#nagaina writes

The cold was what woke me -- cold, hard and bitter enough to soak through a heavy down-filled comforter and flannel sheets and that completely obliterated any warmth the space heater could provide. It drove a knife of ice into my twingy left ankle and twisted fingers of frost in my lungs and I came awake coughing, breath pluming out against my pillow, visible in the pale viridescent light filling the room. 

It was the light that my sleep-sodden brain latched onto first. If we’d lost power, and therefore heat, the lights should probably have gone down, too -- and yet here we were, fucking freezing and semi-lit. I reached for my glasses, pushed myself up on one elbow, and that’s when I noticed the ghost.

She stood in the space between the sets of bunkbeds, her head level with the rails, and for the first time I got a goodish look at her face. Her glowing face, illuminated from within by that weird, pale green light. If it weren’t for the gigantic gash in her forehead, cleft bone clearly visible at its widest point, phantom blood streaming down over her swollen closed left eye, she might not have been terrifying. She had a button nose and a pointy chin and a tiny, heart-shaped mouth whose lips were pressed together. Her unswollen eye was half-concealed behind the broken lens of a pair of spectacles still clinging to her ears, fixed on nothing and no one. Same loosely curled, clearly very wet hair. Same old fashioned bottle-green dress, also wet, clinging to her petite frame. I could fucking hear the water dripping off her and the smell of it, pondy and thick, oozed up my nose, along with the tang of blood and the stinging cold, flooding my sinuses.

A flicker of movement on the other side of the room caught my eye and, looking past her, I realized that Gabby was awake, too -- awake, pressed up against the far wall, her horrified gaze fixed on our…visitor? Guest? Let’s go with guest. I made a little gesture, trying to grab Gabby’s attention and, well, that’s when things went kind of pear-shaped.

The ghost saw me move and her head turned, sharply, the movement so quick it was almost like reality stuttered for a second and couldn’t quite keep up. I saw her one good eye fix on me and there was something aware in it, a kind of recognition almost. Her lips parted and, across from us, Gabby sat and up and started screaming like a fucking banshee and, I swear to all the fucking gods, actually threw one of her pillows at the ghost’s head.

Said pillow did not, in fact, hit the ghost -- it passed clean through and bounced off the bunk rail. Gabby’s screams had significantly more of an effect, startling everyone else awake with exclamations, and then screams, of their own. 

The ghost blinked out of existence, taking her flickery eldritch glow with her and, for a moment, we were plunged into complete darkness, which did not reduce the incidence of panic breaking out one iota. Then something -- reality itself maybe -- twitched, and the space heater ticked back on with its comforting fake-firelight glow and the nightlight next to the door blinked back to life and from the other side of the cabin I could hear the guys waking up and stumbling around in response to the caterwaul going on in our room.

“Viv, are you okay?!” Gabby leaned across the distance between our upper bunks and grabbed my hand. “Jesus fuck, you’re freezing. And your nose is bleeding! Somebody get the first aid kit!”

I reached up with my free hand and discovered that, yes, I was in fact bleeding.

Well.

The evening clerk at the B&B caught his eye as they walked in, still slightly damp and smelling of sea salt, ylang-ylang, and sandalwood, exuding a certain unmistakable aura of freshly pampered. He nodded and, twenty minutes later, once they'd had the chance to change out of the clothes they'd been wearing all day and into something slouchier and softer (horrifying tie-dyed pants and that ancient, shapeless Grateful Dead tee-shirt for Terry, a pair of his surviving University of Washington sweatpants and an equally shapeless plain black tee for himself), a knock on the door heralded the arrival of a room service caddy containing a bottle of nicely chilled sparkling cider, two glasses, a tiny box of rose-scented cloth petals, and a platter of assorted sugary delights, which the clerk passed to him with a whispered, “Good luck!”

Nate was not entirely certain exactly how everyone, including apparently random strangers and hotel employees, knew he was utterly hopeless at the relationship starting thing, but it was beginning to become rather alarming.

Terry, bless his black little heart, was making things easy. Instead of turning on all the lights in their little semi-suite, he had purred in his own ineffable way over the gas fireplace and turned it on, snuggling down on the loveseat in front of it and laying his head on the cushioned back, his eyes closed. He looked about as boneless as it was possible for a healthy adult human not suffering from some atrocious degenerative spinal condition to be and didn't even open his eyes when Nate breezed past behind him, tray in hand, and set it on the coffee table. He did respond to the popping of the cork, however, lifting his head and blinking in the firelight, as Nate poured two champagne flutes of non-alcohol and handed him one.

“Well now,” Terry grinned and took a tiny sip, and grinned some more. “Living dangerously tonight, Dr. Harada.”

“The circumstances seemed to warrant it.” Nate grinned back and seated himself in one of the nicely padded chairs set directly off the side of the loveseat, extending his glass for a toast. “To your birthday, Dr. Corben. May you see many, many more.”

