Allie's War Season Three

by JC Andrijeski

  Revik gave a dark laugh, conceding Jon's words with a tilt of his hand.

  "Yeah," he said. His eyes and voice grew distracted though, almost as if he were thinking out loud. "But she thinks the problem is her. She thinks something is wrong with her...and I’m not sure what to tell her. I need to tell her something, though..."

  "Tell her something?" Jon stared at him, studying his face as the elevator car settled to a stop and the doors opened. “Tell her what? What’s wrong with Allie?”

  “Nothing’s wrong with her,” Revik said, shaking his head.

  “Then why does she think there is?” Jon said, puzzled.

  Revik only shrugged again, using the same hand as he walked out of the elevator car in front of Jon. Still watching the Elaerian, Jon saw what he'd missed on him before, in his little freak out about Wreg. Revik looked tense. Tenser than usual maybe, and definitely tenser than he had before they left for San Francisco. He also felt evasive, like, whatever was going on with him and Allie, he’d only given Jon a fraction of the story.

  Jon felt something else on the male seer, too, something in his energy that made it spark around him in odd currents.

  He found himself wondering if it had something to do with the damaged telekinetic structures, when suddenly Revik pushed him roughly off his light.

  “Do you mind?” Revik groused at him. I'm not exactly in the mood to have Wreg try to beat the crap out of me right now, if it's all the same to you...

  Startled, Jon jerked back, even as it occurred to him that Revik was serious, that he really thought Wreg would take his simple curiosity as some kind of sexual thing. Even as he thought it, and before he could begin to make connections in his own head, about what Allie said about her being more interested in Wreg simply because she knew he and Jon were sleeping together, Revik spoke up in a more subdued voice.

  "Curiosity isn't a crime, brother," he said, his voice low as they crossed the busy lobby. "...But it's dangerous in the vicinity of you and Wreg right now." Revik gave him a meaningful look. "And yeah, just ask Allie...in case you missed the reference there."

  "No, I got it," Jon muttered, shoving his hands in his pockets. His face reddened more when he realized the other unspoken context. Namely, that Revik had heard Jon thinking that Allie wanted to sleep with Wreg.

  "Sorry, man," Jon mumbled, walking to catch up with Revik's longer strides.

  The taller seer made a dismissive gesture, but Jon frowned, shaking his head.

  "No...really," he said. "I'm sorry. I get how crazy that was..."

  When he glanced up at Revik next, the black-haired seer was smiling, clicking his tongue in more genuine humor.

  "Welcome to being a seer, Jon." Revik smiled, clapping him on the shoulder. "...Just don't let your psychotic boyfriend kill me for no good goddamned reason. Oh, and..." His voice grew more openly warning. "...Don't hurt my wife. Or you and I are going to have a serious problem."

  Jon rolled his eyes, but gestured in acquiescence, using the formal version half-seriously and half in jest.

  He found himself looking around in bewilderment at all the activity then, watching as Revik fielded a number of greetings, a lot of them from ex-Rebels but some from Adhipan and Seven, too. A lot of the humans who had been sitting around the lobby earlier, looking lost, had vanished, as had their luggage, but Jon saw a lot more of the refugee seer population wandering around, along with members of the old team that had stayed behind. Most of those who had gotten back that morning were probably still sleeping it off in their rooms.

  "Yeah," Revik remarked, his voice distracted. "...Balidor, too, from what I hear. They decided to leave most of the interrogations and debriefings for tomorrow. So they've got the prisoners secured and under guard downstairs, and..."

  He trailed for a few seconds, even as his eyes slid out of focus.

  Jon glanced up as the seer missed a step, nearly stumbling.

  When he resumed walking and talking, Revik’s voice sounded almost as if he hadn't noticed his own lapse.

  "...We've got the humans from San Francisco all staying in one suite for now,” Revik added tonelessly, his eyes still distant. “They've got guards on the door, like a lot of those on the list, but the room is large and they've got enough beds and two bathrooms and clean clothes, so they should be comfortable. Allie thought it was a good idea to house them all together, so they could start to talk things through without feeling any pressure from us..."

