Nikolaus was sitting on the stairs, looking at Shawn with wide gray eyes.
As Shawn looked at him, Nikolaus stood up in a huff and stomped down the
steps, past Shawn and Brandt, past Gray and their mystery guest, and down the dark hallway toward the kitchen.
“What’re you talking about?” Shawn asked in a low, angry voice. The room
was tilted unpleasantly, but he could see Gray clearly enough to hate him.
“Eye for an eye, man. That’s all I’m saying,” Gray said with a shrug as he
placed his foot on the stranger’s neck and growled at him to stay down. “Seriously,”
he said in a low voice as he looked back up at Shawn. “If I were you, I’d watch my ass for the next couple hours. Remy’s on a revenge kick.”
Shawn blinked at him as he finally understood.
Remy was angry.
Shawn had spent so much time worrying over whether the younger man had
been killed, he hadn’t thought to worry about him being angry.
“Fuck me,” Shawn murmured.
XVII.
“WHAT the fuck, Remy?” Nikolaus demanded angrily as he entered the dark
kitchen. The sun was just barely up, and it hadn’t yet found its way into the courtyard outside. Light spilled into the room from the refrigerator, however, and Nikolaus focused on Remy’s leather-clad back as the other man foraged for food in the freezer.
“Remy! Turn the fuck around and look at me!”
Remy backed his head out of the freezer and straightened slowly. Nikolaus
grew angrier when he became aware of the fact that Remy was trying to intimidate
him with the slow, deliberate movements.
Fuck that. He’d put up with a horny Brandt and an evil teddy Carl and real-
life fucking vampires all night, a pissed off Remy in a leather coat with a gun was not going to scare him. Much. Not much. He wasn’t scared.
But then Remy turned around completely to look at him, and Nikolaus
realized that something was definitely wrong with him. He wasn’t trying to be
intimidating, he just couldn’t move well.
“I need peas, Niko,” Remy told him in a weak voice. “Bag of ’em,
preferably.”
“What?” Nikolaus asked in confusion.
“They work better than ice,” Remy mumbled as he turned back around and
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began digging in the freezer once more. “Frozen peas.”
“Shit,” Nikolaus breathed as he walked around the island and came to stand
by Remy. “Where are you hurt?”
“My head needs ice. Peas. My arm’s bleeding again, too. I swear, Niko, not
much left in me,” Remy slurred slightly.
Nikolaus led him to the nearest stool and sat him down.
“Take off that coat,” he ordered, and Remy did as he was told. He was
wearing nothing but a white sleeveless shirt beneath the coat, and his bare arm was soaked with blood. Nikolaus could only just make out a bandage beneath the blood.
“Is that from Shawn?” Nikolaus asked tentatively as he wet a dishtowel under the
faucet and looked over his shoulder at Remy.
He watched Remy’s shoulders slump dejectedly. Remy shook his head in
answer and opened his mouth to speak, but then he straightened suddenly and
whipped his head around to stare at the dark hallway.
A moment later, Carl padded into the room silently and Remy relaxed once
more. Nikolaus loved having these guys around. They were better than Dobermans.
“You don’t look so hot,” Carl observed casually as he pulled out the stool
next to Remy’s and sat down. He never took his piercing hazel eyes off Remy, and
Remy shrugged lopsidedly, not meeting them.
“Been better. Need peas,” he mumbled.
“Yeah,” Carl agreed. He stood up and went to the freezer as Nikolaus rung
out the towel, and he fished out a bag of frozen peas and plopped it down on the
counter. “Want me to do that, Gizmo?”
“Please,” Nikolaus said with difficulty as he handed the towel over. Nikolaus
really didn’t like the blood. He could handle it, but if someone else was willing to do it, then by all means, Nikolaus was willing to let them.
Carl sat next to Remy and removed the bandage carefully, then he squeezed
the towel over the wound before wiping gently at Remy’s arm. Nikolaus’s stomach
turned as the diluted blood ran down Remy’s arm in rivulets. Remy shivered, and Carl slid the peas across the counter with his free hand until they sat in front of Remy.
“Thank you,” Remy murmured. He picked up the peas and placed them
gingerly on the left side of his face before sitting up straighter and turning to look at Nikolaus. “Both of you,” he added with a little smile. “God, it’s good to see you again. Ai!”
“Sorry,” Carl said softly, though he didn’t sound very sincere.
“Is Shawn okay?” Remy asked timidly.
“He’s a little shocked, I think,” Carl said in a clipped tone. “Been waiting
four weeks to see if you were still alive, and the only greeting he gets is a bullet.”
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“I couldn’t let him shoot Gray,” Remy said defensively. “And I couldn’t
exactly take the bullet for the bastard again,” Remy muttered. He sighed and his
shoulders slumped again when he realized Carl and Nikolaus weren’t all too pleased with him.
Carl continued to clean what was apparently a knife wound in silence. As
Nikolaus pondered where in the hell Remy had found himself a knife wound, Thiago
and Gray walked into the kitchen together. Carl stiffened noticeably and glared at Gray, and Nikolaus was surprised to find himself snarling at the blond man.
