Chapter Text
Ten minutes before he’s due to leave for court, Alex is digging futilely through his desk.
“Anna, have you seen my shield?” he calls out through the open door to his office, though there’s no reason his assistant would know where it is. He probably fucking left it at home, forgot he was wearing it after his last case and discarded it carelessly by the shower. “Fuck it,” he mutters, not waiting for an answer, “I’ll go without.”
“You know that’s not possible,” Anna reminds him, now standing in the doorway. There’s an exasperated look on her elfin face that he’s sure he didn’t earn. Not this time anyway.
“Did you know that if you haven’t swapped by your mid-thirties, the likelihood that you will drops into the single digits?” he asks her, quoting the stats that he’d wrung out of Nora in a fit of pique on his thirty-second birthday. Never mind that he’s not mid-thirties yet. What matters is he’s getting close. “Kinda pointless to expect those of us without soulmates to have to wear a shield.”
Anna rolls her eyes. She has, of course, been subjected to this rant before. “Be that as it may, it’s not legal to go unshielded in a courtroom and you know it. You can’t know for sure that you don’t have a soulmate. A small chance is still a chance. Here, take mine.”
On her extended palm sits an unassuming bracelet: a slim band of metal with the smallest of swellings on one side, which holds the shielding chip. The technology has come a long way, shrunk down from the bulky devices that his parents had to wear and much more reliable than the inconsistent metal alloys people relied on in the more distant past. The bracelet itself is more for show than anything else, to reassure other people that another person wasn’t going to be suddenly occupying your body.
With a sigh, Alex takes the band from her and clasps it around his own wrist. “Sure,” he agrees with a wry smile, “the day that my spy soulmate finally takes off her shield we’ll throw a party.”
“Don’t sell yourself short,” Anna chirps, “she could be a princess.”
“Or in prison,” Alex returns flatly.
There weren’t many people in the world who wore shields permanently, and really, the only ones that definitively did were the incarcerated. It was rumored that some royal families held to the practice, and the permanently shielded spy was a popular trope in fiction, but it seemed unlikely to Alex. Everyone took off their shield at some point. After all, no one really knew what permanently shielding actually did to a person—there have been reports of shielding sickness, though it’s infrequent and the links to the shields themselves were unproven, which is how the prisons justified the practice (Alex has an entire other rant about that).
Mostly, people don’t wear them unless they absolutely have to because they want to swap and find their soulmate. Those who have met and bonded don’t have to worry about the unexpected swaps anymore, but the shields apparently still interfere with that nebulous feeling of connection people have to their soulmate.
Or so Alex has been told; he wouldn’t know.
“I need that back, by the way,” Anna reminds him. “I have to go to the bank later.”
“You’re a lifesaver, Anna,” Alex says genuinely as grabs his briefcase and jacket and starts hurrying toward the exit. He may think the whole soulmates and shields thing is tiresome, but the last thing he needs is to be barred from doing his job because of it.
“Remember that when it’s time to decide on Christmas bonuses!” she calls after him.
He gives her a jaunty salute before he turns the corner.
“Neither of y’all have seen my shield around your apartment, have you?” Alex asks, in lieu of a greeting, as he slides into the booth opposite Nora and June with his whiskey.
“He lives!” Nora says, overloud even for the bar. She’s grinning like he’s gonna get it, and he braces himself.
“‘Hey June, how’s it going?’” June puts in sarcastically. “‘So sorry I’ve been dodging your calls.’”
“I haven’t been dodging them, I’ve been busy,” Alex protests. “I told you I had a nightmare case. Which I won, by the way.”
“And I’m proud of you, but I still reserve the right to be annoyed with you too.”
Alex sighs and wipes a hand over his face. “Fine. How have you been, sister dearest?”
“Mom’s going to be in town for some event in a week, and when you wouldn’t reply to her she decided to make it entirely my problem,” June says dryly, sipping whatever fruity cocktail she’s ordered tonight. “So, I’ve been better.”
“Sorry, Bug,” Alex winces. “I can take some time now that this is over, though. Whatever you need, say the word.”
“It’s fine,” June sighs, even though it’s clearly not, and fishes a small, slim box out of her bag and slides it across the table toward him.
“What’s this?” Alex asks.
“A new shield. Anna told me you lost yours. And no, it’s not at our place.”
“So now you’re getting information on me from my assistant?”
“I am when you don’t answer your calls or texts,” June retorts, and ok, she has a point.
“You didn’t have to buy me one,” Alex huffs. “I’m perfectly capable of doing that for myself.”
“Considering you went a week without one, I’m not sure that’s true,” Nora puts in. “Aren’t you supposed to be wearing one at work anyway?”
“It’s not like I actually need one,” Alex grumbles as he slumps back into the booth. He’s been annoyed about the whole thing all week. “You’re the one who told me there’s less than a 20% chance I’m going to swap with someone at this point. Can’t we all just accept the fact that I don’t have a soulmate and move on?”
Nora hums doubtfully and stirs her drink. “I read an article the other day about someone who swapped for the first time at 52,” she says. “They were driving without a shield because they assumed they didn’t have a soulmate, and bam. Caused a big accident. Just because most people swap in their twenties—”
“All right, we don’t need to go through this again,” Alex interrupts before she can get going.
June and Nora had swapped at peak time, in their mid-twenties. Nora had been walking to the library at MIT, while June was just getting home to her apartment in Georgetown. They’d used the time to put their contact information in each other’s phones, and within a week they’d met and bonded. Everyone Alex knows has a story like theirs. Alex is happy for them, truly, but he doesn’t really want to hear anything about soulmates from either of them right now.
“I’ll wear it when I have to, ok? It just wasn’t really pressing,” he says dismissively. “Now can we talk about literally anything else?”
Nora puts her hands up and they move on to other topics, but the soulmate question lingers at the back of his mind. It’s not like he wants or needs a soulmate. He knows people without them can have strong relationships, and a soul bond is no guarantee of happily ever after—just look at his parents. That doesn’t make the loneliness any easier to bear. He meets people, takes them home, has a good time, even dated a perfectly nice woman for a couple months a while back. It never works out, though. There’s never been any click with any of them, soulmate or otherwise.
Some days he’s afraid there’s never going to be. (Some days he’s fully resigned to it.)
“Call me in the morning and we can talk about mom’s visit,” June tells him as they hug at the end of the evening.
“I will,” Alex mumbles into her hair.
“You sure you don’t want company tonight?” she asks, because of course she does. She can always seem to sense when he’s at a low point.
“Yeah, ‘m sure. I’m just gonna go home and pass out. Don’t worry about me.”
She squeezes her arms tight around his waist before she lets him go, then looks up at him with a lopsided smile on her face. “It’s my job, though.”
Alex snorts. She certainly seems to think so.
He waits until June and Nora’s Uber arrives before he starts walking the short distance to his apartment. The city buzzes with the activity of a summer night, the air filled with the hum of conversation and the clink of dishes mingling with the rumble of traffic. Alex stares idly at the magazine covers on display at a newsstand as he waits at a crosswalk; one loudly asks, Does Gen Z Have a Soulmate Problem? Alex can’t begin to guess what it’s supposed to be.
The light changes. A car horn blares down the block. Alex blinks.
When he opens his eyes he’s no longer in Brooklyn.
To be fair, that’s the least pressing issue at the moment. Top of that list would be the absolutely excruciating pain on inside of his forearm, although the shouting and sound of running footsteps—and, fuck, is that gunfire?—behind him are certainly fighting for his attention. He looks down at his arm to find blood rapidly soaking through the fine wool of his suit, except it’s not his arm. The hand he’s staring at is white and larger than his own, with neatly trimmed fingernails in contrast to Alex’s bitten down ones.
“Did I get fucking shot?” Alex asks the world at large. The voice that comes out of him is deep, and his vowels round like they’re fighting for an accent he doesn’t have. As if in answer, the guys running toward him start firing at him again.
It’s only then that Alex appreciates that he’s apparently on a rooftop. An unfamiliar cityscape stretches out in front of him, and he doesn’t have time to try to piece together where in the world he is because he’s still currently being shot at.
Alex ducks hurriedly behind some kind of large utility box and tries to take stock of his surroundings. What the actual fuck was his soulmate’s—because that’s what this has to be, a swap, and oh yeah his soulmate is apparently a man, which is not something he can currently process—plan here, anyway? His attackers are on the next roof over, but somehow Alex doesn’t think that’s going to slow them down that much. There’s some kind of trap-door access in the middle of the roof, and if he can get to that, he can at least get away from the bullets. As far as he’s concerned, that’s priority number one. Running out there is going to expose him to said bullets, though.
“I hope you’re fucking fast,” Alex mutters to… well, his soulmate’s body, he supposes.
This is fucked up. You were supposed to wake up in someone’s home or on the subway or some shit. Not in the middle of a firefight.
He takes a deep breath, counts to five. The fine gravel covering the top of the roof skids under his feet—fucking dress shoes—as he scrambles up and toward the hatch. Fortunately, his soulmate is fast and strong, but that doesn’t really help when he tugs on the handle of the door and it doesn’t budge.
“No no nononono,” he babbles frantically, desperately, pulling harder to no avail.
He scrambles to the edge of the roof furthest from the attackers, who have now stopped firing on him. Somehow that doesn’t seem like a good thing. He suspects they know he’s trapped. The gap between buildings is the kind of thing you’d see a hero leap across and catch himself on the edge with his feet dangling, and a hysterical laugh bubbles out of Alex. Yeah, no fucking way.
The men yell something at him in a language he doesn’t know—Arabic, maybe. He looks back at the trap door and wonders if he should try it again. What’s he got to lose? Just as he’s reaching for it, though, it pops open from the inside and two men climb out, each holding the kind of guns Alex has only ever seen in movies.
“Nowhere to run, Sutton,” one of the men growls in a heavy accent. “Give us the drive.”
Alex puts up his hands, doing his best to ignore the throbbing in his forearm, and tries out a disarming smile. Not that he has no idea what his fucking face looks like right now. “What if I told you I had no idea what you were talking about?”
Perhaps predictably, the men don’t look particularly impressed by this claim. One of them aims his gun at Alex’s chest, and Alex squeezes his eyes closed.
Nothing happens. The timbre of the city’s hum seems to shift. Someone yells ‘shut up Cynthia!’ in a distinctly American accent somewhere in the distance.
Alex opens his eyes and finds himself standing in nearly the same place he was when he’d left his body. It takes him a moment to realize he’s holding his phone to his ear and someone is speaking to him in an English accent.
“Wait wait—” he interrupts. The voice cuts off. “Who the fuck is this?”
There’s silence on the line; the only reason he knows they haven’t hung up on him is that the call is still active.
“Don’t go very far, Mr. Claremont-Diaz,” the woman on the phone says. Then the line goes dead.
Alex barely waits for the click of the lock on June’s door to sound before he’s shouldering his way in.
“Alex? What’s going on?” she asks as he stumbles past her into the living room, her confusion rapidly giving way to concern. “Are you ok?”
Alex knows he looks like a mess. He’s out of breath and sweaty, having run most of the way here, his hair tangled from how he’s been digging his hands into it, and his eyes are wild. His forearm still aches, like he can feel the ghost of his soulmate’s injury—or maybe it’s just the memory of that pain, unlike anything he’s ever experienced before.
“I swapped,” he blurts. “I was walking home, and then suddenly I was on a roof, and bleeding, and people were shooting at me—”
“A roof? Where?” June interrupts, at nearly the same time as Nora pops up over the back of the couch and incredulously says,“What do you mean people were shooting at you?”
“Shooting!” Alex repeats, a little hysterically. “With guns! Big fucking guns! And I have no idea where, some foreign city I didn’t recognize. They might have been speaking Arabic, but I— I’m not sure.”
“That’s— you’re joking, right? Alex, tell me this is a bad joke,” June demands, but it’s clear that his general demeanor is answering her question already.
Alex shakes his head, tugging on his curls again as he paces across their small living room. “Believe me, I fucking wish it was. And— and when I came back, I was on the phone with some British woman who just told me not to go very far and then hung up on me!”
“You called back, right?” Nora asks.
“Of course I fucking did. No answer.”
For the first time since he swapped back, Alex feels the adrenaline starting to drain from his body, and abruptly his knees don’t feel capable of holding him up anymore. He stumbles over to the sofa and collapses next to Nora, who puts a comforting hand on his back as he slumps forward with his elbows propped on his thighs.
“The worst part is that I got cornered right before I swapped back,” he says to the rug as he wrings his fingers together. “I— I couldn’t get away, and I got him trapped, and I don’t even know if he’s ok.”
The apartment is dead silent for the space of one breath, then another. Then June ventures, “He?”
Alex buries his face in his palms before slowly dragging his hands down his cheeks. “I mean, platonic soulmates are a thing, right?”
“Sure,” Nora agrees, though there’s a weird note in her voice he can’t quite parse. He also doesn’t have the mental energy to consider anything about the whole guy situation right now. “I assume he didn’t leave you his name and number.”
“No,” Alex says with a humorless puff of laughter. “One of the men called him Sutton? But, like. I’m guessing that’s not his real name.”
“Yeah, that’s fair.”
“What are you going to do?” June asks, as if he has any fucking clue how to deal with this.
Alex lets a little helpless laugh. “What can I do? He must know who I am at this point, so the ball’s entirely in his court.”
“Until you swap again,” Nora points out. “If you weren’t swapping this whole time because he was permanently shielded, the delay could accelerate your timeline now. You could have… days instead of weeks.”
“Or he’ll be shielded again right away and nothing more will happen,” Alex argues. The words ring false even as he says them, though. Maybe his soulmate got out of the shitty situation Alex left him in, but if he didn’t…
Alex doesn’t want to think about it. “Can I stay here tonight?” he asks, even though he’s pretty sure he already knows what the answer will be. “Or maybe for the weekend? I kinda don’t want to be alone right now.”
“Of course you can,” June says gently, lowering herself onto the couch next to him and wrapping an arm around his waist. “As long as you need.”
Henry wakes up in a windowless room devoid of furniture except a table and two chairs, one of which he’s bound to with his hands behind his back. He’d barely been back in his body for thirty seconds before he’d been knocked unconscious because apparently his soulmate had gotten him cornered—
No, that’s not fair. The fact that Henry’s soulmate is a civilian—an American at that—is hardly his fault. He, unlike Henry, did not sign up for any of this, and it was only a stroke of terrible luck that put him in it. The bullet that had grazed Henry’s arm had destroyed his implanted shield, and with it Henry’s only chance at salvaging this situation.
He doesn’t know how much time has passed. From what he can tell about the state of his wound, it can’t have been more than a day. He tests his bonds and finds them annoyingly secure; he’ll have to find a way to talk his way out of this one, then, because he certainly can’t rely on a rescue. When he’d spoken with Bea, he’d told her how the operation had gone to shit—that his efforts to secure the drive had nearly all been for naught when the target had come back to his office too early—but he hadn’t yet been captured. In retrospect, that outcome should have been obvious. She’ll no doubt expect a check in (and worry when it doesn’t come), but ultimately, his life will hardly be MI6’s highest priority.
It doesn’t take long for his captors to notice he’s awake.
“Ah, Patrick. So good of you to join us,” a voice he’s become unfortunately familiar with drawls over the click of hard soled shoes on concrete. “Though, I assume that Patrick Sutton is not your real name. Don’t suppose you’d care to enlighten us?”
Henry looks up at the leader of the organization he’s worked to infiltrate for the past six months—a man with whom he’s shared drinks and conversations and, eventually, a bed, a man who Henry despises—and affects the most befuddled and innocent expression he can manage. “Sam,” he sighs in relief, “thank god, there’s been some mistake—”
He’s silenced by a swift blow to the face, the taste of copper bright on his tongue as pain blooms across his cheekbone.
“Don’t try to play those games with me,” Samir Johnston—half Moroccan, half American, all asshole—sneers as he flexes his hand. “You were caught red-handed, stealing from me.”
“A simple misunderstanding, I swear,” Henry tries, unwilling to abandon his cover just yet. “I would never betray you.”
“You ran,” Samir says dryly.
“Your men were shooting at me,” Henry counters. “Please, Sam, let me explain.”
“I don’t want an explanation. I want to know what you did with the drive you stole.”
Thank god Henry had already gotten rid of it before they’d caught up with him; hidden in an unassuming spot and its location passed onto Bea so she could dispatch a trusted carrier to pick it up, the drive was only the latest of many containing data that Henry’s managed to copy during his time with the organization. Even if Henry told him where it had been, it would be gone by the time Samir got to it.
Not that Henry’s going to tell him, anyway. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he tries. “I don’t know anything about a drive.”
For a moment, Henry thinks Samir might relent, but then the already hard look on his face only cements further as he turns toward the two men by the door. “I want his name, who he’s working for, and the location of the drive. Do whatever you must. Understood?”
The men answer with matching short nods, and Samir sweeps past them out of the room, letting the door slam shut after him. Henry watches as they exchange the briefest of glances before they start advancing on him, the steps of this dance so well-trod they don’t need words. Even Henry knows what’s coming, having witnessed it before.
That knowledge won’t make the pain any easier to bear.
Samir’s men are good at their jobs, Henry will give them that. They know how to extract information, how to break a man. Most of the time they don’t even have to work that hard for it.
Most of the time they’re not trying to break men like Henry.
He knows better than to be stoic. No, he begs and pleads, but never once does he waver from his story. He’s not delusional enough to think that his cover can be fully salvaged, but it works to his favor if they underestimate him. Eventually, Samir will come back to talk to him again, all honeyed words and deals, the promise of relief after the onslaught—this, too, is part of the dance. He just has to hold firm until then, and maybe he can talk his way into a deal that will provide an opportunity for escape.
Unfortunately, that’s probably still a ways off, and in the meantime they seem to be moving rather rapidly into higher levels of pain. Maybe because they’re aware that Henry knows their patterns from his time in the organization, or maybe on Samir’s orders. Henry had worked his way far into Samir’s confidences before his betrayal was discovered. People tend to take that kind of thing personally.
Two new men have returned after a few hours’ break—just enough time for Henry to start to drift as the adrenaline wears off, just enough time for his bruises to start to fade into a dull ache. They come with a variety of tools this time, but at least at first they seem to be mostly for show. A threat of what they’ll do if Henry continues to give them answers they don’t like. They cut the bonds on his hands, and even though he knows it heralds nothing good, the brief moments he gets of movement are an unexpected boon. His joints protest after so many hours in the same position, but the stretch is still a relief.
Then they zip-tie his wrists to metal rings set into the table in front of him, and one of the men takes firm hold of his pinky finger on his left hand. Henry’s signet ring glints in the harsh light thrown by the bare bulb illuminating the room, and he grits his teeth against what he knows must be coming.
“Boss says you play the piano,” the other man says, his arms folded across his chest. “If you value your hands, you’ll tell the truth.”
“I am telling the truth,” Henry protests, “please, you have to believe—”
He cuts off with a yelp as the other man wrenches his pinky finger; for a moment, the pain is excruciating, and then—
It stops.
Henry opens his eyes and finds himself sitting at a restaurant in some kind of minuscule garden patio wedged between buildings, with two rather attractive women staring at him from the other side of the table.
“Oh, bloody hell,” Henry blurts, the words taking on some kind of bizarre combination of his regular accent filtered through a mouth unused to forming the words that way.
“Alex?” one of the women—whose warm brown skin is a near match for his soulmate’s—says, a deep frown creasing her face. “What’s—”
She stops speaking as Henry fishes out the mobile from his soulmate’s pocket, finds Bea’s number still in the outgoing history, and jabs the call button. He lets it ring twice, then hangs up.
“I’m gonna take a wild guess that Alex isn’t in there anymore,” the other woman puts in shrewdly, her eyes narrowing as she looks him over. “You’re him, aren’t you? The soulmate.”
“I’m afraid so,” Henry answers. Before they can continue this interrogation, though, Alex’s phone rings and Henry scrambles to answer it. “We’ve swapped again,” he says before Bea can even ask. “He isn’t wearing a bloody shield, God knows why. You’d think once would have been enough to convince him of the necessity.”
“Alex prefers to go unshielded,” the second woman, the one with the tight, dark ringlets and the too-knowing expression, pipes up. “He has concerns about their long-term effects, and frankly he’s not wrong—”
Henry cannot begin to unpack that right now. Surely the universe must be having a laugh making Henry, who has been shielded nearly his entire life, soulmates with someone who is anti-shield.
“Given your lack of contact in the last thirty-six hours, I’d say it’s a lucky thing he wasn’t wearing one,” Bea says over the line.
“It’s certainly not, considering that he’s—” Henry’s voice clips off as he looks at the women across from him, the words being tortured dying on his tongue. “Er, not in a good place.”
Even that is enough for clear alarm to break out over their expressions, understandably.
“And where are you?” Bea asks.
Henry looks to the table between them, at half-eaten meals—an omelet and eggs Benedict for the women and fried chicken with a waffle in front of him—and what seems to be a mostly-empty pitcher of mimosas, and dryly answers, “It would appear that I’m at brunch.”
Christ, he can’t have this conversation here, but when he tries to get up, the second woman reaches out and grabs his arm with surprising speed and strength.
“Oh no you don’t,” she says fiercely. “You’re not walking away with his body.”
“I will come back, I swear, but I cannot simply read in two American civilians on this operation,” Henry insists as he extracts his wrist from her grip.
“Who’s there?” Bea asks.
“I’m with his—” Henry hesitates.
“Sister.”
“Best friend.”
“Christ,” Henry mutters, wiping a hand over his face. The shape of it is unfamiliar under his palm—a sharper nose, less severe cheekbones, a chin dimple. “His family,” he tells Bea, before looking back at the two women. “Just— one moment. Promise.”
Of course, he has no way of being sure that he won’t get swapped back before then, but he does intend to return. No idea what he’s going to say to them, but one problem at a time.
“They’re holding me somewhere,” he tells Bea once he gets away from prying ears. “I have no idea where. I was unconscious when they moved me, and there are no windows.”
“Still in Marrakesh?”
“As far as I know.”
The sound of fingers on a keyboard clatters over the phone. “I’ll dig into their holdings, see if I can narrow things down. I take it things aren’t exactly peachy, based on your earlier comment.”
“It’s— nothing I can’t handle.”
“And what about your soulmate?” she asks him pointedly. “What can he handle?”
Henry takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “It’s bad, Bea. He doesn’t know anything, obviously, but what if they figure out that he isn’t me? His name—that, I’m certain they could get from him. And if they find him, they could use him as leverage.”
“Then we’ll protect him,” Bea says, as if it’s that simple.
“Do you honestly believe Gran will entertain the idea of protecting my soulmate—an American man, at that—for even a second?” Henry bites out bitterly. A nuisance, she’s always called soulmates. She’d probably consider this the perfect opportunity to get rid of Henry’s for good.
The thought makes Henry’s stomach turn. He’s never met the guy—has only ever seen him in his driver’s license photo, and no, he hasn’t sought out a mirror while they’ve been swapped because he’s not sure he could handle the sight, frankly—and yet somehow it feels like he knows him already, down to his bones. He stares down at his soulmate’s hand, at his bitten-down fingernails, at the simple beaded bracelet looped around a sturdy wrist, at smooth brown skin stretched over his muscular forearm. If only Henry could speak to him— But then, he’s not sure what he’d say.
