SynTracker | ONC 2021 | MM Romance | Sci-Fi | Complete

Thirteen: Tuesday

This chapter is very similar in both novellas. The dialogue lines are mostly the same, the situation is obviously the same, the one change is whose thoughts we're privy to. I apologise in advance for that, but couldn't find a way where it would make any sort of sense to skip this scene in favour of writing a different one in the other novella.

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It'd taken Quentin less time to wake up than expected, Ian found out when he walked in the room. He barked the command to turn on the lights to make sure, relief filling him at seeing Quentin alive.

Quentin was predictably less than happy to see him, but Ian wasn't Travers. It'd take far more than posturing to get him to move from the room's only exit. And Quentin knew it — they'd spent too many years together for him not to. The only way he was getting past that door was if he killed Ian.

"You win," Quentin said, with a bitter twist of lips. "I'll shut down."

"Quentin, no, wait. Please. Hear me out." Ian just needed to give him the cards and tell him of the chip. The questions he'd hoped to ask weren't important; he wouldn't have liked the answers anyway.

Quentin looked at him intently, no hint of fondness it his posture. It was better this way, Ian supposed. No more pretending. "What do you want from me, Ian?" His voice was as dispassionate as Ian had ever heard it. "What are we doing here?"

Ian asked him if he was hungry, an impulse that dated back to the day they'd met. Quentin had been hungry then too, nearly having burnt down his kitchen, wanting to borrow a protein bar. Ian had always prided himself on having offered him something better, then.

Nothing but an illusion.

"—Offering me a last meal before you ship me off?"

Quentin might as well have punched him. The memory of him trembling, begging for death because he thought that was the best Ian would grant him, was far too vivid in Ian's mind. He couldn't let Quentin believe that'd be his fate for a moment longer. "I'm not shipping you off anywhere. You're free to go. I just — I understand." But he still needed Quentin to stay for just long enough to give him the credits, to tell him about the chip. "Give me just five minutes to explain, and then you can go. Please. Is that alright?"

The stammering agreement, Quentin's tentative, "I could go for that food," was more trust than Ian deserved. They sat just as he had with Ulla, Ian on the floor, Quentin on the bed. He almost regretted asking Quentin if he could heat up the can until Quentin replied, "I'm a regular household appliance. I bet I could even use my left hand as a can opener, if this weren't easy open."

Ian tried to laugh, but the sound that came out was wilder, wounded, on its knees. "I sold the house," he said instead of trying to make small talk. He didn't know how long Quentin would allow this conversation to go on. Telling him about the practical aspects of fleeing to safety was paramount.

"Wow," was Quentin's only reply.

He held out the cards, keeping one for himself. "There's fifty thousand credits in each, and they're untraceable. That should help when establishing a new identity." Still not enough, given the state of Quentin's face and arm, for prosthetics and bribes. "But I'd still advise you to buy something easy to carry and easy to sell, so you can start building on that identity in a way that looks legitimate. Stop me if this is knowledge you already have, I..." He paused, realising he knew nothing about the man he'd been married for eight years. "I don't know what your skills are."

"When did you find out? That I'm me?"

Something came unstuck inside his chest. Quentin wanting to know that... Ian was probably reading too much into this, but he could think of no reason other than Quentin didn't despise him as much as he'd thought. Why else would it matter? "On Thursday. SynSec — the Secretary himself — called me in for a meeting."