Chaos Station 01 - Chaos Station

by Kelly Jensen

  “Should’ve been our first clue that she’d end up in Mil-Int.” Emma grunted. “You still in touch with her, Flick?”

  Flick nodded, his gaze on the far side of the docks. “She and Ryan got married before I...About six years ago, I guess.”

  “I got the invitation.” Back when Zed had still had a ripmail account, even though he’d rarely used it.

  “The wedding was nice.” Emma tugged her hair out of its messy bun and nudged Zed with a sharp elbow. “What? One of us had to go.”

  “Marnie sends me bites of intel now and then. And hacks.” Flick shrugged. “It’s been...”

  He didn’t finish his sentence. Zed figured he didn’t have to, they all knew what he meant. It had been hard for all of them. The war, being separated, dealing with the challenges and obstacles that life threw at them. More than once over the years of fighting and missions, he’d wished they’d all be able to serve together. What a team they would’ve made.

  “The Five Musketeers,” he said, grinning.

  Emma tossed her hair. “I always preferred the Fantastic Five, myself. Blame Flick and his comic obsession.”

  “Hey, it’s not an obsession. It’s an appreciation for a classic form of literature.”

  Zed leaned his cheek against the railing. “Is that what literature is? Little drawings with boom, bam, ka-pow scattered everywhere?”

  Flick tossed him a raised middle finger and Zed eyed Emma for her reaction. She had none. In fact, her features were...empty. As expressionless as if she’d Zoned, but there was no recognition of a mission in her eyes, no hint that she was there at all. Zed’s smile fell away.

  Flick grabbed Emma’s arm, still braced against the railing, and shook her. “Em!”

  She blinked and smiled, as though she hadn’t been gone a second before. “You guys are assholes. What?” she asked, realizing the happiness had fled their expressions.

  “Nothing.” Flick turned back to the view, his shoulders stiff.

  Typical Flick, ignoring what he didn’t want to deal with. Zed sighed. “You were...gone.”

  “Oh.” A laugh huffed out of her, an airy, humorless sound. “Yeah, that’s been happening.”

  “A lot?”

  Emma shrugged. “I’ve been losing time.”

  Flick’s spine straightened, but he didn’t turn back to the conversation. Zed knew he was listening, though.

  “How long?” Zed asked.

  “About a week. Week and a half, maybe. Hard to tell.” The smile she turned on him was sad. “So much for everything being okay, huh?”

  Zed’s gut twisted. He’d told her that. When they were in the worst parts of the training, when one of their teammates lost it, when it felt like they were going to follow him. When they’d gotten the news that they were done, cut loose, their careers over.

  Everything will be okay. Everything will be all right.

  He hadn’t believed it. But he’d said the words. He’d made that promise, even when he’d known he was lying.

  “I’m sorry, Em.”

  “Yep.” She swept a strand of hair behind her ears. “I’m a big girl, Zed, I knew what I was signing up for.”

  Had either of them known, really?

  “The only thing I regret—” Emma stopped, her gaze dipping to trace the rivets in the hull. “I wish I hadn’t lost it with those guards.”

  Zed ground his molars together at the thought of Emma Zoning, losing herself, and coming back to discover she’d killed those men and women. People who’d just been doing their jobs. No doubt she was a danger to the public, uncontained—but if she was, then so was he, and God knew what would happen if they turned themselves over to the AEF’s mercy.

  “Fuck the AEF.” On the other side of Emma, Flick all but vibrated, the rage evident in his harsh, bitten-off words. “Fuck them all.”

  “I’d toast to that. If we’d thought to bring drinks up with us.” Emma curled her hair into a bun again. “Play us a tune, Zed.”

  “I...no, I haven’t...” Zed stammered.

  She reached into his back pocket, eliciting a grunt of surprise from him, and pulled out his temp wallet. “It’ll take you five seconds to download the right app. So do it. I want to hear your music again.” He couldn’t miss the plea in her gaze, in her voice. If anyone else had asked...

  But then, so few people knew about his old hobby. Just the group from the Academy, and he’d never deny any of them anything.

