Split (1)

train · 64k rows

id stringlengths 4 8	title stringlengths 0 255	metadata dict	text stringlengths 0 12.6M
83116	Aristophanes Myth	{ "Archive Warning": "Major Character Death", "Category": null, "Characters": "Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus Augustus, Octavian, Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, Agrippa, Caecilia Pomponia Attica", "Fandom": null, "Language": "English", "Rating": "Mature", "author": "by etspes", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "2010-04-27", "published": "2010-04-26T00:00:00", "words": "10,817", "Additional Tags": "Sex, Sexual Tension, Falling In Love, Ancient Rome, Politics, Angst", "Relationship": "Octavian/Agrippa", "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": "Aristophanes' Myth", "Collections": null, "Fandoms": "Historical RPF, Classical Greece and Rome History & Literature RPF", "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": "F/M, M/M", "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	Aristophanes' Myth The first time was at sixteen, over Aristophanes, which they weren't actually supposed to be reading; the tutor had designated it worthless for the education of young men. But as young men will, the two of them defied the tutor and set a small fire and sat, reading The Frogs aloud to each other. Agrippa's Greek was badly accented, not nearly as fluent as Octavius' own, or as Maecenas' would be later, but he was undeniably funny. Octavius was laughing at Agrippa's wildly exaggerated facial expressions, eyebrows wiggling and hands gesturing as he described the scene, instructing him to do this or that. Agrippa's expression faded long before Octavius' laughter did, and had he had any control over how he came to be in front of Octavius, thumbs tracing the boy's cheekbones, he would have remained safely on his side, reciting brakakakaxkoaxkoax instead of trying to become the Greek he was reading. But as it was he was on his knees in front of Octavius, the brawny one of the two professing his girlish desires, he was vulnerable, and asking long, slim, pale Octavius—Octavius! The little sickly one!—to raise him back up again. But instead Octavius stood and walked off, leaving Agrippa wondering what in the name of Pollux he had been thinking. It seemed to him that if he had kept a secret as long as he had, there was no reason he should not have been able to keep it longer. He sat there, on his knees, until they ached and went numb and the fire sputtered out, with his forehead in his hands.Octavius did not speak to Agrippa for a number of days, as was his custom for dealing with people who had upset him. Since Octavius was perfectly happy to throw himself into his books and ignore Agrippa entirely, this would have pleased the tutor to no end, had it not distracted Agrippa further. The separation didn't last all that long; Octavius had apparently decided to put it behind him, because seven nights after the first incident, they were reading Clouds by a fire, and Agrippa stayed on his own side of the fire, making faces and reciting terrible Greek as Octavius cackled and stage-directed, Agrippa happy to comply. The tutor was horrified by the state of them the next day; both were purple under their eyes, and Agrippa's tunic was a disaster (Octavius' in perfect order as always), but both of them were making an effort to pay attention again, so he could say nothing. It was as though, the tutor would observe to himself later, the two of them shared a certain amount of attention between the two of them, and if one was completely focused, the other was totally lost. They worked best, functioned best, in harmony. The second time didn't make any more sense and was only slightly less awkward. This time it was over the Symposium, which the tutor had decided it was necessary for them to read, and Octavius was nothing if not fond of philosophy. So rather than Lysistrata by the fire, two of them finally did something of which the tutor approved—for a while—and debated Plato's philosophy far into the night. Aristophanes did arise, and Octavius was scornful—what, he argued, would be the purpose of having a soul-mate of the same sex when nature demanded that men marry women? Agrippa listened uncomfortably and would possibly have retorted if he hadn't, taken suddenly by some capricious god, abruptly decided to make his point actively rather than argumentatively. The kissing itself was a shock, because Agrippa had not, before that moment, intended to do it, and Octavius undoubtedly did not expect it. So Agrippa's mouth moved uncertainly over Octavius', whose fingers fluttered like butterflies at his friend's cheeks, and when Agrippa had pulled away from him, completely inscrutable, Octavius stood and left once more.Agrippa would have stayed all night again, except that the tutor would surely have noticed, and there had been difficulty involving beatings the last time Agrippa hadn't paid enough attention. So he went to bed this time, determined to forget it and pass it off to too little water in his wine. The next morning, to his extreme relief, was normal.That night, Octavius kissed him back, all arguments about men versus women aside; there were hands and tongues and sighs, and they swore they would tell no one.They were successful at keeping the secret for several weeks primarily because neither of them knew how to behave. From that point, it was clearly impossible to go back to Frogs and fires, but neither was it something they could discuss, aside from their own personal pact. Certainly Atia would not have been proud to hear that her son was becoming pathetic, and Agrippa was not about to announce to his father his desire for his comes. So they danced around each other, touching furtively as though it had been an accident, jumping when their skin brushed, until Agrippa threw all caution to the wind and cornered Octavius in a wooded area.The smaller boy had scrapes on his back from the tree for a week afterward, and Agrippa's legs were not pleased for some time about the method he had chosen, and both of them blushed a dull red for days. In retrospect, Agrippa was surprised that nobody mentioned it—perhaps, Octavius suggested later, it was that nobody had noticed. Who would have expected that the two sixteen-year-olds would have been fucking each other against a tree after lessons in the middle of the day? After all, nobody saw anything they were not expecting to see. The dispatch to Apollonia came as a relief to both of them, because they did not consider that perhaps being under the noses of the Illyrian legions would be stricter than being under Atia's pointy one. But as it turned out, the soldiers took little notice of their sneaking, and nobody said a word if they noticed anything strange. The structure of the area had fallen apart after Alexander's death. The military was strong, but the organization wasn't enough that anybody bothered to pay attention. And so as time went on, they became bolder with each other, less insistent upon hiding, and Octavius became less resistant to his own needs. Agrippa had never been so grateful for their education, that he could whisper philosophy into his friend's ear and feel Octavius' slender limbs soften to his own sturdier ones. A month passed, and two, and three, and Agrippa was still often the one sneaking into Octavius' pallet, but he wasn't complaining, because Octavius was willingly making room for him. He exhausted his body during the day training, perfecting his agility, his reactions, his body, so that he could use it to please Octavius in the black of the night. It had become habit that Octavius would whisper in his ear, asking how he had the energy for such things after he fought so hard in the day. The answer, which Agrippa never actually gave him, was that the nights made him feel alive enough for the dawn.Everything turned over in the fourth month.Martius arrived, and the ides came and went uneventfully. Several days before the kalends of Aprilis, it was becoming warmer, flowers blooming, and the boys were discovering the miracle of Macedonian fruit when the message came that Octavius' Uncle Gaius had been stabbed and was dead. Suddenly the whole camp was in upheaval. Advice flew from all directions: Octavius was to go straight home. Octavius was to gather an army. Octavius was to make immediately for Macedonia. Octavius, Agrippa argued, was to seize the moment and march on Rome.Octavius was, actually, to curl up and cry.Agrippa was unsure how to deal with this; it was not as though Caesar had been present in Octavius' life all that long, or that recently, but he supposed the boy had respected the man, and Caesar was the only one who had expressed any faith in Octavius anyhow. So he rubbed his shuddering lover's back and ran his fingers through his hair and tried to whisper comfort, and in the end he gave up and simply held his friend. It was a long night, and Agrippa's arms ached by the time the sun rose, Octavius still tucked against him, face still streaky and red, but peaceful.In any case, Octavius decided to go home immediately, and everything turned over again. He found, upon his return, that he had been adopted by his uncle, that his name had changed, and everything started to go to hell from there. It was not so much that Agrippa fell out of the story so much as he was rerouted, as Octavius rerouted himself. He had suddenly plunged from being a boy in training to having to be a man in control of far too many factors. Agrippa swore to keep up.Octavius—now Octavian—made friends with Lepidus and Antony to avenge the death of his "father," tried to pacify Rome, and remarkably, was married a year later to Antony's step-daughter: by all accounts a full plate. Agrippa marched with Octavian and his new ally Antony up to Philippi to take care of Brutus and Cassius. And then there was no time. Octavian was gone to Gaul, leaving Agrippa in Rome to deal with Pompeius' pompous little son, which he did with all good haste. Octavian, back at Rome soon enough, was pleased with the development and tired of his wife, and Gaius Maecenas employed himself to arrange Octavian's second marriage. Agrippa's turn to leave for Gaul came when Octavian's daughter Julia was still in her infancy, little long after the marriage had begun. He said nothing when Octavian told him; instead he stood and accepted it and nodded his head, and Octavian kissed Agrippa's cheeks before he left, as was proper, and Agrippa fancied that each one had lasted longer, perhaps, than was strictly necessary.Gaul, as it turned out, was cold, and the tribesmen barbarians, although the grapes were good. The Aquitani put up a fight, but not enough of one to resist Agrippa's sheer skill and determination, and the missive that arrived in 716 was an enormous relief until he read its contents. Gaius Caesar Marco suo, Romam est statim rediendum consulatum acceptum inter annum DCCXV. Te egeo. Agrippa's blood ran cold reading the summons. He was twenty-five. The minimum age for holding the consulship was forty-three. And yet Octavian needed him.He read the slim scroll until it ran soft and crumpled beneath his fingers, and then he departed from Rome with such haste that the slaves assumed someone had died. And indeed had someone, he could not have left any faster. He arrived in Rome in record time, and, told by Octavian's doorman that the triumvir was too busy to see him, Agrippa returned to his own home to await further instruction. When, a week later, Octavian finally opened his door to his old friend, there were brief embraces, several glasses of wine and some victory stories recounted in great detail, and Agrippa watched the lines beginning to appear on Octavian's still-young face disappear as they creased into smiles. It had begun to feel like it had seven years prior—had it really been seven years? His old friend sat before him, laughing at his stories, reacting in the appropriate places. Perhaps things had just become so hectic, so overwhelming, so quickly that negligence had been a consequence and not a warning. Then Octavian leaned forward and explained his business.The recent dealings with Sextus Pompey—or Magnus Pius, as the nitwit called himself—had been a fiasco, and Octavian needed Agrippa in the consulship to oversee the next military dealings. He could not, Octavian professed, do it alone. Agrippa studied him for several long moments, and it did not appear that Octavian had even thought that Agrippa had hoped the other man might simply have wanted him back in Rome, to be near him once more. But as it was, the opportunity would be enough, and of course Octavian was right when he flat-out announced that Agrippa was the best at what he did. So Agrippa held out his hand and accepted, and Octavian clasped his palm between his own two, and he offered him a triumph for the work he had done in Gaul.It was a feat in itself that Agrippa stayed himself, controlled the immediate urge to wrench away—a triumph was of course something any Roman general would have giving his left foot to receive, but this one felt soiled somehow, and Agrippa stood."Of course not," he said. "This is not a good time for you. How uncouth a friend I would have to be to celebrate my own victories at the expense of your time when there are many other things more pressing than this? My time in Gaul is a gift to you, my friend." He watched Octavian's face soften, and when the time came for goodbyes, Agrippa took Octavian's slender jaw in his own broad hand and kissed him hard before he turned to walk out the door. He did not know if he shook with nerves or fury or some bittersweet sadness, but he suspected it was some combination of the three.He walked home. Messina fell to Agrippa that year, as did the next battle with Pompey the Puny in the following year, and the man still would not run with his tail between his legs. Agrippa was married just a year following that second battle, to Caecilia Attica, and not long after he left his marriage bed warm to set sail for Naulochus. This defeat of Sextus Pompey (persistent bastard) was decisive and final. The second attempt was Agrippa's alone, and Naulochus fell beneath his practiced hand; seventeen ships were his, and Pompey sank into Asia Minor for someone else to find. Agrippa liked sea battles; there was something about the sting of salt, the roar of men hauling spikes up the masts, the crashing of the waves, that felt particularly fitting. His throat would be raw from shouting and his eyes burning by the end, his body exhausted, and to stand over the battle as master of seas and men was a powerful thing. And though he treasured the beaked crown he received as reward—a rare prize, to say the least—he would have much preferred simply to go home. Instead there were two years abroad, little skirmishes, nothing to write home about, years that felt like wading from one incident to the next.It certainly was not that Agrippa resented being sent abroad, nor did he dislike being charged with the armies. There was a certain thrill in marching out to battle, and the four months' hard training through which he had forced himself in Apollonia was a boon to say the least. It had become force of habit, at this point. He ended problems and then skirted into the backwoods to clean up the messes. And he was, by all accounts, excellent at it. Octavian played politics, and Agrippa executed them—he was well aware that as clever as Octavian thought himself, Agrippa was the necessary mastermind. They worked as much in concert as they ever had; each was simply alone for his part now.He moved from place to place, and had he had more of an historian in him, the time would have been valuable for more than the conquests he made. But he went to his ever-moving tents weary, streaked with grime, with nothing to liven him from the beatings against his body. He stood at each battle site, triumphant, and he heard in the cries of his victorious men the praise of a single man at Rome, and he longed to go back. He did finally get his reward of time, for a while. Agrippa was elected aedile, and while he played the political game that was becoming so familiar to his friend, he saw much more of Octavian. His life was a different place: of games, of spectacles, of the bustle of the people at Rome. There were many evenings spent with Octavian and Maecenas (Jupiter knew where Octavian had found that hedonist, treaties notwithstanding), discussing the fate of the triumvirate now that Lepidus was gone. Maecenas, for his part, didn't seem particularly concerned with the spiralling mess into which Rome was plunging—rather, he would bring bits of poetry to read as the nights got more wine-soaked and Octavian got more fervent about his plans. Plots were hatched and lands conquered, lovers joined and cloven in the space of Octavian's bedchamber during that year, and Maecenas the joyful puppet-master of much. He delighted in the intrigue. Agrippa was not terribly taken by Maecenas—as Maecenas seemed put off by Agrippa's enthralment with the frenzied peril of his own lifestyle—but the benefit of the poof was that he also didn't seem bothered by Agrippa's enthralment with Octavian.Some nights Maecenas, frequenting some party filled with poets (and presumably other distractions as well), was unavailable, and these were the nights Octavian gave in. Every now and again, Agrippa did not return home, claiming inebriation, preferring to send a slave to inform Caecilia. One such night, Octavian—who seemed never to sleep, but rather to spend all his time on plans and aspirations—made a proclamation which Agrippa took much to heart.Leaning on his elbow, teetering over Agrippa, a childlike smile lighting up his face, Octavian described his vision for the city, his plans for Rome: to make it as great as it once had been. Antony would have to be dealt with, of course, but he had no doubt of his own and Agrippa's ability to ensure that, and then…then!, he insisted, then he would take the city of brick that Rome was now and make it a city of shining marble. It would be beautiful, he whispered, drawing plans on Agrippa's bare skin with the tip of his finger—there would be temples built, aqueducts repaired. A rotunda, Agrippa suggested, dedicated to all the gods? and Octavian grinned, believing.Thus Agrippa began to build. Gardens were laid for beauty, aqueducts for practicality, baths for a gathering place of the people. Octavian watched this with a smile in his eyes, and Agrippa's heart, though he had always yearned for the wildness of battle and the uncertainty of that life, was at peace.But a year is not so long, and when it came to a close, Octavian withdrew. The situation with Antony, who was in Greece, had come to a head. Octavian had read Antony's will to the people and turned Rome's ever-fickle face toward himself, and a conflict was broiling. There was no more of Maecenas' leisurely musing and Octavian's grand plans over wine. Indeed, Agrippa saw Octavian only once at any length outside of the haze of feverish planning. On that occasion, the sun had well set and Agrippa was slightly drunk when he reached his doorstep. He'd rolled nothing but canis and had had a little too much to drink to make up for it. As though there wasn't enough to do that he could indulge, but damn it, he wasn't a politician anymore, and the projects he'd started were going up just fine without his constant supervision. It was Saturn's day, and he was feeling moody. Rome could wait on him. Zeus knew Agrippa did enough of his own waiting.The door swung open more promptly than usual, and Agrippa was greeted with a great clamor of female voices and the pale face of his usually stolid doorslave. A young, fair slave skittered across the hallway, her head down, jogging the year-old Vipsania at her breast, making hushing noises to the screaming child. A deeper voice shouted from within the house, "By Castor and bloody Pollux, would you make that child shut up!" Agrippa watched the proceedings in silence."What is going on here?" he said finally, quietly, not bothering to look at the doorslave. The slave bowed his head."With all respect, master, the mistress has been in your bedroom for some time. She weeps, my lord." Agrippa's head snapped around."Why does she weep?" The doorslave wrung his hands."Sir, her father has lived." Agrippa swore. He was suddenly and uncomfortably sober. Quintus Atticus, Caecilia's father, had been ill for some time. He had become such unexpectedly, inexplicably, and while Agrippa made it a point to have care given to him, but Atticus fussed at having to be cared for. Caecilia, of course, would have nursed him had she been home, but her father insisted that her duty was to her husband and daughter, and he was correct. Cicero had been gone for a long while already, or Agrippa was certain that the round little man would have been at his friend's bedside unceasingly. Vah. Caecilia would be a mess.He strode past the doorslave, his half-undone sandals slapping at his calves, and he made to his wife with all haste. The slaves were all gone, and she sat on a low chair on her own, her hair destroyed, in a frizzy mass around her head. Her face was red and swollen, and his heart ached as he took her in."What happened?" His low voice sliced through the sobs and she answered without looking up."He hadn't eaten for five days." Agrippa paused."Intentionally?" He expected the answer. What a way for the man to die. He had been a philosopher to the last, then."Of course." Her voice was sharp. "Of all men, you expected my father to suffer longer than he had to? And without his Cicero." She shoved her hands into her hair, pulling at it as her voice cracked. Agrippa sank to his knees before her, but she shoved him away."Go away, Marcus." He couldn't bring himself to do it. Instead, his hands fluttered at her elbows, his big, useless hands hovering at her cheeks, desperate for something to do, like pinned up butterflies, but he was useless on his knees before her. Finally, she rose above him, eerily calm. He stared, bleak, at the floor as Caecilia called for her ancillae, as the news worked its destruction through him—Atticus had been a good man, and a good father-in-law. But as she began to leave the room, leaning on her slave-girl's shoulder, Agrippa surged to his feet and bellowed. Caecilia would be destroyed by his loss, as she had been by Cicero's, but Pluto could burn if he was going to lose his wife over this."CAECILIA POMPONIA." She stopped but did not turn."Yes.""I am your husband." The rage poured through the discomfort and the helplessness, and he suddenly felt sick. "I am your husband, and you will be comforted by me." Her body, if possible, grew stiffer, and she turned slowly."Marcus, my father has lived. I will be comforted by those whom I wish to comfort me. I will consult you about his burial." Her eyes flickered to his feet and back up to his face. "You should go see your Gaius Caesar. He will most certainly wish to know of this development." There was no reason Octavian would wish to know; he had had little tie, if any, to Quintus Atticus. Indeed, Agrippa may have been his only one. Agrippa's hand flashed before he could stop it, wrapping bone-breakingly tight around Caecilia's upper arm. Her shoulders bowed forward with the force of it and she flinched, but her face showed nothing."Leave me, Marcus. Go to Caesar." And she would say nothing further, however he yelled or beseeched. Her hair hung limply in her face, and she simply stood in his grasp like a rag doll in flickering darkness. At the end of it, he pushed past her, and she sank against her slaves, trembling quietly—though with what emotion he did not know—and barely felt the chilly summer-night air bite into his skin as he fell out the door. He had not actually intended to end up at Octavian's door, and he was truly surprised to find himself rapping his knuckles raw on the rough material.A bleary-eyed Octavian swung his own door open, his eyebrows rising almost imperceptibly at Agrippa's presence. But he was Octavian, ever prepared, ever decorous, ever in control, and he stepped aside."Marcus.""Gaius. You should sell your doorslave." Agrippa fairly tripped over his own exhausted feet entering the villa, but he followed Octavian through to the triclinium, where several dining couches stood as though awaiting him. Agrippa fell onto one, and Octavian arranged himself on another across from him."Perhaps, but most guests arrive in the daylight hours. I imagine he was not expecting to be answering the door. What brings you here at this hour of the night?" His voice was almost formal, devoid of curiosity, as though it were a pleasantry, with no trace of accusation. Agrippa looked up, finally met Octavian's eyes, and Octavian must have read the desperation in his face, because he softed and came to sit on the other couch. His hand flickered over Agrippa's knee."Pomponia must be sick with worry over you. Marcus, you must tell me how I can help you. What have you lost?" The bile rose in Agrippa's throat as he realized his friend must have thought he'd lost at knucklebones or somesuch."Nothing she doesn't already know about," he said with forced numbness. Octavian sat back."I don't comprehend you." Agrippa dropped his forehead into his hands."Atticus is gone." Shock rose in Octavian's eyes."Pomponianus Atticus? Is Pomponia well?" The defeat was thick in Agrippa's response."You ask as though it matters, friend. She does not wish me there."There was a beat of silence before tentative hands on his shoulders."Marcus. I'm sorry. Do you…wish to yell?" Agrippa nearly laughed. Had it been an hour ago, yelling would have been all he wished to do, would have been all he could have done. He would have yelled until his throat was bleeding, until he yelled only sounds where words should have been. But now…now the gentle hands were pulling him in, and he was so damned exhausted, so tired, so sick, and he felt himself collapsing. It could not possibly hurt to rest his head. Those long hands felt so familiar, so good. And so slight Octavian's slender knee pillowed the great general through the first watches of the morning. His palms smoothed wide circles over the ridges of battle scars beneath the tunic, and he waited while Agrippa slept.Agrippa awoke to a familiar ache in his back, and for a moment he expected to open his eyes to a tent. But there was instead a plate of bread and grapes beside him and a dining couch beneath him, and he lay disoriented, his head pounding, for several moments before he recalled the humiliation of the previous night. He was on his feet in a matter of seconds, hardly noticing as the platter of grapes clanged on the floor, scattering fruit to be crushed beneath his feet. Octavian was not in the immediate vicinity, nor did he appear as a chastened-looking doorslave rushed to swing the door open for Agrippa's passage before Agrippa did it himself.Caecilia did not give Agrippa so much as a glance from red-rimmed eyes when he entered. At last, she offered a cordial, flat, "I trust you slept well." Agrippa yanked his sandals from his feet before he seated himself, waiting for a slave to provide the customarily light breakfast of the sort he had ignored as Octavian's guest. He did not answer the question, preferring not to admit that he had sought company in the place his mourning wife had suggested. Instead, he responded evenly,"It is my hope that you have sufficient company at Rome, Pomponia. I believe I will be abroad again soon."The incident was not mentioned again, either by Caecilia or by Octavian, and very soon, by his own request, Agrippa was wind-whipped at sea once more. Rome held no delight for him, empty of lovers and family. Caecilia moved bleakly around, the wisdom of his father-in-law unavailable, and Octavian so busy and harried that speaking to him was like trapping the wind. His marriage faded, his wife faded, and things began to end at home.And so, finding himself empty-handed at Rome, he instead gathered Methone, Corcyra and Patrae. He met with Octavian at Actium and the two sat for hours, long after any food had been cold. Octavian stood, gesturing at the sea. Antony, he argued, was a coward. The naval blockade was not enough to stop the man; he was going to break through and be free, and then where would Rome be?"Free of him?" Agrippa stretched out his legs, leaning against the back of the couch in Octavian's tent. Octavian's face reddened. They had not come this far to let the bastard slither back to the East with his Egyptian whore. Agrippa exhaled. They had to fight now, he said. Antony was weak; there was little he could do to stop Octavian's powerful forces.The fight raged through the night, Octavian lecturing Agrippa, Agrippa slamming his hand against the table and shouting at Octavian. The lighter ships could simply chase Antony's heavier ones down, and when Antony's own men saw what a coward, how unroman their leader had become, they would surrender at once; Octavian was still the idealistic fool he'd always been, and men who were desperate enough to come this far were not going to turn at a flash of cowardice. No, Octavian must strike just after the storm, when Antony had fewer boats and little morale. Then they would win, and the coward would be shown for the slave he all but was; Agrippa was taking too many risks with the army and did not comprehend the gravity of the situation; Octavian did not comprehend the army itself.In the morning they stood facing each other, tunics askew and hair and eyes wild, but Agrippa had won. On the fourth day before the nones of Septembris, the ships sailed. The raging had not been for nothing—Rome was indeed soon won from Antony, as had been predicted. Agrippa laid the victory at Octavian's feet with his compliments, his chest tight, not daring to hope that perhaps gratitude and pleasure might win him something greater than some fleeting ovation. After all, Octavian had only to be distressed that the Egyptian queen Cleopatra—she was not that beautiful, Agrippa mused; only her eyes held any interest, although they were quite brightly startling in her dark face—had deprived him of the opportunity to parade her through the streets of Rome. The rest was prettily laid out for him.For his dedication, Octavian rewarded Agrippa not, as Agrippa would have hoped, with his own affection, but with the hand of his niece, which the general could hardly refuse. He accepted with grace, his new wife as faceless to him as Caecilia had become at the end. He tore her from her mother's arms on an overcast day in June, and he demanded her forename, hardly listening as she called herself Marcia to his Marcus. He untied the knot of Hercules at her waist, and he went through the motions of marriage.It was empty for him, as Rome was empty for him. His wife was a warm body and little else. His friendships were no longer a question; the pleasant companionship that had once been so present was gone, and the triumphant vir (no longer one of three) hid either behind his door or his toga. Between Octavian's navigation of the now-treacherous waters of Roman loyalty and Agrippa's own incidents with Marcellus, the two moved farther and farther apart. Had he been able to bring himself to part from Octavian, he considered, perhaps he would not have had to do it so often.The hope had been to remain in the city, of course, fond memories of that year before the mess flitting through at distracted moments, and the two consulships that followed Actium seemed to point in that direction. But things had changed, and it was painful to remain. There had been, of course, a celebration of sorts over the terrifying sea battle near an inconsequential town in northern Greece, and Agrippa had been Octavian's guest of honour. The night ended—as nights do—and his expectation (hope, perhaps), had been to follow his friend drunkenly, laughing, to a bedroom, to relive the nights of their seamless youth. Octavian, however, had spent the aftermath of the evening chatting with politicians. He had been overjoyed by the idea that he could stay in the city, to be with his companion, and yet Octavian seemed to have lost all need for him but the practical. Even the dearest friend, he wrote to himself, can only stand so much.The consulships were flurries of politics, harried planning, and the final erection of the Pantheon he had promised what seemed like millenia before. It stood proud, and the marble gleamed cold in the sun. The dome curved toward the heavens, an eye in its crown for the shafts of Apollo, and to welcome the gods. The sculptors hammered uneasily under Agrippa's sharp eye, tracing out M·AGRIPPA·L·F·COS·TERTIVM·FECIT carefully immortalizing his name. He finished the year, arms folded, the city—once a rural little band of farmers afraid of its hill neighbors—behind him, becoming the city of marble Octavian had been determined to make for himself.The moment the fasces touched the ground, relieving him of the burdensome title, he was gone for Gaul. The place had not gotten less cold since he had last been there, nor the people any more civilized, and taxes were never an easy system to implement. Neither was setting up government for barbarians. Had they bothered to have some form of their own government, it might not have been a problem; at least they would have understood the concept. But with all these tribes running around, not even befriending one another, well, stability was at risk, and something needed to be done. There was nothing to be admired about those people.Still, the little uprisings were nothing, mere target practice, especially when Agrippa reminded the hooligans that he was putting in aqueducts and roads—those little niceties never failed to help. It was only a year, however, and then he left for Lesbos. For him, it was none too soon. It was explained to few at Rome, though rumours certainly flew. Many speculated that Octavian's newest wife had seeded jealousy in Agrippa's brother-in-law Marcellus over the influence Agrippa seemed to bear over the princeps. Agrippa did not bother correcting the notion that he had any influence at all anymore and instead occupied himself with ignoring the silence from Rome's highest by reading letters from his legate in Syria.The Parthians, as it turned out, were not partial to returning the standards they had taken from that glory-hungry pumpkin Crassus, nor did they seem inclined to be governed by anyone even slightly more intelligent. Parthians were a damned sneaky people, and Agrippa found himself up later and later at night, devising plans to subvert them and having them sent at all possible speed to the legate. The troops were restless, wondering what Octavian's—or rather, Augustus'—largest body of soldiers were doing improving their Greek and dipping their feet in Lesbian hot springs when they could have been putting down the pesky Parthians once and for all. Eventually, Agrippa ceased to mention all communication with Syria and instead put his men through the paces, knowing that even if he were to be gone, his troops would need to be prepared. There were plenty enough of little uprisings in Greece to be tended to, and the men exercised their exertions and frustrations on anyone idiotic enough to tempt them. The rest of the time, the exquisite, harsh mindlessness of the marching, the running, the building, was almost enough to keep Agrippa diverted. He went days without shaving. There were no letters from Gaius to Marcus for months. When one came, however, Agrippa recognised the spiky hand and knew what Octavian wanted even before he'd read why he was supposed to come home. Marcellus had died, which didn't bother Agrippa a great deal, but Octavian seemed to think it was excuse enough for Agrippa to return to Rome. He could not, the princeps wrote, do without Agrippa's expertise at home. He desired to have immediate acquaintance with his general.Agrippa stared blindly at the lettter. He worried the papyrus as he had before, much longer this time, although he knew that out of both duty and friendship he would be sailing for Rome within days. This time, the nerves sparked out of fear rather than pleasure, and he was on the verge of dreading seeing Octavian again. Of returning, of offering what was not wanted. Immediate acquaintance. So he steeled himself, and a slave packed for him, and they left for Rome four days later. He made a list, on the long and horrifically rocky trip to Italy (the slave was sick all but two of the days), of the many things he had accomplished since he and Octavian had been sent to Apollonia, and the list numbered many. He had honours never before bestowed; he had subdued peoples and been the saving hand of his homeland more than once, surveyed the empire and made its center more glorious in stature and in spread. When it came down to it, he supposed, there was no reason to either fear or hate Octavian, when there was nothing they could have expected from each other to begin with that they had not already given. Both men were married, both with children, and both with much to their names. By Jupiter, Agrippa had the empire in the palm of his hand, the beloved lieutenant of the first man at Rome. There was little else either one could ask. He would have been much more comfortable with the thing if he had managed to convince himself. This time, at least, would be slightly different, since Octavian had requested that Agrippa stay at his Palatine house with him. The house, Agrippa knew, was beautiful. The gardens were extensive, and there was a spectacular temple Octavian had had built after Actium. Something about a lightning bolt. If nothing else, if Agrippa were unable to sleep, he would have a number of ways to occupy himself until the dawn saw fit to grace him with her light. The journey between the port of Brundisium and Rome seemed much shorter this direction than it had going the other way, when Agrippa couldn't get out of Italy fast enough, and consequently over-thought every bump in the road. This time, dreading his friend, it seemed they had arrived at Rome in hours instead of days. Agrippa sent his weary slave home and, scruffily, proceeded to the Palatine himself. It was the middle of the night. Octavian welcomed him with open arms—quite literally. He opened the door himself and embraced Agrippa upon seeing the broader man filling out his doorframe. The princeps was as thin as ever, strong and willowy as a reed in wind, and just as elegant against Agrippa's own solid bulk. Agrippa did not allow himself to wonder how it was that Octavian had known he would appear that evening, but it was good, he grudgingly admitted to himself, to see his friend, despite everything. There was an almost immediate switch in his own demeanour; the moment the door opened, he let go of his fury. They were going to be friends this evening, boys from childhood, not a princeps and his staid general. "I have been remiss," Octavian announced, having apparently reached the same conclusion independently. "I have not written to you, nor have I indicated that I would welcome your correspondence. You must think I am a wretch." He stood aside to allow Agrippa in and demanded from a slave nearby that he bring a bowl of warm water so that his guest could wash. "It is good," he added softly, when the slave had gone, "to hold you in my eyes again. How was the journey?" As Agrippa talked, discussing the journey and the past year, what was going on in Greece, and the reports he'd received from the legions in Syria, mentioning in passing his wife, Octavian strode toward his bedroom, Agrippa following. "A glass of hot wine, I think, would be good this evening, don't you?" he said over his shoulder, and Agrippa, momentarily distracted from his report, indicated assent. "A good glass of wine is always welcome, you know that." It was in fact several glasses of wine later, when the room was warmer and both men much more at ease, that Octavian peered at his friend over the top of the cup balanced in his hand."Do you think about your marriage, friend?"Unkempt eyebrows climbed slowly up Agrippa's forehead."No. I live in it daily; there is little thought to give," he said warily. "Do you of yours?" Octavian steepled his fingers."Not the way you mean, I suppose. I've had two wives already. I have a wife now. I'm certainly not contemplating taking a fourth. But—"Agrippa was not in the mood for a philosophical conversation, and he interrupted."Unlike your names, eh? You've managed to acquire another one of those. Very clever of you recently. The people seem to love you." Octavian looked briefly surprised and then shook his head."Some of them do. It's good, isn't it? It has something of an air about it." His slender shoulders straightened just the slightest bit, even as he mocked himself. Agrippa smiled slightly."Augustus." He looked his companion up and down. "Doesn't really fit you, Gaius. It seems too grand. An Augustus would need to be…broader, I think. A bigger man than yourself." He gestured at himself. Octavian stared for a moment, and then blinked."A bigger man?" A real smile twisted Agrippa's wide mouth as he leaned forward, balancing his elbows and his cup on spread, easy knees."Indeed. Parvus puer." A sputtering laugh burst over from Octavian."Puer! As though we hadn't grown up together. Never forget, Marcus—you are a mastermind, but what would you do without me?" Agrippa contemplated his togate companion."It is not so much what I would do without you, Gaius, as what I would do with you."Octavian's deflation was visible, almost palpable. Agrippa watched, entertained, as the invective that the cogs of the princeps' brain had been churning was sucked up by the Muses as quickly as they had lent it to him. Then he seemed to collect himself, draw himself back up, rearrange the folds of his toga; the slightly haughty expression he always wore publicly now that he'd acquired his most recent cognomen dropped like a veil over his eyes. Agrippa waited patiently."Di immortales, Marcus, straighten your tunic. You look like a war-wearied disaster all crumpled like that. If you cannot wear a toga, at least look presentable.""I am in your bed-chamber, Gaius," Agrippa pointed out mildly, "and as you mentioned, I have known you since you were scrawny and pea-sized. You are hardly going to judge me." Besides, he was a war-wearied disaster. Lesbos had been relatively peaceful, but certainly not perfect, and it was not as though he hadn't been in battle after battle for the fifteen years leading up to that. And now, on his recall, he would be standing in front of troops once more. Octavian would have to become used to this dishevelment. But he stood and shook out the knee-length hem of the tunic so the thick purple lines raced down either side of his body instead of twisting, as the other man had noticed, across his thighs. Just then, the door creaked, and Agrippa spun, feet braced, toward the disruption. But it was merely a slave, and Octavian laughed heartily at Agrippa's disturbance. Lifting his chin, he called to the young, still smooth-jawed man,"More wine, and extra water in Agrippa's. He is becoming too drunk too quickly." The slave moved swiftly; Agrippa's eyes followed him across the room, and the amusement was evident in Octavian's voice when he said,"Do sit down, Marcus. The boy won't hurt you. The wine can only help." Reluctantly, not taking his attention from the silent slave across the room, he re-took his seat, tunic straight. Octavian gestured with his head."Take off your sandals. There is no need for formality here, as you said." Agrippa looked at him incredulously."And yet you sit here togatus, your sandals firmly on your feet, and you have just admonished me to rearrange my tunic for you. Make up your mind, Gaius; I cannot be everything." Octavian tilted his head."Is that so?" He did not argue, nor did he address Agrippa's dissatisfied complaint, but again gestured at the sandals, and Agrippa grunted and bent to slide them off. The slave moved to Agrippa's side with a fresh bowl of wine, efficiently removing the first, and doing the same for the princeps. Agrippa held his breath, waiting for Octavian to admonish the slave that he, Octavian, should be served first, but his friend did not seem to be paying a great deal of attention to either the wine or the slave. Rather, he was examining Agrippa intently as the general raised his bowl to his mouth, and said abruptly, "Caesaris, you will tell Britannicus to shave this man in the morning when he rises. It is of course too late now, but he looks scruffy, don't you think?" The slave, Caesaris, waited, clearly too well-trained to answer, and Octavian waved his hand dismissively."Go. Tell Britannicus."Agrippa, sprawled in his chair with his ankle now over his knee, raised an eyebrow at Octavian and passed his hand over the beginnings of a scruffy beard."Shave me, eh? You don't like the longer hair?" Octavian scoffed."Don't be ridiculous. The people of Rome will see you. If you come out looking like you're fresh from battle, what on Earth are they to think? That you are in mourning? You lost your civilization in Greece, my friend. Drink your wine." Agrippa grimaced."Far too much water.""You prefer it unmixed?""Certainly not. But stronger might be nice. It is a good wine, Gaius; you have become prudish since I saw you last. Has it been that long?" Octavian narrowed his eyes briefly in thought."Perhaps not. Perhaps that much has simply changed.""Oh?" Octavian inclined his head."Things are different at Rome nowadays, friend. There has been this mess with Murena, Apollo knows how that happened, and I have been ill, as you know—I was prepared to hand my ring over to you. It is time to think about these things. I am forty years old. The empire was in a sorry state when all this started, and if it lives, it is because of these things I have done. I am slowly bringing back the old customs, the togas. Rome has not been at war recently, and that—well, you remember the days of my father." He held up a hand when Agrippa looked as though he were about to interject. "Things are the way they are, Marcus. Julius was a good man, but he threw things into turmoil, and truly handing the state back over would result in disaster. It's time for me to think about how to keep it breathing. I have come too far to let it shudder and die now. If I have to be Rome's pater, so be it; I shall. And its children may hate me, or they may revere me, but at least they will be around to do it." Agrippa sat back."You have truly come into yourself, haven't you, Gaius?" He shook his head and chuckled. "I remember you hiding in your tent from battle. And look at you now." He waited for the icy fury to take over; Octavian had ever insisted that he hadn't been hiding, but Agrippa had been the one who had held his head as he vomited on the floor of his tent, shaking in a cold sweat, the one who had announced to the troops that Octavian was ill. But there was no fury. Octavian simply gazed at him."It is done what must be done." Agrippa nodded slowly."So it is. So it is." He regarded his old friend for a while longer and then said, "I have heard about this poem being written. Romans as masters of the Earth, eh? The race that wears the toga?" A smile played half-shamefacedly across Octavian's features."Yes, well, he is a spectacular poet, even if he has some…interesting things to say. The poets have been upset with me, it seems. Horatius Flaccus thinks he is particularly sneaky. He is not, of course, but let them say what they must. After all, if I tell them which words to use, they will be far less believable—and far angrier. And then we will have much more than Murena on our hands." Octavian stood, adjusting the complicated folds of his toga, and held out his hand."Come, kiss me, and then to bed with both of us, I believe. It is late, and you have travelled far recently." Agrippa rose to his feet as well and embraced Octavian, kissing each of his cheeks in turn, and Octavian held his friend close for a brief moment and then at arm's length."It has been too long," he said, his voice laced with regret. "But we shall make up for it, hm? You will be at Rome for a long time to come, I suspect. Maecenas will want to see you, I'm sure, tomorrow, and then there is much to do." The laugh that burst from Agrippa was half-bark."Yes, I'm sure Maecenas will want to see me tomorrow." He muttered under his breath. "Artsy ponce." Octavian arched a brow but said nothing, expertly manoeuvring Agrippa to the door instead."Mane, Marcus. I shall have the slaves bring you breakfast, and Britannicus will shave you. Good dreams and good sleep." Agrippa watched Octavian retreat into the dark of his room, certain the other man had not meant, or perhaps even noticed, his own pun. Reasonably, Agrippa's expectation was a heavy night's sleep, a good breakfast in the morning and an apparently much-needed shave, if he was to present himself to the people of Rome as the victorious general Octavian seemed to think they needed. He fell asleep quickly, grateful, without even allowing himself to be undressed by the slave who waited patiently at his door. This turned out to be a mistake: his expectation, or lack thereof, had been wrong.His expectation was not the interruption he got hours still before the first watch. Octavian was silent, devious as he ever had been, standing beside his bed as the moonlight poured through Agrippa's window and played off of Octavian's fair skin. He was stock still, his legs braced sturdily, his head tilted, as though he were bathing himself in Selene's pale glow, and Agrippa woke more from the odd feeling of being watched than from any noise Octavian had made. He managed to contain the alarmed jump with which he would normally have reacted, had it been any other man beside his bed, but he had got used to this once—though it had been a long time. So he did not at first let Octavian know that he had woken, aware that the other man would simply wait until Agrippa had realised he was not alone. Instead he observed: Octavian was not as young as he used to be, that was true. His skin was loose in places, and he was thinner than he should have been, as a result of his illness. But he stood proudly, and he was still as beautiful as he had been when he wept against Agrippa's bare chest the night he heard of Caesar's death. Agrippa rolled to face Octavian, and Octavian glanced down at him."Good evening, old friend," he whispered, and Agrippa shifted his body over to make room."Join me?" he murmured softly, as though inviting the princeps to an informal meal. Octavian's mouth quirked."Certainly." He sat on the edge of the bed, swinging his legs over, and he was suddenly, immediately, pressed against the length of Agrippa's entire body, and Agrippa shuddered against him."It has been a long time." Octavian rested his head against Agrippa's shoulder, his slender fingers playing across Agrippa's back, ever the puppet-master."Some things do not change." He bit Agrippa's shoulder lightly, and the beast roared inside the general, something taking over that he had not felt for twenty years, freer of the political disaster to which he had committed himself by loving this man. Octavian was quite suddenly pinned, and his eyes were bright and amused beneath his eyelashes."You are going to have me, then? What would the people of Rome say," he mused, "if they knew their princeps was in the bed of their beloved general, and moreover, that he was beneath him?" Agrippa kissed the hollow of Octavian's throat, tracing light circles with his tongue, and then he muttered,"They would say that you are a lucky bastard is what they would say." Octavian's body shook with laughter, and Agrippa smiled against his skin."Oh, is that what they would say? Imagine. I have more power than any other man in this empire, and yet…" He raised his arms over his head, and Agrippa clasped his wrists, pinning them down. "And yet," he continued, "I am completely powerless with you. How ironic.""Not ironic at all. You are play-acting. This is as a philosophy book to you, my friend. You know how you always wanted Rome to work, and you are trying everything you ever read upon it. And because it is you, it is working. They look to you, certainly, but you would still hole up in your library with your Aristotle if you had a choice, wouldn't you?""There are few choices anymore, Marcus. The Fates have taken us where they will, and we must play to them now.""You had a choice tonight, Gaius, and you came to me. Forget about Rome for a moment." Octavian arched under Agrippa's studied ministrations."Yes." His voice faltered, broke, and he whispered, "yes."The room was silent briefly but for the harsh intake of breath when one man did something right, as the pair of them learned to fit together again. There was a rhythm, Agrippa remembered, that they had established when they were young. Sometimes, Octavian would kneel by his bed and wait, wait just as he had done tonight, for Agrippa to cotton to his presence, and then to quicken underneath his touch. Other nights, Agrippa would slip onto Octavian's pallet, and he would kiss his friend just below his ear, which never failed to wake him, and Octavian would respond immediately by touching Agrippa—his shoulder, his chest, his waist, tracing the lines of his muscles as both boys grew and filled out. Octavian had always had incredible hands, long and slim and dextrous, and he would—as he was doing now—run them up Agrippa's sides in long, slow lines to watch his body curve with the chills it brought, and it brought Octavian's body into sharp contact with his own as he arched. It had been a power struggle then, as it was now—a subtle one, as each of them fought with himself to give up his own control. Octavian had never been terribly good at it, and Agrippa found himself spending night after sleepless night trying to coax his lover's slim body into letting go, into enjoying what was being done to him, and yet the young man had always retained some semblance of the stoic control he so prized. Octavian's body had grown older, and he had clearly come to terms with himself and who he was intended to be, and he had been through three wives and multiple children already, but it had not allowed him to let go any better than he did when he was eighteen. And yet Agrippa still held his wrists tightly in his grasp, pinning his hands over his head, watching the young man he knew first and foremost as his own completion writhe beneath him, tilt his head back, the slight curl in his hair becoming wilder as his skin became slick both with arousal and with his attempts at resistance. Agrippa was fully awake now, completely intent on his task, and he let go of Octavian's wrists to slide down his body and kiss his belly, dipping his tongue into his navel, to blow lightly across the straining erection between his partner's legs, and to hear Octavian's voice crack as he begged. It was a strange kind of pleasure, a satisfaction of sorts, vindication, perhaps, and Agrippa refused to comply, rolling off and ceasing his attentions.Octavian opened foggy eyes, turning his head to look at Agrippa in surprise. "Why did you stop?" His voice sounded much younger than it had when he had demanded earlier that Agrippa rearrange his tunic. Agrippa folded his hands across his chest."I'm still wearing my tunic, Gaius." Octavian glanced over him in mild surprise."So you are. Take it off." Chuckling, Agrippa shook his head."You take it off." Octavian sat up."What's going on?" Agrippa heaved himself up as well, drawing his knees up to drape his forearms lightly across them."You're using me," he said simply. "You didn't even notice I was still dressed. You remember being carefree, being a young man, and I am a reminder. Livia knows where you are, of course. She's not a stupid woman. I wonder if she knows why." There was an ire rising in Octavian's eyes, and Agrippa watched him as he shoved it down."You have been away for a long time," Octavian said, controlling himself. "You do not understand how things are anymore. I shall forgive you for that. You are not a habit, Marcus, nor are you an escape. I came to you because you have been my lover in many ways, and you are dear to me. Do not undermine that." Sighing, Agrippa stretched out his legs and scrubbed his palms across his knees."I will not take you, Augustus." Octavian reeled back."Do not call me that." Agrippa looked at him intently."Why? That is how you came to me, is it not?" Octavian sputtered for a moment, and then Agrippa said softly,"But if you want me, I am yours." Octavian shut his mouth. "If you want me," Agrippa repeated. "I have always been yours, since we were boys, since we were first friends. Before I ever touched you, I was yours, and you have never been mine. I will not play that game anymore. You have never been one to hand over control; you were not when we were boys, and you certainly are not now. You may have me. But you will have to claim me. I won't chase after you. I will not fuck the princeps of Rome. I will be your lover. But that will have to be up to you. Gaius." Octavian sat through this short speech silent, incredulous, his hands twisting endlessly in the bow of his knees, but when this last crossed Agrippa's lips, he moved like Jupiter's own lightning. The tunic was very abruptly on the ground. His hands, his gorgeous hands, were on Agrippa's chest, pushing him backwards; he was moving astride Agrippa's hips, and suddenly they were both eighteen again instead of a forty-year-old battle-weary general with grey streaks through his hair from the harrowing uncertainty of his own life, instead of the forty-year-old head of the Roman empire, with lines creasing his forehead and his eyes from the frowning, concentrating on skirting the tripwires that laced his every step.They were eighteen as Octavian's mouth came down on Agrippa's, finally kissing him, as his tongue traced a sweet line across Agrippa's bottom lip, asking him for entrance; as the pads of his fingers outlined areolae, pinched them, as he drew his fingernails sharply across Agrippa's chest and felt him shudder. Agrippa's breath hitched, his hands scrabbling for purchase, pulling them closer as Octavian stretched out across him, covering his friend's body with his own."I have loved you," he whispered, and Octavian's forehead rested on Agrippa's chest briefly before he continued his ministrations, brushing his mouth over every battle wound from the past fifteen years which he could find to heal."I know. I have never doubted it."There was a small bowl of olive oil beneath the bed, which Agrippa had no doubt Octavian had requested be put there, in anticipation specifically of this, but he could not even find the wherewithal to chuckle until Octavian murmured against his thighs, "It's from Lesbos. They tell me it's the best." And then the laughter that burst from his chest started low and combined throatily with Octavian's own rising mirth, dark and full."It seemed appropriate at the time," Octavian gasped, and Agrippa quaked with laughter."I'm sure it did." Moments later, when Octavian dipped his hand into the oil and drew it across his own skin, then swiping his finger lightly under Agrippa's navel, settling himself between Agrippa's legs, the laughter was all but dead, breath short and laboured. And as they finally came together, as Octavian finally gave himself over to claiming his own as his own, Octavian murmured, "I would not be here without you." Agrippa curved his hands around his lover, pulling him closer, farther in, and murmured, "No, you wouldn't." Octavian snorted."You're very humble.""And you're inside me. Shut up." Octavian thrust against him, and Agrippa dug his fingers in."I'm telling you…" Octavian breathed deeply, felt the slide of Agrippa's erection against his belly, closed his eyes against the image, and started again. "I'm telling you that I have never…epol, oh, Venus, take me—" Agrippa was tracing the shell of Octavian's ear with his tongue, kissing his jaw, and Octavian yanked away, pinned Agrippa's hands as had been done to him, and held his face centimetres away from his lover's."I am telling you," he hissed, "that I have never taken you for granted." There was little after that but the sounds of coupling, the harsh whispers of arousal and the sharp reactions to pleasure.They would lie there together that night until the first watch, and Gaius would rise before Britannicus came with rolls and fruit and the razor for Marcus; they would not be found this way, and Augustus would return to his wife, dignified and assured. There would be little left of the boy who had awoken to make love with the only one who had always been there.He would think on this, as he watched his own daughter marrying Agrippa two short years later, that he had had three wives and two fathers and many children, and that all of them would walk away. He would think on this when he banished his daughter, at the deaths of each of the boys whom he had raised as an heir, as he laid Agrippa himself to rest eleven years later, and as Agrippa's son departed Rome, exiled, for Planasia. He would remember this thinking on Rome's decline, on the pain it must suffer as partners torture each other with inattention and infidelity.This would be the last time they would be together like this, and he would think on his three wives, his fathers, his daughter, his adopted children, his legions, and all he had lost, and he would recall the accusation Agrippa had cast: that Octavian himself had never needed Agrippa in the same way. And as he demanded that his own mausoleum be his lover's final resting place, he said goodbye. He stepped away from the house of stone and mortar which bore the only one Octavian had ever needed, and he left Gaius there with his friend in hopes that perhaps Agrippa's shade would know. He stepped away from the mausoleum, and it was on that day in 740 that he truly became Augustus, and he never looked back.
1800	Between a Waiter and a	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "Gen", "Characters": "Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged", "Fandom": "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams", "Language": "English", "Rating": "General Audiences", "author": "by Enigel", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2007-12-25T00:00:00", "words": "1,181", "Additional Tags": "Yuletide", "Relationship": "Arthur Dent & Ford Prefect", "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": "Yuletide 2007", "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	Ford peered hastily through the menu, then passed it to Arthur, who had even less of an idea what the odd names might mean, and how much more dubious than the name would the food itself prove to be. Ford then consulted the drinks list with all the collected calm of a piranha dropped in a tank of goldfish, pointing to this and that until settling on something."Two of today's lunch special, and a big Jynan Tonix," he said with an anticipatory pleased sigh."I'll just have a tea, please," said Arthur."Tee?" inquired the waiter who'd been, in his turn, waiting for their decision with all the patience of a lurking spider, only less enthusiastic. "Would the kind sir detail this concept of 'tee'?"Arthur opened his mouth to provide details aplenty, but Ford's terrified expression gave him pause. It was a fatal pause, during which Ford's terrified mind set in motion Ford's alert body, and in conclusion of which Ford's determined hand clamped itself over Arthur's mouth."Hot water with edible leaves soaked in it," he shouted, covering Arthur's protests."Ah," the waiter nodded politely, though his expression said clearly that he found Arthur's choice not only bizarre, but repugnant and highly offensive, though his own class as a waiter would not allow him to express his distaste, but gave him the dignity to bear such offense unaffected.[1]Time passed. Artificial night in the restaurant came, then was replaced again by artificial noon. (It was a lunch and dinner only restaurant.)"I think whatever we're supposed to eat is putting up a hell of a struggle," said Arthur."Mhm," Ford mumbled. "Just wait till the Jynan Tonix gets here."More time passed.Arthur excused himself to shave. Ford nodded absently at him, his gaze lost in space. He looked like he was thinking deeply about something. In reality, he was trying hard to cling on to the last remains of the alcoholic daze of the day before. He felt he was returning to reality, and he didn't like it one bit.When their food finally arrived, together with the drinks, Ford blinked.After the customary inspection by Ford, checking that no parts of the meal were capable of autonomous motion, Arthur peeked through his fingers at the plate.It looked... normal. Arthur allowed himself to relax a fraction."Wow," he said after he'd devoured the contents. "I'm surprised to have to say this, Ford, but this may be the best cabbage soup I've ever had since all Earth kitchens were blown from the sky."Ford coughed."Er, that was your tea, Arthur.""Oh." Arthur's expression of delight dropped several notches. "Well, it was good anyway. It would be too much to hope that the soup will taste like tea, wouldn't it?""It might be better to settle for hoping it will taste the same," said Ford, "but I wouldn't bet the tiniest towel on it."The soup came remarkably fast after that - Arthur only had time to read the phonebook once. Before the waiter had time to move away from their table, Arthur heard a familiar whooshing noise.Before he could place it in "bad familiar" or "run away now!" familiar, he saw a white gleaming ship landing in the restaurant's fountain, and the unfortunately familiar shape of Wowbagger emerging from it.His stomach sank. Wowbagger was, of course, heading for them, and he was again caught off his guard. He couldn't think of one insulting thing to say to him - he'd exhausted them all in the time between.Wowbagger headed towards their waiter."StarlingtonFexXillalian?" asked Wowbagger, his tone loaded with as much sneer and contempt as Arthur remembered. It sounded better when he wasn't the target."Yes, that would be me. Sir has a reservation?""No," screeched Wowbagger, "sir has no reservations whatsoever to let you know that you're a pretentious jerk with no brains, and a disgusting slob!"The waiter's mouth pursed to a point and the air began vibrating with the waves of contempt and outrage he was broadcasting.Wowbagger was already climbing the ramp to his ship.Arthur felt a deep and intense feeling of gratification, until he realised the implications on his meal. He looked sadly at his plate, and his plate seemed to be looking back at him. (The impression was accented by the arrangement of various body parts on the plate.)"I'll never know if it tasted like tea now," said Arthur sadly."I think it's safe to assume it didn't," frowned Ford."Yes, but I'll never know.""I promise you it's for the better," said Ford. "Now let's go.""Um. Don't we have to," Arthur lowered his voice just in case, "pay?"Ford looked at him in surprise."Pay? With what? I never bring money to a restaurant, they might find it and take it away.""Find it? Who are..."Arthur didn't get to finish his question, because the answer came to grab them by the scruff of the neck. "I really can't take you anywhere," Ford said when they were safely outside, sitting on the sidewalk and leaning against the wall to keep their precarious balance."Me? ME?""They were never this bad when I used to go alone. I guess the waiter was really furious he couldn't guess us until the last moment.""He could have guessed us sooner if you'd told me you were planning on leaving without paying," said Arthur scathingly. "Spared us a heck of a post-prandial interview.""And miss the lunch itself?" asked Ford. "Are you serious?""You didn't even eat!""Ah, no one comes here for food," Ford said dreamily. "It's the Jynan Tonix, Arthur. No other place makes it quite like this one.""I hope it was worth your bruises."Ford grinned."What bruises? I only feel the Jynan running through my body. It's the whole point.""Good for you, then. I think I can feel your bruises too.""Ah," said Ford. "So you probably won't be interested then."Arthur waited for him to go on, but Ford didn't."Interested in what?""Well, I know this place. Kind of expensive. Same species of waiters."Arthur scowled."They have tea."Arthur sighed."How far?"Ford grinned. [1] This is not an exaggeration. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has this to say about IXnellian waiters: Trained for years in utmost strictness and highest secrecy, IXnellian waiters have the ability to broadcast low-level cerebral waves and project them with astonishing accuracy towards the psyches of the customers. They're also able to sense with unrivalled precision the net worth of each customer from a single glimpse at a dozen persons table, and intuit who's going to try and leave without paying. An experienced waiter can serve up to ten tables at once, not by virtue of speed (which is a lowly expedient reserved for young untrained waiters), but by being capable to instill the customers with the sense that they should be grateful when such a rare and noble being finds the time to attend to their pathetic needs, and generally just wait, dammit.
5781	Road trip a trip on the	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "F/M", "Characters": "Daniel Jackson, Vala Mal Doran", "Fandom": "Stargate SG-1", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Teen And Up Audiences", "author": "by amaresu", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2009-08-07T00:00:00", "words": "1,368", "Additional Tags": null, "Relationship": "Daniel Jackson/Vala Mal Doran", "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	Day One“Why can't I drive?”“Because I'm driving.”“What am I supposed to do then?”“Navigate. With the map.”“Navigate? That doesn't sound like nearly as much fun as driving. I could drive you know. I have a license.”“I'm sure you paid quite a bit of money for it too. Regardless, I've seen you drive and I'd rather not get pulled over.”“Are you saying I'm a bad driver? That's not very nice.”“You're a terrible driver. Don't pout. Just turn on some music.”“Can I drive later?”“No.”Day Two“I don't get it.”“Get what?”“You never eat this much junk food. That's the second pack of twizzlers you've had since we left the SGC.”“It's traditional. You go on a road trip and you eat junk food.”“Really? Sam didn't mention that when she was telling me about road trips.”“Sam told you about road trips?”“Yep. She said they were an important cultural activity.”“Cultural activity? She actually said that?”“Well, not in those exact words, but essentially.”“Why aren't you going on a road trip with her then?”“I wanted to go with you. I figured it would be a good bonding experience for us.”“Bonding experience.”“Oh look! Books on tape.”Day Three“There's only one bed.”“It's all they had.”“The parking lot isn't even half full they had to have other rooms available.”“Nope. Maybe everyone is just out for the evening. I'm sure they'll be back later.”“Fine. I'm going to get some sleep.”“But we just got here.”“And?”“You can't sleep yet. We need to figure out where we're going tomorrow.”“You don't know?”“Am I supposed to?”“This whole road trip was your idea.”“And?”“You don't have a final destination in mind?”“I'm supposed to have a final destination? I thought we just drove around for two weeks. Seemed to be the logical thing with something called a road trip. Two weeks of taking a trip on the road.”“Normally there's a plan on where to go. A place to end up.”“Well, eventually we'll end up back in Colorado Springs won't we? Daniel? I told you you couldn't go to sleep yet. Daniel?”Day Four“Let's eat there.”“Let's not.”“Why not? It looks quaint.”“It looks like food poisoning waiting to happen.”“Oh come on, I've seen the things you've eaten off world.”“Off world doesn't have food guidelines.”“Be that way. You can eat wherever you want, but I'm going to go there.”“Vala. Vala. Vala! Wait up.”Day Five“Food poisoning. I guess this is where I say I'm sorry?”“Uugh.”“I got you some ginger ale. The lady at the front desk said it would be good for your stomach.”“Uugh?”“These? Soda crackers which are also supposed to be good for your stomach.”“Uugh.”“I'll just leave you alone here then.”“Uugh.”Day Six“Look a lake!”“Oh, a lake.”“You know you don't have to be all sarcastic with me. I said I was sorry. It's not like I meant for you to get sick. From now on we'll only eat at those horrible chain restaurants.”“No, I know you didn't mean for that to happen. I'm just still not feeling all that great.”“So you're not going to continue to be snippy?”“I'm not being snippy.”“You are.”“I am?”“Yes. Now pull over. I want to go look at the lake.”“It's a lake. We've seen hundreds of them.”“But we haven't seen that one.”“Fine.”“Thank you.”“Your welcome.”“Wanna go for a swim?”“No.”“Daniel, it'll be fun.”“Why are you taking off your shirt?”“I can't very well go swimming in my clothes now can I?”“So, put on a bathing suit.”“I don't have one. Now are you coming or not?”“Not.”“Your loss then.”Day Seven“Don't look at me like that. I didn't make you get into the lake. And how was I supposed to know the sheriff would come by and be such a prude. You really can't blame me for this one.”“We're just lucky Jack posted bail for us.”“Why'd you call him anyways? Why not Mitchell or Sam?”“Jack's more likely to only mention this when it'll be really embarrassing instead of at every opportunity.”“Why in the world would this be embarrassing?”“We were arrested for public indecency.”“We were swimming. Without any clothing on admittedly, but we were just swimming.”“Thus the indecency part.”“Have I ever told you how weird your planet is?”“It's your planet too these days.”Day Eight“Why are we stopping?”“Fruit stand. I'm sick of twizzlers.”“I should hope so as you've been eating them none stop since we left. What's a fruit stand?”“It's a stand that sells fruit. Ow.”“I figured out that part. I meant why is it sitting out here in the middle of nowhere?”“Local farmers will sell their products by the side of the road. They must get enough traffic to make it worthwhile.”“Think there'll be any pineapple? I like pineapple.”“Considering we're currently in Missouri I doubt it.”“Not native to this part of the world?”“No.”Day Nine“Oh look, only one bed. Again.”“It was all they had left.”“It's amazing how when I get the rooms they always have at least a double and when you get the rooms there's only ever a single.”“Weird isn't it? It's not like we both won't fit.”“That's not the point.”“They have magic fingers. Teal'c was telling me about these. Give me some quarters.”Day Ten“County fair. That sounds fun.”“Could be. Could also be boring.”“Let's find out?”“Why not?”“Look Daniel I'm sorry. If I'd know how much you'd hate this I wouldn't have made you come. I just thought it would be something fun for the two of us to do together.”“No, Vala, it's not that. I'm having fun.”“Really? For some reason I'm having a hard time believing that.”“I'm sorry.”“Why are you turning?”“The fair's this way. Maybe they'll have a roller coaster or something.”“I saw something about those on the Discovery channel. They looked like fun.”“They are. Usually. I'm sorry I've been such an ass.”“You should be. I expect some sort of present to make up for it.”“I'll buy you some cotton candy.”“And win me a prize.”“What?”“It's traditional. I saw it on TV. You go to the fair and win your girlfriend a prize. I want one of those stuffed bears. A big one.”“Girlfriend?”“Yes.”“Do I get a say in this?”“At this point I really don't think you do.”“Okay.”“Okay?”“Okay.”“Okay.”Day Eleven“We should start to head back towards Colorado now.”“I suppose so.”“Or we could head back tomorrow.”“We could do that.”“Got any more quarters?”“Nope. We used the last of them.”“Only one thing to do then.”“That is?”“Move to the jacuzzi. It's huge.”“We have a jacuzzi here?”“In the bathroom.”Day Twelve“So, Colorado Springs.”“We should be there in about four hours. If we don't make any more stops.”“We could stop though. I mean we have a few days left of vacation time.”“We could do that.”“Or?”“Or?”“It sounds like there's an or there. The way you said that.”“Well, we could spend the last few days of our vacation at your place. A nice bed where the sheets don't have mysterious stains.”“Significantly decreased chance of food poisoning.”“Unless you didn't clean out your fridge before leaving.”“Which I did, so we'd have to stop at a grocery store.”“Or get take out.”“Take out could work.”Day Thirteen“We need to take a shower.”“I'd argue that, but you're right. We smell.”“Also the sheets need to be changed.”“At least the stains aren't mysterious.”“There is that.”Day Fourteen“Work tomorrow.”“I suppose I should pack up my stuff then. Take it back to my room and all.”“Or-”“Or?”“Or you could pack up your room.”“And take it back here?”“It's a thought.”“I like the way you think.”
35540	In Memoriam	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "Gen", "Characters": "Ronon Dex, Rodney McKay, Richard Woolsey", "Fandom": "Stargate Atlantis", "Language": "English", "Rating": "General Audiences", "author": "by Jadesfire2808 (Jadesfire)", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2009-12-22T00:00:00", "words": "2,286", "Additional Tags": null, "Relationship": null, "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	Ronon remembers screaming. Remembers it from the very depths of his soul, not just because his throat hurts like hell. It feels like he bled out of every pore, even two days after Jennifer gave him the all-clear and took the straps from his wrists. She tells him that he didn't, that the pain-memory will fade. He knows she's lying. There are some things that he can never forget.Three days after she clears him to leave the Isolation Room and move to the Infirmary, he's still as weak as a child, barely able to stay awake long enough to eat the food that he's ravenous for. He eats and sleeps, eats and stares at the ceiling, thinking. Remembering.When the memories can't haunt his waking hours, they live in his dreams: specters of Wraith and humans, friends and enemies so bound up together that he comes awake with a gasp, trying to disentangle reality from the twist in his subconscious. Maybe it will always be there now, this wrongness, the taint of what he did forever dooming him to these nightmares.The others continue to visit him, bringing him food and things to occupy him. Sheppard offers the enormous book that he values so highly and a small computer game, neither of which are particularly wanted, but Ronon understands what's behind the gift and nods for Sheppard to put them on the nightstand. They will still be there when Teyla comes in, helping him with the bland food he's allowed now and just sitting as he dozes. She and Sheppard come and go, quiet and somber, just as he knows they did when he was-When he was unaware of them.Teyla's smile is gentle, her voice smooth where Sheppard's is rough and tired. Both of them look tired, really, more even than Ronon, who has slipped in and out of sleep more easily than they have for the past few days. Rodney doesn't look any more tired than normal, but then Ronon is used to seeing him after long nights in the lab, after missions that leave him exhausted and crises that wear him down to the bone. He hides it better than Sheppard does, his deep weariness, only showing it when he stops for long enough.He doesn't stop when he comes to see Ronon, the same restless energy that drives him through missions and dangers and disasters animates him whenever he visits the infirmary. There are times when his hands move so much that Ronon has to close his eyes, motion-sick. And always he talks, mostly of himself, of Jeannie, of the things he has done and all that he has yet to do. The chatter is constant, never expecting a response and never touching on anything close to Ronon.The sound is more soothing than anything Ronon has heard for weeks, and he sleeps easier while Rodney holds forth on his latest breakthrough that will win him the noble honor he seems to value so highly.He stirs from his latest doze when someone touches his hand, lifting it gently. It takes him time to stir at the movement, and so he hears Jennifer before he sees her."I think it's time to take these out." Her skin is warm and soft, her fingers deft against his although it still stings when she draws the needles from him. He must be getting better, that the light sting is just that, no more than a gentle prick. His skin no longer feels on fire and his muscles ache less now. It's not much, but it's a start.Jennifer bandages his hand slowly, and Ronon takes his time waking up fully. There is nothing to rush to consciousness for; everyone keeps telling him to rest and gather his strength, and it's good advice he lets himself take.Rodney's voice carries well, and it takes Ronon a moment to realize the other man is not by his bed. He blinks a little, trying to focus, seeing only Jennifer's smiling face."Hello, there. Decided to join us, have you?"He grunts a little, still half-straining to hear Rodney. Not put off, Jennifer finishes what she is doing, wrapping her hand over the carefully wound bandage."You're going to need to start eating properly, and drinking too. It's going to be a while before you can do much more, though.""Got it." The bed is raised up, just as it was when he fell asleep, and he looks round, seeing silhouettes in the doorway. One is instantly familiar, the other takes him a moment to recognize, and he isn't really sure until he hears the voice."…need to know.""You already have all you need to know." That isn't the voice Rodney uses when he's telling Ronon about his early attempts at building rocket ships. Stronger, harsher, it's the one he saves for when he's truly terrified or truly angry. He doesn't use it so much, not recently, anyway."There are proper procedures to these things.""That can't be followed when he's, let's see, strong enough to hold a pen?" Rodney's arms are straight down by his sides, fists clenched. His chin is lifted, aggressive, and the set of his shoulders tells Ronon that he's bracing himself for a fight. Ronon's seen it make angry locals back down and his scientists cower. Woolsey glances past him for a moment, then looks back."I suppose it can wait for a day or so." He's trying to make it sound like it's his decision, but he should know that Rodney won't let him get away with that."It can wait until he's ready and he wants to talk to you. If he wants to talk to you. You've already got Jennifer's reports, does the IOC really want to know more than that?"Woolsey doesn't say anything, just looks at Rodney for a long moment, then nods briskly, turns on his heel and leaves. There is an almost unsettling silence as Rodney watches him go, then his stiff posture relaxes into his normal half-slouch and he turns into the infirmary, hands stuffed into his pockets and his head tilted slightly, the way he does when he's thinking. He starts a little when he sees Ronon, mouth twisting into something between a smile and a grimace."You're awake," he says, eyes flickering to the doorway and back. "How you feeling today?"Shrugging doesn't make anything hurt too badly, and the gesture is automatic. "Tired.""Yes, well. I suppose it's going to be a while until you're- Oh, hey, that's good." He's pointing to Ronon's hand, now free of tubes and lightly bound in white.Ronon shrugs again. "I guess. There anything to eat?"That earns him a half-smile, this time without the awkwardness. "I'll go see."Rodney must have gone all the way down to the Mess himself, because he's gone a long time and he comes back carrying a tray that's loaded with what looks like enough food for three. Ronon's hungry, but probably not that hungry."It's not all for you," Rodney says defensively, setting it down on a table that he wheels closer to the bed. "But I wasn't sure if you wanted something hot or just a sandwich, and they had two types of pudding so I thought, you know, you could choose what you liked and I'd have the chocolate one."The snort isn't quite laughter, but it's the closest Ronon's come in a few days. Rodney always has the chocolate one, claiming that it's safer, less likely to have citrus in. Not that Ronon minds. The tray of food looks more daunting than appetizing right now, soup and meat and a sandwich crowded on there with the puddings, and a stack of what he thinks are crackers and cheese. They eat well in Atlantis, these days.He pulls the tray towards him as Rodney starts to talk."...weren't even allowed chocolate for something like a month. She used to get really obsessive about her weight from time to time and just throw everything out of the fridge except the lettuce. I actually used to look forward to lunch from the cafeteria at school, no matter how processed it was, just because it wasn't salad. Huh." He sits back, turning a fork thoughtfully. "You know, I'm still fond of MREs, airplane food, that kind of thing. Anything that comes in a package, really. Hadn't really thought about that before. It's weird, the things you don't realize you remember."Ronon remembers the food from Initial Training, remembers sharing it with Tyre and Ara, swapping biscuits and sweets and trying to steal Rakai's netan seeds when he wasn't looking. There's nothing that doesn't remind him of them, that hasn't reminded him of them from the day he started Running. It hurts, every time, and each fresh wave of pain is a reminder that he welcomes. Rodney talks easily and freely about his past, as though it is still a living part of him.Watching Rodney's hands move, sketching the outline of "the biggest pork joint, ever. I mean, the pig must have been the porcine equivalent of Godzilla" Ronon can't imagine what it's like, not to have every memory tinged with overwhelming grief. Now he has new pain to pile on the old, a layer of scars so thick that he finds it hard to remember what lies beneath them.The soup has tiny flecks in it, peppercorns perhaps, or some other kind of Earth spice. They're nothing like the sweet netan seeds, but the look is close enough that he puts the bowl back down, appetite suddenly gone."...because then she just had to reheat it." Shaking his head, Rodney frowns at the tray, then at Ronon. "I, er. I thought you were hungry."Lying back against the pillows, Ronon lets himself sink into them. "Yeah.""You know, if you don't want this, I can take it back to the Mess." There is a tinge of hurt in Rodney's voice, and Ronon cracks an eye open enough to glare at him. Rodney shifts on the high stool that are the only seats available in the Infirmary. "Or I could just leave it there for when you're ready. I might have the soup though, if you don't mind, because, you know, it'll go cold and it's not gazpacho. Not that you know what gazpacho is, of course."Ronon closes his eyes."It's a cold soup," Rodney goes on, his words occasionally interrupted by a gentle slurp. "Spanish, I think. Never been a fan of it myself. There's something wrong about cold soup, a bit like hot ice-cream. I remember Jeannie trying to make Baked Alaska when she was twelve. Terrible mess..."Drifting a little, Ronon remembers cooking hantil broth over a fire in the middle of a forest. The beans had swollen right up, until there was barely any liquid left and they'd had to cut the remains out of the pot with a knife. Tyre had never let him forget that one, although it had at least been edible.He knows that Tyre is dead. Sheppard told him that, before he'd even begun to come back to himself. It's been the one constant in his recovery.Tyre is dead. Ronon is alive. He can feel the softness of the sheets under his hands, the steady beat of his heart and the remaining ache in his limbs. He can hear Rodney's voice, steady and sure as he talks about family dinners and the difference between Pegasus and Milky Way food. These things tell him that he is alive, even though his soul feels dead.The Wraith took his life from him, but lying in Atlantis' Infirmary, with its dim lights and familiar smells and the constant stream of Rodney's words, he knows he will find it again here.Turning his head a fraction, he opens his eyes just enough to look at Rodney, still perched awkwardly on the chair and trying to eat a sandwich one-handed so he can gesture with the other."Although really it's no worse than the mess that Heidi in Biochem made when she tried to-" He breaks off, sensing Ronon's stare. "What?""Nothing." Ronon stretches a little, just to feel it burn. "Pass me the chocolate pudding?"There's a moment, the slightest pause when Rodney narrows his eyes and looks as though he's going to argue.Ronon glares.Rodney looks sheepish and peeved at the same time, but passes the pudding over, along with a spoon. Once he's got it balanced enough to eat, Ronon looks up again, expectantly."What happened in Biochem?" he asks, starting to eat.Surprised, Rodney blinks for a moment. Then he smiles, almost shyly, before his more usual sarcasm reasserts itself."Have you met Heidi? Not blonde, surprisingly, and whatever you do, don't mention pigtails to her. After the whole thing with the Lederhosen, she's kind of sensitive about it. Anyway, she convinced Zelenka to let her work on a pet project, because she knew that if she'd brought it to me, I would have shut it down right away. With very good reason, as it turned out. I doubt lab thirty-five will ever be the same again."It doesn't take long for Ronon to finish the too-sweet pudding, and Rodney takes the bowl and spoon back from him without missing a beat. The words wash over Ronon as he closes his eyes, grounding him in the present, in the friends that are here, the family he has found. There will be time enough for grief, to remember with sadness and joy. For now, he lets himself be lulled into sleep by the sound of Rodney's voice
93045	Impression sunrise	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "Gen", "Characters": "Illyria, Lucifer", "Fandom": null, "Language": "English", "Rating": "Teen And Up Audiences", "author": "by girlupnorth", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2010-06-08T00:00:00", "words": "1,373", "Additional Tags": null, "Relationship": null, "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": "Angel The Series, The Sandman", "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	"Your place is with the rest of your people: dead and turned to ash," the human tells her. Illyria senses his despair and anguish, ill-concealed by arrogance and self-righteousness. He is so weak; she could kill him without moving one finger. "Nobody lives who would remember you."How little does he know and how faulty his perceptions are.He has found one picture of her from the old days, a picture in which she is shown wielding weapons in her tentacles, and he believes it to have been her true –and only - form. She doesn't correct him.He is wrong in saying that nobody remembers her, too.The humans, it seems, have fallacious methods of measuring time. Bound to one timeline, they assume that this is the case with everyone. They fail to grasp that once, several paralleling timelines could exist, occasionally interweaving. They take for millions of years what has been but thousands. They look at the conflicting accounts of their world's creation, not considering for even a moment that they are all true, that Earth could have been created – and destroyed, and rebuilt anew – a thousand times over, and more.This knowledge has mostly been lost, but there are still beings out there who remember about all that and who remember her, if, sometimes, under a different name. Mostly, however, they live far outside this city, away from what seems the main playground of the Wolf, the Ram and the Hart. Some have visited it, leaving still discernible traces. Another old god, who fought by her side against savage tribe from the West. A demon, one of the proper ones, who once wrought mayhem in the southern hemisphere. So many others, some who at her time were nothing, now apparently grown into power. She walks the city, gathering the bits and pieces.And then there is one more trail, burning the air despite being years old.She remembers him as an angel, still, back at the dawn of time; remembers his Fall, which tore the sky in half and shook the very fundaments of the world; remembers how he took to ruling the underworld, the first of many hells; remembers meeting him, and laying out schemes of world domination. It has been such a long time.Illyria rests her hand against the rough wall of the building, listening to the echoes of conversations long past.An apocalypse reigns over the city. The Wolf, the Ram and the Hart rejoice, while Illyria grows wearier with every passing day. The shell, the body she wears, misses that human who took Illyria's powers away from her; it is easy to give in, to take the still-alive impulses of the shell for her own and begin to experience emotions.Illyria doesn't miss anything and anyone, but her own self.She has no conscience and no heart. She also lacks a purpose, aside from staying here and aiding those who were friendly with the shell. This is her only way of making her name remembered, now.The mist and clouds covering the sky only clear up in the hours before the sunrise, showing cold stars on the paling sky. Illyria doesn't know the constellations; they, too, have shifted . Los Angeles has become a wasteland, but one crafted with far less taste than the unreal cities in Eliot's poem. The little demons' hold over the city seems uncertain and, if the reports are true, threatened by beings even lesser, vampires and humans.It is of no matter, really. He had but world enough and time to grow indifferent, to take to watch the things occurring around him with nothing but mild amusement, and Los Angeles never truly belonged to the most alluring cities of the world, not even when he lived there.However, there are only so many things that can be found a diversion nowadays and eventually he decides to pay a visit to LA.He has not expected to find Illyria there. The news of her alleged resurrection did reach him, but there was no confirmation: the world continued to exist and be run by humans.It is oddly disconcerting to see her that much changed. She, who once could make the seas boil and the lands tremble with her mere stare, whose powers almost equalled his, stands now constrained to a shell of a human body. She is cold and distant, and inertia, rather than passion, drives her actions now. When he catches her eye, it appears more hollow than the city around them.She does not talk a lot; she never did. "I found my armies turned to dust and my worshippers among humans," she says, and adds with a trace of anger: "And I found this world mad."There is some truth to her words, although that the world has always been mad is also true. It must be they that have changed, then.He accompanies Illyria as she prowls the city in this human form, looking for temporary diversions, demons to kill or scare off. Since she doesn't talk, he begins to, a little. It is rare enough to find someone who has not witnessed the ascension of the humankind to power, rarer still to find an entity who has never grown to loathe or fear him.It has been such a long time. She listens to his talking with mild curiosity; already more that could be expected of her. Back in her days of glory, she never cared for anyone but herself.He talks about Hell, Earth, Heaven, the dynamics of power between the dimensions. He is as self-important and arrogant as he used to be, though some things have been changed about him."You do not wish to rule the world anymore," she says. From the top of the high-rise buildings it is possible to watch the sunrise, far away on the horizon, in the place which the apocalypse has not reached; they do so, one morning."There is no point," he replies.She can see his meaning. There used to be better players and bigger stakes in this game. It played out between gods; no mere demons dared to attempt to interfere. Overcoming them was a constant, uncertain struggle; and it was the struggle that made it all worthwhile.It would only be demeaning to fight for power with the small demonic overlords of this world. She slaughters them without any effort, then moves on to another kill.Soon he is bored, and tells her that he is going to leave."You should go too," he says. "Los Angeles is not all there is to this world. There are other places."Illyria slowly shakes her head, even before the shell responds, protesting."What is there to this world?" she asks. "What keeps you here?"He doesn't reply at once. Illyria looks away, to the sky.There is no answer to her question that would not make him seem weak in her eyes. This world is neither better nor worse than the other ones, he wants to say; it has become comfortable over the centuries, like a well-fitted glove. It is nothing to be proud of."Old habits. The music. The sunsets, sometimes sunrises," he says, dismissively."Music."Illyria turns to him, a slight curiosity in her eyes, a certain brightness in her tone. All echoes of the shell, nothing more."I used to play the piano in a restaurant in this city," he says.She laughs, for the first and only time.*It is break of dawn again as she watches Lucifer walk away and then vanish in the distance. She ought to feel sad, the shell suggests. She does not.She walks the city alone, noticing the small signs suggesting that there is not much time left for this dimension. A change approaches; another reality to collide with this one, overwriting the hell of Los Angeles with a proper human version of the city. Or maybe, she thinks, for a moment a god-king again, a dimension in which she has returned in all her glory.Or maybe a dimension in which she has never been resurrected.Illyria looks to the sky and sees the morning star burning above the horizon.Whatever they say, she is not alone.
15737	Moving In	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "F/M", "Characters": "Beverly Crusher, Deanna Troi, William Riker", "Fandom": "Star Trek: The Next Generation (Movies)", "Language": "English", "Rating": "General Audiences", "author": "by Leyenn", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2009-11-18T00:00:00", "words": "2,508", "Additional Tags": "Past Tense, POV Deanna Troi, POV Third Person, POV Female Character, Moving, Canon Compliant, Past Relationship(s), Getting Back Together, Post-Movie: Star Trek Generations (1994), I refuse to disavow old fics just because they're old and I'm a better writer now", "Relationship": "Deanna Troi/Will Riker", "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	"I didn't realise you owned so much," Beverly Crusher grunted from behind the hefty crate of personal belongings she was carrying, struggling to fit between the doorframe of the new crew cabin without scraping the uniform from her arms.There was an indistinguishable sound from the side of the couch, where even more boxes were piled, followed by a long sigh. Deanna Troi emerged, shaking her head in desperation. "Neither did I. Is that all of it?""Thankfully." The doctor dropped her load onto the couch, making the thick cushions bounce. She looked around incredulously. "Where did all of this come from?"Troi pulled her dark hair back from her shoulders. "I have no idea. I'm sure half of it was never in my old quarters."Crusher grinned, pushing her way through the mess to reach the replicator. "I know I never saw it. Maybe you got a couple other people's crates along with yours." She tapped in the activation code on the new machine. "One ginger tea, hot." There was a whirr and the drink appeared in a clear mug. The doctor sipped it and shrugged. "Well, at least your replicator works."Troi smiled. "I'll have a hot chocolate, I think.""You'll get through a few before you finish unpacking," her friend teased as she handed over the tall glass. Troi gave a wry laugh."I'd better get started, then." She looked around; after a moment she shook her head helplessly. "But where do I start?""Pick a box, any box." Crusher shrugged, closed her eyes and pointed randomly. "Start there."Troi followed Crusher's finger and rolled her eyes. "You would pick the biggest pile first."Her friend smiled apologetically. "Just lucky I guess."The counselor took a deep breath and knelt down; as Crusher took a step she coughed, shook her head firmly and pointed to the couch. "If I have to do this, the least you can do is stay and watch."Crusher shrugged and sat down, taking a leisurely sip of her tea. "No problem. Beats opening my crates for a few hours."Troi scowled up at her: Crusher just grinned behind her mug."Call it the perks of the job. I'll just make sure you don't strain anything while you're unpacking.""Why, thank you.""Don't mention it." She tipped the mug back, finishing her tea as Troi began to empty the first box, hefting it onto the coffee table.Crusher blinked, spotting the contents of the crate below, raising her eyebrows in surprise. "What's that?" Curious, she put down her empty mug and lunged for the box, pulling it over in front of her. Two hologram projector cubes and a PADD landed on the floor, and she withdrew her prize. "Handwritten letters?"Troi looked up, caught off guard. She looked confused for a moment, then embarrassed at her friend's find, half managing a smile. "Yes.""On paper?""Yes." She took the bundle from her friend's hand. Crusher raised her eyebrows but shrugged, exploring the rest of the container."Beverly!""What? I offered to help you unpack."Troi scowled and sighed ruefully. "How about you go unpack over there?" She pointed to her desk, hidden beneath yet another huge pile of boxes. Crusher grinned mischievously."Aha. That means there's something interesting in here." She reached into the box again."Beverly!" Troi sounded somewhat desperate. The doctor ignored her and took out a small wooden box. It was ornately carved, and the lid wasn't closed properly: as Crusher set it down to finish emptying the box, the lid popped open. Troi reached out and grasped the box, pulling it towards her, and as she did so a slip of paper fluttered out. Crusher picked it up, intrigued, and unfolded it. Her eyebrows rose as she looked up at her friend."Love poetry?"Troi shrugged nonchalantly, but the discomfort in her eyes gave her away. Crusher, however, didn't see it, too busy reading the poem."To Deanna, love always, your imzadi." She looked up. "And what might that mean?"Troi shook her head and held out her hand. The poem was reluctantly put in her palm and she replaced it quickly in the box, locking it firmly shut. "It's in the past," she said absently, carrying the box to her desk. She opened one of the drawers and gently laid the box inside."There's a lot in the past, Deanna," Crusher said with a smile. "Some secret admirer? Wyatt Miller, perhaps?"Troi laughed. "No! Wyatt never wrote me any letters, let alone poetry. It's not important.""It's not?" Crusher watched with amusement as her friend reddened. She was about to pursue the matter further when the door chimed."Yes?" Troi turned to face the door, a smile coming to her face at the sight of the ship's first officer. "Hi, Will. Come in."She stepped aside to let him enter, and Riker eyed the room speculatively. "You're still not quite straight, I see."Troi smiled. "When have my quarters ever been completely tidy, Will?"He grinned. "Not as long as I've known you." He searched out a clear seat, nodding to Crusher. "Hi, Beverly.""Hi, Will." Her green eyes sparkled with good-natured mischief. "Say, you've known Deanna a while. You wouldn't know anyone who ever wrote her love poetry, would you?"Riker's eyebrows rose theatrically as he turned his head to regard Troi. She shrugged very slightly, trying to look unflustered. "She found some," she said in a small voice.A smile touched his eyes, and he never took his gaze from her as he answered. "Can't think of anyone. You don't remember who it might have been?" He gave her a pointedly inquisitive glance."No," she managed as he continued to watch her with that deep, blue gaze. "Can't remember anyone at all.""Oh well." Crusher shrugged. "I guess I'll just have to toss and turn over it for the entirety of the mission if you're not going to tell me."Troi tossed her a slight scowl. "Beverly, I really don't remember, okay?"The doctor held up both hands in surrender. "If you say so." There was a pause that made Troi distinctly worried; then her friend's green eyes lit with inspiration. "Maybe if you see what else is in that box, you'll remember who it was.""Beverly," Troi warned.Crusher raised her eyebrows. "What? Surely you don't want to forget someone who was sweet enough to write you poetry like that.""It's good?" Riker sounded intrigued. Troi coloured slightly, convinced Crusher would hear the pride of authorship in his voice.The doctor just smirked. "Pretty good, yeah. Whoever it was had a passion for archaic writing, too." She gestured to the pile Troi had moved protectively out of her grasp. "Handwritten letters.""Really?" To his credit, he managed to look curious rather than amused at the situation. He flashed Troi an inquisitively raised eyebrow. "Maybe they're signed, hmm?""Maybe." She looked a little apprehensive, but she didn't protest when he picked up the bundle and sat down on the couch. Trying to cover her discomfort, she began to dig through the nearest box, blindly emptying it without even noticing what she was piling onto the floor beside her. Riker continued to flick silently through the letters, and after a few minutes even Crusher seemed to give up and returned to helping. Troi relaxed somewhat at that, handing her friend a pile of PADDs to place on the desk. As Crusher stood up and crossed the room, Troi leaned over the box and separated the next pile, lifting them out-"'I don't know why I did what I did to you. It was probably the stupidest thing I've ever done in my life, and all I know now is that I want, I need you to forgive me. I love you, Deanna...'"She looked up slowly, knowing she would meet his gentle blue gaze. Slowly, she let her belongings fall back into the box and sank back onto her heels, looking up at him."I've never heard you read any of it," she said softly. "Not even the poem.""I'll read that for you, if you like." He seemed captivated by her eyes, unable look away. His voice was as quiet as her own, and neither of them even acknowledged the half-embarrassed, half-intrigued redhead at the side of the room."No. Read some more." She gestured to the letters in his hand. She moved gracefully, pushing boxes out of the way until she was sitting cross-legged in front of him. "Any of them. I don't mind."He flicked through the thick bundle; noticing one that had obviously been handled more than the rest, he drew it out. It was shorter than the rest, only a single page, but well-fingered. Troi blushed slightly as he started to read."'Dea, It's been six weeks since I left Betazed, and I miss you like crazy. My transfer came through this morning - I leave for the USS Potemkin in a week. It's a smaller ship, and a step down for a while - second officer for a trial period, but in six months they'll be needing a first officer and I'm the likely candidate if I take this transfer. And after six months, I'm eligible to bring family aboard... which brings me neatly to what I wanted to say to you. I don't have a lot of time to write this, and I don't want to dress up what I'm going to say, so I'll keep it short. I know I can't offer you as much as your life on Betazed, but I can love you above anything else, and it's the love that's important, isn't it? You always said so. I've learnt a lot from you, and I want to go on learning for as long as I can. Deanna, will you-'""Will." She put her hand on his, her voice barely audible. "Don't read that."He looked up, his face a mixture of regret and understanding. "You have.""Not for a while," she admitted. He winced inwardly, nodding."Worf.""He's not coming on this mission, you know," Crusher put in suddenly. Troi looked up in surprise; she'd forgotten her friend, still standing awkwardly and somewhat hopefully near the door. Riker glared at her, only half-playfully."That was the single most unsubtle piece of matchmaking I've ever heard."The doctor coughed awkwardly. "That's my cue.""Glad you found it."She edged toward the door, which helpfully opened for her. "I'll be going, then. If you need me, I'll be in my quarters." A rueful grimace came to her face. "Unpacking."Despite herself, Troi couldn't help laughing at her friend's predicament. Riker just sighed."Well, that's gonna be around the ship before we even leave spacedock.""Will," she smiled and laid a hand on his arm. "I think Beverly has a little more discretion than that."He shrugged ruefully. "You're the psychologist." Troi looked up at him; after a moment of meeting his eyes she sighed."If we're lucky, we might reach warp one before it does."He raised his eyebrows with a sudden grin. "Innuendo, Deanna? From you?"She looked at him archly. "That's just your mind working overtime.""You'd know." He grinned at her expression. Troi let out a disgusted noise and shook her head."I give up. Drink?""Your replicator's working?" She nodded and he grinned. "Beats most of the ship. The whole Federation's been on war rations so long they've forgotten how we actually eat." He considered it for a moment. "Synthehol. It's been a long day." He sat down, gingerly moving aside another open container, trying not to drop any of the trinkets inside. "How much do you own, Deanna?"She laughed ruefully. "More than I did when I packed it."He looked around, surveying the room with a subtly raised eyebrow. "I can believe that."Troi smiled, looking around and gave a small shake of her head. She paused, calling up their selections from the replicator, taking the moment to draw on her curiosity and try... "Will?""Hmm?"She turned to him, handing over his drink, deceptively casual for the loaded question that emerged."Why did you never ask me again?"He shrugged, trying to cover the fact that he didn't really know the answer. "I - it wasn't the time. It was never the time. It'd been two years, and we were serving together for the first time..." He shrugged wryly, recognising their all-purpose excuse. "I'd changed. You'd changed." He smiled at her then, assuring her that that wasn't all a bad thing. "We changed. It wouldn't have..." he paused, avoiding the word 'worked'. It was too final, too harsh for them. It could have worked, whenever they wanted to try. "It wouldn't have been right to just ask. Putting the cart before the horse, as it were, given how long we were apart." He sighed and smiled ruefully, running a hand over his hair. "And then there was you and Worf-""She was right, you know."He stopped, looking at her in confusion. "I'm sorry?""Beverly." She took a step toward him. "Earlier." Her cool hand reached out for his larger one. "Worf." Fingers slid between his own. "He isn't here." Her palm pressed to his. "He's not coming on this mission."He managed a slightly flustered grin. "Well, being first officer, I think I'd know if he were.""Will," she murmured reprovingly. "We're getting off the subject."He grinned, raising his eyebrows. "And what would that be?""Worf.""He's not here. He's not going to be here.""Exactly.""Did you want me to do something about it?"She smiled playfully. "Not really."He grinned. "Well, okay.""Nothing to do with him, anyway.""Oh?" Her other hand slid up to his shoulder, behind his neck. "Mm. You haven't done that in a while.""A very long while," she breathed softly, a small smile beginning in her eyes. His grin widened in answer."Was there something you wanted me to help you with?"She smiled mischievously, brushing her lips over his. "I can think of a few things."He smiled back, turning his head to whisper in her ear. "Will I get dirty?"Troi laughed softly, nibbling lightly along his throat. "What makes you think you're so squeaky clean right now, Will Riker?"He shrugged and tilted his head down to her, catching her lips against his. "Oh, I don't know. I'm not usually all that untidy."Troi laughed, sliding her arms around his waist. "Unlike me."He raised an eyebrow. "Is that another innuendo I hear from you, Counselor?"Her only answer was a soft laugh over his cheek. Riker grinned at the sensation, his own voice breathing into her ear. "Am I going to be gone long?" She smiled, doing that to his neck again in a distinctly unhurried fashion."Oh, I wouldn't worry about that."He grinned. "Just so long as I don't have to unpack anything."Troi smiled teasingly and stepped back, pulling him toward the bedroom. "Just one thing."
89613	Untitled	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "Multi", "Characters": "Lee Adama, Kara Thrace, Sam Anders", "Fandom": "Battlestar Galactica (2003)", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Explicit", "author": "by nothinbuttherain (beyondtherubicon)", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2010-05-24T00:00:00", "words": "789", "Additional Tags": "Comment Fic, Community: comment_fic, Threesome - F/M/M", "Relationship": "Lee Adama/Kara Thrace/Sam Anders", "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	There had been a fight with Lee. A big one. It was the kind of fight that started with them screaming at each other over something that had nothing to do with why they were actually angry. After they'd called each other a series of horrible names Kara decided to quit wasting her breath and walked away. Several hours and bottles later she'd sent an endless stream of near incoherent messages to her estranged husband. As crazed as she'd sounded it still didn't surprise her when Sam showed up and slid into her bunk.Sam tried for chivalry and explained he was only there to make sure she didn't choke on her own vomit. Whether that had actually been his intent or not would never be known because Kara wasted no time in stripping her clothes off and getting her hands all over him. He'd been called over for a frak and they both knew it. As her mouth sucked a persistent line across his neck and she bit down against the curve of his shoulder she felt his hands roam up her back and that's when Kara knew she'd won. They'd frakked while drunk a dozen times on New Caprica and the difference between Kara and her husband was that she saw no difference between this and that.They were in the very familiar position of Kara riding on top of Sam as vigorously as she could while the whole room spun around her when the curtain to her bunk was pushed aside. She fixed a death glare on the idiot who clearly hadn't realized she was preoccupied and that glare only deepened when a visibly intoxicated Lee stared down at her and Sam without making any move to leave or even stop staring."Coming or going?"It wasn't like she hadn't thought about this before but Kara wouldn't have believed she had actually asked that aloud if not for the fact that Sam and Lee were both frozen with shocked looks on their faces. The moment was broken by Lee's mouth meeting Kara's in a bruising, punishing kiss giving Kara her second victory. Kara knew that warming Sam up to the idea would take longer so she began to rock slowly down against him in the gentle rhythm that she knew he preferred. When Lee broke away to remove his clothes Kara leaned down to kiss her husband with lips that still burned from Lee's kisses. Their eyes met briefly and he gave the slightest nod. He was doing this for her and through the chaos and lust rushing through her it created a calming warmth. She'd never admit it but she kept calling him into her bed for those moments as much as the fraks.Any contemplation on the state of her marriage was stopped by a very naked Lee sliding in next to Sam and the breath being knocked out of her by the kiss they shared. It was done for her sake and as was always the case she loved them both for it far more than she had any desire to. Two pairs of hands reached up to drag her closer down to them and Kara went, claiming neither victory nor defeat.She woke up alone with a pounding headache and several trails of dried bodily fluid coating her torso. Through the pain behind her eyes Kara allowed herself a smile. It only faded when every move she made to wrap a towel around herself and get into the shower reminded her body that she'd drunk too much and frakked too hard only hours before. While her body protested her mind and heart felt uncharacteristically settled.An hour later she slid in next to Helo for their morning briefing and tried to ignore the way he was looking at her. As Tyrol gave some lecture on properly signing out equipment the first note was pushed into her hands.Have fun last night?Frak off.Saw you in the showers this morning.I'm telling your wife, Agathon.Kara heard him quietly snort but that didn't stop the piece of paper from once more making it's way over to her.There's some interesting rumors going around about you and two other people.Kara rolled her eyes because she'd been passed more mature notes when she was ten but Helo was the closest kind of thing she had to a best friend so after several moments of contemplation she wrote back.Had an itch to scratch. Then it itched some more so I scratched some more and it itched some more. Before I knew it there was semen everywhere.She heard the sounds of Helo choking back laughter and there were no more notes after that.
8979	Wherever You Go	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "M/M", "Characters": "Geoffrey Chaucer, Wat Fowlehurst", "Fandom": "A Knight's Tale", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Explicit", "author": "by catwalksalone", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2009-11-14T00:00:00", "words": "763", "Additional Tags": "Plot What Plot", "Relationship": "Geoffrey Chaucer/Wat Fowlehurst", "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	Geoffrey follows the strange sounds, moving as silently as he can over the forest floor. He is the hunter and his words are his weapons, he hones them mercilessly as he pushes aside branches and steps over roots, twisted and gnarled with age.Wat is attempting to sing again. Geoffrey has heard him at it before, but only from a distance when Wat has been out away from camp, gathering firewood. He cannot hold a tune and his voice cracks on the high notes and Geoffrey has decided that it is time for their grand game. He will mock and Wat will fire up, hair leaping like flames from his scalp. If he is in luck, Wat will give chase and the predator will become the prey. Geoffrey knows why this game makes his blood thunder and his heart sing, he hopes Wat knows, too.Geoffrey hears something else and steps out into a clearing, stopping dead. It was splashing; Wat is bathing. If that fact in itself were not enough to take Geoffrey's speech away, then Wat's pale back, broad shoulders freckled by the sun, the round swell of his buttocks cresting the water would do it.The taunts he had practiced dissolve into blurs, like ink in the rain. He is struck dumb. Without thought, without decision, Geoffrey finds himself striding forward, pulling off his tunic and hopping out of his britches as he goes. He wades into the water.Wat turns, mouth open mid-song and stops, gaping. His hair, dark-red, is plastered to his head and he looks so very young. This is Geoffrey's chance to stop, to turn a quick phrase and make a joke, to dunk Wat in the water and dash away before Wat can take his first swing. He does not stop.Geoffrey closes on Wat in one swift stride, grasping his wet hair with one hand and shutting Wat's mouth with the other. Wat's fist comes up but Geoffrey shakes his head and kisses him. Wat's lips are cool and his skin is slippery and he shifts under Geoffrey's hands. He is not the water nymph Geoffrey has dreamt of in idle moments, but he will do. Iesu! He will more than do.Wat's hand drops onto Geoffrey's shoulder and his leg twines round the back of Geoffrey's, slides up it and pulls. Geoffrey buckles, hitting the water with a resounding slap. Wat follows him down and they tangle together as sound mutes and the world turns soft and green. Wat's hands find Geoffrey's face and he presses their lips together. Geoffrey cannot tell if he is giving Geoffrey breath and life or stealing it from him.They break the surface, gasping, and scramble for the bank, arms crooking around necks and waists, half-wrestling, half-supporting. They fall, Wat's chest flush against Geoffrey's side. Geoffrey looks up at him through eyelashes beaded with water. They blur Wat's edges, soften him even as he proves his hardness by pushing against Geoffrey's hip. It's a strange dichotomy and Geoffrey blinks until Wat's features sharpen again, until he can see the fiercely determined set of his chin, Wat's eyes grown dark with want.He tugs and their bodies slip-slide together, Wat's prick nudging his own, unwilling to be ignored. Chaucer quivers at the contact and cannot but help open his mouth to speak."Don't, Geoff," says Wat. "Not yet," and slides his fingers into Geoffrey's mouth as if to bear out his point. Obediently, Geoffrey closes around them and licks them with his silenced tongue. He does not know what he would have said anyway; his words are gone agley.Wat takes his mouth-dampened fingers and wraps them around Geoffrey's prick and his own both. He strokes up, harder than Geoffrey is used to, and Geoffrey stuffs a fist into his own mouth to prevent his crying out and alerting the others for all the wrong reasons. Wat sets a pace and a rhythm Geoffrey can count to, a dance of a different kind. He is helpless before it. Wat's breath is too loud in his ear, his hip too sharp against Geoffrey's scant flesh but none of this matters, and Geoffrey's hand steals over Wat's, joining them together.They slow for a moment, learning each other, then speed again, this is no time for lingering glances and heavy sighs. Geoffrey feels the pulsing along Wat's prick and can't help but follow him, biting down on his hand as he spends. Wat flops against him, useless. He'll move soon, Geoffrey knows, and Geoffrey will follow. He cannot do else.
45347	SPN Fic Here in the dark	{ "Archive Warning": "Underage Sex", "Category": "M/M", "Characters": "Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester", "Fandom": "Supernatural", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Mature", "author": "by keysmash", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2010-01-05T00:00:00", "words": "935", "Additional Tags": null, "Relationship": "Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester", "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	It took Sam a long time to come back to himself, back to consciousness. He was tangled up in something, held down, too warm, and breathing too fast, and he got a few good jabs in with his elbows and knees before he made sense of the noise in the room."Sammy, Sammy, c'mon," someone was saying, and of course it was Dean. "Hey, you gotta wake up all the way, man, c'mon, Sam, hey, look at me, come on."Sam shook his head to try to clear it, and then blinked his eyes open. Dean lay with him, practically on top of him, and as Sam's vision adjusted to the darkness, he saw Dean's sheets tangled on the narrow strip of floor between their twin beds."Dean?" His voice sounded wrecked, thick, and Sam cleared his throat. His nose felt clogged and snotty but he didn't want to get up to blow it."There you go." Dean relaxed his grip on Sam's biceps and shifted to the side, next to Sam. He kept their legs tangled together through the blankets and let Sam press his face into his chest. Sam realized too late that his face was wet with tears, but he shuddered and stayed where he was. The dream was already slipping away from him but the sense of dread and panic stayed firmly behind. He always slept fine the first night after a hunt, when the adrenaline's aftermath left him ready to crash, but the second nights were rough."Time's it?" Sam asked.Dean shifted around to check his watch and groaned. "Almost four." Too late to have a satisfying amount of time left to sleep, too early to really justify getting up. Dean patted Sam's shoulder anyway and made to climb back over him, towards his own bed. "Get some shut eye, I've got first shift tomorrow and I'll have to drop you early at school if you want a ride."Sam tightened his hands in Dean's shirt, barely remembering when he'd fisted them there, and tugged. "Stay?"Dean sighed but let himself be tugged back to Sam. "You know we can't – not when Dad, he's still here, he might still be up.""He won't check." Sam knew no such thing, but he pressed his face towards Dean's anyway. He missed Dean's mouth and wound up rubbing their cheeks together, stubble-scratchy, and Dean laughed and let him. "I want – you should stay, alright?"He could almost hear Dean's resolve wavering, but he didn't feel any special satisfaction when Dean tugged at the sheets and wormed his way underneath. Sam knew how to protect himself in the dark but that didn't mean he wanted to, and sometimes he missed being young enough to excuse sleeping with Dean after nightmares."You're gonna regret it in the morning if you sleep all tensed up like this." Dean tugged Sam on his side, so their chests were flush against each other, and rubbed circles into Sam's back."Yeah, m'just." Sam shrugged and didn't finish. He tucked his head under Dean's chin and kept them close together.Dean kept up the slow strokes, up to Sam's shoulders but never dipping below his waist, until Sam calmed somewhat and let himself relax into the warmth. He rearranged their legs to slide one of his over Dean's hip and hook his foot into Dean's knee. He felt Dean shiver and smiled into his neck."You think we could…" Sam trailed off and rolled his hips into Dean's to finish the question. He hadn't been hard, not really – he'd been as soft as he ever got, this plastered to Dean – but Dean twitched against him, and Sam's cock filled easily in response."Sam," Dean said, in the voice that meant he wanted to sound exasperated when he wasn't at all, and slid his hand down the back of Sam's pajamas anyway. "We definitely can't do this with Dad here.""Obviously not with him," Sam said. While Dean was busy grimacing, Sam wriggled around until Dean's finger rubbed over his hole, then leaned up to suck at his lips. "C'mon, it'll help us sleep."Dean snorted but he untangled them and tipped his head towards the opposite wall. "Turn over." He felt under Sam's pillow, clinking his ring on Sam's knife before coming up with the lube. "If you're loud at all, I will end you."Sam nodded.It must have been cloudy, because almost no light came through their window. Sam closed his eyes tight against the darkness as Dean stripped them both and then worked him open, fast and wetter than Sam thought was actually necessary. This was familiar, Dean's chest against Sam's back, and Dean's arm pressed too-close between them, and Dean's toes stroking over Sam's shin. Sam knew about the dark when it felt like this, knew about all these good things in the night, and he kept his knee pulled high to his chest to make it easier for both of them.Dean thrust slowly into Sam's body, and he might have gotten Sam slick but he'd kept him tight at the same time. Sam gasped and had to focus all his attention on the stretch in his ass, on Dean huge behind him and inside him, on the smell of Dean all over both of them. Dean teased his fingers over Sam's cock, forgotten and leaking, but Sam pulled him away, and tugged his arm close over Sam's chest. Dean flexed with every thrust, pulling Sam close to his body while he filled him up, and Sam kept his eyes closed and held on.
92569	A Blank Slate Erased And	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "M/M", "Characters": null, "Fandom": "Baseball RPF", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Teen And Up Audiences", "author": "by BridgetMcKennitt", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2010-06-06T00:00:00", "words": "5,202", "Additional Tags": "Character of Color, Amnesia, New York Yankees", "Relationship": null, "Character": null, "Relationships": "Derek Jeter/Alex Rodriguez, Johnny Damon/Alex Rodriguez", "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	1. It was the bottom of the fourth and Alex Rodriguez was up at bat. It was another Yankees versus the Red Sox game at Yankee Stadium and the score was tied 1 to 1. Josh Beckett gave a curt nod to Jason Varitek, the Red Sox captain and catcher, before throwing a fastball straight to Alex. It should have hit Jason's glove high and tight, an easy strike two. Instead, as Josh watched in horror, his fastball slammed too high and careened into Alex's head, sending him sprawling into the dirt. He ran towards Alex as well as hundreds of other people, or so it felt, each crowding around the Yankee. Jason pulled Josh away, trying to keep him from seeing Alex, but all Josh could focus on was the blood running down Alex's face and his still, still body. "I killed him. I killed A-Rod." 2. Derek paced a short path outside the emergency room, waiting to hear from a doctor or Joe Girardi or anyone who could tell him what was happening with Alex. He was the captain of the Yankees and he was supposed to protect his team from harm, but not even the great Derek Jeter could save someone from a fastball aimed to the head. The rest of the team waited alongside him, though Derek stood apart from their clusters. He noted the glances towards him and the murmurs, but he ignored it. He had every right to be there, just like them. Just because they thought he hated Alex or the fact that he and Alex hadn't been on speaking terms since Alex had joined the Yankees didn't mean that he wanted to see Alex harmed. It wouldn't make any sense. Alex dying on an emergency bed did not make sense. Finally, hours after they arrived from the interrupted game when Derek's life flashed red, Joe pushed open the double doors and found Derek. "He's going to pull through. The doctors says he's fine." Melky and Robbie held each other's hands, all wide smiles as they heard the news. Derek inclined his head. "Is he awake?" "They gave him a drug to put him into some kind of sleep and they're keeping him overnight to make sure he remains stable." Joe rubbed his hand over his face. "As tragic as today was, you guys need to get some rest for tomorrow's game against the Red Sox. We have a series to finish." As the team began to protest, Joe raised his hand. "I'll bring him over to the club first thing tomorrow so you can see him." It wasn't what Derek wanted, but he wasn't going to argue against the Skip. He took one last glance towards the double doors before leaving behind Jason Giambi. 3. Joe followed through with his word and brought Alex to the clubhouse. He looked no worse for the wear, albeit with a large gauze patch on the side of his head. He greeted everyone who gave him a hug, and had on his big grin. "Think of it this way, this proves I'm invincible." Everyone laughed. "Only against the Red Sox," Johnny joked. "Isn't that what matters?" More laughter. Derek kept to the back of the club, watching Alex with a keen eye. The thought of losing Alex, even after all the bad blood between them, was almost too much to bear and he was fortunate that it was not the case. Alex was fine. He shook his head at his stubbornness. Holding a grudge against his friend was stupid in the face of mortality, no matter what Joe said about Alex not being close to death. For Derek, it was close enough. He made his way through the throng and held out his hand to Alex. "Good to see you're all right, Alex." Alex's grin didn't change, but his eyes showed a trace of confusion. Derek shrugged that off. Of course Alex would be confused. He hadn't been all that friendly with him lately. Alex took Derek's hand and shook it. "Thanks. Hey, are you new or something? Haven't seen you around before." Derek's eyes narrowed as those around them laughed. "Come on, A-Rod, you know Derek. He's our captain, remember?" said Jason. Alex stare blankly at Jason before glancing back at Derek. "Uh, no. We don't have a captain, no one official anyway. What are you on, Jason?" Derek pulled his hand out of Alex's grasp, his head spinning. What was going on? Kyle Farnsworth marched in, placing the back of his palm against Alex's head. "Funny joke, A-Rod, but no one believes you. Not remembering Derek is like not remembering Babe Ruth. It doesn't happen." Alex smiled a little, confusion written on his face. "I know Babe Ruth, everyone knows Babe Ruth. But I don't know a Derek. There's no one on this team named that. Come on guys, stop pulling my leg. Bad enough I get knocked out by a ball." He wasn't faking it and the seriousness of it hit the rest of the team. Joe took Alex by the wrist, steering him out of the crowd. "This doesn't sound good. We're taking you back to the hospital and see what else you've forgotten." As the rest of the team began to chat among themselves, Derek could only stare blankly at Alex's fading backside. Alex did not remember him. 4. It was practice time and Robbie threw the ball to Derek. "Joe says Alex has selective amnesia and wants to put him on the DL. Alex doesn't want that though, says he remembers everything." Derek threw the ball back to Robbie. "He doesn't remember me," he muttered. "Yeah, Joe told Alex that, but Alex don't care. Says he still remembers how to bat and run and throw and who cares if he doesn't remember people. Joe says he'll take it under consideration." Robbie threw the ball. "Why do you think Alex only forgot you? He remembers Melky and me." "I don't know. I'm not a doctor." Derek, in his anger, threw the ball exceptionally hard and it flew over Robbie's head. "Hey!" "Sorry," Derek said without meaning it. "Moose thinks it's because Alex is trying to repress memories of you and Kyle agrees. Andy doesn't though and thinks it's just bad luck. Why would Alex try to do that?" Derek wanted to slap the questions out of Robbie, but Robbie didn't deserve the treatment and Derek was too befuddled by the swirling emotions inside of him to do more than sigh. "Probably because we haven't been all that friendly with each other in years. He and I don't mix." "But you guys have a history together. That's stronger than anything, like me and Melky." Before Derek could respond, practice was over and Melky came bounding in and hugging Robbie, speaking in Spanish so fast that Derek had no chance of understanding. He walked away from the two, forgotten, wondering why Alex would forget about him. 5. Alex reached for his towel and was about to head towards the showers when a hand pulled him back. He raised his eyebrow as Kyle's face came into view. "Yeah?" "Let's talk." Short. Blunt. Pure Kyle Farnsworth. "Now." "Okay, shoot." "Stay away from Jeter." Alex blinked. Kyle wasn't one for giving advice, or for that matter taking advice, but here he was giving advice to him. "Any reason for telling me this? I thought you didn't like me." Kyle stepped back, shrugging a shoulder, without a care. "I don't, but I figure with your memories gone and all, there's nothing wrong with giving you a warning. Stay away from Jeter." Alex stared at him blankly. "But why?" "Let's just say you forgot him for a reason. He hates you and you don't want to mess with the captain." Captain. Alex nearly forgot that this Derek Jeter person was the captain of the Yankees team and whatever he said, went in the clubhouse. He inclined his head. "Thanks, Kyle." Kyle nodded and turned back, heading towards Mike and Andy. Alex held his towel a little tighter, glancing to where Derek was chatting with Jorge by his locker, before walking to the showers. Kyle was a smart guy. Not Stanford smart like Moose, but smart nevertheless. He wouldn't tell Alex a lie. Alex half wondered why Derek hated him so much, but it didn't matter. The history was firmly in place between them, even with Alex's loss of memory, and there was nothing he could do about it. 6. Derek glanced at Alex as the third baseman goofed around with Robbie and Melky by their lockers. He could almost pretend that everything was normal, but it wasn't. If things were normal, then Alex would have also been glancing over at Derek. There were no such glances his way. In fact, Alex had not sought him out or looked his way since everyone found out about his amnesia. It was irritating. Derek watched Johnny come up behind Alex, wrapping his arms around him and lifting him off his feet. Alex laughed and struggled, but Johnny refused to let him go. Melky bounced around the two with Robbie following along. He knew it shouldn't hurt, but that didn't stop his heart from thumping to a painful beat. He turned around to focus on grabbing his things from his locker and when he looked back, he saw the interested looks Alex shot towards Johnny during their playful exchange and the whispers they gave each other. Johnny patted Alex on his stomach and Derek scowled. 7. Derek hadn't meant to follow Johnny and Alex from the stadium, but he was hungry and they were heading in the same direction as him. When Johnny parked his car, Derek parked his car a few spaces away and waited until they were in the restaurant before making his way inside. Derek sat at a table in a darkened corner facing the two Yankees. It wasn't that he was spying on them, exactly. This was where the waitress decided to sit him and he did not want to make a ruckus by demanding another table. So he sat with his untouched meal in front of him as he watched the two. Alex laughed and took a swig of his beer. "You're lying. That never happened." Johnny grinned and nudged Alex with his shoulder. "It's completely true, and you can call up Manny if you don't believe me." "I will. Hey, thanks for coming out with me. I like seeing your friendly face." "Likewise." Johnny reached for his beer, taking a sip. "We should do this more often." "We should." Alex rested his elbow on the table as he shifted to face Johnny. "So why did you refuse my invitation at first?" Johnny stared at his bottle for a few moments before answering. "I really shouldn't say. It's not important with all that's happened recently." "Liar. Does it have something to do with the captain?" "Something like that. Look, don't look towards me if you're searching for answers. All that was in that noggin of yours, or was anyway." Johnny tapped the side of Alex's head. Alex leaned back, shutting his eyes. "I see. So I forgot. Maybe if it's as bad as you're insinuating, it is a good thing I don't remember." "Think of this way, you have a chance to make happier memories. Lots of them." Alex felt the warm touch of Johnny's fingers running up and down his arm and he opened his eyes to see Johnny's smile. "I like the sound of that." Alex returned the smile. After a few more beers and two burgers apiece, Johnny tossed some cash on the table, and took Alex by the arm as they left the place. Neither of them noticed Derek at his darkened table, ripping his napkin to shreds. 8. Seeing Johnny with Alex day in and day out frustrated Derek and his teammates made it a point to stay away from him as to not draw his ire. While the team won games, Derek's individual stats slipped. Something needed to happen. The Yankees won their game against the White Sox, 7-2, and they were ecstatic. Alex had hit two homers and had two RBIs under his belt. There wasn't anything wrong with his performance that was caused by the bump on his head which boded well for Alex to play every game for the rest of the season without worry. While the rest of the clubhouse celebrated, Derek could only go through the motions. It was good to see Alex playing up to par on the field, but he did not like the feeling of having a complete stranger standing off to his right. One of the runs the White Sox managed to score was due to an error between the two of them. It was a play they had run a hundred times and they were usually able to read each other, even during the seasons when they weren't talking. Derek did what he'd normally do and ran towards second base. He expected Alex to step in and grab the ball, tossing it to him, but Alex didn't. Alex didn't recall the play because Alex didn't have memory of practicing such a move with Derek in practices past. Derek lingered until the reporters dispersed from the locker room before making his way to Alex's locker. He waited until Alex slipped on a shirt before greeting him. "Hey, Alex. Great game tonight." Alex looked up and smiled cautiously at Derek. "Hey, and thanks. You didn't do so bad yourself." "Look, I came over to ask you something." "Oh? Was it about that error in the fifth?" Derek shook his head. He didn't care about the error. "No, nothing like that. I wanted to talk to you about Johnny." Alex stiffened. "What about him?" "I know you're...dating him." "I see. Are you planning on telling Girardi?" Alex stared at Derek with a suspicious look on his face. Realizing his mistake, Derek shook his head. "No, no. That's not what I meant. I don't think you should date him, is all." Alex snorted and turned away, walking towards Johnny's locker. Derek couldn't help but watch helplessly. 9. Derek was lifting weights in the weight room when Alex marched in with a stack of papers. His expression was tight as he stood before Derek and shook the papers at him. "Alex?" "I researched my, our, history on the internet and I came back with more questions than answers." He leaned forward until his face was an inch apart from Derek's. "I figure you'd be able to answer those questions." Derek lowered his weight and nodded to Alex. "I can do that. What did you want to know?" "What did we mean to each other?" "We were lovers," he said in a straight forward manner. There was no point in hiding it. "We started out as friends with baseball in common and we became lovers. Our teammates speculated, but no one ever knew for certain." "And we broke up." Alex's eyes narrowed. "So you're telling me to break up with Johnny because you're an asshole?" "Don't be so dramatic. You don't fit with Johnny and you'll get hurt in the end." Alex scoffed, almost sneering at Derek. "Like I did when I was with you, I assume? You have no business in what I do so back off." "You're right, it is your business." Derek stood up and yanked Alex close by his arms. "And it's my business to make sure you don't get hurt. I was an idiot once and I refuse to be an idiot again." Alex shrugged off Derek's hands. "Then don't be, Derek." 10. Alex smiled at Johnny and gave him a kiss. Johnny wrapped his arms around Alex's neck and grinned. "You look happy. Any particular reason?" "I'm with you. There's no better reason than that." Johnny laughed and kissed Alex. "I love it when you're silly." He stepped back and picked up a Baltimore guide book. "So I was thinking that we should go out to dinner while we're in Baltimore. Maybe even take in some of the sights. What do you think?" "That sounds great." Alex looked out of the hotel window, watching the people on the street. "Hey, Johnny, how well do you know the captain?" "As well as anyone on the team, I suppose. Why do you ask? Has Derek been bothering you?" "No...not really. What did Derek mean to me before I was hit by that fastball?" For the first time since Alex knew him, Johnny looked uncomfortable. He raised his hand and rubbed the back of his neck as he glanced everywhere but the direction of Alex. "There were rumors of...things, but nothing confirmed. You guys were best friends before you came to the Yankees, but after this article you said something about Derek and he didn't like it. The two of you haven't been on friendly terms since. Why do you ask?" Now it was Alex's turn to look uncomfortable. "No particular reason. I don't like having blanks in my mind and he's a mystery to me." Johnny held Alex in his arms, kissing his cheek. "Derek's always been a bit of a mystery. Ignore him." 11. Caramel arms wrapped around Johnny's waist from behind and light kisses trailed from his shoulder to his neck. Johnny smiled and tilted his head back to meet Alex's lips. Or at least, he would have if Alex didn't pull away. "Alex?" Johnny turned around to see his lover staring at the ground. "I don't think we should do this anymore." "Excuse me?" Alex gestured between the two of them. "This. Us. I can't do it anymore." Johnny held Alex in his arms, trying to meet Alex's gaze. "Any particular reason?" "I don't want to hurt Derek." Alex shrugged. "Did you know he and I used to be together?" Johnny shook his head. "I didn't know that." "I've hurt him, and he's hurt me. Not that I remember it, but I've read the old articles and interviews, and Derek's confirmed it." "You plan on going back to him," Johnny said flatly. "You may not remember him, but I remember how he's treated you since you've joined the Yankees. Don't do it, Alex." "You act like I'm going to jump into bed with him. It won't be like that. I barely know him. But I want to know him. That's all." Johnny gave him a look. "That's never all with you, and you know that. But it's not like I can stop you." He sighed. "Friends?" Alex nodded, running his fingers through Johnny's hair one last time. "Always." 12. "So." "So." Derek ran his palm down his face. "Sorry, this is awkward. For all intents and purposes, you're a stranger to me, but you're wearing a familiar face and it's throwing me off. Sorry," he repeated again. "Don't worry, this is awkward for me too. I gave up Johnny for a stranger who isn't a stranger." Alex laughed, his laughter turning into frantic hiccups. Derek leaned forward and rubbed Alex's back, attempting to soothe him. It worked. "It'll be okay. We'll take it slow. There's no need to rush anything. Slow is good." Derek knew he was babbling, but he didn't care. He didn't want to lose Alex, not after everything he went through recently. "Slow is good," echoed Alex. "I only know you through those articles and that's not the real you." "No, it's not. I'm not that boring." Derek knew his attempt at a joke was rather lame, but Alex still laughed just as he always did. Derek smiled. "You used to laugh at my lame jokes. See, not everything's changed." 13. "I can't believe I told the media we used to have sleepovers. That's just not me." Alex shook his head as he spread his blanket over Derek's guest bed. Derek smirked as he leaned against the doorway, watching Alex. The old Alex wasn't much for making his own bed, let alone anything domestic. "Maybe not the current you, but your old self used to say a lot of things without thinking. It's gotten you into trouble lots of times." Alex turned to Derek, his expression solemn. "Like with you when I said in that magazine that you weren't a leader." Derek's heart clenched. "Yeah, like that." He shook his head. "But that's behind us. We're back to taking things slow." Alex grinned. "And we're back to having sleepovers again." He paused as a thought came to him. "Man, the media must be dumb if they didn't realize we were a couple with that comment." "Erm, yeah." Derek didn't have the heart to tell Alex that the speculations with the media about the two of them began long before that comment and still continued on to this day. 14. Derek grinned at Alex as he inserted his key into the door. "I bought this new 50" HDTV and you just have to see Transformers on it. The explosions look awesome." "So you keep saying." Alex nudged Derek as they entered Derek's apartment. "Should I order pizza or Chinese food?" "Whatever you're in the mood for." Derek fiddled with turning the television on and putting in the movie as Alex called out for food. He glanced back where Alex was and let a smile cross his face. It felt good to have the third baseman back in his life like the old days. This time around, he wouldn't let his pride lose him. Alex plopped down on the couch, grinning as he patted the cushion next to him. Derek complied and allowed Alex to snake his hand between his own as he sat down. "I ordered Chinese if that's okay." "It is." Derek stared at Alex's hand wrapped in his and brought it up to kiss Alex's palm. Alex looked at him in surprise, and for a brief moment Derek thought it was because he remembered that Derek never did things like that, but it's not recognition in Alex's eyes. He's just sentimental, and that's one thing the amnesia hasn't changed. Alex leaned close, his shy smile on his face, and Derek sucked in a breath of air just as their lips meet. It's not their first kiss, that particular moment happened in the first series between the Mariners and the Yankees and Derek stayed over at Alex's place, but it may as well be because for Alex, it is. There's hesitation on Alex's part, uncertainty of what Derek likes, but Derek doesn't care about that. It's Alex, they're kissing, and that's all that matters. 15. The Yankees are in Detroit at Comerica Park and it's the top of the third inning, both teams scoreless. Justin Verlander is pitching to Melky Cabrera, the Yankees' center fielder. Mike Mussina watched Justin while Andy Pettitte watched Moose stare at Justin. In the visiting dugout, Alex got a drink of water from the cooler before sitting next to Derek on the bench. Their shoulders touch, their knees touch, and Johnny could see from the other side of the dugout the tips of Derek's fingers touching Alex's arm. Johnny sighed and rested his arms on the fence, turning his gaze back to the game at hand. There was no doubt that the two were together and as much as Johnny wanted to protest the relationship, he could not deny their history. Alex may not remember Derek, but Derek remembered Alex and Johnny couldn't fight against his captain's will. He glanced back to see Derek whisper into Alex's ear, watching Alex crack up and smacking his palm on Derek's thigh. It could have been Johnny's imagination, but it looked like they managed to sit even closer together than before. Johnny had lost before he even began. 16. A rare day off, two days even, and Derek decided to take Alex out for dinner. Someplace fancy, someplace that screamed Derek Jeter. Derek dressed as he normally did, sleek and stylish, while Alex attempted to do the same. No frosted tips, however. The new Alex wasn't as particular about his hair. Derek tried not to think about how he had affected Alex's grooming throughout the years. The waiter led them to their table, handing them menus. There was a glint of recognition in his eyes at the sight of the two Yankees, but he remained professional and left the table after a few exchange of words. "I'm treating," said Derek as he smiled at Alex. "I can pay, too, you know." Derek gave him a look. "I'm trying to be subtle, but I see you're as thick now as you were when we first met." He leaned in and whispered. "We're on a date." "Oh. Oh!" Alex's eyes lit up and he grinned. "By all means, pay for dinner." "That's what I thought." Derek inclined his head and began looking at the menu. Alex chuckled and did the same. 17. Alex pushed Derek against the wall, smashing their lips together as his hands ran up and down Derek's chest. Derek moaned his approval as he slipped his tongue into Alex's mouth. He missed this. He missed the feel of Alex. They managed to get to bed, stripping off their clothes as Derek crawled on top of Alex. "I'm going to fuck you," he growled, dipping his head to lick a path up Alex's smooth chest. "Fuck you so hard you won't be able to walk." Alex lifted Derek's head up and kissed him hard. "Fuck me." They both conveniently forgot their promises to themselves to take their relationship slow. That night, there was no slow. Only hard, fast, and mind blowing. 18. Melky nudged Robbie in the side and pointed towards the outfield. Derek and Alex were jogging with each other and even from this distance, they could see the smiles on their faces. "That's different," Robbie said, slipping into Spanish. Melky nodded. "They're happy. I like seeing them smile. It's good for the team." Robbie nudged Melky and gave him an exaggerated wink. "You think Derek and Alex are...like that?" Melky's eyes widened and stared at the two. "But Derek didn't like Alex." "Didn't, but Alex lost his memory so he doesn't remember a thing about him." Robbie nodded sagely. "They have history and Derek's taking advantage of it." "We have to let the rest of the guys know!" Melky grabbed Robbie's hand and ran towards the dugout where the rest of the team were sitting. It didn't take long for the clubhouse to become aware of Derek and Alex's relationship. 19. A season later found Derek, Alex, and the rest of the Yankees in Game 6 of the World Series against the surprisingly good San Diego Padres. The Padres had won the two games, but the Yankees won the last three games. If they could win one more, they would be the champions and the Yankees would have earned their 27th World Series. But first, they had to win. Hideki was up at bat, the score tied at two each with Alex and Derek at first and second, respectively. One out. Bottom of the ninth inning. Derek took a few steps off second base, eyeing the pitcher. They needed to score to win it all, but even with one out, there was no certainty that they'd be able to do it. He learned that from Game 1. The pitcher threw a curveball and Hideki slammed it hard. Derek's breath got caught in his throat as he ran for third, one eye watching the ball fly through the air. It was going, going... "It's a homer!" Alex shouted from behind him and Derek's heart swelled. They won. They won. As soon as Derek touched home base, he turned around and lifted Alex into his arms. Alex laughed and wrapped his legs around Derek's waist as he shouted something. The stadium was deafening and he couldn't hear Alex, but it didn't matter. He knew what Alex was thinking. Derek let down Alex just as their dugout cleared, the team surrounding them, jumping them, shouting nonsensical things. Hideki touched home and they turned to him, shouting his name. The Yankees won and Derek was drunk off the cheers. His eyes met Alex's and he yanked him in for a peck on the lips. Surrounded by the rest of the guys, the cameras wouldn't be able to pick it up, and even if they could, who cared? They were allowed to do anything. "I love you," he shouted into Alex's ear, the words slipping out without realizing it. Alex patted Derek's ass, his eyes alit with joy. "I love you too!" Jorge overheard his cry and rolled his eyes, though the look was tempered by his grin. Derek embraced Alex once more and buried his face in Alex's shoulder. 20. A week after the rings ceremony at the new Yankee Stadium found Derek and Alex leaning against the rail on the balcony of Derek's New York apartment. The sun was setting, casting light purples and oranges over the city, while Derek watched. He had never realized until he received his World Series ring how wound up he had been over the years. Now he had a fifth ring, one for each finger on his hand. But the most important ring was the one on Alex's hand. He glanced at Alex, catching his eye. Alex grinned and flashed his left hand at Derek, his World Series ring encircling his ring finger like a wedding band. In a way, it was. Derek wore his latest World Series ring on his left ring finger as well. Alex used his hip to bump Derek lightly. "Can you believe we won a World Series?" Derek chuckled. "This is a bit old hat for me, Alex." Alex rolled his eyes and bumped Derek again. "Yeah, but it's been awhile and this is the first one you've won with me." He paused. "Right? I didn't forget a World Series because of you, did I?" "No, you didn't." Derek turned back to the sun set, the words he wanted to say stuck in his throat. Fortunately, Alex filled the silence. "Do you ever miss the old me?" Derek cleared his throat, carefully wording his next sentences. "Sometimes I do, but I like this new Alex just the same. Better even, because you forgave me." Alex smiled his shy smile and nodded. "I agree. It was a good thing I lost my memories because otherwise we would have never made it here." He placed his left hand on the small of Derek's back. "The old me was stupid to have let you go." "No, it wasn't your fault. I was stupid for letting you go." Derek took Alex's hand in his and pressed a kiss onto his knuckles. He still couldn't say the words he wanted to say, the three words he shouted in the heat of a winning moment months ago. All Derek could do was kiss Alex's knuckles one more time. "Watch the sun set with me." Alex gave a peck on Derek's cheek, understanding the sentiment felt but not spoken. "Always."
64826	the room with the view	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "F/M", "Characters": "Kara Zor-El, Bruce Wayne", "Fandom": "DCU Animated", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Explicit", "author": "by Medie", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2010-02-22T00:00:00", "words": "2,337", "Additional Tags": null, "Relationship": "Bruce Wayne/Kara Zor-El", "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	Kara's entrance stole the show.Bruce took one look at her body in that fire engine red dress and choked on his drink. When had those happened?He watched mutely as she threaded her way through the casino, politely fending off admirers as she went. (And with that neckline there were a lot of them) Bruce grabbed another drink to help with the realization that he was ogling Clark's cousin like a teenaged boy who'd never seen breasts before.Clark was going to skin him alive and, with Superman, that was quite possibly going to be literal.Bruce had seen Kara in that eyebrow-raising uniform of hers a thousand times and never blinked once. One red dress with a plunging neckline and his brain took a vacation somewhere x-rated. He had more control than this, he really did.She smiled at him as she neared and he fought a grin at the look of devilment in her eyes. It was too easy to play the charming rogue to her young ingénue and press a kiss into her palm, lingering longer than propriety allowed.Kara laughed and let him sweep her into his arms. There wasn't a man in the room who wouldn't kill to be where he was and Bruce might've just been a little smug about that. Moving to the music, he held her carefully and tried to remember control. The skin left bare by the back of her dress was a touch too warm beneath his hand, Kryptonian normal, and almost enough to distract him from the feel of her curves sliding against his body.Almost.Setting his jaw, he turned his face into the fall of her hair and closed his eyes. The move was a mistake as the scent of the golden locks made him groan and inwardly curse the perfection of the Kryptonian genome."Do you see them yet?" Kara asked sotto voce, her fingers lightly stroking over the short hairs at the back of his neck.For a moment, Bruce couldn't remember the reason they were in Monte Carlo then reason caught up to him. Harley, Ivy, and their multinational crime spree, victimizing high society events around the world. The Kasnian queen (and her jewels) were scheduled to make an appearance at the casino. It was the most logical of all the potential targets they'd studied so here they were, Kara and the slit in her dress making sure Bruce Wayne lived up to his reputation."No," he murmured and slid his hands down Kara's hips, telling himself it was all part of the show.She sucked in a breath, and pressed her face against his neck.He stifled a groan, willing his body to relax. It wasn't easily done. It was, however, quite possible this plan was too good, it was distracting the hell out of him along with everyone else.The music slowing, Kara snuggled closer and Bruce reasoned pressing a kiss into the silky soft skin of her shoulder was the most logical course of action. It was what Bruce Wayne was supposed to do with a beautiful blonde in his arms. But logic didn't have a damn thing to do with the shiver that ran through them both.His pulse hammering in his ears, Bruce forced himself to scan the crowd for familiar faces. "They'll be here," he insisted, assuring himself as much as Kara."Right," she agreed resolutely, pulling away. "Come on," she teased, grabbing his hand. "It's time for you to get me wildly drunk before taking advantage of me in the bushes.""There are no bushes," Bruce reminded, smiling despite himself."There's a potted plant," Kara insisted, pointing at one by the balcony door. "It counts!"Laughing, Bruce took the flute of champagne from Kara's hand and made a show of her inebriation. "If I didn't know better," he murmured into her ear, "I'd think you were drunk Ms. Kent."She leaned into him, toying with his lapel. "I went to college," she reminded, her laughter real. "You'd be surprised what you can learn from sorority girls."Bruce didn't let himself think about that, sliding his fingers along the strap of her dress instead while considering how easily it would give beneath his hand. "No I wouldn't," he said, slying a grin at her.She lifted her chin and took one step back, the strap going tight against his finger in an obvious dare. "Prove it.""Careful what you wish for," he warned, voice dipping into Batman's familiar dark timbre. "I might give it to you."There was nothing of her cousin's farm boy ways in her when Kara took another step and the strap gave way. He was hard before he could stop it and her wicked smirk said she knew it. Damn x-ray vision."Well, if you don't," she hesitated and glanced meaningfully at the broken strap, "I just trashed my sluttiest dress for no good reason whatsoever and how unfair is that?"The look Kara gave him was blistering and Bruce's hands twitched with the urge to grab her. "You -- "She licked her lips and smiled coyly at him. "Me." Her smile turned into the sweet, innocent one he remembered. "So, Mr. Wayne, do I get it now?"The images of what he'd like to give her swarmed Bruce's brain and he was insanely grateful J'onn was nowhere in the vicinity. Clark wasn't the only one that was going to kill him and Kara had quite effectively seen to it that he didn't give a damn.The cold night air tickled the back of Bruce's neck as he lifted Kara, pressing her against the brick wall. She laughed breathlessly, tugging him into a kiss that was all teeth and an insanely talented tongue."Where the hell did he stash you?" He panted into her mouth when they parted, his lung capacity woeful compared to hers.She laughed. "Kansas. Three years, I got very bored. Fortunately, it takes me maybe a minute to run to Vegas? Less if I'm headed for Atlantic City."Bruce chuckled, shaking his head. "Bad girl.""Kansas," Kara reminded, rocking her hips against him in a none-too-subtle reminder. "For three years.""That bastard," he teased, stealing another kiss while his hand worked between them. "How dare he?""Easy," she complained with a pout that he couldn't resist sucking on, earning a throaty moan in reward. "Didn't call, didn't write. I got bored.""And we can't have that," Bruce nudged her dress out of the way with his chin, baring the breasts that had been torturing him all night. She definitely wasn't the Supergirl he remembered, those - those he would have remembered. Even Batman wasn't single-minded enough to miss them.She moaned when his mouth slid over one, chasing after the nipple, and squirmed when he suckled it. Somewhere in the back of his mind, the Batman was making his disapproval known. They were supposed to be on a stakeout, not molesting Kara Zor-El on a balcony in the middle of the night.He released her breast long enough to look up. "You listening?"Kara looked at him fuzzily, her hair a mess of disheveled curls, and her lipstick smeared to oblivion. She couldn't look any less like Supergirl if she tried and he thought she'd never looked more amazing. "For?""Ivy and Harley."She gaped. "You're kidding?"Bruce shook his head. "No.""Oh for fuck's sake!" Kara stared at him in obvious disbelief for a long moment before turning her head, grumbling about obsession, therapy, and goddamn orgasms. Listening, he assumed, for any potential screaming unrelated to their activities and he tried not to chuckle. He had to wonder who had taught her to curse like that, certainly hadn't been Jonathan Kent which meant Clark? Not as big a boy scout as Lois Lane claimed him to be.Chuckling despite his best efforts, Bruce leaned in to kiss her neck, lips lazily wandering over the sweet-scented skin. Some day, they were going to spend a very leisurely day in bed and he was going to explore to his heart's content. A quick fuck on a balcony was not going to cut it.She groaned, "If you want me concentrating, that, is a bad idea, trust me.""Hmm, no," he shook his head, grinning into her skin. "It's a very good idea actually. You need to learn how to do that even when you're distracted.""Oh my god, you are not giving me a lecture about training now," she turned back to him, tugging him back so he could see her face. "Bruce, seriously?" He grinned when she looked annoyed. "Oh, who am I kidding? Of course you are, you're you.""Someone needs to tell you these things," he teased, fingering her breast and watching her eyes flick shut. "You said it yourself, Kansas. Three years.""Forget Ivy and Harley," she complained. "I'm going to kill you myself."He chuckled. "Okay.""You are such an insufferable bastard," Kara frowned.Bruce smirked and leaned into kiss her. "Yes," he agreed into her mouth, fingers migrating from her breast to between her legs. When she gasped, he pulled back and added, "Not that you're complaining, of course?"She rolled her eyes. "Shut up and fuck me." Her look was positively maddening when she added, "Before Ivy and Harley get here. You get me all hot and bothered and send me off to fight bad guys?" She winced elaborately, shaking her head. "That will not end well."He briefly pictured Harley's head in one zip code and her body in another. The Joker wouldn't like one bit and neither would Gordon when he dealt with the clown's rampage. "Can't have that now can we?""Hm, wouldn't be advisable, no," she squirmed again, body rubbing against his. Hard again, he thrust into her and they both sighed.Bruce's mouth returned to her breasts as he wrapped one arm about her waist, when their angle proved awkward, he backed out of her again. "C'mere," he said quickly, turning her toward the balcony.Apparently understanding his intention, Kara laughed and grabbed the iron railing as he pushed the dress out of his way, hand skimming over the perfectly-shaped ass bared by the action. When she wiggled impatiently, he grinned and brought his hand down hard. "Not enough of those as a child," he explained, hands seizing her hips and holding her still.She sighed, the railing buckling beneath her grip. "Well, don't let age stop you.""Later," he decided. "When we can enjoy it."Kara whimpered and he moved, turning the whimper into a gasp. "God," she muttered, one hand leaving the railing and moving between her legs. Bruce thrust in again, harder this time, and wished for x-ray vision of his own as he watched her arm move quickly."My kingdom for a mirror," he complained and she giggled."Later," she promised. "There's a nice one in my suite.""Bigger bed in mine."She snickered and he thought he heard her say something about a competitive streak but couldn't be sure. The blood rushing to his cock didn't leave a whole lot of room for thinking. "Harder," Kara demanded, breathless. "It's not like I can break.""No," he managed, "but I can.""Oh, but what a way to go." Kara's laughter stuttered when his hand joined hers, moving them both over her clit. Her next words were his name and a curse, her body clenching promisingly around him.He grunted his agreement, not trusting his voice as hers turned his name into a plea to the heavens, rising into a sharp cry at the end. Kara coming was one of the most amazing things he'd ever seen, her hair falling around her face as she lowered her head and sucked in ragged breaths.It felt even better than it looked and his body's rhythm failed him, seduced by the siren song of hers. When his orgasm passed, Bruce slumped over her for a moment and enjoyed being completely and totally wrung out."Even if he kills me," he muttered finally, "this was worth it."Kara laughed, voice husky. "If he kills you for this, I'm killing him."Looking appropriately disheveled, they stumbled back into the ballroom together moments later. There wasn't a person in the room who didn't suspect what they'd been up to on the balcony and he saw no reason to hide it, all the more reason to flaunt it. Bruce saw men grinning and woman rolling their eyes in disgust as Kara turned her face toward him to hide her laughter."Think they're jealous?" She asked, still grinning."Damn straight," he took his time with the kiss, giving everyone in the room the show they were pretending they didn't want to see. "The gossip columns will be raging for weeks."Kara laughed. "Just as long as the front page belongs to Harley and Ivy.""It will," he promised, turning her attention to two women just inside the door. "Show time."They slipped out the side seconds before the room exploded into chaos. Nobody noticed that Bruce and his date disappeared in time for Batman and Supergirl to make their appearance."Did you notice?" Supergirl observed to Batman while they watched Ivy and Harley be escorted onto the flight home. "Queen Audrey didn't show."He looked down at her through the cowl, nodding slightly. "Her security might have received a tip about a potential security threat."She smiled quickly and turned her gaze back to the plane. "And here I thought it was because Wonder Woman took that vacation."Behind the cowl, Bruce's eyebrows rose. "Really?""Mmhmm," Supergirl nodded. "It's about time she took a vacation, she's been way too wound up lately and she's not the only one.""True," he agreed. "Do you think he'll notice?""Kansas." Supergirl reminded. "Three years."Batman turned away as the plane taxied off. "Point." It was fortunate, he suspected, that Bruce Wayne's hotel room was paid through the week.They were going to need it.
81997	Friends in Strange	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "Gen", "Characters": "Luna Lovegood, Bill Weasley", "Fandom": "Harry Potter - Rowling", "Language": "English", "Rating": "General Audiences", "author": "by zephrene", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "2010-04-23", "published": "2010-04-22T00:00:00", "words": "3,031", "Additional Tags": "Egypt, Mummies, Greater Wizarding World", "Relationship": null, "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	Autumn 2007, The Valley of the Kings, EgyptLuna had the strangest feeling that she'd been here before. Perhaps in was simply the perspective - it wasn't every day that she got a close look at tomb paintings upside-down because her foot was caught in a fissure where a great chunk of the ceiling used to be. Was there a name for a tendency to fall through sudden holes, off high peaks, or into unexpected ravines? She was very glad she had decided against the voluminous robes and worn sensible, close-fitting garments.She examined the room as best she could in the single beam of sunlight pouring from the hole her body had made in the rock. It did not seem immediately threatening, so Luna used a combination cushioning and levitation charm to slow her fall and wrenched her ankle free. The room was not actually as tall as the tapering lotus pillars made it seem, and Luna's spell bounced her off the floor before she got it under control. She would have to remember to make a note on that effect in her Charm Journal for her report to Master Collins. Once she gained her feet, brushed herself off, and ascertained that her only injury was the bruise making itself felt inside her boot, she examined the paintings with more attention. They were not classic tomb paintings, but a sort of odd hybrid of late Ptolemaic figures with early moving portraits. Most of the art seemed somnolent, but a few heads turned to follow her movements as she left the circle of sunlight and moved deeper into the tomb. Once a hawk's head screeched something at her, but Luna did not understand Egyptian. "I'm sorry, could you try Latin, perhaps?" The hawk glared and turned back to profile. When Luna reached the extreme edge of available light, she stood at the end of a long corridor. "Lumos." The illumination at the end of her wand did very little to disperse the gloom, but it did have another affect."Rrrrrrrhhhhhhhuuurrrrrrrggggggggghhhhhhh." The long, pained groan echoed up the corridor, and all of the paintings on the wall woke up and began frantically gesticulating at Luna. She didn't understand Egyptian in sign language any better than she understood it spoken, so their message was lost on her. She was distracted by the glint of metal in the border design of the corridor painting. It was a thread of gold, just coming free in places of the paint and plaster that held it to the wall. "You all must be under a localized muffling charm, then," she said, partly to the paintings and partly to herself, examining the thread. "Revelatomnes." A stream of greenish light shot out of the golden thread and into the palm of Luna's hand, where it settled into a vaguely pyramidal arrangement of heiroglyphics and thaumaturgical symbols. Luna had slightly more experience with archaic thaumaturgical terms than she did with ancient Egyptian, which is to say that she'd once seen a museum display of similar symbols. "Well, that wasn't at all helpful, was it?" Luna sighed and stuck her wand behind her ear, still lit, so that she could pull out her journal and a self-inking quill. Used to taking notes in odd and inconvenient moments, she quickly made a neat sketch of the spell diagram and dismissed it. "Rrrrrruuuuuuurrrrrrggggghhhh." The moaning noise was louder now, and accompanied by a soft sussuration, as of cloth dragging on the floor. Luna peered down the corridor, and took a few steps toward the noise. The paintings on the walls were jumping up and down now, and one cow-headed woman was apparently enacting the ending of Hamlet single-handed. Luna had no time for amateur theatricals, although she did applaud politely when the cow lady suffered a particularly nasty stab wound and bled out beautifully on the throne of Osiris.Now the sussurations of cloth were definitely accompanied by stumbling footsteps. "Who's there?" Luna called. She took her wand back into her hand, extinguished the Lumos, and pulled a candle from the pouch at her waist. A wandless spell lit the candle, which provided about the same illumination as the Lumos but left her free to hex if necessary. The painted pharoah on the wall across the way had definitely just made a vulgar gesture. "Really, is that any way to behave?" Luna asked him, flicking her glance to the wall for a split second, then back to the darkness of the corridor. "If you were a bit more polite, perhaps I could work on taking the muffling charm off your walls, did you think of that?" Just at the edge of her peripheral vision, the painted pharoah waved his arms angrily at her. She ignored him as a portion of shadow in the corridor abruptly took on substance and form. A human figure stumbled out of the darkness and stopped in the gray half-light just out of the candle's range, a figure swathed head to foot in fine linen strips that looked rather in rather good shape for being, in all likelihood, at least two thousand years old."Oh," Luna sighed. "You poor thing. And you probably don't speak Latin, either." She tried it out, just to be certain, as the mummy stared at her, its eyes also remarkably well-preserved, if dried to the point of looking like lumps of amber. "Do you understand me when I speak like this?" Just on the off chance, seeing as the tomb did seem to date to the Ptolomaic years, she added, "Or maybe better when I speak like this?" in Greek. The mummy came to life when she spoke the Latin, standing up straight and moaning piteously, then it lunged forward when she added the phrase in Greek. The noises it was making were hopelessly garbled, but it did not seem too eager to do the traditional mummy things, like trying to rip her limb from limb or eat her heart from her chest. Luna backed away, holding her hands up to keep the unfortunate creature at a distance. It understood enough of her gesture, and her incipient retreat, that it stopped in its tracks and slumped down on itself. Luna watched it for a moment and had the strangest feeling it was acting like an animal, trying to make itself less threatening by appearing small. "Slow down, now. I will ask you questions. If the answer is yes, nod your head. If the answer is no, lift your right hand. Do you understand?"The mummy nodded slowly, deliberately, with such exaggeration that its chin almost rested inside its bandaged ribcage."Very well." Luna tapped her wand against her chin. "Are you under a curse, that you know of?" Yes."Hmm. Do you know the counter-curse?"Yes."Is your inability to speak a part of the curse?"The mummy stared at her. After a moment, Luna realized that she had not left the mummy an option for I don't know. Nor for It's too complicated for a yes/no answer."Ok, wait. Let me think. Is there a magical, as opposed to physical, reason you cannot speak?"No."Can the physical problem be fixed without breaking the curse?"The mummy just looked at her again. Luna sighed. "Well, we don't know. Can I try a spell on you to see if we can help you speak properly?" If the mummy had not been firmly wrapped in linen, Luna was certain his head would have flown right off his neck, so vigorously did he nod. "Right then. Hold still, and no sneaky ripping out of hearts while I'm casting, agreed?" The mummy shrank back down into its helpless puppy mode and nodded more sedately. Luna stepped closer and held her wand ready. "Open your mouth," she instructed with a flick of the wand. The mummy obediently let its jaw hang open. The dessicated remains of its facial muscles held the bones tenuously together, and there were quite a few good-looking teeth still in the jaw. Luna gently placed the tip of wand just outside the mummy's mouth, concentrated, and whispered, "Linguavalesco."It was not a standard healing spell, nor was it the sort of spell that allowed a non-living item to speak. Rather, it was a charm Luna made up on the spot, to grow back muscle and flesh, hydrating and energizing the remains of tongue and palate. It did not make the mummy look any less a mummy, but within moments of the spell's completion, the creature was smacking newly-plump lips and running its tongue over its teeth. The hole in one cheek allowed the maneuver to be visible for far too long.Luna stepped back and lowered her wand to waist height, alert but not worried."Thank you," the mummy said in perfectly decent Latin, although its voice was hoarse and its breath whistled through too many holes. Luna relaxed. It was extremely rare that a creature with such decent manners turned into a bloodthirsty madman, at least without outside intervention like a full moon or a sudden dousing with holy water. "You're welcome. Now, how are you called? My name is Luna. Do you have any idea how long you have been down here?" The mummy picked up a trailing piece of linen and secured it more tightly around its arm. "You may call me Sefu. My other names have no meaning now. It has been, what, a thousand years?" Luna looked up at the walls. "If I am interpreting the walls correctly, more like two thousand. The world has changed many times."The mummy managed to look wistful. "Two thousand years? Two thousand years. I cannot imagine it. There has been nothing here but the walls and the rats since the last robber made off with my treasure." Luna gestured to the walls with her wand. "Do you know why this wall has been muffled?" The mummy, or Sefu as she supposed she must call him now, nodded. "To prevent them from warning any victims of my presence, of course. In the beginning, there were many. Some dropped here by soldiers to die, others came on their own seeking the treasure."Luna surmised that most of those victims had been killed to slake the thirst for vengeance most standard mummy curses came with. "Why are you not trying to steal my flesh, then?" The mummy looked down at its feet and mumbled something. "Speak up. And in a language I know, please." "I said," Sefu bit out with clacks of teeth and whistles of breath, "that I was bored. I don't know how long it has been since the last robber ran away, but it was a lonely time, even with the walls to talk to. I thought perhaps if I did not kill you, I might find a way out of here by following when you ran." Luna pondered the realities of a bored mummy in a modern Wizarding World. "Does your curse keep your flesh from falling completely apart, then?"Sefu nodded and held his arm out for her inspection. "It will not let me fall into dust. But I am overdue to do so. When the curse is gone, I will just shrivel into nothing."Luna looked him in the eye without blinking, which was easier considering he had no eyelids to blink with to remind her to. "Do you wish for that?" Sefu jumped away from her, scrambling into the twilight-zone of light at the edge of the candle's range. "No, no, I do not want to die yet. Anything but death." Luna shook her head. "Well, I'm not going to uncurse you, stop that. I don't think I could even if I knew how. That would take a professional curse-breaker." Sefu flinched. "Now, now," Luna said soothingly. "You don't want to die, you don't want to stay down here. What do you want?" Sefu leaned against the wall. The falcon-headed man in the painting behind him made a few choice gestures over the mummy's head, which Luna chose to ignore. She was getting very tired of the endless melodramatic pantomime from the walls."I want to read something besides these walls for once. I want to have my library again." Bells began to sound in Luna's head. Not alarm bells, thankfully, but chimes of excitement. "Could you be around human people without feeling the need to, you know, rend limbs and eat hearts?" she inquired carefully.Sefu crossed his arms. Luna thought he might have been trying to glare at her, but he didn't actually have the facial muscles to do so. "If I had books? I might manage to restrain myself." Luna switched to her horrible Greek. "And translating? Could you perhaps write, as well as read? Or dictate?" Sefu's Greek was much more elegant than his Latin. Luna would have liked hearing it from a throat that wasn't perforated like so much Swiss cheese. "Yes. Any of those. You have scribes to take my notes?"Luna coughed. "Something like that." For the next few minutes she interrogated Sefu on his skills, and found quite a few that could be applied outside the tomb."Sefu, I want to break you out of here. But in order to do so and make sure you don't disintegrate the minute we leave, I want to bring in a professional. May I call in my friend?" Sefu gave her that trying-to-glare look again, then slumped. "Very well."Luna walked a few paces down the corridor and turned so that Sefu could not see her wrist as she engaged her communications watch. Bill was just across the river in Luxor, and could be at the wadi she had been hiking in minutes. She gave him a very brief - the watch was not like a muggle telephone, after all - overview of her situation: new tomb, cursed mummy Sefu wishes peaceful occupation, require assistance to exit. hole in rock at 2km from hike start. And entered the apparition coordinates for the start of the path she had been walking. Bill was not happy with her. Sefu sat, legs splayed in a shallow V, against the muffled wall, playing an odd version of cat's cradle with a piece of thread pulled from a fraying bandage. The mummy had been steadfastly ignoring the low-voiced argument between Luna and Bill for at least fifteen minutes. Luna thought that should speak well for the mummy, and told Bill as much."Luna," Bill said with such exaggerated patience that Luna wanted to slap him, "a cursed mummy is not a creature who can just go work in a library." "Why not? Just because he keeps his organs in jars in a separate room is no reason to discriminate against him." Bill pinched the bridge of his nose. "It's the danger to regular people's organs that concerns me, here." Luna tilted her head and waited for him to look at her once more. "Really, Sefu has already said that he is more interested in a useful occupation than in rending humans limb from limb. Isn't there some spell you could place on him to be sure he doesn't get too close to people if you're worried? Stick him in the archives with those ghosts who drip slime on visitors, they'll all get along like a house on fire." Bill groaned. "That's exactly what the librarians would be afraid of." "Sefu likes books! And he could translate! Perhaps you could set up a payment system for him that involved renewing the spells on his flesh, that way he wouldn't need to eat hearts or steal souls or whatever to regain his body." The wrinkle between Bill's brows deepened. Luna wondered why everyone had such difficulty absorbing such simple concepts. "How is this any different from employing a werewolf or a ghoul?" And that was when she got him, because of course it wasn't that different, and the curse-breaking field was full of werewolves and ghouls who had strict employment contracts ensuring that they were a danger to nothing and no one except the curses they broke. It was not hard, once Bill had accepted the basic premise, to make notes of basic contract provisions on a blank page in her journal. She tore the page out and walked over to Sefu. "Here is what will happen now, Sefu. We are going to be sure that you can leave the tomb safely, then we will take you to the Luxor Wizarding University. Things will be quite strange to you, I'm sure, but just keep an open mind and try not to go crazy until we get you to the library." Sefu's torn cheeks had just enough flesh from her spell to draw back his lips into a smille. Well, Luna hoped it was supposed to be a smile. "A library. I thank you, Moon maiden." Luna grinned, tucking her wand behind her ear once more. "Let's get you out of here." Years and years later, when it became more difficult to get out of bed and the winter cold ached deep in her bones and even her great-grandchildren could not keep her mind from the reunion waiting for her beyond the Veil, Luna received an ornate box decorated in Egyptian style from an anonymous owl. She smiled when she saw it, and once more when she read the scroll inside. Her youngest great-grandchild climbed up on the bed beside her and read over her shoulder and later Luna heard him ask his mother, "Is the long sweet sleep like in the fairy tale?" Luna did not listen for the answer her granddaughter gave; she was deep in memory, hearing once again the wheezing voice of a two-thousand-year-old librarian who could choose to live forever. Luna would not use the spell quite yet. Spring was coming soon, and somehow that long sweet sleep did not seem so appealing before she saw wildflowers blooming over the Devon hills one last time. When the time was right, she would know, and then she would let Sefu's last gift ease her into that long, sweet sleep and carry her peacefully over the threshold of death.
55622	His Destiny	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "Gen", "Characters": null, "Fandom": "Lost", "Language": "English", "Rating": "General Audiences", "author": "by Settiai", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2004-10-13T00:00:00", "words": "300", "Additional Tags": "Episode Related, Episode: s01e04 Walkabout, Introspection, One Shot", "Relationship": null, "Character": "John Locke", "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	When he tried to move his toes, it was a completely unconscious action. Even after four years of living as a cripple, his mind still refused to comprehend that he would never walk again. Morning after morning he woke up and attempted to force his legs into moving, and morning after morning he was rudely reminded that all of his attempts were entirely futile.Except this time, his foot moved.The world seemed to stand still for a moment, and the chaos around him disappeared. The smell of acrid smoke faded into the distance, and he felt himself go deaf to the panicked cries that surrounded him. He stared in shock as his limbs answered to his commands for the first time in years, and amazement rushed through his entire body as he hesitantly reached over and grabbed his shoe.He was more than careful as he pulled the shoe onto his foot, and he felt detached from the universe as he began realizing that this wasn't just another dream. This wasn't another fleeting fantasy, and it wasn't going to disappear with the break of day. This was more than that.It was a miracle.As he pulled himself to his feet, he felt a brief moment of fear rush through him. Even though his body was telling him that this was real, his mind didn't want to wrap itself around the fact. What if it really was a dream? Miracles didn't happen, not to people like him.Pain rushed through his legs as he placed his weight on them, and in that instant he believed. The world around him abruptly made its way back into his senses, but he didn't care. It didn't matter. What was happening, had happened, would happen... none of it mattered.This was his destiny.
47254	Scene 3	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "Gen", "Characters": "Changmin, Jaejoong, Yoochun", "Fandom": "DBSK \| Tohoshinki \| TVfXQ \| TVXQ", "Language": "English", "Rating": "General Audiences", "author": "by Eliza", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2007-11-27T00:00:00", "words": "380", "Additional Tags": null, "Relationship": null, "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": "Paris Flash", "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	They weren't in a hotel for this trip, but in a rented apartment in an actual neighbourhood. As he leaned out the window, finishing his breakfast, the traffic below him was made up of delivery vans and motor scooters, and people heading to work, a number of them catching the bus at the stop across the street. It really wasn't so different from home; people lived their lives in similar patterns around the world.And yet the sound of Paris waking up made Jaejoong want to throw his arms wide and shout. There was something different here.Maybe it was the knowledge that if he did it, he would just be some loony blond to the people below, and not Dong Bang Shin Ki's Youngwoong Jaejoong. Not that he didn't love being Youngwoong, but every once in a while he needed to be just Jaejoong, friend to Yunho and Yoochun, Changmin and Junsu. Needed to be an anonymous man in a beautiful city, rather than a beautiful man in an anonymous city.He wouldn't have to worry if he had the right kind of smile when Changmin took his picture. If someone was watching when Yunho took his hand. He could feed Junsu in a café–somebody had to--without the internet cafés going wild."Yoochun!"One of the figures on the sidewalk below stopped and looked up, a brown paper bag clutched between his teeth and a tray of paper coffee cups in his hands. The first French phrase Junsu had learned was, "Je t'aime." The first phrase Yoochun had learned was how to order coffee. It amounted to the same thing.A sudden weight on Jaejoong's back pressed him against the iron railing. "Coffee! I'll be right there to open the door," Changmin called down, and was gone before seeing Yoochun's answering nod. Jaejoong saw it though, and the way Yoochun's eyes crinkled as he smiled around the bag. Jaejoong picked off pieces of his sweet bun to drop on Yoochun's head.Just as Changmin took possession of the second round of pastries, allowing Yoochun to curse at Jaejoong, in Korean, from two floors down, Jaejoong let out that shout. Paris might not know DBSK's Youngwoong, but he had no problem with it getting to know Kim Jaejoong.
13624	Vigilance	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": null, "Characters": null, "Fandom": null, "Language": "English", "Rating": "General Audiences", "author": "by Lanna Michaels (lannamichaels)", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2003-01-01T00:00:00", "words": "766", "Additional Tags": null, "Relationship": "Aragorn/Boromir", "Character": "Aragorn", "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": "Of Elves and Men, Library of Moria", "Fandoms": "Lord of the Rings (2001 2002 2003), Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien", "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	He cleans the room carefully. Every dustmite, every sign of age or change, is swept away. The room has to be perfect. Perfect as it was the day the one he loved left and didn't come back.Aragorn won't let anyone else clean this room. The servants whisper that, in this room, Aragorn finally cries. In this room, Aragorn finally finds release.But he doesn't. The king knows that in this room, of all rooms, he has to be strong. He has to be royal and commanding. He has to put on a brave front, for the man who will never return.And when he's done cleaning up the signs of the years, Aragorn begins to speak. He tells the empty room of his accomplishments, his deeds, and the goings-on of his kingdom. He tells the empty room about his children, about his wife. He tells the empty room about his doubts, his fears, and the dreams that come to him in the night. He tells the room about Faramir, Stweard of Gondor, and about Eomer, King of Rohan, because he knows the room would like to hear about them. He tells the room everything he should have told Boromir. And can't.For this room, this room was Boromir's room. Boromir of Gondor, of whom the songs sing. Boromir the Bold, who fought Orcs at the battle of Osgiliath. Boromir the Tall, who tamed horses. Boromir the Fair, who won the heart of his king.Aragorn finishes his weekly task, and looks up. He can almost see Boromir standing before him. Can almost see his lover the way he was before, standing tall and proud. Can almost see his beloved Steward's Son, the way he was before the Ring drove him mad. And Aragorn can almost forget the look on Boromir's face when he died. Can almost forget the way it felt to kiss the cooling forehead of the one he loved above all. Can almost forget his promise to a dying friend, to live and be king. Can almost forget the words his lover did not say.And he tries not to think of the last time they exchanged words, or the time before that. He tries not to think of the way he spoke, what he spoke. He tries to remember the better times, the stolen kisses under the Lorien moon, or shared moments in Moria's mines. He tries to banish his disparagements of Gondor and of its champion. He tries to banish his pain.Today is a day, Aragorn knows, when Boromir would have been overjoyed with life. The sun shines through no cloud, and it seems like every bird in existence is pouring out its heart. There is no shadow on the world, not even a whisper of Orcs. Today is a day, Aragorn knows, when Boromir would have begged off duties and gone sparring with fellow soldiers. Today is a day, Aragorn knows, when Boromir could have been truly happy.But the vision fades, and Aragorn is left alone, with nothing but memories. Nothing but regrets, for the things he said, and the things he didn't say. He cannot stop thinking of them as he performs this sacred duty, week after week, year after year. Gandalf told him once that regrets were for those who had nothing else with which to occupy their minds. But Aragorn knows that this is not so. Regrets are for those who never told the one they love that they were loved. Regrets are for those who insulted the one they love mere days before their lover died. Regrets are for those that broke their lovers hearts with strong words and stronger actions in small clearings on rivers, while tempers raged. Regrets are for men like Aragorn, who can never have the one they want again on this earth. Regrets are for men like the King of Gondor, whose one wish would be to take back haughty words, and to salvage a souring relationship. Regrets are for those like the lord of the Dunadain, who would do anything for a moment again with Boromir of Gondor. Regrets are for those who desire above all a chance to apologize. Regrets are for those, those like Aragorn, who would kill for a last kiss.The cleaning is done, but Aragorn is loath to leave. Every time he cleans Boromir's room, he hopes this will be the last time. That Boromir would somehow be returned to him. That he will die ere the next week comes. But Aragorn is bound by his promise.A brother; a captain; a king.
76544	Office Hours	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "Gen", "Characters": "Aziraphale, Crowley", "Fandom": "Good Omens - Gaiman & Pratchett", "Language": "English", "Rating": "General Audiences", "author": "by Enigel", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2004-03-18T00:00:00", "words": "181", "Additional Tags": "Comment Fic", "Relationship": null, "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	The first time Crowley heard about computers he ran to Aziraphale's bookshop, didn't bother to knock even though he knew how much the angel hated that, and announced in a triumphant tone that his job had just become easier and wasn't Aziraphale interested in a holiday? Because he, Crowley, would soon be able to afford a lot of slacking off.Of course the technologically impaired angel became instantly suspicious, but there wasn't much he could do.It wasn't for the lack of trying, though.Crowley had been very pleased with Microsoft, and MS Office in particular. Aziraphale poked around the program, frowned, and suggested that maybe a little help was needed, to see the users through the needlessly complicated procedures.The developer team came up with the Office Assistant.It had been the angel's first and last foray into information technology.He let Crowley have monopoly over it, and occasionally made him pay with disgustingly good deeds, especially if the demon had the nerve to mention "that little paperclip incident." Crowley still thought every last one of them was worth it.
4018	Reunion	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "M/M", "Characters": "Pike (Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992)), Benny (Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992))", "Fandom": "Buffy the Vampire Slayer (movie)", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Explicit", "author": "by Viridian5", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2000-11-12T00:00:00", "words": "2,952", "Additional Tags": "Drama, Post-Canon, Reunions", "Relationship": "Pike/Benny", "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	Benny watched as Pike fought off the two remaining vampires in the alley. Pike had already dusted one of the three that had attacked him, but the other two tossed him around like a toy. He looked tired, but that could only be expected when he lived a daytime life and had to fend off vampires by night.Buffy may have tossed him aside like trash before she left town, much like Pike had thrown Benny aside for her, but the vampires still saw Pike as connected to her. At first Benny had seen it as the proper punishment for Pike's betrayals and the pain he'd caused. The holy water in the face, the electrocution, the months of slow healing. The rejection in favor of some blonde bimbo, which had hurt worst of all. However, watching Pike struggle through the last few nights had started to change Ben's mind against his will no matter how pretty Pike looked when he suffered.Benny wanted to hurt him. Benny also wanted to pet him and keep him. Hard to reconcile the two, since Pike wasn't into pain. Still the urge to bend him, break him, remake him remained strong.But reprogramming him was essential.The heavy metal vampire struck Pike hard across the face, sending him spinning down to the sidewalk. Yet Pike still held on to the stake in his hand. As the vampire's grinning friend watched, ready to get involved, the heavy metal guy pulled back one steel-toed boot and prepared to kick....Benny didn't even think to move forward or to shift into the new vampire face that had come after he'd healed. He just did them before he leapt at the vampire from behind and took him down. Smashing the head against the concrete a few times took the fight out of the bastard, and a stake to the heart finished things in a burst of dust. This other breed of vampire had made a few attempts on Benny's life (unlife?) too.Pike took advantage of the other one's surprise to lunge up and stake him. Pike was still shaking the vampire's dust from his hair and trenchcoat when Benny stood and faced him. They stared at one another, each holding a stake.Benny tried to ignore the blood on Pike's face from his split lip and paid attention to the variety of new and old bruises he saw on exposed skin. A bit of gauze wrap was visible around one wrist from where the coat cuff and a thick leather bracelet slid away. Dark circles under Pike's brown eyes gave some hint of how hard life had been for him lately. He still smelled wonderful, a scent made even better by the whiff of blood in it... and no, Benny was not going there. Pike had grown back the sideburns and lovepatch he'd shaved off for Buffy's school dance, returning him to a welcome scruffiness totally unlike the groomed, clean-shaven kiss-ass he'd made himself over into for Buffy. He now wore a cross along with the ever-present dogtags. And a new, wide, brown leather collar. It was probably just to protect his neck, but it made Benny purr to see it.Which only made Benny ever more aware that he wasn't sure how he felt about Pike. For months his anger and need for revenge had kept him going, but this was Pike, co-conspirator, loved one, favorite sextoy. Benny kept feeling the urge to touch him even aside from wanting to suck him dry in every way possible. Besides, as usual for Pike, life had already delivered enough kicks to his gut that vengeance from Benny too seemed to be overkill.It depended on Pike's reaction now."Did I do that to your face?" Pike asked. His low, hoarse voice sounded apologetic, while his eyes devoured Benny.Benny let his vampire face fade. "It's something that started once I healed. You have no idea how much the healing hurt, never mind the shit you did to me." He smiled at Pike's wince. "But I was different after it. Maybe it's something about Lothos being dead plus me getting fried and needing my whole body redone, but I'm some kind of halfway thing between what I was and the guys attacking you. I eat food if I feel like it, though I don't get hungry, and I've been getting horny again, so it looks like sex is possible, thank God. No more stupid pointed ears, and I don't have as much of a Klingon face as the guys you've been dusting. I can still float, though. I may even end up flying one of these days in a whole, cool 'death from above' thing." He was babbling. Not good. Damn Pike for being able to do this to him.Fortunately, Pike didn't seem to be tracking very well either. "Do you... dust now?""Only one way to find out. Are you gonna stake me? I'd like to see you try.""Ben...." Pike put his hand to the side of his face as if to cradle his head, but he kept a firm grip on his stake with the other. "I knew you got out of the dance and didn't tell Buffy.""You left me! You rejected me, then burned me with holy water and fucking electrocuted me, and you want me to be grateful that you didn't tell Buffy to hunt me down and finish me off?""I didn't want to hurt you, but you had me by the neck and kept flinging me around!" It was good to see that fire in Pike's eyes again. "I don't want to be dead or undead; I fought too hard for too long to stay alive. You weren't exactly bothering to listen to me at that point, so I had to make my point in a stronger way. You sure as hell didn't seem like all of you was still in there." Pike's eyes flashed. "You're not even Benny! You're just some... thing that's using his body!"Gentle, gentle. Benny could get Pike good if he could only stay low-key and make slight moves forward. Pike had always had an abused animal's wariness and tendency to snap, but recent months seem to have made him worse. "I am Benny, but I'll give you the point about me going about bringing you in all wrong. I don't know what the hell Lothos had in his blood, but it made us all crazy motherfuckers. But I'm much better now. Buffy actually did me a favor taking him out." It was even true. A favor by giving him a return to his own brand of craziness and getting his libido back."Oh sure."Those months had been so lonely without Pike and so quiet without the sound of his voice. Ben inched forward. "It was stupid to threaten and scare the hell out of you while somehow thinking all that would convince you to be a vampire with me. I'm much smarter than that. You know that."Pike shook his head and took a step back. "I don't want to be a vampire."Benny took a step forward. "Why not? It's the ultimate in living fast, dying young, leaving a good-looking corpse, then rising up to stick it to the world for the rest of eternity. You'll always be as gorgeous as you are.""I don't want to have to kill people every night. I already look younger than I am, and I hate it. Besides, you're not even Benny; you're just something that looks like him." At least Pike sounded quieter now, a little uncertain."Are you so sure of that? I sure as hell feel like me. And is this you talking, or Buffy?" Ben smiled at the way Pike's eyes narrowed and mouth sagged at her name. "I mean, she's been so trustworthy so far. Good going, Pike."Pike actually flinched. Sweet to see. "She was a mistake.""Damned right. She dumped you like you were trash. Trash, Pike." Pike flinched at those words too. "I told you about those rich bitches, but what do I know, right? I told you that you can't trust them or love them. You fuck them maybe, but then you check to make sure your dick and balls are still there afterward.""You're one to talk, with your teeth.""I made them hard and pointy just for you." Ben saw Pike's breathing speed up a little. Interesting. He tossed his stake aside and pounced.Pike brought his stake up wickedly fast, but Benny knocked it out of his hand. Payback time at last. Months of fucking torment.... Pike's punch rocked his head back, but he had his hands around Pike's throat. Unfortunately, that stiff leather collar didn't let his move be as effective as he wanted it to be, though he had Pike backed up against the wall now. Pike's cross started to burn him before he snapped the chain, dropping it to the concrete.An unexpected headbutt loosened Ben's grip. Sneaky boy, that Pike, as always.He saw a sudden flash of silver in Pike's hand. Flask. Not again, not ever again. He grabbed Pike's wrist and squeezed, feeling slim bones start to grind under his fingers. Pike gasped but kept his grip. At least he couldn't uncap it while being held like this.They were so close that Benny realized he'd been humping Pike. He could just about taste the coffee and chocolate on Pike's breath even as he took a deep whiff of sweat, transmission fluid, motor oil, and blood from the body straining against his. Welcome, welcome lust flooded back. Pike's pulse jumped as Benny licked the side of his face, luxuriating in the heat of living skin and the taste of blood and salt."You're not Benny. Not really," Pike said softly. Trying to fire himself up to keep resisting, because the adrenaline rush of the fight seemed to be leaving him.Time to bring out the big guns. "That night I came over to your place because I wanted to share this cool thing that had happened to me. Okay, I did it in a really stupid way, but I told you Lothos' blood made me loopy. I wanted us to be vampires together and suck the world dry. We'd make them all pay. Hell, we wouldn't even have to change our original plans much. We still could've gotten into the van once you had it running and left LA forever. Only forever in this case would really be forever. I'm Benny, Pike. Only better now."Pike closed his eyes and sagged. "Fuck.""Yeah."This put a new spin on everything, made Pike going homicidal on him feel more like a kind of loyalty Benny could appreciate. If someone'd killed Pike, he'd kill that motherfucker himself, no question. If said motherfucker had also paraded Pike's body around... it was a no-brainer. Torture and death. The holy water and electrocution had been a sign of loyalty to him past the grave.Though it had fucking hurt.Things suddenly looked more possible. "We could still do it, Pike.""What?"Benny pressed closer, letting his lips brush Pike's cheek. "Away. Us, together." Amilyn and his goon squad had scrapped Pike's van, but alternate wheels could always be found. Benny's victims didn't need their rides anymore, after all.Pike looked a bit shocky, though who could blame him. His recent months hadn't been as physically agonizing as Benny's but matched his in emotional torment. Buffy had led Pike on, then left him flat. He was alone and getting attacked every night. Benny had killed Pike's boss a few nights back, and the new owner had to be wondering if keeping him on as a mechanic was worth the bending of child labor laws and if renting the apartment to someone more legal and solvent might be a better idea. Pike had to be bleeding on the inside and feeling the noose tighten around his neck. Tired, weak, and vulnerable.Perfect."I can't." But Pike's normally husky voice sounded even lower and breathier."Do you have anything here you'd miss?""I don't want to be a vampire."Pike smelled so good, so hot and alive and mouthwatering. "You don't have to be. I like you like this." And Benny did, but he also saw the possibility of Pike changing his mind on the reservations about killing that seemed to be his major objection. Vampire slaying was killing, because no matter how you rationalized it, it involved striking at a creature with a weapon, determined to end its existence. You had to get past the idea of plunging a sharp object into someone's flesh with deadly intent before you could slay, and that changed things. It started you sliding down that greased slope of shifting perceptions.Plus, Ben had succeeded in shifting Pike's perceptions many times before."I don't," Pike said before Benny started to kiss him hard and deep, reopening the split in his lip. Pike always had tasted good. "But I missed you," Pike whispered against Ben's mouth. "Missed you so much."They wrapped around one another in a desperate embrace. As Benny stroked Pike's hair with one hand and wandered under Pike's waistband and over his bare ass with the other, he couldn't help feeling that what was lost now was found. This was what he'd been missing, and no one would take it away from him ever again. Not even Pike. Benny smiled as he heard the metallic clank of the flask of holy water hitting the ground.When Benny's finger started to stroke in circles around Pike's asshole, Pike writhed and just about climbed him, murmuring, "No, Benny, no...." Well, trust would be an issue on both sides for some time to come."Shhh. We're good." Ben moved that hand up to stroke Pike's back in calming motions. As much as Ben would have loved to nurse off of Pike's bleeding lip all day, he had another goal, dropping to his knees, unfastening Pike's pants, and pulling away Pike's boxers. Didn't want to lose momentum, here. Any protests Pike might have made died when Benny started to suck.Familiar sounds spilling from Pike's lips, familiar weight on Ben's tongue, familiar taste. It was like coming home.Benny could feel Pike's pulse pounding through his cock and stroked it with his tongue. He unzipped his jeans to free his own constrained cock, pleased by the feel of cool night air against his skin. He could feel Pike getting close to orgasm in the tightening of the balls he rolled between his fingers.His face pressed into Pike's heat and scent, on his knees blowing his best friend in a filthy alley, Benny couldn't think of a way to make it better. Then he tasted a little bit of blood too, and he knew how. He wanted to drink Pike down, with Pike moaning his name all the way... but something sharp sticking into the back of his neck distracted him. When he lifted his eyes, he saw that Pike had a stake in his hands, ready to plunge. It filled Benny with annoyance and affection all at once.Moving carefully, he let Pike's cock slide from his mouth with a kiss, tasting a little blood from the small incisions he'd made. "Sorry. Never did this after getting vamped." Benny smiled and tongued his fang teeth, then changed his face back. "You're my first. I got a little too excited."Pike's hands shook, but his voice sounded steady. "If you can't control yourself, I'll have to do it for you.""So butch." The threat of staking adding a little something. "You want to move that?" He flicked his tongue against the head of Pike's cock.Pike shuddered. "You're not going to do this. I'm not stupid enough to let you blind me with sex." But he moved the stake away."How about love, then?" Ben stood and kissed Pike, rubbing their bare cocks against one another. Pike whimpered against his mouth and came in a gush of heat. Ben grabbed Pike's hand and stroked it down his cooler cock, getting himself off in a burst of pleasure that left his whole body feeling loose. "This is for you, Pike. Always has been; always will be. Together again. I'll watch your back; you watch mine. Like it used to be.""This is so fucked up," Pike said softly, leaning back hard against the wall, as if for support. "So fucked up."Ben smiled. "Yeah." He knelt again and licked Pike clean, enjoying the squirming his tongue inspired. Come didn't have anywhere near as much nutritional value as blood, but it made a nice snack. "But was that a yes or a no?""It's an 'I don't know what the fuck I'm doing.' I'm too tired to think." Fatigue plus his usual post-sex sleepiness had made him cranky instead of malleable, but Pike could flip over to agreeing to things easily."Then you should take a nap first." Ben fastened them both back up, then picked Pike up in his arms."What the hell are you doing?""Helping out.""Oh." Pike started to snuggle, then his eyelids jerked open before drooping again. "No, you have to put me down." But he didn't fight to get loose.Benny started walking with Pike clutched in his arms like a beloved pet. "Nope." He had his den nearby and the advantage of being stronger, better fed, and far more awake. He had the energy to work on Pike, who always had to be talked around into things.Fortunately, no one had more experience at that than Ben. End
6643	The Unlikely Story of a	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "Gen", "Characters": "Peter Wimsey, Mary Wimsey, Charles Parker", "Fandom": "Lord Peter Wimsey series", "Language": "English", "Rating": "General Audiences", "author": "by dafna", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2004-12-25T00:00:00", "words": "2,532", "Additional Tags": "Yuletide", "Relationship": null, "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": "Yuletide 2004", "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	A pale arm twitched back a corner of the coverlet. The owner of the arm considered whether to address the day. He rather thought not.The sun had risen a few notches higher over 110 Piccadilly when Lord Peter Wimsey next opened his eyes. He immediately shut them again. Chronological time was not a thing a man should be a slave to, he decided.A waft of something caught his nose. Of course, one mustn't overdo the poetical languor, either."Bunter, is that coffee I smell?""Yes, my lord. Would you like to see the newspapers?"A groan issued from the bed."There's also tea, if your lordship prefers."His lordship did not."Full many a glorious morning have I seen, Bunter, but this one, I think, must go unviewed."Lord Peter tugged the coverlet firmly back into place and when his voice next issued forth, it was muffled."Determination, that's the thing. Must keep trying on the drowsy dreams of..." A loud yawn emanated from the bed.Bunter took the kettle off the ring and gave up the bacon as a lost cause. He passed a happy hour scanning through the catalogues that had come in the morning post, noting one or two items of interest.Lord Peter, meanwhile, resentful of the ever brighter sun, resolutely tried to ignore it, but finally stirred once more. He did not feel rested, exactly, but he doubted whether there was much to be gained by continuing in his present position. In addition, the loud noises outside his door did not fill him with confidence that his sleep would go undisturbed much longer.He was correct in his apprehension.Bunter bustled in. "Ah, your lordship is awake. Very good.""See, I told you he was up, Bunter. Don't be ridiculous." Lady Mary Wimsey swept into the room on the heels of her brother's manservant, who, thus vanquished, reluctantly yielded the field.Lord Peter blinked a few times, hoping that perhaps his sister was less corporeal than she seemed. His own haggard appearance at last appeared to make a dent, because her ladyship's expression softened from irritation to exasperation."Do get up, Peter, it's past two and we need to talk to you."He raised one eyebrow and glared at her. Clad in pajamas and with his monocle on a table in the next room, it was a rather less imposing look, however, and his mood did not improve when his sister failed to flee in terror."Devil take it, Mary, this is most ungentlemanly of you, barging in at all hours. You'd think a fella would be safe from his relatives in his own bedroom."Lady Mary sighed. "Very well, in deference to your suddenly delicate sensibilities - " she waved a gloved hand in his direction. "But I am going no further than the next room and Detective-Inspector Parker and I are not leaving until -- "Lord Peter sat upright."Charles is here? Mary, what are you up to, making poor Parker trot after you? I didn't even know the two of you had met since the Riddlesdale affair."Her ladyship had the grace to blush."Polly!""It's no good you saying `Polly,' like that Peter," Lady Mary said crossly. "Yes, Mr. Parker is here but I shan't tell you anything just yet. You can jolly well get out of bed if you want to hear the rest of the story."The rest of the story was long in making its entrance, however, even after Lord Peter had left the embrace of slumber for the embrace of Bunter and had succumbed to the various ministrations of shaving brush and soap. Cleaned, refreshed and with coffee at his side, Lord Peter sat across from his sister and his friend and adopted what he hoped was a confidence-inspiring pose."Tell all, children, tell all. No sins too great, no sorrows too long. Confess to your Uncle Peter, is this the stop before the train to Scotland?"Lady Mary made a face at him behind her tea cup but Charles looked genuinely startled."Peter, for god's sake, it's nothing like that. No, no. I was just -- that is to say, Lady Mary was just." The detective inspector turned to look at her ladyship but she merely sipped her tea and offered no help. He strove to start from the beginning."You see, it's like this. Lady Mary had a problem and it wasn't quite the thing one would tell a brother about -- I mean, let's face it, old man, you were rather a brute to her over Goyles -- so when she came to me and asked if I'd help, as a friend to the family, I mean -- "Peter gave his sister a look which she did her best to ignore. Parker continued." -- So naturally I said yes, of course, I'd try but now it's taken a more disturbing turn and I insisted we bring you in. 'Lady Mary,' I said, 'We must take this to your brother at once' and she disagreed but I did think it was the thing and so here we are, you see?""Of course, Charles," said Lord Peter, casting a benevolent eye in his direction and motioning the hovering Bunter to fill Parker's glass. His sister, to whom his suspicions were more inclined, was not someone to be faced on coffee alone.Lord Peter turned toward the offending party. "Using my keen deductive senses, Polly, I gather that you asked Charles here to be your knight errant. The substance of the mission, however, is rather less clear."Lady Mary cleared her throat and looked down at her hands. "Well, Peter, I know you'll think I'm silly, but I've gotten in trouble with some letters. Rather indiscreet ones.""Ah."Detective-Inspector Parker threw a reproachful look at his friend. Peter endeavoured to look more sympathetic."Of course, it was years ago, I was practically still a kid and one doesn't think, does one?" Here Lady Mary lifted her head to peek at her brother. Seeing his expression, she quickly looked down again."Go on," said Lord Peter. "You were not thinking.""I say ...""Charles, if you interrupt again I shall start hurling scones at your head. Mary, do get on with it."Lady Mary cleared her throat again. "Anyway, I hadn't thought of the letters -- or of him, really -- for ages and then what with the Riddlesdale publicity he must have seen my name in the papers and thought, well I don't really know what men think -- and there were so many fortunes lost in the war and -- ""Lady Mary, you are being too forgiving," interjected Parker. "The man is an out and out scoundrel, a blackmailer and worse.""Forgive me, Polly," said Lord Peter, ignoring him, "but surely these letters cannot possibly cast a darker cloud over our family honor and whatnot then have, well, let us say, certain other recent events?""No," said Lady Mary. "And of course you're right and Detective-Inspector Parker told me much the same thing when I spoke with him about it."Lord Peter tried to picture Charles in any way suggesting to Lady Mary Wimsey that her virtue was already somewhat in doubt. He couldn't picture it. He cocked an eyebrow at his friend, who was turning a deep shade of crimson."All I said to Lady Mary was that it never did to give in to blackmailers. They always want more.""So far I am with you," said Lord Peter. "But if you have not paid anything -- and since I have not seen anything in the broadsheets, nor have I heard high shrieking noises from the general vicinity of Denver, I thus assume this blighter has not actually gone to the press -- I fail to see why I have been hauled out of bed so early this morning.""Afternoon."Lord Peter waved Parker's objection away. "Well, Mary, surely there's more?""Yes," said his sister. "There is.""The thing of it is, he's a relation of a friend of Helen's -- that's how we met, you see -- and so he was down at Denver last weekend as well.""As well?" said Lord Peter. "What the deuce were you doing toiling away in the country? Never mind, we'll take it as read. More madness for a Mayfair morning. You were in the country.""So, I told him to go to blazes," said Lady Mary, "like Charles -- I mean, Mr. Parker -- said to do and I thought that was that. But then when I got to London I found a diamond hat pin of mine was missing and now I think he must have taken it and so I went round to see Mr. Parker again, as he's been of such help and then he insisted we come here." Her ladyship finally looked her brother in the eye. "And so here we are."For one of the first times in his life, Lord Peter suddenly found it difficult to form words."The time has come for action, you see," Charles said. "I thought we might go confront the rogue together. I mean, first threats, then theft -- who knows what else he might do next?""Indeed," said Lord Peter, recovering himself. "What an excellent idea. I suppose Mary's been obligin' with a name and address, has she?"Lady Mary blushed."Well, no," said Parker, "I think she wanted to consult with you first, only proper.""Indeed," said Lord Peter again. "Sadly," and here his lordship paused cynically to note the sudden air of hope in his sister's face, "I'm not feeling quite the thing today. It may be that we should hold off until another day.""Oh, of course," said Parker. "Sorry, should have said -- when you're feeling better, of course. I didn't know, you see -- " He gestured at the robe Lord Peter was wearing. "Er, that is, is there anything you need?""Yes, thank you, Charles," said Lord Peter. "I think I am going to send you on a quest of my own. Could you pop round to the chemist and fetch me a powder? I'd ask Bunter but I'm afraid he'd take it as a judgment. I'll just write it down for you, thanks, old chap."Detective-Inspector Parker stood up to go and paused for a minute, suddenly conscious that all was not hale and hearty between the two siblings.Wimsey waved him away. "Not to worry, Charles, Mary and I will just sit here and chat, what."Parker put on his hat and left.Lady Mary followed him with her eyes as he left and then turned to face her brother again, chin up.Lord Peter stood up and then sat down abruptly as the walls began spinning. His voice, however, paced furiously around the room."A diamond hat pin! A diamond hat pin! Honestly, Polly, Jerry could come up with a better story. Only someone as untouched and unsuspicious as Parker would fall for such a tarradiddle."Rumbled, Lady Mary had the grace to look guilty.Lord Peter looked pointedly at her bobbed hair. "I mean to say, Mary, when was the last time you even owned a hat that used pins?" He put a hand to his head. "Never mind. I don't expect it will take Charles forever to find the chemist. Tell me what's really up, ab ovo usque ad mala."Lady Mary squared her shoulders. "Honestly, I am sorry Peter, I really had no intention of involving you at this stage - not unless it became necessary, at any rate, and I say, you really are unwell, aren't you?""Getting more so, by the minute," said Lord Peter. "I have new sympathy for Lady Macbeth. A most misunderstood woman. But you're dilly-dallying - when did you first toddle round to Charles with this absurd fairy tale?""A few months ago," said Lady Mary. "I did wait for him to call me, but he's so proper, you know, and I'm sure he thought I was mourning or something and really, I decided that if I left it to him I shouldn't see him until there was another murder.""Comforting thought. I see your point, however. Am I right, by the way, in assuming that your intentions are honorable?" Lord Peter fixed his sister with a stern glare. "He's the real stuff, you know. Pukka sahib all the way.""Well, we haven't reached `The Voice that Breath'd o'er Eden,' just yet," Lady Mary said querulously, "but I'll bear your tender feelings in mind. Anyway, I had to tell him something - the notion that a young lady would just ring him up is a bit too shocking for him, I think. So I came up with the idea for the letters - and I think that was really a smashing plan.""So what happened?""Nothing," said Lady Mary, drumming her fingers along the side of her chair. "I mean, after a while it was clear that the mysterious blackmailer wasn't doin' anything, so I needed another excuse to talk to Charles.""Enter the hatpin.""Well. Yes." Lady Mary shot her brother an exasperated look. "And don't think it makes you out to be such a gentleman, either, noticing women's hat styles."Lord Peter spread out his hands. "I solemnly promise never to look at another hat, again. It doesn't quite solve your immediate problem, however."Lady Mary sighed. "No, I suppose I shall have to leave town. You can tell him I was overcome with worry and went to stay with Mother.""Oh come now, Polly, we can do better than that."She looked at him expectantly."That's the trouble with you amateur criminals," said Lord Peter. "Too complicated. Keep it simple, there's a motto to keep one out of gaol. Why not simply tell him you're not absolutely, hundred percent certain you had the hatpin when you left Denver in the first place?"Lady Mary thought a moment and then nodded."And then, not that I, the mere brother, have any part in these affairs of the heart, you could maybe suggest that he go with you back there and help you hunt for the thing?"Her eyes lit up. "Jerry and Helen are in the City next weekend for some charity do. Peter, that's perfect."Lord Peter yawned. "Excellent. Pay at the counter. Regular hourly rates plus expenses.""I say, I gave the powder to Bunter," said Parker, re-entering the room. "I hope that's in order? He rather grabbed it from me as I came back in."Lady Mary stood up and walked across to her brother. With one hand she rescued the coffee cup about to fall out of his grasp and with the other she gestured to Parker to lower his voice."Sorry, sorry," he said. "I didn't see. Is he asleep?"Lady Mary smoothed her brother's hair and bent to give his forehead a kiss. She started as his eyes opened suddenly:"Don't forget," whispered Lord Peter. "You do have to buy a hatpin at some point, of course.""Yes, I had grasped that part of the plan," she said, smiling. "Do take of yourself, brother. Lady Macbeth came to a bad end, you recall."Lord Peter closed his eyes again. "Well, she didn't have Bunter, did she?"
38565	Reefer Madness	{ "Archive Warning": "Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings", "Category": "M/M", "Characters": "Remus Lupin, Sirius Black, James Potter, Peter Pettigrew, Severus Snape", "Fandom": "Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Mature", "author": "by Xochiquetzl", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2004-07-10T00:00:00", "words": "1,240", "Additional Tags": "Drugs", "Relationship": null, "Character": null, "Relationships": "Sirius Black/James Potter, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin", "Series": null, "Collections": "FictionAlley \| Riddikulus", "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	Sirius grinned and locked the dorm room door, then pulled a joint out from under his mattress."Sirius," Remus objected. "I'm a prefect!""I'm only doing it for you!" Sirius said. "I imagine you're feeling stiff and sore because of the time of month." He grinned. "Nicked it from Sprout, just for you.""For me?" He gave Sirius his best disapproving look, which had the usual effect--none whatsoever. Perhaps it wasn't a very good disapproving look, as it really would make him feel better."I hope you brought enough for the whole class," James said, sitting on Sirius' bed."Doobie inflamare." Sirius took a long hit off the joint, passed it to James, and leaned back on his bed. "You do realize that Evans will never let you so much as sniff her knickers, don't you?""Oh, shut up," James said, but his tone was good-natured. He took a hit as well and held out the joint to Remus.Remus held up his hand and shook his head, just to set a good example. James shrugged and took another hit."You're sure, Remus?" Sirius said. "You're looking a bit peaky.""Oh, I'm sure 'Do as I say, don't do as I do,' will be much more effective in convincing you lot to behave."James rolled his eyes and took yet another hit."Don't hog it," Sirius said. "I nicked that for Remus.""He said he didn't want any!" James said, and handed it to Sirius.Sirius took a long hard drag off it, then held it out to Remus. "Come on, Moony. I noticed you barely ate all day.""Really?" James said."Really. Not that I expect you to tear your eyes away from Evans long enough to notice." Sirius waggled the joint at Remus.Remus was about to say no thank you, but then Sirius said, "You could always go out with me." Peter started giggling like a maniac, and Remus snatched the joint away and took a drag."Very funny, Padfoot," James said."What makes you think I'm joking?" Sirius had that perfect deadpan face that rendered it impossible to tell if he was joking or not. Peter started giggling again, and Sirius added, "You're not even stoned yet, Wormtail."Peter blushed and giggled at a slightly lower volume."The fact that we're not queer," James said."Oh, don't be so bloody middle-class, Prongs." Sirius leaned behind James and snatched the joint out of Remus' hand. So much for doing it for Remus. Remus sighed, but Sirius gave no indication of noticing.Well, that was just like Sirius--utterly self-absorbed. He had to know, he'd caught Remus staring at him often enough, but no, he had to go chase James, who wasn't even interested. Remus probably wasn't enough of a challenge. And yet he was so far gone he couldn't even muster up a sulk or a tantrum, no, he was just going to follow him around like a puppy, mooning Moony. Well, all right, he hadn't actually said anything, but Sirius had to know. It was obvious."How is liking tits middle-class?" James said."'Very funny, Padfoot,'" Sirius imitated, filling his voice with deep disapproval. "So bourgeois.""I like girls!" James said."No shit," Sirius said."What?"Sirius rolled his eyes and passed the joint to Peter. "Never mind."Peter was giggling uncontrollably. He didn't have a reason, he just was. It was oddly amusing.Remus sat in the window and watched James and Sirius, sprawled out on their respective beds."Evans will never, ever screw you, Prongs," Sirius said."Oh, screw you, Sirius.""That's what I'm suggesting," Sirius said. Peter shrieked and started cackling, and Sirius said, "Oh, do shut up!"James actually sat up and stared. "What?""What, am I being too subtle? I'm offering to spread 'em for you. It's not like Evans will."James stared, as if his brain had suddenly shorted out. Then he shook his head. "You're stoned."Sirius snorted. "No! Whatever gave you that idea?""You're suggesting that we..."--James made a strange, choked noise--"...here? In front of Moony and Wormtail?""We can ask them to get lost for half an hour." Sirius shrugged.Peter abruptly stopped giggling and stared."You're daft," James said."You're just noticing?" Sirius looked over at Remus. "Oh well. I'll always have you, won't I, darling?""I think I need some fresh air," Remus said, standing. "It's a bit stuffy in here."Sirius grabbed his arm, with a worried expression. Remus patted Sirius on the shoulder, extricated his arm, rolled his eyes, and left.He slipped out to the courtyard, where there were benches. There was someone already there. "You're out late," Snape said.Remus considered a couple of retorts, including the oh-so-witty So are you, but eventually settled for, "My friends are wankers sometimes."Snape gave him a long look, then smirked. "If you can't say anything nice, come and sit next to me." He scooted over on the bench.Remus sat next to him on the bench. "You're out late, too.""The few so-called friends I have are wankers all the time," Snape said.Remus laughed. Snape leaned over and sniffed him, then snorted and pulled a half-smoked joint out of his sleeve."Where did you get that?" Remus said."Wouldn't you like to know?" He snorted. "Lucius Malfoy. I think he fancies me, which is creepy and disturbing, but it would continue to be so whether I took the free weed or not.""Very pragmatic," Remus said.Snape sighed heavily and lit the joint with his wand. "I had to get away from Regulus. He's desperate to be my best friend, mainly because he wants me to introduce him to my 'connections.' Please." He rolled his eyes. "Wanker." He handed Remus the joint. "Why are your friends wankers tonight?""Er," Remus said."Have as much as you like. Plenty more where that came from.""Are you trying to get me stoned so you can get gossip out of me?"Snape gave him a scornful look and said, "Of course.""They're just harshing my mellow," Remus said. "Nothing juicier than that, I'm afraid.""Too bad," Snape said. "I'd love some good blackmail material." He snorted. "Maybe I should ask the ever-obsequious Regulus." He gave Remus a sidelong look and took the joint back. "Sometimes I think you're not utterly contemptible.""I, erm... thanks.""You've fallen in with a bad crowd, though.""Can't argue with that," Remus said. "Not that you're one to talk.""Me?""What's going on with you and Bellatrix?""Trying to get me stoned so you can get gossip out of me?"This was probably not as funny as it seemed to Remus, but he couldn't stop laughing."Remus?" Sirius called from the doorway. Remus turned to look, and when he turned back he was alone on the bench. "You should come back in. We promise to behave.""For how long?""At least ten minutes," Sirius said."That would be a record of some kind, I suspect.""How about if I promise to stop chasing James?" Sirius asked.Well, it looked like Snape had gotten his gossip after all. Remus knew he was still around. "Let's go in."Sirius leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, and they stepped inside."What's the matter? Was he offended by the suggestion that he would only last thirty minutes?"Sirius laughed. "He's a sixteen year old virgin. Thirty minutes is optimistic."
32365	Morale in the Workplace	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "M/M", "Characters": null, "Fandom": "Stargate Atlantis", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Teen And Up Audiences", "author": "by kestrelsan", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2005-12-22T00:00:00", "words": "5,434", "Additional Tags": null, "Relationship": "Ronon Dex/John Sheppard", "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	A few weeks into the new team structure, Ronon walked into John's quarters without knocking and said, "I need you to mark me."John looked up from a half-mug of cold coffee and a nearly finished report on PM-420. Stinging insects, bogs, and a stench that defied all preparation and reason; he was recommending it not be placed in the R&R database. Wiping it out of the system entirely would be preferable, and he wished he could do the same to his memory of it.He saved the report, closed the lid to the laptop, ran Ronon's words through his head a few more times and decided that yeah, he really had heard what he thought he'd heard, and said, "You need me to what?""Mark me." Ronon said it like he was asking for a second helping of that asparagus-like vegetable Teyla had bartered for back on PS-392. No; closer to asking for permission to return fire or date his ex-girlfriend. Either way, completely inappropriate."Listen, Ronon, I don't know what ideas you've formed about our culture, but---""Mark me as part of your team, part of the...." Ronon gestured vaguely as if to encompass all of Atlantis within the expanse of John's quarters, which hadn't been large to begin with and were now positively cramped."Oh." That was different; John could handle that.Something flashed through Ronon's eyes, and it took John a moment to recognize it as uncertainty. "Unless you don't want to." Now he sounded as if John had just ordered him to kill a puppy, though John wasn't sure Ronon had any particular scruples that way."No, it's not that--I mean. Jesus." He took a deep breath. "We could probably find you a...a uniform, something, if that would make you feel more a part of the team." He doubted they had any in storage that would fit, but was sure something could be whipped together."No. Look. Whenever any of us were taken on by a new...task master... if the old one had been killed or...was no longer worthy, we'd receive his mark." Without explanation, Ronon shrugged off his coat, letting it pool on the floor around his feet, and began to pull off his shirt."Wait, no, I get it, sure---"But the shirt was already gone. Ronon turned and bent his neck over his shoulder like a heron, offering up the curve of his upper arm and long plane of his back for John's perusal.Against his better judgment, John got up to look. Diagonally down from the tip of Ronon's shoulder was a dark smudge of indistinct shape, too symmetrical to be a birthmark. A symbol of some kind, unfamiliar, and apparently tattooed on the skin. It looked like a squashed pumpkin.Ronon still had his neck craned around to eye it, as much as possible from its placement on his back; and for a second his expression turned hard and brooding, caught briefly elsewhere.That was a little more than he needed to know. John cleared his throat and stepped back as Ronon's shrugged into his shirt. "Your last...task master--is that what you called it?--gave you that.""Yes."John gave him room to elaborate, but Ronon seemed to think he'd offered enough explanation, and John wasn't sure he was up for learning more about the idiosyncracies this comparison to a task master entailed. "Yes, well, I can't imagine Elizabeth would go along with us tattooing our team members.""It doesn't have to be a tattoo."Not helpful. He wished Teyla were there, with her knack for interpreting fucked-up alien mores; except that he had an image of her calmly saying, "If it would help Ronon to be marked by you, Colonel Sheppard, then you should follow his wishes.""Is this really necessary?"Ronon didn't answer, but his expression conveyed that yes, it was necessary, and that John wasn't making asking about it any easier."Um," John said. "I'll see what I can do."**They had a few days' break before the next scheduled trip offworld, so John spent an afternoon in the equipment room sifting through piles of jackets and military vests stacked on makeshift shelves in what had probably been an Atlantean dance club back in the day. He was right, there weren't any uniforms that would fit Ronon, even if he was willing to give up the large dead animal he called a coat. There were some standard-issue hats, but aside from the disturbing picture of one of them perched on Ronon's head, they reminded him of Ford. And that was a road better left untraveled.Out of ideas, not that he had any good ones to begin with, he let it rest the next day and instead played basketball on one of the wide upper terraces of Atlantis with a couple of lieutenants newly hatched from the Daedalus. They kicked his ass. He tried not to let it bother him.In the mess hall later that day, he saw Ronon over in the corner and almost took his tray over to sit with him, then remembered. He found a spot half-hidden behind one of the support pillars of the room instead. At one point he glanced up, his spoon full of something that he hoped was mashed potatoes, to find Ronon staring at him; and maybe they did have puppies on Sateda and Ronon was averse to killing them, because he looked as if John had just put a bullet into one of his. Shit.He thought better when he was moving. So the next day he spent an hour wandering around the corridors of Atlantis waiting for an idea or even the dawning gleam of an idea, until finally he found Teyla and wheedled a workout from her.A half-hour later, staring up at her from the mat with his shoulders tightened up like rubber bands in a winch, he said, "Teyla, let me ask you something."Teyla politely stood back, sticks lowered to her sides, and waited for him to rise. He rolled to his hip and tried to appear sprightly as he got his legs under him, sorer than he should have been from the basketball the day before. "Do you feel like you're part of our team?"She considered the question. "I do feel like a valued member of Atlantis, yes. Perhaps more so now than in the past.""Is there anything that helped you feel that way? Aside from us no longer accusing you and your people of collaborating with the Wraith and all." Ouch.She didn't flinch at that, but she did look puzzled. "Anything that makes you feel...included," he continued. "Not just Atlantis, but our team, the four of us. I mean, you wear the uniform and carry our guns...." He trailed to a halt."Nothing that I can think of. Except for the trust you have shown me, yes.""So there's nothing more...physical, maybe...that would make you feel...marked...as a part of our team?"Teyla's eyes narrowed just a bit, and John thought that he might be treading on dangerous ground. "I'm not sure I understand your meaning, Colonel Sheppard.""Nothing. Never mind." He looked around for his pair of Athosian sticks and finally found them in the corner, as if some idiot who didn't know what he was doing with them had had them knocked from his hands and tossed halfway across the room.The night before they were scheduled to leave for PS-2R4, Ronon paid him a visit. John wasn't entirely surprised. He hadn't pegged him as the patient type. This time, however, Ronon knocked."I just wanted to let you know that it's okay.""Um. Okay.""About the marking, I mean." Discomfort sat on Ronon like a wet dog trying not to shake itself dry, and it made John uncomfortable to see him like that, like he'd been the one pushing him in the lake."Look, it's not that I haven't been thinking about it, I just haven't found anything, you know, appropriate.""No, really, it's okay. I understand. It's not your custom. I shouldn't have asked you.""Oh. Okay. So we're good then." Except that John could see that they really weren't, that this meant something to Ronon. And that the not-okay now would potentially turn into a bigger not-okay down the line, and that was a dangerous rift to have in a team that needed each other as much as they needed each other out there in the wilds of the Pegasus galaxy."Hang on." He crossed to where most of his stuff brought back on the Daedalus was still piled in a corner of the room. It took a few minutes searching, but he found what he needed: an ID bracelet his sister had given him when he turned eighteen. It was cheap and he'd never worn it, because it was, well, a bracelet, but he'd kept it as a kind of good-luck charm and because it reminded him of his family. Not that he always wanted to be reminded, in which case it was an easy enough thing to hide under the laundry pile.He brought it back and held it out to Ronon, who stared at it suspiciously. "What is this?""It's a...it's a bracelet of sorts, but not really, and anyway, didn't you want something to make you feel part of the team?"Ronon picked it up by one end. It looked even more cheap and bracelet-like dangling from his fingers. Ronon brought it up closer and peered at it. "Is that your name?""Well, yeah....That's the kind of bracelet it is." Somehow the awkwardness of the whole situation was only increasing. "It doesn't mean anything. Just ignore that. But you wanted something, and that's something."Great. Ronon was looking at him like he'd come out in spots."Okay," Ronon said finally. "What do I do with it?""You put it on your wrist. Like this." John stepped forward and Ronon let him take the bracelet from his fingers and even held out his arm when John gestured him to. He was so focused on fitting the clasp together around Ronon's wrist--his eighteen-year-old wrists had been a lot skinnier--that he didn't catch Ronon's expression until he stepped back and glanced up, and then it hit him in a weird, detached way how intimate the process had been, and how strangely Ronon was looking at him, as if something significant had just passed between them.And then he didn't feel detached at all. Because Jesus, he'd just put a bracelet on another man's arm and it had his fucking name on it, and Jesus, what was he thinking."You know, I don't think this is such a hot idea," he said faintly.But Ronon was looking at the bracelet, twisting his wrist to study it from different angles. "I like it.""Trust me, this is a really bad idea. Look, I'll find you something else, something...better." Something that wouldn't make him the laughing stock of the entire fucking city. He reached forward to unclasp the bracelet, but Ronon pulled his arm back. Again, John felt that weird frisson of uncomfortable intimacy."Thanks."Ronon sounded so sincere. Like he actually appreciated having John's name wrapped around his wrist. "Um," said John."See you tomorrow." Ronon was still checking out the bracelet as he left the room."Sure," John said, to the whoosh of the door closing.PS-2R4 was populated by warring city-states of moderate technology; not advanced enough to solve their problems with the Wraith but nothing to sneeze at, either. A scout team had been sent three weeks ago to soften them up for further negotiations, enter John and his team; only the leader of the mountain city freaked in the middle of talks, which prompted a fit of hand-waving and dire speeches from the leader of the lowland city, and two days into a standoff involving more pointed guns than anyone was happy about, John found himself with the rest of his team in the middle of uninhabited woods twenty miles from the puddlejumper.They made it seven miles before nightfall, at which time McKay collapsed across the trunk of a giant fallen tree and refused to move. Ronon and Teyla voted to keep going; Ronon because he had no sense, and Teyla because there was still the possibility they were being followed by some of the still-ruffled lowland dwellers. But John called a halt, because carrying McKay through thick foliage in the dark was not his idea of a good time, and they all needed a break."Look, it's warm enough we don't need a fire, and we'll make better time tomorrow if we get some sleep. I'll take first watch, Teyla, you take the second. Ronon, you've got third."To his credit, Rodney offered to take a watch, but John could tell it wasn't a very sincere offer. Besides, McKay was beat. John did take over Rodney's tree; he settled his back against the trunk and listened to the others settling down, nighttime forest noises rising to the surface until he wondered how anyone could sleep through all of the racket.He had to admit he enjoyed these opportunities. Not the whole negotiation meltdown, per se, or even the prospect of hiking thirteen more miles to get back to the puddlejumper, god willing the cloak was still in place, but breaks on Atlantis still weren't really breaks; there was always too much going on and too much to do, and not enough opportunity to listen to very loud crickets chirping.He woke Teyla a couple hours later and they changed places. His pack made a decent enough pillow after mashing it into place, and it wasn't long before he was out. Until at some point in the night when he woke, blinking, feeling more than seeing some large mass looming above him, casting a faint shadow from the light of the planet's moons; he grabbed his gun, blinked some more, then hissed, "What the hell are you doing?"Ronon didn't answer. He was just a couple feet away, pistol resting against the side of one bent leg, staring out into the night.John wondered what time it was; it still felt early, and when he checked he could see Teyla still at her watch by the tree. "Why aren't you sleeping?""Go back to sleep," Ronon said."What the hell?" John had the weird, cold feeling that Ronon was watching over him. Which possibly meant that he hadn't even slept at all; and that was creepy to think about, that Ronon had been awake the whole time he'd been on watch."Just go back to sleep."John glared. It was lost in the darkness and likely on Ronon, too, even if he could see it. He hadn't realized giving a man a bracelet made that man his permanent bodyguard. Of course, he'd never given a man a bracelet before."Fine," he muttered, and turned over. He punched his makeshift pillow a few more times, and then, surprisingly, drifted back to sleep almost immediately.By noon the next day they were worn and deflated, but there were only a few more miles to go and Rodney was already scanning for the puddlejumper's exact location. John held back with him as Teyla and Ronon went ahead, disappearing after a few minutes but still in range.Then he and Rodney rounded a corner and there were Teyla and Ronon at the bottom of a vaguely defined path leading upward, Teyla examining Ronon's wrist."Shit," John said. McKay gave him a look. Ahead, Ronon and Teyla broke off their little tete-a-tete, Ronon continuing up the hill while Teyla waited for them."Trust me," John said, when he reached her. "No explanation I can give you will suffice."For Teyla, she looked positively amused. "An interesting gesture, Colonel Sheppard.""Look. He wanted something to make him part of the team. Said it was something all of his task masters did, like some kind of initiation or symbol."Teyla's gaze sharpened. "He said that?""Close enough. And so I gave him something to make him part of the team. Kind of. And okay, not really, but I was desperate. I don't remember any good suggestions from you when I asked you about it.""Had you asked me directly, I might have been able to help."McKay came up on them just as John said, "It's just an ID bracelet. It's not even a very nice one, to tell you the truth. I didn't have anything else.""What? What are we talking about?""Nothing, McKay," John said, but then Teyla said, "He appears to value it quite highly," and then Rodney said, "What" again very loudly and John snapped and told him. Then Rodney gave him a look and said, "Funny, I don't remember you offering me jewelry when I joined the team.""Forget it," John muttered, and shifted his gun to his other arm before setting up the hill.The day after they returned from PS-2R4 he went running to work the kinks out, following the curve of Atlantis's outer corridors to the upper tiers of the city, where it was another sunny day here on the planet of the Ancients, the smell of the sea a sharp yet pleasant constant.After four miles he slowed to a walk, but he didn't feel like turning back just yet. Elizabeth had been predictably understanding about the failed negotiations; sometimes he wished she would yell a little more, though, that she would put the blame on him. It would make him feel less like he was responsible only for a diplomatic gaffe and more like one of their chances of expanding their options against the Wraith had just been squashed, whether or not it was his fault.He heard the noise first, and then after ducking behind one of the tier supports and glancing back, saw a flash of cloth, and again a slight scuff against the smooth floor. And he hadn't even brought his gun. He had his radio, though, and was just about to call it in when the lurker came into view and it was Ronon."Jesus," John said, leaning against the support as Ronon approached. "Are you following me?""Yes," Ronon said.He came closer, and all of a sudden John felt an unwelcome flash of physical intimidation; and it had been a long time since he'd last felt that from someone not the enemy. "I understand that it's possibly okay to follow other people around in your culture, but it's a little freaky in mine."Ronon kept walking toward him, and when he finally stopped he was a lot closer than the distance between two more-than-acquaintances but not quite buddies allowed for. John resisted the urge to step back, even when Ronon was so close he could smell him, the faint trace of sulphur from a blown-out match.And then Ronon's lips were brushing John's cheek, and he felt the scratch of Ronon's beard and the bite of teeth on his ear lobe, nibbling.Freaky had just become inadequate. John pulled back. "Maybe we need to make a list," he said, wondering that he retained any measure of matter-of-fact-ness. "You know, detailing exactly what's okay and what's not okay in our culture.""Is this okay?" Ronon asked, and spread his hand out on John's chest, over the t-shirt damp from running; and the combined heat of John's body and the heat of Ronon's hand worked like suction to anchor him there. In the meantime Ronon had moved to the other side to kiss his neck and lick the sweat left from his run, and that was a turn-off and really fucking hot at the same time, which John blamed for his apparent disinclination to get the hell out of there.Then he realized Ronon's hand was on his bare back and that his t-shirt was bunched tightly below his chest, and that he could feel the metal of the ID bracelet on Ronon's wrist pressing against his skin.Ronon stopped kissing him and was still. Deferent, as if waiting for permission."Jesus." John's knees buckled and he fell forward onto them. That hurt rather a lot. He wondered if he could just stay there for a while, at least until the pain streaking through his knee caps settled to a more tolerable ache.Somewhere above him, Ronon said, "Do you want me to stop?"Yeah. He wanted him to stop like he wanted a fucking colonoscopy. "Yes. No. Give a guy some warning next time, won't you? That was...a little weird."He got back to his feet and had the urge to brush himself off, though the hallways of Atlantis were practically sterile. His knees still throbbed, and other parts of him were throbbing as well, and he felt hot and disheveled and completely off-balance. "Do your people do this with all their task masters?"Something flashed over Ronon's face. "No. Not always.""I see." He wished he had something more intelligent to say, but it all pretty much boiled down to that; only he didn't see, not really, and wasn't sure he wanted to. "I think for the moment that yeah, we'd better stop."Ronon didn't answer right away. "Okay.""It's not that I'm not...appreciative." Ronon wasn't making this any easier by pulling the silent treatment. "I just think that there's been a misunderstanding. And that maybe...I'd better take that back." His eyes flicked to the bracelet on Ronon's wrist."You want it back." Ronon's voice was flat."Yeah."Ronon undid the clasp. He held out the bracelet and John felt it pool in his outstretched hand. "It wasn't a misunderstanding," Ronon said.John closed his hand over it. "No, I guess it wasn't."**He woke the next morning to cold feet and what felt like an icicle forming on his nose. Even his eyelashes were frosty.He reached across the bed for the radio. "Rodney, what's going on?"There was a burst of static, a few seconds of silence, and then in a tone no reasonable person would call dulcet, Rodney said, "Why are you bothering me? Can't you see the climate controls are down?"John tossed the receiver on the bed as he reached for his pants, found a t-shirt wedged at the foot of his bed and pulled it over his head. It was stiff and cold. He hissed when it touched his skin. He was almost out the door when Rodney came back over the radio. "Where are you? Why aren't you here yet? Am I the only one in this city capable of operating in a crisis?"The control room was chaotic, considering it was only Rodney and two techs. When he walked in, Rodney handed him what looked like a miniature carburetor, about the weight of a full-sized one. "Hold this."John held the carburetor. He wondered how long he'd have to hold it because he could already feel veins popping out in his arms; he tried not to look relieved when Rodney finally plucked it from his hands and inserted it gingerly back into an open panel."What was that?" John asked, and then a moment later Elizabeth came through the door and said, "Rodney, what's going on?""Will everyone stop asking me that? The climate controls have fritzed. I would think that would be obvious." He turned to John. "Come here. I need your gene.""Why? The systems work for you."A pained look flashed over Rodney's face. "Yes, but they still like you better." Apparently that continued to gall him. He tugged John over to the panel, which was lighting up in sickly patterns like a Gameboy with batteries about to go."Push this," Rodney instructed him, and John pushed. Lights blinked less feebly. "And this," Rodney said again, and John pushed that button, too. The entire panel lit with a burst of color, then eventually settled into the more soothing, operative blinking that John interpreted as normal working condition.A hiss of air sounded above him, soon fading to a background noise that he'd never noticed until it was absent. Already his nose was beginning to thaw."Rodney, what on earth?"John let Rodney and Elizabeth hammer it out while the two techs stood against the wall, wide-eyed. Judging that his gene was no longer needed and that McKay could hold his own with Elizabeth, he wandered back through the corridors, reassuring those he passed that everything was fine, Rodney had saved the day, and that the rumors of snow in the mess hall were untrue. Not that he had any idea; for all he knew they could have been skiing.It was early, though, and most people not on shift were asleep. They'd set their schedule roughly by the cycle of the planet, so the day was just about to dawn. John wandered over to one of the outside terraces, watched the sun rise up over the water, thought, So that's pretty fucking gorgeous, then wandered back in, ending up some time later outside the quarters they'd assigned Ronon.He didn't knock."Look," he said. Ronon was sitting on the edge of the bed with one boot on, the other pulled up halfway. "You don't need a--a bracelet, for god's sake, to be a part of this team. Teams are, about, you know, doing your job. Teamwork. Working, um, with the team. Not being tattooed by them.""Why did you give it to me?"That stopped him short. "Okay, to be honest, I'm a little shaky on the reasoning behind that myself."Ronon, he could tell, wasn't going to make this easy on him. "You don't trust me."John paused, confused. "Is that what we're talking about? I went to bat for you with Elizabeth. I got you a starting position on the team. What makes you think I don't trust you?"Ronon shrugged. He didn't say anything. You're full of shit, John heard in his head, and didn't know if it was in Ronon's voice or his. Yeah, not making this easy. "Fine," John said. "Then give me a chance."That's when he realized they were talking about something completely different. Ronon knew it, too. The city's temperature must still have been lower than normal levels, because John's hands were shaking, just a bit. The back of his neck was cold. He wasn't sure he could put this down to curiosity and the fact that he hadn't been laid in a while; on the other hand, neither of those were anything to turn his nose up at. If that's what it was."This is crazy," John tried, but that wasn't flying. Obviously Ronon didn't think it was crazy at all. So he crossed the room, put his hands on Ronon's shoulders and kissed him. It was just like kissing a girl, except that he didn't remember any girl kissing him back quite so forcefully and with quite so much tongue. Apparently he'd been dating all the wrong girls."Wildly guessing here, but if there's a right way to resolve this situation, my bet is that this isn't it." He didn't seem to want to leave, though, or take his hands from Ronon's shoulders. And if it wasn't the right thing to do, it didn't entirely feel like the wrong thing, either. So instead John asked him, "Do you have anywhere you need to be?" and didn't wait for Ronon's no before kissing him again.He liked the fact that he could lean in all he wanted and Ronon would take it. He nudged him back enough to get a knee up on the edge of the bed, lodged between Ronon's thighs, and that was nice; he liked how Ronon leaned back a little, shifting his crotch to press against his lower thigh."Two things," John said, a little huskily. He cleared his throat. "One, this kind of thing doesn't always go over well in my culture. So if we could keep it, you know, kind of quiet, that would be great."Ronon's look said that at the moment he didn't give a shit about what was or wasn't kosher in John's culture, and that he was wondering when John was going to get around to doing something about what was currently parked against John's thigh."Um," said John. "Right." He soldiered on. "Two, this isn't intended to be any sort of...marking."Ronon did hesitate at that, and John could see that he was revising his expectations somewhat. That was a little deflating. But still the appropriate position to take. He was pretty sure. "Okay," Ronon said."Because I'm not your task master, or whatever it is you call it."Ronon's mouth twitched with what might have been humor. "Do I still have to follow your orders?""Yes," John said firmly. "Or rather no, not at this moment--and you know what? Let's skip the wrong and abusive bit for now. I'll show you the training video later."Ronon was already pulling his shirt off, so those last words were muffled, not that he figured Ronon was listening. Nipples tingling from where the t-shirt had rubbed against them, head already buzzing with coital non-thought, John swung himself up on the bed.If he ever did meet any of the Ancients formerly of Atlantis, John planned to tell them their beds were first rate. They held where they should, gave right where he wanted, were easy on the back and, John was discovering, were pretty great for sex, too.Ronon had already kicked off his boots and was working on his pants. John helped him. He lost himself in helping him. There didn't seem to be any hurry until there was; and then pants off, dicks out. He was sure he'd seen this film before, but the real thing was better. He found a fold of skin on Ronon's stomach and sucked on it for a while. Rubbed his chin over it, reached Ronon's cock, took it in.John Sheppard, boys and girls, sucking cock and liking it. Ronon twitched a little under him and made a sound deep in his throat like the wail of a rusty siren, and John changed that to really liking it, a lot. He could tell Ronon was just about let loose and had a moment of anticipation and just a smidgen of fear--and that was kind of hot, too; but then Ronon pulled himself back, reached for John's dick and they were both going at it in a pretzelized tangle of legs and hands and long, strong fingers.Ronon came first, and John allowed himself a smirk for both his longevity and apparent skills. Then he was coming too, blindingly quick, leaving him some time later in a soft, wracked-out shell of a human body."So," he said.Ronon's hand was splayed across his stomach, lightly sticky. It was heavy and warm, which summed up what John felt all over; he closed his eyes, knowing it was a bad idea, but then just let himself enjoy the hum of this particular complacency.When Ronon reached over him to the floor next to the bed, he stirred and troubled himself to open his eyes. Ronon shifted back on the bed, a long, shiny, bracelet-like thing dangling from his fingers."Where did you get that?""From your pocket.""Oh. Right."The bracelet swung from Ronon's hand, glinting and hypnotic, and for a moment John was mesmerized by it. It seemed so small and feeble. He took it from Ronon and Ronon let him. He turned it over in his hand, rubbed the links of the chain, brushed the pad of his thumb over the engraving of his name, then gave it back. "You can keep it," he said.Ronon didn't say anything. He closed his hand over it."But for god's sake, don't wear it."That might have been a smile. "I get it," Ronon said. "No marking.""No marking," John agreed. He liked this ease between them. It was a start, anyway. He searched for a pillow and found one, folding it under his head to find the right angle. The Ancients might be well conversant on beds, but they had something to learn about pillows. He wondered if now was the time to tell Ronon that he liked to angle his legs diagonally across the bed. "Though I did give you a pretty serious hickey."
53336	Green-Eyed Monster	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "M/M", "Characters": "Jensen Ackles, Jeffrey Dean Morgan", "Fandom": "Supernatural RPF", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Mature", "author": "by embroiderama", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2010-01-19T00:00:00", "words": "957", "Additional Tags": "Jealousy", "Relationship": "Jensen Ackles/Jeffrey Dean Morgan", "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": "Truth 'Verse", "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	thunkJeff took a sip of his beer and settled back into his chair, watching the crowd gathered near the bar's dartboard through heavy-lidded eyes.thunkHe watched Jared, gesturing toward Jensen with his hand as he talked to some pretty little thing. Watched Jensen smile widely at them for a moment before turning back to the dart board.thunkHe watched Jensen's slim hips twitch with each throw, his ass shifting under his jeans, thighs rolling back as each dart hit its target. Watched the muscles in his back tense and release, thin t-shirt stretching across his shoulders with each move.thunkTaking another sip of his cold beer, he watched Jensen wipe one wide hand across his forehead and then dry his hand on his jeans before wrapping deft fingers around another dart.thunkWatched the rest of the people gathered around the dartboard and knew they were all seeing the same things he did, a dozen pairs of eyes tracing each move of those hips, those arms. A dozen tongues that wanted to lick at the bead of sweat running down the back of Jensen's neck. It was starting to bug the crap out of him.Jeff didn't normally consider himself to be a jealous man. Whoever wanted to look at Jensen, whoever wanted to touch him, none of his business. Whomever Jensen wanted to look at, whomever he wanted to touch, that didn't really matter to Jeff, either. He had no claim on the man except for when they were alone together. When it was his hands touching that fucking amazing body.But it had been a long time. Too long. Shooting schedules had kept them in separate places--separate countries, separate continents--for a month. Jeff had arrived in Vancouver that morning, just in time to shoot a few scenes with the boys, and he and Jensen hadn't had even a minute alone all day.Everybody here wanted to watch Jensen, wanted a piece of him, and Jeff was starting to wonder when he was going to get his turn. He took another sip of his beer, and when he put it down he caught Jensen watching him over his shoulder, neck craned around to look behind him. The kid smirked at him, then turned around and threw another dart, his hips moving farther than necessary, ass tensing and relaxing visibly under soft denim.Goddamn him. Kid was playing him more than he was playing darts up there. Jeff felt his cock start to harden and, putting his beer down on the table, stood up. Keeping his steps slow and lazy, he walked up to the crowd gathered loosely around Jensen and slipped into the center of their semi-circle.He clapped Jensen on the shoulder, feeling warm skin under worn cotton. "Don't you think you've hogged this board enough for tonight?" Reached out with his other hand and plucked the dart from Jensen's fingers. Jensen turned to him, mouth opening in mock-outrage. Amusement--and something warmer--glittered in his green eyes."Sorry folks." Jensen grinned at the crowd. "Daddy says it's time to go home."Jeff laughed, made himself step back, watched Jensen nod his good-bye at Jared. He turned, walking further away from the crowd, and felt Jensen come up beside him. "I'll get you back later for that Daddy crack.""Promise?""You son of a bitch, you really know what you're doing, don't you? Shaking your ass up there, trying to see how long it takes to drive me crazy."Jensen chuckled low in his throat, casting a sideways smirk at Jeff, and Jeff couldn't take it anymore. He wrapped one hand around Jensen's bicep and pulled him back through the bar, past the restrooms and into the storage room at the end of the hallway. Flicked the light on in the dim room and just managed to let the door swing shut before his mouth was on Jensen's, hands wrapped around both of Jensen's arms, holding him up against the old steel shelves.Jensen's mouth tasted of whiskey and cigarettes, and his lips felt like a welcome home after months flying back and forth between hotels. "Mmmm," Jeff moaned, coming up for air. "You feel so good, baby." He captured Jensen's mouth again for another long, hot kiss.Jensen pulled away, gasping, shifting his head against packages of napkins and cans of tomato sauce. "You, ah," he gasped. "You've got to get on another Vancouver show. This sucks shit, man.""I know." Jeff tilted his head down to kiss Jensen's neck, and Jensen raised his chin to give him better access. Jensen moaned in pleasure, and the vibration hummed through the bones and tendons of his outstretched throat and into Jeff's mouth. Jeff pulled away slightly, licking at Jensen's skin. "But I've got a week off until they need me in LA again, and I'm spending it here.""Here in this closet? You know you can stay with me, man, if you can't afford a room."Jeff bit lightly at the warm skin next to his mouth and then kissed it to take away the sting and took a reluctant half-step back. "Bastard. You wanna get out of here before somebody needs some paper towels?""You, uh," Jensen glanced away and then back at Jeff. "You want to stay at my place? Seriously, you don't need to get a room.""I can afford--""Dude, I know. Just, if you want to, you can stay with me."Jeff felt a big, goofy smile building up inside him, but he held it back, only let out a slow grin. "I'd love to. Now let's get out of here before I get arrested for fucking you in the presence of canned goods."
24468	Diamonds	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "F/F", "Characters": "Vyse, Aika, Fina", "Fandom": "Skies of Arcadia", "Language": "English", "Rating": "General Audiences", "author": "by Wallwalker", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2009-12-01T00:00:00", "words": "491", "Additional Tags": "Fluff, Post-Canon, Community: 30_kisses", "Relationship": "Aika/Fina", "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	The heavy door to the ancient treasure fell down with a satisfying clang, and the three excited pirates behind it pushed their way into the room. "We did it!" Aika shouted as she pushed past her companions. "We finally got into the legendary treasure room of the Ancient Palace! We are going to be so rich-"She stopped short as she took in the surroundings, the layer of dust on bare stone and the strewn old clothes that littered the place. It was Fina who finally had the heart to point out the obvious. "Um, Aika... there's nothing here but junk."And they all had to admit it was true; there was nothing there that was even remotely valuable, at least not the way it should have been. Cupil squeaked beside her and flew off to search for bits of moon stones. At least he might find something he liked, Fina thought; this wasn't what they'd been hoping for at all. They'd heard so many legends about the fantastic treasures that were supposedly hidden away in the ancient palaces and strong-houses in the Valuan regions, the ones that had laid virtually untouched by both of the showers of moon stones caused by Zelos. Unfortunately, much like Rixis, the facts were considerably less attractive.Vyse sighed, poking forlornly at an old blanket that crumbled to dust as he touched it. "Looks like someone beat us to it... I should've figured someone else would've figured out the puzzles by now. They've taken everything.""Hey, look! They didn't take this!" Aika popped back into view holding something in her hands that looked impossibly big and heavy, and sparkled even in the dim light of their torches. As she ran closer Fina could tell it was a heavy gold chain - and a valuable one at that. It seemed to have been made just to show off its owner's diamond collection; the chain was literally covered in jewels of all sizes. "It was hidden in someone's really old coat!"Vyse leaned in and examined it closely with his spyglass for a moment, then whistled low. "Hey, those diamonds are real! Looks like this wasn't a total loss after all...""I know! Isn't it great?" Aika grinned, then fastened the chain around Fina's neck. It was even heavier than it looked, and Fina had to hold back a gasp. "Just think of how jealous everyone would be if you wore this everywhere!"Fina blinked and smiled nervously. "Um, Aika? Isn't it a little bit... well, a little too much?""Oh, don't be silly! It's just fine! All girls need to have really nice things to wear when they feel like it, right?" Aika laughed and winked at Fina, then kissed her on the cheek. "Besides, what's the point of finding treasure if you can't show it off?"Vyse chuckled behind them. "Aika, you're impossible."Fina just giggled; she really wasn't sure whether to be embarrassed or flattered.
32007	End Racism in the OTW -	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "M/M", "Characters": "Greg House, James Wilson", "Fandom": "House MD", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Explicit", "author": "by marginaliana", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2006-04-01T00:00:00", "words": "3,756", "Additional Tags": null, "Relationship": "house/wilson", "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": "End Racism in the OTW", "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	James Wilson was tired, bone tired. He'd spent the day trying to keep people from dying and not always succeeding, as usual, and he'd had a thoroughly depressing meeting with Julie and their lawyers in which she made it plain that she thought him quite worthless except for the money she was going to wring out of the divorce.And now he was in a cab with House, heading downtown to their favorite bar - a cab because House couldn't be expected to drive at the end of a day when his leg hurt and because Wilson, despite being responsible for the cooking and cleaning and practical activity in the apartment, wanted, for once, to not be responsible, to not owe anyone anything, and to get very, very drunk.House was silent for once, and Wilson rested his head against the cool glass of the cab window."Boy, aren't we a barrel of laughs today, eh, Wilson?" said House suddenly, and Wilson jerked from his semi-relaxed stupor."Mmm," he said. "Yeah, we should go on TV or something. Monster Truck Mania With Greg and Jimmy."House snorted. "Or better yet, we could solve medical mysteries together. We could be like Holmes and Watson. You'd be Watson, of course, the devoted hanger-on, and I'd be Holmes, the misanthropic genius."Wilson smiled at the aptness of the comparison."Of course," continued House blithely, "Holmes and Watson were totally doing each other." Wilson choked on his own spit and spent a few minutes coughing."What?" he finally wheezed out, catching sight of the cabbie's smirk in the rearview mirror out of the corner of his eye."Oh, come on, Wilson. It's obvious. Two men, best friends, one of whom doesn't like anybody but strangely allows his friend to get close to him and the other of whom spends all his time helping his friend instead of staying at home with his wife? What other motive could there be besides suppressed lust and longing?" He said this last with obvious relish and Wilson couldn't help enjoying the warm feeling he always got when House was enthusiastic about something."Alright, even given your theories about the characters' motivations, what makes you think they'd have acted on them? Especially given the prejudices of the time period." For a moment, the cares of the hospital and the burdens of trying to make a respectable life for himself fell away as Wilson slipped into his customary 'playfully arguing with House and his ridiculous ideas' zone."Well, Holmes would have noticed the fiery heat of Watson's secret desire, of course, because he notices everything," said House, laying out his points in the same completely straight-faced manner as one might use to make a diagnosis. "And since he's an arrogant bastard, not without reason, mind you, he wouldn't be able to let an opportunity like that go by without doing something about it. And of course Watson is unable to resist him, despite the forbidden nature of their passion. Hence, they're doing it. From about, oh, The Empty House onward, I'd say."Wilson leaned against the door of the cab and stared at his friend, eyes wide in an overdramatic gesture of surprise. "Wow, House," he said sarcastically, "I had no idea you were so up on Victorian homosexuals. Have you been taking a class?" House fluttered his eyelashes teasingly. "Let's assume that I grant your crazyass supposition about Holmes and Watson."House interrupted, "Is that crazyass supposition or crazy ass supposition?""Either. In any case, what's your point? That our hypothetical hit medical mystery show would involve us faking a homoerotic subtext? I think I'm okay with that.""No, my point is that in order for us to get started on the road to having more interesting Friday nights, not to mention having possible success in cable television, we need to deal with our existing homoerotic subtext, or more precisely we need to deal with the flames of your wild and burning passion for me, and my, uh, not insignificant fondness for you."Wilson forced himself to laugh over the sudden lump in his throat, but quickly realized that House wasn't laughing. Despite the extravagant rhetoric of the words he'd chosen, House's eyes failed to so much as twinkle. Wilson peered at his friend's face in the darkness of the cab, waiting for the punch line, knowing he was missing something."You're not serious," he breathed finally, sure of nothing except his friend's ability to turn the world on its ear."I am. Oh, not about your flaming adoration," he smirked, "but about you and me."Wilson boggled. How long had this been brewing? When he found out about House deleting the message from his prospective condo seller, he'd read it as "your cooking is worth the inconvenience of your presence" in House-ese, and had stuck around accordingly, but now he saw the action in a different light. Had House really been saying "your hot ass is worth the inconvenience of your presence"? Wilson sighed. This was the last thing he needed to worry about right now."House, in case you haven't been paying attention these past few weeks, I am in the middle of getting a divorce from a woman I used to love, a woman who is now taking me for all she can get; I've been sleeping on a couch for ten days; in the last week I've probably told four people they were going to die; and strangely, I think I may be having a little bit of a breakdown, here, so could you just not do this? Could you just not fuck with my mind for just a little bit?" He kept his voice from breaking but it was a close thing. The cab pulled up in front of the bar."Breakdowns come and breakdowns go," said House, pushing open the door. "What are you going to do about it? That's what I'd like to know. Pay the man, would you? I'll get us a booth." He got out and shut the door before Wilson could respond. Wilson sat in pained silence for a moment before the driver broke in gently."21.75, buddy." He handed over the cash, thinking, typical of House to stick me with the tab, and trying very, very hard not to think about anything else.-----Clearly Wilson was going to avoid the issue, thought House, which did not suit his purpose at all. Despite the morning disturbances, he'd gotten kind of used to his friend's puppy dog eyes before he went to sleep, not to mention the food. And the more evenings he found himself sitting next to a tousled Wilson, sleepy-eyed, hair static-y against the couch, tie undone, stomach occasionally displayed when he reached for another beer, the more House found himself waking both with thoughts of lashing Wilson to the bedpost with his tie and with an utterly inappropriate hard-on. The fact that Wilson was his one remaining real friend had given him pause at first, sure. But he'd made a reputation out of doing inappropriate things and having it all turn out right, in the end, and he figured this would be much the same.But Wilson wasn't cooperating, and House was actually beginning to wonder if he'd miscalculated. When Wilson had come into the bar from paying the cab driver, he'd started up a conversation about one of the British comedies he'd seen on House's Tivo, and some of his assertions had been so patently absurd House had been drawn into arguing. As he lay in bed that night, he realized he'd been manipulated.Nice work, Wilson, he thought, giving due appreciation as he always did to anyone who outmaneuvered him (inwardly, because it wouldn't do to show a soft spot). But I'll get you.Days later he still hadn't found a way to bring back the conversation without being blunt, and that method hadn't seemed to work that well the first time. So he watched, and he wanted, and he waited.It was only two o'clock in the morning when the call came. One of Wilson's patients – a thirteen year old boy named Allen, had had an unexpected relapse. House came out of the bedroom just as Wilson was shrugging on his clothes."What's up?""Paged me. Gotta go." Wilson paused, obviously struggling. "Listen, I…" He ran a hand through his hair. "I'm sorry about this. I shouldn't bother you in the middle of the night. I swear I'll find a place soon enough." He opened the door and slipped out."Wilson!" House hissed. "Wilson, you dumb son of a bitch!" But he was gone. House slammed his hand against the wall, hardly feeling the pain in the wash of loneliness. Just like him to be so goddamn nice and so cruel at the same time. He sat down on the couch and pulled the blanket up around his neck to buffer against the cold. It smelled like Wilson's slightly tangy aftershave. I'll just wait until he gets back. He might need something. House knew he was deluding himself but for once he wallowed in the sensation, allowed himself a moment of real, solid hope instead of the arrogant presumption that walled in the fear. Then he fell asleep.The next thing he knew, the couch shook and Wilson was settling in beside him, pulling over part of the blanket."Mmmm?" he groaned, only half awake, and heard Wilson's careful sigh."Are you my problem, too, House?" Wilson whispered. "My responsibility? I don't think I can handle being responsible for anyone else's happiness. Not even my own." House made an encouraging grunt noise and Wilson laughed softly, the puffs of his breath sliding along House's arm and making him shiver. Wilson carefully tucked the blanket around them both and settled down. Their heads were touching slightly.When the actual alarm went off, House slowly swam into wakefulness. As he registered his position, cramped leg stretched out below the coffee table and head resting on Wilson's shoulder, the memories of the previous night came back to him.You think you can't handle happiness, Wilson? He was surprised, despite himself. Sure Wilson was fucked up – everyone was. But House had thought his friend to be reasonably well-adjusted, given the circumstances of divorce and working with dying people. But maybe that was a symptom and not the cause. Maybe Wilson was deeply fucked up in a more fundamental way. I can handle that, thought House. In fact, better that than someone normal and boring. At least I know Wilson can cope with me. As the alarm continued to play he nuzzled against Wilson's cheek, enjoying the play of smooth skin against his own leathery face. I'll inundate you with pleasure, Jimmy boy, and you'll fall right into my arms.By this point it was clear that Wilson was awake. He'd stiffened against House's rubbing, then gently pushed his head away and stretched. House made a mumbling noise and shifted, bringing his shoulder under the barrier of Wilson's upraised arm and snuggling up against his chest."House, are you awake?" Wilson whispered. House thought it inadvisable to own up and stayed silent, focusing his energy on breathing long, slow breaths. Slowly, Wilson towered his arm and, very lightly, stroked his fingers down House's bicep. He shivered, involuntarily, and Wilson drew back, but already House was feeling a rush of hope. There was something here, between them, and he wanted more than anything to take that small spark and coax it into a full flame. Poetic today, eh, House? he mocked himself, and allowed Wilson to shake him into wakefulness.-----Wilson sighed and scrubbed his hands through his hair. At first the gesture had been a deliberate taunt about House's slowly thinning mop, but lately it had become automatic, a symptom of his confusion and frustration, his carefully blow-dried coif a victim of House's war of attrition on Wilson's sanity.When House had suggested that the two of them had some unresolved sexual tension, Wilson had protested, but underneath he'd known it not far from the truth. Practically the moment they met he'd found himself appreciating House's intense blue eyes more than was strictly wise, and even when he and Julie had first married he sometimes spent extra time in the shower thinking about the way stubble might feel against his inner thighs. But he had placed House firmly in the 'straight and unapproachable and it would only fuck things up' category of his mind, right up until the humorous but forceful ultimatum he delivered in the cab.Since then, House hadn't brought the topic up again, choosing instead to press his suit with frequent touches – a hand on his back as they left the apartment, a brush of his leg as they sat on the couch – and a subtle but noticeable lack of cutting criticism on Wilson's morning habits. Wilson had to admit it was working. He was lonely, and he enjoyed his friend's company, and he woke up hard with House's name on his lips more often than not. But his good sense resisted the idea. House plus sex was a recipe for disaster, even if Wilson thought they could do it without him getting emotionally attached (or more emotionally attached, anyway). Surely they would fuck it up somehow, and then both of them would be alone and miserable.Let's face it, he reminded himself, standing out on the balcony, you'd fall in love with him. And there's a distinct possibility that he'd never be able to love you. After all, this is just about sex. It's always about sex.He sighed and headed for House's office, poking his head in."Lunch?""Certainly, Iron Chef Wilson! What'd ya bring me?"Wilson couldn't help smiling. "Unfortunately you'll have to make do with faux-Emeril cafeteria food instead. I was in a rush this morning.""Pah! Real Emeril is bad enough. Still, I suppose I haven't had my weekly dose of grease. My stomach might rebel against all that healthy shit you've been feeding me. Very well, lead on."House, of course, was good to his word and got the greasiest bacon cheeseburger Wilson had ever seen. As they discussed the latest shortcomings of House's staff, he impatiently licked his fingers clean before waving them expressively in a gesture meant to imitate the placement of Foreman's head relative to his ass, and Wilson was completely and utterly turned on."…and so of course I had to fight with Chase to get what he owed me. At least Cameron's learned to pay up promptly or not bet at all." House smiled with immense satisfaction and Wilson's heart gave a leap. His friend was so charming like this – all friendly cockiness and intelligence and enthusiasm. Damn, thought Wilson, feeling his stomach flutter in a completely ridiculous manner, I'm already in love with him, aren't I? He frowned, upset with himself. Wilson, you fool.He realized that House had stopped rambling and was looking at him with steely eyes; only someone who knew him as well as Wilson did could discern the tinge of hurt in them. House swallowed and looked away."Was the idea so completely disgusting to you that it's contaminated everything else?" he asked, voice flat. "Because I haven't even said anything objectionable yet and you're looking at me like dogshit on your shoe.""What? No!" Wilson spluttered. "It's just that I… I…" House sighed."Save it," he muttered, pushing himself to his feet. "Just save it. I don't know why I thought you'd be different anyway." He turned away."House, stop," said Wilson impatiently, but his friend just kept walking out of the cafeteria. In his shock, it didn't occur to Wilson to go after him until House was out of sight.It took him the rest of the afternoon to get House alone, but he finally managed it by emotionally blackmailing Cameron with concerns about House's welfare. The inside blinds were down in House's office, blocking them from view from the hallway as he slipped inside. House sat in his chair, twirling his cane and staring out the window at nothing in particular, and Wilson felt a bizarre nervousness."What's a nice doctor like you doing in a place like this?" he joked, but House didn't respond. Wilson sat on the edge of the desk and tentatively reached out for his friend's shoulder. "Hey.""Don't you have some other misanthropic genius to torture?" asked House, but without the bitterness Wilson had expected."I'm sorry," said Wilson, and at last House swiveled to face him. "It wasn't about you, this afternoon. It was about me.""But you're still not interested.""House, it's not about—""Fuck you. I want an answer. I'm tired of waiting." House scrubbed his face with a hand and Wilson could see he really did look tired."Look," he temporized, "did you ever think a guy, no matter how open minded, might need a little time to examine his sexuality when his best friend comes onto him?"House's brow furrowed. "Wilson, you fucked guys in med school.""How the hell do you know that?""You talk in your sleep." Wilson looked surprised and House snorted. "So don't try to give me that line about examining your sexuality. If it's not sufficiently examined by now it never will be." Wilson shook his head, realizing that once again House was too smart for everyone else and really the only option that wouldn't necessarily fuck everything up right away was to embarrass himself by spilling the truth. Probably House would only hold it over his head for a couple of weeks and then they'd move on. Maybe. Possibly. Wilson bowed his head."House… it's…""Spit it out, Jimmy boy." At this, Wilson finally lost his temper."You asshole. Did you ever stop to think that maybe a guy contemplating having sex with his best friend would have a little trouble keeping his emotions out of the way? Not all of us are as mercenary as you." It was a low blow, but House didn't even appear to notice."So? Emotions get involved. What's wrong with that?"Wilson sighed. "Well, I don't expect Holmes and Watson spent a lot of time skipping through fields of daisies and talking about their feelings. They were fucking each other. That's what you said. That's all." He slid off the desk and turned away, peering out over the edge of the balcony. "I don't think I can do that." Now his humiliation was complete."Holmes and Watson," said House, "were partners. They worked together. They supported each other. They braved the disapproval of society. And they sure as hell didn't do all of that just because they were fucking each other." Wilson heard the creak of the chair behind him as House stood."So what are you saying? That my appreciation for the finer points of gay subtext is lacking?""I'm saying," said House's calm voice now close to his ear, "that emotions may already be involved, here. That this – fighting, tiptoeing around the issue – has been hell. That I don't want you to move out." Wilson sucked in a breath as he felt House's lips just inches from his neck. "That I don't want you to move out ever."Something broke in Wilson's chest and he turned, catching House's lips with his own. The kiss was hard and hot, and for a moment Wilson actually thought the words "flaming passion" before House began nibbling on his lip and all thoughts fell away.House pushed him against the window, slipping his leg between Wilson's and rubbing their hips together, sliding his tongue against Wilson's when he opened his mouth to moan. House's nimble fingers jerked his shirt loose and raked over the skin of his stomach, popping the buttons as his arm moved far enough up to run his thumb over Wilson's nipples. He moved his lips to Wilson's neck, licking and nibbling along the jaw line, and Wilson's head fell back against the window with a thunk."God, House…"House swiftly undid Wilson's belt and moved to push down his slacks."Window!" gasped Wilson, only half-caring that anyone walking on the grounds would be able to see them. He could feel House's smirk against his collarbone, but thankfully House took the point. He rested his weight against Wilson's side and reached down, slipping Wilson's cock from his trousers and running his calloused fingers along the length. Wilson closed his eyes gave himself over to the sensation of House's perfect strokes. The pleasure built until he was moving frantically, panting and thrusting furiously into House's rounded fist."Look at me," commanded House, and Wilson obeyed without thinking. The sight of House, lips reddened from kissing and eyes blazing with intense concentration sent him over the edge, and he moaned House's name as he came.A minute later Wilson had caught his breath and House was looking smugly pleased. Wilson smirked and dropped to his knees.House was warm and silky and hard in his mouth, and Wilson remembered all the skills he hadn't put to use in years - how to run his tongue just so, how to cup House's balls and stroke his thumb over the skin just behind. He felt gloriously full of sensation, alive, like every nerve in his body had perked up and begun to pay attention for the first time."Jesus, Wilson… " he heard, then "Jimmy!" For some reason it felt intimate when House mangled his name in that specific tone and Wilson hummed with pleasure. "Yesss," hissed House, and came into Wilson's mouth.Now Wilson enjoyed a smirk of satisfaction, wiping the edges of his mouth against House's shirttail. House grabbed the edge of Wilson's tie and hauled him upwards for another deep, searching kiss.Wilson rested his forehead against House's and enjoyed the sensation of House's cheeseburger-y puffs of breath."Home," murmured House, "before the cleaning staff catch us with our pants down." Wilson snorted but helped House zip himself up."So we're… good?" he asked as they made their way out of the building."Unless you're going to stop me from tying you to the bedpost and fucking you senseless later on." Wilson laughed, but he felt himself harden again."I don't expect that any objections I might have would stop you.""Glad to see you've learned your place." House smirked, but softened. "Yeah, we're good." He paused. "But if we ever do become famous TV stars, we're doing it on a major network."
