Chapter Text
The remainder of the day's journey was passed in an awkward silence, broken only by Reed's cursing as they were caught in a blizzard and had to, twice, dig the car out of drifting snow. To make matters worse, it seemed that every driver on the road that day had decided to wait out the storm in the hotels and inns along the way—so they had difficulty finding their last night's accommodation. Finally, they pulled in at a lacklustre motel just in time to secure the one remaining room, which, Tucker mused, just HAD to be a double.
Too tired and tense to care anymore, they accepted it and Reed staggered straight into the bathroom: "Don't think I'll bother with dinner tonight. I just want to get clean."
Tucker's stomach growled "Yeah. Well ah think ah'll order in pizza then have a soak. Sure ya don' wan' anything?"
Already halfway out of his clothes, Reed shook his head and yawned. "No thanks. Bath then bed'll do for me."
Tucker was dozing in front of the TV when his bodyguard emerged from the bathroom, a towel wrapped around his slender waist. Groggily, he dumped the empty pizza box then began to shed his clothing as he headed for the bath. "Feel better?"
Reed was bending over his suitcase, rummaging for the next day's clothing. "Much. Thanks."
He was unaware of Tucker's gaze lingering on his rear. Nor did he see the engineer grimace and adjust his shorts before closing the bathroom door behind him.
Humming quietly to himself and taking the last of the day's allergy meds, Reed jumped involuntarily when the door flew open again and a naked, irate and painfully aroused engineer stormed towards him. He blinked: "Careful Mr Tucker. You'll have someone's eye out with that."
Tucker stopped, almost to-to-toe with the smaller man. "Ya little shit! Ya used all the hot water. Ya knew ah wanted a fucking bath, but ya used it all!"
At the end of his rope after a hard day, and too angry to think straight, he took a swing at Reed, who ducked but, in doing so, somehow lost his balance and they both landed in a tangled heap on the floor.
In the confusion, Reed's towel had come adrift—and Tucker was shocked to discover that the other man's arousal was no less than his own! Glancing up at his face, he saw that the, normally composed, Englishman was crimson with embarrassment. "I...I'm sorry. I thought the system reheated the water right away—it usually does in motels. May I have my towel please? You're sitting on it."
Mesmerised by the sight before him, Tucker slowly began to comply—then changed his mind: "No. An' don' be sorry. Ah like ya fine the way ya are."
Reed was a charming picture of anxiety and befuddlement: "I don't...don't understand."
Carefully, Tucker rolled to his knees and straddled Reed, smiling at him when he gasped as their bodies met. "Maybe ah can clarify things a little bit."
Gently, he tilted Reed's face up towards him and caressed his cheek, admiring the delicate bone structure and the fine lines and scars that spoke of life experiences that had not all been pleasant. He grinned as he realised the body beneath him was trembling a little at his touch.
"Easy, Malcolm. Ah ain't gonna hurt ya." The grey eyes watching him were luminous and expressive and he suddenly realised that this man—who could probably kill with his bare hands—was quite the most bewitching creature he'd ever encountered.
Moving one hand to the back of Reed's head, and the other between his shoulder blades, he pulled the man towards him and gently kissed his lips. Reed moaned softly—then caught himself, gave a startled cry and jerked backwards.
"Oh God! Oh God no! I can't. I'm sorry...I can't."
Tucker was shocked by the distress on Reed's face. "Malcolm! Don' be scared, its okay. Its okay. C'mere." He reached to draw the man back into his embrace, but Reed scooted away a little, drawing his knees up and hugging his arms around himself. Gone was the smug, cocky bodyguard and in his place sat a vulnerable, bewildered man who radiated loneliness and longing, yet seemed unable to draw comfort from Tucker's touch.
For all Trip's quick temper and impulsiveness, his heart was soft—and growing softer by the minute, as he viewed the misery he seemed to have caused. "Malcolm, ah didn' mean ta push ya or make ya angry at me. Ah jus' thought..." He gestured awkwardly in the general direction of Reed's crotch. "...well, ah thought ya liked guys an'..."
