by A. C. Thomas
Theo watched him while he chewed, a drop of juice falling from Jun’s frozen hand onto the floor with a quiet plop. “You hurt me when you left me here alone. I don’t like to be alone; I’m not any good at it. I don’t want to do that anymore. I can’t stare at these walls a moment longer.”
Jun stared down at the spot of juice. He held out another segment and met Theo’s eyes. “I can’t stay in here with you. I have a ship to run, and I need those translations as soon as possible.”
Theo nodded, plucking the morsel from Jun’s hand with nimble fingers, secretly thrilled at the flash of disappointment in his eyes when he didn’t use his mouth. “I will help you. I’ve given my word on that, Jun. I will work on these passages until they are translated to the best of my ability. But I want something in exchange for my expertise and effort.”
“What?” Jun asked in a flat, sharp tone. More juice spilled from between his fingers as his hand convulsed around the fruit.
“I want my freedom.”
Jun started to speak, brow furrowing, but Theo pressed sticky fingers to his lips before he could make a sound.
“Not like that. I’ll stay here until the work is done, just as I’ve told you I would. I want the freedom to move about the ship, to be out among you and your crew. I don’t want to stay in here all alone anymore. Please don’t leave me here alone, Jun.”
He almost made it through his entire plea without his voice breaking, right up until the end.
Jun’s eyes softened even as his lips firmed against the pads of Theo’s fingers, and shadows of longing rippled beneath the surface of his face.
Theo moved his hand to Jun’s shoulder, trailed down his arm, and wrapped it around his wrist. He brought Jun’s empty hand to rest against his throat, and then Theo lifted his chin.
Jun didn’t move, eyes wide and hand perfectly still where Theo had placed it. Theo swallowed just to feel the slight pressure against his Adam’s apple, something warm settling in his stomach like a cat curling up to sleep. “We can continue doing this too. If you want. As long as I’m free.”
Jun ripped his hand away, took a step backward. “You don’t need to barter your body for your freedom. I would never ask that of you.”
Not to be dissuaded, Theo stood and followed Jun as he retreated another step. He reached out and took the rest of the peeled fruit from his hand, pulled a segment away as he continued with a shrug. “I’m not. I’m only saying that nothing has to change except I won’t be locked in this room any longer. I’ll still work on your translations, and we can continue to explore this thing between us. I’ll simply have other people to talk to, as well. Really, you’d be doing yourself a favor by widening my audience.”
Jun crumpled the bits of peel and pith in his fist, dark eyes hard on Theo’s face as he chewed the fruit in a show of nonchalance he didn’t feel.
“If I let you go around the Crew, I need your silence. On the translations and also on—” He glanced at Theo’s throat and then back up to his eyes. “They can’t know. That we do this, sometimes.”
Theo tilted his head, swallowing down a mouthful of fruit before he had quite finished chewing. “Why not? I was given to understand that Outliers were less socially restrictive. While this kind of thing enjoyed between men is accepted back home, it is still frowned upon in certain extremely boring circles. I always thought it might be better out here. Shame to find out I was wrong.”
Jun shook his head, then walked over to hit a panel beside the desk, opening a refuse hatch and dropping the peels inside.
“It’s not that.”
Theo watched him close the hatch, memorizing its location and waiting for Jun to look back at him. “Then why must we keep our relationship a secret?”
Scowl firmly in place, Jun wiped his hands down the side of his trousers. “First, this—” He gestured between them with a flat, sharp hand. “—is not a relationship. Second, I don’t want my crew to know I do this with you. My business is my own.”
Theo nodded absently, “with you” echoing inside his head on an endless loop and the tangy fruit turning to ashes in his throat.
It wasn’t that he was especially new to being someone’s dirty little secret; he could trace that pattern all the way back to his secondary school dorm-mate, with a few scenic stops along the way for various married men and professors. It was just that he had thought this was different.
He had thought Jun was different.
Jun felt different.
