Love for the Cold-Blooded. Or

by Alex Gabriel

  Even given the general uncertainty of the situation, it was too much to ask of Pat to pass up an opening like that. “Pizza first,” he demanded accordingly. He rolled his head to the side so Nick could appreciate the suggestive waggling of his eyebrows, and also so he could try to get some kind of reading on Nick’s mood. “You don’t want your valuable hostage to starve, do you? I bet that would be a boatload of trouble.”

  Nick had thrown on a worn pair of jeans and a Ghost Matter sweatshirt. His hair was still damp from the shower and darkening his shirt’s neckline with moisture; he was drooping slightly, clearly exhausted but too stubborn to show it. He even tried to get up the energy for a proper glare before giving up.

  Just, seriously, it was ridiculous how much Pat had missed this lame-ass dude. He was only just realizing how much, tipped off by his need to stare at Nick forever; to drink him in and glut himself on his presence. It hadn’t even been that long, really, but it felt like he’d been missing him for an eternity or more. He’d missed the man even when he was right there, all heroic and distant in his silver uniform, separated from Pat not by force fields and quantum armor, but by the revelation of Pat’s parentage.

  He’d missed him especially then, actually. That distance felt way more threatening than a few kilometers between them and two full schedules to keep them apart. Sure, Nick had promised he wouldn’t hate Pat for any non-disclosed shit when disclosure finally occurred, but that kind of promise was easy to make, and way more difficult to keep. Promises shmomises, as a much younger Zen had so eloquently put it.

  Pat kinda missed Nick still.

  Thing was, now that his first surge of elation over the outcome of the showdown had worn off, he wasn’t certain where he stood with Nick. Yeah, it was awesome that neither Nick nor Mom had suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of the other, and that they’d agreed to a ceasefire. Yeah, Nick hadn’t objected to being called Pat’s partner, and had agreed to attend the West family dinner. But did that really mean what Pat wanted it to mean, or just that Silver Paladin was a good hoagie who did whatever he had to do to neutralize a rampaging challenger?

  Pat could have just asked, of course, but he was a little scared that Nick would tell him, and that it wouldn’t be what he wanted to hear. Because what he wanted to hear was that sure, Nick had been shocked to find out Pat was Serpentissima’s kid, but that — once the initial startlement had passed — he didn’t really care. That he wasn’t angry, or at least not very. That he still wanted to do… whatever it was they’d been doing, only more so. Namely with family dinners and paintball and surprise visits by nosy sisters and —

  “If you were a color,” Nick said, blandly. “Which color would you be?”

  Pat blinked, and stared at Nick. Nick stared back evenly, looking just as bland and matter-of-fact as his voice.

  Relief flooded Pat, tearing a surprised-sounding burst of laughter from him. “That is the lamest question ever, dude. Which color would I be?”

  Nick raised both eyebrows at him in a clear prompt. Warmth was building in Pat’s chest, growing in the light of a slowly solidifying certainty.

  Everything was going to be alright. Pat had known it all along (he had! kind of, anyway), and clearly, he was a genius who was never wrong. Nick didn’t hate him at all. Nick was still Nick, and they were still whatever they had been, and somehow, it was all going to work out.

  “Bright red,” Pat said; he didn’t even have to think about it. “Fire-engine red.” Total no-brainer, right? But Nick’s brows bunched into a discontented frown, and Pat hurried to barrel on, talking right over any attempt the man might have made to say something ridiculous like ‘don’t be absurd, you are entirely verdigris’ or ‘how can you be unaware you are carnelian’. “Don’t even start with me, dude. And don’t give me any nonsense about you being silver, either. You are so not.”

  Burgundy was more like it, or maybe a warm, rich shade of blue. Silver was pretty, yeah — and brilliant too, Pat guessed. But it was too cold, all hard and untouchable. Not nearly alive enough. Not nearly vital enough.

  Nick gave a scoffing noise that made no secret of his opinion of Pat’s color-defining abilities. He didn’t say anything, though, evidently content to let the matter rest for the moment. No doubt he’d bring it up again later, at the most absurd possible moment. Pat could hardly wait.

  “So how’s about that pizza, then?” He flung out an arm, hitting Nick lightly in the stomach with the back of his hand. Nick caught his wrist immediately. His thumb pressed uncomfortably against one of Pat’s countless bruises, but Pat didn’t complain, or try to pull away.