Reed cut him off, seeming to curl up even tighter, and stared at the floor. "You didn't push me. And its me I'm angry with. I shouldn't have let this go so far. I gave up casual sex a long time ago."
The pain in his voice made Tucker wince. "Maybe this ain't casual, Malcolm. We've been together, 24/7, for over a week now. We've fought like cat an' dog, and ah think we've both seen each other's worst sides, but ah kinda like havin' ya around. Ah think ah'd even like ya around a lot longer."
Startled eyes were suddenly staring disbelievingly at him. "Me? You want ME around?"
Shrugging, Tucker gave a shy grin. "Yeah. What's so hard to believe about that?"
Reed's gaze plunged back to the floor. "Nobody wants me around for long. Just ask my parents and, oh, let's see, my last six girlfriends—the most recent of which got bored and dumped me after a week, kindly leaving me with a humiliating little rash to remember her by."
Exasperated, Tucker planted himself down beside him: "Godammit, Malcolm, ah don' need references! Ah can make up my own mind about who ah wanna be with, an', goin' by the show young Malcolm there was puttin' on a few minutes ago, ah think you can too. Take a chance on me, Malcolm, ah'm a safety boy—condoms 'r' us!"
For a moment, Trip thought he'd talked Reed round—then the man seemed to win his battle to find his composure again and scrambled to his feet, hurriedly pulling on his clothes. "Unlike some, Mr Tucker, I don't think with my genitalia—it only leads to disaster. I'm going out for a walk. Don't wait up."
With that, he stormed off into the night.
At an excruciatingly embarrassing breakfast the following morning, neither man spoke. Malcolm had returned at around 2am and crammed himself into their room's tiny two-seater sofa, rather than share the bed with Tucker. Now, Trip mused, they were carefully avoiding eye contact and behaving like total strangers. He silently thanked whatever god happened to be listening that that today they would reach their destination.
They pulled out of the motel's potholed car park just as yet another blizzard was starting. Tucker elected to drive, figuring that he'd be too busy trying to navigate the snowstorm to think about the previous night's debacle. Malcolm, looking pale and exhausted, hunched down in the passenger seat, intent on catching up on his lost sleep.
Shortly before lunchtime, Reed pushed himself upright and began to look around, frowning. Tucker shot him a sideways glance. "What's up? Have ah taken a wrong turn?"—apart from last night's, he thought sadly.
Reed shook his head. "No. I need to go to the lavatory and we're in the middle of bloody nowhere. Do you see that disused service station up ahead? Pull in there: I'd like a little privacy."
The snow was thick on the ground when Trip pulled the car into the derelict forecourt. Recent tyre tracks were visible, going all the way to the back of what had once been a shop and small diner, but Malcolm stopped him from following them round. "Wait for me here. I don't want a bloody audience, thank you very much."
Obedient for once, Trip parked and leaned back in his seat, stretching his long body as best he could. "Make it quick, will ya. Ah wanna get there in time ta shower an' change before my presentation."
Shivering in the icy wind, Reed leaned into the back seat and rummaged among their luggage for his jacket. "I'll do my best."
Tucker didn't see him also taking the computer disk containing that very presentation from the engineer's holdall. Impatience finally got the better of Trip. After ten minutes of listening to the staticky radio, he threw on his jacket and braved the elements, storming after his bodyguard with his temper coming to the boil. "For Chrissake, Malcolm! How fucking long does it take ya ta...Oh!"
His irate monologue stopped as he turned the corner. Three men in dark suits stood around a large black limousine, watch as a fourth studied a laptop resting on the roof of the vehicle. On the screen, Tucker's presentation was playing—and Malcolm waited alongside, checking through an attach case on the hood. It was open, and filled with more money than Trip could comprehend.
Reason fled and Trip ran forward: "Hey! What the fuck d'ya think...?"
