[Danger Days] The Wasteland - Chapter 1
Title: The Wasteland
Fandom: Danger Days
Rating: NC-17
Pairings: Fun Ghoul/Party Poison, Kobra Kid/Party Poison
Summary: "Sir, it is strictly against company policy to negotiate with terrorists."
Master Post
Part I - The Highway
Chapter 1
The Manskinner was furious. This had been his plan from the very start, and he was watching it fall apart before his very eyes. A different person might have been able to foresee this happening, but not the Manskinner, not with his willful, antiquated disconnect from the cold hard truths of this world.
It wasn’t that Frank was not sympathetic. He was. But there wasn’t much time to think about that when so much of his energy was directed at finding a way to be as far away as possible when the Manskinner’s temper eventually erupted.
He’d had some warning that this was coming. As the youngest and newest of the Manskinner’s lieutenants, Frank had been given the task of placing the ransom demand earlier that evening. He’d been promoted only three days ago - that, too, had been part of The Manskinner’s plan - and even Better Living’s thorough and fast-moving spies would not have been able to compile a profile and voice print of him yet. A new agent, someone unknown, would give the impression that the People’s Unified Front was bigger and more widespread than it actually was.
The Manskinner had personally dialed the phone they’d taken off the prisoner, and then he had placed it in Frank’s hands and stood back and watched, his arms crossed, the crimson tattoo of a phoenix standing out starkly on the back of his left fist.
A blithe and chipper secretary picked up on the second ring. “You’ve reached Mr. Korse’s office. This is Vidal speaking. How may I help you?”
Aware, painfully so, of The Manskinner’s dark eyes, like chips of black glass in a marble face, Frank dropped the pitch of his voice as low as it would go - low like the voice of one of the pitiless, gun slinging anti-heroes in the movies he watched - and ground out, “We have Project 5-90.”
“I’m very sorry, sir,” the secretary soothed. “Mr. Korse isn’t available to take your call. May I take a message?”
Frank pressed on, hardly listening. He was grateful for the script The Manskinner had given him, grateful that he’d drilled it in to Frank’s head with endless repetition. “In exchange for the safe return of company property, PUF demands the release of the following political prisoners: Emma “Futurist” Coldfield. Edward “Red Line” Welsh-“
“Sir,” Vidal interrupted him. “It is strictly against company policy to negotiate with terrorists. I’m terminating this call as per the guidelines on page 68 of the Better Living Employee Handbook. Thank you for calling Better Living Industries, and have a great day.”
There was a click, and then silence on the other end of the line. For a long moment, Frank did not move. the Manskinner was still watching him, expectantly, and all at once Frank felt himself spurred into action. He stabbed at the phone, redialing the number. He let it ring a dozen times, but no one picked up, not even an automated message. By the time Frank hung up and dialed again, the number had been disconnected.
The Manskinner had not said anything, but Frank had known all the same that it was a good time to make himself scarce.
There were not many places to which he could escape that wouldn’t be construed as running away. The Manskinner had little tolerance for failure, but even less for cowardice. He wouldn’t hesitate to bust Frank back down to cannon fodder if he found a good excuse. In a stroke of inspiration, Frank remembered the prisoner.
He’d only seen Project 5-90 for a moment, when the field team had first brought him in, his head lifted at a defiant angle and his face obscured by a blindfold. Silent, compliant, and utterly contemptuous. Dressed in a torn and stained thousand dollar suit of conservative navy blue on white. There’d been a slight hitch in his step, but otherwise he’d seemed unhurt.
Frank had been surprised by how long the Project’s hair was. His own was cropped close so he could better move undetected through the city. Even now, he regretted the cutting of it, and he knew that without it his face looked naked and raw. He’d felt a pang of bitter envy when he’d seen the Project’s dark curls brushing the tops of his shoulders.
But it was the glimpse he’d caught of that hair that wouldn’t get out of his mind.
The Project was being held in one of the upstairs apartments of the PUF safe house, one that had been specially fitted to serve as a cell. The windows had been welded over with sheet metal, and the walls and the floor had been stripped to the bare concrete.
Two guards were posted outside the door. They did not salute - PUF was wary even now of infiltrators, and so they did not officially recognize rank in public - but they moved respectfully out of the way.
The Project was cuffed to the radiator against the rear wall. He was still blindfolded, but his shoes, tie, belt, and cufflinks had been removed. When he heard Frank come in, he shrank back. “Who’s there?”
Frank didn’t answer right away. He took a few steps across the floor. In the harsh glow of the fluorescent lights, he could see fresh bruises on the Project’s face. They’d already been in here working him over, Frank thought. But it would get a lot worse for him before it was through. The Manskinner may have been cheated out of his civil hostage exchange, but he would not lose this opportunity for the uncivilized work of interrogation.
“Please…” the Project said softly. “I can’t tell you anymore.”
Frank frowned at that. He hadn’t come in here to be made to feel guilty; he got enough of that from his boss.
“I didn’t think a remorseless assassin would be so pitiful,” Frank said dryly, and, to his embarrassment, the Project cringed again.
He had pushed himself back against the radiator, as if he longed to vanish completely between the metal teeth. When Frank crouched down beside him, the Project leapt as if he had been struck.
