by G. D. Cox
Then, good god, there's the food.
"Oh hey, Angie," Stewart says, already with a white, ceramic plate and silver utensils in hand and heading for the two, parallel rows of food bars in the center of the mess. "I think they got that tempura soft shell crab you like today."
Clyde mutely follows the two agents, his eyes glued to the divine fare being served in round, roll-top stainless steel chafing dishes with chrome-plated legs. Every dish is labeled with a white, rectangular card in black, handwritten script. Just like Stewart said, there's tempura soft shell crab. Crispy potato wedges and prosciutto. Snapper with chickpeas mousse. Braised lamb shoulder with sweetbreads. Parmesan and potato gnocchi. Fried cauliflower with tahini sauce and almonds, and yeah, ground beef meatloaf with roasted garlic potatoes. (There's dessert too, he finds out after his third helping of food, such as coconut panna cotta and caramel pudding with crème fraîche ice cream.)
He gapes at the panoply of food and for the first time in a long while, feels like actually crying. He hasn't eaten in days (and a beer doesn't count). He's pretty much broke. (He'd been estimating how many of the bar's patrons he could pickpocket before Fabry's agents showed up and chased him down, thus ensuring that he's stayed broke.) He knows he's white trash that gets the stink eye just passing by classy joints. Him being here to eat all this upper-crust food without having to pay a cent for it is something he's close to calling a miracle, if he believed in them.
Out of habit, he glances around to scout his surroundings. There are only a handful of other people that he can see, dressed in formal work wear, spread out around the mess and dining quietly. None of them are even glancing in his direction, at his casual, threadbare clothing and scruffy face that are so out of place here. Jeez, is Fabry expecting him to wear a suit too as an agent? There's no way he'll wear one. He'd rather be a guinea pig for some silly superhero-like, spandex costume than a freaking suit and tie, especially if they're talking an 8-to-5 job here -
When he realizes what he just thought, Clyde freezes. He grits his teeth and blanks his mind.
"Come on, Barnett. Dig in."
Stewart is gesturing at him to get a plate and utensils for himself. He frowns at Stewart and his plate already piled high with food.
"You didn't even ask whether I wanted to come here or not," Clyde mutters, even as his own brain tells him off for such a juvenile comment.
His stomach agrees with that, because it decides to let out an embarrassingly loud rumble at that moment.
Stewart's eyebrows go high up his forehead although his lips stay straight. Clyde refrains from flipping the guy the bird and instead grabs a plate from a clothed end table near one of the food bars.
"I figured anybody would be hungry after twelve hours of not eating anything," Stewart says nonchalantly, and Clyde realizes that must be how long it's been since he was taken down on that rooftop by Fabry's agents. It feels a lot longer than that to him (and whatever the heck that drug was they knocked him unconscious with, it must be some good shit because he doesn't feel any side effects from it at all). So that means it must be at least noon or later. Lunch time.
He gives no fucks about heaping his plate with everything that's available and eating while on the go. He may have let out some other embarrassing noise through his mouth after munching on some tempura soft shell crab, earning him a genuine smile from Perez. (It upgrades her from 'hot mama' to 'hot mama with dazzling smile'.) After noticing that both agents have indeed gone after the meatloaf, he does as well, saving it for later when they're seated.
He, Stewart and Perez end up sitting near a row of floor-to-ceiling windows to the left of the mess that overlook a spectacular view of midtown Manhattan on a cloudless, luminous day. Stewart really had been telling the truth about them being in a skyscraper in the heart of Manhattan. They must be at least forty floors up.
"Didn't realize your specialty is to be a vacuum cleaner," Perez says to him with twinkling eyes, as he almost inhales his meal with avid scoops of a spoon. A hunk of braised lamb is gone in two mouthfuls.
"Five days," he mumbles between bites, not bothered to look at his armed chaperones.
"What?" Stewart asks.
"Five days. I haven't eaten in five days, okay."
Clyde, glowering down at his plate as he chews on, misses the wide-eyed glances Perez and Stewart give each other, their surprise at Clyde being capable of clobbering fellow agents while starving and getting shot in the leg.