  His fingers were clumsy at first, unused to the motions needed to coax music from the holographic interface. Melodies he’d composed a lifetime ago came back to him in snippets, frayed threads he couldn’t follow properly, so the tune came out weirder and more disjointed than the ones he’d created when they were kids. It felt...good, though. Right. As though he was reclaiming a part of himself he’d left abandoned for too long.

  When the final notes drifted into the empty dock, he expected a flippant remark from Flick. His odd compositions had always nudged an observation from Flick afterward, usually along the lines of that was fucking weird, man. This time, though, Flick seemed content to let the music slide away without comment.

  “Thanks, Zander,” Emma whispered after a time.

  It wasn’t enough to make up for everything that had happened, for all of the things he’d had a hand in, but it was something. “Anytime, Em.” He sighed. “Anytime.”

  * * *

  Felix woke when the hatch to his quarters slid open. He sat up, blinking in the low light of the lamp he’d left on. “Did something blow up?”

  “Huh?”

  “Zed?”

  The large silhouette moved through the door and slid forward, his step silent. Felix shivered as he imagined Zed being able to sneak up on him. Relax. It was just Zed. Super human, but still overwhelmingly human.

  Zed sat heavily on the edge of the bunk.

  Citing fatigue, Felix had left Zed and Emma up on the hull. He figured they had stuff to talk about that might offend his delicate sensibilities. Actually, he’d figured they might want to talk about the way Emma blanked out on occasion. Or compare neck-snapping stories or something. In private. And, he’d been tired—still was.

  The itch of whatever Ness had put on his new stunner burn had faded, along with the aches of all the other injuries he’d gathered over the past few days. But looking at Zed, seated so solemnly on the edge of his bunk, Felix hurt in the middle, right in the center of his chest. Zed had come to say goodbye, obviously, even though they had days of travel ahead before they delivered Zed and Emma to somewhere safe.

  On the one hand, Felix understood. The small kisses and touches they had exchanged over the past couple of days weren’t enough to bridge the gap. It was a close thing; Felix felt so much more than he exhibited. For him, their reunion glittered like the ultimate treasure and Zed’s consent was the key to the lock.

  On the other hand, Felix did not understand. They had found Emma. Mission accomplished. Shouldn’t that mean they could move forward? Zed had given so much away already. They should spend the next five...or however many days together. In this cabin. The need to do just that pulled at the ache in Felix’s heart.

  Of course, it was possible he was just being melodramatic. Being yanked out of sleep in the middle of the night cycle could do that to a man.

  “What’s up?” Felix said.

  “I need somewhere to sleep.”

  “Huh?”

  “Emma’s bunked down in the guest quarters.”

  “Oh. Oh!” Felix shuffled over. “You want to sleep here?” Without considering the meaning—without applying any meaning, he flipped the covers back in invitation.

  Zed scrubbed his face. “Dunno if I can sleep.”

  “We can talk if you want.”

  “Aren’t you tired?”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “You should sleep.”

  Felix grabbed Zed’s shirt. “And you should lie down and stop thinking for a while.” Zed didn’t move and Felix tugged at the sh
irt, new fibers tickling his fingers. “C’mon. Lie down and I’ll rub your head. Trust me, it’ll put you to sleep in about five minutes. And I won’t touch your neck.”

  There were other ways to tire themselves out, and as the silence stretched between them like a wet cord, Felix supposed Zed might be considering those too. This would be better; this would be something he could do for his friend that did not impinge on any promises, kept or broken.

  Zed apparently came to the same conclusion. He tipped sideways, pulled his legs up and settled into Felix’s abandoned pillow. Felix tugged the blanket back up over them both, and tucked himself in behind the broad back—not too close, but near enough he could feel the comforting warmth of another body. Then he slipped his fingers into Zed’s silky hair and began tracing random patterns across his scalp, avoiding the old scar at the back, and the terrifying marks on his neck.

  They’d done this before—slept squashed into one bunk. They had shared a room their first two years at the Academy and some nights, they’d fallen asleep together, Felix with a comic book holo coloring the hazy air over the bed, Zed with his music weaver buzzing and whining. Zed had always been bigger and Felix had liked sleeping curled into his friend’s side. He’d missed his family that first year, and by the second he simply enjoyed the closeness.

