shades of grey

1. Hawai'i

The night was heavy with humidity and the air smelled of a coming rain. Inside the crowded, noisy restaurant the air was smoky and warm; Hunk could feel the skin on his face growing tight and dry in response.

Or maybe it was because of the boy who sat across the table.

Under the pretense of checking the bandages on his knuckles, Hunk took in the youth who calmly slurped his kitsune ramen, trying to figure out why this beautiful boy had chosen Hunk to be his dining companion for the night. It certainly wasn't because Hunk was particularly pretty; he was a little too meaty, a little too beaten up to fit any category other than his own. Besides, whatever conventional beauty Hunk did posses withered and died without a fight next to the boy's stunning features. And Hunk was particularly not-pretty right after a fight, with bruises in the shape of his opponent's knuckles forming on his cheekbones, and his lip split and bleeding.

Not that Hunk was about to complain about a few cuts and bruises. The money he made at the fights nicely supplemented the crappy paychecks he got from his regular job teaching at the local university. Besides, what with all the groupies that congregated around the makeshift rings in the dock warehouses, Hunk was laid with a rather astonishing regularity.

And maybe that was it. Maybe the boy had chosen Hunk because he could beat the crap out of guys who actually worked for a living.

But that couldn't be it either, because this was their twelfth dinner--he wouldn't call it a date because that smacked of homosexuality and Hunk still really liked girls--together in as many days and he'd lost the lost the majority of his fights recently, except for tonight. The boy had been there every single night; he had to know that Hunk wasn't the best street fighter in the circuit.

Hunk realized that he had dropped all pretenses and had been openly staring when the boy smiled and raised an eyebrow.

"See something you like?" the boy (he said his name was Keith, but Hunk wasn't about to believe that without some concrete proof) asked in his clipped, precise voice.

Hunk blushed and looked down into the remains of his tempura udon. The boy laughed and took a swig of his Kirin that Hunk had to buy because the boy couldn't have been a day over seventeen. Too young to be a college kid too poor to go home for the winter, too old in the eyes to be some innocent trolling for a good screw, which was why Hunk asked "What are you?" instead of a more polite (or even better, a witty response to that blatant offer) reply that had been floating on the tip of his tongue.

"Just another guy who has a thing for street fighters." The boy looked around at the crowded restaurant. "Let's get out of here. Go somewhere a little more. . .private."

"All right."

And now he was in trouble, because he recognized that line. That was the 'let's screw' line. He had given that line to any number of his dates, coaxed them into coming back to his little house in manoa where they fucked until they woke the neighbors. Except he wasn't really sure if he wanted to fuck this boy, when the only thing he knew with any certainty was that he was too young for Hunk. Far too young.

All right. What is it my mother said to do in these types of situations? Make a list of the pros and cons? Okay. Let's try that.

Pro: The boy was sex on legs. He just seemed to exude sex, even in the somewhat worn clothing that he preferred. Hell, he made breathing sexy; he made eating sexy.
And he had a wonderful mane of black hair that looked incredibly soft; and his velvet eyes made Hunk's heart flutter just a little bit and his dick twitch in curiosity. He had perfect cupid bow lips, like some of the girls that Hunk had dated, and sometimes, very late at night, he imagined those lips moving up and down his dick. Right in the middle of his favorite fantasy of doing Lucy Ho, the new Chinese professor.

Con: The boy was a, well, boy. And Hunk had no idea what to do with a boy. Man. In truth, he'd never felt like this around another man. Besides, the boy was far too young, and far too fragile looking--he looked sickly, thin and kind of pale. He either had some sort of horrible disease, or was hooked on a particularly expensive drug habit. And who knew where the kid had been before? Or whom he was connected to. Hunk, a native son of Hawaii, recognized an FOB when he saw one and this boy had all the ear marks of an FOB--and one who was on the run. Admittedly, he was a very young, very cute, very accomplished FOB who only had the slightest trace of a Japanese accent, but still. Hunk had managed to live this long without picking up anything worse than chicken pox and he meant to stay that way. The best thing to do would be to give the boy some money for cab fare, and then Hunk would catch his own cab back to his house. Expensive yes, but safer in the long run.

