Braided Lives

by A. R. Moler

  "I can walk. Or didn't you just see me doing so about two minutes ago?" Danny complained.

  "Wheelchair, yes or no?" Jennifer said.

  "Yes," said Peter. It was overlaid with a "No" from Danny.

  "God damn it. I can walk to the freakin' parking lot," snapped Danny.

  Peter rolled his eyes and sighed as he helped Danny to his feet.

  It was another long trek out to the short term parking and Danny almost wished he had agreed to the wheelchair. He slid into the back seat of the car.

  "You drive," Peter said, handing keys to Jennifer and he got into the back on the opposite side.

  "Will you stop acting like I'm about to drop dead!" Danny grumbled. Peter scowled at him.

  "I swear I'm going to bang both your heads together," said Jennifer. She had a thoroughly exasperated look on her face. "The two of you are being pretty fucking dense!" Danny just looked at her, confused. "Kiss him, you ass," she said to Peter. "Kiss him and tell him that you were insanely worried about him. Danny, you need to stop the macho bullshit and let him take care of you. I need to pee. I'll be back in five minutes." She stalked off in the direction of the terminal building.

  Danny looked at Peter. The man looked about as shocked by Jennifer's tirade as he was. Then Peter kissed him. One hand behind his head, one arm around his body, pulling Danny tight against his body, the kiss was needy and desperate and laced with grief. Danny let all his shielding fall away and drowned himself in the care of his lover. The energy from the healer crawled through his body like a slow motion electrocution and soothed the bone deep ache in his arm. He leaned into the embrace further and there was some awkward fumbling while Peter slid a leg behind Danny's hips along the seat back and hauled Danny closer so he could wrap both arms around him. The kiss deepened as Peter plunged his tongue into the recesses of Danny's mouth. Danny had always known Peter's emotions burned hot, that was part of the attraction, but this bordered on ferocious.

  When Peter finally lifted his head a bit, he whispered against Danny's mouth. "If you had gotten hurt as badly as Rymal I would have moved heaven and earth to get to you. God, I could have lost you."

  "I'm okay, just a little banged up." Danny trailed his fingers along Peter's cheek. He could feel the burn of suppressed tears in Peter.

  "Having a bullet pass through your arm doesn't qualify as a little banged up!"

  Jennifer got back into the car in the driver's seat. "Somebody's going to have to give me directions on how to get back out to the highway."

  ***

  Peter stopped by the infirmary long enough to grab a tote full of supplies for changing the dressing on Danny's arm, then they went to his quarters.

  In the bedroom, Peter eased Danny's arm out of the sling and stripped him of his shirt. After removing the heavy bandage from Danny's right arm, he could see the damage. An hour or two of healing would go a ways toward repair of the injury. As Peter took off his own shirt and settled on the bed beside Danny, he thought about the events of the airport parking lot. Jennifer had forced them to face a little home truth. They were colleagues and friends and sometimes screwed each other senseless, and somewhere along the way, a line had been crossed.

  He loved Danny, loved him in a way that would have left him absolutely devastated if Danny had been killed. Danny had a job to do. Sometimes that job was just a nightmare of paperwork, and sometimes it put him in the field and in the line of fire. Peter stretched out on the bed beside Danny and pulled his lover into his arms. He turned his healing Talent loose, something he rarely did, and felt it rushing through his veins like water through a high pressure pipe. Danny made a sharp little gasp, obviously not expecting the force behind the energy.

  "Pete, hon?" Danny whispered.

  "Just fucking shut up and let me do this." He sealed his mouth over Danny's in a brief, heated, desperate kiss. Danny nodded slightly, eyes closed. The heat generated by Peter's body was a side effect of the healing, and fifteen minutes later he was filmed in sweat like he had been sprinting. He loosened his hold on Danny a little and lay still, waiting for his body to slow down.

  Danny ran a gentle finger across Peter's lips. "I know you somehow think you needed to do that, but it worries me when you feel like you're about to spontaneously combust." His hand continued down over Peter's chin and throat coming to rest on the sweat slick skin of Peter's chest.

  "I'm okay," Peter whispered. "I had to make sure you were… I love you. If you had died…" Oh fucking hell, here came all the tears that he had tried so hard to avoid. Peter buried his face against Danny's shoulder and gulped hard, straining to choke down the emotion. Danny hugged him closer and began to softly kiss along Peter's temple.

  "I know. I love you too. I'm sorry I stressed you out. All last night I wished you were there. Partly because I'm a selfish ass and I knew you could take away the pain. Partly because… the op went scary bad. We all could have been very dead."

  Okay, that was the tipping point. Peter began to sob. He was tempted to haul off and punch Danny. The man knew fucking well exactly what emotional button he was pushing when he said that to Peter. It was also something of a relief. Leave it to an empath to know how to invoke a breakdown.

