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Later, when it was all said and done,
(only nothing had been said, and really – what was to be done?)
the thing that haunted Bobby – the thing that tore at him nightly, tormented him, fouled his dreams into nightmares while it played endlessly on the inside of his eyelids – wasn’t the thing he’d expected.
It wasn’t the abject panic in Fawkes’ voice when he called Bobby back into the OR, or the open vulnerability and bewildered fear in his face as he backed away from Dr. Rendell, saying, “She fainted, she just passed out – check her, Bobby, please, I’m *scared*…”
It wasn’t the moment when Bobby knelt beside the prone woman, reaching for her pulse, or the moment when his fingers touched her throat and her head lolled to the side at a sickening and unnatural angle, the moment when her eyes – fixed under half-lids in that expression of vague recognition so common to the newly and suddenly departed – stared
(lifelessly)
sightlessly into his face.
It wasn’t even the moment when Bobby *knew* – unequivocally and beyond the barest shadow of a doubt – that Fawkes had killed her.
*Fawkes had killed her*.
It was the moment right *after* that, when Fawkes had turned, his head swiveling with a predatory sort of ease – that of some beast locating its prey by scent of fear alone. His eyes found Bobby’s with unerring immediacy, holding them steadily, and then Fawkes smiled.
Smiled perfect and clear in a way that pulled everything else into sharp, Salvador Dali focus – sex in that smile, sex and conquest and ravenous, empty hunger, and anyone can tell you that, for all his studied concealment and indifference, Bobby Hobbes had never been immune to this man.
*Never*.
*That* was the moment Hobbes would – and did – long remember, the moment and the sight that tore away tiny shreds of his soul, bit by bit, killing him a little, more and more every day.
Oh, *god*, the smouldering violence in his partner’s
(not his partner’s)
coal-black eyes,
(not silver anymore, but it hadn’t worked somehow it hadn’t worked)
the cocky tilt of Fawkes’ head, the aura of physical strength barely leashed, the new and potent emanation of swaggering maleness. More than anything – more than Bobby could or would ever admit – he had the darkly glamourous appeal of a Brontean hero. Fawkes saw and correctly interpreted the flicker in his partner’s eyes.
(the flicker that all Bobby’s will couldn’t keep hidden)
Fawkes gave the other man a long, measuring, bold look. An inviting, knowledgeable, sensual look. Bobby’s eyes widened. It was as insulting as a too-intimate touch.
And, horrid to realize, just as titillating.
Bobby stood up.
“Robert…” Fawkes breathed, taking a slow step toward the other man. “You know they’ll kill me if you let them.”
“If I *let* them?” Hobbes asked, his thoughts a Gordian knot of fight or flight. “What the hell are you talkin’ about, Fawkes?”
“Let me go.”
The moment seemed to hang there, suspended in time, stretching out into infinity.
And then a gun appeared in Fawkes’ hand as if by magic.
Anyone trained in the art of combat knows that the absolute last thing one should do is endeavour to kick a gun from an assailant’s hand. A kick, of necessity, is telegraphed, but the hand needs only the barest fraction of a second to get out of the way – or to pull the trigger.
The best thing to do, when faced with a gun, is put one’s hands up, do what the gun-wielder says, and hope opportunity will knock later. Failing that, one should aim any attack at the head or upper torso in hopes of sending the blast off-target.
Bobby knew all of that, and he was more than capable of holding his own; he’d been trained well and often, knew his basics and beyond. In the space of a breath, he decided – quite correctly – that putting his hands up wasn’t going to do him one damn bit of good. Fawkes had proven his willingness to hurt Bobby, and he’d already killed once…
(oh Christ, already killed once)
Bobby’s only chance – negligible as it was – lay in attack.
In accordance with the best rules of self-defense, Bobby swung his leg around as fast as he could, aiming squarely for his partner’s solar plexus.
At the split instant he did so, Fawkes took a step back, angling his body away and bringing the gun up in preparation to fire.
Consequently, Bobby missed Fawkes’ upper torso entirely.
Instead, he kicked the gun out of the other man’s hand.
It clattered to the floor some feet away, and Bobby could scarcely believe his luck. He didn’t, however, have time to ponder it overmuch because Fawkes came right at him. Their ensuing struggle was oddly silent, broken only by their laboured breathing, and seemed to go on forever, neither gaining the upper hand.
It finally ended with Fawkes’ back against the wall, Bobby holding him there with the weight of his body and one hand at his throat.
“Let me go, Robert,” Fawkes said then and Bobby could feel him shaking. “You take me in and they’re gonna kill me for the gland, you know they will. You’d stick with me this fucking long just to let them strip me for parts?”
Bobby’s hand flexed slightly around his partner’s throat. He was shaking, too. “Fawkes, you – I – “
“Let me go,” Darien repeated, but made no physical effort to free himself. “*Please*. Let me move, I can get away, I can take care of myself if you just let me *move* – “
For one instant, Bobby felt a pain of envy. What would that feel like, he wondered, what could that be like, living a life with room to *move*? Desperation in his voice when he spoke again. “*Darien*. Darien, I can’t just – “
Without warning – as though warning would’ve done him a damn bit of good – Fawkes put one hand to the back of Bobby’s neck and leaned in to kiss him with rough, possessive sensuality. It was impossible, unbelievable, *unacceptable*…and it felt better than anything had since the whole fiasco had started – but before that, even, *long* before – maybe too long before for Bobby to even *remember*.
