Trust Ch. 01

Dr. Clearwater stood against the rail, knees knocking, obviously terrified. I held the rifle pointed at him. "You took my sister," I screamed this. "I should kill you now."

"Wait." It was Logan's voice. My finger, which had been on the trigger, relaxed just a little.

"He's mine."

I shook my head in frustration but backed down. "If you so much as move, Doc. If you even flinch..."

Logan came forward. He was bloody and beaten and obviously having trouble moving. We were on the bottom floor of the oil rig, and we were almost done. With this place, with Omni, with everything.

Behind me I could hear Rick, Leo and Marketa holding off the attackers. They didn't seem inclined to come down, especially since we had given Rick all of our grenades, and he tossed one every now and then. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the Andromeda making her way to us, maneuvering around the other two rigs.

"Now, Dr. Clearwater. Do you remember me? You thought I was dead, didn't you?" Logan advanced on him, holding out a hand.

Dr. Clearwater looked at me in terror. "Please help!"

Logan only chuckled. "My friend, here, see, he's a good man. It would have been good if he'd finished you before I found you. He would have just put a few bullets in your head and you'd have been dead."

He walked until he was only a few feet away from the doctor.

"But me, I'm not like that. I'm what you made me."

"You're wrong, Logan."

"Oh?" His head turned slightly to me.

"I'm not such a good man. If I was, I'd shoot him now and spare him – whatever you are going to do to him."

Logan smiled darkly. "You see? Everyone can learn." He placed his hands on Dr. Clearwater, and the back of my head tingled as I felt Logan's psychic powers surge. Dr. Clearwater screamed and the color drained from his skin. He collapsed into a heap.

"Now you're probably wondering what I did. All I did is ruin your nervous system. So you can't do anything but lie there and feel pain. What should I do with you?"

"You could leave him," was my suggestion. "This whole place will be going up in ten minutes."

"That's a thought." Logan faltered and nearly fell and I realized how weak he was. I slung my rifle and went to his side. He leaned on me heavily, and smiled into my eyes. "That was the last one. I found the other two doctors."

I nodded. "Good. Now what?"

"Take me to the panel. Put me in front of it."

I half-dragged, half-carried him to it and laid him in front of it and knelt by him. "And now?"

"Turn that wheel." I began to do so, and I felt him sag a little.

I looked at his bloody, beaten face. He smiled weakly at me, and I returned the smile. "So, do you have room for a bitter, jaded British man on that ship of yours?" and my eyes widened. I hadn't been sure I would be able to convince him to leave this place. He had seriously considered dying here. And I had promised him I would let him make his choice.

"Always," and just then I heard a shot ring out. Blood welled up on his chest and his body jerked. "Logan!"

I turned my head. It was Downing, the son-of-a-bitch who had been chasing us for months. Twice he had come upon us, unexpectedly, and both times it had been a hard fight to get clear of him. The second time we had shot him several times and he still survived.

The third time he came upon us we had been in a highly populated area and neither of us were able to draw our guns. It was this time that he told us about Logan's dead wife and child. "Your boy cried for you, Logan," was what he had said. "And he was told you were disappointed in him."

I hated the man.

"I found you, Logan," he yelled gleefully. He leapt down the stairs and I desperately covered Logan's body even as Downing fired again. Indeed this time the bullet hit me. My armor took it, though – it was only a pistol round.

"Tasha! Now!" And my friend didn't hesitate. She drew the alien gun and shot him through. Downing staggered back, eyes wide. She shot him again.

I turned back to Logan. Working fast, I got his armor opened and got the wound staunched. He was bleeding a great deal, and needed proper care. Our eyes met.

I had tears in mine. "It's not fair."

He smiled at me ruefully. "It never is."

"Hold this. Keep your hands here." I said, putting his hands to the wound. I picked up my rifle, my beloved G36, and turned and went after Downing. Tasha had used all three shots from the gun on him. Amazingly, he was still trying to rally himself, despite having three holes right through him.

"That was my friend!" I fired a burst at him. He wasn't wearing armor and holes opened up in him, bleeding through. That was the thing with the alien weapon – it instantly cauterized the wound. A regular gun was better in some ways, but Downing had been shown to be able to protect himself from regular bullets, and the stunning power of the alien weapon could not be argued with.

"And you took my sister." I was in tears now. All this way, all this time, Logan helping me get Jeanne out, and in the end Logan had finally agreed to come with us and not die here – and now look what had transpired. And it was this fucker's fault.

In a rage I emptied my entire clip in him. He was hanging halfway over the railing now and as I said, he wasn't wearing any armor. Without any of his powerful abilities to protect him, he was nearly cut in half by the rounds. As I watched, his body slipped into the water, into the waves.