Instantly, four guns were trained on his chest—one of them aimed by Reed, who also acted first. Despite the conditions underfoot, he hurtled towards the engineer, now frozen in place, immobile with shock. "Trip! Move, dammit!"
Sound exploded all around them and Tucker saw little puffs of dust issue from the tumbledown walls of the garage as bullets whizzing by his ear impacted with them. When he finally got his legs to move, he slithered in the slush and dropped to his knees, feeling Malcolm drag him upright again. "Get in the car, Yank, and get the hell out of here. You're fucking up all my plans."
Anger and hurt suddenly eclipsed Trip's panic and he swung a punch at the Englishman, decking him rather satisfactorily, before lurching away in the opposite direction, sliding, falling and dodging bullets as he went. It wouldn't be long now, he thought, until he was hit and died, betrayed, in this freezing no-man's land.
Behind him, the commotion continued, seeming to grow in intensity and volume. The gunfire appeared to be lessening and he could hear another, louder, roaring sound which he couldn't identify. He risked a glance over his shoulder and saw Reed apparently remonstrating with the man using the laptop and being restrained by two of the dark-suited men, another of whom was assembling a high-powered rifle—the type, he suspected, with those fancy laser sights.
The engineer took off again, towards a stand of trees, which, he hoped, would afford him some cover. Slowing for breath, he stole another glance over his shoulder and saw that the rifle was being aimed in his direction, whilst Reed, having fought his way loose of his captors, was sprinting after him, as fast as the slush would allow. The roaring noise increased—but not enough to drown out the sound of the gunshot, and Tucker saw Malcolm's body jerk then pitch forward into his arms, sending them both sprawling in the snow.
"Malcolm! Gawd, Malcolm, we gotta get ya help fast!"
Malcolm's voice was breathless and urgent in his ear, only just audible as the background bedlam appeared to crescendo. "I'm wearing a bullet-proof vest. Now get down and stay down, you bloody moron. How the hell can I protect you when you won't do a thing I say?"
Anger flaring again, Tucker started to struggle, but the smaller man's weight was enough to prevent him from rising easily. He intensified his efforts to escape and finally succeeded in tipping Reed off. "Fuck you, Judas..."
Satisfied that the shooting seemed to have stopped, he cautiously got to his knees and saw Malcolm doing likewise—whilst watching a helicopter landing nearby. "Ah, jolly good. The Cavalry's arrived. You'll still be in time to give your presentation, Mr Tucker, even although you managed to complicate things quite considerably. "
The men who had tumbled out of the aircraft made fast work of apprehending those who'd been doing the shooting, and retrieving Trip's priceless computer disk. Malcolm returned it to his trembling grasp then left him, shivering and shocked, while he went to speak to the tall man, in civilian dress, who'd spilled out of the helicopter with the others and appeared to be in charge.
A second, smaller, helicopter was landing now and the two men ushered Tucker towards it. As they strapped themselves in, the taller one introduced himself as FBI Agent Mark Latrelle, an old Special Forces colleague of Reed's. "I've known him for years. He's a tough nut and always has been. The guys in our team used to call him "Top Cat", 'cause they reckoned he had nine lives. He reminded me about that when he got the job as your bodyguard and proposed this little sting operation. I said it was too risky, and the cocky bastard meowed at me down the goddamn 'phone!"
Trip barely noticed him—his attention completely focused on Malcolm, who now sat quietly, staring out of the window at the fracas they were leaving behind.
An hour later, Tucker was at the university and being hustled into a waiting room at the Space Agency's offices there. A hand on his shoulder made him jump and he looked up into Jonathan Archer's worried eyes. "Jon! What are you doing here?"
The older man sat down beside him "FBI fetched me. Malcolm arranged for them to fill me in on what was about to happen and fly me up here to give you some moral support. How're you coping?"
