Alex swung the VW Golf in a smooth arc to end up the far side of the stone fountain. He needed time to get around how he was feeling.
"Fuck," he muttered. "Fuck, fuck, fuck!"
Killing the engine he rested his forehead on crossed arms against the steering wheel. The scent of leather teased his nostrils and he inhaled deeply. After spending the last few hours in the basement of a museum, surrounded by the remnants of some Egyptian display of sarcophagi and wall paintings, it was good to breathe in something fresh. His heart rate slowed as he concentrated on calming the hell down. He didn't think he had ever made it from the city to here in such a short time. Yes, it was nearly two am and blacker than pitch, meaning it was unlikely he would meet much traffic. Yes, he had the sense to stick to speed limits as and when he could but that didn't mean he hadn't pressed his foot harder to the floor on more than one stretch of road. But he didn't even remember some of the journey. At least getting here in forty minutes meant he had some time now just to calm the hell down. He had texted Luke when he left the museum so Luke would assume he wouldn't make it home for another ten minutes.
Lifting his head a little he then banged it down on his arms. And again. Luke was going to freak the hell out when he found out what had happened. There was no sense in expecting any other result. After everything in Greece they had thought it was over, that despite some kind of residual energy sparks Alex was essentially normal. He wanted to be normal for Luke. He didn't want to scare him away.
A sharp flash of turquoise sparked behind his eyes and he lifted his head again, this time to slump back in the bucket seat and exhale noisily. This was happening more and more often, the sparks of blue tracing a path under his skin that he could almost see if he watched carefully. The paths didn't follow veins but the marks he had once had on his skin. That was the one thing that really scared him. Pulling back his sleeve, he held up his forearm and peered close. The tail of the phoenix used to run there, down the length of his arm, wrapping his bicep and ending with Greek symbols just at his wrist. There was nothing there now. Frustrated, he clenched his fist and relaxed back—he was certain if he could just get a handle on this then Luke would never have to know. His cell chimed a text and he grabbed the offending item to read the screen. Luke.
'You staying out there all night?'
Casually Alex looked up and to the left to the room at the end of the east wing where he knew Luke would be looking down at him. Thank God his lover wouldn't have seen inside the car at the dramatic crap he was putting himself through. He took his cell, exited the car, and allowed himself a few seconds of standing in the glow of the interior light. Luke told him that he loved those moments when Alex was home safe after a job and he first glimpsed him climbing from the car. Sketching a casual wave up at where he knew Luke would be standing, he closed the door and locked the car. Patting her roof he sent a prayer heavenward, thankful that Griff's collection held this beauty. Solid and sturdy, she didn't look like a supercar, not like the small sports car he had owned with Edward, but she sure stuck to the country roads leading up to Six Pillars like shit to a blanket—even when the driver at the wheel had entered some kind of catatonic state.
He took the stone steps to the main door two at a time and let himself in the front door. Checking his sweatshirt was zipped to the throat and up under the chin, he then took another set of stairs and near jogged to the last room. He threw open their bedroom door and wasn't surprised that Luke sat at the desk in the window. What surprised him was that the only light in the room came from the glow of Luke's laptop and the small bedside lamp. What the hell was Luke doing sitting in the semi dark?
They were in each other's arms in seconds. When Alex maneuvered them until Luke was pressed against the wall, he set about proving to Luke just how much he had missed him.
Retrievals, a euphemism for what he and Edward had used to do, had always given Alex a natural high. Sex had been hottest just after they had lifted whatever object they were targeting. Tonight was no different, except it was Luke, the man he loved, in his arms, and to top it all, Alex hadn't retrieved an item but replaced one.
The kissing grew more heated, punctuated only with a command from Alex for Luke to strip. Together they pulled at Luke's clothes until he stood naked. Still fully dressed, Alex hugged Luke close. The touch of skin on skin was the one thing that Alex needed but the one thing he knew he should limit. Especially after tonight. He hugged Luke so close it was inevitable that the man would want to know why. Normally there was sex, or in their case, hot, sweaty, balls-deep lovemaking. Luke pulled at Alex's shirt but Alex simply placed a hand over his.
"No, Luke."
This was as far from normal as was possible. Luke knew Alex, could read him, and he pulled away even as Alex tried to stop him.
"What do you mean no? What happened?" Luke asked. "Alex? Talk to me? Could you not replace the artifact?"
"It was good. It went well."
"So what's wrong then? You look like hell."
"It's been three days, I'm tired," Alex defended.
