-1-
Luce Grace
He couldn’t be more than 25.
Without a single imperfection.
Not on his tanned dewy skin.
Or unruly deep red hair.
Or high square cheekbones.
Or perfectly sculpted thick pink lips, set in a confident line.
Any other night he probably went home with whoever he wanted with just one look.
But not tonight.
The young redhead was so far out of his league. And didn’t even know it.
The music becomes more frenetic, the bass thuds through the dance club and the redhead slyly moves his hands from Alex’s shoulders to the strip of skin at his waist. Alex smiles--carefree and happy--and leans into the touch, bringing the two of them closer. Their bodies are flush, grinding together in a syncopated rhythm.
They may as well be fucking on the dance floor.
Not that there’d been any kind of fucking in Virtue’s basement for decades. Charlotte had closed Control the second Jean wasn’t looking and remodeled the former no limits brothel into Release, a thriving dance club.
I watch the redhead offer Alex a small pipe and he takes a small, polite, hit. He coughs out the pink hued smoke and smiles as he gives it back. Alex leans in close to say something into the redheaded kid’s ear and though the kid nods I doubt he’s listening.
The redhead leans down for a kiss but Alex turns away so the kiss hits his cheek. The redhead goes in for the kiss again and Alex shakes his head with a soft smile. The redhead looks pissed but before anything else can happen an oblivious Minnow pulls Alex towards the outer edge of the dance floor.
“Listen to this ! I fucking loved this song! Fuck! These kids have no idea!,” Minnow shouts so loudly I can hear her from my spot at the bar.
Minnow’s arms are raised above her head and she moves them wildly as she dances to the music, her full hips and ass moving effortlessly to the beat. She was wearing the same knee length dress she’d likely worn to the office this morning but with the front zipper pulled down to reveal the edges of her lace bra. She towers over the dance floor in the highest heels I’d ever seen her wear.
Which was saying something when it came to her. She was going to break her fucking neck one of these days.
Even after all the shit Minnow’s still got that energetic shine that made it look like she was having the most fun no matter where she was. Alan Gray swayed next to her, trying to capture some of her light. He always wound up looking like a lost puppy.
The three of them were the oldest people on the dance floor by atleast decade, although thanks to Alan’s knifework and Jean’s vision Alex blended in fairly well with the crowd. Alan blended in even more so but I didn’t like to think about what that android son of a bitch was doing to himself to look so uncannily young.
When the song ends a more mellow tempo beat takes its place. Alex breaks away from Alan and Minnow. He makes his way to the bar, where I’d been posted up watching the three of them act like children on the dance floor for the last half hour.
Alex throws himself in my lap, smiling. He takes back the rest of my drink and presses his lips to the side of my head. He’s wearing a long sleeved mesh dark green shirt that is just sheer and tight enough to shows off his body but also conceal some of the more obscene tattoos we still hadn’t removed.
Not that any of the kids in here would care about his RLA ink, they’d think it was some edgy statement--they only knew the RLA from history class.
If that.
I catch the eye of the redheaded boy Alex had been dancing with. He’s scowling at me from across the dance floor.
“With me ?,” Alex asks, moving his head until we’re eye to eye.
I give a stiff nod and move his head so his ear is next to my lips.
“That boy was too young for you.”
“You said I could dance….I told him that’s all we were doing,” he says into my ear with a shrug.
I run my fingers through his hair and tug him closer.
“That child wasn’t listening to anything you said and that wasn’t dancing--,” I hear myself growl. I reach around and grab his ass possessively in case the redhead was watching.
“I’m sorry, baby.”
I wonder if he’d been fucking with me on purpose. He rarely called me baby and it turned him on to get me genuinely riled up.
“Were you trying to make me jealo--”
“THIS IS SO FUN!,” Minnow screams, clicking her way over to us.
She holds her palm in the air and I’m about to remind the princess that this wasn’t the MBC offices and there wasn’t an army of assistants hovering at her beck and call. But Alan deposits a bourbon on the rocks in her palm almost as quickly as she opens it.
“Yeah,” Alan agrees. “Thanks for inviting us. I think we all needed this.”
“I didn’t invite you. You two followed us in here. We’re all too fucking old for this.” I remind them, inhaling on the cannibas cigarette that was dwindling away between my fingers.
“You suggested it,” Alex reminded me. He signals the bartender and she immediately starts making him a drink.
“Because I know you like it here.”
The former brothel space was nothing like it had been when he was an escort but I know a part of him missed working there. Sure, most of his clients had been assholes but he’d found his place at Control and got paid insanely well for it. Now he had a shitty job with shitty pay and my ass to deal with.
It only took a few years of watching him play distant but capable guardian to Phoenix Maxwell to know that one day he’d want to do the parent thing for real. I didn’t think it would happen so quickly after Phoenix left, but less than a year after the Phoenix situation he’d cut all his sex work clients loose and Grayson was here.
Grayson became his life and he put all his time and energy into taking care of that kid. And then into me. And, hell, even Ma.
Except for rare nights like tonight.
Alex and I were supposed to be on the road out of the Sprawl but I wanted to have one last drink before we left the city and I figured Release was as good as any place for it.
