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Going Native
by Lianne Burwell
July 2004
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The plane landed on the small field of the Farm's 
territory, just after sunrise, and taxied to a stop. Carl 
braced himself. He knew that this wasn't going to be 
pleasant, and he was beginning to wish he'd just found 
himself a razor before they left Brazil. He'd already gone 
through one round with Grimaldi; the damned flyboy had 
almost laughed himself silly. Their return to the States 
meant that he was just going to get more of the same.

He followed his two partners as they deplaned. Their 
mission controller was waiting for them next to the jeep. 
She was smiling, at least until she got a good look at 
Carl. Then her eyes widened, but thankfully, she didn't say 
a word. The blacksuit acting as guard at the airstrip had a 
little less self-control; he snorted, then quickly covered 
up his grin when Carl glared at him. Carl had a gun, and he 
wasn't afraid to use it.

"Hal's waiting for the debriefing," April Rose said, 
sliding in behind the wheel of the jeep. "I must say, I'm 
looking forward to it myself," she added, looking over her 
shoulder at Carl. He did his best to ignore the way the 
corner of her mouth twitched.

It was going to be a very long day.

>>~~~<<<

"What the hell happened to you?!"

Carl winced at Hal's volume. A light spray of coffee 
spreading across the top of the conference table showed 
that Hal had been taking a caffeine break when they'd 
entered the room. Carl could honestly say he'd never seen a 
'spit take' before. "We arrived, we shot the crap out of 
the bad guys, we left," he said defensively.

"That is *not* what I'm talking about. What happened to 
your hair?"

The inevitable question; the one he'd been dreading. Carl 
kept his mouth shut, but unfortunately his partners were 
more than ready to fill in the details. "The natives liked 
Carl," Gadgets said with a grin. Pol was snickering.

"And?" Hal growled, patting his pockets. He extracted a 
roll of antacid tablets from one of them, and popped it 
into his mouth. Personally, Carl thought that half the 
man's problem was the amount of Bear's coffee that he 
drank. If he cut back, maybe he wouldn't need so many of 
the chalky tablets.

"They even shared some of the local tabaccy with him," Pol 
tossed in, grinning at Carl. Carl gave him the finger.

Hal opened his mouth, then shut it again.

Carl sighed. "How was I supposed to know that it wasn't 
regular tobacco?" he said plaintively. "Besides, it would 
have been rude for me to refuse, considering the help they 
were giving us."

"So you decided to go native to make them happy?" Hal said, 
waving at Carl's hair. Carl resisted the urge to scratch at 
the strangely naked back of his neck. He'd seen it in the 
mirror; it was a classic bowl cut, complete with the 
sideburns and back of the neck shaved bare.

"You have no idea just how native," Gadgets said. "The next 
day he was chatting with them in their own language, 
wearing a loincloth and body paint. It was quite the 
sight," he added waggling his eyebrows.

April Rose was giggling now, which was a strange sound from 
the normally professional woman. "I wish I could have seen 
it," she said once she got her breath back.

"Too bad you can't," Carl said sarcastically.

"Oh, I wouldn't be so sure of that," Pol said, and Carl 
twisted to stare at him. He was holding...

A film canister.

"Shit!" Carl lunged for the man, but Pol danced out of 
reach, rather quickly for a man of his age. Carl grabbed 
again, but Pol tossed the canister to Gadgets.

"Gentlemen, and I use the term loosely, would you settle 
down."

Carl ignored Hal, focusing on getting that canister. The 
teasing would continue for a while, then die a natural 
death, but only as long as there was no evidence. Pictures 
meant that he would *never* going to hear the end of this.

The film canister changed hands again while Hal continued 
to bellow, then Pol, barely ducking a grab from Carl, 
tossed it in a new direction. April whooped as she caught 
it, then ducked out the door, no doubt heading for the film 
lab. Carl twisted to head after her, but both his 
traitorous partners tackled him to the ground in a heap.

"If you are *quite* finished, I still need a full 
debriefing of what your were doing when you *weren't* 
getting stoned."

They came apart slowly, the other two men ready to grab him 
again. Carl knew it was a lost cause. April was long gone, 
and there was no way he was ever going to get that film 
back. And now that he thought about it, he could vaguely 
remember Gadgets taking the picture, back while he'd still 
been coming down.

Gadgets had been sleep with one eye open from now on.