“Where’s the asshole?” Remy asked in a weak voice without looking up
from his peas.
“He’s tied up– wait, which one did you mean?” Gray asked distractedly as
he edged away from Carl.
“The fucker that busted my face, Boss,” Remy said wearily. “Where did you
tie him?”
“To the banister,” Thiago said as he placed a calming hand on Carl’s
shoulder. Carl growled like a bristling dog and Remy flinched away from his hands.
“How’s Shawn?” Remy asked Thiago without looking up to meet his eyes.
“He’s fine. A little wobbly. Brandt’s trying to take him upstairs,” Thiago
told him, his hand tightening on Carl’s shoulder as Gray moved to sit on Remy’s
other side.
“Goddammit!” Shawn bellowed from the other room. “Let me go, you
bastard!”
“Maybe not,” Thiago murmured.
Shawn shuffled into the room sideways, holding his arm to his torso
protectively and swatting behind him with the other as Brandt pawed at him. When he turned around, he stopped short and fell back against the wall as if he had lost his balance, and they all tensed as he looked at Remy.
Remy sat with his shoulders slumped and his head resting in his hand, the
bag of peas pressed to the side of his face. He hadn’t yet turned to look at Shawn, and Nikolaus wondered if he was afraid to face him.
“I thought you were dead,” Shawn said, his tone close to accusing as he slid
slowly to the ground.
Brandt grabbed him and propped him up once more, and they all waited
breathlessly for Remy’s response.
Finally, Remy turned slowly and looked at Shawn sadly. “I am,” he said
softly.
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> XVIII.
BRANDT wasn’t sure if Shawn heard Remy’s response, and at that point he didn’t
care. Shawn’s strength had finally given out and was almost a dead weight in
Brandt’s arms, but Brandt picked him up easily and hugged his body close. Shawn
clung to him, and Brandt turned to glare at the others.
Remy and Carl got to their feet when Shawn fell, though Remy swayed and
plopped back down almost immediately, and Thiago was by Brandt’s side trying to
give him aid. Brandt growled at them all.
“Bastards and wankers stay here. Gizmo, Trigger, come with me,” he
ordered as he dragged Shawn out of the kitchen toward the great room and the stairs.
“Hey!” Thiago called in a hurt voice. “What did I do wrong?”
Brandt didn’t bother to answer him.
XIX.
“WHAT was that all about?” Gray asked as the others stalked out of the kitchen.
Thiago looked askance at Remy and Gray and shrugged. “I think he’s finally
gone el loco final,” he said irritably. “And he’s taken the other two with him.”
Remy slowly sank his head to the counter and rested his forehead on the cool
marble. His arm hurt. His face hurt. His heart hurt. “Maybe he knows you’ve been
fucking his Beignet,” he said a little more caustically than he intended. He cracked one eye open to see Thiago looking at him in shock.
“How long have you been tailing us?” Thiago demanded angrily.
“We haven’t been tailing you,” Remy said with a grim smile as he closed his
eye once more. “But it is a good guess, non?”
“Son of a bitch,” Thiago muttered irritably.
“Do they know?” Gray asked as he rested his hand on Remy’s head and
patted him absent-mindedly.
“Know?” Thiago asked in a distracted voice.
Remy opened his eyes to look up at the other man. He looked strained and
drawn and just a bit neurotic. He’d always been wound a little tight, but this seemed to be a new level of stress. Interesting. Remy was too far gone to be able to draw any conclusions from that, but he knew it was interesting, all the same.
“Thi?” he ventured curiously. Thiago tore his eyes away from the dark
hallway and looked at Remy. Remy sat up straight and examined him closely “Do
they know that you’re the Archer?” Remy asked in a low voice.
Thiago shook his head and turned to face them both. He pulled on his ear
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nervously and then rested his elbows against the counter and eyed Gray and Remy.
“So what’s wrong with you, then?” Remy asked hesitantly.
Thiago squeezed his eyes closed and rubbed at his temples as if to ward off
an impending headache. “Shawn’s just… and Carl has… and Brandt is fucking… for
Christ’s sake,” he muttered brokenly. He looked up and eyed them both angrily.
“Where the fuck have you been? And why do you look like death warmed over?” he
demanded of Remy.
“Mais,” Remy said with difficulty. How to explain? “We had… you see…
we, uh….”
“Remy got caught,” Gray informed Thiago gleefully, with the air of a child
tattling on a sibling to a parent.
“Caught?” Thiago repeated in alarm. “Where? When?”
“For once, this wasn’t my fault. And ‘caught’ is a little harsh, don’t you
think, Boss?” Remy added angrily. Gray grinned at him.
“Not harsh if it’s true, Romeo. Besides– ”
“Being attacked by your tail in the men’s room of an airport is not being
‘caught’,” Remy spat angrily.
“You had a tail?” Thiago asked with interest.
“As did you,” Gray said confidently.
“And stop calling me ‘Romeo’!” Remy demanded petulantly.