And in that moment I made my decision. I was not Downing. I'd been working very hard on being a good leader, and I'd gotten my group this far. I turned back and went back to Logan and bodily picked him up.

"You're getting out of here," I said. "I'm not leaving you behind."

"You're a bloody fool," he responded.

"I know." I replied.

"The bomb..." he said. Logan was the only one who could trigger the psionic bomb.

"Rick has alternatives." Rick had C4 and explosives, just in case Logan hadn't made it this far.

"My way...is the best. Once I trigger it, we'll only have minutes to get away."

"I know that." I shouted to my group. "Get to the boat! Now!" They all began to disengage and headed for the boat. I half-carried, half-dragged Logan with me, running as fast as I could. I was a big guy, and Logan was slim and lithe, but I was tall and lanky rather than overly built, and I still struggled with his weight.

He looked at me, his blue eyes troubled. Putting his hand to his head, he concentrated and I felt the power swell around me. "Done."

I nodded, and drew on the last of my strength. I made it to the edge of the rig and climbed onto the edge. "Leo! Get ready to catch us!"

The huge Samoan stood up in the boat. "Come on, assholes!" I tensed my legs, and together, we sprang. With Logan in my arms, I barely made the boat, but it was enough for both of us to go crashing into Leo's arms.

I put Logan down on the bottom of the boat and began trying to stabilize him as our other friends made it onto the boat. He was bleeding his life out.

Everyone got on the boat and we began to flee as the psychic bomb set off the regular bombs, as planned. But even as I struggled, I felt Logan breathe his last. He went limp in my arms.

"Tasha!" I shouted. "He's dying. Get the paddles!" I began to give him CPR, compressing his chest, and breathing for him. It was an agonizing minute before Tasha came running up with the shock paddles. I cleared the area and shocked him. Once was enough, and Logan came back to me. To us. He coughed and sputtered and weakly threw up. I cleared his airway. I knew he couldn't sit up to throw up properly. He lay back, panting.

"You're a bloody..." and then half-smiled, perhaps remembering he'd already called me a bloody fool. I laughed.

"What am I, Logan? What am I?" But he didn't answer. I looked up to watch the last of the explosions as we sailed away. Putting my arms around Logan I lifted him up so he could see.

"Look, asshole. There's Omni, burning. That's the last of it." And he watched, and I watched, as the company who had taken my sister, and who had killed his wife and his baby boy, burned, with nothing remaining.

My sister Jeanne met us when we got back to Edinburgh. She took one look at me and burst into tears, throwing her arms around me. I knew I looked bad, but by then I had stabilized Logan, and with mine and Tasha's care, both of us were looking better.

At Edinburgh most of us parted. Rick took Jeanne home with him to our parents. Their relationship had started on the road, and I hoped things worked out well for him and my sister. I knew he would take care of her.

Leo took his little girl home, and Marketa went with him. In the end it was just me and Logan left together.

I don't know if Logan had had other plans or had even thought about what he would do if he survived taking down Omni. I just overrode everything he had to say and took him with me on the Kingfish. On the journey we'd acquired sponsors, and one of the sponsors had provided us with a yacht. It had been our home and our primary method of transportation for a long time. I imagined six months or so sailing around the Caribbean would make anyone feel better. After that, we would see. He could decide to go on his way.

Logan was badly hurt. I thought he would recover, due to his psychic abilities, but it still took a while. I took him to a doctor in Miami who no doubt thought the wound was due to gang warfare.

After they patched him up, I came into the hospital room to see him. He was awake, and smiled weakly at me. I sat on the edge of the bed.

"Hey asshole, you should learn to duck."

"Thanks a lot. Prick." This was how we went back and forth, affectionately.

"Doc says it was an inch below your heart. I guess Downing was slipping."

"He probably got excited when he saw me."

I laughed. "He was probably so excited he came in his pants. He's wanted to see you for a while."

We both chuckled, and then, "Can't you get me out of here? I think they're all done."

"They want you to stay for a few days."

"I don't care. I'll get better on the yacht."

"All right. I'll get the doctor. You'll have to sign yourself out."

We did so, and the doctor, while clearly not happy about it, signed Logan out. "He'll need help. He's still very weak."

"I can take care of him." The doctor looked at us dubiously but shook his head. "Fine. Sign this. And this." And they took us to the door with a wheelchair and made sure he got in the cab safe and sound. I took him back to the yacht.

