Two Man Station Read online

  “This doesn’t have to be a thing,” he said. “Just two blokes getting off together.”

  “Right,” Jason said, wide-eyed. He nodded. “Yeah.”

  Gio sat on the edge of the bath and fumbled with his bootlaces. They were wet, and his numb fingers struggled to unlace them. His breath caught as Jason knelt in front of him to help. Gio withdrew his hands and gripped the edge of the bath tightly.

  Jason eased Gio’s boots off, and then stood.

  “Here,” Gio said, and reached down. He drew Jason’s foot up, setting the thick tread of the boot against his thigh. He worked the laces loose and drew the boot off, before he did the same with the other foot. Jason’s socks were as wet as his own.

  Hours standing on that fucking highway . . .

  He closed his eyes briefly, and opened them again when Jason cupped his cheek. Jason was staring down at him, looking worried.

  “Shower,” Gio said, rising to his feet. He unfastened his belt and opened his pants. Hooked his thumbs around the elastic of his underwear, and shoved it all down. His dick was hard already, but he resisted the urge to touch it while Jason was watching him. He stepped free of his tangled clothes, and bent down to tug his socks off. He remembered, out of nowhere, the guy he’d slept with at university years ago who’d left his socks on when they’d fucked, and how Gio hadn’t been able to stop laughing about it for weeks afterwards.

  He got into the shower and twisted the taps on, hardly waiting until the water was warm before he moved underneath it. His fingers fumbled with the shower gel as he grabbed it from the caddy, and he turned around in time to see Jason stepping in to join him.

  A new rush of heat washed over Gio.

  It was okay to do this. This was the result of a combination of sleep deprivation and adrenaline, and hookups happened all the time in the job. It was stress relief. It was also more than that. It was a way to feel alive again, to grab on to another living, breathing human being and carve out a moment of pleasure and vitality after spending too many hours surrounded by death and misery. It was pushing back against the horror of blood and body parts strewn across a black highway. It was okay to do this.

  They kissed again under the warm spray of the shower, and Gio tilted his head back so that Jason could trace a route from his jaw down his throat. His skin prickled, and he rocked against Jason. Wet skin slid against wet skin, and Gio almost dropped the shower gel. He pushed Jason up against the shower screen and fumbled with the bottle, squeezing a handful of gel into his palm before shoving his hand down between them. He brought their dicks together, and Jason laced his fingers through Gio’s.

  Fuck.

  Yes.

  There.

  They kissed again, and then Gio leaned away so he could watch. Jason’s eyes were closed, his mouth open. Water ran in a rivulet off his lower lip, and Gio leaned in quickly to taste it. Jason huffed a warm breath against his mouth. Heat coiled tightly in Gio’s belly, and then lower. His arousal climbed as they worked their dicks together, fingers slippery with shower gel.

  Gio groaned and dropped his head forward so that his forehead rested on Jason’s shoulder. Jason panted heavily against his ear. Gio turned his head and sucked at the water on the skin of Jason’s throat. Licked up to his jaw, chasing the rasp of stubble.

  Jason froze, fingers squeezing around their dicks tighter, and then he was coming in hot spurts. Gio rocked against him almost frantically, his own climax chasing on the heels of Jason’s, and just like that he was boneless. He sagged against Jason, and then slipped, and Jason caught him before he knocked himself out on the shower screen.

  Jason turned them so that Gio’s back was against the screen, and angled his body to direct the spray of the shower against Gio’s chest and abdomen. He wiped the shower gel and come off Gio’s skin with gentle sweeps of his palms.

  Gio blinked, and water clumped in his eyelashes like tears.

  “You’re bloody wrecked,” Jason said, the corner of his mouth lifting in a smile.

  “Two days ago I was wrecked,” Gio told him. “Now I’m totally fucked.”

  Jason twisted the taps off and pushed the shower door open. “You need to sleep.”

  Gio followed him out of the shower, placing his feet carefully so he didn’t fall over.

  Jason wrenched the single towel off the rail.

  “There’s another one in the linen cupboard, I think.”

  “We can share,” Jason said, his smile growing.

