Told you I was going to rewrite parts of it...
“What the hell is it doing here? For that matter, what the hell is it?” Riken hissed irritably as he glared out at that…thing that had waltzed into their house as if he’d owned it. It started humming and Riken mentally added tone deaf to the list of its faults. Even in the twilight of the setting suns, he could tell the creature was covered in grime. His clothes looked like they’d been dug out of trash barrel and hung loosely on the creature’s small, skinny frame.
It had a scrawny looking long, reptilian-like tail complete with a spade shaped blob attached at the end that was twitching in beat with the horrid humming.
“Calm down, he seems mostly harmless,” Thas chuckled, as he stretched his arms over the edge of the bed and leaned over to get a better angle at which to stare at the creature. “Kinda cute actually.”
Riken made a dissenting grumble. “How the hell do you know it’s a he? I think it’s an it.” Although, maybe Thas had a point. Minus the sixteen layers of grime and underneath the hideous looking clothes, maybe the creature wasn’t entirely unfortunate looking. Still, it was wiggling its butt around in Riken’s house. This was supposed to have been a quiet little getaway vacation weekend for him and Thas. They deserved a weekend to themselves. Business had been busier than usual and it had become increasingly imperative to take some time off to skate under detection. But that was all beside the point.
Point was, there were no interlopers allowed.
“Hmm, definitely a he. Smells like a he.” Thas gave a feline stretch before flipping back over to face Riken. Given Thas’s past, he’d know too. In spite of the fact that he hadn’t been in captivity for over five years now, Thas still had a strong grasp on old skills. Gauging people by smell alone had proven useful on more than one occasion. It could also be incredibly annoying in others. Looking down at him, Riken sighed. Thas was going to leave the majority of it up to him, of course. Not because Thas could take a twerp that small, but more because he claimed he was the brains and Riken was the brawn of this operation.
He buried a hand in Thas’s long black hair, finding the furred nape of Thas’s neck underneath. In response, Thas let his yellow slitted eyes slide shut and purred.
It never failed to amaze him how silky Thas’s fur felt beneath his fingertips. There wasn’t enough there to make it look as if Thas was furry from a distance, it was a small layer that merely made his skin look dark. Riken let his hand ghost down farther over Thas’s back feeling the bare welts of old scars Thas had gotten long before he’d left childhood and long before he’d ever met Riken. The feelers at Thas’s shoulders extended, sliding over Riken’s forearms and curling around his waist. Like Thas’s back, they had a light layer of fur that covered them from the spot where they extended from Thas’ shoulder blades to the rounded tips at the end, one of which flicked playfully at Riken’s bare nipple.
Torn between a laugh and a growl, he bit the edge of Thas’s pointed ear playfully before reluctantly crawling out of bed to find his pants. “You know, lesser men have been killed for daring the like,” Thas grumbled. And Riken had to nod, because every last one of those lesser men had deserved it. But that wasn’t him.
Grinning predatorily, he gently flicked Thas’s ear with a claw. “Good thing I’m more than you can handle.”
Thas gave an irritated shake of his head, glaring at Riken as he sat up. “Someone has an overblown ego.”
“Hey, I’m just being honest.” Riken grabbed a shirt and pulled it over his head. A feeler goosed him, and he whirled around to glare at Thas. Unrepentant in the least, Thas grinned back. “Trouble,” he grumbled under his breath.
“Yes,” Thas smiled, but Riken caught the slight hitch in it. Riken wanted to kick himself for it. He knew Thas was sensitive about those sorts of things.
“Thas,” he started.
“It’s all right. Look, I’ll take care of our intruder, okay? Go back to bed.” Thas stood, pulling on his own pants before shaking out his long black hair.
“We’ll go together,” Riken corrected. “And I didn’t mean it like that,” he added softly.
“I know.”
~****~
It was the feel of something on his butt that made Gost pause. The sound of someone clearing their throat though, was what made him jerk his head up, smacking it quite soundly on the underside of the cloaker that had originally drawn his attention to the house. Swearing under his breath, he cradled his head in his arms as he scooted out from underneath it. Something goosed him, though, and he yelped, jumped to the side and landed on his ass, sprawled out before a huge mountain of a person.
Even at full height, the man was sure to be a good foot taller than Gost. His white hair was cropped close to his head, and the shirt he was wearing barely seemed to fit over his chest. Not to mention that the faint scales that climbed up his arms and underneath the sleeves of said shirt marked him as Draconian. Even if he hadn’t seen the scales, he would have known when the man arched a fine white brow and stared down at him with pale, pearly red eyes.
He was going to squash Gost like a bug. And not a soul was going to stop him.
Not to say that souls usually went around helping Gost, but generally there was someone who realized the true value of a gremlin and either appropriated him for their use or chastised his master-of-the-moment for abusing valuable merchandise.
“What are you doing in my house?” True to Draconian form, his voice was melodic with a slight lilt to it. Since Gost’s first master had been Draconian, it wasn’t long before he started trembling under the gaze. Even when his old master had been screaming at him, beating him into submission or punishing him for being unable to manage mechanical miracles, he’d always sounded harmonious.