"Don't lie to me." Luke crossed his arms over his chest and showed that pissed look he had perfected so well over the past two years. The stance was his not-taking-any-shit posture. Didn't matter that he was naked and so hard and ready he probably hurt.
"Something happened." Alex finally offered the simple words when it became clear Luke wasn't backing down. Maybe it was the simple way Alex said it. Or the defeat in his voice but the expression on Luke's face changed from mutinous and demanding to compassionate and questioning in an instant.
"Talk to me."
Alex knew he had to tell Luke what was going on, whatever consequences it had for them or for their love. Luke might take this happening in stride. Hell, he may well take one look at Alex's body and just lose it completely. Fuck. Who knew and why was Alex all of sudden doubting Luke's love and compassion?
Flicking the main light on and crossing to close the drapes Alex finally stilled with his back to Luke. With a sharp breath, in and then out, he unzipped his sweatshirt and pulled it and his T-shirt off over his head in one smooth move.
"Interesting," Luke muttered. He was a master of understatement and Alex knew his boyfriend well enough to know that the simple word held his own version of 'holy shit' and 'what the fuck'.
There was no touching. Luke didn't immediately cross to Alex and trace and press and demand answers. There was no need.
"Jesus, Alex," Luke murmured.
"How bad is it?" Alex asked. Tension ramped up in the room. He had seen the pale blue in the mirror—this was why he wore the damn sweatshirt up to his throat, but the burning had intensified tonight. He knew it would be worse.
"Every-everything…" Luke's voice was low and awed. "It's all there…"
"I thought so," Alex said softly. No sense in swearing and cursing the gods or whoever forced this crazy shit onto him.
"You thought so?"
"There's been times—you know—when we made love that the burning was there under my skin. I just… tonight." He stopped and bowed his head. "There was a security guard and he was coming around the corner and before I knew it…"
"What? Did you have to deal with it? What did you do, Alex?"
"Nothing." Alex looked back at Luke over his shoulder. "I swear nothing needed to happen. He didn't see me is all."
"Fuck, Alex."
Alex heard rather than saw Luke sit down on the bed. For the first time since he had found out about the thing that was inside him, he wished it were easy for Luke to just hug him and reassure him everything was going to be okay. He felt the hopelessness that emanated from his lover and, despondent, he pulled on the zipped sweatshirt so it covered his back. Luke knew not to touch Alex that was all. He wasn't pulling away he was just being considerate to Alex's empathic side. Over and over Alex repeated those thoughts until he was almost convinced they were true.
"I'll understand if you don't want this…" Alex's voice trailed away.
"This what exactly? What is it you think is happening?" Luke had a layer of irritation in his voice. Alex knew it wasn't directed at him, more at the impossibility of what was happening to Alex's body.
"I don't know. I don't feel the scar tissue, so that hasn't come back."
Horrifically scarred by priests in an ancient Grecian temple as the child that Alex had been so many centuries before, the patterns carved into his skin had been covered by thick dark tattoos. When Athanasios had left him to ascend to wherever he went, every single mark on his skin had vanished. He had been reborn from an intense fire simply as Alex.
When Athanasios had gone, the young boy's consciousness had taken with it the physical scarring—all scarring except Luke's name in raised markings on Alex's inner thigh.
"I know, I mean, there's no scarring I can see," Luke said softly. "The markings are faint but under the skin—like a tracing or something."
"And no tattoos." Alex lifted a handful of material and twisted to check what part of his back he could see in the large wall mirror. Nothing.
Luke paused and when Alex met his gaze he was thoughtful and considering. "We always said the tattoos were something that you created, the Alex who was a man, not Athan the boy. When the scarring was cleared the tattoos went as well."
"Tell me what you can see then," Alex pleaded. He crossed to sit next to Luke on the bed, close enough to feel his body heat but far enough away so that there was no touching.
"Tracings under the skin, like you see blood rushing through veins under a microscope. Brilliant sapphire blue with sparking and… I don't know how to describe it? Does it hurt?"
"It always hurts," Alex replied. He could have been diplomatic and said it didn't, but two years ago, he had promised to never lie to Luke again. "The pain is something I can put in a box in my head. Sometimes it is tight and I feel like my lungs are going to burst with the constriction. Other times it's just this rush of warmth. I don't think it is in my blood though—not in my veins. But you can see, right? See that it is following the patterns of what used to be there. The phoenix? The sun and the words inside the shapes?"
