11. Cym

Chapter 11

Cym

C ym was roasting. The hard body beneath him was radiating more heat than seemed humanly possible. He opened his eyes to see Fourteen gazing intently at something. Cym followed his line of sight and realized what he was fixated on—Cym's hand clasped around Fourteen's exposed wrist.

Cym released him, but Fourteen caught his hand and trapped it neatly in his own. Then with slow deliberation, he pulled the glove off his other hand with his teeth and reached out to Cym's face, stopping when less than an inch of air was between them.

The invitation was clear—he was giving Cym the chance to refuse if he wanted to.

As if.

Cym focused his attention on his magic—the pink inferno inside himself he was only beginning to get to know. As soon as Cym nuzzled his cheek into Fourteen's hand, he noticed a tiny flame emerge from the source of his magic and travel up his spine to spill into Fourteen where their skin made contact.

It was such a subtle sensation that if he hadn't been paying close attention, he wouldn't have noticed the slight warmth that spread through his body into Fourteen's.

Fourteen's fingers trailed over Cym's lips, and Cym's eyes flew to his face. Fourteen's pupils were blown out just like they had been in the dream they'd just shared.

Cym's mouth went dry, and he bit his lip—right where Fourteen's fingers had been. Fourteen's eyes tracked the motion, and he growled. The sound sent bolts of electricity all the way to Cym's toes.

"Thank god you're an adult." Fourteen said before covering Cym's mouth with his.

Everything came into sharp focus, and time seemed to stop. Cym could feel the butter-soft fabric of Fourteen's jacket against his arm, the delicious scrape of stubble against his cheek, and Fourteen's mouth blazing hotly against his own. Cym's insides were liquid lightning, and he felt like his body was melting away into nothing.

Into everything.

When Cym pulled back a fraction to catch his breath, the world rushed back in on him. "Wow," he whispered and touched his lips.

The corners of Fourteen's mouth quirked up slightly, and he growled again. Before Cym knew what was happening Fourteen had rolled him onto his back and was smirking at him, his eyes full of the devil as he dipped his head and kissed him again.

Cym's hands went to Fourteen's chest, trying to get through the complicated system of straps and buckles that held his jacket closed, but Cym's capacity for thinking was overwhelmed by the incredible things Fourteen was doing to his mouth, and he soon gave up. Instead, he allowed his hands to roam over Fourteen's arms, appreciating the swell of his muscles under the leather.

Fourteen's mouth moved from Cym's, found a sensitive spot behind his ear, and nipped it, causing Cym to clutch his arms and whimper while mindlessly grinding against him. The more Fourteen's skin touched his own, the stronger the magic in his chest flared. It was mind blowing.

Cym couldn't think, could only feel, as Fourteen and his own magic drove him past all reason.

He had to stop, had to think. What if there was something he was missing because he was too busy getting lost in Fourteen? Cym pushed against him, needing to catch his breath and regain control of his mind. He wasn't used to getting so carried away, and it scared him.

When Fourteen pulled back, his heavy-lidded eyes were dark and stormy like the ocean in their dream.

To distract himself from the wet dream of a man straddling him, Cym asked the first question that popped into his head. "What is this like for you now that you have your memories back? Touching me, I mean."

Cym knew if he really wanted to get his shit together, he should stop touching Fourteen, but he couldn't convince his body to obey that command. Instead, he tried to concentrate on the faint throbbing in his head from its unplanned contact with a wall earlier rather than the feeling of his magic as it eased into Fourteen's body.

Fourteen blinked slowly as he processed the question. After running a gentle hand down the side of Cym's face, he rolled off of Cym and sat up. Cym followed suit and allowed Fourteen to recapture his hand.

Fourteen played with Cym's fingers as he responded. "I feel a little drunk, but my mind is my own, I think."

"What is your mind like for you normally?" Cym knew he wasn't going to like the answer but couldn't stop himself from asking.

The warmth on Fourteen's face retreated, and Cym hated himself for it. "Cold. Empty. It's like I'm walking around inside a giant meat-locker with unbreakable walls. I can see what's outside, but nothing out there can affect me. At least that's how it was until you showed up." There was a slight upturn to his lips at the last sentence. "After that, things got complicated. Now things break through even when we aren't touching, and it's disorienting."

Fourteen moved to the head of the bed and grabbed Cym, manhandling him until his back was pressed against Fourteen's chest and Fourteen's back was against the wall. Cym noticed that Fourteen made sure to maintain skin contact with him the entire time.

Once Fourteen had Cym settled comfortably between his legs, he wrapped his arms around him and said sullenly, "I don't know how normal people deal with emotions all the time."

Cym would have given anything to not have been the one to put the lost tone in his voice. He was about to apologize when he felt another question form in his mind. He didn't want to make Fourteen any sadder, so he tried to hold it in. As he wrestled with it, he noticed the question had a pink tinge to it.

Were the questions coming from him? Or his magic? The thought startled him, and the question broke free. "Do you want it to stop?"

"No!" Fourteen's response was instantaneous. "Anything is better than being empty. And this? With you?" His arms tightened, hugging Cym tightly against his firm chest. "No, I won't give it up."

