Countdown (Zagan)

[Gabriel Archangel]

He had thought the man’s voice had sounded a little forbidding when he had called two days before. It was deep and, though soft, aged, early thirties perhaps. Gabriel had not had a long discussion with him, just that he needed a few buildings razed and that he wanted Gabe’s company to do it.

Gabriel Archangel owned his own explosives business. Archangel Industries. It wasn’t a huge place, it was a semi-planetary explosives business that mostly did jobs in the Stonehenge District and the outlying areas. It was known to be fairly inexpensive, but with quality workers and jobs. It also provided army supplies and supplies for personal spacecraft. It was a good business; it certainly paid Gabe’s bills.

Gabriel was often asked about his last name, Archangel. Of course, it wasn’t his real name. His Christian name was Gabriel Shay Angel, yet at some point in high school, a snobby upperclassman had given him the nickname Archangel to make fun of him, but the name had simply stuck. Gabe had legally changed it six years before, after he had graduated high school, and now even his own family would call him by the name.

Gabe was used to being called and going to approve areas for explosion. That’s what he was trying to do that day. But the company hover car was slightly older than it could have been and it’s brakes didn’t work as well as Gabe really wished they did.

He had piled himself into the backseat, putting in the coordinates of the area that the man—his name given as Zagan Grey—needed demolished. Gabe had put his bag of tricks—containing mostly files and a comm, and some explosives just in case—into the car with him, and he had been going through some other jobs on his datapad, checking off the ones he would accept that week and exing the ones he wouldn’t, sending them to his friend who worked the desk at the main building.

The hover car began braking three blocks away from the meeting spot and Gabriel got so agitated with it that he almost had it sit down at three stops and just walked the rest of the way. But by the time he had finally decided that that was what he was going to do, he was sitting down at the meeting spot.

Gabriel rolled his eyes, tucking his clipboard under his arm and grabbing his bag, sliding out of the car and onto the taxi platform. He looked around the street he was on. It looked totally deserted, no one around for the entire block except for him and…

Gabe squinted a little at a tall figure moving towards him. Perhaps the man he was supposed to meet. He and this new figure were the only live things for ever it seemed.

Gabe hopped down the waffle-like metal stairs, his boots clacking on the metal, and he landed on the ground, dust clouding up around him for a moment. He let out a sigh and walked towards the man who was closer and closer every moment. When he and the man were in hearing range, Gabe smiled wide.

“Morning, old chap!” he called. “Gabe Archangel, Archangel Industries. You…” he checked his clipboard. “Uh…Mr. Zagan Grey?”

[Zagan Grey]

The flare of a cigarette end was orange in the dimness of a lower-level morning. The glow threw the lines around the man's eyes and mouth into sharp relief and reflected out of his eyes like fire at the bottom of two dark pits.

"You the Archangel guy, then?" The voice was more Irish than anything else, though an Irishman would probably have been appalled to hear someone say that. Grey did not so much have an accent as he abused one, mangled it into a gruff approximation of itself. It made him sound like he hated being forced to have an accent at all.

He flicked his cigarette and the grey ashes disappeared in the greyness of the concrete and the buildings and Zagan's clothes.

[Gabriel Archangel]

"So it would seem..." Gabe replied absentmindedly as he went over the papers on his blue clipboard. Zagan Grey...seemed to have clearance for this type of proceedure, but Gabe was always very cautious about the people he demolished for.

"Okay..." he said, jotting down a few things as he glanced around the area. He needed to acquire some electric line plans, and, just to be careful, some gas line plans. He knew in an old area of the planet like this, it was entirely possible the old gas lines could still have residue in them that would not make this all a smooth, or pleasant, experience. Gabe looked back up at the man from his clipboard at the older man in front of him. First glance he looked to be in his late thirties. Grey sweater and overcoat hid his form, and faded blue jeans. Gabe couldn't help but think that passing him in a crowd he would be easily forgettable, yet if one saw him again, it would be a face you would worry yourself ill about trying to remember where you'd seen it.

"Got your call, um...couple days ago?" He said, turning his eyes back onto the clipboard to confirm it. He did so with a nod and brushed some of his hair back away from his face, sticking the stylus of his datapad behind his ear. He looked up at the building next to him with a furrowed brow. He waved vaguely at it. "This the one you want taken out?"

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan narrowly eyed him over the butt end of the smoke dangling between his lips. His sharp gaze followed the movements of the boy’s hand and arm and hair as he tucked it behind his ear. Then, with a final long drag, he flipped the spent cigarette into oblivion.

“Mm-hm…” He turned his head to regard the building indicated, carelessly glancing at it up and down and flicking his right hand in a vague down-the-street direction. His left hand was already moving anxiously toward the crushed packet of smokes in his jeans pocket. He had told himself he was going to stop chain smoking. He had gotten from four packs a day to having one cigarette left over in the fourth pack. He thought this might be progress.

Then his brow furrowed halfheartedly. “Yeah, this one…and this one, and this…one. Yeah, all of these.”

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe listened and his face slowly fell. All of these?! The man was talking about more than an enitre street in this old rundown part of this district. He licked his lips, his brow furrowing as he eyed the buildings. Gabe filled his cheeks with air and then let it out. He dropped his clipboard onto his bag that was idle on the street next to his feet.

He moved a little closer to the man as if he weren't seeing exactly what the man meant. But the view didn't change at all when thier shoulders brushed than it did when Gabe was two feet away. He reached up and scratched his head, letting out a little sigh.

"Um..." he answered. He reached down, digging in his pocket for his cigarettes--this deserved one--but all he found was his sleek metal lighter. He silently cursed himself as he remembered leaving it on his desk that morning. He chewed his lip absentmindedly. "Okay...I can do that. But um...I need to...walk through 'em all. And get clearance from the demolition board for this kind of extensive work..." Gabriel put his hands on his hips, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. "But...I can do it. Gonna raise the price quite a bit, I'm afriad," he said, looking at the man, very apologetic. Gabriel prided himself on the fact that his business had prices lower than most demolition companies because his was local and the others were planetary. But a large order like this would raise his price considerably. He chewed his lip as he watched the man draw another cigarette from his pocket.

"Hey," he said, curiously. "Mind if I bum one?"

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan shuffled away a little instinctively when the boy drew close and shoved his hands in his overcoat pockets to keep his fingers away from his cigs. His eyebrow quirked when Gabe mentioned the price hike, climbed higher at the request for a charity cigarette.

“You’re charging me more and you want one of my smokes?” he growled, but his lip was curling as he said it and he was already fishing out the abused pack. He pulled out two, noting with a mental shrug that it would be four whole packs, today, and almost mustered disappointment.

He held the smoke out to the kid. “It’s actually not all. Just…most. And, how long will your little inspection take, anyway? ‘M a busy man.” His lazy smile rather gave the lie to that.

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe smiled at the man's sarcastic remark and accepted the cigarette with a dip of his head. He tapped the end against his metal lighter and then stuck it between his teeth. He raised the lighter and flipped it open, the flame warm on his face as he cupped his fingers around it and lit the end of the cancer stick.

Gabe listened to the paper singe as he drew in a lung-full of the smoke and flipped the lighter closed, sighing it out through his nose. He got a small buzz at the back of his neck, but it soon gave way to appeasing his nicotine craving. He licked his lips and took another long drag, flicking the already gathering ashes into a puddle at his feet, the sizzling only apparent for a moment.

"Inspection ought not take too long for each building. I just need to go in and make sure things are disconnected and actually all shut down. I can bring in a team for that, no extra..." he paused. "And the price isn't gonna be so much, but I'm tellin' you, labor laws are a bitch these days," he said, smiling. He waved the cigarette as he started towards the building in front of them. "Thanks."

He stuck the cigarette back between his lips and drew in a breath, letting it out around the filter. Gabe inspected the ground around the edge of the building, then noticed a cave-in near to the door. Looked to be an old storage room underneath the building whose cieling had collapsed in. Gabe made a moaning sound and got to his knees to stick his head down into the gaping hole. His eyes saw all the old equipment, dusty from age and rusted from exposure to the elements.

"Well," he called, his voice echoing in the large room. "This one's gotta be cleaned out," he said. He leaned back up and plopped down on the side of the hole, his legs dangling into it. He pulled the cigarette out of his mouth and held it between his fingers as he fished his comlink from his jacket pocket. Gabe dialed in the coordinance to his shop and listened as it beeped.

"Archangel Industries," came the gruff voice of the man who worked for Gabe.

"Hey, Lo, it's Gabe. Can you get me a list of inspectors who are available tomorrow and the day after? I'll pick that up when I come back in. Connect me with Giggs, please, also," he said.

"Yessir," came the reply, and Gabe listened as his com beeped three times before clicking as the line was opened.

"Lionel Giggs."

"Hey, Lionel. It's Gabriel over here in Stonehenge, Archangel Industries. I need clearance to demolish..." Gabe leaned back to look at the numbers, faded and chipped, printed on the side of the taxi platform. "Uh...eighty-four, ninety-two, and seven."

Silence. The clicking of keys.

"The whole street, Gabriel?"

"The whole street," Gabe confirmed. More keys clicking.

"Alright, we'll schedule that for sometime in the near future, we're bogged with demolition for the Novotny District..." the man informed Gabe who groaned again and stood up.

"Alright, I'll go ahead and take care of what I can clear, I can't be working on this for more than a week," Gabe explained.

"Alright, Archangel," and the click of the line disconnecting ended the call. Gabe turned back to Zagan and sucked in a breath of the toxins, sighing them out of the side of his mouth.

"Alright, then. I'm gonna have an inspection crew out here...tomorrow. Day after at the most. They're gonna work on clearance for the rest of these buildings, hopefully we'll have all of this totally flattened by the end of this week," Gabe said, waving his hands in a "flattened" motion. "But I need you to sign some release and liability forms. We can either do that now, or later, I'm not really picky, I don't expect you to be stupid enough to be in one of these buildings when they go down, so," Gabe said, picking up his clipboard and then hoisting his bag over his shoulder. He let out a breath as if he had just read a book to the man. After a long moment, he cocked his head and furrowed his brow.

"Mind if I ask why you need all these blown?" he asked. "I mean. It's been sitting here for ages."

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan blinked at him through the thread of smoke rising from the new cigarette. His huge eyes reflected the off-light weirdly, again.

“I dunno, do you mind me askin’ why you care so much, eh? ‘S it gonna affect the price?”

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe grinned and gave him a shrug, holding the cigarette up to see how close he was to the filter. He smoked cigarettes really fast, and as a result he wasn't far from the filter. He wrinkled his nose at it and then pulled in another breath of smoke. He looked back at Zagan and gave him another shrug.

"Oh, maybe. I might be inclined to shave off the eighty-thousand building price I am gonna have to tack on to it," Gabe said with another smile. He saluted to the man as he turned and began to back towards the taxi platform. "I'll call you with all the results and flotsem when I get it in, if you like."

[Zagan Grey]

"You do that," Zagan mumbled. "I'll be waiting for your call with bated breath."

Without so much as a tip of the head in salute, Zagan Grey turned and walked back toward the hoverbike he had stashed away in the alley.

When he was out of both eye- and earshot, he pulled out his sleek comlink and keyed an auto-call.

Click. "Hey, Grey here. Yeah, just got finished with the demo guy. No. Mm, no. Yeah, but he said the price'll be eighty large apiece. Yeah, I thought that was a pretty good deal my--well, it's that or we get wait-listed for six months...Eh. Yeah, awright. Sure. Inspections, he said, and--no, within the week. Yeah. Okay." Wrinkling his nose at the com, he thumbed it off.

"Gotta have ever'thing done yesterday, sheesh. Can't even take a moment ta thank a man for takin' a trip out to the slums for a meeting with some kid."

He kickstarted the bike, sucked down the last of his cigarette, and spit it out on the ground.

"'T least the kid was cute."

[Gabriel Archangel]

--------

After his meeting with Zagan that morning, Gabe's day had not gotten any easier. He'd gotten two urgent demolition jobs needing to take place in the Hwang District. He'd also gotten into a rather heated conversation with a man who wasn't happy with how his demolition team had done thier job, and to make it all worse, an ex-boyfriend had decided to drop by and harrass Gabe.

By the time Gabe gave up and decided to go home for the evening, he was half beat to death, but fairly content with the work he had gotten done that day. As he pulled his jacket on and moved into the lobby of the building, he gave the man at the desk a pat on the shoulder.

"Lo? Would you mind getting me some information on a Zagan Grey? You can do it in the morning 'f ya like," Gabe said. The man watched him move around the desk. He leaned an elbow on the desk.

"How come? Not a good guy?" he asked. Gabe waved a hand as he hoisted his bag onto his shoulder.

"Oh, no, he's nice enough, but I don't wanna get into a row like we did couple years back with that smuggler. Nightmare, that was. It's not pressing, I'm not expecting the guy to be a murderer or anything like that, just wanna be safe," Gabe said with a smile. The man nodded and smiled back.

"Alright, Gabe, see you in the morning."

"'Kay. I'll lock you in. 'Night, Lo," Gabe waved and moved towards the door. He pressed out of the double doors and into the cold of the darkness that had begun to gather around the city. It was early winter on Coruscant, or at least in this area, and the nights were bitter, while the days were simply chilly. Gabe hated walking home in the dark, but he never liked taking a taxi either, for the simple reason that he didn't live three blocks away, and could cover the distance in a good ten minutes.

He looked down at this datapad as he walked, checking off the things he had done and the things he still needed to do. He'd dubbed his job from that morning, the Grey Job, considering the job was as memorable as the man. Gabe hadn't ever gotten a job so extensive before in his life. Of course, he had gotten several requests from one company or person, but rarely had he ever had to demolish more than two buildings in one area. It was a little suspicous.

But Gabe knew he jumped to conclusions an awful lot, and decided to just let Lo get the background information, and then he would decide what he thought about Zagan.

Gabe swiped his keycard into the apartment building lock and mounted the stairs to reach his floor. The lifts were open, but Gabe always felt the stairs were faster and he was only on the second floor. Gabe made his way down the hall of his floor to his apartment and slid the key again, pushing into his roomy flat that smelled like clean laundry from his washing spree that weekend. He took a deep breath of his apartment before shutting and locking the door, pulling off his trench coat and dumping it and his bag by the door.

He immediately went to his lap top to get the clearance he needed for the few buildings that he could clear himself. His lap top hummed lovingly at him as he typed in the codes and passwords into the district files that he had access to.

Gabe didn't bother turning on the lights as he was going to go to bed once he called Zagan anyway. He jotted down several things and filed the clearance papers with the online demolition directory, filling out his name and his employer's name, Zagan Grey. He left the release form and liability form conformation boxes blank considering they weren't a pressing matter at the moment and hadn't been signed anyway.

The whole process of clearing those buildings only too Gabe a good fifteen minutes, and when he finished, he had to fish Zagan's number from his duffel bag. Gabe looked over the numbers before thumbing them into his comlink, listening as it beeped, tried to connect, beeped, tried to connect. It redirected him to an automated voice mail service, explaining in a robotic voice that the owner of the comlink was either not available, or had turned off his or her comlink.

Gabe tuned out the rest and waited for the tone that would give him leave to talk and update his employer on what he had gotten. The tone sounded lowly in his ear.

"Hey, Mr. Grey, it's Gabriel from Archangel Industries. I just got confirmation on five of the buildings. They're cleared and legally ready for demolition," he said, glancing at his papers. "I got everything registered and ready and I'll have an inspection team out there day after tomorrow around twelve. If you want to be there, I'm heading up around ten-thirty to tape off the place before the inspection crew gets there. You don't have to be there, but as the release forms aren't signed it might be safer if you are, for all parties involved. Uh, my com's 234, 89,4578 in case you have any questions between here and there. Thanks." Gabe lowered the com and pressed it off, tossing it onto the table next to his lap top.

He yawned wide and headed back to his bedroom for sleep that he needed very badly. His mind was working hard on everything that had happened that day and things that still needed to happen when he laid down and finally drifted off to sleep.

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan did not have any questions, so he did not call the number.

He did, however, show up around twelve-fifteen the day after their first meeting, fag stuck resolutely between his lips, hands shoved firmly in the pockets of his grey overcoat. The only difference in his appearance between the two days was that today his jeans were shabbier.

He sauntered onto the site, which was being systematically taped off by an overly-enthusiastic crew of young men with the gleam of high explosives in their eyes. Prodding one kneeling on the ground with the toe of a shabby boot, Zagan found out where Gabe was and went to find him.

Couple of signatures, a well-placed sneer, and he could go back to the flat and continue sleeping off his hangover right where he'd left off.

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe was standing near one of the larger buildings, discussing its fate with an inspector who had just gone through it when Zagan appeared like an apparition at his side. He glanced over just vaguely interested in him as the man told him what was wrong with the building.

"See," the big man said, pointing at the roof and pulling Gabe around to look at it from his point of view. "'S caved in at the top. And there is residue on the floor we can't identify. Could be just dirt dragged in from another district, could be where a drug dealer had his stache, its hard to tell. This old man can't be blown, not this week."

Gabe turned his mouth this way and that before nodding to the big man and shaking his hand. He watched him walk away before pulling out a cigarette and tapping it against his lighter. He lit it bitterly and blew out the smoke as if it had ruined his day. He shoved the lighter into his pocket before grabbing the plans he had laid at his feet. He turned to Zagan.

"Looks like this one's gotta be cleared by the board too. Guy says residue like it's s'posed to mean something to me. They think someone was running a drug business in here," Gabe said, rolling his eyes. "Psychotic..." but his words trailed off as he heard his com beep. He rolled his eyes again and pulled it out of his jacket pocket.

"Mn, yeah, this is Gabe Archangel," he said, hooking the ear peice in his ear, just in case it was a private call. Which it turned out being.

"Gabe, it's Lo. I just pulled one Zagan Grey's file," he said, his voice sounding anxious. Gabe's brow furrowed.

"'Kay. And...?" he coaxed. Lo paused a moment and Gabe heard the clicking of keys.

"Gabe, the guy's not only got an extensive criminal record of smaller scale crimes, but he is now a wanted man on dealing in illegal drugs and weapons. Authorities have a money reward for anyone who turns him in and anyone who is working with him. Hate to say it, but that means you," Lo explained hastily.

"O--oh..." Gabe said, his eyes growing big as he realized in what proximity he was standing to this wanted criminal. Then his mind went working on the legal action he could take, and what he could do to get his business out of this situation. "Okay, Lo, thanks." He thumbed off the com and chewed his lip as he looked back up at Zagan. It seemed to only dawn on Gabe then how much bigger than he the man actually was.

"We...might have to call off some of these buildings until further notice. Especially if they sit in close with the buildings the board has to aprove. If we take one out before the board approves it then, well, you could get jailed, and I could lose my business...so..." Gabe's eyes shifted over the man's shoulder to the workers blissfully unaware of the rock and the hard place Gabe was now in both morally and legally.

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan Grey was a practiced people-watcher. He'd built a life around it; it was his stock in trade, his "talent." He had come to realize some years ago that a practiced demeanor of indifference and lackadaisicalness (He remembered this word "lackadaisicalness" from a textbook he had seen as a teenager, and liked it so much he'd taken it as a personal motto, even though, if pressed, he'd never be able to articulate a definition of it.) could mask any amount of keen sense of observation. And Zagan's just happened to be extra-keen. So he pretended to be extra lackadaisical.

As now, when he very distinctly noticed the way Gabe's pupils dilated and his breathing grow erratic, the way he talked a little faster with a slightly higher, more strained tone. The way he was looking most intently at Zagan as if seeing him for the first time, and being scared at what he saw.

What he saw, however, was a determined slouch and fixedly hazy expression and smoke curling lazily out of nostrils as out of the nose of some great, sleepy, geriatric dragon who'd sooner get back to napping as attempt to eat you. Possibly still dangerous, being a dragon and all, but unlikely.

Zagan coughed a little to clear his throat--stalling maneuver to give himself a second more to ponder. Why the sudden change in the kid's mannerism? He acted like he was suddenly scared witless by Zagan, whom he'd had no problem approaching and chatting up in a deserted street a dozen miles from civilization only two days ago.

Then Zagan spoke, affecting annoyance to mask his growing concern. "So...? What? How long are we lookin' at here? I really don't have all year, kid. Gov'ment's a bitch, I'll tell ya that much; what's wrong, I ask ya, with knocking down a couple buildings no one's using anymore anyway? I mean, in a way, I could be seen as doing this blasted city a favor, cleanin' it up a little, eh?"

It was hard to say, but the kid hadn't seemed to get jittery until after the call he'd gotten. Soo...something the other person had told him? Something about Zagan? He puffed his smoke. He couldn't think of anything the boy could've found out about him that would make him look so terrified. Even his criminal record, which no one looking at him for longer than thirty seconds would have seriously doubted he had, was all money-related stuff. Bribery, a touch of laundering. Ah, yeah, that one counterfeiting job, sure, but no one knew about that, yeah? Yeah. He'd done time for the other stuff, paid his dues, and then got back to scrounging up work wherever he could to keep himself clothed and comfortable. He generally avoided apologizing for his lifestyle, as it tended to make things overly complicated. He'd never really seen what the fuss was about morals, anyway.

But even Zagan had...well, scruples, shall we say. Y'know, a Code, or somesuch. He'd never killed a man, for instance, and, though he couldn't personally rule out all the various circumstances under which people got killed by other people as inherently avoidable, he'd never been put into that kind of strait himself, and, as a rule, generally avoided those, too. In the strictest sense, he'd never wanted to kill a man and couldn't at present see any reason why he'd ever want to kill a man and that was about the size of it. Not his temperment. Money, now, money was his temperment, his specialty, his...erm, Achilles' heel? Naw, naw, wrong metaphor...golden goose? Yeah. Gold'n-egg-layin' goose. A fat one. But not the biting kind, he'd heard about them geese what bit. No, not one of them. Placid-like goose. If he was gonna hurt someone, he'd rather it be a politician--they were all corrupt anyway, none less so than any other--or a drug dealer, or someone of that ilk. Someone nastier than he himself. Someone who did bite.

'Course, he always did it in such a way as they never found out it was him that did the hurting. That was just self-preservation. But killing...nah, not for him.

So why did the kid look like he was expecting a knife to the ribs any second?

[Gabriel Archangel]

The man looked deep in thought when Gabe looked back at him. And it gave Gabe a moment to think himself, his brain's gears grinding as he worked over many possible solutions. There weren't many, of course, but Gabe knew that if Lo had been able to so easily pick up the man's file, then the board certainly would have. And the board had simply no ties to Gabe and to his company. They would down him in a second if it mean a reward or something for them. And they certainly wouldn't mind having Gabe taken in with Zagan if it sweetened the pot.

Which it almost certainly did.

And it was why the next thing he heard was not the most comforting.

"Mr. Archangel!" came a call from down the road. "Got a call from the board, we need to clear out of here soon. Oh, and looks like there some cops heading this way."

"Cops?!" Gabe exclaimed. The situation had gone from bad to worse in two seconds, flat. He stared at Zagan for a full minute, not really looking at the man, but more through him as his gears worked a little faster, trying to decide whether turning his back on the wanted criminal or going with the cops was the lesser evil. He immediately got a headache. "Lovely!" he tossed his arms and stuffed the plans into his satchel, hearing the telltale tones of authorities right on top of them. They would be there in three, two, one...

"Damn it," Gabe muttered as the sleek black squad hovers pushed through the barrier at the front of the site. Workers jumped out of the way, looking left and right and yelling at each other to try and see what was going on. Gabe would never be able to explain himself, he should have done a check on Zagan when he first got his name four days ago. The site was slowly turning into chaos as squad hovers spun around, getting close to the ground. Gabe was waiting for Zagan to take off, almost expecting him to, it would get Gabe out of trouble, he could explain he had nothing to do with anything.

But the repeating blasters, and the sound of them charging was beginning to worry him.

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan's thought processes, in roughly the order they occurred:

1.) That guy just said "cops." This could be sticky; I had best leave.
2.) Damn. I'm gonna lose my commission on this, and have half the Underground slavering for my blood. This is far from ideal.
3.) Oh, dear. Sirens. Making my exit, now.
4.) Hmm. No, I suppose not, since the hovers have, well, arrived.
5.) OHHOLYSH**THEY'REABOUTTOSHOOTATUSHAVETOGONOW!!

After which thoughts became decidedly more succinct. Three police hovers. Around fifteen officers. Special forces, heavily armed. Overkill. Who did they think would be here? Was Archangel in with the mafia? No, he'd have known about that. And the kid was still looking at him like a deer in the headlights, looking rather lost and scared and pale as the sirens blared.

And then Zagan's aforementioned finely-tuned sense of self-preservation kicked in, and thoughts became somewhat irrelevant.

He threw himself bodily into Gabriel, grabbing him, and bolted across the pavement and into the nearest alleyway. His bike was two alleys down.

"What the hell is that about, Archangel? What'd you do??" he was dragging the smaller man behind, none-to-gently, planning to use him as leverage if necessary. The entity that generally held the place of his conscience was quickly trying to realign itself with the idea that killing someone may soon become not just conceivable, but necessary.

His mouth pressed into a grim line as he turned a sharp corner into a back-alley, the sound of blasterfire bursting behind them.

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe had no time to react to the body that plummeted into him and the blaster fire behind them as Zagan tore them through alleyways. And he was shocked at first by the man's question.

"Me!" he yelled, wincing at the pain the man's grip inflicted upon his arm. "How about money laundering, counterfeiting, oh yeah, and the fact that you're a wanted man for dealing in illegal drugs and weapons!" Gabriel yelled, resisting the force with which Zagan was pulling him. But the man was physically bigger and could have easily killed Gabe if he took the mind to doing so. "It's not me they're after! Or at least not until five seconds ago--oh!" his ankle twisted a little and he stumbled but it didn't slow Zagan down. He was moving at a breakneck pace that nothing Gabe could do would slow down.

He saw a hover bike not that far away and knew that was Zagan's intended target. Whether Gabe liked it or not.

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan only bodily lifted the boy as he staggered, keeping them moving even though his mind had, for a second, frozen in shock at what he'd said.

"Drugs and weapons? Have you gone out of your tree? That's utter rub--"

Then his mind started working again. And he knew. And he swore harshly.

A blaster bolt gnashed away a chunk of the duracrete corner next to Zagan's head, and he gritted his teeth as he wheeled around it and nearly barreled into his sleek black bike.

"Get on!" he commanded, roughly shoving Gabriel toward the machine as he thumbed something on his belt and the bike remote-started.

"Whichever one of us they're after, they're in the mood to shoot first and ask questions maybe, if you're lucky. I dunno 'bout you, but I'm in the mood to get out of here."

It really wasn't so much an option as a way to get the kid on the bike and save time. And keep his possible bargaining chip.

