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Tristan's first thought at the guns being drawn was dismay. Not at them being out, but at being pointed at Alex instead of him. He couldn't remember any times before where he had been a secondary concern when he wasn't wearing a mask.

Then she called him Crimson, indicating they had a history together. So this was someone he had had dealings with. Neither she nor the man with her had shot yet, so they had something else in mind than outright killing Alex.

He glanced at his human and tilted an ear.

Alex sighed. "The guy's name is Flint, I don't remember her name, and before you say it, yes, I was stupid to let them live. I was new at all this; I thought I was being a nice guy and teaching them a life lesson."

Tristan rolled his eyes at him.

She cleared her throat.

"I know, but in my defense, I was new at this. I saw myself as a nice guy, and I never expected to come back here. It does explain why the port looked familiar."

"Stop ignoring us," the man said, taking a step to move next to the woman and waving his gun about.

"Sorry," Alex replied, "But I felt that placating the bigger threat was the wise thing to do."

"We're the ones with the guns here," she said, "not you."

"And don't worry, these are our guns. They aren't going to blow up in our hands."

"How did you manage to blow up their guns?" Tristan asked. It was clear they didn't like being ignored, so how better to put them on edge than doing exactly that?

Alex shrugged. "I'd paid them for a job."

"The list that led you to me."

"Yeah, after it was done they double-crossed me. Took my guns and threatened me with them. I told you about my time with pirates so I'd learned to be ready. I'd booby-trapped the guns. When they wouldn't see reason--it was mostly her if I remember right. Flint tried to talk her down, but in the end he was in love with her and I'm proof of just how far someone will go for love. I detonated them, taking their hands in the explosion."

"Hey, I still love her, or haven't you noticed that were both here?"

She'd calm down a little. "It's okay, Hun. I think they're doing this to get us to make a mistake. Let's not give them that, okay?"

He nodded and made an effort to calm down.

"Your little life lesson worked too. Oh we double crossed plenty of people to get where we are, but we were smart enough not to use their guns after you. Oh, and we both got a matching accessory, do you like?" She moved her gun to her other hand so she could move her metal fingers.

The man with her did the same. They weren't all that smart, Tristan thought, they'd effectively disarmed themselves just to show them artificial hands.

The people around them didn't matter. They'd relaxed and weren't expecting any trouble anymore. He could reach the woman, take her gun, snap her neck, shoot the man before anyone had the time to bring their guns at the ready.

"Very pretty," Alex said. "It explains the 'Silver Hands' as a gang name. How come no one else is sporting metal hands? I'd figure that you'd want everyone to match."

"Do you have any idea how expensive cybernetics are?" the man replied. "We're running a business. It's cheaper to have them wear a silver glove when we need to make an impact."

"You're still money driven, so I guess that's good. People appreciate consistency. It means they know how to deal with you."

She glared at him. "Is that a threat?"

"You're the ones with the guns. How can I even think of threatening you? I just meant that it's good business to have a brand and stick to it. You're money driven so people who want to deal with you know to bring a lot of that to the table during discussions if they want to walk out of here alive."

"So you think you can buy your way out of this?"

Alex laughed. A genuine laugh. Tristan appreciated it. It was the first time in their years together that he'd heard him laugh like that.

When he was done he shook his head. "Lady, I wouldn't waste one credit on you and your boyfriend."

"Credit?" she asked.

Alex sighed. "Or whatever you call your currency here."

"Rublon," Tristan offered.

"Rublon? Where do they get those names?"

"You're getting sidetracked," the man said. "You just said you wanted us to kill you."

"No, I said I wasn't going to waste a cr--a rublon on you two. That isn't the same thing."

"Sounds the same to me."

"Whatever. How about you get on with whatever this is so me and my partner can get back to the job? As much as I usually appreciate reminiscing, we're under a fixed time frame."

She approached him. "I get the feeling you're not taking this seriously." She rested the muzzle of her gun on his chest. Tristan had the urge to bat it away.

"Lady--"

"My name is Liz."

"Fine. Liz, I'm taking you and Flint with exactly the amount of seriousness you two deserve."

"He's insulting us, isn't he Hun?"

"Yes, he is. I told you, he's trying to unnerve us. It won't work."

"Look, if you wanted me outright dead, you'd have your bruisers try it when they first showed up. Clearly you have something to say. I'm listening."

"Fine." She turned her back to him and headed for the crowd. The man did the same.

Tristan saw Alex tense, he could see him calculating distances, how long they had before they reached their destination. All he had to do was nod and Alex would take them out. Tristan didn't move.

The man and woman stopped just before the crowd and turned.

"You probably thought you'd humiliated us when you blew up our hands and stole my hover." The man said. "Well, we picked ourselves up. You gave us something you hadn't planned on, something we hadn't even realized we needed. You gave us notoriety. We were the couple that stuck together so much we'd suffered together. And we promised we'd do the same for anyone who stood with us."

The crowd nodded.

"Then I'm glad I could help. So without me this would never have happened? Maybe I should be asking for some sort of consulting fee then."

"Shut up!"

Alex smiled, but didn't say anything.