“No, she won’t,” Bea answers flatly, interrupting his reverie. “But I will.”
“Bea, you can’t just—”
“You should get back to his family. Tell them something to make them feel better.”
Henry can’t stop the mirthless laugh that fights his way out of him. “And what is that supposed to be?”
“Dunno. You’ll think of something,” Bea says with far more optimism than is warranted. “And Henry?” she adds, just before he rings off.
“Yes?”
“Hang in there, ok? We’ll find you, promise.”
Henry wants to tell her it won’t be necessary, and also not to make promises she can’t keep. Instead, he closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. “Love you, Bea.”
“Also, I cannot keep calling a traceable number. Get your soulmate to buy a goddamned burner phone.”
“Alex,” Henry says without thinking, and the name on his tongue reaches through his ribcage and squeezes. “His name is Alex.”
Chapter 2
Notes:
Thanks y'all! So glad you're excited! This is probably the most chill chapter of the entire fic so enjoy it while it lasts lol.
Chapter Text
Turns out, the sudden end of blinding pain isn’t any less weird the second time around.
Alex holds his hand out in front of him and turns it over, convincing himself that the lingering throb of pain in his pinky and ring fingers is all in his head. It takes him another beat to realize June and Nora are staring at him with no small amount of concern written across their faces.
“…Alex?” June ventures when he looks up at them.
“Yeah,” he croaks, even though these vocal cords aren’t hoarse from the yelling. He clears his throat anyway. “I’m back.”
“Oh, thank fuck,” Nora huffs. “He would not tell us what was happening to you, and—”
“He’s being tortured,” Alex says unsteadily. He closes his hand into a fist. None of it feels very real.
When he looks up again, June is practically gray. “Are— are you ok?”
Alex blinks at her. “I’m fine,” he replies dismissively. Yeah, it had hurt, but no worse than when he’d broken his hand playing lacrosse in his junior year of high school. The pain that he experienced just now was fleeting, unlike what’s happening to his soulmate. That’s the part that’s messing with his head. “What else did he say? Did he tell you his name?”
June and Nora exchange a look he can’t read, then June bites her lip and stares down at her lap.
“No,” Nora answers. “He said it was too risky. He wouldn’t tell us much of anything, actually, but odds are astronomical that that dude is some kind of military intelligence. He made a call on your phone, but he said he couldn’t ‘read in two American civilians’ so he went somewhere else to talk.”
Alex immediately fumbles his phone out of his pocket and unlocks it; the call log is still open, showing the same number he’d tried to call without success. “How the hell did he get them to pick up the phone?”
“Called, hung up, and then they called him back,” Nora tells him. “Probably some kind of signal. He did tell us you need to get a burner phone so his colleague could speak with you more securely, and also that you should be safe if you wear your shield at all times—”
“Absolutely not,” Alex interrupts, and June’s head snaps up, her eyes wide.
“This is not the time for principles, Alex!” she hisses, leaning across the table and glancing around like anyone is paying attention to them. “You could swap again at any time and they could— could hurt you!”
“They’re hurting him right now,” Alex shoots back. “Look, this isn’t about principles. I’m the only link he has to the outside world, the only way he can get word to anyone. I can’t just cut him off.”
June appears unmoved by this argument. “But he’s trained for this kind of thing. He knows how to handle it.”
“And I only have to put up with it for ten minutes at a time,” Alex says.
“Until the interval gets longer,” Nora mutters, as if Alex isn’t very well aware that the longer you put off meeting your soulmate once the swaps begin, the more protracted and frequent they become. Considering they seem to be on some kind of sped up schedule, that could mean a lot more discomfort in his near future.
The thought should be distressing. Instead, for the first time since they swapped on Friday night, he feels like he has an answer for what the fuck he should do now: find his soulmate. Easier said than done, of course, but he has an idea of where to start. He pushes away from the table and stands up, much to the consternation of Nora and June.
“Where are you going?” June asks.
“You said I needed a burner phone, so first, I’m getting a burner phone,” he says simply. “Then, I’m getting answers.”
It’s a testament to how in over his head Alex is that it takes him a moment to realize he doesn’t even know how one acquires a burner phone. But a quick google search and a trip to the nearest bodega later, he’s the proud owner of a cheap phone—who knew they even made phones without touch screens anymore?—with a plentiful supply of international minutes. He’s too impatient to wait until he gets home to call, so he ducks into a nearby park and finds a corner where the Sunday foot traffic isn’t too heavy, then carefully punches in the UK number that shows up in his phone’s call history.
It rings only once before someone picks up.
“Yes?”
“I, uh,” Alex says, ever-so-eloquently, his words traitorously deserting him now that he actually has someone on the line. “I’m the soulmate?”
“This is a burner?” the woman asks, her crisp British accent familiar in his ear. She’s definitely the same person who was on the phone when he came back from his first swap.
“Yeah, yep,” Alex confirms.
“Are you somewhere you can talk?”
He waits as a woman pushing a stroller passes him. “Yeah, I’m good. No listening devices or whatever.”
“What exactly do you think this is, Mr. Claremont-Diaz?” she asks with a wry note in her voice.
“Call me Alex. And I don’t really know, do I?” Alex shoots back. “Everything that’s happened to me so far feels like a pretty fucked up dream, if I’m being honest. My friend said my soulmate wouldn’t even tell them his name, and I get it, but like— do I get to know yours?”
“You can call me B.”
“Like M in the Bond movies, huh?” Alex asks, unable to help himself. “Very mysterious. Oh, do I get a code name? Can it be Barracuda?”
There’s a beat, and then B says, “This is serious, Mr. Claremont-Diaz.”
“I told you, it’s Alex. And I know it is.” He blows out a breath, staring up at the trees in the park and wondering how the fuck he got into this situation. “Sorry. My therapist tells me I have a tendency to resort to humor when I’m uncomfortable.”
“I know it’s a lot, Alex,” she tells him, not unkindly. “My goal is to keep you safe.”
“And what about him? My soulmate. Who’s keeping him safe?”
“You don’t need to worry about him.”
“I’m sorry, but fuck that,” Alex blurts, a little too loudly. An elderly woman with a dog a ways away shoots him a disapproving look. He lowers his voice, and hisses into the phone, “He’s my soulmate, and he’s being held captive and tortured, I’m going to fucking worry about him.”
B sighs, clearly already exasperated with him. Too bad for her. Join the club. “We’re doing everything we can, I promise.”
“Such as?” Alex presses.
“I’m afraid that’s beyond your clearance.”
“Yeah, well, I’m the one swapping bodies with him, so I think you should re-evaluate that.”
“Which shouldn’t be a problem now that you’re shielded—”
“I’m not wearing a shield,” Alex interrupts, injecting as much finality into his tone as possible.
B is struck silent for a beat by this statement. “Mr. Claremont-Diaz—”
“Alex.”
“Alex, I’m not sure you understand the gravity of the situation here.”
“Oh, I understand,” Alex replies as he stares hard across the park.
It’s a beautiful day, and children laugh as they run around the playground at the other end. Meanwhile, in some foreign city, his soulmate is trapped in a windowless room of pain. The thought makes something crawl under Alex’s skin, makes him feel reckless in a way he hasn’t been since he was young and doing self-destructive shit when everything started feeling like too much. He doesn’t even know this person, still hasn’t processed what it means that his soulmate is a dude, and yet he’s ready to do anything for him. Maybe it’s some weird soulmate connection, even though he’s never heard of anything like that. Then again, he’s never heard of anyone having a soulmate experience like this.
“It’s been almost two days since we first swapped, which tells me that you don’t know where he is because otherwise you would have rescued him by now. So go ahead and tell me the swaps aren’t a boon to you, and him,” he challenges. “That they’re not the only link you have to him.”
“You’re not wrong,” B admits quietly. “But it’s not that simple. Frankly, you’re a liability. You’ve no training against that kind of information extraction.”
“Considering I know nothing about what they want, I’d say that hardly matters,” Alex argues. “Plus, I’m really good at talking circles around people. It’s what I do.”
“If you’re shielded, they won’t be able to find you. I can’t afford the time to worry about watching over you, and I can’t adequately protect you remotely.”
“Then I’ll come to London. That’s where you are, right? I’m due time off.”
B huffs in frustration. “I can’t allow you to willingly subject yourself to that,” she says firmly. “I don’t want that for you, and neither does he.”
“Respectfully, I don’t give a shit what you or he wants when it comes to this,” Alex returns, every moment of this back-and-forth just making him dig his heels in more. “I’m not wearing a shield, so you should probably tell me how to come to you so we can fucking find him and end this.”
For a moment, B is silent, and Alex thinks maybe he pushed too far, but then she exhales heavily and there’s a sound like she’s rubbing her face. “Christ, of course his soulmate would be an absolute pain in the arse,” she mutters, probably intended only for herself. Then she says, “Will you at least wear a shield until you get here?”
Alex can’t help but grin. He might be a pain in the ass, but he won, so. “Sure,” he agrees as a good faith token in this negotiation.
“You can’t tell anyone where you’re going,” B warns him. “Leave your personal phone at home. No contact with family or friends until this is done. Can you do that?”
Fuck, June and Nora are going to murder him. Oh, well. That’s a problem for future Alex. “Yeah, I can do it.”
“Text me your flight information, then. I’ll meet you at the airport.”
“Ok.”
“And Alex?” she adds before he hangs up.
“Yeah?”
“This should go without saying, but be careful.”
Alex swallows hard, the magnitude of what he’s about to do finally starting to sink in. “Yep. Will do.”
Between the discomfort of being crammed in the last available middle seat, multiple crying babies around him, and the fact that his mind is spinning non-stop about his soulmate, Alex doesn’t sleep on the flight he catches that night. He tries his damnedest—via noise-canceling headphones, his usual ‘go to sleep’ podcast, and too many tiny bottles of whiskey—but instead he just spirals as he fidgets with the shield on his wrist. Now that he’s here, this seems like a monumentally stupid idea, actually. He’s not a spy. He’s a not-so-mild-mannered lawyer, and he’s already in way over his head.
It had been surprisingly easy to drop everything and leave on a moment’s notice, which probably said something sad about his life. He’d canceled all his appointments, put in an emergency leave request at the firm, and sent an email to his bosses explaining he had an unexpected personal crisis that would hopefully be resolved soon. The only real snag was June and Nora, whom he’d sent one text before he turned off his phone: a simple, going away for a while, pls don’t worry. He knows there’ll be hell to pay when he resurfaces, but he can’t risk them trying to needle details out of him.
He texts B when he lands and receives the somewhat unexpected instructions to not go through immigration and instead to go wait at a bar in Terminal 5. It’s 6:30 in the morning local time. Alex orders a whiskey anyway; to his credit, the bartender doesn’t blink.
Alex nurses it for nearly an hour before someone slides onto the barstool next to him.
The woman doesn’t look at him as she settles onto the seat, instead flagging down the bartender and ordering a club soda with lime. She’s petite, with brown hair pulled back in a neat ponytail and black polish on her fingernails, wearing the very impractical-for-air-travel combination of a black leather jacket, skinny jeans, and combat boots. It’s odd that she would choose the seat next to him in an otherwise empty bar, but the possibility that she might be the person Alex is waiting for doesn’t occur to him until she slides a passport with a plane ticket tucked into it over to him once the bartender turns away again.
“You dropped these, love,” she says casually.
Alex stares down at the passport, which has an elaborate crest on the cover with the words BRITISH PASSPORT stamped above it.
“Sorry, I think you’re mistaken—” he starts, only to be cut off by the incredulous expressions she throws his way. That, and the fact that she’s startlingly beautiful, with swooping cheekbones and full lips, and the full brunt of her attention is a little overwhelming. Maybe it’s just the sleep deprivation.
She pushes the documents closer to him. “No, I’m not.”
Oh. Oh. “Oh,” he says dumbly as he opens the passport and sees his own face staring back at him next to the name Alexander Daniels. “You’re—” He swallows the rest of that sentence at a warning glance from her. As she sips her soda, he fumbles the ticket out of where it’s tucked away and spots the destination. “Marrakesh?”
She shrugs and tucks a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “I hear it’s lovely this time of year.”
Marrakesh in July is probably sweltering, actually, but Alex keeps his opinions to himself. Instead, he slips the ticket back into what is apparently his new passport and downs the rest of his whiskey before he turns back toward her. “Is there anywhere around here we can talk?” he asks under his breath.
“Not really,” she says, not unsympathetically. “Airports are extremely well-monitored. Once we get on the plane, the engine noise will be enough to cover us.”
Alex nods, unsatisfactory as the answer might be. He’s never been one for patience. Lifting his wrist, he gives the shield bracelet a little shake. “And this?”
“Not until we get to Marrakesh. Can’t risk it in an uncontrolled environment.”
“Fair enough,” Alex allows, even though he doesn’t like that either. The urge to slip the shield off—just to ‘check on’ his soulmate—is intense, and he flags down the bartender for another drink in the hopes of dulling the uncomfortable itch under his skin. The last thing he needs to do now is piss off the one person who can help him get to his soulmate. “So,” he ventures once they’re alone again, “come here often?”
He means it half as a joke and half because there’s no fucking way he’s gonna be able to sit here in silence for another hour. Maybe they can’t talk about their current predicament, but surely they can talk, right? Even if it’s about nothing?
Thankfully, B seems willing to play along, at least for the moment. “I do spend a lot of time in airports, yeah,” she answers wryly. “Not so much in a bar.”
“All right, frequent flyer,” Alex says, seizing on the opening; he’s worked with much less, frankly. He takes a swallow of his whiskey and shoots her a winning grin as he points with the hand holding his glass. “Favorite way to pass the time in the airport?”
B huffs a little laugh and shakes her head. “Sleeping, usually. I can pretty much pass out anywhere.”
“Oh, lucky. Whenever I’m traveling, my brain just refuses to shut off. I don’t think I’ve actually slept since— well.” His smile slips. “It’s been a few days.”
“I can understand that,” B says quietly, staring down at her soda.
Now that he looks at her more carefully, it doesn’t look like she’s slept much lately either—there are dark smudges on the pale skin under her eyes and a weary set to the corners of her mouth. He can’t help but wonder if that’s just part of being a spy, or if his soulmate’s capture in particular is weighing on her. Who is his soulmate to her, anyway? A partner? A friend? A… lover?
He doesn’t know why that idea makes something sour twist in his stomach, given that he’s pretty sure his soulmate bond must be platonic, but he can’t let himself dwell on it.
Maybe B is just bored, or maybe she can sense that leaving him alone with his thoughts isn’t a good idea, but either way she gamely keeps up a thread of idle conversation. It’s the kind you might make with any random stranger in the airport, assuming you were the type. Which Alex happens to be. He prides himself at being good at reading people, so he can appreciate the way that B manages to give very little away even as she fills the silence. By the time they need to go to the gate to board the plane, he’s learned almost nothing about her. It’s impressive, and also incredibly frustrating; he’s not used to being so in the dark all the time.
B waits until they’ve reached cruising altitude and the drinks service has come and gone before she finally pulls a tablet out of her bag and places it on her tray table, though she doesn’t turn it on yet.
“We’re traveling as Chelsea Carrington and Alexander Daniels,” she tells him, her voice just audible over the hum of the engines. “We’ve been dating for six months and this is our first big holiday together. You’re a dual citizen, but grew up in the States. You’ve been working as a solicitor in London for three years.”
“I’ve never even been to London,” Alex says. “Well, except the airport now, I guess. Is that gonna be a problem?”
“Don’t try to offer up any details, and you’ll be fine,” she assures him. “It’s unlikely any of this will come up anyway.”
“So, what’s the plan when we get there?”
“Once we get to the hotel, you’ll remove your shield and we’ll see if it triggers a swap. I can get an update from him—”
“Pause,” Alex interrupts. “I need something to call him besides ‘my soulmate’, because it’s getting annoying, and also I imagine it’s not something we want to broadcast around.”
B frowns, a furrow appearing between her brows, but then she nods. “You have a point there. Well, his cover name for this mission was Patrick, but…” She stares at him for a beat, as if evaluating what he can be trusted with. “You can call him H.”
It isn’t much, but Alex will take it. “I’m guessing you’re not going to tell me anything more than that.”
“You can read his cover backstory,” she says, “but we can’t risk you knowing anything else about him or the mission that they could extract from you.”
“That makes sense,” Alex says, even though he hates it. After so many years of waiting, his soulmate is so close, and Alex still doesn’t know a damned thing about him.
B unlocks the tablet, opens a file, and passes it over to him. On the screen is a photo of a handsome man with skin a shade darker than Alex’s, short dark hair shot through with gray at the temples, and a neatly trimmed goatee. He’s wearing an extremely well-tailored suit—Alex would guess bespoke—and an ostentatious amount of gold jewelry.
“This is the man holding him,” B says. “Samir Johnston, Sam to his friends, which is what H will call him. Moroccan mother, American father, schooled in the UK. He’s a broker, mostly. Weapons, information, people—if you have something to sell, he can find you a buyer.”
“Sounds like a great guy,” Alex mutters. He’s dealt with a lot of slimy, contemptible people in his career, but no one on the level of Samir Johnston.
“H has spent the last six months working his way into Johnston’s inner circle, which probably explains why he’s so pissed off now.” B reaches over and swipes through a few pages containing photos with names and a few notes beside them. “This file has some basic intel on the others that H has been working with. We don’t expect you to memorize all of it, but you need to make sure they don’t realize you’re in there when you two do swap. The best way to do that is to say nothing. Even the way you speak could give you away. But no matter what happens, you don’t know anything. Understood?”
“Shouldn’t be hard to pull off, considering I don’t know anything.”
“Alex,” she sighs.
“Yeah, I understand,” Alex confirms. He gestures to the tablet. “I’ll just do my homework, ok? Don’t worry about me.”
The look she gives him suggests that’s an entirely lost cause, but she shifts in her seat, pulling the thin airline blanket over her shoulders. “I’m going to try to get some sleep before it becomes an even less likely proposition. I suggest you do the same.”
“I will, after I look over these,” Alex tells her.
He waits until it looks like she’s nodded off, then flags down a flight attendant for another cup of coffee.
Time passes oddly in a windowless room when you have nothing but pain and your own thoughts for company. Henry’s not sure if he sleeps or if he just… drifts in the time they leave him alone, in between the sessions where they find new and creative ways of causing him pain. Most of the time they don’t leave much in the way of external marks, but it’s hard to feel grateful when your lungs are full of water or your spleen is being rendered into a pulp.
At least they haven’t brought out the car batteries.
The one small comfort he has is the fact that he hasn’t swapped with his soulmate again. Hopefully Alex’s sister and friend were successful in convincing him to wear a shield, so at least he’ll be safe. Not to mention he won’t have to experience any more of what Henry is going through; the very idea is more terrifying than anything Henry can imagine Samir’s men doing to him.
So of course, he swaps again eventually.
He must be dreaming, because there can’t be any other explanation for why he opens his eyes and suddenly appears to be sitting in a hotel room next to his sister. It’s a nice place, with a small sitting area separate from the bedroom. Two glasses of what appear to be lemonade sit sweating on the glass table next to them. A breeze carrying the dry heat of the desert and the aroma of rich spices drifts in through open French doors and flutters the lacy curtains, the scene both familiar and not, like a memory viewed slant-wise. It’s incredibly vivid, though.
“H?” Bea asks, a furrow in her brow as she stares at him. “Are you…”
She reaches out and lays a hand on Henry’s forearm, but when he looks down it’s all wrong. Her skin is so much paler than his, and his hands—
“No,” he says, which confirms it. “No no no, Bea, you didn’t. Tell me you didn’t do this.”
He gets up and strides over to the balcony doors—it takes him a step longer than he expects—then pushes back the curtains. The city of Marrakesh stretches out below him, the familiar minaret of Kutubiyya Mosque jutting up from the sprawling rooftops and the Atlas Mountains just visible through the haze in the distance. Henry’s stomach drops, horror filling him even as something even more terrible tries to take root in his chest: hope.
“Please tell me I’m dreaming,” Henry says, his voice strained and unsteady and not his voice. He whirls back and finds Bea standing now, looking an odd combination of sheepish and defiant. “Please tell me you didn’t bring an untrained civilian on a bloody rescue mission.”
“It’s not what you think—” she starts, but Henry is not having it.
“How could you?” he demands, storming back over to her. He does not tower nearly as well in this body, and it’d be annoying if he didn’t have a thousand other things to be infuriated about. “You said you’d keep him safe, and this is what you do? Bring him into the lion’s den?”
Bea glares back at him, her hands propped on her hips. “I didn’t have much choice,” she shoots back. “Your bloody soulmate is even more stubborn than you are. He refused to wear a shield.”
“And you’re in the habit of letting American lawyers push you around now, are you?”
“Fuck off,” she snaps. “What was I supposed to do, lock him up? Because I can assure you, that’s what I’d have had to do. This way, we have some measure of control over the swaps. This way, I can protect him.”
“You can’t protect him from what’s happening when I’m here,” Henry says desperately, wretchedly, as he sinks back down to the couch and puts his head in his hands. His fingers push into thick, soft curls, and he fights the urge to run his hands through his soulmate’s hair.
Bea’s light footsteps are muffled by the rugs on the floor as she approaches cautiously, like he might spook. “Are you…?”
“I’m alone now,” Henry tells her as he drags a hand over his face. “A break between sessions.”
“Small mercies,” she murmurs, putting a hand between his shoulder blades.
Henry lets out a humorless huff of laughter. “Very small.”
“How are you holding up, Haz?”
“It’s—” The word fine sticks in his throat, and he swallows it down. “I’m managing. Not much has changed since we last spoke, I’m afraid. I haven’t been moved, and Samir hasn’t come back.”
“He might be attempting some damage control,” Bea says. “We picked up some chatter that he’s been contacting some of his usual clients.”
Henry takes a deep breath and forces himself to focus on the mission and not the complication of his soulmate. “Without knowing what exactly was on the drive, he’s stuck. If he tries to warn people, he risks letting on that he failed to keep that kind of compromising information secure. It's a death knell in this world, and he knows it well.”
“If we put on some pressure, make him think that the information is out there…”
“Then he might very well decide I’m not worth keeping around any longer,” Henry finishes bluntly. He shakes his head. “No. We can’t risk the suggestion that the drive even exists, much less what’s on it.”
“Ok,” Bea agrees. “This is still your operation. We follow your lead. How long do you think before Johnston visits?”
Henry shrugs. “Another day, maybe.”
“We’ve got leads,” Bea tells him, with more optimism in her voice than Henry thinks is warranted. Samir is nothing if not careful. He wouldn’t have gotten this far if he wasn’t. Then again, long experience has taught Henry not to underestimate Bea’s tenacity. She winds her hand in his, her grip tight. “Just hold on. We’re coming for you.”
“It’s ‘we’ now, is it?”
“He just wants to help,” she says.
