#reedusproblems

He's been appearing and disappearing since that first night you spent together, sometimes weeks or months will pass until you see him again. And now he's back, waiting in your line at the coffee ship, a cocky grin firmly in place as he leans over the counter and asks you how you’re doing. Before you know it, he's wormed his way back into your life, his worn boots up on your table and his lithe body back in your bed. Only this time it’s different – for both of you. You can feel that something has changed with him, he's more attentive, less eager to leave you alone. Then there are the nightmares, the screaming night terrors that have him clinging to you in the deep dark of night but that he claims to have no recollection of when the morning comes. You know that he's lying, the dark smudges under his eyes and the haunted look he wears, contradicting his denials. It’s different for you too – you’re done playing games with him. What you thought was a casual thing isn’t any longer, you need to know if he's worth waiting for, that you mean more to him than a warm bed each time he comes home.

Winter in the city hits hard, the snow falling non-stop for days much to the annoyance of most of your customers, their constant grumbling about the weather providing the soundtrack to your days. You find yourself almost wishing for the night shift so that you can avoid the steady stream of Christmas shoppers that invade the store during the day. Eventually 6 o’clock rolls around and you get to toss your apron into your locker, eternally grateful that tomorrow’s your day off. Easing your aching feet out of your comfy work shoes and into your boots is the highlight of your day which is kinda sad, you think to yourself as you pull on your parka and wrap your scarf around your neck. Calling your goodbyes to the co-workers you’re leaving behind, you stop just inside the doorway to pull up your fur-trimmed hood and that’s when you see him. Standing across the street, sheltered from the falling snow in an empty doorway, Scud is clad in an oversized parka of his own, the fur on his hood pretty much obscuring his face apart from the tip of his nose and the cigarette that’s dangling from his lips. He straightens up as he sees you coming out and you carefully cross the street to meet him.

“Hey,” you say, leaning in to pluck his cigarette from his mouth and kiss his cold lips. “I didn’t know you were coming. I thought we were meeting tonight?”

“We were. I just didn’t want you having to walk home in this. The van’s around the corner.”

You smile at his thoughtfulness, handing him back his smoke and then looping your arm through his as he leads you to his battered white van. Once you’re inside, he climbs in, cranking up the heater as he pulls out onto the slush-filled street.

“I just have to make a quick stop, if that’s okay, Babydoll?” he asks, throwing you a glance before concentrating on the road again.

“That’s fine,” you tell him, settling back into your seat. “I’ve got nowhere to be except here with you.”

“Good.”

He drives like a maniac as always, his total disregard for any type of traffic laws not even phasing you anymore and, as the snow stops falling quite so heavily, you find yourself in an older part of the city you’ve never been to before. Parking on a narrow side street, you both get out and he leads you between the facades of older buildings, coming out into a small square of storefronts overlooking a bustling street market at their center.

“I’m a little early,” Scud informs you, checking the clock set high on one of the surrounding buildings. “Buy you a hot chocolate, sexy?”

He wraps an arm around your neck, nuzzling his face into yours, rubbing Eskimo kisses across your nose and you giggle, pushing him away.

“Sure, but you owe me something even warmer later for making me stand out here in the snow with you.”

“Deal,” he says, giving you a wink that sends a shiver of anticipation down your back.

You find a place to sit, brushing the snow from the back of a curved iron bench so that you can climb up and rest your feet on the seat so as to keep your butt dry. Scud sits curled in at your side, one arm loosely around your shoulders as you sip at your hot chocolate and watch the bustling crowds of shoppers going about their business in the softly falling snow.

Eventually Scud spots the person he's there to meet and slips off the bench, begging you to stay put until he returns. He disappears rapidly into the crowd and, although you crane your neck in the direction he took, you can’t catch a glimpse of who he’s come to see. You feel a slight pang of abandonment with him gone from your side, the cold air rushing in to fill the void left by his warm flesh pressed against yours. Finishing your drink, you wait for him, an uneasy feeling creeping over you until it feels like your skin is crawling with bugs beneath its surface and you jump down from the back of the bench, unable to sit still for a moment longer. Scanning the crowd and the nearby buildings, you take off in the same direction he did, suddenly not wanting to be out here alone anymore. As you cross the center of the market, heading for the buildings on the other side, you become aware of a strange sound coming to you beneath the noise of the crowds. You turn, trying to pinpoint it, and notice a flight of broad stone steps leading down under one of the buildings at the far end of the square, situated furthest away from the hustle of the shoppers. Slowing down your approach, you realize that the sound you can hear is the dull throb of dance music, the hypnotic beat seeping into your bones as you get closer. Standing hesitantly at the top of the stairs, trying to see down past the bottom, your view is blocked by the overhanging wall and you huff out a frustrated sigh.

You bite your lip, unsure of what to do, something telling you that this is the place Scud disappeared into and you feel this overwhelming need to follow the steps down into the shadows and see where they lead. Your decision is made for you when a cold dash of dread sweeps over you, something you can’t name and don’t want to, sending icy fingers of fear around your heart. Adrenalin kicks in and you back away from the steps, diving into the crowd, pushing blindly across the square to put as much distance between you and whatever malevolent presence is lurking underground as you can. Ahead you spot a toy store, it’s gaily decorated windows beckoning you forward with a promise of innocence and safety. You’ve never felt such an irrational fear in your life before, you’re still not sure where it came from but you just know if you can get inside that toy store, everything will be fine. Just as your hand is reaching out to push against the worn bronze of the entrance, an almost euphoric sense of relief floods your body and then is cruelly snatched away from you by a firm hand clamping around your upper arm and pulling you back. You let loose with a small shriek, spinning around to come face to face with Scud, a look of concern etched on his face.