Still. . .the boy was incredibly sexy. And Hunk had always had a thing for Japanese.

Besides, Hunk was still young, and it was the duty of the young to experiment, to live life. Best to try things out now than to wait until he was too old to fully appreciate what he had.

When he exited the restaurant, the promise of rain had been fulfilled and Hunk flipped up the collar of his jacket against the heavy downpour. He hated the winter rain, full of cold drops that were so small and invasive. Nothing like the summer showers in manoa, heavy drops that were warm and pleasant and made the sweet scent of the ginger flowers a little more potent in the aftermath.

The boy was waiting at the curb, hair gleaming in the light of the street lamps. He smiled at Hunk, and Hunk smiled back, let himself notice all the beautiful, sensual aspects of the boy that he had tried to ignore all evening.

"The cab will be coming soon."

"Good." Hunk moved to stand close to the boy, well within his personal space. The boy's smile widened just a bit and he edged closer until their arms touched through their wet jackets. "I hate standing out in the rain."

"Yeah." The boy leaned back slightly and stretched his long, thin arms up into the night air. "Still, it's better than snow."

Hunk snorted and the boy laughed, white teeth flashing in the night. He turned his head toward Hunk, and something changed. Nothing that Hunk could pin down, exactly, but there was something different about his face, something around the eyes and the mouth. There was a strange tenseness to him, and Hunk looked back toward the restaurant, wondering what had caused this change.

Nothing unusual, except maybe those two guys over there. Wonder why they're just standing around? Probably waiting for a cab like us.

"Hey." A gentle caress of his bruised cheek brought Hunk's attention back to the boy who was all smiles now, the strange tenseness gone. "You sure know how to make a guy feel real special, ignoring him like that."

"Yeah, well--"

Hunk's protest was cut off by a laugh and a tug on his wet collar that brought him close enough to the boy's cupid bow lips that he could feel the heat of the laugh. And then there wasn't a gap any more, and those cupid bows were pressed firmly against his own rather large and unattractive lips. Then the boy's tongue was in his mouth and his tongue was in the boy's mouth and Hunk could taste the salt from the ramen and the dry kick of the Kirin and some mint--old by now, very old--and something spicy and the boy, all rolled into this one, delicious, delectable, heavenly bundle of sex and, well, sex.

Frankly, it was all a little mind blowing.

When the boy broke the kiss, Hunk was a little breathless. He wondered, briefly, why kissing girls didn't feel like this, didn't feel this wonderful, but most of his brain was concentrating on whether or not his pants were wet enough and tight enough to make his erection visible. He also wondered if sex would be anything like the kiss.

The boy was still smiling, seemingly under whelmed by the whole deal. He ran his tongue along his suddenly red lips, and there was definitely a come hitherness to his gaze. Hunk wondered how long it would take someone to phone them in for public lewdness if they started to fuck right now.

Fortunately, the cab arrived and the boy pulled Hunk into the back seat, almost onto his small lap, still smiling. Hunk was sure that the boy could see his erection by now, since he was at full mast and rubbing rather painfully against his zipper.

"Where to?"

"The Ala Moana marina."

The cabbie nodded and Keith pulled Hunk's head around for another mind-blowing kiss. If Hunk had been able to redirect some of his blood back into his brain, he probably would have been worried about this particular destination. However, since most of his mental process revolved around what other tricks the boy could perform with his tongue, Hunk was blissfully free of any sort of wondering other than the all important question of whether or not his condoms had expired. At this point--and this was all before the actual sex, which surprised Hunk greatly--had the boy asked anything, anything at all, Hunk would have done it without hesitation. If the boy wanted to go to the marina, so be it. Hunk would just smile, and kiss back and give the cabbie some money and hope that he didn't come in his pants.


2. Germany

Lance stood and stared at the bathroom mirror, trying to accept that it truly was his reflection that stared back at him.

