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

Epilogue

The epilogues can be read in any order, but, chronologically, this takes place after BioSynth's epilogue so, if you're reading both, read BioSynth's Epilogue first.

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The water was never quite hot enough for the kind of shower Ian preferred in this place, but, on most mornings, it didn't matter. On most mornings Quentin was in the shower with him, supplying all the warmth Ian would ever need, and living here felt like the privilege it was.

If anyone had told him, six months before, that he'd be happier living in a bunker than in the house he'd lovingly chosen to grow old with Quentin in, he'd have told them to go in for a psych eval. Yet they'd have been spot on in their assessment.

Quentin had owned the bunker long before Ian had met him; he'd planned to move there alone, then he'd given it to his friends, and finally they'd decided to share it. It was big enough for the two of them and the Maimed Misfits, as Quentin's friends insisted on calling themselves, with plenty of room to spare for a darkroom, a workroom for Ian, and to house those just passing by, or needing a place to lie low after Ian switched their Tracking chip.

That didn't mean things always went well.

Jax, the BioSynth Ian and Ulla had mistakenly rescued, spent half of his time in the web, searching for other BioSynths; some he invited over, if they had the corresponding blank chip. Ian never withheld his past as a Tracker. Quentin hated that was the first thing he told people, but he had to; there'd been enough secrets, enough hiding. Quentin had sat in on each of those early conversations, ready to intervene if things escalated, until Ian had put a stop to it. Three weeks later, when he'd found himself pressed against a wall and about to be punched by someone who didn't look like they'd be holding back, he'd had a moment to regret that decision.

And then Jax, of all people, had materialised in the room, yanked his fellow BioSynth off of Ian, and told him he could either stay and have his chip removed or there was the door, thank you very much. His reply to Ian's dumbfounded look had been a shrug and a simple "we take care of our own."

That, more than anything, had been the thing to make him feel welcome here. "Our own," Jax had called him, and he'd never looked at Ian with distrust from that day forward. One by one, the others started warming up to him. Clementine was harder to impress. She'd been one of Connors's victims; the only thing Ian found surprising was that she tolerated his presence enough not to shoot him.

He'd yet to come across another BioSynth he'd Tracked, something that filled him with sadness more than relief: no one in their group had found out where the pleasure houses were located yet and, if anyone had escaped, they weren't talking.

Ian turned off the water so he could shampoo his hair. Quentin went on missions without him, sometimes. Those were days Ian hated with a ferocity he'd never admit to. Like yesterday. Quentin had gone off with Alice and Clementine to confirm if a BioSynth they'd been in touch with for two months was the real thing, and they weren't expected back until that afternoon.

He hoped they wouldn't get held up. The logic was faultless — Ian was human, their only hope of switching any chips at all until he could train another person, and to risk him on a mission would be to risk all of them — but it grated. He didn't have it in him to stay behind doing installs while Quentin was facing danger; it'd been a hard wake-up call, to understand his presence might be the very thing that put Quentin in danger in the first place. That was how they got him to stay home: by calling him invaluable in one breath and a liability in the next.

The glass door slid open as he turned the water back on. Quentin. Wearing nothing but a smile that was instantly mirrored on Ian's lips.

"You're back early." Ian's eyes scanned him for injuries as he always did whenever Quentin was out without him, reaching to confirm with his fingertips that no, he hadn't been harmed.