War_Apocalypse

by JC Andrijeski

  Then I shook my head, refusing to look back at the Lao Hu seer.

  “Just get me out of here,” I told them. “Now, please.”

  27

  SEER TO SEER

  REVIK’S LIGHT TOUCHED the outline of the other man’s tentatively from where they both sat on the end of a king-sized bed.

  Jon didn’t look up. He didn’t move at all from where he stared at the green carpet of the hotel room floor.

  They were in the same room Jon once shared with Dorje. Revik had been in here a number of times after Dorje died, mostly to bring Allie clothes and to check on her and Jon while she stayed with him. He’d only been here once while Dorje had been alive.

  Dorje hadn’t been enthusiastic about Revik’s one and only visit.

  Then again, Dorje hadn’t been enthusiastic about Revik and Jon’s friendship in general, although he did his best to hide that fact, in part by pretending nothing but respect to Revik’s face. Dorje could even be friendly at times, especially towards the end, but he never really warmed to Revik, either.

  He made it clear from day one that his loyalty lived with Allie, not with her mate.

  Revik suspected Dorje had never forgiven him for what he’d done in the Tank.

  Some of that was what he’d done to Allie, and what drove Allie to China.

  Even more of it, Revik suspected, was the time Revik pulled on Jon, half-seriously trying to seduce him to piss off Allie. Revik tried apologizing for that, hoping to smooth things over. He could tell it hadn’t done a lot of good, though, even after he let Dorje far enough into his light that the other seer should have felt his sincerity.

  Of course, by then, Wreg’s fixation on Jon complicated everything.

  It made sense that Dorje would blame Revik for the Wreg thing, too, at least in part. After all, Wreg only came to their side in the first place due to his loyalty to Revik.

  It was still strange to think that the Tibetan-looking seer had been an agent of Shadow all that time. Glancing around the dimly-lit room with its closed, heavy curtains and dirty-looking green carpet, Revik sighed. The room still felt like it housed the dead.

  He wasn’t sure how much good he was doing Jon right now, anyway.

  His sympathy for the other man was real. He just wasn’t sure if any of his words were actually penetrating in a way that meant anything to Jon. Worse, Revik had started repeating himself, which probably wasn’t going to get him anywhere, either.

  “He didn’t know you then, Jon,” Revik reminded him, repeating himself anyway. “He’d met you… what? Once? In a hotel corridor in New Delhi?”

  “I met him in D.C.…” Jon muttered, but Revik only gave a dismissive wave.

  “My point is, back then, he was so buried in the Dreng’s light, there’s no way he could’ve seen you clearly.” Revik folded his hands, again looking into the other man’s face. “Jon, I wasn’t myself back then, either. Neither was Allie, if you want to get technical… and I know for a fact she only did that whole thing to humor me, and to get me to trust her.”

  Hesitating again, he added,

  “I asked her to let me do it, Jon. I asked her, and no one else touched her, including Wreg. If you want to blame someone, blame me…”

  Jon shook his head, scrubbing his fingers through his short hair.

  Looking at Jon’s mutilated hand from what Terian had done to him didn’t exactly make Revik feel better, but it did remind him how much he’d been through with the other man.

  He wanted to try and comfort him some other way, but he was conscious of not touching him much. He’d felt Wreg hovering around in fits and starts, and knew it would probably only make the problem worse.

  Honestly, Revik was surprised Jon let him in at all.

  Exhaling in a short burst, Jon clicked to himself, still staring at the floor.

  “What would make you feel better, Jon? Honestly?” Revik said. “Ending things with Wreg isn’t a real answer. Not for this. Anyway,” he added, his voice more uncomfortable. “…I’m not even sure you could at this point. Not without help, and we don’t have Vash anymore. No one in the hotel has experience with that kind of thing. It’s not exactly a Tarsi thing.”

  Jon stared at him, his hazel eyes sharper in the half-light.

  Revik waved off his own words, wondering why he’d gone there, exactly.

  It struck him that this was the first time, in any conversation he’d had with the other man up until now, that he’d done most of the talking. That even included when he’d been locked up in the Tank and more prone to ranting.