"Christ."

He looked…bad. No, that was too generous. He looked like shit, like Victoria-with-the-abusive-boyfriend looked some mornings: all dark circles under the eyes, and pale skin, and red lines where a hard nail had dug a furrow in soft flesh. And there were so many little cuts marring his skin: whip marks on his back, on his ass, on his stomach, on his legs. And cuff marks on his wrists and neck. Oh yeah, those were going to be fun to explain away. As if his landlady didn't already have a bad opinion of him.

Christ above. He looked like a poster child for domestic violence.

Which, Lance supposed, made sense because he had been abused that evening. Just not by a boyfriend.

"Lance?" Pidge's small voice sounded smaller through the bathroom's door. "Lance, are you all right?"

"Yeah."

Lance stared into his eyes and wondered how he had managed to get himself into these sorts of situations. Oh, sure, it had sounded like fun in the beginning, when Stephen had first approached him about joining the team. Hell, it'd been almost like a James Bond movie, only different because they weren't working for M15, and Lance didn't have girls hanging all over him, and the toys were so much cooler. And it had been fun, all of it, every day for the past five years he'd been active; even working with Sven and Pidge, who weren't the most sociable of people, hadn't made Lance think that maybe he had been a wee bit too hasty in his decision. It had been fun up until around 11 o'clock last night when the duchess broke out the whips and chains.

Then it stopped being fun and started being painful.

"Lance, if you don't come out of there, I'm going to get Sven to break down the door."

"I said I was fine." Shit. Just a wee bit too snappish there. Maybe Pidge wouldn't notice.

But the thing was, he was fine, mostly. The Valium was finally starting to take effect, and Lance had an almost full flask of good, cheap, potent whisky hidden under his underwear in his suitcase. It probably wouldn't be such a good idea to mix pills and alcohol, but Lance had never been the sharpest crayon in the box when it came to these sorts of things.

"Lance." And there was Sven. Good, reliable, asshole Sven who had let him walk into that whole nasty situation tonight completely unprepared. "Lance, come out of there."

"Just a sec." Calmer now. Good. A quick peek at the hands to make sure the tremors really were stopping, and a mental check that the heavy weight of anxiety was leaving his chest, and then Lance unlooked the door and stepped out into the harsh light.

"What were you doing in there?" Pidge peeked around Lance's body, and Lance almost laughed at the smaller, younger boy. Concern from this, this child? This infant, who was probably more like the computers and machines he surrounded himself with than Lance or Sven.

"Brushing my teeth." He brushed past the pair, ignoring the way they spoke to each other through their eyes, and sat down in one of the large, expensive chairs in their large, expensive flat. "Now tell me why, exactly, I was the one who had to fuck her."

"Because you're the only one that will sleep with girls," Pidge said with a cheeky smile.

And that was true enough, even if it was glib, empty answer. Lance was sure that, if he were pushed to, Sven would fuck a girl. Even Pidge would probably do it, if he had to. But Sven was the best man available when it came to breaking and entering and setting up the myriad electronic gadgets Pidge needed to hack his way into a system. And Pidge, well, Pidge couldn't even drink, legally, and probably lied about his age, anyway. Besides, he looked like he was about twelve, and that was on a good day. So Lance was really the only choice when it came to the seduce-and-distract tactics, even if he did have other skills. Because Lance didn't need that much urging to have sex with anybody, anywhere, any time, even if he was really more attracted to guys. Perfectly reasonable. Perfectly understandable. Perfectly logical.

Still.

"You know, you could have at least warned me that the duchess was into S&M."

In the corner of his vision, he saw Sven shrug, and that made him fell kind of bad, actually, because it wasn't really Sven's fault he went in there unprepared. If he'd been the good little secret agent he was supposed to be, he would have done his homework better and found out about the duchess' predilections beforehand. Not that this made him any less. . . Christ, he didn't even know what he was right now. There was anger, and pain, and bitter resentment, and over all of that this sort of aching, empty loneliness that had nothing to do with the job and everything to do with the fact that the one truly bright point in his life had walked away from him without even a "I'll call you sometime."