Terry made their glasses go ting and drank to his own honor. “What goodies did they bring us to help celebrate this most natal of days?”

“...Was that a pun? That was a pun. I should have thought of that first.” Nate laid out the provender: the tiny box of very delicious and very expensive Belgian chocolates, the plate of assorted fun-sized fruit tarts that he knew from past experience that Terry loved, the plate of cheese and grapes and little savory-sweet flatbreads. “And you should drink some more. Right now.”

“Right now?” Terry offered his half-empty glass for a refill and no meaningful argument. 

“Yes. Massage is wonderfully relaxing but you're going to be intensely thirsty in about an hour.” He provided the refill and a plate of goodies. “And fortunately there's supposed to be water in the suite fridge.” 

“But no sylphs clad in diaphanous tunics to feed me grapes and chocolates. Alas.” He made a comedically tragic face and fed himself one of each, sequentially, the tragedy transforming into bliss. “Wow.”

“I'm sorry about the sylphs, they wanted twice the going union rate to come out in diaphanous anything in October.” Nate considered the platter, found his stomach entirely too knotted up to cooperate with casual fine dining, and settled back in his chair. “So...enjoying your birthday?”

“Best. Birthday. Ever.” Terry bit into another chocolate and made a face that could be legitimately described as orgasmic.

“Really? Ever? Bear in mind that I've been to your family's vacation house and I'm finding that a little hard to believe.” 

“Oh, my friend. You have no idea. My parents' idea of a fun and relaxing birthday celebration is dinner at a three-star restaurant or possibly some fustily exclusive country club – black tie all the way, of course – and attended by somewhere between fifteen and fifty of their closest friends and associates, followed by a stimulating evening of cultural enrichment at the symphony or the opera or some gala art show opening. I mean, I enjoy the occasional art gallery or museum, but I usually prefer not to be one of the objects on display. And there is literally no such thing as a non-tragic opera. I don't care what anyone says. Aida. On my birthday. Really.” He contemplated the chocolate held daintily between his thumb and forefinger. “Whereas this is one of the best things I have ever voluntarily put into my mouth, and it comes following a day full of enjoyable things undertaken with a person that I actually know and like.”

“There are comedic operas,” Nate felt compelled to point out and desperately hoped he wasn't blushing as visibly as he thought. And the glass wasn't really big enough to hide behind, dammit.

“No. No, there are not.” Terry sat up a little straighter and grinned easily at him. “And this is one of the best days ever. And best things. Seriously, you have to taste this. We're talking angel kisses and kitten love, here.”

“I got those for you – “

“And I'm choosing to share them. Open your mouth, Nate.”

They were, Nate had to admit, exceptionally good chocolates. Terry's blue eyes did that little dancing with glee thing they did at his own theobromine-fueled O-face. “And I swear that they get worse every year. Much, much worse now that...” He paused, took a breath, and managed a half-smile. “Now that I'm single again. I think my Mom managed to find an unmarried Vanderbilt relation to throw at me, she was so crushed that I didn't want to come to Scotland with them for my birthday. Or possibly an unmarried countess.”

Nate managed not to choke on his mouthful of bliss. “...Why a Vanderbilt?”

“My Mom has always wanted to be able to say that she's related to the Vanderbilts. I have no idea why, it's just a thing with her.” Terry shook his head mournfully. “But I suppose that's still slightly better than having the lifelong ambition to be related to the Kennedys. But! I am not going to digress into a diatribe about the insanity of my parents today. Today I am going to revel in the glory that is.”

“I guess I'm sort of lucky that way – my grandparents always let me pick what I wanted to do on my birthday.” Nate firmly decided that he was not going to make any sort of inquiries about potential Vanderbilt in-laws, no sir and no way, and drained his glass, wishing that its contents might have been a tiny bit more alcoholic. 

“Not your Dad?” Terry handed him a plate of grapes and chocolate.

“Sometimes. He was home with me during the school year so he had to travel on business quite a lot during the summer months – he always called, at least. And sent plenty of cool presents.” He grinned, remembering the more than a little squashed boxes of summer festival sweets and painted carp kites that had arrived over the years. “I had a few cousins close to my own age that visited Granny Hanako and Grandpa Toshiaki for a couple weeks every summer, so we usually ended up having fun.”

“That sounds nice – most of our cousins were a lot older than us, and we traveled so much we were almost never in the same place for more than a birthday or two. It was usually just Rob and Mal and I when it came to friends.” Terry looked him dead in the eye with an air of utter seriousness. “And, believe it or not, my brothers were insufferable goobers when they were kids. Age has definitely improved them.”

Nate managed not to choke to death on a grape. “Goobers.”

“That is what I said.”

“Goobers.”

