Hammering his thumb harder than necessary against the seventh pad made the door sigh open. Fayth dragged the Rose Queen into the bay and tried not to notice the curve of a smile on the man’s lips. Ridiculously handsome or not, Fayth was becoming tempted to break his cardinal rule of retrieval and wallop him. Not hard, no—the way he moved the elbow Fayth had gripped too tightly proved he was as delicate as the plants he’d tended—but damn that smile... Too pretty and far too sarcastic for its own good. He shoved the hackpad against the interior door lock.It confirmed the lock the same second several sets of feet clattered to a stop outside. Fayth let out a relieved sigh and turned to face the Rose Queen.Who wasn’t there.“You’ve lost something?” A voice growled from his left.Again with the ‘L’ word; Fayth swung round to tell this newcomer exactly what he thought of him—and froze. Not for the first time, he really, really wished he’d brought a gun.A face that looked dimly familiar glowered over the Rose Queen’s shoulder, one hand raised with a fistful of restraint cord in it. Cord that was wrapped around the Rose Queen’s neck and pulled taut. The other hand held his shoulder with enough force that the crewman’s knuckles were white.The naked crewman.“You should still be asleep,” Fayth said mildly, noting with some relief that the Rose Queen wasn’t struggling. If anything, he seemed to have relaxed, as far as anyone could when they were bare centimeters from being garrotted. “Don’t you think you should put some clothes on before you manhandle someone?”“It’s nothing he hasn’t seen before,” the crewman sneered, tugging lightly on the cord. “How can I get dressed when you’re wearing my uniform?”Fayth shrugged, flashing his best innocent grin at the crewman. “I left you my old shirt and pants, it’s not my fault you’re an exhibitionist. But if you’re that keen on putting your own clothes back on, then here.” In one fluid movement Fayth yanked the red shirt over his head and flung it at the crewman’s face, following it up with his right fist.
I think after this, RQ is going to have to sit down with Fayth and start working on some brain training exercises...Fayth had always thought he worked alone because it was more convenient, left him free to make his own choices; turned out that the fact it meant there was no-one to make sarcastic comments when he screwed up might also be part of it. “Shush,” he muttered, pocketing the hackpad as he scanned rapidly along the line of doors. He hadn’t walked far to reach the ship proper so it had to be down this end, but they all looked the same. His heart sank. Next time he was bringing good old-fashioned low-tech chalk, because running down the corridor shoving his thumb against every access panel until he found the right one wasn’t his idea of fun.Beside him, the Rose Queen let out a strangled noise that may have been a half-suppressed laugh. “I don’t think they’ll put me back in the habitat.”“You’ll be alright. I stole you, remember?” The shouts were getting closer, but their owners weren’t visible yet. More worryingly, the voices behind the door had fallen silent.“You stole me with my consent. They’ll realise that the minute they review the camera footage.”It certainly wasn’t the first three bays, Fayth was sure of that. It was just a shame that the further away his bay was, the nearer it was to the voices. Soon-to-be-approaching voices. “Oh, screw it,” he muttered, and grabbed the Rose Queen’s wrist restraints.The black-haired man stumbled as Fayth pulled him into a trot, but kept his mouth shut as Fayth ran his thumb over the first three panels for good measure. After the fourth and fifth, he didn’t appear able to resist any longer. “Lost again?”“Don’t tempt me into leaving you here,” he snapped, thumbing the sixth door. Nope, not that one either.
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| Alex and Milos. This is actually my most favourite 3D render of them... and ever. |
“Where are you taking him?” The question came from an older crewman with laughter lines around his eyes, his neat black hair fading to white at the temples, who blocked Fayth’s path.“The Captain asked to see him.” Fayth did his best to ignore the Rose Queen’s sudden nervous fidgeting.“Really?” He asked, quirking up one eyebrow.Fayth nodded curtly. “So if you could please let us pass...”“You see,” the crewman said slowly, grey eyes flicking from head to foot and back again, “I’m the Captain and I don’t seem to recall asking anyone to fetch him. Care to enlighten me?”The doors were right there. Fayth gave the Captain his best innocent grin, carefully taking a firm hold of the Rose Queen’s wrist. “Sorry, my mistake. Must’ve been the Vice-Captain instead. Anyway, it was nice to meet you, but since we’ve never been formally introduced, well, I’ve heard I should never talk to strangers—”The Captain’s mouth opened, but Fayth had no idea what he actually said: he’d already broken into a run, dragging a stumbling Rose Queen after him. He almost threw the poor man through the door, spinning and slamming the hackpad’s white plastic unit against the override controls with his momentum. Its tiny screen flashed with digits.The door slid closed inches from the Captain’s face. A deafening alarm filled the corridor that almost, but not quite, drowned out the Captain pounding against the metal and the sound of shouting at the distant end of the docking bay corridor. The white strip lighting dimmed to an ominous red that flashed in time with the klaxon.“You heard you should never talk to strangers?” The Rose Queen snorted, slumping back against the closed door and giving Fayth a distinctly amused look. The red glow turned his eyes a disconcerting shade of purple. “Because that was so effective when I used it ten minutes ago, wasn’t it?”
The man’s expression darkened. “What?”“I don’t talk to strangers,” he repeated, still without looking around. “And they don’t get much stranger than you.”Before Fayth could intervene, the crewman lunged forward and seized a handful of the Rose Queen’s hair. He gasped soundlessly, but even then twisted and tried to free himself while the crewman hissed in his face, “you upstart glorified gardener, who do you think you’re talking to? So high and mighty, when all you really need is a good seeing-to—”The crewman’s words were cut off by Fayth grabbing a handful of his trimmed and gelled brown hair, yanking him backwards and away from the object of his frustration. “Stop.”The crewman stared at him, as shocked as if Fayth had slapped him across the face.Ah, hell... After all his efforts to not broadcast his presence too. “You think the Captain wants to see him damaged after all the effort he went to to get him?” He shook his head in mock despair and hoped, prayed, dear God please, that it’d work as an excuse.Reluctantly, the crewman untangled the Rose Queen’s hair from his fingers and smiled at Fayth as if he hadn’t just been dragged away from a defenseless man. “Yeah. I suppose you’re right. Still, if you swing back this way when you’re done, I can make it worth your while.”“You betcha,” Fayth said, taking hold of the Rose Queen’s arm and ignoring the way he tensed beneath his touch. “Won’t be too long, hopefully.”“Hopefully,” the crewman echoed. His smirk as Fayth led the Rose Queen away made Fayth’s skin creep.Five minutes and several long corridors passed before the Rose Queen’s quiet voice broke the silence. “Are you going to take me back to him after you’re done?”Fayth snorted. “I don’t intend on letting you go until you’re back with Pynes.”There was no response to that, but he felt the tension drain from the other man’s body. He’d really believed that Fayth had been lying all along, that he’d leave him with such a disgusting example of humanity as that crewman just for money. Bile rose in the back of Fayth’s throat and his stomach twisted; he resisted the urge to say anything. Anger, however righteous, would get neither of them anywhere except in trouble.