I hadn’t expected to run into Alan and Minnow on our way here and for them to follow us inside like they’d been invited along.
Alex takes a sip of his new drink, puts his arm around my neck and presses his lips to my cheek again. I turn my face so our lips connect. I bite at his bottom lip and he quickly sits up higher, changing position so his knees are straddling my right leg and he starts humping my thigh--his bent knee stealthily pressing into my crotch.
I pull him back. I didn’t used to have issues with public displays of affection but it bothered me now and he knew that. Not that Minnow is paying attention to us-- her eyes are closed, she’s dancing against Alan and somehow has a fresh martini in her hand.
“Are you drunk ?,” I whisper to Alex.
“I’m horny,” he whines into my ear with his ridiculously sexy laugh.
“We should go,” I tell him taking his drink and finishing it.
I speak a little too loudly because Minnow hears and perks up.
“Great! Where are we going next ?,” she asks running her hand through the thick stripe of gray in her silky chin length dark hair. She wore her gray a lot better than I ever had.
“Nowhere. Lex and I leaving,” I tell her. “We were supposed to be on the road to Solarium Scientific two hours ago.”
“Oh, yeah! I totally forgot you were leaving this week,” she laughs. “We are totally going out again when you get back, okay ?”
“Sure,” I say, even though I am never doing this with them again.
“Well, hey…good luck with all that,” Alan adds stiffly. “Solarium Scientific is supposed to be the best out there.”
We say our goodbyes and Alex climbs out of my lap. We walk out of the club with what feels like every single eye on us.
Partly because my chair freaks people out.
Partly because despite his age Alex is still the hottest person in the club.
But mostly because it looked like the hottest person in the club was taking the cybernetic malfunction home as a pity fuck. They were all probably wondering if I could even still get it up—which I couldn’t.
At least not without a little blue diamond pill.
-2-
We exit through the Release’s backroom and use the truck ramp on the loading dock so I don’t have to fuck up my chair on the club’s piece of shit stairs.
When we’re on the empty loading dock Alex bends down and kisses me again. His careful tongue swipes against the seam of my lips and he pushes a pill into my mouth with his tongue—a little trick he’d learned from Minnow. I catch the pill between my teeth and spit the little blue diamond on the ground.
“When I said ‘we should go’ I really did mean we should go and get on the road,” I clarify.
He laughs as I take the last inhale on my cigarette. I’d been savoring it all night. It and the three Jack and Cokes I’d had at the bar would be my last vices for a long while.
Once I started my residency at the Solarium Scientific Cyborg Study tomorrow, alcohol and cigarettes were off the table for the next 18 months.
I can tell Alex’s a little buzzed and as we walk the six blocks to my car. He’s swaying like he can still hear the music from the club and humming to himself. I can’t be annoyed because he looks so carefree and sexy as hell doing it. His tight leatherclad ass is right in my eyeline, his hair is highlighted by the street LEDs and swings past his shoulder blades, tousled and messy like it was after he’d been properly fucked.
Or atleast how I remembered it. Between my injury and chronic pain, his constant work hours and Grayson we hadn’t had sex in almost four years. Well, except for quickie handjobs during his lunchbreak on the rare occasion I had enough energy to leave the house.
When we get to the car I install my tablet into the dashboard and open up a map to Star City-- the outpost city where Solarium Scientific’s cybernetic research campus was located.
“Put the self-driving on…you’ve been…drinking,” Alex slurs as he settles into the passenger seat.
“I don’t trust that shit. I’m fine. It’s only five hours.”
This car was custom. The drivers sear folded into itself to fit my chair and the dashboard has been adjusted to my height. I’d had to pay twice the cost of the car to make it more accessible because trying to navigate public transit in this chair was a god damn nightmare.
As I drive out of the Sprawl I hear the soft beep of Alex connecting to a video call with the girls. It was a little after 9 PM and as far as they knew we’d been on the road for 2 hours already.
“Hi!,” Atsumi chirps over the line. “Hi Luce! Are you there already ?,”
“We’re still driving,” Alex reports. “I thought I’d check in and say goodnight--”
“Daddy!,” Grayson squeals. “Where are you ?”
“I’m in the car. Say hi to Luce.”
I glance over at the video chat and Grayson just stares at me and says something barely audible. We were all sharing a two bedroom apartment now and he still hadn’t warmed up to me.
“Hey, kid,” I respond and then put my eyes back on the road.
“Daddy, when are you coming back ?,” Grayson asks, even though I knew Alex had been preparing him for the last month with every last detail of this overnight trip.
He didn’t remember anything from six months ago so in his mind this was the longest they’d been apart since he was born.
“I’ll be back tomorrow. After Luce get settled and meets his doctor--,”
“You said…did you say that they’re going to make him better ?”
“Well, they’re going to make some of it be-”
“Daddy, why are your eyes red ?”
“Oh, I’m just tired—”
“You should go to sleep…you sound really, really, really, really, sleepy--”
“Are you having fun with the girls ?,” Alex asks quickly changing subjects and trying to get the slur out of his voice.
They talk for over 2 hours and I admired Alex’s patience. Grayson recounts every overindulgent thing he’d done with my nieces. They were good at keeping him distracted. I think it kept them distracted too.