“No…” The Project said it once, then again. Then he seemed to like it so much that he kept repeating it. His voice was quiet, uninflected. He seemed to know already how futile pleading was, but he was started now and he wasn’t about to stop.
“No… no… no…”
Frank clamped a hand over the Project’s mouth, choking his voice into silence. He could feel his lips moving still, making strange silent patterns on his palm.
“For fuck’s sake,” Frank said. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
With his free hand, he lifted the blindfold from Project 5-90’s face. He wasn’t sure what he had expected to find beneath it. Slitted feline pupils, glowing red irises, cybernetic optic censors - none of that would have shocked him. But when the Project stopped blinking against the harsh light, and when he turned his soft, gray, utterly human eyes up to look Frank in the face, it was almost enough to make get up and walk out without ever looking back.
“Who are you?” the Project said.
“Jesus.” Frank shook his head. “You’re really… it? 5-90? I mean, you are, aren’t you?”
“Can you undo the cuffs too? My wrists hurt a lot.”
Feeling strangely unsettled, Frank pushed to his feet. “No fucking way. What the shit is this, anyway? You were supposed to be… supposed to be…”
“Look.”
At first, Frank thought there was no force in the world strong enough to make him turn back around. But he could feel the Project watching him, still and patient, and he reluctantly forced himself to move. Project 5-90 shook his head, making his hair fall away from his throat. There was a small barcode printed there on the side of his neck, up under the jaw, easy to conceal for cosmetic purposes.
Against his better judgment, Frank bent down and brushed his fingertips over the tattoo. He could feel the steady throb of the Project’s pulse, and Frank swallowed dryly before he attempted to speak. “So what?”
“It’s been there for a long as I can remember.”
“Look, I don’t know, like, all the little details or anything. I just know it’s not right. It’s fucked up, letting something like you run around loose in the world.”
“For fifteen years, I didn’t know there was anything wrong with me. He told me I was his son. He said that was why. I had to learn the family business…”
“And the family business just happened to be killing people, right?”
The Project’s eyes widened. Definitely gray, Frank thought, but there was some green in there, too. Get him out in the sunlight, and who knew what colors would appear.
“I’ve… killed people,” the Project admitted. All at once, he turned away, with a jerk of his head that made his hair whip across his face. “He told me I was his son.”
Frank shoved his hands into his jacket pockets. It suddenly seemed that they wouldn’t stop trembling. “Why are you telling me all this?”
“I don’t know,” Project 5-90 said. “I’ve never met anyone like you before. You seem trustworthy. I want to trust you.”
Frank scowled, disliking the sound of that intensely. “There’s not much I can do for you. It’s all up to him. My boss. What he decides. Unless… Do you want some water? You must be pretty thirsty.”
The Project nodded, wide-eyed and unblinking. Frank did not much care for the way it made him feel, but then he should have thought of that before he let himself get this far along. He’d known from the moment he’d laid eyes on Project 5-90’s pretty, delicate face; he’d known exactly what it was going to do to him.
Frank unscrewed the lid of the canteen he wore at his belt. When he offered it to the Project’s lips, he shrank away.
“Come on,” Frank said. “Cut that shit out.”
The Project came forward again, tilting his chin up so Frank could pour the water into his mouth. He drank a lot, his throat working in rapid hitching gulps. Before he could think better of it, Frank had reached out with his empty hand and slid his fingers up under the waves of hair that hung down the back of Project 5-90’s neck. He could feel the curls winding their way around his wrist, like vines on a trellis.
The Project’s eyes shifted slowly, first to follow the approaching hand, and then, when it had dropped out of sight, back to focus on Frank’s face. He did not stop drinking, not until the canteen was empty. Frank moved to set it on the ground, but his hand felt numb, his palm slick with sweat, and the canteen slipped out of his grip, clattering brightly to the floor.
Frank drew away at the sound. “Shit. You’re…”
He didn’t dare finish that thought. Even on his best days, Frank was too unreliable, too undisciplined, to live up to the Manskinner’s rigorous standards. He didn’t need this shit on top of all that. He didn’t need to make things more complicated than they already were.
But sometime between when he turned to find the dropped canteen and when he straightened back up so he could get to his feet, Frank lost track of himself. His hand went back to tangle in the Project’s hair, clutching more tightly than before, holding him still as Frank lunged forward to capture his lips in an awkward, crushing kiss.
Project 5-90 went rigid beneath him. Frank heard the handcuffs click against the radiator as he pulled at them. He didn’t care. Didn’t care if the Project thought he was insane, didn’t care if he actually was insane. For a brief, disorienting moment, he didn’t even care if the Project didn’t want it.
When Frank finally pulled away, it was only because he needed to catch his breath. Project 5-90 was staring at him with wide eyes that seemed to simultaneously express everything and hide all. His lips were a little darker than they had been, as if they’d been bruised.
“I’m sorry,” Frank gasped. “It’s just that you’re… Do you want me to be sorry?”
The Project did not make any reply, but Frank thought that he saw a hint of color come in to his bloodless cheeks. He was blushing, Frank realized, and he could have laughed at the absurdity of it. Project-5-90, genetically engineered instrument of close-quarters combat, was fucking blushing.