48907	Those Who Favor Fire	{ "Archive Warning": null, "Category": "F/M", "Characters": "James T. Kirk, Cupcake, Leah McCoy", "Fandom": "Star Trek XI", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Explicit", "author": "by Rubynye", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2010-01-10T00:00:00", "words": "6,072", "Additional Tags": "Alternate Universe - Dark, Mirror Universe, Genderswap, Threesome - F/M/M, Minor Character Death", "Relationship": "James T. Kirk/Cupcake/Leah McCoy", "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": "Fire And Ice", "Collections": "ISS Enterprise", "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": "Rape/Non-Con, Graphic Depictions Of Violence", "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	Title: Those Who Favor FireFandom: Star Trek XIRating: NC-17 with warnings.Pairing: Mirror!Kirk/Mirror!Cupcake/Mirror!Leah McCoySummary: In which Dr. Leah McCoy does not get a night off.Prompt: "Can we get some likes-to-direct!Kirk in here?" at the Kink Meme.Content Advisory: Non-consensual, threats of violence (including towards a child), onscreen violence, offscreen character death. Interstitial segment to "And Would Suffice".Acknowledgements: I wouldn't've written my Mirrorverse without 's. There are some similarities of theme and coincidence to her "Karma", but I finished this story before I read hers.Disclaimer: None of these characters or their settings belong to me.Title from "Fire and Ice" by Robert Frost.Leah pulls her face straight as she strides towards the Captain's quarters. He may be too hurt for his usual after-mission celebrations (stabbed in the groin and left testicle, and the survivors of the away team aren't talking because they know what's good for them, but Leah wonders just how he pissed off some unfortunate native enough to inflict such a personal injury) but Kirk can certainly make her pay steeply for any hint of amusement.Not least since tonight's also when Kirk inputs the weekly code to keep the chip in Joanna's arm from detonating. Some weeks he's made Leah wait for hours, coming up to seconds from the deadline as he chats about nothing and watches her vibrate with impatient worry; he's smirked as she begged on her knees, ordered her to make a fool of herself trying to dance like an Orion, set his padd on her head and typed in the code while she sucked him. The irony of it is, Joanna adores Kirk like a favorite uncle, and he treats her like a favorite pet. Rationally, Leah tries to convince herself Kirk wouldn't kill Joanna, to stop making it so easy for him to wind her up with that threat, but week after week her rational mind freezes up rather than ever call that bluff.It's been a helluva day, three casualties from the away team, not counting Kirk's left nut, and she's even less in the mood than usual. As she arrives at the Captain's quarters she doesn't dare smile, so she folds her arms and tries to radiate neutral severity. Doing her best to look uninteresting, Leah hopes he'll keep it brief and actually get half the rest she told him he needs, that he'll let her get back to reading the latest journals and watching Joanna sleep.The door whisks open. "Bones!" Kirk calls from his desk, smiling toothily, "you're out of uniform."Leah grimaces. Kirk likes to bother her about her insistence on wearing male uniforms instead of the bikini top and glorified belt the women are issued, which is probably why he allows her to. "I'm a doctor, Captain," she snaps before she thinks, right on cue, and feels mildly disgusted with herself; it's almost banter by now. "Even we female medical staff need more than a few scraps of--"A movement beside Kirk's bed catches Leah's eye -- it's a tall, wide, naked man stepping around the partition and striding forward. Chief of Security Lt. Commander Collinson, the goon Kirk's nicknamed Cupcake, smirking nastily through his stupid goatee, meaty fists settled on his hips, erection thrust forward like a truncheon.Leah's mouth falls open on a useless goddamn gasp. She snaps it shut, firming up her jaw, backing away towards the door. "Oh, Hell no." Hot outrage surges in her veins, swamping her obedience, bolstering her voice. "No, Sir," and that's already more insubordination than even a playful Kirk will indulge but her defiance picks up speed and volume, "you can suck each other's dicks because I'm not--"Kirk shrugs one hand up, brandishing his personal padd, and just like that Leah slams from hot to cold, rage to terror, biting down on her lips as the door smacks up against her back. Collinson stands there watching their little drama like some entertainment put on in the goddamn Rec Room.The door slides open, and without its confining support Leah wobbles. Kirk tilts his head a little, narrowing his eyes that way he does before he hits an opponent's weak point and rips them open, that look he gets when considering whether to kiss her or bite her. "You could return to your quarters, Doctor McCoy," he says coolly, almost without inflection. "But I don't think you'll like what you'll find if you do."Leah's fists clench, her eyes squeeze shut, she wishes with sickening force she'd taken the dagger Kirk offered her so she could gut him with it now. But she knows the only person she could hurt with it is herself, and Joanna's nowhere near old enough to leave alone, not with her favorite sociopathic Captain Jim, not anywhere in this shitty Empire.Leah's knee bends, her foot slides forward, her weight shifts and the door shuts behind her. "Captain," she murmurs, and her voice isn't her own, small and shaking. Her heel detaches from the floor, her hip pivots, her leg straightens. "Just input it. Please."Kirk sighs elaborately. "Can't put it anywhere at the moment. Doctor's orders." Leah's teeth grind together, pain sparking into her jaw. "And I think I need a little break from all this paperwork." Collinson snickers, and Leah thinks longingly of spitting in his face. "Come here, Bones," Kirk coaxes with a little sideways smile, a sickening parody of kindness, and Leah shudders but takes another slow step. "That's my girl."I'm not your girl, Leah thinks, clearly and pointlessly, as she staggers forward. She tells herself not to open her mouth, parts her bitten lips, and spits out the words.Kirk snorts. Collinson laughs. "That's insubordination, sir. Want me to discipline her for you before we get started?""At ease, Cupcake." Leah hears Kirk's chair creak as he stands up, his normal stride hitched with a slight limp. "When I want you to pipe up I'll tell you what to say."Leah stands, and shivers, and waits, dread settling chilly in her gut. Air eddies around her as Kirk steps close, and she braces herself for a blow. He hasn't hit her in front of anyone before, but he's never offered her to anyone else before either. He made it clear no one besides him but Joanna even gets to touch her. The other day she actually forgot and when she reached to pat Chapel's arm her head nurse shied away, eyes flaring in fear.Kirk's hand lands on Leah's cheek, incongruously light for the violent shudder that wrenches through her. "Open those eyes, Bones." His voice is soft and deadly, and she cracks them open, not even trying not to glare. Kirk just pats her cheek, his smirk indulgent. "There you go. Now that uniform doesn't really suit you, but you seem to like it, so if you want to keep it you'd better take it off yourself."Like hell she will. Leah jerks her burning face away into a headshake, dropping her eyes, hoping he's satisfied with this humiliation. "Sir, you've made your point." Her fists clench more tightly, short nails denting bright steadying pain into her palms. "Just, just put in the code and dismiss -- him." She doesn't struggle for as long as she used to, as long as she should, before she adds, "I'm begging you."Kirk slides a finger under her chin, and her skin quivers. "Bones, honey, there is no point." He raises his voice a bit. "Hey, Cupcake, I guess you're going to have to help her.""Yes, Sir!" Collinson steps nearer. Leah inhales on a dizzying adrenaline spike and dodges, darting around Kirk's desk. He could've stopped her, but he just watches, his smirk tilted sideways and his eyes alight with laughter."But--" As Collinson lumbers after her, grinning and unhurried, Leah feels herself gasping, her heart racing. "What the blazes happened to no one ever touching me?""Without my permission," Kirk explains with amused patience, his arms folded, the all-important padd dangling from his careless fingertips. "Sulu made a bid for Collinson's position, so I thought I'd show my security chief how I value him." Said hulking security chief paces forward, slowly backing Leah against the wall as her fingers twitch towards her one hidden weapon."What's that got to do with me?" Leah hoists her fists, right higher than left, and Collinson laughs; Leah has large hands for a woman her height, steady as a doctor's need to be, but she's no kind of fighter and everyone onboard knows it. "I didn't support Sulu! I don't care how your gang of thugs sort out their pecking order!" Waving her right fist to draw Collinson's attention, pushing thought through the din of panic, Leah's too busy to halt her mouth and it keeps running. "What do you want from me, Kirk?"She forgot to call him 'Sir,' too. She knows on a fresh surge of fear he didn't miss her omission, but he just laughs, watching Collinson grab at her; she lets those thick fingers clamp around her right wrist as she snatches the hypo of sedative from her left pocket and swings it up--Collinson bats it from her grip, grabs her left wrist too and jerks her in, spinning her and folding her into a perverse hug. He smells like a horse. "Gotcha, Doc," he blows hot through her hair. "She's a live one, Sir!" He pulls her in tighter as she thrashes, a slab of hard meat against her back, his erection denting her ass. "Didn't know she had it in her." Leah stomps on his toes and he doesn't even budge, just grunts and lifts her off her feet, arms crushingly tight across her chest."Cupcake my friend, you're in for a wild ride," Kirk purrs, stepping out of the way as Collinson hauls Leah back into the middle of the room.She's been too busy fighting to speak, but that really does it. "He can ride you off to Hell, you sadistic bastard," she shrieks, too high, too breathless, much too honest, but she's trying to bang her heels into Collinson's knees and can't quite aim right. "I'm not gonna gratify your favorite goddamn brute, so get him offa me!"Collinson drops Leah in front of Kirk. She completely intends to shove herself to her feet and march out, until she looks up into his hot blue eyes, until he waves the padd at the edge of her vision and she remembers why she's here. "Bones," he says, his voice so infuriatingly warm, "you know what I want? To watch Collinson fuck you." She flinches, and he just smiles wider. "Now behave and take off your clothes."Leah's eyes burn, but she presses her mouth shut, holds her chest rigid against a furious sob. She's played this wrong. Men like these enjoy getting reactions, so she's not giving them anything more if she can help it. Turning her gaze down to the carpet, forcing herself to breathe slowly -- out for a count of four, in for a count of four -- Leah pulls her shirt off, then her undershirt, folding each. As she unhooks her bra, Collinson puffs over her like the animal he is, and she feels Kirk watching her with that smirk and those hot blue eyes, but neither of them speak.While she pulls off one boot she thinks about how she could swing it up and back, and maybe hurt Collinson badly enough to keep him from fucking anything for at least a week. She pulls off the other, judging its weight and balance in her hand, and Kirk says, "Bones," in the gentle scolding voice he uses on a misbehaving Joanna, and God, she can't think of her baby girl now, not in the middle of this. "Get on with it."She should say, 'Yes, Sir.' She wants to shout every curse she knows. She just grits her teeth until her jaw creaks and shimmies out of her pants."Where's her agonizer?" Collinson asks with lunkish curiosity.Kirk snorts dismissively. "That would be boring." He leans in on Leah's right, offering her a hand. She pointedly pushes up with her left, avoiding his help. "Panties too, Bones." She peels them down her thighs and steps out of them, folding her arms as she stands there naked and hot-faced, glaring at Kirk's shiny black boots as he breathes a pleased noise and Collinson's whistle behind her brushes her nape."I don't see why you call her Bones, Sir," Collinson says, like she can't hear him. Maybe he's used to sexual congress with partners too stupid or unconscious to understand speech. "Can I?" At least she has that warning before his hand lands heavily, wide and damp on the middle of her back. "I thought she'd be skinny under all those clothes, but..." He drags it down her skin, sense-memory like trails of slime prickling in its wake. "You got good taste in girls." His hand veers off her spine to squeeze hard on the swell of her ass, and she tamps down on the quiver, doesn't give them the satisfaction of seeing her twitch."Glad you approve." Kirk steps away from Leah, and she actually almost looks up, has to crimp her arms tighter to keep from reaching for him. "Carry on, then." She hears the rustle as he sits, probably on his desk rather than behind it, and curses herself for wanting to call out to him as Collinson chuckles and wraps his other arm around her chest, pulling her back against himself.Or, no, it makes a kind of sense, Kirk is at least familiar. She knows professionally what's happening to her head, and tries to drag up something useful, but dim memories of lectures and screens of text fall away under Collinson's groping fingers. She shudders and he snickers, hot and damp on her neck, curling his hand around her breast. "What a waste of clothes," he says, her guts churning as his other hand spreads over her belly. "If you were my woman I wouldn't even let you wear the girls' uniform.""I'm not your woman," Leah says, trying for cold, at least achieving angry. "Get on with--" Her nipple twinges between his fingers, and her voice hitches. "Dammit, just do it.""Do what?" Collinson draws out the words as he tweaks her nipple again. Leah's shoulder twitches with the thought of driving her elbow backwards into his diaphragm, but she can't shift it, he's got her pinned too well."Get a move on," Kirk says from behind them. "Right turn, Cupcake. Bones, face him."Collinson grabs Leah up off her feet as he complies, startling a noise out of her despite everything, an additional fillip of searing humiliation. "Put me down, you lummox," she snaps, twisting out of his grip.Kirk snorts with amusement. She'd glare at him but Collinson pulls her back in, meaty hands spread over her spine, and she pushes against his chest uselessly before she can stop herself. He's frowning at least, she didn't think he'd even know what 'lummox' meant.But then he grins, and when her fists ball up involuntarily he gathers both her wrists in one big hand, pinning them without concern over his heart. "This lummox is gonna fuck you through the floor, Girl Doc," he says, leering. "You might as well just relax."Instead she spits right between his piggy eyes, and for good measure she laughs as saliva drips down his nose and his face crumples into rage, as fear spikes into exhilaration. His grip tightens, mashing a bruise into her waist and making her wrists creak, pain flaring across her back and up into her hands, and she gasps, "Can you even fuck anyone who's not trussed up or knocked out?" She's naked, she can't stop this, but she'll be damned if she's just going to shut up and surrender.Collinson looks like he's about to hit her, and if he hurts her too much Kirk might stop him, maybe. But Kirk laughs, and Collinson's eyes flick sideways to him. Leah looks away, towards the distant door."I love the banter, really, and you two look so sexy together, but I don't think you've got the balance to fuck on your feet, Cupcake. Wipe your face and get on the floor. You too, Bones." Collinson lets go of her wrists to swipe his face dry, dragging her down with him as he kneels. She thumps down off-balance, bouncing with a startled squeak, and Collinson snickers as he pushes her back on the scratchy industrial carpet. Leah wants to kick him more than she wants to breathe, but she grudgingly has to agree with Kirk that they need to get this over with. The sooner she pleases this slab of musclebound cretinism and the blue-eyed sadist who captains this ship, the sooner Kirk will enter that code and she can go autoclave herself in the shower."Careful, you lummox, if I wanted her hurt she'd be in the agony booth." Startled by the insult, Leah glances at Kirk, and he motions them on with a little two-fingered whirl. "Kiss her already."Leah tenses to snarl as Collinson leans over her, that this isn't that kind of dance and the last thing she'll do is act like it's anything she remotely wants, but he hesitates, looking up at Kirk. "Sir, permission to speak freely?" Kirk nods negligently. "She's gonna bite me."Leah's laugh rips painfully from her throat. "Oh, look, he's got one functioning brain cell!"But Kirk exhales with ominous impatience. "McCoy," he says, low and commanding, and she hates herself because she can't defy that voice, "I order you not to bite Collinson." Leah looks up at him, his tight mouth, his blazing eyes. "Bones.""Sir," she answers, bitterly obedient. "Yes, Sir." She doesn't look at whatever smirky triumph is on Collinson's face; she closes her eyes, blows out a slow breath, and goes limp on the floor.Another lesson, this one from Jake. She couldn't always make herself do this, more often than not her innate stubbornness would straighten her spine and keep her yelling despite how much harder Jake would hit her for it. But sometimes she just went limp, just stopped resisting, and Jake would give up in disgust, leave her and stalk away, slam the door and not return for hours.It doesn't work as well with Kirk, he gets under her skin in ways Jake never thought of. But it works sometimes, when he's so exhausted even he can't just brazen through it, when he doesn't have all the time he wants to torment her, and right now Kirk isn't the one on the floor with her. Collinson's meaty hand is tentative on her face, and she can't help shuddering but she doesn't try to dodge. Carpet thin and scratchy beneath her, metal decking chill under that, and Collinson's exactly as bad at this as she expected, slablike lips and raspy beard."That," Kirk comments, "is a seriously unsexy kiss." Collinson growls and gives up, and Leah pushes down the desperate urge to wipe her face; he paws over her breast and arm and shoulder, and she presses her fists against the floor and doesn't let herself try to twist away. But then he grabs her hair and it's all she can do not to gasp at the burn through her scalp, as his hot open mouth smears across her collarbones and up her throat. "That's better," she hears from Kirk through the rising buzz in her head, but if she lets herself curse she might just scream. All she can do, as Collinson tugs her hair until her neck arches and scratchily tries to hickey her, is grit her teeth and hold herself still."You still awake there, Bones?" Kirk asks, his mild tone sliding deeper under her skin than Collinson's teeth can press. "Not bored, are you?"Leah tells herself to let silence answer, tells herself not to flip him off, not to talk, not to move, and on the next breath croaks, "Fuck you." Kirk inhales expectantly. "Sir."He exhales a laugh, and Leah actually sees red flicker behind her scrunched eyelids. "Yeah, we might as well get to that. Cupcake, catch."Collinson drags his mouth off her neck and she hears something small sail through the air and smack into his hand. "What's this for?""Heh," says Kirk, like he's holding back some damn joke, and, "I don't want her damaged. Lube up."Leah worries the inside of her bottom lip between her teeth, pressing her tongue to the protein-and-metal taste of the bruise. She can get through this, like she used to make it through Jake's beatings, like she can sometimes manage to endure Kirk. Collinson may fuck her but he can't move her. The wet slick noise crackles down her jangling nerves but she doesn't let the shudder surface. When Collinson touches her she can't keep from jerking visibly as his big slippery fingers push her open, but she concentrates on the rasp of carpet under her hands and her back, the bright throb of her teeth sunk in her lip, and doesn't move and doesn't move."She always this quiet?" Collinson slides a meaty hand along the back of her leg, pushing it up, and a whimper flutters in the back of Leah's throat but she swallows it down. Even when he leans closer, breathing hot over her forehead, "Bet I can make her scream.""Easy, there," Kirk admonishes, "this isn't an interrogation.""Yes, Sir." Collinson nudges in alongside his fingers, blunt and hot, and Leah's shaking, shaking hard, but she barely feels it. It's like she's sitting across the room, watching herself flat on the floor with Collinson over her and Kirk observing from his desk. "C'mere," Collinson mutters as he grips her waist and drags her closer, her leg over his chest, and he shoves in and she breathes out. She can get through this. Sweat runs icy down her skin and Collinson grunts as he thrusts, a heavy intrusive thumping and a rhythmic bruising stretch, but she keeps thinking of how this will be over soon, of a scalding shower and a dermal regenerator, that she can get through this.Under the awful smack of flesh colliding she hears Kirk breathe an appreciative noise, and doesn't turn her head, not towards him, not away. "I want to see those tits bounce," he calls, and Collinson knocks a whimper out of her before she can clamp down on it. Her aching eyes overflow, two hot streams of tears down the sides of her face, but she's not sobbing. Her lip oozes between her tight-clenched teeth, blood and rank sweat all she tastes in the back of her throat, but she's not screaming.Something clinks on Kirk's desk, and the smell of alcohol cuts through Collinson's reek. Wonderful, Kirk's drinking, which is against her standard instructions, and why does she care if he incapacitates himself with that crazy Scott's moonshine while he lets his pet goon fuck her on the floor of his quarters? The thought makes her thrash like she could dislodge it, loosening her grip enough that Collinson knocks a high noise out of her, and he grunts a nasty laugh and a sob shakes her chest.But it doesn't escape aloud. Leah hangs onto herself, even when Kirk says, "You should see yourself, Bones." He sips, and Collinson ruts, and Leah curls her fists up so tightly her hands ache to match her eyes. "You look so fucking hot, you know, with this strapping specimen of manhood giving you all he's got." She stares at the darkness behind her eyelids and shoves the images away. "It's something else to watch you jiggling so nicely without being distracted by the feel." If he says they should do this again she doesn't know how she'll hold back the scream, but he doesn't. He just drinks and watches, and asks instead, "What's running through your head, during that whole lie back routine you've got going? What sweet little thoughts?"She thinks of the little daughter she's trying to keep safe, the code she's trying to earn, and shatters into struggle, arching on a gasp of pain. "No," she cries at Kirk, and tries to throw her hand across her own mouth, but Collinson leans forward to catch and pin her wrists as Kirk just chuckles. "No, no, oh, God..." The angle shifts, equally uncomfortable but sharper, deeper, and panic buffets her and she can't breathe, her chest seizing up on sobs. No, damn it all, no, she thinks, crying too hard to even speak.Through Collinson's smacking and grunting, through her own noise and her blood roaring in her ears, Leah hears Kirk's smug, "I knew you could do better, Bones. Cupcake, stop." Collinson groans incredulously, shuddering to a halt, pulls out and lets go, and Leah kicks and squirms as far as a breath's fighting will take her before the sobs crumple her up and she slumps facedown, pressing her slicked thighs together, hiding her head under her arms.Collinson pants over her, his bulk suspended on arms and thighs like a cage around her body, and eventually he gasps plaintively, "Sir? I was--""You'll get your rocks off, don't worry," Kirk says. "Bones, look at me." Still shuddering, she wraps her arms tighter over her head as if she can physically hold herself back from obeying him. "Look at me," Kirk repeats, slower and silkier, and she hates every individual muscle in her neck as it bends, hates her arms for sliding off her head, hates herself for it, but she looks up.He's standing right in front of them, tall and dangerous and smiling; he barely winces as he crouches, and his hand cupping her cheek pulls a worse sob out of her than Collinson ever managed. "There's my girl," he says, thumb smearing down a tear-track, and she can't even deny it. "Hands and knees."She's shaking and coughing, breath hitching, but she does it, as Kirk's fingers smooth with horrible gentleness over her wet face, as he holds her blurry gaze. "There you go." He beckons over her shoulder. "Back in, but don't thrust, not yet."Leah tries to drop her head but Kirk pushes it up. With a big damp hand clamped on her thigh and an exasperated groan, Collinson shoves into her again, and she winces, shutting out Kirk's eyes by shutting hers, her gasp too close to a cry."Look at me," Kirk orders, pushing his thumbpad wet along her bottom lip, and she tries to shut her mouth but whimpers uncontrollably, shaking too hard around Collinson sunk into her and under Kirk's hand. "Don't make me tell you again."Somewhere between them, in her battered heart, Leah finds a scrap of defiance. "Or what?" She shouldn't, she knows she shouldn't, Kirk can always make it worse, but right now she can't even imagine how, can't think of anything beyond this.Kirk just smiles, wide and amused. "Such a pretty mouth." She tries to twist her head away and he catches her face between both hands. "You know why I didn't make you blow him with this luscious mouth?" She doesn't, she doesn't want to, she doesn't want him to taunt her with how much longer he can drag this torment out. "I wanted to watch your face. These eyes, this mouth." Her stupid, transparent reactions.Collinson shifts impatiently, kneeing Leah's legs that much further apart, and Kirk flashes a grin at him, sunny and cheerful and all the more awful. "Sorry, Cupcake. You've put on a hell of a show, but I'm just a hands-on kind of guy." Kirk pushes Leah's shoulders up as she barely manages to scrabble at his arms, until her carpet-burned back stings against Collinson's sweaty chest. "Hold her up?" Gathering her wrists in one hand, he pulls them up over her head, and Collinson grabs them as Kirk sits back, admiring the effect.Leah glares at Kirk through the fallen tendrils of her hair, dangling from Collinson's thick fingers and spitted on him and even more humiliatingly displayed than just being stark naked. After a moment, Kirk pulls out her hairpin, and the rest of her hair tumbles down around her face. "There," he says with satisfaction. "As you were."But he doesn't back off. Leah's teeth almost meet through her top lip as Collinson grunts, "Thank you, Sir!" and bounces her, and she feels him in the back of her fucking throat but she manages not to make any noise. Kirk's eyebrows pull in a bit as he strokes her cheek again, and her guts squirm, her scraped-out throat tightening with dread.Her hair flares out all over, her breasts jiggle ridiculously, Collinson's huffing in her ear and Kirk's watching her with challenge in his eyes. Leah swears she'll make him work for it, but that crashes almost immediately when he leans in with one hand braced on Collinson's shoulder and his lips by her ear. "Now where's my lively Bones?" he murmurs, his fingers skimming knowingly down her body, and panic wells up like an internal bleed.She shakes her head uselessly, unable to keep still as his hand traces her carotid and flickers over her collarbones; his fingers draw a circle around her nipple, tightening sensitive skin, raising sparks of unwelcome pleasure. "No," she gasps, and worse noises push up her throat thrust by thrust, trying to spill out. "No, stop, please," and her voice tilts high and breaks as he pets over her ribs, nerves lighting under his hand and Collinson jostling her over and over. "No, no, no," as Kirk's tongue slickly traces the curves of her ear, as he strokes her belly like a devastating kiss. Something twists beneath his hand as he slides it lower, and she thrashes her head away from his mouth and wrenches her wrists in Collinson's grip but she can't get away from either of them. "No!" is all that falls out of her mouth, over and over, and when Kirk brushes her clit with one deadly fingertip she screams it."I think yeah," Kirk whispers, pinning her head to Collinson's sweat-slick shoulder, his arm a hard bandolier of muscle across her, relentlessly stroking her exactly how he knows she likes until her clit absolutely buzzes under his fingers. Fire climbs her nerves and she sobs, tears running down her chin, and Collinson grunts something she can't even hear under her own noise and Kirk's eager breath in her ear and the buzz ricocheting up her spine into her brain. She twists and struggles and they pin her between them, trapped and pounded and invaded; her body flutters around Collinson and he groans in satisfaction, she slams her head back and screams and comes like a seizure, pulses of sensation crushing her from the inside out.Collinson is shouting or cursing or something, Leah doesn't even know, her ears are ringing and her diaphragm's in spasm and she can't breathe, she can't breathe. Collinson lets her go and she slumps to the floor, his fingers press hot dents into her hips and he slams his final strokes into her and comes in a sticky, shuddering gush. Beside them, Kirk applauds, groaning, "I want to fuck you so much right now."Panting, Collinson peels Leah off like an aching glove, slaps her ass and leaves her there. Her nipples burn against the rough carpet until she drags one arm under them and the other around her rolling belly, sick and sore and shaken with deep heaves as she hauls her legs together, curling into a tight sobbing knot of misery.Somewhere over her, Kirk is giving Collinson a drink, the two of them are laughing. She should get herself off the goddamn floor, she knows; she can picture herself limping into Kirk's shower, examining and scrubbing herself, pulling her clothes on again and somehow some dignity too. She thinks of ordering Collinson to learn how to treat his own injuries because he'd better never set foot in her Sickbay. But she can't uncurl, she can't stop shivering, she can't move. The door opens and shuts, Collinson is gone and Kirk is sipping and breathing and watching her, and she still can't move.Minutes or moments or hours later, Kirk's dagger clinks on his desk, and she hears him mutter a curse of pain as he kneels beside her. "Hey, look up." For once he sounds no older than he actually is, not much more than an overgrown boy. Leah opens her sore eyes and sees mostly her own hair, tumbled over her head and stuck to her wet face; Kirk strokes it back, his leer so disgustingly pleased she thinks a litany of curses and breaks out in a fresh round of gut-twisting sobs."Bones," Kirk says, stroking her tear-raw cheek, "I can't show you if you don't look." Her eyes still blurred and streaming, she gulps air, tips her head up and focuses on the padd he holds. He types quickly and hits 'enter' with a flourish, and she hears the little three-tone 'whirr' that means Joanna's chip's been disarmed for another week.Leah tries to be relieved, and just feels numb and shredded, pressed dry and hollowed out, emptied of tears and sunk to sniffling. Kirk brushes his hand through her hair, setting off a quiver of revulsion that makes her teeth chatter but doesn't translate into actually dragging herself away.After a couple more strokes she manages to jerk her head, at least. "Leave me the hell alone," she mutters into the floor."Bones, honey," Kirk croons, as if she's being unreasonable, as if she's not in her right mind, and she's not because he just used his head goon to violate her. "I can't pick you up, it's medically contraindicated, remember?" He tucks his hands around her shoulders and tugs, and she flails pathetically at his arm but slumps against his leg, her head lolling on his thigh."There you go, I got you." Petting her hair all the while, he pulls out his communicator . "Kirk to Security Chief Sulu." Her head throbs, her sinuses are raw, her throat is sore from screaming, and that's where she gives up the self-inventory and just lets herself shiver. "Collinson's on the way from my quarters, probably reached Corridor B-18 by now. I softened him up for you with a bit of sedative. Put him out an airlock and his job's officially yours."It takes Leah some hazy moments to comprehend what she just heard. She startles and looks up of her own will, and finds Kirk watching her. He shrugs, and she has nothing to say. Decompression is a terrible death... and after what Collinson just did to her she'll never have to see him again, never have to wonder who he's bragged to. Tonight will just be one more torment Kirk's inflicted on her because he can, because she's his.Kirk just strokes her hair, and Leah lies on the hard floor with her head on his hard thigh. In four minutes his communicator will chirp with Sulu's report of success. In fifteen she'll haul herself to her feet and stumble towards Kirk's shower; when he reaches to help her she'll smack his hands away, and he'll smirk as he lets her. In forty minutes she'll be drunk on Kirk's bottle of rotgut moonshine, in ninety she'll fall fitfully asleep in his bed, dressed but for her boots. In seven hours he'll order her off duty for the day and she'll spend it sneaking communiques with Chapel and playing with a delighted Joanna. In twenty-two hours she'll put her daughter to bed with a new story sent by the Captain, and in twenty-four she'll be crying again, silently as she watches Joanna sleep.But right now, Leah's mind is blank and dark. She lies on the floor of Kirk's quarters as he runs his fingers through her hair, and when he startles her to awareness by asking her if she's all right, she finds the strength to snort derisively and tell him, "I hate you.""I know," Kirk replies, and keeps on stroking Leah's hair.
30708	Wings to Fly Hands to	{ "Archive Warning": "Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings", "Category": "Gen", "Characters": null, "Fandom": "Haibane Renmei", "Language": "English", "Rating": "General Audiences", "author": "by Jude", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2009-12-18T00:00:00", "words": "246", "Additional Tags": null, "Relationship": null, "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	"Who are the Toga?" Rakka asked one evening at dinner. "And why aren't they allowed to speak to anyone but the Communicator?"Reki and Nemu traded glances across the table. Kana kept eating. Hikari looked around curiously, apparently wondering if any of the others knew.Yuu gazed out the balcony doors thoughtfully. "The Toga bring things to the town from outside. I think they're some of the birds we see flying over the walls. They go around the town and see the things that we need. Then they go outside and bring them to us."Kana snorted, despite her mouthful of food. "The crows are just crows. Scavengers."Hikari scolded Kana with her teaspoon and grinned. "But they outsmart you every time, don't they?"Kana stuck out her tongue at Hikari.Reki said, "Well, if they're the birds, why would they bring things to the town, Yuu?"Yuu shrugged and smiled absently. "I think they care for us. Maybe all the birds are beings that love us, and want us to... to not worry about things that mean very little. So we can do the things we need to do."Nemu sipped her tea, then murmured, "Selflessness. Compassion."Yuu nodded. "Compassion, that's the word." She turned a brilliant smile on Rakka. "So the Toga are the birds, and so they can't talk like us. That's why they're like that."Rakka nodded solemnly, bowed slightly, and said, "Thank you, sempai!" which caused Yuu to burst into giggles.
38843	Paroxysm	{ "Archive Warning": "Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings", "Category": "Multi", "Characters": "Carson Beckett, Laura Cadman, Kate Heightmeyer, Kavanagh, Miko Kusanagi, Evan Lorne, Rodney McKay, John Sheppard, Simpson, Elizabeth Weir, Teyla Emmagan", "Fandom": "Stargate Atlantis", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Explicit", "author": "by havocthecat", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2007-05-18T00:00:00", "words": "4,937", "Additional Tags": "AU, Dark, Het, Body Modification, Xenophilia", "Relationship": "Laura Cadman/Evan Lorne", "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": "Lantean Hive", "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	Laura shouldered her P-90 and radioed Kate. "Therapy's over for the day," she said. "You heard about the lockdown?""I heard," said Kate, her voice tinny through the radio. "I'm on my way back to my quarters now. Do you know why we can't access the systems?""Something's glitching them up," said Laura. "Engineering and astrophysics are checking it out right now." No need to worry Kate just yet with all the therapy she was going to have to do once they got Colonel Sheppard back and Carson got him de-bugified."Should I worry?" asked Kate. "Or is everything good?" Laura heard the hiss of Kate's door opening over the radio."Major Lorne seems to have gone missing in the hunt for the Colonel and Dr. Weir," said Laura. She grimaced. "Things are starting to look a little more serious. But don't spread the panic around, okay?""I'll talk to you later, then, Laura," said Kate. "Let me know if there's anything I can do to help.""Will do, Kate," said Laura. "Cadman out."*"All right, guys, we've swept the city once, but we lost Lorne when he was off by his lonesome," Laura touched her radio and contacted her team. "For which you better believe he's gonna catch it when we find him again. You guys stick together. I'm heading over to astrophysics to see if Simpson's gotten anywhere on the lockout.""Will do," said Coughlin, and he clicked off.Laura headed through the door, into the astrophysics lab, where Simpson and Kavanagh were sitting, frowning at a monitor, while Miko typed frantically at her laptop, looking worried. "Where we at?""Still locked out of the system," muttered Simpson. "Kavanagh thinks we need to contact the Daedalus via subspace.""The Daedalus is out of range by now, nitwit," said Laura, collapsing into a chair, P-90 in her lap and hands flying over the keyboard as she pulled up a window. "We figure out how we got locked out yet?""Someone used a command code," said Kavanagh. "We should consider the fact that the command staff is contemplating some kind of mutiny from Earth.""More likely the usual shit went down," said Laura. "Sabotage, someone trying to take over the city, or a virus?""Sabotage," said Miko and Simpson simultaneously."Any word on who?" asked Laura. "Where's McKay and Zelenka? I'd think you guys would have yanked them out of bed the instant we got locked out."Simpson shrugged. "They're MIA. McKay was being a rat bastard and planning on hunting up Colonel Sheppard along with the rest of his team, and Zelenka threw up his hands and walked off swearing in Czech."Laura's head snapped up. "They're missing?" She started typing faster. "So let me get this straight: Two of our leading astrophysicists are gone, plus Weir, Sheppard, Lorne, and Teyla? We're still low on majors because we can't break 'em in properly out here and half of 'em go home after a month, and our entire command staff is freaking gone? Except Ronon, who only counts as command staff because he's on Sheppard's team, and Carson, who holes up in the infirmary for good reason, and freaks when he's anywhere near a gun?""Aren't you dating him?" asked Simpson."Carson's a sweetie, but he's a doctor, not a soldier," said Laura shortly. "Anyone program in back doors to the system when McKay's back was turned?""All of us," said Kavanagh, straightening and giving Laura a disdainful look. "We're trying to get in and reactivate command access for one of us, so we can get in and turn the main power back on.""Does McKay realize yet that he's not the only crack nerd in this city?" asked Laura. She met Simpson's eyes and smirked. Even Miko voiced a soft laugh."You having fun over there, Laura?" asked Simpson. "I thought you only blew shit up.""Please, blowing shit up is for fun," said Laura. "I majored in computer science. Where's your backdoor? If I can get in through mine and wiggle around yours a bit, maybe we can work together and get you command access. Then you can bring drinks next week at poker night.""As senior scientist in Dr. McKay's absence--" started Kavanagh.Laura snorted. "Stow it, Kavanagh," she said. "I like Simpson better. Plus she's smarter than you, and you're just pulling this senior scientist thing because you signed on for the expedition, like, two days before she did.""I resent--"Miko coughed softly. Laura glanced over and saw her trying to smother a smile.Simpson smirked up at Kavanagh. "Never underestimate the power of ladies' poker night, Kavanagh."The lights were cranking down again, and Laura sighed. Not all the way, though, which at least meant Simpson was fighting it out with whatever the problem was. "Great," she muttered."It's not so bad," said Yamato. He shrugged and glanced over at her. "Just like wearing sunglasses at night.""And you're just that cool?" asked Laura. She smirked at him. "You are such an 80's retro nerd, Yamato.""Least I'm not the team freak," he said. "Dude, you got stuck sharing a body with McKay, and everyone knows what a dick he is.""Bring it up again, and I'll kick your ass next sparring practice," said Laura.Yamato's laugh was a short bark. "Nah, you'd just blow up my room instead.""Try it and see," said Laura, shaking her head. They turned a corner, and paused. "Looks empty. Let's hit all the rooms."In a blinding flash, Lorne was in front of them, and sure, Laura's eyes were wide at his blue skin, but she was a Marine. Plus, Atlantis and the weird? She'd been half-expecting a blue, buggy Sheppard to show. She and Yamato backed up, guns at the ready, but Lorne was already covering them. "Guns down," he rasped, like it was taking him effort to talk."You're kidding, right?" asked Laura. She took a deep breath, calming the adrenaline running through her system. "You been to see Carson yet? You look like you could use an ointment for that rash. Not to mention a cough drop or twenty.""Cute, Cadman," said Lorne. "No radios. No guns. Get them on the ground.""So, Yamato," started Laura, her voice conversational. She kept her gaze focused dead on Lorne. "I'm thinking this is an order from a superior officer we should just ignore. You?""You have a vested interest in killing us, sir?" asked Yamato."Not really," said Lorne, his voice still gravelly. "Just in not letting you two go.""Guess we've got some mutually incompatible goals, sir," said Laura. "Because we've got a vested interest in getting you in to see Carson, and we outnumber you. Which, now that I think of it, makes all of us holding deadly weapons on each other? Pretty fucking stupid.""Pretty fucking stupid is not watching your six, Cadman." She heard Colonel Sheppard, his voice as guttural and rough as Lorne's, and whirled, trusting Yamato to cover Lorne, but Sheppard had a Wraith stunner, and the last thing she saw was the floor, ready and waiting to impact her head. Hard.Laura groaned and clutched at her head. She cracked her eyes open, but her vision was dim and blurry, and she had the throbbing behind her eyes that meant she was going to get a migraine. If she got out of this. "Goddamn son of a bitch, I'm ten kinds of motherfucking idiot," she muttered. Her stomach ached with a dull burn too, but the concussion had her worried more."They teach you guys anything in Basic besides how to swear?" asked Lorne, his voice hoarse."Fuck Basic; I didn't learn to swear like this 'til OCS," snapped Laura, sitting up and pressing the base of her palms against her eyes. "You wanna tell me what's going on, Lorne? And where the hell's Yamato?"The guttural chuckle coming from Lorne had Laura opening her eyes and peering at him. "What the hell, asshole?" She took in the room with a quick glance. They were in some kind of abandoned room, maybe one of the living quarters that had been deemed uninhabitable, and she didn't think she'd been strip-searched. Oh, that was a bad, bad thing. For Lorne and Sheppard. "Why do you look like a bug person?"Lorne was sitting on a chair, straddling it and leaning his forearms on the back. He smirked at her, but didn't say anything else."Cat got your tongue?" asked Laura, leaning back slowly onto her elbows, reclining on the bed. With all the threats in this galaxy, did anyone actually just keep a visible sidearm on hand, even when they were on Atlantis? Paranoia was everyone's best friend."You'll understand soon," said Lorne. He was staring at her in a way she'd never seen him look before, almost hungry. She wasn't going to ask for a look at his palms; the thought of Lorne being turned half-bug was bad enough without wondering if he was half-Wraith now too.Laura ignored the pounding in her skull as she slid her hand under her back. "Right. What's your damage? Do you have any idea how much you people have fucked Atlantis' systems over?"Lorne shrugged."Nothing to say, huh?" she asked, easing her knife out of its sheath. "Fuck you, then." She drew her arm back and flung the knife at Lorne. He moved too fast, so the heart shot she was aiming for ended up hitting his shoulder instead. She could work with that, moving toward him just after releasing the knife, barreling into him with her shoulder, knocking him back. "Ow!" Laura winced, feeling the skin on her stomach pull open.Lorne recovered, reached for her, grabbed her shirt and tried to hook his leg behind hers to knock her legs out from under her, but Laura brought her arms up, pushing against Lorne's forearms, and then she was ducking, slamming down to one knee to sucker-punch her idiot CO's idiot second-in-command in the gut. Whatever the hell he was now, he still had to breathe, right? Right. She drove her fist up, got him good and hard, and Lorne doubled over, gasping, while the pain in Laura's head spiked.Knocking people out with no weapons on hand was next to impossible, and Laura was an inch from blacking out, so she doubled her fists and slammed them into the base of Lorne's skull, then ran for the door, hoping like hell she convince it to open. She needed to get far enough away before he recovered.The door to the makeshift armory was unlocked, and the sergeant in charge of weapons had no problem signing out half the armory and a third of the explosives on hand. Not once Laura had gotten out the fact that her head was splitting, she had no medication on hand, and a Lieutenant Laura Cadman facing imminent threat without at least three ways to blow things from here to next Sunday was a very unhappy Lieutenant Laura Cadman. Also, with Lorne and Sheppard compromised, she was, God help them all, the senior fucking officer in charge, and goddamn it, they were going to have to do something fast. Like possibly abandon Atlantis like rats off a sinking ship. She ignored the voice in the back of her head saying that wasn't going to happen.He'd also offered her a couple of horse pills' worth of ibuprofen, which she'd knocked back dry as she was loading up on weapons and trying to ignore the way the extra weight was tugging on the cuts on her stomach. Whatever the hell Lorne and Sheppard had done to her, it hurt like a bitch. She got out of the armory, tried to find another radio, but they'd gone down while she was out. Hell, everything was down. Not a chance on meeting anyone and warning them about Lorne and Sheppard 'til the rendezvous in a couple of hours, though she told the armsmaster and his buddies to pass the word along.She got down the hall, and whirled, convinced she could hear someone talking, but the hall was empty. The movement pulled at her stomach again, so she sighed and tugged up her shirt. Maybe she could get to the infirmary and get Carson to patch her up. Laura glanced down. "Oh, fuck." She let her shirt drop and sagged against the wall, cursing a blue streak. She braced herself and grabbed her shirt, pulling it up again. "Stupid, Laura, you're so damn stupid."Her stomach had five diagonal scratches on it, mostly scabbed-over, but bleeding sluggishly where she'd tugged the wounds open again. Blue, iridescent skin was spreading out across her abdomen. Carson. He was the wonder genius medical guy on Atlantis. Carson could fix anything. Laura shook her head, ignoring the nagging voice in the back of her head asking her if she was sure that was what she wanted. She was still dazed from the concussion. That was all."I need a hand, Carson," said Laura, leaning in the doorway of the infirmary."Laura!" Carson hurried over.She shook her head. "I'm good with walking," she said, pushing herself upright. "I just feel like hell.""Right, let's get you to a bed, then," said Carson, slipping an arm around her waist.Laura gave him a weak grin and pulled away. "I don't know if that's so safe right now," she said, pulling up her shirt to show him the marks on her stomach."Oh, bloody hell," said Carson. He reached out and put an arm around her waist again, giving her a stern look as she started to pull away. "I'm not going to be infected by it. It requires either blood or saliva.""Ew, you mean he licked me?" Laura grimaced. "I'm turning into a bug person because my senior officer licked me? That is so gross.""Laura, love, I'm afraid it's rather serious," said Carson as he helped her onto a bed. "I'm going to need to take some samples and see if there's any way to get more progress on the antidote I've been working on for Colonel Sheppard."*Laura had started pacing, her steps measured from one end of the infirmary to the other, while spending her time trying to calculate exactly how much C-4 it was going to take to blow up every single thing that Sheppard and Lorne owned. Including their bodies. Their blue, bugified bodies. Just like her skin was slowly turning blue."You might want to calm down a bit," said Carson, looking up from his microscope. "Have a seat. The viral inhibitor is doing its work, but let me give you some sedative. I can tell just from looking that your heart rate is abnormally high.""And what if they come in here while I'm sedated?" asked Laura. Her head was throbbing, and she could practically hear McKay bitching her out for wanting to use enough explosives to blow out a few of Atlantis' windows. Not like she wanted to blow up many. Just the ones in the immediate vicinity of Sheppard and Lorne. "No, Carson. It's not safe.""At least sit down." Carson straightened up. "Something's changed from the samples I took from Colonel Sheppard, and it's going to take some extra time to track down the differences.""What is it?" asked Laura, not looking down at her hands, closed tight into fists. She didn't want to see the kind of hell this was wreaking on her manicure. In the silence, when Carson wasn't speaking, she could hear an echo of Weir's voice. So many more things important than manicures? Well, maybe, but she liked to look pretty now and-- Oh, shit. That really was Weir's voice, and Carson wasn't looking too happy either. Laura frowned, looking at Carson. "Carson, what is it?""Something's mutated," he said, moving over and tapping on his laptop. "Something's changed, and I suspect it's hormonal." Laura could hear laughing. Weir was chuckling, she was amused at what Carson was saying. "The retrovirus seems to act differently on you than it did on Colonel Sheppard. I just need another blood sample or two from you." He smiled reassuringly at her as he moved for his test tubes."Carson, don't!" snapped Laura. They weren't happy, they didn't want her to speak. Talking was bad, words were bad--no, warnings were. They were telling her that warnings were bad. "No more samples. Don't come near me.""Laura--" Carson stopped, his eyes wide. She didn't want to think about what his eyes would look like when they changed. She wasn't thinking about it. One of them was. Who was it? Was it McKay? Weir? Too many voices. "I'm a little confused. What's going on?""They want me--" Laura paused and leaned back, her head thunking against the wall repeatedly. They needed him. They needed her. If she stopped fighting joined them like she was supposed to, it wouldn't hurt this much. "Stop it, stop it, stop it! I'm not gonna do it, you guys, stop asking!"When her voice raised to an inhuman pain stop holding back pitch, Carson rushed forward and pulled her away from the wall. "Stop it, Laura! You're going to hurt yourself!" exclaimed Carson he should be ours. She tugged her arm away, jerked back from him, didn't listen to Weir's voice whispering at the edges of her mind how much she wanted Laura to give in. "There's no one else here, lass. You need to stay calm if we're going to work on this properly.""I'm sorry, Carson." She shook her head, meeting Carson's eyes, but seeing Sheppard and Ronon stalking down Atlantis' corridors, hunting listening to her thoughts for her. "This isn't gonna work. You're not gonna get a cure in time. I think if I stay here, they're gonna know where you are." She was well and truly compromised. Had been since she woke up with Lorne staring at her wanting her."Are you telling me you can talk to--" Carson leaned closer.Laura flinched back at the quiet encouragement she could hear from Weir, the derisive snickering that McKay was doing, had been doing, wouldn't stop doing-- "McKay!" she snapped, and he fell quiet as she clenched one hand into a fist. "McKay. He's one of them." Not them, us, that was what Teyla was telling her. "Teyla too. Sheppard and Ronon were looking for me, but Lorne found me first, and now they're all looking for me.""Just those five, Laura?" asked Carson, his voice soft, and oh, God, Laura could smell how afraid he was, she could hear Rodney scoffing medical science is so limited as Carson's mind worked on the puzzle. "What about Elizabeth? No one's seen her since Colonel Sheppard abducted her."Laura's chittering laughter was high-pitched, and queen edged with hysteria. "Weir? Weir's in charge of the stinking bug-people, Carson, she's telling everyone what to do. And Zelenka's still got a crush on her, but he's rewriting the gate-dialing protocols right now, and just because I hacked access for half an hour with a backdoor McKay didn't find fast enough doesn't mean I managed to shut down the--" Oh. Laura's shoulders shook, and she covered her mouth with one blue-touched hand, her blunt fingernails only partially lengthened into claws. "I think it's Kate. I think they got Kate too, they did, and she's awfully quiet compared to everyone else, but she's really mad I gave Simpson and Miko command access when I helped hack through the lockout." Kate was worried too; Laura was irrational, she wasn't coping, this wasn't what Kate had expected too many minds in the hive for her to cope, and she needed to see Laura worried, to take care of her."Bloody hell," muttered Carson.Laura shuddered as he gripped her shoulders and rattled her, and she tried not to listen come here bring him to us to anyone that wasn't in the room right now. "They want me to take you to Weir's room. Her new room. With the lights that won't hurt my eyes. It's so bright in here, Carson, but if you leave me alone, they won't find you.""I'm not leaving you," said Carson firmly, and Laura bit her lip at Weir's mine quiet satisfaction. "Not in the state you're in. They're not going to find us, not if we pack up some supplies and hole up in one of the empty labs.""Then I have to leave you," said Laura. She was on the edge of hyperventilating, she could hear herself gasping, they could hear her gasping, they were worried don't be so stubborn, they were that's an order, Lieutenant angry. They were coming. "They'll find us. They'll find us, I can't stop from hearing them, and they can hear me. Kate's there, she is, she's not happy, and you wouldn't believe what Weir's saying right now." She pushed him away with one forearm, careful not to use her palms, not her hands, not whatever was growing at the edges of her fingers, and McKay was so mad at her, but she'd never been afraid of him before, the jerk, she wasn't going to be now. "See you, Carson. Or maybe not. I kinda hope not."Then she was out the door, down the hall, faster than anyone could see. Most of the city was uninhabited. One of the rooms would be empty. It wouldn't have any of them. She could lock it, and maybe if she could lose herself restless, need something, don't know what, she'd--. If she didn't know where she was, they wouldn't find her, even if Kate wanted to find her still your friend, even if she thought Laura needed you'll understand soon help. Even if Rodney was laughing, and everyone was looking for her, none of them knew her well enough to find her. Tracking her through the city's sensors, that was what Radek was trying to do, he was cursing in Czech because Simpson was playing a game with locking him out; he'd unlock access, and Miko would tag-team her way in and block him again.Then Lorne was right in front of her, slamming her against the wall touch yes good, one hand wrapped around her trachea, the other palming the lock on the room next to her, and it wasn't fair that he could access the rooms, and the good guys couldn't. The good guys couldn't, but Rodney was trying to tell her that she was stupid, that they were the good guys. "Damn it, Rodney!" snapped Laura, and Lorne chuckled here we go again as he threw her into the room. One-handed, and he could toss her across the room like she was a doll?Laura's eyes narrowed as she stood up and brushed herself off. She was not Marine Barbie, whatever Rodney was thinking. Lorne stood in front of the door, arms crossed, legs braced, watching her and just daring her come on, bring it to rush him. That was too easy wanted her to, wanted her, and she couldn't get past him when he was prepared, so she pulled a sidearm and started shooting, but Lorne moved faster heard your thoughts than her. She also hadn't counted on Lorne being able to go up a wall bastard the way he had, but changing aim was easy.Sucked when he jumped down on her from the ceiling, not even noticing the bullets heal easier now she'd been putting in him. Bastard was wearing a flak jacket too, which just made things harder less to touch, damn it as he knocked her stronger now to the ground, her breath rushing out. All the voices in her head Kate whispering what to do dimmed out to a faint murmur, except for Lorne's, and Rodney was still snickering asshole in the background of her mind. Laura shoved herself up so she was propped on her elbows wanting friction and glared up at Lorne, still on top of her pressed tight, and rolling her eyes when he smirked. Least her head wasn't hurting any more.She rolled her eyes again when Rodney started commenting on how her head should be too thick to hurt, then glared at Lorne for rolling his eyes at the same time she had. He reached down, his hand blue against her blonde hair inside you moving together, and as he shifted his weight, she could feel his hard cock wanted to wrap her legs around him as he pushed against her.Laura studied Lorne, dragging her lower lip between her teeth as she watched him stare down desire mate at her, felt his hand stroking more, why fight? along her hair. She let Rodney's voice fade to a persistent annoying! took you long enough to understand drone while Lorne traced along the edge of her jaw. The question in his eyes always so stubborn? made her smirk, and she twined her fingers through Lorne's hair, tugging his mouth yes to hers, and moaning as he tugged up her shirt, until his hand banged against her flak jacket. They pulled apart, Rodney groaning stuck watching so hot in the back of their minds, to tear too much at the fastenings, slipping the jackets off, then Laura started pulling out all the ordinance she'd taken out of the armory. Lorne's chuckle echoed inside her head as she stacked her C-4 in a neat pyramid, the detonators shoved in a pile next to it, but she turned shut up and reached over to tug his shirt out of the waistband of his pants.He didn't chuckle now, just growled and shoved his hand under her shirt, his skin rasping against hers, one hand cupping her breast as the other tore her shirt over her head. Laura rolled her eyes as his frustration seeped over to her, because, really, was she supposed to go braless so he could get laid more easily? Hand-to-hand without one pain hurt. She reached behind her back with one hand and unsnapped the hooks, letting him slide it off, but pulled back patience better wait when he reached for her. When Lorne snarled, Laura laughed, and the rippling undertones called him to her that had never been in her voice before pushed him forward. She grabbed his shirt, tore through it as he was unbuckling her belt, shoving down her pants, then shoved Lorne back, listening to Rodney babble do it now watching you as she tugged off her boots.Rodney was listening, was absolutely shocked didn't picture this, never mind the fact that he knew damn well took biology, thank you what was going on. Laura smirked, throwing her boots to the side, stripping off her socks, and kicking her pants and underwear the rest of the way off. Naked, she rose up to her knees and snickered dork as she waited for Lorne to finish untangling the laces of his boots. As soon as he did, she batted at his hands, then stripped down his pants and boxers, letting Lorne kick off his socks himself.Rodney? Rodney's stammering had gotten more heated beautiful god yes as more skin was showing on her and Lorne, and the advantage to having him in her head being in the hive was that she already knew he was turned on. So when she stretched up, arching her back, and he caught a glimpse of that through Lorne's mind, she was more than a little smug can't stop watching, can you? At least until Lorne surged up and wrapped an arm around her waist, dragging her down on top of him.Straddling Lorne was a simple matter of shifting position, sliding down on his cock was, God, so damn good need this, letting him fill her as she leaned back, hands braced on his thighs, and Lorne's hands came up to cup at her breasts, thumbs flicking at her nipples. Laura gasped, moving and letting Lorne thrust into her, letting Rodney watch as she opened her mouth touch smell can't stop, inhaling Lorne's scent, and easing the aching pain too many voices hurts of no longer being alone in her head. Her skin was on fire where Lorne was touching her. Rodney was hard from watching them, not babbling any more, but his voice was low and angrily intense yes mating do it, egging them on, pushing them to fuck each other harder, faster.Lorne's hand slipped off her breast, slid down her stomach, past the healed wounds and down to her clit. He circled it with his fingers, and Laura was shrieking, inhuman cries echoing fill the room fill the hive from her as she shuddered with her orgasm, convulsing. Then Lorne was holding her up, driving into her wildly, harder lose control, even better that way than before. She pushed his hands away, bent down to kiss him instead, devour his mouth and pull him deeper inside her. His hands tightened on her hips, and he groaned mate?, eyes slamming shut as he came inside of her.All that Laura could hear from Rodney was deathly recovering here silence now, and she chuckled, sliding off Lorne and laying on the ground next to him, out of breath and too tired to be smug too smug, at least. He wrapped an arm around her amused and sated, and Laura lifted up just enough that she could pillow her head on his shoulder. Only thing she wasn't looking forward to ouch was facing the music with Weir now.--end--
27799	One-winged Birds	{ "Archive Warning": null, "Category": "Other", "Characters": "Mike Stoker, Johnny Gage, Chet Kelly, Mike Stanley, Marco Lopez, Roy DeSoto, OFC", "Fandom": "Emergency!", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Mature", "author": "by inkling", "chapters": "13/13", "completed": "2009-12-10", "published": "2000-05-06T00:00:00", "words": "49,350", "Additional Tags": "Angst, Drama, Alternate Canon, Novella", "Relationship": null, "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": "inkling's Stoker series", "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": "Rape/Non-Con, Graphic Depictions Of Violence", "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	...and we take from our lives those days when everything moved,tree, cloud, water, sun, blue between two clouds, and moon,days that danced, vibrating days, chance poem...And our livesare on the line. Until we die, our lives are on the mend.~~Richard Hugo Mike was working overhaul on the ground floor when Marco found the body in the basement. The choked-off scream from his shiftmate left the hair on the back of his neck standing up."Cap! Cap! There's a body down here!"Rather than follow the pounding feet and excited conversations that resulted from Marco's shout, Mike returned to digging at the ancient plaster and lathe wall with his axe. Marco had said he'd found "a body", not "someone." He wasn't going to miss out on anything if he didn't go running to see right this instant. No matter what was going on elsewhere, it was his responsibility to be sure the fire was out in this room. He'd find out what was going on later--probably find out more than he wanted to know.Cap's radioed request for a coroner floated in through the ruined window as Mike worked steadily, pulling the interior of the house apart to be sure that no spark of life remained in the fire that had partially gutted it. The old, deserted house had been a landmark in this commercialized neighborhood far longer than Mike had been driving 51's engine. With its stone exterior and the strange, overhanging construction of the second floor, the 80-year-old building had looked like a cross between a frontier fort and a medieval castle. Mike had always hoped someone would buy it and fix it up. It had a lot of character, not to mention a lot of floor space, and would have made some great offices, or a hotel, or something.But now it was a smoking ruin, the interior gutted by man's eternal enemy: himself. They'd gotten the fire out only to find the damage inside laid out in the classic pattern of an incendiary device. Probably a Molotov cocktail or two, given the bits of glass crunching under Mike's feet. The remains of a metal-framed couch in the middle of the room sported more shattered glass and even a few stray rag fragments. Definitely a case for the arson boys. Marco's discovery only upped the ante.Mike shuddered. The thought of dying a fire was not appealing, even if it was a danger he and his fellow firefighters faced every shift. Mostly they tried not to think about it. Hopefully this poor soul, whoever it was, had passed out from smoke inhalation before things got too hot.More excited conversation came from the lower floor, and more feet pounded along the corridor outside the room he was working in. Mike paused and wiped at the sweat dripping from beneath the sweatband of his helmet and down his face. You'd think someone, somewhere, would find a way to make the darn headgear comfortable, at least."Mike?"He let his arm drop, the axe dangling from his hand. Chet stood in the doorway to the room, Marco's face just visible over his shoulder. Both men were coated in the fine grit of ash and plaster that accompanied their work. Marco's eyes were hugely dark in the pallid velvet dust covering his face, and he shook with a minute trembling. Mike fought another shudder at the sight of his friend's distress. That body must have been a nasty sight. He hated to admit it, but he was glad he hadn't been the one to find the victim."Yeah?" Another swipe at the sweat running down his face, this time annoyingly along his nose."You about done? Cap wants us all out of here as soon as possible. Arson investigators are here."Police? Mike shot another glance at Marco, who now looked like he might throw up at any minute. But neither he nor Chet volunteered any information about the body. Okay, Mike could take a hint. He looked around at the room, destroyed first by firebug and now by firefighter."Just about," he said, and the shorter man nodded."What's left?" Chet asked, stepping through the doorway. Marco followed, and Mike waved at the other end of the wall he was working on. Both men moved to the attack, and Mike went back to his own end. Then there was nothing but the sound of axe on plaster and wood and the falling of debris. * * * The cinnamon rolls never had a chance. In just under thirty seconds, five of the seven steaming, glaze-covered rolls had disappeared completely. The cookies fared better; the men seated around the large, double table in the day room concentrated on the gooey, sugary pastries for now. Mike hid his smile as he took a large bite of his own roll, his hand coming up to snare an errant raisin and guide it to his mouth. The remaining roll crouched wretchedly on the plate as five firefighters licked their lips and fingers, smoothed their moustaches and eyed the roll and each other. Mike ate his pastry slowly, savoring it, waiting to see who would be the first one to break..."OUCH! Dammit, Gage, don't you ever trim your fingernails?""Oh, stow it, Kelly! I barely scratched you!""Weren't you two greedy guts raised with any manners at all?" Johnny and Chet both wilted under Cap's glower, Chet sucking on his injured finger. Cap glared at them for another long minute, long enough for Mike to finish his own cinnamon roll. Then, as he licked the last bit of frosting from his fingers, the tableau broke. Cap stood and reached for the remaining pastry. "Since there's only one roll left and there's only one Captain, it makes sense to me that the last roll goes to the Captain. Does anyone here have a problem with that?"Roy smirked, Marco looked just a bit crestfallen. Johnny and Chet fell over themselves to agree with Stanley. Mike just shook his head when Cap's eyes connected with his. His commanding officer either missed or chose not to comment on the smirk Mike couldn't quite prevent. Nobody else needed to know there'd been an even dozen rolls when the plate first arrived at his house."Good," Cap said, and, grabbing his coffee cup, he headed swiftly out of the kitchen with his prize. Sullen silence reigned for a moment after he left, then Chet scooted his chair back."Hey, Gage, why don't you get me a bandage for the gouge you left on my finger."Gage's mouth dropped open in disbelief, and he grabbed Chet's hand, peering closely at the extended finger before shoving it back at the stocky firefighter."Chet, that is not a gouge! That's not even a scratch. In fact, that's not even--""Those were great, Mike. Where did you get the cinnamon rolls?" Marco's question cut across the fight before it got a good start. He half-stood and reached for the box of cookies. Pulling it over to him, he dug for a cookie. The one he came up with disappeared in one large bite. Roy leaned over and grabbed a cookie too. Cookie in one hand, coffee cup in the other, the blonde paramedic stood and headed for the stove. Mike leaned back into his chair and shrugged."My neighbor." He took a long drink of his coffee, and looked up to find all the guys staring at him. Chet rolled his eyes, stood, and walked around the table to perch one hip on the other side of Mike. Johnny, in the chair kitty-corner to him, leaned forward."Yes, and..." Chet made a continuing motion with his hand.Mike took another drink of his coffee, and shrugged again."Your neighbor?" Johnny cut in. Mike nodded. "Well, what kind of neighbor? Male? Female? Why give this stuff to you?""Female," Mike said, setting the cup down. He looked up to find them all still watching him. "She bakes.""What kind of female, Mikey?" Chet was getting into it now. "Grandma? Bored housewife looking for some excitement in her life? Professional chef? You know, most girls who can cook stuff like those rolls are usually overly large and overly ugly."Shifting in his chair and stretching out his legs, Mike shook his head."Nope." He kept his face straight, somehow managing not to smirk openly. "Not at all."Exasperated, Chet sighed. He shared a disgusted glance with Johnny. In the background Marco ducked his head and grabbed another cookie. Coffee refilled, Roy settled against the counter, arms crossed over each other. He sipped his coffee and smiled slightly at Mike. Roy could appreciate subtlety--Marco, too. It was the two in front of him that rarely caught on to Mike's sly humor until it was too late."Mike, could you speed things up a bit here? I'd like to finish this conversation before I die of old age."Picking up his cup, Mike just stared at Chet over the rim. Marco pulled the cookie box closer, the laughter glinting in his dark eyes now unmistakable. It made for a nice change in the firefighter's expression; since literally falling over that girl's body two shifts ago Marco had been unnaturally somber. Still leaning on the counter, Roy wasn't even bothering to hide his amusement--or his disgust."Girls or food, girls and food. God, you two are predictable," he said, shaking his head."Or pathetic," Marco added, catching the broken bit of cookie falling from his lips with the hand that wasn't already busy stuffing the cookie in his mouth. At Chet's glare, he pushed the cookie box towards his friend. Chet managed to look wounded as he appropriated a cookie for himself. One bite, and his eyebrows went up in surprise. He reached back into the box and grabbed another cookie with his other hand. Batting at the hand Johnny held out, he made a big show of picking out a cookie for the dark-haired paramedic. Johnny rolled his eyes and shook his head before snatching the small cookie Chet held out to him. The glare he gave his nemesis lasted longer than the cookie did.Mike smiled, just a little. Didn't want to spook his prey. After having police and arson investigators crawling all over them for the last couple of shifts, they could all use a change in focus. Mike hadn't planned on orchestrating things, but hey, he wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth. It was time to put the gruesome discovery behind them. Helping Johnny and Chet make fools of themselves along the way was just icing on the cake.Chet finished his cookie, and he and Johnny were once again focused entirely on Mike. Bird dogs had nothing on these two. But it was definitely better than having them obsess over just exactly why someone would tie a young woman inside a burning building."Okay, Mike, she's female, she's not a grandma, not a bored housewife, not a plump chef. What is she? Is she datable? Pretty? Young? Come on, man, a woman who can cook like this," Chet held up his second, half-eaten cookie, the crumbs dripping from his moustache, "is definitely worth checking out. Spill it, Mikey."Mike finished his coffee, placed the cup on the table, turning the handle just so before he looked up at Chet and Johnny's eager expressions."She's a caterer.""A caterer?"Damn, he could almost see the wheels turning in Johnny's head when he was thinking. Biting back a smile, Mike sniffed carefully. Smell the smoke too."That's someone who cooks meals for parties, Johnny," Roy said, coming away from his perch long enough to snag another cookie."I knew that, I knew that!" Johnny griped. He shot a glare at his partner, and turned back to Mike. "So, is she young or old?""Young.""How young?" Chet shot at him."Twenty-six.""Married or single?" Chet again. Mouth agape and brow furrowed, Johnny was obviously still thinking."Single.""Is she pretty? You know, attractive?" Johnny beat Chet to the punch that time, his hands describing an hourglass shape in the air as he spoke."Hey, Gage, that one had three syllables! Been reading the covers of the women's magazines at the grocery store again?"Johnny wasted a glare on Chet, before turning his attention back to Mike."Well, is she?" he asked.Mike thought about his neighbor for a minute, and then nodded."Yeah, she's pretty. Definitely attractive." Mike's hands echoed Johnny's earlier motion, curving through the air. Johnny sat up straighter, took a breath."Is she dating anyone?" Chet beat the paramedic to the punch again."How should I know?" Hands resting on the table now, Mike added a slightly indignant look to his act."Because it's your business to know, Mike, that's why. A woman who can cook like this---""You said that already, Chet." Marco had made some serious inroads on the cookies. Roy was peering over his shoulder at the box. His hand dipped in, and when he pulled it back held not one, but three cookies. Chet ignored both Marco and Roy, leaning forward and putting a hand on Mike's shoulder."Can you introduce me?""When can I meet her?" Johnny kept his hands to himself, but he, too, was leaning forward in his chair, grinning that goofy grin of his. Well, it might work on the girls, but not on Mike. He stared at the two of them."I'd like to remain on her good side, guys."Roy snorted cookie, and choked. Marco turned around and patted him helpfully on the back. Johnny just glared. Chet lifted the hand he'd laid on Mike's shoulder and rolled his eyes towards the ceiling in a pleading gesture. Yeah, right, like divine intervention would help Chet."Mike, be a pal!" Chet protested after his plea went apparently unanswered. At Mike's unrepentant expression, Chet's eyes narrowed, and he rubbed his moustache thoughtfully. "Unless, that is, you've got your eye on her?"Mike hesitated a second, then shook his head. He beckoned to Marco, and the other firefighter reluctantly pushed the box his way. Mike helped himself to two of the remaining cookies. Just because he had a jarful at home didn't mean he couldn't enjoy a few here at the station with the guys."Hey, wait a minute, she did all this cooking for you. Does she have a thing for you?" Johnny's suspicions didn't stop him from grabbing the cookie for which Chet was reaching. He smirked triumphantly at Chet, and took two more cookies before shoving the box toward Marco and, more importantly, out of Chet's reach. Marco happily pulled the box over and reached in.Swallowing, Mike shook his head."We're neighbors, that's all. I took care of her dog while she was busy last week. The food is just her way of saying 'thanks.'"Coffee cup in hand, Cap returned to the kitchen, making a beeline for the sink. Roy, back at his post against the counter, scooted aside, leaving room for Hank to wash the last of the icing from his hands. That done, Cap refilled his coffee cup, and then turned to watch the proceedings, bracing one arm against the counter."You mean all you did was watch her dog and for that she gave you this?" Johnny's incredulous gesture took in the empty plate the rolls had rested on and the nearly empty box of cookies.Mike nodded, then smiled. He couldn't resist adding, "Last month it was a chocolate coffee cheesecake for helping her install some shelves."There was absolute silence for a minute. Then a coffee cup thunked on a counter."Which, if I recall correctly, we never saw a bit of here at the station," Cap said, slowly. "And I generally recall things like chocolate coffee cheesecake very correctly."Mike glanced over to find his leader glaring at him, arms crossed over his chest. Uh-oh... Cap had that "Latrine-Duty-For-The-Rest-Of-Your-Career" look on his face. Mike looked away quickly, hopefully before Cap could get the thought fully formed. His other shift mates looked in turn incredulous and wounded that he hadn't shared such bounty with them. Best he not gloat too much."It kept in the refrigerator. This stuff has to be eaten while it's fresh.""You ate an entire chocolate cheesecake by yourself?" Johnny was definitely indignant, definitely.Sheepishly, Mike nodded, then shook his head."Well, Dori had some, and so did Cara.""Dori? Cara?" Johnny's eyebrows went up, and he shared a speculative look with Chet. "Who--"Mike smiled."My neighbor and her business partner." Well, that had Johnny and Chet off the scent of the chocolate cheesecake, at least."Dori? CARA?" Johnny repeated, Chet's echo coming a fraction of a second later. They made a great team, even when they weren't trying. Mike stuffed the last cookie in his mouth to hide his laughter as the two men exchanged hopeful glances. Chet leaned forward, his hand on Mike's shoulder again."Mike, ol' buddy, ol' pal, you owe it to--"The tones went off, and everyone jumped."Station 51. Multiple vehicle accident, with victims. Sandy Boulevard and 94th Street. Time out, 9:12""Station 51, KMG-365," Captain Stanley's voice came over the sound of their footsteps, rushing out into the vehicle bay. ----- CHAPTER BREAK ----- Chapter 2 Still I sing bonnie boys, bonnie mad boysBedlam boys are bonnie,For they all go bare and they live by the airAnd they want no drink nor money~~Traditional English Folk Song The next day dawned cool, the air soft. It was one of those spring mornings that led songwriters to wax lyrical about the mild California climate, which in turn led to more people moving here. Mike revved his truck gently as he sat in traffic, waiting to turn left onto Maryhill Road. He could hardly complain, being an immigrant himself. The sunny climate of southern California had been one good thing about leaving home when he was seventeen..Morning traffic was heavy; on his way home, Mike was competing with the rest of the world heading out to work. Easing the truck forward as a car made the turn ahead of him, Mike grinned to himself as he thought about the shift that had just ended. Much to the amusement of everyone else, he'd gotten Chet and Johnny thoroughly wound up about his neighbor and her business partner, dropping little hints and details about the two women throughout the twenty-four hour shift. Hopefully Dori and Cara would forgive him, but between the stalled arson investigation and the lack of runs to keep them busy, they'd needed the entertainment. The highlight of his efforts had been this morning, catching Chet and Johnny thumbing through the "caterers" section of the phone book, trying to figure out which company was Dori's. Fortunately, Mike got away before they could nail him for the actual name. He didn't think either woman would ever forgive him for actually setting Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum on them.The good thing was, if they ever did chance to meet, Cara and Dori could easily take Johnny and Chet down a peg, or three--and hopefully Mike's name wouldn't come into it at all.Finally there weren't any more cars ahead of him. A break in traffic, and Mike steered his truck into the turn. The Chevy bumped up and over the railroad tracks, and then he was beyond the strip malls and apartment complexes and in the midst of open fields. It always amazed him that these little oases of agriculture could exist in the midst of the sprawling city, and he was more than grateful that he'd had the money on hand when the chance came to buy a house in such a secluded area. The old farm was marked for development eventually; the fire hydrants the city water department had installed along the road last year guaranteed that. But for now, it was a small, rural paradise in the midst of urban sprawl.Mike turned right, his truck passing under cottonwoods and oak trees, branches nodding in the faint breeze as they bent to confer with the grey wooden fence stalking along beside the asphalt. On the far edge of the fields they guarded, an old barn slowly gave ground to rampant vegetation, it's form now almost more green than silvery wood. A stark line of tall poplars extended from the barn down to the edge of Mike's own neighborhood, just beyond the barn and its attendant fields of alfalfa, darkly green in the morning light.Across the road from the hayfield were four older homes, built in the early 1930's. A steeply sloping hill, covered with brush and scattered piñon and scrub oak trees, rose up at the back of the large yards, separating the small neighborhood from the industrial district beyond the hill. Across the street stood the original farmhouse for the property. Dori owned that, a narrow, T-shaped, two-story yellow house with white trim and a long covered porch across the front. At some point someone had added a garage and a large family room off the back left corner of the structure; that's where Dori and Cara had installed the professional kitchen for their business several months ago. Mike had done the fire inspections for them. He'd eaten like a king for the next week. He still ate like a king, whenever they needed help about the place, or when they were trying out new recipes and needed a taste-tester. Johnny and Chet were nuts if they thought he was going to give that up just so's they could strike out with the ladies--again.He passed the first two houses set back along the gracefully curving road: the pink clapboard, home to the Pattersons and their three screaming toddlers, and the bright blue bungalow, belonging to the dentist and his wife, no kids. Slowing, Mike pulled into his own driveway, directly across the road from Dori's. Immediately past his white bungalow lived Mrs. Caraveggio. A widowed war bride from Italy, Mrs. Caraveggio was always trying to set her "nice fireman next door" up with one her innumerable grand-daughters and great nieces. She thought it an unpardonable sin that he lived alone at the ripe old age of 29, and after two years he'd given up trying to convince her otherwise.This morning as he set the truck in park and climbed out, he was greatly relieved to see that no one seemed to be home at the Caraveggio's. Hmmm...maybe he should give Mrs. Caraveggio Johnny and Chet's phone numbers. Besides, he had been thinking about making plans to ask Cara out himself. One of these days... Jingling his keys in one hand, he grabbed the newspaper from the first step of the front porch, took the remaining two steps in one jump and let himself in the front door.Between household chores and errands, Mike's day went by quickly. The expected phone call from Johnny and Chet never materialized. That still didn't preclude one or both of them showing up on his doorstep this evening, so Mike was contemplating a preemptive strike, calling the guys about going out to a movie or bowling. For now, though, he leaned on the door of the refrigerator, eyeing its meager contents, when a dog's frantic barking came through his open front door."Back off, you dumb mutt! Get away from me! Argh!" The cry was overwhelmed by a flurry of barking and growling, and then an outraged yelp. More barking and growling, fading away into the distance. Mike hit the screen door at a run. To say Dori's brother, Jason, and Puff, her Newfoundland, did not get along was putting it mildly. Usually the two gave each other a wide berth, or else Dori ran interference for them. But Mike had passed Dori and Cara heading out in their van as he was coming home from the hardware store a couple of hours earlier. That meant no one was home to rescue Jason and Puff from each other."NO! Goddamn, idiot dog! Get away from me!" Mike was across the street and heading down Dori's empty driveway when Jason's yells and Puff's furious barking resumed. From the sound of it, they'd run around to the back of the house. While Puff could hardly stand to be in the same room with Jason, Mike had gotten along with the big dog from the beginning. He'd already stepped in a few times between the two, when Dori wasn't around or was too busy to babysit her brother and her dog. The best solution was usually to just take Puff home with him, until Dori came home or wasn't so busy.Mike skidded around the corner of the garage, and there was Puff. Head down, feathery tail as straight out as it could be, the dog was a malevolent shadow against the shady green lawn. A low growl rumbled through his entire body as he advanced towards Jason, who cowered against the back door inside the small porch on the other end of the addition--demonstrating an admirable vocabulary of swear words."Puff! NO!" Mike yelled, and was rewarded with a slight wave of the feathery tail. But Puff still advanced on Jason as Mike slid to a stop a respectful distance away."Get him, will ya? Damn dog, I keep telling her she's got to get a muzzle for him!" Jason's voice was shrill. Not that Mike blamed him, not with ninety pounds of pissed-off dog slavering over his skinny carcass. If he got any further up further against the house, the young man would be part of the woodwork. Mike made a shushing motion at Jason with both hands."Just don't move and be quiet for a minute." Mike registered Jason's outraged stare out of the corner of one eye, but didn't spare the boy any more attention. "Puff, it's all right. Come here boy," he called, as mildly and firmly as he could. This time he got a friendly swish of the tail from Puff, but the dog refused to be diverted from his target."Puff, come on. It's just Jason. It's all right, boy. Come on," Mike cajoled, patting his leg, but the huge dog inched ever closer to the boy."Just grab him or something, will ya?"Mike ignored Jason, concentrating instead on the dog."Puff!" he commanded this time. "Come here!"That earned him a glance from the dog, but then Jason made a move towards escape and all was lost."Get him--don't let him--Aaaaaaaaaaaah!" Jason's voice squeaked and then segued into an outright scream as Puff launched himself straight at the boy. Mike launched himself at Puff in the same instant.For a minute he thought his shoulder was dislocated. But in spite of the pain, Mike kept his one-handed grip on the dog's red collar, even as Puff's momentum slung them both around and down to land in an awkward heap on the grass. There was another long second while Mike wondered if Puff wouldn't finish the aborted attack after all, but after apparently realizing just who it was who lay beneath him in the grass, Puff scrambled up and snorted happily in Mike's face. Mike got his other arm up just in time to fend off the dog's cheerful tongue. He shoved Puff's face away from his own. Nonplussed by the rejection, Puff sat beside Mike, tongue lolling and tail thumping gently on the ground.Taking a better grip on the dog's collar with his good hand, Mike sat up and gingerly rotated the shoulder that had to have popped completely out of its socket when Puff's full weight hit his arm. It seemed uninjured, so he brushed the grass from his hair and his shirt and wiped dog spit on his jeans. Jason still cowered in the porch, his dark hair wet with sweat and his eyes huge with blind terror. More sweat gleamed on his face, and his mouth hung open. Mike knew the signs; he'd seen more than a few people frozen in fright in his days with the fire department."You all right?" he asked, standing up, yanking on the dog's collar to keep Puff at his side.Jason blinked rapidly several times, and his mouth snapped shut. He focused on Mike, the anger radiating from him palpable. He took two steps towards them, and stopped. In the softening light of evening, his face was pasty, except for two bright red patches burning high on each cheek."Yeah, I'm fine, except for that damn dog!" Taking another step their direction, Jason pointed a shaking finger at the dog, and beside Mike, Puff stiffened and growled. "Dammit, I told that bi--I told her to get rid of that mutt! He's gonna kill someone one of these days. Or I'm gonna kill him for her.""You headed out or coming home?" Mike made his question mild, but the change of subject was obvious even to Jason. Dark eyebrows drew together in a frown as he stared up at Mike, and, again, his mouth snapped shut. The look he gave Mike would have generated icicles in the Mojave. That was fine with Mike. Jason had moved in with Dori one month ago; it had taken all four neighboring households exactly one week to figure out it wasn't just Dori's dog and her brother who did not get along. No one asked, and everyone tried to pretend that no one noticed anything, Mike included. There were some lines neighbors just didn't cross. Mike'd ignored the sullen twenty-two year old's rudeness; he and Dori had been good neighbors for a year now, and that wasn't going to change because Jason and Puff couldn't decide who was the dominant male in the household."Out. I'm going out." Jason's growl was remarkably like Puff's, and Mike bit back a grin. Again, he tightened his grip on the dog's collar, and nodded in the direction of his own house."I'll take him back to my place until you're gone, then."The only acknowledgment he got from Jason was a curt nod. Keeping Puff close to his side, Mike headed for home. As he got across the street an engine revved in the distance, growing louder until tires screeched and skidded to a halt. Mike opened his screen door and Puff trotted happily inside, claws clicking on the hardwood floor. Mike looked over his shoulder across the street. Yup, looked like it was another dude's night out for Jason and Co.Across the street, in Dori's driveway, Jason was clambering into a dune buggy, driven by a stereotypical Southern California beach boy: sunglasses perched on top of his white-blonde hair, overly tan, and blandly good looking. Mike had mentally dubbed the boy "Surfer Bob," in honor of the ubiquitous surf boards fastened in the back of the buggy. He'd heard Dori complaining to the kid about the accumulating skid marks in her driveway, but the boy still announced his every arrival with squealing tires. Mike could have told him that his buggy wasn't that hot, wasn't nearly as hot as the dune buggy carefully parked in Mike's garage.Watching the buggy roar away tonight, Mike decided that someday soon some engine company would be unwrapping Surfer Bob and his sporty toy car from around a tree. Hopefully it would not be with Jason inside too--or, if so, Mike at least hoped it wouldn't be 51's call. He'd hate to have to be the one to tell Dori that her brother was a jellied mess of invincible youth.Turning away with a shake of his head, Mike opened his screen door. The phone started ringing and with three long strides he was across the living room to the phone table to grab it."Hello?"Chet's voice rattled excitedly in his ear, and Mike bit back a smile. He leaned on one shoulder in the hallway door as he listened."Sure, you bring the drinks and food, you can watch the game over here."Mike held the earpiece away from his ear as Chet's objection exploded from speaker. Where had Puff gotten to? He turned slowly, looking for the dog as his friend continued to sputter. Through the gap between the breakfast bar and the cabinets above it, he noticed his refrigerator door was still open. One long step had him standing in the kitchen doorway."HEY!"Puff was buried head and shoulders inside Mike's refrigerator, tail wagging so hard his entire hindquarters were wriggling in glee. ----- CHAPTER BREAK ----- In the velvet of the darknessBy the silhouette of silent treesThey are watching, they are waiting...~~Loreena McKennitt The arson investigators and homicide detectives returned later in the week, haunting the station during the next three shifts 51's A crew worked, and drinking more coffee than all three firefighter shifts put together. Mike shook his head as he tossed yet another empty coffee can into the garbage. Maybe they should send a bill to the police station for "beverage service." Opening a new can, he carefully measured the grounds into the pot, and added water. At the table behind him, Cap was trying to calm Chet and Marco down after this latest visit from Arson."Look, guys, it was a murder. A murder. Clary's just doing his job--""Trying to make it look like we know something we're not telling them!" Chet must have been really worked up, cutting Cap off like that. Mike adjusted the flame on the burner beneath the coffee pot as Chet continued, his voice shrill with indignance. "Why in the world would we be trying to protect an arsonist, for Christ's sake? We're the ones who have to fight the damn fires they set!""Amen to that," said Marco as Mike rejoined the group at the table. Cap sighed, and put his hands out in a placating gesture. Out in the vehicle bay the garage door rumbled, the squad idling outside as the panels slowly lifted."Look, fellas, a woman was deliberately left in that building. To die. That's murder," Cap repeated, emphasizing the word with a finger on the tabletop. Hunched over his crossed arms, Chet still looked rebellious, and Marco opened his mouth, but Cap's upraised hand indicated he still held the floor. "The detectives are just trying to get all the information they can. They're not accusing anybody here. Clary was hoping maybe one of you saw something you didn't necessarily realize was a clue." Cap waved away Chet's protest before he even got it out. "I know you don't like it, and I didn't appreciate everything about their approach myself, but they're just doing their job. And they're doing us a favor by getting people like this off the street. Surely even you can see that, Kelly."Doors slammed in the vehicle bay, unintentionally punctuating Cap's words, and the bay door clicked its way down. Roy and Johnny walked in; hands in their pockets, the two paramedics surveyed the group in silence. Nodding at the two new arrivals, Cap said, "Personally, I'll feel a whole lot better when the freaks who pulled this stunt are behind bars. ""Not likely to happen, " Marco said softly, "with no leads beyond the tattoo on her back. They can't even identify her yet! How are they going to catch the murderers? They don't even know who was murdered!""But they will," Cap insisted, though Mike wasn't quite sure which question he was answering.Roy and Johnny headed for the coffee, looking disappointed when Mike said, "It's not ready yet." Johnny veered back to open the refrigerator; Roy continued over to lean against the counter. He surveyed the sullen faces of his crewmates."I take it we missed the latest visit from Lieutenant Clary and his intrepid brigade of investigators?""Yes, you did, and not only did they drink all the coffee again, the man was practically accusing Marco of planting the body there before he found it!" Chet was still angry, and the room exploded into sound as he and Marco both tried to explain the latest indignity from the lead investigator to the paramedics. Cap sighed, and stared at the table. Mike took a drink of his own coffee."It will happen again and that's when they hope to catch them." At first he didn't think anyone heard him; not surprising considering the level of noise as Johnny pulled his head out of the refrigerator and began to interject his opinions into the uproar."Will you twits SHUT UP! I said!" Cap's yell quieted things down, and he shook his head disgustedly before turning back to Mike. "Say that again, Mike?""The police think they'll do it again. That they got a big thrill out of getting away with it this time, and they'll want to do it again and maybe this time there'll be more evidence left behind."There was a second of shocked silence, and then Johnny, Chet, and Marco all blurted out, "WHY?"Mike stared at his coffee cup, getting all the words in place before looking up at the five faces staring intently at him."Because Lieutenant Clary thinks it was an amateur job. The Molotovs were made of gasoline, not kerosene. He thinks it was a spur of the moment thrill kill, maybe the result of an argument, or to cover up a ra-rape." Mike stumbled over the word, Lieutenant Clary's calm voice echoing in his memory. The man had tossed out the word out like it was an everyday thing. Maybe it was in Clary's world, but it wasn't in the world of firefighting. Mike rubbed at an imaginary spot on the table. "They're hoping at least one of those involved will feel guilty, and maybe turn himself in. Either that or they'll try again, with someone else."His coffee was cold. Mike stood and walked over to the sink while his shiftmates thought that over. Dumping the contents of his cup out, he reached behind Roy for the fresh pot. Filling his cup, he held the pot up towards Roy. Roy twisted around and lifted two cups; Mike filled them as well. Roy headed for the empty chair beside Johnny, thunking one cup down in front of his partner, but Johnny was staring at Mike, and didn't acknowledge his partner's arrival. Mike had gotten all the way back to his chair when the silence was finally broken."How come you know so much, Stoker?" Johnny asked as Chet blurted, "Who filled you in and left the rest of us in the dark?"Stanley's frown said he'd like to know the answer to that one too. Mike shrugged, and blew on his coffee when it proved too hot to drink."Clary was using the phone in Cap's office and didn't close the door all the way. The engine needed polishing." He took an experimental sip of his coffee and grinned as his friends voiced their approval."All right, Mikey!" Chet enthused, leaning back and thumping his knuckles on the table. "Way to use the ol' noggin!""See, Kelly, that's why Mike's an engineer and you're just a hose jockey." Johnny leaned forward, elbows on the table, and smirked at Chet. Roy rolled his eyes and sipped his own drink while Marco shook his head and smiled at Johnny."Gage, you're one to talk--" Kelly started, but Cap cut him off."Glad to see some evidence at least one of my crewmembers has a brain," said Cap, picking up his coffee cup and leaning back with his arm behind his chair. The rest of their conversation was cut off by the tones blaring in the vehicle bay."Station 51, structure fire. 42321 West Schefflin Road. 4-2-3-2-1 West Schefflin Road, cross street Maryhill. Time out, 18:32"Mike's gut twisted, and he sat frozen as coffee cups dropped on the table and chairs screeched on the polished floor. Everyone else was out in the vehicle bay, and still he sat there. It wasn't until he heard Cap acknowledging the call that he found his feet. He knocked his chair over rather than scooted it back and raced out to join his crewmates, nearly running over Cap as he handed the address to Roy. Mike grabbed Cap's arm to keep them both from falling over, and then slapped the side of the squad to get Roy's attention. Startled, both Roy and Cap stared at him."It's my neighbor's house. Follow me, I know the fastest way there."He barely registered Roy's nod before he was away, around Cap and then the front of the squad. It seemed to take forever to grab his turnout coat from the running board and slip into it, but at last he was in the cab of the engine and starting it up. Cap hopped up into the other seat, and the garage doors rolled up the last few feet. Roy held back and let the engine lead the way. Mike hit the sirens as he turned left onto the broad boulevard and Station 51 rolled to the rescue.The small crowd of neighbors scattered across the street as the engine roared down Schefflin Road. The air brakes hissed as Mike brought the engine to a stop in front of the yellow farmhouse. Chet and Marco hopped out before Mike had killed the siren and cut the motor, headed for the rear of the engine and the nearby hydrant. Black smoke billowed from Dori's garage, and as Mike swung down from the driver's seat, a tall woman, her blonde hair only partially confined in a bun and her face soot blackened, ran toward them."Dori, she's--she's still in there! The shelf, it fell on her, I couldn't get her out!" Mike opened his mouth, but before he could call out to the frantic woman, Cap was there, grabbing her arm and pulling her around to face him."You say there's someone in there? Do you know where exactly?""She's in the kitchen, in our kitchen. She wasn't moving and I couldn't get her out, I tried! There was so much smoke when I got here, and--" Her voice broke off into a fit of coughing."Where?" Cap demanded.Cara whirled and pointed at the addition, where more smoke poured from the open door."There! In there! Please, you have to get her out!" She coughed again, as Johnny and Roy ran up, turnout coats and air tanks on and SCBA masks dangling from their hands."It's okay, we'll get her out; that's our job." Cap's voice was calm, and he gently held Cara by the shoulders. She gulped, and pushed a strand of her long hair back from her face as she stared at him. "Does anyone else live here?""Jason--but he hasn't been home all day. We were out looking for her dog, and then Dori stayed to work on the hors d'oeuvres for tomorrow and I left to go to the store and when I got back, there was all the smoke and she was under the shelf and please, you have to get her out!" Cara's voice rose hysterically at the end of that statement, and Cap patted her shoulder gently. She started coughing again."That's okay, we'll get her out," Cap repeated.Keeping one ear tuned to the conversation behind him, Mike turned to the business at hand, getting the hoses hooked up and starting the process of pumping water through the giant engine. Glancing over his shoulder at the house behind him, he saw Johnny and Roy already at the door of the addition. So far Dori and Cara's commercial kitchen seemed to be the source for the billowing smoke. Hopefully this was only a "bean pot," a fire started in the kitchen by the cook, and the rest of the house would be fine. Mike ran for the back of the engine to pull hose with Chet. Marco jogged over from the hydrant across the street to help with the hose, and Mike let him take over while he headed back around to his post at the side of the engine.Cap left Cara for the moment, waving at the two firemen at the end of the engine."Chet, Marco, get that inch and a half and get in there! Mike, you ready to charge the lines?"Cara started, and turned. Her astonished gaze met Mike's, and he smiled reassuringly at her before nodding at Stanley. Marco and Chet headed for the house, dragging the hose behind them. Cara was coughing again, and Cap came back to steer her over to sit on the running board near Mike."Here, sit down and let me get you some oxygen." Cara sat obediently, shivering and staring worriedly at the house in front of them.Mike watched the gauges as he charged the lines, waiting until Cap had moved away to get the squad's oxygen before he said anything."She'll be okay. They'll get her out."Cara flashed him a worried look and a tentative smile as Cap returned with the oxygen mask, and Mike smiled in return. "With any kitchen fire there's a lot smoke," he said, a bit louder as Cap handed her the mask and turned on the valve. Cara was still watching Mike as she held the oxygen to her face, and he smiled again. Cap nodded to Mike and jogged away, towards the house. Mike kept talking as he made another adjustment. "It's all that grease. Usually looks worse than it is. She should be fine."It seemed like forever that Mike put his own worry into making sure he did his job right. He juggled levers and dials, watching his gauges, wishing he could think of something more reassuring to say to Cara. But there wasn't much beyond what he'd already said. It all depended on how much smoke Dori'd eaten, and how hard it was to extricate her from beneath that shelf.Then suddenly Cara dropped the oxygen mask and took off running, heading for where Cap was laying out the paramedics' equipment. Mike glanced over his shoulder. Johnny was jogging across the lawn, Dori draped limply across his shoulders, Roy right behind him. Stanley grabbed Cara and pulled her back from her friend as Johnny gently laid Dori out on the lawn. Mike couldn't hear what Stanley was saying, but he knew the litany well enough. Stay back, let them do their jobs; they'll take care of her. Empty words, really, when someone was frantic with worry for a friend or loved one and could do nothing but wait.Johnny and Roy worked fast, getting the oxygen Cap retrieved for them on Dori, taking her blood pressure and cutting off her clothing to see how badly she was hurt. Stanley pulled a yellow blanket from the squad for them, one hand still out to keep Cara back. After some long moments and an interminable conversation with Rampart, Roy left Johnny starting an IV for Dori and came over to take Cara off Cap's hands. With one eye still on his gauges, Mike breathed a sigh of relief. If Dori was seriously injured, Roy wouldn't have left Johnny to care for her alone.Again, Mike concentrated on his job, more sirens announcing the arrival of the ambulance. Stanley headed for the house to check on things there. A sudden commotion at the squad caught his eye; Dori had evidently come to and was struggling with Johnny. Roy and Cara both moved over to help. The next time Mike was able to check, things had calmed considerably. Cara sat beside Dori stroking her hair as both paramedics worked over her for the moment.Then Cap was calling to Mike to shut down the pumps and disconnect the hoses; the fire was out. Mike hated to think about what the final stage of the firefighting effort would do to his friends' kitchen; this was the hardest part of the job, gutting the walls and destroying the home they'd worked to save, hauling all the belongings outside to be certain the fire was truly out. At least the fire had been contained in the addition, and hadn't spread to the rest of the house. Mike spared a glance at the squad. Johnny spoke urgently to Dori, who coughed and pulled at the oxygen mask. Pushing Roy's restraining hand away, she sat up, clutching the blanket over her shredded clothes. Johnny leaned over and said something to his partner. Roy shrugged, and Johnny stood, heading over to the engine."How are they?" Mike asked, as soon as the slender paramedic was close enough he didn't have to yell.Mike's gaze followed Johnny's as he looked over his shoulder at the scene behind him. Holding the blanket and the remains of her shirt with one hand, Dori was shaking her head and pulling the oxygen mask off with her other hand. Roy reached out and pushed the mask back, saying something with a smile. Dori relaxed, and let the oxygen mask remain, but she still shook her head in answer to whatever Roy was saying to her. The ambulance attendants stood mutely in the background."The blonde, Cara?" Johnny made the name a question, and Mike nodded. "She's fine. She ate a little smoke, but nothing serious." Johnny and Mike both watched as Cara threw her hands up in the air and shook her head at Roy. Dori pushed the mask off her face and said something, but Cara shook her head again. Confused, Mike looked back to Johnny. The paramedic answered without looking at him. "Dori, she...well, she ate quite a bit of smoke, and that shelf fell on her. She doesn't seem to have any serious injuries, and she probably wasn't unconscious that long 'cause she's oriented times three. But she could have a concussion, and...." Hands on his hips, the paramedic hesitated, opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, before he gave Mike an oblique look. "She's got some nasty bruises. She really should go in to Rampart and be seen by a doctor."Even more confused, Mike frowned. "The ambulance is here. Can't you just take her in?"Johnny sighed, and shifted to look Mike full in the face."She's refusing medical treatment. Doesn't want to go to the hospital, won't go see her own doctor. She ate enough smoke there's a chance of pulmonary edema, and she really should be under observation tonight for that and...and the probable concussion." Again Johnny seemed to be about to say more, but looked away instead. After a second his gaze shifted back to Mike. "Do you think you could talk her into going in?"Mike looked past Johnny to where Roy was talking urgently to Dori. Her head down, every line in her body stiff, Dori was the picture of obstinate refusal, until she began coughing. Johnny shook his head as she coughed on. Roy hovered over her, obviously trying to convince Dori to put the oxygen mask over her face. She relented as the coughing continued, and even allowed the paramedic to gently push her back down to the ground. Cara knelt worriedly at her side. She exchanged a few comments with Roy as he pulled the blanket up to Dori's shoulders. He shook his head and said something as he reached for the biophone again. Then Cara stood and stared at Dori, who had finally stopped coughing, before taking off towards the front door of the house."I don't know, Johnny. If Cara can't talk her into it, what makes you think I can? It's her choice, isn't it?" He shrugged, absently tracking the leggy blonde's progress across the lawn. But Johnny refused to give up."Just give it a try, Mike. She really needs to be seen by a doctor," Johnny insisted. "It may take a while for the effects of the smoke inhalation to catch up to her, but if it does and she's not near help, she could be in serious trouble. She seems oriented right now, but if there's a chance she's not..."Still watching Cara, now taking the stairs up to the front porch two at a time, Mike shrugged against the weight of the paramedic's concern."All right, I'll try. But I doubt it will do any good."Johnny nodded shortly, and headed back towards the squad. He and Roy exchanged comments quietly, and Roy gave Mike the same funny look he'd just gotten from Johnny. What in the world had those two so spooked? Both paramedics then busied themselves packing up their equipment. Mike sighed, and dropped the hose end he'd been holding.Chet and Marco came out of the addition as he made his way over to the squad. He knew they were going to exchange their hose for axes, and he was glad Cara was in the house. Maybe he could keep Dori occupied, and neither woman would realize right away what more was going to be done to their beloved kitchen.Holding the blanket up to her chest, Dori tried to sit up as he stopped and squatted beside her. Out of the corner of his eye, Mike caught Johnny's involuntary motion and put his own hand out to keep her down on the ground. Laying back, Dori shook her head, and reached up to pull the mask off her face. She held up her other hand and he clasped it. Johnny stepped away, carrying his load of equipment to the other side of the squad. Roy still hovered on Dori's other side, just far enough away to be out of her sight, but close enough to keep an eye on her."You're all a bunch of overprotective so and so's," Dori mumbled, scowling at Mike. She returned his grin with a matching one of her own, but the effect was marred by the coughing that consumed her. Mike studied her as she fought to catch her breath. There were several dark smudges on her arm, but he couldn't tell if they were bruises or from the fire.Even with her smoke blackened face and the blood trickling from beneath a bandage on her right temple, Dori Steadman was one of the few people Mike knew who really looked like her name. Nearly a foot shorter than his own six foot, three inches, her shoulder-length black hair accented her gently tanned complexion. Generously proportioned, but not overdone, she'd have been unremarkably pretty except for her eyes. Large and dark, with thick black lashes, they dominated her face. Despite being born in California, the cadences of her Georgia childhood governed her speech, and Mike had learned from Cara to tease Dori about her "southernisms.""Cara said you were here," Dori said, her voice raspy from the smoke, and Mike winced. Her throat would be raw for several days at least, if he was any judge. She coughed, and then spoke again. "She was quite impressed...seeing you in action." She managed an unrepentant smile as she teased him, and, kneeling beside the biophone on her other side, Roy chuckled. Mike hoped the heat climbing up his face couldn't be seen in the fading light, and he shrugged. Dori coughed again, and he reached over to pull the oxygen mask down over her face, ignoring the fact she rolled her eyes at him."You know, despite their funny looks, Johnny and Roy know their stuff. If they say you should go to the hospital, they're serious, Dori. Why don't you let them take you in?" Even beneath the mask Mike could see her jaw clench, and he wasn't surprised when she shook her head at him. His other hand caught hers before she could get the mask off again. "Besides, you'll break Johnny's heart if he doesn't get to ride in the ambulance with you," he whispered conspiratorially. "He's been dying to meet you ever since I took that plate of cinnamon rolls in to the station."Her eye roll at that comment was even more pronounced than the last one, and Mike grinned. This time he let her pull the oxygen mask up."Thank you so much for attempting to coordinate my social life," she managed before she started coughing again. "Didn't you call him 'One-shot Gage?' The man who couldn't get a woman to go out with him twice?" Mike heard Roy stifling more laughter as he packed up equipment, and he had to swallow his own laugh as he nodded in response to Dori's question."Oh, my, you are too kind, Mr. Stoker," Dori rasped. "See if I ever feed you again. Of course, Cara would give you anything your little ol' heart desired--should you ever get the nerve up to ask her, that is." Roy quit trying to hide his laughter at that point and Mike shot him a glare to avoid having to find a come back to that last comment. Dori was laughing at him too, in between coughs. He pulled the oxygen mask down over her face."I think you inhaled a little too much smoke," he said, and Dori, surprisingly, laid her head back and closed her eyes. But she was still grinning behind the mask.Cara returned from her errand, a bulky bundle of material in her hands. She stopped beside Mike, smiling broadly at him. Her long blonde hair was coming out of its bun, and Mike found himself staring at the curve of her neck beneath the locks of hair. Where Dori was soot and cinders, with an impish ambiguity, Cara was a clean, smokeless flame. Tall and slim, the hazel-eyed California native had a casual elegance and a naturally calm manner that didn't quite disguise an excellent sense of humor. As intensely capable as her friend, Cara was a natural gas fire, cool and clear and blue next to Dori's smouldering peat on the hearth. Mike had known from the beginning which he preferred."Oh, they called in the heavy artillery, did they?" Cara asked, winking at him. Mike felt the heat of another blush creeping up his face, and, letting go of Dori's hand, stood. Maybe his height would hide any unnatural color in his cheeks. Cara shook her head. "Let me guess, she won't listen to you, either?""No," he answered, and it was Cara's turn to roll her eyes. She shook out her bundle, a thick, terry-cloth robe."God, you are an obstinate creature, aren't you?" Cara said, kneeling beside her friend. Dori shook her head minutely as she pulled the oxygen mask off completely. Roy was there to take it. Toying with the cord and the mask, he looked at Dori, then at Cara and up at Mike."I really wish you'd let us--""No." Dori shook her head again, holding her arm towards him. Roy sighed, dropping the mask and tubing on the grass. His reluctance obvious, he reached for her arm and quietly disconnected the IV. Stowing that debris, he put a band-aid over the small wound left when the catheter was removed from Dori's arm. Giving Mike a look he couldn't interpret, Roy turned away and picked up the biophone handset."Rampart, patient is refusing medical treatment."Tuning out the rest of Roy's conversation with one of the doctors at Rampart, Mike took a step back. Dori sat up, Cara swinging the robe about her shoulders at the same time. Holding the yellow blanket up with one hand, she helped Dori slide her arms into the robe.His conversation over, Roy had discretely moved away, packing up the oxygen and shooing off the ambulance attendants. Mike looked over toward the house, watching as Cap and Marco manhandled a large shelf out of the oversized door and added it to the growing pile of charred debris in the driveway. When he turned back, Dori was sitting up, the robe pulled snugly about her. Cara still knelt beside her, gathering the scraps of clothing that Johnny and Roy had scattered as they worked on Dori. Dori coughed again, putting her hand over her mouth. The grayish sputum left on her hand afterwards was obvious, even as she tried to wipe it on her robe. Mike tried again."Dori, please--""I'm fine." She cut him off, staring at the growing pile of debris on her driveway. "Mike, we are in debt up to our necks, and we have no insurance." Dori swallowed a cough. "The repairs for this will take all my savings and probably our profits for the next few months. I don't need a hospital bill on top of that. If you--""Dori--" Cara was standing beside him now, and Mike found himself wishing that he could smell her perfume instead of smoke."Cara, I'm fine!" Dori held one hand up, and Mike helped her to her feet. She coughed, staggering against him briefly, before pushing away and standing straight, grabbing the robe and holding it closed at her neck. "I was fixing to tell Mike, if he wants to help, he can give us the name of a reputable contractor who will get this repaired quickly and for a reasonable cost.""I'm gonna 'fix' you for being such a stubborn fool! I thought blondes were supposed to the be dumb ones." Cara turned and stalked off up the driveway, where pieces of cabinetry were now being tossed out of the kitchen onto the stack of debris. She threw the remains of Dori's clothes on the pile. Cap appeared in the doorway and caught her arm just before she stepped into the building. Mike's attention was drawn away from the ensuing argument by Johnny's appearance at his side. A clip-board in his hand, he dug his lime-green pen from his shirt pocket as he held the board out to Dori."If you're still refusing medical treatment, I need you to sign this form."Mike didn't miss the appraising look Dori gave Johnny as she accepted both pen and clipboard. Then she signed the form and handed it back to him with a smile that bordered on simpering. Johnny answered with his own lop-sided grin as he tore her copy from beneath the official one. Mike groaned. Oh god, it wasn't happening, it wasn't. He wasn't going to watch if it was. Maybe he'd better get up to the house before Chet started making time with Cara. He gave Dori a fraternal pat on one shoulder."I'm gonna go rescue Cap from Cara. We'll be out of your hair in a little bit. And I'll come by tomorrow to see how you're doing, all right? I know a good contractor you can call. Retired firefighters, they'll do you right."Dori nodded her thanks, swallowing another cough, and turned her attention back to Johnny, who was smiling broadly now. Mike headed for relative sanity of the house, where Cara's cries of dismay could be plainly heard over the sound of axes. ----- CHAPTER BREAK ----- And I'll wager a hatful of guineasAgainst all of the songs you can singThat someday you'll love, and the next day you'll loseAnd winter will turn into springAnd the snow fallsAnd the wind callsAnd the wheel turns round again.~~John Tams The good news, Mike thought as he scrubbed at a particularly persistent spot of mud on the locker room floor, was that after spending his last four days off helping Cara and Jason clean up the mess left by both fire and firefighter, he finally had a date with Cara. The bad news was that it had been simply to give her a ride to the airport last night. Oh well, the two weeks she'd be gone visiting family in Colorado gave him time to figure out just where he could take her on a date. It didn't make sense to take a woman who could cook circles around 95% of the city out for a dinner date--at least, not at the kind of restaurant Mike could afford. He'd have to be a little more creative with his entertainment choices.The mud finally broke loose and Mike wiped it up. He dunked the mop in the bucket, and then the wringer, leaning on the lever to squeeze the mop out. Cara did drive a sporty 60's Buick Opel. Maybe she'd enjoy going to that new go-cart race-track...On second thought, maybe he'd just have to bite the bullet and ask Dori for some ideas on where to take Cara. Except Dori wasn't exactly happy with any of them right now. In addition to being worried about Puff's disappearance, she'd been forced by group fiat to sit on the porch for the last few days, taking paper inventory of the salvageable supplies they brought to her. Her persistent cough and hoarseness had left Mike with no doubt that Johnny had been right; she really would have been better off going to the hospital. But he and Cara both had been shot down every time they'd tried to get her to even go to her own doctor. They'd finally given up. "Let her suffer, then," Cara had said, and Dori, uncharacteristically sullen, had simply scowled and stifled another cough as she counted fondue forks.Dori might have been in a funk, but the normally surly Jason had been surprisingly helpful and pleasant--until light dawned for Mike. Jason wasn't helping Mike, or even Dori. Jason was helping Cara. Dori's brother had a crush on her business partner and best friend. Mike ought to recognize the signs; he was familiar enough with them. It was actually kind of funny, and, if Mike was completely honest with himself, it was what finally pushed him into asking Cara for a date. He wasn't worried about competition from Jason; after all, he had seven years and eight inches on the kid. But still, the thought that a kid like Jason had the guts to do what he did not rankled enough that Mike had finally bitten the bullet and asked her out.He'd been honestly surprised when Cara had said "yes;" so was a scowling Jason, evidently eavesdropping on the conversation. Fortunately that had been at the end of the day's work, when Cara was getting into her car. Jason's sullen glare had followed Mike all the way home, and Mike had to resist the urge to turn around and gloat to the boy's face."Roy, I'm telling you, we're probably just overreacting."The thump as he opened the door accompanied Johnny's voice into the locker room. Hidden by the two banks of lockers between them, Mike kept mopping. He was just about done. Spying another muddy footprint, he swished the mop over it."Don't forget, Johnny, I saw the same thing you did. And I don't think we're overreacting." Roy's voice, low and intense followed the squeak of a locker door opening. Mike pushed the mop over the floor in the far corner of the room. Sounded like Johnny and Roy's last run hadn't been very pleasant."Yeah, but..." A bench squeaked, and there was silence for a minute. "Okay, supposing we do say something? What exactly can he do about it? Anything? Anything at all?" There was silence for a moment. In a hurry to finish, Mike swept the mop under a bench. What had C shift done, answered a call at a mud wrestling tournament? Roy evidently didn't have an answer for Johnny, because after a second the dark-haired paramedic's voice continued. "Not much, hunh? Be realistic, Roy. There's just not a whole lot anyone can do in this kind of a situation. What's--""But what if we don't say anything and something worse happens? Are you willing to live with that?" Roy's rebuttal came softly, almost inaudible over the swish of the mop and the air conditioning kicking in."Roy, I just don't--"The wringer clanked against the bucket as Mike dropped the mop into it, and the locker room fell silent. Steering both mop and bucket by the mop handle, Mike pushed it out from the back bank of lockers and toward the front of the room. Johnny and Roy were both there when he came out from between the rows. Hands dangling between his knees, Johnny sat on the bench in front of his open locker, and Roy leaned on one shoulder against the next locker over, hands shoved into his pockets. Mike paused for a moment to get a better grip on the mop and move the bucket on out of the room."Hey, guys. Tough run?"He waited for a moment, while Johnny and Roy stared at him, wide-eyed. Then finally, Johnny blinked, and shooting a look at Roy, managed a sick grin for Mike."Uh... yeah." Johnny's entire body moved when he nodded, his shoulders bobbing along with his head. "Yeah, yeah. You, ah...you could say that." He laughed nervously, and glanced over at his partner. His gaze sliding away from Mike's, Roy shrugged."Yeah...." was all the blonde paramedic offered, ducking his head and looking down at the floor."Okay." Both paramedics looked at him then, Roy from up underneath his bangs, and Johnny just sitting there, staring. Mike couldn't resist checking his reflection in the mirror, just to be certain he hadn't been the unwitting victim of one of Chet's Phantom pranks. Nope, no dark circles under his eyes, no green dye on his uniform, no funny milk mustache on his face. Okay, maybe the guys wanted privacy to finish hashing all this out. He could understand that. Besides, he hadn't meant to eavesdrop--this time. He couldn't help it if he was naturally quiet.Mike took a better grip on the mop, ready to wheel it on out and give Johnny and Roy their privacy. But Johnny shifted, looked at Roy, who shrugged. Johnny turned back to Mike, held out one hand towards him, and took a deep breath. But the tones sounded before he could say anything. Mike shoved the mop and bucket over toward the wall, then followed Johnny and Roy as they scrambled for the door. The dispatcher's voice echoed through the vehicle bay as they exited the locker room."Squad 51, woman caught in sewing machine. 1432 Lubbock Lane, 1-4-3-2 Lubbock Lane, cross street Tahoka. Time out, 14:31."Mike stopped and bit back a grin as Johnny nearly ran into the engine. Catching himself with one hand, Johnny looked over his shoulder at Mike, his eyebrows nearly up to his hairline."Did he say sewing machine?"Smiling, Mike nodded, and Johnny rolled his eyes before running around the engine to the squad. The vehicle doors slammed over Cap's voice acknowledging the call, and someone opened the bay doors for the guys. As the squad rolled out of the station, Cap's phone rang, his footsteps loud on the floor as he ran back into his office to answer it. Mike headed back into the locker room to finish putting away his mop. Whatever Johnny had been about to say would have to wait.Chores done, Mike headed for the day room. He had a date with the entertainment section of the LA Times and a cup of coffee. Thirty minutes later he hadn't come up with anything interesting, besides the fascinating fact that Steeleye Span was opening for Jethro Tull's concert in two weeks. Maybe Dori would know if Cara's musical tastes would accommodate obscure British folk rock."So, you gonna ask Cara to give you cooking lessons?"Mike glared at Chet when the firefighter's face appeared, grinning suggestively over his newspaper. Marco stood behind Chet, holding two cups of coffee. Mike lowered the paper as Marco offered one cup to Chet."Why should I?" he asked, when Chet's gaze returned to him.Carefully holding his coffee, Chet rolled his eyes and shook his head."Why? WHY? Mike, man, think!" Mike just glared, and Chet was glad to continue. "May I remind you about last week? It was your turn to cook and you made that...that...what the heck was it called?" Chet lifted his eyebrows and looked forlornly to Marco for help, but the other firefighter just shrugged and drank his coffee.Mike frowned and folded the paper before dropping it on the couch. Okay, so Dori's recipe for Chicken Parmigiana was more complicated than it looked at first glance. He grabbed his cup up from the floor and stalked over to the range."Okay, fine, so for once my cooking didn't turn out--""Once? ONCE?" Chet shuddered as he followed Mike across the day room. "Mike, even Gage's record in the kitchen beats yours.""I don't know, Chet," Marco said from his seat on the couch, where he leafed one-handed through the paper Mike had abandoned. "Hot dogs are pretty low on the food scale. And you gotta admit Mike's never tried to serve those to us."Chet set his cup down on the counter and focused on Marco. Leaning against the counter next to him, Mike resisted the urge to pick up the nearby salt shaker and pour salt into the coffee."Yeah, but what do you call what he tried to feed us last week? That stuff was scary, man! Looked some sort of chemical warfare experiment gone nuts." One hand in his pocket, Chet leaned over to Mike. "You gotta take the chance here while you've got it, Mikey. Get some lessons, learn how to cook some real food. Your public will adore you for it."Mike slammed his cup on the range top."You guys like my spaghetti. And my fried chicken." He leaned over the shorter man, daring him to deny the truth of that statement. Chet nodded agreeably."Well, yeah, sure, Mike, sure we do. But..." He waved a finger at Mike's chest for emphasis. "You gotta admit, two years of spaghetti and fried chicken, man, it's getting a little old, ya know?"Stepping closer to Chet, Mike glared at his friend."I don't hear you complaining to Cap about his clam chowder, or how often he makes it.""Well, duh, Mikey. That's 'cause he's the Cap and you're not. What kind of a fool do you think I am?""Do you really want us to answer that?" Marco said from the couch. Mike smirked as Chet grimaced. Chet's exasperation didn't last, and he quickly started in on Mike again."Look, Mike, all I'm saying is you've got a golden opportunity here. Why not take advantage of it? When you're the Captain, I promise I won't complain--""What's this about Stoker taking my job?"Stanley stood in the doorway, arms akimbo, his glare taking in both Chet and Mike."It wasn't me, Cap." Mike defended himself quickly, grabbing his coffee and throwing his own glare at Chet as he headed back to the couch and his paper."Hey, Cap, I was just suggesting that Mikey take the opportunity to get some cooking lessons, while he can." Chet threw both hands out in an attempt to look innocent. Stanley just shook his head and headed for the coffeepot himself. Mike shoved Henry over and settled on the couch after reclaiming the Entertainment section of the newspaper from Marco."How're your neighbors doing, Mike?" Stanley asked a few moments later, settling into a chair at the table. He propped his feet in a nearby chair and slouched back, sipping at his coffee as he waited for Mike's answer. Mike dropped the paper he was perusing just enough to meet Stanley's questioning gaze."They're doing all right. I think McPherson gave them a break on the cost of the repairs, so they were pretty happy about that. Figure they can be back in business by the end of the month.""Good, good. That's really good to hear." Cap sighed moodily, and stared at nothing as he lifted his coffee cup again. Chet, settling in at the other end of the table, frowned. Marco dropped the paper he'd been reading, and all three men stared at Stanley. Realizing everyone's eyes were on him, Cap took a deep breath."I just heard from Clary. We got an i.d. on our body." There was silence, and Cap shook his head. "Amanda Parsons. She was a known prostitute, worked that area regularly. Her...roommate reported her missing a couple of days ago; they identified her as the victim from our arson by dental records and the remains of the tattoo on her back."None of the other men in the room said anything. Stanley let the silence settle, then cleared his throat."Anyway, they think she just happened to pick up the wrong...client, and the arson was to cover up the fact that things...things got out of hand.""But those were Molotov's, Cap. You don't just keep those handy for occasional use." Chet wasn't the brightest bulb in the fixture, but even he had a good idea now and then."I know, and I asked Clary about that, but he didn't seem to think it was an issue.""So, he's gonna stop looking for an arsonist, and start looking for a pervert. And we're left at the mercy of a firebug out there burning buildings up.""Yeah, well, C shift had another suspicious fire, the fire marshall is over there now checking it out. An abandoned house, over on Dunedin Road.""But no body this time," Marco said, staring at the paper, slack in his hand."No, pal, no body this time." Stanley's voice was soft, and there really wasn't much for anyone to say after that.* * Sometimes the slow shifts were harder to deal with than the busy ones. Marco had been somber the entire shift, and whatever was bugging the paramedics had left Johnny short-tempered and Roy uncharacteristically sullen. Chet had refused to let the cooking lesson thing drop, and by the time bedtime rolled around Mike had been about ready to deck him to make him shut up. All in all, not one of A shift's better days. They were toned out at 1 a.m. on a nasty MVA where three out of four victims were Code F at the scene and the fourth not expected to make it. At 5 a.m. it was a structure fire that kept them busy until well after 7 a.m. They returned to the station minutes before B shift arrived.And it wasn't even over for Mike at the end of his regular shift. He'd volunteered to cover part of B shift for their engineer, Roger Daniels. Poor man had to be in divorce court this morning; his wife was tired of being married to the fire department. Ten hours after the shift change, after three "unknown" rescues, two dumpster fires and an MVA, Mike arrived home. He kicked the front door shut behind him and dropped his keys on the coffee table. Forget supper, he needed a nap. Mike flopped on his couch and closed his eyes.Three hours later he sat straight up, his heart pounding. For a moment he was disoriented in the semi-darkness of the room, but another series of frantic knocks got his feet to the floor. Taking a deep breath and rubbing one hand over his face, he stood. He checked his watch as he stepped over the coffee table on his way to the door. Damn, it was nearly nine o'clock! He hadn't intended to sleep that long, hadn't intended to do more than catnap for a few minutes before finding some supper--not to mention he was supposed to be meeting the guys at the bowling alley right this minute.Mike turned on the lamp by the door before hitting the switch for the porch light. Through the sheer curtains over the front door's window, he could vaguely make out Dori, her arms wrapped around her as she leaned forward, peering into the house. The heavy wooden door opened with a creak, and Mike pushed the screen door out and held it for her. But Dori didn't come in, she just stared at him. For a second he thought she had a black eye, but then she moved. The shadows flowed across her face, and he saw that it was just her mascara, smeared under her eyes. Taking half a step outside, Mike looked closer. Her hair was a mess, the sleeveless shirt and jeans she wore looked like she'd been rolling in the dirt. Then he noticed the puffy eyes, red nose, make-up streaked across her face..."Dori? What's wrong?" Pushing the door open further, he gestured for her to come in, but she backed off, shaking her head. She looked away, over at her house, and then at him, opening her mouth as if to say something. Instead she coughed, swaying slightly, and stumbled as Mike stepped out onto the porch. He reached for her arm, but, hunching her shoulders, she avoided his grasp and stared somberly up at him."I...I need your help, Mike."More than the scent of Mrs. Caraveggio's roses came wafting toward him at that, and Mike frowned. Dori hadn't been his neighbor that long, but he'd seen enough of her to know she never seemed like the type to drink much. But here she was, wobbling all over his porch and obviously soused.Dori hiccupped, swayed again. Mike stepped closer, afraid she was going to take a header down the porch steps, but she steadied herself. Staring up at him, she sniffed, then coughed."It--it's Puff... I can't...I can't move him, and I thought you might be able to help me..." One hand went up to her head for a moment, and she blinked, looking away, obviously fighting tears. Tears ran down her face anyway, further streaking her mascara. "I...I'm sorry to bother you, but I didn't want to leave him lying there all night..."More than a little concerned, Mike reached for her arm again, but she swayed slightly, just enough to stay out of his reach. He couldn't tell if she was doing it on purpose or not, but he let his hand fall. No sense pushing things and causing her to fall."Puff came back?" he asked, studying her.Dori shook her head, frowning slightly through her tears. She wiped one hand across her face and then against her nose, but it didn't do much good."He, he...he wasn't ever really gone," she said, wiping her hand on her jeans now, but before Mike could ask her what in the world that meant, his phone rang."Dori, come on in for a minute, okay?" She hesitated, and Mike reached out to take her elbow, this time making contact. She flinched, but didn't resist as he pulled her into the house, steadying her when she tripped over the doorstep. The phone shrilled again as he carefully guided her to the armchair by the front window. "Just wait here while I answer the phone, and then I'll help you with Puff. Okay?"Staring blankly at him, Dori nodded once, and then pulled her arms in tight to her body as she sank slowly into the chair. She didn't relax into it; instead she perched on the edge of the seat, hands clenched as she rocked slightly. Her eyes not quite meeting his, she focused on a spot somewhere over his shoulder. With a final concerned glance at her, Mike turned and headed for the phone, grabbing it on its eighth or ninth ring."Hello?""Hey, Mike, did you forget the league tonight?" Johnny's voice floated from the receiver. Mike turned to keep an eye on Dori. She seemed to have retreated into her own little world for the moment. After a second he realized Johnny was still waiting for an answer. The yells and cries of the bowlers in the alley floated from the phone."Mike?""No, I didn't forget; I fell asleep after I got home and just woke up.""Oh. Well, there's still time for you to make it. We're just now warming up; the early league ran late."Still watching Dori, swaying minutely back and forth in the chair as if caught in some invisible eddy, Mike frowned."Uh, Johnny...I don't think I'm gonna be able to make it tonight.""What do you mean, you can't make it tonight? You know we can't get a substitute this late! Just come on over; it doesn't matter if you didn't get a shower or anything," Johnny cajoled. "You'll still smell better than ol' Chester B. on a good day.""Look, Johnny, I'm sorry, but I can't. Something's come up, okay?""Oh, yeah? What's her name?"Mike sighed, turning away for the moment from Dori's distress, focusing instead on the calendar of Classic Fin Cars hanging above his telephone."Johnny, look, I said I'm sorry. I don't have time to explain right now. I need to go. I'll be there later if I can."Johnny's protest was cut off in mid-sentence as Mike dropped the phone back into its cradle. He stared uncertainly at the 1957 Bel Air gleaming above April's calendar, before he turned back to Dori. Nothing had changed, and his confusion mounted. She sat bobbing to whatever internal unrest held her, staring off into the distance, appearing like anything but the capable young professional woman he'd come to know over the last few months. What in the world could have happened to Puff to cause this sort of a reaction in her?She didn't seem to see him until he crossed the room and sat on the coffee table in front of her. Then she started and her eyes grew huge as she flinched away from him."Hey, hey, it's okay. It's just me." He immediately dropped the hand he'd half lifted to her shoulder.It took her a second, but she focused on him, and then favored him with what should have been a bright smile but was instead a ghastly grimace beneath the streaked make-up. For a minute, Mike had the unsettling thought that it wasn't Dori sitting there at all; rather it was some little girl, some very lost little girl, playing with her mother's make-up. Unsettled, he shook that image away, helped by the fact that she hiccupped and burped just then. Her hand shot up to cover her mouth and she mumbled "Sorry" as she looked away. Instinctively, Mike pulled back from the scent of...bourbon. That's what it was. His step-father had allowed the stuff in the house for holidays, and that was it. Mike had been more than a little clueless about adult beverages until he went to college. He'd learned more then he really wanted to know about them since he joined the fire department. But that particular smell was one he would never forget.Tilting her head to one side, Dori was staring up at him now."Mike, Mike, Fireman Mike," she chanted, smiling at him. "Cara, she likes you, you know? She likes you a lot. Better than she likes Jason." Dori giggled. Mike grinned, and shook his head, hoping she wouldn't notice his blush. Then again, in her inebriated state, she probably wasn't noticing much at all."Yeah, well, tell you what, why don't we skip this part of the conversation?"Dori nodded agreeably and smiled. Okay, now what? Should he get her to take him to Puff, or should he just take her home? Dori took care of that dilemma, shivering suddenly and turning away from him. For the first time Mike noticed the series of bruises on her upper arm. Livid against her pale skin, the long, dark contusions looked almost like claw marks."Is that from the fire?"She didn't even look, just nodded, covering the bruises with her hand."There was a lot of stuff on the shelf when it fell on me," she said, tonelessly. Mike frowned. What had Johnny said at the scene, that she had a lot of nasty bruises? Maybe he and Cara should have pushed her harder about going to the hospital after all.He stared at Dori while she rubbed absently at her arm. After a few seconds Dori looked up at him, and the haunted little girl was back in her eyes. "Will...will you help me with Puff?" she whispered.Mike nodded, and couldn't stop the thought that his capable neighbor looked like she need help with a whole lot more than Puff at this moment."Yeah. Of course I will." Standing, he held out a hand to help her up, but she pushed herself to her feet using the arms of the chair instead. Okay, Mike could take a hint. He didn't try to assist her again, merely held the door open for her as they left the house.Neither one said anything as they made their way across the street. Mike had to keep pulling his hand back every time she stumbled. But somehow Dori never fell, even when she tripped over the lines in her cement driveway. Wavering slightly, she led him around the side of her house and into the backyard. They walked all the way across the grassy expanse, and then were into the rough grass and gnarled apple trees at the back of her lot, remnants of an old orchard that stood between Dori's house and the ruined barn. Literally tripping through the trees, she somehow made it through the orchard without a major collision. Then she led him down the dirt road that ran along beside the poplars and out to the deserted barn, glinting silver in the moonlight. They'd gone about thirty feet down the road when she stopped.A flashlight lay on the ground in front of them, its dim light trailing across a strange, dark shape and faintly illuminating the green alfalfa in the field beyond it. It was a moment before Mike realized the misshapen mass was Puff, lying motionless on the ground. Dori hung back, sniffling, as he knelt beside the dog, his hands out to verify what he already knew in his heart.Puff was sprawled half on, half off a khaki tarp and there was no mistaking the huge dog was dead. Had been dead for a couple of days, if Mike was any judge. Mike gently smoothed the black fur, noting how dirty and matted it was. Even in the open air of the field, the dog reeked of feces and urine. The body felt strange, after a moment Mike realized it was because he could feel the bones through the fur. In the yellowed beam of the flashlight he couldn't make out why exactly the dog had died. Mike hung his head, his hands clenched in the loose fur. However it had happened, the poor dog had died alone and in misery. He'd miss the big dumb mutt, he really would.Given the dog's position on the tarp, it looked like Dori had been attempting to drag him back to her house, but from where? And how had Puff been missed, if he was out here in the field? Dori had been turning the entire neighborhood upside down looking for him the last week, and Mike knew he'd seen her back on this road at least once. Cara had forcibly removed her back to the porch that time, but he was sure it wasn't the only time she'd been back here, searching.He turned to look at his neighbor. Light from the many streetlights beyond them and from the flashlight glinted off the tears on her face."I'm sorry, Dori." There was no reaction to his apology; Dori simply stared down at her dog. Mike turned back, laying his hand on Puff's head. "Where did you find him?""He, he was a, a graduation present...from, from my brother."Okay, that wasn't quite what he had in mind, but at this point it probably didn't matter where Puff had been. Catching his glance, Dori licked her lips and tried to smile, but that failed, miserably. She bit her lip instead, an obvious attempt to stifle more sobs. Wrapping her arms tightly about her, she shivered in the temperate night air."From Jason?" Mike couldn't help the skepticism, but either Dori didn't notice, or she didn't care. She shook her head, and then staggered, just a bit. One hand went out to help her, but she didn't need it. She stepped aside, staring at Puff all the while."No...no. Sandy, my older brother. He always wor--...he wanted...he tried to get me to stay in Sacramento...but I wou-- And now Puff's dead."Mike frowned. Dori wasn't making any sense whatsoever, even if she did appear slightly more sober than she had fifteen minutes ago. He stood, and they both stared at Puff for a moment or two."What do you want to do with him?"Dori flinched, and looked away, out over the field of fragrant hay."The...the burn pile?" She waved a hand towards the pile of debris they'd stacked on the back edge of her property."He would smell," Mike said, without thinking, and then swore softly to himself when Dori gasped. Turning, he found her staring up at him, tears welling again in her eyes."Look, Dori, I'm sorry, I..." There wasn't anything he could say, so instead he reached out to pat her shoulder. He missed as Dori stepped up and knelt beside Puff. She ran her fingers over the dog's face."There...there's a shovel. I...I can dig a grave for him, but I...I need help getting him home."Digging a grave for a dog in the middle of the night? She was a bit pickled here. Mike shook his head. Hands on his knees, he bent over beside her, willing her to look at him."Dori, I can dig the grave for you tomorrow. We can put him in your garage tonight, and I'll take care of it first thing in the morning, I promise. Right now why don't you let me walk you back up to the house?"She was already shaking her head before he got to the part about walking her up to the house."NO! It's got to be done tonight, before... before..." Whatever she was going to say was lost in the coughs that suddenly shook her."Before what?" Mike asked gently, kneeling beside her now, one hand on her back. She shrugged his hand off and lurched to her feet, taking several steps away before turning back to him. Her teeth glimmered in the faint light, as if she was smiling--or grimacing. Mike couldn't be sure."That's...that's okay, Mike. I shouldn't have, shouldn't have bothered you. Thanks for coming.""Dori, I'll help you get him back up to the house. But we can't dig a grave for him tonight. I'm off tomorrow, and I promise, I'll help you take care of it first thing in the morning, okay?"Even in the near darkness he could tell she didn't like that solution, at all. But she didn't say anything, just stared down at the ground. Then she looked up at him."Your house?""What?" He stood this time, but didn't try to approach her."Can...." Dori hesitated, then swallowed. "Can we carry him over to your house? He'll be safe there, and I won't have to worry, and then tomorrow would be okay for digging the grave." The words came out in a rush, as though she was afraid he'd reject the idea outright.Mike stared at Dori, and then down at the dog. Rubbing her hands over her arms, Dori waited patiently for his response."Okay, yeah. We can do that," Mike said, not even sure at this point what he was agreeing to.She nodded, and he thought she smiled at him. Shaking his head, Mike stepped over and squatted down to shift the dog all the way onto the tarp, pulling one edge up and over Puff. Something slid out with a thud when he yanked on the other side of the tarp. Reaching for whatever it was, his hand encountered smooth glass. He stood, brushing dirt off a square bottle. He didn't have to take the lid off to smell the contents. There was a motion by his side, and Dori slipped the bottle from his hands.Mike turned to stare at her as she took several steps back, away from him, cradling the bottle in one arm. Where in the world had his nice, normal neighbor gone too? It wasn't even a full moon tonight. Staring over his shoulder again, Dori simply clutched the bottle tightly and said nothing. With a shrug, he returned to his task. Pulling the rest of the tarp around the dog, he bent over and lifted him carefully. The burden wasn't nearly as heavy as he remembered Puff being, and Mike let the wave of sadness for the animal wash over him. Hell of a way for a beloved pet to die. He wasn't ever really gone... Dori's voice drifted across his memory, and Mike frowned. What in the world did she mean by that? He wasn't sure, and at this point, he wasn't sure he even really wanted to know. Right now bowling with the guys was sounding better and better."You want to get the flashlight?" he asked.Bourbon still safe in the crook of one arm, Dori tripped over a dirt clod as she headed for the flashlight. Mike didn't have a hand free to catch her when she tumbled into the dirt, but when her first reaction was to check for the bourbon bottle beneath her, he decided he wasn't feeling quite as charitable as he had earlier. Bottle in one hand, Dori scrambled over to the flashlight. Standing, she ignored the dirt and dried plant stalks dangling from her clothing, and reached for the light. This time she made it without falling down.The light wobbled with her unsteady steps as she led the way back. Mike hefted Puff's body again in his arms, and followed her. In silence they made their way back down the road, through Dori's yard, and across the street to his house. Mike gently laid the dog on the driveway when they got to his garage."Hang on, I'll get the key."Dori didn't say anything, just stood there, staring down at her dog. Five minutes later Puff's body was resting inside Mike's garage, and he was locking up the door. Dori, still standing where she'd stopped when they first got there, watched in silence."He was a good dog," she said, finally, when Mike turned around to face her. "A very good dog." She hefted the bourbon, not really looking at him."Yeah." There was silence for a moment. Dori stared up at the stars for a minute, and met his gaze as he stared at her. The light from the back porch cast huge shadows across her face, making her look as if she had no eyes, just great hollows in her face where the eyes should be. She staggered slightly, and coughed."Thank you, Mike," she pronounced carefully. The liquor gurgled as she gestured towards the garage with it, and she stared down at the bottle in her hand, stupidly. "He...he was always safer with you.""Dori...why don't you let me walk you home? You--""No. No, I'm fine, Mike. I wouldn't want to get you in--" She hiccupped, and then finished, "in trouble. Thank you.""Dori--"She covered the ground between them with surprising agility, not stumbling once. Now she was standing right in front of him, leaning into him. Instinctively, Mike took one step back, and she almost tipped over as she leaned further over towards him. The flashlight fell to the ground as she staggered, and his arms came out automatically to catch her. Mike held her awkwardly as Dori leaned full length against him. Resting her head against his shoulder, she hummed contentedly, tapping the whiskey bottle against his leg."Dori...""You're a really nice guy, Fireman Mike. Really nice." Her hand traced circles on his shirt as she smiled beatifically up at him, the mascara bruises even larger in the light coming over Mike's shoulder. He shifted, trying unobtrusively to set her on her feet, but she remained limp against him. Then she reached up and cupped his face in her hand."Dori, I don't think---""Real nice, Fireman Mike. Real nice." She stroked his jaw and Mike bit back a groan. Just what he needed, a drunk Dori making a pass at him."Dori--"But before he could fully voice his objections, her feet moved, and she pushed away from him, standing up straight. She lifted the bottle in a salute."I hope you have a nice life, Fireman Mike," she said, clearly. "You and Cara, both."She patted his chest once, and turned away. Placing her feet carefully, she made her way down his driveway, wobbling into his truck once, and then managing a fairly straight bee line towards her house. Mike stared after her, watching as she crossed the street without looking, and then finally made it all the way up onto her porch. She stopped there, and Mike came forward, down the driveway until he figured out she was simply taking a drink from the bottle in her hand, a very long drink. He frowned. What in the world...?At last the door banged shut behind Dori, and Mike shook his head. He headed back inside his own house. It wasn't too late to catch up with the guys at the bowling alley. Back door locked, he grabbed his keys and went out again, locking the front door behind him. Getting in his truck and starting his engine, he stared at the reflection of Dori's place in the rearview mirror. The lights went out there as he shifted into the reverse, and backed out into the street. As he headed down the road, he passed Jason and Surfer Bob, dune buggy roaring towards Dori's house. He shook his head.Damn, but he was sure glad it was Cara he had a date with in two weeks, and not Dori. ----- CHAPTER BREAK ----- I search my soulmy heart and in my mindto try and find forgivenessthis is someone's childwith pain unreconciled~~Melissa Etheridge It was nearly noon the next day before Mike got across the street, having his own hangover to deal with this morning. He'd arrived at the bowling alley last night in the middle of the second game, sidestepping his friends' jeers and assumptions about why he'd been late as quietly as he could. With his arrival, the guys had wrangled a date from four pretty girls bowling on a nearby lane, so afterwards they'd all wound up at a nearby bar.Maybe it was just because he was trying to push Dori's unsettling behavior out of his mind, and maybe it was in honor of a good dog's death, but Mike had gone ahead and indulged in more beer than he usually did--enough that his friends had confiscated his keys when he tried to leave just after one a.m. Forced to wait until someone else was ready to leave, Mike had sulked in the booth until two of the girls had offered to take him home; his or theirs he wasn't quite sober enough to figure out. But Johnny had taken pity on him, dropping him off at his house, seeing him in the door and promising to return today to take Mike to retrieve his truck. Mike had slept until well after 10 this morning. He'd reeked of cigarette smoke when he woke--not to mention the brewery taste in his mouth to match the Clydesdales galloping in his head.Now, an hour later, clean, fed, and feeling somewhat human, he stood on Dori's front porch and waited for some sign of life inside the house. The day was bright and sunny; only a few high level stratus clouds between the sun and the city below. Not much haze hanging over the hills, not yet. There'd be more, though, and soon, as spring rapidly swelled into summer and the heat and haze settled in for the duration. Mike was just beginning to think that a trip to the beach with his own dune buggy sounded like a much better way to spend his afternoon, when the curtain on the door's window twitched.It was a bit too much like the Munsters when the door slowly creaked open, with no discernable movement in the shadowy interior of the house. Mike bit back a grin. Seconds later, Jason materialized from the darkness behind the ancient, wooden frame screen. One arm up on the wall above the door, the other draped over the door itself, Jason leaned there and stared at Mike. His Madras plaid shirt hung open, revealing more of his scrawny chest than Mike would ever be interested in."What do you want, fireboy?" Jason sneered at last, scowling through the screen at Mike.Hmm...apparently Jason was more than a bit jealous that Cara was going out with Mike instead of him. Mike smiled just slightly. He knew how to get under the skin of snots like this, knew just how much of his amusement at Jason's attitude he should allow to show."Is Dori here?" Mike asked, allowing his smile to grow, and when Jason's scowl deepened, he added, mildly, "She's expecting me."Unmoving, his pale eyes narrowed, Jason stared at him."Yeah, what's she expecting you for, fireboy? She got a fire you're gonna put out?" Jason's tone was lewd and his sudden grin ludicrous, transforming his boyish good looks into something far older and far dirtier. Unsure what to say or do, Mike waited a second, and when Jason made no move to open the door, he opened his mouth. But before he could say anything, there was movement behind Jason. Dori appeared at Jason's shoulder, pulling her white robe around her."It's not your matter, Jason," she said, nervously tugging at her belt. "Mike's helping me with...some yard work. I set it up with him last night after you and Warren left."Yard work? Mike tried to hide his surprise at Dori's dissembling as Jason continued to stare at him. Dori fiddled with the ties on her robe, and for a second nobody moved."I set your breakfast on the table. It’s getting cold," Dori finally said, as Jason stepped back. Shoving the screen door open with one hand, he almost hit Mike in the face with it."Well then, come on in, fireboy." Jason smiled again at Mike. At least, Mike thought it was supposed to be a smile, but the emotion lurking behind the movement of Jason's facial muscles wasn't pleasant at all. Neither was the light in his eyes as he held the door, gesturing expansively for Mike to enter. At his back, Dori made a small motion with her hands, almost as if she rather Mike didn't. But as Jason waved again, Dori stepped away too."There's coffee and cinnamon rolls," she said. Her smile, while not completely welcoming, was definitely more wholesome than the smirk lingering on Jason's face as he waited for Mike to enter."Thanks, Dori, but I'm not really hungry," Mike said, stepping inside the house. He caught the screen door before it could slam behind him. His stomach was still a little queasy, not quite sure about the coffee and toast he'd eaten just half an hour before. Jason shoved by in front of him, heading across the room for his breakfast, Mike supposed. Standing in the small linoleum entryway that took up this corner of the living room, Mike took a closer look at his friend. Not surprisingly, Dori looked a little green around the gills herself."How're you feeling this morning?" he asked quietly, ignoring Jason as he slammed something down on the dining table in the far corner.Dori shrugged, her eyes flicking over toward Jason, now shoveling something vaguely resembling eggs into his mouth. Looking up at Mike, she spoke so low he had to lean forward to hear her."As well as can be expected, I suppose."The shy smile she offered with that comment was more than half apology, and Mike smiled in return."Yeah, well, I've had the same sort of encounter with bourbon myself. You're standing this morning, so you're a better man than I am," he offered, and Dori grinned. Mike's own smile grew. It was a relief to find his neighbor again, rather than the strange shade who had stood in for her last night.Taking a deep breath, Dori waved her hand over toward the table in the corner. Jason was still eating, but obviously paying more attention to their conversation than his breakfast."There's plenty, help yourself. Coffee mugs're in the kitchen; you remember where?"Mike nodded. He'd been in Dori's house enough times to know his way around a little bit. But more coffee really wasn't what his sour stomach wanted right now."Thanks, Dori, but no thanks."“Okay, then, have a seat.” She brushed the back of the couch with one hand. “ I'll just go get dressed." With another shaky smile, Dori looked over her shoulder at Jason, then headed for the stairs behind her.Mike headed around the bright yellow couch and took a seat on one end. Ignoring Jason, he stared at the carpet. Gray wool with yellow and red flowers, it must have been the original carpet for the house. They sure didn’t make anything like it anymore. Good thing, since it was the kind of ugly that would never die. Settling back against the plump cushions, he put his elbow up on the arm of the couch, and the short lamp on the end table clattered over. He caught the lamp before it hit the floor, but something else thumped softly on the ancient rug. Leaning forward, he spied a small silver frame, face down on the floor. He reached for it without getting up, and found himself holding a family picture.Obviously several years old, the family’s smiles appeared frozen by more than the camera they faced. Dori was seated on the ground in front of the grouping, her resemblance to her mother unmistakable. From the black hair framing their faces to their softly round figures, the two women were obviously cut from the same mold. However much Dori and her mom looked like each other, Jason was even more a carbon copy of the man in the photo, from the short brown hair to their equally tightly clenched jaws. Standing at the back of the grouping, slim and barely head and shoulders taller than his seated parents, Jason hadn’t grown much in the intervening years. Mike could easily tell that their father was not just taller, but bigger, more heavily muscled."What are you staring at?" the current model of Jason snarled, his face twisted into a deep scowl when Mike looked over at him."Nice picture," Mike said, setting the frame carefully on the small table beneath the lamp. "You and Dori look even less alike than me and my sister."Jason snorted and then barked out an ugly laugh."She's not my real sister," he growled, reaching for another cinnamon roll. "Just ‘cause her momma married my dad doesn't make us family." Jason stared at Mike, obviously daring him to make something of the comment.Dori's entrance saved Mike, but whether it was from having to reply to Jason's announcement, or walking across the room to deck the jerk, Mike wasn’t sure. Just as well, the family politics here were a bit out of his depth. Sure, he’d been upset when his own mother remarried three years after his father’s death, but Mike and his step-father had gotten along all right--eventually, after the bourbon incident. But there hadn’t been any step-siblings for Mike and his sister to deal with. He’d been fifteen before his half-brother was born, and seventeen before little Janelle came along. Not much opportunity for sibling rivalry there. He turned away from Jason, and looked at Dori, standing at the other end of the couch.Dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved Dodger's jersey, Dori was still paler than normal, but at least the dark circles under her eyes weren't from mascara. She smiled at Mike as she ran the brush through her hair, and he was once again relieved that things were almost back to normal."There's rolls and coffee, Mike. Seriously, won’t you let me fix you something? You did have breakfast, didn’t you?”Mike didn’t bother to mention that it was almost lunchtime. Everybody was getting off to a late start today. Propping one knee on the couch while she brushed her hair, Dori was spoke around the hair clip she held in her mouth.“I’ve still got fixin’s for omelettes; another one’s no trouble.” Finished fastening her hair into a pony tail, she pushed a stray lock of hair back as she spoke, and for the first time Mike noticed the large white bandage on her right hand."What did you do?" he asked, standing and pointing at her hand. Dori stared down at her hand as if surprised to find the bandage there. There was a clatter as a fork hit the table behind him."Yeah, Dor-ee," Jason sneered her name, "what'd ya do this time, ya klutz?"Dori offered a weak smile, and shrugged one shoulder."I grabbed the skillet without a pot holder this morning." She looked up at Mike, and shook her head. "It was my fault, I wasn't paying attention to what I was doing."Jason snickered as tires squealed nearby. A horn sounded, and Jason stood, a nearly empty glass in one hand. He stared at Dori and Mike, still smirking."Dori's clumsy that way, fireboy. Always has been, haven't you, Dori?" He kept an eye on them even as he drained his glass, and Mike, catching Dori's blush, opened his mouth. Someone evidently neglected to teach Jason any manners. Dori beat him to the punch as the horn honked imperatively."Warren's waiting for you, Jason," was all she said, not looking at either man. Jason, still leering, grabbed another cinnamon roll and headed across the room. He veered over to Dori, and leaned in towards her, watching Mike over his shoulder as he did so."I'm not the only one he's waiting for," he stage-whispered lewdly, reaching up to run his hand along Dori's jaw in an absurd parody of a caress. Dori jerked her head back and Mike took half a step forward, his fists clenching. He’d had about enough of the kid and his attitude this morning.At Mike’s movement, Jason stepped back, laughing at them both, and then pushed behind Dori to vault over the couch. Stuffing half the roll in his mouth, he grinned again, and for a moment the boyish face that had mooned over Cara a couple of days ago reappeared. Then he winked suggestively at Mike, and waved at Dori."Have fun with her while you can, fireboy!"And Jason disappeared out the door, slamming it shut behind him. There was a loud roar from the dune buggy outside, and more squealing tires.Staring at the closed door, Mike couldn’t decide if he wanted to deck Jason, or turn him over his knee and spank his bottom. Maybe both.Dori was at the table gathering dishes when he turned around. Her head ducked low, she was shaking, and Mike arrived just as the glass she was attempting to stack on Jason's empty plate fell. He bent over and grabbed it out from under the chair it rolled beneath and then gently took the plate from Dori's hands."Here, let me get that for you."Dori acquiesced, and without speaking she headed for the kitchen. Mike gathered the rest of the dishes before following her. The sight of the lone cinnamon roll on the plate that had obviously held more brought a grin to Mike’s face. Unfortunately, they seemed to have more to fight over here than just pastries. Half an omelette was drying out on another plate, and the clear glass pitcher held what had to be fresh-squeezed orange juice. Mike shook his head as he gathered everything but the plate with the cinnamon roll and the juice into a neat pile. Jason might not want to claim Dori as his sister, but he sure took full advantage of living here with her.Stepping through the entranceway of the kitchen, Mike set his burden down on the tiled counter by the sink, and shifted the wooden-handled skillet already there to make room for the new dishes. Dori was at the other end of the narrow kitchen, behind the short bar that divided the breakfast nook there from the rest of the room. Standing on a chair, she was half hidden by the hanging cabinet she was rummaging through. From the sounds of it, she wasn’t having much luck finding what she wanted. Mike was about to offer to help when a box of Alka-Seltzer landed on the counter.Ah, okay. Mike returned to the dining room for the rest of the food, and a few seconds later he set the orange juice in the refrigerator and the plate with its lone cinnamon roll down on the short bar. Dori stood on the other side, fumbling with the Alka-Seltzer box. As Mike watched, the box shot out of her hands and skittered across the counter, then plopped down to the floor at his feet."Dammit!"Mike had already retrieved the box by the time she got around the bar. She wouldn't meet his gaze as she took it from him, her hand shaking and, a quick glance confirmed, she was crying. Nearly dropping the box again, Dori couldn't seem to get it open, and Mike took it back from her. Wordlessly he opened the box, and removed one of the foil packets, holding it out. Not meeting his gaze, Dori smiled slightly as she took the package and then stepped around him to the sink. Filling a glass, she managed to open the packet and drop the tablets in. Her back to him, Dori stared at the fizzing liquid in her glass. One hand in the front pocket of his jeans, Mike leaned against the other on the counter and stared at Dori. Wasn't it less than ten minutes ago he'd been grateful for the return of his "normal" neighbor? Dealing with crying women was never Mike's strong suit, and especially when he was as confused about what was going on here as he was now. Finally, he took a deep breath."Dori?"Dori tensed, and hastily wiped a hand over her face. Not looking at him, she picked up the glass and swirled the liquid gently."I'm sorry, Mike. I'm just tired, and then there's Puff, and sometimes Jason..." She hesitated, gazing out the window over the kitchen sink. "Sometimes Jason can be a little hard to live with."Sometimes? A little hard to live with?"Yeah, so I noticed." That got him a glance and a bit of a smile, and then Dori stared down again at her drink. Mike rolled his next words over a few times; he really didn't want to upset Dori, but then again... "Someone needs to sign him up for Woodshed 101 and teach him some manners." He smiled as he said it, and after a second of shocked speechlessness, Dori actually giggled."Oh, that would never do." She took a drink of the Alka-seltzer, made a face and then downed the rest of the drink. Mike contemplated asking for his own glass of the stuff; it couldn't hurt. Dori set the glass carefully at the edge of the sink. "Jason...He was so sick when he was little; he nearly died several times. When he got older Max wouldn't allow anyone to touch him. Max...Max would be--discipline him sometimes, but they were always afraid he'd get sick again so they pretty much just let him do as he pleased." Mike couldn't tell if it was a laugh or a sob she choked back at that point, but when Dori turned to him, her smile was soft, and her eyes clear. "I guess he is a little spoiled."A little spoiled? Mike shook his head, and for once in his life, spoke without thinking."Why do you put up with him?"Dori froze, staring not out the window, but evidently into her own thoughts. Then shaking herself, she reached for the plates, sliding them carefully out from under the silverware and setting the glass he’d left on top of the stack aside."I owe Max some money." At Mike's confused look, Dori lifted one shoulder and gave him a half smile. "Jason's dad. I borrowed some from him for college tuition, and then again for the commercial kitchen." She waved a hand in the general direction of the addition. "It was cheaper than a bank. And then a month or so ago, Max said...Max said if I would put Jason up for six months, he'd write off the debt. Things are tight enough here trying to get the business going, I figured it was worth it. Besides..." Dori watched the suds for a minute, balancing the plates on the edge of the counter. "Besides," she repeated, "Jason needed a place to stay for a while. And whatever else he does, Jason’s family." Settling the plates carefully in the sink, she glanced up at him, and smiled. “You take care of family, Mike. Doesn’t matter if it’s hard or easy, you have to do right by ‘em. ‘Cause they’re family.”Family? Mike opened his mouth, but he never found out if he’d have the guts to tell Dori what Jason thought of her and the idea of family. Instead, Dori crossed the kitchen with a few hurried steps, reaching for the plate behind him, with its lonely cinnamon roll."Here, Mike, do a girl a favor and eat this last cinnamon roll. Please." Dori held the plate out to him, her eyes brimming again with unshed tears. Mike held her gaze with his own for a few seconds. The quiet plea wasn't just for him to take the roll; Dori, not surprisingly, didn't want to discuss this any further. Okay. He’d already crossed more lines than he really had the right to in this conversation. Mike gave her a small smile, and took the roll from the plate. She returned to the sink, adding the plate to the ones already there and turning on the water.Dori squirted some dish soap into the sink, then slowly added silverware and glasses to the rising water while Mike ate the roll. His stomach gurgled happily and finally gave up being queasy as he finished. Mike blushed, but decided the smile his gastric noises brought to Dori’s face was worth it. She waited while he washed his hands in the hot, sudsy water in the sink."Well," she sighed, looking out the window as he dried his hands on the towel hanging through the refrigerator handle. "I suppose now we should go take care of Puff."Mike stiffened, and looked at her over his shoulder. The lost, haunted little girl was back, for just a second, before Dori brushed her hand across her eyes. Smiling tremulously at him, she turned and led the way, out the back door Jason had huddled against last week, trying to avoid the large dog. Looked like Jason had gotten his wish; the big dog wasn’t around to protect Dori anymore. Remembering the way Jason had leered at them just before he let, Mike got a sudden queasy feeling in his stomach as he followed Dori across the yard to the tool shed.Just what, exactly, had happened to Puff? ----- CHAPTER BREAK ----- We are the clumsy passersby, we push past each other with elbows...We are all guilty, we are all sinners...yet even so, on the edge of panic...we are one and the same, the same in time's eyes...~~Pablo Neruda Johnny's Land Rover pulled into Mike's driveway an hour later, just as Mike was crossing the street to retrieve Puff's body. Johnny got out, folding his sunglasses into a pocket of his red calico shirt as he waited for Mike. The afternoon air was still, forerunner of the heat in months to come. Even the birds and insects seemed to have given up and gone home for the day."Hey, Mike. You taking up farming?" Johnny waved at Mike's dirt-covered jeans."You're late," Mike replied, pushing past Johnny towards the garage. Trying to hide his grin, he kept his head down and his back turned to his friend. Sometimes, it was just too easy."Late!" Johnny sputtered, before following Mike at a run. He caught up at the garage door. Mike dug his keys out of his pocket, sorting through to find the one for the Master Lock he kept on the garage. Johnny leaned against the garage and sputtered, "Whaddaya mean, late? I didn't know you wanted me here at a specific time! You never said anything about that last night!"Mike opened the lock and pocketed his keys before turning to face an open-mouthed Johnny. Waving away a sudden fly, he kept his face straight for a few seconds, and then grinned."You're right, I never said anything last night." There was a beat, and then Johnny's mouth snapped closed. He stood up straight, crossed his arms, and glared at Mike."You--you--you--" Johnny stammered, then pointed one finger at Mike for emphasis, still searching for something to say. He gave up and propped his hands on his hips while he stared at Mike in disgust. "I--You know, I oughta just leave you here and make you call a cab to go get your truck."Mike laughed and turned to pull the lock out of its brace, swinging the bar it held in place back before replacing the lock in the metal loop. He grinned at Johnny as he turned the latch on the old doors."Your prerogative, but it'd be a waste of your afternoon driving out here, then."Whatever reply Johnny might have made was lost in the stench that wafted out of Mike's garage as he swung one door out. Fortunately the odor dissolved quickly in the open air--along with Mike's good humor at tweaking Johnny. He hesitated, wishing momentarily that he'd never volunteered to do this for Dori."Whew! What have you got in there, Mike? Bear bait?" Johnny turned his head away and waved a hand in front of his face. Mike ducked his head without answering and, breathing lightly through his mouth, took the few steps over to Puff's body in a hurry. Might as well get it over with. He bent over and grabbed the tarp the big dog lay on. The tarp scraped across the concrete as Mike pulled the dog out onto the driveway. He returned, but hesitated, and then decided not to close the door. It wouldn't hurt for it to be left open for a while to let the remnants of the odors from Puff's body dissipate, allow the garage to return to its more familiar scent of gasoline and rubber from the dune buggy parked there.Out in the clear sunshine, Johnny was staring down at Puff's head, just visible between the folds of the tarp. Mike watched as Johnny knelt suddenly, folding the canvas back to examine the dog more closely. He met Johnny's startled gaze, waited for him to ask the questions he could see in the dark eyes."Who--wha--why do you have a dead dog in your garage, Mike? Who killed it?"Who killed it? Mike stared down at Puff, not sure he wanted to ask Johnny why he thought someone had killed the big dog. That night he'd caught Puff in his refrigerator, happily devouring raw eggs in the shell, he'd been furious. But angry as he'd been, he'd never have taken it out on the animal. He'd locked him in the laundry room while he cleaned up the mess and never even mentioned it to Dori. Puff was a good dog, a fun dog, and Mike wasn't sure he wanted to even think about the fact that Jason might have made good on his threat.Johnny was staring at him, though, waiting for an answer. Then again, if the paramedic could give him some answers, maybe it would point the finger of suspicion elsewhere. Mike shrugged and drew the tarp back, exposing the dog's entire body."It's my neighbor's dog.""Dori?" Johnny's question was sharp, and Mike looked at him, confused. But Johnny wasn't revealing any of his thoughts right now."Yeah. She came last night and asked me to help her bury him." Mike hesitated, not sure how much he wanted to share about the events of the previous evening. Dori had been pretty embarrassed this morning. He finally shrugged. "She was pretty upset about the whole thing. I talked her into waiting until today, told her I'd help her bury him.""This why you were late last night?"Mike nodded, but Johnny was staring at the dog again. His hands went out, running gently over the dog's broken body, probing, examining... Mike sat down on his heels, waiting for the verdict."Ribs're stove in," Johnny muttered, moving on down the dog's body. "Hip's out of joint, broken leg..." Mike's mouth went sour. Maybe he didn't want Johnny to confirm anything after all. Johnny's hands moved back up to the dog's head. He bent over and examined Puff's tongue, protruding darkly from his mouth, and then ran his hands lightly down the dog's neck."Dori thinks he was hit by a car, then dragged himself as close to home as he could," Mike offered, not quite sure why he felt the need to say something.Johnny just grunted, his hands busy digging in the fur at Puff's neck. He left off, leaning back and digging in the pocket of his jeans. Coming up with a pocket knife, he opened it and went back to Puff's neck, digging at the fur again. After a second he slipped the knife in and pulled up sharply. Both men stared at the fine cord he held out, ends clean where he'd cut it, and a short, frayed end dangling from a knot.Mike reached out to finger the familiar shape twisting the cord around itself."A tautline hitch," he said, and Johnny nodded. This time the paramedic's gaze was bleak when it met his own. A tautline hitch was a knot that worked itself tighter and tighter as more pressure was put on it."Somebody not only didn't want him getting away, they were trying to choke him into submission." Penknife in one hand, cord dangling from the other, Johnny rested both arms across his knees. "He probably died as much from the lack of oxygen and dehydration as he did the other injuries."There was silence as they stared at the dog. Mike waved a few flies away from Puff's face, wishing he could wave away the facts of Johnny's discovery as easily. Johnny finally looked up at him. Taking a deep breath, he opened his mouth, and --"Mike?" Dori's voice preceded her around the Land Rover. She hesitated at the front of the vehicle, her gaze going from Mike to Johnny, then Puff. She frowned, but didn't say anything, just wrapped her arms around her waist and stared at some point between them all. Mike got hastily to his feet. He swallowed, but it didn't alleviate the sudden dryness in his mouth."Dori, you remember Johnny? The paramedic from the fire the other day?" He waved one hand at Johnny, wondering why he felt so nervous about being caught--caught? They weren't doing anything. On second thought, he wasn't sure he was ready to tell Dori about what he and Johnny had just discovered. Gravel scraped beneath a booted heel as Johnny stood beside him. Mike didn't miss the careful way Johnny dropped the thin cord and then took a small step to stand on it as he stood. He allowed himself one deep breath in relief.Folding and pocketing his knife, the paramedic held his hand out to Dori."You're looking a little less sooty today." Johnny grinned his full wattage grin, and Mike bit back a groan. He'd forgotten how two had reacted to each other at the fire. But when he turned to Dori, she seemed anything but glad to see Johnny. For a second the haunted look was back on her face, but then she blinked and found a smile somewhere. It wasn't anything like the simpering one she'd given Johnny the other day, though, and her eyes were guarded. Hmm....Maybe she had just inhaled a little too much smoke at the fire."I remember you; fastest scissors in the west," Dori finally said, her smile taking the sting out of the words. She lifted her bandaged hand and her smile became apologetic. "Sorry, can't shake your hand this time either."Johnny ignored the scissors comment entirely, much to Mike's surprise. Instead, the paramedic frowned."What happened?" He stepped forward, his hand out toward Dori. Her smile faltered and then she dropped her gaze to the pavement. Putting her hand down at her side, she ignored Johnny's obvious intention of checking out the injury."Oh, it's nothing, really. I grabbed a skillet without a pot-holder this morning." Dori glanced up and offered another faint smile. But she kept her hand down at her side, half behind her. Johnny stared at her, his hand still out."Would you like me to take a look at it?" he asked, with an intensity that Mike didn't understand. Dori shook her head, taking half a step back away from the paramedic. Johnny started toward her anyway, and Mike automatically reached to halt him as Dori, looking anywhere but at the two men moved even further back. But Johnny stopped after two steps and Mike let his hand fall. They both watched Dori back into the front of the Land Rover. Staring at the ground, she shook her head and took a deep breath. Then she looked up and offered a cheerful smile."It's not bad, really. It didn't even blister. And I do have a valid Red Cross first aid card." Dori's smile wavered, her eyes nervously flicking from Johnny back to Mike. It was obvious that she did not want Johnny's attention right now. Mike decided it was time to come to Dori's rescue."Johnny, would you mind helping me here?"Still staring at Dori, Johnny hesitated, but he turned and nodded to Mike."Sure, what do you want me to do?"It took the two men less than twenty minutes to bury Puff at the spot Dori'd chosen, inside the old orchard and behind the tool shed. Dori watched as they laid him carefully in the grave Mike had already dug, and he tried to ignore her sniffling as he shoveled the dirt over the big dog's body. The hole filled in, they smoothed the dirt over the raw grave in the orchard. Punching the shovel upright into the ground next to the grave, Mike looked over to see Dori wiping the tears from her face. She smiled tremulously at him."Th-thank you, Mike. And you too, Johnny," she added quickly, glancing at the dark-haired paramedic, who was leaning on his shovel. "I...I'd offer you, something but..""It's okay, Dori," Mike said firmly, gathering up her shovel and pick. Johnny hefted Mike's shovel with one hand, watching Dori again with that strange look on his face. She caught Johnny's gaze, and blushed, hanging her head and staring at her feet. Mike felt a flash of anger at his friend. Dammit, couldn't the man see she was upset? Mike walked over and stopped in front of her, stood between her and Johnny, waiting until she looked up at him."Why don't you go on home, Dori?" he said gently. "I'll put these away for you."Dori looked away, then back up at him. The tears were suddenly overflowing, streaming down her face and she didn't even try to smile when she met his gaze this time."He was a such a wonderful animal. I can't hardly believe..." She gulped, and stopped, staring at the grave. "I hate to leave him here, alone..."Mike shifted, then awkwardly reached up and patted her shoulder."I know. I'm gonna miss him, too."The twisting of her lips barely qualified as a smile, but it was an effort. Mike stood there while she stared down at the grave. Then she took a deep breath, and met his gaze."Thank you," she said again, looking more like her normal self.Mike nodded, and watched as she turned and headed off, ducking beneath the branches of one gnarled tree and detouring around another and then out of his line of sight. Air moved beside him, and he looked over to see Johnny, staring after Dori as well. Mike frowned. What in the world was Johnny's problem today? He couldn't be that hard up for a date."Come on, let's go," Mike said, and set off across the orchard without waiting to see if Johnny was following or not. * * * * * Three hours later, Mike was taking his frustrations out on the juniper in the side yard. He'd been meaning to take the scraggly bush out for the last year, but never had gotten around to it. Somehow today seemed like the perfect day to finally get the chore done. Didn't matter that he'd already spent over an hour out in the sun digging a grave for Puff; the physical effort needed to maintain the smooth arc of the pulaski over his head down to the dull thud of the point catching in the earth kept his mind well occupied. As long as he could think about yanking the point free of the clumping dirt, concentrate on planning the next swing of the pulaski, he didn't have to think about anything he didn't want to think about. Like how well he knew Dori. Johnny's quiet question still echoed in his mind, along with the other disturbing things the paramedic had shared with him during the short drive to collect Mike's truck: the bruises he and Roy had seen that day at the fire, some old, some new, some in between. The fact that there was no way for them all to be the result of the shelf falling on her. The fact that they were more typical of bruises that came from some sort of violence--typically violence perpetrated by another human being. The debate between the two paramedics as to whether or not they should say anything to him. The fact that they finally decided they felt strongly enough about it to offer Roy's house, or Nurse McCall's, as a temporary refuge, if he did find out Dori needed a safe haven.Mike yanked the last of the roots out, and flung the bush aside. He got his axe and chopped up what he couldn't cut up with the snippers. Taking out the bush filled what was left of his afternoon and spilled over into early evening. Finally, sweat pouring down his chest and sides, Mike filled in the second hole he'd dug that day, put away his tools, and used his t-shirt to towel away the dirt and grime. It was time for a shower and some supper.Entering the house, Mike ignored his newspaper, lying unread on the coffee table. He'd already been fooled once; no need to look at the obituaries--or their pictures--again. It wasn't Cara, though for a breathless second this afternoon Mike had believed it was. As Johnny had pointed out, the picture of their murdered prostitute looked enough like her to be her twin. He had refused the paper when Johnny shoved it at him, and after giving him a long hard look, the paramedic had tossed it into the back of the Land Rover. Heading for the shower, Mike detoured into the living room and tossed his own newspaper into the garbage.Feeling clean and somewhat refreshed after his shower, he slid into jeans and a shirt. Dirty clothes gathered into a bundle, he stepped out into the short hall and shot the smelly wad past the kitchen in the general direction of the laundry room. Walking out into the living room, Mike stopped well back from the large front window. He buttoned the blue plaid shirt, staring across the street at Dori's house, her porch all that was visible from his current vantage point.What in the hell was he supposed to do with Johnny's information? He didn't consider himself a hero, never had. He'd never been interested in the more exotic aspects of rescue work; knowing some basic first aid and pulling victims from fires and other situations was about all he wanted to do when it came to that part of his job. He'd signed up to be a firefighter, not a trapeze artist. Johnny and Roy sometimes seemed a bit too gung ho on all this rescue crap; Chet and Marco too. That was fine with Mike, they could climb the towers and go down in the holes to get people out. Mike would be there to hold the ropes, to pull them to safety, anchor them to the real world. Even Batman needed Albert. Nothing wrong with being behind the scenes helping and facilitating.Until, it seemed, you were needed at the front lines.Sighing, Mike turned toward the kitchen just as a familiar roar came down the street. He tensed, shifted slightly so he could see Dori's driveway over one shoulder. Sure enough, tires squealed and Surfer Bob's dune buggy pulled up. Wait, no, what had Dori called him this morning? Warren? Yeah, that was it. Mike shook his head and bit back a grin as the two young men jumped out of the dune buggy and headed for the house, pizza boxes in hand. Warren. What a name. Poor guy would probably prefer Surfer Bob. Shoot, he was the type who probably told his friends to call him "Dude" or something stupid like that.He tucked in his shirt and returned to his room for tennis shoes and socks, trying to push away the memory of Johnny's voice this afternoon. "Mike, it's got to be someone she knows. Someone she sees consistently. Her father, a boyfriend--""She lives with her brother," he'd insisted, and Johnny had just looked at him. "How dumb can you get?" the look had said, and Mike had turned away, unable to face his friend's certainty. "She's not my real sister," Jason had sneered this morning.Mike dropped his shoes and socks on the coffee table and stared at the wall. Damn, what was he supposed to do? Yeah, sure, he could show up at Dori's house, say, "My paramedic friends think Jason's beating up on you. They want me to take you to one of their houses until you find somewhere safe to go, away from him." And Dori would smile up at him with that lazy smile and ask him what in the world he thought he was talking about.Or would she? The memory of Jason's leering whisper this morning turned his stomach, and then there was Puff... Mike shot a nervous look at the farmhouse across the street. Everything was quiet there, and he looked away. He was just hungry, that's all. Eating a late breakfast and then working all afternoon in the hot sun without water or much of a break wasn't his most brilliant idea.He had the bacon out and the eggs cracked and ready to go before he reached under his stove for the skillet. The heavy cast iron pan rattled on the stove and Mike adjusted the flame beneath it. Then he stared at the skillet, his stomach suddenly twisted in a way that had nothing to do with hunger, and probably guaranteed he wouldn't be eating anything after all. "I grabbed the skillet without a hot pad..." Dori had blamed her burned hand on her own carelessness this morning. Mike knew damn well she hadn't burned her hand before he'd seen her last night. And yeah, drunk as she had been, hungover as she had been this morning, there was every reason to believe that she'd done exactly as she said.Except that all Dori's skillets had wooden handles. ----- CHAPTER BREAK ----- The dim boy claps because the others clap.The score is always close, the rally always short.I've left more wreckage than a quake.Isn't it wrong, the way the mind moves back.~~Richard Hugo It took some time for Mike to get his thoughts together and his shoes on, and even then he waited another hour, until Jason and Warren roared off again in the dune buggy. There was no way he was going to broach this subject with Jason there in the house with her.Standing at his front door, he stared across the street at Dori's house. Damn, he was turning into a regular voyeur here, a la Jimmy Stewart. Mike had always liked Hitchcock; "Rear Window" was a favorite. But even Jimmy had had sidekicks in his story, if you could truly label Grace Kelly a sidekick. Johnny had offered to go with him, but he'd promised to fill in the last part of Dwyer's shift and hadn't been able to stay while Mike decided what to do. Now that he had decided, Mike thought briefly that maybe he should take Johnny's final suggestion and call Roy to come over and go with him. On second thought, it was going to be hard enough to talk to Dori as it was. And, if her reaction to Johnny this afternoon was any indication, he'd be lucky to get in the door if he had anyone else with him.No, he was better off bearding this lion alone. Taking a deep breath, Mike grasped the doorknob, turned it, and stepped out of his house and into the soft, spring night.Dori answered his knock fairly quickly, smiling brightly when she saw him there."Mike, hi," she said, making no move to open the door and let him in. Moths fluttered around the porch light she'd turned on, and Mike flinched as a couple of them got too close to his face."Hi, Dori." Waving the moths away, he stared at her through the brown mesh of the screen door. She looked like she'd been crying, but then again, that could easily be blamed on her grief for Puff. The big dog had been a fixture in her life for a long time, and their adoration had been mutual. Thinking of Puff brought Mike back to the opening he'd finally decided on for trying to talk to Dori. Puff's attitude towards Jason was one more tip of the scales in favor of Johnny's assertions this afternoon; Puff's death was another."Uh...mind if I come in?" he asked, smiling slightly. Dori's hesitation was brief, but real. However, Mike had counted on her southern hospitality, and he wasn't disappointed. Nodding her head, Dori pushed the door open."Sure, come on in."Lit by several lamps, the living room looked much the same as it had this morning, except for the open pizza box sitting on the dining table. The smells of cold grease and pepperoni dominated the room. Dori waved him to a seat on the couch, and headed for the table. She lifted an empty glass, and inclined her head in his direction."There's pizza if you're hungry, and more tea in the fridge."His stomach gnawing at him with something besides hunger, Mike shook his head as he dropped to a seat on the couch."No, thanks, I ate supper." Not that swallowing two aspirin with a glass of milk could be considered supper. Dori nodded and ducked into the kitchen. Ice broke and then tinkled in a glass, and Mike shifted nervously on the couch. What was he doing here? What in the world did he think he'd prove with this conversation? He wiped his forehead with one hand and then dropped it down on the cushion next to him. A cascade of little plops came from the floor, and Mike leaned forward and stared down at the deck of cards that his movement had dislodged."You're sure?" Dori's voice floated from the kitchen, and he shook his head again as he knelt to gather the cards he'd accidentally scattered. Then he remembered to answer verbally."Yeah, thanks anyway," he called, staring at the card he'd just turned over. A ship in full sail lingered in the front of the watercolor picture, while behind it a rather enticingly rendered nude woman rose waist high from a lake, her arms lifted high and her head arched back. Curious, Mike turned over another of the cards, their backs dark purple with gold patterning. This time it was a knight riding on a black horse, red cloth draped from its saddle. Another picture revealed a knight, a white tunic over his chainmail, hanging by his neck from a tree. Before he could investigate further, Dori was there, bending over and gathering the cards up.He handed her the three he held, and she smiled shyly as she took them."Sorry, I forgot I had these out.""What are they?" he asked, as she shuffled them back into a pile and then reached for a nearby box and carefully placed them inside."Just a Tarot deck I picked up a couple of weeks ago." She shrugged as she met his eyes. "I have a deck I inherited from my Dad's mother, but these caught my eye and I thought it would be nice to have a new deck.""You inherited a Tarot deck from your grandmother?" Mike asked, incredulously. All he'd inherited from his grandmother was a touch of hay fever and a tendency to slouch. The poor woman had been six foot tall, three inches taller than his grandfather.Cards safely stowed, Dori stood, then shrugged and nodded. She headed for the other end of the couch, box in hand."It was her mother's, who brought it with her from Jamaica. It's a very old deck, couple hundred years, at least. I got so nervous with Ja--I bought these so I could keep the others in my safe deposit box."His stomach knotting again, Mike stared up at Dori as she pulled out a drawer in the end table and quickly rearranged the contents to make room for the small box. Did he really want to know what she had meant to say? Could he really tell himself he didn't know what name she'd almost let slip? He tried not to look like he was thinking anything as she looked up. The smile she returned for his was almost too cheerful as she pushed the drawer shut and headed over to grab her tea glass from the dining table. Mike scrambled up from the floor and reclaimed his seat as she crossed the room again."Jason and Warren brought the pizza, said it was their turn to feed me for once." She laughed, and shook her head, taking a drink from her glass. "Even made the tea for me." Dori pushed the newspaper lying on the other end of the couch onto the floor and sat, facing him.Mike nodded and smiled, words escaping him for the moment. The bandaged hand rested in her lap, and he stared at it before looking up to meet Dori's curious gaze. Curled up on the couch, feet tucked under her and dark hair loose about her face, she looked about twelve years old. Well, okay, maybe not twelve, not with a figure like hers. But with her huge dark eyes and her pale face, she looked small and vulnerable. She tilted her head at him, and suddenly Mike saw a small bird, one that had flown into the large, plate glass front window of his childhood home. Rescued by an eight-year-old Mike and his younger sister, the bird had cowered in the corner of the towel lined box they provided, cocking its head as its huge black eyes blinked up at them. His mother had taken pity on the thing eventually and released it outside, over Mike and Laura's howling protests. The terrified bird couldn't fly straight, but it had flown away. Mike watched it until he saw it taking refuge in a large sequoia at the far edge of their property.Tilting her head slightly, Dori's smile was a question, and Mike looked away from both her and the memory, his throat suddenly dry. He had never told anybody, but two days later, he'd found the bird's tiny body, stiff and lifeless in the dust and duff at the base of the tree. Mike had buried it deep in the dirt behind their garage, placing several chunks of broken concrete on top of the tiny grave to discourage scavengers. As far as he knew, the tiny skeleton still laid there.Taking a deep breath, he leaned forward, his arms braced on his knees, and studied his clenched hands. Dori waited, the only sound in the room the chink of ice in her glass as she drank."Dori..." he finally said, turning to look at her. Swallowing, he forced the words out. "Where...what exactly happened to Puff?"She jerked, nearly dropping her glass. Dropping her head so that her hair hid her face, it was a moment before she answered him."What...what do you mean?" She wouldn't look at him.Mike took a deep breath. Okay, in for a penny, in for a pound."There was a rope around his neck, Dori. Johnny said he'd been at least partially strangled. As well as starved and beaten." His voice was gentle, but still, she cringed at his words, turning away from him."He was probably hit by a car," she said, dully.Mike shook his head."Then how did he wind up in the field behind your house?""Trying to get home," she whispered, still refusing to look at him. There was a stifled sound, and Mike realized she was crying. Oh, great, twice in one day he'd reduced the girl to tears. He was batting a thousand here."But...you said he was never really gone."She flinched, and curled further in on herself, but she didn't answer him. Silence filled the room as Mike waited. But Dori apparently had no answer for that one. Mike swallowed, took a deep breath, and tried again."Dori...the reason I'm asking...Jason, he...last week...the afternoon I brought Puff over to my house, Jason made some threats, against Puff. I...I didn't take them that seriously at the time, I mean, he'd had a good scare and I figured he was just angry. We all know he didn't get along with Puff. But...for Puff to turn up dead and ... Johnny... he and Roy...the day of the fire..." Mike trailed off, staring hopelessly at his neighbor.There was nothing relaxed about Dori now. She sat rigid at the end of the couch, her head down and her feet on the floor. Elbows tight against her waist, she cradled the burned hand to her chest, the other one clenched tightly about the nearly empty tea glass. Mike's throat was dry, and he swallowed vainly, trying to moisten it."Dori...why...why wouldn't you go to the hospital?" Nothing. No reaction, not even a quiver. Mike would have been more reassured if she was standing up yelling at him by now."Johnny...they...they were worried about you. He said...the bruises you had weren't all from the fire, there were some that were older than that, some that were more consistent with...with..." The dark head didn't move, sat stone-still, bowed beneath the sputtering fire of his words, leaving him to flounder on his own. "Dori...if, if Jason's hurting you--"He stopped, waiting for her to deny it, willing her to deny it.The whisper was so soft, at first he didn't realize she'd spoken."What did you say?"She stood, then, walking across the room to the dining table. She drained her tea, set the glass carefully on the table. Her head down, she still didn't look at him."He doesn't mean to."Mike knew his mouth was hanging open, he just didn't have the wherewithal to close it right now. She stared down at the table, then looked up, drawing in a deep breath as she contemplated the ceiling, her hand dangling limply beside her."He just...he's always been that way...rough...and he never did learn to control his temper. Even when he was little."Dori shivered now, and swayed, slightly. Shaking her head, she grabbed the table, then sat abruptly, nearly missing the chair she was aiming for."He...he was such a cute baby, and I...Sandy was so much older, than me, he'd moved out of the house before Daddy died and I...I wanted a little brother or sister so bad..." Hands limp in her lamp, Dori stared blankly off into the corner of the room. "And then Mom and Max got married, and Jason...he was..." She shook her head, and looked at Mike. From across the room her eyes looked almost completely black. "He wasn't quite...quite what I expected," she finally said, with a small smile.Mike got up and crossed the room to where she sat. Going down on one knee beside her chair, he gently reached for her hand. She didn't pull it away, just stared bemusedly at him as he pulled it out to where the bandage was plainly visible. Might as well go for broke."Did Jason do this?"Dori giggled, reaching up to run her hand through his hair. Mike jerked his head away and stared at her. Her eyes were huge, and in this light he could see the pupils were almost completely dilated."I can't tell you that. Might...might aggravate him. And..." She leaned toward him, tugging at his shirt collar with her free hand, smiling softly. "Trust me, you don't want to aggravate Jason." Patting his shoulder, she sat back and pulled her hand away from his. She reached for her glass and took a drink, frowning into the glass when she realized it was empty. Still staring, Mike got to his feet as Dori pushed herself up from the chair. She placed the glass carefully on the table, then staggered. Mike caught her before she fell. Just like last night, Dori leaned limply against him, smiling. She giggled."Better pu'...put me down 'fore Cara sees you, Mike. She might think I'm tryin' to horn in on...on her man. Too' so long for you to ask her out...I don' think she'd 'preciate me cuttin' in quite this soon."What in the world was going on? Setting her carefully on her feet, Mike reached for the glass on the table and sniffed it, then swept a finger around the inside and tasted it. No liquor, and he hadn't smelled it on her breath. Then Dori cried out, and he turned swiftly. She was sprawled across the floor in front of the couch, giggling."Ring around the rosy, pocket full of po-zzzees," she sang, reaching for the couch to pull herself up. She had gotten herself up to her knees when he got there. Collapsing back against the couch, she leaned her head to one side and smiled hugely at him. One hand found the newspaper on the floor and clenched around it."Mike..." She burped loudly, and giggled, and then her gaze grew serious. "Cara...you took Cara to the airpor', di'n choo?"Damn, had she gone completely around the bend here? Mike felt an irrational surge of anger: at Johnny, for talking him into this, and at Dori, for being so intractable. And why do this, why now?"Dori, what did you take? Tell me what you took," he insisted, grabbing her shoulder and turning her chin so she had to look at him.She frowned, pulling away from his grip.."Ash...asp'rin," she said, blinking at him. "I too' asp'rin. Jays-Jason gave it to me...My head hurt." The newspaper she held rustled, and she held it up and awkwardly tapped him with it. "Cara...you too' her to airpor'?" she asked again.Mike nodded, frowning. What would be easier, to call for help, or take her in himself? She was small, he could carry her to his car easy enough. And that would definitely get less attention from the neighbors than a squad arriving, lights and sirens blaring."Dori, I want you to come with me, okay? I'm going to take you to the hospital." Either that or Roy's house, like Johnny had suggested. No, the paramedic would probably insist on taking her in anyway. May as well skip that step and go straight to the hospital.Dori shook her head, tapping him with the newspaper again."Cara," she said. "Jason... he wan'...Cara...said 'no'...he was sho mad...you an' Cara..."Mike stared at her, incredulously. Then his gaze shifted down at the paper she held clenched in her hand. It was the same one Johnny had showed him today, the one with the picture of the murdered prostitute that at first glance had looked like Cara. Dori fumbled with his shirt as he took the paper from her, then giggled. He smoothed out the newsprint; like Johnny's paper, it, too, was open to the obituary for Amanda Parsons. Her eyes huge in the lamplight, Dori stared up at him, and Mike was again reminded of the little bird in the box."Dori..." he swallowed; his mouth was full of dust again. The anger drained from him and he felt a cold thrill of fear in his bones."Her...not Cara. Jays...Jason...he wan' Cara. He was so mad...I came home too soon, he...Cara woke up..."Cara woke up? Dori came home too soon?His stomach crawling, Mike stared down at Dori, who was blinking heavily now. She sighed, and slid limply down until she lay half on the floor, half against the couch, smiling up at him.Jason and Warren brought the pizza and made her tea. Jason gave Dori the aspirin tonight. Jason liked Cara; Warren liked Dori. But Cara had said "No." Amanda Parsons might have said "no" too, but she wasn't around to verify anything. And now Dori must have said "no" as well."Dori, get up! Come on! Let's get you out of here."She laughed when he shook her shoulder, but lost the laugh halfway through in a burp. Batting lightly at his hand, she shifted down to lay on the floor, humming and giggling. Only half open, her eyes were glassy in the light of the small lamp. Mike dropped the paper and bent over, scooping her up carefully in his arms. Dori sighed, and snuggled into his chest as he stood, cradling her."I'm going to take you to the hospital, Dori, okay? You'll be safe there."He took whatever noise she made as assent. The front door swung inward as he turned toward it with his burden, and Mike found himself facing a smiling Jason, Surfer Bob at his heels. Jason's grin grew as Warren pushed the door shut and both men came into the room, stopping a few steps in front of Mike."See, Warren, I told you the 'ludes would have her down by now." Mike took a step forward, intending to shove past the two and out the door. Jason and Surfer Bob moved together, blocking his path. The light glinted on their teeth; their smiles were feral. For a moment the three men stared at each other, and then Jason snickered. "And now we get to play with fireboy, too." ----- CHAPTER BREAK ----- Lay me lowLay me lowLay me low, where no one can see meWhere no one can find meWhere no one can hurt me~ ~ John Tams There was a fly crawling on his ear, meandering out toward his cheek. Mike rubbed his face on one aching arm, and the insect buzzed off without biting him. Not that it mattered, there were plenty more where it came from--and plenty of attractions in the old barn to entertain them. In the lazy, late-morning warmth, the darkened interior of the old barn was awash with the odors of stale booze and sweat and vomit and dog piles and more. It was only a matter of time before another one or two or three of the large horseflies returned to annoy him, and beyond the occasional shiver or rubbing his head against his arms, there wasn't anything he could do about them.Not that he'd been able to do much about anything at all in the last few hours. He hadn't been able to help himself, and he sure as hell hadn't been able to help Dori.Here and there a shaft of light found its way through the slatted walls and overarching greenery, dust and motes dancing like smoke in the ethereal beams. More strips of sunshine congregated to his right, near the closed door; the rest of the building's interior remained immured in a dusty tomb of grey on grey. Mike's eyes were long accustomed to the darkness, and he kept his face turned from the needless pain of the light. To his right was half a wall of hay, some of the bales loosened and falling apart; their contents dripping down into a sloping pile on the floor. A thin layer of straw covered much of the bare wood floor, pooling around the support beams for the loft above. Mike stood directly in the middle of the barn, beneath the highest point of the roof.He knew it was useless, but still he tried once more to lift his wrists free of the large metal hay hook they were bound to. Before his hands had gone numb he'd managed to grab hold of the hook and swing most of his weight from it, attempting several times to pull the entire thing down. But while the rest of the barn might be crumbling into ruin, the roofbeam he was suspended from was still solid. The old wood had creaked and groaned, but hadn't budged at all. Instead, Mike's own hopes had slowly frittered away, dying a little more with each failed attempt at freedom. More cord tethered Mike's left foot to a nearby pole; that prevented him from swinging the chain more than a foot or two either direction. His arms suspended from the hook above him, he couldn't reach his foot to untie it; even standing on tiptoe he couldn't reach high enough to get his bound wrists off the damn hook...And he couldn't reach Dori.Shaking the chain again in a desperate effort to get some sort of response from her, Mike waited in vain. With nothing else to rattle against, the chain's noise was muted; he'd hoped it was enough to get her attention. But once again, there was no movement from the body sprawled bonelessly on the straw beneath the bales. She lay as Jason and Warren had last left her, pale limbs a ghostly cipher in the darkness, and Mike couldn't get close enough to her to know if she was still alive or not.The drugs Jason had slipped her had done their work, whether it had been the "aspirin" he'd given her or in the tea he'd made for her. Dori had been too out of it to put up much of a fight. But she'd tried; Mike had heard at least one or two hard blows land during their ordeal. In the hours since Jason and Warren had left, he'd tried to remember everything he'd ever heard about Quaaludes, but hadn't come up with much--except he was fairly certain Dori should have come around by now. The only reason he could think of that she hadn't was that Jason had given her too much, close to an overdose.His own injuries so far were more irritating than anything else. The need to pee had come and gone in the hours since his confinement. The numbness in his hands he tried to ignore, turning to the plethora of other sensations clamoring for his attention. His skin itched beneath the duct tape covering the lower half of his face; his arms ached incessantly from their enforced position above his head. His ribs and stomach muscles were sore and bruised; his head ached, and he was thirsty and, oddly enough, hungry.Fortunately, nothing seemed to be broken, in spite of the blows he'd taken. Jason and Warren seemed to think it funny that he objected to their treatment of Dori, and had passed the time between their assaults on her drinking and using him as a punching bag. Mike had done his best to keep their attention focused on him, but inevitably they would tire of hitting him and return to her. He refused to watch, even as Jason had teased him about giving him his own turn if he would. But while eyes could be closed, ears couldn't and he had enough horrific images from this one night he doubted he'd ever want to be with a woman again.Mike shivered, willing the memories away. Not that it worked; whether he wanted to or not, they clung to his mind like the smells in the barn and his sweaty shirt clung to his body. The long wail of a siren brought his head up and he listened, unable to stop the hope that flared in his chest and choked its way up into his throat. The guys at the station had to know he was missing by now; it wasn't like him to just not show up for work. But whether or not they'd connect his disappearance to Dori and then Jason, he had no way of knowing. The siren faded slowly, and Mike hung his head. Someone else was going to be rescued this time--not him, and not Dori. He shifted restlessly, trying and failing to find a position that didn't put any more strain on his arms.The dune buggies out in the field last night had been the last he'd heard of Jason and Warren, along with their cowboy yells and laughter. They'd pulled his keys from his pocket after several hours and several bottles, laughing and mocking him as they left. Mike knew he'd be lucky if he had anything of value left in his house, let alone a functional dune buggy when they were done. But it had gotten the two vultures out of the barn, away from him, and more importantly, away from Dori. They'd promised to return, but that had been hours ago, and Mike could only hope they were sleeping off their night of "fun"--or if he was truly lucky, they'd been arrested somewhere.A fly landed on his fingers and they twitched, the fly launching off in protest. Mike closed his eyes and leaned his head against one arm, fighting the absurd tears that abruptly threatened. His fingers could still move. The relief that simple thought brought was enough to renew his efforts to escape, and he once again rattled the chain. No response from the other side of the barn, even after several minutes of effort on his part, and the will to try eventually dissipated into the rising hopelessness of their situation. Mike leaned his head against the other arm. The stupor in which he'd spent most of the dawning morning lurked about the edges of his consciousness, and he found himself welcoming it, his thoughts retreating into the nonfunctional state his body and soul craved.It was a while before his mind was able to get past the numbness. But gradually the background noises separated into distinct sounds: buzzing flies and distant traffic, sniffling sobs and rustling hay. He blinked, trying to bring his thoughts into some sort of order. The pattern of light had shifted, the beams of light came from different angles now. Unsure how much time had passed, Mike swung his head around, the chain rattling accompaniment. In the shadows by the bales of straw, Dori was sitting up, fumbling with the buttons on her shirt.Suddenly, as if she felt his eyes on her, Dori froze. The small noises she had been making disappeared completely as, head hanging, she waited for a long second, then tilted her head slightly. It took Mike a moment before he realized that she was trying to scope out her surroundings. A moment later her eyes met his in the semi-darkness. Her hands fell away from her shirt as she sat up straight and stared blankly at him. Then her mouth dropped open and she gasped."Mike! Oh my god!"He couldn't respond, but he watched as she started to get up and then stopped, suddenly, dropping her head again and curling her bare legs beneath her. She didn't look at him as she groped about in the gloom, eventually coming up with the darker shadow of her jeans. Mike didn't know if she noticed that he closed his eyes and looked away, but once again he couldn't close his ears as she worked her way into her clothes. Finally he heard the zipper going up. Giving her a few more seconds just to be sure, he looked back in her direction.Dori limped toward him. More than limped, she moved awkwardly, stiffly, stumbling over the hay and catching herself with a soft cry against a nearby post. Once again Mike cursed his own helplessness. Stopping several feet away from him, she rubbed dazedly at her face with her bandaged hand, and then looked at him. Her tangled hair was a darker shade of the dim interior of the barn, and, like the other night outside his garage, her eyes were simply huge, empty holes in her face. Dried blood trailed darkly from a swollen lip, and a large bruise spread up from her jaw across her cheek. Her gaze brushed past his face, then followed the chain he was bound to up and over.He turned as she moved off slowly behind him, then she was out of his line of sight. There was an irrational moment of fear that she was going to run away and leave him there, leave him for Jason and Warren when they returned. But that fear was lost in the pain as the chain suddenly came loose above him. The duct tape muffled his cry at the agony of freedom for his arms, the heavy chain landing about his head and shoulders as it fell. Mike staggered, unable to keep his balance after so long suspended between the floor and ceiling. Dori was there, trying to steady him, and they tumbled to the dusty floor together.All sound was suspended for a brief moment, then the flies began buzzing around the barn as if nothing had ever happened. Dori whimpered, pushing frantically at him, and Mike rolled off her, onto his knees, the chain rattling with him. He knelt, hunched over and rocking slightly, consumed by the throbbing, stabbing pains in his arms and hands. It was a long moment before he could take a deep breath through his nose and look about him. There was no sign of Dori, and he twisted about, searching for her. She was behind him; her head down, she had curled into a tight ball against the post to which he was tethered.Mike closed his eyes and turned away from her distress, his stomach wrenching. If he could have, he would have thrown up again, the way he had after he realized just exactly what was going to happen in the barn last night, and understood how helpless he truly was to do anything about it. Jason had laughed, blamed it on Mike's weakness, accused him of being old, his muscles flabby, unable to handle a fist or two to the gut. Pride had kept Mike from vocalizing his impotent distress, but he had twisted as far away as he could from the man, done his best to ignore him, to ignore Warren and what he was doing to Dori...However, his distress must have been audible this afternoon, drawing unwelcome attention. Movement in front of him, and he jerked away from it. When he opened his eyes, Dori knelt there, her eyes carefully not meeting his. Still shivering, she kept one arm wrapped around her waist as she reached for the duct tape on his face. Mike closed his eyes and held himself absolutely still as her nail carefully peeled back a corner large enough to grip."This is gonna hurt," she said unnecessarily, pausing for the moment it took for him to nod his assent. Mike gasped as she ripped the tape off. She dropped the tape on the floor beside them while he took the time to be miserable. Daggers and icepicks in his arms and shoulders, prickling where his hands should be, fire on his face, hammers in his skull and torso...he was a regular hardware store all by himself.Hands on his arms, and when he looked, Dori was examining the knots that bound his wrists to the hay hook. Mike watched silently as she felt carefully around the swollen flesh. There was a tug, and suddenly the hook clattered to the floor. Mike stared down at his arms, wrists still bound together by a short cord. Dori carefully peeled another piece of cording from his wrists, and they both stared at its bloody length in her hands. When he looked up, she shook her head, still refusing to meet his eyes."That's what held you to the hook...I...I'm afraid to try to get the rest of it off. Your wrists are awfully swollen, and I don't want to hurt you..." Her voice was dull, with no evident emotion, and again Mike's empty stomach twisted. She dropped the cord beside the tape on the floor, and then she caught her breath in a half sob. Scooting back toward the post, away from him, Dori once again huddled in on herself and stared at the floor. Mike winced as he moved his arms, took a few deep breaths, and watched Dori not looking at him, her breathing suddenly harsh and ragged."It's okay." He wasn't sure which one of them he was trying to reassure. Dori flinched away from his rasping voice, and Mike swallowed, trying to work even the least bit of moisture into his parched throat. He'd only seen Johnny and Roy deal with one or two rape victims; the calls for help were rare enough in those cases, and the engine rolling on the call even rarer. Johnny and Roy didn't talk much about those kinds of runs either, and Mike had never asked for details. He vaguely remembered Johnny and Roy asking for permission, reassuring the victim every time they had to touch her."Dori..." he started, then faltered. Licking dry lips, he looked away, around the barn, anywhere but at her misery. Finally gathering his courage, he turned back to her. She'd gotten her breathing under control, but she still huddled at the base of the post, leaning against it and staring at the floor. On his knees, he shuffled toward her, his hands out automatically to touch her, offer comfort. But he caught himself and jerked them back before he actually made contact. She didn't move, and, staring helplessly at her, Mike sighed and dropped down to sit beside Dori in the straw. What could he say after what she'd been through? What could he offer her?Finally, he simply leaned closer, pressed his shoulder lightly against hers. It was as non-threatening and as supportive a gesture as he could think to make, and while she stiffened, she didn't pull away from him. They sat silently, while the flies buzzed and the dust motes danced. Then Mike shook himself out of the near daze he had fallen into and looked down at the bowed head next to him."Dori..."Her name was his apology, for failing to protect her, for failing to get over and help her before Jason and Warren came home, for failing to see what was right there in front of him--for choosing not to see. Sudden shivers took her, and she shook her head, moving away from him."No," she whispered. "Please, don't. Just...just don't." Her voice cracked, and she caught her breath, looking up and away, but in the brief glimpse he got of her face, her eyes were glassy in the faint light. Blinking furiously, she took another deep breath and then turned and smiled at him. It was a travesty of a smile, and, worst of all, it was a travesty he recognized. She'd pasted that exact not-quite-smile on her face the other night, asking for help with Puff, and again several times yesterday.Lead filled his gut, and Mike closed his own eyes, turned his head away before he opened them. Dori stumbled to her feet, swayed, then headed through the dusty light for the door. Mike struggled to get to his own feet. He followed her the two steps the cord on his ankle allowed him. The door creaked and groaned when she pushed on it, much as the ceiling beam had earlier, but this time there was movement. The heavy wood swung outward a ways before catching with a heavy clink against something. Mike winced against the bright light shafting in through the door, and Dori did as well, her hand coming up to shield her eyes as she peered outside.There was no discernible expression in her face as she turned to him."I don't see anyone out there; I think we can squeeze through." She gestured at the crack between the door and the barn. The thought of freedom was enough that Mike risked falling over to lean down and try to get his fingers around the rope on his ankle. The floorboards rumbled slightly, and Dori was there, pushing his hands aside, deftly untying the tautline hitch that bound his ankle.She was right, there was just enough room for them to squeeze out beneath the heavy chain that held the door shut. Mike led the way, stopping just beyond the door and staring warily about him. Nothing moved in the late morning sun beyond more flies. Dori slid out of the barn behind him. There was no one, nothing, and hope was suddenly full blown."Come on," he said, reaching around to usher Dori ahead of him. They'd go to Mrs. Caraveggio's; she'd be home and they could call for help from there. By the time they got around the corner of the barn they were running, and for a second, the man standing there staring at them didn't register. Then recognition kicked in and hope died. Mike altered his course just enough to throw himself at Surfer Bob, and was briefly satisfied as the younger man went down beneath him with a loud "Oomph!" Maybe he'd gotten lucky and broken at least a few of the asshole's ribs. Rolling over and off Warren, he saw Dori, staring uncertainly at him. There was no sign of Jason--yet."Dori, run! Get out of here!"She didn't move until Mike stumbled to his feet and started toward her. Then she turned and took off running again. Mike was three steps behind her when he went down. Damn, Warren didn't look like a football player, but he sure tackled like one. Dragging the kid with him, Mike rolled over on his back and freed one leg. He kicked at the perfect face and was rewarded by a spurt of blood from the no-longer perfect nose. But Warren must have been one of those people with a high pain threshold, because the broken nose didn't slow him down at all. He scrambled up and leaped at the firefighter.They fell hard into the alfalfa and rolled over a couple of times as they struggled. Then the ground disappeared beneath Mike. The loud "Oomph!" was his as they landed in the bottom of a narrow irrigation ditch, Mike beneath Surfer Bob. The kid was moving, but Mike was busy fighting for breath with the black shadows blurring the edges of his vision. The swirling dots disappeared about the time the kid sat on his stomach, just in time for Mike to deflect the first blow he threw. But his bound hands couldn't stop the second, or the third. Bob's fist landed hard on Mike's face, his jaw; his teeth skidded against each other and he tasted blood. His left eye was already swelling shut. He kicked and tried to buck the kid off his stomach, but that just netted him another chop to the jaw, and Dori screamed as the explosion of stars and pain ushered Mike into darkness. ----- CHAPTER BREAK ----- May God keep all good people,May God keep all good people,May God keep all good peopleFrom such bad company...~~~Traditional English Folksong The shadows clung to him, impeded his waking, whispered to him: Stay... There were things out there he didn't want to know about, events he didn't want to deal with. There were sounds, pictures in his mind that weren't what anyone should have to remember, have to go through. Content with unknowing, Mike floated with the shadows, let them buffer him against the past twenty-four hours.But the painful signals his body threw at him slowly overrode the shadows: the throbbing pulse in his skull, the deep ache in his shoulders and arms, the myriad nails being driven into his hands. Whatever he lay on was prickly, too, poking uncomfortably through his shirt at his sore ribs, and the annoyance was enough to further thin the sheltering haze of darkness. Mike shifted a bit, moved his legs, tried to relax back into the shadows again. Someone groaned."Fireboy's coming around."The voice floated above him, through him, pulled at the memories he'd rather deny. His leg was prodded roughly, but Mike lay still, resisting the present, coaxing the shadows back. They refused him, and he moved just a bit, seeking a position that would lure the sheltering cocoon of oblivion he'd lain in just moments ago. But the voice had left other sounds behind it, the buzzing of flies, the faint noise of an 18-wheeler gearing down, the distant shoonk of air brakes, someone whimpering... Dori... his mind attached a name to the whimpers, and Mike's stomach turned over. Oh, god, she wasn't supposed to be here, she was supposed to have gotten away, supposed to be somewhere safe! Mike gave in to the despair sweeping through him, but instead of pushing him back into the darkness, the tide swept him further towards consciousness.Once again, Mike found himself blinking against the bizarre striation of blinding light and deep shadows inside the old barn. He half-lay on his back on a pile of damp straw next to the posts lining the outer edge of the old barn. His vision strangely skewed, it took him a second to tie that to the fact that he could only open one eye.Movement caught his eye, liquid in the glaring light pouring through the open barn door. A figure flowed, then solidified and came forward to squat down in front of Mike. Jason, loudly chewing gum, arms hanging over his thighs, grinned down at him. Mike stared blankly in return. No sense giving the weasel any further satisfaction. Jason's grin grew even bigger."Glad you decided to rejoin us, Fireboy. I'd hate for you to have missed out on the grand finale."Mike didn't dignify the taunt with an answer, and Jason laughed. More movement in the light and Surfer Bob materialized from the flaring sunshine. His swollen nose and its attendant bruising apparent even in the half-lit barn, he carried a large container, liquid gurgling inside, and what looked like old shirts. A sack dangled from one arm; the clinking within sounded breakable. Jason followed Mike's gaze over to his friend, and his grin now was huge."Put that stuff over there." He pointed to the corner opposite Mike, beside the wall of bales. With another insufferable grin, he slapped Mike on the shoulder, and then stood and walked over to help Surfer Bob unload his burdens. Their whispered conversation was impossible to follow. Rolling forward, Mike got his hands underneath him and pushed himself up, refusing to give in to the groans and pain that wracked his beaten body. The numbness in his hands earlier was almost preferable to the sharp stabbing pains that racked them now, but Mike told himself that the pain was a good sign. His fingers would at least twitch when he tried to move them, so maybe there wasn't any permanent damage. But his hands were still tied, the thin cord almost invisible beneath the swollen flesh of his wrists.The room swung briefly around him as he sat all the way up; he closed his good eye until the swinging feeling passed. Mike told himself the nausea that threatened was from the dizziness, the concussion he probably had after so many blows to the head, and not the fact that Dori was still here, still where these assholes could hurt her--and not the knowledge that once again he'd failed to protect her.Hell wasn't going to be big enough to contain his guilt over this one.Jason and Warren were busy, the gurgle of liquid being poured accompanied by the innocent sound of giggling. Mike sniffed carefully, and over the dust and decay and dogshit he smelled...kerosene! Damn! He watched long enough to be sure the men were assembling what he thought they were: Molotov Cocktails. If Mike's stomach hadn't already been twisted in a knot, it would have done so now. Much as he wanted to deny it, things were adding up far too neatly. Jason, and probably Warren, were not only the arsonists, but Amanda Parson's murderers. Only now the boys had educated themselves, graduated to even more dangerous incendiary devices. Great, just great. This old barn would go up like a dry forest in August.Refusing to watch the construction of his death, he turned away, looking for Dori. The rattle of metal when he moved his right leg confused him for a second, as did the fact that his leg wouldn't come all the way over to where he wanted it. Mike scooted forward until he could pull his foot up, and stared down at his ankle in confusion. There was a chain wrapped snugly around it, secured with what looked like the Master Lock from his garage. He moved his foot, and the chain rattled again. Mike pulled his foot in closer, and watched the snaking action of the chain across the straw covered floor of the barn. It wandered out through the straw, then looped back and around the post three feet away from Mike, and then meandered over to a crumpled tarp and--Dori! The lump of pale material was Dori, lying in a heap on her stomach, with her head turned away from him. Her right arm dangled over her back; even through her shirtsleeve he could tell the middle of her forearm was bent and grossly swollen. She wasn't whimpering anymore, she just lay there, motionless. Heedless of Jason and Bob, Mike scrambled the few feet toward her, the chain pulling in straw behind him. Stopping just short of his friend, he knelt there, his hands out, his eyes cataloging. He didn't know how long he'd been out; he knew all too well what could have happened while he was unconscious. But Dori was still fully clothed. Maybe, just maybe, they'd left her alone this time."Dori?" He kept his voice soft; there was no response. Warren looked up and caught him hovering over Dori, but the man only grinned and went back to mixing cocktails with Jason. Mike knew he didn't have much time."Dori? It's Mike." Still no response. "Dori, it's Mike, I'm gonna touch your shoulder, okay? I just want to..." Mike pulled his hand back without touching his friend at all, and sat hard in the straw beside her. All his own aches and pains crying for his attention, he laid his head on his upraised knee and stared at Dori's motionless form.What did he want? To rescue her? It was a bit late for that. There wasn't much that he could do at this late date, except once again offer her whatever vague comfort could come from his presence here with her. He could reassure her that she wouldn't die alone. Besides, if she was truly unconscious, why should he wake her? Why make her suffer any more than she already had? Mike knew what was coming. He was a firefighter; he knew how to save his life in a fire, give himself a fighting chance. This time...this time he'd have to do the opposite. Instead of hugging the floor, looking for air and hoping for rescue, they'd have to give up, embrace and breathe in the smoke, hope the noxious fumes got them before the flames did.Trouble was, he wasn't sure he could force himself to give up like that.Mike reached out and lightly touched Dori's hair. No response, and Mike brushed the fingers of one hand clumsily across the side of her head and then down over the shoulder length locks, much as his own mother had comforted him as a child. Her hair was matted across her face, mixed with a dark substance. Blood. His hand trembled, and spasmed involuntarily, and his long fingers snarled in her dark hair. He held his breath, but Dori never moved. His other hand clenched into a fist, he worked his fingers loose from the tangle. Still no reaction, and Mike's breath caught in his throat as he finally freed himself. What if she was already dead?It took him a minute, but he conquered both his nausea and the knot in his throat."Dori, I just want...I'm gonna check your pulse, okay?" he whispered, listening to the clinking and gurgling across the room. "It's just me, Mike, and I'm only gonna touch your neck for a minute."He carefully pulled enough of her hair aside to touch her, sliding his fingers around to the side of her neck. The only sensation he could register through the pounding pain of his fingers was cool flesh, and for a minute his fear consumed him. Then again, maybe she would be better off if she was already dead. Mike shuddered, and gave up trying to feel for a pulse. Instead he slid his hand lightly down her back and rested it there. It only took a second for the rhythmic rise and fall of breathing to be apparent even to his damaged hands, and Mike heaved a deep sigh of relief. Maybe...maybe there was still hope. He rested his hands on her back for a moment longer."Aw, now ain't that cute. Fireboy's worried about my big sister. Either that or he's jealous he didn't get any last night."Keeping his hands on Dori's back, Mike sat back and glared at Jason. One-eyed, it probably wasn't that effective, but it gave Mike at least a little bit of satisfaction. Jason chuckled, and looked over his shoulder to include Surfer Bob in the laughter. Warren grinned back obligingly. Mike didn't waste the opportunity.Jason went down easily enough when Mike's shoulder hit his knees, but it was another matter when Mike tried to get his uncooperative hands around the punk's scrawny neck. Just like last night, Warren was all over him from behind, his arms encircling Mike, trapping Mike's arms before he could reach his objective. The other man rolled them both off Jason, the chain around Mike's ankle rattling as they went over and over for the third time in twenty-four hours. Mike struggled, but Warren had locked his hands around his chest and Mike was weakened enough from his ordeal that he couldn't break the young man's grip. They wrestled on the floor, scattering straw and tangling Mike's feet in the chain attaching him to the post. Jason loomed over them about the time Warren won the fight to be on top. He hauled Mike up to his feet and let go. Jason promptly knocked Mike flat.Mike landed hard on the floor a foot away from Dori, hoping like crazy that the new pain flaring in his jaw wasn't because it was broken. For some reason, all the other places he'd been hurt now seemed to think it was time to complain again, and the aches and pain flared up all over his body. He laid there, trying not to choke on the straw poking at his nose. Why was he even bothering to fight anymore?They didn't give him a chance to figure it out. Bob grabbed Mike and pulled him up onto his knees and Mike had one brief glimpse of Dori's blood covered face beneath her hair before he was swung around to face Jason."If you want to fight, you need some war paint, don't ya?" The razor Jason held up glittered in a stray beam of sunlight. "You and Dori can be a matching pair."Warren had him in a headlock, trapped between his knees, and Mike's struggles were useless. He froze as the razor pressed against his cheekbone just below the corner of his eye. The thin line burned as Jason sliced over and then curved down around the middle of his cheek, then made two more curving slices on either side of the first cut."Not too deep," he said, grinning. "We don't want you passing out before the bonfire. Or is that the bonfire-MAN?" His tormentors shared a laugh, and then Jason grabbed Mike's hair and turned his head to do the other side. This time he drew four long slashes across Mike's cheek. Mike pushed the pain away, tried to ignore the blood slithering down his face in the wake of the razor.They let go of him long enough to get him on the floor, but Mike had spent most of his energy and he couldn't free himself in the brief moment of opportunity. Warren straddled his hips and held his arms down while Jason knelt with one knee on his shoulder and ripped at Mike's shirt. Once it was open, he drew the razor lightly across his chest. Mike closed his eyes and bore the wet pain, refused to look. Then both men were giggling."Three short, three long, three short. S-O-S." Jason's amusement glittered in the shadows that were once again reaching for Mike. "Now let's do some fancy stuff..." The razor swooped and swirled, dashed and dotted across Mike's chest and upper belly. He held his breath, tried not to move any more than absolutely necessary. The stinging and burning of the razor slicing through his skin momentarily overrode all the other aches and pains that were clamoring to be noticed.And the shadows were there, calling to him...But the shadows abandoned him again, and he realized Jason was done. Surfer Bob's weight left him, and when he opened his eyes, both men had stepped back away from him. Mike glared up at their grins, pretending he didn't notice the pain, the blood running down his neck and from his body."You think you're gonna get away with this?" It was harsh, more croak than voice, but it was his, and dammit, he wasn't gonna go without having his say.Again, Jason's grin was feral; Surfer Bob's a pale echo."Ain't no 'get' to it. I already have. And you're not gonna be ratting on anyone, are you?"Mike ignored the ruthless logic of that, ignored the slanting sunlight glinting redly on the kerosene and oil mixture in the bottles behind the boys. He swallowed dust, and spoke again."They'll call the arson investigators. If you don't think two bodies chained inside a burned out barn aren't going to get their attention, you're nuts. Just let us go and we won't say anything. You can leave the state--""But I don't want to leave California. I like it here, the warm sunshine, all the pretty girls on the beach..." Jason's gaze was cold. He was done playing, Mike realized, and couldn't stop the shudder that claimed him at the thought. Weary, aching, he collapsed back into the dirty straw as the two boys turned away without another word. Her feet almost touching his, Dori had yet to move. Mike closed his eyes and hoped that she wouldn't come to now. Let her be spared at least this.The floorboards creaked, and Mike opened his eyes. The boys were collecting their toys, gonna go somewhere else and play. Carefully avoiding the three Molotov cocktails, primed and ready to go, Warren kicked the remaining kerosene to one side. It flew into the corner of the barn, a graceful plume of liquid arcing behind it before it rattled to a stop. Some of the fuel splattered on Mike. Jason bent over and dug in the sack, coming up with a roll of duct tape. Mike once again found himself struggling beneath Warren's weight while Jason taped his mouth shut. The minute the man was off him, he sat up and tried to pick at a corner of the tape, but his fingers were so stiff and uncooperative he couldn't get a grip on it. Rubbing his face along his upper arm trying to loosen the tape didn't do any good either; it simply renewed the stinging in the cuts on his face.Both men got a good laugh at Mike's frustration before they turned their attention to Dori. Rolling her roughly over, they taped her mouth, and at a nod from Jason, Warren turned her and pulled her hands behind her back with no regard for the broken arm. Mike's protest didn't make it past the duct tape, and all he could do was watch. Jason ran the tape around her wrists twice, and then cut it with his razor. Dori moaned, and moved a little as Jason pushed her over on her back. Jason reached up under her shirt while he leaned over and whispered something to her. She moaned again, and feebly moved her head away from Jason before going limp again. The two men laughed, and stood. Tossing the razor blade aside, Jason sauntered over towards the bound firefighter, still grinning."Sayonara, sucker!"Mike managed to block most of the kick with his hands, but the momentum from the blow still landed him on his side, wallowing in dust and straw and pain again. Jason smirked, then walked around him, over to where their Molotov cocktails waited, kerosene refracting the light glancing through the open door. He handed two of the jars to Warren and, claiming the last one, turned back to Mike."Been nice knowin' ya, Fireboy." He sketched a jaunty salute in Mike's direction, and followed Bob into the sunlight. A few seconds later the Molotov cocktails arched in through the open door, one by one, solar flares leaping into the shadowed darkness. ----- CHAPTER BREAK ----- Let's enter the ash,Let's move with the smoke,Let's live by the fire~~ Pablo Neruda Death by asphyxiation was highly overrated, Mike decided rather quickly. Coughing in spite of the gag, he stayed low, below the gathering smoke as he crawled over to Dori. Swallowing another cough, he carefully rolled her back over on her side. That would at least take some of the pressure off her arm. She didn't rouse when he shook her, but she coughed slightly. Mike quickly scooped the area around her free of the loose straw. That done, he turned his attention toward getting them out of there.The Molotov cocktails had landed more toward the edges of the barn's interior, their fuel spattering mostly on the stacked bales. The bales were alight, burning with angry orange flames and thick white smoke. But for now the fire seemed content with the stacked hay. The breeze from the open door was keeping the flames directed away from them, bringing in fresh air and giving them a fighting chance.The only thing keeping them in the barn right now was the chain. Mike spent several fruitless moments trying to work the links off his ankle, wishing desperately for Jason's razor to cut the shoelaces his fumble-fingered attempts to untie were useless. But even if he could get his shoe off, the chain was tethered too tightly to come down over his heel. He checked Dori's ankle, but the same applied. Even with her bare feet, the chain was too securely wrapped for him to force it off.Okay, that left the post the chain was wrapped around. There was another lock there, preventing Mike from just unwrapping them. Using the post for leverage, he stood, his head pounding in time with his coughing, his eyes streaming as the smoke thickened about him. His body protested as he threw his shoulder against the post. But it was solid, there was no give to it no matter how hard he hit it. Movement caught his eye, and he watched an angry tongue of flame racing up the post nearest the steadily burning bales, lapping hungrily at the loft, and jumping quickly to the moldy straw there. Damn! They had to get out of here fast, or the place was going to come down on top of them. Flaming ash and cinders floating around him, he threw himself frantically at the post. His effort gained him nothing but more bruises and lungs full of smoke.Spent, Mike dropped to the floor. Leaning his head back against the post he strained for fresh air, fought to catch his breath and stifle the coughs. Sweat poured down his face and body as the heat built inside the barn, and the cuts from Jason's razor flared and burned as the sweat ran over them. His vision blurred, and Mike told himself it was just the smoke and heat as he wiped clumsily at his face with his useless hands. Rolling over, he tried to grab both lengths of chain, wrapping them around his wrists and yanking, ignoring the pain. Still the post refused to budge.Dropping the chains, Mike returned to Dori and tried once again to rouse her, but she didn't respond. He leaned down to check her breathing. It was okay so far, the noxious gases mostly above her. But on his hands and knees beside her, staring at the encroaching flames, Mike was forced to admit this just might be it. This just really might be it.A sudden breeze blew across his face, and Mike looked toward the source. The open barn door still fed the fire with fresh oxygen even as it gave them clean air to breathe. Taking a deep breath, he turned back to Dori. If they could get close enough to the door, there was a chance, a slim one, that they'd be found quickly by whatever company got called out to the fire. Mike knew it wasn't much of a chance; he knew what the firefighters would do with a burning barn on the edge of a field of hay, even if it was green hay. They'd play it safe, hang back, wait for the full alarm assignment to arrive before coming in to attack the blaze. They might not get here in time do anything more than surround and drown, never dreaming that one of their own was inside.That was all assuming, of course, that someone had seen the smoke and called the fire in to start with.Still it was their only chance at this point. He looked up at the flames, now spreading through the straw in the loft and reaching out for more of the barn. He sat down beside Dori, trying to figure things out. Between the sweat and the heat and his own aching body, he couldn't come up with any way to move her without hurting her already damaged arm, and in the end he simply did what he had to do.He leaned down, clumsily pulling Dori up and propping her against his upraised knee. Her head dangled as he put his bound arms over and around her, awkwardly working his left arm between her back and his leg. His arms down around her waist now, he worked them back up so they were hooked underneath her arms. Mike took one last look at the fire blooming all around them, and began his awkward trek. It was half crawl, half walk, as he aimed for the pale square of light that was the door, dragging Dori with him through the swirling smoke.The chain on Dori's foot brought them to an abrupt halt. Mike coughed, whether from the dust he'd raised or the smoke, he couldn't tell. It didn't matter. They were still a good six feet or more from the door. No one would be able to see them anyway, not with the way the fire was beginning to overwhelm the barn, heated air and smoke now pushing back against the fresh air feeding in through the door.Coughing, Mike allowed Dori's body to slump to the floor beneath him. She coughed as well, and he collapsed beside her, staring up at the flames and smoke above him. The noise of the fire filled his ears, accompanied by the crackle of burning straw and the creaks and groans of the old barn as it slowly gave ground to the monster devouring it from within. For a minute, he thought he heard sirens over the roaring flames, and he lifted his head. But there was nothing but the fire and smoke around them. And after the last twenty-four hours, rescue was more than he could hope for.Ash and blackened straw swam in the air currents; small bits of burning debris peppered the air around them. The kerosene on his shirt flared briefly, and Mike contemplated letting it burn even as he automatically rolled on his back to put the tiny flames out.Pulled with him as he rolled, Dori jerked in his arms, and Mike lifted his head to look at her. But her eyes were still closed in her bloody face, her movement just a spasm as her body strained for fresh air. She coughed, once, weakly. He could still get closer to the door; the chain on his foot allowed him at least another two feet of distance. But he couldn't leave Dori--wouldn't leave her. His arms still around her limp body, Mike pulled Dori close and rolled forward, tucking her in beneath him, sheltering her as much as he could with his own body as the inferno slowly surrounded them. * * * "Mike? ...arms..Mike?...breathing...God, look at...Mike?"The shadows had returned, and this time they wanted to keep him. Mike was willing to stay, more than willing; fire crackled around him as he eagerly gave himself to the darkness. But a voice insisted on calling his name, and the habit of obedience in the midst of smoke and flame was too ingrained for him not to respond. He turned obediently, if lethargically, and followed the sound of his name up out of the shadows, into the cool air surrounding him."Mike? ...hear me? This...hurt....off...oxygen."The ripping pain across his face brought him up out of the darkness in a hurry, and, coughing, he rolled his head away from the hands that were trying to smother him with another, larger gag. The roaring of the fire joined the roaring in his ears, and his brain sluggishly tried to make some sense of what was happening to him now."Mike, it's okay, it's just the oxygen mask. It will help you breathe." The voice accompanied the black mask, and Mike tried again to turn his head away, coughs racking his battered body as he did so."No..." Someone moaned, and a second later Mike recognized his own voice, even as his head was forced back around and the mask pressed down over his nose and mouth. The hands and their voice were nothing but insistent as they fastened the gag around his head. The coughing that consumed him prevented him from removing the dark rubber that followed wherever he tried to move his face. The voice babbled on, frequently calling his name, but Mike ignored it. In spite of their bonds, he got his hands up, tried to push the mask away. But his hands were grabbed and forced back down, and no matter how hard he pulled, he couldn't get them free."Do...ree..." He coughed, and unwillingly sucked in great gasps of fresh air even as he fought the hands restraining him."Mike, it's okay. Stop it. Calm down! Mike!""Nooo..." His objection to the restraint was muffled by both his own coughing and the mask over his face, and he threw his head to the side in another effort to dislodge it. Pulling his knees up, he kicked at whatever was holding him down. There was a soft oomph! and he was released. Freedom momentarily obtained, Mike rolled over on his side and pushed the mask off. He blinked at the dirt, then looked over at the fire burning merrily against the blue sky. Where was Dori? He had to find her, had to get her out of here before they could hurt her any more.But the hands were pulling at him, trying to force him over onto his back while the voice talked and talked over him. Still coughing, Mike turned his head away, scrabbling at the loose dirt and trying to pull himself free."I need some help over here!"The voice sounded upset, and vaguely familiar, but Mike couldn't stop to figure it out. Dori, he had to get to Dori. The world lurched about him as the hands grabbed his shoulders, but Mike threw an elbow back and was rewarded with another soft oomph! and freedom. He wasn't going down without a fight. Getting his feet underneath him, he looked straight ahead. His one good eye stared blankly at Dori, lying on the ground scant feet from where he crouched.Mask over her face, she was still unconscious, blood and bruises and soot indistinguishable from each other on her golden skin. Her shirt was completely gone and a dark-haired man bent over her, pulling at her jeans. With a hoarse roar of rage, Mike launched himself at Jason. The man looked up just as Mike's hands swung club-like at his face and Mike was rewarded with a satisfying thunk of flesh against flesh. But before he could do anything else in Dori's defense, someone grabbed him from behind--more than one someone. He struggled, but the encircling arms were relentless, bearing him back and away from Dori and the dark-haired man sprawled on the ground, one hand at his bloody mouth and staring up at Mike in shock.Attempting to yell his defiance between coughs, Mike kicked and wriggled in their grip, but to no avail. He flung his head back, hoping to headbutt the person holding him, but the grip about his chest was relentless. In the end Mike's own abused body betrayed him. Suddenly overwhelmed by both nausea and vertigo, Mike stumbled, then fell to his knees, taking at least one of his assailants down with him. He was released as he coughed and retched helplessly, but the arms never left completely. Instead they held and supported him until the dry heaves passed. When he was done they lifted him, pulled him to his feet, supported him when his own legs wouldn't, all the while someone was talking, calling his name, reassuring him...And, somehow, through the haze of grief and pain, he recognized this voice in his ear."Cap?" he husked, and was rewarded by a slight squeeze from one set of the arms supporting him."Yeah, Mike." The arms on his right shifted, moved around him, and when Mike lifted his head Cap's worried frown was there, the dark eyes staring down at him. Mike blinked, tried to will more of the world into some sort of one-eyed focus. He staggered, and along with Cap's quick hand, someone else caught him. Mike looked over and saw Roy's face close to his own, the paramedic's shoulder lending support to his struggle to get his feet under him. He stared dazedly at his friend, before Cap's voice pulled his attention away."It's okay, Mike. You're safe," Cap said, taking Mike's weight as Roy ducked away. Focusing on Cap's face, Mike took a breath, and lost it in a cough as Cap continued hurriedly. "Dori's safe too. Johnny's taking good care of her. It's all right, Mike. You're gonna be all right."Johnny? What about Jason...? Mike blinked at Cap and then looked about him. The world was still a dizzying cacophony of sight and sound and fire, but the noises and shapes about him suddenly made sense: radios squawking and men in turnouts yelling and water hissing and behind it all, the roaring fire. A few feet beyond where he and Cap stood lay Dori. Marco knelt at her head, holding the rebreather mask on her face. Her body was discretely covered by a yellow blanket. His shirt front bloody and his lip swelling, Johnny squatted beside her, talking rapidly into the biophone he held in one hand.The afternoon swung suddenly, doing an abrupt loop, and Mike closed his eyes as he lost his balance once more. It wasn't just shadows as he fell this time; flocks of ravens swooped in on him. But Cap was there with him, going down into the dirt beside him, cradling Mike against his shoulder, helping keep the darkness at bay for a minute longer."Roy, where the hell are your scissors?" Cap demanded, his voice gruff.Mike blinked tears of relief away and Roy was there, kneeling in front of him. Leaning back against Cap, this time he accepted the oxygen mask; Roy turned away as soon as he had the oxygen in place."Cap," Mike croaked from beneath the mask, his bound hands going up and scrabbling at Cap's turnout coat. Impossibly, he was heard. Cap's dark gaze met his, and Mike swallowed, forcing his voice out. "Dori..." He coughed, long and hard."Johnny's taking care of her, Mike," Cap replied, tightening his arm about Mike's shoulders. "You had her right by the door, and we got her out. We got you both out."Roy was back, scissors glinting in the sunlight. Mike shook his head, he had to tell them... Roy's hands moved, and the pressure on his wrists eased. His hands fell apart, his arms landing limply in his lap."She was...drugged...I tried...stop them..." Damn, why was his voice so weak? The world looped about him again as Cap and Roy lowered him gently to the ground. Mike grabbed at Cap's turnout coat, forced one arm to come up and try for it. Cap's frown grew even more severe and he grasped Mike's hand with his own, his hand wrapping gently around Mike's swollen fingers as he leaned over him."Who, Mike? Who did you try to stop?"Mike coughed again, breathing deeply of the oxygen, willing the dark flock away. Roy was messing with his other arm, doing something Mike should probably understand, but he was too tired to try to figure it out now. As he worked, the blonde paramedic carried on a conversation with someone behind him, the strange exchange consisting mostly of numbers and letters. Cap yelled over his shoulder for someone to get the sheriff's deputy. Then he turned back to Mike."Mike, who was it? Who did this to you?" His voice was urgent, and his hand heavy on Mike's shoulder. Mike took another deep breath, then pulled his hand free from Cap's and pushed feebly at the mask. Cap reached up and moved it aside for him."Ja...Jason....Dori's brother," Mike got out, and Cap's eyes grew wide. He and Roy exchanged a shocked glance. Mike reached for Cap's hand again, and when he saw that he had Cap's attention, he whispered, "Warren.""Warren?" Cap repeated after him. "Dori's brother, Jason, and somebody named Warren?"Mike nodded, his one good eye closing. "They dope...doped her." His mind groped for the information he knew Roy would want. "...ludes...Quaaludes. I tried...tried to stop them...but they...I couldn't, Cap, I couldn't..." This time Mike blinked tears of frustration from his good eye, looking away from Cap's sympathy. He didn't deserve it. "They...they raped her...I couldn't stop them, I tried--""Shhh, it's okay, Mike. It's okay," Cap soothed, squeezing his hand slightly and giving his shoulder a small shake. Mike wondered briefly why Cap hadn't been wearing his breathing apparatus; his voice was nearly as hoarse and strained as Mike's own. His eyes bleak, Stanley pulled the oxygen mask back over Mike's face. "You did what you could, pal. If you hadn't pulled her over to the door, we'd never have seen you in time. You did what you could," he insisted, his grip tightening on Mike's shoulder as Johnny suddenly yelled for Roy.Did what he could? Roy disappeared as Mike shook his head. Cap continued to talk, but Mike didn't listen. The ravens swooped even closer for him now. He hadn't done anything, anything at all to stop Jason and Warren. He really wasn't a rescue man. Crushed beneath that thought, Mike finally gave in, allowing the exhaustion to take over, caving in to the grief and despair that he'd held at bay for the last twenty-four hours. He heard Cap calling him as his body went limp, heard the frantic voices of both Johnny and Roy behind Cap's pleas for him to remain. But this time Mike didn't obey, didn't come back to the light and the voices and the pain. Instead, he turned and let the ravens take him. ----- CHAPTER BREAK ----- Where were they headed, the one-winged birds,tilted to compensate, dependent on thermalsto lift them over the mountains...?~~Richard Hugo The itching was as good an excuse as any. Mike threw the covers back, pulled his turnout pants on, and padded out of the dorm with his boots under one arm. No one seemed bothered by his leaving; nothing in the room's pattern of light snoring and deep breathing changed. Mike closed the door carefully behind him, moving silently into the locker room. He dropped his boots on the bench before digging in his locker for the tube of medication that was supposed to alleviate the itching. It did, for about ten minutes at a time. Mike rubbed the stuff on, then headed for the sink to wash his hands. Dr. Panopoulos had taken the last of his stitches out a week ago; Mike had thought that the itching would have gone with them. But it hadn't, and he still fought to keep from scratching at the scars on his chest and face.Mike ran the water until it was pleasantly warm, and then rinsed his hands in the sink. Finished, he leaned on the counter and stared at his reflection in the mirror. The scars on his face were still new-purple, though as the plastic surgeon had promised, they were thin and wrinkle-like. The long, lanky doctor, whose hands appeared much too large to do the delicate work for which he was famous, had assured Mike that eventually the marks would be almost unnoticeable--almost, unless someone already knew they were there, or he turned his head just right in the light. It had taken some time to remove all the stitches. Afterward the doctor had spent several long minutes checking his handiwork out with a strong light, ending with Mike's face.Eyes closed, Mike endured the inspection. He tried his best not to think about the scars or the reason for their existence as the doctor held his chin and tilted his head this way and that under the light, muttering to himself all the while. The doctor let go of his chin and Mike opened his eyes to find the Doctor staring hard at him. Even more uncomfortable under this scrutiny, he looked away, or started too, before something in Dr. Panopoulos's dark gaze drew him back. The doctor seemed to be waiting for something...and then Mike saw them.One side of the doctor's generous, hooked nose was peppered with minute white scars, in a pattern that ranged out along his prominent cheekbone and up around the eye. Down the side of his face spread a series of larger marks, small streaks and pockmarks down to the man's jaw. Against the doctor's dark skin, the scars were quite noticeable. If Mike hadn't been wrapped up in his own misery he'd surely have noticed them before now. Mike's gaze shot back up to meet the doctor's; he found the long thin lips twisted in a wry smile."Gravel," Dr. Panopoulos said, the faint accent of his birthplace a bit more marked. "I was eight. My father was angry with me, threw me from the car as we traveled down the road." The doctor paused, and smiled apologetically. "My father...he was a bit too fond of his ouzo. He quite ruined my good looks; it was feared I would never find a woman willing to marry such a scarred one." He waved his left hand; a gold wedding band glittered in the bright light directed at Mike's face. "But my mother's brother had emigrated, before the war, and she scrimped and saved to bring me here for reconstructive surgery. Afterwards we stayed. She lived with her brother for a long time, before I finished school and was able to support her." He paused, and his eyes twinkled. "My father stayed in Greece. With his ouzo."The dark eyes held Mike's for a bit longer. Mike, unable to find anything to say, finally nodded. Switching the light off, Dr. Panopoulos pulled a handkerchief out and blown his nose. As Mike got into his shirt, the doctor advised that he avoid getting a deep tan; the scars would show up more against dark skin--like his own. Mike thanked him mechanically and headed home, wondering why he didn't feel better now that he was free of the dark, millipede-like stitches. He knew he should be grateful both to the plastic surgeon and to Dr. Early for calling him in. The man's careful work had saved both Mike and Dori from prominent disfigurement.And it wasn't that Mike didn't understand what the doctor had tried to tell him; he just wasn't sure he was ready to believe it. Like the scars on Dr. Panopoulos's face, the scars from Jason's fling were never going to be completely gone.Nobody at the station commented about the scarring on his face; most of them hadn't seen the damage to his torso. Mike had taken to wearing t-shirts to work beneath his regular shirts, and managed to never have to change out of them with anyone else in the room. No one had asked; he'd not caught anyone trying to sneak a glimpse of his scars. But he had caught them staring at him a time or two, and he told himself they were wondering what it looked like beneath his shirt, what the visible evidence of his ordeal was. That was one bad thing about being rescued by people you knew. The white v-neck he wore tonight covered almost all of Jason's artistry, all but two long gashes up near his neck. Beneath the shirt he looked like an extra in one of those slasher flicks Chet liked. But Chet and his horror movies had nothing on the real thing; Jason could have given Norman Bates a run for his money any day.Mike shivered and turned away from his reflection in the mirror. Telling himself the goose-bumps were because of the late night chill in the room, he opened his locker door and grabbed his jacket. Shrugging into it, he gathered up his boots again and headed for the day room.Making coffee in the brightly lit room kept him busy for a bit, bought him some time while he didn't have to think, didn't have to concentrate on anything but getting the right amount of water and grounds and finding a clean cup. But waiting for the water to boil was hard; there was nothing to do but stare at the pot on the burner, at the flame--and try not to remember the flames surrounding them, attempt to forget the fear as he tried to protect Dori from the encroaching blaze. The only thing that had saved them in the end was the fact that Captain Stanley, deeply worried about his missing engineer, had made an excuse to swing by Mike's house on the way home from a nearby MVA. Finding Mike's front door open, his house trashed and Mike himself missing, they'd immediately called the cops. Hanging around waiting for the county sheriff to arrive, someone--Chet, he thought they'd said--had noticed the smoke within minutes of Jason and Warren setting the old barn on fire.And on such small coincidences, the fates hinged.The water boiled, the coffee perked, and Mike was saved from his thoughts for a few more minutes. But then the cabinet door squeaked as he got a cup out, and he was snared by memory again. His hospital door had made that same noise, and on the second day of his stay the long creak of its opening had wakened him from an uneasy nap. He'd rolled over, opened his eyes, and found himself staring up at Jason Mahoney.Mike's stomach had turned over and his IV had gone flying when he'd flung a hand up to ward Jason off. He was sitting up reaching for the call button before he realized that it wasn't actually Jason standing there. Something like a smile flickered in the green eyes of the man watching from his bedside, but Mike didn't think he would enjoy the joke. Dropping the call button, he reached over and clamped his right thumb on the bleeding vein left by the dangling IV, keeping his eyes on his visitor the entire time.Silence reigned in the room as the two men stared at each other, the everyday noise of the hospital muted by the closed door as Mike watched the other man's eyes travel up and down the dark lines of stitches on his face. Max, Dori had called her step-father; Mahoney, it must be, since that was Jason's last name. Though thinking back, Mike couldn't remember her ever giving the man the title of "step-father." It was always "Jason's dad," or "Max." The resemblance Mike had seen between Jason and his dad in the family portrait was more obvious in real life, though once again, Max was much bigger than Jason. Strong, tall, heavily muscled, dressed in an expensive, tailored suit, he was the picture of the man Jason should have been.And he had come to recruit Mike on behalf of his son. To ask Mike to drop the charges in his own case, and to refuse to testify in Dori's case. Right hand still clamped around his left arm, Mike had stared at the two cashier's checks the man held out, both for twenty-five thousand dollars, one made out to the Los Angeles County Fireman's Benefit and Welfare Fund, and one made out to personally to him."What about Dori?" he'd finally asked.Max had stared at him, and again, something flickered behind his eyes. He took a deep breath, watching Mike closely before he nodded once."I've not had a chance to speak with her. But...I'll cover her medical bills, and the repairs to her kitchen."Mike found he was shaking, his stomach and his fists clenched tight. If it hadn't been for the hospital gown he wore, he would have stood up and used his height advantage to try to tower over the man. But as it was, he had to settle for glaring at Mahoney from his hospital bed."Can you buy her face back for her? Can your money buy her life back?"Max's hand holding out the checks slowly wavered, and sank down to the bed. Mike moved his leg away to avoid any contact with the man, even through the blankets. There was another long silence while the two stared at each other, and then Mahoney's gaze had dropped. Looking down at the checks in his hand, Max cleared his throat. His voice, when he spoke, was quiet, almost pleading--and completely unapologetic."Whatever else he is, Mr. Stoker, Jason's my son. My only son."Mike refused to give in."And what's Dori?"After a long pause, Max looked up and gazed steadily at Mike."My wife's illegitimate daughter."The door to his room opened again, and by the time Mike looked over to meet Cap's questioning gaze and back at Mahoney, the checks had disappeared. Mahoney smiled softly, nodded once, and left the room without further word. Mike swallowed his anger and stared at the curtained window as he tried to stop the shaking that consumed him. He didn't have to explain to his Captain what he had just walked in on; Cap's angry scowl as he called for a nurse to replace the IV said he understood, all too well.The cabinet door squeaked again as Mike shut it, and he shook the memory from him as he filled his cup. He still couldn't believe that Mahoney had thought he could buy Jason's freedom, especially when that freedom meant returning to Georgia to face rape charges there--charges that Max had apparently shipped his son out of state to avoid."Is this a private party?"Mike's coffee cup shattered on the floor, and for a long second he couldn't do anything but stare at his socked feet, at the chunky ceramic islands in the brown coffee sea--and wait for his heart to get out of his throat."Damn, Mike, I'm sorry." Mike let Cap push him aside, didn't offer to help as the other man grabbed a clean towel down to catch the coffee before it spread any further. Leaning back against the counter, Mike tried to unknot his stomach, find some way to control his shuddering. He closed his eyes and stared at nothing but the pattern of light and dark on his eyelids, breathing deeply to the sound of Cap running water, and mopping up the floor. He had his breathing mostly under control when he heard the movement stop. Taking one more deep breath, he opened his eyes. Cap stood there, a cup of coffee held out to Mike, and an ocean of sympathy in his eyes. Proud of the steady hand that reached for the cup, Mike accepted the coffee.Cap stepped up to a chair at the table, but Mike headed across the room, to the TV. He'd never had much use for the idiot box, especially not late night programming. A book was his preferred escape on the rare occasions in the past when he suffered from insomnia. But lately reading was as bad as not doing anything; it put his mind in gear, got him thinking. Since he had nothing else to do here at the station, TV was as good a soporific as anything. He switched it on and settled in the chair with his coffee. After a second Cap's slow footsteps followed him across the room. Mike heard joints creak as the other man settled into the couch across from him. Then there was only the sound of the TV, while Cap drank his coffee and Mike stared at the flickering images.Captain Stanley had been there when Mike woke up in the hospital the day after the fire, had showed up when the police came to talk to him about what exactly had happened that night, and simply hung around being quietly supportive throughout the entire ordeal. Roy had been there occasionally, and Johnny; all the guys had come by at one time or another while he was hospitalized, and after he got home. But Cap was the one who'd been there consistently, day after day. Mike hadn't known what to say to him. He hadn't known if he wanted to just ignore him or talk to him, hadn't even known whether or not he appreciated his being there, or just wanted him--and the rest of his friends--to go away and leave Mike alone to wallow in the pit of his grief and sorrow.It was Cap's intervention that had allowed him to come back to work so quickly; Chief McConnike had wanted Mike to take some time off, go visit family or something. Cap must have seen the panic he tried to hide at the thought of having more time to do nothing but think, think and remember, and, with Dr. Early's help, had successfully argued for Mike to be allowed to return to duty. And so he had, once his stitches were out.And Cap had run interference for him with the other guys, getting them to leave him alone, to settle for the abbreviated version of his ordeal the newspapers had printed, and, more importantly, keep their sympathies to themselves. Mike knew the guys talked about him when he wasn't around; in the last few days he'd walked into too many suddenly quiet rooms filled with guilty looks. It was okay, as long as they didn't talk to him. And sure, they tended to hover, but as long as they hovered in the distance, Mike didn't care. Today Johnny and Chet had gotten into a full blown argument, their first since he'd come back to work last week, and Mike was glad he didn't have to explain his relief to anyone else. Things were getting back to normal, at least in one area of his life.Staring at his coffee, Mike realized that Dori's choked up words in the barn that day made absolute sense. Don't. Please, just...just don't. Don't go there, don't tell me you're sorry, don't ask me to tell you about it, don't try to talk to me, don't try to understand my nightmare. Just...don't.He drank his coffee, stared at the TV screen for a while. The leather couch squeaked and creaked as Cap shifted his weight, swinging his legs up and stretching them out on the couch. Mike didn't say anything to him, and, thankfully, Cap didn't say anything to him, either. The room settled once again into the quiet muttering of the television.The hardest thing about being back at work was not being able to sleep. Released from the hospital four days after he was admitted, Mike quickly found that unless he wanted to make constant use of the sleeping pills Dr. Early pressed on him, sleeping worked better during the day. Mike hadn't wanted to accept the medication but Dr. Early had insisted, told him he could flush them all down the toilet when he got home if he wanted to. Mike had tried to, but found he didn't have the guts, not when every time he closed his eyes he got replays of that horrific night. In the dark there was nothing to distract him from his memories; in the silence there was nothing to stop the replay of sounds from his own personal nightmare.So now he did his chores around the house at night, and during the day caught what sleep he could on the couch, in the living room, with daytime TV as his lullaby. The guys had cleaned up most of the mess from Jason and Warren's spree for him, but Mike stayed busy replacing smashed in plasterboard, mudding in the dents in the salvageable places, pulling up the scorched carpet in his living room. On his way home tomorrow he planned to pick up paint, and maybe a new light fixture or two.The sleeping pills he used when he had to be at work the next day, had to be alert and functional during the daylight hours. It was only here, at the station, that he was expected to sleep in a dark, silent room, with nothing chemical or otherwise to mute the memories.Mike blew on his coffee, took a drink. Cap finished his cup, got up and poured himself another. The TV went on chattering and showing pictures to itself. A commercial for a daytime soap flashed by, some character in the hospital, friends and enemies gathered at her bedside. Mike closed his eyes against the days-old memory of Dori, lying limply in ICU, respirator huffing and puffing, monitors buzzing and beeping around her. She'd gone into full arrest at the fire that day; Roy had said it was the combination of the drugs and the additional smoke after the kitchen fire. They'd revived her at the scene, Johnny and Roy, and they'd kept her alive on the way to the hospital. Mike knew he owed his friends for that, knew that if they hadn't kept Dori alive after he had failed so miserably, he might not have been able to live with himself. It was hard enough to keep going as it was, even knowing that Dori was going to live, that Jason and Warren were in jail, awaiting trial on numerous counts of arson and assault and attempted murder--and one flat out charge of murder for the death of Amanda Parsons, working girl.But somehow, in spite of it all, Mike was still here, still going on. It wasn't getting any easier, but at least it wasn't getting any harder. If he could just hold on until he found a way out of this darkness...Cap's quiet snore drifted across the room, and Mike scrambled to rescue the half cup of coffee before the man's lax fingers lost it completely. He moved silently back to the kitchen area to set the cup on the counter and refill his own mug before returning to his seat, once again trying to banish thoughts and nightmares in the flickering images on the TV screen. ----- CHAPTER BREAK ----- "Taste your tears, the lime of them, the liquor.Give the foolish dead a second chance.The weather hates our posesbut the sun deranges men with laughter."~~Richard Hugo Sandy Steadman was pounding a "For Sale" sign into Dori's front lawn when Mike came home the next morning. Mike nodded at the other man as he waited for an oncoming car to pass before he turned into his own driveway. Shutting the truck off, he sat for a minute and listened to the clicking of the cooling engine, watching in his rearview mirror as Sandy checked the sign's stability. Dori's brother had flown down from Sacramento as soon as the police had contacted him that first night. When Sandy'd walked into Mike's hospital room a day later, Mike had thought for sure the man was lost. Two inches taller than Mike's own six foot, two inches, with short, curly black hair and caramel skin, Sandy Steadman was the last thing Mike had expected in Dori's brother. But the eyes that had stared mournfully back at him in the hospital that day were the same huge, black eyes that stared at Mike in his nightmares--the same tear-ridden, swollen eyes that dominated Dori's face the night he helped her with Puff.Two weeks after that first meeting, those eyes were still smoky with grief, but the tears seemed to have subsided for the time being.Mike had gotten to know Dori's family at the hospital--mostly Sandy, as the man kept vigil in the ICU waiting room those first few days, waiting for the ten minutes every hour he was allowed to sit beside his little sister and hold her hand, begging her to wake up--to live. The restaurateur had even managed to have Max banned from visiting Dori. Mike had heard the stories of their battle from Johnny, who'd actually been there checking on Dori when it happened. He'd heard all about the row the two men had had outside ICU the night after the fire, how Sandy had argued and shouted and cajoled until he got what he wanted, the way Max's blustering and his cold anger--and his money--had simply washed around Sandy like the ebbing tide around bedrock.Arriving with the cold storm that was her husband, Dori's mother seemed completely bewildered by what had happened to her daughter. Nearing fifty, Annette Mahoney was still breathtakingly beautiful, and, like any other expensive doll, dressed to show it off. Mike was reminded of the fragile Southern belles he'd seen in movies; women whose role in life was simply to be decorative. And, like those women, Annette seemed to function only as an accessory to her husband. Still a patient himself, Mike had found his way up to ICU the day Annette tried to reason with Sandy about Max's visiting privileges. Sandy, while he had been gentle, had been adamant in his refusal. Mike'd taken pity on the woman after Sandy stalked off, and tried to talk to her. But Annette had spent more time trying to explain what a nice boy Jason really was than she had talking about her own daughter, and Mike had been hard pressed to keep his disgust to himself. He was actually relieved to see the nurse from his own floor who'd been sent to track him down and return him to quarters.A huge yawn pulled Mike out of his reverie, and he fought another one as he got out of the truck. To the tune of Cap's mild snores, Mike'd dozed off about an hour before the wake-up tones this morning, and that was the sum total of sleep he'd gotten in the last twenty-four hours. He leaned across he seat to pull his purchases out of the cab. He'd get the paint in the house, and crash on the couch for a little while."Hey, Mike!"Mike stopped at the porch, the two cans of paint thumping on the bottom step as he waited for Sandy to cross the street. Bending over to snag the paper that lay in the middle of the yard, Dori's brother jogged across the green grass. He held the damp newsprint out, and Mike nodded his thanks as he accepted it."It's safe to read, today. I think you're clear." Mike rolled his eyes and then smiled slightly in response to Sandy's rueful grin. Only the fact that Dori had been raped had kept their entire ordeal off the front pages of the Los Angeles Times. The paper had printed no names and only general details, but the sensationalism of the tale, plus the fact that Mike was a firefighter, had led to the story running in far too many papers nationwide. Rampart had been hard pressed to deny the reporters, and Mike knew the private room he'd enjoyed had been less the largesse of the hospital than an attempt to keep him away from prying cameras and microphones. Sandy's outrage at what he considered their "further victimization" at the hands of the media had been vocal, and Mike had listened to and silently agreed with more than one rant on the subject from the man.Putting his hands in his back pockets, Sandy's smile grew. He took a deep breath, and blew it out before grinning at Mike again."They're letting Dori go today. I'm headed out as soon as I'm done here to pick her up.""That's great." Mike smiled with genuine relief, then waved at the sign across the street with his paper, and attempted to make conversation. "She's selling the house?" Not that he would blame her; the place had to be full of memories of Jason."Yeah. We talked to Dori last night," Sandy said, "and Vivien convinced her, I think." Mike nodded; he'd met Sandy's wife as well, the tall, elegant woman with the beautiful dark skin. Vivien had spent the last two weeks shuttling between Dori's hospital bed and the successful gourmet restaurant she and Sandy owned up in Sacramento.Sandy took a deep breath. "Dori hates to let this place go, but I...we just can't see leaving her down here by herself now. Not after..." Staring across the street at Dori's house, Sandy's voice trailed off, and after a second, he swallowed hard. Mike didn't say anything; his own suddenly hollow chest wouldn't let him.Sandy shook his head and turned to Mike. His gaze was dark, pleading, and there were noticeable shadows beneath his brown-black eyes, even beneath the caramel skin. Mike knew that his own nightmares had to have replayed for this man over and over. He had the sudden wild urge to offer Sandy the rest of the sleeping pills sitting in his bathroom medicine cabinet. He even opened his mouth, but before he embarrassed himself by saying anything, Sandy's gaze dropped, and he stared down at the paint cans by Mike's feet."God, if I'd known that Jason was even in the same state with her, I'd have been down here before you could spit. That kid has never been normal...I..." He shook his head, brought his pleading gaze up to Mike again. "She didn't tell me. She didn't tell me that he was here, but I should have known something was up. Dori was supposed to come to Sacramento while Cara was gone, said she might as well take her vacation at the same time. Then she called about a month ago, said she was too busy, and couldn't make it. I wondered what had happened, she was so excited about the visit when we first planned it..." Sandy looked down at his feet, shifted them minutely. "I should have known," he repeated, mournfully.His throat dry, Mike didn't have anything to say; he'd lived across the street from Dori and seen the way Jason treated her, listened to the fights they'd had and ignored it himself. He sat suddenly on the porch steps, staring up into the sun at Sandy. He wasn't sure he had the strength to deal with Sandy's guilt, not on top of his own. But Sandy, unaware of Mike's distress, simply dropped down and joined him on the porch steps. Mike leaned back against the step behind him. In spite of the tightness in his throat and chest, he found himself fighting a large yawn. Oblivious, Sandy sat hunched forward, his elbows braced on his knees and his hands clenched in front of him."You know, that bull Max feeds everybody about her being illegitimate..." Sandy looked over and stared straight at Mike for a second, before looking down at his hands. "Dad...he would have married Annette even before the pregnancy, if her family hadn't objected. Neither family was thrilled with them, but her family, Annette's, they were really hot about the entire thing. They're Old Blood, been in the South since way back." Sandy snorted. "They still think they're pure French. It was bad enough in their eyes that Annette got involved with Dad, they weren't about to let her marry the guy--or have his child. It didn't matter how she felt or how light-skinned he was, they just cared that his birth certificate said, 'colored.'" Sandy's tone made the word an epithet, and Mike winced as Sandy went on, thoughtfully. "You know, Dad and Annette probably would have gone their separate ways, except for Dori."Sandy paused, and sighed, and Mike shifted further away from him. Catching himself, he eased back over, just enough that it didn't look like he was trying to avoid the airing of Dori's family laundry. Again, Sandy didn't seem to notice his discomfort, his dark gaze turned inward."Annette, she came to Dad, told him they were going to force her to get an abortion. Her family, they had that kind of money, that kind of clout. It was the first Dad had heard of the baby, and he took her to the Justice of the Peace that day. Me, I was almost 15. Nothing like being best man at your Dad's wedding." Sandy smiled just slightly, and Mike nodded, pushing away his own memories of his mother's remarriage. That was an old grief he didn't need on top of what he was dealing with now. Sandy was still talking. "... moved us all to California just to get away from everybody. We were happy, here, too. I was happy, Dad and Annette were happy, and Dori..." Sandy closed his eyes, and Mike turned away from the pain that washed across the other man's face. He reached up and picked at a fragment of paint on the porch railing. He really needed to get out here and repaint. The flake of pigment crumbled and dropped to the step beside his foot as Sandy's recitation went on."Dori was such a pretty baby, all that dark hair and those big black eyes. She'd laugh and chatter with anyone and she was just so damn happy all the time." Sandy's voice faltered, then grew grim. "Then when she was five Dad got sick, and it was less than a month before he died, and then Annette moved home and a year or so later I heard she married that...that...." Sandy stared intently across the street, then looked back at Mike."Dad knew Annette would go home, he knew..." Sandy's throat worked, convulsively. "And he was worried about Dori, about how they'd treat her, 'cause of him being her father. Before he died, Dad, he made me promise to look after Dori, 'cause he said no one else would." Sandy's voice caught, breaking beneath the weight of his guilt. "I tried, dammit, I tried, but I was twenty when Annette married Max, trying to support myself through college, and they were across the country--" Sandy's voice broke again, and he took a deep breath before continuing his tale. "When Dori was twelve they sent her to live with me and Vivien for a while, because she couldn't get along with Jason." The sneer in Sandy's tone said he believed that about as much as Mike did. The man's voice was barely audible as he continued, and Mike studied the pattern of nails on the step beneath his feet, fighting his own exhaustion, hunching his shoulders just slightly, bracing himself as Sandy's guilty recitation droned on."She was so quiet, and she would hardly smile for months, and, and no matter what we did she was so afraid all the time...I mean, I knew Jason was a brat, I knew they didn't treat her well, but...Vivien finally got her to talking one night, and...God, I had no idea, none. I called Annette the next day, told her that Dori could stay with us, that we'd adopt her and...They made her come home the next week. I...we didn't have the money to sue for custody in court, everything we had was going into getting the restaurant started and...and there just didn't seem to be anything we could do. I mean, I sent Newf home with her, the dog we got her before Puff, and she seemed okay when she came back out here for college. But she had to borrow money for the out-of-state tuition from Max and... and...now I wonder if we didn't give up too easily, if we just didn't want to believe she was in that bad a situation. That maybe there really was something we could have done...that maybe..."Sandy's anguished confession trailed off awkwardly, and they sat in silence. Mike sighed heavily, rubbing at his eyes, fighting yet another yawn. He'd seen the two versions of Dori Sandy'd just described, the bright, cheerful woman who'd been his neighbor, and the pale, silent version that existed in Jason's shadow. And Mike knew that he should offer comfort, encouragement to the distraught man beside him, but right now their nightmares were just too similar, too much the same, both of them failing to protect one dark-haired, dark-eyed child. He studied the toes of his shoes for a moment, and then took a breath, looked up to find Sandy staring at him, tears running down his face."I know I thanked you, but I never... I wanted to..." Sandy's eyes closed, he swallowed convulsively again, and then looked back at Mike. Both his voice and his gaze were steady this time. "Thank you. Again. For what you did, for...for everything." His hand waved over Mike, toward him, the motion somehow encompassing all Mike's scars from that night, both inner and outer. Mike stared, unable to comprehend this sudden turn of events. Sandy's gaze held his own, and his voice was low, intense as he went on. "Thank you for fighting for her, for trying to help her, trying to get her away from that son of a bitch, and for...for not giving in." Sandy blinked hard, looked up at Mike's house. "Your Captain told me that if you hadn't pulled her over to the door, they'd never have found either of you in time. He also said that you could have gotten out more, closer to the door, but that...that you stayed with her. Tried to keep her safe, protected her from the fire..." Sandy's voice was just a harsh whisper now, and his own throat was choked so tight Mike couldn't have said anything in response, even if he'd known what to say."I read the police reports...she'd be dead now, if you hadn't been with her. She'd be dead, and Jason would probably be home free, and..." Once again those dark eyes, so like Dori's, regarded him closely. "I know it was hard for you, horrible, but..." Sandy's gaze dropped to the steps beneath their feet, and then looked up and met Mike's wondering stare as he fired the final shot. "Thank you for not leaving her alone. For being with her. For surviving with her. Because she wouldn't have survived if she'd been alone."His mouth opened, but Mike couldn't force any words past the vise grip his emotions had on his throat. Finally, he simply nodded, looking away, unable to face the other man's tears, fighting his own at the same time. Boards creaked, and Sandy's hand was warm on his shoulder for a second. Mike looked up just as Sandy removed his hand. Blinking away his own tears, Sandy nodded once, and then turned and headed across the street. Mike watched him go, and then somehow managed to find his feet and stumble into his own house before he lost control completely. * * * Mike answered his doorbell that evening to find Cara standing on his porch. He stared at her for a panicked moment, not certain he could face another potentially disastrous emotional confrontation. Somehow he succeeded at pushing aside his nausea, and even dredged up a return smile for her.Cara had returned from Colorado three days ago, but Mike had avoided her at the hospital, and made himself scarce the time or two he'd seen her car across the street. He knew she was helping pack things up before Dori left for Sacramento, but he had no idea how he was going to talk to her now. How could he tell Cara that every time he looked at her he saw not her, but a dead woman's photo in the newspaper? That he couldn't think of going out with her without thinking of what Jason had wanted to do to her--of what he'd done to Dori?Well, looked like he was going to have to say something now, one way or another. To break the moment, he pushed the screen door open and stepped out on the porch, telling himself his house was still too much of a mess from the repair efforts to invite anyone in. Clear hazel eyes regarded him steadily when he faced her, and Mike couldn't prevent the flush that rose in his face--nor could he miss the way her eyes widened as she stared at the scars, brought out even more by the color in his cheeks. Irritated with himself, and briefly with Cara, he turned away and walked over to the thigh-high railing, dodging a stray moth fluttering toward the bare bulb of the porch light. Hands in his pockets, Mike leaned against an upright beam, and he stared out into the quiet neighborhood, lit hazily by the nearby streetlights. For a moment the night seemed to hold its breath. Then movement behind him, and a soft hand on his arm."Mike..."He glanced back at her, fighting another irrational surge of anger as he saw her eyes irresistibly drawn to the scars on his face. She must have seen his reaction, though, because her hand fell away from his arm, and she dropped her gaze to the peeling paint beneath their feet."I just... I wanted to apologize." She looked up then, tossing her hair back with a determined gesture, and Mike's heart ached. Cara was still a pure, clean flame, her bright fire unsullied by Jason's touch. He shifted, pulled one hand half out of his pocket, wanting to reach out, to touch her, draw some of that clarity, that purity in for himself. But Cara's eyes slid away from his and she stared at a point just over his left shoulder. Mike dug his hand deep into his pocket and leaned back against the porch as she spoke."I never...when Jason slipped me the mickey that night...I just..." Her eyes closed, and he longed for the long, clean lines of her as her throat worked. Opening, her eyes were bright with unshed tears, and it was her turn to flush when she met his gaze. "I thought...I thought it was kind of cute...that maybe he was...he was insecure about girls, about asking me out...I never...I never dreamed he'd... I never..."Taken aback, Mike stared at her. Her gaze flitted past his, fighting the attraction of the scars on his cheek before she turned to stare out into the neighborhood beyond the oasis of light on his porch. She shook her head and ran one hand along the porch railing, leaning away from him."If I'd thought more about it, if I'd realized...I just...I mean, he was always so nice to me, and even though I knew he and Dori didn't get along. I just never thought...I never saw... she tried to warn me, and I just thought... I thought it was sour grapes on her part, about you, about Jason, oh, about everything--""It's okay," he interrupted, his heart sinking as he abruptly realized what it was Cara wanted, why she was here. It wasn't for him, or for Dori. This conversation was about her--for her. So he might as well give her what she had come for. He knew it well enough; it was the whip he'd been beating himself with for the last two weeks. "You didn't know."Cara stiffened as his words dropped beside her. She swiveled around, her fine brows drawn together, her desire and her hunger clear."But if I'd said something, if I'd asked Dori, really asked her..."Mike shook his head and she stopped, her entire being tense, waiting. His stomach turned at what he was about to do, but there wasn't any way he could stop her, no way to make her see. Rather than face her hunger, his eyes followed a moth away from the porch light, out into the night, and he shrugged."Who would you have said anything to? There wasn't anyone really who could have stopped him." You could have, his conscience whispered, she could have told you. You would have believed her. Mike shoved the thought away, ignored the truth of it even as he focused on Cara again. "It wasn't your fault, Cara."There was a flash in her eyes as he spoke; gratitude, he thought, but he couldn't be sure. She hitched her butt up onto the porch railing, her arms braced beside her hips, and stared earnestly at him."I didn't know." Her tone was confidential. "I mean, I knew they fought, but I never thought...I never thought it was anything... anything like that." Whatever "that" was, Mike understood it was ugly, unmentionable. Cara went on. "Jason, he never...he was always nice to me. He could be really sweet, really cute. I never in a million years dreamed he would...he was anything like, like that." Her words rushed out, tumbling over each other as if she still wasn't quite sure of his gift, as if she wanted him to offer it again. Mike ignored the second appearance of the term "that". His skin was crawling because of the cool night air, that's all."It wasn't your fault," he repeated, and the guilt flowed away from her like moonlight. Mike successfully fought the irrational urge to yell at her, to tell her it was all of their faults, hers, Sandy's, his, for ignoring the signs, for choosing to look away, for staying within their own lives, for not stepping out to protect Dori... But because she sat there on his porch, lovely and clean and pure and needing so desperately to be released from all this, he did so. He gave her absolution. "There was nothing you could have done."Like a spun glass flower in the instant before it breaks, Cara stared at him. Then she blinked, and he tried to ignore the motion of her breasts beneath her shirt as she breathed deeply, the flower shivering, becoming real again."That's what Dori said." Cara rubbed her arms and stared at the floor. The silence lasted for almost a full minute, and then she shifted, watched the moths fluttering about the porch light as she said, "Dori's letting me have all the kitchen equipment and everything, to buy out her part of the partnership. I found a little place in Pasadena I can work out of, and try to get things going again. It will be hard, by myself, but I think... I think I can do it. I've never been afraid of a little hard work." Her smile was bright, brittle, when she turned her back on the moths and hopped from the railing to stand next to him."That's great," Mike said, and watched Cara fight the urge to stare at the scars on his face again. Meeting his gaze, she flushed, suddenly, oily smoke wafting over a polluted flame."Well, call me when things settle down a bit for you, okay?"Her own guilt absolved, she watched from across the chasm of his yet unresolved as he hesitated, then said, "Sure." For a moment, she lingered, her gaze coming up to his in an almost apology for what might have been. But Dori remained between them, and much as he longed to join her on the other side of that gulf, he couldn't--wouldn't--make the leap that Cara had made. After a second, she stood on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek, then turned and walked down his steps, back to her safe little world of sunshine where creeps like Jason were only seen on the evening news and the ones who carried his scars could be pitied from a safe distance.Watching her lilt down his sidewalk, a deeper shadow against the shadowed night, Mike tried to tell himself she hadn't avoided the scars when her lips touched his cheek. ----- CHAPTER BREAK ----- In the night we shall go inup to [the] trembling firmament,and your hands, your little handsand mine will steal the stars.~~ Pablo Neruda Three days later, Mike wove his way through the arthritic trees in the old orchard behind Dori's house, heading toward the grave he'd dug for Puff--two long weeks and a couple of lifetimes ago."She's saying her goodbyes," Sandy'd said five minutes ago, when he knocked at the front door of the yellow house. Avoiding the gaze from those dark eyes, black with sympathy, Mike had nodded. And then because it had taken him all night last night rehearsing and most of the day today to screw up his courage for this, he didn't hang about to talk as Sandy prepared the last few boxes for the movers arriving in the morning. He simply headed out to find Dori.This would be the first chance he'd had to talk to her without anyone else around, without nurses or Sandy or Cap or anyone else listening or hovering or just being there, being concerned. Not that what he had to say was any great secret, he just didn't want to share it with any more people than he absolutely had to. And right now that meant any one besides Dori.Last night as he stared at the flickering TV from his couch, his sleep-deprived brain and soul had jointly concluded that if he could just confess his failure, maybe, just maybe, he could find some peace. The one person who'd been most affected by his failure was Dori. Mike knew he needed to apologize to her, finally say he was sorry for failing her, for not protecting her, for not rescuing her. He'd put it off as long as he could; now her impending departure left him no more room to procrastinate.Working his way into the orchard, he saw her through the knobby branches, kneeling in the dirt in the middle of Puff's grave. Mike made sure to make enough noise that he didn't startle her with his approach."Dori?" he called, halting beneath a tree two long strides away from her.She glanced up and leaned back, lifting the uncasted arm to wave him on. The other arm, in heavy plaster up past her elbow, dangled in a sling about her shoulders. Her eyes bright, she gave a little deprecating shrug as he stopped just short of the grave. Mike braced both hands on a gnarled branch above his head. Dori's smile flickered and disappeared as she gestured at the grave and its new adornment."It's not much, but...I wanted to leave something here, to honor...to remember..." Her voice faded, and her gaze darted away, then came back to him. Shadows beneath her eyes had replaced the bruises, and her face was gaunt, hollow from the weight she'd lost during her hospital stay. Like Dr. Panopoulos, her skin was just dark enough that the scars she sported, an ugly "X" on one cheek and a large, uneven "O" on the other, would always be noticeable. Dr. Panopoulos's fine work could only do so much.Mike peered beneath the branch and nodded his understanding."Yeah," he said, softly, and her smile flickered again. She left a streak of dirt across her cheek when she wiped at her nose and eyes with her soiled hand."It's a yellow tea rose. They're my favorite; they stand for fidelity and friendship. According to Mrs. Caraveggio, this one, once it gets a bit bigger, you should be able to smell it from the swing in the back yard."Surprised, Mike glanced over his shoulder at Dori's back yard, a hundred feet distant through the trees and around the tool shed. But Mrs. Caraveggio knew her roses, so he kept his skepticism to himself and returned to watching Dori.One handed, she was pushing more dirt up around the base of the small rose bush, patting it lightly down. Mike waited until she was almost done, and then stepped up and reached for the watering can sitting just behind her. He lifted the heavy container in one hand as she gathered up her spade and small soil fork. Dori scooted backwards as he came forward to pour the water over the bush. Mike paid careful attention to the chore, seeing to it that the water sprinkled carefully over the dark green leaves and then around the stem until the dry soil turned a warm brown from the moisture.Her legs curled under her, hand limply clasping her tools, Dori sat and stared at the plant when he was done, and after a minute Mike dropped the empty can and sat down beside her. She seemed almost unaware of his presence as he crossed his feet and wrapped his arms around his upraised knees and tried to relax beside her. This was the first time in a long time he'd just sat and been quiet. These days there were too many things he was busy trying not to think about.It was pleasant in the old orchard, the odd buzzing insect and butterflies the only motion beside the leaves in the nearly indiscernible breeze--the breeze that all Mike's words and courage had wafted away upon. The water drops on the leaves sparkled brightly in the late afternoon sunshine. Faintly in the distance, Mrs. Patterson was calling to her children, and the radio played indefinable music in Mrs. Caraveggio's kitchen. A car drove by on the road, but all the sounds were faint, muted, and hard to use as an excuse for what he had come here to do.Pulling at a stray blade of grass, he watched the root as it came up from the ground for at least a foot before breaking off. After a few seconds staring at the narrow trough in the dirt, he swallowed hard. His purpose here today was to try to lay at least one of the demons haunting him to rest on his own, and he'd better get to it. A dragonfly darted by, and Mike watched it out of sight as he tried to find the words he'd rehearsed so carefully before crossing the street."Dori..."She jumped, took a deep breath, and before he could say anything, she turned to him. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears again."It's hard to believe it all happened sometimes, you know? Especially on a day like today." The arm in the dark blue sling lifted in a hurried half wave at the trees, at the gentle summer afternoon surrounding them. She laughed hoarsely, nervously. "I think...I still expect Puff to come running up wanting to play, I still expect to hear Mrs. Caraveggio yelling at him for digging in her rose bushes, I still..." her voice trailed off, and it was her turn to swallow hard. "I still..." She ducked her head and the rose bush wasn't the only thing dripping water onto the dirt.Mike's stomach knotted, the vision of Dori curled in upon herself that day in the barn flashing over the sight of her today, head hanging. He hesitated, unsure once more whether or not he should touch her. But she was shaking, now, and after a long second, Mike hitched himself across the scant foot that separated them, and dropped an arm around Dori's shoulders. He drew her in, held her like his first instinct had been to do that day in the barn.Today, instead of pushing him away, she turned to him, dropping the tool she held and grasping his shirt with her free hand. Her face pressed against his shoulder, the cast digging into his side as Mike tightened his arm about her and, for lack of anything better to do with it, brought his other hand up to rest clumsily in her hair. His own throat tightened and his eyes watered as she sobbed convulsively against him. Then, just as suddenly as it had appeared, the storm was past. Dori sat up, pushing away from him, dislodging his hand from her hair and almost but not quite shrugging his arm off. Mike dropped his hand to the grass behind her, and watched while she once again wiped at her face, avoiding his gaze."I'm sorry," she mumbled, picking up the tail of her shirt and taking another pass at her face. She inhaled deeply, and then shook her head. Staring off into the distance, she said, "Sometimes I think that all I've done the past three weeks is cry. You'd think eventually I'd run out of tears."Mike opened his mouth to answer; he wasn't sure what he was going to say, but before he could get anything out of his own constricted throat, Dori had moved. Shifting carefully, she scooted several inches away, and propped her cast on her upraised knees. Mike braced himself on his arm behind her, watching as she picked at the sparse grass."Sandy told me some of what the police reports said. He told me that you saved my life, that...that I would have died in the fire, but for you." Mike shook his head, ready to deny that he'd saved her from anything, but Dori wasn't watching him. She laughed once, bitterly. "I spent most of last week in the hospital trying to decide if I hated you or not."Whatever words Mike had salvaged from his nice little speech went flying at that. Dori met his gaze almost defiantly for a second before her face crumpled. She turned away, but not before he saw the tears start to fall again."I didn't want to be alive, I didn't want to have to live with...with... I mean, it was bad enough that it happened, but when I saw you there in the barn that day, and realized that you...that you'd been there, all along..." Her voice strangled on the tears choking her as she dropped her head down to rest on the cast. Mike stared helplessly at her."Dori, I'm sorry. I tried, I tried to stop them, but..." It was his turn to look away, to lose his voice in the emotions choking up his throat. "I...they surprised me, and I was trying to hold onto you and..." And what? He'd lost every single fist fight he'd been in in grade school? Long tall guys like him weren't meant for boxing? Mike yanked up a handful of grass in frustration, threw it uselessly into the air. As the slim green blades fluttered back past him, he got to his feet. Stalking over to a tree, he stared through the orchard out to the field of alfalfa, just beginning to show gold among the green."I'm sorry," he ground out, clenching his fists and silently cursing the tears that wouldn't go away. "I should have come over sooner, I should have known something was wrong, I should have--"Dori's hand on his arm stopped his self-flagellation, and he stared down at her tear-streaked face. She was shaking her head, her gaze horrified."Mike! Oh my god, Mike, that's not what I meant." She stared up at him for a minute, and then swallowed and dropped her gaze. "My god...you were there, you tried to stop them. I just...I didn't want for you, for anyone...to, to...be there, when they were, you know...." Her voice faded as he stared at her, dark hair falling down about her scarred face like streaks of soot.A cricket sang longingly for a mate in the silence that fell around them, and then suddenly Dori took a breath, and looked up at him."When I saw you there, I didn't think you were real at first. I thought I was hallucinating, seeing things. And then...then I realized it was you, that you'd been there, that you'd seen it all, and I...I was...I was embarrassed. A-a-ashamed. It was easier to think about that than...than..." Her eyes shifted, looked away, off to one side."I didn't watch. I...wouldn't. I couldn't."The words were out before he thought about them, and Dori's eyes grew wide, the terrified bird look again. Her hand fell away from his arm, and Mike flushed and looked away, stared at the broken ground and long grass beneath his feet. No, he hadn't watched, but he'd heard, far too much, and they both knew it. His stomach twisted, and he tried to convince it to untwist during the long silence that followed. Dori's feet moved, scuffed, and when he looked up again, she stood a few feet from him, staring out cross the alfalfa as he had been just a few moments ago. The barn was a pile of ashes and ruined boards in the distance that neither one of them would look at.Casting a glance back toward him, Dori lifted one shoulder in an elegant shrug, a movement she must have learned from her mother. He watched as she played with the small twigs on the tree trunk, pulling a couple of leaves off and dropping them to the ground.Then her mouth opened; it took a moment for the words to begin to flow again. "And...and...when Sandy told me I was only alive because you pulled us close enough to the door for the firefighters to find us, then I was angry. I hated you because I didn't want to be alive, I didn't want to have to face this, I didn't want to have lived through it." Tears streaming down her face, Dori's turned, meeting his gaze again."Then Sandy told me how upset you were that you hadn't been able to stop it. How you'd fought them." She stepped over, her hand grasped his, pulled it up between them. Her voice was soft as she ran her thumb briefly over his knuckles. "That they weren't sure at first if you'd get the complete use of your hands back. And I..." She dropped his hand and reached up, tracing the fine purple lines on his face with one finger. Then her shoulders slumped and her hand fell to her side as she turned away from him, refusing to look at him. "I'm so sorry, Mike. I've been trying to figure out how to apologize to you, for bringing Jason into your world, for you getting involved in our sorry little lives...for the things they did to you..."Mike blinked his tears away, and reached for her shoulder."Dori."He pulled her around, his arms going about her shoulders. After a second her arm went about his waist, the fingers of her broken arm grabbing at his shirt. As they held each other tightly Mike didn't know if it was Dori's sobs or his own that shook them. The sun dropped slowly behind the trees as they stood there, sharing their sorrow. Then Dori sniffled loudly. Her voice was muffled against his chest."Martha, the...the rape counselor the hospital sent...she said...she said we've won the first battle, because we survived." Mike adjusted his arms around her, laid his cheek on her head for a moment. Dori sighed, then went on. "She said now...now we have to win the war. We have to take our lives back from him, from them, from what they did to us."Mike didn't say anything, he wasn't sure he could. Then Dori stood up straight, stepped away from him. Wrapping her arm around herself this time, she whispered, "I'm not sure I'm going to make it, Mike. I'm not sure I can fight. I'm just so tired all the time. It's hard to even keep going most days, let alone think about fighting."His arms dangling at his sides, Mike met her gaze, nodded."I know," he whispered, and there was another moment of silence, of shared sorrow. Dori's gaze flicked away, then back up at him."You...you might want to talk to Martha, Mike. She's...she's really good."Mike thought his heart would break again as Dori leaned infinitesimally away from him, as though afraid of his reaction to her suggestion. He reached up, brushed more tears from her cheek, smiled at her when she lifted her face to him."I might," he offered, diffidently. Her eyebrows went up in surprise, and Mike shrugged. "Cap...and the Chief...they think I need to talk to someone...see someone about all this. Said...said it might help me deal with it a bit."His turn to look away, to be uncomfortable--just as that particular conversation with Cap had been, for both of them. Cap had been apologetic, but firm in his delivery of McConnike's order for Mike to get some counseling to help him "deal" with his experiences. They'd given him a choice of the Department's counselor, or finding his own shrink, but there'd been no choice about the command itself. Seems they thought a firefighter who'd failed as miserably as Mike had at rescuing someone--from a fire, no less--might have some "issues" with fire-related rescues in the future. Of course, Captain Stanley had cast things in a much nicer light, but Mike understood the real point.Trouble was, they were probably right. That is, if his nightmares were anything to judge by. Keeping his eyes on the ground between his tennis shoes, Mike shifted, leaned back against the tree with both arms behind him, completely aware that Dori was staring at him."You're not sleeping, are you?" she said, and Mike froze for a second. Then he shrugged again, reaching out to pick at the bark on a nearby branch as he refused to meet her direct gaze."I'm getting by." A large chunk of bark broke off, and they both watched it drop to the ground.When Mike looked up, Dori was still staring at him. After a second, she shook her head."Liar," she said, and smiled grimly when his mouth dropped open in shock. "Sandy said there's lights on at your place all night long." Neither one of them had to explain why Sandy knew about the lights at Mike's house. There was another long silence, and then Sandy's voice came, calling both of them. Dori's smile was apologetic."I think he's anxious to get home. Our flight leaves in a couple hours."Mike nodded, still leaning against the tree. He scuffed at the grass, trying to organize his thoughts, trying to find the words he still needed to say, words he ought to say in the seconds that remained to them. But meeting Dori's gaze, he realized that perhaps enough had been said, for now. Dori turned and smiled as Sandy walked into the silence between them, and Mike took the opportunity to wipe hurriedly at his face before standing up and giving Sandy his own tight smile. The huge wet spot Dori's tears had left on his shirt was, he hoped, self-explanatory.Nobody said much as they walked back to the house, Sandy's arm protectively about Dori's shoulders. They paused for Sandy to turn on the outside faucet for Dori to rinse her hand, and then headed around the back of the garage to the driveway. Mike was shocked to find Annette standing beside a gold Mercedes in the driveway. Dori must have been too, because she halted abruptly. Mike stopped next to her, and Sandy briefly tightened his arm about his sister's shoulders."She asked if she could do this. Don't worry, Max left this morning. And it's probably the first thing she's done that he didn't approve of in years."Staring at her mother fidgeting with her keys, Dori wiped at her face. She nodded, then slipped out from under Sandy's arm. Her brother took the tools she handed him, and then Dori walked forward, alone. Mike felt like a voyeur as he watched the two women greet, and then Annette hesitantly put her arms around Dori and hug her.Collecting both spade and fork in one hand, Sandy snorted as Dori and her mother stood by the car, talking quietly."Maybe seeing Jason in his natural element down at the jail is waking her up a bit." Mike shook his head, and Sandy waved his free hand toward Mike's house. "Sorry about the three stooges over there. I think they kinda freaked when they got here and your house was open but you weren't around. I told them I'd retrieve you."Puzzled, Mike looked over at his house. Johnny's Land Rover sat in the driveway behind his pickup, and Johnny, Chet and Marco were draped over the porch railing and across his steps. They all three straightened up as Johnny pointed across the street at Mike. Mike ignored them, and smiled back at Sandy. Three stooges, indeed. But who was who? Larry, Moe or Curly? Making those assignments was more than he could deal with right now. He shook his head and followed Sandy out to the driveway.Annette was already getting in the driver's side of the car and Sandy opened a back door for Dori. She started to get in, and then stopped. Returning to Mike, she gave him a fierce, one-armed hug. Aware of far too many eyes on the scene, his response was awkward. Throat sore from the tears he'd shed, and the ones he had yet to shed, Mike tried to speak, and then swallowed hard, and tried again, twice, before he could get the words out."Dori...you...you keep fighting," he whispered. "You'll make it one of these days." He felt rather than saw her nod, his own eyes watery. She leaned back in his arms, her tears sparkling red and gold in the lowering sun."You fight too, okay?" she asked, and those huge eyes refused to look away until he conceded, however reluctantly."Yeah. I will." he said, refusing to look across the street at his friends waiting at his house, insisting on the same thing Dori was, that he fight and not give in, that he not let what Jason had done to them, to him, ruin his life. At this moment he didn't know whether or not he hated or blessed them for their concern. Movement in his arms; thankfully, Dori was releasing him before he was completely undone.Stepping over to the car, Dori smiled, a long, slow, sad smile."Guess I'll be seeing you around, Fireman Mike."Choking on his own emotions, Mike nodded, found half a smile for her."Yeah," he said, and knew they were both ignoring the fact that the next time they saw each other would probably be at either Jason or Warren's trial. But that was in the future, and they'd deal with that when they got to it. Today...today it was enough that they were alive. Tomorrow or the next day they'd worry about fighting, about winning the war.Dori slid into the back seat, and Sandy shut the door behind her. Glancing at the tools still in his hand, he held them out to Mike with a smile and a shrug. Mike took them, and waited as Sandy reached for his wallet. Pulling a business card from the sleek leather, he held it out to Mike, who took it automatically with his free hand. The Dancing Crane, it read beneath a logo of a long-legged, dancing bird, Fine Continental and American Cuisine. "Anytime you're in Sacramento, dinner's on us. Bring your whole crew if you like." Sandy waved over his shoulder toward the gallery on Mike's porch. Then he pulled the card from Mike's grip, turned it over to show the handwritten address and phone numbers on the back. "But...feel free to just bring yourself, if you like. We've got lots of room, and it's a great place to get away from---from whatever." Sandy's gaze was steady, intense. "I'm serious, Mike. Come on up, whenever. You're always welcome. And...if you ever need to talk, or, or...whatever," he repeated, "just call. Call anytime, okay?"Mike met this second pair of huge dark eyes, returned the intense stare, nodded in acknowledgment of the seriousness of the invitation. Sandy held his gaze for a minute, then smiled hugely, looking more like his sister than ever at that moment."Besides, you know the food's gonna be incredible, with two gourmet cooks in the house. You'd be a fool to pass that up, man." Mike grinned in spite of himself, and used the smile to lever back the other, harder to handle emotions. Sandy slapped his shoulder, and headed around the Benz to the passenger door.Mike stood in the driveway as Annette carefully backed the car out, and then there was one last wave from Dori and Sandy, and they were gone. Taking a deep breath, Mike slowly crossed the street, pocketing Sandy's business card as he got to where his friends were still waiting on his front porch. He wasn't sure he was up to dealing with them; wasn't sure he was up to throwing them out, either.Johnny, seated on the steps, and Marco, leaning against the stair rail, looked worriedly at him, but Mike refused to meet their gaze. Instead he stared at Chet, standing on the porch, arms full of two bags of groceries."I know it's been a while, but you said if I brought the munchies, I could watch the game over here," Chet said, sounding just the least bit sheepish. Mike stared at the long zucchini peeking out of the bag in Chet's right arm. He wasn't sure he wanted to know what that had to do with munchies for a baseball game. Strained silence held them all for a moment, and then Johnny sat up straight and opened his mouth. Before the dark-haired paramedic could say anything, Mike shrugged. What the hell. If he expected to ever start winning this battle, he could use all the help he could get. He took the three stairs in one long step."Sure," he said, handing the spade and fork to Chet, who managed to take them without dropping either sack. Mike opened the screen door and reached in to switch on the porch light against the gathering dusk. Then he held the door open and waved his friends in ahead of him. "Come on in." The end...
