Warnings and disclaimers in first section. Don’t forget to look or you might get a surprise or three!
I couldn’t remember a time when I wanted something as bad as I wanted Trowa in that instant, my entire body trembling as he finally pulled the massage oil from the drawer. He was opening it, sitting up with his eyes focused on me when I saw a red light from the corner of my eye.
I reacted without thinking, jumping up and heading toward the flight deck, already out of my cabin when the alarm sounded, almost covering Trowa’s voice, “What the fuck?”
Using my teeth, I pulled the gauze covering my hands off, assuming I needed as much flexibility as I could get. I was already in the pilot’s seat when Trowa managed to reach the flight deck, his voice accusing, “If you didn’t want me, all you had to do was say so.”
“Proximity alert, Trowa.” Scanning the radio for whatever it was that had set the alarm off, I didn’t have time to spare a glance at him. “I think this might be a little more important than a roll on the sheets.” Ha ha, I managed to say that like I actually didn’t give a damn about the sex at all.
His hiss of air told me he wasn’t happy about my choice of words, but I refused to explain that I had really wanted to sleep with him for more than just the sex. I had definitely lost my mind. As odd as it sounded, the alarm sounding when it did was a damn good thing; it helped me keep from doing something I’m pretty sure I would have regretted and I knew he would have regretted it. I could feel his eyes on me as he sat in the co-pilot’s seat, but didn’t have time to look up. Not only did I not want to see what his expression was, I was a little busy.
My hands were flying across the console until I finally found the source of the alarm. “Son of a bitch. I thought Heero was going to keep the PSP off our asses for a while.”
“The alarm was set off by a PSP ship?” Trowa sounded more than a little doubtful, likely assuming I made up something so I could stop what we had been about to do.
I really shouldn’t have been thinking about sex; I needed all of my focus to see what to do. “PSP ships have their own radio frequency that I actively monitor for at all times. When one comes into radio range, my alarms go off. It’s a good way to keep my ass out of prison.”
“If you were in prison, you’d be less likely to avoid me.”
“I don’t think they allow conjugal visits at the prison I’d be put in, Tro. If Allbright gets his hands on me, he’ll bury me as far under the jail as he can.” Obviously, my companion was not happy with me, but this was a real fucking emergency.
“Sorry, Duo. I’m a bit…frustrated.”
“I’m not real happy about this either, Trowa, but I’m glad we were interrupted.” Hell, I could be honest about it, although I probably wasn’t going to like what happened later because of said honesty. Fortunately, I was able to keep myself busy, disengaging the autopilot and plotting a course that would take us in a more circular route, keeping us well out of range of the PSP’s equipment.
With one hand on the controls, I engaged the boosters for an additional rush of speed, aiming for the asteroid field closest to us. Of course with my luck, Trowa actually decided to look at the navigation screen, humming when he saw our plotted path. “Duo, do you realize you are planning to fly through an asteroid field, one that’s been considered very dangerous and deadly. The Preventers constantly have to send a ship out to look for wreckage in that area.”
“Yep, I realize it. We have too many ships on our tail to get past all of them.” Leaning over, I tapped another screen, showing him the multiple dots on it that formed a very long line, right in the direction we had been going. “There’s quite a distance between them, but trying to pass any of those ships will put us on their radar.”
“They shouldn’t have been aware of where we were going.” I finally looked at him, seeing that he had realized this is some serious shit. “Either someone discovered our destination or they’re looking for someone else.”
Unlike Trowa, I had seen this kind of formation before, more than once. If you’re in the same business I am, you learn to avoid things like this, hence the alarms calibrated to monitor for the PSP along with the usual space debris. “They’re looking for me. They probably guessed I would go somewhere that cops wouldn’t follow. If my guess is right, they have barricades at all of the places I would normally go, like Sodom, Gomorrah, Lexington, and Koleniko ports. I don’t visit the Shoe often, but this is the main spaceway to it and to Kol,” I explained with a wince. Anyone closely associated to me knows that any free time I have that I don’t spend on my ship is usually spent on Koleniko, where I have a number of friends. Yeah, it’s dangerous as hell there, but I fit in pretty well…go figure. “We have to go through the asteroid field to get past them without them spotting us.”
“Duo, flying through an asteroid belt is nearly impossible.”
“That’s what I’ve heard.” Turning off the extra boosters, I gestured with one hand, ignoring the aching in them. “I need you to take the controls for a few minutes. If you see anything or hear that alarm go off again, alternate your course but try to keep to this heading as much as possible.”
“Where are you going?”
“There are plenty of times when I enjoy being naked. When trying to navigate through an asteroid field, I’d rather have clothes on. It helps when you have to clench your ass cheeks together and pray.”
He was quiet as I left the flight deck, not saying anything to me as I returned to my cabin. The discarded pants that laid on the floor were a reminder of what almost occurred, as was the bottle of massage oil that had been dropped on the bed. I didn’t want to think about it, didn’t want to remember how easily he had gotten past all of my defenses, but it was impossible not to recall how he had felt against me, how his mouth had felt on mine, or how his hands had felt as they gripped me to him. For those brief few minutes, I had actually felt…wanted. Damnit, how did this happen? In a few short days, he had destroyed any shields I had built up to protect myself.
I had to put a stop to this. I couldn’t afford to fantasize about what could have been and face reality. God, I hate reality. Putting my fantasies aside might be difficult, but it was going to be even harder to get Trowa to forget about this dumbass idea of sleeping with me. He seemed to think that having sex would change something between us, but it wouldn’t…it couldn’t. Maybe instead of explaining that to him, I needed to remind him of what he already had, the life he had on Earth. Perhaps he would see that he didn’t fit here, that his entire life would have to change in order to have a relationship with me. I bet once he realized that it would never, never work, he’d forget his stupid idea of saving me.