“I, uh,” he stumbled, swallowing hard as there was a slight flicker of a forked tongue from the Draconian. “I didn’t think anyone lived here.”
His latest master lived just a block over and Gost had been trusted enough to pass by the house every day for the last month on his way to his master’s supplier. Of course, the trust had come because of the chip that had been implanted in the back of his neck. It had only taken the month to figure out how to disarm it and then carve it out of his skin. Pity that this house, which had been abandoned for entire month, suddenly had occupants.
“So you just figured you’d waltz in here as it was yours for the taking?”
“Yes?” he squeaked. The Draconian glared down at him. “No,” he backtracked fast, scooting just out of range of the Draconian’s huge fists. “I mean, I don’t know. I was just looking for a place to spend the night.” More the idiot him. Of course someone lived here. No one in their right mind was going to leave a houseful of antique ‘ship parts abandoned for the riff raff to take as they pleased. He should have known better. The lure of the sparkly had once again overridden his common sense. Not to mention whatever feeble survival instincts he might have possessed.
He felt something tapping on his shoulder, and confused, he looked down to see something dark brown and slightly furred tapping at it before tapping his chin. Something tugged at his waist too, and scrambling, Gost lifted his arms to get a glimpse of another dark brown appendage wrapping itself gently around his middle and burrowing into the old threadbare coat he was wearing.
“You could certainly use a bath, Moppet.” Whirling around at the sound of the low, throaty voice, Gost found himself faced with another man, this one only slightly smaller than the huge Draconian. The appendages that were poking Gost inquisitively belonged to him. Like the Draconian, he was wearing light sleepwear pants that hung loosely on his hips. He had long thick black hair, though, that fell over his shoulders and halfway down his back. Feelers, for that’s what they had to be, originated from his shoulder blades and Gost imagined that most of the time they looked vaguely like wings sprouting from the man’s back when they weren’t in use.
The man’s eyes were slitted like a cat’s and a bright yellow to boot. Gost could only stare. He’d seen a lot of men of a lot of species and had many more as masters, but he’d never seen anyone who looked quite like this.
“Thas, stop feeling him up,” the Draconian growled. “He’s not worth the effort. I can already tell you he’s filthy. I can smell him from here.”
Beneath the layer of grime on his face, Gost flushed a dark red. Of course he was filthy. He wasn’t valued for how pretty he smelled, merely how well he knew his way around any particular piece of machinery. None of his masters had ever been particularly concerned with his cleanliness. Water and baths and new clothing all cost money. And money was too precious to spend it on things a possession didn’t need. Why bother cleaning something that was only going to get dirty again five minutes later? Gost knew he smelled. “I can easily remove the smell if you’ll just let me leave,” he said quietly, drawing in a deep breath, willing himself not to shake now that the feelers were sliding over his shoulders and poking into his hair.
They ghosted over the mess he’d made at the base of his neck, digging out the chip, and he winced slightly. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Thas tilt his head to the side and regard him solemnly. In all likelihood, the gig was up. Not that he’d spent a great deal of time in freedom.
“And where exactly would you go?” The Draconian raised an eyebrow again. “You barely look old enough to tie your shoes,” he scoffed.
And that burned. He might be small, but he’d been taking care of himself since he’d been old enough to know his own name. There was little room in slavery for childhood and he’d let go of such naïve things long before he’d escaped his first master. He doubted, for all the Draconian’s strength and brash words, he would have faired so well if their positions had been reversed.
“’M old enough to have fixed your cloaker,” he mumbled, and then wanted to kick himself for admitting.
“That piece of crap?” The Draconian threw his head back and laughed. “That hunk of junk hasn’t worked in a millennium.” He kicked it as if to prove it. And predictably, it jiggled the last piece that Gost hadn’t been able to get a good grasp on back into place, and the machine blurped briefly into action. For a quick moment, it cloaked Gost from sight, making him invisible as he scooted out of the range of the Draconian’s fists once more, before the machine died just as quickly as it had come to life, draining the miniscule amount left in the onboard battery.
Gost met the Draconian’s astonished gaze and sardonically raised his own eyebrow.
“I think he has you there, Riken,” Thas chuckled huskily.
“I’ll just be going,” Gost murmured, scrambling up off the floor and towards the stairs.
“Not so fast.” Riken grabbed his tail, preventing him from actually making it to the stairs. Gost’s heart jumped into his throat, and he stood stock still, waiting for the fists that usually accompanied such an action. His old Draconian master had always had a surplus of gremlins at his disposal. Beating one or two of them out of commission for weeks at a time hadn’t ever really effected productivity any.
“At least let us feed you and get you cleaned up in return for fixing the, uh,” Thas trailed off, glancing down at the piece of machinery, even as his feelers wrapped around Gost’s arms and pulled him gently back. Perplexed, he stared back at Thas, not entirely understanding.
“It’s a Short Range Cloaker. An old ‘40s model,” Gost informed him reluctantly. Thas grinned down at him while Riken glared.