“I’ve been calling your name,” he tells you. “Didn’t you hear me?”

“No, I… no, there was this noise… this music and…” you stammer, feeling suddenly foolish now that he’s back by your side.

“We should go,” he says, his eyes darting nervously around the square, and you take a proper look at him, now that the relief of having him next to you is subsiding.

His hair is messed even more than normal, clinging to his neck in damp, sweaty tendrils and there’s a faint odor coming from him that you’ve never smelled before, something that makes your nose wrinkle in disgust. And then you spot the dark blotches on his clothing, almost invisible against the dark material of his parka and you step involuntarily back from him.

“What is that?” you ask and he looks down, wiping a hand over his coat.

“Nothing, I just spilled my hot chocolate after I left you,” he answers quickly and you know that it’s a lie. “Come on, we should go.”

“Why the rush?”

“It’s uhh, it’s getting darker and I said I’d take you home. You must be freezing.”

He holds out his hand to you and hesitantly take it, still not entirely sure what’s going on, but the reassuring weight of his fingers wrapping around yours as he leads you back to where you parked the van is oddly comforting, despite your feeling that he’s keeping something from you. Falling into step beside him as he hurries you through the darkened streets, you make up your mind that tonight will be the night that the two of you have a long conversation, lay all of your cards on the table and figure out where this relationship is going, if anywhere.

You’re cutting through a narrow alley when Scud suddenly stops short in front of you and you bump into his back with a silent curse. Peering over his shoulder to see the cause of his lack of forward movement, a small chill runs down your spine at the sight of two men blocking the path.

“Shit,” mutters Scud, dropping your hand and reaching into his pocket to draw out one of the small metal balls he’s always tinkering with, keeping it secreted in the palm of his hand.

He waits until the men start to advance on your position, something about their movements looking out of place and alien to your eyes. You barely have time to study them before Scud tosses the metal ball in their direction and whips around to cover your face with his arms, pulling you in tight against his chest. A blinding white light fills the narrow space, accompanied by two inhuman shrieks of pain and you blink furiously to clear the after images from your retinas before raising your head to find the alley empty apart from a cloud of sparkling debris that is dispersing in the cold night air.

“Holy fuck, was that a grenade?” you ask, a little stunned, your mind reeling.

“No,” snaps Scud, grabbing your hand and trying to tow you after him but you dig your heels in and refuse to budge, pulling him to a halt.

“You just killed those men with that… that thing,” you yell at him accusingly, trying to wrench your hand from his tight grip.

“Not men,” he spits, distractedly. “Vampires. And, if we don’t hurry, there’ll be more of them on our ass so move it, Breezy.”

“Vampires?” you ask incredulously. “What the fuck kind of whack job are you?”

You twist out of his grip, turning back to flee the way you came when something drops from the sky above you to land with a muffled ‘whump’ in the snow before you. Straightening up, it reveals a face that was obviously once human but now looks like a botox experiment gone horribly wrong, all protruding ridges with blazing yellow eyes and a mouthful of wicked-looking fangs. It peels its lips back, hissing at you as it stretches its arms out and you shriek, pulling back your fist to punch it squarely in the center of its face. Feeling the satisfying crunch of bone as you connect with its nose, you gasp as it reels back, clutching its face, giving out its own shriek in answer to yours. You backpedal rapidly away from it, shrieking again as Scud captures your hand and propels you down the alley in front of him only to have your way blocked by two more creatures dropping into sight. Pushing you behind him against the alley wall, Scud pulls a small handgun from the back of his jeans under his coat and holds it out in front of him, hand shaking just slightly.

“Come on then, you fuckin’ skanks, let’s do this,” he yells as the creatures advance on you from either side.

Your heart is thudding painfully in your chest, a sick feeling rising in your throat and you clutch hard at the back of Scud’s coat, anchoring yourself to him, sure that you’re about to die. A movement behind the vampire duo to your left catches your eye as another shape drops lithely from the building above, this one making no sound as it unsheathes a dangerous looking sword in mid-air and lands to wield it faster than your eye can track. The vampires disintegrate as the blade severs their snarling heads from their bodies in the blink of an eye and, from your right, you hear the snow-muffled sound of running feet beating a hasty retreat. The newcomer in your midst makes a sound almost like a grunting laugh and reaches out to pluck the gun from Scud’s fingers, firing it down the alley. Your eyes widen as the retreating figure explodes into another smattering of glittering debris and the tall stranger in front of you hands the gun back to Scud before shooting a glance in your direction.

“You brought a date? That’s cute,” he says to Scud, his soft voice commanding your attention. “We have to go. Now.”

He stalks off down the alley, the authority in his tone letting you know that you better follow him if you know what’s good for you.

“Who is that?” you hiss, clinging to Scud’s sleeve as you head out of the alley. “And what the fuck is going on?”

“I’ll explain everything when we get somewhere safe, okay? I promise,” he tells you, a pleading look on his face.

