~*~
“I think I fucked up,” Francis confided to Rose that evening over trays of soy slop that was supposed to be spaghetti and meatballs.
Her look evidenced curiosity, but not surprise as she twirled noodles onto her fork. “What? Did you break his nose? That might actually be an improvement.”
“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with his nose.”
She smirked.
“No, it’s…” He could already feel a blush coming on. “We were sparring, and I got in a good lick, got him off balance.”
“Well done.”
“I thought so, but then he was pissed, and he came at me hard.” He rubbed the sore spot along his stomach where a bruise was starting to form. “He got me pinned.”
She arched her brows in what counted as a suggestive face for her.
His blush deepened. “And then he – he was like ‘you still can’t get out of a hold,’ and I can’t, not matching strength for strength. And I just – there have been some – some looks, I think. And some times when he almost…? And so I kinda, like – leaned back into him. Like right in his–”
“Frankie.” She set her fork down. “Were you grinding on his dick?”
Francis groaned. “Yeah. Yeah, I was.”
Rose looked to be working hard to suppress a smile: a sight so rare that Francis thought his mortification was worth it. She composed herself, and said, her tone mild, “Is he hung?”
Francis burst into helpless, embarrassed, pained laughter, and Rose chuckled in response, her smile finally breaking like the dawn. It was lovely. “I can’t believe I did that. What a fucking idiot.”
She shrugged. “Eh. Not the dumbest thing you’ve ever done.”
“Care to elaborate?”
“You befriended me. Doesn’t get worse than that.”
“Rose–”
Her expression went serious again, a neat closing-off, single groove of concern marking her brow. “How did he react?”
It was nice to see her smile, but right now, he needed No-Nonsense Rose to set his mind at ease. “Well, that’s just it: I’m not sure.” He explained Tris’s scrambling, and his pale face, and his silently working lips, his eventual retreat, as best he could, trying not to convey his own readings on the situation.
Her brows lifted in surprise. “He didn’t say anything?”
“Nothing.” He fidgeted with his fork, rolled a meatball along the gluey noodles. “I was sure he’d yell at me. That he would be mad that I’d – made advances.” The last he choked out. “I mean there’s no way he…”
“Okay, don’t make assumptions about that sort of thing,” she said, sagely. “Tris is a very stern person, and it would be just like that type of man to stuff down and hide any finer feelings.”
Relief hovered at the edges of his worry. “You think?”
“I do.” She was frowning, though. “But I only know the type – I don’t know Tris specifically. So I don’t think you should go making any assumptions.”
He deflated. “I’m assuming he hates my guts.”
“I’m not. But. Frank…”
“I know, I know, I shouldn’t get my hopes up.”
Her smile was fleeting and rueful. “You’re really sweet–”
“Oh no.”
“You are–”
“Please don’t be soothing. It’s unnatural on you.”
That earned another grin.
“And don’t pity me, either. Please. I know, and have known all along, that nothing would ever come of working with him. I know,” he stressed, when she cocked a brow. “It’s a crush. I’m not a pining idiot, okay? And fraternizing may be legal these days, but it wouldn’t be helpful.” He hitched up straighter in his chair. “We’ve got a mission. I won’t get distracted.”
She saluted him with her fork. “I never doubted.”
Still, it was nice to hear.
“But I think I need to talk to him. Clear stuff up. Make sure he knows I’m not…you think it’s a bad idea?”
She shrugged. “It’s up to you. Just…be careful, okay?”
He sighed, hating that she thought him so suspectable…afraid that he truly was.
But he and Tris were teammates. They would need to work together on innumerable missions, would have to cooperate, trust one another, rely on one another. Francis couldn’t afford for there to be any sort of resentment or uncertainty between them.
So the next morning, after breakfast, he checked his shirt for crumbs, and went in search of Tris.
He wasn’t in the workout room, but one of the Blue Knights glanced up from his treadmill and said, “You looking for Mayweather?”