“I don’t even know your name,” Frank said.
“Excuse me?”
“Your name. You said Korse treated you like his son. He didn’t just call you 5-90 all the time, did he?”
“Oh, that.” The Project hesitated momentarily, as if thinking over what to say. “He called me Gerard. My name’s Gerard.”
“Cool,” Frank said. “Pretty name.”
Slowly, Project 5-90 - Gerard - lifted his eyes once more. His tongue flicked out, making a slow circuit of his lips, as if tasting them for any residue Frank’s kiss had left behind. “If you let me go,” he said quietly. “Then maybe I can do something for you.”
That was all it took to break the spell. Frank lurched away, viscerally repulsed by those words, that soft coaxing tone.
“I didn’t mean that,” he said, stumbling to his feet. He snatched up Gerard’s blindfold from where he had dropped it on the floor, knowing that he was going to have to replace not but having no clue how he was ever going to bring himself to get that close. “I can’t let you go. Ever. And I don’t want anything from you if that’s the only reason…”
“Then they’ll kill me,” Gerard sighed. “They’ll hurt me again…”
“That’s not my problem,” Frank said resolutely.
With a swift, decisive motion, he replaced the blindfold. It seemed he could think more clearly without Gerard’s gray eyes tracking his every move. “I’m sorry I have to do this. You don’t seem half as bad as I know you are.”
Gerard made no reply, and Frank was glad for that. He ran a hand over the front of his clothes, giving the hem of his shirt a tug as if to set everything in order. Though the guards at the door did not spare him a glance when he went out, Frank felt certain that they must have known everything. He must have worn the truth as a brand upon his brow, for how could he have done what he had done and discovered what he now knew without being somehow fundamentally changed because of it?
***
That night, Frank lay in his bunk and did not sleep. The Manskinner was still upstairs with Gerard, still trying to extract some information from him, anything at all that would make up for the time and effort they had expended on his capture.
He’d been there earlier that day when the Manskinner had given the orders to his driver: In the morning, he had said, take it out into the desert and shoot it. The last thing we need is another fucking mouth to feed.
At that moment, Frank had known what he was going to do. The entire plan, the execution of it and the aftermath that would follow, had leapt fully formed into his head. When the time came to carry it out, he did not have to alter or expand upon a single thing.
It was after midnight when he heard footsteps on the stairs. He counted four sets of them: The Manskinner, Pravda, and the two guards from the cell upstairs. It must have been bad, Frank thought, if he was dismissing them now. Briefly, he wondered if they hadn’t killed Project 5-90 outright, but he brushed the notion aside quickly. He needed Gerard alive, if he was ever going to have the nerve to go through with it.
Silently, Frank slipped out from under the blankets. He was fully dressed except for his boots. These, he picked up and carried with him out into the hall before putting them on. Stepping carefully, mindful of creaking boards, he crept up the stairs to the second floor.
Gerard was where Frank had left him, still blindfolded and cuffed to the radiator. He was sitting on the concrete floor, his knees crooked up and his face buried against them as if he were trying to sleep.
His head snapped up when he heard the door open, and he turned wildly, looking for a gap in the blindfold where he could see out. But he didn’t make a sound until Frank had shut the door behind himself, so carefully that the latch made no sound when it fell back into place.
Frank was quiet for a moment, looking him over. One of Gerard’s cheeks had been stained by a bruise, and a steady rivulet of blood trickled from his lower lip. More blood under his nose, but he was conscious and alert, and he did not hold himself as if anything were broken. He must have been tough, Frank thought, feeling a strange new fear take root in him. The Manskinner threw a hell of a punch when he had violence on his mind, which he practically always did.
“It’s me,” Frank said.
“What do you want?”
“To see you.”
Gerard bared his bloodstained teeth in a painful expression that may have been intended as a smile. “Better take a good long look.”
It took Frank two long strides to cross the floor to Gerard’s side. He dropped to his knees and seized him by the scruff of the neck and kissed him, fiercely and mercilessly, like he had kissed him earlier that day. This time was different, though. This time, Gerard put his head back and met him, kissing him back. Frank could feel little groans of pleasure vibrating between their tangled mouths, but he could not say for certain which one of them they came from.
Frank swung one leg over, straddling Gerard’s lap. His hands clutched at fistfuls of Gerard’s suit coat and shirt, wadding them mindlessly in his fists until he brushed against a patch on Gerard’s ribs that made him flinch.
“Sorry,” Frank breathed. He didn’t want to stop, not even long enough to talk. He leaned back just enough to get the words out, keeping his forehead pressed against Gerard’s. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
“It doesn’t hurt much,” Gerard said, and then he surged forward into another kiss.
Frank did not care about anything else. Not the Manskinner, not his plan, not the possibility of being caught. He wanted only this mouth, this body, this strange and enigmatic man. His fingers fumbled with the buttons of Gerard’s shirt, flicking some open and tearing others off as he clawed his way down to the skin underneath.
“How are you doing this to me?” he groaned, plunging his hands into the folds of Gerard’s clothing, pawing at him.
“I don’t know,” Gerard panted. “I don’t…”
Frank could feel the hard ridge of Gerard’s cock digging into his thigh. He pulled down Gerard’s zipper and fished it out. When he squeezed it, working his fist slowly from the base up to the tip, he could feel an erratic pulse beating against his palm.
