Love for the Cold-Blooded. Or

by Alex Gabriel

  “Feel free to ogle me anytime,” Pat told Nick. Nick greeted this announcement with an unreadable stare and a disappointing lack of ogling. Oh well, the night was young.

  “Don’t I know you from somewhere?”

  That was Lars, who always had to be up in everyone’s business. But no biggie, Pat had it covered.

  “Hah! I’ve been saying it all along, guys.” He grinned triumphantly, clicking his tongue the way that one TV detective always did when he was making a big discovery. “He totally looks like that dude. You know, the guy with the mansion up Lakeside — Silver Paladin guy. My sisters say I’m crazy, but…” He tugged Nick closer and turned him into the light a bit, which involved wrestling him into position with main force. The man actually had the nerve to shoot Pat a betrayed look, all wide wounded doe eyes and hard vengeful mouth. Have a little faith, gods. “See, see? It’s the brow area, around the eyes. They could be twins, right?”

  Lars raised a sardonic eyebrow at Pat. “Yeah, right. You go to the liberal arts library down on Walnut Street, don’t you, Nick?”

  Another minute and Lars had drifted off to hit on a girl in the corner, the rest of the team scattering in search of snacks, drinks, toilets and various other desirable things. Pat decided it was high time for a beer — they’d been at this party for at least twenty minutes already — and quickly located the nearest source near the staircase.

  Beer sense… now that would be a cool superpower to have. Find your way to the nearest beer instinctively, even blindfolded and in the dark. Pat would definitely take it.

  When Pat handed Nick a glass, the man was frowning at him thoughtfully. “That was a good idea. Taking control of the resemblance narrative like that, I mean.”

  He didn’t have to sound so surprised. “I am full of good ideas, bro. I’m a regular fount of good ideas.” Pat might be the black sheep of the family in some ways, but he was still a West.

  Nick made a non-committal sound, but didn’t try to deny that Pat was awesome. Good enough… particularly since it turned out the man was charmingly unselfconscious about chugging back his beer. Pat found himself more than a little distracted by the way he threw back his head, displaying the long lines of his throat as he swallowed.

  Staring was perfectly okay here, of course. The guy was his date, right? Pat was allowed to stare. Practically obligated, in fact. It’d be rude not to appreciate the hotness.

  It was oddly heartening that when the chips were down, hoagies could chug down a good brew just as well as the next guy. One hoagie, at any rate. Pat’s experimental pool was rather limited as of yet.

  “This is fun, right? I mean, you’re having fun. Right?” He felt good at Pat’s side, solid and calm and… right, somehow. Pat didn’t have a lot of experience dating, but he thought he was doing pretty well, all things considered. Or he would be, if —

  “Yeah,” Nick said, smiling down at him. “Yeah, this is fun.”

  Pat grinned back helplessly. How had he lucked out to the extent that he was at a great party with a guy like Nick, who was actually stepping closer now, not-so-casually brushing one shoulder against him?

  If Pat had had more of a poetic temperament, he’d have come up with some lovely, flowery term for the look on Nick’s face. The way the corners of his eyes crinkled with a soft smile that never reached his lips… the way he leaned in a little, crowding Pat into the wall with his superior bulk. The way he searched Pat’s expression for — whatever, Pat didn’t know, except that he was irrationally sure that it was there, in plain sight, written all over his face.

  “Who would win in a fight,” Nick asked, softly. “Star Knight or Nexus?”

  Pat huffed out a bark of surprised laughter. “What? Dude, you’re completely off your nut. You know that, right?”

  Nick shrugged, one corner of his mouth tugging up.

  “Okay, how are you even serious? Star Knight is an actual space alien, with ridiculous superpowers coming out of his ass. Figuratively speaking, sorry.” Pat grimaced as he tried to shake the image his unfortunate choice of words had conjured up. Star Knight was kinda built, but he was also so horribly sanctimonious that just thinking about his ass made Pat feel like a pervert. “Nexus is two million times cooler, but she’s got no special powers. Sure, she’s the most bad-ass human being in the history of ever, but how’s she gonna win against a guy who can pulverize buildings with a glance and crush… although. No, wait. Hang on.” Pat hummed to himself while he thought it over. Actually… “You know what? Nexus wins.”