But Theo was the same, and perhaps that was the problem.
He spoke more loudly, trying to drown out the sound of Jun’s voice snarling “with you” in his head. “Do we have an agreement, then? I can have free run of the ship as long as I complete my translations and keep mum on everything to do with you?”
With you. It was as if the words had been branded in the back of his mind. Inescapable. His heart ached as though there was a thorn lodged inside.
Jun was looking at him oddly, eyes scrutinizing as though trying to puzzle out something wrong with Theo’s face.
So Theo tacked a guileless grin on for good measure.
Jun nodded once, slowly, chin tilting and lifting even as his gaze remained fixed on Theo’s face. “If you step out of line, I’m hauling you back in here and welding the door shut.”
Theo suppressed a shiver at the mental image of Jun hauling him down the hallways of the ship, over his shoulder perhaps, like in those illicit novels his aunt had liked to read. He and Ari used to steal them to giggle over together in their bedroom.
“With you” finally began to fade away, only the ache left behind.
He smiled up at Jun, enjoying the way the expression on his face seemed to stop Jun in his tracks. “Excellent. We have a deal, Captain. I shall do my best to make sure that won’t be necessary.”
Jun headed toward the door, stepped out, and hesitated, leaving it open behind him. He gave Theo one final glance over his shoulder.
“We’ll see.”
Chapter Twelve
The ship was huge.
At least, it was far larger than Theo had ever traveled in before. His family had always kept small personal craft intended for jaunts across the Core.
Jun’s ship was something else entirely.
Multiple decks equipped with winding corridors and mysterious doors, rust-streaked tunnels with rickety rungs leading between the decks at seemingly random intervals.
It was dim and eerily quiet. Theo’s steps echoed off the dark metallic walls as the ceiling panels either failed to light above him or flickered to life with a petulant whine of electricity. It should have been intimidating, and perhaps it was, but Theo couldn’t be bothered to worry about ambience when he was finally free to move about.
It was an absolute delight to explore after hours and hours of staring at the same four bare walls.
The three unlocked doors Theo had come across this far had all contained stacks of storage crates, all of them sealed except for one empty one. It was equal parts disappointing and intriguing.
He assumed some of the other doors lead to other bunks. He wondered how many people were required to man a ship this size. Surely a dozen at least.
He’d only met three of the crew besides Jun, and that was when they had first arrived.
Theo had been exploring the ship all morning and had yet to encounter another living soul besides Jun.
Jun, who had personally delivered another tray for breakfast—a second green fruit along with a bowl of dehydrated grain.
The fruit had been peeled.
Theo had thoroughly enjoyed their breakfast conversation, even if Jun’s contributions had largely consisted of monosyllabic grunts before he disappeared with a stern admonishment for Theo to finish his work.
It had taken Theo less than an hour of focused translation to abandon it for the option of exploration.
He could turn the translations over in his head as he wandered anyway.
He did his best work when he wasn’
t concentrating too hard on it, to a lifetime of tutors’ and professors’ consternation.
Around the bend of the next corridor there was a lift, sparse and bare the way maintenance lifts often were. The doors appeared to have lost several battles with something the size of a rhinoceros, judging by the layered dents and scratches.
Theo trailed his fingers over the rough surface of the metal as he stepped inside, grateful when the lights blinked on without complaint, along with a control screen.
Three levels were indicated on the screen, showing that Theo was currently on the second level.
He put less than a second of thought into it before slapping the panel blindly, pleasantly surprised to discover he was to go down to the third level.
As soon as the doors of the lift opened, Theo was accosted by a wave of mechanical noise, accented by a repetitive metallic banging pounding away down the corridor.
Never one to leave a mysterious noise uninvestigated, Theo headed toward the source of the sounds.
The pounding was coming from what Theo now recognized as the engine room. Hulking pieces of machinery chugged away all around him in a calamitous din of clanking, banging chaos.