You sigh, trying to imagine any place you’ll feel safe after what just happened but you follow him anyway as he races to catch up with the leather-clad figure turning the corner at the end of the alley. You can’t decide if you’re in shock or if you’re asleep and this is some crazy-realistic dream your over-caffeinated mind has decided to plunge you into but, whichever it is you reason, you should probably stick with the guys who seem to know what’s happening. The three of you make it to the van without further incident and the mystery man sees you safely on your way before disappearing back into the snow which is now falling heavily again.

“Where’s he going?” you ask, feeling even more uneasy without his comforting presence. “I thought we were all going someplace safe.”

“We are, don’t worry,” Scud tells you, nodding his head back as a large black motorcycle roars by the van. “B just has other means of transportation.”

“B?” you question him, finally understanding his reluctance now to use that affectation with you.

“Blade.”

“Blade,” you repeat, saying the name out loud and finding it suits your rescuer.

“Put your seatbelt on,” Scud demands, making a hard right on the slush-filled city streets and you strap yourself in.

“Is he human?” you ask, not believing that this is now a question you have to ask about a new acquaintance in your life and pretty sure you already know the answer.

“Half,” Scud answers hesitantly, throwing glances your way as if to gauge your reaction, maybe looking to see if you’re going to have some kind of freakout over the whole thing but you actually feel surprisingly calm because you’re still not completely convinced that you’re even awake.

“Half-human, half-vampire?” you say, trying the word on for size and finding it doesn’t sound nearly as ridiculous as you thought it would coming from your lips. “How does that even work? Wait, wait, I don’t want to know. Is he dangerous?”

“To them,” he tells you with a derisive snort.

“How did you two hook up?”

“He saved me, patched me up. That’s what he does. I just sorta never left though. He looked like he could use somebody with my talents and I wanted every last one of those suckers dead for what they did to me.”

With a sudden moment of clarity, you now know where the latticework of scars on his stomach came from and a chill sweeps your body. It took a long time for him to let you see them, with him telling you that he’d been in a motorcycle accident years before that had left him near dead on the side of the road but now you know that must have been a lie. You want to ask him about it but you let it slide for the moment in favor of the more pressing questions that are flooding your mind.

“So what, you make those tiny grenade things for him?”

“Among other stuff, yeah. I help him take out the nests wherever he finds them.”

“You’re serious,” you ask, skeptically. “This is what you do when you’re not around, you hunt these things down?”

“All over the world, Babydoll,” he says with a hint of cockiness in his voice. “Wherever we get reports of suckhead activity, that’s where we go.”

You try to comprehend the scope of what he’s telling you but your mind is still trying to wrap around the reality of vampires, let alone the fact that he lives his life exterminating them. Before you can ask him any more questions, you notice the tail light on Blade’s bike flaring in front of you as he slows to a stop in the thickly falling snow. You try to see where you are through the darkness but all you can make out is the side of a large warehouse looming in front of you, the door rolling up to admit first the bike and then the van as Scud pulls inside and parks. You open the door and climb out, taking stock of your surroundings and find yourself in a workshop area with numerous benches littered with tools, machine parts and objects you’d never be able to name in a million years. Scud comes around from the other side of them van and approaches Blade who is unstrapping some kind of weapons that are attached to his forearms under the sleeves of his leather jacket. He hands them to Scud who takes them and reverently places them on a nearby bench, his eyes flicking between you and Blade, who walks over to stand in front of you.

“You shouldn’t have been there tonight. You put us all in jeopardy,” he tells you, a quiet anger underlying his words.

“Hey, I didn’t ask to be there. Talk to your boy here, he's the one who dragged me along. I didn’t even know any of this shit existed outside of fiction before today,” you throw back at him, raising your chin defiantly at him.

“Yeah, it was my bad,” Scud interjects, steeping between you and Blade. “I didn’t think it would be a big deal to have Breezy wait someplace safe while we took care of business. I should’ve known better.”

“Yeah, you should,” Blade growls, fixing Scud with a withering glare.

“But did you see the way she punches that suckhead in the face? She was badass, B, come on,” says Scud, giving one of the eager grins that made you fall in love with him in the first place.

“We try not to do that,” Blade answers, leaning into your personal space. “It just tends to piss them off even more.”

“Noted,” you reply sarcastically, meeting his gaze. “I’ll try to remember that the next time one is all up in my face trying to eat me.”

His lips quirk in what might be a distant relation of a smile, showing you just the barest hint of fang and you feel a shiver run down your spine.

“You should stay here tonight, just to be safe. They have your scent now, it was all over that alley alongside ours. Only a matter of time before one of them finds you. We only got half the damn nest tonight so the rest of them are going to be looking for retribution but don’t worry, we’ll get them before they get you.”

With that less than cheerful prediction hanging in the air, he turns and disappears up a nearby staircase, leaving you and Scud standing alone, an awkward tension building between you.

“C’mon,” he says and you let him take your hand as he leads you further back into the building, pushing open the door to what was probably once an office but now serves as his living quarters.

His room is not at all what you expected, you had visions of a jumble of mis-matched furniture littered with heaps of clothing, half-started projects he’s working on and stacks of take-out boxes piled everywhere. Instead you’re greeted by a very sparsely furnished area. One wall is dominated by a jumbo tv with a cluster of gaming consoles hooked up underneath and a comfy-looking leather gaming chair set up in front of it. On the other side of the windowless room is a double bed which, to your surprise, is neatly made with a stack of books on the table beside it underneath the glow of a small lamp.

“Bathroom?” you ask as he shrugs out of his parka and hangs it on a hook by the door.

