absently agreed, distracted by the fact that they were about to drive out of the repair lot. If that guy was still tracking them, he’d have followed them over here.
“Stop a minute,” he advised Matt once they reached the exit, his gaze sweeping the street in front of them. No Vieda out there.
He looked harder. A woman pushed a stroller along the sidewalk while several people in business attire hurriedly stepped around her. Two middle-aged women browsed a jewelry stand. A block beyond them a woman carrying a briefcase stopped to open it, her sudden halt jostling the male couple behind her, while several tables at the café next door were occupied by a mix of business workers and more casually clothed people. A few slaves knelt next to some of the customers, while others followed their owners down the sidewalk. A patch of the street was cordoned off, inside it a paving machine slowly placing a row while three construction workers stood by, talking.
Pedestrians moved on, soon replaced by other pedestrians, all perfectly normal happenings on a popular city street. No burly man by himself anywhere, though he supposed that would’ve been too obvious now.
Yet something tugged at his awareness, urging him to look again.
“I don’t see him. Can we go now?”
Matt’s brusque words broke his concentration. “Yeah,” he said, recognizing Matt’s patience had long ago faded from nonexistent to never-coming-back-even-if-he-begged.
It’s probably nothing anyway, he told himself. All this paranoia is getting to me.
AUTHOR:
flighty_dreams
WARNINGS: NC-17. slavefic. scifi setting. M/m. some graphic violence.
WORD COUNT: 4,668 (this chapter), over 200k so far
SUMMARY: In a world where clones are made and sold as commodities, Matt Muldane can't resist purchasing an intriguing slave.
NOTES: The index to this story available here. Special thanks to
aurila for neverending (>.>) beta work.
Chapter Nine
The bathroom door opened.
About damn time, Alex grumbled, scowling against the pillow. Unless in a hurry for work, Matt hogged the bathroom longer than Sharra on her worst day. Sometimes he walked in there after Matt finally vacated half-expecting to find a nest erected inside. What the hell did he do in there for so long?
The mattress dipped under familiar weight, but Alex didn’t turn around. One time on The Cutter the crew had spent a rough few days with only one functioning bathroom-Acto jokingly blaming Alex’s hair for clogging the ship’s hydra system-and he shuddered at the thought of a similar problem happening here. It wasn’t even like Matt had long hair to justify his loitering, for Flame’s sake.
Matt slid closer behind him then with a murmured, “Hey.”
Shutting his eyes, he realized he was harping on stupid crap again. That heart-to-heart or whatever the hell that conversation had been seemed to have made these occasional black moods worse. He’d admitted his damn feelings to Matt about the whole situation, and now he couldn’t shove them off to some deep, dark space in his head.
They’d argued, then talked out their issues, and started to have makeup sex like how he used to… in a relationship. It teased at them so close, though Matt was blind to it still. Not that they were about to have dinner under the stars or whatever other bullshit. Alex didn’t need that. What he needed was Matt’s idea of commitment to be something other than a fucking slave collar.
Flaming hell. Was he whining about commitment now?
Matt’s fingers brushed his tense back, still seeking acknowledgment. It was almost a welcome distraction, but not enough to make him receptive. The awareness of what had been said always lingered faintly between them now, sharpening at times. It had been nearly a month, and he’d noticed how at these moments Matt would tiptoe around him like a man crossing a frozen river. While Matt’s new caution wasn’t unjustified, he couldn’t help feeling exasperated, among other things.
“Min,” Matt said, a tentative note to it. Pressed to Alex’s back, skin to skin, Matt traced the curve of his shoulder. His mouth followed, nuzzling him, but Alex still didn’t respond. At least here in private he had a choice.
Lately the thought of going to work with Matt and kneeling like a good little slave left this panicked feeling billowing in his chest. Thankfully Matt hadn’t asked so far this week, but his restlessness hadn’t gone unnoticed.
His arm rose, curling around the pillow. The movement disturbed Matt, his mouth lifting away from his skin. Something burned through Alex, desperately trying to burst out.
