by AM Riley
After some time, the blond head that Seamus’ eyes kept going to rose. Lyre standing and coming over to his desk.
“Lieutenant Brady? Where should I go to have a … a smoke?”
Seamus looked up at him. Slowly. Starting at the obvious bulge in the man’s too tight jeans and traveling up to his face. Lyre’s eyes were dancing.
“That’s a terrible habit to have,” said Seamus, tapping his pen against the desk.
“Yes,” said Lyre. “I’m afraid I have no self-control.” His eyes went dark. “I just crave it.”
“Be back in ten,” Seamus said to Parker, slamming down his pen.
Lyre headed out of the door, Seamus following like a dog on a leash.
Up the steps, around a corner. There was a little used doorway there, not visible from the street. Seamus had Lyre wedged in there, his hands full of Levi’s clad ass, his mouth busy, for about five minutes before Lyre pushed him away.
"I take it you approve of my disguise?” he said breathlessly.
Seamus chuckled. “It’ll do,” A cloud of smoke issued from Seamus' mouth. It was fucking freezing outside. Seamus clapped his hands on his biceps, stomping his feet to stay warm. “You think you can get those jeans a little tighter though, don’t think I can see EVERYTHING yet.”
Lyre turned and wiggled his ass experimentally. “I might…”
“Fuck, don’t.” Seamus rolled his eyes. “Christ.”
Lyre's eyes really fucking twinkled.
Seamus had to laugh. “Asshole.”
“Mmm,” said Lyre. “I’ve been having fun, Seamus. I think I like law enforcement.”
“You see anything I can use?”
“I may have.” Lyre dug in the satchel he had brought with him. “I took notes. I wrote down addresses and times.”
“Wow,” Seamus' eyebrows went up to his hairline as he thumbed through the notebook. “This is pretty good.”
Lyre beamed.
“Okay, well, I’m freezin’ my nuts off, so I gotta go back in. But I’d like to talk with you later about it. Say after my shift?
“I’d be happy to, Seamus. I can meet you in the Gro… In Central Park”
“Right. You like it there, huh? Well, I’m swing, so I might be late.”
“I don’t mind.”
“You sure? You don’t mind waiting there alone?”
A peculiar chill went up Lyre’s spine. He shivered.
“You cold?”
“I’m all right,” said Lyre. The hair on the back of his neck was sticking straight up.
“You’ll catch yer death out here,” said Seamus. “Let’s go inside.” He held the door open for Lyre. Partially because the handle was made of iron and Seamus had been reading up on these things, partially because that’s what a cop did for a citizen, and partially so he could watch that tight behind walking down the aisle in front of him.
***
He was pleased that the information he had recorded for Seamus might be useful, but Lyre was unable to find his man in the books. He extracted himself, with some trouble, from his group of female admirers and made his way to the Grove.
Seamus was waiting there by the fountain.
The streets lights made the snow covered park a study in blacks and whites. Seamus’ silhouette like an old photograph, still and familiar. It made those goosebumps climb Lyre’s back again. He walked over to the wall against which Seamus leaned, half expecting the face that turned to his to be spectacled and ingenuous.
The face that turned to his was, instead, frowning, the eyes studying him intently. “So now you’re a police informant,” Seamus said. “Hope you don’t mind.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
Seamus shrugged, “Is to some people. So how’d it go at the station? Any proposals?”
“Proposals?”
“Front desk clerk begged me to give her your number,” said Seamus. “Too bad you don’t have a phone.”
Lyre looked completely flabbergasted. Seamus laughed. “You ID the guy?”
“I’m so sorry, Seamus,” said Lyre sadly. “I wasn’t able to find him in the book of faces. But they are very hard to look at.”
“Yeah police photographers ain’t Glamour Shots,” said Seamus. He blew on his hands and then clapped them together. “I ran a check on those addresses and coughed up a coupla interesting names, though. You did good.”
Lyre felt like someone had lit a small brazier of coals somewhere in his chest. “I’m pleased that you think so.”
Seamus gave him a guarded smile. “So… what you have planned for tomorrow?”
“The Folk don’t plan, Seamus.”
Seamus rolled his eyes. “Right, how dare I. Well then how’d you like to do some more surveillance?”
Lyre brightened. “Yes, please.”
Seamus laughed. “I never knew anyone who actually WANTED obs.”
“It’s interesting.”
“Still…” Seamus rubbed at his arms, stamping his feet, looking down at the icy mud beneath his boots. “I owe you for this.”
“Owe me?”
“If I can ever do for you…” Seamus stopped, thinking how suggestive this common phrase suddenly sounded in his own ears. He glanced at Lyre. The Fey’s ears were bright red at the tips, but maybe it was the cold.
“You could buy me a drink,’ said Lyre.