He indicates one of two doors set in the adjacent wall and you go in, not really needing to use it but just wanting a few minutes alone to try and gather your thoughts. Slipping out of your own coat and hanging it on the back of the bathroom door you stare at yourself in the mirror above the sink, thinking that you’ve aged ten years in the space of the last few hours since you left work. As your mind replays the events of what’s transpired, you try to pin down your emotions. You’re feeling a certain amount of anger, that’s for sure, along with a smattering of betrayal and hurt at his duplicitousness but there’s still the overwhelming weight of your love for him crushing your chest which was only intensified by the way he stepped up to protect you in the alley before Blade arrived. Taking a deep breath, you decide to focus on that first as you flick off the light and leave the bathroom, finding Scud sitting morosely on the bed, shirt and boots off, his fingers running absently across the scars on his abdomen as he stares off into the distance. His head shoots up as you reappear and he jumps off the bed to meet you halfway across the room.

“Are you okay?” he asks and you can hear the guilt lacing the concern in his tone.

“I think the answer to that is pretty obvious, don’t you?” you tell him, giving him a small smile as he leads you back to sit next to him on the bed.

He sits beside you, his hands twisting nervously in his lap and you reach out to take one in yours, squeezing it tightly.

“Thank you,” you say, looking him in the eye and seeing confusion cross his face. “You put yourself in front of me, tonight in that alley. You were ready to fight those… those creatures to protect me and I’m grateful for that. I always thought you were a lover not a fighter?”

He grins a little at your use of one of his favorite sayings, his hand tightening over yours.

“Not where you’re concerned,” he softly says and he leans in fast to kiss you, his lips still chilled from being outside and his free hand coming up to slide up against the side of your face.

“Woah, Scud, no,” you exclaim, breaking the kiss and pushing him away from you. “Just because I’m grateful doesn’t mean I’m not still pissed as hell at you for lying to me all this time.”

“Well, what did you want me to tell you, Babydoll?” he asks defensively. “It’s not like you would’ve believed me if I’d told you the truth. Nobody does until they see it with their own eyes and even then, most of them deny it.”

“You could have tried, said something, anything. What if you’d gone on one of your hunts and never come back, huh? How do you think I would have felt then, not knowing why you suddenly dropped out of my life?”

“I couldn’t tell you,” he says, running a hand through his hair in frustration. “You would have thought I was crazy.”

“Wait… is that why you took me there today?” you ask, realization dawning on you with a hard mental slap. “You knew that there might be a chance of me seeing the vampires and that was what you wanted. Then you could explain everything and not have me think you were insane.”

His silence is all you need to tell you that you’re right as he doesn’t meet your gaze and you feel your rising anger burning away any thoughts of gratitude that were clouding your brain.

“You deliberately put me in harm’s way rather than have an honest conversation with me, is that what you’re telling me?” you demand, forcing him to look back at you.

“You were never in any real danger,” he says earnestly and you can see that he believes his words. “I knew that Blade was close by and he’d be there in plenty of time if things got hairy.”

“Yeah, well it didn’t seem that way when I was face to face with a blood-sucking fiend looking to have me for dinner. Do you even care that I was scared to death out there?”

“Of course I care, Babydoll,” he replies, a touch of hurt in his voice. “I’m so sorry, okay, I shouldn’t have taken you out there, it was a stupid idea.”

“Yeah, it really was,” you agree with him.

“Then let me make it up to you,” he begs, reaching out his hands to slide up your thighs and rest on your hips, his thumbs slipping up under the edge of your shirt to brush across you skin in a way that he knows always turns you on, “please?”

“Unbelievable,” you mutter furiously, standing up and backing out of his grip to stare down at him. “Do you want to know what I’ve been thinking about all day, Scud, what I was planning on talking to you about tonight? I was going to ask you to make a commitment to me because I’m tired of playing games with you and I didn’t want you to only be in my life part-time anymore. I was going to ask you where you thought this – us – was going but instead you bring your insanity to my life, you put a death sentence on my head just for knowing you and then you think you can just fuck me and everything is going to be okay? You’re fucking deluded, riding the crazy train with your buddy out there and I don’t want any part of it. As soon as the sun is up, I’m out of here, you’re on your own.”

You stand in front of him, hands balled into fists at your side, your heart thumping in your chest as your anger boils over.

“Yeah, well maybe that’s the way I like it, did you ever think of that?” he yells, standing up to face off with you. "You were never supposed to be anything more than a one-night stand anyway. I should’ve known that coming back for seconds was going to bite me in the ass. It’s never worth it, no matter how good a fuck you are.”

“Get the hell out of my way.”

“With pleasure.”

You storm back to the bathroom to grab your coat, his words stinging your soul as if he had slapped you in the face, and you swallow hard to keep the burning tears at bay which are threatening to spill from your eyes.

“I can’t believe I ever thought that you were something more than the shallow, immature brat that you are.”

“Fuck you,” he spits.

“You already did, Josh,” you say sadly, “you already did. In more ways than one.”

Turning your back on him, you leave his room and head back to the van, opening the passenger door and climbing inside, not knowing where else to go. You sink down into the seat, pulling your coat around you against the chill that’s creeping over you after the warmth of Scud’s room. As you look around the van’s interior, filled with the very essence of him, your heart sinks to your stomach as you replay the bitter words he just threw at you and your vision blurs with the tears that finally begin to fall. You sob hard, unable to believe that everything can have gone so far wrong in such a short space of time.

