33 Degrees of Separation (Legacy)

by Rain Carrington

  “Damn it, Ian, I don’t want you to have to do that.”

  “What other recourse do we have?”

  After he let out a long, silent breath, and looked away, unwilling to look Ian in the eye, he said, “None.”

  “Stop looking so guilty. It’s not like I didn’t think of it a million times while I was here alone. I had no idea then, and still don’t, about what I’d do about it. Who would I tell? What authorities aren’t under the Grail’s thumb? Congressman? CIA? I have no idea how they are, how far their reach is. I mean, I do. They’re far-reaching, and could be anywhere.”

  Ian had a hard time falling to sleep. Especially across the room from Pat. He made his pallet far from Ian, trying to be professional, appropriate, all of the things a man like him would be. All he could think of was how good it would be to make love with the man, have the sex he was sure would be amazing take his mind from things for a little while.

  The attraction he felt for Pat was palpable. Drawn to him, like a divining rod or something, pulled uncontrollably. Even in sleep, he didn’t look peaceful. He looked purposeful. It was as if his dreams were nothing more than plans for the next day, things he needed to do. People he needed to protect.

  He wasn’t stupid, he knew he was reaching for a man that was helping him. That he was gorgeous, well, that didn’t hurt.

  Like some damsel in distress, like everyone thought a rich kid was, that was him. People rushing around to save him, help him, do for him. Denny had changed a lot of that in him. Privilege was a part of his life and seemed so natural. When he’d met Denny, and they’d become friends, Denny would become disgusted with him when he’d use money to get out of all his troubles, no matter how small or large.

  When they’d moved in together, and Ian had their apartment furnished in hours with the best of everything, Denny understood that was what he’d been used to, but he also made Ian take care of the things. Little things, like using coasters, taking out their own trash, washing their own dishes and when he broke one, not immediately throwing out the rest of the set to get a new one.

  He smiled as he thought of it. Denny teaching him to be human and not some rich caricature. Talking about his family and the struggles they’d had, though Denny’s parents both had good jobs, showed Ian a part of reality he had thought was fiction. Families on television that had money problems, that couldn’t find jobs, all of that was either because they didn’t want to try hard enough to make money, or they were living off their interest, leaving the bulk of their money in the bank.

  To live like that, never having to see the hard choices people made, like to buy food or pay their rent, that was inconceivable to Ian before Denny came into his life. He could tell that Pat was like that, that he’d teach him more about the real world than Ian wanted to know.

  The morning came with Denny walking through the door. Pat was awake already and drinking some of the awful instant coffee Denny brought the last time he was at the cabin. Ian went into his friend’s arms and Denny held him, like a brother, and he was.

  “I gotcha, honey.”

  “Den, I hate this.”

  He hated being whiny, but with Denny, it was okay to be. “Don’t I know it, Ian? I guess no one’s life is all peaches and cream, huh?”

  He laughed at that, pulling back and smirking, “I bet you’re loving this just a little.”

  “Oh, fuck yeah! Finally, something I have you don’t. A family that doesn’t want me joining some weird club. Worst my father wanted me to join was the chorus, because he wanted a singer in the family.”

  Ian smacked his arm playfully and Pat handed him a cup of the terrible coffee. Denny took it from him before he had to force himself to take a sip. “Hold on, buddy. I brought goodies.”

  Ian watched him leave and then watched as Pat went out the front and threw his coffee out onto the bushes. “Even I’m too picky to like that crap.”

  Denny came in with three giant coffees, and Ian grabbed his like he was gripping a lifeline. “You are the best. I mean the absolute best.”

  “It’s cold, I’m sure, but better cold than instant.”

  Pat slurped his noisily, warning Ian, “I’m going to steal your best friend.”

  “I’ll fight you; I don’t care how big you are.”

  “Enough,” Denny said, laughing. “While I love having people fight over me, I didn’t come here for that. What’s going on?”