Marco was crouched over some kind of pipe, bringing a hammer down on it with considerable force.
Theo did not mind taking an extra moment to admire the way his arms bulged with the effort.
Marco’s curls were shaved close around the sides in what Theo was beginning to recognize as something of a trend in Outlier fashion, or at least among Jun and his crew.
He shifted on his feet, clanging noisily into another loose pipe. Marco’s head snapped up at that, and he nearly dropped his hammer as he startled at the sight of Theo.
Theo held up his hands, smile still in place. “Hello, I didn’t mean to alarm you. I was just exploring and found myself down here; thought I ought to make myself known.”
Marco pushed to stand, the enormous hammer dangling from his hand as he stared at Theo’s face. His brow furrowed as Theo spoke more and more rapidly from nerves.
It occurred to Theo rather suddenly that he was in a remote, enclosed space with a strange, large man holding a strange, large hammer.
“Although perhaps you would prefer that I didn’t,” Theo continued. “I can see that I’m disturbing you, so I’ll just make my way back. Wander out the way I came in. So sorry. Please, continue with whatever it is you are doing down here in such a manly fashion. Terribly sorry to have bothered you!”
Theo turned before Marco could speak a word or swing a hammer, and fled back the way he had come, bolting into the lift and only feeling silly about it once the doors began to close and he could glimpse Marco’s puzzled face through the small smudged window of the lift.
He hit the panel again. Heat rushed to his face as he considered his own awkwardness. Not the impression he had hoped to make upon the crew and his only possible allies out here in the dark.
The doors opened onto a well-lit corridor, with wall panels clean and maintained in a way he had yet to see elsewhere on the ship.
The lift screen indicated he was on the top deck. He stepped out into the immaculate corridor, and the doors closed behind him with a dull thud.
Laughter drifted down the hall, coming from a central room with double doors half-open to the corridor.
Theo made his way inside, then paused to watch Axel throw something into the air before catching it in his mouth, laughing once again at something on one of the seven vid-screens he had open in front of him.
He was sprawled across his chair, chrome-accented boots crossed on top of the dash of one of several control stations in what Theo was beginning to realize must be the bridge of the ship.
“Captain let you out for walkies?”
Theo jumped guiltily at Axel’s voice, then stepped farther into the room. Axel kept his eyes trained on his screens, several of which seemed to contain navigational data and numerical calculations while others showed entertainment vids, one of which was undeniably pornographic in nature. Theo wrinkled his nose at the sight of bouncing breasts.
Axel turned his head with a grin, and with a lazy swipe of his bionic arm, closed the entertainment vids, leaving four navigational screens open.
He popped another morsel into his mouth, managing to chew with a smirk as he looked Theo up and down, pale eyes glowing with mischief. “Didn’t expect to see you in here all alone, dollface. I kind of expected the captain to put a tracking band on you at the very least. But here you are, clogging up my cockpit with sunshine. You really are a looker, huh?”
Theo straightened his shoulders, tossing his hair out of his face as he stepped closer to Axel’s station. “I have free rein of the ship, just like you.”
Axel’s eyes fell to Theo’s lips knowingly, leaving Theo fighting a blush and the urge to wipe his mouth on the back of his hand. “How long did you spend on your knees to earn that? You should ask Park to invest in some quality kneepads. These floors can be hell on the joints.”
Theo bristled at the implication, never mind that in this instance it was indeed based on fact. He had spent the entirety of his academic career combating dismissive and patronizing responses to his work based on his age and appearance and, occasionally, his sexuality.
One crass green-haired pilot wasn’t going to shrink him down with a smirk.
“My name is Dr. Theo Campbell”—Theo put a biting edge to his voice, sharpening his accent until it was crisp and bright—“and I am working for Captain Park as a consultant in my field of expertise.” His rounded, plummy vowels emphasized his intellect. “I wouldn’t expect someone like you to understand the value of my academic contributions, but I will demand the respect due to me as a fellow member of your Crew.”