“It is a finely descriptive and entirely accurate term. They started out the worst brothers anyone could possibly want to have – Rob was was six different kinds of popular everywhere we went and was embarrassed to admit that he was related to us for most of our childhood and Mal was the sort of annoying kid brother that invariably found the older kids on base stealing his underwear and running it up the school flagpole. Then, at some point after we all went to high school or college, everyone became a couple orders of magnitude more tolerable.” Terry sipped meditatively at his cider.

“'We looked around and suddenly we were all grown up'.”

“Yeah, like that. More or less.” Terry's eyes danced again. “Though I'm pretty sure Mal still gets his unders run up the flagpole on occasion.”

Nate snickered helplessly and Terry laughed and for a time they lapsed into a comfortable sort of silence – Nate's stomach unknotted enough to actually enjoy what he was putting into it. “So, what's the best birthday present you've ever gotten? Before today that is.”

Terry accepted a refilled glass and, after a meditative moment, announced, “Haggis.”

“....Seriously?”

“Okay, not the haggis itself. That was pretty nasty and required half a bottle of HP sauce just to get past the texture and I'm pretty sure it's the reason that I can't stand the taste of liver to this day.” He sat down his plate, the better to talk with at least one hand. “Making it, however, was my first real lesson in cooking – my grandmother's housekeeper, Mrs. Carmody, caught me lurking around the kitchen being surly and antisocial and put me to work. Granny wanted a Burns supper and didn't feel like waiting until January to get it – and so I found myself sitting in front of a cutting board covered in freshly boiled sheep innards that I was allowed to chop to my heart's content and serve to my brothers without even a whiskey chaser to soften the blow.” He grinned in fond reminiscence. “Next week she taught me how to make poor man's beef Wellington. I think I'm always going to miss that woman.”

“I know you've said that you were a terrible thirteen year old before, but I seriously cannot imagine you being surly. Or antisocial for that matter.” Nate shook his head.

“Well. Thirteen was sort of peak terrible teens for me.” Terry's smile went crooked again. “You?”

“I'm reasonably certain that I was the most mopily wangst-driven seventeen year old on the face of the Earth.”

“Seventeen has never treated anyone well but, in this case, I was asking about your favorite birthday present.”

“Oh!” Nate physically repressed the urge to facepalm. “Oh, man. I had so many nice things as a kid – it was just my Dad and I for the longest time and he spoiled me absolutely rotten when it came to toys that I wanted. But the very best, most what the fuck thing? A beer stein.”

Terry's eyebrow migrated toward his hairline. “You don't drink.”

“No, I do not. I have never drunk, not since my doctors told my Dad I would likely be sensitive to sulfates my whole life.” Nate refilled his own glass for emphasis. “Nonetheless, on my twenty-first birthday, Dad was in Germany on business and sent me a beer stein to celebrate that particular socio-cultural milestone. And not just any beer stein, mind you – it wasn't one of those cheap touristy things. It's made from hardened waxed leather, banded in horn and polished wood, and covered in this really fancy decorative carved leather work. Yggdrasil and Nidhogg. Oh, and it's the length of my freaking arm, so I'm assuming that it was probably a beer stein intended for use by a frost giant.” 

“I so need to meet your father one day.” Terry accepted a refill of his own. “Where is it? I'm pretty sure I would have noticed a frost giant beer stein in your apartment.”

“Granny Hanako uses it for extra large sized flower arrangements.”

“I need to actually meet your grandmother one day, too. I know!” Terry smiled a bright eyed smile of impending trauma. “We'll go to Oregon for your birthday this year. Clear you calendar, Dr. Harada.”

“I'm pretty sure she's already half in love with you, so a meeting couldn't hurt. If I put in for it now, I might even get the time off.” Nate smiled wryly. “Be warned, my grandmother will probably try to hook you up with one of my unmarried cousins. She apparently doesn't have enough grandchildren yet.”

“She can't possibly be more rabidly baby-bit than my own mother, I assure you. One granddaughter and suddenly she can hear her biological clock ticking again. Of course,” He had that dance in his eyes again. “You could always introduce me as your boyfriend, which would – “

Fifteen minutes later, once he'd stopped coughing all the cider out of his lungs with the aid of a few solid whacks and some therapeutic rubbing between the shoulder blades, Nate managed to croak out, “Well, yeah. Okay, that might work as a means of discouraging the cousin-throwing.”

“I'm sorry. I didn't mean to, well, nearly kill you.” Terry looked quite sincerely contrite which, for some reason, made Nate feel utterly wretched. 

“Not your fault. It's – It just surprised me. I – “ Nate stopped, realized he had no idea how he wanted to start that sentence, much less finish it, and soldiered on. “We're a pair, aren't we? Your folks want you to hurry up and get over that whole tragically widowered at a traumatically young age thing  and get on with the remarrying and making more grandchildren. And my folks want any option that renders me something other than a creepy recluse whose only close friends are corpses and case files.”

“Amazing, isn't it, how what you want to do with your life never seems to enter into it, even when you're all grown up?” There was a more than trace element of bitterness in Terry's voice.