19351	Definitely Not Friendly	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "Gen", "Characters": "Teyla Emmagan, John Sheppard, Rodney McKay, Aiden Ford", "Fandom": "Stargate Atlantis", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Teen And Up Audiences", "author": "by tielan", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2005-04-18T00:00:00", "words": "3,225", "Additional Tags": "Team, Drama", "Relationship": null, "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	In the Atlantis database of Stargate connections, there is an entry beside the planet designated P9L-253. It’s a planet Elizabeth Weir knows well, she’s looked at it many times.Beside the designation lies the message: Major John Sheppard and team missing. Possibly not friendly.--John woke up in the biting pre-dawn and listened to the sound of his team breathing.After eighteen days, there was a comforting aspect to the noises they each made, a reassurance of their presence. John had become accustomed to listening to them as he fell asleep, and often also when he woke up. By now, it was habit as much as comfort.McKay snored like a pig, complete with grunting noises that had sent Ford into a fit of choking the first night. If there was an essence of ‘snore’, McKay had it in spades. There was no other word to describe the noise. Not that John would have looked for a more delicate word. This was McKay after all.Ford was the almost-talker. He muttered in his sleep. Nothing that they’d ever been able to work out from listening - and they’d tried. McKay had grumbled about holding conversations with Ford that the younger man never remembered. Both John and Teyla forbore to point out that this was the usual state of affairs when it came to things McKay said.Teyla breathed like Darth Vader. Deep, even breaths, although maybe not quite as loud as the Sith Lord. During the two nights they’d shared the single mattress, John had dreamed of lightsabers and Jabba’s sail barge. He’d always liked Han Solo as a character, but dreaming about it was weird.Still, he’d rather listen to simple breathing than either snoring or talking.Not that he had much choice. He got all three in the cell, whether he liked it or not.Down by the foot of the mattress, Ford shifted and mumbled something in his sleep.“Awake, Major?” The question was soft and barely audible. John turned his head to look at the man who stared up at the ceiling.“How’d you know?”“Superior intuition.” There was just enough light falling in the window of the cell so McKay could see his expression, but not enough so John could judge whether or not the other man was getting any better.“How long have you been awake?”There was a rustle of straw that might have corresponded to a shrug. It was hard to tell in the soft greys of the pre-dawn. “Long enough for my bladder to start protesting.”John blinked. Visual images so not needed. “Ever heard of TMI?”“It’s a perfectly normal bodily function, Major. And I might point out that we’ve all been in this cell for the last two weeks?”“That doesn’t mean I want to know about it!” John hissed. So far, they’d managed to preserve about as much modesty as was going to be preserved in a four-by-four cell shared by four people for at least twelve hours of the day. And that was no mean feat.They lapsed into silence, staring up at the ceiling as the greys shaded to brown, and the browns faded to yellows, and the sun began to stake its claim on the world outside.As John heard the sounds of the other prisoners waking in their cells, he figured that McKay had fallen asleep again. Silent was not a usual state for McKay. Of course, imprisoned wasn’t a usual state for John - although ‘in trouble’ was.So when McKay spoke into the silence of their cellblock, John was surprised. And he was as surprised by the tone of the usually arrogant scientist’s words as he was to hear anything from the man.“Do you think she can do it?”John didn’t look at the woman who slept on the mattress, within arm’s reach if he stretched out his hand to brush his fingers over her shoulder. Let her sleep. She’d need every bit of rest she could get.He shifted and gritted his teeth at the aching lance of pain across his belly, reminding him of why Teyla would need her strength today. He should have been more careful. If he had, then he would have been the one standing out in the arena, not her.Failure was not an option. Especially not today.McKay was watching him when he turned his head to look back at the other man.“She’ll have to.”--All things considered, Rodney figured they’d been quite lucky.Of course, lucky didn’t count coming down with a local bug that had made him about as useful as a week-old kitten, but he was still alive, which was more than could be said of others who’d caught the same bug.So maybe the whole prisoners thing wasn’t such a stroke of fortune, but prisoners was better than dead. Much better than dead.And, okay, in fifteen minutes, Teyla was going out to fight for their freedom - or die trying - but at least they had the chance to try for freedom.If he looked at this calmly and rationally, it all came down to a choice: a hard place or death.On the whole, not a cheering thought.However, as it turned out, his insistence that Sheppard keep them all together had worked in their favour. They were considered a team - and treated that way. Which meant that Teyla’s fight today would mean freedom for them all.Or death for them all.“Cheerful thoughts, McKay?” Sheppard eased himself up to a sitting position, setting his shoulders against the wall beside Rodney. On the other side of the small cell, Teyla and Ford were working through a series of stretches, the Athosian woman moving with considerably more grace than the marine.“Actually, I was thinking about death,” he said, and received a frowning glance from Sheppard.“Cheerful thoughts, then.”“Well, if Teyla loses--”“I will not lose,” she interjected, still shifting through the stretches, as limber as any dancer - or maybe a trained killer.“But if you do--”“She won’t,” Sheppard said firmly.Optimism was all very well, but they had to look at all the possibilities. Even the bad ones. “We have to face the prospect that we’re not going to see it through to the evening.”Ford stopped stretching entirely, although Teyla continued going, ignoring her team-mates. “I don’t see why we do at all. If she wins--”“When she wins,” Sheppard corrected.“--when she wins, then we get out of here. End of story.”“You know, it sometimes amazes me that you’re in the military at all. Aren’t you supposed to be cynics or something? Blow everything up before it becomes a risk and all that?”“We’re not the ones who made an atom bomb for a high school project!” Sheppard pointed out.“I never said I detonated it, Major,” Rodney said, irritated by the comparison. “And that’s not the point. The point is that we’ve pushed our luck so far; the fact that these bat-people have a currency in which we can trade--“”“Slavery?” Sheppard asked, his voice oozing sarcasm.Rodney looked at him. “I actually meant fighting.”“In which you’re no use at all,” Ford pointed out, clearly irritated and definitely irritating.Here it went. The whole ‘just because you’re not in the military, you’re no good in a fight’ argument; not that Rodney was all that good in a fight, just that he wasn’t good in military strategy and shooting and things like that. “I like to think I would have used my wit and intelligence to find a solution--”“Your wit and intellig--”“McKay, Ford--”“--your information, I’m not in any way--”“Stop.”All three men looked at Teyla, standing on the other side of the cell with her fists clenched. She looked more than capable of taking all three of them on at that moment, the expression on her face intense with something very close to dislike.“If you are going to argue,” she said, her voice rigidly even, “then I will ask you to wait until I have left the cell.” Her shoulders and chest rose in a deep breath that she let out as she regarded them in silence.Sheppard was the first to respond. “Sorry, Teyla.”Rodney heard Ford saying something, even as he muttered his own apology. Arrogant he might be, but even he had the discernment to shut up when he was aggravating the person who held his fate in her hands. Well, sometimes.After that, the silence of the cell was strained until the guards came to collect Teyla and take her out to the arena.“Hey, Teyla,” Sheppard called as she turned to go. “Good luck.”Her mouth tipped up in a tense smile, and she stepped back to lay a brief, warm kiss on Sheppard’s temple, then matched it with one to Rodney’s forehead, and another on Ford’s cheek.Then, without so much as a backwards glance, she went out to the fight.--The sun beat down about her head and shoulders, a palpable weight on her body as she strode out into the arena. Glaring light assaulted her eyes, the bright sand reflecting and refracting the brilliance of the midday sun. She narrowed her eyes to the merest slits, giving them time to adjust from the darkness in which she had spent most of the last few weeks.Previously, she had fought a single opponent, one per day.Today, she would fight three. If she vanquished them all, then, according to the laws of these people, she and her team-mates would walk free.If.Their first impression of the ‘bat-men’ - as her team-mates were calling them - had been awesome and terrifying. Humanoid, but with wings that unfolded and stretched to twice their height, they were creatures far more intimidating than the Wraith. However, they did not hunger for human energy, but for war and fighting, for the clash of battle and the spilling of blood.Major Sheppard had called this ‘the Russell Crowe experience’ and promptly fended off Dr. McKay’s scorn regarding his reference. Lieutenant Ford had been a little more forthcoming regarding the concept of the Roman Gladiators and their blood sports.Teyla considered it barbaric.However, there was no other way out of this society. To return to Atlantis - to gain their freedom from this slavery - they must win it conventionally, which meant playing by the rules of these ‘bat-men’.Thus, skills she’d developed solely to use against the Wraith were now being employed in deadly earnest. And Teyla liked it not at all.As her first opponent stepped out onto the sand to the roar of the crowds, she reminded herself that she did this for her team-mates, and in the hope of seeing her people again.The first fight was short as these battles went. They circled each other in the bright sun, until he grew tired of circling and closed with her. He got in two hard blows to her belly, and she got in one blow to his belly, another to his groin, and broke his neck with the third.It was as swift a death as she could grant him; and still it felt too drawn out.But she and her friends were one step closer to freedom.As they ran out to clean up the body and gave her a small flask of water from which the slavemaster first drank, Teyla closed her eyes and hoped she could live with the aftermath of these last weeks. She would kill any one of these spectators without remorse as they stood on the tiers above her, shouting and yelling in excitement at her prowess.But those they had set to fight against her - there was nothing more there than a desire to be free - a desire as strong as her own.Dr. McKay had been quite correct. They had been fortunate to possess fighting skills that might earn them freedom in this place.Others were not as privileged.Her second fight was with weapons; she was given a spear, not unlike the longstaves to which she was accustomed. They armoured her with bits and pieces that would stand little chance in the face of a concerted attack, but which would serve to protect her from the worst of the attacks against her.As her second opponent came out, armed with a weighted rope and spear, Teyla took a deep breath and trusted to her instincts. Although she could not see her friends, she was sure they could see her. The slave pens afforded a limited view of the arena, permitting the slaves to see their most likely fate without impediment.Yesterday, she had watched Major Sheppard escape death by a very narrow margin. As it was, the slice across his belly was judged painful but shallow. He would survive if the wound did not become infected; but he could not fight.So Teyla took his place.Lieutenant Ford had protested, but both he and Major Sheppard knew that Teyla’s skill in this kind of fighting was better than his own. She would have ceded today’s fight to Major Sheppard only because she understood his need to represent the people he thought of as ‘his’.The second fight was longer and harder in the sun; brutal and prolonged, and every moment drained her of more precious energy she would need to battle her final opponent. When finally she stabbed the long-bladed spear through his chestplate and into his heart, she had energy for nothing more than the barest relief.Even that fled as the cacophony of the crowd rose to a thundering shout, and a shadow fell across the sand beyond her.Instinct screamed at her to duck and roll. She did, keeping her fingers tight around the butt of her spear.The wings of her attacker were spread wide to blot out the sun, and his pale face was set in an ugly grin as he slashed through the sand where she’d been a moment previously. He landed on his feet, then leaped for her again, dangerous as any wildcat, and armed as well.They had set one of the bat-wings as her third-opponent.Teyla felt the gush of anger and betrayal, bitter in her throat. Against a third opponent, fresh to the day, she would have had only the slimmest chance of survival. Against one of the bat-winged warriors, the scarlet slash of his lips gleaming hungry to spill her blood, she had none.Yet he would not take her without injury. Of that, she was determined.She lashed out at him with her spear, he caught her blow and parried it. His next attack would be inside her defences, and Teyla moved before he could begin it. Her metal armbrace struck sparks as the blade of the spear slid down it, but the little hooks built into the outer edges did their work, catching the sharp edge and halting it, giving her time to bring her own weapon back into play.His advantage was in his wings. She had to somehow level that field.So she lashed out - not at his torso, but at his wings, aiming for the trailing edge of the membranous expanse.He snarled as the tip sliced partway through the wing, and leapt away, startled by her attack.Teyla climbed to her feet, panting, but refusing to lie in the dust and wait for her end. It took more effort than she liked to aim and throw the spear as he took to the skies, and she was well aware of the risk inherent in giving away her one weapon.As he struggled to gain altitude - the tear in his wing had more effect than she’d hoped for - Teyla flung her spear high into the air, blinking against the brightness of the sun into which he was flying. She had just enough aim and energy to catch the trailing edge of his wing, causing him to drop further.The distant sound of her name being bellowed from a ground-level window startled her a moment. It was barely audible beneath the cries of the crowd. “Teyla! The stands!”Movement in the corner of her eye gave her warning that the spectators did not like what they were watching. Some looked as though they were more than ready to come to the aid of their failing warrior.She had to act fast.Teyla wasn’t even sure what she was scrambling for when her hand touched the weighted rope her second opponent had carried into the arena. She’d just gotten hold of it, when the cheers of the crowd warned her that the bat-wing had come back for her.Standing her ground was risky, extremely so; but she watched and waited as he grew in her sights, then dodged at the last second. Metal scraped down her leg, shaving the skin but not piercing the muscle; he was weaponless, and she was armed.She turned left with the weighted end of the rope in her right hand, swung a full circle and hurled the weight up over the bat-wing, bringing him crashing down to the ground as he tried to fly away.The crowd screeched with outrage and she had seconds before the first of them were upon her.It took her but a moment to loop the rope around his throat, hauling the line tight around him, and another to fist her hand in the slack of the hemp. Then she yanked back his head so he could see her face and said, panting, “Call them off.”It was a risk. Teyla knew that. There were many factors that might mean he would neither give the order nor be obeyed, but after they had sent him to fight her, it was a risk she was willing to take.To say nothing of the fact that she was at the end of her tether.He growled, but did so. Then he regarded her malevolently. “You will never escape.”Teyla tightened the rope. “Tell them to bring my cell-mates,” she said, cold as ice, for all that the day and the sand was boiling heat around her.“They will never let you live.”“Maybe not,” she said with lethal quietness, and pricked the underside of his wing with her sword-blade. “But if not, you will never fly again.”He gave the order for her team-mates to be brought, gritting his teeth against the humiliation.Dr. McKay was unsteady on his feet, propped up by Major Sheppard on one side and Lieutenant Ford on the other. However they were all alive, however bad their shape.“I see you’ve been making more friends, Teyla,” the Major quipped with a tight smile. He was clearly in pain but the levity was a relief to her, even if she could barely manage a smile.Teyla hauled back on the ‘leash’ that held her prisoner captive. “Now,” she said with brittle gentleness. “Take us back to the Stargate.”--In the Atlantis database of Stargate connections, there is an entry beside the planet designated ‘P9L-253’. It’s a planet John Sheppard knows well, he and his team slaved on it for over two weeks before they escaped.Beside the designation lies the message: Planet of the Batmen. Major John Sheppard and team captured and enslaved. Definitely not friendly.- fin -
21034	Bedmate	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "M/M", "Characters": "Merlin, Arthur Pendragon", "Fandom": "Merlin (BBC)", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Explicit", "author": "by seperis", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2009-04-12T00:00:00", "words": "1,833", "Additional Tags": "PWP", "Relationship": "Merlin/Arthur Pendragon", "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	Winter celebrations stretch the nights hours long than they should, well after anyone sane would retire from the chill of the hall to enjoy the warmth of their own chambers and comfort of their own beds. He'd been among them, once upon a time, passing hot wine with his knights and the younger members of his father's court until the hours grew liquid and hazy, leaving unfamiliar beds to return to his own as dawn painted the length of the horizon in pale grey and fragile gold.Tonight, Arthur slips out between one drunken tale of impossible feats and another, already tired of fending off attentions that grow more blatant with every goblet of wine; neither knights nor courtiers will easily accept that he has no interest in sharing their beds tonight.This deep in the castle, he can barely hear the wind of the winter storm that's turned a three day festival into two endless weeks trapped in a castle stuffed with Camelot's greatest nobles and growing smaller by the hour.The corridors still have the occasional servant, running through the cold from one warm room to another on this errand or that and easy to avoid. Arthur takes the kitchen stairs, navigating a circuitous route less likely to bring him in contact with either a wandering guest or a knight who's found a more pleasant way to spend cold winter nights than drinking or his own bed. Arthur doesn't grudge his men their pleasures, but he prefers ignorance of the activities of highborn wives when he must address their husbands in the full light of day, and he much prefers avoiding even the possibility of running into one of these ladies himself.Closing the door carefully behind him, Arthur turns the lock, stripping coat and tunic on his way to the fire, already banked for the night, and undressing in the remaining heat before looking at the lump buried beneath his bedclothes.Even during daylight hours, the snow's been heavy, making even a simple trip across the courtyard difficult, and the nights far worse; Merlin hadn't argued very long when he'd be required to cross it after dark and before dawn both. Hissing at the brush of chill linen against his skin, Arthur thinks he could easily grow reconciled to the storm lasting all winter.Merlin stirs at the first shift of the bed, eyes half-open and still glazed with sleep. "Arthur?""I'd hate to wonder who else you could be expecting." Leaning in for a kiss, Arthur slides both hands up Merlin's back beneath the soft wool shift he wore to bed, familiar because it's his, liking Merlin in his bed and wearing his clothes.Merlin smirks when he pulls back. "Too many to remember," he murmurs, arching his neck as Arthur mouths his jaw, pressing a kiss beneath his chin. "But you'll do, I suppose. As it's your bed.""Generous of you." Sucking a kiss into the soft skin beneath his ear, Arthur presses closer, easing the wool high enough to rub his cock against the warm skin of Merlin's belly. "Too tired?"Merlin snorts softly. "Not that tired." One long leg drapes lazily across Arthur's hip, cock grazing Arthur's as he rolls his hips. "Unless the wine's been too much for you, sire?"Reaching back, Arthur gets an extra pillow, fighting the urge to smack him with it. "Roll over." Fitting himself against the length of Merlin's back, he tucks it against Merlin's chest, breathing out sharply as Merlin presses back against him for a perfect, endless second. He likes Merlin like this, warm and still drowsy, murmuring contentedly as Arthur slides a hand down his thigh, easing one knee up and over the pillow, spreading him wide. Pressing a kiss to his shoulder, Arthur traces the shell of his ear with his tongue and adds, "Just like this. Don't move."The oil is tucked by the leg of the bed; Arthur moves to get it, shivering at the slap of cold air, then sitting up, knee against Merlin's back. Pouring it into his palm to warm it, he pushes the blankets to the foot of the bed.Merlin shivers, eyes flickering half-open in sleepy reproach."Don't move." The wool's draped modestly to just below the curve of his arse. Arthur wets two fingers in the oil, reaching beneath the hem and following the length of warm skin until he presses against the tight hole.Merlin shivers, but Arthur just traces the edges, skin hot and damp compared to the chill of the air; he likes to watch Merlin when he does this. Gentle pressure against his hip pushes Merlin more firmly against the pillow, and Arthur reaches with his free hand to pulling his knee higher so Merlin's spread wide for him, wool sliding up his hip. Bending down, Arthur presses his tongue against Merlin's ear and slide a finger inside, feeling Merlin relax around him, impossibly hot."Oh," Merlin whispers, rocking his hips back as Arthur adds a second finger. Arthur catches him, holding him still."I said, don't move."Merlin turns his head enough to catch Arthur's eyes, curious.Arthur keeps his fingers still, difficult as it is in that clinging heat. "Can you do that?"Merlin hesitates, thoughtful, before his mouth curves in a slow, filthy smile. "All right.""Good." Arthur kisses the back of his neck, adding a third finger, feeling Merlin stretch around him, shivering now but not from cold. Picking up the oil, Arthur dips his fingers into it, reaching beneath the shift to catch a pebbled nipple between cold fingers, and Merlin makes a breathless sound against the pillow, face beginning to flush."I'd like to see you do this to yourself one day," Arthur says against Merlin's ear. "Watch you spread your legs and wet your fingers, slide them inside to make yourself ready for me." Reaching for Merlin's hand, he guides it down until his fingers are pressed to the stretched skin. "For now, I want you to keep yourself open for me." Slicking Merlin's fingers, he pulls out and pushes Merlin's inside. "Don't move them."Merlin licks his lips, and Arthur waits until he nods shortly, flush spreading slowly down his throat, before he lets go."Good." Arthur shifts the pillow aside enough to ease a hand down Merlin's belly, wrapping slick around Merlin's cock, hard and damp at the head already. Stripping it slowly, Arthur feels Merlin shudder with the effort not to move as Arthur mouths his shoulder. Letting him go, Arthur reaches for his other nipple, twisting it briefly between his fingers, and Merlin makes a muffled sound against the pillow."I'd like to have my cock here," he says against Merlin's ear, feeding oil-wet fingers between Merlin's lips, shivering at the wet tongue sliding between them before Merlin sucks, slow and languorous, like he does Arthur's cock, making Arthur almost forget what he's saying. "Have you fuck yourself with your fingers while you suck me off."Pulling them out, he slides them down the length of Merlin's spine before pushing one inside between Merlin's fingers, and Merlin's hips jerk in shock. Arthur sinks his teeth into the soft skin below Merlin's ear in reproach, catching his hip and holding it in place. "Don't move.""I can't--""Yes you can," Arthur whispers, licking the outline of his teeth, bright red against Merlin's pale skin. "Because I say you can."Slowly, Arthur eases the other finger in, feeling Merlin stretching further, panting against the pillow, face twisting, but his hips stay still, trembling under Arthur's restraining hand."Good."Pulling his fingers free, Arthur pushes the pillow aside, easing Merlin's knee to the bed, spread wide and perfect. Cheek pressed to the bare sheet, Merlin's eyes flicker half-open, pupils blown wide and glazed, and Arthur kisses him in reward, dipping his fingers into the oil and slicking his cock, hardly noticing the cold, hands shaking so much he almost spills it.Curling a hand around Merlin's wrist, Arthur whispers, "Don't come until I tell you that you may," and pulls Merlin's fingers free. Merlin stiffens in surprise, but Arthur's already sliding inside him, catching his breath at the slick heat drawing him in. Stretching comfortably over Merlin's back, Arthur pushes his tongue between Merlin's slack lips, swallowing the startled groan that sounds like his name."I'd have you wait for me like this every night," Arthur says, shifting his hips for a better angle and sliding deeper, perfect, perfect. "So I could come to bed and find you slicked open and ready for me. Or should I find you something to use besides your fingers?"Merlin's breath catches, shuddering as Arthur thrusts slowly into him, hand clenching in the sheet."Something to fill you all day," Arthur murmurs against his ear, bracing one hand on the bed beside Merlin. "Keep you open for whenever I want you, wherever we are."The full-body shudder ripples through them both; Merlin locks a hand around his wrist. "Arthur.""I'd come inside you and then put it back in," Arthur whispers breathlessly, surprised he can still talk, "so you'd still have me inside you while you went about your duties. See how many time I can take you before you're full.""God," Merlin breathes. Arthur wraps a hand around the base of Merlin's cock, squeezing. "Please.""I should have something made, just for you," Arthur manages; Merlin tightens around his cock, body shaking, sending a flare of heat up his spine. Christ. Pressing a kiss against Merlin's shoulder, Arthur turns head enough to nip his lower lip, soothing the bite with his tongue. "I'll make it myself while you watch, test each one until I find the perfect." Arthur thrusts, hard, fingernails drawing red crescents into the thin skin of Merlin's hip. "Fit.""Please," Merlin whispers, and Arthur strips his cock and breathes, "Now."Merlin convulses around him, impossibly tight, and Arthur buries his groan against Merlin's neck, sucking the smooth, sweaty skin as he comes with Merlin shaking against him, dragging it out for them both until Merlin collapses boneless against the bed and Arthur tries to remember how to breathe.Wrapping his come-slick hand around Merlin's hip, Arthur eases them away from the wet sheets, pulling the pillow back against Merlin's chest and pressing him against it, easing a thigh between Merlin's spread legs, keeping them open . Merlin lifts his head blearily, but Arthur eases it back down. "I want you like this," Arthur says, rubbing his cheek against Merlin's. "I want to fall asleep inside you and watch you wake up while I fuck you."Merlin shudders, and Arthur can see his cock jerk, and reaches down, cupping it gently to hear Merlin moan. "I won't--be able to walk," he says, not sounding displeased at all.Arthur tilts his chin, kissing him, thinking of Merlin in his bed all day, warm and comfortable, slick and still stretched open, ready. He'll get nothing done all day. "Good."
55856	Souls Intertwined	{ "Archive Warning": "Major Character Death", "Category": "F/M", "Characters": "Allen Francis Doyle, Angel, Buffy Summers, Dawn Summers, Spike, Willow Rosenberg", "Fandom": null, "Language": "English", "Rating": "Teen And Up Audiences", "author": "by Settiai", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2003-07-26T00:00:00", "words": "3,387", "Additional Tags": "Alternate Reality, Ghosts, One Shot, Pregnancy", "Relationship": "Allen Francis Doyle/Dawn Summers", "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": "Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)", "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	Dawn was thirteen when she first saw him. It was a few days after the Gentlemen had visited Sunnydale, and she had finally managed to sneak out from under her mom's watchful eyes.It had been late in the afternoon, but she had known that there was at least another two hours before the sun would sink low enough for vampires to really come out in force. Because of that fact, she hadn't felt any fear about taking a walk near one of the more deserted cemeteries.Even now, Dawn wasn't exactly sure where he had appeared from. She had lowered her eyes long enough to kick a pebble out of the way, and when she had looked back up a young man with unkempt black hair was right in front of her. He hadn't even slowed his stride, and the teenager had been forced to step quickly out of the way to keep out of his way. "Rude much?"He had frozen in his steps, and two startled eyes had swung around to meet her gaze. A strand of black hair drifted down into his face, but he had appeared not to even notice it as he stared at her. When he spoke, his voice was so quiet that she could barely hear him. "You can see me?"Her irritation had faded in an instant, and Dawn was almost certain that her mouth had fallen open in surprise. "Are you a ghost?"A huge grin had appeared on his handsome face, and he had slowly walked over to her. With just a slight bit of hesitation, he had reached his hand out and gently placed it on her shoulder. Dawn had flinched slightly, expecting it to sink right through her or something, but it had merely rested on her skin.Puzzlement had shone in her eyes as she looked up at him, mixed in with just a tad of fear. When he had seen that, he had quickly moved his hand from her arm. "I'm sorry about that. I was just-- I had thought that I was a ghost, because no one's been able to see me since..."His voice had trailed off, and he had suddenly grabbed her and given her a quick kiss on the cheek. "Thank you, princess. You've given me hope again. If you can see me, then I'm not truly a ghost. I don't know what the hell's happened to me, but I'm not a ghost."She had pulled away from him, suddenly fearful that the man in front of her might just be crazy. Before she had even had a chance to think about what had happened though, a familiar voice had suddenly sounded behind her. "Dawn Summers! What the hell do you think you're doing out here this close to sunset?"Dawn had spun around to find herself facing an angry Buffy, and a grimace had appeared on her face. She had spun back around almost immediately though, only to discover that the mysterious man had disappeared. "Where did he go?"Her voice thick with exasperation, Buffy had let out a sigh. "Where did who go?"Dawn had turned back towards her sister, puzzlement shining in her eyes. "That guy. The one who I was talking to when you started yelling."An uncertain expression had appeared in Buffy's eyes, and the older girl had looked at her strangely. "What are you talking about Dawn? There wasn't anyone here with you." * Dawn was fourteen when she saw him again. It had been soon after her mom had first been admitted to the hospital, and she had been at home alone while Buffy was out patrolling. She had been sitting on her bed, her eyes damp with unshed tears, when he had suddenly appeared in her room.She had let out a startled gasp, but it had quickly faded when she saw who it was. "So I didn't imagine you?"He had smiled gently before sitting on the bed beside her. "No princess, you didn't imagine me. I'm sorry that I disappeared like that though. I just had some stuff to think about."Dawn had smiled weakly, though there was still a confused expression on her face. "Okay, but why couldn't Buffy see you? I mean--" Her eyes had widened in understanding, while a sad expression had appeared in his. "It's because I'm the Key, isn't it? Even then, oh. I've never really met you before, have you?"He had started at her words and had stared at her in surprise for a few moments. Then he had shrugged before looking her straight in the eye. "I'm not sure, but I have memories of you helping me when I needed help and that's all that matters."Dawn had grinned at him slightly before letting her curiousity take over. "What's you name?"He had paused for a second before opening his mouth to answer. The sound of the door slamming downstairs had caught them both by surprise. "Hey Dawnie, I'm home!"She had let out a sigh of annoyance and turned back towards him - only to discover that he was gone. "Bye then." * Dawn turned fifteen during that horrible summer without Buffy, and that was when she had seen him again. It had been the middle of July, and she had managed to sneak away from Spike long enough to visit her sister's grave. She had knelt beside it, her hands tracing a circle in the cool soil. "Hi, Buff. How are you doing?"A tear trickled down her face as she reached out and touched the cool stone of the marker. "I miss you and Mom. The others are trying their best, but they aren't a replacement for the two of you."Anger had suddenly coursed through her veins, and she had turned away from the the words carved into the the stone. "Dammit, Buffy, why couldn't you have just let me jump. It wasn't supposed to be you. The others need you, not me. Giles, Willow, Xander--""You shouldn't be so hard on yourself."She hadn't even been surprised this time when the soft, Irish-accented voice had sounded beside her. Sad eyes had turned up to gaze at him, and another tear had made it's way down her face.He had smiled sadly at her before kneeling down beside her and gently wiping the tear from her face. "Don't feel so bad, princess. Things will turn out fine in the end. They always do. People die, their friends grieve, and then they slowly move on." His eyes had darkened just a bit as he spoke, and he couldn't help but let out a tired sigh. "And then, they sometimes forget."Dawn had looked up at him, an understanding expression on her face. "You're talking about yourself."He had nodded slightly before slowly pulling her into a gentle hug. "Don't worry though, it won't be that way with your sister. No one will forget her. She died a hero."She had leaned in closer to him, letting his arms wrap around her. "What's your name?"He had smiled gently before running his hand through her tangled hair. "I'm... Allen. You can call me Allen."Dawn had let her eyes close, and for the first time since Buffy's death she had felt safe. "How did you die, Allen?"She had felt him stiffen slightly, but he had finally let out a sigh before moving away from her. "How about we talk about that later?"Before he could say anything else, however, a loud, slightly panicked voice had sounded nearby. "Nibblet! Bloody hell girl, where are you!?"Allen had disappeared immediately, and Dawn had tumbled to the ground with a thud. Moments later, Spike had dashed into the small clearing where Buffy's grave was. "I thought that I'd lost you too."Spike had grabbed her in a tight embrace, which Dawn had returned after a few moments hesitation. "I'm sorry that I snuck out, Spike. I just-- I needed to--"The blond vampire had merely shook his head before helping her stand up. "I miss her too, Dawn. I miss her too." * Dawn was almost sixteen the next time that she saw Allen. It was a few weeks after the entire world had been turned upside down, and she wasn't exactly sure what to think. One minute everything had seemed to be going to well, and then...Xander left Anya at the altar.Spike and Anya had sex.Buffy had been having sex with Spike.Spike tried to rape Buffy.Buffy and Tara were shot.Tara died.Willow tried to destroy the world.Spike was gone.Giles and Willow were in England.Dawn pulled her legs up under her on the park bench as she shivered slightly. "And now Xander is helping to rebuild the high school, right on top of the Hellmouth."A familiar laugh had sounded beside her, and two strong arms had gently wrapped around her body. "Don't worry, princess, it's not the end of the world. Hopefully."Her eyes had lit up as she turned around to face the man who was now sitting beside you. "Allen! I was starting to think that you wouldn't show up again."His blue eyes had crinkled with mischief as he gently laid an arm around her shoulder. "You should have known better."As their eyes met, Dawn felt a tremor unlike anything she had ever felt before run through her. Before she knew what was happening, the two of them had leaned in and their lips met. After a moment, they both seemed to realize what had happened. They sprung apart with twin gasps, and a pained expression appeared in Allen's eyes. "I'm sorry."For the first time since they had met, Dawn watched him fade away into nothing. When he was gone, she couldn't help but let her hand come up to briefly touch her lips. A wistful expression appeared on her face as she sank back against the back of the bench. * She saw him again several months later, in the basement of the new high school. It was right after she had found out that Spike was back, and she had snuck down to try and catch sight of him. Dawn wasn't exactly sure what she would do when she saw him though.He had been asleep when she had found him, and for just a moment she had been reminded of the summer when Buffy had been dead. Spike looked so peaceful, so normal... so much like the close friend she had known.But he wasn't the same.When she thought back to that day, Dawn wasn't sure why she had picked up the piece of wood from the floor before walking towards him. It had seemed like the right thing to do at the time. She was hurting. Buffy was hurting. Spike was hurting. This would bring an end to it.He had opened his eyes as the stake had lifted above him, but he hadn't tried to stop her. The quiet voice from behind her did that though. "Don't, princess. It's not worth it."She had spun around, her eyes wide with shock. "Allen!"He had caught her gaze, and he shook his head ever so slightly. "Please don't."As she had watched, he had faded away once more - leaving only her and Spike in the room. The stake dropped from her hands, and she tearfully looked into the vampire's eyes. "I wish that we could go back."He had nodded, and a familiar twinkle had appeared in his eyes. "I do too, at times."A sudden thought seemed to occur to him, and he let his gaze meet hers once more. "Where have I seen that Irish guy before?"Her eyes had widened as she stared at him. "You saw Allen?" The paused. "You know Allen?"He had shrugged, a puzzled look on his face. "I know that I've seen him before. I don't know where though." * The last time that Dawn saw Spike, he had pulled her close to him long enough to whisper a few quiet words in her ear. "If you survive this, go ask Angel about his friend Doyle."As he had turned away from her, she had felt a wave of puzzlement shoot through her. Oh well, it doesn't really matter. If I live through this, I'll ask him what he was talking about.But she never got the chance. * Dawn had turned seventeen in Los Angeles, but no one had really noticed. With Sunnydale destroyed, the survivors had made their way to the City of Angels to recover, and Angel had been more than happy to let them stay in the Hyperion Hotel.Her birthday had occurred a few days after they had arrived in L.A., and it had been the first real time that any of them had spent time with Angel. She hadn't known exactly what he was up to, other than the fact that he was somehow erasing Faith's history in prison and convincing Hank Summers that he needed to cough up some cash to give to his daughters.Most of the others had stayed in the Hyperion, but she and Willow had decided to visit the Wolfram and Hart office building. The moment that they had walked through the doors, several people had made their way over to welcome Willow. The only one that Dawn had recognized, however, was Wesley.While the red-haired witch had caught up with Angel's friends, Dawn had noticed Angel standing in the shadows. She had made her way over to him silently, her eyes locking onto his own. Spike's last words to her had suddenly made sense. "Tell me about Doyle."He had been startled, but - after staring at her in confusion for a few moments - they had made their way to his office. For almost an hour, Angel had talked while Dawn listened, and she knew they might have been there for much longer if Willow hadn't suddenly flung open the door and glared daggers at him. "Dawn, can you give us a moment."Even though she hadn't had a clue why Willow was so upset, Dawn had quickly left the room. As she had pulled the door shut behind her though, Willow's voice had seemed unnaturally loud. "I just mentioned Connor to Wesley, Fred, and Gunn, and they stared at me like I was nuts. Would you like to explain why that is?" * They had left Los Angeles a few days later, and it had been obvious that Willow had told Giles, Xander, Faith, and Buffy about Connor - whoever he was. They didn't say anything to Dawn though, and she knew better than to ask. * It was almost six months later, while Dawn was in England with Giles, when she saw Allen again. She had been sitting on the small bed in her flat when he had suddenly appeared beside her, his eyes twinkling with mirth. "Hello there."Dawn had grinned at him, a mischievious light in her own eyes. "Hi, Allen. Or would you prefer Francis? How about Doyle?"He had frozen, his eyes staring at her in shock. "How?"The young woman had shrugged, her eyes not exactly meeting his. "That last time, in the basement... Spike saw you. He recognized you."His shoulders had dropped slightly as he look away from her, and his voice was even quieter than usual when he spoke. "Nothing but Allen sounds right coming from you. Dawn, I would have told you. It's just..."His voice trailed off as Dawn turned his head towards her and gently pressed her lips against his. As they pulled apart, she smiled gently. "I know." * Dawn was nineteen when they made love for the first time. Neither of them was certain what was happening, if what they had was even possible. They didn't care though.As long as they were together, everything was fine. * Dawn was twenty-three when Alan told her that he had to leave. He didn't know why. All he knew was that somewhere, someone was calling to him. For ten years he had drifted among the living, being seen only by a select few. Now, it was time for him to leave.As their lips had pulled apart, she had stared at him with tear-rimmed eyes. "I guess this is goodbye.""No, never goodbye." * Dawn was twenty-four when Tara Joycelyn Summers was born. More than anything, she had wanted to list her daughter's last name as Doyle; to put down the name Allen Francis Doyle under the words 'Father'. It had been impossible though. She had known that it would be. * Dawn was thirty when Angel first saw Joycelyn. He had recognized her for who she was almost immediately, and Dawn had noticed the sudden comprehension that had dawned on his face. She didn't give him an explanation though. * Dawn was forty-four when it became obvious that her daughter had inherited something from her father's demonic side. She had told Joycelyn many years earlier about that part of her heritage, however, and the young woman had taken it with stride. * Dawn was fifty-six when the Hellmouth in Cleveland was opened. The Slayers and their friends had fought furiously, and they had eventually won. There had been many casualties though.Too many.A tear trickled down Dawn's face as she remembered all that had been lost over the years. Out of all of them, the Sunnydale and L.A. groups, there were only five left other than her - Oz, Fred, Andrew, Lorne, and Cordelia.Though Cordelia hardly counted, since she wasn't truly alive. Not in spirit, at least. * Dawn was seventy-three when all of the pain hidden in her heart over the years had burst forth. By then, she was the last. The last of a now-extinct age.Everyone knew about the demons and vampires now, though there weren't many left. It was a different world, one that she had no part of.As Joycelyn sat beside her, gently stroking her arm, Dawn looked into her daughter's hazel eyes - so like her father's. "What's going to happen to me when I die, my baby girl? Will I just become a blob of energy again?"The younger woman shrugged hopelessly as she reached up to run a hand gently through her mother's hair. "I don't think so, Mom. I don't think so."She choked back a sob as she leaned down to hug the dying woman. "I think that you're going to be somewhere safe and warm, with all of your friends. Grandmother will be there, and so will Mr. Giles and Aunt Buffy. You'll get to see all of your friends again. Willow, Xander, Angel, Fred, Wesley, Gunn, Cordelia, Oz, Lorne, Clem, Andrew, Kennedy, Riley, Sam, Faith, Gwen..."Joycelyn's voice trailed off as she thought back to the stories that she had heard over the years, about her mother's friends who had died before she had been born. "Jenny, Kendra, Tara, Anya, Spike..."Dawn let out a strangled gasp, and her eyes focused somewhere behind her daughter. "Allen."The young woman smiled softly, her eyes brimming with tears. "Yeah, and you're get to see him again too."The older woman shook her head, a smile appearing on her face. "No. No."She took in one more breath before her eyes slowly clouded over. Joycelyn bit back a sob as she turned away from her mother's body - only to have it replaced with a gasp. A young man with black hair and blue eyes, was standing behind her. He smiled gently at her before turning his gaze back towards the bed.As Joycelyn watched in shock, a younger version of her mother seemed to appear from nowhere. The woman she saw could be no older than twenty-five, though the expression in her eyes showed that she had seen more than her share of pain.The two ghostly forms made their way to each other, their lips meeting the moment they touched. As they both pulled away, a bright green light seemed to surround the two of them.They faded away before her eyes, leaving Joycelyn standing beside the remains of her mother. A smile made its way to her face though, as she looked down upon Dawn once more. "She's finally happy."
27475	Les Temps	{ "Archive Warning": "Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings", "Category": "Gen", "Characters": "Methos, Darius", "Fandom": "Highlander", "Language": "English", "Rating": "General Audiences", "author": "by Ariana Deralte (ArianaDeralte), ArianaDeralte", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2009-12-09T00:00:00", "words": "2,423", "Additional Tags": "General, Historicial", "Relationship": null, "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": "Old Friends Series", "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	It was an interesting time to live in Paris. Not as interesting as twenty years before during the revolution, but interesting nonetheless. The shape of Paris was changing all around his little church. He didn't approve of Emperor Napoleon's constant warmongering, and many followed the British in calling him a tyrant, but Napoleon was also one of the most modern and progressive monarchs Europe had ever seen. His civil codes were being adopted across Europe, and Napoleon's insistence on treating the Jews as equals would hopefully have a more lasting effect than Bonaparte's wars.Darius' little church was being used as storage right now, though he had hopes of regaining full control of it soon. He had gone off to tend the wounded in the wars and found the local hotel legally using his church as a warehouse when he returned. So, if he wanted to practice his adopted religion, he had to go across the Seine to Notre Dame, its' soaring buttresses barely visible over the mass of buildings that crowded everywhere in the city. Despite its' closeness geographically, it could take over an hour some days to get there due to the carts and people that blocked the way. One could only hope that one of Napoleon's future reforms would be some sort of traffic control, or at least widening the roads. Darius thought fondly of the Roman roads of the past, then snorted at the irony of his nostalgia for his old enemies.He was half way across the bridge when he sensed another immortal. It was old instinct that made him look behind first, and so he caught a glimpse of a familiar profile before it turned away. Darius hurried after him, pushing through the crowd. "Adam! Adam!" The other man ground to a halt, then leant casually against the side of the bridge, giving the impression he had never intended to run from Darius in the first place. His hair was long and mussed ‒ a great contrast to the Roman legion haircut he used to have. Darius tended to keep his hair short, as befit the modern holy man."It's Daniel right now," said Adam, who had been called Marcus when they first met. He held out a hand which Darius' clasped in the old way, forearm to forearm."Come with me to the cathedral?" Darius couldn't keep the question out of his voice. It had been several years after Marcus, sorry, Daniel's visit that Darius had first encountered Christianity and the tales of the Bible. He was fairly certain he knew the significance of an immortal renaming himself Adam after hearing of Methusaleh's death, but he wanted confirmation from the man himself. Curiosity had always been one of Darius' failings. "I have tea, and a chess set," Darius' offered, seeing that Daniel was wavering.Daniel laughed, and wagged a finger under Darius' nose. "Are you tempting me, oh priest?" he asked in Latin. They'd been speaking French before."If the Catholic Church were to outlaw tea and chess," admitted Darius, also in Latin, "I would have to change religions." He smiled while Daniel laughed. It was a confession he would not have made to anyone other than Daniel. He was well known to other immortals as a pacifist and a Christian. Few of them would understand that he had first sought solace in the old religion and at the holy springs before turning to his current calling. After all, the first Church had been a Roman religion even if it began amongst the Jews.Daniel had the Gallic shrug down perfectly. "I suppose I can spare some time for an old friend." His tone was light and teasing. They crossed back over the bridge and through the streets until they finally reached one of Notre Dame's side entrances. The cathedral had been in a sad state since the revolution – all the statues still standing were beheaded, and its' stone walls were crumbling. Hopefully the Church would restore her someday.Darius had the key, and let them in through an old, wooden door before locking it behind him. Father Michel was kind enough to lend his office to Darius until Darius regained control of his own church. Darius closed the office door behind them, and set about making his special tea. "Do you always choose your names from the Bible?" he asked."The Bible took my name first so it's only fair," said Daniel. There was bitterness, and humor in his tone.Darius placed a small cloth over the pot, then poured the lukewarm water of his moss tincture inside it, letting the cloth catch the loose moss. He then mixed in some boiling water to thin it. "The name Methos isn't in the Bible," he said, glancing up to catch Daniel's reaction to the statement. The other man froze, his face blank. For a long moment, his eyes were hard and calculating, assessing all the variables. Darius was still instinctively, the way a deer freezes before a wolf. Then Daniel shrugged, and said, "I guess I gave you enough clues the last time we met. If I'd known what a hassle it would be to be a legend, I'd never have even hinted." His smile was self-depreciating, and Darius chided himself for the moment of fear. Daniel was harmless. Right now, his mind supplied, remembering the same man discussing power and fear with a hunger in his eyes."May I call you Methos?" he asked, as he poured them their tea, then fetched the chess set."If you like," said Methos, and settled into what should have been the priest's chair, irreverent as ever. Darius gave the man an indulgent nod and took his own seat. He chose one black and one white pawn from the board, and put his hands behind his back, hiding one pawn in each fist before holding them out to Methos. The other man taped his left fist and Darius opened it to reveal the black pawn. Methos took it and began to set up his side of the board, while Darius did the same for his own pieces."So where is your name in the Bible?" asked Darius."You know, it took a jar of wine before you asked me so many questions last time.""I'm afraid I've grown more curious in my old age." And since the invention of the confession, he had gotten used to knowing other men's secrets."Perhaps I was the original Daniel," said Methos as Darius took the first move. "It would be easy for an immortal to survive the lion's den."Darius chose to accept the lie. "How was Babylon?""Hot." Methos moved a pawn then took his first sip of Darius' tea. His eyes widened. He put the cup down, and mock-glared at Darius. "I'd accuse you of trying to poison me except most poisons taste better. Is that moss?"Darius was impressed though he didn't show it. Methos was the first person to guess the ingredients correctly. Five thousand years of experience was good for something. "You're a connoisseur," he said, giving Methos his best innocent smile. "It's good for the body."Methos snorted. "Says the immortal.""We may not appreciate it, but mortals do." Darius moved his bishop."I'm surprised they haven't accused you of witchcraft.""I am a simple man of God who happens to know some herbal remedies.""That you are," said Methos, surveying the board, "though it's a general I'm facing in this game."Darius nodded his agreement. He had made his peace with his continuing interest in the martial arts; he could admire the genius of the battle of Austerlitz while still deploring the loss of human life – on both sides. "Your style has changed," he pointed out, though they had played an old game called Stones all those years ago, chess pieces being in short supply. Methos play back then had been bold and playful. Now it was conservative. Shadowed."It would be impossible to maintain the same playing style for eternity," said Methos, his eyes distant."So you believe in change then?" asked Darius. There was a time when this wasn't the case."You remember what I said?" asked Methos, but didn't wait for an answer. "I'm forced to believe in change. I find myself in the same situations of centuries before, and I chose differently time and again. Once or twice would be boredom." He sneered. "I always liked to spare a few for novelty value."Darius was silent, as Methos groped blindly for his tea cup and downed it without even a grimace of distaste. Darius recognized a confession when he heard one."There was a time when I'd have killed you for guessing my name, and not felt a shred of guilt." He stared down at the chessboard, his face hidden by his hair, before he looked up and met Darius' eyes. "Want to know where my name is in the Bible? Revelations 6:8."Darius had never enjoyed that book of the Bible. It spoke of so much horror. Consequently, he couldn't remember what that particular verse referred to, so he got up and pulled an old Latin bible out of a chest. The smell of cedar wafted up. Methos waited, bracing himself against the table as if they were at sea, while Darius found the reference."Death," said Darius finally. "One of the four horsemen." He was confused. It was true that the four horsemen had been bogeymen long before they got written into the Bible, but that didn't make them any more real than thousands of other legends and horror stories. Perhaps Methos was being metaphorical. "I don't understand.""Four thousand years ago, I and my three immortal brothers brought a wave of death and destruction to two continents. We were unstoppable. Mortals remember us in their nightmares even now. We chose names and aspects for ourselves because that was what gods were, and I chose Death." The sunlight through the windows had disappeared, and Methos face was in shadow. "You could treble your kill count, and it wouldn't even come close to my own." It was a statement of fact, tinged with weariness."Are you searching for forgiveness?" Darius asked. That was usually the purpose of confession."No." That wasn't completely the truth, but neither was it a lie."Then why tell me?" He hoped it wasn't for judgment. Darius would have found the position hypocritical.Methos slumped back into his chair. "You told me centuries ago that I had changed…""And now you tell me your past to see if I still believe it."Methos nodded. "There is a part of me that could go back to it.""But would you be happy?" asked Darius. Methos looked shocked. It was obviously not a question he had ever asked himself."No," said Methos slowly. "I find no joy in killing or fighting now. It's a necessity.""Then you have your answer. The things that make you happy have changed, therefore you have changed." Darius hesitated, wondering if he should push on. Methos was too cynical to believe anything religious, but perhaps something simple… "Assuming you wish to be happy, you should do the things that make you happy. I find great happiness in making others happy. You may find yours elsewhere."To Darius' surprise, Methos laughed. "Have you studied Buddhism or any of the so-called Eastern religions, Darius?" He had not. Darius was far too attached to France and his chapel to travel so far from it."No.""I'll get you some of the famous texts to read," promised Methos. "You'll like them.""And what will you do for yourself?" asked Darius.Methos took his time answering, moving his queen in their all-but forgotten chess game. "When I was younger I lived by the principle, 'Live, grow stronger, fight' I suppose it's time I officially changed it to 'fight another day'."Darius took Methos' queen. "How did it end for the Horsemen?" he asked."I left, and made sure they couldn't find me again.""You were unhappy, which means you were changing even while you were with the Horsemen." Darius kept his tone mild, but a slight hint of triumph at proving his point might have crept in.Methos gave him a sour look, and moved a pawn. "Checkmate," he said, radiating smugness. Darius stared at the board in dismay. Methos had hidden the pawn in plain sight. Darius wondered briefly if the whole purpose of their conversation had been to distract from the game, but decided that Methos was not that petty."Another game?" Darius asked. The bells were chiming the hour.Methos shook his head. "I've got somewhere to be at dusk.""A challenge?""No. Bonaparte took something of mine when he left Egypt. I intend to get it back.""So, just imperial treason then," said Darius, amused in spite of himself."He stole from me first!" Methos was the picture of wounded innocence. It was disconcerting."I would wish you well, but that would be condoning sin." Methos snorted. "I'll let you out," said Darius. He regretted that they wouldn't have more time, but he had his own duties to attend to soon. It was a short walk to the door. Darius paused with the key in the lock, and turned to his friend."Methos, if you hate fighting and killing so much, why don't you stop?""Live my life on holy ground?"Darius shook his head. He looked into Methos' eyes. "My friend, you are one of the cleverest men I have ever met. If you can avoid your brothers for thousands of years, surely you can avoid all the other immortals. Not for forever, but enough time for you to find happiness.""I‒" began Methos, then stopped, his thoughts turned inward. "It is possible," he said, "though I'll have to break a few rules. Not ours," he said to forestall Darius' protest. "Do you know about the Watchers, Darius?"Darius shook his head. Methos grinned. "I'll tell you all about them when next I'm here.""So I'm not to be included in the 'avoiding immortals' plan?" asked Darius with a false frown."I'm afraid," said Methos with mock gravitas, "that playing chess with you makes me happy, so I shall have to return." Darius might have imagined the small, true smile Methos gave because a second later his arms were seized in the traditional warrior's embrace, the lock clicked, the door boomed shut, and Darius was alone, looking forward to their next chess game.
39876	Leopards on a Limb	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "F/M", "Characters": null, "Fandom": "Star Trek: The Next Generation", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Explicit", "author": "by lori (zakhad)", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2009-12-27T00:00:00", "words": "48,530", "Additional Tags": "Alternate Universe", "Relationship": null, "Character": "Original Characters", "Relationships": "Jean-Luc Picard/Deanna Troi, Beverly Crusher/Other", "Series": "Captain and Counselor", "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	. . . 'Well, calling names won't catch dinner,' said the Ethiopian. 'The long and the little of it is that we don't match our backgrounds. I'm going to take Baviaan's advice. He told me I ought to change: and as I've nothing to change except my skin I'm going to change that.''What to?' said the Leopard, tremendously excited.'To a nice working blackish-brownish colour, with a little purple in it, and touches of slaty-blue. It will be the very thing for hiding in hollows and behind trees.'So he changed his skin then and there, and the Leopard was more excited than ever: he had never seen a man change his skin before.'But what about me?' she said, when the Ethiopian had worked his last little finger into his fine new black skin.'You take Baviaan's advice too. He told you to go into spots. . . .'Then the Ethiopian put his five fingers close together (there was plenty of black left on his new skin still) and pressed them all over the Leopard, and wherever the five fingers touched they left five little black marks, all close together. You can see them on any Leopard's skin you like, Best Beloved. Sometimes the fingers slipped and the marks got a little blurred; but if you look closely at any Leopard now you will see that there are always five spots -- off five black finger-tips.'Now you are a beauty!' said the Ethiopian. 'You can lie out on the bare ground and look like a heap of pebbles. You can lie out on the naked rocks and look like a piece of pudding-stone. You can lie out on a leafy branch and look like sunshine sifting through the leaves; and you can lie right across the centre of a path and look like nothing in particular. Think of that and purr!''But if I'm all this,' said the Leopard, 'why didn't you go spotty too?''Oh, plain black's best,' said the Ethiopian. . . . -- Rudyard Kipling, How the Leopard Got Its Spots ~#~#~#~#~#~'I was part of the Section.'No. Too final -- technically, I would never be free of them. They might have left me alone for months now, but there were no guarantees that would continue. Yet I couldn't say 'I am part of the Section' -- it implied I wanted to be.'You could say it's a family tradition.'No. Flippant wasn't good.Jean-Luc says I look like Thomas Glendenning -- like my father. I stared at my face in the mirror and imagined it was him. I don't like the way I've aged, but I suppose no one ever does. Those lines around my eyes make me look even older than I am.I look tired -- why? My life hasn't been that rough in the past year. Unless you could count indentations in my shins from Beverly's toenails, and the normal wear and tear on your ordinary Starfleet captain who on occasion moves too fast for the guardian angel of starship captains and gets mangled. Beverly teases that I do it on purpose, just to have an excuse to see her while on duty.Ah, Beverly.I knew the rules of the game. Intimacy wasn't smart for guys like me. I'd gotten to a point that I no longer cared. A reversal for me, since I'd sworn I'd never follow my dad's example. My sisters and I had lost him before we even knew who he really was. My mom had hardly seen him in the latter half of their marriage, and he'd died before I was born. I knew all the reasons a relationship with Beverly shouldn't happen, most of them involving consideration for her feelings and her welfare, some of them considerations for Section security and for my own protection."Tom?"Beverly's voice brought me back from the netherlands of my thoughts, landing me in the stark white and grey of standard issue bathroom fixtures. "Sugarmuffin?" I called, dancing into the bedroom and coming to a halt in front of her with a showy bow.She sat on the corner of the bed, brushing her hair out, and smirked at me for resorting to buffoonery. "Pumpkinhead," she replied, mimicking my too-bright tone."Well, if you're going to be that way -- it's Captain Pumpkinhead.""Does that make you a bigger pumpkinhead than Commander Pumpkinhead?""Does size matter?""Some day I'm going to analyze your genetic structure and isolate the Glendenning goofy gene. Bet I could get grants from your sisters' husbands and boyfriends."I almost told her she didn't have to -- I already knew where the goofiness came from. It was my way of coping with impossible-to-resolve tension, inherited from my lovely mother, though it's probably more a matter of nurture than nature. Evidently, she hadn't figured out that pattern. But I'm trained to conceal patterns and clues. It's part of what I am."Are you going to wear that?" she asked, tickling my stomach."You don't like the natural look?" Clasping my hands behind my head, I did a passable belly dance, improvising hip-thrusts, wagging myself in her direction until she fell back laughing at my outrageousness."I triple-dog-dare you to do that on a table at the restaurant!""Naw, I only do private shows." I went for underwear and contemplated formal options -- dress uniform? That would get me an official Death Glare from Deanna. Her polite request had been civvies. Black, and I'd look like I was in uniform minus the shoulder pads. White, and I might as well wear a sign that said 'stain me.'"What in the galaxy is taking you so long? You make us late and I'll tell them you're fussy as a woman when it comes to clothes. Fussier."I yanked out one of her dresses, fluttered my eyelashes, and held it up. "Oh, what about this? Too much?""Put it back or I'll smite thee with the Hairbrush from Hell!"I put it back. "I see the next shipboard production is Shakespearean?""No, it's actually going to be a musical. Wear a nice dark gray with a white shirt so we match.""Do I have to wear the lipstick too? Or can I just dab a little foundation on and call it done? We'll be twins!"The Hairbrush from Hell struck the floor, skating over to bump into my toe. Not quite a smiting, more of a precursor to a smiting. Before she went for a bat'leth, I drew out the dark gray semi-formal suit from the back, found a white shirt, and went about the transformation from nude wagger to suave and debonair dinner date.She studied the end result and nodded. "You'll do.""The honeymoon's over," I moaned, waving my hands in the air on the way out of our quarters. "I'm no longer handsome and sexy.""Our one-year anniversary doesn't have to mean the end of the honeymoon, sweet pea.""You aren't supposed to use icky nicknames in public." I gestured up and down the empty corridor. "What if someone heard? Crew would snicker."She ran silent the rest of the way to the transporter room, but she goosed me in the lift. I love my Verly so, even if she wouldn't let me kiss her. Sometimes I think that's the whole reason women wear makeup.She wore a short-skirted simple dress, the color of summer skies in Oregon -- in other words, a nice cloudy gray. My sisters liked to joke Oregon summers were three days long, as that was how much sunshine we generally got, but I'm a little more orthodox and side with the more technical aspects. Planet tilts, we got summer for three months. Beverly tilts, I get a great view.Yes, my mind goes there a lot. I'm male and human. I'm told by a variety of non-human friends that we're peculiar that way, we residents of Terra.We were supposed to meet the Picards. The girls had good intentions I guess, but an anniversary dinner as a community project? At least we'd part ways after eating. I had a reservation for one of the private suites on the starbase, just for a change of venue.We met Dee in the foyer outside the restaurant called Level One, which existed in the top level of most starbases. She looked quite the vision in a vaguely-Grecian pale pink dress, gathered where it needed to be to show off a waist that shouldn't belong to a new mother. Between the Briar Patch and modern medicine she'd been spared a lot of the usual aftereffects of pregnancy. She's always been a looker; unlike a lot of women who know it, she doesn't let it go to her head. Nor does she seem to care that I look occasionally, though I'm guessing she senses it."Where is he?" Beverly asked, scandalized by her friend being left alone to sit on a tiny bench between a couple of Antarean fringe ferns."He said he forgot something.""Well, come on, let's go sit in the bar until he gets here. How's Yves?" Beverly made tracks for the entrance. Deanna gave me an amused look and followed.I sighed, noticed my pant leg had crept up my calf, and bent to fix it. A moment later the lift opened again. Jean-Luc stopped in front of me, a neatly-wrapped box in hand. He'd worn all black, a modern tailored suit with those popular thin lapels and buttonless front. He met my eyes coolly and waited."You want me to ruin the anniversary," I said, chastising. I knew exactly what his look meant. We'd had a discussion earlier in the day -- he had reminded me of my promise to discuss my involvement in the Section with Beverly."You've had plenty of time. The longer you wait the harder it will be.""You couldn't tell Deanna, if our positions were reversed."His expression told me I'd just made a tactical error. "Deanna has seen me at my absolute worst. You're not giving Beverly very much credit.""Her husband died because of them. I'm doomed. You don't know how many times I've started to say it and it just -- won't -- come out!""You explained it to me and Will, you can explain it to her.""This is my business, Picard," I exclaimed, resorting to ire.I'd never seen him go cold that way before. A flicker of fury in those hazel eyes, swiftly controlled, a lunge, and it reminded me that I wasn't the only one capable of quick action -- he grabbed and shoved and the nearest wall met my back solidly. It was a good thing it wasn't the restaurant wall. I almost grabbed a fern but refrained at the last second. The plant wouldn't have helped me keep my balance, and they're expensive to replace."Beverly was my best friend's wife," he murmured, backing a step and removing his hand. "She's my friend. My wife's friend. My former CMO, and I owe her my life many times over. Normally I don't intrude in the personal lives of friends -- but if you do not tell her the truth, I will. She deserves to know, and if you can't tell it to her, she deserves better than you.""So much for friendship?" It hurt more than I'd expect -- I'd let myself enjoy the man's friendship. Weak of me, that."You can't expect them to ignore you forever. You said that yourself. You've had a year with no contact with them, but the Briar Patch was that, and it's time to talk to her about it, before they come looking for you." His shoulders sagged. "I do consider you a friend, but you can't expect me to help you deceive her. Which is what it feels like -- Deanna feels the pressure, too.""Tomorrow. I'll have to, I know that, but I can't ruin tonight. Which we're going to do, if we stand here much longer.""They're in the bar," Jean-Luc said. Probably drawing on a certain metaphysical connection I'd long suspected and seen confirmed. You expect things like that from Vulcans and the like, not a human and a half-Betazoid, but I'd been finding out since I met them that nothing about this couple could be labeled ordinary."Nothing like a Betazoid," I muttered as we passed the smiling host and bore right through the front of the restaurant, heading for the entrance to a dimmer room. He stopped in the door, I stopped behind him, and the scene explained the halt -- the girls sat on stools at the long, black-lacquered bar, and three men had congregated on them. The postures and facial expressions, even in the faint glow of fluorescent tubes hung high overhead, told me this was a clear case of physical attraction. All three were human and probably officers from one of the ships in orbit, Caiaphus or possibly Shelby's Potemkin."I can handle this," Jean-Luc said, glancing back at me. "Follow my lead.""Okay," I replied, curious as hell as to how he'd handle it without causing a scene.He passed the group. I glanced casually at them, gathering that we weren't supposed to know them personally from Jean-Luc's avoidance, and noted that Beverly looked askance at us. Jean-Luc sat three stools from Deanna, on her right, tucking the gift into an inner pocket of his brown jacket and crossing his arms on the bar. I followed his example.He ordered drinks. The bartender brought them quickly enough; the bar wasn't busy, as it was still early in the evening. We sat silently while the patter continued. The skinny one bothering Deanna seemed most persistent, and the broad-shouldered brunette on Bev's left seemed to be competing with the third guy for the good doctor's attention. Though #3 saw Deanna as a decent runner-up, and devoted a portion of his attention to her as well."So what do you do?" Scrawny asked, ending a series of questions about where she was from that had elicited scant information. "A singer, perhaps?""No," Deanna said. The guy had to be drunk not to hear the boredom.The third guy, standing behind the two women, chuckled and leaned forward. "A nurse? You can take care of me any time, honey."Jean-Luc shot me an amused look. He turned toward them slightly, which Scrawny noticed -- I saw the glance out of the corner of his eye."I don't think so," Deanna said. "What do you do?""Lieutenant-Commander Ron Davitz -- until next month anyway. Promotions coming up. I'm in line for XO on the Caiaphus. Ours is about to get his own ship." Oh, let's impress the lady with rank before finding out if she has any, I thought smugly. Had to be drunk. Or young and oblivious. Probably both.Jean-Luc slid off his stool, gave me a 'come on' look, and sauntered over, his drink in hand. Scrawny and his friends stiffened and glared at him. Ignoring them, he gave Deanna a nice, long once-over. She eyed him with a raised eyebrow, the very picture of questioning royalty, sitting above eye level as she was. Gesturing casually at her with the hand that held the drink, he said one word, with mild, harmless interest."Sex?"Beverly reacted with wide eyes, an incredulous silence, and a blush. The three men had gone rigid with indignation.Deanna studied Jean-Luc offhandedly, touching his shoulder, then testing his bicep with her fingertips. Sliding down, she gave the three would-bes a sly look, took Jean-Luc's arm, and off they went.I gave the three a look of casual disdain as Beverly took my arm and we went after the other couple. She sighed, her substitute for evil laughter until further notice. When we were seated at a table around the restaurant from the bar, under a sloping viewport overlooking Potemkin's saucer section, Deanna turned to her husband with a smug smile."You realize the first time he tries that on some unsuspecting woman he's going to get slapped.""I have no idea what you're talking about." His smirk said otherwise.We chatted about any subject but the Briar Patch, sometimes obviously skirting around it, and Jean-Luc and I endured lengthy feminine segues about dresses and Colors That Look Good On You. Because that's what we do, when The Woman talks to The Woman's Friend. He didn't look bored -- he seemed to enjoy listening to their chatter, quietly giving the waiter their order and pulling the menu gently from Deanna's hand while she described something she'd purchased on Betazed. He ignored his wife's hand occasionally landing on his arm or shoulder as she spoke. A curious quirk, but they were a curious pair.He actually laughed at a few things they said. And while he sat with chin in hand openly watching her speak, I felt like an outsider. Beverly seemed as interested in their discussion of the softest type of silk as Deanna.I couldn't worship Verly so raptly, with the Section sitting between us. I understood at last the fullness of that metaphor of the Picards -- elephants. Those things that sit between us like walls, that both of us know are there but find impossible to talk about. Only Beverly didn't know yet that the elephant existed. He had his big wrinkly posterior sitting firmly in my lap.The turnabout came after dessert, when Jean-Luc asked about repairs on my ship. We swapped details and future destinations; as usual, they had a fresh crop of cadets for him, and a couple of diplomatic missions. I was supposed to be heading back to where I'd been when the Briar Patch intervened. Deanna had little to contribute because she was on baby leave, no longer actively participating in ship operations, and seemed to droop as the discussion progressed. Finally Beverly reached across the table and took her hand. Jean-Luc noticed, and his hand dropped from the back of Deanna's chair to her bare shoulder."Don't," she murmured, shooting him a sideways glance."For heaven's sake, what's wrong, Dee?" Beverly asked. "He's just concerned."We waited, and Deanna excused herself after a moment of nearly going cross-eyed with the effort to not cry. Jean-Luc watched her go, shook his head, and picked up his fork to stab at the remains of dessert."Jean-Luc?" Beverly worried too much about her friends. But it was the same worry that had landed me against a wall with Jean-Luc threatening disclosure if I didn't take care of it. Again, I felt like an outsider."Her replacement bothers her. It's Dee's job, and she hates watching someone else do it 'wrong.'" He put the word in quotes with his fingers."Who is it? Carlisle?""No. They sent in a commander who's slated to get her own ship shortly. Ship's still in the yards so she requested active duty somewhere, and ended up with me. Imagine Jellico in a bra, and that's about what I've got for a first officer.""Now, there's an image that'll give you nightmares," I exclaimed. I remembered Jellico too well. Did I mention I used to do surveillance for the Section? No? It wasn't fun."You should talk her into seeing the counselor -- don't you realize this might be post-partum depression?"Jean-Luc eyed Beverly. "It's not about the baby.""That you know. Of course she'd attribute her depression to the frustrations of watching someone else do the job she worked herself to exhaustion to get. She probably feels guilty for -- ""Beverly, stop," Jean-Luc said, chiding her gently. "It's not that complicated.""She's a woman, a mother, and I know how that feels," Beverly exclaimed, suddenly near tears herself. "I know how it feels to attempt balance between a mother's responsibilities and a career. Pulled one way and the other every five minutes, never quite sure you're doing the right thing, and afraid that you'll do permanent damage to your relationship with your child.""Beverly. Stop."Jean-Luc was going to make a fantastic father. The quiet insistence cut into her rising hysteria neatly and left her staring at him. He waited for a response."I wish it could have been different," she said, and I knew I'd vanished from the room -- this was part of an ongoing conversation between two old friends. The last segment of that conversation might have taken place years before, but it may as well have been yesterday.It brought the whole untidy mess of my emotions to an unbearable, sharp point, and before I knew it I'd stood up. Following the former counselor wasn't my intent but I ran into her just the same, pacing in circles in the foyer. She stopped, hugging herself, looking less like a goddess than like a very tired Betazoid with pain pooling in her eyes."So what's the replacement's name?" I winced at the first question that popped into my head and off my lips. But she answered without tears or ire."Maven.""Oh, shit, you've got to be kidding," I blurted. "Hey, it could be a lot worse -- at least you won't have to worry about her stealing your husband!"She smiled, but ducked her head. "No. Or my job. She's only been aboard a couple of days, and people are already giving me that pleading look and asking exactly how much leave I'll be taking.""So this is post-partum depression talking?"She sighed heavily. "I don't know. I have an appointment with the counselor tomorrow. I've been so tired, and I haven't even been working. I honestly don't know how I'll manage it when I do go back to work. He's not even old enough to do much more than cry.""When you're recovered from the little mess in the Briar Patch and the newborn baby thing, you'll feel better. My sisters went through this, one at a time, and sent me nice long monologues about it. Chloe suffered six months of emotional roller coaster. I don't think you'll be unreasonable if you take a month or so to really roll with the mood. At least you've got Mr. Steady Nerve to lean on, hm?"A more genuine smile. "Thanks, Tom. I just know what Jean-Luc's going through with Maven, he comes home with it every night. He misses having me working with him. I miss being there, but I wanted the leave too."I knew she sensed things, but it impressed me all over again that she and her captain could make their relationship work so well. Being unable to escape his stress and emotional feedback hadn't occurred to me as a byproduct of being an empath. I had been underestimating her for a while. She raised her eyes to mine as I thought it, and her smile grew."Yes, you make me nervous," I said. "Damned empath. But, you know, I understand how he puts up with it? How thoroughly you know him, and you can love him anyway. Wish I could have that."A scowl creased her forehead. "I don't see why you couldn't. Beverly would. If you'd tell her the whole truth -- you know, the way you feel right now should be your first clue that you're not the horrible person you feel like you are. You have a conscience and you regret it -- you're in an untenable position, and you're adding to it yourself by making it all much more difficult than it is. She may be angry, yes, she may be unwilling to sit and listen for very long, but once she gets it out of her system. . . .""I know. I should tell her, but I plan to do it when it's not our anniversary."She accepted that, and I held myself carefully in check, maintaining the same tension, not wanting to relax -- otherwise, she'd sense my relief that she hadn't dug any deeper than that. We went back to our table together. Jean-Luc sat up straighter and followed Deanna's movements as she returned to his side; she looked him in the eye, smiling affectionately, and something unspoken passed between them. He slid his arm around her and she leaned close. The glow she'd lost returned now that she was with him.I dropped into my chair and smiled at Verly. She gave me a curious look that I had no chance to answer."Captain." That stiff, chilly high tenor, like a young man who couldn't quite shake puberty -- I remembered it so well. She'd beat me to valedictorian by a narrow margin and I'd sat in the back row hating every word of her pompous glorious-Federation speech.The four of us looked up. I don't think Maven ever gets out of that uniform. Her hair had to be glued in that functional little bun -- it reminded me of the last time I'd seen Janeway, when I'd teased her about being a schoolmarm. Unlike Janeway, Maven didn't have a sense of humor."Why, if it isn't Maven the Marvelous," I crowed, dropping an arm across Beverly's shoulders. "How's that left hook? And that shot put -- by God, you were a stunning sight on the field! You know, Jean-Luc, this is the woman who won three wrestling trophies as a soph?"Maven doesn't do a death glare nearly as sweetly dire as Deanna -- she could scorch you right through a bulkhead. Beverly gave her a polite smile and turned a scolding one on me. I knew what she wanted to say. 'Don't do this to me.' But, this hun had made Deanna weepy-eyed. There's a soft spot in me for big feminine weepy eyes, and the Big Brother instinct lives on, in spite of the fact that I was a little brother. And Deanna likes me in spite of all the momentary leerings I've sent her way. And I like torturing pretentious martinets."Captain Glendenning. How nice to see you again," Maven said flatly."So how's the temporary job? Captain Picard's been telling Beverly and I about how well you're doing." That part, I made as sincere as I could. No sense in mixing in his real opinion and making life difficult for him."It's an honor to serve aboard the flagship," she replied, as if reciting 'the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain' -- she was as excited as she'd be about rain in Spain, anyway."Marvelous opportunity for you. Some good officers aboard her, too. Did Elena suggest it? She's thoughtful that way."At the mention of our sainted Fleet Admiral, Maven's head tilted, reminding me of Data in 'mildly-interested' mode. "Admiral Nechayev said the opening needed to be filled. I volunteered.""She's always liked Jean-Luc," I said, glancing at him. The look in his eye rivaled the coldness rising off Maven."Some of us do not consider 'liking' an officer as a possible motivation for duty assignments," Maven replied. I wondered if she'd been taking Vulcan lessons somewhere.My body likes to behave out of turn. I was standing before I knew it. Hands at my sides, I eyed her with my best predatory look. She returned my steady gaze with those limpid cesspools of hers, and her mouth twitched."Commander.""Captain," she returned, just as blandly."Do you have a purpose for interrupting an off-duty private party?""I only wished to greet an old acquaintance. Auld lang syne. It has been too long since Antilles."If someone had breathed on me, I might have fallen over at that instant between the coldly-casual delivery of my Section identifier and my rebound from the shock of hearing it from someone so stringently by the book you could hear the crinkle of her starched undergarments. Agents picked a place we'd never been, a phrase in the language of our choice, and our own countersign. It's how we know another agent's been sent by HQ. Mine were Antilles and auld lang syne. I debated not giving the countersign."That's a matter of opinion. I'd rather forget Antilles.""As I thought you might. Have a good evening." And the chosen response to the countersign, meaning she stalked off to wait in the bar, where I was supposed to meet her within a short period of time."You know that woman?" Beverly asked, disbelieving."Yes, not that I enjoy it." I sat again, not wanting to attract attention. The restaurant was only half-full. My agent's instincts were quickly coming to the fore, studying my surroundings from a Section point of view. Risk analysis. It had being a public place in its favor. Being shot wasn't likely."Tom?" Beverly hadn't noticed the knowing looks on Deanna's and Jean-Luc's faces. Both of them stared at me as if they knew exactly what had happened. Deanna, I realized. The damned empath rides again. She'd had years of practice at interpreting emotional reactions to things.Beverly's eyes clouded up fast, threatening hail and lightening if I didn't fess up soon. I glanced out the viewport, over my shoulder, over the shoulders of the Picards, off to the right at the expanse of gray carpet between us and the tables opposite, and sized up my chances of not being heard. Then I turned to look at her again, the words tasting bad before they ever left my lips. This was not a good place. The worst timing I could have chosen. But it had to be done, and I had no idea whether I'd be coming back from this meeting."That was an identifier, a code. I gave the countersign. I'm going to meet her in the bar. Since I have no idea how this will turn out, I want you to know that I'd give anything to change how I got to where I am for you -- but I have to dance to the drummer a while longer, at least. I'm sorry, Verly, because I know you deserve a lot better than this, but my hands are tied just as they've been all along when it comes to the Section." As I rose, I saw her flinch at the mention of it, but allowed myself no hesitation, kissing her cheek and turning away before I could let my feelings pull me back to my chair.The three guys were long gone. The bartender loitered behind the bar, playing some sort of game on a padd, or maybe inventorying liquor with fancy sound effects. He did a double-take, probably because he'd seen me leave with the redhead, and his glance at the back told me where I'd probably find Maven. No one sat in the booths or at the tables. There was a door in the corner, likely meant to be 'employees only' but it opened as I approached.I walked in to find Maven and Admiral Nechayev, standing in the middle of a large supply closet, surrounded by racks and shelves bearing boxes of liquor from all over the quadrant.One gets used to the idea that weird and unexpected comes with the uniform, but a fleet admiral in a closet in the back of a bar? It took me a while to pick up my chin -- and before that, even, I glanced around, noting that there were far too many places to hide surveillance equipment."Captain," Nechayev began. I held up my hand. With a quick twist and shake of the arm, I took the small phased-pulse taser from the concealed pocket in my right sleeve and sent it clattering across the floor. It came to rest at the foot of the shelving to my left, still in sight but out of easy reach."You're next."Both women stared at the weapon as if I'd tossed an adder at them. By this time, adrenalin and well-trained reflexes had me ready for anything. Nechayev turned an angry demanding look on Maven, who removed a taser from her boot and tossed it after mine. That was what I had wanted -- confirmation. The little gems, barely eight centimeters long and mostly energy cell with two prongs on the end, were standard Section issue. You could knock out most humanoids with it and leave no traces of the cause of unconsciousness; the shock's impact on the nervous system would fade to nothing in just a few hours. If Maven had anything else, she might've been just another officer in the know. This meant Nechayev might be a security breach. Picard had told her about our little crusade to do away with the Section, and here she was with a Section agent.But, it appeared the taser in Maven's boot was a surprise. She stiffened and even leaned away from the commander. "Where did you get that?"Maven glanced at me. No longer supercilious -- this was a veiled appeal for support. Officers weren't supposed to carry weapons. Only on dangerous away missions, or when circumstances warranted it. So maybe Nechayev didn't know Maven was an agent. Or. . . . Aha, said a small voice in the back of my head."Why are we here, Admiral?" I exclaimed, crossing my arms and posturing indignantly."Commander, why did you have that device?" she asked, ignoring me."Because she's a Section agent like me, all right? Why the hell are we here? I'm on leave, dammit!"Maven stared at me now as if I'd pissed on the shrine to The Goddess of Starched Shorts Martinets. More proof of my assumption, perhaps. A real Section agent wouldn't show emotional reactions that way.Nechayev snapped around to glare at me. "What are you playing at, Glendenning?""Don't know what you mean -- Ma'am." She hates that. She won't tell you not to do it, but she has this urge to hit people who do -- I know, because her right hand twitches like she's not making the fist she wants to."I've never trusted you, you're a two-faced bastard with an axe to grind. The logs, Captain, your logs, regarding the situation in the Briar Patch -- where's the detail? You have a bargain to fulfill, remember?""I told you everything I could. What makes you think I know everything about the Section's motives? If every agent knew every detail of every action we'd all be a security risk, wouldn't we? Stop looking at me like I'm selling your mother, Crystal."Maven blushed deep red at that. She always went by her surname, no matter what. We had that in common, the official name change -- mine from Geraint to Thomas, for my father's sake, and hers simply removed from her records because she couldn't stand the name her folks gave her. Got to admit, thinking of her as 'crystal' is like thinking of Nechayev as 'pansy.'"Admiral, you didn't say anything about knowing he was Section," Maven exclaimed. She glanced at the taser she'd tossed down as if contemplating going after it. Clumsy. It further proved my theory. You never let anyone see you looking. I knew exactly where my weapon was and how to use it. I wouldn't go after it, I'd use it as bait if I had to and take out the victim as he dove for what he perceived as an advantage.How had she known my sign?"You didn't say anything about being Section," Nechayev shot back, highly offended."Sir, you said you wanted to speak to Captain Glendenning and for me to persuade him to come -- I took the necessary measures to do so. If making him believe I was Section -- ""Careful you don't snap your spine doing those backflips, Maven. You knew my specific sign and countersign." If she wanted to be Section, I'd make her dreams come true. "I don't like this," I growled, striding forward and glaring at her. "You're a security risk.""You've gone mad," she blurted, scurrying backward."Nope. You just committed the unpardonable sin. You admitted what you were in front of an admiral.""I'm not Section!""Well, it's about time you started denying it. Too little too late, though.""Traitor," she shouted, losing her cool."Oh, right," I said, snorting, when she glanced again at the weapon, just a sidelong dart of an eye. "You go right ahead and jump for that weapon. You'll be dead on the floor before you touch it. You don't trust anyone, not even another agent, unless you're both assigned to the same mission. A screwup like this is fatal, Maven. The Section won't trust you once you've made a mistake like this.""You're blowing smoke -- you wouldn't kill me," she exclaimed, cold and defiant. "Not in front of -- ""Try me," I murmured seductively.It came to one of those standoffs in which everyone stands around trying to stare each other into surrender. Maven kept glancing at the admiral. I glared at Nechayev."Are we done with this game yet? She's no agent. Where did you get my -- " But they wouldn't tell me where they got my countersign. Not that it mattered. Furiously, the neurons worked, and the equation could only be solved for x one way. I'd told only one person everything. My hand-picked first officer, whose android qualities and whose training in ethics under Mr. Fleet Idealist himself would serve my purposes well. He had sworn himself to secrecy and encrypted my logs and stored them all away in a portion of his neural net, to be accessed only in the event of a direct order from me or my death, and passed on to a handful of people -- the top name on the list was Jean-Luc Picard. Data had to have jumped the gun a little and given just that bit to the good captain, just my sign and countersign, in the interests of proving I could be trusted -- and I'd lectured him long and hard over not trusting anyone who knew the Section existed. It would be so like him to turn around and apply that to me. Jean-Luc in turn had given the sign to the admiral, or Maven.I didn't trust that guess, however. I had to know if Jean-Luc was in on this. He probably was, but I had to prove it to myself.I got the feeling that the last thing they expected was for me to spank my comm badge and contact someone else. Maven and Nechayev whirled at the sound of the link opening."Glendenning to Picard.""Yes, Tom?""So, now that Maven's dead and the Admiral's unconscious, why don't you come join me?"Muttered swearing. "You'd better not have -- ""Tell me something that will make me believe I'm making a mistake in assuming 31's behind this, or the admiral's going with Maven." I'd lied about Maven, but I wasn't lying about this. Though I'd be dead or in prison as a result, I would do away with both the women in front of me, if only to protect Jean-Luc's project.Another pause. Deanna's voice, faintly. "Jean-Luc.""You can't get around my training. I'm a walking, talking bullshit detector with plenty of justified paranoia. I don't like manipulation and double-crossing. Someone walks up to me in a restaurant and starts throwing around countersigns, there's something wrong. I can't afford screwups, and I don't like the implications of this -- I'm not going to let my friends suffer because some greenie 31er gets planted on their ship.""She's not what you think, Tom," Picard said wearily. "Can you appreciate why we would have to know what you would do, with some certainty? Can you understand why even your friends would be concerned?""Whose idea was this?" The rising anger notwithstanding, I knew he had just cause. I'd told him repeatedly to take nothing for granted, just like I'd told Data."I didn't like the deception, but the admiral holds the deciding vote in these matters, Tom. I'm sorry. But she's correct that the success of our mission depends upon our ability to trust one another."At least now I knew why he'd wanted me to tell Bev, to the point of throwing me against a wall. He hadn't wanted her to find out the way she had. I felt like striking out, throwing things, indulging in a rage of monstrous proportions. Doing it as they had was a kindness on their parts, one could say -- they hadn't done it on my own ship and risked exposing me to the whole crew. At the time, however, I wanted to bust the place up and aim most of the furniture at Nechayev."Fine. So am I cleared? Did I pass?""Since you didn't really kill Maven, yes. I suggest you get going, Dr. Crusher has already left the restaurant. Don't try to manipulate me again. Picard out.""Damn Betazoid and her damn sensor array," I muttered, knitting my fingers and cupping them over the top of my head. The muscles in my shoulders were still tight, but the adrenalin was on the wane. Weariness started to drag at me. "Admiral?""I'm content to leave things as they are, for the moment." It took a moment for me to realize she meant my ship. I'd gotten Venture as a mutual back-patting gesture from her. An unsolicited one. That and she had a dearth of seasoned captains out there, since the war and various Borg incursions had eaten away at the ranks. It was hard to say which held more weight in the decision, but I knew she would've rather given me something else."Sir?" Maven asked."You are dismissed, Commander, and thank you for your help."Maven left without a backward glance. The closet door slid shut. I crossed my arms and did my best to appear unruffled."You confronted me without considering the consequences. I could have killed her and it would've been your fault. Don't provoke me again.""You don't like Maven, do you?""That isn't the point. I don't kill needlessly. If I were any other Section agent you'd be on a table in a lab having your short term memory wiped.""But you're not. That was the point of the exercise. Congratulations, you've vindicated the faith your friends have in you. Your first officer found the entire proceeding pointless, and the Picards disliked it the instant I suggested it. So go back to what you were doing and keep in touch. Our original arrangement still stands, but with the modification of this new mutual goal of ours, I believe it will be much friendlier, don't you agree?" She spoke with forced cheer. Her attempt at civil conciliation confused me.She's known about my side career in covert ops for years. I don't know to this day how she found out what I was, but since then she's hated me quite lividly. I can't even figure that out -- I'd done nothing to warrant such antipathy other than being Section. I kept my nose clean while out on official Starfleet business, so she had nothing with which to hang me. This new tactic of hers made me suspicious.I almost asked where she'd gotten her information on me. How she knew I'd been Section in the first place. But, I didn't. Nothing is the best thing to say when you're uncertain."I agree, Admiral. Until next time."She nodded stiffly and left me there. I gave it another five minutes, then strode from the bar, ignoring the bartender's curious stare.I didn't try to rejoin the Picards. I left the restaurant and wondered what to do, where to go -- Beverly was gone already. Imagining to where, and what she'd be doing, made me want to cry, damn it. I wandered through the starbase thither and yon, thinking and hating and doing everything but acknowledging that I'd lost her for good. I didn't want to believe that, and trying to own up to it made my eyes prickle and my throat seize. A full hour later I realized the aimless walking around wasn't going to help. Rather than going to the ship to find her methodically packing her things as she composed her resignation as CMO of Venture, I went to the suite I'd rented, intending to torture myself in full for what I'd done to her.I went in slow, pulling off my clothes, the gift I'd had tucked in the jacket pocketalmost falling on the floor. I caught it and tossed it and the weapons on the broad sea-green sofa facing out toward space. The view in this room was as spectacular as the one from Level One; just one level down and huge viewports along the wall.Sitting on the massive bed, an island of white in the green-and-gold room, I shucked my shoes and leaned, elbows to knees, contemplating the dark green carpet. There's something about a big room when you're alone. Especially a big room that you'd expected to fill with laughter and wild fun with someone you love.No joy here. The silence begged for something, anything, a shout, a sob. Swearing. I'd been here before -- alone, at the end of something big. Mission concluded, all the other participants had gone home, and Thomas Geraint Glendenning sat on the end of a bed in his usual, solitary fashion. This time was different. I knew the loneliness would kill me.I've been in love a few times but never like this. I'd loved Beverly the instant she spilled her guts to me that night so long ago -- we'd both been so lonely for so long that I sometimes wondered if it were only that holding us together. I don't wonder it any more. She's the best friend I've ever had. And that was something I owed to Picard and his wife. I didn't set out to consciously emulate them. It's more complicated than that.I couldn't afford close friends. That's what I kept telling myself, until I ran into Picard. The whole Shelby thing had been a favor for Gaines. I'd issued an open invite to the captains in orbit, and to the admiral, and ended up in that Rigellian bar in a back room where Craig Bellamy already loitered. Bellamy was as close to a good friend as I had but only because of shared ties; we'd been classmates and competitors. The friendship no longer included any real comradery -- we were familiar to each other, we didn't have to pretend we didn't know things like the Section existed, and that was about all that tied us together. Inviting other captains along was my way of fulfilling an obligation to visit with an old friend while keeping Bellamy from talking about things I didn't want to discuss with him any more.And then Picard showed up with Gaines, out of uniform and toting a bottle of rotgut. Bellamy and I were both startled by the appearance of a well-respected captain and an admiral in such an atmosphere. Picard was there to help Shelby, and at the behest of his counselor, too. The last thing you'd think is that Picard would be willing to look like a drunk to help a counselor do her job.And then it came clear when something he said hinted at it -- he was sleeping with his counselor. The rumor I'd heard was true. So that was the motivation I decided was likely, he was helping his lover out with a difficult patient. The great Captain Picard had a weakness.It only hit me the following day, after recovering from my drunken stupor. He'd not just done it for a lover. There had to be more to it than just that. His demeanor after Shelby left with the counselor told me as much. When you're trained to notice nuances, you do it whether you're sober or not. What I could remember from before going totally blotted told me he'd not been there just for a lover. Between Craig and I we'd roasted the guy liberally. He showed discomfort, but calmly turned away the barbs we hurled, either with stony looks or calm responses, or even the occasional smirk.I went to Gaines for more of an explanation. He's one of the admirals the Section has under its sway, though not actually a member. I knew it from how he behaved and how little he knew. That meant he'd not met Section standards. I could see why -- the man was all bluster and worry over Picard's relationship with Troi, and probably couldn't keep things to himself if given a high-powered containment field. I took the guise of Mr. Bad Boy Section Agent and instructed him to quit hyperventilating about it -- and definitely not to do it in front of anyone else, or he'd only make the problem worse. One of Gaines' main complaints was that Picard didn't care who knew about him and the counselor, nor did he care what effect that would have on other fleet personnel.The admiral had a point. Picard didn't care what people thought. But I saw it differently than Gaines, and hoping to prove a theory I spent a day lurking about the city to which most Starfleet personnel wandered when on leave on Rigel. I was rewarded by chancing across the couple, walking together down a crowded street. He seemed more relaxed than in the bar and smiled and chatted with her as they went along, eating some native thing he'd picked up from a street vendor. As I followed at a distance and blended as only a good undercover man could, he held it out for her to nibble. They stopped in front of a window and looked at the things on display, and laughed over something. He let her have the last bite of the food item, tossed the wrapper in a nearby receptacle, and she said something that made him stop in mid-turn and look at her soberly. He drew his thumb along her cheek from nose to ear, so swiftly that if I hadn't been watching I wouldn't have seen. They walked away, leaving me to remember the expressions on their faces.I couldn't forget that incident. The thought of a captain of that caliber and dedication having an officer with whom he could relax and be himself, that's what stuck with me. They could've been any two people who knew each other to the point of complete comfort, except for that little caress. The dress and the demeanor in the bar -- all a performance. They'd shown little of their real selves in it.Months later, after long nights of trying to stop thinking about it, I saw them again. On Romulus, both of them decked out like Roms -- so was I, though I had the look and smell of a street rat rather than their costumes of professional performing artists. I saw the same closeness. And armed with the extensive backgrounds of both officers with which I was provided prior to the mission, I knew better who they were and why they were there -- their personal motivations, not orders, I mean. I saw them work together as halves of a very efficient team, presenting the appearance of Romulans, even altering body language for the occasion. Picard submerged himself in the role to a startling degree. Somehow you expect someone with a personality so solid and dignified to not be able to set it aside that way.And then they submerged themselves in the roles again on the holodeck, for Riker and Beverly. They left immediately after a repeat of their performance of the Romulan dance they'd done while undercover, and I noticed Deanna pause and stare at me before she followed Jean-Luc off the holodeck. Just until I noticed her solemn, half-accusing look that I couldn't decipher.Then the wedding. I'd begun to question my sanity in leaping into a relationship with Beverly -- but the way she kept watching her friends then looking at me all aglow, staying close to me most of the time. . . . I decided I didn't care. I knew how Picard must have felt in the earlier stages of his relationship with Deanna. I knew why he'd fought so hard for it.Picard and his wife. His first officer. I wasn't sure which hat she wore more often, or if it mattered any more. They worked together well enough that I wondered if that weren't a deception in itself. No relationship is that perfect.They were people I thought of as friends. I had friends, where I'd had none before, even if they occasionally made me feel like an outsider. But best of all I had Beverly.I loved her, and I shouldn't. I wanted what Picard had and knew the pain of understanding that no sane woman would knowingly stay with a man like me. I'd suffered numerous panic attacks in the year we'd been together, whenever I'd thought of her reaction if I told her about the Section. Each time I came close to doing it I chickened out. I'd been paranoid in the beginning about her finding out somehow -- slim chance, but not absent.But now she knew.I pulled off my jacket; the slight weight of the comm badge bumped my thigh, and I took it out of the pocket. Rubbing my thumb up the edge of the parabola, around the point, and down, I tossed and caught it, then pitched it across the room with an arm that had once thrown footballs across fields. I heard the solid crack of it hitting the opposite wall. There would be no calling her in a moment of weakness. I didn't want to interrupt her packing.I landed on my back in the fluffy cover, arms wide, and closed my eyes. I needed a drink. Romulan ale, or something stronger. Something to take the edge off the mourning.A voice interrupted me in the depths of my musings. "Captain Glendenning."I was off the bed in a second, legs apart, shrugging and readying myself for anything. The intruder stood three meters from me, his back to the viewport, looking at me with the most Vulcan face I'd ever seen on a human. He wore civvies too nondescript to be anything but a disguise. The calm knowing in his brown eyes, paired with the silent and unexpected appearance in my room, told me he was Section."Who are you?"He smiled, more friendly than I would've expected. "You know who I am, Thoth."Suddenly, I did.~^~^~^~^~ Drifting up from the depths of slumber, Deanna took slow inventory of her body and recognized two things simultaneously. Jean-Luc was already awake -- that was normal. Her right hand was conformed to a certain portion of his anatomy, also very awake in its own way -- her hand's location was likely his doing, considering the tenor of what she sensed from him.She smiled, though her mouth didn't seem to cooperate very well. Her habit of waking up tired continued. The last time she'd been awake, four hours ago according to the chron, she'd almost sleepwalked her way to the crib to comfort their crying baby. "Start without me, Jean-Fish. I'll catch up to you."He was on her in a second, caressing and kissing tentatively, and within the brief span of time it took her to finish waking up and begin to reciprocate, Yves screamed. The distant wail carried through their quarters quite well."You didn't warn me that celibacy was part of the package," he growled, leaping out of bed."It's a habit of human children to do this to their parents, I've heard.""Just human children?" He could be so defensive when he was peevish."Betazoids take a more practical approach. We have a friend help out when necessary."He shoved his arms into a robe. "You don't take care of your own newborns?""Who said anything about helping with the baby?"It took him almost a full minute to understand she was teasing. At least it made him smile a little, though the crossness remained. "You stay put. Don't fall asleep.""I'll be here, don't worry," Deanna said as she yawned. He hurried to the nursery. While he was gone, she stretched and thought hopeful thoughts, noting that Yves was hungry and wet. Jean-Luc's ire dwindled as he tended their son's needs.Yves knew only comfort and discomfort, wet and dry, warm and cool, hungry and full, and the limited perception he had of his parents. He liked being held and the faces of people were fascinating, but he liked Maman and Papa best. Betazoid bonding had resulted in his near-instinctual identification of his parents. Not that he knew what it meant. He knew only that they were part of his existence in a way no one else was, and comforted him on a different level than babysitters or 'aunts' or 'uncles.'From Deanna's perspective, the bond kept her abreast of everything that her son felt. A running awareness at the periphery of her empathy, that with a thought could be more. For Jean-Luc the bond with Yves was something he worked hard at and never quite attained consciously. There was something there, Deanna knew, similar to the earlier stages of hajira -- almost subconscious and not controllable, but still more than any human should be capable of. But that was her Jean-Fish, exceeding expectations as always.Her badge chirped. At first she thought it was Jean-Luc's, but at the second chirp she noticed it came from her side of the bed and reached for it. "Troi here.""Deanna," came a familiar, breathless voice."Beverly?""I need your help. I don't want to intrude, but if you have the time. . . ."Since she already knew what this was about, Deanna understood why Bev felt so despondent. {Jean, Bev's contacted me and wants to talk.}At once he came to attention. {Go talk to her. Don't worry about Yves, I'll take care of him.}{You're supposed to go on duty shortly.}{Let Maven handle things.} As little as he liked that idea, it only reaffirmed the depth of his concern for their friend. {Beverly took forever to recover from Jack's death. This has shocked her almost as deeply. If she's asking for help that's what you should give her, before she closes herself completely and regresses into her old coping mechanisms.}"Of course I have the time," Deanna said, glad the mental conversations with Jean-Luc took less time than spoken ones. "Where are you?""I don't mean right this minute. You can't even be out of bed yet, you never get up before you have to." Beverly felt suddenly awkward, Deanna sensed. In her distress she'd forgotten current sleeping arrangements."Yves woke us up a bit ago. Jean-Luc's taking care of him. We can meet for breakfast. You name the place.""I'm in my -- our quarters, on the Venture. Tom. . . never came back last night.""I'll be there shortly."Getting ready took little time. Jean-Luc came in while she put on makeup and stood behind her. "How does she sound?""Maintaining composure, but only barely. Fasten this?"She held her hair out of his way as he worked the clasp on her necklace. The silver swan pendant saw a lot of use since she'd gone on extended leave. He kissed the nape of her neck, making her shiver. Rising, she pivoted and put her arms around him from behind. Rather than put up the usual token fight, he stood that way, wishing."I'll make it up to you," she murmured against the back of his neck."You should go.""Do me a favor. Check on Tom, and just. . . I don't know, see what frame of mind he's in?""In a while. He's probably doing about as well as Beverly."She left their quarters reluctantly and beamed over. The location of the captain's quarters were a matter of preference; Tom had chosen a large suite on deck six. The doors opened seconds after she pressed the annunciator.Beverly didn't look at her face and stood back quickly to let her in. "What do you want to eat?""Some fruit would be fine." A faint smell of peach lingered in the air, tickling her nose. Beverly led her to the set table, then veered toward the replicator."Coffee?""Sure. I like mine blond, with sugar." Jean had teased her about liking blonds, based on the amount of cream she liked in her coffee. Beverly brought two steaming mugs and sat across from her, setting them down carefully, and finally, Deanna saw her face. "You've been crying a lot."Beverly put a hand to her forehead, propped that elbow on the table, and closed her bloodshot eyes. She cleared her throat. "Yes."Deanna scooped a segment of grapefruit. She would have preferred something Betazoid, but her human friends usually replicated what was familiar to them. Beverly tore a croissant in half; Deanna smiled at her choice of pastry and reached for the one on her plate. They ate in silence, but the turmoil beneath Beverly's composure continued unabated."You love him," Deanna said at last, setting aside the plate of crumbs and empty rind."How could he do this to me?" Her voice rippled with the unshed tears Deanna knew were imminent. "How could he just dump that on me and not even bother to come home? They killed Jack. I want to hate Tom, so much, for turning out to be one of them, for not coming home --" She choked on it and struggled for words."What will you do?"At that, she put her hands over her face. Shoulders hunched, Beverly retreated into whatever place the despondent go, trying to find her way."Beverly," Deanna prompted gently. Since it didn't work, she shook her friend's arm. "Beverly.""I don't -- know," she whispered, as if it was the hardest thing to admit."That's all right. You can be confused. Did you try finding him?""I thought about it, all night. I was going to tell him -- I wanted to resign. I even started rehearsing it.""Come over to the couch and sit down." They left the breakfast dishes and moved to the sofa. Deanna left a considerable amount of space between them and patted the cushion. Beverly eyed it, distracted from her despondency, and shook her head."It's going to take more than your counseling tricks to do any good.""Don't sell me too short, or you'll have to go back and re-do some of my old performance reviews. Who would you want to be sitting here? What person do you think would be able to make you feel better, just by being here?"While she thought about it, Deanna went for a clean washcloth, wetting it at the bathroom sink. The peach smell was worse in here. She wrinkled her nose and returned to her friend.Beverly welcomed the cloth, holding it against her eyes for a long time. "Tom," she said at last."Why would he make you feel better?""Because -- he does.""Because you love him."She curled her legs under her and laughed wearily. "He hates anything that smells perfumey or has lace. A phobia he developed having four older sisters who loved the stuff.""So?""He doesn't know I hate peach. He got me a silk gown that color, and peach bubble bath. When I got here last night I had my whole resignation speech planned. I wasn't going to cry, or cave in, or. . . ." She dabbed at her eyes again with the washcloth. "But I saw the gifts and it reminded me of everything I love about him. I cried so hard I thought I'd pop a rib."Deanna let her sit for a moment, then said, "You don't want to stay with him because he's in the Section. Even though that affiliation isn't something he wants, and he's actively seeking a way out of it.""It's so dangerous," she whispered."Starfleet is safe now?"Beverly heaved a great, slow sigh. "How did I know you were going to say that? It's not the same. They'll betray and kill anyone, if they think a person is a threat. The Briar Patch situation, whatever it really was, had something to do with them. I was so afraid when we first got the order from Ross -- just the way the orders were worded told me it was unusual. Tom's reaction scared me. Now I'm going to see the Section every time we get classified orders. I'll see agents where I should see crewmates. I won't be able to sleep when he goes off the ship for any length of time.""He could let you know it's just another routine mission before he goes. You trust him, that isn't the issue -- you just don't trust the Section.""I don't know if I trust him or not. I change my mind every few minutes." Beverly looked up at Deanna, her eyes red-rimmed and puffy. "You trust him or you would have warned me to begin with."As she had many times before, Deanna debated telling what she knew, and what she deduced from all she sensed about someone. It didn't take her long to decide otherwise. "I do trust him. Jean-Luc was certain of him. He's always liked Tom.""They're alike in some ways."Deanna thought not, but said nothing. "Are you going to give him the chance? Talk it through with him before you decide to leave or not? I think you should at least tell him you don't like peach."She got up and began pacing, running her fingers through her hair. "I suppose you're going to tell me that you'd do that, if you were the one in this situation?""Jean-Luc knows what kind of bubble bath to get me."Beverly straightened her beige tunic, rearranging the loose collar as if it had suddenly become uncomfortable. "I'll bet. He probably knows everything he needs to know, thanks to the bond."Surprise paralyzed her for a few seconds. "The bond," Deanna echoed, not quite asking."Hajira. I'd think you of all people would know." Beverly smirked. Jean-Luc must have said something."It doesn't tell him what kind of bubble bath I like. There is no substitute for talking things out, Beverly. If you don't discuss your feelings with Tom, you're being as unfair to him as he's been to you in not telling you sooner about his affiliation with the Section. How you feel about being in love with a man who is also a Section 31 agent is not something you should ignore. It won't go away, and the harder you try to suppress it the more difficulty you will have.""All right! Counselor!" she shouted, pacing along the other side of the room.Deanna looked up at her serenely. "If you honestly wanted to ignore the truth, you should have picked a counselor who doesn't know you at all.""I hate you." She glared at Deanna. "You know that?""Only because you know I'm right and it's the last thing you wanted to hear. Sit down, Bev. I want you to tell me what you plan to tell Tom, all right?""No, it's not all right. I can't just blurt it out! I need time to think about this."Deanna smiled, thinking about other things her friend had thought to death. She rested her chin on her arm, which she'd draped over the back of the couch. "If you say so."Beverly glared again. "Meaning, you know better?""When you think too much, you go into stasis. When you don't think too much, you accept a position at Starfleet Medical, take a bridge test, fall in love with Tom -- ""I swear, I don't know how Jean-Luc can live with you!""He's capable of dealing with irrational behavior and tolerating the things he can't change. I think Tom is, too. Peach bubble bath, without asking. Not to mention giving you the choice of whether he took the starship or settled for a more stationary posting. He doesn't expect you to tolerate separations, or the Section. He fully expected you to leave him, but he did finally tell you. He's struggled with telling you since the Briar Patch. Surely you've noticed that?"Beverly dropped into a chair and looked thoughtful. "I noticed he was being goofier than usual. . . . I suppose the counselor's going to tell me that's his coping mechanism?""Is it?"She groaned, wincing. "I hate you.""I hate you, too, thanks.""I suppose I should start counting my blessings now, like, Tom's good at -- " She caught herself, cheeks pinking up nicely. The burn continued as her blue eyes turned stormy. "I was such a wreck last night.""What are you going to do?" Deanna asked again, sensing it was time for reiterating the question."Whatever I can. Help, I guess. Jean-Luc's in this crazy scheme, and you are too, probably, and Tom's most likely got Data in on it. They spend a lot of time together. What else can I do?""Pack up and check out?""You used to be a lot more helpful." Beverly shot a brief annoyed glare at her.Deanna utilized her 'knowing Betazoid' look. "You used to be a lot less able to cope. All I'm really here for is to listen to you vent."Fond amusement at that. "Really? Then why does the conversation consistently turn back to Tom? Why can't I lead it off to other topics? Why have you asked questions and voiced no opinion?""Because a very frustrated man volunteered to babysit and let Maven run his ship in the interim so I could do it. We were both worried about you. You didn't leave the table smiling last night.""No." She paced again, slower this time, arms crossed. "Am I going to be in the dark about what happened last night, too? What was that business with Maven all about?""That was the admiral's fault. You should ask Tom about it. I don't know all the details, either. Do you feel that you can talk to him less emotionally now?""I suppose -- " Beverly turned around and stared, head tilted, eyebrow raised."I don't think you should endlessly debate whether you stay or not," Deanna continued. "But I don't think you should just decide to stay, without discussing everything with him first. Including your feelings, and his.""Why do I get the feeling I've just been manipulated?""You haven't. I was voicing an opinion, it just happened to coincide with what you already knew you should do.""Oh, Dee," Beverly blurted, laughing. "I really have no idea what to do. I don't even know where Tom is."Deanna stood, straightened her skirt, and stretched. She could have used more sleep, but she'd see this through before considering it. "Why don't we go find him, then?"~^~^~^~^~I woke as someone shook my shoulder."Tom?"Had to be a dream. Beverly was gone."Tom, say something."When I opened my eyes, I expected to see the ceiling in my quarters aboard my old ship, Phoenix. I expected to find I'd dreamed up the whole thing with the redhead and the Venture, and M'sieur and Madame Picard. But it was real. Beverly was there -- she filled my line of sight, with the elaborate gold light fixture hanging from the ceiling behind her. The various branchings of the fixture stuck out around her head like a crown. Worry filled her glistening blue eyes.Glistening with tears. One spilled over as we hovered there between breaths.I tried to sit up. The empty bottle next to me on the bed startled me -- I didn't remember having any Klingon bloodwine, let alone drinking it, but the familiar morning-after taste on my tongue told the tale."Shit." I fell back, rolling on my side. My head throbbed. "Sorry.""What are you doing here?""Dying of a hangover." I must have also been drinking sand. My voice sounded that way. Beverly's trusty tricorder whirred, and a hypo and a few minutes of waiting cleared the headache.Then it hit me like a warbird at warp -- she came looking for me."Why didn't you come back to the ship?" she demanded, watering down my elation but not doing away with it. Nothing could. I shoved myself up and there we were, facing each other while kneeling in the middle of a bed big enough for any six people. But she was in uniform, and furious, more tears spilling and ire replacing the worry."I was going to bring you here last night, as a surprise. I couldn't go back to the ship -- I was positive you'd be packing up your things and dictating your resignation. I couldn't handle it."Her tortured expression killed the explanations I wanted to blurt. Shaking her head, she put a hand to her eyes, rubbing her brows then wiping tears. "Like I could handle sitting alone waiting for you to come back -- afraid to contact you, afraid to stay, afraid to leave. Jean-Luc said you would be fine and that he wanted you to explain everything when you got in from wherever you went. I didn't sleep a wink last night, and then I find you cuddled up in a rented room with an empty bottle?"I almost said it was a good thing the triplets had left before she got there. Sometimes I'm actually capable of a small amount of tact. Joking around in this situation might be fatal. "I'm so sorry -- I'm a damned fool, Verly. I was convinced that you wouldn't want anything to do with me once you found out. And. . . it was probably a good thing I wasn't on the ship when my contact showed up.""Maven?""Oh, never," I blurted, laughing at it. "She'd never make the cut. No, that was Nechayev's doing. They wanted to test my loyalty to the cause. Did Jean-Luc tell you what we're going to attempt?""Doing away with Section 31. Yes. Why couldn't you tell me?""I didn't want to lose you. Really selfish of me, I know, but you don't understand what it was like before -- you're the best friend I've had in a long, long time. People like me don't have close friends. And I love you, more than. . . ." More than I could express in words, obviously.She looked out the viewport, which I'd left open to the stars. The grand view tended to make the room feel colder than it was. All that blackness, with pinpricks of light. Meeting my gaze once more, she shoved her hair behind her ear."I love you, too. I'm disappointed that you didn't think you could talk to me. I've told you so much, and you held this back -- I don't know if I can reconcile this.""I didn't expect you to. I want to give it all up. I've told you before, I'll do whatever it takes for you, Verly. But there are some things I can't do. I wish I could unmake the decisions that put me in this position."I hated the sag of her shoulders and the distress in her face. It was as though she'd aged twenty years in the past day. "Since you can't, we may as well face up to reality. What did your contact have to say?"This wasn't Beverly as I knew her. I wished she would yell at me or something. "Not much. He wanted to know what happened in the Briar Patch. No new assignment, just questions.""It's odd timing."I'd thought that too. "Because of my plans with Jean-Luc and the others. But I didn't say anything that might give it away. I can lie well enough.""I'm sure you can."I slid to the edge of the bed and began to pace. "I wouldn't lie to you," I exclaimed."Just to protect me, right?" She watched my movements from where she sat."Lies of omission, work-related, that's all. You know I can't tell you everything even if I was only a captain. I didn't want my burdens to become yours -- not this burden, anyway.""What do you do for them?""I used to work surveillance. I don't take the big chances. I'm harmless, as Section agents go, really.""Never killed anyone?""You know better than that. We've all killed, Verly. We're all in Starfleet.""War is different.""No," I said, thinking about Cardassian prisons and Romulan firing squads, and ships disintegrating at my command. "Killing is killing.""What's this?"She'd found the wrapped box on the night stand, the gift I'd forgotten. "Your anniversary present."As she unwrapped it, the realization struck -- I didn't want to believe it, I wanted like hell to think she had trusted me because she loved me. I didn't want to think that she trusted me because the Picards had vouched for me. Once started, however, the train of thought didn't go away."It's beautiful," she sighed, picking up the necklace of G'naian sky stones. I was right -- they matched her eyes. Each one was shaped like a perfect teardrop. They sparkled in any light, brighter than diamonds. "Thank you. I got you something, too, but it's back on the ship. I found the bubble bath.""I didn't mean to ruin the anniversary. I intended to talk to you today. . . I just wanted one more day.""It's not easy for me to grasp it. You've never seemed to have any of the ruthlessness I've always imagined it took to be part of the Section."A popular misconception. Any human being is capable of the nastiness it took. The Section's full of ordinary people willing to dedicate themselves to its cause, and some not-so-ordinary ones."If I'd told you about the Section before the Briar Patch what would you have done?"The answer was slow in coming. She stared at the necklace, letting the string of stones run through her fingers over and over. "I don't know," she said at last. "Last night, after I left the restaurant, I wanted to pack and leave. I wanted to get the next transport for Earth. I was shaking like an addict in withdrawal. I couldn't believe it. I still can't.""I was stupid enough to think I would be able to play double agent and expose them. My dad was one of them. We never knew, until he was dead and we got a message he sent. The anger at having him die anonymously that way, of his being tricked into the Section and then having no way out -- it carried me for years until I was in it myself. Then I realized that he'd been as stupid as me. He hadn't seen what they really were. He'd joined to do just what Section agents do, believed their propaganda, and recognized years later how he'd prostituted himself. And then I got mad at him. And after that nothing I did mattered, I sold my soul for a dumb kid's pipe dream of a dad who wasn't any kind of hero, so why the hell not just get myself killed out here?"My confession came to a lurching halt. It was tearing me apart by increments that she was even here, let alone waiting patiently for an explanation. I kept pacing and trying to look at her."If I really had any sense, I would never have let myself get close to you. For your sake. I fell for another pipe dream, one that included you and excluded the Section. I'm a dangerous person for you to be with. If they think I'm turning traitor, you're their first target. You're my biggest weakness, Verly. I'd rather die than see them hurt you.""Why would they? I don't know anything."She really didn't or she wouldn't say that. "They kill. They manipulate. They infiltrate and deceive. They'll pretend to be your best friend, get your trust, and use it to their advantage. There aren't really many Section agents out there. The concentration in the Briar Patch was an all-time high, and it tells me that project was something they thought would solve a lot of problems." She didn't know details about that so I stopped there."Tom, I don't know what to think of all this," she confessed, voice shaking. "I don't know what to believe. I want to stay. I don't want to lose you. But I can't quit imagining the things you've done, or might have done, and might still do because they tell you to."The urge to scream in several languages died slowly. "They don't trust me completely for the real Section jobs. They recruited me because I changed my name to my father's and it caught their attention -- they recognized I was trying to redeem the name, which meant I was aware of them and might pose a risk. I've always been surveillance, and the missions into Cardassian space and the Romulan Empire were all such that regular intelligence might have carried them out, except. . . I was there to watch our own intelligence people. As backup, for those the Section considers particularly risky.""So if the Section considered Jean-Luc a risk and he went on an undercover mission what would happen? They would watch him and do something to alter what he did?""No, no. If the mission started to go bad we were to deal with any obstacles and correct the situation. Even if the obstacle was our own agent."I looked at her finally, and in the same moment she looked at me. Consternation clouded in her eyes as she mulled through it. "Do they make deals under the table, too, with our enemies? Like the Cardassians?""If it suited their agenda they'd make a deal with anyone.""There were a few questionable missions. A few instances. . . . The one to Celtrus was a setup. Someone sold us out to the Cardassians and Jean-Luc was held captive. I wondered if the Section had something to do with it.""I don't know. Never heard of it. Part of the difficulty of trying to nail down the Section -- the agents don't know each other.""Were you active during the war?""Four missions. One into the Maquis, two to Cardassia, one to the Gamma Quadrant that went nowhere. I lost my partner on one of the Cardassia trips and worked alone after that.""Only four?"I shrugged. "I was also captain of a ship, and they know how many times you can vanish without making it seem odd."I felt like a kid playing get-to-know-you games. Like I hadn't been sleeping with this woman for a year, and we were only just meeting for the first time. The elephant now sat between us in all its glory, and I wanted to kill the damned thing with a vengeance."I love you, Verly," I said at last. "I hate the way the anniversary came out. This was supposed to be a lot different.""I know. I think I'm still in shock. . . ."She was, from the expression on her face. All the clouds I hated to see raced through her eyes and put a frown between them, over her nose. It was a look she'd had when we evacuated the space station at Alvara IV, when sickbay overflowed with folks in various stages of radiation sickness. Preoccupied."I need time to think," she said."Anything you want."She nodded. When she got up, she put on the necklace then came to me, arms out. She kissed me -- I think she meant it to be brief, but it turned into something a little more involved than usual. I contemplated trying to turn it into something even more involved, but let go of her when she moved away."I'll understand. Whatever decision you make, I can accept it."It caught her off guard; her head came up, and she half-turned toward me again. I held my breath but she didn't come back. Watching her leave tore my heart to pieces.But at the door, she hesitated. "You're coming home? Not staying here?"I couldn't do anything but nod. Even my breathing stopped. My heart pounded too loudly."I'll see you at lunch, then."The door opened and shut. I exhaled, fell to my knees, then toppled forward on my face. The carpet smelled like feet and whatever synthetics comprised the dense green fibers.In spite of myself, I felt hope flickering to life again -- I thought of the smell of the peach bubble bath lingering on her skin, and fanned the flames. ~^~^~^~^~Jean-Luc had brought the baby into the bedroom with him, and both of them lay on the made bed, asleep. He hadn't intended to fall asleep, Deanna guessed. In uniform, he lay on his left side, one hand still resting on the baby.She listened to the rhythm of their breathing. Yves grunted in his sleep and waved his hand. Tiny fingers opened and curled up again. Jean-Luc had put him in the sky-blue jumper. She laid a hand over her son's head, barely touching the fine black hair, savoring the moment.She sensed when Jean-Luc woke but waited for him to speak first. He moved his head, peered up at her, and smiled. "How did it go?""All right. We found Tom. I left her to deal with him. Apparently, he got himself a room and got drunk. I see you've found a new way to get the baby to sleep -- providing an example for him to follow.""Come on in, there's plenty of room."She arranged herself on the right side of the bed, putting her hand over his on their son's chest. For a little while they lay in silence."Talk to me," Jean-Luc murmured.She opened one eye. He had propped himself up on one elbow, head in hand. "About?""Something has been bothering you. You haven't meditated in nearly a week, and you're always tired. I thought I'd give you time, see if you would sort it out. Is there anything I can do?"She stared at their hands stacked upon their son's chest, at the rings they wore. "Do you think I'm a good mother?"His shock stabbed her. "Why would you think otherwise?""I don't know if 'think' is the right word.""Cygne, you know better than this.""It's much easier to be rational about things when you're not involved in them. He's so beautiful, he has so much potential -- I want so many things for him. I can't stop thinking that I should be there for him no matter what."Jean-Luc's expression turned grim. "You're considering quitting Starfleet. Again.""If we're both on the bridge in an emergency, who will stay with him?"One eyebrow moved. His eyes shifted, focusing on the baby, and he touched Yves' chin with his thumb. "If you center your life on our children, what will happen when they are grown and it's time to let them go?""I know," she whispered. "But. . . .""Balance is important. You've lectured me about it before. You've pointed out to me that Starfleet has statistical data now on the differences between captains who have families and those who literally have no one. What you've not told me is what the spouses of those better-adjusted captains with families do themselves. I know you have the best of intentions, but this whole time you've been considering this, you haven't been happy."While he spoke, he pulled his hand from beneath hers and stroked the back of her hand and fingers. Deanna smiled. "I'm sorry. I know better, I miss my work -- maybe all of this is guilt over that.""You have nothing to feel guilty about." He smirked. "Well, maybe one thing.""You're not in the mood at the moment, Jean-Fish.""I should go, actually. Finish as much as I can before we go on leave."But he lingered, caressing her arm, reaching for her face. His fingertips felt warm along her cheek. It reminded her of the beginning, when she'd been so surprised and disbelieving. He had reassured her even though he'd had his own doubts -- they'd reassured each other by turns."I love you, Jean-Fish."He sat up, leaning across to kiss her. "I'll be back in a while. Keep that smile, it looks good on you."But after he left, she lay next to her son, who still slept. She traced his profile, felt the minute movement of air as he breathed, and remembered the day he was born. Remembered the sudden emptiness and the wrench of returning to duty while Yves left the ship in the care of others. The emptiness she felt now was different, but no less distressing.Rubbing her abdomen, she watched her baby sleep and tried to feel happy. She had, at times, but wondered now if she could only do it when Jean-Luc was with her. At the moment all she could feel was loss, and memories of other losses came to mind.Yves woke and kicked; she pushed herself on an elbow and smiled down at him. His eyes fixed on her face. Though his expression didn't change, she sensed that it comforted him to have her there -- he was happy. The pain of loss retreated.Taking him into her arms, she got up and headed for the rocking chair in the nursery.~^~^~^~^~I made it home in plenty of time for lunch. A quick tour through quarters reassured me that all was as I left it, except for the case with a green bow on it that lay on the couch. Must be Beverly's present to me, for the anniversary that almost turned disastrous. I sat and opened it.A new guitar. I'd mentioned losing my old one when the ship I'd been XO on had been destroyed and the crew had to bail in pods. The Glendenning family had a penchant for all things musical. We all danced, and my sisters had musical talent; Catriona the professional dancer also played a passable flute, Olivia had provided piano accompaniment for all of us, the twins had taken up oboe and clarinet. I was the odd one out as usual. I hated piano, broke reeds on Chloe's clarinet, learned a scale on the flute and quit, then a friend showed me his guitar and taught me a few chords. Mom got me a guitar eagerly when I asked and sent me to a friend of hers for lessons. No one could ever accuse me of having a future in music, but I could play it.I tried a few chords. You never forget -- it came back to me quickly, my hands moved almost out of instinct, and though I knew I'd have sore fingertips I played until I'd remembered that song.My father had played piano. It was how my parents met -- he had been playing for fun one night in the theater on Academy grounds, and she was there to take a look at the stage before a performance she was to be in. In one of his last messages home before his death, he'd sent along a recording he'd made of a song he played and sang, and my mother had played it for me years later, after I'd learned what he really was.I still knew almost all the words. The chords came back slower. By the time Beverly came in, I had both words and music -- but my resolve faltered. I couldn't play it for her yet. With a shift of the chords, I resorted to another song from one of several recording my mother had made of my dad noodling around at the piano when he'd come home from space. I hammed it up terribly."Hey bud, is that your sister or is it that she can't see so good?I've been all around this world and I've never understoodWhat makes a woman love, what makes somebody careThere ought to be some logic but I don't see any there. . . .Doot doo doo . . . ."Beverly busied herself with getting things from the replicator while I plucked out exaggerated vamped chords and tried to sing more or less on key. She even smiled a little at the long string of doot-doodly-doo, so I moved on."Do you have a lot of money or some hidden attribute?Can't she face the obvious, her problem is acuteCause you don't know how to dress; you got that goofy little walkYour girlfriend needs a raincoat 'cause you sputter when you talkI've boned up on my history and it's still a mysteryMister, it's a mystery to meMaybe she's a saint who took some pity on your soulShe had too much compassion and then just went out of controlNow you're walking hand in hand, I'd have said no wayI do believe in miracles 'cause I've seen one todayDoes she have a judgement problem or maybe lose some kind of bet?Contract some strange affliction doctors haven't conquered yet?What makes a woman love, what makes somebody careThere ought to be some logic but I don't see any there. . . ."I ended with a long string of doodly-doot-doos but couldn't get another smile out of her. I set aside the guitar and joined her for a quiet lunch.The longer she took to speak, the harder it got for me to sit still. We sat over empty plates for a bit, then she smiled. She couldn't look at me for more than a few seconds. Her eyes landed here and there, finally coming to rest on the guitar."Play something else. Do you do requests?""I'm not that good. Let's see what else I can remember." I moved to the couch again and picked up the guitar. Most of what I knew were folk songs, the sort groups sing around camp fires. I was pretty bad and my fingers were getting sore. Finally, I put us both out of misery and set the instrument aside."Thanks for the guitar. It's a good one. You'll have to forgive my sorry playing, it's only been years since the last time I played.""It sounded okay to me." She rested her chin on the back of the couch, draping herself like a lazy cat. "What was your mother like? Did she know what your father did?""She found out after he was gone. You know who delivered the message? Lieutenant Picard."Beverly gaped. "Really?""Jean-Luc was aboard Dad's ship for a short time.""Oh." She fidgeted and glanced around. "I should get back.""Sure." I knew there wasn't anything to get back to. Inventory of sickbay supplies, maybe, or one of her ongoing research projects. She had no patients. But she got up, fidgeted a little more, and smiled the weak smile of someone trying really hard to act like nothing's wrong and knowing she's failing."Tom," she began, glancing around."It's all right, Beverly."Her eyes settled on me. "Is it?""I understand how you feel. I'm grateful you're giving me a chance. It's probably more than I deserve.""I don't think you understand how I feel at all."I couldn't make a sound. I looked up at her, wishing I could read minds."You can't," she continued, hugging herself and looking at the floor again. "You've never lost someone and known that the people responsible would never be punished for his death.""Fine," I croaked. "Then I know how Wesley feels. I lost my father to them. I've lost more than that -- do you think I enjoy living in their shadow? And now I'll probably lose you, which is the worst yet, but I suppose I should expect it. Some bad decisions you never recover from, you just have to live with the consequences. I'm doing my best, Beverly. I can't see what else I can do."She hurried out of the room. I'd probably just made another mistake. Rather than sit around thinking about it, I checked messages and uploaded a bunch of things to a padd for further study on the fly. Time to survey the repairs to my ship.The romantic pictures the PR department paints of command don't include the reality of administrative nightmares. Captains have a variety of functions, but we spend most of our time supervising, and that means our primary occupation is information exchange. All the reports of department heads go to us. It's our job to deduce where problems might develop and make decisions on what to do about it. We report to our CO on the ship's status, the crew's status, and the mission status. We have to know enough about everything to make coherent summary reports. Admirals don't want to wade through endless details unless it's absolutely necessary, but they want to know The Important Things, which includes day-to-day operations, not just that last world where someone killed the last serpent in Klonath Lake by accident. If we miss something, if our reports are inadequate and there's a tangible result -- a malfunction, a depressed crew member going stark raving lunatic with a spanner, a complaint filed by an officer regarding something we've overlooked because we fell asleep reading the relevant report -- a full investigation can be launched and a career ended. The captain is always responsible. You've got to have a well-oiled set of senior officers who work together well and write decent reports; it can make or break you.Data caught up with me in a corridor on my way to engineering. "Good morning, sir.""Hi, Data. Everything ship shape?""Yes, sir." He smiled. That was a running joke -- the first time I had asked, he'd provided the galaxy's longest detailed list of things shaped like a ship. Intrepids looked like teaspoons, Sovereigns like standard-issue shovels, and so on. I let him go until he stopped on his own. I told him if he ever did that again when he knew what I'd really meant, I'd put replication units in his mouth, a spigot where his ear was, and program him so I wouldn't have to leave the bridge for coffee. He stared at me a moment, then grinned and told me he believed he would like serving with me.I guess that was something else you would've had to be there to appreciate. My life is full of those."How was babysitting?" I asked, remembering his intent to volunteer to do so for the Picards on their anniversary."Educational. Did you enjoy your dinner?""Sure." Tit for tat. No details on babysitting, no dirt on dinner. "What do you think of Maven? You've met her, haven't you?"Data's lips sprang back to their default position, losing the smile. "I have. I do not believe Captain Picard will tolerate her for very long.""Not like he has much choice when it's temporary and the admiral put her there.""If she is disruptive he would have grounds to dismiss her. Sir, about the flight control officer and the other changes on the duty roster -- if you have no objections I would like to proceed with the assignments and inform the officers before I go on leave.""If you sent them I've got them here." I held up the padd. "I'll let you know by the end of the day. Going somewhere special on leave?""Worf has offered transportation to Deep Space Nine. I have not been there since before the Dominion War, and have not been to Bajor. This seemed an excellent opportunity to go. I believe Captain Riker has also taken him up on the offer of a ride.""Good. Hope you enjoy your week of wormhole-watching.""There is far more to do than simply watch the wormhole. A team of Bajoran scientists has recreated an ancient type of solar sail ship, and intends to launch it in three days. I have asked to be a part of the crew." Data hesitated, and I knew that meant something serious was about to come out. "Sir, I have noticed that there are very few families aboard. Is that intentional?""Not really. There aren't so many families on ships in general, these days. Why?""I had thought about attempting to create another child."The wording and the idea brought me to a halt. "Another?""I attempted to build another android. She did not. . . survive. I thought I should ask you before devoting any ship resources to another such project."Data's schematics are sealed up tighter than Maven's shorts. You either have higher clearance than mine, or his permission, or you don't see them. But I could imagine what went into an android like him and he'd told me some of the basics. "You'd be getting the materials yourself?""Certainly.""What would you need in the way of space?""One of the labs could be easily tailored to suit my purposes. I would only utilize off duty time -- I would not require paternity leave.""Paternity -- aw, hell, Data," I exclaimed, laughing and running my fingers through my hair. "Go ahead, plan and build as you wish. It'll be fun. I can start making you the butt of parent jokes.""Thank you, sir. Perhaps I will name him after you.""Shit! That's the last thing I'd want. How about twins? Bit and Byte?"He walked to the transporter room with me, as we discussed names for android offspring in our usual half-serious, half-teasing way. "By the way," I began as if it had been the last thing on my mind, "did you give out any classified information to your former CO recently? A sign and countersign, for instance?"I'd never seen him well and truly caught in the act before. He turned dead serious, actually looking worried. "The admiral gave me a direct order to tell her anything that I could to prove you were trustworthy. I could not give her any information but I could suggest that she confront you directly. She took that suggestion in a manner other than I intended, I fear. Captain Picard argued against her idea. Deanna commented that you would see through any attempt to pretend to be a fellow agent, because of the elaborate uses of passwords -- that led the admiral to ask if one of us knew any of them. Since the alternative was to foster the admiral's mistrust of you, and the consequences of that might be detrimental to your career as well as our extracurricular goals, I gave the information to Captain Picard, knowing that he would not use it unwisely and that you would pass whatever test the admiral decided to give you."I couldn't suppress the grin. Knowing that Data had acted out of a desire to protect me made a world of difference. He'd never be devious. I had wanted him as first officer for that reason, and I appreciated him now more than ever."Thanks, Data. Have a good time on Bajor."He smiled again. "I will, sir. I hope your leave is equally satisfying." And just like that, he was walking away again.I glanced at the padd as I turned to go, and one of the headers stopped me in my tracks. Bringing up the message stunned me backward a step. I'd contacted one of the very few people I'd ever heard of who had connections to the Section, someone Sloan had name-dropped once in passing. A doctor on Deep Space Nine. I'd checked him out before making contact and couldn't see anything suspicious.The message I got back used words like 'serendipitous' and 'have some news for you.' And would I please come to the station, to discuss our 'mutual friend' and to pick up something that he'd determined was mine.Movement without thinking should be my trademark. I looked up to find Ensign Zhezwinn eyeballing me with all four stalks. I'd walked into the transporter room."Zhir?""The Enterprise, Ensign.""Yezh, zhir."I was lucky I could speak, at that point. About the time I reached Picard's quarters, it finally occurred to me that I'd come here without thinking. About the time I'd hit the annunciator, it occurred to me to wonder why. Maybe the fact that Jean-Luc came across as someone who respected your right to be a dumbass.Now, there's an ancient word. If the archaic colloquialism fits, though. . . .When the door opened I was confronted by a tired-looking Betazoid wearing a pink robe. "Oh. Sorry. I'll -- ""What's wrong, Tom?" She pulled me inside. "Sit down."I couldn't sit. Pacing around the room, I handed her the padd on my first pass, then kept going with my hands in my hair and my head down. After another two circuits she got in front of me and grabbed me by both arms. She backed me up to a chair and shoved."It's a mistake," I exclaimed as I let myself fall.Deanna pulled the other chair around and turned it to face mine at an angle. Counselors did that. Face the patient, but not directly. We sat under the viewports, a large decorative flowering plant behind her, and I tried to comprehend what might have led to this."It doesn't look like a mistake. I doubt Dr. Bashir would have said anything if he hadn't run all the necessary tests. Have you asked Beverly to check?"That was the last straw. For the first time in decades, I lost control of myself, without the influence of alcohol or temporary insanity. Face in my hands, a knot in my gut, I cried. I'm sure she's seen grown men cry before; she didn't try to comfort me, but she did bring me something to wipe my face after the few moments of rainy weather."Shit," I gasped, yanking the cloth from her fingers. The last thing I wanted was her mopping my face like a mother. "Sorry.""Don't worry. I won't think any less of you for it. You can talk to me, Tom. I'm good at confidentiality.""Yeah, but talking won't do any good. I've lost her. She's already halfway gone. There's nothing I can say or do that I haven't already, and this -- "Deanna sat again, her hands clasped in her lap. "Go to her. Give her the chance. You know she loves you.""Sometimes love isn't enough."She has such sad eyes, sometimes. "If you decide that's so, you're right. It can only make a difference if you allow it to. She thought she knew you intimately, Tom. Then you reveal your Section affiliation to her. It shocked her.""And you want me to shock her again by telling her about this?""This is different. This will give her something immediate and concrete that she can help you with. She needs something to do, it's how she handles her fear. Go ask your chief medical officer to help you with this. I have the feeling the rest of it will work itself out with time."Deanna's worked with Beverly for a long time. I guess she'd know. Still, going back to my ship and heading for sickbay sounded like a bad idea."You are correct," Deanna murmured. "She's halfway gone. But she's still here, and she wants to believe that the man she's lived with for almost a year wasn't only pretending. You're the only one who can convince her of that, Tom.""Thanks. I needed to hear it from someone else, I guess. How are you? Better?"A tired smile. "Getting there." She glanced at the nursery door seconds before a familiar wail started. "Duty calls. It's good to see you. I was worried about you."My surprise turned to awkward fumbling when she looked askance at me. I stood up, and she got up with me. "I'll let you get back to Yves -- see you later."She sees right through you. Her dark eyes seemed to say as much, anyway. Another smile, with a hint of mischief, and she grabbed my arm. "You haven't held the baby yet."What was I going to do, run? I let her drag me into the nursery and watched her pick up the kid with the usual maternal spot inspection."This is your Uncle Tom," she told the still-whimpering baby as she handed him to me. His vaguely-unhappy expression and slightly-crossed pale gray eyes were typical of young infants. The end of my finger fit neatly in one of his hands; he gripped it like a baby will do. He yawned, made a few more distressed noises, and settled in."Cute kid," I said, wishing kids didn't make me such a big softie."Having a child alters one's perspective radically. You begin to see your choices in a new light." She let me pass him back to her. "Everything you do affects another person, or people, when you have a family. It can either free you or make you feel confined -- I know I look at my career differently now. I'll adjust. It will get easier. I've made adjustments to life-changing events before."I knew what she was subtly trying to tell me. "Like marrying Captain Picard?""Like marrying a former patient who is also Captain Picard, who was at one time unable to bring himself to join his officers for a simple poker game. Some of us have difficulty letting another person become too familiar with who we really are. But loving someone and letting them love you in return can empower you."I merely nodded, handed over the kid, and left. She didn't seem to mind my not saying good-bye. She probably knew how uncomfortable the whole conversation had become. I hurried to the transporter room, shoring up my determination to see this through to the bitter end."Doctor," I exclaimed, striding into Beverly's office with more confidence than I felt. "I need your opinion on something."She accepted the padd I offered. I sat down to wait. She remained calm, but frowned as she read through the information Bashir had sent. Finally her eyes flicked up to meet mine."It looks like you have a daughter, Captain.""I'll have to go get her. It'll give you time to think while I'm gone, I guess. When we get back I'll have you examine -- ""Excuse me, sir, but I think it would be best if I went with you. I could talk to Dr. Bashir and this Counselor Dax in person and examine the girl there."Her formality hadn't been unexpected; she retreated to it in moments of public discomfort, and since this was sickbay it qualified as public. My tongue seized up. When I could finally inhale, I put a hand over my eyes and sighed."Tom," she began softly, then surprised me. "Geraint. We'll go together.""This isn't fair to you. I don't expect -- ""I don't care what you expect, look at me, damn it!" She leaned forward, elbows on her desk, and glared through tears. "You were right. All I could think about was what I lost -- but I haven't lost you yet. I know you're doing what you can to get out of it. Can't we just go forward from here? One day at a time?""That's up to you. Are you sure you even want to try?"She glanced down at the padd. Her throat moved as she swallowed. "After my husband died, I wrapped myself up in career and motherhood as if it could keep me safe. It did, for a long time. When I finally tried to come out of stasis I found that everything had changed. Wesley is on his own, I don't even know where he is. My career isn't enough any more. I want what I had before you told me about 31. I don't know if it's going to work or not, but the only way to find out is to try -- I'll never know if I leave, and I'd always look back and wonder if it would have worked. I have enough things to look back and wonder about.""All right." My hands trembled, I noticed, and I grabbed the arms of the chair to stop them. "All right.""Is it? You don't look so good.""Wrong kind of stress. I'd rather be facing down a fleet of battleships. You scared the living shit out of me, Verly, I thought I'd lose you the minute I told you about my sordid past, and when I got this message about this girl, I thought it would tip the balance for sure.""Well, surprise." She came around the desk. I stood to meet her and surprised myself with shaky knees.Having her in my arms again felt damn good. "I should probably tell you I don't think she's mine.""It's a little hard to argue with genetics, Tom.""But I'm more careful than that, and I've never had a Bajoran girlfriend. I've worked with several, one of them quite closely, but I've never had sex with one. I don't even know if conception would be possible -- is it?"She sighed. "It's not a simple thing, but it is. There's no chance you might've gotten drunk and forgotten?""I worked with Bajorans. I don't drink and work. I especially don't get tipsy while on a covert op, and all of my encounters with Bajorans fall in that category.""Well, there's enough evidence that she's related to you in some way. Want me to pull up your DNA and show you?""No. I'm sorry," I mumbled into her hair. "I'll find a way through this.""That's the only thing you do that bugs me. You act like I'm not part of the equation.""That's not true. I can't expect you to take any risks in something that I brought on myself long before I met you."She grabbed my shoulders and held me away from her, thumbs digging into my arms. "You don't have to expect anything. You could accept the help when offered, though, couldn't you? At least make me feel included?""If it's the only thing that bugs you, I guess I could try."She sniffed. "Well, there's also that annoying little thing you do with your fork when you're eating pasta. And when you intentionally stomp on my toes when we're dancing.""Don't push your luck, sweet pea.""That's okay." Her lips grazed my cheek. "Twiddle pasta all you like. I'm your officer, Tom. I'm your friend. I love you. If I can do anything, even if it's risky, I want to. All right?""You can trust me?""Can I?"I certainly hoped so. At least she'd gone with the part of her that wanted to stay, for now.~^~^~^~^~ From the nursery, the sounds of Yves being inconsolable slowed. Deanna cleaned up after their guests, the parents and children of the Enterprise, and let Papa handle the infant crisis of the moment. The little gathering had worn on Jean-Luc's patience, especially when Kenny Ching demanded a piggy-back ride. The party had gone on too long for "Uncle Captain's" taste.They hadn't heard from Tom or Beverly again. Hopefully, that meant things were going well. Deanna kept pushing them from her thoughts, determined to keep her focus on her own concerns. She participated vicariously in the process of soothing the baby, caught up in the emotions of her family and the contentment it brought her to sense the echoes of their reactions to one another. It made her movements slower than they would have been as she picked up cups and stray toys.She shook herself out of the rapt focus on her son and husband when the annunciator sounded. She didn't recognize the person, which meant it wasn't a fellow crew member or one of their friends. Though there was something familiar about the visitor, that meant nothing. She needed more time with a person to identify them at first contact."Come," she called, turning from discarding the last few cups and straightening her dress. The doors opened, and Admiral Nechayev came in.She still wore the duty grays she'd been in the day before, but without pips or bars. "Commander," she said, sounding as pleasant as she didn't feel. Something bothered her. The 'static' of it registered as a murmur to Deanna's empathy."Admiral. Is there something we can do for you?"Nechayev glanced about. "Is the captain here?""He's trying to convince the baby to sleep. Would you like something to drink?""No, thank you." Nechayev gave her a quick look that might have gone unnoticed, if she weren't able to also sense the sudden interest behind it. The admiral said nothing, however.Deanna resumed her cleaning. As she leaned to pick up Mr. Tiggles, the stuffed targ toy one of the children had left for Yves, she heard the admiral clear her throat lightly."Commander, what do you think of Captain Glendenning?"Deanna hugged the targ and came around the table to face the admiral. "I don't understand the question. Surely you remember our earlier conversation -- the one during which you decided to stage the power play in the restaurant."She came closer, studying Deanna sharply. "I want to know your opinion of him, not your captain's.""Why do you think I was not expressing my opinion of him?""So you sense that he is trustworthy?"Pushing her shoulders back, Deanna inhaled, containing her irritation. "He hasn't lied to us. He didn't have to help us in the Briar Patch -- he could have concealed his affiliation with the Section easily, but he didn't.""That isn't what I asked."Deanna considered the admiral's request, but knew that like Tom, Nechayev had her share of unrevealed information. In the few discussions of the Section which Deanna had been present for, Nechayev had had an interesting array of emotional reactions to comments about Tom. Deanna gathered the admiral had a grudge, for some reason, and that something about Tom actually frightened her."Are you asking me for a subjective analysis based on what I sense? Those are often inaccurate, and like most Betazoids I respect the privacy of non-telepaths.""Your captain speaks of how much he trusts your judgement in log after log.""Perhaps because I only speak out when I believe my perceptions will benefit the mission?"Nechayev began to pace. Deanna let her, turning to face her as she circled the room. "Your perception of Glendenning is of no benefit to us, then? Does this mean you trust him in spite of what you sense?""It means that I trust him because his actions coincide with what I sense.""And what is that, exactly?"Jean-Luc emerged from the nursery. He glanced at Nechayev, whose back was turned to him, and at Deanna, questioning."Are you wishing a cumulative report of what I sensed from him, or a simple report of what he is now? There has been quite a change in him since my first encounter with him.""When was that first encounter?""About a year and a half ago.""Cumulative, then.""Tom and Jean-Luc and several other captains met in the back room of a bar one evening, and I was waiting in the bar for Jean-Luc. Tom struck me as hard and cynical, ruthless, keeping up a facade of pleasantness for the sake of appearances. When we met again six months later, he had changed -- I sensed that the hardness had given way to a raw, rough-edged frustration. At that point he met Dr. Crusher and each successive time I have seen him, he was more open and less cynical. And, at irregular intervals, he was afraid. I suspect that part of his fear was associated with the knowledge that the Section might contact him and his time with Beverly would likely end. He's never expected her to tolerate his occupation.""What about his motives?""I can't sense motivations. Only emotions. If I were to judge his motives based upon my observations, I would likely be wrong.""Admiral," Jean-Luc said, stepping into the conversation. "I wasn't aware you were still on the starbase.""It seemed silly to go all the way back to Earth when the admiralty ball will be on Deep Space Nine." Nechayev smiled at him. "You will be attending as well, for once? I doubt you'll be able to find an emergency to keep you away with your ship under repair.""We'll be leaving tomorrow, actually. We're meeting Deanna's mother on the station -- she's also attending the ball.""I see. Perhaps we could go together.""If you aren't opposed to riding in a shuttle with someone you don't trust," Deanna said. "Captain Glendenning is going with us as well.""Why should that bother me?""I don't know why. I only know he frightens you.""I am not frightened of Captain Glendenning," Nechayev exclaimed."I'm sorry, Admiral, of course you aren't. That's a ridiculous notion. Please excuse my irrational and erroneous observation."The admiral eyed her, glancing at Jean-Luc just as suspiciously. "Is she this disrespectful all the time?"Jean-Luc straightened his shirt. The old habit persisted even out of uniform. "It's not disrespect. You asked her to be honest about her observations, Elena.""Fear would be justified if you're on Tom's bad side. He's very quick and deadly when he wants to be." Deanna tossed the stuffed targ on the couch."You were a lot more reassuring when you were a counselor," Jean-Luc exclaimed, giving her a warning look."It's true. I've seen Tom in action. I might be more wary of him myself if I didn't know he'd decided to work with us." She turned a cool look on Nechayev."When will we be leaving?" the admiral asked, addressing Jean-Luc."Ten hundred hours tomorrow.""I'll see you then." The admiral's eyes slid over Deanna as she turned to go. Wary. Interesting, in light of Nechayev's feelings about Tom. At Deanna's mention of Tom being quick and deadly, the admiral's trepidation had increased, and now she was suspicious of Deanna, as if merely knowing Tom was dangerous was in itself a threat. Perhaps the hint of comradery made her fear that Deanna would convey this conversation to Tom? So many possible explanations for such emotions. It was an empath's curse -- the preciseness of telepathy eluded her.After Nechayev left, Jean-Luc ran a hand over his scalp. "Must you play with the admiral, Dee?""She started it. I don't like being ordered to play sensor grid that way, not when it's a fellow officer. Tom isn't the enemy.""In a way, he is."Deanna did a double-take. "Are you starting to doubt him now, too?""No." He kneaded the back of his neck, sighing. "But I see the admiral's point of view. If we didn't know Tom as we do, if we hadn't been in the Briar Patch together facing the same enemies, I'd be skeptical too. Elena's right -- it isn't easy for leopards to change their spots.""You would know that better than anyone, I suppose."He raised an eyebrow and tilted his head, incredulous. "Are you saying that I've changed my spots?"Deanna sensed the upset an instant before Yves began to cry. She smiled when, without hesitation, Jean-Luc abandoned the conversation and went back to the nursery. Sitting on the couch, she kicked off her shoes. "I hope some things never change," she mumbled.~^~^~^~^~"Would you quit looking at me that way?" Beverly muttered, moving away from me."What way?" She hadn't moved far enough that I couldn't keep my arm around her waist."Ssh!"I thought I heard Deanna snicker. She didn't glance over her shoulder though, just kept walking down the corridor ahead of us toward the Enterprise shuttle bay."If I don't know how I'm looking at you how am I supposed to not -- ""Tom!" She stopped and faced me more directly. "What happened to the official low profile? For God's sake, you're not a teenager!"I feigned innocence, even added a one-shouldered shrug. When she didn't stop glaring, I sighed. "Fine. If you have to have an explanation, I'm completely infatuated with you all over again for sticking with me through this. I've always had to face things alone. Excuse me for rejoicing at my change of fortune.""Tom," she exclaimed again, but with less hostility and more exasperation."All right, let's go before they leave us here." She led the way through the door. We crossed the open area to the larger of the shuttles in the bay, and I let our bags slide off my shoulder so I could get through the door.This was a slightly-redesigned runabout, with seating for ten passengers. The interior smelled like a baby -- fortunately, like formula, not the less pleasant odors possible. Deanna sat, braided her hair, then picked up a bottle and resumed feeding Yves, who was strapped in a carrier sitting on the chair next to her. I put the bags in the back along with some others and sat across the aisle from her with Beverly. We enjoyed a few peaceful moments of watching a contented mother feeding her baby and glowing all over the place while she did it. Then Deanna's head jerked up as if she'd heard someone sneaking up on her; sighing heavily, she glanced at me, then over her shoulder at the door." -- don't see why we can't," a familiar voice exclaimed. Nechayev entered, took a chair behind me, and raised an eyebrow at me. "Something wrong, Captain?"Jean-Luc came in and tossed a bag in the back. "I thought we were taking the gig," he exclaimed, heading forward."Talk to your first officer," Deanna shot back. "She has it scheduled for maintenance.""My ship is undergoing major repair and she wants to maintain the gig that hardly ever sees use and sustained no damage. Women," he tossed over his shoulder as he passed into the cockpit."Be careful how you say that," Deanna called. "Don't insult the pilot.""Oh, great, we're on the good ship Estrogen," I said, not able to stop myself even in the presence of Our Lady of Admiralty. Damned nervous babbling. Deanna gave me a laughing, I-don't-believe-you-said-that look. I knew Nechayev and Beverly were staring. Trapped aboard the shuttle Estrogen and no help in sight."Are you saying you don't have enough testosterone to balance the load?" Deanna has a great cheesy grin. Jean-Luc, who'd been coming back out, stopped in the door and blinked, then returned to the cockpit. Seconds later Natalia Greenman, in dark blue pants and a lighter blue shirt, trotted out. She grinned at me and sat with Deanna. The lieutenant looked too young to be as tough as I knew she was. I understood why Jean-Luc had more or less adopted her as a protege and hoped he'd have better results with her than I'd had with Emily Forbes."What are you doing out here? I thought you were the pilot," Beverly said."The captain decided he wanted to do it." She whipped out a deck of cards. "Feeling lucky?" she asked, waving the deck at me."Kid, you're really pushing it.""I know my salary's not much, but why are you complaining when I'm practically giving it to you?"We waited until after takeoff and rearranged ourselves around the table in the back, Deanna with the baby in her arms and a spot of urp on the shoulder of her pastel green dress. She's been wearing brighter colors since we got to starbase after the Briar Patch, as if counteracting the drab gray and black of her uniform. Greenman didn't blink twice when the admiral joined us.I had the distinct pleasure of whupping the britches off Nechayev and Greenman, until I got a crummy hand and bluffed too big. When the cards went down, Deanna took all, with a shit-eating smirk I had to laugh at. I wanted to know why Nechayev was there but asking might upset the equilibrium -- she played with a straight face, smiling very little and saying next to nothing. Surprising that she even participated. But the glances at me made me wonder if she might be trying to get on my good side. Now, there's a bit of silliness. Like she'd even care about being on my good side. I probably had crumbs in my mustache or something.We eventually lost interest. When the play became listless, Bev returned to the seats closer to the front with a medical journal. Nechayev just moved and sat with folded arms, and Greenman rummaged in the baggage and came up with a honest-to-goodness paper book before moving forward. Deanna, however, stayed at the table and watched me shuffle and start a game of solitaire."What?" I said at last, soft enough that hopefully the three up front wouldn't be disturbed."How are you?"I thought as I put down the cards and looked at her that this must be the counselor, as she'd been before becoming first officer. Very soft and inviting demeanor. One of the best I'd seen on a counselor -- that was probably the human male kicking in, responding to a pretty face showing interest. You just don't see that kind of demeanor on male counselors. My last two have been male."Coping. I have to."Yves complained but quieted when she shifted her grip on him and patted his back. Her automatic reassurances and the way she held the baby, familiar and possessive, differed from what I knew of mothers with infants. My sister Chloe had been a fluttery, devoted, paranoid mother, toting around her baby as if she'd glued him to her arm and didn't quite know how to handle him. Deanna's natural serenity trebled when she held Yves, although there was that lingering air of sadness."Still thinking about the Briar Patch?"It startled her into looking at me in dismay. "Sending away your own child to be raised by others is not an easy thing to forgive yourself for," she murmured."Was that the first time you were in command and facing possibly-fatal circumstances?"Her wry amusement overtook angst, her lips twisting into a half-smile. "Having a child changes everything. I know you don't feel that you have one yet. That will change.""Right. Some little wild thing will instill such a rush of paternal instinct that I'll actually enjoy explaining to people how come she's got a crinkly nose and Beverly doesn't." Our earlier conversation had made me too aware that Deanna could read me easily, and in my nervousness I'd gotten careless.Her own cares faded rapidly from her face. She stared at me, the goddess of Unfathomable Expressions That Mean Something, and I waited for the slap across the face, or for her to get up and march stiffly away rather than dignify it with a response."Does it embarrass you that she is half Bajoran?"A shot to the gut. I was talking to a half Betazoid, for heaven's sake. Holding a less-than-half Betazoid son. "No. If I was going to have kids, which I would never have planned to do, I'd want to do it with Verly.""Have you talked about it?""She doesn't want kids. Neither do I.""Is that a voiced consensus, or just your perception?"I shuffled and reshuffled the deck. "I know she doesn't.""How? Did you discuss it with her?" I gave her an angry look. She opened her mouth, moving as if chewing on the words before she said them, and replied, "Why are you so afraid to let her love you?"Part of me bristled at the accusation of fear but she had a way of being so quietly matter-of-fact about it that I couldn't be angry. Hiding behind a nose-scratch, I glanced at Beverly and found that she was going into the cockpit. I remembered the night we'd met, her tears and desperation, and the elation of finally seeing her smile in genuine pleasure."Why are you so convinced she'll stop loving you?" Deanna whispered.In a shuttle, no one can run very far. Rather than charge madly away from the question as I wanted, I went back to solitaire. I hummed to myself while rearranging the cards and smiled in surprise at the tune I'd picked without thinking about it. I gathered the cards with a few sweeps of my hands and reshuffled the losing game. Deanna seemed content to wait for an answer; I decided to let the song be my answer, and dealt another row of solitaire for myself while singing as if it were a lullaby for Yves."He deals the cards as a meditationand those he plays never suspect,he doesn't play for the money he wins,he doesn't play for respect.He deals the cards to find the answer,the sacred geometry of chance,the hidden law of a probable outcome,the numbers lead a dance.I know that the spades are swords of a soldierI know that the clubs are weapons of warI know that diamonds mean money for this artBut that's not the shape of my heart."Out of the corner of my eye I noticed her smiling at me. I looked up, surprised, and she leaned closer, beckoning with a finger for me to do the same. Her words tickled my ear."Maybe if you stopped playing solitaire, it wouldn't be so much of a losing game. There's strength in numbers, you know."She left me and went forward, disappearing into the cockpit.Damned empath.~^~^~^~^~"Fear isn't a good reason," Jean-Luc was saying as Deanna came in. "It's understandable, but you can't justify acting on it."Beverly sat in the chair to the left, a hand to her head as if she suffered a headache. "I keep going back and forth -- it's going to drive me crazy. When I'm with him, I'm sure of him. I have to be objective about this." She kept her voice low as Jean-Luc's; they'd been conversing quietly for some time, Deanna guessed.Yves whimpered, startling the doctor; Jean-Luc merely glanced up at Deanna. She sidled to his chair and leaned on the arm. "This wasn't what you told me yesterday."Beverly gaped at her. "You said I should think it through, I've been doing that. I don't know if I can live with the uncertainty. The Section is all about keeping secrets -- what if he really hasn't changed?""What if he has?" She handed the baby to Jean-Luc, leaning low enough to brush the side of his head with a breast. He glanced sharply at her."My cousin is coming with my mother, did I tell you?" she said."Which one?""Guess.""Walima?""What makes you think that?""It's the way my luck runs. She's the only cousin who's potentially more of a nuisance than your mother."Deanna smiled, glanced at Beverly, and patted the back of Jean-Luc's head -- in the company of others, a safe gesture only when he was holding the baby. "She likes you.""Which is precisely why she's dangerous. Terrible thing, to be liked by a Troi.""I know. You suffer so much because of it, don't you?""Here's a prime example -- one of them just handed me a baby who needs a new diaper.""It's your turn." She sat in his place after he took Yves out."I'm tempted to go watch," Beverly murmured."Can't believe he'd do it? Or did you want pictures for future blackmail?" Deanna checked the shuttle's course and watched the sensors for a moment."I almost backed out of coming."The confession got Deanna's attention. Beverly looked across the cockpit at her, the redness around her eyes finally visible now that she did so. "But you didn't.""But I wanted to -- I don't know if I can do this, Dee. She's half Bajoran -- probably a war orphan."Deanna laughed, sinking into the chair."What's so funny?""You, expecting normal from a starship captain.""He's not even normal for a captain.""You like the unusual. You have a habit of falling for 'interesting' men. If I were still a counselor, we could discuss the possibility of your having such a fear of commitment that you perpetually choose men you perceive as unavailable or unsuitable.""But you're not a counselor," Beverly whispered, though she sounded like she'd rather shout. "And I don't perceive them as unsuitable, they become that way!"Deanna shot her a disbelieving look. "Do they? Or is it that once you really know someone and find he's got a flaw -- or something you perceive as potentially causing difficulty in the future -- you panic?""I suppose you haven't fallen for anyone who could be considered unavailable or unsuitable?"As an answer, Deanna slapped her hand on a panel, her wedding ring striking the thin metal with a crack. "Not recently," she said stiffly. Raising her head, she eyed the doctor down her nose. "People change, Beverly, but they have to want to do it. Change can be hard, can feel almost impossible -- but it can happen to any of us.""Why are you playing these head games with me?""I won't sit back and watch you think yourself into retreating to work and ignoring the problem -- again. If you don't give it more time you'll fret incessantly over what might have happened if you stayed. You don't think I knew how many doubts and second thoughts you had after Odan?"Beverly threw herself back in the chair and made a frustrated noise. They rode in silence. When Jean-Luc returned some ten minutes later, she glanced at him. "Here, you can have my chair."He watched her leave, recovered from his surprise, and sat, Yves in his lap. "What's she so upset about?""She doesn't like guerilla counseling.""I thought you weren't going to get involved in their business."They looked at each other over the length of the main console. The yellow, red and green indicators cast their light on Jean-Luc's face; the overhead light was dimmed, making the blurred stars on the viewports all the brighter."Noodge," Jean-Luc mumbled."Tom's good at hiding his feelings but he's nearer the breaking point all the time. She wouldn't be so afraid if he weren't pushing her away.""Why would he do that?""He's not doing it on purpose." Deanna watched their son wave a fist. "He's always been a loner. Letting her in was, in a way, the hardest thing he's ever done."Jean-Luc nodded, dropping his gaze to Yves and smiling. "I'd say letting her stay in is the hardest thing. Intimacy can be frightening. He's just revealed more of himself than she'd known before, and it's not something you expect anyone to like.""Was letting me in difficult?"He raised his head. One eyebrow twitched. "I suspect that it was a mere formality -- you knew more about me than anyone else, by then. Was it difficult for you?"She could have easily said yes and dismissed the question, but easy was something they didn't make a habit of being. "Only for a while. But tension is a normal part of the beginnings of a relationship. Part of the excitement lies in the suspense of getting to know someone.""When we get to the station, there's something I'd like to try.""What's that?""Well, you know your mother will probably appropriate Yves for a while when she arrives. I'd like to take advantage of that. We could put some suspense back into our relationship."The computer beeped, drawing her attention to the readouts. She tapped in a few commands and the stars shifted. The station hung in space ahead of them, no bigger than an apple."What did you have in mind?" she asked, punching in their approach vector and reaching for the comm."I thought you liked surprises, Deebird.""You know I do," she whispered. "Especially your surprises.""Good."She knew how happy that made him. As she contacted the station for docking instructions, she wished she felt so happy, but it was as it had been for days, as if she carried her own personal black hole to suck away the happiness she should feel. Glancing at her partial reflection in the curve of the viewport, she noticed a hint of the despair in her face and composed herself.She eased the shuttle in gently. Powering down the engines as they matched the station's rotation speed and maneuvering in on thrusters only came as the result of an impulse. She felt foolish seconds after touchdown."You know, I think we have the wrong person at the helm these days," Jean-Luc said, rising as she began putting the systems on standby. He stopped, still in such a way that she knew he'd detected something amiss.She made her fingers dance across the last few controls, turned the chair, and reached for Yves. As she took the baby, her eyes met Jean-Luc's. He waited. Finally, she identified the waiting -- it was a mirror of her own patience with someone who couldn't speak of something both parties knew was wrong. He knew it was more than she'd made it out to be.The realization brought her to tears. At once, his hand came up, his thumb grazed her cheek, taking with it the moisture gathering on her lashes, and he gripped her shoulder."It's going to be all right," he whispered.More tears, spilling too quickly to catch. She glanced nervously toward their passengers. He guided her to sit again, patted her shoulder, and left her there. While she hugged Yves the others talked, Tom laughed, Natalia offered to help carry baggage, and Beverly said nothing. Jean-Luc sent Natalia to carry the admiral's baggage and told Tom they'd see him and Beverly later.He returned when all was quiet. "Let's go see what a few extra credits will get you in the way of housing.""All right." She followed him, watched him shoulder their bags, and took the baby's from him. "I'm sorry."He sighed, mouth tilted in an incredulous half-wince. "I hope you didn't think I wouldn't notice. Come on, this isn't the place to discuss it."~^~^~^~^~The station was as I remembered it, almost. Lots of Bajorans and Starfleet milling around, and a fair share of aliens, including some I didn't recognize. Traffic through the wormhole had increased. And then there were the Romulans. As we reached our rooms, two of them passed us in the corridor. Beverly glanced at them then at me as she reached for the lock panel.She was being too quiet. I noticed as we put away a few things and checked out the rooms that her hands shook. I got myself something to drink from the replicator as she meandered over to the window and stared out at where the wormhole should be."Nice room," I commented, waving the glass at our surroundings and stepping up next to her. She looked at me at long last. The red eyes were a shocker. Though she winced when I brushed her hair back from her face, she didn't turn away."I love you," I said, reaching for her. "I'm sorry.""I'm afraid," she blurted. Suddenly we were wrapped around each other -- no more stiffness or awkwardness, as there had been since my untimely revelation."I'm terrified. Can't let it get to me. Don't have time for it.""What am I going to do with you?" The catch in her voice as she spoke against my shoulder told me she was crying. "I'm trying -- I am, but the Section -- ""Sssh. Don't mention them. Not here, not now. We'll be all right for a while yet. Come sit down and have something to eat, and let's talk."But we ate in silence, and sat at the table for a long time afterward staring out at where the wormhole would appear. It opened and closed twice. She took my hand."I'm glad you're here, Beverly. I don't know if I could get through this alone.""No man is an island.""But we can get good at pretending, can't we?"She turned from the window. "Too good. I'm sorry I'm so upset.""You have a right to be. I should have told you before now.""Are you ready to go see her?""Her." I found myself squeezing her fingers too hard. Nervousness -- bane of the Section agent. But I'd never been trained for this. I still had no idea how she could be mine, or who the mother could be."You might have to name her." She got up, pulling me after her, and I went along. "What do you think?""I don't know." She had no name that anyone knew; the girl hadn't spoken to anyone, in any language. "First thing that comes to mind is naming her after someone. Mom, Grandmother, maybe. . . . I don't know.""We could name her after my mother."Something about that suggestion killed me on the spot. My feet wouldn't leave the floor. Beverly wrapped herself around me and endured my struggle against tears and my attempts to break her ribs.It took a while to get out the door, but when we did, I glanced at her in the harsh bright light of the corridor and laughed. "We're the red-eye twins.""You've got a strange idea of togetherness. But at least we're together."I slowed, dragging her back to me, and held her again. It didn't do away with the fear, but she filled a void I'd carried with me for years. There's something the counselors have documented -- officers who've set aside emotional ties for years to pursue career goals have a higher incidence of clinical depression. Humans are social animals. We're wired to be that way, and though we can override our instincts for extended periods of time, it just isn't healthy to wall ourselves away from our fellow man. It makes for a psychological mess to let yourself become isolated completely. I'd come too close. My own personal void I'd long thought to be imperative. I could rationalize the distance by thinking of it as a safety measure, keeping my family and anyone else I let myself care about insulated and ignorant so the Section would have no reason to even suspect they might know more."Verly," I murmured into her hair. "I'm sorry.""Quit apologizing already.""Yes, sir."She pulled away, slapping my chest. "When are you going to loosen up and wear civvies?""In a while."We left the habitat ring and were soon meandering along the promenade toward the infirmary. I saw the Romulans again, among those out for a stroll. They didn't look at me. I knew who they were. Surprising to see Toreth -- the war had taken its toll on Romulan forces. She was still in command of her own ship, from the uniform, and the man with her must have been an officer. Body language of Romulans was one of my former topics of study, and theirs said business. I wondered what kind."Oh," Beverly gasped.I turned about out of habit, stopping her and myself as if to have a little conversation out of the main flow of traffic about some jewelry hanging on a rack outside a store. "Oh, what? Something wrong?"Her eyes met mine. She recovered from her startlement at my action. "Jean-Luc. He's over there talking to a woman.""Uh, so?"She rolled her eyes. "He's not just talking to her. It's. . . oh, hell, just look over there, to your right on the other side of the promenade next to the jumja kiosk."I glanced over my shoulder. There he was, out of uniform now, smiling and looking quite pleased to see the dark-haired woman he was talking to. The woman was Betazoid, a little taller than Deanna -- if Dee cut her hair off to just shy of shoulder length and ironed out the curls, she'd be a ringer for her. Except it seemed to me this woman was a bit older -- a few more lines in the face. She wore a loose flowing purple dress, very Betazoid-ladies-leisure-wear, and seemed happy to see Jean-Luc. While I watched, she laid a hand on his arm and leaned closer as if conspiring. He laughed. I turned back to Bev before the pair could notice me gawking."Got to be family."Beverly gave me a 'what the hell' glance. "That's not her mother.""Family can mean aunts, too. Notice the strong resemblance?""Dee doesn't have any aunts. I'm going over there. He's seen us," she murmured, suddenly smiling as she dodged around me. Sighing, I followed dutifully.Jean-Luc gestured at us, and the woman turned around. Even her smile was reminiscent of Deanna. "Some friends," Jean-Luc was saying as we arrived. "Captain Thomas Glendenning and Doctor Beverly Crusher."I nodded and smiled. The woman glanced at Beverly and tucked her arm through Jean-Luc's, leaning intimately to stage-whisper in his ear. "She thinks you're being a very bad husband, dear. Standing out in the promenade with a strange woman, laughing and talking this way.""Uh," Beverly gasped, horrified.Jean-Luc actually laughed. "It's a good thing Plitty didn't come, then. Relax, Beverly, this is Mwala Troi. One of Deanna's cousins.""He's overjoyed that Walima canceled at the last moment and I came with Lwaxana instead," Mwala said."Stop that!" Jean-Luc cried, scowling."And just what's wrong with my sister Plitty?" Mwala exclaimed. She shoved him gently away. "She likes you.""She. . . never mind. Where the hell is Lwaxana?" I hadn't seen him flustered this way before.Mwala chuckled, winking at me and Beverly. I liked her already. "Lwaxana went looking for Deanna immediately, of course. I came looking for you. There wasn't a chance of holding the baby with Lwaxana in the room, anyway. We'll be lucky if she lets go of him some time today.""I'll bet she made things interesting for the other passengers on the transport from Betazed," Beverly said, grinning."Interesting doesn't begin to describe it." Mwala's eyes fell on me, and the amusement faded from them. "Are you all right, Captain?""Fine, why?"She never looked more like Deanna than in that instant, in which she became enigmatic and changed the subject. Smiling once more, she gestured at the store behind Jean-Luc. "You came here to get something?"He blinked, glanced over his shoulder, and stepped out with the alacrity of a man who'd been caught. "Oh, no, I was merely on my way back to Deanna -- I went to ops, to speak to Colonel Kira. Coming back with me?""See you later," Beverly called after them. Jean-Luc turned back to wave and smile -- he looked nervous. Mwala glanced back as well, but she was close to laughter. The two of them got lost in the increasing foot traffic on the promenade."Nice lady. Even if she gets a bit snoopy.""You haven't met Lwaxana yet. I get the feeling Mwala is like Deanna in more than just looks, though I'm sure Dee wouldn't tease him about shopping there." She obviously knew what the windowless storefront with cryptic red glyphs painted on the gray plating was."You know, I don't remember seeing a Risan store here before," I commented as we resumed our walk toward the infirmary. "Maybe I'll come back later and get you something.""As long as it's not. . . ."I didn't like the way she trailed away like that. Slowing, I watched her face, trying to meet her nervous eyes. "Not. . . .""I really liked your gifts," she began, taking a deep breath, "but I don't like peach.""Oh. All the more reason to get you something else, then. Since it's Risan I'm not likely to find any peach anything. So what does Verly like?"She seemed startled by my attitude. "Maybe I should just give you a list of definite dislikes, and let you surprise me.""If it's what you want. I keep telling you, just let me know what you want."We made it down the Promenade without further incident. Bashir greeted us happily as we entered the infirmary. Probably couldn't wait to get the kid out of his hair. "Captain -- Dr. Crusher, how nice to see you again.""Likewise. I'm Captain Glendenning's CMO. I reviewed the girl's file and since she'll be under my care, I thought I'd come see her for myself. I understand the child hasn't spoken?" Beverly had to be nervous. It would explain her sudden clinical tone."No, and it's apparently psychological. There's no physical reason for it. I'm surprised you didn't bring your ship's counselor along. . . ." Bashir's dark eyes flicked from Beverly to me and back.I debated, then risked it. Beverly didn't flinch away from my hand on her back, but I felt her muscles stiffen. "We had our reasons. Are you sure of your identification? There's no way she could be the child of a relative of mine -- say, a sibling?""Sibling? Do you have a reason to suspect that, Captain?""I just want to know if the possibility is there.""There's a chance. I would need DNA samples for comparison from your parents and siblings to rule it out. The process would actually be easier because she's half-Bajoran -- we only have one set of human genes to match. We brought her to my office, Counselor Dax is with her -- shall we?" Bashir's dark eyes questioned me for a second before he turned to lead us in.The girl stood at the end of Bashir's desk looking at the counselor, a short-haired woman sitting in one of the guest chairs. The woman looked up -- a Trill, from the spots -- and smiled. Bashir introduced us to her. I couldn't take my eyes off the girl, once I'd looked at her. She stared, so blank I could swear she'd been hypnotized.The faint ridges down her nose were the only visible sign of Bajoran ancestry. She had straight wheat-colored hair, cut unevenly to shoulder length, and luminous blue eyes. Sinclair eyes -- my mother's contribution to the Glendenning gene pool. No Bajoran had eyes like that. I don't think blue is genetically possible for them.I took slow steps forward, trying to find something to say, ready for her to flee and hoping she wouldn't. I wasn't prepared for her lunge toward me. Or the familiar icicle piercing my abdominal wall.Shock does weird things to your perception. I heard Beverly shouting as if from parsecs away, down a long tube. I raised my hand and saw my own blood on it before I realized I'd put it to my side. The floor slapped my cheek before I knew I was falling.In the tunnel vision of lapsing consciousness, I saw the girl looking down at me, a bloody blade protruding from the sleeve of the too-large gray jumpsuit she wore, no emotion in her heart-shaped face. Was this how those I'd dispatched had perceived me in their last moments?If she was mine, she was a chip off the old block, all right.~^~^~^~^~"Mother."Lwaxana hummed and swayed with Yves in her arms, dancing slowly around the space in front of the ovoid viewport. The rooms had a lovely view of the docking ring and a Klingon warbird drifting at about the same speed as the station rotated, just low enough to be seen. The juxtaposition of elements, her mother in bright electric blue carrying Yves and crooning Betazoid lullabies in a Federation base built by Cardassians as four Klingon ships, one Romulan vessel, and a variety of Starfleet vessels drifted by, gave Deanna a momentary pause. She smiled in wry amusement and tried again."Mother.""Yes, dear," she replied absently."What are you doing?"She stopped humming. "Getting to know my lovely, lovely grandson. He's just perfect, dear.""You said that when you got here.""Deanna," she chided, tsking as she brought the baby back. She stood over Deanna's chair. "What's wrong?""He's hungry.""He's not -- " Lwaxana looked down in dismay when Yves began to fuss. Deanna went to the replicator without further discussion and took her son across the room, settling on the curved sofa along the wall.Her mother left the table and chairs to join her. Deanna looked up from feeding the baby to see her mother sitting with hands folded in her lap, atypically solemn. "I'm sorry, Mother. I've just been so tired. We had a very difficult mission right before Yves was born. I had to attend the debriefings even though I'm on leave and discuss some of the decisions I made while I was in command.""I understand, dear, but this is more than being tired." Lwaxana wrung her hands, then nodded sadly, as if resigning herself to something. "I know you too well. There's something amiss. I realize that I've been an atypical mother, and that sometimes you are frustrated by things I do or say, but I've always thought that I've been the sort of mother you could talk to when you have a problem.""You are, but. . . but I can't talk about this yet."Her mother's hand fell on her knee. "Is it Jean-Luc?""No," Deanna said, watching the bubbles in the formula and the way Yves' fingers lay against the clear bottle. "There's really nothing. . . . Mother, you talked to him before you came here. Didn't you?""I didn't know there was anything wrong with speaking to my own son-in-law.""Did he call you? What did he tell you?"Her mother rose and paced restlessly, hugging herself. "Nothing. I could see he was worried, that's all, there's a certain look he gets -- ""Don't lie to me.""I'm not lying," she exclaimed indignantly."Mother! What did he tell you?"The door opened, and Deanna was treated to the extraordinary sight of her mother hurrying across the room and departing with a bemused Mwala without saying a word. Jean-Luc stared at the closed door as if he couldn't believe it either."What did you tell Mother before she came?" Deanna said. Yves finished the bottle. Setting it aside, she sat him up on her knee and patted his back. He hiccuped and burped.Jean-Luc ran his hand over his head. "What makes you think I told her anything?""Jean!"He approached as if she were a wild animal, slowly and warily. "Only that I've been worried about you. That you've not been the same since our last mission."Yves wiggled his arms and grunted; she brought him to her chest automatically, curling her arm around him. "We need to talk.""I know." He sat with her, looking at the baby. "Whatever it is, we'll work it out. It's more than just balancing career and family, I know you better than that. You don't think I know when you're dodging my questions?""It isn't something that can be worked out, Jean. It's not something you or I can change.""All right," he said, keeping his eyes on the baby.She watched him so pointedly not watching her and felt guilt over the last week of brooding silence. "How long have you known I was keeping something from you?""I suspected five days ago. I knew three days ago. Beverly says post-partum depression but I don't think so. I wanted you to tell me in your own time. You've always given me the freedom to keep things to myself. I knew you would tell me eventually."Deanna chewed her lip briefly, then took Yves into the bedroom and tucked him into the carrier that doubled as his bed while they traveled. He was sleepy anyway. She left the carrier centered on the bed and returned. Jean-Luc waited patiently as she'd left him. She sat again, pulled her legs up beneath her and kissed his cheek."I'm sorry I haven't been forthcoming.""What is it, cygne? What could keep you from talking to me about something that's bothering you for so long?""I didn't want to tell you until I knew more about. . . . The radiation on Ba'ku did more damage than good." Tears spilled as she worked at keeping her voice even. "Dr. Mengis noticed an enlargement of one of my ovaries when I was in for one of my followup appointments, the day after we left the Briar Patch."The pause drew long. While she steadied herself, he waited, sliding an arm around her."After he diagnosed the enlargement as a tumor, we discussed my prognosis. I asked him to remove both ovaries. He put the unaffected one into stasis and biopsied the damaged one. Unless he finds a way to reverse the cellular reaction to the metaphasic radiation, leaving the other in stasis is the only way to prevent its becoming cancerous."As she spoke, he drew her head to his chest. She leaned on him with a fold of his soft white shirt beneath her cheek. His sympathetic hurt had begun; it was as tangible to her as his arms, tightening like bands of duranium around her. Sympathy was the last thing she wanted, from anyone. At least he wouldn't just pity her -- the loss was his pain as well."He's monitoring the rest of the crew closely for any similar changes. He hopes he can put the ovary back after he's researched things more thoroughly. But in the meantime I have to have hormone injections, and it's problematic because of my mixed parentage. Part of my mood is simply that -- the dosage isn't quite right yet. And I feel. . . incomplete. Part of me is missing.""I understand," he whispered, caressing her hair, and under her ear she heard the faint hum of his artificial heart that never beat. "I'm sorry.""I know.""We'll have as many children as you want. It doesn't matter how. There are other options even if Mengis can't replace the ovary."The conviction he felt spoke more to her than the words. Smiling, she rested in his arms. "I know.""Why didn't you tell me?""I needed to live with it for a while first." He understood that, too."It isn't fair," she murmured into his shirt."We never hear about the price heroes pay to be heroes, do we?"The sadness he felt lapped over her, as if she were sitting in the shallows of a great ocean and the tide had turned. "Heroes?""Think about all the people you idolized when you were young. All the officers they held up to classes of cadets as examples. They never tell you what those officers sacrificed to accomplish great things."She started to respond, but his communicator beeped. Jean-Luc sat back to touch his badge, which he wore in a fold of his shirt."Picard here.""Jean-Luc," Beverly gasped. "Tom's been hurt.""Where are you?""The infirmary. Dr. Bashir just rushed him into surgery.""We'll be right there."They found Mwala and Lwaxana in the corridor on their way out. "Mother, something's come up -- can you take care of Yves for a while?" Deanna asked, trying to sound nonchalant."Of course, we'd be delighted!" She sounded genuinely excited, but Deanna saw the knowing glance at Jean-Luc. Oh, well. Let her think this was something designed to fix 'what's wrong.'When they got to the infirmary, Beverly was pacing around, obviously distraught. She rushed them and hesitated then turned away to pace again."What happened?" Jean-Luc asked. Deanna noticed Bashir and two assistants wearing scrubs and working over the bed at the other end of the infirmary. Surgery.Beverly came back to them. "The girl happened. She stabbed him! She's a vicious little monster," she exclaimed, clenching her left hand around a fistful of her dark blue tunic."A misunderstanding," Deanna said. "If you were right -- if she's a war orphan -- think of what she must have been through.""She didn't stab the counselor," Beverly said, tight-voiced. "She didn't stab the doctor. Or me. She went for him. Like she knew exactly who he was.""Where is she?""Counselor Dax is with her, in Bashir's office.""Will Tom be all right?" Jean-Luc asked.Beverly lost some of the stiffness, but now seemed about to cry. "Yes. It wasn't that bad. Mostly tissue damage, no major organs hit. The blade glanced off a rib. She's not that strong, either. But. . . he just fell over. I've seen our security chief batter him with all his strength in the gym and Tom's never fallen."Deanna turned at the sound of someone approaching. This must be Ezri Dax -- she was like all joined Trill, a melange of personalities that could confuse. She was all at once young and relatively inexperienced, yet older than anyone Deanna had met -- the symbiont had obviously been passed along many times. At the moment, the young side of her dominated. A puzzled frown creased her face, interrupted by brief surprise."Captain Picard?""The captain is a friend of mine and Tom's," Beverly said. "This is his first officer, Deanna Troi.""I thought so. It's a pleasure and an honor to meet you -- I've read a couple of your papers, Commander. I know you're not a counselor any more but. . . could I see you for a moment?"Deanna exchanged a surprised glance with Jean-Luc. She felt Beverly's eyes as she followed Ezri back to the room in which the girl had been confined. Outside the closed door, they stopped."Is something wrong?""I've worked with traumatized children before. This is different. When this girl came here, she didn't say anything or show any emotional response to anything we said or did. Now she's crying and confused, and she doesn't seem to remember anything." Ezri keyed in an access code. "I hesitate to diagnose this without a second opinion. It almost seems to be a multiple personality disorder. I've read about that but never seen it before. Have you ever seen a case?"The girl sat in front of the desk on the floor, hugging herself and sobbing. She unfolded and scrambled to the corner, pounding on the wall. "Momma," she wailed."Who is your mother?" Deanna asked.The girl stopped slapping and pounding. Her intense blue eyes held only fear and tears. She stared, then raced to hide behind the desk.Deanna moved around the obstacle, stopping two meters from the girl. "No one's going to hurt you. What's your name?"Even the sobbing had stopped. She ducked under the desk until only the tip of a shoe showed."I know you're afraid. I know you are confused and don't know where you are. What's your name?" Deanna kept up the questions, leaving pauses between them. "Do you remember what happened? Do you know who the man was?"Leaning slowly, so very slowly, Deanna finally reached a position from which she could see under the desk. The girl hugged her legs, buried her face in her knees, and trembled. When Deanna pulled one of her arms, she went limp and let herself be dragged out. Deanna supported the girl's shoulders, startled by the way she let her head roll back and by the perceptible terror at odds with her complete surrender. Kneeling, Deanna put her arms around the girl and let her head rest on her shoulder."Talk to me, petite," she murmured, stroking the girl's hair.The girl made a plaintive sound and turned to push her nose into Deanna's shoulder. "They killed Momma," she whispered, starting to cry again."What's your name?" Deanna smoothed the fine hair out of the girl's face."Lora."Picking her up, Deanna let her cling and cry. Ezri grabbed her arm when she tried to leave the room."Do you know what's wrong?""I want to test a theory."Beverly's jaw dropped at the sight of Deanna carrying the girl. "Wait," she shouted when Deanna headed for Tom, whom she'd sensed was awake. He watched her approach, started to sit up, and fell back with a grimace."Lora, this is your father," Deanna said, turning to point the girl's eyes at him."What are you -- " Bashir lunged and stopped next to Ezri at the end of Tom's bed, glancing at her suspiciously, sizing up the situation. "You shouldn't be here," he insisted. "None of you should."But Lora was caught up in the sight of her father, who stared back. Deanna sensed trepidation from both but nothing dangerous, so she put Lora down. Once on her own two feet, she lost courage and clung to Deanna's leg, but couldn't stop looking at Tom."Someone hurt him. Do you remember that?""No.""Have you ever seen him before?""No.""Have you ever seen Ezri before?" Deanna touched Lora's shoulder and indicated the counselor. Moving her head in short jerks, Lora looked at Ezri, then at Beverly and Jean-Luc standing behind the Trill and Bashir. Deanna could sense the initial terror wearing off. Lora had made the adjustment and recognized that this was a safe place, for the moment."No. Where am I?" She tugged at Deanna's shirt. "Why am I here?"Deanna bent and took the girl's head in her hands. "Everything will be all right. No one's going to hurt you, Lora. I need you to take a deep breath and tell me about the last thing you remember before you woke up in the room we were just in. All right? There's nothing to be afraid of, nothing at all."The wide blue eyes shimmered, then tears tumbled over her pale cheeks. Lora's lips moved but nothing came out. "Momma," she gasped finally. "Them.""What did they look like?"Her fingers tightened on Deanna's shirt. She tried to climb, so Deanna picked her up again. "Like them," she whispered, pointing at Ezri and Bashir."You mean the uniform? The clothing?"She nodded and hid her face in Deanna's neck."Shit," Tom murmured. This time, in spite of whatever made him grimace, he pushed himself up."Captain," Bashir exclaimed. "You just had surgery. It wasn't a serious wound but it was bad enough -- ""I've been hurt worse and gone on duty. Deanna, give her to me."Lora's arms tightened around Deanna's neck. "Lora, he's your father. He won't hurt you.""No," she cried, clinging as Tom took her. "No!"Between the two of them they pried Lora free and Tom sat her in his lap, putting his arms around her. At least he had enough comfort with children to not be afraid of holding her, even though she fought it. Deanna silenced the doctor's further protest with a glare and herded all four onlookers away from them."Ezri, what do you know about brainwashing and recovering from it?"Jean-Luc had expected it. Of the other three, Ezri was the first to recover from shock, her face twisting in anger. "Who would do that to a child?""The same ones who killed her mother," Jean-Luc said grimly. "I can only think of one explanation."Deanna glanced over her shoulder. Tom had the girl sitting next to him on the biobed, an arm around her. "I can think of several. We may have to come up with a new methodology for this. I've dealt with brainwashing before but always with adults.""I don't know what's more disturbing to me," Bashir said quietly, arms crossed, staring at father and daughter with burning eyes. "That someone would do such a thing to a little girl, or that he was so quick to recognize it.""Tom said he had contacted you," Jean-Luc said.Bashir turned, startled. "Yes. About a mutual acquaintance.""Sloan," Deanna said.Ezri moaned. "Not again. Julian, not this again.""Are you insinuating that the captain is -- what are you telling me?" Bashir exclaimed. He met Deanna's eyes and challenged her to explain."Tom wanted to find out what you know about Sloan and his organization," Deanna murmured. She sensed the intense anger from the doctor and backed away from him out of reflex."Not nearly enough to be useful. What does he know? What about you?""We should wait for Tom to discuss it," Jean-Luc said, making it an order. "You believe the girl was programmed to kill him? How do we know that won't happen again?""We don't. But I sense no malice, only fear and confusion. For the moment she's fine, and Tom's quite capable of restraining her if that changes. Without a weapon I doubt she could inflict much damage." Deanna sighed and turned to Ezri. "I took a shortcut, but under the circumstances I thought it was warranted. I don't normally rely so heavily on my empathy to diagnose but we have little time, if this was more than an experiment. We have a good chance of helping her recover what she's forgotten -- how long was she in the orphanage?""Just a few weeks. There's not much to her file. We've been unable to identify her mother but that's not unusual given the post-Occupation state of Bajoran records." Ezri glanced at Bashir, shrugging uncomfortably. "Are you suggesting that the Sect -- ""It wouldn't be surprising if they did have something to do with this, but as Captain Picard has said, it would be best if we waited and discussed the details with Tom." Deanna watched Tom take the girl out of sight. Hopefully, that was a good sign.~^~^~^~^~I knew what Deanna was doing, dumping the kid on me and dodging out of the way, but I didn't appreciate it. Those first few minutes of excruciating discomfort with a wild-eyed kid I had to acknowledge as mine were difficult. I was supposed to reassure the kid and hopefully establish the beginnings of some sort of trust between us. I couldn't hold what she'd done to me against her -- she didn't remember it. That sounded like something the Section would arrange. I filed the thought away for later. Putting the girl next to me, I kept an arm around her and patted her shoulder.She didn't want to look at my face. I rubbed her back, told her lies -- that I was happy she was there, that she was beautiful, positive things that a kid like her probably never heard. She wasn't pretty. I knew now who her mother must have been, and still, it escaped me how I could possibly be her father. She had Toma Bejal's face -- broad forehead, sharp chin, and that odd dark stripe along her hairline that I gathered had something to do with Bajoran ethnicity. Bejal had had one too.The pain meds were wearing off. It made me less hazy, but the familiar post-surgical throb started in my side. I didn't realize I was rubbing the spot until Lora touched the back of my hand."She said you were hurt.""I was. I'm all right."She touched my face -- her fingers tickled my cheek, traced along my nose. "Are you really my father?"From the instant Deanna brought her in, she'd been closed, suspicious, afraid, but not now. Her wistful question brought up several of my own. Now that she wasn't terrified, she didn't seem the type of child one would expect her to be. Bejal had been Section but also Maquis. The stamp of such a background was absent in Lora.As she explored my face by touch and with wide but unafraid eyes, I studied her. This child, small for her age and too thin, with a faint jagged scar down the left side of her neck, was alone in the universe but for me. I was all that stood between her and consignment to the orphanages."Would you like that?""I don't know." Her sharp look surprised me. "They said you're a captain. What's that?"I described what I did in simple terms. By the time I finished a discourse on Starfleet, the Federation, and humanity, I knew she was bright from the questions she asked. Turning off the translator for a few minutes proved my theory --she spoke in flawless Standard. She may be scarred, but someone other than Bejal had been instrumental in her upbringing. Bejal had relied on translators. After the war, Bejal must've gone completely Section."Would you like to live on a starship?"Lora thought about it, glancing around the room. "Can I have something to eat?""Let's see what we can find."I found the doctor's office. No one home -- they were all out in main sickbay. I showed her the replicator. "What do you want to eat?"She looked at me in confusion, as if the question of what she wanted had never occurred to her before. I replicated a favorite of mine when I was a kid, the smell of the tuna bringing back memories of Mom in the dance studio drilling students while I sat in the back office doing homework and eating whatever she'd brought for me.We sat in the two chairs facing Bashir's desk, the plate in her lap. Lora picked up the top slice of bread and peered at the contents of the sandwich. I showed her how to hold it. On her first bite her eyes popped open wide; she chewed, swallowed, and stuffed as much as she could into her mouth."Hey, slow down, Chip -- you don't have to eat it all at once. One bit at a time." Her blink and the cessation of chewing made me smile. "It's just a nickname. You could say nicknames are a family tradition. My mother had nicknames for all her kids and most of her friends. I have four sisters, did you know that? Your aunts. They'll like you." After they got over the shock of her existence, that is. I could hear my nieces and nephews asking about where Lora's mother was and if I'd bring her home, too.Lora put the sandwich back on the plate. "Are they on your starship?""No. Just. . . Beverly. You'll like her." I glanced over my shoulder --speak of the devil, Beverly stood in the door, looking uncertain. "There she is."Lora tore off a bit of bread, scooped up tuna with it, and poked it in her mouth as she looked where I pointed. She returned to her meal without undue alarm. Beverly came in slowly, dropping a hand on my shoulder."You're not supposed to be out of bed, Tom."Snorting, I flicked my fingers across the front of the gown as if dismissing it. "I'm fine. Besides, Lora's teaching me how to eat a tuna fish sandwich.""Is she?" Beverly smiled tentatively at the girl. "You like the sandwich, Lora?"Her tone got too falsely-cheerful. Lora shot a suspicious glance at her and hunched over the sandwich as if protecting it."I'm going to change out of this," I said, pushing myself to my feet. The thin gown felt wrong, too loose and revealing. "Eat the rest of it and wait here, all right?"Beverly came with me. "You shouldn't be walking around like this.""It wasn't serious. I'm on leave, I'll take things easy, I'll be fine." We came out into the main infirmary. Deanna had gone somewhere with the station counselor. Jean-Luc looked up from a conversation with Bashir, arms crossed, and the doctor jerked around as if we'd snuck up on him."You shouldn't be up -- ""Doctor, I'm perfectly aware of what I should and should not do. Why was Lora allowed access to a knife?"Bashir blinked and rallied. "She wasn't, to my knowledge. Ezri let her sleep in her quarters at first, but she got out and wandered the station at night. We kept her in one of the rooms here in the infirmary, but she's quite the escape artist. She isn't strong enough to pry a ventilation grill from the wall, yet she did just that. I have no idea where she hid the knife."I remembered her grip on my arm, and thought he was right -- she wasn't strong enough. That meant someone let her out. "Has anyone besides you been in to see her?""Ezri, but she's been trying to get her to talk." He eyed me warily. "Why?""That kid doesn't remember what she did. Someone used her to get to me.""That's what we were thinking," Beverly said, speaking in the same quiet way I'd been talking. "But why?""There's no way they meant for her to kill me. If I was supposed to die, they wouldn't have sent a kid. This was a warning. The timing's off -- where did she come from, and why now? Are you absolutely certain she's mine?""I could run another series of tests, if you're going to be that skeptical," Bashir said, in a huff at what he probably perceived as a slight.I took a few steps, looming over him. He almost backed into the end of a bed. "You were genetically enhanced as a child. That was years ago. That technology advances, whether it's moral or not, and a recent adventure of ours would lead us to believe that a certain group may have found a way to rewrite genetics entirely. I'm going to get myself a uniform, you and Dr. Crusher are going to run some more tests.""What about Lora?" Picard asked. He was too interested in an answer. Too intense. He didn't give away anything when I glanced at him questioningly."We'll figure that out."I went to the changing area tucked away in a corner and dressed, then went to get the girl. I entered Bashir's office, fastening the last pip on my collar, and stared at the plate sitting on the chair. A quick survey revealed her escape route. The ventilation shaft was near the floor, alongside the desk. I hefted the grill that lay on the floor -- too heavy. Sticking my head in the opening, I saw that the Cardassians hadn't designed the air shafts with the baffles and filters a Starfleet construction would have. The girl was long gone.Before anything else, I studied the office with an eye trained to detect the smallest discrepancies. Nothing out of place. No marks on the grill, no sign of a lever. I doubted she had pried it free using only her fingers.Had they taken her or just helped her escape? Had she been beamed out and the grill removed as a decoy? I straightened, sighing, and wished that just once things could be simpler.The others looked up in surprise when I rushed out past them. "She's gone, in the ventilation system.""Again?" Bashir exclaimed sharply.I spun about. "She had help. Someone wants her to disappear.""But she was in. . . ." Bashir's mouth hung open, then shut. He was a little slow for being genetically enhanced, but idealists tend to be that way when it comes to subterfuge. Especially young ones."I thought you said you'd dealt with them before," I murmured, conscious of the noise drifting in from the promenade."Why would they toy with you this way?""They want something, obviously.""Or perhaps she wanted a jumja stick," Jean-Luc said nonchalantly. I turned around to find Lora standing in the infirmary entrance, sucking on a jumja."Lora, come here."She came at a walk. Unafraid, she looked up at me, the sticky mass leaving a brown ring around her mouth."Tom?"Deanna's voice shook me out of the daze. She had come back into the infirmary. My eyes met hers. Ezri, hovering at her side, glanced back and forth between us."You shouldn't leave her alone, Tom," Deanna said, chiding. "She's only a child. Take care of your daughter."Lora blinked, looked at Deanna's face, then at mine. For a moment I thought she would go to Dee; she looked lost, frightened, and ready to cry. Her wide eyes dropped to the jumja stick in her hand. She took a step. And another.Toward me. Her fingers closed around two of mine. The pleading look she gave me played on those old heart strings of mine like a master violinist."You won't go away?" she whispered."Um. . . .""You won't let them take me?"The plea almost dropped me as effectively as the knife to the gut had earlier. It burned away the vestiges of hopelessness and kindled a deep, virulent hatred for Section 31 that hadn't been there in years."No," I said, holding out my arms.~^~^~^~^~Deanna eyed the results of her shopping trip that afternoon. In an unusual show of determination, the reason for which she couldn't yet discern, Jean-Luc had insisted on a new dress for the ball, discarding the idea of her wearing the dress uniform she'd brought. The dress hung with her mother's near the door, still in its protective wrapping. She divided her attention between imagining what might have prompted him to encourage her to purchase such a dress for an official function, and feeding her son."Deanna."She looked up to find Mwala standing over her. "Yes?"Mwala took the chair next to her, that Lwaxana had left not long before. "I am concerned.""Why?" Deanna shifted the baby to a more comfortable position."Your mother is also concerned. Neither one of us has intentionally read anyone's thoughts, but it does not take a telepath to see there is something going on, and some of the things we sense worry us.""I don't think you need to worry." Deanna began to contemplate retreat to her quarters. She'd brought Yves to her mother's rooms for a visit while Jean-Luc was off somewhere. If Mwala was going to question her about 'what was going on,' perhaps the baby needed a nap."Your friend, that captain -- Glendenning? There is something odd about him. His mind -- ""You said you weren't prying," Deanna exclaimed. "Mwala, he's a captain. If he's hiding things it's probably classified Starfleet business."Mwala frowned and smoothed her soft white tunic over her lap. "Jean-Luc doesn't have an artificial barrier in his mind. Nor does your friend Will Riker.""Tom is probably part of special ops. Doesn't it seem reasonable for those who know classified information to take such precautions? Please don't pry this way -- if they knew you were, you might get into trouble. Especially Mother, she's an ambassador.""I suppose," Mwala murmured, somewhat reassured by that reasoning. "It does make sense when you put it that way. And it does explain why Admiral Nechev's mind has a similar feel to it. But it doesn't explain the girl.""It's Admiral Nechayev," Deanna corrected, wondering where Mwala had met the admiral. Probably somewhere on the station while wandering with Lwaxana. "What girl?""The one with Glendenning."Deanna used burping Yves and fussing over him as a stalling mechanism while she thought quickly. "You do know Lora is half Bajoran? Her mother was in the Maquis. She evidently watched her mother die -- trauma sometimes causes disassociation, temporary amnesia and so forth. Many humanoids use such a mechanism to cope with great emotional stress. Tom's barrier is probably a deliberate use of the same ability. Lora will be in counseling to deal with the problem soon."Homn came then with tall glasses of ebi'lan for them, and a plate of finger food. Mwala commented on Yves' eyes and the conversation turned to hybrid physiology and children in general.But Deanna noticed her cousin's eyes never lost the questioning that had been present from the moment she sat down. Nor did she feel that her questions had been answered. A pang of guilt and despair gripped Deanna briefly; Mwala's gaze flicked to her face, then away as she reached for her glass and asked if there were plans for more children.Deanna knew she could never deceive a telepath, especially one who knew her well. But Mwala didn't ask again, or even hint that she wanted more information -- politeness and a telepath's ethics dictated it.Even so, as she finally made the excuse and took Yves back to the rented rooms she shared with Jean-Luc, Deanna's stomach threatened to reject what she'd just put in it. She hated asking her loved ones to participate in lies.She hated more that she had no option but to do it.~^~^~^~^~The Admiralty Ball was usually a crashing bore. I found myself actually enjoying it this time -- well, just a few aspects of it, really.For one thing, Beverly had put on a gorgeous backless shimmering blue gown which, while not completely form-fitting, managed to give away plenty of hints at the figure beneath it. The necklace I'd given her glittered at her throat. She'd also set aside her uncertainty and hesitance for the evening -- the bold, flirtatious woman I knew and loved came out to play. It was too bad that some of us thick-skulled men got too carried away with teasing and made her and Bell Sumners angry, thus sending them off to pursue conversation with the Klingon ambassador and his entourage. Which was probably a not-so-subtle dig -- even Klingons were more civilized than Will and I were being.And of course, Deanna looked just as drop-dead gorgeous as Beverly, in a midnight-blue bodice-popping dress. I thought Gilbraith might have his chin stepped on if he weren't careful. The young captain had a starry-eyed look to begin with, but got worse with the appearance of each successive female in formal civilian attire. When Will introduced him to Jean-Luc he managed to recover himself."Have you been to the ball before?" he asked me. We'd followed Picard over to watch the famed Lwaxana Troi be introduced to Our Lady of Admiralty, but the anticipated fireworks never happened -- Deanna's mother behaved herself and moved onward, shooting a smug glance at her son-in-law. Will moved away with Jean-Luc, muttering incredulous accusations of bribery and blackmail to get Lwaxana to mind her manners, and Deanna departed in yet another direction to join Beverly and Bell and the Klingons, giving me one quick look and following it with a glance at the admiral. The uncharacteristic ire in her eyes caught my attention. She'd begun to show signs that it was more than baby blues at work -- something was afoot, and she was involved.I remember Gilbraith's question finally. "I've been to it couple times. It's usually good for an evening's nap.""I think it's interesting. Where else can you meet Captain Picard and hear him kidding around?"Where else indeed? I suspected the kidding around to be part of Jean-Luc's ongoing campaign to get his wife back to normal. He may not understand her mood completely, but he'd do what he could to help.As Gilbraith and I lurked near one of the gleaming gold lantern trees that stood at regular intervals around the room like upside-down octopuses holding glowing pink Christmas ornaments, I noticed a shift in the crowd -- Jean-Luc emerged from a knot of officers at the bar sans Riker. Will now stood with Shelby and four others. Nechayev was nowhere in sight. Lwaxana reigned in a corner, her silent servant at her side, telling a group of mildly-interested admirals some anecdote that necessitated arm-waving and finger-wiggling.Again, I surveyed the room for signs of anything suspicious. Gilbraith nattered on about the people he'd met. ". . . Thorson, and Bickren, and even Shelby. Do you think she's with anyone in particular?""Who?" I asked, not really paying attention. Jean-Luc had joined his wife and was greeting one of Worf's companions in Klingon. Fascinating -- his body language actually changed. I wondered if he was a natural mimic or if he practiced in front of a mirror."Shelby.""I doubt she is. I don't think she's looking, either.""What if someone finds her first? Who are you looking for?"I faced him again and shrugged. "Just looking. D'Tokalla isn't here. Too bad, he's usually good for a few laughs.""So do you know a lot of the brass here?"That raised my eyebrow. "Just how long have you been a captain?""About six months.""I didn't catch the name of your ship."He shrugged sheepishly. "The Richardson."Ah. A courier, small enough to fit in one of Venture's shuttle bays with a few feet to spare. It probably took a dozen people to crew it. I'd seen it arrive the night before, when I couldn't sleep and sat watching the viewport in the living room so as not to wake Beverly. He'd come through the wormhole and docked on one of the upper pylons."What were you doing in the Gamma Quadrant?"I didn't anticipate the shocked stare. "How did you know I was in the Gamma Quadrant?""I've been spying on you, of course," I said with a grin, trying to diffuse his sudden defensiveness. "You came through last night around one hundred hours. I saw your ship while I was wormhole-watching."His shoulders relaxed. "I see. So, how long have you known Captain Picard? Have you worked with him much?""Sure. The rumors are all true about him, y'know.""Which ones?"A flutter of glittering purple from my right startled both of us. "There you are," Lwaxana cried, her fingers descending on my arm as if she'd captured elusive prey. "Why, Captain, how good to see you again! I've heard you're a marvelous dancer, you simply must do me the honor of a waltz."Lora and I had run into Lwaxana and Mwala on the Promenade earlier in the day, and while Lwaxana had actually charmed a smile out of Lora, I still suspected that she, like Nechayev, had instantly disliked me. "Madame Ambassador -- ""It's so unusual to find an officer who likes to dance." She spoke in happy exclamation marks and had a way of carrying you along on a wave of cheerful insistence -- before I knew it, we were at the edge of the dance floor, leaving Gilbraith and his stunned look beneath the lantern tree. I glanced around in hopes of an out and noticed amused smiles from many, and downright smirks of devilish glee from several, Riker and Picard in particular. Even my own Verly turned away to hide her laughter. Deanna, however, wasn't laughing -- before her mother pulled me around to waltz and tore my eyes away, I had the distinct impression that she was actually relieved."Ambassador -- ""My, aren't you a tall one," she exclaimed, squeezing my shoulder. "Isn't this a lovely party? I had this dress made especially for the occasion, do you like it?""It's -- ""Beautiful, yes, I know, your thoughts are so plain I don't even have to make an effort to read them. I knew you wanted to dance with me from all the way over at the bar. Oh -- don't even think that! Captain! Such a naughty boy you are!"So this was the outrageous Lwaxana Troi in action. I could see how Jean-Luc would be easily dismayed by such tactics."Well, what am I supposed to think about when a woman such as yourself drags me off to the dance floor and puts her hand down the back of my uniform?"Other dancers gave us a wide berth, and some laughed out loud. Lwaxana's nails suddenly dug into my arm. The ferocity of her grip contrasted with her continued lackadaisical tone and posture; the heel of her other hand rested against my palm as the fingers flicked in frivolous gestures and we turned, more marching to the gentle waltz than dancing."You must know what a tempting package you are, Captain," she cooed, tossing her head and smiling at me as if I were made of chocolate and cherries. But the words inserted forcefully into my thoughts were so far removed from her demeanor and so unexpected, I actually faltered from the step-step-slide my feet had practiced to the point of automation.< Do not toy with me. I know you are hiding something deep in your mind, and I know how my daughter feels when she is near you or Nechayev. Leave her alone. >We happened to be passing one of the lantern trees at a corner of the dance floor, which also happened to be near a wall. A sidestep, and she was moving off the floor with me, down the service corridor through which servers arrived and departed with food and empty dishes. Two quick turns while she was still startled, a grab of her arm, and I had her against the wall, my hip pressing against hers."Stay out of my head," I grated. "You don't want the liability. Trust me.""Let me -- ""Shut up! I'm not going to play this game, Ambassador. Whatever's in my head needs to stay there.""Leave my family alone," she said, keeping her voice low as I had been. She wasn't afraid of me. She was, in fact, furious -- I wondered how much she knew and who had told her."They have nothing to fear from me, and neither do you. I don't want to be your enemy. Deanna is a friend, I care about her, and I'd go out of my way to help her -- the same goes for Jean-Luc.""Let go." She wrenched free. I stepped back, glancing at the closed doors at the far end of the corridor. She rearranged the folds of her dress and brushed her arms as if I'd left dirt behind. "What are you?"I knew she was reading me. My speech had been made for that reason, so she'd see I was no threat to anyone. "I'm a Starfleet officer. I took an oath, I keep it.""Then why does Deanna feel fear when she is with you?" She tucked her hands in her sleeves and held her head high, an empress demanding explanations of a subject."I can't discuss that with you. She can't, either. It's classified. Let's just say we've been through some serious situations lately, and I probably remind her of that."Misdirecting telepaths isn't easy, but it could be done. She seemed to suspect I wasn't telling everything, but she probably wanted to believe my explanation. "What about the admiral?""Nechayev intimidates everyone. Back to the dance floor, my dear, before we're missed." I bowed and gestured. Disdaining the offer of my hand, she strode from the corridor and left me there, heading for her manservant. At the flick of her fingers, Homn picked up the little gong he'd been whacking in between sips of a largish tankard of something and followed her from the ballroom.I headed for the bar. Beverly wasn't around, nor was anyone else I knew. As I skirted the perimeter of the dance floor someone pinched my arm -- whirling, I found myself confronting Deanna."Would you care to dance?" she said, gesturing at the floor."The last Betazoid I danced with threatened me," I said under my breath. "No, thanks."Deanna crossed her arms. Never mind that it only shoved her barely-contained breasts against her dress until I feared they'd spring out and give me a concussion."Tom," she growled, drawing my eyes back up to hers. "Stop staring at me like that.""You started it."She tossed her head in irritation. "What did Mother want with you?""She wanted to know what I was hiding, and why you were afraid when I was around. I told her it was classified. Indirectly pointed a finger at lingering Briar Patch fallout trauma. We shouldn't be discussing this here.""This is the safest place to do it," she murmured, smiling sweetly. "Cheer up, Thomas, people are watching even if they aren't listening. My husband already left to rendezvous with the babysitter because our child decided to scream incessantly. I'm about to follow him. Don't trust Gilbraith and don't get drunk. And don't trust Nechayev," she added, almost mouthing the words silently as she marched away. When she shot an angry glare at me over her shoulder I shook myself from my shock-induced moment of slack-jawed coma and pivoted on a heel, and almost stepped on a fleet admiral."Care to dance?" I tossed off flippantly, before I could react any other way -- like, dropping flat on my back in a dead faint. She couldn't have been standing there the whole time or Deanna would have done anything but warn me."Certainly, Captain." She smiled and walked with me to the edge of the dance floor, assumed the proper stance, and joined me and about a dozen other people for the bajillionth waltz of the evening.If the first portion of the evening was as typically boring as all Admiralty Balls, the second half was making up for that in leaps and bounds.I was beginning to see how she'd gotten the nickname Iron Maiden -- whoever had applied the name had danced with her at some official function. Imagining her joints clanking as we waltzed kept a silly grin on my face, which annoyed her; I knew that from the determined pleasant smile she wore.By the end of the song she wore a strange distant expression. "Something wrong, sir?" I let go of her and set myself free from onerous deadfooted waltzing."Not at all." She returned from inner musings with a renewed smile. "You're quite a good dancer, Captain. I'm surprised you offered. I'm not exactly the most sought-after partner at these functions.""Can't imagine why. Maybe those of lesser rank find the thought of accidentally tromping on the fleet admiral's toes a bit daunting."Light-hearted small talk seemed to represent an olive branch to her. She glanced around then up into my eyes, losing the superficiality. "Perhaps. Though I wonder if it isn't obvious that I don't care for dancing.""It's obvious. If you liked it, you'd loosen up and move your feet more."A curious flicker in her blue eyes reminded me of Deanna's warning. "Do you enjoy dancing, Captain Glendenning?""When the music's right and you're with the right partner, dancing can be a lot of fun. My mother was a professional dancer, and my sister and her daughter are also. I'm told my father was a decent hoofer. Guess I come by it honestly." At the mention of my father, I thought her lips tightened. Just a bit, barely noticeable, but it was a reaction nevertheless. She was the right age -- maybe she'd met him prior to his untimely demise, maybe even been a classmate. "Did you know my father, Admiral?""No. I didn't. Excuse me -- I must mingle, you know how it is," she rambled, smiling again, and off she went to greet someone with far too much cheer.I went for a drink. This was too much to deal with while completely sober -- she had indeed known my father, else why panic and flit off at the mere mention of him?I found Beverly after some mingling of my own. She and Bell were still together, and Will had joined them. The three of them had their backs to one of the ever-useful lantern trees, the glowing pinkish globes hovering over their heads providing more and more light as the main lights dimmed gradually over the course of the evening."There you are," Beverly exclaimed. "Did you like Lwaxana?"Oh, the teasing I could have done under normal circumstances! "She didn't like me.""The admiral seems to," Bell commented, peering slyly at me through her lashes."Right. Didn't you hear her clanking while we were dancing? Verly, this is a bust -- let's go rescue Greenman from Lora and call it a night, hm?"~^~^~^~^~Deanna made slow progress toward her quarters. Her feet hurt and her eyes wanted to drift shut, but she kept going. She flinched when her mother appeared suddenly in front of her. "Mother!"Lwaxana took her arm and turned to walk alongside, escorting her around the corner and smiling vapidly. Her thoughts carried with them her overwhelming concern that didn't show. < I'm sorry, Little One. I was only returning to see that you were all right. I wish you would tell me what's going on. >< I can't, but I wish that I could. And no, it has nothing to do with Jean-Luc. >< But it has something to do with that Glendenning fellow -- dear, you must know he's hiding something! >She'd been prying. Rather than address it, Deanna mastered her own reaction and walked on.They met Natalia and Lora at the next junction, on their way to another part of the habitat ring. "He suggested that I take her to my quarters for the duration," Natalia explained. "So the baby can sleep.""Yves could sleep through a Risan ale festival," Lwaxana exclaimed. "Most babies could."Natalia shrugged. "It's the captain's quarters. Guess he wanted quality time with his son. At least Yves quieted right down the minute he picked him up -- Lora and I walked him all over and sang and made goofy faces till our cheeks hurt, and nothing worked, but one smile from his dad and everything was fine again.""He missed his papa," Lora chimed in. She shrunk from their direct attention, but rebounded quickly. "Uncle Luc gave me a hug, too."Deanna's amusement at the term of endearment was surpassed only by her mother's -- Lwaxana actually chuckled at it and bent to hug the girl herself. "Well, my dear, that must be because you're completely huggable. How would you and Natalia like to come back to my suite and play a game with me?"< Mother, don't you dare start questioning her about her father! >< I wouldn't think of it, Little One. I just think she needs a positive influence in her life, however briefly. > Lwaxana touched Lora's cheek and took the hand the girl offered. "Come along, dears," she exclaimed, brushing Natalia's arm with her other hand as she led Lora away. Natalia, no stranger to Lwaxana and her eccentricities, winked at Deanna and followed along.Deanna stood as she was until their happy voices dwindled into the distance and were finally silenced by a closing door. Plexing, she closed her eyes and attempted a moment of meditation, groping for composure in spite of her frustration. The evening hadn't gone well. The near-disasters and tensions around her had worn on her. She didn't usually have to mask her own emotions so completely."Hey," came a soft familiar call. She smiled as she turned to Beverly and Tom."I thought you'd stay and dance the night away.""We're as tired as you look," Beverly said. "Are you standing out here for some peace and quiet? Lora can get a bit shrill, I know.""Oh -- it's not that, I just wanted a moment alone. Lora and Natalia are with my mother, by the way. Her quarters are down that way, section three cabin twelve I think. I meant to ask -- how are the three of you getting along?""As well as can be expected." Tom refrained from glancing at Beverly, but his emotional state spoke more eloquently than his words or his facial expression. Deanna knew from numerous private conversations with Beverly over the past few days that she still struggled over Tom's Section involvement and Lora's mysterious origins. The three had been talking to Ezri for official counseling, but Beverly still came to Deanna for emotional support. Unfortunately, that too had become an energy drain, and Deanna found it increasingly difficult to remain patient."Will you be at the party tomorrow in the holosuite? Will probably set up a beach of some sort -- he prefers getting us as far out of uniform as possible."Beverly and Tom exchanged a questioning glance, then laughed a little at themselves for it. "Sure, we'll be there. It'll be fun," Beverly said. "As long as Will doesn't cook for us.""Who knows, maybe we can manage to push Worf in the water." Deanna took a step. "Good night -- see you tomorrow."She walked slower than they did, and reached her door after they'd disappeared around the curve of the corridor. Sighing, she made another attempt at relaxation."Good evening."She jerked to attention. Gilbraith, still in dress uniform, passed her, slowing as he drew even with her. She stared at his friendly dark eyes and handsome face."Is it?"His smile waned. "It was for me. I found the ball quite entertaining. Didn't you?"She hadn't recognized his voice when Will introduced him and still didn't, but she was certain he was the same man from her nocturnal encounter nearly three weeks before. Briefly she flirted with the idea of confrontation. Very briefly."In a way, it was. Excuse me, Captain."She walked further along the corridor, not liking the thought of his knowing where she and her family were staying -- folly, as he could've found out easily enough, probably, but she couldn't help herself. She risked a glance down the long curve of corridor. The junction was still in sight, and Gilbraith stood there watching her. Flashing him a smile, she strode away from him, until a second look back told her he was gone and it was safe to return to her quarters. She took off her heels and hurried on silent, bare feet to the door and inside to privacy.Relatively speaking. Jean-Luc had Yves in his carrier on the floor and sat cross-legged playing his Ressikan flute. He glanced up but continued the soft lullaby. Deanna tossed aside her shoes, then sauntered across to stand over him, peering at the baby she knew was sound asleep. Bending at the waist slowly, mindful of creaking seams, she spoke in Jean-Luc's ear."Help me out of this dress?"Immediately his playing ceased. "Of course. Why do you think I wanted you to wear it?""The same reason I agreed to wear it?"At least it wasn't too difficult to find something to distract her, however temporarily, from her suspicions and fears. But later, with Jean-Luc's steady breathing the only sound, she couldn't sleep until she brought the lights up to quarter intensity. It dispelled the darkness just enough to reassure her nothing lurked in the room unseen. She watched her husband's face as he slept, succumbing at last to the urge to touch him. He didn't wake when she took his hand. Moments later, he sighed and rolled over in his sleep, pulling his hand free of hers and throwing his arm over her.She thought about people she'd counseled in years past. Couples who had squabbled over trivial things, like how much one of them tossed and turned at night, and the suddenly-single people who missed their partner's tossing and turning. She decided that she didn't mind the covers being stolen, or waking up to find an arm or leg dangling because he'd crowded her almost off the bed, but his hot breath in her ear was another matter.A shove and he was on his back, still asleep and oblivious. She straightened the covers and curled up on her left side, hoping to fall asleep before the next bout of thrashing.Her next thought was hardly a thought -- the hand gripping her shoulder too tightly sent her into a panic. She leaped, not quite aware yet of where she was and what was happening, and felt a stabbing pain on the back of her head before slamming to the floor, the covers sliding down on top of her along with her pillow."Dee! Are you all right?" In the dim light Jean-Luc became a shadow, bending over her. He cradled her head in his hand and helped her sit up. "You were having a bad dream."Panting, she realized Yves was wailing in terror. "The baby," she gasped. "What's happened?""You screamed. It frightened all of us, I think. I don't think you hit that hard -- the skin's not broken. You collided with the night table on the way down. Good thing it doesn't have a sharp edge. Stay here and catch your breath, I'll be right back with the baby."She pushed herself up and leaned against the bed. By the time he came back with the baby she had recovered well enough to return the covers and pillow to where they belonged. "Just bring him to bed with us," she said wearily. "I think we'll all sleep better that way."With the room temperature set a few degrees warmer they slept on the covers instead of under them, and with the baby between them neither of them would be nearly so active while asleep. And having Yves so near helped her dispel the fading memory of her nightmare of waking to find him missing.~^~^~^~^~I knew from having a mother who hosted a long series of foster kids that we were in the honeymoon period with Lora. Lucky for us she was old enough to dress herself and handle her own bathroom trips -- I don't think I could've handled the mess of a toddler and Beverly's rampant jitters at the same time. The girl cheerfully cooperated with my instructions and less cheerfully with Beverly's; it frustrated my Verly that all her maternal ways failed to get through to this giggling little creature with my eyes.I still knew she wasn't naturally conceived, if she honestly was my daughter. All the tests Bashir and Beverly ran came up inconclusive -- they couldn't tell me with absolute certainty if I was her father. Since the technology exists to combine genetic material from a number of different cells with any viable egg and create a normal fetus, Lora could as easily be the product of a tissue sample somehow purloined from one of my sisters, or even one of my nieces or nephews. But Deanna was right about that parental instinct kicking in. It wasn't just responsibility any more. I liked the kid. So there, I admitted it.The morning of my fourth day of playing daddy, Deanna's birthday, the honeymoon ended as I pulled a shirt over my head and stuck my right arm through the sleeve."Lora, hurry up!" came a faint exclamation from the living area. "I've called you three times."Silence. I put the left arm through, tugged the shirt down, and went barefooted to investigate. As I left the bedroom Beverly was putting a pitcher on the set table. She glanced at me and instantly I was sent back in time -- her expression reminded me of my own mother, setting a table for breakfast while her sluggard children took their own sweet time in bathrooms upstairs. Boy that I was, she could hardly get me to do more than drag a comb through my hair once a week, but my older sisters could tie up a bathroom for hours while they performed arcane rites of femininity that left them looking pretty much like they had before they went in. Or at least I thought so.Beverly shoved her hair behind her ear and planted her hands on her hips. The first sign of a mad mother. "Lora!"The second bedroom door opened, and here she came, the chip off the old block -- all that lovely wheat-colored hair stood out like bristles, a smudge of whatever sweet thing Lwaxana had given her the night before still graced her cheek, and as she meandered up to the table in her rumpled nightshirt, one of my old shirts actually, she scratched in a very un-feminine manner."Lora," Beverly began, trying very, very hard to be patient with this, "we don't scratch like that in public."Lora turned her big blues on me. "But Dad did."Beverly turned her big blues on me also, but with a lot less affection. "Tom!"I sat down and quietly wished the wormhole would spit out a few unidentified alien battle ships -- those I could handle. "Lora, let me put this to you as succinctly as I can -- I'm not a good example for you to follow. Listen to Beverly.""But you're my dad.""But you don't have to imitate everything I do because of that. Beverly -- ""What is Beverly?" Lora blurted. "Is she your wife?""Um. Well, no.""What about my mother? If you're my dad, why weren't you with us?"Beverly quietly left the room. It's unreasonable to feel angry, I told myself, but it did no good -- it felt like a betrayal after that little talk in sickbay last week, when she'd insisted we would see this through together. Here I was with no parental experience feeling my way along a treacherous path, and there she went, abandoning me when I needed her most.I took Lora's hand. "Your mother never told me about you, for one thing. I don't even know where you were living. You haven't told me.""I don't remember." She looked at the things on the table as if searching for a distraction. "Why do you live with Beverly if she's not your wife?""Where'd you get this idea that a man and a woman living together should be married?""Uncle Luc married Aunt D," she said breathlessly. "He said he was her husband.""Uncle. . . ooooh-kay, well, your uncle is married, that's true. Some people prefer to do things the traditional way. But you don't have to be married to live with someone, or to have kids with someone.""But if you aren't married she can't be my mother, so I don't have to do what she says."If there's one constant in my life, it's timing. Things happen to me constantly at just the wrong moment, like Beverly returning as she put her hair back in a clip, just in time to hear Lora's assessment of How It Ought To Be.Before I knew it, my hand came up, out went the finger, and I delivered my first parental ultimatum. "Wrong. You have to do everything she says.""Why?"A more trained ear would've heard the belligerence and done something differently, no doubt. I saw Beverly start forward out of the corner of my eye, but the words were already coming out. "Because even if she isn't your mother, I'm your father and I say you have to.""She doesn't think you're my dad," Lora exclaimed. "I heard her -- she said those tests weren't conclusive. She doesn't even like me! She's not my mom, and I don't have to do anything she says!""Yes, you do!""Don't!" she shrieked, sliding out of the chair and racing for her room. The shirt flapped up just before the door slid shut behind her."Great. And she moons me to add insult to injury," I grumbled. "Now what?""You go in and talk to her, after both of you have had a chance to breathe and shake it off. Give it a few minutes." Beverly took her seat at the table and poured herself some juice. Her eyes landed on me as she raised the glass. "Hey, you didn't do so bad for your first power struggle.""Considering I had no help, I guess so. Thanks a lot."The glass went down with a thunk. "She doesn't respect me, Tom. You heard her. Anything I did would have made things worse.""Do you even care that she appears to hate you? Or was she right in her assumption that you don't even like her?"Beverly rested her forehead on the ball of her hand briefly. She rose, took a swig of juice, put down the glass, and headed for the door."Thanks, see you," I called after her."You're taking it out on me, Tom. I'm not sticking around to play scapegoat.""No, you'll go run off to a counselor, Ezri or Deanna, or maybe Jean-Luc -- you'll talk to anyone and everyone but me about your feelings. Fine, you go do that. Whatever makes you happy, sweet pea."She stopped in her tracks. From her stiff back and her fists, I'd hit a nerve. "I hate when you get sarcastic.""I hate being on a one-way track in another one-way relationship.""What?" She whirled around, tears already spilling. "You think I haven't tried? What else can I do?""Oh, for -- what good are counselors? What good has it done to waste our breath talking about a future when you keep walking out on the present?"Blood rushed into her face. "I keep walking out? You can disappear without ever leaving the room! How many times have you drifted off into your own thoughts and when I ask all you say is they aren't even worth a penny? How many other secrets have you kept from me? How do I know Lora isn't the first of many stepchildren?""She's not! I don't even know if she's really mine!"Unfortunately, walls and doors aren't soundproof within quarters on Deep Space Nine. Unfortunately, our voices had risen to hostile wall-shaking volumes. As Beverly and I stared at each other in horror at our stupidity, Lora charged out of her room. She'd put on pants and a shirt at least, though her hair still looked like she'd hung her head out a viewport at warp eight. She blurted out something incoherent between sobs and dashed for the door. Beverly caught her but couldn't hold her; she was out and gone in a thrashing of limbs."Shit!" I shouted, a split-second before Beverly shouted the same -- I got as far as the door and our eyes met, and then we were both laughing."I don't believe this," she gasped as we went after the wayward child. She wiped her cheeks on her sleeves. "We actually talked about this in counseling and here we are fighting like this.""The problem with Ezri is neither of us is comfortable expressing real emotion in front of her," I said. "Let's just get Lora back before someone mistakes her for a mop. I hope we can repair the damage somehow."We got halfway around the habitat ring and were about to give up and call ops for help from security when Deanna came up behind us, calling our names. "You're looking for Lora," she said as we backtracked to meet her. "She ran into my mother's quarters, and Mother brought her to us.""You're probably wondering what happened," Beverly said."You were arguing and something you said upset her." Deanna eyed me then turned to lead the way. "You're losing your touch, Tom, you seem to have that affect on people lately. My mother has decided I have poor taste in friends.""Maybe she's right," I said, keeping up easily."Maybe she's being her usual hysterical self. Fortunately, she's inexplicably decided to take every suggestion Jean makes and has left Lora in his care while she returns to her morning rituals. Otherwise you might have been treated to quite a sight. Lora burst in while Mother was getting in the shower, and when there's a crisis Mother doesn't bother with trivial things such as clothing or washing off the beauty mask she wears every night."By the time we reached the door, Beverly had contained her laughter. "So she came down here in nothing but a face mask and just walked in with Lora?"Deanna smirked. "She doesn't just mask her face, and she didn't walk. Lora was scared to death of her -- she didn't recognize Mother under all the mud and shot out of the room again, and I guess our quarters was the only other place she knew to go. Mother came running after her."We went in with Beverly nearly choking on her mirth. I wished she'd quit laughing already. What if Lora were so traumatized by the whole series of events she never spoke to me again?The Picards' quarters were messier than my old dorm room had been at the Academy. An open case on the floor had apparently regurgitated all kinds of baby paraphernalia. Jean-Luc's dress uniform jacket slumped over the back of a chair; his boots leaned on each other nearby on the floor, keeping company with the shoes Deanna had worn to the ball. The sofa was being used to display recent acquisitions, including a variety of baby toys I'd heard Dee mention her mother had brought.Jean-Luc sat in the middle of the floor cross-legged. In front of him sat Lora, and in her lap was Yves. She swayed gently and hummed to the baby. Jean-Luc had a hairbrush and was carefully untangling her hair."A family is what you decide it is," he said, then glanced at us. "What do you want your family to be?""Momma," Lora said at once."But you can't have her. You have to make another choice. If you don't stay with your father, you'll go to an orphanage, or into foster care. You may be adopted -- or maybe not.""I could stay with you and Aunt D.""Well, you could," Deanna said, putting her hands behind her back and strolling around to stand in front of Lora. Her full skirt whispered around her ankles. "But I don't think you would want to. We argue sometimes too, and you'd probably have to learn to change diapers. And you'd have to put up with Lieutenant Greenman on an ongoing basis -- she's at the top of our babysitter list.""Don't need a babysitter," Lora huffed."If you stayed with us you'd have one until we thought you were old enough to not need one," Jean-Luc said. He set aside the hairbrush. "And once that happened you would turn into a babysitter yourself, because by then we'll have had more children. Six or seven, at least. That's a lot of diapers and runny noses and crying to put up with.""Oh, I'd say there'll be at least ten children," Deanna exclaimed, crossing her arms. "Maybe even twelve. And that means sharing a room -- six children per room, since we have two extra bedrooms.""We'd run out of beds." Jean-Luc reached around to take Yves and got up slowly. "You'd have to sleep on the floor."Lora noticed me and Beverly at last. She leaped up and ran to me. "Who would you get to babysit? Are you having more babies?""Nope, you get your own room. And I don't know who I'd get to babysit, but it'll probably be someone you get along with. I know what you mean about Greenman, she's not my idea of a babysitter either.""Can I have a piggyback ride?""Only if you promise to eat all your breakfast.""Yeah," she yelled, scrambling up on the nearest chair so she could hop on my back.I heard Deanna's giggle as the door shut behind us. Beverly sighed pensively and said nothing on the long walk back to our quarters, nor did she say much over breakfast while Lora questioned me about living arrangements. Her silence worried me. With Lora around, however, there would be no opportunity to discuss it. I hoped it was something that would keep until bed time.~^~^~^~^~"I can't do it," Beverly whispered.Deanna, caught in the act of raising another bite of birthday cake to her mouth, turned to her friend. The holosuite had been configured to a coastal setting; Ranalfian palms swayed overhead in the breeze, foamy green-blue waves combed the pale pinkish sands, and one of Ranalf's four moons showed pale in the deep blue sky, pursuing the yellow sun. Tom and Will were teaching Lora how to throw a frisbee. Bell and Jean-Luc were watching, holding tall drinks and wearing broad-brimmed hats. Data, like everyone else, wore shorts and a loose shirt, and hummed loudly as he made another drink for Worf, who scowled at the procedure -- or at his attire. Hard to say. He'd always disliked being out of uniform, whether that was 'fleet uniform or traditional Klingon paraphernalia, and Will had imposed a dress code for the party. Deanna knew everyone had a hard time not showing amusement at the sight of a Klingon in shorts.She sat in the shade, Yves in his carrier on her left and Beverly in another lounge chair on her right. Out in the sun, Lora leaped up and finally caught one of Will's high-arcing throws, laughing as she landed and almost fell, the frisbee in her hands. The girl seemed to be blossoming even as Beverly drew in on herself."Why?" Deanna asked. Tucking the bit of cake in her mouth, she glanced at the carrier. Yves bobbed his hand as if greeting the onshore breeze but made no complaint."Must I repeat myself? Because of what he is, Dee. I can't stop thinking about it. And the girl doesn't like me.""She hardly knows whether or not to like Tom. It's only been four days. How can you make a decision like that in four days?""I know you think this is just another case of me changing my mind again, but I'm serious -- I can't keep wavering this way, I'm miserable because of it. And the little confrontation this morning reminded me of all the troubles of step-parenting. I don't know if I want my life to be taken over by a child again."Deanna sighed and put her empty plate on the sand, sitting back again in the lounge and putting up her feet. "Happy birthday, Dee, now listen to my problems."Beverly's startled glare wasn't unexpected. "I'm sorry I'm such a burden to you.""I suppose you think I enjoy listening to my friends in pain? You know I'm worried about you, Bev, but you're not doing anyone any favors at the moment. I've listened to you for four days, and I've also listened to Tom. I'm not a counselor any more and I'm tired. I have my own problems to deal with. If you want a counselor to sit around listening to you hedge around your feelings, go talk to Ezri."Deanna sensed her reaction just as she'd sensed the waves of misery her friend had been feeling on and off all afternoon. Beverly got up, stared at her as shock gave way to concern and sympathy, and left her there.Deanna closed her eyes. As she knew he would, Jean-Luc arrived on the scene moments later. She heard the creak of the chair Beverly had vacated as he sat down.Deanna opened one eye, rolling her head slightly his direction."I wish they would just get it all out in the open at once and have done with it. Beverly's driving me mad.""Not everyone can face up to such things bravely, cygne. We can't all have the strength to hold to our convictions and promises." He watched the frisbee game, giving her an excellent view of his profile. "Some of us can experience rampant insecurity in the face of threats against our closest relationships.""Some of us are damned tired of watching others be so persistently dense. How many times can she do this to herself?"Jean-Luc frowned at her."No, I won't tell you how many times she's done it. But I care about her, and she keeps wounding herself over and over -- she wants to avoid pain, yet she turns in on herself and ends up hurting all the more. The girl could provide a common goal for them both but I think she believes Lora might hurt someone again. Beverly just won't let herself care about her.""Perhaps it's Tom who's making a mistake. I know he wants to believe Lora's fine, but the girl did try to kill him.""If you believe she's capable of it why let her hold our son?"He shook his head. "I don't think she's capable. I was only playing devil's advocate. But there is a chance she might act out again, especially if it was some sort of brainwashing.""That's not what it is.""But there are no implants. She's been under observation since she came here, with the exception of those breakouts. It must be intensive mental conditioning.""She's a child," Deanna said, watching Lora dashing down the sand and throwing herself after the frisbee before Tom could get it. "Her education has been neglected and she suffers partial amnesia, probably post-traumatic. Her mother was in the Maquis -- Tom told us that much. From what little Lora can tell us, Bejal wanted to find Tom but was captured and killed. I don't think she could have been 'programmed,' as Beverly calls it, to do much more than she's already done. They can't have had her for very long.""Tom says he never did anything with Bejal. That's why he thinks Lora might not even be his. He suspects intensive genetic manipulations.""I thought Bashir was running more tests.""He did. Beverly helped. They didn't find anything conclusive, but without bringing his sisters in on it, which Tom refuses to do, they won't be able to rule them out. All the evidence still points at Tom, which is of course making Beverly wonder if she can believe what he says." Jean-Luc took off the straw hat and scratched his head. "I can tell you've been deliberately distancing yourself, if you don't know all this already."The frisbee-tossing had devolved into a game of keep away. Will sent the pink disk toward Tom, Lora dashing after it and shouting for help. Data ran out, snatched it with a flick of a hand, and presented it to her with a flourish."Counselor, counsel thyself."Deanna sat up. "I know I'm not exactly up to par -- ""Dee, up to par would have you out there swiping the frisbee and finding out whether Lora's ticklish. If I were moping this way, you'd kick me from here to the other end of the station and back. If you ask me, which you haven't but I'll say it anyway, you're the one who's projecting. It's completely unlike you to be so short with Beverly, no matter how tired you are. You're pushing people away."Anger swelled in her throat. In a way, that was good -- she couldn't speak."I say we give her the presents," Bell called out. And since it brought everyone over to where Deanna sat, she composed herself and smiled, doing her best to set aside her ire.Everyone knew something was amiss. The boisterousness and laughter died away as they left what they were doing, as if she were very fragile. None of them knew what she'd lost, but over the past weeks since Ba'ku they'd asked after her welfare often. They retrieved gifts from the pile near the bar. While they gathered around, Deanna watched their faces and paid close attention -- even Data couldn't meet her gaze for long. From all but him, she sensed the concern, the hope, and some measure of sympathy. Even Beverly."Didn't you get her a present, Jean-Luc?" Will asked."My gift is simple -- if anyone tries to sing, I'll throw them out.""Good gift," Beverly said, glancing at Worf. "Here, open mine first." She leaned over the back of Deanna's lounge chair and dropped a small parcel in her lap.Deanna fumbled with the paper. "Weren't we supposed to do presents before the cake?""We thought we'd get the serious part out of the way. Give up the chocolate first, and that way you'll be able to concentrate on the presents." Will chuckled and glanced pointedly at the saucer in the sand next to her.Bell tsked. "I can't understand why she tolerates you and your teasing, cher.""She'd be worried if he didn't tease," Jean-Luc said.Deanna finished tearing off the paper and pulled open the hinged box. A glittering gold pin lay inside, fashioned to look like a spray of six flowers. Three of the flowers held gem stones in their centers, one purple and two red."It's a very old pin. It was among Nana's things, on Caldos -- I didn't realize what it was until I did some research and found an antique dealer on Earth who recognized it. You're supposed to put the birthstones of your children in it.""Birthstones?""It's an old Terran custom," Jean-Luc said. "Each of the twelve months is represented by a different gem stone. The date of birth determines which gem is your birthstone.""I put yours and Jean-Luc's in, too," Beverly said, pointing at the first two stones. "The third one is the same as the second because the stone for July is the ruby, and you managed to have Yves in the same month as your birthday.""Do the stones have any meaning?" Deanna turned it over in her fingers. Something sharp pricked her finger. She stared at the three empty places. "What's the purple one?""Amethyst," Jean-Luc said."Because he's a Pisces," Beverly added. "Believe it or not. There's an old system called the Zodiac -- something to do with constellations and the month you're born in.""I believe you're referring to astrology." Jean-Luc sniffed. "Pisces, indeed.""So what am I, if he's Pisces?""That took a little more research, but I believe you're a Leo. The lion. Because it's so late in the month -- Yves is earlier and under a different sign.""It's a beautiful pin, but this is an heirloom -- I couldn't -- ""You can, you will. Heaven knows I'm not going to fill all those spaces with stones." Deanna looked up, trying to smile, but wasn't successful in her pretense -- Beverly's reserved smile vanished at once. "Dee, what's wrong?""So what sign was Yves born under?" She turned her attention to the pin again, pretending fascination."Cancer, of all things. Why that would be. . . . Deanna," Beverly breathed, dropping to her knees next to the chair. She glanced at Bell as Yves started to cry. Bell took the baby out of the carrier but Deanna shrugged off Beverly's hands, gave the pin to Jean-Luc, and reached for her son."It's all right," Bell said, "I'll take care -- ""Give him to me! Please," she added, trying in vain to regain composure. Bell passed the baby over slowly. Once she had Yves in her arms, Deanna focused on soothing him. She realized as the baby quieted that everyone else still sat around her, silent as stones. Jean-Luc seemed to be counting grains of sand between his feet. He rubbed his chest absently; the gesture reminded her of his artificial heart, and how he'd lost it. Which reminded her of other near-death experiences he'd had, many of which she'd seen first-hand. How little he complained about her mood all week -- how patient he'd been. How many times he could have pointed out that her loss really wasn't such a loss, because there were other ways to fill those three empty spots on the pin."I'm sorry," she said, clearing her throat. She dabbed at her eyes with a corner of Yves' blanket. "I've been in a terrible mood for too long, and you've all been very patient with me -- you don't deserve to be snapped at the way I've been doing. It's just been difficult for me to accept that I may have lost the ability to conceive naturally, because of the radiation I was exposed to in the Briar Patch. I feel a little silly, actually, because it's not as though I was assimilated, or -- ""It's a loss just the same," Jean-Luc exclaimed. "Minimizing its impact won't help.""I suppose not. Of course, neither will repeating my old advice to me.""Minimizing is a human thing to do," Will said, keeping his tone light but in a way that told her he took the whole matter seriously, indeed. Perhaps it was the concern in his eyes. "A way of coping, I've been told. Maybe she needs to do it.""Human psychology is complicated and best left to professional counselors," Data said. He shoved the ragged-edged straw hat up from his face. "Perhaps what she really needs is a show of support from her friends. I am given to understand a hug is the proper way to show support?""Perhaps." Worf's single, bass note startled Lora, who sidled away from him and bumped into Bell. Worf ignored her and gazed intently at each of the adults in turn. "But we cannot all hug her at once. We should nominate a representative."Most of them looked at Jean-Luc. To Deanna's surprise, he smiled benignly. "I don't think I'd be a very good representative. I've been hugging her all week, and she's still moping.""Well, it should be someone male and good-looking -- what?" Will cried at Bell's scathing glare. "Tom! Data! Worf, even!""I don't see why it couldn't be someone female -- it's only a friendly hug," Beverly said. "But if male's the ticket, I'll volunteer Tom. He'd probably enjoy it.""He will not enjoy it," Jean-Luc exclaimed. He took Yves from Deanna's arms."Even Worf?" Worf scowled at Will, taking a few menacing steps his direction."I didn't mean it that way!""We could ask that nice Dr. Bashir to do it," Bell put in helpfully."That would not be the same. The objective was to have a friend do it -- Dr. Bashir is, so far as I know, not Deanna's friend, but an acquaintance," Data said."What about Counselor Dax?" Tom suggested. "The symbiont's been passed to male and female hosts -- a compromise to end the male/female debate."Deanna finally snapped her mouth shut and found her voice. "Lora, come here and give me a hug."The girl edged past Worf and climbed into Deanna's lap. She hugged as hard as she could, slid off and scurried back to Tom."Now that that's settled, where's the next present?" Jean-Luc asked.While Bell handed a box wrapped in silver foil to Will to pass along, Data offered to get Worf another drink. Deanna fastened the pin on the front of her blouse before taking the present.She got it open in record time. Puzzled, she held up the dress. It was a very nice one, burgundy with black trim and apparently form-fitting. But why a gown?Bell laughed. "Such confusion! It's a bridesmaid's dress, of course."A moment of stunned silence. Then Deanna erupted from the chair, dropped the dress across it, and lunged at the laughing couple, joining them in merriment and hugs. The others seconded the sentiment in more sedate ways, shaking hands -- Jean-Luc dared to dodge in to kiss the future bride early, getting away with it mostly because he still held the baby.The party became a party at last. Deanna asked incessant questions about the wedding, laughing over memories of weddings performed aboard the Enterprise and even mentioned her own thwarted ceremony of long ago, when her mother had brought along her pet vine and Data circled like an eager vulture, observing the interactions between the guests. The group pestered the couple for a wedding date and and Will finally suggested having it when they returned to the starbase in a few days.As the afternoon drew long and became evening and people pled hunger and debated over dinner plans, Deanna noticed a shift in mood. Tom had participated at first in the chatter, quoting anecdotes about his sisters' wedding ceremonies, but became withdrawn gradually. A similar shift had taken place in Beverly, who sat at the opposite end of the cluster of chairs in which the group sat. She was the first to claim imminent starvation and excuse herself; Tom went with her, Lora in tow.Jean-Luc looked a question at Deanna. He didn't even have to think it. She rose and picked up the baby's carrier and the diaper bag. "As wonderful as dinner sounds, I'm exhausted. If we're all going to be on the station another day, could we do it tomorrow night?""If we are to perform the Kal'hyah, we will not be able to dine together tomorrow night," Worf exclaimed.Will's classic stunned expression made Deanna giggle, which in turn made Will frown. Obviously he hadn't thought about the ramifications of having a Klingon best man. Four nights of fasting didn't sound like much of a celebration, especially in combination with the various rituals involving pain, blood and other Klingon fun."Worf, as honored as we would all be to perform that ritual with you, you should perhaps honor the groom's tradition instead," Jean-Luc put in. "A bachelor party.""I have been to such parties before," Worf said. "They are hardly worth calling parties. Tame. Not befitting a warrior.""Worf," Deanna chided gently.His head went up, his nostrils flared -- the tone probably reminded him of arguments long past -- but he nodded curtly. "But if it is your preference, we shall have a bachelor party," he announced, as if declaring war."I'll have my mother suggest entertainment. She's good at finding such things.""What?" Will blurted. "Dee, I really don't -- ""All right, if you really want to have the party at Quark's and lose the rest of your wages on overpriced drinks, go ahead." Deanna started after her husband, already in transit toward the grove of palms marking the exit. "But give me a call if you change your mind," she tossed over her shoulder.Jean-Luc slowed to let her catch up. They left Quark's, then strolled down the Promenade. "Interesting how letting it go that way made your mood pick right up.""It wasn't just that. It was the way my friends ganged up on me to cheer me up. And, it was realizing how self-centered I was being, and how wonderful you've been.""If you think not knowing what to say or do to help is wonderful, we have a long, happy marriage ahead of us."She smiled and took his arm. "I can predict that without trying. I can also see a candlelit dinner in your future, with a happy woman and a sleepy baby.""Can you see what happens after dinner?""Probably a bath." She glanced at Yves, laying in his father's arm gazing up at Papa's chin."That sounds like fun.""I meant for Yves. Although, I suppose I could accommodate you as well.""And you won't even have to bring in the bath toys.""No, just one bath toy.""Is it bigger than a Betazoid?""Just the same size, actually."~^~^~^~^~After Deanna's birthday party my little 'family' returned to the quarters we'd made our home away from home. Lora scurried off into her room, probably eager to return to the terminal for another peek at a wealth of interesting information in the station's computer system. She had picked up on the fine art of questioning the computer for everything from the average life span of a human to Terran customs regarding children. No doubt that had led to her questioning 'Uncle Luc' about his arrangements and comparing them to ours.Beverly silently replicated dinner. I tried to help, but I got the feeling I was being deliberately ignored. She brushed past me, dodging at the last minute to avoid a collision as she carried plates."Verly."She put down the two plates and tucked stray hair behind her ear. "What?""Hold on a second. Just hold on -- Beverly," I added, putting more urgency into it. She'd turned away from me toward the replicator but stopped in mid-turn."Yes?""Stop freezing my balls off and be honest with me. When we get back to the Venture will I still have a CMO?"Her eyes darted about. "Tom, can we talk about this later?""No. You never do later. I love you, but since this morning it feels like it bounces off you and gets thrown back at me. I don't want to lose you but I don't want you to stay if it's going to make you miserable this way."She laughed, cutting it off and tossing her head, eyes glittering with unshed tears. "Miserable. She hates me. She almost killed you.""She wasn't doing it herself.""She hasn't shown any sign of returning to whatever frame of mind she was in, but that doesn't mean it won't happen," Beverly insisted, continuing in that soft-but-intense parental whisper we'd been using. "What if next time she slits both our throats in our sleep? What if -- Tom, what happened to your suspicious nature? Where's that skepticism I used to call paranoia?"I couldn't explain it, but I knew Lora wouldn't do that with the same rock-solid certainty that I knew I would never love anyone as much as I loved Beverly. "She won't. She's got it good and she knows it.""She won't tell us where she's been living. She won't talk about her mother.""I wouldn't talk about mine either, after I found her dead. You'll have to give it a few years for the shock to wear off and the memories of the person to return."Beverly gave me a stunned look rivaling the one she'd had in the restaurant when I'd mentioned the Section for the first time."What happened to the doctor who insisted on treating that Rejovin who tried to kill my first officer?" I asked. The followup punch."I didn't ask the Rejovin to take up residence in our quarters.""She's not a killer, Verly. I'm not going to let her be one, either. She's just a little girl, with no weapons and no access to any.""Except for whatever the person who helped her move ventilation grills provides her with. Maybe next time it'll be something deadlier than a short blade. An energy weapon, a phaser, or one of those little shockers agents seem to carry.""What do you want me to do, then? Send her to one of my sisters? What?"We stared at each other for a bit. From the second bedroom, I heard Lora's faint humming."Whether she's my daughter or not, she's a member of my family," I whispered. "Genetically she's a Glendenning. I'm not going to abandon her. I'm not going to abandon you, either, damn it -- I'll work as hard as I have to and I'll rework our living arrangements however you want them, whatever it takes. You can have space, or time, or signed and notarized contracts that I won't let her hurt anyone, or that I'll give up my job if things get too tough, or -- ""Stop it," she mumbled. "You're not helping. It's just not going to work, Tom. I thought I could do this -- I honestly intended to make it work come hell or high water. But I don't think I have what it takes."The numbness hit. I knew I'd be angry and in pain later, but I was frozen inside. This was what I'd been afraid of all along. What I knew would happen, regardless of when I told her, or what I said."Lora," I called. "Come on, Chip. We're going to dinner."She loped out eagerly and skidded to a stop as she saw the look on my face, her mouth closing again. I gestured at the door and herded her along."What about Beverly?""She's got some things to take care of. It's just you and me tonight, okay?" I glanced at Verly as we reached the door. She stood there, stunned and disbelieving. I waited a moment for Lora to get outside and around the corner. "I love you, Verly. I know you have what it takes. But unless you believe that, it's not going to happen."Lora grabbed my hand as the door shut behind me. "Can I have a ride?""I shouldn't have let you start that," I exclaimed, cupping my hand and bending at the knees. She stuck her toe in my fingers and swung up. She wasn't big enough to be any real burden; I'd carried backpacks three times heavier."But it's fun," she said, her words tickling my ear. "Can we have something Klingon for dinner? What's gagh?""You've been talking to Ambassador Worf.""No, Uncle Will said he had some once. He said it was good.""Yeah, figures. Leave it to Uncle Will."~^~^~^~^~The doors opened on the third punch of the annunciator. Deanna went in cautiously. Beverly strode out clutching a bag. "You're leaving?""I'm certainly not staying here," Beverly declared, tossing her bag on the floor. She glanced around, searching for stray items."Would you like to talk -- "The annunciator interrupted. Beverly stared at her as if asking who it was; Deanna shrugged. "Come in," Beverly called.A man of about Tom's height and build entered the room. He had blond hair, a thin face and dark brown eyes. Deanna turned to her friend in hopes of identification, but Beverly was more confused than she."Are you looking for Tom?" Beverly asked."As a matter of fact, I was, but I see he isn't in. You must be. . . Beverly?" He glanced from her to Deanna. "He did say beautiful redhead.""Tom went elsewhere with his daughter. You might want to try a comm link first."The man lost his pleasant smile. "Sounds like trouble in paradise. That's too bad -- I know he'll miss you."Beverly's ire faded, to be replaced by a wariness Deanna seconded. "How do you know Tom, if I may?" Beverly asked coolly."I'm a good friend.""Really.""I came to deliver a message before I left the station. I can't take the time to locate him, and there are. . . considerations that prevent my using the public comm channels. Regardless of what you intend to do, I'm sure you'll see him at least once before going your way -- when you do, tell him that Thoth wishes him well and that his services will no longer be required. He is not to attempt contact. He won't be seeing me, or any of our other good friends, again. And if he does see them, he doesn't. He'll understand."Deanna stared open-mouthed at Beverly. The flush had vanished, leaving the doctor's face paler than usual. Clearing her throat, Beverly took a step toward the man. "This has something to do with the covert ops group he's been in?""He's not in it any more.""Why?"The man smiled. For a few seconds, Deanna was reminded acutely of Tom. "He's never been what you could call a full-time agent. Call it a staff reduction. A layoff. Retirement. He leaves us alone, we'll leave him alone. That's fair, isn't it?""Doesn't he know too much?""He knows nothing. You know even less," the man murmured, pivoting on his left heel. He strode out into the hall."Wait," Beverly cried, dashing after him. But as she and Deanna reopened the door, which moved too slowly, they saw only empty corridor. He'd vanished."You've never seen him before?""The gall," Beverly spat. "Tom put him up to this. Whoever he is, Tom had to have sent him!""I don't think so. He wasn't lying, or at least he believed every word of what he said.""I'm going to miss my transport." Beverly ran back for her bag, came out with it slung over her shoulder, and hurried off. Deanna ran after her."You aren't going to give Tom the message?""You give it to him.""This is the first hint of something positive, and you're still running away," Deanna exclaimed. She had to run to keep up with Beverly's longer strides and was losing her breath quickly."Why are you so concerned about my relationship with him? It's none of your business, Dee! What happened to keeping things to yourself and staying out of it?""I stayed out of your life for years and knew you cried sometimes, just out of sheer loneliness, especially after Wesley left. I've said nothing because I taught myself to say nothing -- I have my own non-interference directive. And yes, I'm breaking it now. You're afraid of taking a risk with Tom. You're afraid that he's lying to you. You're afraid of that girl. Starfleet is nothing -- you're afraid of that unknown called a personal life. Are you forgetting, I'm the one you called every time you suffered a doubt during the last twelve months?"Beverly threw the bag against the nearest wall and whirled around, almost running into her. She glared, her right hand clenching and unclenching."You're afraid, and you're running out on someone you spent an entire year with. Someone you love. Is it because the girl doesn't need as much help as we thought? You can't bury yourself in something resembling work, so you're leaving? Or is it just that there's some unknown component to Tom's life that you have no influence over?""Who are you?" Beverly whispered. "What happened to my friend Deanna who only had my best interests at heart? Why are you so worried that I'll leave him, when you know what he is and what people like him are capable of?"Deanna had no answer for that. Her heart trembled in her chest; she fought to keep her breathing slow and inaudible. Distant laughter echoed down the corridors, but no one came into view. Just a trick of the station, of bare metal walls and the odd ways sound could carry."I wanted to kick you for never doing anything about how you felt about Jean-Luc," she said at last.Beverly laughed incredulously, tossing her head. "What the hell does that have to do with this?""You never knew how much it hurt him. I did. I know how much this is hurting Tom. I know how much this will hurt you, and the pain your anger is covering. I'm tired of it, Bev, I'm so sick and tired of watching my friends do this, over and over -- I'm so tired of having to fight it, keeping my mouth shut and watching everyone in pain because they can't communicate. I do know better but after the last mission, and the baby, and the cancer, and the injections. . . . When is it my turn to run from the pain?"It was enough to make her waver. She rarely ran from a direct challenge, and the implication that she was got her attention and forced her to see it as such. Beverly glanced at the floor, on the verge of tears, and massaged her left hand between her fingertips. Then she bit her lip -- Deanna sensed the brief pain -- snatched up her bag, slung it over her shoulder, and marched back to her quarters. Deanna followed her and wished she could indulge in sobbing herself to sleep and forgetting the past few weeks.How good it would feel, to rise in the morning and find that she'd never heard of the Briar Patch, the Ba'ku, or Section 31. How perfectly wonderful it would be to have nothing but a baby to worry about.~^~^~^~^~I hesitated to take Lora into the Klingon restaurant at the last minute. I'd fought with Klingons before, and the place was packed -- I didn't think anything would happen but why chance it with Lora around?"You know, why don't we go down to the Bajoran place? Looks like they're awful busy here. I'll starve and dry up and blow away waiting for food."She looked up at me and shrugged. "I've never had Bajoran food.""Uh -- " Well, that might have been because Bejal hadn't been on Bajor, but it still caught me off guard. "Your mother never gave you any?""Of course not, she's not Bajoran," Lora said in a 'silly-you' tone of voice.All the hairs on the back of my neck stood straight up. Assumptions can kill us. I'd assumed Bejal had had something to do with her even though I knew the kid had to be a lab project. Bad boy, Tom Glendenning.My comm badge chirped before I could think about asking a leading question. "Crusher to Glendenning."She still sounded frosty. I put on a professional demeanor. "Glendenning here, what's up?""Someone came by to see you. He said Thoth wishes you well and that your services will no longer be required. He said you won't be seeing him, or any of your other good friends, again. And if you do see them, you don't."I barely heard anything after she mentioned the word 'Thoth.' It felt like someone had just stabbed me in the frontal lobe. Putting a hand to my head, I blinked and shook it off -- and suddenly it all flooded back into my memory. Everything, from things I was supposed to forget to things I was supposed to remember from the last conversation with my contact. Including Lora's origins. Including the key to freedom for all of us."Thank you, very much," I managed. "I need to talk to you. Where are you?""Where you left me. Deanna's here.""Good. Keep her there. I'll be back in a minute. Glendenning out."Lora made a frustrated noise."Chip, we're going back for dinner in quarters. But I'll replicate Klingon for you, how's that?"I called people on the way back, one by one. By the time we got back to our door in the habitat ring, the last of them was coming from the other direction -- Nechayev, looking dire. I waved her inside silently.The assembled could've been attending a wake. Riker fell silent as I entered the room. Turning to Lora, I said, "Seshat, go to your room and sit on the bed." Ezri gasped as the girl's face lost expression and a little color. Lora sleepwalked to her bedroom. No sound came out. She'd done as I'd asked, nothing more, and she wouldn't remember a thing she might overhear."Engramatic disassociation," I said to those gathered. Picard, Riker, Troi, Bashir, Dax, and the admiral. And Verly. She looked terrified. Actually, she looked furious, but like most humans, she used anger to cover a multitude of other things. Deanna looked terrible. I allowed a single stab of guilt at doing this when she was obviously exhausted, but it couldn't be helped.Bashir leaped up from his chair. "Really?""I can see you've heard of it.""I was accused of it, by Luther Sloan. During the war. He accused me of being a spy.""So you've said.""He wanted to recruit me afterward.""Of course. That was his goal all along. He knew you weren't a spy."Nechayev seethed silently in the back of the room. That wasn't like her. Picard glanced her way a couple times, evidently suspicious of her silence. I finally knew answers to the questions I'd been asking since the Briar Patch, and I didn't like them any more than I'd guessed I might."I called you all here because we've met and discussed plans to counter the Section, and I have new information for you.""What kind of information?" Ezri asked."That it won't work. They've been on to you from the beginning.""How?" Picard made the word a bullet, a knife, a blunt object to the head."You told the admiral."Nechayev strode forward. "Ridiculous," she hissed. "Don't make such groundless accusations. Especially when it's so obvious who the real leak is. Everyone here knows what you are.""Not everyone here knows what you are, however. I do. That's why you're afraid of me. That's why you didn't want me in on this little scheme. You've sold out the plan to the enemy, Admiral, and I don't appreciate that. Thing is, you've not counted on my having a few more good cards in my hand than you. I know what you've been instructed to do, and it won't be necessary. The plan's been cancelled. You can leave now.""How dare -- ""Would you like me to go into more detail? Or, alternately, I could make a call or two and give out some entirely different information, and within the week someone else will be fleet admiral.""You're bluffing," she exclaimed, giving a death's head grin. "You don't know anything about me. There's nothing to know -- ""Risa. Third bungalow down. You beamed in, he beamed in half an hour or so later, and you made him a drink, one of those colorful ones in a tall glass, and the two of you sat in the front room talking about the state of affairs in -- "She almost ran out of the room. Almost. She wanted to, but kept herself to a walk and ended up looking like she had a shuttle stuck up her rump."Now we know why she was afraid of you," Deanna said quietly into the silence. "Should we also be afraid?""No. Now that you've provided the release word for the block on my memory, there's nothing left to fear.""They blocked your memory," Beverly murmured."Yes. In a nutshell, I've told you the truth, but not all of it. Some of my suppositions about Lora were true. She's not mine.""How do you know?" Bashir asked."Her father told me so. He's my contact. He's also my brother.""You said you didn't have a brother," Beverly exclaimed."Half brother. Lora's his -- her mother used to be a friend of mine, that's true, but she was never anything more to me. Cal doesn't want to deal with raising Lora, so he's rigged an exchange with me. In return for my agreeing to adopt Lora, he's cutting my chains so I won't have to deal with the Section any more. Dad had a few friends who're willing to go along with that. I'm out, Lora's out of Cal's hair, and I've just saved all of you from a series of fatal accidents by letting you know that the Section's on to what you're planning and it's a pointless exercise. And Jean-Luc, before you give us another pep talk on how the possibility of failing in the struggle shouldn't keep us from trying, it's not just pointless because they know about it. The Section is dying.""Dying," Riker echoed."Think about it. That whole mess in the Briar Patch? The last desperate gasp of a few agents who didn't think the Section should end. The Section wasn't meant to be an ongoing project. It served a purpose for a while but time's up. The Federation has come a long way -- we survived the Dominion War, we're holding our own against the Borg. Voyager has sent back reports of the Delta Quadrant, we have access to the Gamma Quadrant and a base is being put in there -- the great unknown isn't so unknown any more. There's a treaty with the Romulans. The only dubious relations are with the Randra Alliance." I paced like a professor parading before students spouting rhetoric. "We're well on the way to better things. The Section's being phased out. Recruitment's been suffering anyway.""And you couldn't tell us all this before?" Picard still sounded belligerent and I couldn't blame him."No. I didn't remember a lot of things before. I wasn't meant to. With telepaths from all over wandering the universe, you can't let secrets sit in someone's active memory. Engramatic disassociation is our way of combating security leaks. You can't even torture the information out of someone who's set up correctly.""And you were," Picard continued, the underlying hostility quite audible."I'm not a different person than I was. I've never liked the Section and the story I told you was true. You don't know the whole story about my father, however -- he didn't die. Thomas Glendenning died, but the man became someone else, took on a different identity for the sake of anonymity. He had to. If he didn't, the Section would have removed the people keeping him from doing so -- I would never have been born.""How do we know this isn't another deception?" Bashir exclaimed hotly. "And just why was it necessary for them to instruct the girl to stab you?""Doctor, please, settle down. That was a message for me, as I said before. I know now that it was their way of telling me what will happen if I reveal certain things. Nothing that affects any of you -- certain people in the Section would rather go their own way without anyone knowing who they were. That's all." Actually, it was their way of telling me they were in control -- there was no real pattern to Lora's behaviors other than a demonstration of how much of a puppet she could be to them. That, more than anything else, drove me to go along with the script Cal had set for me back on the starbase. I had to buy time to find a way to deprogram her. I had to find a way to combat engramatic disassociation. It could be the key to everything Jean-Luc wanted to do. For now, however, I had to be Section, just this last gasp of fabricated excuses. Deanna's eyes glittered with such anguish that I wanted to recant and tell the truth. I hoped she understood what I was doing."Wait a minute," Beverly exclaimed, leaning on the back of the couch. "Your father's alive?""As far as I know. Cal hints at it. I've never met him.""You seemed to regret that you never knew him," Jean-Luc said. "You've never tried?"I shook my head. "He's a dangerous man. Not the kind you go looking for.""Then what he told me. . . .""Was engineered to save your life. Keep you from prying into things that would get you killed."I watched them deep in thought. I watched Deanna out of the corner of an eye, especially. I knew, as I watched, that we were all being observed -- I knew I had to hang on to my story to the very last.They asked more questions, I answered them, and in the end, I saw them leave one by one, disgruntled but accepting of the idea that the plans we'd been making and the ideas we'd had were all unnecessary. In the end only Beverly remained.She fidgeted, paced, fidgeted, and came to me at long last, meeting me in the middle of the room."You're really out?""Yes.""They won't ask you to do anything, ever again.""That's the arrangement. My silence, my freedom." I looked her in the eye and attempted a reassuring smile. "It's too good to be true, one would think. It's an equitable deal. Lora will be my daughter now. She'll have a home, and a chance at a better life, and I'll have the chance to be free -- they'll probably be watching, but such is life. It's better than the alternatives. And I hope it means you'll reconsider and stay?""We'll talk about it later. After dinner."~^~^~^~^~Deanna lay in the darkness listening to her husband and her son breathing.Somewhere in the night, it happened again. She sensed the arrival of the visitor, felt the cold metal against her neck, just as she had back on the Enterprise when the nightmare had begun. She heard nothing. Saw nothing. But he was there, nevertheless."You did very well," the voice breathed."Well enough to be left alone?"As before, he didn't answer questions. "Your doctor will find a solution to your problem. Your friend will have a long and happy life. Your son and husband will be fine, and the admiral will have forgotten everything, don't worry.""You can be certain that I will. Gilbraith."A low chuckle. "It's too bad you couldn't be recruited, my dear.""Never.""Ah, well. Live your life and enjoy your family, Commander. We'll make certain you'll have a Federation to do that in. Sleep well."He went as silently as he'd come. She didn't sleep. Tumbling through her thoughts were all the lies she'd allowed Tom to tell, the things she had allowed to come to pass, the compromises, the way she'd pushed Beverly -- but Tom did love Beverly, and she was safest with him. If anyone could protect her, Tom could.The admiral had said that leopards couldn't change their spots. Once Jean-Luc had explained the reference, Deanna saw the fallacy in it. Of course leopards could change -- they could fill in the spaces between, become panthers, black as night and passing unseen and unknown.She preferred the leopards. The panthers frightened her in their honest blackness. Better Tom's lies with the intent to protect than the panther's dedicated dangerousness and duplicity. Tom had glanced Deanna's way as she'd left with Jean-Luc; he knew she'd sensed his lies. Did he know why she'd assiduously kept her face straight and her mouth shut? She couldn't guess. His relieved and apologetic expression said all that needed to be said for the time being.Jean-Luc stirred in his sleep, throwing an arm over her, and she debated in circles over whether to tell him everything. He would be furious -- at her, at Tom, and most of all at the Section. It would rekindle his determination to expose and do away with them. That would result in what the panther had promised, if she'd exposed the lies.Yves began to cry. He needed a diaper change. At her side, Jean-Luc stirred and got up -- he'd lost track of whose turn it was. When he came back he sank down with a sigh and reached for her."All right?"His affection was the only thing that could soothe the nagging doubts and guilt she felt. "Tired, Jean-Fish. I can't sleep.""Anything I can do?""Hold me?"~^~^~^~^~The stars were like diamonds. How cliche, he thought, but they were. It was a new moon, and the Milky Way stretched across the sky in all its brilliance.He heard the footsteps coming down the beach sand. It wouldn't be Kyle again. It might be Calvin, coming to insist that he go inside. Security reasons. This beach, secluded as it was, remained too open.But it wasn't Calvin. The perfume, roses, told him who it was."How are the children?""Which ones?" she replied."Mine, and ours. All of them."She cleared her throat. He kept his eyes on the stars."Your daughters are doing as well as always. Your son is back on his ship, and his paramour is still with him. They have Lora well in hand."He remembered his wife's eyes with the usual clarity. Geraint's eyes -- renaming himself Thomas was artifice, he would always be Geraint, the name his mother gave him. Lora should have been Geraint's daughter. Those lovely eyes should have been passed down to her from Rhiannon -- her maternal grandmother should have been his wife, not the woman who stood with him under the Roman night sky on a thin strand of sand, not this stern-faced officer whose blue eyes were probably even now studying him even in the dim light of the quarter moon, hunting for signs of anything of which to be suspicious."Calvin, you know, is fine," she continued with her usual practiced affection. "He told me where to find you.""He's a good boy. Are you disappointed he didn't go to the Academy?""Crystal went. That's enough. She's almost due for promotion, did I tell you? She'll be a captain by the end of the year." Such pride for the daughter -- but she could express pride for the child who had a public career. She could tell her peers of her daughter's accomplishments, even though she made it a policy never to reveal exactly who her daughter was. Crystal didn't want even the appearance of favoritism. Another thing to be proud of. Like her mother, Crystal would make it on her own."Does Lora remember me?"She shifted uneasily, her boots scuffing in the sand. "I don't know. I wasn't aware that she should -- you wanted her to forget everything, you said. For her own safety.""An old man's conceit. I've missed her, the girl was a ray of sunshine in my life.""She's a pretty thing.""That's a flip way to talk of your granddaughter, Elena. Had you no feelings for her at all?""You gave her to the son you've hardly known instead of letting me care for her," she said bitterly. "Cal taught her to stab him -- what was that for?""My son is a paranoid man with no trust in me." The words from the recording Cal had made, of Geraint telling his friends why he hadn't met his own father -- 'he's a dangerous man.' That was true, once upon a time. Oh, Geraint, what I wouldn't give to have been there for you. . . ."So give the child a knife and let her stick it in her uncle's ribs, and it will reassure him?""He took her, didn't he? Cal knows he leads a life not conducive to child-rearing. His brother is older, more settled, and he's good with children, you've said."She sighed. Her silence let the soft whispering of the waves at low tide creep into the conversation."What?""Tom, do you know what Cal did about the details?""He said he would see to it the girl was with Geraint, and that he wouldn't disturb the order of things in doing it. That he'd preserve Geraint's relationships with his friends, and that lovely Dr. Crusher. Are you suggesting he acted inappropriately?"Another pause. "He did as he said he would.""Good. Geraint is out of the Section, then, and all's well for Lora. You've sighed again, Elena, what is it? Are you troubled by something?""I was thinking about Risa.""A lovely idea. We should go again soon.""I was just reminiscing. . . I have far too much to do to get away at the moment. Come inside, Thomas, it's chilly out here, and at -- ""At my age I shouldn't take chances, blah blah blah. I'm fine. I was star-watching, and thinking about the things I've done out there. Is Kyle still at the house?""Cal said he'd gone back to Alaska, under the pretense of being uncomfortable in the balmy Mediterranean climate. Rome isn't to his liking, I suppose.""I've never understood what he liked about six months of darkness and permafrost, but to each his own. Help me up, dear. I've changed my mind. Especially if you'll make me some of that Turkish coffee.""At this time of night?""I want to look through my old albums. I want to find a picture of Lora as a baby, to send to Geraint. One with Bejal in it.""That will cause problems. Lora doesn't remember Bejal, she died when the girl was too young to remember. You know the girl will tell him her mother is human.""Geraint will take care of it.""What a good older brother he is, cleaning up his little brother's messes like this.""Sarcasm is unwarranted. Cal made a mistake with Bejal, believing her lies -- he set it to rights when he found out she was trying to manipulate him.""By killing her and handing the child to some girl he met in the market.""Clytie is a good girl.""Was a good girl.""It was an accident, nothing more."Elena's firm grip on his arm as she helped him up pinched. She was displeased with this conversation and no doubt thought him infirm, dithering in his old age, forgetting that his son was a killer. She thought he didn't remember the facts. But what good would it do to recount them now? Cal was a Section agent, a better one than Geraint had been, and now Thomas Glendenning had his dream -- one son a starship captain, Rhiannon's son, raised to her high standards as were their four daughters. The other two children had proved to take after their mother as well. Nothing could be done to change the way things were. He could only make sure that Lora, of the beautiful blue eyes that so reminded him of Rhiannon, was raised differently. She would blossom with Geraint where she wouldn't with Cal.He wished he knew the details of Clytie's death. He knew better than to believe Cal's accounting of it. Lora's mutterings had hinted at more than a simple fall down the stone steps from the house to the beach.He leaned on Elena, though he didn't have to, fostering the appearance of being elderly -- all he had left to him was appearances. If Cal knew how much his father knew about him. . . . He needed to live as long as he could. Someone had to keep an eye on Cal.And Elena. He had to watch Elena, as he'd done for so many years -- she didn't know that he could destroy her Starfleet career by simply posting an anonymous package to Command.Soon, the key players would be in place, and he could play his final hand in this immense poker game he'd made of his life. The cards had stacked up well over the years.Elena, the queen of spades, whom he'd so long ago marked as someone he'd need to cultivate friendship with and discovered how miserably lonely she was beneath her toughness. Taking advantage of her had been his only marital infidelity, an undertaking geared to benefit the Section that had led to more advantages than he'd initially bargained for.Calvin, the king of spades. The son Elena had raised almost in secret and brought back to him whenever he happened to be on Earth and in Rome, where they could pretend together that there was some hint of a familial bond between them. He knew Elena viewed him as an advantageous connection but thought she was fooling him into thinking otherwise. Cal probably thought the same; the boy had never been sincere that Thomas could remember. To his relief, Crystal had gone straight Starfleet and spent little time with either her brother or her mother.Geraint, the joker -- his wild card. He'd tied himself to Beverly and Lora and Thomas had manipulated many others to see Geraint set free, but he could be brought back into play if necessary.Jean-Luc, unwitting king of hearts in this grand game. Years ago, Thomas had seen in him the stuff of a good captain -- enough daring to go where angels feared to tread, enough caution to look after his ship and crew, enough intelligence to know how to serve both Starfleet politics and moral obligation without appearing to sacrifice one to the other. Cal, lacking his father's years of manipulation and observation of human behavior, believed he'd tricked Picard into believing the Section would end soon. Cal didn't know about the other card, the latest addition to Thomas' hand.The queen of hearts would tell her king the truth about her role in this. She was a wife and mother, not just a first officer -- her loyalty to Picard ran deeper than anything Cal could understand. Suggesting to Cal that the former counselor would know well enough how to handle her old shipmate Beverly Crusher and manipulate her other friends in the pursuit of their goal had been enough to set events in motion that led to her inclusion. The king and queen of hearts would be more aware, more careful, and primed for future encounters with the king and queen of spades.It was the best full house Thomas could have hoped for. Some of the best possible cards he could've gotten. Let them all think it was all for the sake of a little girl, the sentimental whimsy of an old man. Let them think that the snafu in the Briar Patch had been a result of a mistakenly-directed call for backup. They would know differently when his final hand was laid out for all to see.Soon."Command calling, for Admiral Nechayev," Cal sang out from the top of the stairs."Hush," Elena hissed. "Get down here and help your father.""Yes, Mumsy.""Don't call me that!"Thomas Glendenning nursed the warm feeling inside. He clung to the end of the railing while Elena hurried up the steps and Cal dawdled down. While he waited, he looked up once again at the stars and sang softly."He deals the cards as a meditationAnd those he plays never suspectHe doesn't play for the money he winsHe don't play for respectHe deals the cards to find the answerThe sacred geometry of chanceThe hidden law of a probable outcomeThe numbers lead a danceHe may play the jack of diamondsHe may lay the queen of spadesHe may conceal a king in his handWhile the memory of it fadesI know that the spades are the swords of a soldierI know that the clubs are weapons of warI know that diamonds mean money for this artBut that's not the shape of my heart. . . ."~^~^~^~^~ "Play me a song, Daddy."It's amazing how that can give you such a high -- she probably knew by now that calling me 'daddy' could get her just about anything. Since returning from Deep Space Nine, we had busily remodeled to include a bedroom for her and she'd settled in across the living room from where Bev and I slept."What song?" I asked, as Beverly came out of the bedroom. The door sighed shut with a final, barely-audible click. As a concession to her lingering doubts, I'd had an automatic lock installed on our bedroom door that selectively barred Lora from entering without one of us. One of several compromises I had to grudgingly admit might be wise. Verly smiled and joined us on the couch, plucking a guitar string with a fingernail."How about something with a beat you can dance to?" she suggested."Oh, you do think I'm a regular maestro, don't you? How about something that's easy to play that I can sing to?""Do you know any of those?"Lora giggled at our mild teasing tone. "Play me a song about family, Daddy."I studied her earnest upturned face, glanced at Beverly, and plucked a few soft notes. "How about I play you a song my dad used to play, a long time ago before I was born?""If he played it before you were born how do you know it?""My mother recorded it. I have recordings of her music, too, and of her dancing. A lot of them. I'll let you see them if you want.""What's the song about?" she asked, watching my fingers as they began the opening bars to the accompaniment."It's about family. It's about how much a person can care for another, and how important the ones you love are. Sound like something you want to hear?"Lora nodded eagerly and sat up on her knees, hands between them. I didn't stop playing to chide her for having her feet on the sofa; there was plenty of time for discipline later. I started the song over again, pitching my voice low and meeting Beverly's eyes."If I could forget to breatheForget to breathe entirelyIt's happened down through historyAnd surely I could lose my headSome night I could drink too muchAnd take it off and just forgetAnd I will learn all languagesI will speak in every tongueFrom highnesses to savagesAnd to all beneath the sunSomeday I will paint the skyI will build a ladder, make a rollerThat could reach that highAnd nothing that I do will passEverything I will and make and feelAnd dream and know will lastI will rid the world of sorrowStop all wars and painI will tell you of tomorrowAs I rule the wind and rainI can do it all it's trueBut only when I've done all thatOh will I turn away from youOnly when I've done all thatOh will I turn away from you.""I don't get it," Lora said when I'd finished playing."It's a roundabout way of telling someone how you feel," I began, turning away from my moist-eyed Verly reluctantly. "See, all those things are impossible -- you can't forget to breathe, you can't take off your head, you can't paint the sky -- by myself, I can't do any of the things in the song. It means I won't ever leave unless I do all those impossible things, which means I won't leave at all."Lora wrinkled her nose. "I still don't get it. Nothing's impossible.""Oh? Who told you that?""Uncle Luc. Can I go visit Auntie Lwaxana? She said she'd show me a mud bath.""It's almost dinner time," Beverly said. "We'll all go after dinner, how's that?"Lora stared at her, and I tensed in preparation to deal with another squabble. But Lora pulled one of her fast tangents on us. "Are you going to stay with us forever?"I almost embarked on a long explanation of relationship dynamics but opted for something much simpler and optimistic. "Of course she is.""Are we a family?"Resting my hands on the guitar, I attempted jovial nonchalance. "I think so.""You said that sometimes when a parent dies, the other one will pick someone else to be a step-parent. Is that why you live with Beverly?"Her full-of-blanks memory certainly didn't help me with the explanations. I suspected that her struggles with defining the nature of my relationship with Beverly wouldn't be over any time soon. She'd been picking away at the definition of family, approaching the subject from different angles, since that initial fight on Deep Space Nine."I live with Beverly because we love each other and we decided to stay together because of that. She can be your step-parent, or she can be your friend. That's up to the two of you. Remember what the counselor said about that?""She isn't my Momma," Lora said. She frowned and ran her hand down the bottom of the guitar in my lap."You can call me Beverly, then," Beverly said smoothly. "It's all right if you want to do that.""Let's get dinner. I'm so hungry I could eat a sofa cushion," I exclaimed, standing and putting the guitar on the couch where I'd been sitting.Lora leaped down. "I'm so hungry I could eat a sofa!""I'm so hungry, I could eat two sofas!"We got up to six sofas and three armchairs before Beverly lost her patience with the game and stood with crossed arms behind her chair, glowering at us over the set table. "Looks like the game's over. Verly's mad."Lora giggled. "Yeah, Momverly doesn't like sofas for dinner, I guess.""No, not really." Beverly managed to not fall down in a faint; she dropped into her chair and picked up her fork. While Lora dug into a pile of peas and experimented with how many she could get on each tine of the fork, I grinned and nudged Verly under the table.She looked askance at me, then gave me a maliciously-amused look that should have warned me but didn't. I stifled a yelp as the toe of her boot glanced off my ankle. I nudged again, then realized I'd overshot my target -- rather than poking her in the thigh, I'd been jabbing her in the posterior.Then I laughed. She took a swipe at me without real intent, her hand glancing off my shoulder, and laughed too. "You're really funny, you know that?" I told Lora to cover for it. "No one eats sofas for dinner!"She laughed with us. I had the feeling that we non-breathing, sky-painting, head-removing folks -- Momverly, Uncle Luc, Aunt D, Uncle Will, Uncle Data, and the rest of us -- would be just fine. We'd get by in this imperfect universe because we'd stick together. And that, in the end, is what family really is. Blood may be thicker than water, but love's stickier than anything.And for that, I really would do anything.Even eat a sofa. ~^~^~ Finis ~^~^~Tom's songs are both written by John Gorka. "The Shape of My Heart" is by Sting.
