by Luna, David
Sebastian was the one at fault and breaking down in front of this strong, beautiful man would only make Gideon feel as if he was to blame. The onus was on Sebastian, so he needed to be strong. Slowly, piece by piece he mentally stitched back the fabric of his armor. Thin as it may be, it only had to last him until he could get away from his Dom. His former Dom. A sense of calm settled over him when his armor was in place.
He lost his focus on Gideon. He was no longer seeing him, or anything else for that matter. He cleared his throat and managed to shake his head, remembering a conversation they’d had when he’d first used his safeword. “There’s no reason for you to be sorry. I understand. You warned me before that I’d have to fuck up monumentally for you to end our contract. I was stupid. I really should have made the connection.” He managed to focus on Gideon for one last moment and give him a tremulous smile. “I’m truly sorry to have shown up like this. I hope you can go back in and enjoy your family. Happy New Year, Gideon.”
He turned as quickly as he could and was about to slide into his car when he saw the package on his passenger seat. The package he’d tossed there yesterday, knowing he was going to see Gideon the next day and not wanting to forget it. He leaned in and when he did, his collar slipped from under his shirt and his heart stopped. He took a couple deep breaths, unclasped it, and put it in the bag. He turned around and handed the festive gift bag to Gideon.
Unable to meet his eyes, Sebastian patted the bag once it was in Gideon’s hands and stared at it while he explained, “Um, you always said you’d never get me gifts. But I double checked the contract and it didn’t say anything about me getting you gifts, sooo…”
Sebastian smiled sadly, remembering how tricky he’d felt, getting around that rule and how happy he’d been to be able to get Gideon something useful for Christmas. “It’s not much, really. I just…” He touched the bag again and then tucked his hands in his pockets, embarrassed. “I know you never replaced the ropes you cut… Um, when I safeworded at your loft? Khaleo told me where I could find quality rope. They’ve already been pre-treated and the center lines are marked, just like you like them. The ends are finished properly as well. I got a few different lengths, because… Well, it doesn’t matter, really… I hope you’ll find them useful.”
Tears filled his eyes as he realized he’d gotten the gifts in the hope they’d use them together. He kept his head down as he turned and slid into his car. As he was shutting the door he almost convinced himself that he heard Gideon say, “Sebastian, wait—” but he knew he was mistaken. He shoved the key into the ignition and turned the car on.
The blaring of the music he’d listened to on his way over—when he’d been so excited to be going to his first holiday party—made him jump in his seat. He slapped at the dials until he was greeted with silence. Thinking only of getting away as fast as possible, he pulled out into the residential street and drove off, wiping his eyes, and only belatedly pulling on his seatbelt after he was well away from the house and his car dinged at him to do so.
The emptiness inside him grew as he got further away from the man he’d fallen so hopelessly and irrevocably in love with. He focused on getting himself home safely, where he could allow himself to let his emotions free. The last thing he needed was to get in an accident on the way home.
He had no idea where they came from, but in that vast black void that had taken route deep inside of him, he began to see images of himself. Images of his never-ending laser surgeries, his medications that no longer worked as they should, images of himself having more and more episodes, of the face that he hated gazing back from the mirror, so tired and drawn.
He saw images of himself speaking with his doctor, and later his neurosurgeon, he saw images of what might happen during his brain surgery. He saw images of a future he wasn’t sure he’d have in six months’ time, of his arm weakened by the SWS, his eyesight getting weaker with glaucoma, a future devoid of the art he created with ink to skin or paper.
His future was bleak and he’d known of that possibility from a ridiculously young age. His mom had dropped him off for hours at their local library starting when he was just nine years old. Instead of reading what normal nine-year-old’s read, he’d done research. He’d heard his parents talking about Sturge-Weber Syndrome, about how different he was, how disappointed they were to be saddled with him.
He had known he was different, but he thought it had ended at his port-wine stain. His “episodes” were something else he knew most people didn’t have, but he’d never had a name for what made him different. Never understood he was broken. He hadn’t understood until he’d convinced his mother to drop him off at the library every time she went to her prayer group or volunteered at the church.
He’d spent hours and hours reading, researching, trying to make sense of it all. For years he just kept going back. The older he got, the more he understood. The more he understood, the more scared he got. He did the only things he could think of to do. The only things he felt he had the power to do. He’d worked diligently to ensure that when the muscle weakness came, he’d be ready. When he lost strength and eventually function on his dominant side, he’d be prepared. He’d trained himself to have no dominant arm or leg.
He’d taught himself to become ambidextrous on the off chance that if his situation followed most cases and he lost his strength on one side, he wouldn’t be helpless. His other side would be able to take over, to take over the job of being the dominant side. But there were no guarantees.
There was the possibility he’d have muscle weakness on both sides and lose the ability to use his hands to work, to take care of himself, to create. If that time came, he didn’t know what he’d do, or perhaps he didn’t want to admit what he’d do. So, he prepared for the worst and hoped for the best. It was the only thing within his power that he could think of to do.
