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“Are you cranky?” Remy asked Shawn innocently as Brandt settled into
Carl’s arms.
“Very.”
Brandt snickered and Carl pulled him closer. “Shawn wouldn’t hurt from
getting laid either,” Brandt murmured teasingly.
“Fucking firebug,” Shawn mumbled, and he leant over and switched off the
lamp at the side of the bed, throwing the room into darkness.
VI.
REMY waited until the steady breathing of the other two men indicated that they
were asleep, and then he turned onto his side with difficulty and ran gentle fingers over Shawn’s bare chest.
“What’s on your mind, Dixie?” Shawn asked softly. He sounded sleepy, but
not as if he had been asleep.
“I’m sorry,” Remy whispered sincerely, his voice barely audible in the
darkness.
He felt Shawn move slightly and imagined the other man had turned his head
to peer through the darkness at him. It was pitch black, and Remy assumed the night had clouded over since the moon no longer sent rays of light through the heavy
drapes.
“Sorry?” Shawn repeated incredulously, his quiet voice bordering on anger.
But when he spoke again his tone was calm and cool. Professional. It was like a slap in the face. “No need to be sorry for anything, Remy. We’re all doing a job here, after all.”
Remy closed his eyes and let the pain of Shawn’s words wash over him.
That had been an intentional hit, and usually Remy would have had a barb just as
painful to toss back. Tonight, though, he just didn’t have the heart or the energy for a fight.
“I tried to talk to you, Shawn. You kept drugging me. I–”
“Remy,” Shawn whispered harshly. The angry sound was like the report of a
pistol to Remy’s ears, and he glanced over at the other bed even though he knew he wouldn’t be able to see Brandt or Carl in the darkness. “I don’t want to fight with you. You’re sick and you’re injured and it wouldn’t be a fair fight. I would end up winning and feeling guilty as fuck and then I’d be fucked off about that as well. Just drop it.”
Remy gritted his teeth angrily and flopped back onto his back, wincing at the
white-hot pain that shot through his wounds but not daring to call out for fear of injuring his pride.
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Shawn must have been paying closer attention than he thought, however,
because he was hovering over Remy just seconds later, one hand gripping his and the other resting on his forehead.
“Are you okay?” Shawn murmured, the breath gusting across Remy’s face
even as the heat of the pain flushed his cheeks.
“Yes,” Remy answered weakly. He felt Shawn’s tense muscles relax as the
other man rested the upper half of his body on Remy’s chest. The pressure felt good after days and days of fearing the pain in his ribs, and Remy gripped Shawn’s hand and slid his free arm around Shawn’s waist to keep him from moving. “Don’t be
angry with me, Shawn. I couldn’t deal with it just now,” he pleaded in a low voice.
Shawn lowered his head and let his nose and mouth come to rest against
Remy’s cheek.
“Just tell me,” he started in a defeated voice. He kissed Remy’s cheek gently
and went on. “Tell me you didn’t go to Carl first because you thought I had
something to do with it.”
Remy’s body went cold and his mouth went completely dry at hearing
Shawn’s whispered words.
“Jesus, Shawn,” he breathed as he tightened his hold around Shawn’s waist.
“I thought you would know better than that,” he whispered.
Shawn lifted up and looked down at him, and Remy could just barely make
out his glittering green eyes in the darkness.
“We were the only ones who knew where the safe house was prior to the
rendezvous, Remy,” Shawn said seriously. “Just you and me.”
“I know that,” Remy said as he regained some of his composure. “And I also
know that neither of us would have called in the coordinates.”
“None of the others know that,” Shawn argued. “Why would you fuel
suspicions by going behind everyone’s back to discuss it?”
“I didn’t,” Remy protested quietly. “Carl looked like he had something on
his mind and I….”
“What?” Shawn asked in surprise.
“What?” Remy echoed, not sure what he had said to prompt the reaction.
“Carl came to you with the idea?”
“Well… actually we had both been thinking it, we just happened to start
talking about it and–”
Remy’s explanation was cut off by the noise of shuffling bed sheets from the
other bed, and he and Shawn froze. They weren’t really talking about anything that couldn’t be overheard, if it had been that sensitive they would simply have waited, but
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it was habit all the same. Shawn’s hand moved to Remy’s hair and his fingers
automatically twirled around Remy’s unruly curls.
“You need a haircut,” Shawn mumbled absently. “And a shave,” he added
after a short, gentle kiss.
“I thought you liked me scruffy,” Remy responded in a weak voice. Usually
he would have made a retort calling attention to Shawn’s own state of dishevelment, but Shawn was angry with him, and the mere thought made him feel a bit sick.
“I do,” Shawn said tenderly as he ran his fingers through the curls. “Hey,” he
said as their fingers twined together and Remy closed his eyes against the angry look he kept seeing flash across Shawn’s face in his mind. “Hey, I’m sorry,” Shawn said softly. “I know you’re not well. I overreacted.”
