Chapter Ten

The description had been accurate: pale, thin, male, green eyes, red hair. And yet Jun felt misled.

There had been nothing in the initial description of his search to prepare him for the reality of Dr. Theophrastus Campbell.

Nowhere had it mentioned that he was achingly young, and brimming with boundless babbling energy, and devastatingly beautiful.

Jun had been struck down by the reality of him, completely unprepared. That was the only explanation for his behavior.

Explanation. There was no excuse.

Theo had looked up at him with those big green eyes and long red hair; hair that was just begging for a firm hand to wrap around it and pull, and Jun was…

Jun was done. With that part of his life. He had to be. He didn’t have time to take a beautiful brat like Theo in hand.

Theo was sweet, but he wasn’t meek. It was the sharp edges that pulled Jun in like a loading beam. Made him itch to see Theo on his knees.

Holy shit, but he’d been gorgeous on his knees.

Sonnets could be written about the way Theo looked on his knees. Jun wouldn’t read them, but he knew poetic beauty when he saw it.

Despite rumors circulating in certain pockets of the dark, Captain Park was only human. He sometimes found it necessary to make an occasional stop, drop by a bar and find a warm body for the night. But this? This was something entirely different. He couldn’t do this.

He couldn’t lose focus.

Theo was the definition of a distraction. Shining with temptation, drawing Jun’s attention like a magnet.

Ripe and sweet, needy for direction and guidance and love.

Jun just couldn’t be the man to give it to him. The thought that this meant there would be another man coming around to give Theo those things made Jun want to punch a hole in the wall.

Maybe if they had met a few years ago, but that was impossible. Theo had been deep in the Core attending university while Jun had been bashing heads with his old Crew. Piling on the mistakes until he had built a razor-wire cage of his own making. Cutting his own path up from hired muscle all the way to captain of his own ship.

Now, it was worse than impossible. Jun was running out of time, and wasting any fraction of it chasing after Dr. Campbell’s adorable tail was unconscionable.

Jun pulled up the translation database on his pad and laid out the single precious hardcopy of his parents’ notes alongside.

This was what Jun should be focused on. He owed that to the memory of the greatest minds he had ever known. A pair of Core scientists who had fled to the Restricted Sector with a terrible burden of knowledge. And one inadequate son.

He might have been a bitter disappointment for most of his life, but he was seeing things more clearly now. The path before him was set, and no amount of distraction, however lovely, could divert him off course.

The stakes were too high for that.

He chewed his lip as he flipped through his findings.

Twenty languages, and Jun was only three-quarters of the way through, every passage a new revelation and every revelation tightening the noose.

There was no denying the timeline. Two months and three days.

Seven hours, twenty-six minutes, and twelve seconds.

Five passages left, and within them, the fate of tens of thousands.

After opening a new document, Jun copied over the remaining passages, making sure nothing else carried over. The information was too precious to risk a leak.

As innocent and harmless as Theophrastus Campbell appeared on the surface, Jun had been burned too many times to lay his trust at the feet of a man he had known for less than three days.

Intimately, for less than two.

Shutting that chain of thought down and throwing it in a padlocked box in the basement of his mind, Jun transferred the document onto a carefully disabled pad. He had painstakingly disconnected it and rendered all but basic word processing impossible as a precautionary measure.

Sometimes it felt like every move Jun made was a precautionary measure.

Except the way he had moved on Theo, shoving him up against the wall like an animal, every gasp and slide of soft, pale flesh a lightning strike bringing Jun back to life after years out here in the dark.

Focus.

Padlocked box. Basement.

Two months, three days, seven hours, and twenty-five minutes now.

The galaxy didn’t need him to get distracted by a pair of intelligent eyes in a pretty face.

The galaxy needed a hero.

Unfortunately for the rusted galaxy, all they had was Park Jun-Seo, prodigal son and reformed thug.

Mostly reformed.

He was working on it.

It would be easier if everything weren’t so aggravating all of the time. His rage waited so close to the surface, only requiring a tiny scratch to burst through.