He turned, dragging his teeth against all that gratifyingly bare flesh and seizing Matt’s arms. A gasp flew out at this sudden aggression, but Alex ignored it, channeling his turmoil into rough pleasure. He pressed Matt against the bed, leaving a line of bite marks all the way down to his navel. Just the scent of Matt could drive him crazy, let alone the taste of him.
Matt lay strangely passive through it all, as if sensing the fragility of his control. That acceptance somehow calmed him, taking the edge off his frustration. His grip loosened and he sat up, confused. He didn't know what he wanted at the moment, and the look on Matt’s face right now was utterly unhelpful.
Straightening, Matt tugged him close, their foreheads touching. The nearness was soothing, Matt’s breath brushing his cheek, warming him deep inside even before their lips met.
Alex surrendered to the kiss, deciding he wanted this at least. He let Matt guide him back to the bed, allowing him to pin his hands above his head too. The pressure inside him eased as he yielded, letting go of his anger along with everything else. For a while he could forget.
Afterwards they caught their breaths, Alex belatedly noting that they’d knocked most of the pillows off the bed. When had that happened?
“Come to work with me tomorrow,” Matt said, a lilt at the end of the statement.
“I can't,” Alex replied after a pause, “not tomorrow.”
Disappointment, quickly hidden, but he didn’t push the issue further. Asking, not demanding, was a rare show of patience from Matt.
“Sorry,” Alex said, turning onto his side towards him.
Maybe he’d suddenly developed a nasty case of Tyrran measles, because Matt looked at anything but him now. “Want me to drop you off at Hollis' instead?”
Alex hesitated. He’d gone there the past two days, and he didn't want it to seem like he kept choosing Nuit over him.
Matt sensed his answer anyway. “I'll let Hollis know.”
“Thanks,” he said, rolling away to retrieve the scattered pillows.
*
“We aren’t going straight to Hollis’,” Matt said the next morning, pulling the Spectra out of the driveway in the opposite direction. “I think we both need a change of scenery.”
Odd, but Alex was more focused on his customary survey of the street than Matt’s latest whim. The usual cars, including a black Vieda parked a block down. Out of careful habit he’d noted the plate number when he first spotted it two months ago. Not that Matt couldn’t have new neighbors, but as they reached the corner he glanced back and saw the Vieda pull slowly away from the curb.
Suspicion stirred. He hadn’t seen anyone in the car when they passed by it.
After a few minutes it was still behind them, though it had dropped much farther back. “Where are we going?” Alex asked, suddenly far more interested.
Matt gave him a Now you care? look. “Figured we could take a drive along the coast for a while.”
Alex’s tension unraveled a little at the suggestion. If not for the Vieda, he would've appreciated it more. “What about work?”
Matt shrugged. “I'm caught up. I can afford to come in late today.”
Not surprising. Without him around to cause distraction, Matt probably had gotten a lot more done.
He kept an eye on the side mirror as they drove. If he was seeing flames out of simple sparks, he didn’t want to get Matt worked up into a frenzy over nothing. As if the Vieda's driver could hear his thoughts, the car fell out of sight then.
After several minutes of not seeing it, Alex allowed himself to relax some. Matt’s paranoia must be rubbing off on me.
“We drove along the coast once before,” Matt said then, breaking the silence.
“Yeah. A long time ago.” A month or so after the slave market, they'd gone to the beach for a walk. Since Matt had been even more of a controlling asshole back then, he’d kept him on a damn leash the whole time.
“We'll go in the other direction today.” Matt had obviously detected his lack of enthusiasm. “Do you like the ocean?”
“Yes.” He preferred the vastness of space, but he could see why ancient adventurers on Earth had been drawn to the open waters. Not to sound curt when Matt was being so accommodating, he added, “The first time I ever saw it was from a ship though, as we flew off-planet.”
“Really?”
Alex nodded. “Made me determined to see it for real.”
“I can imagine.”
They were both being so careful not to offend. He might’ve thought having an honest conversation about their relationship-finally-would’ve brought them closer together, but things were never that simple between them.
They passed the Bay of Alister, reaching the Telina Coast. It was famously breathtaking, cerulean water meeting rocky cliffs dotted with avaya trees and sunstone houses. Round in shape with matching circular doors, the houses contrasted sharply with the severe angles and typical Monlean archways all over Matt’s neighborhood. From a distance, Alex thought they looked like giant fruit sitting on the hillsides. The little column of power cells at the top of each one even stuck out like a stem.