Driving down Geary Boulevard, he got the first inkling that he could be in real trouble. He slapped his blinker on and cut a couple people off to get across two lanes to the shoulder. He skidded to a stop in the bus lane, flipped on his hazards and turned off the car. He sat there for nearly a minute, staring at his left hand, thinking he’d just been ultra-paranoid and hadn’t really felt the tingling sensation and had stopped for no reason. But it hit, and it hit hard, and he found himself in that hazy confused state, not knowing how long the episode lasted or how long he’d been sitting there.
He looked at the clock and then looked at it again what felt like only seconds later and found he’d been sitting there ten minutes since it happened. Still a little dazed he grabbed the bottle of water he always kept with him and drank what was left. He sat until he’d fully calmed and felt steady enough to drive home.
As he was just about to turn onto his street, he saw the flashing lights of a couple police cruisers handling a fender bender. It dawned on him as he parked that his medical condition had him on a restricted medical license. If he had active seizures, he was supposed to report in and his license would be suspended temporarily until he had them under control. With everything going on: work, illness, medication issues, his contract with Gideon, hospitalization, the holidays and the New Year’s Eve party, it hadn’t even crossed his mind. He hated driving and didn’t do it often, preferring to use Lyft half the time anyway, so it really didn’t surprise him that he’d failed to remember.
Guilt washed over him. What would have happened if he hadn’t had any warning signs? He could have caused a huge accident with devastating, even fatal, results. Hurting himself was one thing, but hurting others because of his own irresponsibility was unforgiveable. His stomach churned and he collapsed forward in the driver’s seat, letting his head hit the steering wheel. He’d been so wrapped up in his own bullshit that he hadn’t stopped to think.
Feeling utterly broken, he hauled himself out of the car and got himself inside. He’d figure out what needed to happen with his license in the morning. He’d hit a wall and barely had enough energy to feed the kittens. A
nd just as he’d expected, when he finally fell into bed, utterly exhausted from the night’s events, the floodgates opened and he let himself grieve. He had no idea how long he cried. No idea how late it was when he finally fell into a fitful sleep with Slap and Tickle lying curled up beside him, but he didn’t wake for a solid fourteen hours.
HE’D GOTTEN HOME FROM THE party—having mentally derided himself on the entire drive back for the way he’d treated Sebastian—and had forced himself to turn his mind off his boy when he stepped into his loft. Compartmentalizing had never been such a struggle for him—which said a lot about his feelings for Sebastian—but he didn’t have a choice in the matter. It was too much to deal with that and the Lars situation at the same time, he needed his head in the game. So, after forcing his mind to shut down, he’d slept a solid eight hours, knowing he’d need it. When he woke, he’d readied himself for his trip, not knowing how long he’d be gone or what to expect, nor how quickly he’d hear from Zavier’s men.
The call came that afternoon. They’d found Lars in Texas, of all places. But they’d also bumped up against some surveillance that was already on him, which was going to make things more difficult for Gideon, but not insurmountable. Unsure of what other agencies were surveilling him, Gideon knew he had to be very careful not to be seen. If the FBI or ATF was after the bastard, he’d need to slip in and slip back out. He didn’t want to fuck with another investigation, and he’d do what he could to gather as much information as possible while the man was still alive, but nothing was going to keep him from doing what needed to be done.
He was in Texas later that evening, an old contact of Zavier’s having provided him with everything he might need over the course of what could be a month-long op, including a secluded cabin on the water with a docked boat.
When he’d left the CIA, he’d gotten rid of all his government issued aliases, but he’d never quite felt comfortable not having several of his own, should they be needed. He was glad to have a contact that could issue him a driver’s license and credit cards on short notice, because it had been several years since he’d gotten clean identification. Knowing he’d be needing a couple when the time came, he’d ordered them well over a month ago. He’d flown and rented his car with one, planning to use the other as needed.
Settling in for the night he inspected everything he’d been given and had to admit the man was thorough. He didn’t think he’d be needing everything he’d unpacked, but the surveillance equipment was top notch and after he’d inspected and cleaned the two handguns he’d been provided, he tucked them away knowing he’d carry them but he’d only use them if he was in a pinch he couldn’t get himself out of easily. His sat phone vibrated in his pocket and he took it out to see an encrypted text from Zavier.
Zavier: I’ve got backup headed down to you from upstate.
Gideon: You know I don’t play well with others.
Zavier: They’re on vacation and will only be dispatched if you contact me.
Gideon: I won’t. Don’t have them follow me. The last thing I fucking need are witnesses.
Zavier: You do realize I know what I’m doing, right? And you must know I’m aware of what you used to do for a living.
Gideon: No witnesses, Zavier.
Zavier: You have my word. Only if you signal me.
Gideon didn’t respond and knew his brother wouldn’t fuck this up for him, so he put it out of his mind and focused on the task at hand. When everything was ready to go, he sat down and went through the dossier he’d gotten from Custos, wanting to learn all there was to learn about the man he was going to kill. When he was done, he felt like he had a good place to start and would begin his search in the morning.
He got ready for bed, absentmindedly thinking of which thread to pull first, but knowing he needed to shut his mind down from over-analyzing everything. He tried to ignore the nagging feeling that he wasn’t going to get what he wanted out of this op, even when the man was dead.