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe ducked as particles of the duracrete flew over them and cut his face once, he was certain more than that. Zagan shoved him roughly at the bike and Gabe's mind immediately told him to not do it. Of course, Zagan wasn't shooting at him, and they were and to Gabe it was the lesser of two evils to simply get on the bike.

Gabe swung a leg over the humming machine, pulling his knees up around the crotch rocket purring in between his thighs. It was a nice bike and had it not been for the fact that a wanted man was about to get on the bike behind him and the authorities were hot on thier tails, Gabe would have paused and looked it over. As it was, he was only interested in not getting killed right this moment.

[Zagan Grey]

"Good lad," Zagan muttered gruffly, hopping over the back of the bike and landing ungracefully in the seat behind Archangel. Settling in, he gunned the engine and roared toward the mouth of the alley--

--Where half a dozen police troopers had suddenly materialized, guns drawn and charging.

Zagan shoved Gabriel down and hunched over him, keeping them both behind the plasteel blast screen.

He did not stop. The troopers were smart, and moved. They were too stunned for about a second and a half afterwards to bring their rifles back to bear, and it gave Zagan just enough opportunity to kick the accelorator one more time and go wheeling violently down the street and duck into another, wider alley.

"You still alive, boy?" he said loudly into Gabe's ear to be heard over the engine and the rush of buildings flying past.

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe's ears rang with the blaster fire as the bike sped through the blockade and around and alley, Zagan doubled over Gabriel and Gabe with his forehead leaned against the warmth of the bike as it roared down the alley.

He barely heard the voice above the sound of the engine and he looked up and out in front of them, the buildings and street flashing by them, the air in Gabe's face making him blink several times in succession before he grew accustomed to it. Gabe sat back a little, being sure to still stay hunched as to stay out of Zagan's way, or as out of it as he could while in such a position as this.

He gave a muted nod in answer as he wasn't sure he'd be able to yell above the roaring and be heard. Then he turned himself a little to peek underneath the man's arm at the lengthening road behind them.

"Where're you going?!"

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan grinned wolfishly.

"What, aren't you comfortable tucked in all nice and cozy in my lap?" He gave a lecherous wiggle of his hips for emphasis, then sobered as his fast-flying fingers called up an onboard satellite positioning system. A green-and-white map popped up, with a route highlighted and instructions scrolling down the right-hand side.

"I've got a ship docked at a private garage. Bein' repaired; normally it's at the sector port, an' if it was, we'd be bolloxed, yeah?" He took a sharp right, and a little glowy red indicator flashed on the screen.

"She's just up ahead."

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe would have appreciated the off color joke had it been not in this situation with any other person. As it was, he simply closed his mouth and watched the screen that popped up. The bike was more advanced than he had gathered at first glance.

Gabriel turned his gaze ahead of them and saw that "just up ahead" really was just up ahead. He could see the garage from here, not that it was any bigger or smaller than the buildings surrounding it, but Gabe could smell a garage from a mile away and he knew one when he saw one.

Of course, in Gabe's opinion, being caught up between a wanted man and the wanters wanting him was pretty much equal to being bolluxed, but then again, Gabriel didn't like confrontations like this. Sure he could get into a good screaming match, but putting people in danger--not only himself but his entire crew--was not something that he particularly dreamed about in his spare time.

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan skidded to a skillful dime-stop on the oilstained concrete apron and swung himself off the bike.

"Gerroff," he grumbled to Gabriel before thumbing another remote that materialized from his belt. The cargo hatchway of a sleek light freighter nearby opened ponderously, and he shoved the bike inside.

A mechanic came out from behind another ship and scowled at Zagan.

"Oy, mate, whot's this, then?"

"I'm the owner, love," Zagan jerked a thumb at his chest and tossed the man a datapad. "There's my ID, account number good for repair fees, and flightlog."

The man's eyes bugged as he fumbled the datapad. "'Ere, now, y'can't just off and launch w'out clearance, yeah? You cool yer jets, man. Y'can't lift off for at least fifteen minutes, d'pendin' on 'ow fast I can get y' a lane."

Zagan blinked at him once, reached over and snatched the datapad back, tapped a few keys, and returned it to the mechanic's hands. The man's eyes got even bigger.

"Make that five minutes," Zagan growled, "or you don't get a dime of it."

"'Ey, is that a threat?"

"It's a promise. You want the extra five, or not?"

The man chewed his lip. It was fairly obvious that, yes, he really really did want it. He nodded shortly once, even though his face was still suspicious, and moved off to the controller's box.

Turning back, Zagan was suddenly face to face with Gabriel again.

"Oh..." he murmured, having momentarily forgotten the kid was there. He blew out a sigh, his fringe flipping back at the movement of air.

"Awright, Gabriel Archangel. Now, I dunno if you're lyin' to me or not, but I sure as hell am no drug lord or weapons baron, so either you're a major player I've never heard of--" His eyebrows lowered and he gave his head a little shake, obviously dismissing the thought, "--or you're tellin' me the truth and someone's set me up. Either way, I ain't stickin' around long enough to find out from the cops what this is all about. Me, I'm goin' to talk to the guy who I think knows why the cops are after me in the first place, and get him to clear my name. Cause bein' a wanted man ain't my style, y'know? Now. How this concerns you is that, until I clear my name, you're gonna be associated on the record as workin' for me and, consequently, bein' caught up in whatever-it-is I'm supposed to have been doin' all this time. Short and sweet, you're in hot bantha poodoo in Imperial City til I get myself unframed." He cringed a little but pressed on. "So, one time offer: you stay here and find your own way of layin' low or gettin' off-world--and the cops'll be here in around ten minutes, so you'll want to make that snappy, love--or you just come with me and help me get this whole thing sorted out and generally stay out of trouble." He grinned. "Or at least stay outta trouble on this world." He suddenly raised a finger, remote-lowering the hatchway to his ship and climbing the ramp, leaning in the doorway. "I ain't doin' this for you, kid. I'm doin' this cause I don't trust you, and I can keep an eye on you better on the ship than if I leave you here. Way it works out for you, is, you don't get killed long as you don't try anything funny on me. Yeah?"

[Gabriel Archangel]

Oh, no. Gabe didn't like him. Not a bit. Not even a little bit. But then again, he didn't exactly want to die before his twenty-sixth birthday. And so far Zagan hadn't killed him and wouldn't unless he didn't, quote, try anything funny. Not that Gabe really had the means to try anything funny, he had nothing but his datapad, cigarettes and lighter, and the clothes he wore. He wasn't exactly toting a small armory in a breast pocket or in his boxers.

"Yeah well, don't worry, I didn't mistake any of it for charity, Mr. Grey," he said bitterly, watching the man move about in the controller's box. He let his eyes look over the ship they were about to board and the fact that the longer they stood there, the faster the cops were getting, and the sooner they would be there. He rubbed a hand up his face and through his hair, fluffing it, giving him the slight appearance of a ruffled bird. He nodded.

"Okay. I'm pretty certain I wouldn't know how to try anything funny on you any sooner than I would want to," Gabriel said, his eyes moving back to the man in the control box and then sliding over to Zagan. He shrugged. "Alright."

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan nodded briskly.

“Awright, then. Welcome aboard.” He couldn’t help that the tone of his voice was of one welcoming an unsuspecting fair-goer into the House of Horrors. He turned into the shadowed hatchway and strode through the belly of the ship up to the cockpit.

The Inferno was sleek and classy and high tech. She was also bristling with weapons and equipped with some of the most advanced systems known to the galaxy. And Zagan had never before wished so hard that she was just a plain old YV-triple-six or some other innocent variety of craft. It was all his friend’s doing that he had so much brand new operating software and so many weapons capable of obliterating an ant at fifty miles without scorching the grass it was crawling in.

His friend, who had so generously outfitted the Inferno after Zagan had bought it following that counterfeiting job, who had told him it was “really no trouble at all, old son,” and that he could just consider it an early birthday present.

Zagan was not a stupid man, but even he had not suspected his buddy had been caught up in anything as volatile as drugs or illegal weapons dealing. He was kicking himself repeatedly now for not being more suspicious.

He and his “friend” needed to have a few words.

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe followed Zagan onto the ship with a hesitation he might feel if walking down death row. The ship, on the inside was quite nice and high tech. Gabe immediately noticed the three dimensional plates for an Internal Artificial Intelligence System. Gabe hadn’ t seen one of those up close yet and it suddenly intrigued him.

He followed Zagan down the hall towards the cockpit, walking slower than the bigger man and waiting for something to swing out of the walls and lop his head off.

As he moved into the cockpit he looked up. And his mouth dropped open.

A fully developed I.A.I.S. face was inhabiting the screen, his eyes following Zagan as they moved in. He was an old man, that much Gabe gathered at first glance. Nothing else about him was obvious at this point. Gabe loitered in the doorway as he listened to the ship hum to life.

[Zagan Grey]

“Well, hello, Zagan, and who have we here?” the old man warbled from every display screen in the cockpit. He eyed the boy up and down, scrutinizing in a friendly, red-cheeked manner.

“That’s Gabriel Archangel, Socrates. He’ll be with us for the trip, possibly longer. Now, if you please, we’re in a bit of a rush, so.”

The old man looked thoughtful. Then his face brightened. “Ah, Gabriel Archangel, explosives expert and founder of Archangel Industries. I hear you all do very fine work.”

Zagan looked murderous. “Really, Socrates, we’ve no time for small talk.”

The computer tsked, looking disappointed. “Zagan, I see no reason to be rude to a guest, even if the authorities have just published a hold order to the ‘Net on the Inferno, and are currently five miles away from the garage and closing in.”

Zagan paled. “Startup, Socrates. Now.” He glared back at Gabriel. “Strap in, boy. We’ll be lucky to get off this rock alive.”

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe smiled at the computer but quickly did as Zagan told him, considering Gabe didn’t think that the man had enough compassion in him to fill a small bag and wouldn’t think twice about tossing Gabe out into space.

Gabriel flopped down in the chair on the right—he sank down in it, it was quite possibly the most comfortable chair he had ever sat in—and he quickly pulled the strap over his shoulder and locking it into place.

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan eyed him askance as he dropped himself into the pilot’s seat.

“You copilot, then?” he muttered with absentminded sarcasm, hands flying over the manual controls as the engines rumbled to life. He jammed the switch on the comm to hail the controller.

“You get us a lane yet, Skip?

KshhhhEEK. “Yeah, yeah, ‘old your ‘orses, man, I’m workin’ on it…”

“Uh-huh, well, it’s been five minutes aaaaand…” He glanced down at his expensive wrist chrono. “Twenty-seven seconds. Your pay goes down every minute over five, Sparky.”

“Arright, arright! Uhhh…coordinates seven-seven-niner, five-six, oh-two-eight. Liftoff in…forty-five seconds.”

“Good. You lost a thou’, but your services were appreciated.”

“Aww, c’mon, mate, give a man a break! I was doin’ the best I—”

“Thanks a lot, love.” Click.

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe listened to Zagan’s gruff voice and the voice of the man he was talking to, but didn’t really hear what they were saying. He was paying attention to the fact that as he looked out viewscreen, he could see the fluttering lights of sleek black squad hovers weaving down through the streets, almost on top of them, now. He followed their progress for a moment before he got even more distracted by the roaring sound of the ship readying for launch. Thirty-five seconds, now, plenty of time for those squad hovers to get there, at least at the speed they were going now.

The ship shuddered and sent shivers through Gabe’s seat and in turn his body as he watched Zagan’s hands working fast over the controls. Gabe’s eyes flicked to the man’s face, his brow furrowed in thought and concentration.

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan had, for the moment, forgotten he even had a passenger/copilot. His face was set in stony focus as he glared out through the yawning entryway at the flashing lights—blue and yellow and red, reflected off buildings, their source still not in sight, but coming up fast.

Twenty seconds. And Zagan couldn’t wait one more. Shoving up on the throttle, he made the Inferno shudder, not ready for liftoff yet but not daring to defy the pilot. Zagan could make a junker leap off the ground and run the Maw, just by force of will alone.

The light on the comm was flashing frantically as the controller tried to hail them, tell them to stop. Zagan ignored it.

“Got those coordinates, Socrates?”

“Yes, sir, though I do wonder if it’s a good idea we take off—”

“Can it, toga-boy. We’re heading out.”

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe’s body was jolted forward slightly as he tore his gaze away from Zagan and outside to the lights pulling in fast. But the ship hiccupped, sputtered, moaned and then Gabe felt the jump of it lifting off. Movement was good, very good, and the ship—although highly unhappy about it—was moving up and farther away from the scads of hover cars rushing towards the personal garage.

Gabe said a quick prayer—something he didn’t do as often as he ought to have—and watched the flashing lights rush ever closer.

[Zagan Grey]

The Inferno cleared the garage and burned furiously into the sky. Zagan did not stick around to see how many squad hovers showed up or how big their guns were this time. Sure enough, the coordinates the mechanic had given them were good: they slid prettily into their lane and were lost in the thick swarm of Couruscant air traffic.

But they were far from safe, yet. Zagan sat tensely, eyeing all the surrounding vehicles. None of them were police air cars, but it was only a matter of time before those would converge on them, too. Gnats on a rotting piece of fruit. Gnats with guns.

Zagan was beginning to get genuinely nervous as traffic moved so frustratingly slowly into the upper atmosphere. He resisted the urge to fidget and drum his fingers on the control panel. No need to let his, erm…captive…know how anxious he was.

Then, just as Zagan spotted shiny black dots in the distance beginning to resolve into police units, the ponderous rear of the luxury yacht in front of them floated off to the right, and Zagan maneuvered the Inferno around it and beat a hasty retreat into space.

“Socrates, we’re going to Nar Shadaa. Set the coordinates, please.”

“Oh! Off to see—”

“Yes. Now do it.”

Socrates blinked and looked chagrined, though there was a decidedly evil spark in his eye. “Yes, Zagan.”

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe decided against letting his captor know how opposed to the idea of Nar Shadaa he was. Of course, Gabe had never been to Nar Shadaa, in fact Gabe had never been off Coruscant before, he had never had the want or need. And he hadn’t ever really wanted his first off-world experience to be on his way to Nar Shadaa. He had heard of Nar Shadaa, his friend had been there, several times had come back and given Gabe a full report on it.

But Gabe figured as long as neither of them got killed, all would be alright. Wait. As long as he didn’t get killed. He shouldn’t be worried about Zagan. And he wasn’t. He certainly wasn’t.

Gabe shook his head, deciding to have that fight with himself at a later date than right now as they tried to avoid the black ships coming after them at a breakneck speed. But as they moved, in and out of traffic, the ships slowly got lost in the amount of ships already out there. There wasn’t anyway they’d be able to get visuals on them in this congestion.

Gabe watched the traffic out of the window for a long moment before watching Zagan out of the side of his vision. The man was totally immersed in his own escape. It was interesting to Gabe how expressions changed when a person was trying to save someone else and when they were trying to save themselves. The self-preservation instinct, right before sex drive, was the strongest in the human instinct.

Gabe dared to imagine the man probably had plenty of both.

[Zagan Grey]

As the blue of upper atmosphere finally gave way to the murky midnight cobalt of space, Zagan finally began breathing right again. The squad cars could not follow them up this high, and in a minute they’d be blanketed by the comforting half-reality of hyperspace and would become effectively untraceable.

“Socrates, navcomp set yet?”

“Just one moment, dear sir…yes, the coordinates are set. There is a most fascinating new HoloNet bulletin out about you, Zagan—”

“Frankly, Socrates, I don’t give a damn.”

And he punched the ship into hyperdrive.

Then his breath rushed out in a long sigh, and he crumpled back into his chair.

“Well,” he stated blandly, staring out at the starstreaks. “…I need a smoke.” He fished after his battered, nearly-empty pack, popped up two, and picked one out with his lips. He extended the other toward Gabriel. “Celebratory cigar?”

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe wrestled out of the straps and accepted the cigarette, as he leaned forward in the seat and pulled out his lighter. He tapped the end of the fag against the metal lighter and then pushed the roll into his mouth, flipping open the lighter, the flame singing the end of the cigarette and allowing Gabe to breath in the smoke.

He pushed the lighter back into his pocket as he breathed out the smoke, his eyes following the stars as they flew past them, the silence in the cockpit was sudden and complete and Gabe didn’t like it at all.

“Thanks,” he muttered quietly as he leaned forward on his knees and picked a bit of singed paper out of his mouth that had fluttered back onto his tongue.

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan eyed him askance, again, the hunched, tired, sorta scared look in his bent figure, the slight tremor in his hand as he slowly pulled the cigarette away from his lips to expel the smoke. He felt a tiny half-twinge in the spot where most people kept their soul at the sight of the stranger slumped over next to him. The thing that was maybe his conscience stirred uncomfortably in its sleep at the little twinge. He didn’t know this guy. He was just a kid, in the wrong place at the wrong time. Not so different from Zagan himself, except even more unwitting. More innocent, Zagan might’ve thought, if he’d had a well-defined concept of guilt and innocence.

He blinked his eyes in his approximation of shaking his head (it was about as unguarded a motion as he ever used) and took a long drag, feeling his nerves beginning to unkink. Well, it was done, now, then, wasn’t it, the whole bloody mess and a new slash or four on his criminal record. The only hope either he or the kid had of being able to return to Coruscant anytime soon was to go to Nar Shadaa and get this all cleared up as soon as possible. If the kid had an ounce of sense, he’d understand that.

Zagan finally grunted in response, then mumbled around his glowing cigarette, “We’re lookin’ at around a two week trip since we’ll need to stay clear of the main shipping lanes. Since I dragged ya along, y’ may as well make yourself comfortable, but don’t go stickin’ your nose round in anythin’. I’ve got a…” He gestured vaguely back over his shoulder. “…room you c’n have.” He gave him an appraising once-over. “Some clothes in there you can wear, too. ‘Less you feel like sharin’ a bed or goin’ naked, either o’ which’d suit me just fine.” He grinned, gnawing the cigarette a little.

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe tossed his head and blew smoke out of his nose, standing and stretching his arms over his head.

“That’s fine, I think a bed by myself will do, and clothes are certainly required,” he said, walking forward a little to look out of the view screen at the stars streaking by them. He leaned a hip against the controls and raked a hand through his hair. “And don’t worry, I won’t be sticking anything, anywhere,” Gabe said, sighing out the cigarette smoke in a long grey line as he looked back over at the older man, his hunched form, the thought lines on his face. Gabe wondered how old he was anyway. Thirty maybe? Maybe a little more.

Oh, why did it matter? Gabe was getting on his own nerves. He stuck the cigarette back between his teeth and then worked himself out of his jacket—he had noticed it was burning up on this ship.

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan placidly watched Gabe stand and stretch, noting the forced languidness, and the not-forced gracefulness of his lean body where it leaned and flexed to slither out of the coat.

Zagan puffed contemplatively, turning his gaze back out the viewscreen.

“Good for you. If you have any questions or need anything, just ask, me if I’m around, Socrates if I’m not.”

“Did I hear my name called?” chirped the old man’s voice as his face flickered back onto the screen.

“Not so much, but thanks for the show of concern, anyway.”

“But of course.” The pixilated philosopher turned with his warm, vague smile to regard the fascinating new passenger. “So, my boy, what brings you onto this ether-blown contraption with our dear Zagan, anyway?”

[Gabriel Archangel]

“His lovely personality,” Gabe said, returning the smile. “And about fifteen squad cars after him because of his flawless criminal record.” Gabe flicked off the grey ashes of his cigarette into the ash try on the dash. He looked at the glowing end of the cigarette and then shrugged. “And me in turn because I didn’t do a background check…” Gabe said, watching Socrates thoughtfully. He licked his lips and then bitterly snuffed out the cherry of his cigarette in the ash tray.

[Zagan Grey]

Socrates winced sympathetically, nodding. “Yes, I have spoken to him on numerous occasions about the ill-advisement of such questionable activities as bribery…”

“Shut up, Socrates.”

“…and the washing of money…”

“Money laundering, Socrates. And shut up.”

“And then that awful counter—”

“Socrates!”

The IAIS blinked at him in surprise. “What? He said it was your record that got him here in the first place. You should probably apologize to him for getting him caught up in all this in the first place.”

Zagan snorted. “Yeah, when was the last time you ever saw me apologize, eh? That’s what I thought. Perhaps I might…wish things had gone differently, but you run a risk just gettin’ out of bed every mornin’, so I think an apology’s rather moot, at this point.”

“But it would be courteous.”

“…Aye. The chief reason I ain’t gonna do it.” He looked over at Gabe with a half shrug. “Socrates gets…ideas. Philosopher, y’know, can’t really help it, I suppose.”

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe smiled at Zagan’s lack of enthusiasm, looking at the computer and nodding.

“Good to hear it, glad someone does,” Gabe said with another nod. He glanced back over at Zagan and leaned a little more heavily on the controls, digging his hands in the pockets of the too big khaki cargos. He nodded to the computer. “So…why Socrates?”

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan frowned, then shrugged a little.

"Dunno. Saw a picture of him once, old guy hangin' round with a bunch of guys mourning that he's gonna die, hand up in the air and his hair goin' all different directions. Looked kinda kooky."

"I beg your pardon!"

"'Sides, after I found out who he was I read some of his stuff and liked it, the way he'd just insult anyone who needed it and tell off all these higher-ups, give 'em what for, talk their legs off til they got annoyed and gave up the argument."

"It was all in their best interest," Socrates huffed, looking offended. "I was only trying to help."

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabriel furrowed his brow trying to follow the string of words that Zagan was saying. He had a disjointed way of speaking that Gabe wasn't used to, it confused him slightly. He was still trying to catch up by the time the man finished speaking.

"Huh," he said, running his tongue along his bottom teeth as he looked back up at the kooky old Socrates computer. Gabe had of course, learned about him in high school, but Gabriel hadn't ever been much a fan. However, the computer was a ridiculously close image of what the old paintings suggested about the man that Gabe had to laugh. He shook his head chewing his cheek and rubbing his eyes with his forearm sleepily.

Gabriel let out a long sigh as if he had been holding his breath since he had gotten that phone call from Lo in the office about Zagan. Even though those things were on his record, Zagan seemed far too disjointed, like his speech, to have been able to pull anything like that off. Unless he was some actor, or a psychopath--Gabe was so glad he had his rosary--Zagan was more of a scatterbrained, chain smoking, wrong-place-wrong-time kind of guy. But then again, Gabe was not a people reader. Or had never been before and didn't expect to start now.

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan watched the boy, noting all the telltale signs of exhaustion, and stood, flexing his broad shoulders.

"C'mon, kid, I'll show you your room. You look like you could use a lie down."

He led Gabe back through a corridor, eventually hanging a right. They were in a short hallway with three doors in it. The light was ambient and low, to try to give the impression of a homey feel. The metal floors sort of made it pointless, but Zagan liked these better than ugly florescents, anyway.

"Here," he keyed open the right-hand door. "You can stay in here. Lav off the room...over there. I'm down at the end." He jerked his thumb toward the door at the end of the corridor. He leaned in the doorway and his face twitched in indecision, his eyebrow quirking up skeptically but his mouth twisting in something like mild embarrassment.

"When I go to bed, nights, I'm gonna lock your door and mine. Nothin' pers'nal, y' understand, I just don't like taking risks. While I'm awake, though, you c'n come and go."

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabriel followed quietly and listened to the rules, nodding at the man as he peered into the room. It was foreign--he'd never be able to sleep. At least npt the first couple sleep cycles. He wandered past Zagan inside. It was roomy, a bed pushed against the right wall, sliding door onto what Gabe assumed was a closet of sorts, and another door to the toilet.

It was then Gabe remembered that he didn't have his medicine. His stomach dropped and he had the distinct urge to puke.

Gabriel suffered from night terrors, it ran in his family for whatever reason. His brother had them too. But there was a medication he took every evening that kept his nightmares at bay, usually causing him to not dream at all. Without them, Gabe's dreams were vivid and terrifying, and he had become violent in the past. All the better that both thier doors would be locked. Gabe scratched his head in frustration, but knew he'd just have to deal with it somehow.

"Mn," he said with a nod, looking over his shoulder then turning. "Thanks."

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan nodded, not noticing the boy's discomfort.

There was an awkward silence as he felt that he should say something else. He coughed to clear his throat and stall.

Then, "Look, really. If y' need somethin', just ask. My friend...the guy on Nar Shadaa. He's...well, I have the feeling he set me up without meanin' to. I never knew anything for sure, and really never suspected anything, either, but I think he may have been into some heavier stuff than I ever touched--the drugs and weapons you talked about. Unfortunately, I've worked with him on several occasions, doin' money exchanges and the like. I thought I was just helpin a friend. I wouldn't've if I'd known he was into that kinda business." He shrugged, coughed again. "Anyway, when we get there, I'll find him and get all this sorted. Then I'll take you back to IC, and you'll never have to deal with me again. Awright?"

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe stood and watched Zagan as he talked, noticing that he didn't seem to be very good with people, or at least didn't deal with them enough to really know whether or not he was good with people. Gabe nodded where he felt like he needed to. He wasn't sure if he believed Zagan or not, but at this point, if the man hadn't killed him, he wasn't a total psycho.

You'll never have to deal with me again.

Gabe couldn't help but think it was more like, then I'll never have to deal with you again. But, of course, Gabriel didn't say as much. He simply dipped his head in confirmation that he had heard what Zagan had said, smiling a little at him, it fading when he had straightened his head.

"Um..." he said, blinking, a little embarrassed to have to ask a complete stranger this. "A change of clothes...I mean, could I have one?"

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan blinked, then nodded shortly. Striding into the room, he knelt next to the bed to open one of the magnet-locked drawers underneath.

"All I've got's my own stuff, which'll be too big for you, of course...umm, here. Try...this, aaaaand...this."

He stood and handed over a pair of jeans--beaten and patched, but sufficiently old to be a size or so too small for Zagan, anymore--and a tunic-style shirt that would be baggy but could be cinched at the waist, at least.

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabriel watched the man and then took the offered clothing. He laid the jeans over his arm and the shirt over his shoulder. The jeans, he felt, were soft, and very broken in, worn apparently until the breaking point as shown by the patches and the holes. But they looked comfortable enough.

"Thanks a lot," he said, watching as Zagan pushed the drawer back closed. Gabe would definately be sleeping for a while, showering and utilizing these clothes. He was grateful. He tossed his head indicating thier surroundings. "And thanks for the room, too."

[Zagan Grey]

Grunt. "Don't mention. I'll be in the cockpit. 'F you get hungry, kitchen's..." He pointed his finger in each direction as he said it. "Left, right, right, second door on the right. Or yell for Socrates, he'll give you a tour." Zagan trailed off to himself, "Bugger loves givin' his damn tours..."

Waving a hand as if to clear the cobwebs, Zagan nodded in finality and turned to leave the room.