You spend an uncomfortable night in the van, unable to sleep, a part of you hoping that Scud will come to you and the pair of you can somehow make this right, that he’ll tell you he didn’t really mean the things he said and that he was just lashing out at you because he felt guilty for what he’d done. But he doesn’t appear and, by the time the first light of dawn creeps through the grimy windows of the warehouse and illuminates the inside of the van, you know that what he said was true and that you had just been fooling yourself into thinking you meant more to him than that. With a heavy heart, you slip out of the silent warehouse and start walking through the drifting snow, calling for a cab to come pick you up and take you home as soon as you recognize where you are. Once you’re safe in your own apartment with the door double-bolted, you take a scalding shower, trying to wash away every thought of Scud with the suds that are sliding down the drain along with more of your tears. Exhausted, you climb into bed, pulling the covers over your head to hide yourself from reality and, when you wake a few hours later, you find a text message on your phone from an unknown number which simply says, ‘nest cleared, you’re safe’ and you cry yourself to sleep again, knowing that’s the last you’ll ever hear from him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It’s early March, the snow a distant memory as the city drags itself towards Spring and you’ve tried your hardest to put the events of last December out of your mind. It took some time to feel safe again, walking the streets after dark or going home alone to your apartment, knowing that the world was now tilted from the one you lived in before and the things that go bump in the night really might be under your bed. But gradually it faded away to nothing more than a bad memory although you wished you could say the same for Scud. You still think about him more than you’d like to, the hurt and the anger at the way things ended still feeling fresh enough to cause you new pain some days but he’d never attempted to contact you and you had packed away the few belongings he’d left at your place into a box which you’d hidden away in your closet, unable to let it go. Life continued around you - work, friends – everything was as it had been but a lot of the time you just felt like you were going through the motions, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Late on a Saturday night, just as you’re dealing with the last minute rush before you close, you look up from the Latte you’re making and your heart stills in your chest as you catch sight of Blade standing incongruously near the back wall away from everyone else, watching you. Fear gripping your insides, you hand off the half-finished beverage to one of your colleagues, ignoring her muttered protest and race around the counter.

“Is he dead?” you blurt out as soon as you draw level with Blade.

“He was hurt,” he tells you in a low tone, tilting his head down to yours. “A few weeks ago, out scouting a possible nest and they caught him. Dragged him inside and feasted on him pretty good until I tracked him down.”

“But he’s okay, he’s alive?” you ask, feeling the bile rise in your throat and your pulse racing.

“Yes.”

“Then why are you here?” you question him, maybe a little too abruptly judging by the appraising look he gives you before he continues.

“Because when I found him and took him home, he was delirious from the blood loss and the pain but the one clear thing he could focus on was you. He just kept repeating your name over and over, even when he was getting stronger, I’d still hear him calling out to you in his sleep.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“I thought he could be like me, after what happened to him the first time, I thought he had what it takes to be a hunter. And I needed him or so I believed, needed his skills and his drive.”

“And now?”

“I was wrong. He’s nothing like me. I don’t want this for him anymore, I don’t want this to be his life when he could have something more.”

“But he doesn’t want me, he made that quite clear.”

“He was a petulant child, lashing out to cover up for his wrong-doing.”

You stare up at him, chewing on your bottom lip, wanting desperately to believe him but wondering if you want to risk putting yourself through the pain again if he’s wrong. With a resigned sigh, you nod your head at him, knowing that there’s no way you can say no and then spend the rest of your life wondering if you made the wrong decision by not even trying.

“Then let’s go.”

“But I have to…” you wave a hand to indicate that you still have a shift to finish and then drop it when you catch the look on his face. “Okay, hold on, let me get my purse.”

With a hurried apology to the colleagues you’re leaving behind, telling them you have a family emergency, you hurry outside to find Blade waiting at the curb astride his idling bike. Your heart plummets a little as he indicates for you to get on behind him but you do, clinging tightly to him as the bike roars away into traffic and you close your eyes against the wind rushing at your face.

A short time later, you pull up outside the darkened exterior of the warehouse, Blade steadying the bike while you get off, telling you the code to let you gain entrance via the side door and then roaring off into the night again. You watch him leave, feeling suddenly nervous and then you steel your resolve and punch the code into the panel by the door and go inside. Letting your eyes adjust to the dimly lit interior, you take a second to get your bearings and then make your way back to Scud’s room, hearing the sound of the tv from inside through the open door as you approach. You walk quietly to the threshold, stopping as you see him slouched in his gaming chair, the whole thing tilted back into almost a reclining position. In the bright glare from the tv, you take in his appearance, your heart aching a little as you take in the sharp angles of his face and the slim lines of his body under the baggy pajama pants and t-shirt he’s wearing.

“You’re an idiot,” you say suddenly, your voice loud enough to be heard over the blare from the cartoons he’s watching on the tv and you watch as his head swivels in your direction and he scrambles to get out of the chair in its current position.

“Breezy? What the fuck… who let… how did you get in here?” he stammers, finally managing to get to his feet and facing you so that you can see the dark circles under his eyes and the nasty looking scars that are cutting across his throat.

“How do you think? Tall, dark and deadly let me in.”

“Blade? But how? Why?”

“Because he seemed to think that you and I had something we need to talk about. And because you’re an idiot.”

