“Jon... gods.”
Jon just shook his head. He fought to speak, but couldn’t make his chest work.
“Jon, what is it? What’s wrong?”
Jon had no idea what the seer meant.
Something happened in that space. Maybe just a hiccup on the timeline, a blank place in his mind, where nothing happened at all.
Then Jon found himself on the floor.
“Jon! Gods... Jon, breathe. Breathe, goddamn it...”
Somehow he was on the floor.
He didn’t remember getting there. He didn’t remember seeing the seer cross the room, or hearing his words, although he could tell he’d been speaking before now, too. He could only kneel there, on the floor. He tried to do as the seer said and breathe, but he couldn’t do that, either. Each breath came out sideways, hurting his body. Wreg knelt beside him. After the barest hesitation, Wreg caught hold of him in his arms, too, holding him half against his body. Light left the man’s hands and fingers, from other parts of his body.
Jon felt Maygar there briefly, Allie, Revik...
“Jon!” Wreg gripped him tighter, holding him against his chest. “Breathe, goddamn it!”
Jon closed his eyes. He tried to breathe. He tried.
He didn’t want to be here anymore.
He just wanted to fucking die.
“Jon!” Wreg shook him, anger coiling off his light. Tears filled the other man’s voice. “This can’t be from my words. It can’t be. Gods above... you’ve all but told me to my face to leave you. I was pretty sure you were fucking Jorag by now, honestly... as well as whatever the hell is going on with you and Nenz...”
Jon let out a choked laugh.
It turned into a sob.
He leaned against the other man’s chest, his eyes shut, his jaw so clenched it hurt. Like earlier that day, he felt like he’d been crushed, like someone had reached into the middle of his chest and crushed whatever light had once lived there. He cried like a child, too lost to even care that he did it... or why, or that he was doing it in front of someone else. His arms wrapped around himself, gripping his chest, his ribs. He shielded his body and face, maybe to compensate for the rawness of his broken light... maybe even to protect himself from the man who held him... but he leaned his face against that same man’s chest and cried.
“Jon...” Wreg’s voice softened. He stroked his hair and back, pulling him into his lap.
Jon let him do that, too.
“Tell me what you want, brother,” Wreg said. “Tell me what you need from me.”
The pain in Jon’s chest worsened at his words.
He fought to speak, but could only shake his head. Pain blinded him, caused him to clutch at the other man’s clothes. Violence slid briefly through his light, but that felt childlike, too, a wanting to pound his fists against Wreg’s chest, maybe to crack through something that still felt too far away, to invulnerable to anything inside Jon himself. He wanted to hurt Wreg in those few seconds, but he couldn’t bring himself to do that, either. He didn’t want to hurt him. He loved him.
Wreg sucked in a breath. His arms tightened around Jon’s back and shoulders.
“Jon, goddamn it...”
Jon felt that part of him just crack again, leaving him exhausted.
“What do you want?” Wreg said. “What do you want from me?”
Jon shook his head. “What is there to want?” he managed.
He said the words aloud, forced himself to say them, maybe to make them real to himself, to make himself hear them in a form he could actually understand.
“You’re breaking up with me,” he said. “You’re leaving me...”
“I’m not the one who fucking left!” Wreg snarled.
The words burst out of Wreg in a kind of explosion of light, holding so much hurt and anger that Jon flinched. He didn’t move away from the other man, though. He didn’t relax the hand he had fisted in his shirt, what had sweated against his clenched fingers below where Jon’s head rested against the other man’s shoulder.
Jon shook his head after the seer spoke, but not in a no.
He felt the other man’s chest heave as Wreg fought back emotion, or maybe fought with how to express it. He could feel Wreg wanting to yell at him, wanting to hit him, too. He felt so much on the other man suddenly that he couldn’t see anything else. The room disappeared. Jon’s mind disappeared too, every thought he had or didn’t have about Wreg, everything he’d thought he understood about what went on with them before. Not just emotion, not even pain.... pictures flooded his mind, Wreg crying in that house in San Francisco, hunched over himself on the floor and crying, in so much pain he could barely breathe...