Yeah, he was bitter. So what?

"Lance…" Pidge looked like he was all set to begin hug therapy, and Lance could not deal with that right now. Not now.

"I'm going to bed." Lance stood, suddenly, and felt the heavy weight of anxiety settle back on his chest. Fuck. He told that quack of a doctor that he needed a higher dosage. He needed to get away before he began to tremble, probably needed to take one of the pills his doctor prescribed him and not wash it down with alcohol. Yeah. Like that was going to happen.

"You sure? You don't want to, I don't know, talk or something?" And this was Sven speaking, who was not particularly known for his social skills. Man, he must really have them worried if they wanted to talk.

"Nah. See you in the morning."

Fast steps propelled him out of the room, and he locked his door then stuck one of the big, uncomfortable chairs underneath the handle as an extra precaution. He had the whisky out and opened in a minute, and put the cold, smooth lips against his and drank. Fire filled him, and he liked that, so he too another long, painful drag. When he pulled the bottle away, a good forth was gone, busily warming his stomach and playing havoc with his medication so that he listed and stumbled when he tried to get to the bed. Working mostly on blind instinct and the habits of a lifetime, Lance grabbed his small bottle of sleeping pills, shook two out and swallowed them with a long chaser of cheap booze.

This time he was lucky and managed to set the bottle down and be at least near the bed when he collapsed. He thought the drowsiness that crept over him felt like death, but that was okay, because it meant that he wouldn't have to hear Pidge and Sven through the thin walls, listen to them fucking.

Lance pulled himself onto the bed and thought a moment about vomiting, but then decided against it. A small part of him whispered that, maybe, this wasn't the best way to deal with the various and assorted neuroses that came part and parcel with his family. He had more than enough money to go visit a psychiatrist, and if not, it was probably covered under his medical plan. Getting drunk and mixing medications while on a job was decidedly not a good idea, though maybe if he was lucky he would kill himself, and he might as well because Michael had killed his heart.

Oh how he missed Michael, missed his arms, missed his smell, missed fucking him and kissing him and cuddling with him. He just. He wasn't whole anymore.

But he wasn't going to cry, not over that bastard who broke his heart and shattered him. No way, no how. No matter how much Lance still loved him.

He wasn't going to cry.


3. Somewhere in the Pacific

Hunk knew he had been shanghaied early on, but he hadn't cared. Not so long as every day as they sailed across the blue, blue ocean he could look up and see Keith, shining golden in the tropical sun; and not so long as he could fuck Keith every night beneath the knowing, winking stars and to the gentle rocking of the boat. He loved how Keith twisted and arched at his touch, the way his body moved, cat like, when they fucked, the way his muscles slid beneath Hunk's hands, the way he called out Hunk's name in painful ecstasy. This, this was heaven. This was Nirvana, this was oneness with the way, this was paradise of a type Hunk had only dreamed of. This was everything he had ever wanted, sun and sex and the sea all mingling into a strange, seething ball of pleasure. He loved how he felt in Keith's arms, in Keith's body, in the way he possessed this beautiful boy.

If he wasn't careful, Hunk was sure he could fall in love with this strange, beautiful, nymphomaniac.

When, somewhere in the third week of their voyage, the sex began to taper off, Hunk began to think about his situation. Not with any particular seriousness, of course, since he was sure he could over power Keith if the other boy got bored with him. The muscles he used to beat the crap out of longshoremen had been built by years spent during the better part of his youth helping his father at an endless string of construction sites. This skinny, slinky boy would be no match, particularly if he kept losing weight like he was. Now when he stood in his swim trunks (or when he wore nothing at all), his bones jutted out in a distressing fashion. The sharp angles of his hips and joints, the long rows of his ribs, looked at odds with his golden skin.