Then he had to wonder if he’d ever get what he wanted, which inevitably turned his thoughts to Sebastian. His shoulders slumped just thinking of the damage he’d done. Crawling under the covers of the cabin’s too-soft mattress, he stretched out on his back, staring up at the ceiling, and let the memories he had of his boy run through his mind. It was a special kind of torture, but he knew he deserved no better.
Come daybreak, he’d flicked the switch again, Lars on his radar from the moment his eyes popped open. His day was spent following the leads Zavier’s men had been able to find and pulling at each little thread to see what unraveled. It was a lot of footwork and a heavy amount of assumption, and not a Lars sighting to be had. One thing about this whole situation bothered him though, he was entirely too close to the Corpus Christi military base and that set his inner alarms to screaming. By the time evening rolled around, he’d done what he could do. He made some headway and would come at it from a fresh perspective in the morning.
That next day was more of the same. Tracking down leads, pulling loose threads, gathering more data on the man he was looking for. That night, after one of those threads pulled loose on a new lead, he waited until he could use the cover of darkness to his advantage and ended up at a local, outdoor storage facility a couple miles off base. He pulled up short when someone pulled onto the lot in an ancient Chevy pickup, driving to the end unit he was approaching. A man got out of the cab of the truck on the passenger’s side, threw up the garage door on the last ten-by-thirty storage unit on that row and flipped on the lights, illuminating a pontoon boat, of all things.
Both men worked to hitch the boat to the truck. When that was completed and the garage door was closed, the passenger climbed in the cab of the truck. As they made to pull out, Gideon walked up behind the boat, placed a tracker on the back of the boat, and then backed up into the shadows as the truck pulled away. It was exactly the break he needed.
They led him back to what Gideon assumed was their home base, a rundown shipyard ten miles from the storage unit, surrounded by several huge piles of scrap metal and boat parts, and no fewer than fifteen rusted shipping containers. Upon closer inspection, he couldn’t see any security measures on the perimeter fencing, which struck him as strange. But when he thought he saw the other party the dossier had warned him about doing surveillance, he knew he had the right place, and made sure to stay out of their way.
He watched as the bay doors of the dilapidated shipyard building opened automatically, the technology incongruent with the derelict surroundings. The truck reversed into the wide-open doors and the doors slid closed, but not before he saw a man carrying a semi-automatic rifle standing in the shadows.
An hour later, he watched as the men from earlier moored the boat to one of the docks by the launching ramp behind the shipyard. Hopping back into the truck they drove around the building and out of the shipyard. Gideon stayed there for another couple hours, but nothing else happened.
The next morning, he headed back toward the shipyard on the boat from the cabin. He watched for a couple days, off and on, always able to track the pontoon with the tracer. But much to his consternation, all they did was head out into the gulf and go fishing. He knew it wasn’t as innocent as that and eventually thought to drag the diving gear out of the little boathouse down by the dock, which is when he finally got some answers.
Seemed there was a hatch underneath the boat running down its center, disguised as a third pontoon. Divers were moving boxes from the seabed and swimming them up to the pontoon. Gideon guessed the boxes were most likely filled with munitions and were just a small part of a much larger smuggling operation.
He spent well over a week watching the comings and goings of those in the shipyard, and out on the water, getting an enormous amount of footage, while he worked. Several times he caught a few other people doing the same thing, so he figured these boys were caught up in something that was about to blow wide open. If he could help with that, he would, but nothing was going to keep him from his end goal.
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br /> It wasn’t until the ninth day that he saw his quarry. He’d known patience would pay off, but Christ he’d been frustrated with the waiting. He’d known, absolutely known he was in the right place, but not seeing Lars for nine fucking days had almost convinced him otherwise. Lars came that day in a goddamned limo to a rundown shipyard, practically shining a light on the illegal activity for fuck’s sake. Two men, who he treated with great respect, got out of the car with him.
Lars and company were there for hours. When they left, Gideon followed them to the airport where the two men shook hands with Lars and walked into the terminal. Gideon was only able to snap off a few photos before he had to pass the limo and pull over to the side and wait them out.
The limo finally dropped Lars at a condo complex and left. He watched as the man let himself into a two-story, corner unit. Gideon stayed there until the following morning when the condo’s garage opened to reveal a new Mercedes, which he followed and tagged on one of Lars’s stops. After that, he took his own pit stop, used the bathroom and grabbed a huge breakfast and then kept his eyes on the tracker as he headed back to the condo.
As he was doing his best to break into the place, he thought his issue would be a security system, but apparently Lars didn’t feel one was needed with the snarling Doberman at the top of the stairs. Never one to hurt women, children, or animals, Gideon turned to leave, knowing he’d need to find another way to deal with it.
It took another day, but he tracked down someone with animal tranqs. The trip was a long one, and more than once the absurdity of his actions hit him. The irony that he was driving all over the damned state to avoid hurting a dog when he was doing so in order to kill its owner was ridiculous. He waited until 5 a.m. and got the door open and the dog knocked out within minutes. Not hearing any indication Lars was awake, he walked up the steps into the main floor of the condo.
