Chapter Thirteen

The bridge was fully manned by the time Theo returned the next day, pad in hand and new translations on the tip of his tongue.

Jun stood at the central console, upright and alert, bringing to mind the oft-revisited image of Professor Gladwell at his lectern.

Although, Theo’s memory of Professor Gladwell paled in comparison to the sight of Jun commanding his ship.

It was not unlike comparing a poodle to a wolf, actually. One, all elegant lines and placid restraint, and the other, bristling with barely contained raw power. Axel sat in the same place Theo had first discovered him, only five screens open and none of them noticeably pornographic. Theo was sure that had something to do with Jun’s stance at the console directly behind Axel’s station.

Boom leaned over another console off to the side, surrounded by dozens of tiny screens streaming images from all over the ship, both interior and exterior. Theo could see Marco working with some wiring on the engine room screen.

Boom’s head swiveled in Theo’s direction as he walked in, eyes raking him over, and then she turned back to her screens in clear dismissal.

Once he had scanned the room, Theo decided on the console across the wall from Boom. He tried to walk over quietly and settle in the chair with minimum disruption, but in the time-honored tradition of Theo’s efforts to keep quiet, he failed in spectacular fashion. He carefully, slowly placed his pad directly on top of something that set off flashing blue lights and a wailing siren throughout the ship.

Axel cursed loudly in Patch, slamming his hand over one of his ears as Jun turned with full-bodied disapproval in Theo’s direction.

After stalking over to yank Theo’s pad away, Boom pulled up a projection screen and entered in a series of complex codes. The lights and siren cut off abruptly, Axel’s continued shouting amplified in the sudden absence of sound.

Boom reached behind the console and retrieved a thick plexiboard. She slammed it down across the panel and locked it in place with efficient movements.

It was a scramble for Theo to catch his pad as she tossed it over her shoulder and stomped back to her console with a long-suffering sigh.

The heat of a deep blush crept along the roots of his hair and ran beneath his open collar. He had decided, given the casual apparel of his crew mates, to forgo his waistcoat and cravat. There was something deliciously thrilling in going about his day half-dressed. Now, however, he felt a trifle too exposed under their universally disapproving glares.

Plastering on a winning smile, he waved his pad cheerily as he swiveled his chair side to side. “I suppose that is one way to wake everyone up, isn’t it? While I have your attention, allow me to wish a splendid morning to you all! Isn’t it a perfectly lovely day? I was just thinking how delightful it was to begin the day with fresh fruit. Exceedingly rare to enjoy such a luxury on interplanetary journeys.”

Axel turned his glare on Jun, who twisted his face in a slight wince, avoiding Axel’s eyes. “Wait. I thought you said we were out of fruit? Why does he get fruit, Captain?”

Jun ignored Axel entirely and focused on Theo. He rolled his shoulders beneath his holster and clasped his hands behind his back, standing straight and tall and about ten times more still than Theo had ever managed in his life. “What are you doing here?”

It was difficult for Theo to maintain his smile under the blunt force of Jun’s scowl. “I thought it might be nice to continue my work up here with all of you. I am not much of a solitary creature, I’m afraid. I do my best work in the company of others. Silence and solitude are never my companions of choice.”

Scrutinizing Theo from his fidgeting spats to his finger-combed hair, Jun gave a sharp nod and turned back to his console.

Axel watched Jun’s every motion with a slowly spreading grin. His eyes twinkled at Theo as Jun turned away. “Whatcha working on, dollface?”

Jun stiffened at the nickname and turned the heat of his frown on Axel. Axel appeared completely immune as he unconcernedly picked his teeth with a narrow, sharp attachment on his arm.

Attention on his pad, Theo remained determined to keep his word. “I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to say.”

Axel whistled obnoxiously, boots thunking as he propped them on the dash. “Top secret, is it? Bet the captain’s got you keeping all kinds of secrets, huh, Doll?”