"'Night, kid. Stay outta trouble."

[Gabriel Archangel]

---------

Gabe woke up after his sleep cycle feeling as if he hadn't slept at all. He didn't remember having any terrors, but that didn't mean he hadn't had them. The bed, though decidedly comfortable, had the distinct feel of somewhere new, and the strange smell of someone else, and Gabe was sure that his body had been furious that he wasn't laying in his bed in his flat on Coruscant. Well, it was just going to have to deal with it for awhile.

Gabriel sat up with a groan listening as his back cracked slightly when he threw his legs over the side of the mattress. The clothes Zagan had given him were laying idle next to the bed and Gabe snatched them up, moving into the bathroom and flipping on a light. He made the first ten minutes he was in there a time to scout everything out. After all, if he was going to be there for two weeks--he cringed at that thought--he would need to know where to locate everything.

Gabe looked up in the mirror after he discovered a towel and he noticed a cut on his face cheekbone, a little blood smeared up his temple from it. He furrowed his brow, he didn't remember getting a cut like this the day before? But it was entirely possible had had a nightmare the night before and in his psychotic state of mind had scratched himself. He ignored it and took a shower.

The clothes were definately too big. The jeans slouched on his pelvis, but he had been wearing a belt in his other pair of pants so it helped a little. The shirt he pulled tight around his waist and doubled the tie around him, the tie not really helping in the fact that the neck drooped over one shoulder a little. Oh well, it wasn't like Gabe needed to impress anyone. His hair was still damp and messy as he stuffed his feet and the ends of the jeans into his boots and went to leave the room...

Only to be thwarted by a locked door.

Gabe thwonked his forehead against the metal and let out a sigh. He wondered when Zagan would be awake.

[Zagan Grey]

Ah, hyperspace. That fascinating plane of maybe-existence which was so exciting and enthralling for all of ten minutes. The first time.

And Zagan had done this countless times. Beer helped. Vodka did wonders.

He mumbled muzzily into his pillow and scratched his nose in his sleep, half-consciously considering turning over and deciding it wouldn't be worth sloshing all that blood so painfully from one side of his head to the other.

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe had been sitting in the floor against the door for nearly an hour when he remembered the computer. He twisted his mouth and glanced around, wondering how exactly to get its attention. Even if Socrates couldn't unlock the door, he could at least keep Gabe company until Zagan did get up...whenever that would be.

"Umm..." Gabe said awkwardly. "Socrates?"

[Zagan Grey]

There wasn't even a moment's hesitation. IAISes were known for their quick response rate, but Socrates was always faster on the draw than a standard model.

"Good morning, Gabriel!" The old man materialized in three-dimensional form in the middle of the room, smiling serenely, toga askew. "Did you sleep well? I thought I sensed a high tension and irregular heart and breathing patterns in here, though I thought you might not appreciate me actually spying, so I did not have any visual confirmation of the data." The words were scientific, but the ruddy face looked genuinely concerned.

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabriel's eyebrows shot up as he stumbled to his feet at the man who appeared in the middle of the room. It startled him at first before he realized that and I.A.I.S. did have the three dimensional ability. He laughed a little, pushing his hands into the jean pockets. He furrowed his brow, then groaned, indicating the cut on his face.

"I've got night terrors...and no medication here to treat it," Gabe said, shrugging. He shook his head. "Just ignore that next time. I'll probably moan and groan and carry on, but I'll survive." He smiled. Then he nodded back to the locked door.

"Is um, Zagan awake?"

[Zagan Grey]

Socrates looked like he very badly wanted to pursue the whole "night terrors" concept, either out of concern or out of curiosity for an ailment a victim of which he had never met, but he bit his tongue, looked thoughtful, and then replied,

"No, I'm afraid he is not. Hung over, again, from the looks--and smells--of him..." The Philosopher wrinkled his nose.

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe wrinkled his nose, shifting his weight from one foot to the other and sighing. Oh, he hated alcohol. Had he mentioned that yet? Well, at least most hard alcohols. He drank wine, and an occasional juice cut with vodka or rum, but Gabe couldn't think of a single time that he had been drunk, which was just as well.

"Cute," Gabe said, scratching his head and leaning against the door, tapping on it slightly. "Very cute..." he paused, then turned back to look at Socrates. "Any thoughts on when he might stir up? I'm afraid I'm starving. And I am sure he could use something to soak up the alcohol."

[Zagan Grey]

Socrates seemed puzzled for a moment, and then frowned.

"Ah, yes, he locked you in here, didn't he? Well, if the lock were connected into the main system I could unlock it remotely, but it saddens me to say that it is not, and thus I cannot. Honestly, what does the man think you are going to do, murder him while his own door is locked? Sabotage the ship you are also riding?" The elaborate hologram looked exasperated. "I'm all for healthy caution, but I am afraid my pilot tends to take suspicion to the level of artistry.

"What if I were to go rouse him for you? I think this would be best, since you are hungry and very correct in saying that sustenance and perhaps an analgesic will do him wonders."

Socrates did not wait for a reply, but raised a hand in salute and flickered off.

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe squinted one eye. Oh, yeah, if Zagan didn't already hate him, he would once he found out that Gabe had inadvertantly sent the computer in after his drunkass. Ah, well, the price of kidnapping someone.

Gabe pressed an ear to his door to see if he could hear Zagan swearing and spitting when he got awakened by the cheery computer. Gabe had known himself to swear quite expertly when his com awoke him on a weekend, at seven o'clock in the morning, and if he swore that well, he couldn't wait to hear what Zagan pulled out of his sleeve.

[Zagan Grey]

"Master Zagan."

Nothing.

"Master Zaaaaagan."

Snort, mumble. Then, nothing.

"ZAGAN GREY!!" Underneath Socrates' typically placid but loudly-raised voice was the sound of sirens, alarms, and klaxons from a hundred different noise-making devices from a dozen or more worlds. As soon as Socrates' mouth closed, they ceased.

Zagan's heart had stopped and his eyes flown open in mindcurdling shock. He shot straight upright in bed and was met with what felt like a sledgehammer between the eyes.

He had the vague impression the sledgehammer had a dark Russic name and was friends with many small shotglasses.

"Sweet unholy Mother of the Antichrist!!! WHAT IN HELL'S NAME??"

"Good morning, Zagan!"

Blink. The silence roared. And then Zagan did.

"SOCRATES, YOU BLITHERING IMBECILE!! What is the meaning of coming in and screeching me awake? Is..." The thought occurred to him belatedly, and he tried to grapple it with his slippery, alchohol-lubricated consciousness. "Is the ship alright? Have we hit a mine or something? Are we dead? No, no, even hell wouldn't let you in..."

Socrates frowned mightily. "Charming. I simply thought you had perhaps slept long enough and would like to rise and take some breakfast. After releasing that poor boy from his cell."

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe bit hard down on his lip to stop the laugh. It really wasn't funny, considering Zagan was big enough to tear Gabe apart if he really took a mind to. But Gabe hadn't ever heard that selection of words thrown together before. Oh certainly, his father had let rip plenty of Mother of God swears, considering they were the worst a Catholic could say.

Gabe leaned off of the door and stuck his hands back down into the pockets, shaking some still damp hair from his face as he watched the door. He now feared for his life. It wasn't like Socrates could do anything if a hungover Zagan came back through here with a blaster or a knife or some such weapon as to kill with.

Gabe sat down on the bed and crossed his legs, pulling his cigarettes out and tapping it on his lighter before lighting it and tossing the lighter on the bed. He waited.

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan couldn't seem to comprehend what his IAIS was saying. Of course, when most people wake up hungover to see a short, fat, bearded man in a toga standing in their bedroom, they don't even attempt speech, just reach for the nearest bottle of whatever knocked them out in the first place.

Zagan only wished he could have it that easy.

"Socrates, since bloody when have I ever slept 'long enough' after drinking that I require a wakeup call? Have I ever once requested a wakeup call?"

"...No."

"Then why did you feel it incumbent upon you to wake me the hell up?"

Socrates sniffed. "As I said, dear boy, it's getting rather late and your young friend is still locked--I would venture to say unfairly--into his chambers."

Zagan's eyes narrowed. "He sent you in here to wake me up?"

"Nothing of the sort. I volunteered."

The man lifted a warning finger. "Socrates, I swear to God, one of these times you are going to regret volunteering for these sorts of little chores."

The holographic philosopher smiled beatifically. "Oh, do inform me when that day comes, Zagan. I will be most fascinated in finding out what regret is like."

Zagan had staggered out of bed and fished out of the hamper a pair of jeans at random. No sense dirtying something before he'd had a bath.

"Oooh, you'll be fascinated, all right, up to and including the point where I delete every single one of your files off my ship's computer.

Socrates inclined his head. "I'll just go start the range heating."

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe was smoking, hoping that maybe it would drive away the hunger twisting his stomach. But it had not yet made any difference and he listened as his stomach gargled at him in annoyance. The cut on his face was a little swollen, and it hurt like hell, but Gabe couldn’t stop touching it. He wished he could remember how he had gotten it.

He glanced up as he heard Zagan yell again and he closed his eyes. How he wished the computer hadn’t gone and awoken the man. It couldn’t be pleasant being awoken hungover. Then again, he probably shouldn’t have gotten drunk in the first place.

“Ah…well…” Gabe muttered, breathing out some smoke. “The price of kidnapping someone…”

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan muttered to himself all the way down the hallway.

The door to Gabe’s room whooshed open to reveal a slumping, hungover, unshaven, shirtless man with a dull, don’t-bother-even-talking-to-me gleam in the one eye not covered by a palm trying to hold the brain inside the skull.

Zagan couldn’t even grunt. He just turned and shuffled on down toward the kitchen.

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe jumped when the door opened, but he didn’t get a good look at Zagan before the man slinked off. Gabe opted to give him a moment before following. He disposed of his cigarette butt in an ash tray next to his bed then clunked out of the room, brushing his hand through his hair and following to where he heard Zagan’s shuffling disappear.

The kitchens were spacious and gleaming. Gabe glanced up at Zagan’s back, shirtless he noted, the muscles apparent in his shoulders and lower back as he walked. He was strong—so was Gabe so it didn’t really describe much to say he was simply strong. He wasn’t grotesquely muscular—Gabe had seen people like that. No, he was thin, but strong, and even though Gabe had muscle too, Zagan certainly would have won in a wrestling match simply because of the fact that he was physically larger than Gabe.

[Zagan Grey]

The first order of business was coffee. Lots and lots and gallons of coffee. Preferably through intravenous, if at all possible. Zagan always had the foresight to set the coffeemaker in the evening, before bed or vodka, whichever was the agenda for the night. So all he had to do was press a button, and the machine started percolating.

It took him a couple tries to get the button right.

Now that coffee was brewing, water. H20. Yes. In the cooler. A quart bottle, which Zagan chugged almost all at once, and then refilled.

Ah, hydrated. Last chore for the morning: Nicotene. Oh, yes. Fresh new pack for a new day. Mmm...

Oh. There's a kid standing in my kitchen.

Oh, wait a sec.

"Gmornin'," he slurred, squinting at Gabe. He noticed the mark on his face but didn't think a thing of it. In his current state he couldn't remember if it'd been there last night. He filed that away for later inspection.

"Y'hungry? There's food in the fridge..."

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe eyed the fridge a moment before giving up and going over, opening it and peering in. He crouched down to looked into it better.

"Morning," he answered absentmindedly. His eyes saw that the most that was in the fridge was prepackaged stuff, he saw eggs, chicken, and steak right off the bat. He twisted his mouth up slightly and then stood again. He closed the door and then got bold. He slid past Zagan who was watching the coffee, and stood on his toes to open the metal cabinets to see what was in there. He wasn't really tall enough to see far inside, but he saw canned carrots, chicken broth, and oranges. Whatever was behind Gabe would never know. He reached up and took down the can of oranges, peering at the label. He ought not eat sugar when he first woke up, but oh well, he liked oranges.

"Mm..." he said, looking at Zagan. He shook the can. "Can opener?"

[Zagan Grey]

"Hm? Oh..."

Rummage. They were shoved pitifully into the back of a drawer, a bit dusty.

"Here." He quirked an eyebrow. "Just oranges? No wonder you're so skinny. Now, myself..." He popped the fridge open again, withdrew a box of frozen potatoes and sausage. Opening the microwave oven, he flung the box inside and set the timer to whatever. He knew how long they took to heat.

Then he shuffled across to the coffeepot again and gave up waiting, quickly swapping the carafe for his mug, filling the mug, and replacing the carafe. He didn't lose a precious drop.

His eyes shut in bliss as the scalding liquid seared a burning trail from his mouth to his gut, and he sighed in genuine gratefulness. When he opened his eyes again, they were a little bit clearer, though he still winced and held a temple gingerly.

"Y'want some? Or tea, I've lots."

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe grabbed the opener and went to work on the can. He made short work of it, dropping the opener and can lid onto the counter and smelling the oranges. He always forgot how much he liked this fruit until he was in a situation to eat them again.

Gabe sat the can on the counter and then hoisted himself up to sit on it, crossing his legs. He picked the can back up and plucked a bit of fruit from it, tilting his head back and dropping it in. It was sweet, and better than Gabe had thought it was going to be. He watched Zagan press fingers to his temple, then shook his head.

"No thanks..." he said, eating another orange, sniffing as he smelled the man's food.

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan had to concentrate hard on not looking fascinated as the boy delicately dropped fruit between his full lips, his pink tongue poking out just a little.

Instead he scowled at the boy perched on his countertop.

"There are chairs, y'know. Though you probably take perverse delight in parking your fatass on my eating surfaces."

[Gabriel Archangel]

"Yeah, actually," Gabe mumbled around an orange, giving him a wink and hopping down. He leaned a hip on the counter instead, determined to consume the entire can of oranges. And he could do it too, and probably still be hungry. He watched the coffee as he ate, his mind slowly getting working again. Then he glanced over his shoulder.

"Sorry about the computer waking you up, I didn't mean for him to," Gabe said, turning around and leaning down on the counter, cradling his chin in his hand. He plucked out another orange and ate it. He chewed it thoughtfully. He was still trying to wrap his mind around the fact that he ws going to be inhabiting this ship for two weeks with this man. It was a daunting idea, considering the man wasn't exactly a conversational genius, they didn't have anything in common, and what did a kidnapper and his victim talk about anyway?

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan's face collapsed into a frown again.

"Oh, don't worry," he said, louder than necessary. "He's getting what's coming to him." Then, in a normal tone again, "He does that kind of thing all the damn time. What the hell I was thinkin' picking a too-helpful, creepy toga-wearin' philosopher as my IAIS, I dunno. But I've regretted it from day one. Shoulda just picked the Twi'lek Slave Girl..."

His food was done. He fished it out of the microwave and prodded it experimentally with a fork.

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe choked slightly on an orange at the comment but swallowed it and smiled, shaking his head. Twi'leck slave girl. Yes, that seemed to fit the man better than Socrates. Socrates was more for someone who had a schedule to keep, or someone who preferred higher thinking and advanced conversations. Not someone who got drunk often and got involved in money laundering and illegal weapons.

But Gabe wasn't usually one to judge. So he just continued to eat his oranges, eyeing the man as he began to attempt consumption of the heat up meal. Gabe wondered briefly if the man had ever once cooked, or if he had always eaten stuff like that. Not that any other normal man did cook, Gabe was just a little feminine in that area. He cooked well, mostly because his Irish grandparents loved to cook, and his mother loved to cook, and so did his father and aunts and uncles. Gabriel was surrounded by people who liked to cook. He hadn't ever been able to escape inheriting the gene.

"Oh...mm..." he said, swallowing and orange. "Thanks for the clothes."

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan shrugged, taking a bite and wishing he hadn't so thoroughly singed his tongue earlier. He would have liked to have tasted the food.

"Well, you seemed dead set against not wearin' any clothes at all, so I figured I might as well keep you from catching pnemonia or somesuch." He paused with a bite of food halfway to his mouth and twitched an eyebrow lecherously.

"'Sides, this just gives me an excuse to get in your pants, which I can't very well do without...well, pants."

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe's face heated up at the implication, and he felt a prickly sensation on the back of his neck. He looked up and around a moment. Yeah, okay, this kitchen was suddenly the last place he wanted to be. He casually popped another orange into his mouth and then stood straight, picking the can up. He moved past Zagan, eating the last orange and tossing the can into the trash compressor.

"Thanks, no thanks, Zagan," he said, stuffing his hands down into the pockets on the too big jeans. He nodded. "Nice offer though." Gabe sighed and moved to the door, heading out and into the hall. He headed down towards the cockpit so he could watch the stars. His face was still hot, though he didn't know why. He was sure that Zagan paid for cheap whores all the time, and Gabe was the nearest available screw he had. Unfortunately for Gabe, there would have been little he could do if the other man really got the idea into his head. He certainly wouldn't be able to fight his way out.

Gabe flopped down in the co-pilot's chair and watched the stars out of the view screen. He missed Coruscant already.

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan blinked at his companion's--victim's, victim's--abrupt exit, then shrugged after he realized the boy had been offended.

Bah. A couple weeks on this tin can'd make Zagan look a whole hell of a lot more attractive, he knew. He just hoped he could hold out that long, himself.

It suddenly and very brutally occurred to him that, in the current setup, he was calling the shots. Locking the kid in his room, telling him what to touch and where to go. Literally holding Gabe's life in his hands. He'd kidnapped him after all, at least technically.

So, technically, Gabe did what Zagan told him. Whatever Zagan told him.

The thought made one part of his body heat up and another part go cold. He swallowed painfully after having forgotten to chew right.

He could...

Mother Mary, what was he thinking? No, no, there wasn't...no. Just like something in Zagan instantly rebelled at the thought of murder, it rebelled too at the idea of so completely taking advantage of an innocent kid who he'd kidnapped in the first place. Their being together was an accident to begin with, and he had nothing against the kid. Sure, he'd do the kid, he'd love to do the kid. But he wouldn't rape the kid.

At least...God, he hoped he wouldn't.

He shook his head to clear it. Really, the less he thought about it at all, the better. For the both of them.

"Bah," he muttered vehemently, shoving another big bite of food into his mouth and brooding.

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe sighed out a heavy breath as he watched the stars. He wished, suddenly, that he hadn't ever decided to take on the Zagan Grey job. That he had just let the guy go to a bigger corporation. Then that business's guy would be sitting here now, dealing with a horny kidnapper, and a criminal record that hadn't been there until the the horny kidnapper in question had kidnapped you.

Gabe shook his head, he was confusing himself. He just wished he was back on Coruscant, sitting at his desk, wrestling with paperwork, bickering with Lo about a job, and taking a million calls a minute. He wished he was at home even better. He wished his brother was banging on his door trying to remind him that they were having lunch together and to get his skinnyass out of the apartment.

Actually, anywhere but right where he was at would be preferable to Gabe. Anywhere that wasn't on this ship, with Zagan Grey, facing losing his business, and going to jail for who the hell knew how long.

Okay, so Gabe was having a pity party for himself. He didn't think anyone would object.

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan planned on taking his time finishing breakfast, maybe checking out HoloNet, see how much trouble he was supposedly in. He needed to see what all accusations were being unfairly leveled at him, so he could throttle each and every one out of his buddy.

And then Socrates materialized.

"Go away," Zagan growled.

The philosopher looked displeased. "You kidnapped a boy, are dragging him halfway across the galaxy, known or otherwise, and now are threatening to sodomize him."

Zagan choked, coughed, scowled. "Socrates, your terminology alone could rip a man's libido straight out of his body and deep-freeze it."

"Good, I hope it did. You can be quite barbaric sometimes, Zagan. You are better than that."

"Am I? Am I really? Petty money launderer with a penchant for smooth talk and hanging out with all the wrong kinds of friends?" Zagan's glare could have turned a man to stone. He plunked his fork down violently. "Sounds to me like non-con sodomy'd fit nice and cozy on the list."

"Zagan..."

"Aw, hell, Socrates! I'm not gonna rape the kid, okay?" he bellowed, flinging his food container across the room in the general direction of the trash compressor. It missed. "We'll just sit and play checkers for two weeks, and I'll make sure he gets a lollipop every night before bed. Happy?"

Socrates shook his head a little. "You're impossible to talk to like this. You should not have kidnapped him in the first--"

"Don't lecture me about right and wrong behavior, Socrates. Apparently I'm in too deep now to go back."

"You know that isn't true, Zagan. That's never true."

Zagan did not even bother replying. He knew better than to get into a real argument of logic with an eons-dead genius philosopher. He only shoved back his chair noisily and stumped out of the kitchen.

"'M in my room, kid," he yelled down the corridor. "If y'need anythin', bug Socrates. He's in the helping mood today."

Then his door snapped shut and locked. Socrates lowered his head in a long-since-learned sign of disappointment. Then he flickered out.

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe didn't know how long he had sat in the co-pilot's chair, dozing once in awhile before he got up and retired to the room he had been given. He had scavanged for awhile, finding a pen and eventually paper--with some tips from Socrates--and sat down on the bed, his back pressed against the wall.

Gabe liked to draw and did so when he was bored, or wanted to relax. Both were true in this case. He had begun sketching a person, then a twi'leck, then nothing at all and had eventually cast the paper aside, wondering if Zagan kept any books around here.

He decided he didn't want to get up and look for one, so settled for staring at the opposite wall for thought.

[Zagan Grey]

When Zagan emerged from his room a long time later, he actually looked human, clean, shaved, clothed, though still barefoot and with disheveled, damp hair. But his eyes were clear and scrutinized the halls quizzically as he padded down the corridor.

The kid was being awful quiet. In all honesty, Zagan didn't know what he'd expected. Rampant tearing down the hallways? Air guitar in the cockpit? He shook his head. He didn't know what he had been waiting for, but he knew that such calm quiet wasn't it.

He didn't know whether to be relieved or suspicious.

Finally he returned to the sleeping area of the ship and the closed bedroom door he had initially ignored. He knocked a couple times.

"You in there, kid?"

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe furrowed his brow when he heard the knock and he stretched out like a cat on the bed, accidentally dropping some of his drawings onto the floor. He got up and shuffled towards the door, ignoring the papers and pressing his hand to the door control. It slid up, revealing quite a nicely shaved, and presentable Zagan Grey.

For a moment, Gabriel looked at him as if he were expecting the man to hit him or something. But when he didn't, Gabe nodded in answer and turned back into the room to pick up the papers he had dropped when getting off the bed. He padded over to the mattress and cleared up the papers, figuring since it was Zagan's ship he would come in or not as he pleased.

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan leaned in the doorway, watching Gabe putter around picking up a flurry of paper from the floor. He couldn't see them terribly well as he gathered them up, but he could see pen and pencil marks that looked more like doodles than writing. He didn't even remember having that much paper on board the ship.

"Been keeping out of trouble?" He grinned to show he wasn't serious. "Cause I haven't--I just looked up what I'm wanted for on the 'Net, and you were right on all three counts. Plus I'm implicated in at least one human trafficking deal..."

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe froze, looked at the cieling of the room, and prayed that Mary would give him strength. He dropped the papers onto the bed and turned back around, looking at Zagan as if...well, he didn't know. He just looked at him with a less than friendly look.

"Human trafficking?" Gabe said. He blinked. "Human trafficking?" Gabe turned back around and then sat down. Well, there it was then. Archangel Industries was now the property of Coruscant's government to do with it as they would. As soon as they spotted that charge on Zagan's record, they would attach it to Gabe and they would fire all his workers, shut down his business, seize all his money, everything he owned, probably tear it up for information. Gabe could have gotten out of the other things alright, probably with minimal damage to himself and others. But human trafficking was something not tolerated in any way, especially when attached to a business of any kind.

Gabe let out a long sigh, puffing his cheeks out and rubbing his eyes before standing up and looking back over at Zagan. He chewed his lip, watching the man thoughtfully for a moment. Then he nodded.

"Cute," he said with a shrug and a sigh. "Real cute. Well, sounds like par for the course."

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan frowned. Offense? Why was Gabe offended? Zagan was the one that had gotten framed.

"Hey, I didn't actually do any of it, y'know!" he snapped, jerking his thumb back at himself. "I'm as innocent...well, okay, maybe slightly less innocent than you...Oh, the point is, I never did any of it. And as soon as we get to the Smuggler's Moon, everythin'll be cleared and then you can go back to Coruscant and get on with your precious life."

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe cocked an eyebrow.

"Did I say I thought you did any of it, Mr, Grey?" he said poisonously. "The only problem is that a human trafficking offense can't be wiped off just like that, even if you didn't do it." Gabe paused, the sighed and stood, ripping up the drawings and wrinkling them into a ball. "Nevermind. I don't care whether or not you did it. Yes my life is precious, at least I have one. Unlike some people around this place. Now, move it!"

Gabe boldy elbowed past the bigger man to dispose of the paper and maybe find some alcohol. He was going to need it to get through these two weeks.

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan stood staring, gaping in fury, as the boy stumped off down the hall. He wanted to yell after him, scream him into submission, maybe knock him around a little bit, show him who was...

The anger and heat bled out of Zagan and left him cold. No. No, he didn't. He really didn't. Here he was, trying to prove to the universe that he wasn't a criminal thug, and now he was harboring fantasies of beating up a younger, smaller, innocent--if somewhat annoying, at present--kid.

Yes, that was a real step in the right direction, there.

Still scowling, he pulled out and lit a cigarette. Well, if he was gonna make no progress in one area of his life today, the whole lot may as well be equally screwed.

He followed well behind the boy, not because he didn't want to go back to his room--he did, very much, maybe see how fast he could get through a carton of cigarettes (he had done this once, several years ago; it had taken him about two and a half hours, and he thought maybe he could break that record)--but because he still didn't completely trust Gabe, especially while he was wandering around the ship already miffed.

When he got to the kitchen, he saw the kid in there but sauntered resolutely over to the Booze Cabinet. He started drawing out all kinds of bottles.

"Well, since you're in such a happy mood and I'm a very wanted man, what say we get thoroughly sloshed and cry on each other's shoulders, yeah?"

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe looked over as Zagan came in. Gabe wasn't mad anymore, it had gone away somewhere between his room and the kitchen. And he didn't want alcohol. Not really. Even if he wanted it he didn't want it. He watched Zagan for a minute and then rubbed his forearm over his eyes.

"No...I don't drink..." he sighed and scratched his fingers through his hair. "I'll just go back to my room."

Gabe turned around and went back out the door, the same one he had come in not two minutes ago. Gabe didn't have the gumption to be angry, especially not with a man who probably never thought higher than his own hide, where he was going to get cigarettes, and how much he could drink in an hour. Then again, Gabe wasn't exactly being a Saint either. Gabe was usually very considerate of other people, and normally trusted and liked to help other people.