  "Damn you, Danny!" Peter choked out between sobs. He pushed his fist against Danny's chest a little. "God damn you! You bastard!" Peter sobbed, not meaning a single word except in the way the fear of losing Danny was tearing at his heart.

  Peter buried his face in his lover’s chest and stopped fighting the emotion. Danny just laid there holding him, rubbing his back and whispering a little litany of reassurances. When Peter finally got himself under control again, he had to grope for tissues to blow his nose.

  Feeling exhausted, he sagged forward, lying on top of Danny, delivering a sloppy poorly aimed kiss that landed more on Danny's chin than his mouth. Danny made a sound of contentment. Peter dragged the blankets up over them.

  As they lay curled beneath the sheets, Peter's arms wound around Danny's neck and he hugged his lover's face to his collar bone, nuzzling into the Danny's hair. Danny's arms were in turn wrapped around Peter's torso, the injured one carefully draped over top of Peter's rib cage.

  "Jennifer has a point," whispered Peter. "We've been avoiding the obvious. We've kind of had a thing for each other since Kosovo. I've been lying to myself."

  "She often seems to have a point. She's a handful."

  "Unh, I'd like that handful squished right down between the two of us..." Peter mused sleepily.

  Danny just laughed.

  ***

  Jennifer knew she was going to have to pass the firing range proficiency test eventually, so now was as good a time as any to try and get some practice in. She didn't expect to find Danny there.

  Several boxes of shells lay on the bench in front of him, and he was methodically firing at the target that hung at the far end of the range. When the current clip was empty, he laid the gun down and braced one hand on the bench, injured arm dangling as he tried to flex his fingers.

  "I have a strong suspicion Peter is going have your ass in a sling when he finds out what you've been doing."

  Obviously startled, Danny whirled to look at her. Slowly, he relaxed and pulled his ear protection off, leaving it hanging around his neck. "You may be right."

  "Any specific reason you're in here torturing yourself?"

  "'Cause no matter what I do lately,it invariably seems like I fucked up."

  "Spill. Why?"

  "I stayed in Meridian because I wanted to make sure Ethan Rymal was going to make it. In doing so, Cam Bradshaw nearly got executed by a psycho. If it wasn't for a buddy of his named Mason Flynn and a hefty dose of sheer fucking dumb luck, Bradshaw would be dead. Of course on top of this, Flynn is practically traumatized for life, 'cause the guy's a doctor and a healer and he killed somebody. Christ… Maybe if I had been there… shit… I don't know. Maybe it would have worked out better."

  "When'd you find all this out?" she asked.

 
"This morning."

  "Oh. Hence the reason you're in here blasting away and hurting your arm," she said.

  He looked somewhat embarrassed. "Yeah… I guess." He cradled his injured arm against his chest and wiggled his fingers. Judging from the face he made, it must have hurt like hell.

  "Anything that makes you look like you're trying to decide between screaming or passing out is bad. How 'bout I walk with you to the infirmary so you don't end up unconscious and face down on the floor somewhere?"

  "It's not that bad. It just hurts."

  "Uh-huh, and the national debt is just pocket change, too. Come on," she said.

  Danny rolled his eyes a little but went with her. Walking down the hallway, he said, "This is heading toward being a habit."

  "What, me dragging you off to Peter?"

  "Yeah."

  "At least it's not my fault this time," said Jen.

  Danny managed a chuckle.

  When they got to the infirmary, Peter was on the phone. He made a gesture indicating he would be with them in a couple of minutes. Danny sank into a chair, his injured arm in his lap. Jennifer lingered. She was intent on making sure Danny didn't skate out before Peter had a chance to have a look.

  When Peter hung up, he came across the room and frowned at Danny. "So where the hell's your sling?" the healer demanded.

  "In my quarters. It didn't hurt that bad."

  "Didn't, as in past tense? What stupid ass thing did you do now?" Peter snapped.

  Danny glared at him.

  "I found him in the firing range," offered Jennifer, more than happy to rat Danny out. Jesus God, testosterone poisoning all the way.

  "Oh that's just brilliant. Less than forty-eight hours after a bullet passes through your arm, you're off doing something that sends shock waves through your muscles and bones every time you pull the trigger," growled Peter. He laid one hand on Danny's shoulder and skimmed the fingers of the opposite hand down over the bulge of the bandage protruding from the edge of Danny's sleeve. "You've managed to undo some of the healing I put into it last night. The radial nerve is close to the bullet path. Although the nerve isn't severed, it did receive some trauma. You have to lay off using it and let it recover, or you're going to end up with permanent damage that even I can't fix!" Danny looked slightly worried. "I'm going to go see if I have an immobilization sling. Don't move. Jennifer, sit on him if you have to. I'll be back in a few minutes." Peter strode out of the infirmary.