Alex reads out loud twos chapter from the book series they’d been reading. The kid knew how to manipulate Alex and I have no idea where he learned it from. A few fake tears whenever he tried to hang up and they’d be on the call another half hour.
I give them their space because even though I loved Grayson I wasn’t his Daddy and I could never be what he wanted.
I reluctantly put on the self-drive and take out my Fallwater tablet to see if there is any work I can get done for our company to make it easier on Ma while I’m away. The orientation materials for the Cyborg Study said for the first few weeks I’d have to commit fully to the Study but after that I could do some work. Ma and I were rebuilding Fallwater and there was always work to do.
“With me ?,” Alex asks me when he finally disconnects from Garyson.
“Yeah.”
He’d started asking me that after I blew up at him and Ma for constantly asking me if I was okay.
I’d never be okay.
My cybernetics had been malfunctioning for a while but three years ago I’d woken up to the bottom half my body barbecuing from the inside. One of my black market parts had been faulty and my cybernetic leg overheated and combusted, taking most of my system with it. Thanks to the shock I don’t remember much of the moment.
Alan did the best he could with the damage but the computer system I’d relied on for most of my life was gone and replaced with a bulky cheap imitation that lived in my chair. My body was still fighting the imitation and the fucked up one inside me still malfunctions. Nearly everyday a connection would misfire and I was either having a seizure or forgetting to breath in the middle of the night.
I was a god damn mess and the last three and a half years had sucked but this Dr. Faraday at Solarium Scientific was conducting a cyborg study on an experimental nanotechnology that might be able to help. It seemed like a miracle but Alex had read about the study and convinced the doctor to include me in his new study even though I was a blackmarket cyborg.
Alex falls asleep and I spend the next few hours working. I notice Ma is also logged in and working this Friday night but we don’t acknowledge each other in the system. She’d be here with me if she could be but she didn’t have it in her anymore to leave the Sprawl.
Solarium Scientific’s office sits just outside of Star City, a city I still thought of as a border city between the East and West—even though the official border had been gone for decades. Star City’s not crowded like the Sprawl but not as neatly laid out as the Eastern Cities.
When we reach the city limits the car veers into the The Signet, a glass paneled 5 star luxury hotel that sat on the edge of an empty upscale promenade. I hated fancy hotels but this was the only one Alex could find with elevators that would definitely fit my chair.
I get out of the car to program the car into the valet android when I see my Dad watching me.
Fuck.
“They won’t admit you,” the hallucination of Dad rambles. “You’re stuck like this.”
I hear the phantom gunshots behind his words, an echo of the day he’d tried to kill us, and I try to get a grip but I can’t. The spasm starts low in my stomach and bright lights start flashing in my eyes as the world goes from dark to light to dark to light.
I feel Alex rubbing my arm and I just try and knuckle through this but the hallucination is still there. My father looks just as he had in the videos Ma used to show me—blonde, smiling and young enough to be my son.
“…with me ?” Alex asks, his eyes searching mine.
Sometimes I just black out and come to later but sometimes I’m there the whole time and--
And fuck…it hurts.
I try to say this to Alex. I don’t know how it comes out, I don’t know how to move my mouth. My system is malfunctioning and I feel my body turning off to accommodate and then my backup system arguing with it. My spine suddenly feels like gelatin and I’m going down.
There is a dull pain as Alex grabs my waist and uses all his strength to haul me up so I don’t slide out of the chair before strapping my now useless body into it.
“What’s going on out here ?,” a stern voice barks in the distance.
“We’re fine, sir.” Alex assures the man. “He’s not feeling well. We just need to check in our room at the hotel.”
A security guard comes into view. He stares at me and I have no idea how bad I look or what my face is doing. It could be ticking or I could have blank eyes.
“Sir, are you okay ?,” the man asks me and snaps his fucking fingers in my face. “Sir ? Sir?”
I can’t talk or move, I hear Alex politely telling the guard to leave us alone.
I watch distantly as Alex finishes programming the car into the valet android, shoulders his overnight bag, pulls out my two rolling suitcases, and then slides his finger over the black dot in his ear to activate the remote function on my chair. My chair hums to life, automatically following the remote signal from his syn.
Once we’re checked in the concierge lead us to the maintenance freight elevator. I don’t know if they are being nice by letting us take the freight elevator or if they don’t want me with guests.
“Hey. With me ?,” Alex asks softly, his delicate finger brushing my cheek.
I try to apologize but instead pass out.
---
When I’m finally able to take back control of my body we’re in our room. An entire hour has passed.
The hotel room is spacious and the furniture looks expensive as hell but it’s small considering the price.
I hear Alex running a bath so I disconnect myself cord by cord from my chair’s server and plug into the bulky waterproof 9 hour portable server I wear on the back of my neck when the chair is charging. I strip and push myself across the floor and into the bathroom, carefully lowering myself into the foamy running water.
The big tub gives me room to stretch and the warm water feels good against my skin. Everything I hate about my body is under the soapy water. My chest had some light scarring from the night of the malfunction but it wasn't nearly as bad as what was below my waist.
