Chapter Nineteen

Theo wore his cravat to the bridge in the morning, the thin layer of linen and lace covering up the enduring marks Jun had left in the shape of his mouth.

It was strangely akin to the imagined sensation of wearing a lover’s locket tucked away beneath his clothes. Something beautiful and secret, a trifle risqué, that only Theo and Jun knew about.

The very thought of such a thing brought a spring to his step. The rest of the Crew did not share his jocular mood.

Marco rushed in and out of the bridge with various small metal parts for Jun’s inspection, until one finally passed muster and he jetted off to his lair in the bowels of the ship, cursing in Patch.

Theo now had a decent (or, rather, indecent) vocabulary built up in the language.

He had yet to use it and was waiting for just the right opportunity to catch Jun unawares. To make him smile, perhaps.

Every one of Axel’s screens held maps and figures that scrolled too rapidly for Theo to follow as the pilot worked at his station with unusual focus, not a snack in sight.

Boom and Jun stood grim-faced before their stations, shouting back and forth with tense, clipped voices. “Orders, Captain?” Boom asked.

So many screens hung open above Jun’s console that the translucent rectangles overlapped one another. He moved one angrily aside with the cut of his hand. “Commence defensive preparations. Our contact will be waiting on Drei X in six hours.”

Grimacing, Boom entered something into her console that caused one of the dozens of closed doors on her screen to slide open and reveal a stack of metal crates somewhere inside the ship. “Drei X? They really don’t want to be seen in our company if they’re dragging us all the way out to the Wastes.”

Still focused on his screens, Axel gave a low, foreboding whistle. “You gotta admit, we don’t exactly have a stellar reputation. Makes sense to lay low. Keep our grubby little noses out of big Crew business.”

Jun swiped away three more screens with a growl. “Cowardice is never rewarded.”

Cracking his neck, Axel leaned back in his seat with a disdainful snort. “Yeah, okay. Thank you for that dour bit of wisdom, Captain. Where are you gonna get that one tattooed? I think there’s still some space left on your pinky.”

Theo stood up from his seat in objection, pad clutched in hand. “Surely adding a second condemnation of cowardice to his knuckles would be the height of redundancy.”

A small scoff from Boom drew Jun’s scowl. But Theo’s attention remained on Axel when he made a high-pitched sound of epiphany.

“Oh, I get it, now,” Axel crowed. “You’re both pretentious assholes. That’s why you go so well together. You know, me and Marco”—he blithely ignored Marco’s shout of protest over the open coms at being included in the conversation—“we’ve been trying to puzzle it out. Like, is it just chemistry? Opposites attract? Novelty? But, no. There’s more to it than that. You’re both huge fucking nerds. You deserve each other.”

The storm clouds in Jun’s face gathered and intensified in such a foreboding manner that Theo stepped in to divert the next lightning strike, offering himself up as a sacrificial lightning rod. “I believe I would like to see these Wastes. I’m coming with you when you drop.”

“Make the drop!” Marco shouted over the coms, then cursed and hammered at something that echoed through the speakers.

Theo was forced to raise his voice to be heard over the clanging. “Yes, that. I’m coming with you to make the drop. It would be lovely to take a stroll planetside after being cooped up on the ship for so long.”

He didn’t need to wait for the lightning strike.

Jun’s hand clamped down around his wrist. “You’re staying aboard.”

Theo pretended to give it some thought, lightly tapping his chin, and then reached out to boop the rounded end of Jun’s nose. “No, I don’t think so. I’m coming along.”

A smooth, sharp snick of metal on metal drew their attention to the side, where Boom had drawn a pair of wicked-looking knives from her thigh holster. She balanced one on her fingertip with a wide, friendly smile.

Jun abruptly released Theo’s wrist and pointed a finger in his face. “No. You’re not.”

It was a struggle not to become distracted by either the tantalizing stretch of Jun’s neck as he stood at full height to loom over Theo, or the dangerous juggling act Boom was performing off to the side, a third knife having been added to the array.

Theo focused on Jun’s dark, flashing eyes, lifting his brow imperiously. “How do you propose to stop me, Captain?”