Gerard shuddered, his head falling back to knock hollowly against the radiator. “Oh, God…”
Running his tongue over the roof of his mouth, trying to work up some spit, Frank lowered his head and pressed his lips to the tip of Gerard’s cock. He could taste the thin salty pre-come already beading on the tip, smearing over his mouth as he kissed and licked and teased. He opened his mouth and took Gerard in once, twice, feeling his cock nudged up against the back of his throat.
Assuming he was slick enough, Frank moved back up so he was sitting astride Gerard’s hips. He unbuckled his belt and pushed his pants down over his hips.
“Gerard…” he murmured, stroking a lock of damp hair out of his face.
“Now,” Gerard breathed. “Do it now.”
Frank gripped the base of Gerard’s cock in one hand and lowered himself down onto it. There was a momentary sharp, stretching pain, but it was nothing Frank couldn’t handle. Nothing he hadn’t known about when he signed on.
Beneath him, Gerard gasped and moaned, his body arching up. He pulled against his handcuffs, making the chain rattle, as if he had forgotten he was restrained. He pressed desperate kisses to Frank’s cheek, his temple, his throat, but with the blindfold in place, Gerard had little luck finding his lips.
“Let me touch you,” he said, his voice taking on the firm tone of one accustomed to being obeyed. “I want to touch you.”
Frank rolled his hips so he was sitting forward a little, feeling the shift of Gerard’s cock inside him. Gerard threw his head back, straining against the cuffs, making the radiator rattle against the wall. Frank reached into his breast pocket and pulled out the little round handcuff key. For a moment, he was struck by the enormous absurdity of it. It was crazy to even think of letting this man - this creature - run around free, when Frank knew that Project 5-90 could have killed him in an instant, without hesitation or remorse.
But he didn’t care. One way or another, Frank thought, he was getting out of here tonight.
With a savage stabbing motion, he thrust the key into the cuff on Gerard’s right wrist. As soon as he had unlocked it, Gerard’s hand slipped free. The handcuffs made a disconsolate rattle as he jerked them free of the radiator.
Before Frank could react, Gerard had grabbed him around the waist. He dug his fingers in, cutting bruises into Frank’s skin, but Frank did not even have time to gasp before Gerard was lifting him, moving with him as he flipped Frank over on his back.
A single strangled, “Motherfucker!” escaped Frank’s lips as he landed on the concrete floor with Gerard on top of him. For all his fatalistic bravado, he had not really wanted to die like this. To be found in the morning, after Project 5-90’s escape had been discovered, with his pants around his ankles and his dick still at half-staff…
“It’s okay,” Gerard murmured, and Frank froze where he was. Gerard hooked an arm under Frank’s knees, pushing them up to his chest; Frank watched breathlessly as he moved above him, feeling his way. He was still wearing the blindfold, and without his deep eyes there seemed to be something missing from his face.
With a twitch of his hips, Gerard was within him once more, and Frank felt all the strength rush out of him. He half-raised himself, then fell back against the floor. His hands clutched at Gerard’s shoulders, as if they were the only thing keeping him anchored, the only thing keeping him from flying apart.
He knew he must have cried out, because Gerard bent over him, leaning close to his ear and whispering, “Hush… hush…”
The rough fabric of Gerard’s blindfold scraped up against his cheek, and Frank felt so unbearable sensitive that it seemed to rub his skin raw. He felt that with each certain and steady thrust, with each touch of his long-fingered hands, Gerard was driving him on, on, to some unsure future. Some time yet to pass, that had not yet been decided, or even dreamed.
He came hard, his hips bucking up against Gerard’s body, painting both of their stomachs with ropes of semen. Gerard followed him down.
For what seemed a long time, Frank lay still, watching the stars revolve behind his closed eyelids. Gerard moved first, lifting himself up on his hands. He slipped off his blindfold, and he and Frank opened their eyes at the same time.
Frank was deeply conscious of Gerard studying his face intently, and deeply conscious of himself making a very careful study in return. All at once, he remembered what he had come here to say.
“Will you run away with me?”
“What?” Gerard said, though he did not sound baffled or bewildered.
“I hate this place. I can’t stand it anymore. I feel like I’m smothering here, little by little, so slowly that when the time finally comes for me to die, I won’t even know it for what it is. I won’t even remember how to fight it.”
“Where could we go?”
“To the desert,” Frank said instantly. “Out there, people are still free.”
“It’s dangerous.”
“I don’t care. It’s dangerous here, too. And maybe I’d prefer a senseless, anonymous death at the hands of SCARECROW then for the Manskinner to finally get around to cooking up a nice noble suicide mission for me.”
“I understand,” Gerard said. He pushed to his knees, tucking himself back into his pants and buttoning up. “We’ll need a car.”
“I’ll steal one.” Now Frank, too, was climbing to his feet. He felt renewed in purpose, so much so that for a moment he wondered why his legs felt so shaky and weak.
All at once, he remembered, and he looked down into Gerard’s upturned face.
“I trust you, you know,” he said.
“I know. I trust you, too.”
Frank offered his hand. Gerard took it and stood up. Together, they went out, side-by-side into the waiting night.