Up the coast a ways he spotted Parad. Its famed oval-shaped homes floated above the town, tethered like the archaic hot air balloons they faintly resembled.
Matt put the top down on the Spectra, and Alex breathed in the smell of the ocean, the wind whipping his hair about his head. It was worth the knotted mess it’d be later.
Relaxing, he focused on the positives. Matt was doing his best-well, not his best, which would've been having an epiphany or three-but he was trying. Alex had to let that count, and give him more time. Unfortunately his patience was a well run dry, desperately in need of fresh rain. He glanced up at the clear skies, which perfectly complemented his predicament, and sighed to himself. At least the view was spectacular.
He’d let Matt do most of the talking so far, filling in the silence with details about Telina and its history. Matt pointed now to a large building clinging to the cliff ahead of them. “That's the most expensive hotel in the Alister area, the Breeze.”
Elitist crap. “Why are the most expensive places usually innocuously named? Is there some fancy club like Hollis’ where they get together and-”
The first spike of adrenaline pumped through his blood. Rounding the cliff behind them was a car distinctly shaped like a Vieda.
“Oh forget it. It’s just dumb,” he said, covering for his brief lapse. “Can you pull over at the next place where the road widens? I like this patch of coastline.”
“Sure,” Matt said, sounding pleased by his interest. Guilt stabbed at Alex, but he'd fix the misconception shortly. The driver was leaving a careful distance between them, but it wasn’t enough to hide him with so few hovercars out on this road.
“No, not this one,” he said, as Matt started to slow down. This spot was too exposed; that they'd parked would be obvious to anyone a kilometer behind them. The next few opportunities weren't any better, but finally he found a suitable one, coming right after a hairpin bend in the road with some nearby bushes.
Considering the view here was less impressive than the last stretches of coastline, Matt threw him a suspicious look, but he still followed his directions. Sharp enough to know something was wrong, but not yet annoyed enough to protest.
As the hovercar's skids touched the ground, Alex jumped out, gesturing for Matt to do the same. He hurried over to Matt's door, opening it. “Come on.”
“What are you-”
He pulled Matt into the bushes a few steps from the car. They were big and clustered enough to conceal them from sight.
Matt balked at dropping down beside him, probably because he was wearing a nice suit. “What the fuck-”
Alex overrode him. “We're being followed. Now get the ashen hell down.”
That got him into hiding, though even in an urgent moment like this Matt crouched carefully, none of his clothing touching the sandy ground. “Followed?”
“Shh,” Alex said, eyes on the road. “I'll explain after. He wasn't far behind us.” He glanced over at Matt. “Got your PC on you?”
“Yes.” Matt dug it out of its customary place in his pocket, along with a small rectangular device.
“Get a picture of whoever’s inside.” He weighed their options. “If we’re spotted-”
Too late. The car came around the far corner slowly, giving Alex time to confirm that it had the same plate number as the one he'd seen earlier. Months of waiting left him eager, hoping this was Hayeston's doing.
The deserted stretch of road was risky though. If this guy was armed they'd be vulnerable, but its privacy also allowed him to take action. His hand slid into his pocket, palming the mini-taser there that matched the one in Matt’s hand. While small and easily hidden, they only carried one charge.
Matt had bought the two tasers and a plasma gun months ago, but the gun was locked up in his safe at the house. Useless now. Alex had argued they should leave it more accessible, but Matt had drawn the line at keeping a gun under his pillow.
Alex sighed inwardly. Their fights weren’t that bad anymore. At least he’d relented on the idea of them carrying something to defend themselves with, weak as these were.
The car hesitated, the empty Spectra evident now. “Him. Camera,” Alex prompted.
“Got it,” Matt snapped, sliding the pocket-comm between the branches for a better angle.
When the Vieda hummed past them, Alex caught a glimpse of the driver before it disappeared around a curve. Only one occupant visible. He debated their next move.
Matt thrust the PC under his nose. “This good enough for you, princess?”
