by Alex Powell
“All the other agents have similar histories detailed in their files,” King said. “They’d been taken from all over the world, adopted by a corporation, and never seen again. The majority of those taken are of aboriginal ancestry, and now that it has come to the attention of the UN, investigations are being made.”
“What about all of us?” Seven asked. “Eighty-Eight and Twelve, too? We don’t have a home other than this facility and the insides of our heads.”
“There are reparations to be made,” King explained. “You’ll be compensated for being held against your will, as well as for mental and emotional trauma. Furthermore, you are to be paid for all your years of service. You’ll have a substantial amount of money by the end of all this. For you, ten years of back-pay.”
“We don’t know what to do with money. We have no idea how to live in the real world,” Seven said. “I have no memory of ever being outside this facility.”
“I can help, if you’d like,” Fox said. “I have an agreement here that allows me to help you in any capacity you’d like. But you don’t need to sign anything if you don’t want to. You’re free to leave anytime now. You all are.”
“I…” Seven swallowed. “I’d like that. If you wouldn’t mind.”
“Not at all.”
“Okay. Just let me say goodbye to Eighty-Eight and Twelve.”
* * * *
Eighty-Eight started crying again when Seven told her he was leaving to stay with Fox. Twelve sighed and put an arm around her shoulder.
“B-but England is so far a-away!” Eighty-Eight wailed.
“I don’t think I’ll be going that far anytime soon,” said Seven as he tried to reassure her. “Fox is just helping me right now.”
“It’s going to be freezing outside,” Eighty-Eight said, sniffling. “I don’t have a coat.”
That was probably true.
“We’ll be okay,” Seven said, smiling. “This beats being stuck in the Cerebrum, talking about what it might be like on the outside.”
Eighty-Eight didn’t look convinced.
But Twelve said, “We’ll look after one another, you’ll see. Nothing to it.”
Seven didn’t embrace either of them, or even shake their hands. But they were all he had in terms of friends, and they knew. They knew he was scared, too.
* * * *
Outside was terrifying. Seven gasped out loud, and a puff of his breath was visible in the cold air. It was snowing, and every time a flake landed on him, he felt a burst of cold wetness, like he was being bombarded with tiny frozen bombs. Every so often, a car rumbled by, and Seven would jump back from the road, startled by the vibrations he could both hear and feel.
“It’s just a street,” Fox said, watching him look at the sky in fascination. “An ordinary street. There are lots of street and they’re all covered in slush.”
The facility had been quiet and blank, all muffled sound and muted tones. This was like an attack on all his unused senses.
Seven curiously opened his mouth so that a snowflake landed on his tongue. In shock, he tried to spit it out, to dislodge the feeling of ice melting.
He jumped as Fox slipped his hand into Seven’s, unused to the sudden warmth and the sensation of bare skin against his own. Fox’s thumb sliding over his sent a shiver down his spine, and Seven’s face erupted in heat. If this was what human contact felt like, then what would anything more intimate do to him? The thought of finding out stirred something hot and low in his belly.
“So where do you want to go?” Fox asked, waiting for Seven to get used to the feeling.
They could go anywhere in town, Seven realized. They could go anywhere in the entire country if they really wanted. In fact, there was nothing stopping him from going anywhere in the whole world. It was a dizzying thought.
“Or I could get you a hot drink, and we can sit on that bench over there for a while. Then we can check into the hotel down the street.”
“That sounds good,” Seven said finally, looking at Fox and smiling tentatively.
He soon learned that apple cider was delicious, and Seven was surprised he enjoyed the sweet tang and the way the liquid pooled in his body and warmed him from the inside. The aftertaste was strange, but so was everything. He supposed he would get used to it eventually.
Afterward, the hotel room reminded Seven of a domain, with how it was precisely set up and how sparse the room looked, impersonalized. Strangely, it made him feel less nervous about being outside the Cerebrum. It seemed like the inside of his own head, blank. Seven frowned and turned to Fox, hoping for a distraction from his thoughts.
Right now, he was thinking that after all this, why would Fox still want anything to do with him? Now that he was here, IRL, he was just a broken, empty shell of a person. He finally had a name, but what was the name Etienne Levesque when he didn’t remember who that was? What had Fox found attractive about him in the first place?
Seven looked shyly at the man sitting so casually on the bed, appearing so effortlessly beautiful. What would such a man want with him, with his unused body and fractured mind?