“He what? And stop saying that. Why am I an idiot?” he asks angrily, raising his voice just a little and suddenly it’s as though the past three months apart never happened and this is the conversation you never got to finish that night.

“You’re an idiot because you lied to me. You lied about who you are and what you do and I know that you had a good reason but it doesn’t make it any less than of a lie,” you yell, all the words that have been building up inside of you since you saw him last just pouring from your lips. “You’re an idiot for taking me with you that night, for putting me in danger, and you’re an even bigger idiot for getting between me and them but most of all you’re an idiot for breaking my heart by telling me I meant nothing to you and not telling me it wasn’t true.”

You fall silent, watching his face as he digests your words and you can see his defensive posture sag and fade to nothing as he meets your eyes.

“Then why are you here?” he says in a subdued voice.

“Because Blade told me what happened.”

 “I don’t need your sympathy,” he responds quickly.

“And I’m not here to give it. I don’t mean he told me about what happened to you, I mean that he told me about after, about how you were asking for me.”

“He had no right to do that,” Scud hisses and you can see the embarrassment on his face.

“Well he cares about you, even when you’re being a dick. He thought he was doing the right thing.”

“Was he?”

“You tell me, Scud. This is it, this is your one chance to put things right with us. If you want to, that is. Tell me what you said that night is true, that I was nothing more to you than a warm hole to fuck and I’ll go, turn around right now and we’re done. No harm no foul.”

He stares at you, his face unreadable in the flickering light from the tv, the cheerful cartoon soundtrack providing a bizarre backdrop to the feelings that are flooding your body while you wait for him to give you an answer.

“I didn’t mean it,” he mumbles, his eyes slipping away from yours to focus on his bare toes which he’s nervously curling into the rug.

“What?” you ask, not really sure that you heard him correctly with the noise in the room and needing to be absolutely sure of what he’s saying.

He exhales sharply, reaching down to hook the tv remote from his chair and stab at the mute button before tossing it back down and meeting your eyes again, the sudden silence seeming to fill the room with a bated breath.

“I said, ‘I didn’t mean it’,” he repeats, his voice now clear and strong in the quiet space. “You were never just someone for me to fuck, I thought you knew that. At least I hoped you did. I should never had said what I did that night. Shit, there were a lot of things I shouldn’t have done that night but I did. And I have no words to tell you how sorry I am for them or ever hope to make it right with you.”

“See, you’re an idiot, what have I been telling you?” you say softly, giving him a small smile as you close the gap between you and slip your arms around his waist.

“Can you forgive me?” he asks, a look of genuine concern on his face as he brings his arms around your back to hold you to him.

“Eventually,” you tell him honestly, “but we have a lot of talking to do.”

“Then let’s talk,” he says, rubbing his hand gently up and down your back.

“Nuh-uh, not tonight,” you tell him, shaking your head. “Tonight I just want to celebrate the fact that your fool ass didn’t get itself killed out there. When Blade came by the coffee shop, I felt for sure he was going to tell me you were dead.”

You can feel the tears welling in your eyes at the way you’d felt when you’d seen him standing there and Scud tightens his grip on you, tucking your head in against his chest and stroking your hair.

“Shh, I’m fine. It’ll take a lot more than a bunch of suckheads tryin’ to make a happy meal out of me to be the end of the Scudster, don’t you worry.”

You squeeze your eyes shut tight, burying your face into the crook of his neck and inhaling the scent of him until you feel your head swim and all you want to do is stay in his arms forever.

“I’ve missed you,” you whisper against his skin and you feel him shiver at your words.

“I missed you too, Babydoll,” he murmurs, his lips pressed against the top of your head, "so much.”

“Ah, I just think you’ve missed my donuts,” you tell him, with a slight chuckle, tickling your fingertips lightly over his ribs.

“I haven’t touched one since you’ve been gone,” he tells you in such a small voice that it makes you want to weep.

“Well, it’s a good job that I’m here then,” you grin, backing him up and sitting him back in his chair while you snag your discarded purse up from the floor and rummage inside it.

His eyes widen as he sees the brown paper bag you pull out and you see his nose twitch as he catches the faint odor of grease from the donut inside. Smiling even more, you hold the bag between your teeth as you climb onto the chair to straddle his lap, your movement setting the low-slung rocker into motion slightly. With a knee either side of his thighs and your ass resting on his lap, you open the paper bag and pull out the glazed donut you had slipped hurriedly inside before you left the store with Blade, thinking crazily that you might need some sort of peace-offering when you got here. Crumpling the bag and tossing it over your shoulder, you tear a bite-sized piece from the donut and hold it out for Scud to take from your fingers with his mouth. You see his eyes crinkle a little as the sugary glaze hits his tongue and he sighs through his nose while he savors the bite.

“Is it good, Donut-Boy?” you ask, unable to keep the smile off of your face because you’ve missed this so much, just being with him and fooling around.

“Mm-hmm,” he answers and you feed him another bite and then another until it’s all gone and he gives you his most pitiful look.

“Sorry, baby, that’s all I brought. I promise tomorrow, I’ll go get you a whole dozen all to yourself.”

“And maybe a little extra powdered sugar?” he says with a wink, his hands sliding around you again to rest on your ass where he gives you a little squeeze.

“Nope! Never again. That stuff was evil, got into all sorts of places,” you tell him firmly but still your body shudders a little at the memory of how much fun the pair of you had covering each other in that sweet, sticky goodness.