It’s admirable, Henry thinks, if extremely misguided. Sure, his soulmate wants to help now, but how many swaps will it take before he wants nothing to do with this anymore, nothing to do with Henry? And Henry wouldn’t even blame him. When it comes down to it, being with your soulmate is still a choice, and Henry can’t see anyone choosing this.
“Yes, well.” He forces on a tight smile. “We’ll see how long that lasts.”
Chapter 3
Notes:
Heads up that this chapter includes a description of Alex's emotional response to being tortured (though not the torture itself), including something like a panic attack. To avoid it, skip the paragraph toward the beginning of the second section that immediately follows Bea repeatedly calling Alex's name.
Take care of yourselves, folks!
Chapter Text
Being a spy involves a lot more waiting around than Alex ever expected.
They’re sitting at a bar in some ritzy hotel frequented by one of Johnston’s clients—a man who H was developing as an asset—in the hopes he might have heard something recently that could help them. Alex doesn’t know his name, of course, or even what he looks like; he’s being kept in the dark for his safety, and H’s, though that doesn’t make it any less frustrating. He knows B only let him come because she wants to keep an eye on him; that, and just in case he swaps. Still, he’s been soaking up everything she does let slip, hoping to find some other way he can help. He hates feeling useless.
Alex waves off the bartender when he comes around to offer him a refill, tempting though it may be. Now that they’re here, the whole crazy situation is starting to feel very real in a way it hadn’t before, and he should probably keep his wits about him. It’s been a few hours since he swapped after they arrived, long enough for the ache of breathing with H’s broken ribs to have faded like a bad dream, but there’s no telling when they’ll swap again.
Next to him, B toys with the straw in her soda with lime as she surveils the hotel lobby. A careless observer might think she was bored, but Alex can sense the tense watchfulness in her posture, coiled like an over-tightened spring.
“How long have you been sober?” he asks without really meaning to, his filter worn thin by stress and exhaustion.
B looks over and blinks at him, clearly taken aback, but not, apparently, because he’s being incredibly rude. “How did you know that?”
“Little things,” Alex says with a vague wave of his hand. “You haven’t ordered a drink anywhere, which could be that you just want to stay sharp, except you also said you don’t spend much time in bars. But mostly, you have a little tic when a bartender asks for your order, this way you move your hand”—he demonstrates, rubbing his thumb and first two fingers together—“like you’re rubbing a coin. Or a sobriety token. I had a client once who did the same thing when he got stressed and wanted a drink.”
B very nearly gapes at him; he gets the sense she might have if she was the type to give that much away. After another moment, she clears her throat and looks back at her soda. “You’re very perceptive, Alex,” she says eventually.
He shrugs. “I wouldn’t be very good at my job if I wasn’t. You gotta be able to read people. Figure out what makes them tick. How to get them to reveal things they don’t want to reveal, or make the decision you want them to make.”
“Huh,” she says. One corner of her mouth tugs upward. “Maybe our jobs aren’t so different after all.”
Phantom pain twinges in Alex’s hand like an old injury, and he winces despite the fact he knows it’s all in his head. “Some important differences, though.”
B hums her agreement and stirs her soda absently. “H is quite cross with me for involving you in this,” she says eventually.
“Soulmate biology is hardly your fault,” he says. “Though maybe if he’d ever taken his shield off before now, we could have swapped at a better time.”
“He had an implanted shield. Here, on his forearm,” she tells him, pressing a finger to the inside of her left arm. Exactly where he’d had a wound where they first swapped.
“That’s protocol for you guys?”
The look B slants his way tells him plenty before she even says, “Not exactly. As far as I know, it’s rare among your lot”—Alex supposes she means the CIA—“and even for us, it’s up to the individual officer. Most don’t. H received quite a bit of… pressure to do so from our commanding officer, though.”
That’s fucked up, Alex does not say, though he very much wants to. He swallows the last of his whiskey in an attempt to keep the shielding rant on the tip of his tongue at bay. “What about shielding sickness?”
“Unproven, isn’t it?” B counters, though there’s a bitter note in her voice. “There are those who consider it a sign of mental failing. They think if you’re strong enough, you won’t be affected.”
“And H is one of them?” Alex asks, horrified.
“Christ, no,” she scoffs, which is a fucking relief. He can’t imagine being soulmates with someone who could have that kind of perspective. B continues, “Unfortunately, our commanding officer is.”
Alex has never wanted so badly to fight someone he doesn’t even know the name of. “If you ask me, this whole mess is on them.”
“I don’t disagree,” B says flatly. “But it hardly matters now. C’mon,” she says, getting up from her stool and nodding toward a man striding through the hotel lobby, “our friend’s just arrived. Cross your fingers and maybe we’ll be lucky.”
He’s fairly certain that she doesn’t mean it literally, but Alex finds himself twisting his fingers around each other anyway; at this point, he’ll take all the luck they can get.
It’s been twenty-four hours since they landed in Marrakesh. Twenty-four hours of chasing leads, and twenty-four hours of dead ends. Twenty-four hours in which Alex has swapped with H four times. The interval between the swaps is definitely shortening, but is, frustratingly, still erratic enough that they can’t fully predict when they’ll happen. Alex has rejected B’s suggestion that he wear the shield to reduce the amount of swaps, successfully arguing that it’s better that they know if anything changes with H sooner than later.
He’s been lucky three times, swapping during periods where H has been left alone, though lucky is probably overselling it. It hurts to breathe, to blink, just to be. B assures him that H is holding up fine, and Alex isn’t sure if H is lying or if the pain feels worse for him because he’s not experiencing it constantly.
The next time, he realizes just how lucky he’s actually been.
The pain is so intense it whites out everything else, so excruciating that he thinks he’s actually about to die, and the sudden cessation of it when he swaps back to his own body is so jarring that his legs immediately collapse under him. He barely registers B’s arms going around his torso as she tries to catch him, but it doesn’t really work. Alex might not be particularly tall, but he’s still plenty larger than B, and he takes her down with him as they land in a heap on the floor.
“Alex?” she says, her voice pitching high with alarm. “Alex, what happened? Alex—!”
He can breathe in but he can’t seem to breathe out, the air sticking in his throat like a panic attack times a thousand, and he’s not even lucid enough to remember what his coping mechanisms are, much less able to enact them. Then, all at once, something seems to crack inside him and all the air rushes out. He curls into B’s arms as uncontrollable sobs wrack his body, until it feels like there’s nothing else left, until the lingering echoes of the pain fade away and leave only their terrible memory.
Slowly, he comes back to himself, to his own body, to B’s soothing murmurs in his ear and her hands carding through his hair. There’s a considerable wet spot on her shoulder where his face has been buried, and he wipes ineffectually at it before realizing maybe he shouldn’t be pawing at someone he met less than two days ago.
“Sorry,” he mumbles, “I didn’t mean—”
“Alex.”
“—your shirt’s all—”
“Alex,” she breaks in, grabbing his face with both hands. “Fuck the shirt. What happened?”
“It was— a lot,” he half-hiccups, pulling away and trying to collect himself. “Um. Electricity.”
“Fuck,” she exhales, too knowingly.
Alex swipes at his face and sniffs hard, doing his best to ignore the way his hands are shaking. “’M ok. I’ll be ok.”
“That’s it,” she says abruptly, her voice hard, pushes herself to her feet, and starts stomping across the room.
“Where’re you going?”
“I’m getting you a shield.”
“No,” he blurts desperately, scrambling to his feet to go after her. He knows he sounds completely fucking insane, knows that he’s still wobbling unsteadily, that there are still tear tracks on his face and his eyelashes are still clumping together—he knows, ok? He just doesn’t fucking care.
She whirls on him, eyes flashing. “This is not a discussion. You’re not doing this anymore. I never should have let you in the first place, it’s too much for you—”
“It’s too much for anyone, that’s the fucking point!” Alex snaps. He takes a deep breath and reminds himself that he’s fine, he’s safe, he’s uninjured. Unlike his soulmate. His voice only slightly wavers when he says, “I don’t care what kind of training you have, it doesn’t make the pain hurt any less. What he’s going through is— is inhuman.”
“It’s the job,” B says, so dismissively it feels like he’s been slapped. She turns away again, shuffling through the mess of notes and takeout containers on the coffee table in search of the bracelet Alex left there. “H and I took oaths knowing it could be asked of us. You never signed up for this.”
“Yes, I fucking did,” he insists as he crosses the room to stand at her side, though she doesn’t look up from her search. “I signed up from the very first moment I told you I wasn’t going to wear a shield.”
“I can’t allow you to keep it up, especially when it’s not even helping. We’ve learned nothing—”
Alex grabs her shoulder, which is probably an objectively stupid thing to do to a spy; she looks seconds away from laying him out, but he doesn’t let go. “Look me in the eye and tell me it’s not helping him. Fifteen, twenty minutes of relief from the pain. Tell me it’s not fucking keeping him alive.”
Her nostrils flare as she draws in a sharp breath and warns, “Alex.”
“Tell me, B!”
“Yes!” she nearly shouts, her eyes flashing as she pulls away from him. “This is hell for him and every moment’s respite he gets is unspeakably valuable. Is that what you want to hear?”
Alex should feel more satisfaction at winning the admission from her. Instead, the confirmation just makes him feel incredibly hollow.
“But Alex,” she continues, nearly pleading, “he would tell you himself that it’s not worth it.”
“I know I’m not a spy,” he says, staring at his feet with his voice thick in his throat. “I don’t have any skills or experience with this shit. I’m basically fucking useless. But this, I can do. If I can give him even a single moment of relief, then it’s fucking worth it to me.”
B rubs a hand over her eyes, her face screwed up in obvious frustration. “You are the most infuriating, aggravating, obstinate”—she takes a deep breath, and when she looks at him again her expression could almost be called fond—“and bravest son of a bitch I’ve ever met.”
Alex huffs an unsteady laugh and ducks his head. “Thanks, I guess.”
“C’mon, love,” she says, putting a hand on one of his, “I’ll make you some tea.”
The idea that tea could help after electrical torture is almost laughable—and painfully British besides—but he lets himself be led over to the couch, where Bea deposits him before shuffling over to the little tea cart and putting the kettle on. She keeps up a constant stream of chatter about the city, the weather, everything and nothing, seemingly intuiting he needs to stay out of his own head at the moment but is unable to hold up much of a conversation on his own. The tea she comes back with is mint, and when she settles down onto the couch next to him, she pulls him into the circle of her embrace without hesitation.
It feels like a lot, considering they still barely know each other, but he doesn’t let himself overthink it. In fact, it feels uncannily like June and how she’d wrap him up in her arms as if she could protect him from the evils of the world, even after he got bigger than her, and how he always felt safe there. He curls against B’s side, and her thumb rubs soothing circles on the outside of his shoulder as they subside into silence, sipping their tea.
“How are you doing?” she ventures eventually.
“Better,” Alex says with a half-hearted shrug.
Probably as good as he can be, considering. He still feels unsettled by the experience, to put it mildly, but he’s at least stopped trembling. The worst part now is wondering how long H was subjected to the ordeal and how much more they might do to him. The worst part is how it fills him with an aching, furious despair, and how fucking powerless he feels to stop it.
“Sometimes…” he starts, hesitating a moment before he forges on. “Sometimes I can’t tell if the lingering pain is just a memory, or if I can actually feel him. But that’s crazy, right? I’ve never heard of soulmates working that way.”
“It doesn’t sound crazy,” B says. She pauses for a beat, seemingly choosing her words carefully. “I knew a couple with a bond like that. Once.”
Alex desperately wants to know more, but he can tell from the tight set of her lips that trying to get more out of her would be a futile effort. “What about your soulmate?” he asks instead, though he doesn’t know why he thinks she’d open up about that.
But to his surprise, she readily answers, “I don’t have one.”
“How do you know?” Alex asks, frowning up at her. “What if it’s like me and H, and you just haven’t swapped yet?”
“I don’t wear a shield,” she tells him, shocking him twice in as many minutes.
“I thought y’all had to?”
B shakes her head. “I told you, it’s not required, and somehow I’ve always known I didn’t need one.” She takes a sip of her tea and anticipates his next question. “People say they feel like a part of them is missing, but I feel whole. Always have. I used to wear a shield on missions to make other people feel better. Now, I don’t bother.”
“Oh,” Alex says as he settles back against her side again.
All the time he’d insisted he didn’t have a soulmate, he doesn’t know that he ever felt whole. He’s not entirely sure what that even means. And he does have a soulmate, as it turns out, so he supposes he wasn’t. Still isn’t. It’s a weird concept, and he doesn’t know how he feels about it.
“What’s he like?” he asks. He doesn’t have to clarify who he means; B has apparently followed his train of thought. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees her lips twitch into the ghost of a smile. He knows he’s not supposed to ask, but he can’t help himself. “I don’t mean, like, identifying details, but just… I can tell you know him well. Can’t you just tell me about who he is as a person?”
“Well,” B begins, her expression going soft and fond, “he’s an incredible officer, but he’s so much more than that. He loves to read and write. He dresses like he’s allergic to color and has the musical tastes of someone twice his age. He’s gentle and kind, and more sensitive than he should be in this line of work. He’s… a hopeless romantic at heart.”
“Really?”
“Don’t tell him I told you that last part,” she warns with a huff of laughter.
“Huh,” Alex says. He chews on his lower lip for a moment, thinking, until he finally gets up the courage to ask, “So, what do you think the likelihood is that his soulmate is platonic?”
B stretches back a little so she can look down at him, frowning a little. “Is that what you think?”
“I… don’t really know, to be honest with you,” he answers quietly, feeling more than a little lost.
He hasn’t let himself think about it, really, but that doesn’t mean it’s been far from his mind. The implications of his soulmate being a man. What that means in the context of communal showers after lacrosse practice, of Liam, of his young, attractive law professor who he might have had a crush on. Hell, how B just now seemed more surprised that he thought the bond could be platonic than that H’s soulmate was a man to begin with.
“Well, I’m probably the wrong person to ask,” she admits. “But it’s clear that you mean a lot to each other, whatever form that might take. I think you’ll figure it out. When we find him.”
Alex swallows hard, but it doesn’t clear the knot in his throat. “Yeah,” he manages. When not if, he repeats inside his head. They will. They will. “Do you… do you have a photo of him?”
B bites her lip and furrows her brow. “I shouldn’t.”
“Please, B,” he pleads, deploying his most devastating puppy dog eyes. “Knowing what he looks like can’t hurt when I’m already inhabiting his body.”
“I don’t even have one on this phone,” she protests.
“Oh c’mon, there’s gotta be one in the cloud somewhere.”
“We’re spies, Alex.”
“That wasn’t a no,” he points out.
She lets out an aggrieved sigh and looks at the ceiling, but she also starts pulling out her phone, so he’s pretty sure he’s won. After a length of time typing that suggests she might be inputting epically long passwords, she pauses, staring at whatever she’s pulled up, before she finally passes it over.
Alex wasn’t expecting a photo of both of them, but that’s what’s on the screen: B and a man who must be H, together in front of one of the great pyramids of Giza. He’s got an arm slung over her shoulders and they’re both laughing, B looking at him out of the corner of her eye as H grins at the camera. There’s something about him that’s reminiscent of Peter O’Toole in Lawrence of Arabia, his sandy hair tousled by the wind and blue eyes preternaturally bright in the desert sunlight. He’s ridiculously, unfairly gorgeous, and Alex feels something difficult to identify lurch in his gut at the sight of him.
Alex is distracted, though, by B standing next to H in the photo, his eyes drawn to her cheekbones and lips and the way her eyes crinkle when she laughs, and a bolt of recognition zips through him. He looks back up at her, but she’s staring fixedly down at the photo and she doesn’t meet his eyes.
“You have the same mouth,” he says. “Same cheekbones.”
She licks her lips and says, softly, “He’s my brother.”
Her face betrays nothing, but Alex slides his free hand into one of hers, and she grips him back so tightly it’s painful, as if all the emotions she’s not allowed to feel are leaking through that single point. Jesus fuck, he can’t imagine, if June were in a situation like this—
“We’re going to find him,” he says fiercely.
B gives a little, jerky nod. “I know we will.”
Henry had thought for sure that his encounter with electrocution would have been enough to get Alex to wear a shield. Or at least enough to convince him he needed a longer break than those he was currently getting. They were going no more than a couple of hours between swaps now, as their souls apparently became more and more insistent that they get with the program and find each other already.
If only it were that easy.
At least Samir’s men have ceased questioning him by the next time they swap. They’ve left Henry hanging by his wrists bound together over his head, with his toes just brushing the ground, and he can’t help but roll his shoulders when he abruptly finds himself sitting in a car next to Bea. Somehow, she’s started to be able to tell when they’ve swapped. A difference in the way they carry themselves, she says. A vibe. All he knows is that she doesn’t even look over this time before her lips tighten.
“You didn’t tell me about the electric,” she accuses flatly as she stares out the windshield at the entrance to an upscale club. They must be waiting for someone.
“What would it have accomplished, other than to make you worry about something you can’t change?” Henry counters.
Perhaps predictably, she’s clearly not pleased with this answer. “Could have prepared me for what I was going to be dealing with when Alex came back.”
Right, he supposes that she does have a point there.
He doesn’t ask how Alex is, because it’s a stupid question, and quite frankly he’s not sure he can bear to hear about how much pain he’s causing his soulmate. He knows, and it’s actively tearing him apart every time they swap. Bringing up a conversation they’ve already had multiple times is hardly smarter, but he can’t help it.
“You have to try harder to get him to wear a shield, Bea.”
“You think I haven’t?” she shoots back hotly, finally turning on him with a hard glare. “Do you think I enjoy seeing the effects on him? Hearing what they’ve done to you that you’re too damned stubborn to let show? I don’t want this for him any more than you do, but it doesn’t matter what I want. It’s his choice, and I won’t take it from him.”
“It’s one he shouldn’t even be asked to make!” Henry grinds out.
“But he knows what he could be subjected to, and he’s made it anyway,” she says with finality as she settles back into her chair and stares out the window again. She’s silent another beat, and then, quietly: “He loves you, Haz.”
It’s the verbal equivalent of shoving him off a building, Henry thinks—he’s in free fall, heart in his throat and desperately clutching for a parachute rip cord. “He doesn’t love me,” he protests. “He doesn’t even know me.”
Bea just shrugs. “Maybe he doesn’t, but I don’t know what else to call it. The closest I’ve seen to a connection like this was—”
“Don’t,” Henry warns.
Bea puts her hands up in surrender. “Fine. But I will say this: I didn’t know how there could possibly be someone who could measure up to you, but he does. He’s your match, Henry, and you shouldn’t underestimate him. He’s stronger than you think.”
Henry stares out the windshield into the night, not even knowing what he’s watching for, and tries desperately yet unsuccessfully not to think of their parents. Of how their bonding was almost legendary in the service, how his mother had recruited his father to MI6 afterward, how they’d been a near-unstoppable team in the years before his death. That was usually the choice when it came to an officer’s soulmate: recruitment or re-shielding, effectively suppressing the bond. Henry had always assumed he’d be shielded for the entirety of his life; now, either option makes him nauseous.
“I wish he didn’t have to be,” he says eventually, with far more despair in his voice than he means to let on.
Bea reaches over, takes his hand, and squeezes. “I know.”
He clears his throat, falling back on old coping mechanisms. Focus on the mission. Ignore the rest. “Who are we waiting for?”
“Her,” Bea says as she drops his hand and starts getting out of the car. “Come on, we need to catch her before she gets into the VIP section.”
Henry only needs to catch a glimpse to know exactly who she is: tall, thin, straight black hair falling past her shoulders, wearing a skin-tight silver dress and an expression that could stop the most intimidating warlord in his tracks. One of the last people Henry would care to run into right now, frankly, but Bea’s already halfway across the road, so he has little choice but to follow and hope she knows what she’s doing.
Getting into the club is easy enough; the bouncer waves them in without a second glance, and it’s only then that Henry realizes Bea’s wearing a shockingly short skirt and the kind of heels she hates, whereas Alex seems to be clad in tailored trousers and a crisp white button-down with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, revealing well-muscled forearms that Henry has precisely no thoughts about. Inside, the dance floor is only moderately crowded—it must still be early—and the music isn’t quite turned up to the volume where it vibrates in your teeth. People are mostly talking at tables and at the bar, which is also where they locate Alia Johnston. She’s leaning on one hand, tapping her long red fingernails impatiently against the surface as she apparently waits for a drink.
“Now’s your chance,” Bea says, leaning in to speak in his ear. “She likes pretty boys. You can chat her up and find out if she knows where her husband is.”
“Bea, I’ve been sleeping with said husband,” Henry scoffs. “She’s hardly my biggest fan.”
Bea grabs his wrist and holds up his hand—his soulmate’s hand—in front of his face. “She doesn’t know it’s you, dummy. Alex is hot. I guarantee she’ll flirt with him. Now hop to it before you swap back.”
She reaches up to undo a couple of buttons on Alex’s shirt, exposing his collarbones and the upper part of his sternum before Henry bats her hands away irritatedly. He certainly doesn’t need his sister’s help to seduce intel out of anyone. Plus, Alex is his soulmate and Henry would prefer everyone else keep their hands to themselves.
Henry takes a deep breath, but she’s right—he can’t afford to dawdle. Walking purposefully up to Alia, he arrives just as the bartender is dropping off her glass of champagne. Alia doesn’t spare him a glance until he grabs the bartender’s attention and says, “I’ve got her drink, and a gin and tonic for me.”
Alia looks over at him, one perfectly-manicured eyebrow lifting as her gaze sweeps up and down his body. Moment of truth: Henry lets his mouth fall into what he hopes is a charming smile and leans an elbow on the bar as he angles his body toward her. She must like what she sees, because instead of telling him to fuck off she plucks her flute off the bar and tips her head, a coy smile playing on her lips.
“I’ve not seen you around here before,” she says.
Bait taken. “Do you keep track of everyone in the city?”
“Not everyone,” she answers. She draws her lower lip between her teeth as her eyes drop to his exposed collarbones. “But you, I would have noticed.”
Henry swallows down an odd discomfort in his gut and forces himself to look pleased. “Flattering,” he returns, which makes her smile widen a touch. The bartender returns with his drink, and Henry takes a sip before continuing, “I just got in. It’s my first time in the city.”
“Oh? And are you traveling for business or pleasure?”
Henry would like to roll his eyes at the line; instead he lets his gaze drop suggestively before meeting her eyes with a grin. “Bit of both. I hope.”
“In that case, perhaps you should join me in my private suite in the back, Mr…?”
“Daniels,” Henry says, remembering the briefing Bea’d give him on their covers. “Alexander Daniels.”
“Alexander,” she nearly purrs, looking at him through a heavy-lidded gaze. It raises Henry’s hackles in a way he doesn’t expect, and that’s before she drops a hand onto his wrist and slides it up his bare forearm where it’s resting on the bar. Henry just resists baring his teeth.
Mine, some strange, possessive impulse inside him growls, which is not something he has time to contemplate right now.
“Your husband won’t mind?” he asks, looking pointedly at the massive diamond ring and wedding band on her ring finger.
Alia just laughs, throwing a lock of hair over her shoulder. “He’s too busy to pay me any attention lately.”