  Jon nodded to that, too, but continued to watch the Elaerian's face, conscious again of the tension emanating off the taller man.

  "So where are we going?" Jon said warily. "The old bar in the atrium is an orchard now, right? Or some kind of sprouting wheat field...?"

  Revik motioned him to the right with a flick of his hand. "Balidor said the seers have staked out the bar in Park Place South. Apparently that's become more of an infiltrator hangout, since so many of the list humans seem to prefer to eat in the Third Jewel..."

  Jon nodded, feeling his apprehension rise as they neared the entrance to the much fancier restaurant. He'd only been in there once, actually, and that had been with Wreg, too. The seer had insisted on taking him out for what he called 'real' seer food, on their one and only formal date after Allie and Revik's wedding. Shoving his concerns and attention off Revik’s weird behavior, Jon blanked his mind as they entered the restaurant’s dimly-lit foyer. Half-envisioning a drunk, angry and now potentially retaliatory Wreg, Jon braced himself as they passed the maitre d's podium. They only paused long enough for Revik to throw the seer standing there a wave, and for that same female to smile and point them in the direction of the bar itself, to the right of a giant fish tank that started near the entrance and curved into the darker room.

  Jon found himself uncomfortably aware of the female seer's light on his, even as it skirted around Revik's, probably out of respect for Allie since even Jon could tell Revik was in pain. He’d started to notice that Allie and Revik both got a lot of attention from other seers, anyway, even when they seemed to be shielding. The one time he mentioned it to Allie, though, she waved it off, saying it was something to do with their position within the construct.

  In the same set of seconds, Jon felt Wreg.

  Not for long, though.

  In fact, he felt the seer’s touch for only the barest instant before Wreg's light vanished from around his...and before Jon could get any kind of read on what he should expect when he actually faced the older seer.

  He knew Wreg was still in the bar, at least. That was something.

  Feeling his nerves shift back into a harder anger, even just from that brief touch, Jon shoved his hands into his pockets again. As he did, he saw Revik give him a wary look. The taller seer continued to watch him as they made their way alongside the fish tank towards the bar, looking at him as if he half-expected Jon to stab him with something sharp.

  "Are you okay?" Revik said. "I can tell Wreg to meet you upstairs...in the private suite, if you want..."

  Jon gave him a hard look. "I won't shoot him, if that's what you're worried about."

  "Not the only thing," Revik muttered under his breath.

  They came to the end of the long, horseshoe-shaped tank after following its smooth curve all the way to the back room.

  Jon entered the dimly-lit bar behind Revik, and realized he'd never been on this side of the restaurant before. The back of the bar had another giant fish tank behind the glass shelves covered in bottles, only that one stood tall enough to reach the high, vaulted ceiling. The tank itself had been lit so that the lights, and the shadows of the fish inside the tank, shone through the different-colored bottles, creating odd patterns on the patrons and the walls and floor.

  That's when Jon noticed that what had probably been tropical fish before had been replaced by larger, meat-producing varieties. As a result, the shadows moving across the space of the bar were probably a lot larger than they once had been, and moved more slowly, making Jon feel like he'd walked into one of hi
s slow-motion dreams.

  He was still looking around, trying to get his vision and his orientation to adjust, when he felt eyes on him and turned. He caught the edge of Wreg's stare, even as the Chinese-looking seer moved it away. He sat at the far end of the bar, to Jon's left, next to Tardek and Illeg.

  Well, at least up until the two of them saw Jon and moved quickly away, scraping their barstools in their haste to put distance between themselves and the tattooed seer. Noting this with a humorless smile, Jon couldn't help looking at Revik.

  "I can't possibly be that scary," Jon said.

  As he said it, though, he heard the hard edge of anger in his own words.

  Revik gave a noncommittal shrug, then patted Jon...briefly, Jon noticed...on the shoulder. "You're on your own," he said. "Just remember, we're all armed...and most of us are fond of Wreg, even if he is a psychotic ass..."

  Jon snorted a laugh at that, even as he shook his head, clicking half in irritation. When Revik moved over towards the other end of the bar, following Illeg and Torek, Jon took a breath, expelling as much of the anger as he could.