“Astonishing.” Nate reached for the bottle with hands that were considerably less steady than they'd been a few minutes before, and poured for them both with exaggerated care. “Do you...want to be married again?” 

Terry accepted the glass but didn't drink, turning it slowly between his hands as he found sudden, passionate interest in the patterns of firelight on the carpet. “Someday. With the right person.”

“Ah.” Nate took a quick breath and found that not entirely sufficient to dispel the sudden, strangling tightness in his chest. 

“Which isn't to say 'never' but – “ Terry flashed him one of those quick, fantastically bright smiles. “Nate? Are you okay?”

“Fine. I'm fine. Really.” From somewhere, he dredged up the artful approximation of a smile.

Terry was Not Going For It, and Nate felt a little twinge of alarm in his gut joining the torturous cardiac contortions making themselves known in his chest. “What about you?” Softly.

Oh please don't DO that. Don't ASK that. Too late, he'd asked. “You've probably noticed that I suck with an audible sucking sound at that whole 'having a relationship' thing.”

“I don't know – I think we've got a pretty good relationship going on right here.” Terry inclined a single questioning brow and Nate wanted to sink through the floor.

“Friends. I'm good at being friends. Not so great at everything else.” He put down his glass and stood, rubbing his suddenly damp palms on the legs of his sweats. “In fact, I'm really epically terrible at everything else. I'm fairly sure that Rin's kids are going to be the ones picking out my nursing home.”

All the nervous energy suddenly bubbling out of where it had lain in wait for just this moment forced his legs to move, one stride, then two, and a few heartbeats later he was looking out the doors opening on the balcony, which itself overlooked the garden, at the moment a basically amorphous glob of wind-blown foliage in the night. Terry stayed where he was, which didn't help at all because Nate could feel the weight of his gaze, that intensely earnest blue-eyed look that belonged to a man who helped people cope with their emotional fuckedupedness for a living.

Whatever made me think this was a good idea? “Have I ever told you about my last...relationship-shaped...thing?” Nate heard the words emerging from his mouth with the sort of dull, disconnected horror he usually associated with dreams of walking into work naked.

“A little bit.” Oh so calmly neutral and Nate wondered, briefly, if throwing himself off the balcony would be enough to kill him or just hurt really badly. They probably weren't high enough up to make it totally painless unless he landed just right on his head. “Mostly that it ended really badly. Also that your ex is a colossal dick, which is a sentiment I can fully empathize with. I've got some exes that could only be improved via gravity slingshot into the photosphere of the sun.”

“Yeah...that would more or less describe it.” With massive reluctance, he turned around, but couldn't make himself pace back, leaning against the decorative door molding in case his legs decided to get all wobbly on him, which was looking like a distinct and unfortunate possibility. “I mean, don't get me wrong. It's not like that with everyone I used to – used to date or see or however you want to put it. I'm still friends with both the people I went out with in high school – Christmas cards and everything! But those weren't what you'd call relationship relationships, either. We were just doing the stuff that teenagers do, movies and pizza and necking in the backseat of somebody's first car and it wasn't really...serious emotional involvement. We liked each other but it wasn't...”

He absolutely could not say what he was thinking and look at Terry at the same time. He took a shaky breath and looked back out the window. “Like I said, I do friends really well. Sometimes even friends with benefits if it's the right friend. But I'm – I can't – “

“Nate.” Softly.

“I'm really bad at making other people happy. At even really knowing what would make someone happy. Long-term happy, I mean. Short term happy is easy – that's just basic paying attention and contingency planning. The rest? That's...beyond me. Totally beyond me, even when I try and I've really tried, I promise you that. But...trying isn't enough. It's just not.” He closed his eyes against the prickle of completely and utterly embarrassing tears and he was not going to start crying in front of Terry on his freaking birthday. “We...do have a good relationship going on here. A wonderful relationship. You're the best...the best friend I've had in years. And I...don't want to do anything...I don't want to say anything that would screw that up.”

“What makes you think you could?” Again, so very softly.

“Because I always do. Always. I say something or I do something – or I don't say something or don't do something – and that's it. Over. And I don't – want this to be over.” Darwin's fucking finches, he was, in fact, almost in tears. A head-first dive at the hydrangea bushes was starting to look better and better.

“Well, that's good.” Terry had obviously taken some stealthy like ninja classes at some point in his education because he very simply materialized right there next to him, leaning against the locked balcony doors in a manner that suggested he knew exactly what Nate was thinking just then and believed an intervention might be in order. Hell, he might – Terry was scarily good at that sort of thing. “Because I don't particularly want this to be over, either. Why might it be over, Nate?”

“Because I think I'm in love with you. Seriously, completely, emotionally involved with love for you and you – you're – my friend.” Was that his out loud voice? It was. He had said that out loud. “You're my friend and I'm in love with you and I always screw up being in love, I can't do it right, and can we just pretend I never said anything? Please? Please? Let's just...stay friends and be friends because I don't want this to end.”