“He’s not a Doll,” Jun snapped. “And boots on the floor, pilot, or I’ll take every scuff and scratch on that console out of your pay.”

Axel dropped his boots, muttering petulantly in Patch.

Ignoring him, Jun turned his head fractionally in Theo’s direction. “Dr. Campbell.”

Theo frowned, confused by his formal address. He waved a hand magnanimously. “Oh, do call me Theo, please. Dr. Campbell has always suited my father and brother far better than it ever suited me. I’m not one to stand upon ceremony. There’s something about the air of authority the title lends that has never seemed to agree with me. Perhaps because I never seem to agree with authority either.”

Jun’s expression glazed over as Theo rambled, then sharpened when he paused for breath. “Theo. Have you made progress?”

Everyone on the bridge seemed focused on their conversation. Theo arched an inquisitive brow at Jun. “Am I permitted to discuss the particulars, Captain?”

Jun’s face hardened. Theo had not realized how relaxed the captain had been until suddenly he wasn’t anymore. His whole body shifted into something bigger and meaner, and oh, stars, Theo really ought to be concerned with his own lack of self-preservation instincts. Because a bigger and meaner Jun looked absolutely scrumptious to him.

“No details. Just tell me how much is left.”

Theo concealed his shiver at the rolling depth of Jun’s voice by fidgeting with his pad. He shifted to cross his legs in his chair. “It isn’t an entirely linear process, you understand. Sometimes, I can translate bits and pieces that lead me on a meandering path to entire phrases, but the initial translations tend to be quite scattered.”

“Percentage,” Jun barked, sending Theo jolting in his seat and scrabbling to catch his pad.

“Oh, well, maths are hardly my area of expertise, but I would say perhaps 20 percent of the passage has been translated. Given considerable room for error in my statistics.”

Jun continued to stare him down, face hard and shoulders square. Theo did his utmost to avoid either melting into the floor or climbing those shoulders. He had the distinct impression that neither response would be appreciated.

“Acceptable.”

The release of pressure when Jun cut his eyes away left Theo inhaling shakily as he squirmed in his seat.

His mind drifted through poetic raptures over the captain’s spectacular rear view when he turned to bark at Boom in Patch, sending her swiping through vid feeds of the ship exterior with a frown.

Theo explored new ways to sit in his chair after he refocused on the passage, curling one knee underneath himself as he lay on his side, head propped against the armrest.

The rest of the crew settled into acting as if he wasn’t there. Axel provided running commentary on everything from funny animal vids to exotic cuisine while Jun and Boom answered with monosyllabic grunts and the occasional mild threat.

Theo rather enjoyed the novelty of being the quiet one in the room. It had never happened to him before. Possibly due in part to the constant presence of his painfully shy twin.

There was a sharp twinge in his chest at the thought of Ari, back home and alone. By now, he must have spoken with everyone who Theo usually interacted with so Ari didn’t have to. Even their gregarious postman, whose insistence on small talk practically gave Ari hives. Poor darling.

Theo hoped Ari was not holed up in his laboratory, gazing lovingly at his rocks while he wasted away from malnourishment. Never mind the fact that it was typically Ari who had to remind Theo to eat. Without Theo bustling around, would Ari ever consider leaving his beloved laboratory at all?

He had always preferred rocks to people. “Minerals,” he would have corrected Theo scathingly. Honestly, one would think he had never—

Theo straightened in his seat, fingers flying across his pad as words slotted neatly into place within his mind, each one building upon the next as they sharpened and honed down into coherency. The familiar thrill of discovery coursed through his veins, sending him to his feet as he finished decoding a new chunk of text. “Jun?”

Jun’s shoulders tightened as he glanced over his shoulder with eyebrows so daunting Theo might have thought twice about approaching. Had he been the type to think twice about anything. “Pardon me, Captain.” He corrected himself with a roll of his eyes, ignoring Axel’s snort of amusement. “Would it please you to know the translation of the first significant portion of this passage? I can always return later if this is an inopportune time. You do seem to be terribly busy with distributing your unpleasant disposition evenly amongst your crew.”

