TITLE: The Ghost In You

AUTHORS: Nat Carter, Nicole Clevenger, Valeria

RATING: NC-17

PAIRINGS: Peter/Stuart, mention of Peter/other and Stuart/other

SUMMARY: A behind-the-scenes scandal at DragonFire leads Peter and Stuart to face some shocking truths about their pasts--and about each other.

KEYWORDS: Angst, hurt/comfort

WARNINGS: Attempted rape. References to child sexual abuse, mental illness and other disturbing themes.

THE GHOST IN YOU
Part 1
by Nicole

Stuart Glazer entered the DragonFire offices, flipping through an armfull of papers. Contracts, bills, requests -- the usual tree-killing overload, all in triplicate. Most of which was redundant anyway, having already been faxed or emailed to him. But, no matter the technological advances, people always seemed to want to do things in the most inefficent way possible.

"Good morning, Stuart."

He looked up for the first time at the sound of his name. Sarah -- the beautiful woman whose main job was to simply sit at a desk by the door and greet with expensive, toothy charm -- smiled up at him.

"Morning," he returned. He turned back to the paper in his hands. A moment later, his brain registered that something was missing from the normal office sounds.

No yelling.

Not that Peter Dragon was always yelling. On the contrary, he could be quite charming if he put his mind to it. It was just that around the office, he almost never gave a damn about being charming. Unless, of course, they had someone visiting who was important enough to suck up to...

Stuart turned back to the girl at the desk. She had returned to flipping through a magazine, delicately eating a muffin. "Sarah?" She looked up at him. "Have you seen Peter?"

For a split second, she froze. "Peter's here?" she asked with apparent nonchalance. Despite her demeanor, however, Stuart couldn't help but notice that she instantly put the muffin away in her top desk drawer and began sweeping the crumbs into a small trashcan.

"His car's in the parking lot. You haven't talked to him today?"

The magazine was hidden in another drawer, and she started compulsively straightening the items on her desk as she spoke. "No, but his door's been closed since I got here..."

Stuart nodded his thanks and left her to her sudden cleaning. The fact that Peter was lying low in his office was no odd thing -- most of his morning hours were spent in there nursing a hangover of some kind. What was our of character was the fact that he had apparently gotten into the offices early enough to beat the always punctual Sarah. Peter was certainly *not* a morning person.

Curious, Stuart decided to make Peter's office his first stop. He knocked on the door. After a minute with no answer -- no snarled invitation to enter, no instructions to "leave him the hell alone" -- Stuart frowned and pushed the door open slowly, knocking as he did so. "Peter?" Still nothing.

He pushed the door the rest of the way open to reveal Peter at his desk, head pillowed on his folded arms. Stuart entered the room, closing the door behind him. He approached the desk, even cleared his throat once or twice, but the sleeping form did not move. He took a moment to stand and look over the figure in front of him.

Peter's suit was rumpled and looked suspiciously like the one he had been wearing the day before. That worried Stuart more than anything -- Peter would never be caught wearing a wrinkled suit, let alone be seen in the same thing two days in a row. If there was some kind of total laundry breakdown, Peter would go out and buy a new suit. Even if all the stores in the greater LA area were closed, he'd still find a way. Which meant that, for some reason, he hadn't gone home last night.

Stuart's frown deepened. He set his armload of papers on the desk and moved to his boss' side, placing a hand gently on his shoulder. "Peter?" he repeated.

Peter's head jerked up quickly, obviously startled. Reflexively he mumbled, "I'm up. I'm up," in the unconvincing way of someone who doesn't want to admit that he has been caught asleep. He looked around wildly, only relaxing when he saw Stuart beside him. "Christ, it's just you."

He rubbed his eyes roughly. "What do you want, Stuart?"

Stuart watched him, concerned. "I was, uh, surprised to see you here so early." Peter said nothing, just stared up at Stuart blankly. A moment of silence passed, and Stuart resisted the urge to fidget. "This might be a silly question, but... Did you stay here all night?"

At the word "night," Peter glanced at the window as if surprised. The sun was obvious through the closed blinds. He groaned softly and pinched the bridge of his nose as if the mere thought of sunlight made his head ache. "I repeat," he said, not looking at the other man, "what do you want?"

Stuart noted the tussled hair, the flush to the otherwise pale face, the slump of the shoulders. Not to mention the fact that Peter hadn't thrown him out of the office yet, nor made any comment about the fact that Stuart was wearing the yellow tie that Peter had -- more than once -- referred to as the "longest banana in all of West Hollywood." There was something definitely not right going on here.

"I just... Well, I..." He took a deep breath and plunged onward. "You look like hell, Peter."

To his surprise, Peter laughed. The laugh quickly turned into a raspy cough, however. "You might want to work on those flattery skills," Peter said hoarsely.

The fact that Peter didn't instantly throw something at his head gave him the courage to carry on. "I'm serious. You don't look well at all. You should go see a doctor."

"I'm fine."

Stuart pressed on, using the slim opening. "At least go home and rest..."

The look on Peter's face shifted, and Stuart knew he'd gone too far even before his boss opened his mouth.

"Look," Peter said angrily, "last time I checked, you were on payroll as my VP of Production, not as my *mother.* I'm sure there's something you could find to go do. Get out of here."

Stuart flinched. He hesitated, but his concern won out over his better judgement. "I just think --"

"I don't care."

"But, Peter..."

"What did I say?" he growled. "Get the hell out of here."

The familiar furious tone was enough to tell Stuart that he had pushed too far. Grabbing his papers, he turned and left the office.

Peter watched him leave, waiting until the door was again closed before he rested his forehead against the cool wood of the table's surface.

Part 2
by
Nat

Stuart, not one to be deterred easily where Peter's health and safety were concerned, kept careful tabs on his boss for the rest of the day. Peter emerged from his office only twice; once to send Lonnie to Starbucks for coffee and a bagel, and once for a meeting.

Said meeting was a nightmare. Peter snapped at Wendy, threw a hefty stack of papers at Adam Rafkin, and walked headlong into Stuart on the way out. He yelled at the other man, then attempted to walk through the wall. Cradling his aching head and rapidly cooling coffee, Peter escaped to his office, where he remained for the rest of the day. Everyone was glad to leave the office at five, most employees slinking out, sneaking glances at Peter's closed door as they left.

That night, Stuart couldn't sleep, and took off on a late-night walk through the city toward the DragonFire building. The light in Peter's office was still on, and Stuart was instantly worried. He sat on the sidewalk and watched the window carefully. Stuart was just about to doze off when a figure passed by the window--big, burly--clearly not Peter. Stuart stood, and debated whether to investigate further; the decision was made for him when he remembered all the exterior doors were locked, and he had lost his key.

The next day at work, more of the same. Tired, sick-looking Peter, snapping at everyone and everything in his path. Worried Stuart. Clueless, uncaring, or indifferent everyone else. It made Stuart physicaly ill.

On his lunch hour, Stuart dropped by his apartment for clothes and food, determined to wait Peter out. His inquisitive nature, combined with his boundless adoration, worship and concern for Peter had won over his better judgement.

Part Three
by
PEJA

Five O'clock came. The Employees went home and silence gosted over the office.

Staurt crouched in the secluded corner, watching. Waiting. Worried near out of his mind.

Peter Dragon remained cloistered in his office, unaware and apparently unconcerned that his strange behavior was the gossip of the building.

Darkness settled slowly on the office building. The normal sounds of the day took on a strange and eerie quality as Stuart built worry on top of worry until he wouldn't have been surprised if the spectre of death walked over and tapped him on the shoulder.

The loud clang of a door opening and closing reached his ears just as that thought filtered through his mind. Stifling a sharp cry of alarm he peered around the corner. The hugh shadowy figure entering the reception area had him cowering deeper into the darkness.

PART FOUR
by
Vali

He hadn't been seen or heard, he was fairly certain of that; and the figure now striding through the reception area was most definitely human, not some otherworldly specter. Stuart shook his head impatiently at his own overheated imagination...

Then his eyes widened as the figure passed closer by him.

As the man reached Peter's office door, it was suddenly flung open, sending a wedge of light spilling into the reception area. Stuart ducked further into the shadows, but hovered close enough to carefully observe the scene before him: Peter, looking haggard and wary as he leaned against the doorjamb, shirtsleeves rolled to the elbows. His visitor, distinctly natty in an exquisitely cut suit and tie, broad shoulders and steel-blue eyes radiating power. Both men stood there for a moment, staring at one another. Finally, the visitor spoke.

"My sympathies, Peter," Bobby G said. "You look like hell."

Peter scowled, the gesture a vague, exhausted imitation of the real thing. "What the fuck do you want from me?" he snapped, still leaning in the doorway.

"A little *courtesy* would be nice," Bobby G said, reaching into the inner pockets of his suit jacket. "For starters. Especially considering what I've brought you..."

He removed a folded piece of paper from one pocket, holding it out to Peter. Peter's eyes widened; he made a quick grab for it, unfolded it and started reading fervently as Bobby G looked him over with no small amusement. As Stuart watched, Peter turned the paper over, then back again, and read it through one more time.

Finally, Peter looked up at his boss again. "Are they sure?" he finally said.

Bobby G smirked a little. "Absolutely sure, Peter." He folded his arms, letting his eyebrows rise higher. "The real question is...what are you going to do about it?"

Stuart, watching closely, waited for Peter to explode. Instead, the younger man stared down at the piece of paper in his hand, looking uncertain. Even somewhat...frightened.

"I don't know," Peter said at length. "I can't--I won't do anything that hurts Georgia, you got it?"

Bobby G reached for the paper. "Peter, I'm well aware--"

"*Fuck* aware," Peter suddenly snarled from between clenched teeth. "I won't *do* it, you got that? Jane can look out for herself, but I swear to God, Bobby, if they so much as *look* at Georgia funny I'll--"

"Peter," Bobby G rumbled, "calm down. You are making far too much out of this."

"But--"

"*Calm down.*"

Bobby G reached out a hand again; this time, stroking the side of Peter's face. Stuart, frowning in surprise, thought suddenly of a rider trying to calm a skittish horse. As the hand ran along his cheekbone, Peter didn't flinch or jerk away.

"Furthermore," Bobby G continued, "all antipathies aside, considering that Jane is currently carrying my child--"

That got a laugh. "*Your* kid?" Peter demanded.

"Let's not get into that argument again, Peter, it's very late. My *point* was, I don't prefer to see any harm come to either Georgia *or* Jane." His eyes roamed over Peter. "And I don't really think you want that, either."

Peter looked away for a moment, unwittingly staring in Stuart's direction. Stuart held his breath, feeling bewildered. Georgia? Jane? Harm...what were they *talking* about? And *what* was on that piece of paper?

Peter clutched the mysterious paper. "Can I keep this?" he asked Bobby.

Bobby thought it over, then shrugged. "If it's so important to you...go ahead."

Peter nodded, then turned and disappeared into his office for a second. When he came back to the reception area--the paper presumably in some more secure location--he still looked exhausted, but also distinctly relieved.

"So," Bobby mused, looking as cool and collected as always, "do I get any thanks for this?"

Peter shrugged. "Okay, fine," he said, voice not entirely casual. "Thanks."

Bobby smiled. "That's not what I meant," he replied, "and you know it." Then he grabbed Peter by the shoulders, pulled him close and kissed him, hard.

Stuart almost jumped from his hiding place in sheer astonishment. He watched, unwillingly transfixed, as Peter's arms slowly reached up and circled the broad, muscular expanse of Bobby's back, eyes closed and lips parting beneath Bobby's forcible embrace. Bobby was *crushing* Peter to his own body, one hand holding the blond head steady as their tongues entwined and their caresses--if you could call them that--grew more fervent.

Stuart's head was spinning. *This* was Peter's terrible secret, it had to be--he was being blackmailed, about something (God knew what, it could probably be one of dozens of things). Sexually blackmailed...by his own boss! He had to *do* something, he had to rescue Peter from this horrible, unwanted--

His thoughts died away when Peter--with surprising ease--broke the ferocious kiss and leaned back a little in Bobby's arms. Peter's expression wasn't one of a man being blackmailed, of a man being forced into a particularly humiliating form of hush payment. The blue eyes, still tired, were actually...soft.

Affectionate. Even...*no,* Stuart thought, shaking his head. No. Not *loving.*

He watched Bobby carefully. The larger man again reached up one hand, stroking Peter's cheekbone, briefly touching his hair. That steely bulldog face, the face that could make a production VP piss his pants at fifty paces, was transformed. Bobby looked like...he looked like...