“That’s a travesty,” Henry says. “What could possibly be more important than a radiant creature such as yourself?”
“One of his men betrayed him recently,” she says with a dismissive little shrug. “He’s been on a warpath. When he gets like that, it’s best to just stay out of his way.”
“Oof. I wouldn’t like to be the one who betrayed him.”
“Between you and me, he deserves it,” Alia tells him, leaning in conspiratorially. “And Sam will make him pay for it. Good riddance. But enough about him.” She squeezes his arm. “You will join me, won’t you, Alexander?”
Henry gives a little nervous laugh. “I don’t know. It doesn’t sound like your husband is someone I want to get on the bad side of.”
In fact, he’s very aware of exactly what Samir Johnston, cheater though he may be, does to the men that his wife takes as lovers. It’s a regular dance they do—Alia wants attention and seduces some sap into her bed, Samir enjoys making the man’s life a living hell, and they both get what they want. Henry’s pretty sure it’s some twisted form of foreplay for them, frankly, and the idea of them doing it to Alex is enough to make him want to break something.
“Well. You’re not wrong,” she admits. She lifts her hand and lets a finger trail over his skin, then grins wickedly at him. “But he’s spending all of his time all the way in Sidi Ghanem lately, and what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”
Sidi Ghanem—Christ, as far as they know, Samir only has a few properties in that district. He lets his gaze sweep the room until he catches Bea’s eye where she’s standing nearby scowling at potential suitors. He hasn’t been keeping track of the time, doesn’t know how much he likely has left, and the intel does no good inside his own head if he switches back before he tells Bea.
“You make a compelling argument,” he says, flashing a smile at Alia. “Excuse me one moment, I need to use the restroom, and then I’m all yours.”
Henry makes it two steps away, and then—
He sags into the wrist restraints, ignoring the screaming pain in his shoulders.
Fuck.
Chapter 4
Notes:
*taps the sign* Remember what I said about cliffhangers?
Chapter Text
Alex dreams of tawny hair and broad shoulders and long, pale fingers pressing against his skin. He dreams of a sharp jaw and full, pink lips curled into a smirk and blue, blue eyes that he’s never seen in person but knows deep in his bones. He dreams of being tangled in crisp white sheets somewhere on the coast, a turquoise sea glittering outside the windows that can’t hope to draw his attention from the person pressing him into the mattress. Their body blankets his, skin against overheated skin, lips brushing the angle of Alex’s jaw, and Alex sighs blissfully as he gives himself over to the sensations.
“Come on, love,” his dream partner says. His voice is deep. Musical. Familiar. “I’m waiting.”
He shifts, and indescribable pleasure floods through Alex’s body, originating from nowhere and everywhere, unlike anything he’s ever felt before. It’s more than he can take, and he never wants it to end.
“Baby,” Alex gasps, arching up against him and—
—he stutters awake in a mid-range Marrakesh hotel room, wearing the same clothes he’d had on when he collapsed onto the mattress after B had insisted he try to sleep.
“Alex? Are you ok?” she calls now, frowning at him from where she’s sitting on the couch, hunched over a tablet and a laptop on the coffee table in front of her.
“Uh— yeah, yup, fine,” he stammers out, shifting to hopefully obscure the raging boner he’s apparently woken up with. “Just, er, weird dreams.”
This does not seem to assuage her concern. “Hopefully not about the torture?”
“No, no, nothing like that,” he assures her. “I’m just gonna— grab a shower, I think.”
A fucking cold one.
B nods. “You should have some time still, based on the recent frequency.”
Alex doesn’t linger before he flees to the bathroom.
On his last return, he’d swapped back to find himself in the middle of a club with his shirt half unbuttoned and a beautiful but absolutely terrifying woman staring at him hungrily. Fortunately, B had rushed in and extracted him from the situation. Turns out that H had been flirting with Samir Johnston’s wife while in Alex’s body—Alex isn’t sure how he feels about that, frankly—and had been in the midst of returning to B to most likely deliver new intel when they’d swapped. They couldn’t risk Alex saying something to Johnston’s wife that might make her suspicious, so they’d beat a hasty retreat to wait for the next swap.
It’s only been about an hour, but Alex doesn’t think he’s about to fall back asleep any time soon. Not with the hazy images from the dream still rattling around inside his head, and not with the erection that still hasn’t subsided even in the face of potential embarrassment. He even considers putting on the shield bracelet before he gets in the shower, but even if the interval shortens again, he still should have at least a half an hour.
The bracingly cold water does little to calm his arousal, no matter how he tries to ignore it, and eventually he gives in, curling one soapy hand around his aching cock as he leans his other against the ornate tile covering the wall. He drops his head forward, squeezing his eyes closed and trying to be as efficient as possible and not think of anything or anyone specifically. Images from his dream swim into his mind unbidden, though, fighting to materialize into a more definite form, until he finally gives in and lets himself think of the face that had smiled out of a photograph at him, a body he’s worn like a second skin.
He comes so hard, he might have blacked out for a second. Fuck.
Alex is still feeling a little unsteady about the whole experience by the time he climbs out of the shower and wraps a towel around his waist, so of course that’s exactly when he swaps, a whole fifteen minutes before he’s expecting to. Jesus fucking Christ, he’s still fucking naked.
H is still hanging by his wrists, and Alex immediately convulses at the sudden pain in his shoulders, which only makes his entire ribcage protest as muscles pull at broken and bruised ribs. His toes scrabble desperately at the concrete floor, but it’s no use—the brush of contact is just there to taunt him.
It’s ok, it’s only twenty minutes or so, and he’s alone. He can do this.
“Oh my fucking Christ,” Henry blurts loudly when he opens his eyes and finds himself standing in a hotel bathroom in nothing but a bloody towel.
A moment later, there’s a tentative “…Alex?” on the other side of the door.
“It’s me,” Henry sighs. “He couldn’t wear a bloody shield for this?”
Bea makes a kind of odd sound he can’t parse, so with one hand firmly clamping the towel around his waist, he throws the door open and finds her… laughing at him with the back of her hand pressed against her mouth.
“This isn’t funny,” he snaps.
“No, you’re right, it’s a very serious situation,” Bea replies, attempting to compose her face, only for her lips to press together tightly as she valiantly tries not to crack up again.
“Bea!”
“I know, I know!” she protests. “I’m sorry, it’s just—” She waves a hand at his bare torso, then waggles her eyebrows at him. “For a lawyer, he’s got one hell of a body, Haz.”
“Christ,” Henry swears, rolling his eyes at her.
“Did you see—”
“No,” he cuts her off as his cheeks flood with heat. Maybe with Alex’s skin tone it won’t be so bloody obvious. “I was already like this. And I’m not—” He huffs and clenches his jaw. “I’m just going to… go get dressed in the dark, I suppose. Or maybe I’ll just stay this way until he gets back.”
“Absolutely not, we need to plan and I’m not talking to you like this,” Bea tells him in no uncertain terms. “Go suck it up and put some bloody trousers on.”
Henry retreats back into the bathroom, where there’s a neat stack of clothes sitting on the counter by the sink that Alex clearly intended to change into. It’s fine, Henry can certainly pull on a pair of boxers without looking—but then he glances up, catches sight of himself in the vanity mirror, and freezes.
Thus far, he’s avoided catching sight of himself in any mirrors while in Alex’s body—the closest he’d come was in the club, but the low lights and other more pressing issues made it easy to ignore. This, though. There’s no looking away from this. He thinks, staring at himself in the mirror, that Alex is quite possibly the most exquisite human being he’s ever laid eyes on. Mesmerized and moving without really intending to, Henry brings a hand up to brush his fingers against full pink lips as his eyes rove over Alex’s face, taking in a jaw that could cut glass, a chin dimple, and impossibly long eyelashes. Water drips off of his wet curls, leaving droplets on his skin that trail down his neck to collect in the hollow between sinfully gorgeous collarbones and slide down over well-developed muscles to disappear into the dark hair on his chest.
Bea wasn’t wrong. Alex is bloody gorgeous. The kind of man that, if they’d met normally, Henry might have fled from for fear of being lost to deep brown eyes and a devastating smirk. And he’s Henry’s soulmate. Henry doesn’t know whether to be grateful or curse the fates that would give him someone like this given the realities of his line of work.
“You better not be having a wank in there!” Bea calls, snapping him out of his reverie.
“Christ, Bea,” Henry yelps. Turning away from the mirror, he snags a pair of black boxer briefs off the pile of clothing and closes his eyes as he drops the towel and steps into them. He pulls on a pair of jeans—which he can just tell make Alex’s arse look fabulous, and no, he’s not looking—and a t-shirt in quick, efficient movements, and is using the towel to gently dry his hair when he yanks open the door again. “Seriously?”
She shrugs, unrepentant. “You were taking a long time.”
“Well. I wasn’t. I wouldn’t.”
“Obviously,” Bea says, rolling her eyes at him. She sits back on the couch and kicks her feet up on the coffee table, crossing her legs at the ankles. “So, tell me about your conversation with Alia.”
Henry grins, embarrassment forgotten. “I got a district.”
Alex is in the middle of listing Supreme Court justices in backwards chronological order in an attempt at focusing his mind elsewhere, when the door opens and a man he’s seen only in pictures strides in, shiny dress shoes clicking loudly on the hard floor.
“Evening, Patrick,” Samir Johnston says pleasantly, like they’re meeting over drinks. “Sorry for the delay on getting back to you, but you know how it is.”
Alex says nothing.
“You don’t have to look so shocked to see me, you knew very well this would be the outcome,” Johnston continues. “I’m told you’re still insisting on your innocence.”
Alex glares at him and bites his tongue. This is the man responsible for all of his soulmate’s suffering—all of his suffering. Maybe he hasn’t dealt any blows himself, but it was his doing all the same, and all of Alex’s roiling fury is fighting to come bubbling out.
“Come now, surely we can have a discussion,” Johnston says, frowning at his silence. “You don’t need to even tell me where the drive is, or who you sent it to. Just tell me what exactly was on it, and we can work out a deal.”
Alex looks away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he mumbles, and realizes too late that it was a mistake.
Johnston tips his head and narrows his eyes as he steps closer. “Why, Patrick,” he says, his voice low and dangerous, “I could be mistaken—too many years away from home—but I could swear that was an American accent.”
Fuck. After everything, Alex had forgotten that he and H wouldn’t share an accent, forgotten that Johnston had worked close enough with H that he’d notice a difference even in a few words. In the few times Alex had been actively tortured only Johnston’s men had been around, and he’d always limited how much he’d said, or else his voice had been so hoarse from screaming that it apparently hadn’t been obvious.
“CIA, perhaps? Or…” Johnston trails off, his brow furrowing as his gaze burns into Alex’s face. “There’s something different about you.” He turns on one of the guards. “You didn’t notice this?”
The man frowns in confusion. “Notice what, boss?”
“Christ,” Johnston huffs. He looks back at Alex. “You’re not him, are you? The man who’s been working for me, whoever he really is. That’s why you’re not speaking. Because if Patrick were here, he’d be begging for his life, or cutting a deal, or possibly telling me to go fuck myself. But you… you’re something else altogether. Someone else.”
Alex stares fixedly at the ground, refusing to meet his eyes, and prays for the swap. Jesus, how long’s it been? Surely it should be any moment.
“Give me a shield,” Johnston orders his men without looking away from Alex.
Ok, so they’re going to put a shield on H after the swap and cut Alex out, keep them from swapping, which is sub-optimal, but B was sure H had some intel, so maybe it’ll be ok, maybe it won’t matter. He just has to not say anything else—
The guards exchange a glance, then one fishes a shield bracelet out of his pocket and hands it to Johnston, who reaches up and fastens it around Alex’s wrist.
—What?
“There,” Johnston says, smiling up at him. “Now we can have a conversation without being interrupted.”
“What?” Alex croaks despite himself.
“Shielding merely prevents a swap. So either you are the man who’s been working for me for the past six months, in which case the shield will do nothing, or you are not, and you’ll be stuck in his body until it’s removed,” Johnston explains. “Now. Let’s explore the latter scenario, just for a moment. You’ve clearly never met the man, or else you wouldn’t be swapping now. Which should mean you owe him no loyalty. I know, I know, soulmates, but honestly, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”
The situation is rapidly spiraling beyond what Alex could have ever imagined, beyond what he thought was possible and, as he cranes his neck up to look at the shiny silver bracelet where it’s glinting against the dark purple of his bruised wrist, he realizes that sticking to the agreed-upon plan of not talking is rapidly becoming an untenable option.
“Exploring the latter scenario,” he rasps out, and Johnston stops his pacing. “If I were a soulmate, what could I possibly do for you from in here?”
“I’m so glad you asked,” Johnston replies with a wolfish grin. “It’s true enough you could do little in here. But if I were to put you back out into the world like this, you could find out all kinds of information in his body. Access secure facilities with his fingerprints and retinal scans. Hell, you could walk right in the front door of MI6. You’d pretty much be the perfect spy.”
“Until he found me, you mean.”
“We’d protect you, of course. Make it worth your while. I think you’d find I can be very generous.”
Alex sneers at him. “Think I’ll pass.”
Johnston blinks at him, apparently taken aback by his refusal. “Considering your current position, you can’t possibly be unaware of what I could do to you if you refuse. And it might be his body, but it will be all your pain.”
He strides over to the table that holds a collection of torture instruments, and Alex tries not to watch him, but when his hand pauses over the electrical system hooked up to a car battery, Alex can’t suppress his sharp inhale.
Johnston’s head snaps over to him. “Interesting.” He drags a finger along the edge of the battery, then gathers up the electrodes in one hand. “So you were here for this part, then. How many other times have there been?” He steps over to where Alex is hanging, coming so close that Alex can smell the spice of his cologne, and leans in even further, until his face is inches from Alex’s. “I’m told this was the closest they came to breaking you. That your screams were… deafening. We could try it again,” he murmurs, lifting the electrodes, “or you could just do me this one… little… favor. What do you say?”
Alex screws his eyes shut as panic wells up in his throat like bile. He doesn’t know what to do, because this time there’ll be no switching back in the middle, no easing of the pain until they’re done with him. Or until—
“The human body can only handle so much electricity before the heart stops. Do you know what happens if you die when you’re in someone else’s body?” Johnston asks, so low Alex almost doesn’t hear it over the sound of blood rushing in his ears.
“No,” he whimpers back.
Johnston shrugs and chuckles darkly. “Neither do I. But we could find out.”
He yanks back the front of H’s shirt and raises the first electrode to attach it to his skin.
“Wait,” Alex gasps. Johnston pauses, looking at him expectantly, and Alex takes a deep breath that shudders painfully in his chest. “I want to make a deal.”
Henry doesn’t notice something is wrong until a half hour passes and he’s still in Alex’s body.
They’ve been busy combing through records of Samir’s holdings, trying to figure out which of his properties in Sidi Ghanem he might be keeping Henry in. The area started as an industrial district, but it’s also been undergoing significant development, now boasting galleries and cafes and chic lofts. Most of Samir’s properties are ones he leases out, but that doesn’t mean one of them doesn’t have some basement he’s using. It’d need to be soundproof, Henry thinks grimly. He hasn’t visited any of them, so pretty much the only thing they can do is search them one by one and hope they don’t get noticed before they find him.
They’re arguing about the best way to go about searching them when a clock chimes somewhere, and abruptly Henry realizes he’s been stuck here for longer than he ever has.
“Maybe it’s just the swaps getting longer,” Bea suggests, though in reality the intervals between swaps have been shortening much faster than the swaps themselves have lengthened. This would be a significant jump.
After another ten minutes passes, Henry starts feeling like he’s going to crawl out of his skin. Or Alex’s skin, more accurately.
“What if Samir found out somehow? That Alex was in there?”
“And did what?” Bea scoffs.
Henry shakes his head as he paces the small hotel room. “I don’t know, something.” He pauses, biting his lower lip. “What would happen if you put a shield on while two people were swapped?”
“I dunno,” she answers, though he can see the wheels turning in her head. “The shields prevent swaps, right?” Henry nods. “So then, theoretically, they could prevent a swap back, too.”
“Surely that would be common knowledge, though,” he tries, desperately grasping at anything to make this not true.
“Why?” Bea counters. “Most people only swap once before they meet their soulmate. Who would even figure it out?”
“Criminals,” Henry says bleakly. He pushes a hand through his hair and is momentarily surprised to find thick curls; this keeps happening, he’s been getting too comfortable in Alex’s body and forgetting where he is. “Christ, we have to find him. Me. Whatever. We have to go—”
Bea catches hold of his arm before he can fly off the handle and do something crazy like run out the door unarmed. He barely knows where anything is in this hotel room. “Hold on,” she says. “We don’t know that anything’s happened. Maybe nothing is wrong and you’ll swap back naturally. I can’t afford to have him swap back in while we’re trying to covertly search a building. Let’s just… give it a bit more time.”
Henry hates it, but she’s right. “Fine. Twenty minutes, and then we’re starting the search.”
“Agreed.”
The building they’re in seems to be some kind of resort, or at least it will be eventually. Right now, most of it is under construction—they emerge from the windowless basement into an ornately tiled lobby filled with plastic-covered furniture and a chandelier made of patterned glass globes hanging over a grand staircase, then Alex is shoved into an elevator that whisks him up to a palatial suite on one of the upper floors.
It’s all a little too surreal for Alex’s mind to handle. He can barely stand up and every part of his body—H’s body—hurts in ways that he didn’t know was possible, but he gets deposited in a bathroom that’s almost larger than his Brooklyn apartment with a fresh set of clothes and told to get himself cleaned up. As if he were just ordinarily dirty and a shower would sort him out, no problem.
Which brings up another problem. How the fuck is Alex supposed to get clean in his soulmate’s body without crossing some definite lines? For a moment he considers taking the shield off and letting H deal with it, but he’d be dropping H into this situation with no idea what was happening or what Alex had agreed to, and it’s not like there’s anything in here he could leave a note with. Johnston could realize H was back and hurt him, or worse. There are guards at the door, and after days of being tortured, H is in no shape to fight his way out on his own. No, at this point it’s probably better if H is out there with B, able to be far more useful than Alex would be in figuring out a plan to rescue him.
The bathroom is decorated with over-the-top ornate gold hardware and pristine white marble that shows off every smear of dirt and dried blood that Alex leaves in his wake as he slowly navigates through the space. There’s a massive claw-foot tub in one corner, and that’s where he heads first. It’s not like he’d be able to stand up in a shower anyway, and the tub will be safer. He can fill it with water and bubbles and he won’t see anything.
He carefully strips as it fills, grateful that H had been wearing a button-down shirt when he was taken because there’s no fucking way he can lift his arms over his head at this point. Each item of clothing he peels off reveals a new and terrible constellation of bruises covering H’s pale skin, most of them the deep, lurid purple of fresh injuries, but the oldest of them are yellowing the edges. There’s a filthy bandage around the wound on his forearm—the one that had taken out the implanted shield—and another around most of his left hand, including the three broken fingers, which have been roughly bound together. Otherwise, the rest of his minor wounds have been left untreated and are scabbed over by now.
Then there are the scars—some old and faded, some still pink. Alex trails his fingers over one arching across his left side, across his abs and down toward his waistband before he realizes what he’s doing. When he’s down to his boxers, he finally turns toward the huge vanity mirror. The man who stares back at him is recognizable from his photo, but only barely. His face is bruised and swollen, full lips split, golden hair matted with dried blood, but his eyes are still that bright, impossible blue. Even now, it’s hard to believe the color is real.
Alex doesn’t consider himself a particularly hateful or vindictive person—a propensity to hold childhood grudges notwithstanding—but he stands there, taking in every manifestation of his soulmate’s work written on his skin, and hates every single person that’s ever left a mark on him.
He forces himself to turn away, fixing his eyes somewhere on the wall in front of him as he peels off his boxers and climbs unsteadily into the tub. The water is almost unbearably hot as it stings against his numerous cuts and scrapes, but the buoyancy on his aching joints and muscles is pretty much the best thing to happen to him all day. He could probably fall asleep in here, except with his luck he’d slip under the surface and drown. As it is, he takes as long as he thinks he can get away with just soaking before he finally grabs a washcloth and soap and does his best to carefully—carefully, fuck, fucking bruises—clean himself.
It is incredibly fucking intimate, and that’s not even considering his nether regions, which he deals with in the most cursory way possible. So intimate that he can’t really let himself think about what he’s doing or else he might have a whole crisis right here in this bathtub, and now is definitely not the time. The water turns dark around him as he gently wipes away the accumulated dirt, grime, and dried blood from his soulmate’s skin—inch by inch, bit by bit.
He might not be a spy, but he can do his best to take care of H while he’s in here, and that’s not nothing.
“What do you think Samir is doing to him?” Henry asks, staring out of the windshield as they rocket through the darkened city streets toward Sidi Ghanem.
Next to him, Bea’s hands tighten around the steering wheel of the stolen sedan. “Alex is clever,” she says instead of answering him. “You have no idea how good that man is at talking people into things.”
A tiny grin curves Henry’s lips, despite everything. “Like getting you to bring him here?”
“Shut it, Haz,” Bea returns fondly.
They lapse into silence for another few blocks, and Henry pulls up the intelligence they’ve been able to gather on Samir’s Sidi Ghanem properties on the tablet in an attempt to take his mind off of it. A warehouse, largely unused from what they can tell; a building currently leased to an electrical supply store; a block of flats that are almost entirely currently occupied. The warehouse is obviously the most promising, located as it is away from the most developed streets, but it’s entirely possible that one or more of the flats could contain a room like the one he’d been held in, and searching those is a daunting prospect.
Unfortunately, Bea doesn’t seem inclined to let the topic drop. “What are you going to do about him?”
“I haven't really thought about it,” he answers, which is a lie. The stretches of time between questioning sessions have left him with little to do but think about it. Unfortunately, in his line of work there aren’t many good answers; the only thing Henry’s sure of is that Alex deserves better than what Henry can possibly give him. “I won’t recruit him,” he says eventually. “After this, I doubt he’d come.”
Bea tilts her head. “You never know.”
Henry stares down at his hands—Alex’s hands. There are a few small scars on them, the normal type you’d get from a kitchen knife or hot pan, but they’re otherwise unmarked. No gun callouses. “I don’t want this life for him.”
“But you want it for you?”
“Bea,” Henry sighs.
“It’s a serious question, Henry.”
“It’s not worth worrying about until this is done,” he says firmly. “We’ve not even bonded yet. There’s no way to tell what our relationship will even be like.”
Bea doesn’t respond, and when he looks over he can see by the particular pinch of her lips that she’s not telling him something.
“What?” he asks.
“It’s nothing.”
“It’s clearly not.”
She chews on her lip a moment, then exhales heavily. “Well, I suppose it’s better that you’re prepared. He asked me if I thought your bond might be platonic.”
“Oh,” Henry says as his stomach drops. It’s not that platonic soulmates were that uncommon, really, but he hadn’t even considered the possibility. Over the years he’d trained himself not to think about his soulmate, but some part of him still clung to the romantic fairy tale of it all. It was almost comforting, the idea that there was someone out there whose heart was made to beat at the same tempo as his, even if he’d never meet them. If his bond with Alex was platonic… then maybe Henry was always meant to be alone, romantically, after all.