Far, far too out loud for that, in all likelihood, and he buried his face in his hand before he could complete his self-actualized utter and abject humiliation by crying on top of everything else. He almost jumped out of his skin when Terry's hand closed around his wrist and pulled his hand down and he was totally crying right there in front of him and Terry was, he could not help but notice, smiling. And his eyes were dancing. 

“Nate, what if I told you that I don't want to be just friends?”

Nate took a shocked, gulped-in breath that came back out as something close to, “Oh?”

Not really a question, per se, or any other sort of sensible response because that was all it took for Terry to step in close and pull him closer and he tasted like chocolate and cider and Nate's mind temporarily shut down in self-defense as his back came to rest against the nearest wall. When his brain finished rebooting he was mildly astonished to discover that he wasn't experiencing a post traumatic relationship-related hallucination, that Terry's hands were really resting on his hips and Terry's soft, warm lips were really gently brushing his own, and his own hands were clinging helplessly to Terry's shoulders. When they parted, it was with an audible little moan of dismay on his own part and a sigh on Terry's. He swayed away from the wall at the gentle tug on his hips and into the warmth of Terry's body, burying his still-wet face against the junction of his neck and shoulder, Terry's hand against the small of his back, stroking his hair.

“In my personal experience,” Terry said quietly, “being friends isn't fundamentally incompatible with being lovers. Pretty much the opposite, in fact. I've never loved someone I haven't liked first. And I like you. I've liked you since we first met, that weekend when we both volunteered to stay at the office and you brought Cards Against Humanity to keep everybody entertained. I started falling in love with you every time you got fire-spitting pissed or cried with someone's family or snarked at some asshole defense attorney or reporter. So many people lose themselves to the work we do – let it peel chunks of their humanity away and go numb because caring hurts too much. But you...don't do that. You care. You feel. And I love you. I love you for that. I love you for you. And I freely confess that I want to find the asshole who made you think that you weren't enough, weren't worthy of being loved just for who you are, and psychoanalyze the living holy fuck out of him.”

Nate laughed, helplessly, holding on tight, the sound coming out suspiciously like a sob, and if anything Terry held him closer. 

“So no,” Terry's hand climbed up between his shoulder blades. “This isn't going to be over. Not because of this. I've wanted this for so damned long now...”

Nate took a deep, shaky breath and looked up just as Terry was looking down and it only took a bit more effort to finish the motion and bring their lips together again, a little less soft this time, a little less gentle. Terry's hand tangled tighter in his hair and his tongue brushed against the curve of his lower lip and Nate whimpered helplessly and let it slip inside. Chocolate and cider, stronger than before, and under that Terry himself; sandalwood and almond oil and musk filled up his head and sent his heart pounding off at a thousand miles an hour. A sudden, convulsive movement on somebody's part brought their bodies even closer together – which Nate hadn't thought physically possible – and made it absolutely, blindingly clear that he wasn't alone in the blood flowing swiftly condition.

“Terry,” He gasped, when the kiss finally broke and their hips ground together again and it was all he could do to keep his knees steady against the rush of pleasure this provoked, “we should probably get away from the window.”

“...Good idea.”

Nate wasn't quite sure who actually started the backwards motion away from the window and toward the fireplace and its cosy little sitting area – there was too much going on with hands and mouths and the head-spinning rush of having someone touching him with genuine desire again. Terry's hands were under his shirt, fingers spread wide across his skin, and then his shirt was over his head and the loveseat was behind his knees and they were tangled together, Terry's weight on his lap pressing him into the cushions and both their bodies together. Terry started working his way south, becoming distracted en route with the apparently irresistible allure of his neck and chest and collarbones and the delight to be found in licking and sucking and kissing and covering all of the above in a necklace of bites and Nate took advantage long enough to rid him of his own shirt, placing all that ink adorning Terry's shoulders at the tips of his fingers, and the tip of his tongue, happy to explore. A surprisingly back-arching, breath-catching, desperate writhing and moaning exploration, to be sure, Terry half trying to get away and half trying to get even closer, as though those tattoos were the most severely erogenous zone ever applied to any living creature on the face of the Earth, just waiting for human contact to set them on fire. 

“Nate,” It was easily the most desperate thing he'd ever heard in his whole life, Terry's voice at that moment, and the way their bodies ground together and then everything went a little sideways.

The rush of it came over him so suddenly he almost didn't have a chance to yelp a warning, his head going light and prickles of warmth running all the way up his body and his own spine bending at a rather acute angle. Terry blinked down at him, half startled and half dazed with lust, and he found himself blushing furiously.

“Sorry,” He croaked, fighting the urge to sink through the floor again. “It's been a long time. A really long time. And you're just so...so...Yeah.”

“Oh, Nate. Don't be sorry. I'm an idiot.” Terry kissed him, gently, and climbed off, helping lever him to his feet.

