“Damn, you really are from the streets, aren’t you?”
Benen turned at Gus’s exclamation, leaving his shirt on the bench. Gus’s eyes had been fixed on the scar on his back, but now they trailed to the few across his front. All old, years old, a couple decades in the case of a few on his arms. Benen had gotten into a decent number of fights growing up, none that had done too much damage, but they were no longer things to show off. He turned back when he noticed Gus’s gaze taking in the curve of his less-than-perfect stomach, which was more noticeable without a shirt.
“You never had a chance getting away from me,” he said, more to put Gus in his place than anything.
“I was impressed you took a kick to your face and still came after me.”
Benen laughed. No doubt it was a little swollen; his nose ached still, but it wasn’t broken that he could tell. He sat and bent to pull the knife he kept in his boot before setting it next to Gus’s lockpicking tools. He unlaced and removed his boots, then stood to take down his pants before glancing up at where Gus was still staring at him.
“You enjoy watching men undress?”
Gus grinned, but the action was tinged with nervousness. His pale face flushed a little. He turned and moved to a bench across the room, keeping his back to Benen as he removed his cowl, then tugged up his shirt. Thin. He was as thin as he looked, not underfed, not weak, but smaller of frame than Benen. He appeared to have no scars. Definitely a more sophisticated thief than Benen normally dealt with. But then he supposed that was why people like Gus chose that method—unsuited to scrapping or defending themselves, they could pass as wealthy enough to scam a few people and then fuck off to the next town. Gus probably wasn’t even from Jewylle on Ilben.
Not that Benen needed to know, really. Gus’s past, who he was, was unimportant. Benen only needed to get along with him enough to break out of the orb’s magical maze. There was no point in being curious about Gus, in getting to know him. Even if Benen somewhat wanted to.
He grabbed a couple towels, selected a bar from a tray of soap, and crossed to the tub. A sigh escaped Benen’s lips as he lowered himself into water the perfect temperature—just shy of too hot. The tub was nice and deep, the water uniformly heated, and he treated himself to sinking into it up to his chin. The blood there melted away in the water, a thin trail of red fading to pink until it completely disappeared.
“Why is it so delicate?” he asked, rubbing his beard and then watching the redness soak off as he ran his hand through the water.
“What?” asked Gus over his shoulder.
“The engagement. Why try to force it? Is your sister pregnant?”
Even with Gus’s back turned, Benen could see him cringe.
“No. No, no, not—she’s not expecting.” He peeled off his tight pants, revealing a small, but grabbable, ass. Benen tilted his head back and stared. It wasn’t as though Gus was looking, anyway. “I…it’s my fault, really. That would be why I’m attempting to make amends. No one would actually participate in the orb magic against their will—”
“Except for me.”
“Extreme situations,” said Gus. “I apologize. I couldn’t have you arresting me.”
“It’s your fate and you can’t escape it. We’re not going to become that good of friends,” said Benen. Gus didn’t reply, only folded his pants neatly. “Not friends at all. We’re two opposites, you and me. I catch thieves and murderers, you shit on the law.”
Gus let out an awkward hiccup of a laugh. He ran his hand through his hair, straightened his clothes on the bench, and moved toward a stack of towels.
“I do that to everyone, you know. As I said, I ruined the engagement. When my father caught me with her fiancé’s face in my crotch, well…” Gus shrugged, grabbed a couple of towels.
“What?” asked Benen, nearly choking on a bit of water that trickled into his mouth.
“Graden gives good head,” said Gus, matter-of-factly, with only a hint of shame. He snagged a bar of soap and turned toward the bath as Benen gaped at him, then his half-hard cock. He could tell that, fully hard, it would be like the rest of Gus, slender, fine. Unlike Benen, unlike the other men he’d known, Gus was cut—he’d thought that was something only wealthy people did.
Benen started choking in earnest.
“Now I believe you’re the one gaping,” said Gus, and lowered himself into the water. “Although I can’t completely blame you. Thinking about it gets me a touch…excited.”