None of them speak again until Clyde has a big spoonful of the meatloaf in his mouth. Stewart and Perez gaze at him with evident amusement in their eyes when his jaws go still and he slowly lifts his head to stare at them with round eyes, his cheeks puffed out.
"This is like ... heaven in meat form," Clyde mumbles, with not a small amount of reverence.
"Congratulations," Stewart replies with an utterly deadpan face. "You passed."
"Wha?" Clyde blurts out, frowning in confusion at Stewart, his mouth still full.
Perez is clearly trying not to laugh as Stewart says, still deadpan, "See, if somebody doesn't like Betty's meatloaf, we know they're a terrorist and we shoot them on sight."
Clyde's own expression goes deadpan while Perez smiles that dazzling smile again and shakes her head. Ha ha, this guy's just such a comedian, isn't he? Still ... Clyde can't help beginning to like him too, and Perez. For all their jabs at him, he can tell they're good people. They're not obligated to treat him this kindly - and yeah, he's aware that Fabry's also using the excellent food spread to persuade him to accept his offer - but they are, anyway. Even the guys in the circus never treated him this nice, and he was part of their crew for almost a decade.
"If there's someone who likes the meatloaf more than you, Don, it's got to be Cole."
Clyde hears Stewart laugh aloud for the first time. Stewart's eyes and mouth crinkle at the sides as he does so, but instead of appearing older, the creases seem to illuminate his whole face, removing years from it. Clyde quickly glances away from Stewart and stares down at his plate instead.
Don't look. Don't stare. Only faggots stare at other guys.
"Yeah. That guy." Stewart snorts. "You remember the last time we all ate together, and he and Tremblay went after the last scoop? I think Tremblay almost pissed himself when he realized it was Cole standing next to him."
Clyde finishes what's left on his plate while he listens to Perez and Stewart chat about this Cole. They don't seem to care that he's there hearing all this stuff about this other agent they obviously like and respect. They don't seem to care even when they talk about some mission or another, about more agents and what they've been up to. It's like ... they're already assuming him to be one of them.
Is he that transparent to them?
He glances up at them as they continue to banter, observing the familiarity and ease they have with each other. Would it be so bad if he does accept Fabry's offer? If Fabry is being honest with him, whatever criminal record he's got will be erased. He highly doubts that the pay is peanuts either, judging from Stewart's and Perez's tailored suits and well-kept appearance. There's apparently some room set up for him already, which is more than what he's had for years now. (Don't think about Melissa, don't think about her, just don't.) Shit, he didn't even have a room of his own when he was a kid, certainly not while he was in the circus. There's the food too, the tastiest he's eaten in, well, ever. And yeah, he hasn't been told yet what exactly he's supposed to do as an agent, but he's going to guess it's anything better than petty crime for the rest of his life.
If he turns the offer down, back on the streets he goes, a starving, broke, ticking time bomb of a criminal who'll end up in prison sooner or later. A guy with his days numbered in years and not decades.
It's a no-brainer decision for a guy who wants to stay alive.
"Who's Cole?" he asks, when they start talking about the agent again.
"Agent Phelan Cole," Perez says, her eyes warm. "He's Fabry's right-hand man."
"G
ood man." Stewart pats his own right shoulder over his suit jacket with his left hand. "Worth the bullet."
Clyde raises his eyebrows at Stewart. Damn. Stewart took a bullet for this guy? Whoever this Cole is, people are willing to die for him. He can appreciate that.
"You're gonna hear about how Fabry's the scariest muthafucker to walk this Earth," Stewart says to him. "But me? I think Cole's the real guy you oughta be scared shitless of."
Clyde's eyebrows rise even higher.
"Yeah? Why's that?"
"He isn't just Fabry's right-hand man. He's Fabry's best friend too, and Fabry would burn the world to ashes if anybody is ever crazy enough to harm Cole and try to get away with it." Whatever expression Clyde has now, it makes Stewart smirk at him and add, "Don't worry, kid, you won't be meeting him for a while yet, fresh meat that you are."
"Don't call me 'kid', asshole."