The image cut into Jon, nearly broke him in half.
The next time he knew anything, they were kissing.
Jon found himself lying under the other man, not sure how he got there, either. Wreg had him pinned to that expensive carpet, his hand rough as he yanked open the front of Jon’s shirt. They kissed for what felt like a long time... long enough that it wasn’t enough, that Jon wanted more, then the pain was half-killing him again, ripping apart his insides, making him beg for more, loudly enough that he felt he might be losing his mind for real.
Wreg stopped them, though.
Pinning Jon’s arm out almost straight on one side, he lay on his other arm with the upper part of his body, using his leg to pin Jon’s, too.
“No!” Wreg snapped, looking down at him. “Goddamn it, Jon... no! Not like this!”
“I didn’t,” Jon managed. “I didn’t... I swear to the gods, I didn’t touch anyone, Wreg. Not Jorag. Not Revik. No one...”
He saw Wreg’s eyes harden, turning flint-like.
He didn’t need to read him to know the other man didn’t believe him.
“I didn’t,” Jon repeated, his voice almost pleading. “I swear to the gods... I didn’t, Wreg. Not once. That’s not what this was about. It was never about that... it was never about other people. It was me, Wreg. I was the problem...”
Wreg shook his head, his eyes showing that wall once more, if anything, more closed and angry than before. Jon felt bare flickers off the other man, even from behind that glass-like shield. Jon glimpsed images, feelings, but couldn’t pin any of them down, other than the overall flavor, which still felt closest to distrust.
“The whole fucking construct saw you with Nenz,” Wreg said finally, his voice cold as ice. “They saw him ask you for sex. Fuck, I saw it. I saw him pin you to the wall. I saw him kiss you, Jon...”
Jon felt his face warm, but he only shook his head.
Wreg’s words grew biting. “I saw it, Jon. I fucking watched him kiss you. I saw you let him. I watched him leave your room the next morning...”
Jon shook his head again, feeling his chest clench as he saw the situation through Wreg’s eyes. He could see Wreg that night, his unwillingness to watch after that first, drunken kiss, then later, being pulled back to it anyway and not being able to see anything, just hitting a blank wall of Revik’s light. Wreg obsessing on it anyway, waiting for Revik to leave, maybe to confront him, maybe to hit him, maybe to hit Jon, or yell at both of them, maybe just to confirm it to himself... maybe just to know, without doubt, what had occurred.
It wasn’t going to be enough... it would never be enough for Jon to tell Wreg what he hadn’t done. Not for Wreg, not even for himself. Jon shook his head again, fighting for words, trying to use his light to make the other understand.
“He was drunk,” Jon began.
“No shit,” Wreg growled.
Wreg started to pull away, shoving off his light, but Jon tried again, gripping the other man’s shirt tighter in his hand, trying to get him to listen.
“...He was really drunk, Wreg. He came to my room...” Wincing even as he said it, Jon blurted, “He asked if he could give me head. All right? He just asked.” When Wreg’s expression darkened more, Jon added quickly, “...You know as well as I do what he wanted. He wanted to use me to get to Allie.
I knew that. I could feel it, even then.”
When the other man’s face only hardened more, Jon clenched his fingers tighter, trying to get Wreg to look at him.
“He could barely fucking stand, he was so drunk,” Jon said, softer. “He didn’t even know what he was asking me, Wreg. He kissed me, yeah... and he caught me off guard. He tried to talk me into it after he asked... but when I said no, he passed out on my bed. I slept in the damned chair... that horrible ugly yellow thing by the window...”
Trailing as tears came to his eyes, he shook off his own reaction, feeling the anger grow more prominent in the other man’s light. Jon’s voice turned gruff.
“I’m not making excuses,” Jon said. “I’m telling you how it was. He was gone before I even woke up. I’m surprised he even remembered it well enough to feel guilty. Maybe he figured he tried to force himself on me...”
Wreg continued to stare down at Jon’s face.
