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Fal’ran’s muttered order made Patrick wince and Bar’in snapped his mouth shut. Unlike every time before, Fal’ran didn’t sound vicious or playful. He sounded resigned. Patrick bit his lip and glanced back to find him with his head down, his thick black hair obscuring his face as he finished with his last buckle.
Bar’in made a quiet, low noise in the back of his throat and frowned. He narrowed his eyes at Patrick, flicked them toward Fal’ran, and cocked his head. Patrick twitched his shoulders in a helpless shrug. He didn’t know. He didn’t know what he’d done wrong. Though he didn’t doubt he’d done something.
He swallowed to wet his dry mouth and struggled to remember what they needed to do next, his mind suddenly murky. “Um…”
“Needles.” Sazahk helped him out by flipping open the lid of the container built into the left side of his chair.
“Right.” Patrick pointed at the length of tubing tipped with a thin metal needle. “You won’t want to be awake for what we’re about to experience and your body is gonna need a little extra juice to get through it. I’ll show you each how to—”
Another siren went off and a yellow light flashed three times as the robotic voice spoke. “High speed travel in ten station minutes.”
“Shit.” Patrick glanced at the door, thinking of his own room and his own chair across the hall. He calculated how quickly he could plug them all in, including himself, and the math did not work out well.
“Go.” Sazahk waved at him. “I’ve done this a thousand times. I’ll help them.”
“Really?” Patrick raised his eyebrows. Why had Sazahk done this a thousand times? Patrick hadn’t thought he left Carta during his time with the cartel.
“Yes, really, go.” Sazahk flapped his hand at him as he pointed Tar to his own injection kit.
“Alright, if you’re sure.” Patrick passed his eyes over them again, checking their straps, and wishing there was another chair in here.
His gaze caught on Fal’ran’s.
“Go.” Fal’ran tipped his head at the door. “We’ll be fine.”
Patrick nodded, realizing how much he’d needed Fal’ran to look at him. Now that Patrick saw him, calm, confident, certain, he made his feet step toward the door. “Yeah, okay.” His hands itched to touch Fal’ran’s face in farewell, so he pushed them back against the door and fumbled for the button to open it. “I’ll see you all on the other side.”
Another siren jolted Patrick into motion. He ducked out of the room with one last look at his team. Bar’in and Tar watched Sazahk with rapt attention as he slid the needle into the vein in his own wrist, but Fal’ran held his gaze until the door slid closed between them.
Chapter Thirteen
“You need to talk to him.”
Bar’in had never sounded so serious, and his tone more than his words made Patrick’s gut clench up. His tone and Tar standing beside him, nodding in solemn agreement, a hard frown on his usually placid face.
“What do you mean?” Patrick glanced back into the auditorium they’d beckoned him out of. It was full of other low-ranking squad leaders being lectured about the decisions that Patrick used to help make. A few of them, including the lieutenant colonel at the podium, glared at him for his insubordination.
“Fal’ran,” Bar’in hissed. “You’re ignoring him.”
“And he’s taking it badly,” Tar rumbled.
Patrick winced and turned his back on his glaring colonel. “I’m not.”
It was true.
He wasn’t ignoring Fal’ran, but he was maybe avoiding him. At the very least, he wasn’t confronting him. When they’d come face to face that morning after they’d all risen groggily from their chemical slumber, it had been Fal’ran who hadn’t looked him in the eye. But Patrick had let it go.
What else was Patrick supposed to do? Fal’ran had had some time to think on it and he’d realized their little tryst in the locker room had been more a reaction to extreme emotions than anything else. And he’d decided it hadn’t been that good, anyway. Patrick had stood there while Fal’ran gave him the strongest orgasm of his life. Then he’d returned the favor by inflicting the most inept hand job on him that Fal’ran had ever experienced.
If Fal’ran had realized how woefully inadequate Patrick was as a partner, then Patrick wouldn’t push him on it. He didn’t need to hear the younger man say the words to him.
Bar’in balled his fists. “Captain—”
“Not your captain.” The words came out on instinct now, a reflexive defense against the slice of pain. The pain he’d been enduring for hours in this briefing about the Insects—who had withdrawn by the time Base Givast arrived in the system—being told things he already knew and lectured about tactics he’d been executing for decades.
“Fine. Patrick.” Bar’in leaned into Patrick’s space and his nostrils flared as he scented him. “What the fuck is wrong with you? If you were going to resent him, why did you protect him in the first place?”
Patrick recoiled. “I don’t resent him.”