48207	We Are Still Here	{ "Archive Warning": "Graphic Depictions Of Violence", "Category": "M/M", "Characters": "Adam Lambert, Tommy Ratliff", "Fandom": "lambliff", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Mature", "author": "by dramady, edonyx", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2010-01-09T00:00:00", "words": "12,927", "Additional Tags": null, "Relationship": "Adam Lambert/Tommy Ratliff", "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": "Until The End Of The World", "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	The electricity's off now; it's been off for weeks, and Tommy and Adam have had to barbecue almost everything. Not that barbecue is ever a bad thing, but now it's really starting to get cold. This morning, Tommy wakes up and looks out the bedroom window to see a fine carpet of snow on the ground, and he already knows that downstairs is going to be cold as fuck. It's funny, two months ago, they'd been famous (or nearly famous, in Tommy's case), and now he and Adam are little more than haphazard farmers, defending their property against these infected people who wander in.It's not nearly as often now, one or two a day, and they've got an alert system set up, simple as hell: a tripwire that's totally McGyver'd to a board that drops down over the front door. It's loud enough to alert Adam and Tommy, but not enough to attract anything else that might be in the area.Then there's the issue of getting rid of the ex-people, which meant that they got a second truck, this one with a flatbed, and on the other side of Maysville is a small dump. So... that's where they dump. Thank god it's cold.Shivering, Tommy pulls on a sweater and socks, and leans down to nudge Adam's shoulder. "You wanna wake up? We gotta figure out how to heat this place. I'm freezing my ass off." Yes, they sleep together, so what? It's safety in numbers, and besides, Adam's always warm. "I can make some coffee if you want.""The coffee is shit." Adam burrows deeper under the mound of covers they have on the big bed. They raided the local furniture store and got the biggest, fattest mattress the place had. It's actually awesome. The coffee? Less so since they have to make it in a pot over a propane camp stove.Cassidy used to joke that Adam is high maintenance. Hilarious now. Though the bathroom cupboard is filled with every box of black hair dye they could find. He simply will not give up some things. He refuses.They do have to figure out how to heat the house though. The gas generators they found are just to loud; they can't risk not being able to hear. Every once in a while Adam will actually check his IPhone, even though it's dead. Some old habits die really hard. He peers at Tommy over the covers. "Are you okay?""I'm freezing my balls off, but... yeah. I'm okay. It snowed last night." And he's still pretty tired; it still feels like he's always listening for what could be out there. Maysville, as it turned out, was completely gone, the people infected or altogether dead, and Tommy wonders where the occasional wanderer comes from, or how far they've traveled. Or how they even know that there are survivors inside the house. "Fine, ya big baby, I'll make you tea. I'll have the shitty coffee." Their last luxury, at least, is running water, and as for music, Tommy's still hoping that maybe Adam'll start singing again. "Bet there's like, firewood and shit in town. There's a fireplace in the livingroom downstairs, but I was never a fuckin' boy scout. I have no idea if it's safe or anything.""Hey, wait. C'mere." Before Tommy can get too far, Adam pulls him back under the covers and spoons him, wrapping his larger body around the smaller one. Tommy's gotten even skinnier. Adam can feel his ribs through his clothes.He refuses to think of what he would do if something happened to Tommy."If we build a fire, they'll see the smoke," Adam tells him again. "Maybe during the day, but not at night." He pauses, then says, "I can cut your hair if you want.""Does it really matter?" There's a little laugh there as Tommy pushes back against Adam, back to chest, and shivers. "It's not like anyone looks at me except you, anyway, you know? If you want to, sure." Tommy voices something that almost sounds like a purr as he starts to warm up, and with that, comes feeling heavy-eyed. No. Coffee. Must have coffee. "You can't see smoke at night unless there's something to reflect it. And we got a system to tell us if anything's coming, right?" Us. The both of them. Tommy can't imagine doing any of this by himself; he's sure he'd go insane if he didn't have anyone to talk to. Or eat with. Or even sleep with, just for the company. "You wanna take today off? Or do you wanna see if we can get that fireplace going? Oh man, I bet IGA still has marshmallows.""We have to figure out how to heat the house." And store the food and get more food. Winter is coming. Winter, Adam corrects himself, is here. They can't take the day off. There is no such thing, actually, as a day off.Adam presses a dry kiss to the back of Tommy's neck and urges them both up and into layers of clothes, all taken from the store in town that was a combination post office/outdoors/hardware store. Yes, that means Adam is wearing Carhardts. Somewhere, he likes to think Brad is laughing.Both armed, they go into town and Tommy gets his marshmallows and they take as much as they can of whatever they can. Adam's pretty sure they're the only 'shoppers,' but he doesn't look too closely. They rush; always, to best be ready for whatever might come. Then they load as much wood as they can into the back of the truck that's stained with blood; Adam doesn't look at that, either.It's when they're driving back that Adam stops in the middle of the road and points. Something moving on the other side of the silo.They don't even need to talk when they see one of the infected people, anymore. Tommy nods and motions for Adam to keep an eye out. Instead of a rifle, he's got a pair of handguns, one with a flashlight just in case it needs to be used at night. He takes aim, fires, and whatever it was that was moving - man, woman, whatever it once was - topples like a scarecrow. Then it's back in the truck where Tommy sits in silence until they're back to the house. It's still hard to pull the trigger. He doesn't think he'll ever get used to it.Once the wood's unloaded and the food is put away, Tommy pulls open the gate on the fireplace. "Wanna give me a hand? I think there's some kind of chute to keep the inside of the fireplace from catching on fire, or something." It's definitely much colder downstairs than upstairs, and even with his layers, Tommy's shivering. "What d'you wanna do for food, after?"Tommy still mourns for Whoppers, sometimes."Remember when we got manicures for Gridlock?" Adam asks, as he finagles himself on his back to look up the chimney for something that looks like a chute or a door or whatever. "Soup sounds good, doesn't it? We can ... just throw stuff in a pot. It'll be warm. You need to eat more." He reaches up, pulling a chain and ... hey! Look! the sky. "Got it."Sitting up, on the floor, Adam wipes black hands on his pants. "You got this? I'll start soup?" He wants to just sit sometimes, hold Tommy and tell him it's going to be all right. That's what he wants to do. He just doesn't believe it enough to say it."That seems like a hundred years ago." Tommy casts a smile at Adam, trying to get wood set up in some kind of teepee shape so he can stuff newspaper inside and try and light it up. "Sometimes I wonder if anyone around here has a guitar, you know?" Slowly, the fire starts to take, and Tommy blows on it to get the wood to catch. "Soup sounds fine with me. I eat enough, it's fine. Thanks for getting that thing open for me, huh?" Until the downstairs warms up properly, Tommy can't help but shuffle toward Adam to leech just a little more of his body heat. "What kinda soup? I think there's some chicken in the cold cellar, still. It should be okay." Crash-course in farming, in keeping animals. Things Tommy printed off from the internet before they lost that privilege. "Are you okay?" More often than not, he wakes up curled up against Adam, a head on his shoulder, an arm thrown across his waist. "Man, it's gonna be nice to be warm.""I'll put chicken in the soup; I'm just gonna toss in stuff that sounds good together." For Adam, it's been a crash course in food preparation; nothing elaborate, just opening cans and heating things, but it's more than he'd done before. He puts an arm around Tommy, pulling him close. "Sometimes I miss my life so much I think I might go a little crazy." But that's all he says, lightly, and he kisses Tommy's hair and starts for the kitchen and the pantry. "We should find you a guitar. Maybe up at the school," he says as he pulls cans from the shelves; tomatoes, chicken broth, some beans.Tommy can only nod; he knows exactly what Adam's talking about. "You're actually a pretty good cook, y'know." Adam kisses his hair and Tommy involuntarily tips his chin up, looking for something that he can't rationally comprehend. "And if I'm playing guitar, then you're singing, okay? I miss music." With Adam in the kitchen, Tommy pokes at the fire, listening to the pop of the wood. "Once this thing is burning okay, I'm gonna go check the trips and grab some eggs, okay?" Which means Tommy checks his guns, making sure they're fully loaded. They've both gotten to be pretty good shots, and that's a sad fact. "Hey, Adam?""Yeah?" Adam opens cans and pours, opens and pours, stirs. "We need to get more propane; all they have," he notes, as much to himself as to Tommy. They're learning as they go; it's sheer luck they haven't had something really bad happen. "Do you want me to go with you?" He should throw some rice in the soup, too."I'm surprised that there's still gas, you know? And I guess barbecue was a main diet staple, huh?" Tommy stops for a second, watching Adam pour cans into the pot before moving forward to hug him. "I'm still scared, you know? That..." There's a little shake to his head before he sends his thoughts in a different direction. "We gotta go somewhere that there's, like, a Wal-Mart or something and really stock up on stuff. 'cause there aren't gonna be any plows or anything like that once the rest of the snow comes." That said, he lets go of Adam and goes outside, gun in one hand, ears pricked to anything that might be out of the ordinary. And there's plenty, once he sees what's in the snow. Footprints. Bare feet. Eggs are grabbed and chickens are fed, and Tommy hurries back inside. "We had company last night. They went into the field behind the house. But-" His cheeks are pink from the cold and from nauseating fear, and he blocks the door. "The prints came right up to the back door."Without a word, Adam reaches for the rifle that's sitting next to the dead refrig and he walks over to the door to look out. "Did you see where they went?" He looks out at everything that's either white or gray, scanning for anything. Right up to the back door. "We need more protection." What, though, he has no idea. Irrational anger flushes the back of his neck red. Why can't these fucking undead motherfuckers leave them alone?! A trip to a Walmart is probably a good idea. He can't even remember why he hated Walmart so much, before."I didn't see anyone at all. Just the prints. And the back yard wire wasn't tripped, so I have no idea how it happened." Are they figuring things out? "I should go back out and look at the trips. You wanna cover me?" The soup is starting to smell really good, and Tommy's stomach growls. "You wanna hear something stupid? I could seriously kill for a loaf of bread. I don't even know how to make it, and you know that none of that stuff is good anymore." At least they've got eggs, and they found powdered milk at the IGA in the bulk section - they'd taken the entire bin, and it sits in the corner of the kitchen - and there's peanut butter and soup and vitamins and plenty of water. "We'll grab everything we can from Wal-Mart. Weapons and stock and food. We can take both trucks? Or we can find something bigger in town, maybe, to take." Anything to not think that one of these things had just sort of moseyed on up to the door like it was no big deal, while the two of them had slept tucked up close for warmth, upstairs."I'll go with you." Adam turns down the heat on the soup and shrugs on a coat, Carhardt again, and there are a few extra shells in his coat pocket already. "We should find a UHaul truck. We'll take that and go together." The idea of being in separate vehicles makes him nervous. But that's for later. Right now, they step out onto the porch and Adam fights back to urge to shout at the top of his lungs, Come on, you coward motherfuckers! He looks and looks, seeing nothing. "They didn't go after the chickens?"Tommy makes a gesture at the coop, and the bare footprints that come in from the field, lead to the door and then away, go nowhere near where the chickens are. "They were fine when I went in... Dottie didn't peck me for once, and Gertrude had two eggs that she was hiding from me." Yes, he's named them. So what. At the edge of the field where the tripwire lines six inches off the ground, Tommy realizes why it wasn't tripped. "There's snow covering it. We gotta move it up higher, like, chest height? That way they can't miss it or whatever." A U-Haul is a great idea, and trust Adam to think of it, right? Then, yeah, they can totally go together and grab as much of everything as they can. Pillows and blankets, gas heaters, Coleman lamps. Food and clothes (new clothes!), and more hair dye for Adam. "Is it too much to fucking ask to just... have some quiet? Not have a day where I don't feel like I'm gonna barf up my lungs because I worry that something's going to get y- us?" He looks up at Adam from where he's crouched on the ground, and then, impulsively, balls up a little bit of snow and tosses it at Adam.Because Adam wasn't expected it, is, in fact, looking in the other direction for anything, the snow hits him right in the side of the face and he barks out a shocked sound, turning quickly, just reacting. "Oh, you asshole," he says when he realizes just what it was, and he smiles a little bit. He kicks some back at Tommy, but doesn't let go of the gun. "If it's chest-high, they can go under it. Thigh-high." Which he only used to think of in relation to boots. "We'll eat lunch and do that. Food first, okay?" Another look and he starts moving backwards toward the house. "In I am Legend, didn't he have something that if they touched the door, it went off? Something we could set at night? Battery powered or something. I don't know.""Car batteries!" Tommy crows, getting to his feet, dusting snow off of himself. "You're so fuckin' smart, jeez. I'd be deader than dogshit without you." It was Adam who'd hauled Tommy to his feet in the first place after they'd gotten off the bus, Adam who'd driven them to Maysville (it'll always just be Maysville, never home), Adam who'd learned to cook. "Thigh high, then. It's... it's kinda good to see you smile, you know? And Jesus, you should see your roots. You wanna cut my hair? You should check out your own." Adam's hair, which has gotten long, fast, and it looks good on him. Then again, Adam could probably wear a paper bag and people would go insane for him. In another life. "So, let's eat, and then we'll head into town and see if we can find a big truck. Then... Wal-Mart. Oh man, what if we found a Sam's Club? Wouldn't that be the shit? The motherlode!" And probably full of infected people. That's something else Tommy's put a lot of thought into: if they're just infected with this virus and not zombies, wouldn't they starve to death? Or something? The few that they've seen lately have looked worse for wear, definitely more dead than infected, as if their bodies aren't functioning but are on auto-pilot instead. Tucking his own pistol away, Tommy follows Adam back into the house, barricading the door once they're inside."Now you're just trying to make me self-conscious," Adam tells him. He's made it a point not to look in the mirror, actually. He knows, from when he's laid awake late at night, that his complexion is shitty again; stress and fear will do that to a guy. "I think I dreamt of going to a spa," he adds, stirring a can of mushrooms into the soup after he turns the heat back up. "We don't have time before it gets dark," he says, though, "to move the trip wires and go to Walmart. We'll go tomorrow right when it gets light." The days are short now, roughly eight hours of light and the idea of being out at night makes him anxious. "We can make a list, be ready to go." Walmart will have CD players, too. DVD players. Music. Movies, small ones, powered by batteries. That seems outrageously hedonistic. "Tommy?" He finally says, though, watching his spoon stir the soup. "Please don't make jokes about being dead.""It's true, though." Tommy sits at the table, wishing there was beer, or something. Even if it's warm. Then he gets up to find paper and a pen, and starts on his list, and it looks like they're going on a camping trip until he gets to the necessities: food, clothes (underwear!), soap and bodywash and razors. "You shouldn't be self-conscious. You look fine." And Tommy means it. In the last couple of months, they've both worked so much harder than they had in the great Before, and yeah, Adam might have a bit of a breakout and some gold-ish roots, but there's something lean about his body now, brought from lifting and moving and working hard. "So, I'll move the wires tonight and try and figure out something, like... maybe alarm a pad to the doorbell? God, where's Mythbusters when you need them?""I don't know. Just something in case they miss the trip wires." When the chicken is done, Adam pours soup into the bowl. Maybe there's a way to make bread. He has no idea how, but he'll try. He sits and takes over the list, jotting down what occurs to him. Weatherstripping. Maybe plastic to cover the windows. As much water as they can carry and yes, clothes. Battery lanterns. Lucky Charms.By the time the soup is done, the list is two pages long. They both eat two bowls and the rest gets stored in the basement where it's cold enough to work as a refrig. Then they load up the fireplace and go back into the cold to move the trip wires. It's getting dark by the time they're done, but there's something about accomplishing something in this way that has Adam breathing a little easier when they're back inside and locked in. He crouches in front of the fire, warming his hands. When he hears Tommy come up, he turns, "I think I'm going to color my hair. Do you want to do yours?"Tommy washes his hands in the kitchen, peering, as always, out into the dark. Coast is clear, for now. "Yeah, I guess. You didn't happen to grab any of that Blondissima stuff, did you? 'cause my hair looks shitty. Or I can just go all black, like you." He comes up behind Adam to rest his hands on Adam's shoulders, squeezing for a second before crouching down beside him. "I was thinking about Zombieland - did you ever see that? - and maybe we should get, like, an RV or something. Just in case we really need to move." It's been okay so far, after the first couple of weeks where they'd all but cleaned out the population of Maysville. And in other places, there might still be hydro, and there might still be other people alive, like them. It's just a thought though, and Tommy goes back to Adam's hair. "Do mine and I'll do yours? It's gotta be really hard to do it in the dark.""Haircolor by candlelight. It's romantic." Adam snorks out a soft laugh. "Sure," he says to the RV idea. Can't be too safe. That's what they're learning. Maybe, he tells himself, he'll feel more like himself if he's colored his hair. He watches the way the flames flicker and asks, "do you think there are others?""There has to be, you know?" Tommy scruffs his hand through his own hair, overgrown and irritating as fuck, now. "I mean, we can't be the last two people in the States, right?" He stands, pressing his hands to the small of his back, then offers a hand to Adam. "Oh come on, romantic?" Okay, it might just be, but he and Adam are just friends, right? Yeah, they curl up together, but it's because of the dawning cold and the need to just be near someone who's living and breathing and okay. "Come on, let's go upstairs. I'll get a couple of lanterns and meet you in the bathroom, alright?""It's a date." Adam couldn't resist, smiling a little bit more. What if, though, he wonders, they are the last two people in the United States? The idea of there being other people out there actually frightens him but he doesn't say that, ever. It's alarming how quickly he got used to being alone, just with Tommy.When he has dye in his hair and is working on Tommy's, it's surprising how reassuring this is; something he knows without even thinking about it. "There are clippers in the bathroom. I'll see if they still have a charge; we can clean you up easy." Using a dead man's razor and clippers; this is his new life. It won't, he has to keep telling himself, change.Tommy holds still, looking a bit chagrined at having Adam cut his hair, and the clippers buzz dully when Adam clicks them on. "You look good with long hair, by the way. I saw some pictures from..." There's that word again, a life that they don't have anymore, capitalized inside his head for its importance. "...Before, and it looked really good on you. I think there might be batteries downstairs for the clippers if you want me to check? And I can put the burner on for tea if you want some." Somehow, it makes Tommy feel good to do little things for Adam, when he honestly believes that he wouldn't be here right now if it weren't for the other man. Tommy rubs his palms against the thighs of his pants; it's still cold in here, but not quite as bad as earlier. And with no lights on, there's nothing to show off the smoke coming out of the chimney downstairs."It's nearly done. I don't know if long hair is practical, you know?" Until it gets long enough to pull back, anyway. Suddenly, Adam has to stop what he's doing and realize what he's said.Practical. Adam isn't sure whether to laugh or cry. He closes his eyes for a minute, hand on Tommy's shoulder. His voice is a little rough, throat feeling dry when he speaks again. "Want me to shorten your bangs?"The tone in Adam's voice makes Tommy stop him, and he looks up at Adam, brows drawn together. "Just wait a sec huh?" In the weird organic light that comes from the lanterns, Tommy studies Adam's face before wrapping his arms around Adam's waist, hugging him tight. "Trust me, you don't want me cutting your hair. Just wear hats. It's not like I'm gonna make fun of you for having bad hair or anything." His hands move, holding the sides of Adam's jaw, and Tommy touches their foreheads together. "I'm gonna go do a quick round downstairs and make sure everything's closed up. You get in the shower, and I'll come up and keep watch." It's a routine now, taking turns doing things, except sleeping. Now, they sleep together.Ice cold showers. Something Adam has learned to survive as well. Maybe tonight, he'll dream of sushi with his mom and Neil and that just makes him think that come spring, assuming they're still alive, Adam and Tommy should learn to fish. "Fuck my life," he whispers to himself. He takes the scissors to his wet bangs, though, and at least shortens them, then starts to rinse out his hair.When Tommy comes up, it's with a steaming cup of tea for Adam that he sets on the little vanity. "Everything's clear outside, and it's snowing again. We really gotta do something tomorrow. You want me to grab you some blankets for when you're done freezing yourself? I thought cold showers were only good for one thing." He laughs at himself a little, sitting down on the closed toilet seat. Thank god the water still runs, even if it's cold. "I'm... wow, I sound like an old guy. I'm already ready for bed. After we eat some more soup, maybe?""Yeah." That way they'd be up early and ready to go when the sun comes up; something else he never thought he'd say. "I can't bear a cold shower, though." Adam instead gets a washcloth and some soap and wipes down the parts that get smelly. He needs to put mud facial mask on the list for tomorrow because when he does look in the mirror, he looks away quickly. "Let's sit by the fire, huh? Tomorrow, we'll get hair bleach for you." He runs his (icy) fingers through Tommy's hair, tea in the other hand. "Unless you want to shower?""I totally want to shower, actually. Working outside always makes me feel disgusting." But for a moment, Adam's fingers are in his hair, and impulsively, Tommy gets up on his toes and kisses him. It's not like the kiss at the AMA's, but it's not like any of the casual affection that Adam normally shows him. It's something else, something that makes Tommy feel momentarily warm before he strips down to a t-shirt and boxers to step into the tub. "I'm a man, I can totally deal with shrinkage. I just... can't get used to bathing out of a sink." The water comes on and Tommy winces, shivering, until he's all wet, and then there's shampoo that's rubbed in and rinsed out, and the wet t-shirt is stripped off so he can soap up. At least it's not Camay anymore, it's Zest, and he doesn't smell like a grandma when he steps out. Five minutes in water like that? Way more than enough. "Is it weird that I'm kinda excited to go to Wal-Mart tomorrow?" His words are shuddery and broken until he gets wrapped up in towels. "Let's hit that fire. We got marshmallows to toast." Something so incredibly simple, but he's looking forward to it.Marshmallows, Hershey's bars and graham crackers. After soup, of course. They sit on the floor, a blanket around Adam's back and he sits curled around Tommy, cocooning them both. Tommy's on marshmallow duty. Adam can rest his chin on Tommy's shoulder and watch the fire change colors, listening to it crackle. Even though a rifle sits right by his knee, he lets himself ease, just for the moment. "I love you," he says, quietly, because it feels right to say. Because it would be something he never forgave himself for if something happened and he didn't say it.For a second, Tommy's still and quiet, and then he lowers his head, letting the marshmallow burn right off the end of the straightened hanger. Then there's a hitch to his shoulders and he presses his hand to his eyes. It's the first time since the first couple of days, and it's right in front of Adam. Christ. "I love you too," he answers, low and hoarse. "I'm just... I'm really glad you're here with me." The warmth of Adam's body combined with the fire means that Tommy isn't shivering for once, and he tucks himself closer to Adam, resting the back of his head against Adam's shoulder, much as he'd done when they'd be on stage together. Adam's arms tighten and they just sit.When the sun comes up the next morning, bright through the clouds, they've already committed two felonies: breaking and entering and vehicle theft. But Adam is driving an eighteen foot Uhaul out of Maysville back toward I-80 and he would be lying if he said he wasn't nervous as hell. It's near the outskirts of Iowa City when they find the Walmart and there are cars in the driveway, all covered with snow, undisturbed. He pulls around back to the loading docks and, after a few tries, backs into one of the docks. When he shuts off the engine, he grabs his gun and looks over at Tommy. "Are we ready?" It's the first time they've done something like this outside of Maysville. His heart is beating hard enough that he's sure his clothes are moving with it.There aren't any other tire tracks. That's what strikes Tommy first. No tire tracks means no other people have been here in the past couple of days, and he shoulders the rifle, feeling the weight of the two guns he's got under his coat. "Should grab a bat from sporting goods," he murmurs to Adam. "Don't wanna have to reload if there are... things in there." It's his way of saying he's ready. "Walk quiet, you know?" Of course Adam knows. "So we don't draw attention. We don't know what's in there." They don't even know if the dock door will slide up. "Get your gun ready, can you cover me?" Same routine, cover, shoot, protect. I love you. Adam's words that made Tommy feel warm.Adam just nods, pocketing the truck keys. They open the back and the loading dock door and they wait. Silent so far. His boots don't make any sound on concrete as they move and there is so much more to look out for than in Maysville. He's already feeling panicked and paranoid. Near the doors to the store floor, there's a wide rolling bin, clearly for someplace to toss things; when he moves it it doesn't squeak. They'll use that to load things. Tommy gets that, Adam has his rifle and he nods. Here they go.Tommy's answer is a nod, and they push out onto the floor of the store. Just because it's quiet doesn't mean they're alone, and Tommy upnods toward someone standing in the dark, just to let Adam know. The wheels are quiet enough, but once they start filling the bin, it'll be less than silent. There's a vague smell in here of rotted food and old blood, and for a second, Tommy has to hold his breath. Just as at the house (in Maysville, a house, not a home), it's cold in here, and when Tommy lets his breath out, it's a cloudy plume. "Where to, first?" he whispers, looking up at Adam. "Sports?" An aluminum bat might not be a bad idea. Or maybe an axe. And that second thought makes Tommy's stomach knot.They're in the shoe department, in the corner of the store and when they get to a bigger aisle, Adam looks around, pointing instead of answering. Crafts is to their right, to their left is sporting goods, housewares, electronics and beyond that, the grocery section. That's the way they'll go. The less talking the better.Clearly, the store has been ransacked before. Stuff litters the floor and Adam goes first, kicking the way clear for Tommy and the bin. He just starts tossing things in, things on their list and things they might not have thought of. They aren't alone, though. He can sense it.It's reassuring to know that people have been in here already, that there are other people who could loot. The first thing Tommy grabs is a bat, because that's the nearest, clearest thing on the list. Have to have something that doesn't need to be reloaded. Besides, Adam has a gun. When Adam puts DVDs and a portable DVD player into the bin, Tommy looks up at Adam with awe and more than a little bit of surprise. They're going to be able to watch movies. If When they get out of here. A discman (yes, those are still around! unbelievable!) and speakers are tossed in the bin, and when Tommy turns down another aisle, he lets out a sudden, surprised sound. Not because they've got walking company, but because there are bodies, obviously infected, lying on the floor. They're dead. This is... it's a good sign. But then: "You hear anything? I thought I heard-""Tommy." Adam's voice is quiet and firm and he's looking over Tommy's shoulder, the rifle coming up slowly, almost lazily. "I need you to get down." And when Tommy disappears for Adam behind the bin, Adam fires. Not once, but twice and he slides to bolt to reload.The ex-person who'd appeared behind Tommy is splattered over the Christian music section. There is an irony there. Adam puts his hand on Tommy's shoulder. "They know we're here now. We have to move fast.""Or we can just clear them out. It doesn't sound like there are a lot in here." Well, not at first, but after those two shots, Tommy can hear that familiar shuffle, a gathering of voices that are rusty, as if it's some kind of ex-person cadence to arms, but it doesn't change Tommy's mind. He pulls out his guns and squares his shoulders. "It's been done before. People have been in here already and done it. There can't be that many." And he and Adam aren't even close to finished gathering what they need. Both of his guns have 30-bullet clips. Adam protected him and now he can return the favour. "No running. We can stand our ground. We have shit we need."For a moment, Adam just watches Tommy's face and the strength there, different from just months ago, makes him nod. "Okay. Okay." He reloads the rifle and he turns, ready.He has to fire seven times by the time they get to the grocery department. It's worse there; the smell of rotten meat and fish seems to have drawn the worst of them, so they walk the bin back to back and they shoot and shove things into the bin as they go.Adam sweeps out the Lucky Charms shelf into the bin and a lot of oatmeal too.Tommy grabs Corn Pops with one hand and shoots an ex-person who's gnawing on a piece of rotten meat with the other, and the smell of cordite almost drowns out the smell of bad produce. Tommy just can't decide if he prefers the smell of gunpowder, though, because both smells mean death. Tommy sweeps tubs of peanut butter and jars of jam into the bin, steering Adam around the corner into another aisle, and there's the stupid stuff that horror movies don't talk about: toilet paper, kitchen towel, dish soap, laundry detergent. Bulk sizes for the win! "Anything in your direction?" Tommy whispers, aiming toward cosmetics and pharmaceuticals. Toothpaste, mouthwash, hair dye. Shampoo and conditioner. Body wash and soap, bandages and ointments. Anything and everything they can fit into the bin, at this point. "I'm clear on my side."Adam grabs Clearasil and Neutragena and that goes in the bin too and he's got the rifle in his free hand. The bin is piled higher than his head and they haven't even gotten the water and propane yet. "Let's load this and make one more sweep," he says as he starts to pull it. The bin is much harder to navigate now and he has to split his concentration. "I can't see over this. Watch behind you."Tommy's got his back to the bin, so they're still back to back, but with the giant mound of supplies between them, and he pushes, trying to make it a little easier for Adam. "We're good," he mutters. "We're good, we're okay, we're gonna get out of here." Only to come back and get what they couldn't fit in on the first trip. "Lemme just push it, okay? You just steer." When they reach the loading dock, the same ex-person is still there, still swaying as if being moved by a breeze that only it can feel. It's got a Wal-Mart apron-thing on, Tommy notices, but then he's pointing his gun at the soft spot behind its ear and rendering it completely harmless. They've worked too hard for it to be alerted by either of them, or have it hurt him. Or Adam. Especially Adam. I love you, his mind plays again, and it feels like his throat closes for a moment. "We'll just-" He clears his throat and tries again. "Just shove this on the truck and grab a new bin, huh? The longer we're here, the worse it could get."The bin bounces off the far wall of the truck and before heading back into the store, Adam goes left, into the storage area. There's a pallet of bottles of water. He uses a jack to wheel that into the truck, then he has Tommy's back and they're headed to sporting goods. All the stoves that are still there are taken, same with all the lanterns. More than they imagine needing. Guns, all of them, bows and arrows too, though Adam knows jack shit about firing a bow and arrow; bullets. "It's time to go," he finally whispers, touching Tommy's arm. It's nearly unbearable, the need to get back to the house in Maysville. Please.Adam's answer is a jerky nod that sends Tommy's too-long hair into his eyes, and after what happened in the grocery section, he can feel his composure starting to crack. He wants to run. He wants to be back in Maysville, where he knows they're safe and protected, with their tripwires and familiarity, knowing the creaks in the floors and the rattles in the windows. The bin is pushed into the truck and that's that; the door is pulled down on the U-Haul, secured in place, and Tommy climbs back into the truck, hands shaking and mouth pressed into a tight line. "Let's go, huh? I just... I wanna be... not here." The moment Adam's in beside him, Tommy takes one of his hands and squeezes it.They pull away. Adam can't see the sun; it's got to be near noon and already he's exhausted. When they're on the country road again, he squeezes Tommy's hand tight in his, tight enough that his knuckles go white. They could talk about what they can do now, the traps they can make with the car batteries, how they found a few kerosene space heaters that they can use in the bedroom, but he doesn't say any of that, eyes scanning on the road as he drives, hearing the carts in the back roll from side to side; they should have secured them.They didn't have time, panic didn't allow for it. They've got enough of some things to last for months, while others, like the heaters, might just barely last the winter. They'll do it, though. They'll survive. It's been two months already. By the time they pull up to the house, Tommy's shuddering, teeth chattering in sporadic bursts before he clenches them. They're back and they're safe and they have so much stuff. "Let me have a look around before we unload, huh?" At least for footprints, or signs that the house had been visited while they were gone. Snow sits light and clean over everything, softening the tracks from yesterday and leaving a fresh bed for anything new."Not by yourself." Adam shoulders the rifle again after he's got the truck backed up by the door. "Let's hurry." His stomach aches, a combination of hunger and nausea.There is some kicked up snow by the tripwires, but that's it. Then comes the long process of unloading everything into the house. That takes another two hours. By that time, Adam's shaking from all-out fatigue that comes from overstimulation, but he's starting to use the kerosene stove to heat up canned ravioli for both of them. "Let's get the truck tomorrow, okay?""Okay." Tommy takes both of Adam's wrists and walks him away from the stove to make him sit down in one of the kitchen chairs. His own legs are shaking, but he can at least make dinner-lunch-meal for the both of them. "Relax for a sec, okay? Just... sit. I can heat up Chef Boyardee. You look like you're about to fall over." After they eat, they can move their supplies to their proper places, the heaters upstairs in the bedroom, the portable DVD player, the discman and speakers. Tommy almost can't believe that they've got stuff like this now, when it's been so long. And then Tommy has a thought. "We could put a heater in the bathroom." The ravioli's warming up, so Tommy sits down across from Adam and lets out a shaky laugh. "Ever notice that the customer service at Wal-Mart sucks?"The joke so surprises Adam that he laughs before he even realizes that he's laughing. And when he starts laughing, he can't stop. It turns hysterical and he puts his face in his hands and he doesn't try to hold it back any longer, the sobs come in heaved gasps of air that shake his body, curling it up, his elbows on his knees."Adam." Tommy looks shocked for half a second, then he's moving quick enough that the chair dances on its two back legs before falling to the floor. Tommy gathers Adam up as much as he can, trying to soothe him, stroking his hair and just holding him. "I know," he whispers against Adam's ear. "I know." He kisses Adam's hair, then his temple, tipping Adam's face up so he can clean it up with little swipes of his fingers. "Come on, let's go get the fire going again and warm up. We can eat in a little bit." Tommy looks Adam square in the eyes, dark to light, and he sees the abject misery that's there. "We're gonna get through this." His mouth is soft when he kisses him.Closing his eyes, Adam holds Tommy's face with soft fingers and kisses him back in small tastes since his nose is stuffed. "I'm sorry," he whispers after a moment. "Tommy." Another kiss and another and a hunger he'd all but buried heats in his belly, showing in the back of his eyes when he looks at Tommy again. "I know.""Don't be sorry for feeling what you feel, huh? That's just stupid." Tommy can't look away from Adam, not right now, and his words make perfect sense, even if the tone is distracted. "I'm gonna get a fire going... come with me, okay? And I- I should... I should probably clean up. I probably smell like gym class." But first, he cups Adam's face in his hands and kisses him again, the angle of his head answering the look in Adam's eyes.Before he pulls away again, Adam's teeth slide along Tommy's lower lip and he's flushed just the slightest bit. "I'll finish up the food while you clean up," he says. He's slow to let go, though, even as a small smile finally shows itself. "You get to pick the movie." He's not even sure what he grabbed; hopefully there's something worth watching.Suddenly, there's something sweet, something special and secret amidst all the shit."Okay," Tommy answers, and this time his tone is faint not because he's afraid, but because he isn't afraid. He's not even sure what the kiss means, or what made him do it in the first place, but it feels good and right. "I'll be like, five minutes. Bring the food up? I'll take up a heater and the batteries and the player and stuff." He's talking too much, isn't he. Even if it's in a husky whisper as shadows begin to shroud the house in preparation for night. "Meet you in bed." Where it'll be warm, and they can huddle around the tiny screen and actually watch something.Tommy presses his mouth to Adam's one more time, and it's a kiss that Adam's far more familiar with, and then Tommy's pulling boxes up the stairs, and a few minutes after that, there's the sound of running water. Did Tommy mention he's thankful that the water still runs? Yeah, thought so. A couple of times. But he's still glad.When Tommy gets out of the shower, there is ravioli, Chips Ahoy and red wine next to the bed and Adam is sitting there, going through the DVDs, sorting them by genre. It seems he grabbed the most from the horror and the comedy sections and somehow ended up with five copies of Poltergeist. The traps have been set and Adam is perfectly content to pretend as hard as he can tonight that things are some fucked-up form of normal.Tommy grabbed a whole bunch of TV series DVD's: Seinfeld, Weeds, Three's Company, A-Team, and even Thundercats. He's barely shivering at all when he steps out of the bathroom, thanks to the heater that's there, and he has a tentative smile for Adam. "I have new underwear. You have no clue how exciting that is." Except that Adam probably does, seeing that he's got new underwear, too. And pajamas, and clothes, socks, even new blankets. They raided everything they could. "Pour out, I'm gonna go grab some stuff." A hoodie's pulled over Tommy's head and socks onto his feet, and he pads downstairs, pausing on the landing to grab the bat, just in case, and shuffles through the dark until Adam hears a faint "Ah-ha!" The stairs creak when Tommy returns, and he's got a pair of pajama pants with the Metallica ninja-star printed all over them. "So what're we watching, Chef Lambert?" Tommy curls up in bed beside Adam, reaching for his bowl of ravioli.Holding out a glass of wine for him, Adam announces, "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure." He should shower, too, but he's too tired and he'll live until the morning, contenting himself with clean sweat pants and an Iowa Hawkeyes sweatshirt. Settling back against the headboard, Tommy pulled under his arm, Adam settles the little player on his knees and hits the play button.For the first time since the world ended, there is a sound from something other than themselves, nature or not-dead people. For a second, Adam thinks he might just cry again.They've been alone long enough that Tommy feels the change in Adam's body language, and he hits pause on the movie to look at him. "Hey? Are you sure you wanna watch this? I heard that it's really serious." Maybe trying to eke a smile out, a real one. One that's been as rare as diamonds since they got here. "Or we can watch the movie later, okay?" Outside, the wind is picking up; Tommy can hear it, like a whistle. He's not used to it, being from California, and it's just a little unnerving. His hair leaves a damp spot on Adam's shoulder when he curls up against him, trying to get Adam into a side-by-side hug."I want to watch the movie. It was one of the few good things Keanu Reeves ever did," Adam tells him. He wants to beg Tommy to give him a reason not to be scared, just for a little while. The kernel of the kisses is that; he doesn't want it spoiled, not yet.The wine is not great, but it's been long enough that half a glass makes him the very slightest bit dizzy; Adam shouldn't have more. "Come on, glitterbaby," he soothes, a finger combing through Tommy's hair, giving back for the comfort given to him earlier.Tommy barely touches his own wine; he was a beer guy Before, and he's still a beer guy. Or Dr. Pepper, or maybe Pepsi if he's desperate. But Adam's touch does soothe him on a deep, instinctual level, and being called glitterbaby after so long only makes him laugh in a sharp, sad sound. "We used to have a drinking game when I was a teenager... every time they said 'excellent!' or 'bogus!' or air guitared, you had to take a shot." They can't get drunk now, they have to be sharp and keep watch. So Tommy presses play and keeps his head on Adam's shoulder until he's comfortable enough, warm enough, that he lifts his chin to kiss the side of Adam's neck.Surely, Tommy can feel the shiver that the kiss garners and Adam's arm around Tommy's shoulders tightens. The colors on the screen, the sounds, seem almost too bright, too sharp after the quiet of so long. Adam turns down the sound until they can barely hear it, but they can hear what goes on around them, too, the storm starting to whip around the house.Later, when it's dark again and quiet, Adam lies on his side, facing Tommy, his cheek resting on the pillow, covers pulled up to both their noses. "We ate the whole package of cookies," he says, thinking in the dull light that comes from the space heater reminds him of dance clubs from Before."I grabbed Oreos, too," Tommy murmurs. "I just kinda stuck my arm into the second and heaved it all out. We should get everything sorted out tomorrow." Hopefully if there was anything outside, it froze in the storm. Now, the quiet is like crystal, fragile and clear, and Tommy moves a couple of inches closer to Adam, so they're nearly nose to nose in the dark, and he can rest a hand on Adam's waist. "It's okay that I touch you, right? I just... I just need to make sure you're right there."Instead of saying anything, Adam covers Tommy's hand and pulls it up, over his heart and he holds it there. He feels as quiet inside as he has since they'd gotten to Maysville, months ago, and there's a peace in that, however tentative. He tilts his chin forward and kisses Tommy. He's here. He's right here.Somehow, Tommy's hand ends up on bare skin, underneath of Adam's sweatshirt and still over his heart, and he's kissing him back easily, feeling the same kind of heat that Adam had, in the kitchen. Forgotten to the point where it almost feels entirely new. Let's be honest: the only time Tommy's touched himself is when he has to whiz, or when he's in the shower cleaning up; anything even resembling sex has been the furthest thing from his mind. He sighs through his nose, moving just a little so that Adam can be over him, if he wants. Because Tommy realizes that he wants that.Adam's leg slides over one of Tommy's, settling between them. Adam holds Tommy's cheek in his hand, short kisses, sweet kisses that make him dizzier than the wine did. When he gets hard and he rocks his hips against one of Tommy's, the spike inside him is sharp enough that he moans."Do you want-?" That's all Tommy gets out between kisses, and for all the times that they've flirted, onstage and off, this is real. This is something... really fucking special. With nothing but death and unpeople around them, this makes Tommy feel alive, brightly, hotly so, and his other hand pets down Adam's back to cup his ass, to urge him to move his hips again. He wants to hear Adam make that sound again, because it's good, so far from fear and panic and helpless anger, and Tommy's not even surprised that he's hard, too. He nods, only knowing with the vaguest sense what he's agreeing to.The clothes they have on are new, clean, and Adam can't get that thought out of his mind. Leaning his weight on one elbow, mouth never far from Tommy, tasting, licking, kissing, he reaches between them, urging down the Metallica pants, then his sweat pants and his hand, so much rougher than it had been Before, wraps around them both. Just one stroke and he moans almost helplessly. "Tommy.""Hnn." Tommy's answer is helpless and soft, hips pushing up into Adam's grip. For a moment, he wonders if anything's ever felt like this. This perfectly clear, perfectly perfect thing, done for all the right reasons and for none of the ones that any of the stupid fucking paparazzi would say. "Adam," he whispers. "Yeah." Permission to take the reins on this, to guide Tommy through what he might not know physically, but knows very well somewhere on the left side of his chest.Just this. Like teenagers who are afraid of getting caught and too excited to do anything about it. Adam strokes again. One more time then another after that and he would be embarrassed coming like this, except that it feels so good, rendering him breathless, flushed and warm all the way through for the first time in a long time. He rests his forehead against Tommy's temple, panting for breath, still pulling, eyes shut so that he can see stars against his lids."Oh my god," Tommy breathes, hips moving up into a grip that's hot and slick, now, and his orgasm hits him so sharp and so quick it feels like a smack of pleasure, body arched up tight under Adam's. Adam can feel the shake in Tommy's fingers as they card through his hair, and how the pant of his breath goes from spent to damp as he turns his face against Adam's neck.They're warm again, and clean after a wet cloth. Adam washed his face, too; it feels tight from the clearasil; he should've gotten some moisturizer. But he holds Tommy tight to his chest, curled on his side around him. Fatigue weighs him down, making him feel heavy, but for once, for this amazing moment, he smiles into the back of Tommy's neck.Tommy says Adam's words, the ones he'd used yesterday, but there's a different note to them. So close to sleep, vulnerable and warm (and what a luxury that is, to not be huddled under blankets, shivering), they're in their truest, most honest form. "I love you.""I love you, too," Adam tells him and when he closes his eyes to sleep, for once, he doesn't dream, hardly moving, waking up in the same position he'd fallen asleep in, nose buried in Tommy's hair.~~When they get the Pilot back, Adam slides a CD into the player and the music surrounds them. Even soft, the music almost seems like too much; sensory overload. Gaga, of course; he'd made a point to grab her CD. He doesn't cry, but he does go still, eyes wide, almost as if he can't believe it. Music.It reminds Tommy of when they went to the show together, and he sits in the passenger seat with an odd little smile. How long ago was it? It seems like... forever. He looks at Adam, at the awe on his face, and his smile grows. They both know it can't be turned up too loud; even with the amount of snow they got last night, there are shuffle-marks through it in the center of this little town. Wanderers. "We have to go," he reminds softly, touching Adam's thigh. "We have to get back through this snow.""Yeah. Okay." But Adam still pauses a while longer before he puts the vehicle in drive and heads them back toward the house. The town is familiar by now, the silo on the left, the old gas station on the right, the bank, the furniture store, the general store, the farmhouse that is before theirs. He pulls into the driveway and parks, sitting a while longer before moving to get out. "I never thought I'd live in Iowa.""The only Iowa I ever knew was the Slipknot album," Tommy answers by way of agreement. "Don't forget the CD." He ejects it from the stereo and tucks it in his pocket, pulling the pistols out of their holsters. Hah. Tommy wears gun holsters. But it's what they always do, a quick check to make sure everything's where it's supposed to be. They've been doing this for two months (two months!), but he's still nervous to be outside. The storm didn't do much to the chickens, and Tommy makes sure there's enough straw in place that they're protected. Adam can hear him talking to them. "We listened to music... I forgot how much I missed it. Not that you care, 'cause you're a bunch of dumb chickens, but you keep us in eggs and the unpeople aren't into you." Tommy comes out with a sheepish smile for Adam, picking up on the conversation again. "What's it like living here, to you?"As he unlocks the door and steps aside for Tommy to go first, then steps in and locks it, setting the 'alarm,' Adam shrugs as he shrugs off his coat and gloves. Before last night, he would've answered differently. As it is now, he looks over at Tommy and says, "I never thought I'd live in Iowa." And he smiles, just a little. Nothing - not one thing, except his hair color - is like it was. Everything is changed. But he cups Tommy's cheek and kisses him, lingering just for a moment, before moving to the pantry. "... I was thinking... I've seen deer in the fields. We should try to get one."Wow. Shooting a deer. Tommy wouldn't even know what to do with a dead deer if they got one, but the idea of fresh meat makes his stomach growl, loudly. For now, though, he's too glad to see Adam smile, even if it's just a little one, to put much thought further into that. Adam's kiss, yes. It's the one thing that's inescapably good in this strange life that they've still not quite settled comfortably in, and Tommy has a smile of his own. "Put music on the discman. We can listen to it while we organize all the shit from yesterday." Yesterday, which feels like a million years ago, already. "And then I'll go see what Gertie's hiding from me that we can cook up for something to eat."Queen. We Are the Champions. The little player and speakers are set on the kitchen counter and started, low, but loud enough that Adam hums along as he organizes their suddenly-full pantry. He doesn't know how to dress a deer either. But yes, fresh meat. Canned tuna, canned chicken and even Spam just aren't that great after a while (not that Spam was ever great. Or meat), though Adam has found he likes jerky. He organizes by food type; vegetables, fruits, meats, meals, other, with a whole shelf devoted to breakfast cereal alone. It shouldn't feel this good to do this, but it does.But organization means control, the ability to get one's way without any difficulty or trouble. Adam takes care of the food, Tommy takes care of what's in the livingroom, getting a fire going between sweeps of air-guitar to Brian May, and then he starts unwrapping blankets and comforters, folding them and leaving them in a stack, tossing extra pillows on the couch to take upstairs, figuring out what else needs to go upstairs, what should go in the kitchen, and what should be put in the cold cellar. Red meat. Real meat. Deer. The cold cellar in the corner of the basement is by far cold enough to preserve meat, if they manage to shoot something, and for a second, Tommy thinks he should go to the library and find a book on how to hunt. When he comes up, it's to find Adam, rest his hands on his waist, turning him around so he's facing Tommy. "Thank you.""For what?" Adam has a jar of peach jam in one hand and a tub of peanut butter in the other when he's turned. He looks down at Tommy, head cocked. "We need to cut your bangs," he adds, apropos of nothing."For being here." For a lot of things, things that Tommy doesn't even know the words for. So instead of trying to find the words, Tommy gets up on his toes and kisses Adam's mouth, sweet and brief, and settles back with a smirk. "Yeah. Otherwise I'm gonna have to start wearing barrettes, and nobody needs that." From there, Tommy goes back to the livingroom, hauling things up the stairs, using the spare bedroom for storage of all the extra stuff. And, as usual, he peers out the windows to make sure they're alone.They're not. Out in the field, not only does he see deer, but there are three-four-five unpeople coming in their direction. They've been making noise, moving things around, getting upacked, and the music. "Adam!" Tommy hisses. "Turn the music off. We've got company. Bad company." Tommy takes the stairs two at a time to grab his rifle, and he nods for Adam to come upstairs with him. "We'll get 'em from the windows." Five? Slow moving? No big deal. They'd done so much worse yesterday at Wal-Mart. But there's something new and shiny and precious that Tommy needs to protect. Not just Adam, but this sweet thing that's come up between them.How are they still moving in the cold? It's so fucking cold outside that Adam can't even imagine. He peers through the backdoor and shakes his head. "If we open the windows, it'll get cold up there." He looks at Tommy as he picks up a rifle of his own. "C'mon." For some reason, this is Adam's home and those motherfuckers are on his lawn. He puts his jacket back on, feels for bullets in the pockets and opens the back door, stepping onto the porch.The snow is knee deep and the things see him and try to move faster, but they can't seem to. Adam aims at the first, the chest. Blam.Tommy appears beside him, having exchanged his own rifle for the two handguns that are easier for him to handle. These unpeople are greyish-blue with the cold, their eyes both avid and vacuous with hunger, and one of his bullets takes one of them in the thigh, and a second hits the shoulder, making it stagger, and then fall. "Good shot," he tells himself. He still hates this, but seeing the confidence in Adam's posture helps. In Wal-Mart, Tommy had been so desperate to get what they needed that they'd both done what they had to, but here, in the house, all he wants is quiet. Safety. "Good shot," he whispers, but this time, it's for Adam.Two more. Then one. Then none. It sounds like the crackle of the gunfire is echoing around them, but it's just in Adam's ears. He wades out in the snow after he's reloaded the rifle and he stands a few feet from the things. Words come without him even being aware of it."I hate you. I fucking hate you for coming here to my house and making me do this. We weren't hurting you. We were just - we just want to be left alone and you fuckers come and now we have to go to the fucking dump and FUCK YOU!"It's his words that drift off over the cold landscape. Adam looks up and around, as if daring others to come. Why not? He's fucking ready. Goddammit.But what he sees makes him go still and he points. "That ... Tommy. Is that a cow?"For a second, Tommy's not sure what Adam said, after yelling like that, all but putting them out as bait for anything that might still be lurking around in the skeletal corn. Then he sees the movement that Adam saw, and lets out a harsh, almost hysterical laugh. Here they were, talking about shooting deer, and there's a cow out there. For real. "Yes!" he yells, pointing at it with the barrel of his gun. "That's a fucking cow! Let's get 'er, Tex." Red meat. Real red meat, something he's familiar with. Beef. They've got dehydrated potatoes, canned carrots, and it'd be easy to make powdered gravy. Oh god, Tommy's mouth waters, and the stupid cow's just standing there like... a stupid cow."Holy shit." A cow. Adam watches it in the cornfield, nosing around for something to eat, it seems.For a ridiculous moment, he thinks of leaving the poor thing alone. It wasn't hurting them. But they can have steak. He even has teriyaki sauce in the pantry, just grabbed because he missed Japanese food. He can marinate it. "Shoot ... shoot at the neck, not the body. Just ... "For some reason now, his hands are shaking. Adam takes a deep breath and raises the rifle. "Cover me." He takes two more steps and he fires. Once, then again.For now, it seems as though they're alone, except for the cow, who lets out an indignant moo before staggering. "One more," Tommy encourages, unable to wipe the grin off his face. Beeeeeef! He hasn't even begun to think how they're going to get the cow up to the house, because there's the sound of stalks cracking even before Adam can fire again. The cow falls, hooves pawing at nothing before going still. "Oh my god, a cow!" Unpeople completely forgotten for a moment, Tommy holsters his guns and starts pushing through the cornstalks toward their glorious kill. "How the fuck are we going to skin this thing?!" They can dump the unpeople later; they're not going anywhere, and they'll be frozen really soon. "Oh my god, you did it!" Tommy fistpumps the grey sky above them."Tommy, be careful!" Adam chides, not moving for a moment. I'm sorry, he tells the cow, which is stupid, but he feels better after saying it. "We need to get it into pieces we can move inside." Which means the chainsaw.It's nearly dark when they have the last of the part of the cow they're going to use in the house. There are bones, hooves, guts, and the head in the field and in the distance, they can hear howling. Coyotes sound, Adam realizes, eerie. Both Adam and Tommy are covered in cow blood and Adam's muscles ache from using the chainsaw as Tommy wielded the long, sharp knife. "We need to get inside," he said. Where they can shower and have dinner. Tomorrow, though, is a trip to the dump. No denying it now.The coyotes will get rid of anything that Adam and Tommy left behind, but there's still the issue of the unpeople in the yard. Yeah, they'll go to the dump tomorrow. "That was like, the grossest thing I've ever done." But at the same time, intensely satisfying. It feels like they've got about two hundred pounds of meat, wrapped in plastic trash bags and lugged down into the cold cellar to freeze, and pieces left over to cook tonight. "Clean up, yeah. And then... eat." Inside, Tommy pulls his coat off with a grimace and nods for Adam to come upstairs with him. "I grabbed Aleve and Tylenol and Advil yesterday. I don't think we're gonna be able to move tomorrow." But god, Tommy feels satisfied. They have fresh food, thanks to Adam."Yes, please." Adam dry-swallows three Advil between peeling off clothes that are stiff with chilled sweat and frozen cow blood. The clothes fall into a heap in the corner and they should take turns but he realizes that the coyotes at this moment might be their friends. If any non-people go after the cow parts in the field, they'll have a fight on their hands.Tommy turns on the bathroom's space heater to maybe make the shower a little less than bone-chilling, and peels off his own hard clothes. What the hell, there's even blood on his boxers! Urgh. Those are tossed off, too, and there's probably no way these clothes are ever getting clean. "I'll scrub you if you scrub me, huh?" Towels can be grabbed once he and Adam don't look like they've just come off of a killing room floor (which is pretty much the truth), and after, they can eat."Just be fast," Adam chuckles a little, dreading so much the icy water. There's not even a chance to savor being together like this, because it's too cold. Even now, what they did last night seems far away, compartmentalized in what's rolling around in his head. Beef, hopefully steak of some kind, marinated, with canned mushrooms, mashed potatoes, yeah, with cheez whiz in them to make them seem less fake. Huge meal. Cookies for dessert."Man, I don't even know what I'd do for a hot shower right now." Tommy quirks a smile at Adam, scrubbing as quick and efficient as he can, goosebumps covering them both. "But we've got awesome food downstairs, and I'm do a quick look when we get out." As usual. Five or six times a day, looking outside, checking the wires, checking for new prints in the snow. He hopes that this virus that's changed their lives so much can't be transmitted back to animals. Because then they'd be in a lot of trouble. Oreos and powdered milk. Beef and potatoes. For a second, just a second, things feel normal. "You're done. My turn."Tommy's so thin, even thinner than before. Adam moves his hands over him quickly, but can't help but notice the jut of his ribs, the cord of muscles, even cleaning, albeit quickly, between Tommy's legs and his teeny, tiny ass so they can both get out and rough their skin with towels to get warmer, warmer still when they're in layers of clean clothes. "I'll trim your hair later," Adam promises Tommy and he stuffs his feet into another pair of boots and heads for the stairs to start cooking. "Will you stoke the fire?"Tommy's got big thick wool socks on, longjohns and jeans, a hoodie over a shirt. It'll take a little while for the heaters to really get kicking, and that's most important at night. "Aw, don't worry about it. It's just hair. I'll get the fire going. Maybe we'll have a quiet night. Watch another movie, maybe?" In the livingroom, he pokes the fire, feeding chunks of cardboard to it to raise it up again, sending crackling heat through the livingroom and kitchen. "You got enough light in there? I've got a couple of lanterns out here if you want 'em." When the fire's vibrantly alive again, Tommy joins Adam in the kitchen to look over the spread of food that they're going to eat. His hand comes up to the small of Adam's back. "This is gonna be awesome. I can't believe you totally went all Doom with the chainsaw on that cow. That was..." He can't help but laugh, because six months ago, the Adam he knew wouldn't even think of doing something like that. "...awesome.""Shut up," Adam chuckles out dryly. "That was like something out of a horror movie. Butchers everywhere cringed." Wherever they are, that is. But the meat seems like good meat from what he can tell, and he's got it in a bowl with the teriyaki sauce and he's got the potatoes in a pan on the kerosene stove. But before he can say more, the coyotes howl and they're closer. It makes Adam's skin crawl before he goes back to what he's doing. They should probably skip the movie tonight, but he doesn't say that."It's okay," Tommy murmurs, rubbing his palm against Adam's back. "We got the trips, right? And the place is secured." At least it's not like Night of the Living Dead or Thriller or some shit like that, where zombie-arms come pushing through windows and doors and (SHUDDER) floorboards. At first, the unpeople had been quick and aggressive, but now it seems like they're slowing down a little. Power in numbers, though, and that's what Tommy keeps reminding himself. They're just two people in a population of god only knows how many infected, and keeping Adam safe is above everything else. "I think you did an awesome job. I kinda rolled up the hide and stuck it in the pantry, too. We might be able to use it for something, maybe?" The smell of the food is nothing short of decadent, and Tommy's eyes close as he leans in closer to breathe it in."... okay." It will start to smell soon. Adam can't even imagine. But after scooping cheez whiz into the potatoes, he sets the jar down and turns, just watching Tommy's face. "Hey," he says quietly, wearing a wry smile. "Why don't we go to Jamaica next year for vacation. A change of pace."For the first time in months, Tommy sees more than a hint of the old Adam. The Adam from Before."Jamaica. Awesome." Tommy grins up at Adam before getting out plates and forks and a couple of bottles of water for when their dinner's ready. It's full dark outside, barely pushed back by the lanterns in the kitchen and the fire in the livingroom, and Tommy slouches down into a kitchen chair. "How're we gonna get there? I don't know if I have enough brain cells to learn how to fly." He's still smiling though, because it's a good thought; having a vacation. Something to dream about maybe, when not that long ago, it would have been easy just to get a plane ticket and take off. No pun intended. Maybe it's the idea of having real food that makes Jamaica seem less than entirely impossible."We'll just have to pull the private jet out of storage, then." Just like that, though, the joke wears thin. Adam pulls the potatoes off the stove and puts on another skillet, then puts the meat in that. The smell and the sizzle are enough to make him lightheaded, swallowing because his mouth is watering so much. They aren't going to Jamaica; they aren't going anywhere. If they live through the winter, that in and of itself is an accomplishment.When the coyotes howl again, they are closer, so close that if he could see outside, Adam imagines that they're right there, right outside the door. He pours mushrooms over the meat after turning it, making sure to keep Tommy in his line of sight.It's another habit Tommy's picked up since they've been here, talking about nothing at all so Adam knows that he's okay, and where he is. "So, I grabbed like, a box of pillows from Wal-Mart... the cardboard'll be good for the fire... and you can never have too many pillows. They'll keep us warm..." But eventually, he goes quiet, slouched on the couch in front of the fire. In spite of the incredible smell of cooking food, he dozes off, cheek against his arm and legs tucked up under him.When Adam brings in a plate of food that they can share, he sets it on the small table and he brushes the hair from Tommy's face, gently, speaking as he does to not startle him. "Food's ready, baby. You need to eat." If he shifts forward just a little bit, he can lean against the arm of the sofa with Tommy cradled to his chest. "It smells really good, doesn't it?"Waking up is never easy for Tommy though, and his head jerks up from his arm, ready for whatever's happening. Oh. Oh, it's just dinner. Just dinner and just Adam, and he relaxes in increments. "Holy damn, that smells really good." He beckons Adam to sit with him so they can eat together, Tommy's hip tucked up against Adam's, and has food ever tasted this good? Has the company ever been this comfortable, this wanted? For a moment, Tommy isn't sure. But they've made their way through one more day, and though nothing lasts forever, there are little things that Tommy wishes, would.
81851	N Is For Nostalgia	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "F/M", "Characters": null, "Fandom": "Firefly", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Teen And Up Audiences", "author": "by kashmir", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2006-03-14T00:00:00", "words": "506", "Additional Tags": null, "Relationship": "Malcolm Reynolds/Inara Serra", "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	He found her sitting on one of the catwalks above the cargo bay the next evening. Or what passed for evening out in the black. She was still wearing the same pair of overalls she'd worn to dinner the night before.He was still unwilling to admit they had any effect on his insides.She smiled up at him when she heard him approach."Glass of Kaylee's fine engine-fermented wine, Captain?" She asked, eyes sparkling and voice slightly slurred."Miss Serra? Are you... drunk?" He asked, incredulous. He sat down next to her heavily. Between this and the overalls, his tidy little vision of Inara Serra was just going to hell in a hand basket."I do believe I am, Mal. I haven't been drunk since... Probably before I left the training house. I was perhaps seventeen at the time. My roommate and I had gotten a hold of some rice wine and some sake. We drank and laughed all night," She sighed and leaned into Mal's shoulder, hands gesturing as she talked. Mal stiffened for a moment before relaxing and letting his arm slide around her shoulders."Sounds pretty typical for a girl of seventeen. Bet you were gigglin' over some defenseless boy or ridiculous dresses or other such frilly non-sense, weren't ya?" He asked, looking down into her now upturned face."We were," She nodded solemnly. "Frivolous and giggly. That was me at seventeen. Then, then I had to grow-up. Which is not so much fun. Some days, I just want to be that girl again. No worries or cares in the world."She paused and snuggled into Mal's shoulder. "Being an adult is go-se."Mal laughed and wrapped his other arm around her. "Well, I suppose it can be that, at times. I know my own self, some days I wouldn't mind going back to being a boy on Shadow. Sitting 'round the fire with some of the ranch hands while they told stories of the other worlds they'd been to, everything they'd seen. Probably some of the happiest memories of my childhood, right there."She sighed again and wrapped a hand in his shirtfront."Mal?""Hmm?" He murmured, absently stroking her arm with his callused hand."Do you remember the party with Atherton?" She whispered."Little bit hard to forget my very first and, hopefully, last duel. Why?" He looked down at the top of her head again.""S no reason," Her voice was getting lower and her speech more slurred. Mal had a feeling he'd be carrying one passed-out Companion to her shuttle very shortly. "Just.. I liked dancing with you. You're a good dancer. For a pirate. That was my favorite part."Mal sat shocked for a minute. He wanted to tell her that dancing with her had been his favorite part of the evening as well.But when he opened his mouth to tell her so, all that came out, in a strangled and not at all manly tone, was, "A PIRATE?!?"Inara's only answer was a delicate snore.
1036	Method Acting	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "M/M", "Characters": "Jared Padalecki, Jensen Ackles, Dean Winchester", "Fandom": "Supernatural RPF", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Explicit", "author": "by parenthetical", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2007-03-29T00:00:00", "words": "3,062", "Additional Tags": "J-Squared, Jared/Dean!Jensen, roleplaying, Impala", "Relationship": null, "Character": null, "Relationships": "Jared Padalecki/Jensen Ackles, Jared Padalecki/Dean Winchester", "Series": "Character Bleed", "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	Jared doesn't think there's anything wrong about him having a bit of a crush on Dean Winchester.He figures it's pretty much understandable. Maybe even to be expected. After all, Dean looks almost exactly like Jensen, only cockier, with harder edges and a razor-sharp grin. What's more, Jared knows Dean, has spent so much time in-character with him that he practically considers him a real person now, someone who cracks him up and infuriates him and just makes him feel at a level way deeper than he'd ever imagined a fictional character could. And when someone calls "Cut!", Dean shoots him a grin that says he knows exactly what he's doing to Jared before melting back into Jensen, smiling softer but with a wicked gleam in his eyes, and some days Jared isn't sure he can wait until they get back to their trailers before he jumps his co-star.But though he doesn't think his crush on Dean is wrong, he does occasionally worry that Jensen might take it the wrong way, figure that he's just a stand-in for his alter-ego or something equally ridiculous, especially since Jensen's been suffering from character bleed on and off this season. So Jared tries to keep his crush under control: tries not to jump Jensen while he's still wearing Dean's clothes, tries to stop himself from smiling stupidly when he hears music playing that he knows Dean would love, tries not to get too turned on while watching Dean from the sidelines when he has a scene without Sam.Not that that's always easy. Especially when Dean's chanting in Latin, voice cold and strong as he paces around the female demon, the unfamiliar words on Dean's lips going straight to Jared's cock, and he has to melt away into the darkness once the incantation's over so he can take care of his problem before Jensen returns, shucking off Dean's voice along with his jacket.Yeah, refraining from jerking off while thinking about Dean is another thing Jared needs to work on.He suspects that Jensen might have an inkling about his crush, but he's seemed more vaguely amused than pissed so far, and Jared's really hoping he managed to pass off the incident in Jensen's trailer the other week as him simply finding Jensen really, really hot in a leather jacket throwing knives at his dart board. Because, well, Jensen was really, really hot like that. The fact that it had been like walking in to find Dean occupying his co-star's trailer had nothing to do with it. Really.Shit, he is in so much trouble.And while he doesn't think it's wrong, it does feel just close enough to being unfaithful to make him uneasy. Which is screwed up, because having a crush on a character played by your significant other can hardly count as cheating, can it? And it's not like it could ever go anywhere, what with Dean not really existing outside their heads. So there's no call to freak out about it. Especially considering how understandable it is. Dean is fucking hot, that's all there is to it. So is Jensen. It's all good.Except Jared really is kind of freaking out a bit. And when Jensen almost walks into Jared's trailer one evening while Jared's jerking off in the shower with Dean's name on his lips, Jared panics and takes himself off to a bar to get very, very drunk just as soon as he's managed to towel off and shrug on some clothes.It's a good bar for angsting in. Jared hardly ever comes here; he likes bright places with happy people, where he can laugh and joke and hang out with his friends. This bar is dimly lit and near-deserted, but at least he can be assured of anonymity while he tries to drink himself into oblivion. He stares moodily down at his bottle of beer, peeling the label away in shreds.The jukebox starts playing Metallica, and Jared laughs bitterly under his breath. He's not drunk enough for this shit."This seat taken?"Jared's head snaps up so fast he almost gets whiplash, because he knows that voice.Dean doesn't bother to wait for permission, which is just as well, since Jared isn't sure he could say a word out right now. This is Dean in front of him, not Jensen; they look very alike, but not quite identical, and Jared can tell the difference immediately, recognises the assessing look in Dean's eyes as he settles down opposite him, the faint smirk as he takes in Jared's slack-jawed expression, the slight tilt to his head that says oh yeah.Jared just stares for a long moment, taking in Dean's leather jacket, the amulet against his chest, the bracelet twined around his wrist, the ring clinking against the beer bottle. Dean's eyes have the same intensity that keeps him hooked when he's playing Sam, but he's never had that intensity directed at him as Jared before, and in two seconds flat he's gone from angsting to so turned on it hurts.For a stupid moment he feels he should... say something, ask Jensen what he's doing, if this is okay, if he's sure, but Dean raises his beer bottle to his lips and tilts his head back, and the motion of his throat as he swallows drives everything else out of Jared's mind."So," Dean says, setting his beer down with a clink, eyes still gazing intently at Jared. "That beer do somethin' to piss you off? The way you were glaring at it just now, I figured maybe I should step in."Jared can't help but laugh. "What, protect me from the beer bottle?""Nah," Dean says dismissively. "You look like you could take it." His eyes sweep appreciatively down Jared's body, and Jared feels his heart speed up. "But I figured the beer bottle might need protecting from you. It's pretty defenceless." He reaches out and takes it from Jared's grasp, his fingers trailing across the backs of Jared's hands for a moment before he pulls back and lifts the bottle to his mouth.Jared stares at those lips wrapped around the bottle he had been drinking from himself just a few minutes before, and tries not to whimper."You got a name?" Dean asks, lowering Jared's beer, fingers grazing absently over the shredded label.Jared manages to pull himself together enough to reply, even if he is almost too turned on to think. "Jared."Dean nods in response. "Dean." The faint smile playing at his lips tells Jared that his reactions are not going unnoticed. "So, Jared, you play pool?"It takes Jared a moment to drag his mind away from musthavesexnow to the concept of playing pool. "Uh, yeah. You want a game?"Dean's smile is wicked. "Bring it on. And bring your beer, too. But treat it right this time." He shoves the bottle and it skates back across the table to Jared, who catches it without looking away from Dean's gaze. Dean pushes to his feet and heads over towards the pool tables.Jared watches the unconscious grace of Dean's movements, then raises the bottle to his lips and takes a sip, feeling it burn against his lips like a kiss, before he follows.He finds it difficult to concentrate on the game, unsurprisingly. Normally, Jared's pretty good at pool, but Dean is better than him - better than Jensen, for that matter, and that kind of breaks Jared's brain if he thinks about it too much, so he doesn't. Fortunately, it's easy to distract himself, because Dean playing pool is one giant distraction. Jared figures he's got it down to a fine art, since normally he's hustling for money. Everything he does - bending over the pool table, shirt hitching up to reveal his lower back; leaning casually against the bar, fingers absently stroking along the pool cue cradled in his hands; prowling around the table as Jared bends over to take his shot, green eyes like a weight on Jared's back - is driving Jared crazy, and he's pretty sure he's never lost a game of pool this badly in his life. Not that he gives a damn.Dean grins at him, because they both know he's won. He sinks the last few balls confidently, then straightens, and the heat in his eyes makes Jared swallow hard."Good game," Jared says, because he's not entirely sure how Dean would react to 'Can we have sex now?'Dean grins slowly. "Do I win a prize?" He sets the pool cue down and stalks slowly around the table towards Jared. Jared puts down his own cue and takes a deep breath, before suddenly realising: this is Dean. Why exactly is he worrying about Dean's reaction to being hit on?"Yeah," Jared says, his voice sounding rough to his own ears. "I think you do."Heat flashes in Dean's eyes and he reaches out to grab his jacket without breaking eye contact. "Then how about we get outta here?"~~Jared's so far gone that when they walk out of the bar and he sees the Impala waiting, he doesn't even think to question it until they're halfway back to his apartment. After a moment, though, he shrugs off his surprise. It was pretty obvious already that Jensen's put some thought into this. When it comes to acting, he's a perfectionist."Straight ahead?" Dean asks, interrupting as if he knows Jared's over-thinking now."Uh, no, left at the crossroads," Jared says, and stops thinking.The parking garage beneath Jared's apartment building is dimly lit and dingy, lights crackling overhead. Dean barely has time to park the Impala before Jared is on him.There's not enough room for Jared to crawl into Dean's lap comfortably, but he does his best, pressing Dean back against the seat, feeling the steering wheel jam into his spine. Dean is making pleased noises and kissing him back, those goddamn lips that drive Jared crazy at the best of times now hot and demanding against his own.Dean kisses differently to Jensen. Kissing Jensen is soft and warm and like falling, and Jared never wants to stop. Dean's kiss is hungry, demanding, as hot and ruthless as his knife-throwing, and Jared thinks that if they keep it up too long he might pass out.He tries to press closer, but there really is no room, and the steering wheel is definitely doing its best to thwart him.Dean pulls away, laughing low and dirty. "I like the way you think, but why don't we take this someplace I can strip those jeans off you?"Jared is out of the car and tugging Dean towards the elevator faster than he would have thought humanly possible.Inside the elevator, Dean shoves Jared up against the mirrored wall and tugs his head down for another kiss. Jared moans and pulls him closer, slipping one hand beneath the turned-up collar of that damnable leather jacket, running his fingers along the nape of Dean's neck, curling his hand around the knot of the cord on which Dean's amulet hangs. Dean almost growls, and Jared is giving serious thought to hitting the emergency stop button and just fucking up against the elevator wall when the doors spring open with a ding.They stumble down the corridor to the apartment door. Jared fumbles with his keys, his hands shaking, and Dean doesn't help, pressed up tight behind him, mouth hot against his neck. Jared moans, half in arousal, half in frustration, and then thank god the door opens and he stumbles inside. Dean moves with him, and Jared slams the door closed and then slams Dean up against it.Dean seems to have no problem with being manhandled; he leans up, face tilting to meet Jared's lips as they close on his. Jared pushes at Dean's jacket, and Dean shoves away from the wall, pressing into Jared to give himself room to shrug it off. Jared starts working on the buttons of Dean's shirt, then moans into his mouth as he feels Dean's hands slip beneath his shirt and t-shirt to slide up his back, fingernails grazing just hard enough to make him shudder.Jared breaks the kiss so that he can trace the line of Dean's jaw with his mouth, savouring the texture of Dean's stubble against his lips. Dean throws his head back with a groan, an irresistible invitation for Jared to nip his way down his neck, sucking hard as he feels Dean's hands start working on the buckle of his belt, and that's it, Jared can't even think any more. Everything descends into a blurred flurry of movement as they scramble out of their own clothes and tug off each other's.They stumble blindly through Jared's apartment, tripping over furniture because they can't stop kissing, can't stop touching, can't pull away long enough to look where they're going. Jared hears something topple over and the shatter of breaking glass, but he couldn't give a damn. They reach the door to Jared's bedroom and Dean presses him up hard against the doorframe, sucking at his throat, pushing a thigh between Jared's legs and against his cock. Jared moans helplessly and can't stop himself from rocking against Dean's thigh; it's a minute before he can think clearly enough to put his hands on Dean's chest to shove him back, into the room and onto the bed.They roll together, pressing and pulling, gasping for air and kissing like they can't stop. There's no thinking now, just heat. Dean's amulet grazes along Jared's chest as they kiss, then brushes against his nipple, and Jared breaks the kiss, throwing his head back and moaning desperately. Dean grins at him and starts working his way down Jared's body, mouth and amulet blazing winding, interlocking trails that make Jared's stomach muscles jump. Then Dean is tugging down Jared's boxers and wrapping warm fingers around his cock.Jared's not quiet at the best of times, and especially not during sex, but he doesn't think he's ever been this out of control. He cries out and mentally thanks god for the fact that his apartment has good soundproofing, for the fact that he has such an awesome lover, for the fact that Dean's mouth is now closing around his cock. Normally he would try to be considerate when someone is going down on him, but he's long past being able to control his body's response to Dean, and he can't stop himself from thrusting up hard into his mouth. But then Dean's hands close firmly on his hips, holding him down, controlling him, and Jared thinks he might just come from that alone.Dean pulls off him for a moment, and Jared can't hold back a whimper. "Lube?" Dean asks, his voice low and sex-roughened."Top drawer," Jared chokes out, his own voice shot to hell.He lies still and tries to catch his breath while Dean leans over to fish around in the drawer, settling back a moment later with lube and a condom. Then a slick finger pushes against Jared, circling, then into him, as straightforward and intense as Dean himself. Before Jared can do more than moan, Dean's mouth is hot around his cock again, and Jared's brain short-circuits into need and now and ohgoddon'tstop.He's close, so close, and when Dean pulls off him again he damn-near sobs. Dean's hands are shaking as they stroke his thighs reassuringly and push his legs up. Then Dean thrusts into him, unhesitating and uncompromising, and Jared arches his back and cries out. It's good, so fucking good, and hurts just enough for him not to come instantly, pulling him back from the brink.Dean braces himself with his hands on either side of Jared's face and begins to move. The pace he sets is a little rougher and faster than Jensen would, and Jared pushes up to meet him, encouraging him to lose control. He reaches up to touch Dean's amulet and then the taut planes of Dean's face, before tangling his hand in Dean's hair and pulling him down for a kiss. Dean's amulet grazes along his chest again, and Jared moans into his mouth.Dean wraps a hand around Jared's cock. Jared almost wants to stop him, because he doesn't want to come, doesn't want to leave this moment. But Dean's thrusts inside him are becoming jerkier, slowly starting to lose their rhythm as he gets close. He's hitting that spot, his hand working Jared's cock, his green eyes holding Jared's gaze: it's all too much, and suddenly Jared is almost screaming as he comes. A few more erratic thrusts and Dean follows him, mouth working soundlessly, before he collapses on top of Jared.It's a long moment before either of them can move, but eventually Dean presses a kiss to Jared's chest and pulls out of him. Jared is almost asleep already, utterly boneless and satiated. He's only vaguely aware of Dean cleaning them both up and climbing back into bed, but he remains conscious just long enough to curl himself around Dean. He's asleep before Dean can voice any complaint about the snuggling.~~Jared wakes up the next morning to find Jensen curled up in his arms, warm and smiling, blinking up at him sleepily."You," Jared starts, then shakes his head, because for once in his life he is just about speechless. "Jesus, Jensen."Jensen's smile widens into a grin, and he tugs Jared down for a kiss."You're welcome," he says when their lips finally part, quite some time later. "Think you're done angsting about it, now?"Jared stares at him. "Holy shit, Jensen." Yeah, the angsting is pretty much forgotten in favour of wondering whether Jensen would maybe be willing to do this again sometime. Hell, role-playing is what they do, right? Suddenly Jared can't remember why he was worried about this whole thing in the first place.Jensen chuckles lazily, and pulls Jared back down on top of him. "Glad you liked.""'Liked'," Jared murmurs incredulously, going with him willingly and resting his head on Jensen's chest. "Jesus."Jensen's heart beats steadily beneath him, and Jared has almost let it lull him back to sleep when he hears Jensen's voice murmur in his ear."'Sides, maybe if I'm lucky you'll return the favour some day."
52976	Opening Gambit	{ "Archive Warning": null, "Category": "M/M", "Characters": null, "Fandom": "Angel: the Series", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Explicit", "author": "by flake_sake, Morgana", "chapters": "4/4", "completed": "", "published": "2010-01-01T00:00:00", "words": "20,083", "Additional Tags": "BDSM", "Relationship": "Spike/Angel", "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": "Playing Games", "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": "Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con", "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	He's following me. He's been following me every night when I've gone out on patrol. He doesn't think I know, but then subtlety never was Angelus' strong suit. He always did prefer a club when a fingertip would've done. But I'm not going to let on, not when the game's barely started. Besides, I've patrolled all week, fought the forces of darkness and all that, and behaved myself like a good little boy. Figure I've earned a night off and if Angel doesn't like it, he can stuff it.I head over to the bar and order a whiskey, then get my smokes out and light one. The first rush of nicotine's almost as good as fresh blood, especially after the kind of shit that's been going down lately, and the whiskey just makes it better. God, there's nothing like a cigarette and a stiff drink at the end of a week spent killing things... unless maybe you throw in a hot piece like the one that's eyeing me across the room. I can feel the old codger's glare boring into my back as I raise my glass and give the boy over there a smile. Might as well, right? Not like Angel's about to give up his Batman routine long enough to loosen up and admit he might want something besides his precious redemption.He’s not sneaky at all, you know. Just strides down the middle of the sidewalk like he owns the place and picks a fight with every demon he comes across, all because he's so damn cocky. He obviously doesn’t remember a single thing I taught him about hunting. Although it's not like he can really hunt in a bar, so I guess I can't say anything about that. And it's a demon bar, too, if the sign means anything. Wait... glowing red devil feeling up a glowing blue angel? And they're both... naked?! He's in a gay bar? A gay demon bar?! What the hell does he think he's doing in a gay demon bar?!? He's supposed to be a Champion, and that means following in my footsteps, saving people and killing things. My footsteps would never have led someplace like this!He lit a cigarette! I can’t believe he just did that- how does he plan to pick up scents? Of course, I shouldn't be surprised, not after I've seen him do stuff like this all week. I don't think I'll ever understand how he survived a hundred years being that reckless. And of course drinking's the next thing he thinks about. It always is. Maybe I should go up to the bar and- ohhhh, no. He did not just smile at that scrawny nothing of a guy in the corner there! And why are so many people always staring at Spike anyway?I start counting silently, and don't even make it to seven before the bloke walks over to sit down next to me. "Hi," he says. "Thought maybe you could use some company." I turn and look at him, give him the fuck-me eyes up and down. Dark hair, green eyes, looks like he's flexible enough to make for a fun time... all in all, not a bad night's work. Especially when it wasn't any work at all."Company's good," I tell him.He smiles, then holds his hand out. "I'm Rick.""Spike," I answer, sliding my hand into his. "C'mon, let's have a turn about the dance floor, pet."We head out to the dance floor, and it doesn't take two seconds before we're plastered together, grinding against each other. Of course, that's partly because the place is too packed to allow for much space- but only partly. I turn the boy around, so Angel gets a good look at my hand as it slips down to cup his ass. He moans and turns his head to kiss my neck, and I can't hold a gasp back, especially when his lips ghost over the scar down at the base of my throat.I'm going to kill him. First he gives that idiot one of those looks that could melt steel, and now he's out there on the dance floor trying to climb into his skin! Where does that little shit get off, giving those kinds of looks to someone who isn't me?He’s got to know I'm watching now, because he starts moving against the boy like a cheap whore, even gropes him right under my nose, although I don't know what he thinks there is to hold on to with that skinny little sewer rat. I wrap my hands around the iron railing on the balcony and pretend it's both their necks. Then the boy touches the scar. My scar. That does it- Champion or not, I'm putting an end to this display.The club's pretty crowded, but growls tend to clear a path, and it doesn't take long to get downstairs. Spike's too busy trying to see how far down the idiot's throat he can get his tongue to notice me when I clear my throat, but getting his attention has never really been a problem for me.I'm just starting to get into it, to really enjoy the kiss when a hand settles on the back of my collar and yanks me away. "Hey! We're snoggin' here!""Too bad." Bloody hell. It just figures that Angel would pick now to get all possessive and shit."Hey, sorry... didn't know you were with someone," Rick stammers, then bolts, leaving me still dangling from Angel's grip.I glare up at him. "Wanna tell me what the hell you think you're doin' ?"I don't bother answering him, just tighten my grip and drag him towards the outside door, ignoring the curses that draw more than one person's stare. We have things to discuss and I refuse to scream over the noise. As soon as we get outside, he elbows me in the stomach and stomps down on my foot, then spits, "Okay, that's it. Where the fuck do you get off ruinin' my night like that, huh, mate?"I push him up against the wall and glare at him. He's all sweaty from dancing, and maybe even a bit drunk even. Either way, he won't last long. "You're very lucky if that's the only thing I'll be ruining tonight," I growl as I turn his head to the side to get a look at my scar. It reeks of spit and cheap aftershave, and there's no way I'm letting him go anywhere while he still smells like that boy.He forces my head to the side and stares at me, and I've just about had it. What the fuck does he- oh yeah, the scar. Shit. He must've seen the kid licking me. "Look, dunno what you're after, but how's about you sod off an' let me go back in for a bit of fun, then we'll sort it all out tomorrow. Sound good?"When he doesn't answer, I shrug. "Didn't think so." I vamp out and start to struggle out of my coat, kicking him every chance I get as hard as I can. If he thinks I'm going down without a fight, he's very much mistaken.The little shit just doesn’t know what’s good for him. He keeps wriggling and kicking, and of course he wouldn't be Spike if he shut up for even one second. Fuck, he got my shin! Doesn’t matter, though, cause I'm gonna give him what he's been begging for all night. I grab his face and smash the back of his head into the bricks but he manages to sink his fangs into my palm before he goes limp.I catch him before he collapses and sling him over my shoulder, then start walking towards the law office. We get a couple of weird looks from people on the street, but a brief, "Too much to drink," keeps them from prying into things too much. Spike's too light, and I wonder how often he's eating and what. One more thing to ask about when he wakes up.Once we're inside the penthouse, I dump Spike on the carpet and start stripping off the rags that he calls clothes. I'll never understand why he dresses like this, like he wants to hide how gorgeous he is. I'd burn the stuff if I didn't think he'd pitch an even bigger fit when he woke up and found them destroyed. Once he's naked, I can't help but look at him. Hell, he really does look starved, his skin stretched thin as parchment over the ribs I shouldn't be able to see so clearly. I don't like it. His face, though... his face is beautiful, pale and quiet, like he's asleep. I reach out to touch one of his ribs, but the cheap cologne from that idiot earlier makes me recoil, and I haul him up and head for the bathroom. First things first, I'm going to get rid of that stench.Guess Wesley wasn't so wrong when he insisted that I keep magical restraints around, after all. I'll owe him an apology and a bottle of scotch for that, but right now the important thing is making sure Spike stays put. I grab the cuffs and wrap the chain around the shower curtain, then close the metal on his wrists and lean him against the tile wall. Then I get rid of my clothes and turn on the water, step into the shower and reach for my body wash. Water in my face wakes me up, and I can tell you that a night in the shower with steel around my wrists was not on my agenda for the night! And what the fuck does he think he's doing with that bloody gel? The bastard wasn't satisfied with just knocking me out, he had to go and chain me up while he fucking washes me?!? I open my mouth to yell, but he clamps his hand over it and all I can do is twist halfway around and glare at his shoulder as he reaches for more gel. It stinks to high heaven, too- mango and coconut. Should've known the poof would like some kind of girlie soap.He starts with my neck, washing my scar until I think it's going to open up and start bleeding again, then moves down my chest and I've about had it. Who does he think he is, washing me like I'm some kind of child or something? I try to squirm out of his grasp, but I swear he grew another four or five sets of hands in addition to the handcuffs, because he doesn't even pause, just keeps soaping me up.I’m really glad I chained him up. It’s like wrestling an eel to try and contain him, especially when you factor in the whole wet and pissed off thing."Will you fucking hold still, or do I have to knock you out again?" Of course, this just makes him twist more, so I wrap a hand around his throat and squeeze just a little. He stills long enough for me to run a wet hand down his back. I can feel every single wiry rope of muscle and it’s getting me hard as a rock, but I try to pretend I'm not affected until I reach the curve of his perfect ass. I tell myself that I have to be extra thorough, purely for his own good, so I release his neck and pour more gel onto my hand. "You can’t just go out there and let yourself be fingered by every guy you come across, understand? It’s not good for you. Besides, you're under my care now, and I’ll have none of that," I tell him as I stroke his cheeks, then part them enough to stroke a soapy finger over his hole."Wasn't lettin' him finger me," I mutter. If anyone was going to be taking it, he would've, but of course His Broodiness can't be bothered to let on that he heard me, just keeps washing me. I'm trying not to think about it, but his hands on my skin feel almost good enough to let it go. It's been too long since somebody touched me like this, and longer than I like to think about since that someone was Angel. When a finger presses against my ass, I can't stop from pressing back, but when it fills me... God! I gasp and hold still. Fuck, that feels good!He slides his finger in and out, then reaches around to cup my balls, and I moan as he starts massaging me. "Gotta wash you everywhere," he whispers, but I know he's got a helluva lot more than just washing on his mind. I can feel his dick pressing against my back, almost as hard as my own, and this is much more like what I wanted from the start. He doesn't touch my cock, though, just keeps washing my balls like he's gonna try to eat off of them later. Not that I'd mind if he did, of course.I wrap my hand around him and start fisting his cock with a loose grip. He starts to moan and squirm against me, pressing his ass against my hard on. "You like this, don’t you? You just live to provoke me til I take you in hand properly. You don’t give two cents about the danger you pose to my soul. You just go and make me so mad that I lose control. But this time... this time it's not going to end with a little fistfight, Spike. This time you’re gonna walk away knowing exactly who owns your ass."I shove my fingers back inside him to emphasize my point and his gasp makes me even harder. He always did drive me crazy with the noises that he made. I used to torture him for days just to see how many different sounds I could elicit from him, and he never let me down, from gutwrenching screams to strangled sobs. Now it’s different; there's creative strings of curses that make me chuckle and I wonder what he's going to sound like when I'm buried inside him.Jesus Christ, why did I fight him again? Cause with his hand wrapped around my prick and his cock against my ass, it's really hard to remember. It takes me a minute to realize what he's saying, and while losing control sounds like a bloody great idea, he can't be serious about his soul. I open my mouth to ask about it, but a finger slides up inside me and I moan instead. Fuck, that feels good! But he doesn't move it, just holds still until I'm ready to scream. "C'mon, poofter, move it! Need to feel... fuck, Angel, don't tease me!"He stops stroking me and shoves two fingers in my mouth. "Keep that tongue of yours in check," he growls. I suck on his fingers for a second before the taste of soap makes me try to get away again. All I end up with is his finger lodged deeper inside my ass and a mouth that tastes like like soddin' mango soap. I know what he's after- he wants me whining and whimpering like some kind of pet, begging for his touch so he feels like the big, powerful man. Well, he can whistle for it. Bastard couldn't break me when he was soulless, sure as hell not gonna let him win now.The kid's scent is gone, and now all I can smell is soap, Spike, and me. Just the way it should be. And the fact that he's basically helpless and seconds away from begging me to fuck him is a pretty nice bonus, as well. He can pretend all he wants when we’re in public, but all it takes is a little bit of play to bring him back to a needy, moaning mess, begging for his sire’s cock. The way he fights it with every fiber of his being makes it all the more delicious. It’s ingrained into his very being. I ought to feel guilty about the things I did to him to make him this way but I just can’t bring myself to do so. He’s clearly enjoying himself and there is no damage I could possibly do that Angelus hasn’t already done. No need to hold back with him, just the need to spread him open and-"Angel," he moans, pressing back against me, already begging for it. Ahhh, there it is, that tone in his voice that indicates that he’s going to die from need if I don’t fuck him this very moment. And this is gonna have to go down fast because I’m not going to be able to keep myself together for much longer, not when he’s writhing like a bitch in heat already. "Is there something you want, boy?""Bloody hell, just fuck me, wouldja?" Bastard thinks he's gonna make me beg, but I'm not that stupid fledge anymore, and he needs to realize that. I shove back against him, but he stays out of range and I rattle the handcuffs. "Stop being such a fucking cocktease, Angelus!"That was either the incredibly right thing or the incredibly wrong thing to say, because I feel him stiffen behind me. I think he's about to turn the shower off and walk away, but then he grabs my hips and shoves that monster of a cock inside me with one stroke, and I can't keep myself from screaming. Fuck! Hasn't he ever heard of lube? And not soap, because it's stinging like hell and all of a sudden I'm wondering why I thought I wanted this. I start struggling hard now, yanking against the curtain rod until I can feel it start to wobble. "Jesus Christ, Angel!"For a minute I think I might come just from the feel of him wrapped so damn tight around me. He starts wriggling and cursing, and he's probably gonna get loose any minute now, but I’m beyond caring. I wrap my arms around him and pull him back against me as I start to move, one hand slipping down to stroke his cock, the other teasing his nipple. He quivers against me, drawn taut like a bowstring, and I hope to God he's ready, because I can't stop now.The curtain rod pulls out of the wall and clatters to the floor, but he doesn't try to get away, just melts against me in sudden surrender and whispers, "Angel... please." The yearning I can hear in his voice breaks my last walls down, and I think I'd take on the world just to hear him say he's mine. And I hope like hell that I didn't just say that last part aloud. My hips start to pound into him as if they posses a will of their own, while my hands stroke him, roaming his body as I try to learn him all over again. He gasps and I bite his shoulder to hold back my groan. He's so fucking responsive that it makes my head spin. I want to possess him, mark him and sink so deeply into him and that I can't tell where I end and he begins.I bite my lip, trying like hell to hold out. Have to wait, have to- "Ohhhh God," I moan, and just like that, I'm spilling it all out, babbling about need and want and sire and yours, and I can only hope he's too into fucking me to really pay attention. I've killed two Slayers and fought beside a third. I've slaughtered armies and held out against a hell god, the embodiment of evil itself, and the US government, but just now, it feels like none of it happened, like I'm that same pathetic fledge that needed him so badly. And while I hate myself for it, I can't help whimpering and tilting my head, just the tiniest bit. He won't bite, not Angel. But if I close my eyes, I can pretend, just for a few seconds while I ride the fine edge of ecstasy...Fangs slice into my skin and I'm gone. He's biting me. My sire's biting me, and even if it doesn't mean what I want it to, it's like that first time all over again. "Fuck!" My scream echoes off the walls of the bathroom and I shake in his arms, come fountaining over his hand until it mingles with the water that went cold long ago. I almost black out, but somehow manage to hang on to consciousness, and my reward is his growl as he thrusts against me hard and comes, his hands digging into my hips. I'm going to bruise from that, but I don't care. At least then I'll know that this was real, that it actually happened and it wasn't just some dream or fantasy.When I start to have any feeling at all, I'm aware of four things- my ass hurts like hell, Angel's fangs are still in my neck, I'm leaking come and he's still holding me. It feels good, and for a few seconds I close my eyes and pretend he'll keep doing it, that he won't shove me away as soon as he realizes what happened. He will, of course. They all do- it's what I was made for, to fuck and use until they don't want me anymore. I swallow hard, then say, "Gonna let go now, then?" because if he doesn't, I'm gonna start crying.I’m still shivering in the aftermath of the most powerful orgasm I've had in years, and he wants to leave? It was only the guilt that I felt when I bit into him that kept the soul in place, and even that was almost wiped out when I tasted him. He was so different, so unlike the youngling I used to feed from, and it was intoxicating. Spike's his own vampire now, and I can taste it in his blood- he's a river of strength, a wild inferno like the fire that saved the world somehow sank into him and became part of him. If it weren't for knowing the kind of bliss we just shared, I could almost envy the demons that died in that wild rush that came from the heart of him. He starts to pull away and I ease my fangs free, but can't quite bring myself to turn him loose just yet. I lick the last drops of his blood free before his wound closes, tightening my grip a little as he moves again. "Don't.""Can't stand here all night. Water's gettin' cold, an' while you might be into sufferin', I like bein' warm," he tells me. Why does he want to do this? Why can't he just let me hold him for a little bit? I just want to feel him nearby for a few more minutes before I have to go back to being Angel again.But I'm not going to force him to stay. I grind my teeth and let go of him. "Of course." The awkwardness is beginning to set in, hanging heavily around us. I don't know what I was thinking- this is Spike, after all. Sex is just sex to him, nothing mind blowing or world changing about it. I pull out of him and unlock the cuffs, then step out of the shower, trying to pull myself together, but nearly ruin the whole show by almost tripping over the discarded curtain rod.I shoot a hand out to catch him when he trips. "Easy there, luv." The instant the words are out of my mouth, I want to crawl away. He'll know now; he'll have to. Might as well paint 'I want my sire back' in big fluorescent letters all over my bare and bloody ass. I wait until he's steady, then let him go and climb out of the tub, hissing as I'm reminded of why I don't do this more often. Be a right treat with lube and lots of play, but he took me nearly dry, and that's a whole other world entirely.He doesn’t say anything, but I recognize that guilty look in his eyes. He's probably wondering what he ever wanted with me again, but all he does is bite his lip and hand me a towel. I wrap it around my waist and look down at my feet and the growing puddle of pinkish water that's collecting on the floor. "Well, that was-" Earthshattering. Fantastic. The hottest thing I've done in a hundred years.Earthshattering. Fantastic. Soul-stealing perfect. "Yeah, it was," I echo. "Thank you." The second the words leave my lips, I want to smack myself. It's probably the stupidest thing imaginable that you could say to someone that you knocked out and all but raped in your shower just because he was dancing with someone that wasn't you.I dry off and go into the bedroom, then get dressed. Christ, it hurts. I'm reminded of all those times with Buffy, when she'd use me, then run out. This time I'm the one leaving, but I'd rather walk out than get shoved out, and I know what's coming if I hang around. We've played this game before, and I know the steps by heart. "See you round, Angel," I tell him, then head back to my dingy little apartment. Maybe somewhere there's a liquor store that'll deliver enough bottles to keep me unconscious enough to forget what happened until I can deal with it... like, say, sometime in the next century or two."See you," I say softly as the door closes behind him. He probably didn't hear it, or if he did, he's not going to bother to answer. I don't know what I was expecting, anyway. It's not like I want him to stay, and even if I did, not like he'd want to. He's told me over and over again that he's his own man now and while some of the old kinks still work, he doesn't belong to me. Not anymore.I should clean up the mess in the bathroom, but right now all I want is a stiff drink or twelve. That way I won't have to think about going after him and dragging him back here again until he agrees to stay. And maybe if I get drunk enough, I can manage not to think about tonight and maybe even look Spike in the eye again... in a month or so. ----- CHAPTER BREAK ----- Time management is everything if you're trying to avoid someone. For the last week I've managed to keep my contact with Spike limited to public meetings, when important world-saving business has kept us too busy to do more than talk about patrol or possible impending apocalypses. He hasn't mentioned the shower incident, and neither have I. Maybe in another three weeks we can pretend it never happened. And maybe at some point after that I can quit asking for security tapes just so I can see him.I've gotten to be an expert in Spike over the past seven days. That slight limp he had after the first night just about drove me crazy, the subtle reminder of what had happened leaving me caught between apology and the desire to take him over and over again until he was in no condition to run from me anymore. He seemed to take longer than usual to heal, and I realized again how stupid I was not to give him an apartment here. At least then I'd have known if he was feeding properly. But I let him go, so now I have to rely on what little the security footage will tell me, and pray that he doesn't hate me enough to starve himself. In the meantime, I'll do what I can to distract myself.I've had it. Spent the whole week avoiding Angel as much as possible since that little scene in the shower and the bastard doesn't even care. He might think we can just go back to the whole buddy-cop routine, but I'm done with letting him call the shots. I've got a plan, you see, and this time I'm not giving up until it comes out right.Everything's been checked and double checked, and there's only one thing I need to put it all into motion. Like always, Angel's in his office, but that just makes it all the easier for me. I walk in and toss my bag on his desk. Can't give him time to react or he'll catch on, so I spit out, "Been thinkin', an' I'd say that after you interrupted me last week, I'm owed a little somethin'."I owe him?!? Of course I do, after the way I treated him, but I can't admit it out loud. “Did you hit your head or something? All I owe you is a kick in the ass on your way out the door!” He doesn't say anything, so I point at the plastic bag on the desk and ask, “And what’s that, anyway?”One eyebrow rises and he stares me down for a minute, then says, very quietly, "You know exactly what you owe me for. Took three days to heal up from that little personal grooming session you gave me." Three days? It didn't look that bad on the footage! I never should've let him go without feeding him- should've forced it down his throat if he wouldn't take it, and Spike was the one that suffered for my pride. He always has. I open my mouth to apologize, but he cuts me off. "Got you a prezzie. Why don't you take a look at it?"I open the package and stare at what's inside, fighting back a gasp. It’s a broad black leather band with a gleaming silver buckle. A collar, although definitely not one intended for a dog. Or a slender, fine-boned childe. Angelus would never have decorated his boy in such a manner. A collar means possession, and that implies a care that I couldn't bring myself to admit to. So that just leaves- no, he can't honestly think I'd- I swallow hard and tear my eyes away long enough to look up at him.Oh yeah, I've definitely got his attention now. I hook my fingers through my belt loops and smirk at him. "Way I figure it, after twenty plus years with Angelus an' that one night with you, I've got a little somethin' comin'. So I'll take a night of my own in payment. Tomorrow night, as a matter of fact.”“What? No! Spike! C'mon, you can't possibly be serious about this!” And maybe I wouldn't be, if he weren't still holding on to that bag and staring at me with those big brown eyes."Serious enough, mate. Look at it this way: I'll either be spendin' tomorrow night at the club with you, or I'll be in my apartment, packin' for Europe.” God, I hate using that threat with him, but something has to change. If it doesn't, I'll lose my mind. This has to work, it's just got to.Packing? He'd really leave over this? Fuck, I didn't see that coming. Blackmail, sure, and definitely the idea that he'd tell my friends, but not this. It catches me right in the gut and I know that now that I've got him back, I can't watch him leave. I nod slowly, trying not to let him see how anxious the prospect of him being gone makes me.He stares at me for a second, then says, “Ten o'clock, here in the office, on your knees when I come in. Want you dressed right- leather pants, silk shirt an' nothin' underneath. An' don't touch the collar 'til then. That's mine to put on you."I want to roar at him, demand to know exactly who the insolent little bastard thinks he is, to order his sire down to his knees, but I know I can’t. He’s not my boy anymore to use whenever I feel like it, and the cold look he gives me before he turns and walks out sends shivers down my spine. And just like that, I know I'll be waiting for him, just the way he wants.I spend most of the next day arguing with myself, trying to ignore the little voice that screams at me not to do this, the instinct that demands that I make Spike pay for even thinking that I'd kneel to him warring with the growing desire to do whatever it takes to get him back by my side and back in my bed. By sunset I've given up any pretense of reluctance and started trying on leather pants, first with boxers and then without, like he dictated, before I decide to wear the boxers anyways. After what feels like another couple of hundred years in hell, I finish getting dressed and go downstairs to wait in my office.Ten o'clock arrives, but there's no Spike. Five, then ten minutes pass, and I start to realize with a slow, sinking feeling that he isn't coming, that this was all just a way to make me pay for the countless times I reveled in his humiliation. He's probably got some kind of camera wired up and is laughing his head off at me kneeling for him like a pathetic loser. Fifteen minutes, and I can't stay still any longer. I get to my feet and start pacing, trying to figure out where he might be. I've got to find him, wherever he is, hunt him down and try to get him to talk this out, let me make it right somehow.I've been standing outside Angel's office door for almost twenty minutes now. I can't seem to make myself open the door and go in, can't stop wondering about what I'm going to do if he's not there, or if he's there only so he can tell me to fuck off. It's been driving me buggy all day, thinking about the fact that I told him I was leaving if he didn't do this. So now, if he's not there, I either have to go or basically admit I'm his bitch. I take a shaky breath, then reach for the doorknob.He slides to his knees when the door swings open, and I have to hold back a howl of triumph. He's there! My sire's waiting for me on his knees, looking like sin itself in leather and silk, and just maybe he wants to set this whole fucked-up mess behind us as much as I do. I want to shout hallelujah, want to scream out my relief that I don't have to leave to the skies, but I can't. This was just the first part of my plan, and now I have to put the rest into effect. I walk over to the desk and pick up the collar, stroking the leather as I go back to him. He bows his head and just the suggestion of submission in the gesture makes me instantly hard for him. "Ask for it."He raises his head to glare at me, but I'm not about to give in on something like this. After a few seconds of staring at each other, he sighs. “Just do it, already, Spike!” It's not good enough and I open my mouth to tell him so when he adds softly, “Please.” He never did like having to ask for things, so I decide to cut him a little slack.He scowls at me, then leans down and slips the collar around my neck, the leather suddenly confining and final in a way I didn't expect when the buckle closes. "Woulda got a kiss if you'd asked nice," he tells me before he straightens up. "Rules for the night, then: We're goin' to a place I found, an' you'll be expected to act right. No talkin' unless you've been given permission, you go to your knees whenever we stop an' you call me Master or Sir. Can't play by those rules, then say so now. Got it?"I find myself caught between yearning for the missed chance at a kiss and wishing I could kick Angelus’ ass for teaching him how to play these games in the first place. I can't deny him this, not when I owe it to him after the years of forced submission. I nod slowly and whisper, “Yes, Sir.”His smile could steal the heart of an archangel, and when he cups my cheek and strokes my skin with his thumb, I can't possibly regret giving this to him. "Good boy. Up then, an' let's go have some fun." When I get to my feet, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out- a leash?!? Oh God, there's no way I can go out with him like that. I start to back away, but he clips the lead onto my collar before I can react and leans in to purr, "For tonight, you're mine an' I'm not sharin'."He doesn't say anything as we go downstairs and start towards the club, and I wonder what's going through that head of his. Tonight's either going to be the breakthrough point we've been needing, or it will leave us even farther apart than we've ever been. I don't know what I'll do if that happens. The bouncer at the club lets us in easily enough, although I think Angel's about to have a stroke when I give our names as William the Bloody and Pet. I lead him in, eager to see what he thinks about the place I've chosen.We draw more than a little attention as we walk down the stairs into the main club. Of course we do- we're two hot as hell blokes, after all. I take him over to a table, then stop him before he can kneel. "Wanna show off what I've got," I tell him as I unbutton his shirt. Fuck, he's beautiful in silk and leather, and that collar's almost enough to make me throw the plan out the window. When I'm done, I push him down and take a seat in the chair next to him. "Look around, tell me what you see."I swallow down the automatic insult that comes to mind and try to do as he asks. I have to at least try to let go of my reservations or this won't be any good at all for him. And I can't let that happen, can't fail him in this. So I glance around the room, taking it all in. It’s a pretty wild mix of demons and humans, some people dressed in nothing more than strips of leather. There are dancers in cages and a lot of people are with slaves, for the lack of better word, yet most of the doms look kind of pathetic. Nothing like Spike, who radiates control without doing anything more than sitting next to me. More than one hungry gaze lingers on him, and I swallow. “People are staring at you…Sir.” I had to fight to keep from calling him Master. Much more of this and he'll have me screaming it- and what's more, meaning it."An' why do you think that is, pet?" He puts a hand on the back of my neck, fingers stroking my collar and I almost tell him the truth. Because of the eyes, the lips, the cheekbones and most of all because it takes about a second to see that he’s a total anomaly, that he’s overturned all the rules and boundaries that hold everybody else back. Because these people are looking for a thrill and he’s the single most beautiful, and deadly, thing in the room.He gives the leash a sharp tug and I blurt out, “Because you're gorgeous enough to turn anyone on.”I'm glad vampires can't blush when he chuckles and tells me, "See, I think it's more'n that. Most of these poor sods've never seen the likes of either you or me, an' gettin' a look at both of us is enough to make half the room cream their pants." Fingers curl around the ring in my collar and he pulls me up into a formal kneel, then leans over to kiss me. It's light and sweet, and enough to make me put up with any game as long as I get more like it. "So hungry for me, luv. An' we haven't even checked out the back rooms yet..."Holding back from a real kiss has never been harder, but I know it'll be worth it. My sire's a sucker for those romantic little gestures- always was, even if he'd have burned in the midday sun before admitting it. And when I drop that little nugget about the club's special rooms, his beautiful brown eyes widen and he asks shakily, “Back rooms?”Yeah, I knew that would get him. Don't know if he's wanting to get away from the people who can't stop staring at us or if he's actually curious to see what's back there. Of course, it doesn't really matter, not when he's practically begging for the next step. And I'm not sure how much longer I can wait to see his reaction when he sees what I have planned. "Got a whole slew of 'em through that door over there," I reply, jerking my chin towards the blacklit entrance and the demon guarding it. "Wanna take a look?"“Please, Sir”Between the look in his eyes and his pretty plea, I really can't deny him. Not that I want to, of course. I stand up and give his leash a little tug to get him on his feet, then lead him to the door. A twenty and flash of fang makes sure we get through the door, and the second we step into the hallway the scent of blood and pain and sex is everywhere, enough to make my demon purr in satisfaction. I take him first to the human rooms, where we see slaves stretched out on St Andrews' crosses while they're flogged or whipped with a crop, where the pets are made to crawl to kiss their dominant's feet and beg for more, and when I see him looking at one particular man who's kneeling in front of his Mistress, his body striped with welts and cuts that draw the eye inexorably to his hard-as-steel erection, I ask, "Like what you see, Angel?"The little bastard tricked me. He had to know I'd think the back rooms were private, but instead they're a free-for-all, where sex, blood, desire and pain make the air smell like a vampire's idea of heaven. I'm getting harder with every second, but I can't tear my gaze away. I suck in a sharp breath and nearly groan as the taste of sensuality fills my senses. And by the time I realize he's still waiting for his answer, it's too late.He slaps me hard enough to send me to my knees again, my head ringing from the blow. "I asked you a question!" he hisses. We're drawing the attention of some of the room's inhabitants, and he yanks me up hard enough to tear a strangled moan from my throat. Blue eyes blaze down at me with a sudden rage that only makes me want him more. "Answer me now, pet, or the night stops here."“Yes, Christ, Spike… Master, yes. Please”That's more like it, and just hearing him call me Master is enough to repay me for a thousand nights of torture. I ease my grip a little, allowing him a tiny bit of freedom as my hand slides up his throat to cup his cheek. "Please what, baby? Please take you in there an' tie you up, beat you til you scream? Please go to the demon rooms an' cut you til you're covered in blood an' beggin' to come for me? Please stop?" Each of his suggestions only makes it worse. Not enough for him to get me to agree to this; no, he has to make me want it and then shove my face in it by trying to take it away. “Don’t stop!” Just make me into something that you can love, I beg silently. Another gentle stroke of his thumb and I can’t stop myself anymore. I lean into his touch and the words flow out in a babbling stream. “Want you, want you to make it better. Want you to take it all away.” The fear, the guilt, the barriers. I can't be making much sense right now, but there's nothing I'll deny him and he has to understand that.As the words tumble out of his mouth, I fall even harder for him. I wrap my arms around him and let him cling to me for a few minutes. If something like this happened before we even got started, I can't even imagine what's going to happen when we- but I have to. He needs to see, needs to know, and this is the only way I can think of to do it. Finally, I push him back and slide my fingers under his chin, tilting his head back so he can see my eyes. "Not gonna stop, luv. Won't stop unless you tell me to. You want out, you scream the Slayer's name." I let that sink in, then ask, "Ready for the demon room?" Shit, shit, shit. I didn't plan on showing him this much, didn't want him to see the need and desperation that beats just under my skin. He just wants some fun with me, some retaliation for the rough play, but the instant he shows me even a little tenderness, I let control slip for a bit and it all comes out. But I can hold it back now, won't let it get loose again. And it doesn't sound like there's going to be much more temptation to give in like that, not with his mention of me screaming. But that's all right. Paying for past sins is what I do. Torture is something I can deal with. Love I'm still not really sure about.Something flickers behind his eyes, but he doesn't say anything, just nods and gets to his feet, waiting for me to turn and start down the hallway before he follows. We walk in silence until we leave the human rooms behind and step into the demon rooms, where the scent of blood and pain grows stronger, and the arousal is almost enough to knock me off my feet. I don't want to linger long with him here, just show him what some of the demons call play. Various beings writhe upon surgical tables, their bloody faces alight with the ecstasy that only the worst pain can provide as their bodies are slowly sliced open. I let him look for a minute before I pull him along to the last room, gratified to see that it's empty and readied as I requested it to be. It's as open as the rest for viewing, but those who might come back here almost certainly won't get past the demon room, either too repulsed or attracted by the activities there to proceed. So for the most part, he's entirely mine. Or at least I can pretend he is. The demon rooms were a temptation almost too great to ignore. I wanted to ask to stay, even if it meant letting him strap me down and cut me to pieces. Actually, part of me wanted- no, needed that. The burn of the razor, the sharp pain that I so richly deserve for all my sins. But Spike's made it clear that tonight isn't about that. This is about him and me and what I owe him. I let the shirt slide from my shoulders and look him straight in the eye. “Where do you want me, Master?”He moves around me in a slow circle, his eyes drifting over me until I can feel the weight of his stare on every inch of my skin. One hand reaches out to touch me, fingers trailing over my back in a delicate caress that makes me shiver. “Think we'll start with somethin' light then. Go over to the post an' take hold of it.” He doesn't wait for me to obey, but turns around and starts to strip off his coat and shirt.I steal a few precious seconds to stare at him, then force myself to move away and follow his orders. Excitement slides up my spine and I stop the shudder only by grabbing hold of the smooth wooden pole. From the corner of my eyes I can see him reach up to the wall filled with toys of all kinds and take down a crop, flogger and black leather paddle, the sight of them making a knot form low in my stomach. Anticipation has been goading me on all evening but now... now that he's actually about to hurt me, it's close to unbearable.He's watching me, so I take my time. The basic instruments are first, then my personal favorites, although I'm not going to let him see those just yet. I move to block his view when I get those, then wrap them in his discarded shirt, pick everything up and go over to the large table near the post. Once everything's been laid out, I'm ready to start. The crop's first, and I hold it out to him as I walk over to where he's waiting. “Kiss it and thank me," I tell him, repeating the words I remember from countless sessions with Angelus.He glances at the toys, swallows hard and bends to kiss the leather loop of the crop. But there's one glaring admission that I can't let pass. "Didn't thank me for what I'm about to do for you, pet. Think I should add another twenty for that, what do you think?"I don't wait for him to answer before I lash out, the crop catching him on the shoulder, raising a pink welt almost immediately. I hit him several more times, moving slowly down his back until there's a trail of raised patches, and I have to touch. I stroke my fingers lightly over them, then press a kiss over his tattoo, tongue darting out to taste his skin just before I pull back and hit him again, harder than before.Fuck, he's serious about this! I'd forgotten about the way I used to make him thank me for everything I did to him, how he was ordered to beg for the whippings and abuse that I heaped on him. And tonight's all about payback, isn't it? The welts on my back burn as the crop bites into my skin and I gasp, gripping the post as tightly as I can. It's been ages since I hurt like this, too long since I've had pain that I can revel in without having to fight, and it feels so much better than I remembered. I don't know how much longer I can stay still or keep quiet.Another hard blow catches me between the shoulderblades and I moan, “Please,” although I don't know what I'm begging for. Spike does, though. He goes to the table and exchanges the crop for the paddle, swinging it through the air a few times as he returns. The swoosh of leather cutting air tightens that knot in my stomach, and a chuckle behind me tells me that he knows it. “Spread your legs,” he orders.I start to obey, but apparently I'm not fast enough for him, because he brings the paddle down just under my ass, across the tops of my thighs and hisses, “I gave you an order, boy!” I barely manage to bite back a scream when he lays into me with it. Before I can think, I'm moving at his command, legs shifting apart, back arching to present myself without even being told to.“Slut,” I growl, then land a blow on each one of his cheeks. He grunts and I hit him again, then reach around to close my hand around his throat, exerting just enough pressure to remind him who's in control. "Got somethin' to say, pet? Want more, is that it? Or maybe it's those pesky pants... makin' it too hard for you to really feel it. I think we should get rid of 'em, don't you?""I don-” I tighten my hold and he moans, “God, please, yes"“Please what, baby? Gotta ask the right way if you want it,” I remind him, shifting to press up against his ass, letting him feel how hard I am.He gasps. “Master! Please, Master.” And just like I knew he would, he's squirming against me, needy as a bitch in heat.I yank his pants down and sure enough, he's wearing underwear. After I strip the jeans off him, I rip the underwear away, smiling at the unmistakeable sound of silk shredding. "Thought I told you nothin' underneath," I say, trying to sound as though I'm not absolutely delighted by his disobedience. After all, gotta have a reason for what's coming, right? And he just provided me with one of the best ones. I bring the paddle down hard on his bare ass, then go over to the table and unwrap the bundle. The cock ring and butt plug that I'd chosen for him are held up for him to see and I ask, "Want 'em, pet?"Toys? He brought- oh, God. And why does he have to keep using that voice, the one that makes me want to roll up in it and forget everything else except him? I'd agree to eat my own grandmother if he told me to in that tone. A soft growl pulls me back to where he waits expectantly. With the look in his eyes, I can't do anything but tell him the truth. "Want everything, as long as it comes from you."He stares at me for a long time, then drops the cock ring and pulls a tube out of his pocket. A flick of the cap and lube squirts out onto the plug. He wraps his hand around it and starts stroking, cranking my arousal up to unbearable heights as he lubes the toy up. "Must be feelin' so empty now, aren't you? Need somethin' fillin' you up, holdin' you here. Wouldn't want my pretty baby missin' out on anythin'. Told you I'd take care of you, yeah?" He presses against me, then slowly slides down along my body to kneel behind me.Hands smooth over my ass and spread me. The plug strokes over my hole and the teasing touch, combined with his words, is almost enough to make me come right there. He pauses for a second, then positions the plug and starts to ease it in, pressing it slowly inside until it's completely lodged inside me. And God, I can't think beyond the solid presence of the plug, the way it fills me and holds me open all at once. Spike's fingers curl around my dick, reaching behind my balls to fasten the cock ring, holding me back from what could have been a humiliatingly quick orgasm. I remember this, remember doing this to him as Angelus, taking him to the brink of pleasure and pushing it back again and again.But Spike isn't me. He's promised to take care of me, and I believe him. When he strokes me and brings his hand up for me to lick the precome from his fingers, I do so eagerly, wanting nothing more than to fall into him. I want to just skip the play and hold him, tell him everything I feel, everything I need, make him mine and beg him to make me his as well. But that's not what this is about, not what he wants from me, so I settle for worshipping his fingers as long as he'll allow, licking and sucking them until he pulls his hand back and starts toward the table once more.Bleeding fuck, who'd have thought Angelus would be such a sweet little sub? I have to take a minute by the table to steady my breathing and get control so I don't jump him, because I'm about two second away from throwing him down and fucking the daylights out of him right now. But he's not ready yet, doesn't understand yet and I want him to know before I take him. "Ready to take your punishment, pet?""Yes, Master. Thank you." He's slipping into the role, and it even seems like he might not be fighting it anymore. I give him a kiss as a reward, soft and tender before I bite his lip and step back."Ever think to ask yourself why I used to disobey so much, Angel? Ever wonder how come I earned punishment after punishment?" I stroke a hand down his back and pinch the welt just over his ass. "See, there's somethin' about pain... it takes you out of yourself if you let it." I bring the flogger down right over his tattoo.He hisses and arches into the lashes. “Pain gives you freedom.” I slash the flogger across his back, criss-crossing the lines. “An' if you know how to ride it, you can go flyin'. Wanna fly, pet? Wanna touch heaven? Wanna soar with me? Make me hot for you? Huh?” With each question I bring the whip down, cracking it on his back and ass over and over again until he's covered in stripes from shoulders to mid-thigh and shaking with the combination of pain and need. Leaning in, I whisper in his ear, “Tell me what you want, Angelus.” Please, God, let him be ready. Let him feel it, even if he never makes the connection, just let him know what I used to feel every time he touched me.The name brings me up short, the reminder of my sins and my salvation blending in his rich tone. I never knew, never realized that he felt like that about me, even before the soul. It makes me wonder if it's even me he wants, if I'm not just some substitute for the sire he can't have any longer, if he trusted Angelus more than he does me. Anger bubbles up at the thought, jealousy clawing at my innards and I want to tear everyone who's ever touched him apart- starting with myself!I want it to be me that Spike wants kneeling at his feet, my name he screams and purrs when he comes, and when his hand closes over me and he repeats his demand, I moan, “Want to be yours.” It's all I can think of and the words come straight from my gut. I want him to be mine, but not as much as I want him to have me. To make me his. To fuck me so hard and deep that the whole world will see me marked as his and know how much I love him.Jesus Christ. The words go straight through me, and the flogger falls to the ground as I reach for him, spinning him around to claim his mouth in a hard kiss. It's brutal, taking everything he'll give me and offering everything I have all at once, and by the time it ends, I'm tearing at my jeans and shoving him to his knees. "Fuck, Angel, need you, need your mouth," I babble, beyond any thought except desire and desperation.His mouth wraps around me, tongue stroking over and around the tip of my cock in a serpentine dance. I moan and slide my fingers into his hair, guiding him up and down in a slide that's building speed despite my better judgement. He takes me in like he wants to swallow me whole, hungry for more even as he chokes on it, and I have to force him back or I'm gonna lose the last little bit of control I have left.I haul him up and drag him over to the table, sweeping it clean with one shove. I'm not sure if I throw him up on it or he scrambles up, not when all that matters is that Angel's stretched out naked on his back for me. Reaching down, I slide my cock over his, growling at the need that catches hold of me with the first brush of skin on skin. It's like wildfire, hotter than the flames that burned me alive, brighter than my soul when I got it back, and I kiss him again. He spreads his legs wider and moans when I slide my hand down to press on the base of the plug. "Want me inside?" I whisper against his lips, thrusting my cock slowly against his bound one. "Want me to fuck you, baby? Make you howl for me?""That even a question? I'm going to die here if you don't do it!""Beg me." He's so close, teetering on the edge, but I'm greedy and I want it all. Trust in me, Angel, let me take you to the heaven that I know is there. Give me everything and then you'll understand why I've done this, what it is that I really want from you.At this point, refusal isn't even an option: "Need you inside, please, need to feel, need to know, please, please need to have it all, Spike," I babble mindlessly, promising him the sun, moon and stars if only he'll fuck me.He throws one of my legs over his shoulder and pulls the plug free. It slides out and I'm left empty and aching, in agony from the sudden loss of that solid presence inside. I whimper and he shushes me, kisses me as he presses two fingers inside and then... ohhh, then I feel him nudging his way inside. He pauses for an instant, then buries himself full-length inside me with one thrust that makes me scream his name."Christ, Angel, so fucking tight," he gasps, and I can tell he's struggling to hold back. I squeeze him and he hisses, then starts to move, and it's brilliant. Sparks fly up from his dick along my spine to melt my brain. I claw at his back, wrap my legs around his hips and beg for more with half-formed, stuttered words. But it's his eyes that threaten to blow my head off. His beautiful blue eyes, dark with lust and heavy-lidded with desire, and I don't know how I ever fucked him without seeing his face before. It's right there, all I ever wanted from him- love and ecstasy, pure as sunlight, and it's me who's causing it.I catch hold of his hands, forcing them above his head and hold them there, slowing down to grind against him. My thighs are screaming at the change of pace, but just this once, we're going to do this my way. Angel shudders and stares up at me, his eyes lost and found all at the same time."Uh-uh... don't get to do that, pet. You're gonna lay there an' take it. Want you to feel it, feel every inch, yeah? Feel me fuckin' you, makin' you mine." I groan when his body tightens around me. "Yeah, you like that, don't you?" I can't stay still any longer, have to move, so I start fucking him again, even slower. "Beg, Angel. Convince me to give you what you need."He tenses up, almost like he's fighting against this last barrier and I'm almost ready to let him get away without having to push past it, when the words burst out, flowing like a river. "Please, Spike, please. Faster, harder, just split me up in two, make me yours, make me forget all I ever was before, please. I'll lose my mind here, please, my soul... ungh, God, Master, need it!"His eyes widen and he starts fucking me faster and harder until the table starts to creak under us. "Yeah, that's it. Give it up, pet. All of it. Gonna... ohhhhh fuck, gonna fill you up, make you mine forever. My Angel, my sire, my lover, my- Mine," he growls, the sound reverberating in my bones. The cock ring pops open with a snick and then his hand's around me, stroking me with a loose grip that's going to drive me insane before he lets me come. I thrust up into his hand and he purrs, “Yeah, that's it, baby. Fuck yourself on my cock, show me how much you need it.” Fingers tease the tip of my dick, their touch tender despite the way his hips power into me and I'm going to lose it. There's no way I'll survive this, but I can't bring myself to care. Not when he's touching me like-Wait. That's it, isn't it? What Spike said about seeking punishment, why he always acted out whenever the girls were gone. He wanted the contact, needed my touch and I only gave it to him when I- oh, God. I cry out when he starts stroking me again, stripping me expertly enough to make me wonder who else he's done this for, and I know I need to tell him that I understand and I'm sorry but all I can manage is, "Please, Master, Master, Spike, need to come, please." And suddenly I know what I need. I turn my head and bare my throat, hoping he can manage with the collar in place. “Bite me, please, Spike, need it, please!”"Tell me you want me," I snarl. "Tell me you need me. Tell me-" Tell me you love me. "Tell me you're mine!" I shift and stare down at him, licking my lips at the sight of his exposed throat. I'll have his words first, and then his blood, and each will do their part to keep me company after we leave here."Want to be yours,” he pants. “Own it all, take every inch of my body and every fucking grain of my soul. I'm so in love with you, I don't even recognize myself anymore! Please, Spike, just... just give me this. Can't go on without you, don't care if you'll hate me tomorrow, but drink, please!".He doesn't mean it, I know he doesn't mean it. He's flying on endorphins and lust and I have to remember that or I'm going to end up losing the last bit of me I have to give. But I allow myself to pretend for just a second as I sink my teeth into his neck and start to drink, pulling the blood from him even as I fuck him hard. I can hear the smack of skin, and I force myself back just long enough to moan, "Fuck, Angel, come with me," then take one last swallow of his blood as I start to come, my cock twitching and shooting inside him, emptying me completely until I sag down weakly on top of him, lapping and suckling at the bite on his neck. I want- oh, God, I want to claim him now, but I don't dare, so I just think the word: Mine. It's not permanent, not real, but just for now... for now I can pretend.The words are a command I can't possibly disobey. I jerk and buck, coming all over him in long spurts that seem to never stop. He licks my neck, his tongue swirling over the marks and as I drift back down I can hear myself, gasping and murmuring, “Love you, love you, love you so fucking much...”He stops the litany with a kiss, sharing the taste of my own blood with me before he pulls back and lays a hand on my cheek. "Angel, look at me." I don't see how I can possibly face him after this, but right now his words are gospel, so I obey. A tender smile greets me, the sight soothing me beyond any words he could give me. But because he's Spike, he can't let it go without saying something. "Need to hear me now, pet. You did so well an' I'm so proud of you. Gonna get you cleaned up now, an' then we'll head back ho- to your place, all right?"Home. He almost said it, didn't he? That's got to mean something, doesn't it? I nod slowly and he eases free, both of us groaning at the change. I feel empty, like something vital was just lost and I know he's colder than usual. It was always hard to leave the sanctuary of William's body, always difficult to return to the chill of my solitary existence, and I want to tell him that I know how it feels, but before I can, he comes back with a wet cloth and towel. He starts to clean me up, telling me softly how beautiful I am, how amazing I was when he whipped me and how wonderful it felt to be inside me, and I can't do anything but lie there and bask in his praise. Where did he learn to do this? I know it's not something I taught him, not when I remember the way I washed him when we were last together, turning him this way and that, scrubbing him like some kind of unwanted animal instead of the treasured childe he is.I toss the washcloth aside and reach for the clean towel, drying him carefully. His eyes are wide and dazed, like he's just discovered the secrets of the universe, and I can't help but smile. I know that feeling. I've been there so many times I practically have the directions engraved on my heart, and I want nothing more than to stare at him and marvel at the beauty of this incredible man, but I know he needs me now. It's always hard to come back to earth after a session like that, and he's not used to it, so it might be worse for him. But at least there haven't been any threats or mention of staking me, so I'm counting this as a win.When I go to reach for his pants, his hand shoots out to stop me. "I'm sorry, Spike, so sorry. Please don't hate me anymore."Well, that was unexpected. "Shhh, pet. Couldn't hate you. Not ever." What's got him so upset all of a sudden? I run my hands over him, then sit him up and pull him off the table. "Got nothin' to be sorry for, luv. Never did. Here, lift your foot for me. Good boy, that's it. Now the other." I coax him into his clothes, then quickly wipe myself down and get dressed. When we're ready to leave, I reach for the leash, then hesitate. We're not playing anymore, so I really don't have the right to lead him like that.He really isn't going to run. We'll drive home and he'll probably still be there. And he won't say that it was nothing, that what we did here was just for fun. I take the leash from the pile near the table and hold it out to him. "Take me home, Spike?" I want to ask him to stay as well, but I don't have the words for it, can't seem to ask for what I want so badly now that we're back on even footing.He smiles, shoves the leash in his pocket and takes my hand. "C'mon, then." We walk back through the rooms, and I wonder if everyone can tell what happened back there, if the things I felt left marks like the whip did, or if I look the same as I did when I went in. He doesn't say anything on the trip back to Wolfram & Hart, and neither do I. Some things are just too hard to talk about. Spike stays by my side as we ride the elevator up to my apartment, but stops in front of my door and turns to me. “On your knees,” he tells me, and although I'm not sure why he wants me there, I bow my head and sink down before him.There's just one more thing, one more task to done before the night's truly over. I bend down and give him a kiss, then slowly unbuckle his collar and take it off, holding it for just a second before laying it in his hands. "Thank you, Angel. Never gonna forget this." I give him another long kiss, then reluctantly step back. "Patrol tomorrow night?""Uh, yeah.” He doesn't look up, doesn't meet my eyes, and I can feel my heart sink as I turn around and head back to my little hole in the ground. Only time will show if he understood and wants what I'm offering him. I just hope he hurries up with whatever decision he makes. I'm hanging on by a thread, and don't know how much longer I can hold on. ----- CHAPTER BREAK ----- 10pm my placeBe there! (Please) It was the please that got me. Don't think I've ever heard Angel say that to me unless sex was involved. Of course, there's no guarantee it won't be tonight, especially when I consider the way he copped a feel when he slid the note into my back pocket. But I have to know, have to find out what was so important that he risked one of his little pets seeing him voluntarily touch me in a way that didn't leave bruises. I look at the note again, then stuff it back in my pocket and knock on the door.He’s here! And he’s not even late! Why isn't he late? Spike's late for everything, but the one time I want him to be, the one time I need him to be, he's right on time. Did he plan this? What am I asking, of course he did. And where’s my shirt? No time to look for it- have to open the door or he might leave. He's standing in the hallway, looking gorgeous and I blurt out, “Sorry, can't seem to find my shirt.”When he smiles I feel like banging my head against the wall. I seem to have a knack for saying and doing the dumbest things only when Spike's watching. Like yesterday in the meeting, when I was so caught up in watching Spike drink one of the beers he constantly smuggles in here that I missed most of what Wesley was trying to tell me. Since that night at the club I haven't been able to get him out of my mind. And while he hasn't said anything, he does smile more, at least when nobody else is looking. I just don't want to fuck this up, so I've decided to try something different. After all, who can resist a nice dinner invitation? I stare the gorgeousness that is my sire, too wrapped up in thinking about how I want to lick his chest to respond at first. Eventually I realize that he's staring at me like he's expecting something. “Huh? Oh... yeah.” He moves aside as I step inside, then closes the door behind me. “So what'd you wanna see me about?” “I just thought that we could have dinner together. I... uh, I got some fresh blood in yesterday and there's this bar downtown that delivers buffalo wings, so I-”He's adorable when he's fumbling for words. “Wait, lemme get this straight. You wanna have dinner. With me. Here.” What the hell is he up to now?“For starters.” It seemed like a great idea yesterday, since it meant I'd get to watch Spike put things in his mouth. Besides, I know we have to talk, and dinner's as good a time as any. “I'll just go find my shirt.”“Don't put yourself out for a shirt on my account, pet. Like the view the way it is, don't I?” he purrs. Oh, shit, I'm not gonna be able to keep from lunging over the table at him if he does any more of that. Wait, is he flirting with me?“I, uh, I'll be right back,” I promise, and head into the bedroom. I need to put some space between us before I just blurt everything out and ruin the whole night. Never thought I'd say this, but Angel's pretty damn adorable when he's all flustered like that. I have a sneaking suspicion this whole 'dinner' set-up's going to turn out to be a seduction scene, probably complete with a linen tablecloth and candles, but I'm not about to complain. I strip my coat off and hang it up just before he walks back in, still buttoning his shirt. The sight of the red silk reminds me of the last time I saw him wear it, when he got down on his knees for me, and I wonder if he picked that shirt on purpose, or if it was just the first one he grabbed. “I thought we'd eat outside on the patio,” he says quietly. “It's just through there. Why don't you go sit down and then I'll bring everything out?” He seems nervous, even more than he was when we went to the club.I nod and head out to the balcony. Sure enough, there's a table waiting that looks like something straight out of a '30s Hollywood romance. I should probably be wondering if this makes me the girl, but I can't seem to help smiling at the effort he went to. The old poof really can be sweet sometimes. I take a seat and wait for him to join me. I can do this. It's just Spike, after all. He's a normal person- true, an incredibly hot, annoying person that never fails to make me lose control, but that's not important. We'll just sit and talk over dinner, like two civilized vampires. I keep telling myself that as I load the tray up with the plate of buffalo wings, our blood and that onion thing I heard him telling Fred about. Taking a deep breath, I head outside, hoping he won't give me too hard a time about the table.When I see his eyes light up at the sight of the food, I know I did the right thing. I shove thoughts of feeding him the wings in bed aside and set the tray down in the center of the table, then pour blood into each of our glasses. He grins at me and reaches for his, so I pick mine up as well. “To good company,” I offer.He cocks his head to the side and stares at me, then slowly nods. “Good company,” he echoes, and takes his first sip. When his eyes widen, I know he's figured out the other part of my surprise. “All right. What the hell's goin' on here, Angel?”I'm totally, helplessly in love with you and can't think straight anymore. I shrug and ask, “Can't I just want to have a nice dinner with you?” All right, now I'm sure he's up to something. He never eats human food, but he went out and got wings and an onion thing, and then he offers up human blood to top it all off! “Spose you could, but I don't seem to remember you ever wantin' to before.” "Thought, we could just spend time and... talk, about the things we did." Talk? He doesn't want to talk, not if the scent pouring off him is any real indication. I raise an eyebrow at him to let him know I'm not fooled, then drain the rest of my blood and go over to his side of the table. If he thinks he's going to tell me that what happened was a mistake, that what we did that night was wrong, he's got another think coming.Of course, if he wants to do it again, well... no sense wasting time that we could be shagging, right? I straddle his lap and sink down, sliding my hands up to his chest as I look up and lick my lips. “There's lots more interesting things we could do 'stead of talk, pet.”He kisses me before I can tell him to get up, and my mind goes blank. My hands slide down his spine and I'm kissing him back before I can stop myself. It feels so good to lose myself in him like this, and I wonder how I went a hundred years without it. He starts unbuttoning my shirt, then pulls back. I start to protest the loss, but he strips off his shirt and tosses it on the floor, then reaches for my belt. “See, isn't this better than talkin'?”Talking! That's what I wanted to do and if I let him open my pants now, we'll never get to it because I won't be able to stop myself once he touches me. Especially if he does what I think he wants to do. I catch hold of his wrists and lightly bite his lower lip. “I love it, but we have to talk first, Spike. I need to get some things straight between us.” Right. I know what this part's about. “Don't worry, not gonna tell anyone we're shaggin', yeah?” Of course he'd want that bit down before we got started, probably been working himself into a frenzy about it for days. Can't have it get around that the great white hero's fucking a vampire, after all. I start working my way down his neck, teasing with teeth and tongue and he moans, “Spike... wait... no...”“No? That mean you don't want me doin' this?” I close my teeth on one of his nipples, then suck lightly on it. “Or this?” I reach down and squeeze his cock through his pants. “An' I'm guessin' you really wouldn't want me on my knees blowin' you, makin' you scream when I bring you off, is that it?”Oh, Jesus. Spike hasn't sucked me off since Rome and if he does now, it's really all over, and I can't have that just yet. Especially when he thinks I'm ashamed of him, that I don't want to tell my friends about us. I might not want them knowing all the details, because that collar might give Wesley ideas, but that's beside the point. I catch him when he starts to slither out of my lap and try again. “Spike, stop it!”He stills instantly and it takes me a second to understand. Fuck, I just pulled rank and used my sire voice. I didn't mean to, but how else was I supposed to get him to listen? That tone was the only thing that used to get through to him, and when he shivers, I can tell he remembers it. He's about to explode any second now, probably punch me in the nose for treating him like a fledgling again and then storm off. I open my mouth to explain, but his low voice interrupts me. “How d'you want me... Master?”Oh, God. He hasn't called me that since he was a fledge, and the thought of this glorious creature he's become throwing himself at my feet like that shoots straight to my head. Especially now, when I know how strong he is, know that he can beat me in a fight. It isn't force that makes him offer this, and I can't turn him away anymore. We'll talk afterwards, but right now... right now I have to have him. “Hell,” he whispers, and I know he's not going to fight me anymore. “Get on your knees.” I slide to the floor, put my hands behind my back and bow my head. I love hearing him use that voice- it never fails to make me hard, and he knows it. At least, he should if he hasn't forgotten everything about how it used to be between us. Maybe he's finally figured it out, maybe he knows now what I've been wanting ever since that first night.I hear the rustle of cloth and the slide of his zipper, and then he's reaching down to cup my chin and lift my head. I want to look up, see if his eyes are brown or yellow, but I don't dare. Instead I stare at his cock, my mouth watering at the sight of it. His laugh shivers down my spine as he releases me. “Have at it, then, boy! You want it that much, you can show me how much you've missed it.”Fuck, why does he have to call me that? It's like an instant shot of Slayer blood, and I'm already hard enough to hurt. I groan and lick his cock, then open up and take him inside. And God, the taste of him... it's like coming home, like that first night all over again. I bob my head forward, taking a little more, then start to tease him with little strokes of my tongue, flicking and then circling the tip of his prick.I gasp as he teases me with his tongue and then slides back down. His mouth is so perfect, like it was made just for my cock. I slide a hand into his hair and urge him further down. "Yeah, that's it, don't stop. You look so marvelous with my cock filling you up like that. And you love every second of it, don't you? You love that I'll have to think of you sucking me off now, every time you open your mouth.”He moans and nods, then sinks down until I can feel the back of his throat. He pulls off and flicks his tongue at my head, like he's putting on a fucking show, then ducks his head and takes me all the way in with one swallow. "Christ!"I remember how I taught him to suck cock, how I shoved first a bull whip and then a rosary down his throat to make him overcome his gag reflex. And I know I should regret that, but when he moans and the vibrations nearly send me through the roof, I can't seem to care. He pulls back and then starts sucking me in long strokes until I'm so hard it hurts. He scrapes his teeth over me and sucks hard, and I can't keep still. My fist tugs at his hair and I start thrusting up, fucking his mouth as I get closer. “Fuck... Spike... so good... my boy.” Precome's flowing like a river down my throat, sweet and heavy and so fucking addicting that I don't ever want to stop tasting him. I can feel him getting harder as his hands grab my hair, shoving me down while he starts to thrust into me. The world falls away until I almost don't know where or when I am. Don't much care, either. I open my mouth for him and moan as he claims me in one of the most basic ways. And I know that no matter what it is he wants, I'll give it to him.He looks down and our eyes lock just before his hips jerk and he comes, his cock twitching as he shoots down my throat. He jerks my head down but I manage to pull back in time to catch the last few spurts so I can taste him again. It rolls across my tongue like thick honey, bitter and tangy, so good that it makes me shudder with need. He mutters something I don't quite hear, then his hands slip out of my hair and I lick him clean with long, slow swipes of my tongue, just the way I know he likes.I can't believe I ever let him go. Just thinking about his eyes, so blue and wide, so full of devotion, is enough to make me want more. How did I exist this last century without seeing those eyes every day? And the scent of his arousal... I've never had anyone get so turned on from giving me pleasure. I know it's selfish and wrong, but I want to keep him here forever, tuck this perfect creature under lock and key so nobody but me ever gets to see him, touch him, or have him touch them ever again. I'm depraved, damned beyond any hope of redemption, but as long as I have Spike kneeling at my feet, I don't care.He licks his lips and I have to taste him. I pull him up onto my lap and kiss him, delving deep inside his mouth, drinking him down as the mingled flavors of blood, Spike and come hit my tongue. He wraps his arms around my neck and opens for me, letting me devour him until he squirms and whispers, “Fuck me?”The brief flash of alarm that crosses his features almost immediately afterwards cuts deep, because I know what it means. He's remembered whose arms he's in, remembered what the penalty for asking out of turn was, and while I want to assure him that he doesn't have to fear me any longer, some darker part of me laughs with glee at the opening he's just given me. "Want me to fuck you? Throw out all of my carefully made plans and just bend you over right now?” His growl makes me shiver, but I'm already squirming in his arms and unbuckling my belt, tearing my jeans open. I'll risk the beating if it means I get fucked, and the sooner the better. "Sod the plans, mate. Didn't need 'em anyway, should know that.” I've always been a sure thing as far as he's concerned, never needed seduction before and certainly don't need it now. "Insolent at the most inappropriate times. That always was one of your problems." He smiles, and the flash of teeth makes me stop dead. That's Angelus's smile, and the brown eyes that stare at me have a cold hardness that I've only ever seen in my sire's gaze. He reaches for my belt and pulls it free, then takes hold of both ends. “Wrists,” he barks, cracking the leather sharply.My hands shoot out in front of me without thinking. I can't disobey that tone, even when it means I'm about to pay dearly for everything I've just done. Hell, who am I kidding? I've been waiting for this since he dragged me out of the club, hoping he'd make me his again. It might now be the exact way I wanted it, but beggars can't be choosers, here. And I can't hide how badly I want him, not when he pulls me to my feet and yanks my jeans down, leaving me standing starkers in front of him, just a heartbeat away from embarrassing myself.God, he's beautiful. He stands there so trustingly, still my sweet and obedient boy despite all I've done to him. I know I shouldn’t take him up on his offer, should give him a way out or a safe word, like he did at the club, but I can't. He’s mine, completely and unconditionally, and this time I’m going to prove that I can take good care of him. I wrap the belt around his wrists, pulling it tight before I close the buckle. I'm tempted to lay him out on the table, spread him over it like a decadent feast, but I'd really rather spend the night fucking Spike instead of cleaning up after him, so I grab the belt and my cup of blood. Getting to my feet, I yank him along behind me as I head for the living room, where I shove him down to the floor as soon as we get through the door. We'll do the table another time; right now I have a boy who needs to be reminded of his place, at least for the night. “You break that belt and I'll toss you right out on your ass,” I growl. “I don't care if the building catches fire, you stay right here, got that, boy?” All I can do is whimper and nod. Yes, Sire. Anything, Sire, Just as long as you fuck me, Sire! But honestly, I don't think any of that would come out if I tried, so I just squirm against his knee as he kneels down between my legs and shiver at the sensation that skitters down my spine. He pets me, his big hand sweeping over my skin like I'm some kind of animal that he's soothing, and waits for me to calm down a little before he speaks. “Got a bone to pick with you, here, Spike. You see, I didn't get my dinner because some greedy little slut was too hungry for my cock to wait for me to finish. And I ordered this dinner for a very special night that I had planned, so I think I should get to eat it, don't you?”I'm nodding again before I feel it, the warm wash of blood being drizzled all over my body, coating me in long stripes of red from chest to thighs. Two fingers skate through a small pool of it on my stomach and he offers them to me. I know he wants me to suck on them, get him wet enough to play with me, but I can't resist teasing him a little. I lick his fingers clean instead, trying to hang onto what little shred of control I've got for as long as I possibly can.So, he thinks he's done sucking for the night? I reach down to smear blood over his nipples, teasing each one into tight little peaks before I duck down and bite, hard. He gasps and I can hear the bones shifting as he vamps out. I stab my fingers into his mouth, slicing one on his fangs. The taste of my blood mixed with the human is too much to resist, and he moans, then starts sucking every last drop off my skin.I raise my head and smile at him, slowly thrusting my fingers in and out of his mouth, taunting him with what's coming. “Good boy. That's it, get me all wet.” His eyes flutter open for a second, then close again as he keeps sucking. I shift to the side, coating my other hand with blood, then stroke him once, hard. He howls and bites down into my fingers, and I let him take a little more before I pull back.“My turn to play,” I tell him, then slowly lower my head and lick him from balls to tip. He groans and I can feel him start to shake as I begin to tongue bathe him, thoroughly cleaning the blood off before I stroke him and add more, then start over again. By the time I finish with the fourth round, he's whimpering steadily, ever bit as out of control with need as I was. Jesus Christ, he's trying to kill me! I know this is way of getting me back, both for the other night and for messing with his little seduction scene earlier, and I guess death by denied orgasm is better than barbed wire cock rings or fucking me raw over and over again, like he used to. He slides his fingers out of my mouth and I gasp, “Please!” “Please what?” God, that purr again, so close to my cock that I can almost feel it roll over my skin. He swirls his tongue around my tip, teasing the slit open until I can feel the precome bubble out in a stream. And I know I'm supposed to be a master vampire, but right now I think I'd sing 'God Save the Queen' stark naked in the middle of the lobby with 'Angel's Bitch' tattooed on my right ass cheek if he'd just-“Suck me, please, please, sire, need you,” he babbles. And there it is, that last little abandonment I was waiting for. Maybe he's a quick study after all. I reward him with a kiss on the tip of his dick and slide my fingers back to stroke over his hole.“Keep still,” I tell him, then take him into my mouth and suck hard. He gasps and claws at the carpet, struggling not to buck up into my mouth, but I know he will. This is part of the fun of it, after all, giving him orders I know he can't follow so I can watch him struggle. He moans and tenses up, so I take him a little deeper in, letting my teeth just barely catch his skin. Somehow he manages to hold on, so I slide one finger inside, barely penetrating him while I move halfway down his cock.Oh, holy fuck, he really is trying to kill me! Not gonna give in, though, not gonna move... I can feel myself shaking with the effort, know he can feel it as well, but I clench my teeth together. Gotta show him, gotta prove that I'm better than I was the last time we did this, even if I think I'm gonna dust if he holds back much longer.A second finger slides inside and then he does it. He purrs around my cock and takes me deep, and I scream. "Sire!" The strangled sound is one I'd be ashamed of it were anybody except him sucking me. He always did know how to make me lose it, and he's proving now that he hasn't forgotten a bloody thing. I arch up, then squirm, trying to get him to touch that place inside, that- right there! "God, yes!"I stroke my fingers over his prostate, purr one last time and then pull back just before he goes over the edge. “You know the rules better than that, boy. No coming until I say you can, and I've waited long enough to get inside you.” I stand up and peel my pants off, then walk into the bathroom, chuckling when I hear him protest, “But- ANGEL!”It only takes a few seconds to grab the lube, but I take my time getting back to him, letting him hear me turn the water on and off while he waits. It's petty, I know, but he deserves it after jumping the gun on our night like he did. He's writhing on the floor when I get back, his skin a gorgeous counterpoint to the deep blue carpet as he thrusts his hips up against the air. I lean against the doorway and watch for a minute, stroking my dick at the picture he makes. One day I'm going to have to sketch him like this, but not now.I go back to kneel between his legs, flipping the cap open and squeezing some lube out onto my fingers. “Miss me?” I ask softly, working my fingers back inside, twisting them as I start to fuck him.He starts to move as much as he can, working himself on my fingers, and I lean down to kiss him. “Missed this,” he sighs. “Need you, Angel, please. Gotta feel you inside me, luv.”I love how ready he is to beg, how gorgeous he is in his need. He's so sweet in this state, I couldn't deny him if I wanted to. "Going to take care of you now, boy,” I promise, moving to slick myself up, pressing against him for a second before I push forward. He presses into me, a slow slide of cock that leaves me feeling- "So full. Christ, Angel, so fucking full!" I wriggle a little, moaning at how good he feels inside, then look up at him. He's beautiful, and I think I'd spend forever with any torment he dreamed up just for a few moments of this. I wrap my legs around his hips as his hands come up to hold my wrists down, then rock up to meet him when he starts to move. “God, I love you,” he mutters. “Love it when you need me like this.” Angelus always did get romantic when we were in the middle of a bleeding brilliant shag. My heart doesn't seem to know that he doesn't mean it, though, cause it tightens and I can feel the words push up into the back of my throat, so I start nibbling on his neck to keep them back. Can't tell him, not now, not like this, not ever.But he's picking up speed now and then he twists his hips and I see stars. I can't hold back any longer, have to feel him, have to have him. My whole world has narrowed down to Angel. Angel's cock in my ass, sending fire rushing through me with every stroke, Angel's hands around my wrists, pinning me in place until I can't do anything but lie there and take it. Take him. I buck underneath him and moan, "God, Angel! More... please, want more. Need it, need you so much..."I can't stop. I know I'm insane for telling him like this, but I can't help myself. I drive into him harder and faster, pounding him down against the floor with every thrust. He's straining against the belt, rising up to meet me, ecstasy filling his face with a light that drives me completely wild. God, I want to bite him so badly now. Want to taste his strength, his unadulterated passion again. But I think this time it's out of question. If I take that step, it'll get too close to perfection for sure, so I just fuck him even harder for all I'm worth and order, "Come for me, Spike!"He arches up and I can feel him clenching around me as he drenches us both in come, pulling me over the edge with him. I push my final thrusts into his convulsing body and scream his name, desperately trying to find some thought to keep me from careening off into that absolutely perfect moment. He's just so beautiful beneath me, his head thrown back, his throat bare and open for me, and the need to bite fires through me. I can feel Angelus deep inside, pushing at me to take that last step, to sink fangs into that pale flesh, and while I'll never know where it came from, somehow I hold myself back. I drift back to earth from where I've been floating somewhere out in the stratosphere, only to find that Angel hasn't moved. He's still buried inside me, his hands clamped around my wrists, his face closed in what almost looks like pain. I know it can't be something I've done though. Can it? “Angel?” He doesn't answer, just turns his head to one side and it hits me. He got his end away and this is the 'get out, Spike' part. Never mind that I offered him my throat, never mind that he rejected me again, never mind that he just pumped about a gallon of come into me. He's done and now I'm gone. Well, fine by me. I wriggle a little bit and wait for him to look at me. “Get off me."What?! I look down to see Spike glaring at me. “Get off me,” he repeats, and shoves my chest. But- after we just- he wants to leave?!? How can he do that again? Doesn't he get that I love him? Need him?I pull out of him, but I don't let go of his wrists. I'll be damned if I let him bolt again. Just treat him like a person, I remind myself. A person that needs to be pinned down right now. "Spike, that was amazing. I-”"- love my tight little ass," he says flatly "Now, you mind unstrappin' me so I can take my amazin' ass home an' get cleaned up?"Okay, so the whole person thing isn't working. Maybe the Sire thing will. I take a breath and say in my best Angelus tone, "I do mind, actually. You're going nowhere until I say you can, boy.” The second I see his nostrils flare, I know I just fucked up. Again.Well, that's a new twist. And not exactly a welcome development. I kick him off of me, then sit up and start working my wrists free of the belt. It was just sex, gotta remember that. Bloody brilliant fucking, but that's all it was. Can't let it go to my head or I'll find myself somewhere I definitely don't want to be again. "Don't recall askin' your permission, mate."He doesn't bother to say anything, just grabs me by the waist and tosses me over his shoulder, then starts for the bedroom. "What the fuck are you doing? Lemme go!" I twist and turn, but he has me tight. "Angel! Goddammit, put me down!"He plops me down on the bed and before I can get up, he's got cuffs locked around my wrists! I pull against them as hard as I can, but they don't give at all, and I know I'm fucked even more than I just was. He's standing at the foot of the bed staring at me and I sigh. "Fine. Whatever you're gonna do, just... do it an' get it over with."The little shit. I'm still tingling in the aftermath and he wants to pick a fight with me. I breathe out sharply and shake my head at the bundle of defiant resignation that I just chained to my bed. "God, Spike, I wanna do about a hundred things to you right now, and strangling is not that far down on the list, but we need to talk this out." I walk over to his side. "Why the hell do you run away every time we make lo- get close?"He glares at me and I sigh. I don't understand why he thinks staying would be such a horrible thing. I mean, I understand why he left after the first time- my approach was less than stellar. “Look, I know I was a jealous prick that first night. I lost control- seems to be a thing when you're around. But that night at the club...” I want to ask what I did wrong then. I did just as he said, obeyed his every whim and still he left me standing at the door. “That was your choice, pet. Can't get angry with me cause you took it an' liked it.” He just stares at me, not taking the bait, and I see where this is going. This is going to be talk about our feelings time. Soul must be all guilty about enjoying such magnificent shags or some such. "Look, we fucked. It was fun, it was... well, fuckin' incredible, but that's what it was, yeah? Don't need the red exit sign flashin' on to know when it's time for me to head out." He rakes a hand through his hair and asks, “Would it kill you to stay for a while, though, instead of leaving the second you- we finish?”"Yeah, right. Stay until you decide you're done with me, is that it? No thanks, mate, rather-""What the hell do you want from me, Spike? You say you don't want me to treat you like he did, but when I'm trying to treat you like a person, you won't so much as say two words to me!" He looks like he's about to stroke out or something, and I'm ready to start yelling when suddenly he asks, "Do you want him back?""Want WHO back? Gotta start makin' some sense here, don'tcha?" The rage I can hear in his voice is making my head spin. What the fuck is he talking about? And why is he looking at me like that, like I'm the lowest thing on earth who somehow still managed to kick his puppy dog?"Angelus! Is that it, you want fucking Angelus back? Do you get off on being treated like dirt, is that what it is?” I demand. I see him start to struggle against the chains and I can't keep the words back any longer. “If I whip you so you can't walk for days, if I take everything away that you ever liked just to see how long you can cry, if I keep you here and rape you with a cross every hour or so, will you stay then?”“Fuck you,” he spits, his eyes like icicles.I've done it now, killed everything that might ever have been between us, and I feel my heart break. “God, what do I have to do to make you believe that I love you?"He goes very still all of a sudden, his eyes widening. “Don't,” he says, his voice choked like he's trying to keep quiet, but I can't stop now.“You're driving me insane, Spike! You're just about the only creature in the world that actually gets what it's really like, how it feels to be a vampire with a soul. You're the only one I really want by my side when the big fight goes down, and the only one I want nearby after it's over. And you know why? Because around you, I can let go. I don't have to be the shining champion or the evil demon or the big important boss. I can just be me. I've always loved you, but it's different now. Now I just have to look at you and you remind me of what I want to save the world.” I can't take it anymore. Sitting here and listening to him say those things... it's tearing me up inside. "Don't say that! Don't you fucking say another word! You can't just say somethin' like that when you an' I both know you don't mean it! You wanna hear me say it? Fine! I'd rather have Angelus than you cause he's a helluva lot less cruel!" He never tried to break my heart like this. His fist shoots towards me, then stops less than an inch from my face. “You can't mean that!” he cries, his voice shaking. “He never tried to see you as anything besides his bitch, his private fucktoy to play with however he wanted. And now, now that you've got a soul... he'd kill you the first chance he got. You can't possibly mean it."I wonder why he thinks I don't know what would happen the second Angelus got free. "He was honest," I reply in a low voice. "Never promised anythin' he couldn't give, never-""What can't I give you, Spike? What kind of proof do you need before you'll believe that I'm in love with you? I don't know what else to do, what else I can give you, so tell me!“ I feel like I'm going to throw up, especially when he closes his eyes, like he can't bear to look at me. I sigh and ask, ”Do you have any idea how close you just came to getting your damned beloved Sire back?""What do you... " He stops suddenly, going almost impossibly still. And just when I'm about to give up and let him out, I hear it: the shaking whisper of a terrified childe. "Angelus?""What?! No!" I grab his shoulders and shake him when he still won't look at me. “Do you actually think I'd tie you up to talk if I'd lost my soul?” He's shaking, so I sink down on the mattress by his hip and wait for him to open his eyes. “It's still me, Spike. But it was close- very close. It just takes a moment, you know. One goddamn second where I lose myself in someone I love, where I let go of all the worries, and it's all over.” Yeah, it's still there. I can see his soul shining in his eyes, and I relax a little bit. That is, until I realize- "You nearly lost your soul... over me?" Wait. If he nearly lost his soul, then that must mean- "You- Angel?" "Yes, that's what I was trying to tell you the whole time. I love you, Spike, but I'll never be able to let go of this. If I do, he'll be back, and he'll ruin everything and everyone I care about." His voice gets quieter as he talks, but I'm still stuck on those three words I never thought I'd hear.He loves me. Angel loves me. My sire loves me!! I want to scream and howl, let everybody know that finally he- But he loved Buffy too. Still does, doesn't he? And when he thought she was too hard to be around... "You sayin' you're gonna leave?" And God, I hate the way I sound, like a child begging for reassurance, but I really don't think I could take it if he walked away from me now, not after telling me this.He hesitates for a second, then says softly, “You want me gone, I'm gone."I look down at the bedspread, the way its rumpled on the satin sheets, and wonder what it would be like to sleep there. What it would be like to wake up in his arms under that down comforter, what it would be like to... make love on those sheets. To finally get to feel him make love to me the way I've wished for since I crawled out of my grave. And I know there's only one thing I can say: "Don't go."My chest aches, and I can almost feel my heart beat when he says the words. At least with Buffy I could pretend that she would be happier in the long run, tell myself that I was doing what was best for her. But with Spike, I'd have nobody to blame for the empty void in my heart but myself. His eyes are sparkling, glowing with a light that I haven't ever seen in them. It's quiet and sweet, and all for me. I lean over to kiss him, placing small light kisses all over his face. “I won't,” I assure him in between kisses.He turns his head, trying to catch my lips, but I can't stop, want to learn every last inch of him and memorize it. He pulls against the chains, and the metal rattling makes me look up. I give him a sheepish grin. “Um, sorry about that. I should've found another way, but I didn't know... I'll make it up to you, though, okay?”“Don't care, just lemme out! Need to touch you, pet, please,” he begs with a low whimper. Shit, I hadn't thought about that! I grab the key from the nightstand and unlock him. The chains fall away and the second he's free he reaches for me. “God, Angel... love you, sire. Always loved you, never thought-” And I know I should let him talk, but I can't wait to kiss him any longer. A part of me still can't believe this isn't some kind of dream. I keep thinking I'm going to wake up alone back in my craphole apartment, with no Angel anywhere. But then he's kissing me, whispering against me lips and telling me again that he loves me, and it's so close to heaven I can almost taste it. When he finally pulls back, his face is alight with a smile that's positively... angelic. I pull him back down for another kiss, abandoning myself completely to my Angel and his love for me. ----- CHAPTER BREAK ----- I never thought I'd say this, but I'm shagged out. I've gone for hours with the Slayer, spent all week in bed with three redheads once, but one night in my sire's arms, one night of Angel making love to me with hands and mouth and body, and I'm done in. And from the looks of it, he's not much better off. But at least I'm still here, curled against his side. "Angel?" "Hmmm?" he mutters, the sound rumbling through me. I'm tempted to just nestle in closer and go back to sleep, but I need to know, have to prove to myself that last night wasn't just a dream."Tell me again... please?" I know I'm pathetic, but I can't help asking. I feel like I've been wandering lost for ages and now my sire's found me and there's only one thing I really want in the entire world.I open my eyes and look at him, still hardly able to believe the he's really here. "What? That you can move in here today? That I'll tie you up whenever you want? That you're the most gorgeous creature in the world? That we have to tell the team? That I can't wait to go to that club with you again?”“Angel,” he growls, and I chuckle softly. I know what he wants to hear, but I can't resist teasing him just a little.I pull him close and whisper in his ear, “That I love you...” Oh, God. It's really true. He loves me, finally loves me like I love him. "All of it... but especially that last part." I nuzzle his neck and breathe in, drawing in the scent of sire and Angel and home. Then part of what he said hits me and I raise up onto one elbow. "Wait. What'd you mean 'go to the club'?" He grins and nips my ear. "I haven't really kept up on all the toys they had there, and some of them looked pretty interesting.”I smirk at him, starting to catch on to his train of thought. "Want me in a collar, do you? Somethin' shiny, with a little tag that says 'Property of Angel' or some such?”My cock twitches at the thought of him marked like that and I wince. The little monster really has no mercy, to taunt me with something like that. “Fuck, yeah. But for the club, I was thinking more along the lines of wearing the one you gave me.”“Bloody hell.” I can tell that caught him by surprise. He probably never thought he'd get that chance again.“What, you thought I'd let you have all the fun?” I just found out how good it feels to be at his mercy, and I'm not about to give it up. I want him to take me again, want to let him do every single depraved and painful thing he's ever thought about, and I'll beg for it if I have to. “You wouldn't deny me the chance to be your slave again, would you... Master?” He really wants that? Wants to kneel for me and let me do anything I want to him? I grab his wrists and pull his arms up over his head, pressing them down into the mattress, then lean down until I'm almost kissing him. "Say it again." "Master," he purrs in that velvet voice. “I love you, Master.”Holy fuck! I bite his lip, then lick the drop of blood away. "Gonna make you scream that one of these days, pet. Scream it with me buried deep inside you an' a whole host of people lookin' on."“God, Spike!” The thought of people watching him fuck me while I beg makes me hard all over again. I arch up against him and moan.He slides a hand down, his fingertips stroking me lightly. “Just Spike, luv... although really, not gonna complain if you wanna call me God.”"Just fuck me now, will you?" I groan, thrusting up against his hand.He wraps his fingers around me, gives my dick a gentle squeeze and then lets go. "Won't fuck you, Angel." I open my mouth to protest when he reaches over to get the lube from the nightstand. "Gonna make love to you, though, til you beg me to stop."And even though I know I'll never want him to stop, I can't think of anything I'd like better.
67759	Care Package	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "Gen", "Characters": "Rodney McKay, John Sheppard", "Fandom": "Stargate Atlantis", "Language": "English", "Rating": "General Audiences", "author": "by SunnyD_lite", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2007-11-24T00:00:00", "words": "1,532", "Additional Tags": "Tag McKay & Mrs Miller, Tag to Echoes", "Relationship": null, "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	Rodney opened his "personal exposure to radiation" spreadsheet, adding data from their latest misadventure. Maybe he should have Carson start scanning for various cancers? No, he should have the botanists search for cancer curing machines in the Ancient databases. Hadn't one of the reports mentioned something about cancer?The door to room chimed, then opened, interrupting that thought."Colonel, just because you CAN open any door in the City, doesn't mean you should." Adding an exaggerated sigh, he continued. "Anything I can help you with? Because after translating whale to English and turning the ZedPM into a plug-and-play accessory to the Deadalus, I'm guessing you want the third impossible thing before breakfast.""H'uh." Sheppard shrugged as he sauntered into the room. "Thought that was six impossible things.""That's believing six impossible things, Alice. I don't believe them; I get them done and why am I being graced with your presence at…" He glanced at his computer screen. "02:00?"Typical, Sheppard avoided the question. "So, Chuck said you got a package in the Daedalus' mail-drop.""The lab always gets supplies. They're on a SUPPLY RUN. Did another dose of radiation actually make you stupider? Doesn't that hair protect your brain?" The fact his foot tried to push the box under his desk was neither here nor there."Hey, lay off the hair! And this was a personal package. Not for the labs. Not your journals. Whatcha get?""This is your business, why?" Okay, that sounded waspish even to him. And it had been a surprise to get a personal package. His sister had been serious about keeping in touch."Come on. You got the good chocolate, didn't you?" Sheppard dropped to the bed and looked up at Rodney with an expression of anticipation."It's from Jeannie. And a painting from either Madison or Kelab; it's hard to tell." Rodney pointed to the wall under his degrees where the primary colours and dripping paint strokes showed a picture of three big people and one girl all holding hands. "I guess she liked the gift I sent her.""Uncle Mer?" Sheppard read the large printing above the figures. "Is that what she calls you?""Not if I can help it," he muttered. "Anyway, since you're here, Jeannie had something for you."Sheppard lit up like a Christmas tree at that comment. "For me?""Oh don't get that excited. Teyla and Ronon got parcels, too. For some reason she seems to think of them as extended family or something." Jeannie had always been better at the social niceties. He was still surprised at what she'd sent him."McKay, no holding out on the presents." Sheppard leaned forward resting his elbows on his knees, but his glare was undercut by his smirk."Fine." He threw in the obligatory eye roll, but couldn't contain his own interest in what Jeannie had picked for Sheppard. They hadn't spent that much time together, had they? He tossed a box wrapped in metallic paper at his friend.After giving the rectangle a little shake, he started opening it. "It's early for Christmas," Sheppard commented as he slowly untied the ribbon and began to carefully remove the tape."Don't tell me you're one of those! Are you planning on saving the paper? Just tear it!" Maybe lack of sleep was getting to him, but then he'd always liked the American idea of gift boxes that you could just open without delay."Yes, I'm going to save it. Even with the 'supply runs,' it's not like there's a Hallmark store nearby. Plus your sister took the time to wrap and I, for one, am going to appreciate it." And that was Sheppard's 'you moron, don't agitate the natives' tone."Fine, Colonel Conservationist. What did she get you?""Hold your horses, McKay! I'm getting there." He paused to smooth out and then fold the shiny burgundy wrappings."You're just doing that to annoy me now. I could have withheld the gift.""To face the wrath of Jeannie when I didn't send a thank you? And you call yourself a genius." He tugged at the end of the plain cardboard box and pulled out a folded chess board, the kind that held the pieces in the middle between plays."Cool!" Sheppard unhooked the catch and poured the pawns and other pieces onto the bed spread. A note followed them. He picked it up and perused it. "Mennonite carved chess set, using birch and black walnut wood. Sweet." He began picking up and running his hands over the figures.He looked so pleased. Almost as excited as when they'd found the Aurora. No, Rodney wasn't jealous of his sister's success. The fact he'd never considered getting the Colonel a present was neither here nor there. They were best friends; shouldn't he know what Sheppard would like?"Um, maybe we should play sometime, just so that I can tell Jeannie that you liked it.""If it's to reassure Jeannie," Sheppard drawled. He looked up from the knight he was holding. "What did she get you?""Not so much a gift as returning something. Although I did give it to her when she started her undergrad degree, so I guess it is a gift." It was odd. He was proud of it, but wasn't sure if Sheppard would understand. It was special, something the two of them had shared and he didn't want anyone to tarnish that."Less tell more show." Sheppard had dropped the chess piece and held out his hand, as if expecting Rodney to cough it up."Fine." Reaching beside his computer, he picked up and then opened the flap of a slender, worn leather case. He tipped it so that the object fell into Sheppard's hand."A slide rule?" Well at least he knew what it was."Yes, a slide rule, from my grade eight math teacher. Once I'd clearly grasped the entire math curriculum by mid-October, he gave me an independent study on slide rules. From that I started tinkering with calculus. At graduation, when I won the math prize, he presented me with that one.""A Rietz model. I haven't seen one of these in ages." Sheppard was gently pushing the runner up and down the rule."The Rietz has the most logically layout and wait a minute, how do you know that? We both grew up with solar pocket calculators; why would you know about TYPES of slide rules? I mean it's arcane, even for me." He sometimes forgot that Sheppard had a geeky side, but this was extreme. "Did you have one? What kind?"Another Sheppard shrug. "Some of the places my dad was stationed had various levels of tech. Plus, one of my teachers was a little paranoid, cold war and all that, and wanted us to be able to calculate without electronics," he offered casually, like that wasn't the largest bit of childhood history he'd ever told Rodney.Sheppard pulled out the middle slide, playing with the sine scale. "And I read Heinlein. He was always on about slide rules. Figured if his kid characters could use them, then...""And why doesn't it surprise me that you read, Have Space Suit-Will Travel?" Not that he hadn't liked the book; brains winning over brawn had been a touchstone when faced with school yard bullies."Hey, you're the one who knew the title from one plot point.""But I'm the geek. I'm supposed to know this stuff. Even in college most of the others didn't know how to use one. It's why I wanted Jeannie to have it, so she knew being smarter wasn't bad, just us." Now he wondered if he'd actually told her that. Chances were he hadn't. He'd been so proud of her, getting into a prestigious program on scholarship. Christmas was coming; maybe he could schedule a visit? They did have a ZedPM now."I liked the presentation of logarithms. Plus, it worked to impress the smart chicks. Want to see who's faster, me with the slide rule or your mighty brain?" He was slouched on the bed, looking up at Rodney through his now droopy bangs."Fun as that sounds, let's do it when my brain's not been scrambled and stirred by whale sub-sonics and solar radiation." Was that a look of disappointment crossing Sheppard's face? Why would… Did Sheppard want to hang out? NOW? Wait, this was a guy who got hurt flying the jumper close to the whales because Rodney wanted to see them. Maybe, if he wanted this, it was the least Rodney could do."I guess we could take that chess set on a test run. I'm assuming you play?" Jeannie must have found that out. Why didn't he know about it? They could have been playing between Civilization rounds. If Sheppard was any good, and Rodney had a feeling he just might be."Could do. Hey, given your poor brain, I'll even let you be white." He gathered the pieces and began to set up the board on the bed. "Are you going to join me or what?"There wasn't anything scheduled for early tomorrow. And it would probably be a short game. "Sure, Colonel. White it is."-fin-
2362	thought i could leave	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "F/M", "Characters": null, "Fandom": "Lost", "Language": "English", "Rating": "General Audiences", "author": "by slybrunette", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2008-12-18T00:00:00", "words": "243", "Additional Tags": "commentfic", "Relationship": "Jack/Claire", "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	Somehow he expects her to look different. The tan fades from their skin, all of them, the ones that came back. He looks in the mirror and he sees a hollowed out, tired face that isn’t helped by his newfound pallor.Claire looks the same as she always did. All milky, smooth skin, full of life in that way that he’s not sure he ever was – island or no island. The perfect opposite of him. It helps; he can look at her and he doesn’t see any part of himself in her. Blood is easy to ignore that way.Jack likes to run his fingers along her skin, searching out scars that she doesn’t remember getting, something to mar perfection, something to prove that they’re all messed up, just a little. The pad of his thumb will hit a raised strip of skin along her lower abdomen, remnants of the Others and whatever it is they did, and she’ll sigh in this way that sounds like frustration mixed with need.Those scars are the only thing different. The only telling sign.Somehow they make him feel less like he’s destroying something beautiful, something previously good. Jack, and all his pills and his half-empty glass full of vodka or scotch or whatever’s handy, just like good old dad.It allows him to convince himself that this is in fact akin to healing.(His logic is flawed – then again so is everything else around here)
35874	Three To Tango	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "Multi", "Characters": "Fourth Doctor, Romana II, Duggan", "Fandom": "Doctor Who", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Explicit", "author": "by biichan", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2009-07-18T00:00:00", "words": "1,435", "Additional Tags": "Threesome, Episode Related", "Relationship": "Fourth Doctor/Romana II/Duggan", "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	"So do you live here, in this box of yours?" Duggan asked, peering around the roundish room with its white walls. There were circle things on the walls. He couldn't remember at first what they were called."Oh yes," said Romana, smiling at him. The Doctor didn't smile, but he'd stuck his head under the mushroom-shaped thing in the center and was doing something with tools.He looked around the room. There wasn't a bed. "But where do you sleep?""I don't need to, much," said Romana. "A few hours every few nights, that's all. I do have a room with a bed in it, though. Would you like to see it?""Sure," Duggan said casually. "Why not?"Her room was some few dozen doors down a corridor that seemed to stretch on endlessly. Dugan had expected something pretty marvelous, but it was all quite simple and understated. There were more of those circle things on the walls. They seemed to be everywhere in the Time Machine."I'm told at this point I should ask you if you would like to see my etchings," Romana said quite seriously. "Unfortunately, I don't seem to have any.""I noticed," said Duggan.Romana smiled. "Yes, well. That being said, would you like to have sexual relations with me? The Doctor tells me that our two species are remarkably sexually compatible.""Prior experience, eh?" Duggan said sagely, as Romana handed him her straw hat. He placed it on the side table."Yes, quite at lot of it, if the stories he tells are true. I've been looking forward to having an assistant of my own to engage in sexual relations with for quite some time.""Do you want me to help you out of that?" Duggan offered."Oh no," said Romana. "I'm doing quite all right on my own. Besides, you need to take off your own clothes.""Right," said Duggan and he proceeded to do so—a bit awkwardly, because he didn't want to take his eyes off Romana. He'd have thought she'd have worn frilly underthings underneath the school uniform, but it turned out she'd worn nothing underneath at all.Her tits were firm and rosy-nippled, if a bit smaller than the usual girls in his magazines, but they went well with her slim, willowy figure. He took them in his hand, brushed the nipples with his thumb, and heard her sigh. He kissed the side of her neck and was rewarded with a delighted moan, then sucked at the skin he'd kissed until Romana whimpered and rubbed herself against him.Her tiny hand wrapped itself around his cock, feeling around the length of it before letting go. Romana laughed delightedly. "Oh good. I was slightly afraid the anatomical compatibility wouldn't work the other way around." She pushed him gently onto her bed, then climbed on top of him.Duggan bit his lip and tried not to moan as she lowered herself onto him. She was warm and wet and tight around his cock—and yet, there was something distinctly different between the feel of her and the feel of the sort of woman he usually did this with: barmaids, working girls, the occasional posh would-be divorcée who'd wanted to reward him for an investigative job well-done. Something... well, something not quite human."Mmmm," said Romana. "Nice.""You feel strange," said Duggan, awkwardly.Romana frowned. "You don't like it?" She shifted slightly forward. Duggan whimpered."Oh, he likes it," said a jolly-sounding voice from the doorway. "Trust me, I've seen enough young men in this position to know what one looks like when he's thoroughly enjoying himself. I believe our friend was merely remarking that despite the compatibilities in your respective anatomies, they are still those of two very different species."Duggan tried to push himself up, but Romana had him too well pinned. "You didn't say he was going to be joining us," he said peevishly."I didn't think he would be for quite some time," Romana confessed. "You don't mind if he's here, do you?"Duggan blinked furiously. "Mind? Mind?"The Doctor laughed. "My dear Romana, just go back to fucking him sideways. You won't get anything sensible out of him until he's at least nominally post-coital.""Right," said Romana and she started rocking against Duggan, kissing his neck and nibbling on his earlobes. "You really are a very lovely human, you know," she whispered against the corner his mouth.Duggan didn't reply. His own mouth was entirely too busy making other noises to form actual words. Her bare tits were brushing against his chest and the rosy nipples were quite hard. He found himself thrusting back into her, any qualms about their audience quite forgotten. He didn't even notice the Doctor sitting down on the bed next to him until he felt the hot breath in his ear.The Doctor's voice was low and laughing: "You really ought to watch what you say, you know. If I hadn't been there to reassure Romana, things could have ended very badly. I suggest you pay special attention to her neck to make up for that: it's an erogenous zone for our species. Incidentally, the reason why she might feel 'strange' to you probably has to do with the fact that her equivalent of the human clitoris is not only located on the vaginal wall but is both much longer and much narrower."Romana ground down hard against him. Duggan groaned. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the Doctor stroking himself through his trousers."Male members of our species have something of a shallow indentation running down the anterior length of our penii," the Doctor continued, "which is quite sensitive. It's not all that noticeable, though, and an ignorant human would probably attribute it to scarring. You'll have a chance to see that for yourself quite soon, however, as I have every intention of buggering you senseless when Romana is finished. Unless, of course, you'd rather have her do the buggering?"That, that did it. Duggan came hard, with a resounding yell, and slumped back down on the bed, the Doctor and Romana's laughter ringing in his ears."He looks tired," said Romana curiously, as she slid herself off him."Well," said the Doctor. "He's only human." He stroked Duggan's cheek. "And he's done a great deal of running today. Oh, and punching too, of course."Romana laughed. "Of course." She cocked her head to the side. "What in the world were you whispering to him? It seems to have been rather effective.""Oh, just an anatomy lecture," the Doctor said airily. "He does seem to have liked it, doesn't he?"Duggan snorted. "I'm right here, you know.""We've noticed," said the Doctor."Well," said Duggan. "You don't have to talk about me like I'm not even there." He glared a bit, but the expression was ruined by his need to yawn widely.Romana sighed. "You need to sleep, don't you?""Maybe," said Duggan. He yawned again.Romana sighed again and shook her head. "I suppose the Doctor and I can keep ourselves occupied while you rest. Perhaps I'll even be able to convince him that you're my assistant.""Ours," said the Doctor. "This is a TARDIS which shares.""Don't listen to him," said Romana.Duggan yawned. "Won't.""Good," Romana said, smiling. "You don't mind if we take the long way back to Paris, do you?""Not." Yawn. "One." Yawn. "Bit."And if Romana or the Doctor said anything else after that, Duggan didn't hear them because he was fast asleep.By the time they got back to Paris in 1979, Duggan had managed to punch out an intergalactic art thief, half-a-dozen interstellar con-artist, an entire ship full of space pirates, three Daleks, five Cybermen, eight cat nuns, ten Autons, Jack the Ripper, Bertie Wooster and, in a very confusing series of events, himself.(That wasn't even mentioning the giant alien frog who divided his time between being a captain of industry and a criminal mastermind. But that was business and anyway, he'd had help from a penguin.)He'd also had some of the best sex in his life. But as his two lovers had both unlimited stamina and little or no reason to sleep, leaving had been inevitable. Duggan had no intention of dying from exhaustion, no matter how much fun it would be on the way.Still, he thought, as he slipped the postcard into his trench coat pocket and watched the Doctor and Romana wave to him from the foot of the Eiffel Tower, at least they'd always have Paris.
68820	Like Likes Like	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "Gen", "Characters": "Ichihara Yuuko, Watanuki Kimihiro, Count D, Mokona Modoki, Kunogi Himawari, Doumeki Haruka, Maru (xxxHolic), Moro (xxxHolic)", "Fandom": null, "Language": "English", "Rating": "Teen And Up Audiences", "author": "by opalmatrix", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2010-03-09T00:00:00", "words": "2,005", "Additional Tags": "Rivalry, greed - Freeform, Food, Tea, sweet tooth, Community: springkink, Crossover, Possessive Behavior", "Relationship": null, "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": "xxxHoLic, Pet Shop of Horrors", "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	Himawari had a very serious expression on her face as she tasted the pastry. Watanuki thought she looked utterly adorable."I think your baba au rhum was nicer than this one, Watanuki-kun. This one's a little more dry."Watanuki positively glowed. "I'm going to try to make some chocolate cups today for Yuuko-san's tea - those ones labelled 'Chocolate Martha' in the case on the end. I can bring you some to have with your lunch tomorrow, Himawari-chan.""Only if you're sure it's not too much trouble, Watanuki-kun.""It's no trouble at all, Himawari-chan!"Doumeki looked up suddenly from the remains of his Napoleon. "I'll have tamago no takarabukuro for lunch tomorrow.""I didn't ask you! " shrieked Watanuki, instantly turning red with fury.Himawari giggled and then glanced at her watch. "Oh, look at the time! I have so much homework ... ."The boys followed her out of the Cafe Iris. After a minute, the customer at the corner table - a tall but fine-boned man in long, dark, high-collared robe - did the same. The shop was clean at last, and Watanuki's chocolate delicacies were chilling in the refrigerator while he cleaned up the inevitable mess. Yuuko had yet to make an appearance - napping, Maru and Moro had informed him - and Watanuki was elbow-deep in dishwater when he heard the shop doorbell's sweet chime."The door!" said Maru helpfully."The door!" Moro added, unnecessarily.There was still no sign of Yuuko. Watanuki hurried out of the kitchen, wiping his hands on a towel."Good afternoon, sir," he said, trying to sound and look helpful.The customer, who had been gazing at some figurines on a shelf, turned around and froze, apparently staring at Watanuki. He was tall and slender, dressed in a long Chinese robe of deep blue silk brocade. Watanuki could hear him taking in a deep breath: the man's nostrils flared. "Is that ... chocolate ganache?"His eyes were not the same color. One was gold, and the other deep violet.Watanuki became aware that he was staring, and then glanced down at the streaks and smudges of chocolate on his apron and blushed. He really needed to improve his piping technique. "Er, yes. I was cooking. May I help you?""So you really do make French pastries?" asked the customer, taking a step closer. Watanuki was increasingly conscious of the messiness of the apron and the towel, and the proximity of the man's expensive-looking garment."Um, yes - oh! Weren't you in the cafe?""Yes," breathed the customer, softly. He reached out a beautifully manicured hand and tilted Watanuki's chin upward, looking closely at his face. Watanuki was instantly conscious of the cloth tied around his head and the spatters on his glasses. "Well ... how interesting! You are -""Well, how interesting!" echoed a familiar voice from the back of the shop. "What exactly is going on here?"The customer released Watanuki and stepped back. Yuuko was, as usual, elaborately and eccentrically dressed, in a wrapped and pleated sleeveless gown of a deep blue that exactly matched the embroidery on the customer's robe and also, incidentally, set off the creamy skin of the generous amount of bosom revealed by the neckline. Ropes of pearls wrapped her neck, and she carried a peacock feather fan. She gave the stranger one thorough head-to-toe glance, followed by a surprisingly steely smile. "I see.""Oh," said the customer, a faint flush appearing along just under his exquisite cheekbones. "Really, I meant no harm. It's just so unusual to find one so young who can make a proper ganache.""So that was all? Watanuki-kun, where did you meet this gentleman?""Yuuko-san, he just arrived here. But I think he was at the cafe where I stopped for a snack with Himawari-chan and Doumeki this afternoon.""Indeed. How fortunate that fate led your feet here, Count D."The man's head came up, and his mismatched eyes were wide. He opened his mouth and then closed it without saying a word."Or perhaps it was not entirely hitsuzen after all?""Ahhh - you're correct, I followed him. The girl was praising his baba au rhum, and I hoped that he worked in a patisserie. But then when I saw him here and realized ... .""That Watanuki Kimihiro is my employee? Perhaps I should introduce myself, Count. I am Ichihara Yuuko."The fellow was actually twisting his slippered feet. Watanuki felt rather sorry for him, even if he was pretty creepy. Yuuko smiled - sweetly, this time. "Watanuki, clean up and serve us some tea, please."When Watanuki came out with the first trayful (in a fresh apron and carefully cleaned glasses), the two of them were seated at the little tea table, chatting. Count D seemed to have recovered and looked so much at home that it was almost as though he were part of the shop's collection. "But I would never have expected to be asked to stay for tea!" he said, as Watanuki placed the European-style teapot and accoutrements on the table. The Count sniffed delicately at the aroma of Oolong wafting from the teapot and then looked bereft as he surveyed the rest of the service. "Might I please have some sugar?"Sugar! thought Watanuki."Of course," said Yuuko, easily, and smiled at Watanuki. Watanuki gritted his teeth and clutched his tray as he went back for the cake stand and the seldom-used sugar bowl. He set the pastries carefully in the center of the table and obstinately set the sugar bowl by Yuuko. He thought that she flicked an amused glance at him, but it was so fast, he couldn't be certain. He retreated to behind the screen that hid the kitchen doorway and proceeded to eavesdrop shamelessly."How many lumps, Count D?""Four," said the Count and chuckled as he passed her his cup. "Four lumps of sugar in my tea.""Really!" Yuuko raised her eyebrows, poured out the tea, delicately picked out four lumps of sugar, and dropped them into the cup. "Predators should not eat sugar, should they?"Count D's eyes widened as he took back the offered cup, and then he dropped his glance demurely as he stirred it. "What a thing to say," he murmured."Mokona can eat sugar!" interrupted a voice from under the table. A second later, Mokona bounced up onto one of the unoccupied chairs and seemed to look meaningfully at the sugar bowl. Count D glanced up and then stared. After a second, his gaze sharpened. Suddenly, Yuuko's comment about predators seemed to make much more sense."Count," said Yuuko, firmly. "Try one of these apricot tartlets.""Might I examine ... ?""No!" said Mokona, and it bounced off the chair, under the table, and past Watanuki into the kitchen. Watanuki knew exactly how it felt."Count? A tartlet? Or one of these very fresh chocolate cups?"The Count looked mournfully at the kitchen doorway. "Yes," he said. "Both."For a moment, the only sound was munching. Then: "Oh! This pastry is exquisite! And the chocolate sponge at the base of the cup - just enough syrup in it, and the ganache ... !""Yes. Watanuki is very talented. He cooks savory dishes beautifully as well.""How lucky you are to have obtained him."There was a dreadful pause."Count D. Watanuki is a living being. He works for me, yes. But to imply that he is an object ... ."The visitor stiffened. "A human being! Do you know what human beings are doing to this planet, and to the animals who live on it?""Human beings are also animals, Count. And every one of them has some value.""As does even the smallest insect!""If you really felt that way, how do you dare walk in the open without a mask over your nose and mouth to prevent yourself from breathing in insects? There is a sect in India that does so, you know. A sect of human beings.""Human beings are more willfully cruel than any animal could be.""And also more unconsciously kind than any animal could be. I think you have experienced this yourself."There was another silence, this one distinctly unhappy."Why did you leave him behind, Count D?"Watanuki could not resist peering around the edge of the screen. Count D was drooping in his seat like an unwatered houseplant, staring sadly at his plate. "It would never have been the same, now that he knew what I was," he said."Sameness is not necessarily a virtue. Do you have a wish?"The Count's head came up, and he stared at her silently for a few moments. "What's past is past ... isn't it?""I have been called the Witch of Time and Space. Many things are possible, but for a wish to be granted, an appropriate price must be paid."The Count swallowed. "I don't think ... I have anything to give that might be of comparable value.""You might be surprised. And for that matter, your real wish may not be what you think it is. Another tartlet?"He passed his plate, his eyes unfocused. Yuuko slipped not only a tartlet but another chocolate cup onto it and passed it back. The Count started to eat again, mechanically at first, but the taste seemed to revive him. He sighed. "These are really very good.""This need not be your only visit to us, you know. Who knows what Watanuki will have made, next time? And perhaps Mokona will be feeling a bit more friendly."Watanuki felt something warm and furry trembling against his ankle. Mokona was hiding behind his feet. But the Count was almost smiling again. "Talking to you, Yuuko-san, is almost like talking to one of my own kind.""I'm not. But I'm pleased that you can feel that way. More tea?""Thank you. It's excellent tea.""I can't imagine how you can tell, with all that sugar."The Count laughed, gently. Yuuko smiled sweetly. They sipped their tea. Together, they looked like an art print. Watanuki felt slightly ill. Mokona scurried into the pantry and hid behind the rice bin.Yuuko shifted the empty cake stand with one manicured fingertip. "Shall I send for more cakes?"The Count shook his head. "I should go. My ... companions will be wanting dinner.""Until next time, then. If that is your wish."The Count was very still. "What ... price would I need to pay?""Don't look so concerned. You have a nine-tailed fox living with you? So do I. They might enjoy company of their own kind. Please bring him along on your next visit."He relaxed and smiled. "Of course."Watanuki quickly fetched the tray and cleared the table as soon as they walked to the door of the shop. After Yuuko had shown the Count out, she came to the door of the kitchen where Watanuki was washing up and lounged against the doorjamb, as close to frowning as Watanuki had ever seen. He pretended not to notice and swished the teaspoons around in the soapy dishwater a little more vigorously than was absolutely necessary. Mokona crept out from the pantry and sat on his feet."You're both being very silly. And selfish."Watanuki rinsed off the teaspoons and put them carefully in the drainer. Mokona flicked its ears, hitting him in the shins."Well. You know what's perfect after a nice tea?""Liquor," muttered Watanuki."Of course. And a hot bath! Please bring me the Isojiman sake. And some snacks!"She pushed off the doorway and was gone in a whirl of pearls and silk. Watanuki sighed and dried his hands. He fetched the sake and some salted nuts and dried squid and arranged them attractively on a clean tray. Mokona bounded up onto the counter. "Squid!" it demanded.Watanuki tossed it a couple of handfuls of shreds and helped himself to a handful of peanuts. For a moment, they munched in companionable silence."I don't like him," Mokona announced.Watanuki rubbed his knuckles gently on the back of its skull and picked up the laden tray. "Neither do I," he said.
90297	Filling in the Gaps II	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "M/M", "Characters": "Riley Finn, Xander Harris", "Fandom": "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Mature", "author": "by ethrosdemon, inkandchocolate", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2010-05-28T00:00:00", "words": "1,765", "Additional Tags": "Pre-Slash", "Relationship": "Riley Finn/Xander Harris", "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	Xander is a godsend. When I think things like that now, I have to stop and wonder if I mean that literally. Did god really send Xander to me as consolation for everything else that has gone wrong? If not God with a capitol then maybe my god with a little g. The one who is assigned to watch over my sorry ass. That god, who pulled the Sunnydale reject duty, stuck Xander and I together because he's lazy and that solved two problems. Xander has no male friends who aren't twice his age or somehow not human, and I have no one who I can claim as my own friend and not just one of Buffy's friends who tolerate me.It started that way with Xander too. He was just trying to be "nice". Invite me over, hang out, order pizza, drink some beers. Talk about anything that would pass for normal and not involve demons or killing.Sure, he felt sorry for me, but I knew it, so that takes some of the edge off the sympathy. I felt sorry for him in my own way too. He rarely gets credit for being a man. I didn't know the person who fell in love with a Praying Mantis or almost got turned into a fish, so we are more or less on equal footing. Man to man.Along the way the beer drinking and sports viewing became steady, and I was looking forward to it at the end of so many days where Buffy didn't have time for me, or Dawn gave me "out of the mouths of babes" insights into my own love life.Xander had become my friend, not Buffy's friend who I knew and tolerated my presence.So, I confessed that she didn't love me.So, I wanted to tell him my secret as soon as it became one.But, sometimes it was too much, and I was too tired from the blood loss and the self-recriminations to see him. To have to face his pure pleasure at seeing me. Having people care for you is a burden. And even thinking that when I spent so much time begging my little g god for someone to give two shits makes me that much more of a worthless person.But, then he called, and I realised maybe my new hobby was getting away from me, and I needed to try to be, well, there for Xander and let him be there for me if he wanted.At Xander's, in my personal zone on his couch. ESPN and Bud-light, and the badness that I touch most nights is somewhere that isn't here."OK, I don't care if I sound like a girl, I have to ask you. Riley, are we breaking up?" His look is a little too earnest to be kidding, so, oh fuck. This is about not calling, not coming by, and I get the breaking up thing, but it's too much to deal with when we are supposed to be just hanging out and letting the serious things sort themselves out."I know we've been drinking a while tonight, but did I miss a crucial part of the evening?" Play it off with a joke, and Xander will let it slide back to down time."Sorry, too much time with Anya. What I mean is, is everything OK?" Pause. Sip of beer for courage. "Is there anything you want to talk about? You know, man to man, guy to guy?" Genuine desire to help me. And, really, isn't that what I want, for him to send down the rope and pull me up, or at the very least to fall down this hole with me and keep me company as I slowly die? Can't do it to him, though. If I hadn't found out about the friend he had to slay, maybe, but not after that."I'm fine, really. Just, you know, still compensating for the whole Government issue drug addiction thing, I guess." Don't meet his eyes, and look interested in the television, and he won't press it.Slamming his beer down, and this is not going to just go away."Look, Riley, I think we're past the point of being formal with each other. I know you only come over here because the rest of your reindeer won't let you play their games anymore. But I think we get along really well, and it's great to be able to watch a game and not have to explain why the man with the whistle keeps stopping everything."My jaw is starting to ache from the stress of the situation, and I can see him out of the corner of my eye working himself into a state over what he must see as his intervention."So," Xander continues, "I really think it's kind of my job to tell you that you're full of shit."And boom, I feel the anger hit me straight in the chest. The anger at the situation I have brought myself to honed finely into a need to exact revenge on Xander in lieu of myself. Let him stand in for me, and take all the pain and outrage out on a body that I can see from scalp to toes.As soon as it gets a hold of me, I let it go. Not what I want, to piss him off more. "I don't need this from you!" Make a break for the door, almost trip over his huge feet stuck out in front of me. Feels like my bladder is going to explode from the stress when I realise he has a hold of my sweater, and the look on his face is directly tied to the place where my skin is exposed to his eyes.*************************************************All the easy to reach psychoanalytic explanations for my behaviour are dead wrong—spending so much time with Xander has developed my pun- sense.Buffy never loved me. She has no time for me now that her mom is sick. I'm lashing out by hurting myself in retaliation. That might have fit when I was in tenth grade, and maybe even shades of it are still true, but not the whole thing.I want to show her I'm more than just an overeducated farm boy down on his luck. Another miss, since I'm not secretly hoping for a confrontation with her.Lives, even mine, are way more textured than that. Do we always know why we do something at the time it happens? Maybe the spiritually advanced can claim that knowledge with every decision, but the Dahli Lama or Giles I am not.I'm still down here on the average mortal plane, moving by instinct and half-glimpsed desires. And the whys of motivation are just as complex as the whys of purpose. Why did I ever leave a bar with a vampire? Why did my life totally collapse in on itself all at once?The first time, with the vamp-babe in Willie's, I chose to go with her the exact second the agreement left my lips. Spur of the moment stupidity, that's all it was. I intended to relieve my tension with her in a way that didn't pan out. The situation took on a different perspective when we got alone, and I rolled with it.Bitter sting, unmistakably of teeth digging into my flesh, the pull of blood through the wounds that caused my entire body to burn with liquid fire to escape. But just the right level of alcohol had been consumed that night that I waited the two ticks it took to gather my body into one collective whole, and in that time, the next part began. The closing of the connection.The flow doesn't just go one way. The vamps flow back into me. Their thoughts flow into me. I guess not just me, into the people they feed off, but I haven't asked around about it. Not something I could canvass about, even though I assume there is a large survey pool here in Sunnydale.The pain fades and their lives start to parade through my mind, into my body. Pictures and sensory recall. Like a personal slide show with textile accompaniment. The images, smells, sounds, are different each time. And that's what I go back for, the stolen memories. They leave a little bit of themselves with me when they fall to dust. A little bit of them living on in me.Once I knew, I couldn't shake it off. I tried my damnedest, and my liver could tell you the tale. Or Xander could tell you, because I would show up on his doorstep night after night to try to touch that thing I was building between us before this all started. The two scenarios warring in my mind as I sat on his couch and watched football, basket ball, whatever was on: why couldn't I just turn time back or why couldn't Xander just read my goddamn mind?They have memories, feelings, desires, dreams, hopes, wishes. Everything the same as me. As Xander, Buffy, Willow, Giles, Tara.And every night we kill them. They would kill me if I were one. Buffy told me Xander killed his best friend when he became one.It's all a lie.And I have to tell him, because what we have between us is more than a few laughs and a beer. It's real and it's warm, and it's almost all I have now besides the knowledge I never wanted.These reflections are cut off immediately when the victim I choose for the night finds a clean spot on my neck and starts the movie of her life. Blue skies and sun burns. Gold, sepia, rust colored leaves glowing on an autumn afternoon. They always think about the sun when they drink.Suddenly covered in dust, head spinning and thoughts are coming from some place too far for clarity. Xander is here. And talking. Talk back, or I don't, can't focus beyond Xander being there, screaming his lungs out and then hugging me. Might have gone a tad too long with that last chick.Come back fully to myself sitting on the toilette seat of my bathroom, Xander making some joke about orange juice.My secret isn't so much a secret anymore, but it's just Xander, and I wanted him to know anyway.The question is, can I tell him the rest, or can I ask him to spend the night here with me so I don't have to be alone with myself?