  Nick raised his eyebrows inquiringly. “How so?”

  “Because she is fifty thousand times smarter than that dude.” Pat smirked evilly. “When you want someone to smash the invading alien army, Star Knight’s your guy. But when you need to figure out complex plots or whatever, you’d better hope someone with a bit more brainpower comes along before he reduces the entire city to rubble, trying to find something he can hit hard enough to make the problem go away.”

  Nick’s mouth had grown thin while Pat was speaking, and now he took in a quick breath as though to interrupt. Pat waved him into silence with both hands, spilling a little beer on himself in the process. “Come on, my sisters watch his interviews when they need a laugh.” Not to mention the dumb asshat actually had reduced entire cities to rubble. Classic case of the cure being worse than the disease. “Nexus, though. She’s the scary psychotic mastermind among the hoa— uh, heroes. If anyone’s gonna come up with a viable plan to whip Star Knight’s ass, it’s her. In fact, wanna bet she has it all figured out already, just in case? Not just for Star Knight, either. For every other superhero too.”

  “Huh,” Nick said, and then didn’t say anything at all for a while. Pat finished his beer and took the opportunity to study the way the light glanced off his cheekbones, and how soft and touchable his hair looked, and how long his eyelashes were.

  Belatedly, it occurred to Pat that he probably shouldn’t have said anything. On the other hand, strife among the hoagies was to be encouraged, right? Besides… theoretically speaking, if Nexus and Silver Paladin ever did throw down, Pat knew which one he would be rooting for. And not just because nobody in their right mind would want to be left facing Nexus on a rampage.

  “You have a point regarding Nexus,” Nick said at last. The narrow glance he shot him made it clear that he did not appreciate the fact that Pat was hitting the ground running in Nick’s latest weird debate; Pat grinned his most obnoxious grin, taking care to waggle his eyebrows in triumph for good measure. “I wouldn’t want to… well.”

  Yeah, well, that was because Nick wasn’t stupid, and neither was Silver Paladin. “Who would? Only an idiot, is who. And Cassie, of course. Cassiopeia, I mean. But she’s just as scary as Nexus.” Pat shrugged. “Not like you really have to worry about Nex, anyway.”

  Nick was staring at Pat with renewed intensity now. Looked like further explanation was required.

  “It’s just, she’ll go easy on you. You’re way useful, dude. Super-rich brilliant inventors generally are. She won’t squander a sweet asset like that if she can help it.” This shit was elementary. Did Pat really have to spell it out?

  To judge by the skeptical eyebrows and ‘you’re going to have to do better than that to convince me’ head tilt Nick was giving him, looked like he did.

  Pat huffed out a put-upon sigh and shook his head despairingly. “Man, Nexus doesn’t have to fight dirty with you, what with you being all neurotically upright and by the book and shit. You’ll always respect decisions handed down by some majority or whatever. That means she can deal with you the official way. Nothing’s easier for people like her than gaming the system.”

  “You make it sound like a bad thing that I —” Nick checked himself and shook his head, eyes never leaving Pat’s face. “Patrick, sometimes the way you think is disturbing.”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard that one before.” Pat grinned his lewdest grin. “Guess what I’m thinking now?”

  After a bare instant of b
lank staring, Nick cracked a rueful smile that looked as though it had slipped through the cracks of something crumbling. “You’re incorrigible.”

  “You love it, don’t front.”

  Nick cleared his throat and evaded Pat’s eyes, looking out into the room. He blinked at the people milling around for a moment before his gaze slid back to Pat. “Who’s your favorite superhero?”

  Wow, he was totally fishing for compliments. Pat was almost entirely certain that he shouldn’t have found this as endearing as he did, but it wasn’t like he could help it, with the man looking all self-conscious and shy and hopeful. “Don’t really have one.”

  Nick deflated visibly, shoulders hunching slightly. Was that a kicked puppy look, too? That was just unfair. Pat wasn’t made of stone, come on.

  Pat sighed and rolled his eyes. “Fine, you got me. Recently I may have developed a certain fondness for that weirdo with no taste in music and all the force fields. You know, the loser who flies around in a silver bodysuit that shows off his ass.”