  Pat took Denny out to the back to tell him all that Ian revealed. Ian watched out of the window, and couldn’t hear them, but saw Denny’s reaction. He cried, and he started to head back to the car, though Pat stopped him. After a lot of calming him, they reentered the cabin, and Denny hugged him again. “I’m so fucking sorry, man.”

  They sat on the Bronco chairs while Pat stood, leaning back on the wall. Ian spoke to him, told him that the more he got his head around it, the more he wanted to break the Grail.

  While Ian drank his cool coffee, the best thing he’d ever tasted, Pat explained some. “We’ve come to no conclusions, have figured out no course of action.”

  “I figured that. So now what?”

  Pat looked to him, like he had an answer. Well, he guessed he did. “I’m staying in the Grail.”

  Like he wasn’t hearing right, Denny moved closer, both hands up. “What was that?”

  Pat gave him a nod, like encouragement, and Ian felt the strength to tell his best friend what he most definitely didn’t want to hear. “I have to, Den. They are planning something terrible, and I have no idea if it’s going to be soon or not, but I’m guessing it is. If there is one chance that I can help, that I can stop them, I’m going to do it.”

  Flying off the handle wasn’t like Denny at all. He was usually the most mellow and easy-going person in the room, but he started to yell, ranting at them both. “You? You’re going to save the fucking world, all by yourself?” To Pat, he screamed, “You’re the goddamned FBI and you’re leaving this civilian to go in and try to take down some cult that’s been around for centuries, and has the means to kill him, you and everyone else? What the hell are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking that we can’t get anywhere without having someone inside the order. I’m thinking that if he leaves, he could die anyway, along with many, many others.”

  Denny paced, furious with them both. Ian didn’t try to calm him, because he felt that rage, it broiled inside of him too.

  “This is insane, man. I don’t get any of this shit.”

  Pat did something then that Ian hadn’t expected and hadn’t wanted but was possibly the best thing he could have done. “Denny, they got him to attempt suicide like I told you…by having a gun trained on you. He’s afraid that if he leaves, they’ll go after the people he cares about, and for him, that means you.”

  Denny stared at him, again like he didn’t understand. His brows were so close together from the furrow that they were as one, and his mouth hung wide. When he closed it, when he turned to Ian, his voice was much softer, and it was riddled with fear. “Is that true?”

  “Yeah. My father knows you are the one person in my life I’d really hate to lose. For me, it was you or nothing, so they had someone following you.”

  “When? Ian, when?”

  Knowing what his reaction was going to be made it a thousand times harder to say. He had to, though. “A few days ago. When I was gone with my father. You were…you were with Cara, at the coffee shop.”

  Denny had never had trouble finding girls to date. He played the field hard the first few years they’d been friends, but when he met Cara, all that had changed. She was a sweet girl, but smart and stubborn. He couldn’t easily get his way by fluttering his dark lashes at her. She made him want to try harder, be better, and he was very much in love with her. He’d confided to Ian many times how much he wanted to marry her.

  “Cara was there? They…they saw her? They know about her?”

  Pat tried to intercede, “She wasn’t the target.”

  “But she was
with the target! Me!”

  Ian didn’t want to lose his friend, but he would rather him be safe than have Denny in his life. “I’m so sorry, Den.”

  Denny’s face was screwed with pain and anger, but his features smoothed when he saw Ian’s tears. “Man, I know it wasn’t you. It’s your fucking family, and those fucking freaks in that cult.”

  Pat was truthful to a fault, but they both needed that truth. “Denny, I can’t say that you won’t be held over his head again. There’s only one thing that could change the target. They need someone else to hang over Ian’s head, if they suspect he’s working against them.”

  Ian didn’t understand, but Denny seemed to. “If you’re talking about you, dude, you’re forgetting Ian’s father already met you. In an official capacity.”

  “And who is to say that we weren’t seeing each other and that’s why I used my badge to try to find my boyfriend?”

  More confused than ever, Ian pled, “Tell me what the hell you’re talking about, please? What the hell do you mean, my boyfriend?”

  Denny was smiling and explained to Ian, “If they all think you’re all in love with him, then they’ll go after him instead of me. He’s nuts, man.”