A withering look, then he glanced down at the photo. Matt had timed it well, and caught a clear image of the man: dark hair, sideburns and a pronounced jaw. He had also taken a photo of the car’s plates as it drove away. Maybe he could make an annoying spy out of him yet.
“What exactly was the point of getting out of the car?” Matt asked.
“To see who’s tailing us, and to cause confusion,” Alex told him. “He'll be back.”
This bit of news didn’t inspire Matt to put on his happy face. He rose to his feet, taser still in hand, and tugged Alex's arm. “Then let’s go now.”
Alex resisted, pulling back with a shake of his head. While the most cautious thing to do, it wasn't necessarily the best. But there wasn't time to explain; the Vieda rounded the far curve, back in sight again.
“Too late,” he said in an undertone, slipping away when Matt tried to drag him into hiding again. “Hide the taser and turn your PC off,” he urged, darting out onto the road.
Matt's ensuing panic was a tangible presence behind him. “Min,” he hissed, “get the fuck back here.”
Ignoring him, Alex waved at the car approaching them. “Look neutral, don't glare at him,” he whispered as Matt walked up and grabbed his arm.
Something brushed Alex’s back, the taser, he realized. Fingers reached under his untucked shirt, stuffing it into the back of his pants. Gotta be shitting me. If I end up with my ass zapped, I’ll fucking strangle him. Then the car slowed, stealing Alex’s focus. He hoped Matt had downgraded his expression from outright hostile to annoyed, but he didn’t chance looking.
The driver window lowered and Alex tensed, ready to thrust Matt behind him or charge the fucker if he was brazen enough to attack them. It was almost disappointing when no weapon appeared. He stepped forward, and Matt's hand spasmed, grip tightening for a moment before abruptly letting go. Even up close now he didn’t see any obvious threat, though he noticed the man kept his hand down at his side.
“Sir,” he said, slipping into the pretense with an ease he wouldn't have thought possible an hour earlier. “Thank you for stopping. Something is wrong with my master's car.”
“So call it in.” The man was burly yet not intimidating with it, looking up at him with casual inquiry. But something in the set of his shoulders triggered warnings in Alex's gut. A professional, he'd bet money on it.
Alex turned to Matt, sending him a silent message.
Matt took his cue admirably. “PC's fucking dead. Been meaning to replace it.”
Alex did everything but bat his eyes at the stranger. “May my master borrow your PC for a minute, sir?” It wasn't an uncommon tactic for the owner of a bedslave to order the slave to do the asking. Favors sounded prettier from their mouths.
The man actually started reaching into his pocket before catching himself. Maybe not so professional then. “Left mine at home actually.”
He pulled off the lie well enough. Alex allowed his face to fall. “Thank you anyway, sir. Sorry to bother you.”
“Yeah, thanks anyway,” Matt added, pure disdain in his voice. Hopefully it'd be mistaken for frustration with the 'broken' hovercar.
They both stepped back from the car, and the man gave Alex one last assessing look before driving away. He’d barely spared Matt a glance the whole time.
“What was the point of that insanity?” Matt burst out, practically yanking him off the road once the car was gone.
Alex ignored the snideness. “I wanted a better look at who we’re dealing with. He’s a pro, gives off that merc vibe, yet he saw an Andorian as a threat. Eyed me like I was about to jump him, and not in the let’s-have-sex way.”
“Not fucking funny,” Matt said, latching onto Alex’s arms and shaking him. “He could’ve been armed! And if he knows you’re different, he might’ve abducted you right here!”
Possibly, but regardless of whether the man carried a weapon or not, Alex had instinctively doubted he was an immediate threat to them.
“Matt, I know recon when I see it,” Alex said, not resisting as he tried to soothe him back from the brink of neurosis to maybe a block away from it. “I’ve noticed that car around the neighborhood before, though I never saw it following us. If he was going to do more than that, he would have by now.”
The guy obviously didn’t have orders to take things further. For now, Alex refrained from mentioning.
Hold slackening a little, Matt still gave him a look scathing enough to slash panels off a ship. “Even if that’s true, it’s still incredibly stupid to run up and talk to him. And worse, now he knows we’re on to him.”
“No, he suspects, but isn't sure. We can assist with creating doubt.” After a beat Alex drawled, “Starting with the car.”
