five other fucking men who can’t know what I’m doing!” Remy shouted in frustration as he ran his hands through his hair. “This is the most unorganized clusterfuck of an operation I’ve ever been involved with!”
“Well, you’re the spearhead, Sweetums,” Gray responded angrily.
They stared blankly at one another for several seconds.
“Sweetums?” Remy repeated questioningly, unable to keep the smile from
his lips. “Really?” he asked dubiously.
Gray shrugged. “I can’t call you Dixie in front of them, now can I?”
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“Mais non, but Sweetums– there’s a keeper,” Remy deadpanned.
“Shut up.”
“You shut up.”
“Don’t make me hurt you.”
“I’d like to see you try, Sugarlips,” Remy said with a wicked grin.
Gray lost his scowl and thumped Remy on the nose playfully. “Okay so, we
can’t move them. On to Plan B.”
“You have a Plan B?” Remy asked hopefully.
“No, but, how long do we have?”
“An hour, give or take. Brandt and Niko will both be out longer. Thiago,
he’ll wake up sooner, probably.”
“Well, fuck.”
“Yeah.”
Gray and Remy stood side by side for several more minutes, staring at the
still bodies of the other five and unconsciously mimicking one another as they both tilted their heads to the side and pursed their lips thoughtfully.
“I got it,” Gray said finally, sounding more resigned than triumphant. Remy
watched him walk over to the table curiously.
“You gonna share, or– what are you doing?” Remy asked as Gray picked up
one of the handguns on the table. “You can’t do that, Gray!” Remy said forcefully as he took a step toward the other man. “You promised not to kill them!”
“Is this a real gun?” Gray asked as he examined the unearthly looking
weapon.
“Yes. Put that down, it’s Carl’s. It’s got a fucking hair trigger. And it fires
off ballistic missiles or some shit, you’ll shoot your foot off,” Remy cautioned as he took the large gun carefully and set it on the table. “Why do you want a real gun?”
Remy asked suspiciously, his heart sinking. He thought he had an idea, but he really wasn’t looking forward to it.
“So I can finally do what every spook in the world wants to do,” Gray said
gleefully as he looked at Remy with sparkling blue eyes.
“Shawn beat you to it. My ass still hurts when I think of it.”
“Come on, Dixie,” Gray said eagerly. “Let me shoot you.”
“No!”
“Please?”
“No!” Remy repeated with a disbelieving laugh.
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“Remy, look, you’re gonna have to choose. You can either show yourself as
the traitor you are, or get shot in the ass and stick with these guys to the end.”
“Christ, Boss, there has to be some other… please don’t shoot me in the
ass!” Remy said desperately.
Gray smiled and took another step toward Remy. He took him by the arms
and looked at him solemnly. “You’re the brightest, most inventive agent I’ve ever worked with, Remy. Stop thinking with your heart for one fucking minute, and start thinking like the cold-blooded killer you really are.”
Remy blinked and swallowed with difficulty. Gray was right. He was trying
to get around getting his heart broken. He couldn’t avoid that. It was time to buckle down and take care of this fucking thing.
“Okay,” he sighed resignedly. He took a moment to think on the situation
form a completely neutral standpoint, “Here’s what we do,” he finally said
confidently. “We have an hour, so we’re not in a hurry.”
“If we’re moving them, then we’re in a hurry,” Gray pointed out, his hands
still gripping Remy’s upper arms.
“We can’t move them, just the two of us. Can’t be done. So, you get to shoot
me, Boss,” Remy said resignedly.
“Yes!” Gray shouted happily and reached for his shoulder holster.
“Not with that, gun though!” Remy said hastily as he grabbed Gray’s hand.
“With the tranq gun.”
“Fuck it, Dixie! If you’re gonna do something, do it right!”
“Gray Kincaid, I swear to God if you shoot me, you won’t live to regret it,”
Remy warned sternly as he pulled Gray closer to him, trying to make certain Gray
couldn’t pull his weapon.
“Mmm, I love it when you go all tough on me,” Gray said cheekily.
Remy snorted in amusement and Gray kissed him. Remy felt a pang of guilt
as his lips parted automatically. There was definitely something twisted about
standing there kissing someone right after drugging and tying up the man he loved.
But fuck it all, Gray was a good kisser.
II.
THIAGO was fighting his way back to consciousness with all his might, but it was a long, cold battle. Finally, he managed to crack one eye open, and he moaned
miserably before he could stop himself.
Thiago hated being drugged. He despised being drugged! It always left him
with the worst fucking headaches! Goddammit. Someone would pay for this misery.
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He sat there with one eye cracked open, the other forgotten as the light
lanced through his eyeball and straight into his brain. A shadowy figure walked into his narrowed vision and seemed to kneel down in front of him.