Trip gave a short huff of bitter laughter. "Ah'm mad as hell, Jon. Ah thought he'd sold me out. Kept me in the goddamned dark about the whole thing. If ah hadn' interfered, he'd have got back in the car an' ah'd have been none the wiser until Agent Latrelle met us here with the disk, after his people had caught the bad guys. All the time we were travellin', he was stringin' those hoods along, settin' them up, an' ah didn' suspect a thing."
Archer shook his head. "I can appreciate you feeling angry, Trip, but his primary concern was to keep you safe—they told me that. It was only himself he intended to put at risk when he arranged to hand over your presentation. In fact, he wouldn't have risked your disk either, except that you had it so well password and copy-protected that he couldn't make a duplicate as he intended."
Shock, hurt and anger getting the better of him, Tucker turned on his friend "Whose side are you on? It kinda sounds like your saying it'd have been my fault if I'd been shot an' the presentation had been stolen!"
Fortunately for Archer, the door opened and a secretary came in to show Tucker to the lecture room in which he would meet with the interview panel. His nerves in tatters, he sprang to his feet, anxious to get things over with, and followed the young woman out. Tagging wearily along behind them, Archer sighed: there were times when, much as he loved his friend, he could have cheerfully kicked his ass.
The presentation was a great success and, back in the waiting room, amid the excitement of the acceptance of his plans for further development, Tucker forgot his anger and hugged his friend. "We did it, Jon! We really did it!"
Archer grinned and hugged back. "No, YOU did it. Congratulations, Trip. Guess we'd better buy some cold weather gear if we're gonna be working up here at the Agency from now on."
Excited and energised, Trip scrubbed his fingers though his already unruly hair "Yeah! How d'ya feel about trading water polo for ice hockey? Ah hear they have a fine team at this university!"
Suddenly, Reed walked in to the waiting room. He still seemed a little distracted and looked tired and wan, the paleness of his face accentuated by the black jacket he wore, but he grinned when he saw Trip: "Congratulations, Mr Tucker. I'm very pleased to hear of your success—although I can't say I expected anything else."
Tucker scowled at him, his anger returning, and Reed hastily switched his attention to Archer. "I've finished my business with the FBI so, if you don't mind, I'll get on my way. Sorry I couldn't stay for the presentation, but I had a few urgent bills to settle, now that I've been paid." He rummaged in his pocket and produced an envelope, giving it to Archer. "Mark gave me these airline tickets for you both and he's had my car driven up here so I can take it home again. He says "thanks" for all your help. The gang that targeted Mr Tucker have been under suspicion for quite a while, but he just couldn't pin anything on them until now. Its only a matter of time before he finds out who they were working for."
Archer smiled "Thanks Malcolm. You've done a great job. Take care driving home—there was one hell of a snowstorm when I was coming here from the airport."
Malcolm grinned: "I'll be fine."
Slowly, he turned back to Trip, offering him a sad smile. "Goodbye and good luck Mr Tucker, its been...an education."
Tucker, still mad and trying to sort through his jumbled emotions, had been staring at his shoes and continued to do so, choosing not to reply. Shoulders slumping a little, Reed quietly turned and left.
A naturally observant man, Archer had been watching his friend's reactions from the moment Reed walked into the waiting room. He'd known Trip a long time, and had seen the engineer fall in and out of numerous relationships—with both men and women—without batting an eyelash. With each break up, he'd laugh, shrug, and tell Jon "Don' worry, nobody's feelin's got hurt. Weren't nothin' there but the sex."
There were feelings involved now though—he was sure of it.
"Trip. Go after him."
Blue eyes, wide with surprise, met his for only a moment—then Tucker was gone.
The Space Agency's offices were on the ninth floor of a tower block and Trip, frustrated by the elevator's frequent stops on the way up earlier that day, decided to take the stairs to ground level, racing down them two at a time. He reached the foyer just as Malcolm did and was somewhat gratified to see sorrow in the other man's startled gaze, before it was quickly concealed behind Malcolm's usual confident demeanour. "Mr Tucker. Well, fancy seeing you here. You've come to wish me good riddance, I take it?"