Mindfulness, Dr. Park Min-Seo would have reminded him in that light, disheartened tone he reserved for his only son.

Discipline.

Focus.

Jun closed and locked all traces of the notes and tucked the hard copy away in the small uncrackable vault he had sourced from a first sector bank. Sourced, selected, extracted, and rehomed aboard his ship.

“Stolen” was such an ugly word.

As riddled with regret as his misspent youth may have left him, there were some skills he couldn’t have learned any other way, and for that he was grateful.

He’d still shoot his ex-captain in the heart if they ever came face-to-face again, but he was grateful for the lessons. Captain Barnes had been keen on instilling harsh lessons in his Crew. Prided himself on his callous, bloody mentorship of wayward youths like Jun had once been.

Kill or be killed. Trust no one.

How to take a hit without slowing down. Larceny and smuggling and the delicate art of infiltrating the data stream without detection.

Betrayal.

All important lessons, leaving him with as much self-loathing as self-reliance.

It was a fair trade.

Jun absently traced over the disconnected circuits on his neck, pressing against the phantom itch of data he was no longer plugged into, the remembered pain of disconnection keeping his touch wary.

He’d have had the empty circuits stripped from beneath his skin, but the process was as expensive as it was time-consuming, and time was the one commodity he was desperately low on.

Money was a close second.

He turned his head at a knock on the door of the command center, tucking the disabled pad away, down a hidden pocket of his pants.

“What,” he barked, hoping an aggressive greeting would be enough to forestall whatever bullshit awaited on the other side of the door.

The door slid open, the heavy clomp of tiny feet in giant boots telling him he was out of luck before he even got a look at Boom’s ticked-off face. “So we’re trading Dolls now, Captain? I thought you left your old Crew because you couldn’t stomach the business.”

Jun turned away, pulled up a surveillance data stream of the surrounding area, and pretended to study it, still clinging to the hope that she might go away. “Not trading. And he’s not a Doll.”

Boom sauntered over with her distinctive aggressive sway and hitched her hip up onto the console next to him. She stared him down. “Hmm, looks like a Doll, talks like a Doll, kept by some asshole against his will like a Doll, must be a fucking duck, then.”

Jun groaned. Giving up on the pretense of working surveillance, he met her sharp gaze. “It’s temporary. I need him to interpret the last of my notes. So we can finally move forward. Then I’ll set him free.”

Boom shot him a scathing look as she flicked her fingers to load a charge of her wrist blasters, the augments glowing ominously brighter. “Yeah. I’m sure lots of houses tell the Dolls it’s temporary. Because temporary enslavement is just fine, right? You’re a regular hero, Park.”

Jun set his jaw and turned back determinedly to his screen, each of her words salt in the wound of his guilt. “It’s none of your business. Keep your mind on security, and you’ll get your cut.”

Boom sneered as she leaned into Jun’s space, her augments whining with the building charge. Half his size and not an ounce of fear. Although that was probably because Boom was, arguably, his best friend.

If Jun had the time for friends.

Or the disposition.

“Me and Marco don’t want a cut if it comes out of Doll trading. Either you set him free, or you admit that you’ve started a collection here on our ship so I can go ahead and slit your lying throat.”

Closing out of the surveillance projections to give his hands something to slap away, Jun snarled, “My ship. And you’re dismissed, Valdez.”

Boom hopped down from the console, nose to sternum with Jun and eyes ready to set him on fire. She held a hand to his throat, weaponized fingers resting against his windpipe. “Get stuffed, Park.”

Boom glanced pointedly down at the knuckles of Jun’s Honor hand while he silently counted to ten and then twenty and then gave up and growled, earning only an unamused glare in response. “Not terribly honorable, is it? Taking advantage of a scared little Doll under your authority? I’m disappointed in you, Captain.”

She removed her hand with a low drone of it charging down, and Jun turned to walk over to the navigations console. He pulled up their trajectory in an attempt to make it look less like the retreat that it was. “I’m devastated.”