Jon felt wisps of anger on the other man’s light, but more than anything, he felt that wall there between them, the distrust that wove into it. Something told Jon that this information wasn’t entirely new to him, though.
Wreg must have had some version of this conversation with Revik already.
Regardless, Wreg couldn’t seem to let it go. Maybe he didn’t believe either of them, or maybe it didn’t even matter at this point. Maybe it was only a detail, after everything else Jon had done and hadn’t done. Maybe it was everything else that Wreg couldn’t move past, too many things for the other man to list out.
Too many things for them to even talk about.
Jon thought about how he’d feel, if their positions were reversed. He wondered if he could even ask the question now, given everything, of whether Wreg had started sleeping around himself. Given Preela in the downstairs lobby, the fact that Jon had already overheard some of the younger recruits with crushes on him, and that he’d just seen Dante checking Wreg out in that conference room, minutes earlier, he couldn’t make himself ask.
Looking up at Wreg’s dark eyes, Jon felt that lost feeling return to his heart. He fought back a caught breath, fighting to decide what to say, what he could say to him. That time, he couldn’t look away. He could only stare up at Wreg’s eyes, trying to reach him.
He felt every part of his light turn submissive.
He couldn’t stop it. He saw the change hit Wreg’s light, the openness or maybe the vulnerability or whatever else turning those obsidian black eyes nearly opaque. Wreg closed his eyes while Jon watched, and Jon softened his body under the other man’s, too. He felt desperate. He’d never felt so fucking desperate in his life.
“What do I have to do?” Jon blurted. He could hear it in his voice. Begging. He was begging him. He’d never begged another man. Never. He’d never done anything but walk away when someone told him they didn’t want him anymore.
He did it anyway.
“Wreg...please. What do I have to do?”
The other man wouldn’t look at him. Jon flinched when he saw tears form in those dark eyes. That wall was there still, too, not the same as before, but tangible.
“Wreg!” Jon said. “Is it over for you? You don’t love me?”
Wreg turned at that, staring down at him. His eyes held a kind of blank incredulity.
“Wreg... goddamn it. Please. Please talk to me...”
The seer’s jaw hardened. He leaned his weight on Jon before he spoke, and when he did, his words held a density of light that felt almost physical.
“I won’t do this again,” Wreg said, his words thick with his accent. “I won’t.”
Jon shook his head. “No. Gods, no, Wreg... I promise. I promise...”
Wreg shook his head, though, his face still hard with pain.
“You’re not hearing me, Jon,” Wreg said. “Either we sever it, or we finish it.”
“Finish it?” Jon said.
“As in we finish the bond,” Wreg said, his voice growing almost cold once more. “...As in now, Jon. Today. I don’t give a damn if you hear that as an ultimatum or not...” His voice caught. “It is a fucking ultimatum. We’ve talked about this. Either you want this with me or you don’t. If you don’t want it with me now, we need to sever it. If that happens, I’m not saying it would never happen with us, but I won’t stay in this place, this being connected to you but not, having to watch you in Nenz and whoever else’s light. I’m not doing this again, Jon. I’m not...”
Jon could only shake his head.
Relief flooded his light, a stunned, lost relief that nearly made him lose touch with the room. He gripped the seer tighter with the hand Wreg didn’t have pinned down.
“I have to talk to Revik,” Jon said.
Wreg’s eyes grew dangerous, but Jon shook his head, gripping him tighter.
“...Military, Wreg. I have to talk to him about the military side. He’ll want assurances he can pull me if he has to. And I need to tell him, in case––”
Wreg’s expression had already cleared though.
Jon knew ‘military’ was a language the other seer understood.
“Yes,” Wreg said. “Yes, I understand why this needs to happen first.” He gave Jon a wary look. “When, Jon?”
“Now.”
“He’s with his wife now, Jon.”
“I said now, Wreg,” Jon repeated. “Now. You said now, didn’t you?”