He supposed it was his defense mechanism kicking in. After all, Zagan Grey wasn't going to look after him. And Gabe had learned to look after himself. it just kicked into high gear when he was out of his normal comfort situations. Which was not this ship, and certainly not that man.

Gabe leaned on the door of the bedroom for a long time before he fell into the bed and wondered how long it would be before Zagan noticed should Gabe suffocate himself in the comforter. Gabe shuddered. That wasn't a very pleasant way to go. Of course, neither was choking on your own blood after being shot by a swarm of justice frenzied cops out for revenge.

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan felt colder, somehow, after Gabe left. It was awfully quiet in the kitchen.

The sound of glasses clinking together startled him, and he looked down to see that his right hand had curled tightly around the neck of a bottle in anticipation. The taste of vodka, so fervently scrubbed from his mouth no more than an hour ago, revived with a vengeance, and his lip curled in disgust. Unclenching his hand, he left the bottles where they were and walked out of the kitchen.

He returned to his room, but he felt antsy. Zagan was all for physical inactivity, but forced physical inactivity, of the kind experienced in hyperspace, could be cloying. He pottered around, throwing away discarded liquor bottles into the bin along with a food container or two from the previous night. Gathering up his personal files and datacards, he replaced them into their appropriate spots, in cabinets or drawers or on his wall-to-wall bookshelves.

It was the bookshelf, devious thing that it was, that first gave him the idea. While it was all very amusing to watch his young captive be driven to the point of doodling on scrap paper for hours only to rip it all up and start over, Zagan could still remember instances of his own boredom and engaging in activities not so dissimilar, and the memories made him cringe. He hated not having anything for his mind to do, to chew on, wrestle with, ponder over. Physical inactivity did not bother him so much as mental.

Zagan only had a few holovids, most of the "For Audiences 21-and-older" variety, or so obscurely artsy that he'd never met another living soul who had so much as heard of them, let alone liked them (one or two vids even met both these criteria). He had lots of music, but he knew that music was best listened to while doing something else.

But books...now, books he had dozens--hundreds--of. They weren't classified or personal, and he could personally vouch for each book here, having read them all and at least appreciated them, if not downright liked them. It was certainly not his library at home, which spanned several rooms and nearly ten thousand volumes--some of them as yet unread, but many of them read several times. But for two weeks on board a starship, it would do to be going on with.

Besides, what better way to keep Gabriel out of trouble but to get his mind engaged on something interesting? Idle hands may be the Devil's playthings, but idle minds had bred civil war and the Empire and rap music. It was the minds you really had to keep an eye on.

Zagan went through the shelf, murmuring to himself and selecting books as he came to them. He pulled one, considered, replaced it; pulled another, smiled, and held onto it. He did not know Gabe from Adam, really, and didn't know what he would like in literature, so he found himself pulling down books he liked, especially ones he'd liked as a younger man.

By the time he'd thoroughly perused the entire shelf, nearly an hour had gone by and he had a large and weighty stack of novels and mythologies and the like. Carefully balancing the bunch, he slowly tiptoed out of his room and down the corridor to set the stack on the floor outside Gabe's room.

He lifted his hand to knock, but thought he'd better just leave the kid alone for now (since the boy was probably still ticked off at him and just as likely to chuck the books back at him as take them), and he turned and went back to his room, suddenly inspired to have another go at The Prince and the Pauper, one of his favorites.

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe thought he heard something outside the door as he had been trying to doze again, and it had stirred him up. He glanced at the door, half expecting Zagan to come in, with more bad news. But after a moment or two, Gabe didn't see or hear anything. He slowly rose from the bed and padded in his stocking feet to the door. He pressed his ear to it, listening for a moment. Once again, nothing.

Gabe gently pressed the door control and it slid up more noisily than he had thought, probably because it was silent except for the hum of the ship. Gabe looked up and down the hall, around as if someone might materialize. But no one did. He shrugged, moving to go back inside when his eye caught something sitting on the floor next to his door. For a long, slightly euphoric moment, Gabe wondered if his eyes were decieving him due to the fact that he hadn't seen an actual book in months.

Gabe looked up and down the hall again towards Zagan's door, almost expecting the man to be standing there. But he wasn't. Gabe's brow furrowed, and slowly his gaze softened. Surely an I.A.I.S. couldn't carry in a stack of books this large. A real person had to have done that. And the only only other living being was Zagan.

Gabe looked down at the stack of books. He thought it must have been God right then, looking after him, or moving in the other man, because the words "Fahrenheit 451" met his eyes and his heart melted. It was his favorite book, of all time, bar none. Gabe's mind was trying to tell him not to take the books, to leave them, but he couldn't. Couldn't bear to see books laying idle, unread. Gabe would thank Zagan at a later time, when both had had time to think. And Gabe had had time to snack these down.

The stack was big and heavy, but a welcome weight in Gabe's hands as he picked them up and brought them into the room, closing the door behind him. He plopped them down on the mattress, his hand immediately going for the book on top. He smiled at it, though it wasn't really meant for the book as much as for the man who had provided it for him. He wouldn't ever know how grateful Gabe was.

He flipped through the first few pages and leaned back on his pillow.

It was a pleasure to burn.

[Zagan Grey]

Now that we are taking leave of him let us try to keep this in our minds, to his credit.

Light and words bleared and the well-beaten binding, rough in his rough palm, slid along his fingers to drop onto the bed without a sound.

A few minutes after his breathing deepened and evened, the lights were turned down by an unseen electronic hand.

It was dark for three hours.

And it was still dark when a little red light suddenly started blinking on the computer console across the room from Zagan's bed. When the light went unnoticed (Socrates hadn't honestly thought it would be), a low, steady tone began to hum from the console, rising slowly in pitch.

Zagan stirred and mumbled in his sleep, his eyes flickering but stubbornly staying closed.

Socrates gave an irritated-sounding sigh and decided that, given the circumstances, Zagan would get over it pretty quickly.

"Zagan, please wake up." The man stirred again and his eyes slitted open, uncomprehending slivers of dark glitter in the deep shadows.

"Mrhm?" It was not awake enough, and Socrates knew it.

"Zagan, you need to wake up. I'll bring out the sirens next."

Finally the man's eyes opened all the way and he propped himself up on his elbows.

"MmSocrates?" he slurred. Good enough.

"Zagan, I think you should go check on Gabriel. I'm worried about him."

"What?"

Sigh. "Please go see if Gabriel is alright. I noticed the same thing last night. He seems distressed: his heart and breathing rates are elevated, and, though I did not presume to spy on him last night, I finally became so concerned this evening that I took the liberty of getting a visual. He is thrashing most violently."

Zagan blinked. "Wait, did you say you were worried? Socrates, you're a computer. You don't 'worry'."

"Zagan! I am truly concerned for the boy's well-being, or in any case I think that you should be."

"Alright, alright!" Zagan pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, then drew them back to blink puffily. "Heart and breathing and..." Zagan stopped, and his eyebrow climbed.

"Socrates, d'you ever consider the kid might just be wanking off?"

"Yes, actually, I did. He is not."

"You sure? Cause I sure as hell ain't walking in there just to see his--"

"I'm quite sure, Zagan, now please! I think he might really do himself harm!"

"Marymotherof..." He snapped. "I'm going!"

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe's mind had been silent for two and a half blissful hours. And then...

They all started out that way. Darkness. Not the normal darkness one sees in sleep, but a deeper kind. The kind one might find in the darkest cave with the murkiest water. Or perhaps in the belly of some horrid creature. Like your eyes are open, but there is nothing to see. A total void.

Gabe's dreams varied. Sometimes there were creatures, huge and evil and foul. Sometimes there were just people. Everywhere. People in a crowded street, or a tiny room. But they were off. Their eyes dripped black, and thier mouths gaped open at him in an inhuman way.

Gabe couldn't stand up. He didn't know why, but he couldn't. There was a bright yellow cieling pressing down on him. The smeared remains of...something all over it. He was glued to the floor, his body hurt, his mind was racing. He was screaming but nothing was coming out. There were things crawling on him. Black blobs. Spiders and scorpians and centipedes. He was sweating, frightened out of his mind, unable to call for help, or get of the situation. He wanted someone, anyone. He didn't care who. But it could only get worse.

In his room, he was thrashing. The bed shivered with his movements, and in no time at all he flung himself off the bed into the floor. It did not wake him. In fact it made it worse. He was moaning louder now, his eyes fluttering, his breathing rapid, his heart beating hard. His cheek was bleeding a little. He had injured it on the way down to the hard, cold metal floor. He smeared it across his face with a hand clawing at something unseen.

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan shuffled sleepily down the hall, yawning. When he got to Gabe’s room, he lifted his hand to knock. There was no sound from the other side. He knocked harder, so that if the kid was just having a bad dream or, as Zagan strongly suspected because he didn’t think Socrates knew what the hell he was talking about, really was wanking off, Gabe would hear and respond.

But there was nothing for a long moment, and then, suddenly, a loud THUNK!

Zagan frowned. He palmed the lock and the door rushed back. The room was as dark as his was, but the ambient lighting from the corridor dully illuminated an extremely battered bed, the sheets and blankets torn from their places and flung in several different directions, the pillows looking like they’d been thrown. But there was no sign of Gabe.

And then there was a loud, horrible moan, like none Zagan had ever heard, come floating ghostlike from the far side of the bed. It was followed by small grunts and whispers and the sounds of arms and legs flopping against the floor.

Zagan hurried across the room and saw Gabe sprawled like a sacrificed animal on the cold, hard floor, limbs spasming and clawing at his chest, contorted face drenched in sweat. There was blood mingled in.

Zagan was terrified, and that took quite a lot. “What the hell??!”

“Night terrors!” Socrates replied. “He mentioned to me that he did not have his medication, and apparently his symptoms have returned.”

“Night terrors? What the hell are those?”

“You’re looking at them.”

“What—like, nightmares?”

“That you can’t wake up from. He will not remember this in the morning, but his body will.”

Zagan nodded grimly. There were already little cuts and scratches on Gabriel’s face and arms. A really good thrash and he could knock his own brains out.

The older man knelt next to the younger, hesitantly reaching out to grasp the flailing arms and flinching away from the clawed fingers. Finally he got a hold on one thin, pale wrist; it was a struggle to control it. The boy was much stronger than he looked.

“Gabe! Kid, wake up! Wake up!”

[Gabriel Archangel]

The voice was dim, dull in the ever growing expanse of yellow cut with red, smeared bloody over the cieling. It was closer, closer. Gabe couldn't tell whose voice it was but he struggled harder against it. As hard as he could.

There was a pressure on his wrist, his mind was trying desperately to come to, desperately trying to claw away from the pure terror that was being inflicted over Gabe's entire body. Gabe couldn't breathe now, the cieling was on top of him, the bloody mass smearing across his chest, crushing the life from his body. The voice again, demanding, somehow familiar, somehow comforting, but lost as Gabe tried to scream again. But there was no air left in his body.

Gabe's mind wrenched him forward, his eyes opening at the growing pressure on his wrist. He gasped for air that hadn't been there only a second ago, his back arching a little with the effort of taking in as much air as was possible. The black insects. He could still feel them. The pressure on his wrist, what was it? His eyes fluttered rapidly as he tried to make sense of the black blob hunched over him. His mind was distorting everything, the black figure was there to harm him he was sure.

"Get away from me!" he finally screamed, unable to for what felt life lifetimes. He jerked at the hand that was trapped, thrashed, kicked, trying anything to free himself.

[Zagan Grey]

"Holy shi--!!"

Zagan toppled backwards in his haste to escape the threatening swings and kicks. The boy's socked foot clipped his captor's jaw anyway, and Zagan saw a burst of stars but gritted his teeth and regained his balance.

“Damn it, Gabe! Wake up!” Zagan abandoned all fear now and practically threw himself on the kid, sitting on his legs and pinning his wrists. The boy’s head kept tossing and his teeth were gnashing, so Zagan, with some difficulty, managed to get both skinny wrists under one of his much bigger hands so that with the other he could take hold of Gabe’s head to still it. He tried not to grab the hair, only buried his fingers in it to stop the kid giving himself a black eye on the floor.

He patted Gabe’s face and scratched lightly at his scalp.

“Gabriel!”

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe's vision cleared as quickly as it had inked black hours before. He was staring, wide-eyed, up into the face of someone he recognized. The rush of familiarity seized Gabe's arms and legs in thier wild thrashing movements, his body trembling under the weight of the man sitting on top of him, hand on his head, face downturned, looking harrassed.

Gabe was breathing so heavily, he was ready for his lungs to implode. And his heart was beating so hard, he was sure it would escape his body at any moment. Gabe jerked slightly, looking down at his body, then around, fear clenching his stomach, causing it to cramp uncomfortably. But he saw nothing but the dark room he had gone to sleep in. Nothing frightening, nothing threatening. Nothing but darkness. The dream had already begun to slip away from him, but he still felt the lingering fear.

Gabe screwed his eyes shut and swallowed several times in succession, his chest clenched tight. When he opened his eyes again, Zagan was still there, and Gabe's body took to shaking as it often did after his dreams subsided.

[Zagan Grey]

The boy’s fit stopped with almost frightening suddenness, though his chest still heaved. But his arms were limp in Zagan’s grasp, and the man cautiously pulled his hand away, sorry to see that the wrists would probably bruise a little.

Zagan quickly leaned back on his heels, surprised to feel his own heart racing.

“You alright?” he murmured a bit skeptically, not totally convinced the boy would not have another seizure and try to throttle him. He watched Gabe narrowly; he was trembling badly. The sight of him shivering, bruised, sweaty, torn made Zagan think he looked very helpless and wan. His pale skin seemed to glow strangely in the non-light.

“Here, you’re on the floor…” Zagan stood and held out a hand to help him up. The kid almost looked too shaky to stand.

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe looked around him. By God, he was on the floor. For a moment, Gabe had to register that information. As well as the words. He looked up at the offered hand and watched it a moment. His movements were shaky and slow, his brain, heart, and lungs trying to catch up and get back into rhythm.

Finally, he reached up one trembling hand, and grasped the offered help. He used the wright of the bigger man to pull himself up. And promptly nearly collapse again on his shaking knees. Luckily, the bed was there to allow him a place to sit down. Gabe rubbed his hands over his face and then felt a sharp pain go through his face.

"Ow..." he muttered, jerking his hand away and looking down at it. He saw blood. He reached up and tenderly touched the long cut with one shaky hand. Naturally, he had cut himself a good one on...something. He slowly looked up at Zagan, his brow furrowed. He'd probably whacked the guy a good with his fist or something, he couldn't really remember.

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan frowned deeply at him, turned, and disappeared into the lav.

He returned in a minute with a dampened rag. Kneeling in front of Gabe, he carefully reached out to swab away the blood from the tender cut. It was not terribly deep, but like all face wounds was bleeding pretty well.

“You scared the hell outta me, kid. How come you didn’t tell me about this?” His voice was rough but he couldn’t bring it to be mean. Gabe’s eyes were too big and his mouth was trembling just a little, and his dark hair fell across his pale face in an incredibly beautiful, but incredibly harried-looking, way. He was like a doll, but so scared-looking that it made Zagan’s heart beat faster in sympathetic fear.

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe's face gave a little under the strong, but gentle touch of the other man as he wiped at the cut with the cool rag. It was the only movement he made for a long moment, the exhaustion of his terrors causing his body to ache. Gabe was watching the man, the familiar look of his face--no matter what had happened before now--was comforting to Gabe.

"I didn't..." he started then lost his thought. It came back not long later. "I didn't think...it would matter." He sucked in a breath as the texture of the cloth caught in a raw spot. He swallowed and let out a sigh of relief. "I'm sorry if I..." he waved vaguely at Zagan. "Hurt you."

It struck Gabe then, that the man, the one he had labeled as a heartless drunk, had just woken him up from a horrific dream, and was now helping him clean up the blood smeared over his face and arms. First the books and now this. Gabe's view of Zagan was changing slowly, and it wasn't a bad thing either. Gabe's heart was beginning to return to a normal rate as he evened out his breathing and watched Zagan's face, lined with dark confusion more than anything else. Gabe looked down at his arms and the blood smeared there from his face and the cuts that he had inflicted on himself there.

[Zagan Grey]

"Eh, y'know. Couple broken ribs, ruptured spleen. I'll live."

His mouth quirked in a rakish half-grin. He told himself it was just the fact that he still hadn't really woken up that he was being so accommodating to the boy. Whatever it was, he finished daubing the blood off Gabe's arms and handed him the rag.

"Here...for your hands and arms. I'm gonna see if I can find a bacta..."

He disappeared into the bathroom again, and there was the sound of violent rummaging for a few seconds before,

"Eureka!"

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe watched him go and for a moment wasn't sure if he was going to look away. But a little pain in his arm brought him back to his current situation, instead of the man in the bathroom. Gabe looked back down at his arms and pressed the rag to a cut across his knuckles that looked like the only one bleeding the heaviest.

He was exhausted, that dream, whatever it had been, had taken the life out of him. He would be sleeping well the rest of the cycle. At least...he hoped he would. Perhaps Zagan had a sleeping pill or eight that Gabe could pop. It'd knock him out for a solid seven hours, but it would at least coax his mind to calm itself. Sleeping pills helped when he didn't have his terror medication.

The exclamation from the bathroom drew Gabe's eyes up again in the dull half-light to the dark door into which Zagan had disappeared. Gabe blinked hard, trying to keep his eyes focused.

[Zagan Grey]

"I knew I had a few of these laying around," Zagan rumbled as he came back in and dropped unceremoniously to the bed beside Gabe. Tearing open the pack, he pulled out the bandage and waved it in front of Gabe's face.

"Look here...good...there. Be good as new by the time you wake up."

Then his eyebrow quirked. "That is...assuming you're going to go back to sleep? Does this happen everytime you go to sleep?"

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe worked his jaw a little, wincing at a little pain. He glanced around the room at the mess he had made in his sleep. He sighed and nodded, pulling himself to his now steady feet and bending down, grabbing the blanket that had fallen with him when he had left the bed. He wadded it up and tossed it onto the bed.

"Unless I am on my medicine...yeah, it does," he said, moving to the pillow and picking it up. He threw it onto the bed as well and then sat back down. He rubbed his forearm across his forehead, then rubbed his eyes that were aching now. He looked back over at Zagan, watching him for a moment.

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan rubbed the back of his neck, thinking.

"Well...what kind of medicine is it? Wait...Socrates?"

"Yes, Zagan? Gabe, I am so pleased to see you are well."

"Yeah, well, might not last, Socrates. Okay, kid, d'you know what the active ingredient in your meds is? Socrates might know whether it's in anything on the ship."

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe's eyes widened a moment. His mind trid to remember, he knew he knew this. He was just, in a state of mental blockage.

"Erm..." he answered, thinking hard. He shook his head and then ran a hand through his disheveled hair. "Umm...can't think of it just now. 'S on my datapad," he said. His doctor had advised him to put down the active ingrediant somewhere he always had it just in case he got into a place where he did't have his medication and needed to improvise. Like...right now for instance. Gabe stood up a little and reached across Zagan, grabbing the datapad off the metal stand next to the bed. He tapped the screen. His greeting popped up and then he searched through his files, looking for the one he had saved with the information on his disorder, what caused it, how to treat it, and the ingrediants of his medication.

[Zagan Grey]

The kid fiddled with his palm for a minute, and Zagan pulled out the connection wire from the computer console to plug it into the datapad.

When Gabe had located it, Socrates made a thoughtful sound.

"Just a moment...hmm..." He paused for several long seconds. "I regret to say that this particular substance cannot be found on the Inferno. However, it is closely related to the active ingredient of the sleep-aid medication in your medicine cabinet, Zagan."

The man's eyebrows knitted together. "Sleeping pills? I don't take sleeping pills."

"No, but the last guest you had on the ship did. He left the pills in the cabinet."

"Last...that was...months ago. Is the medicine still effective?"

"Difficult to say. I believe the dosage and type would be safe for Gabriel to take on a non-prescription basis. We will only know if the medicine is still active if he tries it."

Zagan eyed the boy. "Well, I'm certainly not using the meds, and if you're going to do--that--whenever you fall asleep, you need whatever you can get. Right?"

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe furrowed his brow. Zagan said it like it was some sort of disease. It was a disorder, yes, it ran in his family. But it wasn't like Zagan could catch it like it was an airborne thing. He dropped his pad on the bed and nodded.

"Figured as much..." he said quietly, now thoroughly embarrassed. He sighed out heavily. He stood up and stretched grabbing a shirt off of the back of a chair and almost pulled it onto his naked chest. But he decided against it. He might get some blood on it. He nodded. "I'll need one and a half."

[Zagan Grey]

"Alright then."

Zagan got up and padded back down the hall to his room. He stumbled over some books he'd left laying in the floor, cursing softly at them, on his way to the lavatory. Once there, he popped open the medicine chest. Squinting into the dark, he realized he couldn't tell bandages from condoms.

He sighed. "Lights...DIM, please..."

The illumines obeyed hesitantly, as if afraid that if they got too bright there might be Consequences. But Zagan only blinked dully while his eyes readjusted, then began moving bottles and canisters and boxes around with his fingers. Finally he found an abandoned-looking pill bottle behind a jar of hair gel, and plucked it out to regard it thoughtfully. Yep, he'd never seen it before in his life, so this must be...

"That's it," Socrates chimed in helpfully.

"Thank you."

"You know, often people are a bit more sympathetic to their young friends when they have nightmares. I have heard that hugging is often considered comforting."

A horrified expression crossed Zagan's face, and he stared at where Socrates would be if he was in hologram form.

"Socrates. The kid's my captive...maybe, maybe even my guest. NOT my friend."

"But he is your responsibility, Zagan."

"Exactly. 'S my responsibility to see the kid doesn't kill himself. Hence..." He rattled the little bottle of pills. "Anything more and you're way past my job description."

"But perhaps if you--"

"Bugger. The hell. Off."

Socrates made a very huffy sound and said no more. Nodding resolutely, Zagan went back to Gabe's room.

"Found them," he murmured, seeing the kid standing tensely in the middle of the room, scratches dark against his white skin, his whole demeanor like that of a lost child.

"For...for what it's worth, I hope it helps."

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe took the bottle mutely, checking the label, and popping it open. He tapped two off in his hand. They looked exactly like the ones he kept at his home, in case he ran out of his medication. He tossed one into his mouth and swallowed easily, then cracked the other in half expertly, tossing it in after the other and letting it slide down. Gabe realized how good he had gotten at cracking pills in half, and crushing them, and swallowing them.

Cringing a little at the bad taste it left in his mouth, he popped the lid back onto the pill bottles and laid them on the table next to the bed. For a moment, he was quiet. Then he looked back up at Zagan. The man wasn't all he was letting on. Gabriel had immediately taken him for someone not to trust. Yet, so far, even though a little rough around the edges--maybe a little more so than even Gabe was allowing for--he had not only proved himself at leats mostly trustworthy, but even caring. Even if it was buried underneath everything else, and there wasn't much of it. It was there. Or at least, he was very good at faking that it was.

"Thank you, Zagan," he said sincerely. He waved vaguely around. "I'm sorry about all of this."

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan shrugged fluidly, grinning devilishly.

"It's you who's got to clean it up if you want blankets and pillows to sleep on," he said. If he were someone else, he might have winked. But Zagan Grey did not wink.

Of course, Zagan Grey was similarly not much in the habit of taking care of kids who had bad dreams or putting bactas on little boys' cuts.

He decided to be upset with himself after he'd got a little more sleep.

"Sleep well. Really. I mean it."

When he left the room and the door swished shut behind him, he purposefully forgot to lock it.

[Gabriel Archangel]

------

Gabriel woke up with a massive headache. He laid awake for an hour before it went away. Then he laid for another hour just to be difficult.

He had taken the time it took for the sleeping pills to kick in the evening previous to clean everything up, wash up the floor where he spotted blood he had accidentally gotten on it. He'd remade the bed, stacked up the books, written a little, and finally passed out around two hours after he had consumed the pills. He'd been knocked out for six hours straight, and felt mightily rested, if not a little sore when he awoke.

He showered, dressed--in his own clothes that he had washed--and took a stab at the door...and found it unlocked. He guessed that Zagan was already awake and just unlocked it on his way around the ship. Gabriel wandered out into the corridor, the lighting low, as in most sleeping quarters, and glanced up and down. He didn't hear any signs of life, but...that didn't really mean anything.

He wandered up to the cockpit so he could look out at the stars. He toted Fahrenheit 451 with him just in case he got the urge to continue it. Which, as he sat down in the co-pilot's chair, he did. Drawing his knees up to his chest, he laid the book open on his knees and settled in for another several hours of uninterrupted--God willing--reading.

[Zagan Grey]

Ahh...waking late, fully rested, with no hangover headache, was a wonderful thing. Almost made him want to swear off drinking himself into an oblivion every few nights.

Almost. But the alcohol was too much fun to ignore.

He glanced at the desk chrono, and blinked. Damn, he'd slept a long time. His back didn't even hurt from laying around so long, which was strange. Then he remembered that he had not slept the whole night unbroken, and he frowned. He couldn't help wondering how the kid was.

After a few minutes of lounging, he stretched languidly, like a huge, rumpled cat--he'd slept in his clothes--and got up.

Checking Gabe's room revealed the space had been tidied as though nothing had occurred the night previous. Zagan frowned again. Now that he could no longer see the bedclothes flung around the room or the smears of blood on the floor, no longer hear the groans and murmurs, it was almost...almost as if nothing had happened. The intervening hours of sleep had made his memory of the event fuzzy and sort of dim, as though he was remembering a dream.

But that had been no dream.

...

Had it?

No, he told himself firmly. It most certainly happened.

Well, there was one way to find out for sure. Okay, a couple ways, but Socrates was likely still ticked off at him from last night, and would probably answer the question, "Socrates, what happened last night?" with something like, "Well, Zagan, that really depends on the concept of reality as you define it. The question 'What happened last night' is fully dependent on your point of view. For me, last night I received several electrical relays across my motherboard at various times. Sometimes these relays changed direction or increased in number. Now, for you..."

And they would be at it the rest of the day.

So, really only one way to find out, then.

Kid wasn't in the kitchen, either. If he wasn't in the cockpit, it was time to grow concerned and rethink his decision to keep the door unlocked (he fancied he hadn't slept all that well after having done so).

But he was, curled compactly into the copilot's chair. Zagan noted with interest that, even in his complete absence, Gabe did not take the pilot's seat. He wondered what, if anything, that meant.

"G'mornin', sleepin' beauty."

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe started at the voice and fumbled the book in his hand. He looked back over his shoulder at a disheveled looking Zagan and smiled a little.

"Morning, Prince Charming," Gabe answered automatically--his friend used to say the same thing and Gabe had always answered thusly. He turned back to the book and popped a mint into his mouth. He had some in his bag he had brought from Coruscant. He always carried a healthy supply of them in there. And anyway, it was keeping him from getting hungry. He tapped the ashes off his cigarette with his left hand and took in another drag, blowing the smoke out in a long line and giving the back of his neck a scratch.