Fandom: Danger Days
Rating: NC-17
Pairings: Fun Ghoul/Party Poison, Kobra Kid/Party Poison
Summary: "Sir, it is strictly against company policy to negotiate with terrorists."
Master Post
Part I - The Highway
Chapter 1
The Manskinner was furious. This had been his plan from the very start, and he was watching it fall apart before his very eyes. A different person might have been able to foresee this happening, but not the Manskinner, not with his willful, antiquated disconnect from the cold hard truths of this world.
It wasn’t that Frank was not sympathetic. He was. But there wasn’t much time to think about that when so much of his energy was directed at finding a way to be as far away as possible when the Manskinner’s temper eventually erupted.
He’d had some warning that this was coming. As the youngest and newest of the Manskinner’s lieutenants, Frank had been given the task of placing the ransom demand earlier that evening. He’d been promoted only three days ago - that, too, had been part of The Manskinner’s plan - and even Better Living’s thorough and fast-moving spies would not have been able to compile a profile and voice print of him yet. A new agent, someone unknown, would give the impression that the People’s Unified Front was bigger and more widespread than it actually was.
The Manskinner had personally dialed the phone they’d taken off the prisoner, and then he had placed it in Frank’s hands and stood back and watched, his arms crossed, the crimson tattoo of a phoenix standing out starkly on the back of his left fist.
A blithe and chipper secretary picked up on the second ring. “You’ve reached Mr. Korse’s office. This is Vidal speaking. How may I help you?”
Aware, painfully so, of The Manskinner’s dark eyes, like chips of black glass in a marble face, Frank dropped the pitch of his voice as low as it would go - low like the voice of one of the pitiless, gun slinging anti-heroes in the movies he watched - and ground out, “We have Project 5-90.”
“I’m very sorry, sir,” the secretary soothed. “Mr. Korse isn’t available to take your call. May I take a message?”
Frank pressed on, hardly listening. He was grateful for the script The Manskinner had given him, grateful that he’d drilled it in to Frank’s head with endless repetition. “In exchange for the safe return of company property, PUF demands the release of the following political prisoners: Emma “Futurist” Coldfield. Edward “Red Line” Welsh-“
“Sir,” Vidal interrupted him. “It is strictly against company policy to negotiate with terrorists. I’m terminating this call as per the guidelines on page 68 of the Better Living Employee Handbook. Thank you for calling Better Living Industries, and have a great day.”
There was a click, and then silence on the other end of the line. For a long moment, Frank did not move. the Manskinner was still watching him, expectantly, and all at once Frank felt himself spurred into action. He stabbed at the phone, redialing the number. He let it ring a dozen times, but no one picked up, not even an automated message. By the time Frank hung up and dialed again, the number had been disconnected.
The Manskinner had not said anything, but Frank had known all the same that it was a good time to make himself scarce.
There were not many places to which he could escape that wouldn’t be construed as running away. The Manskinner had little tolerance for failure, but even less for cowardice. He wouldn’t hesitate to bust Frank back down to cannon fodder if he found a good excuse. In a stroke of inspiration, Frank remembered the prisoner.
He’d only seen Project 5-90 for a moment, when the field team had first brought him in, his head lifted at a defiant angle and his face obscured by a blindfold. Silent, compliant, and utterly contemptuous. Dressed in a torn and stained thousand dollar suit of conservative navy blue on white. There’d been a slight hitch in his step, but otherwise he’d seemed unhurt.
Frank had been surprised by how long the Project’s hair was. His own was cropped close so he could better move undetected through the city. Even now, he regretted the cutting of it, and he knew that without it his face looked naked and raw. He’d felt a pang of bitter envy when he’d seen the Project’s dark curls brushing the tops of his shoulders.
But it was the glimpse he’d caught of that hair that wouldn’t get out of his mind.
The Project was being held in one of the upstairs apartments of the PUF safe house, one that had been specially fitted to serve as a cell. The windows had been welded over with sheet metal, and the walls and the floor had been stripped to the bare concrete.
Two guards were posted outside the door. They did not salute - PUF was wary even now of infiltrators, and so they did not officially recognize rank in public - but they moved respectfully out of the way.
The Project was cuffed to the radiator against the rear wall. He was still blindfolded, but his shoes, tie, belt, and cufflinks had been removed. When he heard Frank come in, he shrank back. “Who’s there?”
Frank didn’t answer right away. He took a few steps across the floor. In the harsh glow of the fluorescent lights, he could see fresh bruises on the Project’s face. They’d already been in here working him over, Frank thought. But it would get a lot worse for him before it was through. The Manskinner may have been cheated out of his civil hostage exchange, but he would not lose this opportunity for the uncivilized work of interrogation.
“Please…” the Project said softly. “I can’t tell you anymore.”
Frank frowned at that. He hadn’t come in here to be made to feel guilty; he got enough of that from his boss.
“I didn’t think a remorseless assassin would be so pitiful,” Frank said dryly, and, to his embarrassment, the Project cringed again.
He had pushed himself back against the radiator, as if he longed to vanish completely between the metal teeth. When Frank crouched down beside him, the Project leapt as if he had been struck.