Francis fought to sound indifferent. “Yeah, you seen him?”
“He hit the showers, probably. I think he broke that treadmill. And I’ve never seen anyone do that many reps with the free weights. Can’t believe he walked out on his own, honestly.”
O…kay.
“Thanks,” Francis said, and headed for the locker room – slowly. It sounded like Tris was in a mood, and he couldn’t help but think it was because of him. Tris was the stoic sort, and it would be like him to throw all his anger into physical exercise rather than talk about it.
What would he do, though, when faced with the cause of that anger?
Francis wasn’t brave enough to go into the locker room and search for him there, keenly aware that finding him in any state of undress would put Tris at a disadvantage for what was sure to be an uncomfortable conversation.
He leaned back against the wall opposite the locker room door and settled in to wait, unable to keep a dozen possible scenarios from unfolding in his mind, each more alarming than the last. What if Tris refused to work with him from now on? What if he’d gotten himself kicked out of Gold Company in the heat of one rash, flustered moment?
It was twenty minutes before the door finally opened, and by that time, Francis had all but tied himself in knots.
Belatedly, he realized that there could be any number of people about to step out of the locker room, and that he might have jerked all over as if shocked for nothing.
But, no, it was Tris.
Fresh from the shower, hair damp and dripping at the ends, droplets dappling the shoulders of his very tight white t-shirt.
Francis’s traitorous eyes went there first, because he was a pig, and then shifted up to meet Tris’s gaze – where something surprising happened.
Tris’s gaze became a hard, polished, impenetrable wall that wasn’t a glare, but somehow worse than one. Before that, though, between one blink and the next, Francis saw an unmistakeable doubt flicker there, deep, and startling, and quickly tamped down. Covered. A sign of feeling, beneath the granite mask, one more vulnerable and entrancing than Francis had ever expected.
But then he was his public self again, and he spared Francis a long, unfeeling look before setting off down the hall.
Courage bolstered by that glimpse of something more, Francis fell into step beside him.
“Tristan.” This felt like a time for formality. “I wondered if I could talk to you for a minute.”
He didn’t get an answer – but silence wasn’t a refusal, so he pressed on. “I wanted to apologize about yesterday. I–”
A muttered curse was all the warning he got before a hand closed around his forearm, and he was shoved sideways down another hall and into the shadowed doorway of a recessed closet.
“What–”
Tris swung around in front of him, right in his face, his superior height and breadth nearly blotting out the light from the caged bulb in the hallway ceiling. Up close, he smelled like the chemical pine of body wash; heat from the shower rolled off his skin. Francis could just make out the dark gleam of his eyes; they burned.
“I know you look like an idiot,” Tris growled, “but you can’t go around acting like one.”
He was too shocked to be offended. “Wha–”
“If you keep throwing yourself at all of your sparring partners like that, s
omebody’s gonna take you up on the offer eventually. Whether or not you want them to.”
“I wasn’t–”
“This is war, not a house party,” Tris snarled. “Grow the fuck up.”
He’d been squeezing Francis’s arm tighter and tighter throughout this short, furious dressing-down, and he let go now, just as suddenly as he’d first grabbed him, and stalked off while Francis was still gathering breath.
Francis stood afterward, heart pounding in his ears, listening to Tris’s footsteps recede, trying to come to grips with what had just happened.
Several minutes passed, and he found that he couldn’t.
He’d expected a gruff manner, and some anger, but had mostly thought Tris would allow him to sweep it awkwardly under the rug. He hadn’t expected that low, furious voice, the bristling, pissed-off attitude blasting away Tris’s usual calm.
Had it been that bad? Had he been so out of line?
Even worse: did Tris think he was “throwing himself” at everyone on base?
Scratch that: how dare he care, even if he was.
His own anger coiled hot and hard in his belly; his heart was still pounding, but now it had nothing to do with nerves.
How dare he.
Francis took a deep breath, turned, and marched for Tris’s room.