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan grinned like the cat that got the canary, but made no response to the comment. Instead he sauntered over and draped an arm across the back of the copilot's chair, leaning over to get a better look at the book the kid was reading. Ah, yes. One of his favorites.

"Kinda defeats the purpose of the cig, doesn't it?" Zagan asked as he watched--very, very carefully--as Gabe slipped the little mint past his lips and onto his tongue. This close he could smell the whiff of coolness before the candy disappeared. The sudden thought of what kind of taste that combination of flavors would make out of Gabe's mouth made Zagan lick his lips unconsciously. He was really quite close. It'd be nothing to steal down and snatch that luscious mouth.

Instead he focused his eyes past the lips, with a truly valiant show of will, and latched onto the picture of the burning paper man on the cover of the novel.

"Like that one?" He gestured lazily at the book.

[Gabriel Archangel]

"Mn..." Gabe answered, ignoring the way Zagan's breath rustled his hair over his temple. Or at least, trying very hard to. It was quite difficult at such a proximity. He kept losing the line he was on. He glanced at Zagan out of the corner of his eye.

"Read it four times..." he said. Then he nodded. "And you're right. Here." He reached around and placed the cigarette between Zagan's lips. "Doesn't taste good with the mint anyway." He settled back into the chair and turned the page, licking his lips.

You know what, Gabe, his conscience said. You just flirted shamelessly with the man who kidnapped you.

Oh, yes, Gabe knew he had, now. He shouldn't have. Oh, no, he shouldn't have. But he had. Oh well, it wasn't like he was offering his body or anything. Which he most certainly wasn't. And it wasn't like he was looking for anything. He hadn't even really thought about it until his conscience butted in on the situation.

"Thanks for it, by the way," Gabe said absentmindedly as he got reabsorbed into the pages of the book. He seemed to be thanking Zagan more than he was doing anything else on this trip. He supposed his manners were getting the better of him, at least in that area.

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan's eyes crossed as he tried to follow the cigarette into his mouth.

It tasted exactly like he'd imagined.

A tiny little lightning bolt went sizzling along his spine and arced into his groin, and he had never so wanted to kiss someone in his entire life. The fact that his lips were six inches from Gabe's might have had something to do with it.

Then the kid went back to his damn book, and Zagan took a deep inhalation of smoke, and closed his eyes.

Easy...take it easy.

He straightened. "Y'welcome. Don't fall asleep an' drool on it or anythin'. 'S hard to find it nowadays." He stretche, a long, slow movement to unkink his sleep-weary muscles.

"I'm gonna go get clean. Enjoy."

Yes. A shower. A nice, long, cool shower.

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe waited until he heard Zagan walking away before he twisted in his seat to sufficiently inspect the southern region of the back area. He grinned stupidly to himself and couldn't supress a laugh as he noted how well the man filled out the jeans he was wearing.

He shook his head and looked back down at his book. He took a deep breath but was not out of the reading mood. He rolled his shoulders and put the book on the console. He watched the stars streak by for a long moment, his mind once again wandering to his friends and family on Coruscant. His brother would be insane wondering where Gabe was. He and his brother, Michael, were closer than he and anyone else. They got together all the time, rarely was there a day that went by that they didn't speak to each other or see each other. Gabe had not been able to see him before everything had gone wrong.

Gabriel missed his brother suddenly. Actually, Gabe just missed Coruscant. Sure, he and Zagan got along well enough--despite the whole kidnapping kink--and they were certainly on a worthy cause. But still. Gabe could have had all of this cleared up by now. Even for Zagan. Running would only make everything worse. Gabriel just wished...oh, he wasn't going to think about it anymore. He was bothering himself, and he was already bothered by several...other things.

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan stripped and climbed in the shower and spent five seconds under the cool water before he started shivering and heated it up.

Cold showers were overrated.

He worked shampoo into his hair while his mind wandered. Contemplating their predicament, he began to compose in his head the speech his pal would be receiving once they reached Nar Shadaa. He went over lists of documents and evidence they would need to clear Zagan of the heavy charges he'd incurred by association. The police would have found by now the records in his office back in IC which proved that Gabriel was only a recent hire, and had not been around when any of the nastier crimes took place. Hopefully he would be able to get from his associate on the Smuggler's Moon the appropriate documentation and/or testimony and/or confession-under-extreme-duress that Zagan had not known that the buildings he had been told to have demolished were, in fact, associated very closely with one of the more major drug rings on Coruscant.

Because apparently they had been.

But...now that he really stopped to think about it...there was no way the police could have honestly implicated Gabriel or his company or any one of his employees in the drug ring, even if Zagan could not prove that he himself was not involved. Gabe had been hired, what, three days ago? And he had never been used for any other of the group's jobs. He was completely clean, wrong place, wrong time, wrong employer, and there wasn't a single cop who would be able to prove otherwise.

So, really, bringing Gabe with him had been a bit pointlessly rash. Zagan's heart sank a little. His non-conscience pricked him, told him him to suck it up and go on, and he really didn't owe the little squirt anything, anyway. But he knew better. He really did.

He found, startled, that he was really quite sorry he'd gotten the kid mixed up in this.

Zagan turned the water off, glittering droplets falling from the tips of his wet hair, and leaned his forehead against the cool tile wall.

Bad to worse to just plain screwed.

"Story of my life," he muttered, and reached out of the shower for a towel.

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe had dug his com from his bag and had tried to get a hold of his brother. But to no avail. He was way out of range. He had probably known that when he had dug it out in the first place, but he figured it was worth a try.

Instead he went to the updates of his computer at the A. Industries' headquarters on the 'Net. The compound was under temporary lockdown. All employees were out of the workplace until Gabriel and his--wanted companion--were found. Companion wanted of...Gabe already knew. He searched for his name. Oh, there it was.

Gabriel Archangel [perhaps going by Gabriel Shay Angel]--Wanted by the Small Business Board and Demolition Association for failing to follow proper proceedure when accomodating a client.

Oh. Well. All-in-all that wasn't bad. He'd be given a slap on the wrist--at least he hoped his high up friends would come through for him on that. It seemed that anything else they may have suspected him of--due to his association with Zagan--was now cleared. But another charge had now been filed against Zagan:

Kidnapping.

Gabe let out as murmur of annoyance. Naturally, he would be the cause of more greif heaped upon the other man. Gabe glanced in the general direction of where Zagan's room was. He had the sudden irrational urge to apologize to him, like any of it was Gabe's fault.

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan had, by mentally sitting on it, managed to close the file on his predicament (now complete with guilt complex) as he'd toweled himself dry. He made his way in his bedroom, tossing the wet towel towards the laundry bin and, predictably, missing. He sneered and went to his chest of drawers.

He was just pulling out a new pair of faded, baggy jeans when, underneath, he saw a pair he did not recognize. Frowning, he pulled them out to inspect them. Oh, yeah, he remembered these. He'd bought them early last year and worn them once, to a club. They were most definitely not his usual fare, charcoal-grey so dark it was almost black, stitched in pale grey thread that stood out starkly, especially where it had been sewn into the shape of a Gothic cross on each hip pocket. The jeans were cut close in the seat and thighs, accentuating parts of his body he had never been in the habit of showing off.

He snorted. How many habits had he broken today already? Besides, he could still see Gabe delicately licking his lips, and taste the mint from his cigarette.

Zagan slipped the jeans on. Actually there was a lot less slipping and a lot more wrestling than he was accustomed to, and only by growling pointedly at the things did he manage to finally scare them into submission and slide home the silver button imprinted with a cross.

Then he went closet-diving. There had been a shirt that went with these...Aha. Crop-sleeved and v-necked and black, with decorative grey stitches wound loosely around the hems of the sleeves and neck. Subtle, tasteful, but just a little daring. It was about as daring as Zagan had ever gotten.

He immediately realized he was going to get cold in this scrap of a shirt, accustomed as he was to long, woolly jumpers. But as he caught sight of himself in the full-length mirror across the room, he couldn't help but smirk.

This would do nicely.

For a brief second he considered his damp hair, but knew immediately that actively fixing it would be pushing the envelope a bit too far, too fast. So he smoothed it down and decided it was good enough.

He walked purposefully back up to the cockpit and leaned in.

"Y'hungry, kid? You ate next to nothin', yesterday..."

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe glanced around. He had to tell himself not to do a double take. Zagan looked...different. Much more so than he had earlier. Gabe could now see the curve of his hips and the thin, muscular waist. It looked more like something Gabe would wear when he went clubbing with a boyfriend or with his buddies. Not something Zagan would seem accustomed to wearing.

Gabe got up and moved to the other man. He shook his head.

"No thanks. But some tea would do, if you have some," Gabe said. Actually, he was starving to death, but he couldn't bring himself to eat for some reason. And anyway, he was trying too hard to keep his eyeballs on Zagan's face not other parts of him that were much more visible.

Gabe wasn;t a very visual man. He didn't wear flattering things, at least not like that, and not in polite company. But he certainly didn't mind it when people, for example, Zagan Grey did. Not, of course, that he would ever let on to that.

[Zagan Grey]

Hmm...he noticed the boy noticing. But he didn't say anything, or even lick those lips again. Damn.

He sighed, but acted as if he was just disappointed in Gabe's eating habits.

"Y'know, I try so hard to keep you from killing yourself in your sleep, and here you are trying to starve yourself to death." He wandered into the kitchen, opened the fridge, his lip curling as he saw the exact same things he'd seen yesterday staring balefully back at him. The menu was gonna get real old, real fast, around here.

"One might almost get the idea you didn't enjoy my company," he grinned wolfishly around the fridge door.

[Gabriel Archangel]

"Well...I am sure there are a bunch of doctors who'd like to do a study on why that might be," Gabe said, hopping onto one of the bar stools with an oof! He smiled. "But the truth is, I don't eat that much, that often."

He watched Zagan fishing around in the fridge and laid his head on the counter to avoicd being caught looking. Which was the last thing he wanted. He fiddled with his rosary that was warm against his chest. He was going to hell. He had accepted it a long time ago, even been told it once by a preist. But for some reason he couldn't shake the habit of wearing his rosary.

Gabe yawned wide, his eyes watering a little, and turned his head over to watch Zagan make his own food. Gabe screwed up his nose.

"Are heat up meals the only thing you consume?" Gabe asked, raising his head.

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan eyed him as if offended as he tore the cover off freeze-dried fish and chips and tossed them in the microwave.

"I'll have you know..." BEEP, BEEP-BEEP. Hmmm... "...that I am actually quite an excellent cook, given decent ingredients. Even given awful ingredients. Say, for instance..."

He rummaged through the fridge until he found a box of frozen scrambled eggs and held them up for Gabe to see. "These eggs. I have some canned tomatoes and onions in the cabinet, a little bit of corned beef, and I could fry up some potatoes...I make really quite good omelets." He shook the box of eggs again. "You know you want some..."

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe laughed at him, leaning back in his seat so he could properly laugh. He leaned his elbows and watched the man a moment. And then, betraying him, his stomach growled loudly.

"Fine," Gabriel gave in. "As long as you don't try to poison me," he said with a smile. He didn't really believe the man would do that. After all, he had had plenty of oppurtunities to kill Gabe and hadn't yet. He couldn't be all bad. Gabe figured he ought to at least try to get along with him. He patted the table with a hand and shook his head. "But I have got to have tea."

He hopped off his stool and moved around the island. He wedged himself purposefully between Zagan and the counter, reaching up to grab the box he had spotted the day before. He didn't care what kind it was. It had caffeine in it and that was all that mattered.

[Zagan Grey]

As soon as he got the word to cook, Zagan grinned and began fishing around for necessary supplies...skillet, ingredients, mixing spoon...

He was just about to point Gabe in the general direction of the tea and tell him to make it himself when the boy apparently read his mind and slid in front of him to stand on tiptoes and rummage out the box of teas.

Now, this would have been a fine plan, and suited Zagan well, if not for a couple key factors.

Factor #1: There was a minimal amount of room between the island and the counter. This was a small kitchen, after all. Really, there was only room for one person and maybe a half, if you kept up the obligatory three-inch buffer of personal space defined in the Intergalactic Accords on Interspecies Cooperation as being the closest comfortable range in regular interpersonal exchanges.

Factor #2: Though he was quite a narrow young man, Gabriel Archangel was considerably more than half-a-person wide. In fact, he was just slightly wider than half-a-person plus three inches. Somewhere in the neighborhood of half-a-person plus three and three-quarters inches. This, of course, negated the obligatory personal space boundary and somewhat overstepped the actual space allowed between the counter and the island.

Factor #3: Because of Gabriel’s Size Issues (seeing as how Zagan was really there first and thus it was Gabe’s size that was the problem, here), fitting both him and Zagan into the space necessitated a complete disregard for personal boundary etiquette, and in fact delved very deeply into the realm of nicety surrounding Close Personal Contact. This was primarily because Zagan’s hips and Gabe’s hips were now pressed quite snugly together.

In layman’s terms, Gabe’s delicately curved thighs were pressed solidly back into Zagan’s groin, and then the boy had the audacity to stand up on his tiptoes to reach for the tea.

Sweet God in Heaven.

Zagan’s left arm was still outstretched and resting on the counter. His right held a spatula in a white-knuckled grip. It would literally be nothing at all to snap his arms around the boy and buck him violently into the counter, ravaging that pale, smooth neck and jaw, tearing away that thin little shirt…

But Zagan had completely frozen, and good thing, too, because it gave his mind time to catch up with his body, screaming for reason and control. No, bad Zagan, there will be no raping of the boy! Huh. That was funny. The little voice inside his head had sounded a lot like Socrates.

Oh, Mother Mary. Socrates was becoming his conscience.

His mind worked very fast after that, weighing options, reestablishing control, considering outcomes. The fact of the matter was, Gabe’s small, lean body felt so damn good against Zagan it was nearly impossible to think straight at all. His thighs were tingling where Gabe had slid against them, and he swallowed as he glanced down to the nonexistent space between them.

He didn’t want to move away but there was really no way of pushing his advantage here without taking advantage of Gabe.

And then, in a heartbeat, his mind hit upon the perfect plot. Manipulative, provocative, and oh-so-slightly cheap. But probably the best he would be able to manage.

Gabe’s hand had found the box of teas but it was rather far back in the cabinet and his fingertips scrabbled along the edge of it. Zagan quietly laid down his spatula and reached up along Gabe’s arm, making very sure their limbs brushed generously, and gave the boy’s small wrist a gentle squeeze.

“Here,” he said quietly into Gabe’s hair. His mouth was really only a little bit closer than it needed to be. Honest. “Let me.”

His bigger hand closed around the box of tea and he brought it down to the counter, which, cleverly, maneuvered his arm to a position halfway around Gabe.

The boy’s body was warm and frighteningly alive; he could feel, at this range, the muscles of Gabe’s thighs tensed by the act of standing and the stretch of his trapezius and biceps when he had reached for the tea. Zagan slid his eyes shut and relished even this closeness, perhaps the closest he would ever get to this beautiful body.

Not, of course, if he had anything to do with it.

“There you go. Four different flavors. Pick your poison.”

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe's mouth was open. He couldn't close it, not fully. Not when he felt Zagan's hip shift against his, or his strong arm reach up over Gabe's head, his hand closing around Gabe's wrist for a split second before pulling the tea down.

Gabe let his arm drop, watched as Zagan's was nearly wrapped totally around him now. The older man's breath was warm in Gabriel's hair. His hips were pressed tightly between Zagan's and the counter top. The man's body heat passed from him into Gabe and he could feel each increasingly warm point where thier bodies met. Gabe couldn't help but notcie how nicely his hips fit into the groove of Zagan's groin and thighs. He couldn't help but appreciate how warm the other man was.

But also, Gabe had to note how much bigger he was. How much of a position he had just put himself into. Arousing, yes, fun, certainly. But it was true, Zagan was physically bigger than Gabe, and could easily do with him what he wanted in this position. Yet for a long moment, nothing happened. Zagan stood there, one hand leaned on the counter the other resting on it lightly, on the other side of Gabe. Gabe was still pressed tightly against the other man.

He suddenly wasn't interested in tea anymore.

Gabe shifted again, moving his weight from one leg to the other, feeling his hips shift against Zagan's as he stood in a more upright position. His shoulder blades brushed Zagan's chest as Gabe's wits returned--mostly--and he picked up the first flavor he saw. Cinnamon something, he didn't really care.

"Mn. Thanks..." he said, his voice a little lower than normal. He shifted against the man again this time to turn. He picked up the man's wrist and slid underneath his arm, looking at Zagan, a little frightened, a lot aroused, as he moved slowly by.

[Zagan Grey]

Dear lord, he had to stop moving his hips around like that. Zagan's pelvis was beginning to gain sentience, and Bad Things always happened when it did.

Finally the boy moved away, and Zagan was brutally torn between regretting the loss and wanting to breathe a sigh of relief. He chose instead to focus on the way Gabe's body slid away fluidly and at the warmth of those slender fingers on his wrist.

Forcing a smile that was far and away more calm than he felt, Zagan leaned past Gabe to pluck up the kettle from the stove.

"Enjoy," he murmured, his eyes locked on Gabe's. Then he glanced away and began to open the can of tomatoes.

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe made his tea in silence, taking in deep breaths of the sweet smell. It was calming his nerves like no cigarette ever could. Even though he was craving one of those too. the water boiled in a few minutes and Gabe poured it out into a silver mug. The cinnamon was strong.

Gabe stirred it lightly, his mind reminding how stupid it would be to do anything else like he had just pulled. Gabe didn't do that, it wasn't his thing, yet there he had stood and done it. Not again. He was already in the worst position possible.

He raised the mug up and leaned his hip on the counter. He watched Zagan for a moment as he blew on the steaming liquid.

"Need help?"

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan grunted a negative, by now absorbed in sauteeing vegetables in butter substitute. Part of his brain still pricked his groin delicately with remembered arousal, but he mostly ignored it.

"I'll be done in just a couple minutes," he said, sucking a little tomato juice off his thumb. The microwave beeped, and he shot it a glance.

"Take that back; get the eggs, won't you?" He gave the vegetables a final stir, then shoved them off the heat and turned his focus fully to the rapidly browning potatoes.

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe put down his mug and moved to the microwave. He opened it and peered inside. Reaching in, he carefully pulled out the eggs, sucking in a breath as he accidentally burnt himself a little. He shut the microwave and pushed the eggs towards the other man.

Actually, comparatively speaking, they didn't look too bad, the eggs. Of course, fresh ones looked better, but if this was the best they could do, it wasn't bad.

"There you go."

[Zagan Grey]

"Cheers."

Zagan picked up the eggs with his left hand and dumped them into the skillet with the onions and tomatoes, while his right kept stirring the smoking potatoes. He picked up the abandoned spatula with his left hand after discarding the egg package, and glanced over at Gabe.

Shameless excuse to get close to the boy number one.

"Here, stir the eggs and vegetables together," he said, tapping the flat of the spatula gently to Gabe's cheek. He grinned.

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe moved his face with a smile and reached out, taking the spatula from the man, moving next to him. He leaned his hips against the counter and stirring contentedly. He watched the eggs and vegetables, trying to keep them from getting too brown. He stuck his unoccupied hand in his pocket and stirred for a long moment before he glanced over at the other man.

"Thanks for waking me up last night," Gabe said.

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan's eyebrows quirked. He'd half forgotten the reason he'd come looking for Gabe in the first place.

He shrugged fluidly. "Socrates was worried about you," he muttered, taking the potatoes off the ranged and scooping them onto a plate. "You didn't tell me you got those...what are they? Night terrors? Are they nightmares, or what?"

Zagan nodded to the skillet the kid was stirring. "Those are done." He took the plate of potatoes and set it on the island, then slid onto a barstool and began picking at his cooling fish once more.

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe took the food off the heat and moved to lay them on a hard surface. He glanced at Zagan and shrugged his own shoulders.

"It's a sleeping disorder. Incredibly real nightmares..." he said, pulling a plate over to push the eggs and vegetables off on. They were steaming, and Gabe could feel the heat on his face even from this distance. "I've got a mild form. They aren't dangerous...and I can't remember them," he expalined absentmindedly as he put the pan back on the stove, off of the heat.

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan frowned deeply.

"Not dangerous my eye--you were tearing yourself up, and you could have hit your head pretty seriously on any number of things in that room." He took a bite and chewed slowly, watching Gabe as he moved the food from pan to plate. He really enjoyed watching people, even when they weren't doing anything particularly interesting. And rarely did he get to watch someone so lovely do even such a mundane thing as eat. He noticed the boy scraped the pan to get all the food off; so he was hungry. Zagan wondered why the kid would bother lying about it. Zagan didn't think his food was that bad.

"Did the pills help at all?"

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe took a bite of the food. Mm, it was good, and he was hungry. He hopped onto a stool and swallowed, looking back up at Zagan.

"Well, they knocked me out good," he said with a shrug. "I was too oblivious probably to have any dreams. But I don't know if I actually didn't have a terror after I passed out," he said. He took another bite and chewed quietly.

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan nodded.

"They should keep you nigh comatose...the guy who left 'em here couldn't sleep on anything less than prescription, but because he had such a low addiction point the docs kept him on OTCs. So he bought the strongest stuff he could. Those pills aren't even legal in most districts in IC. Hopefully they'll keep your body still enough that even if you do have a nightmare you'll still be pretty well calm about it."

He swallowed, lifted his mug of coffee to his lips, and murmured, without looking at Gabe, "'M glad they helped," before taking a swig.

And he was. After all, who wanted to clean up a bloody mess and dispose of a body first thing in the morning? That was why he was glad.

Really. It was.

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe nodded. He continued to eat in silence, taking a drink of his tea. The food wasn't half bad, and Gabe's hungry stomach was thanking him now for eating it. He hadn't had much in the way of sustinance since he had left his home the morning all of this had gone down. And those oranges.

Gabe watched Zagan discreetly as he ate. He was slow and methodical. Of course, he seemed to be that way about most things.

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan knew the kid was watching him, and took perverse pleasure in it.

He lifted his fork and jabbed it toward Gabe's rapidly-clearing plate. "So what did I tell ya, huh? 'S a shame it couldn't have been a real omelet, 'cause that'd have you wrapped around my little finger for the rest of the trip. In any case, this is better than starving, right?"

Zagan couldn't help himself. He reached over and speared a tomato and a bite of egg and popped it in his mouth. It really was pretty good for space rations. He wiggled his eyebrows a little at Gabe.

[Gabriel Archangel]

____________
Things went on as they had been.

But Gabe was about to go stir crazy. There was no where to go, no one else to look at but Zagan grey, nothing to do but read and write, and consider their charges. It was no wonder he kept having such horrible night terrors. No wonder he was waking up with new cuts and scratches. He was so stressed it was ridiculous.

They had been on the ship four Coruscant days, almost five and Gabe had been over every part of it, trying to work out the pent up energy he had. It was a lot of the reason he liked his job on Coruscant so much. He was constantly moving and talking and by the time he got home at night he was exhausted. But on this ship there was nowhere to go, and nothing to do to work off energy.

It was driving Gabe nearly insane. He hadn't seen Zagan yet today, but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. The man, since the incident in the kitchen, had become more attractive to Gabe than he was really comfortable with. Gabe liked the way he looked certainly, but even the way he talked, and his humor, and his gruffness. Gabe didn't like how he liked it. He didn't like it one bit. It bothered him.

[Zagan Grey]

OOC: WARNING! Bad American attempt at usage of BritSlang ahead (well, IrishSlang, really). If there are any Irishfolk out there who cringe when you read it, do drop me a line? I'd like to learn how to write dialects, not butcher them :)
______________

Zagan was humming. This was not a good sign.

It was the 1812 Overture. This was a far worse sign. He hated the 1812 Overture and thought that, overall, it was really a shame the entire score hadn't got blown up by a cannon centuries ago. Regardless of his feelings on it, he had had to study it extensively at university, and thus knew the whole thing by heart.

And he was humming it. Humming for Zagan was a nervous activity, about the most nervous activity he allowed himself. It was one step above tapping his toe and a shade below cracking his knuckles. He had only cracked his knuckles once in the past five years.

Nervous tics gave away far too much about a person to be advisable, and Zagan had weeded out all but a few of his. He had been working on the toe-tapping thing for several years and almost got it banged out. But he hadn't been worked up to humming in months.

The reports over HoloNet showed no encouraging signs of "Police Calling Off Hunt for Grey and Victim" and in fact carried daily a new disturbing message, like "Kidnapper Tied to West End Fraud Ring" or "Grey Implicated in Multiple Counts of Robbery". To be fair, most of them were at least partly true, though he held they didn't have to be quite so zealous in their terminology, but he was incensed at the repeated use of "Kidnapper," "Kidnapping," "Abduction." Really, the were making altogether too much of a fuss about this; it wasn't even a proper kidnapping. More of a...temporary detainment...aggravated relocation...coerced joyride. If it had been a real kidnapping, the kid would've been locked in a cell with some mouldy bread and stale water and daily beatings, or something. Yeah? There would have been a lot less friendly banter and semi-home-cooked breakfast and a whole, whole lot less casual flirting with eyes and smiles. From both parties.

Hell, if they wanted the kid back so badly, they could come and bodily remove him, for all Zagan cared. Having him around was beginning to become more of a hassle than it would have been to leave him on Coruscant to blab to the cops. Okay, so, it really wasn't the kid who was the hassle so much as the avoidance of jumping the kid's lovely bones was the hassle. The kid was actually pretty damn good craic, all things considered, sarcastic and smartass and constantly making up for it with that fantastic smile, besides being generally well-behaved and good-natured about the whole kidna--slight harassment thing.

But it was getting harder to ignore the fact that they would be stuck together in this glorified tin can for another week and already Zagan's knuckles were starting to itch and ache and beg to be popped whenever he spent more than five minutes around Gabe.

And Socrates, predictably, was being no help whatsoever.

"Please do stop pacing, Zagan, you're making me nervous."

"I am not pacing, you holographic humbug. I'm reorganizing my books. And besides, IAISes can't get nervous."

"Well I am learning pretty quickly. Why don't you make a nice cup of tea and read a book for awhile?"

"I don't drink tea, Socrates."

"Vodka, then."

Grunt. "Don't have a whole lot left. Forgot to restock it b'fore we left. Still got another week to survive in hyperspace, and I'm not sure I'll get through it without a lot of vodka later on. Oh...I've been looking for this book for ages..."

"Oh, good! Going to read it, then, perhaps?"

"Hmm? Oh, no, no, I just wanted to know where it was. Somebody asked to borrow it. I actually can't stand it. I mean, some old guy and this bloody great fish? Not really my cup of tea."