“No you're not. Stop it. Shut up.” He slithered out of the rest of his clothes and used the first available piece of clothing – that ancient Grateful Dead tee, so very appropriate – to sponge off a bit. “Get on the bed.”

The look on his face was not a single conclusive expression so much as a collision of emotional reactions, none of which resulted in an immediate response to what Nate felt was an extremely reasonable request. With a sigh, he grabbed the loosely knotted tie of Terry's horrific pants, pulled it loose and them down in a single smooth motion. He wasn't wearing underwear. Which explained a few things, actually, and he blushed gorgeously, and Nate took him firmly in hand on the way to the very nice King-sized bed with the mountain of pillows and goose down coverlets. Those tattoos and their erotic possibilities really required a more thorough and comprehensive examination, especially since just running his fingers over them  caused Terry to shudder and whimper and beg for more. Especially the ones wrapped in serpentine coils around the base of his spine and the delicious indentation of his navel and slender curve of his hips and the long muscles of his thighs. Milk white skin and a dusting of pale freckles and fine coppery hair, looped with jet ink, and he wanted to touch it all, kiss him, lick him, make those hungry noises of pleasure come out of his mouth. And that was, he was willing to admit very quietly to himself, something he was good at. One of Terry's hands found its way into his hair, gripping almost painfully tight and that was wonderful, almost as wonderful as the taste and smell of him, salty and musky and so very good. He couldn't keep his hips still for even a minute, between Nate's mouth and his hands spread over his hips and over his thighs, stroking and sliding and finding all the places that made those long, shuddering moans flow up his throat. The sound he made at the end was the sweetest thing Nate had heard in years, a helpless little mewl of ecstasy, and then his back arched and his hips tensed and Nate drank him down, milking him until there was nothing left to taste.

Terry's eyes fluttered open again as he settled down in the pillows next to him, running a hand through the fine dusting of coppery hair on his chest, a fingertip over the curling spiral of ink ringing one pebbly nipple. His eyes nearly rolled back in his head again and he reached up to capture that hand, holding it flat in place while he caught his breath. Nate leaned up and kissed him long and slow, nibbling a lip, sucking languorously on his tongue, and when they parted, Terry whispered, “You don't have any idea what you do to me, do you?”

“I think I can guess.” Nate smiled wryly and lay back in the pillows, tangling sweat-soaked red hair in his fingers, curly and imminently pettable.

Terry arched his head into the stroking and rolled onto his side, nuzzling gently at Nate's neck again, which apparently hadn't gotten quite enough attention or visible marks of possession just yet. “I feel that I have somehow fallen down on my half the deal here...”

“It's your birthday.” Nate pointed out, and kissed him again – and abruptly found himself pinned down in the pillows as Terry rolled a long leg over him and hoisted himself somewhat unsteadily astride.

“True, it is. And I freely confess, I've always been the sort to indulge in giving myself presents.” He rocked back and Nate arched helplessly himself as his body responded to the heat and friction and sweet sweatiness of it all, already more than half-stirred, and came all the way back to life. “Do we have any lube?”

Nate swallowed with some difficulty around the constriction of his throat and the sounds trying to crawl out of it occasioned by the teasing circular motions of Terry's goddamned wanton hips, croaking out, “Beside the table.”

Terry crawled to the edge and fished around in the little toiletries bag that Nate had almost decided not to bring coming back with a bottle and a little foil wrapped square and a gentle, nipping kiss. “Thank all the gods you didn't get that self-warming crap. It's awful.”

He poured out a generous dollop and massaged it between his hands, smiling the sort of lazy cat smile that made Nate acutely nervous in most situations but in this one seemed strangely exciting instead. “Close your eyes.”

He did so and was rewarded a moment later by the sensation of Terry's warm, slick hand cupping him, fingertips painting teasing circles in water soluble lubricants and it was all he could do not to whimper. Foil tore. Terry made a low sound in the back of his own throat and, an instant later, his grip shifted, sliding Nate's length from tip to root, once, twice, and his eyes flew open in shock as Terry's position shifted higher. He rocked down, slowly, and Nate's hips bucked as he was enveloped in smooth, slick heat, an inarticulate moan escaping him at the sensation and the sight of Terry taking him in, hands braced on his own thighs, back arched with the pleasure traveling all the way up his spine. Terry laughed, breathless, at the look on his face and rocked his hips and then all chance of actually saying or doing anything went utterly away and all he could do was hold on, catching hold of the curve of his hips and rocking up to meet him, their bodies moving together in a rhythm as old as blood pulsing and breath rushing and it was very simply too good, too right, too perfect. Every nerve in his body sang with how perfect it was, to please and be pleasured by this man, to love him and be loved by him, to know he'd give every drop of his blood and his every breath just to see that smile and those dancing blue eyes, hear that voice and hold that body, knowing it was the house a beautiful soul lived in. His head went white with it and his body went light and he let himself fall into it without a fight, let those wanton noises come out of his mouth, drank Terry's moans, and allowed the pleasure to drag him down into a warm and flawless darkness.

