A Night’s Work – Chapter 5

Aysha closed the door of the shipping container from the inside and then turned around to take Synchro's arm and put it over her shoulders.

“Are they going to buy it?” she inquired.

“We don’t need them to believe it forever... Just long enough that they can’t be sure where to begin searching again.”

His voice was a bit meek, and they walked through the inside of the empty shipping container, towards the back. Synchro pointed to a section of the wall and Aysha helped him lean against the metallic exterior before going there and giving it a robust shake. She found the seams, well hidden in the rust, and was able to open it. It was dark inside, so she pressed a button on her bracer to turn on the flashlight built into the device.

Synchro’s safehouse was the innermost container in a stack of about twelve of them. They had scratched themselves badly jumping out of the car while out of sight of their pursuers and then watched them zoom past them as they chased a car driving itself towards the end of the pier. Then Synchro showed her through a couple of containers and into his hiding spot. The hideout was equipped with the basics they needed to lay low for a couple of days. Two cot beds, an electric heat plate, an electricity generator, boxes of supplies, like food and medicine, and even an old couch and an entertainment system.

After taking in the sights, Aysha helped Synchro up again and then guided him towards the couch, placing him down with a grunt. As he squirmed and clenched just above his thigh wound, she flicked on a switch on the generator, causing a few lights to go on. There were small emergency lights, and the interior of the container safehouse was still a bit dim with them, but it was better than just her bracer light. Aysha looked around the hideout with some lingering doubt before she spoke:

“Are you sure this spot is safe?”

“As safe as anywhere can be... There are a few signal jammers here so... We can’t call anyone from the inside but also nobody can track us or our commlinks. There are empty containers around us in all directions too, so heat and sound signatures shouldn’t be detectable from the outside.”

“What if they decide to check nearby containers once they find the empty car?”

“They would take hours. They wouldn’t want to be doing this during daylight. And for them to find us, they’d have to go through the empty ones first and find the secret door you just opened so...”

“We’d hear them.”

“And that is if they assume we are hiding close by. We could’ve just as well snuck out the sinking car with a scuba kit, for all they know.”

Aysha didn’t like to operate on ‘maybes’ but she had to concede that staying put was their best option for now.

“In that case, I should take a look at that.” She pointed to his leg and moved to one of the boxes, having little trouble finding a proper medkit.

“Much as I would prefer to go to an actual doc, I don’t think we should poke our heads out for a couple of days. And as I said, signal jammer so... We should stay radio silent. No stepping out to make calls.”

“Not planning on it.” Aysha kneeled in front of him and pulled a crate for him to rest his ankle and keep his leg stretched.

The wound had no exit hole which meant the bullet was likely inside. She had watched the good doc perform a few bullet extractions but mostly on herself, and there was only so much you could learn when in excruciating pain. She cleaned the wound the best she could, injecting him with an anti-bleeding agent and a light anaesthetic before she proceeded to dig into it until she could find the glint of brass-coloured metal inside. Which, even with the anaesthetics, didn’t seem like the most pleasant sensation for Synchro.

“Ouch... The fuck you doing down there?”

“Trying to fish out lead from your muscle tissue.”

She knew she wasn’t doing a particularly good job but she was the best of the options available. To her surprise, eventually, she felt the small forceps grazing against something less squishy than the rest. With an awkward turn of the wrist, she twisted it, pinching and feeling resistance. As she pulled it free, Synchro's hands sunk into the corners of the couch. And then he screamed but by that time, the bullet was out.

“It seems intact... A bit deformed but not broken. That’s good,” Aysha offered, tossing the bloody bullet into a waiting metal tray. “You should still see a proper doc when this is over.”

“No shit. Maybe they can fix the way you mangled my leg getting that out.”

“Fuck you,” she said but still pulled the ballistic spray to coat over the open cavity. The clear fluid expanded and congealed, sealing the wound. Synchro looked at her with an expression she couldn’t quite place at first, before concluding it was gratitude, and seemingly not really believing it. He did not say the words though and she wasn’t expecting him to do it. But she returned a look of acknowledgement of his gratitude. The wordless exchange was the best they could manage at that point.

“So...” She began to stand. “If you don’t have a fever in twelve hours, that probably means you’re okay.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Not really... I’m just sure the fever is bad news.”

Synchro sighed and tapped his leg.

“I hope the painkillers kick in soon.”