"...You don't drink tea, Zagan."

"Oh. Right. Hey, Socrates?"

"Yes, Zagan?"

"Bugger off."

"Well!"

Zagan eyed the computer console narrowly to be sure the pixelated philosopher was really gone, then sighed and reshelved the Hemingway. He would read, but every time he did his mind wandered, either back to IC or forward to Nar Shadaa or across the ship to Gabriel. He might even have broken into the vodka, rest of the journey be damned, except that they were going through a patch of rough space here and the likelihood of pirate mines was greater. He needed to be sober, at least for a couple more days.

Besides, once the alcohol had become a hangover and the hangover had become sobriety again, Coruscant and Nar Shadaa and Gabriel-bloody-Archangel would still be there to trouble his mind.

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe was making circles around the kitchen island, tracing symbols over the tile with his finger. He would pause here and there to think. But he couldn't stay still long. He was having issues staying still, and it was getting to him. If he didn't do something constructive he was going to shoot himself in the foot. Or the eye. Whichever came first.

Gabe glanced up and to the door of the kitchen. God, how he wised Zagan Grey weren't in the same breathing space as he. Because the longer the older man was in his breathing space, the more oppurtunity there was for Gabe to just chuck morals and ask the man to...oh. Gabe really needed to stop thinking about that particular subject. Zagan was bothering him, and he wasn't even in the room.

"Someone shoot me..." he whined, leaning his back against the counter and sliding down to sit with his knees against his chest in the floor. He rested his forehead on his knees and closed his eyes. Immediately his mind wandered to Zagan Grey. Wandered to his smile, to his laugh, to his sense of humor. It wandered to his masked intelligence, to the way his brow furrowed when he was thinking. Gabe wished the man would leave him be. If he had taken a mind to, Gabe could have gone and taken a nap, maybe sleep off some of his cabin fever. But even when he slept, he was tearing himself to bits. The sleeping pills helped a little, but with so much pent up energy and stress, they were slowly doing very little in the way of his terrors.

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan stayed in his room reorganizing his books and not pacing, thankyouverymuch, for as long as he could. But, though his room was comfortable and full of diversions, it did possess one glaring flaw.

There was no food in it.

Zagan couldn't stand being hungry. He remembered being really hungry as a kid more often than he wasn't, and he would always rather not go back and relive the memories. But he'd smoked and smoked and the rumbles in his stomach had not gone away (though he did feel a little more relaxed, now--thank the Lord for nicotene), so he felt a trip to the kitchen was probably necessary.

"Hey, Socrates?" he queried, slipping a sweater on over his tanktop. He wanted to make sure the kid was not in the kitchen before he ventured in there himself.

There was no reply from the IAIS. Still mad about being told off, then.

"Damn huffy old man," Zagan growled, wishing he didn't have quite such a knack for ticking off his computer right before he needed its help.

Well, nothing for it, then. He'd just have to risk it.

He tried hard, and failed, to avoid checking his appearance in the mirror before he walked out.

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe had his chin resting on his arms and he was looking at his blurry reflection in the metal counter across from him. He wondered what Zagan was doing. Wondered if he was having such an issue with Gabe as Gabe was having with him. Oh, probably not. He was probably too aloof for those sorts of things. Then again, Gabe wasn't so sure.

He finally leaned forward and stood up, stretching. He opened up one of the cabinets and pulled down a can of peaches. Gabe ate when he was nervous. And he was nervous. He opened the can and pulled one out, dropping it into his mouth and chewing it thoughtfully. There was still a week and a half they had to be on this ship together. And Gabe wasn't sure if he would be able to handle it. He couldn't take small spaces this long. He was already half crazy, another couple days would seal his fate.

He turned and hopped up on the counter, sitting with the can of peaches in his lap, eating them slowly, hoping that the activity would help keep his mind off the other man. Of course, it didn't.

[Zagan Grey]

When Zagan wheeled around the corner, his eyes fell immediately upon the boy perched on his counter--always on the counter, honestly, there were chairs--with a can of something resting on his thigh, head tipped back, a sliver of peach dangling over his parted lips. A drip of syrup fell into his mouth.

Zagan froze, his eyes going wide. He willed his body to turn on his heel and march itself straight back to his bedroom where he could spend the next several hours trying to get the image of Gabe eating peaches out of his head.

His body had other ideas entirely, and marched straight forward into the kitchen. He finally regained control of it somewhere near the fridge, and turned and opened its door as if that was what he had been planning on doing all along.

The cool air from inside hit him full in the face and he concentrated hard on the label of the mustard jar.

"Y'know those things with four legs and a seat and a back on them? You sit in them," he said, voice so gruff it almost didn't come out at all.

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe glanced over. He let out a long sigh and pulled his legs up. He stretched them out over the counter and then laid back on it, the peaches resting on his stomach. He continued to eat.

"Okay, so sit in one," Gabe said, closing his eyes and dropping another peach into his mouth. He licked the syrup off his bottom lip.

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan's mind was outraged at the boy's flippancy, and his body was quite intrigued by the movement of that tongue over one plump lip.

Altogether, he was hot and bothered. And it irritated him to no end.

"Oh, I will," he snapped, shutting the fridge door with a bit more force than was strictly necessary. He stalked over to the counter where Gabe was stretched out like a big lapdog and leaned threateningly over him, bracing his arm on his far side to effectively trap him.

"I'm just wonderin' what pack of wolves brought you up, as you are apparently under the impression that counters are appropriate sitting areas."

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe peered up at him, a smile tugging the side of his mouth. He sighed out, rolling his eyes and slamming the can down. He put a hand on the man's chest and shoved him forcefully away as he sat up.

"Fine, mom," he said, sliding off the counter expertly and grabbing the can of peaches. He chewed his tongue as he elbowed past the bigger man and sat himself down in the chairs that Zagan was so obsessed with him sitting in. "You are so anal retentive, old man..." he muttered, slipping another peach into his mouth.

[Zagan Grey]

Already agitated, Zagan found himself rubbed all the wrong directions by the kid's smart mouth, which he usually appreciated.

He scowled deeply. "Look, kid, my ship, my rules. I don't know what's gotten into you today, but you're bein' a major pain in my neck, right now, and, given your circumstances, that's the last thing you wanna be."

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe looked at him and rolled his eyes again. He suddenly couldn't stomach the peaches. He pushed them away.

"What are you gonna do, lock me in my room again? Go ahead," he said, waving his hand. "Or, God, just go ahead and chuck me out the ship, it'd be so much easier for all parties involved," Gabe shook his head, running a hand through his hair. "Fine kidnapper you turned out to be."

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan's temper was bad. He knew it. It was his most major flaw, arguably topping his penchant for drunkenness.

When provoked, he could have a very nasty temper, indeed. And he'd just lost it.

"You want me to be a real kidnapper, do you?" His voice was almost subsonically low. He reached out, calmly taking hold of the half-eaten can of peaches.

And flingng them, hard, against the wall.

"Fine. I'm a poor kidnapper? Let's fix that. What should I do first? Beat you unconscious? Tie you to a bed and burn cigarette ends into your skin? Rape you until you bleed to death? What would a kidnapper do, Gabriel, a proper one? Do tell me."

He did not notice his hand had curled bloodlessly around the edge of the island about six inches from Gabe's arm. Any harder and he very well could crack it.

"Tell me. That way, being locked in your room will be the least of your worries."

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabriel jumped violently as the can crashed against the wall and the man changed into something else. Something that frightened Gabe. His breathing automatically sped up as did his heart rate. This was like one of his terrors. Was it? No, it wasn't. This was really happening. Zagan was really frightening, really standing not a foot away, his white knuckled grip on the island so close Gabe could feel the heat off of it.

Gabe didn't say anything, he had pushed the envelope too far this time and he was suddenly unsure of whether or not he would be escaping this kitchen with his life. He couldn't move, or else he would be running for his life. He was mortified to the seat. Certainly, Gabe had dealt with some unsavory characters, and certainly he had had his share of black eyes. But never before had he ever felt quite this vulnerable.

He clenched his jaw, swallowing hard past the fear that had so suddenly clenched his chest. His eyes flicked to the can of peaches, crushed slightly and laying still on the floor, then he looked back to the other man. He was holding his breath, waiting to be hit, waiting for that hand to fly up and throw him to the floor. He was just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

[Zagan Grey]

When Gabriel broke eye contact to glance at the wrecked can on the floor, Zagan's eyes unconsciously followed. When they flicked back to the boy, he suddenly realized how close he was.

And that his hand ached...oh. He unlocked his fingers a little, and the blood rushed back to them.

There was so much fear in Gabe's eyes that they were darkened by it, and Zagan was hit full force by the memory of that very same fear in those very same eyes only two nights ago, directed then at unseen horrors that, in his dreams, threatened nightly to kill Gabe.

Now the fear was directed at him. At Zagan.

The man shrunk, his heart racing. What had he just said? What had he...what had he been about to do? He didn't even know, and that was the most frightening thing about it. He instinctively brought up a hand to cover his eyes in the most unguarded motion he had made in over a decade.

"Great God in Heaven, forgive me..." He murmured, staggering backward. He needed to get out of here, and turned toward the door.

"Gabriel, I..." He couldn't look at him. He just wanted to go throw up. Forgive me, he wanted to say, but his stubborn non-conscience wouldn't let him, made him choke on the words. He just needed to leave, get away from the boy. Why did Gabriel fluster him so badly? Just a kid. Just some kid...

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe let out his breath in a rush as he watched the man fall apart in front of him. Gabriel's hand was holding onto the side of his stool for dear life and even though he willed himself to move, to get up, to either run or make sure Zagan was alright. Even after that Gabe was worried about the other man.

Gabe watched him stumble to the door, a hand over his eyes as if he couldn't believe that anything that just happened had just happened. Gabe moved the hand that was holding onto the chair to wipe some hair from his face. He shook his head as if somehow that would make this all just a nightmare, just a bad dream that could be forgotten with a cup of tea.

But this wasn't just something he could forget. Slowly, his body began reacting at a mostly normal pace. He carefully slid off of the chair, as quietly as he could. He moved around the island, still a little frightened of the other man. But he was more worried, and he didn't understand it. Gabe hadn't just threatened horrible things on Zagan. Yet Gabe had just seen something real, something totally real, coming from Zagan. The first thing--he thought--in the time they had been there together.

Gabe crouched next to the can on the floor and gingerly picked it up, gathering the peaches off of the floor and putting them into the can. He dropped it into the recepticle and picked up a rag to begin cleaning the syrup off the floor.

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan's shoulders hunched as he heard the slight scrape of Gabe's chair against the floor, and he put out a hand to brace himself on the doorframe and looked back at the boy.

He had the strangest, most irrational, most overpowering urge to cry when he saw Gabriel bent over the floor, cleaning up the mess Zagan had created. The man wanted to go over and pick the kid up off the floor and tell him not to worry about it, and to tell him how sorry he was. But he was rooted to the spot, part of him terrified to go anywhere near the boy again. There was not a drop of anger left in his body, but he still feared what he was capable of.

What he had threatened to do.

So he just stood and watched, face blank from long practice but heart aching, limbs tense, mind badly jumbled.

He forced his mouth to move. Someone needed to speak; this silence was suffocating.

"Gabe, don't...I...just leave it. Please, leave it, I'll clean it."

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe paused for a moment, a little nervous about disobeying the man. But he was nearly done anyway. He carefully finished wiping up the rest of the syrup and then stood slowly, stiffly, like he had practiced it before. He didn't look back at the man.

"I'm done..." he said. Then he moved quietly back around the island to hang the rag up. His heart was still beating at a million miles a minute as he finally forced himself to look up at Zagan's back, hunched, one arm outstretched to hold himself up as if all the energy in his body had been put into that yelling match. Gabe couldn't slow his heart, even though the fear was slowly ebbing away from his body. He was no longer so much frightened as he was sorry. Sorry for being a smartass, sorry for sitting on the counter, sorry for just being here and for causing such a strife in the other man's life. He wished he hadn't. He wished he had just done the background check to begin with...

No, he didn't. Because then, Zagan would be in a jail cell right now instead of where he was at. And for all the fright, the sarcasm, the annoying habits, the bothersome ways of the other man, Gabe didn't think he belonged behind bars. And he didn't think that Zagan deserved it either.

Wrong place wrong time. They were more alike than either wanted to admit.

[Zagan Grey]

Just say you're sorry.

I...I can't.

Try, Zagan.

I AM tryin'. God, am I trying...

His shoulders slumped as he realized he couldn't. He really did want to. But...he couldn't. Or wouldn't. He didn't even know.

"Thanks," he murmured, unable to look at Gabe anymore. He couldn't face him. Maybe he never would again.

"I'm, uh...guess I'm not really hungry 'nymore." It was lame, and he knew it, and couldn't bring himself to really care. He wasn't fooling Gabe, this time.

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe's brow furrowed. For a moment his worry for the other man and his need for self preservation grappled inside him. He wanted to go over and at least see if the man's heart was still going and that his breathing was regular. No one needed to die right this moment.

After a long agonizing moment of indecision, Gabe moved forward slowly, carefully, not wanting to offend or bother. He moved up behind Zagan and gently put a hand on his shoulder, leaning down just a little to see his face slightly. He couldn't see much, but what he did see was pained, frustrated perhaps, thinking, trying to cope. Gabe wanted to say that it didn't matter, they were just words, that as soon as they got off this God forsaken ship, things would be better. That in a few days they would be off and Zagan would be proving his innocence.

But something about the way the man looked arrested the words in Gabe's throat. He couldn't say them, because they would be utterly useless and inane. Instead, he just squeezed the man's shoulder a little, leaning down a little more to try and find Zagan's eyes with his own.

[Zagan Grey]

Out of the corner of his eye Zagan could see the glitter of Gabriel's gaze, seeking his, and he tried to shy. But his eyes betrayed him, and moved to lock with Gabe's.

God, he was such a beautiful creature. How could he ever have wanted to harm him? He never did, he realized, had never really meant a single word or threat. He felt...not ashamed, he wasn't sure how to feel ashamed. But he felt he ought to be ashamed, and that was worse, in its own way, because he knew that he was so pathetic and self-absorbed that he couldn't even muster shame.

He was shocked to realize that Gabe had a warm hand on his shoulder. He was trying to reassure him. Zagan couldn't stop a bitter little laugh from bubbling up in his chest. His victim was comforting him.

He's absolutely right, Zagan Grey. You're even a pathetic excuse for a kidnapper.

He took his hand from the doorjamb and reached over to place it on top of Gabe's. Before the action could be misconstrued as gratitude or apology, he turned toward Gabe and slid the slender hand off his shoulder.

Gabe was a foot away, his dark eyes big and troubled, not by fear, now, but by concern. It made Zagan angry with himself. Couldn't even threaten a person right. Went soft. No spine. Completely useless.

His anger made him perhaps a bit rougher than he otherwise would have been when, feeling hopeless and deciding that his world was too screwed for anything else he did to matter, he curled his hand around Gabriel's neck and drew the boy forward to kiss him.

And why not? He was already going to hell. Besides, he deserved a swift crack in the jaw, and knew of no better or faster way to get one.

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe's eyes widened in shock before his brow furrowed in confusion and his jaw tightened in anger. Not to mention his body heat flew through the roof, and he distinctly felt his heart beat speed to an unnatural rate.

Gabe didn't push him away, instead he turned he face to the side, breaking the contact of thier lips, trying to ignore the tingling left behind by the contact. He worked his jaw a little, searching the floor as if it might tell him why exactly God was doing this to him. The grip on his neck was tight, and Gabe's mind flashed the image of he being strangled by the bigger man. But it didn't move to strangle him.

And Zagan's lips certainly weren't going anywhere.

Without allowing his mind more time to think about it, Gabe's hand twisted in the collar of the man's sweater, pulling him down a half a hair so Gabe could reach him fully and kiss him harder.

[Zagan Grey]

Well, that was...unexpected.

Zagan was entirely too surprised to be triumphant. His eyes were wide open and crossing as he tried to follow the line of his own nose down to the place where Gabe's lips were moving restlessly against his.

Then it hit him that he was being kissed by the enticing Gabe Archangel, and stopped trying to watch. He just enjoyed.

The kid had a death grip on his collar, but Zagan didn't particularly mind. He just shifted his hand from Gabe's neck up into his hair, clean and soft, and tangled his fingers in it.

Kid was a pretty good kisser. A little unsure, probably because it was his kidnapper's face he was sucking. That would certainly make any normal person of conscience feel a bit awkward.

Zagan had never been happier not to have a conscience.

[Gabriel Archangel]

That big hand moved from neck to hair and held onto it, almost as if daring Gabe to move out of this kiss now. Gabe didn't know if this was exactly the thing he ought to be doing at this point, but he couldn't stop now. He liked it too much.

The man was big enough that if Gabe didn't hold onto his collar, he would have to stand on his toes to reach his mouth. Course, either way would have sufficed just then. But for the time being, he liked holding onto the thick sweater. It took Gabe about a second and a half to chuck morals all together and go for the jugular. He planted a leg between Zagan's and pressed the man back against the counter, pressing his tongue between the lips he had been watching for days.

[Zagan Grey]

Good God Almighty! gasped Zagan in his own mind, but it came out as a low, unintellible moan around Gabriel's tongue. The edge of the counter was sharp and cold, but Gabe's thigh was right theremothermary...

His hand in Gabe's hair clutched even tighter and his free hand grabbed the top of Gabe's jeans and he jerked his hips into the boy's.

Control was gone. Hesitation was gone. He hoped Gabriel was ready, because Zagan was pretty sure there would be no turning back on this one.

He pressed his tongue back along Gabe's before he nipped at that full lower lip and dragged his hot mouth over the sharp cut of jawbone.

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe licked his lips as the man's mouth left his own and trailed fire across his jaw. The man's grip in the top of his jeans was tight against Gabriel's pelvis, as he pulled the man down a little farther, inviting him further. He used his other hand to yank down the bothersome high collar of the sweater so he could more acurately attack the neck he found beneath.

Gabe conscience was screaming at him as he took a step backward, coaxing Zagan with him. This needed to go in the general direction of one of thier rooms. More preferably the one Gabe had been inhabiting due to the fact that it was closer than Zagan's. Course at this current moment, the floor looked fine to Gabe.

Gabriel knew that he shouldn't be doing this, everything in him was telling him he shouldn't be. But he wasn't listening anymore. And anyway, it was a little late to go back now. And strangely, that didn't bother Gabe in the least.

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan felt the kid tug him forward, back toward the doorway, and most definitely got the point. He grunted against Gabe's throat and helped maneuver the two of them, still tangled in each other's arms and clothes and lips, teeth, tongues, out the door.

Finally Zagan had to break contact with Gabe in order to take him by the wrist and stride resolutely back to the living quarters. It was a little hard for him to believe he'd only just come from back here less than ten minutes ago. He rounded the bend and snapped, jerking Gabe back to his chest and crushing his mouth to the boy's. He half-slammed the kid against the wall, the weight of their bodies falling on the door-release for the nearest room. Gabe's. Who cared? So long as there was a bed here.

The door rushed shut as soon as the two stumbled over the threshold.

[Gabriel Archangel]

___________________

Gabe grunted a little as Zagan collapsed on top of him, but it wasn’t from being crushed, or even from knowing that any extra weight had been on him at all. It was from total release and ecstasy. He was gasping for air, oxygen rushing into his lungs. His body already ached from exertion—it was going to be worse in the morning—but it was a contented exhaust.

Gabe’s head slumped over slightly as his grip on the man’s shoulder relaxed and his mind tried to come down from the new cloud of consciousness it had been hurtled to. Cloud nine didn’t even begin to cover where Zagan had just taken him to, but Gabe couldn’t actually describe it accurately at all. He didn’t know how to. There weren’t words.

So he didn’t try. He simply tried to even his breathing, allow his heart to slow, still his trembling body. His eyes closed as he felt drops of sweat slip down his temple to his neck to sink down into the pillow. The room was quiet, all except their breaths and the gentle, ever-present hum of the ship as it continued to move them, obliviously, towards Nar Shadaa, the waiting rock to get them out of their predicament.

Yet, never since they had left, had Gabe less wanted to reach the planet. He had the strange, intense urge to never leave this spot, let alone this ship. Of course it was an irrational urge, but a strong urge nonetheless.

[Zagan Grey]

When motor skills more or less returned, Zagan opened his eyes to follow the graceful curve of Gabe’s neck and jaw, up over his cheek to the dark, glittering eyes half-lidded with long dark lashes. There were tendrils of dark hair adhered to Gabe’s forehead, stark against the flushed skin. And he was still beautiful.

Zagan shifted his head and face to absentmindedly press a soft kiss to the thudding pulse in the hollow of Gabe’s exquisite throat. He sighed. He didn’t want to move, but he was beginning to get a cramp in his hip from lying on top of a somewhat bony lover. So, carefully, he retracted from Gabe’s slicked body and shifted to lay beside him.

Instinctively, Zagan wrapped a possessive leg around one of Gabe’s and gathered the boy into his arms, tucking his dark head under his chin.

“Anh, Gabriel…God, you were amazing…”

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe couldn’t help it, he liked being held. He let Zagan gather him into his arms and felt the man rest his chin on his head. Gabe took a deep breath of Zagan’s chest and sighed it out against his collarbone.

Gabe felt Zagan wrap his leg over his own and Gabe found the small area against Zagan’s body where he fit into, and he pressed himself into it, the absence of the man suddenly making Gabe cold. As odd as that was. Gabe heard Zagan’s words, but tried not to let them effect him. He had to keep telling himself that the man had probably told a million boys that, and a million times, never meant it. Gabe had to keep telling himself that when all of this was over and done, he and Zagan would never see each other again, and he had to keep telling himself that he didn’t care.

But of course, Gabriel Archangel was not a good liar. He had never been. So instead of trying to continue lying, for the time being he just pressed an appreciative kiss to Zagan’s collarbone and then his neck.

“Mn…you weren’t too bad yourself…”

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan chuckled lowly, trailing his fingers up and down Gabe’s smooth back.

“Even for an old man?” he needled, brushing hair away from Gabe’s face. He spent about two seconds arguing with himself over the merits of another kiss and whether that would be entirely too sentimental of him, and then told the voices bickering in his head to shut the hell up and lightly brushed his lips over Gabriel’s.

“Tell you what, kiddo…this is your bed, but I’m not sure I could make it back to my own…”

Zagan’s voice was light, though he meant it as a request for permission and hoped Gabe would pick up on it. Almost instantly, Zagan knew he would. Gabe was a smart kid. A really smart kid. What business did a lowlife like Zagan have messing around with such a bright kid, anyway?

Bah, no thoughts like that right now! We just had amazing sex and we are NOT going to spoil the mood with thoughts about how worthless I am, or how much I wish I hadn’t got the kid wrapped up in all this, or how much I am regretting having to say goodbye to the brat after all this is over…

ACK! The SEX! The SEX was good. Yeah.

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe liked the way it felt when Zagan kissed him, and he chuckled at the man’s words. How old was Zagan anyway, that statement begged. Oh, Gabe didn’t care, it didn’t matter, right? It wasn’t like they were boyfriends or anything…it wasn’t like…

“Mm…I think this thing can hold two…” he said, leaning up just a little to look over Zagan’s shoulder, honestly unsure. Then he let his head fall back onto the pillow. He gave a light shrug. “Guess we’ll find out.”

Because I don’t want you to go yet, Gabe’s brain supplied the last line on its own. Gabe couldn’t remember actively thinking that, so it must have just been his brain’s fault. Yet Gabe’s entire body seemed to be of the same opinion. Traitors, he could help but tell his body, his brain…his heart.

Gabe shifted a little, pushing himself into a more favorable position in Zagan’s arms before taking a deep breath and relaxing again onto the pillows, his forehead resting comfortably on Zagan’s collarbone, his fingers absentmindedly tracing shapes over the man’s chest.

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan watched the lad idly tracing his fingers across his chest, reveling in the decadent little touches and shivering slightly from them. Gabe was such a warm little bundle in his arms—too thin, though, Zagan could feel ribs straight through the skin—and it shocked (borderline alarmed) him at just how comfortable he had gotten, all snuggled into the bed and Gabriel.

Which made him extremely miffed that his nicotine withdrawal chose this instant to rear its incredibly ugly head.

Irritated sigh. “I need a fag.” His eyes fell upon his jeans peeking out from the floor at the foot of the bed. There was most of a pack in the pocket. But the jeans may as well have been back on Coruscant, as much as Zagan had the impetus to get up and go after them.

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe couldn’t help but laugh. Sure he understood the nicotine craving, but Zagan was more addicted than anyone else Gabe knew, or had ever met. He followed Zagan’s gaze to the other man’s jeans at the end of the bed. That ruled Gabe getting them for him out. If they had been a foot away, maybe, but Gabe was certainly not sitting all the way up to get them.

He groaned a little and chuckled again, looking up at the man and shrugged a little.

“’Fraid you’re on your own with that one…” he said, thinking for a moment. Then he paused and looked thoughtful. “Wait a minute…” rolling away from the man slightly—his body protesting the movement all the way, the warmth was now gone—Gabe reached over the side of the bed to his own jeans that were closer than Zagan’s. He fished his pack out along with his sleek metal lighter and rolled back into place.

He picked up Zagan’s wrist and dropped the pack and lighter into it as he tried to find the warm spot he had just been in. Mm, not there…no, not there either…not there…no…Oh! There it was. Gabe worked himself back into the warm crook of Zagan’s body that had formed around him.

“Hope you smoke Reds…”

[Zagan Grey]

One of Zagan’s eyebrows took a long hike up his face. “What else would I smoke, Gabriel?” he growled, shoving a cigarette in his mouth and flicking the lighter. The butt end flamed bright orange, then smoked. The sight and smell appeased Zagan greatly, and his steadily-kinking nerves eased at the sound of the lighter snapping shut.

“Ah!” Zagan sighed exaggeratedly, smoke curling out of his mouth in a gust. He slid his arm under and around Gabe snugly, blissfully taking long drags of the cigarette.

“Can’t very well have mind-blowing sex and then not smoke after, yeah?” His lip curled devilishly. Suddenly he made a weird face and his hand dove under the covers. He…felt something, something cold and hard and small, under his thigh. He dug it out. It was a single pink glass bead.

“Oy. Um. Sorry ‘bout your rosary, kid…”

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe looked at the little bead in the man’s hand and reached up, plucking it out. He looked at it a moment and let out a sigh. He was going to be upset for a split second, but he realized that he wasn’t really much of a Catholic, especially not with what they had just done.

He flicked it over his shoulder and heard it tap, tap, tap against the metal floor as it bounced and finally rolled to a stop. He gave a shrug and rested his head back on the man’s arm, his fingers picking up where they left off and dragging across the man’s chest lazily in shapes of their own.