Alex splashes into the water after me. My hands are about the only part of my body that still work like they used to and I put them to use. His body was still a perfect, the water making the dark ink stand out on his smooth skin. I trace his hard nipples with my finger, and light kisses on his neck and finger him until he comes. He’s more vocal about his pleasure and I know he’s faking a little. It was something he’d done for clients. He’s doing it for my pride and it pisses me off a little but I say nothing.
I pull myself out of the bath tub while he’s still coming down and pull out the stopper, drying myself off with a towel on the cold floor and army crawling back into the room. We’d had bars installed in the bathroom of the new apartment to help me get around and it had been a while since I had to crawl around like an animal. I struggle a little bit on the small lip from the bathroom to the carpeted room.
“Wait, let me help you--”
“Stay there. I don’t need it.”
It’s against his instincts not to help but he stays because the good little submissive side of him can’t resist an order from me and fuck, if that doesn’t turn me on.
I pull on my boxers with a considerable amount of effort and after multiple attempts finally pull myself up onto the massive platform bed in the center of the hotel room. Alex’s already set out my pills and a glass of water on the night stand. I swallow all of the pills except the little blue diamond one and lie back, closing my eyes for the first time and catching my breath from all the work it had taken me to get into this fucking bed.
-3-
“Don’t fall asleep on me,” Alex calls.
I open my eyes to find him kneeling at the foot of the bed. He’s not wearing his usual sleep clothes but a pair of sheer black lace underwear that hugged his bulge and ass. Around his neck is a thin leather choker and overtop it all he’s wearing one of my white button downs, the fabric pooling around his hips.
He grins and I can’t help but to smile. Fuck him for still being able to do this to me. I ached to tie him down, thrust into his body and fuck him until we were both breathless and covered in sweat.
I motion for him closer and he does, wrapping his body around mine and resting his head on my chest for a minute before reaching over me to take the blue pill off the night stand. He rolls the pill across the seam of my lips.
“Remember the last time we were in this city ?,” he asks.
I did.
There were still 10 scars on my back from his fingernails.
I dry swallow the pill.
It had been years ago, before Grayson, before Phoenix knew he was Phoenix, before my big malfunction. Our physical relationship had been so intense back then. If we’d lived together I’m not sure I would have gotten anything done. The satellite had landed outside Star City and I’d met Alex at a hotel near this one. We’d spent a week locked in the suite, living on room service and fucking our way through every fucked up dirty fantasy we’d ever had. I’d replayed and jerked off to that week more times than I was proud of that year.
The stored footage on my server was wiped during my malfunction but just the faint memories of it makes my cock twitch.
“Closer,” I say and he crawls up my body until we are face to face. I feel his erection pressed against my slowly growing one. I had no idea how he got hard again so quickly.
I kiss him roughly, catching his lower lip between my teeth. I cradle his neck, applying pressure slowly until he’s almost choking.
He moans at the sensation, rocking his hips against my body.
There’s music coming out of his syn, it’s the same song he’d been dancing to with the redhead.
I take the small dot out of his ear and throw it across the room. I fucking hated syns--they’d somehow manage to make something more insidious than syndicates. You could hardly tell if someone was wearing one.
“You fucking cocktease--”
“Never--,” he chokes out.
“I didn’t say you could talk.” I snap. “I didn’t forget the way you were trying to make me jealous.”
I always tried to keep my emotions in check when I had him in a vulnerable position but jealousy was a new thing I was still figuring out. I check in with him to see if I’ve gone too far but his eyes are bright with arousal.
I rip the white button down off his shoulders and press my hand into his lower back. My lips explore the places on his body where he’d put my name. He rubs his body against mine feverishly and more blood rushes downwards--which is always a good sign.
“Please…,” he whines.
“Me first.”
I lay back in the bed and he sits up. I watch him warm a drop of chamomile oil in his hands.
He straddles my hips with his knees, leans forward and massages the oil into my chest, shoulders and sides before pulling my boxers down. My tight muscles loosen and relax at his practiced touch. He kneads the mess of tangled burn tissue and thick shiny keloid scars that make up my disfigured legs. He lovingly runs his soft fingers and lips over the my cybernetic leg had fused hideously to what was left of my charred right thigh.
He finally turns himself around and dips down to take me in his mouth even though I’m just at half-mast. My balls had some scarring but my dick had made it out with only a small burn scar.
He massages my balls with one hand while deep throating and making a swallowing reflex around my erection. The sensation used to drive me crazy.
But now can’t feel anything except dull pins and needles and his hair tickling my thighs.
I move to sit up on my elbows because he was in the perfect position for me to eat his ass. That usually got me off. But the moment I move I feel lightheaded and the room spins. My stomach sinks sharply and I swallow down the sudden hot bile rising in my throat. I quickly lie back down but I don’t say a word to him because I didn’t want to be a weak old man.
But that’s what I was.
“That’s enough.” I say after 30 minutes when it’s obvious he’s just enthusiastically sucking my flaccid dick.
He turns and sits on his knees in front of me, his head inclined, patiently watching me underneath his lashes. I lift my hand up and play with the small ring in the center of the collar around his neck. The image was obscenely beautiful and not for the first time I feel like I don’t deserve him.
“Did you bring anything you want to play with ?,” I ask.
He shakes his head.
“I forgot—I’m sorry.”
“Give me your wrists.”