***
The barmaids at O’Neill’s Bar and Grill zipped up and down so quickly they made an iridescent rainbow behind the brass bar rails. On one pass, a new highball glass appeared before the Banshee sitting next to the gnome. He lifted it and drank deep.
“O’Grady, how long have you been the Fear Sidhe of the clan?” Buzzimess rubbed at one thick, auburn eyebrow.
O’Grady shrugged. “Five centuries? Give or take a decade.”
Screaming laughter and a burst of ribald song interrupted them. O’Grady and Buzzimess swiveled on their barstools and looked over at the table in the center of O’Neills where Lyre and a very inebriated Seamus Brady were entertaining a cadre of sprites.
“And yet these incidences keep occurring,” said Buzzimess. “Why did you bring him here again?”
“Buzzimess,” said O’Grady wearily. His hand wavered as he put down his drink and he rubbed his face. He was more drunk than usual, though less than he would have liked to be. “I did not bring him here, as, obviously, he preceded me.”
Buzzimess’ eyebrows did an eloquent little jig on his forehead. “The clan O’Grady has some interestin’ members, I’m thinkin’.”
“Say naught about my clan,” muttered O’Grady. He drank deep, until the ice in his glass rattled against his nose, then smacked the glass to the bar top. “Though Seamus Brady is a trial.”
“Hmmm,” said Buzzimess.
Another scream of laughter and now the words to the song were getting pretty suggestive.
“’Scuse me,” said O’Grady, and he lurched across to floor to the table.
“Seamus Brady,” he said, pointing one long portent heavy index finger at Seamus' nose.
Seamus stared down said nose at the ominously pointing Banshee and laughed.
O’Grady straightened, smoothing his wrinkled trenchcoat with a great air of offended dignity. “You have no respect,” he said. “Your mother must not have been Irish.”
“My mother was pure Irish,” retorted Seamus hotly. “Her family fought in the Easter Uprising of 1913!” His voice rose on the last words enough to be heard over the hubbub. Seamus looked around. “To Freedom!” he toasted, and more than one voice echoed his toast.
O’Grady regarded Seamus, then swiveled his eyes to Lyre’s. “He is deeply intoxicated.”
Lyre, who had matched Seamus drink for drink, touched his nose wisely and pointed at O’Grady.
“No I’m not,” protested Seamus. “Does a man have to be in his cups to toast the motherland?” Seamus rose and raised another glass. “To Ireland!”
A small echo came from the crowd and a few Fey even leapt to their feet and lif
ted their glasses as well.
Lyre chuckled. O’Grady glowered disapprovingly. “You encourage him shamefully.”
“My mother came here when she was but a small girl,” Seamus told the crowd, arm still holding his glass aloft. His hand fell onto Lyre’s shoulder, which he gripped for balance. “They had NOTHING but the strength of their backs and their faith and a belief in a DREAM.”
Seamus lifted his glass. “To the DREAM!”
This time the toast was echoed by half the room.
Seamus looked about himself, swaying a bit. The love of public speaking, which seemed to dwell in the DNA of every true Irishman, was bubbling to the surface. “We worked,” he declared, his voice rising “We WORKED to make a place for ourselves in this city. And we’ve helped make it the greatest city in the world,” he gestured toward the Folk in the room, who murmured enthusiastically.
“We fought for our dream,” said Seamus. “And we fight still. Because there are those that will take it from us. That will take our freedom, take our children’s freedom. Turn our city into a place that ain’t safe for an Irish woman to walk the streets!”
The sprites at the table with them were solemnly nodding their heads, tinseled hair bobbing.
“We won’t let ‘em have our city, our DREAM, without a fight!” roared Seamus.
O’Grady felt the prickles of premonition, his eyes scanned the room. Every faerie was on his or her feet, glasses raised, fire in the eyes.
“Seamus,” he said, giving him his best ghoulish preternatural look.
Seamus helped himself to a still-full bottle of whiskey. “What? You think the police can keep this city safe without the help of its citizens? You have ALL got an obligation.”
“But…” a small Brownie interjected.
“Don’t gimmee none of that ‘fair folk’ stuff neither. You live here same as everyone else. You got an obligation.”
“I do my part,” O’Grady objected. Seamus frowned down at him.
“Really? Support the right and all that?”
“I have an obligation to my clan.”
“Well, sure, when it’s yer family yer all up in arms and in the streets yelling. But when it’s somebody else. What? Who do you think is gonna do something if you don’t?”
“Surely…” O’Grady began.
“Nobody, that’s who. Nobody but New York’s finest, and us cut back and under funded and half the city acting like we’re the criminals.” Seamus tossed back a shot of whiskey and punctuated his speech by thunking the bottom of the glass to the table. “So what’re you gonna do about it?”
“Do?”
“I got a killer to catch. Who’s gonna help me?”