  Following that same breath, he walked directly up to Wreg.

  "Are you going to ignore me now?" he said, once he was near enough.

  Wreg turned, his eyes holding a faint layer of bewilderment as he stared up at Jon.

  Jon was already in his light, though, just from standing so close. The seer's exhaustion hit him in a cloud, along with a jolt of pain that briefly made it difficult for Jon to think clearly. He barely heard Wreg's words as the seer answered him, speaking after a pause that felt long, but was probably only a few seconds.

  "No, brother," he said. "Gaos. I've been waiting here...hoping you would come. Why would I ignore you, now that you are finally here?"

  Jon exhaled, feeling his anger lessen a little more, without relaxing any of his limbs. As he continued to stare at the other seer, it hit him suddenly that it wasn't even anger he was feeling. Not exactly. Not anymore.

  "Can I talk to you?" Jon said, gesturing with the hand missing two fingers. "Alone, I mean."

  Wreg nodded, climbing off the barstool with that odd grace of his, even as he took a last drag off the hiri he'd been smoking before he stubbed it out in a glass ashtray.

  "Do you want a drink, brother?" Wreg asked.

  Jon shook his head, motioning for the seer to follow him.

  Instead of leading him out of the restaurant, he found himself bringing him to the back, where he knew the private rooms lived from the last time Wreg brought him here. Walking into the first open door he saw once they reached the right corridor, he held the door for the taller seer to join him. Once Wreg had followed him inside, Jon closed it behind both of them, locking it. Only after he had did he look around at the wall-to-wall fish tanks that filled the smaller room as well. These appeared to house all of the tropical fish that had vacated the other tanks, since there were so many of them Jon almost felt sorry for the little things.

  In the center of the square-shaped room, stood a low table surrounded by wooden benches and cushions for sitting cross-legged on the floor, Japanese style.

  "Brother," Wreg said, looking at him with heavy eyes. "I am sorry. I cannot tell you how sorry I am. I have thought about this since you left, how I would feel if I knew such a thing about you, or about you and Nenz..."

  Jon felt his jaw harden. Before he could speak, though, Wreg kept going.

  "I cannot tell you how sorry I am. I was insensitive about this, and not thinking about how such a thing would feel for you..."

  Before the seer could finish, Jon closed the distance between them in two strides. He wrapped his hand into Wreg's straight, black hair, which still hung down from his bath earlier. Without thinking about what he was doing really, Jon pulled the seer's mouth roughly to his. He let go of his light in the same instant, realizing only then that he'd been holding it back, mostly shielding from Wreg ever since he'd left the penthouse over an hour earlier.

  Wreg tensed when he first grabbed him, then a flush of pain left his light when Jon kissed him, followed by a heavier sound from deep in his chest when Jon opened his light. Within a few seconds of that, he caught hold of Jon's neck and waist, pressing the length of his body against his. Instead of pulling away, Jon only gripped the seer's hair tighter, using his weight to push him backwards towards the cushions.

  He could still feel Wreg's attempt to catch up...in his mind at least...but somehow, the fact that he’d managed to throw the seer off-balance only worsened the pain, making it almost unbearable when he felt the hesitation on Wreg, too, the unwillingness to make any kind of mistake.

  Jon yanked on the seer’s belt, even as Wreg moved backwards under his hands.

  Wreg's eyes were glazed when Jon pulled away long enough to look at him. His light slid around Jon's in erratic sparks, as if he was losing control over it, and unsure if he should try and stop that, too. The caution remained, however, bordering on fear and seething through his light, making it react even more strongly to Jon's.

  "Brother," Wreg clasped the back of Jon's head in both of his hands. "Talk to me...please. Just for one moment. Tell me this isn't some kind of human goodbye fuck, that you're not still angry with me...or at least not still planning to leave me..."

  Jon looked up from where he'd already finished with the seer's belt and unfastened most of the front of his pants. Feeling another surge of that anger that wasn't really anger, Jon hardened his jaw, meeting that darker gaze.

  "It's not," he said.

  "Which part, goddamn it?" Wreg said, his voice openly frustrated.