  Nick didn’t seem in any more of a hurry to talk than Pat was, but they’d have to at some point, Pat was pretty sure. Get it all out into the open, kind of thing. It’d be pretty cool to start over without any misunderstandings or secrets between them. Just Pat and Nick, both of them on the same page.

  Unfortunately, Pat had no idea what to say to get them to that point. He’d agonized for so long about telling Nick his mom was the Dread Serpent, and now that that snake was finally out of the hen-house, there was a whole other matter to disclose. How did you confess to your hoagie boyfriend that your infamous challenger mother expected you to seduce him into the family business?

  Quickly, that was how. He wasn’t going to drag this out the way he’d dragged out the Serpentissima thing. No, he was going to come right out and say it, just like that: Hey Nicky-boy, by the way, my mother’s hatched a scheme to entice you to change sides by means of my dubious charms. I don’t really think you’re the challenger type, though. Honestly, bro, I’m just in this for the sex, and for you. Just thought you should know.

  “Ay, send up a pizza, extra large,” Nick said into the reproachful silence. “Pioppinis, truffles, lime shrimp, smoked butterfish, and roasted almond broccoli. For cheese… old emmentaler and gorgonzola.”

  Snorting with laughter made the bruises on Pat’s stomach hurt. Totally worth it, though, especially since the puzzled ‘what now?’ written all over Nick’s face was clearly entirely unfeigned. The dude honestly had no idea of what a parody of himself he was. It was sad. Also (scarily enough) kind of endearing. But mostly sad.

  Life was pretty great. Sure, so Pat ached all over. (How on earth had he managed to get bruises on his ass, of all places? He shifted, trying to get comfortable, and then gave it up for a bad job when he sat on different bruises instead. Whatever, he’d heal.) And sure, there was the thing with his mom plotting nefarious plots concerning his boyfriend, and that other thing where Pat had no idea how to broach the subject with said boyfriend. But apart from the bruises and the usual existential angst and uncertainty, things had gone so much better than could reasonably have been expected.

  “I understand why you didn’t tell me right away,” Nick said, abruptly.

  It seemed like a lead-in for a big whopping ‘but’, and Pat waited for several beats. He’d have felt more nervous about things if Nick’s hand hadn’t still been wrapped around his arm, Nick’s thumb absently stroking the delicate skin of Pat’s inner wrist.

  The ‘but’ never came, even when Pat waited a little longer. Finally he had no choice but to say something himself. “Yeah, you know. I tried, but. Could have tried harder, I guess.”

  “Needless to say I was perfectly aware you were the child of a supervillain.” Nick was watching him with the usual intense concentration, like he wanted to suck Pat’s soul out through his face. Pat had grown weirdly fond of that look. “It would never have occurred to me to consider Serpentissima, however.”

  Pat didn’t know what to say; just stared at Nick with wide eyes. The cold flash of shock warred unpleasantly with the pleasant warmth that had been spreading through him, and all of a sudden, he needed to be doing this sitting up straight, rather than sprawling all over the place.

  He had to tug his wrist from Nick’s grip in order to scoot into an upright position. Nick’s hold tightened briefly before he let go. When Pat dared a glance, h
e gave him the annoyed eyebrows. “I’m not stupid, Patrick.”

  Pat managed to swallow down the first words that leapt to his tongue. Yeah, he guessed there had been enough clues, from Pat’s general attitude towards challengers to the entire minion duty thing. He’d just never thought — Nick hadn’t said anything. Why hadn’t he said anything?

  Except, well. Pat knew why, didn’t he.

  Nick was completely fearless in battle. Pat had seen footage of him flinging himself into the mouth of an interdimensional vortex; expanding his force fields to cover an overheating karmabot and contain the explosion; facing down any number of monstrously powerful opponents and deadly threats without batting an eye. But Pat had also known him uncertain, feeling his way; unsure of how to impress Pat, and nervous about the prospect of not being able to. He’d had Nick refuse to listen to Pat’s confession because he didn’t want to risk their fragile reconciliation. He’d seen Nick vulnerable, and uncertain, and out of his depth.