“No…” The Project said it once, then again. Then he seemed to like it so much that he kept repeating it. His voice was quiet, uninflected. He seemed to know already how futile pleading was, but he was started now and he wasn’t about to stop.
“No… no… no…”
Frank clamped a hand over the Project’s mouth, choking his voice into silence. He could feel his lips moving still, making strange silent patterns on his palm.
“For fuck’s sake,” Frank said. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
With his free hand, he lifted the blindfold from Project 5-90’s face. He wasn’t sure what he had expected to find beneath it. Slitted feline pupils, glowing red irises, cybernetic optic censors - none of that would have shocked him. But when the Project stopped blinking against the harsh light, and when he turned his soft, gray, utterly human eyes up to look Frank in the face, it was almost enough to make get up and walk out without ever looking back.
“Who are you?” the Project said.
“Jesus.” Frank shook his head. “You’re really… it? 5-90? I mean, you are, aren’t you?”
“Can you undo the cuffs too? My wrists hurt a lot.”
Feeling strangely unsettled, Frank pushed to his feet. “No fucking way. What the shit is this, anyway? You were supposed to be… supposed to be…”
“Look.”
At first, Frank thought there was no force in the world strong enough to make him turn back around. But he could feel the Project watching him, still and patient, and he reluctantly forced himself to move. Project 5-90 shook his head, making his hair fall away from his throat. There was a small barcode printed there on the side of his neck, up under the jaw, easy to conceal for cosmetic purposes.
Against his better judgment, Frank bent down and brushed his fingertips over the tattoo. He could feel the steady throb of the Project’s pulse, and Frank swallowed dryly before he attempted to speak. “So what?”
“It’s been there for a long as I can remember.”
“Look, I don’t know, like, all the little details or anything. I just know it’s not right. It’s fucked up, letting something like you run around loose in the world.”
“For fifteen years, I didn’t know there was anything wrong with me. He told me I was his son. He said that was why. I had to learn the family business…”
“And the family business just happened to be killing people, right?”
The Project’s eyes widened. Definitely gray, Frank thought, but there was some green in there, too. Get him out in the sunlight, and who knew what colors would appear.
“I’ve… killed people,” the Project admitted. All at once, he turned away, with a jerk of his head that made his hair whip across his face. “He told me I was his son.”
Frank shoved his hands into his jacket pockets. It suddenly seemed that they wouldn’t stop trembling. “Why are you telling me all this?”
“I don’t know,” Project 5-90 said. “I’ve never met anyone like you before. You seem trustworthy. I want to trust you.”
Frank scowled, disliking the sound of that intensely. “There’s not much I can do for you. It’s all up to him. My boss. What he decides. Unless… Do you want some water? You must be pretty thirsty.”
The Project nodded, wide-eyed and unblinking. Frank did not much care for the way it made him feel, but then he should have thought of that before he let himself get this far along. He’d known from the moment he’d laid eyes on Project 5-90’s pretty, delicate face; he’d known exactly what it was going to do to him.
Frank unscrewed the lid of the canteen he wore at his belt. When he offered it to the Project’s lips, he shrank away.
“Come on,” Frank said. “Cut that shit out.”
The Project came forward again, tilting his chin up so Frank could pour the water into his mouth. He drank a lot, his throat working in rapid hitching gulps. Before he could think better of it, Frank had reached out with his empty hand and slid his fingers up under the waves of hair that hung down the back of Project 5-90’s neck. He could feel the curls winding their way around his wrist, like vines on a trellis.
The Project’s eyes shifted slowly, first to follow the approaching hand, and then, when it had dropped out of sight, back to focus on Frank’s face. He did not stop drinking, not until the canteen was empty. Frank moved to set it on the ground, but his hand felt numb, his palm slick with sweat, and the canteen slipped out of his grip, clattering brightly to the floor.
Frank drew away at the sound. “Shit. You’re…”
He didn’t dare finish that thought. Even on his best days, Frank was too unreliable, too undisciplined, to live up to the Manskinner’s rigorous standards. He didn’t need this shit on top of all that. He didn’t need to make things more complicated than they already were.
But sometime between when he turned to find the dropped canteen and when he straightened back up so he could get to his feet, Frank lost track of himself. His hand went back to tangle in the Project’s hair, clutching more tightly than before, holding him still as Frank lunged forward to capture his lips in an awkward, crushing kiss.
Project 5-90 went rigid beneath him. Frank heard the handcuffs click against the radiator as he pulled at them. He didn’t care. Didn’t care if the Project thought he was insane, didn’t care if he actually was insane. For a brief, disorienting moment, he didn’t even care if the Project didn’t want it.
When Frank finally pulled away, it was only because he needed to catch his breath. Project 5-90 was staring at him with wide eyes that seemed to simultaneously express everything and hide all. His lips were a little darker than they had been, as if they’d been bruised.
“I’m sorry,” Frank gasped. “It’s just that you’re… Do you want me to be sorry?”
The Project did not make any reply, but Frank thought that he saw a hint of color come in to his bloodless cheeks. He was blushing, Frank realized, and he could have laughed at the absurdity of it. Project-5-90, genetically engineered instrument of close-quarters combat, was fucking blushing.
“I don’t even know your name,” Frank said.