The Sidhe around the room exchanged looks. Their faces identical pictures of flabbergast.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” said Seamus. He took his wallet from his back pocket and dug money from it. “C’mon, hon,” he said to Lyre, throwing the cash on the table. “I need to go some place where the citizens give a damn.”
***
“Seamus was that wise?”
Lyre and Seamus stood at a corner, waiting for the light to turn. Well, Lyre stood and Seamus leaned, arm flung about Lyre’s shoulders.
“Wise?”
“The Fey are a powerful magical force.”
Seamus made a derisive noise. “Bunch a’ faeries. They won’t do shit.”
Lyre sighed. “I wonder.” The light changed and he helped Seamus stay inside the pedestrian crossing lane as they wobbled across the street. “Seamus?” As they mounted the curb and Seamus veered to the right. “Where are we going?”
“Coffee shop,” said Seamus. “Cop coffee shop.”
***
Seamus looked around, inhaled and sighed with relief. “This is more like it,” he said. He slid down in the red leatherette seats and nodded at the woman who hurried by with a pot of coffee in either hand.
“Right with you, Lieutenant,” she said.
“Thanks, Becky.” Seamus rubbed both hands over his face. “Jeez,” he said. “I’m soberin’ up.”
Lyre gave him a wry smile. “What a tragedy.”
“Nah, gotta work tomorrow. It’s just as well.” Seamus dug in his jacket and brought out the notebook Lyre had given him. Lyre noted yellow post-its sticking out of certain pages.
“You’ve been working a lot lately.”
“Yeah.” Seamus flipped open the book. He sighed. “I just want to catch the fucker.”
Lyre regarded Seamus for a minute before asking. “I take it the man who died was important to you.”
Seamus stared at him. “He was my partner.”
“Ah,” Lyre studied the pattern in the Formica tabletop. “That evening. At my apartment.” Lyre drew a curly cue on the tabletop with one finger. “You cried out his name.”
Absolute silence. He snuck a look at Seamus who stared, sightless, at the notebook in his hands, his cheeks a dull red. “Riley and I…” Seamus squeezed his eyes shut.
“Suppose you tell me about it,” said Lyre.
***
An hour later, Lyre poured hot water from his third teapot and added honey thoughtfully. “Humans are so complicated,” he said.
Seamus felt like he’d melted into the seat. Just the fucking relief of actually saying those words out loud. “He was my lover.” He said them again.
Lyre looked up at him, his eyes full of sympathy.
“When Joseph… died,” he said. “I returned to the Grove. But there was no one who understood.”
“Yeah,” said Seamus. “Yeah.” He twisted his head so he could frown out the window, the glass dazzled with the lights of passing cars, and he covered his eyes.
Lyre stretched his hand across the tabletop. “Seamus,” he closed his fingers around the other man’s and squeezed.
“Just want to get the bastard that did it,” said Seamus, his voice hoarse. He turned his hand over and gripped Lyre’s fingers in his own.
“Hey,” he said, after a very long while. “We’re near my place, you wanna go…?”
Lyre shook his head. “Yes,” he heard himself say.
Seamus slid out of the booth, grabbing his jacket and the check in one swoop, eyes averted. “Let’s go then.”
***
Seamus wasn’t sure how he managed it, but somehow he always seemed to have that little fake three-foot tree set up on the coffee table in time for Christmas.
The lights were on, blinking green and red, when he let Lyre into his apartment. Seamus put his keys in the tray, hung up his jacket.
“You want something to drink?”
Lyre shook his head silently.
“Lemme take your coat,” said Seamus. He watched as Lyre shrugged out of it. Noticing the hair curling where it had grown long on the back of his neck. As if drawn, his fingers reached to touch it. Caress the skin there. “You’re cold,” he whispered.
Lyre turned. “Seamus…”
And then Lyre was wrapped in strong arms, a man’s hot breath and tongue in his mouth.
Seamus gasped for air. “You okay with this?” He barely waited for Lyre’s nod, before kissing him again.
They stumbled into the living room, tearing at each other’s clothes. Lyre felt Seamus’ cotton shirt pull apart as buttons flew. The strip of skin from Seamus chin to his shoulder was like a creamy buffet and Lyre’s tongue painted complex swirls across it.
Seamus uttered a series of bit off expletives, his hands sliding up Lyre’s shirt and across his back.
Lyre shivered under his hands, trying to get closer, to become one with the man who held him. And he knew then that they had been heading here since their last encounter. As if one way or another the city and all the Folk of New York conspired to bring them together.
He bit Seamus earlobe, whispering nonsense, grinding his hips against Seamus' thigh.
Seamus moaned, his whole body vibrating with the sound, and slid down Lyre’s legs, bringing Lyre’s trousers with him. Callused fingers closed aro
und his hips and Seamus eyes were dark blue when they looked up at him. “Gonna lick you all over,” he said.