“Coming around, are we?” the shadow said cheerfully. Thiago had never
wanted to kill something more in his life. Fucker. “I’m sorry?” the shadow asked, and Thiago’s vision focused more. Had he said that out loud? “Did you call me a fucker?”
Apparently so. Progress. At least his tongue worked. “Well, I suppose, technically, you’re right,” the shadow said happily.
In Thiago’s mind, the shadow was already dead and buried. Moments like
this were why people weren’t given supernatural powers, Thiago mused dazedly.
Every jerk-off in the world would be dead just like that. Death by Thiago.
A warm hand touched his forehead and Thiago finally remembered to open
the other eye. It wasn’t happy about it, but it finally opened as well and Thiago focused on the man in front of him.
“Gray?”
“Hey there, Thi,” Gray said cheerfully. “Bad day, huh?”
“Bastard… son of a… cock-sucking whore,” Thiago grumbled as his head
throbbed unpleasantly.
“You always were a little grumpy,” Gray said thoughtfully.
Thiago reached out, fully intending to throttle the other man, but his hands
met with resistance and wouldn’t reach.
“Untie me so I can kill you,” Thiago demanded groggily.
Gray laughed gleefully and stood up. “I would, darling, but I think you’d
regret it later,” he said as Thiago glared up at him.
“I’d learn to live with the guilt,” Thiago grumbled as the ceiling above
Gray’s head began to spin in a sickening manner. Thiago was slightly confused to
realize that he was still in Brandt’s apartment. He looked for the others in a panic and was relieved to find them all in various stages of restraint. If they were tied up, they were still alive. “What have you done?” he asked warily as his mind began to clear.
“That should be fairly obvious,” Gray answered.
“How?”
“I had a little help,” Gray answered sorr
owfully.
“Who?”
“‘What, how, who?’’ Gray mimicked. “Never have I encountered such a
demanding, inquisitive–”
“Who helped you?” Thiago demanded forcefully, and Gray knelt back down
to look at him with renewed interest.
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“You don’t know?” Gray asked with a wicked little smile.
Thiago glared at him.
“Well, then, I’m not telling,” Gray drawled gleefully
Thiago mentally killed the man for perhaps the fortieth time as he stood and
walked away.
III.
CARL wasn’t entirely sure where he was, but he knew he wasn’t about to open his
eyes until he did know. He was on the ground. He was tied. He was hung over. His
head hurt. Fuck… he was definitely not opening his eyes.
He could hear someone or something near him growling, but he remained
still. He simply hoped he hadn’t been tossed into an animal’s cage or something.
What had happened? It was obvious that they’d all been drugged. He didn’t
waste time worrying about the others. If he was alive and unhurt, then it stood to reason that they were as well. He moved his head imperceptibly and his cheek
brushed along the plush carpet.
They were still in Brandt’s flat, then. Why would someone drug them, tie
them up, and then leave them where they had fallen? Unless… no, Carl’s brain
couldn’t come up with anything else. There was no unless. It just didn’t make sense.
The growling grew louder and Carl’s eyes snapped open in alarm. If he was
about to be eaten, he at least wanted to know what would be doing it.
“Morning, Sunshine,” a friendly American accent said, right above Carl’s
ear, as if the man were kneeling over him. Carl lunged upward and made contact with the voice’s owner, and as the white light of the head butt flashed before his eyes, he heard muffled curses and gleeful laughter coming from somewhere above and to the
right of his head.
“Oh, that was beautiful,” Thiago crooned joyously as Carl twisted and
looked up at him.
So Thiago had been growling. Interesting. A blond man sat on the floor
holding his nose gingerly and glaring at Carl, and Carl glared right back at him.
“Carl,” Thiago said helpfully as he struggled idly with the rope around his
wrists, “this is Asshole. Asshole, that was Carl.” Thiago looked like he’d been
working at the ropes for a while, but the blond man known as Asshole didn’t seem to mind his blatant attempt at escape.
“You’re Gray Kincaid,” Carl said in a hoarse voice. He cleared his throat
automatically and closed his eyes against the pounding in his head. Perhaps the head butt hadn’t been such a good idea.
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“And you are not a morning person,” Gray said nasally as he pinched his
nose shut to stop the bleeding.
IV.
SHAWN was sick. He didn’t like being sick. He didn’t handle being sick well. Like all men, Shawn reverted into a little boy when he was sick. He didn’t want to be sick, dammit.
What the hell had happened? The last thing he remembered was Thiago
talking to him about a plan and then nothing. He couldn’t remember having felt so disjointed since….
Wait….
Oh, fucking hell!
He had been drugged!
“Son of a bitch,” he murmured, even before he thought of moving or opening
his eyes. Perfect tone. Perfect inflection. Perfectly disgusted curse.
“And we have our third contestant!” a cheerful voice said from the darkness
of Shawn’s half-consciousness. “You really are an unpleasant bunch to wake up,” the voice continued as if talking to itself.