"I would need to check against my master notes—I could get the ones that I took in Greece when I sketched the carvings and tattoos…" Luke began the sentence then bowed his head.
Alex felt the overwhelming sense of despair that shot through Luke. That was another thing he needed to talk to his lover about. The fact that he sensed Luke's emotions was something he didn't even want to contemplate. It was way beyond just knowing the various emotions that made up the man he loved. This was actually sensing the feelings inside Luke. Not only that, but he was 'seeing' other people as well. Not entirely—more like a radio just off-station where every so often the talking and music were sharp and clear and other times they were more like discordant white noise.
Walking down the street and knowing what people were considering—anger, fear, despair—and then touching any one person by accident and having their base emotions flood into him was worse than hell. Not only that but he was having those damn flashes of color behind his eyes, case in point when the guard turned the corner. He had slipped into his 'other space' in an instant and was hidden from anyone's sight. The feeling was so familiar yet it frightened the shit out of him. He'd only just gotten used to not having the skills he used to have and for them to all of a sudden smack back into him…? Too much.
An empath with his abilities, including the freaky way he looked at the world as flashes of color and sound and raw emotion, was never going to last long in the general population. He had spent most of his early twenties staying away from everyone except Edward. His lover had been the only one he could sleep with, or touch. Then there had been Luke. Luke grounded him.
"Luke? Does any of it look the same to you?" He hated the defeat in his voice. Empathy was a double-edged sword but he had come to terms with it once—he could do it again.
"I don't need to look at my notes." Luke lifted a hand out in front of them and traced imaginary patterns in the air, each movement accompanied by his soft voice explaining what he had seen. "The sun with the flames and the phoenix that sits to one side, with the wings that cover the expanse of your back." Luke shifted on the bed slightly and for a moment their thighs touched. Alex was rusty at putting up barriers and before he could put anything in place, he realized with despair that worry had given way to a strange fear inside Luke. "Then there is the writing," Luke continued, "sun, life and air." He shook his head and dropped his hand to his lap resting it there in a loose fist. "I am guessing your chest is as patterned?"
Alex lifted a hand and placed it where his heart was. "Yes. That is what I first saw, and then the burning."
"And your arms?"
"Both of them. I don't understand."
"So you said you felt this happening when we're making love?" Luke asked. "When else does it happen?"
"Before, when we were together, there wasn't the intensity I felt tonight. I know it's getting worse. The last find and replace and then this one." Alex used the shorthand term he and Chris had come up with when they started Sheridan Investigations. Find and replace was a more official term for Alex finding what he and Edward had stolen and putting it back where it came from.
"Heightened emotion," Luke summarized. Alex could only nod at this very close to the mark fact. Luke placed his hand flat on Alex's thigh and Alex started at the touch. "Can you do the other thing? Knowing what I think?"
Alex didn't want to answer. Who in normal civilian life wanted a freak who could read every emotion or thought they had? He didn't have the thought connection to anyone other than Luke. The only time he had managed to connect with someone else was with Chris when Luke and Alex had been prisoners of Lord Arriseth. What was Luke going to say if Alex told the truth? Two years they had been together, and Luke was the other half of his soul. If he lost him now because of this curse…?
"I can see every thought written on your face, Alex," Luke said. His words were so damn gentle. "I don't have to be an empath to see you worry about what I am thinking."
"It's just… look… I'm sorry you're scared," Alex whispered and then turned to face Luke. "I understand whatever you decide to do is best for both of us."
Luke nodded and something inside of Alex began to relax when Luke wasn't rejecting him. Half of him had expected unconditional acceptance, and that Luke's love for him would get them through anything. But the other half, where his head still couldn't get around what had happened to him, feared rejection. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe creepy ancient power coursing through his body was too damn much for Luke to handle, maybe it wasn't.
Luke sighed, shook his head, then he did something wholly unexpected. In a smooth move, Alex was lying on his back, with his feet still flat on the floor, Luke straddling him. Impatiently Luke pulled the material of the top up until Alex lifted his arms and allowed the whole thing to be removed.
"I'm not scared of you," Luke murmured. He leaned down and kissed a short path between one nipple and the other then concentrated on worrying the left with his teeth before suckling. Alex arched his back to get closer while at the same time fighting desperately not to let too many of Luke's emotions through his barrier. Raw passion was a sensation that speared through him and cut deeply. Making love to Luke when he healed after losing the ability to connect had been intense and perfect. There was no need for barriers and he could just give everything of himself. Making love now, with the absolute purity of need that he had to have, would probably kill him.