“A Paint, to be more precise,” Gray told Thiago with a grin, disregarding
Remy as if he hadn’t said anything. “I’m ninety-nine percent sure that the jackoff out there is the same one that was following your boys earlier.”
“They were so fucking worried about ghosts and vampires they probably
didn’t even notice,” Thiago said in frustration. “I assume you questioned yours in this little episode that you had? What did you get out of him?”
“Well….”
“You see….”
“We sort of….”
“We kinda had to kill him,” Remy admitted.
“Before he could tell us anything,” Gray added.
“Well, goddammit!” Thiago hissed angrily.
“He had a knife to my throat!” Remy said defensively. “And one in my arm,
thank you very much. It wasn’t the proper time for pleasantries!” he yelled as he stood up angrily. His world immediately tilted and swirled in a most disturbing
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manner and he fell back against the refrigerator with a crash. Thiago and Gray both leapt forward and grabbed for him, and he blinked away the blurriness at the edges of his vision as they righted him. “Sorry,” he murmured as they eased him back onto the stool.
“Jesus, you’re worse off than you look, aren’t you?” Thiago said as he
brushed his hand over Remy’s forehead and frowned.
“If I looked like I felt, you would have put me out of my misery already,”
Remy admitted candidly. He felt horrible. He needed sleep.
“He’s running a fever,” Thiago murmured to Gray. Gray frowned.
“He wasn’t earlier. He was doing fine when we… we, uh… broke in,” Gray
stuttered as he placed his hand against Remy’s cheek.
“I don’t have a fever,” Remy insisted as he batted their hands away. “I just
got bashed on the head with a picture frame. What I want is answers. I say we go in there and pound on that bioque until he tells us what he’s up to.”
“Later. The longer he sits there, the more he’ll fidget. I want answers too,”
Thiago demanded in a commanding voice. “What are you two up to? And don’t even
get me started on how pissed I am at you, Kincaid,” he added with a pointed finger in Gray’s face.
“Gray has a plan,” Remy murmured around the bag of peas he had reapplied
to his face. “Can you believe that fucker hit me with a goddamned painting? A
goddamn priceless oil painting! The frame alone was worth thirteen hundred dollars!”
“Well, now it’s scrap,” Gray responded joyously. “As is your face. I’m with
Remy, Thi. I want to know what he was doing. We saw him earlier, out on the street.
He was planted out there. What made him decide to try and break in? It could be
pertinent, y’know?” he said with emphasis. “And what did he mean by ‘he knew it was us’? I’ve never seen the guy before.”
Remy nodded in agreement and looked at Thiago. Thiago sighed heavily and
gnawed on his lower lip.
“Besides, the others will want to know our plan, too,” Remy said coaxingly.
“All right. Remy, you’re taking a shower and getting into bed. You look like
hell. Gray, you help him. I’ll get Brandt and Carl and Niko and we’ll see what we can get out of this chacon.”
“You want me to keep watch on Remy and Shawn?” Gray asked in surprise.
“No, I want you to help Remy to bed and then come back down here. They’ll
be fine.”
Remy swallowed heavily and nodded to Thiago as Gray helped him to stand.
He didn’t know what to do now that he’d actually seen Shawn once more. He knew in his heart that Gray was tellin
g him the truth about him. But it was Shawn! He needed
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him.
“Hey,” Thiago said softly, his voice no longer authoritative. Gray and Remy
both turned and looked at him expectantly. He put an affectionate hand on both of them, his fingers curling around the back of Remy’s neck and causing him to shiver.
“I’m glad you’re both safe,” he said as he looked at them both in turn. Remy closed his eyes and enjoyed the feeling of Thiago’s gentle hand. “Now,” Thiago growled as his fingers tightened. “If either of you go getting shot or disappearing on me again, I’ll kill you both myself.” Thiago then leant forward and kissed Remy gently on his temple. The side that wasn’t covered with dripping peas. He looked at Gray and
murmured, “Have you been injured at all?”
“No,” Gray said quietly. “Unfortunately, Remy’s taken the brunt of the
beatings.”
Thiago nodded and looked at Remy almost apologetically before he pulled
Gray to him and kissed him passionately. Remy blinked in shock as he watched
Thiago and Gray attempt to devour one another with the kiss.
XX.
“When the hell did this happen?” Remy asked in shock.
Thiago stole one last kiss and then pulled away from Gray to look at him. He
smirked and shrugged.
Gray huffed at Remy and took his good arm to lead him away. “You’re a
bloody tease, Thi,” he murmured with a soft smile.
Thiago grinned crookedly and ran his hand over Remy’s short hair as Gray
dragged him out, and he wondered why Remy had cut off the curls. Thiago had been
fond of the curls, though Remy did look more threatening now, for some reason.
Perhaps it was more the knowledge of severe mental instability than his actual
physical appearance. He watched as they retreated, smiling dazedly over the kiss he had managed to steal. Time with Remy had suited Gray well. Thiago had missed him.
“Va te faire enculer!” Remy’s voice shouted, just about the time they would have walked past the Paint tied to the banister.
Thiago smiled and chuckled. It was such a relief to have Remy back that