“He did say he didn’t know—”
“It’s fine,” Henry interrupts tersely. It’d probably be better, if he’s honest, if it were so. People tended to underestimate platonic soulmates; Alex would be safer that way. He looks down at the tablet in his lap and the map with Samir’s properties flagged. “Finding him is the most important thing right now. The warehouse first, yes?”
“Yeah,” Bea answers. Another couple of turns take them away from the developed areas and onto streets that still cling to the district’s industrial roots, and she pulls the car into an alley. “Let’s go.”
Johnston is waiting for him on the suite’s balcony, sitting nonchalantly on a small couch with one leg crossed over the other as he reads a newspaper with a glass of brown liquor on a side table by his elbow. The night is warm and peaceful beyond the confines of the hotel suite, the distant lights of the city center—farther away than Alex expected—just visible past a large walled courtyard. He moves slowly as he limps out onto the balcony, using as much time as he can manage without drawing suspicion to take in his surroundings; maybe it’ll be useful or maybe it won’t, but it seems like the kind of thing he should be doing anyway. The suite is relatively high up, at least five floors, but the balconies seem to be connected with only a wall between them. Maybe if he could climb onto the outside of the railing—
“It’s a lovely view in the daylight,” Johnston says, interrupting his half-formed and no doubt ill-conceived ideas of escape. He looks Alex-in-H’s-body up and down appraisingly, with a hunger—and familiarity—that only makes Alex want to climb off the balcony even faster. The linen pants and light button-down shirt they’d left in the bathroom for him to change into had been exactly H’s size, and Alex doesn’t want to think about how Johnston got that information. With a smile that’s nearly a leer, Johnston pats the couch cushion next to him. “Please, have a seat. Standing can’t be particularly easy.”
“No thanks to you,” Alex returns without thinking, but Johnston just chuckles.
“No, I suppose not.”
Alex would love to be able to say fuck you and refuse to sit, but that’s very much not happening. He’s pretty sure he’s gonna keel over if he tries to remain upright much longer, actually. He shuffles over to the couch and sits down as far away from Johnston as he can manage, which sadly isn’t that far, and even that distance is lessened when Johnston shifts closer. The light thrown by the antique-style lamps with their patterned shades makes his dark eyes glitter and sharpens his smile, and Alex swallows against a dry throat.
They’re no longer in a windowless basement, though, and Alex isn’t hanging by his wrists and being threatened with electrocution. Maybe there’s an armed goon standing by the door, but the rest is just talking. Alex tells himself that he knows men like Samir Johnston. The way they try to control situations. The way they make deals. And Alex is lucky this time—it doesn’t even have to be a good deal. It just has to buy him time to be rescued.
“So,” Alex prompts, forcing himself to relax back against the couch, “are you gonna tell me what exactly you want from me?”
“Right down to business, then,” Johnston says, chuckling a little. “Won’t you let me get you a drink first?”
“No thanks,” Alex replies dryly. “I’d take some painkillers, though.”
Johnston snaps his fingers and the guard standing by the balcony’s door disappears into the suite. He returns a moment later with a pair of white tablets and a glass of water, which he sets on the small table next to Alex’s elbow. Alex picks up the unmarked pills and cradles them in his palm, then shoots a skeptical look at Johnston.
“I’m supposed to trust you on this?”
“If I wanted to drug you, don’t you think I’d have done it already?” Johnston counters. “It’s only Vicodin. Consider it a sign of good faith.”
“Fair enough,” Alex allows. He tosses the pills back and washes them down with a long swallow of water that’s a cool relief against his still-raw throat, then sets the glass to the side. “You’ll have to forgive me if I’m skeptical of your ‘good faith’, considering you were threatening my life not that long ago.”
“You may not believe this, Mr… ah, I’m not entirely sure what to call you?” Johnston says.
“For our purposes, you can keep calling me Patrick Sutton. Easier for you to remember,” Alex replies, offering his most obsequious smile.
That wasn’t something Johnston expected, apparently. He blinks a couple of times before forcing a not-that-pleased smile back on his face. “Just so. Well, you may not believe this, Mr. Sutton, but I am a reasonable man. Our relationship didn’t get off to a very positive start, but I assure you, I’m prepared to make this very worth your while.”
“And what exactly does ‘this’ entail?”
“As I said before, you’d help me take care of this mess that your soulmate has made of things,” Johnston explains. “All I need is a bit of information; information that you’d have no trouble acquiring in his body. In return, you’d be compensated generously.”
Alex pauses, like he’s genuinely considering this, and takes in Johnston as he sits in his fancy suit and glittering gold jewelry, surrounded by ostentatious displays of wealth. This is a man who thinks in numbers and figures, who’s used to being able to buy people’s loyalty. Alex just needs to show that he can be bought—for the right price.
“How generously?” he asks with a raised eyebrow.
Johnston grins like a fisherman who feels a tug on his line, his white teeth shining in the low light. He plucks a pen out of his pocket and grabs the paper napkin from under his drink, then scribbles something on it before handing it over to Alex with a flourish. Alex wouldn’t be much of a negotiator if he couldn’t keep a straight face, but the obscene number of zeros strains even his abilities to remain neutral. It is generous, especially since Johnston could basically extort Alex to do whatever he wants, but Alex doesn’t fool himself thinking Johnston has any intention of paying it. Why would he, when he could just kill Alex when it’s all done?
All the same, this is the game they’re playing, so Alex will play it. He carefully smooths his hand over the napkin, as if weighing Johnston’s offer.
“You don’t get to know anything about me or my life,” Alex says firmly, as if he were sitting over a negotiating table at his firm and not being held hostage on a balcony in Marrakesh. “I’ve seen how y’all treat prisoners. Once we find him, I want to be the one in control of what happens to him. And after this is done, I get to walk away and you’ll never find me again.”
“Of course,” Johnston agrees. “All reasonable requests, except…” He pauses a beat, Alex is pretty sure entirely for effect. “Well. We can’t very well allow you to hold your soulmate on your own. For one, it’s very likely he’d escape anything you’d try to hold him in—no offense—but also, we need some way to ensure you’ll hold up your end of the deal. We would, however, give you complete control over the conditions of his captivity, of course.”
“What happens to him?” Alex asks. “After this is over and we swap back.”
“You needn’t concern yourself with that. We’ll ensure he’s no longer a problem for you,” Johnston says with a blithe wave of his hand.
Alex was obviously never going to actually make a deal with Johnston, so he hadn’t really considered what the logical conclusion of such a thing would be, and the cold terror that grips him at the thought nearly knocks the breath out of him. He wants to ask how any amount of money is supposed to make up for condemning your soulmate to death, for losing that connection forever, but he has the distinct sense that Johnston wouldn’t understand.
“And what if I refuse?” Alex asks, his voice tight, even though he’s pretty sure he already knows the answer.
“Ah,” Johnston says, his smile frosting over. “I’m sure you understand that’s not really an option. I’m willing to discuss terms, but I’m afraid this really only ends one way.”
“So I either get really rich, or really dead,” Alex replies flatly.
“An easy decision, no?” Johnston says. “You haven’t wronged me and I bear you no ill will, but I can’t afford to let you go for nothing. This way, we both win.”
“Right,” Alex says, a little weakly. “I guess we have a deal, then.”
“Excellent!” Johnston declares. “There’s just a matter of the shield implant—”
“What?” Alex interrupts as fear spikes within him.
“Like I said, we have to make sure you’ll hold up your end of the deal. Capturing your soulmate could take some time, and we can’t allow the possibility that you’d slip your shield off and get away,” Johnston explains. He makes a signal to the guard by the door, who disappears inside again.
“I didn’t agree to anything like this,” Alex protests.
Johnston just gives him a wolfish smile that is definitely going to haunt Alex’s dreams. “I’m afraid it’s non-negotiable.”
Before Alex can try to argue, the guard returns with a slim black case, which he sets on the table in front of them. He gets down on one knee next to it and flips it open to reveal a series of vials containing tiny metallic objects no larger than a grain of rice nestled in the foam within, along with some frightening large syringes and a small electronic device. The guard picks up one of the vials and the device, types something in, then hands the device to Johnston.
“I’ve never seen a shield like that,” Alex says, which is true enough even if he’s never seen an implantable shield, period. A shield with a controller, though…
“Amazing, aren’t they?” Johnston says. “Top of the line technology, developed by the US military for holding dangerous criminals. You see, a normal implanted shield can be easily removed—as your soulmate found out—but these are linked to this controller.” He waves the little box in the air. “You try to dig it out without the proper authorization code, and it’ll release cyanide into your bloodstream.”
At his side, the guard tears open an alcohol wipe and grabs Alex’s wrist, pulling it over and roughly swiping at the inside of his uninjured forearm, which is almost enough to distract him from the fact that in a few moments Johnston will have control over him indefinitely.
“Ow, fuck, man!” he yelps as the guard presses on his bruises, tugging his arm away.
“Now now, Reeves, be gentle with our guest,” Johnston chides, which is fucking rich.
Reeves, apparently, just nods dutifully and starts preparing the syringe, and Alex realizes he has mere minutes to prevent this from happening. He’s not really a fighter—a brief stint going to a kickboxing class with June and Nora notwithstanding—but the guard is distracted and kneeling on the floor, so Alex might be able to get the drop on him. The Vicodin has done its job, dulling the sharpness of the pain, and he’s pretty sure the adrenaline will take care of the rest. He just has to get rid of Johnston first. As Reeves starts reaching for his arm again, Alex pulls back.
“He-ey, how about that drink before we finalize this?” he asks, shooting a look at Johnston. “I bet you have something really fancy in there, right?”
A shadow flickers over Johnston’s face, but a moment later he’s smiling again. “Of course. If you’ll give me a moment, I’ll get us something suitable to celebrate our new partnership.”
With the guard busy, Johnston gets to his feet and disappears into the suite himself, leaving them alone on the balcony. Reeves grabs Alex’s arm again and lifts the now prepared syringe, the massive bore needle hovering over the crook of Alex’s elbow. Alex waits until it almost makes contact, then jerks back again, knocking the syringe to the floor with a clatter, where it rolls under the table.
“Sorry, I’m not good with needles,” he says, which nets him a frustrated sigh from the guard as he bends down, reaching blindly for the fallen needle.
Alex takes a steadying breath and sends up a prayer that H’s body has some kind of muscle memory that will help him along. This is his only shot, and he’s got to take it now. He strikes hard and fast, grabbing a fistful of the guard’s hair and slamming his head into the nearby corner of the table. For a moment he’s terrified it won’t be enough, but then Reeves slumps forward, sprawling unconscious onto the floor, and Alex lets out a shaky exhale.
“I can’t believe that worked,” he mutters to himself as he fumbles the man’s pistol out of its holster and tucks it into the back of his waistband. It’s not like he knows how to use it, but he feels better having it anyway.
Alex scrambles to his feet and practically hurls himself toward the balcony, not bothering to look over the edge before he starts climbing over the intricate iron railing. It’s not until he’s trying to find purchase with shoes that are little better than slippers on the other side that he realizes how narrow the ledge really is; he nearly slips off with the first foot he puts down, but his good hand tightens on the railing and he manages to hold on.
Then he looks down, like an idiot, and his heart skyrockets into his throat. There are four more floors of balconies under him, and below that, the yawning blackness of an empty swimming pool in the courtyard. He’s definitely dead if he falls, so that’s great.
“Oh fuck,” he gasps, squeezing his eyes closed again, “ohfuckohfuckohfuck, what are you doing, idiot, you can’t—” He cuts himself off with a clench of his jaw and forces himself to take a deep breath. “No. C’mon, Alex, you can do this.”
Just a few feet, and he’ll be on the next balcony. He inches forward, forcing himself to keep moving because his limbs start shaking violently any time he stops. It’s fine, he can do this, he’s so close—
On the next step, one of his feet goes out from under him, his stupid shoe slipping off the ledge, and as he makes a desperate grab for a handhold, the shield bracelet catches on part of the iron railing. For a split second, he hangs there by his wrist, chain digging into his skin as he kicks frantically for purchase.
Then, the bracelet snaps.
Chapter 5
Notes:
Buckle up folks.
Chapter Text
Henry is falling.
On instinct, he makes a desperate grab with his good hand before he even opens his eyes and catches hold of some kind of iron railing, only to have it ripped out of his grip when the sudden stop wrenches his already punished shoulder. It slows his descent enough that his next attempt at a grab holds, though, just long enough for Henry to look down, spot a balcony below him, and swing onto it. The tile floor is hardly the most comfortable surface to land on, and it’s no surprise that he pretty much crumples into a heap as pain jolts through his joints. No time for lingering out in the open—he peels himself off the ground and scrambles toward the balcony’s door, which is thankfully unlocked. It’s only when he’s inside what seems to be an empty hotel room that he stops for a moment to take stock of himself and his surroundings.
He’s wearing a fresh set of clothes, and he feels distinctly… clean. He pushes a hand up into his hair and finds it no longer matted with blood but instead freshly washed, and no, he’s not allowing himself to think about how that happened. There are fresh bandages on his wounds and a dullness to the all-consuming pain that suggests he’s been medicated. Something hard is digging into his lower back, and he reaches behind him to find a pistol tucked into his waistband.
What the fuck has Alex done?
A yell from the balcony above suggests his absence has been noticed.
Henry shifts back toward the open balcony door, making sure to stay in the shadows as he strains to listen. Samir’s distinctive tenor snaps, “I don’t care what happened, find him!” followed by the sound of running, though it’s too muffled to tell how many men are with him. They’ll clear the rooms connected to the balconies first, most likely, and Henry needs to make sure he’s elsewhere when they show up.
As quietly as possible, he slides the balcony door closed and hurries through the nearly pitch-dark room toward the thin strip of light coming from under the main door. He cracks it open, listening for Samir’s men, but they don’t seem to have made it to this level yet. The corridor outside isn’t long, with a few doors on either side and, unfortunately, a single grand staircase in the middle and apparently no other way down except the lift at the end of the hall. In peak form, Henry might consider climbing down the lift shaft, but there’s no way that’s happening now.
No, his only chance is an extremely high-stakes game of cat and mouse, and Henry’s determined not to be the mouse.
“Fuck!” Alex yelps when his consciousness comes to an abrupt stop in the passenger seat of a car.
“What—” B starts, only to cut off when she turns to look at him. “Alex,” she breathes, her knuckles going white against the steering wheel. “What’s happening?”
“We gotta— I left him— Oh, fuck, we need to get there now,” he gulps past the terror that’s threatening to choke him.
“We’re almost to the block of flats.”
“What? No, they’re at some kind of resort,” Alex tells her, shaking his head frantically. There’s a tablet in his lap, and he unlocks it to find a map with a few marked locations visible in the area where it’s currently zoomed, none of which look anything like a resort.
“But there’s no resort in Sidi Ghanem, and that’s where Johnston’s wife told us he’s been,” B is saying, though Alex isn’t really paying attention now, too focused on funneling all of the panic simmering under his skin into finding H.
“When’s this sat photo from?” he asks, already dragging the map around. There are more properties marked beyond the three originally displayed, and he zooms in on the nearest ones first, searching for a walled compound with the telltale sign of a swimming pool.
“Two days ago,” B tells him, “but—”
“Here,” Alex interrupts, jabbing his finger at the tablet.
There, on the outskirts of the outlined district, stuck into a patch of undeveloped desert, is exactly what he’s looking for. B glances away from the road long enough to look at the tablet as he holds it up with the resort displayed in the middle, then looks him right in the eye before she turns away again.
“You’re sure?”
“Absolutely.”
She wrenches the steering wheel hard to the left, sending them into a wild skid that slams Alex bodily into the door, draws numerous blaring horns from other cars, and ultimately puts them in the opposite lane, oriented 180° from their original direction. Then she stomps on the gas and the car rockets down the road, leaving Alex’s stomach somewhere behind them.
“Ten minutes away,” he tells her, having managed to engage the GPS directions on the tablet. “Take a left here.”
“I can make it in five,” she returns as the car fishtails around the turn.
Alex might point out that they might not make it there at all given how she’s driving, but given how he left things with Johnston, he’s not inclined to tell her to slow down.
“What happened, Alex?” B asks once they’re on track. “You were gone a long time.”
Alex grimaces. “Johnston figured out that I was in his body and put a shield on me,” he explains. “I thought I’d just pretend to make a deal with him, but then he started talking about putting in a permanent shield that only he could deactivate, and I— I panicked. I tried to escape and the shield bracelet broke when I…”
B glances over at him, brow furrowed. “What?” she demands when he doesn’t finish. “When you what?”
“I might have been… falling off a balcony,” he admits, cringing.
“Jesus Christ,” B swears, then somehow manages to eke additional speed out of the car. “Tell me everything you know about this resort.”
Alex has exhausted all of his meager intel by the time they grind to a halt down the road from the resort a little over five minutes later. They both jump out of the car and B jogs around to the rear, throwing the trunk open to reveal a small collection of firearms that Alex is certain she didn’t possess before. She slings a rifle over her shoulder and shoves one pistol in a thigh holster, then starts screwing a silencer onto a second.
“You stay here,” she tells him. “I’ll go get him.”
“Fucking fat chance of that,” Alex returns, which seems to take her by surprise. “I’m obviously going with you.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re a civilian. You’ve no business in there,” she says firmly.
“I can help—”
She glares at him as she grabs a couple additional clips and jams them into her pockets. “No way. It’s too dangerous.”
“I’ve been inside,” Alex argues. “I know the layout, and Johnston’s got at least a dozen men with him. You’re gonna need all the help you can get.”
“You’re going to be a liability,” she grinds out. “Have you ever even fired a gun?”
“No,” Alex answers honestly, and she gives him a look that could wither a cactus. It does little to deter him, though. “Show me how. I can do it, just show me.”
“No.”
“Please, B,” he pleads, grabbing her arm as she tries to turn away. “I can’t stay out here doing nothing. I can’t. And if we swap again, I’ll be in there anyway, so doesn’t it make more sense to stay together?”
That, finally, makes her pause, and she stares at him for a long moment as if weighing her options. “H would never forgive me if something happened to you.”
“I’ll stay out of the way, promise,” Alex says. “I can help. Provide distractions. Lay down covering fire, or whatever.”
B snorts, seemingly despite herself, and stares up at the stars. “Fucking hell,” she mutters, shaking her head. Then she grabs another pistol and holds it up in front of him. “Safety, slide, magazine release,” she says, pointing to each in turn. “Hold it with two hands, don’t jerk the trigger, and aim for the chest. You stay low and do exactly what I say the instant I tell you to do it. If you shoot me, I’ll have your bollocks for earrings. Understood?”
Alex gulps as he takes the gun from her. “Yes, ma’am.”
She slaps another clip into his hand and he tucks it into a pocket as she turns away. “Good. Let’s go.”
Henry waits.
He could no doubt slip past the two men currently searching this floor while they’re in another room, but that would leave them at his back, and he’s not about to make it easier for them to pin him down. Better to remove them from the equation. The problem with that, of course, is that he’s far from fighting fit, and any gunfire is going to draw attention. His kingdom for a bloody silencer.
He does, however, have the element of surprise.
There isn’t much to work with in the hotel rooms, but he wrenches a loosely-attached towel bar off the wall and yanks the cords off the blinds. Then he retreats into the bathroom and bides his time.
As expected, the men split up when they enter the suite. They’re careless, not paying attention to their blind spots; Samir’s men always were sloppy. They probably don’t expect him to be a threat. Henry hides behind the edge of the door, every muscle tightening in anticipation, as one of the two men walks into the bedroom swinging his flashlight around. The beam of light pauses on the window, where the blinds are askew, and the guard takes a step closer, his back to Henry.
Henry steps out of the bathroom, his footsteps silent on the plush carpet, and crosses the room in three long strides. The towel bar isn’t the best bludgeon, but it connects with the man’s temple with a satisfying thunk and he staggers to his knees. Another blow sends him sprawling onto his front. Unfortunately, it also bends the towel bar beyond usability.
“Mo?” the other man says from the living room. And then, in Arabic: “Was that you?”
Idiots, Henry thinks. He leaves the towel bar next to the first man and steps to the side of the door just as the second walks through it. The man swears at the sight of his comrade unconscious on the floor, but he doesn’t have time to turn before Henry jumps out at him, knocking the gun from his hand with a focused blow then wrapping the blinds cord around his neck from behind. The guard struggles, but Henry kicks his legs out and pulls tighter, until finally the man goes limp.
Henry’s joints complain as he drags both men into the bathroom and out of sight, where he leaves them bound securely with the cord and gagged with torn strips of a sheet that had been covering the sofa. Two down. God knows how many to go. Neither man has a silencer, which is a shame, but he takes a radio and earpiece from one of them and tucks it into his own ear.
“—in the courtyard,” comes a garbled voice in Arabic, “took out—and Jama—someone get down there—”
Henry closes his eyes and blows out a breath. Bea is here—
“Move, Alex,” Bea growls at him.
He’s in the courtyard with a pistol—with a silencer on it, thank Christ—in his hand and his back pressed to a palm tree. A short ways away, Bea is glaring at him from behind a bush, but before he can respond, he catches movement out of the corner of his eye. A guard is creeping closer to Henry’s position, speaking quietly into his radio, apparently alone. Henry counts a beat, then steps out from behind the tree and shoots him in the head.
“What the fuck—” Bea hisses as he scrambles to crouch next to her.
“It’s me, Bea,” he mutters.
Her eyes go wide. “Already?”
“Apparently so,” Henry says grimly as he ejects the clip and checks the number of bullets. “He’s on the third floor. Safe for the moment, as long as he stays put.”
“He said he left you falling off a balcony,” she says incredulously.
“He did,” Henry confirms. He shoots her a disapproving look. “I can’t believe you brought him in here and gave him a gun. Christ, Bea.”
“And aren’t you glad you’re not stuck in the car right now?” she shoots back.
Henry hates that she has a point. He grinds his teeth together and looks toward the entrance to the main building. “Status?”
“I took out two guards, and that was a third,” she says with a nod over her shoulder toward the man Henry shot. “Alex estimated at least a dozen.”
“And I left two unconscious on the third floor, so that leaves seven, plus Samir. I had just gotten a radio. They know you’re out here.”
“So we should move,” Bea says.
“Indeed,” Henry agrees. “On three?”
Pretty much the last place Alex expects to find himself is a darkened room standing over two unconscious and bound guards. There’s a bent towel bar on the floor and he picks it up, weighing the heft of it in his hand.
The radio squawking to life in his ear nearly gives him an actual heart attack.
Of course, he has no idea what they’re saying, so it’s less than useless to him. Fumbling for the receiver on his waistband, he turns the volume almost all the way down—but not off, because H clearly wanted it, and who knows when they’ll swap back.
Part of Alex says he should just stay put and let H and B come to him, but it won’t do them much good to be trapped on a higher floor. No, he needs to try to move to the ground floor if they’re going to have a shot at getting out of here. He creeps over to the door of the suite, which has been left open, and listens for sounds of movement outside. It’s eerily quiet. Could all the guards have already moved down to the lower levels? For that matter, what floor is Alex even on?