“You think too much of yourself,” said Benen, and coughed a couple times to clear his throat. He shook his head. Gus was just as terrible a person as Benen had assumed. “Seducing your sister’s—”
“I am not proud of it, obviously,” said Gus, furiously scrubbing himself. “But in fairness, we had a bit of an understanding before he became her suitor. He was only dropping by to see me. At first. Then…” He trailed off.
“Yeah, she’s really going to want you fixing that engagement for her.”
“What else can I do? My father cut me off. He—”
Gus shut up abruptly and Benen looked up at him. Gus scowled to the side and focused on washing himself, leaving Benen to deduce why he thought it best to stop talking. But Benen hadn’t made Assistant Detective at such a young age for no reason, and his mind made the leap immediately.
“You’re not who I thought you were. Amateur thief? Which family are you from?”
Benen watched Gus for a reaction, but he stayed fairly composed after that. Still, he wouldn’t be able to shrug this off. He had been lying this entire time, and Benen no longer thought it was about what the orb did. The man before him wasn’t a thief passing as someone wealthy—he was from such a family, presumably fallen on hard times since he’d pissed off his father. Great.
“Would my elaborating on this keep me out of a cell?” asked Gus.
“Are you serious?” Benen grabbed the soap and scrubbed at his beard. “No. I have more reason to hold you now. You were caught breaking in and attempting to lift a magical item that you freely admit you were planning on stealing from Josen Nevgeradel, deceased. Finding out you’re part of a hushed up family scandal makes this look damned bad for you, Gus. We’re not completely unaware of everything that goes on in Jewylle on Ilben. We do know Nevgeradel had a habit of blackmailing people.”
Gus said nothing. Benen ducked his head under the water and rinsed. When he emerged, Gus was hauling himself out of the bath, body no longer remotely excited. He stood at the edge, dripping.
“If he was blackmailing you, or Graden—would this be Graden Fallswenne, of the Fallswennes who supply the bulk of the wakeleaf tea Jewylle residents drink?”
The stiff way Gus snagged up a towel answered Benen’s question for him.
“If he was blackmailing you or Graden to keep quiet the fact you were fucking while one of you was engaged to someone else—”
“Must you put it in such vulgar terms?” asked Gus. His lip curled. Benen smirked.
“What, you above things like that? Or are you telling me you love him? What I don’t understand is why you two didn’t just get engaged. Why do that to your sister?”
Gus flung the towel down on the damp tile and stalked over to his tight thief’s clothes. His movements were sharp, twitchy. He was uncomfortable, and Benen kept an eye on him. Uncomfortable criminals were dangerous.
“Perhaps it is an accepted practice to marry as you see fit in the underbelly of Jewylle on Ilben, but certain circles don’t currently appreciate such pairings. I would have been disinherited. He would have been disinherited.”
“And you’re not now? Or are you just out of favor for a while? That’s why you’re so unpracticed with the lockpicks. You became a thief recently. Hmm.” Benen hauled himself out of the water on the opposite end of the bath and began to towel down. “I guess wealth isn’t everything. My family—if any of them were still alive—couldn’t stop me from marrying who I wanted. Not that they’d much care. Pity you come from one that’s so vulgar
.”
“This won’t help us escape the maze,” said Gus, yanking on his shirt.
“Who are you to say that? I can’t have even a brief working relationship with anyone who lies as much as you. What’s your name really? It’s not Gus.”
Gus laughed bitterly and tugged on his cowl, then pulled it down off his head and fluffed his damp hair up a bit with a hand. He turned to watch Benen dress, eyes cold.
“If you were as well informed as you claim, Trelayne, sir, you’d already know. Who has Graden been engaged to? You should be able to guess who I am.”
Benen searched his knowledge of upper class Jewylle residents but came up empty. He shrugged on his shirt and began to button it, not caring much. He had this asshole. When they returned to the real police station it would be simple enough to figure out who he was. Raldina probably knew. She was the one who kept up with important gossip.