>>>~~~<<<

After the debriefing finally finished, Carl decided to go 
looking for Konzaki. He wanted to thank the man for the new 
gun he'd designed for Carl based on Carl's description of 
his dream gun. It had performed perfectly. As well, there 
was the 'care package' he'd sent down. He deserved a *lot* 
of thanking, Carl thought with a grin.

The occasional growl kept the snickers to a minimum as he 
passed through the corridors that lead to the weapons 
workshop that was Andrej Konzaki's domain. When it came to 
firearms and explosives, the ex-CIA man was an artist. He 
was so valuable that he'd been able to insist on a ground 
level workshop with windows, rather than been put in the 
safer below-ground levels.

Carl stopped in the doorway and admired the view. The room 
was large, but crowded with the tools of the man's trade. 
Metal lathes, magnifying glasses, work tables, and 
equipment that Carl couldn't even begin to put a name to 
filled the room, other than the paths wide enough for a man 
on crutches or in a wheelchair to get through.

Andrej was sitting at one of those tables. The legs had 
been shortened to make it more convenient for a seated man, 
since standing for extended periods of time while wearing 
his prosthetics was painful for him. He was studying the 
inside of a gun barrel with a large magnifying glass and a 
heavy-duty light. His large hands manipulated his tools 
with great precision as he did something arcane to the 
barrel that was sure to make the gun work better than the 
manufacturer could ever have hoped for.

Carl cleared his throat, and Andrej looked back over his 
shoulder. He started to smile when he saw who it was, then 
froze. The corners of his mouth started to twitch. Carl 
sighed.

"Go ahead, get it out of your system," he said, then did a 
slow turn so that the man could get the full effect.

"You piss off those partners of yours or something?" Andrej 
asked, spinning his chair around to face Carl.

"Nope. We recruited some natives who were tired of having 
their people hauled away by the bad guys as slave labor. 
They offered some snuff, and it would have been rude to say 
no, right?"

"Of course. I take it that it *wasn't* snuff."

Carl shook his head. It was funny, as long as he wasn't 
being mocked. His partners had teased him all the way home, 
joined by Grimaldi on the flight. They hadn't exactly been 
mocking him, but it was getting very old. "I went a little 
native before it wore off completely," he admitted.

Andrej pushed to his feet, sliding his forearms into the 
clamps on his crutches. "Just *how* native?" he asked, 
moving a little closer.

There was something in his eyes that caught Carl off-guard. 
Heat was not what he had expected from his confession. 
"Loincloth and body paint," he said, tilting his head to 
the side, waiting to see what the reaction would be.

A wide grin spread across the man's face. "I wish I'd seen 
it. It sounds... sexy."

"Well," Carl said, starting to grin himself. "Gadgets took 
pictures."

"Mmm... I'll have to have a talk with Hermann, then. 
Later."

"Later?" Carl lifted an eyebrow.

"*Much* later."

>>>~~~<<<

Carl stretched, reveling in the well-used ache that filled 
his entire body. Who would have thought that it would be a 
haircut that set off Andrej like that.

In the few, short months since the man had joined the 
Farm's support staff, they'd been engaged in a flirtation 
that had been growing more and more serious as time went 
buy. And by serious, Carl meant more than just a bit of fun 
in the sack. As a result, neither one of the had pushed it 
to the next level.

Until now.

Carl rolled over to smile at the man sleeping next to him. 
Beyond him, Andrej's prosthetic legs and crutches were set 
in a special stand within easy reach so that he wouldn't 
have to fumble for them in the morning. Other than that, 
the room was pretty spare, but was quickly accumulating 
those personal touches that would make it more than the 
way-station that Carl's room was.

The lack of legs on his lover hadn't been a problem. Carl 
didn't care about them. And besides, what the man could do 
with his large, gentle hands had lived up to Carl's every 
fantasy. He'd played Carl's body like one of his delicate 
tools until Carl had been vibrating with need. Then he'd 
pulled Carl on top of himself and used those fantastic 
hands to move up and down on his dick; a dick that was as 
proportionately large as the rest of him. Instead of 
teasing him some more about his hair at breakfast, his 
partners were going to be teasing him about the fact that 
he couldn't sit down properly.

Not that Carl minded. No, he didn't mind at all.

"You still awake?" Andrej grumbled, opening one eye. "I 
must have done something wrong."

Carl grinned and reached under the blanket to fondle the 
man. "Maybe we should try again, just to be sure," he said.

Andrej grabbed him by the back of the head and pulled him 
in for a long, wet kiss. "Maybe we should," he purred like 
an oversized cat. Carl grinned, then slid under the covers 
to get the man ready.

He could really get used to this.

THE END