“Takes a minute... First time getting shot?”

“Surprisingly enough, yeah.”

“Is that because you swoop in after the job is pretty much done to just collect the reward?”

“Oh, fuck that... I knew this was coming.”

“Well, we are not in a life-threatening situation anymore... No joke, that was messed up.”

“Biochem thing was also messed up, you know? If someone from my crew takes my intel to you, you don’t run the job. You say no thanks and kick that shithead out.”

Aysha took a deep breath and nodded.

“I know. It was fucked up.”

Synchro didn’t seem to be expecting that response. His mouth was open as if he had more to say but that admission stopped him in his tracks. Then he thought for a moment before opening his mouth again.

“The Sokov job...” Synchro began.

“Don’t.”

“No, listen... The job went south because you shot his son.”

“This again? Yes, I know. But I only shot him because he was shooting at us. Because the alarm system went off... And you were supposed to have neutralized it.” She brought her fingers to the bridge of her nose, exhaling in exasperation.

"You’re not listening... I know that. I fucked up the job. Not just the alarm. My intel was bad. I should’ve known he was in the house. If I knew, I would not have picked that night.”

“Why is this... Why now?”

“Because I'm pretty sure Sokov is the one who put this hit on us. So today is my fault too.”

Aysha grunted, unsure of what to say. She had waited more than a year to hear him admit that the job’s failure was on him. But now that she did, it seemed pointless to keep rubbing it in. Now all she felt was a pang of guilt for not owning up to her own part in that massive fuck up.

“It’s not all on you. I should’ve gone non-lethal. I got spooked. The guy couldn’t shoot for shit but I heard a gun going off and I fired.”

Synchro didn’t seem to buy it but he nodded. And then there was a moment of silence between them, the first calm moment with the two in the same room since they stopped working together all those years ago. Aysha let herself fall onto the couch beside him.

“Sorry about your bike,” Aysha said.

“I’m sorry about yours.”

She agreed and allowed her head to fall back onto the couch's backrest, with her eyes facing the rusty metallic wave-shaped ceiling of their bolt hole. As the adrenaline lingering in her system began to drain out and her heartbeat started to normalize, she became gradually more and more aware of the reality of spending forty-eight hours in hiding. Not only would it be painfully boring but staying in such close quarters with Synchro, even if they seemed to have reached some sort of peace, was likely to quickly become awkward. She could smell his sweat already, even over the iron-heavy scent of blood and the slight chemical notes coming from the first-aid gel on his leg. And she was sure that if he couldn’t smell her, he would soon as she felt the film of sweat born out of effort and stress coating her forehead. Aysha leaned forth to slide off her jacket and began unstrapping the webbing gear around her waist where she kept the ammo, grenades and other mission-critical equipment.

She had opted for a grey, synthcotton high-cut bodysuit to be worn underneath her gear, and she could see the small marks of wetness from her sweat beneath her breasts and against her stomach. The high-cut leg holes left the lower part of her sides exposed. As she tossed her jacket onto one of the cot beds, claiming it for her own for later, she thought she caught some movement with the corner of her eye, and she had the distinct feeling that Synchro was looking at her more intently. Her first thought was that she might have a wound she had not noticed but quickly she realised that was a rather naïve thought. He was leering. And she had spent so much time thinking of him as a rival and a fuck-up that she never considered him as someone that could be attracted to her. That thought was alien, surprising and it gave her a pleasurable tingle, knowing that even though he might hate her, his eyes were still drawn to her. Moved by it, she stood from the couch to unbutton the front of her tight pants.

“I don’t suppose you have spare clothes here?” she asked, partially to low-key plant the thought of her changing into his mind but also as a legitimate question, now that she thought on the subject.

“Not a lot. Maybe a clean shirt somewhere.”

She didn’t have to turn to know his eyes were following her as she let her pants hang lower by a couple of inches, exposing the very top of her buttocks and letting him notice the drastic curve of her bodysuit, betraying how it turned into a thong after disappearing past her waistline. Leaving them hanging low, she stretched languidly, placing both her arms above her head, intertwining her fingers and pushing upwards. A blush rose to Aysha’s cheeks, making them a shade darker, as she did so. She couldn’t help but feel torn about it; was she just being mean by teasing him? Was she enjoying it because she was tormenting her rival or because she relished having his attention? It was hard to be sure, all of those seemed equally likely in her mind.