A quick check reveals that the hall indeed seems to be deserted. Alex slips out of the door, moving quickly toward the central staircase. Voices drift up from the lower floors as he approaches, but they don’t seem to be getting closer, so he carefully creeps up to the railing and peers down. Below him, two guards are standing on the landing of the next floor, very effectively blocking any possible exit. Leaving them behind, he hurries up and down the hall looking for another set of stairs and comes up empty, which leaves…
The elevator. Getting into it would be dumb, but maybe he can use it all the same.
Alex jabs the ‘down’ button and readies himself as the motor whirrs to life. Its movement has not gone unnoticed, judging by the chatter on the radio, and he’ll only have a few seconds to act before he draws the guards right to him. Time seems to slow to a crawl, and he blows out a long breath in an attempt to steady his nerves.
The elevator dings as it arrives and the doors start sliding open, painfully slow, and Alex leaps into action. He squeezes in as soon as he can, slams his hand down on the buttons for the first floor and ‘close door’, then darts out again. He practically dives through the nearest door—which turns out to be a storage closet—as the guards come thundering up the stairs. There’s some yelling, but then, thank fuck, the footsteps retreat again, running back down the hall toward the stairs, no doubt hoping to catch him as he exits on a lower floor.
The trick will only buy him so much time. Alex cracks the door open just in time to see the second guard disappear down the stairs and waits only another breath before taking off after them, descending as quickly and as silently as he can. He makes it as far as the landing between the first and the second floor before he hears the elevator ding again, and even though he doesn’t understand the words over the radio, he can guess the meaning easily enough: they’ve realized he’s not inside. Alex quickly turns and starts running back up, hoping to take cover in another room—
—and opens his eyes to find himself in the lobby. A guard comes running into view, sees him, and immediately raises his gun. Right, fuck, bad news, bad news—Alex scrambles for cover behind the front desk, heart pounding as the gunfire starts ringing out around him, and nearly runs face first into B’s pistol.
She huffs a sigh of relief and pulls the gun back, her eyes narrowing as she takes him in. “Alex?”
“Yeah, it’s me,” he breathes, flinching as another shot flies overhead and embeds itself in the wall behind them.
The gunshots have clearly drawn in more guards based on the sound of running footsteps. B moves to the other end of the front desk and peers around it, firing off a few shots to keep them back, which gets back more gunfire in response from the guards. There’s a door to the left of the front desk, but they’d have to leave cover to get to it and there’s no guarantee of where it goes; they could end up even more cornered than they already are.
“B?” Alex says, his voice coming out high and panicked. “How do we—”
“Working on it,” she grits out as she fires off another round. “Please tell me you weren’t in that lift.”
Alex shakes his head. “I sent it to a lower floor as a diversion.”
B pauses her shooting and frowns at him appreciatively. “Huh. Smart.”
Under other circumstances, Alex would absolutely preen at the compliment, but a second later, more gunshots sound even closer as the guards move in toward them. B starts firing again, and Alex…
Alex would very much like to wake up from this nightmare.
Thank fucking Christ he’s not in the lift.
Of course, his actual position isn’t much better, given that Henry finds himself on the staircase with the sound of running footsteps headed up toward him. He gathers from the yelling over the radio that the lift was empty, and he really should not be so pleased that his soulmate is clever considering the current situation. A situation in which there’s also now unmuffled gunfire echoing up from the lobby.
Henry ducks into a room just as the first of the men reaches the corridor, but they apparently don’t spot him. Lingering just inside the door, he listens to Samir’s men talk about searching the floors. With three of them occupied by Bea in the lobby, the remaining four will split up—two on this floor, two on the one above. It becomes clear that they’re being even less careful than they were before, clearing each room as quickly as possible, which also means Henry has no time to do anything besides duck to the side before one of the guards pushes open the door to the room he’s currently hiding in.
As the door swings closed behind the man, Henry launches himself into him, getting in too close for the guard to get a shot off, though Henry’s attempt at knocking the gun from his hand fails. Somehow the guard keeps hold of the gun when Henry slams his hand back against the door frame and, given his injuries, Henry lacks the strength to resist when the man shoves him back into the room. He raises his pistol, but Henry ducks down and barrels into him, and the momentum sends them both tumbling over the sofa and onto the floor in front of it. By some miracle, Henry ends up on top and, as his attacker swings his gun up nearly point blank into Henry's face, he pulls his own pistol out of his waistband, shoves a sofa cushion over the man’s face, and fires into it with a muffled whump.
This time, the struggle hasn’t gone unnoticed; a moment later, the door to the hotel room crashes open again with the second guard on the other side, his gun raised at the ready, and Henry has no choice but to take the shot.
Even with all the other gunfire around them, the shot from upstairs is unmistakable. The distance gives it an odd tone, as does the way it echoes through the mostly-empty building, but Alex doesn’t even have a chance to wonder who was being shot at and who was doing the shooting before he blinks and finds himself holding the gun.
Alex quickly clambers up from his position straddling a man with a pillow over his head and—oh Jesus fuck—a bullet hole in said pillow, only to see another guard crumpled in the doorway. In his panic, he drops the gun without meaning to, only to realize he actually fucking needs it and snatch it up again. Ok, it’s ok, he can do this, he assured B he could handle this and he can’t freeze up now. The first thing he has to do is move—there’s no way the other guards didn’t hear that shot, and they’ll be closing in on his location soon. He skirts around the body in the doorway and inches out into the hall, and there’s no one there, maybe he has a chance—
Someone fires from behind him and the bullet whistles past his head and embeds itself in the wall. Alex fires blindly back as he takes off running in the opposite direction, but when he looks over his shoulder, his assailant is gone.
There is, however, something else in his way.
Alex slams into a solid body and is halfway to bringing his gun up when someone speaks—in English this time, and with a taunting lilt that Alex is sure he’ll never forget.
“Ah ah ah, I think we’ve all had enough of that.”
Two shots ring out from upstairs and then—
Everything goes quiet.
Henry exchanges a look with Bea as a kind of fear he rarely experiences anymore floods through him. There’s pretty much only one thing keeping him from spiraling out right now: a profound and complete certainty that he would know if his soulmate was dead. It’s not much to cling to, but he can’t help but grasp that thin thread of hope even if it’s razor wire, a garrote, a noose.
“Don’t do anything rash,” Bea hisses, like she can see the maelstrom in his head—and the lengths he would go to to protect this man.
She’s not wrong to worry. Henry feels mad with it, like he’s not fully in control of his own actions, like he doesn’t even know himself anymore. It’s worse in Alex’s body, and only getting stronger the more times they swap.
Whatever protest Henry might have made, though, it’s moot when a familiar voice calls out, “Come out and drop your weapons, or he dies.”
The treacherous thread of hope tightens around Henry’s throat, biting into his skin and choking him. He’d been foolish to expect any other outcome.
Slowly, he and Bea get to their feet and raise their hands, letting their pistols dangle by the trigger guards from their fingers as they walk out from either side of the front desk. The two of Samir’s men who have been holding them down here flank the base of the staircase with two more at the top of the first flight, and in the middle of it all, Samir is descending the stairs with Alex—in Henry’s body—held at gunpoint in front of him.
It should be like looking in a mirror, seeing himself there, but it’s not. Despite the fact that that’s his face and his eyes, all he can see is Alex, who looks utterly stunned in the same way that Henry feels as their eyes meet. Everything else around him falls away and he stops dead, aware of nothing but his heartbeat thudding in his ears and the inexorable tug in his gut that wants to pull him toward the other man.
“Keep moving,” Samir snaps at Alex, who stumbles forward at the pistol jabbed into his back, at the same time as Bea hisses, “Your weapon,” and Henry is yanked roughly out of the spell. He drops his gun and kicks it away as Samir moves out from behind Alex, never letting his own pistol waver.
“Soulmates really are a nasty, annoying complication, aren’t they?” Samir asks, almost conversationally, looking from Henry to Alex and back again. “All this trouble, and for what? Companionship? You can get that anywhere.” He nudges Alex a little closer, and the pull in Henry’s gut throbs. “Just think, you might have actually succeeded if it weren’t for him. I’d be doing you a favor to get rid of him, really. Though it would be a shame to lose this body,” Samir adds with a smirk as his gaze sweeps deliberately over Henry’s form.
It’s an odd thing to witness from an outside perspective, considering it’s his body, as is Alex’s reaction on his own face—he tenses, nostrils flaring and jaw muscle clenching. It doesn’t go unnoticed.
Samir smiles at him, sharp and cruel, as he leans in closer to Alex. “It’s cute how protective you are over someone who doesn’t even want you. Who had a shield embedded under his skin to keep you away.”
“Fuck you,” Alex whispers, and even though his voice is nearly inaudible Henry still hears the tremor in it.
“Am I wrong?” Samir murmurs, almost in Alex’s ear.
“Samir!” Henry barks, surging forward before he can stop himself, though he’s immediately pulled up short by the guards threatening with their guns. “Enough. Leave him out of it.”
“I’m afraid that’s simply not possible. You see—”
In the space of a blink, Samir’s voice shifts, suddenly coming from right next to him instead of across the lobby, and Henry opens his eyes to see Alex and Bea staring back at him. Bea’s eyes go wide as they sweep to the side, but Samir clearly hasn’t noticed the swap—he’s still speaking about god knows what, and the gun in his hand has drooped. He clearly doesn’t see Alex as a threat.
Good.
Henry moves quickly, driving his knuckles into exactly the point on Samir’s hand that will guarantee to make his grip fail, and the gun goes clattering across the tile floor. Samir breaks off, shocked, but Henry is already lunging at him, getting in close so that the guards don’t have a clean shot. Henry is bigger, but only just, and Samir has just enough of his own combat training to be a problem, especially with Henry in his weakened condition. He lands a few blows as he struggles in Henry’s grip that Henry manages to weather, but just when Henry’s almost got an arm around his neck, Samir aims a particularly fierce elbow to his chest. It lands with a sickening crunch, and Henry’s vision whites out in excruciating, blinding pain.
Samir wrenches away from him as his grip goes slack, and Henry stumbles back, collapsing to his hands and knees as he coughs up blood onto the ornate tile. He thinks this is it, they’re going to shoot him or capture him again, but no one moves. No one except Samir, his expensive suit in disarray, who wipes at his bleeding bottom lip as he staggers back over to one of his guards. Henry looks up just in time to see him yank a massive knife out of a sheath on the man’s belt, then turn back and start advancing on Henry with pure murder in his eyes. Henry tells himself to get up, fucking get up, but he can’t make his muscles move any more than anyone else standing in the lobby, who all seem to be frozen in place as they watch the scene unfold in front of them.
Maybe not all of them, actually.
There’s a sudden movement at the periphery of Henry’s vision, and then Alex comes barreling toward them, toward Samir, like he thinks he’s some kind of goddamned hero.
“No!” Henry shouts, but it’s too late.
Alex slams into Samir, tackling him like a bloody rugby player, but it’s not enough to knock him off his feet, and Alex isn’t paying attention—
And Henry can do nothing but watch as Samir drives the knife into Alex’s side, all the way to the hilt.
They say no two bondings happen in the same way, which Alex had always thought was bullshit. Everyone he knew had similar stories—meeting after your first swap, a few days getting to know each other, feeling the spark of connection, a stereotypical kiss that completed the bond. Some people bonded earlier in the process, with a hug or even a handshake, but it still seemed like there were a limited number of scenarios that a bond could form under.
Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that no two bondings felt the same way; most people declined to even try to describe the sensation, and those that did make an attempt never seemed to agree. Endless poems, songs, and stories have been written about the moment of bonding. According to them, it feels like a warm blanket, like the shock of jumping into cold water, like sunlight on your face, like a bolt of lightning in your bones.
Alex’s bonding sets him on fire.
Let’s be real: being stabbed in the gut sucks. Alex just isn’t sure it sucks more than anything else he’s experienced in the last few days. The rapid-fire swaps with H since they got to the resort have meant the pain never really fades away even when he’s in his body, so this new pain barely registers in the grand scheme of things.
He staggers backward when Johnston yanks the blade out of him again, pressing his hands to the spot where blood is rapidly soaking through his shirt, his own body desperately screaming at his brain that this is really happening, even though it doesn’t feel that way. Someone yells his name. The sound of running footsteps and gunfire picks up again. He stumbles away, his vision swimming, and makes it a few steps before his knees start to buckle.
Then someone grabs him, pulling him close like they’re trying to help, except the sensation when their skin connects is so overwhelming that they both collapse together as wildfire spreads out from every point of contact, obliterating everything else in his body. Something in Alex tells him it’s too much, that he has to get away or else be burned alive, but at the same time the very idea of trying is abhorrent. He welcomes the inferno, turns into it and pushes himself closer, every new touch—a knee pressed to his thigh, an arm around his waist, a hand on his face—a searing brand that he aches for.
“Alex. Alex, look at me, please,” his soulmate gasps, clinging so tightly to him he’s probably leaving bruises.
Alex doesn’t listen, just squeezes his eyes shut and tries to burrow closer, not satisfied until he’s made a home inside the other man’s ribcage and under his skin, until they’re one person instead of two. This is— this isn’t how it happens, isn’t how it’s supposed to feel, because right now if someone took H away from him he’d die, he’s as certain of that as he is that he needs oxygen to survive.
“We can’t stay here, guys!” someone calls—B, Alex thinks distantly, in the small part of his brain that’s not completely ablaze.
“C’mon, love, we have to—” H murmurs close to his ear, but he shifts like he’s trying to pull away and Alex’s entire body screams in protest.
“No!” he nearly sobs, clutching at him desperately, and is only mollified by how H’s arms tighten around him.
“Not leaving you, promise,” H swears, his voice hard and determined as he presses his face into Alex’s curls. “I promise, ok? But we have to go now.”
Something of Alex’s survival instinct finally breaks through and he forces himself back far enough to meet his soulmate’s eyes. The endless blue of them is a quenching balm, not extinguishing the flames but banking them, making it possible for him to nod shakily. “Ok,” he manages, “ok.”
Their exit from the resort is a blur. Somehow, in the spaces between breaths, they make out to the street, and then Alex is in the backseat of the car with H wrapped around him and so, so much blood soaking into the upholstery. Is it all his? It can’t be—
“Hold on, Alex,” H is murmuring, the steadiness of his voice belied by the way he’s gripping Alex so tightly it’s nearly painful. Not that Alex is complaining. “Just stay awake, all right? We’re nearly there.”
Alex doesn’t know where there is, but it better be a fucking hospital. When he looks up, he finds H staring back at him with suspiciously shiny eyes, but that can’t be because spies don’t cry, right? H is so strong and capable and Alex is just Alex, he couldn’t even keep himself from getting stabbed, had to be dragged out of there while H held him together.
“Sorry I fucked up,” he slurs with a weak gesture toward the wadded up fabric H has pressed to his abdomen.
“No, darling. You were so good,” H assures him. “You were so brave, and you saved me, and I just need you to be brave for a little longer, ok?”
“Kay,” Alex mumbles. His eyelids feel so heavy, and it would be so nice to sleep, it’s been so long—
“Stay with me, Alex,” H says sharply, jostling him awake again. “Just— Talk to me. Keep talking to me.”
“‘Bout what?”
“Anything. Anything you want.”
Alex stares up at his soulmate and tries to get his fuzzy brain to come up with something, but now that he’s here, looking him in the face, it all seems so inadequate. What do you say to someone whose body you’ve inhabited, whose pain you’ve felt, whose life is somehow more important to you than your own despite the fact that you only just met?
Well. Maybe you just have to start at the beginning.
“S’nice to finally meet you, H,” Alex says with what is likely a pretty pathetic attempt at a smile.
H laughs wetly and strokes a thumb over Alex’s cheek. “Henry,” he says. “My name is Henry.”
Chapter 6
Notes:
FYI, this chapter is double the length of a normal chapter (and I think you'll be happy I didn't break it in half).
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Henry spends the next few days in and out of consciousness, medically-induced or otherwise.
The emergency staff in Marrakesh’s largest hospital had had to pry Alex out of his arms when they arrived, and Henry had stood in the intake area, covered in blood that was mostly not his own, and felt like someone had cut off his arm and taken it away with Alex past the surgery doors. Then he’d more or less collapsed from his own injuries—the broken rib perilously close to puncturing his lung, most pressing among them—and had been whisked away to his own hospital bed.
He hasn’t seen Alex since. Bea had arranged to have them airlifted back to London as soon as Alex was stable, and there they’d been further separated—Alex was still a civilian, after all, and his wound required only a few days of observation before he could be discharged. For all that they were less dramatic in the final moments, Henry’s injuries required more intensive care. The broken ribs, the water still in lungs that he couldn’t cough out, the tendon and ligament damage in his shoulders, the internal bruising, and his left hand, which had required multiple lengthy surgeries and a large number of pins before his bones were in anything like the correct places.
Bea had left the second day they were back in London, sent to follow up on intel they acquired in Marrakesh after Samir’s ultimate demise—she’d acquired a gun and shot him while Alex and Henry had been completely lost to the outside world during their bonding moments—and then Henry was left alone with only his thoughts and the puzzle of Alex Claremont-Diaz.
After a couple of days, the ache of their separation has lessened, ebbing to a low throb that’s almost indistinguishable from the rest of his injuries. That doesn’t mean that Henry doesn’t notice it, though, or that it isn’t maddeningly constant—a pain that his morphine drip can’t touch. It’s manageable, though. He’s assured by Service physicians who visit that it’s only how fresh their bonding is, that it will continue to diminish over time (though it will likely never fully fade), and that he can wear a shield to block the feeling if it’s bothersome.
He refuses the shield. It’s probably stupidly obstinate of him, but he can’t bring himself to cut off that connection. Isn’t sure that he’ll ever be able to.
Henry has no more answers now for what to do about Alex than he did when Bea asked him. There are still so many unknowns—about his recovery, about his future with the Service, about what kind of bond this even is. A soulmate bond is no guarantee of love, platonic or otherwise, but his and Alex’s bond… it scares him. It feels like too much, like if he lets it get any stronger it will consume him whole. Like if they get any closer, he’ll never be able to keep a clear head, to make the decision he needs to make. Keeping Alex out of MI6’s—out of Mary’s—clutches is the most important thing right now. Henry can’t, won’t, let him get any further entangled with the Service than he already is, which means there’s only one course of action at the moment.
“Would you like me to inform him?” Shaan asks as Henry slowly gathers his meager belongings from the hospital room as a nurse tuts unhappily from the door. They’d like to keep him longer, but years in the Service have trained Henry not to linger. He knows very well that his grandmother hasn’t sent Shaan to check on him out of concern for his recovery.
“What?” he asks, distracted as he looks for his signet ring, then shakes his head. “No. I’ll tell him.” He finds the ring under a tissue on the side table, only to realize he can’t put it on; he tucks it away in a pocket instead.
“She won’t like this,” Shaan warns him.
Henry sets his jaw, tipping his chin up slightly. “I don’t care. He doesn’t need to be any part of it.”
“I’ll tell her to expect you tomorrow morning, then?”
“If you would,” Henry confirms. “Thank you, Shaan.”
Shaan gives a short nod and starts moving toward the door, only to hesitate before he gets to the threshold. “You don’t have to make any decisions yet, you know.”
Henry swallows past the lingering knot in his throat. “I know.”
Alex’s room is in another wing of the hospital, and Henry finds him laying listlessly in his bed. There’s a British murder mystery show on the telly, but the way he’s staring blankly at it suggests he’s not really watching it. Henry pauses at the door, drinking him in—his curls are flattened after days in bed and there are dark smudges under his bright eyes, but there’s a healthy color back in his skin—and almost throws out all of his plans entirely. He’s so ridiculously, impossibly beautiful that Henry can hardly believe he’s real, much less that they’re connected, but his body doesn’t seem inclined to let him forget it. The ache in his chest has lessened, but the tug is more insistent now, as if trying to pull him to his soulmate’s side, and Henry’s frankly not in any shape to be able to resist it.
Alex doesn’t look over immediately when Henry walks in, probably expecting a nurse, but the moment his eyes flick over they go wide and he jolts up, then hisses and presses a hand to his side.
“Fuck,” he mutters, fumbling for the bed control.
Henry finds it first and, when he hands it over, their fingers brush. From the way Alex inhales, he wasn’t the only one that felt something sizzle under his skin at the contact. It’s all Henry can do not to climb into the bed next to him. He can’t risk losing his resolve, so he’s more careful to avoid contact when he helps Alex shift the pillows and raise the bed so he’s sitting more upright.
“You’re… dressed,” Alex says with a puzzled frown as he looks down at Henry’s clothes, his eyes sticking on the brace around Henry’s hand and wrist.
“Yes, well. I shouldn’t like to walk around the streets in one of those gowns,” Henry replies.
He knows it was a poor attempt at levity. Still, he’s not expecting Alex to look so stricken at the joke.
“You’re leaving?”
“I— yes,” Henry confirms with a nod, through a throat that feels strangely tight. “You’re to be discharged tomorrow. The Service has arranged for a flight for you back to New York.”
“That’s it? You’re sending me home?” Alex asks, his eyebrows knitting together in the middle, big brown eyes wide in disbelief.
Henry’s not proud that he looks at the ground. Christ, he expected this to be difficult, but no one warned him that it would be this gut-wrenching. “I’ll be tied up in debriefs for god knows how long, and you… well. Recovering from an experience like this is about more than just the physical damage. You should be at home, with your friends and family.” He tries to offer a reassuring smile, but it comes out too tight. “It’ll be better this way.”
Alex opens his mouth and closes it again, then swallows before he speaks. “What about…” He trails off and makes a hand gesture between them.
He doesn’t have to say the word. Us.
“I’ll contact you, after things have settled down,” Henry promises.
This is his vain, probably foolishly naive attempt at gaming the system, at getting around the decision he knows he’s expected to make. Once all the messy repercussions of the bungled operation have been dealt with, once Henry’s soulmate is nothing more than a redacted footnote in a case file, once their bond isn’t so fresh—then, surely, they can have a more reasoned conversation about what this is. Maybe they’ll even be able to have a relationship of sorts, even if it won’t be the kind that Henry wishes he could have with his soulmate.
Right now, though, he can’t afford to make rash decisions, even if his entire body is screaming at him to give up everything and run away with this man. Who may not even really want him. And after what Alex has been through, he shouldn’t be making any decisions, either. They both need time and distance from all of the insanity of the last few days. It’s for the best for both of them, he tells himself again, even if the voice insisting that doesn’t entirely sound like his.
He glances away, toward Alex’s open window, and steels himself for what he needs to say next. “Bea told me you thought our bond might be platonic, and I just want to let you know that I have no expectations, truly. This can be whatever you want.”
“Oh,” Alex says, blinking rapidly at him before his eyes drop down to where his fingers are twining restlessly together. “Yeah, ok.”
There’s a fleeting moment where something wild and reckless wells up inside Henry, battering at his walls from within. Tell me you want me, it pleads. Tell me you need me and I’ll throw it all away.