  “Yeah.” Gio took the towel and gave himself a cursory wipe down before passing the towel back to Jason. He watched Jason dry himself, too tired to be subtle about it. When Jason’s gaze fell to their tangled-up uniforms on the bathroom floor, Gio shook his head. “Don’t put that back on. You can borrow something.”

  He led the way down the hall into his bedroom, and gestured at his cupboard. “You can . . .” His bed drew him like a magnet, and he barely managed to haul the covers back before falling in. “Whatever fits.”

  Jason opened his cupboard. “Thanks.”

  “Do you want to stay for a while?” Gio asked, already drifting off to sleep. It would be nice, he thought, to fall asleep with Jason here.

  “I can’t.” Jason sounded apologetic. “I have to pick Taylor up.”

  “Yeah, no problem.” Gio closed his eyes.

  “Don’t come back to work until you’ve caught up on sleep.”

  “Okay.” He thought about pointing out that he didn’t even know what day it was, let alone what shift he was rostered on next, but fuck it. Too many words. He was going to sleep for years now.

  As he drifted off to the soft patter of rain against the tin roof, he thought that Jason kissed him again.

  Maybe he dreamed it.

  Taylor seemed happy to be home. He dumped his backpack in his bedroom, leaving Jason to dig through it for dirty clothes, and then headed for the kitchen.

  “Did we get any flooding here, Dad?”

  Jason followed him into the kitchen, a bundle of Taylor’s dirty clothes in his arms. “At the house?”

  “Yeah.”

  “We had some water go through underneath, but not much. Why?”

  Taylor inched towards the kitchen cupboard. “Oh, I was just wondering.”

  Jason turned away just enough to keep Taylor in his periphery. Just enough to see Taylor sneak the cupboard open and smuggle a tin of tuna under his shirt. That damn cat. Taylor was probably worried it had been washed away or something.

  “Do you want me to go and put the washing on?” Taylor asked innocently, as though he’d ever been the sort of kid who volunteered to do housework, and wasn’t looking for an excuse to hunt down the cat. Jason was almost tempted to let him do it, until he remembered the uniforms soaking in the tub beside the machine. His and Gio’s. Maybe he’d crossed a weird line—had he?—but surely it was only practical? Gio would be asleep for hours yet, and blood was a bitch to get out if you didn’t soak it in cold water first.

  “Nah, I’ll get it,” Jason said. “I have to throw some uniforms in. I’m sure the cat is fine, Taylor.”

  Taylor gave a guilty jerk and fumbled with his badly concealed tin of tuna, but recovered quickly and followed Jason down the back steps to under the house.

  Jason dumped Taylor’s dirty clothes in the washing machine. There really weren’t enough for the four days he’d stayed with Kane’s family, but Kane’s mother probably hadn’t thought twice about throwing Taylor’s clothes in with her own family’s when she’d put a load of washing on. That was the thing people did, wasn’t it? No line crossing there.

  Jason dragged a sopping-wet uniform shirt out of the tub next to the washing machine, and wrung the worst of the water out before dropping it in the machine. He could hear Taylor rattling away somewhere behind him, over near the tool cupboard where the cat liked to perch. He swirled his hands through the tangle of clothes in the tub and pulled out a sock.

  His or Gio’s?

  He thought of Gio’s smile, tired a
nd slow but still somehow retaining a hint of brightness, as Jason had knelt in front of him to help him with his boots. He thought of the taste of Gio’s skin under the shower, and the way they’d fallen into a rhythm, clumsy at first but very rapidly in sync, their fingers laced together as they jerked themselves off.

  “Hey, Dad!” Taylor popped up beside him suddenly. “Those aren’t your undies!”

  “I’m washing Gio’s stuff as well,” Jason said, keeping his tone even. Nothing to see here, move along. “He’s sleeping.”

  Taylor knocked his shoulder against Jason, and watched as Jason shoved the last of the clothes into the washing machine. “Dad?”

  “Mmm?”

  “When I was staying at Kane’s place for the flood, did you miss me?”

  Jason selected the cycle and hit the Start button. The machine lurched to life. “Of course I did.”