Seeming to know what he was thinking, Fox turned to him and opened his arms.
Seven gratefully sank into them, putting his face next to Fox’s ear. His neck smelled of warm, musky cologne. Despite his slight frame, he seemed to engulf Seven.
“Shhh, it’s okay,” Fox murmured. “Whatever it is you’re thinking, it’s not like that. I want to be here with you. I want you.”
Fox ran his hands through the rough stubble of Seven’s hair and pressed a soft kiss to his mouth. Seven knew even less what to do now than he had in the Cerebrum, the touch of Fox’s mouth was so overwhelming. It was a simple thing, but every nerve ending sang as soft lips pressed against his own.
Suddenly, he felt too hot, and his clothes seemed like sandpaper on his skin.
“It’s fine, luv. It’s all fine,” murmured Fox, just his breath stirring around Seven’s ear awakening something burning in his abdomen.
“Fox,” he said urgently, his breath catching in his throat.
“Oh. Is this okay?”
Seven wasn’t sure it was, but what he did know was that if Fox didn’t touch him, he’d burn up into nothingness.
“Fine,” he babbled. “It’s fine. I—”
Fox kissed him again. He drew in Seven, hands on either side of his face, pressing their mouths together. He kissed Seven until they were both gasping, then kissed him harder. Fox’s tongue swipe against his and Seven chased it. Fox chuckled against him, and it rippled through him.
He wanted. He wanted so much it was tearing him up from the inside out.
Hands on his hips, sliding up his sides, slipping under his clothes distracted him. Seven gasped for breath, precious breath filling lungs still not used to breathing. Fox’s fingertips felt like they were memorizing him from the feel of Seven’s skin alone.
Fox struggled to get Seven’s shirt up and over his head. Having bare skin was a novelty, since his clothes hadn’t come off in the Cerebrum. His uniform had been so ingrained into his head that he couldn’t remove it, even when alone. To not have anything covering his upper half proved startling. Fox drew back to look at him, eyes darkening.
Seven was too shy to ask Fox to take off his own shirt. Luckily, Fox had the same idea, pulling it off and carelessly tossing it aside. He was all pale skin lit with silver highlights, the cold winter sun illuminating him through the window. He appeared as delicate as spun glass, but seeing Seven staring unmovingly, Fox pulled him forward.
All that pale skin burned to the touch, soft and real against his fingers.
Fox guided Seven’s hands over his body, up the smooth, soft flanks and down his ribs, over his flat belly until he reached the notches of his hips. Fox languidly pressed his mouth to Seven’s, and Seven melted into it.
“This is okay?” Fox whispered, thumbs running along the waistband of Seven’s trousers.
Seven remembered Fox’s words: This isn
’t a don’t-say-no-and-I-will, it’s a don’t-say-yes-or-I-won’t.
“Yes,” Seven said clearly, head tipping back as Fox made quick work of shoes, trousers, and underwear.
Seven wasn’t used to seeing his own body, having viewed it only once in all these years when showering earlier. He could hardly believe the hard cock pooling precome onto his abs was his own. Fox evidently could, because he was looking at Seven like he wanted to eat him.
Fox pressed another swift kiss to his mouth, then the line of his jaw, before dropping down to his collarbone. Seven could tell Fox was trying to go slow, not to overwhelm him. To start off in less distinctly sexual territory and work his way down. Seven didn’t mind. He knew where Fox was heading, and the anticipation of it ratcheted his arousal up another notch.
Seven thought his poor body wouldn’t be able to handle it. Nothing like this had ever happened to it. The past tryst in the Cerebrum had been somewhat removed from an actual physical relationship. His blood pounded through him, rushing just under his skin, barely contained.
Seven felt like he was on the verge of floating away when strong fingers intertwined with his and held on tight. Seven grasped desperately and grounded himself. It was okay, he was still in the hotel room, still on the bed, and this body that he hadn’t known in so long was his own.
The first touch of Fox’s mouth to his cock nearly had him writhing off the bed. Fox pinned one hip to the mattress and tried again. Seven made several loud, embarrassing whining noises as Fox took him into his mouth.
And just like that, it was too much. Seven shuddered all over, unable to help himself, and tipped over the edge into climax. He could vaguely feel Fox holding onto him, but it was nothing compared to the pleasure rocketing through his body.