He can’t, though. Doesn’t have that kind of freedom. So it’s probably best that Alex just clears his throat and gives him a thin smile as he says, “Thanks.”
It still hurts.
“Have you contacted your family?” Henry asks.
“They, uh, won’t let me have access to the internet,” Alex tells him. “Took my burner phone.”
“Of course they did,” Henry sighs. “I’ll have a new one sent to you. And you won’t be questioned about what happened. Bea and I will both make sure you’re left alone. I do need to ask that you not tell anyone any details, though.”
Alex snorts, and his lips twist into a wry smirk. “As if anyone would believe me,” he says. “Don’t worry, my lips are sealed. You have my word. ”
“Thank you,” Henry murmurs. He looks around the room, desperate to draw this out even though he’s the one leaving, but there’s nothing that bears commenting on. Almost no personal effects, no sense of Alex beyond the man in the bed. It’s just an ordinary hospital room. He clears his throat. “Can I… get anything else for you?”
“I’m gonna guess that coffee is a no-go,” Alex says, raising his eyebrows.
“Considering that they haven’t let me have a proper cup of tea, I’d wager you’re correct,” Henry agrees. “I think you’d likely be disappointed with the offerings here, anyway.”
“You’re probably right,” Alex says, huffing a little laugh, and the sight of him smiling, a real smile, makes Henry’s heart try to climb right out of his chest. Christ, this is getting harder by the second.
“In that case, could you hand me that?” Alex asks, pointing to a red zippered hoodie lying over the back of a chair nearby. “They keep this place like a fucking refrigerator.”
Henry gives a short nod and crosses the room to grab it, not expecting something out of a tourist shop with ‘LONDON’ emblazoned across the front in large block lettering. Henry can’t imagine who brought it to him. He carefully hands the hoodie to Alex, then immediately pushes his good hand into his pocket to keep himself from reaching out to touch him. His fingers brush the ring tucked away there, and it hooks itself around the end of his right pinkie finger as he fidgets with it. His resolution to keep his hands to himself fails, though, when Alex starts gingerly trying to tug on the hoodie and Henry realizes that he’s going to need help.
“Let me—” Henry says, grabbing the sleeve that Alex can’t quite reach and holding it out for him.
“Thanks,” Alex murmurs as he pushes his arm through, his eyes trained down into his lap.
Henry’s hand brushes faintly along Alex’s shoulder and down along his side as he helps adjust the hoodie, and it’s electric even through the layers of fabric. He can feel how Alex tenses at the contact as well, can see the way his lips part and hear the intake of breath. The force drawing him in becomes too much to resist, and Henry reaches out without meaning to, his fingertips skimming over warm, smooth skin as he pushes a wayward curl off Alex’s forehead. Alex’s eyelids flutter closed, those obscenely long eyelashes fanning over his cheekbones, and Henry feels himself sway closer.
Alex looks up at him, then, his huge brown eyes wide and a faint wash of color on his cheeks. “Hen—”
Henry pulls his hand away. Forces himself to step back. Swallows hard against the knot in his throat. “Best of luck with your recovery.”
Alex nods and licks his lips. “Yeah, same.”
He looks down again, and that’s probably the only reason Henry has any chance of escape. Henry turns away and puts one foot in front of the other until he’s gripping the door frame with his good hand, his knuckles going white under the strain.
“Henry?”
Looking back is a mistake. Henry was never going to be able to keep himself from doing it. “Yes?”
“What about what you want?” Alex asks, like it’s not the most devastating thing he could have said.
What Henry wants hasn’t mattered since his father died. Why should it now?
Henry knows he doesn’t keep the melancholy out of his smile. “Safe travels, Alex,” he says, then he turns and makes himself walk away.
Alex’s sneakers pound on the concrete as he runs through Prospect Park, hip hop blasting in his earbuds. His leg muscles are screaming and there’s a stitch in his side that he probably shouldn’t ignore—he’s not technically been cleared for this level of activity—but he does anyway. The pain is a welcome relief, something to take his mind off the constant ache in his chest, the one that hasn’t abated since he stepped on a plane in London.
It’s been a month of radio silence and he’s done his best to be patient, even though he’s not built for that. He’s tried to move forward, to pick up his old life and go on like nothing happened, but it hasn’t been the smoothest transition. The stab wound is the least of it. He’s jumpy and irritable, which isn’t helped by the fact that he can’t sleep. Nightmares plague him, and not just of the torture he experienced; his brain has become an expert at putting Henry in dire scenarios and making Alex helpless to stop them. He talks to his therapist, has her on fucking speed dial in fact, but it’s a slow process, and he can’t exactly tell her all of the details of what happened in Marrakesh, either.
Going back to work hasn’t helped as much as he thought it would. He can’t focus. Doesn’t trust himself to stand up in a courtroom and not suddenly lose it. Plus, he refuses to wear a shield, so he’s not allowed in one anyway. He can’t really spend time with anyone—even Nora and June—without them asking questions he can’t or doesn’t want to answer, which means he’s become a bit of a hermit.
So he runs and runs, because the alternative is sitting alone in his apartment with his thoughts and a burner phone that won’t ring, and no one wants that. Least of all him.
He’s coming up on another lap of the park and pushes himself harder, dodging around strollers and dog walkers and small children, losing himself in nothing but the rhythm of his footsteps and the sting of his necklace thumping against his sternum. A few more laps, and maybe then he can pass out without dreaming.
And then, the stitch in his side flares into blinding pain that lances though his entire body, like the knife going in all over again. He stumbles and collapses to his knees, clutching his wound in agony and immediately drawing over concerned bystanders. It feels like he’s dying, but when he manages to pull his hand away, there’s no blood darkening his shirt.
“I’m ok, I’m ok,” he gasps, trying to wave off the offers to help.
He’s not ok.
“You got lucky. You could have torn the newly healed tissue on your liver, and then you’d be bleeding internally,” the doctor tells him, with an expression that clearly conveys how disappointed in him she is. “As it is, you’ve set your recovery back by a few weeks at least.”
“Sorry,” Alex mutters, ducking his head.
“No more physical activity for two weeks, and only light activity after that to start. No running.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he agrees, even though the thought is nearly enough to send him spiraling. What the fuck is he going to do now?
Her expression softens as she looks him over, like she can see everything he’s not saying. “Alex,” she says gently, “are you ok?”
“Yeah,” he answers, forcing a smile. “I’m fine.”
He’s not fine.
Nora and June are waiting for him with matching worried expressions when he gets out of the exam room. The sight is more distressing on Nora than June—not that his best friend doesn’t worry about him, but she rarely lets it show. They take up places on either side of him, boxing him in like they’re afraid he might run; he’d make a joke about not being able to, but he doesn’t think it’d go over very well. Neither of them speak until they get back to his apartment, where they invite themselves in and settle on his couch with a disturbing solemnity.
“What is this, some kind of intervention?” Alex tries to joke, but neither of them look even a little amused.
“Go take a shower,” June says instead of answering, grabbing a magazine off his coffee table. “We’ll wait.”
Alex doesn’t take his time in the shower expressly hoping that they’ll give up and leave—but he doesn’t not do it, either. He stands in the near-scorching spray and lets it pound away the soreness in his muscles, and without really meaning to, one of his hands comes up to clench around the ring still dangling from a chain around his neck.
It’s the only memento he has of his soulmate, and the one thing that keeps a flicker of hope kindled somewhere in his chest. Sometime after Henry had left the hospital in London, Alex had pushed his hands into the pockets of his hoodie and found it: a simple gold signet ring with a script H engraved on it. He’d learned early on that having it on him makes their separation ache a little less, though the pain of it never fully goes away.
The ring is a comfort, but also a horrible reminder of how lost he is. He doesn’t know whether it’s supposed to be a promise or a token to remember his soulmate by, if he should be waiting or trying to move on with his life. Just about the only thing he’s sure of is that the way he wants Henry is absolutely not platonic. When he’s not plagued by nightmares, Alex dreams of Henry and his long fingers and his broad shoulders and his full lips pressing to overheated skin. After the bath, it’s not difficult to imagine Henry’s naked body above him or under him, and Alex’s mind runs wild with it even in his waking hours. He’s used this time to do some soul searching about his past relationships and feelings about other men and come out the other side feeling not that straight about any of it.
Henry had said their relationship could be whatever Alex wanted, and Alex wants. Wants Henry in his arms and in his bed and in his life. Mostly, right now, he just wants Henry to fucking call him.
Nora and June are still waiting in his living room when he comes out in a t-shirt and sweatpants, of course, and when he tries to go take a seat in a chair opposite them, Nora snags his wrist and pulls him down onto the couch between them. So it’s going to be like that.
“Look, I know the running thing was stupid,” he starts immediately, hoping to head this conversation off before it can go somewhere he doesn’t want it to. “I’ll be more careful, ok?”
“It’s not about the running, Alex,” June says. “You disappeared for a week with barely a word and came back stabbed. You’re obviously struggling, but you won’t let anyone help you. We tried to give you space, but I can’t watch this anymore.” She reaches out and takes his hand, weaving their fingers together. “You know you can tell us anything, right?”
A humorless bark of laughter escapes Alex before he can stop it. “That’s just it. I can’t tell you. I can’t tell anyone, and the one person I could talk to about it isn’t speaking to me.”
June and Nora exchange confused frowns. “Your soulmate?”
“Yeah,” Alex huffs, flopping back into the couch and letting his head tip up to stare at the ceiling. “He said he’d be in contact after things settled down over there, but it’s been a month and…” He makes a vague motion with his free hand. “Nothing.”
“Have you tried contacting him?” Nora asks.
“Can’t. I don’t have a number for him.” Alex takes a breath that shudders in his chest and squeezes his eyes closed. “I don’t know how much longer I can take this. How did y’all put up with living in different cities for a full year?”
“What do you mean?” June asks.
Alex’s hand reaches up to press over the ache in his chest, and he finds the ring under his shirt without intending to, his fist closing around it automatically. “It hurts. Does it always hurt this much?”
“It never hurt, Alex,” Nora tells him, and that makes him open his eyes and look at them again. “When we were apart it was just kind of… a tug, I guess. A reminder that she was out there. A longing to be back together. But it was never uncomfortable. It certainly never hurt.”
June nods her agreement, and Alex frowns. “Then what the fuck is wrong with me?”
“Maybe your bonding wasn’t completed or something,” Nora suggests.
“Is that a thing that can happen?”
Nora shrugs. “Maybe. I dunno. Never heard of it, but I’ve also never heard of this.”
“You could wear a shield,” June puts in, then raises a hand when he opens his mouth to reply. “I know how you feel about them, but people do sometimes wear them when they’re apart to block that feeling.”
“My soulmate’s probably been wearing one,” Alex says, more dejectedly than he intends to let out.
“Nah, you’d know,” Nora says.
Alex frowns at her. “Huh?”
“Just like they block swapping before you’re bonded, the shields block that ‘connected’ feeling afterwards. On both sides,” Nora explains. “If he were wearing a shield, you wouldn’t feel it either.”
“So… what does that mean?” Alex asks, more confused than ever. “If this feels the same to him, then why isn’t he wearing one?”
“Why aren’t you?” June counters.
“I don’t know,” he answers. Saying he doesn’t like shields is a cop-out and she’d know it, but he can’t really put his reasons into words. Because he’s a stubborn son of a bitch. Because he wants the connection even if it’s painful. Because somehow the thought of not having it is unimaginably worse than the ache of separation. “Because I want to feel him,” Alex murmurs as he fidgets with the ring. His voice is painfully small when he asks, “Do you think it means he wants me too?”
June’s expression cracks with sympathy and she pulls him into her arms. “I don’t know, lil’ bit. There’s only one person who can tell you that.”
“Which gets me nowhere, since I can’t even try to ask him,” Alex sighs.
“What about the woman?” Nora chimes in. “The one you talked to before.”
“They took the burner phone I was using, so I don’t still have her—”
Alex’s voice cuts off. Yes, most of his contact with B had been through his first burner phone, but there had been a few calls at the beginning that weren’t. June makes a somewhat flummoxed noise when he bolts out of her embrace, scrambling for his phone and immediately scrolling back through his call history. He doesn’t even have to go that far back: there, like a beacon, is that UK number that Henry had called when they first swapped. Maybe it won’t work. Maybe B doesn’t even still have it. But he has to try.
He decides to send a text first, using the phone that had been delivered to his hospital room in London not long after Henry had left, and hems and haws for too long over what to say. In the end, he goes with a simple, b, it’s alex. can we talk? and holds his breath.
He’s certainly not expecting the phone to ring not even five minutes later. Leaving Nora and June on the couch, Alex retreats to his bedroom to answer it and absolutely does not acknowledge how his hands shake as he presses the accept call button.
“‘Bea’ is short for Beatrice, you know,” she says when it connects. “It’s not a code. It’s just my name.”
The knot in his chest loosens, just a little, at the sound of her voice on the end of the line. He didn’t realize how good it would be to hear from her after everything they went through together. There’s something comforting about the dry humor in her tone, about the way he can picture the wry twist of her lips.
“How was I supposed to know that?” he returns, smiling for what feels like the first time in a month.
“Mm, I suppose I should have expected that,” she allows, “given your propensity to make everything into a Bond movie trope.”
“Fuck off, I did not,” Alex protests, with a short laugh. “Fuck, it’s good to hear your voice.”
Bea pauses a beat, then asks, “Is everything ok, Alex?”
His next exhale is unsteady, and he doesn’t kid himself that it wasn’t obvious. “Not really,” he admits, his voice thick. “I miss him so much that I don’t know what to do with it, Bea. I don’t know if he’s on a mission or out of contact or something, and I know you probably can’t tell me, but is he— is he ok?”
“He’s not on a mission,” Bea says flatly. He can hear the frown in her voice. “He’s been on medical leave since you left.”
Alex’s heart falls to somewhere near feet. “Oh,” he manages.
“Are you telling me he hasn’t called you?”
“Er, no. I haven’t heard from him since he left the hospital.”
“Jesus Christ,” she huffs under her breath. “I had no idea, Alex. He’s been… well, his recovery hasn’t been easy. I thought it was just one of his dark periods, but he’s been even more withdrawn than usual. I should have known something else was going on.”
There’s a rustling over the line, then the faint sound of footsteps.
“What are you doing?” Alex asks.
“I’m going to go put my foot up his arse and tell him to call you,” Bea answers firmly.
“Wait,” he says, and the footsteps stop. He takes a deep breath. “Look, if he doesn’t want… this, then I won’t force him. I just need to know.”
Bea pauses, then lets out a soft sigh. “Alex, do you know what happens after a field officer bonds with their soulmate?”
Alex isn’t sure how he would know, but it doesn’t seem like the question is meant to be rhetorical. “No?”
“There are three options, really,” she tells him. “Sometimes they’ll recruit their soulmate to join the Service. More commonly, they’ll cut ties and wear a permanent shield so they won’t feel the connection anymore.” She pauses again, but it’s clear she’s not done. “I’m going to be blunt, here. Henry has, historically, been terrible at allowing himself to want things and even worse at allowing himself to have them. But if he didn’t want this, didn’t want you, then he’d already be wearing a shield. He just… needs to be convinced that he can have it.”
It’s a lot of information to take in, frankly, and it does nothing to help untangle the messy knot of Alex’s emotions. He’d spent most of the past month hoping that Henry couldn’t contact him for some reason and fearing that Henry was simply avoiding him, and getting confirmation of the latter makes an unpleasant cocktail of anger and hurt twist in his gut. He doesn’t understand how Henry could go through what they did—how he could feel what Alex felt during their bonding, how he could promise that he wouldn’t leave Alex, how he could slip a fucking ring in Alex’s pocket—and then do this. Somehow, it doesn’t make Alex feel any less desperate to be with him, though.
“What’s the third option?” is what he finally asks.
“Huh?”
“You said there were three options.”
“Oh, well. They leave the Service,” she answers simply.
Alex chews on his lower lip, not wanting to even let himself think about the possibility. He has to ask, though. “Do you… do you think Henry would ever consider that?”
“I think you should talk to him,” Bea says gently. Then she continues, a thread of steel in her voice, “I’ll make sure he calls if I have to stand there—”
“No,” he interrupts, making the decision before he’s even fully conscious of it. “I need to see him. I’m coming there.”
Henry’s hands move slowly over the keyboard, picking out the notes of the Chopin Nocturne at half speed as though he were a novice. He’s stiff, unpracticed, yet even after months of not playing, that’s not what’s keeping him in check. His right hand wants to speed off with the familiar melodies, but his left is weak and clumsy, moving awkwardly and not entirely how he wills it to.
The piano had felt like a ridiculous indulgence for someone who spends most of his time traveling, but nothing else soothes the hollowness when he comes back from a mission. A balm for a tattered soul; something he needs now, more than ever. As he warms up, the melodies flow through his veins and out through his fingers, slightly dampened by the steady drum of rain outside his sparsely-furnished flat. It’s not long before he starts to settle into it, forgetting why he’d been taking it slow to begin with. It feels good like nothing has for the past month, it feels—
Thunk.
The wrong note pulls him out of his reverie, an arpeggio in the left hand he couldn’t stretch far enough for, and Henry frowns. Tries again. Thunk. Starts a little earlier to gain his momentum. Thunk. Again, like the outcome will be any different. His hand is starting to ache with the strain. Thunk.
He’s so wrapped up in the music and his growing frustration that he doesn’t hear the sound of the front door opening, or even footsteps on the old wooden floors. Instead, he feels the moment when he’s no longer alone. Feels a familiar presence behind him. Feels the ache in his chest ease for the first time in a month. It’s impossible, though, it has to be a trick his mind is playing on him. Maybe if he ignores it and keeps playing, it’ll go away.
Thunk.
There’s a tremor in Henry’s left hand when he pulls it away from the keys, and he closes his eyes as he grabs it with his right, pushing his thumb into the throbbing knot of pain deep in his palm. The presence does not, in fact, go away, nor does the strange, wonderful feeling of completeness, all the more terrifying because he knows exactly what’s causing it.
For a long moment, nothing fills the silence other than the hiss of the rain.
“How did you get in?” Henry asks, finally, without turning.
“Bea let me in.”
Christ, just his voice is enough to make Henry tremble. This is why, in the end, Henry knew he couldn’t call, knew that just hearing him would demolish all of his resolve. He tries, desperately, to get ahold of his emotions, but it’s a futile effort. “Of course she did. Is she…?”
“She didn’t stick around.”
“That’s… probably for the best,” Henry mutters. He sighs, wincing slightly at the dull spike of pain as his ribs protest the extra movement. A grim reminder of what he’s been avoiding. “What are you doing here, Alex?”
The man himself scoffs softly. “You can’t seriously be asking that.” He shifts a little, and the floor under him creaks. “I know you feel it, too.”
Henry very nearly laughs. Feeling it isn’t the problem. Yes, he feels the ache in his chest that has nothing to do with his broken ribs. He feels Alex’s absence like a yawning chasm, an emptiness that can’t be filled, a phantom injury whose hurt never abates. But Henry has felt a great many things in his life besides this, and he’s gotten used to bearing them in silence. It’s never changed a damned thing, anyway.
“And you think that makes any difference?” he replies bitterly, finally turning to look at the man standing in the entrance to his living room.
Only a single lamp is lit on top of the piano, and its warm glow casts Alex in gold. He’s even more stunning than Henry remembers, despite the fact that he’s soaking wet, having apparently never heard of an umbrella or indeed even a raincoat. His curls are plastered to his forehead and dripping onto his face, and he might have looked pathetic but for the defiance in his eyes. It’s the same look he’d worn the first time they’d truly met, the one that Henry had seen on his own face and known immediately he’d never survive this man.
“Yeah, I do, actually,” Alex says, setting his jaw as he folds his arms over his chest. “We’re soulmates.”
“That doesn’t necessarily mean anything,” Henry counters. “It’s no guarantee of happiness, no guarantee of—”
“Forever. Believe me, I know,” Alex interrupts, something of Henry’s bitterness creeping into his own voice, and it reminds Henry of how much they still don’t know about each other. “But you didn’t even give us a chance, Henry.”
“No,” Henry agrees softly, “I didn’t.”
Alex shakes his head and looks off across the room. “You know, I’ve spent so long trying to figure out what it meant, if maybe Samir Johnston was right when he said you just didn’t want me”—Henry can’t stop the little sound of dismay that escapes him at that, but Alex keeps going—“but if that were true, you’d be wearing a shield. You wouldn’t have left this.”
He glares at Henry as he hooks a thumb under the chain around his neck and tugs on it, and Henry doesn’t need to look to see what’s on the end of it. By habit, Henry reaches for the pinkie finger of his left hand, for the absent ring that’s apparently spent the last month around Alex’s neck, and feels the fresh scarring there instead. Part of him had wondered if Alex would even find it, if it would mean anything to him. He’d imagined Alex keeping it in a drawer or perhaps on a bedside table, but never, ever that he’d wear it.
It shouldn’t affect him so much—seeing it there, knowing it’s been lying next to Alex’s heart. And yet.
Henry turns away, gets up and crosses over to the window, stares out of it even though it’s nearly pitch black outside. Rain drops hit the pane and glimmer in the lamplight as they slide down the glass. “It’s not that I don’t want you, Alex,” he confesses to the darkness.
“You sure have a funny way of showing it,” Alex replies, all wounded recrimination.
“Alex, I’ve taken down arms dealers and drug cartels, survived a week alone in the desert and fought my way out of mountain fortresses, stared down the barrels of too many guns to count,” Henry says defeatedly, before he finally looks back at his soulmate. “Believe me when I say that walking away from you that day was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
Even from across the room, he can see the shimmer in Alex’s eyes as he says, unsteadily, “Then why did you?”
“Because it was the only way I could think of to keep you safe,” Henry returns, desperate to make him understand. “You’ve already been tortured because of me. Within minutes of our first meeting, you were stabbed. I couldn’t let something like that happen again.”
Alex lets out a wet, bitter laugh and shakes his head. “Thought I’d made it pretty clear what my choice was between you and staying safe, sweetheart.”
“Alex, please,” Henry sighs.
“If it was always going to turn out like this, why lie? Why say you’d contact me and give me that hope?”
“It wasn’t a lie.” That gets him an incredulous look, well-earned. “Or at least, it wasn’t meant to be. I thought, at first, that maybe I could have this— this connection. That it would be ok because you didn’t want me like that. That I would be allowed to have a small part of you and it would be enough. But after I left you, I spent days in debriefs and meetings, and over and over again I was reminded of what was expected of me. Of my duty. And, worst of all, of what could happen to you if I let you be part of my life.” Henry takes a deep breath, his hand coming up unconsciously to rub the scar on his forearm where his implanted shield had been. “Cutting you off was never my intention, but it became my only option. I thought… I was told that the pain of our separation would lessen eventually, and I assumed that you would move on. That you’d be better off without me.”
Silence stretches between them for a long moment as Alex stares at him. “Well, it hasn’t,” he says finally. “And I’m not.”
He crosses over to Henry, coming within arm’s reach, and even just that proximity is dizzying. Henry aches to reach out and touch him, to draw Alex into his arms and never let go—because he knows, unwaveringly, that that’s what will happen if they touch.