  “…Look, don’t worry about that," Revik said, backpedaling somewhat. “My point is, what you’re experiencing is a perfectly normal reaction to finding out disturbing details about your partner’s past sex life. Especially being in the stage of connection you and Wreg are in now.”

  Seeing Jon’s jaw harden more, he added,

  “…It doesn’t last forever, Jon. It’s temporary. Whether you guys go all the way and fully bond or not, this thing you’re feeling, it won’t last. What you’ve seen with me and Allie… it’s not normal. This is the third time we’ve gone through the bonding process. That has nothing to do with being a seer and everything to do with what the Dreng did to my light. You know this, Jon. Don’t use me and your sister as a model for how this kind of thing normally happens with seers.”

  “Normal,” Jon muttered. “You seers throw that word around a lot.”

  “It is normal, Jon,” Revik said, relaxing slightly now that he’d gotten the other man to answer him a few times. “And it’s not ‘you seers’ anymore, as much as you’d like it to be. I know this is hard. I remember how hard it was for me, and I was a hell of a lot older than you when I met my wife. Being a seer isn’t always easy, Jon. You have to learn self-control… real self-control. At a level you’ve never been faced with before.”

  “Self-control?” Jon snorted, giving him a hard look.

  “Yes. It’s part of being a seer. It will get easier––”

  “Easier?” Jon let out a grunt, leveling a hard stare at him. “You’re seriously talking to me about self-control? You, Revik? Really?”

  Revik felt his jaw harden, but made a concessionary gesture with one hand.

  “Maybe I’m not the best person––” he muttered, but Jon cut him off.

  “––And telling me it’s going to ‘get easier’?” Jon gave a humorless laugh. “I wanted to beat the hell out of my own sister today, Revik. Hell, I wanted to punch her in the face. And I know what she was doing at that base with you. I know all about why she would agree to something like that, and all I could do was feel hatred that Wreg wants her, and that there’s no possible way I can give him the things he wants from her.”

  Revik rolled his eyes, unable to stop himself.

  “Jesus, Jon. You’re joking, right? Is that what this is about? Her being female?”

  Jon averted his gaze, his expression turning back to stone.

  Revik clicked at him, leaning his arms on his thighs and trying again to get the other man to look at him.

  “Jon… listen to me. I’ve seen Wreg with as many males as females over the years. Probably more, since female seers were in pretty short supply in those early years.” Seeing Jon’s expression grow more stormy, Revik added, “…I know the only serious relationship I ever saw Wreg in was with another male. They were together for most of the war.”

  Jon clenched his jaw. “He married a female.”

  Revik sighed, flipping his hand sideways in a so what? gesture.

  “That was after my time with him,” Revik said flatly. “I don't know anything about that, Jon, or about their relationship, except that she was killed in the second world war. And again, what does that have to do with you?” Grunting a little, he clicked under his breath. “Trust me when I tell you, Wreg would sooner gnaw off his own leg than be disloyal to someone he loves. Hell, I don’t know anyone more loyal than that son of a bitch. So if that’s your worry––”

&nb
sp; “Yeah. Right,” Jon said. “So he won’t act on it. He’ll just be looking at other people and thinking about it.”

  Revik sighed, shaking his head. “You and Allie… you mix all the worst things from both species while totally missing the point of the differences between them.”

  Seeing Jon's jaw start to harden again, he cut him off before he could speak.

  “…I’ve told your sister this about a million times. It doesn’t fucking work that way with seers. We joke about sex. A lot sometimes. Inappropriately, sure, and sometimes to rile one another up. But we don’t have wandering eyes the way humans do. We generally crave and are attracted to a person’s light, not some arbitrary or imposed list of ‘ideal’ body parts. The light even changes how we see one another’s bodies. To put it crudely, we want to fuck that light… as much, if not more, than the body itself. We also want to get as close to it as we possibly can, which only happens in time with seer couples. It’s why we go a little crazy in the first stages of a bond, but it’s also why you’ll never have to worry about your seer partner in that way again. Not once that initial bond is completed.”