Donning jeans and a t-shirt, I returned to the flight deck, dropping the first aid kit in his lap and holding out my hands. “Clean and bandage them, but keep the bandages as thin as possible. I’m going to need all the dexterity and flexibility I can get.”
He lifted an eyebrow, but engaged the auto pilot and opened the kit, not saying anything about my brisk order. I expected him to bring up what happened before the alarm, but he didn’t, surprising me, “Have you done this kind of thing before, Duo?”
“Dodged a police barricade? Sure. It’s something you end up doing pretty often when you’re a smuggler, Trowa. Barricades are a bad idea for someone transporting cargo that isn’t always legal, especially when the PSP are the ones with the barricades. They’ll only stop the ships they’re looking for, letting everyone else pass.”
“They aren’t supposed to target specific ships,” he noted soberly, making me laugh.
“They aren’t supposed to plant evidence, but they do. The PSP does whatever it takes to get their target, whoever that happens to be at the time. Usually, it’s someone that has some dirt on the cops.”
“I’m guessing that happens a lot?”
“PSP cops are dirty, in a lot of ways, Trowa,” I watched him as he leaned over my hands, focusing on my wounds instead of my face. This was probably the last opportunity I’d get to observe him this close; I planned to make sure he wouldn’t want to spend time with me unless it was absolutely necessary after that. I would have started being a total ass immediately, but I was going to need his help to get around the barricade. “Planting evidence and setting up barricades is normal, but they also accept bribes, sell drugs and weapons that have been confiscated, and raid homes they believe a fugitive is living in, with or without proof that a specific person resides there. Hundreds of people on the colonies have been burned out of their homes or harassed while the PSP looks for their suspects. Dozens have been killed because of the PSP’s actions, either directly or indirectly.”
“I never would have suspected they had such people inside the organization. Most stories of the PSP are told with pride.”
“The PSP is proud of what they do; in their minds, they’re ridding the ‘verse of people like me, smugglers and pirates. In truth, they rarely actually get smugglers and it’s even rarer that they take a pirate into custody. We know how to get around the cops if we have to, but the other people, the ones that have taken refuge on dangerous colonies for some reason or another, are the ones that end up paying the price for the PSP’s pride.”
“They need to be stopped. The entire organization should be flushed out to find the dirty cops,” Trowa finished bandaging my hands, but held my wrists, his thumbs rubbing over my skin and making my pulse race. I guess he felt that, because he smiled slightly.
“Someone needs to pluck out all the weeds. Maybe when we find Quatre’s location and he goes home, you should be in charge. Between you and Heero, the PSP will be a pristine organization by the time you two got through with it. With the things you’re learning now, they’ll be able to capture all kinds of smugglers, but I can’t really help with pirates. They’re a slippery bunch with more tricks than I know of.” That was partially a lie, but I’ll be damned if I told him everything I knew. Trowa was a…hell, I guess he was a friend, but he’s still a cop and always will be.
Pulling my wrists from his grasp, I took the first aid kit and dug in it until I found the bottle of aspirin. I was craving a sed so bad it wasn’t even funny, both to help ease the pain in my hands…and the one in my chest that I refused to admit was coming from my heart. The four aspirin I dry swallowed would help the pain in my hands, but the other pain would fade in time…or so I hoped.
Yeah, I should have brought Heero with me. Maybe there was still time to leave Trowa on Koleniko while I traveled to the Shoe. Damnit, that wouldn’t work. It pretty much blows the cover story I’ve concocted all to hell and I’d already done quite a bit of work on that. If I showed up without my new partner, people would start asking all kinds of questions.
“Do you really think I would ever tell someone how to catch you, Duo?” He sounded hurt, damnit. No, wait, that was supposed to be the point, wasn’t it?
“You’re a Preventer agent, Trowa, I’m a smuggler. That’s just the way it is. You have to catch bad guys. Technically, I am one of those guys, remember?” He did a good job bandaging up my hands, covering only the worst parts with a single piece of gauze taped in place. Taking the controls, I had the ability to move my hands freely, an ability I needed to get us through the asteroid field.
“I wouldn’t tell anyone how to capture you. You aren’t a bad guy.”
“I’ll remember to tell them that at my trial. If someone feels really sorry for me, they might even let you testify as a character witness. You probably shouldn’t tell anyone about Strauss or the smuggler’s airlock, or the way we escaped from Strident using old recyc tunnels. They might not believe you about me being a nice guy after that.”
“Why are you saying things like this? Didn’t what happened earlier mean anything to you? Do you actually think I would want to see you behind bars?”
Why did he have to sound so damn hurt? Why did everything have to hurt so damn bad? Why couldn’t I have one damn thing in my life that I actually wanted? In that moment, I hated my fucking life. “What happened earlier only happened because I was horny and you were kissing me. I told you it wouldn’t mean anything, Trowa.”
I finally got the reaction I was looking for. I didn’t anticipate how much it was going to hurt to hear the tremor in his voice as he stood, “You don’t have to worry about it happening again, Duo. I thought…I was right. I can’t have sex without the emotions that most people have. I believed you felt something for me, but obviously, I was mistaken.”
“I tried to tell you that before. You didn’t want to believe me.” Turning the chair, I met his eyes, clenching the arms of the chair so I didn’t go to him and offer comfort and admit that I was lying my ass off and being eaten up by guilt and regret at the same time. “You are the type of person that wants to help people, Trowa. Do us both a favor and focus on saving Quatre. Some people aren’t worth saving and some people don’t want to be saved.”
He didn’t say anything until after I turned back around, his voice soft and so damn sad. It hurt to know that I had done this to him, but better now than later. “I do believe you’re worth saving, Duo. I wish you wanted to be saved.”