So what could he do but accept it – welcome it – give in to it? What else could Bobby do but what he’d wanted to do for what now felt like millennia, and plunge his hands into Fawkes’
(incredible)
hair, wishing like hell he had the words – the adequate words – for what it was like. Bobby was no poet – he’d studied poetry once, he’d *loved* poetry once – but he was no kind of poet himself. Besides, Wallace Stevens, Garcia Lorca and D. H. Lawrence hadn’t written all that much about, well, *hair*, had they?
Fawkes’ hair was deep and warm and *living*, somehow – almost in *motion*, and Bobby could practically feel each strand of it, each of them separate, each of them growing right into his hands, responding to his touch in a manner independent from the rest of Fawkes. Bobby pressed sensitive fingertips to his partner’s scalp, and Fawkes sighed into his mouth, pushing into the contact, rubbing into it and sighing that sigh that was half a growl.
Hobbes promised himself then and there that he’d wash Fawkes’ hair for him, brush it at the very least – soothe it for him, make Fawkes calm and liquid and purring like a cross between Eustacia Vye and some beautiful, deadly-capable cat…
(deadly)
(deadly oh yes deadly because Proof Undeniable lay heaped in the corner, never to breathe again, Proof Undeniable’s eyes unseeing because Fawkes had made them so)
But in spite of that, in spite, in *spite*
(because?)
of everything, it was impossible not to kiss him, to try and kiss him bloody, Fawkes, you son of a bitch, wild thing, wicked wild thing, dangerous creature –
(creature, yes, he was a creature, he had to be, a demon, some incubus invading Bobby’s sleep and stealing his vitality, sapping his strength and robbing him of his will so Bobby was more than ready to attribute any number of otherworldly abilities to this man who was wreaking so much havoc in his life, this man who’d let him glimpse heaven before dragging him to hell and back and then into hell once more, this killer this creature who’d sullied his thoughts and actions and so twisted his soul with…this…desire)
who pushed and pushed until Bobby found himself on his back on the PET scan table, Fawkes on top of him, half-coiled and half-crouched, and there was a serpentine lilt to his every controlled, subtle and shattering move, rubbing his groin against Bobby’s over and over, while his eyes
(those eyes)
(normal again but never normal again)
glittered and shone with anger, with a bitter, feverish confidence. Again, totally outside his control, Bobby’s hands came up to tangle in Fawkes’ thick hair, ground his mouth impossibly closer.
Bobby sobbed once, and Fawkes caught the sound, sucked it down, savoured and devoured it and just kept right on kissing him.
Hobbes grasped desperately at the hard, whipcord, snake-muscled body moving above his – moving against his – his hips jerking up off the table, met and stopped by the sharp rise of Fawkes’ hipbone, Fawkes’ hard-on. Then Fawkes was kissing him again, plundering Bobby’s mouth with a kiss that was by turns both selfishly careless and generously kind.
So much, *too* much, and Bobby was so *close*, but he thrust up and made contact with nothing, and there was a sudden flurry of movement and confusion – but the resounding *click* pulled it all into focus and for one moment all Bobby could see was the barrel of the gun.
Then it all expanded again – so fast, almost dizzying – and he watched as Fawkes slithered backwards off of him, Bobby’s own gun leveled precisely between his eyes.
Shit.
Shoulder holster.
*Shit*.
“Don’t bother to get up, Robert,” Fawkes said as he backed toward the door.
Shakily and with no small effort, Bobby sat up, swung his legs over the side of the table. “Kid, if you *shoot* me – “
“Oh, Robert – didn’t anyone ever tell you not to belittle the guy with the gun? And I’m not going to shoot you – if I was, I’d have done it already. You may have noticed, I have something of a …soft spot where you’re concerned.”
Bobby could feel his fingernails cutting bloody crescents into his palms. “Didn’t feel all that soft to me, my friend.”
Fawkes chuckled, low and cool. “That it wasn’t. That it *isn’t*,” he amended, reaching down with his free hand to stroke his own – very apparent – erection through the loose hospital scrubs. Bobby looked quickly away, although not out of embarrassment. No, there was something so chillingly…*professional* about the way Fawkes could simultaneously walk backwards, keep the gun steadily aimed and *masturbate*; not for an instant did Bobby catch even a hint of an opening.
“You walk outta here and I can have every law enforcement agency we got on your ass with one phone call.”
“Yeah, but then you’d lose first dibs on the ass in question. You’re not gonna make that call.”
“Oh, I’m not?” The utter certainty in Fawkes tone grated at Bobby’s already-raw nerves – in large part because he was dead right.
“No, you’re not,” Fawkes replied, “because you may want me captured – although I doubt even that – but what you don’t want is me *dead*. And we both know that as soon as they get me they’re gonna kill me. So all you’re gonna do, my frustrated friend, is sit on your hands for, I don’t know, say, twenty minutes – and then you’re gonna leave, like nothing’s wrong. By the time you get back to the Agency, I’ll be long gone, so I don’t even care what story you feed to Tweedledee and Tweedledipshit. Hell – you can tell ‘em the truth for all I care. And don’t shortchange on the details. Vicarious sex is the only kind Eberts gets.”
“Fawkes – “
Fawkes’ smile deepened – sharpened; it was almost alight with fierce, malicious playfulness. “Hey, Robert.”
“Hey, Fawkes.” It was a growl more than anything.
“I’ll be seeing you.” Sharp – sharper still. “You just won’t be seeing *me*.”
Bobby stayed for close to thirty minutes, and then he left.
Like nothing was wrong.
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