It takes Stewart at least two years to drop the pet name. By that time, Clyde has been a GATF agent for as long, a Level 3 agent who's already gained a somewhat controversial reputation for butting heads with at least four handlers. It honestly isn't like he's doing it on purpose or anything. They all turned out to be assholes in some way or another that put the mission or him and other agents in peril. He even typed out lengthy, detailed reports about each one for Fabry's and Bhargava's perusal, and he hates writing reports. (Thank fuck for computers and spell-check and form templates and whatever.)
He's certain that Fabry is going to lob him at yet another handler when he notices Fabry in the main gym during a typical close combat and self-defense training session. Fabry stands near one edge of the expansive, interlocking square of jigsaw mats to the left of the gym, silently observing him getting pounced on by Stewart, Turner, Chowdhury and Gyeong. From the corner of his eye, he sees the comm pad in Fabry's hand, sees Fabry talking into it. Turner leaps on him and tries to take his head off with a lightning-fast right hook. He feels Fabry's eyes on him as he takes down Turner with a swipe to Turner's legs, then Stewart with a flip over his head onto the mats, then Chowdhury and Gyeong with an elbow in the belly and another leg swipe.
He isn't even breathing hard when Fabry says to him, "Barnett. My office, in an hour."
The other guys at least wait until Fabry's left the gym to roll out the gibes.
"Oooh, somebody's in trouble again," Chowdhury drawls from where he's still sprawled on the mats, grinning at Clyde.
"Somebody's getting another dom again," Turner says while stretching his bulging triceps with his arms over his head, also grinning. "Hopefully you won't kick this one into the sewers, huh?"
"I thought the third time was supposed to be the charm, not the fifth," Gyeong says from where he's sitting cross-legged on the mats, and oh jeez, even Gyeong is smiling.
"Nah, Barnett's special like that," Chowdhury says.
"Oh, fuck off and slurp a can of man mayo," Clyde growls without heat, evoking good-natured snickers from the three guys.
Stewart, standing with his arms akimbo, says to Clyde, "Word is that you are getting another handler."
Clyde rubs at his nose with the back of his left hand and asks, "Yeah? Who?"
"Phelan Cole."
Turner, Chowdhury and Gyeong gape at Stewart, their faces bearing identical expressions of astoundment.
"Oh, you are just fucking with us, aren't you," Chowdhury says, sitting up with a lurch on the mats. "Everybody knows that Cole doesn't want to be a handler. Like, everybody."
"No fucking," Stewart says, now crossing his arms over his chest, his lips straight and his eyes glinting. "I'm just telling you what I heard, that's all. Fabry is allegedly tired of Cole not becoming a handler already and is going to give him an asset whether he likes it or not." Stewart raises an eyebrow at Clyde. "Looks like it's you."
"You dead, son," Turner says to Clyde with an utterly straight face.
"I will shed many tears at your funeral, my friend," Chowdhury says sorrowfully with one hand pressed to his chest and an utterly straight face too.
Gyeong enunciates a string of Korean words that Clyde later translates into, "I offer you my deepest condolences on this dark day."
And Stewart, with a slap of one hand on Clyde's right shoulder, says with the most deadpan face of all, "It was nice knowing ya, kid."
Although the four men do crack up when he swears at them again, Clyde feels his insides roiling while he hurriedly showers in the en suite bathroom of his assigned lodgings in HQ and gets ready to head up to Fabry's office on the eighty-eighth floor. By now, he's heard so much more about the damn near mythical Phelan Cole, about how badass Fabry's right-hand man and best friend truly is. Perez has been on four missions with Cole, last he spoke to her, and Perez still has only the best things to say about the guy.
You should have seen him jump in front of those armed robots, she'd said while they ate dinner in the mess weeks ago, almost starry-eyed. They had rotary machine guns but that insane human being just ran anyway and saved that kid and her mom when no one else dared to go. And to top it off, after we took down all the robots and got the asswipes who built them, we found out that Cole didn't have a bulletproof vest on. He actually forgot he wasn't wearing one.
Jesus, and this insane human being is going to be his next handler? A handler who doesn't want to be one and is going to be forced to work with him?
He dead, indeed.