"What are you scared of then? Don't say you—you're—jeez Luke—don't say that you're not scared," he stuttered as Luke's fingers followed the path of lips and tongue and traced unseen patterns on his skin. "I can feel it inside you."
"For you," Luke whispered against his skin. "'M scared for you." His direction changed and gently he moved until he lay chest to chest and his hands cradled Alex's face. "We don't know why this is happening. It could be residual energy, or maybe what happened to Athan left a scar inside you… or… hell, I don't know." They lay there together for a while and then Luke asked the one question Alex had hoped to avoid until he had gotten his head around this whole thing. "How strong are your barriers at the moment?"
"I've lost practice… I'm trying." Flexing his thighs he attempted to lever Luke off of him but Luke was going nowhere.
"Don't push me away," Luke said. His words were a demand.
"You know how much it hurts…" Alex pushed again but Luke was not giving way. Luke must remember the rawness inside Alex when he connected to too much emotion—when it flooded him with pain. What if he lashed out? Hurt Luke? Why would Luke force him into this position? He must have said it out loud because Luke answered.
"Because you could never hurt me and I sure as hell couldn't hurt you."
He released one of Alex's hands and Alex didn't think to immediately use it to push Luke away. Something in the hypnotic tone of Luke's words stayed the movement.
"Touch me, Alex."
Alex lifted his hand and gently placed his palm on Luke's chest. He could hear the gentle thump-thump of Luke's heart and feel the emotions that went along with it. Compassion. Need. Lust. Love. None of it hurt. Not one iota of it was anything less than intense. For a second he closed his eyes and imagined the emotions coursing through them both. Like threads they weaved around each other and he consciously allowed some of his own need to reach and touch Luke.
Luke hissed at the connection and Alex's eyelids opened immediately. It wasn't pain that he found in Luke's expression but glazed passion.
"Do that again," Luke said. "You can't hurt me. I couldn't hurt you even if I tried." Luke leaned down and placed a gentle kiss to Alex's lips at the exact moment Alex began to tentatively lower his barriers. Allowing more and more to connect, he felt a lust so intense rise in him that he wanted Luke inside him now. Luke would take care of him. Luke would hold him steady in this sea of conflicting needs. All Alex had to do was trust.
Luke slid his tongue along the seam of Alex's mouth and Alex parted his lips to taste his lover. A tingle began at the base of his skull, the blue behind his eyes increasing in intensity. This is what had happened before—this was how the lovemaking went each time. The spark inside Alex grew and grew until he was certain even Luke could feel the heat. The kiss deepened and Luke pressed down groin to groin. He moaned deep in his throat. Luke was naked but Alex still wore his pants and shorts. He needed them off… now.
Luke got with the program. Slipping to one side, he helped Alex push off the offending items but he didn't immediately climb back on. Instead he lay back and pulled Alex to cover him. Then they kissed. The kisses were lazy and then fast and desperate and then nothing more than an exchange of breath as they stared into each other's eyes. Alex saw the flecks of amber in the center of Luke's soft brown eyes then saw past that to the need inside the man. Unconsciously they had been moving against each other as they kissed and Alex was so close to coming he couldn't stop the rising feeling. An answering lust radiated from Luke and, gazes locked, they rocked in a rhythm as old as time. There was no pain, no electric shocks paralyzed him, only devastating and overpowering love.
The orgasm that stole his breath, answered with Luke arching up against him in the throes of his own completion, was nothing compared to the sapphire light that surrounded them both in a cocoon of awareness and heat. Every cell of him sparked and shifted and Luke was writhing under him as the sensation of ecstasy went on and on.
"I love you," Alex said at the peak of it all.
"Love. You," Luke said below him.
Consciously pulling the connection away gently and a step at a time, Alex finally rolled off Luke and lay to one side. Luke had gripped his hand as he moved and held tightly until the two men lay quiet and unmoving. The air around them held a static charge and the room was in utter blackness. The lamp was off, the computer quiet.
"Did we just blow the electricity?" Luke whispered. He glanced over at the clock on the bedside table that flashed 12:00.
"I think we did," Alex answered. He turned his head to face Luke. "That was…"
"Intense? Hot?" Luke smiled.
"Perfect." Alex wasn't going to question why having Luke's feelings cascade into him was the opposite of pain. Luke hadn't thrown him out, he didn't think Alex was a freak, and he loved him. Yes.
Perfect.