“I can get another one…” he said, his mind going to that young priest at his church. After what he and Gabe did together, that man owed him more than just a life’s supply of rosaries. Gabe let out a sigh as the cigarette smoke billowed out of Zagan’s lips in a long line of white. It curled around Gabe’s head for a moment before rising up and dissipating in the air of the room. Gabriel watched the spot for a long moment, as if he might be able to see the smoke still.

He remembered then that he hadn’t taken any of those sleeping pills. He didn’t have the gumption to get up and take any, but he didn’t exactly want to go medieval on Zagan when he was asleep and not at least have the presence of mind to stop.

Gabe closed his eyes softly, tilting his head into Zagan’s chest and draping his arm around the man’s waist contentedly.

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan grunted in response to Gabe’s comment and smoked his cig down to nothing. Then he crushed it in the ashtray next to the bed, feeling more relaxed than he had in ages.

For his part, he’d completely forgot about the sleeping pills and Gabe’s terrors in general.

Curling himself back around the boy, Zagan wrestled some blankets out from under them and then pulled them up over their naked forms. The warmth of the blankets and his young lover (Wait…lover?? Do we really wanna go there? I mean, it was really only just this one time…or maybe only while we’re here on the Inferno, cause damn if I’m gonna be able to hold out another week…anyway, he’s really only just a one-time screw, yeah? But, God, that sounds awful…aw, t’hell with it. Lover. For now, my lover.) lulled him into a rapidly-deteriorating state of semi-consciousness. He lazily petted the softness of Gabe’s tousled hair where the boy’s head rested lightly against Zagan’s chest. The man watched, sort of fascinated, the way Gabe’s head rose and fell as Zagan breathed.

His eyes slid easily shut, and without him realizing it, his head tipped forward so that his chin rested on Zagan’s crown as sleep overcame him.

[Gabriel Archangel]

____________________

Gabe thought it might have been the rumbling of his stomach that woke him. Or maybe it was the slight abdomen pain he was experiencing. Either way, he woke up slowly, his mind slowly becoming conscious again, and his body feeling very warm and very comfortable and completely content to stay right where it was…which was…where exactly?

Gabe ran his tongue over his lips to wet them and carefully slid his eyes open. In his immediate vision, he saw the edge of a mattress, a metal bedside stand, a wall, and a door. Ah, yes, he was in his room on the Inferno. Good, he knew where he was, so he wasn’t delirious. Now, what was this immense warmth pressed solidly against his back.

Gabe shifted a little stretching out like a sunbathing cat and moving his head to look over his shoulder. He started just a little to see the rough, but peaceful face of a sleeping Zagan Grey. A sleeping Zagan. Sleeping? In Gabriel’s bed? For a moment, Gabe watched him, almost as if he couldn’t remember why he was there. And for a moment, he couldn’t.

But it didn’t take his consciousness long to come up to speed.

Sex. They had had sex. Mindless, shameless, emotionless, utterly wonderful, sex. Gabe furrowed his brow. No. They hadn’t…had they? Oh yes, they had. And as Gabe’s body was recalling it, it hadn’t been nearly as bad as his mind was trying to make it out to be.

Gabe rubbed one eye with his fist and then yawned wide, checking the chrono on the wall. Ten a.m. Coruscant time. No wonder he was awake, he was used to be up around eight, even on weekends. Gabe blinked a few times, deciding that a shower was in order. It would clear his mind, clean his body, and hopefully give him a good outlook on how to handle this situation.

Carefully, not wanting to wake the other man, he slid out from under Zagan’s arm and dropped his legs over the edge of the bed, rubbing his eyes again and standing up. He sucked a breath in through his teeth as something cold, hard and round stabbed into his foot. He looked down and saw the floor littered with the remains of his pink rosary, some shattered, most just lying idle.

Avoiding the shards, Gabe made his way as quietly as possible to the bathroom, grabbing a towel and starting the shower. He slid under the hot water, feeling it begin to ease his tense and aching muscles, leaving his mind free to think.

What have you gotten yourself into?

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan awoke feeling cold and not knowing why.

Consciousness returned to him in levels. There was the cold feeling of his chest. Then there was a vague rushing sound, at almost the same time there was a little tingly feeling in his right arm. Then he shifted, and tiny jolts of pain ricocheted around his abdominal muscles and thighs, and he thought that weird for two seconds before suddenly his brain skipped the last couple levels entirely and kickstarted violently.

His eyes flew open.

The cause of his cold snap was instantly obvious, as was the rushing sound (shower) and the tingling feeling (blood rushing back into the arm Gabe had been using as a pillow). Gabe was not in sight, and this made Zagan unhappy, in a vague way. Not upset, just disappointed. Showers meant no more fun until much later.

And, in this case, "much later" could very well be never.

Zagan pressed his face into the pillow, smelling cigarette smoke and the light scent of soap. Something in him thrilled a little when he realized it was the smell left behind by Gabe's hair when he slept there after a shower.

Which brought his mind back around to showers in general, and how much nicer it would be to share one, especially since that usually managed to be the loophole to the "showers mean no more fun" rule. He was just mustering the courage to sit up out from under the nice, warm blankets when--damn!--the sound of the shower stopped. He pulled a face. His timing sucked.

Mm...sucked...no! Bad Zagan!!

God. There was the little voice again. Zagan wondered if there were pills for that voice.

Zagan growled to himself. He really just needed to go back to sleep. Sleep off the little voice. That might work. Anything to shut it up. Ever since before he'd fallen asleep, all through the night, even now, it had gone on and on about using the kid for sex, about how harmful that could be for Gabe, about how potentially harmful it could be for him, and how this was really just a nice corner he'd painted himself into. Stuck on this ship for another week and change with a kid he'd never thought about past a single lay. Zagan should be more responsible than that. Better than that.

He was better than that.

Zagan sat up, irritated. His head spun a little; just from getting up too fast, that was all.

He was already needing a cigarette.

His knuckles ached.

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe rubbed the towel vigorously through his hair. He wiped the fog off the mirror and peered into it. He looked amazingly rested, and he didn't know why. Hm, not cuts either. His terrors must have been small if he had no cuts and looked rested. He ran his fingers through his damp hair to tame it and then dried the rest of himself off, tossing the towel onto the commode.

He grabbed the handle and pulled the door open with a yawn, his eyeballs watering feircely at the action. He paused as he got a dizzy spell then shook his head and looked up. Zagan was sitting up in the bed looking extremely tired, though more shocked that he was awake than anything.

A block of ice dropped down into Gabe's stomach and made it sink. He already felt awkward and they hadn't even said anything. He looked back down at the floor to avoid the glass shards and beads so he could make his way back over to his jeans laying idle on the floor. Gabe bent over, grabbing them up and sliding them over his hips, not bothering with his boxers--considering he couldn't even see them. He buttoned and zipped the jeans and patted the pockets. His cigarettes...where were his cigarettes? And his lighter, that was gone too. He looked around at the tiny beads everywhere and blew a bit of damp hair out of his face.

"Whew..." he muttered to himself as took a step back and hopped over the shards of glass to reach his shirt on the other side of the room. He managed to hit one of the beads anyway and sucked it a breath as he grabbed his shirt and moved his foot away. Gabe looked down and began to turn the shirt right-side-out as he glanced back up at Zagan. He hoped he hadn't knocked the man's brains out in a terror.

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan watched Gabe narrowly, his own stomach sinking as he watched the kid get dressed. He suppressed a sigh and got up, stepping on beads himself and swearing all the way over to his jeans.

He had to sit back down to pull them on, his coordination still way slow this soon after waking.

Why...why weren't they talking? The silence was choking him. The kid had looked straight at him and not offered so much as a "Kiss my foot," let alone the cheerful greetings he'd whipped out every other morning ("Hey there, y'old geezer!" had gotten an especially good rise out of Zagan). This was...abnormal.

What was even weirder than Gabe not talking to him was the fact that Zagan himself couldn't seem to find anything to say. Hell, he couldn't rightly find his voice. To say something seemed...wrong. It was bizarre. They'd only had sex, for Heaven's sake; Zagan was pretty well-practiced at having sex with a new partner and acting like a normal human the next morning (well, as "normally human" as Zagan ever was before noon). But the kid had said nothing, and it was creepy. And he wouldn't look at Zagan anymore. Like he was expecting, now, after all...that, that Zagan would suddenly turn kidnapper on him, start screaming at him or knocking him around. Maybe he was thinking about the threats Zagan had almost forgotten but which still made him want to wince.

Surely he didn't honestly worry Zagan was going to torture him, now...

...Now that he'd gotten what he wanted from the boy.

Oh, my God.

Zagan wanted to bolt. Better than stay here and face having to explain himself, explain how, in all truthfulness, he really hadn't thought as far as right now. Oh, sure, he'd made plans for Nar Shadaa, but...not really about Gabriel. He had just sort of assumed he would go have a chat with his man, and maybe Gabe would come, or maybe he would stay on the Inferno and keep out of trouble...Zagan hadn't really thought about it.

Hadn't really thought about Gabe at all, except to find him a slightly better conversationalist than Socrates and to harbor not-so-secret sex fantasies about him.

Oh, yes, Zagan imagined that would go over quite well.

But...he had to say something, this was simply oppressive. He stood and shoved a few beads around with his foot. He tiptoed through them to get to the skinny little closet in the bathroom and grab the broom out to start gathering the bits of pink glass into a manageable pile. He cleared his throat; the sound was harsh in the thick silence and made Zagan flinch before he could stop himself.

"Sleep okay, kid?"

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe pulled the shirt on over his head and watched Zagan get the broom and begin cleaning up the beads. Gabe was going to do that, they were his beads, and he felt responsible for them. Then Zagan spoke and Gabe had the distinct urge to hurl. He didn't know why his stomach flipped so when the man asked him that question. It was like it was the last thing Gabe expected, but the only thing that could really be said.

After all, what did you say to the who screwed you for no other reason than that you were there?

Gabe didn't know. He hadn't ever done it before. Oh certainly, he had had sex randomly, most notably that preist at his church--God forgive him for that sin--but in the few instances he had down it it was more like a friendly thing. They were great mates and already knew everything else about one another, chuck it why not just have sex too? But Gabriel didn't make that a habit. And having sex with a complete stranger was certainly not something he did.

"Fine enough," he said, crouching down help gather all the beads in one place to be disposed of, trying his best to avoid the shards and hoping he didn't step on one. He glanced up at Zagan. "I didn't take any of those sleeping pills...did I whack you a good one last night?"

[Zagan Grey]

The broom stilled. Zagan blinked down at him, for a second having no idea what the kid was talking about. Sleeping pills? Then it dawned.

"Oh..." he muttered lamely. "I...I don't think so. Actually, I don't remember waking up at all. Do you?" He remembered, belatedly, that Gabe didn't remember his bad dreams. But he'd remember if he'd woken himself, right?

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe paused in his movements as his mind went over everything. He didn't remember anything after falling asleep in Zagan's--er...falling asleep. Bad dreams or otherwise. Gabe scooped up the beads and put them gingerly in the pile Zagan was making then stood and straightened his back, his brow furrowed.

"Mn...nope..." he answered. Odd. That was...really odd. No tremors? No nightmares? No groaning or moaning or rolling around or hurting himself or Zagan? That was simply bizarre. Gabe scratched his head but tried to push it out of his mind, along with the awkwardness he still felt. Instead he focused his attentions on his grumbly stomach and his caffeine and nicotene craving. He waved his hand in Zagan's general direction as he patted his pockets again. "My cigs? Where'd you put 'em?"

[Zagan Grey]

"Hm? Oh..." Zagan cast around, saw them on the nightstand behind him. He gathered them and the lighter up in one hand, held them out to Gabe in his palm.

But when Gabe reached to take them, Zagan closed his strong fingers over the boy's hand and pulled him gently forward.

He couldn't take this. This...weirdness. Why should a couple hours--one night--have ruined what had been a perfectly agreeable ride through hyperspace? Zagan really, really regretted having gone ballistic yesterday (shame he did not know how to feel, but regret he was very familiar with), scaring the kid so badly, screwing up his friends...compani...comraderie with the only other soul in the galaxy on his side. He would have thought that his actions after speaking so out of turn would have shown Gabriel he really didn't mean any of it.

Or maybe it hadn't shown him anything at all. It really hadn't meant anything at all, in the end.

And Zagan kind of regretted that, too.

But regardless of regrets, he wanted Gabe back to normal. He would go stir-crazy on this boat without someone else to talk to besides the damn computer. And he didn't like the haunted look on the kid's face. It reminded Zagan that at a moment's notice he could turn into someone terrifying.

Gabe needed to know Zagan had no plans to turn into that someone again.

The kiss was as gentle and cautious as Zagan could make it. He lightly touched his fingertips to Gabriel's face, unthreatening, soft.

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabriel's eyelids fluttered as the man's lips brushed his in the lightest most...Gabe would have said loving. If he had been letting himself think like that. Think that it was loving that it was anything more than it was. How suddenly Gabe wished it wasn't just...sex. He had the strong urge to take hold of the man and never let go. Had the most irrational need to feel his arms around him as they had held him the evening previous. But Gabe could not allow himself those sorts of things. Couldn't allow himself to make this into something more than it was.

But the touch on his face was so soft, so unintrusive, so perfect. How frustrating Zagan was. Why would you touch someone like that if they meant nothing to you? And Gabe didn't mean anything to him? So why the kiss, why the touch, it was driving Gabe's logical up the wall, across the ceiling, and back down again.

Gabe returned the pressure gently, but only for a moment. Any longer and he wasn't sure what his mind would make out of it. His eyes dropped slowly down the man's chest to the floor. He couldn't meet Zagan's gaze, he could not do it. He didn't want to man to see whatever emotion he might pick up out of his eyes. He didn't retract his hand from the man's, but watched it, almost fascinated at the way his fit into Zagan's. A lump formed in his chest for no reason at all. He swallowed them back.

He would save tears for someone who cared.

Gabe slowly retracted his hand and pulled his pocket open, stuffing his cigarettes down inside after pressing his lighter inside the pack.

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan sighed out his breath when Gabe retreated. He wasn't sure what to think: the kid hadn't pulled away, but he...he hadn't really done anything. And he still wouldn't look at Zagan. The man wanted to grab those slender shoulders and shake the kid, make him just look at him...

But he didn't. Somehow, somewhere, Zagan found his voice, feeling like the drowning man clutching at whatever he could find.

He hoped it wasn't an anchor he was grabbing.

"Wonder...wonder why you didn't have nightmares, anyway? I mean, I thought you had 'em all the time without pills."

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe wiped his forearm over his eyes as he grabbed his boots and pulled them on, still unable to face the man. He listened to him speak and then shook his head.

"I do," Gabe said, working one boot on and beginning to lace it up. Then he shrugged. "At least...I always have before..." But you haven't shared your bed with Zagan before. The thought struck Gabriel suddenly and was as soon dismissed as nonsense. It was more than likely the release of stress, after all, stress played a big facotr in how intense his terrors were. Gabe pressed his other foot into his boot, trying to chase off that thought that had assaulted his brain. He licked his lips and stood straight, knocking his toes on the floor to work the boots all the way onto his feet.

Gabe pulled out his pack and then pulled a cigarette out. He tapped the end against his lighter before putting it between his lips. He flicked open the lighter and the cigarette flared and smoked as Gabe inhaled slowly to allow it to light. He breathed the toxins out through the other side of his mouth as he began to stuff the pack back into his pocket. Then he paused. Glancing over, he waved the pack.

"Cig?"

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan had already fished his out and had a fag dangling from his lips. He quirked his eyebrows up.

"Thanks, got one...I will take your lighter, though."

Well...this was a little bit more like it. Bit of half-coherent early morning chat over some coffee and lung cancer...missing the coffee, though. Zagan's head twinged. Yeah, they'd need to rectify that soon.

It wasn't back to normal, yet. But it wasn't suffocating him anymore, anyway.

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabriel tossed him the lighter and then yawned again. He walked out of the room and into the cooler air of the dim hallway, still yawning and running a hand through his hair. Gabe was annoyed with himself now more than mortified, and he feared the awkwardness that was still threatening them.

He entered the dark kitchen and paused. The cherry on his cigarette was the only light. Turning he searched for the light control, finding it and running his finger over it. The light came on and was brighter than God Himself, and Gabe had to squint for a moment, pain stabbing through his eyeballs.

"Ah hell..." he said, more of a general curse at the current situation than that his eyes were being burned out of his skull and a hot ash floated back onto his lip.

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan quite agreed, squinting myopically and trying to shield his eyes and press his throbbing temples simulataneously. The motion looked more than anything else like he was attempting to shoo away a cloud of killer gnats.

"Ugh," he sighed heavily, shuffling over toward the coffeemaker and, with much more mess and difficulty than he'd ever had before, prepared coffee and started it perking. He leaned back against the counter, staring blearily at his erstwhile lover. Smoke curled away from their two cigarettes in identical whitish ribbons.

"Sooo...I don't remember you freaking out last night, you don't remember freaking out...Huh. That's weird..."

The most likely explanation of it was that Gabe had been utterly worn out by the sex and so had just been too exhausted to dream. And Zagan would have put forward the theory, only he thought that mentioning the sex might make things intolerably awkward, again.

This, of course, opened up a whole new menu of problems, most notably that if Gabe really was as embarrassed as he seemed about having slept with his kidnapper, then there would be a very, very slim chance of a repeat performance. And it most likely meant that the whole rest of the trip, every conversation that followed, would be as strained as conversation now. And it seemed very likely that the awkwardness would likely curdle and become resentment, especially on Gabe's part, and make the boy much less likely to be cooperative or useful as a comrade once they got to Nar Shadaa.

Hm. Burning through our resources a bit fast, aren't we?

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe gave a shrug as he peered over Zagan's shoulder to look at the coffee brewing behind Zagan. Gabe was proud to say he had never drank coffee once in his life. He was a morning person, awake and chipper at eight every morning, the only caffinated drink he drank being tea, which he only did late at night when he was really needing to get some paperwork filed, and things weren't going smoothly at the office, and his friends were begging him to go clubbing with them, and...

Oh. Zagan's neck looked smooth...and soft.

Gabe turned his gaze up at the cieling as he pretended to think instead of admiring the skin on the other man's body. There was that huge ice block of guilt and annoyance again. Gabe couldn't take it, he felt so guilty for doing what he had done...what if...Oh, God, what if he had caught something?! He knew nothing about Zagan and his sexual history, what if the man had given him some sort of disease? That would just make the world even more peachy than it already was.

"Probably too tired," Gabe supplied for the man. Zagan was thinking it, Gabe could tell. "Could have been the release of stress. I dunno, hard to say," he said. And it was true, both of those things--happening because of the sex he felt so guilty about--could have eased his mind enough to cause him to skip a night in his terrors. They were non-medical remedies for his night terrors, and were recommended to him by his doctor if he ran out of medicine. Don't get stressed, and and be very tired when you get in the bed.

Gabe coughed as he breathed in some smoke wrong and he blew the toxins from his mouth. He cleared his throat and crushed the cherry of his cigarette in an ash tray, much more violently than was really needed, as if the cigarette was to blame.

"Wull..." he muttered. "Glad I didn't, in any case..."

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan gave a grim sort of smirk. With his head aching and his mind sluggish and his body just a little sore, to say nothing of the way he was still bothered by how abruptly and how violently things onboard had gone from smooth to hot to downright mangled, grimness seemed to pervade his entire mind, and so a grim smirk was all he could muster.

"So'm I," he said, turning around and pouring himself a mug of coffee, unable to wait longer to cure his headache. He took a sip. Ouch.

"Would've been really put out if you'd woke me up with a set of knuckles to the nose..."

Humor? Might help a little...he hoped...

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe smiled a little and ran his fingers through his hair. He nodded.

"Yeah, who knows what would have gone down..." if you'd gotten angry again, Gabe started to say, but didn't. They were both in enough awkwardness as it was, he didn't need to bring up what had preceded thier mindless screw. If Gabe never thought about those few horrifying moments when he had seen Zagan's true colors again, it would be too soon. But it had frightened him too much not to think about it. This trip had just gotten eight years longer. He rubbed his temple as his head began to ache--as well as a few other places on and in his body.

"Mn...you got pain killers?"

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan winced in sympathy and something kind of like sorrow that he'd hurt the kid.

"Yeah, absolutely...um...hang on, be right back..."

Zagan made his way silently back down the hall to his room. Going into the lav, he reached out toward the medicine cabinet, then paused.

His reflection in the cabinet mirror was harrowing under the brash illumines, skin washed with a grey tone and eyes dull with early morning haze. Stubble along his jaw was stark and ugly on his skin, and suddenly Zagan couldn't help but think that he looked and felt like an old man. An old man who'd screwed a kid like the pervert he was, and now wanted nothing more than to keep screwing the kid, without care as to what came after.

How did he get here?

He opened the cabinet quickly, and his reflection flew away in a blur. Snatching the pain pills, he slammed the cabinet door without glancing at his face again and made his way back to the kitchen, needing more coffee.

"Here y'go," he rumbled, holding out the pills to Gabriel.

[Gabriel Archangel]

"Thanks," Gabe said, taking the bottle and popping the top. He tapped two pills out into his palm and tossed them into his mouth, moving them around to wet them, and then swallowing, then swallowing again to get the bad taste of the coating out of his mouth. He popped the lid back and let out a long sigh, staring at the cap, his mind not on it.

"Zagan," he said, chewing his lip as he tried to formulate the words and phrases in his mind so that they wouldn't sound as bad as they were going to anyway. He rubbed his forehead a little and leaned his hip on the counter. Crossing his arms over his chest he shook his head. "I'm not trying to be difficult, or anything but, um...last night we didn't..." pause. God, he'd never had to ask anyone this before. His face reddened partly out of embarrassment, partly out of worry. "You don't...have anything that, um...I could've...caught...do you?"

Muscles tensed to run if necessary.

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan blinked, and then his eyes went wide. Good Lord, he hadn't even thought about it, which was some indication of how preoccupied and/or desperate he had been the night before. He took a quick drink of coffee to hide his chagrin.

"Me? No, no, nothin', actually, hard as I'm sure that is for you to believe." Zagan thought he'd meant that to come out cocky, emphasising his many and varied sexual conquests, but it came out bitterly self-deprecating, and he wondered how it had got that way. He arched his eyebrows over the rim of his cup.

"I guess this is where you tell me I now have six months to live, yeah?"

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe breathed a sigh of releif and then waved his hand.

"God, no," Gabe said through another sigh of relief, moving to heat up some water for tea. He filled the kettle and got down a clear mug and tea--something Asian, he didn't recognize it. He set them both on the counter, absentmindedly hoisting himself up to sit next to them as he worked at the wrapped around the tea bag. Well, there was one thing off his mind. Still generally as healthy as when he had embarked on this journey with this man. Even though the answer was no, Gabe still couldn't believe he had been so irresponsible. Couldn't believe he had done it in the first place...

Gabriel was getting on his own nerves. He needed to just forget about it, he wasn't going to let it happen again, one time thing. Try everything once, right? Well, he had and he didn't like it. He didn't like it one bit.

He glanced over as the water began to boil.

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan watched the boy narrowly as he crossed the room, put the kettle on, and then...sat on the counter.

But instead of the good-natured irritation he'd felt on every previous occasion (except yesterday, when he had been less good-natured than just straight up irritated), Zagan felt somehow extremely relieved, as if the tension had just broken around him and something had slipped back into its correct place.

Like things were the way they were supposed to be.

It gave Zagan courage. He crossed to where Gabe was sitting and leaned against the counter facing the boy, one of his hands on each side of Gabe's knees. He tried to keep a safe distance, having no desire to push his luck, but he smiled up at Gabe in an attempt to be reassuring.

"Sooo...neither of us are gonna die, and both of us let got to let off some steam, yeah?" He reached up and bumped Gabe's chin with his knuckle, his smile warming unintentionally as he looked into those big, beautiful eyes again. "So why let things get weird, eh? Let's let things be the way they were, alright, kid?"

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe had to clench his jaw as Zagan touched him like that. As he looked up at him, as he smiled kindly, as he said those words, as he called Gabe 'kid'. Gabe had to stop himself being bitter. He had told himself, he knew this was how it had to be. He had told himself he didn't care, promised himself he wouldn't. But he couldn't lie to himself. He shook his head and chuckled to cover it all up.

"Weird, right," he said, sliding off the counter and lifting Zagan's arm to get to the kettle that had started whistling wildly. He pulled it off and poured the hot water into the mug, watching the steam roll up and off as the tea immediately began to seep out into the water with the heat. Gabe put the kettle down and picked up the mug, using the string attached to the tea bag to move it around a little. He smiled a little. "Normal being...you in your room, doing whatever you do...me in my room, reading. I've a date with The Great Gatsby anyway. Bye."

Gabe smiled, grabbing three sugar packs and moving to and out the door. Normalcy. Zagan asked Gabe for normalcy, and somehow, Gabriel couldn't refuse to pretend like everything was back to normal. Even if inside, it wasn't. Gabriel didn't get that guy. Maybe he never would, and maybe he was alright with that. After all, after this trip, it would all be history, Socrates, the Inferno, last night...Zagan. Even he would be a memory at some point, one that Gabriel might pull out once in awhile to remind himself that there are mistakes you can't always get over so easy.

His door whooshed shut behind him. The pile of glass bead still sat stationary in the floor. Gabe tried to ignore them as he put his tea down and grabbed up The Great Gatsby from the stack of books on his dresser. He sighed and flopped back on the bed. He started reading, but his heart wasn't in it. It was somewhere else.

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan laughed as the kid breezed out, amused and charmed by him, as always, but unable to ignore the niggling feeling that, no, in fact, everything wasn't the way it was "supposed" to be, hadn't been all morning, and probably wouldn't ever be again.

The kitchen was cold and lonely again. Zagan eyed the kettle. There were times he really wished he drank tea, that staple of comforting mothers for millenia. Of course, having never had a mother to either comfort him or make tea, Zagan supposed he'd just have to take people's word on that.

As it was, he turned to seize the sugar and dissolved quite a lot of it into his coffee before he left the kitchen and made his way up to the cockpit.

Socrates was waiting for him, his holographic figure having assumed a seated position in the copilot's chair.

The real man sighed as the electronic one raised his eyebrow.

"Look, Socrates..."

"I know, I know. 'Go away.' 'Bugger off.' 'Shut up.'"

Zagan stared at him. "Socrates, I--"

The philosopher held up a hand. "You owe me no apologies. I am your computer. Your servant. I am here to take your commands; it is my job to fulfill whatever you ask." Here he paused, his facimiles of eyes approximating a glare. "But Gabriel is not."

Zagan sat heavily in the pilot's seat and took a long drink. Too sweet, made him wince. He kept drinking, imagining it was tea, imagining how sweet Gabe's tea was right now.