Boom’s snort outshone Axel’s in both volume and duration.

Jun didn’t spare her an ounce of his attention. Instead, he made a sharp gesture with his chin toward the door, then stalked through with the clear expectation Theo was to follow.

Scrambling after him, Theo knocked his elbow into a switch that thankfully did not seem to trigger any lights or sirens. He flipped it back to the original position as discreetly as possible, just in case.

Jun waited for him in the corridor, arms crossed and brows lowered.

Theo held up his pad as he approached. “If you would care to look here, I can explain the—”

Without a word, Jun snatched the pad and turned away. He stepped into the battered lift and slapped the control panel. Theo barely made it inside before the door banged shut behind him. Had he been wearing his jacket, his tails might have been caught. The near miss spiked his heart rate as he stumbled into the lift.

When the door opened onto the second level, Jun tucked the pad under his arm and slid his hand loosely around Theo’s wrist. The line where Theo’s shirt cuff ended and their skin pressed together buzzed with awareness. He found himself staring down at Jun’s rough hand around the fine bones of his wrist.

Theo barely noticed where they were headed until another door shut behind him, this time with a generous inch to spare. Jun released his wrist, and Theo shook his head to get it out of the clouds.

Jun took a step into his bedchamber, tucking his Honor hand into a fist as he held up the pad with the other. “Show me.”

Suppressing a shiver at the memory of those words in this room, Theo rolled his lips in his teeth against a smile. He must not have been entirely successful, judging by the flash of heat in Jun’s face. Jun shut it down with visible effort, and his expression went hard and cold once again.

“Sometime today, Doctor.”

It wasn’t an endearment, not really. More a statement of fact, the use of Theo’s academic title. But that didn’t stop his heart from doing a happy little skip as he took the pad and pulled up his translations. “I’ve been working on this passage, and it seems to be part of the notes for some kind of schematic—for an extremely large barrier field. Impossibly large. The notes express concern over catastrophic failure.”

Jun nodded as though this was no surprise, every line of his body tight with impatience as Theo continued.

“The real giddypony of it is that even once I have translated a passage, it still appears to be in some sort of code.”

Jun’s forehead scrunched as he mouthed giddypony, then waved his hand for Theo to go on—something that had so rarely happened to him that he did a little wriggle of excitement.

“Yes, so, as I said, there’s a secondary code. But luckily, it was the work of a few hours for me to open it up and begin to parse my way through—”

He made an indignant sound as Jun seized the pad and proceeded to scroll furiously. He then stopped and frowned at Theo menacingly.

Which, really, ought not to have the tightening effect upon his trousers that it did, but, alas.

“You cracked the code?”

Theo fell back a step as Jun advanced, wielding the pad like a weapon. “Well, yes. It was quite a twister, but I muddled my way through, which, you’ll be pleased to know, should help me accelerate the rest of the translation.”

Jun did not appear particularly pleased to know that. He appeared irate. Volatile. Dangerous. “There is no way you cracked this code in a few hours.”

Despite the flat, even delivery, Theo still heard a familiar and unwelcome emphasis on the word “you.” He drew himself up to the same posture he used when confronted with skeptics in his field. “There is one particular manner in which I cracked this code, and it was the method that I used. You’re welcome, by the way.”

The expression on Jun’s face was not particularly thankful as he tucked the pad in his pocket and stepped toe-to-toe with Theo, using his extra inches of height to his advantage. “Who are you?”

Offering a smile didn’t seem to have any effect on Jun’s intimidating stance, but Theo gave his best effort anyway. “I believe we have already been introduced, Captain Park. And made each other’s acquaintance. Quite well, as a matter of fact.”

The breath shot from his lungs as Jun grabbed the front of his shirt and lifted him up on his toes with a snarl. “Who do you work for?”