  “Yeah?” It came out so softly, and Nick still looked so absurdly shy, that Pat really had no choice but to grab him and pull him down into a kiss.

  “You’re so lame,” Pat murmured after a moment, Nick’s lips warm and soft against his. “That flying weirdo does have a good ass, though.”

  He could feel Nick’s smile against his mouth as Pat pressed closer, slipping one hand around the back of the man’s neck. A low, deep hum of arousal was starting up in Pat’s belly, comfortable and welcome. It made such a difference to know that Nick was into this just as much as Pat was — that they didn’t have to hurry anything. That they could just make out now and maybe — oh, yes. Maybe Nick could slide a large hand into Pat’s curls and hold him steady as Nick nibbled down his neck, turning him at the same time to push him firmly into the wall. That was cool, they could do that, and they could do that thing with Nick pushing his thigh between Pat’s and sliding his hands down Pat’s back to his ass to pull him —

  “Get a room!” someone yelled, and then broke into a high-pitched giggle that quickly found an echo as others joined in. Pat freed a hand from Nick’s shoulders to make an obscene gesture in the general direction of the hecklers, refusing to pull away long enough to look.

  Nick was laughing, too, huffing heated air against Pat’s skin, pulling back to rest his forehead against Pat’s. And okay, maybe the hecklers weren’t completely off-base, because Pat hadn’t meant to make that whining sound of protest at Nick stepping away. Their kissing thing had rapidly been turning into a sex against the wall thing, which Pat was not actually against, but which maybe shouldn’t take place in the middle of the common room at a frat party.

  At least not quite this early in the evening. Ask him again in a couple of hours.

  “This is crazy.” Really, the pyro stare was damn sexy, especially when accompanied by a husky whisper and that flush high up on Nick’s cheeks. The man had the darkest, most captivating eyes, and there was something intoxicating about being the focus of such intense attention. “I’ve never done this before.”

  Pat had to clear his throat before speaking, and even then his voice sounded rather thin. “Dude, I know for a fact that isn’t true.”

  “Not the kissing, Patrick. I meant I’ve never gone to a frat party, and I’ve never done… this. You know.”

  Yeah. Yeah, Pat did know. “You didn’t miss much.” Pat mumbled. “I’ve been to a shitload of frat parties. Tried kissing a bunch of people there, too, but. Trust me, the party didn’t start until you walked in.”

  Nick seemed inclined to kiss Pat some more, judging by the way he was leaning in close, but that was the moment when the actual meaning of what he’d said trickled down to Pat’s brain. Wait, wait — Nick had never been to a frat party?

  “Oh my gods, are you serious?” This was just so wrong. Had the poor man been locked away in his high-tech lab all his life, alone with his AI and people he paid to keep him company? “That’s so tragic I don’t even know what to say. We’ve gotta grab you another beer, okay, and then we’ll see about getting your party on. Come on.”

  If they were staying a while longer (and they definitely were because Pat had to make sure Nick got to bask in the frat party atmosphere a bit more), then Pat definitely needed another beer too, to cool down if nothing else.

  “Pat! Whassup.” Dave had taken over keg duty and widened his eyes at Pat obnoxiously, pointing double finger guns at Nick and pulling the triggers. “Get it, bro! Nice!”

  Okay, not the epitome of good taste, but Dave was a great guy and a really good swimmer; Pat could make allowances for a certain level of douchiness. Also, it was hard to disagree with the sentiment. Nick clearly wasn’t a fan of Dave’s leering, though, so Pat steered them over to the other side of the room as soon as they had their beers in hand.

  “How long have you been a member of this fraternity?”

  “Huh?” Pat looked blankly at Nick (specifically the priggish cast to Nick’s mouth) for a moment. “Who, me? I’m not in the fraternity! A bunch of the guys on my team are, but they had to swear life-long allegiance and shit. That is so not my deal.”