33193	Long and Lustrous Winter	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "Multi", "Characters": "Betty Cooper, Archie Andrews, Veronica Lodge, Reggie Mantle, Jughead Jones", "Fandom": "Archie Comics", "Language": "English", "Rating": "General Audiences", "author": "by livii", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2009-12-20T00:00:00", "words": "3,250", "Additional Tags": "Groundhog Day, Humor, Femslash, Het, Slash", "Relationship": null, "Character": null, "Relationships": "Betty Cooper/Archie Andrews, Veronica Lodge/Archie Andrews, Betty Cooper/Veronica Lodge, Archie Andrews/Reggie Mantle", "Series": null, "Collections": "Yuletide 2009, Riverdale, Peldari's Favorite Fanfics, GAY JUGHEAD IS SKINNY FUCK RIVERDALE LIVES, time loops and time loops and time loops and", "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	It's a normal, average, everyday sort of day at Riverdale High.Betty gets up bright and early as usual, does her simple makeup, fixes her ponytail, goes to school. English, math, lunch, geography, and gym. During English class Veronica passes her a note – date with Archie tonight, new blue dress or green one? Betty writes back – green looks so nice on you. At lunch, Jughead steals her sandwich while she chats with Midge. She gets an A on her geography pop quiz. Reggie tries to sabotage Archie and Veronica's date plans with some harebrained scheme while the girls are running laps for gym.After school, Archie cancels their band practice – he has to go fix his jalopy before his date. Betty lends him a hand and gets a grease stain on her favorite brown blouse that she doesn't think will ever come out. She goes home, eats dinner with her parents, helps her mom with the dishes, does her homework, reads a book, and goes to bed.She doesn't think too hard about the parts of the day that upset her – Veronica's indifference to how she'd feel about her going on a date with Archie, Archie canceling practice, Archie using her as free labor – it's just part of what every day is like at Riverdale High when you're Betty Cooper. And, she thinks, as she snuggles under her covers, tomorrow's another day, and it'll probably be different, and it'll probably be better. It sort of has to be, right?Betty Cooper's morning routine is so entrenched that she's halfway to school before she realizes she's picked the same blouse to wear to school two days in a row. It's her favorite, and was right there in the front of her closet, so naturally, she put it on.She's on the school steps when she remembers the grease stain.She's being passed a note from Veronica when she realizes something is seriously, seriously wrong."Dilton," she says, cautiously, as they sit down at their desks for math class, "do you notice anything strange about today?""There's something strange about every day," Dilton replies. "Every day we're one day closer to the sun going supernova. Every day the polar icecaps are melting just a little bit more. Every day –""Gloomy, much?" Veronica says, butting in. "Hey, Betty, do you think I should wear my black or white pearls tonight?""Black," Betty says, and turns her attention to the teacher. She really gets the lesson today – the algebra had been a bit complicated last time. This time. Oh dear.She tries to probe Midge at lunch, but Midge hasn't noticed a thing. Jughead steals her sandwich again. She thinks that's pretty unfair.She gets an A+ on the pop quiz this time.Everyone else in the class is groaning over the test, but she's pretty excited.Reggie's scheme fails and he ends up in detention. Archie cancels practice. Betty helps him fix his jalopy. She gets grease on her shirt again.She goes home, eats dinner with her parents, helps her mom with the dishes, does her homework, reads a book, and goes to bed.A little bit better, she guesses, than last time. Just a little. She's probably just dreaming, anyway. After all, a lot of wacky stuff goes on around Riverdale High, but this one is just a bit too bizarre to be believed. She goes to sleep expecting to wake up.The blouse is in her closet again the next morning, with no grease stain in sight.Betty thinks it over as she walks to school. She runs into Dilton in the front hall and asks him his opinion on the possibility of time repeating itself.As she hurries to make it to class after his long, detailed explanation, she realizes she's come to accept that she's in a time loop, as he put it. Unfortunately, even Dilton's giant brain doesn't know how to break it.She wonders if she just has to make things different. When Veronica asks her which dress to wear, she tells her to choose the blue one. Later, she suggests the white pearls.Jughead still manages to steal her sandwich at lunch, while she's ignoring Midge to talk to Moose. She'd been looking forward to eating it, too.She's too busy in the afternoon to make any changes. But when Archie asks her to help fix his jalopy, she swallows hard."I can't," she says, thinking quickly. "This is my best blouse, and I don't want to get it dirty.""No problem," Archie says. "I have an old sweatshirt here you can put on over it. Doesn't matter if it gets dirty."Betty stares at him, annoyed. "Why didn't you offer that before?""Before?" Archie's face takes on a rather befuddled air. It's not that dissimilar from his regular look, Betty thinks, then feels bad for thinking it."Never mind," Betty says. She puts on the sweatshirt. Somehow, a bit of grease gets on the cuff of her blouse anyway.She goes home, eats dinner with her parents, helps her mom with the dishes, does her homework, reads a book, and goes to bed.A little different, she thinks, as she reflects on the day. A little better; she said no to Archie, which doesn't come easily. It was kind of a fun experiment, she thinks, but enough's enough. She goes to sleep, hoping to wake up to a new day.The blouse is sitting there again in the morning.Perhaps slightly more drastic measures, then.She tells Veronica to wear slacks instead. Veronica looks a little insulted. Betty just smiles back at her.She dozes off during math class and gets told off by the teacher. A first, she thinks.She skips lunch, but as she's putting her books in her locker, Jughead comes by and snatches her sandwich from her bag.Damnit, she thinks, I'm hungry.She purposefully gets a B on the geography pop quiz. It hurts, a bit, to do badly at something she knows she's good at, but she tells herself it's all for the best.She pays a little more attention to Reggie's scheme this time. It is ridiculous, involving several cats, several lies, and one small act of sabotage to Archie's jalopy. If she ever gets out of this, she thinks, she's getting Reggie to pay for a new blouse.She helps Archie with his car. She can't change everything."You're the best," Archie says, as he drives off, leaving her with an old sweatshirt and a grease stain on the cuff of her blouse. "Veronica would have never forgiven me if I didn't show up on time for our date.""Sure thing, Archie," she says, but she has to grit her teeth as she does so.She can, however, show up at Pop Tate's when she knows Archie and Veronica will be there for a root beer float after the movie."Hi!" she exclaims brightly, walking over with her soda. "Funny meeting you here. I thought I'd just stop by. Don't mind me, I'll just be sitting over here." She sits down at the table directly across from them and pulls out a book.Archie smiles at her, and Veronica sniffs. "There's grease on your cuff," she says, and stands up. "Come on, Archie, take me home."Archie shrugs his shoulders at Betty and follows Veronica out.Betty notices that Veronica is wearing slacks. She goes home, goes to bed, considers it a day well done, and hopes for the best.The blouse is just as brown, unstained, and there as always.During math class, she passes Archie a note. Veronica told me she has to cancel your date. Want to go to Pop Tate's with me instead?Archie looks confused, but writes back: sure, Betty, that'd be swell.At lunch, Veronica screams at her when she realizes what Betty has done. Archie sits to the side, looking from girl to girl, clearly not knowing which one to support.While the drama is unfolding, Jughead swipes Betty's sandwich.She fails the geography quiz. She's too upset to even write down any answers. Sure, she's fought with Veronica before, but not like that."Psst," Midge whispers, from the next desk over. "Ronnie told me to tell you that she's never ever speaking to you again, and that you're a no-good boyfriend stealer.""But we always take turns dating Archie," Betty whispers back. "I just was tired of seeing him date Ronnie so many times in a row."Midge looks confused. "Didn't you go out with him two nights ago?""That was a really, really long time ago," Betty whispers back. "Trust me."Reggie actually comes around and gives her a hug during gym. Reggie. A hug. She mentions cats off-hand, and he goes a slightly alarming shade of red. She's pretty sure he won't try his scheme today."Good on you to try to change things around here," he says. "This place is so stupid. Always the same old stuff. Archie dates Ronnie, then when she dumps him for someone else he dates you, he never keeps up with band practice, his car's always broken, blah blah blah.""And Jughead's always eating," Betty says. "Boy, Reggie, you really have a problem with Archie."Reggie goes a slightly less bright, but no less alarming shade of red.So, Betty thinks.She's learning. She's learning a lot.Archie comes around after school, rambles a bit, and then cancels their plans to go to Pop Tate's."I just don't feel right about it," he says, "after all that with Ronnie.""Did she swear she'd never date you again if you went out with me tonight?" Betty asks. She feels this is a pretty shrewd observation."Yeah," he says, kicking the ground. "I feel really bad about being stuck in the middle of this.""Archie," Betty says, "you're the one who can't decide which girl to date seriously!"Archie doesn't have a suitable reply. Betty feels bad, and tells him not to worry, that Ronnie will get over it. He drives off, still looking discontent. Betty's awfully glad that she gets a break from helping him with his car.She goes home, does all her regular routine, goes to bed. She very deliberately crumples up her blouse and throws it in the laundry basket. She feels about as rough as it looks. She's not sure she wants things to end this way, but she sure doesn't want to do this again.Same old stupid blouse.This time, Betty thinks, as she fixes her ponytail with a slightly manic sense of determination, she's going to try being a lesbian.During English class Veronica passes her a note – date with Archie tonight, new blue dress or green one? Betty writes back – green looks so nice on you. But I heard there's a big sale at the mall. You can go out with Archie any night. Why don't we go shopping instead?Ronnie's eyes light up like they always do at the words 'mall' and 'sale'.Archie passes her a note during math class. Don't we have band practice this afternoon?Betty just shakes her head at him. He seems a little shocked, then turns away. Betty's heart feels sad.She and Ronnie discuss all the shopping they're going to do at lunch with Midge. Betty deliberately turns her back on her sandwich. Maybe an easy target will be less desirable.Not a chance.She finds Reggie before gym class. He has three cats and a guilty expression on his face."Go for it," she says, smiling widely. "Archie will never know what hit him."She peeks into the detention room after class, where Archie and Reggie were both sent after the cats ended up eating Principal Weatherbee's new toupee."Are they dying of boredom in there yet?" Ronnie asks, coming up behind Betty. "I think Weatherbee is going to keep them in there forever." She looks a little pleased at the prospect."They're just fine," Betty says, taking Ronnie's arm and leading her away before she can peek in through the window in the door as well. She's not sure Ronnie would take seeing the boys at that particular moment all that well.Betty does, however, make a mental note that if she goes through this day again, she might want to try dating Reggie next. He looks like an awfully good kisser.The sales at the mall turn out to be mediocre – one might even say practically non-existent. Veronica buys three dresses, two pairs of boots, two purses and a necklace anyway."You haven't bought anything, Betty!" she says, as they leave the jewelry store. Despite Betty's protestations that she's having a great time just looking, Ronnie drags her into another shop."I guess I am a bit tired of this blouse," Betty says, as Ronnie piles items into her arms for her to try. "Come, help me decide what looks good."The dressing room is awfully tiny. Betty swallows hard as she takes off her shirt."This is way more fun than a date with Archie would have been," Ronnie says, holding up a pink blazer and scrutinizing it."I always like spending time with you, Ronnie," Betty replies. It's not entirely true, of course, but she is awfully curious if her jealousy over how much Ronnie dates Archie has been, all this time, a tiny bit misplaced.So when Ronnie leans over to hold the blazer up against Betty to see if it fits, she takes the opportunity and kisses her."What will everyone at school say!" Betty exclaims later. Ronnie is dropping her off at her house, and they're both decidedly disheveled.Veronica laughs. "You really think I'd let them say or do anything? I'm Veronica Lodge. What I say goes. Watch, within a day Midge will be dating...Ethel, or something like that. It'll catch on. I'm always a trendsetter."Betty starts to laugh. "We'll face it when it comes, I guess. Thanks, Ronnie, it was a wonderful evening."She goes upstairs with her packages. She takes the tags off her new blazer and carefully puts it right up front in her closet. She hadn't had the heart to tell Ronnie how horrible she thought it was, not after Ronnie had been so nice about the whole kissing thing.Not a bad day, she thinks, as she climbs into bed. The world was a bit topsy-turvy, now, but maybe that's what Betty Cooper needs, a little bit of a topsy-turvy change to her life.She smiles, and looks forward to school the next day.She stares at the blouse in her closet as she goes to get dressed. Now that she thinks about it, she's not sure she ever liked that blouse that much anyway. It's a little dated, a little bland. It's brown, after all. Who ever got ahead in life wearing brown? She might as well ask to blend into the scenery.Betty Cooper shows up at school wearing a bright red dress and heels. She leaves her hair down. Everyone stares.Ronnie passes her a note during English class – what's gotten into you? You look really great though, I mean, for a cheap dress, it's pretty nice.Betty writes back – I just felt like a change. I really like your necklace, by the way.Ronnie glows, and Betty sits back and enjoys the class.During math class Archie passes her a note – boy, Betty, you look swell. Wouldn't ask you to do dirty work dressed like that!Betty writes back – I'm always happy to help out, but thank you! She feels good. She feels really, really good.She watches Jughead like a hawk at lunch. He still steals her sandwich.She wonders if the universe needs a constant.Anyway, this time she brought two.She gets another A+ on the geography quiz. Heck, she knows the subject matter backwards and forwards by now. And she was always really good at geography anyway. Betty Cooper is owning her awesome. And it feels fantastic.She helps Reggie carry out his scheme. When Principal Weatherbee confronts them with the remains of his toupee, she puts on her most innocent smile, and he ends up letting them all go."Thanks, Betty!" Archie gasps, as they walk away. "I thought we were toast!""You're a real pal," Reggie agrees. "A real cool chick."Betty smiles, all angelic innocence. "Let's go meet Veronica and Jughead," she says. "We have band practice, right?"They all meet up outside the school, by Archie's jalopy."Betty," Archie says, scuffing the ground with his toe, "um, I was going to ask you to go out tonight, only I didn't have a chance yet...do we have to have practice?"Veronica looks surprised. "I was going to ask Betty to go to the mall with me!"Reggie laughs. "I was going to see if Archie wanted to go shoot some hoops. No offense, Betty, that I'm the only one who didn't want to go out with you. Well, I don't know about Jughead."Jughead looks suddenly bashful. "I did steal your sandwich," he says. "I can buy you a burger to make up for it."Betty laughs. The sun is shining and she feels beautiful and all her friends are here, together."We have a gig next week," she says. "Why don't we skip dating and just have a good ol' time rehearsing? Then we can go to Pop Tate's for a soda. All of us – me, Ronnie, Archie, Reggie, Juggie – like the pals we are. Right?"The others all start to smile. Betty Cooper's enthusiasm and charm is hard to resist. After all, she's good old Betty – always there for everyone.They walk when Archie's car won't start, have a great practice, then pile into a booth at Pop Tate's, drinking sodas and playing the jukebox. She dances with Archie and Veronica both, and smiles when Reggie challenges Archie to a dance-off that leaves them both laughing hysterically.Juggie orders everyone burgers and then ends up eating them all. Betty spontaneously hugs him anyway.When she gets home, she brushes her hair and thinks about the day. It won't always be like this, she decides. Archie is still going to ask her to help with his car, for no reward but her own satisfaction of being helpful and friendly. Ronnie is still going to be insensitive. Reggie is going to go back to old tricks. Jughead is, apparently, always going to eat her food. She's still going to be the one in between, the one mending fences and making people happy.She doesn't mind. It makes her happy, after all. And now, she knows what makes everyone tick.It's raining the next morning. The blouse is still in her closet – but there's no grease stain. The red dress is on the floor instead.She dances as she fixes her ponytail. She puts on slacks and a nice green blouse. Nothing too crazy. Just her."Hey, Dilton," she says, as she heads to English class. "Have you ever heard of time loops?""A most fascinating question," Dilton replies. "I can give you a detailed explanation later, if you like.""That's okay," Betty says, smiling at Ronnie and waving to Archie, "I think I've got it all figured out."She never wears the blouse again. She does buy a different brown one. Brown works for her, she thinks. Anything can work for her, if she wants it to.
14154	One Week	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "M/M", "Characters": "Sherlock Holmes, John Watson, Lestrade (Inspector)", "Fandom": null, "Language": "English", "Rating": "Explicit", "author": "by JaneTurenne", "chapters": "7/7", "completed": "", "published": "2009-11-17T00:00:00", "words": "42,084", "Additional Tags": null, "Relationship": "Sherlock Holmes/John Watson", "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": "Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms", "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	For Katie Sunday It began innocently enough.Well, no, as a matter of fact, it did not begin innocently enough, not by any normal standard. The fact that I feel justified in starting off my narrative in such a way is proof only of how very far from innocent it eventually became. It actually began with Holmes smoking a cigarette on the left side of his bed, in a state of some considerable nudity, while I stretched languidly on the right side, in a state of greater nudity still. Not, then, a particularly innocuous scene, but far more so than the one prevailing in that vicinity only a few minutes before.I propped myself up on one elbow and gazed at Holmes. It was not the adoring gaze of a sated lover, as one might suppose, but a contemplative, curious sort of look. Holmes turned towards me and shot me a glance of much the same variety."I was wondering," Holmes said, and then stopped, taking another long drag from his cigarette. Moments stretched into seconds, and it became clear that Holmes had no intention whatsoever of continuing the thought. I considered refusing to play along with his game, for such it undoubtedly was, but at that particular moment, I wasn't inclined to quibble over trifles."What were you wondering, Holmes?" I asked obediently.I flatter myself that no man on earth knows Holmes's expressions better than I. At times, I can read volumes into the twitch of a finger or the curve of an eyebrow. This particular lopsided fragment of a smile meant, 'I know very well that you are simply humoring me, my dear Watson. You let me get away with far more than I deserve, you know, though I suppose I do have my little ways of making it up to you.' What he said was, "I was simply starting your thought for you, Watson. When you look at me so intently, with your knuckles against your cheekbones, it inevitably heralds a sentence beginning 'I was wondering.'"I could not decide whether this comment merited a smile or a roll of the eyes, and settled for both. "If it makes you happy, my dear Holmes, I suppose I can oblige you. I was wondering whether anyone who happened to witness the goings-on in our rooms this last hour or two would ever again be able to credit the myth of Sherlock Holmes, the man of infinite self-denial. If I were to use the word 'attack' to describe your behavior this morning, I should, if anything, be understating the case."It is a very great misfortune in life to love a man who becomes still more attractive when he smirks. "I do not believe that I heard you complain at the time.""Nor am I complaining now-- though I feel it requisite to point out that, if I had wished to register an objection earlier, I would have found it nearly impossible to do so."Stretching one arm theatrically to the side and bringing the other to his midsection, he gave a far more elegant bow than any seated man ought to be able to manage. "Forgive me, my dear doctor; I seem to have been quite swept away by your charms." Reaching towards me, he traced a delicate finger up my arm and neck, as far as my hairline, so lightly that our skin hardly met. Oversensitive as always in the moments after the conclusion of our carnal encounters, I shuddered under his touch, and he leaned over and drew my lower lip between his teeth, nipping and nibbling."You'll burn the sheets off the bed, if you don't put out that cigarette," I commented, as soon as I could get a word in edgewise. Without turning his eyes to the fireplace, he tossed the still-burning stub in that direction, landing it neatly in the middle of the grate. The moment it left his fingers he was straddling me."I can think of one or two other methods of burning the sheets off the bed which I would very much prefer," he murmured, bending his head to that vulnerable spot at the crook of my neck which he knows so well."This is precisely what I mean. Anyone would think we were a pair of schoolboys, not men in our forties...""I often wish we had been acquainted at that stage of our lives, my dear Watson. Only think to what good use we might have put the infinite stamina of youth.""I'd have died of exhaustion before my twenty-fifth birthday. Honestly, Holmes, even if I could tell anyone about this aspect of our relationship, no one would believe that, of the two of us, you are by no means the superior in self-control."At this he abruptly stopped and pulled back. "I should hardly go so far as that, Watson. The fact that I do not choose to deny myself the pleasures of the flesh when we have the necessary privacy and time hardly indicates that I am incapable of doing so."I managed a very passable imitation of his most supercilious manner. "If you say so, it would be ungentlemanly of me to doubt it.""Which is to say, you do not believe a word of it." He crossed his arms and gave me a look I love to see, the one which reminds me that I am still, on occasion, one of his mysteries."I should merely point out that, short of putting the thing to the test, we are neither of us entitled to assume ourselves better able to resist the other's charms."Holmes wrinkled his nose. "I shall graciously pass over any mention of syntax unbecoming a man who calls himself a writer and instead say only this: we ought, then, to do precisely that.""Do precisely what?""Put it to the test, my dear Watson. You claim that your capacity to resist my powers of seduction is greater than mine to resist yours; I maintain that the opposite is true. The only solution which I can devise for this little disagreement-- which, if permitted to fester, would no doubt threaten the very annihilation of good relations between us-- is to make a practical trial of the thing."I shot him a skeptical glance. "By which you mean, you are bored senseless now that the Saunders case is cleared up, and you need a suitable distraction."He rolled smoothly off of me and settled back on his own side of the bed. "Nonsense, John. I could understand you accusing me of seeking the pleasures of your bed as an antidote to ennui, but denying myself those same pleasures is hardly the sort of plan designed to alleviate boredom. Perhaps you are merely attempting to put me off because you know that your boast is an idle one..." He directed his gaze at the sheets, flicking away an imaginary bit of ash, the corner of his mouth curling into a perfect arabesque.I paid no heed to his shameless ploy, but I cannot deny that I was intrigued. "Just what sort of test do you suggest?"He glanced over his shoulder at me, that irritatingly alluring little smile still playing about his lips. "Oh, a very simple one, in my opinion. I propose that, beginning this very moment, we attempt, in the most literal sense of the phrase, to keep our hands off of each other-- no touching of any kind-- and that whichever of us is first to waver in his resolve must declare himself the man of weaker will. Of course, neither of us should like to see such a thing go on for too long, so perhaps we ought to put a clock on the thing... shall we say a week? At which point, if neither of us has weakened, we shall simply be forced to declare that we are both men of iron resolve, and leave it at that."I considered. Holmes's playful periods are rather uncommon, but he throws himself into them with the same abandon that characterizes all of his moods. And if this little exercise would indeed prove a distraction for him-- which, in spite of his claims to the contrary, I did not doubt-- then it was a far more harmless diversion than many of his leisure-hour pursuits.It would not do, however, to give in to his scheme immediately; I learned long ago that living with a man as commanding as Holmes requires one to assert oneself whenever possible, if one is to keep one's sanity the rest of the time. "I might be amenable to the scheme, with a few caveats and emendations.""By all means, doctor; your input is always welcome," he replied, with exaggerated politeness."First of all, I think it would be unwise for us to insist upon an absence of physical contact when we are in mixed company. Our friends-- and, for that matter, anyone who has read my stories-- are well aware of your affinity for tactile methods of expression, and might well notice a sudden change in those habits. Besides, pointed attempts to avoid touch while in public would be suspicious even if we did not generally spend a goodly percentage of time in some sort of contact. I think, for the sake of security, we must stipulate that the ban on touching be lifted while in public places.""How precisely would you define a public place?"I raised an eyebrow, wondering why he considered that detail significant, but replied with, "Any location where there is not a closed door between us and the rest of the world, I suppose."Holmes considered for a moment. "Very well," he acceded at last. "Anything further?""One other thing, yes. As the scheme stands now, all we really need do is sit back and do nothing for a week. We have passed weeks without anything more than the most casual contact before, when your caseload was particularly heavy, and, while I'd certainly have preferred it otherwise, I do not seem to recall the suffering being too intense to bear. We ought, in my opinion, to make the test a more difficult one by increasing our incentive to pursue more... active methods of seduction."A look of intrigued amusement made a brief appearance on Holmes's face at this last phrase, but his voice was quite nonchalant as he stated, "And you already have a plan to achieve that end.""I simply suggest that we increase the stakes. Pride is all very well, but a more definite wager would throw the thing into starker relief, as it were."Holmes grinned. "This is why your chequebook remains locked in my drawer, Doctor. Very well. If I am the first to succumb to temptation, I shall... hmm. I seem to recall you mentioning that you had hopes of infesting still more of the globe with that romanticized drivel of yours. Should I be the one to yield, I shall do my part to further your ambitions in that vein; you shall hold your in hand within the month my own translation of one of your novels into French, for publication in Paris. Would that suit you?"It was a surprising choice of forfeit, more personal than I should have expected him to propose, but, short of offering to toss his morocco case into the dustbin, I could imagine no better prize than the idea of my tales becoming ours, his words and mine at once. There was something so beautifully intimate about the notion. Not that I could mention that, of course; I should have caught him scoffing at me and my fanciful imagination for weeks afterwards. "I suppose it would do; your French is undeniably impeccable. Shall I choose something in the literary vein, too, then? Very well-- if I lose, I'll give in and write up that damned Sumatra case for the Strand. It was one of your finest pieces of deduction, there's no doubt, no matter how little the incident flattered me.""It was perhaps two inches longer than any garden-variety rodent, Watson; you really cannot blame me for my amusement at your choice of adjective...""I hate the blasted creatures," I grumbled, nestling testily into the bedclothes. "Is that a yes, then?""That seems adequate," Holmes replied solemnly, though with twinkling eyes. Leaning down, he plucked his waistcoat from where it was draped across the foot-board and withdrew his watch from its pocket. "As it is now eleven fifty-two, shall we set noon next Sunday as our ending point?""That sounds sensible," I replied. "Does that mean that we have eight more minutes now in which to do as we like?"He was suddenly very near. "That depends, John," he said, the words gliding from between his lips. "How much do you want those eight minutes of touch?"I knew very well what my response must be. "Oh, I can take them or leave them, really," I replied. "It would be pleasant to steal one last fortifying sort of kiss, to be sure, but it's hardly of the essence."And then he was smirking again, curse him. "If you truly believe that a kiss is the most I could do for you in," he glanced down, "seven minutes and twenty-three seconds, you are vastly underestimating my capabilities."It was a good first test, I told myself, in resisting the sorts of statements that would usually induce me to throw him bodily against the nearest available surface (vertical or, for preference, horizontal) in an effort to bring as many parts of us into simultaneous contact as humanly possible. "What a very generous offer, Holmes," I replied calmly. "I think, however, that I must regretfully decline. The next time I get my hands on you, I intend to inflict the sort of ecstasy requiring seven minutes even to begin to comprehend, and hours thereafter to appreciate fully. I should not like to find myself so limited in my scope as that."So saying, I slipped from the bed and began to pull on the various garments that had been scattered in every direction over his bedroom in our earlier haste. By the time my feet touched the ground his look was one of amused indulgence, but I had not missed the split-second glance of absolute hunger; I knew that I had scored a hit. There was a hint of a swagger in my step as I headed for the door."I shall be at my desk if you want me, Holmes. Have you any intention of leaving that bed to-day?""That depends," he replied, lifting his cigarette case from the nightstand, withdrawing one and lighting it. "If I stay here long enough, do you suppose you'll come back and join me?""I rather doubt it.""Then perhaps not," he said, taking a long drag from his cigarette. "I have no particular objection to remaining abed long past the customary hour, but it is the sort of practice which improves with company.""Oh, you may certainly have my company, if you'd like it. All you need do is come find me and take me by the arm. I'll follow docile as a lamb, after that.""If I wanted docility, Watson, I should have married some pretty little slip of a girl long ago.""Then I think all three of us--you, I, and that unfortunate hypothetical female--can be glad that you do not," I grinned, and slipped from the room. "And I intend to remind you of it, the next time you accuse me of abominable bossiness for attempting to persuade you to eat," I called over my shoulder, just as the door swung shut behind me.That first day, we had little time for our game of seduction. Holmes had barely emerged from his room, perhaps a quarter of an hour after I left him, when Mrs. Hudson brought up a telegram for me. One of my patients--there were not many at that stage of my life, but a few had stayed with me since my days in active practice, and the locals of Baker Street tended to seek me out even without a red lamp--had just gone into labor, and my presence was urgently requested. Holmes merely gave me a little smile and passed me my bag (though taking care that our fingers should not brush against each other in the exchange) as I hurried out the door.Mrs. Mitchell was a strong woman and had carried to term, and so the birth was not the fearful ordeal for all concerned which that process can be and so often is. But the child was also her first, and a stubborn little thing, which made for many hours of sweating and coaxing and cries which the poor woman tried valiantly to suppress before the squalling infant finally made her appearance in the world. I left mother and daughter healthy and slumbering, the latter in the arms of her glowing father, and hailed a cab for Baker Street. For all that my profession is, broadly speaking, not a happy one--and that my career, in particular, has not often shown me the brighter side of the physician's trade--there are days when the rewards of medicine are tremendous, and never more so than when I have the privilege to aid in the beginning of a new life. It was, therefore, with a happiness that more than matched my exhaustion that I dragged myself up the stairs of Baker Street just as the clock was chiming ten.Holmes was not in the sitting-room when I arrived. I had seen his hat and stick in the hat-stand as I walked in, so I did not doubt that he was at home, but I thought at first that he had retired to his room--unusual at that hour, particularly as I had not yet returned, but not unheard-of. I had just collapsed into a chair, however, when I noticed that the bath-room door (or, rather, one of them, the one which faced the sitting-room rather than the stairwell) was open. I could not help noticing it, in fact, as Holmes called out to me from within, "Returned at last, Watson? And all well, I think, if your tread is anything to go by, which it always is. Come along, my dear fellow, and have your turn--you deserve to get the most out this hot water while it lasts, after such a trying day."As he spoke, I had managed somehow to lever myself from my chair and make my way to the doorway. He could not have been more than a few minutes in the bath before I arrived, as the steam still hung heavy in the air. He was turned away from me, so that all I could see of him was the sleek expanse of coal-dark hair, the flawless white neck, the slightly too-prominent shoulder blades. Or that was all I could see at first, at any rate, until he stood. Although it has been more than a decade since Holmes and I first became lovers, the sight of a thousand thousand droplets of water cascading at once down his back was still more than enough to make my breath catch and a shiver pass through me. If I had not been so very tired, it should have done a great deal more than that.It was all for my benefit, of course, but Holmes, consummate actor that he is, can be both coy and brazen at once with more skill than most men can apply to either the one or the other. Not until he had swaddled himself thoroughly in his bath sheet did he turn to look at me, his eyes meeting mine in the most casual manner imaginable. I tried very hard not to notice the heightened colour in his cheeks; bathing is one of only two activities on earth that brings a flush to Holmes's face, and I could not help but be reminded of the other. "Well, Watson?" he asked. "Whatever are you waiting for? While cold water would certainly do something for the blood under your fingernails, it should not go nearly so far to easing that ache in your shoulder. Just like a woman. Not twenty-four hours in this world, and already young Mistress Mitchell has acquired the art of making a nuisance of herself.""In fairness to the fair sex, I do not believe that the delivery should have proved less difficult had the child been a boy," I said, as I began to undress. Holmes was right-- a warm bath would do me a world of good--and, in despite of the fact that it was what he had bidden me do, I did not see how shedding my clothes could hurt my chances in our little duel of wills. "How did you know it was a girl?" I asked, as I sunk into the water with a little groan of pleasure.Holmes's eyes brightened, the way they always do when I ask him to explain himself. When most people ask those same sorts of questions, it provokes only annoyance or ennui. I have no very definite notion of how my interest first came to mean so much to him. Now, of course, it is because I am his Watson, and the desire to impress me has become a part of his nature. That it should have been so before we knew each other well--that, perhaps, I might always have been his natural audience, even before we met--is surely an overly fanciful notion. That does not stop me believing it."You are always a bit more sober and reserved after delivering a boy--thinking, no doubt, of the responsibilities that will someday be his, the hard work and dedication which he must devote if he is to grow to be worthy to be called a gentleman--though in neither case is your manner lacking in joy. When your newest patient is a daughter, however, your happiness is of a freer, more light-hearted variety. Even if I were no great observer of other men, Watson, I believe I know your face well enough that I should be able to manage that particular deduction."I almost forgot myself so far as to reach across the room and grasp at his hand. But I restrained myself in the end, and beamed at him instead, an unabashed and undeniable smile.He did not smile back, not fully, but he allowed his lips a bit of latitude at the corners. Then he knelt beside the bath-tub, his hands on the rim and face hovering only a few inches from my own."Have you any plans for tomorrow, Watson? Patients? A meeting with your publisher, perhaps?"He knew very well that I did not, but he wished to hear me say it, and I permitted him the pleasure. "None whatever, my dear Holmes.""In that case, I believe I shall turn in early," he replied. "It will require all the strength which a good night's sleep can provide, to have those lips before me all day long, with no case to prove even a partial distraction, and yet to resist the urge to kiss you.""You might end this silly game now, and spare yourself that torment," I remarked.He did that thing with his eyes that makes it impossible to look away, even (and perhaps especially) for me. "Shall I, then?" he said softly, satin words sliding frictionlessly from his lips. His face neared mine with agonizing slowness and he turned his head, moving our noses out of each other's paths, until he was so near that the air between my lips and his seemed compacted, pressed into solidity between us. His eyelids began to droop, curtaining eyes grown suddenly dark and out-of-focus, and my lids, as though tethered to his, followed their motion, until we hovered, our eyes closed, only the merest fraction of an inch from a kiss. For seemingly endless seconds, we both remained absolutely still."Good-night, Watson," he whispered without sound, his breath on my lips a caress, and suddenly there was a rustling of cloth. I opened my eyes just in time to watch him disappear from the bath-room.I seemed to have temporarily misplaced my breath. "Good-night, Holmes," I finally managed to croak out, just before his bedroom door swung shut. And, though I could neither see nor hear him, I had not the slightest doubt that he was, once again, wearing that smirk. ----- CHAPTER BREAK ----- Monday I slept fitfully that first night, unused as I had now become to having my bed to myself. It was not that Holmes and I never spent a night apart; although we generally shared Holmes's room when at Baker Street, it was not uncommon for a visitor or a trip out of London to force us into separate quarters. Sleeping alone was not so very unusual. But the knowledge that I might have been with him that night, only my own pride preventing it, rattled about in some out of the way corner of my mind, and having Holmes so near and yet not with me had a very poor effect upon my dreams (perhaps there was something to that mad Viennese alienist and his theories about the sleeping mind after all). While I would not quite say that my night was plagued by waterfalls, the background of my slumber held a sneaking suspicion of rushing currents, more crash than susurration, clear beneath the other dream-images which were no more than a blur.In consequence, I woke in the morning feeling more in need of sleep than when I had gone to bed. My annoyance only increased when, having made my way downstairs to breakfast, I found Holmes looking quite as well-rested as ever, tucking into his bacon and eggs with unusual enthusiasm. I could not possibly have expected to hide my unsettled night from him, but I had hoped that it would take him longer than the first glance to deduce it. The hope was a vain one, as I ought to have known. Within moments of my entrance he gave me a, "You look awful, my dear fellow," and promptly turned back to his tea."And a very good morning to you too, Holmes," I groused, sinking into my chair."Was your slumber less than sweet, my dear Watson--or less than slumber? I know an excellent cure for insomnia," he grinned. "I shall inform you of it, if you like, and even provide an instructional demonstration, if you will only come over and kiss me good-morning."I bit into a rasher of bacon with rather more force than necessary. "Oddly enough, Holmes, the 'Doctor' before my name is not merely ornamental. I flatter myself that, where the curing of medical conditions is concerned, I possess a certain degree of competence myself. Charming though I'm sure your folk remedy would be."He swallowed his last bite of egg and licked his lips in an only slightly exaggerated way. "Ah, but you see, Watson, even the most skilled medical man requires the services of an assistant every now and then in the performance of his profession, particularly when he himself is the patient. This peculiar panacea is not one which the sufferer may self-administer, but I assure you, its efficacy makes it well worth the effort involved in seeking out a helping hand. Or, to be more precise, a helping mouth."I rolled my eyes. "Truly, Holmes, your subtlety is overwhelming.""I believe that subtlety is not generally intended to overwhelm, but I take your point. Should you prefer the subtle, then?" Holmes asked. "As you like, John." He stood, rather slowly, and arched his entire body in a stretch. It was a perfectly normal gesture of a morning, the kind of stretch in which any man might indulge after a restful night's sleep, and not even a very dramatic example of the type. It also showed off the flatness of his stomach, the gentle tapering of his hips, and the eternally graceful arch of his spine to perfect advantage. He walked over to his chair with precisely the same tread he always stepped, and when he sat his legs crossed in precisely the same way they always did, and already I wanted nothing more than to drag him by the cravat off to his bedroom and have my way with him.It was Monday and, in the way of Mondays, it was going to be a deplorable day.The next hour or so did nothing to contradict that assumption. My eggs were cold, and yet the tea burned my mouth. I picked at my unsatisfying breakfast for as long as I could, while Holmes sat and smoked and scribbled away in his commonplace books, which were overdue for updating. Stalking over to my desk, I attempted to make some progress on my account of the Baskerville case, but my brain seemed tied up in knots, and I spent what felt like years attempting to work out a single reluctant sentence. I have been a writer long enough to know that there are some days when the words simply will not come, and finally gave up and slumped over to the settee--though not before managing to produce significant ink-stains on my poor shirt-cuff, courtesy of a leaking fountain pen. I might here embellish and claim that the novel with which I then attempted to amuse myself gave me paper cuts. It did not, in point of fact, but I should not have been in the least surprised.As I sat, Holmes, who had thus far kept very much to himself, looked up at me with an odd expression playing about his lips. "From that hint of huffiness about your breathing, my dear Watson, I should say that you were rather out of sorts this morning," he commented. "An ill night's sleep is apt to make the whole world seem gloomy and grim. Chin up, doctor. All will seem brighter tomorrow, once you've had a good night's rest."I stared at him. "Holmes...were you just attempting to cheer me up?"He smiled, set down his commonplace-book, and walked over to sit at the opposite end of the settee. "Of course I was, John. Unless I am very much mistaken, the offering of comfort and consolation is considered a typical gesture between lovers--even a duty, one might say. I may not always show it very well, but I do like to see you happy."I blinked once or twice. I should not be surprised if I shook my head a bit in confusion, though I have no specific recollection of doing so. And then I understood, and laughed."This is how you suppose you will seduce me, Holmes? By being sweet and considerate? It's a novel approach, I must say, but I am not quite sure how I think it reflects on me. Do you really believe that I am so starved for simple gestures of affection that, by providing them, you shall induce me to fall at your feet? And do you honestly consider me so unobservant as to have been unaware, before, that you cared about my happiness? My dear Holmes, if I thought you half as cold as you pretend to be, I should never have cared a fig for you, no matter how handsome, charming and brilliant you may be. But extravagant solicitude, while a pleasant change, will not draw me into your bed any more than it should have won you my heart in the first place. You are a man who, on observing that I am in an unwarranted bad temper, is far more likely to attempt (usually successfully) to distract or tease me out of it than to offer sympathy, and just as likely as either simply to order me to cease behaving in such a self-indulgent manner. But it is you, and no other, with whom I fully intend to live out the remainder of my days. Did you suppose that you could become more desirable to me by pretending to be that which you are not?"It was gratifying to see his salvo backfire so dramatically, for I could tell by the look on his face that he wanted to kiss me very badly indeed. But he confined himself to a smile--so wide that his lips nearly parted, which is an extraordinary occurrence--and said, "My dear Watson, you are without doubt the most nonsensical man I have ever met, with the possible exception of the one or two raving lunatics of my acquaintance. It is difficult enough for me to comprehend how or why you tolerate me when I am in an ill-humor; that you should actually go so far as to discourage me when I am in a good one defies belief."He had, in spite of himself, succeeded in lightening my mood, and I grinned back at him. "Perhaps I enjoy that sort of thing. I'd not be the first man on earth to find that suffering has...certain attractions." I deepened my voice and curled my lips as I said it, emphasizing the illicit implications of my words.I do not recall the last time I saw his eyebrows so near his hairline. "In so many years of intimate acquaintance, I do not believe I could possibly have failed to observe such a predilection, if you possessed it."I was thoroughly enjoying his discomfiture, and moved nearer to him, until our legs were only a few inches apart. "But I may simply have hidden it very well up to now. You remember the Mary Sutherland case, and my eagerness afterwards? If memory serves, we made it no further than the dining table. I couldn't sit down to a meal for weeks afterwards without going red in the face. For the first day or two, I couldn't sit down anywhere without going red in the face."Holmes very nearly blushed himself at the memory. "I recall the incident quite vividly.""And you no doubt retain an equally clear recollection of the events immediately preceding that rather enthusiastic incident.""I believe I had just chased Mr. Windibank from the sitting-room, threatening to..." I could almost hear his mind stop whirring, that marvelous brain screeching to a total halt. I may be the one man on earth who can achieve that feat, though only rarely, and I reveled in it. "Watson!"I could not help grinning then. I twisted my body, propping my arms against the back of the settee on either side of him and bending my mouth towards his ear. "Tell me, Holmes, if I did want you to take a buggy whip to me, how would you react?"Holmes's habitual pallor is so extraordinary that he must be very affected indeed to turn noticeably pale. But when I pulled back to look at him now he was white as a sheet, and saucer-eyed to boot. He opened his mouth as though attempting to formulate a reply...and then the bell rang downstairs. I hastily pulled away from him, and he moved over to stand by the hearth. He had lifted his pipe down from the mantel, lit it, and was tossing his match into the grate just as the sitting-room door opened."A lady to see you, Mr. Holmes," Mrs. Hudson announced. The lady in question entered immediately behind her, without waiting for a by-your-leave. She was dressed in the finest fabrics, the pattern the height of fashion, but there was something vulgar and garish in the effect of the whole. Nor did the style suit either her build, which was Rubenesque to say the least, or her height, which was considerable, or her age, which must have been past forty, squeezing and twisting her into a powdered and painted farce. It was clear from the first precisely what sort of client she would be.The moment this newcomer entered the room, she rushed straight for Holmes and flung herself into his arms, clutching feebly at his waistcoat. "Oh, please Mr. Holmes!" she cried, breaking into sobs. "The police have been so cruel, but you are a gentleman. You would not simply sit back and allow a lady to suffer. If I have to go another day without knowing, I am sure that I shall...""Do take a seat, madam, I implore you," Holmes broke in, pushing her gently but firmly away and depositing her into the nearest armchair. It was against his nature to interrupt a woman, even a hysterical one, but to allow himself to be touched in so familiar a way by a stranger was even more foreign to his temperament. Holmes strongly dislikes physical contact which he does not initiate, unless it comes from a person whom he knows very well. I, of course, am allowed almost any liberty; Mrs. Hudson is permitted, occasionally, to pat his hand; Mycroft may, if he likes (though generally he does not), clap Holmes on the shoulder or the back. That is all, except, perhaps, for Lestrade, who might possibly be forgiven a friendly touch on the arm, but who would never be so bold as to attempt the manoeuvre. To be touched by any other but we few is abhorrent to Holmes, particularly in such a very personal way. Once he had managed to peel our visitor off of him, he quickly retreated to the other armchair, stopping only long enough to put out his pipe and return it to the pipe-rack.Holmes is usually generous in his dealings with the opposite sex, but just now he was too rattled to offer her his handkerchief as a gentleman ought to a lady in distress. It was left to me to hurry over to her and press a clean square of cambric into her hand. "Thank you, Dr. Watson," she hiccoughed, and blew her nose uproariously. I was not surprised that she knew who I was. My fame has spread as Holmes's has and, while I shall never be either so well-known or so well-beloved as he is, it was hardly shocking that she should be able to guess the identity of other man in the sitting room of Baker Street."Please, do tell us what's troubling you, Missus...""Matilda Fordyse, Doctor," she replied. "Mrs. Charles Fordyse, I should say, but my dear Charlie has been gone for ever so many years now." She looked at me, and then at Holmes, choosing her victim. My heart sank as her gaze settled back on me. "Though, of course, his memory remains ever green in my heart," she added sententiously."I have no doubt of it, madam," Holmes interposed smoothly. I heard, though she could not, the amusement in his voice, and the slightest hint of annoyance. It was not that he was remotely threatened by this ridiculous personage--nor should he have been--but no man appreciates witnessing another attempting to lay claim to that which is his, however ineptly. "Perhaps you had best tell us why it is you came to see us today.""It's my diamonds, Mr. Holmes," she wailed, breaking into a fresh peal of horribly theatrical sobs. "You see, I was wakened in the small hours of the morning..."I wish I could say that I recalled the precise words of Mrs. Fordyse's account, or even the general structure of her tale. Usually, my memory for conversation is exceptionally good; I have a talent for remembering the patterns of a person's speech, the sorts of words that they choose. I have attempted throughout my life to cultivate this gift, which has been a tremendous help to me in my writing. My ability to quote back conversations nearly word for word was, I think, one of the first things which convinced Holmes that there might be more to me than met the eye, for he discovered it quite early in our acquaintance. But of Mrs. Fordyse's presentation of her case I can remember hardly a syllable beyond that first sentence, and for that, Holmes is to blame.No one else--with the possible exception of Mycroft Holmes, around whom, I think, my Holmes would not have tried such a trick--could have called Holmes's glances lascivious. Strictly speaking, they were really nothing of the kind. It was not that he looked at me as though he intended to drag me off to his bed and ravish me. It was that he looked at me in a perfectly benign way, but that, knowing him as I do, I was absolutely certain that he was thinking about dragging me off to his bed and ravishing me.I have known for years, of course, that Holmes and I are exceptionally skilled at communicating without speech. We have to be, when on a case. There is nothing supernatural about it--we cannot have true conversations by our eyes alone--but warnings and simple orders are easy enough for us to communicate in that way. Nor has this wordless rapport been absent heretofore from the more personal side of our partnership.Holmes is not a man to whom declarations of affection come easily. He has used the word 'love' to describe his feelings for me precisely three times in the thirteen years since the commencement of our affair The first was just after I had been bitten by Dr. Roylott's pet snake, when Holmes feared that not even the potent antidote he had carried with him in case of such an emergency would be enough to save me; I lived in despite of his grim prognostications, and kissed him when he tried to insist we forget the whole thing, and thus did we pass from friends to something more. The second came on the morning of my marriage, just before we left for the church, and too late to do any good; the dramatic increase in his cocaine usage (against my strenuous protests) in the six months before my proposal to Miss Morstan had made things so bad between Holmes and me that, when I saw my chance of a quiet life with a woman whose temperament suited mine, I took it, and, while my marriage was overall a happy one, I will never cease to regret the pain which I so callously caused to Holmes. And the third time, it was on the day he returned from the dead. From the guilty knowledge that I had deserted him long before he did the same to me, I was swifter to forgive him for the cruel act of allowing me to suppose him dead than I might otherwise have done, but even so, I did not pardon him instantly; I required a certain amount of wooing to win back into his arms. I believe I may have resisted him for as long as ten minutes. After five years without kissing him, and three believing I should never have the chance to do so again, I could not possibly have been expected to hold out any longer than that.I seem to have wandered in my discourse--easy enough to do, when Holmes is my subject--but my point is this: only in extreme circumstances does Holmes say that he loves me in so many words. He is uncomfortable, too, with hearing me voice the same sentiment, though I am driven to it far more often than he would prefer. But I have never had leisure to doubt his feelings, because the emotions which his lips are reluctant to express are communicated to me daily by his eyes. Though not all of the intelligence which he delivers in that fashion is quite so innocent. "Faster" and "harder" and "there" are three commands for which his unspoken vocabulary is remarkably precise.In general, he reserves these carnal communiqués for when we are alone. But now he was shooting me sidelong glances, as often as he could manage, which advertised only too clearly (to me, at any rate) his less-than-innocent intentions. At first, all I could read was that he wanted me, and soon, but when he was sure that I was following his general drift he gave a tiny, feline smile and began to specify. A quick look at my neck, and I could almost feel his fingers there; another to my hand, and the warmth of his lips encircled a knuckle. If we were alone, I should undo all those buttons, one by one, his eyes informed me, as Mrs. Fordyse narrated the tale of the theft of her diamonds, and strip off your trousers, too, until you stood completely bare before me. I, of course, would remain entirely clothed. (This last he communicated quite ingeniously by a sort of waggle of his eyebrows and one long glance down the whole of his own form.) I should take my time with you, paying due heed to those interesting parts of the body which so often go ignored--"the delicate flesh inside your elbow, and the tops of your feet, and the curve of your hips. I should kiss you until your lips, and mine too, were as red as those infernal geraniums with which Mrs. Hudson insists upon cluttering our dinner table. And then I should push you back until you sat on the edge of your writing desk, and open my trousers, and pull your ankles onto my shoulders, and… At which point the incorrigible man looked me full in the face, just for a moment, and then transferred his full attention to our client, with an expression as innocent as a choirboy.It was thus that I came to miss Mrs. Fordyse's account, and to find myself very red in the face at the end of it. Fortunately Holmes, unearthly creature that he is, seemed to have managed simultaneously to tease me into near insensibility and to hear every word."Just to be sure I have it clear in my own mind, permit me, Mrs. Fordyse, to summarize," Holmes said pleasantly. "Your diamond necklace has disappeared from the locked traveling case where it was kept in your room at Claridge's hotel. You think that you saw the thief enter the room sometime in the small hours of the night, though you believed at the time that your vision of a dark figure was little more than a dream or a flight of fancy. And you are of the opinion that the police have not been sufficiently assiduous in their efforts to apprehend this midnight intruder and recover your jewels. Is that the general shape of things?""Yes, that is it precisely." She simpered at him. "Do you suppose you might be able to help me? I know it must not seem much of a challenge to a man of such tremendous intelligence as yours, Mr. Holmes, but it would mean so very much to me."The repetition of the salient points had been for my benefit, and, while it was entirely Holmes's fault that I required such a review, I was grateful all the same. Not that the details would matter very much, I thought. Such a commonplace theft would no doubt be cleared up in an hour or two; there was no chance whatever of Holmes taking the case. Overemotional women who mislay their diamonds have not a hope of holding the interest of my supremely fastidious lover--unless the theft is accompanied by at least half-a-dozen strange and seemingly impossible circumstances, and a pronounced puzzlement to half of Scotland Yard and the entire constabulary."I should be happy to accept your case."It is a minor miracle that I did not leap from my chair in shock. I am sure my eyes went wider than the Atlantic, however. Holmes did not look at me, but the corner of his mouth quirked as he stepped past me to extend a hand to our visitor, raising her effortlessly from her chair in despite of her bulk. I swear to heaven that she actually fluttered her lashes at him. "Oh, thank you, Mr. Holmes."He smiled back at her, but swallowed in an emphatic fashion indicative, to my trained eye, of severe disgust. "Think nothing of it, madam." He had an effort peeling her hand from his, but his native gallantry is such that he relocated it only to just below his elbow.I remained in my seat, frozen with bafflement, as Holmes and our client proceeded towards the door. When they passed behind my chair, Holmes reached out his free hand and brushed his fingers across the back of my neck, his body preventing Mrs. Fordyse seeing that intimate act. I drew in a sharp breath. For a moment, I thought that this sudden touch, our first since yesterday, was his surrender, and then I recalled that Mrs. Fordyse's presence permitted us as much contact as we could exchange without arousing suspicion."Come along, then, Watson," Holmes bid me, in his most peremptory tone, and it all fell into place. That was why he had taken the case--because he wanted me out of the house, in public, where he could touch me! It had nothing whatever to do with this horrible woman or her diamonds. I almost laughed aloud. There was only one proper plan of attack."I think I shall stay here, Holmes. It does not sound as though you will require either my medical knowledge or my revolver at your back, and I'm feeling a bit unwell. I trust you won't mind."He did mind, very much, if the incensed look on his face were anything to go by. Holmes does hate to have his schemes anticipated, much less foiled, and he could tell from my expression and my refusal that I had caught on to his plan. "Of course not, doctor," he ground out, the title a mark of disfavour. "I do hope it's not anything serious?""Only a slight headache," I replied breezily. I stood and took our visitor by her free hand. "I hope you will forgive me, Mrs. Fordyse. Rest assured, you are in the most capable of hands. It was a pleasure to make your acquaintance.""And yours, Dr. Watson," she said, giving me a look full of none-too-veiled significances. "Perhaps we shall..."She did not even have time to finish the sentence, for Holmes had contrived, innocently as you please, to manoeuvre her out the door ahead of him. He shot me one last incensed look over his shoulder, to which I responded with a smirk and a wave of my hand, and then they were gone.For some minutes after Holmes's departure, I attempted to amuse myself with my novel, but the fatigue of my disturbed night, in combination with the after-effects of Holmes's teasing, made concentration impossible. I tramped down to tell Mrs. Hudson not to worry about lunch--though she promised me a sandwich when I wanted it--and then headed back upstairs for a nap.My lonely bed was even less appealing at noon than it had been at midnight. It was only after I had given in to the memory of Holmes's insistent eyes running over my body and taken myself in hand, pulling a quiet climax from my reluctant flesh, that I finally managed to lull myself to sleep.I must have been far more tired than I realized--understandable, I suppose, given my professional exertions the day before and the subsequent poor night's sleep--for I slept away most of the afternoon. It was nearly five when I woke to find Holmes sitting cross-legged at the foot of my bed. As I stirred and propped myself up on my elbows, he turned away from the window and towards me.There was something off about his expression. His aspect was decidedly hangdog, but it was not his usual melancholy. "What's wrong?" I asked, sitting back against the headboard.There was a long pause, and then he announced, "By the time I arrived, the Yard had finally been called in." This remark was followed by a sigh of the most profound character.I frowned. "I fail to see what is so very horrifying about that. If you think that your reputation will be dented by the acceptance of one less than fascinating case, you are vastly overreacting."Holmes shook his head, his eyes positively mournful. "On this occasion, I wish my reputation had been tarnished. It was not the presence of the officials in general; it was the specific representative they elected to dispatch."I began to get an inkling. "Not..."Of an instant, he flung himself backwards, landing precisely six inches to one side of me on the pillows and only just missing the chance to knock himself unconscious on my headboard. His wrist moved to his forehead in an extravagantly dramatic gesture. "Stanley Hopkins!" he groaned pitiably, his eyes fluttering shut as though all his strength had been drained out of him at a blow. "My dear Watson, between our imbecile of a client and the attentions of Inspector Hopkins, what sufferings and torments have I endured this afternoon! You had best kiss me quickly, or I am likely to waste away to nothingness in my despair." He opened one eye a slit and peeked out at me sideways. I, for my part, was convulsed with laughter at his theatrics."He can be a little trying," I said, in a voice which attempted to be soothing but lost something as a result of the guffaws that kept slipping their way in sideways."Trying! Watson, you are more skilled in understatement than any other man I have ever known. That young idiot is a hundred times more likely to get me arrested for gross indecency than the man I bugger five times a week, the way he slobbers at me in public. The next time I accuse you of making too free with your flattery in print, just mutter 'Hopkins' at me, and I'll soon reconsider.""I'll be sure to remember," I grinned. "Would you like me to have a talk with him?""With the inspector?" A look of intrigued surprise crossed his face, and then he rolled onto his side, propped his head on his hand, and grinned wickedly at me. "Yes, John, I would, but only if I can watch. He's a significantly younger man than you are, after all, and not entirely unhandsome; I can understand why you might feel the need to defend your property. I have so few chances to see you fight for me."I pulled the pillow from under my head and pommeled him decidedly in the face. "You're as vain as any chorus-girl, Holmes. I haven't the slightest need to fight for you. He is a lovestruck puppy who drives you out of your head, and I am 'the man you bugger five times a week.' The day I lose your affections to Stanley Hopkins is the day I deserve to lose them.""You haven't touched me in days, you know," he said, affectedly aggrieved. "What is a fellow to think?""It's been hardly more than twenty-four hours, and, if you'll only touch me first, I'll be glad to see to your every whim.""And if you will only touch me first, I shall be glad to see to yours.""It appears we're at a stalemate, then," I smiled at him. "We shall have to choose another subject. Did you find the diamonds?""Mmmm. Snatched up by the chambermaid," he yawned, curling into a ball on the coverlet. "One of those trusty servants who Mrs. Fordyse had specifically absolved from suspicion. They never consider that even trusty servants may have sisters wasting away of consumption who require money for proper care."My concern must have shown on my face, for he did not wait for me to speak before adding, "I persuaded Mrs. Fordyse not to press charges, seeing that the necklace was recovered so promptly, and that the maid's motive was so sympathetic. I even convinced her not to sack the young thing, by intimating that the girl would feel so beholden to Mrs. Fordyse for her generosity that she should work twice as hard as any other chambermaid in Britain.""And...""And I advised the aspiring villainess of where to find a certain physician who delights in proffering free medical advice. I even mentioned that she should be doing me a personal favor in bringing her sister round, as said physician is so fond of dispensing said advice that he does so unsolicited when necessary, and his poor fellow-lodger is generally the victim.""A terrible burden for you," I replied. "My medical advice just now should be that you have a bit of a rest yourself. I am beginning to suspect that I am not the only one of us who did not sleep entirely well." It was not a very brilliant deduction; his eyelids had already begun to droop.He rolled his eyes at me, but in a decidedly sleepy fashion, and, rather than fighting, gave a sort of wriggle which, by some strange phenomenon, situated him under the covers. "If it will make you feel better, doctor," he said, snuggling down into the bed. As I turned to leave him in peace, I heard him mumble drowsily, "I never sleep well without you."He was trying, no doubt, to get me to come back and kiss him. I admit it was one of his better ploys that day.Holmes did not sleep nearly so long as I had done, but late enough to miss his supper. I asked Mrs. Hudson to join me at table, however, and we chatted of this and of that--of the high price of beef, and of the fact that, God willing, Her Majesty would soon become our longest-reigning monarch, and of Holmes, of course--so my meal was not a solitary one. Just after the dishes had been cleared away Holmes appeared.The next few hours passed uneventfully, Holmes tinkering away on an experiment at his chemical table and I jotting down notes in my journal, the both of us occasionally pausing in our labours for a bit of conversation. As we had both slept in the afternoon we neither of us tired early, but by midnight I found myself ready for bed. I rose from my chair, conscious by the creaking of my bones of the creeping advance of age upon me, and turned to find Holmes not two feet in front of me. I jumped nearly out of my skin."Sweet God in heaven, Holmes, I know that you aspire to the career of catburglar, but when you intend to practice crossing rooms without making a sound, you might have the decency to warn a fellow!"He laughed in his silent way, and extended an arm into the space between my own arm and my body to grasp the edge of the desk. "I do beg your pardon, my dear fellow." He leaned nearer, until I could feel the warmth of him. "Were you planning on turning in for the night?""The thought had crossed my mind," I answered. Not to be outdone, I inched nearer to him in my turn, holding his eyes."I don't suppose you'll be joining me." His neck was crooking, his face turning, his eyelids slipping as they had yesterday night, and I, once again, found myself powerless to do anything but mimic his prelude to a kiss."I don't suppose I shall," I breathed against his lips, now scandalously near mine."Pity." I shivered from the feeling of it. "In that case," our proximity was such that I could actually hear him smile, "Good-night, Watson.""Good-night, Holmes," I replied, more promptly than I had managed yesterday, but with the most unpardonable wobble in my voice. By the time I opened my eyes I found myself once again alone, and turned to trudge my weary way to bed. ----- CHAPTER BREAK ----- "Watson," Holmes whispered, directly into my ear, "I don't suppose you'd care to repair to Baker Street a few minutes early? Our esteemed lecturer is duller than paint, and I've spent the last ten minutes thinking how very much I should like to sit you down in your armchair, kneel before you, and bring you off with my mouth. It feels an age since last I tasted you; I seem to have developed a craving which I am sure no substitute can satisfy. Come home with me, and let me drink you dry."Every hair on my body stood on end. Was he mad? We were in a room full of people, for God's sake!A few hours before this little scene took place, at the breakfast table that morning, I had convinced Holmes to accompany me to a lecture at the University of London, where I still had connections and was permitted to drop in at the occasional talk when it suited me. I managed this feat of persuasion by pointing out that the subject of the lecture--blood coagulation, and how the rate and method differs in sufferers from various blood-related diseases--was as relevant to his field as to mine. Holmes' last real case (barring that unsatisfactory interlude yesterday) had concluded on the preceding Thursday and, as it was now Tuesday, I had begun to worry about the problem of keeping his mind occupied. Even with our little game of seduction providing a certain amount of distraction, I had begun to notice one or two of the warning signs of an oncoming black mood. Occasionally, when I catch them very early, I can deflect his dark fits by diverting his mind into some brighter and more salubrious channel. A lecture was not a particularly promising start, but it was far better than doing nothing at all.Or it would have been, had not the lecturer, as Holmes so rightly said, been an absolute trial to listen to. Though a reputed scholar in his own field, the fellow elevated tedium to heights as yet undreamt by man. He ought to be given a medal, I thought, for excellence in dullness.I had expected some variety of rebellion from Holmes, who is more easily bored than any other human being I have ever met. I had rather guessed, too, that he might indulge in some genteel variety of touch, as we were in public, and thus permitted contact under the terms of our bet. I had not, however, anticipated that even ennui should ever drive him to press his lips against my ear and say such vulgar things with three strapping young men sitting within ten feet of us. I stiffened, my body language begging Holmes to be cautious, but he merely gave one of his silent laughs, returned his mouth to my ear, and whispered, "You may have failed to note it, Doctor, but every man in the room who happens to be on good terms with his neighbour has been muttering in his ear since thirty seconds after Professor Emerson began speaking. We shall not attract any attention on that account, for everyone here is suffering equally. And you know very well that I have a talent for whispering in a way impossible to overhear, even at close quarters; I seem to recall one or two quite eloquent phrases in the Strand about it, as a matter of fact. But if you are concerned that your speech might be more carrying, perhaps it's best if you stay still and permit me to do all the talking. Or, better yet, you could accept my offer, and come home with me now. I fear if I am trapped in this room for the final half-hour of that man's speech, I may have to resort to some rather drastic measures. You've no notion what filthy ideas I can think of to pour into your ear--"though you soon shall, if you stay where you are."He was right about his own method of whispering; how he does it I cannot fathom, but his whispers reach the intended listener and none other. He was also right about the carrying power of mine. I did not trust myself to say anything very explicit, for our neighbours would certainly be in a position to hear. As tedious as the lecture was, however, I had no mind to go home--partly because it would have been rude to our lecturer, but partly, too, because I was unwilling to give Holmes the satisfaction of acceding to his demands. And so I turned back to him, and whispered simply, "Do your worst."I had just time to see the look of surprise and delight that passed over his features before his face was once again pressed flush against the side of my head. "Oh, I think you will regret that, Watson. I shall give you one more chance. Relent, come home with me now, and surrender this wager of ours, or, by the time the professor has concluded his interminable droning, I shall have you so achingly hard that you beg me to take you right here, in front of an entire class-full of young men."I shook my head fractionally, not trusting myself to do more, and felt the lips against my ear curl with satisfaction. "Very well then, John," he said, humming soundlessly against my ear in a way that made me desperately wish I could wriggle in my seat. "Do you happen to remember that last night at Baskerville Hall? I am not sure precisely how you could have forgotten it, but that seemed the proper way to begin. It took a bit of doing, convincing the Barrymores to install us in the empty wing, but good God, it was certainly worth it. I had always suspected that, if we could only secure a bit of privacy in a spot where we were certain not to be overheard, I could make you scream for me. I admit, however, that it was a surprise--a most pleasant one, I assure you--to find you quite so vociferous as you proved to be; well worth the many hours of effort spent learning to open my throat. I am not sure I have ever known you come as hard as that. For ten minutes afterwards you were quite insensible, my dear fellow."He pulled back for a moment, glancing around the room to assure himself that no one was regarding us with suspicion, and taking in the heightened colour in my cheeks. Then he leaned back in and resumed his narrative. "Those ten minutes were a mingled joy and torture to me. On the one hand, to know that I had given you such extraordinary pleasure was a pleasure in itself, and no little ornament to my pride. But we had been so long apart, and I was so near mad with wanting you, that I am afraid I was more eager than I ought to have been, and did not allow you simply to bask for as long as I might have. I believe it was my fingers spreading you open that finally brought you back to yourself, but if the way you pushed back against me and the little moaning noises you made were any indication, you seemed not to object to the interruption. I never told you, I think, how much I wished we could have been out on the moor then, for the dark wild strangeness of that place should have been a fitting counterpoint to the dark wild strangeness of our passion. Not that I have any cause to complain about that night as it was, in that big old bed in our lonely wing. I am sure you recall just how forcefully I buggered you that night, John, when there was, for once, no need to worry about the slapping of our flesh as we came together, or the cries of ecstasy which neither of us could suppress. Just thinking about it now makes me want to bend you over the arm of your chair and fuck you senseless. You would not even notice the looks of horror and fascination from our audience, my dear Watson. I could make you forget everything else but the feeling of my cock driving into you, make you cry out my name again and again, hold you half-an-inch from your release for so long that you would weep and curse and beg and nearly lose your mind with pure lust before I finally permitted you to climax..."I could stand it no longer. I rose from my chair with far more haste than discretion, drawing strange looks from half the room, but managed to duck my head in polite apology as I shuffled sideways towards the aisle. Holmes followed, in a calm, dignified fashion, for all the world as though he had not just been whispering such illicit, explicit, dangerous things to me. I hurried off towards the door and he followed sedately in my wake--though with sufficient speed, on those long legs, to enable him to catch me up as we were leaving the lecture hall and brush his fingers against the small of my back."You're a cruel man, Sherlock Holmes," I muttered, as we made our way down the street."Sometimes," he agreed, with mock seriousness, "but you are also well aware just how kind I can be.""Yes," I said softly, giving the words a very different slant than the prurient one he had meant, "I am."His eyes widened for a moment, and then, to my infinite delight, he actually blushed, though very slightly. "Touché, Watson," he replied.Only a few blocks from the lecture hall sat one of our favourite little cafés, which served good, simple fare and excellent coffee with a pleasant view of Regent's Park. "Will you permit me to treat you to a late lunch, my dear doctor, as amends for my churlish behaviour? I admit, it was bad of me, to distract you so when you were attempting to take in that fascinating lecture. I am sure that a mere sandwich can never begin to pay my debt, but if you would only...""Oh, hush," I growled good-naturedly, taking him by the arm and tugging him towards a table.The meal was a more than excellent one. Holmes was at his brightest, bouncing from subject to subject in the way which shows off his brilliance to its fullest effect, for it is only the most vibrant of brains that is able to trace the larger connections between seemingly disparate ideas. In Holmes's brother, this skill at seeing everything at once is almost frightening, but in my dear Holmes it is, to choose a most accurate if rather fanciful adjective, entrancing. He raced from colonial politics to Eastern religion to methods of dyeing silk to poverty in England with the speed of an express train, and yet every word was calculated to fascinate. Our lunch would have been a pleasant one at any rate, with his ankles pressed against mine and the both of us taking every opportunity to brush our hands casually against each other in lifting wineglasses or reaching for saltcellars, but the appearance of his most charming aspect made everything still lovelier. I did not waste time in worrying that his exultant mood might be followed by a descent into misery, as they sometimes are. I simply enjoyed it while it lasted, and attempted to keep up with the sparkling of his mind as best I could.As we were only a mile or so from home we opted to walk rather than taking a cab, and as the Park was so conveniently in our path it should have been a waste to go around rather than through it on such a fine August day. Our ramble--arm in arm every second, as may well be imagined--was as pleasant as our lunch, and I would gladly have remained there, savouring those alternating periods of companionably silent enjoyment and of lightly philosophical conversation, until the sun was well down in the sky. It was Holmes who led us back towards Baker Street just before four and, while I at first followed reluctantly, I was glad of it by the time we turned the corner at Baker Street, for my old leg wound had just begun to complain about all that walking. I was on the fourteenth step when it occurred to me that Holmes had noticed my own pain before I had.Something of what I felt for him at that moment must have shown on my face, for once we were in the sitting room and he had turned to face me he gave me a quizzical glance. "Whatever are you grinning about, Doctor?""You," I replied simply, retrieving my pipe and settling myself into my armchair."A very unworthy subject to provoke such an expression," he said, affecting seriousness but secretly well-pleased. He recovered a pair of afternoon papers from the table where they had been laid out for us, passed me the Telegraph and retained the Echo, lit his own pipe, and slid into his own chair. The time until supper passed pleasantly thus, the meal a fine dish of curry, and afterwards, when the clock struck seven, it was time for Holmes's weekly meeting with his personal army.For a short time, Holmes attempted to appoint Wiggins as his mouthpiece to the rest of the Irregulars except in extraordinary circumstances, but that was found to be an unacceptable arrangement. Those boys worship Holmes. The thought of being denied their usual communion with their venerated leader caused such consternation among the ranks that the project was scrapped, and a general congress became once more the order of the day. Mrs. Hudson, however, was firm in her insistence that she would not have that crowd of little ruffians tracking dirt hither and yon and, as she is the most tolerant of landladies in other respects, Holmes was forced to knuckle under to that particular demand. And so, at seven every Tuesday night, the corner of Baker Street is the scene of a very strange little gathering, my stork-like and immaculate friend surrounded by a gaggle of diminutive ragamuffins, prattling away with them as though that were precisely where he belonged. In a sense it is precisely where he belongs, for my Holmes is beyond doubt a natural leader of men. The men in question, however, need not necessarily be quite so young.Oftentimes I accompany Holmes on his 'inspection of the troops', as he likes to call it, for I am fond of the lads, and, as the conditions in which they live are far from ideal, I and my bag of remedies are often able to do some good. Tonight, however, I intended to have my revenge on Holmes for his behaviour in the lecture hall earlier. Though my plan was nothing very complex, I should require the rooms to myself for a minute or two. So I simply bid Holmes give my regard to the boys, and sent him on his way. He shot me a rather suspicious glance but, for once, did as he was told.Once he was out the door, I gathered up the necessary items from the hat-stand and his desk-drawer and carried my prizes off to Holmes's bed-room. I stripped off every stitch of my clothing, folded it all neatly, and placed the pile of garments on the chair in the corner. I had deposited my treasures on the bed while I undressed, but I turned to them now and began to set my scene. Holmes keeps one pair of old-fashioned darbies in the house, and another of the new variety of self-locking hand-cuffs. I opened all four locks and laid the keys carefully on the nightstand. Then I fastened one side of the darbies to the left bedpost, one side of the cuffs to the right, and left the other side of each dangling open. The last object that I had brought with me was Holmes's riding crop, and this I laid at a gentle diagonal across the foot of the bed before settling into position myself.I had no plans to actually fasten the restraints around my wrists; they were mere set dressing, a little something to add to the atmosphere, for neither Holmes nor I had ever expressed a prior interest in being bound. If Holmes, when he arrived, made some sign that he desired to put them to use, however, on myself or on him, it would clearly not be the done thing to object. After all, I had put them there. Only the worst sort of tease offers what he is unwilling to deliver. The crop, on the other hand, had made one or two prior appearances in our bed, though not for the purpose of causing pain. We are both of us far too unconventional to choose the obvious use over the inventive--and, despite my provocative comment about whips the day before, I saw no particular appeal in the notion of pain-as-pleasure. Neither, so far as I was aware, did Holmes. Then again, as pain goes, that caused by cropping is, as I understood, both brief and slight, no more than a bit of a sting. Again, if Holmes should seem intrigued by the notion, I did not plan any resistance.Holmes's meetings with the Irregulars on weeks when we have no cases are, naturally enough, brief, and so I did not expect the wait to be a long one. Nor was it; I had scarcely time to register the fact that lounging about in the nude looking vaguely alluring is an incredibly dull pastime when I heard the front door open and close downstairs. To my horror, however, I also heard the rumble of two men's voices, one of which was surely Holmes's. They had passed into the sitting room by the time I was able to hear sufficiently well to identify the other as belonging to Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard. Had I not already been cold--August or no, lolling around alone and unclad in the evening is a chilly business--I should have turned so then.Lestrade and I have known each other since only a few weeks after I first met Holmes. Relations between the inspector and myself have always been cordial, though I admit that it took me some time to fully appreciate him. The fault was entirely mine. Lestrade does not show to best effect around Holmes; his quite natural response to Holmes's jeering is to turn brusque and competitive, which goes far to masking his usual quiet competence. The fact of the matter is that Lestrade's instincts make of him a perfect mirror, a trait which has no doubt been useful to him as a policeman. Within reason, he behaves towards everyone precisely as they do to him. During those early years when I was outwardly polite to him but privately subscribed to Holmes's unlofty valuation of his talents, so exactly did he act to me, and, as my respect and regard for him grew, so did his. Likewise, the inspector scorns Holmes to the very degree that Holmes does him at any given time. He swaggers before Holmes only because Holmes so enjoys showing off himself, does not fawn over Holmes any more than it is Holmes's nature to do to him, and is never bitter when Holmes beats him to the solution of a case, for Holmes's happiness at those moments is contagious. I do not consider this reflective quality of Lestrade's to be a weakness; on the contrary, I respect it very much. It encourages men to be their best selves in his presence, for knowing that the kindness they sow to him shall be reaped, and the bitterness returned. The inspector's responsive nature does not extend to all corners of his personality--he is not the sort to lose his head, for example, no matter how hysterical those around him may be. But within that unruffled, practical, dedicated framework, it is his practice to treat every man precisely according to his deserts, which is a disconcerting and a wonderful thing.It was not, then, that I had any aversion to a visit from Lestrade in and of itself. But there are obvious disadvantages to being caught in the nude in another man's bed by a friend and especially by a policeman, and his timing was therefore damnably inconvenient. Even if I managed to slip back into my clothes it would be awkward to explain what I was doing in Holmes's bedroom with the door shut, but I had very little chance of achieving a respectable state unheard. While the floors and outer walls of Baker Street are quite solid (facts which allow us to live our lives without fear of detection from the residents of 220 and 222, and to maintain a veneer of innocence in our dealings with Mrs. Hudson, who probably knows far more than any of us ever speaks of), the inner walls are appallingly thin; if I so much as moved from the bed, the likelihood was in favor of anyone outside hearing it. My best hope, I supposed, was to stay absolutely silent and still, and hope that they did not come searching for me. And, that I might be as prepared as possible should the worst happen, to listen with all my might."Are you sure you cannot stay for a drink, Lestrade?" I heard Holmes ask, with surprising cordiality."I'm afraid not, Mr. Holmes. I've got to get this information back to the Yard as soon as possible. I shouldn't have to bother you about it, you know, if you'd only tell us the secret of that blood-test of yours." I could tell from his tone that Lestrade was grinning. The Sherlock Holmes Blood Test is a long-standing feud between them, but a friendly one. Shortly after Holmes discovered his test, and before he had the chance to make it public, it occurred to him that here was an ace-in-the-hole at a time when few members of the Yard took him seriously. Holmes will administer his test at any time, day or night, at the request of any representative of the Law, but he stubbornly refuses to give up the formula, and so anyone wishing to use it must come to him. By now, of course, it is not because he fears that the Yarders will stop bringing him cases. It is partly because he is a man of habits, and partly because he likes to have something to do, and partly, too, because he enjoys his little joke with Inspector Lestrade."When I am ancient and feeble and have given up this life of excitement for a farm in the country somewhere, I may consider it," Holmes replied genially. "Until then, Inspector, I am afraid we shall both of us have to be inconvenienced. Have a cigar while you wait. It will help you to feel the wisdom of my point of view on the matter.""If you insist, Mr. Holmes--but only for fear of offending you by my refusal," Lestrade said solemnly. I heard him cross the room to the humidor on the bookcase. "No Dr. Watson tonight?"I held my breath. One never knew about these things with Holmes. He may hardly have noticed that I was gone at all, or he may have deduced precisely where I was and what I was doing. If it were the former, it might lead to a search which would spell inevitable disaster. If the latter..."The good doctor is spending the evening at his club," Holmes answered smoothly. I gave a silent sigh of relief.There was a short pause, presumably while Lestrade took a puff of his cigar. "I'm sorry to have missed him. Do give him my regards.""Certainly," Holmes replied absently, clearly too caught up in his analysis to pay any attention to such politely typical conversation.There was another pause. "I heard about that case you took yesterday, Mr. Holmes. A jewel theft, was it?" The slightest possible film of mischief clung to the words.Holmes groaned. "This is why you're here tonight, Lestrade! Not so I can inform you that the stain which looks like blood and smells like blood is, indeed, blood. To rib me about that insufferable...""Now, Mr. Holmes, whatever would give you an idea like that?" Lestrade broke in, honey-tongued and innocent as you like. "I do need that test done; you know what juries are. 'The substance which an expert chemical analysis revealed to be blood' goes over miles better than 'the substance which gave every possible indication of being blood.' And, having made the journey for that purely professional reason, you could hardly expect me not to mention that Stanley Hopkins has spent the day announcing to anyone who'll listen that you were so impressed by his performance in the case that you're planning on taking him on as an assistant.""Tell me that you are joking, Lestrade, I beg." Holmes sounded positively miserable."Could I invent such a story, Mr. Holmes? You are always telling me that I have hardly enough imagination to keep body and soul together, after all. But it is blood, then?""Oh yes, you need have no doubts of that.""Excellent. Much obliged to you, Mr. Holmes. And thank you for the cigar." The shuffling of feet and the rustling of cloth followed Lestrade around the sitting room."Think nothing of either, Inspector. And Lestrade?""Yes, Mr. Holmes?""Has he really?"It was impossible to doubt from his tone that Lestrade was grinning. "I leave that to you to deduce. Good-night, Mr. Holmes."The door closed. "I liked it better when he despised me, curse the man," Holmes muttered. Raising his voice, he called, "Watson?""In here, Holmes," I shouted back, arranging myself into as nonchalantly alluring a pose as I could manage without making myself feel still more of a fool."I thought so. Whatever are you doing..." Holmes stopped short as he opened the door and took in the scene, his eyes lingering on the handcuffs and the crop and intentionally scudding over my nudity. "Ah. That explains that, then.""Care to join me, Holmes?" I asked, struggling not to laugh.His lips curled. "My dear Watson, while I applaud your initiative, I am not sure that setting up this..." he struggled momentarily for the proper word, "...unique tableau for me was the safest possible manoeuvre. Suppose I had invited the good inspector in?""Into your bedroom, Holmes?" I raised an eyebrow. I think that I managed quite a near approach to scornfulness, for a man lounging about in the nude. "That does not seem very likely. What possible reason could you have?"He looked at me in a way that would have made me feel naked, if I were not so already. "The most obvious of reasons. Friend Lestrade is not immediately prepossessing, but there is, I think you will admit, something rather…stimulating, about the man. Though his face and form are unexceptional--not nearly so attractive as yours, my dear doctor--one cannot deny that he does have very fine eyes. One can only suppose that, with the proper inducement, they become even finer. As you refuse me the pleasures of your bed just at present, I think I could do worse than our friend the inspector."I spluttered. I admit it. And then I swallowed hard, breathed deep, and regained control of myself. I knew very well that he did not mean it--and that I could turn his own ploy back on himself, if I was sufficiently deft."In that case, Holmes, it's too bad you didn't let him in. It would be abominably selfish of you to keep our Lestrade all to yourself, but I certainly should not have been averse to sharing him.""Our Lestrade?" he asked, raising an eyebrow, and walking over to sit beside me on the bed. He hoped, no doubt, to entice me by his proximity, but it was a grave tactical error. His nearness worked far more to my advantage than to his."Certainly, ours. He is my friend as well as yours, after all. I do not see why I should not have as good a claim to the inspector's favours as you do, if indeed he inclines towards men.""He is of your turncoat stripe, and hasn't bedded a man since he turned eighteen, but he would say yes, if we asked him," Holmes said, with that offhanded self-confidence which would be completely unbelievable coming from anyone else. "As to priority, I might point out that I have known him rather longer.""I might point out that I annoy him rather less," I grinned. "At any rate, Holmes, I would not attempt to lay sole claim. In fact, I should have no desire whatever to interfere. The image of you," I moved then, planting my arms to either side of Holmes on the bed and leaning around him, very nearly bringing the sides of our faces into contact, "with Lestrade standing before you," I leaned to the side and breathed into his ear, "his cock in your mouth," and then puffed a trail of breath over his neck, "certainly has its own variety of appeal.""Oh really?" Holmes does not often speak with no definite purpose in mind. That he could come up with no better remark than 'oh, really' made his disturbance of mind as clear as print."Mmmm. Though, of course, I'd need one or two concessions from you, before I could actually give my blessings to such a liaison.""Naturally," he replied. He hesitated a moment, clearly aware that he oughtn't to ask the question, but, if there is one trait of Holmes's that may be depended upon, it is his curiosity. "What sorts of concessions?"The possession of a moustache bestows upon a man certain advantages in matters amatory. One of the less obvious is that moustaches permit a certain variety of smile, one which is visible only as a sort of rustling, and which is especially effective in conveying lascivious intent. I directed such a smile at Holmes, and then said, "I think that, if you were busy attending to our Lestrade's prick, you might permit me to sod him in the meanwhile. I daresay he would raise no objection, and it should not be much of an interference with your own activities. In fact, my attentions might be rather useful, from your perspective.""Would they?" he asked, rather unsteadily."Oh, yes. After all, every time my cock thrust into him, it would no doubt force his hips forward, and press his own cock further into your mouth. You would not need to consider the question of back-and-forth, and would instead be free to devote all your attention to those clever little tricks of the tongue in which you are so proficient.""Very considerate of you." He seemed to be having some difficulty keeping his pitch under its usual strict control. "But you will forgive me observing that I seem to be coming off worst in this little arrangement.""Only at first, I assure you, my dear Holmes. With the both of us pleasuring him at once, the good inspector certainly would not last overlong. I'm sure I should be able to see to you as well, and perhaps Lestrade would be kind enough to fill for you the office you had just performed for him." I lay back on the pillows, spread out full length before him in all my nudity. "What do you say to that?"Holmes's eyes were almost black as he looked at me. I was looking straight at him and yet I did not see him pounce, for he was quick as a panther about it. His legs came to either side of my hips and his arms fenced in my neck. There were a dozen places where we ought by rights to have been touching, but we were not, some little space separating every inch of my naked body from his clothed one. Only in the case of our faces was the distance significant. That did not last long. He leaned down, the eyes which were suddenly not only aroused but dangerous drilling into mine. "I do not like it one bit, Watson."It was my turn for the sort of paralyzed incoherency that prevents all but simple leading questions. "Don't you?" After a moment, I managed to add, "It didn't seem that way.""No," he repeated, "I do not. I do not like it because if you are to bugger anyone, it shall be me, and only me. If anyone is to suck my cock, it shall be you, and only you. I do not like it because you are mine, John, and I could not ever stand back and share you. You are mine."It ought to have bordered on frightening to hear him stake his claim so very aggressively, especially given our imbalance in clothing and the fact that I was pinned beneath him. It was not frightening--at least, not in an unpleasant sense. It was, on the contrary, one of the most unbelievably erotic moments of my life. The spinning of that little fantasy for him only a few seconds before had left me in the first throes of arousal, but now I was aching with readiness, wishing for nothing more keenly than to feel his beautiful and talented fingers on my prick. I only just managed to croak, "I believe you were the first to mention bringing another man into our bed. The idea was not my own.""But that was in reference only to me. My body is a thing of trifling worth--sound and fury, signifying nothing--but yours..." He looked at me then, taking in my entire form, his expression that of an aesthete savoring a masterpiece, "...yours is a very different matter."I blushed. "I have as much scar tissue on me as unblemished skin, and if I keep gaining weight the way I have been the last two years, I'll be positively portly soon. Whereas you..."He shook his head, still intense. "You are beautiful, John," he said simply. "You are beautiful, and you belong to me."I blushed still further, but replied, "Then prove it. Kiss me, Holmes. Teach me that I am yours, and no other's."His lips moved within half-an-inch of mine. "You know it very well already, your body as well as your mind. My name flows through your veins with every heartbeat, and expands in your lungs with every breath. You could no more wish to bed another man than you could will yourself never to have existed.""That sounded suspiciously like poetry, Holmes." My voice was shaky, even in my own ears."Amazing, what sorts of bad habits one can pick up from one's intimate acquaintance.""Oh, indubitably. I have been living with a confirmed queer for some years, and find myself lately with the most pronounced desire to sleep with men. Or one man, anyhow.""They should give the fellow a medal, for encouraging that particular vice in you," he replied with a smile, rolling to lay beside me."I do not think that would be a very good idea; decorations go to his head. Her Majesty gave him an emerald tie-pin last year, and he has been horribly puffed up about it ever since.""Only because a certain person's eyes go so very blue when I wear it. Such things mean nothing to me in and of themselves, I promise you. They might offer me a knighthood, and I should have no compunctions whatever about refusing it.""I shall believe that when it happens.""And so you shall." He stood then, and spared one last glance for me. "Unless you intend to end our bet now, Watson, I should advise putting some clothes on. While the notion of you lounging about the sitting room in the altogether is not entirely unpleasant, it is probably not a wise plan.""Then stay here, Holmes," I said, in the most seductive tone I could summon, "and conform yourself to my dress code, rather than the other way about.""You know very well, my dear Watson, that I have no talent for conforming myself to anything whatever." He seemed about to leave, when his eyes lit on the riding crop still lying across the corner of the bed. He walked slowly back across the room, took the thing in hand, and considered it for a moment. I ought, I suppose, to have found something witty and alluring to say, but nothing occurred to me. Still less occurred to me when he pressed the leather tress of the crop against my sternum and dragged it gently upwards until it pushed up on the underside my chin, forcing me to meet his eye."You oughtn't to leave weapons just sitting about, Watson," he said, huskiness browning the edges of his voice. He moved the loop of the crop to my face, caressing my cheek. Then he brought it to rest against my lips and tugged down softly, pulling my lower lip down into an odd sort of pout. The smell of leather filled my nostrils. I shivered. When he moved the crop away, I unconsciously leaned towards it for a moment before catching myself and pulling back. It might not have been him touching me, but it was the next best thing, and I found myself aching for more. "I'll just put this back where it belongs, then," he said smugly, and sauntered from the room.Holmes had not come out entirely the victor in that encounter, I told myself. That fit of possessiveness that I had managed to provoke was, at any rate, a decided point to my side. Still, I could not help feeling, as I gathered my clothes into my arms and shrugged into Holmes's spare dressing gown (the blue one, which he claims is such a fine match for my eyes), that my plan had been flawed. While the scuffle may have been a draw, however, I had not yet lost the war. Considering the fact that Sherlock Holmes was my competition, that was saying something.Holmes glanced up as I and my bundle of clothes emerged into the sitting room. He shot me an inquiring glance, and I replied to his unasked question with an, "I think I am going to retire early with my book this evening. I am scarcely more than a hundred pages from the end, and the climactic naval battle is about to get underway.""I really cannot fathom your interest in those frivolous...""Your opinions on the matter of my reading habits are already a matter of public record," I interrupted, in the name of connubial felicity. We both stood where we were for a moment, waiting for each other. Finally, I broke the silence with an, "Aren't you going to come over and practically kiss me good-night?"He raised an eyebrow. "Would you like me to?""I merely thought it was the rule," I replied nonchalantly. "I know you are a scientist, and that, in your mind, two instances do not establish a pattern, but it seemed to me as though you intended to make a habit of it. As you clearly had other plans, I'll simply bid you good evening from here, and..."He caught me at the door to the stairs. He was barely more than a foot away from me as it was, and so it did not take much leaning to bring his face in line with mine. It would be easy, so easy, simply to step into a kiss, and from there it would be only a brief, frantic, conjoined stumble to his bedroom..."Good-night, Watson," he murmured."Good-night, Holmes," I echoed, and he pulled back. Tonight he did not vanish instantly, but lingered, his eyes locked with mine, rocking slightly back and forth. All at once he surged forward, so swiftly and deliberately that a kiss appeared absolutely inevitable. It seemed far past the last possible second when he stopped. I was afraid to breathe lest I bring our lips into contact."John..." he whispered. Every one of my inner organs seemed to twist a quarter turn to the left.I heard his bedroom door close before I was even aware that I had closed my eyes. I spent the next hour staring at the same few pages, attempting vainly to wrench my brain away from Holmes, and the hour after that twisting between my sheets, haunted by the presence of the man who ought to have been beside me. ----- CHAPTER BREAK ----- Wednesday Holmes's reactions to music are unlike those of any other man I have ever known. So far as I can tell, from my own observations and his comments on the matter, his experiences as a listener are, while not strictly sexual, of almost the same level of intensity. For him, a symphony is to the aural sense what lovemaking is to the tactile: a gradual augmentation of anticipation, extraordinarily pleasurable and made more so by elements which are unexpected, or rhythmic, or particularly forceful, capped by a moment when all these disparate elements build into a crashing climax, and followed, generally, by a shorter period of diminution and settling-down. I do not mean to imply that the comparison manifests itself in his physical responses--to put it bluntly, he does not spend his trips to the symphony attempting to conceal the uncomfortable state of his trousers--but it would not be too much to call his reaction to the peak of a piece of music a mental orgasm, and he cherishes that sensation quite as dearly as its physical counterpart.Apart from a few occasions on which an afternoon with his violin had prompted him to drag me quite enthusiastically to his bed, Holmes and I had never attempted to mix his two favourite pleasures. When I recalled on Wednesday morning that we had tickets to the symphony that night, however, the opportunity seemed too promising to pass up. And when it further occurred to me that, while the concert hall was a public place, we should have our box entirely to ourselves, I knew I should have to be a positive imbecile to waste the advantage.I suspect that we both took rather more care than was necessary with our dress that night. Anyone else would have said that Holmes looked just a bit dishevelled, his hair not quite in its usual state of perfect sleekness, his tie a fraction of an inch askew. I knew, however, that he had done these things deliberately, and done them for me. He was only too well aware that my instinctive reaction to his dishabille is a thrill of possessiveness. The ideally turned-out model of perfection is the rest of the world's Sherlock Holmes, but seeing him in a state of muss is my own peculiar prerogative, and these tiny hints of disorder were his way of reminding me that he was mine. Subtle as it was, that crooked tie came as near to breaking me as any of his far more blatant strategies.My own increased attention to attire was directed much more straightforwardly. I simply took the time and care necessary to ensure that I looked my best, and left it at that. When we met up in the sitting room, however, the appreciation in his eyes was obvious, however much he tried to hide it, and convinced me that I had not done altogether badly."Shall we?" I asked, gathering my coat and hat from the stand by the door.How he did it, I shall never know. I do not wonder much about the uncanny speed with which he crossed the room, for that is the sort of display which is typical of Holmes. But how he managed to back me into a wall, his hands planted on either side of my head, without touching me for even a second, I may (and probably shall) labour for the rest of my life to puzzle out. The smells of his nearness filled my nostrils--soap and pomade and the underlying layer of his own scent, which is something like cedar and something like clove with uncultured undertones, deep below the surface, of sweat and musk. His eyes burned into mine."We could, Watson. Or we could stay here. I am certainly looking forward to Mr. Dvořák's newest symphony--by far his most accomplished effort to date, they say--but I can think of one or two other pastimes which might induce me to postpone the pleasure of hearing it.""Nonsense, Holmes," I said, reminding myself of my plan and managing to keep my voice steady in spite of his nearness. "I should never ask you to sacrifice a pleasure you hold so dear as music.""Not even in favour of a pleasure I hold dearer still?" he asked, and I swear to heaven that the man nuzzled my neck without touching me at all. I felt it, though I knew full well that we had not actually come into contact."There is no such thing," I replied, biting back a groan. "I am not a jealous man, nor do I have cause to be so where other human beings are concerned, but I admit that, on occasion, the effect of an orchestra on you, or the way you touch your violin, makes me positively burn with envy.""And yet now, at my moment of greatest desire, you would trust me to my other lover, rather than staking your own claim?""I do not doubt your affection for me," I replied. "The fact that you would offer to stay home from the symphony in favour of taking me to bed is more than sufficient.""I do not believe that we should make it to the bed. I am not sure we should even get as far as the settee. I suspect that, if you kissed me now, you should very shortly find yourself with your back against the door to the hall, and I should very shortly find myself on my knees, with your cock in my mouth."Neither I nor the organ he had just mentioned was unaffected by that filthy statement, especially with him standing so very, very near. "We shall be late, if you do not let me free." It was, I confess, more a moan than a steady declaration."Then let us be late," he said. "Touch me, John."He spoke the words in his most commanding voice, the one which must strike a chord in any man trained for military service, and which long years of partnership have made particularly effective on me. I never had to train myself to accept that voice. I obeyed it from the first day of our acquaintance, and have spent the subsequent decade-and-a-half conditioning myself not to respond to it, when I choose. Even a year before, I should, I think, have been compelled by that voice. But I become a bit better able to resist it every day, and I therefore possessed just enough self-restraint to answer him, "Holmes, if you would move away, I should be very sincerely obliged."He sighed then, his shoulders slumping, and did as I asked. I was not nearly so relieved as I ought to have been--not until we had collected our hats and coats and stepped out onto the street, when he immediately linked his arm with mine. Never had I so resented the laws of decency (not to mention the laws of England) that prevented any more intimate touch amongst the wider world.The cab-ride passed uneventfully. As the carriage was a closed one, and we were therefore shut behind doors and unable to touch without losing our bet, we spent most of the journey attempting to keep our knees from knocking against each other in that narrow space, and chatting of this and that. Our increased fussiness as to dress and our little diversion in the sitting-room had indeed made us very nearly late, but we hurried up to our usual box (which was set aside for our use whenever we wished it by the grateful owner of the concert hall, a Mrs. Helena Grice Paterson, for whom we had done some service long ago). Holmes pulled aside the curtain for me with a flourish and we ducked inside, settling into our seats just as the lights were dimmed and the orchestra began to tune.There were a few shorter pieces played before the symphony began. Among these, the only one which I specifically recall was a lovely étude by Chopin, in E major, I believe. It was a beautiful piano piece with a strong clear melody, but turbulent; it rushed from soft sweet moments of pianissimo to crashing forte with a speed which ought to have been abrupt, but was not. It was just the sort of piece guaranteed to catch Holmes. Sure enough, when I glanced over, I saw that his eyes were closed, his hands gripping at the armrests, something profound twitching through the muscles of his face. A stranger who witnessed only this side of Holmes would suppose him tremendously sentimental, but that would be a serious misjudgment. He is terribly sensitive, but that is not at all the same thing. A sentimental person is unusually receptive to specific circumstances, that which is tragic or sweet; Holmes is unusually receptive to everything. The screeching of his senses and the rushing of his mind are both his blessing and his curse. For better or worse, his sensitivity is what makes him who he is: the virtuoso and the depressive and the addict and the genius. And, I ought to mention, the devoted and passionate lover as well.The Chopin piece was a short one, and when it was done, and the enthusiastic applause had faded, the rest of the orchestra came to attention. Holmes always looks something like a hound who has caught a scent in the moments before a piece begins, so keen is his anticipation. On this occasion, the Chopin had left him even more hyper-aware. He practically trembled as the conductor lifted his baton, and when it fell a tremor passed through his entire form. My plans were looking more promising by the moment.The Dvořák symphony, the composer's ninth, began gently, coaxingly, with a long phrase that eased the listener forward and culminated in a pair of teasing false stops, then repeated. Suddenly, there was a blaring of horns, a darting of strings and a crashing of percussion, and the mood changed entirely to something dangerous and brooding. Good and bad, I thought. Such an aggressive tone was hardly suited to seduction, but the emotion of the music was running so high already that it was certain to keep Holmes on the edge of his seat.I was determined not to rush things. I wished I had thought to sneak off to listen to the orchestra rehearse this afternoon, for it would have been of use to know the symphony I had to work with; as it was, all I knew was that it had been described by critics as "driving" and "forceful". Thus much had already been borne out, but I had hopes that the tone would become rather less confrontational as the piece continued. As it was, I decided to wait for the proper opening before beginning my attack. The whole of the first movement continued in tones alternately brooding and triumphant, all of it entirely too explosive for my purposes, and so I simply sat and enjoyed it and bided my time.The second movement, however, dawned far more promisingly. It was based around a simple lilting line, meandering leisurely along, almost a lullabye in its gentleness. This, I decided, was my moment. As the symphony wound its way through the measures, I moved my leg sideways to brush my knee delicately against Holmes's. He gave a slight half-start but did not open his eyes, which I took as an excellent indication--it proved that he was still adequately aware of his body to feel my attentions, but also sufficiently caught up in the music to prevent him stopping me. When he did not move away, I circled my knee slowly against his and dragged it upwards, scraping gently along the outer edge of his thigh until I was blocked by the arm of his chair. For a moment I lingered there, careful not to rush, and then stretched out an arm and repeated the same set of motions, in time with the repetition of that slow sweet line of melody, with my fingertips against his hand and arm. There came a moment when the flutes rang out clear, and here my hand moved to his neck, my fingers sliding in and out of his hair with the advance and withdrawal of those shining silver notes.When the flutes had had their moment of emphasis, the symphony slipped back to its candied whisper, seeming determined to keep to that pace and tone for some time. That suited my purposes admirably. I moved my hand to Holmes's, lifted it from its resting place, and drew it over to my mouth. For the next five minutes, as the music floated and skipped in its sweet pastoral melody, I lavished his hand every way that I knew how (and I cannot deny that, while no man can know everything about anything, I come very well near it where Holmes's hands are concerned). For a while I teased his palm with nothing more than my breath and the occasional brush of my nose, then slowly brought my moustache into play. As I dragged my lower lip tenderly along the bottom edge of his hand, his little finger extended for me of its own accord, encouraging me to follow its line. I complied, and, when I reached the end of that journey, kissed his fingertip with parted lips, just grazing it with my tongue. Then I transferred my attentions to the opposite side of his hand, tickling the pad of his thumb with my tongue and moving to scrape the webbing between thumb and forefinger with my teeth, concluding the manoeuvre with a deep kiss to his palm.Throughout the whole, I had attempted to keep pace with the orchestra as best I could. When the tempo began suddenly to speed I planted a rapid series of kisses over the back of his hand, and at a sharp, blaring crescendo slipped his ring finger into my mouth as far as the second knuckle and sucked at it emphatically. At this he gave his first indication of truly reacting, a tiny sound in the back of his throat which I should not have heard had I not been straining my ears for it. The symphony settled swiftly back into gentility, and I slid his cuff button undone to nuzzle at his wrist. Between this occupation and the occasional soft kiss to the same spot, we passed sedately to the end of the second movement.During the pause between movements I slipped from my seat and moved around to stand behind him. I might have worried about being seen, but this being a Wednesday night the box across from us was empty, and we were outside the easy line-of-sight of any other part of the concert hall (except, of course, for the stage, but between their concentration and the glare of the footlights I had no fears in that direction). As I had suspected, this movement began far more strongly than the last. As the first notes rang out through the hall, I buried my face in Holmes's neck and felt him shudder, though I was impeded by his collar and tie. For the first minute or so of the movement the orchestra surged and I imitated them as best I could, wrapping my hands around Holmes's forearms and laying waste to his neck with my lips. Whether I or the symphony was responsible for his struggles for breath I cannot say, but I think I certainly can claim credit for the way he arched back in his seat, pushing his neck against my mouth.It seemed a long while before the pace and volume of the music grew less intense, though I know it was not truly many seconds. When it began at last to quiet, the orchestra settled into a steady, driving rhythm beneath the same lyrical theme. I punctuated each measure with a kiss to his ear, lengthening these occasionally to a lick when the notes grew rather longer, my hands beginning to roam over his shoulders, his arms, his chest. As the music grew impassioned once again I found myself with my arms wrapped fully around him, pulling him into as close an embrace as his chair would allow, my mouth enveloping the entirety of his ear and my tongue pillaging it mercilessly. I knew now just how much I was affecting him; he quite literally shook within the circle of my arms. This time the crescendo was soon past, and as the orchestra settled into a playfully tripping pace, I moved to kneel beside his chair and lifted a hand to turn his face towards me. Holmes's lips met mine with eagerness and he fell in with my tempo willingly--less, I think, from a wish to be cooperative than because he was too caught up in the piece to do anything else. While the music built and eased, swelled and waned, his tongue thrust and parried against mine. I gradually contrived, though still kissing him, to slip around his chair until I knelt between his legs. As the third movement built to its final peak, one of my hands rested on his and the other grasped him firmly by the back of the neck. I kissed him with all my heart; he replied with reciprocal fervor. Our breath gave out just at the moment when the orchestra settled into silence.The fourth and final movement of the symphony had Holmes' hackles up--in the best sense--before its fifth note. The tension in those opening phrases was so palpable that I shivered with them myself. As the strings blared out my hands moved their way up Holmes' thighs, kneading his flesh in a series of none-too-gentle caresses. When the brass joined in, I moved my hand up and slipped a thumb beneath the waistline of his trousers, tracing it back and forth over the smooth skin beneath. Holmes's entire face contorted at that, his mouth opening wide in a silent scream; when the strings returned to prominence and I transfered my fingers to his buttons, his eyebrows nearly collided with his hairline and his eyes fluttered open for the first time since the symphony had begun. I placed one finger against my lips, more as a way of teasing him than a caution to silence, and watched his eyes drift shut again as I began on the buttons of his drawers. I had just freed his prick from the confines of his trousers when the pace of the symphony grew frantic, far too rapid for me to have matched without becoming ridiculous. For a moment I was at a loss as to the best course, until it occurred to me that to move at half the orchestra's tempo would maintain the same connection to the music. I bent my head down and drew my tongue along his length, changing my direction with every other upbeat and sparing the occasional measure for a kiss, noting with satisfaction the way Holmes' breath hitched and stuttered.After a time, the orchestra wore itself out and slowed, spending a brief time in minor before another of those high sweet appeals on the flute. I moved a hand to wrap around his shaft, sliding my palm up and down in time with this more sedate tempo. When the strings began once again to blazon out strong I maintained the steady pace of my hand but punctuated its effects with brief touches of my lips to the tip of his prick. Next the notes turned playful and I varied the movement of my hand, teasing him with twists of my fingers and pressure that slackened and increased. For some minutes the symphony continued to alternate between the deeper, more serious notes, when I stroked him firmly, and the lighter moments, when I slackened my grip somewhat but supplemented my hand with my mouth. All the while the music was gaining slowly in speed and power and, when the orchestra came to what I judged would be the penultimate crescendo, I finally stopped teasing and took the first few inches of Holmes's prick fully into my mouth, leaving my hand wrapped around his base. The tempo almost immediately reverted to largo and so did my motion, my lips sliding up and down at a tortuously measured pace. The symphony wandered playfully, reaching little crests and breaking again, and I followed it. And then it began to move again in earnest, building to what was clearly the high point of the entire piece. The intensity of Holmes's desire was obvious now--not only, of course, in the ways that anyone would have noticed, but in a myriad of subtler indications: the muscles of his stomach had gone entirely taut, and his fingers never stopped moving, and his neck tilted to the left at precisely the proper angle, and he seemed to have given up on breathing altogether. I knew very well that his body was so attuned to the music that he would inevitably climax when it did, only a few notes hence.Unless, of course, I immediately pulled away from him and retired to my own seat.The look on Holmes' face then was one I see very rarely. The only occasion in the past six months when I could recall it making an appearance was on the day in spring when the abominable Woodhouse caught up with us at last and managed to break Holmes's arm before I had time to press my revolver to that blackguard's temple. It is an expression of dual pains for Holmes: that of physical discomfort, and of the mental anguish that comes of knowing that he has been foiled. As the final notes of the symphony rang through the hall and the audience burst into peals of applause, Holmes sat absolutely still, wearing that profound grimace, not bothering even to look at me.I began, suddenly, to feel that I may have miscalculated. I had counted on his unsated desire, hoping that he would immediately drag me home to satisfy his need. The deadly calm with which he began slowly to do up his buttons, however, did not seem to bode well for that possibility. When I had given my final clap and Holmes still had not moved more than his hands, I became positively nervous. I should not like to characterize my actions in standing up and making as though to leave the box as a retreat. It was a calculated manoeuvre, intended to entice Holmes into following.I was halfway through the curtain before Holmes's hand caught a fistful of my jacket and hauled me back inside. Before I knew what was happening he had thrown me against the back wall of our box--not entirely gently--and was pinning me there with his body, one of his legs bent between mine and one of his hands trapping my wrists above my head. The Holmes of a few minutes ago, the artist overcome with the beauty of the music and the feeling of my hands and mouth on him, was nowhere to be seen. This was Holmes nearly as angry as I have ever known him."You, Watson, have just deprived me--willfully--of what ought to have been the most sublime erotic experience of my entire existence," he growled, his eyes flashing. "What, precisely, have you got to say for yourself?""What have I got to say for myself?" I repeated incredulously, emphasizing the ridiculousness of the question. "Well, Holmes," I went on in an exaggerated tone, "I should say that, having certainly been responsible for what stands at present as your most sublime erotic experience--and for a bare minimum of the following hundred by rank--I have perhaps done more good than harm in that respect."That is no excuse. I have no intention of pardoning you on the grounds of past service." The knee between my thighs pressed upwards mercilessly. It is entirely too possible that I whimpered--the more so as I had certainly not escaped unaffected from our little encounter myself."Then what do you plan to do about it?"He smiled, but with no warmth behind his eyes. If I did not trust him so entirely, I might almost have been frightened, but this was Holmes. "You mean, do I intend to...persuade you to finish what you have started, right here and now, whether you have any particular inclination to it or no?" He let it hang in the air for a moment, but then went on, "I think you know that I am not so unsubtle as to take any satisfaction in that, Watson. No..." he ran his index finger along my jawline, tilting my face upwards when he came to my chin. "I simply intend to repay you in kind." He pressed the full length of his body against me for one burning moment, brought his mouth to my earlobe, and bit down sharply. By the time my gasp had passed my lips, he had moved away."Come along, Watson!" he called, the curtain of our box ruffling in his wake. As soon as I could force my brain to unfog, I hurried after him.The cab ride home was a silent affair. He did not wait for me as I paid the driver, but strode rapidly down the street, through our door, up the stairs. I followed with some trepidation; one never knew what to expect from Holmes in this sort of mood. When I entered the sitting room, it was to find him with violin in hand, tuning. His head darted up when I walked in. "Sit," he commanded curtly, gesturing at my armchair. When I hesitated, he crossed over to me and backed me across the room, retreating before him, until I stood just before the chair in question. Then the arm that held his bow extended, and he guided me into my seat with its tip. He leaned down, and held my eye in his hypnotic way."I am well aware that, generally speaking, other men do not experience music as I do--even you, Watson. I do not believe, however, that any sort of unusual talent is required to feel music as I feel it. It is simply a matter of a certain sympathy between the soul of a piece and that of the listener. Given the right piece of music, any man with any kind of feeling may be brought to his knees. And whatever your other qualities, Watson, no one could accuse you of lacking in feeling. So you will stay there, and you will listen, and you will understand what it is you snatched away from me tonight."I shivered. "Holmes," I began, attempting to rise from my chair. Once again his bow found my sternum, more forcibly this time, and pushed me back."You will listen."My mouth was dry and my heart pounding. This time his voice was so charged with command that I could not resist, try as I might. So I stayed where I was, and I listened.His violin and bow swung to his shoulder so smoothly that it was difficult not to believe them a part of himself. He began with a single note held long and clear and lingering--a test, I think, of my attention and my receptiveness. Then he began, slowly, to play for me.I recognized the first theme he introduced from many prior performances, but I had never before understood that it was him I was hearing. In retrospect I am not sure how I could ever have missed it; I suppose that I did not know it because, before, he had not wished me to. His theme was sad and sweet and dark and lyrical and grand, exposing those sides of his nature which at all other times he attempts to conceal. I am an admittedly biased observer, but I cannot believe that anyone who heard that line of melody and knew it for what it was could possibly have helped loving him. It was as beautiful and profound a bit of music as the man himself.He did not linger overlong on this theme that was himself, no matter how much I wished he would, tarrying only long enough to expand it fully and implant it in my ears before another familiar strain crept its way in. This new air was steady and strong and immediately appealing, and yet with the occasional unexpected--but never discordant--minor chord slipped in where one would least expect it. It took me longer than it ought to have to understand that this was my leitmotif. At first listen, it was nothing whatever like Holmes's, yet the transition between the two had been effortless, and when, after a good while expanding on my theme in increasingly tender strains, he began to incorporate his own, I found that they blended impeccably. It was more than a simple harmony, for each line seemed to brighten and to deepen when mixed with the other, and neither was permitted to seize the limelight. They did not duel but melded, in a way that was marvelous to hear. And even if the music itself had not been lovely, even if I had not known what he and his bow and strings were trying to say, the look on his face as he played it would still have quickened my breath.At first, he played this new compound theme--us--straightforwardly, until its meter matched my pulse or my pulse its meter, I am not sure which. Once he had bound the notes to my heartbeat he began gradually to increase the both of them. At the same time, however, the piece became somehow more staccato, its beat more pronounced, and every now and then he would bring the thing nearly to a halt and start to build again from the beginning. He also took to adding little flourishes, distractions from the main theme which kept it from becoming predictable. Every tone seemed now to be working its way into my body. Those miniature divertissements were caresses, every one, each raising goose flesh over some new part of me. As his rhythm became more and more driving I found my hips shifting minutely in time, but I had no self-discipline to spare to prevent those tiny thrusts. It took all I had to keep some small part of my brain for myself as more and more of my mind was swept away, becoming part of Holmes and of his music. I had long since forgotten our bet, but I could no more have touched him than I could have walked away. He was not a man, then, not a thing of blood and bone. He was made of notes and phrases and melodies, and as lost in them as I was. He swayed his way around the sitting-room, led by his own violin. He did not draw near or lean over my shoulder or tease me with his eyes, as he would have done if his purpose had been to draw me into his bed. He belonged to his music as surely as I belonged to him. There is no doubt that, as he bowed faster and faster, my body became more and more full of something which it seems very inadequate to call tension, but, while I did want to make love to him more than I can readily express, what I felt was not really sexual desire. It was so very, very much more than that.For what must have been an hour he played with me, setting every nerve in my body afire and then easing off a bit only to torment me the more. And then he began what I was sure from the first was the ultimate crescendo of our sonata, increasing the pressure within me until I was sure I would split apart at the seams. I would never have dreamed than anyone, even Holmes, could have accomplished such a thing without touching me; it would have been a feat enough to provoke such intense feelings even with the full use of our bodies. My mind was suddenly full of the image of exactly what it would take to bring me to that state without music. I could taste Holmes' sweat, feel the soft skin of his shoulder beneath my lips, and see the strange shape of our intertwined bodies--'the beast with two backs,' I thought wildly--as he bent over my prone form with my knees pulled up on either side. I was delirious, unmoored. The anchor of self I had clung to had been rent from my grasp, and I existed now only in the notes he played and in the fantasy of our lovemaking which I was no longer certain was only in my head. Were we in his bed, conjoined in that most perfect, primal way, his face before my eyes alight with ecstasy? Or was I alone in my armchair, listening to him play me out of my senses? Did it matter? And after that there was not even the fantasy--there was only the building, and the building, and the building, and just beyond my grasp lay either death or sheer divinity or both...And then he stopped. Not brought the piece to a conclusion, or resolved the dissonance; just stopped.My eyes flew open. I was suddenly John Watson again, panting and gasping and wide-eyed and a fool in my own armchair by the fire. Once I had regained some small semblance of sanity, I thought to look for Holmes, and found that he had sunk on the hearthrug, his instrument still clutched in his hands. The instinct to care for him overrode all other considerations. I knelt beside him on unsteady limbs. As I gripped his violin and bow and tugged them gently from his grasp he glanced up, met my eyes. That wild otherness that had ridden me while he played still burned behind his eyes."That," Holmes said hoarsely, in a voice darker and yet, somehow, more innocent than his own. "That is what you did to me."I swallowed hard, but did not try to avoid his eyes. "I'm sorry." My voice seemed to have undergone the same metamorphosis as his.He nodded once. "You did not know," he replied, and I knew that what he meant was 'you are forgiven.'We grew silent again and stared at each other, too overwhelmed still for anything more. After what seemed a long time he reached out a hand and ran it over my face--not touching me, but no less an intimate caress for that. When he leaned forward tonight, it was not in imitation of a kiss. I was inexpressibly glad of that. I did not want to kiss him, nor he to kiss me; it would have meant nothing, just then. But he very nearly rested his forehead against mine, and it was beautiful."Good-night, John," he said softly."Good-night, Sherlock." I do not often use his given name; he is not particularly fond of it, and neither am I. But I used it then because there is power in that which is secret and unspoken, power in things lost and things left behind, and power, too, in true names. He did not flinch at it, and so I knew he understood.We looked at each other for one long moment more, then rose in tandem and made our ways to our separate beds. Neither of us made the slightest sound. I should not have been surprised to find that we could have walked through the walls. When, after what might have been hours or seconds of wakefulness, I succumbed to slumber, I dreamed of Holmes asleep within my skin, and, even as I slept, I had not the slightest doubt that he was dreaming the same dream. ----- CHAPTER BREAK ----- Thursday It was waiting for me, propped against the mirror, when I woke that morning. I hesitated before going to take the envelope in hand, and yet when I opened it it was to find a single sheet of paper, covered over with the combined code and cipher which Holmes and I employ for communications too delicate to entrust to paper in plain English. The note was brief, but it was clear to me from the tidiness of the hand-- very different from the looping scrawl Holmes employs when in a hurry-- that he had lingered over the words. Watson,I suggest that you begin your plans for the Sumatra tale. We are both aware that your confidence in my abilities is absolute, and that in the realm of the sensual it is entirely deserved. Surely you can imagine the extraordinary tortures to which I am capable of subjecting you in these coming days. You shall not for a single second, I assure you, my dear Watson, have me out of your head. I shall be there everywhere you turn and everywhere you look and in everything you do, until your need for me is the only thing you are, until I have broken you so completely that you come to me begging, on your knees. Would it not be better to make a conditional surrender now, when you may still keep some of your dignity, than be reduced to such a state of abject subjection as I shall most assuredly provoke? If you should be so wise as to seek me out now, ready to bestow that kiss or caress which shall mark your capitulation, I might even be so generous as to reward your good sense, in one or two of those many ways which you know very well that I can. Only recall those ecstasies to which I have brought you in the past, my Watson, and remember that spirit of self-betterment which drives me always. I feel I may have been getting a little out of practice, a little complacent, but, if you give yourself over to me now, I shall devote my entire attention to the problem of your desire, and endeavour with that same dedication to bring you to such a state of absolute pleasure as you have never before experienced. If not, however, that energy shall be directed towards your undoing. It's all one to me-- I shall enjoy it tremendously, either way. It is only to you, my dear Watson, that the distinction shall apply. What is it to be, John--agony or bliss?Yours sincerely,S.H. It was not at all what I expected. It was, however, what I ought to have expected. The communion of souls which had passed between Holmes and myself the night before had been so intense that the mere recall of it was overwhelming, even this next morning. To Holmes, whose temperament is so much more reserved than mine, the memory might well be nearly terrifying, although not the cruelest of tortures could induce him to admit it. That he should revert into a less dangerous vein, and begin anew the teasing, and not entirely unpleasant, torments of our bet instead was entirely predictable, and to be honest, I was glad of it. I know full well that Holmes has taken me fully into his heart, as I have taken him into mine, but we cannot live forever at fever pitch, neither of us.Besides, in this act of pulling-back, he had given me something entirely new. In despite of this long-established code of ours, Holmes had never in all the long years since the inception of our love-affair put a single word to paper which he would not have done when we were only friends. We used our secret method for business matters, or to confirm the authenticity of messages to each other, or for that singular variety of case-note which could spell ruin to a client if read by outside eyes. I had never had of him anything remotely resembling a love letter...and now I saw why. He could not, it seemed, overcome his reservations sufficiently to put to paper a single word which could actually be considered indecent. True, his letter had its own variety of allure, particularly as it was so very distinctly Holmes in every sense; those very qualities that made it atypical made it his, and I cannot claim that I was wholly unaffected. But it was far too combative and far too formal a missive to even approach the level of potency which good erotic writing ought to have. I found myself grinning with anticipation. Today's game, I felt, would be one I should thoroughly enjoy.I dressed myself quickly, though with some care, and took myself down to the sitting room, where Holmes was already installed. He was ensconced in his usual armchair, with his usual collection of papers strewn in its usual disorder over, under and around him. I bid him a lighthearted good morning, and watched his eyes dart to the note which protruded casually from my jacket pocket."You've breakfasted already, then?" I asked, glancing at the mostly-empty teacup and crumb-strewn plate at his place at table."You scintillate this morning, Watson," Holmes said, and turned back to his Times. I fancy I caught a note of relief in his voice that I had chosen to focus on this morning, rather than last night."If only I could say the same for you, Holmes," I responded. I pulled the note from my pocket and waved it in his direction. "I cannot say I found it a very compelling piece of correspondence. Idle threats and vague promises? Really, I am quite disappointed."He gave me a cool glance, and once again returned to his paper. "I am sorry to hear that it did not meet with your approval, doctor. If I break into sobs of distress at your cruel dismissal of my little literary attempt, would you come put your arm about me?""I might, but I suspect we should both of us prefer not to make a practical trial of the thing," I replied.Holmes looked up at me once again, gave me the briefest little sliver of a smile. "Well, perhaps not," he admitted, and the conversation was permitted to drop.I enjoyed a leisurely breakfast-- Mrs. Hudson's excellent fare deserves to be given proper attention whenever possible--and then wandered over to my writing desk and settled in. I did not turn to look at Holmes, but I could tell that he was watching me. Slowly and with deliberation, I withdrew a few sheets of paper, my pen and inkwell from their drawers, wriggled myself into comfort, and began to write. My dear Holmes, It was tremendously, uncharacteristically foolish of you, to extend our little game into the realm of words on paper. Even when you are at your most uncomplimentary, your favourite indictment of my published works is "romantic." Do you really suppose that you will manage to win a contest with me here, in my own particular domain? In almost any other arena I am willing to concede your superior skill. But I, my Holmes, am a writer, down to the core of me, and here you are at my mercy.Perhaps that is why you did it; perhaps you wish to be helpless just for a moment, just every now and then. In the physical realm I shall never be truly able to wrest your control away from you, never trap you into feeling powerless. On paper, however, I have you captive, to be subjected at my whim to any of a million sweet indignities. You are mine here, Holmes, even more surely than when my body is bent over yours and my cock is inside you. If I want to feel that kind warm mouth of yours, bobbing away on me with undignified eagerness, I need only twitch my fingers. If I wish to see you, splayed on your sheets, naked and writhing and sweat-slick and dark-eyed with lust, it takes only a few drops of ink to achieve it. If I wish to hear that particular moan, the one straight from the soul of you, which only passes your lips in the moment when you breach me, or my own name, a single trembling syllable, shouted in concupiscent abandon, my words can make it so. And that, of course, is only in the realm of memory. With a little imagination, how very much more can my letters achieve!For there are things which I can make so here which could never be in the realm of mere flesh. On paper I can multiply myself over and over again, until I possess a hundred eager hands for tearing at your clothing and stroking your skin, and then abandon them at once for an equal crowd of mouths. The sensation would be nearly enough to drive you mad, I should imagine: every digit, every vertebra, your ears, your neck, your thighs, your hips, your sac, your prick, all enveloped at once in the dark wet heat of my mouth, and one pair of lips still left to sweetly caress yours, to remind you that it is I and only I who am subjecting you to such unendurable, unparallelled bliss. Then again, perhaps so many of me would be a waste. After all, we could accomplish so very much with only two: one to take, and one to be taken. Would you like that, my dear Holmes, to be both subject and object of my passion all at once? In life it can never be so, and yet in words I can make you feel it, bring to you in a few syllables the extravagant sensation of me around you and within you at once. Take a moment and truly imagine it, the fullness and the tightness and the overwhelming, incomparable pleasure that such an act should bring. If that thought is not enough to make you ache for me, I cannot imagine what would.Though this little exercise of ours is grounded firmly in the carnal, the trait which you would call my rampageous sentimentalism prompts me to point out--to my own detriment, no doubt, but one must obey one's nature--that there are other impossible pleasures, of a less strictly physical variety, which I can indulge only on the page. Here we may walk through the park not only arm in arm but hand in hand; here, I may look at you before others with the same affection in my eyes which I must usually reserve for our time alone; here, I may shout to the world, if I wish it, that Sherlock Holmes is mine, and I am his, and, let the fates rage and tear as they like, so shall it always be. And here, where you cannot grow cold and shy away, I may tell you truly that there is no corner of myself that does not love you, just as profoundly and as deeply as any petty human creature can. I love you, Holmes, and love you, and love you, and love you, and I know that, however much you may scorn the words, you would not for any price have me feel other than I do. It is not one pair in a million who find what we have found in each other, and, no matter what the world says of men of our stripe, I am struck dumb daily by the immensity of my good fortune-- of our good fortune. No matter how much a creature of language I may be, I run here into the outermost limit of what I can express in words. But come to me, my Holmes, and let me show you, with my hands and my lips and my body, that I mean what I say. My dearest Holmes, I want you so much in this moment, want you so much at every moment. I endure it only with knowing that your desire for me is just as great and just as single-minded. Are you aware what it does to me, knowing how quickly I could have you moaning for me? With even a simple look--the very one I just shot in your direction, so that, when you read this, you will remember it--I know that I can set your pulse to pounding, just as it is now. I know from the slope of your shoulders, the slow sliding of your eyes, the tense arching of the feet you have left bare as a temptation, that you are waiting for me, in every sense of the word. But I have no intention of surrendering to you, Holmes, nor even of walking over to give you this letter. I shall leave it here, where it sits, on my desk, and take myself off on some flimsy pretense, and the moment I am gone you will rush over to read it. Might I be permitted to suggest that, having read so far, you come join me in my bed? At the cost of one simple first touch, you may have of me anything and everything you might desire. I need not be so immodest as to sing my own praises; you know very well just how much I have to give. Only come upstairs to me, my dear Holmes, and I can make you forget you ever had pride to lose, forget that anyone or anything else in the world exists, except our two bodies. Whatever you can think to ask, whatever you can imagine wishing for, I can provide it, if only you come to me now...Yours, in every way,J.W. It was incredibly difficult to do as I had written, and leave him then. I should have given so very much to have seen his face as he read it, but I was sure that, had I been there, he would have found a way to suppress his reactions. With me out of the way, he should be able to feel the full effect of my words--would, I hoped, be unable to avoid feeling it. Simply writing the thing had left me decidedly unsteady myself, and, though I could not quite feel the supreme confidence I professed in the opening paragraphs of that communique, I thought I knew my Holmes well enough to predict that his reaction ought to be quite significantly on the positive side. I was sure that, had he written such a missive to me, I should have found it nearly impossible to resist the urge to seek him out.When an hour passed away, however, and he had still not come up to my room to seek me, I had to admit that my letter had, apparently, enjoyed no great success. The hall clock chimed twelve-thirty, our customary luncheon hour, and I was forced to give up waiting for him and make my way back downstairs in search of sustenance. Mrs. Hudson was there when I arrived, ladling out bowls of her vegetable soup, and attempting to persuade Holmes--who sat at his chemical table--to come and eat. It took me a moment to realize that he was not in the midst of an experiment, but was, in fact, writing. Why he had chosen to take the trouble to clear a space for his page among the rabble of retorts and Bunsen burners that littered that surface when both his desk and mine sat open and unoccupied I hadn't a notion, but I knew Holmes's little eccentricities far too well to be concerned by such behavior. Indeed, I should hardly have batted an eyelash to find him writing beneath his chemical table, much less at it."You should only be wasting food, Mrs. Hudson, and the water necessary to clean my untouched dish, as I have no intention whatever of lunching today," Holmes said, his nose still buried in his writing. "I should be obliged if you would cease troubling me and take the soup away.""Not all the soup, Mrs. Hudson," I put in, resting a hand consolingly on her arm. "One of us, at least, is prepared to thoroughly enjoy this fine meal.""Thank you, Dr. Watson," she said fondly, though her gaze, which bespoke more worry than annoyance, rested on Holmes. "Mr. Holmes, I thought that you were without a case, just at present? Surely you cannot be so very busy."He looked up, then. His aspect was harried. I could not help grinning as I noticed the tracks where he had dragged his fingers through his hair, and realized that my letter must, indeed, have had some effect. I had noticed the moment I walked in the room that he had read it, for it had disappeared from my desk, but this was my first confirmation that he had felt the impact of the words."I have other calls on my time than cases," Holmes said, in a voice that aimed for acerbity but which, to the careful listener, conveyed only strain. "This is a particularly...crucial piece of correspondence, and I have been distracted enough already." At this he returned to his scribbling, his manner indicating only too clearly that he had no intention of paying any more heed to either of us until it suited him to do so.Mrs. Hudson knows well enough--nearly as well as I do--when it is best to cut one's losses with Holmes and simply allow him to have his own way. She sighed, shot me a commiseratory glance, and bustled off.Though my first instinct was to hurry to Holmes's side in hopes that my proximity would finish the job that my words had begun, I resisted it as long as I could on the theory that, the more time I spent in the room with him before approaching, the more tightly-wound he would be when finally I did make my move. I forced myself to eat my soup quietly and calmly, though I confess I may have hurried a bit. Only once I had emptied my bowl, finished my bread, and brushed the crumbs from my jacket did I permit myself to wander over, plant my hands on the back of his chair, and lean over his shoulder."I don't suppose that that letter might happen to be for me, Holmes?" I asked. I did not go so far as to speak it directly into his ear, but my face was near enough that I saw the hairs of his neck stand up as my breath tickled them."You know very well that it is, Watson," he said. "But it is not nearly finished, and I should be obliged if you should cease distracting me and permit me to write.""I'm not sure that would be to my advantage," I murmured, pressing myself against the back of his chair, that he might feel my presence in a literal sense despite the fact that we were still not touching.He closed his eyes--no more than an elongated blink, but long enough for me to rejoice in it, and then said, "You suppose that annoying me will further your cause? I cannot say that it seems a very promising strategy, but I defer to your judgement on the matter.""I should not call your manner just now 'annoyed,'" I said, and this time I did turn so his ear was in the path of my lips. "But I defer to your judgement on the matter," I quoted back teasingly.He gave another of those overgrown blinks. Then, in a split second, he transformed himself, encasing himself in ice with a proficiency born of long years of practice. "I assure you, Watson, that, if annoyance is an inaccurate term, it is only so by virtue of understatement. I cannot imagine that you should be pleased if I took to the practice of hovering over your shoulder while you engage in your little fabulations, and therefore I do not do so. I should be gratified if you would extend me the same courtesy."I was too well satisfied with his obvious discomfiture to be hurt by his coldness. "As you like, Holmes," I replied, straightening up. "I have one or two errands to attend to. Is there anything I can get for you while I'm out?""The slipper is almost empty, if you would be so good.""Why don't you come with me?" I coaxed. "A bit of a walk could be quite pleasant. Through the Park, if you like.""It is going to rain, Watson," he said, without looking up from his paper.I looked out the window. The sky did indeed have a somewhat stormy cast about it. "Very well, then. Enjoy your writing."From sheer habit, I bent down to kiss him. My lips were within an inch of his cheek when it occurred to me what I was doing. I froze. He turned his head--knowing, of course, exactly what I had intended--and smiled at me, tight-lipped but with genuine amusement. I expected a teasing comment, but instead he allowed his smile to slowly fade as he simply looked at me. It was one of the rare moments when he allowed his affection to show plainly on his face, and I had no desire either to move or to look away."Holmes," I said, "I don't suppose that, if we both agreed to kiss each other, we could simply forget about it afterwards and go on as though nothing had happened?""I do not think that would be quite in the spirit of the thing, Watson.""No. I suppose not." I lingered for a moment more, very seriously considering abandoning the whole project; with him looking at me like that, the desire to kiss him was almost irresistible. But I summoned my last shreds of self-restraint, and headed for the door.I hurried through my early errands, hoping to make it home before the rain. I had my tin of boot polish and Holmes's pouch of tobacco in my hands and had just ducked into the bookshop, intending to snatch up a copy of Mr. Wells's new novel--an odd little book about fantastical human beasts that Thurston had recommended to me the last time we met at the club--when the sky opened and it began positively to pour. If I attempted to walk the dozen blocks back to Baker Street under those conditions, my leg wouldn't forgive me for a week, and, at any rate, the bookshop was a pleasant enough place to be stranded. So I settled into one of the armchairs Mr. Climpson had scattered throughout the place for use by his customers, and spent an hour or two with my novel. Dusk had just begun to darken the grey of the sky when I judged that the rain had abated sufficiently and ventured out into what was now merely an unpleasant sort of drizzle.I was damp but not drenched when I finally found myself back in the sitting room, staring once again at a meal which Holmes would not touch and at the man himself. He was exactly where I had left him but surrounded now by a corona of crumpled papers that marked discarded drafts. I considered attempting to purloin one, to get a glimpse of what he had been writing all this time, but I happened to notice that, sometime while I was out, he had retrieved his bow and laid it beside him on the chemical table. He had clearly not been playing--his violin lay on the windowsill, on the other side of the room. I understood precisely what that bow was for. If he could not use his hands to brush me away from his abandoned attempts, he should prod me away instead. I laughed softly to myself and decided not to chance it. Either I would learn soon enough what he was writing, or else he would give up entirely, in which case I should be the victor of this day's skirmish by default. It was not worth risking a rap on the knuckles (if he was feeling kindly) or the head (if, as was more likely, he was not) to satisfy my curiosity.I passed a very dull evening. I knew very well that I should not be able to coax Holmes into conversation until he had finished, which he showed no signs of doing any time soon. Twice after I returned he gave the sheet he was writing a scowl and flung it off of his table, beginning afresh. It was nearly nine o'clock before he began on the draft which seemed finally to please him. I had retreated to my own desk in the meanwhile, feeling myself well warmed-up by my little writing exercise that morning, and made some hundreds of words of progress on the Baskerville tale, which was still in its early stages. Having finished my account of our first meeting with Sir Henry, however, I wearied of writing."Holmes..." I began, but he made an impatient noise and waved a hand at me. I sighed, walked to the mantel to retrieve and light my pipe, and settled into my armchair with the newest copy of the British Medical Journal. The editorial on cycling and its effects on health was not uninteresting, but it led my mind to wander. What had become of Miss Violet Smith, our solitary cyclist? Was she Mrs. Violet Morton now, I wondered--or, perhaps, Mrs. Violet Carruthers? If I was any judge of these things, the attraction between Miss Smith and her employer had not been entirely on his side, though the poor child would never have willingly broken the heart of her electrician fiancée. Bob Carruthers' morals may at times have been questionable, but, as a whole, he was a goodhearted man. I sincerely hoped that it had all come round right in the end..."Watson," said a soft voice in my ear. I nearly leaped from my chair in surprise. It took me a moment to realize that I must have dozed off. I took a few deep breaths, attempting to quiet the raging pulse that always comes of being woken unexpectedly, particularly when one has not been asleep for more than an hour or two. I heard the soft huffing of air beside me as Holmes chuckled in his silent way. "I suspect you'd be much more comfortable in your bed, old fellow.""I'd be much more comfortable in your bed.""For the small price of a kiss...""Oh, hush," I yawned. "What time is it?""Twelve thirty-four," he replied."As late as that?" I asked, standing and stretching. "Have you been writing all this time?""Yes," he answered, "but I've just finished. A bit of bedtime reading for you, my dear Watson." He pressed the letter into my hand, and then leaned forward, his eyes closing. I was becoming quite accustomed to our goodnight not-kisses and, while they would never replace the real thing, there was something quite pleasant in that moment of deliberate, affectionate nearness."Good-night, Holmes," I murmured, getting in before him for once, and I could hear his smile as he added his "Good-night, Watson." As always, he was the one to disappear, leaving me alone in the sitting room. I made my way upstairs, too tired to hurry, but by no means so fatigued as to set his letter aside for the morning. I changed into my nightclothes as rapidly as I could manage, settled into bed, and began to read. My Watson,I see now that you were justified in your criticism this morning. I have neither written nor received an epistle of this peculiar variety before, and you will not, I believe, think less of me, that it required a certain degree of practice, and a worthy example before me, to get a feel for the thing. I shall not trouble myself to deny that yours was a very fine specimen of writing and that I very nearly did as you bid me. It was, I think, only the feeling of how much your letter was superior to mine that stopped me rushing up the stairs to sod you senseless. I am a competitive creature, as you know, and, while it does not hurt my pride to be defeated by a worthy opponent, I knew myself on this occasion to have been so thoroughly defeated that I should have felt myself to be surrendering twice-- once to your charms, and then again your abilities. The former I might have accepted, but the latter is too much for the side of my nature which you should, in those rare moments when I have treated you so callously for so long that you are finally driven to some small degree of incivility, call my arrogance. I freely admit that you are an altogether handsome, charming and desirable devil; to succumb every now and then to the lure of the flesh when I have such enticements before me is, at least, comprehensible. But to admit myself to have been out-planned, out-schemed, and, in short, out-thought is a nearly impossible proposition for me. Thus have I come once more to take up my pen, in hopes that my next attempt may do something to soothe my wounded pride--and to stir in you that same desire which still hums through me in the wake of your letter.I have never told you, I think, what it is I dreamed of--in the most literal sense--during the years of your marriage. There were too many other things to say, when we were reunited two Aprils ago, and I had no desire to stir up unhappy memories. These particular dreams I should not precisely have called unhappy, you understand, but neither could they have occurred had things not been permitted to go so wrong between us. Now, however, that we have had time enough to assure ourselves and each other beyond any doubt that no such crisis shall ever part us again, I feel that the time has come to share them.I am aware that the relation of dreams is often considered a self-indulgent practice, but this one, I think, will not fail to hold your interest. It recurred to me two or three times a week during those years, sometimes even more often, until I was haunted with it, sick to death of waking up covered in sweat, my hips thrusting fiercely and futilely against my mattress. After a time the images would not leave me even during the day, making me ache to enact them in life. I should never have done so--I know that you could not love me, my dear Watson, so much, loved you not honor more--but my own temptation was so great that I burned with the selfish desire to inflict it upon you.My dream began with me sending for you, my telegram worded just-so. The missive I sent should have appeared a benign summons to any other pair of eyes, but, to you, it would inevitably convey the full extent of my intentions, so that, by obeying it, you should already be giving in to my desires. I dreamed of you walking through the door, of my hands and my mouth descending instantly upon you, my need so ravenous that you scarcely had time to lock the door behind you before I had you trembling and gasping within my embrace. I dreamed of your protestations, your insistence that we ought not to do this, though not for a moment did you ever resist my touch, and not once did you ever demand that I stop. Even in sleep I could not forget how that act should have torn at your conscience, but my hands never wavered as I pulled you to me. Always, I held you just the same way--my front to your back and my arms wrapping about you, agonizingly near. I dreamed of palming at your trousers, finding you already hard and waiting for me. I stroked you and caressed you through your clothes, feeling you swell still further as my able fingers worked their torment. I dreamed of how I would grind myself against the pliant curve of your buttocks, convincing you in the most undeniable fashion of just how much I needed you, and how you would continue to insist that we must not give in to desire. I listened as your protests grew feebler and feebler and more and more breathless, as your lust drove you ever further out of control, until finally, when you could do nothing more than moan in my embrace, I placed my lips to your ear as my hands continued to pull at your prick and my hips to push into yours."Say yes, John," I murmured, the same murmur every night. "Give in to me. Tell me I may have you. Say yes."At first, you would shake your head, though allowing it at the same time to loll back onto my shoulder. "You know that you want this as much as I, that you have been longing for it day and night, as I have. You know that you wake with your mind full of me, terrified that, in those unguarded moments between sleep and wakefulness, my name shall pass your lips. You think of me in the mornings, at noon, in the afternoon, in the evening, at night. Even when your wife is in your arms, it is my body you wish for, I you wish to bed. In your own head, you surrender to me a million times a day. You are already mine, John, in every sense. Now, say it for me. Say yes."I dreamed of how your breath would catch, how your cock would twitch beneath my fingers, how you would push back involuntarily against me, how your hands would search desperately for some anchor only to grasp futilely at empty air. Even so, you refused to do as I asked and urge me on. By then, I was so mad with need myself as to have no will to spare to slow my hips, and found myself rutting against you with inelegant urgency."Say yes," a plea this time. "My God, Watson! Say yes; let me fuck you. You need this as badly as I do. John, please, say yes! Say it, say it, John, my John, say it, say yes.." When finally you could stand it no longer and that syllable was torn from your throat, the reluctant yet passionate "Yes!" I had been longing to hear, it was never more than a second before I had your trousers about your ankles and my own pulled open. One of my hands wrapped around your naked cock, and the other guided me inside you, both of us gaining at last the sensations we craved. It was all so frantic and bright-hot that it was barely more than a minute of wild hard thrusts before I felt you tense in my arms and spurt hot and wet over my fingers, unable to stop yourself screaming out my name, and my whole world narrowed down to the incredible sweet tightness of you around me...Occasionally, my mind and body took pity on me and allowed me my own release at the height of these dreams. More often, however, I awoke, and was left just as you are now, gasping and struggling and cursing, bringing myself with a few pumps of my fist to a climax which was only a pale fraction of what it ought to have been. I had no other option then, my dear Watson, but you have now. I lie in my bed only a few feet below you, and I am waiting, willing, all yours. Why should you resort to clumsy and ineffectual remedies when the object of your desires is so very near? Come here, my Watson, and give yourself to me. Let me give you the release which, I know very well, you are at this moment craving more than breath. Come to me now, John. Say yes.Yours, and yours only,S.H. I should, in all likelihood, have obeyed him, had I not found it quite necessary, if I were to survive to the end of the letter, to bring myself off as I read. It was with no very kindly feelings that I read these last lines. As appallingly unfair propositions go, having a genius for a lover is quite possibly the unfairest one of all.On the other hand, I thought, glancing back over his letter and looking forward with palpable eagerness to Sunday at 12:01 PM, loving Sherlock Holmes does have its rewards. ----- CHAPTER BREAK ----- Friday It was as I was dressing that morning--early, for I had passed another unhappy night--that I had the idea. I happened to see it, in the far back corner of my wardrobe, and to recall one or two conversations with Holmes which bore obliquely upon the garment in question. I had been saving it for a special occasion, knowing full well how much Holmes desired to see me wearing it. That special occasion, I decided, had come.One of the circumstances which drew Holmes specifically to our Baker Street rooms (though I could not have cared less about it, at least in the early years) was the profusion of empty space. Besides our bedrooms, sitting-room and bathroom, our part of the house contains no fewer than three lumber-rooms--one on either side of my attic room, each only slightly smaller than a bedroom in its own right, and another small closet on the main floor. The first of these is packed nearly to the rafters with newspapers, which Holmes saves in ridiculous quantity in hopes that the information therein may someday pertain to a case. The second was originally mine, but, as the newsroom has become more and more full, as I never had much to store at any rate, and as my bedroom only rarely sees use anyhow, the relics of Holmes' cases have slowly come to fill that space. I avoid that room when I can, as many of its contents are decidedly eerie artifacts: the enormous grandfather clock which once ticked away with such relentlessness in the Paradol chamber, and which stopped with a tremendous clanging of bells at the same moment as old Rev. Witherspoon's heart; the collection of stuffed and mounted snakes which a noted herpetologist sent to us (along with a stern note about poetic license and the auditory capacity of serpents) shortly after the publication of The Speckled Band; the carved mermaid that had once been the figurehead of the Friesland, which we clung to for two miserable days before rescue finally found us. It is only in search of the pleasanter contents of Holmes' old tin box that I ever venture into that room full of oddities.But the downstairs lumber-room, unlike the other two, does occasionally get some practical use. Some years ago, while I was living away from Baker Street, Holmes fitted it up as a darkroom. It is admirably suited to the purpose, having no windows and being just large enough to accommodate the necessary equipment. I should mention that Holmes almost never uses a camera on our cases; our instrument is one of those enormous, ancient monsters, which Holmes bought cheap somewhere, and not well-suited to toting about to crime scenes. Instead, he decided that he required a darkroom to print his photographs of tobacco ash for a new monograph to supplement his original work on the subject. It bothered him not a bit that the original sold approximately two dozen copies (though perhaps it might have done so to a greater degree had he known that, of those two dozen, I bought three, Lestrade one, at my urging, and young Stanley Hopkins no fewer than eight); he insisted that the work ought to be kept current, for the sake of science. It may mark me out an idiot, but I am willing to admit that those sorts of eccentricities do nothing to diminish my love for him, and in fact a great deal to enhance it. Holmes, of course, knows this weakness of mine very well and takes full advantage, so much so that, when he was pulled away from his photography by a series of complicated cases, I allowed him to inveigle me into to doing the work. At this point, it must be said, I had quite mastered the technique, while Holmes's own forays into the darkroom were still accompanied by muttered imprecations.Had Holmes been in the house, I have no idea how I should have managed to get the camera--which, as I mentioned, is an enormous, cumbersome contraption--up to my room without attracting his attention. Fortunately, Fridays are his mornings for visiting the barber, and so I had a free hour in which to enact my plan. The question of just what sort of pose would be best occupied my mind for some minutes as I busied myself with changing my clothes. I did worry that my old uniform might no longer fit me; I had indeed been "thin as a lath" when I returned home, but as it had hung so loose on me then that I was just able to wriggle into the thing now. It is a well known principle that if one shoves a man into a uniform, and the man in question is over fifteen, under sixty, and not actually hunchbacked or dribbling at the mouth, the vast majority of women will swoon at the sight from some patriotic instinct if nothing else. In my personal experience, the phenomenon extends to a not insignificant number of men, as well. Holmes had never specifically mentioned that he might be among their number--such clarity is not his style, nor does he wish to be thought ordinary--but I had, if I may be permitted so to express it, deduced it, from one or two sidelong glances and the occasional hitch of his breath when our conversation happened to turn to my unhappy soldiering days. I had feared in the past that a return to that well-worn suit might bring back memories of blood and screams and sun that almost burned out a man's will to live, but now, so many years and miles away from those bygone horrors, the uniform was little more than cloth.Beyond the decision to photograph myself in that costume, I had not quite worked out the details. Ought I to make it a simple portrait, such as one might purchase at any photographic studio in the metropolis? That did not seem quite to be exploiting the full potential of the thing. There was, however, a distinct chance of going too far with this little game. I quickly discarded the notion of leaving my trousers open and touching myself for the camera, for it was simply too vulgar to attract Holmes (or any other man of taste). I needed a more tactful approach which nevertheless displayed undeniable erotic appeal. I was not certain I had found it, but I worked out an idea which, at very least, seemed worth trying.I headed back down to the sitting room, retrieved one of the simple wooden chairs from around the dining table, and carried it up the stairs. This I positioned before the open window, with the camera across the room. Once I had readied the plates, I took the bulb to release the shutter in my hand and headed back over to my chair. I splayed my legs wide on either side as I sat, and planted my hands on the front edge of the chair, between my legs, leaning forward slightly. To complete the pose, I stared boldly into the camera and allowed my mouth to curl in a bit of a smile. My pose was brazen, I felt, but not overt. It would fit well with the raiment of the soldier.The camera was, as I have mentioned, a very much outdated machine; it took nearly three minutes to fully expose a plate. This made for a seemingly interminable wait, sitting as still as possible, but I am a fairly patient fellow, all things considered, and that pose was not a difficult one to maintain. When finally my wait was ended, I set about bundling everything--including my uniform--back where it belonged, and then headed down to our little darkroom to obtain my print.Thankfully, the photograph turned out well; I should have had no chance to make another attempt, for Holmes arrived home while I was developing my first. I had to shout out my whereabouts to him, as he was in some confusion about where I had got to. Having finished with the antiquated camera, the chemical processes of developing negative and print were a mere bagatelle, and I soon had an acceptable print drying. I sneaked up to my room as quickly and silently as possible, hoping not to alert Holmes, and busied myself with a search of my bedroom which turned up a little leather folder which had once held a photograph pertaining to a problem of much less immediate interest. This prize I carried back downstairs to be filled with my artistic attempt, once I had scribbled a brief "To S.H.--All my love, J.W." in the corner. I slipped the finished product into the inner pocket of my jacket and hurried off to lunch.Holmes was already at the table, nibbling at mutton and creamed spinach. "Whatever have you been up to all morning, Watson?" he asked, with some degree of irritation, as I sat and helped myself."Surely the great Sherlock Holmes can deduce that, when a man spends the morning in a darkroom and emerges smelling of all manner of foul chemicals, he has been developing a photograph," I replied genially, tucking in."Shockingly enough, I had indeed come to that conclusion. What I was endeavouring to discover was the subject of said photograph, and why you took it, and where it has got to."I grinned mischievously at him. "Really, Holmes, I am sure that you can manage to figure some of that out for yourself. Use your powers; exert yourself."He was in no particularly sweet mood, but he made the attempt all the same. "If I am not mistaken, the 'where' is your inner jacket pocket--I did not notice it at first, as that suit is rather new and I am unused to seeing you in it, but the line does seem just a bit off. And if your mood is any indication, the 'why' seems to have something to do with our little wager. But as to the 'what'... well, if I am correct about your reasons, then I suppose the likelihood lies with it being a photograph of you, but as to what you could hope to accomplish by presenting me with a photograph when the real thing sits before me, I cannot guess.""Very good, Holmes," I said, in a teasingly condescending voice reminiscent of his lecturing moods. "Though I am a little disappointed at your lack of imagination." I turned back to my dinner, skewering a piece of mutton with delicate deliberation."And having expended such effort to obtain your snapshot, are you not going to give it to me after all?" Holmes asked peevishly."I never said it was for you, Holmes. Perhaps it has nothing to do with our bet. Or perhaps I am hoping to arouse your jealousy, and intend it as a gift for someone else.""It is for me, Watson, and we both know it.""Far be it from me to contradict you," I replied airily, unable to keep my grin entirely from my face. I sipped coolly at my water."Well?" Holmes asked, leaning back in his chair.I had him, and I revelled in it. Holmes hates to be uninformed about anything. While I had the photograph and he was unsure what was in it, I had the trump in any conversation. "Well what, Holmes?""Watson," he ground out, "I cannot stand it when you are deliberately obtuse. You cannot possibly have forgotten the tenor of my comments on your stories, irking me as they do for just that reason; rest assured that I shall brook no qualms about expressing similar sentiments with regards to your person, intelligence and moral qualities, if you continue to behave in this manner.""That is what bothers you about my stories?" I asked, genuinely surprised. "The fact that I occasionally underplay my own intelligence?"Holmes's scowl trembled. It wobbled. It slipped sideways, and, of a sudden, it transformed itself into a smile. "My dear Watson," he said, in spite of himself, "how on earth do you manage that, and so consistently, too?""Manage what?""Not only to invariably leap past the sort of abuse which no sane man would tolerate, but actually to find a compliment in it. And you habitually underplay your own intelligence."I grinned back at him. "Let us call it a survival instinct, Holmes. I'd not have endured six months living with you had I not developed the ability to see the generosity of spirit which you attempt to conceal--and, as you may recall, for those first six months, I could not afford to live anywhere but with you.""Ah! The truth comes out at last," Holmes said, buttering a roll with a flourish. "You endure me merely from a sense of economy. It hurts my pride to hear it, my dear Watson, but I suppose, as you have so few faults in general, that you are entitled to a mercenary nature. I have one or two singular gifts, you know, which permit me to earn an exceptional living when I make an effort at it. Ought I to be keeping you in a better style, Doctor? I am quite amenable to showering you with jewels and buying you oysters every night, if it will keep you by my side.""And here I am meant, I suppose, to be deeply offended by the imprecation. Nothing of the kind. Feel free to feed me oysters and present me with extravagant presents whenever it suits you--but not if it means taking dull cases from rich clients. I should much rather have you as a poor man than an odd, imitation Sherlock Holmes with a high tolerance for boredom and a bulging purse.""Then you shall have to settle for me as a moderately well-off sort of fellow. We can have oysters on Saturdays and take what cases please us, and when you are feeling neglected I can toss my amethyst snuffbox at your feet. How does that suit?""Admirably," I laughed, polishing off my spinach and wiping my mouth on my napkin. I rose and so did Holmes, but as he was stepping away from the table he stopped."I have allowed you to talk me in circles, Watson. That is terribly unlike me. We were discussing the photograph you took for me, before that little digression into matters financial. In fact, you were just on the point of handing it over.""Oh, was I?" I asked, all innocence. "If you say so, Holmes, by all means." I slipped the thing out of my pocket and passed it over to him, then swiftly retired to the corner by the mantel to watch the show.His reactions were gratifying, to say the least. For a moment after opening the leather cover he did not respond at all. Then the hand not holding the photograph tightened on the edge of the table, and all the blood rushed from his face, and he seemed to go weak in the knees. He stumbled, and sat back down hard in his chair.I wandered back over and leaned over his shoulder, as though looking back at the photograph myself. "Not entirely bad, on the whole. A silly notion, of course, but I did think you might be inclined to appreciate it.""Whatever gave you that idea?" Holmes asked weakly."Was I mistaken?" I questioned in my turn,with a wicked grin. "What do you think of it?""It is...very nice," he said faintly. He was still staring at the photograph for all he was worth."Is that all?" I teased. "How very disappointing. If you had seemed truly to like it, I was thinking of taking you upstairs with me and recreating the original--it would hardly take me long to slip back into my uniform--but, as you cannot seem to summon any more enthusiasm than 'very nice...'""It is as well for me if you do not," he replied, with a bit more strength. "Never mind the bet--I am not sure my heart could take it. You could run rather a nice little racket that way, Doctor, sending patients into arrhythmia and then reviving them. I suspect it should prove quite the lucrative scheme.""I believe that my Hippocratic Oath precludes me enacting plans designed to stop the hearts of well-meaning citizens.""How very unfortunate," Holmes murmured. He gave the photograph one more long look, slipped it into his pocket, and rose. Only once he was half-way across the room did he dare to look back at me. I would not go so far as to say that he actually shivered, but he did swallow hard before hurrying into his bedroom and shutting the door.It was with no small degree of self-satisfaction that I contemplated this undignified retreat, though I was curious to know precisely what he was up to. I did not have long to wait, however, for it was less than ten minutes before he emerged again, looking only slightly calmer than he had before. Both of his hands were clasped around the handles of his gladstone bag, fingers flexing nervously."I am going out, Watson," he announced, hurrying for the door."Out where?" I asked, rising from my chair and placing the still-lit pipe which I had been smoking to pass the time carefully on the mantelpiece."I have a few little matters to attend to," he answered, in a weak imitation of his masterful tone. He was on the point of making his escape when my hand caught the doorknob a moment before his, trapping him in the room."Crucial though I am sure your extraordinarily vague errands must be," I said, in a quietly knowing tone laced strongly with seduction, "I believe we could think up one or two even more promising ways to pass the time, if you would only touch me now.""I am quite satisfied with my own plans for the afternoon, thank you," he replied, regaining some of his haughtiness. "Now, if you would please move out of the way...""No," I responded. "I know very well how much you want me now. Stay here, Holmes, and make love to me.""Certainly, if you will kiss me first."I shook my head. "Just at this moment, you want this far more than I do. It is your mind that is full of lewd images, your heart barreling away at many times its usual rate, and your body straining in every muscle--some more than others--for the feeling of my body. I have you, Holmes, and you know it. Now, give yourself over to me."Were he not so dashed light on his feet, had I been able to keep him trapped in that room with me, I should have had him. I believe I have mentioned, earlier in my narrative, that our bath-room at Baker Street has two doors: one leading into the sitting-room, the other to the hall. Holmes darted away from the sitting-room's main door, which I guarded, and was in the one and out the other of the bath-room doors as quick as lightning, so that I barely had time to witness his flight once I had turned the knob in my hand."Enjoy your afternoon, Watson," he called back over his shoulder as he made his escape. There was nothing to do about it but shake my head and smile--which is precisely what I did.I had no idea how long Holmes planned to be gone, but, from his manner, I guessed it would likely be some time, and I had no intention of languishing around our rooms while he concocted his riposte to my thrust. There is no company I prize more highly or crave more deeply than his, but I do occasionally require other society. This seemed as good an opportunity as any for visiting my club, and catching up on the news of my other acquaintances and friends. I spent some hours doing exactly that, returning home just in time for supper.When Holmes did not put in an appearance at table, I admit sparing a few moments to gloat, taking it as a sign that he did not feel secure being quite so near to me just then. When nine o'clock, ten o'clock, and eleven all passed with no sign of him, however, I began to worry. Mrs. Hudson assured me that Holmes had not returned while I had been out in the afternoon. I burned with curiosity to know where he had gone and what he had taken with him.The clock dragged on towards midnight, and my concern edged ever further nearer panic. Finally, at a quarter to twelve, the sitting room door opened and a person walked into our rooms.It was undoubtedly Holmes. And yet I hesitate to use the pronoun 'he,' for it was Holmes in a wig and full make-up--not a particularly unusual state of affairs--and a gown--a very unusual state of affairs indeed.That last article was a garment of grey and white striped silk trimmed in mauve ribbon and ruched up at the hem to reveal a petticoat of the same shade. I must confess that the hues suited Holmes's colouring admirably. The gown had only the barest hint of a bustle, far less than fashion demanded that year. It was also possessed of a neckline and a hem which, in their respective lowness and highness, proclaimed in no uncertain terms that the wearer, female or not, was no lady. Indeed, the whole ensemble had about it that air of disreputable attempted-grandeur that marks out a woman of a certain profession, a distinction made especially clear by the violent red shade of Holmes's rouge and lip-colour.As is always the case with Holmes's disguises, he had changed more than simply his outward trappings. How he managed by his posture alone to convey not only the impression of a woman, but of a woman of ill-repute, I have no notion, and yet he did. When he stepped into the room it was with a woman's gait, that slight accentuation about the hips, and when he bid me, "Good evening, Doctor Watson," it was in a voice which, while not quite an imitation, lilted upwards in a way not entirely his own. In every detail, down to the way his eyelids fluttered, he was transformed.For long moments, I could do nothing but stare. It is not that he made a particularly attractive woman. His body is too bony and angular to approximate accurately the sensual curves of the female form, the features of his face too sharp to hint at sweetness, and his great height, which gained an inch by the low heels of his boots, was odd indeed beneath that guise. And yet, it was that very blending of the masculine with the feminine which made him so very nearly irresistible in that moment. The perversity of it was utterly intoxicating.I stepped back three paces to sink into my armchair, staring for all I was worth. He smiled--a smirk, and yet not his smirk, for there was something indisputably feminine about it--and closed the door behind him. Within a moment he was kneeling beside my chair, gazing up at me with eyes brightened beyond even their usual brilliancy by two thin rings of kohl."Whatever is the matter, doctor? Are you feeling unwell?" He ran his eyes over me as though searching for symptoms, lingering and yet not overtly lecherous. "You look quite uncomfortable, I'm afraid. Only tell me what I can do to ease you; I am entirely at your service." He seemed to have discovered precisely the proper balance to stop the charade veering into the realms of the risible, playing his part without for a moment denying his own identity, still speaking in that voice which was only a shade (but how significant a shade!) different from his own. This is absurd, I reminded myself, a little too vehemently. Pull yourself together, man! I took a deep breath. "You look ridiculous, Holmes," I said, not nearly so firmly as I should have liked. "For God's sake, take off that insane get-up before someone sees you."He raised an eyebrow, the familiar gesture binding the character to him, the man I adored, in a way that very nearly cost me my control. "I rather thought you were enjoying it, John, but it shall, of course, be as you wish," he replied, without giving up that change of voice. He turned and walked to his bedroom, leaving the door deliberately open, and suddenly it occurred to me just what I had asked him to do. By that time, however, I had no hope whatsoever of convincing myself to look away.He sat on the edge of his bed and pulled off his boots first, unhurriedly, then stood and stretched. Next he turned to his gloves, tugging at the fabric surrounding each finger, slowly revealing those hands which have always affected me more profoundly than I can adequately express. Once the gloves had tumbled to rest on the carpet and those perfect white digits were bare, he moved them to his back and the seemingly infinite column of tiny buttons stretching from a few inches below his nape all the way down to his waist. He neither hurried nor lingered in unbuttoning his strange costume, but moved as though with utter calm, the rhythmic dancing of his fingers and the oh-so-gradual parting of the gown hypnotic to the eye. It seemed a lifetime before the bodice of his gown fell away and his hands moved to the quicker task of untying his skirts and petticoats, which collapsed with a characteristic whooshing of air. And then he stood before me--or, to be more accurate, stood facing away from me--in nothing more than a corset and stockings.I could have resisted that. I swear that I could have. I could have resisted the thin silk of the stockings that hugged his calves. I could have resisted the way his garter straps bordered his thighs. I could have resisted the impression of hips which the corset bestowed. I could even have resisted the way the whole ensemble seemed designed to frame that portion of his anatomy which it left bare, drawing the eye irresistibly to a very particular expanse of naked flesh. If he had merely stood there looking thus, I should have survived it with my dignity in tact. But it was then that he moved his hands up to the wig that still capped him, and loosened the ribbon that held his curls aloft, allowing his false hair to tumble about his shoulders.I have no notion how he was aware that the sight would affect me so. For all I know, it was nothing more than a guess (despite his claims that it is a habit he refuses to indulge). I had certainly never told him that, while I have always been willing to admit that there are some advantages to bedding women, the taking down of hair is the only erotic spectacle which I truly miss now that my days of sleeping with ladies are in the past. It is an act of which the supreme sensuality cannot be overstated, precisely because there is nothing overt about it. It is a symbol only, and yet it is a symbol of so much-- of possession, of surrender, of willingness, of everything that is soft and yielding and warm and lovely and irresistible in the female sex. Perhaps if I could have seen his face, the contrast should have proved enough to distract me. I do not know. But I could not see his face, I was not distracted and, after that long week of torments, I had finally run out of resistance. I was, quite simply, undone. All thoughts fled my mind save one: that I intended to walk into that room, pin his wrists to the wall with one of my hands, pull his hips to me with the other, bury my face--and, most probably, my teeth--in the crook of his neck, and bugger him until he wept and screamed with the pleasure of it, not stopping until he had come to glory at least a dozen times.I understand, in some part of my mind, that Holmes and I live a life unlike that of other men. I know, objectively speaking, that the sort of adventures which we experience on a weekly basis are such as, for many men, should mark the high point of a lifetime--and, equally, that the pains and sorrows that we know are such as would break many a weaker man--and, again, that the love we have in each other is of a variety for which most people search in vain all their days. These are not the sorts of truths which one can live one's life thinking of always, but I know them, in a quiet corner of my brain. They do not mean, however, that Holmes and I are not fortune's fools, like everyone else. The little mishaps of everyday existence fall upon us just as much as on others; there are moments of human comedy even amongst the dramas of our lives. This, I am sad to say, was one of those. That I found myself so utterly possessed by desire was bad enough. But that, in my rush to embrace him, I should have happened to catch my toe on the threshold of his bedroom and send myself sprawling across the floor, earning myself a face-full of discarded petticoat, was, I felt, as deliberate an injury to pride as fate ever dealt a man.It is fortunate that Holmes's first instinct was concern. Abandoning his persona in an instant, he rushed to my side with a "My dear Watson!" I think that, had I not rolled over at that point, he might well have forgotten himself so far as to touch me, but roll over I did. The sight of him then, still rouged and corseted though he had lost his wig in his rush, suddenly brought the whole thing home to me. I was thus fortunate enough, though by far the more humiliated, to be the first to see the humor in it all. I broke into the most hearty peal of laughter I can ever recall emitting. After a few brief moments of surprise, Holmes's lips began to twitch as well. It was not long before we were both of us stretched full-length on the floorboards beside each other, positively weeping with mirth. Every time one of us seemed nearly to have himself under control our eyes would meet, and we would be off again. Only once our cheeks were aching with it did we finally begin to quiet. We ended up facing each other on our sides, less than a foot apart.His eyes sparkled with amusement and affection, and I am quite sure that mine did the same. I reached out a hand and ghosted it along the side of his powdered cheek, not quite touching him. "You realize," I pointed out, when I had finally mastered my laughter, "that I would say to hell with the bet and kiss you now if it weren't for that paint on your face. I admit the allure, but I want you, and not the costume.""Hoist with my own petard," he replied, smiling."Or with your own corset strings, anyhow. I don't even want to ask how you got that ensemble--or where you've been in it these last few hours.""Acquiring the gown and underthings was no particular undertaking; I was a concerned older brother shopping from a list for an invalid sister. The wig and the paints I have had for years, as they are basic elements of the actor's trade. Only the boots gave me any trouble, for there is not many a lady in London with so large a foot. By the by, doctor, will you be an angel and undo my laces?" His voice feminized again on the last sentence, and he rolled so that his back was to me. "I'm sure you can manage it without touching any skin, with such clever hands as you've got. Does that come of being a surgeon, or a writer, do you think?" He glanced back over his shoulder and fluttered his lashes at me."Both, as you know very well. And do stop that." He had knotted his corset strings into the most dreadful tangle, a state which no lady of my acquaintance would ever have permitted. It was absurdly satisfying to detect an imperfection in one of his disguises, even so slight a one as that. It also meant the things would be a horror to untie."You've not answered my question about how you spent your evening," I said, as I went to work at my task."Technically, you asked no question about how I spent my evening, but we shall take it as implied. I have, in fact, used this disguise before; it is an excellent method of gathering information. Women will answer without hesitation questions from other women which they would not in a lifetime countenance from a man, and professional women in particular share a clannishness that is easy to exploit if one only knows how. I passed my afternoon lurking at the Diogenes, ducked into one of my little hidey-holes to change come dusk, and then went traveling about to various low haunts, putting out my feelers for any news of criminological interest.""And did you learn anything of interest?" I asked. I knew him far too well for the admission that he had been wandering about London for hours in the guise of a prostitute to be shocking. Besides, the impenetrable labyrinth of interlaced ribbon before me was taking up too much of my attention to permit me the time to be scandalized. I had managed to undo one knot, but a dozen more seemed still firmly in place."Nothing very much. The usual problems of theft, brutality and broken promises that are a common part of that world, I am afraid, but beyond that the only intriguing whisper was of a possible increase in human trafficking from the Far East. It seems that there has been an influx of Oriental women to the brothels of London lately. I shall have to do a bit more nosing about around the docks--but in rather a different costume, I think.""Mmmm," I agreed absently. I stood and walked into the sitting room."Watson? Wherever are you going?""Back in a moment," I called, and indeed I was. He had turned to face the door in my absence. "As you were," I instructed as I lay back down, and he rolled over."I had always thought that Alexander's solution to the Gordian problem was a terribly inelegant and unthinking waste of an excellent puzzle," I commented, "but somehow, I've begun to see his point." I pulled back hard on the corset strings--Holmes gasped at the sudden constriction--and used the scissors I had gone to retrieve to snip the entire knot clean off. He had been laced so tightly that the cut ends slithered of their own accord through a series of grommets, and as he tugged on the halves of the corset itself the rest of it parted, leaving his back bare."I should not be so unkind to Alexander, if I were you," he commented, as he reached down to detach his stockings from the garter straps at the bottom of his corset. "Men of our stripe must hang together or we shall, likely as not, hang separately. I do admit, however, that I should not like to have said of us what Aristotle said of Alexander and Hephaestion.""That they were but one soul living in two bodies?""Precisely, my dear Watson. I should not prefer to see either of us denied the right to a soul of his own. Two men need not think the same thoughts or see with the same eyes to be well-matched. In fact, I think that, on the whole, one can never have a true understanding of others who are too much like oneself. It is our differences, John, that permit us such entire sympathy." He had by then shed the last of his accoutrements and turned to look at me, the corners of his mouth turned up slightly and his eyes swirling with significance. I could not look away, nor did I wish to."Holmes," I said simply, "sleep with me tonight."He raised his eyebrows--both of them, in genuine surprise, rather than one, as he would have done to imitate that same emotion. "Is that a surrender, John, or are you simply attempting to entice me?""Neither," I replied. "I meant precisely what I said. Sleep with me, in the same bed. I have hated these last nights, and, to be quite frank, I do not believe that you have liked them any better. Your bed is large enough to hold us both without touching, if only just. And if we should happen to wake up in each other's arms, well, neither of us can be blamed for that; we may simply declare it an act of God, disentangle, and go about our business."He looked away for a moment, considering the ramifications, and then back at me. "All right." He smiled at me, almost shyly.I grinned back. "I'll just go up and get changed, then. Do you wash that mess off of your face."He stood, his eyes sparkling wickedly. "Yes, sir," he replied with a salute. "I don't suppose I could convince you to forgo a nightshirt in favor of putting your uniform back on? It was positively diabolical of you, to take the thing off before letting me see you in it in the flesh."I clambered to my feet as well. "It'd not be the first time I'd slept in it, but it's certainly an experience I've no wish to repeat. I'm afraid I shall have to decline.""Cruel," he said, shaking his head sadly as he rummaged through his armoire in search of a nightshirt of his own. "Very cruel. Off with you, then."I hurried upstairs and back, but by the time I returned he was already clad and standing at his washstand, drying his dripping face on a towel. It was his own face again, wiped clean of paint, and a glad sight indeed. I crossed to the bed and slipped gratefully under the covers, feeling really at home for the first time in days. Holmes assumed his own side of the bed, stretched with extraordinary enthusiasm, burrowed a bit, and turned to face me.I knew what was coming. I took it upon myself to make the first advance. Rolling over, I trapped him beneath me, and leaned my face in towards his. He arched his neck up to me in turn, and I was about to begin the good-nights when he murmured, "Watson," in such a compelling tone that I stopped short. His every feature was imprinted with appeal, the visage of a man begging earnestly for that which he desires more deeply than life itself. "Kiss me good-night, my dearest John." His tone implied only too clearly that he would cease to draw breath if I did not comply."Holmes...""Please?" His eyes were open very wide, all innocent pleading. "Please kiss me, John."I had to actively fight my own muscles, which seemed intent upon propelling me into a kiss. "You," I breathed, none too steadily, "are a fiend in human form, Sherlock Holmes."He gave it up then. "And proud of it, too," he grinned. "Were I not a sinner, I should be denied the eternal company of the only man on earth I care a jot for. The second circle is the realm of the lustful, is it not?""I believe so, but I should not expect to meet you there. So determined a heretic as yourself will surely find himself in the city of Dis.""Then quickly, Watson, say something terribly blasphemous, that we may share adjoining coffins of red-hot lead for all of time."I shook my head, smiling. "Good-night, Holmes."He quirked his own head to one side. "That is not quite what I had in mind."I rolled back to my side of the bed. "All right, then, how about this: I, John Watson, am madly infatuated with another man, intend to share his life and bed as long as we both shall live, and I do not believe that this is wrong. Is that sufficiently heretical for you?""Good heavens, Watson, I had hardly expected you to go as far as that. Have you no delicacy of feeling, to go about making such inexpressibly depraved declarations?""Good-night, Holmes," I repeated through my laughter."Really, John...""Good-night, Holmes," I said again, shutting out the light."And to think that I have been living all these years...""Good-night, Holmes.""Good-night, Watson." ----- CHAPTER BREAK ----- Saturday I passed that night far more pleasantly than any of the preceding five. I slept surrounded by Holmes's scent and dreamed sweet dreams of him, and when in my dream one of his kisses felt more real than the rest I opened my eyes to find that it had very good reason to do so, for Holmes's lips were indeed upon mine, and his arms were around me. It was not a very elegant kiss, our mouths more open and less tightly controlled than was usual between us, but it felt unbelievably good. All the same, it was not overlong before he pulled away."Holmes?" I asked, a single sleep-slurred syllable."I surrender," he said simply. "Now kiss me again, John."I needed no further prompting. It is almost unnecessary for me to say that this kiss was very much superior to that first. It could hardly help being so, as I was no longer half-asleep; it could hardly help being superior to the vast majority of our kisses, in fact, so sorely had we both been tried in recent days. I think I may confidently state, however, that this was a kiss that defied all expectations and exceeded all predictions. I ought to have been aware of every line of his lips, every ridge of his teeth, the tiniest taste bud on his tongue, so oversensitive was I from so much wanting him. I was not aware of all those things. I would not even say that the more general sensations--wetness and heat and the pressure of his body--came through to me very strongly. It was all overpowered and subsumed by pure desire for this man who was everything to me, and with whom it seemed an age since I had last shared a proper kiss. He responded just as wholeheartedly, our arms giving no quarter as we crushed our bodies together with unaccustomed violence, our tongues pressing against each other hard enough to bruise, our lips sealed so tightly that not a single atom might have passed between. For a moment I was above him, and then he atop me, and then I on him again, and then he--I insist that it was he, supremely graceful or no--rolled in the wrong direction and sent the both of us crashing to the floor in a confused pile which seemed to consist mostly of elbows and twisted linen.For a moment, we could neither of us speak, for the breath had been driven from us both. He finally managed to wheeze out, "Laid low on the floorboards twice in as many days, my dear Watson. I have always maintained that arousal was bad for the mind, and I had not even considered the fact that it rattles the brain about so violently."As he had fallen atop me, I was longer recovering my breath. Not that he needed me to speak to know what I was thinking. He looked me over and gave me a smug, "I was wondering." I could not help but grin.He moved to lie beside me, and I finally managed to find air enough for speech. "I was wondering how it could possibly be that, after nearly six days of strenuous appeals to your every carnal instinct, I could possibly have managed to seduce you while unconscious."He gave that dismissive flutter of his hand which, as he knows very well, does strange things to my pulse. "There is a certain something about you when you sleep.""I believe that, in general, sleeping persons tend to appear sweetly innocent.""And if you were one of the general, I should be well-prepared. No, John, it is your very exceptionality that makes you so irresistible, for, while you wear the aspect of an innocent during the day, in slumber your every feature screams that here is a debauched, depraved, immoral wanton. I have not the slightest idea how you manage it, but there it is."I laughed and pulled his hand up to my mouth, planting a series of kisses, intermixed with gentle bites, along the back of his hand and down his forefinger. "And you are hoping that sleep reveals a man's true self?" I asked, pulling his fingertip between my lips and tickling it with my tongue."I am already well aware that, in this particular case, it does." He gave the slightest of moans from some dark corner of his throat, and wriggled his finger a bit deeper into my mouth. I smiled around the digit, looked him straight in the eye, and used my own hand to push the whole length of his finger swiftly into my mouth, all the way down to his palm. He let out a gasp and then a groan as I sucked at his finger with abandon, my tongue stroking silkily back and forth. His free hand slid over me, wreaking havoc as it went--cupping my backside, stroking my neck, pinching a nipple through the fabric of my nightshirt. After giving his finger a thorough working-over, I pulled it free of my lips."If I am a 'debauched, depraved, immoral wanton,' I am in good company."The moment I had stopped speaking his lips crashed back into mine, gifting me with a kiss that left my head reeling. "I do not for a moment deny it," he slipped in between one bruising kiss and the next. "We are quite the well-matched pair of voluptuaries.""Perfectly matched," I agreed. I grasped him about the middle, pulled him flush against me, and ground my hips against his in one emphatic circle. His breath hitched and his eyes turned wild for a moment. I ought to have taken the time to enjoy causing that look, but I could not; I was too eager to bring it to his face again, and stronger. Where lovemaking is concerned, in my not inconsiderable experience, there is no sufficiency but surfeit.I flipped him onto his back and moved my hands down to his hem, then slid them up his thighs beneath his nightshirt. "John," he murmured, "as our bed is not three feet away, don't you think we might return to it?"I moved my hands up to his hipbones, caressing his stomach with my thumbs, and rucking up the fabric of his nightshirt as I went so that it crowded just at the base of his ribcage. "No, I don't think so," I replied absently, far too distracted by one or two parts of his body which I had just exposed to the open air. Bending down, I pressed a kiss to the head of his prick, tonguing the slit just the tiniest bit. He gave a little cry of startlement and pleasure. I pulled back an inch or two and inhaled, drinking in the scent of him, then looked him over."For the love of God, John, haven't you had enough of not touching me?" he said, curling five long fingers into my hair.I laughed against him, making sure he could feel it. "Patience, Holmes," I chided, giving in to him no further than by swirling the tip of my tongue once around his cock."You seem to have us confused." He urged my head downwards, directing me so that my slightly parted lips brushed against him. "I am the restless wretch who cannot wait for anything to save his soul. You are the patient one.""You have patience enough to wait for your chemicals to distill, or for a villain to incriminate himself, or for a stakeout to come to fruition." I punctuated each observation with an open-mouthed kiss, pressing my tongue between my parted lips. "Surely you can wait a few seconds for...""The cases are not at all analogous, as in none of those examples is it you I am awaiting with such forbearance," he hissed from between clenched teeth. "I am afraid I must really insist that you take me into your mouth this very instant, or I may...ah!"What it was he might have done I never learned. I suspected then, and suspect now, that it should have been something very grave, and I had no wish to be answerable for such dire consequences. Besides, as he had insisted, it would have been ungallant of me to hold back any longer.I do not have a reputation as a braggart, so I trust I shall be understood when I say that what I did to him then, with my mouth and my hand, is something I do very well. I claim little personal credit on that front--I have had one or two exceptional teachers, Holmes himself not least among them--but the fact remains that I am quite capable, between my tongue and my lips and the insides of my cheeks and with the useful support of one of my hands, of reducing the great Sherlock Holmes to blasphemous babbling between unsteady breaths. "John, I...Christ! Watson!" was, I believe, the specific exclamation on that particular morning, but they vary on a case-by-case basis. I have some reason to suspect that his Vernet grandmother may have been a Catholic, for he calls at times on the blessed saints, or, on one memorably ironic occasion, on the Mother of God, but that, I suppose, is beside the point.For several minutes he permitted me to keep him at that height of glorious insensibility, my mouth bobbing and twisting and dancing its way up and down his prick in time with my fist. Holmes was never still for a moment. He writhed; he twitched; he gasped; he stroked my neck; he gripped my shoulders; he ran a finger over his own lips. His hips thrust and his feet flexed and his head lolled and I relished every motion, knowing how intense was the tension that prompted them. Finally he said, "John...John. I think you ought....John, my God, John...mmmh! Watson, I think," here he paused to gasp loudly, and used the hand in my hair to pull my mouth away from him, "I think you had better stop that now.""Whyever would I want to do that?" I asked, licking my lips deliberately."Because, John," he said, hauling me up his body, "I fully intend that you should sod me within the next five minutes, and I plan to be in a position to give it proper appreciation. Being buggered in an immediately post-orgasmic state is a far from unpleasant experience, but not nearly so desirable as being buggered in an immediately pre-orgasmic state. Now, I should be very much indebted to you if you would go to the bed, and kneel with your back against the headboard.""I...what?" Holmes had, in the course of this speech, pulled my nightshirt from me, and had just cupped my scrotum in his hand. I believe that I may therefore be forgiven my inattention."I should like you," he said, giving a delicate but firm squeeze, "to kneel on the bed with your back to the headboard. Would you be so kind as to oblige me?"My brain seemed to have been replaced by cotton wool, but I finally understood what he had planned, and fairly leaped to obey. As positions went, that was not one we had used frequently, but when we had the results had been positively spectacular. As amenable as I was to his selection, however, I felt that, as he had been permitted that choice, I ought to be allowed a request of my own."Then let me watch you spread yourself for me," I replied. His eyes leaped, and he reached for the drawer of the night-stand without a moment's hesitation. Within seconds his fingers were slick and he was half-sitting, half-lying with his back against the bedpost, facing me. He never looked away as he pulled his knees upwards and slid one finger deep inside himself, but he had to fight to keep his eyes on me as they tried to roll back into his head. The sight of that first finger sliding into his body constricted my ribcage; after the second I had to bite my lip; and by the third, I could no longer stand it, and made to throw myself upon him.He was, as usual, too quick for me. He met me as I surged forwards, pushing me back into the pose that he had dictated, and then he was kneeling above me, his legs on either side of mine and one of his hands braced against the headboard. Before I had time to react, his other hand was wrapped around my cock, firmly enough that I nearly shouted with pleasure. When he guided me inside him and thrust downwards with his hips so that I ended up buried in him to the hilt, I did cry out, pressing my face to his chest to muffle the sound. The noise that passed Holmes's lips was softer, more strained, but that he lost control of himself so far as to give voice to any involountary utterance proved that he was just as affected as I.Holmes's legs were pressed so tightly against mine as to render me essentially immobile below the waist and give him sole say in the matter of our pace. It was an advantage he had every intention of pressing. For long moments he stayed quite still and gave me a wicked look informing me that he planned to toy with me. On another day I might have permitted him to keep control of the situation, for as a lover Holmes most assuredly never disappoints, but today I was--understandably, I think--strongly disinclined to allow him to take his time. When he finally did begin to move, he lifted his hips with a bloody-minded slowness that confirmed my diagnosis of his intentions. It was clear that I should have to take matters into my own hands. Fortunately, those retained their full range of motion.I moved one hand to the nape of Holmes' neck, the other just below it, and ran them down his back in one long firm caress which left him hissing, though it did not provoke him to increase the pace at which he rose and fell. I let my hands rest for a moment just above his hips. I worry a good deal about Holmes's emaciation in general, but the fact that I can very nearly span his waist with my hands provokes a quite unreasonable fervor in me. If it came down to a choice between him maintaining that slenderness or consuming a few more good meals, I should, of course, choose the latter, but until the day when I can coax, tease or browbeat him into regular eating habits--which may never come--I think I may as well enjoy that particular erotic spectacle. After lingering long enough to appreciate the sight, I slid my hands around to his backside. Gripping tightly, I pulled him downwards far more rapidly than he obviously intended and circled his hips, grinding us together in an excruciatingly pleasurable way.Holmes's eyes flashed. He brought his own hands to mine, endeavouring to pry them from his flesh. "Kindly release me, Watson."I laughed, a little breathlessly. "Did you really think that tone would work when I am actually inside you?""It did not seem very likely," he admitted, as I attempted to lift him in spite of his resistance. Meeting no success on that front, I continued to pull his hips in circles instead, which, while not nearly as satisfying as proper thrusting, certainly had its merits. "I thought it worth a try, however.""I shall let go if you cease torturing me and move," I offered."If I promised that, what would be the point of you letting me go?" he replied with a grin. "Besides, Watson, it is not as though you can truly control the situation from here. All that you can manage from this position is to limit my range of motion, which runs decidedly counter to your avowed wishes."He still had possession of far too much of his vocabulary. I was clearly not going about things as efficiently as I ought to be. "You are precisely right, Holmes. Thank you for pointing it out." Whereupon I flung myself forwards, carrying him with me. His legs wound around my waist by some unconscious carnal instinct as his back came to rest against the mattress, preventing me from pulling out of him as we moved. The look in his eye when he found himself with me above him was delectable, mingled surprise and indignation but all beneath his intense arousal. "In that position, I could not have done this..." I thrust my hips hard, burying myself completely inside him, and settled at once into that favourite rhythm of his--hard and steady, but not too fast--which seemed likeliest to keep him so lost in sensation that he should lose any interest in playing games.I ought to know better than to ever underestimate Holmes. True, for a little time, he did allow himself to be swept up in passion; I believe I am owed some credit for that, as I had angled my hips with particular care and could tell from his face that I was hitting my mark. It is always difficult to judge time at such moments, but I do not believe it can have been more than a few minutes before the light of command was back in his eyes. I was far too lost in the magnificent sensation of his flesh surrounding me to anticipate his scheme. He moved his arms up suddenly, planting his hands so that as I moved forward on my downstroke my abdomen collided with his hands. It caught me off guard at first, startling my breath from me, and then I understood why he had done it. I could not sheathe myself in him fully while his arms were positioned in the way of my body; this was his method of once again limiting my pace."Holmes," I panted, "What on earth are you hoping to accomplish?""Tell me how it feels, John," he demanded. "Tell me what it feels like to sod me." It was not an uncommon request, but what sort of answer he wished for--high, low, or positively vulgar--varied by the day."Incredible," I murmured, my hips still pumping into him as far as I was able, too near my peak, I thought, for eloquence. "So very, very good."He raised an eyebrow, though even Holmes could hardly seem scornful with lips so very red, cheeks so very pink, eyes so very dark. "Is that the best you can manage, my lust-drenched sometime poet?" he teased, though in a voice not entirely steady. He eased back his arms by half-an-inch, allowing me to take him the slightest bit more deeply.I groaned and compelled my mind, through sheer force of will, to function. "It feels...sublime, euphoric, unearthly," I babbled, knowing that he would not allow me my release until I had given an answer that met with his approval."Merely the scholar's version of 'very, very good.'" He would have scoffed, I think, had my hips not been actively driving into him at the time. Once again, he teasingly pulled back his arms and allowed me just a fraction of an inch further inside him. "Give me something more, John.""You feel like Eden," I gasped, desperate for anything that might please him. "Like Eden, but a brighter paradise."His eyes widened to their fullest extent before rolling back in his skull, and his entire upper body seemed to lose its strength, his arms falling away from me onto the mattress, freeing my hips to plunge into him just as deeply as I wished. Instantly I fell into a pounding rhythm--the sort which I could not maintain for long, but would not need to. "Touch me, John, please touch me, touch me now..."That is a command which I am always willing to obey, and the knowledge that it was my words as much as my body which had finally brought him to the point of pleading only increased my eagerness on this occasion. "Will you come for me, when I touch you?""Can you doubt it?" How either of us retained sense enough for coherence, even in such brief form, I haven't a notion, but thereupon the conversation ceased.I slipped my hand between us to wrap it around him. He gave a frantic little cry, louder than we ought to have allowed ourselves, and then moved his hand up to his mouth and sunk his teeth into it. The first time I witnessed him indulge in that act I was puzzled and a little alarmed, until I understood that it is his way of delaying an orgasm. He was waiting for me, but I wanted the sight of his face as he spiralled into bliss to be what sent me to my own little death. As my hips continued to pound into him and my right hand to stroke him, I used my left to pull his hand away from his face. His eyes were imploring, though whether to hold him back or to let him go I could not tell. I knew which I intended, however. I bent my lips to his and kissed him hard, knowing it would be enough. It was; within seconds I felt him spasm beneath me, and caught his scream of climax in my mouth. The warm rush of his release had not ceased spilling over my hand and stomach before I was following him, the feeling of my seed spurting into him no doubt heightening his orgasm as the feeling of his on my fingers was heightening mine. I was not aware of the moment when my muscles gave out, and I collapsed onto his chest.I do not believe that most people retain very accurate memories of the moments after such acts, the untangling of bodies and the gradual return to full awareness. I most assuredly do not. I am profoundly grateful, however, that my recovery is generally somewhat swifter than Holmes's under the same circumstances. I know the pattern of his orgasms very well; I have devoted considerable time and effort to the study. In the very best cases, his initial reaction is a sort of paralysis as the first waves of pleasure hit him. This is interrupted by a series of shudders, which culminate in one more violent than the rest (often triggered when I slide myself from his body), and which are followed by many moments of desperate struggling for breath. When, finally, he manages one long exhalation through the nose, it signals a stillness of a different kind, that of absolute calm and contentment. I always endeavour to be entirely conscious by this point in the proceedings, for it shortly precedes the opening of Holmes's eyes, and that is a sight I would not miss for anything.His eyes, at those moments, are breathtaking. They turn the perfect grey of a restless sea in winter, and his brows raise just the slightest bit. But it is their expression that I crave, that look of pure wonderment and joy which even our lovemaking is only rarely able to produce. On this occasion I was gifted not only with that look, but with a smile as well, close-lipped and small but as genuine as any I have ever seen him wear.I lay on my side next to him and drank in the sight of him for as long as I could, and then, feeling that I could not possibly bear to go any longer without some contact between us, leaned over to kiss him, once on the eyebrow, once on the corner of the mouth. My lips brushing against his ear, I said softly, "I...""I am very well aware of it." He must have considered it worth considerable effort to interrupt me, for it cannot have been easy in that languid state. Pulling back, however, I saw that his eyes were still shining. "You are an incurable romantic, John."I felt no annoyance at his manner. How could I wish him to be anything less than himself? "And yet you manage to tolerate me.""I cannot fathom why," he said, in a voice which left made it clear that he did nothing of the kind. Then he cleared his throat, and something subtle changed in his posture. I would not quite say that he returned to his usual self, so much as he decided that this had all gone on long enough. While that magnificent unguardedness was gone, however, his tone was not lacking in affection as he said, "By the by, my dear Watson, there is something in the drawer of the nightstand which you might care to see."While the nightstand could not possibly have held anything more appealing to my eyes than the sight which was already before them, obeying Holmes is a habit of mine, and I did as I was bidden. I knew at once what he was speaking of, for it was the only object in the drawer which I did not recognize--a slim volume, bound in red cloth, with gold gilt lettering on the cover. My French, though competent, is not particularly extensive, but even if I had not understood the meaning of La Marque des Quatre, I should have known what it was from the par Arthur Conan Doyle which followed. What did mystify me, however, though not for reasons of linguistics, was the line of smaller type below that: traduit par P.O."P.O.?" I asked, as I lifted the little book from the drawer. "I thought that the point was for you to do the translating."Holmes grinned, and stretched in a way which, while not particularly sensual, made his utter nudity suddenly much more apparent. "That is your choice of question, Watson? Not 'My goodness, Holmes, how could you possibly have managed to translate my novel, locate a publisher, have the thing printed and acquire a bound copy all in the few minutes since you lost the bet, and still had time to bring me to the most devastating state of ecstasy in the meanwhile?' You might even have added a 'You are truly a marvel, oh exemplar among lovers and men,' but I shouldn't have insisted upon that.""How very generous of you, oh first and foremost of the narcissists of Britain," I replied."And how, precisely, do you expect me to avoid gasconade while such an ideal specimen of the male of the species lounges naked before me in my bed? Really, Watson, you ought by now to have learned to expect egotism in any lover of yours, if only because the very fact of enjoying your favours is enough to provoke that trait."I could not help blushing, but replied with a flippant, "You only resort to such extravagant flattery when you want something from me. What is it now, Holmes? Wasn't that last enough to satisfy you for an hour or so, at least?"He gave me the most wicked look imaginable, his mouth tugging so dramatically to the left that it pulled the tip of his nose in the same direction. "I hadn't planned on anything of the kind just yet, but if you are ready for another round, my dear Watson...""What did you want, then?" I interrupted, suspecting that if he were allowed to elaborate, I should find, in spite of myself, that I was indeed ready and more."Simply for you to pass me that little volume which you have sacrificed and laboured so assiduously this past week to acquire, before declaring yourself to have been cheated of the prize that is your due. Is that a boon which you might be persuaded to grant?"I scoffed at his flowery choice of terminology, but I saw no reason not to do as he asked. "And my pen, Watson, if you would be so good.""Your pen is on your desk in the sitting room.""A scrupulously exact assessment of the situation, Doctor.""Might you not get it yourself?"Holmes gave me a look which expressed more eloquently than any words could have done the sheer absurdity of that proposition."Insufferable man," I grumbled, clambering over him on my way to the door as a petty revenge for his sloth. It backfired as a punishment, however, as, while I was above him, he took the opportunity of giving a certain portion of my body a decided squeeze."Blame it on your own enthusiasm, Watson. Let us suppose that I am rather too sore to be moving just yet.""You're nothing of the kind," I replied as I pulled on my discarded nightshirt and my dressing gown. "I have seen you leap from your bed like a jack-in-the-box after far more vigorous buggerings than that.""Then declare me prostrate with grief that you did not bugger me so over-enthusiastically as to render me immobile.""I would have done, had you not insisted on slowing me!" I called through the open door."Why, Watson, I am surprised at you! You could wish to have caused me discomfort? I had always thought you a more considerate gentleman than to so ill-use your bedfellows.""Bedfellow. Only the one. And none, soon enough, if this one continues to drive me to distraction and beyond. Fortunately for us both," I was back in the bedroom, pen in hand, and knelt beside him on the floor next to the bed, too eager to reach him to trek around to my own side, "I may now employ the only method I know of quieting you when you are in this mood." After so many days of being denied the pleasure--and such trying days at that--I am not ashamed to admit that we spent some minutes necking as enthusiastically as any pair of youths. Eventually, however, I stood and made as though to rejoin him on the bed."My dear Watson, wherever are you going?"I stopped. "To precisely where I was before I was sent off as your errand boy."He shook his head. "Quite out of the question. I have a rather tricky bit of composition to be attending to, and I am afraid that your company would prove most distracting."The average person, when trapped in a room with Sherlock Holmes for more than five minutes, finds himself possessed of a powerful desire to do violence to the man. I am not the average person, in that sense at any rate, but even I have my limits. Holmes, of course, knows me so well that, unless he is deep in one of his dark moods, he is able to push me precisely to those limits and not beyond. As my lips pursed with irritation, he caught my hand and pulled me back towards him."My dear Watson." He pulled my hand to his mouth and kissed the backs of my fingers, between the third and second knuckles. "My very dear Watson," he cajoled, noting my unimpressed expression, and planted another kiss half-an-inch down my fingers. "I promise you most sincerely," another kiss, "that if you will only give me an hour," and another, "I shall join you in the sitting room," he had reached my fingertips now, "with your prize in hand. It is a good deal to ask of you, I know," here he flipped my hand and kissed my palm, "but I trust your generosity of spirit."I waggled my head. "Insufferable man," I repeated, but with a smile, and left him--after one last kiss--to his work.He was as good as his word. Fifty-five minutes later found me on the settee, crunching away contentedly at my last piece of toast over the morning Times. I had just popped the final bite into my mouth when Holmes's face buried itself in my neck."Did you have a pleasant breakfast, Watson?" he asked, kissing the edge of my jawbone, just beneath my ear."Mmmm," I agreed--partly because my mouth was full of toast, and partly because it was a very sensible response.He kissed me once more on the cheek, plucked the paper from my hand, and substituted La Marque des Quatre in its place, then tossed the Times aside and sat down beside me on the settee. His arm linked through mine, and he gave me an expectant glance.I knew very well what was wanted of me, and I was as eager to read his dedication as he was to see me do so. I flipped open the cover to find the front endpapers covered over in Holmes's hand, more tightly packed than was his habit, all in that familiar cipher. My dear Watson, the inscription read, I do not consider myself to be shirking my duty to you in failing to append my name to this little work, seeing that you have not seen fit to attach yours to it either. Rest assured, however, that Madame de Polignac, the real P.O. and an old family friend, stands in precisely the same relation to me as your Conan Doyle to you: we do all the work, and they take all the credit. The translation itself is, I assure you, entirely my own. I had intended it for a birthday present, but you seem to have earned it of me sooner, and I shall thus have to come up with some other gift for your natal day. You may have to content yourself with chocolates or a new pipe on that occasion, my dear fellow. I do not think myself up to tackling A Study in Scarlet for you; I should fall asleep twice hourly attempting to slog my way through that tedious American section which you so unwisely permitted your publisher to insert. "Most people would not consider it entirely generous to berate a man for his shortcomings while inscribing a book for him, you know.""Fortunately for me, Watson, you are not most people," Holmes replied. He slid us sideways on the settee, slipped his arms around me, and rested his chin upon the crown of my head. "Do go on, old fellow. I...I hope that the rest of it will please you better."His hesitation was so uncharacteristic that I looked up at him, but his face was deliberately inscrutable. He gestured me back to the page with his eyes, and I turned back to my reading. My lack of affection for its predecessor is, I confess, John, not the only reason I chose this particular work to translate for you. You are always the hero of your own tales, you know, and The Sign of Four is the story of our brave doctor fighting selflessly to protect a man and a woman who, in despite of his gallant efforts, both forfeit their treasures in the end. There were years when the sight of that spine on my bookcase was hateful, a bitter reminder of that which was gone from me--much the same reaction, I suspect, which the most recent of your tales once provoked in you. Of late, however, only one other sight on this earth has pleased me better than that little book, for now it reminds me of how very kind fate can occasionally be. To regain that which is loved and lost is a privilege for which no man ought even to dare to hope, but I, however unworthy I may be, have lived to see my treasure return to me. And for that, my dearest Watson, I say, 'Thank God,' too. Before all else, I remain yours--Sherlock Holmes It was a strange world, I thought, in that small part of me which could be spared at that moment from the active practice of loving Sherlock Holmes, in which the wrongs we had done each other could become a symbol of our communion, and this frivolous week of mutual teasing make it as clear as it had ever been just how deep and how real our feelings ran. Life had been a curious thing long before Holmes or I passed into it, and would remain so long after we left. But in that little volume in my hand, we would remain, in all our mutual oddity, the quirks and strangenesses of our partnership set down where even Death and Time could not erase them. And for that one moment, just the one, wrapped in Holmes's embrace and with his heart on the pages in my hand, I felt that we ourselves had become immortal, for that which is made perfect cannot change.
13812	Effort	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "Gen", "Characters": null, "Fandom": "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", "Language": "English", "Rating": "General Audiences", "author": "by deird1", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2009-11-16T00:00:00", "words": "100", "Additional Tags": "season: pre-series, Drabble", "Relationship": null, "Character": "Joyce Summers", "Relationships": null, "Series": "Buffyverse drabbles", "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	"Well, no, but before this year she was never really-" "I think you'll find her grades-" "If I could-" "There were some extenuating-" "If you'd please just consider-" Dial tone. Yet another person opting for the hanging-up-on-crazy-mother-with-psychotic-child idea. She sighed, and slumped in the chair.It was hopeless."None of that, Joyce Summers," she said firmly. "You're not going to give up on your daughter's future. Instead, you're going to get back on that phone, and STAY on it until you find a school that will take her." She pulled the phone book towards her, and once again started dialling.
30746	Letting Go	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "M/M", "Characters": "Karl Foster, Todd Grimshaw, Sean Tully", "Fandom": "Coronation Street", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Teen And Up Audiences", "author": "by Maels (queen_ypolita)", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2004-11-25T00:00:00", "words": "4,687", "Additional Tags": "Post-Canon, 3000-5000 Words", "Relationship": null, "Character": null, "Relationships": "Karl Foster/Todd Grimshaw, Karl Foster/OMC", "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	Karl walked leisurely along Canal Street, nodding to people he knew and feeling how his anticipation for a great night was mounting. He spotted Sean talking to someone by the bridge and waved a greeting. For some reason the sight of Sean always got him on good mood – not that there was any need for extra cheering tonight; he felt happier than for a while. Sean gestured apologetically to the bloke he had been talking to and started making his way towards Karl, who stopped to wait for him. He tried to remember when he had last seen Sean… he couldn't. They had talked on the phone in the summer, August it might have been, it must have been, when Sean was about to be kicked out from his place and had been calling round his mates to find somewhere to stay. Karl hadn't been able to help, his room in the nurses' block was just about big enough for one. Living there felt, at times, like living in a match box. At least once a week he considered getting somewhere bigger but in the end couldn't be bothered to do anything about it. It was close to the hospital, he didn't even have to clean and after all, he didn't spend that much time in there.Sean hugged him tightly.'Hiya, it's been long, how are you?' he said, in one breath.'I'm fine, how are you? Last time we talked you were rather desperate – have you sorted things out?''Yeah, everything's great for me… Listen, I'd like to catch up properly, wanna go for a drink, tomorrow maybe? Unless you've got plans?''No, tomorrow is fine by me. Around seven?''Yeah, great. Weatherfield Arms all right with you?'Karl nodded.'See you then. Sorry for rushing off, but there's someone waiting for me.' Sean said and glanced back at the bloke he had been talking to earlier.'See you…' Karl said to his retreating back, and continued, more to himself than to Sean, who was already out of hearing, 'Someone's waiting for me too.'He shivered, the November night was chillier than he had expected but then his earlier anticipation took over. He smiled to himself, ready for his great night.* * It was already ten past seven when Karl walked in Weatherfield Arms. He tried to remember when he had last been there – it must have been ages. Come to think of it, it must have been some time he was there with Todd, in the early days. When they had still been just mates, or only just about to take the first steps beyond that…Like that night they nearly kissed. That night there had been a certain spark in everything, a spark that refused to go away even with Robbie turned up and threatening to ruin it all. Not that he for a moment wanted that spark to go, he liked Todd's company, it gave him a break from his increasingly strained situation with Robbie. And Todd seemed to enjoy his company too. And Todd certainly deserved a break from his girlfriend and her kid, deserved to have some time on his own, being the carefree teenager a lad his age still should be. Especially if he had doubts about whether he really wanted to be with her. Of course Karl didn't know all the details of Todd kissing the girlfriend's brother but the way Todd had told him about it suggested it wasn't something that was in the past. The way Todd had acted when the brother was in hospital had strengthened that impression. There was something in there… and as far as Karl knew, Todd didn't have anyone else to whom he could have talked about it, so it made sense to hang around and try to get to know him.He was never blind to the fact that Todd was good-looking; it was rather endearing how unselfconscious about his looks he appeared to be. If things were different, maybe… but it wasn't until that night he began to realise that Todd wasn't just after something to take his mind off his everyday worries. Karl wasn't sure to what extent Todd realised it, but they got on so well that night that he didn't want to think, didn't want to worry about Robbie… he wanted to just sit and talk and drink with Todd.He had his arm round Todd's shoulder when he walked him home. Todd wasn't particularly steady on his feet but that wasn't the reason he insisted on seeing him home safely in one piece – he was reluctant to break the spell and put an end to their evening. Too soon they were at Todd's door but then Todd leant on his shoulder after they were picking up his keys – then he knew he wanted to kiss him. But Todd drew back, it wasn't going to be. He said his goodbyes and went.He felt sobered up, in several senses. He knew the time had come to put an end to his relationship with Robbie. It had never really worked. At least not since Karl moved in with him. It had been a temporary solution, appearing god-sent at the time. He hadn't realised how possessive Robbie could be, what a bore life shared with him was. Tired of Robbie's endless questions about how, and most importantly, with whom, he spent his working days, he had resorted into winding Robbie up by telling him oh yes, there were gorgeous blokes working at the hospital, oh yes, he fancied one of them, oh yes, he couldn't stop thinking about him, not even when he was with Robbie, oh yes, he had been out for a drink with him. To be fair, he had told about the female nurses he worked with and about poor little Todd in Hetero Heaven. His only consolation was that he hadn't really told himself many lies about the state of things with Robbie – at least not since the first haze of lust had evaporated. To others maybe, but not to himself. However, getting rid of Robbie didn't mean he wanted to rush headlong to find out what, if anything, he could have with Todd. Way too much baggage there, he didn't fancy getting involved in it as anything but a mate…He blinked and realised he was still standing by the door in Weatherfield Arms. He wondered why he had got lost in his memories like that. He hadn't thought about Todd for at least a few days now, why did he have to be reminded of all that again. It occurred to him to wonder why Sean had wanted to meet him here, of all places.He spotted Sean already in the pub, sat at a table in the furthest away corner, busy talking to a bloke and a girl who both looked vaguely familiar, although Karl couldn't place them anywhere. He saw a lot of people at the hospital, he might have seen them there, as patients or patients' friends and relatives. Sean looked up when there was a slight lull in the conversation, a smile broke on his face when he saw Karl standing by the door. He got up, said something to the pair at the table who laughed at it while Sean made his way towards Karl.'Hi.''Hi.' He paused. 'Don't want to sound stupid but… why are we here?''Here meaning…?' Sean looked puzzled.'Weatherfield. This grubby pub. Not quite your style is it?''Watch it, it's almost my local you know.' Sean paused to check the impact these words had on Karl before he continued, 'I've been living round here for a while. Working too.''Really?' This came as a surprise to Karl. He couldn't imagine someone like Sean fitting in here. In fact, he couldn't imagine what on earth would have got Sean round here in the first place. Then he remembered that Sean's father used to live hereabouts somewhere.'Oh god, you must have been desperate. Staying with your dad?''No, no. I suppose I was desperate initially but not any more. I'm where I want to be, which means lodging at his and his mum's.' Sean nodded towards the bloke he had been talking to when Karl arrived.Karl's mobile rang before he had time to digest all this. He gestured apologetically to Sean before answering it.'Hello?''Hi gorgeous.'It was Dan.'Hi.''I was just wondering would you like to come over later…''I thought you were going clubbing?''I thought so too but I just had Anna on the phone, cancelling our night out because she had just found out that her boyfriend had got her pregnant or was it one of her mates he'd got pregnant or one of her mates getting her pregnant, I'm not sure… Anyway, if you're not doing anything special…?''No, just having a drink with a mate but I could come… later… But are you sure you can handle seeing me two nights in a row?''If you think you can survive seeing me two nights in a row, I think I'll survive too. See you later then, gorgeous.''Yeah, I will, see you then,' Karl replied, aware that Sean was listening.'Yeah, bye.' 'New bloke?' Sean asked after a short pause.'Yeah, sort of.''Is it serious or…?''We'll see… he's all right.''But…?''You think there's a but?''Well, it sounded like there was…' Sean looked around and lowered his voice. 'D'you still think about Todd?'Karl was just about to answer, a blatant denial on the lines, 'Todd…? Oh him, no, why would I?' when the question struck him as odd. He looked at Sean searchingly. 'Hang on, how do you know about that?''He told me. Not much but yes, I do know you two had… something.''How? When?''Well, I would have thought you knew how it happened and when… Or have you forgotten all about it by now? With that new bloke and everything? Or the others between Todd and him?''What makes you think there have been others?''I know you… never the type to stay at home, moping.' Karl glared at him.'OK, there have been a few,' he admitted. It was true after all. Sean knew him too well in that respect. What Sean didn't know and Karl had no intention of telling him was that they had all been attempts to get over Todd; he'd been with some of them because they reminded him of Todd (at least until he saw them the next morning) or because they were totally unlike Todd, six-foot rugby-player types, like the one who had seriously tempted him when Todd kept messing with his head.'Anyway,' he continued. 'You know very well what I meant, when did he tell you? I didn't realise you'd seen him since my birthday.' Sean discerned just a small hint of jealousy in Karl's voice and knew he'd better answer properly, no more jokes.'Well, to start from the beginning, I bumped into him on Coronation Street in August when I was looking for a place to stay; feeling pretty desperate as you've heard. Being the nice young man he is, he and his mum kindly offered their sofa for the night. But as I got on so well with his mum, she let me stay longer. So that's how and when I got to know Todd better. Then I got the sack from the department store and found a new job in the Street, sewing knickers.''You? Stitching knickers? You are full of surprises.''Yeah. The girls are a laugh.''What about now? You said you were staying with that bloke over there and his mum, have you moved?' Sean stared at him.'Sorry, silly me. You don't know, do you?''Know what?''That Todd's gone to London. That bloke over there is his big brother and I'm staying with him and Eileen, their mum.''Gone? To London? When? Why?''Sorry, I really thought you might know.''No, I didn't. So, tell me. Why did he go?''Well, mainly because he fancied a fresh start somewhere where everybody didn't know all what happened to him during the past year or so.''So what's he doing down there?''He's got a job and he tried to finish his A-levels. He started at the college here before he left. Did you know that either?''No.''Oh. Anyway, he's fine, almost sounds happy these days when I've talked to him on the phone.''Any reason why he shouldn't sound happy? He seemed reasonably happy when I last saw him.' Sean looked like he'd wanted to take back what he'd just said.'Well, I think he was happy then, getting his life back to track. There was just one big glaring but. That ex-fiancée of his; she didn't let him see the child and they argued about it. And then Todd found her in Jason's bed one morning. There was a massive fight and Todd decided he'd be best off somewhere else. There was a pause.'Did you say him over there is Todd's brother?''Yeah, that's Jason.''What's he like?''All right really. Didn't like me much in the beginning but when he realised Violet is my mate… well, he's been a lot nicer since.'Karl hardly heard him.'What kind of a man beds his brother's ex-fiancée? And how could she?' he said finally, trying to resist the desire to get up and give Todd's brother a good kicking. 'He was in pieces when she rejected him so totally. After he chose her.' He couldn't keep the bitterness out of his voice, although he wasn't sure if Sean had noticed.'From what I gather, there was a party, she was drunk, he was there, it just happened,' Sean said, trying to sound calm in the hope of calming Karl down too.'You know how it goes sometimes. It was just one-off, good while it lasted but regretted in the morning. Too bad Todd had to find out. The fight between him and Jason wasn't pretty, I can tell you. And Eileen was in pieces when he packed his bag and left.''So how's he now? Do you know?''I've talked with him on the phone a few times, he's just fine. Living, at least for the time being, with some mates from school, trying to find time to earn his living and get his A-Levels done.''Has he gone back to school then?' He was beginning to wonder how many pieces of Todd-related news Sean still had up his sleeve.'Oh yes. And he was talking about Oxford again, I'm not sure if it's happening or not… it's not something he and me talk about, but looks like he really wants to start over. Easier to do it down there than here.''Do you miss him?' Karl asked rather abruptly.'Hang on, shouldn't I be asking you that? Yeah, I do. We got on well. Used to drive Jason mad.''How cosy,' Karl said, more coldly than he had intended.'So you do miss him?' Sean asked, ignoring the comment.Karl stopped to think.'In a way yeah,' he said eventually. 'I guess what I miss most is that he never gave us a chance. Not a proper one anyway.''You really liked him, didn't you? How come you never said anything to me?''I dunno.''Come on Karl, when have you ever been able not to brag about your latest? Never. Something must've been different about Todd.''I dunno. He was so messed up and unhappy, I wanted to help him. But didn't want to push him, I thought he should decide when he was ready to come out… but then he kissed me. You know me, always out for what I can get, I knew he fancied me, so I thought why not… It's not every day the throw themselves at you… How much did he tell you?''Not much. That you had something. I assumed he meant that you had been lovers for a while but… that there was a but, the time wasn't right, whatever.' Karl was silent. He was thinking about the day when he had gone to see Todd. He had told himself that he was only going as a friend but deep down he knew it wasn't true. He had gone to find out if they still had a chance. He had hoped that Todd would come to him after some time had passed but he never did. It had taken time to get over that rejection. But whatever he had felt for Todd – he wasn't quite sure if it was love, no matter what it was, he had never felt quite so strongly for anyone in his life – it hadn't died out. It had lived and kept surfacing every time he had been sure it was in the past. So he had gone, hoping Todd still wanted him. After all, Todd had been saying he loved him. Karl had never quite believed it at the time, but after two months apart he found himself hoping that it was true. He had to find out and of course he had been disappointed. Regardless of whether Todd admitted it or not, Karl had been just an experiment, the experience that proved to him, beyond conceivable doubt, that he was gay…Karl was brought back from his thoughts by Sean's anxious voice. 'Karl? You all right?''Yeah, I'm fine. Same again?' As Sean nodded he got up and made his way to the bar. He really should stop thinking about Todd. This was supposed to be a quiet evening with old mates catching up. He was beginning to suspect that Sean had got him here to talk about Todd. Suddenly he felt annoyed at Sean. What right did he have to ask questions and make him remember? Well, argued a more reasonable part of him, Sean lived with Todd's mum and brother and was in touch with Todd; maybe Todd had even confided in him, he had the right to know. At least some of it. But no matter how reasonable the argument sounded, his anger wouldn't subsist. 'Did you arrange that we'd sitting in the same pub as him and her?' Karl asked. 'His girlfriend, I take it? She looks familiar, I'm sure I've seen her somewhere.''Violet? She used to work in that club we used to go to on Canal Street. Now she's barmaid in the Rovers. You've been there, haven't you?'Karl nodded. 'Now I remember her. She was great.''She is great, poor Jason is smitten. If there's something he's got no idea about, it's being serious about someone.' Karl couldn't think of anything to say. For a moment they were both silent. The girl and the bloke finished their drinks and left the pub, the girl waved a goodbye at Sean.'So do you have his address?''Todd's? Yeah I do… what are you thinking, writing a letter?''What if I am?''I'm not sure if I should give it to you, at least not without asking him first. You could give him a ring, you must still have his number, he hasn't changed phones or anything.''Fine, don't give it then.' Karl made a show of glancing at his watch. 'I should really be going… I'd hate to keep Dan waiting.' He got up abruptly and made his way towards the door.'All right', Sean muttered to himself, sighing, 'be like that. I'll text it tomorrow.' * Karl was lying awake in the early hours of the morning, long enough for his eyes to get used to the darkness of the bedroom. He glanced at the shape next to him, he wished he could sleep as peacefully as he did. He had to admit that meeting Sean and talking about Todd had unsettled him more than he had imagined possible, at least at this stage. He hadn't fancied Dan for what he was or wasn't, there had been that special spark from the first, from the moment he had seen that blond floppy hair, those startlingly green eyes, that amazing body, his voice, the way he moved. He had no idea where, if anywhere, it could lead, given the time, for the time being he was enjoying everything as it was, good time, great sex, no strings. Dan was gorgeous and funny and bright, there should have been no room for thoughts about miserable, messed-up teenagers when he found himself in Dan's bed. In which he was supposed to be asleep and contented at the moment.But his thoughts kept circling around Todd and what they had had. It felt ages ago already, as if in another life. Well, from what Sean had said about Todd's decisions this autumn, it sounded like he was already living a completely new life, different life. Karl was pleased for him; he was finding his own feet, hopefully caring less for what other people thought about him and his choices. Maybe he should give Todd a ring, to find out for himself that he was all right. But they hadn't been touch after he visited him in August; it had been the final goodbye although they both had pretended it wasn't. It had been. Maybe he really should call him, or text him, or a write a silly intrusive letter, just to get over it.He sighed, he felt more awake than he had been when he first found he wasn't asleep. The steady rhythm of Dan's breathing was soothing, his body warm against his but sleep didn't want to come. He turned his back to Dan and closed his eyes. It suddenly struck him as immensely unfair that he had only ever had the chance to spend the whole night with Todd. Their first night. The other times they met, Todd had to always rush off sooner or later, home to waiting Sarah or to work. While the secrecy of it had been exciting at first, he soon grew tired of it. He didn't expect Todd to come out before he was ready but he was surprised to discover how much he actually hated it in the end. It would have been easier to deal with it all, but Todd never seemed to be consistent in what he wanted. In the privacy of Karl's room in the nurses block he might indicate that he was going to come out very soon, outside that room he made a show of pretending to be the perfect fiancé. It was almost as if he was waiting to hear Karl's applause. Well, that was something he wasn't getting. But it was easy to forget all that when Todd had been there. With the memories of their times together he finally drifted into sleep. * Karl stared at the blank sheet of paper in front of him. 'What a way to spend a Sunday morning,' he thought. He had just come home from Dan's, saying he had something to do before he went to work.Todd, he had written, but hadn't figured out a satisfactory way to go on. Sean gave me your address after telling me you were in London. I hope you're all right. But once he saw the words on the paper, they seemed too silly and pointless so he pushed the sheet aside and admitted defeat. He wasn't a letter writer, if he really wanted to contact Todd he would have to use the telephone. He dug up his mobile from his pocket, thinking of texting Todd rather than giving him a ring – easier for Todd to ignore and easier for himself to keep some distance.Hi! Saw Sean, he told me you were in London… How are you? KarlHe sent the message before he had time to regret it. Glancing at his watch he realised he'd been sitting with the attempted letter for more than two hours and now it was time to go to work unless he wanted to be late.He passed Martin in the first-floor corridor on his way to his own ward and ignored him. They had agreed to be professional when work was concerned and their superiors seemed to have made sure they didn't have to meet unless it was absolutely necessary. Which was a relief, but they never talked to one another any more, hardly acknowledged one another's existence apart as colleagues. Martin didn't even sneer at him any more, which of course was an improvement because sneers didn't even suit him very well, had made him an eyesore in addition to being a major irritant. * *He had a good shift, he wasn't too rushed, his patients (and more importantly, their friends and relatives) seemed all patient and civilised and on a good mood. After his shift he went for a quick drink with a couple of his nurse mates, they talked and laughed and joked so much that his sides ached when he realised three hours had passed after in the pub and he still hadn't checked if Todd had replied. When he found that Todd hadn't, he was disappointed only for a moment, then he shrugged and told himself he had never expected him to reply.But Todd did reply. He stared at his mobile for a full minute, wondering if he really wanted to see the message. Maybe it was just Todd's way to tell him to get stuffed. Again. Like he had at that party. Although at the time it had been slightly ambiguous, or so he had told himself, there was strange gentleness in it too. He drew a deep breath and opened the message.Im fine. Honest. Got a job, go to college, got new mates, sort of seeing some1. Like it here! So Im fine. You?It was like having a bucketful of cold water thrown at you. Todd was sort of seeing someone and he had only been in London, what, two months? It wasn't like Todd at all, was it? And why did he appear so cheerful? After all he had had three massive emotional upheavals in the past six months: coming out, death of his baby, fighting with his brother which had resulted in moving down south. And now all those sad things behind him, he was having the time of his life in London. It was unfair. No, it wasn't, Todd deserved to get a break from everything that happened. Karl should be pleased for him.And deep down he was. It was just a pity that he had to be part of the past that Todd was trying to forget. He sighed and started thinking about his reply. What he came up with was Good 2 hear that. Sort of – whats that? Im all right. Thought you'd forgotten all about me by now though… text me sometimes, OK? which he sent before getting second thoughts.He only had to wait about a minute for Todd's reply.Sort of = early days. Sorry, shouldnt have mentioned it – but HAD to tell some1. And as if I could ever forget you…No chance. Good night, text U soon.Karl felt better. Todd didn't think he could completely forget Karl. It was something. Maybe he had got caught up in his regrets and what ifs. You couldn't live your life like that and Karl had always had healthy scorn for those who did. It must have been because he had felt so much, more than for anyone else that he hadn't been able – or willing – to let go. Younger Karl wouldn't have got involved with anything so complicated, would have made his exit the moment things got heavy. Karl in May would have done anything to keep Todd for himself. Karl all summer wanted him back but couldn't decide how to do it. Karl in August had been humble enough to try. Karl in November was discovering the realist inside. It was time to put Todd in the past and move on.The end.
90033	Leaving Apastron	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "M/M", "Characters": null, "Fandom": "Hikaru no Go", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Teen And Up Audiences", "author": "by sarasusa", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "2010-05-27", "published": "2010-05-26T00:00:00", "words": "1,336", "Additional Tags": "Romance", "Relationship": null, "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	Title: Leaving ApastronFandom: Hikaru no GoDisclaimer: Series created by Yumi Hotta and Takeshi Obata. No harm is intended nor profit gained from this fanfiction.Characters/Pairing: Kaga and TsutsuiRating/Warning: Teen (implied same-gender attraction, slight language).Summary: Post-series. A mid-game interruption can last for years-but it doesn't mean the match has ended.Author's Note: Story was written for October 2007 challenge at LiveJournal's "HnG prompts" community. The fic may count as divergent future-I haven't read the full manga, so don't know the details of any canonical interactions between Kaga and Tsutsui after middle school. For a definition of "apastron," see http / imagine. gsfc. nasa. gov/ docs/ dictad. html#apastron (remove spaces). (My use of the term would probably sound awkward to an astronomer, though!) I also drew inspiration from my treasured Hikaru no Go pencilboard, pictured here: http / img. photobucket. com/ albums/ v349/ sarasusa/ screencaps/ (remove spaces).Kimihiro props himself against the row of sinks, blinks until the red tiles of Constellation Lounge's bathroom swim into focus. Not for the first time, he regrets having chosen when he entered university to switch to contacts. Even with the solution he's just put in, his eyes are gritty with barroom smoke.He's regretting coming along on this group date as well. His roommate (and fellow school psychology major) Kanda had eventually worn him down: "You've got to get out of your shell, Tsutsui. Enough moping over your ex."Kimihiro suspects the invitation had more to do with achieving gender balance for the gathering than any particular solicitude of Kanda's. Still, he does have a point.Yumi had been a friend from the university go club, a little taller than Kimihiro and much livelier, eyes brilliant behind her spectacles. Their breakup, supposedly "amicable," sent him into a tailspin: Kimihiro had stopped going to club activities, instead circling mindlessly through days of classes, homework and helping out in the family bookstore.This at least is a break in routine; I'd better take advantage of it. Kimihiro stiffens his shoulders, sets his hand to the restroom door-Only to pitch forward as it's abruptly swung away. Clawing for support as he goes down, Kimihiro's fingers drag against rough denim-regardless, he whumps belly-first on the sticky floor. So much for this shirt."Whoa, sorry-my bad," says a rough-edged voice. Hands descend on Kimihiro's upper arms, haul him upward.Trying to school his face into a semblance of courtesy, Kimihiro looks up at the stranger. Shock erases the trite response he'd planned.There's no mistaking those fox-slanted eyes, that rust-colored hair, even if Kaga now wears his hair clubbed in back and sports a jeans-jacket and leather pants.Another man comes up alongside Kaga, leans on his shoulder. "Hey, knocking people over now? The guy may be smart," this to Kimihiro, "top of our year in Physics-but he's a little rough-and-ready for polite company.""Shut it, Asou," Kaga retorts, his brows knitted as he continues to survey the hapless Kimihiro. Suddenly, Kaga's eyes widen. Mortified, Kimihiro realizes he's been rubbing the bridge of his nose-a nervous habit he thought he'd left behind with the glasses.An incredulous smile spreads across Kaga's face. Kimihiro's abruptly released, only to have the air knocked out of him again as Kaga traps him in a once-familiar headlock. "If it ain't Tsutsui! Of all places, I swear!"Dislodged, Asou looks them up and down. "You know this guy?""Middle school classmates," confirms Kaga, mussing Kimihiro's hair and beaming. "Played Go.""Go? You?" Asou's saying, but Kimihiro barely hears. His face must be beet-red by now. "You haven't changed," he mutters. Kaga's sleeve smells of tobacco; Kimihiro fights the urge to sneeze."Eh?" Kaga peers down at him."You mean Tetsu-chan was like this as a kid? Already flam-bnkh," finishes Asou as Kaga casually reaches over and clamps his nostrils shut."So Tsutsui, you here on your own?""It's a get-together with some classmates. Look, they're probably wondering where-""Ditch 'em," Kaga interrupts succinctly. "Asou's soused, so I'm gonna turn him over to his keeper, and then you and I are going to go somewhere else and talk, all right?" Kaga ushers both Kimihiro (protesting in vain) and Asou (spluttering for breath as Kaga continues to lead him by the nose) back into the milling crowd of bar-goers.-o-o-"I was the designated driver for my friends, you know," Kimihiro says icily as they step out of Constellation."So? Let 'em take the train. Besides, they seemed plenty cozy with the girls they were chatting up." Kaga pauses, raises his eyebrows. "What, you drive?""I'm not a total incompetent, you know," Kimihiro snaps. "I've had my license for years.""Whaddaya know. Little Tsutsui-kun, all grown up, driving, wearing contacts, no more puppy fat-" Kaga flicks a finger against Kimihiro's cheekbone."Damn, that hurt, Kaga." Kimihiro glares, rubbing at his cheek. Kaga smirks.They stroll in silence a while. Kimihiro becomes aware of a pulsing flutter in his stomach. After a few more steps, he experiences a lurch of recognition. It's like the anticipatory, happy agitation he felt during his early dates with Yumi—and it's incredibly disturbing in this context. "There's a coffee shop," he says hurriedly.Kaga orders black coffee, while Kimihiro sticks with tea. He's finding it hard to maintain eye contact.Kaga clears his throat. "Ohhhkay, let me get this out of the way."Kimihiro looks up to meet Kaga's unblinking stare. "What?" he says when Kaga appears disinclined to continue."Sorry I wound up not going to Haze for high school." Kaga says it in a rush, then scowls. "It's not like we hung out all the time, but we looked out for each other, and I was kind of expecting you'd always be around, somehow, you know?"Kimihiro's too astonished to reply. He'd had a fair idea of how Kaga-how most of his classmates-thought of him in middle school: nerdy, diffident, easy to tease. It was odd to have the assumption challenged."Why apologize?" he says after a moment. "Didn't your family have to move?"Kaga gives him an indecipherable look, then takes a long gulp of coffee. "Listen," he says after wiping his mouth with the back of his wrist. "I learned a lot from you in middle school. I never got around to saying thanks for it, and that's bugged me."Kimihiro's mouth has dropped open; Kaga snorts."Plus, the one time I catch sight of you after we graduated, you're on a date with some chick." Kaga leans across the table, prods Kimihiro in the chest. "And you were carrying around a how-to-date book, in plain sight. I mean, what the hell."Kimihiro's pleased feeling has vanished in a red haze. He strikes Kaga's hand aside and stands."Fine, so I was an idiot then. I'm still an idiot." All his middle-school uncertainties are boiling up, mixing with his weeks of depression over the breakup and the strangeness of this whole evening. The only thing that's clear is that everything is Kaga's fault. "I don't understand relationships; all I understand is how to study, how to work hard, and even then I'm no genius like you." His voice is trembling-it makes him more furious. "I'm still goofing up, even today, still as weak as you think I am."He looks down, rummages in his pocket for money to pay for the tea. All he wants is to get away from this, from being made to feel again."Tsutsui."Kimihiro inhales deeply, starts counting out bills. "What.""There's something else I need to tell you.""You think I care?""You might."Kaga's hand, dry and large, covers Kimihiro's fingers. Unwillingly, Kimihiro looks up."You're giving me a ride home." Kaga's mouth quirks up. "You haven't gotten around to thanking me, after all.""Who would thank you?" Kimihiro says. He stares at their hands."You, for the Go game we're going to play tonight.""You've lost me."Kaga's smile broadens. "I know. But I've found you again."-o-o- -o-o- -o-o-
66297	Sparing the Rod	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "Gen", "Characters": "Drusilla, Spike, Original Female Character", "Fandom": "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Teen And Up Audiences", "author": "by a2zmom", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2007-06-04T00:00:00", "words": "100", "Additional Tags": "Drabble, Dark, Horror, Pre-Canon, Community: open_on_sunday", "Relationship": "Drusilla/Spike", "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	"Your table manners are quite horrid. You have raspberry jam all over the front of your frock.""I don't think the poppet is going to apologize, pet.""She is a rather rude child. She insulted Miss Edith and the poor dear was just beside herself. Still, mama was adamant that striking a child never accomplished anything. She'll just sit here until she's learned her lesson."So Eva sat, hands clasped tightly, petticoats and dress starched and pressed, eyes and mouth both open wide, her throat an explosion of colors and textures – soft ivory skin, hard white bone, syrupy red blood.
86473	Adorned	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "M/M", "Characters": "John Sheppard, Rodney McKay", "Fandom": "Stargate Atlantis", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Explicit", "author": "by Zinnith", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2010-05-14T00:00:00", "words": "314", "Additional Tags": "Makeup, Blow Jobs, Porn Battle", "Relationship": "Rodney McKay/John Sheppard", "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	Rodney never thought of himself as kinky. Sure, he likes sex just as much as the any other guy, and he's not the one to pass up a little variation. But some of the things John shows him... Things he never would have expected to find hot, not in a million years.Like now, when he's leaning against the headboard of the bed, legs spread, watching John go down on him. Watching John's lips stretched around his cock, painted dark red with lipstick. Rodney has always had a little thing for John's lips, the soft fullness of them, the way his tongue plays over them when he's thinking.To see them like this, adorned, glossy, the rich red colour of wine, is so mind-blowingly hot and dirty that Rodney expects his brain to explode any second now. He's harder than he's been in his life and John's tongue and amazing mouth... Rodney is sure he's rapidly losing brain-cells. He can't bring himself to care.John lets Rodney's cock slide out of his mouth with an obscene slurp, gazes up at him through ridiculously long eyelashes, and then rubs his lips (oh good those dark red lips enough to drive anyone crazy) against the head of Rodney's cock, smearing him with lipstick and fuck that's just too much. His hips jerk violently and John barely has time to close his eyes before Rodney paints his face with come.He sinks back against the mattress, trembling, watching John lick his lips, lick Rodney's come from his lips, and then open his eyes and his gaze is just smoking. Rodney has to pull him up, kiss him, taste himself in John's mouth mixed with the waxy taste of lipstick. John's hard, moaning and rubbing against Rodney's thigh, and as Rodney flips him over and pins him to the bed he thinks that he can live with kinky.
21062	His Real Father	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "Gen", "Characters": "Angel, Connor, Lawson", "Fandom": "Angel: the Series", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Teen And Up Audiences", "author": "by elisi", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2009-11-26T00:00:00", "words": "2,007", "Additional Tags": null, "Relationship": null, "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	The darkness was comforting. Connor had been brought up in it, understood how to move in it - how to become a shadow amongst shadows; and he felt more at home out here in the forever night of the 'urban jungle' than inside houses that always made him think of traps.He'd fled the hotel, no one there having the power to stop him. Cordy had called out after him, but he'd ignored her. He knew what needed to be done, even if nobody else agreed - or were too emotionally attached. Angelus was free again, free to maim and kill and destroy people like his father's first family...Trying to track the scent he ran into yet another group of vampires. With a sigh he drew out a stake and set to work.A few bruises later the demons were dust, but as Connor turned to walk away he saw a familiar silhouette come towards him. The vampire exuded casual, almost nonchalant, menace with every step, and his scent was still heavily tinged with Lilah's blood.With a grim smile Connor tightened the grip on the stake.But Angelus stopped a little way off, shaking his head with an amused little sideways smile."Now, now son - just relax. I didn't come to fight."Connor's eyes narrowed. "Do you think I care about what you want?"Angelus smirked. "I'd be gone before you could lift your arm. But - I found you for a reason. There's someone I'd like you to meet! Apparently he's been checking in on Angel every decade or so - very touching. And arriving now? Serendipity doesn't begin to cover it. Do you think someone up there likes me?"Connor frowned. What was this? But Angelus merely turned a little and motioned to someone yet hidden, before catching Connor's eyes again."Son - please say hello to your big brother, Sam Lawson. Lawson, this is Connor."Out of the darkness came another young man, dressed in a dark blue woollen jacket and jumper. Nice haircut, handsome face... but definitely a vampire."Hi!" the Lawson vampire said, smiling and holding out his hand. "Pleasure to meet you. It's funny, because I always wished I had a little brother - all I had were sisters."Connor stared at the hand in mute disgust.Angelus shrugged. "Told you! His step dad really could have done a better job teaching him manners.""What is this?" Connor asked, looking from one to the other."Oh - sorry!" Angelus said, holding out his hands, the very picture of apology. "Did I forget to explain? How terribly rude of me! You see, meeting Lawson again set me thinking about what you told me, back when I was in the cage - about me being your real father, remember?"Connor nodded cautiously. He couldn't work out where Angelus was going with this, but thought that maybe if he kept him talking, Angelus might let down his guard for a moment or two and Connor could let the stake do some replying.Angelus however happily continued, as chatty as ever. "The thing is - I've come to the conclusion that you're right."Connor blinked. What new game was this?"I'm right?""Absolutely! So, I made a decision. From now on I'm going to take some responsibility. Because - quite frankly Angel just sucks at the parenting thing... I mean, just look at poor Lawson here. Angel sired him during the war - it's a long story involving covert military operations and submarines and the crew being killed off one by one... quite exciting if you like that sort of thing, someone ought to make a movie..." Angelus smiled a little, before seriousness overlaid his features again. "But the story has a tragic ending, because then Angel just abandoned the poor kid. Told him to kindly fuck off and that if he ever saw him again, he'd stake him. I mean - what sort of father says that? And we both know how he couldn't even look after you... And by the way, I'm really sorry about that. I think it's that soul, messing things up. All that love and 'trying to do what's right'. Guess he can't help it."Connor was listening, feeling himself agreeing with a fair bit of what Angelus was saying. And despite knowing that the deep sincerity in the voice was fake, it still affected him.But then the vampire smiled that unnerving smile again, somehow appearing more like a demon than if he'd worn his gameface."But see - this is where I'm so very different from Angel... I am a good father. Wes stole you because he was worried what Angel might do - and quite frankly I'm thinking he was right. I mean look at this apocalypse we're having. Which obviously is somehow connected to you... And what if it's your blood that can save the world? What do you think Angel would do?"Connor swallowed. Angelus studied him carefully, and, even though Connor's sight was as keen as any vampire's, he still couldn't work out what went on in the dark depths of those eyes. Angelus however didn't give him time to answer."Now me? I'd let the world go to hell before I let anyone lay a finger on you! This is what they don't understand, any of them." He pulled a dismissive face. "Humans. No concept of loyalty. But you Connor - you're my son - my family - and I always looked after my family... Until that stupid gypsy girl messed everything up. Oh... we were magnificent back in the day!"He sighed and turned to Lawson. "Remember Spike?"Lawson, who'd been silently following Angelus' monologue, frowned. "You mean the vampire in the Nazi uniform?"Angelus grinned. "Yeah, him. He was one of mine. Dru sired him as her playmate, so I took him under my wing. Guy was a pathetic little poet when he was human, but I turned him into quite the legend. He's killed two Slayers, and has a thoroughness that's quite something. That is what I'm talking about! Also known as William the Bloody - which reminds me, Lawson, you really should get yourself a new name. Connor's nickname in Quor'Toth was 'The Destroyer', which is much more like it."Lawson looked unsure and somewhat put out as Angelus proudly smiled at Connor. Connor stared back, silent. He ought to walk away - away from Angelus who was obviously having a wonderful time, juggling the two of them like some macabre street performer. And yet he couldn't make himself leave until he'd found out what Angelus' motive was... what his next move would be.Angelus continued smiling and spread his arms wide."But this brings me back to what I meant to say all along - Connor, why don't you join us? After all we're your family - the same blood runs in our veins as in yours. And quite frankly - you're quite the chip off the old block. Spike was full of fire, but he never had any patience; no sense of artistry. Couldn't understand the pure, delicious joy of letting someone suffer and suffer and suffer with no hope of respite. But you..."Angelus stopped, tilting his head, and studied Connor intently. There was a glow in his eyes that abruptly made Connor remember everything Holtz had ever told him, and also remember that Holtz had only used him as a means to an end. How would he ever be able to untangle the truth?Then Angelus' voice ensnared him again, darkness trailing in its wake as it stole across his mind."You make your old man proud. Only eighteen and already you've got that sophistication down to a T! Can't say that being stuck under the sea was fun, but it sure proved that you really are my son! Lawson here doesn't even come close to having your natural abilities."Lawson turned his head sharply, and Angelus chuckled softly as he caught the other vampire's eyes. "Hey - it's not your fault, kid. You were brought up a good, honest little boy by a loving family. He was brought up in a Helldimension by a psychopath consumed with revenge. And of course he is the child of two vampires... kinda hard to beat that basic evil input."Connor felt like his chest was too tight. The absolutes in his world had been shaky ever since he had first entered this dimension... but now he felt as though everything he knew was being trampled and destroyed and altered. Like truth was being bled dry and all he'd be left with was a rotting corpse of deceit and lies."Angel wasn't evil when he fathered me!" he said, angrily, trying to hold onto something, anything - any sliver of reality that was still untainted."Oh really?" Angelus said, and then burst out laughing. "Let me tell you a secret: The only reason Angel slept with Darla was because he wanted to lose his soul - he was just so depressed and felt so useless. Really it was a new low, even for him! Didn't work - so he just sent her away too. Always a bastard towards his family. But I'm not... So what do you say Connor?"Connor stared, unable to speak. What was he supposed to say? What did Angelus want to hear? It was hard to know how to formulate a 'no' when he wasn't even sure what he was declining. Angelus obviously sensed his confusion, chuckling as he folded his arms - a black shadow amongst shadows."You were the one who said it, boy. You're my son. I'm sure Holtz saw it too - evil is inside you and it's pointless to fight it. That's where your talents lie. The only reason you want to kill me is because I remind you of what you really are. You know that all of Angel's 'love' can't - and couldn't - ever save you. But I? Can make you what you were meant to be! And you'll be where you're supposed to be - with your real family. The world would tremble before us as it did before. What do you say?"Mutely Connor shook his head, unable to even begin to explain his revulsion. He could feel his heart beating far too loudly, and had to restrain himself from stepping backwards - away from the smiling monster in front of him, who was now holding out a hand towards him."I can make it go away Connor... All the fear, all the worry, all that pain - it'll melt away and you'll be able to see clearly. You can be what you were supposed to be..."The voice was silken, low and tempting and full of promise. And despite everything - despite his insides recoiling - Connor could hear a tiny little voice - deep, deep down - saying that maybe Angelus was right. Maybe he was fighting a losing battle.To be free...But as soon as he became aware of the thought he rejected it. Holtz might have used him, but he'd used him for a reason. He still had a mission."Never," he said, voice defiant, despite being barely above a whisper."Ah well - your loss," Angelus shrugged - the spell gone as abruptly as if a light had been switched off."But think about it, yeah? Trust me, I only want what's best for you, son! If you want me, you'll know where to find me - just follow the bodies."He winked at Connor, then he slung an arm around Lawson's shoulder and grinned."Now my boy - what do you say we go find out where this Beast is holed up and show it that the Clan of Aurelius still has some bite?"Lawson smiled widely, eyes lighting up, and the two vampires walked off - never looking back.Long after their footsteps had died away Connor was still rooted on the spot, the stake in his hand as heavy as lead, as realisation slowly began to seep through him.He couldn't hurt Angelus.He could kill him - probably, maybe, if he got lucky - but he'd never, ever be able to hurt him.He couldn't win.
48777	Pleasing and Pleading	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "M/M", "Characters": "Robin, Joker, El Dragón - Character", "Fandom": "DCU - Superdictionary", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Mature", "author": "by angelikitten", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2010-01-10T00:00:00", "words": "266", "Additional Tags": "Community: fortycakes", "Relationship": null, "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	The Joker was pleased. He was happy that he had managed to capture Robin."It will please me to keep you here." he said, as he finished tying Robin up. "It will make me feel good. It pleased me to trap you.""Please, Joker, let me go." Robin pleaded. "I politely ask that you let me go.""Now Robin, you know that's not how it works." the Joker said, disapprovingly. "You are aware of how it works: I keep you here so that Batman will try to rescue you, and then I capture him.""Oh." said Robin. He made a small sound, to show that he understood now. "I got confused. I couldn't tell the difference between this situation and the one I was in last night. See, El Dragón had me tied up last night, but we had a safeword. When I'd truly had enough of something we were doing during our kinky mansex, such as being tied up, I was to say a phrase that we had previously decided meant 'stop this now', and..."The Joker covered his ears. "If I let you go, will you promise that you'll never talk to me about your sex life again? Will you promise not to do it any more times?""Sure." Robin replied. "Of course." he said, as the Joker untied him."In case you were wondering..." Robin started, as he walked away from the Joker. "In case you were thinking about it, the safeword was 'cake'.""NOOOOOOOOOOOOO! You broke your promise!" screamed the Joker, as Robin ran away. "You didn't keep it!"And that's terrible.
31998	Filling	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "F/M", "Characters": "Ned (Pushing Daisies), Olive Snook", "Fandom": "Pushing Daisies", "Language": "English", "Rating": "General Audiences", "author": "by NeoVenus22", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2009-12-19T00:00:00", "words": "1,359", "Additional Tags": null, "Relationship": "Ned/Olive", "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	Four months, eight days, twelve hours, and fifty-two minutes after Chuck had left the Pie Hole and her apartment above it, Ned the Pie Maker looked up from his task of inelegantly hacking into a pear, to find Olive Snook, his longest-employed and now solitary waitress, staring at him."What?""No one should ever feel sad baking a pie," said Olive sagely. "People can taste it, you know, sadness. Doesn't make the pie taste very good."Olive had recently developed a knack for seeing right into Ned's soul, he privately pondered. Of course it was possible she had always had the gift, and he'd simply never noticed it before now. Whichever the case, it unnerved him greatly. "Maybe you should be making the pies, then.""I'm just the cute, perky waitress." Olive smiled, as though to demonstrate. "You're the pie artist, Ned! But you're like Picasso - you're in your Blue Period now, and you need to break through and move ahead.""You want me to make cubist pies?"Olive stepped close to him and lay her hand over his own flour-dusted one. "I want you to do what you do best." And leaving Ned with that cryptic statement, Olive Snook went back to doing what she did best, charming the customers of the Pie Hole with a slice and a smile. Ned, meanwhile, looked at the spot on his hand where she had touched him, feeling the presence of her fingers still, like a ghost. But this was not the lingering spirit of something dearly departed, which was a sensation he knew all too well. This, rather, was the ghostly apprehension of something unknown.Six months, twelve days, fifteen hours, and thirty-six minutes after Charlotte Charles's departure to once again be a tourist, although much less lonely, Ned the Pie Maker sat at a booth in the closed Pie Hole after a long day, and found a piece of pie waiting for him. He looked up to see Olive's expectant smile. "I know you never eat your own pie," she said. "Which I always thought was kinda weird." She half-giggled and settled in the seat across from Ned. "But I figured no one who spends as much time around pie as you do has any capacity to hate pie, so... Made this one myself."Ned took a grateful bite. The fruit was fresh and did not decay in his mouth, which was a considerable relief. The sensation of rapidly rotting fruit pressed against one's tongue was not, as you might imagine, the most pleasant of sensations. However, this pie was altogether pleasant. The crust was flaky. The temperature was just right. "It's good," he said, an understatement."Learned from the best," said Olive, swelled with pride.It was in that moment that Ned realized, perhaps for the first time since a girl named Chuck had left him behind, that her reasoning for leaving was true in aspects beyond their relationship. Neither Chuck's world, nor the world in general, revolved around Ned. Olive Snook was more than just a presence in his life, she was a source of cheer for the customers, a source of physical affection for Digby, and a source of something for Ned that he could not yet determine. Comfort, perhaps, but it was much more than that. She had been a rock for Ned, long before even Chuck danced her way into the scene.Olive went about her merry way, shutting down the eatery for the evening. And as bits of berry heated his tongue, down his throat, to warm his chest and stomach and whole person from the inside out, Ned's world stopped.And started its next revolution on a new axis.Two weeks, three days, eight hours, and forty-five minutes after Ned the Pie Maker's feelings started to change, Olive Snook began to see, in the colloquial sense, Alfredo Aldarisio, the traveling homeopathic supplements salesman who'd won her nose and was working on her heart, and Ned began to see, in the literal sense, this very relationship slowly unfolding.Ned had experienced jealousy in numerous instances in his life, but this instance was tinged with despair, as he knew this was something that could have been his, if only he'd realized it. His hand occasionally burned with the sensory memory of any brief touch she'd inflicted on him, the sort of thing of which no one would take much notice; the traveling salesman, for example, who drank in touches greedily without a level of true appreciation.Olive giggled at something the salesman said, touched his sleeve, and went to see to her waitressing duties.Ned debated abusing his rights as an establishment owner, and banning Alfredo Aldarisio from the premises."He seems nice," said Ned, as Olive ducked into the kitchen to slice some rhubarb for table five."He is," said Olive, "very nice.""Is he your boyfriend?"Olive looked up sharply, and the light glinting off the metal pie server in the flesh pie server's hand made it look like a blade. "Does that matter?""I don't know," said Ned, "does it?" But no sooner had the words left his mouth than Ned regretted them, for by saying them, he'd unwittingly pushed a giant ball of his emotions and fears off the top of a very steep hill, and now they had no choice but to roll down it, rapidly gaining speed, and barreling towards a destination and a destiny as yet unknown."I guess we'll find out," said Olive, picking up her plates, and it was uncertain which question she was answering.Five weeks, seven days, fourteen hours, and twenty-nine minutes after Ned the Pie Maker first realized his hopeless longing for his only waitress, Olive Snook was very much the girlfriend of one bearded salesman, who frequented the Pie Hole and never paid much regard to whatever pie he put in his mouth, so long as it came to him on the outstretched palms of a certain blond.Over the passing weeks, Ned had become masterful in the art of observation, although subtlety was never quite his strong point. Olive, on the other hand, seemed so smitten with the bearded salesman, and he with her, that they never noticed if Ned lurked behind the counter to observe.Olive touched the man eagerly, Ned noticed with a pang, and not as a conduit or as a replacement for another touch she could not have. Ned could say with certainty that thoughts of him never once crossed her mind as she held Alfredo's hand. Ned thought wistfully of the touches he'd neglected, too consumed with the ones he could never have. It was the nature of man to want the impossible and ignore the existing."You seem down in the dumps, Ned," Olive observed one morning, as they readied the pies for delivery."Just lost in thought.""You seem lost in thought a lot these days. Still thinking about Chuck?""Sometimes.""I understand," said Olive. "You still love her.""Yes," Ned answered, for he felt it was best in this scenario not to lie, even if it wasn't the entire truth.Olive Snook, for her part, took his honesty in stride. "That's okay, though."Ned the Pie Maker, for his part, was not expecting Olive to agree so readily. "It is?""Sure is. See, the heart is like a pie tin. You can fill it up a hundred different ways from Sunday, but it'll never be filled the same way twice. But the great thing about that is that it can always be refilled.""I want..." said Ned, but his sentence was as incomplete as his thoughts. He wasn't entirely sure what he wanted. Olive smiled at him, and the simplest of the answers he could come up with was that he wanted Olive to continue smiling at him. He wanted very much to be deserving of her smile, although he suspected he'd lost that gift."You'll figure it out, Ned," said Olive with confidence.The only problem with Olive's statement was that Ned had already figured it out. Both of their pie tins had already been filled. Separately.And so Ned pined.
98016	Sureties	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "M/M", "Characters": "Adam Lambert, Tommy Ratliff", "Fandom": "Adam Lambert (Musician)", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Mature", "author": "by Minxie", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2010-07-03T00:00:00", "words": "629", "Additional Tags": null, "Relationship": "Adam Lambert/Tommy Ratliff (UST)", "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	There're a few things that Tommy Joe is sure about in life: L.A. will be ridiculously hot in the summer, screaming fangirls will always make his dick hard, and eyeliner really is his thing.And he's pretty sure that sex with Adam is an experience. Not that he truly knows. Not like first hand, been in your bed, up against your wall, fuck me harder now goddammit knows. But he's still confident that Adam and sex would almost always be an oh, fuck, hello experience.It's something that he's devoted too many hours to thinking about. Hours on the bus. Hours on the stage. Hours in the shower with his eyes squeezed shut and his hand wrapped tight around his dick.It was the kiss at the AMAs that planted the seed. The kiss that buckled – buckled, dammit – his knees in front of millions of people. Because if a kiss can cause that? The fucking would just about have to be shattering.The weeks since then, weeks of touring and playing to the crowd? Has done nothing but reinforce Tommy's surety of Adam and mind-bending sex.Nights of watching Adam on stage, his body rolling sensually to the heavy beat of a song, of Adam twisting his fingers through Tommy's hair, and of kisses and gropes and everything but a fuck has Tommy wide awake and staring blindly into space. Has him wondering and pondering and thinking when he should be sleeping, recharging, getting ready for yet another performance. And the inevitable case of blue balls that will follow.And for the first time in a long time, Tommy finds himself honestly regretting something. He regrets leaving Adam to believe that just because Tommy likes curvy hips and rounded breasts means he doesn't appreciate a hard dick, too.Because he does. Or at least he has on occasion. First time withstanding – because a three beer queer night really doesn't count, does it? – Tommy has experienced and fucking enjoyed, well, fucking a man.Right about now? He'd damn well enjoy fucking Adam. Or being fucked by Adam. It really doesn't even matter anymore. Just so long as the words Adam and Tommy and naked are scattered along with fuck me and harder and holy fuck.Well, he'd be enjoying it if he could just figure out a way to correct Mr. Adam I'll-Not-Bend-Your-Straight Lambert's misconception.Which is proving a near impossible thing to do when there really is never a time they're really alone. Between the shows and the tour buses and the band – not that Tommy doesn't adore everyone in the band, but really, five minutes, please? – there has not been a free minute.And if he has to jerk off one more time, has to bite through his lip trying to keep the whimpers and moans in check while he imagines the calloused hand around his dick is Adam's and not his own, if he doesn't fucking get a chance to fucking fuck Adam soon, he's going to explode.Just not in the pretty, delightful come on my cock kind of way.Groaning, Tommy flips over onto his stomach, buries his head in the crook of his arm, and forces his brain away from Adam and the way he'd held his neck earlier, his grip tight and demanding while he kissed the living shit out of Tommy.It was more than enough to leave Tommy hard and aching for the rest of the night. Thanks so fucking much."Tommy?" Adam's voice is full of concern. "You okay? Not getting sick again, are you?"Tommy drags his head from his hiding place and, eyes skating over Monte, he focuses on Adam. "'M good."Brow wrinkling, Adam presses a hand against Tommy's forehead. "Yeah?"Nodding, Tommy whispers, "I'm sure."