“You’re right,” he said, trying a different tactic. “I don’t want to know. I liked you better when I thought we had something in common. Now you’re not just a thief, but one from means? I couldn’t have been trapped in here with someone more in opposition to everything I am. If this maze can force us to get along, it can do anything. Save your sister’s engagement. Not that the orb’s going anywhere but our evidence storage again.”
“Will you stop?” asked Gus. He didn’t seem to be going for it, wouldn’t let Benen goad him into giving away who he was. “I liked you better when you were focusing on the actual problem. Do you really want to be stuck in here with me for longer than necessary?”
“I suspect I’m a much more patient man than you are.”
“We’ll see about that.” Gus stalked around the bath to the side Benen was on and went directly to the wall, where he felt the tile. “I suggest you help me with this or we won’t be leaving this room.”
Benen crossed slowly to where Gus stood and looked him up and down. As much as Gus—whoever he was—was the complete opposite of him, Benen decided he liked that to some extent. He liked feeling more moral than someone of a much higher class, and part of him was having fun teaming up with a criminal. He didn’t particularly think Gus capable of murder, or at least not Nevgeradel’s. The image of Josen’s body was still fresh enough in Benen’s mind, and it was far too messy for someone like Gus to get messed up in. No, Gus seemed the type to poison, or set up an accident of some kind, or hire a killer. Not bludgeon a man until he was barely recognizable.
Gus glanced over at him, saw Benen looking him up and down, and rolled his eyes.
“I don’t believe I said I was available.”
“Oh? Are you and Graden still—”
“No. I didn’t even…” Gus trailed off, moved away from Benen a few feet, and returned to examining the wall. He ran his fingers around each tile even though both he and Benen knew by now that wasn’t bound to do anything.
“So you weren’t in love with him.”
“Oh, I liked him well enough. You know we won’t open this door, either, unless we work together?”
“Then come back over here and help me. I thought you were a thief and a murderer before this, Gus. I haven’t had a change of opinion on you.”
“That’s not completely true. I’ve let you down. You thought you could bond with me over shared scars. Well.” Gus moved over and took Benen’s hand, touch light. “We’ll have to bond over something else now.”
“I’m willing to do that to get out of here.”
“And haul my ass to a cell?”
“And yeah, that,” said Benen. “Some reason you’re holding my hand?”
“Don’t read too much into it,” said Gus, and pulled Benen’s hand up to the wall. “I believe this is the simplest way to search together.”
Fingers woven together, they felt the grout around the tiles. Benen didn’t object, but he thought it was a very intimate way to search for the exit. He couldn’t decide if Gus was trying to seduce him or if he actually enjoyed Benen’s presence the way Gus’s was beginning to grow on him. Either way Benen pressed forward, closed the small space between their bodies, so that his chest touched Gus’s back.
Gus didn’t pull away, didn’t stiffen either. Benen let Gus guide his fingers and turned his gaze instead to the back of Gus’s neck. His heart beat a little harder. The thought of arresting Gus had taken on a different feel to it than it had initially, one a bit more arousing. Benen knew he shouldn’t let himself go down this path, but then he had to get close enough to Gus—genuinely close—in order to escape the maze.
What he did here was understandable.
“There,” said Gus as the tile made a little clinking noise. He pulled his hand away, tried to step back. “Give the door a little room.”
Benen retreated as the tile opened up for them, revealing the next dull stretch of police station wall. He took a breath, readying himself.
“Back into the maze,” he said. “After you.”
* * * *
“How long until we reach the exit?” asked Benen after what felt like hours. Despite their continued right turns, they’d run across no further doors. Benen was hungry, and tired, and vaguely horny. His needs did have a habit of stacking up after a long night at work, and it definitely felt like he’d spent a long night—maybe even two—at work stuck here in this maze.