“Well, I’m sure we can think of something else to make a mess with,” he grins, taking first your forefinger and then your thumb and sucking them into his mouth to lick away any trace of the gooey donut glaze that was lingering there.

You moan a little under your breath, your body coming alive and responding in a way it hasn’t since he’s been gone. Resting your palms on his cheeks, you dip your head to brush your lips softly against his, wanting so badly to kiss him but loving this moment of anticipation before you do. He strains against your hands and you can feel his fingers curling into the belt-loops on your jeans as you press your lips more firmly to his, kissing him slowly at first and then deepening it when he moans into your mouth. Your hands slide down from his face and you feel him flinch as they skim the flesh of his throat, making you break your kiss and lean back.

“Oh God, I’m sorry,” you breathe, resting your hands against his chest. “We probably shouldn’t be doing this if you’re not fully healed.”

“I’m fine,” he says, taking your hands and turning them over to kiss each palm in turn. “Honestly. You should have seen me a few weeks ago, that was not a pretty sight.”

“Who says it is now?” you joke, taking your hands up to push back his ragged bangs from his face. “You look like shit, you know?”

“And you look sexy as hell, Babydoll. Now give Scud some sugar and make him feel even better.”

You laugh lightly, amazed at how good he can make you feel just by acting the fool when you know now that there’s so much more going on with him underneath the surface, that he’s brave and loyal and that he loves you. Tugging gently on his hair, you lean forward to kiss him once more, your tongue sliding eagerly against his as you start to breathe a little faster. You feel him push his hands up under the back of your shirt, his thumbs rubbing against your bare flesh and it’s like his touch ignites a spark in you, the need to have him completely overriding everything else in your brain – the break-up, the time apart, the issues you still have to address – all of that just crumbles in the face of your desire for him. Fighting the urge to just keep devouring his mouth with yours, you somehow break the kiss and climb off of his lap. Keeping your eyes fixed firmly on his, you step backwards to close the door you had left open when you arrived, not wanting an audience should Blade decide to come home any time soon. With that done, you pull off your short denim jacket and hang it by the door before stepping back in front of Scud and slowly starting to undo the buttons on your shirt.

“I think,” you tell him, watching as his eyes track your finger movements with an intense scrutiny, “that since you’re still recuperating, maybe you better sit back and let Nurse Breezy take care of you.”

“Will there be a sponge bath involved?” he asks, biting his lip as you pop the last button open and slip your shirt off.

“Depends on how dirty you get.”

You give him an exaggerated wink while you reach around to unhook your bra and then turn your back to him as you slowly slide off each strap and then hold it out to dangle from your fingers before dropping it to the floor. Looking back at him over your shoulder, you can see that your little striptease is having the desired effect judging by the growing bulge in his pajama pants. Covering your breasts with your hands you face him again, letting him watch as you slowly massage yourself and tease your nipples to hardness with your fingers, gasping a little as it turns you on even more.

“C’mere,” he commands, his voice barely more than a throaty whisper and step across to the side of his chair.

Grabbing your hand he tugs you down to sit on his lap, his lips going automatically to yours in a bruising kiss until you’re writhing against him. His hands are all over your bare skin, stroking and rubbing, his fingers finding your hardened nipples and pulling them softly making you moan into his mouth.

“The nurse thing is good,” he says breathlessly, parting his lips from yours so that he can look into your eyes, “but I like to be a little more hands-on with my recovery, if you know what I mean?”

You giggle as his lips work their way down under your jawline, his goatee scraping roughly across your skin and you take his head in your hands to kiss him again. You’ve missed the taste of him so much, you think as his tongue tangles hotly with yours, missed the touch of his skin on yours and the way he can make you ache with a single caress of his hand. Feeling the hardness of his erection pressing into your thighs, you wiggle a little on his lap and get rewarded with a deep groan from him that vibrates against your lips. Still kissing you, he brings his hand to your stomach, fumbling to undo the buttons on your jeans so that he can pull them open and thrust his fingers inside. He pushes over your mound, parting your lips with ease and slips two fingers directly into your wetness making you tighten the grip you have on his hair. He works them slowly in and out of you, curling them up as he pushes as deep as he can, his breath coming raggedly through his nose as you kiss him harder. Your body is trembling a little under his caress, you’ve barely touched yourself since the two of you split up and the combination of sexual frustration and being with him again is driving you into a frenzy. Scud responds to signals your body is sending him by applying the rough pad of his thumb to your clit, circling it and swiping it from side to side as you almost buck up off of the chair. He breaks your kiss with a hard suck to your bottom lip and you lean your head back, wrapping one hand tightly around the back of his neck as his fingers work you into oblivion. He holds you tight when you come, his fingers slipping into you until he’s sure you’re done and then just gently teasing you with small strokes as you try to catch your breath.

“Like riding a bike,” he grins at you and gives you a wink.

“Nice,” you chuckle, giving him a little shove in the chest.

Reaching down to where his hand is still inside your jeans, his fingers teasing you lightly in a way that’s making you ache even more, you tug on his wrist. Bringing his hand up so that you can slip your mouth over his fingers and suck hard on them, you watch him gasp as you curl your tongue over his digits and lick every drop of your juices from his skin. Releasing him with a grin and a lip-smacking ‘pop’, you lean in to kiss his lips, gently pushing your tongue between them so that he can taste you too. He shifts under you, obviously becoming increasingly uncomfortable, and you smile against his lips before getting up from his lap and toeing off your sneakers so that you can wriggle out of your jeans and panties.