He wasn't sure how long he floated there in the tenebrous warmth inside his own mind, his own body, but it was still dark in the room when he woke, firelight casting shadows on the walls, Terry's warm weight pillowed against him, still trembling and breathing raggedly. He wrapped his arms around his lover's body, ran a hand through the sweat painting his back, curled into the curvature of his arms. 

Terry lifted his head and kissed him long and slow and sweetly. “Best. Ever.”

***

Kieran had, on the occasion of their first time sleeping together, expected Nate to look younger at rest than he did while awake. He had the face and build for it – a solid foot across the line that separated beautiful from handsome, as long and lean and wiry as a man a good ten years his junior. To his very great surprise, that had not at all been the case. The tension never seemed to leave the line of his neck and spine and shoulders, not even at rest – he seemed, even then, to be bracing himself, tightening up to take a hit, or else picking himself up from one. Even at his most bonelessly relaxed, curled up next to him by the warm glow of the firepit with the Orinids falling just beyond the shadow of the trees overhead, he wasn't genuinely at peace.

He was now.

Beneath his hand, Nate's back was one smooth line of bone and muscle and almost impossibly soft skin, still gently scented with massage oil and sea salt and more recently with sweat. His head lay pillowed on Kieran's shoulder, one long arm laying sleepily possessive across his stomach, their legs welded together from hip to knee. His hair was damp with sweat and his lashes were sooty shadows above his still gently flushed cheeks and his mouth was full and lush and kiss-bitten and through all the places they were still in contact, Kieran could feel the echoes of pleasure still ringing through all the places in his mind and soul that he usually kept locked up tight. Pleasure and more than pleasure. Exultation. His heart was singing with it.

And not alone. He pressed a kiss to Nate's temple and shivered slightly as, even asleep, he responded, squeezing the last microns of space from between their bodies, his arm curling up over his chest, sending a frisson of pleasure that echoed through them both, from the roots of his hair to the tips of his toes. A slow stroke the length of his spine made those ridiculously long lashes flutter, brought a noise past his lips that was half moan and half plea and more erotic than either sound alone. 

Beautiful, the thought crawled through Kieran's head, along with shared and tangled and mutual ecstasy still humming in every nerve and inch of skin, the heart-song and heart fullness and gentle wash and curl of emotion twining together. So beautiful precious wonderful mine. My own. Belonging to me.

He had not thought – had never really allowed himself to think – that he would ever be this happy again. And yet here he was, with his beloved and his heart's-ease laying warm and safe in his arms. Nate's breathing deepened as he fell further into sleep. Rain drummed slow and steady against the roof, a breath of cool air finding its way through the seams of the window casements. Against the far wall, the shadows cast by the fireplace joined and parted and joined again.

He wasn't quite certain how long he slept but when he woke it was immediately and all at once – without the slightest trace of disorientation and with every nerve ringing like the strings of a harp struck by a two year old. 

Something ghosted across the edges of his awareness, something swift and subtle, flirting with the warded boundary he'd built around the perimeter of the building when they'd checked in earlier. Powdered silver and salt and more than a trace of his own blood, that not even the rain could wash away – not that it was raining now. The only sound from outside was the wind, rushing through the trees with a roar not unlike a stream in full flood.

...witchthing...

It curled through him, through his mind and soul, like the first breath of winter, ran needles of ice deep into his gut. Next to him, Nate stirred in his sleep, responding to his own sudden tension, and he bent and soothed him back down with a kiss and a comforting murmur and a quiet inner caress. Slowly, carefully, he eased out from under Nate's arm, rested his head on his own warm pillow and drew the covers up over him – even with the fireplace, the room was cool and damp now, though how much of that was psychic chill and how much was the weather blowing through he couldn't quite tell. He found the clothes they'd discarded earlier, dressed swiftly and silently, opening the inner ward he'd forged around the suite itself barely a sliver and closed it tight behind him as he went.

Outside, the wind nearly clawed the loggia door out of his hand, storm-front strong and breath-stealingly cold, the roar of it in the trees easily drowning out any other natural sounds. But not the unnatural ones. The scrape of claws across densely patterned defensive energies, looking for some weakness it could make or exploit in the weave. Inarticulate gutturals and hissed sibilants, filled with rage and frustration and no small amount of pain. Morpheus was certain that he'd hurt it badly and the confirmation gave him a coldly happy grin as he started off across the vast expanse of beautifully manicured lawn in the direction of the equally manicured garden. He felt it sense him in motion, felt it catch his scent – and more, Nate's essence mingled with his own in the most intimate of ways, the quarry it had always been hunting. Felt it peel away from the house and begin limp-loping after him, low to the ground and more invisible than not, but far, far less sleek and strong and fast than it had been. Felt it gather itself in long, leaping strides and launch itself at his back, forelimbs stretching into scythes, smooth, serpentine head splitting into a muzzle lined in razor-fine needles – and slam face-first into the already active first line of his personal wards, the defenses it had bypassed practically without effort weeks before, filaments of power flaring into eye-searing visibility brighter than a stroke of lightning. It limned the creature's shifting-twisting body as it writhed in the net of the wards' power, seeking the shape that would let it escape, or at least break the circuit of punishing energies connecting them.