"We build our gang up, with them, we took out our rivals, incorporating those who agreed to work for us, killing the rest. We grew and we--"

The man stopped talked as Alex made a show of checking his chrono.

"Do you think this is a joke?"

Alex opened his mouth and Tristan suppressed a smile. Did the man actually think either of them took any of this seriously? Hadn't Alex's behavior made that clear?

Alex closed it, thought about it for a moment, then he turned to Tristan. "I did say we were in a hurry, didn't I? I mean, I don't think I used those exact words, but my meaning was clear, right?"

Tristan shrugged.

Alex looked at the couple. "Look, if there's a point can we jump to that?"

"The point is that we've been watching you," the woman snarled. "You might think you've been hiding your trail, but we've been following you all over the universe for almost a decade. So don't think that--"

Alex raised his hand.

She sighed. "What?"

"I just want to clarify something. That trail you've been following? It wasn't where I was. See, I have this program floating in the net, well it's more than one really, but--"

"Get to the point."

"Wow, touchy, aren't you? Point is that I'm never where the reports say I am. Anytime I'm seen somewhere and it gets reported, the program goes in and modifies the location."

The man snorted.

"Don't believe me? When we're done here, go check. I mean I'm guessing no one told you I was coming here. You got a visual sighting when the last time I was seen I was light years away. I know the Law doesn't believe these reports anymore because they don't make sense. I couldn't make the program smart enough to work out travel times and all that, but it still keeps them from knowing where I go, where we go."

"You know," she said, "for someone who claims to be in a hurry, you like to take your time explaining things."

"Sorry, I just felt you needed to know you aren't as smart as you think you are." Alex crossed his arms over his chest.

"That's it." The man stepped forward his gun aimed at Alex. "I'm shooting him. I'm not going to have him insult you like that."

She joined him, but placed a hand on his gun. "Patience, Hun. We'll get to that, and since Crimson here is in such a hurry, it's going to be soon." She stepped closer to Alex, putting herself well within three steps of him. A distance where Alex was deadly even without a knife.

"So here's the bottom line. We rose to the top. We're one of the three gangs controlling anything the government and corporations don't on this planet. There is nothing that happens here that we don't know about."

"So," Tristan said, "If there was an unexplained influx of a certain drug, you'd know about it."

"Of course we do," the man answered.

"And you'd know who is behind it."

"Yes." He sounded exasperated.

"And you'd be willing to tell me who it is."

"It's the--"

"Shut up!"

He looked at his girlfriend. "What?"

"Don't you get it? That's what they're after, that's their job." She looked at Tristan. "You two are partners, right?"

The term was too strong for what Alex was, but Tristan nodded. He didn't feel like arguing semantics.

"How about this. I tell you who's behind the drug influx, that way you can get paid for the job. But we keep Crimson. We owe him some well-deserved retribution. I'll settle for just killing him, but I'd much rather be able to take my time with him. What do you think?"

"No." The speed of the response surprised the woman and Tristan. She'd clearly expected him to think about it. He'd planned on doing the same, if only because it was what the situation asked for. No matter what his answer, he should have acted like he gave her offer serious consideration.

"Are you sure? What I'm offering you is more than reasonable. Yes, it's going to cost you a partner, but there are plenty of other mercs out there. I'm sure you can find ano--"

"I. Said. No."

Alex was looking at him, so Tristan nodded. Before his head was up the human was running, not toward her, but toward the man.

In the instant of surprise that followed Tristan had wrenched the gun out of her hand. Or rather wrenched her hand out of the arm.

She screamed and he backhanded her. He untangled the gun out of the fingers as he turned and he was firing at the people who had escorted them here. They were armored, but thugs like them liked to be able to snarl and intimidate people, so they weren't wearing helmets.

Three of them were down with holes in their heads before anyone had moved. Then he was running toward the others. He downed two more before guns were raised and he had to make an abrupt turn and throw himself into the crowd who weren't as fast to react.

He fired into anyone close. Dropped the gun, picked up another one, this one a Brazely. Nowhere near what he preferred, but it would do until he got something better, which meant he had to get to the armored thugs again.

Instead of working together, the crowd panicked. They'd expected to shoot them at a distance, not to have one of them in their midst, killing them back. They were keeping the thugs from shooting blindly at him, but that wouldn't last long.

He didn't need long. He just needed long enough. He caught sight of Alex through the thinning crowd. He was on the other side, a gun in one hand and knife in the other. The knife was larger than the ones he still had on him. The crowd seemed to think he wasn't much of a threat because they weren't fleeing from him.

The thugs moved to keep Tristan far enough for their rifles to be at their most effective, which meant they were moving away from the dead ones as he got closer to them.

The crowd was almost all gone and the only thing keeping the thugs from hitting him was their lack of skills. The rifles and armor had been given to the meanest looking people, not the skilled one.

He threw himself at one of the dead thugs, grabbed the rifle there, rolled, shouldered it and pressed the trigger.

Nothing happened.

He grabbed the body and pulled it up in front of him and it took the hits meant for him. The rifle was locked to its owner, either DNA or print lock. Neither one he could bypass while being under fire like this.