“Just how far back does that chair recline?” you ask him, grinning as he pulls a lever on the side and changes the position into one that’s almost prone.

Grabbing the waist of his pajama pants you tug them down and off, Scud bucking up his hips to help you as you take care not to catch his rigid cock on the way past. Carefully, you straddle him again, sliding up his thighs to wedge your knees between the stubby arms of the chair and his hips, positioning yourself just above his straining cock.

“Wait!” he yelps just as you’re about to lower yourself onto him and you freeze while he reaches a hand underneath him to dig out the tv remote and turn the sound back up.

“Seriously?” you ask him as the sound of animated fighting fills the room.

“Trust me, Babydoll,” he tells you with a sly grin and, as the bass rumbles from the tv speakers behind you, you feel a deep vibration from the chair itself.

“What the…”

“The Super-X, fully immersive, rocker gaming chair with some post factory modifications by me, naturally,” he boasts as another concussive wave of sound behind you throws the chair into a shuddering vibration that makes you gasp as it travels up your thighs.

“My sexy genius,” you smile, bending forward to plant kisses all over his face.

“At your service,” he answers, his hands coming to your hips.

Steadying yourself with one hand on the arm of the chair, you reach down to wrap your fingers around his cock, stroking firmly up and down the length of his shaft, watching his eyelids flutter as you twist your thumb over his sticky slit. You work him for a moment, enjoying the look on his face as you pleasure him and the feel of him in your hand until your pussy is twitching with the thought of sliding his thickness into you. Shifting just a fraction, you hold him steady as you guide yourself onto him, both of you uttering groans as you lower yourself down to his hips. Your pussy is so slick from the orgasm he just gave you that he slides into you with ease and you contract your muscles around him, feeling him jerk just a little from the sensation. Slowly you start rolling your hips against him, pulling him out just a little and then sliding him back in, using the chair’s own rocking motion to set your pace. The constant rumbling vibration from the seat underneath you is adding a new level of stimulation and while you really want to go slow and take your time, you’re wondering how long either of you can last.

Scud’s hands travel up from your hips, tracing over your torso in strokes and swirls, his eyes locked with yours as you ride his cock with increasing speed, all hopes of going slow lost as your desire to watch him come overrides everything else. His hands slide up over your breasts, rubbing and squeezing at them, and you lift your arms to fold them behind your head, arching into his touch as he plays with your nipples. A particularly loud sound from the tv causes a wild vibration to travel through the chair and you can feel it deep inside you, causing you to squeeze harder around Scud’s cock as you grind down on him. You feel the first signs that he’s about to come as his muscles tense under your thighs and you rock your hips a little faster, watching his face as it crumples in pure pleasure and he yells as he shoots his load into your aching pussy. You keep grinding against him until his hands come back to your hips to still your movements and he grins up at you, darting out a tongue to lick his lips.

Using his legs to press down on the seat, he flips the chair back upright, sliding one arm around your waist to hold you steady as he bends his head to lick his tongue up the side of your neck. You shiver under his touch, groaning lightly as he nibbles along your collarbone, brushing aside your hair to suck on the skin at the base of your throat. His hand slides down from your shoulder, skimming between your breasts and gliding across your stomach to push in against your clit where he teases you gently. Your groans get a little louder as he rolls your swollen nub between his thumb and forefinger, squeezing slightly, and your pussy convulses around his semi-hard cock that’s still buried inside you.

“Come on, Babydoll, come for me,” he murmurs against your skin, the vibrations of his words laying goosebumps in their wake.

You dig your fingers into his hair, your pussy convulsing harder as he rolls and strokes your clit until you feel the familiar tug that always comes just before you let go and you breathe out his name, clinging to him as your body shudders around him. Gasping, you roll your hips against him a couple more times trying to prolong the sensations that are flooding your pussy before you give a huge sigh as you feel him slip from you in a sticky rush. You wrap around each other, laying soft kisses wherever you can, touching and stroking each other’s skin until both of you are breathing normally again and the euphoria from your orgasms is diminishing slightly.

“Maybe we should move this to the bed?” you suggest as you try to straighten out your aching legs from the position you’ve been cramped in.

“Good idea,” agrees Scud, steadying you as you climb gingerly off of him.

Flicking off the tv and standing up after you, he peels off the sweat-soaked t-shirt that’s now clinging to him and you purposefully ignore the new scars you can see marking the surface of his chest, knowing that there’ll be time later to deal with what happened. Unexpectedly he scoops you up into his arms and carries you to the bed, the small lamp on the table lighting his way, laying you gently down on top and then climbing on beside you to draw you into his arms. You wrap around him, losing yourself in his scent and his nearness, your body still giving off small twitches and you know that you’re not nearly done with making love to him yet for the night.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers against your hair, his fingers making lazy patterns against your spine, and you can hear the slight catch in his voice.

Raising yourself up to lean on his chest, you stare him straight in the eye.

“No more apologies,” you tell him and he nods, chewing on his bottom lip. “Good.”

You lay back down, running your fingers across the sparse hair between his nipples and resting your cheek against his chest. All that matters is that he’s alive and he’s back in your life, you think to yourself, how he’ll react to the news that Blade wants him to step back from the life they live is something you’ll just have to deal with when it happens. But tonight is just about the two of you, about re-connecting and just being together with no other agenda.