Kieran called them back down before the thing could find it, pulling the net of his protections in – not quite skin-close but near to it. The creature landed in an ungraceful, mostly-visible sprawl in the muddy, leaf-strewn lawn, form flickering as it struggled to hide itself again. He shook a gently chastising finger at it. “Now. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, and a thousand generations of my ancestors will rise from the grave specifically to kick my ass for embarrassing them that way.”

Clever witchthing, It keened at him, form losing visible definition even as he watched, springing away to try to circle him again, hoping to shake his perception. Should have eaten your heart when I had it in my claws. 

“Yes, you probably should have.” He replied, mock-commiserative. “But since you didn't...? Well, sucks to be you.”

He broke for the garden at a sprint, skidding on mud and wet grass and leaves as he went, the creature howling rage and hate and hunger at a pitch inaudible to human ears – human minds were another story – and leaping after him in ground-eating strides. He hit the entrance to the boxwood hedge before it could reach him and slid into the maze with his feet barely under him, skinning his palm on the field stone pylon marking the entrance as he grabbed it and took the corner at a dead run. Behind him, expensively cultivated and embellished greenery snapped and tore and he couldn't help wincing a bit because it was a very nice garden and he genuinely felt somewhat bad about wrecking it – but he rather suspected that the house was not really an ideal alternative venue for this sort of thing. His Eye snapped open and the path he'd traced earlier in argent and crimson and white leapt out at him, a shimmering thread in the otherwise absolute darkness. He held the wards tight around him, masking his presence as best he could at the cost of losing his finer sense of where the creature might be at any given moment – it hardly mattered, since it would chase him down no matter what, in order to get at what it really wanted.

Clever witchthing, the thing's soundless voice curled across the surface of his mind. Feeding the halfthing its magic. Cleverclever. Will like eating your heart.

He clamped down hard on the urge to taunt back – it was too close, would be on him too fast, for that to have the desired effect. 

Smell the halfthing onyouinyou, the sensation that accompanied those words churned his stomach in spite of himself, grotesque and vile and obscene, knew you would have liked helping with him, witchthing. Too bad.

The creature slammed into him from above, claws briefly finding purchase in his shoulder before the wards could engage, flung away before they could bite deep or cause serious harm, the recoil of energies slamming him into the ground and the creature through a few layers of hedge. He fought for air and staggered back to his feet – the center of the maze was only a few more turns away – the creature howling and thrashing and coiling in on itself in agony.

The center of the maze, the hotel's brochure had informed him on the way in from the city, was marked by a spectacular display of seasonal flowers. It really was impressive when he'd visited earlier, all Japanese anemone and monkshood and helenium and autumn crocuses, arranged in an inwardly curling spiral of color and perfume. The wind hadn't done it any favors and neither had the rain and neither were his feet as he ran across it, coming to a halt at the innermost point of the whorl of vegetation, the creature crashing through the final border of the hedge only a few breaths behind. He stopped, breathed, and his wards flowed out around him again, forcing the creature back a pace or two, its form flickering briefly more visible as it snapped and growled, its eyes lambent in the dark.

Witchthing, a purr. Should have stayed inside.

Overhead, the wind finished shredding the last of the cloud cover. The moon, full as it had been on the night of his birth, spilled her radiance across the vault of the heavens, bright enough that it washed the color out of even the stars, and cast hundreds, thousands of tiny, sharp-edged shadows across the parterre stones of the garden. Cast his own shadow across the creature, lending its shape a form and solidity that it otherwise lacked.

“Well – one of us should have.”

The creature shrieked, a hideous psychic ululation, as the shadows pierced it, wrapped around its throat and limbs in skeins of barbed darkness to bind it in place, deny it freedom of movement and shape, spears carved of night's own substance driving through its hide and setting its blood flowing. 

“I'm really thinking that was you.”

The creature's struggles slowly ceased, its shrieks dying away to desperate whines of distress, its eyes rolling in its head.

Witchthing witchthing –

Then, he heard it, beneath the creature's own voice.

Kagemasuta.

“Guilty as charged.” He smiled thinly. “Hellcaller.”

A hiss – a double hiss, one from the creature and one from the thing riding its senses, trying to force it to keep acting even as it died. Finally, finally died.

“I know you can see me. I know you can hear me.” Kieran replied, softly. “So I strongly advise you to listen to me now. He is under my protection. If you raise your hand against him again, I will find you and I will end you. And nothing – nothing you can do, not the Serpent, nothing in this world or beyond it – will save you.”