Jon was still looking up at the other man’s face, fighting relief, hope, a kind of lost fear that wouldn’t leave him... when Wreg gave what felt like a reluctant smile, shaking his dark head. Clicking softly, maybe to himself, he looked back at Jon, that thread of doubt still in his eyes. As Jon looked at him, however, Wreg’s light gradually grew more open, less protected, even if only the barest amount. That harder tension relaxed briefly in his dark eyes.
“I did say now,” he said. “...Didn’t I?”
Before Jon could think how to answer, the Chinese seer gripped his arm and side tighter. Jon felt a whisper of jealousy from the other man then, what might have been more of that distrust. He lowered his mouth before Jon could decide how to react, though, and then they were kissing again, slower than the first time, as if Wreg made up his mind how far he wanted to go with each passing breath. For the first time, Jon felt the intensity of the other man’s fear. The vulnerability there paralyzed him, even as he realized that wall he’d felt, that iron-clad density around Wreg, was slowly starting to shift.
Jon felt Maygar there briefly too, but shoved him away from his light.
By the end of that kiss, Jon forgot where he was again. He followed Wreg’s mouth up when the Chinese seer ended it, straining against Wreg’s hands, aware of Wreg’s erection against his hip from where he leaned against him. Jon let out a low groan, from somewhere deep in his chest, unable to help himself.
When he opened his eyes next, Wreg’s black eyes looked glassed again.
“We need to talk to him,” Jon said, his voice breathless. “Now, Wreg. Right now.”
“I told him.”
“You told him we were coming up?”
“Yes.”
“Now? He knows we’re coming up right now?”
Wreg gave him a humorless smile. “I think he figured that out, yes, brother.”
Jon nodded, fighting to think.
He fought to hold on to on to that one thought, what remained of his presence of mind, long enough to have that conversation with Revik. He fought to control his light, telling himself it was the last thing, the only thing that could feel remotely important before he let himself go into this, before he finally just surrendered to it.
He must have had a funny expression on his face, because Wreg surprised him again, even as he released his arms. He laughed.
Grabbing hold of Jon’s hand to pull him to his feet, he wrapped his arms around Jon’s body once he had, pulling Jon against him, using strong hands to grip muscles in Jon’s back and neck.
Jon fell into him, into a kind of wordless relief.
Through
those few seconds of embrace, Jon could only hold the other man in his arms and hands, hoping like hell he wasn’t imagining this, that nothing would happen to make the world fall apart again before they could have that last conversation with Revik.
Even as the thought hit him, a shiver of misgiving hit Jon’s light.
It was enough to get him pushing Wreg towards the door leading out of the fancy executive office, towards the hallway, towards the elevators...towards Revik.
15
CROSSING THE LINE
REVIK SLUMPED INTO the couch, rubbing his eyes with a hand as he swept the packet of hiri off the coffee table. He hadn’t smoked hiri very often the last time he’d been in New York.
He’d found himself craving them incessantly for the past few months in San Francisco, however.
He didn’t know if the fact that Allie didn’t smoke curbed his own cravings before now, but truthfully, he’d barely thought of hiri as more than an occasional distraction for the past few years––since even as far back as their time together in that cabin in the Himalayas. He couldn’t remember smoking much when he’d been working with the rebels, either, not even when he and Allie had been kept apart by that fact.
The only exception had been the tank. When Allie had been deprogramming him in the tank, he’d wanted to smoke, but rarely when Allie herself had been there, with him.
Now, he couldn’t sleep from craving the fucking things.
Revik cupped his hand around the silver lighter, letting the flame lick the edges of the dark-colored leaf wrapper as he inhaled. Once he had it lit, he dropped the lighter back on the table and leaned into the leather couch, resting his head on the back cushion as he exhaled smoke up towards the ceiling.
Allie was asleep.
She’d been the one to want to come up here. Once they’d gotten here, once they were alone, she’d been as direct with him as she had been that day in San Francisco. More direct, maybe.
He hadn’t been any more difficult to seduce this time, either.
Revik felt his throat close briefly, right before he took another drag off the hiri.
Wreg pinged him only a few seconds before, so at least he had an excuse to be awake.
Allie's War Season Four Page 31