“Well, Carl did say you were cranky,” Remy offered weakly. Shawn snorted
and lowered his head to nuzzle against Remy cheek once more.
“So you really think we could have been set up?” he asked against Remy’s
warm skin. “You think they would put six of their top agents together and rid
themselves of them before ever even investigating it?”
“We don’t know that they didn’t investigate,” Remy said matter-of-factly as
he tried not to be turned on by Shawn’s actions. He was in no state for such an
endeavor, and he didn’t suppose that was what Shawn was after. “I mean… we’re
some shady characters, the six of us.” Shawn laughed silently, but Remy wasn’t
smiling. “The more I think about it, Shawn,” he said seriously, “the more I think we’re right. I think we were set up. I think they sent some amateur to blow us all to Kingdom Come, and I think they think we’re all dead. I don’t think anyone will be coming for us.”
A shout sounded from somewhere in the seedy motel and halted their
discussion. They both held their breath. In the silence, the sounds of pleasure were easily distinguishable, though, and they both relaxed noticeably.
“They’ll want proof that we’re dead,” Shawn continued regretfully. It took
Remy a moment to get back on track after visions of Thiago and Nikolaus doing all sorts of dirty things in the other room danced through his head. Maybe he wasn’t
recovered from that fever just yet after all. “It’s too big a risk to take to assume that they’ll just write us off,” Shawn added helpfully.
“So is running back to New Zealand and jumping up and down outside the
Facility, letting them know we’re still alive,” Remy whispered back. “I say we all break and run for it, S
hawn. Let the Archer keep killing their fucking people and they’ll know they made a mistake. We’ll be on an island in the Caribbean sucking
down drinks with little umbrellas in them and trying to keep Brandt from blowing up the tiki hut.”
“It’s not… it’s not their people who’re being killed here, Remy,” Shawn said in a stunned voice. “It’s our people. Got that? Our people. And I won’t sit idly by
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while that bastard goes around taking down agents as if they were clay ducks at a carnival.”
“Shawn–”
“No!” Shawn whispered harshly. “If you want to break and run then that’s
your affair. But I’ve never known you to cower in the corner when there was a
perfectly good opportunity to get yourself killed lurking around the next turn.”
“Two weeks ago you were pleading with me to quit and run away with you
off to Paradise! Now I’m suggesting the same thing and I’m a coward? Was all that bullshit then?” Remy demanded angrily. Shawn opened his mouth to speak, but he
snapped it back shut again and removed his body from atop Remy’s. Remy watched
his dark form move away in disbelief. “Huh uh,” he objected heatedly and rolled
again, wincing with the pain in his leg and ribs. He took hold of Shawn’s arm,
squeezing a pressure point in what he knew was a painful grip even though he was as weak as he was, and pulled at him. Shawn gasped and then growled angrily. “Give me one good reason to stay in this,” Remy whispered demandingly, still mindful of
waking the others even through his anger.
Shawn rolled back onto his back and looked up at Remy silently. Remy
could just barely make out his features in the darkness, but he couldn’t tell what sort of expression Shawn wore.
“Stay in it for me,” Shawn requested quietly after several moments. “I need
you with me. I need to know that you’re safe.”
Remy blinked in surprise. He hadn’t been expecting that argument. King and
country and honor and pride and camaraderie and all that shit, he had expected. But not this.
“Shawn,” Remy responded pleadingly, frantically searching his brain for a
response but coming up empty.
“I can’t spend the rest of me life wondering if someone is coming after us,”
Shawn whispered thickly, his hand coming up to cup Remy’s cheek and his accent
thickening. His thumb rubbed across Remy’s cheekbone in a familiar, tender motion that made Remy’s eyes flutter closed. “I would never be able to rest. If you’re right and we were set up, then they’ll keep coming until our bodies are delivered. But if you’re wrong and we run, they’ll come after us anyway. You know this. Our only
chance is to finish the job and prove that we’re loyal. Please stay with me on this, Remy. I need you. I need you more than I can say.”
Remy forced his eyes back open and stared at the other man for what seemed
an eternity.
“You know we’ll still have to find the Archer,” Remy said finally, unable to
express the emotions roiling through his mind and unwilling to let Shawn know that he doubted his sincerity.
“You still want to catch him then?” Shawn asked in surprise.
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“Mais oui, we’ll catch him, no doubt. And then we’ll join him.”
VII.
THIAGO wasn’t certain what had gotten into him tonight. Jumping on the bed and
playing footsy with Shawn and Brandt? Tumbling clumsily to the floor and laughing hysterically about it? He hadn’t laughed uncontrollably in years.
Perhaps it was relief over Remy’s apparent recovery. Perhaps it was
exhaustion or stress, which didn’t seem likely considering how easy he’d had it thus far compared to the life Thiago usually led. Perhaps he had just finally cracked and he was going Brandt’s route.