  Pat hadn’t been the only one afraid to rock the boat. This thing they had between them — somehow, without either of them quite noticing when or how, it had turned into something neither of them could afford to lose. And Nick was every bit as scared, clueless and insecure as Pat.

  A sudden, fierce surge of protectiveness welled up in Pat. He turned to face Nick, folding one leg up underneath himself, and scooted over the cushions until his knee bumped gently into his lover’s side. (That’s right, his lover. Anyone wanted to make something of it, Pat knew what to do. Yeah, he didn’t think so.)

  “Yeah, yeah, you’re not stupid,” Pat said, with a bit of delay. Whatever, he’d been thinking. He still was, in fact. To wit: Nick’s hand was lying on his stomach, loose and relaxed, and Pat was wondering how weird — on a scale of one to ten — it’d be if he reached out and took it. “So whose kid did you think I was, then?”

  Nick’s shoulders moved awkwardly against the backrest when he shrugged. “I hadn’t formed a truly viable hypothesis. Dark Star, possibly, or Crimson Ranger.”

  What the hell?

  Fortunately, unlike certain pigeons, the Andersen Estate’s AI had perfect dramatic timing. A low, melodious chime sounded just as Pat was drawing in a deep breath in preparation to opening his mouth. “One pizza, extra large, with old emmentaler, gorgonzola, pioppinis, truffles, lime shrimp, smoked butterfish, roasted almond broccoli,” the AI announced pleasantly. “Bon appetit, Mr. Andersen. Mr. West.”

  Wow. Was Nick fucking kidding? This was so not okay.

  Pat leaped up to stalk over to the dumbwaiter, scowling. The kicker was that Nick didn’t even seem to realize what kind of an insult he’d just dealt Pat… if he’d insulted him intentionally, it might have been easier to take than the thought that Nick had honestly considered there might be a genetic connection between Pat and Crimson Ranger, of all people. That was like Pat declaring Mariachi and Silver Paladin could be twins.

  His indignation cooled somewhat on the way back to the couch, helped along by his growling stomach and the enticing odor wafting up from the huge tray he’d retrieved from the dumbwaiter. For all of his remarkable qualities, in the end Nick was still a hoagie, and there were some things not even the most remarkable of hoagies could be expected to understand. So Pat decided to be the bigger man and contented himself with a comparatively minor act of revenge: When he set the tray down on the low table in front of the couch, he made sure to hold it at a steep angle for just long enough to start the pizza toppings sliding, ruining their previously perfect symmetry.

  Nick glared at him. Pat shot back a wide-eyed look of clueless innocence. The look would have worked better without the accompanying smirk, of course, but no revenge was complete without some amount of gloating. Well-known fact.

  Whoever was down in Nick’s kitchen, they’d done a fine job. Pat wasn’t sure how he felt about that, all things considered, but it was an undeniable fact. Before it had run afoul of Pat, the pizza had been laid out with uncompromising, geometric precision; the dough was rolled out in an even, near-perfect circle, all toppings selected for uniformity and arranged in orderly rows and circles. The slices were cut to precise Nicholas Anderson Handbook specifications, and the accompanying napkins and silverware conformed to regulations, too.

  One thing was drastically wrong, though… but that pretty much had to be a rule update rather than a mistake. Pat couldn’t imagine anyone employed by the Andersen Estate would be sloppy and/or wildly daring enough to overlook the cardboard box requirement (had it still been in place) and use an unsanctioned marble platter. That kind of mistake would get you fired without references.

  Pat wasn’t the mysteriously impenetrable type (heh, dirty pun, ten points to him), so he wasn’t too surprised to find Nick frowning at him when he looked up. Clearly, his train of thought had been written all over his face. “What did you expect? I don’t like pointless pretense, Patrick.”

  “Yeah, well.” He hadn’t thought to expect anything, really. He’d just thought the cardboard boxes were cooler, was all. “Whatever, dude, I’m not fussy. Ask me what passed for dinner at The Shark’s abandoned underwater jellyfish research station sometime. Sometime we’re not eating, though.” Pat had been so glad when Mr. Liberty had finally dragged The Shark into that handy pocket dimension. (Of course it would have been nice if somebody had thought to pick up the minions, too, but they’d made it back to dry land in the end, so whatever.)