Either Stuart had just entered the Twilight Zone without Rod Serling's assistance--which was entirely possible, he thought, at this point--or he was crouching here in the darkness, staring at a Bobby Gianopolis who looked hopelessly, completely, utterly in love. In *love.*

With--it *couldn't* be!--an equally besotted Peter fucking Dragon.

"You *do* look like hell," Bobby said, his voice softer. "How long has this been going on?"

"Three days," Peter replied, the fingers of one hand running idly along Bobby's lapels. "They're not easy to put off."

Bobby nodded, not looking surprised. "Let's go."

"They might be coming tonight," Peter said uncertainly. "Fucking assholes--"

"Let them," Bobby said, his voice sharp but his expression gentle. "We've got ammunition against them. A fucking shitload of ammunition. And you are clearly in desperate need of rest...eventually, that is."

Something hungry and heated flickered in Bobby's expression, then departed again.

Peter nodded wordlessly, then turned and started to walk. The two men traveled silently through the reception area, Bobby's arm held possessively around Peter's shoulders. At the main doors, Peter stopped for a second.

"Are you sure about this?" he said again, clearly looking for reassurance. Guard completely down...around *Bobby,* Stuart thought, still in disbelief.

Bobby shrugged insouciantly. "Surely, Peter, you must know what I'm capable of when I really, *really* want something. By now."

"Fuck you, asshole," Peter replied. The tone of his voice made it almost a term of endearment.

Bobby smiled. "Fuck you too, you little prick," he responded, in exactly the same fashion, then kissed Peter once again before they disappeared into the night.

Stuart waited several moments to be sure they were gone. Then he sat where he was, holding his head in his hands, trying to process what he'd just seen. This must be a dream. Or a hallucination. Or some elaborate practical joke the whole office was in on, Peter and Bobby included, because there was *no* way, it would never--it--he--oh, my GOD!

"Oh, my *God,*" he repeated aloud to the empty room. It was completely--it--

The main doors were opening. Peter's office door had been left open, the light still half-illuminating the reception area, but Stuart didn't wait to get a glimpse of who was arriving before ducking down again.

Probably Peter, coming back for that mysterious piece of paper (he *had* to see it, Stuart had to know just exactly *that* had to do with all this unbelievable--astonishing--it absolutely COULDN'T be--).

He jumped a mile in the air when he felt a hand on his shoulder, letting out a "Whaa!" of shock. He stumbled, nearly fell over, and then turned and blinked to see who stood before him.

"Stuart," Wendy said, looking not put off or guilty but simply confused. "What the hell are *you* doing here?"

PART FIVE
by
Nicole

Peter awoke with a start. Fitful rest had been all he was able to get lately, and it left him more than a little disoriented. It took him a full, tense minute to place where he was; he was only able to relax once he realized that he was home, on his living room couch.

The tension returned as the events of the dream flooded back. Bobby G.? What the fuck was *that* about? If he hadn't felt so horrible already, it would have been enough to send him there. And, not only had his feverish brain cooked up one hell of a sick fantasy, but it had added Stuart into the mix. Stuart hiding there, in the shadows, after everyone else had gone home. Watching, and seeing the two of them together.

As for Wendy... Well, he had woken up before he found out where that whole thing was leading to. Probably for the best. No doubt Stuart and Wendy were about to go at it next, right there in his office...

He shuddered and sat up slowly. The leather couch stuck to his exposed skin, pulling away painfully as he moved. Not that there was all that much skin exposed: He had fallen asleep in his suit, again. Well, "fallen asleep" was probably too generous a term.

His eyes felt like they had sand in them, mimicking his sore throat. Peter groaned and forced himself up off the couch and toward the kitchen. He was tired of feeling like the gum on the bottom of some exec's shoe. But he didn't have time to worry about it, and he *certainly* wasn't going to the doctor. So he would simply have to try and ignore it.

He started the coffee and leaned heavily against the counter. He had to admit that it made sense that he would be dreaming about his boss, though he wished it would have taken some other form. Bobby G. had been on his mind lately, because there was one major part of that dream that was true. Those bastards were threatening to go after Georgia, unless he could get them their money.

Bobby had been by to see him at the office, late the other night. He said that he had been contacted -- by the same men who had been in touch with Peter. They had apparently been hoping that his boss could get more out of him than they had. Such gentlemen, he thought with a sneer. Being so very reasonable *before* they threatened to hurt his little girl.

The headache was getting worse and it was only nine in the morning. Peter did a double take, rechecking the clock. Nine already? They were filming today, scheduled to start at ten. He had to get ready, get down there, make sure things went quickly and smoothly. Because, after the crashing defeat of Slow Torture, the only way he was going to be able to get things settled with those goons was if this project turned into a fast and major success.

Deciding to get the coffee on his way out the door, Peter headed for the stairs. At least he'd actually show up in a clean suit today. That was something, right?

Halfway up the flight, he stumbled and pitched forward. He landed against the polished wood, taking most of the impact on his right elbow. He cried out with the sharp pain, unable to do anything for a few seconds except lie there and hurt. Slivers of agony shot up and down his arm, and he had to forced himself to breathe slowly through his clenched jaw.

When the pain finally began to recede, he realized he was shaking. Maybe Stuart was right. Maybe he should go to a doctor...

No. No way. He *hated* doctors. Hated them ever since he was little. He'd gotten very sick once, and had to be taken to the hospital. No one there knew what was wrong with him, and he remembered one injection after another as they tried to figure it out. Each time someone would tell him that this should be it, that this medicine should make him better. But he continued to get worse, until they finally decided to leave him until they could decide what to do. And, without them, he had gotten better. Doctors were just a bunch of people with fancy titles who pretended that they could help you, as long as you had the money to give them. Sometimes they guessed right; sometimes they didn't. But he had decided way back then that he was better off without them.

He rarely got sick anyway. And, the times he did, he dealt with it until it went away. Which is what he was going to do now.

Anger hit him then. Anger at the medical profession for pretending to be able to fix things while muddling along without a clue. Anger at Bobby G. for appearing in his head. And a whole lot of anger at himself for being so helpless. Somewhere in his mind a voice pointed out that it was all irrational, but he ignored it. Instead he used all that anger to get himself to his feet and on the way to making himself look presentable.

Everything was a show. No one was who he appeared to be. And everyone was on their own.

He was Peter Dragon. Invincible Peter fucking Dragon.

Showtime.

PART SIX
by
Nat

He put on a show all right. Invincible Peter Fucking Dragon threw no less than three temper tantrums between the hours of ten AM and twelve noon. The first potentially fatal situation was nothing more than a mistake in editing. Ten seconds of stock footage had been ruined, footage it would take all of five minutes to replace.

"It's a matter of taking a camera to the highway and filming cars, Peter," Stuart tried to reassure him. "It won't cost us a dime. We can do it on the way back to the offices tonight."

Peter glared at him. "Stuart, shut the fuck up," he growled, slumped in his chair on the set. Stuart looked shocked and wounded. Peter felt vaguely guilty, which only pissed him off more.

His second temper tantrum was over costumes. Nothing was right. Every article of clothing within a ten mile radius was too loose, too tight, too shiny, too dull. Not enough sequins, or too many. Most of the crew had more sense than to argue with him.

The third tirade didn't really have a purpose. Anything and everything was an instant target. Stuart looked at his watch, decided it was close enough to lunch time, and escaped to the bathroom with a bottle of aspirin. Peter joined him a few minutes later. Stuart was perched on the edge of one of the sinks, holding the aspirin. Peter snagged it from him unceremoniously, dumped about six of the little pills into his palm, and downed them without the benefit of water. Stuart frowned. "Peter, I don't think--"

Peter whirled on him, eyes bright and angry, ready to do battle. "That's exactly fucking right, Stuart. You don't think." He closed his eyes and bent over, clutching the edges of the sink. So, so tired. The doctor wasn't looking so bad after all. Stuart stood, worried.

"Peter . . ." He lay a hand in the middle of his boss's back. When Peter straightened up, his eyes were the tiniest bit red around the edges, his voice shaking the tiniest bit.

"They threatened Georgia, Stuart. They're gonna hurt my little girl if I don't get them their money."

Stuart rubbed Peter's back almost unconsciously, comforting him. "Who, Peter? How much money do they want? And why Georgia?"

Peter took a deep breath, clutched the aspirin bottle as if for reassurance, and began to explain.

PART SEVEN
by
Vali

I thought it was a straight-up, regular financing deal. I read *all* the paperwork, I--" Peter broke off, shaking his head as he stared fixedly down at the aspirin bottle. Turning it over and over in his hands. "I let Bobby handle the details. I *let* him set this whole *fucking* thing up, that's what I can't--"

"Bobby?" His hand still stroking Peter's back--gently, making the lightest of circles--Stuart frowned in confusion. "I thought Bobby just snapped his fingers and told other people to go get funding."

A bitter smile. "Yeah, Stuart, *exactly.* Shit, *you* smell a fucking rat already and it's not even--I'm a moron, okay? You just go out there and tell Wendy and Rafkin and Lonnie and everybody else what a *fucking* moron I was to trust Bobby Gianapolis for one--"

"Peter," Stuart broke in, "I still don't understand any of this."

Peter slammed the aspirin bottle on the bathroom sink in answer, then let his fingers slowly curl around it again.

"What kind of shape do you think DragonFire's in, Stuart?" he asked. "Financially, I mean. Just a guess."

Stuart frowned again. He'd never been big on math. "Uh...pretty good, I guess. I mean, I know we took some big losses with Slow Torture stateside, but the European residuals alone are..." He broke off, seeing his boss's shoulders start to shake in mirthless laughter. Peter turned his head to look at Stuart, his eyes startlingly blue.

"It's a house of cards, Stuart," he said softly, with a fixed, angry expression. "It's one huge in-house Ponzi scheme. Bobby's up to his neck in legit loans, under-the-table loans, Vinny the Shark loans, check fraud, embezzled funds, laundered bank accounts--every penny we make, someone else owns a dollar."

Peter put the aspirin bottle down again, more gently, and clutched the edges of the sink. "We are in *deep,* Stuart. And I'm not even counting what he steals to finance that house of his, the beachfront, the boats, the private jets--he's been treating the company like his own little trust fund for years." His voice dropped lower. "Turns out, you see, he's been robbing *Peter* to pay Paul since DragonFire was founded. And Paul wants his money, with interest. Right now."

Slowly, feeling slightly overwhelmed, Stuart nodded. For a few moments, he'd been tempted to wonder if this tale wasn't at least partly fabricated, a coverup for some peccadillo of Peter's...but somehow, he knew it wasn't. The exhaustion and dazed disbelief in Peter's eyes was too blatant, and too deep, for this to be any mere act.

"How did you find all this out?" he finally said.

"Stuart, I'm *begging* for Gun Club money from Wendy's pimp and three idiot camel jockeys--what do you *think* I'm gonna say when Bobby G tells me he's found someone who'll bankroll the whole thing? Upfront? The papers all seemed legit, there was a team from Beverly Hills Savings..." He shook his head. "That 'funding' was a fucking triple-digit-interest loan. Bobby gets the money, I get the shaft. And now that he's got my *signature,* Bobby can rest easy--if I blow the whistle, I look like I was in it all along."

Peter gazed out the halfway-closed bathroom door, staring at his own office. "If you coulda seen the look on his face, telling me all this..."

Stuart rubbed his temples. He needed more aspirin, quickly. "Then Georgia is..."

"*Collateral.*" Peter spat out the word. "Don't ask me why it had to be her--but hey, what the fuck does Bobby care? It's not like she's *his* kid, right? It's not like it's *his* daughter whose face they're gonna take a razor blade to if I don't somehow manage to cough up more money than I'd make in three lifetimes of--"

Peter was speaking faster and faster, his face red and his voice shaking violently. Without thinking, Stuart quickly drew an arm around his shoulders. "Peter, you *have* to stay calm--"

"I don't fucking *have* to do anything!" snarled a scarlet-faced Peter, pulling away as though Stuart had the plague. "You think you *know* how this feels, Stuart? You think you have a FUCKING CLUE how to handle--"

"Peter!"

Peter was hunched over the sink now, swaying unsteadily on his feet; for a moment, Stuart thought he might vomit. He hastily put his hands against Peter's shoulders again, trying to steady him; Peter just stood there, his eyes closed, the rage seeping from him like air from a punctured tire.

"Stuart," he whispered brokenly, his head down, "what am I gonna *do?*"

Stuart swallowed, racking his brain for some sort of quick, painless solution and coming up empty. He held Peter steady as the other man slowly straightened up again.

"I don't know," he finally answered. "But panic isn't going to solve anything--"

"You should know."