“I’ll kill you,” Shawn murmured, still lying on his back with his eyes closed.
His hands were tied around his waist and, apparently, his feet were tied together and attached to his hands somehow, but he was fairly certain he could do it. Mind over matter and all that rot.
“That’s sort of what the other two came out with,” the voice said, closer
now. “I was hoping you would be original about it.”
“I’ll kill you with Carl,” Shawn mumbled as he finally forced one eye open.
A handsome blond man stood over him and looked over his shoulder warily. “I see
you’ve already met Carl,” Shawn said with satisfaction as he took in the slight
bruising on the man’s face and the general direction he was looking.
“I could kill you with a pinecone,” Carl’s irritated voice threatened, and
Shawn actually smiled.
He belatedly recognized the man as Gray Kincaid, and if the American was
working by himself, he stood no chance. Knowing this group as Shawn did, he could guess what they were all doing. Nikolaus was distracting Kincaid by pretending to be frightened, Remy was already free of his restraints and acquiring a weapon, Brandt was rigging something explosive out of a dust bunny, and Carl and Thiago were
joining Shawn in his mental efforts to strike Kincaid down dead. This was fine. This was not a problem.
Shawn closed his eyes again and divided his mental efforts. Half went to
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wishing Kincaid dead, the other half went to curtailing the nausea. He would let the others handle this one.
V.
NIKOLAUS’S world came crashing back just as quickly as it had abandoned him,
and he jumped theatrically when consciousness hit him. It took him a split second to take in his surroundings; Thiago, Carl, Shawn, and a fourth man stared at him with wide eyes from various positions of restraint. Brandt and Remy were unconscious.
Nikolaus himself was tied and had most likely been drugged, as had the others. The man who did it was working alone and therefore probably wasn’t going to live
through it as soon as everyone woke up.
It was odd, the way he was tied. It was probably easy to escape, and
therefore the man who Nikolaus suddenly recognized as Gray Kincaid probably
didn’t intend to hurt them. That or he intended to kill them anyway and would just shoot anyone who got loose. That wasn’t good. Nikolaus also recognized that Remy
and Brandt had been dosed a lot more or a lot later than the others, and that he’d been hit harder because of his size.
All these observations and realizations came to him in a flood so fast that it
made him slightly ill.
“I hate life,” he mumbled as he scooted himself into a sitting position on the
couch.
“No threats?” Gray asked warily as all four men watched him. Apparently, it
wasn’t normal for someone to go from unconscious to sitting bolt upright and
completely aware in one second flat. Nikolaus knew that much just from the splitting pain in his head when he shook it in answer to Gray’s query.
“Do you have any aspirin?” Nikolaus asked pitifully.
VI.
BRANDT’S entire body was on fire with rage, even before he was fully awake. That
little bastard had shot him! Fucking shot him! That was the last time Brandt would fuck him, that was for sure. He liked it rough, but fucking hell, there was a limit!
Jesus Blazing Christ, did Brandt not like being shot. Or drugged. Or in this
half-conscious state in which he was unable to kill something.
He couldn’t open his eyes. He couldn’t move his limbs. He couldn’t feel the
burn! He needed the burn! A low growling noise started deep in his chest, and he l
et it progress of its own accord until it bubbled up into his throat and emitted as an
enraged howl.
He let the energy of the howl and the anger and the need to kill fuel his body,
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and the next thing he was aware of, he was standing in the middle of the room on full seek and destroy mode.
He took in the others, still tied up and looking up at him in shock. He took in
his own bindings, somehow magically loose and crumpled on the floor at his feet. He took in the surprised stranger with the gun pointed at him. He took in Remy,
unconscious and bound on the floor.
Target acquired.
VII.
REMY’S first thought when he heard the yelling through the heavy cloak of the drugs was that the others weren’t taking the situation so well. He expected that, though.
Apparently, Brandt was especially upset.
“No! Brandt! Stop!”
That was Carl.
Lord God, did Remy hate being drugged.
“Shoot him!”
His head was already hurting and the sedatives hadn’t even begun to wear
off. That had sounded like Nikolaus. Remy hoped they weren’t shooting Gray. That
would suck for him.
“No! Don’t shoot him!”
His neck hurt too, for some reason. That had been Carl again.
“He’s gonna kill him!”
If Gray had propped him in a position where his neck would cramp, he
would kill the bastard himself.
“For fuck’s sake, man, do something!”
Thiago sounded panicked. Why was Thiago panicking? Thiago didn’t
panic….
“You just told me not to shoot him!”
Gray?
Air?
“Well, tackle the fucker! He’s killing him!”
This didn’t sound good.
Remy’s mind cleared slightly, but the world was still bleary and heavy.
Everything was heavy. Even the air was heavy.
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Why couldn’t he breathe?
VIII.
“JESUS fucking Christ, Gray, do something!” Thiago yelled in a half-panic as