  Fingers sifting through Zed’s dark hair, Felix let his mind wander back to those days, to when life had been so simple and he had been comparatively innocent. Sleepily, he passed those memories to Zed, tracing them across his head.

  Chapter Sixteen

  For once, Zed woke slowly. Sounds filtered in, one by one: the gentle humming of the Chaos at rest, the distant clang of a boot on a corridor floor. If he concentrated, he might be able to pick up the low murmur of voices. He was safe, he was warm, he was...

  Not alone.

  Grunting softly, he opened his eyes and glanced down. A familiar head of blond curls lay on his chest. One arm was draped over his stomach and a leg had captured one of his knees. His own arm curled around Flick’s shoulders, holding him loosely in place.

  With a sigh, he let his head sink back onto the pillow. Showing up at Flick’s cabin last night had been presumptuous, but given the choice of sleeping with Emma or sleeping with Flick, he’d take Flick every time, because...well, because of the chance of this. Closeness, being held, holding another person—things that might’ve happened with Emma but would’ve been incredibly awkward. He’d been alone for so damned long, it seemed, and he needed...what?

  Flick’s friendship, yes, absolutely. They had reconnected and Zed couldn’t give that up, even if he should. He wanted to talk to Flick every day, he wanted to remember the Academy together, he wanted to bask in the brightness of his best friend—the brightness that had dimmed but was still there, such an integral part of Felix Ingesson that nothing could extinguish it. He wanted Flick in his life.

  Would Flick be satisfied with their renewed friendship, or would he want more?

  Do I want more?

  Could Zed even ask for more? They’d completed their mission. Sometime today, they’d leave Chloris Station and try to find Emma real help. He had some ideas on what to pursue there, if he could get up the courage to call his brother Maddox, the genius in the family. He wasn’t ready to see any of his brothers or his parents face-to-face—they’d recognize immediately that things were...weird. If it meant getting Emma help, though, he’d do it. But...did he really have any right to drag Flick or his family any deeper into the shithole his life had turned into?

  “You’re thinking too loud.”

  Zed looked down again. A bleary green gaze met his and he resisted the urge to swipe blond curls off Flick’s forehead. “Sorry.”

  “Did the head-rubbing help?”

  “You fell down on the job. Kind of reassuring you can still sleep, no matter what.”

  “Yeah, well...My turn to say sorry.”

  “‘Sokay. Your breathing, uh...it has a nice rhythm.” He made a face at the lines of rivets in the ceiling. Your breathing has a nice rhythm? Really, Zander? He tensed, preparing to slide out from under Flick. “I guess we should—”

  “Zed, just...stay. Okay?”

  Relaxing, Zed said, “Okay.”

  He lay still, with Flick draped over him, mostly unmoving except for the steady rhythm of his breaths. The man’s smaller form felt like a concrete statue, unyielding, and Zed found himself fearing the next words to fall from Flick’s lips. To anyone unprepared to help him, Zed knew he was a burden. Without the support network the AEF had created for his team, he was just a broken, unfixable soldier.

  Suddenly, he didn’t want to hear the words. He didn’t want Flick to tell him they were done. He didn’t want to just lie there and let Flick cut the last ties Zed had to...anything. He tensed up again and this time, Flick tightened his grip.

  “Don’t.”

  “Let me go.” Fuck, his voice sounded tight. He didn’t want it to.

  “You really are an impatient bastard. Can you just...” Flick trailed off with heavy breath. “I’m trying to figure out what to say.”

  “I don’t want to hear it. Just don’t say it.”

  Flick pushed himself up again, lines slashing across his forehead. “What do you think I’m going to say?”

  “That I’m too much. That you have a good life here, and you don’t need me fucking it up and...” His head thudded to the pillow.

  “Selfish bastard too.”

  “Yeah.”

  Zed made another attempt to get up, but Flick shifted, straddling his hips. He sat back, putting all his weight on Zed’s stomach, just above his groin, and glared down at him.

  “Stop,” Flick ordered, his voice low and firm. “You’re not going anywhere until I figure out what the fuck I want to say to you.”

  “Goddamn it, just—” Zed bit back the whine. He could force Flick off of him, but any action would likely end with Flick landing on the hard floor, and he didn’t want to hurt him. Closing his eyes, he melted into the mattress. “Fine. Say it.”