Thiago didn’t think Brandt’s route seemed all that bad, actually.
He and Nikolaus lay in the same bed they had vacated earlier, too tired and
lazy to retrieve the blanket Brandt had pilfered from the other bed. Neither man could seem to sleep though.
They were passing each other in the darkness on the path to the toilet when
they heard murmurs from the other room. Thiago looked at Nikolaus through the inky darkness, and as if they could read each other’s minds, they both started for the adjoining door at the same time.
They pressed their ears to the door– their noses just inches from each other–
just in time to hear the tail end of what sounded like a whispered argument.
“Join him?” hissed Shawn’s voice through the thin separation.
“Do you’ve a better idea?”
“Yes.”
“I’m all ears, cher,” Remy challenged sarcastically, the strange word
pronounced like ‘sha’. Thiago knew it was a mongrelized form of the French word
that meant ‘dear.’ It was both touching and disturbing to hear Remy use it when
arguing.
“Well, we could not turn traitor. That might be fun,” Shawn shot back in a sarcastic hiss.
“Fuck that. They tried to kill us, Shawn, in case you’d forgotten.”
“I’m not likely to forget that, Remy, and we don’t know that for sure. Don’t
try to change the subject on me.”
There was a long silence, and Thiago imagined that the two of them were
staring each other down like he had seen them do the night of the explosion.
“Remy wants to turn traitor? Is that what I’m hearing?” Nikolaus whispered
after more silence.
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Thiago frowned. That couldn’t be right. If Remy was planning on turning he
wouldn’t be openly discussing it like he was. No doubt Brandt was still awake. The fucker never slept.
“I don’t think so,” Thiago whispered back finally.
“I’ll stay with you, Shawn,” Remy finally said in a voice so low Thiago had
to strain to hear it. “But if I get killed I am so going to come back to haunt you.”
VIII.
THE Archer lay awake long after the excitement had died down. Every so often, he
would cast a wary glance at his bedmate, but he was fairly certain that he was the only one still awake.
This most recent discussion was an interesting turn of events. Join forces
with him? Well… he wasn’t sure what he thought of that now. He would worry over
their loyalty if they were to join his ranks, of course, but he did that about most of his agents anyway.
On one hand, if they thought they’d been betrayed by their beloved
Organization then they’d probably be all fired up for revenge, and if he were honest with himself, that was a very enticing scenario.
On the other hand, these other five men scared him like no other force he’d
ever encountered. They’d become cohesive. They cared for one another and they
worked extremely well together when they weren’t trying to kill each other.
The fact that they’d all become comfortable enough to indulge in their
various and sundry little romantic encounters spoke volumes about how much they
trusted one another. Life and death situations did interesting things to people, and these men’s lives were a constant life and death situation. During battle you had to trust your colleagues with your life. After that trusting them with your body was nothing.
No, the copious amounts of sex were nothing new, in the Archer’s
experience. They could fuck each other from here to the end of time for all he cared–
so long as he got to watch and participa
te every now and then. What bothered him
was the fact that they were still together at all. After the explosion, he’d felt sure that they would scatter, but they had clung to one another with an odd sort of loyalty; that, quite frankly, scared him shitless.
If he could have such a group working on his side, fueled not only by anger
and fear and revenge, but also by their loyalty to one another, then his would be an unstoppable force.
The question was; what would they do once they found out who he was?
They thought he was one of them. They trusted him. Would they turn on him when he revealed himself as the Archer? Or would their loyalty to him by that time negate the
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sting of the betrayal?
It was quite the conundrum the Archer found himself dealing with.
Was there a way, perhaps, he could mask himself? He had loyal men, men
who he trusted who would pose as him if the other five demanded a face to face with him before he was ready to reveal himself. Yes. The Archer liked that plan.
He smiled in the darkness as the man beside him moaned and shifted
restlessly in his sleep. The Archer put his hand out into the darkness and laced his fingers through the man’s hair in a soothing gesture without really noticing what he was doing.
The Archer’s smile widened as he pulled the man closer. He liked that plan
very much.
He would cease the wedging tactics he’d been employing. He would no
longer attempt to subtly breed fear and suspicion amongst the five other men. He
would instead encourage their loyalty, their cohesion. And he would encourage them to find him.
Find him and join him.
IX.
CARL sat at the head of the bed, leaning against the headboard and watching with a strange, detached fascination as Brandt and Shawn proceeded to verbally tear each other new assholes.
Halfway through the argument, Thiago came to sit beside him, and they
merely nodded at one another in acknowledgment and sat in identical poses; their
arms crossed and their heads cocked to the side as they watched. Nikolaus was in the other room with Remy, playing music loudly on the cheap clock radio and trying to distract him from the noise Shawn and Brandt were making.