“It won’t open up for us while we still have animosity toward each other,” said Gus. He let out a long sigh. “As I mentioned, the purpose is to facilitate peaceful coexistence and to solve deep interpersonal problems. The magic knows when we’ve done enough.” He spread his arms, indicating the corridor. “And apparently, we have not done enough.”
“What the hell does it want?” asked Benen, more to himself than Gus, then looked at the man’s back. “Do you have a problem with me?”
“Have a problem with you? When you think so poorly of me and don’t bother to take anything I say seriously?”
Benen stopped in his tracks and stared at Gus, who turned and, arms crossed, ran a judgmental gaze over Benen head to foot and back. So Gus was the problem. Here Benen was, allowing himself to be drawn into working together with the man, even beginning to grow anxious about having to lock him up when they were through, and all along Gus was harboring some sort of grudge.
“If it’s about your affair with Graden, look, not like I haven’t been an asshole before to someone where sex is involved.” Benen had to look away when Gus raised an eyebrow at him. “I can see what he liked in you.”
“Wonderful. Another one of you.”
“What’s that mean?”
Gus tsked and stalked off down the corridor, took a right. Benen followed him, growing irritated and trying to push the feeling away. If they would only be able to escape the orb’s maze through working together, allowing whatever issue Gus had to spiral into an argument wasn’t going to help any. Benen didn’t want to deal with however many hours it would take to pull themselves back from the resentment of having said things that made it nearly impossible to follow through with whatever coexistence they needed to escape.
Although he was beginning to resent Gus for dragging him in here. He wanted this fixed, he wanted it solved, he wanted it done with. Benen felt like he’d done enough on his end, considering he felt like hell thinking about arresting Gus when they returned.
“Gus. Come on.”
Benen was still debating whether he wanted to grab Gus and make him stop, force him to talk this out enough to make the orb’s magic happy, when they turned a corner and wound up in a dead end. Gus whirled on him.
“You have no idea how…popular someone with my background is in pubs. There appears to be a particular fantasy some men have of, shall we say, sticking it to the rich? You would think I had a target painted on my ass.”
Benen stared at Gus as the man glared, then scratched the back of his head.
“I didn’t actually know that,” he said. Gus rolled his eyes like he didn’t believe Benen. “Besides, you’re the one who started flirting wit
h me.”
“I liked it when you didn’t like it.”
Benen sighed. He’d thought they were getting through this better. At least, the last door had been easier to open than the previous, and he’d very much been hoping the next lock he picked would lead them back into the evidence storage room.
“What do you suggest we do, then?” he asked. If Gus was going to accuse him of not listening, he was going to let the asshole make all further decisions until they were out of this damned maze. He took a step back, up to the wall, and spread his arms. “I’ll follow your lead.”
“There isn’t much point,” said Gus, and pointed.
When Benen glanced down the corridor he found more wall. At some point when they were talking the maze had sealed itself off. There was no way back the way they’d come. He gritted his teeth, took a breath.
“Fine,” said Benen after a few moments, and put a hand to the bridge of his nose. The touch stung; he pulled his hand away but kept his eyes closed. “I believe you when you say you didn’t murder Nevgeradel.”
“Saying that does not actually do much of anything.”
“Who do you think it was who killed him?” asked Benen, trying to keep the dullness out of his voice. Gus sighed.
“I have no idea. Perhaps all his staff were in on it? As much as I can approve of a good affair, superior-staff pair-ups hardly seem fair. They might not have enjoyed Josen’s whims much. Then there are of course the people he was blackmailing—he should have had a list, somewhere. I can assure you he wasn’t blackmailing me. What use would there be of that? I have no wealth. I have had to resort to stealing from others and selling what I can.”
If what Gus was saying was true, then it sounded to Benen like there were a decent number of people who’d want him dead, too. But then, Gus was probably aware of that. It struck Benen that he’d met Gus at about the time the man’s entire operation was about to unravel, if Gus was stealing from a police station.
The Officer and the Thief Page 4