~****~
The little runt looked like a drowned rat, and Riken had to suppress a smile as Thas dumped yet another bucket full of warm water over the kid’s head. His hair, which had been haphazardly covered with an oil rag before Thas had taken it off and Riken had threatened to burn it, was a tawny brown and in obvious need of a good trim as it fell in the kid’s big gray eyes. Eyes that were looking up at him, resigned, but incredibly wary.
He didn’t know what the brat was so worried about. He was small fry in the grand scheme of things. Hell, any smuggler worth his salt wouldn’t spend two seconds worrying over someone so puny and so obviously unconnected. The brat could try reporting him to the Confederacy, but he doubted that the Confederacy would follow up on something reported by such a ragged looking urchin. He wasn’t even all that irritated with the kid, it was just that the brat was cutting into some of his valuable down time with Thas.
He hadn’t had a break in months, and even Thas had started looking a little rough around the edges. This was supposed to have been a romantic weekend for the two of them, not a babysitting project.
“Look, kid, you really needed a bath,” he mumbled in between the thread he had in his mouth. Once he finished making a few alterations, Thas’ old pants and one of his old tunics would fit the kid just fine until they could go out and buy him something more appropriate. The kid, however, seemed unimpressed with it all. If anything, his expression grew even more suspicious and Riken could see the ring of green around the irises more clearly.
“Gost,” the kid mumbled.
“What?”
“Gost! My name’s Gost, and I’m not a kid. I’m seventeen.” Gost glared at him indignantly, barely blinking as Thas dumped another bucket of water over his head, plastering his hair to his skull and making his pointed ears stick out all the more. One ear was slightly mangled and the other drooped, but it simply added to the winsome and slightly pathetic look the kid had going.
“Riken,” Thas warned mildly.
“Thas,” he returned in the same tone of voice, rolling his eyes as Thas shot him the Look. “There. Now we know everyone’s name,” he smiled a little too sweetly.
“Ignore him, Gost. He’s a right ass when he wants to be.” Thas grabbed a bottle of shampoo and proceeded to lather up the kid’s hair. Gost tried to shove him away only to find that Thas wasn’t opposed to using his feelers to restrain people. Riken had to swallow a chuckle as Gost attempted to fight off the feelers only to find himself tangled up in them as Thas got fed up with the struggling.
“I can wash myself, you know.”
“Yes, but would you?” Riken couldn’t resist teasing just a little as the little gremlin’s cheeks turned red again. And okay, so maybe Thas hadn’t been entirely wrong. The brat was kinda cute, and the flushed cheeks certainly made him appear healthier than he obviously was.
“I got undressed and into the water without your help, didn’t I?”
“Yes, but from looking at you, it was hard to tell if you knew what to do with the soap once you got a hold of it.” Riken did laugh this time as the kid scowled at him and tried to detangle himself from Thas once more.
It was obvious that Gost wasn’t too keen on him. Hard to blame the brat. Draconians were usually pretty gruff. They definitely weren’t a race to mess with, and as a result generally got stereotyped as testosterone laden assholes. Heavens knew it had only taken about two years to coax Thas into believing that he wouldn’t take undo advantage of any situation or use his strength and agility to force Thas into situations that Thas didn’t want.
“Well, now he knows.” Thas threw a clean towel at the kid and pulled back his feelers. Reluctantly, Gost climbed out, wrapping the towel around his middle. Riken let go of a low whistle, though, and winced as the kid turned his back. There were little scars running up and down the kid’s arms and chest, but on his back was a huge, almost disfiguring one that went from shoulder to hip. Given the size and the breadth of it, Riken was sure it had almost killed Gost when he’d gotten it.
It was also obvious that it was a very old scar as it was completely healed and had smaller scars that went through it.
“Well, that looked like it hurt,” Riken went to trace the outline of it at Gost’s shoulders, but the brat practically leaped out of Riken’s reach. If it weren’t for Thas grabbing Gost’s elbows with his feelers, the kid would have fallen flat on his ass in an attempt to get as far from Riken as possible.
Dense as he might be at times, he could take a hint. At least he knew exactly where he stood with the kid. Thas had been a great deal more complicated.
“There is the spare bedroom,” Thas commented quietly after handing Gost the pants and tunic. Riken grunted an affirmation and ran a hand through his hair. Really? All he wanted was to curl up next to Thas and have his dirty way with the man. Given Thas’s concern for the gremlin, however, that wasn’t about to happen any time soon.
“Fine,” Riken growled as the kid finished dressing. He looked a lot better dressed in clothes that didn’t look like they had been washed in the scum of a thousand alleyways.
“What makes you think I’m staying,” Gost mumbled, trying to shake off Thas’s feelers. Much to Thas’s obvious amusement.
“You got somewhere better to be?” Riken raised an eyebrow.
“Anywhere you’re not.”
“Okay,” Thas interrupted brightly. “Riken, you promise not to be an ass and I’ll make sure you’re duly rewarded. Gost, stick around and I promise you’ll get the best breakfast ever. You can eat until you can barely walk out the door if you feel like it.”
Riken held up his hands in surrender, earning himself a put upon glare from Thas. Far be it for him to be the one to break it to Thas that the kid, in all likelihood, was going to split the minute their backs were turned.
Riken knew a runner when he saw one.
~****~