“You know...” She heard herself saying as she turned around. “If you weren’t such a dick, I could see us having hooked up.”

Her pants were loose but not falling, hanging on the thick curve of her hips. The open front showed more of her bodysuit as its lines converged towards the middle of her legs. She wasn’t surprised to find his eyes staring fixedly at her waist and then slowly climbing across her body before he found her face. He had a very unsure look, unable to understand where she meant to go with it. That was to be expected, Aysha reckoned, as she herself didn’t know why she brought it up. To tease him perhaps, but it was the truth. He was sitting on the couch, slouching forward with one leg still resting on the pulled-over crate. The pose didn’t do much to hide the volume forming in the front of his tight pants. Aysha mentally chided herself when she noticed she was the one doing the leering, turning her attention back to his face. Now he seemed less uncertain, a defiant expression had taken over.

“Hard not to be a dick working with someone who thinks she knows better than everyone and won’t listen.”

There was a pang of rage inside her at the accusation. Frustration boiled in her core as she felt that the control she had, or felt she had, over the situation slipped. He was not hooked enough into leering at her that he couldn’t still jab at her. But that rage felt different than the other ways he got under her skin. It didn’t come alone.

“Maybe I’d listen if you had something worthwhile to say.” She angrily stepped forward towards him, not caring that the movement caused her pants to hang ever lower.

“It’s not like you would know,” he fired back near-instantly with an almost snarl. “Too full of yourself to pay attention.”

Then that thing inside her boiled over, spilling through her lips like a furious hiss.

“Shut up, you idiot!” she muttered as she leaned forth into the couch, lifting a single knee to rest it on the seat beside his waist and putting her face inches from his.

She could bite him, sink her teeth at him and make him scream. She could smell his sweat and the gunpowder on his skin. And then her lips were on his, or his lips were on hers. She couldn’t tell who moved first but it didn’t matter. When contact happened, a warm tingle spread across her legs, something rushed down her spine and she found herself straddling his waist, pushing her tongue into his mouth at first, and then biting his lips next. His taste lingered on her tongue as she pressed her teeth around the soft flesh, not hard enough to break the skin but hoping she could at least make his lip swell. He winced and hissed in anger, pain and pleasure as his hands shot across her thighs, finding the waist of her pants and tugging them further down, to hold his palms open across her rear. There was a sharp contrast between his flesh hand and the metallic one, soft and warm versus hard and cold. She could feel the texture of the carbon grips inside half of his prosthetic fingers.

It had been a while since Aysha had been touched like that, she realised as she felt his hands squeezing her. The way he groped her let her know just how much desire he had pent up. She wondered how many times he had fantasized about touching her. Given his enthusiasm, she doubted that was the first time he considered the subject. Her own hands found his chest, caressing him through the shirt and then finding the hem and sliding under it. His chest was soft and smooth, and occasionally she could feel a slight bump or depression, not needing to see it to know it was left from a scar. She traced one of them with the tip of her index as her mouth found his again and their tongues danced once more. It was a long one, a straight line a little under his left nipple. A knife cut, she thought. Touching that scar reminded her of her own and she was flooded with an intense sense of complicity. They might hate each other but they’d been through similar things, they both brushed with death more than once in the past month alone. As if they shared a common close friend in the Grim Reaper.

His hands climbed from her ass to her sides, caressing the skin exposed by the large leg holes of the high-cut body before brushing over her freshly patched ribs and then turning, gliding over the sweat-soaked cotton fabric and squeezing her breasts. He kneaded her hard, to the point she gasped in pain, exhaling into his mouth. But it wasn’t painful enough that it didn’t also feel good. She curled her fingers, nails scratching his chest under his shirt in revenge. He hissed back and tried to bite her lip but she pulled her face back, leaving him to bite the air and their eyes met. Fiery. Pent-up anger, frustration and desire. The meeting of gazes lasted for less than a second but the intensity was such that in that blink, she knew, with every fibre and bone of her body, there was no stopping.