Slowly, carefully, Theo wrapped his hands around Jun’s fist, lightly tracing the spill of ink across his knuckles as he blinked up into his face. “Technically, I’m still employed by the Department of Linguistics, but in actuality, I appear to be working for you.”

He gasped, tilting his head with the motion as Jun shot one hand out to lightly circle his throat, two fingers pressed to his pulse.

This close, Theo could see that his irises weren’t black, not really. They were closer to the swirling dark of space, lit by the burning wreckage of stars all around them. Not flat black at all, but limitless. Drawing Theo irresistibly in as Jun growled low in his chest, “Are you lying?”

Theo swallowed against the hand over his throat, rubbed his thumb softly across the knob of bone at Jun’s thick wrist. There was no pressure on his air supply, but his voice rasped nonetheless. “I speak only the truth, Captain.”

Jun’s face struggled through anger and confusion before finally settling upon astonishment.

He lowered Theo’s heels to the floor. Flattening his grip on his shirtfront, he slid a palm across his chest and cupped his shoulder. “You’re not lying.”

Theo would have shaken his head were it not still held in place by the gentle grasp of Jun’s rough, warm hand gliding up his jaw to frame his face. “No. I’m not.”

Jun’s lips parted as if to speak, but nothing came. His gaze fell to Theo’s lips instead, his nostrils flaring as his brows drew together. “You cracked the code I’ve been working on for two years.” His growl had fallen away, leaving his voice soft and low. “By yourself. In a day.”

Theo squirmed a bit under his scrutiny, accustomed to the irritation of his peers when he sailed ahead on some project they seemed to struggle with. “Yes. It would appear so. I’m terribly sorry if—”

Shaking his head slowly, Jun grazed the broad pad of his thumb just below Theo’s bottom lip and whispered softly, “You’re astonishing.”

Oh.

That.

Well.

Something rattled loose in Theo’s chest beneath Jun’s honest regard, thumping madly against his ribs, bounding free and unfettered for the first time.

His skin burned with the force of his blush, sneaking down his hairline all the way to his chest, surely radiating heat beneath Jun’s hand. “Oh, no. I simply worked out the pattern through cross-analyzing the languages chosen, and—”

Jun cupped the back of Theo’s head, fingers gentle in his hair, and angled his face up to meet dark, thoughtful eyes. “Theo. Stop.”

With a click of his teeth, Theo shut his mouth, his skin still burning as his hands fluttered in the scant space between their bodies.

Gently massaging Theo’s scalp, Jun pressed their foreheads together for a brief, endless moment. His warm breath battered Theo’s parted lips with a heavy sigh, and then he released him and stepped back. “You’re amazing. Thank you.”

If Theo’s chin had lifted, just a little, they could have kissed. Easy, simple.

Impossible.

He burned with the absence of it. The heavy weight of longing held him captive in Jun’s arms.

Without Jun to hold him up, Theo slumped back against the wall. “It was nothing, really. I—”

Some of the growl came back into June voice as he stared him down, stars still burning in his deep-space eyes. “No. It was not nothing.”

He pulled the pad out of his pocket and tapped on the deactivated screen insistently, his face as youthful and open as Theo had ever seen it. “Theo, this could—you could be saving countless lives with this. You have no idea.”

Theo brushed the tips of his fingers over Jun’s tight knuckles as he gestured at the pad. “Then, tell me, Jun. I could have plenty of ideas if you would just let me help.”

Jun gave the pad back to Theo but kept hold of it when Theo tried to tug it free. He wrapped his fingers over Theo’s on the pad, his touch light and warm and reaching all the way down into the center of Theo’s loneliness. “I know you could. I’m beginning to suspect there may be nothing you can’t do. But this isn’t something you want to be involved in; trust me.”

Theo hooked Jun’s pinky with his own and held tight when Jun started to retreat, capturing his gaze with a rare serious expression.

“I think you should let me decide that for myself, Captain.”