He wasn’t imagining the way Jun swayed into him, nearly curled around him as Theo leaned back against the console.

“I could tape you to the chair again,” Jun growled.

Marco shouted “Gross!” through the coms at the same time that his sister made a tiny retching sound in the back of her throat. One of her knives fell to the floor with a tink. Axel just started crunching something that sounded as if it could not be any good for his teeth.

Raising to his full height as well, Theo jutted his chin defiantly. “I would simply gnaw through the tape and start pressing buttons on Axel’s console just to prove a point.”

Jun’s growl dragged so low it hit Theo in the gut like a ball of fire, melting his insides until his blood burned. “I could tie you up and toss you into your bunk to wait for me.”

“Guys! Turn off your coms, please!” Marco’s plaintive wail of protest was underscored by Axel spitting out a mouthful of shells and leaning over his com to shout back: “If we suffer, then so do you, Valdez!”

The rest of the Crew might as well have not existed for all the attention Jun paid to their antics. He was focused entirely on Theo.

It was the stuff of dreams, really.

Some of the molten devastation Jun had wrought trickled into Theo’s voice as he refused to look away from Jun’s glare. “Yes, I suppose you could, if you wanted to. I have a plethora of ideas regarding that scenario if you’d care to hear them. Hand me your pad, and I’ll draw up some diagrams for you.”

Theo batted his lashes fetchingly, endlessly amused when Jun actually blushed and glanced away.

Her knives secured in their holster once more, Boom groaned at Theo over Jun’s shoulder. “This is all very disturbing and far more information about Park’s private life than I, personally, ever wanted to know, so if you could just. Not. That would be great.”

Axel had to pitch his voice higher to be heard over the sound of his rapid typing and continued snacking, “Oh, come on, Boom. We knew. That scowl? That entire wardrobe of black synth-leather? Not to mention his raging, throbbing enthusiasm for being in command at all times.”

“Axel. Airlock,” Jun barked out over the tail end of Axel’s list, his shoulders tense and cheeks still flushed.

Axel raised one hand palm out while his attachment continued typing. “Sorry, sorry. It’s just, you’re not exactly subtle.”

“As subtle as a hunk of iron,” Marco muttered darkly, then dropped something that rolled away from the com with a slowly fading rattle.

Biting back a grin, Theo leaned his hip against Jun’s console and butted shoulders with the mortified captain. Stars, but he was cute when he was flustered. “He has a point, Jun.”

Jun grabbed onto his shirtfront with one tight fist, forcing a gasp from Theo as he brought him up onto his toes. Jun’s eyes were dilated, his lips parted around heavy breaths. It was only by the greatest force of will that Theo didn’t climb him like a particularly grouchy tree. “Theo, if you do not shut your mouth, I swear you will not leave your bunk again until this entire mess is finished.”

Sighing dramatically, Axel typed one last thing with a flourish. “See? It’s shit like that, Park. You’re calling yourself out, here.”

Theo wound his hands around Jun’s straining wrist. He allowed his thumb to sweep a tiny circle over the trail of ink that curved across Jun’s wrist bone, and Jun let go as suddenly as he had grabbed onto him.

“You’re staying here, and that’s final.”

Boom appeared astounded at the giggle that escaped Theo at Jun’s proclamation. She seemed to think he ought to be intimidated. More fool, her.

“Ooh, an ultimatum. I’m quaking in my spats, Captain.” Theo smirked.

Jun took in Theo’s aforementioned spats with a slowly dawning expression of triumph. “You can’t go to the Wastes. Not dressed like that.”

There had never been a time in Theo’s life when he’d been particularly receptive to criticisms of his wardrobe. A lifetime of bickering with his twin drew his spine up straight in affront. “Whyever not? I’m properly attired. I’ll have you know that my tailor is very well regarded in the most fashionable circles.”

Axel broke in with a wave of his arm, attachment switched back to the pointer. “Well, first off, wearing that? Around here? You’re practically a walking advertisement for a kidnapping.”