Boom’s silence was worse than her angry tirade, weighing down the center of Jun’s chest while he waited for the hammer to drop.

“I saw his face,” she said finally.

Jun didn’t have to look up to know her expression had hardened, to see her mouth set with fury.

“What happened? Did he try to resist? Disobey orders? Too much backtalk for big, bad Captain Park? He can’t weigh half what you do, you prick.”

Jun snapped his head to the side, matching her furious tone with a hard stare. “I didn’t hurt him.”

Jun would have loved to have been able to say he hadn’t touched him at all, but—

That ship had sailed, at fucking hyperspeed.

Because Theo was a beautiful, brilliant brat. And Jun was an asshole with, apparently, no self-control despite years dedicated to building it up.

All of that hard work, and his control melted like candy in the rain under Theo’s slightest advance. Jun had never met anyone who could have such a profound effect on him.

It was terrifying.

Boom lifted her chin, her heart-shaped face sharp with challenge. “That bruise says you’re a liar.”

With a breath of frustration, Jun turned to give Boom raised eyebrows. “That bruise says his seat on the dinghy collapsed into spare parts.”

Fury melted away into consideration on her face, the steel loosening from her spine, vertebrae by vertebrae. “Oh. Yeah, Marco mentioned you brought it back in pieces.”

Jun’s expression said “no shit,” but he kept his words civil. “Barely made it back across.”

Boom stared at him with that weighted, expectant silence, and Jun leaned back against the console with a sigh.

“You know I don’t run Crew with a raised fist, Boom.”

She nodded and slid a small blade from her thigh holster. Picking at her fingernails with it, she made a perfect picture of threatening nonchalance. It made Jun grin like an idiot, his lips curling up at the corners before he could tame them down again.

“Yeah, but I also know you used to run with the big boys. You learned your leadership skills at the knee of a fucking sadist. I’ve seen you take down a man for looking at you wrong. Why would you be different with some Doll?”

Jun dropped his poker face, overcome by a rare wave of vulnerable honesty. “I’m different with you. And Marco. And even Axel, which is a daily struggle.”

Boom shrugged, slipping her blade back into place. “Well, yeah, but we’re—” She closed her mouth around words that might have started to veer too close to sentimentality for comfort, both of them relieved by the restraint.

An unholy light started to gleam in her eye; her full lips stretched into an evil smile. “Oh, I see. He’s not just some Doll, is he?”

Jun tried to cut that line of thought off as quickly as possible, standing up straighter in alarm. “I told you; he’s here to work.”

Boom examined him up and down as if she might find clues written out across his body. Jun resisted the sudden urge to check his fly, arranging his face back to antagonistic blankness.

“Not just that,” she continued, not giving him a chance to continue. “You’ve picked up another stray for your little ragtag band of misfits. Our ugly little family. You like him, don’t you? You like-like him. Look at your face. That’s adorable, Park. Really cute.”

Jun pushed away from the console, opting for a strategic retreat. “Fuck off.”

As he passed, Boom patted his cheek with a throaty laugh. “Adorable!”
Jun refused to respond as he made his way down the hall to the makeshift brig.

The fact that it was really just the first mate’s cabin with three extra layers of security helped to alleviate the guilt of putting Theo under lock and key when he had done nothing wrong.

Among the endless line of dead philosophers Jun had been made to study, there was an ancient scholar who’d said something about ends justifying means.

Jun’s end was so important it could justify far more than locking an innocent professor away for a few weeks.

According to Jun’s moral compass anyway. Which he’d been assured was in very poor condition, but fuck it.

When he weighed destruction and death for countless, faceless innocents against unwarranted upheaval in the life of one man, he chose the lesser of two evils. No matter how appealing the man had turned out to be.

Seven hours, four minutes.

Jun had never gotten ocular or cerebral augments, but it felt like he had a digital timer in the top left corner of his brain, flashing numbers as the time scrolled by. Every morning, he opened his eyes to the new set of numbers, dreading the chunk of time carved away by the necessity of sleep.