When Keith collapsed one bright, sunny morning, suddenly going from standing to falling to lying unresponsive on the deck of their little sail boat, the fact that Hunk might be dumped into the Pacific to become the lunch of a passing shark was suddenly of very little importance. Fear gripped his heart and all he could think about was the boy who lay stricken before him.

Abandoning the wheel, Hunk rushed to the fallen boy, cradled the boy's head in his lap. He looked older like this, and Hunk thought that strange. "Keith," he said, shaking the boy's shoulder gently. "Keith!"

"Oh." Keith's eyelids fluttered. Hunk could see the movements of his eyes as beneath the thin layer of flesh. Why, oh why, didn't he become a doctor like his mother had wanted?

"Come on, Keith, wake up. Please, wake up."

Keith moaned again and this time his eyes opened. His skin felt dry beneath Hunk's hands, and he could feel the younger boy trembling with violent, wracking shakes. "Hunk?"

"Keith, what's wrong? What happened?"

"Ahh." Keith rolled his eyes, smacked his lips. "Radio."

Hunk nodded and scooped Keith up. The other boy made weak, protesting noises, but he stopped moving after only a few minutes. His pulse fluttered beneath Hunk's hands.

Below decks was blissfully cool. Hunk gently put Keith down on the wide bed. He left the door open as he lumbered down the narrow passageway, fear leeching him of all of his grace. Down here, the ocean's gentle motion was not so gentle, tossing him from wall to wall. He could see Keith, lying so still on the large bed.

He's not dead, Hunk reminded himself. He's not dead. At least, not yet.

Hunk turned the radio on, listened to the static. Where were they? In whose waters did they pass? He thought they were near Japan, but he wasn't sure. Anyway, he didn't speak Japanese, so that was a moot point. Did the Japanese understand SOS?

The radio began to squawk beneath his hands and for a moment Hunk just stared at the black box.

"Keith? Keith are you there?" The words were almost lost in the static, but they were there. Hope!

Hunk grabbed at the transceiver. "Hello?"

A long pause. "Hello? Who is this?"

"This is Hunk." Hunk grimaced. "I mean, this is Ryan Ching. I'm a professor at the University of Hawaii. I teach--"

"I know who you are." Hunk paused at this, wondered what the fuck was going on, but then the voice began to speak again. "Where's Keith?"

"He's sick." Hunk looked down the long hallway. "He. He's collapsed. His pulse is racing. He's unconscious. I. I don't know what to do."

"I see." Another long pause. "Okay. Hunk. There's a black box near the radio. I believe it's on the right and one shelf down. It has a switch on it. Flip the switch."

Hunk nodded, then grimaced again. Stupid, he can't see you. He looked below the radio, found the box the voice spoke of. The switch was flipped, and suddenly an array of lights began to blink.

"What is it?"

"A tracking device. Don't worry; we're coming to get you. I need you to take Keith back up on deck now, okay? Don't worry. Everything is going to be all right." The voice stopped speaking and Hunk knew that it would say nothing more.

"Fuck." Hunk propelled himself back to the bed. Keith was light in his arms, and he had slipped back into oblivion. Hunk cradled the boy against his chest, beads of fear born sweat cooling his body. Keith's skin was sticky against Hunk's and, belatedly, he realized that the other boy wore nothing at all. He should get Keith some clothing, but that would mean leaving Keith's side, and he wouldn't do that.

The sun was blindingly bright, the ocean a rippling mirror. Hunk sat in the shade of the foresail; Keith's head cradled in his lap and stared at the empty world before him. How could he have found this isolation, this desolation beautiful?

Tense, painful moments passed before he began to understand what the voice meant when it said "we're coming for you." Hunk had stared unblinking at the endless expanse of sea and sky--never before had all that blue seemed so threatening, so empty--and gaining nothing but a headache and eyestrain when he heard the soft chuffchuff of a helicopter's blades. Tilting his head back, staring up and into all that blue instead of across the watery wasteland, he saw it. It was huge and black and beautiful, an army copter with two rotors, but Hunk began to wonder who the fuck Keith was that he warranted a 'copter rescue. Even the fucking tourists who got stuck at the top of Rainbow Falls didn't warrant a 'copter rescue. Not anymore, at least.