Aysha sunk back into another kiss, while her hand departed so she could tug off her boots while their mouths were still sealed together. As the heavy shoewear dropped onto the metallic floor, she broke the kiss to straddle higher and with a hand on the backrest of the couch for balance, lifting a knee at a time and tugging her pants down. Exposing her long legs, the snake tattoo wrapped around her left thigh, the wet patch of arousal where her bodysuit wrapped over her sex and the surgical scars for her leg augmentation on her shins, marked by the occasional metallic graft and lines, left there to make it easier for future update and replacement surgeries. His hand reached for the sleeveless strap of the bodysuit, tugging it down her arm until her left breast was exposed and since she was sitting high, her umber nipple was left inches away from his face. His lips wrapped around it, sucking the delicate flesh into his mouth and delivering a bite, lighter than the one she had done on his lips but still enough to cause her to gasp. As he suckled and worshipped her exposed breast with his tongue, she felt his metallic hand kneading, caressing the other one. Aysha ended up needing to put both hands on the backrest of the couch for balance. Closing her eyes and cursing as she felt shudders of pleasure rushing down her spine.

“Fuck...”

She could feel her sex swelling and growing damp against the fabric between her legs, and over the smell of blood, gunpowder and sweat, she could swear she could also get hints of her own arousal. Her hand shot between the dark strands of his hair, pulling his head back from her chest to sink into another kiss. Tasting her own skin on his lips as she lowered her body against him. Until her sex was grinding against the volume in his leather pants, smearing her arousal through the bodysuit's fabric onto his trousers. She grasped tightly at his hair, possessively even.

Then, he reached down to her waist and tried to lift her. She knew instantly what he wanted to do. To toss her on her back on the couch so he could lay over her. As she felt the strong grasp of his hands, she found herself resisting it. Steeling herself and placing a hand on his to forcibly remove it from her waist. Synchro stopped and his kissing grew hesitant as if wondering if she had a change of heart. But she renewed the intensity and guided his hands instead back to her thighs. And then releasing his hair, she brought both of hers to his waist, to undo the button in the front of his tight leather pants and pull down the zipper. She straddled higher and Synchro lifted his waist. With a firm tug, she pulled his pants down a couple of inches, enough to expose his shorts.

Without the tight pants in the way, his cock pressed against her now only through the thin, net-like, partially see-through fabric of his shorts. Aysha felt a chuckle forming in her throat, finding both amusing and hot that the man was wearing such risqué underwear. Her hands caressed the mesh, feeling the dribble of wetness that was sprouting from the tip of his warm, throbbing manhood, and she sighed in delight. The underwear was pulled down and his member sprung forth, bobbing in the air until her hand wrapped around it. He was uncut, and his shaft was mostly smooth with just the light bump formed by the veins. Fully erect, his member curved slightly towards his stomach and seemed to be a shade paler than the rest of his skin, though visibly redder in its aroused state. Aysha delivered a few stroking motions and felt his grip on her thighs intensify as she did. His pre-cum ran down his shaft and smeared across her fingers. She had forgotten to take off her shooting gloves but he didn’t seem to be bothered by the contrast of roughness and softness between the gloves and her fingertips, and the idea of getting his juice smeared over her gloves only fanned the fire within her, for some reason she couldn’t really pinpoint.

She pushed her hips down, releasing his cock from her grip to bring it back to his chest, and pressed the apex of her legs against his girth. She rubbed back and forth, grinding her sex through the thin cotton fabric against him, and letting her arousal soak through and spread across his shaft. He moaned, achingly, and she couldn’t wait anymore. Aysha lifted her hips and tugged the fabric covering her cunt aside, exposing her glistening sex to him, and then slid her hand back to his cock, to guide him inside her. While holding firmly, she brought her hips down and felt him entering her. It had been a while since she had been with a man, and she didn’t penetrate herself with her fingers or toys while masturbating. It felt tighter than she was expecting, and as his member speared inside her, it hurt. Less than getting shot but enough to cause her to cry out and then try to muffle it by biting into his neck. Her teeth sunk into flesh, enough to bruise, she was sure, and she pushed through the pain to bring herself down and let him slide fully inside of her. Synchro gasped, both from the pain of the bite and the pleasure of being engulfed in the soft and warm embrace of her pussy.

“Fuck, Aysha... I...”