  Swearing allegiance to the Beta Centauri organization had appeared to mean surprisingly little to those of Pat’s fellow students who’d done it. Most of them seemed to regard it as more of a joke than anything. But Pat knew better. The bonds of allegiance were not to be taken on lightly — certainly not to a faceless organization, and certainly not for life. Allegiance was the only thing you could truly count on, in the end; the most important and enduring bond you could form. If you broke your vows of allegiance, you would be left with nothing. No allies, no friends, no family; all alone in the midst of a cold, uncaring world.

  Nick looked interested, but Pat didn’t want to go into it. “Hey, speaking of. Who’s your favorite supervillain?”

  “What? I don’t have — of course I don’t have one! That’s not a valid question, Patrick.”

  The dude was so lame, seriously. “Come on. You asked for my favorite superhero — fair’s fair.”

  Nick made an offended face, but Pat ignored it. Most challengers didn’t like to admit when they were impressed with hoagies, either, but Pat had yet to meet one who wasn’t either already paired up with an archnemesis or secretly hoping for one. And what were archnemeses if not a mutual admiration society? Pat’s mom still spoke of Vindicator as though he’d been some kind of paragon, an example of scheme-thwarting power to which no other hero could aspire. She’d locked herself in her lair for days when the man had died peacefully of old age. She’d insisted she had the flu, but even Pat had known better, and he’d just been a kid back then.

  Ariadne and Doc Destiny had had that same kind of vibe going on, back up on the city hall’s roof. They’d have been super pissed if some other hoagie or challenger interfered. At some point it stopped being about winning the fight, and started being more about rivalry and measuring yourself against a worthy opponent.

  So Pat waited Nick out, and pretty soon the dude gave up his mute protest and began carefully mulling over the matter. “I still object to the use of the word ‘favorite’ in connection with a villain, but as for the one I felt was most impressive… that would have to be Serpentissima.”

  See? This, right there, was why they called Nick a genius. Pat beamed at Nick and punched him in the shoulder approvingly. He forgot he was holding a beer, but he only spilled a little and most of it landed on some random passing dude, so that was okay.

  “It’s mostly that she was ascendant when I was a kid, just when I started paying attention to what was going on in the world,” Nick said. “She was such a big deal for years and years. You remember, right? You’re a little younger than me, but you must have caught the tail end of her ascendancy.”

  Pat nodded eagerly. “Oh yeah, she was awesome.”

  As a kid, Pat had loved the excitement of it all, even though his mom had been gone most of the time. He’d only gotten to see her on TV or
for brief visits, hustled in and out of her lair in secret by his dad and an army of her minions. Pat had always squealed at the first sight of her lounging on her throne, her iridescent scales throwing shards of light everywhere. He’d run as fast as his short legs could carry him, racing past the fire pits and hurtling up the steps of the throne to throw himself into his mother’s lap, to be wrapped up tight and safe in her cool, loving embrace.

  Yeah, he’d loved those times… but he preferred the later years, when his mom had shed her scales to spend more time with her family. In fact, Pat suspected he’d played an instrumental part in foiling Serpentissima’s last bid for world domination, simply because he’d cried so hard every time he and his sisters had to go back home.

  It was only when Pat had moved out to go to university that she’d left to shed her human skin and assume her full powers once again, preparing for her renewed ascension. She would be glorious. Pat couldn’t wait.

  “In many ways, she set the bar,” Nick was saying. “It’s hard to take someone like Bitterfly seriously when —”

  “Hey, that’s not fair. It’s hard to take someone like Bitterfly seriously, period. There’s still plenty of — uhm, imposing villains around. Jaguar, Cassiopeia, Doctor Destiny, Sir Toby —”

  Nick pulled a face at the mention of Jaguar and outright rolled his eyes at Sir Toby. What the fuck, that was just not on.

  “Dude, what. Sir Toby is awesome. Remember that base he had in the arctic, and how he launched a fleet of android dolphins from it to neutralize all the ocean-side military bases?”

  Nick huffed. “That was ages ago. And it was a needlessly complex plan, anyway. What was the point of the dolphins? It would have been easier to just take out the bases with remote-controlled explosives and —”

  “Wow, you have no soul.” What the fuck. Pat couldn’t believe this. “Sir Toby built android dolphins. They had individual personalities! They frolicked cutely in the ocean waves whenever they’d blown up another base! How much more awesome can you get?”