He sits perfectly still as I tie his wrist together in a double cuff with the leather leash that went with the collar.
I rest his bound hands above his head and slowly pull the delicate lace on his hips down. I warm up a drop of the oil between my palms and massage it over him. His erection pressed firmly against his flat stomach. His body quivers at the touch, his thick beautiful hair cascading around his face but he keeps himself under control.
Alex keens as I slip a condom on him and rearrange our bodies so he is laying behind me, his face nestled in the back of my neck and my back against chest. Our legs tangle, his healthy tattooed leg hooking around the pale crusted disfigured stump of mine.
I take in a breath as he moans desperately against me.
“Fuck me.”
I love being with him. He feels good but I feel utterly emasculated. It wasn’t just because I’d lost my stamina. It was a litany of reasons; I was getting old, my muscles didn’t move the same way, our physicality had changed, I couldn’t unsee him as my caregiver most days and I was just so damn tired all the time.
He didn’t seem to mind any of it.
But fuck, he deserved more
-4-
Alex must remove himself from the wrist bind during the night because when I open my eyes in the morning, he’s sitting at the hotel vanity, freshly showered and covering the tattoo behind his ear with makeup
He’s pantsless and I can make out a white thong nearly identical to what he was wearing last night--except this one is connected to garter belts on his upper thighs. The garters are connected to the stays keeping his white dress shirt in place. I knew the garters and stays made his clothes fit better but, damn it was so fucking hot on him and he knew it.
Like some old fashioned pin-up.
“You just can’t help yourself can you ?,” I say, sitting up in bed. “You’re such a fucking tease.”
“What do you mean ?,” he asks innocently, crossing the room and launching himself playfully at me.
I catch him before he can land on top of me and he kisses my forehead. I take a firm grip on his ass and imagine him red faced and writhing over my knee. But then I steal a glance at the clock.
“You really shouldn’t start things you’re not ready for,” I warn when he hits me softly with one of the pillows.
“I’m not,” he winks.
“We don’t have time for this.”
He pouts and I drag myself to the bathroom. When I come out he’s gotten fully dressed in dress clothes. He’d gathered all of his hair into a braid that’s been twisted it into some complicated thing at the back of his head, leaving a few strands framing his face. I have no idea why he wants to impress this doctor, I wore the tracksuit I always wore.
“You need to eat,” I tell him as I roll over to where he’d laid out the room service.
He’d dropped to under 100 pounds since what happened six months ago. He’d had disordered eating as long as I’d known him but it had gotten worse. I’d noticed it in his body last night. I could almost circle my hands around his waist.
He shakes his head as I put my fork to his lips.
“I can’t eat. I’m too nervous.”
He fixes me coffee on the fancy coffee machine in the room. I used to love when he did things for me but now I didn’t know if he was doing it for me because he wanted to or because he thought I couldn’t do it myself. I take the coffee silently and take the time to clear my head.
When it’s time to check out I catch a few pointed stares from the front desk staff who must have heard about my malfunction last night. The concierge nervously asks me if I’m feeling better. I ignore him.
Alex reaches across the console to hold my hand as I drives us down the road to Solarium Scientific’s campus. The building is huge and true to its name the back half of the building is a clear glass solarium where I can see people wondering around a garden. I can make out a few of them moving jerkily in clunky mobility units.
When we get to reception there are others waiting. A few of them could be cyborgs but no one is wearing it as clearly as I am.
Alex suddenly grips my chair’s arm and I turn to see him grinning at me.
“What the fuck has gotten into you ?”
“I’m just happy for you,” he whispers.
I want to kiss him just then but there were too many people around and I’m not sure I could stop once I started.
A young man in a shirt and tie comes out and introduces himself as Dr. Faraday’s assistant. He must not work with cyborgs regularly because his smile is a little too broad and he’s talks to me like I’m a child.
“Alright, are-you-ready-to-go-back-with-me-and-meet-the-doctor ?,” the assistant says loudly and slowly--pointing to the door he’d come through.
Before I can respond he’s behind me and pushing my chair.
Alex’s eyes go wide because I normally wouldn’t allow that kind of disrespect that but I just swallow it for now.
“Oh, no you are no longer needed,” The assistant says when he notices Alex is following. “Home care aids aren’t allowed back--”
“But I’m--,” Alex starts
“No, no honey we employee a qualified care staff who will see to Mr. Grace’s daily needs. Your agency should have trained you to--”
“He’s my fucking husband,” I snap at the assistant and he jumps a little.
He looks between us and then clears his throat. His reddening face goes stony as he leads us back into Dr. Faraday’s office.
Depending on how Alex was dressed people either assumed he was my nurse, my well paid whore or a golddigger looking to take my money when I died.
“Little do they know I’m all three,” Alex had joked once after I’d told him this. We’d been drunk as hell at a strip club and some asshole asked him how much he charged per hour.
Luckily, Dr. Faraday is less of an asshole than his assistant.
“Mr. Grace,” Dr. Faraday says shaking my hand and then going to Alex. “And Mr. Haley. Good to finally meet you in person.”.
He closes the door to his office and pulls up a series of holoscreens to show us a presentation on how his nanotech works and how over time they would be able to rewire my cybernetics and possibly restore lost organic matter.