Funny thing is, he doesn't know what kind of dead he's about to be, until he strides into Fabry's office in his Long-Shot outfit - hey, gotta make a great first impression, right? - and sees Cole with his own eyes for the very first time. He'd been distracted at first by Fabry's secretary, Ms. Jackson, who looked mighty fine in that dark gray pantsuit, making sure to look her over as she exited the room. (That's what all guys do. It's the natural thing to do.) Then he'd swiveled around to face Fabry and Cole, and ... fuck. Fuck, that's it. The moment his eyes meet Cole's across the carpeted floor of Fabry's extensive and grandiose office, he's done for. He is fucking done-zo.
Phelan Cole, attired in a tailored, pin-striped, navy blue suit with a dark orange silk tie, is the most gorgeous bastard Clyde has ever laid eyes on. Cole's large eyes are a lighter shade of blue than his, like azure lit up by the noon sun, like a crush of bright diamonds. Cole's hair is a rich dark brown, thinning at the top but side-parted and neatly styled. Cole is clean-shaven, and no, the very slight crookedness of his Grecian nose doesn't do a thing to diminish his classic handsomeness. (It's probably crooked due to it being broken before rather than a natural facet.) Then there's Cole's lips, dark pink and neither too full or too thin, just right on his face.
Clyde knows he looks damn good in his Long-Shot outfit that flaunts his bare arms and molds to his body, but it doesn't come close to the grace that Cole possesses as Cole stands and buttons up his suit jacket with both hands, gazing at him all the while.
Then, Cole speaks.
"I'm Agent Phelan Cole," Cole says to him with the most sublime, resonant voice he's ever heard, while offering him a large hand. "I will be your handler from now on."
He tries so hard to not stare at Cole as he walks up to the other agent. He knows he's failed from the way Cole is staring back at him, into his eyes as he extends his own hand to firmly grip Cole's.
Don't stare, the voice in his head that sounds just like Pop snarls. Don't stare.
He thinks that he may be squeezing Cole's hand a little too hard. (It's callused and it's so warm.) He allows his eyes to rove down the length of Cole's body - one surely as fit and agile as his, to be able to achieve the many unprecedented feats Cole has - before whipping them back up to Cole's face.
Don't stare, that damn voice in his head snarls. Only faggots stare at other men.
And in that very moment - one he will pinpoint in the years to come as the one where his entire universe begins to flip on its axis and never come back down - another voice, one that sounds just like himself, says, I don't care.
"It's an honor, sir," he somehow manag
es to say, looking Cole in the eye. "Clyde Barnett. Maybe you know me better as Long-Shot."
Cole doesn't let go of his hand. He can't bring himself to let go either, until that other voice in him speaks again, free for the very first time to do so.
For this man, I would go down on my knees.
He has no idea he's yanked his hand away from Cole's, that he's broken their eye contact until he finds himself taking a big step back and away from Cole, glancing to the side and ah shit, shit, he can feel how hot his face is. He rarely blushes. Rarely. There isn't much in this vast, unfair, unpredictable, senseless world that can make him do that, not after all the fucked up things he's been through. But it's just his luck that this bastard can, his new handler. Christ, what is his goddamn life.
He barely recalls the rest of the meeting with Fabry. He can't stop himself from glancing at Cole time and again, studying Cole's face in profile. He knows Fabry asks him questions and that he answers them. He inhales to find this earthy, distinctive scent that he thinks is Cole's, something he can't quite define, something ... comforting. Something ... arousing. He doesn't know if it's some cologne Cole is wearing or if it's Cole's natural scent. He wants to lean towards Cole, to draw nearer to Cole's neck and just ... breathe in.
And fucking hell, he's never been this terrified of himself. What is happening to him?
He's not gay. He's not a faggot. He's not so he shouldn't even be thinking any of this crap about Cole. Okay ... okay, maybe looking at another guy for a while isn't gay. He can deal with that. He can acknowledge a guy's good looks and still be straight. But fucking hell, he has no idea where that particular thought came from. He's only gone down on his knees in front of another man for one reason, and he was drunk every time and he needed the money, he needed it to eat and drink and survive and it did not make him a faggot. No, just. No. No.