  “Not nuts. It takes the pressure off you, unless you want to get your girlfriend and run. Go into hiding from them. Ian will never be able to go through with any of this if he’s worried that every move he makes will place you in danger.”

  That, he understood. “If anything puts you in danger, forget it, Denny.”

  The look he was used to, Denny’s confidence in him, a little nod, his full lips turned up at the corners so only Ian recognized it, he got that right then, probably when he needed it the most. Turning to Pat, he laughed a little nervously and said, “Boyfriend. Well, at least you’re hot.”

  “Hot? Isn’t he your type? He looks like the pictures of that artist you like. Tim Finland or whatever.”

  Something he never thought he’d see showed right then, Pat’s cheeks reddening. “Tom of Finland,” Pat corrected.

  He hadn’t noticed before, but Denny was right. Pat looked exactly like he’d walked out of a Tom of Finland print. The thing that intrigued him, though, was that Pat knew who that was. “How do you know about him? Tom of Finland?”

  Eyeing him suspiciously, he watched Pat chuckle silently, then he looked Ian in the eye and said, “Yeah, I’m gay too.”

  He could have melted. The crush he thought was starting didn’t seem so pathetic any longer, and those thoughts of making love with Pat the night before wasn’t some pipe dream. “I thought I felt something, but my gaydar has always been off.”

  “That’s the god’s truth. He told me for two years I was gay, that I just hadn’t discovered it yet. I’ve been all about the girls since I was little.”

  Ian remembered that, trying to convince Denny he was gay. Thinking back on it, like he had many times, he realized he was hoping for that, finding the man he could love forever. What it took a long time to realize was that he would love Denny forever. As his best and most beloved friend. “Can’t blame me for trying.”

  Denny slung an arm around his shoulders, pulling him in to kiss his cheek. “Believe me, if I bent that way, you’d by my first and only choice.”

  Ian caught Pat’s face at that moment, the darkened eyes and the way he turned away quickly. It seemed to be a gesture of jealousy, but he was probably imagining it.

  “So, what’s the plan?” Denny asked, looking to Pat for the answer.

  Pat turned to them both, and with more determination than Ian could have mustered, said, “I need a few days with Ian to establish that we are now in a relationship. Ian’s father will want it hidden, so Ian will make him a deal that I will act as his bodyguard, as to disguise that we’re together. That way, if anyone sees, no one will suspect. That should make Mr. Andrews happy, therefore the Grail happy. Ian will stay in for just long enough to try to find out what the plans are for this culling they’re talking about, if it’s happening soon or what. If not, we’ll figure out how to get Ian out, without anyone being in danger from it.”

  “Can you use your position at the FBI to help?”

  Ian watched him lower his head and then he confessed, “It’ll be sticky. I may have to go on leave.”

  That broke his heart. Ian didn’t want everyone’s lives turned upside down for him. “No! I can’t let you do that. We’ll think of another way.”

  The look in Pat’s eye when he faced Ian left no room at all for an argument. “This is what I do, Ian. Badge or no badge. I’ve been involved in the bureau’s cult task force for a while now, and it’s what I’m suited for. Stopping these things from ruining people’s lives. It’s ruining your life and everyone who comes near you. Whether my name is on the books at the bureau or not, this is what I do.”

  The job wasn’t just a paycheck for Pat. That was clear. He was one of those do-gooders that wanted to help people, no matter what. Just another thing to admire about the man. “If you’re going to be my bodyguard, whether pretend or not, I’ll pay you.”

  Teasing Ian, and pinching his chin, he said, “You couldn’t afford me.”

  “Jesus. You two are very cute, but will this work? If this thing has been around so long, they’ve lasted for a reason. They’re not stupid or easily fooled.”

  “I’ve taken all that into serious consideration, Denny. I will be as careful as I possibly can. A friend, the one who sent me, he’s already put in a transfer for me to work for him, so the bureau itself won’t need to know as much about what goes on. He can place me undercover, and that would erase anything that could point me out to them. All I have to say is that I quit the bureau to be with my boyfriend.”