He came down like a rock, gasping as he lay on his back. Fox rubbed his thumb over the knuckles of Seven’s left hand. He squeezed Fox’s fingers to let him know he was still fine.
“That was…”
Fox chuckled against his ear and snuggled to his side. “It was that.”
Now that he had stopped moving, he could feel his muscles aching and the stickiness of sweat. His body had settled, swiftly slipping towards sleep against his will. He didn’t want to sleep, he wanted to see Fox in the same state as he’d been in. Perhaps repeat what had just happened, or try something new. But it just wasn’t happening.
“It’s fine, luv, go to sleep,” Fox whispered against his shoulder.
He breathed in, and out, and in again. His eyelids refused to stay open, but just before he succumbed to sleep, he looked once more at Fox’s face and saw the smile in his eyes as their gazes met.
Fox squeezed his hand like a promise, and Seven knew that one day soon, he’d have the world. But for now, Fox and a hotel room bed would do for a start.
Epilogue
Mrs. Fawkes-Montgomery finished filling her watering can from the outdoor spigot and carried it back to where the tulips were beginning to make an appearance behind the house. The snowdrops by the back door were thriving and soon the violets and primroses out front would begin blooming. It had been a long, rainy winter and Devon was finally emerging into a promising springtime.
The sun was coming out, and if she wanted to continue with her garden work, she might even need to get a hat. If this weather kept up, it would be a glorious day.
Mrs. Fawkes-Montgomery scurried inside, looking through her closet for a broad-brimmed hat. Even if it didn’t get too warm, it would be nice to wear a different type of hat again. She’d been wearing a rain hat for months now, and even if she’d chosen a cheerful, bright colour for it, that didn’t make it any less of a rain hat.
She was still looking when someone rapped on the front door. She tried to remember if any of the neighbours said they’d be calling, but she didn’t think anyone had. She had a few friends from Ashprington who said they’d be around sometime, but they always called before they came. Sam was still at work and would be for ages. Who could it possibly be?
She hurried to the front door, suddenly aware she had topsoil stains on the front of her apron. But leaving a guest on the front step without inviting them in was ruder than appearing in her gardening clothes.
She swung open the door, eager to see her mystery visitor, and gasped.
She flung her arms around the visitor before he could get out a word and squeezed him hard around the middle.
“Mum!” her son said in surprise. “I’m just here for a visit, you know. Quick stop in, see how you’re doing.”
“My son has finally returned from London!” Mrs. Fawkes-Montgomery trilled in delight. “I must tell everyone at once. They’ll all be so pleased to see you.”
He was putting on a convincing London accent, but she knew that the longer he stayed in Devon, the more he would regain his old accent. She would have to find a way to convince him to stay at least a week. Maybe more if she could think up a good reason that he needed to stay for a while.
“Mum, this is Steven. Steven, this is my mum.”
In her excitement at seeing her son, she hadn’t noticed she had another guest, but she released him in order to seize the stranger’s hand.
“Are you Guy’s boyfriend, then? You must come in and have some tea. I’ll go put the kettle on.”
“Nice to meet you,” Guy’s boyfriend called after her.
Oh, what an accent on that one! Definitely from out of town. Humming, she put on the kettle, leaving her son to sort out where to put their coats and shoes. Nothing had changed since he’d left home, so he knew where everything was. She set out three cups of tea and got the cream and sugar bowl from the cupboard and set them out. It was a shame her good tablecloth was hanging on the line.
The boys settled at the table and she offered them biscuits.
“So tell me, I want to know everything,” she said. “How did you two meet?”
“Well, that’s a long story,” Guy said, with a side-long look at his young man.
Ah, so it was like that then. She’d despaired that her boy would ever find peace with the past, but it looked as if he was finally moving on. It was good, and whoever this strange boy was, with his odd accent and even odder looks, he had changed this about her son.
Now this was a story she needed to hear.
“I have all afternoon!” Mrs. Fawkes-Montgomery said, and she settled in to listen.
THE END
ABOUT ALEX POWELL
Alex is a Canadian writer of LGBTQ+ fiction. They enjoy writing fantasy and sci-fi, but will occasionally dabble in other genres for fun. They have been writing since they could pick up a pen. Alex lives in the vast northern prairies with their cat Percy.
For more information, please visit alexpowellauthor.com.
ABOUT JMS BOOKS LLC
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