Gold Company had their own little hall, with dorms on either side, plastic plaques bearing their names and ranks.
He rapped hard on Tris’s shut door, and kept doing it until it swept open. Tris’s brows lowered when he saw it was him; he gathered a breath, all ready to be furious and blustery some more.
But this time, Francis was ready for him. He kept his voice low, so it wouldn’t carry, but he was shocked by the steel in it. “I came looking for you today because I wanted to apologize – because,” he stressed, when Tris started to interrupt, “I knew that I went a little too far. I read the situation wrong, obviously, and I’m incredibly embarrassed, and feel like an idiot, and believe me, it won’t happen again.
“But then you had to go and drag me around like I’m a misbehaving dog, and all but called me a dumb slut. So, no, I don’t think I want to apologize to you now. Except I will, because I have manners, unlike you.
“I’m sorry I made you uncomfortable, but I am not, I can promise you, throwing myself at any and everyone. Not that it’s a damn bit of your business, jackass.”
He turned before Tris – now wide-eyed and slack-jawed – could form a response, whipped around the corner, and kept walking, even when he began to shake.
~*~
For two days, Francis lived with the surety that he’d damaged what might have otherwise been a stiff, but pleasant, working relationship with Sir Tristan Mayweather. In service of his own stupid pride, he’d pounded on the man’s door, yelled in his face, and called him a jackass. He’d be lucky if he didn’t get booted from the company; civility was assuredly dead between them. The only thing to do now was avoid him.
They took their meals at separate times, anyway, so that was no chore. If Francis entered the training room, or the gym, or the armory, and caught a glimpse of Tris’s stern profile, he did an about-face and waited him out, returning only after enough time had passed or, a few times, to the tune of Rose’s eye rolls, after she’d gone to check for him.
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” she said, “but I don’t think he cares that much.” When he’d given her a sharp look, she’d sighed and said, “Frankie, you weren’t going to have a close relationship with him anyway. He’s a broody old dick.”
He was.
Still fiercely beautiful, but, it was easier not to care about that in the aftermath of what Francis had labeled the Blow Up.
That lasted for two days. And then Gavin got sick.
“It’s just a cold,” he protested in the ready room, though it sounded like “iths juss uh cuhl.” He sat slumped on a stool in the corner, continually mopping his nose and eyes with sodden tissues from the box Francis kept nudging closer and closer to him along the table, wishing he’d just take it, so he could retreat out of the spray zone.
“Right,” Lance said, unconvinced.
“It–” Gavin broke off to hack a wet-sounding cough into his lump of tissues.
“Okay, so,” Lance said, turning to the rest of them, “that leaves him out. Tris, take Gallo. It should only take a few hours, and there’s little chance of encountering any hostiles.”
“What?” Francis and Tris said at the same time.
On Francis’s part, it was a startled squeak.
Tris gritted the question out through clenched teeth.
Just that one word, low and rough and ground out like the tumbling of stones, sent a spear of cold through Francis. Two days had apparently done nothing to improve Tris’s mood. In fact, he seemed even angrier, if the stolen glimpse of his set jaw was anything to go by.
“Rose and I could go,” Francis offered. If he sounded desperate, sue him.
“Rose has a meeting with the conduit.” Lance always said the word like a slur. His brow furrowed, and he shot Rose a dark glance, one she ignored, inspecting her nails from her place between Francis and Tris. “No, you two go. You should be back before lunch.”
“Great,” Francis said, stomach already in knots.
The others left – Lance and Rose a safe distance behind the still-coughing Gavin – and Francis glanced, once, toward Tris. He was met with the coldest, flattest stare he’d ever seen, and turned away to get ready, mentally cursing himself.