  Man, Pat was starving, and Nick’s weirdo mix of ingredients actually turned out to be pretty damn tasty. Not that he was ever going to say as much to Nick, of course. It was a matter of principle.

  By the time his stomach was no longer about to gnaw its way straight out of his body, the giant pizza had been completely demolished, with the only remains being some loose slivers of truffle and a single lone shrimp that must have tumbled off someone’s slice. Pat was already reaching for it when Nick snagged it and popped it into his mouth, grinning at Pat in triumph.

  Pat rolled his eyes. He didn’t smile in any way at all, let alone fondly, because that would have been dumb. And then, he just opened his mouth and came out with it, with no forethought involved to mess him up. “Are you ever gonna say anything more about the Serpentissima thing? Cause I gotta warn you, dude, it’s now or never. Tonight’s the night. You let it slide now and it is done. History. Over and, forgiven and forgotten kind of thing, you catch my meaning? So. You better go ahead. Don’t make me wait.”

  Nick’s gaze didn’t waver. He took his time unwrapping the hot lemon-water soaked napkin, and thought his response over carefully as he wiped his fingers.

  “I’m not going to berate you, if that’s what you’re waiting for. You’re right — I was complicit in the fact your family was not discussed earlier. We both put it off too long. Given the choice, I would not have chosen to be confronted with the whole truth in quite the way I was, but…” He shrugged again, folding the napkin to toss it on the empty platter. “In all honesty, at this point I’ve almost grown to expect such surprises from you. I’ve weathered them thus far, so why stop now?”

  The embarrassing thing was: Pat almost fell for it. Nick was a lousy liar and an amateur schemer at best, and even so, he almost got away with pulling the wool over Pat’s eyes.

  It was understandable, of course. Pat could hardly be expected to object to being let off the hook. Quite the contrary, he could be expected to be incredibly relieved, which was exactly what he was. He wasn’t particularly inclined to question his good fortune, either. Gift snakes, and all that. It wasn’t like he wanted Nick to resent the fact he’d kept his mom’s identity quiet. The fact that he was being so understanding about Pat’s strategic omission of information was great; super amazing, even.

  So yeah. It would have worked, if Nick hadn’t decided to crown his deception with a winsome smile and a flirtatious batting of the lashes.

  The effect was bizarre, and somewhat scary. Nick’s face just wasn’t built for that kind of thing. Heroic indignation, sure; rampa
nt arrogance and fierce determination, absolutely. Lust, too, just like the full spectrum of interest and thoughtfulness and affection and amusement and any number of other emotions. But fey, whimsical charm? That was a big fat no, go directly to ‘what the fuck’, do not collect a hundred thalers. It was so wrong it seemed almost physically painful, like Star Knight trying to solve basic logic puzzles, or Nexus cracking a friendly smile.

  Even Pat was better at this kind of thing than Nick was, and Pat’s greatest success with winsome eyelash-batting so far had been to send a biology major into a laughing fit that ended with her lemonade spurting from her nose.

  “Yeah, no, what the fuck.” Despite this concise and fitting commentary, Nick failed to react, although at least he stopped the horrifying attempt to be cute. “Man, you suck. What gives?”

  Nick rolled his eyes in a manner that would have been cool to see under different circumstances (associating with Pat was definitely loosening the guy up some). In this context, though, it was totally inappropriate. “If you prefer, I can be angry. I just assumed —”

  Pat punched him lightly in the side. “Wrong answer. Something’s up, I can tell. I’m not stupid either, and there’s more to this than you being all zen and forgiving. Spill, dude.”

  The dude didn’t spill, but he did give a noncommittal grunt, which was as good as admitting Pat was right and there was indeed something to spill. Seemed that a little more prodding was required before Nick could allow himself to open up, though. Fine, Pat could prod like a champion… or, more to the point, like someone who’d grown up with three older siblings. “You might as well tell me now, because I’m not gonna shut up until you do. We’ve had enough of the non-disclosure thing. You know my sister Hell — Helena? Yeah, of course you do, you’ve fought her several times now. Anyway, she likes her peace and quiet, you know. Kinda like you, come to think. Anyway, once, when we were kids, she got hold of my chemistry set. I think she’d already used up her own and she wanted to make some lock-dissolving stun smoke or whatever, but that’s not important right now. Point is, I sat outside her locked door and talked and talked and talked until —”