“Now, I understand you don’t have medical records or serial numbers for your cybernetic system,” the doctor continues.
I nod.
The Federation had made cybernetic enhancements more legal than they had ever been, but you had to buy from a registered dealer—something I’d never bothered to do.
My original install had been done by Blackbird when I was Grayson’s age. Blackbird didn’t keep records and took all his knowledge about me to his grave. Alan Gray had done some of my newer work but he purchased all the parts illegally with no way of knowing their origins.
“We’ve collected some markers to identify unidentified cybernetic systems like yours. We need to take density samples of some of your hardware so we will put you under light anesthesia while we get a closer look,” the doctor explains. “You’ll recover in your room and once the anesthesia wears off we will give you a tour of the facility. Does that sound good ?,”
I nod.
I realize I haven’t said anything since we’ve been in the office, but I trust this guy doesn’t think I’m a vegetable.
“I guess it’s time for me to leave,” Alex says. “I want to be back when Grayson gets out of school.”
He turns to me and because he’s sitting in a chair we’re eye to eye. He kisses me once on the cheek and I press our lips together.
“Thank you for setting this up,” I whisper to him. “Be careful on the way back. Please take care of yourself.”
“I will,” he says, standing. “I love you, Luce.”
He hugs and kisses me again and I hope next time I see him I can at least stand. Maybe pick him up again.
“Don’t use that fucking self-driving,” I call after him and he just nods.
They take me to a surgical suite and I change into a hospital gown. They must knock me out with the good stuff because when I blink I’m dressed and in Faraday’s office.
Alex is there.
And he is pissed.
----
-5-
“—NO. YOU LIED TO ME !,” Alex is shouting at Dr. Faraday “WE CAME ALL THE WAY OUT HERE--”
“I did not lie. You lied.” the doctor says firmly. “ This is a federally funded study and we can’t have--”
“It’s always about fucking money. Fine .What if we just gave you the money--”
“You have half a million dollars--”
“--I can get it—Is that what you need ?”
“It doesn’t work like that. I’m sorry we can’t admit him. I truly am. Now please leave my office--”
“No,” Alex says. “Not until I talk to your boss.”
I’m still a little fuzzy from the anesthesia and they both look like they’re underwater. I reach my hand out and touch Alex’s arm.
“What’sgoingon ?,” I slur.
He looks down at me and his eyes are full of rabid fury. I’d only seen that look a couple of times, most notably right before he asked me to kidnap Phoenix Maxwell.
“They kicked you out—” Alex explains and then turns to Faraday. “Actually he kicked you out of the study--”
“Shit…what did I do ?,” I ask trying to remember anything after I’d gone under.
“Absolutely nothing.”
“Mr. Grace,” Dr. Faraday says sharply. “ Your husband led me to believe you didn’t have the serial numbers for your cybernetics because your medical records were destroyed. However your parts are black market. This is a Federation funded study and you have to be a legal cyborg. If I take on an unregistered blackmarket cyborg they will take my funding for everyone--”
“Then register him!” Alex argues. “You’re supposed to help people. You people just want him to suffer--,”
“I could lose my license for registering a black market cyborg. Even if he did get a federation waiver, I still wouldn’t allow him in. Without the exact model of his system the nanotech could kill him very slowly and painfully.” the doctor says. “I’m sorry. Now, please get out of my office.”
“No,” Alex says, defiantly crossing his arms. “I’m not leaving until you do something for him. You’re supposed to be the best. He’s suffering.”
“I won’t ask again. Please leave or I will call securi--.”
“It’s not his fault this happene--”
“Mr. Haley, please take it up with the Federation Department of Human Aff--”
“I tried. They don’t fucking care. They want cyborgs like him to die off so only their approved cyborgs are allowed to live. Just like you. You just don’t want his death to ruin your fucking study results-“
“Mr. Haley, I’ll warn you that security has been called.”
“Fine,” Alex spits.
The doctor sits down self-righteously behind his desk and looks at his tablet.
“Now, gentlemen I’m sorry it came down to--”
Before he can get the sentence out, Alex picks up a crystalline award that’s inscribed with the phrase do no harm off the desk. He hurls it through the window and the window shatters. I hope I’m hallucinating it but an alarm starts to sound in the building.
I grab a handful of Alex’s shirt and pull him down to my level. There are tears in his eyes which is never a good sign when he’s like this. I’d killed people for a living and even I was afraid of what would happen next when he got like this.
“Have you lost your fucking mind ? This is over,” I tell him. “We’re going home. Roll me out.”
He obeys, taking my chair and walking us out of the office. I start to drift back under the anesthesia as I listen to his angry rambling.
“Fucking asshole,” he fumes. “If you aren’t perfect they won’t fucking take you--”
We walk through the lobby and we’re nearly out the door when someone calls his name and I feel his hands leave my chair.
It’s not the Solarium Scientific security pulling him aside.
It’s the fucking police. He’s arguing with them like an idiot and one of the officers pulls out handcuffs.
I close my eyes to clear my head and figure out how to sort this out. But the anesthesia is too strong and I drift back to sleep.