  "You are in deep kim chee with your partner," observed Jennifer.

  Danny blew out a breath and ran his good hand back through his hair. "I think you may be right. Shit… I didn't do this on purpose. I was mad. I figured I was better off taking it out on the range rather than somebody else. I didn't think it would hurt this much."

  Jen could sense the guilt and embarrassment swirling with the pain. She leaned over and gave him a careful hug. "So suck it up and apologize for doing something dumb. He cares about you. It doesn't make him any less pissed, it just makes it understandable," she replied.

  Danny had wrapped one arm around her hips and leaned his head on her stomach. It was an oddly tender unspoken plea for comfort. Jennifer had the sudden desire to hold him until Peter got around to doing something about the pain, but that made her wonder if Peter would see the gesture in the wrong way. She was still trying to sort the idea out when Peter returned with the sling in his hands.

  "This will not only support the arm, it will immobilize it against your body," said Peter. He glanced at Danny, who was practically clinging to Jennifer. "That bad, huh?"

  "It hurts almost as bad as when I got to the ER," Danny muttered.

  Peter snagged a stool from beside the exam table and sat down on it. The healer gently curled one hand around the bandage and the other against Danny's shoulder. As Peter shut down the pain, Jennifer felt Danny's head sag more heavily against her.

  "I have a meeting with Stephen in about fifteen minutes and then one with Bottman and one of the recruiting people at three o'clock. And somewhere in between I ought to check on Bradshaw and Flynn. So, as much as I really don't like doing this, I'm going to dose you up with Dilaudid for the pain and put you in the sling. And if Jen is up for it, she's going to be your shadow and kick your ass if you misbehave," said Peter.

  "I'm supposed to have another training session with Christine in an hour." Not that she was really in the mood for another round with that woman.

  "I'll give her a buzz and tell her I need you for the afternoon," said Peter. "Unless you'd rather..." He left the idea dangling.

  "No. It's okay. I know I should be into the focus training thing but there are days…"

  "If you're strapping my arm to my chest, exactly how am I supposed to get my paperwork done this afternoon? Or for that matter, go to the bathroom," Danny complained.

  "I'm sure you'll figure something out." Peter spent another couple minutes working on Danny before giving him the pain killer.

  Jennifer retreated to a nearby chair, and watched as Peter put Danny's arm in a sling that was then subsequently bound to his body with a separate pair of straps.

  "I hate the way this stuff makes me feel," said Danny.

  "It's that or the pain," commented Peter. Danny gave him a resigned glare. Peter ignored him, and turned to face Jennifer. "Keep an eye on him. He's liable to be pretty looped from the meds. I'll work on undoing the damage later. In the meantime he's just going to have to deal with it."

  "I have a question," Jennifer said, mystified by Peter's obvious and implicit trust in her to deal with his cranky patient.

  "Shoot," replied Peter.

  "What makes you think I'm going to be any good at babysitting him?"

  "He pissed you off. You decked him. Today you obviously brow beat him enough to make him come here to the infirmary. It's not like I don't think he's going to be an absolute pain in the ass the rest of the afternoon, but if push comes to shove I think he'll back down if you tell him he's doing something stupid. If he doesn't, I'm going to give him an attitude adjustment." Peter gave Jennifer a little evil grin.

  "I'm not deaf, you know," groused Danny.

  "Good. I gotta go. I'll probably be stuck in meetings the rest of the afternoon. I want both of you to meet me in my quarters at five. We'll figure out something dinner-wise. Maybe I'll cook." With that, Peter left.

  ***

  Sitting at his desk trying to one-handedly reply to a raft of email was like being on a slow tilt-a whirl, Danny decided. Dilaudid dampened the agony in his arm down to a background annoyance level, but the trade-off was dizziness, brain-fog and a total lack of shielding. Blissfully, the only other person in the room was Jennifer. She was sitting in a chair with a pad in her lap, drawing something. He wondered momentarily what it was she was sketching, then tried to return his focus back the computer.

  "You know, if you dictate, I can type. I won't set any speed records but I do have two hands," Jennifer said.

  Danny considered the concept for a minute. "Yeah, that might be a good idea. The one-handed thing is driving me crazy." They rearranged the chairs so that she was in front of his desk and he was beside her, gazing over her shoulder. "Open the one forwarded from Bottman, it looks like an assignment request."

  "What's an assignment request?"

  "It has to do with me deciding if and who to send out on a job. The other government agencies and military tend to view Division P as a sort of last ditch desperation plea. Most of them consider us a bunch of serious crackpots, so sometimes the requests for assistance that we get are pretty bizarre. Bottman usually weeds out the really whacked ones; the rest get fielded to me or Steve Milbourne. He handles roughly the western half of the U.S. and I handle the eastern half. Overseas ops usually get dumped in my lap, too."