58909	Hollow Holo-Love	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "F/M", "Characters": "Kathryn Janeway, Chakotay", "Fandom": "Star Trek: Voyager", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Teen And Up Audiences", "author": "by cruisedirector, CyberMum", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2002-02-02T00:00:00", "words": "334", "Additional Tags": "Poetry, Plot What Plot", "Relationship": "Janeway/Chakotay", "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": "Putrid Poetry, Your Cruise Director's Love Boat", "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	It seems when one travels through space One has to avoid the embrace Of one's sexy first mate Who would like to relate If he could only get to first base.One tries to find a substitute To assuage an urge so acute That one contemplates sex On the ships holo-decks In lieu of that guy in the suit.When searching for programs so quaint One should be aware of the taint Of the humiliation Which could follow elation Should the crew learn one's not a saint.When mired in holo-addiction One might try some older fiction Where characters historic Speak in terms metaphoric - Suggestive speech couched in diction.One could access the novel "Jane Eyre" Moaning "Rochester..." into thin air Or try "Wuthering Heights" With its angsty delights And enjoy all those depths of despair.Imagine how sweet it might sound "Oh my heart, sir is all in a pound And my eyelids do flutter At the love words you utter" As you sink with a sigh to the ground.But then no matter how horny One might be, this could be corny. And one might risk one's cover To find a holo-lover To seduce in words more porn-y.One can have in one's little black book A pirate, a rogue, and a crook Who know nothing at all Of a ship's protocol And know how to have fun in a nook.A lover who knows how to use Those sexual aids that amuse Captains who abstain And wish to remain Celibate models for their crews.Another unlooked for reward Of holo-love can't be ignored One can vary the menu As well as the venue And therefore avoid being bored.So if one must seek one's release In order to find inner peace And one can't philander With one's own commander For fear of the Star Fleet police -One might as well use the resource Available to one. Of course There's far less satisfaction In holo-deck action It's merely a laser light source.
97674	Do Nothing	{ "Archive Warning": "Major Character Death", "Category": "M/M", "Characters": "Lord Henry Blackwood, Lord Coward", "Fandom": "Sherlock Holmes (2009)", "Language": "English", "Rating": "General Audiences", "author": "by unsettled", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2010-07-01T00:00:00", "words": "908", "Additional Tags": null, "Relationship": "Lord Henry Blackwood/Lord Coward", "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	He left when Holmes showed his face, because Lord Blackwood asked him to. I need them to arrest me. London needs to know who is behind these sacrifices. We will whip them into a frenzy of fear and madness. He leaves, and does not let the events that take place bother him, because Lord Blackwood has a plan, and everything is going according to the plan. It doesn't matter that he cannot see the workings of the plan; it is enough that Blackwood does. So he waits, and doesn't act, and if he is… overly intent in watching the papers, well. There isn't anyone around to notice.They announce his imprisonment, and he sends an anonymous, discreet note. The reply is short: Do nothing. He is informed of the trial, and sends a note requesting direction. Do nothing. The date of the hanging approaches, and he sends yet another note, in a hand that does not shake, and he does not wait up for the reply. Do nothing.He attends the hanging, is silent, does nothing, because that is what his lord has asked. There is a plan, he thinks, but with each step, each breath, each word from the hangman's mouth, he feels his certainty slip. There is a plan, but he does not know the pieces, and he is beginning to wonder is this was ever part of the plan. Lord Blackwood speaks, Death is only the beginning, and Coward thinks there might be a plan after all, but he cannot see a beginning in the twitching body of a great man. Cannot see the next step to take from here, and his hands tremble as one elegant foot at last ceases tapping. His sight blurs; he cannot react here, not here. There is no one who would understand his grief; they were so very careful to never cross each other's path in public, so careful not to spark the barest hint of rumor, and now he should be grateful that no one will be watching him, but he thinks there is nothing to watch for.The crowd is subdued; it is not often that a lord is hanged, and the blank mask he has put in place until he can reach privacy is not out of place. He is not thinking, is avoiding thinking, avoiding all thoughts like he once avoided Lord Blackwood, but he never really avoided Henry, and he is no more successful in avoiding his thoughts. His feet lead him astray, and he finds himself standing before Henry's rooms. His hand is on the door, and be damned if anyone has seen him; it does not matter any more.There are no lights, but the weak sunlight is enough to show him how empty the rooms are. He doesn't need light to navigate from door to desk to grand fireplace to bed. He knows these steps well. His hands trail over the curved back of a chair, Henry's chair, stir the dust settling heavy on the desk, Henry's desk, rest lightly on the heavy bedspread, and he sees Henry, all dark eyes and angles and pale skin and radiant with power, looking at him like Coward is something special, something he wants, and he is on his knees beside the bed, bowed over his hands, palms pressed flat to the cold floor, and his chest is heaving with harsh breaths, or maybe they are sobs, and his hands are spotted with tears. Oh, god, he thinks. Henry, and the empty rooms are the only witness to his grief. * He wakes slowly, confused. There are sheets that are not his, and he doesn't think he fell asleep in a bed… why would he think that? And his sleep hazed mind is unprepared for the memory that rises, of twitching shoes and black hoods. His breath turns solid in his lungs, and it can't be true, but it is, and he presses his forehead against his wrists and gasps into the cold air."Daniel."He freezes, then sits up swiftly, sheets sliding off to pool around his waist, and there is a vision before him, a hallucination, surely, and he can only stare, afraid to touch, afraid to speak, afraid to breathe lest it disappear. It watches him, hands clasped, fingers laced over one another, and it can't be Henry, because Henry's never worn that expression. He reaches out one hand, drawn despite himself, and hesitates, millimeters away from skin. His fingers hunger for touch, and he lays them against smooth jaw, against lips, and it speaks, lips brushing his hand, "Daniel," and it's him, it's him, oh lord, it's him, and the world spins around him. His head drops with a gasp, one hand trembling against un-decaying skin, one hand fisting in sheets, and he is not going to fall apart now, not now.He gathers himself with shaking breaths, quells the urge to laugh, because he knows he won't be able to stop; stifles the urge to cry, because he won't be able to stop that either; but he cannot stop himself from stroking the curve of Henry's face. "You're alive," he says, and any other time the raw relief in his voice would cause him to cringe. He doesn't ask How?, or Why?, because he doesn't need to know. It is enough that Henry is returned to him."What do you wish of me?" he asks, and everything is right again.
33021	Of Events Past and	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "Gen", "Characters": "Lord Barham, Letty, Prudence, Robin, Tony", "Fandom": "Georgette Heyer - The Masqueraders", "Language": "English", "Rating": "General Audiences", "author": "by tosca", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2009-12-20T00:00:00", "words": "1,906", "Additional Tags": "Yuletide, Regency, heyer, Georgette Heyer - Freeform, Historical", "Relationship": null, "Character": null, "Relationships": "Tony/Prudence, Robin/Letty", "Series": null, "Collections": "Yuletide 2009", "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	Of Events Past and Future "She laughed. 'You're infatuated, sir. But I'm not respectable, give you my word. In boy's clothes I've kept a gaming-house with my father; I've escaped out of windows and up chimneys; I've travelled in the tail of an army not English; I've played a dozen parts, and – well, it has been necessary for me often to carry a pistol in my pocket.'Sir Anthony's head was turned towards her. 'My dear, will you never realise that I adore you?'" After the delivery of Robin and Letty's good news, it was a merry party who sat down to dinner. When the repast was ended, the ladies retired to the small with-drawing room, where they spoke idly of this and that until shortly thereafter the gentlemen joined them. A fire had been lit in the early afternoon and being filled with occupants, the room quick became stuffy. When Robin went to open a window however, it was found to be swelled shut and held fast against all persuasion. Robin and Prudence exchanged looks at the discovery."At least this time 'tis merely hot air which wants escaping," said Robin dryly.Prudence gave her slow smile."Oh, that sounds like a story!" exclaimed Letty, "Pray tell!" Fulvio di Pignatelli kept his gaze upon the paperwork as his footmen roughly thrust a figure into the study. When he considered enough time had passed to increase his prisoner's apprehension, he raised his eyes. To his own consternation however, his men had not only delivered the wrong person, but the impudent wretch appeared more interested in scrutinizing the paintings upon the study walls than in reflecting upon his situation."Boy!" he snapped.The boy – one of Matthieu's sons, if he recalled correctly – turned to him calmly and bowed politely,"Margravio di Pignatelli, how. . . unexpected to meet you like this.""Where is your father?" he demanded."Not here, in sooth," came the dry reply.Pignatelli's small eyes narrowed. "Keep a civil tongue in your mouth, boy, or it will be the worse for you."It were best to be conciliatory, Prudence decided, for she was in a sticky situation. Pignatelli's men had come to the house intent upon the capture of 'Monsieur Matthieu'. They had found the domicile empty but for herself, reading in the garden, and therefore unarmed except for a small dagger in her boot. She had seen John walk past in the road as they were bundling her into a carriage and so was confident of rescue, but 'til then she needs must keep a calm head."My apologies, Signore. How may I be of service?""Your father, God curse his soul, has, amongst other things, disappeared with my mistress. No one steals the property of the Margravio di Pignatelli! Especially not some misbegotten French cur.""My father, Signore, is a swordsmaster, not a thief," For at least this time he had not taken anything that was not freely given, by all accounts, "And as to the other charge, I am sure the lady would not be best pleased to hear herself labelled as property,"The Margrave rose, shoving back his chair and leaning upon his fists on his desk."Where is he, whelp? Answer me, or the consequences for you will be...unfortunate." Pignatelli had an ugly look upon his face.The grey eyes fixed on him were cool."You had best inquire of the Duca di Olino as to my father's whereabouts. I believe he gives lessons to his son this afternoon."Pignatelli paled and then flushed. It was, Prudence knew, a shrewd blow. The Duke was his wife's father, and a man of both high morals and temper, sure to be enraged if informed of his son-in-law's unfaithfulness."You think to make a fool of me like your father," Pignatelli strode around the desk and stopped before her. He grasped her jaw in his hand, hard enough to bruise, and raised her face to him. Prudence didn't struggle, though she was much inclined to do so. He had both height, weight, and some twenty years experience on her, although she had the element of surprise. She would lief not use her boot knife however.Pignatelli continued, "But if you think some nobody of a tradesman is getting the better of me, you are sadly mistaken. He took something of mine, and now I have something of his. How dearly does your father hold you, boy? He has another son, after all." Pignatelli smiled. It was not a pleasant expression. "Perhaps if I send him pieces of what I have stolen, he will see fit to return the pieces he has stolen."He loomed near, so close that Prudence could smell his ill breath. But if the Margrave had expected fear from his captive, he was to be disappointed. Prudence wrenched her jaw sideways and stepped back a pace."I fear, Signore, the only object in pieces here is your honour, for suggesting such actions.""Why, you..."The Margrave raised a hand to strike her. Then the study door was flung open,"Il cane! Porco! Interruttore di promesse! Come ti permetti di vergogna la nostra famiglia così! Quando mio padre sente di questo si che tu fossi morto! Ti farò rimpiangere mai lasciare il nostro letto matrimoniale per il letto di qualche puttana a buon mercato!"A volley of impassioned Italian accompanied the large whirlwind of bright yellow satin, frothing lace and flashing dark eyes that stormed into the room. With one gesticulating hand the lady brandished a sheath of letters, inscribed, as Prudence knew, with purple ink upon pink-tinted vellum. Not the most tasteful of stationary, and last seen in the grasp of the old gentleman.The Margrave paled at the sight, standing as if turned into a pillar of salt. The woman – undoubtedly his wife by her remarks – continued to scream vituperations at him. Prudence took advantage of the distraction to slip quietly from the room.She made her way down the corridor and to the servant's stairs, and had descended one flight when ill luck struck. Two of the footmen who had abducted her were ascending the stairs. There was a shout from one of them, and she turned tail and fled back the way she had come. She ran back into the corridor, slamming the stairs' door behind her. The Margrave had exited from the study, the Magravine chasing him along the corridor, still loud with anger. Pignatelli turned at the sound and seeing Prudence, snarled, fumbling for his sword hilt.Seeing no alternative, Prudence ran for the open door of the study. She slammed that door shut too, and hurriedly turned the key in the lock. For a few seconds she slumped against the wood, breath quickened and eyes shut. There was noise in the corridor outside, and the handle rattled and turned, to no avail. Someone began beating upon the door, but it was both a sturdy lock and door, and would hold them for a good few minutes. It would be plenty of time for her to exit the room via other means.Prudence strode over to the window and grasping the handle, turned the catch. The window didn't open. She pushed harder, but all her strength was not enough. She moved to the next window, but to her dismay it also refused to open. Examining them closely, it appeared the wood had swollen and jammed the windows fast inside their frames.A quick attempt with her boot knife fared no better than brute force. She could break the glass, and indeed the pane was of the new, expensive style, large enough for her to wedge through. But it would be a tight fit, and chances were she could cut herself badly. She then had the problem of descending from the second floor of the townhouse from the outside.At that moment, there was a dull thump at the door. Someone had found a ram of some sort and was attempting to break down the door. Prudence's lips thinned. She glanced around the room. After a moment, her eyes lit up. She crossed to the large fireplace and picked up the poker, quickly wrapping it in her jacket and crossing back to the window. When the thick wooden door was finally broken down, the Margravio di Pignatelli and his men found the study empty. The boy had obviously escaped through the smashed window pane, and although they half expected to see a broken and bloody body on the ground two stories below, not a drop of blood or footprint betrayed the fugitive's passage. It was as though he had disappeared into thin air.And to stoke the fires of Pignatelli's outrage, the little wretch was as much a thief as his father. Two of the Margrave's Renaissance paintings, which he had prized as much for their monetary value as their artistic merit, had been cut from their frames and vanished with the boy.Pignatelli immediately instigated a town-wide search, demanding that felon of a French swordsmaster and his two iniquitous sons be found and brought to swift justice. But when questioned, the town guards replied most definitely no, Signore Margravio, none such had left the city on their watch. The only foreigners to pass through the gates that day were an Englishmen and his daughters. The guards had taken especial note of the girls - two pretty young things with the fair hair and fresh complexions typical of the Inglese, just blossoming into womanhood. Monsieur Matthieu and his sons had vanished without a trace. "You made them think you broke the glass and climbed out the window, and then escaped by climbing up the chimney?" Letty's expression was a mixture of disbelief and admiration. "How clever!""And devilish uncomfortable," Prudence added ruefully. "I had scrapes all over me for weeks. Chimney climbing is not a pursuit I would recommend to anyone.""And the Margrave's mistress? What happened to her?" Letty continued, disregarding the respectability of asking such a question.Robin gave a peal of laughter."Alas, she proved as fickle in her gratitude as she was in her affections," Lord Barham replied. "When last we saw her, she was enjoying the beauties of the hot springs in Fiuggi, as well as the attentions of a German baron." Prudence woke to the slight rattle of glass. Glancing across the room she discovered her husband testing the handles on the bedroom windows."Whatever are you doing, Tony?" she enquired sleepily."Merely ensuring there's no necessity for you to be scaling chimneys, my dear."Prudence laughed. "'Twas but the once, and an experience I've small desire to ever repeat."Sir Anthony crossed back to the bed, lifted the covers and slipped inside. He was soon made a comfortable pillow for his wife."So when should we make known our own happy event?" she wondered."Next week, mayhap? Let the congratulations to Letty and Robin die down betimes. And 'tis not like there's a hurry," he replied.Prudence laughed, "No, there is at least another six months to tell. Indeed, I understand I will tell before then anyway."Sir Anthony chuckled and leant over to kiss his wife. Translation: "You dog! You pig! Breaker of promises! How dare you shame our family so! When my father hears of this you will wish you were dead! I'll make you regret ever leaving our marriage bed for the bed of some cheap whore!
87976	The Visit	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "M/M", "Characters": null, "Fandom": "War of the Worlds (TV)", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Teen And Up Audiences", "author": "by Joram (Bethia)", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2010-05-18T00:00:00", "words": "5,242", "Additional Tags": "Angst, Romance", "Relationship": "Paul Ironhorse/Harrison Blackwood", "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	"Do you mind if we make a detour, Doctor?" Colonel Ironhorse's voice broke the long silence. Blackwood, for once driving the Bronco, cast a quick look of surprise at his friend slumped tiredly in the passenger seat."Not at all. Why?" he asked. Usually after the sort of alien activity they'd just dealt with Paul - along with the rest of them - was only too glad to get back home to the Cottage. Why he wanted to make a sudden detour off into the wilds of Washington State was a complete mystery to Blackwood.For a moment Harrison thought he wasn't going to answer but then Ironhorse continued. "There's someone I have to - talk - to in Newton. It won't take long."Harrison glanced at him again. The dark face was shuttered, refusing to show any emotion except weariness. The confrontation with the aliens had exhausted them all, the colonel especially as he had, as usual, been in the forefront of it all, but the weariness seemed to be sinking rapidly towards depression. And that was unlike the colonel."Okay." He picked up the phone and handed it to Ironhorse. "You'd better call Sergeant Derriman and let him know where we're going."Ironhorse took it and called the truck following them. The call was taken by Corporal Mackay and Ironhorse felt his throat tighten. Richard Mackay was one of the very few people now who knew what Newton meant to him.There was a brief silence and then the corporal spoke, his voice carefully neutral. "Okay, Colonel, we'll follow you in."Paul's first instinct was to send his men straight home but something in the young man's voice reminded him forcibly that this visit had everything to do with him, too."Alright," he acknowledged briefly and, putting the phone back, turned to his own thoughts again.Harrison watched him out of the corner of his eye, concerned by his uncharacteristic behaviour. Even before this latest mission Paul had been showing signs of depression. He had been moody and withdrawn, even more intolerant of the civilians' teasing than usual. It had hurt Harrison when he realised that Ironhorse was holding him all at arm's length. Hurt and confused. He had been certain that Paul returned his own feelings - they had grown close, the antagonism of the early days all but disappeared - but these last weeks Paul had been steadily shutting him out. Shutting them all out, in fact, except maybe Derriman, who had known him longer than any of them, and the newest addition to Omega squad, Corporal Rick Mackay.Mackay intrigued Blackwood. He was a personable young man - fair-haired with a ready smile that seemed to conceal no secrets - and at nineteen had already reached the rank of corporal in the elite squad, although that posting was coming to an end, being only a temporary measure pending his posting abroad. Which in itself was curious as the Project was classified top secret and the only out that any of Ironhorse's men seemed to have was to die. His people were hand-picked and did not get transfers.However, what really intrigued Harrison was the relationship between Paul and Mackay and, to a certain extent, Derriman. Ironhorse had been very close-mouthed about the younger man but Harrison was sure that there was more between them than just soldier and commander, despite outward appearances. He also suspected that Derriman knew exactly what it was but he was far too loyal to the colonel to let anything slip.Harrison felt shut out and he hated it. When they got home, he was determined to see what he could do to change that.They pulled into Newton around mid-afternoon. It was a small town, made drab by the dullness of the day, with little more than a church, a couple of bars and a handful shops. Harrison drew up outside the only hotel and looked across at Ironhorse Paul sat for a moment, still lost in thought, then clambered out of the truck. Harrison followed suit and walked around the truck to hover by the colonel's shoulder."Well?" Blackwood prompted. Ironhorse looked at him for the first time in an hour. His face was, if possible, even more unreadable than before but Harrison was still sure that something was upsetting him."This won't take more than thirty minutes, doctor." Ironhorse paused as the Omega van pulled up and Mackay jumped out. "Do you want to come?" For a moment Harrison thought the colonel was speaking to him but then Mackay shook his head."No, I came to terms with it a years ago.""And I didn't?" Paul queried softly.The younger man shrugged. "That's for you to say but I hardly knew him," he offered, almost excusingly, or so it seemed to Blackwood standing forgotten by both men. Ironhorse nodded, accepting the explanation and then turned to stride down the street.Blackwood, drawn by both curiosity and concern for his friend, took a step after him but was brought up short by a hand on his arm."Let him go alone, Doctor."Harrison shot a glare at Mackay. The young corporal tightened his grip for a moment, half expecting Blackwood to pull away but after watching Paul disappear around the side of the church, Harrison subsided.He wanted to follow Ironhorse, to discover what was troubling him so, but equally, here was his chance to talk to Mackay. His curiosity, already rampant, had been heightened by the cryptic exchange between the two soldiers. He couldn't deny the small voice, either, that whispered of jealousy at the back of his mind. He turned to Mackay."Care to tell me what this is all about?""It's not my place to say, Doctor," Mackay answered stiffly."But you do know," Blackwood persisted."Yes.""And?" When the soldier remained silent, Blackwood continued. "Look, Corporal, he's my friend and I care about him. If you know why he's hurting, please tell me so I can help."Mackay met his eyes, saw the emotion behind the probing and relented a little. "Doctor, I do know what's bothering him but if you don't, I can't tell you. It's something he'll tell you himself if he wants you to know. All I can say is just be there for him when he needs you. Now, I suggest we go inside."Ironhorse strode down the street, trying desperately not to limp. His back, jarred painfully by his fight with the aliens, was killing him but he could feel Blackwood's eyes on him and so forced himself to walk properly. He didn't think he could cope with Harrison just now. His hold over his emotions was perilous enough already. He knew that the doctor was worried about him and hurt by his distance but the strain of trying to cope with his own growing feelings for the other man on top of the secret war they were fighting was too much for him. He had needed to pull back, to try and put his life in perspective, to reconcile the future he saw in front of him with his past. He could feel the familiar misery surround him. He owed Harrison an apology but that, like the explanation, would have to wait until later.He rounded the side of the small brick church and entered the cemetery behind, heading unerringly for one particular grave. It was tucked away to one side, almost hidden by the sprawling evergreen hedge. Every year it seemed to be a little more overgrown, a little more forlorn, now that there was no-one to care. Except him. He didn't really know why he still came except that it had become a ritual of sorts, an affirmation of his own survival. At first when the pain of loss was still raw, the annual pilgrimage had been a bittersweet comfort, a perverse reminder, if he needed one, that their life and love had been real. He came to talk, to share his thoughts and feelings because he had no-one else to share them with. Every year the memories and sadness crowded back, his visit bringing home to him the fact that, even though his lover was years dead, he was still alone.Until now. When he had first been assigned as military liaison and security officer to the Blackwood Project – a top-secret government-backed Project dedicated to the total eradication of the aliens who had first invaded earth back in 1953 and who, through some perverse trick of fate, had been resurrected thirty-five years later to continue their quest to take over the planet – he had never expected anything other than to be the despised figure of government authority. But, somehow, the three civilians, after an initial period of mutual distrust had become friends and, in some strange way perhaps borne of the secrecy and danger they shared, they had become a family. It gave him a feeling of security he hadn't had in a long time.Paul knelt beside the grave and lifted a hand to rub the encroaching moss away from the inscription and then let it drop to his side. He didn't need to see it to know what it said and, God willing, this would be his last visit. He knew, finally, that Richard had been right. He had never made his peace, never accepted the death and gotten on with living again, although he had fooled himself into thinking that he had. Meeting Harrison had proved that.At first they had fought constantly but somewhere along the line things had changed between them and, although they still quarrelled frequently, the edge was gone, replaced by friendship and something more. For his part, Paul knew exactly what that something was. He had fallen in love with Harrison and suspected – no, knew – that the astrophysicist returned his feelings. He'd known it for weeks now but still he'd kept Harrison at arm's length, unsure that he was really willing to get involved again, fearing to lose another lover to war. He wasn't sure that he was willing to cope with that again, especially as no-one could ever know the truth behind the war they were fighting. To all intents and purposes, the Blackwood Project was a specialised anti-terrorist squad and only a handful of very senior Pentagon officials knew otherwise.He sighed and settled more comfortably on the cold ground, a hand resting on the headstone."Well, love, I've got lots to tell you this time. I've finally met someone. His name's Harrison and I think you'd like him, Sam but I don't know what to do…"Harrison came to his feet again and paced restlessly to the window of the hotel lobby, peering out to see if Paul was coming back yet. It had been well over half an hour since Ironhorse had left and Blackwood was seriously considering going after him, regardless of what Mackay might say. The possibility of aliens could not be discounted even here. He turned and almost fell over Derriman. The sergeant put a hand out to steady him."Don't worry, Doctor, the colonel can look after himself. He'll be back soon."Harrison ran a distracted hand through his hair, unconvinced. What did Derriman care? No, that wasn't fair. Derriman had known the colonel a lot longer than he had, perhaps longer than anyone had. He sighed."I know, Sergeant but I'd be a lot happier if I just knew where he was."Just then the door clattered open and the half dozen Omegans sprang to face it from where they had been sprawled around the hotel lounge."Easy. It's only me," the colonel warned as he pushed to door closed behind him."Paul! Thank God, I was getting worried." Harrison took a hasty step forward and then stopped short. Now was probably not a good time to hug the man, much as he wanted to. In fact, lately it had seemed as though there might never be a good time again.Ironhorse met his eyes and his mouth tilted into a crooked smile as he read Harrison's intent. He turned to the Omegans."Okay, gentlemen, let's go home." They filed out, Mackay bringing up the rear. He paused as the doorway and looked back at the colonel standing beside Blackwood."Everything okay?" he checked.Ironhorse nodded. "Everything's fine. We'll talk later."Blackwood waited for the door to swing closed behind the young man before asking, "Is everything fine?" He didn't really need to hear Paul's answer, he could see that something had changed, and for the better. Ironhorse was looking more relaxed than Harrison could remember seeing him in weeks and the shuttered look in his eyes had gone, replaced by a warmth that made the scientist catch his breath."Paul…"Ironhorse shook his head and rested a hand on Harrison's shoulder, squeezing gently. "Later, Harrison, when we're home."It was late by the time Ironhorse finally pulled up at the Cottage. Harrison, true to form, had decided he needed a nap half way home and was still soundly asleep, hat tilted down over his face. Watching Harrison had become one of Paul's favourite pleasures in life and he reckoned that he had a few more minutes before the scientist woke – over the years Blackwood had perfected the art of sleeping for exactly an hour and rarely deviated from that pattern – and Paul was determined to savour the sight while he could."Enjoying the view, Colonel?" Harrison asked suddenly, pushing up his hat and cocking a teasing eye at his friend. To his delight, Paul blushed and hastily looked away, fumbling for the door handle."'Bout time you woke up," he mumbled, avoiding both Harrison's eyes and the question."Paul…" Harrison reached out and caught hold of his hand. Ironhorse looked down at their hands and tightened his grip for a moment before looking at the scientist. "Don't shut me out," Harrison pleaded softly."I won't," Ironhorse promised. Their eyes held and Ironhorse caught his breath at the look Harrison was giving him. He wanted, more than anything, to answer the invitation he saw there but refused the impulse, pulling away instead, albeit reluctantly. He felt the other man stiffen and saw hurt flash across his face at what he thought was Paul's rejection. Damn, was Harrison really that uncertain of his feelings? Time to change that, once and for all.He met Harrison's eyes in the near darkness of the truck, for once allowing his feelings to show openly on his face, allowing the older man to see just how much he cared."If we sit out here much longer Suzanne will come to investigate and I, for one, absolutely refuse to be found necking in a car like a teenager," he said deliberately.Harrison relaxed as the intent of Paul's words reached him. "Oh, I don't know. It would be fun," he murmured, smiling as the images Paul's words created sent a surge of warmth through his body.Whatever the colonel said they might yet have ended up doing just that if the night hadn't suddenly been flooded with light from the open front door. Ironhorse looked across and saw Suzanne. His raised eyebrow and impish smile were eloquent as he turned back to Harrison."Why do you have to be right so often?" Harrison complained ruefully, letting go of Paul's hand reluctantly and getting out of the truck. Ironhorse followed him towards the house, absently admiring the view."Where have you been? We expected you hours ago." Suzanne pounced on them the moment they set foot in the house."Sorry," Ironhorse said apologetically. "We stopped off in Newton.""Aliens?" Suzanne, her irritation forgotten, was all business.Ironhorse shook his head. "No. Personal.""Oh?" Suzanne was surprised. Paul's personal life – what personal life? she asked herself ruefully – had never impinged on a mission before.Harrison, in the middle of pulling off his outdoor clothes, paused, waiting expectantly for the colonel's explanation but Ironhorse ignored them both, heading instead for the lounge and the coffee pot."Well, the wanderers return!" Norton quipped from his place by the fire. "How was it?"Harrison dropped onto the couch with a sigh. "We got them all – I hope – but it was messy for a while. Ah, thanks." He took the coffee mug Ironhorse held out to him with a smile. The colonel perched on the arm beside him, almost close enough to touch. Suzanne and Norton exchanged a long, significant look. Paul usually guarded his personal space jealously, pulling back from close contact, only allowing the occasional hug from Suzanne's daughter, Debi, a teenager who, having spent the last several years since the divorce without a father, had adopted the colonel as her new 'father', or a friendly pat on the back from Blackwood."Anything happening here?" Ironhorse asked, stretching and flexing his shoulders, surreptitiously trying to ease the ache in his back."No, everything's been quiet. Are you okay?" Suzanne asked with a frown."Yeah, fine," he lied automatically. No-one looked very convinced – he always insisted he was fine until he actually fell down. Harrison reached out a hand to rub at the tight muscles in his lower back. Ironhorse let out a sigh and then pushed Blackwood's hand away."Quit that, I'm okay."Blackwood snorted. "Huh! What you need is patented Blackwood back rub.""No way!" Ironhorse yelped, half serious. "The last time I let you loose on my back I could hardly move for days!"Harrison felt his lips twitch as the colonel's unwitting choice of words – as least, he assumed they were unwitting but with Paul it wasn't always easy to tell when he was teasing – and patted the man's back."Don't worry, Colonel, I can think of better ways to keep you down than a back rub," Harrison told him, laughter dancing in his eyes. Paul turned scarlet as Norton choked on his coffee, and sank back into the couch with a muffled groan, glaring daggers at Blackwood.Suzanne came to her feet, hiding her own smile. "Well, now that you guys are home, I guess I can go to bed. Norton?"The black man swallowed the last of his coffee and wheeled Gertrude towards the door. "Absolutely. Gertrude, elevator!" he instructed his voice-activated wheelchair. "I don't think you're old enough for this conversation," he told her as they disappeared out of the door.Paul got up and stretched properly, then dropped into his own chair."Nice of them to leave us alone," Harrison commented with a grin."Tactful," Ironhorse agreed. "Have we really been that obvious?"Harrison nodded. "Must've been. At least, until these last couple of weeks," he added soberly.Ironhorse sighed, his eyes gazing unwaveringly at the fire. "Yes. I promised I'd tell you about that.""Me and Mackay," Harrison said acidly.Ironhorse looked up with a smile, recognising the jealousy behind the tone. "Richard already knows. I've known him since he was a child." He broke off, unsure where to start. Sitting by Sam's grave, he had come to a decision about his life. He was ready now to put the past behind him and to move onto a new love, no matter what might happen in the future. He was willing, finally, to face the possibility of losing another lover than live any longer without that love. Besides, it could just as easily be he who died at alien hands as Harrison. More likely, perhaps. It was his job, after all, to put himself between the civilians and danger. The decision made, however, still didn't make it any easier to talk about Sam.He took a deep breath, holding it for a moment to calm himself, and then let it out slowly, his gaze still firmly fixed on the flickering fire. "I own a house in Newton. It was our home away from the army," he said at last."Our?" Harrison prompted softly as Ironhorse paused. Now that Paul was finally willing to talk, he wasn't sure that he really wanted to hear but he knew from his own experiences that some things had to be talked out before they could be set aside."Me and Sam Mackay." Ironhorse looked up at his friend and, please God, soon to be lover and saw his words hit home. He waited tensely for Harrison to say something. His original security check on Blackwood had turned up a number of men in his background so he had always known that Harrison was bisexual but Paul suspected that Harrison had a rather blinkered view of his own past. Whatever Harrison had been expecting, he was sure it wasn't the existence of another man in his life."Mackay?" Blackwood picked up on the name."Richard is his son.""And he knows about you and …?"Ironhorse nodded as Blackwood trailed off. "Sam's parents used to bring him on visits occasionally when he was on leave. They got custody of the kid when his mother walked out."Harrison shook his head, trying to take in what Paul was telling him. "Tell me about Sam," he asked quietly. "He was army, too?"Ironhorse nodded. "Yeah, Special Forces, like me. We met about nine years ago, at the Pentagon of all places. I'd been temporarily seconded to General Wilson's staff and he was in Washington waiting for a new posting to come through. We got talking, went out for a few beers in the evening and ended up in bed together." He smiled at Harrison's surprise. "Not exactly the great romance of the century," he admitted. "A quick fuck in the back room of a bar and a 'I'll see you around' in the morning.""Then…?" Harrison shook his head, trying to adjust the mental picture he had of Paul Ironhorse. He knew that the man wasn't as straight-arrow military as he liked to seem but he hadn't really expected this. Ironhorse had never really struck him as a man who went in for casual relationships."Except, both being stuck in DC, away from our units and active duty, we did see other around. And after a couple of months we both of us realised that there was a lot more to it than just sex. Life would certainly have been a lot simpler if that's all it had been.""Oh?""Do you have any idea just how difficult it is being gay in the military? The sneaking around to be together occasionally, the secrecy, the lies you have to tell just to survive. And not only to the brass but to your fellow officers and the men. I'd already had a few years to get used to it but Sam hadn't. He'd steered clear of men since enlisting and then there was his wife, as well. Jeez, what a mess. We came close to blowing it, more than once.""Bad?" Harrison asked sympathetically.Ironhorse shrugged. "It could have been a lot worse but the marriage was on the rocks already and she was more than pleased in screwing a big divorce settlement out of him in return for silence. Then the following year she re-married and dumped Richard with Sam's parents.""So they knew, too.""Yeah. They didn't exactly approve but so long as we didn't flaunt it on the rare occasions that we were home together, they lived with it. And, as I said, they didn't keep Richard away.""What about your family?""I knew I was gay long before I joined the army. When they found out about Sam… Well, it was just one more wedge between us – I've seen them maybe a dozen times in the last twenty years. But despite all the pain and the hassle and the secrecy, what I had with him was worth it.""So what happened between you?""He died," Ironhorse said baldly, falling silent."I'm sorry," Harrison finally said gently, as the silence stretched between them. "killed?"Ironhorse nodded, staring into the fire. The bright flames etched his face with shadows, cruelly highlighting the grief still present. Harrison leaned forward and dropped a hand on Paul's knee, aching to hold his friend and banish the misery but he didn't quite dare, afraid of a rebuff.Ironhorse laid a hand over his, gripping briefly and then sat back, giving Blackwood a smile, albeit a little strained. "He was killed in Beirut four years ago. I was in Europe at the time and I didn't hear the news until almost a month later." He came to his feet abruptly and stood looking down at the fire, trying to push the memories away. "In the five years we were together, we were apart more than we were together but…" He was aware of Harrison coming to stand behind him a moment before arms slid around his waist. He leaned back for a moment, basking in the warmth of Harrison's love, then turned and slid his own arms around his friend, holding on tightly. "But, ah hell, Harrison, I missed him. Missed him so much sometimes. And there wasn't anyone I could share that grief with. No-one I could tell.""Paul…" Harrison murmured, returning the embrace. "I'm sorry. I'm sooo sorry.""It's alright," Ironhorse reassured the other man. "It's been a while now. I've just been thinking about him a lot recently and it's brought the memories back." He freed himself from Harrison's arms and sat down again, this time sitting down on the couch beside Harrison, keeping hold of his hand. "I'm sorry about these last couple of weeks, being so cool. I've been trying to decide whether I really wanted to get involved with someone else again. Whether I could cope with it.""And?" Harrison asked tensely, searching Paul's face intently for an answer."Harrison, I'm still in the army and even though General Wilson knows about me…""He knows?" Blackwood interrupted faintly, his mind latching onto minutia, trying to stave off what he was sure Ironhorse was going to say. That what he felt for Harrison just wasn't worth the risk.Ironhorse smiled. "I've been under his command for a long time, Harrison. There's not much that he doesn't know.""Oh." Harrison digested that in silence for a moment."Even though he knows and he'll keep on protecting me for as long as he can, if anyone finds out about us… My career is on the line.""What are you saying, Paul? That you've changed your mind?" he asked tensely, feeling as though the bottom had dropped out of his world once more."No!" Ironhorse exclaimed forcefully. "Never that." He brought a hand up to touch Harrison's cheek. "What I am trying to say is that if the army takes official notice of us, they'll have me out of here so fast you won't even see the skidmarks. And I don't think I could bear to lose you. I love you, Harrison Blackwood.""Paul…" Harrison's hand tightened on his, pulling him closer. Ironhorse resisted for a moment, laying his free hand in the middle of Harrison's chest to stop him, the expression on his face deadly serious."There's just one more thing, Harrison. I know this is probably not the best time to say it but I don't want anything to come between us.""Go on," Harrison forced out, wary of whatever new revelation Paul would come out with now. What else was there?Ironhorse read the expression on his face easily and smiled. "Don't worry, Harrison. I just wanted to tell you I've got a wife and three children down in Mexico but don't worry, they live with her brother." He watched the other man's jaw drop in shock and chuckled. "Gotcha!" he teased, laughter banishing the heavy emotions of the previous hour."Ironhorse!" Harrison glared at him as he realised that he'd been had and pulled the smaller man towards him, tilting his head up to meet his lips. That first kiss was soft, almost shy but then Paul pressed closer, deepening the contact. Harrison felt as though fire were flickering along his nerves, centring on his groin. God, he hadn't turned on this fact for years and just from a kiss! He pulled back reluctantly. If this carried on, they'd probably end up making love on the floor and wouldn't that be embarrassing if anyone walked in!He met Paul's eyes, dark and hazy with passion and felt himself blush at the look he was getting. Ironhorse laughed deep in his throat and Harrison couldn't resist closing in for another kiss. His hands skimmed down Paul's back, pulling his hips closer, feeling his arousal pushing urgently against his own. Definitely time to adjourn elsewhere while they still could."Let's go to bed."Paul took the hand Harrison held out to him, delighting in even that simple touch and let himself be lead up the stairs to the scientist's room. He pushed the door closed and leant back against it, watching as Harrison swept up the books and papers littering his bed and dumped them in one big pile on his desk, uncaring where they landed."God, do you have any idea how much I want you?" he murmured, half to himself, half to the man now approaching him.Harrison's eyes swept down his body, noting the faint flush on his bronzed cheeks and the signs of arousal. "About as much as I want you," he returned. "Come here." He held out a hand, pulling Paul back into his arms for another long kiss.Suddenly desperate to touch each other, hands rapidly stripped off clothes, dropping them wherever they lay, until they were both naked.Ironhorse sank down beside his sated lover. Blackwood turned dazed eyes on him. Paul met his eyes and smiled, lacing his fingers through the other man's and bringing them to his mouth in a gentle kiss."What are you thinking?" Harrison asked softly, curious to know what was going on behind that sweet, crooked smile.Paul rolled onto his side, half-propped on Blackwood's shoulder, hand idly drawing patterns on his chest. "That I'm happy. That this is gonna last. That I love you more than anyone else.""Even Sam?" Harrison hadn't meant to ask that, afraid of the answer that Paul would give him but it had just slipped out."Harrison…" Ironhorse looked away for a moment and then turned back to his lover, waiting until the other man met his gaze before continuing, wanting Harrison to see truth in his eyes. "Harrison," he repeated. "I loved Sam. I won't pretend that I didn't and that some, small, deep part of my heart will always belong to him, just as part of you will always belong to Karen. But he's gone, they both are. And we're here. And I love you just as much as I ever loved him."Harrison felt his eyes sting as the soft sincerity in Paul's voice. He had been afraid that Paul would think of him as second best, a substitute for Sam but he should have known better. As Paul had reminded him, he wasn't the only one to have loved and lost before. Harrison had loved Karen McKinley and would gladly have spent the rest of his life with her but she had been taken by the aliens, disappearing without trace. Loving her hadn't stopped him falling in love with Paul.He raised a hand to stroke Ironhorse's cheek."You're right," he agreed. "And, just in case you don't already know it, I love you, Paul Ironhorse."
69494	Cast Into the Sky	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "M/M", "Characters": null, "Fandom": "All-American Rejects", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Explicit", "author": "by fizzyblogic (phizzle)", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2007-06-20T00:00:00", "words": "18,976", "Additional Tags": "Bondage", "Relationship": "Tyson Ritter/Nick Wheeler", "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	The covers band who were playing this party were okay, Tyson noticed as he tried out the punch. (A little too peachy for his taste.) They'd started on their last song just when Harry had come over to tell him he didn't need to man the door any more, so Ty had only caught the tail end of them actually playing; he'd heard the rest, moving a little to the beat as he stood by the front door, and they weren't bad. The drummer, he couldn't help noticing, was kind of cute, in that long-haired, sweet-smile sort of a way.He wandered past a few groups of people, but he didn't know anybody but Harry, who was now busy macking on some chick in the corner, and they were all in clumps with their backs to the rest of the room. The band, however, had set down their instruments; the singer did something with the stereo and music filled the room once more, a bit too loud until the guy turned it down, and the rest of them were just talking. Unlike every other clump there, however, their body language did not scream 'exclusive group, no outsiders', so Tyson went over."Yeah, so Sindy was like, What are you doing here with her?, and I was like, Nothing!, but she didn't believe me," one of the guitarists was saying. "So she dumped me.""Dude, that sucks," another of them sympathised.Tyson sidled up to the drummer. "Are these guys boring you?" he asked, half a grin in place. "Why don't you come talk to me instead? I'm from a different planet."The drummer laughed."Seriously!" Tyson moved so he was properly facing the guy, gesturing sincerely. "Wanna see my spaceship?"He looked at him, amused. "Hitch-hikers' Guide, right?" he asked. His voice had definitely broken. Tyson swallowed, and grinned fully."You got the quote," he said. "That means I get you a drink."The guy laughed. "Okay then," he said. "And I'm Nick, by the way.""Um. I'm Tyson. Want some punch?""Is there anything else?" Nick asked, looking over his shoulder at the drinks table."I guess, but uh, Harry told everybody only to give me punch." Tyson rolled his eyes. "Just because I'm thirteen or whatever," he huffed.Nick's eyebrows rose. "You're thirteen? Huh. You don't look it.""What, why, how old are you?" Tyson forced himself not to fold his arms."Fifteen, dude, it's okay. I was just surprised, is all." Nick smiled. "I could get you a drink."Tyson slung one arm over Nick's shoulders. "I like you already," he beamed. "Did you know," he continued as Nick led him to the drinks table, "I can play bass. I just, y'know, noticed you guys didn't have anybody for that, and hey, if you needed someone – I'm available.""Yeah, everyone else is like, I'll play guitar!, so I said I'd do drums," Nick nodded. "I mostly play guitar, though. I teach kids and stuff. But yeah, we could do with a bass player, I'll talk to the guys."Tyson blinked. "Um. Okay." Shit, now I have to learn fucking bass."So what do you want?" Nick looked at the array of bottles on the table. Tyson grinned at him."I want whatever you'll give me, Nick," he said, and Nick laughed. (Correct reaction. I could get on with this dude, like, a lot.)The living room was full when Tyson got home that night. "Dad, hey Dad," he called, "Dad!""Ty!" Tim held up his beer bottle in delight. "Here's my boy. How was the party?""It was good, it was good." Tyson made his way over, stepping around legs and bottles and empty cans. "Hey Dad, can I have a bass guitar for Christmas?"Tim laughed. "What do you want one of those for, son?""Well, I want to learn to play it."Tim made a dismissive gesture. "Who have you been talking to? Bass guitar." He chuckled, loud. Tyson sighed."Seriously, Dad, I want to learn. Can I?"Tim squinted at him. "I'll think about it.""Alright." Tyson deflated. 'I'll think about it' usually meant 'no'. "Well, goodnight, Dad.""You going to bed?""Yeah." Tyson was already half way across the room, but Tim stood and struggled over to him to give him an awkward half-hug."G'night, son."Tyson nodded, and made his way upstairs to stare at the patterns the shadows of the trees made on his ceiling. After half an hour, he turned to face the wall and closed his eyes, the sounds from downstairs still floating through on the night air.Tyson was on his way home from football practice a week later, taking a short cut behind some houses, when he saw Nick walking out of the back door of one of them. "See you next week, Robert," he was calling over his shoulder, and Tyson shifted his sports bag to his other arm as Nick spotted him. "Hey!" he said, jogging over. "It's Tyson, right? From the party last week?""Yeah - you're Nick," and as soon as the words left his mouth he wished he'd made it sound like a question, not like he'd remembered their entire conversation and thought about him in the interim, or anything. "How's it going?""Pretty good, just finished a lesson." He jerked a thumb at the house he had emerged from. "I was heading home.""Me too. You wanna walk?""Okay." Nick fell into step with him, and Tyson immediately couldn't think of a thing to say. "Where do you live?" Nick asked at last, breaking the silence."Just up, uh, up here with my dad." He pointed. "Through there, and up that road, two lefts and half a block and I'm there. What about you?""Over that way," Nick pointed in the opposite direction. "You know the, uh, the florist, with the petals and stuff above the window?""You live near there?""I live there. It's my parents' store.""Oh. Yeah, my uh, my dad went there a lot right before the divorce. Always said it was nice in there.""Your parents are divorced?" Nick asked. They reached the road where their directions home parted, so they stopped."Yeah, when I was six. I live with my dad right now, Mom and my stepdad are like, five miles away. They got a kid, my baby sister." Is there a cure for verbal diahorrea? Because damn.Nick nodded at the ground, pushing a stone with his toe. He pushed it to the left, scraped it back right again, then kicked it away. "Want to come over, hang out for a while? You could show me what you know on the bass, I have one.""Uh." Tyson swallowed. "I'd, uh. See, okay, the thing is, okay," and he looked away, squinted into the sun, "the thing is." He took a deep breath and said, in a rush, eyes fixed on the open shutters of a house a little way down the other side of the street to Nick, "I kind of can't play bass, I've never tried.""Oh." Nick didn't sound mad, so Tyson risked a glance at him. He was just giving him a puzzled look, head tilted. "Why did you say you could?""I don't know," Tyson shrugged, a slightly desperate gesture. "I guess I -" He kicked at a different stone, sending it skitting across to land next to the one Nick had kicked. "I just wanted you to talk to me, I guess, and it kind of – came out.""Oh." Nick nodded, looking at the ground again, and then looked up. "Want me to teach you?"Tyson forgot not to stare at him, for a moment. "You – you'd teach me?""Well sure, it's what I do," Nick shrugged. "You wouldn't have to pay me or nothin', friend's rate.""Friend's rate is free?" Tyson smiled. He paused. "Wait – I'm a friend?"Nick was looking at the stones they'd kicked, but his voice was light. "Sure, yeah, if you want.""That'd be cool," Tyson nodded, and instantly wished for the ground to open up, or to suddenly develop the ability to go back in time and not say completely lame things to cute guys who maybe want to hang out with you, or something. "Yeah, sure, I'd – I'd like that.""Awesome. Well, you want to – I mean, are you free now? Your dad expecting you or something?""Yeah – no, I mean, I'm free, Dad's out at work, so. Just as long as I don't leave my football stuff at your place," he added as they set off. "Don't let me forget that."Nick smiled at him, and Tyson tried to ignore the way it made his chest kind of squeeze a little. "I won't."Tyson didn't say anything else as they walked, just every now and then glanced up at Nick, who was smiling at his own knees. When they got to the florist, Nick pushed the door open and the bell dinged."Hey Mom," he called. "This is Tyson, he's a buddy of mine. We're gonna go hang out, play guitar, okay?""Don't be too loud, I might have customers," Nick's mother smiled as they ducked behind the counter. "Hello Tyson," she said."Hi," he waved a little, awkward."Will you boys need anything to eat?" she called after them as Nick led him past the store room and to the stairs."No Ma, we're good," Nick called back, rolling his eyes. He headed up the stairs ahead of Tyson, and half way up he turned back and asked, "Oh wait, are you hungry?""No, no, I'm okay," Tyson nodded, annoyingly aware of both his entire body and the way he had just kind of contradicted what he said with the nodding, but Nick got it and carried on up the stairs. Tyson was too preoccupied with where to put his hands and making sure his breathing wasn't too loud to stop himself watching the way Nick's ass moved. Oh shit, he thought, concisely."Bathroom's that one," Nick pointed to the door on their right as they reached the top of the stairs, "den, kitchen, parents, sister," he pointed to each of the doors as they passed, "and this one's my room." He pushed that door open.The walls were lined with posters; Def Leppard, Queen, Bon Jovi, Kansas, Iron Maiden, and a huge, long poster that looked like several printed sheets sellotaped together, of the entire cast of The Muppet Show. "You like the Muppets, huh?" Tyson went over to examine it."Yeah, they're pretty awesome," Nick nodded, without even a trace of irony. Tyson had to turn back to the poster to stop anything showing on his face. "So Tyson, have you ever played a guitar before?""Um." Tyson picked at his jeans. "No.""Okay," Nick was sitting on the bed when Tyson looked up, patting the space next to him. "Well, bass is relatively simple. Come here, I'll show you."Tyson sat gingerly, and Nick handed him a guitar. "What do I -?" Tyson started to ask."Here," Nick cradled the back of Tyson's left hand with his palm, guiding it to the fret board. Tyson's heart promptly made its way to his forehead and beat against his hairline. "Okay, now spread your fingers out across the strings, like that – you want one on each string, I'll show you something."Tyson swallowed. "Alright," he said, trying to get each of his fingers onto a different string, Nick guiding them into place with his own. Tyson shifted, settling the body of the guitar closer to his stomach."Now," and Nick shuffled backwards, reaching his right arm around Tyson to position his other arm. Nick's side lay flat against Tyson's back as he moved Tyson's hand on the strings. "Okay," he said, and Tyson tried hard to concentrate on whatever it was he'd say next, "pick at each of the strings with your right hand. Like, each in turn."Tyson did so, Nick's hands still hovering an inch or two from his. The guitar emitted small sounds, dnt drnt dnt. Nick breathed against Tyson's neck, pressed up against him so both arms could reach."You hear that?" he asked, and Tyson had no idea what he meant, but he nodded anyway. "Okay, now move this finger here," he nudged Tyson's fingers again. The skin tingled at the contact. "Now this one here, and this hand up that way," his chest pressed closer as he moved Tyson's right hand further up the guitar. "Okay, now pick the third string.""Third," Tyson started to say, but his throat was dry and he had to clear it before any sound would come out. "Third string going up or going down?" Fuck, don't blush, don't blush, don't fucking blush, please don't blush – His cheeks went pink. Fuck.Nick couldn't see his face, though, and he just said, "This one," nudging Tyson's fingers into place. Tyson swallowed again and wondered how many lessons he'd need. "So pick that one," Nick reminded him after a few moments when Tyson hadn't moved."Right, yes," he nodded, plucking the string and trying to listen out for ... whatever he should be listening out for. "Like that?""Yeah, uh," and Nick tried to reach further around; he shifted again, further behind Tyson, until his chest was leaning on Tyson's back, and angled Tyson's hand with his palm. "A little more this way," he said.Tyson could almost swear he felt something, on his back, like – I have to be imagining I can feel his heart beat, right? It's going so fast. I have to be imagining that. "Like, uh." He cleared his throat again. "Like this?" He moved his hand a little further, and plucked at the string again. Nick exhaled against the back of his head in the shape of a smile."I think you're getting it," he said, and that sounded like a smile too."Alright," Tyson beamed, playing another couple of notes. "I – don't know what I'm doing, but this sounds kinda cool." He closed his eyes for a second, wishing even harder he could go back in time. Note to self: do not, under any circumstances, use the word 'cool'."You're doing okay, for a beginner," Nick agreed, moving away and sitting beside him again. Tyson's back felt cold. "I can teach you like, what the notes are and how to read tabs and shit, but this is good for now."Tyson played a few more notes, trying out different positions of his fingers on the frets. "Hey, this feels pretty good," he said, sounding more surprised than he'd meant to. "I mean – I just, you know, I've never tried it before, and this just. No really, I like it.""Good," Nick chuckled a little, awkwardly. "That's kinda the idea.""Can you play?" He handed the guitar back to Nick when he nodded. "Show me something.""Alright." Nick paused for a moment, settling the guitar against himself and moving his fingers into place. "See if you know this one."He started playing a pattern of notes, drn drn dern, drn drn dr-drn, drn drn drn, dern dern. "We all came out to Montreux," Tyson sang, a smile spreading, "on the Lake Geneva shoreline."Nick stopped playing. "Wow," he said.Tyson blinked. "What?""You can sing, dude," he said. "Like, way better than Tony.""Nah," Tyson shrugged. "I just sing for my dad's buddies and stuff."Nick just looked at him, sideways. "You're better than Tony," he repeated. "Seriously, you should sing in our band.""What – you want me? You – you guys want me?" he amended, quickly.Nick shrugged. "They will when they hear you. And, y'know, when I tell them so." He grinned."You got them all in your power, huh?" Nick nodded, laughing. "Puppets on a string." He mimed dangling a puppet and making it dance."Something like that," Nick laughed.A voice came in from another room. "Nick honey, dinner's in ten minutes. Does your friend want to stay for it?""Oh shit -" Tyson stood up. "What time is it? I have to get home, my dad -""Okay -" Nick put the guitar aside, stood, and Tyson's nose was suddenly inches from his chest. Nick took a step back and cleared his throat. "Don't forget your football stuff, okay?""Oh – right – thanks." Tyson grabbed the bag and said, "Look, I had fun today. Can I see you again some time?" Never had he wished so hard for a time machine. "For lessons and stuff, I mean. You know. The, uh, the band.""Nick?" his mother called again."Uh, no Mom," Nick called back, "Tyson's just leaving. I'll be there in a minute." He turned to Tyson and said, "Why don't we hang out after school tomorrow? The Arby's right around the corner at like, three o'clock?""Um, okay. Yeah, sounds. Yeah." Tyson shouldered his bag for something to do with his hands. "That's the Arby's by the high school, right?""Oh that's right," Nick nodded. "I forgot you're in middle school.""I'll be a freshman next year," Tyson reminded him, defensive."I know. It'll be cool, I'll be a junior. I can show you around. Y'know, maybe," he added, ruffling one hand through his hair. "If you wanted."Tyson had lost the thread of the conversation somewhere around 'show you around', so he just nodded. "Well, I'd better," he jerked a thumb at the door."Yeah, sure, I'll show you out."When they passed the kitchen, Tyson called out, "Thanks for having me over, Mrs –""Wheeler," Nick whispered at his back."Wheeler," he finished, not missing a beat."You're welcome, Tyson. Dinner, Nick. Ten minutes.""I got it, Ma." Nick led Tyson down the stairs again and out of the back door. "You know how to get home, right?""Yeah," Tyson nodded. "Hey listen – thanks, you know. For the lessons.""'S alright," Nick shrugged slightly. "See you tomorrow.""Yeah, yeah, see you then."Tyson waved as Nick shut the door, and then he started running, checking his watch on the way. He might just make it before his dad got home.::~::"You got one more present left," Tim said, pointing to the last gift still wrapped under the Christmas tree. Tyson dived for it, and Tim beamed as he ripped the paper off and his jaw dropped."Dad, I – I didn't think you'd – are you serious?""Of course I am," Tim said, gruff, pulling him in for a hug."All that stuff you said," Tyson mumbled into his shoulder, "about how I shouldn't give up football and. You really. I kept asking! And asking, and you just said – Dad!"Tim patted him on the back. "I never said no," he pointed out. "I said I'd think about it.""Thank you, Dad." Tyson pulled away, picking up the bass again, yanking the rest of the wrapping off it."You're welcome, son. Now, we have an hour before you're off to your mother's, so why don't we play that racing game thing?"When Tyson called Nick, later that day, his sister picked up the phone and said, "Merry Christmas, the Wheelers!""Hi, merry Christmas," Tyson tried not to laugh. "Is Nick there?""Yeah, hold on." There was a muffled sound and he heard, quiet, "Nicky, that guy you like is on the phone." There were a few more muffled sounds and a soft shriek and a giggle, and then Nick's voice."Sorry about my sister, she's deranged," Nick said, and it sounded like she was protesting in the background. "Go away," Nick said, muffled, through gritted teeth. "Ty?" he asked, after one last stifled giggle. It sounded like his sister had finally gone away."Yeah," he said, trying not to think about Nick knowing who he was from the words 'that guy you like'. "Yeah, it's me. How's it going?""Aside from my insane sister, it's okay. I got the Queen guitar book and three shirts. You?""I gave my baby sister a Barbie and she wouldn't stop hugging my legs for like, half an hour. Then Randy gave me this really cool watch, it's proper waterproof and shit, you could like, submerge it in eighty feet of water and it'd still tell you what time it is in Bangkok.""Has it got those little dial things, that say the time in other countries?""No, I just might set it to Thai time."Nick laughed."And guess what else I got," Tyson continued, unable to help the enormous grin as he patted the guitar."What?""Drum roll," he prompted, and Nick obliged; it sounded like he was beating one fist against his knee. "I got," Tyson said, grandiose, "a bass guitar.""No way," Nick crowed. "You said your dad'd never get you one!""I didn't think he would! Then last present this morning, fricking bass guitar, dude.""That's awesome," Nick exclaimed. "Not that you couldn't have carried on borrowing mine, but dude. Your own bass, that's fantastic."Tyson let out a happy sigh, settling back against the headboard. "I'm staying at my mom's tonight, want to come over tomorrow and watch movies? I swear to God, I didn't make them do this, but they have a Muppet marathon planned. For Bailey.""Ty, you know I don't mind having that shit in common with your baby sister." It sounded like he was grinning. "If it's okay with your mom, I'll ask mine.""She said to invite you," Tyson said, smiling at the opposite wall."Okay, gimme a sec." Tyson heard him cover the phone and yell, "Mom? Can I go over to Tyson's mom's house tomorrow?" He couldn't hear the reply, but Nick yelled, "Thanks," and said, "Ty? Yeah, it's cool, I can come over.""Awesome." The breeze outside picked up, billowing his curtain out. He fought it back with one arm and cried, "I'm being attacked!""By what, evil Santas? Zombie reindeer?" Nick snorted."There's a headless dude outside who wants to know if I'll play polo with him," Tyson said, shutting the window softly."Tell him you don't have a horse," Nick laughed."It's okay, he's going away now. I think he's gonna start up a game with that chick in the pearls with the axe."Nick was still laughing. "Have you been watching too many of those ghost specials, Ty?""Maybe. Or maybe this place is haunted, muahahahaaa," and he wished Nick were right there so he could tickle him. Nick's laughter went squeaky, as if he had anyway."If tables start flying around tomorrow, I am out of there, Kermit or no Kermit," he gasped through giggles. Tyson slammed his jaw shut to keep from saying, You're so damn cute, Nickolas."I'll keep that in mind," he said instead. "Tell the ghosts to tone it down while there's guests.""Ty?" a small sleepy voice came from the floor near the bed. Tyson leaned over and saw Bailey, lying flat against the carpet. She looked up at him, frightened. "Ghost?""Oh no honey," Tyson reached down, wedging the phone between his shoulder and ear, and picked her up. He pulled her into his lap and settled his arms around her. "There are no ghosts, Bailey, I was just telling my friend Nick a story. You remember Nick, right?" Bailey nodded, her eyes still round as she looked up at him."Is Bailey there?" Nick asked in his ear."Yeah, she must have snuck in. She's supposed to be in bed," he added, tickling her forearms until she giggled."Aww, hey Bailey," Nick called, and Tyson tried to angle the phone so she could hear it.Bailey stood on his thighs, stretching up to say into the phone, "Hi Nick." She sat back down again."So hey, I have to put this little rascal to bed," he said, tickling her again."Okay. I'll see you guys tomorrow – what time?""I don't know, eleven? Probably then. Come then anyway, if we start later we can just hang out here.""Alright. See you tomorrow, Ty.""'Bye, Nick." Tyson pressed the 'disconnect' button and dropped the phone onto the bed, swinging Bailey up into his arms. "Let's get you back to bed before Mommy sees you, okay?"Bailey nodded, one thumb lodged in her mouth. She leaned against his shoulder as he carried her back to her room and tucked her in. "Night night, Ty," she said, yawning part way through."G'night, kiddo," he said. "And sleep.""Okay," she said, quiet, her eyes already closing. Tyson watched her for a moment."Merry Christmas," he whispered when he was sure she was asleep, and tiptoed out.::~::"Summer loving," Tyson sang, "had me a blast.""Summer loving," Nick joined in, still giggling, "happened so fast.""Met a girl crazy for me," Tyson crooned, leaning up against Nick's neck."Met a boy cute as can – why do I have to be Sandy?" Nick asked, breaking the song."Summer days drifting away," Tyson belted out, standing up and flinging his arms out, "but oh, oh those summer," he paused, lowering himself slowly to his knees in front of the couch, Nick bending double with laughter. "Nights," he finished, elongating the note, looking up at Nick through his hair."We should not marathon John Travolta movies any more, dude, we always end up doing this," Nick laughed, breathless. "I don't know how much more Saturday Night Fever I can take."Tyson jumped up, pointing one hand into the air and cocking his hip. "You know you love it," he grinned."Hah," Nick snorted. "Whatever you say, Ty.""Seriously, one day I am going to get you in a poodle skirt," Tyson said, collapsing onto the couch. Nick poked him in the arm."There is not enough alcohol in the world, Ty. In the world."Tyson regarded him squintily. "Oh you just wait and see. One day, my friend. One day.""Ooh, should I be scared?" Nick slouched down to match his position."You better believe it." Tyson made a motion with his hands that was meant to indicate stealth, speed, skill, but he suspected it ended up more 'dork' than anything he was aiming for. "You know I'll make it happen," he added, pointing menacingly.Nick rolled his eyes and laughed again. "Yeah, Ty. I'm shaking in my boots. And – no seriously, okay, why's it got to be me always singing the girl's bits? Why am I in the skirt?""Oh come on," Tyson poked him, "you know you like it that way.""No," Nick poked back. "You just always take the boy's part first.""If you were a girl," Tyson said, suddenly, "you'd be blonde and beautiful and called Lindy or something."Nick looked like he didn't know if he wanted to laugh or just poke him again. "Why Lindy?" he asked.Tyson shrugged. "It's a hot girl name, you know. All those hot girls, they're always called something like Lindy or Alicia."Nick raised his left eyebrow and scrunched up half of his mouth. "What hot girls do you know?"Tyson put his finger to his lips. "Shh," he said. "It's a secret."Nick leaned closer. "Well? Where do I find these hot girls called Lindy?"Tyson paused long enough to lean his head nearer to Nick's, until their noses were a few inches apart. He stayed there for three and a quarter breaths, then grinned and said, "I'm not telling you my secrets, Nickolas."Nick leaned back and poked him in the elbow. "Why not, Tyson? I thought I was your best friend.""You are my best friend," Tyson agreed. "You're my best friend in the world," he added, rolling over so he was sprawled half over his chest, "and you'd do anything for me, right? Anything?" He looked up at him, arranging every particle in his face into the 'puppy' configuration.Nick just petted his hair absently. "Uh," he said."Will you get me some more lemonade? Please?" Tyson batted his eyelashes. "It's hot in here," he added, and sang, "Summer days."Nick shifted out from under him and stood up. "Fine, I'll get you more lemonade," he said. "I gotta go to the bathroom anyway."Tyson stretched out on the couch, arching his back until it popped. "Mm," he exhaled, opening his eyes to see Nick still standing there, eyes on him. "That's better," he added, going into another stretch. "My back was all," he waved his hands from the wrist, and Nick nodded."Okay. Uh. I'm gonna – I'll be a minute," he said, and disappeared. Tyson heard footsteps on the stairs and picked up the video boxes to fiddle with while he waited.He heard the bathroom door close, and started humming under his breath, "You're the one that I want, you are the one I want, you-ooh-ooh honey." Three minutes later he heard a thump that sounded like someone stomping on the floor of the bathroom, and then the toilet flushed a few seconds after. "I got chills," Tyson started singing, loudly enough to be heard from upstairs, "they're multiplyin'." He heard Nick coming down the stairs again. "And I'm loooooosing contro-ohl," he increased the volume, adding arm gestures. Nick appeared in the doorway, smiling. Tyson stood, moving over to him, and sang, "'Cos the power you're supplying." He dropped to his knees. "It's electrifyin'." He thrust his hips and notched up several octaves on the last word. Nick just looked down at him. "Hey," Tyson said, before he could stop himself, "you got some mayonnaise on your pants."Nick looked down and instantly turned bright red. "Shit," he muttered. "Yeah, uh, must have been from that sandwich. I'll go uh, clean it off," and his footsteps pounded up the stairs again."Huh," Tyson murmured, standing up and brushing his knees off. "We didn't have mayonnaise," he said to no one. He paused for a moment, then shrugged and went to the kitchen to pour out another couple of glasses of lemonade.Three weeks later, Tyson was waiting nervously at the corner of Maple and Walnut, picking at the hem of his shirt and keeping a hand on the strap of his backpack that was slung over his shoulder. He felt a tap on his back and whirled around."Hey," Nick said, waving slightly. "You ready?""I guess," Tyson nodded, and they set off."First day of high school, huh?" Nick said, as they walked."Yep.""You nervous?""Pfft," Tyson waved a hand. Nick looked at him."You'll be okay," he said, bumping his shoulder against Tyson's. They had both had growth spurts over the summer, and now Tyson was level with him. "You coming to practice tonight?""Yeah, is James still coming, or is he doing stuff with that – what's her name, Stacey?""Yeah, no, he called me yesterday, said he had plans. They just started dating after like, two fucking years of him talking about her all the time.""Wow, I've had a year of it, but you guys. You've stuck through two. How did you do it?"Nick winked. "The secret's to keep bashing him over the head with blunt objects until he asks her the fuck out.""Think that works with everyone?" Tyson asked, automatically trying to calculate how heavy his bag would be."It's always worth trying," Nick said. He was smiling, and the morning sun was lighting up his hair, and it was far too early for this."I'll keep that in mind," Tyson replied. "You never know when it might come in useful, right?"Nick shifted the weight of his backpack. "Right."::~::"Okay, where are they, where are they," Tyson leaned over the heads of the crowd. He'd grown another inch that winter, over a year since his last spurt, so he saw the boards a second before Nick did. "Over there – come on -"He made his way through the throng, pulling Nick after him, and it wasn't until they were two thirds of the way to the wall that he realised he was pulling Nick along by the hand. He quickly dropped it, ducking his head, and kept barrelling through the crowd. When he got to the wall, he was almost knocked over by a squealing girl."I got Dorothy!" she beamed at him. She was a senior, who Tyson had seen at auditions and thought was adorable, so he smiled at her."That's awesome, congratulations!" He turned back to the boards as she fought her way back out into the clear parts of the corridor, and searched the rows of names. "Tin man," he muttered, reading off, "Wizard – oh. Oh. NICK!" he yelled, fighting past people, pushing away arms and torsos until he was clear of the crowd and found Nick, standing on the edges of it. "Nick," he said, "Nick, I got the part. Cowardly Lion, baby, it's mine!"Nick hugged him, a quick and solid movement. "That's awesome, dude, way to go," he said, beaming. Tyson squeezed him gently before he let go."I have to go find Miss Carter, get my script.""Okay. You won't start singing We're off to see the wizard at practice, right?" Nick grinned."Oh, here it starts," Tyson rolled his eyes. "Listen," he said, pointing at Nick's chest, "I will hear the end of this. Got that? I will hear the end of it."Nick patted him on the arm. "You keep telling yourself that, Ty," he said. "As long as you believe it, that's the main thing. Or," he started laughing, "or rather, your costume will be the mane thing." He collapsed against Tyson's side, wheezing. "Get it – mane -""Yes, Nick," Tyson sighed, though his heart was thumping, "I got it."It was hot behind the stage, on opening night that summer. Tyson stood in the wings, watching the action on stage, and felt someone step up behind him and tug his tail. He whirled around to silently give whoever it was hell, but came face to face with Nick's grin. "Hi," Nick said, yanking his tail again. Tyson swished it out of the way."Stop that," he whispered, moving them both away from side stage and into a corner of the room behind. "What are you doing back here? I thought you were in the audience.""Came to wish you luck," Nick shrugged, and he was standing awfully close. "No wait, isn't it break a leg?""I'm not overly superstitious," Tyson murmured, hoping his breathing didn't sound as shallow as it felt.Nick stepped even closer, and his hair tickled against Tyson's forehead. Breath ghosted over his nose as Nick whispered, "I do believe in spooks, I do, I do, I do believe in spooks." He was smiling.Tyson nearly forgot to inhale. "Gonna smudge my whiskers," he said, barely any sound in it.Nick looked at him, unfocused from this distance, and his breath seemed to hitch. "Lions and tigers and bears, oh my," he murmured, soft, and stepped away again. Tyson leaned against the wall, trying to make it look like he didn't need the support for his knees not to give way. "Knock 'em dead," Nick whispered, and disappeared again.Tyson just stood there for a minute, staring at the air where he'd been, as if hoping he would solidify out of the oxygen particles."Hey Ritter," he heard a hiss, "you're on in two, get up there.""Right, right," Tyson found his voice again. He made his way back to the wings and watched Dorothy, the Tin Man and the Scarecrow tiptoeing through the forest set, waiting for his cue.Nick found him backstage after the last curtain call, beaming as he clapped him on the back. "Great job, dude," he said. "You totally nailed that faint.""Months of practice, baby," Tyson grinned, still lifted on the adrenaline high of applause. "Did you see that, they loved it.""Yeah, reckon by Saturday there'll be standing ovations.""Really? You think so?"Nick leaned closer to say, voice soft, "I'll be leading them," and Tyson grabbed his hand, abrupt, yanking him away and out into the deserted corridor. He pulled him further, pushing open the huge double doors to the yard outside, and waited until they had clanged shut before he whirled around and leaned close in. "What?" Nick asked, and Tyson looked at him, and he noticed that Nick's pupils were getting huge and his breathing was shallow and his pulse was knocking on the heels of their hands."Nick," he breathed, "Nick, I didn't – I – shit, I'm sorry, I don't -" He dropped contact and stepped away, swallowing and looking up at the moon. "Sorry. Don't know what I was – I have to go, get changed, get this shit off my face." He went back inside without looking back, and Nick didn't follow.Tyson sat heavily in one of the chairs in the classroom the boys had commandeered for a dressing room. He shut his eyes, sliding his head onto his arms, and let out one long, heavy sigh."Fuck," he groaned into the table. He moved his arms and hit his head against it softly a few times. "Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.""You okay?" a voice asked, and he didn't bother replying, just held one thumb up. "Everyone's heading to Pizza Hut if you wanna come."Tyson brandished the raised thumb, and heard the last of the other guys leaving. The door closed, and he raised his head to face the mirror.Nick was standing behind him."Shit, I'm sorry," Tyson sighed. "I guess just, heat of the moment or whatever. I gotta get out of musical theatre," he added, trying for half a jesting smile, but it didn't quite come out right. Nick said nothing, so he just unscrewed the top on his make-up remover, poured it onto a cotton bud and got to work. "Sorry," he said again as he scrubbed at his chin. Nick still wasn't speaking. "Look, are you gonna say something, or are you just gonna stand there making me feel bad?""Just." Nick's voice was strained. "Just do what you gotta do with the make-up thing, I can't. Yeah." He looked away.Tyson considered the objects on the table in front of him, wondering if any would be good for slitting his throat. He concluded that several blusher brushes would definitely not be sharp enough to do any damage, so he just continued with the cotton bud, swipe, swipe, his face appearing underneath the orange foundation.It took two cotton buds and another face cloth before the make-up was gone, and Tyson got up to drop them into the trash can. He had to pass Nick on his way back to the table, and as he did, Nick's hand shot out to grab his wrist. The move was more gentle than Tyson expected."If you don't want to hang out any more," Tyson whispered, trying hard not to think what life without Nick Wheeler would be like, "that's.""Look at me," Nick said. His voice was quiet, and Tyson risked a look up. He blinked."Oh," he said."Fuck, Ty," Nick breathed, edging closer. "I don't – if it was just a thing, you know, like a – I don't know. What the fuck was that?"Tyson swallowed. His insides had started to fizz. "What do you want it to have been?" he asked, so quietly even he had to strain to hear it.Nick stood for a second, breathing hard, and said, "For fuck's sake, don't punch me," and leaned forward to kiss him, quickly. Just a light kiss, meeting of lips for one second, hardly enough time for Tyson to press back, but he did anyway."I," Tyson whispered, "I wouldn't punch you for that. You know, if you did it again. I wouldn't. I mean, I'd be okay with that.""You, you would be?" Nick breathed, eyes closed.Tyson slid one hand into Nick's hair and leaned closer again. "Yeah, yeah I really would be," he murmured, their mouths half an inch apart.Nick tilted his head and caught Tyson's mouth, groaning a little as Tyson shifted closer. They kissed, press and push of lips and breath and Tyson opened his mouth, just a little bit, just enough. Nick's hands went to Tyson's waist, pulling him in, as he eased the tip of his tongue past Tyson's lips.He tasted like hot dogs. Tyson opened his mouth more, lifting his tongue to brush against Nick's, and Nick groaned again. Tyson's palm flexed in his hair.He didn't know how long it was until they broke apart, but he was vaguely surprised as the rest of the world settled into focus again. "Oh hey," he said, "we're still in the dressing room."Nick laughed into his neck."John dropped out," was the first thing Nick said at the next band rehearsal. "He's going to summer camp, said next year he'll be doing tons of school shit, he's got like, a million extra credit things. Says he wants to get into Harvard or some shit.""Woah." Tyson dumped his guitar case down. "Well, that – I mean, we haven't found a replacement for Tony yet, and James is still, y'know." Nick nodded. "So that kind of just leaves – well, us. And you're going to college."Nick shrugged. "I'll still be in the band, dude. I could set us up with beats, play guitar. I mean, you sing, it's not like we need anything else, right?""Just you and me?" Tyson looked at him, suddenly not sure they were talking about the band any more."Um." Nick moved closer and put his arm around Tyson's waist. "Yeah, just you and me.""That what you want, the – the two of us?" Tyson asked. His heart seemed to be trying to escape from his ribcage.Nick kissed him, lightly. "Yes," he said, "it is.""Oh. Good." Tyson nudged their noses together. "How about we blow off practice today and go back to my place to make out?"Nick seemed to consider the options. "Yeah, okay," he said at last, starting for the door almost at a run.::~::"Are we ever," Tyson breathed against Nick's skin, "going to go on an actual date?""I don't know," Nick replied, running his hands up and down Tyson's back, "wouldn't that be kind of like. Obvious, that we're boyfriends?""Nick, we've been sneaking off all summer to make out," Tyson pointed out, shifting as Nick's hip dug into his stomach, "and we haven't actually – okay, no, no, this is not going to work. The stick shift is like, emasculating me here.""What about if I -" Nick moved over to make room. His elbow hit the centre of the steering wheel and a loud beep filled the night. "Um. Or not.""This would be," Tyson said, huffing as he tried to move his leg in a way that the seat had something to say about, "so much easier if we were in the back seat.""Uh. I, yeah, I mean, I guess so, but it. Yeah. No, yeah, okay." Nick nodded, and they moved and climbed over, accompanied by involuntary grunting sounds and two honks of the horn when Tyson accidentally kicked the wheel.Tyson tried to settle in the seat, but Nick was lying down. "I – wait, are – woah, hold on there," he said, splaying one hand on Nick's chest. "Did you think I meant – I mean, we haven't, you know, really done any – uh."It was dark, but Nick was definitely blushing. "Oh. You just meant like," he swallowed."Make out," Tyson nodded. "But hey, you know, if you wanted to do like. If you – I know you're like, older and more experienced and shit, I -""Ty." Nick was struggling to sit up, but Tyson's legs were in the way. "I'm not.""Not what?", and Tyson couldn't help it, he was staring.Nick looked away, cheeks still red. "Not more experienced," he mumbled. He looked back. "How many – you've known me three years, Ty, and I haven't had any. Uh." He closed his eyes and exhaled, "Boyfriends. In that time.""Oh, so you're – I – oh. I didn't know," Tyson murmured. Nick opened his eyes to fix him with an incredulous glare. "You could have been bi, Nick, I don't know!" Tyson threw his hands up. "How was I to know, I never asked!""Are you?" Nick asked. Tyson blinked."Am I what?""Bi, you idiot." Nick rolled his eyes."Yes. I mean, I think I am, I've had like, two girlfriends in my life and all we ever did was make out, and it wasn't anything spectacular. And I kind of liked guys, I guess, then I met you and it was like, oh hey, I like a guy kind of a lot, so I figured, huh, must be bi then." He shrugged. "Don't see it matters."Nick nodded. "Okay." He squeezed his eyes shut and said, "I'm gay." It sounded like he was pushing the words out of his throat by force.Tyson leaned down, settling over him, and brushed their noses together. "I figured," he smiled.Nick opened his eyes to look up at the ceiling of the car. "Never actually," he gave Tyson a sheepish smile, "said that out loud before.""Honey, we marathon musicals," Tyson pointed out. "Summer days, drifting away," he sang, soft, smiling down.Nick groaned and arched his neck. "Did I ever tell you," he whispered, leaning up to breathe against Tyson's earlobe, "when I went to the bathroom that day, and you said I had mayonnaise on my pants afterwards? That, uh. That wasn't mayonnaise."Tyson went still. "No."Nick blushed. "Uh. Yeah.""You jerked off in my bathroom?" Tyson leaned up and away from him again, so he could stare him in the eye.Nick just blushed harder. "I was sixteen, Ty. You're fucking hot, okay?""Fuck," Tyson moaned, falling onto him again and crushing their mouths together. "Fuck," he groaned into his mouth, because Nick's pelvis was level with his and Nick was grinding softly upwards."If you wanna," Nick panted, shifting his thigh, and Tyson had to brace his knee against the seat in between Nick's legs to stay balanced, and this was not fucking fair, "we – we could – if you -""Nick." Tyson leaned up and away again. It took every ounce of effort he could muster. "Nick. I have no idea what you're asking, you have to say it."Nick stared at him for a minute, but his eyes were soft so maybe, maybe it was more gazing than staring, and neither of them moved. Tyson felt something at his belt and jerked, looking down to see Nick's hand. "I want," Nick whispered, and when Tyson looked back at him their eyes locked. "I want to jerk you off."Three things, at that point, happened at once: Tyson's spine decided it would much rather be liquid than solid, Tyson's knee moved up the seat of its own volition until his thigh was pressing against Nick's crotch, and Tyson's mouth opened to emit a long groaning sound."Okay then," Nick nodded, "that's a yes.""Nnhhffmn," was all Tyson could manage, though he did nod, just in case.Nick reached for his belt and got it undone, eyes still locked on Tyson's. "This is kind of a weird angle, can you – come closer, okay?"Tyson lowered himself a little more and had a moment of thinking I hope my arms don't give out before Nick yanked the zip on his jeans down and got a hand inside."Please," and Tyson rocked his thigh against the bulge in Nick's pants just as he started to speak, so his breath hitched on the word, "Ty, please tell me you usually wear underwear."Tyson couldn't manage words right at that second, because Nick's hand was on his cock and he was amazed that his entire bone structure had not melted. So he just shook his head."Fuuuck," Nick moaned, throwing his head back and starting to softly pull with his hand, the other one reaching to push Tyson's jeans down his legs a little when he'd done arching.Tyson did not have a working brain left. Luckily, his thigh seemed to be operating under its own power, because it rocked again. He knew there were nerve endings, and true, there were also two layers of material, but he still knew he should be able to feel Nick's erection, because fuck, but all of his senses were preoccupied with the feel of Nick's fingers and Nick's palm and Nick's thumb, which was rubbing in circles on the head of his cock, and there was no room for processing any other kind of sensation, because fuck."You have," Nick groaned, eyes half open, "no fucking idea how fucking hot this is, fuck, Ty."Tyson rocked his thigh back and forth in lieu of an answer. He was incapable of sound. Nick's hand worked, up and down and, fuck, squeezing, and Tyson shut his eyes, stars on his eyelids, but he opened them again within seconds because the sight of Nick with his mouth open and his eyes fucking black with wide pupils and his voice low and husky and hitching on every other breath as Tyson's wonderful, awesome, amazing, blessed thigh rocked and rocked on its own was much, much better than bursting blood vessels or whatever the fuck it is that makes you see stars, and right now, whatever the fuck it is that makes you see stars was called Nick fucking Wheeler, and Tyson had no fucking clue what time was, which way was up, or how to spell his own name."Fuck, I just," Nick leaned up, the angles so much better, fuck, so much better, and ground against Tyson's thigh. "Fuck, Ty, will you – fuck, I'm gonna fucking. Fuck."Tyson's mouth fell open and a hoarse moan escaped; he jerked forward and came all over Nick's hand, over his wrist, and Nick just yanked him closer and humped his thigh, hard."Fuck, fuck, fuck," Nick whined in the back of his throat.Tyson started shaking his head, sharp movement, because he still couldn't speak yet. He shifted down, Nick whimpering as contact was broken, but Tyson just kept shaking his head, blinking at him, until he was shifted much further down so his head was level with Nick's waist."Holy," Nick panted, shaking his hair out of his eyes. "You're not."Tyson just unzipped his jeans as fast as he could, yanking them and Nick's underwear down his thighs, and he let himself just fucking stare, for a moment, at Nick's cock, before he opened his mouth and sank onto it.Nick made a sound that was mostly whine, underscored with a groan, and all of it high-pitched. He grasped handfuls of Tyson's hair as Tyson took one, sharp, sure suck, and Nick bucked his hips up and came. Tyson's mouth filled, which he filed somewhere at the back of his mind under 'this is kinda weird, but I like it', and he pulled away carefully, trying not to spill any on the seat. He pushed it into his cheeks, swallowing a little bit at a time, eyes fixed on Nick's as he did so. Nick groaned, falling back against the seat he'd arched up from.Tyson swallowed the last of it and shifted the experience from 'this is kinda weird' to 'activities to be repeated at every possible opportunity'. It was firmly labeled 'sucking Nick off' in permanent marker, and the drawer was shut. "Um," he said, just to see if he could speak again yet.Nick just stared at him. "I," he said. His throat sounded dry, and he swallowed a few times. He didn't take his eyes off Tyson's. "Fucking hell," he said at last."Yeah," Tyson just nodded. The English language was starting to sidle in again, making its way slowly across his synapses."I," Nick repeated.Tyson collapsed against him. "That was nice," he said, kissing his shoulder. "Can we do that again some time?""Nnfffmnghhh," Nick replied, eyes wide. "Yes, fuck, yes, where the fuck did you learn to do that, I – holy shit.""What?" Tyson blushed. "It wasn't that good – I mean, was it?"Nick just looked at him. "My spine," he said. "I can't feel my spine. Is it still there?""Wait, let me check." Tyson reached around him, and Nick obligingly arched up again; when Tyson's fingers skated over his back, however, Nick let out tiny gasping sounds and arched further. "Are ... are you okay, Nick?" Tyson asked, still making sure he could feel vertebrae."Yeah," Nick gasped."You're squirming," Tyson pointed out."That feels fucking good," Nick said, wriggling against Tyson's fingers."Wow, okay, I am giving you like, a massage some time or something." Tyson ran his fingertips down Nick's spine again, watching him buck and writhe. "Shit, that's fucking sexy, what you're doing there, Nick.""You just made me come like a – fuck, I don't even know." Nick exhaled, leaning up and yanking Tyson's shirt until part of his shoulder was exposed. He bit it, softly, just hard enough to feel."Oh, I am totally going to do that again, like, any time you want," Tyson sighed.Nick went still and blinked at him. "You are the best fucking boyfriend in the whole fucking world," he said. "How about Saturday for a date?"Tyson leaned down and kissed him. "Saturday, actually, I'm busy. I've got this really fucking hot guy, we're going on a date. Should be pretty interesting. Thinking I might get laid.""Oh yeah? I might be getting laid Saturday night, too," Nick returned, starting to smile. "And my date happens to be the best lay this side of – of Jupiter.""Oh really?" Tyson kissed him again, smiling into his mouth. "Lucky you.""Yeah," Nick breathed. "Lucky me."::~::"Are you sure this'll work?" Tyson asked, quiet."Trust me, dude," Nick nodded."I trust you," Tyson told him, looking nervously around at the line, "I just don't necessarily trust some dude you met in a bar who gave you a fake ID.""You'll get in," Nick assured him. Tyson didn't say a word, but Nick squeezed his hand and the line slowly crept towards the door.Nick showed his ID to the doorman, who nodded him through. Tyson held his up, and was about to follow Nick into the club when a large hand came palm up to his face. "Let me see that again," the doorman said, turning his palm upwards. Tyson placed his ID into it, smiling in what he hoped was a winning manner."Everything okay?" he asked, trying to see where Nick had gone."Nice try." The doorman handed his ID back. "Come back with some real ID and maybe you'll get in.""Aw, come on, man, I'm eighteen! Look," Tyson pointed at the card. "Says so right there.""Yeah, and I'd believe it if this weren't a fake. Go home, kid.""But – but my friend's in there," Tyson indicated the space where Nick had been."So your friend can tell you all about it later," the doorman said, relentless. "Now move, before I call security."Tyson sighed, taking his fake ID when the doorman handed it back. He hoped Nick would come back out when he saw Tyson hadn't followed. In the meanwhile, he found a low wall half a block away and sat down on it, kicking his heels against the stones."Hey," he looked up when he heard Nick's voice. "I couldn't find you, were you busted?""Yeah." Tyson patted the wall next to him. "Told you I didn't trust that guy.""Sorry," Nick said as he sat."Hey, you wanna go back in there, see the show? You can always tell me about it after, I could sneak round the back, listen outside the window."Nick wrinkled his nose. "Go see the show without you?""Dude, we came all this way to see Third Eye fucking Blind, we got tickets, come on. How often do we go to shows?""Isn't this like, your third?""You tell me, you took me to all of them."Nick kissed him, quickly. "Do you really want me to go back in there?""Seriously." Tyson leaned their foreheads together. "Go tell me what it was like to see, I'll hear it.""Okay," Nick breathed, tilting closer for another kiss. Tyson obliged, giving his upper lip some attention before releasing it. Nick exhaled shakily and stood up. "Right, yeah. Okay.""And uh. Nick?" He took a deep breath. "Tonight, you know, when we get home, my – uh, you know how Mom and Randy took Bailey to Disneyland?""Oh right, yeah," Nick nodded. He was still standing, arms looped around Tyson's neck, Tyson's hands on his sides."Well," Tyson stood up and shifted his palms to Nick's hips, "that means I've got the house to myself. And if you, uh, if you wanted to, we could go back there," he took Nick's upper lip between both of his and sucked for half a second, then leaned back."Mmm, sounds good to me," Nick smiled, nuzzling their noses together. Tyson exhaled, a hitch in it."No," he said, pulling Nick's hips flush with his, "I didn't finish.""Oh. Sorry. Continue." Nick's eyes were crinkled at the corners, and Tyson felt so frustrated for a second he curled one hand into a fist, flexing it in the material of Nick's jacket."Maybe," he said, breathed, willing Nick to stop smiling and take this fucking seriously, "seeing as we'd have the whole place to ourselves, we could." He looked at Nick, meeting his eyes with difficulty, too close to focus. "Fuck," he sighed, leaning up to Nick's ear.Nick's smile had faded. "Ty?" he swallowed."I want – I want us to have sex," Tyson whispered into his earlobe."Well yeah, that's what – what, Ty?" Nick asked, as Tyson made an exasperated sound in his throat.He leaned back. "You jerk-off, I want you to fuck me." It came out louder than he'd meant it to, and he added, quieter, "I didn't mean for it to – Nick." He looked into his eyes again, easier now their faces were further apart. "I want your penis in my ass," he said, slowly and precisely. "Can I spell it out any clearer for you, or is that good enough?"Nick did not appear capable of speech. He was sort of gawking, and Tyson laughed, sudden, and closed his jaw with one hand."Don't dribble on your shoes," he said, and then Nick started laughing too, and leaned against Tyson's chest to giggle, small convulsions of his entire upper body as the sound squeezed out of his mouth."Ty," he gasped out through laughter, "you have no idea how many times I have jerked off in the last three years thinking about my penis in your ass."Tyson laughed harder. "You have no idea how many times I have jerked off in the last three years thinking about your penis in my ass.""Or," Nick giggled, "or your penis in my ass."Tyson stopped laughing. "Fuck, yeah, that too."Nick giggled a few more times, weakly. "Ty," he said, "Ty, do you still want me to go to the show?"Tyson stroked one hand down Nick's back and smiled, a slow spread. He wouldn't have been surprised if his eyes were glinting. "Yes," he said, a low murmur. "I want you to go back in there and watch the show, knowing I'm out here listening, and I'm going to want to know details of what it all was like inside. And then," he dragged his palm up Nick's spine again, "then I am going to drive us home, while you tell me all the details of what it was like inside, and when we get back I am going to show you the drawer where I keep all the shit we'll need. And then I want you to fuck me in the ass, Nick Wheeler. Then I want you to fuck me in the ass." He dragged his palm back down Nick's spine. "Remember," he murmured, "I'll want details.""Fuck, I can't even think right now," Nick moaned. They heard the near-off muffled sounds of the opening band starting to play. "Too late to get back in now anyway," he breathed, squirming against Tyson's hands. "Can't we just," his head went back, "can't we just go back to yours, skip the show?"Tyson licked a line up Nick's neck and groaned into his ear, "Yeah," and Nick practically yanked his arm off pulling him towards the car. "We can't do anything until we get there," Tyson reminded him, "we haven't got lube and shit here.""Just for the record," Nick said when they got into the car and Tyson started the ignition, "it is totally okay with me if you break speed limits.""Dude, you know we'd get pulled over, right? Universal law. When you least want it to happen, it happens.""Just – just drive, okay?" Nick exhaled, sitting back in his seat. Tyson drove out of the parking spot, trying not to notice how very obviously hard Nick was."You okay?" Tyson kept sneaking looks, and Nick's eyes were closed, his head back against the seat."Yeah, I just – Ty," he breathed. "I just.""I'm driving as fast as I legally can," Tyson said, taking one hand off the steering wheel to pat Nick's thigh reassuringly. Nick groaned and grabbed his hand, moving it upwards. "Fuck," Tyson blinked. "Trying not to crash, Nick.""Right. Sorry." Nick let go of his hand and shifted away, curling in on himself a little."Jesus, are you sure you're okay?" Tyson asked. "We can stop, pull over, I can suck you off or something if it'll help."Nick groaned. "I think I would just," he said, like it was an effort to remember what words were, "probably," and his voice trailed off. "I don't know, shit.""That's it, I'm pulling over." Tyson checked his mirrors, but the freeway was relatively clear. He changed lanes, finding an exit and driving down it. A closed down Taco Bell loomed in front of them, and Tyson stopped in the empty parking lot. He turned to Nick. "Seriously, did I fucking break you, what?"Nick's eyes were closed. "Kinda," he said, sheepish, trying to smile. "It's just." He opened his eyes. Tyson was startled at how fucking dark they were."Your eyes go green when you're turned on," Tyson told him, moving closer. "Right now they're like. I don't know, man, dark fucking green."Nick nodded."You alright? Not gonna cream your pants or anything, are you?""Maybe.""Shit." Tyson undid his seatbelt and leaned over, breath ghosting on Nick's jeans while he got them undone. "Lift," he prompted at Nick's hiss. "Your hips, man, I gotta get your pants down."Nick lifted his hips, and Tyson yanked his jeans and underpants down far enough. His mouth followed the movement as Nick settled back, and Nick groaned. "Fuck," he muttered, "I just gotta – let you know, fuck," he moaned as Tyson sucked, "I'm gonna last two seconds.""One," Tyson tried to say around his cock, but all that came out was a vibration and half a sound. Nick threw his head back and bucked. "Two," Tyson added, and Nick bucked once more, coming with a long loud groan."Shit," Nick breathed as Tyson leaned back up again, swallowing carefully. "Sorry, I just.""Hey dude, that's what I did that for," Tyson patted him gently on the arm. "You okay now? Not gonna explode or anything?""Yeah, no, I'm good." He pulled his pants back up and turned to kiss Tyson. "Thanks.""Any time, baby." Tyson buckled his seatbelt again, restarting the engine. "Now let's get us home so you can fuck me slow and good, alright?"Nick just made a small sound and nodded.Tyson pulled up in front of his house in less time than it had ever taken him to get there, and Nick seemed to have gained enough use of his spine back to climb out of the car and follow him inside. He pulled him closer by the waist as they got to the stairs, open-mouthed wet kisses on the back of his neck."Slow and good, right?" he asked. Tyson was already squirming, so he figured they had the second part down."Right," he said, leading the way upstairs. Nick kept hold of his hips, pushing up against him, and Tyson could feel that he was hard again. "Here," he yanked open the drawer when they got to his room and closed the door behind them. "My gay sex stash. Lube, condoms, and uh. I got some other kinky shit in there, but we can just start off with the basics.""Do we need condoms?" Nick asked as Tyson handed him the box. "I mean, I'm a – uh. I'd never even fooled around, not really, not like. Not like this, before you, so. I mean, I am definitely a virgin," and he was blushing as he said it. "And you're – you are, right? A virgin?""Unless you count all the other stuff we've done – ass virgin, though, yeah.""Right. And, I'm clean, so you won't catch anything from me, and – you're clean, right?"Tyson shrugged. "I got a check-up last month, not specialised or nothing, but yeah, I'm clean.""Well – do we need these?" Nick held up the condoms. "I'm not sleeping with anyone else, I presume you're not -""No way," Tyson cut in. "There is no way I am sleeping with anyone else.""Right," Nick nodded, and he was grinning, just a little. "Well, I – it's up to you, Ty. Do you think we should use them? I think we're okay without."Tyson bit his lip. "I think you're right," he said at last. "We're okay without."Nick dropped the box back in the drawer. "You've got a lot of lube, right?" he asked, holding his palm out for the bottle."Yeah." Tyson handed it to him and started taking his own shirt off. Nick stopped him, a hand on his."Let me," he said, and pulled Tyson's shirt over his head. He ran his fingertips over Tyson's chest, leaning down to stamp kisses in a pattern. His palms followed. Tyson exhaled, a low sigh. Nick undid his pants and Tyson stepped out of them, kicking his shoes off; Nick steered him down onto the bed and ran his fingertips over Tyson's thighs, cupping one knee in each palm, running his hands up and down his calves. He leaned down to plant a line of kisses from each ankle to each knee, and up each thigh to where they met Tyson's hips. He dipped his fingertips into the creases there, Tyson breathing hard, mouth open, knees bent, looking up at the ceiling. He whimpered when Nick kissed along his stomach, over his inner thighs, a wide circle he narrowed slowly, spiralling inwards. Tyson whimpered louder as Nick's tongue flicked out against his thigh; Nick briefly closed his mouth over the head of Tyson's cock and sucked, sharp, and then he was gone and Tyson groaned."Fuck, what are you – fuck," he whimpered."Sshh," Nick smiled down at him, pulling off his own shirt and pants as quickly as he could. Tyson couldn't move, staring up at Nick, naked, leaning over him, nudging his knees further apart. "You okay?" he asked, gazing down. Tyson nodded. "I'm, uh." Nick held up one hand, the palm coated in a thick layer of lube. He stroked his own cock with it, once, twice, his mouth falling open. "Okay," he breathed through his nose, "okay." Tyson watched as he slathered more lube onto his fingers. He felt them, cold against his thighs, and opened his legs further.Nick's fingers slowly, carefully, slid inside his ass, and Tyson's brain tried to process 'shit, this hurts like fuck' and 'fuck, this feels so good' simultaneously. He ended up with a sort of buzzing in his ears and vague awareness of a sharp stabbing pain that was muffled by what felt like a fuzzy blanket. Nick's fingers slid gently in and out, and Tyson shifted, trying to get comfortable."You alright?" Nick whispered. Tyson nodded."It just, it kind of hurts. But it's okay," he added as Nick looked like he was about to stop.Nick leaned down and kissed him. "If you're sure," he said against his mouth, and Tyson nodded again.Nick slid another finger in, and Tyson arched, trying to spread his legs further. "That's, yeah. See, it fucking hurts, okay, but at the same time it feels like the best fucking thing ever," he said, brow creased."Maybe we should just keep doing this for a while," Nick said, pushing his fingers gently in and out.Tyson angled his hips and pushed up onto Nick's hand. "Mmf, fuck, I want this to be – Nick, please, fuck me." He whimpered as Nick's fingers curled. "Please, fuck me," he groaned, voice breaking, a high desperate sound."Jesus," Nick panted, removing his fingers carefully. There was a soft sound and a grunt that Tyson realised a second later meant Nick was adding more lube onto his cock, and then – then he felt it, pushing in, and he spread his thighs as far as they would physically go. Nick went slowly, watching his face, and Tyson's mouth had opened and sounds were coming out but he couldn't tell what they were because his entire body was focused on the sensations of Nick's cock in his fucking ass, dragging slowly, so fucking slowly in and out. It was just slow enough, just gentle enough, but Tyson wrapped one leg around Nick's hips and pushed up onto him."F-" he tried, but Nick just pushed in again and the word stuck in his throat. "Oh f-f-"Nick nodded, or at least, he seemed to be trying to nod, but his face was frozen in concentration. He stared down at their bodies, and seemed to see Tyson's cock for the first time. "Oh -" he said, reaching down to wrap a hand around it.He pulled, once, and Tyson arched up and came, mouth open, a groan shaped like fucccck escaping through his throat."Shit," Nick gasped, panted, shoving in a little harder, sending shooting pain through Tyson's abdomen."N-n-," he shook his head in Nick's rhythm, and Nick slowed down."Shit, sorry, I didn't mean to – fuck, fuck," Nick sighed, slow again, and it was starting to become more painful than pleasurable so Tyson shifted some more, trying to get comfortable again; he was just about to suggest Nick stop and he jerk him off or something when he heard Nick whining in the back of his throat. "Fuck, Ty," Nick panted, and Tyson's entire spine melted back against the mattress. He thrust upwards, once, twice, and on the third time, Nick came, moaning, "Fuck, Ty."He could feel it, this warm weight in his ass, and it felt like he was full, from the soles of his feet upwards. Nick carefully pulled out – which sent one last stabbing pain through his body – and collapsed on top of him."I kind of," Nick sighed, kissing his chest, "really liked that."Tyson just nodded."You okay, Ty?""Yeah," he said, nodding again for emphasis. "Yeah. I'm gonna be sore for a while, but. Yeah."Nick curled around him. "You can pay me back for that," he said, grinning as Tyson angled his neck to look at him. "Fuck me tomorrow?""Mmmnf, shit." Tyson nodded, kissing his forehead. "Sounds good to me."They lay, silent for a minute. "Your sheets will get sticky," Nick murmured."They're used to it," Tyson smiled. He nuzzled his jaw over the top of Nick's head. "It's gonna suck next month when you go to college."Nick sighed. "Yeah, I know. I'll come back on the weekends, I swear.""You'd better," Tyson said into his hair.He stared out at the garden, phone in his hand, five weeks later. The first leaf on the tree outside his window detached itself as he watched, weighting the phone in his hand, hopping it between his palms.It rang. Tyson jumped, a second leaf fell, and he hit the 'answer call' button. "Hi?""Hey Ty, it's me." Nick did not, exactly, sound sober."Hey Nick, whatcha up to?""Nothin' much," and he was almost slurring. "Just hanging out, having some beers. The guys here are really awesome.""Sounds great." Tyson stared out at the tree. "You coming home this weekend?""I can't, man, my tyres all got flat. There was this hazing thing, it got caught in the crossfire. Hey Dougie," he yelled, fainter.Tyson nodded to himself, bringing his knees to his chin. "You having fun, Nick?""I'm partyin'," Nick replied, though it wasn't really an answer."That's college, right? Party all the time.""Pretty much. Sean, dude, we playin' tomorrow night? Awesome, awesome.""Sounds like you're pretty busy," Tyson said, fiddling with the hem of his jeans. "Wait – you're playing? Like, a show?""Just this party, me and a couple of the guys got together.""Oh. Right. That's great, that's really great.""Yeah, college is a blast, man," and there was a dull roar in the background. Tyson heard several voices yelling Hey Nick, you gonna be on the phone all fucking night, I got a girlfriend to call."I guess you'd better get back to your party," Tyson said, voice forcefully cheerful. "Have fun, dude. I'll see you whenever, right?""Okay. Okay, Ty, yeah. See you, buddy," and then the line went dead.Nick didn't call again for three weeks, and Tyson gave up waiting. He dragged his heels to school and back, did his homework, played with Bailey, and put up with his mom feeling his forehead every morning to check for a temperature. "You look sick," she kept saying."I feel fine, Mom," he kept replying. "I gotta go, I'll see you tonight."His dad met him after school one day. "Tyson," he began when he saw him, "your mother called.""Is she okay?" Tyson almost dropped his bag."She's fine, it's alright. She's just worried about you." He looked at him carefully. "She's right, you do look sick.""I'm fine," Tyson insisted, pushing past him to carry on walking.Tim kept up with him. They walked in silence for a minute. "Look, I could do with some help at work, figured I'd ask you first. Could be good, some money coming in, give you your first job, something to put on your resume. How about it?""Yeah, alright," Tyson shrugged."Thanks." Tim checked his watch. "I have to get back, I just wanted to. You're really okay?""I told you, I'm fine.""Well. Start on Monday, okay?""Yeah, sure. I'll see you then."Tyson only had to wait five minutes for his bus to arrive, these days. He climbed onto it, found a seat, and stared absently out of the window. Cars passed, buildings went by, and his eyes unfocused. Two Fords and a Toyota overtook the bus; the information made it half way to Tyson's brain before giving up.He stepped off four blocks from his house and started walking, kicking a stone along. He wondered if he should take up soccer. He kicked the stone harder, looking up as he got to his driveway. There was a car in it.Nick's car.Tyson stopped, just breathing for a second, staring at the car. He moved around it, looking in the windows. There was no one in the front seat. He looked again, and saw a knee in the back.He peered. Nick was lying across the back seat, one leg bent, arm flung over his eyes. Tyson yanked the door open and crawled in on top of him."What – Ty?" Nick moved his arm. His eyes had dark circles under them, and his cheeks were pale."Nick, what the fuck, what are you doing here?" Tyson hit him in the thigh. "You fucking jerk, I thought you were – jesus, Wheeler.""I didn't sleep last night," Nick said. He was speaking kind of slowly. "Can I nap at your place?""Nick. Nick." Tyson took Nick's cheeks in his hands and looked down at him. "What are you doing here? It's Thursday, why aren't you at school?""I got my tyres fixed," he said, snaking his tongue out to lick his lips. "I got. Ty, there was. So much drinking. And. And all these guys and I couldn't call you because they'd be like, hey, what's so special about this kid you keep hanging on, and I'd have to make some shit up, but they kept giving me drinks and I haven't seen you for a month and I am starting not to fucking care if they – dude, this kid, last year, he had this boyfriend, and they took both of them to this fucking field and left them for dead and this guy, he was in hospital for – fuck, Ty, I can't stand it, I gotta – I gotta sleep, I gotta.""Nick, Nick, shit, Nick." Tyson leaned their foreheads together. "I thought you'd forgotten about me.""I fucking left college for you, Ty, I'm not gonna. Fuck, if I don't sleep soon I might start crying like a little girl, they would have.""It's okay, it's okay Nick," Tyson breathed, "it's okay," and he kissed his forehead, his eyelids, his nose, his cheeks. He softly took each of Nick's lips between his own in turn and kissed them. "Fuck, I've missed you."Nick exhaled, like he'd held all the breath in his chest for a month. "Ty," was all he said."Come on. You can sleep, but you have to get out of this car, okay? Come inside."Tyson led him, blinking and stumbling, inside the house and up the stairs. He pulled his shirt and pants off and pushed him under the covers. Nick smiled at him, eyes already closed. "It'll be okay, right?" he said, voice trailing off.Tyson yanked his own shirt off and slid into the bed next to him, curled around. "Baby, it'll be fine," he whispered, but Nick was already asleep.An hour later, Tyson heard footsteps thumping up the stairs and prayed, silently, that nobody would come into his room. There was a soft knock at his door and his mother's voice called, "Tyson? You home, honey?""Yeah, Mom," he called back, as quietly as he could. Nick didn't even move.The door opened, and Tyson closed his eyes, wishing hard that when he opened them, she wouldn't be there. "Oh," he heard, and looked. She was standing, looking at him and Nick, and she was just smiling. "I thought he might be here," she whispered. "His mom called me, he disappeared this morning. She was worried he hadn't shown up, is all.""Yeah, he -" Tyson carefully rolled away, rearranging Nick's limbs, and got out of bed, pulling her out into the hall and closing the door softly. "He was living in that frat house, Mom, and he heard about – there was this kid, he almost got killed, I think it scared him.""Ah." She nodded. "I'll let his mother know he's safe.""Mom," Tyson said, quiet. "Did you know?"She looked at him, fond. "I'm your mother, sweetheart," was all she said, and he heard her go back down the stairs and tell Bailey to be quiet, their guest was sleeping.Nick made a snuffling sound when Tyson slid back into the bed, but he just said, "Sshh," and Nick settled again, one arm slung over Tyson's waist. "See," Tyson whispered into his hair, "it'll all be okay.""I know," Nick mumbled, lips partly stuck together. "Sorry for freaking out on you, man.""It's alright," Tyson smiled, kissing his hair. "Go back to sleep.""Okay," Nick exhaled.::~::"Mom, I'm home," Tyson called, dumping his bag in the kitchen and grabbing a cookie out of the jar."I'm with Bailey in the den," he heard, so he jogged up the stairs and into his room.Nick was lying in his bed, reading a book. "This dude is crazy," he said, looking up. "There's something about space monkeys and bombs, I don't even know what."Tyson blinked. "I walked into the right house, right?" He sat on the bed, Nick shifting over to make room."I went to get breakfast, your mom said I could stay." He shrugged. "My folks knew I was here last night, they don't mind either."Tyson paused, got up, and wedged a chair under the door handle. He yanked his shirt off and said, "Make some room, baby," and dropped his pants.Nick cracked up, pulling the covers back. Tyson crawled in, settled up against him. "Well hello there," Nick smiled. "How was your day?"Tyson propped his head up on one hand, sliding a knee between Nick's thighs. "Improving," he grinned. "Started off pretty nice, woke up with my boyfriend. There was some school in the middle, but other than that, pretty sweet.""Ah, junior year." Nick sounded fond. "Sweet memories. Though mostly, it sucked.""I wouldn't say it was so bad," Tyson shrugged."Yeah, but I had this stupid crush on this guy," Nick waved a hand, "and he kept, y'know, being cute and all. I was very frustrated."Tyson rolled them over, settling on top. "How do you think I felt?""We can make up for it now, though, right?" Nick grinned."Mmhmm, totally." Tyson ground down, pleasant friction. "So hey, you wanna maybe try out some of those things we were talking about?""Mm, didn't we say we'd try those on your birthday?""It's yours in two days," Tyson said, nudging their noses together. "What do you want for it?"Nick bit his lip. "Maybe, uh. Yeah. The handcuffs?""Wanna try those now? We'll have to be quiet, but."Nick's breathing went shallow. "They're going out," he said, "in about." He checked his watch. "Any minute. Your mom told me earlier, it's Bailey's ballet class."Tyson kissed him, trailing his hands over his hips. "Perfect," he murmured. "You want to?"Nick started nodding, and then he said, "I want to," and he kept nodding. Tyson laughed, soft."Okay, I get the picture, the answer is yes." Nick stopped nodding and just stared at him. "What?""Dude."Tyson smiled. "I know. Ahh," he exhaled as he shifted over to open the drawer, "this is the life. I wake up with you, I come home from school and you're already in bed, and then," he held up a pair of furry handcuffs, "we play with toys.""Tyson, Nick," a voice came up the stairs, "we're going out.""Okay, see you later, Ma," Tyson called back. He was still holding the handcuffs. He heard the front door close, and rummaged in the drawer for the lube. "How do you want it?" he asked, grabbing for a bottle."I, uh." Nick shifted, pushed up against him. "I like this, I want it this way."Tyson smiled, kissed him, and murmured, "You want me to fuck you?""Yeah," Nick nodded, "I like it when you do that.""I like it when I do that, too," Tyson breathed, unscrewing the cap of the lube bottle and slathering his hands up. "Want to do me while I do you?""Alright." Nick held his palms out, and Tyson poured some lube onto them. He gently nudged Nick's legs apart and slid slick fingers into him, going softly. Nick arched up, groaning. "I, yeah." He huffed a breath out. "That always," but Tyson pushed in again and Nick's voice trailed off. "Uhnh," he added.He reached for Tyson's cock, wrapping both palms around it to slick it. "Shit, yeah," Tyson nodded, adding a third finger and crooking them, making Nick pant. The only sounds they made for a minute were breaths, hands working. This is, Tyson tried to think, but didn't get any further."You ready?" Nick asked at last, breathless. Tyson nodded. "So'm I.""Alright." Tyson removed his fingers, and Nick whimpered. He picked up the handcuffs, and Tyson gently cuffed one of his wrists. "That okay?" he asked, watching Nick's face."Yeah, I – yeah, it feels nice." Nick shifted, raising both arms above his head. Tyson looped the chain over a slat in the headboard and cuffed Nick's other wrist."Still alright?" he asked. Nick tested the bonds, and nodded. "Okay." Tyson smiled, half his mouth curling upwards. "Spread 'em, Wheeler."Nick obligingly parted his thighs, and Tyson positioned himself carefully. He pushed in, concentrating on going slowly at first; Nick moaned and arched his back, trying to simultaneously thrust up, and Tyson dipped his head to lick just under Nick's jaw. Nick strained at the handcuffs, panting, "Shit, Ty, yeah," bucking upwards."God, you can never keep still," Tyson exhaled, pulling out a little and thrusting back in, harder. Nick groaned and wrapped one leg around Tyson's waist. "Fuck, Nick," and he buried his face in Nick's neck, licking, sucking on the skin."Fuck, Ty," Nick panted, reverberations in his chest, Tyson could feel them. "Fuck, fuck, Ty." Tyson groaned, slamming in harder, and Nick whimpered in his throat, tilting his hips up. Tyson wrapped both hands around Nick's cock, sudden, and pulled softly; Nick opened his mouth and moaned, loud, "Ty, Ty, Ty, fuck, Ty." He squirmed, pushing up, rocking his hips, and Tyson squeezed his eyes shut."Fuck, Nick, if you keep that up I'm gonna." Nick moaned and bucked again, and Tyson bit down softly on his shoulder and came, shuddering into him. Nick arched his back again, coming with one movement.Tyson examined his palms. He licked them, keeping his eyes on Nick as he sucked each finger in turn, and then wriggled downwards to lick at Nick's stomach, long swathes with his tongue. Nick made small whimpering sounds at each swipe."Untie me?" he asked, voice hoarse, when Tyson had finished cleaning him up."Sorry." He gently undid the cuffs, rubbing Nick's upper arms as he lowered them. "What did you, were the handcuffs okay?"Nick wrapped his arms around Tyson and murmured, "Fuck yeah, they were okay."Tyson nuzzled his cheek with his nose. "Okay, good, yeah."::~::"So," Tyson said, "Homecoming's soon.""Yeah?" Nick looked up from where he was lying, head on Tyson's chest. Tyson ran his fingers through Nick's hair."Yeah. I was thinking, maybe we could ask the principal if we can play it."Nick nodded. "Good idea." He settled back and let his breath out."And hey, that way I could take you to it," Tyson pointed out. Nick looked up at him again."What, you mean like, take me to Homecoming?""Sure, I mean – if we're one of the bands, and you're there with me, it's not. It doesn't have to be, like, a big thing from the outside," he shrugged. "But it still means I get to go with you. So.""Okay." Nick kissed his chest and settled again."Yeah?" Tyson played with the hair at the nape of his neck."Yeah." Nick nuzzled closer, tangling their legs. "Can we just, nap now? Then I want to suck you off again. Then maybe some more practice.""I love weekends," Tyson grinned.He stared into the mirror, the night of the Homecoming dance. He kept trying to adjust his tie, but it just wouldn't sit right."Hey, you want some help with that?" he heard Nick's voice in the doorway. He turned, ready to say Yeah, please, but the sound died in his throat. "What?" Nick shifted, awkward. "What?""Um." Tyson waved a hand at Nick's tux. "Woah."Nick looked down. "What? Do I have something on my pants?""You're gonna have something in your pants," Tyson said, sidling closer. "Jesus, Nick, you look amazing in that."Nick blushed. "Look who's talking," he said, adjusting Tyson's tie, not looking him in the eye. "There," he said, standing back and looking Tyson up and down. "Perfect," he sighed.Tyson pulled him in by the waist. "There might be a problem with tonight," he said, closing his eyes as Nick leaned closer."What?" Nick asked."I," Tyson breathed, "am going to have some trouble," he moved his hands to Nick's hips, "keeping these off you.""Don't get us arrested," Nick smiled."I'll try my hardest."They got to the dance early enough to check the sound system, Nick making sure the keyboards were programmed with the right set. Tyson tested out the microphone, sneaking glances over as Nick worked. They weren't due to start playing for a little while, so they cleared the way for the first band to set up. They stood in a corner, watching everyone trickling in. "The ants go marching two by two," Nick sang under his breath. "Hurrah, hurrah.""Okay, you gotta stop being so cute in public," Tyson murmured."I'm not doing anything!" Nick protested. Tyson waved a hand at him."You were singing," he said. "It was cute," he added as Nick shook his head."You're crazy," he laughed."Yeah, about you," he returned, exaggerated wink. Nick laughed again.They took to the stage an hour and a half later. Nick started up the keyboards, and Tyson tapped on the microphone."So how's everybody doing?" he asked the room. "We are The All-American Rejects, and you can see us at Mike's College Bar whenever there are flyers up. Keep a look out, okay?" There was a small cheer from one side of the room. "Alright, thanks Andrew," Tyson grinned. "And now, we are going to sing a song for all you lovers out there. Take it away, Nick." Nick played the opening notes of the first song, and two bars later Tyson began playing his bass part. "Last night I was blown away," he sang. Nick caught his eye and Tyson forgot to look away until he sang, "Got to get me some of your chemistry."Nick sang, "Oh-ohh.""You want me to," Tyson sang."Oh-ohh," Nick looked back down at his guitar."Promise you that everything is true."Two songs later, Tyson noticed most of the room were dancing. "Alright," he said as that song ended, "we've got a slow one now, so grab a partner and sway." Nick played the opening bars, soft guitar sounds instead of piano. "Look into my eyes," Tyson sang, "you will see what you mean to me. Look into your heart, you will find there's nothing there to hide." He glanced over at Nick, who was smiling softly at him. "Search your heart," Tyson sang, unable to take his eyes away, "search your soul and when you find me there you'll search no more."Nick blushed and looked back down at his guitar.When Tyson sang, "Don't tell me it's not worth fighting for," he couldn't stop his voice going soft, and he gazed over at Nick, who was watching his fret board. "I can't help it, there's nothing I want more." Nick looked up and Tyson watched his eyes as he sang, "You know it's true, everything I do," and he leaned closer a few inches, "I do it for you."Nick smiled down at the strings, and Tyson remembered to look away.At the end of the set, Tyson said into the microphone in his best showman voice, "Thank you, you've been a wonderful audience, have a great rest of the night." He and Nick picked up their guitars and left, Nick grabbing the keyboards on the way off the stage. "So hey," Tyson said as they made their way to the orchestra room to pack up the instruments, "wanna see if we can sneak onto the roof? The janitor can get us up there.""Sure," Nick nodded, snapping his guitar case closed. He pulled his tie off and undid the top button on his shirt. "Kinda feel like I'm choking," he sighed, flinging the tie into a corner.Tyson adjusted his. "I just feel like James Bond," he said, pulling what he meant to be a suave face. "Double-oh seven, baby."Nick laughed. "Come on, you doofus. Use those secret agent skills to get us up top."The night air was cool, and somebody must have opened some of the gym windows, because the music was loud enough to be heard clearly. A new song started up on the speakers, and Tyson swept Nick's hand into his, placing his other on his waist. "Care to dance?""Why yes, I would," Nick smiled, putting his arm around Tyson's waist. They moved together, slow, as Celine Dion proclaimed that her heart would go on in the gym below.Tyson dipped him, and Nick laughed. He broke away to twirl, and joined their hands again, a closed circuit. Tyson huffed out laughter and pulled him closer. The breeze lifted their hair off their foreheads, and their movements slowed. Laughter subsiding, Nick just leaned in, wrapping both arms around Tyson's waist and laying his head on his chest, exhaling a sigh. Tyson stroked tiny circles on his back, and Nick sighed again. He leaned up to look at Tyson, and they both opened their mouths at the same time and said, "I love you."Nick blushed. "Uh."Tyson just leaned closer, edging Nick's mouth towards his. "I love you, Nick," he repeated, and kissed him softly. Just lips, just touch, just right. "I love you."Nick made a soft sound in his throat and surged closer, kissing him back. "I love you too," he breathed. They stilled, the breeze still playing with the edges of their jackets as they stood, kissing, slowly winding their arms around each other.The song ended, and another began. "We don't have to go back inside yet, right?" Tyson whispered."No," Nick replied, running his fingers through Tyson's hair. "We can stay out here awhile.""Okay," Tyson smiled, and leaned in to kiss him again.::~::"So Ty," Nick said, a few weeks later, "we kind of have to write more songs, right? I mean. We don't really have an album's worth.""Yeah, we decided not to use Mindy, right?""Ty. You wrote a song about me, and called me Lindy. And we are not using Pillsbury fucking Doughgirl.""Oh come on! Oh, I'm sorry baby," he notched the timbre of his voice up and lisped. "You just need a tay-uhn.""I don't know whether to laugh or punch you," Nick shook his head. "But we're not using it.""I know. We've got, what – four songs from the demo?""Yeah, and two more so far."Tyson looked at the pages they had spread out on the bed. "So that's six. We need probably about another five."Nick nodded. "We should probably, like. Hm.""You know, I ran here today, got a few notes stuck in my head," Tyson said, thoughtful. "I could try doing that more, have some time like, just away, you know? That's what we need.""You're right, yeah. It's kind of." Nick looked around at the walls of his bedroom. "I mean, here, it's just, this is our life, it'd be good if we could go somewhere. Anywhere, and just write.""My grandparents have this cabin, by a lake. I could ask if we can use it, see if that helps.""Yeah, that'd be awesome," Nick nodded."Want to work with me on the notes I got today?" Tyson asked, picking up a guitar. "See, they went like this," he played a sequence, "and then like this.""Yeah," Nick listened, and began strumming a few chords. "How about," and he played the chords again, surer, "and," and picked out the tune Tyson had played on the strings."Hey yeah, I like that," Tyson nodded. He played a few more notes, then Nick's chords. "Yeah?""Yeah!" Nick picked up the pattern, adding a few extra notes on the third round of chords.Tyson stopped. "Okay, keep playing that, I just got." He grabbed a pad and pencil and started scribbling down words as Nick played a few other chords and tried out patterns.One of the leaves from the tree outside Tyson's window landed on the roof of Nick's car when they piled bags into its trunk. "Mind the guitars," Nick reminded Randy, who was helping them load up."You know the way, right?" he asked, hefting another duffel in."Yeah, Ty's got directions, he'll help me out. Thanks, by the way.""You're welcome." Randy closed the trunk and patted it. "Have fun, boys.""Thanks, we will," Tyson called, jumping into the passenger seat. "Ready, Nicky?""You betcha, Ty." Nick slipped his sunglasses on and sat behind the steering wheel.Tyson started the stereo up, and the opening notes of Always blasted out. Nick pulled out of the driveway and started off down the street. "You see, I've always been a fighter," Tyson sang along with the stereo.Nick joined in, "But without you, I give up."Tyson wound down his window to belt out the chorus. He turned to Nick, whose mouth was stretched into an elastic grin, like laughter shaped into a facial expression, and sang to him, "I'll be there until the stars don't shine, until the heavens burst and the words don't rhyme, I know when I die you'll be on my mind, and I'll love you always."Nick kept his eyes on the road, but he was beaming and he turned his head now and then to watch Tyson.They got to the cabin as the sun was setting, and took everything inside in several trips. Tyson passed Nick to grab the last of the bags and patted his ass; Nick jumped, and looked at him. "What?" Tyson grinned. "There's no one to see."Nick blinked, then dropped his bags and moved closer. "You're right," he said, smile spreading. "There's no one to see or hear.""Mmm," Tyson leaned into him. "What did you have in mind?"Nick kissed his earlobe and murmured, "What did you bring?""Nothing fancy," Tyson sighed. "Just like, a lot of lube.""Hell, that's good enough for me." Nick looped his arms around Tyson's waist. Tyson leaned back against him. "Come on," Nick said after a moment where they just, stood. "Bring the rest of the shit inside, we can get started.""Mmm-hm-mm," half of Tyson's top lip curled up in a smile. "What did you have in mind?" he repeated."Bring that stuff inside and you'll find out," Nick winked, and grabbed the guitar cases, sashaying into the cabin. Tyson watched him go, tilting his head to get the best view of Nick's ass, and then grabbed the last of the bags, locking the trunk as he went.Nick took the bags from him when he got inside. Tyson closed the door, and then felt hands on his hips, turning him around. "Well hi," he grinned as he turned to face Nick, sliding his arms over his shoulders. "Did you want something?""Maybe," Nick grinned, leaning in. He kissed Tyson, soft press and push and just a little tongue, and Tyson groaned. Nick walked him, backwards, up against the door, and Tyson bunched his hands in Nick's hair, sighing through his nose and kissing back.Nick sank, slowly, to his knees, unzipping Tyson's jeans as he went. "Was this what you had in mind?" he asked, looking down at Nick looking back up at him, eyes dark."To start," Nick nodded, and Tyson shivered a little. Nick yanked his jeans down and Tyson felt them pool around his ankles; Nick leaned forward and took Tyson's already hard cock into his mouth, sucking softly. Tyson groaned and tangled his hands back in Nick's hair."Nick," he breathed, and it felt warm and wet and so good and Nick kept his eyes locked on Tyson's as he sucked, wrapped one hand around the base, and used his other hand to stroke Tyson's thighs. "Shit, fuck, Nick," Tyson panted, wanting so hard to throw his head back, unable to move or take his eyes off Nick's. He was watching Tyson, intent, and Tyson could hardly breathe. He groaned as Nick's tongue swirled, as he twisted his wrist and lapped, fucking lapped, and that was it, Tyson was gone. He came with a twitch of his hips and a moan that sounded like, "Niiick."Nick sat back on his heels and swallowed, bit by bit. "I love doing that," he grinned. "Keep your pants off," he added, "I've got plans."Tyson groaned. "We are going to write this weekend, right?" he asked, stepping out of his shoes. "Not that I'd mind if we didn't," he added quickly, "I just, y'know, the label might.""Sure, yeah, we'll write. But we only just got here." Nick grinned. "Didn't you say there was a hot tub?"Tyson kissed him, hard. "I fucking love your plans," he said.::~::"Hey so, my mom said to invite you over tomorrow," Nick said, as Tyson was changing the video. "It's Christmas Eve, I know, but she said like, we'd have dinner and you're invited. Is that okay?""Let me ask my folks." Tyson called, "Mom? Where are you?""In the kitchen, honey, what is it?"He stood up and picked his way over to the door, calling towards the kitchen, "Nick's mom invited me for dinner tomorrow night, is that alright?""Yes, Tyson, that's fine.""Thanks, Ma." He made his way back through the debris of two days of movie marathoning. "What's next?""Muppet Christmas Carol," Nick pointed to the box. "And don't change the words this time.""Hey, the Ghost of Christmas Present was way funnier when I sang it," Tyson protested, fast-forwarding to get to the start of the movie."You don't mess with a classic," Nick insisted. Tyson settled back onto the couch, their bodies curled inwards. Nick slung his legs over Tyson's thighs and leaned their heads together, watching, comfortable. Tyson put both arms around Nick's middle and hugged him closer."When the cold wind blows it chills you, chills you to the bone," Tyson sang along under his breath when the first number started."But there's nothing in nature that freezes your heart like years of being alone," Nick sang back. Tyson prepared to harmonise on "There goes Mister Humbug".Tyson showed up the next day at Nick's, a bunch of flowers and a bottle of wine clutched under his arm. He rang the doorbell at the back door, and Nick's head appeared in the window above. "It's open," he called, and Tyson pushed the door and went inside.Nick met him on the stairs and kissed his cheek. "Are these okay?" Tyson showed him the flowers. "I mean, your mom's a florist, but I wanted to get her something, and -""Yeah, they're fine, they're fine. Listen. Your mom's here too.""What?" But by this time, they'd reached the door to the dining room and Nick was leading him inside. "Hi Mrs Wheeler," Tyson handed her the flowers and wine. "These are for you.""Oh thank you, Tyson," she beamed, gesturing for him to sit down. "I'll just put these in water.""Uh, hi Mom," Tyson said, sitting awkwardly between her and Nick. "I didn't know you'd be here too.""Surprise," she grinned. "We sort of had this planned for you boys."Nick and Tyson glanced at each other. "Had what planned?" Tyson asked, just as Mrs Wheeler reappeared.Tyson's mother beamed at her. "Would you like to tell them, or shall I?""Why don't we both?" Mrs Wheeler smiled back. "Nick," she said, "Tyson, we have a Christmas present for you.""But it's only Christmas Eve," Tyson muttered as Mrs Wheeler handed Nick an envelope. He looked at Tyson, who motioned for him to open it.Nick did, and pulled out a card. He read it, eyes widening by the second, and stared at their mothers. "No," he said. "No way.""Yes," Mrs Wheeler laughed as Tyson took the card from Nick's hand."What's it say?" he asked, eyes skating over the words. He stopped, and read them twice before taking them all in.Your Christmas present is one (1) house, with first month's rent payed. The lease begins in March. Merry Christmas, boys."But – you're giving us a house?" Tyson asked, once his jaw worked again."We're starting you up," his mother explained. "We'll pay the first month's rent, that's your Christmas gift, on the condition that you two will pay the rent after that.""You're recording in February, right?" Mrs Wheeler asked. Nick nodded, mute. "Well, we thought you'd probably want a place of your own after that, somewhere to tour out of, you wouldn't want to be coming home to here all the time. We found a nice place you should be able to afford."Nick just looked at her. "How, exactly, did you do that?""There might have been a few favours called in," she admitted.Tyson stared at Nick. "Our own place," he said, soft."Listen, I could do with a little help in the kitchen," Mrs Wheeler cleared her throat.Tyson's mother stood. "I'll help you with that. Stay here, boys," she said, and they left.Nick turned to Tyson. "Um," he said. "Wow.""They're giving us a place," Tyson repeated, picking up the card and putting it back down again. "I mean, they – they found it or whatever." He paused, looking at Nick. "Is that okay with you? I mean, is it – is that what you want?""What, our own place, no parents and shit? Hell yeah," Nick nodded."We've got a van. We've got a house." Tyson tapped the card. "Are you really – I mean, this is kind of huge. You know?""Yeah. Are you okay with this? I mean, is it freaking you out?"Tyson paused, thinking about it, and found that it wasn't. "No, I'm actually pretty okay. You?""Yeah, me too. I mean. We tour together already, it's not like anything's gonna be different, it'll be like sleeping in the van. Except, our own bed."Tyson grinned. "We can get a big bed.""With room in it," Nick matched his grin."No more cramps!" Tyson cried, flinging his arms above his head. "Awesome.""Is everything alright in there?" Mrs Wheeler called."Yeah Ma, we're just happy," Nick called back.Tyson leaned closer to kiss him. "We are," he murmured, not noticing their mothers had returned until his tapped him on the back."Yes, thank you, you're with company now," she reminded them. Nick blushed."Sorry." Tyson sat back and noticed that there was now food on the table. "This smells delicious," he added, and passed Nick the potatoes.::~::"Headlong," Tyson sang, loud, the windows of the van rolled down despite the cold, "down the highway, and you're rushing headlong," he belted, "out of control, and you think you're so strong, but there ain't no stopping and you can't stop rocking and there's nothing you can nothing you can nothing you can do about it. Take it away, Nick baby," he yelled, taking one hand off the steering wheel to point at Nick, who started playing air guitar along with the solo."This song fucking rocks," Nick yelled over the music, fingers skating over an imaginary fret board.By the time their tape collection cycled back around to Bon Jovi, it was late and Tyson started looking for a place to stop the van for the night. And I'll be there forever and a day, the stereo played. Nick yawned and started singing along, softly."If you told me to cry for you, I could. If you told me to die for you, I would. Take a look at my face, there's no price I won't pay to say these words to you.""You really like this song, huh?" Tyson smiled."Dude, it's Bon Jovi," was all Nick said.Something suddenly slotted into place in Tyson's brain, and he started laughing. "You," he tried. "You.""What?""You," Tyson wheezed, "you totally have a huge crush on Jon Bon Jovi, don't you?"It was dark and Tyson was mostly watching the road, but he could practically see Nick's blush reflected in the windscreen. He laughed harder."You totally do," he reached over to poke Nick's side, and Nick swatted his hand away. "Oh, oh dude, that'd be so hot." He swallowed another laugh, hiccupping on it. "Oh man. You and Jon? That'd be like." His chest had stopped convulsing with laughter now, and he made an expansive gesture. "Nuclear levels of hot, dude. Wow."Nick groaned, covering his eyes with one hand."Dude, no seriously, if we ever meet him, you have a get out of jail free thing," Tyson continued. "As long as I could watch.""Ty, are you trying to kill me?""Seriously, dude, that is something I want to see. You with Jon Bon Jovi. Man." Tyson shook his head, and Nick hit him in the thigh. "Hey, watch it! That was a little close to the family jewels.""Shut the fuck up, Ty," Nick said. He was still bright red."Man, I could fry eggs on your face," Tyson grinned at him. He paused. "You seriously have a huge crush on him? Like, huge crushing.""Yeah, okay, who doesn't?" Nick shifted in his seat. "He's fucking hot, Ty.""Hey, dude, I ain't arguing," Tyson held one hand up, keeping the other on the steering wheel. "Are you okay?" he added."I'll be fine," Nick answered, cheeks still flaming. "Just give me a minute."Tyson patted his knee. "That was a little intense, there. Something you want to tell me?""There's a place over there you could park the van," Nick pointed. Tyson maneuvered into it, concentrating for a few minutes until he pulled on the hand break and killed the engine."That wasn't what I meant, but okay." He yawned. "Wanna go to bed?"Nick undid his seatbelt and sprawled over Tyson's chest. "You," he said, "are going to get laid."Tyson's eyes widened. "Well alright then," he grinned, unbuckling his own seatbelt and following as Nick crawled into the back of the van. They climbed over equipment and jumped down into the space they had cleared in the middle, a bundle of shirts for pillows and a huge blanket to cover them.Nick reached between two amps and pulled out Tyson's handcuffs. "These," he said, turning over to face Tyson, "I want you to use these. And I want to fuck you.""Alright, okay, yeah," Tyson nodded, taking them, pulling his shirt off over his head. Nick yanked his own off, and reached for Tyson's pants.When they were both ready, good and slick, Tyson cuffed Nick's wrists above his head, and Nick looked up at him, eyes heavy and dark, and said, "Now ride me."Tyson groaned and obeyed, sinking onto Nick's cock slowly. Nick arched his neck up and balled his hands into fists above the handcuffs. Tyson leaned over him, dipped his head down to lick and suck at Nick's neck, and Nick moaned. Tyson felt the vibrations with his tongue, one hand wrapping around his own cock, riding Nick's with undulating movements. He nuzzled their noses together and breathed, "Fuck, Nick, I don't ever want to stop doing this.""Fuck, me neither, Ty, don't stop, don't stop," Nick moaned, eyes closed, head tilted back, and Tyson licked a line up his neck and nibbled at his earlobe. Nick groaned again, a high sound, thrusting up into Tyson. He moved his knee, bent it further, changing the angle of his cock, and Tyson went still."Holy fucking shit," he gasped, pushing down slowly. "Fuck, do that again."Nick thrust upwards at the same angle, and Tyson whimpered."Nick," he panted, as Nick began thrusting upwards in rhythm, keeping the angle, locking his eyes onto Tyson's. Tyson groaned, long and loud, and Nick pushed up hard, once, twice, and then Tyson came, yelping, "Fuck fuck fuck fuck Nick."Nick whined, high in the back of his throat, and pushed up one last time, coming with a long wordless moan. "Oh fuck, Ty," he exhaled as he settled his back onto the floor again.Tyson uncuffed his wrists as soon as he regained the use of his muscles. "Jesus, Nick," he panted. He rolled off him, lying down carefully.They curled around each other, finding the spaces they had spent nearly two years discovering they fit perfectly in. Tyson felt warm, all over, and pulled the blanket over them."I love you," he said, kissing Nick's hair."I love you too," Nick smiled, nuzzling even closer. Tyson wondered if one day their skin would just adhere and not come apart. Maybe we should make sure we're never this close and naked in like, Australia. Just in case."We should get to New York tomorrow," he said, after a couple of minutes of silence, and mostly because Nick's eyes were closed and he wanted to know if he was asleep yet."Yeah," Nick nodded, and he sounded awake still. Tyson closed his eyes."Think we'll go somewhere with this?" he whispered."I don't know," Nick whispered back. Tyson felt movement, then Nick brushed their noses together. Tyson opened his eyes to see Nick gazing at him, smiling more with his eyes than his mouth. "But I'll be here."And in the dark, in a cramped van just off some highway somewhere on the road to New York, in the middle of the night and on the brink of sleep, Tyson felt like maybe, just maybe, this could be their lives, that they could do this. It could be it for them. So he kissed Nick, watched him settle back against his chest, and whispered, "Yeah. Me too."
81643	Princesses-in-Waiting	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": null, "Characters": "Joey Parker, Mary Santiago", "Fandom": "Another Cinderella Story (2008)", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Teen And Up Audiences", "author": "by aHostileRainbow", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2009-11-07T00:00:00", "words": "721", "Additional Tags": "Abuse, Hurt/Comfort, Character Study, Tragedy", "Relationship": null, "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": "Gen, F/M", "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	It caught me off guard.It shouldn’t have, really. I mean, I had seen the way she was treated in public, I didn’t even want to think how it was when no one was around to see.But I guess I hadn’t thought that far before because it almost…frightened me. The look in her eyes as she watched me try to make conversation and then finally spoke, only to refuse a little warmth because she’d taken enough charity. And no matter how I argued with her, I could see she didn’t believe me. Not fully; not without any doubt or hesitation.People don’t think of abuse that way. I didn’t even think of her situation as abuse. When abuse is thought about at all, bruises and broken bones and starvation are what come to mind. We don’t think of it as abuse to be told you’re worthless every day for as long as you can remember; that you’ll never amount to anything; that you should be grateful for the pittance you’re offered in exchange for a lifetime’s service. We may not think of it that way, but in that moment, with that look, I realized that’s what it was.She was looking at me like I was her prince, her savior, her knight-in-shining-armor. And she still didn’t trust me. She looked at me, spoke to me of charity and being undeserving as though it were gospel, proven fact which could never be altered or argued.I stared at her in that second, shocked speechless, and all I could think of was the tiny puppy I’d seen in a rain-soaked cardboard box by a hotel stoop in New York. At the time, it had just been another passing melancholy in a city which was carved from the suffering of millions. Now…I realized what was off about that puppy. Puppies are supposed to wag their tails and beg for attention and smile with their tongues lolling out of their mouths. Just the same, pretty girls that dance like goddesses are supposed to smile and laugh and live wonderful, happily-ever-after lives. But the puppy—this girl—cringed from passersby, watched them dolefully with no movement, no wagging tail—she stared and did not speak and flinched rather than let me touch her.Hers was a Cinderella story, there could be no doubt. But people don’t like to think of Cinderella like that; as a victim of abuse. Because abuse wasn’t magical, it could not be vanished and undone with the wave of a wand. Princesses-in-waiting were not abused or frightened or flinching. Fairytales were built on the premise of happily-ever-afters and kicked puppies were not happy in any sense of the word. They might grow to play happy and wag their tails and do all the things they were supposed to do…but in the end, whether it had been years or months or moments, they would always watch you with that same look of subservient, uncertain wariness. As though they were forever anticipating the other shoe dropping and their nice safe world collapsing with the impossibility of it all.When I could finally speak I kept right on matching her look for look because I couldn’t think of anything else to do. I said the first funny thought that came to mind and wished with all the magic of Prince Charming to see her smile, to see that awful resignation fall from her shoulders. And for a very short time, I saw her—I saw my Princess with that light in her eyes and laugh on her lips and it was the most beautiful sight I had ever been blessed with.Then the Wicked Stepmother’s voice echoed onto our backyard veranda, our little slice of ever after, and the stars were eclipsed. Abruptly, the magic was gone, she was just a servant girl, I was a reigning prince and she went running into the ball without a word as she tossed the little warmth I had offered over her hunched shoulder.Because fairytales are only tales and Prince Charmings don’t marry the help and in that one look from a little kicked puppy of a Princess-in-waiting that never was…the narrator announced, “The End.”Cinderella had to always have hope. Cinderella had to forever be magic. And Cinderella was not abused.
64722	Details Details	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "Gen", "Characters": "John Sheppard, Elizabeth Weir", "Fandom": "Stargate Atlantis", "Language": "English", "Rating": "General Audiences", "author": "by Penknife", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2010-02-22T00:00:00", "words": "335", "Additional Tags": "Workplace", "Relationship": null, "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	Elizabeth caught John's eye as he passed by her office, with an expression that made him wish he'd passed by faster. "Colonel Sheppard, do you have a minute?" John wondered who'd done what that was unfortunate, and which of a wide variety of possible ways it was unfortunate, and what he was expected to do about it."Sure," he said, leaning against the doorframe in a way that he hoped suggested lots of important things to do, so I should go and do them really soon now."I read this morning's memo on firearms training," she said."We need some," John said. "A lot of the science staff only had the basic course back at Cheyenne Mountain, which is really not going to do it under the circumstances."She gave him a wry smile. "You mean, being in an alien galaxy where people shoot at us a lot?""That," John said. "So ...""I think it's a good idea," Elizabeth said. "I'm just a little surprised to hear that the training will be taking place on the weapons ranch. I didn't know we had one of those.""I think that's supposed to be weapons range," John said."And that appointments are available from 1400 hours to 0200 hours. For those times that you just have the urge to go learn to shoot things in the middle of the night?""2000 hours," John said. "It was kind of late when I wrote this--""And I'm sure we're all glad to know that this 'optional training opportunity is optional.' Except that three paragraphs later it says it's required.""I meant recommended," John said. "Optionally recommended.""I just think you might want to actually proofread these before you send them," Elizabeth said. "Optionally. And by that I mean that it's required.""Right," John said. "I'll be doing that." At least, he'd get Lorne to do that."I'm glad to hear it.""A weapons ranch would be kind of cool.""Don't push your luck," Elizabeth said, although she was smiling.
60291	The Ties That Bind	{ "Archive Warning": "Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings", "Category": "M/M", "Characters": null, "Fandom": "Lord of the Rings RPF", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Mature", "author": "by Annwyn", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2010-02-07T00:00:00", "words": "1,866", "Additional Tags": "Part 1/5 of The Ties That Bind Series, old-school lotrips", "Relationship": "Sean Astin/Elijah Wood", "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": "The Ties That Bind", "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	Elijah doesn't want to be here. He isn't a frigging masochist. He hates pain. Hates the agony of having his heart ripped out of him. Detests the gnawing that grips his gut whenever his thoughts slip out of control. He hadn't thought that mental anguish would manifest in such physical ways. Had thought it all poetic license.Fucking ignorant, he was. The pain is real.It had taken a pleading phone call from Sean and a good talking-to from Ian to get him to come at all. He had realized it would've looked strange if he hadn't. His reluctance wasn't cowardice. This was instinct taking over. The instinct of a wounded animal to crawl away from danger, to go to ground and lick its wounds. He was exhausted and heartsore, and he had given in.Sir Ian had offered to give him a lift. What did Ian think he was gonna do - crash the car in a spectacular suicide bid? Not that the idea wasn't attractive. Yeah, right. With the way his luck has been going, he'll probably end up shackled to a wheelchair for life.He sips at his beer, ignoring the questioning looks thrown his way.He isn't ready for laughter and small talk.His spirit needs more steel - perhaps the alcohol will put an edge on it. He can't afford to get monged, though.Not here, not now.The hair at his nape prickles, and he turns slowly.Hazel eyes meet his. They are changeable eyes, luminous and flecked with gold. Tonight, they are a muddy brown. Sean's expression is neutral, but his eyes are pleading."Frodo, I'd like you to meet my wife, Christine." Sean's voice is strangely harsh. "Chris, this is Elijah Wood."The attractive, dark-haired woman smiles charmingly and extends a hand. For a split second, Elijah freezes. Then he forces a smile and takes her hand in his. She says something -he can't remember what, but he manages to reply somehow. Nothing seems quite real anymore. Too much guilt, too much tension.Get a grip, man. He orders himself desperately. Get a fucking grip on yourself. Don't fall apart now. Just - don't.He gets an assist from an unexpected quarter. Sean glances sideways and reaches behind his wife with a smile."And this...", he says, pride in every word, "is Alexandra. Aly, say 'hi' to Uncle Elijah."Aly peeps out shyly from behind her mother's skirts, golden-brown curls tumbled about her shoulders, thumb firmly in her mouth. She stares up at her new 'uncle' and her eyes widen.She spits out her thumb and points to Lijah's eyes. "Ooo -blue!" Chris gently reminds her that pointing isn't polite and Sean stifles a laugh. Abashed, Aly ducks back into hiding. Elijah is entranced. Sean's daughter touches his tattered heart, warms it with her artlessness. He drops to his haunches, away from Sean's eyes, away from the discomfort of the moment."Oh goody! A new playmate!" He chirps to the hidden girl. "Com'on out, Aly. Let's find something fun to do, shall we?"She edges out from behind her mother's skirts and regards him warily."My daddy's a 'obbit." she announces solemnly."Yeah." Elijah returns with a grin. "He's the Sam hobbit. I'm a hobbit too, y'know," he confides. "I'm the Frodo hobbit. So, Aly, ifn your daddy's a hobbit and your mommy's a hobbit, what are you?" Elijah waits expectantly.Aly looks up at her grinning parents uncertainly."I'm a 'obbit too?" She ventures."Yep! You're the Aly hobbit! Now, d'you wanna meet some more hobbit uncles?" Elijah glances up at Sean inquiringly and receives a nod of consent.Aly beams happily at him, eyes shinning, and a spear of pain transfixes his heart. Oh. My. God. Sean's smile - Sean's eyes... He takes a deep, shuddering breath and gets slowly to his feet, Ally's hand in his. Sean makes an involuntary movement towards him and stops short. Elijah will not meet his eyes.*********It's exhausting, amusing a child. No matter. Elijah loves children, and this one has cast her silken net and already has ensnared him. He buries his nose in the child's hair and breathes deeply of the fragrant baby scent. They make a pretty picture - his flawless face bent over the little girl on his lap, hers still unformed, bright with the promise of future beauty."Aly, dear. Bedtime." Christine has come to take her daughter back."No! Wanna stay with Unca' Lijah!" The child twists her little hands into his shirt and burrows against his chest."Hey - I'm not goin' anywhere." he reassures her. "We'll play again soon, okay?" She looks up at him with absolute trust. "Promise?" Guilt crushes his heart and lungs in a punishing vise. He forces the words out. "Promise. Cross my heart."He disengages her grip and hands her back to her mother with a smile that is beginning to fray at the edges. Christine looks at him oddly, hesitates, then turns away and is lost in the crowd.His distraction, his shield against the world is gone and he's twisting in the wind. Pinpricks of incipient tears sting his eyelids and he wishes desperately to be alone. The patio and porch are tenanted and he heads for the upstairs bathroom.Ian is talking to Beanie and John and his head comes up as Elijah walks past. He looks a question and gets a reassuring nod in response. Doesn't do its job, though. Ian isn't fooled, but he's done all he can - the rest is up to them. An incongruous image pops into his mind. Humpty-dumpty, sitting on a wall... He sighs.Elijah locks the bathroom door behind him and lowers the toilet seat. He sinks down on it and leans back, panting slightly, his eyes squeezed shut. There's a loud thunk as the cistern cover is shoved against the wall and he startles at the sound. The fragile control goes, slipping away like mist, and the tears come. He curls forward against the pain in his chest, fists jammed against his mouth, sobs wracking his body. He gives in to the grief - it's a thick blanket crushing him, another barrier against thought. But he can't cry forever. Soon the tears subside and the memories begin to surface.Sean.That first spontaneous hug - a decade ago. Really did feel that long - like they'd known each other forever.The countless little kindnesses, the caring, the laughter.The loving hugs, the brotherly kisses - both given and received. And the unlooked-for shaft of jealousy when those hugs were bestowed elsewhere.He didn't know when love came - and he didn't really care. It took over his life. He knew the pang of homesickness, the longing for LA - because the home he really wanted was denied him. Was not for him.He's uncomfortable, bent over like this; and he straightens. And the cause of his discomfort is readily apparent. He releases it from its confinement and his eyes drift shut as he strokes himself. There is comfort in the familiar sensation and he sinks back into reverie.Going home for the holidays hadn't helped. He had dreamed of Sean every night. Sam to his Frodo. Sex and passion in the Shire, love in Rivendell - Pete would've been horrified at the scripting. Then again, maybe not. Fran would have.He had come back to Middle-Earth. And against all his expectations, he had found his love returned. With the eternal optimism of the young, he had taken the gift and savored it to the fullest. Refused to see the consequences of their loving. Held on to the memories - of that one time.Only once.Sean, reaching for him, his hazel eyes emerald with passion. The sweet curve of Sean's cock against his cheek, the taste and scent of him. His pale skin sliding against golden California tan, slick with sweat and loving. The headlong spiral down to oblivion. Cradled close in Sean's arms - two in one soul.The pressure in his groin is becoming unbearable. His back arches against the cool ceramic as he lets the climax take him. His cock swells in his hand and his legs jerk uncontrollably as he comes - and he cries out Sean's name.The euphoria of orgasm is short-lived, and darker images start to crowd his memory. Crouching at the closed bedroom door, listening to voices raised in anger. Listening to his Mom crying - alone in the dark. Aching for the father who has gone.Sean's family has always been an abstraction for him. He's refused to think about them before. Now the cipher is made flesh - in the person of a warm little girl with golden eyes and sweet smile - her father's pride and joy. He builds them in his mind, father, mother, daughter, and holds them there; and the anguish fades slowly, into a fragile peace.He levers himself up, stretching his aching legs; grabs a fistful of tissue and cleans up. There's a knocking at the door, a rattling of the doorknob - and the hunted-animal look is back in his eyes."Elijah." The knob jiggles again. "Elijah. Please."The tissues are dumped and the toilet flushed. He looks in the mirror as he washes his hands; his eyes are red-rimmed, and the skin underneath is pink and burned-looking. He splashes cold water on his face, dries himself and goes to the door. Takes a deep breath and slips out, closing the door behind him. The smell of sex is still thick in there.Not a place for Sean. Or for him."Are you okay, Lij? You were in there so long..." Sean's eyes are liquid honey in the dimness of the hallway. Or was that the sheen of tears? He's so fucking honest, so good. Always determined to do the right thing---whether or not it's good for him doesn't matter. Well, Elijah's gonna make up his mind for him this time. Save him from himself.Right."Sean. You have a beautiful family, Seanie.""Elijah...I...""I'm so tired, Sean." Exhaustion colors his voice and numbs his senses. "I'm going home."Sean's hands are on his shoulders, his face bleak with understanding. The hazel eyes are not green with passion now, but black with pain. Then they are in each other's arms, clinging to one another in desperation."I love you - you can't know how much." Elijah says it - or Sean does. Or both. It doesn't matter.Most of the guests have gone and only the fellowship is left. Only Ian sees him as he runs down the stairs and out the door. Then he's in the car and Sean's standing in the drive; and the tears on Sean's face sparkle in the streetlights. A flicker of movement in an upstairs window catches his eye. Ian. He thinks wryly. Don't think I can take care of myself, huh?Tomorrow will be a long day. He will have to act - to be, not Frodo, Frodo is easy - but Elijah. He's been a fucking actor forever. Ought to be good for something.Tomorrow, he will be with Sam again. Sean.He will have to keep Elijah and Frodo apart - or he's lost.He will do it. They both will. They have to.
15729	Here at the End of All	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "Gen", "Characters": "Spike, Angel", "Fandom": null, "Language": "English", "Rating": "General Audiences", "author": "by Jen", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2009-11-18T00:00:00", "words": "100", "Additional Tags": "Future Fic, Drabble", "Relationship": null, "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": "Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel: the Series", "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	The legions of hell were advancing down the alley, but Spike was studying Angel instead. You had to hand it to him, he thought grudgingly. Cool as a cucumber in the face of certain death. No waffling, no boo-hooing. All business. A real champion. He’d always admired Angel. It felt safe to admit it now. And suddenly Spike found himself needing one last connection. Because he knew he wouldn’t get another chance. “Angel.” “Spike.” “Just so we’re clear about one thing.” Angel raised an eyebrow. “It’s cavemen. Obviously.” In the dark and rain and death, they smiled at each other.
64610	The Fullness Thereof	{ "Archive Warning": "Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings", "Category": "Gen", "Characters": null, "Fandom": "Lucifer (Comic)", "Language": "English", "Rating": "General Audiences", "author": "by Andraste", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2004-10-15T00:00:00", "words": "794", "Additional Tags": null, "Relationship": null, "Character": "Michael (Lucifer)", "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	Michael recalled, with the long, unbroken memory of an angel, the last time a shock that approached this one had come upon the Host. The day that his brother had rebelled had been ... but no. There was no true basis for comparison.He stood in silence as those around him reacted to his words - falling to their knees, or weeping, or speaking to one another in incredulous voices. A few of the more adventurous among them even hurried past him into the chamber, to be sure that he had spoken the truth. Nothing they did mattered."This is punishment," Uriel said, and Michael could hear fear competing with the anger in his voice. "Punishment brought down on all of us in payment for your rebellion. We must -""No," Michael said. "It is worse than that. It is a reward."Uriel looked at him as if he had spontaneously metamorphosed into Lucifer himself. "God has abandoned us, and you call it a reward? For what? I do not understand."Michael found himself laughing, a sound that had an edge of bitter hysteria. "Then we have something in common."He did not understand. He had shown perfect trust and obedience in the eternity he was held chained by Sandalphon. He lay in the pit and wept with longing for the Silver City. Yet when the fallen creature used him to make monsters, Michael had known that this, too, must be the plan of Yahweh. Bound there, it had been surprisingly easy to remain faithful. It was that or give in to despair, after all, and he could not stand to despair.When he was set free, he allowed his brother to kill him - to use him - because he needed to be remade in order to return home. Perhaps that had been a mistake, but he had told himself that it was what he had to do, in order to be fit to serve his lord and master again.If after a too-brief return to the light he had disobeyed, stretched out his hand to save his most perfect daughter ... Michel had told himself that he could not allow the geological ages of his suffering to come to nothing. What had he been tortured for, if not so that the child would exist? What sense could he make of his long exile, if Elaine should be gone before she had begun? Surely his father must have intended her existence, had some higher purpose for her to serve?Even so, Michael had known that he had done wrong. He had expected punishment, deserved it, accepted it. Not this."A reward for who, for what?" Uriel was asking insistently. "Why would he do this?""He was ..." Michael hesitated, but it wouldn't do him any good to conceal the truth. "Waiting. For us to mature, to find our own way." There was no need to explain who he was referring to. "Waiting to decide which of us he would choose."He had been exiled in the world, among angels long departed from Heaven and fallen Cherubim. He had slept, eaten, lived almost like a creature of the material. He had done it with joy in his heart, because he was receiving justice and learning what his father wished to teach him.Michael had possessed little opportunity to appreciate the creation from the bottom of his pit. The irony that he had less room to maneuver than the rebel he had opposed had not escaped him, and he had wished to see the world with his own eyes almost as much as he had wished to return to the City. His exile had, at least, given him a chance to do that. Locked out of his home, he had begun to understand that his home was everywhere. Yet if he had known the true purpose of the lesson, that he was being forced to rebell ..."Choose for what?"For an archangel of enlightenment, Uriel could be quite slow at times. "To take over from him, of course. He has gone away and left all of this in our hands - in my hands. All of this is mine."Uriel looked almost as horrified as Michael felt.Samael might have dreamed that he has made a godless creation, but Michael knew that that there could never be such a thing. All beings required something to serve, to pray to, to fear. Now, it seemed, that was to be his responsibility.From imprisonment, to exile, to home without his father. If hell was the absence of God ...Michael looked up into the darkness above the light of the Silver City, and felt the crushing weight of having nothing above him at all. He could not help but wonder if he has been punished enough.
78698	Unexpected Guest	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "Gen", "Characters": "Tom Ryan, Stephen Hart, Hilary Becker", "Fandom": "Primeval", "Language": "English", "Rating": "General Audiences", "author": "by Joe_Reaves", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2010-04-08T00:00:00", "words": "100", "Additional Tags": "Drabble, Alternate Universe - Afterlife", "Relationship": null, "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	"Becker!""Captain.""Stephen, meet Captain Becker. He was one of my men; he got promoted after...""You mean he's our replacement.""I was.""How did you end up here with me and Ryan, then?""I don't know. One minute I was trying to push that bloody idiot out of the way of one of his 'beautiful' creatures that was trying to have him for lunch, next thing I know I'm standing outside of the front door here. Cutter really needs to learn to duck.""He doesn't have a visitor's pass.""I guess you're staying, then. Welcome to Sanctuary, Captain Becker."
67808	Heaven Sent You	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "M/M", "Characters": "Castiel, Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester", "Fandom": "Supernatural", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Teen And Up Audiences", "author": "by Las", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2010-03-06T00:00:00", "words": "10,608", "Additional Tags": "Case Fic, Folklore, Action/Adventure, Episode: s05e04 The End, Hallucinations, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, Filipino folklore, Angst, Mindfuck, Doppelganger", "Relationship": "Castiel/Dean Winchester", "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	Dean introduces himself as Special Agent Plant and catches himself before he says, "And this is my partner, Agent Page." It gives him a sour feeling, but there's a sheriff to mislead and a terrified hiker to question, and Dean has no time to linger on the absences in his life.Later, he's back in the motel room with a slice of pizza in one hand, Sam on the phone, and Sam is saying, “So, what, shapeshifter?”Maybe it's a siren, Dean says, and Sam says no. A siren comes to you as a new love, not as people you already know. Didn't the hiker get pushed around by something that looked like her sister? Dean shrugs. Maybe it's a demon. Sam says maybe, sounding dubious. Sam says probably not, and Dean lets it go.It's just a quick detour, this hunt. Something quick and easy to clear his head after Zachariah's Back to the Future extravaganza. When he told Sam he was going to drive upstate and check out some disappearances in the mountains first, there was enough of a sigh in Sam's “You're what?” for Dean to know that Sammy was just gonna grit his teeth and bear it. This is their job, after all. They may be each other's weaknesses, but they still have things to hunt, people to save."No heroics," Sam warns. "Just kill the thing and come home."Dean quirks his mouth. 'Home'. The Winchesters don't have a home, just the Impala and each other. They still use the word anyway. It's become shorthand for 'where I am'. “It'll be difficult for me to not be heroic, Sammy,” Dean says.He can imagine Sam making his bitchface again. He can imagine Sam with black eyes and a white suit, his foot on Dean's neck, and his smile being the last thing Dean sees before he sees nothing at all.+He can't get the taste of 2014 out of his mouth.Dean wakes up in the middle of the night and waits to remember who he is, when he is.Was that really the future or just some angel trick? When he thinks of how ready Future Dean was to send his friends to their deaths, and how misplaced the devil's smile looked on his brother's face, Dean becomes sure it was a trick. But when he thinks of Cas's body twining around his own, of the warmth of it sweat-slicked beside him, Dean is less sure. There had been a tangible sense of relief that came with unfolding himself in Cas's arms. Something right, or at least something like clarity and inevitability somehow compressed into the desperate creature Cas had become.“I missed you,” Cas had murmured into his skin. “I miss you. I miss you.”Then Dean was zapped back to 2009 and Cas is the same Vulcan he's always been, popping into his personal space to blab about Lucifer before dashing off to look for God. In this life, he has never kissed Dean, never looked at him with such naked hunger, never bit Dean's lip hard enough to draw blood. (There is no cut on Dean's lip; he returned from the future whole.) He tries not to draw comparisons when this Castiel appears, but it's hard. Castiel appears half a foot away from him and Dean's eyes are drawn to the curve of his mouth. He finds himself wondering how much one kiss would change things anyway.On the nightstand, his phone buzzes with a text message and Dean reaches out to fumble for it. It's from Sam, and it reads: i dont think its a shifter.So Dean calls Sam, pretending he cares more about shapeshifters than he does about grabbing onto a familiar anchor. He pushes the future out of his head and waits for his brother's mystified “What are you doing still up?” before he jumps straight into “What do you mean it's not a shapeshifter?”“Okay, so you said this thing liked slapping its victims around a little, right?” Sam's sounding pretty perky for three in the morning. Does he ever sleep? Does he ever say no to research? What a nerd, Dean thinks fondly.“Pulls their pigtails and pushes them around, yeah. Laughs at them. Or so says the one hiker who came back.” Dean rolls over on his back and rubs his eyes. “Said it'd keep disappearing and reappearing.”“And that's not what a shapeshifter does,” Sam says. “It tries to blend in. Shapeshifters try to trick you, not heckle you. And it can't just vanish and come back, they're not ghosts.”“You saying it's a ghost?”“No! Look, if this is what I think it is, then--”But then Dean hears a flutter of wings, and he looks up to see a familiar trenchcoated figure standing at the foot of his bed. “Cas?” Dean reaches over and turns on the lamp on the nightstand, and blanches at what he sees: the angel is pale and drawn, shaking, bloody nose, unsteady on his feet.“Cas!”“Dean,” Castiel rasps, before dropping to his knees.“--really tall and has red eyes,” Sam continues. “It's gonna smell like tobacco--”Dean's already out of bed and by Castiel's side, propping him up against the bed as the angel breathes unevenly. He gives Cas a once-over, makes sure he isn't bleeding anywhere else as Sam on the phone goes blah blah blah, goes yadda yadda as Dean runs into the bathroom and soaks a washcloth under running water.“--why only one hiker made it back,” Sam speechifies. Jesus christ. “Disorientation is its M.O., and she was just lucky that it got bored with her when it did. To take it down, you--”“Sam, I gotta go,” Dean cuts in. “Cas is here.”“This will just take a minute.”“He's hurt,” Dean explains, and hangs up. He hands the washcloth to Cas, who presses it against his nose. “Cas, buddy, what happened?”“I don't mean to disturb you at this hour,” Cas wheezes.“Doesn't seem to stop you from disturbing me anyway,” Dean mutters. “Okay, don't go anywhere, I'm going to get some ice from outside.”As he wrangles with the ice machine, Dean's phone rings in his pocket. He ignores it.Back in the room, Castiel accepts the makeshift icepack and declines the shot of whiskey. “I don't mean to--” Cas begins, “I didn't know where else...” He settles on, “Thank you.”“You're welcome,” Dean says, and tries not to worry about how an angel of the Lord needs an icepack for a nosebleed. “Dude, what happened?”“I was chasing demons.”Dean raises his eyebrows. “And?”“I caught them.”“Fuck yeah. Hope they're roasting happily back in the pit.”“I didn't exorcise them.”This takes a few seconds to register. “...What? Why?”Castiel hesitates. “I couldn't.”“You what?” he barks.“I couldn't exorcise them,” Castiel cracks out, and Dean puts a hand on his shoulder to steady him, but also to grasp tightly and shake.“What do you mean you couldn't? What kind of an angel are you?” Dean demands, and he doesn't mean to sound so angry but the past couple of months – fuck, this last week alone – are catching up to him. All the things he didn't want to think about, all the horror of a future dystopia that he's convinced himself he will avert: they're resurfacing.What if Cas stops being an angel? What if Sam says yes?“I just need to...” Castiel's brow furrows, as if unsure of the words. “I just need to rest.”“You need to take a shot of this whiskey is what you need. Does this happen often?”“No,” Cas says firmly, ignoring the whiskey, “but I rebelled against Heaven, Dean.” Castiel removes the ice pack from his face and touches his blood gingerly, examining it on his fingers. “They've cut me off from the Host. They'll weaken me to find me. It's both punishment and strategy.”“No one's gonna punish you,” Dean snaps.“I don't plan to let them,” Castiel says, and looks up at Dean with the artless sincerity to which Dean has become accustomed. There is something else there too, the same hardness in Castiel's eyes that Dean saw there in Bobby's hospital room the last time they were all together.Dean holds his ground. “Good.”In the pause that follows, Dean thinks of reaching out and touching Castiel's cheek, the way Cas from 2014 so easily reached out and touched his, so easily shifted closer to Dean, like an old habit, like Dean - though bewildered - might never presume to say no. (It had been Cas who kissed him first, but Dean who pulled them towards the bed.) He glances at Castiel's mouth and neck and curve of collarbone, and finds himself remembering things that haven't happened in a world that shouldn't exist. Then Dean thinks, stop.He thinks, just stop.+Cas says he'll stay until he regains his strength, and Dean wakes up the next day alone. There's nothing in the room to hint at a visit from a bruised-up falling angel except for the melted icepack on the table.“So what's next on your to-do list?” Dean had asked last night, already drifting off to sleep on the bed.Cas, seated stiffly at the table, replied, “I'll go to the Esagila.”“Who?”“Not a who. A what. The Esagila is the temple of Marduk.”“Of... what?”“No, Marduk is a who. He's the Babylonian god of light and healing, also known as the Shepherd of the Gods. I will summon him and ask if he has information on my Father.”And that's when Dean gave up and went to sleep. If Cas wanted to blabber on about ancient pantheons, he was with the wrong Winchester.So it's morning and Dean eats what's left of the pizza for breakfast and throws his stuff in the car. The sooner he ices this thing, whatever it is, the sooner he can get back to Sam. The sooner they can change the future. (Destiny can't be changed, Dean, Castiel had said those many months ago when Dean couldn't save his parents, could never have saved his parents. All roads lead to the same destination.)The sooner they can change the future, the better. He starts up the car and pops AC/DC in the tape deck, because 'Back in Black' is always an excellent way to start the day.(I can't believe it's really you, said a Castiel who wasn't supposed to exist, who looked at Dean in a way that made him feel like an impostor. They were both impostors there anyway, of a sort.)+Gwen, the one hiker who returned after the creature stole the hikers away, said she had seen something tall and dark behind the trees, something that moved quickly, but clumsily. Something that laughed like a drunk and shrieked like a horse. It was probably a deer, she said meekly, but after Dean pried the filter off her, she confirmed that sometimes the creature looked like her sister. Sometimes it would talk to her and it would sound exactly like her sister, and it wouldn't stop pulling Gwen forward and pushing her back, pinching her arm and scratching her neck.“I knew it wasn't actually my sister,” Gwen fretted. “My sister is in Colorado, but I thought...”“What did you think?” asked Special Agent Plant.“I don't even know, I just...” She shook her head. “I just kept following her. It. I just kept going.”“You kept going, or it made you go?”But Gwen just kept shaking her head and saying I don't know, I don't know.+The trees stretch tall around him, and the dense canopy cuts the sun into narrow beams of green-gold light. It's a nice day for hunting monsters, if a little warm, but then again the last creature Dean hunted had led him into the sewers, so this is definitely a step up. Okay, technically (paradoxically?), the last thing Dean hunted was the devil in 2014, but he's not sure if alternate universes count anyway.2014 may not be real, but for something unreal, it has a surprising amount of staying power. He knows that seeing Lucifer as Sam will never be something he can talk to his brother about, for the same reason Sam never talks about those hundred Tuesdays where Dean died over and over again: it hits too close to home, it strikes too many chords. It may be an illusion, but it is exacting in its cruelty.Dean follows the trail Gwen took, and he can almost pretend he's on a nature hike instead of a hunt. He runs into other hikers and campers, and he shows them ID and tells them to get out of here, there's been a rabid wolf sighted in the area. He leaves them to panic and argue with each other, and continues on his way, keeping an eye out for tall shadows between the trees, keeping an ear out for crazed laughter.He runs into fewer and fewer people the deeper into the woods he goes, but still no monster. It's going on 2 p.m. and the quality of sunlight has changed from the crispness of morning to the oppressive heat of the afternoon. Dean shrugs off his jacket, and allows himself a fifteen minute stop to wolf down a sandwich and check the map. There's an X where Gwen reappeared, and best-guesstimates of where the other hikers vanished. He considers his own position, and thinks maybe he should head south.He checks the time again. If Dean can kill this thing before the sun goes down, he can probably make it to Sam before tomorrow.+Dean stops in his tracks when he smells tobacco, tightening his grip on his gun.Didn't Sam say something about tobacco? Shit, Dean should have called him back. What else did Sam say? Red eyes? There's no reception out here and no time to call Sam if there were. Something crunches underfoot a few yards away and Dean has his gun out in an instant.There is something lithe and dark that flickers behind the trees. A grunting sound, could be human, could be animal. Wendigo? Werewolf? Sidhe? He can't quite focus on the darting shape. The smell of tobacco becomes uncommonly strong, prickling his nostrils, but he steels himself. Dean Winchester has been to Hell and back, and he's not afraid of whateverthefuck monster you put in front of him.“Come out into the open, shitbag!” Dean yells.It's not a monster that steps out.The man is dressed in jeans, a frayed blue shirt, and a military surplus jacket. He's all scruffed up, and the look in his eyes gives off the impression of permanent intoxication. “Hi, Dean.”Dean stares. “Cas?”Castiel from 2014 raises his eyebrows, a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. “Did you miss me?” he asks, and then he throws his head back and laughs.+The year 2014 clings to him now, roiling behind Dean's eyelids and under his ribs: it is everywhere, having climbed out of his memories to diffuse through the air. Castiel's eyes flash red, and Dean feels himself pulled in like a moth to the flame, has to tell himself to resist resist resist.Cas steps forward and Dean takes a step back.“You're not Cas,” Dean manages, but it's hard to say the words, and harder still to believe them. Of course the man in front of him is Cas. Why wouldn't he be? (THIS IS NOT CAS, he reminds himself.)“Who else would I be?” Cas asks, wide-eyed. Dean fires two rounds at point-blank range and somehow misses. The bullets sink harmlessly into a tree.Dean takes out the knife, and Castiel says, almost pityingly, “Dean, put that away.”“I don't do requests,” Dean says through gritted teeth, and lunges forward to gut the creature, but he ends up tumbling into the dirt because suddenly Cas is gone. When Dean looks up, the angel is walking off the trail, weaving between the shadows with a bizarre and ponderous swagger.“Cas?” Dean calls out, panicked that it's not Cas, panicked that it might be.Castiel pauses and glances over his shoulder. “What are you waiting for, Dean?” He smiles around his cigarette. “Come on.”“Where the hell do you think you're going?”“I have something to show you. Come with me.”And Dean knows he should say no, he should end this fucker right here and now, but he can't, because it's Cas, but no, no no, it's not Cas, and Dean should kill it. He shouldn't be following it anywhere.“Dean,” Cas says again, with the gravely tone of the Castiel who hasn't fallen, and the impish smile of the one who has.Dean deflates, and he doesn't mean what he says next (or so he'll tell himself later), it's just the monster's mojo. But that doesn't change the fact that he says: “Okay.”+On his last day in 2014, Dean woke up at dawn when his future self nudged him with his boot.He blinked blearily into consciousness, and realized that the uncomfortable weight on his stomach was Cas, contentedly asleep using his belly for a pillow. Future Dean gave them a smarmy “this is so cute I could puke” smirk, then toed Cas awake, a little harder, before going off to do whatever it was that tyrannical douchebags do when they're preparing to kill the devil.When Risa announced a ten minute ETD, Dean saw Cas and Future Dean caught in a hushed argument some distance away. Dean wasn't close enough to hear, but he took in Cas's tired expression, his crossed arms, and general air of disinterest as Future Dean hissed some angry lecture. Occasionally Cas tried to get a word in, but Future Dean would interrupt him, and Cas'd look down at the ground, up at the sky, anywhere else but at his fearless leader.Eventually Cas put his hand on Future Dean's shoulder and said something that shut him right up. It was the first time Dean saw his future self look like he felt sorry for anything, and maybe he was even going to say something in reply, but then Cas turned around and left.“Lover's tiff?” Dean asked when Cas fell in step with him.Cas just rolled his eyes.Halfway to the sanitarium, Dean asked – more for small talk than anything else, more to reach out to to the ex-angel, who was the only one here who knew him – “So, hunting the devil. You think we're gonna live to tell this tale?”It was meant to be a joke, but Cas stopped in his tracks and turned to look at Dean with a considering expression on his face. Dean stopped too, uneasy. That was another thing: when this Castiel deliberated instead of simply reacting, it was a warning sign.Cas said, “I guess you will.”+Castiel walks with a strange uneven gait. He moves fast even though the trees grow densely this far off the trail. There isn't as much light, and the shadows are full of tricks: sometimes Cas's arms appear longer than a human's should, sometimes it looks like Cas's legs are bent the wrong way. Sometimes Dean loses him between the trees, only to have Cas materialize beside him and laugh as he slams Dean against a tree.“I'm glad you're coming along,” Cas says, restraining him with minimal effort as Dean writhes in his grip. “I'm glad you're here with me.”“Fuck you, you son of a bitch,” Dean spits out. “I'm going to end you.”“You haven't yet,” Cas says, and he kind of has a point.They've been walking through the woods for a few hours now, and the more they walk, the more Dean loses things. The world slides away from him: he can't remember what that hiker said about this creature, he can't remember what Sammy said about it, about Cas. He can barely remember why he should want to kill Cas instead of following him, but Dean fights to keep the impulse alive. He knows it's important somehow, and it throbs dully in his chest – kill Cas kill Cas kill Cas – over and over again until the syllables lose their meaning, stubborn but confused.Dean doesn't put things off, and he isn't sure why he hasn't pulled the gun on Castiel by now, why he hasn't taken out his knife and stabbed him. This isn't even the real Casti... But then Cas glances over his shoulder and gives him a stilted grin, and Dean is pulled along like a dog on a leash, his weapons untouched.On and on they go, with Cas too quick for him and Dean discombobulated as he finds himself urged forward by an easy word, held back with a casual shove, pushed against a tree, pushed down to the ground as Cas laughs delightedly at Dean's struggle to escape.“Aren't I your friend?” Cas chuckles, pinning Dean's wrists to the dirt. “The future is now, Dean. You shouldn't be afraid of it. You shouldn't be afraid of me.”“Fuck you, you fucking bastard, fuck you, I'm gonna--” Dean curses desperately.“Are you afraid?” Cas asks.His face is inches from Dean's and Dean is calling him all sorts of names, when Castiel kisses him, warm and feather-light.+In 2014, the morning lost its chill as the sun rose steadily higher.“What do you mean, you guess I will?” Dean demanded.Cas adjusted the strap of his gun. “We gotta make sacrifices, right?” he said hesitantly, as if he found the words unwieldy, as if he was just parroting someone else. Dean thought of Cas's argument with Future Dean, and wondered if Cas was parroting him.Then Risa trudged past and told them to get a move on, so they did, because when Risa told you to do something, you did it.Back in the present, up in the mountains, Dean will wonder: where is Risa in 2009? How is she doing right now? Is she healthy? Is she happy?He will walk through the woods with the future leaking out of his head, and the long shadows will continue to play tricks on him because in the oncoming twilight, sometimes Cas's silhouette will appear to shift, and Dean will see not his friend's face, but something wilder and elongated and dark. Cas will open his mouth and Dean will think he can hear the cries of the dead, unless those are just regular woodland critters. Yeah. Critters.Maybe.And always, always: the gray stench of tobacco. The smoke gathers around Cas's head like a halo, and Dean will wonder if he'll be able to get the smell out of his clothes.+Dean lies stunned on the ground, frozen.Castiel doesn't close his eyes as he kisses him. He watches Dean like he's waiting for a reaction, and the reaction Dean gives him is a violent jerk and a box to the ear. Cas falls off, and immediately Dean is on top of him, furious and hurt and holding a knife to his throat.Somehow it's this kiss that breaks through the veil. Dean remembers everything: why he is here, why he should kill this creature right the hell now, how it is not Cas because Cas is off in Babylon or something, and how he still needs to get back home to Sam.He really should've called Sam back.“I'm gonna string you up and beat the living crap out of you, I swear to fucking god,” Dean hisses.Castiel makes a face as if genuinely offended. “Dean, don't you know who I am?”“I don't fucking care anymore. Take it to your grave, mirrorverse.”“Even if I weren't Castiel,” the creature says, “how do you know that knife will work on me?”Dean replies, “I'll take my chances.”“Dean.”And there is something in Cas's tone that makes Dean hesitate, something pleading and ominous. Cas's eyes glow a faint red, just around the blue of his irises. Oh shit, Dean thinks, and feels his tenuous grip on reality shift.“Am I just going to be something else you sacrifice?” Cas almost sounds disappointed.“What?” The words catch on a blurred memory, but before Dean can force it into clarity, Cas says:“We gotta make sacrifices, right?”2014 rushes back to him, and in his mind's eye, there is Cas weighed down by guns and mortality, and there is Cas lying under him with his fingernails digging into Dean's back, there is Cas crunching down on pills and when Dean kissed him later he'd tasted like a fucking pharmacy. There is Cas, that final morning, with an air of resigned loyalty about him that only made sense later, when Dean found out his future self planned to lead them all to slaughter.If you can't change yourself, then what can you change? If you can't control your own future, then what do you control? Dean promised himself to never become that hollow man from 2014, he swore. When he said to Castiel, “Don't ever change,” he was talking to himself too.“Dean,” Cas cuts across his thoughts, “don't you recognize me?”What a stupid question. Of course he does. This is Castiel. Cas, who gripped him tight and raised him from perdition, who defied the will of Heaven and killed his brothers, who did all of it for Dean.Right?Dean sits up and removes the knife from Cas's throat. Right? Castiel grins.+Cas's cabin in Camp Chitaqua smelled like the morning after: the sour smell of spilled booze, stale smoke, and the musk of sex. It stank, in other words, but Dean was comfortable here, away from the surreality of the world outside. He understood, perhaps, why Cas preferred to be away from it also.There was a part of Dean that was still surprised at how easy this felt, like maybe he had just forgotten about it and had to be reminded by Cas trailing kisses along his shoulders. Remember this? It was like looking at one of those Magic Eye pictures and finally, finally getting it. Everything falls into place as you see the colors raised into patterns that are almost tangible.“So you and me,” Dean asked, afterward. “I mean, you and him. Other me.”Cas shrugged. “Yeah.”“Since when?”“Since Sam... you know.” Cas frowns. “You mean we weren't.... When Zachariah brought you here, we haven't--”“Dude, you were like, a monk. The one time you actually came close to getting some ass, you scared it off and we had to exit through the back.”Cas chuckled. “How things change.” He rolled over onto his stomach, and looked into Dean's eyes. There was one thing that hadn't changed at least: his habit of staring at Dean like he meant to memorize him. “So where does that leave you, when you go back?”“What do you mean?”“When Zachariah zaps you back to 2009. If he does.” Cas tilted his head. “Will you start this,” he gestured vaguely between them, “with me then? For all you know, maybe this trip is what started it – started us – in the first place. Zachariah zaps you up here, I seduce you – apparently – and you like it so much that you decide to try it out once you're back where you're,” Cas tensed his jaw, “where you're supposed to be.”“This is making my head hurt,” Dean replied, because he really didn't want to think about it.“Or what if you change the future,” Cas mused, “and avert all this. No croats, no living in shitty camps, Sam's still with you, I still have a stick up my ass... What if you stop everything, and the me right here right now? I cease to exist, and you're stuck in another timeline with a Castiel who doesn't want you back.”Dean raised his eyebrows. “If this is the only world where you'd ever want me, then I'm not sure we're meant to be, sweetheart.”“I hate this,” Cas muttered, looking down. “I hate seeing time in only four dimensions. I don't understand it anymore.”“Cas.”“What.”“Come here.”“What?” Cas sighed, but he obeyed, shifting closer to Dean and sliding an arm across his waist. Sliding his whole body over him until Dean was trapped between Cas and the bed, Cas's hands pressed into the mattress on either side of Dean's head. He looked at Dean as if he were something to be figured out, and Dean could see desire pooling in Cas's eyes again, in the way he parted his lips and wet them in anticipation.“Come here,” Dean whispered.Cas lowered his head and his mouth tasted of vicodin and beer.+Twilight: the last of the day streaks through the sky in shades of gold.Ahead of him, Cas is becoming more difficult to see. Dean strains to listen for him and hears, not footsteps, but something heavier, akin to hoofbeats, and a whinnying giggle that reminds him of fingernails on blackboards.“Cas, where are we going?” he calls out.“We're almost there,” Cas assures him.“Look, I gotta get back to Sam. Why don't we just--”“We're almost there, Dean.”“Hey!” Dean yells, and stops walking. It takes a surprising amount of willpower. “Cas, look. I've been walking for hours here. I'm exhausted, I'm out of food, water, and my feet feel like they're about to fall off.” He feels compelled to keep on walking, so he grabs onto a branch and hangs on.Cas, lost to sight in the gloom, orders, “Dean, come.”“Naw, man,” Dean says, ignoring the bile rising in his mouth. He gets the feeling like maybe he should've stopped sooner, should've tried to stop hours ago. “You come here. Come on, we've been walking all day.”“We're almost there.”“You've been saying that for the past two hours.” Dean feels some indiscernible force tug him forward, and he tightens his grip on the branch. “Cas, look, I have to...”“Dean.”“You keep forgetting this about humans, Cas. We're not the goddamn Energizer bunny, all right? Look, whatever is out here, whatever--” Whatever you are, Dean thinks desperately, because there is still a part of him that is aware enough to know what's going on, but it is not the part that controls his actions or his thoughts. It's not the part that can't be extinguished by the voice insisting that all this is real.Dean manages to gasp, “Cas,” rallying his strength for that one syllable. He sags sideways against the tree and breathes hard, thinking of immoveable things. He wishes Sam were here. He wishes he'd called back.“Maybe you're right,” Cas says from somewhere within the shadows. “Maybe I've been taking the wrong approach.”The sound of footsteps draws near, changing from uneven and clumphing to hesitant and light. Dean steadies himself for whatever's coming, his heart jackhammering in his chest, his senses trying to be alert.“It's difficult sometimes, I admit,” Cas continues, except it doesn't sound like Cas anymore, “to be able to tell the difference between what's at the forefront of your mind and what is at the heart of you. But I think I've learned something of you now, now that we've had time to get to know each other. Let's try again.”“What the hell are you talking about?” Dean rasps. He feels a chill that has nothing to do with the crepuscular drop in temperature. He knows that voice.“Nothing,” says Sam, stepping into view. “Come on, Dean. Let's go home.”Dean doesn't know whether his heart is squeezed tight from relief or disgust.“You're not Sam,” he retorts, testing out how the words feel in his mouth.Sam rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I'm the tooth fairy.”He walks closer to Dean, his movements awkward and his limbs oddly cumbersome. Dean resists the urge to shrink back. This is Sammy here, and even if it's not...Sam steps in real close and he has to bend his head to look Dean in the eyes. Dean has missed this. He's missed this proximity and ease, the looming bulk of his brother nearby, and the warmth with which Sammy is looking at him right now, even if his eyes are a little unfocused. Even if he's gripping Dean's shoulders a little too tight, reeking of the tobacco that neither of them smoke.“It's been a while,” Sam says.Dean swallows dryly, replies, “Yeah.”“Why are you stopping?”“I'm tired, Sammy.”“I know, but we're not far now.”“Sammy, I don't think--”“Come on, Dean.”Dean tries again: “You're not my...”“I wouldn't let anything happen to you.” Sam slides his hands to Dean's arms, and tugs gently. “You know this, right? Come on.”“No.”“Dean.”“No!”“Why do you always have to fight me, Dean?” Sam sighs, and there's such frustration in his tone, which grates, and has always grated. There's a sad and wary smile on his brother's face that might have been meant to reassure, but Dean has seen that smile before and in that instant Dean sees his brother's eyes flare red and he sees----black eyes and a white suit, Sam's foot on Dean's neck and his smile being the last thing Dean sees before he sees nothing. It's the devil's smile via Sam's face, like Lucifer doesn't know how to use it, like the muscle and skin and sinew are just inconvenient necessities. Dean knows his brother and he knows his brother's smile, and this is not him. This is not it.“I'm your brother,” the creature promises.“You dumb shit,” Dean croaks. “All this trouble impersonating a Winchester and you don't even choose the handsome one.”Dean shoves forward, throwing all his weight at the creature, and it wails in fury as they crash to the ground.+“In a way, I've always been waiting for you to come back,” Cas said to him in that other future, and Dean flinched because he wasn't ready to be what that sentence wanted him to be. Cas's eyes slid to the other Dean, up in front of the group, and quietly added, “Accept no substitutes.”+The fall knocks the wind out of Dean, but he still struggles to pin the beast to the ground.Already it is changing its shape under him: already its arms darken and curl, already the legs become leaner and longer, nudging Dean off-balance. Sam's face narrows and elongates, its eyes moving apart, its hair concentrating itself down the middle of the head, like a mane. Like a horse's mane. It has a horse's face, but with none of the blankness of dumb beasts. It holds the intelligent fury of someone whose meticulous plans have been overthrown.The creature throws Dean aside as if he were a rag doll.“I knew you were difficult,” it says in its true voice, which comes out in a grainy hiss. “I didn't know how difficult. It was fun, Dean Winchester – your head is full of interesting highways and byways, many ways to make you fall. But,” its breath fogs in the air, “you are too stubborn for my tastes. If your brother does not bend you, perhaps we've come now to the end of our game.”Dean remembers a sketch from his father's journal, a column of notes beside it, a map of the Philippines taped in with arrows pointing at northern Luzon, and scribbled phone numbers with west coast area codes. Dean's practically memorized the whole damn journal, back when he'd try to figure out his father through the catalog of things he killed, and the page is suddenly clear in his mind's eye. Here it is in front of him in living color, surround sound.The creature raises itself on its hind legs, and confirms the generalities of his father's sketch: the tikbalang is a minotaur with horse parts instead of bull. It has the head of a horse and stands on a horse's hindquarters – deceptively strong for being so spindly-looking. It has the arms and torso of man. The eyes of an angry spirit. The smell of tobacco, which it loves to smoke. The constitution of a trickster, loving to obfuscate and lead astray and – when its mind games fail – to kill.What his father's sketch failed to express was how fucking huge these things are in real life. It's got like two feet on Dean.“You've proven more of a challenge than the others,” the tikbalang continues. It sways forward, its swagger belying great strength. “Then again, you are not like the others at all. You're very different, aren't you?”“Save it, Seabiscuit,” Dean growls, pulling himself to his feet and reaching for his gun. Which isn't there. Not that it would help against a trickster figure, but anything's better than going empty-handed. Dean goes for his knife and at least that's there, and then Dean's back in fighting stance, ready for anything, but mostly he's ready to get his ass kicked.Dean pieces together now the interrupted phone conversation with Sam, setting it next to his father's journal entry. Number one reason he's going to get his ass kicked: Dean has no stake dipped in victims' blood. He has a single goddamn knife. Number two reason: tikbalangs are strong and fast, and you need to be fit when you're facing off with them, not hungry and thirsty and emotionally drained because you've been wandering hypnotized around the mountains all day.He asks, low and angry, “Where are the other hikers?”The tikbalang replies, “You'll soon find out.”And it strikes.Dean ducks and rolls, but a tikbalang has a long reach. It grabs Dean by the shirt collar and drags him closer, but he writhes and stabs, and the tikbalang screams, lets go. Dean shoots back up to his feet, spares a glance at the forest floor looking for a glint of metal that might be his gun, but no dice.“Where are the other hikers, you son of a bitch?” he snaps. “Don't make me ask again!”“Don't worry,” it assures him. “You won't get the chance.”Dean charges a hair of a second before it does, and when they crash into each other, it's a tornado of blows and yells and drastic movement, or at least it is on Dean's part, because he quickly realizes that the tikbalang isn't even trying. It evades Dean's maneuvers with lazy ease, dodging this way and that like this is just some amusing dance, like it's the fucking drunken master. Like Dean isn't fighting for his life.Dean's best bet in the absence of a stake is to climb up on the beast's back and cut off its thickest lock of mane, which would weaken it and more, but he is in no condition to do that. But it's not like 'stab the fucker!' is any better of a plan either. His throat is parched, his muscles ache, and when the tikbalang suddenly barrels forward and deals out a quick succession of blows, Dean goes down, straight down, and his ears are ringing and his vision blurs.He's crumpled in a heap on the forest floor, and when he looks up at the beast, he sees only a dark shape. He hears it say, “Paalam,” which – in the weird clarity that visits you when you're about to die – is a word that Dean remembers from a pretty waitress in Santa Clara, back when he was hunting gaki out west. The waitress taught him: dagat means 'ocean' and puso means 'heart' and paalam means 'goodbye'.Dean hopes, with a vague detachment, that Sammy won't take his death too hard. Again.He hears the rustle of wings.The tikbalang disappears from view, blocked by a beige trenchcoat, and Dean hears the granite-edged rumble of a voice he's come to associate with eleventh-hour rescues and the willful ignorance of the concept of personal space.“You will not touch him,” Castiel threatens, “or I'll destroy you where you stand.”“Cas--” Dean gasps, and the angel lifts his hand for silence.“Another player for our game?” the tikbalang asks, amused.“Cas, be careful,” Dean blabbers, “it's a tikbalang, a trickster--”“I know what it is,” Cas says simply. “Give me your knife.”Dean does, and Castiel attacks.The last time Dean saw him, the angel was weakened and stiff from pain, but Dean is reminded now of how, above all things, Castiel is a soldier, a warrior of God. The tikbalang barely has time to react before the angel slams an elbow into its belly. It doubles over with a throaty bray, and Cas clouts it across the face for good measure before before grabbing fistfuls of its mane and hoisting himself onto its back. Dean scrambles out of the way, narrowly missing having his ribcage flattened by a massive hoof.The tikbalang roars, flailing at the back of its head where Cas hangs on with his legs hooked around its shoulders. There is barely enough light to see by, and Dean sees the action mostly as silhouettes, shadow puppets dancing against a darkening sky. The tikbalang tries to dislodge Castiel, thrashing this way and that, shaking and jerking, and still Cas holds on like he's going for the grand prize at the goddamn rodeo.The beast manages to catch the edge of Cas's coat and goddammit, Dean knew that coat was going to be a pain in the ass someday, unwieldy and bulky and getting caught on things that are man-broncos from the Philippines. But Cas doesn't even lose a beat. The angel hunches forward and angles his arms back, and lets the coat slide off him.Cas looks for all the world like a door-to-door salesman, waving around a hunting knife as he rides the carousel horse from hell.The tikbalang whinnies frustratedly when it realizes that the coat is empty, and those two seconds of distraction are all Cas needs: Dean can see the fervor of near-victory in Cas's hunched shoulders that means he's found it, the thickest cord of mane.He cuts it.The tikbalang screams, and suddenly Cas is kneeling next to Dean.“Dean, are you all right?” he asks.“Holy shit,” is what Dean says. He grabs Castiel's shoulder and the angel helps him to his feet. “Your timing is impeccable as always. I'm fine.”It doesn't take long for the creature to settle down, stumbling around as the murderous rage gives way to a dazed stupor. Soon it becomes as docile as Dean had been all day, and he can't help thinking hah, you fucker, because if you can't feel vindictive at monsters, then what can you feel vindictive at? (He thinks of his brother in a white suit, then doesn't.) Still, Dean keeps one eye on it. Just in case. It's just that there's something unnerving about having an eight-foot mutant Mr. Ed looming nearby, especially one that was just trying to kill you.“It wasn't easy tracking you,” Castiel says gruffly, as if annoyed with himself for not arriving sooner. “It's not easy finding a tikbalang, or its victims before it releases them.”Dean grins. “Well, thanks. You saved my ass. Again.”Castiel nods solemnly. “You're welcome.”“How'd you know to find me?”“Sam called me. He became worried when you when you didn't answer your phone.”“Sammy?” Dean chuckles. “Sam worries about everything.”“He worries about you most of all,” Cas says, like Dean doesn't already know.“Yeah, it's gonna give him wrinkles.”Cas says, “He wants you to call him back as soon as you can.”“Cas,” Dean says, and puts both hands on the angel's shoulders.“Yes?” Castiel tilts his head at him, bird-like, with that familiar expression of patient curiosity like Dean just cracked wise about yet another eighties sitcom. And that's Cas right there, that's the angel he knows, the one who sucks at not being a Vulcan and who would rather be trapping archangels than getting laid. The one who leaves Dean's side only to look for his father, and if that isn't a sentiment that Dean can identify with, then what is?“Cas,” Dean repeats, because he's not sure what to say yet. He's not even sure he wants to say anything. He just wants to stay here in this moment, washed clean of illusions, refreshed by the solidity of something honest under his hands. Castiel's coat is still lying on the ground some distance away, and without the bulk of it, Cas looks much smaller, deceptively so. Castiel can rip Dean to shreds and scatter his molecules to the edge of the universe if he wants to, and it's humbling to have the loyalty of a creature so terrifying, to have him look at Dean like Dean's the axis on which everything spins. Dean thinks, I'm the one who should be looking at you like that.Dean says, “I could kiss you right now.”Cas raises an eyebrow, and Dean tugs him into a bear hug to end all bear hugs. The angel makes a sound that sounds suspiciously like 'urp!' and hesitantly, carefully, like he's trying to figure out the inner workings of a complicated machine, puts his arms around Dean and hugs back. Then, having figured out that it's not as hard as he thought, hugs Dean closer, unstiffening as he eases into Dean's embrace.“You son of a bitch,” Dean croaks into Castiel's neck. “You're capable of hugs after all, aren't you?”“I am capable of hugs,” Cas confirms.This is not a new feeling, the way the world seems fresher after escaping certain death (again), but it's a great feeling every time. But over Castiel's shoulder Dean sees the tikbalang shuffling vaguely between the trees, looking around like it's lost. It kind of reminds him of the dog waiting for Fry to return in the only Futurama episode to ever make Dean tear up, not that anyone will ever know that. There are loose ends to attend to.“Okay,” Dean says, patting Castiel's back. “Come on, we're not out of the woods yet.”“We're miles from the road,” Cas agrees, stepping back.“I also meant that figuratively. We've got some unfinished business, not the least of which is Kentucky Derby over there. Cas, can you stick around?” Dean asks. “You don't need to zip off to like Tír na nÓg or whatever, do you?”“No.”“Good. First, we need to--” and all of a sudden Dean finds himself talking to air.The angel materializes next to his fallen trenchcoat. He picks it up and dusts it off before he swings the coat around himself, putting it on in one fluid movement. He looks up at an amused Dean, and nods. “I'm ready.”+“And that's just how I roll,” Cas concluded as they drove to the croat hot zone. The amphetamines were starting to kick in and, in the passenger seat, Dean wondered wearily how far they had to drive. “Because God is dead, Dean,” Cas said, and laughed to himself. “Welcome to the end times!”“Okay, Nietzsche, eyes on the road,” Dean muttered.“Nietzsche would have loved this! Can you imagine? God is dead and he remains dead,” Cas recited. “And we have killed him! How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers?” He gave Dean an exaggerated heartbroken look. “What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent?”“Clue?” Dean suggested. “Humanity, in the library, with the zombie apocalypse?”“Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us?” Cas continued, hovering between histrionic jest and genuine mourning. “Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?”“Are you saying you're God?”“I'm saying,” Cas said, “fuck it.”Dean scoffed, “So this is what happens when an angel falls? They get stoned and go all Philosophy 101 on you? What are you, a freshman?”“A fresh man,” he mused. “Hmm. I haven't been fresh for as long as I've been a man, I can tell you that. But if you think about it,” he met Dean's eyes in the rear-view mirror, “what choice do I have?”“You always have a choice.”“I chose you,” Cas shrugged. “I always have.”+The thickest, longest cord of a tikbalang's mane is the source of, not necessarily its power, but its freedom. Whomsoever cuts it becomes the master of the creature, and the tikbalang becomes as confused into their submission as its victims usually become to it. Dean inspects it, frowning: it's gnarled, almost bark-like, like a dreadlock off of a particularly earthy Grateful Dead fan. Gross.“So he's yours now?” Dean asks Castiel, nodding at the beast swaying in front of them. “Like a dog? A pet?”“Yes,” Cas replies, “though I don't require the services of a tikbalang currently.”“Don't forget to walk it and feed it twice a day. You should probably get a collar for it too. A license, a leash. What are you gonna name it?”“You are making a joke,” Cas guesses.Dean sighs. “Yes.”“Hahaha,” Castiel offers, valiantly.“Thanks, Cas. Thank you.” Then, on to more important matters. “Okay, so let's ice this bastard.”Castiel hesitates. “I don't think we need to ice it.”“In this context, ice means kill,” Dean clarifies.“You've explained to me what 'ice' means,” Cas says irritably, “but now that the tikbalang is bound to me... perhaps its death is unnecessary. I can make it do what I say.”Dean raises his eyebrows.“Avoid unnecessary deaths,” Castiel says, quoting Dean back at him, “in this war that's probably going to claim a... shitload, of lives.”Dean smirks outwardly, but he stays quiet, feels his throat go dry and his heart do a funny sort of ta-thump.“Dean,” Cas says, a smile quirking at the edge of his mouth, “we talked about this.”And yes, they did, they've talked about a lot of things, and god, if Cas is doomed to fall and become human or whatever, then let this be the humanity that he clings to – compassion, mercy – instead of the hedonism and barely concealed desperation of that other Cas, wherever and whenever he is.“Well, hop to it,” Dean says, and Cas hops to.It's kind of weird, seeing a giant horse-monster crouch low to hear what this diminutive man has to say. The expression on the tikbalang's face is one of concentration, as if struggling to see through a fog. Leave the humans alone, Cas instructs. Keep out of sight. Just eat your fruits and smoke your tobacco, and do no harm.And of course the creature has no choice but to say, “I will obey.”Cas lifts his hand and touches the tikbalang's muzzle. Is the tikbalang nuzzling it back? It totally is. Dean makes a mental note to give Cas shit about that later. Castiel: Tikbalang Whisperer.The tikbalang gives off the impression of untangling itself as it rises its feet. Hooves. As it stands up, and it makes no sound when it turns around and disappears into the trees.“Are you sure I can't kill it?” Dean asks when they go off to find the other hikers.Cas frowns at him. “Why are you so intent on killing it?”Dean shrugs and looks away. “Nothing.”It doesn't take long for Castiel to find the survivors, and to bring Dean to them. Out of the six hikers taken by the tikbalang, only four are alive, and even then just barely. They also find the two disoriented rangers who disappeared from the search party. Dean tells them that it's okay now, everything's gonna be okay. Help is on its way. (“Get help,” Dean tells Cas, out of sight of the survivors, and Cas is gone before Dean even blinks.)Some of the survivors have stories to tell, once they find the energy for words. My boyfriend, my girlfriend, my mother, my father, my best friend, they told me to follow them. And Dean wants to say I know, I know, but instead he tells them that it was probably hallucinations caused by sunstroke.As for the bodies, an anonymous tip to the rangers later will have to do, just so they'll know where to find the remains.By the time they get back to the motel, Dean is too tired to do anything but collapse on the bed and groan, “Cheeseburger. Bacon. Extra fries. And pie.”“Apple?” Cas asks.“Chocolate cream.”And with the muted rush of wingbeats, Dean is alone in the room once more. He kicks off his boots, takes out his cellphone, and dials the first number on his Missed Calls list.“YOU STUPID MOTHERFUCKER,” is how Sam answers the phone.At the sound of his brother's voice, Dean laughs with relief, and it's like releasing a breath he didn't even realize he was holding. “Hey, Sammy,” Dean says, and grins so hard his face hurts.+“They didn't have chocolate cream,” Cas says when he returns, “so I got one of each.” He holds out the bags of food. “Lemon meringue or pecan?”Cas is awesome.“In retrospect,” Dean is saying, around a mouthful of pecan pie, “the tikbalang wasn't even that good at the whole shapeshifting thing. It looked like Sam, sure. But it acted like some homicidal stoner the whole time.”Dean has decided not to tell the angel that the tikbalang took on Cas's form most of the time.“The tikbalang doesn't need to act exactly like your brother,” Cas points out. “It has other ways of clouding your senses and making you do what it wants.”“So this trickster is like, part siren, part 'shifter.”Cas sighs. “It is what it is. It's not just some collage of the things you know.”“Part centaur,” Dean continues, “but in minotaur format. Our little pony here didn't even make up new realities.”“It shifted yours just enough to matter. There are many kinds of tricksters, Dean.”Dean takes another bite of pie and asks, “So how was Babylon?”Cas grimaces. “Full of tourists. Their flash photography was distracting.”“...Their what?”“It was difficult to find a space to summon Marduk. The vendors kept trying to sell me t-shirts and sunglasses.”It took a few seconds for this to process. “Wait, what? T-shirts?” Dean frowns. “This is Babylon as in hanging gardens Babylon?”“Yes. Its ruins are not far from the city you know as Baghdad.”“Oh. Well, shit.” He had gotten the impression that Cas was time-traveling again. Maybe Cas is too weak now for even that. “Did, uh, Marduk know anything about your dad?”Cas closes his eyes and shakes his head.“You'll find Him, buddy,” Dean assures him, saying the words he's never believed in. “At least your angel powers are back, huh? Should make things easier.”“Yes,” Castiel says morosely. “For now.”“For now's good enough, Cas,” Dean says, taking another bite of pie. “For now's pretty excellent.”+Dean finishes all the food while Cas stays with him and regales him with theories on where Lucifer might be, what Lucifer might be doing next, why God is AWOL, and where he will go next and why.“You mentioned Tír na nÓg earlier,” the angel says. “There is potential in that idea. The Tuatha De Danann are recalcitrant at the best of times, but it is possible that they are more flexible now that end is nigh.”It's the grasping at straws that Dean recognizes from back when Sam looked everywhere for a way to get Dean out of the deal with the crossroads demon, the same harried postulating back from when they were still going after seals. Dean tosses ideas back and forth with Cas anyway, because it's good to keep busy, even if nothing might come of it, and it does Dean good to see Cas riled up. He still can't quite shake glassy blue eyes and cynical laughter from his head, can't shake the feel of deft hands and hot breaths on his neck, and he almost hates Future Cas for turning on the lightbulb over what Dean had been fine being blind to all this time.Finally, Cas rises to his feet. “I'm glad you're safe, Dean. We'll be in touch.”“Wait, hang on,” Dean says, and stands too. “Cas, c'mere.”“I'm here.”“Come closer.”So the angel steps around the table, stands in front of Dean, hesitant. “You said personal space--”“Yeah, I know what I said,” Dean mutters, and puts his hands on Castiel's shoulders like back in the mountains. Cas glances at them, furrows his brows, then looks up at Dean again, waiting. “Look,” Dean says. “I just... Thank you.”“You already thanked me.”“I know. But like, thank you for... everything. You're a real stand-up guy.”'Stand-up guy'? Who the hell says that anymore? But Dean can't think properly, on account of Cas being right there. It dredges up the muscle memory that has refused to leave him since he returned from the future. Dean's getting distracted by the little details; he wonders what kissing Cas would taste like when the angel isn't eating half a pharmacy and most of the liquor store. What sounds would he make if Dean were to graze his teeth along his skin? What is it like to tug off that coat, that blazer, that shirt, to know him this way too?On impulse, he lifts a hand to cup Cas's cheek, reasoning that Cas is too socially awkward to know that this is socially awkward anyway.“...Dean?”Dean slings an arm around Castiel's neck and pulls him close to press a kiss against the angel's forehead.Cas blinks.“Um,” Dean says, intelligently. “That's for luck.”Just. Shoot him now. 'For luck'? Jesus christ.“So, uh,” Dean says.Then he thinks, This is maybe a bad idea, and kisses Castiel's mouth.Cas freezes, but if anything, Dean's tentativeness is testament to his determination. The brush of his lips against Cas's is gentle and light, and Dean doesn't relax until he feels Cas relax too, exhaling softly into Dean's mouth. Cas lowers his shoulders and just as tentatively kisses him back. When Dean parts his lips, Cas does too, with the bright-edged trepidation of those who ask a question they think already know the answer to.Oh god, this is happening, Dean babbles in his head, and leans into the kiss, pressing harder, lifting both his hands to cup Cas's face. This is his mistake. At this raising of stakes, Cas sucks in his breath sharply and stiffens again. The angel shifts his head slightly away, and damn it, okay. Dean knows how to take a hint.Dean takes a step back.“That was, uh,” Dean says.And Cas just stands there, looking as bewildered as Dean feels.“So take care of yourself, buddy,” Dean bursts out, and pats Castiel's shoulder. “Good luck on the God search, okay? Tell me how it goes.”“Dean,” Castiel says, and is he looking more serious than usual? It's hard to tell, with Cas.“If you find Him, tell Him Dean Winchester says hi, and also that He better get off His ass and--”“Dean.”“What.”Oh god, not this, not the soulful staring. Usually Dean can handle the soulful staring, but not right now. Not after that. Usually Dean's pretty good at distinguishing between id time and superego time, so how what just happened happened... he doesn't even... Fuck, maybe Dean just needs to go to bed, it's been a long day. Maybe--Dean's second-guessing is cut short when Cas lifts a faltering hand and touches Dean's mouth. The angel frowns contemplatively, as if analyzing the sensation, cataloging it for future reference. Castiel's touch is as light as his kiss, and he runs his thumb over Dean's lower lip with a gentleness that strains to ask, “What if I...?”“I've always wondered,” Castiel says softly. “This vessel... I've felt,” he begins, and stops, and as much as Dean wants to ask FELT WHAT? he lets it go, because he understands the lack of words, and also because he doesn't want Cas to stop touching him. Cas's hand slides to his cheek in an echo of Dean earlier, and Dean finds himself following the movement to brush his lips against Castiel's palm.Castiel's breath hitches, just a little, and Dean murmurs, “Sorry.”“Don't apologize,” Cas says, and there is something brittle and aching in his voice. He withdraws his hand, and declares, “I have to go.”“Yeah, I have to sleep,” Dean replies.They don't move.“Good night, Dean.”“You too, Cas.”They don't move.“So--” Dean says, but is interrupted when Cas suddenly appears in his space and brushes a kiss against Dean's lips, fast and soft, and then Dean hears the beat of wings, and Cas is gone.Standing in the empty motel room, Dean says, “Well, shit.”He smiles.+Dean's forgotten how tired he is until he actually climbs into bed, and that's when all the aches and bruises crackle up to the surface. He groans into his pillow, rolls over and pulls the blanket up to his chin like that might help somehow. It doesn't.The whiskey bottle on the nightstand catches his eye. He stares at it for a few seconds before deciding what the hell. Nightcap.The burn in his throat is comforting in its familiarity, but it brings with it something threadbare and Pavlovian that visits upon him failures past and future: all that he might and might not be, what he could and couldn't do. They gather on the edge of his mind and taunt him, poking and prodding. Dean contemplates another shot to drown them out, but instead he closes his eyes and thinks about Sam chewing him out on the phone, Cas sighing about how difficult it is to get an audience with the Morrigan these days. The warm burr in Sam's voice when he told Dean to come home, and the spark in Cas's expression when he touched Dean's mouth.Dean waits, and eventually they outshine everything else in his head.He sleeps. . [end.] . NOTES 1.Like most folk tales, tikbalang lore is varied and often contradictory. What is common is that it is a trickster figure who likes to mess with travelers, and it looks kind of like this. I referred to various sources (I use the term 'sources' lightly) for details, which I cobbled together haphazardly for the purposes of this story. I drew from this site, this site, and this site, then applied artistic license.2.That was Nietzsche's “Parable of the Madman” that Cas quoted to Dean on the way to the croat hot zone. Chuck wonders sometimes if maybe he should've recommended some lighter reading to Cas, maybe some Maeve Binchy or R.L. Stine. Cas seems to like it though. It's just, when does it stop becoming catharsis and start becoming pain?3. Dagat, puso, and paalam are Tagalog words. The waitress's name was Concepcion Vitan, but most people know her as Connie. She grew up in Bulacan, which she told Dean she wanted to visit again someday. Dean wondered what it says about his life that when Connie started telling him about her childhood home, his first thoughts were curiosity about how hunters operate in the Philippines, if they have a network there like in the US, whether they use different weapons, and what the monsters are like on the other side of the world.