It was a short recon mission – not even a mission, really. A foray via helo toward the base of the mountains, where they were set gently down on the barren, rain-slick ground to search amongst the rocks and sparse shrubs with infrared; little caves and burrows and hollows along the edge of the base property offered shelter for all sorts of things, and the readings here were never quite accurate from the air. Teams were sent out at regular intervals to search the area on foot, to make sure the fences and barricades were all unharmed, and that no conduit of either camp was trying to sneak onto the property. It was Gold Company’s turn, and that was how Francis found himself walking three paces back from the quietly furious war hero he’d called a jackass.
The quietly furious war hero who’d called him easy, he reminded himself, firmly.
It was raining lightly, soft patters against their helmets, and against the rocks they had to pick their way carefully through. Heavier clouds threatened above the mountaintops, and Francis knew that in a few hours they’d have a deluge, rushing through the hollows and runnels of the paths they walked, making them impassable. For one wild moment, he entertained a childish fantasy in which the heavy rains came on quicker than expected, and the two of them had to seek shelter in a high cave, huddled together for warmth, until the block of ice between them slowly thawed. Whispered confidences and confessions. A few lingering looks…
He couldn’t keep himself from snorting.
Tris turned around, rain dripping off the edge of his helmet, flashing silver over his dark gaze. “What?”
Shit. “Nothing,” Francis assured.
But Tris continued to look at him – at all of him, gaze tracking down and back up, searching. “You turn your ankle?”
It had never been in Francis’s nature to be snippy with people. The youngest of his siblings, the soft one, the one who needed looking after, always the too-friendly cadet, he’d made it his mission to kill people with kindness; God knew the world was harsh enough without people bitching at each other over trivialities.
But Tris was just so…Tris. Infuriating, really. Cold, and harsh, and judgmental, and, obviously, incredibly fragile under all that machismo, afraid he’d have his man card revoked because someone had pressed back into him in – frankly – innocent question.
So he smiled brightly and said, “If I did, would you carry me?”
Tris’s only physical response was a blink, but Francis could tell the zinger had hit home.
He turned back around, an
d kept walking.
And, Francis realized, anger bubbling up in his stomach, it turned out that meeting an idol, and having him disappoint you so thoroughly, was a hell of a thing.
“I just might, you know,” he continued, stepping carefully over a clump of sickly brush. “I’m so weak and damsel-like, I might swoon, fall down, and twist both my ankles. Then it would be up to a big, strong, manly – oof.”
The rest of his sentence ended in a huff as he collided with Tris’s chest. A chest like a wall, as firm and unyielding as marble – same as the face he looked up into a moment later.
“What the hell’s the matter with you?” Tris demanded – but it wasn’t the same growling, threatening tone he’d used in the hallway, and this morning in the ready room. He sounded nearly desperate, his expression pained, his gaze tracking back and forth across Francis’s face, like he was hunting for something, or trying to solve a frustrating riddle.
Oddly, it gave Francis hope. Not a romantic hope – that dream had been thoroughly dashed – but a hope that they might actually be able to work past all this awkwardness.
It would be up to him, though, he knew.
“A lot, I think,” he said, cheerfully, just to watch Tris’s brows lift. “It probably started right away: I was born in a bathtub, actually, and raised by my sisters, one of which was an invalid, and one of which was a hooker. One of my brothers was shot for treason, so I guess I’ve got some of that DNA in me. Let’s see…oh, I like to believe the best of people, even though every single experience of my life should have taught me otherwise. I look at least ten years younger than I actually am, I tend to ramble when I’m nervous, and I own not one, but three posters of you, because for some stupid reason I’ve always found you wildly attractive. I’ve even got the magazines and, yes, I bought that ugly action figure, even though it looks nothing like you. You were my idol, you see – were being the key word, because now that I’ve met you, and, clearly, misread what I thought, stupidly, were some sort of grumpy flirtations, I realize you’re a miserable bastard who hates my guts, who isn’t even mature enough to shake on it and let bygones be bygones.
“There’s a lot wrong with me,” he finished, breathless, dizzy with exhilaration. “So the real question is: what’s wrong with you?”
Mystic Wonderful : A Hell Theory Novella Page 4