  Break my heart.

  Instead of words meeting his ears, lips met his mouth. Zed’s eyes snapped open and his lips parted, an opportunity Flick didn’t miss. His tongue slipped past, stroking, exploring, igniting something in Zed’s chest that went beyond lust, beyond friendship. His hands drifted along Flick’s ribs, down to his hips, but he resisted doing more, regardless of his dick’s thoughts on the matter.

  Flick drew back just as dark spots had begun to encroach on Zed’s vision. He trailed kisses along Zed’s jaw and let out a shaky sigh.

  “You are too much,” he whispered. “But that’s nothing new. You’ve always been too damned much.” He nosed Zed’s cheek. “And yeah, I have a good life. I’ve worked hard for this life, for what I’ve got here. The Chaos is where I belong.”

  “I know, I—”

  “Stop. I’m talking.” Flick rested his forehead against Zed’s temple, his breath ghosting along the stubble peppering his jaw. “I don’t know what we’ve got. If we’ve got anything. We’re friends, we’ll always be friends. Beyond that?”

  Zed held himself very still, his hands on Flick’s hips motionless. “Do you think we could...”

  Flick pulled back and met Zed’s eyes, his own shadowed and serious. “I think we could go day by day. No asking for more than that. And if you hurt anyone on this boat, all bets are off.”

  Zed gritted his teeth and let his gaze slide away from Flick’s. “I’m sorry you have to see me like this. I’m sorry I’m not...not who I should be.”

  “I’m not who I should be, either.” Flick nudged Zed’s lips with his own, the kiss soft and sweet, and...reassuring.

  That was one more thing they had in common. For all that he and Flick had started out in disparate situations—rich kid versus station rat—they shared a lot, now. Their years at the Academy, getting fucked over by the AEF, their wish to make a difference in the galaxy...though, did Flick still want that?

  “You�
��re thinking again,” Flick murmured against his lips.

  “Can’t help it.”

  “When a hot guy is kissing you, you shouldn’t be thinking about anything but his lips on yours.”

  “Maybe that’s what I’m thinking about.”

  “Nope.” Flick drew back and met Zed’s gaze. “I know you, Zed.”

  “Yeah,” Zed admitted, his throat tight.

  Yeah. He did.

  Zed curved a hand around Flick’s head and pulled him back for another kiss, one that wasn’t as soft, wasn’t as reassuring, but was still so bloody perfect. Flick’s scent, his taste, overwhelmed Zed, that weird mix of familiar and new. He quivered as their tongues slid together, unable to stop the hand on Flick’s hip from digging in.

  “Oh my God. Zander Anatolius, trembling beneath me.” Flick nipped at his ear, his jaw. “Do you know how much of a fucking turn-on that is?”

  Zed let out a shaky breath and rallied. “Nope,” he said, allowing a long slow grin to take his lips. “Show me.”

  Mischief flashed through Flick’s eyes as he lowered his head to Zed’s jaw again. His teeth scraped at the stubble, and Zed sucked in a breath at the unexpected intensity of it. His hips thrust upward, looking to rub his hard cock against Flick’s ass...but the bastard moved with the motion instead of against it, reducing the friction to almost nothing.

  A chuckle vibrated against the skin of Zed’s throat. “I’m supposed to be showing you, remember?”

  “Flick...” Zed rolled his hips again, his fingers biting into Flick’s hipbone to try to hold him in place. He let out a groan as Flick grabbed his hand.

  Flick folded it up and held it against the mattress, and he did the same on the other side. He leaned on Zed’s hands and said, “Stay.” With a last quasi-serious scolding look, Flick released Zed’s hands and shifted downward.

  Zed let his head sink into the pillow as his friend nudged his legs apart and settled between them. Flick tugged at his waistband and pressed a kiss to the stripe of skin he bared. Zed’s abdominal muscles tensed at the touch, his cock jumping in the confines of his pants.

  Flick’s mouth closed over Zed’s hard cock, his breath warm even through the layers of fabric. He pulled off, but his lips brushed the hard ridge maddeningly as he spoke. “Maybe I should slow down a little.”