He entered the code that activated the bio-locks and opened the chamber door without knocking.

It was his ship, damn it. The captain shouldn’t have to knock. Boom could shove her personal privacy bullshit down the garbage chute.

Jun wasn’t lurking. Boom always claimed he was, while throwing objects at his head when he entered a room without announcement.

He was the captain, and this was his ship. Simple as that.

Theo lay on his stomach on the bed, nude from the waist up, bare feet crossed at the ankle and swaying in the air above his pert little bottom as he lazily paged through a book.

He glanced up at Jun’s entrance, tossing his silky hair over his shoulder, beautiful face a picture of unconcerned inquiry.

Jun’s heart made an excellent impression of a battering ram at the cut of light across the delicate shadows of his collarbones.

Maybe he should have knocked.

Theo looked back down at his book, and Jun’s skin grew tight with displeasure. He wanted Theo’s attention as much as he wanted to put him right back where he had found him, and the conflict between the two made Jun irritable.

He stalked over to the bed, snatched the book, and held it up over his head. “Where did you get this?”

Theo sat up on his knees, feet tucked elegantly beneath him as he felt along the sheets for his discarded shirt. He held it up against his chest in a show of modesty that was far too little, far too late.

Jun had once been able to go about his days, blissfully unaware of the exact delicious shade of strawberry-pink of Theo’s nipples.

He could kiss that goodbye, now. There wasn’t a padlocked box big enough to contain all the images of Theo’s perfect body seared into Jun’s brain.

He was going to see creamy, freckled skin and bright, silky hair in his stars-cursed sleep.

Theo blinked wide, innocent eyes up at Jun as though he hadn’t been deep-throating his cock like a rusted professional not an hour before. “Axel gave it to me. He didn’t wish for me to die of boredom while you decided how long I was going to be locked away. He’s quite a jocular fellow; I can see why you would want him on your crew.”

Irrational jealousy threatened to rise in a surge of undeserved possessiveness. Axel was a good guy, if a little heavy-handed with his humor. He was personable in a way that Jun never was and never could be.

Despite knowing full well Theo was in no way Axel’s usual type, Jun had to suppress the urge to stake a claim.

Theo was his. Jun had him first.

A guy like Axel wouldn’t know what to do with him, wouldn’t be able to give him what he needed. Wouldn’t be able to make him shiver and cry out and roll those beautiful, intelligent eyes back in bliss.

No. Focus. No time for that.

Padlocked box, locked in the basement, flooded with ice water.

Jun dropped the book on the bed, pulled out the pad, and placed it alongside.

Theo let his shirt fall to his knees as he picked up the pad, his face an open question.

“There are five passages on that pad. Translate them. Tell no one what you find. Keep all notes on that pad only. I am the only one you can discuss this with. Is that clear?” Jun needed to keep this short, eager to leave before he did something he would regret. Again.

Theo fired up the pad, nibbling on his lip in a way that made Jun tighten his thighs against the urge to pounce and nibble it for him. “Nothing about this is clear, I’m afraid. You are something of an enigma, Captain Park.”

Jun had heard that before, from men he had picked up for the night. Waxing poetic over how mysterious he was. People never seemed to realize that sometimes a person didn’t talk about themselves because there was nothing good to say. “Get it done. I’ll be back in the morning.”

Theo sputtered out a protest that Jun allowed to bounce off of his back as he strode out the door. He locked it and sagged back against it in the empty hallway.

Six hours. Thirty-seven minutes and ten seconds.

Nine seconds.

Eight.

Theo’s eyes were so green. Jun hadn’t known eyes could be that vibrant without augmentation. He hadn’t known eyes could reach inside you like that, shining a light on all of the places Jun worked so hard to hide about himself. Soft, vulnerable places he tried to cover up with plates of armor and hard expressions.

Places that didn’t deserve to be seen, that he had hollowed out himself with a rusty spoon like a prisoner attempting escape.

Theo had cracked him open without even trying, and Jun was—

Six.

Five.

Four.

He was so. Fucked.