  He’d been run ragged this week. Sleep, eat, work. Sleep, eat, work. More work than the other two, actually, but that was the way things usually went during a major incident. He’d missed Taylor, but not enough to wish he was home. Jason had been too busy to set aside any time for him, and he knew Taylor would have been living it up at Kane’s place with video games, and horror movies they weren’t supposed to watch—supplied by Kane’s big brother Alex, no doubt—and as much junk food as they could sneak in. But yeah, he’d missed him. He’d missed having him close.

  Taylor’s smile was half-proud, half-embarrassed.

  “Why?” Jason slung an arm around Taylor’s shoulders. “Did you miss me?”

  “No!” Taylor protested, half a second before he relented. “A little bit. Maybe.”

  Jason laughed. “It’s good to have you back, mate.”

  Taylor beamed.

  It took the better part of a week for the town to get back into its usual rhythm after the flooding. It was still raining, a low interminable drizzle that felt like it might set in for years, but the monsoonal rain had eased up in the Gulf, giving the river system a chance to channel the water away to the coastline instead of dumping it across the plains. Life settled slowly back into a normal routine. The school reopened on Monday. The supermarket shelves filled up with bread and milk again. Volunteers helped with the cleanup. The first flood of the wet season was over and done with. It would hopefully be the last, but Jason knew from experience that there would probably be more to come.

  The investigation into the fatal accident on the highway had been handed over to the Forensic Crash Unit, which meant less paperwork for Jason and Gio. Not that there were many statements to take anyway. The driver was dead, his wife had been airlifted to Townsville, and the only witnesses had come across the scene after the accident had already happened, and called emergency services.

  It had been a bad one though. A messy one. Jason had seen the look in Gio’s eyes that night. It had no doubt been reflected in his own. It was such a basic human instinct to shy away from horror like that. It hit on a visceral level, and it was hard to shake. What had happened afterwards with Gio . . . well, that had been basic human instinct too.

  They didn’t talk about it. Jason couldn’t say they ignored it exactly, though. The knowledge of it lay between them in every glance, in every smile or nod in passing, and it felt okay. It didn’t feel like a mistake. They could keep it out of the office. Jason was Gio’s boss; it was a complication, but it didn’t need to be a disaster, did it?

  Strange how Jason was trying to rationalise it all now, to turn everything he’d said after the kiss on its head because he wanted. But it could work. Partners hooked up all the time. The job was fucking notorious for it. More hookups and subsequent breakups than bloody high school. It wasn’t all on the down-low either. There had been a married couple working together at Hughenden a few years back, sergeant and senior constable. She’d been his supervisor, but they’d made it work. Hell of a balancing act maybe, when it came to ethics and to public perception, but it was possible. Of course, that relationship had been disclosed. And probably scrutinised by the bosses to make sure there was no collusion. As though a copper would lie for his spouse at work but wouldn’t do the same for a mate. Still, public perception mattered. The old Courier Mail test that had been knocked into Jason’s head at the academy.

  “How would it look on the front page of the Courier Mail?”

  He thought of Gio.

  How would it look?

  Jason wanted.

  He was still awake on Tuesday night past ten when Gio finished his shift. Taylor was asleep, and would sleep like the dead until daylight. Jason watched from his kitchen when the lights went on at Gio’s place, and then typed out a text.

  Want to come over?

  He sent the message. He worried that it was crossing a line though. Worried that it was putting pressure on Gio that he hadn’t intended. He worried that Gio would respond badly. And he was worried that Gio wouldn’t respond at all.

  Jason stood there, his phone in his hand, until he heard the tread of footsteps on the back stairs, and then went and opened the door.

  “Hey,” Gio said.

  “Hey.”

  There was a strange disconnect in Jason’s brain when he showed Gio into his bedroom. The photograph of Alana sat on the bedside table, and there was a tiny voice at the back of his mind reminding him that this was her room. But it had been five years. The mattress was new since then, the sheets were. Jason had been replacing Alana’s touch by degrees for a long time. A part of him wanted to feel that this was a big step—momentous—but it was no bigger, probably, than the day he’d replaced her old pillow. This had been his room alone for five years.