***
Alex says nothing to me when I bail him out of police custody 8 hours later. He looks tired--his hair is out of its knot and his shirt is untucked and unbuttoned around the neck. I silently pay the $500 fine to get bail him out and the $1400 fine to fix the window he broke when he threw Dr. Faraday’s award.
I was so heavily medicated they’d let me sleep in the Solarium Scientific lobby for 5 hours and when I woke up the receptionist gave me the information for the police station where I could find Alex. I had to go through 3 hours of bureaucratic bullshit before Dr. Faraday agreed to drop the assault charge if I paid for the window and a replacement trophy.
“I hope it was worth it,” I spit at Alex, slamming the car door even though the doors are automatic. “You know I don’t trust blueboys. They fucking fingerprinted me--.”
“Really, Luce-”
“Shut the fuck up. You aren’t the one who get to have an attitude right now-,”
“Don’t yell at me!,” he screams, his body shaking. “How could you ? You left me in that jail cell for 8 fucking hours! You’re not going to ask me how I am--”
“I don’t give a shit. I would have left you in there a lot longer if it weren’t for Grayson. How the hell could you act like it ? I could fucking kill you--”
“That asshole doctor lied to me--”
“No, he didn’t. You lied. You didn’t tell him I was a black market cyborg--”
“Don’t take his side. I was just trying to help you-”
“ Nobody is obligated to do anything for me,” I argue back. “I could have had my system done legally years ago but I didn’t. Shit like this is just what I get for the life I chose and I don’t need you—,”
“Fuck you, Luce,” he cries, his face reddening. “Don’t you dare lecture me--”
“I don’t want to see those tears. Don’t start shit if you going to be a pussy about the consequences--”
“Start the car. We’re so fucking late picking up Grayson.”
He reaches back for his overnight bag and dry swallows two Xanax.
“I booked another night at the hotel,” I tell him. “I called the girls and told them we wouldn’t be back until tomorrow--”
“No. You didn’t ask me about that. I want to see my son tonight. And I don’t feel like spending another night in this fucking city--”
“Too fucking bad. I’m too tired to drive--,”
“THEN USE THE FUCKING SELF-DRIVING!” he shouts ripping my tablet out of the car’s system, throwing it into the backseat and starting the self driving system.
“Fuck it,” I say under my breath and just let the car drive itself.
When we get on to the highway he starts the waterworks but I’m too tired and too pissed to do anything about it. My body can’t physically reach back and grab my tablet and I can’t ask him to get it for me so I give in and fall back asleep.
It’s a quiet dreamless sleep and actually one of the best sleeps I’ve had in a long time. I wake to the soft beeping of my alarm but I’m too comfortable to get up and shut it off. I reach my hand over to turn the alarm off but I can’t find my nightstand.
I finally open my eyes and it slowly comes to me that I’m not in bed.
I’m still in the car.
The beeping sound is coming from the dashboard. I follow it to the flashing light above the power icon. It flashes a warning that energy has been depleted.
-6-
I sit up and look out the window to see the car had pulled itself over into a neighborhood to run out of power.
Alex is sleeping curled up in his seat and I smack his shoulder.
“The car’s battery is drained,” I growl.
He sits up startled.
“What did you do ?,” he asks, pushing the useless start button. “It alerts you 2 hours before it needs to be charged. Why didn’t you stop at a power station--,”
“We both slept through the warning. This is what you get for using the self-driving--”
“You should have powered the car--”
“You’re the one who wanted to get on the road. Fuck! Now we need to call someone to boost it--”
“We’re not doing anything,” he fumes, fiddling with the GPS to see where we are. “I can walk to the girls house from here. I’m going to get my son.”
I look over the map.
“It’s 25 miles away and almost midnight. You’re not walking out here by yourself.”
He doesn’t even respond, he just opens the door and starts walking.
I follow after him.
“Lex, stop. You’re being ridiculous. Come back here.”
He flips me off and keeps walking.
I roll after him and grab his hand. He pulls away.
“Stop being a little bitch-,” I snap.
He rips his hand away and shoves me hard, I don’t expect it to be so strong and I lose balance. I lean back in my chair and it topples. I fall backwards with a grunt on the sidewalk but manage to catch myself with my hands as the chair lands on top of me, the cables, connecting me to the chair tangling.
I hear him walking defiantly away.
He’s barely ten steps away when he pauses a beat and sprints back to me, his dress shoes clacking against the pavement.
A pin light is flashing from his syn and he kneels down to help me off the ground.
“I don’t need your hel--,” I grunt.
“Stop it.” He says firmly. “Yes, you do. I’m sorry.”
He helps me back into my chair and leans against a black iron fence, watching me as I adjust the cables.
There is something familiar about the fence he’s leaning against. Once I settle back into my chair the recognition clicks.
“Hey…,” I say inclining my head to the brick townhouse beyond the black iron fence. He turns and when he looks back at me a small smile touches his lips.
The Shy Cartel used to own this entire block of townhouses. When Rias turned eleven Rayne insisted he and Ma move into one so Rias could be closer to him. We hadn’t been in the townhouse long because when Rayne’s sickness started and we moved into the Hyrda penthouse to be even closer.
The townhouse shouldn’t mean anything to me in the grand scheme of things---except it had been the place I’d met Alex. He’d come to the doorstep wild-eyed and sickly looking for Alan Gray.
