"Okay. You're telling me this because?" Josh asked doubtfully.
"You need to know the cover I'm using. Which isn't actually a cover at all. It's me. Oh and also, we are sharing an apartment. It's in my name. The real name that is. You're my boyfriend." Josh blinked at him. The car park was darker than outside but Manny could have sworn he saw a wince. "It shouldn't be an issue. You won't be leaving the apartment and you're gay anyway right?"
"Yeah," Josh said quietly. If anything, as he said this he shrank back against the door.
Manny narrowed his gaze. Was it possible that he was intimidating Josh? Fuck, that couldn't be it. Josh was taller, wider—just bigger. Hurt knifed through Manny that Josh was looking at him as anything other than a good guy and he wondered where the instinctive recoil came from.
"I'm not going to freaking jump you. Asswipe. We can make it look real without actually touching for the entire time we're here."
"But I don't—look I'll just stay in the apartment— they'll know—Hell." Josh stopped and then muttered under his breath. "I don't even like you much."
Manny clutched at his chest dramatically. "You don't like me? But everyone likes me." He emphasized the 'everyone' part of that statement.
There was a definite twitch to Josh's mouth and Manny restrained himself from leaning in and kissing the guy. He could excuse it away as someone was watching and that they needed to kiss. He could even blame it on being tired. He said neither, nor did he kiss him.
"So you're not Josh anymore either." He said this to change the subject. "Although I don't think it matters seeing as you're going into that apartment and not coming out for the next week or so. You're now Jamie."
"Jamie what?"
Manny looked down at the notes. "Jamie Chapel.
No change in age but there is a pack you will need to familiarize yourself with. Background, schools, and so on."
"Jamie Chapel sounds like a girl's name," Josh pointed out grumpily. "Are we finished?" He made to open the door but Manny stopped him with a touch to his arm.
"There's one last thing. After the whole leaving the safe house and endangering everything thing, I need you to promise me that you'll do what I say and not jeopardize what we are doing here."
Josh looked down at Manny's arm and frowned. "I had my reasons for what I needed to do," he said firmly.
Manny sighed inwardly. Finding out his ex-boyfriend was only with him as a way of keeping tabs on him must have been hard on Josh. To find out the ex was potentially also one of the bad guys as much as Josh's dad had been? That must have been doubly awful. Still that was no excuse to get right up in their faces and cause trouble.
Not without a solid plan in place first.
"We need to do full damage control with your dad as it is. If he finds out that you weren't safe for even for one minute, then this whole case is as fucked up as an original-series Kirk/Spock/Bones threesome."
Josh simply blinked at him with an 'O' of astonishment on his face. He quickly cleared the expression and then shook his head.
"It won't happen again."
Manny pushed away his concerns about what was actually going on inside Josh's head and opened his door.
Josh copied the action and they were to the elevator in seconds.
CHAPTER 5
Josh was entirely aware of what he had just promised. The way Manny had almost chided him for what he had done was like rubbing salt into open wounds. All he had wanted to do was follow up on leads. Oh yeah, and smack his ex around for being a manipulative asshole.
Despite how Manny was talking to him he wasn't some naive kid who was going to sit around on his hands. Being good with computers meant he had access to information and he was desperate to see where it led. Finding information on the ex in Sanctuary files was something he couldn't leave alone. He'd told Jennifer he was working on course work; she hadn't even questioned him. She wouldn't have known that his skills with computers would lay bare at least the basics. His intention had just been to encrypt some kind of message to his lover Eric Santez, just to let the guy know he was safe and that he hadn't dropped off the face of the earth.
Breaking the first-level encryption had been child's play. There wasn't much information—just a few folder names that he couldn't open. For some reason this foundation had information on Emilio Santez and his son Eric. A short search on Google had Josh finding the link between the Bullen family and the guy who he had met in a bar. Eric Santez wasn't just his lover—he was connected, in black and white, to the Bullens. Josh knew instinctively he had been used.
He hadn't known quite how important it was to his dad's cooperation for him to be safe. He'd just used the first opportunity he could to get out of the safe house and away.
He had to know. The whole foundation of his life had been torn apart when his dad had been arrested for murder. Then to find out that he was being used by the man who professed to love him was the straw that broke the camel's back.
He sighed and returned to the present. Away from the locked car and in the elevator Manny made no secret of the fingerprint override to the correct floor. To another person it would have looked like he simply pressed the button a little longer than needed but Josh was observant.
He saw the lingering touch and put two and two together.
Given the level of encryption and technical wizardry that Sanctuary had Josh was surprised it was just a thumb print that stopped people getting to the apartment he and Manny were heading for.
"So there's no iris recognition