He stood, for a moment, tightly grasping the handle of the foyer doors, and Trip noticed he was trembling. "You know that's not true, Malcolm. We need to talk."
Reed rested his forehead against the glass door then looked up at Tucker, his eyes filled with doubt. Shaking his head, he suddenly seemed to come to a decision and swept out into the still heavy snow, the engineer struggling along in his wake. "Malcolm! Wait up! We need to talk. Malcolm!" Reed steadfastly ignored Tucker's cries but his steps seemed to slow a little and the engineer caught him up, grabbing him by the arm and spinning him round "Malcolm, ah don' know what the hell..."
The Englishman looked up at him, snowflakes dusting his dark hair and clinging to his eyelashes. "Neither do I, Trip. Please let me go. I need...I need to..." His lips moved soundlessly for a second, then he slowly slithered out of Tucker's grasp, unconscious.
Trip grabbed at him and only just managed to stop his head hitting the ground: "Malcolm! Oh Jesus!"
Beneath him, on the pavement, the snow was turning red.
The engineer shook himself into action, relieved to see that Archer had followed him downstairs and was now exiting the building. "Jon! Over here, Jon! He's hurt. Give me a hand to get him into his car. There's a teaching hospital on campus."
Within moments, Trip was in the back seat of the car, cradling Malcolm in his arms, with the heel of his hand pressed firmly over the bleeding wound in Reed's back. To his surprise, he found that he was crying and was startled to hear a weak—but undeniably caustic—voice in his ear. "Cut out the whining, Mr Tucker. You're embarrassing me."
Drawing back a little, he saw that Malcolm's eyes were still closed but he was smiling slightly. "You've got this all backwards, Yank. I'm supposed to save YOUR life."
Tucker grunted, pleased and annoyed all at once. "An' just what were you doin', walkin' around with a bullet in ya? Tryin' ta prove there's enough of ya to stop one for me?"
Reed sighed, then winced at the pain it caused him. "No insurance. Got an old doctor friend who fixes me up for nothing. Thought, if I bound the wound tight enough, I could last out until I got to him. Stupid bugger, aren't I?"
He squirmed, whimpering a little, and Tucker knew then just how badly it hurt. "Ssh. It'll be okay, Malcolm. Ah'll make sure of that. Just hold on tight to me an' don' let go."
Malcolm did as he was told, and, although he'd lost consciousness again, his hand was still clasped Tucker's as they eased him onto a trolley at the hospital and rushed him into the Emergency Room.
A little before midnight, Tucker awoke, in his second waiting room of the day, to find a pretty young doctor, wearing pale blue scrubs that matched her eyes, smiling down at him. "I'm so sorry to disturb you, sir, but I thought you'd want to know that Mr Reed has come through surgery very well and is sleeping comfortably. His body armour is pretty old and worn, so it couldn't stop a bullet from a high-velocity weapon. However, it slowed it sufficiently that it didn't go far and lodged between two ribs." She held up a small plastic vial and grinned. "In fact we were able to remove it intact. You might want to show it to him when he wakes up."
Trip felt a little overwhelmed by her cheerfulness but managed a grateful smile. "Thanks, maybe ah will. Can ah see 'im?"
She looked at his dishevelled appearance and patted his arm sympathetically, "Not until morning, I'm afraid, when he's out of post-op. He lost a lot of blood and must have been in dreadful pain for a considerable amount of time. He needs to rest and recover before he has visitors. There's a motel about a mile south of here. Why don't you see if you can get a room and sleep for a while? Don't worry, we'll call if he needs you."
Archer was stretched out on a row of chairs at right angles to his own and was snoring loudly, so he nodded to the doctor and ambled over to shake his friend's arm, being rewarded with an indistinct and peevish utterance that sounded like "Down, Porthos! Go to sleep, boy."
Seeing the woman's smile broaden, he grinned back at her "Yeah, you're right. Malcolm doesn't need two half-dead hobos hangin' over him right now. We'll see ya in the mornin'."
