Page 60 of Drift

Light sniffed and dug his hand in his pocket, his look outside broken for a moment when Simon spoke and brushed by him to switch the coffee machine on. He smelt so good: shower fresh, damp hair… deodorant, cologne…. All trace of the long flight washed away.

“I’m good,” he said flatly, his look going back outside as he rested against the sink. A teaspoon slipped into the mug by him, and Light nodded towards the manor’s kitchen window. “Something’s gone down over there.”

Simon rested back by Light, arms folded. “Happens,” he said flatly. “It’s not easy living with a psychopath.”

Light looked at him. Did he know something? If so, why wasn’t he saying? “Hardly fair, do you think? Putting the blame on Gray?” He’d push to find out.

“What I think around here is pretty irrelevant, right?”

Right. Simon returned the fire, but it looked to start a fight Light didn’t want. He’d caught Simon’s and Gray’s quiet conversation as he headed into the summerhouse, and he knew talk had surrounded Simon getting back into MI5. That’s all it would ever be to Light. Talk. He tolerated the off-the-books consultancy with them, but that was kept at a firm distance. For now, Simon wore his glasses, giving up secrets on how he’d been on his laptop as he’d gotten dressed, although “dressed” did all the wrong things to Light. He wore only loose grey pyjamabottoms, showing surprisingly how fit his body was under all that boring IT suit. His calm look at Light called that confidence out too, and Light snorted a smile before turning away and heading for the bedroom.

“You not eating?”

“Not hungry,” said Light, but he glanced back over his shoulder. “They miss Martin.” He frowned. “Me too. Jack—”

“—Is good on calling you out on your bullshit, which is why it’s good to stay away until he himself gives the all clear.” Yeah, Simon was up for a fight. Coffee in hand, he followed Light into their bedroom. They had two working ones: Light’s and… also Light’s, mostly because old habits died hard, how his clothes, shoes… body… it had always claimed everyone else’s room as his own as well. It unnerved how the old habit had happened with Simon, even if Light still did choose… space in another room. He let his own look say he kept his bedroom solely for him if… when they both needed space, but Simon’s older smirk had called out how arguments saw them fuck harder, but it wouldn’t ever throw them into separate bedrooms. Light would push for the fight at the worst of times, mostly because talking… asking for closeness any other way felt awkward… odd.

And Jack? Fight he could handle, but Jack’s silence and denial…? Still gave him that throwaway toy, throwaway boy feeling. Of tastingwrong.

He did taste wrong, he’d come to terms with that. But he also knew when he’d crossed a line with taking up Martin’s offer of a friend and poisoning his way out of the manor, taking everyone down with it. Jack wasn’t Gray, and even Jan had softened a little and came, albeit warily, into the summerhouse every now and again when they were here. So most times it was to come and give Gray a message, but Jan had his phone like Graydid. Messages could be sent via them, so Jan coming to the summerhouse? It was at least to try and move forward.

Light didn’t have a clue where to start with Jack other than to give him space, but he seemed… at peace with it. And he’d had two years of it.

Light frowned. It had been longer without Brin, so… yeah, he understood Jack’s hurt. What poison he’d forced down all of their throats could have cost him Gray and Jan right along with Martin.

Shaking his head, Light took off his T-shirt, now just down to grey sweats, as Simon took his laptop off the ruffled covers and put it in the bedside unit before tossing back the covers. A look came Light’s way as he did.

Yeah. Fight. It was also there in Simon’s look over MI5 and the upcoming Afghanistan trip, but unlike Jack’s, Light could easily dig into Simon’s fight to find a way to try and burn some of it out, distract him from it. For now, he turned back, knowing Simon hated that, and he picked up a hair band before loosely tying up his hair. He hated it on his skin of a night. Being too distinct in the field, the silver tone had gone, and he was back to his half-decent rocker length.

“Stop.” A grip came at his arm, and he was turned around.

Light kept his breathing calm, so bloody calm with knowing what was coming.

Simon knelt, patting down his pockets, then the run up and his outer and inner thighs. It took only a professional moment, then Simon stepped back.

Giving a snort and keeping hold of his look, Light returned the… bastardness, but made his body search longer, slower.

Rules of sharing a bed were simple: no chemicals brought to the home table on Light’s part that would take Simon down again; no laptops, phones or anything other poison of Simon’s that had taken Light down either. Each came with their own way to burn through someone, with their… mistrust, so they enforced this no-fire zone in the bedroom.

Simon’s laptop and phone should have gone in the safe without being used, and Light threw him a look and locked them away as Simon innocently went over and grabbed his coffee.

“I needed to send the field report to Cal.” Not facing him, Simon sat on the bed.

“Don’t care.” Light threw back the covers on his side. He tolerated Simon’s body search, just like Simon tolerated Light’s. It was just… them, their way of trusting, or trying to get past the mistrust and simmering anger on Simon’s part. Simon’s look said he didn’t want to be here, not fully, so that triggered Light’s own need to keep him at a distance with knowing he could walk away. Light cockblocked him working with Gray both as a potential culler and as Gray’s MI5 unit-manager, and Simon, damn his head, he still fought against the main point. His career choices weren’t the problem, working under Gray was.

The only reason he allowed Simon to work as a consultant with Gray at MI5 was because Gray ultimately paid Simon’s wages, where Light took nothing but expenses. His main income came from Cal. The ill side to all of that meant it cut Simon’s throat with working anywhere but here with Light. But Light saw what Simon didn’t.

Gray would only be lead culler until someone better came along. And someone better always did. They’d all be on a hitlist eventually.

“You broke a rule. Yours,” Light said quietly to Simon. “Fuck off to the other room.”

“Grow up, Light. I take my own bed or nothing at all.” Simon sipped at his coffee. “I’m also going with you to Afghanistan in a few weeks.” He glanced over his shoulder. “That or I confiscate your ticket and I go alone.”

Light stilled as he went to get in bed.

Afghanistan wasn’t just a clean-up issue this time. Boron trichloride wasn’t the goddamn problem here either, and… Christ, he couldn’t disclose what he’d be working on because he said he was going alone to Cal and classified paperwork was due to be signed on Wednesday. Simon knew that, but still kept pushing those buttons over being left out and in the dark. It was done for a reason, one, again, that Simon damn well knew he couldn’t talk about. Yet here he was, trying to do just that.

Boron trichloride had a sole sadist’s reaction with water, but it had a cousin that Cal had found over in Afghanistan, one that was so much more deadly. Chlorine trifluoride was an extremely strong oxidising and fluorinating agent, which meant it went full on teenage aggression over picking a fight with anything it came into contact with. Liquid chemical contamination… trace contamination on a surface… vapor contamination…. It was known as the chemical that never stopped burning for a bloody reason. No fireman could put it out, and it was banned under the Chemical Weapons Convention because of it.

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