Fish & Chips (Cut & Run 3)

“A for effort,” Ty conceded charitably.

Zane kicked his shoes into his locker before pulling his T-shirt over his head and inspecting his abs and ribs. “You had to go for the ribs, didn"t you?” he said, his voice pained. He"d had his ribs cracked so many times he figured they might as well be superglued at this point.

“Bastard,” he tacked on before shucking his socks and standing with his towel in hand.

“You leave them open,” Ty informed him. “Because you cover your head and cry like a little girl.”

Zane huffed. This was one of the problems with being Ty"s partner. While they were trying to learn to live with each other without significant personal injury, that didn"t necessarily carry over to their sparring sessions. “I didn"t cover once today,” he asserted. “Backed off, hell yes. Covered, no.”

Ty glanced over his bare shoulder and smirked. “Granted,” he allowed. “Think I should shower before McCoy hands us our asses, or should I go in smelling like victory?” he posed grandly as he opened up his locker and tossed his sweaty T-shirt into his gym bag.

Zane bit the inside of his lip against the first answer that came to mind as he deliberately looked his lover up and down, and he spent a few seconds revising what he could say without risking another smack upside the head. “I don"t believe McCoy would appreciate your…

expression of „victory".” McCoy wouldn"t appreciate Ty"s finely tuned musculature or his ass either, but Zane was more than happy to pick up the slack in that area.

“Quit ogling me, sidekick,” Ty warned without having to turn around. He grabbed for his shower caddy and a towel, and with one last smirk and wink at Zane, he headed for the showers.

Zane spared a moment to wish the locker room weren"t so busy this afternoon. He"d reached a point where Ty"s attitude and cockiness were more turn-ons than annoyances. They were harbingers of Ty"s playful good mood, which more often than not led to copious amounts of rough, passionate sex.

Zane decided he"d wait to shower until Ty was done. He could only deal with so much bodily temptation in one day.

THEY sat at McCoy"s conference table, behaving themselves and attempting to appear abashed.

Ty figured Dan McCoy knew him better than that, though. He was probably still getting a read on Zane, though, just like everyone else in the Baltimore office. They"d only been actively assigned to Baltimore for a few weeks now. Ty was at home. Zane was still an unknown to most everyone, despite the stories that had filtered through about their past escapades.

McCoy knew enough to know they were up to no good, anyway.

“I hope you got it out of your systems,” McCoy finally said to them in annoyance.

“We were just putting on a demonstration,” Ty explained easily.

“Zane calls it „How to Get Your Ass Kicked". It goes over real well with the rookies,” he drawled, overly pleased with himself.

Zane just sat there looking cool and comfortable in his well-fitted suit. He had a small smile on his face as he shook his head slightly at his partner.

“Shut up, Grady,” McCoy requested flatly.

“Right,” Ty muttered. He shifted in his seat and leaned forward.

“You said you had an assignment for us?” he asked eagerly. He would take anything over the “getting up to speed” deskwork they"d been doing the last three weeks. Despite one blip up in the mountains of West Virginia, the last eight weeks of Ty"s life had been god-awful boring. Even Zane couldn"t keep Ty"s wavering attention for very long unless he had something shiny to wave around. Ty needed to be doing something or he began to go stir crazy.

McCoy"s lips curved into a slow, slightly malicious smile. “I do,”

he answered. “Corbin and Del Porter,” he said as he retrieved a file.

“Who?” Ty asked, unimpressed.

McCoy smiled and reached to the middle of the table for a little white remote. He turned slightly and pushed a button, causing a small flat screen to flick on. A picture of a large cruise ship appeared on the screen bolted to the wall.

“Oh shit,” Ty found himself blurting before he could stop himself.

“This,” McCoy continued as if he hadn"t heard Ty, “is the Queen of the Mediterranean,” he told them with a wave of his fingers at the ship. “It is currently docked in Baltimore, preparing for a fifteen-day cruise to the Caribbean.”

“You"re not making us take a vacation, are you?” Ty asked in something close to panic.

Zane"s chin snapped up in alarm. “Jesus, Grady, we agreed not to even think that word, much less say it.”

“Corbin and Del Porter,” McCoy said loudly to curtail any more conversation, “were supposed to be on that ship tomorrow. But we finally got enough on these two to detain them.” He slid a file toward Ty and leaned back in his seat with a grin. “There"s a laundry list of no-nos we can pin on them with a little more evidence, and we"ll get it soon enough. What we want from you is something concrete on a few of their contacts.”

Ty scratched his head absently as he looked over the file. The two men were implicated in numerous high-dollar thefts: art, antiquities, rare gems. All stuff that was hard to steal and harder to fence. It was difficult to tell whether they were collectors or middlemen, but either way, if the FBI leaned on them, it could produce a lot of information on a lot of different high-end thieves and dealers.

But Ty and Zane weren"t leaners. They didn"t interrogate suspects who weren"t part of their own investigations. They didn"t know anything about this case and would be lost if they were asked to do the interrogation. Information wasn"t why they were here. He glanced to his side, where Zane shrugged one shoulder, having obviously come to the same conclusion.

“I"m not sure I understand why we"re here,” Ty said in confusion as he gestured between himself and Zane, still looking down at the file.

“You are here because you two roughly match the physical description of the two men we now have in custody,” McCoy answered with a wide grin.

Ty looked up at him suspiciously. McCoy seemed to be enjoying himself too much for this to be good news for Ty or Zane. Zane leaned forward in his seat, frowning, though he didn"t speak up.

“We look like them,” Ty reiterated flatly.

“Vaguely,” McCoy agreed. “Same build, mostly. Zane"s coloring.”

Ty glared at the man. “I"m not following,” he said slowly. “You want us to assume their identities? How"s that gonna work?” he asked.