He slept fitfully, his mind consumed by memories of the last night he'd spent in a motel, and was back at the hospital before Jon was awake. The receptionist smiled when he arrived "Mr Tucker is it? Dr Davies said she'd sent you home last night but that you'd probably be here again at dawn. She was only out by an hour. Room 4, you can go on in: the orderly just finished cleaning him up. He's awake but still a little woozy."
Trip opened the door and slipped quietly into the room but, nonetheless, the figure on the bed stirred and opened his eyes, smiling as he saw the engineer. "Mr Tucker, we still need to talk."
Pulling a chair over to the bedside, Trip sat down and studied Malcolm—aware that sleepy grey eyes were studying him in turn. "Ah know. How are ya?"
Yawning, Malcolm snuggled a little further down into the bed. He was still pale and his eyes looked shadowed and tired but he managed to smile in a way that made Trip's heart skip a beat. "Fine. A lot better since they told me my treatment's free as long as I don't mind having a lot of student medics poking around at me." He yawned again "I'm sorry."
Finding him much too appealing in his weakened state, Tucker cautiously took his hand and gave it a gentle squeeze "Ah should damn well think so. Next time you an' secret agent man are plannin' to spring a trap on some wannabee Mafiosos, leave me outta it. Ah've aged 'bout ten years in two days."
Malcolm had closed his eyes again but he opened them to glare at Tucker. "That's not what I'm sorry for, idiot. I...I'm sorry for running out on you back at that motel. I've only ever been with one man before—in the Navy—and it went badly. All my relationships do. I thought...thought that you just wanted an easy fuck on our last night together. No ties, no recriminations, none of that emotional claptrap. I couldn't have done that again. I need...Dammit, I don't know what I need."
Tucker swallowed, his mouth grown dry, and tried to blink away the excess moisture gathering in his eyes: "Ya need to let yourself be loved, Malcolm. We've been practically living in one another's pockets for two weeks an' all that time ah've been getting' ta...well, ah guess ah've been fallin' for ya, even though yer a pissy little bastard. If you'd died last night...ah couldn't have handled it."
He scrubbed irritably at his tearing eyes and was surprised to feel a gentle hand stroking his hair. "Nobody...nobody's ever cried for me before, Trip. You're the only one..."
Suddenly, as if by some unspoken agreement, they were kissing. Only enormous willpower—and the knowledge that it would hurt him terribly—prevented Trip from crushing Malcolm to him and holding him there forever. When they finally came up for air, Reed looked flushed and happy, which made Tucker overwhelmingly happy too. "Does this mean we're datin' Malcolm?"
Reed grinned "Yes. Yes, I believe it does."
Slightly over three months later, the university chapel hosted one of the first, legal, same-sex weddings in the USA—and THE first with a "flower beagle" in attendance.
Outside again, Jon Archer stood proudly taking pictures of his two friends and marvelling at how well Malcolm looked in clothes that actually fitted him. Trip had named him as his second engineering assistant and now all three of them were working for the Space Agency and earning a regular income. They certainly weren't wealthy, but Malcolm's wardrobe had definitely benefited and he could now afford to have his hair cut regularly too, favouring a short, functional style, which spiked comically when he got flustered.
Trip, for his part, made it his raison d'etre to keep Malcolm as flustered as possible.
The engineer ambled over to Jon and both men watched as the new Mr Tucker, clad head to foot in black leather, brushed confetti out of his hair and thanked the University chaplain for officiating at the ceremony. "Cute, ain't he?"
Jon grinned at Trip's happiness. "Definitely cute. Hey! Don't you two have a 'plane to catch?"
Tucker glanced at his watch then grinned evilly, calling over to his new husband. "Hey, munchkin! Get those little legs movin'. We're goin' on honeymoon."
Archer sighed. In much of life, timing was everything, and now was a good time, he decided, as Malcolm stalked towards his groom, to take Porthos for a walk!