Being pressed against the hard lines of Fourteen's body was making it hard to think. Cym squirmed and twisted until he relaxed his hold enough to allow him to turn to face Fourteen. "I'm sorry. I feel like every time you're happy, I ask you a question that makes you unhappy again."

Fourteen buried his face into Cym's neck and pressed his lips against sensitive skin before pulling away to look at him once more. "It's okay. You're the first person in a long time to care enough to ask me anything about myself."

The urge to protect Fourteen struck Cym like a rock to the gut.

How could anyone not have that reaction? Fourteen was a big, sexy man with soft and squishy insides, and he'd been reduced to nothing more than a weapon of mass destruction. No one should ever be allowed to hurt him again.

Cym blurted out, "I want to help you. Anything you need. Anything you want, I'll give it to you." He didn't know how he'd do it, but somehow Cym would find a way to make good on his words.

A sad smile appeared on Fourteen's face. "You've already done enough. There's no need for you to do more." He ran a hand down Cym's arm and squeezed his hand.

"You saved my life. Several times. Even if I didn't…" Cym bit back what he wanted to say which was something along the lines of, Even if I wasn't becoming hopelessly attached to you, I'd still help you. He took a deep breath and tried again, but the next thing his mind offered was, Even if I didn't want to ride you til your wheels fall off, I'd still help you .

Stupid brain. Fourteen needed help, and all Cym could think about was getting his V card punched.

He changed tactics and stopped focusing on himself and started thinking about what The Company had done to Fourteen. What kind of monsters would do such a thing to a child?

Anger surged up hot and prickly, and Cym's hand clenched around Fourteen's. "You didn't deserve what they did to you. No one should have to go through what you have. Don't norms have laws to protect people from something like this?"

"Laws don't apply to The Company. Too many important people are in power today because of us. Because of them." Fourteen corrected himself.

Cym threw his arms around him. The sudden movement of the hug forced Cym to break away and grab his throbbing head. He crawled off of Fourteen so he wouldn't be tempted to throw himself again. It would be better for them to keep the cuddling and touching to a minimum until they had sorted things out more.

Once the pain in Cym's head died down to tolerable levels, Cym promised, "They are never getting you back."

Fourteen reeled backward like Cym had slapped him, then he repeated dully, "They are never getting me back."

Cym's stomach lurched at the tone in Fourteen's voice, and he searched the man's eyes. What he saw there made him gasp. "Fourteen, what's happened? Did I say something wrong?"

Fourteen said nothing, his face void of all expression

"Fourteen, answer me!" Cym waved his hand in front of Fourteen's face, but his eyes didn't track the movement.

"I need more information to comply," Fourteen stated, his eyes staring straight ahead.

"Is this a joke?"

"I need more information to comply."

Unwilling to believe Fourteen would be the kind of person to take such a horrible joke so far, Cym panicked. He jumped off the bed and then, after realizing he had no plan, sat back down on the edge of the bed and twined and tangled his fingers together uselessly.

What was wrong with Fourteen? One minute they were wrestling around on the bed, and the next they were baring their souls. Now Fourteen was a lifeless doll sitting at attention at the head of the bed. Had asking him such personal questions broken him in some way? Or was it something else?

What had Cym been saying when it happened? He had told Fourteen that The Company was never getting him back, and the Fourteen Cym knew vanished and became a cold, empty shell.

Cold.

That was what Fourteen had said it felt like when Cym wasn't touching him. Fourteen hadn't been acting funny until Cym had stopped touching him. Could it be that? Could something have happened inside the mess of programming in Fourteen's mind to reduce him to his current state?

Cym took Fourteen's hand in his and waited, willing his magic into Fourteen's body, but he saw no change to the man's lifeless features.

Cym had to be missing something. Fourteen had been more than this strange automaton when they had first met. What had happened just now?

Fourteen had said he needed more information to comply. Maybe the answers to this problem lay inside Fourteen himself.

"Fourteen, what are you doing right now?" Cym squeezed Fourteen's fingers until it hurt.

"Awaiting orders."

"From who?"

"My handler."

His handler? Fourteen told him his handlers had been killed. Did he have another one he didn't know about? "Who is your handler?"

"You."

Shock almost made Cym drop his hand. "Me? How can… Do you mean… What?!"

Fourteen didn't respond, remaining passive.

Cym thought he sensed an increase in the flow of magic between their entwined hands. Hoping his magic was doing something helpful, he tried to think past his surprise enough to ask a coherent question. "As your handler, what do I need to know?"

Fourteen reached into a zippered pocket on his jacket, pulled out a white piece of plastic, and placed it in Cym's hand.

Its smooth surface felt cool to the touch.

"What is it?" Cym rolled it around in his hand, he'd never seen anything like it before, but it looked like it could be computerish. Electronics weren't terribly compatible with magic, so he'd had zero interaction with computers until his escape.

"My operating system."

"Your operating system…"

Cym felt like crying. Someone had taken this enigmatic, sexy man and reduced him to little more than a robot. The injustice of it choked him, and anger surged through him. Pink fire flared in his veins and poured through Cym's hand into Fourteen's. Gripping Fourteen as tightly as he could, Cym bowed his head over their hands and concentrated on a single thought.