The knee-jerk, half-hearted insult just made Stuart shrug. There were more important concerns right now. He stood there, silently, and realized his hands were still holding Peter's shoulders, softly caressing them beneath the cloth of his suit jacket.

Peter turned his head slightly. He looked pale, and somewhat ill. "I can't think," he said. "I've been trying all night *and* last night to come up with something, and I can't think of anything, and I can't--"

"Peter--no. I'm sorry, you *have* to calm down."

"Goddammit, I--"

"Peter."

The other man didn't answer. He didn't move, either, when Stuart removed his hands from Peter's shoulders and drew his arms around him. Not tightly. But close enough.

Peter didn't embrace him back, but he didn't flinch or pull away, either. Stuart's heart started beating faster.

"Stuart?" he said, after a moment.

Stuart couldn't look at him. "Uh-huh?"

There was a long pause. "I'm so scared," Peter said softly.

Stuart put a hand up, lightly touching the blond hair. "I know," he said back, equally softly.

The two men stood there, their bodies close but not against one another, not meeting each other's eyes. Stuart's fingers stroked Peter's hair, rested on the nape of his neck. Little by little, he felt Peter start to lower his chin, so close to resting his head against Stuart's shoulder--

The sound of footsteps and voices in the office made Peter leap back as though shot from a cannon. He stumbled on the marble bathroom floor, almost lost his footing and was again bent over the sink--this time for balance--when Wendy and Jenny Johnson appeared at the bathroom door. Stuart studied a spot on the wall, trying to appear casual. Wonderful, he thought to himself...just who he *didn't* want to see right now, DragonFire's new Glimmer Twins. Joined at the goddamn hip.

Wendy nodded, cordially. "I've got the figures here for the location shoot on Sevulpeda." She handed the papers over to Peter; nodded, quickly righting himself and taking them from her outstretched hand. With no further ado, she turned and walked away.

Jenny stood there and smiled. Sweetly. Her eyes on Stuart. "We're not interrupting anything," she asked, "are we?"

Stuart smiled back. Someday, he thought to himself, if I *can* get away with it... "Not at all," he said. "Thanks for asking, though."

Jenny turned to leave. "It's just that you both looked so...cozy," she said, very offhandedly.

She strolled away. Stuart turned his head and saw Peter glaring holes into her back, his mouth set and an angry twitch in his jaw. "Peter--" he ventured.

Peter shoved the papers at Stuart, not bothering to look at him. "Let's go," he said sharply, straightening his jacket with abrupt motions. "Work to do."

"Peter--"

"We have fucking *work* to do, Stuart, do you *understand* that concept? Quit standing there like some fucking *statue* and--"

The rest of the sentence was lost as he began walking off. The moment was over, the Peter Dragon mask on yet again. Stuart hastened to follow, catching up with him as they entered the crowded main reception area. The two men walked shoulder to shoulder, not speaking; at the far end of the room, Peter stopped again, turning and acknowledging Stuart's presence for the first time.

"They offered me another way to pay them back," he said, too softly for anyone but Stuart to hear. "The two that came around yesterday. Another way."

As the meaning of Peter's words slowly dawned on him, Stuart's jaw dropped. He stared at his boss, who gazed back with a quiet, ferocious defiance in his eyes.

"You think I won't, Stuart?" he almost hissed, not raising his voice. "Yeah, *you* wouldn't--you're too fucking pure to even *consider* something like that, right? In my shoes? This is my baby we're talking about, Stuart--I'll do *whatever* I have to, to keep them away from her. I don't care." His eyes were glittering blue coals. "And if you can't handle that, then *fuck* you."

Stuart placed a hand on Peter's arm. "Peter, I swear I wasn't--"

Peter wrenched his arm away, turned on his heel and stalked out of the room.

********

Wendy watched as Peter almost ran out the main DragonFire doors, his face pale and drawn, dark shadows ringing his eyes. She took a step or two, meaning to follow him, then stopped in her tracks. Not a good idea. Not the way things were between them now.

She'd never been naive enough to think they had a future together. For one thing, even if he wouldn't admit it to himself, Peter seemed to have more than a passing interest in his own gender (if she had no other talent, she did have an instinct for what a client *really* wanted, under all the macho posturing...). And for another, with the money equation taken out of their relationship, they seemed to have a unique gift for driving one another insane.

Coming home to find Jenny Johnson in *their* bed, though--that had been far more hurtful than she'd ever imagined it could be. She'd lashed out, gotten her revenge, in the best way she knew how. And he'd lashed back. And when the dust finally settled, she was saddled with a girlfriend she didn't want, Peter was all by his lonesome and they'd both lost something incredibly rare and precious in this town: a friend. She wanted to talk to him--she *should* talk to him. Sit him down, just like in the old days, and half-cajole, half-browbeat him into telling her just what the hell was going on. Something very big--she could figure that much out just from watching him--and something very, very bad...

No. Doubtless he'd laugh in her face, tell her that if he needed help he sure as hell wouldn't ask for it from some aging ex-hooker.

She rifled through the financing papers she held in her hands, not really reading them. Peter'd had a lot of this stuff piled on his desk the past few days--must've had some kind of funding windfall. About time *something* started going right on this damn movie...

She *had* to talk to him. Tonight, she'd bite the bullet, head on over to his house and just ask him once and for all. The worst he could do was tell her to fuck off.

She hoped.

********

Alone in DragonFire's extended corridor of hallways, Peter stopped and leaned with his back against a wall for a moment, closing his eyes. He was feeling dizzy again, but fortunately it wasn't accelerating into the outright vertigo that had sent him sprawling on his own living room floor. And fortunately, he'd managed to avoid getting sick right in front of Stuart. It wasn't nausea, exactly--it was like a huge hand, gripping and then releasing his throat and sending everything rocketing upwards as he gasped for breath. It had been coming and going for several days now...

Stress. That's all it was, just stress. Understandably. He did *not* need a fucking doctor.

Stuart. Shit. *Amazing,* what stress could do to your better judgment in matters of...never mind. He had infinitely bigger things to worry about right now.

He stood there, huddled against the wall, and closed his eyes. Tired. He had never been this tired before in his entire life, never...

"Feeling a little peaked today, are we?" a voice inquired.

Peter almost jumped out of his skin. He opened his eyes, and saw the bald-bulldog face of his boss peering down at him. His teeth gritted of their own accord.

"You need to watch that, Peter," Bobby commented, with a little grin. "You don't want people thinking you can't take the pressure, can't cut it on the job...now do you?"

"*Fuck* you," Peter replied, almost hissing.

Bobby just smiled. "Be careful what you ask for, Peter," he replied. "Be very careful."

Then he turned and walked away without a second glance.

********

Alone in her spacious, well-appointed office, Jenny Johnson rested her chin on her hands and contemplated events.

Everything was going according to plan. Tonight, her bosses--her *real* bosses--would be paying Peter yet another visit. They'd be needing their money. And he wouldn't have it. And he--being, despite all his myriad faults, no fool--would know he had to pony up anyway, right then. Right there. No more delays.

And they'd promised her that she would get to watch.

Jenny smiled.

PART EIGHT
by
Nicole

Stuart didn't see Peter for the rest of the lunch break. He found himself caught between wanting to find him to make sure that he was alright and needing to simply sit somewhere and digest what he had heard. DragonFire falling apart, *Peter* falling apart, and Bobby G sitting pretty in the middle of the whole mess. He couldn't believe that the man had screwed them all like this. Not that he actually liked Bobby, but this still seemed low even for him. And to think that it had all been so secretive, so discreet.

What else was going on around here that he didn't have a clue about?

He forced himself to focus. Right now Peter was the bigger problem here. Something had to be done. Some way to fix all this. Some way that he could help. He'd just have to deal with the rest later.

But Stuart found himself at a total loss. Sure, now he knew most of the details of what was happening, but it didn't put him any closer to finding a solution. And Peter needed a solution soon, before this whole thing tore him to pieces.

He made his way back to the set, not paying attention to anything happening around him. Georgia's sweet face kept appearing in his mind's eye, morphing into Peter's tortured expression and then back again. The scene from the bathroom played over and over in his head. He had never seen Peter so vunerable before. Never seen him hurting so badly. "I'm so scared," he had whispered, there in Stuart's arms. Even the memory of the words cut through him like a laser aimed straight for his heart. Peter Dragon, scared? It felt like the world might turn over at any second.

He didn't see Wendy until he almost ran into her. Judging from the look of surprise on her face, she hadn't seen him either. They both stood there for a moment, looking at each other, trying to think of something to say.

Stuart suddenly found himself wanting to confide in her, if only to share this confusion and worry with another human being. But, considering the way things were between her and Peter, he knew she wouldn't understand. Probably wouldn't even care. She might even laugh in his face.

But she surprised him. "Stuart," she said tentatively, pulling him out of his thoughts, "is he going to be okay?"

What? The quiet voice was heavy with concern, though she was doing her best to keep it under wraps. She was asking simply because she couldn't help *but* ask, and that touched him. Maybe she did care after all? Maybe he could tell her, see if she had some kind of a suggestion, an idea, anything that might help.

But did he have the right to share what was going on with her?

Probably not. If Peter wanted her to know, he would tell her. Stuart couldn't betray the confidence, even if he was doing it with the best of intentions. Besides, she would probably just use whatever he said as ammunition in some plan between her and that bitch gossip girlfriend of hers. Maybe the whole concern thing was just an act to get him to spill what was going on...

Stuart felt a guilty wave of childish pride run through him. Peter confided in him and not her. Nah nah nah.

The look on Wendy's face told him that he was wrong. She *was* worried; he could plainly see that, even if she was trying to cover it up. Maybe he should tell her to go talk to Peter. Or would that just make things worse?

He was at a total loss for what to do. About any of this. And now they had to go back to the set, going on with business as if nothing were wrong.

"Wendy, it's time to get back -- Oh, Stuart."

Stuart supressed a groan. Jenny was holding open the set door, the ultra-fake smile on her face doing nothing to combat the firey anger in her eyes. Stuart glared at her, not even bothering to plaster on a false grin.

He was getting really tired of all these games. They hated each other. But, for some reason, sometimes she felt the need to go all sticky sweet, as if she were running for some pagent or another. He just didn't see the point, other than the fact that it was incredibly infuriating.

Wait. That probably was the point.

Wendy nodded to Jenny, but her eyes returned to Stuart. There seemed to be some kind of pleading there, begging him to tell her what was happening. He looked from her to Jenny and back again. Finally, honesty won out.

"I'm worried about him too," he said softly, his voice pitched so that only she could hear. With that he turned and headed into the set, squeezing past the now frowning Jenny without so much as a sideways glance.

Peter was already waiting inside, clearly unhappy to be doing so. "About time someone showed up to do some fucking *work* around here," were the angry words that greeted them. Wendy shot Stuart a look that he tried very hard to ignore. Jenny didn't even so much as look in Peter's direction, walking to her customary seat. Stuart, for his part, muttered an apology and took his chair next to Peter's, watching his boss closely while trying not to be obvious about it.

The leader of DragonFire was plainly running on his last energy reserves. Not that the exhaustion was anything new, but this looked even worse than before. Peter had his elbows on the table with his chin resting on his hands, as if he no longer had the strength to even hold up his head. Though he doubted anyone else had noticed, Stuart could see tiny beads of sweat forming along the other man's hairline. Peter's tie was just slightly crooked, implying that it had been undone and then very hastily knotted up again. All little things, but things nonetheless. Out of character things.

Things that made Stuart more and more concerned.

Off to his right, the director yelled "Cut." Stuart reflexively glanced at the actors, looking for the mistake. He didn't see anything, but that didn't mean anything at all. He turned back to Peter, just in time to meet his eyes. Peter scowled and turned to watch the scene set up again, coughing deeply. Stuart reached for the pitcher of water on the table, intending to fill a glass for his boss.

"If you don't stop hovering, I swear to god I'm going to break your neck."

The low snarled words froze him in mid reach. No one else seemed to have heard them, and the way that Peter was staring straight ahead made him wonder if maybe he had imagined it. But the tenseness of Peter's shoulders and the way he was stiffly sitting up straighter than before told Stuart that he hadn't made it up. His hand dropped, returning to his lap.

The next few hours were a torturous replay of the morning's shooting. Nothing was right. Nothing could pass Peter Dragon's standards. He criticized and he raged, at one point even going so far as to send the half-empty water pitcher flying across the room, narrowly missing one of the camera men. It was at that point that Stuart suggested that they all take a break.