“Excuse me?”
“Your name. You said Korse treated you like his son. He didn’t just call you 5-90 all the time, did he?”
“Oh, that.” The Project hesitated momentarily, as if thinking over what to say. “He called me Gerard. My name’s Gerard.”
“Cool,” Frank said. “Pretty name.”
Slowly, Project 5-90 - Gerard - lifted his eyes once more. His tongue flicked out, making a slow circuit of his lips, as if tasting them for any residue Frank’s kiss had left behind. “If you let me go,” he said quietly. “Then maybe I can do something for you.”
That was all it took to break the spell. Frank lurched away, viscerally repulsed by those words, that soft coaxing tone.
“I didn’t mean that,” he said, stumbling to his feet. He snatched up Gerard’s blindfold from where he had dropped it on the floor, knowing that he was going to have to replace not but having no clue how he was ever going to bring himself to get that close. “I can’t let you go. Ever. And I don’t want anything from you if that’s the only reason…”
“Then they’ll kill me,” Gerard sighed. “They’ll hurt me again…”
“That’s not my problem,” Frank said resolutely.
With a swift, decisive motion, he replaced the blindfold. It seemed he could think more clearly without Gerard’s gray eyes tracking his every move. “I’m sorry I have to do this. You don’t seem half as bad as I know you are.”
Gerard made no reply, and Frank was glad for that. He ran a hand over the front of his clothes, giving the hem of his shirt a tug as if to set everything in order. Though the guards at the door did not spare him a glance when he went out, Frank felt certain that they must have known everything. He must have worn the truth as a brand upon his brow, for how could he have done what he had done and discovered what he now knew without being somehow fundamentally changed because of it?
***
That night, Frank lay in his bunk and did not sleep. The Manskinner was still upstairs with Gerard, still trying to extract some information from him, anything at all that would make up for the time and effort they had expended on his capture.
He’d been there earlier that day when the Manskinner had given the orders to his driver: In the morning, he had said, take it out into the desert and shoot it. The last thing we need is another fucking mouth to feed.
At that moment, Frank had known what he was going to do. The entire plan, the execution of it and the aftermath that would follow, had leapt fully formed into his head. When the time came to carry it out, he did not have to alter or expand upon a single thing.
It was after midnight when he heard footsteps on the stairs. He counted four sets of them: The Manskinner, Pravda, and the two guards from the cell upstairs. It must have been bad, Frank thought, if he was dismissing them now. Briefly, he wondered if they hadn’t killed Project 5-90 outright, but he brushed the notion aside quickly. He needed Gerard alive, if he was ever going to have the nerve to go through with it.
Silently, Frank slipped out from under the blankets. He was fully dressed except for his boots. These, he picked up and carried with him out into the hall before putting them on. Stepping carefully, mindful of creaking boards, he crept up the stairs to the second floor.
Gerard was where Frank had left him, still blindfolded and cuffed to the radiator. He was sitting on the concrete floor, his knees crooked up and his face buried against them as if he were trying to sleep.
His head snapped up when he heard the door open, and he turned wildly, looking for a gap in the blindfold where he could see out. But he didn’t make a sound until Frank had shut the door behind himself, so carefully that the latch made no sound when it fell back into place.
Frank was quiet for a moment, looking him over. One of Gerard’s cheeks had been stained by a bruise, and a steady rivulet of blood trickled from his lower lip. More blood under his nose, but he was conscious and alert, and he did not hold himself as if anything were broken. He must have been tough, Frank thought, feeling a strange new fear take root in him. The Manskinner threw a hell of a punch when he had violence on his mind, which he practically always did.
“It’s me,” Frank said.
“What do you want?”
“To see you.”
Gerard bared his bloodstained teeth in a painful expression that may have been intended as a smile. “Better take a good long look.”
It took Frank two long strides to cross the floor to Gerard’s side. He dropped to his knees and seized him by the scruff of the neck and kissed him, fiercely and mercilessly, like he had kissed him earlier that day. This time was different, though. This time, Gerard put his head back and met him, kissing him back. Frank could feel little groans of pleasure vibrating between their tangled mouths, but he could not say for certain which one of them they came from.
Frank swung one leg over, straddling Gerard’s lap. His hands clutched at fistfuls of Gerard’s suit coat and shirt, wadding them mindlessly in his fists until he brushed against a patch on Gerard’s ribs that made him flinch.
“Sorry,” Frank breathed. He didn’t want to stop, not even long enough to talk. He leaned back just enough to get the words out, keeping his forehead pressed against Gerard’s. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
“It doesn’t hurt much,” Gerard said, and then he surged forward into another kiss.
Frank did not care about anything else. Not the Manskinner, not his plan, not the possibility of being caught. He wanted only this mouth, this body, this strange and enigmatic man. His fingers fumbled with the buttons of Gerard’s shirt, flicking some open and tearing others off as he clawed his way down to the skin underneath.
“How are you doing this to me?” he groaned, plunging his hands into the folds of Gerard’s clothing, pawing at him.
“I don’t know,” Gerard panted. “I don’t…”
Frank could feel the hard ridge of Gerard’s cock digging into his thigh. He pulled down Gerard’s zipper and fished it out. When he squeezed it, working his fist slowly from the base up to the tip, he could feel an erratic pulse beating against his palm.