  "I'm in love with you," Jon told him, blunt. "I might end up killing you, but it doesn't look like I'm going to leave you...” He shook his head, adding half in irritation, "...Especially with all of you insisting my homicidal rage is 'normal.'"

  He'd looked away from the other man when he said it, taking his hands off his belt and stepping back far enough to retract at least some of his light. When he glanced back at Wreg, he felt a jolt of shock go through his light when he saw the seer's expression.

  "Wreg...jesus," he said at once. The anger, at least the hardest part of it, leached out of his voice. "I'm sorry, okay? It's not like I did it on purpose. I left so I wouldn't crack your head open with the butt of one of your guns..."

  The seer sat down on the cushions, wiping his eyes with the fingers of one of his hands.

  Revik told him Wreg had been crying in their room.

  He told Jon that was 'normal,' too, that seers tended to be emotional...openly so, and especially when this kind of thing was happening. He told Jon he'd cried in front of Allie numerous times, and away from her, too, especially when they were in the midst of something similar. What 'something similar' was exactly, Jon hadn't gotten him to say, at least not in so many words, but Jon hadn't missed that crack about him not being able to leave Wreg 'at least not without help.'

  In fact, that was another thing that had changed. Jon found he remembered conversations almost word for word now, even weeks after they'd occurred. He knew Allie could do that, too, but it still felt weird from his end. He had to admit it was handy, though.

  A hell of a lot more handy than some of the other seer quirks, for sure.

  Jon watched Wreg avoid his eyes. The seer shook his head belatedly to Jon's words, still wiping his face with one hand.

  "I'm not angry, Jon," he said.

  Jon walked up to him a second time. He found he was still fighting that feeling, the one that no longer felt appropriate with Wreg so obviously emotional. Unfortunately, Wreg sitting there with his light completely open and utterly unshielded from his only made the feeling worse.

  Jon bent his knees so that their eyes were more-or-less level, laying his hands on Wreg's legs. He found himself massaging the muscles there, watching Wreg's face as the seer continued to avoid his gaze. Jon felt the pain on him again, though, and the utter exhaustion that lay just under it. He felt flickers of that other, physical pain in Wreg's shoul
der, too, and frowned, moving closer as he continued to massage the muscles of his legs with his hands.

  "What then?" he said, his voice quieter. "If you're not angry, then what? Do you not trust me, because I walked out like that?"

  Wreg's finger's wound into Jon's hair, tugging on the back of his head. Pain pulsed off his light, enough that Jon felt it in his knees, even his feet. He caught hold of the seer's hand, gripping it almost tightly.

  "If you don't want me to attack you again," he murmured, kissing the seer's face. "...You should probably stop doing that, Wreg. With your light, I mean..."

  The seer pulled on him harder, sliding his hand down Jon's neck.

  Warmth seeped off his fingers, along with a deeper pain he no longer seemed to be trying to hold back. It worsened as he massaged Jon's neck and shoulder, his dark eyes now on his face. When Jon returned his gaze, he saw that pain in his nearly-black eyes as well, just before the seer worked his hands down his chest.

  "Seriously, man..." Jon said, fighting with his light again, and his breath. "I wasn't really kidding when I said that..."

  "We need to do that mulei," Wreg grunted, as if Jon hadn't spoken. He continued to massage the muscles across the front of his body, strongly enough that Jon closed his eyes. "...You've lost weight," Wreg said. "...You had even before we left on that damned trip."

  "Are you critiquing my body now?"

  "No," Wreg said, smacking his shoulder in irritation. "And fuck you."

  Jon smiled, watching the seer avoid his eyes once more. "I just need to get back in the ring with Allie," he said, keeping his voice neutral, but knowing the seer heard his added meaning. "...I need her to start teaching me how to incorporate the sight side of things, so I can actually start beating her again..."

  "I thought I was doing that?" Wreg grunted.

  "Beating her?"

  "Teaching you," he said, giving Jon a warning look. "She's training with Nenz these days. He claims she can kick my ass, but I have no idea. He's a shit-talker anyway...and cocky as hell when it comes to fighting..."