Which turned out to be a mistake. Peter turned on him then, focusing all of that ire in his direction. "A break? A *break*? Do you need a break from sitting here and watching all this crap? Is it wearing you out, Stuart? Because it's certainly wearing *me* out." He turned to face the cast and crew in general.

"All of this *crap* that you people call work. Do you think this shit is going to sell? Do you? Do you fucking people think that we're going to make any money at all with this poorly-acted, badly written, student film bullshit? You people," he added, focusing on the actors, "were hired because you were supposed to be able to *act.* Anybody know what that means? Obviously fucking not. Or you would be *doing* it, instead of just fucking around on my time."

The room was silent. Everyone was afraid to be the first person to make a sound and single themselves out for a Peter Dragon rant. Most of them were looking at the floor, Stuart noticed, as if they were willing a fissure to open up and swallow them down. He couldn't really blame them.

But he knew what he had to do, as much as he hated the idea. "Peter," he began, in the futile hope that he could be the one to calm the boss down. At the very least, it would turn the attention back on him, and the rest of the room would be spared.

Peter turned on him. "What?" he spat out.

"A break?" he tried again, noticing the flush that had returned to the other man's face, as well as the slightly unfocused look in the blue eyes.

There was a pause. Then: "Fine. Whatever." With that, Peter stormed out of the soundstage.

Around the set, people glanced at each other, taken aback by the sudden change. Many just shrugged, somewhat used to this kind of thing by now. But not everyone was able to just accept it. Stuart heard one woman, an extra on the film, say to the person standing beside her, "God, I heard this guy was an asshole, but *really*..."

He fought down the urge to repremand her, to defend Peter. Instead he stood up, calmly told everyone that they could take five, and headed out the same door Peter had exited, not looking back at any of them. Let them draw their own conclusions, he decided. He had to go make sure Peter was okay.

Stuart entered the empty hallway just in time to see Peter collapse.

PART NINE
by
Nat

"Peter!" He got there just barely fast enough, flinging himself under Peter's slowly-toppling body, sinking to the ground, his boss cradled in his arms. Peter was shaking, his entire body quivering, twitching mindlessly, sweat beading on his face. "Peter, God . . ." Shaking himself, so badly he could barely hold onto Peter.

He was vaguely aware of someone standing above him, muttering quietly to themselves. He tore his frantic gaze away from Peter's face for an instant, looking upwards; Wendy, foot tapping, cell phone against her ear, wearing a grim expression. Peter moaned softly, frowning as he nestled against Stuart, eyes squeezed shut. Stuart held on as tight as he could, too afraid, too frantic to be in any way useful. "Peter, please . . ."

Someone there, several someones who tore Peter from Stuart's arms. Stuart started to follow him; Wendy and Adam grabbed him, held him back. "Paramedics, Stuart," Wendy crooned in his ear, arm tight around his waist, "They're going to take care of him, don't worry. It'll be okay." Stuart realized he was crying, straining toward Peter's still form on the stretcher, and felt slightly ashamed. He composed himself immediately, forcing his legs to stay in one place instead of following Peter, making his arms hang at his sides instead of reaching out. Stuart watched the stretcher bearing Peter move out of the hallway into the parking lot, out of sight.

***************

Exhaustion. He had just been tired, under a lot of stress, and had taken far too many aspirin. Peter Dragon was going to be fine.

Fine. Fine. Abso-fucking-lutely fine, back to normal, or at least that's what the doctors were saying. Stuart knew better. The physical exhaustion might clear up, but Peter's mental state wouldn't be any better from this imprompteau trip to the emergency room. In fact, he would probably spend at least an hour ranting at Stuart for allowing him to be taken to the doctor. After adding in Peter's mortification at being seen as vulnerable by the entire cast and crew, plus the paramedics, plus the doctors, *plus* the soccer mom and her twelve kids that had seen the stretcher pass through the emergency room, Stuart figured he was in for at least two hours of hell when Peter got back on his feet. Fuck. Stuart sometimes wondered why he put up with all the shit he got.

*Because you're in love with him, you fucking moron,* his brain supplied all-too-cheerfully. *You're so in love with him it's killing you to not have him, you're in so deep you'll do anything for him, anything to protect him. You stay because you can't leave.*

He groaned and rested his head on the edge of Peter's hospital bed, bending at an almost-uncomfortable angle. They wanted to keep Peter under observation for a couple hours, make sure there wasn't anything more serious wrong with him, before releasing him.

*Oh, but there is something more serious wrong,* that little voice spoke up. Stuart wondered if killing it would constitute suicide or homicide. *It's just not something that would show up on any test, any chart.* Perhaps manslaughter.

Stuart glanced at his watch. Fifteen more minutes. He rested his chin on his folded arms and watched Peter's motionless face.

****************

Peter didn't fully wake until he was bundled into a wheelchair and transported unceremoniously out of the hospital to Stuart's car, and his lack of protest then served as testimony to his absolute exhaustion. He dozed fitfully in the car, slouched in his seat, opening sleep-fogged eyes from time to time, casting glances (as if for reassurance, Stuart thought, and felt something warm thrill inside him) at Stuart from time to time.

By the time they arrived at Peter's house, he was awake enough to climb from the car and stumble up the stairs into the living room, where he collapsed on the couch, moaning for something to drink and some more aspirin. Stuart tossed his keys on the kitchen counter and brought Peter water, denied him aspirin, and suggested he move to the bedroom, with the idea that it would be more comfortable. Something dangerously, frighteningly (*arousingly?* the voice taunted in Stuart's head) playful appeared in Peter's eyes at that suggestion; Stuart crushed his immediate gut reaction to that and helped his boss innocently up the stairs and into bed.

A demanding knock on the door attracted Stuart's attention; he tucked a blanket around Peter, who had fallen asleep immediately upon hitting the bed, and reluctantly left the room.

Stuart glanced at the TV screen next to the door, displaying a security camera shot of the people outside. "Jesus, *fuck,*" he whispered, standing frozen in front of the door. He didn't recognize the two men outside, but he recognized their type. Hired muscle, big buff guys whose main talent were breaking things and breaking people. Coupled with what Peter had told him, it was enough to send Stuart into a near-panic.

Still watching the TV screen, Stuart saw one of the men pull something from his pocket and bend over the doorknob; as he heard the lock snick back, Stuart glanced hopefully at the keypad for the door, hoping against hope that the security system was turned on--damn. Breaking free of his paralysis, Stuart backed rapidly away from the door. He backed directly into the edge of a coffee table and was sent sprawling onto Peter's leather couch.

He managed to scramble to his feet just as the door opened and hired muscle stepped into the room. Stuart kept his cool admirably, managing to sound a little angry instead of the squeaky terror he had been expecting as he demanded, "Who the hell are you?"

"You Peter Dragon?" one of them asked.

*"They offered me another way to pay them back,"* Stuart remembered suddenly, Peter's voice flashing into his mind. *"The two that came around yesterday. Another way."* He swallowed heavily.

"Yes," Stuart half-whispered, stepping around the traitorous coffee table to stand in front of the men. "I'm Peter Dragon."

**************

Peter jerked awake by the sound of a car engine starting. He blinked for a moment, that tiny motion being all he was capable of, before getting his act together and stumbling to the window.

A nondescript white van was parked in his circular driveway, a van that looked vaguely familiar. As he watched, two men he was dead sure he had never seen before emerged from his house and climbed into the van, accompanied by--Stuart?

An instant later, Peter's brain woke up and he realized what was happening. "Fuck," he gasped, jerking away from the window in a near-panic as the van pulled away. For a dizzying minute, he could do nothing but stand in the center of his bedroom, panting as waves of a terror like none he'd ever experienced before washed over him. Then he shook his head, collected his thoughts.

Peter Fucking Dragon, he reminded himself. Peter *Fucking* Dragon.

It was all very logical, really, when looked at in the right way. Shoes were in the closet, keys in the basket downstairs--but fuck, his car was at the studio. A minute longer, spent in the kitchen staring blankly at the useless set of keys. Then he spotted Stuart's gay pride keychain laying forgotten on the counter, and smiled.

Showtime.

PART TEN
by
Vali

He hadn't lost as much time as he'd feared. The white van was taking its sweet time traveling down Mulholland Drive, and Peter was easily able to catch up--at what he *hoped* was a safe distance, God knew what that was--and keep it in his sights. The real problem was negotiating lights and stop signs as the van swung off Mulholland and began traveling one block left, two blocks right, doubling back and circling in a obvious attempt to fend off any sort of surveillance...

The gleaming black Jaguar was almost on top of Stuart's car before Peter saw it. Its driver slammed on the brakes the same time Peter did; their cars spun to a stop in wide, diametrically opposing arcs, narrowly avoiding both each other and the madly honking oncoming traffic. The Jag's occupant leaned her head out the window and let loose with a stream of obscenities, mostly lost to the night air: "--damn fucking MORON asshole drunk-driver--"

"FUCK YOU!" Peter screamed back, flooring the gas and taking off again with a screech of abused tires. He'd *lost* it, he'd lost the--no, it was straight up ahead, still making the same maddening array of unnecessary turns and backtracks. He set his mouth in a grim line, and resumed his course. Turn, stop, back up, u-turn, straight ahead, back again...thank God Stuart didn't drive a stick, Peter thought, or the fucking car'd be in bucking-bronco mode by now...

A wave of nausea roared through him and retreated with merciless speed. He took a long, deep breath, trying best he could to contain it. The little spinout had left him far dizzier than it had any right to; he was so tired the edges of his vision were permanently blurred. Everything was taking on the fisheye quality of some horrible, absurd dream.

He steered rightward, eyes glued to the van. Exhaustion--so just as he'd known *all* along, nothing was actually wrong. Doctors. *Fucking* doctors. Thank God Bobby hadn't been around to see him do a gainer to the floor, that was all he needed right now...he hated doctors, *hated* them, not a *single* one knew what the fuck they were--

Peter gazed at the road ahead of him, sitting up straighter, and frowned. Now he had certain *proof* he was losing it...all this time, through every twist and turn, he hadn't noticed that the van was going down a very familiar, if unduly circuitous route. It was headed, in fact, directly for DragonFire Pictures. Lot 14-A, to be precise.

The second thing that hadn't registered--until now, too late--was that the black Jag was more than a little familiar, and so was the voice of its driver.

Wendy.

********

From the time they'd left Peter's house all through the long drive, there'd been near-total silence. His two captors had calmly walked Stuart into the van and, with little ceremony, pushed him into a face-downward crouch onto the backseat floor. His one tentative attempt to raise his head had met with a boot sole firmly, and painfully, pressed to the nape of his neck.

"Easy," admonished the one behind the driver's seat, glancing at his companion in the back. "They don't want him marked."

"Not yet, anyway," responded the other. A little shared laugh--one whose tone made Stuart shiver--and nothing more.

He felt strangely calm, despite everything; maybe because as horrible as this was, he had little doubt of what would meet him at the end of this little journey. If they took him for Peter, he'd be raped (which was exactly what it amounted to, however much Peter had tried couching it in the terms of a bargain, a *contract*). If they figured it out *immediately,* on the other hand...

He swallowed. He'd given Peter lead time, if nothing else; time to get Georgia and get the hell out of L.A. while he still could. *If* he still could. If...no. Peter would be all right. He was safe now. He *had* to be. *Please, God...*

********

By the time she recognized the car and its driver, it had already roared furiously away. Wendy swore under her breath--cursing herself as much as anything else--and pulled off to the side of the road, trying to figure out what to do.

She'd spent the evening in a restless, one-sided debate with herself, finally deciding sometime after eleven to pay Peter a visit. He'd probably be asleep anyway--he'd looked half-dead in the office, even before his collapse--and she'd have assured herself nothing was really amiss. But now, en route, she'd almost been run down by Stuart's car, with Peter behind the wheel, careening down one side street after another in the direction of...yes, unmistakably back to DragonFire. At close to midnight. What the hell was going on?

"What the *fuck* is going on?" she asked aloud, of no one.

Though she would never have owned up to it, she was starting to get scared. Maybe it wasn't just exhaustion. Maybe Peter really *was* sick, or Bobby was playing his little games again, or something had happened to Stuart, or or or...and of course, Jenny was nowhere to be found tonight. *Going out with friends,* she'd offered vaguely, vanishing immediately after work. Fine, whatever, go out and *stay* out and just let me take care of things and...

She sat with the motor idling, lost in thought.

********

The unmarked white van came to a halt in DragonFire studio lot 14-A, just at the edge of Soundstage C. The driver and his companion slid open the van doors and, with little ceremony, hauled their prisoner to his feet and outside. Stuart barely had time to blink in surprise at his utterly familiar surroundings before he was seized by either arm and marched inside the building.