Any thought that Matt was growing calmer was proven very, very wrong. “First risking yourself, and now the car? You’re fucking unbelievable.”
Alex winced at his ferocity. “I'm not saying that we should total it, but some minor problem that would still justify taking it to a car tech would work. If we just drive off in it he'll know there's nothing wrong. And before you even mention him being gone now, I think he's placed a tracker on it.”
“What?!” Rage darkened Matt's features at the news that someone had already violated his precious baby.
Alex slipped free, and the first thing he did was remove the Flaming taser from the back of his pants. Palming it, he surveyed the car. If I were the asshole stalker spying on us, where would I put it?
Walking around the Spectra, he told Matt, “I saw him when we left the house, but he disappeared after a few minutes. Then we get out here and suddenly there he is again.”
Now that outrage fell back onto him. “You knew he was there the whole time and didn't say an ashen fucking thing?”
Alex took a moment to find where he’d misplaced his patience. “Like I said, he disappeared. I thought I was just being paranoid.”
“But you didn't say anything when he reappeared either.” Matt wasn’t letting this go. “You had me pull over and get out of the car first.”
That much was true. “We needed to act, and I didn't want to waste time arguing.”
“No,” Matt said, his voice dropping to a low, furious note. “You wanted to give me multiple heart attacks instead of explaining what the ashen bloody hell was going on.”
Alex sighed, wrestling with his own lousy cocktail of emotions. “I didn't tell you sooner because I don't trust you to trust me. Shit, this sort of intrigue is what I was created for, but you still don't believe I can handle it.”
“You’re Andorian. It's what you were trained for maybe, not created for,” Matt countered.
Alex searched for more careful words. “Most of my friends, and my family too, I could have just given them a heads up and they would've either worked with me or followed my lead. I couldn't trust you not to argue.”
Matt shook his head. “Because you’re stupidly reckless. You proved it again today by going up to that bastard, not even knowing if he was armed.”
“I did check, and I wasn’t unarmed myself.” Alex tossed the taser back at Matt. “By the way, were you trying to taser me accidentally or on purpose?”
“Maybe next time it will be on purpose,” Matt snapped, putting the Flaming thing away. “I was making sure it was easily reachable.”
And my ass was the first place you thought of? Well, not like that was surprising.
“There's a difference between crazy risk and calculated risk," Alex said, willing Matt to see that he had analyzed the situation. "This might've been our only chance to get any information at all."
“Maybe.” Matt’s tone was dubious at best. “Or you could’ve gotten yourself shot before you even pulled out that ashen taser.”
Not likely. Unless the man had planned to somehow blast through his car door, Alex would’ve thrown himself and Matt out of his line of sight as soon as he raised his weapon. He’d had the perfect spot picked out, just in case.
“I was prepared to act if he tried anything,” Alex said to him.
“I believe you thought you were,” Matt scoffed.
I did fine on Festun, Alex almost said before thinking better of it. Among other things, it wasn’t even a good example: Matt had been unarmed and not a trained fighter. He just hated that Matt still gave him so little credit.
“We can't undo what's been done,” he replied instead, taking the route of neither agreeing nor disagreeing. “But we can choose whether to work with it.”
At Matt’s puzzled look, Alex leaned inside the car and popped open the hood.
Matt visibly seethed, first at him, then the car, and back to him like a magnet. “We are not fucking sabotaging anything.”
“Fine, me then,” Alex said, deliberately irrepressible.
“Minril-”
“Look,” he cut in. “I can’t search for the tracker here. Our scanners obviously didn’t find it, so we’ll need to use more advanced tech.” Their devices had also been tuned primarily for bugs rather than trackers, since being overheard would be far more disastrous.
“Ashen hell,” Matt cursed after a long moment. “If we can’t get rid of it, then he’ll know if we don’t take it in for repairs now.”
Right, that settled it then. Alex turned to the open hood, scanning inside it with his PC. He jabbed at the screen when it didn’t respond quick enough, component names finally popping up in the magnified view.
Matt followed him, of course, after taking off his coat and laying it along the back seat. “What are you doing?”
“Taking a look around, not breaking your car.”