99487	Kukolka	{ "Archive Warning": "Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings", "Category": "M/M", "Characters": "Harry Potter, Severus Snape, Lily Evans Potter", "Fandom": null, "Language": "English", "Rating": "Not Rated", "author": "by treewishes", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2008-05-18T00:00:00", "words": "17,766", "Additional Tags": "The Princess Bride References", "Relationship": null, "Character": null, "Relationships": "Snarry - Relationship, Harry Potter/Severus Snape", "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": "Russian Fairy Tales, Harry Potter - Rowling", "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	Kukolka, by H. Granger, was my favorite book of all when I was a kid, though I had never read it. You see, my Gran used to read it to me.When she passed away, all of us named in her will got to go through her house and pick out just one thing as a keepsake. I was so happy to find that Kukolka was still there when it finally got to my turn. I'd actually looked for it in print a few years ago, poking through used book stores and emailing online sellers, but couldn't find a copy. No other books by H. Granger, either, which surprised me because this was such a great story.The name of the book makes it sound mysterious, but it's not; a kukolka is a little Russian doll, and my Gran had one that was very valuable and very old. She used to laugh and tell me that she was even older than the doll, which I might have believed because she was my great-grandmother. Or great-great, I was never sure. When I finally read the book myself, I was surprised to find it reads like a history. It's clearly fiction— it's about a talking doll, of course it's fiction— but it's full of politics and citations and appendixes that I never heard when she read it to me. My Gran, you see, made it into a great adventure story, with wizards and giants, and magic wands and flying cauldrons. You know, just the good parts.Anyway, here's the "good parts" version. H. Granger wrote it. And my Gran read it to me. And now I give it to you."Hi, sweetie.""Hi, mum." Harry leaned up onto the bed to give her a kiss on the cheek. The golden afternoon sun made his mother look very pretty, and he pretended not to notice that she could barely lift her head from the pillow."Tell me about school today." She patted the bed next to her.He scrambled up and pulled his knees up to his chin. He watched her face as he told her about his spelling test and his history lessons.When he finished, she smiled and patted his leg. "I have something for you." Her voice was so weak he wanted to cry, but he stayed strong like his Dad said he needed to be. She reached over and pressed something into his hand. It was a little wooden doll, only as big as his finger.He looked up at her, surprised. "Thanks, mum."She laughed, then. "It's not for playing with, my silly boy. It's called a kukolka, and I've charmed it just for you.""How does it work?" he asked, turning the little doll over in his hand. "Will I need a wand?""No, no," she said, stopping for a moment to take a breath. "It's not that kind of magic. When you need help, go somewhere quiet and give it something to eat and it will tell you what to do.""What's his name?" Harry held the little doll carefully. It had a tiny, painted face.His mother touched the black hair painted on the little doll's head. "What if I said his name was Harry?""Is it?" He looked up at her, and then down at the doll. "He doesn't have glasses, Mum," Harry protested.She smiled. "No, he doesn't, does he? All the same, I want you to always carry him with you wherever you go. You can tell him about your spelling tests."Harry nodded, realizing that she meant this doll to help him because she would be too ill. Blinking back his tears, he put the little wooden doll in his pocket and reached up to hug his mother."You are such a good boy," his mum whispered. "A few years from now, you'll do well at Hogwarts, and make me proud." He nodded, his face pressed to her neck, holding her as hard as he dared."I love you, don't forget that now." Her voice was so faint he could barely hear it."I won't forget, ever," he promised. She kissed him, and he could feel her love for him like the sun on a midsummer day.But that was the last time Harry saw his mother. Everything afterward was a nightmare, so many people he had to say hello to, so many hours he had to be quiet and polite, when all he wanted to do was go to his room and cry. He missed his mum terribly, especially at night when he lay down to sleep. When he woke up and remembered she was gone, he would feel worse than ever.He was so sad that he didn't think of the little wooden doll for a long time afterwards. Then, one evening as he finished his homework, he put his hand into his jacket pocket and suddenly felt the little doll and remembered his mother's words.He took some food to his room, but he wasn't sure what to do with it. The doll was a miniature person, so he put a biscuit crumb near its mouth. To his surprise, he felt the doll become alive in his hand. It began to eat and its eyes began to shine as if they were human.Then the doll spoke to him! The little voice was like a proper person's, though not like anyone Harry had ever met. "Tell me what troubles you," it said. Harry sat down on his bed so hard he bounced. He held the little doll in his hand, hardly able to believe his eyes. He had had him in his pocket for weeks and weeks!"You're real!" he exclaimed."Of course, I'm real," the doll said. "But not as real as you are."Harry remembered his mother's words, that he should ask for advice, but suddenly he was so unhappy that he buried his head in his pillow and let the tears come."I miss her so much," he sobbed, and poured out his sadness to the little doll.After some time he heard the little doll talking and picked his head up to listen. "Harry," the little doll repeated, "Your mother's death was a tragedy, and your tears for her will help her soul find its rest. But you must put away your grief, just for now."Harry sat up and wiped his eyes. This was not what his father had told him, so many times, that he should be strong and should not cry."Oh." He felt a little silly talking to a doll, but them he remembered that his mum had made it for him. Perhaps, he thought, the doll might know better than his father about how her soul was resting.The doll continued to talk, his little eyes shining. "Harry, I want you to try to sleep now. Try to empty your mind, make it blank and calm. The morning is always brighter than the evening, and tomorrow you will feel much better." Harry felt his sadness slipping away from him. He put the doll next to him on his pillow, and fell asleep.The next morning, Harry was surprised to realise he did feel better. After that, any time he felt sad Harry would turn to his mother's kukolka for comfort. He started to feel as though he was a friend, and began to call the little doll Kuki. With Kuki's help, Harry's grief became somewhat easier to bear, although he still missed his mother very much.Even though Harry's dad never cried, Harry's knew he was sad and missed Mum, too. Their lives were more complicated now because his dad was an Auror and often had to be away from home. While he was gone, Harry had stayed with old Mrs Bagshot once, and his Uncle Remus had come to stay with him another time. One evening, Harry heard his Uncle Remus in the fireplace telling his Dad he couldn't come until the following week.When his dad turned away from the fire, Harry knelt next to him. "I could stay by myself, Dad." He could do it, he was sure. "School's out next week. And I'm almost nine, you know."But his dad shook his head. "Harry," he began, then he stopped. "That's just the thing. You're not even nine years old. You need more stability than this. And I," he stopped again, "I need to go away too often for my work. I could beg off this time, but—" He put his arm around Harry's shoulder and walked him over to the sofa. "I was thinking about taking you to visit your Aunt Petunia."Harry was shocked. "You can't mean Aunt Tooney! She hates us, and mum knew it, too. I heard you call her a—""Harry, no," his dad interrupted him before he could finish.Harry crossed him arms. "And Dudley is just as bad." His mum had taken Harry dutifully once a year to visit her sister and nephew, and it had been horrible every time.His father laughed. "Don't be silly, Harry! I didn't know Too— I mean, your Aunt Petunia very well before. And you don't know her properly— she's very nice when you get to know her. She told me she'll treat you as she does her own son. And she keeps a clean house, and she's a good cook." Harry looked around at the cluttered mess in their sitting room, and thought about the lonely container of dried out take-away in the fridge. It would be difficult to be worse in the housekeeping department.But Harry could only remember his Aunt with her lips pursed up as if she was sucking on something extremely bitter and her pointed nose all wrinkled up. So he said nothing more.A few days later, Harry and his father went to visit Tooney and her family for tea. His aunt gushed all over Harry with a look of heartrending sympathy on her face.Sighing and dabbing at her eyes, she proclaimed, too loudly, "I miss Lily dreadfully, too, Harry darling, how terrible for you. You must be so lonely without her. Don't worry my dear, soon you will have us to take care of you." Harry thought it was disgusting. He was even more disgusted when he realised his father was taken in by this falseness.That night, as he was drifting off to sleep, he again saw her pursed up lips and wrinkled up nose behind his eyelids. He could still hear her voice echoing in his head, "...soon you will have us to take care of you!""No!" Harry heard himself shouting and awoke with a start, his heart beating fast."What a terrible dream," he thought, but he couldn't go back to sleep. Then he thought of Kuki and gave him a few crumbs."Kuki, you'll never believe what my dad is thinking."Harry felt Kuki come alive and twist a little in his hand. "I can't know unless you tell me," he said, and so Harry did.The doll listened, just like a real friend. "Harry, it's all right," Kuki said, "You shouldn't worry. Your aunt loved your mother, and that will make all the difference in the end. Everything will work itself out. Now go to sleep and forget your troubles." Harry at last fell asleep.The next day, Harry tried his best to dissuade his father, but he had made up his mind. When he dropped Harry off at the house on Privet Drive, the Dursleys were nice to him. But as soon as his father left on his trip, they immediately turned cold. His aunt allowed him only a bed and a small desk in a room otherwise filled with Dudley's things.The only good thing on Privet Drive was the neighbours, who were all very nice to Harry. He liked to help Mrs Becket with her groceries, and always said hello to Mr Dubois. But nobody liked Dudley Dursley, who was a bully and never had a kind word for anyone. Because of this, the Dursleys began to hate Harry and did everything they could to make his life a misery. His uncle sent him out to work in the garden all day on the weekends. To make things worse, his aunt barely gave him enough to eat and kept him working hard on household chores every evening after school.Despite this, Harry grew strong and healthy while his cousin became more pale, fat, and hateful by the day. Dudley's face was full of ugly red spots, while Harry's skin stayed clear and fair. Petunia was forever taking Dudley for skin treatments, but they didn't seem to help.How did Harry manage it? Well, Kuki helped him.On the hottest day of July, when he had only been at Privet Drive for a week, Uncle Vernon sent Harry out to trim the hedges. Harry only said, "Yes, Uncle Vernon," and trudged out to the garden shed to get the shears.When he reached the cool shade inside the shed, he couldn't help but sit down on a bucket of paint to take a short rest. He reached in his pocket for a packet of Opal Fruits that Mrs Becket had given him and found Kuki. He gave a bit of the candy to Kuki to have a friend to share his troubles.When he told Kuki all that he had to do, the little doll seemed to become even livelier than usual. "Sit here for a few moments," he said, and when Harry turned around, there was a pitcher of chilled water and a short stack of books on the potting table."Where did this come from?" he asked, looking at the doll."Harry, I'm here to help you. Your mother told you I would be here when you needed me, did she not?" When Harry nodded, Kuki continued, "That means I will do the trimming."Harry couldn't believe his ears. "So I don't have to— ""No, absolutely not. That's not the kind of work an 8-year-old—""I'm almost nine!"The doll made a tiny snort. "For a nine-year-old, pardon me! And what a nine-year-old boy should be doing this summer is reading and preparing for the upcoming school year. This school is much larger than your school in Godric's Hollow and may be paced differently. Those books are the texts your cousin used last year. Had he opened a book, that is to say. I suggest you see how they compare."Harry looked at the books, and the cool water in the pitcher, and thought about the miles of miles of hedge that needed trimming. He knew his uncle probably wouldn't bother to look out the window. Even if he did, he would think Harry was on the other side of the house."Okay, Kuki." He sat down to read his books.And that set the pattern for the whole summer. Whenever the Dursleys were watching, Harry would appear to be working. The rest of the time, Kuki brought him all sorts of different books; schoolbooks and story books, picture books and puzzle books. Better than that, Kuki talked with him about what was in the books. He would explain the things that Harry didn't understand, and when Harry found a word he didn't know, he could spell it and Kuki would teach him what it meant and how to say it. Harry kept some of the books under the floorboards in his room, but whenever he wanted to read one, he needed only to ask Kuki and he would find it behind a tree or in the pantry.Kuki also told him how to prepare a cream from a special herb that would keep his skin from becoming sunburnt. And Kuki woke him with a bowl of muesli every morning before his Aunt knocked on his door, so he wasn't hungry when he ate the meagre fare he was served at the family table. Kuki also made sure he had a large glass of milk and pudding every evening-– something he rarely got from his Aunt.That is how the years passed for Harry, and they would have been unbearable had it not been for Kuki.On Harry's eleventh birthday, two things happened that made him very happy. First, his father visited for several days. Because he was there, the Dursleys made a fuss. His aunt made a delicious pudding with candles and flowers made of sugar, and Dudley wrapped up one of his old games as a gift.The second thing that happened was that Harry received his letter from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. His father had been very, very proud. What made this extra special was that in only one more month Harry would be able to leave the Dursleys' house for the entire school year! Late that evening, Harry shared a bit of his birthday cake with Kuki and they had a private celebration. Kuki assured him that his mother would be very proud of him as well, and Harry went to sleep with happy dreams.His father returned to help Harry buy his schools supplies and to see him off on the Hogwarts Express. Harry waved out the train window until he couldn't see the platform any longer, and then sat down and began to get to know the other students in his compartment.Attending Hogwarts was both exciting and challenging, and for any number of reasons, Harry found he was very glad to have Kuki with him. Kuki helped him understand many things that he had never learned living in a Muggle home with the Dursleys the past few years. Harry quickly found a corner of the Common Room that he could use to talk with Kuki every evening after the students had gone up to bed. He would tell Kuki all about his day, and Kuki was always interested in hearing about what had happened.The months sped by, and soon it was time to leave school for the summer. Although his father picked him up at Kings Cross, they only spent one week together in Godric's Hollow before his dad had to go away for a long time on Ministry business."Already?" Harry begged. "Can't I stay here for just a little while?""Harry, I know you're growing up fast, but I think it's best if you go back to Little Whinging, and your mother's family.""But, Dad, you don't know what they're like. They hate me.""That's just plain silly, Harry. I know they're fond of you. Petunia says so every time I see her. But you are an energetic little boy, and you don't make it easy for her either. Now, please try to be nice to your aunt and uncle and life will become easier for all of us.""Nothing I could do would please them, Dad.""Son, try your best for my sake. Please.""Fine," Harry sighed. "I will try. But please come back as soon as you can."His dad kissed Harry on top of his head, gave him his love, and took him to the Dursleys.It was immediately clear to Harry that the Dursleys weren't happy about his return for the summer. As Harry had feared, as soon as his father was gone, they began to make life unbearable for him. They shouted and screamed abuse at Harry for no reason, bullied him unmercifully, and made him do all the work around the house.One day, when Harry asked if he had heard from his father, Uncle Vernon sneered, "Your beloved father obviously doesn't care about you anymore. He hasn't sent us any money in weeks! It looks as if he's not coming back. Because of you," he sneered, "we can't afford to live here any longer: we must move to his house to wait for him!""It's not true!' Harry shouted at him. "My father would never have forgotten me. Something must have gone wrong!" But he didn't know how to contact any of his father's friends or the Ministry.They packed up everything into their car and a travel trailer behind, and left the house before the neighbourhood was awake. His aunt left a note on the door of Mrs Patel, the neighbour across the street who was the biggest gossip, to say they were going to Majorca on holidays.Harry had to sit on the boxes in the back seat, while Dudley and Petunia sat next to Uncle Vernon. But he hardly noticed how uncomfortable it was; he was so preoccupied with thoughts of his father and what could have happened to him.All along the way, his uncle and cousin mocked him, saying over and over that his father had forgotten him. He was a wreck by the time they reached his father's house, and he was heartbroken to see the house was dark. Harry tumbled out of the car, bruised and battered from the uncomfortable ride. He headed for the door, eager to get to his room and away from his horrible relatives, when his uncle laid a heavy hand on his shoulder."Not so fast, boy. You're not going anywhere until you unpack the car and the trailer, take everything inside, and clean the house.""And what will you be doing?" Harry was afraid he knew the answer."We're going to bed." Without a look back, they each took a small overnight bag and went upstairs. Harry sat on the front steps and took Kuki out of his pocket. He gave him a little food, all the time biting back tears."Kuki, please help me. I'm afraid something must have happened to my father."Kuki's eyes began to shine as he came to life. "Harry, your father is alive and well and loves you as he always has. You should know by now not to trust your uncle. And please remember, no harm can come to you while I am here. Go to sleep now, and clear your mind. The morning is always brighter than the evening."Harry was comforted by Kuki's words. He crept into the house, and was suddenly so tired that he couldn't go any further. He pulled a knitted throw from the sofa and fell into a deep sleep.When he awoke the next morning all the unpacking had been done and the house was tidy. Harry was opening the windows to air out the musty rooms when his aunt and cousin stumbled down the stairs.They were amazed to see how fresh Harry looked after he had been apparently working all night. And although Dudley teased him and mocked him about his father, Harry didn't let it bother him as it had the day before."Why does he look so happy?" Dudley grumbled, fiddling with his GameBoy."Don't worry," replied his father, "He won't be around for much longer."Harry pretended not to hear this, but it worried him greatly. They sent Harry into the forest every day on some errand or other, hoping that some harm might befall him. None of the Dursleys dared to venture near the trees, for it was rumoured that dozens of bodies were buried in the thick woods. However, thanks to Kuki's protection, he always came home safe and sound.The weeks passed; Harry was still alive and well. He was sent out every day to work in the overgrown garden, and he slowly began to uncover the planting beds that his mother had laid out. His family was surprised that he never seemed tired afterwards, but Harry never responded to their comments.Soon it was Harry's birthday even though the Dursleys didn't acknowledge it. When he crept downstairs at midnight to get some cake to share with Kuki, he heard his aunt and uncle talking."We don't want to spend the entire summer out here, Vernon," Petunia nagged him. "We've got to get rid of him soon.""Don't worry, my dear," he replied. "I have thought of a plan."The next morning, Harry was outside weeding the flower beds when his uncle called him into the house."Boy, come here. I need to speak with you."Harry went inside, leery of anything his uncle and aunt had to say. They had been here for weeks and there was no sign of his father. The only thing that kept him from worrying was Kuki's assurances that all would be well."We need to go back to the city, and your father is still missing," his aunt told him. "That means we need money to send you back to school."Harry was shocked. He hadn't thought anything would keep him from school in September."Could I borrow money from you, Uncle Vernon?" he asked timidly.Uncle Vernon's face became even redder. "Of course not," he blustered. "We don't have money lying about to waste on you!""We were thinking," his Aunt Petunia put in, "that you could go ask Baba Yaga for some money.Everyone knew that a crazy old woman named Baba Yaga owned all of the land surrounding the little town of Godric's Hollow. She lived in the middle of the forest and for as long as he could remember, Harry had known that anyone who went near her hut disappeared."She liked your mother," his Aunt added.She did? Harry wondered. But then he remembered that his mother had always told him not to be afraid of people who were different. He could imagine that his mum would befriend a person that everyone else feared."All right," Harry agreed, not seeing any other options. And so early the next morning, he packed up a small rucksack and set off into the forest.Once he was out in the trees, Harry took Kuki from his pocket. "Kuki, what am I supposed to do? I've been told to go to Baba Yaga for money but I'm terrified that she'll kill me. What should I do?"Kuki's eyes began to shine like two candle flames as he became alive. "Don't be afraid, Harry. Go to Baba Yaga as you were told. While I am with you no harm shall come to you."Harry walked deeper and deeper into the dark forest. Trembling with fear, he tried to keep his spirits up by thinking of Kuki's words. He walked on in the darkness, becoming more and more certain that he was completely lost.Just then, he heard the sound of someone humming a funny tune, and came upon an old man with a long white beard wearing faded and tattered robes. He was perched on a fallen tree sitting in a patch of bright morning sunshine, merry as could be."Ho, ho, who's this?" the man asked, peering at Harry over his glasses. Harry could see the man's toes peeking out of the holes in his shoes."Hello." Harry felt a little better that there was someone else out here in the forest. "I'm looking for Baba Yaga's house. Do you know where it is?""I might." The old man's eyes twinkled. "How much is it worth to you to find out?""I don't have any money," Harry stammered, thinking fast. "But I might have something you could use." He reached into his rucksack and found a pair of socks his mother had knitted for him. They were far too large for his feet, as she had made them for him to grow into after she was gone. He swallowed hard and put his grief aside, just as Kuki had taught him.He offered them to the man. "Warm socks. They're new and made of very good quality wool."The man frowned, but took the socks. He unrolled them and examined them carefully. Harry began to worry that it wouldn't be good enough payment.Then the man looked up and smiled. "These are the best socks I've ever owned! Thank you, my boy, you don't know what a gift this is!"Harry breathed a sigh of relief. "You're welcome." He quickly added, "Could you give me the directions, sir?""Oh, yes," the man said, distracted. He pulled out his wand and waved it over a patch of ground. Harry could see a path light up in a faint blue starting at his feet and going deep into the forest."There you go," he said, pointing. "Follow that. Takes you right to her."This was much better than wandering aimlessly–- what luck it had been, finding the old man! "Thanks," Harry said over his shoulder, and set his boot on the path."Oh, don't thank me . . .," Harry heard the old man say faintly as he took step after step, forward into the deepest, darkest part of the forest.Harry looked up a few minutes later, confused. He was walking along the blue path and had noticed a small shower of sparks rising from his boot with each step. The path now seemed the only illumination in the dark forest. His first instinct was to turn and run back the way he'd come, but he quelled the feeling. Harry had only one year of magical schooling, but he knew plainly that this was Dark magic. He regretted starting on it at all, but he knew instinctively that to leave the path before he'd reached the end— would be the end of him.Distracted, Harry had not raised his eyes from the path before him to see how far he had come, nor how far he had yet to go. A noise up ahead startled him, and he looked up to see a patch of sunlight through the trees that flooded the path in front of him.He stepped into the sunlight and saw a man was chopping wood. Harry leaned back as his huge axe rose and fell with a clunk, and a piece of a tree trunk fell away beneath it. The man looked up and saw Harry, and smiled."Blimey, look a' here!" The man exclaimed, lowering his axe and walking over to Harry. He was a giant man, his face wreathed with a thick red beard."Hello," Harry said, swallowing. He looked down at the path and noticed that in the bright mid-afternoon sun, it was no longer blue. While Harry remained certain he couldn't turn back the way he'd come, he felt he could stop and rest here for just a moment."Yer a fine-lookin' young man. What brings yer so far inter the forest?""I'm on my way to visit Baba Yaga. Do you know if this is the way?""I can' say for sure. But there's a way to find out."He reached into his pocket and pulled out two pieces of wood. Harry recognized it as a broken wand. He was shocked to see the man hold the two pieces together in his huge hand and try to cast a spell."Wait." Harry reached into his rucksack and found a bit of Spellotape he kept there. "I can't fix it, but this will help." He quickly wrapped two pieces of tape around the wand to hold it together. The big man waved the wand across the path, making it glow a bit brighter."Thank yeh," the man said, "Yer too kind." He blinked and Harry was afraid the big man was going to cry."Well," Harry said, "I guess I need to be going. If this is the right way," he added, fishing for any more information he could get from the giant man."Oh, yeh," he replied, waving his hand in the direction Harry had been going. "Jes' keep on." Then he dropped his voice to a loud whisper. "But if anyone wanted ter know, I'd tell 'em not to be too curious about stuff what's inside the Missus' hut. That's all I'm sayin'.""Thanks." Harry thought this advice made him even more nervous about the journey. "I really appreciate your help."At that, the man looked very upset and shook his head from side to side. "Look, I shouldn't have said that. No more questions, don't ask any more questions!""Sorry!" Harry called out, as he began his trek on the blue path again.He passed some large trees and rounded a curve, and the sparks appeared again, flying up around his feet. The forest closed around him, as he walked along the sparkling path. He walked on the path all day, not knowing where he was going. Kuki was silent, as Harry had no more food to give him.Just as he thought he could no longer keep going, he saw a slight clearing through the trees. One, two. . . and to take the last step was like trying to walk through glue.He felt bone-tired as he turned slowly and looked back to the forest. The path had disappeared, and Harry wondered briefly how he would find his way back. He could see what appeared to be a hut up ahead and knew he had to get through this ordeal first. He squinted his eyes; the hut seemed to be moving. At first he thought he was dreaming, for it was spinning around.When he came closer he saw that the hut was on chicken's legs. A tall fence around the hut was made of bones, on the top of which were dozens of grinning skulls with blazing eye sockets. The gates in the fence had hands for hinges. The locks were jawbones set with sharp iron teeth. At the sight of the fence Harry's blood ran cold and he stood rooted to the spot in terror.At that moment, a third man came out of the forest. He had a short black beard."Hello, there," he said to Harry. "Who comes to torment Baba Yaga this fine afternoon?""Er, I suppose I do. I don't mean to torment anyone, however." He smiled just a bit. The man didn't smile back. "My name is Harry Potter."The man looked at him closely, "Potter, you say?" he said, sharply. "I believe I knew your father.""You did?" Harry supposed a lot of people knew his dad, he was an important person in the Ministry, but he couldn't imagine his father knowing this man."I knew him at school, yes. But I haven't seen him in many years, before you were born. We were friends at Hogwarts."Harry thought fast. He wanted to ask the man how to get in to see Baba Yaga, but the man didn't seem nearly as helpful as the other two men he'd met today."Would you like to talk to him?" Harry asked him, and then added quickly, "because I have a mirror you can use for that."He reached into his bag and found the magic mirror his dad had given him at the start of the school year. He had never used it, not wanting to be a bother and call his dad while he was on a dangerous mission. He hoped his dad would understand if someone else were to use it, and this man sounded like an old friend."Thanks, yes, I would," the man said, taking it."Er," Harry said, and the man looked up from the mirror. "Should I just go up and knock on the gate?" He nodded toward the hut.The man laughed. He looked much kinder now, and Harry was glad he'd given him the gift of the mirror."Oh, no, I wouldn't do that. Never touch the gate or any part of the fence, if you know what's good for you.""Okay, thanks," Harry said. "Well, thanks then." The man didn't reply as he walked away peering into the mirror.Harry walked cautiously toward the fence. As he neared the gate, the glaring eye sockets of the skulls lit up and threw out their baleful light on the clearing until it gradually became as bright as day. Harry shuddered at the sight and scurried back to the edge of the trees.The forest became full of a terrible din; the trees began to groan, the branches creaked as if a violent storm were coming, and a witch who could only be Baba Yaga came crashing through the undergrowth in a great iron cauldron.With a wand in her right hand she urged the cauldron along, while her left hand was busy sweeping away the trail behind her with a broomstick. Harry couldn't tell if it was a charmed cauldron, or if she was using the broom to fly. He thought perhaps it was both.Then a group of ghosts came in her wake, sending up a terrible howling and screeching until she approached the gates, where they left her and flew silently back into the forest.She rode right up to the gate, still in the cauldron. She chanted, "Stupefy!" in a blood-curdling voice.And the hut immediately stopped spinning, turned to face her and stood still.Then, to Harry's horror, she thrust her long nose into the air and sniffing all around her, shrieked:"Well, well— I can smell a wizard bone or two! Who is it? Show yourself!"Harry, his legs still not quite obeying him as they should, shuffled out into the clearing and stammered, "It's me— Harry Potter."She glared down at him. "Have you come of your own free will or have you been sent?"Harry cleared his suddenly dry throat. "My uncle sent me to ask a favour of you.""Your uncle! And your aunt as well, I suspect. Well, I knew your mother. And now your uncle will know me, too!" cackled the old crone. "What is the favour you need?"Harry's blood almost turned to water as he saw the fierce look on the old witch's face. "I— I need to borrow some money for my school fees," he stammered, "I'm sure my father can pay you back, but he's away just now."She smiled, then, which was even more frightening than her glare. "Listen, boy! If I do this you must work to pay for it. If not, I will eat you for my supper!" Then she turned to the gates and shouted, "My unyielding locks, Alohomora! Effringus, my tall gates!"Immediately the jaw-locks unlocked themselves and the gates swung wide open. Baba Yaga screamed at Harry to follow her and then rode into the yard whistling so loudly that Harry thought his eardrums would burst.His hands clamped tightly over his ears, he ran behind Baba Yaga into the yard while the gates crashed shut on his heels and the jaw-locks snapped together again with a loud gnashing of iron teeth.They went inside the hut and Baba Yaga threw herself down beside the fire. "Take everything out of the oven and put it on the table." Not even knowing where the oven was, Harry hesitated for a moment."Hurry up, I'm hungry!"Harry ran and took the food from the oven. There was enough meat to feed the Dursleys with plenty left over. He looked in the pantry and found a huge bottle of mead, another of beer, and another of red wine. Not knowing which she wanted, he brought all three and the old witch drank them all, making a terrible gulping noise as the wine dripped down her hairy chin.Then, belching loudly, she began to tear the meat apart with her long gnarled fingers. Harry shuddered as he watched the old woman in a feeding frenzy, crunching the large bones into splinters with her terrible iron-capped teeth.She swallowed the lot, leaving nothing but a crust of bread, which she spat out onto her plate.When she was finished eating, she rubbed a bony hand over her greasy chin, stretched herself out in front of the fire, and said, "Listen to me well now, and do as I tell you. Tomorrow, you must clean the house from top to bottom, weed the yard and cook for me. Then take this tangle of hairs from a unicorn's tail and separate each one. Do not miss even one strand or I will eat you for my supper."Harry shuddered, having no doubt that she was capable of doing that very thing. Then, Baba Yaga turned her long nose towards the ceiling and began to snore loudly. Harry tiptoed over to the stove and stood listening for a moment to make sure she was really asleep. The heat near the fire was stifling. How can she lie so close? he wondered to himself.Stepping outside into the cool air, he took Kuki from his pocket and gave him some of the leftover crumbs. "Oh," he said, as soon as the little doll came to life, "I'm trapped in the house of the old witch and if I don't get the work done, she will eat me. I can't go back along the blue path, I can't use my wand, and I don't know what to do!"Kuki was as calm as ever, which soothed Harry's heart immediately. He said, "Don't be afraid, Harry. I will take care of you. Find a bed and go to sleep. The morning is always brighter than the evening."Harry felt his fears slipping away and he went back inside. He found an old blanket and curled up on the floor as far away from Baba Yaga as he could. He cleared his mind and fell into a deep sleep.When he woke early next morning, he heard someone humming a song. He looked out of the window and saw the man with the long white beard walk past the gates just as the sun glimmered into dawn. Baba Yaga was already outside; she let out an ear-splitting whistle and the great iron cauldron came rushing towards her and the broom flew into her hand. She climbed into her cauldron, and the man with the red beard appeared out of the forest at the very moment the sun rose into the sky.Then Baba Yaga yelled: "My unyielding locks, Alohomora! Effringus, my tall gates!"The jaws unlocked and the gates swung open with a crash and she rode away in the cauldron, driving it on with her wand and sweeping away the traces behind her with the broomstick.The earth shook and the trees creaked and groaned as if they were about to be uprooted by a storm. Dry leaves whirled and spun all around her head and the ghosts shrieked and howled as they flew along after her.Thinking that this was his chance to escape, Harry ran straight out behind the witch, but alas, the gates suddenly swung shut with a crash in front of him and he leaped back just in time to avoid being bitten by the gnashing teeth of the locks.Above the noise he could hear Baba Yaga shrieking with laughter as she drove off through the forest.Standing well back from the fence, Harry tried to get the locks to open by repeating Baba Yaga's spells:'My solid jaws, Amorahalo! My tall gates open! Oh, what was it again? Effilingus! Effergalus!"He tried as many different versions of the spell as he could think of, but the gates would not obey him. The jaws grinned horribly at him and it seemed that even the skulls on the fence with their empty eyes were mocking him. He gave up with a sigh and went back inside the hut.He explored the hut and found it was much larger than it appeared on the outside. The pantry was filled with enough provisions to feed a whole village. Then he remembered with dismay all the work that he had been told to do and wondered where to begin.When he went back to the kitchen, he could not believe his eyes, for everything was already cleaned and Kuki was straightening the last of the strands of hairs from the unicorn's tail. "Now you have only to cook the supper, have some yourself, and take a rest," Kuki told him.Harry rested all day, still tired after his long walk the day before. Towards evening he cooked the old witch's supper and sat on the steps of the hut waiting. In the twilight he saw the man with the black beard walk past the gates. Darkness immediately came down over the forest and the eyes of the skulls began to glow in their sockets.Then a terrible din arose again, and Baba Yaga came crashing out of the forest. When she stepped out of the huge iron cauldron, she asked, "Well, have you finished all the work I gave you to do, or can I eat you yet?"Before he could answer, she went around checking everything. "You have done well," she leered, clearly disappointed that she could not eat Harry for her supper. Then, suddenly clapping her bony hands, she screeched, "Accio! My faithful servants! Come!"Immediately three pair of disembodied hands appeared, seized the unicorn hairs, and took them away.Baba Yaga sat down to supper, and Harry put even more food and drink in front of her. She swallowed the meat, bones and all, without even chewing it this time, drank all the wine and beer, then stretched herself out on in front of the fire. "Tomorrow do the same as today, and as well as that, take the dragon's heartstrings from that shelf and clean them one by one. Someone spiteful has mixed mud in with them and I want them clean."Then she turned her long nose to the ceiling and began to snore loudly. Harry went down the corridor, took Kuki from his pocket, gave him some food that was left and asked his advice. He and Kuki talked quietly about what had happened that day, and finally Kuki said firmly, "Don't worry, Harry. Go to sleep, and we'll talk more tomorrow." His fears once again slipped away and he found his blanket and went to sleep.The next morning, Harry awoke up to an ear-splitting whistle outside. He ran to the door just in time to catch a glimpse of a pair of extremely bony legs clambering into the huge iron cauldron.Once she had gone, Harry found that once again, Kuki had done everything except the cooking. There was not a trace of mud left in the dragon's heartstrings. Harry made a comfortable seat under the window and Kuki brought him books to read. Late in the afternoon, he cooked supper and shared some with Kuki.When Baba Yaga arrived, she could not find any reason to complain about the work and was again disappointed that she could not eat Harry. She clapped her hands and screamed, "Accio! My trusty servants!" Instantly the three pair of hands appeared, seized the dragon's heartstrings, and took them away.She sat down to supper and Harry brought all he had cooked and then stood waiting until Baba Yaga was finished. When she had devoured everything, she glared at him. "Well, what are you standing there for as if you were dumb? Have you nothing to say to me?"Harry swallowed hard. This was the first opening he had to find out what he'd been wondering about. "I did not dare to speak. But with your permission, I would like to ask you some questions."Baba Yaga grinned with an evil flash of her iron teeth. "Well, just remember that not every question leads to good. If you know too much, you'll become old too soon. So, now ask!"Harry thought carefully about his questions. "I would like to ask you about the men I met along the path to your house. Who was the man with the white beard who I saw at the other end of the path?""That was my good for nothing brother, Albus Dumbledore." Baba Yaga began to grind her teeth, and Harry realized she was magically compelled to answer him. "He killed his best friend and will pay for that forever.""And who was the giant man with the red beard?""Another miscreant, Rubeus Hagrid, expelled from school for killing a girl." She ground her teeth a little more this time."And the man with the black beard?""Sirius Black! That one only attempted to murder another boy. He was expelled from school for it," she said fiercely. "Those who have nowhere else to go, end up with me! Any other questions?" she shrieked suddenly, her eyes flashing wildly. "Speak!"Harry thought of the three pairs of hands and was about to ask about them, but quickly stopped himself, remembering the words of the man with the red beard."You were about to ask?" Baba Yaga growled, grinding her teeth horribly now, so that sparks flew from her mouth.But Harry said nothing."Ask me another question!" shrieked the old woman."Three questions are enough for me. I don't want to become old too soon! As you said yourself, not every question leads to good.""It is just as well," snarled Baba Yaga menacingly, "that you only asked about something that you saw outside of the fence, for those who ask questions about what they see inside it do not live to tell the tale. And now I have a question for you. How is it that you have been able to finish all the work I gave you so quickly? Answer me!"Harry, by now terrified at the way the old witch was looking at him, somehow managed to stutter out, "My mother's love helped me!"Baba Yaga sprang at him foaming with rage. "Get out!" she howled at him, pushing him out of the hut. "I want no loved sons near me! Your mother's love hurts my very bones! Get out of here!"Harry snatched up his rucksack and ran through the yard, and behind him heard the old witch shouting her spells at the locks and gates to open up.When they did not open quickly enough, the witch aimed a kick at one of the gates. Some of the bones in the gate smashed and a terrible howling and screeching went up.The locks opened with a snap, the gates swung wide, one of them looking a bit lopsided now. Harry ran out into the clearing, afraid the old witch would change her mind and pounce on him any minute.Baba Yaga seized one of the golden skulls, shoved it and thrust it toward him saying, "Here's the gold you asked for. Take it to your relatives. That's what they sent you here for, and I hope they enjoy every bit of it!"Harry remembered the words of the man with the black beard. He opened up his rucksack and scooped up the golden skull with the burning eyes, touching it only through the cloth. The burning eyes lit up the path, and Harry raced off with it into the forest. He kept going all night long, wanting to get as far away from the old witch as he could.Then, to his dismay, the glowing eyes of the skull began to flicker and grow dim. A few moments later he heard the sound of someone behind him on the path, and a streak of white light appeared in the sky. He saw the old man with the white beard and Harry scurried behind a tree until he had passed, wondering who the old man had murdered.Shortly afterwards the man with the red beard strode past, just as sunlight cast a pink light upon the topmost branches of the trees. Harry hid, remembering that he had killed a young girl.He wandered on all day, wondering how to find the blue path. Kuki was silent, as Harry had no food to give him.As he walked on, he was dismayed to notice the sky was growing dark. Just then he heard someone running behind him. He had no time to hide as the man with the black beard ran past him. "Hey," he ran after him, hoping the man had talked with his dad, but the man didn't stop and disappeared into the growing dusk.Harry stood shivering. The night was cold, and he had no idea what direction he should go. He looked in his rucksack, but the skull's eyes were dark. He spilled it onto the ground, wanting nothing more to do with the old witch. He looked around and thought he might try to find a tree to hide inside until morning.Suddenly, he heard a sound behind him, and turning, he saw a tall man holding a broom. Harry immediately thought to run away, but the man's wand light was the only bright thing in all the forest. The man looked worried, but his face cleared when he saw Harry."There you are!" he said, coming to kneel in front of Harry. The man put a hand on his face and asked, "Are you all right?"Harry took a breath. "Yes, I think so," he said. Then he blurted out, "Who are you?" Harry couldn't believe he had said it, what if this man was yet another servant of Baba Yaga?"No matter," the man said, and immediately bundled Harry up onto his broom. The wind was cold, but in no time at all, Harry saw his father's house in Godric's Hollow. The man set him down, and without another word, leapt back into the air on his broom.Harry watched him go, puzzled, and then turned to see his father appear from the front door of this house. "Dad!" He ran to him, almost crying with relief.His father gathered him up in his arms and hugged him very tightly. "Harry!" he cried, his voice breaking. He let Harry go just long enough to check to see if he was all right before hugging him tight again. "You're safe now," he murmured.Finally, they went into the house, where the Dursleys stood waiting. Harry's heart was halfway into his throat and he didn't stray an inch from his father.His aunt immediately ran over to hug him and began exclaiming over how cold he must be. Harry could barely stand to have her touch him."Good thing you're back, boy." His uncle pointed a finger in his face. "You see, Potter? He runs off like this all the time."Harry's father turned to them. "I don't think so," he said. "You sent him into the Black Forest to ask for money for his school fees! I have friends in the forest, you see." He looked down at Harry and winked. "And you also seem to have ignored my letters telling you that I was delayed, and how to deliver him back to school."The Dursleys, all three of them, began babbling apologies and excuses, and Harry held his breath. He knew the Dursleys would somehow be able to convince his dad they meant no harm, and he would have to spend even more time with them. He leaned in a little further into his father's side."Get out." His dad didn't shout, but his tone shut them right up. He put his arm around Harry's shoulder. "All of you. I'm sorry for every moment I didn't listen to my own son." His dad pulled out his wand and with a wave, all of the Dursleys' possessions walked out the door."Well!" His uncle's face was almost purple."We never wanted him in the first place," his aunt muttered huffily, heading for the door."Freak," Dudley added under his breath, and with that, they were gone. Harry didn't relax until he heard their car pull out and drive away.His father said down heavily at the kitchen table. "I'm so sorry, Harry."Harry wasn't sure what to say to this. "It's okay, Dad," he said, finally. "I know you were trying your best. But what are we going to do? You'll still need to be away, and—""I've been thinking about that," his dad interrupted him. "I had a lot of time to think while you were missing, while your mother's sister was blaming you for it.""I'm sorry to make you worry."His dad shook his head. "No, Harry, none of this is your fault. I only— well, I wasn't sure what to do with myself when your mum left us, much less what to do with you. I thought— I guess I really wasn't thinking very well when I sent you to live with them, was I? But that's done with. I'm going to quit my job at the Ministry. There's plenty of work I can get on my own. I've got a knack for cursebreaking and tracking spells, you see. And if I do it right, I'll be able to take summers and holidays off.""Really?" Harry couldn't believe his ears."It's a promise," his dad said, sealing the deal. "We'll go to the beach next summer, just like we used to, all right?"Harry beamed. He couldn't wait until after supper so he could tell Kuki all that had happened. It had been quite a day, but Kuki had been right, it had all turned out for the best.I didn't even know this next bit existed until I began this 'good parts' version. All my grandmother used to say at this point was, "What with one thing and another, six years passed," and then she'd explain how the day came when Harry's father was killed, and how Harry left school, and by then she was into the terrific business dealing with the escape from the ogre's cave.Would you believe that in the original version this was the longest part of the book?But from a narrative point of view, in 83 pages nothing happens. Except this: "What with one thing and another, six years passed."The last thing Harry remembered was being utterly, thoroughly cold. He had been in Edinburgh just that morning when the weather had been pleasantly brisk. Then he'd taken the train as far north as it went, and there he had begun to feel a bit chilled. When he had begun Apparating north, going as far along the snowy coast as he could see each time, that was when the wind coming off the water had overwhelmed his repeated warming charms.Shivering, he'd kept on and felt a thrill— unfortunately not a warm one— when he spied the cave he'd sought. Without a good look round, a move he'd paid for in quick order, he clambered down the apparently deserted rocks along the icy shore. After that, well— he wasn't sure what had hit him.He woke as he was dragged by his foot through snow. From what he could tell, it was an ogre doing the dragging. Or perhaps a troll; he hadn't been very clear about the details on his N.E.W.T. in Care of Magical Creatures. Did trolls live this far north? Hermione would know, he thought, and then everything went dark again.He woke, head hanging down and feet up, a good four feet above the floor of what looked to be an ice cave. He was dizzy and disoriented and couldn't quite resolve what he was seeing upside down. The ogre, he was pretty sure now that it was an ogre, was eating, tearing flesh from bones. He was suddenly and hysterically reminded of the time he'd been trapped in Baba Yaga's hut years ago. He didn't think watching any consumption of food could be more disgusting than that, but he had been wrong.The ogre was turned away from him, so Harry bent himself up to see how his feet were tied— only to find they weren't tied at all, but frozen into ice blocks in the ceiling of the cave. He felt for his wand, hoping— but it wasn't in his pocket. Bloody great hell, why couldn't he hold onto the thing? He hung there for a few moments, then closed his eyes and tried to sense where his wand was. Out on the shore? Or had the ogre used it for firewood? He ought to be able to find it, if he could just clear his mind, like Kuki had taught him.After just moment, he found his wand in a snow bank behind his head. Blanking his mind, he whispered Accio and breathed a sigh of relief as it flew into his hand.He quickly vanished the ice around his feet, maybe a bit too quickly, he thought as he tumbled hard to the floor. The unfortunate reality that his feet were entirely numb made it difficult to stand. Naturally, the ogre chose that moment to notice his next meal had become mobile, dropping the bones he had been gnawing and coming Harry's way.Harry aimed a stunning hex, then another, hitting the beast but not slowing it down at all. The ogre swiped at him with an arm that was feet longer than Harry had expected, knocking him down and bruising half his body, if not worse. "Must have giant's blood in you," he muttered, scrambling, finally casting a slashing hex that severed the creature's right arm. The ogre howled, and Harry seized the opportunity to slash again and then once more, leaving the monster in a bleeding, steaming heap of flesh on the floor of the cave.Chest heaving, Harry muttered, "Bloody hell," before dropping to his knees in exhaustion and pain. He was pretty sure nothing was broken, and he cast what healing spells he could. And then there was nothing for it,; he couldn't stay here in this cave full of bones and the overwhelming stench of things he didn't even want to imagine.It sounded as though the wind had died down a bit, too. So he wrapped his scarf around his head, cast his best warming charm, and set off.He stepped out of the cave into a howling blizzard. Within minutes, he realized his mistake. He couldn't Apparate, as he couldn't see more than a few feet in front of his face. And within a few steps, he couldn't have found his way back to the cave if he wanted to, and on top of that, he was beginning to suspect that perhaps one of his ribs was broken. He clutched his side. Maybe two. He pushed forward, seeing a shape in the distance that might be some sort of shelter. Suddenly, his knee hit a rock, and he staggered and sprawled into the snow. He lay there, stunned, and then turned onto his side to spit out a mouthful of snow and blood and what could have been teeth. Bloody rock. He must have hit his chin on it.What a cock up this trip had been! And all based on some cryptic notes his father had left about an old locket. The wind howled as Harry struggled onto his back. He took a few painful breaths, then jammed his hand into his pocket for his wand, and felt— Kuki. His old friend. He and Kuki had been through a lot over the years. He was very sorry he hadn't talked to Kuki for so long, but he'd never forgotten the help he had been. Harry felt bad that he didn't have any food for his friend, not even a biscuit crumb.He had been so very, very cold, but now he had stopped shivering altogether. And he was so sleepy! He was sure in the morning things would look brighter. Kuki always said so.Harry put his head on the soft, white pillow, and told Kuki goodnight before he went to sleep."Harry!"He looked up as Neville rushed into the ward. Ron and Hermione trailed in behind him.Neville leaned over the bed, inspecting Harry's bandages. "That's all you get for being out overnight during the worst storm in a century?"Harry grinned. "Worst in a century? I guess I didn't get that memo before I left.""What happened, Harry?" Hermione made herself comfortable in the visitor's chair."Heard it was pretty bad." Ron perched on the window ledge and Harry winced as Neville gingerly pushed his bandaged feet over to sit on the bed."I dunno how bad it was, really. I was following up on some notes my dad left, looking for some dark artefacts that he thought were hidden up north. It's a little fuzzy from that point, but I think there was an ogre." He shook his head. "Next thing I knew, I woke up here.""Bloody odd, that. You've no idea?" Neville was"It's more than odd." Hermione shook her head. "You were incredibly lucky! They said you were nearly dead when they found you.""Not all the way dead, thank you very much! Still weak as a baby snitch, but definitely on the mend." He tried to sound cheerful, hiding as best he could just how helpless he felt. He could barely move a muscle."Harry, this is serious." Neville looked as though he would personally ensure that Harry stayed wrapped in cotton wool for the rest of his life. "You can't do this sort of thing alone."Harry opened his mouth to say of course he could, but he looked over at Hermione, then Ron, and realized this wasn't just Neville-the-ex-boyfriend worrying unnecessarily. "All right, fine. Let's say that going out there alone was a bad idea. But what choice do I have?" he asked. "My dad is dead, and the Aurors called it a hunting accident. A hunting accident! Who uses a killing curse to hunt?""I know you're right, but—" Neville began."It's bloody dangerous out there, mate," Ron finished for him. "I wish I could go with you—""Me, too." Neville fidgeted. "But I can't get away.""Look, I appreciate this." Harry repeated the speech he'd made when they were leaving school. "I know you want to help, but you didn't work with my dad like I did. You have your jobs to think about. And besides, Luna would kill me if anything happened to you," he told Ron.Ron nodded. "And my sister would kill you if anything happened to Neville, I know, I know."Neville rolled his eyes, and grinned. "I could probably take off some time this summer, but I didn't get Defence scores like you and Hermione did, either.""I can help with background research," Hermione offered, "But I can't get away from classes, even in summer."Harry nodded. "Look, you're all busy now; I can't ask you to sacrifice your careers or your families for this. I'm the only one who can do this. I just need to be more careful."Neville looked thoughtful. "What about a partner? Surely there are other blokes in the same business. P'raps you could apprentice with someone?""I don't think so," Harry said. "It's a tough business, so why would anyone want to be saddled with an inexperienced partner? And it's not as though there's a directory of Unspeakables at the Ministry.""Because they're Unspeakable, I know." Neville's face was grim. "It's only that you were so close to your dad. People have been known to make stupid mistakes when someone close dies."Harry had thought about that. It was true that his dad had been kind of out of it for a few years after his mum had died, but he'd come around after that horrible summer with the Dursleys in Godric's Hollow. "Maybe," he admitted, "But it's not like I can wait a few years and then do this. It's already been six months. There's a shadow group out there, I know it, and my dad was onto them."The four friends looked at each other for a few moments, then Hermione asked, "What about Master Snape?"Ron looked up. "Snape?""Yes, Harry, what about him?" Neville was nodding in agreement. "Remember when he substituted for Professor Quirrell last year? He seemed quite good.""And scary," Ron put in."Definitely Unspeakable," Hermione confirmed. "And if he had time to come teach kids for a few months, maybe he's not so busy.""I don't know." Harry remembered Snape as a cold and serious instructor. "He did know his stuff.""Well, it can't hurt to send an owl," Neville said, ever optimistic.And that was how he ended up agreeing to meet with Master Snape. He guessed the man wouldn't have an office, and perhaps not a proper house, either. His father hadn't kept the house in Godric's Hollow once he'd left the Ministry, and that was how Harry was travelling now— all his worldly possessions shrunk in his pocket. Summers with his dad had been exciting, traversing Britain and the Continent, tracking down mysteries. They'd even spent most of last summer in Egypt where there was a huge demand for cursebreaking.But this? It was a boggiest of any bog he'd seen. Not that there weren't curses to break here, the whole place definitely had a very Dark feel. Would Snape be testing him here and now? He looked down again at the map and checked to see he was in the right place. It had to be. If he hadn't broken the curse on the seal correctly, he would have missed both Snape's response and the directions on how to get here.After trudging through the mist and muck past the same gnarled tree three times, he went back and stood in the middle of the crossroads, searching Snape's letter for any further layers or hidden meaning. He resolved to wait for no more than five minutes— when Snape Apparated directly in front of him."Mr Potter.""Master Snape!" Harry hated that his voice squeaked when he was startled."You wanted to see me?"Harry blinked. "Er, yes, sir. I— I'm interested in finding a position as an apprentice. As I wrote to you.""Yes." Snape crossed his arms and waited.The knut finally dropped and Harry listed his credentials, even though he'd sent them to Snape in the post. "I have relevant experience in several areas. I graduated with eight N.E.W.T.s, and Outstandings in Defense, Charms, and Potions." Harry had worked hard for those, the subjects his mum and dad had always said were most important. "I also worked summers with my father. I know my way around security systems." He held up Snape's letter. "And cursebreaking. We also took on the odd salvage case. Declawing dark artefacts, and so on."Snape stared him down, and Harry held his ground. If Snape wanted to test him, he was ready.Finally, Snape spoke. "I had not considered taking on an apprentice. However, if you are willing to meet my conditions, I can be convinced." He ticked off the list with a flick of his fingers. "You will listen and learn what I have to teach; you will treat me and my privacy with respect; and you will keep yourself presentable and out of harm's way. Is that acceptable?"Harry nodded. "Absolutely, sir."Snape eyed him carefully. "I will provide your room and board and I will keep any income gained from your work. I will add, however, that much of what I do is for no client other than myself."Harry nodded. "Not a problem. I can support myself." His father had done all right in the last few years and Harry had a modest bank balance. If he wasn't extravagant, he would be fine.Finally, Snape relaxed his gaze. "Agreed. When will you be able to begin?""I can start right away." Harry couldn't believe this was going be this easy. Then he remembered. Of course it wasn't going to be easy. "However, I do have one condition of my own."Snape raised an eyebrow. Harry soldiered on. "My father—" Harry paused to swallow. "My father was recently killed, and I believe there was foul play involved. I would— perhaps not right away, but I will be needing some time to find out what happened." And who was responsible, he added silently."I had read the news of your father's death, and I am sorry for your loss." Snape paused, a calculating look in his eye. "What makes you believe his death was not accidental?""I don't know for certain, sir. But he was tracking some very dark objects, and I know there were people trying to stop him. And I don't think the killing curse is ever an accident.""The papers say it was a stunning spell followed by a fall."Harry grimaced. "And you believe the Prophet? I saw him!" He caught himself before he got too angry; this was a job interview and he needed the man's help. "Look, I examined his body. It was the killing curse.""I see." Snape cocked his head. "All right, in that case. I will be interested to learn what evidence you have. Shall we go? I have a house in London."And that had been that. Snape's house in central London was comfortable and Harry had settled in easily. On a whim, he took Kuki out of his pocket and put him on his night table the first night in his new rooms. His tiny painted face and robes were the same as they'd ever been, even though he'd been in Harry's pocket every day for more than a decade. These days, Kuki was more of a good luck charm than the friend he'd once been.And he'd needed the luck and was glad to have Kuki with him that first week. Snape had set him to breaking curses, all kinds of curses. A few days later, Snape started teaching him new skills, Occlumency and wordless magic, things he'd barely touched at Hogwarts and were only hinted at by his dad.Harry was relieved to find that his cursebreaking and tracking spells were passable. Snape was a good teacher, better than Harry remembered from Hogwarts. He complimented Harry's instincts but pointed out many ways he could improve his technique.Occlumency was more of a challenge. At first, Snape would routinely attack him, and Harry would just as routinely fold to his knees in a quivering wreck. After a few days, however, he felt he was making good progress. Once he remembered the way he'd put his emotions aside after his mother had died, he was able to clear his mind easily. That helped immeasurably.Over the next few months, Harry found he really enjoyed his lessons. He posted regular notes to reassure his friends, telling them all about Master Snape, a little about the investigations they'd been doing, and just how unprepared he had been before when trying to go out on this own. Neville, who knew Harry better than Ron or Hermione did, read between the lines and immediately asked how he and Snape were getting on personally. Harry told him in no uncertain terms that they were Master and Apprentice, nothing more.In reality, Harry was aware on a regular basis just how attractive Snape was. The man was tall and powerful, and Harry admired the graceful way he carried himself. Harry wondered more than once if there had been someone special in Snape's past, before he'd become an Unspeakable.But aside from his personal ruminations, Harry was making good progress. All except one area: Wordless magic. He just wasn't catching on. Harry wasn't too worried about it, as he was perfectly competent using words. Unfortunately, Snape didn't agree.One fall afternoon, they were out in what Harry called Snape's bog again, a place they often went to drill. Today, they had been at it for hours. Harry was soaked through and miserable.He focused yet again on the huge boulder. It was heavy and awkward to Leviosa using words, and every time he would lift one end up wordlessly, the other seemed to fall. He was sweating with exertion, his wand hand shaking. He'd finally got the whole thing free of the mud, when—"Control, control!" Snape shouted in his ear and the rock dropped with a loud splash.He had tried so hard to get this. His control was fine, if only he could speak! He finally broke down, slammed his wand against his thigh, and vented his frustration. "It's not as though we're doing a lot of dueling in this line of work. So if you'll just explain why I must—""No." Snape cut him off. "There is no why. I can teach you nothing more today." And with that, Snape turned his back and Disapparated.Harry slumped to the ground, disappointment and exhaustion overtaking him. Just a small break, and he'd get back to it.His practice went slightly better after that, but he still couldn't maintain any sort of control. He dropped his head onto his arms and stifled an exhausted sob."You are so certain it cannot be done," Snape spoke from behind him.Harry sat up, pressing a hand to his aching head. "This is impossible! It might work for feathers, and maybe a wand, but—""Do you hear nothing I say?"Harry shook his head. He heard everything Snape said. He dreamt about Snape's voice on a regular basis. "All right, let me try again," he sighed, struggling to his feet."No. You are done with trying. Do, or do not. There is no try."Harry stifled a hysterical snort. "But that's all I have. I can only try. Maybe— maybe I don't have enough magic.""Enough magic?" Snape rounded on him. "Are you not a wizard? Did you not graduate from the finest school of magic in Britain? There is an overabundance of magic, but you don't have the will to use it! Magic surrounds us and binds us. You must feel the magic around you; here, between you, me, the trees, the water, everywhere. Even between your mind and that rock."Pointing his wand, Snape effortlessly lifted the boulder into the air, light as a feather. Harry stared."I don't, I don't believe it.""That is why you fail.""Why did we never learn this in school?""I can't answer that, Potter. Ask the school governors why you must unlearn what you have learned."Harry steeled himself to try again. No— not try. Do. He pointed his wand, closed his eyes, and could almost see the magic around him. Master Snape was a strong force to his left, and the rock was a massive odd lump in front of him. He pulled the magic to himself and poured it into his wand.He opened his eyes to see the rock floating in mid-air. He turned and grinned at Snape, who clapped his hands in mock applause. "Well done, Mr Potter."He gently returned the boulder to its home. "Wow! I feel like I can do anything now."Snape's look turned calculating. "Do you," he said. He conjured a rock-table and placed an innocent-looking book on it. "Now, tell me about this curse."Harry approached the book carefully. He waved his wand over it, checking for traps, then flipped it over with the tip of his wand. Nothing hidden underneath. He picked it up gingerly, shaking it to see if anything fell out from the pages. A simple Finite had no effect. He then tried spell after spell, but was unable to transfigure or unravel any part of it. He even tried closing his eyes and feeling the magic around it.To no avail. "There's something there, I just can't find the source of it. Definitely dark, though." Harry glanced up at Snape, who was surveying the scene in his normal, inscrutable way. "Can I get a hint?"But instead of his typical snark, Snape shook his head. "I'm sorry, Potter. This one puzzles me as well. Sometimes trying is all we have."Harry laughed, and even Snape smiled.And that was how it went between them; a lot of learning, a little tension now and again, but always something new.One evening as they were both reading in companionable silence, Snape turned a page and chuckled. Harry looked up."Just an old schoolmate from Hogwarts making a fool of himself in print." He waved a hand. "No matter.""I hadn't realized you went to Hogwarts, Master Snape," he said, looking back at the text he was studying. Snape rarely shared anything about his personal life and Harry was intensely curious."Most learned wizards in Britain have done." Snape was again absorbed in his journal.Harry turned a page. "Did you have Professor Slughorn for Potions?""What are you asking, Potter?" Snape had laid down his reading and pinned Harry with a sharp look."I was wondering something, sir. Did you know my parents?"Snape hesitated only a second. "I did. We were in the same year."Harry was thunderstruck. Snape was the same age as his parents? "You knew my dad?""Yes, of course. We've worked together. But I'm not surprised your father didn't mention me," he said. "We were... not friends."Oh. Harry suddenly realised that Snape had never, in all the times they had discussed his father's death, mentioned that he knew him. But they had to have crossed paths, most Unspeakables did. "Then why are you helping me find out how he died?"Snape looked indignant. "The key phrase in that sentence is that I am helping you. Which is what you and I agreed I would do." He relaxed then, and added, "I am also interested in bringing the perpetrator to justice, should that become an option. And," he said, finally, "I believe your mother would have wanted me to help. She loved your father very much. They had been together since our 6th year."Harry knew that his parents were sweethearts in school, but to hear it like this— he missed both of them more than ever right now."You knew my mum, too?""Your mother was a very talented witch, excellent at Charms and Potions. Very likely the most talented witch in a generation."Harry glowed with pleasure. "I always thought so." His mother had been gone for more than 10 years now, and he still missed her. "Did you know her very well in school?""Yes, I—" Snape stopped, and closed his eyes for a moment. Harry waited. Snape finally closed his journal and looked up. "I knew her quite well. We were friends before we went to Hogwarts and remained close until her death."Harry could only stare. "Why didn't I ever meet you when I was a kid?"Snape leaned back in his chair. "Part of the reason was your father.""He didn't like you?"Snape smirked. "I didn't like him, either. Unfortunately, a more formative reason was a falling out your mother and I had during our school years." He held up a hand. "Before you ask, it was my doing.""I'm sorry to hear it," Harry said quietly. This seemed a painful memory for Snape. It was also the most personal conversation he and Snape had ever had, and Harry didn't want it to end."Lily was a very kind and generous person. She forgave me eventually, but not until after you were born. There was a threat to you, and she and I worked together to keep you safe.""You— you did?""Yes, and don't think you owe me anything for it. Your debt is long paid." With that, he stood up. "Enough of this maudlin reminiscing. If we are to revisit the scene of your near miss in Grampian tomorrow, we will need our rest."While Harry agreed, he stayed where he was, lost in thought, long after Snape had retired.Harry stumbled through the door after Snape, so very tired. They had Apparated north, beat their heads and bodies against layers on layers of charms and curses, and then Apparated hundreds of miles back again. No snow this time of year, but the chill wind had almost made up for it. The relief of finally reaching home and being safe was so overwhelming, he slumped to the floor just to the left of the door, head on his knees, unable to go any further.He knew Snape was just as disappointed and exhausted as he was, and he admired his Master for staying upright as he absently watched his feet walking past."Who could build a thing like that?" Harry still couldn't quite believe the elaborate scheme they had found."Someone who wanted to protect something more than life itself. Perhaps..." Snape paused, sounding too tired to finish his thought."More than life?" It made no sense. But nothing did right now."Potter." The feet stopped in front of him and a hand reached out to help him stand. "Sleep. The morning is always brighter than the evening.""Right," he muttered. Couldn't be darker, he thought, tumbling into his bed.Harry wandered out to the kitchen the next morning to find a note from Snape saying he would return tomorrow. It was nothing out of the ordinary, but he wondered if Snape had learned more from their outing yesterday than he'd said. Still, Harry had plenty to do and kept himself busy all day.As the next day wore on, however, he was more and more worried. Why hadn't Snape asked him to come along? Was whatever he was doing too dangerous for an apprentice? What if Snape was in trouble? Not that he could imagine Snape ever being outclassed, but still. He worried.As the sun went down, Harry was getting desperate. He had to figure out where Snape had gone, but he had no idea where to start. Finally, gathering his courage, he opened the door to Snape's private rooms. There had to be something there, a scribbled note, an X on a map, something.But Snape's rooms were frustratingly tidy. He wandered through them, hand trailing across an empty desk, along rows of books on orderly shelves. He opened a door to find an uncluttered bedroom, bed neatly made; a lavatory, similarly spick-and-span. He took another turn around the room, methodically opening drawers, pulling out books, looking for any clue. When he pulled back the draperies to check the window ledge, he was surprised to find a door instead of the window he knew should be there.Without stopping to think, he opened it. He jumped back, his heart suddenly beating hard and fast.There was a man hanging in Snape's cupboard!"Hello," the man said."H— Hello," Harry replied, stunned. The man was an older gentleman, pleasant looking and comfortably dressed, but most oddly pinned to the wall."I wonder," the man said, amiably, "if I might trouble you for a glass of water. I am quite thirsty.""Who— what— you're hanging in Snape's cupboard!""Yes, I do appear to be." He smiled. "I've been here for some time. I would very much like some water, if it's not too much trouble.""Look, do you know where he is? Snape, I mean?""I may—" he said, then stopped to cough, politely turning his head slightly as he couldn't use his hands to cover his mouth. "A glass of water?"Harry rushed to the lavatory and filled a small glass with water. He rushed back and held it gently to the man's lips. The man didn't seem to be concerned at all about his odd situation, but he was very thirsty and drank the water in a single gulp."Thank you, that was quite refreshing.""Now, what about Snape? Do you know where he went?""Well, I'm not exactly certain—" He stopped to cough again. "Perhaps another sip of water?"Harry filled another glass and the man drank it down."You are too kind. Now tell me your name, my son, so I can thank you properly.""Harry, Harry Potter," he blurted out. "But what about Snape? What do you know about where he's gone?""Now, I can't tell these things to just anyone. I'm sure you understand." The man spoke slowly, as though he'd just taken a powerful calming draught. "Tell me, Harry. Why do you seek Master Snape?"Because he could be dead was the first thing that popped into Harry's head, but he knew that wasn't the reason. If anyone could take care of himself, it was Snape. "I— well, I came to him for help when I was on the trail of the killers of my father." Which was true, although Harry had long since accepted that the trail was cold. Still, he'd stayed, and he'd barely admitted to himself why. "And I've remained as an apprentice to Master Snape.""Snape's apprentice, how nice. Of course I can tell you." The man winked at him, smiling. "I believe he said—" The man stopped and cleared his throat. "Perhaps just one more swallow of water. I'm sure I'll be fine with just a bit more."Harry filled the glass once more, thinking it would have been faster for the man to come down off the wall and get it himself, but if this got him the answers he wanted, he was happy to do it. As he gently tipped the cup to let the man drink the last of the water, however, he felt a great shudder of magic. The man began thrashing back and forth, and within a few seconds, he had knocked Harry back and burst from the cupboard. The glass thumped across the carpet.The man was suddenly much taller and broader than he had seemed hanging on the wall. Harry staggered backward. "What— who—" He reached for his wand, only to have it snatched away."I am Lord Voldemort the Deathless!" the man shouted, knocking Harry to the floor and pointing his own wand at him. Harry's heart was in his throat! "Now you will sooner see your own ears than Severus Snape!" He Disapparated with a crack.Harry pulled himself up to sit cross-legged in the middle of the room, his head still reeling.Snape was absolutely going to kill him.Harry woke several hours later with a start. He'd fallen asleep on the sofa after spending the previous night alternating between beating himself up and staring at the front door, dreading the moment Snape would return. Hoping he would. Hating himself. It had not been his best evening.But then he had a strange dream, where he was talking to Snape and— he fumbled in the pocket of his jeans and found Kuki. He stared at the little doll. It couldn't be— could it?He went into the kitchen and gave Kuki a bit of food. Just as he always had, Kuki's eyes began to shine and the little doll came to life."Kuki, I don't know what to do," he began."Tell me what troubles you," Kuki replied, and just like that, Harry could hear Snape in the little doll's voice."Master Snape?" he asked.Harry had never seen the little doll roll its eyes, and he was surprised to see that it could. "Yes, Potter. It's me. Congratulations, you've figured it out."Harry almost dropped him onto the floor. "It is you!""Yes, yes. Now, what is the trouble? I had thought these constant interruptions to my day were done with years ago."These constant—? Harry wanted to ask all about that, but— "Did you know there was a man hanging in your cupboard?"Kuki, or rather Snape, went still. "What have you done." His voice was deadly even."Er. I let him out?""You— let him out. Right. Tell me you're joking. No, you're not joking.""No, sorry. And—" Harry sighed. "I sort of dropped my wand. He took it.""And it only gets better. What in Merlin's name were you thinking, Potter?""I was trying to find you, you said you'd be back yesterday—""My delay is entirely beside the point. I was speaking of you letting that madman out of his trap. Your mother and I spent months setting up twelve levels of charms—""I realize that, I knew it as soon as—""As soon as he took your wand and escaped?""Yeah. Then."Harry was very glad that Snape wasn't here at this very moment. Kuki's gaze was damning enough."I assume he was angry.""A bit, yeah. Who is he, anyway?""A very powerful and power-hungry Dark wizard. It was a lucky guess that let us trap him twenty years ago. This time, I'm afraid we'll have to do it the hard way.""How can I help?" Harry felt defenceless without his wand, miles away from Snape."Meet me at the usual spot."The bog. Harry nodded, then he wondered if Snape could see him through Kuki's little doll eyes. "Okay, I could be there before sundown. But I'll need to get a new wand. I'll see if I can get to the Ministry, maybe Ron could take me to Diagon Alley—""No— there's no time." He paused for a moment, then said, "Go to the downstairs loo. There's a small compartment directly beneath and behind the mirror. You'll find a cloak hidden there, an invisibility cloak."Now it was Harry's turn to roll his eyes. "As soon as I have a wand, I can use a disillusionment charm. What good—""This cloak is different. Your mother gave it to me to help me to watch over you.""But that's impossible, no cloak could last ten year—""Harry.""Yes, sir.""I'll see you in a few hours. Speak of this to no one."The cloak turned out to be as promised, flowing like water and providing perfect invisibility, unlike anything he'd ever seen. Harry slipped easily into Diagon Alley behind a couple with three young children. After dropping a heavy bag of galleons at Ollivander's (ten and half inches, springy) and making a quick dodge back to Snape's house to shrink a few supplies, he was Apparating to the bogs.As he travelled, Harry resisted the urge to think about any of this, focussing only on one task, then the next. Kuki stayed in his pocket, but Harry was preternaturally aware of him. He'd known Master Snape for the past year as a teacher, and that knowledge was now juxtaposed over Kuki, his little doll, the gift from his mother to help him after she had left him forever. Kuki, who had become his friend, who knew his fears and hopes, and—He kept moving, trying harder not to think.The sun was low in the sky when he finally reached his destination and saw Snape emerge from the misty trees."Potter."Harry stared at him, seeing through new eyes. It was the same black hair, black eyes in a pale face— "I carried you in my pocket for years!"Snape was indifferent to Harry's outrage. "I beg to differ, Mr Potter. You carried a charmed doll.""That you answered every time I needed you!"Snape's eyes flashed. "I had promised your mother I would."Harry sat down hard on the nearest rock, suddenly overwhelmed by the force of his mother's love. And how much Snape had done for her."You— she—" He looked up. "She must not have thought much of my dad."Snape's face softened. "It was not a lack of faith in his abilities. She feared he would be devastated by grief."Harry nodded, remembering those first lonely years. "But what about you? Didn't you care?"Snape sat down next to him on the rock and stared out into the mist. "More than I can ever say."He loved her, Harry realized. And he had somehow been there for her son, sometimes a dozen times a day. Always there with to help with his homework, or just to listen to how Quidditch tryouts had gone. The times he'd been there just when Harry needed—"Hey! You were there when I escaped from the Black Forest. That was you, on the broom!"Snape laughed. "You told me later I was tall, dark, and handsome.""Hey, you are tall, dark, and handsome!"Snape looked at him with a mix of pity and derision.Harry decided he knew when to quit. "Fine, I wasn't the brightest kid, you knew it then, you know it now. So tell me about the guy Voldemort that I accidently set free. I know it's going to be terrible news; I might as well know.""Terrible is an appropriate word. Your mother died in an attempt to defeat him.""What?!""Which is why we will not let him escape--" There was a crack of Apparition and Snape leapt to his feet.Voldemort stood on the other side of the clearing, his wand pointed toward Snape."Severus, it's been so long," he drawled, obviously pleased with himself. Harry was all too aware it was his own wand dangling lazily from Voldemort's hand."How did he—" Harry wondered aloud, and then he realized— "You used me as bait!""I did no such thing," Snape said out of the corner of this mouth. "I'm the bait."Then with a flourish, Snape unfurled his wand and stepped forward, shouting, "Avada Kedavra!"Voldemort looked as though he'd been hit with a light breeze. He laughed, "Severus, I'm disappointed in you." He flicked his wand, and Snape began sliding toward him, silent and rigid.Harry took a step forward to help, and then stopped when he realized that Snape's feet weren't moving. Voldemort was using a Stunning spell or a Summoning spell. Or both."Don't worry, I'm not going to kill him, Harry. I'm going to keep him in a beautiful cupboard I have picked out especially. Underneath the stairs, I think. Perhaps if he is very obedient and doesn't scream too loudly, I'll let him out to brew a potion, perhaps once a year. Or once every twenty years." Voldemort laughed then, a horrible, high-pitched laugh.Harry clenched his jaw, using every muscle in his body to keep from running to his Master. Voldemort turned Snape to stand at his side, and Harry could only stare, utterly helpless, at Snape's wooden face. Then, in that split second when Snape's eyes met his, he heard Accio your wand!. It was Snape's voice in his head!Harry spared a thought for this new aspect of Legilimency before he focused his magic on the wand clutched in Voldemort's hand. With a shot, the wand flew into his hand."Let go of him, you bastard!" But Harry hadn't needed to say it, because as soon as Voldemort was wandless, the spell holding Snape ended."As you wish," Voldemort said, stepping back. Harry kept his wand trained on him, several wordless curses rolling in the back of his mind. He glanced at Snape who had his hands on his knees, his chest heaving.When he looked back, Voldemort had reached into his pocket. "I would have let you live, Harry. I did appreciate the water," he said, his voice fading as he Portkey'd away.Harry hurried to Snape's side, helping him to sit down."What were you thinking? You wanted him to come after you?"Snape pressed a hand to his chest and tried to stop wheezing. "That was the idea.""But you used the Killing Curse, and he—" Harry was still shocked that Snape would use the curse, and more surprised that it had no effect."I'm aware of that. I had hoped that destroying the diadem would weaken him." Snape coughed, and Harry tightened his grip on Snape's waist to keep him upright.Snape turned just then, and Harry became suddenly aware of just how closely they were pressed together. Heart beating far too fast, he raised a hand to Snape's face, cupping his cheek, just as Snape had done to him when he found him in the Black forest. "You're safe," he said, and Snape met his eyes.Harry couldn't help but place a kiss on his cheek. When their eyes met again, Harry very deliberately placed a kiss on his lips. Pulling back slowly, he said, "Could you please not do that again? I like you safe."Snape snorted, "We're hardly safe. We'll need a phalanx of Aurors when we go back to the house and gather our possessions." He slipped an arm around Harry's waist, and they sat in a comfortable embrace."You think I'm an idiot. For letting him out.""I do not. I had not been renewing the charms as I should have done, and he is a very powerful Legilimens. You likely had no idea you were following his suggestions. And," he added, "that you even think so means I've been remiss in not informing you that you've completed your Apprenticeship.""I have? Shouldn't there be, I don't know, a ceremony?""No. However, I will tell you that you did very well today. You're still getting your feet under you, but I have every confidence you will be a very powerful wizard. You have the physical grace your father had, and much of your mother's talent. They would both be proud.""I— thanks," Harry said, finally. "So, why didn't you tell me to be an Auror, when I was dithering over what to do with my life?""You didn't ask.""Oh." He turned to Snape, then. "I stopped talking to Kuki my sixth year, didn't I?""Why do you think I went to teach at Hogwarts during your seventh year— for my health?"You missed me?""I missed you."Harry was half joking, but Snape's answer was more than serious. Harry's heart skipped a beat, then he grinned. "Because I think you've discharged your duty to my mum. Not that I didn't appreciate it, but I'm of age now. I was of age three years ago. You didn't have to take me on as your apprentice.""I am aware of that. However, I have had a stake in your survival for many years. When you came to me for help directly, how could I say no?""Are you always going to be this nice to me?""I can almost guarantee I will not.""Good," Harry said, and cupped Snape's face one more time. This time, the kiss went on for some time, and was far more intimate than any kiss Harry had ever had. Snape's mouth was soft and knowing, and Harry surrendered to it, their bodies warming against the chill of the misty bog."So tell me," he asked, a little breathless, given what Snape's mouth was doing to his neck. "How much could Kuki see and hear in my bed?""It depended," Snape said, and Harry shivered feeling his voice vibrate against his skin. "It was difficult at times to get all the details when one was forgotten in a pocket for days on end.""But sometimes you were on my pillow.""Mmmm, yes, I was. Every time you— well, you made very adorable noises when that girl from— where was she from?""Durmstrang. Her name was Sveta. You heard that?""Oh, yes. And Mr Longbottom has some impressive," he paused to kiss Harry's mouth, "talents.""You dirty little," he pulled away and stammered, "doll!"Snape inspected his fingernails."That's it, I'm throwing Kuki into the bog."Snape rolled his eyes, looking surprisingly like the doll as he did. "It's a family heirloom, Potter. I'll show you how to remove the charm, if you insist.""Oh, I insist," he said, pulling Snape to his feet. "I definitely insist.""Aw, Gran, does there have to be kissing?""Yes, dear, they kissed quite a bit, I think." She turned a page, and then another page, nodding.""Well, as long as it's true love, I guess it's all right.""You're sure?""Yeah, you can keep reading."Days followed days, hours chased hours; a whole year went by. And with that, I've spared you a 47-page section on Death Eater politics. The "good parts" version really has a lot of advantages.I remembered a lot about the story, but when I read the book later, there was a lot I'd forgotten. Either that, or there were whole sections that Gran changed all around or just made up. I remember there was a lot of chasing and killing and kidnapping and reuniting, and they had to find all of these cursed objects before they could kill Voldemort, and then get this extra-special wand from Baba Yaga— anyway, none of that was in the book at all.And there was one part in particular that really made me wonder. The part where they figure out why that Voldemort guy couldn't die wasn't there. I mean, the crux of the story, the key to everything, just wasn't anywhere in the book. Even now, I can't remember the details. But what I do remember well is how Harry's mum and Snape worked together to figure out the secret."He'll have to eat something, eventually. And even the smallest sip of water will put him under the influence of the Veritaserum.""But he hasn't had a drop since he arrived. It's been a week, Severus! He should be dead.""Yes." Snape rubbed his chin. "And he clearly believes that won't happen. We'll need to strengthen the charms we're using to hold him.""If he truly cannot die, I think we'll need to make them permanent.""Are you mad? They'll have to be constantly refreshed. Where do you suggest we keep him, Lily? In your pantry, where your husband or your son will find him?""No, no, you're right, of course. Look, I'll get the key to the Potter vault. We'll need to buy a place. You can live there.""Lily, no.""Yes." Lily laid a hand on his arm. "Yes, it's fine.""All right, we'll talk about it.""Severus, what would I do without you?""You'd probably be a lot better off."As I tucked the book onto my shelf, I noticed a page tucked into the back cover. I wondered if it wasn't some bookmark she had used, but instead found it was a handwritten note addressed to Hermione— my Gran's name. I unfolded it carefully.It was dated decades ago, when my Gran must have been a young woman. In a sloppy script, it read, "Great work! All those hours in the library were worth it." And then, "I'm sending you Kuki; thought you might like him as a keepsake. He has a much sweeter temperament than the real thing, but you know that." It was signed, "Harry".I tucked it back into the book, a smile on my face.I might not have any of Gran's magic, but that note was the next best thing. THE END
22320	Forever Love	{ "Archive Warning": "Major Character Death", "Category": "Multi", "Characters": "Duo Maxwell, Heero Yuy, Hirde Schbeicker", "Fandom": "Gundam Wing", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Teen And Up Audiences", "author": "by Lys ap Adin (lysapadin)", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2001-07-25T00:00:00", "words": "2,306", "Additional Tags": "Angst, Death, Supernatural - Freeform, possible fangirl japanese", "Relationship": null, "Character": null, "Relationships": "Duo/Heero, Duo/Hirde", "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	Duo stared intently at the boy lying next to him. "I love you, you know," he commented, almost casually.Heero frowned back at him, the same wary expression that always greeted Duo's declarations of sentiment flowing easily into his eyes. "Why do you say that?""Because it's true." Duo grinned. "And because it drives you crazy."Heero glared at him. "We're fifteen. What can we possibly know about love?"Duo shrugged at him. "Enough to recognize it when it happens." He leaned closer to Heero, nuzzling his lover's neck. "Ready for a second round yet?""Are you sure you're not mistaking love for horniness?" Heero asked, responding to Duo's overtures with a willingness that did not detract from his determination to extract an answer from Duo."I'm very sure... ooh, do that again." Duo hummed happily as Heero complied. "They're very separate, but not incompatible, things. I really do love you. Forever.""Forever's a stupid thing to promise in the middle of a war," Heero grunted. He bit his lower lip as Duo went after one of his more sensitive spots. "What happens if I die?""Then I'll spend the rest of my life being miserable without you," Duo said, completely serious even if staying utterly focused was nearly impossible with Heero's fingers doing that. "When I say forever, I mean it.""Aa." Heero let the conversation lapse in favor of doing other, more pleasing, things with his mouth, but he didn't stop thinking.After a few minutes, when they were both recovering their breath, he looked over at Duo. "I love you, you know," he said, mimicking the statement that had ignited the conversation in the first place. He paused, and added, "Forever," with all the solemnity he used when accepting a mission.Duo chuckled throatily, lacing his fingers with Heero's. "I was wondering how long it would take you to figure that out," he murmured, not completely able to conceal his surprise and pleasure with flippancy. He sighed, closing his eyes. "Forever..." Heero was dead.Quatre had thanked whatever higher powers existed that he had been with Duo when Trowa's terse report came across the encrypted channels used solely by the gundam pilots. It wasn't that he particularly feared that Deathscythe's pilot would do any harm to himself; rather, Quatre was more afraid of the Shinigami glitter in Duo's eyes as Wufei decoded the message again, and again, in hopes that there had been some mistake. Together he and Wufei had managed to stop Duo from climbing into Deathscythe and extracting his vengeance from OZ in the bloodiest way possible. Duo might value the gift of life too much to throw it away in a pointless suicide, but Quatre suspected that the braid-wearing teenager might be willing to sell it for a very high price, if he could take enough of the soldiers who'd caused Heero's death with him. Wasn't it called suicide by cop?He and Wufei, though, managed to talk Duo through the worst moments, and if there was a darker note to his laughter (when he finally learned to laugh again) and a pained light in his eyes that never fully went away, none of them said anything about it. It was plain enough to see that he and Heero had shared something deeper than anyone had really expected, and no one grudged him the right to mourn, as long as he still completed his missions successfully. Everyone knew that he'd go back to his old self at some point, when he stopped hurting so much.Eventually they were right. Heero was dead, and the wars were over, and Duo found himself on L2, working hand in hand with Hirde in a salvage yard. Somewhere along the line, the suggestion had been made that they ought to live together to cut down on the expenses of the rent. Somewhere along the line, they started sleeping together, and at some point it just made sense to go ahead and get married and be done with it.That's how Duo found himself standing in the neighborhood church, wearing a rental tuxedo that itched uncomfortably, pledging to love, honor, and cherish Hirde for the rest of his life, while the other surviving pilots, a few other veterans and dignitaries, and a passel of the journalists who couldn't get enough of the rebel heroes watched. They exchanged rings, and kissed each other chastely, then promenaded down the aisle proudly.Duo frowned out the window of the rented limousine as they rode from the church to the restaurant they'd rented for the reception. The simulated "sky" of the colony was darkening alarmingly, a sure precursor for the mists of water that would pass for rain on the colony. "Damn it, babe, you let me forget to hack into the system so I could make sure the weather would be nice today," he muttered unhappily.Hirde frowned. "No, I didn't... you did it last night, remember? I stood over your shoulder and watched you do it."Duo shrugged. "Must have been some technician who caught it, then. I never was the master hacker. That was Heero's job."Hirde frowned harder at the mention of Heero, whose ghost occupied too many of Duo's memories and conversations. She'd never asked Duo about his and Heero's relationship. She didn't want to know. "Oh, look, we're here," she said brightly, as the limousine pulled up to the restaurant. Quatre examined his punch suspiciously, wondering if Duo had been allowed a hand in its making. He wouldn't put it past Duo to have doctored the punch, just to make sure that everyone had a good time at the wedding."Relax," Wufei advised him, taking a sip of his own drink. "There's an open bar, so Duo didn't have any need to spike it. Besides, Sally has it on good authority that Hirde made sure he didn't get anywhere near the punchbowl.""You can't blame me for being careful," Quatre retorted. "Remember what happened to me and Trowa?"Wufei shuddered faintly. "Too well. It was your own fault, though, that you permitted the DJ to set up karaoke.""Don't remind me, please," Trowa said, wincing.Quatre looked defensive. "My sisters are wonderful people! It's not their fault that most of them can't carry a tune in a bucket."The three shared a laugh at the memory of the twist for the absurd Trowa and Quatre's reception had taken."What's so funny?" Duo sauntered over to the three as he made his rounds through the room, thanking people for attending and accepting their good wishes."Just remembering old times," Quatre chuckled. He smiled at Duo. "Congratulations, Duo... and the best of luck to you and Hirde." Wufei and Trowa chorused similar things.Duo nodded. "Thanks, guys." He exchanged a few more pleasantries with them, and moved off to another group.Wufei broke the silence in his wake first. "It should have been Heero up there with him."Quatre took a sip of punch. "Yeah.""Do you think she knows that yet?" Trowa asked."I hope not." Quatre blinked, hearing the low growl outside. "Thunder?""I would have thought Maxwell would have fixed the weather on his own wedding day," Wufei grumbled. The simulated thunder continued to rumble throughout the wedding supper, and the toasts afterward, at points drowning out whatever sentimental or humorous anecdote was being told. Around the room, people murmured quietly about the strange weather, wondering who had programmed the colony's weather systems for such a realistic sounding storm. Wufei protested his innocence loudly when someone suggested that he (as best man) had set up the storm as a practical joke.Eventually, the restaurant staff cleared away the remains of the supper, and rearranged the tables, pushing them back from the dance floor. The DJ hushed everyone, then announced, "It's time for the part everyone's been waiting for... the first dance!" Everyone clapped politely as Duo and Hirde walked out to the center of the cleared dance floor. As the first strains of the music began to play, Duo moved to take Hirde into his arms.At that moment, thunder crashed, and the lights flickered, plunging the room into darkness for a few chaotic moments as people shrieked and the restaurant's staff attempted to calm the guests. Then the lights returned to life, and people murmured and whispered excitedly about what could have caused the power surge.Then Hirde screamed, a long quivering wail of fear. People turned to look at her, and seeing her wide eyes fixed on the back of the room, followed her gaze.A slight, skinny figure stood in the door. He was wearing an old flight suit that had seen better days: it hung in tatters off his frame, singed in many places, and spotted with dark blotches in others. The figure's skin was waxy pale beneath smudges of grease and the same dark patches, in the places where it was intact. Other places showed huge gashes and burned places, crusted over with dried blood. The figure held a helmet under one arm; it was badly blackened. Nothing remained of the face shield but a few jagged shards. A deep crack ran up one side of the helmet. His face was mostly intact, with only one deep gash running across his cheek and into his hairline, and it was as expressionless as it had tended to be in life.The room was utterly silent save for the sullen complaint of the thunderstorm as the figure of Heero Yuy stumbled forward into the room, making straight for the dance floor. People scrambled out of the apparition's way, whimpering as the scent of burnt wiring, blood, and death followed in his wake.Hirde screamed again, gathering her long white skirts and scrambling off the dance floor, only stopping when she had her back pressed firmly against a wall with no further retreat available.Heero ignored her, as did the groom standing transfixed in the middle of the dance floor, his eyes wide and disbelieving, and fearful. It was impossible to mistake this apparition of Heero for the living, breathing boy he had loved. As Heero lurched closer, he could catalogue each separate injury, counting no less than three distinctly mortal wounds. He could even see the grey tissue of Heero's brain beneath a blood-matted clump of unruly brown hair.The only thing about Heero that Duo could recognize was the pair of blazing Prussian eyes fastened intently on his face.The thing that was Heero stopped a scant few feet from Duo, seemingly waiting for him to do something.Duo swallowed, moistening his lips. "Heero?" His voice broke on the second syllable, quavering with some unrecognizable mixture of emotions.The specter nodded slightly, and rasped a single word. "Forever." Then he lifted a hand, holding it out to Duo in a gesture that was half command and half plea.Duo placed his own hand (only shaking a little bit), in Heero's, shuddering at the feeling of the cold flesh. Heero nodded curtly at this, placing his other hand at Duo's waist, and swept Duo into a dance as music began to play.The spectators, frozen by the horror of what they were seeing, could only see that Duo was clutching at Heero's arm with a white-knuckled grip (whether from fear or to keep his dead lover from vanishing, no one could say), and that he stared steadily at Heero as they spun faster and faster around the dance floor.The dance went on and on, and while Heero was tireless, they could see Duo struggling to keep up the pace, panting for breath and becoming flushed, and now clinging to Heero just to stay balanced, perhaps. Where Duo stumbled, Heero kept him upright and moving as the music pounded on, its tempo demanding and unforgiving until the very last, when Heero whirled Duo to a stop. They stared at each other silently for a long moment, communicating in a language known only to them, then Heero kissed Duo firmly.Duo's eyes slowly fluttered closed as the flush left his cheeks, and his fingers loosened their grasp on Heero's arm. The guests could see his knees beginning to buckle and sag as the kiss went on and on as the storm raged outside.Then the thunder crashed again, rattling the entire building into another power outage.No one moved during the long, tense moments of darkness, or did more than gasp shallowly for breath, until the lights flickered back on.The ghastly apparition had disappeared. Duo Maxwell was alone on the dance floor, sprawled in an ungainly twist of arms and legs and braid on the polished hardwood, pale and still. It was another minute of staring before anyone could bring himself to cross the empty space and confirm what the complete stillness of his body indicated. Duo was dead.A real rainstorm, not a glitch in a colony's weather system, pounded the soil of the graveyard on Earth where the first two gundam pilots where buried (even if, in Heero's case, the gravestone only marked an empty casket).The two low stones stood side by side, as the three surviving pilots had insisted they ought, and now a quiet vigil was being held for the two."Do you think it really happened?" Quatre asked quietly.Neither Trowa nor Wufei had to ask what he meant."'There are more things in heaven and earth...'" Wufei said softly. This seemed a good enough answer--the best they were likely to get--so Quatre shrugged. Eventually he and Trowa turned away, heading for their car. Wufei stood a while longer, looking at the rain-soaked graves. "Be happy, you two, wherever you are... you earned it," he murmured. Then he too turned away, walking to the car where Sally was waiting for him.
81198	Policy	{ "Archive Warning": null, "Category": "F/M", "Characters": "Rupert Giles, Buffy Summers", "Fandom": "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Explicit", "author": "by nevernever (elucidate_this)", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "2010-04-19", "published": "2010-04-18T00:00:00", "words": "654", "Additional Tags": "Dubious Consent", "Relationship": "Rupert Giles/Buffy Summers", "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": "Underage Sex, Rape/Non-Con", "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	When he'd first heard of the practice he'd been disgusted. He'd argued with his professor, his father, the head of the council only to be told over and over that he had no choice."This is how it has always, and will always be done. Slayers have needs and they cannot be allowed to overcome the girls' lives. This is the only reliable way of ensuring there aren't...situations down the line."Before he'd left for Sunnydale Travers had pulled him aside to make sure he'd be able to go through with it."We need to know that you will do this Rupert. Her last watcher hadn't the stomach for it, had he not died, we would have replaced him. If you can't do this, you can't go to her."Agreeing in the abstract was different than actually going through with anything, and it wasn't until her third week with him that he decided it was time.It started as a normal post-patrol massage. As he rubbed her shoulders he let his fingers occasionally stray to the swells of her breasts, ghost over her nipples. The contact was fleeting and slight, but frequent enough that her nipples tightened and she made a small questioning noise."Just adding on to our cool down routine. The council has strict policies about what Slayers need to do after patrol."She nodded and let her head drop as he worked a particularly tough knot in her neck.He worked her neck and back and shoulders until she was limp and grinning. Then he moved to crouch in front of her."Buffy I need to rub down your legs. Can you take your pants off?"She blushed, but did as he asked.He rubbed and worked her thigh muscles until she was moaning, legs loose and open, eyes closed, head tilted back against the hard wood of the library chair.He brought his hands to her knees and started to slide them gently towards the apex of her thighs. When his thumbs hit the cotton of her panties her head snapped up."Giles?""Council policy Buffy, just relax." And then he was pushing the crotch of her panties to one side and stroking her outer lips and she started to squirm."Seriously Giles, what are you doing?""Buffy. Stop fighting. This is the way things have been done for centuries. Relax. I'll make you feel good." His stomach turned, he was the dirty old man he'd always feared he'd be, sliding his dirty old man fingers into the untouched cunt of a beautiful young girl.Her next protest morphed into a moan as his thumb found her clit and began to rub. Hard.Soon she was bucking and moaning and trying to get closer as he worked her with fingers inside and outside. She was drenched and so were his hands. She smelled incredible and looked incredible and he had to dip his head in to taste her.She wailed as he began to suck her clit and then all he was conscious of was warm and wet and delicious and beautiful and perfect and the noises she was making and the tension in her thighs and then she was coming in pulses and a flutter of muscles and great sobbing gasps of 'oh' and 'God' and 'Giles.'And then it was over, and he realized he was hard and she was blushing and her face was anxious and he straightened her panties and handed her pants. And he watched her gather her things and told her he'd see her tomorrow.She had barely left the room before he was fumbling with his zipper and grabbing at his cock and pulling and pulling and coming and coming.Later, when he was straightening the library before leaving he found a permission slip to go on a field trip to the zoo and he bolted for the bathroom to be sick.
53429	Lesson Unlearned	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "M/M", "Characters": "Clark Kent, Lex Luthor", "Fandom": "Smallville", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Explicit", "author": "by Betrue (beet)", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2010-01-19T00:00:00", "words": "60", "Additional Tags": "Porn Battle, Lessons, Fanart, Manip, Bondage, Green Kryptonite, mini!fic", "Relationship": "Clark Kent/Lex Luthor", "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": "Porn Battle II (The Rematch)", "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	Lex wants Clark to be safe. That's why he tests him. That's why he stepped into the villainous role he hates. As much as he teaches Clark, there are some lessons that seem to go unlearned. And though it frustrates Lex, he also has to admit that there is a distinctive upside to Superman's occasional failures to elude his traps.
54944	Blue Shirt	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "M/M", "Characters": null, "Fandom": "Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Teen And Up Audiences", "author": "by pushkin666", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2010-01-23T00:00:00", "words": "100", "Additional Tags": "Slash, Drabble", "Relationship": "James T. Kirk/Leonard McCoy", "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	Jim watches from the bed as Bones dresses for work. He wonders how long it will be before he notices his blue shirt is missing."Jim, where have you put my shirt?" And yes there's the glare."Shirt ? what shirt?" He attempts to look innocent."My blue shirt." Before Kirk can say anything the bed sheets are ripped away, the shirt pulled from Kirk's hands."Damn it Jim, I'm a doctor not a stripper!" Bones growls at him.Kirk pouts. It's a pretty image though and he takes a moment. Maybe later he can persuade Bones to strip for him.
32907	Somehow This Is All Your	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "M/M", "Characters": "Bob Bryar, Brian Schechter, Gerard Way", "Fandom": "My Chemical Romance", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Explicit", "author": "by J (jaywright), vesna (mrsronweasley)", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2009-12-20T00:00:00", "words": "1,908", "Additional Tags": "Threesome", "Relationship": "Bob Bryar/Brian Schechter/Gerard Way", "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	Gerard would totally be their accidental third wheel on some late hotel night, and then he'd just kind of end up sticking around to watch them fuck, noting the way Brian's hands would clench around Bob's shoulders and neck as Bob sucked his cock, lying between Brian's legs, and then he'd be all nnnrgh hard, and just lie back in the chair across from the bed and slowly jack off, biting his lip, and listening to the choked off cries that Brian made.And after Brian came and was lying on the bed all sprawled and kind of wrung out, they'd have this whole conversation between them without saying anything, and then Bob would be crossing the room, kneeling in front of Gerard, and he wouldn't take him in his mouth like he had with Brian, but he'd sit there and very seriously and intently jerk Gerard off, teasing him, knowing exactly how to use his hands, and then bringing him off fast and hard right there in the chair with Brian watching interestedly from the bed.By the time their next hotel night happened, Gerard would be all vibrating with interest, and Bob would take one look at him - like he hadn't since that night, because he's Bob, and he can actually handle all of his feelings, unlike Gerard who carries all of himself, his gut and want, on his sleeve - and nod sideways in invitation. He doesn't say anything, and Gerard just breaks into this grin, and shuffles his feet after Bob, not even bothering to say anything to the rest of the guys.When they enter Bob and Brian's room, Brian's already half-naked, toweling off his hair, his expression like the sun splitting the sky open when he sees Bob, and then changing slightly when he sees that Gerard is hot on his heels.It isn't as organic as it was last time, mostly because Bob is looking for an easier way to insinuate Gerard into their bed, while Gerard is like a freaking puppy, trying to figure where he can possibly squeeze in to the places between them. He feels like a kid, or something, wanting approval, which is ridiculous, because if there's one thing he's really freaking good at, it's fucking.But the prospect of getting Brian and Bob naked, of being in between them, seeing their faces when they look at each other like that, with no guard or roadies or reality between them, turns him on harder and faster than anything just then. His heart's beating so hard when Brian reaches around and brings Gerard's back to Brian's chest and kisses a path from his shoulder to his ear, flicking his tongue out on every second kiss.Gerard's eyes keep fluttering open and shut, and in between, he can see can see Bob moving slowly towards him, skin rippling with each move, and sliding his hands up Gerard's thighs, fingers rasping against the sparse hairs there. This time Bob doesn't hesitate, and he doesn't stop - he just takes Gerard's cock in his mouth and buries his nose in the pubic hair, wringing a ridiculously needy moan from Gerard's throat."He's good, isn't he?" says Brian conversationally against Gerard's ear, and a little proudly, like he was the one to teach him to do it, or something.Maybe he was. That thought alone has Gerard rolling his head back against Brian's shoulder, gasping, his fingers twitching to touch the curve of Bob's jaw."You can," Brian says, his hand brushing Gerard's forearm, and that's all the encouragement Gerard needs, sliding his hand around to the back of Bob's neck, pulling him forward in a rhythm that makes his head spin. When he guides him back to the head of his cock, Bob makes this low stifled moan around him, and Gerard can feel it everywhere. Brian's pressed up against his back, hard and resting just right against his ass, and he rocks his hips forward, guiding Gerard back deep into Bob's mouth. He has to brace his hands on Bob's shoulders at that, letting him set his own rhythm, because just the thought of that, of being held tight between them, Brian fucking him from behind, Bob's mouth around his cock, is kind of the hottest thing that's ever happened to him.He doesn't last long, not with Brian's teeth biting the back of his neck, Bob's tongue working the underside of his cock, and he comes with a wordless cry that could have started out as either of their names, but ended instead somewhere in between, neither and both, and maybe a few curses mixed in.After, Gerard is feeling pretty wrung out, but buzzing with a kind of energy, still, and he slides out of Brian's lap back into the pillows, and watches Bob scoot forward and pin Brian to the bed, dragging him bodily until he's lying down. Brian settles back on the pillows and then they just - kiss. For a while. It isn't for Gerard's benefit, he knows that, but he can't look away, and he's idly playing with his totally not yet hard again cock, and just watches them kiss like two people who are not being observed by anyone, starting out slow and slowly, slowly building up in rhythm.They're so fucking - tender and intense and Gerard watches as they just lick each other's tongues, bite each other's lips, and they're moaning, a bit, soft breathy sounds that feel like they're catching in Gerard's own throat. They're moving against each other, Bob's legs between Brian's, and Gerard is totally not watching their cocks rubbing against each other, red and leaking, except for how he is, and he thinks that maybe he could even get it up again, just from that alone. His hand speeds up a little on his own dick, just a bit, and he can feel it hardening, minutely, so he strokes harder, with more intent.Then Brian reaches over to the bedside table and, wow, huh, Gerard hadn't even noticed the lube sitting there, but then it's in Bob's hands, and Bob flicks it open with a practiced gesture, slides some lube out onto his other hand, and drops the tube on the floor. Gerard can barely breathe when Bob slicks himself up, and fuck, fuck, Bob's cock is thick and longer than Gerard's, and it's mesmerizing to watch Bob's square hand running over it, all business-like and perfunctory. Gerard flicks his gaze over to Brian's face, and feels his cheeks flush. Brian looks fucking hungry for Bob, Gerard's never seen him look at that intense, that focused on anything and he's seen Brian be pretty fucking intense in all their years together.That, and the sight of Brian's hands fisting the sheets in anticipation, jacks him up even further and now Gerard's fully hard and jerking off in earnest, desire pooling in his belly, and balls and he spread his legs a little, gives himself room.Bob finishes slicking himself up, looks Brian in the eye, goes, "You good?" and Gerard is just anticipating maybe seeing Bob get Brian ready with his hands, with the same intensity and business-like attitude when Bob just kind of - shoves Brian's legs aside, adjusts Brian's hips right up against his cock and - just goes for it, slowly pushing his way inside.Gerard knows his eyes just got a hundred times wider, and his hand speeds up on his dick. Watching Bob's cock disappear inside Brian, hearing Brian's broken gasp, like dry tears - he can't even take it. He needs to - he barely has the will to wait until Bob is all the way in and moving inside Brian before he sits up and, still pumping, grabs Bob's head with his free hand and meets Bob's open mouth with his own.He thinks maybe he's going to startle him, like maybe they got so lost in each other they'd forgotten he was there, but Bob's kissing him back immediately, insistently, like he's been waiting, and he lets out a few quiet noises into Gerard's mouth as his hips move against Brian. He leans towards Gerard like he wants to grab him, kiss him more fully, but his hands are tight around Brian's hips, so Gerard wraps an arm around Bob instead, pulling himself closer so he's pressed up against Bob's side, their heads tilting together, his fingers brushing up against Bob's hip as he jerks himself off. When they break apart, gasping for breath, Gerard looks down at Brian and finds him staring up at them, lips parted, hands clenched into the bedsheets."He's close," Bob says against Gerard's ear, twisting his hips up hard, and Brian and Gerard each let out a sound at that. "I can feel it. You should..." he nods at Brian, then looks down at Gerard's hand, tight around his own cock.Gerard knows what Bob's asking him for, he doesn't misunderstand, but Brian's lying there stretched out under them, hips jerking up against nothing, getting fucked back against the pillows with the force of Bob's movements, and he can't not. He slides away from Bob and stretches out on the bed beside them, leaning over and taking Brian into his mouth. "Jesus fuck, Gerard," Bob swears above him, and Brian is beyond forming words at all, one of his hands coming up from the bed to wrap into Gerard's hair, thrusting his hips up and coming down his throat in what feels like seconds.Gerard rests his head against Brian's hip, letting out a protesting noise as Brian goes to take his hand back, so he leaves it there, tugging gently at Gerard's hair as he gets himself off, with his face pressed to Brian's skin and the movement of Bob's fucking shaking his whole body.Bob leans over to bite Gerard's shoulder as he comes - hard, hard enough to make Gerard whimper against Brian's skin - and then he's pulling out, collapsing on the other side of Brian, then reaching down and dragging Gerard up to him, to kneel over both of them and kiss Bob until he can't breathe, can't stay upright, can only sag down against them both, feeling Brian's arm falling heavy over his waist, and kiss Bob like he's forgotten how to do anything else.Eventually, Brian's shoving at his hip, squirming out from under him, mumbling, "You're gonna fucking break me," but he shifts Gerard around, settles him in between them, and curls up against his back, watching sleepily over his shoulder as Gerard and Bob kiss. Then Bob's the one crawling over, kissing Brian surprisingly lightly."Motherfucker can't ever keep his eyes open after he gets off," he says conspiratorially to Gerard as he settles back down against the pillows. Brian extends a middle finger in his direction, then leaves his arm draped over Gerard's chest, mumbling something incoherent against his back before his breath evens out into sleep."Should I..." Gerard starts to ask, moving to get up, but then Bob's hand's clamping hard to his waist."You do, and he'll wake up," Bob tells him, smiling a little softly over Gerard. Then he smirks. "Trust me, the fallout wouldn't be pretty."Gerard grins into the pillow, relaxes under Bob's hand. "Guess I'll just have to stay, then."Bob's thumb is rubbing circles against his hip as he nods and presses his face into his pillow, closing his eyes. "Guess so," he says decisively.
84350	The Universe Expanding	{ "Archive Warning": "Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings", "Category": null, "Characters": "Brendon Urie, Shane Valdes", "Fandom": null, "Language": "English", "Rating": "Teen And Up Audiences", "author": "by coricomile", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2010-05-03T00:00:00", "words": "1,132", "Additional Tags": null, "Relationship": "Brendon Urie/Shane Valdes", "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": "Remix...Redux 8: Magic Eight Ball", "Fandoms": "Bandom, Panic At The Disco", "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": "Gen, M/M", "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	The thing was. The thing was that piano had always been Brendon's first love. There was nothing quite like the feel of smooth keys under his fingertips, nothing like the solid, strong ring of each note. Nothing that could compare to the worlds created by each lilting melody. He loved to sing, and he loved his guitar, but if he had a choice in the matter, he was going to sit at the bench, feel the keys for inspiration, and let the ivories do the talking.As a child, he sat on his eldest brother's lap as his mother played hymns during family hour, entranced. She taught him to play, fixed his little hands into position carefully, pressing his fingers into the keys. He had been awestruck; he was making those sounds, he was making music.Music was where he went when he needed to be away; when his siblings were too much, when his mother voiced complaints against another poor report card, when his Ritalin made him feel hazy for hours and hours. It curled around him and kept him safe, took him out of his head until he could deal with it again.When Brent took him to meet Ryan and Spencer, he felt like he was going to burst. He could make music all the time. He could make music that meant something and said something other than praise to God. It could be something he did for the rest of his life. They played and played and things were fantastic. He went home humming Ryan's melodies, handfuls of lyrics shoved into his pockets. He was happy.His luck ran out faster than he had hoped it would. His mother found a scribble of lyric in his jeans pocket, something dark and bitter and coarse, and laid it in front of him at dinner, her eyes sad and damp. The pain in his chest was sharp, the guilt climbing up his throat thick. His mother cried, asked him what he was doing."Music," he said. "I'm just playing music."The ultimatum came from his father. Brendon felt sick. Leave his music behind or leave his family behind. The choice nearly killed him. In the end, he likes to think he made the right decision.The band took off. It was a flurry of shows and new people and music, music, music. Brendon loved every second of it, from the monotonous drives to the frenzied fans to the jam sessions with other bands. He played his keyboard at night and sang his heart out, yelling and cheering with the fans. It was magic.They hopped from tour to tour, playing and playing and playing. The songs began to grate on his nerves, the familiar choruses making him cringe. It wasn't fun anymore. When Ryan said, let's write a new album, they said, yes.Somewhere along the line, between the cabin and the next round of tours, music stopped being therapy, stopped being catharsis, and became work. It stopped being about love for the song and became more about the band and the fans and Ryan. It started being about words that meant nothing to him, started creeping out of the parts of him that were ugly and raw, the parts of himself he had never lingered too long on.It ate at him. The stage felt like a prison, the screaming fans wardens in tight jeans and hoodies. He sang, mouthing out Ryan's words like a puppet, hands on the keys, pounding out the melodies he no longer believed in. At the end of the night, his keyboard was shoved onto the rack with the rest of the equipment, banged up and rattled as everything else.Then came Shane. Shane with his quirky little smile and his crooked sense of humor. He laughed like he meant it and listened with everything he could give, stuck behind the camera but never behind the scenes. He was there for the laughing and the touring, there for the arguing and the yelling and the trashed songs and rooms. He kept the footage and gave out advice, and Brendon found himself laughing again. Found himself smiling real smiles and writing music as something real again.Moving in together was almost natural. He took his things from the house that had been his and Ryan's and Spencer's and put them in the new apartment with something like joy in his chest. This was his new beginning. This was his starting all over and putting it back together. If Shane came with the package, that was only even better.They painted the rooms by themselves, the paint on the floors and their clothes and in their hair scars from the paint war, and called friends to push and shove furniture around. They drew shells in the bathroom, apples in the kitchen. They turned the front room into a practice space, setting up Brendon's guitars and a brand new piano. It was Brendon's favorite place. He played and Shane watched, and the music was his again.It wasn't a surprise when the band split. It hurt, but in a distant way. He had already known what was coming, even if he hadn't wanted to admit it. He couldn't meet Ryan's eyes, could barely return Jon's hug when it came time to part ways. It hurt, but it wasn't over. He wasn't over.When Spencer said let's make a new record, Brendon said yes.That was where he was currently; back at the stage of writing, of making words- his words- fit to new rhythms and melodies. He was tired, dragging through the days on caffeine and desperate energy. It was his turn to shine, his turn to prove himself as more than a mouthpiece. To prove himself as a musician in his own right. It was terrifying and freeing, and the smooth slide of keys under his fingers never felt sweeter.The apartment was hot, the air conditioner busted, and Brendon could feel sweat across his bare shoulders, sliding down to gather at his hips, at the small of his back. He wasn't sure of how long he'd been stringing the melody together, how long he had been caught in the wave of I am not alone, and this is who I am.His fingers worked over the keys steadily, picking out the melody that was nagging away at the back of his brain. He closed his eyes and hummed, lost in the soft sound. He shifted the melody a half step, smiling when it came together. This was what mattered. This was what he wanted.A soft noise cut through, like the sound of footsteps on the carpet. Brendon opened his eyes again let the melody drift away.When he looked up, the room was empty.
25941	Speak Now Or Forever	{ "Archive Warning": "Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings", "Category": "F/M", "Characters": null, "Fandom": "Harry Potter - Fandom", "Language": "English", "Rating": "General Audiences", "author": "by septentrion", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2007-05-04T00:00:00", "words": "1,768", "Additional Tags": "Romance, Humor", "Relationship": "Hermione Granger/Severus Snape", "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	Disclaimer: last time I checked, the characters were belonging to Jo Rowling. Many thanks to my beta, Dacian Goddess, who has made this little entertainment palatable. Speak Now Or Forever Hold Your Peace"Come on, Ron we're late!" yelled a dark-haired, green-eyed young man to his red-haired friend. They were both wearing fine dress robes, and were obviously hurrying someplace."No," said friend panted. "We still have time." He shut the door behind him and joined his friend on the dark landing.They disappeared out of thin air with a loud crack and reappeared nearly as noisily in front of a small church on the outskirts of London, not caring whether they were seen. They sprinted through the wooden door and shouted as soon as they came inside, "Stop! Stop it! This wedding can't take place. The groom has been coerced into it!"The bride, one Hermione Granger, went paler than the ivory of her dress. She gripped the back of her chair, incredulously staring at her two best friends dashing along the aisle toward her and her fiancé. Well, they weren't her two best friends anymore. As for the groom, Severus Snape couldn't get paler than his usual complexion, so instead he frowned. They waited for the two well-intentioned young men to reach them in front of the altar, while the priest was thinking that obviously something had been wrong since the beginning, given the strange attire of most of the party. Harry, who was feeling quite hot after his rush, drew something that looked like a vial from his pocket, and held it out to the groom."Sir, we were looking for some sheets of music Hermione told us she had forgotten, when we found this in the dresser drawer of her living-room. There is still some potion in it, and I know for a fact that this is a love potion. She has probably given it to you to get you to tie the knot," he said in one breath, despite his light panting.Severus, a ghost of a smirk on his lips, took the vial, careful not to touch the sweaty palm of Harry Potter, uncorked it and sniffed the content. In the meantime, Hermione's speech had come back to her."How could you? I didn't ask you to search my flat! I told you I had forgotten sheets of music on the chest of drawers in the hall of my flat! This wasn't a bloody Auror investigation!" she screeched. Her skin had now turned a vivid red complexion, which looked as unhealthy as her previous pallor; her eyes were brimming with tears, though this did nothing to hide the glint of hurt and anger in them.Everyone noticed that she didn't deny the accusation. Interesting.Then Severus' deep voice rang out under the intersecting ribs of the ceiling. "It is indeed a love potion; but why do you think, Potter and Weasley, that Hermione would need to resort to a love potion to make me marry her?""This is a grave accusation indeed," an irate Mr Granger interjected from the first row of pews. "You're just implying that our daughter cannot get the love of the man she's chosen!""Well, I'm waiting," Severus said ironically, his arms crossed over his chest, his right forefinger tapping rhythmically on his left forearm. This time, his voice was covered by the hubbub that had taken hold of the assembly.Everyone had an opinion on the subject: perhaps it was she who had unknowingly been given a love potion; the git was unable to love, she ought to have poisoned him, though what she saw in him was a mystery; love potion? Only superstitious people still believed in that nowadays; etc.No one noticed the fearful expression on Hermione's face, as she was staring at her fiancé through her tears that were now running freely along her cheeks. Her hands were trembling uncontrollably.The priest thought it'd be best to try and get the situation under control as quickly as possible. He climbed on a small dais at the side and spoke loudly in the microphone. "Please, everyone, be silent!" His injunction, magnified by the speakers hanging from the pillars, had the desired effect. "Instead of voicing without order or discipline our opinions, we must hear what these two young men have to say. In silence," he added when the crowd gave signs of giving in to their agitation once more.Harry spoke. "This man," he said, pointing at Severus in a very theatrical gesture, "has never liked me, nor my friends. He made our life at school miserable when he was our teacher. I've never heard him having a nice word for anybody. He was a murderer, but he wriggled his way out of a life-time sentence thanks to evidences left by the man he'd killed. However, after his trial, he told me that he was his own man; that he would never bow to another again, even if Dumbledore came back from the dead." Gasps were heard in the crowd, especially from the ranks of the Order of the Phoenix members. Only the remembrance that there were Muggles around them kept them from drawing their wands out. "He insulted my friend, the one he was going to marry, each time he could. This man despises us, Hermione included. He doesn't know how to love. So, the only explanation for such a change of heart is that he isn't himself. I believe he's been given a love potion by my friend who, for a reason I can't fathom, is deeply in love with him. And it is very like Hermione to love the underdog." He bowed his head out of grief and shame for his friend. He was unable to meet her eyes at the moment. He shouldn't have feared for that.In the silence that followed, everyone noticed the bride sobbing freely, her face covered by her gloved hands. Her bouquet was lying at her feet; rose petals were scattered on the floor around it.No one had noticed that the groom, the alleged victim, had yet to accuse his bride of misbehaving. His eyes were firmly set on her nonetheless."Miss, is this true?" the priest asked in the microphone. As a rational man, he had faith in God, believed in the Devil and the angels—if not, what would the meaning of life be?—but he didn't believe in love potions. Yet, if the young woman was one to stoop to using such silly products, the man could very well be better off without her."Hermione," Ron said softly. He'd been silent until now, but he couldn't let his friend make such a grievous mistake that would backfire on her sooner or later. "Tell us, did you do it? Did you give him," he jerked his thumb in Severus' general direction, "a love potion?"Murmurs were coursing through the assembly, but not to the point of muffling Hermione's intensified sobs. After a few minutes, she got a hold of herself and she showed her reddened face. She really wasn't a pretty bride in this moment. Even her elaborate chignon looked like it was going to collapse at any moment."I did give Severus a love potion," she managed to say between sobs.The Grangers cast a horrified look at their daughter; some people declared that they were convinced that it had to be the other way around. Not many people seemed surprised that a love potion had been involved in this surreal wedding. Not even the groom."Well," the priest resumed in the microphone, "it's now to Mister Snape to decide if the wedding will take place or not."At that, a full-blown smirk developed on Severus' face, which grew larger and larger. He was soon openly chuckling. This was better than a performance at Shakespeare's Globe, and he was enjoying himself immensely. He would have a very memorable wedding, not that it wouldn't have been memorable to him otherwise. He addressed Hermione in a soft, yet carrying voice. "My dear, I am very knowledgeable in potions. Do you really think you could have slipped me a love potion unnoticed?"Her eyes widened in alarm. "You've known all along?" she stammered."Yes, I have. I recognised the taste in the drink you offered me that day. What you didn't know was that I always have a universal antidote with me; an old spy habit. I took it right away, so no harm was done. But my curiosity was roused. Why would such a young woman like you give me a love potion? To ridicule me, or out of genuine interest? I decided to court you, to act as if I were under the potion influence, to find out your motives." He came in front of her, but didn't completely turn his back to their guests. "With time, I fell under the influence of your very own spell, one that your person has cast on me: I really love you, Hermione, and I want nothing more than to be bound to you in matrimony."A very emotional Hermione threw herself into Severus' open arms, leaving a slim, shining trail of mucus on his black robe. He held her tightly against him. The pearls that kept her chignon in place were evicted by his movement, and her hair tumbled ungracefully down her back, but neither of them cared.Women in the assembly dabbed their made-up eyes with pristine handkerchiefs, trying to keep their mascara on their eyelashes—none of them fancied the "panda look". Men were suddenly victim of dust attacks on their eyes, which allowed them to dab at their own orbs without making fools of themselves."Gentlemen, if you will?" Severus motioned to the gobsmacked Ron and Harry to take their places as Hermione's attendants, and the ceremony resumed, or rather began, without further ado.The events of that day fed the Wizarding world's gossip for many years, and were a much appreciated tale in many circles. It was a tale that would be told and retold at Sunday family meals for many generations of Snapes.Prompt 31. Everyone always believes that Snape has done something to make Hermione fall for him. How about the opposite. People think Hermione has cast a spell or potion on Snape to like her in his Snarky way. While Harry & Ron believe there is no possible way for the mean git to feel for their best friend. They believe Hermione has done something to Snape. Hermione can do something or Sev can really feel for his beloved.
31566	Firsts	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "M/M", "Characters": "Apollo (The Authority), Midnighter", "Fandom": "The Authority", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Teen And Up Audiences", "author": "by smirnoffmule", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2006-09-14T00:00:00", "words": "1,265", "Additional Tags": null, "Relationship": "Apollo/Midnighter", "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	Apollo's first memory of the Midnighter is of the smell of honey and leather. Bendix had brought his new team together for the first time, and they stood, shoulder to shoulder, all eyes on him; the one familiar thing in this raw, new world. Apollo's eyes are firmly fixed on Bendix, but his attention is roving the room, and beyond. His skin still feels raw and tender from the ops, and he can feel his new powers thundering in his chest like the ocean, but for the first time, the power doesn't feel too big for him. He can ride out the surges of heat, at least, and the feeling that he might lose control and blast himself into a million red wet pieces, just for the hell of it, is passing.Yeah, he's starting to grow into it, like Bendix said he would, and he's hungry for sensation, like he's never seen or smelt or tasted anything in his life before, and the honey-rich smell in his nostrils is about as sensational as it gets. Outwardly, Midnighter stands like a rock, looking as though bullets would bounce off him, but Apollo, with his hearing cranked to the max, can hear through the façade. He can hear the movement of leather as Midnighter breaths, his mask creaking as a muscle in his jaw ticks. He can even hear the Midnighter's pulse thrumming at his throat, thready but determined, and it's so amazing that it's all Apollo can do to stop himself bursting into grins, to stop himself laughing, shouting, to stop himself gathering the Midnighter up in his arms and bursting skywards with him until the sky runs out. It's an effort to keep his feet on the ground, let alone his eyes on Bendix. Bendix is watching him, now, scowling slightly; perhaps he can see the corners of Apollo's mouth quirking. Apollo tries to straighten his face and look suitably sombre. With an intuitiveness older than his memories, he knows that Bendix already doesn't like him, although he doesn't yet have the emotional range for the knowledge to sting.His own feelings towards Bendix, and towards most of the rest of the world, are benignly neutral. Life at this point is a series of flickering moments, and few thoughts make enough impact on his blank-slate of a brain to actually stay there. A few things have started to become constants, however, and he clings to them. Midnighter's honey scent and his fragile heartbeat stay, as does the warm, cozy desire in Apollo's stomach, although at first he doesn't quite know what it is, or what to do with it. The light in his head and the sexual desire seem linked somehow, and Apollo has the feeling that if he loses one, he'll lose the other, and so he treasures his private honey-warm thoughts, and uses them every night, along with the remembered rhythm of Midnighter's heart, to beat himself off to sleep.Sleeping isn't easy. White light keeps roaring in his ears. Bendix controls his doses of sunlight, and Apollo often feels deficient and anaemic; restless and exhausted both at once. When he isn't fantasizing about sex, he fantasizes about basking, about lolling in the sun, about sprawling out cat-like and falling asleep there forever. He always moves without thinking to the brightest part of every room. Midnighter is a spot of shadow on his thoughts; comforting and cool when he feels too hot, still and grounded when he feels like he could just fly apart.They still, at this point, have not exchanged a word. The rest of the team seem to be waking up from their sleep and re-discovering the world in much the same way Apollo is, but Midnighter never seems to change. Apollo learns that when he smiles, people smile back, and, like a kid with a new trick, he smiles until his jaw aches. Midnighter, of course, never smiles back, but Apollo doesn't take this personally. Midnighter never smiles at anyone. Sometimes, his shoulders are hunched just a little bit in his coat, as though he is in pain. Apollo, wanting to do something nice for him, keeps his distance. It's all Midnighter ever seems to want.Alone in his quarters, too charged up to sleep, Apollo spends the only time to himself he ever has in his busy new life of training and drilling and schedules. With no frame of reference beyond himself and his immediate surroundings, he has an active fantasy life, and most of his fantasies are about having slow sex in a series of ever more complex positions. Odd stray memories that seem to belong to someone else do resonate from time to time, but he finds them unsettling, and so does his best to ignore him. The smell of cigarettes is unaccountably comforting. The noise of trains makes him sleepy. His fantasies grow ever more elaborate, although the object of them remains largely faceless, and even genderless. He uses Midnighter's rhythms, but the reality of such an encounter seems so remote from his reality, it hardly occurs to him to think of it. Midnighter doesn't notice him, and Apollo only notices Midnighter when he can keep his head out the clouds. He comes to embrace the thought of him, like an old friend, whenever he can concentrate long enough to keep him in mind. Really, Apollo is lonely, but, having no recollection of ever having been anything else, he hasn't noticed yet.Sometimes, he wonders how things might have been different for him – for them – if it hadn't been Midnighter standing next to him in the line-up on the first day that his brain had suddenly got curious about its surroundings. He wonders sometimes if he'd even been gay before, or if his blank slate of a brain had turned for him then and there, just because Midnighter – a male – happened to be the first other creature he noticed that was as gloriously alive as he was. He suggested this to Midnighter, not because he seriously thought it might be true, but because he thought Midnighter would really get a kick out of the idea that he'd single-handedly turned Apollo's head.Midnighter wasn't quite as amused as Apollo had anticipated however. He laughed once, shortly, and then was silent for a while: his brooding silence, rather than his comfortable silence. Apollo had learned to tell the two apart."What?" Apollo said eventually. "Is this not a good thing? Am I not bigging up your ego?""No, you're saying it could have been anyone. Another guy. A girl. A dog. Lucky me. Lucky you.""That's not what I meant. I just meant you're special. Not like it could have been any old guy.""That's sweet, but you're back-peddling. Don't bullshit a bullshitter.""You're such a bullshitter that you just translate everything I say into bullshit.""I don't know. I'd rather think I was inherently more special to you than about half the human race, rather than just some weird maternal imprint, like when cats raise ducklings.""So far from what I meant, and you know it. Besides, it's not true. It's all you. I remember now. Because I never used to think of you at all. Like that. But I did used to think about you. You were my rock, long before you were my lover. Stalker was just… what guys do. Y'know.""I have some experience in that field, yes.""Thing is, Mid…""Oh, what?""There was someone stood on the other side of me, too. And I'm damned if I can remember who."
44467	Training	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "Gen", "Characters": null, "Fandom": "Albert Campion - Allingham", "Language": "English", "Rating": "General Audiences", "author": "by Thia (Jennaria)", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2008-07-26T00:00:00", "words": "319", "Additional Tags": null, "Relationship": null, "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	"Not very difficult," the gentleman said, blinking down at the small boy who had attached himself to the gentleman's coat. "It depends on the lock. Was there a particular lock you wanted picked?"The small boy appeared to consider this for a moment, then shook his head. "Not yet.""I see." The gentleman glanced up the stairs, but there was no sign of the lady he was awaiting. "Tell you what: I happen to have something in my pocket that should serve. How about we give the lock to your drawing room a try?"Thus it was that, when the lady of the house descended at last, wreathed in satin and jewels, there was no audience awaiting her in the front hall. The lady's eyes narrowed, and she glided back along toward the drawing room, to discover her escort and her son kneeling by the drawing room door. Her son had something sticking out of the lock, which he was manipulating soberly."Just a little higher," the gentleman was saying. "Feel that? That means you've almost got it. A little more--""Arthur? What on earth are you doing with Rudolph?"The boy looked up nervously at the gentleman, who dropped him a wink. "Just answering a question, dear lady," the gentleman answered, rising to his feet with quite as much grace as if he had not spent the past twenty minutes down on his knees, giving the boy enough time to whisk the pick out of the lock and into his own pocket. "He wants to be an adventurer, apparently.""He'll grow out of it," the lady decreed. "And you shouldn't encourage him. Coming?""Of course." But the gentleman paused long enough to bow to the small boy, and slip his card into the boy's hand. "For later," he said softly, and followed the lady out the door, secure in the gleam of determination in young Rudolph's eyes.-end-
92495	The Target Has Been	{ "Archive Warning": "Underage Sex", "Category": "M/M", "Characters": "Daniel Jackson, Jack O'Neill, Clone Daniel Jackson, Clone Jack O'Neill", "Fandom": "Stargate SG-1", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Explicit", "author": "by dustandroses", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2010-06-06T00:00:00", "words": "786", "Additional Tags": "PWP, Mini!Jack, jd_commentfic, Voyeurism, Masturbation, Exhibitionism, Ficlet", "Relationship": null, "Character": null, "Relationships": "Daniel Jackson/Jack O'Neill, Clone Daniel Jackson/Clone Jack O'Neill", "Series": "Clone to the Second Power", "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	Jon gasped as Danny’s mouth slid down the length of his cock, the tight heat enveloping and making him feel, for the first time since this whole bizarre trip had started, that everything was right. He was home, he was safe – in Danny’s hands he was where he belonged. He wrapped his fingers around the curve of Danny’s skull, pushing through the soft strands of his hair, caressing him – trying to show Danny through touch how thankful he was to have him there.Danny wrapped his tongue around the head of Jon’s cock, sucking so hard his cheeks hollowed out and Jon’s head fell back against the wall. His eyes popped open as he remembered where he was, and his current mission objective. He took a quick sideways glance at Jack, to see how he was reacting to them and realized from his stiff-backed stance – his face to the wall, that he was going to have to try harder.“That’s it, Danny. Yeah - you know what I like.” Jon spoke louder than usual, knowing how easy it would be for Jack to drown out the sound of their voices. “Do that thing you do – with the tip-” His voice caught, then he inhaled nosily – “Oh yeah, that’s it, Danny – that’s it. Oh god! Yeah!” His gasps weren’t faked and he laughed to himself as Jack shuddered in his corner. Jack knew exactly what Danny had just done, and exactly what it did to him. To Jack – to Jon. They were the same. And the sooner Jack realized it, the better off all three of them would be.Danny chose that moment to crank up his suction, and maybe it was just his own smaller stature, but it sure didn’t seem like he’d lost any power in those lungs of his, despite the occasional need for the inhaler sitting on the bedside table. Those fifteen year old lips and tongue hadn’t forgotten a damn thing, either.“Oh god, Danny. I love the heat of your mouth! I feel like I’m burning – you’re setting me on fire – so good.” He turned his focus back to his target. “You know what it’s like, Jack. He may look a bit younger these days, but Danny’s body remembers us. Ah! Oh man. I love it – I love it when he flicks his tongue like that. He knows all our hot spots, Jack. He knows what we want. What we need. You know you want to feel him, Jack. You know you do!”Jon worked hard not to laugh as he watched Jack bang his forehead against the wall. That’s more like it. He just had to keep digging at the stubborn bastard – he’d get him there yet. Or rather, Danny would. Because it would be Danny that broke through Jack’s defenses in the end. Speaking of – Danny was about to break down Jon’s – he wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep this up with Danny’s mouth moving so rapidly over his cock, one hot hand on Jon’s balls, and one slick finger working it’s way back along his perineum. Damn, he’d better bring on his final assault while he was still able to talk. He took a deep breath.“You know what he’s like, Jack. Daniel always gets what he wants. That sure as hell hasn’t changed. And what he wants is you. Wants to suck your cock – wants it to stretch his mouth wide. He wants to taste the salt on your balls and lick up between your cheeks. You know how much we love that. That hot, clever tongue of his circling around our asshole, fucking us with his tongue.”Jon gasped as Danny’s finger slid inside him, trying hard not to thrust up into Danny’s mouth, but it was hard to control himself – hard to think at all. “Oh, Jesus Danny, what you do to me!” Jon felt his orgasm overtake him - heat surging through his body like white fire, and he cried out in triumph as he realized Jack had turned and was watching the two of them avidly, his hand moving fiercely on his own cock, his come spattering the floor in front of him. Danny stood quickly and crossed the floor to Jack, who was trying to stuff his cock back inside his bdu’s without getting his uniform all messy. Danny grabbed Jack's sticky hand and Jack froze as Danny pulled it to his mouth, sucking one finger in, cleaning it thoroughly before starting on the next, his eyes closing in pleasure at the taste. Jack shuddered, moaning softly and stared as if hypnotized at those red, swollen lips covered now with both their come. Jon nodded to himself, his smile wicked. Mission accomplished.
95944	Distract Him	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "M/M", "Characters": "Joe Dawson, Methos (Highlander)", "Fandom": "Highlander: The Series", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Teen And Up Audiences", "author": "by Merfilly", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2006-06-25T00:00:00", "words": "366", "Additional Tags": "Comfort Sex", "Relationship": "Joe Dawson/Methos (Highlander)", "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	Methos, Joe decided, was entirely too pretty when he was angst ridden. The ancient immortal was all heartbroken and lost over the mess Duncan had gone and gotten into, even though Duncan had overcome the odds again. It amazed Joe how cool and calm, even calculating Methos could be day in and day out, but every once in a while, the old man really let his guard down. Like now, with half of Joe's best single malts in his system."Methos," he began, having chased the last customer out. "If you're staying, you better find somewhere to get comfortable. I'm closing up shop.""C'mere," the very un-sober immortal told him, and the former watcher just grinned at him."Too soused to stand? Don't think I can support you, buddy," he said, even as he made his way over, leaning hard on his cane. It was late, and he could feel the weather in the leg already.When he reached the other man, he did hold a hand out to assist Methos in getting off the barstool, but the immortal reached out and took him by the back of the head, bringing their foreheads together."Real good friend to us, even when Duncan can't see it," the ancient one said, locking eyes with Joe, as a sudden unearthly sobriety seemed to descend on him. "Why?""Because I am your friend," Joe staunchly said, his brow furrowing at Methos's change of manner."Duncan inspires loyalty in you, in Amanda, even me, to a point," Methos rambled, letting Joe go, to fall back into his meandering mood of melancholy. Joe decided that he truly did not want to endure a night of being confidant to the Horseman, and Methos did look very pretty with his face so somber. That would be the reason he adhered to in the morning for what he did next.Methos never saw it coming, not in his state. One second he was mumbling about the way Duncan took too many risks and the next he was locked in a kiss with the former Watcher. One long second past that and all thoughts of Duncan ceased to exist, as the kiss became very two sided.
29284	even if you havent had	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "M/M", "Characters": null, "Fandom": "ReGenesis", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Teen And Up Audiences", "author": "by justbreathe80", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2009-12-15T00:00:00", "words": "1,940", "Additional Tags": null, "Relationship": null, "Character": null, "Relationships": "David Sandström/Carlos Serrano, David Sandström/Other", "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	here was nothing worse in the whole world than a fucking funeral. Joanna had good Midwestern parents, suitably devastated at the loss of their only daughter. David had to keep himself, more than once, from laughing inappropriately as the minister droned something about the lord being with her, and thinking about what her parents would think if they knew their daughter at all. He knew his shrink would tell him that he was just feeling emotion, any emotion, over losing the first woman he'd let get any closer than his dick since Jill left. He thought his shrink could go fuck herself.Carlos sat next to him, straight-faced. Joanna's parents had been so fucking happy to see him, hugging him, and he'd done every goddamn thing right while David just stood there with his hands in his pockets, not sure how or if to tell them that he was pretty sure he'd made the monumentally stupid mistake of falling for their daughter right before she took off for Wisconsin. And she was dead, so what did it matter anyway?They begged off of the post-funeral luncheon. David was barely listening as Carlos made some polite excuses about work and trying to figure out what had happened to Joanna and having to go to California, and then they both said goodbye and walked to David's car. Once they got inside, Carlos sat, staring straight ahead. David could see his hands shaking, just barely, where they were resting on the tops of his thighs. David leaned over Carlos, the heat of his Carlos' body seeping through the layers of suits and dress shirts between them, to open the glove compartment. He reached his hand inside, feeling around, not really knowing what he was looking for until it wasn't there. "Fuck," David hissed, pulling his hand out and slamming the glove compartment shut. He sat up straight again, staring out of the front window and watching the mourning families winding through the pastoral scene, among the stones, his hands clutching the steering wheel like some kind of anchor. "David," Carlos said softly, his hand wrapping around David's forearm. "What are you looking for?""Goddamn it," he yelled, loud enough that an old couple walking by the car turned to look at them. He shook off Carlos and slammed his hands down, hard, on the dashboard over the steering wheel. The jolt went right up the bones in his hands into his forearms, and the sting was good, it was right. He turned to look at Carlos, waiting for him to try to stop him, to soothe him somehow, but Carlos didn't. He just sat there, breathing, looking like he didn't have the energy to stop David from doing something fucking stupid. "I need a drink," David said, dropping his head, staring at his feet."I need a cigarette," Carlos answered, and David couldn't help but laugh, because Carlos never seemed to need anything - not to need anyone at all - and here they were at his fucking ex-wife's funeral, talking about the crutches they both desperately wanted. David reached back over and felt Carlos press slightly, minutely, closer as he finally got his hand around the pack of cigarettes in the glove compartment. He tossed them into Carlos' lap. "That, I can do."***They sat across from each other at David's kitchen table for hours, smoking every last cigarette in the entire loft, until David had lost count of how many butts had piled up in the dinner-plate- he'd-gotten-in-the-divorce-cum-ashtray a while ago. It was strange, to feel completely disassembled like this, and not have the heat of alcohol chasing down his throat to numb it. Instead, he smoked with Carlos until they were both so hoarse they could barely talk anymore, but they didn't stop, even then - talking about anything that wasn't Joanna - that wasn't the thing that they should be talking about, if either of them were the least bit healthy."I think we're fucking out," he finally said, stubbing out the last cigarette that he'd smoked down to the filter, feeling the welcome, raw burn at the back of his throat, the sting in his eyes. "Damn it."Carlos sighed and leaned back, breathing out a stream of smoke and stretching his arms up over his head. "That's probably a good thing, David," he said, putting his own cigarette out next to David's on the plate. "I'm not going to be able to talk tomorrow."They sat there; it was finally silent between them. Once there wasn't anything left in his hands, anything else for him to do, David felt himself collapsing under the weight of it. He could still feel her there - she was the last person to be in this apartment with him before Carlos. She was the last person he'd given anything to, and he wished like hell that he hadn't. That he would learn his fucking lesson already.And suddenly, before he knew it, he was up on his feet, leaving a startled and drowsy Carlos slouched back in his chair behind the table. David had to move, he had to fucking do something already; he wasn't used to people he knew, that he - jesus, fuck, he was a goddamn idiot - cared about, just dying of some stupid fucking bacterial infection that he couldn't do anything about. It happened to other people, but not them.He was standing in the middle of his living room, looking around desperately for something he could send his fist flying through, perfectly and neatly, already feeling the stinging relief of letting something out. Something that would knock him out somehow, take this away, all of this - fuck - he didn't want this. He'd never wanted this. The blood was rushing in his ears, which was the best explanation he had for why he didn't hear anything before he felt the strong arms wrap around him from behind, drag him in close. He could feel Carlos' heart beating, almost as fast as his own, the beats almost meeting up but not quite, and Carlos' breath was smoky and heavy and hot on his neck. "David," he murmured, his lips close, the rasp of his late-day stubble rough. "Back the fuck off, Carlos," he gritted out, struggling against the arms around him, but Carlos was strong, stronger than David realized, and he wasn't letting go. "I'm not kidding.""I know," Carlos answered, his voice low and soft, arms still tight around David. "I miss her too." He didn't want to do this, not now, not like this - fuck, not ever. "I don't miss her, not at all." "You're a liar." "Fuck you," he said, spitting and angry."Can't you come up with something better than that?" Carlos said, and David could feel himself being drawn closer, feel Carlos' whole body hot and hard along his back. It felt good, to be close to someone, and he hated that. He didn't want to feel good at all; he wanted to feel nothing. "God, Carlos, I don't fucking know!" he shouted, and yelled as loud as he could - not words, just sounds. He'd be worried about pissing off his neighbors, but this was nothing in the grand scheme of things he'd done in here to piss them off. When he stopped, he was panting shallowly, feeling like he had come down off the edge, just a little. "Let me go."Carlos pressed his lips to the skin underneath David's ear, and David could feel himself giving in spite of himself. "No," Carlos answered, and David relaxed, just enough, and the world went blurry in front of him, Carlos holding him up. ***David's mouth tasted like an ashtray, which normally didn't bother him all that much, after years of mornings after like that one. It had been a few months since he'd had a night like that, although the usual pulsing pain between his eyes was noticeably absent. He blinked up at the ceiling, and it took a couple of seconds for his eyes to adjust enough to notice that it was still dark out, and that he hadn't been sleeping long.David didn't remember much of what happened after Carlos had grabbed him, held on, but there he was, sprawled out on his couch with his head in Carlos' lap, Carlos' fingers carding through his hair. It didn't make any sense, but it felt good, so he just went with it."Hey," Carlos said, looking down, his eyes soft but unsmiling, his fingers still moving in a gentle, soothing rhythm. David closed his eyes again, just for a moment."Did you sleep?" he asked.Carlos shook his head. "Not really." "We should probably sleep - our flight leaves in seven hours.""You're right," Carlos said, leaning his head against the back of the couch, not moving. Carlos' leg was strong and warm under his cheek as he turned his head, Carlos' fingers slipping out of his hair. He wasn't sure how he'd ended up here, but nothing about Carlos being there with him surprised him at all. He always seemed to be there, whenever something happened. Mayko was usually there too, and Bob, but it was different with Carlos. He got inside in a way that David didn't exactly give permission for, but there he was, pushing and pulling and holding on and knowing what David needed even when he didn't know himself. He was the only one who had always stayed, well past his welcome. David wasn't even sure that what he was doing even constituted a decision, but he swung his legs around and planted his feet on the floor, standing up. He turned to face Carlos, whose head was still reclined, but his eyes were wide open and dark. David held out one hand in front of him, bridging the open space between them. "Come on.""What?" Carlos said, looking genuinely confused."I said come the fuck on," David said again, his voice softer than his words. Carlos blinked once, twice, recognition of what was on offer on his face, and then reached out, unwavering, to grasp David's hand firmly in his own. His hand was warm and his grip was strong, like he wasn't ever going to let go. David pulled Carlos up to his feet and walked backward slowly but with purpose, not letting go of Carlos' hand. Carlos moved with him, kept pace, the sheer fucking emotional nightmare of the last few days finally showing around his eyes. They didn't say anything, until they were in David's bedroom, the warm welcome of his unmade bed, the last place he'd been with - with Joanna, behind him. David let Carlos' hand drop, and Carlos started to move away, putting his shoulders back, trying to hide, but David was faster - he had the benefit of surprise in this situation - and he grabbed onto the front of Carlos' light blue dress shirt. They were both still in their funeral clothes. "Come to bed," David said, his fingers making quick work of the small, white buttons of Carlos' shirt, exposing the skin of his chest inch by inch, as Carlos breathed harder and tried to keep still. He knew this was stupid, that it was probably just some kind of twisted consolation, but Carlos was here - he was real. David loosened his grip a little as he reached the bottom of the row, giving Carlos the license to walk away, to abandon ship like he should do if he knew what was good for him, but he just stayed, eyes locked on David's and his muscles finally unclenching, and let David remove the layers, piece by piece.
26481	unknown	{ "Archive Warning": null, "Category": null, "Characters": null, "Fandom": null, "Language": null, "Rating": null, "author": null, "chapters": null, "completed": null, "published": null, "words": null, "Additional Tags": null, "Relationship": null, "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }
56182	Welcome to the Rest of	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "Gen", "Characters": "Rose Tyler, Mickey Smith", "Fandom": "Doctor Who", "Language": "English", "Rating": "General Audiences", "author": "by athousandwinds", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2010-01-26T00:00:00", "words": "2,905", "Additional Tags": "Alternate Universe - Canon", "Relationship": null, "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	Once Rose had stopped crying (they'd stayed another two nights in Norway and she'd made a mess of her pillow. Mum'd come up to her room every hour or so, just to check on her), she'd taken a deep breath and looked around. And, OK, she'd been hiccupping a bit, but she'd tried. Bad Wolf Bay was sort of sparkly at night, with the moonshine gleaming off the wet pebbles and the tide washing up the beach. Sometimes, always, the pain was worth it to see something like that.She'd only had to cross the universe to find it. She laughed suddenly, the sound clear and delighted in the midnight silence.She had crossed the universe.Remember me, Rose Tyler.There was only one thing she had left to do.Have a fantastic life.--- As it turned out, she didn't even need those A-levels. ("How many Zs do you want, babe?" Mickey asked, seating himself at his office computer. "They're called Zertifikats," said his boss, Henry, in the wearied tones of someone who didn't understand the younger generation and deeply resented having to try.) She took Torchwood's job offer and spent the first two months confusing the research assistants by re-labelling all the artefacts. ("No, right, look. It's not Raxacoricofallapatorian at all, it's from Klom. – No, look, ask Mickey if you don't believe me. Go on. The thing is, it's like – it's like asking Gareth what part of England he's from. Yeah.")"Saved the world a lot." It was a hell of a thing to put on a CV. (They didn't have Buffy here, another little cognitive dissonance that caught up with her in the bad moments. She'd never watched it, but Mickey had, religiously.) Luckily, it seemed to be the sort of thing Torchwood liked in a woman. They accepted "alternate universe" without the blink of an eye (of course they did, bastards, bastards, bastards) and even started courting Mum. Mum eyed them with suspicion whenever they came round and took to rubbing her belly protectively. Once, this world's Yvonne Hartman (a man, dark-haired, called Euan, but: "Slimy," Mum said, "up to no good, I'll bet.") made a comment about her pregnancy and Mum let him have it."I'll not let you lay a finger on my baby, is that clear?" she snarled. She glanced at Rose. "Or her! Or any of my family, and if you do I'll make you wish you'd never been born. D'you hear me?"Euan had retreated into the safety of the couch, hiding behind his nice cup of tea, two sugars. "I assure you, Mrs Tyler, Torchwood has had absolutely no thoughts in – in that direction.""Oh, yeah." Mum rose from the sofa like a majestic, vengeful eagle. "Well, you'd better not've had."Apart from Euan's occasional, subtle prodding to spill her heart – or, more usefully, her brain – to Geoff the counsellor (who was actually an undercover research scientist. Euan apparently still thought they didn't know), life at Torchwood was all right. She learnt basic camouflage ("What d'you mean, the United Socialist States of America?" "...You really are blonde, aren't you?" "What?") and ate up the work, spending her free time down the pub with Mickey and Jake. One night when Mickey was working late, she and Jake got completely pissed and stumbled down the lane at one in the morning, singing some rugby chant (because no one played football, not professionally). The kerb suddenly rushed up to meet them and they sat down with a thump."Oi, Jake..." she muttered, her head muzzled with bad vodka."Yeah?""Have you ever had someone? Y'know, someone who was your best mate...""Yeah." If she'd been paying enough attention, she'd've noticed that Jake sounded almost sober."And then they're not. There. Poof!" She tried to click her fingers, but her hand was tired and wouldn't do as it was told."Yeah." Jake was unexpectedly heavy, leaning on her like that. She grunted and he shifted off, sighing."I miss him," Rose said, and hiccupped."Yeah." Jake sounded guilty, like he'd got a wonderful present for Christmas that he wasn't sure he'd wanted."I thought I couldn't live without him, y'know." Rose stared at the chewing gum ground grey into the tarmac. It was endlessly fascinating. "And then – ""Yeah," said Jake."And then I did." Rose snorted, but it wasn't really funny. The glare of headlights shone over their faces and she blinked. A banged-up old Renault choked to a stop in the space by them. Mickey got out."I knew you'd be smashed," he said, like oh-no-not-again-why-do-I-even-bother. But he was smirking. "Come on, mate."Rose woke the next morning with a pounding headache, something dead in her mouth and utterly convinced that Jake liked fit black guys with names beginning with – well, ending in "-ickey".--- The first action Rose saw as TWA Rose Tyler (Dad insisted on calling her "Twarose" for weeks after she got her ID card until Mum scolded him and slapped him on the shoulder) wasn't quite action, and she was proud of that. The crisis came on the seventeenth of June, nine months after – well, after.It was five o'clock in the afternoon when Emma, the chief operator of the beeping machine that monitored the stratosphere, reported an anomaly. Three minutes later she reported another anomaly. Ten minutes after that, her immortal words were recorded as:"God, I think they're breeding."--- Rose was going through the Torchwood database, trying to cross-reference the design of the ship with anything Torchwood knew about. It wasn't going well. She was identifying number 260 of 789 and attempting, even less successfully, not to yawn, when what sounded like yet another alarm screeched through the main chamber."We've got a phone call from the President!" Lin shouted across the hubbub. "She wants to know what we've got!""It's a brilliant cloaking device," Mickey offered, his voice full of envious admiration, "Can we – " at the same time as Euan said,"More than enough to exterminate them twice over."They glared at each other. Rose watched them with detached anger rising in her stomach. Euan broke the silence first, tapping the communications pipe. "Rob says they've taken damage. Some of those ships are shaking around pretty badly and it doesn't look normal. Three times over, if it's as bad as it looks. Tell the President we'll go to stations."Lin clutched the phone in one hand, her knuckles paling. She was a woman in her late thirties with flyaway brown hair and a permanently worried expression on her face that had deepened into a sort of determined dread of Euan. "She says not, sir. She says she doesn't want to prejudice the negotiations."Euan nodded soothingly. "Tell her that Torchwood fully understands her predicament." He added sotto voce down the pipe, "Release the codes.""You can't do that!"Rose almost choked on furious bile as Euan turned to look at her, but she stood up anyway. She'd done this a hundred times, a hundred thousand times and she couldn't fail on the hundred and first, because it was always the most important. She swallowed and looked back. Euan raised an eyebrow."They've got no weapons," came Rob's voice, hollow and rattling in the tube."What kind of alien invader comes without weapons?" Jake asked, sounding almost disappointed."Exactly," Mickey agreed pointedly, still staring hard at Evan."I'm sorry," Euan said in his pleasantest manner. "Would you two like to run this little operation?""Yeah, go on." Mickey folded his arms and lifted his chin defiantly. He'd done the same ever since he was little and not allowed to play.Euan's indulgence vanished immediately. There was something infinitely sharp and spiteful in his tone as he spoke, like the spike of pain in your head when you had a migraine. "I'd remind you who the head of this institution is, but it seems unnecessary."Mickey faltered nearly imperceptibly, glancing at Jake. Rose saw it and all at once an idea about family came together in her mind. "Except you're not, are you?"Euan hadn't wasted any time on her after Jake had started questioning him, but now he gazed at her with a seeming of elegant inquiry. "Excuse me?"Well, it was true. "Pete Tyler is." And it was hers to say, no one else could have got away with it. "Even he does what the President says."Lin spoke up nervously. Rose could sympathise. "We are a government organisation.""Mutiny in a crisis. What a classic trope." Euan smiled, his charm rolling back. He spread out his arms. "Well, Agent Tyler, take charge. Since it's a family business."Rose cringed, momentarily humiliated, and stepped gingerly towards the phone Lin still held."Madam President? Are you there?"--- President Harriet Jones was surprised but not unwilling to allow a Torchwood agent to ascend with her party. Rose sat beside her on the airship, shifting uncomfortably. The woman was the same – no doubt about that, she even wore the same brooch – but her features were sterner and her forehead more lined than Harriet Jones, MP for Flydale North. She sat rigidly in her seat, her fingers drumming against the arm."You're very young for a Torchwood agent," she remarked, her cool hazel eyes guarded but not unkind. "Especially such a high-profile one."Rose jumped at the sudden comment and tried not to squirm. "I've – got a lot of – " The word had briefly escaped her. It appeared and she seized on it gratefully. "Experience! Yeah." It was worse than trying to make small talk with a Dalek. At least then it wouldn't be your fault if the conversation was cut short."You're Peter Tyler's step-daughter, of course." It didn't have the malice of Euan's jib and it was said casually but Rose could nearly see the conclusion reached behind Harriet Jones's frown. She blushed, even though it wasn't true at all, at all. "And how are you getting on at Torchwood?"This at least didn't seem to have an edge and Rose relaxed into the chat. As they approached the fleet – was it a fleet if there were only ten ships? – she clipped her headset on. People were still paranoid about these, so Euan had insisted on vetting it himself.He was speaking now, actually. "Tyler?""I can hear you." Unfortunately."Excellent."The doors opened and they stepped out into the cargo bay of the leading ship. The floor and walls were made of some shiny substance that gave slightly under Rose's feet. The science department would be ecstatic if they ever got their hands on a sample.She looked up.Thousands of eyes stared down at her, quite unnerving in their wide, silent desperation. She stepped forward instinctively; the rest of the party took a step back. It wasn't quite as bad as it sounded. For a start, they all had about eighteen eyes each. They lined the walkways above, throngs of strange people looking like bad acid trips, and the only noise in the bay was their breathing.Harriet Jones was the first to recover. There was one seated away from the rest, out in front and vulnerable to attack. Rose thought of Euan and tapped her headset."Still here, Tyler.""All right, all right."Harriet Jones had moved forward to address the one in front, discreetly trailed by her bodyguard. "Harriet Jones, President of Great Britain." Rose half-expected her to pull out her ID. "What have you come here for?""Are you authorised to speak for your planet?" was the only answer. Harriet Jones motioned forward an anxious-looking man armed with a handheld translator."Ah – speech? – power – power to speak?""He wants to know if you can speak for Earth, not just – I mean – " Rose stopped. Harriet Jones was looking at her curiously. "Torchwood," she said before her brain caught up with her mouth. She went with it. "Torchwood basic training. Language skills.""I see, Agent." The curiosity in her expression had hardly abated. "Mr Ketterick?"Euan whispered in her ear, "I want a report on that.""Ask Mickey," she muttered. Mickey was more experienced at lying his backside off. Mr Ketterick had confirmed her translation and Harriet Jones turned to her again."Tell them that I am authorised to speak for an extremely large part of Earth.""Yeah, she is. Pretty much," Rose said and hoped devoutly that the Doctor was awake and well."We are survivors of a war," their leader began. "We – ""Find out who they are!" Euan hissed. Harriet Jones, after a hasty exchange with her translator, turned round and said,"War...?""I want to track them back to wherever they came from.""Why, so you can destroy them?""'Destroy'?" the leader asked sharply. His translator was far more efficient than Harriet's. "Destroy?""War?" Harriet demanded."All of you, shut up!"There was a terrible, horrified silence. Even the aliens had stopped breathing for a split second. Rose opened her eyes and slowly uncurled her hands. There were small half-moon marks on her palms from her nails. "Right, then," she said. "Madam President, they're refugees. From a war. They're nothing to do with Cybermen," she added, because even if Harriet Jones was more sensible, other people not a million miles away might not be. As if it had reminded her, she reached up and slipped her headset off."My boss. That was, I mean. My boss." The leader was looking sceptical and the stirring of discontent among the aliens was building. "He's such a pain." She threw the headset on the ground and trod on it, crunching a hundred and fifty euros-worth of delicate equipment underfoot. It'd never been much use.The leader smiled, or at least gave the appearance of a smile. It was hard to tell on a face with eighteen eyes, nine nostrils and three mouths. It was already overcrowded. It said,"We request asylum.""OK." This was going much better than last time. Either she was getting the hang of this negotiating thing or Euan would crucify her once they landed. Maybe both. "Um. Is someone looking for you, or something?""As far as we know – as far as I know – " The leader paused. "No," it said. "No." Even through the bizarre features and the shape of its body, Rose thought, you could see it – he – she – it was tired. She looked over at Harriet Jones."They're requesting asylum," she said. "In my official capacity as Torchwood representative, I highly advise you give it to them." Nine months and she'd already got the lingo. It was easier than Shadow Conventions and ratifications and ramifications, which was good, because she couldn't swordfight."Can they give us any guarantees?"Rose shoved her fingers into her hair. It was in a loose bun and was already coming apart. "I don't know. It's been a long day, Madam President. Why don't we all sleep on it?""And let them stay overhead?" Harriet's voice held only calm interest. "They can be seen by the naked eye, Agent Tyler." Rose blinked at her. "Are you volunteering to take responsibility?""Yeah, OK," Rose said without thinking about it. She went on recklessly, "I mean, we could put some of them up at our house. And the Institute's pretty big, it's got to have beds somewhere. Or we could get – um.""Agent Tyler, you weary me," Harriet Jones told her, but those cool brown eyes had some light in them. "I will not consent to Torchwood taking over this situation." She paused, the ghost of a smile on her lips and the ghost of an idealistic MP looking over her shoulder. "More than they have already.""Sorry," Rose said automatically, but she wasn't and she knew it and Harriet Jones knew she knew it. She turned back to the aliens and explained what was going to happen. A sigh seemed to ripple around the bay and if she wasn't much mistaken, their leader relaxed.They settled the Tepaket – as they appeared to be named – in temporary housing ("The House of Lords?" "Well, it's not like anyone's using it.") under the care of the British branch of the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce. The officer she spoke to about it looked at her with worrying thoughtfulness and treated her with much more respect than she got at Torchwood. It was intoxicating, like vodka you couldn't get at the local pub.Then she went back to the Institute."Oh, God," she told Lin, collapsing into her swivel chair. "I'm knackered.""Put your feet up, love," Lin said sympathetically. "Gareth'll make us a pot of tea.""He bloody won't."The argument continued over her head as Rose rested her brow on the solid wood of the desk. She was exhausted and she hadn't run for her life once today. Getting out of practice...And how would the Doctor have handled this? The sudden wisp of thought assailed her and she sat up, rubbing her eyes. She wasn't sure...But that wasn't the point at all, was it. She'd handled it. She. Rose. Rose Tyler. Saved the world, again. Only this time, she'd done it alone."You humans," the Doctor had said once. "It's what I like most about you lot, you know. You all save someone's world every day, in whatever way. And you don't even notice."For a moment, she hurt all over with missing him. Then she swallowed and said out loud,"Mickey? What's tomorrow's headlines?"
63291	Chance Meetings	{ "Archive Warning": "Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings", "Category": "M/M", "Characters": "Portgas D. Ace, Roronoa Zoro", "Fandom": "One Piece", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Explicit", "author": "by Aviss", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2010-02-17T00:00:00", "words": "3,655", "Additional Tags": null, "Relationship": "Portgas D. Ace/Roronoa Zoro", "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": "Before Arabasta", "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	Ace opens his eyes slowly, blinking owlishly and feeling sticky all over his face. Damn, he fell asleep eating again! Around him all sort of voices reach a high pitched level, shouts of surprise and outrage filling the restaurant. Somehow he's already used to this, and this time there are no kicks flying toward his face.His mouth curves in a fond smile at that while he wipes his face with the first available thing, not caring what it is.He wouldn't mind dodging kicks if that meant he could taste Sanji's food again. Or Sanji's body, he's not picky.Ace can't remember the last time he had a good night like that one, travelling alone for such a long time has taught him to enjoy the little pleasures where he can find them, and there was nothing little about that night's pleasure.Pity he has orders to return to White Beard's fleet as soon as possible, he would have loved to spend another night with the cook."They're fighting outside, six against one!" Someone shouts from the door of the restaurant and Ace looks up from his plate to see the attention of everyone in the restaurant diverted from him.That's good; he doesn’t like to be stared at while he eats."Those pirates," the word is said with such distaste it might have been curse, "are they trying to kill the guy?""What can you expect from pirates?" someone else says and Ace rolls his eyes and stands up.He doesn’t much care what people say about pirates as long as they don't insult his Captain, but if there a guy is being beaten six to one there is no way he can do nothing. Is elements like those what gives the rest of them a bad reputation.He notices how the noise stops the moment he stands up, all eyes turning to him again and some scared whispers being passed among the remaining patrons.He ignores it.The scene outside is nothing like he had imagined. For one, the pirates didn't even scratch the guy they were fighting against, and there weren't six of them, there were eight."Impressive," he says interested, looking at the guy. It's not difficult to recognize him from the rumours he has been hearing since he reached the East Blue: the demon pirate hunter with his black bandana and his three katanas, Roronoa Zoro."Weaklings," Roronoa says with disgusts, wiping his swords on one of the fallen pirate's shirt. "Not a good bounty among the lot of them, damn it!"He looks up at Ace and points at him with his chin, "Oi, you there, are you with these guys?" he asks.Ace looks at the groaning and whimpering lot on the ground and shakes his head, chuckling. "No way, I don't involve myself with low life like them.""But you're a pirate, ain't you?""Yes," Ace replies seeing no need to deny the obvious, not with his Captain's tattoo on his back.Roronoa points his sword at him, narrowing his eyes, "Got a bounty on you? It's nothing personal but I ran out of money and I need to be on my way."This time he laughs out loud, "Yes, quite a hefty one at that." He turns to show him his tattoo. "Want to take me on for it?"Roronoa's smile is nothing short of bloodthirsty, "You're one of White Beard's?" His eyes are burning now in a way they weren't before and Ace can smell trouble, trouble of the good kind. It could be an interesting fight."Yes, and you are Pirate Hunter Roronoa Zoro," he says clenching his fist and letting a ball of fire form in it.Zoro's eyes move from his face to his hand and his smile turns, if possible, more predatory. "Fire Fist Ace? Today must be my lucky day."Or mine, Ace thinks looking at him up and down. He has to return to his Captain and that means he will spend some time with his nakama. He loves them to bits but Ace wouldn't touch them with a bargepole. Nothing but dog-ugly guys to look at, as Sanji so kindly put.Roronoa then--well, he certainly isn't ugly. Ace doesn’t know if he's going to be interested but it never hurts to ask. But first--"Do you mind moving this to a less crowded place?" Ace says pointing with his head to the spectators gathering around them, whispering and some of them even betting. And the fight hasn't started yet. "Things might get a bit heated up and I don't want to hurt innocent bystanders."Roronoa blinks slowly, looking around as if he hasn't noticed the crowd before and shrugs. "Fine with me," he says and looks down at his previous victims. "Mind if I collect for these things first? I think the Marine station is somewhere close and though it's not much I'm not going to let it go to waste. We can meet at the pier in half an hour. ""Yeah, it's about two blocks to your right, it will take five minutes to get there," Ace says thinking he has time to finish his meal in that case. It might not be as good as the Baratie's food but it would be a pity to waste it. "I'll be there."Roronoa picks up a couple of the guys from the ground and begins dragging them in the other direction. "Your other right, Roronoa!" Ace shouts, laughing before going inside again.…Something's wrong.Ace looks up at the darkening sky and wonders again if Roronoa got scared and ran away. It doesn't seem likely but he's been waiting at the pier for close to three hours and he's getting bored. And hungry.Maybe he got attacked by the rest of the other guys' nakama. But--thinking about that, it wouldn't be much of a problem for Roronoa Zoro, not if the pirates he beat before were an indicative of the whole crew's level.What could have happened then?"Shit!" A voice to his left startles Ace out of his thoughts and he looks up to see a harassed looking Roronoa Zoro. His bandana is off revealing his shocking green hair. He looks like some kind pissed off algae. "Where the fuck is that bloody pier?""You took your sweet time getting here, Roronoa," Ace says standing up and Roronoa zeroes on him, doing a sharp turn to face Ace. "I thought you weren't coming.""Someone moved the pier," he says mutinously and Ace barks a surprised laugh."The pier has been here all this time, Roronoa," he says chuckling, "and so have I. Now I'm hungry.""It has not, they said straight up from the station and I've been walking here all this time," he says. Ace can see a slight flush in his face and doubles up laughing. The guy was lost, unbelievable. "And call me Zoro, it's easier.""Are we going to fight now, Zoro?" Ace says when he has his breath back, "I've been waiting for you all this time and now I'm starving."Zoro's stomach picks that moment to let out a loud growl and Ace smirks. "So am I, but I need to get your bounty first so I can pay for my food."This is way too funny. "Let's eat first, I'll pay," he says and Zoro shrugs and follows him to the closest restaurant.They pile plate after plate of food in front of them, the conversation stilted while they munch happily away. Zoro eats with an economy of movements Ace didn't believe possible before, just filling his stomach with as much diligence as possible, looking for all the world as if he doesn’t care about taste.Ace is about to say something when the usual happens, the world going suddenly dark. When he opens his eyes again Zoro is staring at him with a puzzled expression on his face."Can't you wait till we finish to take a nap?" he asks mildly. Ace shakes his head and yawns, wiping off crumbs from his face."It happens all the time while I eat," he says grabbing the closest plate on the table and digging in. "My little bro used to take advantage of it to finish the food while I was unconscious," he said fondly, thinking about Luffy and his insatiable appetite.Zoro shrugs and grabs another plate of food for himself. His appetite seems to be on par with Luffy's, though he appears to have a bit more self-control."And what are you doing so far from your crew, Fire Fist Ace?" Zoro finally asks, his mouth full of half chewed meat. Sanji would have been appalled, Ace thinks with a smile."I was visiting my hometown hoping to see my brother, but I have to go back now."Zoro smirks, "You won't get back to them, I'm afraid. I'll collect your bounty first."Ace can't help but return the smile. He likes this guy. "We'll see about that, want something to drink before we fight?" the food is almost gone and he's loath to go outside. Not that he doesn’t want to fight Zoro, it can be a very interesting fight, but there is something else he'd rather do with him."Trying to get me drunk so you can beat me?" Zoro quips half-mockingly half-seriously and Ace laughs."I don't think that would work. I don't like unfair fights," he says smiling while he signals for a bottle to be brought to their table. "But I might want to take advantage of you."It's Zoro's turn to laugh, looking at Ace up and down. "You don't need to get me drunk for that."He's about to say something else when the door slams open, a bunch of filthy looking thugs entering. They look out of place in a quiet restaurant like that, and the fact that some of them look beaten and half-dead while searching for someone among the patrons probably means trouble.Zoro looks at them and sighs, rolling his eyes. "These guys don't know when to quit," he says, exasperation colouring his words."Roronoa Zoro!" the meanest looking thug on the group booms, staring straight at them.Zoro stands up after a brief glance at Ace, "Sorry, can you wait for a bit?" He looks at the newcomers appraisingly and shrugs. "Won't take more than five minutes."Ace laughs. He'd give them two but maybe Zoro is feeling sleepy after their copious meal. "I'll go with you," he says standing up. "I'll make sure you come back that way."Zoro shots him a look, "I'm not going to run away.""No, but you might get lost," Ace says smirking much to Zoro's annoyance, if his scowl is any indication. "And with my help it will be over in a minute. Then we'll resume or conversation." He leers at Zoro, leaving no doubt which subject he wants to keep talking, or not talking as it turns out, about.Zoro nods and they follow the rowdy, and soon to be defeated, crew outside, a faint mumble of Eat and run reaching Ace's ears.…As it happens, they don't even last a minute. One look at Zoro's scowling face and Ace's ignited fist and the pirates turn tail and flee, leaving them outside the restaurant staring amusedly at their retreating backs."So," Ace says when the last of their opponents disappear in the distance."So," Zoro turns to look at him, a smirk in his face, "you were saying about taking advantage?"Ace grins impishly, "Do I need to get you drunk?""Will you still fight me tomorrow?" Zoro says, his voice and look almost serious.A shrug. "If you want.""I do. Let's go."…The room at the Inn is not the best one Ace has used, not the worst either. It's functional, it has a bed and a bathroom, and the innkeeper shot them a look but said nothing. Ace even paid for it.Zoro is staring at him from the other side of the room, his swords propped against the wall, his hands busy getting rid of his clothes in a fast and efficient way without breaking eye contact. Ace can't help remembering Sanji's slow show and how exciting it was, but this is also good: Zoro's look is challenging and incredibly arousing on its own.Ace makes short work of his clothes and plops down on the bed to look his fill. Zoro's body is bulky and stout, hard muscles bulging slightly with each movement, defined abs and broad chest peppered with tiny scars. The guy exudes an aura of masculinity and contained power to rival Ace's. He likes it.They don't waste any time getting on with it, the moment Zoro reaches the bed he's all over Ace, his mouth hard and demanding over Ace's lips. He returns the kiss, his hands grabbing Zoro's head and anchoring him there, his tongue exploring the other's mouth voraciously. He would never admit it, but not getting to kiss Sanji was a bit disappointing. He knew better than to press the issue, but it would have made a fantastic night even better.Zoro seems to know what he's doing, his hands roaming Ace's chest, short blunt nails scrapping his sides, deft fingers flicking a nipple or tracing some scar of his own. Ace arches up and moans into Zoro's mouth."What do you want?" he asks, because he always does though he knows exactly what he wants."I want to fuck you through the mattress," Zoro replies bluntly, his mouth moving to nip at the skin on Ace's throat. Ace lets out a breathy moan, a shiver of excitement coursing through him."Yes," he hisses, grabbing Zoro's head again and kissing him deeply, his teeth closing on his lower lip none-too-gently.It gets wilder, and rougher, from there. Zoro pins him to the bed with his entire body, taking care to rub himself against Ace as he scoots down slowly, his hands and mouth exploring the body laid down for him. By the time Zoro's face is at his crotch Ace is ready to grip his hair and just push his head down, see if he can take a hint."Want something, Ace?" Zoro asks mockingly looking up to his face."No," Ace replies through clenched teeth, his voice sounding breathless and a bit desperate. "Just wondering if you got lost again."That earns him a smirk, Zoro's breath ghosting over his straining cock. He waits for something to happen, but Zoro is just staring at him with an incredibly smug expression, breathing over his sensitive flesh and doing nothing."Do you need a ma--" he trails of with a groan when those lips finally close over his cock, his brain shutting down at the barrage of sensations. It's wet and warm and there is a dangerous hint of teeth that it's driving Ace wild.He closes his eyes and lets himself enjoy it, parting his thighs when a hand sneaks between them, searching. He's going to get fucked tonight and he intends to enjoy every second of it.He feels the burning intrusion of the first searching finger and forces his body to relax, cursing his lack of foresight not bringing anything with them. Well, he's had worse. Zoro must have felt his slight wince, because the delightful suction stops and the finger withdraws, barely breaching him. He stands up from the bed and Ace is about to protest when he sees him entering the bathroom. Oh.Zoro is back a scant second later, something small and that looks suspiciously like lubricant in his hand."What--?""It was worth a shot," he says shrugging, "These kind of places have a lot of stuff like this."Ace is not interested in the conversation, though. Now they have what they need, he wants to get on with what they were doing. Zoro must agree; he's back to sucking and preparing him before Ace has time to register he's moved.It doesn’t take long for Ace to reach his limit, tugging at Zoro's hair and spreading his legs wider in anticipation. Zoro positions himself and thrust in slowly, his face scrunched up in concentration. It seems he's very close to his limit as well.Ace can feel him going still once he's inside, his breathing loud and fast in the silent room. "Move," Ace rasps when it's clear Zoro is waiting for some sort of signal from him. He does.It's fast and hard from then, Ace barely has the time to catch his breath while he arches up, Zoro pounding into him while his mouth descends over Ace's. He knows they're not going to last much that way, but it doesn’t matter, they have the entire night.Ace clenches around Zoro's cock, coming, the instant a hand closes around his erection, pulling slightly. He feels two more powerful thrusts inside of him before Zoro freezes, coming as well.Zoro flops on top of the bed, spent, avoiding Ace's body just barely, and Ace can tell by his regular breathing that the guy is fast asleep. He snorts in the suddenly silent room and closes his eyes to take a nap as well.…Ace wakes up to darkness, silence and the sort of delightful friction he doesn’t associate with his crew mates. It takes him a second to remember where he is and who the one rubbing against his body is."Awake again," he says, his eyes adapting to the darkness quickly and looking at Zoro staring back at him with a smirk."Yes," is the short answer before Zoro's mouth closes over his and they decide to use their breath for something better than speaking.They keep rubbing just like that, Ace climbing on top of Zoro's body and grinding down slowly and precisely, his mouth intent in sucking the life out of Zoro while their bodies rub and push against each other. It reminds him of the last time he did this, and he can't help his smile thinking how different Zoro and Sanji are, and how good partners both turned out to be for a one night stand.They come like that after a while, the arousal building slowly until they are gripping each other's shoulders, their backs stiff and their rutting frantic."That was good," Zoro mumbles sleepily when Ace rolls off him, closing his eyes again when it's clear the exercise is over and is nap time again.Ace snorts amused. And people think he has a problem!…The next time Zoro wakes up is to Ace's mouth around his cock and his fingers breaching him. He doesn’t seem to mind, if his sleepy moans are any indication. Ace takes his sweet time preparing Zoro, going slowly and carefully stretching the ring of muscle.It's not just care not to hurt one's partner; it's also a bit of sadistic pleasure seeing the way Zoro curses and asks him to hurry the fuck up. Turnabout is fair play."I'm ready," Zoro growls for the third time, his entire body shaking and Ace decides that yes, he is.He positions himself and slides home in one smooth, powerful thrust. Zoro curses again, his hands gripping the mattress and his eyes going slightly unfocused. It's difficult to go slow from then on, the way Zoro arches up from the bed, his rough voice ordering Ace to move, and move fast, and the incredible warm pressure around him making it impossible for Ace to keep the pace.He thrusts blindly, angling up until he hears Zoro shouting loud enough to wake everyone in the Inn. Ace smirks and focuses his attention into hitting the same place again and again, Zoro panting raggedly and pushing hard against him.The bed is creaking and slamming against the wall with each thrust, their loud breaths and the slap of flesh against flesh the only other sounds in the room. Ace leans down, his mouth clamping on Zoro's corded neck, his teeth closing on the tendon and Zoro is coming, the pressure around Ace's cock almost painful. He lasts all of one minute more, Zoro clenching his muscles around him deliberately now.When it's over he slumps on top of Zoro, his tongue lapping at the abused skin of his neck in apology."Wake me before you leave," Zoro says closing his eyes again, "we still have that fight pending.""I will."…Ace is dressed and ready to leave by the time the sun peeks out of the horizon. It's a pity Zoro is a pirate hunter or he'd offer him a position in his crew. It would make a change from his crew mates, and his time with the fleet would be a lot more interesting.He had the same impulse with Sanji, and the brief image of the two of them together in the same crew makes him shake his head in amusement. Impossible."Zoro," he says, shaking a bit the sleeping form.Zoro's eyes open a fraction, staring at Ace. "You leaving already?" He asks groggily."Yes, I have a long way to the Grand Line," Ace puts on his hat and looks at Zoro. "Still want to fight?"Zoro blinks, tiredly. "Nah, leave it for next time we meet," he says yawning widely, making a shooing motion with his hand and closing his eyes again."Right," Ace says going to the door and looking one last time at the sleeping swordsman in the bed with a smile.He has to go back to his crew, but it was definitely an interesting trip to the East Blue, even if he didn't get to see Luffy.It's a pity he's not going to see them in the Grand Line, but it might make worth the trip to the East Blue next time he wants to see his brother.…
64289	The Vet Trip	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "Multi", "Characters": "Ronon Dex, John Sheppard, Rodney McKay, Teyla Emmagan", "Fandom": "Stargate Atlantis", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Mature", "author": "by idyll", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2007-02-03T00:00:00", "words": "1,786", "Additional Tags": "Earth, Alternate Universe - Canon", "Relationship": "Ronon Dex/John Sheppard/Rodney McKay/Teyla Emmagan", "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": "Critter!Verse", "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	As it turns out, the two chocolate labs that Rodney gives John are both females and when they lick his face Rodney shudders in distaste before rolling his eyes. "So you're an interspecies Kirk, yes, we already knew that.""--pissed on the floor and slobbered all over a stack of very important papers!" Rodney shouts, waving his hands emphatically.John, lounging on the floor in the living room and playing tug-of-war with Molly, the smaller puppy, just shrugs. "They're puppies," he says, unconcerned. "That's what they do."Out of the corner of his eye, John sees Rodney's face go red with outrage and he has to fight back a smile. He'd be more worried about the outcome of this latest mediation session, but in a stroke of luck it turns out that as much as Teyla likes kittens, she seems to like puppies a whole lot more. Ronon likes them, too, even though Berserker--the demented orange kitten with the big head who spends most of its time on his neck under his dreads--has first place in his heart when it comes to their pets."Teyla! Do something!" Rodney insists."What is it you wish me to do, Rodney?" Teyla asks impatiently. "They are young and still learning, and John is being very conscientious about their training.""Way more than you were with the kittens,," John says pointedly, then bares his teeth and growls playfully at Molly. She lets go of the tug toy, yaps at John and falls over when she wags her tail too enthusiastically."At the very least," Rodney says very loudly, "would you please make this beast leave me alone?" When John looks over, Rodney flings out his arm and points stridently at the other puppy, which is nudging a spit-drenched ball against his foot.Ironically, the larger and still-nameless puppy has taken a liking to Rodney and often follows him around with a toy of some kind in her mouth, just waiting for the opportunity to drop it at his feet with a dull but wet-sounding splat that makes Rodney gag every. single. time."Aw, but she likes you, Rodney," John says with a wide, beaming grin.The reason that Berserker spends ninety-percent of his time on Ronon's neck, under his dreads, is because the other kittens pick on him mercilessly. He's the runt of the litter, his head is far too big and wobbly for his scrawny body, and he tends to faceplant when he tries to do anything complex. Like, say, walk.Even John feels bad for the little guy.Berserker will come out a few times a day but never strays very far from Ronon, who always scoops him up when one or more of the others start in on him. Ronon also helps out whenever he tries to run and fails miserably because an off-balance big-headed kitten on hardwood floors is a recipe for disaster.It's also really, really amusing.John hears a cacophony of hisses, meows and strange yowling noises that make him shudder in distaste. Seriously, the sound is like nails on a chalkboard.He's about to turn the volume up on the television when one of the puppies joins in, adding high-pitched barks that aren't nearly as threatening as they're probably intended to be. He tracks the noise to the master bedroom. Specifically, in front of the door to the en suite bathroom.Berserker is pressed against the closed door, like he can push through it and get to Ronon, who's apparently showering on the other side. Molly is in front of him, small teeth bared at four other kittens (and John refuses to even try to keep their names straight, mostly because it pisses Rodney off, but also because that would give them far more status in his eyes than he's comfortable with). A multi-colored one tries to flank Berserker, but Molly snaps at it and issues a barrage of barks.The bathroom door opens abruptly and the guilty kittens scatter. Berserker, meanwhile, paws at Molly's now-wagging tail, getting hold of it and chewing on it while Molly falls backward onto her rump and looks unduly proud of herself."Huh," Ronon says, smiling at Molly.And, yeah, John's got no worries about any future mediation sessions.John names the larger of the pups Trevor, much to Rodney's consternation."It's a female and, in case you are as stupid as you look, Trevor is a male name!"Trevor flops onto her back and John reaches down to rub her belly. "Did you see me getting involved in the naming of the kittens and offering derogatory comments?" he asks."Oh, please! You don't even know their names.""Exactly," John says wisely and twists his wrist and spins Trevor like a top on the floor, much to her excitement."Not that I care, but you're going to give that thing gender issues, you know."Even Trevor seems to be rolling her eyes at that one. John pushes a sodden ball at her, and she snaps it up, scrambles gracelessly to her feet, runs awkwardly to Rodney and drops it on his bare foot. It makes a loud squelching sound.Rodney gags. John beams. Trevor piddles on the floor.The next morning, John wakes to the familiar sounds of creaking bedsprings and sex. When he opens his eyes he sees Teyla riding Ronon, both of them sleep-warm and leaden, and he echoes the appreciative murmur Rodney issues from behind him. It's beautiful and graceful and really freaking hot.At least until Teyla shrieks and jerks at really bad angle and direction, which causes Ronon to bite his lip in pain and curl into a fetal position."What the hell just happened?" Rodney shouts.Teyla glares and moves to the side, giving them a clear view of Trevor standing on the bed. "I was startled by her nose in...a place it should not be," Teyla says in a tight, prim voice.John grimaces and checks on Ronon, who is cradling his dick and breathing through the pain. "You okay there?""No," Ronon snaps.Teyla bans the puppies from the bedroom, and John would argue against the unfairness, since the kittens are still allowed in, but then he looks at Ronon and realizes that could have been him, so he nods, instead.The vet trip is a disaster from start to finish.It takes three hours to round up all the kittens, one of which caught sight of the carriers in the living room and then went around and somehow communicated it to the rest of them.They go into hiding, and because of the size of the house tracking them down isn't easy. When cornered, they panic and run and use their sharp little claws.John doesn't help gather them. He sits on the stairs leading to the second floor, Molly and Trevor next to him with leashes attached to their collars, and watches Rodney, Teyla and Ronon run around like idiots, towels in hand to wrap around the kittens and trap their razor-tipped paws.By the time Teyla comes downstairs with the last of the kittens all three of them have dozens of scratches on their hands and forearms, and Ronon has some really nasty gashes and punctures on the back of his neck from Berserker going, well, berserk."Ready?" John asks cheerfully, getting to his feet and tugging on Trevor and Molly's leashes."There is no word sufficient enough for me to express my hatred of you right now," Rodney spits at him.They have to take both vehicles. John drives one and takes Ronon, who props the carrier that holds Berserker and another kitten on his knees. Molly and Trevor ride with them, harnessed to the seats in the back. Rodney has Teyla and the rest of the carriers in the Explorer.During the ten-minute drive Rodney has to pull over three times because the kittens keep escaping the carriers. Once, John pulls up behind him and watches with interest as a kitten runs across the dashboard, jumps off from the steering wheel, and then bounces off of Rodney's head and dives into the back seat.Rodney screams loudly enough for John and Ronon to hear and bashes his face into the steering wheel when he flails, while Teyla undoes her seatbelt and climbs into the back seat.John reaches into the back of his own car and gives Molly and Trevor a treat each. "Good girls."When they reach the vet's office the kittens are not happy and are vocalizing their displeasure with snarls, hisses and gulpy-sounding yowls.Molly and Trevor, meanwhile, prove to have no tolerance for animals outside of their family and try to go after every other one in the waiting room, slipping their collars and causing an animal riot. It ends in a flurry of teeth and fur, a not-actually-alive-anymore bird, and a sobbing eight-year-old boy and his screaming mother. John is horrified and writes out a check for a thousand dollars and hopes there won't be a lawsuit.The exam itself is a nightmare and involves Trevor drawing blood with his pointy puppy teeth, three kittens making a break for it, and another check, this one for five thousand dollars to cover equipment damage, dry cleaning, and necessary medical treatment for a staff member.They're told never to return again, and when they get home they free all of the critters and get very, very drunk.They learn to sleep through the kittens chasing each other across the bed in the middle of the night, and they wake to tiny paws batting at their faces, or impatient whines from outside the bedroom door. They walk puppies, change litter, spend more money at Pet Smart than any other store, and trip over stray pet toys all the time.They watch movies with kittens curled up on Rodney and Teyla's laps, Berserker's paw hanging over Ronon's shoulder, and Molly and Trevor sleeping at John's feet.It's strange and weird, and nothing at all the way John pictured settling down would be, and maybe that's why it works.During the next Pet Smart trip, Teyla is pushing a full cart while John strolls next to her with a second one that's already half-full. They have to detour around several stock boys who are blocking an aisle, and it takes them into the pet section of the store. Teyla looks around with mild curiosity, but then goes still in front of a large cage, her eyes warm and soft and big."Oh," she says softly, one finger sliding through the cage to touch soft fur. "Rabbits."John sighs and calls Rodney while he goes off in search of rabbit supplies..End
81350	Bedtime Story	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": null, "Characters": "Kathryn Janeway, EMH, Naomi Wildman, Torres, Chakotay", "Fandom": "Star Trek: Voyager", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Not Rated", "author": "by CyberMum", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2010-04-19T00:00:00", "words": "2,262", "Additional Tags": null, "Relationship": null, "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	Continuation from Chapter 22:....After the shuttlecraft story, the night seems to whittle gently away. We both have some work to do, and I'm tired from talking. We sleep early.I turn over in the middle of the night and find her gone. Without looking at the clock, I know that it's 03:00 hours and that Voyager's captain is touring her ship. At least that's what she calls it. I call it insomnia. I pull on some sweat clothes and set out to find her.It doesn't take me long. I'm pretty certain of where she'll end up. And sure enough we reach the mess hall at almost the same instant. I know that when I'm looking for Kathryn I just have to head towards the most convenient caffeine source. She'll turn up there, inevitably.Neither of us says a word as we enter Neelix's domain. He too knows his captain. I can see the outline of a coffee thermos sitting on the counter. He leaves it for her every night. But tonight I notice another small form, illuminated by the gentle glow of a personal lamp at the far end of the room.Kathryn glances at me; a slightly quizzical smile on her face, and we both head towards the light.Our nocturnal companion is totally unexpected. Naomi Wildman, sound asleep amidst a small pile of PADDs. Voyager's youngest crewman should have been in her quarters, in bed many hours ago. Kathryn picks up one of the PADDs and scrolls through it quickly. She smiles again and nods. She sits down on the bench beside her, gently brushes Naomi's hair away from her face and strokes her cheek to wake her.The child startles, more I think as a reaction to who is waking her, and struggles to sit up. Kathryn pulls her quickly onto her lap and calms her."Shhh... Naomi. What are you doing here?""I was doing. . ." she searches for the words, still sleepy. "I was doing a research as...assignment.""For the Doctor?" Kathryn asks."Yes." Naomi sighs. "Captain?""Yes Naomi.""Captain, why is the Doctor so...so...he makes me work so hard." she finishes plaintively.Kathryn grins. "Naomi, believe it or not, the Doctor is much better now than he ever was. When I first met him he had absolutely no social graces whatsoever. And you - you are very special to the doctor."Naomi looks up at Kathryn expectantly. And Kathryn suddenly realizes exactly what she has gotten herself into. "Commander Chakotay is the story teller on this ship." She says to Naomi. "I'm sure he wouldn't mind." "Oh no, Captain," I answer quickly. "I think it's your turn . . ."Bedtime Story(Stardate: 48315.6) "Please state the nature of the medical emergency." The sounds echoed through his systems. He was momentarily disoriented but quickly realized that what he had heard emanated from his own program. This was definitely new. He had been refitted with a functioning sound system. He vaguely remembered the last time he had been activated there had been some question as to his voice. His creator, Dr. Lewis Zimmerman, had been quite insistent upon installing his own voice patterns in his program. Zimmerman's ego was legendary, and his co-developers had decided not to debate this particular demand and acquiesced.All around him was chaos.External stimuli. He was autonomically responding to external stimuli. His programming was beginning to function. He was on-line.His reaction was immediate. He stepped up to the nearest biobed and began to examine the patient stretched out upon it. He treated each injury carefully and thoroughly. When he had done all he could, he moved on to the next bed. He said nothing and interacted with no one around him except to demand a medical instrument or instruct the patient to move this way or that. He was completely immersed in his tasks.The observers were satisfied. This prototype Emergency Medical Hologram was operating at full function."End Prototype Test 47, deactivate EMH." The technicians complied and the program faded once again from their view."Well" said Dr. Zimmerman. "I think that this EMH is ready to be installed on Voyager. It will be a perfect test case scenario. Three weeks or so in deep space, isolated from any other ships or space stations. There might be a few cases of Bolian flu and a couple of minor injuries for him to treat. I'll instruct Captain Janeway to run a few diagnostics and some drills while they're out there. Shouldn't be too much trouble for her. Not that I anticipate any problems." He added.Dr. Zimmerman surveyed his lab, and raised one brow slightly as he noticed a few instruments out of place and a data PADD tucked haphazardly between two consoles. "I like to run a tight ship, ladies and gentlemen. Disorder will not be tolerated." He nodded to the junior technician who happened to be standing nearest to the offending materials. "Take care of this, ensign." The doctor turned on his heel and left the lab, followed with alacrity by his minions.The young ensign sighed and turned to the task at hand. The counter was easily straightened, and she picked up the offending PADD. She glanced at the heading, in preparation for filing the information in the correct data storage unit, and her attention was caught. "Proposal for integrating ethical, moral and emotional subroutines into EMH prototype 7a-b". She scrolled quickly through the information. She knew all the EMH prototypes must have had ethical and moral programming installed. This had come as a directive from Star Fleet Medical Headquarters. But an emotional subroutine? This was the first time she'd come across any mention of such a proposal. Her attention caught, she began to read.Several minutes later she looked up and grinned. Dr. Lewis Zimmerman was known to be an arrogant and emotionless, albeit brilliant scientist. He was famous for treating his students, technicians and underlings less than kindly. The proposal the young ensign now held involved a few relatively simple adjustments to the EMH program. The young woman reviewed the figures on the PADD, just to make sure. She flicked on the console in front of her and began to enter the data into the system.* * (Approximately 18 months later)When Neelix arrived in sickbay with Samantha Wildman leaning heavily on his arm, Voyager's Doctor was in consultation with Kes."Doctor, doctor!."The Talaxian's frantic excitement was nothing new to the EMH."Just one minute Mr. Neelix" he said, without turning around. "I'll attend to you."Kes interjected quietly. "Sam, why don't you come over here and I'll help you onto the biobed."The EMH had been preparing for this moment ever since he had diagnosed Ensign Wildman's condition. He had reviewed all the information in Voyager's database regarding inter-species gestation and birthing techniques. He had prepared himself for every possible emergency and contingency. What he had not prepared for was a very pregnant woman in heavy labour."Push." he instructed her."Don't forget to breathe, Samantha." Kes said kindly, and gently wiped her forehead with a damp cloth. "Deep regular breaths.""Cervical dilation is at ten point two centimeters, glandular levels are normal. Push, Ensign!" The doctor barked impatiently."You push damn it. I'm sick of pushing."He looked up in surprise. Not many of his patients argued with him. "I know you are fatigued. Try to focus on your breathing. Remember the exercises we did. When you feel a contraction, bear down." he directed. He had not expected this reaction. After all, wasn't he doing all the work here? But this was not going according plan. Or any of the books that he had read. Samantha was in distress. And so was the child."The baby has shifted position. This is a rare complication. . ."Voyager was rocked by a heavy impact.All around him was chaos. Triage. But this was what he was programmed for. He sorted through the wounded quickly and efficiently."Second degree plasma burns on the face and neck. Treat him for fractured clavicle, thoracic contusions, nothing serious, she can wait." He was back in command.But the baby was in distress again. "Increase the osmotic pressure by ten percent."More wounded. And his program was in jeopardy. He flickered and dropped a regenerator."Oh no." He felt something unfamiliar jolt through his systems. He tried to shake the sensation off, but it lingered for a moment. He continued triage.The child died. "I'm sorry ensign." He whispered. And couldn't look into Samantha Wildman's eyes.They had been given a second chance. Ensign Wildman's baby had come from another Voyager through a spatial rift with Harry Kim. The captain and the crew were ecstatic. Samantha had taken the child back to her quarters and both were healthy and thriving.But Voyager's EMH was troubled. Which in itself was highly unusual. He had failed. He reviewed the records of his procedures and actions for the day of the Wildman baby's birth. "Naomi's birth," he corrected himself. And there too lay an interesting dilemma. He felt a special . . .fondness . . . for the Wildman child. And he could not quite figure out where these (he couldn't quite put a name to these sensations) were coming from. The failure, perhaps. The fondness was mystifying."Doctor to Torres". "Torres here. Doctor, we're extremely busy down here. Can it wait?" "Lieutenant, I am in need of a diagnostic at your earliest convenience. EMH out.""Captain, thank you for coming." He actually fussed a little and offered her a chair. She valiantly tried to suppress a smile.It seems Captain," he said when they were both settled, "That there is a small glitch in my program. Lieutenant Torres discovered it the other day when she ran a detailed diagnostic - one that I requested - I might add, on my systems.""A glitch Doctor?" Janeway asked.He continued. "It seems that there was an unauthorized addition to the moral and ethical subroutines Dr. Zimmerman programmed into the Emergency Medical Hologram installed on Voyager.""In other words, into you, Doctor.""Yes. I have an emotional subroutine embedded into my matrix. Lieutenant Torres has informed me that it can be removed, although it will be a tricky procedure. She told me that she would be willing to do it on her next 72 hour break. But she also insisted that I obtain your permission to have it removed.""I see. And why do you want it removed, Doctor?""Captain. I found it very difficult to fail. When I lost Ensign Wildman's baby I felt a paralysis that frightened me. I must be able to function fully at all times, in any situation. I could not. I could not look at Samantha. And I could not face myself." He continued, slowly, his voice reflecting his distress. "And Captain I have recently found that I have certain feelings that are dictating my responses to members of our crew. I find these responses puzzling and they often divert my attentions when I should be working on research and other duties.""Doctor." Janeway's tone was soft and kind. "Have you found that these emotions are detracting from the care that you are giving the crew? Have you neglected any of your patients, or your duties because of them?""No." He sounded surprised. "Of course not. I am still functioning at the high end of my efficiency ratio. I am just . . . feeling things. I'm not sure that I want these emotions to continue." He paused and looked up at his Captain, who was watching him carefully. "However" he continued eventually "some of those feelings are actually quite pleasant. For instance the way I feel about Naomi Wildman evokes a pleasurable sensation."Kathryn Janeway smiled. "Doctor, Naomi Wildman evokes a pleasurable sensation in the entire crew. And you didn't fail her you know. Your counterpart on the other Voyager was able to adjust her cellular problems and send us a healthy baby. You did what you had to do under distinctly different and difficult conditions. You have grown immeasurably over the past 18 months Doctor. We all know that your program was initially developed to be an adjunct to a ship's doctor. But you are our ship's doctor. And as such you have served us well. You will be able to serve us even better with your emotional routine intact. Permission denied."The EMH remained quiet as he considered his captain's decision."And Doctor." Captain Janeway continued. "It might be beneficial to both of you if you spend some extra time with Naomi Wildman. And I'm sure that Samantha would appreciate your advice. In moderation, of course." She finished quickly.The Doctor tilted his head in thought and then smiled. "Why yes. Of course. I am the perfect instructor for the child. I have an incredible amount of knowledge to impart. Probably more than anyone else on this ship, excuse me for saying so Captain! why I will start developing a curriculum immediately."Kathryn glances down and sees that one member of her audience has faded again. She quirks that enchanting Kathryn grin at me and nods. I carefully gather Naomi up into my arms and we head towards the Wildman quarters. She doesn't stir as I place her gently in her bed, Samantha sheepishly tucking her in."I didn't notice she was gone" she mumbles. "Double shift, Neelix was sitting, I just fell into bed.""Don't worry" I say, and I give Kathryn's hand a surreptitious squeeze. "She just needed an extra bedtime story tonight."~*~
50158	Ordinary Miracle	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "F/M", "Characters": "Teyla Emmagan, John Sheppard", "Fandom": "Stargate Atlantis", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Teen And Up Audiences", "author": "by Abydosorphan", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2008-01-10T00:00:00", "words": "936", "Additional Tags": null, "Relationship": "Teyla Emmagan/John Sheppard", "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	Teyla rolled her eyes as John bounced a ball off of the interior wall of the jumper. His behavior lately had been most juvenile and he was currently the last person she wanted to be stranded with. Especially since her very presence was only because of Carter's sympathetic ear and her ability to over-rule John's decision to remove her from active duty – for the time being. She had been quite clear that should anything happen, or should Keller raise any concerns, she would yank Teyla's duty status again. After this fiasco, Teyla was sure she would be getting very closely acquainted with the inside of the city for a while.thump, thumpShe rubbed her temple, wishing the throbbing in her head would cease. This would be the first time she would honestly be tempted to kiss whom ever wound up actually rescuing them; either that, or she would welcome death – whichever came first.thump, thump"John, will you please stop that."His movements stopped once he caught the ball, but he didn't break the silence. Or look at her. Instead, his eyes cast towards the floor while he tossed the ball back and forth between his hands.She inhaled deeply, sighing as she breathed out."John, this is ridiculous. We are friends. We should be able to work through this.""Friends… hmph. Is that what we are?"Teyla's eyes closed; his shock at her 'announcement' had been quite apparent. She had assumed it was mainly because she had kept her relationship with Kanan a secret, not because of any underlying feelings he might have for her. She'd known they were close; she'd never even dared to hope that it could be anything more."You could have told me, you know."She looked over at him, but he still wasn't meeting her eyes."John… I am not sure where to begin… I had no idea."From his reaction, this revelation shocked him more than the announcement of her pregnancy. Could she have really blind as to not realize he had feelings for her?"I have known Kanan since we were both young children. He is a natural leader, but he does not know his own strengths. It is a custom for my people to look for such qualities – even in children – and match them with suitable mates that will help to nurture and cultivate them. It has helped my people thrive through the worst of times." She paused and wondered if it was even possible to explain the customs of her people in regards to certain matters. "We were matched when we were very young. Until recently we had only called on each other primarily in friendship.""So what changed?" He sounded almost flippant, like he felt the need to ask but really had no desire to hear her answer. If this was John Sheppard when he was jealous she could have really done without seeing this side of him.How could she explain it? How did she tell him that she had gone to Kanan out of need? Out of a desire for a relationship with a man that she was certain was forbidden to her. She had sought Kanan's counsel and found that he could provide her with at least part of what she craved."Everything."John wiped a hand across his face, before finally meeting her eyes."Was I wrong in thinking that there was something here?" His empty hand motioned between them and she had to wonder if telling him the truth would make things easier or so much more complicated than they were already."No, you were not wrong. Perhaps I was wrong in thinking that it could not be."This time, it was John who sighed. "So I guess I need to amend the quote then… 'So I finally find the perfect girl and she's from another planet'… literally.""I am not sure I understand the reference…."John shook his head, "It's not important."They sat in silence for a few minutes. It seemed like such an impossible situation for them.What did she have to offer him?What would he expect?What did he want?What could he expect?She was expecting a child, her people were missing, and it seemed as though Atlantis was all she had left, somehow, even with everything else that she had seen, she had never foreseen this as a possibility for her predicament.John shifted in his seat, "So… where does that leave us?" He smiled, though it was obviously a forced smile, "Assuming we get out of this mess, of course."She couldn't help but smile in response, "Have you no faith in Rodney's ability to figure this out?""I have plenty of faith in Rodney's abilities." He huffed, "But the Pegasus Galaxy has a sick sense of humor." He cocked a smile at her, "So….""I have no idea what the future holds.""None of us do….""I'm not sure what I can offer you, John. Especially given current circumstances…." Her hands were lax at her side, she felt defeated for the first time in a long time and she knew that, though it was honest, it wouldn't necessarily get her a favorable reaction.John stood from his seat and took her hand, pulling her toward him and holding her hand against his chest. "I don't have the right to ask for anything… " He stepped closer, breaching her personal space. "But I will give you any support that I can offer."When their foreheads touched she knew that though the battle was not nearly over, she had not yet been defeated.
21259	Jewel of the Hellmouth	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "Gen", "Characters": "Anya Jenkins, Buffy Summers, Rupert Giles, Willow Rosenberg, Daniel Osbourne, Xander Harris, Francis Allen Doyle", "Fandom": null, "Language": "English", "Rating": "Teen And Up Audiences", "author": "by dbw", "chapters": "10/10", "completed": "", "published": "2009-11-26T00:00:00", "words": "28,913", "Additional Tags": "Alternate Universe, Crossover", "Relationship": null, "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": "The Emerald Tablet", "Collections": null, "Fandoms": "Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel: the Series", "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	Buffy sat on a headstone and idly kicked her feet back and forth. For once she wasn't sorry that the vampires didn't seem to want to come out and play. She couldn't shake the exhaustion that had plagued her since she wokaye from the spell Willow and the others had used to save her. It was a good thing she wasn't facing a fang gang on her own right now, she thought.A twig snapped behind her. She flipped backward off the headstone and whirled, stake in hand ready to dust the unlucky vampire trying to sneak up on her."Whoa, Buff! It's just me!" Xander held up his hands and backed up a few steps."Xander! Say something when you're sneaking up on me. I could have hurt you." Buffy slipped the stake up her sleeve. "What are you doing here anyway? Is Giles okay? Did you guys find something?""Giles is fine. He thinks he may have a lead on your demon, but he's not positive. Nothing yet on the Emerald or that Hammer thing."She frowned at him. "So, why are you out here?"He looked uncomfortable. "We were all kind of worried about you. I got elected to find you and see how you're doing.""Uh-huh, elected," she said dryly and raised her eyebrows. "And getting out of researching didn't have anything to do with it?""Yeah, well, I volunteered, okay?" Xander shrugged sheepishly. "But, we were all worried about you.""Well, stop it. This is officially a worry free zone." She glanced around the cemetery. "There's absolutely nothing happening here. C'mon. Let's go back to Giles'."They walked along in companionable silence though she could feel Xander's gaze on her. Finally she stopped and waited for him to turn around."What's with you?" she asked."Um.""Good, Xander. You've mastered the single syllable nonsense sentence. Let's try for actual words now." She said softly.Xander grimaced. "Okay. I need to tell you something and I don't know how to do it without either hurting you or making you mad. Either of which could mean major bodily harm for me."She looked at him seriously. "Whatever it is, just say it. I promise not to hurt you.""Thanks," he said dryly. "I'll hold you to that." He took a deep breath. "It's about Angel."She gripped his arm. "What about Angel?""Willow's been in contact with him over email.""Oh." Buffy dropped her hand. "Is that all?"He frowned. "Is that all? You're not upset?"A smile played across her lips. "Do you want me to be? I'm sure I can work up a nice snit if you'd like. Is there more?""No and yes." He blinked rapidly and said, "Angel's in L.A.""I know.""You know? What d'you mean, you know? How long have you known?" He sounded outraged."Since last July. He sent me a postcard to let me know where he was in case I ever needed to contact him. I haven't." She shrugged."Oh great. And here we've been jumping through Cheerios to keep from letting you know, thinking we were doing the great and noble." He let his disgust show on his face. "Willow's been exchanging email with Angel since around last October. We coulda just told you about it and been done with it."She looked up at him curiously. "Why did you guys think you had to hide this?"Xander fidgeted and looked away. "Well, it's just that we thought it might be painful for you to know. What with everything.""Xander," Buffy said seriously, "I do care about Angel. I probably always will. But I'm not in love with him. I haven't been for a long time. As confusing as it was for me last year, Angel's leaving was the right thing for him to do. For both of us. It doesn't have the power to hurt me anymore. I've moved on and I hope he has too.""So, you're okay with this? Not mad?" He looked perplexed.She couldn't help it. She doubled over with laughter. She grasped his arm to keep her balance and once she could gasp out the words she said, "Your face! I'm sorry, Xander, but the look on your face was too much!" She shook her head. "No, I'm not mad. God, did you really think I'd go Psycho on you?"Xander looked pained. "I don't know. I guess we sort of did, in a we're your friends and just looking out for you kind of way."She nodded and then looked at him curiously. "So, if you guys have been keeping this a secret all this time, why are you telling me now?""Oh. Well, you know that contact Giles has been talking about?""It's Angel?" She raised her eyebrows."Yeah. Willow told Giles about the email thing with Dead Boy after you were unconscious and we couldn't find anything to help. Giles didn't like it, but he told her to send him a picture of the dagger. See Angel's kind of got this Magnum, PI thing going. He works with some guy named Doyle, and, uh, Cordelia.""Cordelia?" Buffy shook her head. "Do I want to know how that happened?""Probably not," Xander said dryly. "Anyway, I guess they specialize in helping people in trouble. Not just any kind of trouble, but trouble of the pointy-toothed kind.""Cordelia knows this? And she's helping?" Buffy couldn't keep the skepticism out of her voice."Yeah. Let's just not go there, okay?" Xander shook his head."So Angel's the one who found the spell and the prophecy?""Uh-huh.""All right. Still doesn't explain why you're telling me this." She tilted her head."It's just that we're depending on Angel to come up with something on this prophecy. I figured if you knew about him then we could stop worrying about what was going to happen when you found out."She said, "Because of the whole Buffy-gets-wacky-where-Angel's-concerned thing?"He nodded.She smiled and threw her arms around his waist, hugging him impulsively. She felt his hesitant response, broke the hug after a few moments and looked at him with bright eyes. "Thanks. It wasn't really necessary, but the thought was sweet.""You're welcome," he mumbled.She threaded her arm through his and they continued walking. After a few moments of silence she glanced up and caught him staring at her again."Okay. What's the what here, Xand? You look like you ate a bad egg or something. I'm beginning to feel like an infomercial -- but wait, there's more!"Xander grimaced. "Can I ask you something?"She nodded. "What?""It's just, what's the deal with this Callahan guy?""Xander," she said, "what are you talking about?""Look, Buff," he said seriously, "I know it's probably none of my business, but the guy called a little while ago." Xander stopped and crossed his arms."Oh." She scuffed at the sidewalk with her shoe. "Wait a minute. How'd he get Giles' number? I didn't give it to him. In fact, how'd he even know to call there?" She frowned.Xander shook his head. "I don't know how he knew, but Giles is listed in the phone book, right?"Buffy nodded, still confused. "So, what did he say?""Giles answered the phone."Buffy glanced up. "And?""It got ugly. So I gotta ask, what's the deal?""Ugly?" She frowned. "What do you mean ugly?""From the side of the conversation we could hear it sounded like he wouldn't believe that you weren't there. I don't know what he said exactly, but Giles got that 'Ripper' look on his face and, well, Buff, he kinda told Callahan to 'sod off' among other things." Xander looked uncomfortable. "Giles gave us his silent movie imitation after he hung up. 'Course Will might've got something out of him after I left."Buffy threw her hands up and let them settle on her hips. She said, exasperated, "Oh great. My life's not complicated enough as it is? What was he thinking?""Giles?""No! Brian. I called him earlier to tell him that I wasn't going to go out with him anymore. With all the other stuff going on, I so don't have time to deal with dating just to be dating." She glanced at Xander and added, "I didn't say it that way. I tried to let him down nicely. I mean, I like the guy, just not enough and I didn't want to lead him on. It's not easy to break up with someone when they're nice, you know? Not that we'd gone out enough times for this to really be a break up. So what the hell was he thinking, calling and getting into an argument with Giles?"Xander looked puzzled and said, "Okay. I'm confused. You just broke up with the guy? He still wants to see you, right? And you didn't give him Giles' number, but he called there looking for you? So you're upset at him because he's jealous of Giles?""Jealous?" Buffy asked, shocked. Jealous? How could Brian be jealous of...Giles? God, she thought, Giles was so going to kill her."That's the way the whole thing sounded to me. Look at it from a guy's perspective and you'll see that little green monster's hands all over the place." Xander shook his head."Oh," Buffy said in a small voice. "Do all guys lose the ability to reason when their hormones are engaged?"Xander took her arm and started walking. "Hey, we learn it in Basic Male 101. It's a required course. Don't worry. I'm sure that after Giles got through with him you won't have to worry about this Callahan guy calling you. If you really don't want to see him anymore, that is." They turned up the walk to Giles' front door.Buffy glanced up at Xander, her eyes wide. "That bad, huh?"He nodded. "Not that I'm likely to forget anytime soon, but remind me not to get Giles really mad at me? He's got way too many words I've never heard before. I think he may even have been swearing at the guy in one of those dead languages he speaks." Xander chuckled. "If it hadn't been so scary it would've been kind of funny."Buffy laughed. "Now I'm almost sorry I missed it. Almost."They were still laughing as they walked through the door into Giles' foyer. They stopped at the sight of a strange, dark haired man standing in Giles' living room. Xander joined Willow and Oz on the couch. Buffy moved to Giles' side, standing just in front of him and between Giles and the stranger. Something about the guy bugged her.She noted the serious looks on her friends' faces. She deliberately looked the stranger over and demanded, "Who the hell are you?" She felt Giles' warm hand on her shoulder and glanced up at him."So, you're the Slayer, eh? Name's Doyle, princess." He gave her an impudent look and grinned. ----- CHAPTER BREAK ----- Giles felt Buffy start under his hand on her shoulder. He wasn't prepared for what she said next."You're Doyle?""So, you've heard o' me? Good.""How do you know about Doyle?" Willow asked in shock. Her eyes widened and she leaned around Oz. "Xander!"Xander raised his hands and sat back. "What? Hey, she already knew about Dead Boy being in L.A., okay? I just filled in some of the blanks."Doyle snorted. "Dead Boy, huh? I'm going to have to remember that one."Xander brightened.Doyle glanced at the couch and asked curiously, "You're Xander, are you? Hmm."Xander bristled. "What's that mean?""Nothin', nothin'. Just I've heard a bit about all of you and it's interesting puttin' the names to faces, if you know what I mean?" He assumed an innocent expression and turned back to Giles and Buffy.Concerned, Giles looked down at her and murmured, "Buffy?"She looked up at him and smiled warmly. "We'll talk. But it's okay. Really."He nodded, relieved and a bit puzzled. He already felt guilty enough about his conversation with Brian Callahan and dreaded telling her about that. At least it seemed as though she wasn't upset over the business with Angel."So, Buffy," Doyle said, glancing between the Slayer and Giles. "I'm thinkin' we need to have a little chat about a few things while I'm here."Giles frowned. "Why are you here? You were about to tell us, as I recall.""Didn't you get Angel's email saying I was coming?""Oh!" Willow exclaimed. "I haven't checked my email in awhile. When did he send it?" She went into the other room and opened her laptop."Several hours ago." Doyle said. "I told him he should call.""Something must have happened. I still haven't received it." Willow looked up from her computer with a frown. She returned to sit on the couch with Xander and Oz."I've got some information for you from Angel," Doyle said. "But the real reason I'm here is because the Powers That Be want me here."Giles met Buffy's confused gaze for a moment and shook his head."Powers that be?" she asked suspiciously. "And who're they?"Doyle shrugged. "Wish to hell I knew, princess. All's I know is they keep sending me visions that come with mind-numbing, head splittin' migraines. I follow the visions. Angel and Cordelia, they didn't want me to come, but I didn't really have a choice."Giles felt Buffy tense and glanced at her quickly. She was frowning at Xander and seemed concerned about his reaction to the casual mention of Cordelia's name.Buffy turned to Doyle. "You're saying you've had a vision about something in Sunnydale?"He nodded unhappily. "One of the worst. Wasn't just Sunnydale, either. I kept seeing places all over the world. New York. London. Paris. Madrid. Demons everywhere. People running in terror, bein' torn apart." He shuddered. "But one word kept flashing over all of it.""Sunnydale." Giles made it a statement.Doyle nodded. "Whatever's going to happen, it starts here.""The Tablet?" Oz asked."I'd bet on it," said Buffy."Tablet? What tablet?" Doyle asked and took a step toward her.Buffy involuntarily stepped back, away from Doyle, stopping only when she bumped into Giles. He glanced down at her and reassuringly put his other hand on her shoulder as well.Giles frowned at Doyle. "What's the information Angel sent with you?"Doyle picked up a small bag from a corner of the entry and sighed. "Mind if I sit down? Don't suppose you'd have something to drink, preferably a single-malt scotch?"Giles looked at Xander and jerked his head in the direction of the liquor cabinet. He had a strange feeling that Buffy needed the physical contact she was maintaining with him and he was reluctant to move. He watched Xander pour a small amount of scotch in a glass and hand it to Doyle.Doyle sat down on a heavy chest off to the side of the couch and sipped his drink. He closed his eyes and smiled. "The Macallan. You're livin' right, Watcher. Thanks." He opened his eyes to find them all staring at him. "Sorry. Angel sent these." He reached into his bag and pulled out a small leather bound book, a little larger in dimension than a paperback, along with a sheaf of loose papers.Giles reached one hand around Buffy and accepted them from him. Buffy grabbed them out of his hand, holding the book open so he could see the pages over her shoulder. He raised his eyebrows and met her gaze with his questioning one. Her eyes were wide. He dropped his hand from her shoulder, took the book and papers from her, and led her to the large easy chair next to the couch. He sat on the chair and pulled her down to sit on the arm, keeping hold of her hand.Giles glanced up in time to see Doyle exchange a look with the three on the couch and jerk his head curiously at the two of them. Annoyed, Giles flipped the book on his lap open, riffling through the pages. My god, he thought. It was the original Gaelic addendum to the Annales that Angel had mentioned in his previous email. He looked sharply at Doyle.Doyle smiled slightly. "Angel said he thought you might as well read the original, since I was so determined to come here in person. But he did bookmark the passages he thought particularly pertinent. And he sent along his notes about the research he's done."Buffy glanced down at the book on Giles' lap. "What is it?""It's Angel's copy of an addendum to the Annales Cambriae," Giles answered. "I don't believe the Council has this.Doyle nodded seriously. "You're right. It's a bloody rare work. Angel only sent it because it's so important and because he trusts you." He drained his drink and took the empty glass into the kitchen.Buffy looked at Giles. "So, how many pages are marked?""It looks like--"Doyle had returned from the kitchen and he touched Buffy on the arm to get her attention. She gave a cry and jerked away from him, tumbling over onto the chair and Giles, knocking the book and papers to the floor. She clutched at Giles' shirt to keep from falling over further and his arms automatically came up to hold her to his chest. For the space of a heartbeat they stared at one another in shock, faces mere inches apart.Doyle cleared his throat. "Sorry if I startled you, princess."Buffy pushed herself away from Giles' chest and slid to her knees on the floor. Jeez, she thought, overreacting much? She glared up at Doyle. "Stop calling me that," she said irritably. She handed the Annales to Giles and gathered up the loose papers."What?" he asked innocently. "Princess? Just a term of endearment, believe me.""Well I'm not your 'dear', so stop it." She climbed to her feet, clutching the papers. She sat on the arm of Giles' chair furthest from Doyle, keeping a wary eye on him the entire time. Giles gently removed the papers from her fist.Xander raised his hand. "So you're here to help find the Emerald Tablet? And then do what?"Doyle jerked his head around to look at Xander and said fearfully, "Emerald Tablet?" He looked at Giles, eyes wide. "Damn. But that was destroyed--""Yeah, we know. A thousand years ago." Buffy interrupted in a bored voice."OK, princess. So you know. Then why do you think that's what we're looking for?" Doyle said sarcastically.Giles frowned. "Think about what the Tablet can do for a minute and then think about your vision.""Mix in one soul eating dagger and stir," added Xander.Doyle rubbed his temples with his fingertips. "I should have listened to Angel and Cordelia.""You can still go back to L.A.," Buffy said sweetly.Giles shook his head at her."What? I'm just trying to be helpful.""Well, I wish it were that simple, princess. But I can't leave until this is over." Doyle sighed and sat down heavily on the chest. "Speaking of which, I need a place to stay.""Don't look at me," Xander said, gazing at the others. "Unless you want him to sleep on top of the washer and dryer. What about you?" He looked at Oz.Oz shook his head. "Some of the guys already have people staying over. I've got people I don't know sleeping on the floor in my room as it is. I don't think there's a free spot in the house.""You can stay here on the couch." Giles looked at the others. "It's getting late. Why don't we continue this in the morning.""Thanks," Doyle said to Giles. "I'd get a room, but I'm kind of short of the green. I won't be any trouble.""I seriously doubt that," Buffy muttered."Hey Xander, want a lift?" Oz asked. He picked up Willow's laptop case."Yeah. Thanks. See you guys later." Xander grabbed his jacket and followed Willow and Oz out to the van."'Night." Buffy closed the door behind them. She turned to Giles. "I'll get some sheets and stuff."He nodded. He stood and looked at Doyle with a raised eyebrow. "You'll find a bathroom through there. And I'll thank you to stay out of the liquor cabinet."Doyle ducked his head and grinned sheepishly. "Now, would I do that?""Do what?" Buffy asked curiously. She stacked the linen on the couch."Nothin', princess. Just having a friendly word with your Watcher."Before Buffy could start an argument with him, Giles took her hand and led her to the stairs. He looked back over his shoulder to tell Doyle to help himself in the kitchen and caught a stunned look on the man's face. He frowned and opened his mouth to say something when he was interrupted by Buffy."Good night, Doyle," she said and tugged on Giles' hand. "See you in the morning.""Uh, yeah, sure," Doyle said. "Whatever you say." ~~~~~~~ooo~~~~~~~ooo~~~~~~~ooo~~~~~~~ Giles stood in the middle of the bedroom, arms crossed, waiting for Buffy to finish in the bathroom. He'd grown used to having Buffy spend the night without considering what others might think. The expression he'd surprised on Doyle's face before they came upstairs bothered him. And even worse, it reminded him uncomfortably of the telephone conversation he'd had with Brian Callahan while Buffy was out patrolling.The door to the bathroom opened and Buffy came out. She was ready for bed, having changed into a pair of flannel boxer shorts and a tank top. She frowned when she saw him standing in the middle of the room, completely dressed."Giles? Is something wrong?" She sounded puzzled.He sighed to himself. "I'm afraid we gave Doyle rather the wrong impression just now. I was thinking that perhaps I should go down and explain to him." To his surprise she laughed."Don't you dare. It'll serve him right to wonder about it all night and then feel embarrassed in the morning when he wheedles the truth out of us." She put her hands on her hips and tilted her head. "I'm so going to enjoy that. There's something strange about him. I can't put my finger on what it is, but he bothers me.""Hmm. Well, I hope you get your satisfaction." Giles had a suspicion that she'd be disappointed in that. He pulled a T-shirt and pair of pajama bottoms out of his dresser and headed for the bathroom. He stopped in the doorway at the sound of her voice."When you're done in there we need to have a talk about Brian Callahan," she said softly.He nodded without turning around and went through the door, closing it behind him. He delayed returning to the bedroom for as long as he could, foolishly hoping that she'd fall asleep waiting for him. Finally, he opened the door and turned out the light behind him.Buffy had turned off all the lights with the exception of the small night light next to the bed. At first he couldn't find her in the dim light. She wasn't in the bed, nor could he make out her form in the chair. A slight noise turned his attention downward and he was startled to see her curled up with a pillow and blanket on the floor next to the bed."Buffy, you can't sleep on the floor," he said sternly."Why not?" she asked reasonably. She sat up and hugged her knees. "You need sleep as much as I do and you don't sleep well in that chair. Neither do I. I don't mind sleeping on the floor. You take the bed. Sounds like a plan to me.""It's not right. You should have the bed. I'll do fine in the chair." His protest was weak and he knew it."Not a chance. You've got a lot of important stuff to figure out for us. I want you fully rested. I'll be just fine down here."He could just make out the glint of her smile and knew this was an argument he was doomed to lose. He stepped around her and crawled into bed. "I don't feel right about this," he grumbled.Buffy reached up and turned out the light and chuckled. "I just bet. At least you figured out it was time to throw in the towel on this argument."Giles could hear her rustling around and assumed she was making herself comfortable. He lay back on his pillow and relaxed, only to tense again when she spoke."So, Giles. About that talk I hear you had with Brian?" Her voice was soft.He cleared his throat. "Yes?""Would you like to tell me what happened?"He frowned. Was that amusement he heard in her voice, he wondered? It couldn't be. Giles turned on his side to face her direction. "Well. There's really not much to tell. Callahan called and asked for you while you were out patrolling. I told him you weren't here. He didn't exactly accept that. I...I guess I got rather angry. I'm sorry, Buffy, but I'm afraid we had words." Maybe she wouldn't ask for details, he hoped.She snorted. "Words? The way I heard it you had entire dictionaries. You maybe want to be a little more specific?"Giles sighed. One could always count on Xander, he thought darkly. As he thought over the conversation with Callahan he became angry all over again. "What is it that you want me to say? I didn't like the accusation Callahan made and I let him know it. If you're going to date this man, I--""I'm not," Buffy cut in quickly."You're...not. Not dating him?" Giles was puzzled. He'd thought she was upset about this. What did she mean she wasn't dating him?"No. I'm not dating him anymore." There were more rustling sounds and then her voice came from the edge of the bed. "Giles, I called him earlier today to tell him that I wasn't going to see him again."Startled, he asked, "Why?""Because while he's nice, I don't want to date just to be dating if you know what I mean. It isn't fair to either of us. Besides, I've got more important things on my mind right now. Trying to figure out how to juggle dating Brian Callahan without him finding out about slaying and everything just wasn't high enough on my list of priorities to be worth it." Her voice turned rueful. "I seem to recall someone pretty smart telling me once that having a personal life as a slayer was, um, problematic at best?""Buffy," he began."No. It's okay. When it's really important I'll figure out how. Right now I just want to make sure you're safe and save the world from being overrun by demons, in that order." She paused and added, "I'm still waiting for the details of that conversation."He groaned softly. "Is that really necessary?""Yep. I'm a little concerned that he called here looking for me. See, I never gave him your number and I sure didn't tell him he could reach me here.""Oh? Well, in that case." Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all. "I suppose I should be honest and say I never cared for him? He accused me of lying about you not being here. I told him he was an idiot. Now that you've said you never told him you'd be here, the next thing he said is rather puzzling." He frowned."What's that?" she prompted."He said he knew you were staying here and he accused me of not letting you come to the phone to talk to him. I got angry at that and called him a few choice names.""Xander said you told him to 'sod off'? And that it sounded like you were swearing at him in dead languages.""Er, yes, I did, both actually." He was surprised to hear her laugh."Oh that's rich. I don't understand how he knew I was staying here, though.""Perhaps he was just looking for confirmation? If so, I'm afraid I gave it to him. I'm sorry." He regretted that. He started at the touch of her hand on his arm."Don't be. He'd obviously jumped to his own conclusions before he called here. Nothing you said would have changed his mind. I'm just glad I had the sense to break this off now."He smiled at the seriousness in her voice and placed his hand over hers. "Then I'll confess that it felt good to tell the bastard where to get off. Occasionally, that can be a satisfying experience.""Yeah. I--"A loud crash came from downstairs. Giles felt Buffy's grip on his arm tighten painfully for a moment before she removed her hand, and he knew he'd have a nasty bruise there later. They both jumped up and rapidly made their way downstairs. Giles flicked the light switch next to the stairs and they stopped short, staring in shock at the sight of Doyle doubled over on the floor, clutching his head and moaning in pain.Giles glanced at Buffy. "Let's move him to the couch."They knelt on either side of Doyle's writhing form and grasped hold where they could. At Giles' nod they lifted and eased him onto the couch, holding him steady so he wouldn't fall off again. Doyle's skin was clammy and his face pale, with beads of sweat dotting his forehead."What do we do?" Buffy asked."I assume this is one of his visions. I don't know if there's anything we can do." Giles put his fingers on Doyle's neck. "His pulse is dangerously high. I suppose we just hope it ends soon."They tried to keep him still, but his jerky movements made that difficult. The attack lasted for a few more moments and then as suddenly as it had begun it was over. Doyle's body relaxed into unconsciousness.Giles met Buffy's gaze with a shrug. He took Doyle's pulse and found it to be near normal. He studied the man's face for a long moment and then went to the liquor cabinet where he poured a large glass of scotch. He sat down on the coffee table across from the couch and watched as Doyle regained consciousness. Buffy sat next to him.Doyle groaned and grabbed his head. "Ah, god!" He slowly sat up and looked at the two across from him.Giles silently handed him the glass.Doyle gulped the scotch and wiped the back of his hand over his mouth. He closed his eyes for a long moment and sighed. "I needed that. Thanks," he said quietly."I take it that was one of your visions?" Giles asked, just as quietly.Doyle nodded. He opened his eyes and said miserably, "And I thought the one that brought me here was bad.""What did you see?" Buffy asked gently.Giles smiled to himself. She might have a problem with Doyle, but she reacted to his obvious pain with compassion, just as he would expect.Doyle hesitated. He took another long pull of his drink before answering. "I saw the Emerald."Giles leaned forward. "And?""It's huge. Not at all what I thought it'd be. It's roughly the size of a bowling ball, but it's all jaggedy-like. A big chunk of rough green stone, really. It's this murky green color, kind of a light jade with dark green streaks. There was something in it." He shuddered and sipped his drink. "Whatever it was, the thing pulsed and every time it did jagged bolts of lightning lanced out from it. It was like the lightning was tearing reality apart.""Pulsed?" Buffy turned to Giles. "That's the way Xander described the green stuff on my arm from the dagger."Giles nodded. "I'd say they're probably related. The Emerald and the dagger were both tools of the Trismegistus, remember."Doyle looked at Buffy. "You were the one cut by the dagger? Angel thought it had to be one of the others. He was sure Willow would tell him if it was you.""We didn't see the need to worry him," Giles said shortly.Doyle nodded and sipped his drink."Did you see where the Emerald is?" Buffy asked.Doyle shook his head. "Not that I can identify. You have to understand something. What I see? It's just a version of what could happen. Not necessarily what will happen. Do you get the difference? It's like I'm given these terrible visions so that I'll know the consequences of not doing what I can to prevent them." He sounded anxious."I think we get it," Buffy said dryly. "Like the vision that brought you here. If we don't find the Emerald, that's what'll happen."Doyle nodded."What else did you see?" Giles asked.Doyle looked down at his drink. "The Emerald was sittin' in a shallow trough. There was one channel leading to it. Drops of blood came rollin' down the channel and hit the stone. That's what caused it to pulse and send out the lightning.""Where was the blood coming from?" Buffy asked curiously.Doyle looked at Giles and shivered. "From him.""What?" Buffy stood up.Giles put a hand on her arm and gently pulled her back down. "Let him finish. We need to know."Doyle drained his drink and said hoarsely. "You and the stone were in the middle of some arcane symbol. You were chained to the ground, but it didn't look like you were in any condition to move." He swallowed convulsively. "You'd been tortured. Pretty much had most of the skin on your chest and back flayed away. You were still alive though. I could tell your heart was beating because every time it did more blood dripped into the channel and down to the stone." He broke off when Buffy made a distressed noise.They turned to her to see her face go deathly pale and her eyes grow huge. She gazed at Giles for a moment in horror and then bolted from the room. A moment later they heard the bathroom door slam. Giles frowned and followed her slowly.He leaned his head against the doorjamb and hesitated. Through the door he could hear the sounds of her retching, the sound of the toilet flushing and then the unmistakable sound of her muffled weeping. There was no other sound for several long moments. He straightened and knocked softly on the door."Buffy?" he asked quietly. "Are you all right? Let me help you." He heard her fight to control her tears.Her voice wavered when she answered him. "It's okay, Giles. I'll be okay. Just give me a minute?""Very well."He backed up until he was leaning on the wall across from the bathroom door. He could hear her open cabinets and then the sound of the faucet running. He smiled slightly as he heard her gargle a couple of times. And then the door opened.She was still too pale and the hair framing her face was damp. Her eyes were dilated and huge in her face. She held out a shaking hand to him. That was all the invitation he needed. He folded her into the warmth of his embrace and murmured soothing words. She buried her face in his chest.He bent down until his lips were close to her ear and whispered, "Remember what Doyle said. His vision doesn't have to become reality." He felt her nod against his chest. After a long moment she pushed against him and he let his arms fall away from her.She gazed up at him and said fiercely, "We won't let it. I won't let it happen."He smiled at her. "I know." They returned to the living room together."Everything all right, then?" Doyle asked gently.She nodded."Was there anything else in your vision that you can remember?" Giles asked.Doyle nodded. "Yeah. There was a demon. Nasty, ugly brute he was. Blue with these purple patches all over. Pointy teeth. I didn't recognize him, though there was something familiar about him. He was chanting something he was reading from this big book he was holdin'. It's the one thing that was really clear about the vision. The book was the Malleus Abyssum."Giles glanced at Buffy. "Well, now we know what the Hammer is.""Uh-huh. A big ol' spell book." She sounded tired. "And that sounds like the demon from my nightmare."Giles turned to Doyle. "Was that all?""Yeah. It's enough, don't you think?" He shook his head."Will you be all right?""Don't you worry about me. I'll be fine. Except for the nightmares this one'll give me." He gave them a small smile. "There's no lasting effects from the visions."Giles nodded. "Then I think I should take Buffy upstairs.""Good night," Doyle called softly after them. ~~~~~~~ooo~~~~~~~ooo~~~~~~~ooo~~~~~~~ Giles kept his arm around her while they walked up the stairs. He was concerned that her previous fatigue seemed to have returned. When they reached the bedroom he steered her to the bed and sat down on it with her. She leaned against him and he put his arms around her, resting his chin on the top of her head."Buffy," he said, "everything will be all right.""Promise?" she asked, her voice low."I promise. I have every confidence that we'll find the answers and stop this from happening." He made his voice light. "Besides, you're too stubborn to allow it.""I'm too stubborn? Look who's talking."He heard the smile in her voice. "Yes, well, I don't know about that. In any case, I want you to take the bed for the rest of the night."She pulled away from him and stood up. "Oh no you don't. I'm still just fine on the floor. You get in that bed, Mister. I don't want to hear another argument out of you about it." Her wavering voice belied the strong words.He sighed and tried to lighten the moment, "Very well. But if I step on you in the middle of the night it's your own fault." He swung his legs up onto the bed and settled himself.She snorted and arranged the blanket on the floor. "I wouldn't if I were you. I'm likely to forget where I am and think you're a vampire."He was still smiling when he fell asleep. ----- CHAPTER BREAK ----- Willow walked outside Giles' condo into the small courtyard. Buffy was reclining in one of the chairs with her eyes closed and her face turned up toward the sun. Her hair was pulled back into a long golden braid and she was wearing her baggy cargo pants, T-shirt and tennis shoes. Willow studied her friend in silence for a moment and smiled. Sometimes, she thought, things like enjoying a moment in the sunshine were more important than anything. Their daily struggle against the dark made it difficult to know when they'd have opportunities to just enjoy simple pleasures.Willow quietly sat down in a chair next to her friend. She must have made a slight noise because Buffy opened her eyes and sat up. She turned to Willow and smiled."Hi Buffy.""Hey Will. Did you just get here?"Willow nodded. "Oz dropped me off. The Dingoes are practicing today.""Oh. Is Xander here?" Buffy looked around the courtyard."Not yet. He'll probably show up in a bit. Giles was translating the book Angel sent him and Doyle said you were out here, so here I am." Willow tried not to look apprehensive, but she wondered what Buffy was really thinking about the whole thing with Angel. She'd never been good at keeping secrets, well, except for that whole fluke with Xander, she thought. And her feeling of guilt over Angel had been festering for months now. She hated that. It'd be a relief to be fester free.Buffy stretched and said reluctantly, "I guess we should go in and help with the research.""Wait. Buffy, I know I don't deserve forgiveness. I mean, you have every right to be angry with me. But I really was just thinking of you. I didn't want you to be unhappy. And, well, I'm babbling, I know I'm babbling. Do you hate me?" Willow looked at her friend anxiously.Buffy returned her gaze, a small smile on her face. "I don't hate you, Will. How could I hate you? You're my best friend.""Really? I mean, still?"Buffy's smile widened. "Of course still. I just wish you guys would have been able to trust me.""No! You don't understand. We trust you. We just didn't want to hurt you!" Willow tried to make her see the difference.Buffy nodded, her face serious. "I do understand. I meant that you need to trust that I can take whatever happens. You don't have to be afraid that I'll run away again, no matter how much something hurts."Willow felt her face grow hot. "That wasn't it. Really. Well, OK, maybe we were a little afraid of that. Not that anyone said anything. But we did want to protect you.""I'm the Slayer, Will. I should be the one protecting you guys." Buffy shook her head. "It's all right, though. We're cool."Willow smiled. "Great. And I promise to tell you things even if it may be bad news or hard to deal with.""Thanks. I think." Buffy quirked an eyebrow and gave her a lopsided smile.Willow hesitated. "You looked so serious when I came out here. What were you thinking about?"Buffy sighed. "Believe it or not, I was thinking about Doyle."Willow frowned. "What about Doyle?""It's just that there's something really strange about him and I can't figure out what it is. Did you ever get that email from Angel?"Willow shook her head. "Nope. I sent him an email to ask him about Doyle coming here, but he hasn't replied yet. What's bothering you about him?"She shook her head. "I wish I knew. Most of the time he seems normal enough, if really obnoxious. But every once in a while he does something that creeps me out. Like when he touched me last night? He didn't really startle me." Her gaze turned intense. "Will, it was like an electric shock and I got this really weird feeling. And then this morning he came out here and for a moment when I looked at him... God, this is going to sound like I'm a candidate for a padded room, and straight-jackets are so out this year.""Buffy!""OK, OK. He was standing in the sun and he didn't have a shadow. It was like he wasn't real." Buffy shivered and looked down at her hands. "I closed my eyes for a second and when I looked again his shadow was there. Crazy, huh?"Willow frowned. "Not real? Like a ghost? But if he isn't real how could he touch you? How could he do any of the things he's done since he's been here?"Buffy shook her head. "I told you it's crazy. And I didn't get the same feeling when Giles and I helped him last night when he had that vision of his. There's something wrong about him. I know it. What's Angel told you?"Willow thought about Angel's emails. "Not much really. Actually, he hasn't mentioned him at all except for a few times right at first when they opened up their investigation business and hired Cordy. We don't really email all that much. Mostly it's just a kind of keeping in touch, you know? Like, how are you, everything's fine here. That sort of thing. He does mention Cordy a lot though. I just thought Angel was respecting Doyle's privacy or something."Buffy looked troubled. "Let me know what he has to say about Doyle coming here, OK?"Willow nodded. "Have you told Giles?""No. I'm not going to and neither are you," Buffy said sternly. "Giles has enough to deal with right now. He doesn't need to worry about whether I've got all my marbles as well. If something real happens, I'll tell him. I'm not going to bother him about phantom feelings.""But--""No. Please?" Buffy asked softly."All right," she said reluctantly. The idea of keeping this from Giles disturbed Willow. If nothing else, living on the Hellmouth had taught her that ignoring weird feelings usually led to trouble. She resolved to keep a close watch on Doyle. If she saw anything out of the ordinary she'd tell Giles right away."Thanks.""You said Doyle had a vision. What was it?" Willow asked.Buffy closed her eyes and covered her face with her hands."Buffy? Are you all right?" Willow asked anxiously."Yeah. It's just hard to think about it." Buffy gazed at her, eyes filled with pain. "Oh Will! Doyle saw the Emerald and the demon. And Giles.""Giles?"Buffy nodded and said miserably, "He'd been tortured. The demon was using his blood in some kind of ritual with the Emerald.""Oh no!" Willow's breath caught in her throat.Buffy sighed. "I can't let it happen again. I can't fail him.""We won't," she said firmly. "You'll see. We'll guard him."Buffy made a small sound in her throat, half whimper and half sigh. "I'm just so afraid, Will. I've made so many mistakes. Let him down so many times. What if I can't stop this?"Willow leaned forward and grabbed her friend's hand. "Buffy. You know Giles would disagree with what you just said. I disagree with it, too. And you...we can only do the best we can. Even if it turns out that we aren't able to prevent it, do you really think Giles would blame you?"Buffy shook her head. "I know he wouldn't. I just don't know why."Willow said gently, "Maybe you should ask him.""Maybe," Buffy said uncertainly. "I'll think about it. Let's go in, OK?"Willow nodded. ~~~~~~~ooo~~~~~~~ooo~~~~~~~ooo~~~~~~~ Giles put down his pen and rubbed his forehead. Bloody prophecies, he thought irritably. Why did they always have to be so damn obscure? This one was as bad as they came. And why in hell couldn't he find that blasted demon? He looked up when he heard Buffy and Willow enter the room.Buffy stood in front of his desk. "How's the translating going?""I'm done. Not that it's going to help." He couldn't keep the frustration out of his voice."Why not? If you've translated it, then we know what's going to happen, right?" Willow asked hopefully."It isn't that simple. For one thing, this isn't the Codex so it's only a prediction of what might happen, not a guarantee of what will happen. For another, I can guess at what some of it means, but the rest?" Giles shook his head. "Just once I'd like to come across a bloody prophecy written in plain, unambiguous English. One that said, 'the demon will be alone and helpless in the abandoned factory on Jones Street at 9:42pm on September 15, 2001. The Slayer will slay him at 9:44pm. At 9:45pm all will rejoice and party.'""OK, I think someone's been hanging around Xander just a little too much," Buffy teased. "So, what does this one say?"Giles read his translation; "The Destroyer shall wield the Hammer and the Stone under the vault of heaven. The knowledge of the universe shall consume the cherished, the curtain of night shall be parted and the firmament shall tremble. As above, so below. As below, so above. The fate of the world rests in the hands of the Renunciate. In amore veritas. Woe to mankind if the demons walk the earth." He looked up with a grimace."You're right. That's pretty vague." Buffy shrugged and leaned against the desk. "What's that one part mean? In a more a very toss?"Giles smiled in spite of himself. "In amore veritas. It means In love there is truth. The rest was written in Gaelic. That was the only Latin phrase. It seemed fitting somehow to leave it as it was written.""But the prophecy mentions the Hammer and the Stone. That has to be the Malleus Abyssum and the Emerald?" Willow asked.Giles nodded. "I believe so, yes.""Then the Destroyer must be the demon. That should help, right?" Buffy added."Maybe." Giles sighed. "It depends on whether Destroyer is actually a name for the demon or just a description. Could be either.""At least it's something we can check," Buffy said reasonably. "So who's this Renunciate?"Giles shook his head. "I've never come across the term before, so I don't know if it's meant to be taken literally. It could refer to the demon, or to someone or something else entirely.""What about those notes Angel sent?" Willow asked."They were his version of the translation. I used them as a check on my work. Unfortunately he's never heard of either the Destroyer or the Renunciate.""What've you got?" Doyle's voice caused them all to start.Buffy turned and looked at him with narrowed eyes. "Don't do that!""What?" he asked innocently."You know what! Stop sneaking up on me." She put her fists on her hips.Giles frowned. Something about Doyle obviously bothered her, but Giles couldn't sense anything out of the ordinary about the man. "Buffy," he said warningly.She turned to him and rolled her eyes. "All right, all right. I'll behave.""Thank you." Giles glanced at Doyle and noticed the paper he held in his hand. He nodded at it. "What's that?"Doyle held it out. "I tried to draw the demon from my vision. It's pretty close I think. Will it help?"Giles examined the drawing and raised his eyebrows. The drawing was amazingly detailed. He showed it to Buffy. "Is this the demon from your dream?"She nodded, wide eyed. "Yeah. That's it. Right down to those pointy teeth.""Thank you, Doyle. This may indeed be a big help.""May I see it?" Willow held out her hand and took the drawing. "I think I've seen this somewhere.""On the 'net?" Buffy asked."No. In a book. But which one?" Willow frowned in concentration. Her face suddenly lit up. "It was in one of the Mayor's books! You know, when I was captured and went through his stuff? Before I found the Books of Ascension I looked through this little volume and I'm sure one of the pictures in it was this guy."Giles asked, "Do you remember anything specific about the book? Was there a title?"Willow closed her eyes. "I-it was thin and had a...a red binding. And the words Demoniacus Antiquus were stamped in gold on it.""Will! That's great!" Buffy touched her on the arm.Giles added his praise. "Yes, that is very well done, Willow." Could they be lucky enough to have a real break at last, he wondered?She opened her eyes and looked at them, face flushed. "Is that something we can find?"Giles smiled. "I believe I have a copy of that particular volume. I don't use it very often. The demons listed in it were all thought to have been slain at one time or another. Now the question is, where did I put it?"He walked to the bookcases against the far wall and searched across the top shelves first without luck, but finally found the book on a bottom shelf on the end. He brought it back to the desk. He stood between the two women and opened it, riffling the pages until he came to a picture that closely resembled Doyle's drawing."That's it!" Buffy exclaimed.Doyle peered over the top of the book and nodded. "Yeah. That does look like it."Giles slowly sank down in his chair behind the desk, silently translating the passage under the picture. A feeling of dread settled over him and he looked up."Giles? What does it say?" Buffy asked fearfully."The demon is known as the Destroyer. He--""That's good, right? That means we're on the right track?" Willow asked anxiously.Giles nodded slowly. "Yes. But I rather wish we weren't.""What is it?" Buffy's gaze searched his face."The Destroyer was also known as the left hand of the Trismegistus. The most powerful demon after the Thrice Greatest. He was known as the Destroyer not only for his uncanny ability to kill, but also for the delight he took in it. All demons kill, but it seems the Destroyer was particularly vicious. It was thought that his abilities came from the Tablet. That the Thrice Greatest had bestowed special powers on his left hand and his right hand, and that death and destruction were the gifts he gave the Destroyer. After the Trismegistus and his artifacts were destroyed, his left hand, the Destroyer, was never seen again. It was thought that he was killed at the same time."There was a moment of silence and then Buffy asked, "If this is the same Destroyer then why has it taken so long for him to do what he's doing?"Giles shook his head. "I don't know. Perhaps whatever happened to the dagger and the Tablet happened to him as well. It would explain why the three have turned up at the same time."Doyle spoke up. "Are you thinkin' temporal flux of some kind?""You know about temporal flux?" Willow asked curiously."Hey. I'm not just good lookin', you know? I've got a brain, too." Doyle joked."That remains to be seen," Buffy muttered.Giles sent her a look and she subsided. "Temporal flux, perhaps. Or perhaps some type of warped-space bubble. We may never know the answer.""So, what'll it take to kill this guy?" Buffy asked practically.Giles removed his glasses, closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "He's a demon and can be killed in all the ways any demon can be killed. The most effective of course is beheading. I'll have to research further to see if the Destroyer has any specific weaknesses."Several hours later Giles sat back from his desk and yawned. Willow was in the other room with Doyle searching the Internet. He looked around the room and smiled to himself at the sight of Buffy dozing on the couch, a book open on her lap. She'd volunteered to look for anything that might shed light on the Renunciate mentioned in the prophecy. Giles glanced out the window and frowned. It was dark out and Xander still hadn't shown up.Giles' current research had yielded next to nothing about the Destroyer's weaknesses as well as very little about his strengths. All he could find were vague descriptions of how terrible and awesome were the Destroyer's powers. He was beginning to suspect that much of the demon's reputation was mere hyperbole. The original records were so old, and had been copied and recopied so many times that he believed much had been lost. Besides, the information was about a demon that all thought dead. It wouldn't hurt anyone to exaggerate or invent things about it. It was also probable from what he'd read that the Destroyer had never faced a Slayer.It would be wise to have Buffy train with the swords, he thought. They'd skipped working with the swords in the last couple of weeks and he believed she'd need those skills when she fought the Destroyer.A pounding came from the front door along with the sound of someone yelling hoarsely. Giles rushed to the door, the others close on his heels. He opened the door and Xander fell through onto the entry floor, disheveled and bloody. Giles helped him sit up, propping him against the wall."Xander!" Willow cried. She knelt beside him and lightly touched his face.He looked at her and said miserably, "I'm sorry Will. They got Oz." ----- CHAPTER BREAK ----- "What do you mean, they got Oz?" Buffy asked. "Who has Oz? What happened?"Xander turned to Giles. "Help me up here?" At Giles' skeptical look he added, "I'm not hurt that bad."Giles nodded to Buffy. Together they lifted Xander to his feet."You're bleeding. Willow, get the first aid kit please." Giles led a wobbly Xander into the living room and sat him in a straight-backed wooden chair next to his desk.Willow returned and handed Giles the metal box. "You're really OK?" she asked Xander anxiously."Yeah. I just wish..." he trailed off glumly.Giles soaked a cotton ball in antiseptic and swabbed it first over the blood-encrusted cut on Xander's forehead. He grimaced in sympathy as Xander tried not to flinch away from the stinging sensation. "This is fairly shallow, really, and it looks like it's stopped bleeding. Take your shirt off so I can get at the cuts on your arm and chest. Buffy, would you get him a clean shirt from my closet please?"He examined the gash on Xander's upper arm and decided it wasn't deep enough to require stitches. He bandaged it and wrapped gauze around the arm to keep the bandage in place. The wounds on Xander's chest were mere scratches and Giles handed him an antiseptic-soaked cotton ball so he could clean them himself.Xander took the shirt Buffy held out to him. "Thanks. A little big, but it'll work." He smiled slightly and shrugged into the shirt.Buffy stood in front of him and folded her arms. "Xander, what happened? Where's Oz?"Giles glanced at Willow.Xander sighed. "I was supposed to meet Oz at his place and listen to the Dingoes practice, but I was late. It took me longer than I thought it would to take care of some business I had, so I didn't make it over there until they were already packing up their stuff. It was just on twilight. We didn't expect vampires to be out so early. Stupid.""Don't say that. Why should you expect it?" Buffy said gently.He shook his head and said bitterly, "Stupid. We weren't paying attention and we know better. We were just standing there outside the house talking about the band. That's when they hit. There must have been a dozen of 'em. We probably could've fought off three or even four." He looked down at his hands. "It took three of them to hold onto Oz. He fought like crazy. I actually staked one. I tried to get to Oz and got hit on the head and knocked down. When I got up I saw them dragging him down the street. I ran after them. Tried to get to him. Oh god, Will I'm so sorry!" He held out his hand to her."What happened next?" Giles asked.Xander blinked and said, "One of them turned and attacked me. Oz yelled at me to get away, to come here and get you guys. I didn't want to leave him, but I got it. I couldn't help him by myself. I took off running. Here's the weird thing. The vamp that attacked me turned back to the group as soon as I took off."Giles frowned. "That is odd. First they leave you helpless on the ground and then they fail to follow up on what should have been an easy target given their numbers."Xander said wryly, "Yeah. That's kinda what went through my head. It was like they wanted Oz and if I didn't try to interfere they'd leave me alone. So I followed them. As long as I stayed back they didn't bother me. They took Oz to that abandoned factory over on California and Green. I waited until I was sure they weren't leaving and then I ran here to get you guys."Buffy strode to the locked closet where Giles kept the weapons.Willow turned to Giles. "Why would they want Oz?" she asked fearfully."And who are they?" Buffy added over her shoulder."Is there anything you can tell us that might help?" Giles asked Xander. "Anything that could identify them?" He watched Buffy unlock the closet. She knelt, pulled out a small duffel bag and began filling it with weapons."Well, they were all wearing the same outfit. It was red and black and kind of a cross between a military uniform and something out of Star Wars. They all wore black gloves." He shook his head. "Otherwise, they were just vamps. No special weapons or anything.""Any insignia on the uniform?"Xander frowned. "No...wait, there was something on the right shoulder. On the sleeve, you know? The sleeves were black and there was something round and red on the right one. I didn't get a good look at it.""Shit," Doyle said, startling them all.Buffy glanced up at him and said sarcastically, "Thanks for the commentary. I don't suppose you have something useful to add?""I just might at that, princess. Their uniforms were red and black? And there was a round red patch on the right shoulder? Maybe like a full moon in red?""Could've been a full moon," Xander said grudgingly. "Like I said, I didn't get a good look at it.""Do you recognize them?" Giles asked."Yeah, I do. Sounds like the Sect of Septimius," Doyle said. "Bad tempered bunch.""Sect of Septimius? Are you sure?" Giles frowned."Why? What's their deal?" Buffy asked.Giles rubbed his chin. "They worship chaos. A bit of an odd thing really, considering how well organized the Sect is purported to be. I don't understand what they could possibly want with Oz.""I can't say what they'd want with your friend, but it makes sense that they'd be in town now. If the Destroyer succeeds with the Emerald it would be the ultimate in chaos." Doyle shook his head. "Seems to me that their being here just confirms everything.""Destroyer?" Xander said confused."We'll explain later," Willow said.Giles stood in front of the weapons closet and looked down at Buffy. She hesitated between selecting a small crossbow or a sword. "I'd suggest the crossbow," he said quietly. "And plenty of quarrels. We'll need to position someone high enough to be able to use it effectively, of course."Buffy's head snapped up and she gazed at him with an unreadable expression. "We?" she asked. "You're staying right here." She stood up.He crossed his arms and said, "You can't do this by yourself. There are too many of them."She shook her head. "It's too dangerous. If you stay here then I'll know you're safe. I can't have you there. If you're there I'll be worrying about you instead of focusing on getting Oz out. Please?" Her voice held a pleading note."Buffy--""I've got to do this," she said quietly and glanced over at Willow. "She went through so much with him last fall. I can't stand the thought of her hurting like that again."He shook his head. "I won't let you go by yourself," he said stubbornly."She won't." Xander's quiet voice came from behind him. He moved to stand next to Giles. "I'm going with her. I can help.""Don't forget me," Willow added as she joined Xander, the determination on her face reflected in her voice.Buffy's gaze never left Giles' face. "See. Just like old times. The Slayer and her Slayerettes. We'll get Oz back and you'll be safe. Besides, we still need to know how to find the Destroyer and you're the only one who's gonna be able to figure that out."Giles held her gaze for a moment longer and then turned to the others. "Be very careful. The Sect of Septimius is rumored to be particularly vicious."They nodded and took over the task of loading the weapons bag from Buffy."I still think I should go with you," Giles said. At the look on her face he held up his hands. "I'll stay here. I promise."Buffy placed her hand on his arm. "Thanks," she replied. "That makes it easier for me."Giles nodded. "Right. I'll see you when you return, then." He turned and went back to the desk. What would the Sect of Septimius want with Oz, he wondered? There was nothing in the prophecy that dealt with them as far as he could see. And he couldn't remember ever coming across any correlation between the Sect and the Destroyer, or the Thrice Greatest for that matter. It was possible that this was just a coincidence, but given the proximity of the Hellmouth Giles was inclined to be very skeptical of that."So, princess. Want some more help?"Giles glanced up to see Doyle leaning against the wall watching the preparations."No. Thanks." Buffy glanced at Giles and turned to Doyle. "Stay here with Giles, OK?" With a single glance back at Giles she hefted the bag and headed out the door, Xander and Willow trailing behind her.Doyle shrugged. "Whatever you say." He walked over and sat on the desk. "Guess it's you and me, Watcher.""Marvelous," Giles said dryly. "You can start going through this stack of books. We still need to flesh out the details of that prophecy. And try to figure out where the Sect fits in."Doyle sighed. "Great. Another rousing night of research." ~~~~~~~ooo~~~~~~~~ooo~~~~~~~~ooo~~~~~~~ Giles pushed himself back from his desk with a groan. It just wasn't coming together. He tried to focus on the text in front of him, but his thoughts kept straying to Buffy. She and the others had left a couple of hours ago and Giles was beginning to worry that they weren't back yet. He raked his hand through his hair."Find somethin'?" Doyle asked from the couch.Giles shook his head. "No. What about you?""Nothing to tie the Sect to the Destroyer. I still think they've been drawn here because of the Emerald. If they've hooked up with the Destroyer it's bad news." He looked troubled."I think we have to assume that they are working with the Destroyer. With the Hellmouth it's too dangerous not to make such assumptions."Doyle leaned forward and clasped his hands together. He looked at Giles seriously. "Can I ask you a question?"Giles nodded, curious as to what he wanted."What's going on between you and Buffy?"Giles frowned. "What do you mean?"Doyle raised an eyebrow. "I mean--"The doorbell rang, interrupting Doyle's question. Giles wasn't sure he was ready to hear whatever it was Doyle had on his mind and he gratefully opened the door. He frowned, surprised to find Brian Callahan standing on his front porch looking ill at ease."Giles," Callahan said curtly. "Let Buffy know I'm here to see her."Giles folded his arms across his chest. "Buffy isn't here, Callahan. But then I told you that on the phone earlier." The berk didn't need to know that she'd come and gone since then, he thought. He felt Doyle step behind him quietly."Funny how I don't believe you." Callahan scowled. "Mind if I look around for myself?" He started to take a step into the foyer.Giles pushed him back out onto the front porch. He stepped out of the house and closed the door. "As a matter of fact I do mind. You're not welcome here Callahan. I told you she isn't here. But even if she was, Buffy's made it clear that she doesn't want to see you." His anger flared. Callahan had a hell of a nerve to show up and make demands."Not to me, she hasn't. I'm not leaving here until I talk to her. I'm sure once we talk that she'll see things differently." Callahan's voice shook with repressed fury.Giles said in a low, dangerous tone, "For the last time, Callahan, she doesn't want to talk to you. If you continue to harass her you'll have me to deal with.""I don't know what hold you have over her, you bastard. But you're not going to prevent me from seeing her." Callahan raised his clenched fists.Giles heard a slight rustling noise and looked beyond Callahan to see two vampires spring at the man's back. He yelled and tried to grab Callahan to pull him inside the house, but he wasn't quick enough. Nor did he hear the vampires that hit him from behind. He fell to his knees. Callahan was out cold. He heard the door open and lifted his head to try to yell a warning at Doyle, only to see one of the vampires swing a club and knock Doyle back into the apartment. Giles tried desperately to push himself up when pain exploded in his head and the world went black as he fell face forward. ----- CHAPTER BREAK ----- Buffy held up her hand. "There's the factory," she whispered. She motioned for Willow and Xander to fade back out of the streetlight. They watched the entrance for any sign of the vampires, but the front of the factory looked abandoned.Xander frowned. "I don't understand," he whispered. "There were three of 'em out front when I left.""You don't think they took Oz someplace else?" Willow asked anxiously.Buffy shook her head. "I don't know. We better assume they're in there. Let's check out the back."They stayed to the shadows and worked their way around to the rear of the building. There was only one vampire guarding the door and Buffy made quick work of staking him."I thought you said there were a dozen of them?" she whispered to Xander."There were." Xander sounded puzzled.Buffy frowned. "They may all be inside then. You guys know the drill. Be as quiet as you can and let's see what we're up against."They nodded and cautiously followed her into the factory. They felt their way down a long dark corridor that opened up onto a shop floor where heavy equipment had obviously been removed leaving only empty fittings. To the left was a metal stairway that led to a catwalk that encircled the floor. Buffy knelt down and quietly unzipped the duffel bag. She pulled out the small crossbow and handed it and the bundle of quarrels to Willow. She handed Xander several stakes and zipped the bag."Will, I want you to take the crossbow up on that catwalk and do as much damage as you can, okay?" she asked quietly.Willow nodded. She loaded a quarrel into the crossbow and cocked it.Buffy looked at Xander. "Are you up for this?""Yeah. It's payback time." He smiled briefly and took a deep breath."OK. Let's go out there and give Willow time to get up those stairs."Buffy and Xander rushed out onto the floor, making as much noise as they could. Willow turned and ran up the stairs and out onto the catwalk, looking down at the floor for Oz and possible targets.Two vampires charged Buffy and Xander. Buffy executed a spin kick that propelled her vamp backward into the wall. He pushed off and backhanded her across the face. She blocked several punches and managed a flying kick to the vamp's midriff causing him to stagger back again. Before he could get his balance she whipped out a stake and plunged it into his heart.She whirled to help Xander only to see the vampire that had attacked him turn to dust. They exchanged puzzled looks and turned as one to move further out onto the factory floor."Where are they?" Xander shook his head. "I don't get it.""Buffy! Oz is over there!" Willow shouted. "Hey! Get away from him!"Buffy looked up at the catwalk to see Willow point the crossbow and pull the trigger. She sprinted across the floor following the clattering of the quarrel as it hit the far wall. Oz lay trussed on the floor, a vampire bent over him. He was looking up with a startled expression at Willow on the catwalk."Hey, fangface! Get off him!" Buffy grabbed the vamp's tunic and pulled him up. She fell backwards still holding onto him and kicked out with her legs, boosting the vamp up and over to crash onto the floor on his back. She completed her somersault with a twisting handspring to land on her feet looking down at him. She deftly dusted the vamp and turned back to Oz.Xander was working at the rope binding Oz's hands. He looked up at Buffy and grinned. "What, no pun?""Thought I should try Giles' advice at least once." She knelt beside him, grasped the rope and pulled, separating the strands. "You know, the old 'plunge and move on' routine.""I'm sure he'll appreciate hearing it." He looked down at Oz and added, "He's been beat up pretty bad. How're we gonna get him out of here if there are more of the Sect around?"Buffy shook her head. "Let's just see if we can get him to wake up first, huh? We'll deal with the rest as it comes.""How is he?" Willow called anxiously."Not too good. Do you see any more vamps?" Buffy looked around the factory floor. The place felt deserted."No. Should I come down and help?"Buffy glanced at Xander. "We'll meet you at the stairs." They finished undoing the ropes around Oz's legs. Buffy gently felt the back of his head and was relieved not to find any large bumps. She lightly tapped him on the face, hoping to wake him but only eliciting a few groans."I think we'll have to carry him." Xander frowned. "Maybe if you put him over my shoulder I could do that. Then you'll be free in case we're attacked."She nodded and effortlessly lifted Oz. Xander stood and Buffy placed Oz over his shoulder so that Xander could grip his legs."You okay?" she asked."Yeah. At least until we get out of here."She turned and smiled to herself when she heard Xander mutter under his breath, Oh no, my masculinity's not at all threatened.Willow was already waiting for them by the time they reached the stairs. She wanted to make sure that Oz was alive and insisted they stop for a moment so she could check."Look, Will," Buffy said urgently, "I know you're worried about him. But if we don't get out of here it isn't going to matter. He's still breathing, and that's the best we can do right now. Let's go!""OK," Willow said. Her eyes were huge, her voice subdued. "You're right. We need to get out of here before the Sect comes back.""Finally," Xander said with a sigh.They quickly retraced their steps to the darkened hallway where Buffy hefted the duffel bag. They made it out the rear entrance, meeting no resistance on their way, and didn't stop until they were across the street and several blocks away from the factory. Buffy signaled a rest once she realized the rasping noise she was hearing was Xander's labored breathing. She helped him lower Oz to the sidewalk, where Willow gently took his head in her lap."He'll be all right, won't he?" Willow looked up at Buffy fearfully.Buffy looked at Oz uneasily. "Maybe we should take him to the emergency room instead of to Giles'. They could check him out--"Suddenly Oz groaned and contorted his body. His eyes flew open and he fought against Xander's hands holding him down."Oz! It's me! You're safe!" Willow cried.His violent motions ceased at the sound of Willow's voice and he gazed up at her with a small smile on his face. Xander let go of his arms. Oz raised a hand to her cheek."You'll be all right. We're taking you to the emergency room." Willow sniffed back the tears that threatened to spill over her cheeks."No," he whispered, his voice raspy. "No hospital. Don't need it.""You're in pretty bad shape." Xander frowned. "Are you sure? It might be a good idea.""No. Heal fast. Wolf." He closed his eyes for a moment."You mean you heal fast because of the werewolf thing?" Buffy asked."Yeah."Buffy glanced at Willow. "It's your call."Willow nodded. "He does heal fast. We'll take him back to Giles'."Buffy gestured to Xander. "Let's see if he can stand on his own feet. Be easier to help him walk than to carry him."Together they eased Oz upright, bracing him between them with his arms around their shoulders. Xander added his arm around Oz's waist. Slowly the four of them made their way down the street. Willow scanned the way behind them to make sure nothing was trying to sneak up on them. They stopped frequently to let Oz rest and catch his breath.By the time they arrived at Giles' complex they were closer to his courtyard entrance than the front door. They decided not to spend the extra energy to go in the front.As they entered the condo Buffy dropped the duffel and called out, "Giles! Doyle! Where are you?" She let Xander and Willow take care of Oz and went in search of help. The place felt empty. She had that familiar itch between her shoulder blades. Something was wrong.Buffy reached the living room and frowned. Where were they? She glanced towards the front door and saw Doyle unconscious on the floor. She dropped to her knees and reached out to shake his shoulder. He made a little noise and she shook harder."Doyle. Wake up!" Buffy tapped him lightly on the cheek. She needed him to wake up and tell her what happened. "Come on."He groaned and put his hands to his head."Finally." Buffy stood up. "Doyle, what happened?"Doyle squinted at her. "Want to give me a hand up here, princess?"She took the hand he held out and hauled him to his feet. "Where's Giles?""I need to sit down." He walked unsteadily over to the couch."Doyle!""Keep your shirt on. I'm tryin' to remember." He frowned and looked at the door. "Someone came.""Who?" She tried not to sound anxious."Someone lookin' for you." He glanced at her. "Your Watcher didn't like it, I can tell you that."Buffy shook her head. Who'd come looking for her here that Giles would have objected to, she wondered? Her eyes widened. "You don't mean Brian Callahan?" He wouldn't have come here, would he?"Callahan. That's it." Doyle nodded. "They had words.""Words?""Yeah. Your Watcher wouldn't let him in. Pushed him outside in fact. I could hear 'em through the door." He had the grace to blush. "Not that I was eavesdroppin'. I just wanted to make sure I was available if he needed help. Guess it didn't do much good. I heard what sounded like a fight and opened the door. The next thing I know you're yellin' at me to wake up."Puzzled, Buffy walked over to the closed door. "But where's Giles? I don't understand." There wasn't anything unusual in the entryway. She opened the front door. "Oh my god!"An unconscious Brian Callahan was draped across the front step. She put her hand on his throat and was relieved to find a pulse. She checked for bite marks and frowned when she didn't find any."Buff?" Xander asked from the doorway. "Who's that?""Brian Callahan." She glanced back at him. "Help me get him inside. Maybe he can tell us what happened to Giles.""So this is Callahan, huh?" Xander stared down at the man, a strange expression on his face."Yeah. Why?"He shook his head. "Oh, no reason. No reason at all. Let's move him."She lifted Callahan by the shoulders and Xander took his legs. Together they carried him inside and dumped him on the couch. Doyle had moved to the chair. Buffy went back to the entry and scanned the area hoping to find Giles somewhere nearby. She pushed back the fear that roiled in her stomach when she didn't find him and returned inside."Where'd you put Oz?" She asked Xander."We took him upstairs. Didn't think Giles'd mind. Willow's making sure he's okay."Buffy nodded. "Good." She began to pace the room. "Where is he?" She stopped in front of Doyle."I don't know," he said troubled. "I can't remember much of anything after openin' the damn door.""How's Brian?" She jerked her head at the couch."Looks like he was hit with something on the back of the head." Xander glanced back at Buffy. "Not Giles' style. He's more of a frontal assault type, at least where humans are concerned."Buffy went to the weapons closet and pulled out a heavy-duty flashlight. "I'm going to take a better look around the front door. Maybe I missed something. See if you can get him to wake up."She stepped outside and left the door open. No sense tempting fate, she thought. She swept the area slowly with the high powered light. Nothing. Not even blood. This was all wrong. Giles couldn't have just vanished without a trace. Unbidden Doyle's vision of Giles' body bloody and shackled to the ground entered her mind. She shivered and felt the flesh rise on her arms. Shoulders slumped she wearily turned back to the door.Buffy stood in front of the couch and watched Xander help a dazed Brian Callahan sit up. Why had Brian come here, she wondered? If he had anything to do with Giles' disappearance she'd see that he'd regret it. Callahan closed his eyes and rested his head in his hands with a groan."Brian, what happened?" she asked softly.His head jerked up. "Buffy! I knew you were here! That lying bastard wasn't going to let me see you. He attacked me."Her eyes narrowed and her expression hardened. "Giles doesn't lie. I wasn't here when you got here. And you were hit from behind. So, what happened?""Buffy," Brian said and then hesitated. He appeared to be weighing his words carefully. "I'm not sure what happened. One minute we were about to come to blows and the next...well, all I remember is a lot of pain. I figured that he wouldn't let me in because he was lying about you being here. And the fact that you're here now, well what am I supposed to think?""Think whatever you want. It seems you already have anyway." She closed her eyes."Buffy." He waited until she looked at him. His voice was gentle. "Look at your face. He hit you, didn't he? It's obvious that he has a temper and he's prone to violence. I can help you. You don't have to be afraid of him."Buffy exchanged a glance with Xander. "Now that's really the kind of logic that's...not. You don't have a clue what you're talking about. I'm not afraid of Giles. He's one of the kindest men I've ever met."Brian shook his head. "He really has you brainwashed, doesn't he?" he asked sadly.She snorted and threw up her hands. "I don't have time for this nonsense. I need to know what really happened.""Why don't you ask Giles what happened?""I can't. We can't find him." She swallowed heavily."I know you won't want to believe it," Brian said gently, "but isn't it possible that he took off because he didn't want to face you?""Oh that's rich," Buffy said sarcastically. "There's nothing that Giles could ever do that he'd feel he couldn't face me afterwards. And that means that something's happened to him.""Nothing?" Brian raised an eyebrow.Several disjointed images of Giles chased through Buffy's head. Giles still at his desk in the Library after a night of frantic research. Giles fighting a multi-headed demon coming out of the Hellmouth. Giles full of anguish over having injected her with that garbage on her eighteenth birthday. Giles declaring that he'd fight the Master in her place. And a peculiar image that she couldn't quite place of Giles offering her a floating ball of glowing white light. She smiled. "Absolutely nothing.""If I could just make you see that--""Shut up," Buffy said coldly. She clenched her hands and forced herself to breathe slowly. "Right now all I want from you is whatever you can tell me about what happened. Do you remember anything else? Did you see anyone else?"Brian frowned. "I...I'm not sure. okay, maybe there was someone else. I have a vague recollection of someone behind Giles, but I thought it was that guy." He pointed to Doyle.Doyle shook his head. "Don't think so. Can't be positive, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't me."Buffy took a deep breath. "OK. So we know someone smacked him on the back of the head. And got Doyle from the front. We gotta assume that they took Giles, too. There must have been more than one or two of them." She looked at Xander. "I think we just figured out where the rest of the Sect went.""Yeah," he replied, troubled. "But why?""Sect? What sect?" Brian asked, confusion on his face. "What are you talking about?"Buffy ignored him and turned to Doyle. "We have to figure out where they are, where they'll take Giles. Did you come up with anything while we were rescuing Oz?""What--" Brian started to stand up, only to be pushed back down by Xander."I don't think now is a good time," Xander said softly. "Just sit there and be quiet. You took a nasty hit on the head. Wouldn't want you to get another one so soon."Doyle looked up at Buffy and shook his head. "I hadn't found anything. Your Watcher was workin' at his desk. I don't think he'd found anything before lover boy here showed up." He held up his hands. "Sorry."Buffy sat down at the desk. Giles' notes were stacked neatly in front of her. She shuffled through his notes and sighed. Maybe Willow could make some sense of this, she thought in frustration."I need to talk to Will," she said abruptly and stood up. She caught Xander's eye and added, "Make sure he doesn't go anywhere."Xander nodded.Buffy picked up the notes and walked upstairs, ignoring the sound of Brian calling her name. She stopped in the doorway to Giles' bedroom. Willow sat on the bed next to a prone Oz. They were talking quietly. She knocked softly on the doorframe and smiled at Willow when she turned."Hey Will. Oz." Buffy entered the room."Buffy." Oz's voice sounded rusty."How're you doing?" she asked quietly. "You look better.""Feel better." He gave her his small smile."He's healing really fast. But he's awfully weak." Willow smiled up at Buffy."Great. Will, I need you to look over Giles' notes and see if he discovered anything about where the Destroyer or the Sect might be."Willow frowned. "Why don't you just ask Giles?"Buffy sighed. "He's not here. We think the Sect may have him. Doyle was knocked out. He didn't see what happened.""Sect?" asked Oz."The Sect of Septimius. They're the vamps that attacked you and Xander." Buffy said. "We think the reason there were only a few of them left at the factory is because the rest came here.""Is Doyle okay?" Willow asked."Yeah. But it just gets better. Brian Callahan came here. He's why Giles was outside and vulnerable. They were arguing when the Sect attacked. Brian was knocked out." Buffy shook her head.Willow and Oz exchanged glances and Oz asked, "Who or what is the Destroyer?""He's the demon I told you about. The one in the vision Doyle had." Willow's eyes widened and she looked at Buffy. "What if the Sect is taking Giles to the Destroyer?"Buffy swallowed and said, "I already thought of that. No offense Oz, but I think they took you to get me out of the way. It worked like a charm. I fell for it just like I always do. And now Giles is in danger somewhere, probably being tortured." Her voice broke."Buffy, it's not your fault," Willow said, her face troubled. "Would you have left Oz in their hands if you knew what might happen?""No," she whispered. "I couldn't do that.""And Giles wouldn't let you do that even if you'd suggested it." Willow touched her arm. "You can't blame yourself.""Oz, did the vamps say anything while they had you? Maybe something that could tell us where they took Giles?" Buffy asked hopefully."Not really." Oz shrugged slightly. "To be honest I was a little busy trying to protect myself from being beat to a pulp. I wasn't really concentrating on anything they might be saying."Buffy nodded and sighed wearily.Willow bit her lip. "Don't worry. We'll find him. Here, let me see those notes."Buffy silently handed her the papers. She watched Willow look through several of them and frown. "What is it?""It looks like he retranslated the prophecy." She glanced up at Buffy and then back down at the notes."What's it say? Is it all that different?"Willow shook her head. "Not really that different. Just a few subtle changes. It says: The Destroyer shall wield the Hammer and the Stone under the Dome of Heaven. The blood of the Cherished shall feed the Stone. The curtain of night shall be parted and the firmament shall tremble. As above, so below. As below, so above. The fate of the world rests in the hands of the Renunciate. In amore veritas. Woe to mankind when the demons walk the Earth. Like I said, not too different.""Anything else? Anything we could use to find him?" Buffy asked anxiously."I don't know. Let me go through these, okay? Maybe Oz and I can find something.""Dome of Heaven?" asked Oz. He frowned slightly.Willow turned to him. "Yeah. Why?""I think I remember one of the vamps saying something about a 'Dome of Heaven' while they were tying me up. Something about they'd meet there or something. I didn't remember until I heard the phrase again. But that's all I remember.""At least it's something." Willow glanced between Oz and Buffy.Buffy nodded slowly. "I just feel so helpless.""Don't worry," Oz rasped. "We'll find something."Buffy reached out and touched his hand gently. "I know Oz. And I'm glad we got you back."He nodded once and squeezed her hand."What are you going to do about Brian Callahan?" Willow asked."I don't know." She sighed. "I'd like to just tell him to get lost, but what if I'm wrong? What if he has something to do with this? Or, what if he remembers something we need to know? I guess I'll have to ask him to stay." ----- CHAPTER BREAK ----- Giles groaned and opened his eyes to darkness. He reached for the lamp by his bed to turn on the light and discovered that he was shackled to chains connected to a wall. He was lying on a carpeted floor and not in his bed. This definitely wasn't his bedroom. He tried to make out any shape in the dark and couldn't. He fought down panic as he realized it wasn't just very dark, but it was as if there was a total absence of light. His heart raced and his breathing quickened and became shallow as he contemplated the possibilities. What bothered him most was that he couldn't remember how he'd gotten to wherever he was.He tried to concentrate. He could remember sitting at his desk going over the translation of the prophecy and not being satisfied with it. The doorbell had rung and Doyle had opened the door to find Callahan on the front step. He smiled ruefully at himself as he recalled arguing with Callahan and then threatening him if he continued to bother Buffy. Giles frowned into the darkness. He remembered trying to pull Callahan out of the way when a vampire attacked the man from behind. What happened next was a blur. He put together fragmented images of Doyle and more vampires wearing the black and red uniforms of the Sect of Septimius. And then oblivion.Giles shook his head and immediately regretted it. Gingerly he touched the back of his head and winced when his fingers found a tender lump. He'd been knocked out again. He pressed his lips together to prevent the hysterical laughter that threatened to bubble out when he thought about Cordelia's nonsensical assertion that one of these days he was going to wake up in a coma. Damn it, he thought. He had to get a grip on himself and figure out how to get out this.He took several deep, steadying breaths and grabbed hold of one of the chains attached to the manacles on his wrists. He traced the chain the short distance to the ring it was attached to on the wall. His hands ran lightly over the wall and he was surprised to discover that it was covered in what felt like wood paneling. Giles moved along the wall as far as the chains would allow and found what felt like a built-in bookcase. He could only reach part way into the shelves and was disappointed to find them empty.He turned and felt along the wall in the opposite direction. Nothing. Just more paneling. He stretched the chains out as far as they would go and reached out with his leg. Nothing. Giles yanked at the chains and pounded his fist against the wall in frustration. Muttering obscenities under his breath, he turned and slid down to sit with his back pressed against the wall. If he couldn't pull out the chains, he thought, maybe he could figure a way to unlock the manacles.Using touch alone he examined the metal ring circling his left wrist. He felt the opening of the lock with his fingertips and sighed. It was too small to pick it with anything crude and he didn't have a fine lock pick on him. He tried working the metal over his hand and only stopped when he realized he was rubbing the skin raw. The manacle fit like a tight bracelet. At least he needn't contemplate trying to break his hand to make it fit through the opening he thought with a shudder.Giles didn't know how long he sat in the dark waiting for whoever or whatever was to come. He spent the time alternating between worrying about what was happening with Buffy and the others, and performing various meditation techniques that he knew in order to stay calm. He had no doubt that she would eventually figure out where he'd been taken. He only hoped he could hold on long enough for her rescue.He was beginning to wonder if he was meant to die of thirst when he heard a slight squeaking noise. He squinted across the room and was rewarded by a sliver of light. He'd been in the dark too long and knew his eyes would be dazzled if he didn't take precautions, so he shaded his eyes against what he hoped to be the light coming through an open door.A vampire in the red and black uniform of the Sect of Septimius entered silently carrying a tray. He put the tray down just out of Giles' reach and pushed it until Giles could touch it.Giles' hand closed on the edge of the tray. His eyes darted around the room and he tried to memorize the features he saw while he had light. The vampire turned to leave only to freeze at Giles' words."Wait!" Giles was desperate for information. "Where am I? What do you want?"The vamp stood for a moment facing the doorway and then exited without saying a word, closing the door behind him.Giles fought back a moan as the darkness engulfed him once again. He pulled the tray closer and brought the mug to his nose. He sniffed suspiciously, but didn't smell anything out of the ordinary so he put it to his lips and sipped. It tasted like plain water and he gulped at it. If it contained anything else he'd just have to deal with it, he thought. He was too thirsty to pass up the chance to drink. Especially since he didn't know when the next opportunity would occur.He was more cautious with the bowl. He sniffed at it as he had the water, but he couldn't identify whatever it was. Giles dipped a finger into the thick liquid and touched it to his tongue, only to turn and spit it out. He couldn't identify the taste, but instinctively knew something was wrong with it. He finished the water and leaned back against the wall to wait and to think about what he'd seen in the brief moments he'd had light.The room puzzled him. Rich mahogany paneling covered the walls. Bare recessed bookshelves and niches that looked like they may have once held first editions and fine statuary dotted the walls. There were no windows and the quick glance he'd had of the door had shown that it would close seamlessly into the wall. The plush pile carpet was beautiful in subtle shades of rose and cream. The room was empty. Giles had the impression that it should contain heavy wooden furniture, perhaps a desk and chairs, but definitely something expensive. Where was he, he wondered?He was surprised when the door opened again after what seemed like only a short time. Three of the Sect entered. One vampire stood back and watched while the others unfastened his chains from the wall. The two each took a firm grip on the chains and yanked him to his feet. Giles tried to pull back and jerk the chains out of their hands, but the third vamp swiftly stepped up and backhanded him across the face. Giles' head snapped back from the blow and he caught his breath in a muted groan.The third vamp turned and left the room. The others pulled on the chains, half dragging Giles behind them. He tried to find the fine line of resisting without being punished. He dragged his feet and took hold of the chains in his hands to put some of his weight into the resistance. He was being dragged down a short corridor that had distinctly religious overtones in its decorations. He looked around as best he could and was shocked to realize that he must be in a church of some sort.They jerked him out of the corridor onto the chancel and he recognized the trappings of the desecrated altar as most likely Catholic in origin. The fancy room he'd been held in finally made some sense to him. His prison had undoubtedly been a priest's office. What continued to puzzle him was why the place felt abandoned when it was so obviously well maintained.The two vampires yanked on the chains to halt him and he looked up. The site that greeted him sent a tremor down his spine. Buffy's demon, the Destroyer, stood in the pulpit watching him with an evil gleam in his eyes. Giles sighed and prepared himself for the worst."So you are the key." The demon spit the words out from a mouth crammed with pointed teeth. He sounded almost amused. "If I'd known you would be so easy to take I would have come after you myself. No matter. I have you now and soon the Curtain of Night will part and demons will once again walk freely on the earth. And we'll owe it all to you." He chuckled evilly.Giles clenched his fists and glared at the demon. "I shan't help you, you know. Besides, it'll do you no good. It won't be long now before help comes."The Destroyer waived his hand negligibly. "You mean the Slayer? Oh I truly doubt that. By this time the Slayer and all her little playmates have been dealt with. There will be no Renunciate to come to the rescue of her Cherished one."Giles head jerked back and his eyes narrowed. "Why did you call her that?" he asked flatly."Renunciate?" The Destroyer laughed contemptuously. "Surely you've figured out that riddle by now? No? Think, little man, what makes someone a 'Renunciate'? Ah, I see that the answer is beginning to dawn on you."Giles' mind whirled. Buffy was the Renunciate? Because she'd 'renounced' the Council? But what on earth made him the 'Cherished', he wondered? Hope flared. The demon must have made an error and confused him with Angel. He shook his head. "I believe you've made a serious mistake."The demon frowned. "Oh? And what would that be?"Giles laughed mirthlessly. "You've chosen the wrong person for the role of the Cherished. Too bad. You might actually have had a chance with this otherwise."The Destroyer slowly closed the distance between them. He reached out and grasped Giles' chin in a crushing grip that didn't allow him to turn away. He forced Giles' head back and forth and then looked him deep in the eyes for several moments. Nodding as if satisfied the demon returned to his original position on the pulpit."You are mistaken, little man. You are the one I need." The Destroyer smiled cruelly. "And you shall provide me with much sport before the appointed time."Giles' stomach clenched and he closed his eyes. He remembered Doyle's vision and prayed he had enough strength and courage to keep from begging for mercy. When he opened his eyes he found the demon staring at him thoughtfully.The Destroyer abruptly gestured to the two vamps that were holding his chains. They jerked him down the steps of the chancel to the side of the transept furthest from the pulpit. Giles' eyes were drawn to the depression that had been gouged out of the floor of the nave. He looked up again when he was yanked to a stop. The vamps climbed ladders to attach the chains to rings set in the ceiling. When they were done they folded the ladders and carried them away.Giles pulled on the chains. He could bring his hands down almost to the top of his head, but no further. He was chained facing the nave of the church and he wasn't close enough to the transept wall to reach it, even with his feet. He glanced up at the ceiling and caught his breath. The Dome of Heaven, he thought bleakly.The Destroyer stepped down into the nave followed by a large vampire of the Sect carrying a curious looking whip. Giles swallowed heavily and fought down his fear. He'd never seen one in person, but the whip had to be a cat-o'-nine-tails. The end of each lash was tipped with a metal spur."Remember, you are not to touch his face, nor below the waist," the Destroyer admonished the vampire. "At least not yet. Now we shall see what you are made of, little man." The demon gestured to the vampire to begin.Giles watched in horrified fascination as the vamp shook out the whip and began twirling it around his head. His eyes tracked the metal tips as they snapped around and around until they began to descend. He tensed in anticipation of the first blow. The tips of the lashes grazed his chest from his left shoulder, across and down his ribcage, ripping through his shirt and drawing blood from shallow cuts. His nostrils flared and he pressed his lips together tightly.Giles' body flinched with each bite of the whip. His breathing became labored and soon he was panting. He fought to keep from crying out, but as the whip whirled faster and cut deeper, small moans and gasps were wrenched from him. He watched the demon through a red haze of pain.The Destroyer mocked him. "Cry out, little man. You have no reason to be brave. I wish to hear your pain. Please me and perhaps I'll make it stop. At least for a little while."Giles gritted out through clenched teeth, "Pillock. I've been tortured by the best. You're not even in the same league." He never thought he'd have reason to be grateful for the pain he'd endured at Angelus' hands. If all the Destroyer could use was pain then Giles was sure he could hold out, at least until he lapsed into unconsciousness. He was determined not to give the demon the satisfaction of seeing him break."We shall see," the demon said darkly. He signaled to the vampire wielding the whip to begin again.The vamp methodically marked his torso from neck to waist, front to back, and then turned the whip on his arms. Blood ran freely down Giles' body, staining his jeans. His body jerked and spasmed each time the metal spurs bit into his tender flesh.Giles tried to concentrate on something, anything else. The first image that entered his mind was of Buffy's awe-struck face illuminated by the glow of their joined souls as she stood before him, her hands in his, during the Spell of Completion. He clung desperately to that vision and tried to shove the pain into a locked corner of his mind where it couldn't touch him. But finally, overcome by the intensity of the pain, Giles slumped, his unconscious body hanging from the chains. ----- CHAPTER BREAK ----- Willow sat on the edge of the bed and shuffled Giles' notes. She kept searching through them, hoping that she would see something she'd missed last night. No matter how many times she looked at them all she saw was his comments on the translation. And she couldn't make anything new out of that."Will?" Oz asked softly.Willow looked up. "Hey sweetie. Do you need something?" She gazed at his bruised face and smiled warmly."Help me sit up?"She frowned. "Are you sure you should?"He nodded. "I'm sore, but it's not too bad."She helped him push himself up, and propped a couple of pillows behind him. He settled back against them and made himself comfortable."What time is it?""Almost 5:00pm. Are you hungry?" Willow took his hand."I could eat. Can you use some help?"Willow sighed again. "I could use a lot of help. I've gone over and over Giles' notes, but all I can't come up with anything. Do you want to take a look at it?" She held out the sheaf of papers to him.Willow watched while Oz slowly looked through the notes. He paused a couple of times and set those pages aside. Finally he glanced at her with a small smile."Did you find something?" she asked eagerly."Possibilities," he said. "We need to go downstairs.""Are you sure you're ready for that?" she asked anxiously. "Maybe you should just tell me what to do and stay up here."He shook his head slightly. "I can do it if you'll help me.""Okay," Willow said dubiously.She stood and helped him slide to the edge of the bed. Oz placed his hands on her shoulders and levered himself up. He kept one arm around her shoulder and she put her arm around his waist. He was a bit wobbly, but together they made their way slowly down the stairs to the living room.Willow led him over to the couch and gently helped him sit down. She glanced around the empty room curiously and frowned. Where was everyone? She was relieved when Doyle walked into the living room from the direction of the bathroom."Willow. Oz." Doyle sat on the coffee table across from them. "How're you feelin', man?""Better.""Doyle? Where is everyone?" Willow asked."Buffy said something about needin' to get out for a bit. Said to tell you that she'd be over at her mother's house. Xander volunteered to bring back dinner. Callahan went with him. Should be back any time now.""Brian's still here?" Willow bit her bottom lip. "What did Buffy tell him last night?"Doyle's mouth twitched and he said solemnly, "Not much. She just said she wanted him to stay here and he didn't argue. I think what convinced him was the little talk Xander had with him while she was upstairs with you. The man can be persuasive when he wants to be.""Xander?" Willow glanced at Oz. "What did he say?" More importantly, she thought, what does Brian know about what's going on?"I think you better ask him that question." Doyle grinned."Have you found anything?" Oz asked.Doyle shook his head. "Not really.""Oz has some ideas," Willow said brightly."Let's hear them. Lord knows I'm fresh out."Oz handed Doyle the pages he'd set aside from Giles' notes. "You know that Giles redid the translation. Most of his notes are about that. But these pages had some additional comments on them. Maybe they'll help."Doyle glanced at the notes. "Maybe. It's not lookin' good here. The longer the Sect has him the more likely it is that they've turned him over to the demon."Willow said troubled, "You think the Destroyer already has him, don't you?"Doyle sighed. "Yes. I do."Oz squeezed her hand. "We'll find him."Doyle glanced at Oz and then Willow. "Can I ask you somethin'?"Willow shrugged. "I guess.""I was told how it is between all of you. You know, that you and Oz are a couple, that Xander used to date Cordelia, and such.""Uh-huh. What's your question?""It's just that I was under the impression that, well, that Buffy was in love with Angel." Doyle looked at her seriously.Willow nodded. "Buffy loves Angel. Yeah. And?""If she's so in love with Angel, then what's going on with her Watcher?""What?" Willow frowned. "What do you mean?"Oz touched her on the arm and smiled enigmatically. "Change. Buffy knows, but she doesn't know."Doyle looked askance at Oz. "And what about him, then?""The same."Doyle shook his head in wonder. "That's why they couldn't figure out that damn prophecy.""Oz? What do you mean? What are you talking about?" Willow asked in confusion. He couldn't be saying what she thought he was saying, could he? "Buffy loves Angel."Oz nodded. "She loves Angel. But she's not in love with Angel.""But...but Angel is the love of her life!" Willow sounded unsure, even to herself."Maybe. I don't think so though." Oz shook his head again. "Don't get me wrong. I like Angel. At least when he's Angel and not Angelus.""How can you say he's not though? You didn't sit with her all those nights while she cried over him. Her heart really was breaking." Willow felt indignant that he might think Buffy and Angel's love wasn't the great romance of all time."I'm sure it hurt. Angel's a great tragic figure. But he was never real. There was never going to be a happy ending and she always knew it. He was safe."Willow's jaw dropped. "Safe? Being in love with a vampire was safe?""Yeah. It meant she didn't have to make any real effort with a human. You've seen how relieved she gets when things don't work out with her date-du-jour. Take Brian Callahan, for instance."Doyle cleared his throat. "If it helps any, well, I know Angel loves her. But he's movin' on with his life. And he's made it clear that he wants her to move on as well."Willow frowned. "I suppose. And I thought the thing with Brian fell apart because he acted all jealous of...oh. I guess I've been living in the state of denial."A corner of Oz's mouth turned up. "There's been a lot going on lately."Willow nodded. She turned to Doyle. "Why did you say that's why they couldn't figure out the prophecy?"He grinned. "Because if it doesn't say Watcher and Slayer they obviously don't think it applies to them. And since the prophecy talked about the 'Cherished' and the 'Renunciate', well, that must not be them. But it's right in front of their noses."Willow's eyes widened. "I am such an idiot! Of course. The Renunciate has to be Buffy. She renounced the Council. That makes Giles the Cherished. That's got to be it.""What's it?" Xander asked. He swung the door open further and walked in carrying two large pizza boxes. Brian Callahan followed behind him carrying two six packs of soda."Um, nothing. We were just talking about that translation work we've been doing. Stuffy old dead languages." Willow smiled brightly.Xander winked at her. "That's okay, Will. I told Brian about the research project we've been working on. You know, that's why we're all over here so much and all."Willow blinked rapidly. "Oh. Yeah. We do a lot of research for, um, with Giles. Big project."Xander turned to Callahan. "Why don't you put those in the 'fridge? Thanks." Xander set the pizza boxes down on the coffee table next to Doyle."Xander," Willow hissed, "what did you tell him?""Just what I said. That we're working on a big research project with Giles. I didn't go into details, just that it involved translating dead languages and lots of mythological-type stuff. That way when we talk about demons he'll think we're talking about ancient stories and cultures.""And he believed you?" Willow asked in disbelief.Xander nodded. "I think he was desperate for a reasonable explanation. You know, kind of like Buffy's mom used to be? As long as there was a straw out there, he was willing to grab it no matter how flimsy it was.""Good thinking," Oz said."Yeah. Well, I wasn't actually able to explain away what happened to you. I finally told him you'd been mugged and had a fear of hospitals. And that Buffy's bruise on her face happened when we scared off the muggers." Xander shrugged."Sounds plausible." Oz almost smiled."Uh-huh." Xander looked uncomfortable. "The hard part has been answering questions about Buffy and Giles without answering the questions, if you know what I mean. I shoulda been a tap-dancer."Doyle snorted. "Cordelia said you had a glib tongue. I'm beginnin' to believe she was right."Xander turned an intense gaze on him. "What else did Cordy say?""Not much." Doyle shook his head with a smile.They all turned when Callahan entered the room. He wore a small smile and carried a stack of plates."I thought maybe you'd want these," he said hesitantly, as if unsure of his welcome."Thank you," Willow replied. She smiled and gestured for him to join them on the couch.Callahan glanced at Oz. "I was sorry to hear about your attack. Are you okay?"Oz nodded. "Yeah. Just a few aches left."Callahan looked around. "Buffy isn't back?" he asked quietly."Not yet." Doyle lifted the lid on one of the pizza boxes, took a slice and handed the box round.They'd started on the second box when the front door opened and Buffy walked inside."Hey Buff. You're just in time for the last of the pizza." Xander handed her a plate."Thanks, but I'll pass," she said. "I'm not really all that hungry." She leaned dejectedly against Giles' desk.Willow worried at her bottom lip and studied her friend. Buffy had a far away look in her eyes and seemed more depressed than Willow could remember seeing her in a long time. Willow glanced at Doyle and decided that she wasn't the only one to see it. Doyle was watching Buffy with a shrewd expression on his face."Where've you been, princess?" Doyle asked slyly. "We've been here researchin' while you've been out doin' what?"Buffy bristled. "I told you to stop calling me that. I was checking some things out on my own. I went to the planetarium at the museum, and then over to the Astronomy Department at UCS. The department has a small planetarium. Unfortunately the Observatory outside town was too far.""Bad idea," Doyle said soberly."He's right, Buffy. You should have told us. We would have gone with you." Willow added. She wasn't surprised that Buffy had gone off on her own, but it always scared her that one day her friend would do that and run into something she couldn't handle alone."I'm not sure I understand," Brian said, puzzled. "Why shouldn't Buffy go to those places alone? I didn't know you were interested in astronomy." He glanced at Buffy.She shook her head. "I'm interested in a lot of things. And my friends are a little over-protective. But I'm fine. I didn't find anything." She gave them all a look that clearly said to drop it.Xander cleared his throat. "So. About that translating. We've been concentrating on the 'Dome of Heaven' phrase. I guess we can cross a few things off the list." He looked at Willow and Oz.Oz nodded. "I thought of those, too."Brian frowned. "Dome of heaven? That's funny."Willow turned to him. "What's funny.""It's just funny that you're translating some ancient text that has the phrase 'dome of heaven' in it. I read an article a few months ago that used that same phrase.""What was it about?" Buffy asked intently.Startled, Brian said, "It was an article on renovations of buildings in Sunnydale. The phrase had something to do with one of the buildings, but I don't remember which one it was.""Do you remember when you read the article?" Xander asked.Brian shook his head. "Like I said, it was a few months ago. Maybe two or three. It was in the Sunnydale Herald." He shrugged.Willow glanced around the room. "I can go online and start searching. If we're lucky I can search on the phrase itself. If not, I can still search for the type of article." She stood up resolutely and went to the dining table where her laptop still sat, followed by Buffy. Willow turned on the laptop and logged onto her ISP. A few minutes later she groaned."What is it Will?" Buffy asked anxiously.Willow shook her head. "The Herald's computer must be down. Their web server is offline." She thought for a moment. "Okay. I'll have to use a different angle. The library may have the Herald's articles indexed. Let me try there."Willow connected to the Sunnydale library system, but it only indicated that they had microfiche copies of the Herald available. Next she tried UC Sunnydale. The library didn't have an index of the Herald, but the Journalism Department did. It took an hour of refining her searching before she found the article."Buffy, look at this." Willow whispered excitedly. She glanced into the living room at the four men and then back at the screen. Willow quickly skimmed the article until she the phrase. "Here it is. Experts in historical reconstruction have been contracted for the restoration of the dome. The intent is to completely repair and restore the original art of the Dome of Heaven. It's referring to the Cathedral of the Holy Name. The Catholic Church is having it renovated. It's been closed for construction for the last three months." She looked at Buffy in triumph.Buffy's face shown with hope. "That has to be it! Oh Will!" She hugged her friend fiercely.Willow watched Buffy get up and stride to the closet where Giles kept the weapons locked. She looked into the living room in shock. What would they tell Brian? She jumped up and rushed to Oz."Find what you were looking for?" Xander asked.Willow could tell he was trying for casual, but she knew him well enough to see his tension. She nodded. "The Cathedral of the Holy Name. It's being renovated.""All right then. Guess it's time for a road trip." Xander looked at Oz. "I think this time we better take some wheels. Can we borrow your van?"Oz nodded. "I'm going with you.""No. You're not," Doyle said. "Think, man. You barely made it downstairs with help. Fast healer or not, you aren't much use right now. Going along will only get someone hurt lookin' out for you. Is that what you want?"Oz stared at Doyle for a beat and then said, "No." He fished his keys out of his pocket and tossed them to Xander. "The van's at the house.""Thanks," Xander said and stood up. He moved to the front door and called back over his shoulder. "Tell Buffy that I'll be right back. Don't let her leave without me.""What's happening?" Brian asked. He frowned at Willow. "There's more going on here than just a research project, isn't there? Look, I'm not stupid. Maybe there's something I can help with."Willow exchanged looks with Doyle. "Brian--""There's nothing you can do," Buffy cut in. "Except stay here with Oz. We're going to have to leave in a few minutes and I don't want him left alone in his condition. Will you do that for me?"Brian regarded her silently for a moment. "All right. But I want to talk to you before you leave. In private?"Willow could see the conflict in her friend's face. She knew Buffy's instinct was to run to the Cathedral on her own, right now, to try to rescue Giles. But she could also see that Buffy knew her chances of success would be much greater if she waited for Xander and the van, and planned their attack. Willow released the breath she hadn't realized she was holding when Buffy finally nodded. Now, thought Willow, they'd see if they'd figured out where Giles was in time. Her mind shied away from the thought of what they might find when they reached the Cathedral. ----- CHAPTER BREAK ----- "Will? Do me a favor?" Buffy asked. "Can you find the blueprints for the Cathedral online?""I should be able to come up with them." Willow nodded and returned to her laptop."Good. We need to figure out a way in that they won't expect. Like we did last year with the Mayor." Buffy ignored Brian's raised eyebrow. She wasn't sure what she was going to tell him, but she was more concerned about saving Giles than wasting time trying to hide things from him."Xander went to get my van," Oz said. "You may need it.""Good thinking. We should have done that before we went to find you. Maybe we would have made it back here in time." Buffy couldn't quite keep the bitterness out of her voice. "I'm sorry, Oz. I don't mean that it's your fault. It's just that I feel like I should have seen this coming and handled it better."Oz shook his head. "I know what you meant. But it's not your fault either.""Seems like we can waste precious time passin' out blame or we can talk about your plan. What's it to be, princess?" Doyle raised his eyebrows.Buffy closed her eyes and told herself not to react. After all, he was right, she thought. She looked him straight in the eye and said, "You're right. We need a plan. That's why I asked Will to get the blueprints."Doyle grinned impudently at her. "That's the spirit. I'm all for chargin' in all John Wayne-like, but my first inclination is usually the wrong one. So, what's your idea?"Buffy took a deep breath. "We leave someone outside with the van and the rest of us go in and bring Giles out. I'm hoping there's a rooftop access that will show up on the blueprints. We'll just have to bring as many weapons as we can and assess the situation when we're inside since we don't have any way of knowing what we'll find.""I wonder..." Doyle trailed off thoughtfully."What?" Buffy frowned."It's a Catholic church, no? A cathedral?""Yeah. Of course, a cathedral in Sunnydale probably isn't going to be as fancy as a cathedral in, say, New York. Do you have something?""Maybe. I'll know when we see those blueprints." Doyle refused to say anything more.Buffy looked at Brian. He was watching the others and frowning. She was grateful that he'd stopped trying to interrupt, but it also worried her. What was he thinking, she wondered? And what did he want to talk to her about?"I've got it," Willow called.They gathered around the table and watched as Willow brought the blueprints up on her laptop. Buffy glanced at Doyle and saw him nodding to himself. What did he have in mind? Doyle went to Giles' desk, picked up a pad of paper and brought it back to the table."OK," said Buffy. "What's your idea?"Doyle quickly drew an outline of the church on the paper. "It's simple, really. This is a cruciform church." At her look he added, "The building is in the form of a cross."Buffy nodded. "And?"He drew a circle at the spot where the two parts of the building crossed. "This is where the dome is and if my vision was correct, this is where Giles and the Emerald will be.""Buffy," Willow said. "There's a choir loft above the spot where the altar stands. It's in front of that area under the dome that Doyle's talking about."Buffy leaned over her friend's shoulder and watched as Willow traced the loft out on the blueprints. She put her hand on Willow's shoulder and smiled at her. They all looked up as the front door opened and Xander returned."Hey guys! I'm back. What've I missed?" Xander joined them around Willow."Will's got the blueprints and we're planning our entrance." Buffy smiled grimly at him."Cool. Just like with the Mayor." Xander nodded."Yeah. Let's hope this goes better than that did." Buffy frowned."It will. Don't worry, Buff. We'll get him out." Xander took her hand and looked at her seriously.She smiled at him and squeezed his hand, grateful for his concern. Buffy tried not to think about what might be happening to Giles at that moment. She knew she had to concentrate on the task before her. She bent down and studied the plans again and found what she was looking for, a vent above the choir loft."There. That vent. Is the duct work big enough for us to crawl through?" She glanced at Willow.Willow scrolled the page down to the table that listed the dimensions. She looked up at Buffy and nodded. "It's the same size as the ducts running through City Hall.""Great. Oz and I managed to get through those all right during the Hansel and Gretel thing." Xander looked hopeful."OK. That's the plan, then. Xander and I'll go through the vent above the choir loft and plan the strategy once we're inside." Buffy straightened."I'm going too," Willow said firmly."Will--""Giles is my friend, too. Oz is safe. I've got to help." Willow's eyes widened and she looked pleadingly at Buffy.Buffy glanced at Oz and he nodded once. "OK Will. Honestly I'll be glad to have you with us." She turned to Doyle. "You'll drive the van. Think you can handle that?""Gee, princess, I don't know. Sure you can trust me with such an important job?" Doyle asked sarcastically.Buffy looked at him steadily. "I don't really have a choice, do I?" she asked calmly.He smiled. "No. Guess you don't at that.""Actually, she does," said Brian.They all turned to look at him. He was standing across the table, watching them quietly. He hadn't said anything for so long that they'd forgotten he was there."You can't," Buffy said softly."Why not? Of course, I might be able to answer that if someone would explain what's going on." He raised his eyebrows.Buffy turned to Doyle. "You're driving the van." She glanced at the others. "Brian and I need to have a quick talk. Xander, start packing the duffel bag."She turned and walked around the table to take Brian by the arm and pull him toward the stairs. She wasn't about to step outside for privacy and the only other place she could think of was upstairs, though she hated the thought of standing in the middle of Giles' bedroom arguing with Brian. That was just too weird. They were halfway up the stairs when Buffy heard Willow shout."Buffy!""Willow?" Buffy turned to see her friend standing at the foot of the stairs staring up at them, twisting her hands in agitation."Um, I don't think, that is, maybe you shouldn't, er, it's not a good idea..." Willow stammered."Spit it out, Will." Buffy frowned."You should talk down here and we'll go up there," she said anxiously."Don't be silly." What was wrong with her, Buffy wondered? "We'll be down in a minute." Buffy turned back to Brian with a shrug.They entered the bedroom and stood awkwardly in the middle of the room. Buffy wasn't sure what Brian wanted to say, but she decided to start the conversation and get it over with."Brian," she said, "I know you want to help, but there's really nothing you can do.""There's more going on here than a research project. I'm not letting you leave until you tell me what it is." He folded his arms across his chest."You're not?" Buffy was almost amused. Too bad I can't just hit him and go on, she thought as she searched for a plausible story. "But you're right. I mean, we are doing research, but, um, well, you've found out our little secret. We're part of a...a gaming group. You know, like, um, those role-playing games? Demons and dungeons or something. Or those people who fight the Civil War? Only we do um, secret agent stuff." God, was that the lamest thing she'd ever come up with or what, she thought? There was no way he was going to buy it.Brian raised his eyebrows and dropped his arms. "Seems a little elaborate. But then, I've been to one of those Civil War reenactments. Those folks are intense. If it isn't authentic they won't use it. So, this whole thing with Giles and this Sect you keep talking about is a game?""Uh, yeah. The Sect are the bad guys in our game," she said brightly. Jeez, he was buying it, she thought. "They've captured Giles and we have to get him back or lose points. That's why you can't come along. If we bring someone who's not on our, um, team we'll lose the game."Brian studied her face for a long moment. "OK. I can accept that. You do know you guys are a little intense about this game, don't you? And what was all that about the Mayor?"Buffy nodded. "Yeah. I'm really sorry if you got the wrong idea. The Mayor was the game we played last year. It wasn't anything about Sunnydale's mayor." She crossed her fingers behind her back and smiled brightly at him.He nodded. "I figured it must be something like that. OK.""Good. Is that all? Can we go down and join the others now?" Buffy tried not to show how relieved she was that he'd accepted her strange explanation.He shook his head. "I was curious, I'll admit. But that's not what I wanted to talk to you about. I want to talk to you about us."Oh great, she thought. "Brian--""No. Please. Hear me out." He looked at her earnestly. "Xander explained about the research project and your relationship with Giles.""He...did?" Buffy frowned. What exactly had Xander told him, she wondered?Brian nodded and took a deep breath. "I owe you an apology. I suppose I owe Giles an apology as well. And I'd like to make it up to you. I know you said you didn't think it was a good idea for us to continue to see each other when you called me. But as long as there isn't someone else that you're in love with, well, it just seemed like we were hitting it off pretty well and I'd like the opportunity to change your mind. " He glanced around the room for the first time."Brian, I appreciate that you still want to see me. And it isn't that I'm--""You lied to me." He turned to her accusingly. "What was the point? Just to make a fool out of me?""W-what?" she asked, thoroughly confused.He strode angrily over to the chair in the corner and picked up a silk tank top. Buffy's overnight bag sat open on the floor next to the chair and more of her clothes were strewn across it. She watched wide-eyed as he touched a sweater that she'd worn on one of their dates."You are staying here," he said flatly. "In his bedroom. You must think I'm the biggest idiot around.""It isn't like--""Don't bother to lie to me." He looked at her angrily. "I can't believe this."Something snapped inside her. Her eyes blazed and she advanced on him. "How dare you!" she said furiously. "What gives you the right to have an opinion? Who made you the boss of me? I told you that I didn't want to see you. That should have been the end of it, but no, that's not good enough for you. I'm through being nice and sensitive about your feelings. Get out!" Her voice raised to a yell. She thumped him on the chest, causing him to pedal backward out of the bedroom."Buffy!" He said angrily."Don't Buffy, me! I said get out!" She continued to stalk towards him. "Nobody asked you to come here.""OK! OK! I'm going." He trotted down the stairs and then turned and looked up at her. "I was right about this. I'll bet I was right about the other stuff as well. If you come to your senses about him, you know where you can find me." He stalked out, slamming the front door behind him.Buffy slowly walked down the stairs to dead quiet. She looked at her friends in shock and saw varying expressions of sympathy and relief on their faces. She took a deep breath and joined them at the table."I'm sorry, Buffy," Willow said softly. "It's my fault. Giles was all out of aspirin. I forgot that I'd gone through your overnight bag looking for some for Oz and I hadn't gotten around to straightening up."Buffy shook her head. "It's OK Will. He was determined to find something to prove he was right. God, what a jerk! At least he's gone now and we don't have to worry about him while we concentrate on rescuing Giles.""Eh, he wasn't good enough for you, princess," Doyle grinned. "Now, if you ask me--""I didn't," Buffy cut in. "So let's just get our stuff together and get out of here. Xander, did you get the bag packed?""Yeah. It's over there." He gestured at the duffel bag sitting on the floor in front of the weapons closet.Buffy knelt and examined the contents. She reached into the closet, pulled out a small box and placed it in the bag. She stood, picked the bag up and looked at them seriously."Let's do it." ----- CHAPTER BREAK ----- Buffy, Willow and Xander walked quietly across the roof of the cathedral toward the entrance to the vent. Doyle and the van were parked down the street and around the corner waiting for them. They reached the vent and Buffy set down the duffel bag. Xander handed her a small screwdriver and she eased the screws out that held the screen cover over the entrance. She set the screen aside carefully."Remember, we need to get in without them knowing. I'm betting we'll find the rest of the Sect down there." Buffy looked at them seriously.Xander nodded. "Don't worry," he whispered. "We'll be quiet as church mice."Buffy groaned softly. "Whatever. Just be quiet. Ready?"They nodded and crouched down to follow her into the vent. Buffy pushed the bag slowly ahead of her. They had one bad moment when they came to a 'Y' in the vent and Buffy was unsure of which direction to take. She looked back at Xander and Willow for help. Xander shrugged helplessly. Buffy saw Willow close her eyes and murmur something under her breath. Willow opened her eyes and looked at Buffy. She pointed to the left wing of the 'Y'. Buffy nodded once and turned to the left, pushing the bag ahead of her until they reached the end of the ventilation shaft. Out of curiosity she put her hands on the screen cover and pushed slightly, only to grab for it to keep it from clanging to the floor.Buffy took a deep breath and quietly lowered the screen to the floor. She gave Xander a sheepish smile over her shoulder and slithered out the vent. She reached up and took the duffel bag he handed down. She crouched down and sat with her back against the wall. Xander and then Willow soon joined her. There were rows of plush seats between them and the railing of the choir loft, obscuring their view."We'll have to get closer to the rail to see what's going on," Buffy whispered. She pointed to a spot by the railing that was partially obscured by a stack of plywood. They crawled over to the railing and looked down. Buffy heard Willow's sharp intake of breath and felt Xander's hand on her arm.Buffy wanted desperately to close her eyes, but she forced herself to look. Giles, her Giles, was off to one side, suspended from the ceiling of the transept by chains connected to metal cuffs circling his wrists. The chains were just short enough to prevent him from dropping to his knees.His blood-soaked shirt hung in tatters and blood dripped from lacerations that covered his torso and arms. His glasses were missing. Buffy swallowed hard at the thought of someone or some thing ripping those glasses from his face. The rust colored patches and dark, wet looking splotches on his jeans puzzled her, until she realized that his blood caused the discoloration. His eyes were closed and his body hung limply from the chains. His head was bent forward, resting against his upper arm. From the position of his body she thought that he must be unconscious.Her frantic need to get to Giles and take him to safety grew, threatening to overwhelm her. She felt the urge to just do something, anything, and fought it down as best she could. If she didn't plan their next move carefully they would be caught and he would die, maybe they all would die. She forced herself to think calmly and search the rest of the cathedral.The Destroyer stood in the pulpit below them, a huge book open in front of him on the lectern. It had to be that Hammer-thing, Buffy thought. She watched as the vampires of the Sect prepared for a ritual. Four metal rings were attached to the floor of the nave where the pews had been torn out. They'd dug a circular depression into the crossing, at the exact midpoint where the transept crossed the nave of the church, directly under the dome. A trough had been dug from the metal rings to the circular depression. Buffy looked up at the dome and realized why it was known as the Dome of Heaven. Half of it had been painted to represent a bright blue sky; the other half was a stylized starry night.The vampires drew arcane symbols on the floor under the dome in front of the desecrated altar, surrounding the metal rings, trough, and depression. The Destroyer reached down beside the pulpit and picked up the Emerald. He held it reverently over his head, muttering words he read from the book in front of him. He handed the Stone to one of the acolytes who placed it in the depression. Another vampire roughly wiped a cloth back and forth across Giles' chest, soaking up his blood and causing him to twitch and whimper. Buffy clenched her fists and fought to keep from jumping over the railing right then and there. Xander gripped her arm tightly. The vampire held the cloth over the Emerald and wrung it out, letting the blood drip onto the Stone. A sickly green light flared deep in the Emerald and started to pulse slowly. Buffy knew instinctively that if she had any hope of saving Giles that it was time to move.She turned to Willow and Xander and whispered, "I need the two of you to go down the stairs on Giles' side of the church. You're gonna have to cause a distraction. Can you do that? I have to get the Destroyer or we lose."Willow said grimly, "We can do it. Don't worry about us."Xander added, "If we stick together we'll be OK. And we'll cause one hell of a distraction."Buffy nodded. She looked at Xander seriously and said, "I want you to do something for me. Promise me that you'll get Giles out of here. No matter what else happens. Please? Promise me?"Xander swallowed and nodded. "You have my word."Buffy put her hand on Xander's arm. "I'm counting on you Xander. Be careful." She looked at Willow. "Both of you.""We will."Buffy unzipped the bag of weapons. She quietly removed and unsheathed a broadsword and lay it aside. She lifted the small box out of the bag and unlocked it. She lifted out a sheathed dagger and strapped it around her waist."Buffy! That's the Dagger of the Trismegistus!" Willow whispered, an expression of shock crossing her face. "What are you doing with that?"Buffy shrugged. "I'm not sure, Will. Something just told me to bring it. That I'd need it. I've learned to listen to those impulses or be really sorry that I didn't. So, here it is."Xander reached into the bag and pulled out several stakes and a large cross. He passed half the stakes to Willow and stuck the rest through his belt. He lowered the chain of the cross over his head and gave them a feral grin. "Bring 'em on."Buffy tightly clasped the hand Willow reached out to her. A moment later Xander's hand joined theirs. The three friends gazed at each other silently, putting into their eyes what they wouldn't say aloud. Buffy nodded and they let their hands drop. She watched them silently make their way to the stairs and start down. She crept to the edge of the balcony nearest the demon and gauged the distance to the pulpit. She hefted the broadsword and, at the sound of Xander's battle yell, flipped over the railing to land directly behind the Destroyer.The demon turned with a roar and lunged at Buffy. She swung the sword in an arc at the creature's middle, causing him to jump back. He ran to the side of the pulpit, lifted a statue of the Virgin from its niche and threw it at her, dodging in the opposite direction as he did so. Buffy flipped forward, away from the flying statue. She landed facing away from her foe and whirled to block his sword thrust. Where in hell had he found that, she wondered? Buffy took a two handed grip on her own sword and fought desperately, parrying and blocking his thrusts, looking for any opportunity to move in for the kill. The demon came at her relentlessly, the force of his blows driving her back and down the chancel steps.The Destroyer bared his pointed teeth at her. "So, you're the Slayer? Not much to you, is there?""Yeah, well, at least I look better than you. Didn't anyone ever tell you that shade of blue doesn't mix with purple? What? Were you really trying for the psychedelic look? Or was that the psycho look?" Buffy desperately blocked a savage thrust and grimaced."You think to bother me with your puny words? I am the Destroyer. You will tremble before me!" He roared."Yeah. Yeah." Buffy sought to sound nonchalant. "Color me bored. You guys never do come up with anything original, do you?""Your Watcher already bows to me. You will do the same," taunted the demon."That's a lie! Giles would die before he'd suck up to the likes of you." Buffy was as sure of that as she was of her own name. "If Angelus couldn't break him, you wouldn't have a chance!" She struggled to keep the attack going. ~~~~~~~ooo~~~~~~~ooo~~~~~~~ooo~~~~~~~ Xander staked his vampire and reached behind him to pull Willow around so that her back was against his. "Will! We've got to stay together. If we get separated we don't stand a chance." He grinned to himself when he heard her grunt. "I'll take that as a 'you bet'."Several vampires of the Sect surrounded them, but together they managed to hold them off. They'd staked four already. Xander wasn't sure how they were going to manage the rest on their own. At least they were slowly moving closer to where Giles hung from the ceiling.One of the vamps rushed at Xander with a roar. He was never sure later quite how he managed it, but he threw a stiff left arm into the vamp's face and brought up a stake with his right fist. Another one gone and the path to Giles was clear for the moment. Xander grabbed Willow's wrist and they ran to the Watcher."Xander! Can you hold them off?" Willow looked anxiously into Giles' face."Not for long," he said. "Hurry, Will.""I'm sorry Giles," she muttered under her breath. She slapped him across the face several times until he jerked his head back and opened his eyes."Willow?" he asked weakly. His gaze flickered to Xander and the vampires and then back to Willow. "Where's Buffy?""She's fighting the Destroyer," Willow said. "Can you stand?"Giles grabbed hold of the chains and pulled himself upright. "I'll try. I don't think I can walk on my own, though.""Willow! I need your help here!" Xander called over his shoulder.Willow looked around wildly and picked up a wooden folding chair that was leaning against the wall nearby. She raised it up and crashed it down on the back of the head of the vampire attacking Xander from behind. The vamp lost his hold on Xander and staggered back into Willow's stake.Xander managed to stake the vampire in front of him. "Thanks, Will."They retreated until their backs were nearly touching Giles. Xander looked around and frowned. Where had the rest of the Sect gone, he wondered? He exchanged a perplexed look with Willow. ~~~~~~~ooo~~~~~~~ooo~~~~~~~ooo~~~~~~~ The sounds of battle raged around her, but Buffy focused only on the demon she faced. He countered each of her attacks and came back fiercely. She realized she was being driven into the crossing and closer to the Emerald with each step she took. Her awareness registered suddenly that the only sounds of battle were the clanging of their swords.Without stopping or taking her eyes off the Destroyer she called out. "Xander! Willow! What's happening?""We got 'em! The Sect are all dust or took off," Xander yelled back. "We're getting Giles down now."Buffy forced herself not to look in their direction. It required all of her concentration to keep from being skewered. Her fatigue was starting to surface and that worried her. She had to last long enough for them to get Giles out of there.The Destroyer began muttering under his breath and renewed his attack."Buffy!" Willow yelled. "The Emerald! It's starting to pulse faster! And I can see flashes coming from inside it."Out of the corner of her eye Buffy could see flashes of green lightning. Come on, she thought frantically. You can do this. Giles made sure you trained with the swords so you could handle this stuff. She desperately parried a strong thrust by the demon. You're not as good at it as Giles, but you can get the job done, she thought.Time suddenly seemed to slow. She could clearly see around her, but everything was weirdly frozen for a split second. In her mind she saw the sword thrust the Destroyer planned to use next. And she almost heard Giles whispering to her, telling her what to do. Time jumped back to normal speed. She blocked the demon's thrust and started a fierce attack of her own."Buffy!" Willow called frantically. "You have to destroy the Emerald!""Tell me how!"The demon renewed his attack, driving her toward the crossing and the Stone."Remember the Dagger! Stab it into the Stone. Hurry!""No!" shouted the demon.Buffy drew the Dagger from its sheath with her left hand while she continued to parry the demon's attack with the broadsword in her right. She whirled and kicked at the demon's hands, loosening his grip on his sword, which clattered to the ground. She dove away from him and plunged the Dagger into the heart of the Emerald.Time and space froze and exploded at the same moment into shards of possibilities, as if a mirror had been shattered and the pieces scattered. Each piece reflected different probabilities of reality, different versions of the same picture. For an instant Buffy felt herself part of each of those realities, as if she had the ability to choose from among them. Her world teetered on a precipice until the jagged fragments slowly coalesced back into the reality she knew.The Destroyer dropped to his knees and howled his frustration. She gripped her broadsword and pivoted, slicing cleanly through his neck. Buffy watched as, in seeming slow motion, the demon's head fell and bounced across the floor. She dropped to her knees and rolled to her side, unconscious but still clutching her sword. ----- CHAPTER BREAK ----- Giles slowly opened his eyes and blinked. His mind registered the IV drip and the monitoring equipment. A hospital room. For a moment he wondered why he was in hospital this time. A memory of tremendous pain inundated him and he gasped. The Destroyer, the Sect of Septimius and the cat-o'-nine-tails all came flooding back to him. All that and a vague recollection of Xander leaning over him, his face grim.He pressed his hand to his chest and felt the gauze that wrapped his torso. His upper arms and his wrists were covered with bandages. He suspected a painkiller in his IV since there was no pain, just an uncomfortable feeling.Giles shifted in the bed and realized that his right hand was resting in something soft. He looked down and his breath caught at the sight of Buffy. She had pulled a chair close to the bed and was asleep with her head resting on her arms, her face turned towards him. His hand was tangled in her hair. Her face was drawn, bruises marred her cheek and he thought he'd never seen anything look as beautiful.The door opened and a nurse quietly entered the room. She checked the IV and the equipment and then smiled to see Giles awake."Mr. Giles," she said quietly. "How good to see you up." She checked his bandages efficiently."Thank you," he replied, bemused. He'd never known hospital staff to be quiet when they went about their business.She looked down at Buffy and smiled. "You've quite a protector in this young lady. She refused to leave your side when they brought you in. Told off the attending physician." Her mouth quirked when she glanced at him. "Endeared herself to the nursing staff when she did that, I can tell you. Man's an excellent doctor, but he's also an ass and about as condescending as they come. I believe the staff would do just about anything she asked, within reason."Giles smiled. Now that sounded like Buffy, he thought fondly. "How long have I been here?""Two days." At his inquiring look she added, "You've been in and out of consciousness, mostly out. It's good to see her sleeping. She's been awake, sitting with you the entire time. Your other visitors have been round to see you several times as well."She must mean Xander, Willow, and Oz, he thought and hoped that they were all safe. Giles looked closely at Buffy's face and noted the dark circles shadowing the fragile skin under her eyes. What had she endured to rescue him, he wondered? He caught himself easing his fingers through her hair gently and blushed like a schoolboy when he met the nurse's knowing gaze. Must be whatever they're giving me, he thought.The nurse grinned and turned to the door, only to hold it open to admit Xander. She admonished him to be quiet and left the room."Hey Giles," Xander said softly. "How're you feeling?"Giles smiled. "To be honest, I'm not feeling much of anything. I believe there must a painkiller in my IV."Xander nodded. "Yeah. The nurses said they gave you something. Willow and Oz'll be up in a minute. They're parking his van." He glanced down at Buffy and smiled. "I see Buffy finally crapped out. We've all been betting on how long she'd manage to stay awake. Willow brought her a change of clothes and then had to argue with her to leave your room long enough to get cleaned up. The nurses let her use the shower in their changing room. And that's more than you really wanted to know, right?"Giles smiled. "Is everyone all right? How's Oz?"Xander hesitated a fraction too long with his answer."What is it?" Giles asked sharply."We're fine. The Sect beat Oz up pretty badly, but he's just got a few bruises left. Guess there's a good side to being a werewolf after all." Xander grinned briefly. He took a deep breath. "The thing is, well, it's about Doyle."Giles frowned. "What about him. Xander, did something happen to Doyle?"Xander shook his head. "Not exactly. He was our wheelman when we went after you. He waited with the van and drove us to the hospital. Didn't say anything out of the ordinary. After we got here he gave one of the nurses the keys to the van to give to me while we were all in here with you. He told the nurse to tell us goodbye. We haven't seen him since.""Well, perhaps he felt he'd done all he could and wanted to get back to Los Angeles," Giles said reasonably.Xander shoved his hands in his pockets and ducked his head. "That's what we all thought. Until Willow went home and checked her email. She finally had a message from Angel.""And?""And Angel said the guy we met couldn't be Doyle.""Why is that?" Giles raised his eyebrows."Because Doyle's dead. Has been since before Christmas. Angel and Cordelia both saw him die.""What?" Giles whispered. "But, then who--""Good question." Xander shrugged. "We don't know. Angel's gonna put a video clip of Doyle on the web so we can see what he really looks and sounds like. Guess Cordy took some shots of him before he died. Oh, and Angel also says that he's had his version of the Annales this entire time. He's been reading through it trying to find more clues.""How extraordinary!" Giles lay back on the pillow. His eyes searched the ceiling without focusing. No matter who the man really was who called himself Doyle there was no question that he'd helped them. What possible motive could he have had to use Doyle's name? It should have been obvious to him that it would only be a matter of time before they'd find out the truth."That's one way of looking at it." Xander smiled. "By the way, we brought you a change of clothes when we were here earlier. They really did a number on your shirt. And I don't even want to talk about your jeans. Let's just say you won't be seeing those again." Xander shuddered."Thank you." Giles tried to push himself up in the bed and required the younger man's help.The door opened and Willow peeked around the edge. She smiled broadly when she saw Giles. She entered the room with Oz and quietly closed the door. They both looked down at Buffy and then back at Giles."Hey," Willow said, her voice low. "Welcome back.""Thank you, Willow." He looked at each of them in turn. "Thank you all."Oz shrugged. "I was out of commission at your place. But I'm glad to see you up."Giles smiled. "Yes. Speaking of getting up, I'd like to go home." He was amused to see the three exchange uncomfortable looks."Are you sure you should do that?" Xander asked carefully. "The doctor was pretty hot and bothered about you staying where you are. Something about previous visits and you always leaving early?" He raised his eyebrows.Giles frowned. "I don't have a concussion this time, do I?""Um, no. You don't," Willow said. "Just blood loss and a lot of stitches.""I've already been here two days, so they've had plenty of time to patch me up." He pursed his lips. "I'd rather convalesce at home, thank you very much.""But--" Willow's protest was cut off by Buffy sitting up and blinking."Hey Giles! You're awake." Buffy gave him a brilliant smile."Yes, I am," he replied with a smile of his own. "And I'm ready to go home."Buffy glanced at the others, looked back at Giles and then nodded. "I know just how you feel. If the nurses say it's okay, then you're out of here. I'll go out and talk to them." She stood up and left the room.He grinned. After what the nurse had just told him he had no doubt of the outcome of that conversation. "Xander, get my things please. Willow, would you mind stepping outside? I'll need help to dress, I think." He carefully pulled the IV from the back of his hand.Willow blushed and slipped out the door. Oz helped Giles swing his legs over the side of the bed and sit up. Xander tossed a sweater onto the bed, handed him a pair of jeans and steadied him while he slipped them on. Xander and Oz helped ease him into a standing position. Giles buttoned the jeans and sat down on the bed to pull the sweater over his head. He looked up and caught both men regarding him with strange expressions on their faces. Xander alone he might have brushed off, but the same look from Oz concerned him."What?" he asked.Oz raised an eyebrow and inclined his head at Xander."It's about Buffy," Xander said hesitantly."What about her?" he asked. He glanced between the two younger men and frowned.Xander glanced at Oz. "Well, it's just that she's been fighting major exhaustion since our little tiff with the Destroyer. She keeps denying that anything's wrong when we ask her about it. Insists she's just fine." He shrugged. "It's probably nothing. Just normal reaction to everything, but…"Giles nodded. "Most likely. We'll keep an eye on her for the next few days just to make certain that she's all right. One can't be too careful when dealing with such powerful magic as the Emerald and the Dagger. I'm sure there's nothing to worry about.""Yeah. You're probably right." Relief crossed Xander's face.Buffy breezed through the door. "Okay. It's all set. The head nurse was willing to sign your release papers as long as we agreed to check on you for the next few days. Oh, and she had to put down that it was against your doctor's advice and that you knew that. Otherwise she said she had to call the doctor. I didn't think you'd want to argue with him about it. Is that all right?""Of course. Thank you." Giles studied her for a moment. He could see the exhaustion. Had in fact seen it earlier when he woke up."Good. Willow's rounding up an orderly and a wheelchair." She gave him a look that brooked no disobedience on his part. "You have to, Giles. It's like a law around here, you know that." She smiled at him.The orderly opened the door and flipped down the doorstop. A grinning Willow pushed a wheelchair into the room and over to the bed next to Giles. She gestured to it with a flourish."Your carriage, sir," she said formally and then spoiled it with a giggle.He tried to stand and was surprised by Buffy's hand under his elbow, steadying him. He looked down at her gratefully and allowed her to help him into the waiting chair. ~~~~~~~ooo~~~~~~~ooo~~~~~~~ooo~~~~~~~ A few hours later Giles leaned his head back and sighed. He was sitting on his couch, propped up by several pillows that Willow had insisted on placing behind him. The four of them had just finished bringing him up to date on what had happened since he was taken by the Sect.He glanced over at Buffy. She was perched on the couch facing him with her knees drawn up to her chest. Her arms loosely circled her legs and her cheek rested on the back of the couch. Every once in a while she yawned, though she tried to hide it from him.Giles turned to the others. "And this thing with Doyle?" The man's whereabouts were a mystery. He frowned as he remembered that Buffy had seemed to sense something about him.Willow shook her head. "We don't know. I looked at the video Angel posted. It was him, Giles. I'd swear it. Buffy told me she thought something was off about him. Like he wasn't real or something. How did you know?" She looked over at her friend."Beats me." Buffy shrugged. "I just kept getting that weird feeling that something wasn't right. Do you think he really was this Doyle guy? How could that be?"Giles was confused by what he'd just learned and he shook his head. "We may never know, particularly if he never comes back.""So, what was he? A ghost?" Xander asked. He raised his eyebrows."I don't think so," Willow said. She stared off into space, a thoughtful expression on her face. "He was way too solid to be a ghost. He kept mentioning 'The Powers That Be' like they were something real. Do you think..."They exchanged glances in silence."Well, whatever or whoever he was, he helped. That's all that I care about." Xander shrugged."Quite." Giles nodded his agreement."Yeah. I guess I'll owe him an apology if he does come back." Buffy smiled and fought back another yawn."And anyway, it's good to have you back safely." Willow smiled shyly."Thank you all for that."Xander turned to Willow and Oz. "Sounds like that's our cue to get going, huh?"Willow stood up. "Yeah. Good idea. Giles needs his rest. And Buffy does too. We'll be back to check on you in the morning, okay?""Yes. Thank you." Giles glanced at Buffy, reluctant to disturb her. He looked up to catch Xander gazing at him, a speculative expression on his face."It's not necessary for you to try to get up," Xander said. "We'll let ourselves out. See you tomorrow."Willow gave Giles a quick kiss on the cheek and blushed. "I'm glad you're all right."He smiled fondly at her. "I'll see you all tomorrow."The corners of Oz's mouth turned up and he raised a hand in farewell.Giles lifted a hand in response. He sighed when the front door shut behind them. He heard a key turn in the lock and smiled to himself. They weren't taking any chances were they, he thought. Buffy shifted slightly on the couch and his gaze strayed to her face. She'd closed her eyes and appeared to have fallen asleep.It had meant more to him than he could express to find her by his hospital bed when he'd awoken. The relief he'd felt in knowing immediately that she was safe was nearly overshadowed by the knowledge of her care for him. He'd been deeply touched that she would be so concerned about his feelings to insist on remaining by his side.A yawn caught him unawares. He really ought to get up and leave the couch to Buffy, he thought. But his limbs were leaden and his eyelids drooped. Perhaps just a small nap, he thought before closing his eyes. There were still matters to discuss, but they could wait for tomorrow. He smiled to himself; content to drift into a dreamless sleep knowing that they'd saved the world once again and that everyone he cared about was safe. ~~~~~~~ooo~~~~~~~ooo~~~~~~~ooo~~~~~~~ Giles woke early the next morning. He was still sitting up on his couch and he felt oddly content. He gazed down at the golden head resting on his thigh. Buffy had started out sitting on the couch next to him, but sometime after he'd fallen asleep she must have stretched out with her head where it currently rested. She was still sound asleep. He smiled to himself at the thought that she'd obviously slept through the night without a nightmare.Now that he was more fully awake he began to feel slightly uncomfortable. He needed to get up, but was reluctant to disturb Buffy. He shifted his weight slightly, trying to ease his growing distress.Buffy yawned and brought a hand up to rub her face. She touched his thigh lightly and pushed herself up, turning to look at him. She met his gaze and smiled."Hey," she said, and yawned again."Good morning. I'm sorry if I woke you."She shook her head. "That's okay. Is it morning already?"He chuckled. "Yes, it is. Did you sleep well?"Her eyes went wide. "Yeah. I did, actually. No nightmares."Giles nodded. "No nightmares. I'd say that's a very good sign.""Uh-huh." She looked at him curiously. "You need to get up, don't you?"Giles blushed lightly and nodded. He was stiff from sitting up all night and sore from his wounds. He felt twinges of pain when he tried to move on his own."Here. Let me help." Buffy stood in front of him and took both of his hands. She pulled gently until he stood in front of her. "Why don't you put a hand on my shoulder? That way you can control how much help you get."He smiled. "Very considerate. I believe my first stop needs to be the bathroom."They made slow progress to the bathroom door. Giles took a grip on the doorjamb and said firmly, "I believe I can take it from here."Buffy shrugged and looked up at him with a twinkle in her eye. "Okay. But if I hear a loud crash in there I'm coming in, so be careful.""I'll remember that," he said dryly and shut the door. ~~~~~~~ooo~~~~~~~ooo~~~~~~~ooo~~~~~~~ Sometime later he opened the door to find her waiting for him. She helped him back to the couch where he was surprised to find a pot of tea and two mugs waiting. He raised an eyebrow and looked at her inquiringly."Well, I had to do something to keep busy while I waited for you, didn't I?" She smiled shyly. "I thought you might like to have some tea.""Thank you, Buffy. That was very thoughtful of you." Tea usually meant talking, he thought.Buffy poured the tea and handed him a mug. She sipped her tea for a few moments before looking at him out of the corner of her eye. "Um, Giles, I need to tell you something."He smiled behind his mug. "And what is that?""It's about Brian Callahan." She worried at her bottom lip with her teeth. "I kinda need to apologize to you in advance. I'm afraid you're not going to like this."He frowned. "I'm afraid I'm the one who should apologize. I truly lost my temper at the man. And I didn't go out of my way to straighten out his misconceptions.""About those misconceptions," she said nervously. "You see, it's like this. Willow went through my overnight bag looking for aspirin for Oz and forgot to put everything back. Brian sort of saw my clothes all over your bedroom and pretty much decided that we were both lying to him about our 'relationship'. I got the feeling he wasn't about to keep quiet about what he thinks either. I'm really sorry. I just thought you'd want to know before you were embarrassed by someone or overheard something." She looked down at her hands.Giles bit back a smile. "Buffy," he said gently. "I appreciate your concern, but it's not necessary. You didn't do anything wrong. And there's nothing he can say that would embarrass me. If he's foolish enough to try to spread malicious gossip, well, let's just hope for his sake that he's not. I only hope that you won't be embarrassed."She shook her head. "Don't see how." She smiled at him."Good. But you will tell me if something does happen that upsets you, won't you?" He searched her face and was reassured when she nodded.Her face turned solemn. "Giles. Next time when you want to come with me and I tell you I want you to stay here where it's safe? Remind me that you're safer when you're with me?"He chuckled. "You have my word.""I'm so sorry--""Stop," he said firmly. "I don't want you to apologize. You don't have anything to apologize for. You had to find Oz. And you couldn't know that that prat would show up and I'd lose my temper and step outside. If I had kept my head I would have just shut the door in his face. So you see, it wasn't your fault.""But I--""No 'buts'." He smiled. "Besides. I knew it was only a matter of time before you'd show up and get me out of there."She sighed. "I just wish it could've been sooner."He nodded. "I know. But the important thing is you did get there. And you kept your head. I must say I'm proud of you."She ducked her head. "It was a team effort.""It always is with us," he said wryly. "Nevertheless, I am proud of how you handled the situation. You didn't charge in rashly. It shows a maturity in your planning.""It was one of the hardest things I've ever done." A faraway look came into her eyes. "When we saw you hanging there I wanted to jump over the railing and start hacking away. I just knew I couldn't do that or I'd get us all killed."He nodded approvingly. "As I said, you kept your wits about you."She turned to him. "Thank you."The doorbell rang. Buffy opened the front door to Xander, Willow, and Oz standing on the front steps. Willow held a large box that smelled as if it had come fresh from the donut shop."Hey! We brought breakfast." Willow smiled as they trooped in.Xander headed for the kitchen. "I'll make some coffee. I can't believe you're awake this early and you haven't made any."Willow followed him and brought back plates for everyone."Coffee's ready," Xander said as he walked back to the living room with a mug. He chose a glazed donut and sat down at Giles desk."Hope you don't mind us coming over so early," Willow said. "None of us could sleep, so we thought you'd both probably be up, too. Oz thought of the donuts.""Thank you, Oz." Buffy smiled.Oz nodded. They relaxed and ate their donuts in contentment."Gotta tell you guys," Buffy said. "It feels good not to have some great unknown evil hanging over our heads. Maybe we can even relax for what's left of the Break.""That'd be nice," Willow agreed. "What're the odds of the Hellmouth cooperating?""Giles, I have to ask you something," Xander said. He leaned forward in his chair and clasped his hands."What's that?""Well, you said the Destroyer was the 'left hand of the Trismegistus'?""Yes.""And that the Destroyer gave gifts to his left hand and to his right?""That's correct." What was he getting at, Giles wondered?"Does that mean that there's another demon out there somewhere with special powers that was the right hand of the Trismegistus? And will we have to face him any time soon?""Bloody hell!"