Give him back to me!

At first there was no response. Just an endless stretch of empty silence as Cym stared at their joined hands and slowly began to give up hope.

What if he'd broken Fourteen forever?

Then Fourteen's hand closed tightly around his. Cym dared to look up. Fourteen blinked slowly and his eyes came back into focus.

"Are… are you back now?" Cym peered intently at Fourteen's serious face, no longer lifeless, but still colder than Cym had started to get used to.

"I think so." Fourteen wiped a tear off Cym's cheek, and to his chagrin, he realized he had cried all over their joined hands.

"What just happened?" Cym asked.

Fourteen blinked as if he were still coming back online. "The… conditioning is still there." He tapped the side of his head and sighed. "I was afraid something like this might happen. I might have my memories back, but they programmed me like a goddamned machine. It's been softened by you, but it's still in there."

"How could you have anticipated this? Have you imprinted on other people before?" Cym tried to stay calm, but inwardly he was freaking out.

If he could become Fourteen's handler so easily, what if it happened with some random person? Before Cym could get completely lost imagining what he would do if Fourteen imprinted on a cashier at a gas station, Fourteen interrupted.

"No. This is new. What I meant was, after you ordered me to sleep last night, this doesn't surprise me. I would have mentioned it, but I was… otherwise occupied up until now."

Cym's cheeks turned pink at the reminder of what they had been occupied with. "Wait… I ordered you to sleep? That's why you passed out on me? I just thought you were exhausted."

"I was, but I shouldn't have fallen over like that. You told me to go to sleep, so I had no choice but to comply. Now that you're my handler, you're going to have to be careful when you tell me to do something."

Fourteen's casual acceptance of the situation had Cym flabbergasted. "That's all you have to say? Doesn't it bother you that a nineteen-year-old boy you just met can literally tell you what to do?"

Fourteen lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "Better you than the Colonel. I trust you. You've saved my life, remember?" An emotion Cym couldn't identify filled his eyes, and he looked away. "Unless you don't want to be my handler."

"Of course I don't want to! What kind of person do you think I am?" Frantically, Cym tried to shove the plastic object back into Fourteen's hand. "Take it, I don't want it. I don't want to control anyone."

I don't want to control you.

Fourteen's shoulders dropped a fraction, and he pulled back, avoiding the device Cym offered. "It doesn't work that way. I'm not permitted to take it back." His eyes were on the wall, his posture rigid.

The Company had done this to Fourteen. That horrible, rotten, miserable place had hurt Fourteen so foundationally that he was forced to belong to someone whether he wanted to or not.

Cym would burn the whole damn operation to the ground.

He hugged Fourteen again, wanting to wipe away everything that had been done to him.

Suddenly a terrible thought occurred to him. "Do you have to hug me whether or not you want to?"

Fourteen hesitated before responding. "If you initiate it, yes."

Cym's arms flew away from him so suddenly his elbow popped in protest. "Tell me, okay? You have to tell me if you don't want me to touch you."

Cym felt sick and scrambled backward to give Fourteen space. How could Cym have thought that Fourteen wanted him earlier? For all Cym knew, his magic had combined with Fourteen's conditioning to turn him into his slave.

No wonder Fourteen had gotten so friendly with him during their dream. The short moment Fourteen had gotten angry at him was probably the last vestiges of his personality fighting to break free.

Cym's breath caught in his throat. What if, when Fourteen was touching him, he had no choice but to do whatever Cym wanted him to do?

Cym climbed off the bed and put his hands behind his back. The chance that his magic was imprisoning Fourteen, rather than liberating him, made Cym think the man would be happier behind his cold walls rather than be subject to Cym's whims, no matter what he said. Of course he'd tell Cym what he wanted to hear.

Cym's voice shook as he said, "I don't want you to do anything you don't want to do, okay?"

Fourteen nodded, his face as cold and still as the first time Cym saw him.

Cym was torn. He wanted to go to Fourteen and free him from his mental prison. But Cym had no idea if he'd be actually helping Fourteen or just imposing his own desires on him.

What Cym wanted was to give Fourteen as much free will as he could, but he had no idea how to do that.

"What do you need right now, Fourteen?" Cym asked, hoping that sticking to only asking questions would be safe.

"I need to shower and eat." The blankness on Fourteen's face as he responded was nearly unbearable to witness, especially now that Cym had seen a different side of him.

Cym kept his voice light and tried not to show his distress as he said, "If you show me where you keep your food, I'll make us something while you go shower. We'll talk more about this handler issue while we eat, okay?"

Fourteen nodded curtly and said, "You'll find what I have for food on that shelf."

Fourteen pointed to a wall that held an old, rusty sink and a battered set of shelves. One shelf had boxes, cans, and pouches; the other held several chipped dishes, a saucepan, and a hotplate.

Cym could work with that. He'd spent enough time on the run to be able to cobble a meal together from almost nothing. "Okay, I'll come up with something good, you'll see."

A slow blink was Fourteen's only response.