Soundstage C was the smallest, relatively speaking, of the DragonFire facilities, its cavernous interior soundproofed to avoid outside noise ruining already overbudgeted film shoots. As the gymnasium-like metal doors swung open, Stuart squinted into the dimly lit interior and saw a long empty table--the sort usually holding a shooting day's catered lunch--a stray scenery dropcloth and a small bank of chairs.

Sitting in the central chair was Bobby Gianopolis, flanked on either side by two well-dressed, thirtyish men Stuart didn't recognize.

The doors swung shut behind him with a loud clang. He was led closer to the bank of chairs, then stopped in his tracks as the two seated strangers looked him over. One had dark blond hair and a face that might have been handsome, if not for the menace in his eyes; the other was shorter, dark-haired, thuggish, his brow a permanent furrow. Both had exquisitely tailored suits, impeccable grooming and the air of men who got exactly what they wanted, exactly when they wanted it.

The blond smiled. It wasn't a pleasant sight. "One simple thing," he said to the man gripping Stuart's right arm. British, his accent clipped and obviously upper-class. "One *simple* assignment, and you can't get it right."

Despite himself, Stuart felt a real satisfaction at hearing the fear in his captor's voice. "Look, sir, the guy said he was--"

"*Said* he was!" the brunet roared, rising halfway from his seat in his anger. "*Said* he was! Are you paid to take people's *word* on--"

"No, sir," the one holding Stuart's left arm answered hastily. "You're right. We fucked up and--"

"Shut up," said the blond. His voice was thin and reedy, matching his body perfectly. "And step aside." They let go of Stuart, retreating a little. He stood alone in the center of the room, trying to swallow his terror. *The jig's up,* he found himself thinking, in a little repetitive chorus. *The jig's up, the jig's up...*

The blond nodded, a formal greeting. "Allow me to introduce myself, sir," he said to Stuart. "My name is Lincoln. My companion here"--he nodded at the shorter boss--"is named Matthews. I suspect you already know Mr. Gianopolis. Lincoln and Matthews. Here's a simple mnemonic: I'm the taller one, like your president *Abraham* Lincoln."

A cold smile. "I say this, sir, because you seem to have a certain difficulty remembering names. Most especially your own. Now, I know you *think* your name is Peter Dragon, formerly Dragovich, born 8 May 1969 in Hollister, California..." He shrugged. "...but I think you may be mistaken. Now, what *is* your name, sir, in actuality?"

*Dragovich,* Stuart thought to himself, one small corner of his mind refusing to recognize the danger. Distracted by petty details. Dragovich...he'd never known that. He licked his lips nervously. "Stuart Glazer," he replied, his voice steady.

Lincoln nodded again. "Mr. Dragon's assistant. So I thought." He inclined his chin toward the van driver. "If you will, please?"

The van driver walked up to Stuart, raised his fist and punched him in the gut as hard as he could. Stuart doubled over, arms wrapping around his middle as he gasped for air, his stomach heaving with pure pain. He tried to stay standing, and ended up sliding gently to the floor.

Bobby laughed, taking a puff on his omnipresent cigar. Neither Lincoln nor Matthews's expression changed.

"Thank you for your candor," Lincoln said blandly. "Mr. Matthews?"

The brunet ran a hand through his hair. "We know you aren't Peter Dragon," he said, watching dispassionately as Stuart--now sitting almost on his side--tried to regain his breath. Also British, apparently, his accent noticably less patrician than Lincoln's. "We know *you* know that Mr. Dragon has a...particular debt to pay us, which only he can undertake. We also know you know where he is right now. So please tell us--or that punch is going to seem a mere love-tap by the time we're finished with you. And then you'll end up telling us anyway...if you're still conscious by then, that is."

"I'd play along, Stuart, if I were you," said a new, female voice from the far end of the room. "Trust me, these guys do *not* fuck around."

The door leading to the soundstage's restrooms and supply closets had swung open without anyone noticing. From its threshold, looking particularly perky and chipper, came Jenny Johnson. Stuart stared at her, his astonishment turning to disbelief, and then rage.

"I *knew* you were trouble," he said between clenched teeth, struggling painfully back to his feet. "I knew it *all* along, you fucking--" The van driver's raised fist inspired him to silence.

Jenny smirked, taking an empty chair next to Matthews. "It's so *cute,* you know? The way you follow him around like some kind of little puppy dog wherever he goes." Her smile seemed to curdle on her face. "The way you kiss ass 'cause it tastes so *good.*"

"You should know," Stuart replied, giving her a bright false smile back.

"Witty, too. How could Peter ever resist?" She rolled her eyes. "See, it's just that *we*--my bosses and I--we know a *lot* about him that you don't." Crossed and recrossed her legs. From the corner of his eye, Stuart could see the van driver and his companion ogling her. "Did you know, for example, that young Peter *Dragovich* was removed from his home by Child Protection at the tender age of seven? Or that he was in a grand total of *sixteen* foster homes by the time he was eighteen?"

Stuart was, for a moment, taken aback. Peter never talked about his childhood, or his family; he'd vaguely mentioned some of the usual small-town cliches, and Stuart had had no reason not to believe him. "No," he finally said. "I didn't."

Jenny smiled. She seemed to relish this little exercise; knowledge is power. "Did you know that the reason he was removed was because his poor, crazy mother had a disease called Munchausen by proxy?" Crossed her legs again. "She'd feed him something nasty every now and then so he could get rushed to the emergency room, and *she* could get attention. Poor, heroic mother of a sick little boy. She almost overshot the mark a couple of times, though, rat poison--"

"I don't want to hear this," Stuart interrupted forcefully. He swayed unsteadily on his feet, watching her through newly blurry eyes.

Jenny shrugged. "Too bad. Did you know that when he was starting out in this business, he lived with an older fellow who produced gay porn--oh, excuse me, *erotica?* They were quite the cozy couple, so *I* hear. Good as married. Then the guy went and had a little *fling* behind poor Peter's back--"

"I *don't* want to hear this," Stuart repeated. A new, terrible certainty was dawning on him.

"--with a young Hollywood upstart from *Harvard,* no less, and Peter paid him back by getting this little Long Beach bimbette knocked up, so they *had* to get married for real. Isn't that romantic?" Jenny fluttered her eyelashes in a groteque parody, her audience grinning appreciatively. "And that little Harvard homewrecker was named--"

"Stuart Glazer," Bobby G concluded, a note of deep satisfaction in his voice.

"You asshole," Stuart said softly, almost to himself. His stomach was churning, and not from being hit. Jenny shrugged, looking almost gleeful. "He never did find out *who* stole his man out from under him--"

"Stop it," Stuart said quietly, closing his eyes hard. "Stop it."

"--and the other man never knew *whose* home he wrecked. Good thing, considering he's on the *payroll* of the guy whose heart he broke...ironic, eh?" Jenny shook her head. "Peter really loved the guy, you know. If you can actually believe that shithead could love anyone but himself. I wonder what he'd do if he ever knew it was *you?* Mr. Spoiled Long Island Suburban Brat, taking away the *only* person he'd ever had as his own? I wonder what he'd say if he *were* here, right now--"

The soundstage doors swung open.

Seven heads turned in quick succession. The man standing there looked drained, bedraggled, hanging onto his last reserves of strength by a thin thread. One hand clutched the doorframe.

"I know what he'd say," Peter Dragon announced.

Lincoln smiled. "And what would that be?" he inquired.

Stuart's jaw dropped. He'd thought--he'd *done* this so that--Peter was staring straight at him, not seeming to see anyone else. His dark-circled blue eyes bored holes into Stuart.

Peter smiled a strange, mirthless smile. "He'd say that that means without Stuart, his daughter would never have been born. Doesn't it?"

Stuart stared at his feet. He couldn't look up. "Peter," he said, "I'm taking care of this. Get out of here. Please." That got a laugh from their audience. "We've been waiting for you, Mr. Dragon," Lincoln said, ignoring Stuart entirely.

Peter nodded, looking perfectly calm. "I know," he said.

"Peter--" Stuart ventured.

"Stuart?" Peter said. "This isn't your mess. Stay the fuck out of it." He turned to Lincoln and Matthews. "I'm here. Satisfied?"

Matthews smiled. "Not quite yet."

Stuart saw the brief flash of fear in Peter's eyes, quickly and mercilessly extinguished.

"Where is Georgia?" Peter asked, his unnatural calm returned.

"At home," Bobby said. "Sleeping."

Peter shook his head. "No, she isn't," he said quietly.

Bobby shrugged. "All right, then--you've caught us. Clever as usual, Peter." He turned to his two British companions. "If it's not too much trouble--"

"Oh, of *course* not," Matthews smiled. He turned his head to the soundstage back door. "Gentlemen!"

Two more heavyset men, the same make and model as had transported Stuart to the soundstage, appeared in the doorway. Between them, they dragged a little girl in jeans and T-shirt, her blond hair in tangles and face puffy from crying...

Peter's rush to the back of the room was immediately halted by the van driver and his companion. As he struggled, the two men holding Georgia released their grip; she ran to him, sobbing, and threw her arms around his neck. Peter wrenched his own arms free, wrapping them around his daughter and resting his cheek against the top of her head. His heart was pounding with terror and relief. "Shhh," he said softly.

"Daddy--" Georgia was crying too hard to talk. Peter's arms tightened around her.

"It's all right, honey." *I will kill you, Bobby. I will lock you in a room and torture you until you beg to die. * "It's all right. Calm down." *You too, Jenny, you lying bitch.*

"Bobby said--" Georgia tried to control her sobs. "Bobby said he'd--he'd take me to visit you tonight, and I said I wanted to, and--and--"

"--and that's exactly what I've done, so you can shut your hysterical little brat mouth right now." Bobby took another drag on his cigar, face contorting into a snarl. "You and your mother, the most worthless--"

"What did you do to Jane?" Peter demanded, his teeth clenched. Georgia kept her face pressed against his jacket, her sobs starting to slow.

"Nothing," Bobby replied. "And that's the truth. She's not worth the trouble--as you yourself know quite well."

"You are dead, Bobby," Peter said with quiet, unshakable conviction. "I don't care if it takes the rest of my fucking life--"

"Excuse me," Lincoln interrupted smoothly, "this little family reunion has been quite touching all round, but we've got business to attend to." He motioned toward Stuart and Georgia. "Take them outside."

The quartet of heavyset men moved forward. Georgia stared at them, wide-eyed. "Daddy?"

Peter clutched her more tightly. "I swear to *God,* if you so much as--"

"I assure you, Mr. Dragon," Matthews replied, "we have no interest whatsoever in *gratuitously* harming your daughter. She is merely, shall we say...collateral. Her purpose is served. And who would ever believe a mere child's account of what's conspired here tonight?"

He turned cold eyes on Stuart, and Peter. "As for you two, I think you can understand the premium on doing what we ask and keeping your mouths shut...if you wish Miss Dragon to retain her pretty face, that is."

Silence. Peter and Stuart exchanged glances. As Stuart opened his mouth to speak--protest, negotiate-- Peter slowly shook his head.

"Stay with her, Stuart," he said.

"Daddy--" Georgia stared from one man to the other, not wanting to understand.

"Georgia?" Peter's hand continued to stroke his daughter's hair, but there was an edge of iron in his voice. "You have to go outside now. If you don't, we all get hurt. Do you understand?"

Georgia looked around the room. Her face contorted for a moment; then, she nodded. Her father's daughter, through and through.

"I love you, Daddy," she said.

Peter's face contorted for a moment. Then, he nodded. "I love you too."

He just stood there as the two men who had brought Georgia into the room, drawing their guns, led her and Stuart out the soundstage doors. He didn't turn around as the doors clanged shut, and as the two remaining gunmen locked them tightly.

********

They were led past the soundstage lot, walking in silence. Georgia was breathing raggedly but seemed determinedly composed, only politely suffering Stuart's attempts to hold her hand. Peter Dragon (Dragovich?) through and through. Don't touch me, I can handle it...

The lights were a dim memory by the time they reached a small cluster of trees near the edge of the soundstage compound; somebody's attempt at an in-studio park. The gunmen pushed their prisoners onto a small stone bench, raising their weapons in a way that made Stuart take a sharp breath and Georgia clutch his hand for real.

"Let her go," he said, trying not to beg. "You *really* don't wanna do this to a little--"

One of the gunmen actually yawned. "Look, will you get it through your head that we ain't shooting either of you? You ain't worth the bullets." He glared at Georgia. "As long as you *behave,* that is."

Stuart stared down at his feet again. "Meaning what?"

The other gunman laughed. "Meaning, hurry up and wait. You're in movies--you know how to do that."