  Again, the word caused Ian’s heart to beat a little faster. He understood it was a ruse, but the thought of the big man being his partner, he felt himself a little dreamy over it. It was a nice thought after all the horrible ones he’d had of late. Whether it was that, or real feelings emerging, he didn’t care. He just wanted something good.

  “Okay. Well, I’m no expert in a field like this. I just want Ian protected. And Cara.”

  Ian ducked his head again, the guilt he felt at the danger he was placing everyone in weighing him down terribly. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Ian, man, stop. It’s not like you chose this.”

  Denny gripped his upper arm and Ian caught his smile. “Den, I’ll kill them all before I let them hurt you.”

  “How you gonna do that?”

  He was teasing, but Ian countered, “I’m rich. I’ll hire people.”

  “There you go.”

  Denny drove them to a small town an hour from the cabin, but on the way, Ian asked him to take a small detour. Passing the house. The house, he remembered that day, over ten years before, the day his dream had begun.

  The house was still abandoned, but it was there. A remnant of times past, when the area had been a coal mining community. It was a mansion in those days, the two-story Tudor. They didn’t stop to look around the inside, but they didn’t need to. He remembered it all, the original wood, still whole and beautiful under the dust of the decades it had been left to fall to ruin.

  The staircase, winding up on a gentle curve, and the one chandelier that hadn’t fallen and shattered to bits, or been stolen by looters. All the tiny crystal drops hanging by brass clasps, the cup for each of the hundred candles, most with the melted nubs of wax.

  The wallpaper was faded so badly he wasn’t able to tell what pattern used to be there, until he pulled a loose board away from the corner of the living room. Preserved perfectly, the Damask pattern, royal blue and gold in color, so popular in the late 1800s. Like he was absorbing the story of the home, he’d walked through each room, falling in love with a place for the first time in his life.

  When Denny dropped them off at the motel, Pat checked them in, making Ian stay out of sight, and once they were in the cheap room, he asked him about the house. “You had us go twenty miles out of our way to d
rive by an old house. Any reason?”

  Ian placed the few items he had into the plywood dresser and smiled shyly, knowing how it would sound. “No reason. I just like the place.”

  Pat gripped his arm and spun him around, smirking wildly at him. “Talk. As your new bodyguard and pretend boyfriend, I think I should know everything I can about you.”

  “Everything?”

  “The pertinent things,” he said, seriously. “Really, I should know the things important to you. If anyone is to believe we’re together, anyway. It’s like people who marry immigrants to get them a green card. Immigration will ask them the most random questions to assure they are indeed together or faking it for the green card.”

  Ian sat on the bed, glad it wasn’t a sleeping bag on the floor, even though it was only a double bed, nearly as hard as the floor back at the cabin. “So this is why we’re here and not heading back right away, right? To get our stories straight?”

  Pat sat beside him, making the bed dip deep, and making Ian wonder how it would feel to have that big man making him dip. “Yeah, basically. I’ll coach you on how to act, what to do, what to say when you’re around your father and the other members of the Grail. We’ll learn a little about each other. Whatever we can learn in a few days.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever done that intentionally. Learn about someone. Even with Denny, I learned by observation and on accident. I never sought out information on anyone.”

  “Most of us don’t, Ian. Unless we are interested in someone and don’t have the time to learn it by observation. I can tell you’re ready to be down on yourself for just about everything right now. You’re questioning everything you’ve ever been and done in your life, thinking all this is your fault. It’s not. Sure, you were a rich, entitled son of a gazillionaire. So what? We all start out somewhere. It’s where you end up and how you get there that matters in this life.”

  Ian turned his head, and they were so close, Ian could feel Pat’s body heat coming through the black T-shirt and jeans he wore so well. He could feel him, and he wanted to feel more. It was so tempting to lean in the very few inches it would take to kiss the man. How would his lips feel? How would their breath taste when they mixed together? He thought of strawberries and cream, and the finest brandy when he thought of how Pat would taste.