Theo smoothed down his admittedly rumpled shirt in a moment of contemplation. “Yes, I do seem prone to those.”

The pilot’s chair squealed with rusty springs when Axel hopped to his feet. “Secondly, I’ve got something that would help you fit in much better.”

Jun made a threatening noise in his throat as he whipped his head toward Axel, who blithely ignored him, too busy sizing up Theo.

He swept a disdainful look over Theo’s outfit, which Theo personally considered to be unwarranted. His trousers were excellent quality velvet, and as Theo’s tailor had been quite intimately acquainted with his proportions, they were perfectly fitted. Horacio had been great fun, if a little too gentle for Theo’s tastes.

Tailors had very nimble fingers, after all.

Arms crossed tightly over his chest, putting both muscles and guns on display, Jun glared at Axel. “Don’t even think about it. Dr. Campbell wouldn’t be comfortable outside of his proper little Britannian clothing.”

Theo would like to think that he tossed his hip out coquettishly, hair streaming over his shoulders in a waterfall of silk. The reality was probably closer to an awkwardly bent knee and an invisible yet tenacious strand of hair caught in the corner of his lips.

He spit it out as discreetly as possible. “Propriety has always been nothing more to me than a monstrously heavy set of shackles, which I am more than willing to cast aside. It isn’t a particularly good fit for someone like me anyway. I would be glad to be free of it.”

Boom latched onto that, pausing at whatever she was typing into Jun’s console. “Someone like you?”

It was incredibly refreshing that she didn’t immediately know what he meant. That the entire Crew seemed to be at a loss. Theo wasn’t used to being considered proper in any way. Much to his surprise, he was kind of enjoying it. “Oh, I suppose you may not be aware, but back home, I am considered to be somewhat unconventional. Those concerned with propriety often find me off-putting.”

Jun’s feet shuffled enough that his leg pressed against Theo’s, and rather than moving away again, he left it there. Just…touching. Such a small thing ought not to have any effect on Theo’s composure, but he found himself stifling a gasp at the contact. At the implications of familiarity. Intimacy.

The light in Jun’s gaze only emphasized those implications, affection tinting his voice. “Unconventional’s one way to say it.”

The prickling burn of a flush started in Theo’s scalp and washed down over his face. He waved his arms to distract from his undoubtedly pink cheeks. “Odd. Annoying. Dramatic. Overwhelming. Vulgar. Take your pick; I’ve heard it all. People have never suffered from a lack of things to say about me.”

There was a moment where Jun pressed more firmly against him as if in support, and then he withdrew entirely. Theo barely restrained himself from reaching out for him in his retreat.

To his shock and delight, Jun was the one who reached out, skimming his knuckles over Theo’s chin before he teased away the last strands of hair that were still caught in his mouth. “One thing you are not, is underwhelming.”

He turned away so quickly Theo very nearly missed the blush that burned his ears. Nearly.

Theo gave chase as Jun began to walk off of the bridge, dogging his heels. “Wait. Was that a compliment? Jun? Say it again.”

Jun paused at the door to tap something into the panel. “No.”

The combined forces of Jun’s blush and the embarrassed tone to his voice made Theo want to float to the ceiling with glee. “No, that wasn’t a compliment, or, no, you won’t be repeating yourself?”

Jun didn’t answer, focusing instead on Axel with a severe expression. “Set our course for Drei X, and leave Dr. Campbell alone. Boom, follow me.”

Theo held in his laughter at Axel’s silent mimicry of Jun’s face until Jun and Boom had left the bridge, but it was a very near thing.

It wasn’t that he didn’t love Jun’s face and the effortless way he exuded a dark cloud of masculine rage; it was more that—

Oh.

Oh, dear.

Theo loved Jun’s face.

He loved—

“So, you and Captain Park, huh? I was kinda joking before. But I gotta say, he’s not reacting as if it’s a joke to him. Park can take a surprising amount of razzing, but when you hit too close to the bone, he’ll bite your head off.”

Theo avoided the question by locking up his pad with a noncommittal hum. Thankfully, Axel didn’t notice the slight tremble in his hands.