“It’s been miserable,” Alex tells him bluntly, looking up at him through wet, clumping eyelashes. “Feeling you. Missing you so much I can hardly breathe sometimes. And that’s not even adding in the nightmares or the PTSD. I needed someone to talk to, H.”
The words are like a gut punch, and Henry nearly crumples. He’d made a desperate, foolish attempt to protect his soulmate, but he’d lacked the strength to cut off the connection entirely and, in doing so, he’d only made things worse. “I’m so sorry, Alex. I never meant to hurt you. I can wear a shield—”
“I don’t want you to wear a fucking shield,” Alex bites out, his eyes flashing as he steps closer, pushing further into Henry’s space. “You told me that this could be whatever I wanted it to be,” he says, low and fierce. He reaches up, splays a hand over Henry’s sternum—the contact blazing hot through his shirt—and leans in until their faces are centimeters apart. “And I want you, Henry. In every sense of the word.”
Henry closes his eyes and tries to draw in a steadying breath, desperate to keep some measure of self-control, but every cell in his body is screaming at him now, every heartbeat a steady throb of Alex. Even just the single point of contact is nearly overwhelming as his body cries out for more, for his soulmate, shredding Henry’s resolve nearly to tatters. In another world, in another life, it would be so simple to give himself over to the feeling, to let the two halves of their souls finish twining together until nothing can rend them asunder.
But for Henry—bound by duty and obligation, to his country and to his family—for them, nothing about this is simple.
“I don’t know if I can give you that,” he whispers miserably.
“You can,” Alex insists, stubborn and tenacious and wonderful, and there’s the ghost of a grin curving his lips now, like every second they’re touching is giving him more and more confidence. Every second, further tearing down Henry’s walls. “You can because you’re already mine, and I’m already yours, and there’s nothing in this fucking world that anyone can do to change that.”
“Christ, Alex,” Henry breathes as he sways forward, tugged ever closer by the bond between them, until the last thread of what’s left of his meager restraint snaps.
He reaches up and pushes his hand into soft, familiar curls, reveling in the way they twist around his fingers, and pulls Alex in even as he dips his head to close the last of the distance between them. The kiss is a burst of oxygen over the ember that lay dormant since their bonding, banked into a tentative flame by Alex’s arrival and now erupting into a blazing inferno that lights up every atom of Henry’s being. It’s an echo of their bonding at the resort, an aftershock that nearly matches it in intensity, and Henry gives himself over to the fire. To the slide of Alex’s lips and the way he opens up immediately, to the push of his tongue and the cut of his teeth, to the grip of his hands on Henry’s waist and at his back, pulling their bodies together.
Being with your soulmate is supposed to be different, but Henry never imagined it would be like this. That it would feel like his DNA was being rewritten, that every swipe of Alex’s tongue was filling in letters he didn’t even know were missing, that their stories were twining together into something new and entirely unique to them. That Alex would become as essential to his survival as food or water or oxygen.
Henry’s sure it can’t get any more intense, but then Alex is yanking the tails of his shirt out of his trousers and pressing his hands up underneath against Henry’s bare skin, and even that is enough to make Henry’s mind fuzz out into static. Abruptly he needs more—more contact, more skin, more Alex—and when his brain comes back online, he finds himself making a very concerted effort to pull Alex’s damp shirt over his head.
“Fuck, baby,” Alex moans as he pulls their hips together by Henry’s belt loops, and that pet name is not ok at all.
Henry lets out a sound like he’s been wounded and captures Alex’s mouth with another kiss that goes on for some unknowable amount of time; Henry wouldn’t be surprised if he came out of it and found days had passed. He gives up on the shirt, because right now removing his lips from Alex’s skin long enough to pull it over his head feels like an impossible task, and instead moves his hands to Alex’s belt.
“My doctor just told me no physical activity for two weeks,” Alex gasps when Henry shifts to suck a mark under the angle of his jaw, though his own fingers are in the middle of deftly unbuttoning Henry’s shirt.
“I’ve only just been able to fully lie down again,” Henry huffs in return.
“Do you want to stop?”
“Not a chance,” Henry breathes. In truth, neither of them should do anything to exert themselves, but he frankly doesn’t care. Right now, Alex could crack every one of his ribs again so he could climb inside Henry’s chest and Henry would thank him for it. He takes a deep breath, filling his senses with Alex, and his lips brush Alex’s skin as he murmurs, “I need you.”
“Fucking same,” Alex agrees enthusiastically. “We can be ca— careful,” he moans as Henry bites down gently on the column of muscle under his ear.
Henry laughs into the crook of his neck, then finally pulls back to look at him again. “Can we?”
Alex’s grin is huge and utterly wicked, mischief dancing in his eyes. “Gonna have to be, baby, because if I don’t get to touch every inch of your skin in the next ten minutes I might actually die.”
“That can be arranged,” Henry says breathlessly, already tugging him toward the bedroom.
Even if neither of them are particularly keen on taking it slow, their bodies have other ideas; Alex winces when Henry finally pulls his shirt over his head, and Henry’s ribs protest the removal of his own. The lingering ache is all but forgotten, though, when Alex pulls their bodies together again, bare chest to bare chest, and the increased skin contact is like a healing balm. Alex can’t seem to get enough, either; he kisses Henry deeply as his palms slide over Henry’s back, apparently unwilling to leave even a centimeter of space between them. Which Henry is all for, except after all this time he’s rather desperate to see all of Alex.
“Trousers,” he mutters against Alex’s lips.
“This whole having to stop touching you to take our clothes off thing is bogus,” Alex complains.
“Only a moment, love, just—”
Henry hooks his thumbs into Alex’s trousers and underwear and peels them over his hips in one go, pushing them down until Alex kicks them off, then immediately breaks his promise of only a moment. Because Alex finally, completely naked before him is a spectacular thing, and Henry can’t stop looking. He’s seen Alex’s broad, muscular chest and devastating abs before in a mirror, but it’s different now, and not just because Henry’s eyes can follow the trail of hair down from his navel to his groin, to where Alex’s cock hangs hard and heavy between his legs. Henry curls his hand around Alex’s hip and presses a thumb to the jut of bone there as he drinks in the sight like a dying man in the desert, and Alex, surprisingly, lets him.
“H?” he prompts eventually, snapping Henry out of his reverie.
“Sorry,” Henry blinks as he breathes out an unsteady breath. “You’re so bloody gorgeous.”
“You act like you haven’t seen it all before,” Alex returns with a smirk. “I know I left you in a towel on that one swap.”
Henry feels his face heat and he lets out a scoff. “I didn’t look, I’ll have you know.”
“Baby, I had to wash your body, you’re totally fine,” Alex tells him, tugging him forward into another kiss. “I appreciate the gallantry, though.”
“Thank you for that,” Henry murmurs. “For all of it. I can’t imagine how difficult it was for you to be thrown into that situation, and you still did so much. You took care of me.” He raises a hand to Alex’s face, brushing his fingers featherlight over the edge of Alex’s lower lip. “If it weren’t for you…”
“If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t have gotten caught in the first place,” Alex says, a little smile playing on his lips. He stares up at Henry, his eyes big and earnest. “I did what I had to.”
Henry would very much like to argue that most people wouldn’t do a fraction of what Alex did, in fact—not even for their soulmate. But Alex kisses him again, tugging him along by his belt loops as he walks backward toward the bed, and Henry gives himself over to it. He has a lifetime to tell Alex how exceptional he is, now, and he will.
Alex drops down onto the bed when his calves hit the edge of it, then pushes himself further up the mattress and lets his thighs splay apart as he reclines on his elbows, looking like pure sin as he smirks up at Henry. “You can do so much more than just look now, baby,” he says, his voice low and husky. “What are you waiting for?”
What, indeed? Henry sheds his own trousers and underwear as fast as possible and climbs onto the bed after him, letting his body slot between Alex’s thighs. He tells himself he feels nothing about how Alex immediately pulls him as close as possible, hooking a leg over one of Henry’s, or how it feels to trail his fingers and lips over so much smooth, flawless skin, but it’s a lie. He feels everything about it.
Despite Alex’s earlier assertion, Henry is the one that does the exploring, cataloging every spot that makes Alex hiss and moan but never lingering overlong. It’s only when he gets to the pink scar on Alex’s side just below his ribs that he pauses, fingertips brushing the edges of it, and Alex’s next exhale is shaky when Henry presses a reverent kiss to the recently-knit tissue.
“I’d do it again in a heartbeat,” Alex breathes. “All of it.”
Henry looks up to meet dark eyes, a fierceness burning in them even half-hooded with desire, and he understands, truly, but that doesn’t temper his own determination. “You won’t,” he returns resolutely. “I’m never letting something like this happen to you again, as long as I breathe.”
Alex exhales unsteadily, and when he says, “I love you,” the words are apparently a surprise even to him. His eyes go wide and panicked, like that was something he shouldn’t have said, like he hadn’t already said it, in so many words, moments before. “Shit, that was too—”
Henry climbs up and silences him with a kiss, and Alex lets out a small helpless whimper before he gives himself over to it. He looks a little dazed when Henry pulls back, his eyes roving wildly over Henry’s face like he’s trying to read Henry’s secrets. Joke’s on him; Henry has none. Not from the other half of himself.
“I know,” Henry says simply. “I love you too.”
“Oh,” Alex breathes as a brilliant smile creeps onto his face, and then they’re kissing again, slick and messy and desperate.
Henry gives into the urge to fully blanket Alex with his own body, to rub his aching cock into the crease of Alex’s hip and revel in the feeling of Alex’s precome smearing against his stomach. Alex’s hands are in his hair and sliding over his shoulders and grabbing at his waist as he gasps into the kiss—
And that, apparently, is a step too far. The steady ache of his ribs that Henry has been trying to ignore lances into a spike of pain that’s nearly blinding, and he jerks back, pulling away as he tries to catch his breath without breathing too deeply, which is not fucking easy.
“Henry, what’s wrong?” Alex asks, his eyes wide and worried. “Are you—”
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Henry says, unfortunately unconvincingly.
Alex chews on his swollen lower lip, which is not helpful, actually, because it only makes Henry want to sink his own teeth into it. “Maybe we shouldn’t do this after all,” he sighs. “I don’t want to hurt you, baby.”
It’s a reasonable suggestion, so Henry doesn’t know why it’s so bloody devastating. “No, no, we can,” he insists. “Just give me a moment to think.” He sits back and tips his head up to stare at the ceiling as he considers their options. They need something that will allow him to be upright, that won’t put a strain on his chest or be too taxing for Alex, either, they need…
He looks down again at Alex stretched out under him as Henry straddles his hips. Well, something like this, actually.
Henry grins, leaning down again to place his hands on either side of Alex’s head, and presses a syrupy slow kiss to his lips before he asks, “How do you feel about me riding you?”
Alex’s long lashes flutter open as he blinks rapidly, and he swallows audibly. “V-very positively,” he stammers, nodding so vigorously his curls bounce.
There’s some shifting and adjusting as they decide it would be best for Alex to be propped up in more of a sitting position against the headboard and Henry retrieves the lube from his bedside table. His own patience is wearing thing as he opens himself up with more speed and less care than he might otherwise, hovering over Alex’s lap with his left hand weakly gripping Alex’s shoulder as Alex watches him with a vaguely gobsmacked look on his face.
“Jesus fuck, baby, you look…” he says, trailing off as his hands skim over the tops of Henry’s thighs and around his hips to palm his arse. He pushes one further, fingertips brushing where Henry’s got two fingers buried deep in himself, and they both groan.
“Christ, Alex,” Henry grits out, “I might not last.”
“Hilarious that you think I’m going to do any better,” Alex counters, a little hysterically. “Condom?”
“I’m clean,” Henry tells him. “Testing is a standard part of the post-mission medical follow-up. Of course, if you’d rather—”
“Nope,” Alex cuts in firmly. “I’m good. Also clean. Desperately want to feel you. So.”
He makes a little gesture that Henry supposes means by all means or maybe just get a move on, and either way, he doesn’t need the encouragement. Once he finds the lube in the sheets, he’s slicking up Alex’s cock and lining himself up, and he takes a deep breath, more to steady himself than anything else. Alex misreads it as hesitation.
“Are you sure this won’t hurt you?” he all but whispers, staring reverently up at him with his hands resting lightly on Henry’s hips.
“I’m sure,” Henry answers, which isn’t 100% true. He’s sure he wants it anyway, though.
Alex lets out a little punched-out sound as Henry starts sinking slowly onto his cock, and Henry finds it much more difficult than he expected to exert this kind of control in the moment. Somehow, the whole soulmate thing still has the ability to catch him off guard, because Henry’s been fucked plenty of times before and it’s never felt like this. Like a heat that grows deep in his gut as Alex slowly fills him, flames licking up his spine with every tiny shift of Alex’s hips and every centimeter more he takes. The fact that Henry’s panting by the time he finally bottoms out has less to do with the trembling in his thighs and more to do with the fact that he’s on fire, unsure of how much more he can handle yet desperate for it anyway.
The high-pitched whine that escapes from Alex’s throat, his head thrown back and eyes screwed closed as his chest heaves with the effort of staying still, suggests he’s going through something similar.
“Alex,” Henry breathes, sliding his hand up behind Alex’s neck and pulling him forward until their foreheads meet. The shift in position makes Alex’s cock settle somehow deeper, and they both groan. “Are you—”
“Stellar,” Alex grits out unconvincingly. “About to fucking lose it, so if you feel up to moving—”
Henry rocks his hips forward, and Alex cuts off with a whimper. Then he does it again, and Alex tentatively moves his own hips, and before long they hit a rhythm. After all their desperation to get here, they go impossibly slow, their bodies moving together in an undulating roll like waves in the deep ocean, and it’s partly out of necessity but partly because it feels too important to rush. Henry tips his head and captures Alex’s mouth in an equally languid kiss, and the fire within them burns on, not an inferno but a steady blaze, warm and crackling and eternal.
Henry’s orgasm is almost a surprise, a bubbling over of his building pleasure that comes between one breath and the next. He gasps and shifts into it, chasing the lingering waves that surge through him, and that’s apparently enough to make Alex stiffen under him, fingertips digging into the meat of Henry’s arse as his movements become sharper and more desperate.
“Hen— I need—”
“C’mon, love,” Henry murmurs as he continues to move, lips brushing the edge of his jaw, “take it. Whatever you need.”
Alex buries his face in Henry’s neck, and a few more jerky thrusts, the force of them sending jolts through Henry somewhere between pleasure and pain, are all that it takes before he feels the heat of Alex spilling inside him.
“Jesus Christ,” Alex exhales heavily, his hot breath washing over Henry’s sticky skin. “That was…”
“Mm,” Henry agrees. So far beyond any of his previous sexual experiences so as to render words wholly insufficient, in fact.
Henry isn’t even fully aware of how much their activity had taken out of him until he tries to climb off of Alex and nearly collapses next to him, wincing as he hits the mattress just a little too hard. Fortunately, Alex seems to be in better shape, and he practically leaps into action, cleaning them up and fussing over Henry until Henry tells him to just lay down for christ’s sake. He settles onto his good side facing Henry, who’s lying on his back, and presses cautiously against Henry’s side, tangling their legs together and generally touching him as much as possible without actually laying on top of him.
Even now, after everything they’ve just done, they can’t seem to get enough skin-to-skin contact. Alex’s mere presence makes everything feel right in a way Henry never even knew it could feel, and he doesn’t know how he was able to resist this for so long. Henry trails an idle hand over Alex’s skin, bronzed and practically glowing in the lamplight, until his fingertips find the warm metal still glinting around his neck.
“D’you want that back?” Alex asks as Henry hooks the tip of his index finger through the ring.
Henry shakes his head and drops the ring, which settles next to Alex’s heart. “No. It’s yours.”
The corner of Alex’s mouth tugs upward, but a moment later, a little wrinkle forms between his eyebrows. “What now?”
A natural question, and one Henry doesn’t have a good answer to.
“I don’t really know,” he murmurs as he lets his fingers tangle in Alex’s curls. “But we have some time to figure it out. I’m supposed to come off medical leave soon, but they wouldn’t send me back into the field just yet.”
“Bea told me that sometimes spies recruit their soulmates. Which I thought was crazy at first. But now…” He stares at Henry for a moment, eyes roving over his face as if trying to read his reaction. “If that’s what it takes to be with you, then I’ll do it.”
Christ, this man. Just when Henry thinks Alex can’t surprise him, he does it again. Henry would give just about anything to be able to pull him into a hug right now. Instead, he settles for cupping Alex’s cheek with his hand and leaning in to press a brief kiss to his lips where they’re pursed into a tiny, determined frown.
“Oh, darling, no,” he says. “I haven’t changed my mind. I won’t let them get their hands on you. I can’t. But I also can’t let you go.”
“So what does that mean?”
Henry sighs and stares up at the ceiling. “The Service has been a part of me for almost my entire life. I always thought I’d be in it until I died. Never let myself imagine that I could leave.” He turns his head to meet Alex’s deep brown eyes. “Until I found a reason to.”
“Really?” Alex asks, a hopeful little smile playing on his lips.
“It won’t be easy,” Henry admits. “She’s not going to let me go without a fight. But I won’t give up, I swear.” He reaches for Alex’s hand and links their fingers together, then pulls it up to press a kiss to the back of it. “I’ve never found something I want to fight for more.”
Notes:
Decided to put the epilogue in it's own chapter, so continue on!
Chapter 7: Epilogue
Notes:
Make sure you haven't missed chapter 6—it and the epilogue were uploaded together.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Two Years Later
No one ever tells you how much your life changes after bonding with your soulmate. Then again, Alex has discovered that most people don’t have soul bonds like theirs.
On good days, Alex merely misses him; he feels their connection as a comforting warmth and the tug of his absence as a more ordinary kind of longing, the kind soothed by a text or a call. There are bad days, though, where the separation aches—not like it did in that month after Marrakesh, but enough to leave Alex listless and sullen. Those are the days when Nora and June know to come over with boxes of helados and surround him on the sofa while they watch Bake Off because it reminds Alex of him. By now, Alex has done enough reading on soulmate psychology to know that the phenomenon has a name—Acute Separation Disorder—and is relatively rare among bonded soulmates. Just their luck, then. The treatment, of course, is to wear a shield, but neither of them ever do. Just like after Marrakesh, not feeling him is worse than anything else.
Today is a good day, perhaps because Alex knows Henry is finally on his way home to him. The weather is too nice to stay inside—plus he’ll just end up stress cleaning if he stays in the apartment—so Alex takes some work to a cafe near the park, orders a latte with cinnamon, and lets himself soak up the sun. He spends more time watching dogs in the park than doing actual work, but it’s ok. He’s put in plenty of extra hours lately in Henry’s absence and he’s ahead, which is a good thing because once Henry gets there Alex isn’t letting him out of bed for a week.
Well, maybe to eat. Or maybe they’ll just order delivery and eat it in bed, too.
He’s poking at a case on his laptop, editing a few words here and there but not really adding anything, when he feels it. Like a cool breeze on a scorching day, a stretch when you’ve been hunched over and cramped for too long, the first lungful of air after holding your breath underwater. The tug in his chest urges him to get up and look around, to move toward the source, but Alex willfully ignores it. Instead, he stares at his laptop screen without really seeing the words on it and lets himself feel the tension lessen, like slack coming out of the line, slowly, steadily.
The rumble of a rolling suitcase combined with the snap of dress shoes on the sidewalk grows steadily closer behind him, until they come to a stop next to his table.
“Thought you weren’t getting in until later, baby,” Alex says nonchalantly, without looking up, playing it cool like every part of him isn’t screaming to reach out.
“I might have canceled a brunch so I could catch an earlier flight,” Henry admits. “Pez will forgive me, I’m sure.”
Alex sits back in his chair and looks up at him, then, and his breath catches in his throat, same as it does every time he sees Henry after they’ve been apart for a stretch of time. Henry is nothing short of stunning with his wind-tousled hair and his pale gray suit, the first few buttons of his shirt left undone to show off his tempting neck and sinful fucking collarbones. He’s practically glowing, though whether that’s the golden tan he’s picked up or something else, Alex can’t be sure.
“Wow, you must be really hung up on me,” Alex says with a smirk. “Embarrassing for you.”
Henry laughs, and the rich, musical sound of it lights up Alex from the inside like a Roman candle. He expects a witty rejoinder, but instead Henry bends down, slides a hand into Alex’s hair, and kisses him soundly, deeply, and probably too explicitly for a Brooklyn street in the middle of the afternoon. Then he pulls back, leaving Alex utterly dazed, and steps around to sit neatly in the opposite seat.
It might be a minute or two before Alex’s brain comes back online, long enough for Henry to order a tea, and when he does, he finds Henry looking at him with an extremely smug smirk of his own.
“What was that about being embarrassed, love?”
“I hate you,” Alex huffs.
“Mm,” Henry hums doubtfully. He flashes a smile at the waitress when she returns with his tea, taking his time opening the tea bag and dunking it into the hot water, but he also tangles their legs together under the table.
Something settles in Alex’s chest, a gear locking into place, and he gives up on trying to suppress the no doubt ridiculously smitten smile trying to fight its way onto his face. “How was California, baby?” he asks, closing his laptop and sliding his hand across the table.
Henry reaches out and twines their fingers together, matching his smile. “Good, but exhausting. You know, after everything I did for the Service, I never imagined a book tour could be so draining.”
“It’s all the meet and greets,” Alex says knowingly. Henry can get a little tense in those situations, particularly when well-meaning bookstores set up the signing table somewhere without any clear exits.
“Public speaking,” Henry says with a shudder. “Spies aren’t used to that much attention.”
“Well, you won’t have to deal with that anymore. Until you write the next one, that is.”
“I suppose so.” Henry stirs his tea with a spoon and takes a delicate sip, settling it back on the saucer before he speaks again. “I missed you.”
“I know,” Alex replies, smiling softly at him. As if there could be any doubt; as if both of them hadn’t said it many times over texts and FaceTime calls over the last few weeks. “You wanna get out of here?”
Henry cocks an eyebrow at him. “I just ordered this,” he says, gesturing to his tea.
“We’ve got tea at home. Also lube.”
“Christ,” Henry swears under his breath as his cheeks turn a pretty shade of pink. “You’re a menace.”
“Your menace,” Alex points out. He slides his fingers gently along the scars on Henry’s left hand until the tips of them brush against the skin-warmed metal of the ring encircling his third finger.
“Yes,” Henry agrees.
The smile in his brilliant blue eyes is just for Alex.
Notes:
Thank you so much for all your love for this work and all your screaming and incredible compliments in the comments; you've truly blown me away. This was one of those fics I wasn't sure would really 'work' or that people would vibe with because they don't actually meet until most of the way through the fic, and I'm so happy to be proven wrong.
Once again, you can find me/the cover art for this fic on twitter or tumblr. That's also the best way to keep up with what I'm up to next, and I'm always happy to chat and get asks about this or any of my fics!
Have a hankering for more firstprince spy action? Check out my other spy AUs:
Nova, Baby
So Close to Something Better Left Unknown
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