  Gio’s gaze slid over Alana’s photograph, and he didn’t say anything.

  He was still in uniform.

  “What you said,” Jason said. “Just two blokes getting off together. You good with that?”

  Gio lifted his chin and looked him in the eye. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

  “How do you want to do this?”

  Gio reached into one of the cargo pockets on his uniform pants and then drew his hand out again. He dropped a handful of condoms onto the end of the bed. “I’m flexible, Sarge. In more ways than one.”

  “I’m not your sergeant in this room,” Jason said, his throat suddenly dry.

  “Jason.” Gio nodded and stepped forward. “How do you want to do this, Jason? Do you like to top, or do you like to bottom?”

  “It’s been a while.” All Jason could think of was the feel of Gio’s dick in his hand last night, and how much he wanted it inside him.

  Gio tapped the bulging pocket on his other leg, like he knew exactly what Jason was thinking. “I brought lube too. Plenty of it.”

  “You that sure of yourself, huh?” Jason raised his eyebrows.

  “Yeah.” Gio tugged his mouth up in a grin. “I fucking am.”

  “Then I want you to top me.” Jason pressed the button-lock on the bedroom door. It was the sort that could be easily opened with a butter knife, but if Taylor woke up for some unaccountable reason, they’d have a bit of a warning before he burst in. “If you’re up for the challenge.”

  “Yeah, I reckon I am.” The skin at the corner of Gio’s eyes crinkled when he smiled. He unfastened his belt. “At least I know this isn’t a uniform kink, right? Like, you’re not some holster sniffer.”

  Jason shrugged, warming to the teasing. Maybe it was all bluster and bravado, but it was a side of Gio he hadn’t seen before, and he liked it. “Maybe that’s why I joined up. To get amongst it.”

  “Yeah, sure.” Gio pulled his shirt off, the muscles in his abdomen rippling. He sat down on the end of the bed and unlaced his boots. “Playing the field in a two-man station.”

  “Worked eventually, didn’t it?”

  Gio’s smile grew. “Yeah. Point taken.”

  Jason tugged his own shirt off, and unzipped his jeans before pushing them down and stepping out of them.

  “Nice,” Gio said, standing up and moving into his space. He r
ested one hand against Jason’s hip, and Jason’s breath caught. He’d missed the simple intimacy of touches like this. This wasn’t fast and desperate like they’d been in the shower. Gio’s motions were slow and deliberate, and his gaze seemed almost thoughtful.

  “Just two blokes getting off.” Gio’s careful touch belied that, and Jason pushed the worry that maybe it was more than that to the back of his mind. He didn’t want to think about it now. Didn’t want to fuck it up before they’d even started.

  Gio brushed his other hand against where Jason’s dick was straining against his underwear, and Jason pulled him closer. He flicked open the button on Gio’s fly and unzipped his pants. Gio caught them as Jason tried to tug them down, and hitched them awkwardly back up while he fumbled with the button on the cargo pocket on his left thigh. He dug out a tube of lube, and then let his pants drop.

  Jason resisted the urge to check he absolutely had locked the door, and then took his underwear down.

  There was no almost-manic tiredness in Gio’s eyes tonight. His dark gaze was intent, and he swiped his tongue over his bottom lip as Jason stripped. “Yeah,” he whispered.

  Jason gripped Gio’s jaw. He angled his face upward, and then their mouths were pressing together. Heat rushed through Jason as Gio’s lips opened and his tongue licked slowly into Jason’s mouth. Jason thought of their first kiss: frantic, messy, a mistake. This one was incredible.

  Gio slipped a hand behind Jason’s head, guiding him gently as their mouths met again. Jason groaned, pulling Gio closer. He felt Gio’s erection pressing against his thigh, and the sudden wave of pure want that flooded through him was almost overwhelming. Gio drew back, and then stepped out of his underwear.

  God, he was beautiful. How had . . . how had someone hurt him? It was unthinkable.

  Gio sat on the end of the bed, tugging his dick almost absently as he stared up at Jason. Jason sat beside him, and curled towards him. They kissed again, urgency rising between them.