  “I don’t want this.” Jon shook his head, his expression still granite. “Seriously, man. I can’t deal with this. I don’t care how you package it.”

  Revik shrugged again, his voice and expression matter-of-fact.

  “Whether it’s with Wreg or someone else, you’re stuck being a seer at this point, Jon. Unless you plan to be celibate for the next few hundred years, or only engage in one night stands, you’re pretty much shit out of luck.”

  Giving him a humorless smile, he made a vague gesture. “Try being celibate when you’ve got a half-light bond with someone… then tell me how shitty this thing is for you. Trust me, it could be a lot worse. At least it's requited lust… or love… or whatever the two of you are at this point. At least you’re not separated. Or worse.”

  Jon stared at him, his eyes hard.

  Revik might have found it ironic, in other circumstances, that he had never seen the other man look so seer.

  “What are you talking about?” Jon said then. “A few hundred years?”

  Revik felt his skin warm.

  Another thing he probably could have waited before dumping on Jon, but he hadn’t really been thinking when he said it, other than to reassure the other man. Remembering Balidor’s warning not to lay too much on Jon in the crossover, changing-race department until Jon had a chance to adjust on his own, Revik shrugged that off, too.

  It was a little too late to play footsie with him on the details.

  “Jon, you need to face reality. Whether you like it or not, you’re becoming more and more seer… at least in terms of the dominant traits. By the day, really, if we can believe what Balidor and Tarsi and the med techs have been telling us. Your aging process has halted. In some respects, it’s actually reversing. Your organs are starting to change position… which is why you’ve been getting those ‘stomach pains’ Wreg told me about…”

  Seeing the incredulity coming to Jon’s eyes, Revik made another vague gesture, this one towards Jon's body.

  “Hell, Jon. Everyone can see it. You and your sister are the only two who seem to be willfully oblivious to the whole thing. Most of us can’t remember you’re human at all anymore.”

  Jon frowned again at the mention of Allie, but in a different way that time.

  “Does she know about this?” he said. “That I flipped out?”

  Revik leaned over his own legs, once more resting his forearms on his thighs. Tilting his hand sideways in a form of apology, he turned it into a shrug.

  “Why do you think it’s me in here, instead of her?”

  There was a silence.

  Jon gave a low snort, shaking his head. “She was afraid to come? Jesus. That’s great. Perfect.”

  “No,” Revik warned, clicking at him, sharp. “She wanted to come. I was afraid. I asked her not to. Somewhat strongly. In fact, I pretty much insisted.”

  “So where is she now?” Jon said, his voice suddenly wary.

  “Gaos di’lanlente, Jon,” Revik said, fighting back his own irritation now. “She’s not off fucking Wreg, okay? She’s not even with Wreg. I left him at the bar, with Torek and Neela.”

  “So where’s Allie?” Jon said again.

  “She’s in our room.”

  Jon shook his head, once. “She’s not. I just checked.”

  Revik felt his jaw harden for real. “You’re checking up on my goddamned wife? If I didn’t know you were an irrational, hormonal shit right now, I’d probably be offended, Jon.”

  “I’m telling you, she’s not in the room,” Jon said, giving him a warning look. “I was looking for her to apologize, if you must know… and she wasn’t there.”

  Revik stared at him for a moment, fighting back and forth in his head as to whether he should take the bait and try to confirm Jon’s words.

  Would she really have gone down to the bar without him, when he specifically asked her to stay away from Wreg? Feeling his jaw tighten more, he sent out a quick scan, in spite of himself. Once he’d confirmed Jon’s words, he sent out a light ping with a question mark at the end.

  He didn’t try to locate her, though, or get too close to her light.

  After the barest pause, her presence rose to meet his. She felt out of breath, which immediately sent his aleimi into sharper, more alert spikes.

  Hey, she sent. Are you done? Where’s Jon? Is he listening to you?

  Revik exhaled a little air. He’s here. I think he’s better. He hasn’t kicked me out yet, anyway.

  He let Jon hear the last part and the other rolled his eyes.