Silence. After a moment, he felt Georgia place her face against his shoulder; he thought she might cry again, but then realized she was merely trying not to see the two gunmen in front of her. He suddenly remembered his reaction when Peter had brought her to DragonFire, during Take Your Daughter to Work Day: *I didn't graduate from Harvard so I could become a babysitter.*

Flippant snot.

Jenny'd been right about that much--fucking Long Island spoiled brat, that was him. Useless. His great heroic attempts...useless.

He waited.

********

"Okay, I don't get it." Adam Rafkin pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose again, staring at Wendy with sleepy, irritable eyes. "Peter's in some kind of vague, nebulous trouble, allegedly--according to you--and you want me to...?"

"To come *with* me, for Christ's sake," Wendy snapped. Writers, honest to God... "I don't know what's going on, but I might need some, well, *backup,* and Dick's out of town and Lonnie's really not in any physical shape for--"

"For what?!" Adam almost shouted. "What are you *asking* for, some kind of trusty-sidekick--Wendy, I don't have time to screw around here, it's one o'clock in the *morning!*"

Wendy sighed. She was tired, nervous, more convinced than ever that Peter was in trouble...and frankly, Adam in boxers and undershirt was an incredibly unappetizing sight. "Adam?"

"*What?*" he snapped.

"You like having your screenplays produced? Not, you know, thrown on an industry-wide *ash heap* for the rest of your miserable little goddamned pissant career?"

A pause; then Adam nodded. Finally, language he understood. "Just let me get dressed."

"No problem," Wendy muttered, as he stomped off to the bedroom. "Believe me."

********

The gunmen stood guarding the locked soundstage doors. The back door had been closed, and locked as well. Peter stood in the center of the room, unmoving as Lincoln walked around him in a slow circle. *Appraising* him, like some piece of livestock at a county fair.

"Well, Mr. Dragon," Lincoln finally offered. "You're not looking your very best, but I must say...you'll do quite nicely all the same." He smiled. "Remove your suit jacket, please?"

"No," Peter said coldly.

"The blushing bride," Matthews called out. That got a few snickers.

Lincoln shrugged. "As you wish."

At a nod from him, the gunmen marched toward Peter, yanked his arms to his sides and ripped off the jacket as quickly and efficiently as hunters skinning the kill. Tossing it aside, they returned to their watch.

Lincoln smiled. "Your necktie, Mr. Dragon...if you'd rather dispense with our special valet service, that is."

Slowly, with hate in his eyes, Peter did as commanded.

"That's enough for now," said Lincoln. "I must thank you, Bobby...you do know our type all too well." Bobby shrugged and smiled. "Always glad to be of service."

"Fuck you, Bobby," Peter said, every ounce of fury in him contained in three quiet words.

Bobby's smile grew wider. "Oh, you *will*, Peter," he responded. "Never fear. But I believe you have a little business to take care of first--"

It happened too fast. He hadn't heard the gunmen approach again, again grab his arms in a vise grip as he was half-marched, half-dragged toward the long table. One of them got their fingers around his neck, squeezing...

The full realization of what he was about to do, what he had *agreed* to do, hit him all at once, as he stared at the overhead lights and the gathered audience and Jenny's eager eyes and Bobby's triumphant expression. *Georgia,* he thought frantically, *Georgia*--and another, equally strong part of him was rising up from nowhere, watching Lincoln and Matthews start to remove their own jackets, and shouting, *No. No!*

He struggled. And tried to pull back, to kick, and the hand around his throat squeezed harder, and his chin was forcibly tilted back, so he was staring straight into the overhead lights...

*Lights. Staring straight up.*

It was coming back. No. Not now. No.

*Staring straight up. Afternoons, so the lights are on. The back bedroom.*

He kicked again, arms flailing. One of the gunmen backhanded him.

He kept it hidden, tamped down, away in the farthest reaches of his head. So that he forgot about it, *completely,* for months, sometimes. Even years.

*Go away. Go AWAY. Not now, not NOW, NOT NOW!*

Even years. Except that it just touched the edges of his memory, sometimes, sometimes late at night, sometimes in bed with Wendy (hated him now, she *hated* him), sometimes for no reason at all. But he could make it go away, *force* it to go away. Not now, though, not now, as it came rushing mercilessly to the surface...

*The back bedroom. Afternoons. The lights are on. No one else is home. Gone shopping. Gone anywhere. Skinny-ass foster kid has to stay home. With him. Can't be trusted on his own. Stay staring at the ceiling. Pretend you're not there. It's not happening. You're such a pretty little boy, Peter--*

*NO!*

He sank his teeth savagely into a restraining hand. The butt of a pistol slammed into his temple, and as he cried out and jerked his head away he was shoved face-first against the table, shoulders nearly wrenched from their sockets as his arms were twisted behind him, wrists cuffed. He kicked, flailing in sheer unbridled panic, and the resulting blows to his instep and solar plexus made him scream; the scream was stifled by a silk handkerchief--his own, his own from *his* jacket pocket--shoved into his open mouth, tied with jaw-breaking tightness behind his head.

*You know our type. Pretty boy, Peter. You're such a pretty boy. Don't pull away like that, I don't want to have to hurt you--*

*No. NO.*

His stomach twisted, sending horrible waves up into his chest. *I can't throw up,* he thought frantically. *If I throw up, I'll suffocate. I can't...*

His cheek was dead against the cool, hard surface of the table, his injured temple pressed agonizingly flat. His legs were being held apart. One of his captors--Lincoln? Matthews?--stroked the cloth of Peter's trouser leg as though it were his own skin. Under the gag, he was hyperventilating. He couldn't move. He felt a kiss, a soft one, against the top of his head.

"Thank you, darling," Matthews whispered. "That was fun."

Bobby chuckled.

********

Silence. Hurry up and wait. Georgia, having composed herself a little more, sat very straight next to Stuart, hands folded in her lap. She looked dead ahead, at the soundstage in the far distance. Stuart sat beside her, feeling beyond speech. Failed. He'd failed, he didn't want to *think* what was going on this very moment inside--failed, *failed*--

The first gunman, assured now of his prisoners' docility, was off patrolling the immediate "park" grounds. The second stood just by the bench with his arms folded, yawning sleepily. He turned a little... And his jacket swung away, revealing his holster. And the pistol carelessly slung into it, so near, *if* it could be reached, *if*...

He lifted his chin to see Georgia staring at him; immediately, he knew she'd seen exactly what he had, was thinking exactly the same thing. But neither of them was *quite* near enough just to grab it...to risk what might happen if...

They didn't dare speak.

After a moment, they both nodded, their silent agreement sealed.

And then, just as Stuart was reaching out his hand, he saw two new figures--one male, one female--walking past the soundstage building toward the "park." Toward the first gunman.

He shouted, as he saw the first gunman raise his weapon...

********

Lincoln was stroking his hair now, mockery evident in every gentle gesture. It wasn't going to be over soon. Maybe, Peter thought with a despairing terror, it would never be over.

*Pretty boy. I'll hurt you. You're such a pretty boy.*

He'd been blindfolded now, as well. Disoriented. Couldn't see. Couldn't speak. Couldn't move. Couldn't look up at the ceiling lights, pretend to be somewhere else as--

"What are you *waiting* for?" whined Jenny.

"Are you party to this little arrangement?" Lincoln demanded, all pretense to gentility gone. "Or are you here merely because we *permitted* it?"

"Come *on,*" Jenny pleaded, a darkly avid light in her eyes. "Look at him--you've got him right where you want him. He can't fight back. Give it to him good!"

Bobby shook his head, taking another draw on his cigar. "You perverted little bitch," he noted. Coming from him, it didn't seem to be an insult.

"Now then," said Lincoln briskly, "who goes first?"

"After you," Matthews protested, a smile in his voice. Tormenting their captive. *Playing,* two cats with an injured mouse.

*Don't pull away like that. Ceiling. Look at the ceiling.*

"Oh, no," Lincoln smiled back. "You go first. I'll gladly wait."

"Well, if you really *insist*..." Matthews trailed off.

"Oh, I do, sir. I do."

"Hey, why argue?" Jenny threw in, grinning as she settled back in her chair. "Just take that gag off him and you can *both* go at the same time--"

Lincoln threw back his head and laughed. "I do like the way you think, my girl," he commented. "The very soul of compromise."

*I can't throw up. If I throw up, I'll suffocate.*

Peter squeezed his eyes shut under the blindfold, and prayed.

part eleven
by
Nicole

"Look out," Stuart yelled to the approaching figures. The gunman nearest to them spun to face him, looked to his partner, then back again, clearly unsure of what he should do. Stuart saw the figures duck into the darkness just before the other man fired a shot in their direction. There were no screams, no sounds of someone falling heavily to the ground, so he guessed that the shooter had missed. But the man was quickly moving in the direction of the couple, and looked as if he were determined not to miss again. Their guard was still looking a bit lost, but he finally made a choice and began to head the way of his partner. Stuart had no doubt that they wouldn't be left alone for long, so he made a split-second decision.

Turning to Georgia, he pointed in the direction of a large building at the far side of the lot, most of it in shadows at this point. "See that building?" The girl nodded, wide-eyed. "That's your dad's office. Run that way, as fast as you can. Don't stop for anything, understand?" She nodded again, this time with determination in the set of her mouth, the look in her eyes. Stuart continued on quickly, keeping an eye out for the return of their guard. "Try and find a security guard or someone. If you don't see anybody, hide over there until we come get you. Can you do that?"

Even as he was saying the words, Stuart was second-guessing himself. Would the girl be safe on her own? Or was he just sending her into more trouble. Where *were* all the security guards tonight? Why weren't there people swarming over here after that gunshot?

A terrifying thought occurred to him then: What if Bobby somehow had the security staff under his control? He had a chilling mental picture of Georgia being led right back here, in the grip of one of the big hired watchmen. Presented back to Bobby like a gift just waiting to be opened.

He tried hard to bury a shudder. They didn't have much time, and this seemed like the best bet. He just hoped that it was good enough.

"What about Daddy? Are they going to hurt him?"

Despite the quiver in her voice, there were no tears in the little girl's eyes. Stuart was struck yet again by how much she was like her father. "They won't hurt him. I'm going to go get him, and we'll come find you. Okay?"

That seemed to satisfy her. Stuart heard rustling in the bushes around them, and knew that they were running out of time. No choice now. "Go," he urged her as a rush of fear ran through his frame. Georgia took off running in the direction he had pointed, almost immediately into the shadows that surrounded everything. He lost sight of her, forcing himself to turn away from the way she had gone. He didn't want to give their captors any hints.

Another shot rang out in the darkness. Where was everyone?

He had to get to Peter, to get him away from whatever they were doing to him. His first attempt at playing hero hadn't worked out the way he had hoped, but it wasn't going to stop him from trying again.

*Sure, Havard boy. Mess it all up just like you have every other time.*

No, not now. He was going to have to deal with that voice at some point, he knew, but right now he had to focus on one thing only. He had to find a way to get Peter and his daughter to safety.

Luckily, he knew his way around this place. He was going on the assumption that the doors to the studio itself had been locked, but he was hoping that no one had thought about the other way in. The way that led through the back surplus room, into wardrobe, into the area that Jenny had appeared from. He didn't think that they had used this soundstage since she'd been with them, so he was holding on to the hope that she might not know about the other way.

Too many hopes and assumptions.

Moving at almost a run, Stuart headed for the soundstage, moving around toward the back. Just as he ducked around the corner, he heard the front doors opening and people coming out. From the sounds of things, they had heard the gunshots and were heading out to investigate. Which meant that very soon they'd realize that their prisoners were gone.

Continuing toward the back room, Stuart said a silent thank you to whoever their accidental diversion had been. He just hoped that whoever it was managed to get away safely.

The room -- more like a large, attached shed, really -- had a keypad lock. It took him three tries to punch in the right code with his shaking fingers, but finally the door clicked open and he slipped inside. It was pitch black in the room, and he was forced to negotiate through simply by touch. Usually by touching things when he ran into them with his shins or elbows, and once when something on the floor sent him sprawling. It was some like kind of haunted house maze at a sick amusement park. Stuart wanted off the ride.

He made it through the surplus room, into wardrobe, and to the door leading to the corridor with the restrooms. Carefully he pushed the door open, letting out a soft relieved breath when he found the area to be empty. So far, so good. Now, if only his luck would hold out just a bit longer...

He reached the door through which Jenny had made her entrance, and pressed his ear up to the wood to see if he could hear anything from inside. But the soundproofing protected even from noises in this part of the building. He had to go in blind, just take a deep breath and plunge in.