She didn’t care what he had to say. She shushed him, loudly, but even in that, her voice had a throaty tremble. She brought herself up, sliding him partially off, and then down again. First tentative motions and then growing faster and more confident. Synchro's hands shifted from her thigh to her waist, gripping just above her thighbones to guide her. The smell of sex in the air now supplanted the blood and the chemicals of medicine. She could even swear that their sweat was now carrying a different, sweeter aroma. More pleasant and more obscene. She could only imagine how the scent of the act would cling to her hair, and her clothes, in the tight confines of the container. And that made her feel even more aroused. Like his pre-cum dripping on her gloves, she realised that she enjoyed the notion of having his scent smeared, clinging to her. Like a mark. But even more so, she enjoyed the idea of having her own scent drenched onto him. As she rode him, harder and harder, her hips rising and falling, she decided that her dislike for him might have always carried a certain sexual edge she was simply not aware of. And even as she made his cock hilt inside of her, even as she moaned breathily against the skin of his neck sprayed with several of her bite marks, she wasn’t sure if she still hated him or not.

Synchro’s grip tightened, and his cock twitched in a telling way. She knew what was coming, and she slowed down, shifting slightly the angle of her hips to try and squeeze a few more moments of having his hard presence fill her insides before he came. It worked, partially. The other runner still seemed to be on the edge of climax, but a delayed one, and each second caused him to squirm and shudder as if barely able to hold on, or not quite able to come just yet. She felt the pressure building inside her now, a slow-burning, rising crescendo, and the idea that she was torturing him with pleasure acted as a catalyst to that reaction. Synchro muttered a needless warning that he was close, and her only response was to sink her teeth at the muscle between his neck and shoulder and deliver her sharpest bite yet, as her hips moved even faster than before. The pain came and was enough to send him over the edge. He twitched, squirmed and thrust upwards, fucking harder against her presence, her weight, and slamming himself deeply before she felt his seed spraying inside her. She broke the bite to let out a long, breathy exhale of pleasure and then sunk her teeth once more, breaking the skin that time. The taste of blood filled her mouth just as her sex squeezed, her legs contracted involuntarily and her thigh muscles tensed so tightly they ached. She came, harder than she remembered coming in the last few years. And then she apologetically licked the small cut her teeth had opened on his skin, as she felt his grip on her sides. She’d bruise there, she was sure, just as he would on his neck and just as his lip would swell. The marks of the encounter would go beyond the scent they had rubbed against each other's bodies.

As her body crashed down from her orgasm, her legs trembled and she relaxed on her straddle. Her chest pressed against his and she let her head rest on the side of his. Synchro's own hands caressing her sides, her thighs, in idle wanting to feel her heat. She felt the cold steel and carbon of his prosthetics trace a circle around her exposed butt cheeks. They had no rush to go elsewhere, as they had to lay low for days, so they let the embrace last longer than either of them normally would with a random squeeze pulled up from the club. As his member softened after the act, she felt it sliding out of her sex, and with a vague hint of shame, she felt his seed oozing from inside her to drip over his half-hard cock.

“I don’t... Suppose you have something close to a shower in this hideout of yours?” she asked, lifting her head lazily.

“As a matter of fact, I do,” he offered, still panting under his breath. “It’s just a camp shower though but should be better than nothing.”

“Good... I’ll need a shower later.”

“Later?”

Aysha nodded her head, biting her lips and looking into his eyes with mischief. She didn’t need to say anything else for him to understand what she meant to do in the interim. A moment longer and she lifted her waist to pull her bodysuit back over her sex, even if the arousal and his semen dripping out of her left a telling wet spot between her legs. Tossing herself to the side, she laid on the rest of the couch, on her back, and reached for her jacket to pull a packet of gum from her pocket. As she took off the silver wrap and spotted the pink colour within, she paused.

“Fixers were supposed to... Vouch for clients before passing on the jobs, right?” she asked, rhetorically.

“I mean, yes, why are you...” Synchro stopped as he saw the candy in her hands and his head followed the same train of thought. “Do you think Gum...?”

“I don’t know... But as soon as we get out of here, I think we need to have some harsh words with them.”

Synchro agreed and Aysha popped the gum in her mouth, chewing slowly and offering him one. He passed with a gesture of his hand and they both stayed where they were for a moment, enjoying the residual afterglow of the encounter. Synchro let out a deep sigh after about a minute of silence.

“Good grief I just realised how long forty-eight hours will be.”

“Forty-seven now,” Aysha noted, practical, as she chewed.

“Counting the minutes already?”

“Oh, you can be sure I am.”

“Jerk.”

“Dick.”

And then they shared a brief laugh together and she smirked.

“At least I know how we can pass the time.”

Synchro looked at her and smiled. Maybe they weren’t so incompatible, after all.