He looked left and right. The other bodies were too far, as was the gun he'd dropped in exchange for this rifle. The only options were to rush his attackers, using the body as a shield, or make his way to the door and get outside with the fleeing crowd, leaving Alex on his own.

Before he had to make a decision, the firing stopped. Not just those firing at him, the large space was silent, except for a few moans of pain.

He looked over his shoulder. Alex was standing between two dead thugs, covered in blood. Tristan stood, letting his shield flop to the ground.

He approached Alex cautiously. "Did you leave anyone alive?"

The human looked at him, eyes borderline wild, breathing hard. "You didn't train me for that." He looked around, looking for someone to kill.

"How about the man and woman who led them?" This was the one time when he had to be careful around Alex. In his current state he could go off again at the slightest perceived threat, even if it came from Tristan. He wasn't worried about Alex being able to kill him even then, but it would be a waste of time they didn't have.

After the first time he'd witnessed Alex take down an impossible number of opponents, and had then attacked Tristan, he'd done his research. Experts called the condition a Combat Fugue. A hyper-alert state where the person seemed capable of inhuman feat of fighting.

He'd spent the following years putting Alex in fights with large numbers of opponents at one time, taking on criminal gangs, cartels, the Law when they got in the way and Mercs. Each time forcing him to remain in control, to stay at the line where he could fight inhumanly, but still be aware of what he was doing.

He'd reached that point, but the problem with threading that line was that he could still fall on the other side and start attacking anyone still moving.

Alex looked around, having to focus on something not fighting related was helping him move away from the line. "I don't know. I slashed him to get his gun. He fell. I intended to shoot him, but by then the crowd had their guns up so I had to deal with them. You handled Liz."

Tristan found where she'd fallen, a trail of blood led to the back of the space, another door. Small quarters, a bed, dresser, shower and a door leading outside. The blood led there. He could see two sets of footsteps in it, stopping abruptly. They'd gotten into a hover waiting there.

He went back inside, closed and locked the door. Disabling it.

Alex was standing in the other doorway. Other than being covered in blood he no longer looked ready to kill anyone he met.

"I can't find Flint's body anywhere."

"The two of them escaped. They had a hover ready."

"Sorry."

"You should have killed them the first time."

"I know. I wasn't joking when I said I thought I was being nice. Even after a year among pirates and the handful of job I had to take to make it here, I still saw myself as a good guy. The years it took to find you disabused me of most of that. You took care of the rest."

There was no resignation in his voice anymore. No signs he wished things had gone differently. This was the life he'd chosen for himself, and he had come to terms with it.

"There's a shower. Get cleaned up I'll keep watch."

Alex nodded. "I killed whoever was left alive, but the main door can't be locked. It opens outward so no way to barricade it short of welding it."

"We'll be fine."

Alex undressed and Tristan found himself watching him. The blood had made its way under his clothes and gave his skin a red tint that looked good on him. A sign of the battles he'd fought seeping into him, of the forging he'd undergone.

When he stepped under the water and it ran red, Tristan had almost joined him there. He wanted to celebrate their victory. To spend the rest of the energy he was feeling on Alex. Take him. Make him his again.

That would leave them vulnerable. Their safety was more important than his relief. He could take care of that once they were back at the motel, they'd have enough time before they needed to move again.

He grabbed one of the rifles and went back to the bedroom's doorway. He sat down, took out his tools, and took off the stock's cover, where all the electronics were. He didn't work hard at disabling the print lock, he just needed something to do to avoid thinking of Alex's naked body under him. Of the human moaning as he moved over him.

"I'm done."

Tristan looked up. Alex was dressed. How long had he been lost in thoughts? The humans' clothing was damp but mostly clean of blood.

"Your turn to keep watch." He headed for the shower, shedding his clothes. Not caring if Alex saw his excitement.

He didn't have to cool the water down to his liking. Alex had learned to take his showers cold. He considered turning the heat up to burn his excitement away, but he'd deserved it. This had been a good fight.

He glanced in Alex direction. He was leaning against the door frame, looking at Tristan. There was want in those eyes, intense desire.

Good. His human should want him. He should look forward to being used again. And it would happen.

He focused on washing. The quicker he was done here the faster they were back to their room.

He only washed his pants, and only because he didn't want the blood on them to attract attention.

Once he was done, they went out the back, and watched for anyone following them. He caught sight of green and white, but only in the distance, and once they were on the transit system, it was easy to lose them.

It took them three more hours than needed to reach their motel, time spent doubling back, jumping from one tram to the other so that by the time they got there Tristan could be certain no one knew where they were.

"I'll start packing," Alex said as he punched in the unlock code.

Tristan wasn't thinking of packing, or at least not of packing his things as he entered. He was ready to throw Alex on the bed and rip his clothes off.

The presence of a human sitting in the only seat in the room stopped him. His mind reeled for a moment, refusing to accept what he was seeing, that he'd entered the room without even making sure it was safe.

The man had gained weight since the last time he'd seen him, but it was him. Without meaning to, Tristan fell into what he remembered of the mask he'd worn for the months he'd spent living with him.

"Vic?"

"Simon," the man replied, lifting the gun that had been resting on his lap.