"I know that, Socrates."

"Do you? Truly? You 'ask' the boy to come with you, 'ask' him whether he'd be interested in sex, and then 'ask' him to forget the sex ever happened. Only your asking is a lot more like what you do to me, your servant, who has no choice."

Zagan said nothing, only fixed his eyes out the viewscreen and sucked his coffee. He was growing used to the sweetness, and it was comforting him.

"We will arrive at Nar Shaddaa in approximately seven days, Zagan. If, by then, you still truly desire to clear your name in this galaxy, I suggest you start by clearing your name on this ship. Treat the boy like a human, not like a computer."

And the philosopher flickered out, and Zagan Grey was alone again, with the starlight and the coffee that wasn't tea.

[Gabriel Archangel]

_________

"Oof!"

Gabe groaned as he opened his eyes and felt the pain where his skull had cracked against the metal floor in his descent to it. He stared up at the cieling, his blankets tangled feircely in his legs, one arm slung out to the side, the other resting on his stomach. Night terrors blew. He came to that conclusion as he laid there on the floor of the Inferno, his head hurting, his back aching, and his mind unable to recall what he had been dreaming.

His exercise pants had worked themselves down to his asscrack and as he sat up he pulled them back to thier original place on his hips. Stumbling to his feet, he wrestled himself free of the blankets around his legs, mumbling and grumbling and moaning around until the blanket finally lay on the floor, lifeless, and Gabe was able to grab it up. He sighed, looking at his mattress. It had been half beat to death, the pillows flung across it haphazardly. Suddenly, Gabe didn't want to lay back down.

With a huff, he wrapped the blanket around him, grabbed a pillow and left his room, padding up to the cockpit in his stocking feet. The lights in the cockpit had dimmed with the rest of the lights on the ship for the sleeping cycle. Gabe could see the stars perfectly, moving by them, almost slowly. Gabe flopped back in the co-pilot's chair, eyeing the pilot's chair as if Zagan might simply appear there.

Stuffing the pillow next to him, he curled his knees up close to him and wrapped the blanket around himself, laying his head on the pillow. It took him a few moments of wrestling and grunting to get into a position where he could watch the stars and lay his head down at the same time.

Cockpits blew.

[Zagan Grey]

Socrates "watched" the boy from the moment he went to sleep. He "saw" his terror--more mild than the other night, thank the gods--and "saw" him shamble up to the cockpit, dragging his blanket like a sleepy child seeking out comfort from a nightmare.

Really, he rather was, at that.

Socrates noted the boy's movements in the cockpit, waited until they stilled, "watched" to see if Gabe would go back to sleep. After ten or twelve minutes, the boy's vitals proclaimed him still very much awake, so Socrates ventured to speak. He flashed the little red light on the console as he delicately cleared his throat.

"Gabriel? Are you alright?"

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe started at the voice and glanced around him, recognizing it belatedly as Socrates. He let out a sigh and laid his head back down on the pillow. No, he wasn't alright, there were about fifty things that were wrong. Forty-eight of them had to do with Zagan, the other two didn't matter that much anyway. He followed the streaks of the stars with his eyes for a long moment before giving a nod.

"Mm...I'm fine," he answered, eyeing the red light that had accompanied Socrates' voice. He wondered, did Socrates ever get tired of following Zagan's every order word for word, never questioning because it wasn't programmed into him to do so? He wondered if the computer ever just got the notion to delete himself off the ship, like a suicide of sorts? Did the computer even have higher thoughts quite like that? Did the computer even carry on conversations that hadn't been anticipated and programmed in before he had come to be? Gabe didn't know much about the I.A.I.S. system. He had only gotten one course on them his last year of school--he had avoided it until he could not any longer--and his marks hadn't been so good in that class. Needless to say, he remembered little.

"Fell out the bed, couldn't go back to sleep."

[Zagan Grey]

"I saw. I hope you do not mind, I was keeping an eye on you, so that if your terrors got very bad I could summon Zagan to help you. I am sorry you fell out of bed, however...perhaps there is a way to create a barrier around the edges of the bed...keep you from...yes..."

The computer sounded lost in thought for a moment as his electronic brain drew up rough schematics and compiled lists of necessary materials for the project. Then his voice grew steady again as he resumed conversation with Gabe.

"I did find it fascinating that you experienced no terrors last night, despite the lack of medication...that is, forgive me, I do not mean to pry, only to say that I found it interesting. Have you ever noticed before some relief from terrors when you sleep with another person? With or without the sex, I mean to say."

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe furrowed his brow. Actually, he hadn't really thought about it. He never had when he was little and slept in the same bed with his brother. And his other boyfriends always complained about him hitting them, or pushing them out of bed--that is, if he had forgotten his medicine that day. He felt his face go a little red at the mention of the sex again. He had successfully not thought about it since he had gone to sleep.

"Mm, no. Not that I know of..." he said, shrugging a little. "Generally, I'm on my meds when I am with someone else...in the same bed, I mean," he said, sitting up a little and propping his temple up with the heal of his hand. "Otherwise, the beat me death the next morning...I'm surprised I didn't knock Zagan unconscious..." Not that he doesn't really need it, his brain supplied for him. Course, by the same reasoning, Gabe did too.

[Zagan Grey]

Socrates made a thoughtful sound, materializing in holographic form in the pilot's chair. He stroked his scruffy beard contemplatively.

"Very interesting. I am formulating two or three theories on this and will test them in due time. I take it that the medication is not helping as much now as it did previously? You did take it tonight, and yet you woke yourself up again..."

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe leaned his chin on his pillow to look at the "man". He was seated, quite scholarly, in the pilot's seat, hand stroking his beard thoughtfully. Gabe nodded absentmindedly as he tried to see through the holographic image. He could not. This technology was mind blowing.

"Yeah, I took it. Sleeping pills have a diluted form of the chemical that's in my terror meds," Gabe offered with a nod. "Probably why they don't help quite as much."

[Zagan Grey]

Socrates inclined his head in an apology. "Perhaps if you took more of them. Or if there was a way to concentrate the active ingredient...Or even if there was some way to counteract some of the trigger conditions. I understand stress is often a common catalyst for worse terrors, and your being onboard the Inferno, much as I personally have enjoyed the extra company, is, regrettably, most stressful for you, I am sure." The philosopher looked a bit saddened. "We should arrive in Nar Shadaa in a little under a week, Gabriel. I am doing my utmost to improve the Inferno's performance so that our travel time will be as short as possible. Once Zagan has cleared up the charges against him, he will certainly leave immediately..."

The hologram paused, glanced back toward the living quarters, lowered his voice to barely above a whisper. "Though, I must say, I have thought that perhaps, once we are on Nar Shadaa, you would not be better served to simply abandon Zagan and find public transport back to Coruscant. You have heard, I am sure, that the larger charges against you have been dropped by the police. You will not be penalized for returning to Imperial City, as Zagan will be, even if he does manage to find evidence enough to clear himself of association with his drug lord comrade. He has too many other, legitimate charges to keep himself out of prison entirely."

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe furrowed his brow. The computer was telling him that once on Nar Shadaa, Gabe should leave Zagan, to whatever might happen to him. Gabe worked his mouth a little, as if chewing something that didn't taste very good. About three days ago, that prospect might not have seemed so bad, but now, it didn't seem so great either. He wet his lips as his minf worked over the words for a long moment of indecision. Then he shrugged, brushing it off.

"Well, I oughta stay with him, just to make sure the kidnapping charge is dropped, if he's already staring a prison sentence in the face, I don't want to have it on my conscious that any of it was my fault..." and you just want to stick around, Gabriel, this isn't an old man, its a computer, it isn't stupid, Gabe's mind told him. He shook his head and looked out the window. "Anyway, it'll probably be Zagan doing the dumping, if anybody. He won't need me after we get to Nar Shadaa anyway."

[Zagan Grey]

Socrates' eyes narrowed conspiratorially.

"No, I think he won't. I have a theory running about this, and while it is still a little early to make a hypothesis on it, I do know that Zagan is rather tired of being a criminal. He has come to the decision that he wants to clear his name once and for all and live a more respectable existence; this much is clear to me, and so, I think that, following logically in this mindset, he will not leave you to fend for yourself but will try to right his situation with you as a first step in the right direction. Oh, now, of course, I have often been wrong in the past about these sorts of things, and, after all, Zagan is a human and more illogically-minded than most. But I am personally doing my best to instill in him a sense of the fair and logically just, so, as he is already tended to it and as I myself will be sure to make all overtures in your favor, I see no compelling evidence that Zagan will leave you on your own."

Socrates paused and stared straight at Gabriel. "Unless, of course, you wish me to make no further effort in this. After all, things on Nar Shaddaa are likely to get somewhat rocky, knowing the parties involved. If you desire it, it might be possible to have Zagan drop you off and leave you be. You would stay out of whatever trouble he gets himself into, and you would never have to see him again, let alone travel back to Imperial City with him."

[Gabriel Archangel]

But, I want to!

"I don't..." Gabe began, repositioning himself so that he could formulate the words. "I don't know anything about Zagan Grey, he doesn't seem generally bad, but I'm beginning to think that maybe that is a pointless theory. Even if he wants to clear his name, live a better existence, it's nice and all, but in the end, Zagan is all Zagan needs to worry about. He doesn't know me from a hole in the ground, and I think given the choice, he'd dump me off right here in open space, for all the trouble I've caused him," Gabe said, fussing with his pillow as he stuffed it behind his back and hung his legs over the arm of the chair, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Anyway, I don't have any money, not on me, and they froze my accounts--I guess they think Zagan'll try to use it to bail out--so I really don't have anyway to pay for a way back home," Gabe said with a shrug. "Besides, can't be anymore rocky than trying to have a conversation with Zagan Grey the-morning-after," Gabe said with a chuckle that he didn't really feel. Then he shook his head, remembering that he was talking to that Zagan Grey's computer. He furrowed his brow. "Forget I said that..."

[Zagan Grey]

Socrates chuckled grimly. "Computers cannot forget, dear boy. Even if we delete and fragment and overwrite, the information is still there, buried deep in silicon and electrical sparks. But for our purposes, I will not make mention to Zagan that you spoke of this, though, and forgive me once again, I cannot help but eavesdrop, I did notice a tension between the both of you this morning which I feared would be the only possible outcome of your activities last night. I have a theory about this, too, though I won't bother you with it...All I will say is that Zagan Grey is a man who does not know who he is or how he wants to be, anymore, and that he is changing rapidly and, in large part, outside of even his own knowing. Things between you may get rockier still, and, if they become unbearable to you, I know all the places around this ship where hard currency is hidden." The philosopher winked. "Though somehow, knowing you to the extent that I do, I doubt you would accept that sort of offer...

"I would make formal apologies for Zagan's behavior to you except that I feel it is not my place, but his. But I do hope, for your sake, Gabriel Archangel, that your time onboard the Inferno will not have changed your life for the worse, but rather for the better. It is an inexorable thing, change, but not always bad. And watching changes in human beings is fascinating to me, moreso if the changes are fortunate instead of unhappy."

[Gabriel Archangel]

_________

Gabe slept for most of the next day, read a lot over the sleeping cycle, slept some more. By the time a day had gone by and it was the morning, Gabe was hungry and bored and his room was quiet and he didn't like it.

Gabriel tossed his towel onto a chair as he pulled a pair of jeans up onto his hips--Zagan's, so they didn't fit--and a t-shirt Zagan said he'd had since he was younger than Gabe. And it fit Gabe perfectly. Red, it was, with a faded eighty on the front. It was comfortable at least, so that when Gabe slouched back onto the bed again, it stayed put, unlike the jeans that slid down more. He had to lift his hips up off the bed and pull them up before he could hoist his stack of books onto his lap and sift through them, looking at the ones he hadn't gotten a chance to.

Gabe hadn't seen Zagan much since the morning in the kitchen when Zagan asked that everything go back to normal. It more or less had, both acknowledging the others presence, saying hello and goodbye, eating. Gabriel could almost believe that the sex hadn't happened at all. Of course, his lack of a rosary, and the fact that the bead were sitting in the recepticle in his bathroom reminded him every time.

It was ridiculous how boring it got when there was no one to talk to.

[Zagan Grey]

The teakettle wasn't much for conversation, but it was winning the staring contest.

Zagan blinked, not really realizing he'd been glaring at the kettle for over a minute, his coffee getting cold in front of him. He had been wondering if Gabe wanted some tea--it was roughly the time of day for it--and his eyes had seemed to think the kettle would know. So far, it wasn't talking.

Mostly, Zagan was just restless. He wished the kid was in here making some tea or eating something out of a can while he sat on the counter, just so Zagan would have someone to talk to, something to be distracted by. His mind was brutally unsettled, ever more worried about how things on Nar Shaddaa were really going to go and, even more bothersome, what he was going to do with the information if he got it. He had planned on taking it back to Coruscant to clear the kid, but now that the kid was really pretty clear, turning in the evidence to clear his own name would actually get him in worse trouble than he was now. He didn't particularly want to have outstanding warrants against him, but he could have lived with a couple planetary injunctions that kept him away from Coruscant.

But the new charges, the false ones, the ones he had nothing to do with, made him wanted throughout the civilized galaxy. He would be able to go nowhere but the Unknown Regions and Hutt Space without risking arrest and imprisonment for crimes he didn't commit. He needed to get those charges knocked off his record. But to do that would require him to essentially turn himself in, and he had plenty of stuff outstanding against him that he really was responsible for. Simply put, returning to IC meant jailtime. Period.

But, truth be completely told, or at least as much of it as Zagan was ever comfortable admitting, he would miss Coruscant if he had to stay away from it for the rest of his life. He had no great love for the Empire, but STONEHENGE was his home. His business was there, as well as the people he knew and, in a few cases, actually cared about. And he hated Hutts. He really did. He found the prospect of living on the Outer Rim or in Hutt Space positively revolting. They were worse than the Empire, in their own way.

Besides, Zagan was really pretty tired of...this. All this. Worrying whether today would be the day he got nailed and stuffed behind bars for twenty years. Wondering if it was really safe to talk to this guy in the pub, as you never knew when you were talking to an undercover cop. Hoping that this guy you were hiring for a job wasn't going to roll you to the first rat he met. Zagan had lived most of his life in one kind of fear or another, and he had realized in the past couple years that his personality really wasn't cut out for it. He wanted a life. A real one.

The only question that remained was, how much was he willing to sacrifice to get it? The safety of life and limb? Ten or so years of his freedom?

All this ate at his mind like a particularly vicious strain of syphilis. And he kept thinking of Gabe. Always damn Gabriel. He realized he'd need the kid on his side if he wanted out of the kidnapping charges, but things had honestly not much improved over the last couple days, and Zagan knew he was in a really gruesome corner: once they got to Nar Shaddaa, there would be nothing to stop the kid leaving and hitching a ride on some other boat back to IC, where he would promptly erase Zagan Grey from his mind--unless Zagan forced him to stay with him, locked him on the ship, which would only anger and embitter the boy and make him perfectly unwilling to be any kind of an ally.

And Socrates' words had hung and stagnated in his brain since the stupid computer had said them. The IAIS really was becoming his conscience, and this only bugged Zagan more. He didn't like wrestling with himself; it was uncomfortable and unpleasant and made for awful sleeping, but Zagan Grey was not fool enough to fool himself anymore. He knew, just by sheer force of logic, that if he really and truly wanted free of people like the guy who'd got him framed and of the lifestyle that went with those people, then he, Zagan Grey, was going to have to start acting in a way completely different from them. Those people had raised him, and taught him well, and seared out of him whatever conscience he'd had, but it had become very, painfully clear to him that no normal person, no good person, would treat Gabe the way he had treated the boy. His mind told him that, where most "good" people would be clued in by their hearts, but Zagan did know it.

Knew it, but hadn't really the remotest idea what to do about it.

Which made him do things like stare at teakettles, hoping they'd start whistling answers.

He and the kettle had thought about it and come to something of a conclusion--that there really wasn't anything more or less he could do on the Inferno. Once they got to Nar Shaddaa, well, yes, there would be more opportunity to make it--make everything--up to the boy. But for now, stuck in hyperspace, Zagan couldn't really think of anything to do that he hadn't already done or wasn't already doing. He was trying to be nice, not argue, not jump Gabe at random intervals and try to drag him off to bed again (this last in particular was quite a challenge, even more so than before they had slept together). But for the most part he left the boy alone, feeling that, despite everything, their coexistence had been dealt irreparable harm by that night, and that perhaps it was best to simply give Gabe space and peace and not risk further damage.

After all, the kid was still his only ally.

Forty-eight hours of nothing but abbreviated salutations, however, had taken their toll on Zagan's nerves, and he was dying for some conversation. Particularly conversation that didn't actually center on Gabe's welfare (as, somehow, every conversation with Socrates inevitably did). And, oddly enough, the best place to go to get that--and the only place, currently--was Gabe himself.

Zagan felt inexplicably nervous as he tapped on Gabe's door. Part of him was inanely hoping that the kid was asleep and wouldn't answer.

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe yawned and looked at the door as if it had just called his name politely, sniffing in annoyance as someone rapped upon it. Gabe looked down at the books in his lap--weighing his legs down considerably--and then back at the door.

"Just a minute, Zagan!" he called, gathering the books off of him and wrestling himself off of the bed without either losing his pants, or dropping any of the books on the door. He pulled it off rather expertly, and stumbled--nearly fell, but, by God, he caught himself--off of the bed and made his way to the door, grabbing his belt on the way over and lacing it through the loops, he buckled it around his hips, his grey boxers still sticking out a little, and pulled the snug red shirt down over it. He smacked his hand against the door control and it whooshed up, revealing Zagan standing there, the light from the hallway glinting rather rudely in Gabe's eyes. He squinted and blinked a moment before he saw the man clearly.

"Hi."

[Zagan Grey]

Eh, no such luck...

"Hey." Zagan grinned, hoping it looked as debonair as he was going for. The way his old shirt and jeans looked on the kid somewhat undid his composure. He mentally shook himself and, clearing his throat a little, waved the leatherbound book in his left hand in front of Gabe's face, half as a salute, half as a sort of olive branch.

"Mind if I come read with you? It's...'s too quiet. In my room. I mean."

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe's eyes followed the book and he shrugged a shoulder, waving that Zagan come in. He turned back around and went back to his bed gathering the books from the mess they had been in, and flopping back down on the mattress, the books gathered around him like his nest of comforting objects. The door whooshed shut as Zagan came back in and Gabriel watched him enter.

Everything suddenly seemed less dull and gloomy when Zagan was in there with him. Maybe it was just the fact that there was another living, breathing human being in the room with Gabe now, instead of just 20's socialites, vain rich boys that never aged, and even a Roman God or two in there somewhere. Zagan was a real person who could enjoy those things with Gabe, instead of Gabe having to read them alone with no one to spout to.

Forget all that had happened before. Books made everything alright.

"What is that you're reading?" Gabe asked, dipping his head to try and see the cover of the book he had. "Looks old."

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan held it up.

"Cyrano de Bergerac. One of my favorites. You ever read it?" Zagan sauntered in after the boy, watching him flop unceremoniously onto the bed amid a sea of books. The sight of Gabe stretched out on a bed twinged Zagan's deep innards, but the sweetly innocent expression on his face as he craned to get a good look at Zagan's novel melted the twinge to harmlessly charmed warmth.

He came around the bed and slid down the chest of drawers to the floor next to the bed.

"Find something you like in that mess?" He waved to indicate the books strewn out on the bed and floor and dressing table.

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe watched him slide down, the name of the book ringing familiar, but he knew he had never read it. It was a favorite of one of his childhood friends, and now, he had two people he knew who liked it best. He nodded emphatically.

"Oh, yes," he said with a smile, tapping the cover of his nearest favorite. "The Great Gatsby and Fahrenheit 451," he nodded again and then stood up, stepping over Zagan's legs to press his own back against the chest of drawers. He fell down to the floor next to the man and gingerly took the book from him, opening the front cover with care, not wanting to hurt it, but interested in looking in it. He turned the pages--it was well loved, read many times, some of the page corners bent, a few torn. He saw notes and writing in the margins, he didn't know Zagan's handwriting so he didn't know if it was his or not.

Flipping back to the front, Gabe saw several lines written on the cover. His eyes were immediately drawn to a line of..Gaelic? He absentmindedly whispered it to himself, almost as if he were trying to see if he had forgotten how to speak it.

"Lean do bhrionglóidí chun an fíorshonas a aimsiú..."

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan suppressed a shiver as Gabriel's body slid down next to him, settling his warm arm against Zagan's. It was...kind of comforting, the warmth.

Yielding the book to the boy, Zagan watched him flip through it with care.

"Never read it, then?" he prodded, catching snatches of lines and words and illustrations over Gabe's shoulder, before the curious fingers worked their way back up to the front and the scribbles that had been inside the cover when Zagan bought the book years ago. Judging from the different pens and handwriting styles, Zagan was at the very least the book's twelfth owner, to say nothing of those owners who had not made any marks in the book at all. If Gabriel had looked toward the blank pages in the back, he'd have seen an elaborate spiral of words--names, salutations, wellwishes--written like a chain letter by generations of readers who had loved the book as dearly as Zagan did. He had yet to write anything in it himself. He was waiting until he found something really good, something worthwhile, to say.

He was distracted from his thoughts by Gabe whispering to himself, and blinked down to see him reading the cryptic passage in the front, the one whose language Zagan could identify as Gaelic, but had always regretted not being able to read.

His mouth parted in awe. "You...you speak Gaelic?"

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe jumped a little. His mind had been lost in his Gaelic lessons, in what the words meant. He looked up at Zagan, his eyes big and expectant. Then he shook his head, his face reddening a little. He closed the book and shook his head again.

"A little...not really..." Actually, he could speak it rather fluently--he had loved it to absolute death in school and he had been privately tutored by the old Irishman who lived in the apartment above them. Tomas, Gabe thought the man's name was. But Gabe had always known him as Professor Cray, he wouldn't have Gabe call him anything else. He smiled and handed the book back to Zagan. "I took a few lessons in school..."

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan was still a little slack-jawed as Gabriel slipped the book back into his larger hand. "I...wasn't aware anyone knew or taught it anymore. Do you know what it means?"

He opened the book back up and held it so Gabe could see. He had only just barely heard Gabe say it the first time, and really wished he would say it again, so Zagan could hear it properly. It was a beautiful language.

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe reddened even further, but looked down at the writing anyway. The person's handwriting was gorgeous, and though Gabe had always had a hard time reading the professor's writing, he could read this person's perfectly. He followed the words with his eyes for a moment, then glanced up at Zagan.

"Um...lean do bhrionglóidí chun an fíorshonas a aimsiú..." he said again, a little louder, needing to hear it himself. He shook his head. "Um...says...follow...your dreams to find true happiness..." Gabe said, nodding with finality and leaning back against the dresser. "'S a little fuzzy so...mm...don't quote me on that..." he said, embarassed.

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan smiled, unconscious of smiling, as the words poured, liquid gold, from Gabriel's beautiful mouth.

"That's...amazing," he finally replied, eyes fixed on the flowing handwriting on the page unfolded before him. "I heard Gaelic sometimes while I was at uni, had some friends studyin' ancient history, but I'd forgotten how well it sounded. Thanks for translatin' that. It's bothered me since I got the book that I couldn't read it." He smiled over at Gabe. "And you speak it beautifully..."

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabriel's stomach gave a funny little lurch at the complement and his smiled, nodding his head a little, fearing his face getting even redder than before. He leaned back against the dresser before getting up and sitting on the bed, clearing the books into a small pile. He nodded.

"Thank you," he said, smiling. Then he shrugged a little. "Floor's hard. You can sit up here 'f you want," he said, picking up The Great Gatsby and opening it to where he had left off, trying to distract himself from the uncomfortable fluttering his stomach was still making.

[Zagan Grey]

Zagan stared after him with wide eyes--that followed the boy's incredibly well-shaped backside for as long as he thought prudent--as Gabe climbed back onto the bed and tidied his books.

A little awkwardly, Zagan got to his feet, dusting nonexistent dust off the seat of his jeans, and stood a bit uneasily for a moment before he went round to the other side of the bed and perched on it. He drew his legs up and settled his back against the headboard, sitting next to Gabriel but not uncomfortably close, or at least he hoped. He didn't want to scare the kid off again, not when things were finally being sorta normal for the first time in days. Zagan curled one leg up to prop Cyrano on his knee and open up the beaten front cover. He turned to the first page, the sheets of very old paper making a most pleasant crackling sound, and scooched down into his spot a bit more snugly.

[Gabriel Archangel]

Gabe's eyes and attention were not on his book. As much as he desperately wished they were, they couldn't be. They were distracted by the long, pretty fingers Zagan used to hold open his book and the way his grey eyes moved when he read a line. Gabe was struck--just as he had been the first time, in a much more provocotive situation--how grey Zagan's eyes were. Not that grey was an abnormal color for someone's eyes to be, Gabe had seen plenty of people, alien and human, who had grey eyes.

But Zagan's. There was something about them.

Gabe turned his eyes back down to the page he was supposed to be reading, letting out a sigh and cradling his chin in his hand. His mind focused on the words and he began to read, still wondering about the book Zagan was reading. His other friend, an old high school buddy who had happened to go to the same demolition academy, raved about the book. He knew everything there was to know about it, and when no one else would listen, he would beg Gabe to. He had a hard copy of it, bound beautifully in dark leather, clean, the author's name enscribed on the front. And he also had it in file form, on every computer he had, put in its own file, private, so no one else could get at it unless he wanted them to. Gabe wondered if that copy was the only one Zagan had, or if he was just as crazy about it as Gabe's friend.

Gabe wondered where Zagan had gotten all of his books. Gabe had touched an actual book when he was seventeen, and hadn't gotten his first one until his twenty-first birthday when his brother had gone through hell and high water to get him a page version of Fahrenheit 451. After that, Gabe had found his new hobby--page collecting. No one had books anymore, not real ones, they were all in file form to put on computers, in digital libraries, most people could access them on the 'Net, they were translated into thousands of languages, and eventually, all books had lost thier personality. Now, they were just more useless information to be found on the "Net. Gabe hated it. But he had learned where to get the best page copies of books...if that copy was the only one Zagan owned, Gabe would have to look into getting him a good copy to keep from one of Gabe's favorite vendors...

Kidnapper, Gabe. Kidnapper! Gabe's conscious said. Don't you remember? Two nights ago, you were his little boy toy, don't you think--

Gabe pushed the voice away before it could get to where he knew it was going. He didn't care right now. He'd been beating himself up about it for a day and three quarters, right now he just wanted to read. He wanted to sit next to someone with whom he shared a common interest and talk, and read, just as if they were freinds. Because even if they weren't Gabe knew Zagan was probably good at pretending.

And recently, Gabe was getting good at it, too.