Gerard shuddered, his head falling back to knock hollowly against the radiator. “Oh, God…”
Running his tongue over the roof of his mouth, trying to work up some spit, Frank lowered his head and pressed his lips to the tip of Gerard’s cock. He could taste the thin salty pre-come already beading on the tip, smearing over his mouth as he kissed and licked and teased. He opened his mouth and took Gerard in once, twice, feeling his cock nudged up against the back of his throat.
Assuming he was slick enough, Frank moved back up so he was sitting astride Gerard’s hips. He unbuckled his belt and pushed his pants down over his hips.
“Gerard…” he murmured, stroking a lock of damp hair out of his face.
“Now,” Gerard breathed. “Do it now.”
Frank gripped the base of Gerard’s cock in one hand and lowered himself down onto it. There was a momentary sharp, stretching pain, but it was nothing Frank couldn’t handle. Nothing he hadn’t known about when he signed on.
Beneath him, Gerard gasped and moaned, his body arching up. He pulled against his handcuffs, making the chain rattle, as if he had forgotten he was restrained. He pressed desperate kisses to Frank’s cheek, his temple, his throat, but with the blindfold in place, Gerard had little luck finding his lips.
“Let me touch you,” he said, his voice taking on the firm tone of one accustomed to being obeyed. “I want to touch you.”
Frank rolled his hips so he was sitting forward a little, feeling the shift of Gerard’s cock inside him. Gerard threw his head back, straining against the cuffs, making the radiator rattle against the wall. Frank reached into his breast pocket and pulled out the little round handcuff key. For a moment, he was struck by the enormous absurdity of it. It was crazy to even think of letting this man - this creature - run around free, when Frank knew that Project 5-90 could have killed him in an instant, without hesitation or remorse.
But he didn’t care. One way or another, Frank thought, he was getting out of here tonight.
With a savage stabbing motion, he thrust the key into the cuff on Gerard’s right wrist. As soon as he had unlocked it, Gerard’s hand slipped free. The handcuffs made a disconsolate rattle as he jerked them free of the radiator.
Before Frank could react, Gerard had grabbed him around the waist. He dug his fingers in, cutting bruises into Frank’s skin, but Frank did not even have time to gasp before Gerard was lifting him, moving with him as he flipped Frank over on his back.
A single strangled, “Motherfucker!” escaped Frank’s lips as he landed on the concrete floor with Gerard on top of him. For all his fatalistic bravado, he had not really wanted to die like this. To be found in the morning, after Project 5-90’s escape had been discovered, with his pants around his ankles and his dick still at half-staff…
“It’s okay,” Gerard murmured, and Frank froze where he was. Gerard hooked an arm under Frank’s knees, pushing them up to his chest; Frank watched breathlessly as he moved above him, feeling his way. He was still wearing the blindfold, and without his deep eyes there seemed to be something missing from his face.
With a twitch of his hips, Gerard was within him once more, and Frank felt all the strength rush out of him. He half-raised himself, then fell back against the floor. His hands clutched at Gerard’s shoulders, as if they were the only thing keeping him anchored, the only thing keeping him from flying apart.
He knew he must have cried out, because Gerard bent over him, leaning close to his ear and whispering, “Hush… hush…”
The rough fabric of Gerard’s blindfold scraped up against his cheek, and Frank felt so unbearable sensitive that it seemed to rub his skin raw. He felt that with each certain and steady thrust, with each touch of his long-fingered hands, Gerard was driving him on, on, to some unsure future. Some time yet to pass, that had not yet been decided, or even dreamed.
He came hard, his hips bucking up against Gerard’s body, painting both of their stomachs with ropes of semen. Gerard followed him down.
For what seemed a long time, Frank lay still, watching the stars revolve behind his closed eyelids. Gerard moved first, lifting himself up on his hands. He slipped off his blindfold, and he and Frank opened their eyes at the same time.
Frank was deeply conscious of Gerard studying his face intently, and deeply conscious of himself making a very careful study in return. All at once, he remembered what he had come here to say.
“Will you run away with me?”
“What?” Gerard said, though he did not sound baffled or bewildered.
“I hate this place. I can’t stand it anymore. I feel like I’m smothering here, little by little, so slowly that when the time finally comes for me to die, I won’t even know it for what it is. I won’t even remember how to fight it.”
“Where could we go?”
“To the desert,” Frank said instantly. “Out there, people are still free.”
“It’s dangerous.”
“I don’t care. It’s dangerous here, too. And maybe I’d prefer a senseless, anonymous death at the hands of SCARECROW then for the Manskinner to finally get around to cooking up a nice noble suicide mission for me.”
“I understand,” Gerard said. He pushed to his knees, tucking himself back into his pants and buttoning up. “We’ll need a car.”
“I’ll steal one.” Now Frank, too, was climbing to his feet. He felt renewed in purpose, so much so that for a moment he wondered why his legs felt so shaky and weak.
All at once, he remembered, and he looked down into Gerard’s upturned face.
“I trust you, you know,” he said.
“I know. I trust you, too.”
Frank offered his hand. Gerard took it and stood up. Together, they went out, side-by-side into the waiting night.