*Look at the bright side,* the mental voice taunted, *If they do see you, they'll probably just shoot you on site at this point. So it'll all be over soon, no matter what.*

Great. That made him feel a lot better.

Stuart took that deep breath, said a silent prayer to anyone who might be listening (and inclined to help him out), and opened the door.

It seemed that someone was listening. Other than Peter's limp form on the long table, the room was empty. The front door was ajar, and Stuart could hear Bobby G's curses drifting in from the outside. He knew there wasn't much time. Anyone could reappear in the room at any moment, and he wasn't going to get a second chance at this.

Hurrying to Peter's side, Stuart did a quick visual appraisal even as his trembling fingers were moving to untie the other man. Peter wasn't moving, his eyes tightly closed, and he was breathing in ragged, irregular jerks around the gag in his mouth. Stuart could see a dark ugly bruise on his temple, but he couldn't tell if there were any other injuries. Once they got to safety, there would be time for a closer examination.

Stuart untied the knot holding the gag tightly around Peter's mouth, pulling what looked like a very familiar silk handkerchief out from his clenched jaw. Peter's eyes flew open then, and Stuart felt his breath catch at the unbridled panic in those bloodshot blues. "It's me, Peter. It's going to be okay. We have to get out of here, okay?"

The panic hadn't faded, but Peter nodded to show that he was at least somewhat coherent. Stuart helped him off the bed, having to catch him as his knees folded underneath his weight. Then Peter was hanging on to the side of the table, just missing Stuart's shoes as he emptied his stomach onto the polished floor. Stuart held on to his other arm, holding him up as he retched. He kept an eye on the open front door, expecting at any second to see armed men pour in and hold them at gunpoint.

They couldn't wait. He tugged Peter's arm, trying to lead him toward the way he had snuck in. Peter stumbled, but allowed himself to be lead. Stuart pulled one of his boss' arms over his shoulder, supporting most of his weight as they made their way out the back.

Once they hit the back room, Stuart stopped to let Peter catch his breath. Even in the darkness he could sense the other man's distress. He could feel the shudders running through Peter's body, and was suddenly caught up by the need to enfold him in his arms and hold him until the tremors stopped.

"Where's Georgia?"

The voice was little more than a hoarse whisper, but there was no mistaking that it was a demand. "I sent her ahead. We're going to meet her."

That wasn't enough of an explanation for Peter. "Dammit, Stuart," he hissed, "what happened to my girl? You were supposed to stay with her..." The angry words dissolved into muffled coughing.

Stuart reached for him in the dark, but Peter pulled away. "She's safe, Peter. I sent her to your offices. We're going there now, and then we're getting out of here. But you have to calm down..."

"I don't have to fucking do anything." Even in the darkness, Stuart could tell that the words were being forced out between clenched teeth. "You shouldn't have let her go alone. Goddamn it, if they get their hands on her again..."

"They won't, Peter. But we have to go now, before someone comes looking for us." He hesitated before the next question, knowing it wasn't going to be taken well at all. But he had to know, so that he knew what they were up against. "Can you make it that far?"

"I will," came the terse reply. "Let's go."

Stuart nodded, then realized that it wouldn't be seen. "Right. Let's go."

They exited the back room; Stuart noticed that the moon had slipped behind some clouds, making everything even darker than before. He led the way through the night, moving as fast as he could while making sure that Peter could keep up. Beside him, Peter was breathing heavily, shivering in the cool night air. What little light there was gave his face a pale, sickly glow.

They were almost halfway there when Peter tripped, falling heavily onto his knees. Stuart heard the sharp intake of breath, and it looked to him like the other man was biting down on his lip to keep from crying out. Stuart helped him back to his feet, holding him tightly when he swayed. Manuevering him to lean against the stucco wall of the building beside them, Stuart continued to hold his boss up. Peter's eyes were tightly closed, and there was pain etched across his shadowy features. Stuart realized that he was suprised the man was still standing.

"Peter," he said softly, hoping to get the other man to open his eyes again. "What is it?"

Peter forced his eyes open. "Dizzy," he mumbled.

Stuart's glance returned to the bruise on Peter's head. "They hit you?" he asked, reaching toward the injury without conscious thought.

"Yeah. Didn't like my attitude, I guess."

Stuart pulled back just before making contact. Despite the flippant tone, Peter was barely holding himself together. "We're almost there," Stuart offered, wishing he could do more than whisper worthless reassurances.

Peter nodded and forced himself away from the support of the wall. "Let's go find my girl, Stuart."

part twelve
by
Nat

They struggled around the building, Stuart holding Peter up, doing his very best to make the trip easier for his boss. Eyes, ears, every bit of him alert, searching for any sign of Georgia.

A tiny sound from between two Dumpsters; Stuart leaned Peter up against the side of the building, where he was very glad to rest. "Georgia?" Stuart called in a whisper. "Georgia, it's Stuart. Are you back here?"

A few tense seconds of silence; then Georgia flung herself into Stuart's arms, silently, little arms going around his neck. He swung her into his arms, this immense feeling of relief washing over him. Both of them, now, safe, with him. Stuart carried Georgia around the corner of the building to where Peter was waiting. The little girl was frightened, Stuart could tell; when he put her down, she ran to her father and wrapped her arms around his waist, but was silent. Stuart stood close to Peter, rubbing one hand reassuringly up and down his boss's arm.

"Peter, we have to hide somewhere. We can't get off the lot--Bobby's got the whole place under his control." On a hunch, he peeked around the corner of the building, across the open parking lot behind the building. He could see his car sitting just outside Soundstage C. Bobby was leaning nonchalantly against the hood. Jenny, bent over, was checking her makeup in the rearview mirror. "They've got my car."

"What do you think we should do?" Peter asked, and Stuart was stunned at the lack of sarcasm in his voice. Peter genuinely wanted to know what Stuart thought, and that scared Stuart.

"Uh . . ." He thought fast. "Okay. Do you have my keys, Peter?" he asked. Peter pulled the keys from his jacket pocket, deposited them in Stuart's hand. "I think we can get into the office and . . . hide or something. I know it sounds stupid," he hurried to add when a smile appeared on Peter's face, "but it's the only idea I have. If you've got a better one . .."

Peter shook his head. "The office it is," he said, shrugging.

*********

Under cover of partial moonlight, Adam and Wendy lay flat on their stomachs in the bushes, trying not to breathe loudly. Two pairs of booted feet passed, slowly, like their owners were scanning said bushes for any type of life; Wendy suspected they would shoot at so much as a leaf daring to move in a breeze.

When they had passed and were a fair distance away, Wendy poked Adam gently in the side, motioning to him to follow her. She wormed backwards out of the hedge, away from the pavement where the men had passed, onto the thin grassy strip between bush and wall. Trying not to think about grass stains that would never ever come out, Wendy crawled rapidly toward the DragonFire lot, Adam following so close she could feel his breath on her ankles.

She crouched momentarily at the end of the hedge, grabbing at the strap of her purse, which had remained slung securely across her body. Wendy inched the zipper open and removed a small handgun. "All whores pack weapons," she breathed in Adam's ear at his questioning look, snapping back the safety on the gun.

Indicating with the weapon that he was to again follow her, Wendy darted out of the relative safety of the hedge, headed for a pool of shadow against one of the buildings. Adam followed after only a moment's hesitation, running as hard as he could to catch up.

*********

They snuck in behind the guards, Stuart telling Peter of his suspicion that Bobby had the security team working for him. Stuart's office was far more remote than Peter's, and had a door that locked better. They barricaded themselves inside, Stuart and Georgia managing to push the desk against the door with a little help from Peter.

Georgia was exhausted, and fell asleep almost immediately, curled in an armchair. Stuart helped Peter sit on the couch, supporting him when the other man hissed in pain and attempted to stand again, finally getting him settled laying on his side. Stuart pulled his desk chair close enough to sit by the other man's side. "You can't sleep, Peter," Stuart said gently. "I think you have a concussion."

Peter looked past Stuart, toward the chair where his daughter lay. "She's okay?" he asked blearily, and Stuart didn't have to ask him who he meant.

"Yeah, Peter. She's fine." He smiled what he hoped was a reassuring smile at his boss, one hand creeping out on its own accord to cup Peter's cheek.

"You?" Stuart frowned; Peter's voice was getting fainter.

"Stay with me, Peter. You stay awake, okay? Peter?"

Peter opened his eyes, smiled lazily. "Stuart. Yeah, I'm awake. I'm here, Stuart."

Stuart laughed. "Keep it that way, okay?" he murmured, leaning on the arm of the couch, above Peter's head. He dropped one hand down to stroke through his boss's hair.

"Peter?" he said quietly, after a moment.

"Hm?"

"I--I didn't know, Peter. When I--I didn't know you. I didn't know you were with him. If I had known, Peter, known you, known about you two, I never . . ."

"Stuart," Peter interrupted gently. "Stuart, it was a long time ago. A long, long time ago. I forgive you, really. Do me a favor, okay? Forget about it. I forgive you. Let it go."

Stuart smiled and rested his cheek against the top of Peter's head, pressing a gentle kiss to the other man's hair. When there was no discernable reaction, Stuart (the fear, he thought, this must be the fear acting, not me, I don't have the guts for this,) shifted slightly, kissed Peter's temple, tucked a feather of blond hair behind his ear. "I'm here, Peter," he murmured, so low he could barely hear it.

Peter shivered.

"Cold?" Stuart asked, and Peter nodded, apparantly deciding it was easier to use that as an alibi than to try and explain just what had caused him to shiver. Stuart stripped his own suit jacket off, spread it tenderly over Peter's body, frowning at the pitiful picture it completed. "Better?"

"Much," Peter murmured, truthfully. He didn't want to admit that it wasn't the extra warmth provided by the jacket that made it so much better, but the extra dose of Stuart, the sensation of being enveloped by the other man's scent, the warmth of his body.

Amazed at his own thoughts, Peter tried to remember if they had drugged him at the hospital. Only explaination, really, for him suddenly going all fucking poetic.

**********

Wendy peeked around a corner, drawing back when she saw Bobby and the tall blond sitting on the hood of Stuart's car (too bad, she thought, such a nice car). She watched Bobby's hired muscle, apparantly the ones that had looked for her and Adam, approach the car.

Wendy didn't notice the shadow come around the corner until it was almost too late. She shot as a reflex, aiming to kill, deciding that there would be time to ask questions later. "Run!" she hissed at Adam, pausing just long enough to see the face of Jenny Johnson on the body struck down by her bullet. Without a trace of remorse (if she was working with them, she deserved it anyway, Wendy hypothesized), she followed Adam on a mad dash for the exit, hoping her Jag still lay in wait where she had left it.

*********

"Dragovich."

It had been silent in the room for a long, long time, and Stuart's voice was so near a whisper when he finally spoke that Peter almost missed it. "Hm?"

"Dragovich," Stuart repeated. "I like it. It sounds cultured."

"Dragon is more cutthroat," Peter replied, craning his neck to look at Stuart. "A more Hollywood name."

Stuart smiled. "Mmm," he agreed, adjusting the jacket spread over Peter.

"I tried to stop him," Peter whispered, his voice suddenly gone, a whisper all that was left. "I didn't want it, Stuart . . . he used to taunt me, telling me that I really wanted it, that I would fight harder if I didn't . . . that my body wanted it, even if I didn't." He choked back a sob.

"Peter?" Stuart questioned, not quite sure what the other man was talking about.

"It must have been my seventh or eighth foster home . . . I was ten, maybe eleven. They . . . I was the only foster kid. They would leave me alone with *him*, and he would take me into the back bedroom and--"

"Peter, you don't have to--" Stuart interrupted, getting the strangest sensation he was staring down a freight train barreling toward him.

"--and he would touch me, Stuart, and I let him, I *let* him . . ." Peter was quiet for a long moment, and Stuart let him be, stroking his hair silently, reassuringly. "I was so scared, Stuart. Imagine what it's like, a kid, ten years old, never lived with one family for more than six months . . . I hated it, hated him, but the last thing I wanted was to have to move again . . ."

"I understand," Stuart murmured, not because he did but because it was what Peter needed to hear. "I do, oh Peter . . ." He moved his chair again, rolled a bit to the side so he was facing Peter again.

Peter dragged himself upward, slowly, the strangest look on his face. He reached out toward Stuart, traced fingers down his cheek, around the back of his neck, drawing him gently closer.

And Peter kissed him, a gentle, meditative kiss, Stuart's mouth falling open as if on command. Peter's tongue slipped between his lips and explored languidly, calmly, claiming to feel none of the electricity, none of the jittering excitement that Stuart did. Stuart gave a little whimper and felt Peter's lips curve up in a smile against his mouth, that delicious tongue reminding him that no, he had never loved anyone like this, never.