The long, black, improbably flying craft settled lower to the water. A long ladder was thrown from the 'copter's bowels to land with a thud on the yacht's gleaming deck. A man followed the ladder's swaying path, dressed foolishly in black, a hair band holding back his flowing, pale hair. He was pale, his skin so bleached of color that the blue of his veins colored his flesh. His eyes were pale, a green so light as to appear yellow. His hair was pale and oh so very blond. It was almost white in this too-hot sun.

The man strode to Keith's side with a self-confident swagger that Hunk knew he couldn't pull off even if he was thin and handsome like this man before him. He had a little satchel slung over his shoulder, and from it he pulled a syringe filled with a clear liquid.

"Oh Keith," the man sighed, then, to Hunk, "Roll him on his side."

Hunk eyed the man, eyed the syringe. What the fuck was going on?

"Don't worry. It's going to help him," the man said, pulling on Keith's naked hip, rolling his body when it became clear that Hunk wasn't about to do it.

"What is it?"

The man grinned, all sharp teeth. "Salvation."

He plunged the needle into Keith's side, pumped the clear fluid into the prone boy's body under Hunk's shocked eyes. Keith moaned as the shot went in, then sighed. The strange man pulled a walkie-talkie out of the satchel, barked, "send it down" and sat back on his heels.

"What the fuck is going on? Where am I?" Hunk shook his head. "Fuck. I'm so going to be fired."

"You don't know?" The man glanced down at Keith's still, panting form. "No, I don't suppose he got the chance to tell you."

A stretcher was being lowered, and it made two soft thuds as it hit the deck. Before Hunk could move, the man had Keith strapped in and was already starting up the ladder.

"Come on up. I'll explain everything."

Hunk squinted into the sky. What the fuck. It wasn't like he had any other options. Besides, Keith was already halfway up to the chopper, and there was no way in hell Hunk was staying on this floating death trap.

Grunting, straining as he hauled himself up the flimsy rope ladder, Hunk wondered why he'd ever agreed to go to dinner with the boy that night. He wondered what he would be doing right now if he'd said no.

The man hauled the ladder up after Hunk pulled himself inside the cool dimness of the chopper. There were two more men in the nose of the vehicle, dressed in black as well and preoccupied with the thousands of switches and blinking lights that covered the instrument panel. Keith lay in the middle of wide, empty cabin, and Hunk moved to sit beside him, one had stroking the boy's sweaty hair.

Keith'd had better days.

The man sat down as the 'copter began to wheel away from the yacht, and looked across Keith's body to Hunk, who still sat with Keith's head in his lap. "My name is Lotor," he yelled over the noise of the rushing wind. "I'm his boss. We work for an intelligence agency--"

"Like the CIA?" Hunk yelled back.

Lotor smiled. "Something like. Only, we don't exactly work for just one country."

"What does this have to do with me?"

"We want you on the team. We've been following you, and you're doing great things with robots. Keith was supposed to broach the subject in Hawaii, but I guess he got spooked and ran before he could fill you in." Lotor smiled again, and Hunk grunted. Well, it was as good an explanation as any for this strange, dreamlike world he'd been plunged into since Keith had first kissed him.

"I know this is all a little sudden, so I'm going to give you some time to think this over. We're headed to Japan now, so Keith can recover. If, by the time he's well enough to travel, you've decided to come aboard, there'll be a plane ticket for England waiting for you. If you've decided to turn us down, there'll be a ticket back to Hawaii. We don't want you rushing into this."

Hunk grunted and looked down again at Keith. The boy was pale and shaking, but his eyelids fluttered and when they opened he gave Hunk a weak smile that made Hunk's heart flutter. He couldn't think about what Lotor was saying, not right now, not when Keith looked like he was on the brink of death. He ached in his soul for the boy and he knew that was bad because, God fuck him, he'd gone and fallen for this boy.

This is so fucking bad on so many levels.

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