“Yet,” Matt said, hovering over his shoulder like a Tamrikan cat, ready to swipe at him if he tampered with anything.
“Matt,” Alex finally said after a few minutes of this, nearly doing some spiraling of his own. “Either help me, or go watch the road.”
Matt glanced over at the street, then began rolling up his sleeves. “What are you looking for?”
“No idea,” Alex admitted. The names on the PC’s screen were Flaming gibberish to him. He'd always been more fascinated by ships, which really flew, instead of being chained to the ground via mag-lev. “Find me something easy to break and easy to fix.”
“How about nothing,” Matt muttered under his breath.
Valiantly keeping a straight face, Alex finished sweeping a corner of the engine, fairly certain there was no tracker in that particular area. He tapped a cable there, not wanting the car tech to stumble across the device later. “What would happen if we cut this?”
Matt said nothing for a minute, and Alex slid in close, stretching his arm across Matt's waist and nuzzling his neck. Enjoying the familiar warmth, he waited, glancing at the road once when a car passed. Not a Vieda, and a woman driving.
At last Matt reached forward almost unwillingly, fingers skimming along the cable he had asked about. “This one won’t work.”
Buy in achieved. Alex grinned against Matt’s neck.
“Stop smirking.”
His smile widened before he focused back on the task at hand. He’d no plans to throw out a welcome mat to Mr. Vieda if he decided to pass by a third time. “So what is it?”
Matt leaned closer. “Looks like the main connection between the engine and the mag-lev system. No way we're messing with that.”
He traced a hose running parallel to the cable. “This one's a better choice. A hole in it would cause the engine to overheat after some time, but as we aren't planning to run it once it's broken, there shouldn't be any risk of damage. It's also a common weakness in the Spectras, so if I tell a car tech that the engine overheated, it's one of the first things he'll check.”
“Perfect.” Alex held out a hand. “Got your pocketknife?”
“I’ll do it,” Matt said, keeping it out of reach. “You’ve done enough damage for one day.”
Alex barely repressed an eye roll. He watched Matt bring the knife up to the hose reluctantly, puncturing a decent sized hole in it. Giving the opening a ragged edge was a nice touch.
“That should do it,” Matt said unhappily, closing the hood. He grabbed an old towel from the trunk next, wiping his hands. “This wasn't exactly what I had in mind this morning.”
Alex decided not to tell him about the smudges his fingers had left on the back of his shirt. He liked Matt a little dirty for once.
“If it helps any, I do feel better,” Alex replied, leaning against the car. After a pause he added, “Thanks. For trying.”
Matt shrugged, scrubbing at his hands too intently to fool Alex.
It was a mostly quiet, tense hour of waiting by the side of the road for the hovertow to arrive. Alex scrutinized every car that passed, amped up from the morning’s events-and now that he had time to think about it, pissed at himself for not noticing their stalker sooner. What a fucking lapse.
“That tech was a total moron,” Matt complained two hours later when they finally got back into the Spectra.
Alex absently agreed, distracted by the fact that they were about to drive out of the repair lot. If that guy was still tracking them, he’d have followed them over here.
“Stop a minute,” he advised Matt once they reached the exit, his gaze sweeping the street in front of them. No Vieda out there.
He looked harder. A woman pushed a stroller along the sidewalk while several people in business attire hurriedly stepped around her. Two middle-aged women browsed a jewelry stand. A block beyond them a woman carrying a briefcase stopped to open it, her sudden halt jostling the male couple behind her, while several tables at the café next door were occupied by a mix of business workers and more casually clothed people. A few slaves knelt next to some of the customers, while others followed their owners down the sidewalk. A patch of the street was cordoned off, inside it a paving machine slowly placing a row while three construction workers stood by, talking.
Pedestrians moved on, soon replaced by other pedestrians, all perfectly normal happenings on a popular city street. No burly man by himself anywhere, though he supposed that would’ve been too obvious now.
Yet something tugged at his awareness, urging him to look again.
“I don’t see him. Can we go now?”
Matt’s brusque words broke his concentration. “Yeah,” he said, recognizing Matt’s patience had long ago faded from nonexistent to never-coming-back-even-if-he-begged.
It’s probably nothing anyway, he told himself. All this paranoia is getting to me.