Three weeks went by. I helped Logan when he really needed it, though I could see it hurt his pride to accept too much help. Thankfully he could stagger about by himself, so he could at least use the bathroom on his own, but he needed help getting in and out of his clothes. Being in the Caribbean, though, in the summer no less, we managed to get by with no shirts most of the time. Both of us grew brown and happy in the sunshine.

One night I went in to see Logan. I'd given him the second largest cabin, the VIP cabin, and I had the main cabin. They were across the hall from each other.

The Kingfish was quite a large vessel. She had three decks. The upper deck, or flydeck, contained a wheel and an open dining area, as well as two deck chairs. The second deck, or main deck, contained a tidy kitchen, the main dining room, another wheel, and a back deck to easily slip in and out of the water. I managed to swim in the blue ocean almost every day.

The lower deck was the deck with the bedrooms. I had my own bathroom, and he would have shared the guest bathroom, if we had any guests. When our ship was full we had held ten people with ease, so it was enormous for the two of us.

It was late evening when I knocked, and when he responded, went in to see how he was doing. He was stretched out in his bed, not asleep, looking at the ceiling. Behind him his pillows were propped up so he was half-sitting up, his hands folded across his belly. His eyes flicked to me immediately when I came in and stayed on my face. He was clearly tired, but I checked on his wounds every morning and evening.

I sat down on the chair in his room, close to his bed. "How are you feeling?"

"Really, really good, surprisingly, despite being shot."

"Ah, well I think that's your natural healing proclivity."

"Yeah, well, it's got to have some advantages."

"Let me look at your chest." Without really waiting for him to respond, I opened his bandages. We'd sort of gotten used to this now, and he was accustomed to my bossiness.

The wound was dramatically healed, far more than three weeks' worth. I shook my head, ruefully. "I wish I had that kind of healing."

He was watching me, and as I examined him, his hand came up and gripped my wrist. I blinked, surprised. He rarely touched people voluntarily, did our Logan.

"I've been meaning to say thank you, Jared."

"Thank you? For pulling you out against your will?"

He chuckled. "Yeah, that. And everything else. Jeanne says you saved my life in more than just that."

"Oh?" We hadn't talked too much about that day.

"Yes. She says you gave me CPR? And you're the one who gave me the shock paddles?"

I nodded. "It would have been stupidly ironic for you to die after I worked so hard to get you off the ship, under fire no less."

"Speaking of which, when did you decide I was getting off the ship? I thought you said you were going to respect my wishes."

I couldn't help but notice he still had ahold of my wrist. As he held it, he moved his fingers to gently rest on the pulse point. His fingers were long and slender and graceful.

I smiled. "If you would believe it, it was when I was killing Downing."

"Oh?" His fingers moved gently on my skin again, and I felt something stirring in my soul, something unexpected. Suddenly my skin felt hot and tight under his gaze.

"Yes...I mean, here I was, killing this guy, less than human, he was an animal at best. Naw, that's an insult to animals. And it was at that moment that I realized truly who I was. I wasn't leaving any of my group behind. I know we said we would respect your wishes, and we always did, so..." here I reached across and put my other hand over his, sandwiching it between mine.

"I decided it was time for you to respect mine."

We sat like that for a long moment, and I felt the air slowly changing between us. Suddenly the already small room felt even smaller, devoid of air almost.

He lowered his eyes before he spoke again. "Jeanne says that you breathed for me. I mean, that you gave me mouth-to-mouth."

I nodded. "Only about a minute."

His eyes came up to meet mine for a second, and then darted away, like slippery little blue fish. "Did you mind?" His voice was barely over a whisper.

"Mind? No...I didn't really have time to think about it."

"Was it unpleasant?"

"Uh, you didn't throw up in my mouth or anything horrible, but it wasn't the greatest, no."

Now he closed his eyes as he laughed. "Thanks for doing that, too." His voice was a murmur, and I realized he was falling asleep. I watched him, as he sank into peaceful slumber, his hand still lightly looped around my wrist.

Are you wondering why I would do such a thing? Why I would stay with him and not disturb him? It's obvious, isn't it? Why else would I take such good care of him? I knew he had had a wife and a son, thus clearly he liked women, so I never made a move. But somewhere along the line, I'd fallen in love with him. I don't know when it happened. He was just so cool, and calm, and put together all the time. It started out with respect, then admiration, and somewhere along the line I caught myself thinking how much I'd like to kiss him, or slip his cock in my mouth, or even just hold him in his bed as we slept together.

It hurts, when you're a gay man in love with a straight one.

I listened to his breathing become smooth and steady, and his face relaxed. When he was fully asleep, I gently extricated my hand and went upstairs to the flydeck. I took my seat at the wheel and took us out into the blue, blue waters, thinking of my situation.