Axel’s face went blank, then broke out into a slow grin, mouth softer and eyes sharper on Theo’s face. He held out a handful of puffed grain pellets, fragrant with cheese powder. “Fair enough, Doc. Want some cheesy puffs?”
Theo stepped closer with a shake of his head, looking over the dash of Axel’s control station with interest. “No, thank you. I find they don’t agree with me. What does that button do?”
Axel glanced at the dash, crowded with buttons of varying size and color, then back up at Theo and said with a wry tone, “Which button?”
Theo stepped close enough to touch the dash, his fingers hovering over a row of candy-colored buttons glowing faintly against the chrome. “All of them.”
Axel’s answering smile was as swift as it was bright, lighting up his face until he glowed like the dash. He dropped his boots to the floor and scooted closer to the buttons, eyes twinkling up at Theo. “You ever flown a class nine freighter before, Doc? Don’t tell the captain, but it’s easier than it looks. C’mere, I’ll show you a few things to get you started.”
He wiped his cheese powder–coated fingers on his tight-fitted gray trousers. Leading Theo’s fingers to a pale-blue button, he started a lesson on basic navigation and instrument flight that Theo found as intriguing as any lecture he had ever attended.
Axel, it would seem, was a born instructor. Theo had a feeling the pilot would not take that as the compliment he’d intend it to be, so he kept the thought to himself.
After a quarter hour of engaging lessons and intermittent supervised button pressing, Theo built up the confidence to start asking questions. “How many of you are there?”
Axel winked up at him as he guided Theo’s fingers through a complicated code sequence. “Can’t you tell? I’m a singular sensation, baby. One in a million. Often imitated but never repeated. The real deal.”
Theo bit his lip through a burst of laughter. Axel’s confidence was so overblown it went right past irritating into endearing. He could relate to that. “I meant to inquire about the crew. How many people are on Captain Park’s Crew? I’ve been exploring all morning and hardly come across a single soul. Though there is every possibility they may be avoiding me. It has been known to happen. Why, when I joined the faculty, profes
sors practically made a sport out of ducking down hallways to get away from me.”
Axel shrugged, leaning back in his seat as he watched Theo slowly repeat the sequence with only one correction necessary, all the while switching idly through three different attachments at the end of his arm with a muted click and whirr. “Just the four of us—five now that he’s brought you on board. You already met everyone down in the loading bay. Don’t tell me you forgot Boom because I wouldn’t believe you.” His face assumed a dramatic far-off look. “She’s the terror in the night that haunts the dreams of wicked men, the scrape of metal down an abandoned hallway, that creeping sensation on the back of your neck when you hear footsteps in the dark.”
His eyes flitted up to Theo, gleaming with amusement at his shocked expression. “But seriously, she can be scary as shit, so let the captain deal with her if you get on her bad side. Also, don’t get on her bad side. Like, ever.”
He shuddered for effect.
Distracted from the buttons, Theo considered the small crew. He thought of all the closed doors down the winding corridors. “So few of you for such a large ship.”
Axel scoffed, fingers flying across projections over his screen. “She’s a big girl, but nothing I can’t handle. Never met a girl who didn’t fall for my irresistible charm immediately, and this ship is no different. Besides, what more do we need but an incredibly talented and handsome pilot, a terrifying security chief, a dedicated engineer, and, of course, our fearless leader?”
After closing out the screen he’d been working on, Axel turned to Theo. “Oh, and you. I guess we needed a pretty face on the team. I’m more dashing than pretty, myself.”
Theo tossed his hair back from his face at the compliment. He knew he had a pleasing countenance, but it was always nice to hear.
A quick snap of his fingers and Axel pointed at Theo. “Oh shit, no, you’re the brains, aren’t you? Well, we definitely needed more brains on the crew. We’ve been pretty heavy on the brawn. Captain Park is, like, 70 percent brawn, 30 percent scowl, 0 percent fun.”