49642	How Not To Be Romantic	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "F/F", "Characters": "Batgirl, Catwoman", "Fandom": "DCU - Superdictionary", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Teen And Up Audiences", "author": "by angelikitten", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2010-01-11T00:00:00", "words": "333", "Additional Tags": "Community: fortycakes", "Relationship": "Batgirl/Catwoman", "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	"Gaze into my eyes." Catwoman said slowly. "Look long into my eyes.""I have gazed into your eyes." Batgirl replied, pushing her away gently. "Now I am getting sleepy. I am getting very tired, because I have spent all day chasing criminals.""But I was trying to be romantic!" Catwoman sulked. "I was trying to show you that I care about you a lot, in the hopes that maybe we could have hot girlsex tonight."Batgirl raised her eyebrow. She made her eyebrow go higher than usual. "Really? Because it just seemed creepy to me. It seemed weird and made me want to get as far away from you as possible."Catwoman looked upset. She looked really very sad, so Batgirl held her hand and said: "Maybe we could have hot girlsex tomorrow instead. Maybe we could do it tomorrow rather than today. But I really need to sleep right now. I really need to rest deeply, so that I will have energy to do things tomorrow.Leading Catwoman to the door, she continued: "You should go now. You should leave, so that I can get some sleep."As soon as Batgirl had closed the door, Catwoman had an idea. She had a thought that she could make into a plan to get Batgirl to have hot girlsex with her! She would steal a diamond for her. She would take a diamond without its owner's permission, and give it to Batgirl as a gift. Then she would definitely have hot girlsex with her, because no woman can resist diamonds. Women are powerless against diamonds, because they are such romantic stones. But when she tried to steal the diamond, she got caught by the police and put in jail. She got put into a place where people who've done bad things are kept, where there are bars on the windows and doors to stop people from getting out. And because she was in jail, she couldn't have hot girlsex with Batgirl.And that's terrible.
63982	Beauty Beasts Etc	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "F/M", "Characters": "Miranda Otto, Orlando Bloom, Original Characters", "Fandom": "Lord of the Rings RPF", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Teen And Up Audiences", "author": "by sheldrake", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2004-01-21T00:00:00", "words": "1,433", "Additional Tags": "Jealousy, Awkwardness", "Relationship": "Miranda Otto/Orlando Bloom", "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	Miranda hangs out with Orcs.Oh, Miranda’s cool. She’s sound. Everyone likes Miranda. And, after all, it’s not like Orlando’s bothered. It’s more like he’s hyper-sensitive to it, or something. He'll suddenly feel compelled to turn his head -- and there's Miranda, sitting at a trestle table, playing cards with this bunch of misshapen creatures. And she's, like, laughing and looking all floaty, with the hair and the dress and stuff.He thinks he should go and say hi, maybe. See what's happening. See what's going down."Hi!" He holds up a hand in greeting. "Hi, Miranda. Hi, guys.""Hey," says a guy."All right?" says another one. He's got a face like something that shouldn't have been put in a microwave, but was."Hullo blondie!" says Miranda, cheerfully.There's a faint memory of laughter hanging over the table, like Orlando turned up just too late for the punchline."So," he says. "Um. What's going on here then? What's happening?""Not a lot really, mate," says the non-microwaveable one. Orlando wishes he could remember the guy's name. He wishes he could see what kind of expression might be going on underneath the latex."Just Saruman's evil hordes, stealing my cash again." Miranda sighs, and fans herself with the seven of hearts. "Listen, would you be a sweetie and get me a bottle of water? I think I'm fucking dehydrating or something.""Sure!" says Orlando. "I'll, um, be back in a bit then." Miranda smiles.As he walks away, another flurry of merriment drifts after him. Evidently he just missed another punchline. * * * The levels of light and noise in this bar are not just wrong, Miranda decides. They're about as wrong as you could get. It doesn't matter, though. It feels okay to sit in here by herself and watch reflections wink like ghosts in the chrome and frosted glass. There's a lot of that stuff going on in here. Obviously, someone thought it would lend the place an air of sophistication. Someone miscalculated.Miranda pulls a sodden chunk of lime from the neck of her beer bottle and looks at it sorrowfully. Then she drops it in an ashtray, where it chokes to death among the cigarette butts. She holds the green bottle up in front of her eyes and tries looking through it. Maybe it'll give her a different perspective on things. But she can't see much, really. Just a bright greenness with darker green shadows floating in it. And a big black shadow, coming closer, blocking out the light..."Hi, Miranda," says Orlando. "On your own? Where are your Orcish mates tonight?"Miranda removes the bottle from in front of her face and puts it down on the table."Hullo, little boy. Isn't it past your bedtime? What are you doing here?"Orlando blinks at her. "Shall I go away again?""Oh, for goodness' sake, Orlando. Joking, I'm joking! Sit down, and stop talking in questions." She waves a hand at the seat opposite her, and he slides in, lining up his own green bottle of lager on the table so that it mirrors hers exactly.Miranda yawns."D'you think this is the kind of place they'd sell nuts?" asks Orlando. "Like, peanuts? Or cashew nuts. Or pistachios? They might have them, they're a bit more classy, aren't they? I've always thought they were. I fancy some nuts, or..."He taps the flats of his nails against the condensation-pimpled green glass."Can't hurt to ask," says Miranda."Yeah..." Orlando taps his bottle and jiggles his feet under the table. "Miranda?""Orli.""Are you by any chance fucking one of those Orc guys?""What?"Miranda leans back in her seat and stares. She's really not sure what the appropriate response is in this situation. Perhaps she ought to take it as a sign to just go home and get something approaching a decent night's sleep. She shakes her head at him slowly."What? I just wondered, that's all."Orlando doesn't give the impression of being a socially maladjusted freak, she reflects. He actually looks deceptively normal on the surface. She closes her eyes for a second, and when she opens them again, he's still there, looking normal. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed normal, that's Orlando."Just -- How -- how could you possibly think that was any of your business?"He shrugs. "Sorry.""Uh-huh." She looks at Orlando, and then around the bar, with its shiny surfaces, and its matte surfaces, and its brushed suede seats, and its neutral colours, and its subdued lighting."Right," she says. "Well, I think I've probably done this place. I'm going to get some fresh air." She gets up."Right," says Orlando. He's examining the label on the back of his beer bottle. He puts it down and picks up hers instead, and examines that.She waits until she's halfway to the door before she turns and says, "Are you coming?"* * * Why did he say it? At this point he has absolutely no idea how it happened; he's stumped, basically. It just seemed to say itself. Orlando stomps on ahead of Miranda (although he's not sure where it is they're meant to be going), hands shoved in his pockets. He wonders silently at the bizarre workings of his own brain."Orlando," says Miranda. "Stop."He turns round and realises he's left her behind. She's standing in the shadows, looking at him. Behind her, the blank side of a high, windowless building broods darkly. It's as though it's threatening to block her out with its weight and its emptiness."Stop ...?""Just stop."He goes back. He retraces his steps until he's right in front of her, close enough to see the tiny creases around her eyes, and the curious, elastic vulnerability of her mouth. There's a kind of stretched look to her, he thinks, like she could go at any moment. Just let go -- ping! -- and hit someone in the face over the other side of the room. He puts a hand to the wall, and the bricks feel cold and solid and rough."I'm not -- I'm not like you think I am," he says.Miranda's lips twitch a little bit. "How do you know what I think you're like?"Orlando shrugs. "I'm just saying that you don't really know me.""And whose fault's that?"He shrugs again. Bits of Miranda's hair catch and spark on the rough wall as she leans her head back. It wriggles snakily around her face and over her shoulders. He imagines the soft weight of it, like a cushion between her and the bricks, and her bare white scalp underneath.He kisses her. And he didn't really mean to do that, either. It comes out brief and slapdash. It's more like a greeting than anything else. She looks at him -- examining him, he thinks -- and he tries to touch her face, but she catches his hand before it gets there."Listen," says Miranda. "Let me tell you what I'm going to do."She takes his hand and draws it down and puts it on her, pressing it against the thin cotton of her skirt until it finds a natural resting place. His thumb slides into the warm fold where the inside of her thigh joins her body."In a minute," says Miranda, "I'm going to go home. I'm going to go home, on my own, and I'm going to go to bed, where I'm going to get some sleep, so that I'll be able to get through tomorrow without totally fucking everything up. Okay?""Okay," says Orlando. He wonders whether he should take his hand out from between her legs, but she's holding it there, and anyway, he doesn't really want to. The pads of her fingers slide up into the shallow depressions between his knuckles. He swallows. Somehow, his mouth got full of spit."So," she says.She's not looking at him. She's not looking at anything. Her head's tilted upward, towards the night sky, but her eyes are shut. She rubs at them with the heel of her free hand, and Orlando stares at her: the stretching pale expanse of her neck, the side of her face, the little light hairs that bleed off the edge of her eyebrow."So?""So, what are you doing tomorrow?""Um, I." He tries again; all the spit is stuck halfway down his throat. "Just, you know, cool Elf shit. Why? What are you doing?""Oh, I dunno." She looks at him -- smiles at him -- and she's just Miranda, really. And everyone likes Miranda."After a while," she says, "a girl can get a bit sick of cards."
87850	Miscellaneous	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "Gen", "Characters": "Zevran Arainai, Sigrun (Dragon Age)", "Fandom": "Dragon Age: Origins", "Language": "English", "Rating": "General Audiences", "author": "by sqbr", "chapters": "2/2", "completed": "", "published": "2010-05-18T00:00:00", "words": "300", "Additional Tags": "Drabble Collection, Community: landofferelden, Challenge Response, Fanfiction", "Relationship": null, "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	The man squinted at the bone dubiously."And you say that this is truly the finger of Andraste?""Rescued from Hessarian's pyre by Havard himself." replied Zevran, putting as much sincerity into his voice as possible."Because I bought an "ancient holy symbol" from another of you knife eared brats last week, and within a day the paint had chipped off.""I swear by the Maker himself that if you buy this bone not only will it never flake or tarnish, but you will immediately feel a sense of peace and connection to the Maker that must be experienced to be believed. I've sold several of these bones before, and every customer has left satisfied. Why I'm told the King himself wears one around his neck for luck, and credits it for the glory of his reign.""Wait a second, you've sold several of these? Just how many fingers is Andraste supposed to have had?"Zevran tried not to let his panic show and thought quickly "Why...ten, of course, ser," he said at last, "And this is the very last. You should buy it now before I run out! It's a once in a lifetime opportunity!" ----- CHAPTER BREAK ----- If she squinted, she could almost pretend she was back in Orzamarr. The roof was high, but it was there, and for the first time since leaving Kal'Hirol she actually felt warm. But those sturdy looking pillars were made of wood, not stone, and the golden light filtering through the windows was not from fire or lava but the sun itself. She hadn't thought she would ever miss Dust Town or the Deep Roads, yet standing here surrounded by so many humans she felt very small and far from home.Sigrun took the goblet and was unafraid. After all, she was already dead.
28121	Nothing like Juliet	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "Gen", "Characters": "Mikhail Dutta, Sophia Shetty", "Fandom": "Kaminey", "Language": "English", "Rating": "General Audiences", "author": "by rheaitis", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2009-12-11T00:00:00", "words": "400", "Additional Tags": "Pre-Canon, Desi Character, Christian Character, Humor, Kid Fic, First Meetings, Bollywood", "Relationship": null, "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	The first time is ill-omened, happening as it does during a Christmas party their misguided faculty has chosen to dub a prom, which means that the boys stand around looking awkward and the girls stand in groups and giggle meaningfully. Mikhail is in the parking-lot finishing off the fag he’s bummed off Aniket—and is therefore honour-bound to smoke, whether or not he finds the taste entirely foul—when he hears a feminine voice raised high in indignation and decides to investigate. Watching schoolmates getting slapped is always good entertainment and often great blackmail material. He rounds the corner in time to see one of the most gigantic men ever—“no seriously”, he’ll tell a tolerant Shumon later, “he was like seven feet tall”—backing away under a high-pitched tirade of “and then I’ll row out to sea and I’ll tip the bucket over the side of the boat and the fish will eat your flesh and drink your blood and lay eggs in the crevices of your…” (In later years, Mikhail will claim that since the apparition delivering this tongue-lashing was four-foot-ten and her knobbly shoulders stuck out of a dress made for someone with greater height and pulchritude and her hair was funny, he was completely justified in beginning to laugh hard enough that he had to double over and cross both arms over his stomach. Sophia will claim with equal stubbornness that since Mikhail was annoying and fifteen and a boy and Mikhail—all synonyms for annoying—and she was furious and a ballet dancer and kicked like a horse, she was more than justified in putting her boot-clad foot in his balls.) Because neither of them has (or ever will) a shred of decency, politeness not-acting-like-little-street-urchins in their natures, nor has any ever been beaten into them (both sets of guardians being entirely and conspicuously lacking in the higher moral ground), and because Sophia rather stupidly came within grabbing range, by the time their teachers, alerted by the rather vociferous glee of their charges, find them, Mikhail has a black eye, a perfect set of teeth imprinted on his left cheek and Sophia pinned underneath him by dint of superior mass and a hand on her throat. Shumon, called to come pick him up—“No, Mr. Dutta, sending your driver will not suffice.”—has to stifle laughter till Katyusha Shetty’s arrival does the deed for him.
10212	The Morning Before	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "M/M", "Characters": "Elim Garak, Julian Bashir", "Fandom": "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Explicit", "author": "by mrs260", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2009-11-15T00:00:00", "words": "628", "Additional Tags": "First Time, Cultural discussion", "Relationship": "Elim Garak/Julian Bashir", "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	Julian was lying in the grass, afternoon sun at his back. He felt safe here; the sun made him feel warm and sluggish, as if he could stay here forever.Gradually, though, awareness filtered in. He was in bed, it was almost time to get up... and the warmth at his back was Garak. He smiled a little, savouring the memory of last night as he let the last remnants of sleep fall away.God, he was hard. This wasn't a regular morning erection: he was still aroused from last night. They hadn't had sex, not yet--Garak had scolded him teasingly, pretending to be scandalized by the very thought--but they'd lain naked together, kissing and caressing until it got too intense, then breaking apart and talking about the upcoming Andorian elections or the state of Bajoran theatre until they were ready to start again."I still think modern Bajoran theatre is too sentimental about the past," Garak murmured in his ear.He groaned, still sleepy, and rolled over. His erection grazed Garak's hip; Garak smirked but otherwise pretended not to notice. "Every culture is sentimental about the past.""And that means we shouldn't criticize it when the sentiment overwhelms useful cultural commentary?""You just think it's fun to shock people by defending the Occupation.""That's hardly the point, Doctor.""You made your point quite eloquently last night. I just think you're not giving them enough time. The Occupation, the discovery of the wormhole... their culture has undergone enormous upheavals. Their art will probably spend at least the next decade looking back.""Looking back at an ideal that never really existed. They need to move forward and define who they are now."Julian sighed and edged closer. "Apparently, who they are now is a people overly sentimental about the past," he murmured, finding Garak's cock with his own and rubbing them together. "Give them time."Garak kissed him. He opened his mouth and Garak's tongue teased at his, making him moan a little."Garak... Garak, I have to get ready for work."Garak pulled away and smiled at him. "Of course, my dear.""Will I see you for lunch?""Unfortunately not. I'm doing inventory today.""If we have dinner, is there some chance you'll actually let me come afterwards?"Garak chuckled. "Form has been satisfied, my dear. I look forward to making love to you this evening."His voice made Julian want to moan again. Instead, he kissed Garak quickly and headed for the bathroom.Julian set the sonic shower as high-pitched as he could stand. It had been a long time since he'd wanted to delay gratification, but Garak... he wanted the anticipation.~~~At dinner, Garak brought up the damned Andorian elections again, pursuing some point so infuriating that Julian finally accused him of arguing it just to be perverse.Garak smiled indulgently. "You're utterly charming when you're righteously indignant."Julian wondered if that was an answer, but then Garak kissed him again."Come to bed with me," Garak whispered, and Julian nodded eagerly.They undressed and then Garak lay on top of him, kissing his throat and his clavicles as he had last night, then slowly moving down his abdomen."Spread your legs a little more," Garak said, guiding his thighs apart. He heard Garak opening the lubricant and twitched in anticipation. Then he felt Garak's lips and teeth on his inner thigh, and Garak's slippery hand on his balls."God..." He opened his eyes, barely aware that he'd shut them, and saw Garak watching his face."You're so lovely like this," Garak breathed. "Thank you for allowing me..."Julian nodded. "I love you," he said.He didn't know if that's what Garak wanted to tell him, but the words made Garak smile.~~~ENDMark
38088	Finding Grace	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "Multi", "Characters": "David Shepherd, Jack Benjamin, Michelle Benjamin", "Fandom": "Kings", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Mature", "author": "by Destina", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2009-12-24T00:00:00", "words": "1,347", "Additional Tags": "Post-Series, Futurefic", "Relationship": null, "Character": null, "Relationships": "Jack Benjamin/David Shepherd, Michelle Benjamin/David Shepherd", "Series": null, "Collections": "Yuletide 2009", "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	Like the kings of old, David finds he has inherited a palace full of mysteries and secrets. He has an instinctive loathing of unnecessary concealment; he scorns the fine art of deception. If those ways were the ones to follow, Jack would have been the right choice to rule; casting aside those lesser values in service to his king once gave David no small satisfaction.Now they are useful only for one purpose."There are two banquets tomorrow," Michelle says, as she spreads the business of his kingdom before him on the grand oak table. Around its polished edges, politics have been conducted, treaties have been discussed, treason committed -- the course of many lives shaped. "The seating arrangements have been finalized. You should look them over, in case there's an error."He puts his arm around his wife and kisses the top of her head, her hair as soft as butterfly wings against his cheek. "We have people who can keep track of all this, you know.""That would deprive me of the pleasure of doing it for you." She smiles up at him, and he thinks how like and unlike her mother she is; strong and capable, polished and wise, and yet there isn't a destructive bone in her body. David dreads what twenty years of rule to come may write upon her character, what changes he'll see in her then. Not for the first time, he considers what twenty years of rule will do to him, even if he is aware and on his guard.With both hands, he gathers up the loose papers and hands them back to her. "In the morning," he says, returning her smile with what he hopes is a hopeful expression. He lives his life now on the surface, composes his face before each word he speaks, and his body before every gesture. All the rest is locked beneath, away from scrutiny. Once in a while, he catches himself playing the role with Michelle, and drops those barriers. If he is to be the kind of ruler his people deserve, he can never hide from the ones who love him best."In the morning," she agrees. He kisses her, and wonders that she never seems to mind on those nights he parts from her, or question his word that it must be so.Up the stairs in the dark, his bodyguards close behind, and then a detour to his son's room. Daniel sleeps sprawled out over his bed, half under and half outside of the covers, as if they are not able to contain him. Stars and planets cycle overhead until David clicks the night lamp off, and Daniel stirs, kicks his feet against the blankets. David smoothes the hair from his innocent face, and his son sleeps on, oblivious to his position in the world or the obligations to come.From there, David climbs the second flight of stairs into the chambers he occupies alone. If any on his staff have questions, they wisely keep their curiosity to themselves. He thinks it's more than a lack of questioning; it's a grand conspiracy, not just for him, but for the boy they watched over as he grew up here. They saw him become confused, saw him rise and fall and be humbled. They know he became a wise and loyal man not through effort, but by experience. It is for Jack's sake they hold this silence, for love of him, and because they respect the king who never was.When the door closes behind him, David sighs and lets the tension drop away from his shoulders. His kingdom is always with him, even in these tightly closed spaces; he can never be apart from the responsibility. This is something Silas was frank about, but David had no concept of those truths until the weight of Gilboa bore down on his spine and his conscience."Long day?" From the shadows, Jack's voice washes over David, leaving goosebumps across his skin."No more than usual." David divests himself of his tie and suit jacket and stands waiting.This is their ritual. Not one of David's choosing, since it's never been his method to punish or demand, though he thinks he can see the seeds of those behaviors in himself after three years of kingship. Jack saunters to him, never fully obedient to anything but his own impulses and agenda, and kneels before David, head bowed. An offer; amends, apology, reconciliation, and every time is just like the first time.In the beginning it was only desire that brought Jack to his door, David is sure. Back then, it was only desire that made David accept his overtures. But it's become more -- that same desire, but now warmed by need, and something that might be love, if David were much for the naming of things.He puts his hand to the nape of Jack's neck and strokes his thumb across the bare skin there, down into the collar of Jack's loose white shirt. When Jack shivers beneath his touch, David goes to his knees and cradles Jack's face between his palms, takes in Jack's triumphant smirk even as he sees the vulnerability in Jack's eyes. He's out of practice at keeping things from David.Even now, after this long together, they kiss as though they expect to be pulled apart any moment. Jack's kisses are deep and searching, and it's never enough to satisfy David. He craves the feel of Jack's skin, and Jack's touch on his body, wants it sometimes more than anything else in this world.When he's with Michelle, he never thinks of Jack, and yet here with Jack, it's sometimes as if he's been granted a second life, one of peace and obscurity. There are many kinds of sin, but he finds grace in Jack's eyes, feels centered when Jack's mouth is on him, slow and tender.He wonders that Jack finds it so easy when it was at first so difficult for David, but then Jack fits his body to David's, and David finds words eclipsed by mindless pleasure.Tomorrow he will send Jack out to find and destroy the spies from Gath who dared to cross their borders. He will send his best and most loyal soldier out alone, not as a test but a mission of certainty. He twists beneath Jack and bites his shoulder, grins when Jack gasps and bites back, full of spiteful mischief. This joy is what he will deprive himself of, in service to his kingdom.Jack's mission is a short-term absence, or so David tells himself. He never allows himself to imagine the day his commanders come to tell him Jack is lost to them. He never pictures himself alone in this space, absent a third of his soul.Soon enough they twine together, spent, sheets bunched beneath them to make denial impossible. David holds Jack in his arms, content. For once Jack is quiet, not full of conversation or gossip, or advice on the business of their kingdom.When he speaks, it is of course to give voice to both their fears, because Jack has always been a blunt instrument. "It's going to be dangerous, David. Ten to one I'll be—"David delivers a bruising kiss, superstitious in his unwillingness to hear it said out loud. He flips them so Jack is beneath him, makes sure Jack sees his face. "God gave me to you, even when you couldn't see His plan," David says. "As He gave you to me as my instrument. It isn't His will you should die for me.""What about your will?" Jack meets his gaze, so direct. The shadow of old mistrust falls across them.In answer, David closes his eyes, presses his lips to the quick pulse at the side of Jack's throat. "I order you to stay alive," he says, low. "As my loyal subject, it's your duty to do exactly as your king commands."Jack's eyes darken with understanding, and in return he kisses David slowly.David takes it for a promise.
35272	But I Get Up Again	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "M/M", "Characters": null, "Fandom": "Fall Out Boy", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Teen And Up Audiences", "author": "by joyfulseeker", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2008-05-16T00:00:00", "words": "11,869", "Additional Tags": null, "Relationship": "Patrick Stump/Pete Wentz", "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	Pete and Patrick have a certain shtick when it comes to Patrick's birthday. A certain pattern. It goes something like this: Pete tries to get Patrick to do something crazy. Patrick resists.Example A-- That thing they never talk about with the pool table and the lighter on Patrick's twentieth birthday.Example B--The extravaganza with mixed drinks at his twenty-first.Example C--The stripper fiasco at his twenty-second.Pete's pretty accustomed to the way things go down, so it takes him giving Patrick three shots and a particularly frilly and alcohol-rich mixed drink at Patrick's twenty-third and Patrick actually drinking them to realize things aren't following type. By that point, though, Patrick is already well on his way toward totally sloshed, expansive and affectionate with everyone around him, and then he actually starts grooving in a laid-back white-boy way to the music, and well. Pete isn't going to mess that up. He goes to see Patrick the next afternoon, because that's what he would have done before. He and Andy once made out seriously enough that both of them had lost their shirts by the end, and they were fine afterward. It's not a big deal. Though, to be fair, they'd both been trying to make an ideological point about human sexuality and strike a blow against bigotry.Pete managed to get the hot girl in his Philosophy class to finally pay attention to him with that trick.The point is, it wasn't a big deal then, and it won't be now. At the door, he nobly resists the urge to pound on it the way he might have if he hadn't been quite so instrumental in getting Patrick totally wasted the night before. When Patrick answers the door, he's wearing a rumpled t-shirt, boxers, and a hat pulled so low over his eyes that it's practically a face mask."Dude," Pete says, and the face mask tilts enough that Pete can see the corner of Patrick's glasses shining reproachfully at him."Yeah, laugh it up," Patrick says, shoving the hat up enough to press his fingers to his forehead, and Pete had meant to, because it's Pete's god-given right as someone who hadn't gotten drunk the night before to laugh at the hangovers, but Patrick looks tired and sick and not so much like someone who remembers having a good time the night before. He had, though, or at least, Pete thinks he had.Pete scratches at the side of his neck, and opens his mouth to say something, then closes it. What comes out instead is, "So, did you have a good time?""Yeah," Patrick says. "It was awesome. Thanks for getting me trashed, by the way.""I can't believe you let me," Pete says, bouncing on his feet, deciding to brazen it out. "And, man, I'm sorry, but you've turned into an affectionate drunk. That was fucking awesome, I'm gonna have to do it again."Patrick squints at him, and Pete forces a laugh, then waves a hand, saying, "Sorry, sorry. No, really, I'm sorry, I didn't expect you to actually drink all of them, since when do you listen to me? You're a pretty sweet kisser, though," and Patrick winces."Yeah, thanks," he says. "Um, Pete, I'm kinda. I'm thinking about going back to bed, so." His body language has closed off, arms crossed over his chest, and it's such a contrast to how he'd been the night before, laughing, eyes unfocused and arm slung easily around Pete's waist when Pete brought Patrick back to Patrick's hotel room at the end of the party. Patrick slides his hand up to cover his mouth and Pete remembers, suddenly and vividly, the way it felt to have Patrick's mouth pressed against his, the lazy, lax, wet kisses Pete had opened helplessly for, Patrick's lips sliding down the line of Pete's jaw. The way Patrick had leaned in, laughing, singing, "It's my biiiiiiirthday, you gotta give me what I want," shimmying a little, easy and playful the way he was when he'd forgotten the need for self-consciousness, until Pete had needed to put a hand on Patrick's waist, reeling him in so he didn't fall."No, hold up," Pete says, putting up a hand. "Are you actually, like, seriously dude, it's not a big deal." He apologizes again, because that seems like what he's expected to do, and Patrick gets a little frown line between his eyebrows."No, that's okay," Patrick says. "I'm sorry I was a handful." He doesn't really meet Pete's eyes, and Pete fakes a laugh, saying, "Hah, handsy handful," but Patrick doesn't laugh, just squints again like his eyes are bothering him, and says, "sorry," then, "I'm gonna, I think I'm going to go back to bed.""Sure, yeah," Pete says. "Get some sleep, Romeo." Patrick winces again and flips him off, and Pete laughs, slapping him on the shoulder before heading out the door. They're a quiet group down in the lobby later that day. Patrick still looks like he's hiding, hunched under his hat and hoodie, and giving one-word answers to everyone. Joe, Charlie, and Dirty are all hung over.Pete sidles over to Andy with his hands in his pockets and knocks him with his shoulder. Andy elbows him back, but it's Andy's usual automatic retaliation, not a sign of bad temper. Pete doesn't bother saying anything else, just settles in with his back against the glass window that looks out on the street. He scans the lobby again, but it hasn't changed in the second since he last looked at it, polished marble floors and black shiny counters staffed by painfully professional kids in suits, and then he's looking at Patrick again.Patrick sniffs and rubs at the back of his nose, then wipes his hand on the back of his jeans. It's pretty attractive, and Pete shakes his head, looking down to stare at the reflection of his shoes on the floor because he means it a little less sarcastically than he should. Patrick is attractive to Pete, and Pete has always enjoyed looking at him. He's a pleasant part of Pete's internal statuary, like Joe's hands as he cradles a guitar or Andy's flamboyant back when he wanders around topless backstage prior to performances. Something Pete could look at and enjoy without urgency, pleased with his choice in best friends. But now Pete has to roll his eyes at himself, because pleasant isn't the right word at the moment.Whatever, it's fine. To prove it, Pete pushes off from the wall and wanders over to Patrick, getting right into his personal space and bracing an elbow on the slope of Patrick's shoulder, leaning hard. Patrick shifts and takes it, but Pete catches the annoyed twitch Patrick gives before he settles, and so he leans in more and noses at Patrick's neck."What. Come on, Pete," Patrick says."What, what," Pete says. "Hey, are you still hung over?""No," Patrick says resolutely, and Pete straightens upright, but leaves his arm draped around Patrick's shoulders."Awesome," he says, and smacks a kiss on the side of Patrick's hat over his temple. "That's my best dude. All grown up and a rockstar and shit.""Yeah, whatever," Patrick says, body warm under Pete's arm and in a line down Pete's side, and then Dan comes across the lobby toward Pete with a phone outstretched in one hand. Pete takes it and finds himself talking to the label publicist, who wants to run through a couple schedule adjustments. Pete, distracted by the voice on the other end of the line and trying to follow the woman's rapid-fire sentence structure, loosens his grip on Patrick's shoulders. By the time Pete gets off the phone, Patrick is again across the room and sitting on one of the couches grouped in an island around a coffee table with his laptop out. Pete can't tell if Patrick's actually working or just faking it. When he goes over, he sees that Patrick's jacking the hotel's free wireless to read the news headlines."Damn," Pete says, settling next to him. "Your birthday didn't even make the New York Times. That's a bummer.""Shit," Patrick says. "I guess you'll just have to try harder next time.""Oh, don't worry," Pete says. "I will.""No property damage, no trips to the hospital, and no tattoos," Patrick says absently, and then they both read an article about a minor earthquake in Kent, England."Wow, that was boring," Pete says when they reach the bottom."So don't read over my shoulder," Patrick says."No, I want to see what you come up with next," Pete says, and Patrick clicks on the business section. He's got such a smug look on his face that Pete kind of wants to laugh or kiss him for real or something, so appreciative of his Patrick-ness, this dude that thinks clicking on an article about Intel processors is a witty comeback.Instead, he reads an article about Intel processors and then another one about the Dow Jones and then Patrick apparently gives up or something because the next article is an interview with an up-and-coming hip-hop star. After that, he checks his email, and Pete has just enough time to read, "HEY SEXXXXAY-hot pictures, birthday boy," on the subject line of the top unread email and note the attachment icon before Patrick toggles to another window."What, I want to see those," Pete says, trying for humor, but his brain starts throwing images at him of Patrick kissing other boys and girls, and it's disturbing how easily he can picture it, like Pete's been specially saving all the times he caught Patrick and Anna kissing in back hallways and private rooms just so he can replay the confident tilt of Patrick's head and the way he always closes his eyes as he leans in."You've already seen me make an ass of myself," Patrick reminds him. He shifts on the couch, pulling away from Pete's encroaching elbow."Yeah, but," Pete says, and: "I'm going to see them anyway," and: "stop being such a lamer, man.""Stop being such an asshole, man," Patrick says, mimicking him in a stupid voice, and gets up from the couch. He thinks about it sometimes. His life has a lot of stops and starts and repetitions. He doesn't blame anyone other than himself for his fucked-up head, he's had enough therapy and time to figure out that Pete Wentz's biggest enemy is Pete Wentz, but he also knows enough about the way his life works to know why he constantly circles back on the same couple of things that are his obsessions of the moment.The point is, he thinks about it. On travel nights when everyone else is sleeping and Pete is awake and listening to the whine of the road under the soundtrack of a bad kung fu movie looping through the DVD player. When they're all waiting in the green room for a TV interview and Patrick is wandering around singing his latest R&B song of the week. In between dialing numbers and texting friends and writing emails and shaking hands and signing autographs and taking pictures.If it had just been some girl drunk and kissing him and tugging at his belt buckle, Pete wouldn't have left. He knows that. He wouldn't have, but it's Patrick, and it's different, and he knows Patrick so much better than some random girl, and Patrick doesn't do drunken one-night stands that Pete can write into songs for Patrick to sing about later.He's been a lot of firsts for Patrick, Pete knows, but that. That's just not a first Pete's willing to be. Patrick, who only ever dated one person, and that one for four years. Pete did the right thing, no question. Pete sometimes can't help but second-guess his choices, because his track record isn't so good, but this one he knows is right. Hardcore right.He thinks about it, though. Sometimes. They're on their way down the hallway at their record label, and Pete goes to elbow Patrick and point out the Jay-Z record the way he always does, but then he realizes he can't, because Patrick is all the way on the other side of their little group, talking to Joe about a guitar riff and not looking at Pete at all. Patrick does elbow Joe and point out the Jay-Z record, though. Pete feels obscurely insulted. Somehow, Joe has stolen Pete's spot in the Jay-Z ritual, or Patrick has stolen Pete's, and it wouldn't be a problem if it were an accident of fate or something, except that it keeps happening. Pete, reaching for Patrick and not finding him.He slams into the SUV scowling, and Andy gives him a sidelong look. Patrick gets into the front passenger seat while Joe gets into back and points at Pete, saying, "Hahhhh, bitch seat," and then, "whoa, down boy," when Pete glares at him."Fuck you," Pete says, staring at the back of Patrick's neck. Joe looks at him and then, like Andy, shifts closer to the door and turns his face toward the window, leaving Pete on a small, leather-upholstered island at the center of the bench. Pete keeps looking steadily at Patrick, and he can tell by the way Patrick holds his shoulders that he's aware of Pete's eyes on him. Patrick's used to Pete looking at him, though. Pete stared at Patrick for two hours once when he was at the tail end of a long month of sleep deprivation, just sat opposite him in the back of their shitty van, both of them sitting on the floor and slouching down against the sides, Pete's head banging on metal with each bump in the road while Patrick slept or listened to music or talked about eighties cartoons with Joe and their old merch guy. It had been soothing to watch Patrick's thoughts cross his face like weather patterns in the sky and know that none of it was very bad. Patrick thinks in music, not horrors. The closest he gets to derangement is when he's got a song half-formed that refuses to work itself out.Pete's entire band is like that, really, criminally laid back, but Patrick is the one Pete likes to watch, maybe because Patrick makes it seem like something special. Except, Pete can't see Patrick at all, really, right now. Patrick's not letting him the way he usually does, not giving in to the demand of Pete's attention.He starts kicking irregularly on the back of Patrick's seat.Patrick puts up with Pete's harassment briefly, but anything out of rhythm drives him up the wall, and he snaps, "Fucking quit it, Pete, you're being an asshole," after less than a minute, not turning around in his seat."What," Pete says. "What am I doing?" He aims an extra-hard kick toward Patrick's hidden kidneys, already starting to laugh a little."Wrecking the upholstery," Patrick says exasperatedly, rotating to stare over the headrest at Pete. "What, are we trying to make rock legends, or something? Pete, come on. An SUV barely gets you a footnote." By the end, he's started to smile a little bit, shaking his head, and Pete toes the seat-back before dropping his foot to the floor, grinning back."Whatever, no, look." Pete jabs his chin toward their driver, a six-foot-tall burly woman with solid forearms and a no-nonsense appearance. "She's totally reaching for her cell phone, gonna call TMZ for a report. I think it'll be more than a footnote. I'm going to be a star." The driver smiles slightly, but otherwise ignores them, both hands still wrapped firmly around the wheel as they wend their way through Manhattan traffic.Patrick deepens his voice like a corny TV announcer, saying, "Fall Out Boy bassist Pete Wentz, in an act of rockstar temper, destroyed the interior of his label's SUV on Monday morning...""I dunno, pretty lame, dude," Joe says, looking away from the window toward Pete. "You can do better.""Fuck yeah, I can," Pete says, but Patrick has already turned back to face the front, and the whole thing is less fun without him. He gives Patrick's seat another kick, and Patrick aims a warning look at him over his shoulder. "What?" Pete says, and keeps doing it each time Patrick turns to face front, until Patrick finally turns all the way sideways in his seat and leans his back against the door handle so that he can keep a cautious eye on him."Hey, what did you think of that new producer-deal?" Pete says once he has Patrick's full attention. Patrick immediately loses the annoyed crease gathering between his eyebrows and drapes himself forward over the headrest."Confusing as hell," Patrick says."Maybe worth it?" Pete says, and Patrick shrugs."Better get Bob to get our lawyers to look it over.""Nah," Pete says. He captures two of Patrick's fingers where they're looped around the metal post of the headrest and tugs a little. "I figured we'd just go for it, sight unseen. Like trusting little lambs.""Sure," Patrick says lightly, and scissors his fingers apart to grab onto Pete's thumb."Mm, lambchops," Joe says.Patrick laughs, then lets Pete's hand drop, pulling his hand back behind the barrier of the seat. "Do you remember that kid's show?" he says."Yo, with the freaky red-haired lady?" Pete says. He rubs the pad of his index finger across his thumbnail where Patrick had gripped him. "My brother loved that show.""Really," Joe says, grinning evilly."Yeah, it had that fucking song," Pete says, looking at Patrick. Sure enough, Patrick, looking horrified, is already starting to hum it.He breaks off long enough to say, "Pete, I'm going to fucking kill you," and they spend the rest of the car-ride singing, "This Is The Song That Never Ends."That all feels normal, so normal that Pete starts to wonder if he'd imagined everything. Hell, it could have just been an accident of chance that Pete and Patrick's fates didn't align for a couple weeks. Pete tends to get a little paranoid after too long on the road, a little strung out and hallucinatory. He talks to his therapist about it that afternoon over the phone, who says carefully, "Have you been feeling particularly worn down lately?" and Pete has to admit that the tour's barely started. He's not even really sleep-deprived yet."Hey, sorry, I have to go," he says instead. "It's almost showtime."Everything's fine, Pete thinks right before they go onstage. They all high-five. Patrick's palm is warm and rough against his for a brief, hard moment of contact and then everything is moving fast, fast, fast, and they are on.Everything's so on, everything's so fine, and Pete can feel it pumping through his veins, making him spin and run and then grab the mic like he owns it, because he does, or if he doesn't then he deserves to and that's all that matters. He doesn't know how he could have thought that something was wrong, and then he goes over halfway through the show and leans his head into Patrick's cheek like he has a thousand times before and Patrick steps away. Patrick steps away, almost like an accident, like he didn't mean to. Pete misses his next two chords, fingers strumming gracelessly across the strings and loosening from the fret board and then they are looking at each other and Pete can see his own shock reflected on Patrick's widened eyes even as Patrick's mouth moves onward in the song on autopilot. Patrick steps back toward him, but Pete is backing up and spinning away, concentrating on his fingering like it deserves ten times the attention he'd ever given it before, like he's finding his way through a brand new song for the first time instead of something he's played too many times to count.The rest of the concert is so shaky Pete's surprised they don't get booed off the stage. Andy and Joe are solid but Pete and Patrick are not, and by the end of the first break, Joe is eyeing everyone warily, Charlie and Patrick's guitar tech are asking in tense whispers if they need anything, and Patrick is looking a little wild-eyed.Pete drags Patrick off to the side and boxes him in behind an equipment case. Patrick starts apologizing before they even stop moving, saying, "Sorry, sorry, I don't know what happened out there," sounding honestly baffled."Are we good?" Pete demands."Yeah-yes," Patrick says, looking down and then up, meeting Pete's eyes firmly."Are you sure?" Pete asks, and Patrick doesn't say anything. "Patrick," Pete repeats. "Are we good." They aren't touching, but they're standing so close they might as well be, trying to hear each other over the noise of the crowd."We're fine," Patrick says, and they aren't, but Pete has an internal clock counting down in his head and Charlie seven feet away on his left telling him time's up, so he reluctantly backs away and lets Patrick move past him. They do their quick change and run back out there, but Patrick stays even more anchored to his mike stand and Pete gives him wide berth for the rest of the show, walking forward a couple steps, then retreating back when he gets within Patrick's field of vision.Afterwards, the only thing Patrick will say is, "I think you startled me," brow wrinkling like he's as clueless as Pete is.Pete says, "Yeah, okay. The stage is still a little unfamiliar.""Yeah," Patrick says. He has his laptop in front of him, the screen's twinned reflections shining in his glasses lenses as he scans something. It's making him hard to read.Pete leans forward and tips the laptop lid down so he can see Patrick's face clearly. "So. This was just. An off day," Pete says, and Patrick nods. "So, yeah," Pete says. "Yeah. For me, too. I'll try not to startle you next time, Janet.""Fuck off, Norman Bates," Patrick says mildly."Hey," Pete says, struck. "Maybe I should dress up for the next show.""Yeah, maybe," Patrick says, turning his attention back to his laptop and lifting the screen."No, you're right," Pete says. "That would be lame. Also, I hate wearing fake boobs. It messes with my style." He feels a little gun-shy after that, though. They're fine. Off-stage, they're fine. On-stage, they're fine, but Pete keeps his distance anyway for a couple of shows, because it's true. He doesn't need to be all up in Patrick's face all the time. Sometimes Patrick needs space. He wishes Patrick would just fucking step up and ask for it, though, instead of making Pete feel like he just got turned down in front of thirty-thousand people.He goes down on his knees in front of Patrick, still playing his bass, but that's as close as he gets the first night. Patrick looks down at him and shakes his head and Pete shakes his head back, grinning. Patrick goes back to singing and Pete arches backward until he ends up on his back on the stage, hips tilted toward the sky, playing toward the "FOB" up in the lighting rig. He's not as flexible as he used to be, but he bets he still looks good.He gets up and brushes into Joe as they pass each other. Joe yells, "Hot, dude," making it clear that he's spelling hot with two t's in his head, and then goes to rock out at the front of the stage, afro flying.After the show, Pete sits on his bus with his laptop on the kitchenette table. Hemingway is sprawled across the hallway near his foot. Every once in a while, for no reason Pete can figure out, he jumps up and makes a circuit of the room, collar jangling in time with his waddling steps, before lying back down again. This last round put Hemingway with his stomach firmly on Pete's foot. Pete flexes his toes into Hemingway's fur and clicks idly from window to window on his screen. Joe and a couple of their techs are at the other end of the kitchenette, on the couch watching X-Men 2 and laughing at all the explosions, but Pete's not too interested. He's already seen it, plus he imagines it's way less entertaining without the pot.He signs into one of his email accounts, mostly for something to do, and finds an email and attachment titled, "Patrick's bday pix" waiting for him from a friend he vaguely remembers seeing at Patrick's birthday party, an amateur photographer with higher aspirations. The first couple shots are pretty standard arty shots of the nightclub full of people that Pete skips past quickly. He smiles at the next one, which shows Joe scowling at the camera with his arm wrapping around Patrick's neck. Patrick has his head tipped back, grinning, miming panic, and Pete remembers how the next minute he'd swept in, shouting, "I'll save you!" jumping on Joe's back and spilling everyone's drinks. He flips past the next few ones of Andy and himself wrestling near the DJ booth and then another one of everyone grouped around the birthday boy, watching Patrick blow out the candles on his cake.The next one is a close up of him and Patrick in what looks like mid-conversation, their heads bent toward each other over their little plates of cake, and then the one after that is of Pete mashing his cake into Patrick's face, laughing uproariously, while Patrick stands with his palms uplifted and eyes closed, not even trying to fend Pete off. Pete snorts, because it's still funny now a month later, but he feels stupidly wistful about the whole thing too, like he wants to be off this bus and back there at that party with all their friends and Patrick, happy and letting Pete do whatever he wanted because he knew what Pete came up with wouldn't ever be that bad.Pete makes a face at himself, thinking, cheer up emo kid. It's Patrick.He writes back: dude smokng hot pics bro and closes the browser window halfway through the roll.The next morning, he's got an email back, reading, hahahahahah especially that one of you and Paitrck. but i got yr back.Pete's not really that awake when he reads it the first time, so he doesn't think much of it until after he's had breakfast and comes back to find the email still open on the screen. He reads it again and thinks, what? and clicks on the link to the pictures again, but it's just all the same ones, Patrick, him, Patrick, random people, cake, Patrick. What you'd expect, really, from a party of their friends and alcohol. Further down, though, the subject matter changes as his friend wandered away from the party. Arty shots of empty hotel hallways, a picture of an elderly couple getting off an elevator still dressed in their evening clothes. A potted plant. Pete's been in too many empty hotels after midnight to find the pictures all that interesting.The first picture is too far away and badly out of focus. Pete can't quite tell what it is except that there are two people at the end of the shot, tangled together, and one of them is wearing a bright yellow hat. He thinks, no one would ever know what that was, but the next picture is clearer, and the one after that is clearer still. He doesn't remember putting his hand up to touch Patrick's face, but he did, obviously he did, leaning in to Patrick and Patrick's hands on his lower back, and it looks different from this perspective than he remembers it being. He doesn't remember feeling so hungry for it; he doesn't remember Patrick looking so focused. He's not sure how he managed to stop.He stares at those three pictures for a long time, and then he saves them on his hard drive.whos seen these, he writes.just you dude, he gets back. patricks a good guy.hes an affectionate drunk, Pete writes back, and then, feeling guilty, hahahah.Joe comes out from the bunk then, and Pete hits F11 on the keyboard so quickly he almost jams his finger, trying to clear the screen, but Joe just shuffles past him on his way to the coffeemaker. He barely has his eyes open, and hits himself in the forehead with the cabinet while looking for a mug."Joe, sit down, dude," Pete says, standing up and taking over coffee-making duties, shoving Joe toward the table.Joe makes a noise that sounds like, "Glgh-urgh," and then, "I fucking hate waking up.""Can't wake up if you never go to sleep," Pete says, but bends and gives Joe a kiss on his abused forehead when he sets down the mug in front of him."I love you so much," Joe says. "So much. So much."Pete grins and settles down opposite him, then slides his laptop closed. The thing about the pictures--those motherfucking pictures--is that Pete knows, he absolutely knows that the right thing to do is delete them, never look at them again. They're not important. Patrick would be mortified if he ever knew anything like them existed, which makes Pete feel, obscurely, like he should be embarrassed in Patrick's stead.Pete's not embarrassed, though, and he keeps looking at them, caught by details he notices but doesn't remember. He looks at the pictures enough that he starts to forget what it was like to see the scene from an insider's perspective, so that his memory of the event gets transmuted to a four-by-six square, so that he's on the outside looking in.It's wrong and a little dirty, even though Pete hasn't progressed to masturbating while he looks at them, and the wrongness is just heightened by the way Patrick treats him so utterly normally outside of the shows. It's like Pete has two Patricks in his head now, the one that he's known forever and who will crack jokes about bad nineties rap with him and mock the way he orders his iced coffees, and the one who backs him up against hotel hallways and makes out with him. It's fucking confusing.Pete knows that he's doing the wrong thing every time he opens the folder, but it's not hurting anyone, he thinks. Pete doesn't have a unified philosophical code or anything, just fragments of ideas he's held onto over the years, but he thinks this one is pretty solid: it's better to do the right thing in action and the wrong thing in thought. Fewer people get hurt that way.Let it go, his therapist's voice says in his mind. Pete's never really been able to let anything go though, he just fakes it real good. It's good, he thinks, clicking on the file folder again, that he knows that. It's like progress for the self-aware emotional cripples. Pete's not precisely sure where they are now, other than Canada. One of their interviews had included a translator simultaneously speaking in French, though, so he's betting Quebec. It doesn't matter; the kids love the show despite Pete's geographical uncertainty, and Pete kind of loves them in return.He runs up the steps on-stage to play toward Andy for a moment, then back down again and over toward Joe, then back, mouthing the words of the song Patrick's singing as he walks. It's a haphazard but consistent semi-circle with Patrick at its center, still just out of reach. He walks forward and then takes a step back, concentrating on his rhythm for a second. Then a step forward again, and when he does so Patrick turns away from the mic slightly, moving toward Pete for one shuffling step that could just be Patrick taking advantage of the break in the verse to lean into his guitar-playing, except for the look he sneaks over his shoulder at Pete. He has to return to the mic a beat later, but he stays angled a little bit on the front of the stage. Pete takes another step forward and leans his forehead against Patrick's back and closes his eyes, jacket fabric hot and a little damp on his skin, feeling the flex of muscles shifting as Patrick plays. Patrick's voice buzzes in Pete's head, reverberating through his chest, and he leans back into Pete just a little bit. His voice doesn't change as he sings and neither of them miss a chord or drop rhythm, but when Pete draws away at the end of the verse, he runs up the stairs and spins, taking a jump from the top of the set of stairs to capture that weightlessness and hold it for just a moment longer.Andy says, "Good show," on their way backstage at the end, and Pete grins at him, still feeling energy sparking through his muscles like the silver confetti stuck to his skin from their final song. He shakes his entire body and scrubs his hands through his hair, sending confetti flying."You've got--" Patrick says from behind him, and Pete feels his fingers on the back of Pete's neck. He hands Pete a small scrap of silver foil."Hey," Pete says, wrapping his hand around Patrick's fingers over the foil. "Good fucking show, man.""Yeah, I think we did all right," Patrick says judiciously, but his smile belies his tone."All right," Pete repeats. He shakes his head to watch Patrick's smile bloom into a grin, teeth showing, and then butts him with his shoulder, reeling him back in with their clasped hands. Patrick shakes his hand loose and then turns his palms up as if to say what do you want from me, and Pete shakes his head again. "You're a piece of work, mister.""Okay, Grandpa," Patrick says, and they lock eyes for a moment, grinning."Hey, movies tonight?" Pete asks. He's pushing his luck a little, maybe, but Patrick shrugs, so Pete turns around and calls for Joe, for Charlie, for Ryland, and so now they're definitely doing it.He lets Joe be the one to bully Patrick away from his laptop, but he slides in next to Patrick on the couch as they cue up the DVD. Patrick glances at him and then back at the screen, face in profile. Pete thinks of the pictures for a second, the fucking pictures, Jesus, the ones that he'd been trying to forget about, and looks down at his lap before he realizes what he's doing and looks back up at the TV. He covers the lower half of his face with his hand, and his cheeks feel hot to the touch, flaming. Pete thinks, hah, flaming, and wants to shoot himself, just a little bit. He looks back over at Patrick, but Patrick is still watching the opening of the movie.In the end, Pete's the one who wanders away from the movie first, too itchy to keep sitting there. His hands keep fiddling with his phone, but they have a no-typing rule when they're watching stuff all together. He wants to get out of his own head, but he lost the plot of the movie in the first ten minutes, too distracted, and now it's just all moving pictures for him. Everyone laughs, Patrick chuckling into his hand, sweater-covered elbow jostling Pete's arm, but when Pete looks at the screen, he can't find the thread of the joke.He gets up, ignoring the curious look Patrick tosses at him, and pauses in front of the kitchenette, saying, "Popcorn?""Doritos," Joe says, rolling the r, so Pete fetches a bag from the cabinet and throws it toward him, managing to bean him in the head, accepting the one-fingered-salute Joe gives him in return as his due.He settles in the back, in his rolling bedroom, sprawling out on his stomach with his latest book. Noise from the movie filters in through the closed door, leaving Pete feeling a little abandoned even though it had been his choice to leave. His collection of short stories are moderately enthralling; they capture his wandering attention enough that it takes Joe tapping on the door to tell him the gang is going to play Pictionary for him to realize the movie has ended."Yeah, give me a second," Pete calls through the door, tossing his book aside. He leaves his bedroom and walks back into the front lounge loudly, saying, "How was the movie, motherfuckers?"He doesn't bother to wait to hear the answer, though, just the jeering from Charlie and Joe, and then he slots in after Ryland and Vicky T at one of the tables. He's across from Patrick, who is sorting out the prompt cards and talking to Mike over his shoulder, but Patrick slants a look over at Pete anyway, a little sideways grin, and Pete instantly wants to tell a joke so he can get it to turn into Patrick's full-fledged chuckle. He can't think of anything, though, so he just taps the table a few times and waits for the teams to form.In the hot and heavy Pictionary game that follows, Joe tries to depict "kosher" by drawing a pig with a circle and slash across it, but Pete foils him by guessing "no hunting" and then "no feeding the animals," "paparazzi," "bourgeoisie," and "hippies" before Joe throws the board at him. In retaliation, Pete draws "capitalism" as a shitty statue of liberty, and then an ornately-detailed stack of pennies, which makes Joe guess, "Statue of Liberty," followed by "...money? What, come on. Dude! Fucking DaVinci over here," and other various insults to Pete's character that Pete ignores while adding cross-hatching to Lincoln's beard.Patrick is saying, "Rooster, rooster, um, cock-a-doodle--Old McDonald Had a Farm?" on the other team, and Pete scoffs loudly, but then Victoria calls time, and Joe smacks the back of his head."Ow!" Pete says. "What the hell, man?""Why the fuck I pick you on my team, Jesus," Joe grumbles."My sexy skills," Pete says. "Don't worry, baby, I'll give it back in trade later." He smacks a kiss on Joe's cheek that Joe accepts glumly while staring at their counter, which is almost moving backwards on the board. When Pete straightens again, Patrick is looking at him, but only for a moment before Carden tosses out the next set of prompt cards.The evening ends at three a.m. when the fleet of buses pulls off the freeway for a gas station stop and everyone goes their separate ways. Patrick isn't the first to leave, but he's not the last either, and Pete pretends he's not trying to find significance in that. They didn't really talk at all, while he was here, and Pete realizes when he's left sitting in the dirty lounge with his dog panting at his feet that he had expected to, somehow. He'd had a good time, but the kind of good time that left him disappointed afterwards. He'd expected something else, something other than Patrick's careless wave over his shoulder when Pete was talking to Ryland about Tupak.His sidekick beeps with a new email. It's a google alert, nothing important, but he gratefully throws aside his thoughts to read a review of Infinity in Spanish using Babelfish. The reviewer doesn't like the album, but reading a negative review in Babelfish's broken version of English is more hilarious than hurtful, especially when it tells him that: "There is a good song in her but the rest of the album will put to him to sleep."He thinks it's worth a try and puts his iPod on, letting Patrick sing a lullaby in his ear. They play another three shows and do two radio interviews, first Pete and Andy, and then just Pete and Patrick together, waking up early and walking out blinking sleepy eyes at the sunlight. Pete isn't fond of mornings, but he likes them better when Patrick's at his elbow, squinting behind his glasses and muttering balefully."It feels like something died in my mouth," Patrick says."Whoa, I have to check this out," Pete says, and makes Patrick breathe on his face, then staggers back three steps, clutching at his throat and gagging while Patrick pursues him, trying to breathe on him again. "That is foul," Pete finally proclaims, and Patrick settles back, looking satisfied."I told you," Patrick says, and only then does he pull his toothbrush and toothpaste out of his backpack, brushing his teeth over the bushes as they wait for their ride."You're disgusting," Pete says amiably, and Patrick makes a face at him, growling so that toothpaste froths whitely over his lips and down his chin.Pete's actually superfluous this morning. The radio station had requested an acoustic performance, which means that only Patrick is really required, but general band consensus is that Patrick gets crabby when he's forced to do too much publicity alone, and so Pete has hitched himself along for the ride on this one, which means that he cracks jokes and talks about their tour and the album-writing process, and Patrick cracks jokes and talks about their tour and the album-writing process, and then Pete gets to lean back and watch as Patrick settles in with his guitar and the hanging radio microphone. Patrick is a natural performer; it's how Pete knows that Patrick wasn't ever going to stay behind a drum riser, even if Pete, via Joe, hadn't come along to shake up Patrick's life plan; he plays automatically to an audience, and today, that audience is Pete. Pete watches Patrick sing and play, and something in his chest tightens almost painfully tightly when Patrick grins at him, and then melts into the soft and sappy affection Pete can't ever really express except in shitty internet blogs. He just nods his head in time with the beat and lets Patrick catch his eye, again and again.One thing none of them ever really talk about in interviews is the way that, when Fall Out Boy first started, Patrick couldn't really sing. He could sing better than Joe or Pete (or Tim or Mike or any of the other rotating collection of assholes Pete and Joe and sometimes Patrick had managed to lure in to play for them), but he still couldn't sing well. He mumbled a lot and went flat and didn't project, and none of that really mattered, because Pete couldn't play bass too well and Joe was only mediocre on guitar and they were all just figuring shit out. Their first year was about a lot of stuff and only some of it was the band, but the part that was the band was mostly Patrick, growing up.The studio is air-conditioned all to fuck and yet still carries the scent of coffee and cigarettes from the DJ who talks like a smoker and smells like that and car exhaust from his pre-interview break. Pete huddles in his hoodie and watches Patrick. He likes to look at him. It's been years and years since their first year so he should be used to this, but he still thinks: Jesus Christ, Patrick. Jesus.There's a long silence after Patrick lets the last note die down, his head bent over the guitar. It's one of those old songs that Pete knows Patrick enjoys singing when he can get away with it, both because it's beautiful and suits Patrick's agile voice, and because it always surprises the shit out of the radio hosts. This time is no different, if the slightly stunned silence is anything to go by, and Pete just sits back and lets Patrick enjoy it.Afterwards, they walk out into the sunshine of another beautiful day. Patrick is already humming something else, complete with finger snaps and other vocal percussion, and Pete distracts himself with his phone to stop from reaching out and grabbing hold of Patrick's shoulder, not to do anything but just to hold on.They get to the venue and meet up with everyone else, and Joe says, "How'd it go?" He is still rubbing sleep out of the corner of his eyes."Fine, you slacker," Patrick says, but Pete hooks an arm around Patrick's neck and draws him in close, his body an off-balance, solid, warm shape against Pete's, and says, "He's our miracle, man." Patrick doesn't relax into Pete's grip but stays awkwardly stiff, and so Pete lets him go."I'm so proud," Joe says, fluttering his eyelashes. "We raised him well."Patrick flips them both off underhand as they laugh, and then wanders back toward his computer. Joe drifts over as Pete's watching him walk away, and comes to rest leaning against Pete's side, arm draped on his shoulder. Pete shifts absently under him, steadying the weight. "So it went good, then," Joe says. It takes a second to filter its way in, and then Pete nods. "You're spacey today, dude," Joe observes, and it could just be Joe making conversation, or it could be his gentle reminder that Pete didn't sleep much last night and Joe noticed. In any case, he smacks Pete on the ass before heading back to nap on the couch, and Pete shakes himself awake. A moment later Dirty walks in toting his air gun and a napkin full of cooked mini-wieners from catering, and then Pete doesn't have to think at all anymore, and he doesn't see any of the rest of the guys until right before they all go on. Sometimes, when Pete can't avoid it, he has other people walk Hemingway. It makes him feel like an asshole, though, like someone who has a personal assistant to order Christmas presents for his family or something, so most of the time Pete tries to walk his dog himself.Pete does have a personal assistant. Sometimes he has two, depending on whether the record label or Clandestine needs something particular. Pete tries to pretend that he doesn't. But, the thing is, it gets his bills paid when he's on the road, and his mail forwarded, and the dude's a nice guy. Pete doesn't mind being called a sell out. He still buys all his own Christmas presents.He takes Hemingway out for a walk early in the morning, after they've arrived at their next venue. Everyone else is sleeping, both on the crew, and on all the band buses. Everything is still dark, and quiet, all shadows on concrete and orange sodium lights. Some of them flicker on when he and his dog pass, then stay lit for a while afterward, marking his trail. Pete thinks that Hansel and Gretel ain't got shit on him, absently, idly, already turning the phrase over in his mind and seeing how it would look as a journal entry, while he waits for Hem to stop sniffing around a metal post. The leash jingles as Hemingway turns his head to look up at Pete with an upside-down frown, beleaguered as always. It's so quiet that Pete hears every sound with distinction, the creak of his jeans as he crouches down to pat his dog, his bracelet clicking against his phone in his pocket, the soles of his shoes scuffing against the pavement when he straightens up again. It's that early-morning sort of quiet, the one that is private and his own.He says, "What do you think of this, buddy?" and Hemingway looks back up at him, the way he always does whenever Pete talks. "Yeah," Pete says. "You always think I've got something interesting to say, don't you? Don't you?" Hemingway barks once, a sharp shock of noise, and Pete jumps and laughs.He's got a plastic grocery bag in his back pocket, exactly like his dad used to when he took their dogs for evening walks through the suburbs of Wilmette, but the difference is that Pete's walking his dog across the hilly lawns of amphitheaters and arenas, and instead of passing houses with their neat driveways and porches, he passes cinderblock huts advertising soda and hot dogs, locked up and shut down for the night. Hem still sniffs around the edges of a garbage can with optimistic fervor, and Pete has to tug on the leash to get him to move on.He passes their row of buses again and sees that he was wrong--one of the windows in the back lounge of Andy and Patrick's bus is shining dimly, and then he sees a shadow walk between the light and the shaded window. Patrick is up, he thinks, still awake, and on impulse he bends and scoops up a handful of gravel from the thinly covered, rutted path, tossing the stones one by one at Patrick's window for a solid minute. The shadow stops moving for a moment, then disappears, and Pete hears Patrick's steps on the bus stairs followed by the door opening. When he steps down from the bus, he's holding his acoustic guitar in one hand, bracing the door and then easing it closed with the other. His feet are bare, and he's wearing shorts and a t-shirt, and his glasses."Hey," he says, his voice as quiet as Pete's was earlier. Hemingway perks up and rattles the metal chain part of his leash."Hey," Pete says. "You working?""Just fooling around," Patrick says."It's three-thirty in the morning," Pete says, and Patrick shrugs. He walks further away from the bus until he gets to the grass, still carrying the guitar, and Pete follows him, Hemingway snuffling along in front of him."What is up, Mister Stump," Pete says, when they've settled on the grass fifty feet away from the buses. "I feel like I never see you anymore." He stops after he says it, caught by the truth in that statement, because he meant it as a joke but it's not. Patrick has been sequestered away with Gabe and his band, and Pete has been distracted by Dirty and Charlie and the way that everyone knows it's their last tour, but the end result is that Pete hasn't seen more of Patrick than the hour and a half they spend on-stage since that radio spot five days ago."Oh, I've been around," Patrick says aimlessly. He shifts the guitar around to normal playing position in his lap. "Here and there. Not tipping over golf carts."Pete waves a hand, because this isn't the first or last golf cart he's tipped over and they both know it, and Patrick cracks the edge of a smile. His fingers move on the guitar strings, pulling a chord out of it that sings out loud in the quiet and then drifts away."How's the Cobra record going?" Pete asks, and Patrick shifts to playing something else, a fast-paced picked sequence of notes, before he stops and shakes out his wrist."I like it," Pete says, stretching out on his back on the grass. "Keep going, dude." He puts his hands behind his head as Patrick starts plucking chords, softer and slower this time. His fingers squeak over the strings as he slides from fret to fret, and it's something Pete misses a little bit sometimes, wishes didn't always get edited out of the final mixes. Patrick hums a harmony to the guitar hook, voice sliding down in opposition to the melody. Pete lets his eyes slide half-closed. Patrick's face is turned inward, bent over the guitar. He's not playing for anyone now except himself; Pete just happens to be here.He stops after a while and lets the notes trail off. It's the sort of late that lets Pete know it'll be early soon, and he's finally starting to feel weary in his bones and not just his head. Hemingway is flopped down across from Patrick on Pete's right. Patrick is frowning down at the grass, and Pete rolls over on his side to sling his arm over Patrick's bare knee. His shirt rides up with the motion, grass tickling cold against his hip. Patrick's head shifts up as he stares at some midpoint on Pete's body. His face is in shadows and Pete doesn't think he's even really seeing Pete, though Pete could be wrong."It sounds good," Pete says. "Go to bed." Patrick's knee shifts rapidly, moving Pete's elbow, and then Patrick scoots back and shakes Pete off. Pete flops down onto his stomach and crosses his arms under his chin, then turns his head to stare at Patrick, faintly surprised."Sorry," Patrick says."You're touchy lately," Pete says. He doesn't mean anything by it, just a statement of fact, but it's true too. Things feel off this tour. "Short-fuse Patrick making a reappearance? Because I'll admit it, he's not my favorite guy.""Yeah, I don't really feel like talking about this," Patrick say."What?" Pete says. "Why not?""It's late," Patrick says. "Early. Whatever. I'm going to bed." He's not looking at Pete, just gathering himself to his feet and rising until he's standing over him, looking down. Pete reaches out a hand almost automatically to snag his ankle, but misses by a mile as Patrick turns and walks away. Hemingway follows Patrick for four jingling steps before getting stopped by the leash Pete still holds in his hand."Hey, Patrick!" Pete calls, sitting up, but Patrick just waves a hand at him behind his back and keeps walking before vanishing back into the depths of the bus. Hemingway whines as he returns, and Pete pulls him into his lap to pet him, scratching roughly at the fur around his neck and ears. The lights go off in the back of Patrick's bus while Pete's watching, leaving Pete to wonder if Patrick is actually asleep or just sitting in the dark so Pete won't know."What the fuck," Pete says softly. And then, "Fuck." Eventually he gets up and goes back to his own bus. He has to restrain the urge to bang on Patrick's window when he passes it. That night, the night of Patrick's party, it went something like this: Pete let Patrick get drunk, but not too drunk, not so drunk he couldn't mostly walk, not so drunk he couldn't have a good time. At the end of the night, Pete walked Patrick back through the corridors of the hotels, up the elevator, up to their row of rooms. He remembers saying, "Patrick. Hey, Patrick. Where's your key, man?" and then watching Patrick paw through his pockets, weaving a little, before coming up empty-handed."I can't find it," Patrick said, simple and uncomprehending as a child."Here, you lush, let me feel you up," Pete said, already dipping his fingers into Patrick's front pockets, then his jacket pocket, then his rear ones, while Patrick snickered into Pete's neck and then swayed, oblivious to Pete's muttered threats of what he'd do if Patrick had been stupid enough to leave his key in his room like the absent-minded fucker he was, before saying, "Come on, dance with me, I hear music," his arms going around Pete's neck as he tipped sideways."You are so fucking drunk," Pete laughed, hauling him upright."It's my birthday, you gotta give me what I want," Patrick said, coy, and then even looking back on it Pete can't bridge what happens next, because then Patrick was kissing him and he doesn't know why, but he knows why they stopped, because Patrick's hand was fumbling at Pete's belt and even confused and turned-on Pete knew when to stop. He pulled away with a murmured, "Hey, no," and finally finding Patrick's fucking keycard in the right-hand pants pocket that he knew he'd checked before, his fingers skirting the hot, solid bulge of Patrick's erection in his jeans while Patrick mouthed at Pete's neck."This, come on, Patrick," Pete said, turning and opening the door and shoving Patrick through it.Pete's told this story to himself a couple of different ways, and all the ways make it funnier and less messy than it was, than Pete turning away from Patrick's raw desire because he wasn't in his right head, because it wasn't a good idea.In the dark, back on his bus, Pete rubs a hand across his belly, remembering the feel of Patrick's mouth on his, and he thinks about his hand on Patrick's bare knee, thinks about the dewy grass pricking the skin of his back and the way everything had smelled damp and green in the darkness, like a summer secret. He thinks about the grass pricking at his back, about his hand sliding up Patrick's thigh and into his shorts, and he is hard and sweating in his back bedroom on the bus as he moves his hand down to cup his dick and then slide underneath the elastic waistband of his briefs. He curls a hand around his cock, rubbing, teasing, thinking about Patrick and those fucking pictures and Patrick, warm and under his hands. He bites his lip to strangle a grunt, rubbing softly and then harder until he's not thinking anything except, good. good. good. He stays away from Patrick after that. It's not hard. Because apparently what Pete was too dumb to realize was that Patrick was avoiding him the whole time. They're on two separate buses, even, it's like they were psychic when planning this tour. It's amazing. By the end of a week they're communicating mostly through intermediaries and email, because ironically, the writing is going better than ever. Pete hates every word that he sends Patrick, but he keeps sending them, pages and pages of emails that Patrick sifts through and sends back as songs. Sometimes they're just snippets and sometimes they're whole works, and regardless, Pete sends back emailed suggestions that Patrick uses or ignores. It's the most productive they've ever been, the both of them, and when he's not writing to Patrick, he spends his time updating his blogs with sarcastic posts that no one will get but him."Why are you avoiding Patrick?" Andy asks one afternoon. They're waiting for an outdoor photo shoot to start. The weather is not cooperating, sending a large cloud to cover the sun right before they were supposed to start shooting. Andy is lounging near a stack of soccer balls that figures into the photographer's vision somehow. Pete has liberated one to bounce on his knees like he used to do for practice."What?" Pete asks, and misses his next kick when the ball misses his knee and bounces off the edge of his toe instead. "I'm not--fuck."When he gets back from chasing the ball down and then back up the sidewalk, Andy says, "Joe and Dan and I were just wondering; I don't really care.""I'm respecting his boundaries," Pete says. He glances over his shoulder to where Dirty and Patrick are talking, on the other side of the photographer's setup. The conversation seems to involve a lot of miming and hand-gestures. It looks fun.But, no. He is holding out and respecting boundaries and not making things weird, and none of those things are things that Pete is naturally gifted at. He's been called invasive, annoying, obsessive, and incessantly persistent, and only the last of those is in any way complimentary, but they're all true."Okay," Andy says. "Why.""Because I want to," Pete snaps, and stomps off to bother Charlie and Joe, who are fiddling with Charlie's digital camera, instead of being bothered himself.In the photo shoot, the photographer positions Pete and Patrick in the middle, facing each other, flanked by Joe and Andy, then motions at them until they all are crammed close together, Patrick's arm bracing Pete's back, pulling Pete in toward his side. Pete pouts at the camera, then makes funny faces until the guy tells them to stop and Patrick lets him go. It seems to take a very long time.He goes out that night to DJ at a club and comes back late and buzzed off it, brain full of strobe lights and camera flashes and couples writhing on the dance floor beneath him. He could write about it. He even sits down at his computer to do it, but he can't make himself write anything he doesn't care about, when he feels such a great choking pressure in his throat from everything that feels wrong and broken in his life.Instead, he opens a new email and titles it, "our new songs," and writes, i hate them all, and sends it to Patrick.He doesn't know what he's expecting, but radio silence isn't it. He spends an hour texting with Ryan about the album they're trying to record. Ryan is frustrated, and that frustration feels familiar and cathartic. Eventually though, Ryan stops responding, which is usually how their conversations go. Ryan gets artistically distracted.Pete might have been wrong. He might have misjudged. He rattles his phone in the cage of his fingers. Patrick could honestly be sleeping; it's four in the morning; Patrick's a night owl on and off-tour, though; Pete's betting not.The tap on his door startles him, when it does come. He'd almost fallen asleep sitting upright on the bed, and he has to lurch up to get it. Patrick is standing there, looking tired underneath his hat and glasses. Pete rubs his hand over his face and steps back to let him in."What's wrong with the songs?" Patrick says, face closed and guarded.Pete shuts the door, leaving them standing in the narrow hallway that leads to the main room. "The lyrics aren't good." He stretches his arms out with the palms up, empty. See? Empty words.Patrick's face softens. "They're not bad."Pete shakes his head."What do you want me to do about it?" Patrick asks."I don't know!" Pete says. "Fix them.""I can't!" Patrick shouts and Pete flinches away. "They're what you gave me. Give me something else!""I don't have anything else!" Pete shouts. His empty palms are clenched into empty fists now, at his sides. "I can't," he says, softer. "You and me, Patrick. We're fucking me up."Patrick doesn't say anything for a long moment, not looking at Pete, and then he turns and walks further into the room, sitting on the edge of the couch in the corner of Pete's room near the mirrored dresser with his knees spread slightly apart, braced.He looks down at his hands, and then says evenly, "I don't know what to say to you about that. I'm doing my best here."Pete moves to sit on top of the mirrored dresser, not looking away from the top of Patrick's head, where Patrick is staring down at his own fingers like they're the most fascinating things he's ever seen. He thinks, look at me, because he doesn't even know what Patrick means by that, but Patrick doesn't, and the silence crystallizes into a solid thing, something with heft and shape in the room, something that'll take work to dislodge."I just," Pete says, "I'm tired of, like, I don't want things to be all weird.""Yeah," Patrick says. "No. I don't want that either." He pauses, looking up and twisting over his shoulder to look at Pete, but his eyes veer away after a second to focus on the wall. "I mean, I think you should just. Accept that things are the way they are right now, though," he says, voice still even and reasonable and so fucking rational, like he's disagreeing with one of Joe's riffs in the studio."See, no," Pete says. "That doesn't make sense to me.""Why not?" Patrick asks, startled into meeting Pete's eyes."Because just fucking accepting things never changes anything," Pete says."What--we're not a social regime change," Patrick says."No, look, I just want things to be better," Pete says, and the fact that he's having this kind of conversation with Patrick almost makes him feel a little sick with a desperate kind of panic. This is like shades of all the conversations he's ever had with every girl or boy when they're on the way out the door, or he is, and he can't, it never works. He needs this to work, though, he needs Patrick to stay, but Pete's always sucked at making people do what they don't want to, not once they know him. His bullshit only works until you can see the wires."I know," Patrick says, a razor sharpness under the smooth surface of his voice, "and I'm doing the best I can."Fix this, Pete thinks, fix this, fix this, fix this, fix this, and he doesn't know if he's talking to himself or Patrick or both of them.Finally, Patrick sighs. His shoulders curve inward, and he says, "It'll get better. We'll be okay." He looks up and gives Pete a crooked smile. "We always are, right?""No, yeah," Pete says, feeling something like relief shimmer in his stomach. "We are.""I'm sorry you don't like the songs," Patrick says."It's not your fault," Pete says."No," Patrick says, but he sounds like he means yes."No, I mean it," Pete says. He slides off the dresser to pace the floor, nervous again, and when he turns back to face Patrick, Patrick is looking at him, following the line of his motion."Okay," Patrick says. And then he says, "Okay," again, and stands up with a look on his face Pete doesn't quite recognize, tense. He walks back toward the door but hesitates before reaching the hallway, then turns around."Hey," he says, falsely casual. "Remember my birthday?" And, yeah, Pete remembers his birthday. "Why did, uh." Patrick hesitates. "I just want to know why you kiss me back."Pete blinks, shocked into momentary stillness. "Because you kissed me."Patrick tilts his head and gives Pete that same rueful twist of the lips. "So, what, you have an automatic kissing reflex?""I—no." Pete spreads his hands again. "You kissed me.""Yeah," Patrick says. "I did." He folds his arms across his chest. "And then you left.""You know someone saw us?" Pete asks. "I got—Jimmy sent me pictures." He sees Patrick's expression turn horrified and hastens to add, "No, just to me. He said he wouldn't send 'em anywhere else.""He sent them to me, too," Patrick says. "Day after my birthday." He shrugs, eyes flickering to the side, and then he says, low and vehemently, "Goddamnit, Pete, I don't know what you want, because I will be normal, I will be so fucking normal, but you have got to give me some time to get over you, because it's been a while. For me." His voice wobbles at the end and he hunches down under his hat. "But I'm sorry you don't like the songs."Pete closes his eyes, thinks, get over you, and he doesn't know what to say. If Pete's good at being guarded, Patrick's better, and he never expected Patrick to be so naked in front of him. When he opens his eyes again, Patrick is still there, sagged against the wall. Pete puts out a hand and takes a step toward him, and Patrick's heel knocks against the baseboard trying to get away."Patrick," Pete says, letting his hand drop to his side, and Patrick shakes his head, spasmodically. Pete says, softer: "You were drunk. Did you really want to go down that road?" He clears his scratchy throat. "I've been hung up on those pictures for two fucking months.""I don't know what that means," Patrick says."What, you need me to spell it out? You. I've been hung up on you for two months," Pete says. He edges closer. Patrick can't actually get any further away, but he doesn't try this time, either. "This is why you've been avoiding me?""What was I supposed to do?" Patrick says. "You said it wasn't a big deal.""Patrick," Pete says. "I said I was sorry, and you said that's okay. I didn't think you meant it."Patrick shrugs. "I was hung over. You'd turned me down, man.""Try again," Pete says. "Please." He smiles down at his toes. "I'd appreciate it.""Well, I'm not going to do it now," Patrick says. "You're exhausting.""It's four in the morning," Pete says. "I'm going to argue pre-existing fatigue.""Lawyer's kid," Patrick says, and the easy affection in his voice soothes an ache in Pete's stomach that he hadn't even known was there until it was gone, and he take four steps forward and doesn't stop until he has his head buried in the shoulder of Patrick's hoodie and Patrick's hand solid on his back."I was afraid of this," Pete says, muffled. "I mean, I was scared of doing this. You're a brave fucking dude, Patrick Stump.""Nah," Patrick says softly. "But I do all right." He runs circles on Pete's back. Pete tightens his grip and holds on. A night and a day and a show and another night later, Pete sprawls down next to Patrick on the bed. It's late afternoon, and sunlight is reluctantly filtering through the bus windows."Okay," he says. "I want to do something. Let's try, like, kinetic learning, okay?" He shifts up onto his knees to kneel on the mattress, and Patrick rolls over on his back to look up at him. He's wearing a t-shirt and boxers and is painted in shades of cream and warm yellow and umber by the light. Pete can't stop from rubbing a hand across Patrick's stomach before refocusing himself. "Right. Okay. Hitting on someone while drunk is, like, a bad scene."Patrick rolls his eyes. "I think I know--""No," Pete interrupts, and covers Patrick's mouth with his palm briefly. "Okay, learn by doing.""What," Patrick says."Hey," Pete says, smiling and brushing his hair out of his eyes."Are you seriously?" Patrick says, and Pete puts his hand on Patrick's arm, leaning over to hover above him. He grins and watches Patrick fight himself for a second before smiling back, eyes crinkling at the corners."I'm going to skip a couple steps," Pete says, and then he bends down, bringing his other hand up to cup Patrick's face, and kisses him. Patrick's hand settles on Pete's waist, guiding him down so that he's sprawled across Patrick's body as they kiss. Pete pulls away after a second. "I like you," he says, leaning his forehead against Patrick's cheek. "I want to date you.""Oh," Patrick says quietly."See," Pete says. "Okay, now you.""Pete," Patrick says, laughing, pressing a smile against the corner of Pete's mouth."Do it!" Pete demands. "No complaining! Do it!""Pete," Patrick says. "I like you." Pete can practically hear the eye-roll in Patrick's voice."And?" Pete says. "Come on, Patrick, I'm contributing to your education here.""I want to date you," Patrick says softly, and ducks his head down into the crook of Pete's neck.[END]
5377	A Rush Of Action	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "Gen", "Characters": null, "Fandom": "Star Trek (2009)", "Language": "English", "Rating": "General Audiences", "author": "by BridgetMcKennitt", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2009-07-11T00:00:00", "words": "300", "Additional Tags": "Drabble Set, Character of Color", "Relationship": null, "Character": "Nyota Uhura", "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	As soon as Uhura placed her comm over her ear and the familiar beeps and swoops surrounded her, she knew she came to the right place for her insomnia. Just listening to the interface run comforted her in a way that nothing else came close to doing.She lifted her arm to flip a switch and entered her personal code. Whenever she needed to relax, she listened to noise the Enterprise picked up from space, translated it, and entered it into the ship's logs.It was at that moment that Uhura picked up something strange. "Captain, come to the bridge."*Kirk and the rest of the officers raced to the bridge as Uhura placed the transmission on the main screen. "It's a distress signal from a ship in a nearby star system. I'll have the coordinates shortly, captain."With a few keystrokes, a map appeared on screen with the location. "I have to advise caution, however. The distress signal is real by Federation standards but I'm detecting some anomalies within the frequency."Kirk looked excited and straightened in his chair. "Trap?"Of course. Uhura nodded curtly. "It's looking to be that way, sir.""Perfect! Thank you, lieutenant. Sulu, let's go."*It was a trap and Uhura managed to keep her crewmates alive by coordinating their movements. Her fingers flew over the keyboard as she kept their communication lines open while simultaneously blocking the enemy's lines.Another explosion occurred, this time she wasn't going to be surprised when it came to Kirk, and she sent the team's coordinates to Scotty. "Beam when ready," she said as she kept a lock on the crewmates. Once they were on board and Sulu piloted the Enterprise away, Uhura took a breath of relief.She spun her chair and met Spock's gaze. They were safe.
31610	in my blood theres	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "F/M", "Characters": "Robert Goren, Alexandra Eames", "Fandom": "Law & Order: Criminal Intent", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Mature", "author": "by ndnickerson", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2009-12-19T00:00:00", "words": "2,609", "Additional Tags": null, "Relationship": "Goren/Eames", "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	Eames feels more at home in a hotel room in Seoul than in her own bed.She forced herself to go back into her own house, back into her own bed, because no one else was going to do it for her. Olivet had talked about getting a guard dog, someone or something to make her feel safer than the gun and badge at her waist, but she's been sleeping alone for a long time.And she can't exactly tell Olivet that if she did actually adopt a German Shepherd, she'd probably spend her weekends training it to kill Nicole Wallace on sight. Those kinds of breakthroughs aren't considered helpful.Although the thought of throwing Fife into a South Korean prison appealed to her, Goren had arranged for guards to watch him, just to make sure he didn't throw some new grand publicity stunt, like flinging himself from his twentieth-story window. His room is between theirs. Fife isn't going anywhere, except the hell of an American prison, where the cop-killers look down on crazy halfbaked pedophiles.She'd heard Goren instructing the guards in his broken Korean and shivered a little when she realized how he'd probably picked that up.Eames had to dig through her wardrobe to find a pair of matching pajamas, packing for their little adventure, and these are flannel, faded, with a rip she didn't notice in the side seam. Their hotel is too cheap for bathrobes, and she feels more than a little paranoid when she slides her gun into her pocket. The most trouble Olivet had in all their sessions was making her acknowledge her own fear. It's a bitter thing, and it still catches her like a cracked bone, when her own reflection manages to spook her, when she's still tense and jittery at 3 a.m. Now that she and Goren are both liabilities, this is less a vacation for them than a break for Ross.She snickers to herself when she realizes that she's just called ferrying a pedophile back to New York a vacation.She taps on Bobby's door five minutes later, eyeing the uniformed guard standing outside Fife's room, watching him not watch her. He cracks the door and she sees jet lag in the angle of his eyelids, in the slump of his shoulders, as his gaze traces down, to the ice bucket cradled jauntily between her elbow and the jutted point of her hip. Her other hand is empty."I don't remember ordering room service," he cracks, shouldering the door open another few feet, and she ducks under his braced arm, into his room. The files, fewer than usual, are spread over his desk, even though Ross said repeatedly that this wasn't something they were trying to figure out, just an easy assignment, something meant to help her get back into the swing of things, as though Major Case had a legitimate angle on this. As though her new job title was jetsetting bail bondsman extraordinaire."Why the ice?"She turns around to face him; he has his hands jammed in his pockets, and he's very careful to hide that pained, almost yearning look he gets when they're around each other now. Like he can't trust himself, like he was supposed to realize Jo was batshit insane. Like it was equally his hand, raising the hook to hoist her arms over her head.She shivers a little at that. She has enough trouble washing her own hair now."Eames?"If she doesn't say something he'll start channeling Olivet and telling her things she doesn't want to hear, so she offers the ice bucket to him, holding his gaze even as his fingertips slide over hers. "Thought you'd probably have something we could put this in."--She goes back to her own room to sleep because it would be so terribly clichéd to get drunk with Bobby in a hotel room halfway around the world and then fall into bed with him. She doesn't feel up to it; when she's alone, really alone, she just feels bruised, brittle, like all the solid space beneath her skin is just so much air. She only feels heavy when she's scared, and here, she isn't scared, and whatever they do, it'll be over in the morning.She's just, finally, reached that warm equilibrium, has just slipped over when she jerks awake to the sound of her keyreader activating.Immediately she's half-convinced it's Jo, and she's groping on the bedside table for her gun when the door slides open on the security chain, and she recognizes Bobby's silhouette."For God's sake," she mutters, heart still hammering in her skull, and tosses back the bedding. He's looking at his hands when she opens the door, one hand perched on her hip, and he keeps it shouldered open as she uses that bare square of illumination to find her way back to bed."You okay?""Couldn't sleep," he admits, taking one heavy step into the room, running his hand through his hair. "Have you had nightmares?"She doesn't even have to ask what he's talking about. Her throat thickens and she doesn't answer, watching him pull the chair away from the desk and lower himself into it. She didn't bother turning the lights on and he left them off, so she watches the way the light from the skyline bleeds just between the curtains, touching his cheek, that droop-eyed gaze of his."Remember, the car, your car? We found it at One PP?""Yeah," she says, and her voice sounds rusty, and it didn't before."I keep... they open the trunk and what Declan said, is true. When he said you were already gone."She hears that strange lilt at the end of his voice, and no, no. Even though she and Goren have been partners longer than she and Joe were married. It was bad enough to see the expression on Goren's face when he saw her in the hospital bed. It was bad enough to hear how restless he was while she was on leave. It was bad enough, having to read that damn letter on the stand. She's going to burn for this, she knows it.When she was in Vice, Joe used to joke with her, how her school buddies, the ones who watched her get crowned prom queen, would love to see her in the fishnets and fake fur, in the flame-red lipstick and microminiskirts. Vice was so damn straightforward. And then, in that awful uncertain time after Joe's death, she had somehow managed to make it to MCS, without him around to see it, swearing to herself that it wouldn't be another cop next time, wouldn't be someone who would slowly bleed himself into a coma for wearing a mic during a sting op.And, damn him, somewhere along the way she had planned how she'd do this, and it didn't involve those damn fishnets and microminis or a raggedy pair of flannel pajamas. She'd toyed with it like some secret guilt, knowing the entire time it was the easiest way to destroy her life again.Half the time she was sure Deakins had suspected it, that their solve rate had precluded any question about the means they used. Half the time she thought everyone else knew it too, the ones they conned when they played married.But in all that time she had never, ever imagined Jo.And somehow, at two o'clock, when she's scrolling feverishly through the channels and praying mutely for dreamless sleep, she never imagines him doing the same. Even though he was the one who kept searching, beyond all reason and rationality.He's been quiet too long, but she goes to him anyway, wrapping her arms around him, shushing him like a child. "It's all right.""I can't do this job without you.""Yes you can. You have.""A week longer and Bishop would have put a hit out on me."She laughs, at the sardonic tone in his voice, in relief because that terrifying lilt is gone, even though his palm is resting at the small of her back, fingertips resting against her spine. "No.""Yeah, Alex."It's something in the way his voice catches and holds her name, drawing it out; it's something in the way his hands move at her waist. She looks down, catching his gaze, the glint of his eyes in that sliver of light, and his mouth is drawn fine. There is no ease here, and what will make tonight easier will make next week, next month unbearable.She pulls her top over her head, his hands still resting at her hips, like he is bowed, like he is hers.--She isn't sure when he started to waver. She wants to blame it on Bishop, but it's not so easy as that. His equilibrium seems off, or maybe it's her. Olivet says that there will be a day she can smell roses without panicking. Olivet also said something about not making choices like this for a while, but then Bobby's fingers are between her waistband and her skin and there is no other option, really.They leave their clothes in piles on the floor and climb into bed, the sheets only faintly suggestive of warmth, and she slides her hand into his hair and kisses him hard, bruise-hard, his arm curling around her waist."Tell me you aren't doing this because you feel sorry for me.""Is that why you are?" His voice is rasping, low, the fact of his nakedness radiating to brush her skin. Spectacularly bad idea.She shifts her weight to her side, her palm on his cheek. "Guess I had to see if you were bluffing.""There are some things I don't have to bluff about, Eames."She never thought about his fingers, their length and breadth, until he slides one up between her legs and she lets out a muffled gasp, her body practically vibrating with need. She has nothing so equally dramatic, no wobbly tearstained declaration that her abduction had finally made her see how much she needed him, that she just needed to feel alive again. This wasn't the way.I thought I was going to die.That is the truth. Not before I could tell you I love you, not and that made me realize I'm in love with you. His fingers.She thinks, for not the first time, how brilliant, how terrifying, it must be, to be the object of his undivided attention, and how she'll never see him twirl a pencil in his fingers without thinking of this, and then he slides another into her and she shudders, gasping so hard she can feel her hair against her mouth."We," she begins, and the rest of it is need to stop, but it's just as hard to say as it ever was. She lets her palm drift down, over the bob of his adam's apple, his shoulder. She measures his length with her palm and earns her own answering gasp. He'll do what he wants, as he always does.She pumps his cock a few times, though, because it's a rare pleasure to find him so speechless. Not stammering like the bumbling persona he puts on in the interview room. Maybe he'll blame himself the rest of his life, for this, the way he has done for everything else, but she can't control that. She can only control this.He rolls away from her for a moment and when he comes back with the condom, she takes it out of his hand, rolling it on his cock with a few deft strokes of her fingers.And then she fits her hips over his and leans down, the tips of her hair brushing his chest, as she grinds down against him, his fingers brushing, digging into her hips, his breath a soft relieved sigh above her head.If she has to pay for this, she'll make it worth it.--She can tell when it starts to wear off, when he's thinking clearly again. His fingers linger on her, measuring every part of her, sorting her into his memory. He makes no move to leave and she makes no move to kick him out; there will be enough time for that later. His stubble burns the heel of her hand.She and Joe were practically broke after their wedding, and they spent their honeymoon on the Jersey shore, tangled up like this, although at twenty-six she'd only thought herself jaded. They had smiled at each other when they woke, wrapped up so completely in each other, so in love.It's not so simple as that. When she smiles at him across the pillows it's to derail that furrowed look, to head off any introspection. She feels protective of him, even now; even when she was caught in his riptide she had become so strangely proud of her role as his link to the rest of the world, like his was a language she had come to learn.But this is not love. She loved Joe, she loves Joe still, so much that walking by a man wearing his aftershave can turn her brooding and distracted. She feels like Bobby's big sister, and she knows he would take a bullet for her, knows she would take a bullet for him, knows that in a way he's just as much her link to the rest of the world. She is almost always fascinated, bemused, exasperated by him.And now her universe has contracted again, and now he knows, like it was some deeply shameful thing, like he was innocent before tonight. She had thought there was no naivete left in her soul to burn.She's scoured out. His hand is on her hip, and he turns her onto her side, sliding behind her, body molding to hers. She is left only to close her eyes and watch, as his fingers find every secret part of her."This is too much," he says, softly, regret in his voice, but he doesn't stop.She thinks about saying it, until it's the only thing she can think, repeating over and over in her head as her hips circle and grind against his, fingers fluttering. I didn't know until this happened, I didn't know, I didn't."Not enough," she gasps instead, and he chuckles, following as she rolls onto her knees.Without her, he will slide out of orbit. Gravity will lose her sway. He will be like Declan, ostracized and alone, and he will spawn monsters.If she had known then, what she knows now, when she shook his hand seven years ago.She closes her eyes, muffling her groan in the pillow, realizing too late that there was no pause for another condom, they are skin to skin, wet and shaking. His weight. His sigh, his weight.She struggles under him and he immediately pushes himself up, letting her turn into her back, to gaze up at him, and it's all bad enough. Her lower lip trembles once, and she glances away from him.I didn't know until I left you in the room with him, how pointless it would all seem without you.When she looks back he's smiling, that old smile from when her respect for him was fighting her exasperation and shock at his methods, when she was just acquiring his taste."I know," he says, with that little tilt, and she wraps her legs around him, giggling, actually giggling, pulling him down to her so his laughter vibrates against her belly.She's suddenly, blindingly grateful just to be alive.
5772	Good idea done badly	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "Gen", "Characters": null, "Fandom": "Nebulous", "Language": "English", "Rating": "General Audiences", "author": "by amaresu", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2009-08-07T00:00:00", "words": "138", "Additional Tags": null, "Relationship": null, "Character": "Professor Nebulous", "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	He'd always liked the Isle of Wight. It was a wonderful place with fantastic restaurants and beautiful beaches. There was in fact only one problem with the place. It didn't get the best sunlight possible for that area of the ocean. If the Isle of Wight was just a little bit to the left it would be without a doubt the best place on Earth. It was clear that someone needed to move the island and that was exactly what he was going to do. It would be a simple thing to do, frankly he was a bit surprised that no one had done it yet. Professor Nebulous laughed to himself as he flipped the last few switches. A statue of him, the Isle of Wight moved to a better location, yes life was going to be good.
99696	In Whose Savage Heart	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "Gen", "Characters": "Demeter, Hekate, Helios, Eva", "Fandom": "Greek and Roman Mythology", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Teen And Up Audiences", "author": "by fresne", "chapters": "2/2", "completed": "2012-09-09", "published": "2010-07-11T00:00:00", "words": "7,806", "Additional Tags": "Ref Past Dubcon, Angst, Female Protagonist, Triggers, Podfic Available, 1st and Myth", "Relationship": null, "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": "The City, Springtime, Corner of 1st and Myth", "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	EvaShe swept the red plastic broom across green linoleum squares. They each had a happy yellow daisy in the middle.When the balls of dust had been pushed into the little red plastic dustpan, Eva filled her yellow bucket in the bathtub. It didn't fit so good in the sink.She filled it good and hot with suds. Then she mopped the floor with a rag mop. It was made of cotton shreds from an old frayed dress that she'd torn up for the task.When the floor sparkled, she pulled out the old vacuum. It was heavy and hard to move, but it was what she had and she liked the extension. She could push it back into the dusty spaces and clean all the cobwebs out.She didn't want a speck of dirt showing when her Joe came home.His bed was already made with clean fresh sheets. She'd used the fabric softener he liked. Her boy was coming home.Most young men wouldn't want to come home to their mama's house when they came home from the sea. But her Joe did.He'd bound up the little rickety stairs three steps at a time. Throw open the door and give her a hug. She'd breathe in and smell the salt in his hair.Then she'd make him his favorite dinner of spaghetti with a little yellow mustard in the red sauce.When he got home.Now she waited. Apartment sparkling and fresh. Pot of water on the stove, ready to get boiling when her boy walked in the door.She stood in her little living room. She didn't want to mess anything up. So she made herself a cup of tea and went out onto the narrow balcony.She had a view of Mount Parnassus through a crack between the buildings. It was a sliver of green past the bricks and the cement. It was pretty, but she had her own green here in little pots—herbs and flowers—and vines hung down from the balcony above. She had a little purple plastic feeder with seeds for the sparrows. It was almost empty. She'd have to fill it again. She also had a little glass nectar feeder for the hummingbirds. Joe had bought it for her in a market far away.She sat on her balcony and listened to the sounds of the City. Cars on their way home from work, honking their horns to say here I am. Sirens calling out that someone was hurt, but help was coming. A million voices all chattering the end of the day, yelling hello and goodbye.She heard footsteps pounding up the stairs and her heart caught like a blue-green hummingbird, but the steps went on by. They went to someone else's door.She swallowed some tea, going cool in her hands.Waited for her boy to come home.Then the sun set. Then the one or two stars that could push their way down past the City's lights came out. Then the phone rang, and she knew. Heavy steps that had been so light, knot in her throat as she picked up the phone and heard what the man on the other end had to say. DemeterWhen they told her, she did not believe them.Her heart squeezed tight, like a hand had reached in. A calloused hand that squeezed her heart like a stone. White acid flashed through her gut. The whole world pulsed white and then red. A roar of rising wind in her ears. Screaming clouds that tore her apart.She would not fall.She swayed in her own hurricane's blast.That's how she knew it was true. Her Kore, her little baby, her sweet duckling had disappeared. Gone in an instant.Demeter yelled at the Sirens, she didn't know what. Questions scraped and rattled around her empty belly—"Kore? Kore, where is Kore? My fragile Kore? My sweet?" But her throat was too tight to shape even that much sense. Purple sparks crackled around her. The sky above cracked with sudden thunder. But not lightning. That was her dear husband's.When he was her husband. Before Hera stole him away. Much good he did her.She swayed on the blows of sudden words. Unexpected, long feared. She held one wrist. Wrapped her fingers around the bone bracelet of her other daughter, her first daughter. She'd failed her too. Demeter swallowed the knot in her throat until it went into her belly. She focused on purple rage. It would keep her warm as all around needle-sharp rain fell from the sky.She said, "Where is my daughter?"One of the Sirens lay in the green, green grass. There was a white mark where Demeter had struck her. She did not remember striking her. The Siren whispered, "My Lady, she ran toward the river. I only looked away for a minute, and then she wasn't there." She pointed. "You can see where she ran."Demeter could see. A trail of posies. Flowers always sprang up wherever her daughter stepped—she was so pretty and soft and mild. The only good thing she ever got from Zeus. Her beautiful sweet girl.She looked at the Sirens, useless stupid lumps. She should have set all the birds in the sky to watch her daughter. They could have attacked the gods with their claws. She should have set wild wolves, but they always made her little Kore nervous. No, she'd used these pathetic useless nymphs, who mewled up at her with their frightened faces and eyes.She pushed the knot in her stomach down as it rose into her throat and threatened to knock her down. She said, "Find my daughter."A Siren stuttered, the mark on her face not fading. It would never fade. She said, "My lady, we do not know where to look." She looked down at herself, "On our own we will be too slow. Please my Lady, let us beg horses from your brother Poseidon, so we can ride."White serpent fears slithered down Demeter's spine, but she pushed them down too. Unbidden memories of hooves and running and, no, she would not think on it. The only emotion she could afford was rage. Let the white in her heart be cold. Rain falling from the sky and scouring flesh. She said slowly, precisely, "I trust my brother least of all. No." And from some purple cold place Demeter found such a smile that the Sirens shrank back with little bleats of terror, and she said, "We will not beg horses from my brother. Instead I will give you what I should have done from the beginning." Sparks crackled from her fingers and the wind cracked the sky.The Sirens shrieked and cried, but Demeter's heart must be ice, cold as the slashing hail that beat the earth. Lest she fail her daughter. Demeter buried thoughts of darkness and unheard screams. She made herself watch as flesh melted and the Sirens changed.Their faces she left, for they would need to ask questions. Their eyes she transmuted into eagle's eyes, so that they could look far, find her sweet Kore. The wail of the wind crying out, "Where is Kore?" She gave them such far-seeing eyes, wide and unblinking, like owls, so they could see in the night. She melted them, reshaped them with gray wings for the breaking in her heart, and black feathers for the color the sky would now be. Demeter said, "Find Kore."The Sirens rose into the sky on their new-made wings. They spiraled into the sky. Spread out in nine directions for nine sisters.Demeter stood in her sacred grove and stared at her daughter's flower footprints, battered in the muddy pools.Now that she was alone, as much as a goddess of Nature could ever be alone, she fell to her knees like a tree before the wind. All around her, trees were ripped from their roots and flew on angry wind hands until slammed into the earth. Her knees skidded on the frozen ground and she pushed the knot in her belly out.Threw up her fear and pain and flowers on the ground. They froze as they fell. EvaHer feet ached from standing all day. Sometimes she thought she should get a job in a shop where she could talk to people, or a factory where there were regular breaks. But she'd had her job for almost twenty years now.Got it when Joe was just a baby. When Ames left and she'd sat in their little apartment staring at a white pile of bills and the rent come due. Super rattling round the door.Little Joe gurgling and how was she to pay for someone to care for him on top of their bills. And how could she leave him alone all the hours in the day.Sat staring at her bills and the gone-over, ratted-up newspaper. Back before there were all these Internet cafés and job boards. Roll the Dice. Monsters. Yahoos. When it was a woman at a Formica table with a red pen and a newspaper scavenged from the garbage at the café down the street.Then she found it. A nice quiet job that was far away from crowds. Where she could prop Joe up in a bassinet or sit him in a chair. Watch him out of the corner of her eye until he got old enough for school.She vacuumed books at the City Library.It seemed sad sometimes. All those books no one ever read. Someone put a lot of love into those pages. They'd spent hours and years of their lives. Now their children sat on gray-green metal shelves in tiny rooms with names like Mesopotamia or Section VIII.So lonely and forgotten. Even with HEPA-filtered air conditioning and special anti-mold thisits and thatsits, their tops were covered in dust.Every weekday, she came in. Put up her little yellow sign. Pulled out the special vacuum, with its special filters that she didn't use because they weren't really good enough for the books.Instead, she'd tie a piece of cheesecloth over the long black bristles of the hose. Pull down a handful of books, run the vacuum along the top and sides, then put them back again to gather new dust. Sometimes, she'd look at the titles. Sometimes she'd open a pretty one made of leather and colorful paper. But mostly she vacuumed.When Joe was a baby, she'd started in the basement with 000. As a toddler, he'd run her ragged through 200. Tossing books on the floor and chewing on edges. But it was good for a boy to eat a little dirt. But she worried someone would notice the little bite marks on the covers. By the time she made it to 500, he was old enough to stay home by himself, but still, sometimes after school he'd come and sit at one of the tables at the end of the row and do his homework. He was a good boy, her Joe. Sometimes, he'd pull something she'd vacuumed down and look through it. He was a smart boy, her Joe.By the time she got to 600, Library'd decided it wanted the books listed in the shiny new computers downstairs with their glowing green screens and waiting cursors. Since she was pulling all the books down anyway, they gave her a brown computer with an acid green monitor, a little wand, a box, and a stack of stickers.So that was her day. She'd pull down handfuls of books. She'd vacuum the top and the sides. She'd slap on stickers. Two-finger type in each book's number. The computer didn't want names, only numbers. She'd run the wand over the lines on each book's sticker until the light on the box beeped. Then she'd put the books back where'd they'd wait.Now the chair at the end of the row was empty. Her Joe gone off to sea so he could look at all the things he'd read about when he'd wandered back to 300 or climbed into the high stacks to read ahead in 900.She hadn't made it that far yet—800 was slow going. Books all sorts of sizes and hard to hold in her hand.Today, it was Wednesday, Wodan's Day. So after work she stopped at the farmers' market on the way home. She walked past the mural of the All Father strapped to his tree with the hanging horses that looked like so much market meat, the ones Joe had always said looked cool. She walked past the shrine to Demeter that Joe said looked like her.Eva couldn't see it. It didn't matter. Today she was alone. She touched the foot of the statue, because Demeter was a mother too.She went by stalls full of fennel and almonds and honey and lampreys and bread and everything anyone could want. Maenads selling homemade wine. Fresh fish caught by Selkies, who wore their sealskins as thick full coats that they wouldn't take off, even on a hot summer day.Today was cold and rainy. Eva wished she had a warm fur coat that'd slick the rain drops off like butter on a hot skillet. But she didn't. She had a coat Joe found for her at a thrift store. It was yellow with daisies on it and if the weatherproof on it wasn't so good, it didn't matter.Daisies needed rain.She bought food that Joe would like. Because maybe today would be the day that Joe came home. At the docks, they said there was nothing to worry about. Ships popped off the edge of the world all the time, only to pop up again someplace unexpected. Happened all the time. Generally everyone came back rich as Croesus and with stories to tell.The ones that came back.Plenty to worry about, with the ship long overdue from its run, and the creditors howling for blood, and newspapers, the kind you see in the market checkout line, showing pictures of sea monsters and shipwrecks and Davy Jones's locker.Great big ship too. Joe had been so proud and happy to get himself a berth. He'd say, "Mama, it's one hundred and fifty cubits long and forty cubits wide, and they only take the best, one hundred and fifty of us to sail down the Sea of Reeds and into the world beyond.Clear as a bell the day he left. Not a cloud in the sky. Not that she'd seen it. She'd been at work vacuuming books. She knew it would embarrass Joe to have his mama standing at the dock crying as he left.So she kissed him goodbye in the morning. Told him to write and wear a sweater and left before she could cry on him. Blew her nose on cheesecloth instead and not very many books got logged and dusted at all.Been raining for months now. Drizzling and pouring and squalling. Not that she could hear it in the library. But she heard it sure enough at home in her little narrow bed, listening to the sky falling down. Pulled her heavy wool army blanket up high.Joe'd given it to her for her fortieth. Bought it for her at a surplus store. Then glued on daisies from the craft store down the road.She pulled the blanket over her head, hot and musty, and curled onto her side. Let the water leak out of her eyes as outside the sky fell down. DemeterShe covered herself in a dark cloak. She hid her bright hair. She walked like darkness on the deep. She wandered where the winds blew her.She could not stop. All around her the winds wailed her daughter's name.She was not sweet Demeter. Not soft Demeter. Not Demeter, bringer of gifts. She was Demeter Erinys. In her hands, she held torches. Fire burned from her hands. Where she stepped the earth cracked. Spilled fire onto the land. Where she walked hail and snow fell.She did not stop. She could not stop. She did not eat. She did not drink. She walked over the water, the raging waves slapped by her wind. She beat the water, beat on her brother's water. She let him feel her rage.She beat the land. She cracked mountains with her steps. She leveled forests with her walking.She wandered. A timeless darkness of wind and fire and rage.She kept the rage up as long as she could. Let the world see her anger, but the fear like creeping serpents slid up her spine.Found her when she came to the City at the edge of the world where the earth was covered in stone and hearts were stone too. The City where the past and the future met and bore this bastard child that oozed factory smoke from its shoreline sores.She kept her cloak over her face. The people did not know her. She walked down the City's streets. The people, they turned away from her as she whispered to them, her voice shattered glass from her screams. She asked them, "Have you seen Kore?"They edged away from her.She asked, "Have you seen my daughter?"They waited at street corners where the lights told them to stop and go and pretended not to hear her. When the lights said green, they crossed the street and never glanced at her at all.It rained on her. It rained on them. They held their umbrellas high and rushed by her like she was invisible. But she was not, for all that the fires on her hands had burned low, she was not.She was there. Standing there. Weeping burning tears in the freezing rain.She swayed against a stone building. It did not yield to her. It was not like her home of trees in the sacred wood where she lived with her daughter. With Kore.The cold serpents of fear slipped up her spine and into her mind. Stole her motion. Stole her heat. Brought her to her knees. She worried at the bone bracelet on her wrist. All that was left of her other daughter. Her first daughter. She'd failed her too, the day she was born.The white serpents coiled in her mind. They flickered tongues of failure and not good enough, not hard enough, not strong enough, weak, useless, pathetic, feeble, dismal dreaming wretch. They slid through her flickering memories. They reminded her that she'd picked flowers once too. That she'd smiled at her brother sea as the waves lapped upon the shore. That she hadn't run fast enough, hard enough, strong enough. They hissed into her eyes and ears. They showed her sweet Kore in the dark, her voice ripped apart by screams and torn.Demeter thought she might have screamed then. She would have torn down the stone buildings. Would have tossed them into the hateful relentless sea, if her screams hadn't given out with the wind. Fallen now into sour snow, red-brown and burning. Would have closed her eyes and let the serpents have her, eat her heart, if Hekate hadn't found her there.Hekate of the crossroads. Demeter opened her eyes and saw her, dressed in power and decision. Hekate held soft light in her hands. She touched Demeter's face tenderly. Held water to her lips, like the sea-born daughter that Demeter had buried in the cold ground, never spoken her name. Gone like Kore was gone.Demeter found herself sobbing dry heaving sobs as Hekate held her like a mother. Like Demeter's own mother never would. Not for her a mother's hand. Kronos had swallowed Demeter down like a stone.Hekate held Demeter in her arms and rocked her back and forth. Sang a lullaby. The same song that Demeter sang to her little Kore when she was scared. When she was frightened. She frightened so easily. She was so soft.The serpents tightened their coils. They showed her visions of Kore. No mother to hold her and keep her safe."Shh . . . " said Hekate. "Shhh. . . . " Smoothed back Demeter's tangled hair. Rocked her softly. She whispered, "I heard your daughter's cry, but I didn't see who it was. I came to find you. To tell you what I know." Then smiling, with soft green eyes, she reached into Demeter and pulled the serpents out and dropped them to the ground.She said, "Here, let me help you." She put words to deeds and helped Demeter to her feet. EvaEva kneaded the bread in her hands. The smell of the salty dough filled her nose and mouth. She pushed and she pulled.Dough won't rise if you don't work it.She didn't look at the yellow curtains sprigged with holly on the windows.She didn't look at the cream-colored tiles with their honey-colored swirls. She'd always called them her honey bunches. She'd kept them wiped and clean and told Joe they were what kept her baby so sweet.She didn't look at the yellowish cream-colored paint mottling the walls. She'd sponged it on herself. She'd done the careful ivy vines across the white cabinets. She'd mottled them with wildflower posies. She'd painted lots of artless daisies and shy violets and brassy sunflowers. Eva didn't like proud flowers. She liked her flowers wild and all around. Each leaf and petal carefully pounced into the wall with a stencil brush when she and Ames had moved in.Not that he'd helped much. Made a few dabs and told her he was no good at this sort of thing. That her flowers were better. Got that look in his eye and soon enough they were making flowers in the tight bed in the curtained back room. Then later, less and less. Until he wasn't pouncing here at all anymore.Her forever-and-a-day hubby was long gone now. Younger, prettier faces had beckoned, but the ivy and flowers remained.The frozen-in-time rabbits peeked out from behind still vines and silent pansies under the bright fluorescent lights.She'd called her baby, her Joe, her silly dilly rabbit when he was just a boy. Eyes wide as saucepans in his serious face. He'd run around the room to see where all she'd hidden them for him. The lower rabbits were a little worn from where tiny fingers had just had to keep on reaching to touch. The higher ones, too, for that matter.He'd always insisted that the red robin in the corner was her. Even though she couldn't sing a note, he'd always blink at her and turn on the little transistor radio, and ask her to sing along with him. He always asked for silly songs for a bright sunny room. Then he'd run after the dust motes, caught them in his hands, calling out, "Watch me, mama, watch me."Her silly dilly rabbit.She didn't look at any of it. She kept her head down and pushed on the dough. Salt and flour. Tears hot on her cheeks, but she didn't wipe at them. Let them burn out of her glue-tacky eyes and down her hot cheeks to splash on the old wooden board and onto her honey bunches.She pulled and pushed on the dough on the wooden board in the bright cheery kitchen and didn't even notice as the weak winter sun streamed its dusty motes on in. DemeterHekate brought her soup and water. Hekate glared at the man at the counter and told him that he should be glad that a goddess had come to his shop.She brought what the crossroads always brought. Choices. Calmly spooned soup into Demeter and told her to stop running already and stand still and think.Demeter ate her soup and thought. The sun was hidden now, but it hadn't been hidden when her Kore was taken. She said that and Hekate smiled.Hekate put her in a shiny plastic box of a car. They drove cars here. Some people. Hekate did.She took Demeter across the city. Made the stone-hearted men and women make way for her. Took her up to the temple of Helios. Then stood back. Crossroads don't do the work for you. They just make the way.Demeter looked Helios over. Zeus' son. It was in his burning eyes, angry to be bothered, as he washed and waxed his chariot. As he sniffed at her smell, at the smell of her wanderings. It was there in the curl of his lip as he looked at the scratches in her flesh from where she had clawed herself. It was there in his jaw that would go where it would.He was the sun, and he knew it.But she was the earth, and his light would never shine again unless she willed it. She smiled such a smile as had him put aside his sponges and buckets. She said, "Helios! Show me respect, god to goddess. I'm here about my sweet young seedling, renowned for her beauty, I turn to you as one who ranges over all the earth and sea." Clenched her hands and let him see the ice of her heart, rage gone into dull, cold snow. "Have you seen Kore and who took her?"Helios stared at her, like a man looks at a distasteful awkward thing. He shook the soap suds off his hands. He said, very carefully, as if she were some monstrous horror that must be placated with soft sweet words—like his father there too—"Daughter of Rhea with the beautiful hair, Queen Demeter! Of course I'll tell you, because I really respect you and I feel sorry for you, really, I do." He smiled with his lips, but the lie was in his eyes. He said, "While you've been grieving for your child, the one with the delicate ankles, I went and talked to dad about it, and cloud-gatherer Zeus himself takes responsibility."Demeter stared at Helios. Stared at the sun, which they said would make your eyes go blind, but her eyes kept seeing. Her ears kept hearing.He said, "I saw Hades grab Kore, while he was driving his chariot." Helios stopped and patted his own golden chariot. Demeter stared at him. She did not trust her words. Even that brother too then could not be trusted. If she'd known it then, while they grew in their father's stomach, she'd have killed all her brothers.Helios took her silence for something else. He said, "Since there's nothing much any of us can do about it, what's done is done." He smiled like it meant something. Like her silence meant something else. He said, "I urge you, goddess. Stop your loud cries of lamentation. You should not have anger without bounds, all in vain. Lighten up." He dared to twinkle at her. "Let the sun shine. Hades is a pretty good as a son-in-law. He's got half the earth and all its riches.Demeter nodded slowly. She looked at Hekate of the crossroads, but Hekate did not tell her what to do. She simply hugged her in the embrace of directions and waited.Everything that lay upon the land was Demeter's, but what lay below, that belonged to her brother Hades. Just as what lay beneath the sea belonged to her other brother. Just as the empty, vapid sky belonged to her youngest brother, her once-husband, Zeus. Demeter nodded. She said nothing. She made her slow way from the home of Helios. Away from the home of the gods.The sky did not howl with wind. She was done with that. Now it was time to show the gods what still winter could bring. EvaShe stood on the sidewalk in the rain holding a child's plastic umbrella covered in ducks. It always seemed cheery and she liked to watch people through the plastic as they walked down the sidewalk.Today she stood dully at attention next to the bus stop sign. There was no shelter—just a metal post in the cement and a white metal sign with numbers on it.The same people stood at this stop every day, but she didn't talk to them. Although, in the past, the man in the green cardigan always said hello, and she said hello, and she'd smiled looking down at the cracks in the cement. But not now.Today she stared with eyes straight ahead. Watched beads of rain hit the clear plastic of her umbrella and roll down in a steady stream. The blue eyes on one of the ducks had worn off. She stared past it, her own eyes as empty.Then her bus arrived. She closed her umbrella and spent a moment drenched in the rain as she stepped up onto the black plastic tread. She flashed her bus pass, but the bus driver hardly cared. She was a regular on his route. He was more interested in watching the teenagers that jostled and shoved their way on after her.She went to the middle of the bus where there would be better luck getting seats. None there now, but she knew that in a few stops half the bus would get off for the connection to the 185.She stood in the narrow center of the bus, holding onto a metal bar. Her feet ached from her day.They reached the transfer point and people rushed off. She slid into the seat where she always sat.She sat with her knees up against the hard blue plastic seat in front of her, her feet dangling down into space. It felt good to put her feet up after standing all day, and the bus driver would yell at her if she put her feet on another chair. As he should. It wouldn't be right.Joe always thought it was funny to see her with her legs like that.She sat in the hard plastic seat and stared out the window as the bus passed cars and buildings. Rain washed the grime and the graffiti from the windows. John loves Alcmene. Rodrigo is a troll. Squiggle, squiggle this.Joe always loved to read the graffiti, even though she told him not to. He thought it was funny. Would make up stories about John and Alcmene. Rodrigo the troll under the Copper Bay Bridge. The secrets behind squiggle, squiggle.She traced the squiggles with a finger. They didn't tell her anything. No matter how many times she ran her fingers along their lines.A man's voice behind her said, "Um . . . hello."She looked up. It was the man in the green cardigan. He said, "I think you missed your stop. Don't you normally get off at 5th?" He smiled at her.She couldn't smile back. She wanted to cry because she'd missed her bus stop, because the walls of the bus felt like they were closing in. She didn't and they weren't. She pulled the cord and got off the bus. Opened her umbrella and walked down the hill toward her apartment.At least it was downhill. DemeterShe walked slowly and carefully down the roads. Left Hekate at the crossroads of the City. Walked unknown among the people. She walked out from the City along the long curving peninsula that wrapped out and around like an upraised arm. She walked until she came around the far side and stared back at the City across the bay.All around, people were walking.They did not know her. They did not recognize her. That was good, because she was waiting, the still winter rain gentle on her face. She looked old.She looked like an old, old woman, so worn out and wrinkled that no man could ever love her. A woman whose children had gone.The serpents did not plague her now. She let them curl around her arms. Let them lick her face. Lick the bone bracelet of the daughter who'd gone into the earth. Both daughters had gone into the earth.She sat by a well that had been sacred to her once and let them lick at her face. Twin serpents to remind her.A girl said, "Excuse me."Demeter looked up. Four girls stood smiling at her. They looked like goddesses, although in their eyes she saw that they didn't know how beautiful they were. She saw their names. She saw Kallithoê, who was the eldest and took everything very seriously. She saw Kallidikê, who wore Death Metal shirts and worried about stepping on ants. She saw Kleisidikê, who worried about the spots on her chin and the weight of her thighs and everything in between. She saw lovely little Dêmô, who was as tender as a spring vine climbing up a wall.She looked and she saw the soft sweet green rush of their hearts.Death Metal Kallidikê smiled at her. She said, "Are you okay?"Lovely little Dêmô hopped on one foot and she said, "How did you get out here? Do you have a home." She hopped on the other foot. "You should come to the palace! We've got rooms full of women way older than you.""Shhh . . . " said Death Metal Kallidikê, but there was no anger in her shh, only sisterly exasperation. Demeter wondered what it must be like to have a sister to shush, who shushed like that. She and Hera had never been that close. Demeter caressed her serpents as Death Metal Kallidikê said, "Our parents are always ready to help people find shelter and food,"And work," piped lovely little Dêmô. "But you didn't say. How did you get here?"Serious Kallithoê ruffled lovely little Dêmô's hair.Demeter looked at the girls, clustered together so beautiful even on this cold winter's day. She wanted to give them a winter's gift. She'd been a gift giver once. She said, "My name is Doso. I'm from Crete, but I was abducted by pirates."Lovely little Dêmô said, "Really!" and hopped forward.Demeter nodded slowly. Let the serpents settle in a pool in her lap. She said, "They traveled all over the seas, until they landed in the harbor of Thorikos. There, the women of the town boarded the boat and they beat up the pirates with rolling pins."Lovely little Dêmô laughed, "Really!"Demeter nodded. "After they freed me, I set out over the mainland, until I came here. I do not know where here is, but . . . I beg you, if you know the name of a family that has children to be looked after, I have experience with sickly children and I want to work honestly."Worried Kleisidikê was wondering if they should do a background check on the old woman with the unlikely story, but lovely little Dêmô hopped on one foot and Death Metal Kallidikê said, "There isn't a single family in this town that would turn you away, looking as you do." Straightened her shoulders and said very firmly, glancing at worried Kleisidikê, "But you should come to our palace. We have a little baby brother who isn't well and if you help our mother with him, she will reward you.""Really, really, really, well," said lovely little Dêmô. She waved her hands in the air."Then it is settled," said Demeter, and the girls filled their jars with sweet well water that was sacred to her still. They set out, looking magnificent, although they did not know it. She followed them to the house of their parents.She saw their mother, Metaneira, sitting with her son in her lap, weak and small, tender seedling born in this still winter, poor baby. Demeter stood in the door, and although she was cloaked and veiled, for a moment, the light that she hid crept out and filled the room.Metaneira stood up. She wanted to give Demeter her chair, but Demeter could not. It was too beautiful.She sat down on a stool and would have been quiet in her sorrow.But lovely little Dêmô jumped around the room like a cricket. She had a rolling pin in her hand and she was threatening pirates with it. Demeter smiled. She did not know from where, but a laugh hopped up her throat.She asked Metaneira for some water.Metaneira gave it. Metaneira said, "We humans endure the gifts the gods give us, even when we are grieving over what has to be. The yoke has been placed on our neck. But now that you have come here, there will be as many things that they give to you as they give to me. My daughters have said that you have experience with sickly children." Metaneira brushed the blanket that held her child. "Can you help with my son? He was born to this world of winter, and I want only that he reach a happy age."Demeter nodded. She said, "I know an antidote more powerful than any other." She took the child to her fragrant bosom, in her immortal hands and through her veil, she smiled at Metaneira.The cold serpents curled around her legs as a lick of warmth crept through the room. EvaEva didn't go to church much. Or temple. Or synagogue. Or all the other words for place to pray and ask for things.Not that she didn't need things, but she didn't like to ask. Seemed pushy. Like the gods didn't have enough to do. And generally, it was better to stay out of their way.Now she went to them all. Every god of the sea that she could think of.She sat in the pews at the Greek White-Bearded Poseidon's temple for hours. Hands folded up and eyes squeezed shut. Thinking, hoping praying wishing dreaming. Please, please, please.She went to the Egyptian Serpent-Eyed Amathaunta's temple for hours more. Amathaunta was a mother. She might, somewhere in her cold serpent heart, understand.Went trembling to the Norse Aegir's temple, him always so surly and cruel. Offered to pour him a glass of ale every day for a year and a day. Every day for ten years. Every day for the rest of her life, if he'd roll her son home in the arms of his nieces and daughters, the undines. If he'd send Joe on home.Then just in case, please, just in case, she gave two coins in Charon's box. To pay for her son's ride to the next world if he'd gone that way. DemeterShe lived in the palace of Metaneira. Each night, she anointed the baby, Dêmophôn, with ambrosia. She breathed sweet breath on him, soft as a zephyr, as outside the still winter stretched on.At night, she blanketed him in the holy fire from her hands as if he were a smoldering log. She hung her bracelet of bone over his crib and let it spin for him to watch. His young eyes blinked and learned to see.He grew like a daemon. Like a tree in spring. Sap flowing through his veins.His parents and his sisters didn't know what she was doing, but they marveled at him.But worried Kleisidikê fussed about this stranger. There were stories about witches who fatted children for their supper. She worried at her mother, until Metaneira growled at her and put up a device with which to see and watch. She saw Demeter put Dêmophôn in the fire.Demeter could hear her scream from across the palace. Metaneira ran into the room. She cried out, "Dêmophôn!"Demeter heard her. She carefully put Dêmophôn on the ground and let the fire out. She sighed, "I swear by the Styx"—and how it made her grimace to swear by the river that kept her from her daughter, but swear she did. "Immortal and ageless for all days would I have made your little boy."Metaneira snatched up Dêmophôn and cradled him.Demeter sighed. "Because he has sat in my lap, he will have unwilting honor in my eyes. He cannot avoid death or the fates, but for my care, he will meet them strongly." She pushed back her robe and let Metaneira see her face. Let her see her light and know her true name.Demeter had hidden it so long, she'd almost forgotten it. She said, "Please build me a temple. I need to wait, and I would like to wait here awhile."She smiled at Metaneira and went to the well that had been sacred to her once and was sacred to her still. She watched the people rush from the City. They knew her for a goddess now. They built her a temple. They prayed for warm weather. They prayed for sunny skies. They prayed for bountiful harvests. They prayed for an end to winter.Demeter smiled at them and went inside. She went into the temple and waited with garlands in her hair.Outside, seeds did not sprout. Farmers ploughed fields with oxen and tractors in vain. Hunger swept the land. The gods in their city, they were hungry too. There was no sacrificial meat for offerings. There was no grain for burning.Even Zeus noticed. He sent Iris, beautiful color-swept Iris, to summon Demeter. He had her say, "Come here this instant."Demeter smiled, and she obeyed Zeus, the son of Kronos, in her fashion. She ran the space between sky and earth like a girl. She smiled a terrible smile and went to her temple in the City. The little temple that sat in the midst of crumbling stained buildings that once were mighty. She called out, "Zeus, the one who has unwilting knowledge summons you."Zeus sent other gods. Blessed beautiful gods. One by one they came with beautiful gifts. She stared at them as they made their offerings. Cheap plastic and toys. She said, "I will never to go to fragrant Olympus and I will never send up the harvest of the earth until I see my daughter."She said this to messengers. She said this to the gods sent by Zeus.She waited.She felt it the moment that Zeus gave in. Not that he met with her, but she felt it when he sent Hermes down into the earth. She heard his swift steps. She heard the vehicle's roar as Hermes sped away.Demeter went out of her temple. She went to her sacred grove. She ran like a maenad through the mountains. She could hear the car returning. She could feel its passenger speeding toward her.She came to her grove and saw her. She reached out and held her little girl in her arms. She reached out and breathed in spring, and all around, the earth sighed. EvaShe was vacuuming. Though why she worked in her dreams she didn't know, but was like that a lot. All day in front of green shelves full of books. All night vacuuming books while turtles crawled under her ladder. Didn't they know that was bad luck? So she was always having to climb down from her ladder and move them somewhere safe.A sandbox on the sea, and the waves were crashing. Behind her the shelves stood and pretended they didn't mind the sea spray, not a bit.But the turtles just kept crawling back to the ladder and she had to keep getting down. She was never going to get to 900. Never find out where Joe had gone.She wished she could skip ahead, but she couldn't. She had to follow one set of books on the other. If she skipped some books they might think she was never coming. They might fling themselves to the floor and bend their spines.She couldn't be responsible for that. So she moved the turtles and dusted the books every night, the sea at her back.Sometimes she'd hear a noise, but when she turned, she didn't see no one. Just the sea. Just the turtles. She'd go back to vacuuming.Then she felt a hand on her shoulder and a voice that said, "Don't turn around, Mama."She stared at the books, frightened. It was Joe's voice. She said, "Why not?""Because I'm not really here, and when you see that, you'll forget again," said the voice. The hand felt heavy on her shoulder. Warm. She could feel Joe's class ring through the thin cotton of her dress. She wanted so bad to turn around. But she didn't. Because then she'd lose what little she had.She whispered, "You dead, Joe?""'Fraid so, Mama." Both hands on her shoulders now. He said, "The Eye of Horus went down in a sudden storm. But I wanted you to know that I'm good where I am. I hear you crying to yourself every night and I just wanted you know that." The hands squeezed her shoulders. "I had a whole speech practiced, Mama, but I can't remember it now."Which was her Joe all over.Then he picked her up, thumbs under her arms, and turned around with her. Bare feet in the sand and the sea in front of her. The sand felt warm and soft.She sat down on the beach. She could feel the warmth of the sun through her thin dress. The soft sand on her ankles as she sat with her legs stretched out. She sat on the beach with Joe's hand on her shoulder, and the little green turtles crawled in random patterns on the sand.In the morning, she woke up before her alarm even peeped.She looked at her room with its handmade curtains. She pushed aside the heavy wool army blanket that Joe'd bought her at the surplus store and glued on daisies from the craft store down the road. It was getting too warm to use.She walked barefoot into her kitchen with its pretty yellow curtains.She cut herself a slice of bread with her bread knife in long leisurely strokes. She dipped it in olive oil with garlic salt.It tasted good.She walked barefoot onto her balcony and listened to the City waking up in the growing morning light.She decided that today she would look for a Job in a shop or a factory, and leave the books to some other poor mother. To be chewed and dusted by someone else.Went outside to the little park down the way. Fed ducks pieces of stale bitter bread. They ate it up in greedy quacks. She braided daisies into a chain that she put around her neck. Leaned back on the grass and breathed in. Breathed out. ----- CHAPTER BREAK ----- Length: Mp3, 14.4Mb, 50:35 Music Credit: Portions of Jimmy Scott, Motherless Child; Madonna, Ray of Light Audiofic archive downloadAlternate download link
83168	De tva systrarna	{ "Archive Warning": "Major Character Death", "Category": "F/F", "Characters": null, "Fandom": "English and Scottish Popular Ballads - Child", "Language": "Svenska", "Rating": "Mature", "author": "by Luzula", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2010-04-27T00:00:00", "words": "1,112", "Additional Tags": "Podfic Available, Revisionist Fairy Tale, No Incest", "Relationship": null, "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": "Scandinavian AO3 Challenge", "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	Där bodde en bonde nere vid älvstranden, och han hade två döttrar. Den yngsta var ljus, med hår klart som solsken, och den äldsta var mörk, med hår som den svartaste jord.De var förstås inte systrar egentligen. Det kanske du redan har gissat--de var ju så olika.Den ljushåriga flickans mor hade dött, och hennes far hade gift om sig. Han sörjde sin döda fru, men livet måste fortsätta, även för de som sörjer. Han kunde inte klara gården på egen hand, med åkrarna och korna, och hans dotter behövde en mor.Kvinnan han gifte sig med var själv en änka, och hon hade redan en dotter, med mörkt hår precis som hon. Folk i byn skakade på huvet. Hon skulle förstås bry sig mer om sin egen dotter, och de två flickorna skulle aldrig komma överens.Men det gjorde de, och de stod varann så nära som om de varit systrar på riktigt. Närmare, till och med.De var alltid tillsammans, det ljusa huvudet bredvid det mörka när de satt och sydde ihop och pratade med låga röster. Deras mor hörde hur de skrattade när hon lagade middag i köket, och hon var tacksam för att hennes dotter hade hittat en sådan vän.Flickorna delade ett rum uppe under taket, där vinden blåste snålt om vintern. Den ena systern brukade krypa ut från sina filtar, sätta ner fötterna på det kalla golvet och springa över till den andra flickans säng. Ingen hade väl tyckt att det var något konstigt, inte ens byns skvallertackor, för det var varmare att dela säng än att ligga ensam.Men om de kunde ha hört vad flickorna viskade i mörkret, då skulle de minsann ha pratat. Tänk om de kunde ha sett deras uppsnörda nattlinnen, och hur deras läppar möttes, och deras utsläppta hår på kudden. Det skulle aldrig tagit någon ände på skvallret.Flickorna var inte dumma, och de gjorde inte sånt i dagsljus, där någon kunde se. Om dagen kunde bara deras blickar ha förrått dem, men alla visste att systrarna tyckte om varann, så ingen misstänkte något.Men något hände som kom emellan dem, och det var en pojke.Han beundrade den mörkhåriga flickan, och gav henne blommor och lockade med henne på promenader i skogen och längs älven. Hon var smickrad av hans uppvaktning, och brydde sig inte om sin systers svartsjuka.Deras mor skakade på huvudet när hon såg att de var osams. Hon kunde se att det var på grund av pojken. Ja ja, de måste ju gifta sig någon gång, tänkte hon, men det är synd att de skulle fästa sig vid samma pojke.En morgon om våren gick de två systrarna ner för att tvätta vid älven, som rann strid och kall ner från fjällen. Ända sedan hon var barn hade den ljushåriga systern fått höra att hon skulle akta sig för att gå ner till älvstranden, så att hon inte skulle falla i och drunkna. Men de var gamla nog nu att klara av att tvätta på egen hand.Snösmältningen var i full gång, och vattnet i älven forsade högt och vilt. Men det kunde inte dränka ljudet av flickornas gräl. Det var hårda ord de sa till varann, sådant man snart ångrar. De glömde både tvätten och älven, och den ljushåriga flickan slant på en sten och föll i det iskalla vattnet.Den andra flickan ropade till och räckte henne sin hand. Men det var för sent, och hon stod ensam kvar på stranden och grät.Den ljushåriga flickan kunde inte simma, så hon drunknade. Älvens vatten bar henne långt därifrån. Ömsom flöt hon, ömsom sjönk hon, tills älven nådde slätterna där den bredde ut sig, vindlande och långsam. Hennes långa hår fastnade i ett videsnår vid stranden. Fiskarna åt på henne och korparna hackade ut hennes ögon, tills det ingenting fanns kvar utom de vita benen på botten, och hennes gyllene hår, som satt fast i snåret och flöt ut i vattnet som sjögräs.Om sommaren kom en spelman vandrande förbi, och han såg håret som glimmade i solen. De vita benen ropade på honom, och han vadade ut och hämtade upp dem ur dyn. Tålmodigt trasslade han loss hårtestarna från snåret, för han kunde se att de hade något att säga.Spelmannen tog hennes bröstben och byggde sig en harpa. Han tvinnade håret till strängar, och tog revbenen till att spänna upp strängarna, och av de små, späda benen från hennes fingrar gjorde han tapplor. När harpan var färdig, stämde han den och slog an på strängarna, och han hade aldrig hört en vackrare klang.Han var en kringvandrande spelman som spelade för mat och husrum, och för den betalning han kunde få. Många var de marknader och fester han spelade på under den sommaren. Men fast harpans klang var ren och klar, så höll den tyst om sina hemligheter, eller talade i vart fall inte om dem för honom.Om hösten när björklöven blev gula som harpans strängar, reste spelmannen upp längs älven till de små fjällnära byarna. När han stannade till i en by höll de på att ställa till med bröllop, och han erbjöd sig att stanna och spela på festen.Som du kanske har gissat, så var det den mörkhåriga flickan som skulle gifta sig. Fast hon sörjde sin döda styvsyster, så hade hon bestämt sig för att gifta sig med pojken som uppvaktade henne. Han var inte sämre än någon annan hon kunde ha valt, och hans far hade stora marker.Hela byn kom till bröllopet, och många släktingar och vänner från andra byar dessutom. Det skulle bli en storslagen fest, och brudens klänning var vit som snö och broderad med riktiga pärlor, även om hon inte såg så lycklig ut som en brud borde vara.Spelmannen tänkte slå an en brudmarsch i dur, men när hans fingrar rörde vid strängarna klang de i moll. När hon hörde harpan spela, blev bruden så vit i ansiktet som den klänning hon bar. Hon lämnade sin fars sida och tog harpan från spelmannens händer.Harpan talade till henne så som den aldrig gjort förut. Hon spelade tills tårarna rann hos de som lyssnade. Hon spelade barnet ur moderns knä, och barken från det hårdaste träd, och vattnet ur älvens fåra.Men hon kunde inte spela sin älskade från dödens famn.När hon spelat klart vände hon och gick. Hon lämnade sin mor och sin far och sin brudgum och sin by. Jag vet inte vart hon gick, men jag vet att hon tog harpan med sig. Under åren som kom blev hon vida berömd i landet för sitt spelande, och hennes musik rörde vid hjärtat på alla som lyssnade.
6892	Youre Gonna Make Me	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "M/M", "Characters": "Jack Harkness, Ianto Jones, Gwen Cooper", "Fandom": "Torchwood", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Explicit", "author": "by Hope", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2009-07-27T00:00:00", "words": "10,627", "Additional Tags": "curtainfic, Domestic, Angst", "Relationship": "Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones", "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	Ianto's waiting for him when Jack gets up to the tourist office."You're lucky I didn't take the lift," Jack admonishes. "I told you to go ahead."Ianto shrugs. "For all your 'I've been everywhere, done everyone and eaten everything'--" he gives Jack a Look when Jack smiles in fond, vaguely lewd reminiscence. "--You're a surprisingly picky eater. I don't want to cook a meal and have you turn your nose up at it."Jack follows him outside. Even after a long day Ianto's still got a bit of strut left in his suited stride. Though that could just be because he knows Jack's watching."You just want someone to push your trolley," Jack retorts without heat, taking a few steps along the decking to look out over the evening slate of the Bay while Ianto locks up."No, I just want you to push my trolley," Ianto says with an entirely straight face."Ahah," Jack says, hooking his arm through Ianto's as they start walking towards the Plass. "Finally, the truth is revealed.""Finally?" Ianto's tone is more indulgent than scornful; he squeezes Jack's arm briefly in his elbow as they walk up the pale paving. It makes Jack want to grab him with both arms and waltz him up to where the water tower is poised, but he suspects that still talking in the flimsiest of metaphors about shopping trolleys means that Ianto might not approve of such extravagance just yet.There are a few other people around, but it's a week night, so they're mostly other Mermaid Quay workers on their way home; the buzz of Millennium Centre attendees is peaceably absent. It's not quite dark yet, and Jack is abruptly glad that he made Gwen go home early already; it's mid-autumn, drifting downward into the long months where they'll only see sunlight if they go out in the field in the middle of the day.This isn't sunlight, exactly. But at least it's not raining. Not now, anyway; as they cruise out of the garage and into traffic, the wheels of the cars around then send up a mist that's still faintly tinted gold by the sunset. The shadows around the bases of the buildings are inked a deep indigo, and Ianto flicks his headlights on as they drive through a built-up area. Jack's always found twilight kind of romantic in its own way.Not to mention supermarkets. All those plump, gleaming packets of foods and sundries look so enticing under the brash shine of fluorescent lights. So ordered. So contrived. So ordinary.Ianto walks the aisle with his head bowed as he taps at the screen of his PDA. Jack rests his forearms on the shopping trolley's handle and trails after him leisurely; smooth, ceaseless movement like a stalking shark. Jack smirks at the mental comparison, hunches his shoulders to pop his flipped collar a little higher.Ianto turns back, frowning when he sees Jack's languid pose. "Rice or potatoes?" he asks.Jack watches Ianto's fingers as they toy idly with the stylus. "Potatoes. You know, one day humans will come with these in-built carbohydrate moderators--""That's all very well, but for now you'll have to do with genuine British cuisine." They come to the end of the aisle, Ianto ventures briefly into the radiating cold of the nearby refrigerated cabinet, returning with a cling film-wrapped package. He tosses it into the trolley, Jack looks down: sausages."Bangers and mash?" Jack grins; Ianto gives him a warning look. "With mushy peas?""Only if you don't mind tinned," Ianto says, falling into step alongside Jack for a handful of paces, tucking the PDA into his breast pocket. The supermarket is crowded--everyone else is in the midst of their post-work hunger rush as well, after all--and soon Ianto needs to squeeze closer alongside to let another shellshocked-looking suited man to pass with his heavy-laden basket. Jack takes the opportunity to brush the side of his hand against the swell of Ianto's arse."Sorry," Ianto says to the woman standing in front of them with the double-wide stroller, facing them and not moving. They pause in the face of her unimpressed visage, at an impasse, at least until Ianto grips the side of Jack's trolley and steers them around her. "Honestly," Ianto mutters when they're around the corner, bringing the trolley to a halt with a steadying hand. "The entitlement of parents of small children..." He reaches over the trolley to grab a can off the shelf, then brandishes it at Jack. "Think you can gum this?"Jack gives a toothy grin. "I may be thousands of years old, but none of these babies are falsies."Ianto smirks. "Not the age inference I was making there, but nice to know anyway." He drops the can of peas into the trolley."Hey, falsies could be fun," Jack leisurely pursues the conversation with his usual pleasure in being contrary. "Though I suppose it could be a problem if they came out at an inopportune moment.""Could say the same about you, Sir," Ianto says breezily as they approach the fresh produce displays, their own kind of novelty."Oh, don't play coy with me, Mr Jones."Ianto flicks Jack an arched eyebrow that's more saucy that scornful, then leaves Jack to commune alone with the squashes while he goes in search of potatoes. It takes a little longer than Ianto expected to find them; Jack can tell by the look of mild disgruntlement Ianto's sporting when he returns, bag in hand. The souring of Ianto's mood is clear, enough to make Jack drop the planned quip about courgettes, and they walk to the checkout with the shortest queue in silence."Still not used to this car park," Jack murmurs when they step through the automatic doors and pause. Not that Jack really shopped all that much with Ianto back when his local was a Tesco's on the other side of town, but still, it's an acknowledgement of the shared stack of undermining trivialities that can grow tall enough cast their shadow over a good mood at any moment."This way," Ianto says, holding onto the edge of the trolley to help guide it as they walk across the tarmac with more speed than the indoor pace of stroll-and-browse, leading them to where he parked his car.It's a short drive back to Ianto's house, and full dark by the time they get there, headlights flashing across its fresh-painted façade briefly as Ianto turns the car at an acute angle while parking in the road. The grill of the car in front of them in front of them leers in increasing brightness as Ianto eases into the space before he turns off the engine, flicking them into sudden darkness.Jack forgets, again, tries to palm the light switch on as soon as he steps into the house before giving a growl of frustration; Ianto casts him a sympathetic glance as he turns the lights on in the kitchen, illuminating the rest of the open plan space well enough. "Sorry," Ianto says. "Forgot to buy bulbs, again."Jack picks his way across the obstacle course of the living room, shaking his head a little at the speed with which Ianto had navigated it. Ianto raises an eyebrow in question when Jack dumps his armful of groceries on the bench with a long suffering sigh.Jack gestures behind him. "They must move about on their own when we're not looking.""No, they don't," Ianto says, amused; though he looks over Jack's shoulders at the scattered boxes as if double-checking. "I move them around while you painstakingly linger over a single box of ticket stubs.""I can't help it if you're a heartless bastard without a shred of nostalgia.""Good thing you're around to make up for my horrible lack, then." Ianto puts the food waste pail down in front of Jack, then hands him a vegetable peeler. "Potatoes.""You know, rice doesn't require peeling.""You should have thought about that while we were still at Sainsbury's, then."They settle into the easy rhythm of cooking, Jack exchanging naked potatoes for a chopping board and onions. The rumble of the kettle and sizzle of the frying pan rises pleasantly, background noise for the metronomic sound of knife hitting wood. Jack blinks rapidly at the surge of burning moisture in his eyes, sniffing wetly and trying to wipe at his face with his sleeve without his onion-covered hand aggravating his face further."Here." Ianto edges around behind him, takes hold of Jack's lapels and eases his coat carefully off his shoulders. It'd been cold enough when they'd first got in that Jack hadn't felt the pressing need to take it off; with the kitchen firing up and onion fumes burning his sinuses, it's quite warm enough now, thank you very much. He grabs a tea towel from the hook at the end of the bench and rubs his face in it.Ianto scowls, taking the towel off him, using it to twist the cap off a beer bottle before tossing the towel at the foot of the washing machine. He's taken his own jacket off already, and when he turns back to the hob Jack admires the shimmer of the back of his waistcoat over broad shoulders and way the low buckle highlights the taper of his waist."If you want gravy, you're going to have to keep chopping," Ianto says without turning around.Jack takes a pull at the beer Ianto's left at his elbow, then keeps chopping.After dinner, eaten from plates on their laps on the sofa, they sit back and survey the landscape of the living room. This is Jack's favourite part of their evenings (well, second favourite); unpacking the boxes of Ianto's past, uncovering tiny morsels of his personality that Jack can't help but gorge himself on. It's like a kind of decadence; as if in handling these artefacts of Ianto's personal history, somehow Jack's getting an extra serving of Ianto's lifetime.And largely, it's a pleasant experience for Ianto as well. The boxes he'd packed up from the home he'd shared with Lisa had been dealt with while Ianto was on suspension. What clutters his new floor space now are carefully packed-up items from further in his past--his life with his family, before he left Cardiff for the first time; university years; trappings from his brief habitation of a bachelor pad.Jack had never picked Ianto for a pack rat, but when challenged as such Ianto responded that Jack shouldn't be surprised, considering Ianto's career of preserving and organising all kinds of dross. Even so, much of this is new for Jack. He'd not spent much time at Ianto's old flat, but then again neither had Ianto; it'd been too small for more than one person to occupy for any length of time and surely held more painful memories than fond within its dim, constrictive walls.The new house, however, is clearly new build; snapped up with the help of a Her Majesty's disaster fund hand-out and some judicious assigning of Torchwood's employee damages budgeting. Located in a largely unaffected part of town; the structural damage of the pokey flat in the bombings had made it easy for Ianto to slip out of the lease. Jack just hopes the miasma of this home's beginnings don't taint any future enjoyment that might be gained from it.So far it's doing well--so far they're doing well; they're here, aren't they? Evenings of easy food, of Jack uncovering and admiring Ianto's collection of bongs, of Ianto derailing the entire process by explaining the history of every person captured in his photo album from 1999. Of Jack blowing Ianto on the sofa, of them both getting to sleep at an hour reasonable enough to wake again painlessly at six.It's far from the desperation of the first month after coming out of cryo (after Tosh and Owen, after Grey). In the first month, turning the light out had felt like there was no one else left in the world, and not having Ianto touch him felt like tonnes of suffocating dirt pressing in at Jack from all sides. In the first month, the exhaustion at the end of every day came from the repeated blows of constantly turning around expecting to see members of his team he'd thought obsessively about for two thousand years but would never see again."Right," Ianto says at length. He stands, toeing the nearest box towards Jack. "You start on that one, then." He walks back into the kitchen, stacks their emptied plates into the sink then exits the room.Jack listens to the dampening thud of Ianto jogging upstairs before sliding off the sofa and onto the floor, bracing his back against the front of it as he pulls the box towards him. The tape is brittle, and it comes off in one long, perfectly aligned strip.At the top of the box is a carefully folded bit of red and white polyester that Jack unfolds to discover is a WRU flag. Lifting it out uncovers a huddle of bronzed sports trophies, all the same crudely crafted figure frozen in vaguely graceful motion, rugby ball balanced on a toe-tip, though the year engraved on the base changes. Jack examines them one-by-one; 1995, '96, '97... through to 2000. IANTO H. JONES they're branded; Jack smirks to think that there must have been more than one Ianto Jones for a middle initial to be required.He lines the bronze rugby clones up along the carpet and pulls out the next item with not a little relish; it's a photo album, tacky vinyl cover with the outline of a rugby ball embossed into it. The serial nature of the photos contained within are not unlike some tame illustration of the development of puberty, and Jack can't help but laugh. The diminutive team in the first photograph squint at the camera from round, boyish faces, and it takes Jack a while to locate Ianto amidst all the dark hair and moderately sullen expressions, and even then he's not sure. He's surer on the next couple of photos, years on the date plates continuing to match the years on the trophies; Ianto's snub nose is a fairly identifiable feature. Jack knows it well enough.The boys become more mismatched, heights and bulks varying but evening out at a more beefy level the further he flicks through, and Jack vaguely wishes he could have seen them on the field. 1998 and unmistakably there's Ianto, still squinting into the camera but at least faintly smiling this time, same familiar nose. Shoulders coming a little closer to actually filling out the red and green jersey, rather than just swimming in it, and just as tall if not taller than the boys on either side. The line of his jaw is still delicate, clean, and Jack flips forward a couple more years, eyes searching over the final photo, until, there--Ianto standing in the back row, this time, arms folded over his chest, and bizarrely like his Ianto only a little more lean, expression blithe and fresh. Thighs powerful and bare below the shorts; a teenager's wet dream. Jack grins in delight."Ah. The rugby box." Ianto drops to the floor next to him and Jack's attention is drawn; Ianto brings with him the clean smell of water and soap. His body is still radiating heat from his shower, and the flush of it is visible in the pale skin of his forearms, his throat. He's wearing his version of pyjamas, a tee-shirt and a pair of grey tracksuit bottoms, and his body seems more fluid, more flexible without the constriction of a suit. He folds one knee beneath him, leans into Jack to look at the photo.Ianto's hair is damp, and flops over his forehead. He's close enough that when Jack licks his lips, they brush against a sodden lock, cool and wet. Jack taps his finger against teenaged-Ianto's chest. "Please tell me you've still got this uniform."Ianto snorts, then crawls a little way away to reach the box. He digs around in it briefly then pulls out a jersey with a flourish, its colours slightly more vivid than they are in the photograph."Wait a moment, I'm sure the shorts are in here too... Hah." Ianto resurfaces again with a smug grin, and Jack sets the album aside as Ianto kneels his way back across the carpet, sitting again astride Jack's lap.Jack takes the uniform from him and rubs the fabric experimentally between his fingers. The shorts look even smaller in his hands than they did in the photograph. "So you're going to wear these, right?"Ianto smirks, then shakes his head a little as Jack lifts the clothes to his face, breathing them in. They smell faintly of washing powder, disappointingly not a whiff of sporting teenage boy."Maybe," Ianto says. "If you're good," he amends half-heartedly.Jack pouts a little. "I peeled the potatoes!""Yes, but you've not even got through one box. And all of those are going to have to go back into storage, I'm certainly not putting them on display anywhere..." Ianto turns his face away from Jack's to assess the hopeful queue of trophies; the gesture presents Jack with the corner of Ianto's jaw, not as smooth as in the photograph, but as sweet as Jack had imagined when he presses his open lips to the tender place beneath it."Did you do this when you were a teenager?" Jack murmurs below Ianto's ear before sliding his mouth down the side of Ianto's neck, then back toward the shadow of his jaw when Ianto tilts his head helpfully. Jack's tongue rasps against the bristle, lapping at the traces of water still caught there."What?" Ianto asks a little breathlessly. His thighs have tightened around Jack's already, body bending forward. His pragmatic nature extends to not seeing the point in pretending that Jack's not turning him on; Jack delights in the very immediate reward of that every time. He braces Ianto's waist with his hands, enjoying the sinuous flex against his palms. Ianto's voice burrs against Jack's lips. "Necking?"Jack hums, closing his teeth around a patch of skin low on the column of Ianto's throat and sucking heat up to the surface of it. He tongues over the trapped flesh until it doesn't taste like water or soap, just the faintly salty metallic flavour of skin, blood-hot. Ianto squirms, and shifts his arms to the sofa behind Jack's head; Jack releases the grip of his bite reluctantly when Ianto grasps his hair with both hands and pulls him away.Ianto's mouth tastes even better, and Jack's tongue chases the faint, fresh traces of toothpaste and mouthwash, a sharp contrast to the hearty flavours of their meal still lingering in Jack's palate. Ianto's lips are mobile, not just open for Jack to explore but closing around Jack's tongue, smiling then shifting. He directs the shape and pace of the kiss, tongue laving generously against Jack's then withdrawing, then closing his mouth over Jack's upper lip with gentle suction. Ianto's hands curl at the back of Jack's head, fingertips rubbing against Jack's scalp, and it makes Jack feel languid and inflamed all at once. He groans softly and tips his head back into Ianto's grip.Ianto laughs, the sound a low, pleasant vibration against in Jack's hands, now resting against Ianto's back. His mouth leaves Jack's, dragging languorous kisses down the side of Jack's neck and nudging Jack's head into a further tilt, practically nuzzling at the corner of Jack's jaw."There was some necking," Ianto murmurs, the words hot against Jack's sensitised skin, and as Ianto continues to comb his fingers through the hair of Jack's nape, it sends a shiver of stimulation through the parts of his body Ianto's not touching. Not yet, anyway.Ianto draws back a little, hand sliding up Jack's forearm, gripping Jack's wrist and drawing Jack's hand down again. "But if it's locker rooms you're thinking of, there was a certain amount of this going on, too." He presses Jack's hand against his groin.Jack loves tracksuit bottoms. Not the same way he loves the contradictory constriction of a well-worn suit, of course, but with his hand cupped in Ianto's lap now he can feel the precise shape and heat of Ianto's cock, twitching against the fleecy lining of the fabric and the pressure of Jack's touch. Ianto strokes Jack's wrist lightly and pushes his hips up--just a tiny amount, it must be involuntary--and Jack rocks his hand over where Ianto's holding it.The fabric is decadently soft and Jack thinks he could spend much longer doing this; moving just slightly and feeling Ianto getting hard under the weight of Jack's covering touch. Ianto leans back further, though, enough to watch what Jack's doing, so Jack changes the touch from a hold to a gentle stroke. Ianto's chest expands as he draws in a deep breath, eyelids falling closed in a long blink. The loose fit of the bottoms allow his erection room to stand freely, and Jack watches the flutter of Ianto's dark eyelashes and the flush rising in Ianto's cheeks as Jack twists a cap of fabric around the head of his cock, knuckle scoring over the tip."Ah," Ianto says, eyes cracked open just a little and slanted up at Jack's face. His pink lips bow in a smile that Jack might even call mischievous. "Though, there was a little less of that, little more of this..." He wraps Jack's hand around the shaft, slides loose fabric in Jack's grip up and down his cock in stereotypical wanking fashion.Jack laughs, and as hot as the thought of sweaty, sporty, teenaged Ianto is; twenty-something Ianto holds even more appeal, pyjama-clad and smirking in Jack's lap. Jack kisses him again, taking control this time where Ianto's mouth is less focused, concentration undoubtedly on the stroke of Jack's hand on his cock. Ianto's hand clasps loosely around Jack's wrist, and Jack ignores the urge to get Ianto to return the favour, press against Jack's own rising erection. It's pleasure enough, for now, to see and feel Ianto incrementally lose control.Jack leans his forehead against Ianto's and pulls his mouth away, sharing Ianto's exhale. This close, Ianto's eyelashes blur sootily against his cheeks, his lips gleaming and breath hot. Jack pulls the elastic of Ianto's tracksuit bottoms down and rubs his thumb against the bare tip of Ianto's cock; Ianto's toes curl into the thick pile of the carpet. The clean scent of his arousal rises from his hot body, Jack's senses rushing to greet it."Bed?" Jack suggests, voice rough in his throat.Ianto opens his eyes, and with his pupils blown and cheeks flushed, the half-hearted eye roll is a portrait of languidness rather than sarcasm. "Not even got through one box, tonight," he says on a sigh. He leans back, and in bracing has hand on the floor to aid levering himself upright knocks over the row of rugby trophies. They thud dully against the carpet, and Ianto picks one up as he stands."You know," he says, hefting it thoughtfully. "Perhaps we don't need to put them all away; this would quite come in handy for bludgeoning any unwanted intruders.""That's what I keep a baseball bat under the bed for," Jack deadpans. "And the several thousand pound security system, of course. Speaking of which, hold that thought." He turns Ianto in the direction of the stairs and gives him a helpful pat on the arse to get him going in the right direction, then turns himself to the keypad by the front door, keying in the codes to enable the alarm. The system is overkill, perhaps, for the rash of looting following the bombings; but considering the equipment they've set up in Ianto's spare room, it's far from excessive.Ianto's standing by the bed, leaning down to flick the lamp on. He straightens when Jack steps up close behind him, pressing his arse back against Jack's erection in the process. Jack's hands glide over his flanks before hooking thumbs into the waistband of the tracksuit bottoms, pushing with just enough suggestive force to slide them down an inch or two. It uncovers enough for Jack to palm the handles of Ianto's hip bones, scratch fingernails through the top of the dark hair that thickens towards Ianto's cock. Then Ianto's turning in Jack's arms and they're kissing again, standing there pressed tight together with a perfectly good bed right next to them.Ianto curls one arm around the back of Jack's neck and lays his other hand on Jack's chest. It's barely still a moment before following the contours mapped out by pinstripe, Ianto stroking down the line of buttons with a lingering touch before tangling his fingers in the chain of Jack's pocket watch. Jack grins, he can't help it; Ianto only ever seems as taken by such trappings when he's out of a suit himself. Still, Jack supposes that if they were both such sartorial hedonists all the time, they'd never get any work done."Locker rooms were all very well," Ianto says conversationally, unbuttoning Jack's waistcoat with single-handed dexterity. "But I must say I prefer being able to bring men back to my own bed.""Men?" Jack asks, unable to keep the hopefulness out of his tone; though, if he's honest with himself, he's not even bothering to try. "Plural?"Ianto smirks, then hangs up Jack's waistcoat on the knob of the bedpost. He pulls his own tee-shirt off, then gets on the bed, making himself comfortable on his belly, chin resting on his folded forearms. The waistband of his jogging bottoms just covers the top curve of his arse. "If you'd like to go and get another one right now, then by all means, run along."Jack kneels astride Ianto's thighs then rests his hands on Ianto's arse, fingers tucking under the elastic waist band. "Maybe later," he murmurs. "Something just came up." He grins at Ianto's laugh, generously gifted at that cheap shot, then leans down to tongue the dimples in the small of Ianto's back.Later, and the sweetness of Ianto's clean skin has been replaced with the more familiar bite of sweat, come and spit; the perfect combination for Jack to fall asleep to, lingering in his senses as he and Ianto lie close. It's late enough to not bother getting up again, anyway; early enough that they might just wake up refreshed enough to have another go. Another shower for Ianto, perhaps, and Jack can join him; taste the metallic tang of the hot water and thicker heat of Ianto's come all at once.It's not as if Jack has difficulty sleeping, it's just not as necessary for him as it is for most humans in the 21st century. That isn't to say he doesn't appreciate a nice bit of shut-eye when the conditions are right. So he rouses immediately--albeit reluctantly--when the monitor on the bedside table crackles to life.Jack rolls away from Ianto to squint towards it; they've drifted off with the lamp still on, and the first thing Jack sees on the bedside table isn't the portable monitor but the glowing bronze lines of the rugby trophy. Jack snorts softly in amusement, and Ianto stirs behind him. Jack reaches out to switch off the light and swings his legs around, sitting up on the edge of the bed. He picks up the monitor, eyes scanning through the truncated data being displayed on its back-lit screen."Whassit?" Ianto rolls after him; Jack glances down at the movement but Ianto seems barely awake. He curls on his side, face close to Jack's hip, and pulls the last of the duvet off Jack's lap, sleepily fidgeting to draw it tight in around him. The silvery cast of light from the portable monitor is strangely flattering; highlighting individual strands in the tousled mess of Ianto's hair and the delicateness of his eyelids, the dim light providing as much an abundance of detail as the long exposure of a silver-plate photograph.Ianto's nose snubs up just above the edge of the pulled-up duvet, ordinary and brilliant. Jack shakes his head, turning the monitor away to let it light up the path out of Ianto's bedroom and across the hall to the spare room. The lights of the Rift monitoring equipment in there provide enough illumination that his eyes barely need time at all to adjust when he flicks the overhead bulb on.The portable device is little more than a baby monitor, alerting the occupants of the bedroom to any anomalies being detected by the equipment set up here, and Jack spends fifteen frustrating minutes trying to coax some more information out of the machines before giving up.It's a temporal anomaly, but there's no way to tell just what sort beyond the general verdict that it's something to do with time, not space. The only additional information the monitors are providing is a general vicinity. If it were something major, Jack's sure it would have shown up as more than the briefest blip on their monitors, but the mere thought of being less than absolutely thorough is still enough to make him feel more than a little nauseous.Being less than completely thorough with his team had been enough to lose one of them; getting to Toshiko in time to hold her while she breathed her last, instead of in time to save her.Jack pads back across the hall, setting the monitor on the bedside table again. He fumbles around for clothes in the dim light its screen casts out across the floor, chilly enough at this point, not to mention eager to get out there and just get back again, that he doesn't pay much mind to co-ordination.Ianto stirs again, lifting his head this time and squinting in Jack's direction."Rift monitor," Jack murmurs quietly, pulling on a tee-shirt and then his shirtsleeves over it, coming back the edge of the bed to locate his vortex manipulator and strap it on. It's probably the only thing that's likely to pick up any more information at the scene; doubly more reason for Ianto to just stay in bed."I'll just get dressed," Ianto mumbles, right on cue, and his body is still loose and malleable when Jack presses him back to the bed."Stay here," Jack growls. "It's just a blip, probably nothing." Ianto's eyelids flutter closed, lashes scraping against Jack's palm when Jack strokes a light hand over his face. "Go back to sleep."Jack's breath fogs in the air when he gets outside, the tiny particles of moisture lit up by the oily yellow of the street light outside Ianto's house. The hum of electricity being fed to the lampposts is the only sound, and Jack is reluctant to break it with the rumble of a car engine. He's awake now, anyway; a brisk walk won't do him any harm and the anomaly is too close to justify having to take Ianto's car. He wraps his coat tighter around him and starts walking.He knows he's in the vicinity of the anomaly when the data output from his wrist strap becomes mildly more concentrated--even though it's not any more coherent than it was back at Ianto's. The new build of Ianto's neighbourhood is in a previously industrialised area, and parts of it are still disturbingly post-apocalyptic. The uninhabited lots contain skeletal beginnings of new houses co-existing with abandoned, rusting equipment, casting the surrounds a personality that's half-machinic and half-domesticised. The landscape is dotted with cubes of building materials too, swaddled in black plastic to protect them from the rain, and the covering crackles faintly ominously with a night time breeze that Jack can't feel. Nonetheless, he feels the hair rise on the back of his neck and prickle along his arms.Slow, experimental pacing along a residential access alleyway reveals discomfiting physical indicators of the anomaly as well. Jack's mouth twists at the tang of ozone on the air, and the skirt of his coat crackles with static electricity where it brushes against the cotton of Ianto's tracksuit bottoms, pulled on in Jack's haste and the blindness of the dark bedroom. Jack tries to concentrate on the data, as if he can force his mind to make any more sense of it.Then he can feel the breeze again, and the garbled output from the wrist strap ebbs; Jack shakes his head in frustration. There's clearly nothing out here, nothing of an immediate threat anyway, and he can think of a few pieces of equipment back at the Hub that just might produce better readings. Or, at least read across a broader spectrum. Perhaps the anomaly wasn't temporal at all; or, if it was, of a far lower key than he usually recognises as an indicator of a new Flat Holm resident--perhaps a discarded cigarette butt was transported a few seconds into the future.He shakes his head again, more in self-deprecating amusement this time, and now that the decision to return to bed has been made, he's suddenly impatient for it. Not least of all because he's cold. Ianto's pyjamas are only meant to tease Jack in that brief window of time before they fall into bed, not actually keep anyone warm. Certainly not anyone who's currently outdoors.Jack wriggles his sockless feet in his boots, his toes feeling more than a little bit numb. He speeds up his pace, half-jogging; he'll get inside, toe off his shoes, shed his coat and crawl into bed again. He'll press his icy feet against the furry heat of Ianto's calves, the speediest route to warming them. This will probably wake Ianto, who'll probably feel some kind of pay back is required. Hopefully the kind of pay back that involves Jack being fucked.The bilious tone of the street lamps is precisely the same as he left it, giving the impression that no time has past at all in the stagnant night outside of Ianto's house. Jack locates the saw-toothed edge of the house key in his pocket by touch, and, pleased with himself for remembering the dud bulb for a change, doesn't bother trying the light switch when he steps inside.Jack closes the door as quietly as possible behind him, toeing off his boots and keying in the security code disarm at the same time. After pocketing his keys and shedding his coat he resets it again, then pads quickly across the--ow, dammit. The living room is inky around him with his eyes still blinded from the light of the security panel; Jack's unable to see what he's just barked his shins against, but it's no doubt another one of the boxes. Ianto hadn't taken him seriously the first time, but Jack's surer than ever that they move around on their own.Jack's eyes have become a little more accustomed by the time he gets back to Ianto's bedroom, so he's able to avoid bashing into anything as he makes his way as stealthily as possible from doorway to bed. He doesn't want to wake Ianto up, at least not yet; still harbouring anticipation for wrapping himself around Ianto's sleep-soft body and feeling Ianto come awake that way. Jack eases himself under the duvet and reaches out--Now, that's unexpected. It must have been colder than Jack thought, because Ianto certainly wasn't wearing anything when Jack left him left than an hour ago. Jack's absence must have left him cold enough to rouse and locate something to wear. Unless it's another one of Ianto's games.Jack shifts closer, reaching for Ianto's hip and wriggling his hands under the pyjamas. Not wanting to startle Ianto too much, he accompanies it with a murmured question close to Ianto's ear. "Just what do you think you're--"It's hard to tell precisely what happens next; it's fast, and the darkness of the bedroom far too disorienting to make sense of the sudden movement. All Jack knows is that he's suddenly on his back and there's a hand at his throat. Then there's the very definite sound of a gun being cocked.Jack swallows under the pressure of the grip on his neck, otherwise holding very still. "Ianto?"The grip tightens in a spasm, then loosens, and then the room's flooded with soft light as Ianto flicks the lamp on. Jack blinks dumbly at him, still staying where he's been put; even if Ianto can't kill him he's in no mood to be shot right now. Ianto's backing away, the bed recoiling a bit as Ianto kneels off it, not turning away, even for a moment. He stands with both hands on his weapon, still pointing it at Jack's face."Mind telling me what the hell is going on?" Jack asks very calmly."How do I know it's you?" Ianto rasps, and Jack blinks, mind abruptly whirring into gear; the question doesn't exactly make anything any clearer, but if nothing else it's a billboard-sized sign that SOMETHING IS WRONG.Ianto's gaze flits from Jack's face down his body, taking in the mish-mash of clothing that Jack had fished from Ianto's floor less than an hour ago. He'd crawled back into bed with thoughts of Ianto chuckling while he peeled them off again, but now Ianto's reaction is to appear even more unsettled by whatever the outfit tells him. The muzzle of the pistol dips as the fierce control of his expression wavers.Taking it as a cue, Jack takes a moment to look closer as well; yes, Ianto's dressed, but those aren't pyjamas Jack's ever seen before. There's a framed photograph hanging on the bedroom wall over Ianto's shoulder. And along with the bronze rugby player, Ianto's bedside table is covered with papers, half-drunk glasses of water, vitamin bottles and a book or two. At least a week's worth of detritus.Which doesn't make sense, because Jack watched Ianto build that table from its Ikea flatpack yesterday.And since when did Ianto sleep with a gun under his pillow?Ianto's eyes are wide, mouth very still; the main indicator that he's trying to keep his emotions in check. "It is... Where the fuck have you been?" His voice is raw."There was a blip on the monitor," Jack says, starting with the obvious. It's amazing how calm he can keep his voice, even as the something is wrong feeling is swelling in his throat, on its way to choking him. "It looked like a temporal anomaly; I left you here and went to check it out with my wrist strap. It was nothing, just some unintelligible feedback, the epicentre a few blocks away--if you could even call it that. I figured we'd be able to get better readings with equipment from the Hub tomorrow morning, so I came back here. It's been..." he glances at Ianto's alarm clock, but he can't remember what time it was when he got out of bed the first time, so the gesture's useless. He shrugs. "Forty-five minutes, maybe an hour."The gun lowers, though Ianto doesn't put it aside; keeping it tight in his right hand. Though he braces that beside him as he sits down on the edge of the bed. "It's been two years, Jack."Jack can't speak. Can't look away, though Ianto doesn't turn. The leaden bend of Ianto's bowed neck is too candid for this to be anything but reality. Jack can barely breathe.It's Ianto who fills the silence again. "What do you remember?""I told you, there was nothing else, the anomaly--" Jack's voice comes out as a croak."No, I mean... About that night."About... That night. Tonight for Jack, that night, two years ago for Ianto. Jack swallows futilely."Cooked. Bangers and mash, with mushy peas. Unpacked your old rugby gear." His eyes flit again to the trophy on the bedside. When he licks his lips he can still taste Ianto in the corners of his mouth. His neck still feels faintly tacky from the residue of Ianto's kisses when he rubs his hand against it, and tender from Ianto's more recent restraining grip. "You had a shower, we shagged, went to sleep early. Ianto--"Jack reaches out, unable to talk any more, desperate to feel that curve of Ianto's back under his hand, to know that this is real. Ianto stands up, though, thumbing the safety back on the pistol, though he doesn't put it down again. Jack still can't stop looking at him, heart jerking in his chest when Ianto partially turns back to him. But as much as Jack's desperately scanning for indicators of difference, of change, Ianto's profile is unreadable.Two years.Ianto picks his mobile phone up from the bedside table. "I need to call Gwen, tell her... Tell her what's happened.""Ianto, wait." He looks at Jack, then, and his eyes are still a little too wide, jaw tight. "How do you know it's really me?" (What if this isn't Jack's Ianto at all, what if he's stepped through the Rift into some parallel universe?)Ianto's shoulder makes a twitching motion, a faint echo of a shrug. "If you were an impostor... Then you shouldn't know all of that." His mouth twists--Jack realises it's meant to be a reassuring smile. "Gwen's the only other one who does." Then he's turning away again, fiddling with the phone as he leaves the room.Jack hears the quieting thuds of Ianto's feet on the stairs, and then the bedroom's silent again but for the harsh drag of his own breathing.Jack sits up.The bedroom is tidier than it was when he left it; of course the clothes he shed two years ago aren't still lying underfoot, or draped from Ianto's bedposts. There's a rug on the floor that Jack's never seen before, dark blue offsetting the pale cream of the carpet. It feels worn against the bare soles of his feet.When he steps out into the hall he can hear the low, wordless murmur of Ianto speaking below, and Jack teeters a bit where he stands because--Another wave of comprehension rushes up on him, the relentless, incoming tide of it methodically eating away the shore of his calm. Two years. Two years. And Gwen's still alive. Ianto's still alive. Obviously they haven't required Jack to be around to rescue them on a regular basis in order to survive, but if anything, that thought just increases the rising, nauseating sense of helplessness. Because the risk of working for Torchwood is perpetual regardless of Jack's protective presence. Which, of course, is why the lifespan of a Torchwood agent is so short.And Jack's just missed two years of it.He doesn't quite remember the next few steps from the hall into the bathroom. He feels remote from his body, as if someone's just struck it like a massive bell; leaving a core of intense sound surrounded by a trembling shell. His ears are ringing, the sound of the water running from the faucet and into the drain muffled; he cups his hands under it and lowers his face into the collected liquid. The shock of cold brings him back a little, but the sense of unavoidable displacement remains; his face in the mirror still the most familiar thing in the room. There are two toothbrushes in the glass beside the basin, and Jack doesn't recognise either of them."Jack?"The panic in Ianto's tone is clear, and Jack steps back out of the bathroom and into the hall immediately, face dripping. "In here."Ianto's head jerks around, turning from the bedroom doorway at the sound of Jack's voice. His eyes are faintly red; he closes them for a long moment. "I thought-- Never mind. Are you all right?"Jack huffs, too bitter for amusement. "As can be, yeah."He wants to turn the question back on Ianto, but feels just as disconnected there as he does with the rest of his environment. Ianto's made no move to approach him, body language practically projecting a solid barrier several feet around him. Jack's body aches with the thwarted urge to just go to him, properly aware abruptly at just how ingrained that urge had become in recent months and how automatically he'd give into it. 'Recent months'.The irony of that realisation under present circumstances isn't lost on him. He just doesn't appreciate it at all."Is Gwen...?""She wants us to come in." Ianto shrugs a little. "It's nearly morning, anyway. I'm just going to have a shower first, if you..." Ianto trails off on the unspoken request."Right." Jack says, stepping out of the way. "I'll wait downstairs, then."He tries not to read too much into the relief that flits over Ianto's features, or the way Ianto tilts his head down and body away as they pass each other in narrow hall."Jack." He turns back at the top of the stairs; Ianto's standing where Jack was just moments before, poised in the bathroom doorway. "Your clothes are in the wardrobe, far right, closest the window." His gaze flicks down over Jack's body briefly, then back to his face. "Should make you a bit more presentable.""Right." Jack says again, and hazards a smile.Ianto's answering quirk is tentative, but warm nonetheless, then he's in the bathroom and the door's closed behind him.The clothes Jack wore yesterday are slotted in at the end of a row of suits, trousers folded over the bar of the hanger, waistcoat slung neatly over its shoulders. They've been washed and pressed, just smell faintly of washing powder when Jack brings them to his face and gives an experimental inhale.His socks, also clean, are rolled up in one waistcoat pocket, his pants in the other. The pants have been neatly folded, and Jack can't help but laugh. It's simultaneously ridiculous and awful, and he suspects refusing to change out of what he's wearing now will only make things worse.Ianto tells him it's winter, so the sun's not yet risen by the time they start the drive to the Hub. Most of Cardiff's morning commuters will be on their way while it's still dark, but for now the world's almost empty, streets still lit with the sickly public lighting, and the very occasional set of headlights winking cleanly at them as they pass. Time almost feels foreshortened rather than stretched out; for Jack, it was only hours ago that Ianto was driving them through the dark in the opposite direction.Ianto doesn't speak. His face is like a cameo, profile thrown into relief by the faint lights from the dash, encircled by the asymmetrical frame of the car window behind him. Jack speaks as they pull smoothly into the underground garage, attempting to soften the brittle nature of the silence before they get inside, all too aware that they're about to take their places in a tableau even more emotionally fraught."Surprised you could rouse Gwen at this hour," he murmurs. "Let alone get her to come in before sunrise, especially when there's no emergency." At least, he hopes there's no emergency. His anxiety flirts with the thought that Ianto's removal from his personal space is due to simmering resentment, and Ianto is merely leading Jack to the Hub in order to wreak his revenge. Or subject Jack to whatever means necessary to prove he's who he says he is. The wrong-footedness of his immediate situation means that Jack's unable to dismiss the idea immediately, his lack of control throwing him back to countless years of working for Torchwood rather than running it; he's aware just what such an interrogation of identity involves.Ianto brings the car to a halt before answering, looking at Jack for the first time in the short drive. "She didn't have to come in," he says. At Jack's frown of confusion, he adds, somewhat strained: "She lives here. Has since Rhys died."Grief hits Jack as solidly as a punch, a palpable feeling at last rather than the decentralised numbness that's yet to loosen its grip. Not only because Rhys is--was--a good man, not just good for Gwen but in his own right; but because this is a more pointed, malicious pain. Gwen has survived, but she's suffered. Is probably still suffering. Suffering that, perhaps, Jack could have prevented."Was it--""Torchwood," Ianto completes shortly. "Yes."They get out of the car, the otherwise empty car park echoing with the twinned sounds of their doors slamming. Ianto waits until Jack joins him before heading toward the secure underground entry to the Hub, walking side-by-side even if separated by several paces."I'm surprised you've not got any more questions," Ianto says, tone unexpectedly light. He looks at Jack and smiles faintly when he catches Jack looking back."About Rhys?" The more he thinks about it--thinks about two years, not just the fate of Rhys Williams--the more insurmountable the temporal gap feels. Ianto could give him more details on Rhys' death, but how would that help him face Gwen? With more guilt? Or more pity? He's lived long enough to know that the living of one's life is not in the reporting of distinct events but the constant flow of overlapping experiences--be they internal or external. Even reading two years' worth of incident reports won't fill him in on the breadth and depth of Ianto and Gwen's lives in his absence."About everything. Things in general. Torchwood."And you? Jack wants to add in question, but Ianto's stopped looking at him again--or, he had his head turned down to watch where he was walking; now he stands by the security key pad at their car park entrance and turns to face Jack. His expression--somewhat guarded, as if he's on the edge of a flinch as he waits for Jack to speak--makes Jack think that Ianto knows exactly what Jack wants to ask, but is willing him not to."It's not like you can tell me everything in the next ten minutes," Jack answers, taking pity on Ianto even as he longs for that impossibility--an information dump that would catch him up instantly. Or even just the opportunity to demand just why Ianto's not letting him within touching distance. Both answers seem just as unlikely under present circumstances. He's not sure he even has the right to the latter, though the sting of that is just as new and sudden a thing to adjust to.The first thing Jack notices is the absence of the remaining debris of Tosh and Owen's lives and deaths, and it adds another twist to his bitterness; he's not had time enough to heal from that wound, and yet time has marched on without him. The shape of the Hub is the same as it was last time he saw it, but the configurations within are different, desks and displays unfamiliar, as well as the detritus of people, of staff, he realises, resting dormant before the day begins and they sound off the personalities of those keeping them at hand.They're all foreign to him, personalities Jack has never encountered, because of course there has to be new staff--they were struggling with just the three of them, and as fierce his faith in Gwen and Ianto are, there's no way they could have kept Torchwood Three going on their own. Jack can't resent it. He wonders just who's running it now, whether they defaulted to UNIT, in the end, or Archie up in Glasgow. How long did it take them to admit defeat and ask for help? How long did they look for him?"Gwen?" Ianto calls out as he reaches the centre of the Hub, Jack trailing behind him. The fact that Ianto's not in a suit--battered jeans and a zippered hoodie in place of a pressed three-piece--merely compounds the unreality of the space to Jack's eyes.Jack had expected Gwen to be waiting to greet them--the anxious flutter in his chest telling him just how unsure he is of his welcome, unsure if she'll respond as Ianto has. For all that Ianto's reserve contrasts Gwen's effusiveness--regardless the emotion--Jack's found them to be each as frank as the other, and neither less intense in their expression. It occurs to him that being uncertain as to whether Gwen will punch or embrace him is cause for hope.Ianto walks now towards Jack's office and Jack follows mutely, and a little slower as Ianto strides up the stairs leading to it with a comfortable ease. Jack stops when he gets to the doorway.The collection of artefacts and knick-knacks he'd been accumulating with an air of intergalactic junk shop are all absent, as is the sofa that Jack had against the far wall. The space left is instead filled by a second desk, Jack's own replaced by a smaller one and leaving room for two people to work in the room simultaneously. The door to Jack's quarters is open, and Gwen and Ianto stand by it, arms around each other. They draw apart after just a moment, and Ianto nods once as Gwen searches his face before he breaks the embrace entirely, stepping back as Gwen turns to Jack.Jack's heart feels like it's caught in the base of his throat. He's still aware of Ianto watching them, but can't take his eyes off Gwen--she has no trouble meeting his eyes, staring into his face intently as she approaches, the line of her mouth firm and determined. Her face is more angular, made more striking by the choppy line of her cropped hair against the side of her jaw.His name still sounds the same in her voice, though; long with affection and sharper in her throat at either end. He tilts the edge of his mouth up hopefully and she returns it; between them they may have a single, faint smile."Ianto seems to think it's really you," she says. "And I'm inclined to agree. Doesn't mean you're getting out of following verification protocol, though." She pauses, her tone turning more amused. "God, I sound like you."That last is directed at Ianto, and they exchange a look that Gwen quirks her head back to include Jack in it as well; self-deprecation and pride and camaraderie all in one.This is their office, Jack realises. They're at home in this space, as much as Jack ever was, and abruptly it makes sense intensely enough to slip a sharp, sympathetic pain below his breastbone. He spent years in here, waiting, living in the space beneath the office--Gwen's home, now--when there was no where else for him.The protocol is familiar--he wrote it, after all--and Jack takes it as seriously as Gwen does through to the last. He waits until she's done with the paperwork before speaking again. It's odd, being on this side of the desk."Gwen," he says. "About Rhys..."She closes her eyes for a moment, puts the paperwork aside. He sees her jaw tighten, nostrils flare briefly, miniscule expressions of emotions too tangled for him to easily identify."Jack," she says firmly. "No." The tone isn't gentle; this isn't absolution but it's not cold enough to be accusatory either, though when she walks around the desk to embrace him at last, her hold is strong enough to hurt."Go on, then," she says when she releases him, stepping back behind her desk. "Take the rest of the day off, while I figure out what to do with you."Outside of her and Ianto's office, the Hub holds that sense of complacent anticipation it always seems to in the last hour or two before the day starts officially; something to do with the rustle and creak of Myfanwy as she settles into her eyrie, or the shift in the Hub's climate control as it begins to optimise for its daily increase in human occupation. Jack tries not to look at the other desks while he walks through the Hub, not just yet, but he can't really avoid looking at the tourist office when he walks through it. Apparently they now stock plush red dragon toys and ceramic sheep figurines. The old beige desktop has been replaced by a black flatscreen, photos of people he doesn't recognise winging the sides of it, and there's a white mug with lipstick marks around the rim sitting by the keyboard.The small glass panel in the door sports a plastic sign, WILL RETURN AT and then the moveable arms of an analogue clock face turned to 9.30. It flutters as Jack's coat brushes by it, and outside, the wintry dawn casts a veil of grey light over everything. The water of the bay is as still as a photograph.He spots Ianto easily, the only figure standing out on the quay, unmoving as he leans against the rails that border the decking, his back to the water. He sees Jack approach, straightens a little; lifts out of his slouch and shoves one hand in his pocket, other elbow still resting back on the top rail. The dawn light makes the water metallic behind him, bright enough for Jack to see the expression on his face clearly; not suspicious but nonetheless apprehensive, waiting.Jack leans against the rail beside him, close enough for the sides of their bodies to brush. Looking out over the water this close, the skin of it seems more alive, undulating softly like a sleeping body. Ianto is a warm, solid presence alongside him, and when Jack turns his head a little he can smell the faint crispness of Ianto's deodorant, milky coffee on Ianto's breath as he exhales."So," Jack says, leaning in a little. "You and Gwen?"Ianto twitches as his nose puffs out air quickly; amusement, Jack thinks."Torchwood Widows' Club," Ianto says, angling his gaze towards Jack. It's more measuring than self-conscious, Jack thinks. "I suspect she'll be more cross at me now than at you, if that helps."It doesn't, not really, and now that Jack's this close to Ianto he can't obey the this far and no further barriers that Ianto's put up since he woke with Jack in his bed. Jack's not only close enough to touch, now, but to see that Ianto's breath is coming in speedy little heaves with forced pauses between them.Jack feels a sympathetic tightness in his own throat, and swallows futilely around it. Ianto's hand is hanging loosely between them and Jack curls his hand around it. Ianto's skin is dry and warm, and Jack's flooded with a rush of relief as Ianto returns the tentative grip."Can I touch you yet?" Jack asks in a murmur, a little belatedly, but his read on Ianto's mood is finally right again; it's taken him a few hours to catch up with the two years Ianto's got on him.Ianto's head dips a little towards him and Jack continues to lean into the movement, turning his body to press his chest against Ianto's side. Ianto's head stays lowered so Jack angles his own to suit it, not requiring Ianto to move any further as he presses a kiss up against Ianto's mouth.Jack keeps his eyes open, sees Ianto's close before Jack's mouth even touches his, eyelashes a dark blur in Jack's vision. Ianto's mouth tenses enough for Jack to consider the kiss returned, then he opens his own just slightly enough to stroke his tongue against Ianto's lower lip. The lick is delivered with pressure enough to feel the contrast of the hot, smooth skin and plump yield of Ianto's lip and the very faint fuzz of the porous skin just below it.Ianto sucks in another breath through his nose and Jack doesn't draw back, just interlaces his fingers with Ianto's and tightens his grip, the hold anchoring them in the moment. Ianto's lips part enough for Jack's tongue to dip inside, his own mouth watering at the cooler slick of Ianto's teeth, then the gentle returned touch of Ianto's tongue.Ianto's hand comes to rest on the back of Jack's neck, and Jack's eyes slide closed finally as Ianto pulls his body closer, thumb brushing through the short hair at Jack's nape.The next kiss is less tentative, the weight of Ianto's hand holding Jack to him and Ianto's own body immovable, pressed between Jack and the railings behind him.Ianto's breath his hot against Jack's mouth when they draw apart again, and Jack processes the sensation of his words before their sounds. "That's a no, by the way."Jack blinks his eyes open, his mind taking a moment to grind through the confusion and shift gears again, finally connecting Ianto's seemingly random statement to the unfinished conversation--about Gwen.Jack raises an eyebrow, thinking of the second toothbrush in Ianto's bathroom. It overturns something small in his belly in a flurry of motion, and the sense of displacement--banished as he'd basked in the familiar warmth of Ianto's kisses--creeps through him again. Despite Ianto's proximity now, and his very literal hold on Jack, echoes of his distance send a sliver of hesitance into Jack's comprehension. It's not a familiar feeling to Jack; being unsure of his welcome."Not that I haven't had sex in two years." Ianto's mouth curves a little and Jack can't help but smirk back. Ianto shifts his grip on Jack's neck, hooking the crook of his elbow around instead. Jack lets himself be reeled in; their clasped hands pressed between their bodies. "But Gwen... Doesn't like to share.""I suppose my hopes of bunking with her back in my old room won't go down so well, then," Jack says mournfully, a little breathlessly as something in his chest reels at Ianto's words.Ianto chuckles briefly. "Don't be ridiculous, I've not been keeping your things in my spare room for the past eighteen months because I'm running self-storage in my spare time."They're still close; Jack can feel the pounding of Ianto's heart reverberating into his own body, amplified when Ianto's chest swells against Jack's on each inhale. Ianto's face is flushed, and his expression recalls the look he wore while holding a gun in Jack's face not six hours ago. Like he's not certain that Jack's really here. Like he's afraid to believe it.Jack kisses him again, letting go of Ianto's hand to wrap his arm around Ianto's back, his other hand cupping Ianto's jaw as he attempts to occupy as much of Ianto's personal space as possible.There's only so much he can prove in public, though. Jack draws back enough to focus on Ianto's eyes again. Behind him, the skin of the bay is gradually flushing with colour as the sun rises. "Home?"Ianto nods once, and Jack tries to step back but Ianto stops him, fumbles his hand between them to withdraw something from his hip pocket, depositing it into the pocket of Jack's waistcoat. Then he releases his hold, neatly side steps and walks the familiar path along the quayside towards the Plass; Jack can't help but watch."Come on," Ianto calls over his shoulder.Jack dips his hand into his pocket curiously, and his fingertips brush over familiar polished curves and a heavy chain, metal warm from Ianto's own body heat. It's Jack's pocket watch.
66670	Ten Kisses	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "M/M", "Characters": "Anthony DiNozzo, Jethro Gibbs", "Fandom": "NCIS", "Language": "English", "Rating": "General Audiences", "author": "by yehwellwhatever", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2010-03-02T00:00:00", "words": "1,165", "Additional Tags": null, "Relationship": "Anthony DiNozzo/Jethro Gibbs", "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	Jethro has ten different ways to kiss Tony. Tony knows this, because he's counted them all.There's the "Good morning"-kiss. This one is sweet and gentle, surprisingly enough never laced with a bad morning breath. Tony suspects Jethro gets up extra early to brush his teeth before waking him up, but he's never been able to verify his suspicions. The "Good morning"-kiss is often followed by either kiss number two, which is the "I love you"-kiss, or kiss number three, which is the "I'm gonna fuck you through the mattress"-kiss. If they have time, which only happens of their rare weekend-days off, it's followed by kiss number five. The "I'm gonna make sweet love to you till you forget your name"-kiss.The "I love you"-kiss is passionate and loving, often combined with sweet caresses over Tony's cheek, while the "I'm gonna fuck you through the mattress"-kiss is quite the opposite with rougher, gun- and wood-calloused hands stroking over abs and back, often squeezing Tony's well shaped butt, leaving no way to misunderstand what he wants. The "I'm gonna make sweet love to you till you forget your name"-kiss is almost like the "I love you"-kiss, but the sweet caresses continues down, often landing more on the front than the back.Kiss number four happened at work, and that's why Tony's named it the "We can't do more because we'll get caught"-kiss. It's more like a peck than a kiss, really. It happened after Tony's Corvette had been totaled in a car-chase after it had been used in a crime. They'd been in the elevator on the way down to the garage when it'd happened. It'd all been over so fast that it'd barely happened, but the small peck had brightened Tony's spirits and had held promises of things to come.Kiss number six isn't a kiss Jethro gives him too often, and at times Tony's glad for that, because the events prior to it aren't always the best. Like when he'd been undercover as a prisoner and had to be chained to Jeffrey White, a guy who Tony happened to like, and then turned out to be a murderer and Tony nearly lost his life. Or before that, when he went out on his own on surveillance and ended up drugged in a sewer with the Marine he was looking for. He's named it the "You did great today even though I know it was hard for you"-kiss. The special thing about it is that it always, no matter what, always takes place in places where anyone can walk in on them. It's not just a peck, like the "We can't do more because we'll get caught"-kiss. It's more risky and always an undertone of desperation. If that desperation comes from Jethro or Tony himself, he doesn't know.He's only gotten the kiss that is number eight on his list once, and he hopes never to get it again. He's named it the "If you don't survive this I'll kill ya"-kiss. He got it after that incident with the letter that gave him the plague. The kiss was probably a little more forceful than his lover had intended, considering the state Tony was in and where they were. Tony didn't mind the forcefulness as much as he minded the not so slight hint of fear. Jethro "Second B's for bastard" Gibbs never showed fear, ever. So if he was honest, that kiss had scared him more than it had reassured him. Because he didn't know what it would do to the strong man he knew to be his lover, if he didn't survive. Thankfully, he had come out of the situation, if not completely the way he was before; then at least almost recovered.The "I'm sorry for being a bastard but you know I love ya anyway"-kiss, is a kiss Tony's experienced more often than he would've liked, but has learned to get accustomed to. At times, often during trying cases, it's a more occurring kiss than the "I love you"-kiss. It's loving, caring and seeking for forgiveness at the same time. It's also the only kiss that Tony would like to be able to resist, but like the others, gives into at the first touch of lips against lips.The tenth kiss should probably come first on his list, seeing as it's Tony's favorite, and it's also the first kiss him and Jethro ever shared. On the other hand, it has the longest name, and Tony's lucky number is ten, so it's gotten the last spot. The tenth spot. It's the "You're the best thing that's ever happened to me and I'm never letting you go"-kiss. The kiss warms his heart and soul every time he thinks about it, never mind getting it. The first time he got it was actually on Gibbs's, yes he was still Gibbs back then, doorstep. It was after the two of them and Kate nearly had been blown up by a hand-grenade, trying to help whom they'd thought at the time was a victim.Surprisingly enough, Gibbs had practically told him to go over to his place and that he could stay there, despite having told Tony earlier that day to find another place to stay during the repairs of his building, or better yet, find a new building to live in permanently. So, the shock had been even greater when Tony met up with Gibbs, waiting for him just inside the ever unlocked front door of Gibbs's house only to be smacked up against the wall by him. Before Tony had managed to ask what the hell he was playing at, Gibbs had pressed his mouth against Tony's and was teasing his lips apart with his tongue.Even though he'd been more than a little confused at the time, Tony had happily parted his lips to let Gibbs's questing tongue inside to play with its counterpart. The kiss matched all the emotions Tony himself felt right at that moment and had ever felt for the other man.It had felt like hours later, yet way too soon, when Gibbs had broken the kiss, leaning his forehead against the crook of Tony's neck and gasping for air. Tony had just been about to ask what'd brought the sudden, but welcome, assault on, when Gibbs had backed away and placed two fingers on his lips to keep him from saying anything.Looking into Tony's eyes, Gibbs had confessed how he felt about him and that life was too short to care about the rules of "Don't ask, don't tell". Gibbs had taken a chance at love, and made Tony the happiest he'd been in a long time. That's why the "You're the best thing that's ever happened to me and I'm never letting you go"-kiss, kiss number ten, their first kiss, is and will forever be Tony's favorite kiss.THE END
3774	All The Forgotten Things	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "F/M", "Characters": "Kuchiki Byakuya, Kuchiki Rukia", "Fandom": "Bleach", "Language": "English", "Rating": "General Audiences", "author": "by BlueberryAsh", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "", "published": "2009-03-27T00:00:00", "words": "1,214", "Additional Tags": "Pre-Relationship, Alcohol", "Relationship": "Kuchiki Byakuya/Kuchiki Rukia", "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": null, "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	Petals falling from the engine. Can you see the number? Can you trace the name?~ Pinback, 'Subbing For Eden'. * There's a bottle on the table, and two glasses. Finely cut, they gleam like elongated bubbles beneath the patchy glow of the moonlight, tumbling in at the window. Byakuya had forgotten how beautiful the effect could be; he had forgotten the way that the colours shine, and how the night seems so eternal and still. He had forgotten, too, the way that it makes your mind relax; not that he says so, of course. He simply turns the stem of his glass between two pale, slender fingers, and watches as the gleam dances across the table."It's beautiful," says the girl – the woman – seated opposite him, because apparently she has not yet fully understood his need for silence, after all these years. Or perhaps because she has more than understood it, but wishes to break him of the habit.Either way, the sound of her voice, combined with those words, makes his glass tip, just a little bit. He looks up at her, slowly, steadily. The moonlight, he sees, has spread itself as wantonly across her hair as it has across the table, setting the black alight with almost-purple. If he were to close his eyes, he thinks, then her voice would become that of another woman, a woman from so long ago, now.He keeps his eyes firmly open.He watches, as she studies the dark cherry wine swaying in his glass. He watches, as she lifts her own glass, and considers the way in which it moves, as though she has never seen such a thing before. He had forgotten how inquisitive she could be, how curious about the unimportant, little things; she has been gone for quite some time, in the Real World. She is older now than he has ever known her, and yet she appears very young, right in this moment. It is rare for Byakuya to invite her to take supper with him, and perhaps that is why she had changed out of her black uniform and into a yukata; he isn't sure that he had expected her to do so. The yukata is coloured a shade somewhere between pink and mauve, and it makes her seem very soft; the servants had whispered about it, amongst themselves when she had arrived to dine.The one thing, though, which Kuchiki Rukia does not resemble, despite the words he had heard upon their ill-disciplined tongues, is her older sister.Byakuya has never comprehended the way in which others seem incapable of understanding that. Perhaps it is because they cannot see past the surface; cannot see past the superficial. Whereas Byakuya, contrastingly, can tell that even the simplest expression, belonging to the woman before him, is nothing at all similar to how the kindred expression would have been upon Hisana's face. Even if they cannot see that, he can.The moonlight is a strange colour now, cast over Rukia. The clouds are getting in the way of his observations; they shift forwards and forwards, shading her from bright to dark to nebulous pearl-grey.She had held herself well at dinner. She had made him want to talk. He hadn't, but she had made him want to.Now he looks at his glass, then looks back at her."It is indeed beautiful," he agrees. His voice sounds slightly strange even unto his own ears, as if he had forgotten how to use it for a sentence involving positive adjectives. He isn't particularly surprised, then, when she raises her gaze from her glass, and studies him intently."Nii-sama," she begins.Byakuya shakes his head. "Enough," he says. "Enough."She raises her eyebrows just a fraction.The others are also incorrect, he thinks, when they suggest that he cares for the girl only because of whom she looks like; only because of whom her sister had been. They are furthermore incorrect when they suggest that he dislikes her for those same reasons. But they are not, it is true, incorrect when they state that Kuchiki Byakuya has never truly felt as though he were her brother; nor even her brother-in-law. For many, many years he had felt nothing at all on the matter, simply an emotional void, filled by the calm whiteness of necessary duty. And yet, now...Now he suspects that he is starting to feel something very different indeed. He has not quite defined it, cannot quite find the correct name for it, although he knows that, when he has found it, he will probably consider it the most obvious thing in the world. A small part of him is already whispering that it is as clear to see as the moonlight upon her hair.He shrugs the thought aside, although perhaps not far enough aside, because he opens his mouth and says, "Byakuya. That is my name."He wonders what she had thought he had meant, when he had said 'enough', seeing as her eyes are widening in telling surprise."You should call me by my name," he explains. He sips delicately at his wine, and does not take his gaze off of her.When she blushes, it makes her seem even younger and, for a deeply unpleasant moment, she actually does remind him, just a little, of Hisana. But then she leans back in her chair, as if she were the annoying Kurosaki whelp, tilts her head sideways, and says, somehow critically, like a woman trying out a word for the first time, and not entirely sure whether she likes it– "Byakuya-sama."A small part of him wishes to correct her on that point, too, because he had just about forgotten what it feels like for someone to refer to him as if they cared, but then he decides against it, and sips, again, at his wine. He can be sama, for now.Rukia nods to herself. And perhaps she does understand the silence, more so than he had believed, because she raises her glass wordlessly, as if she were toasting his health, and then drinks.The night grows calm and soundless.Byakuya approves.Something in her eyes, though, as she leaves them fixed upon him, makes him wonder if he has miscalculated: she doesn't seem young at all, suddenly. In fact, looking at him the way she is, she seems almost older than he. Woman wise, he thinks; she is woman wise, and thus incalculably dangerous.He hadn't really expected it.He had forgotten, in the years flown past, just how clever women could be.He had forgotten how much he liked it.But she keeps her silence, and so does he. When their glasses are both empty and gleaming, albeit slightly duller now, in the middle of the table, they both stand up. The moon has passed away almost completely, beneath a bed of clouds, and the two of them nod slightly, exchange good nights, and move away in their separate directions.When Byakuya wakes the next morning, he almost thinks that it might have been nothing more than a wine-laced dream.But when Rukia passes him in the hallway, and greets him, his name on her lips sounds like a smile.Kuchiki Byakuya begins to remember many things.
74344	One Kink at a Time	{ "Archive Warning": "No Archive Warnings Apply", "Category": "M/M", "Characters": null, "Fandom": "Stargate Atlantis", "Language": "English", "Rating": "Explicit", "author": "by outsideth3box", "chapters": "1/1", "completed": "2010-03-26", "published": "2010-03-25T00:00:00", "words": "1,804", "Additional Tags": "1000-3000 words, Alcohol, Alien Planet, Biting, Kink, Drunkenness, Humor, Series, Slash, Podfic Welcome", "Relationship": "McKay/Sheppard", "Character": null, "Relationships": null, "Series": "One Kink at a Time", "Collections": null, "Fandoms": null, "Archive Warnings": null, "Categories": null, "Bookmarks": null, "Chapters": null, "Comments": null, "Completed": null, "Hits": null, "Kudos": null, "Published": null, "Words": null, "Updated": null }	"It could have been shi- citrus, it's bright orange, and it has pulp!" Rodney's face is flushed with affront, his voice wobbling drunkenly, arms flailing with indignation."It's not pulp, Rondey." John clears his throat. "Rod. Ney. It's shedi- sendi- sediment."Emphasizing his point with a shake of his glass, John manages to splash not-citrus liquor into his lap, where it seeps invisibly through his black BDUs and into his boxers and he groans forlornly over sticky, double-layered discomfort.John stands, fumbling with his belt one-handed, and flounders across the room they've been given for sleeping off the harvest celebration, to sit on the bed and wrestle with his pants until he finally realizes it would all go faster, smoother, if he puts his glass down.Meantime, Rodney is caught between his ongoing declamation that the Sahrenans are trying to personally, individually, kill him with poison, and his unstuck guffaw-potential over the hilarity of John's soggy disrobing predicament.Eventually John untangles his lower limbs and works his way out of the clammy trousers more through pure tenaciousness than any remaining shreds of coordination. Once that benchmark has been passed, he drops back flat onto the blankets, feet still on the floor and huffs out a put-upon sigh aimed at the keening cackle from Rodney's chair in the corner."I'd like to shee you try it," John pouts, waving a futile hand at the drink left forsaken on the side table."I've never yet had any trouble," Rodney manages between chuckles with a crooked leer, "getting you out of your pants."He up-ends the dregs of his drink, swallowing loudly, and snags the ceramic jug from the table with the hand that isn't trying to tip the last three drops into his mouth. The unfortunate combination overbalances him and he goes down, fast and hard, on his ass on the wooden floor.It's John's turn now to hoot and howl at the eaves, knees pulled up to his ribs, not even trying to hold back. Rodney thrashes to unsteady hands and knees and decides that three points of stability is better than two, basic physics, and crawls across the floor toward the bed, pushing the jug with one hand and abandoning his glass altogether.Climbing, ungainly and definitely listing to the left, up onto the bed, where John is still hee-heeing, Rodney plunks the jug down onto his lover's belly in revenge and furthers his antagonistic goal by snatching it away again to get his slug first straight from the source.John hauls himself up the bed to lean against the beautifully scribed headboard, reaches down and pulls a pliant and giggling Rodney up between his spread legs and positions him against his chest, warm and heavy.Snuffling into Rodney's hair and nosing his ear, John mumbles, "I like this," into Rodney's bare neck."You're a closet snuggler, eh?" Rodney shivers, goosebumps popping in the wake of John's breath. "What else do you like? Tell me aaaaaaalllll your kinky secrets.""Kinky, huh?" John steals the liquor jug and takes a swig, passing the bottle back when Rodney makes grabby hands at it. "Hmmm. Biting. I like biting." A little demonstrative nip at the skin just below Rodney's ear is not out of order."Oh! Oh my. That's. Ahem. Yes, I can see... giving or receiving?" Rodney's whole body shudders in John's arms and John bends his head forward and whispers, with a hot puff of breath, "Both."Rodney twists to slide the jug onto the side table and smacks a sloppy kiss to the corner of John's mouth. "Mmmm, we can do that," He says, and squirms and shifts until he is satisfactorily wrapped in John's long limbs, snuggles his head down softly on John's chest and drifts off. John nuzzles Rodney's hair again, the scent of his lover warm and comforting in the strange surroundings, blows out a soft, happy sigh, and follows him.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~John wakes up certain that the rumbling he hears is each individual brain cell yelling, "Fire in the hole!" preparatory to violently exploding. The rest of him feels pretty much like he slept all night face down in a sand pit with a dirty boot in his mouth, and he has a truck parked on his bladder, revving its engine.By the time he knuckles his eyelids apart the revving sound is familiar and yes, the truck is Rodney, who wriggled down John's body during the night and is lying with his face mashed into John's naked belly, snoring into his navel."Hey," John croaks, his parched throat barely managing a whisper. He reaches out an index finger and pokes Rodney in the head, tries again. "Hey." Another poke."Mmmmph, what? Oh, ow!" Rodney lifts his head, squinting, and ducks it down again, raising his hands to his temples as if to hold them in place. "Ow, ow, ow." He stares. "How do you have morning wood? You can't tell me you aren't in pain, too.""Somebody forgot to tell my dick. If you move off me, I'll go get some aspirin out of my pack.""Aspirin. Water. Death. Yes, please," Rodney moans, tilting slowly onto his side.John is back before Rodney opens his eyes again. "Aspirin. Water. I had first dibs on the death, but I couldn't find any, so we'll have to live."He takes back the empty glass from Rodney and sets it on the side table, then pulls his lover up into his arms, raises his face for a deep kiss. "Experience tells me that endorphins can knock out a headache."Leaning in for another kiss, Rodney reaches to unbutton John's shirt. "You're even irresistible to the bass drummer in my head. Help me out of these clothes."The divestment process manages to not quite become a debacle, regardless of the grunting and huffing and elbows involved. Rodney forces John out of bed again so they can pull back the covers and crawl inside, where he immediately wraps himself around John like he grew tentacles in the night. John double checks the number of limbs grasping him, just in case.Rodney nuzzles the juncture of John's arm and shoulder, stretches up to lick a warm stripe across the hollow below his collar bone, rubs his stubbly cheek against the protrusion and then bites down on the patch of tanned neck just above the bone, worrying the muscle with a little growl."Mmmmm, you remembered," John hums, and bares his neck to Rodney's toothsome ministrations.In response, Rodney closes his teeth on the taut flesh of John's shoulder, eyes widening at the outbreak of goosebumps that travels down John's arm, watches his fist clench where he's clutching at the sheet. They are wary of leaving marks in visible places, so he wriggles down, trades his prize for a spot on John's chest, licking and nipping before latching on tight. John relishes the small circle of pain and heat from Rodney's mouth."Ohhh... that's good, Rodney."He chooses another spot beside John's nipple and sucks it into his mouth, teeth scraping gently, then grips it snugly as John sighs, squirming just a little, and John can feel his cock painting a thick, wet line along Rodney's hip. When he lets go, Rodney stares at the ring of red dots and unconsciously rubs his hardening cock against John's leg. He soothes the mark with licks and kisses and turns to the pink nub of John's waiting nipple, teasing it with the tip of his tongue, watching it crinkle and swell.When he opens his mouth and covers the dark knot, closes his teeth around the areole and tightens, slowly, on the flesh, John writhes beneath him, hips thrusting up against Rodney's belly, head thrown back, wanton and flushed.Heat spills from the reddened bites into every crevice, filling John with sensation and liquid, shuddery pleasure, making his skin burn with want and his muscles lax. He never expected this, not this enthusiasm and passion. Rodney still surprises him, even after all this time, the level of acceptance for all things John that Rodney possesses looses a thrill in his chest that lets John fly.The next touch of Rodney's teeth is lower, just above John's navel, light and delicate, more of a scrape than a bite. Then Rodney ducks his head and fastens his teeth onto the jut of John's hip, wraps his hand around John's leaking erection and starts to stroke, bearing down in slow increments with his jaws.John can feel every tooth, a pressing circle of bright shards zinging directly to his cock, where Rodney's hand is pumping bliss in overlapping waves through his body. It all blends and merges deliciously, Rodney's weight on his thighs, the pleasure building between his legs, the glowing, throbbing pain of the bite on his hip and when it all explodes, John's muscles clench, sending him rigid with ecstasy, howling, head back and spurting thick white stripes over his own chest.As soon as John opens his eyes he sees Rodney sitting up between his spread legs, fisting himself vigorously, staring at the wet mark left on John's hip. He grabs Rodney's shirt from the floor and swipes at the mess on his chest then sits up, grasping Rodney's free hand and bringing it close, brushing his fingers over the bite mark around his nipple; Rodney moans and his hand flies faster.John leans forward, gripping Rodney's shoulder and licks at his left nipple with the flat of his tongue, rubbing, gentling the tender skin, feeling the nub harden under his touch. Remembering Rodney's own actions, he closes his teeth on the lush flesh around the nipple, biting down gently but firmly, and shakes his head slightly, feeling Rodney's breath freeze in his chest. Rodney throws back his head and comes, roaring, with his hand in John's hair, pressing his head down harder into the bite, shaking with pleasure.Even collapsed on the bed on his side, panting, Rodney is still scarily observant."You rotten bastard, that's my shirt you're making a mess of!""Oh go ahead, try to tell me you don't have an extra t-shirt in your pack. You have silverware in there, for god's sake.""Not all native people we meet are fond of eating utensils!""You're bringing my headache back."Rodney flails and squirms until he is lying side by side with John, grinning mischievously."Need some more endorphins? Because that was great!""Yeah? You liked... you liked?" John blushes deep red and rubs his face awkwardly.Rodney leans forward and nips John's lower lip gently. "Yeah. Liked. Lots. Now you have me wondering what other fun kinks you're hiding that I'm not going to find out about until next time you're falling-down drunk.""No way." John grins slyly. "Next kinky revelation is all yours."

Subsets and Splits

No community queries yet

The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.