  Hesitating again, Revik added more privately. …Where are you?

  I went downstairs. He felt the thread of evasiveness in her light. Don’t worry, she sent, as if picking up on his reaction. I’m not with Wreg. I just needed to check on something. I’m almost done, then I’ll explain everything.

  What? he sent, fighting back the impulse to try and read her for it. Allie? What’s going on? What are you checking on?

  It’s not a big deal. I would just rather wait and explain it to you in person. Feeling his dissatisfaction with her answer, she added, Hey, what about you? Why are you worrying about this? Was I confined to quarters or something and you forgot to tell me?

  Revik turned over her question, then exhaled. No.

  I promise, it’s not a big deal, she repeated, firmly that time. I’d just really rather tell you the details later. Is that okay? She paused until he sent her a pulse of acquiescence. He didn’t hide his reluctance, but she must have chosen to ignore it. Just let me know when it’s okay to meet you at the bar. I’ll be done here in just a few more minutes. Oli wanted to give me a quick tour of some of the changes they’ve made to the security area.

  I thought you were checking on something?

  I was. I’m almost finished with that part. She hesitated, then blew him another pulse of reassurance. Seriously, Revik, it’s okay. Just let me know when and where I can meet you and I’ll come right up. I’ll explain everything then, I promise.

  He nodded, but a low pain hit his light anyway.

  He couldn’t explain it, not even to himself, but it made him wince. In the back of his mind, something nagged at him. Whatever that thing was, it wove into the pain, even as he fought to let it go. Losing his cool on Allie after he just tried to convince Jon that things would get better around the whole sex and trust thing probably wouldn’t help make his case.

  Sighing at the thought, he let her light go reluctantly when he felt her attention moving elsewhere.

  When he glanced back at Jon, the other man raised an eyebrow at him, the hardness in his eyes showing he’d picked up on at least a flicker of his uneasiness.

  Allie was right. They all had to get better about shielding around Jon.

  “It’s nothing,” Revik lied, then added more honestly, “Something’s up… unrelated, I mean. She didn’t want to talk about it whil
e I’m with you. But something about the way she’s acting is making me nervous.”

  Seeing Jon’s mouth tighten, Revik rolled his eyes.

  “Are you coming downstairs with me?” he said. “Wreg’s not going to move from that bar until you do. And when I saw him last, he looked pretty dead on his feet.”

  Those ended up being the magic words.

  A whisper of guilt flickered over Jon’s light, even as he let out a sigh that sounded more genuine. Supporting his upper body on his hands, which were pressed down just above his knees, Jon shook his head, seemingly at nothing.

  Sighing again, he nodded, then rose to his feet.

  A flicker of Revik’s nerves returned when he saw the harder, more determined look that rose to Jon’s face.

  Hesitating for a moment before getting up, Revik found himself watching the other man warily, scanning his aleimi for probably the tenth time since he’d been invited into the room. When he spoke, he tried to make his voice sound joking, but didn’t quite succeed.

  “You’re not going to make my military commander cry again, are you?”

  Jon gave him a hard look, then averted his gaze, not answering.

  “Seriously, Jon,” Revik said, dropping the bad attempt at humor. “If you’re going to be hard on him, maybe you two should wait. See some kind of mediator. At least get some sleep. Maybe Tarsi…” he added. “For the mediation, I mean. Wreg still listens to her.”

  Jon’s jaw only hardened more.

  Shaking his head, he didn’t slow his movements as he made his way towards the door.

  Revik watched him shove an arm into a jacket he’d pulled off a chair by the hall table, tugging it around his back. For the first time, he noticed Jon was still wearing the combat pants and boots they’d all worn on the trip down from Albany––the same clothes he’d worn in Argentina. He didn’t look like he’d even showered.

  Feeling his stare, Jon gave him another hard look before he motioned with his head and hand for Revik to lead the way.

  A little nervous in spite of himself, Revik climbed to his feet. As he walked to meet Jon at the door, he checked his side holster in rote for the Glock that rested there. It was a tic, more of a habit than anything having real thought behind it.