He’d found me instead.
“You greeted me with a gun to my head,” Alex says wistfully, staring at the house beyond the fence.
“To be fair you were covered in RLA ink by a Mjollner artist and practically chased Rias and Twyla to the house,” I remind him. “Plus…I greeted everyone that way back then.”
“Did you know ?,” he asks coyly. “That you were holding a gun to the person you would spend the rest of your life with ?,”
“Who says I’m spending the rest of my life with you ?,” I counter with a raised eyebrow.
“Me,” he smirks.
I shake my head.
“You were so patient with me,” he says rubbing the back of his hand against the stubble on my face. “I was so traumatized and scared of everything.”
“I don’t remember it like that,” I tell him.“I remember your fury. I recognized it. I didn’t even know what happened with you and Maxwell but I just wanted to make that hit so badly…I still do.”
I’d sold most of my firearms but one word from Alex and Maxwell would have a bullet in his skull.
“I know.”
We were holding hands and at some point we had started walking, strolling casually, back to the car. His hand shakes in mine. I apply pressure and it stills him.
It was so easy for me to forget who he’d been before I met him. The shit about Maxwell was written in the scars on his body but for a long time he’d never talked about his childhood.
It wasn’t until his sister and I got wasted at Virtue, that I learned about his absent father and neglectful bitch of a mother who couldn’t remember to feed her children. Isla told me about their abusive older brother and cult worshiping controlling grandmother. Alex’s world had always been small and horrible. I finally understood how he ended up trapped in Maxwell’s power.
Isla had told me they’d never been taught real love in the Haley household—just survival. But Alex had so much love in him and over the years the words fell easily form his lips. It still felt foreign to me but when he asked me I’d tell him as much as he needed. He willingly submitted his heart and trusted me with all the ugly vulnerabilities inside of it. For that privilege I was supposed to make him feel safe.
-7-
I stop my chair in the middle of the abandoned sidewalk.
“Get on your knees.” I tell him. “Look at me.”
He carefully drops to his knees on the abandoned street. I roll closer and gently touch his chin, tipping his head up toward me. His eyes are shiny, his lashes casting delicate shadows on his cheek from the glimmering street lighting.
“I love you and I don’t fucking deserve all you do for me,” I tell him and I know he wants to look away but he doesn’t. “I love how you fight for me, Lex. But…this may be as healthy as I’ll get. I’ll try to get better. I’ll never give up on living but you can’t fix me any more than I can fix you. I did this to myself, I can live with it.”
He nods.
“Call a cab to take you to the girls’ house so you can rest and be there when Grayson wakes up,” I tell him. “I’ll wait here with the car. I’ll call Alan to boost my battery--”
“I don’t want to leave you out here--”
“I’ll be okay. I’ll tell Alan to follow me back home.” I assure him with a soft kiss. “We’re not discussing this.”
He stands and does as I say.
While he calls Eloise and a cab I pull myself into the driver’s seat and use my tablet to call Alan. He’s on the other side of the Sprawl at some party with Minnow.
Alex squeezes himself next to me in the seat and we trade kisses until the lights of the hired cab he called flash over us—our fight long forgotten. The driver honks and Alex pulls away from me reluctantly.
“I’ll stay the night at the girls’ and come home first thing in the morning. Okay ?” he says as he picks up his overnight bag.
“Okay.”
I nod and as he disappears into the cab.
The lights of the cab illuminate the neighborhood and I’m surprised how much of it looks the same as when I lived here. The last time Alex and I had been in this place I didn’t know how long our lives would become intertwined. But now I knew; forever.
--------
Author's Note
I started writing Release as a way to understand Luce’s injuries. As I edited and added to it, it became a story about aging and then as I looked at it again I realized I’d never fully connected that Haley not only had an abusive relationship with Maxwell but also with his family and how that might impact his relationship with Luce. Fun fact: Minnow and Alan originally died in Sunshine but when I decided they lived I re-wrote them into that first scene.
I’m also just kind of pleased with myself that my grouchy, bloodthirsty, cyborg- assassin is a mama’s boy from a loving (found) family and my cinnamon roll woobie sunshine one has the most traumatic backstory to ever backstory.
Update: So, Cheeky!Shawna called Sunshine Lady Bird Box because it’s about a teen girl who has angst with her mom but then a tragedy happens and her world goes pear-shaped and she has to dig deep to survive. I call Release The Irishman’s Marriage Story because it’s about an aging hit man and his marriage
CPShawna: Mmmm, yeah IDK I just think Lile may have done the emotionally-unavailable-rough-around the-edges-moody-wheelchair-using-brunette paired with a professional-caretaker-trauma-survivor-who-never-had-a-childhood-and-expends-all their- emotional-energy-on-a-child (who isn’t technically related to aforementioned brunette)-and-their-chronically-ill-partner thing a little bit better. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The reason I posted this so soon after Sunshine
is because it’s been about 3 years of all Vice all the time (with some mermaids
thrown in) and I wanted to officially close it out for now by posting my last finishined thing. I’ll be taking a break from my quasi-cyberpunk world for a
little while to revisit GrownAss!UL as my next project! Get a sneak peek here *clickity click*