"Peter . . ." he breathed, when the other man decided that breathing might be beneficial to all parties. "Peter, I . . ." He shook his head, transfixed by the lazy blue of Peter's eyes, the simultaneously innocent and seductive curve of his smile.

"Shh," Peter breathed, leaning toward Stuart again, preparing to draw him in for another kiss.

A sound in the lobby froze both men instantly, the terror that had given way growing strong again, taking control. Stuart looked at Peter, hoping his boss's eyes wouldn't hold the same knowlege his own did--that the sound had been rather reminiscent, if not identical, to the one produced when Peter had slammed open the doors of the DragonFire lobby only days before.

Part 13
By
Valeria

At the sudden noise, Georgia's eyes flew open and she bolted upright in the armchair, looking toward her father. Peter turned toward the office door, watching quietly, then to Georgia.

"Georgia?" he said, his voice calm. "Get under the desk."

Exhausted as she was, she moved quickly. Stuart watched her eyes dart over the desktop, saw her grab hold of his silver-handled letter opener--long, sharp and looking satisfyingly like a dagger--and disappear under the desk without a word. Peter nodded a little, then pushed himself upright on the couch, touching his bruised temple and wincing reflexively. They waited. And listened.

Hours passed in the form of a few minutes. They heard distant, vague noises; sounds that could have been a cadre of Bobby's henchmen, or could have been the random creaks of any building at night. Neither man spoke.

There was a rustling from under the desk. "Daddy?" Georgia whispered.

"No talking, Georgia," Peter whispered back. "Stay where you are."

The little girl fell silent again. Purely pro forma, Stuart picked up the receiver of of the office phone; as he'd suspected, it was dead. Probably all the lines were cut. And of course, he hadn't had his cell phone on him when...but even if he had, they'd doubtless have confiscated it.

Several more minutes passed; the random noises ceased.

"What do we do now?" Stuart finally asked, of no one in particular. His voice was startling in the enforced quiet.

Peter shook his head in response, rising from the couch and moving slowly, cautiously to the desk; Stuart followed, casting worried eyes back on the barricaded door every few seconds. Peter knelt by the side of the desk. Georgia had fallen asleep again, curled up on the floor, clutching her makeshift weapon in one hand. Peter reached out and touched her hair for a brief second, then carefully pushed the desk chair in so she was surrounded. Another barricade.

Rubbing his temple again, he sank into the armchair Georgia had abandoned. Stuart, too nervous to stay still, paced the brief distance from the armchair to the desk and back again. His eyes wouldn't leave the door. His thoughts were racing.

"Uncle Lonnie," he said suddenly, thinking aloud.

Peter stared at him, frowning. "What? What about Lonnie?"

Stuart, taken aback at his own words, looked abashedly at Peter. "Uh...nothing. It just..." He made a vague motion with his hand. "They said--you said, foster homes. A lot of them."

"Yeah?" Peter's eyes were growing suspicious. Familiarly defensive. "What about it?"

"Well...couldn't you have lived with Lonnie? When you were a kid?"

The suspicious look vanished; Peter actually smiled a little, not looking at Stuart. The old, rueful half-smile. "He's not really my uncle," Peter answered. "He's not anybody's uncle--that's just what everybody called him. He was Tony's driver, security guy. Jack-of-all-trades. Hanger-on. Houseboy." Peter's smile twisted a little. "The Kato Kaelin of his time."

Stuart nodded silently. Tony, their erstwhile mutual lover.

"He was a standup comedian for a while, or something," Peter continued. "The whole Vegas schtick. He used to go around saying he opened for Sinatra a few times--not that anybody believed him. Whatever career he had, he'd drunk it away by the time he met Tony. Tony felt sorry for him, I guess. The sentimental fuck."

"So how'd he end up working for you?" asked Stuart.

Peter shifted restlessly in the armchair, rubbing his temple harder. His headache was growing worse. "Tony cut him loose. About the same time he cut *me* loose--what?" he demanded, at Stuart's expression. "You thought *you* broke us up? The irresistible Stuart Glazer? Dream on."

Peter's voice was growing angrier, more irritable; everything around him seemed strangely far away, even as he talked on and his head throbbed more and more. "Tony got off on being someone's first time," he told Stuart, fingers drumming on the chair arm. "His little fetish. He could make a straight guy gay and all that shit. When I was stupid enough to tell him about--when I was a kid, that was the end of that. Damaged goods, you know."

Not sure what to say, Stuart stared down at his hands. He kept walking. "He wasn't *my* first time, either," he finally offered.

"You two still together?" Peter grinned mirthlessly. "I rest my case."

"Peter--"

"Everybody--" Peter closed his eyes hard for a second, fingers pressing against the bruised temple. The pain was starting to radiate, making his scalp feel teeth-grindingly tight against his skull. "It's all *our* fucking fault, right? It's always *our* fault, not anybody else's. So *fuck* them."

Stuart frowned, staring down at his boss. "Fault..."

"Do you *listen* to me? Ever?" Peter glared at his assistant, the answer clearly obvious to him if nobody else. "No, of course not. Nobody *ever* fucking listens to me. It's always my fault and hers, right? It's *my* fault that--that stuff happened to me, and it's *her* fault that--"

He was now sitting bolt upright. "None of those fucking *genius* doctors ever figured out why I was in the emergency room all those times. *She* told them. My mother did. She had to fucking spell it out for them that she was sick in the head and *wanted* to stop screwing with me, except she *couldn't* stop, so they get this *brilliant* solution to stick her in some fucking loony bin and drop *me* right in the middle of--"

"Peter--"

Peter's voice was a ribbon of pure rage. "It wasn't *her* fault, you get it, Stuart? It was *theirs.* Fucking asshole MORON doctors who--oh, Jesus, my head hurts--"

Palms pressed to his forehead, Peter let his head sink lower for a moment, then quickly righted it when that made the pain worse. When he looked up again, Stuart was hovering anxiously over him, apparently unsure what to do with his hands. With more than a little effort, Peter rearranged his features into an impassive mask.

"*Relax,* Stuart," he said, in the old dismissive tone. "I'm fine."

Stuart didn't take his cue to vanish, instead perching cautiously on the chair arm.

"Peter..." He hesitated. "Have you ever talked to anyone about this?"

Peter frowned. "About what?"

"About *this.* Your mother. The situation with...the foster homes. All of it."

"I just talked to you, are you *deaf* now or--"

Stuart shook his head. "I mean, someone who...you know, Peter. Someone who could tell you how to--who could help you, you know, work out all of it and..."

Peter stared at Stuart in disbelief. "Stuart? Did you just ask me if I've ever been to a therapist?"

"Well--"

"A *therapist?*" Peter shook his head, grinning in pure unadulterated scorn. "Yeah. Sure. That's a *great* idea, Stuart, some little fucking *social worker* with a hard-on for a total stranger's sob story is gonna--"

He was cut off by the *crash* of the office door slamming suddenly, and unexpectedly, wide open.

********

Too tired and wired to be really scared, Adam and Wendy ran through the DragonFire parking lot, the former marveling at the latter's ability to outdistance him even in three-inch heels. Finally, as Wendy crouched out of breath beside her black Jaguar, Adam ventured to ask--wheezing a little as he did--"What do we do now?"

By way of an answer, Wendy pulled open the car door, fumbled in the glove compartment and handed him yet another gun. He handled it nervously, as if it were a grenade that might go off.

"Wendy, I've never fired a--"

"Learn," she said tersely, eyes scanning the darkened horizon. "We're both smears on the pavement if you don't."

She braced herself for the next round of whining and complaining; but to her surprise Adam simply turned the weapon thoughtfully around in his hand, steadying his grip, then looked to her for further instruction. Feeling more than a little in need of guidance herself, Wendy finally jerked her head in the direction of the southwest lot corner, where the path leading toward DragonFire's main buildings began. They moved cautiously, slowly, between the few parked cars, neither one making a sound...

Then Wendy stumbled and almost screamed, as she nearly tripped over the body of Jenny Johnson lying beside Stuart's car.

Adam jumped a little, more from the sound than the sight, and gazed down with Wendy at the young woman's corpse. One eye stared sightlessly up into the cloudy night sky; the other was gone, along with that entire side of her face. Her hair, sticky with congealed blood, fanned out on the pavement in parody of her stiff, outstretched limbs.

"Wendy?" he murmured.

"Yeah?"

Adam hesitated. "Uh...am I a bad person if seeing this makes me kind of happy?"

Wendy thought it over. "Not at all," she declared briskly, as they both turned and headed for the shelter of a nearby clump of bushes.

********

He was an ox, the henchman accompanying Bobby G and the tall blond boss Lincoln; wide as he was tall (and he had a good six inches on both men), the shoulder-led weight of him breaking Stuart's office door open with nary a trace of real effort. At the sight of the two men huddled in the far corner, he smiled, then trained his gun on Stuart.

"Out," he said, jerking a thumb in the direction of the hallway.

Almost without thinking, Stuart put a protective arm around Peter's shoulders, prompting a burst of derisive laughter from Bobby and Lincoln. The gunman's face remained a mask.

"The man said, out," Lincoln repeated, voice smooth and cultured as ever. "Mr. Gianopolis has some business to take care of with--"

"No!" Stuart burst out. He could feel the tension in Peter's shoulders as the other man stared, motionless, at the scene before him. There was no movement, no sound, from where Georgia lay hidden. *Don't look under the desk,* he silently entreated Peter, and himself. *Don't let them know someone's there...*

The gunman turned to Lincoln, who plucked the gun from his fingers as if it were a flower. "Guard the back entrance," Lincoln said to him; he nodded, and lumbered out the ruined doorway without looking back.

Lincoln gave the gun a thoughtful twirl between his fingers, then turned to Bobby; the latter gave a worldly little shrug and glanced pointedly at Peter and Stuart. Lincoln started advancing on them, slowly.

"Where's your *friend?*" Peter snapped, rubbing his swollen temple sullenly. "Matthews?"

"Dead," said Lincoln calmly, still advancing, gun at the ready. "I must say, he'd become quite the liability these past few months--it's quite clear that Mr. Gianopolis and I are far more compatible business partners. And what better time to put that partnership into motion than now?" Another smile. "Trust me, my sensitive friend, he never knew what or who hit him."

The smile grew twisted and dark. "Now get up, Mr. Glazer, or you both can die. Of course, you will die before Mr. Dragon does, as I have unfinished business with him requiring a certain mutual participation--but I assure you, there *is* no way out. So please, for your own sake, stop trying to play the rescuer."

Stuart felt weirdly calm, as though he were observing events from a great distance. "You're going to kill us anyway," he answered. "So why should I?"

Closer. And closer. "I don't like defiance, Mr. Glazer--you *were* going to die quickly. Now it'll be slowly."

Bobby G just stood there, expressionless, watching it all as though he sat in his screening room. Maybe to him, Stuart thought with a sudden surge of hatred, it all really *was* just another movie.

Stuart clutched Peter's shoulder. The other man was breathing raggedly, whether from fear or the pain in his head Stuart didn't know. Lincoln was just a few feet away now, his arm raised, his eyes steely and dark...

His scream of pain made Stuart leap a mile in the air. The gun went flying as its owner seized his own shin, now pouring blood from where Georgia had stabbed it with the letter opener. Crippled, Lincoln stumbled over the desk chair and fell to the floor, his flailing grab for the gun stymied as Peter kicked his would-be rapist savagely in the skull, again, and again.

There was a sickening-wet crunch of bone giving way as Georgia darted from her hiding place and, with her father's shout of encouragement, ran for the doorway, as Stuart picked up the abandoned gun and, without the slightest hesitation, aimed at the motionless Bobby G, pulled the trigger--

And Georgia was trapped, struggling, in the crook of Bobby's arm as the gun failed to fire. Stuart tried it again, and again, in disbelief. Nothing. Bobby gave him a reptilian smile. Right on cue the oxlike gunman reappeared, accompanied by an equally large, well-armed companion.

"My little surprise for Lincoln," Bobby said coolly, clearly amused at his own cleverness. "You didn't think I had any intention of *sharing* the wealth, now did you? At least, Peter knows me better than that..."

Georgia, her letter opener long gone, tried kicking Bobby and got hauled airborne for her trouble. Her captor stared down at Lincoln's body, now oozing its own pool of red onto the pristine carpet. "And I have to thank you, Peter, for taking care of *that* little item on the to-do list. I must say, I didn't think you had it in you--"

"Put my daughter down," Peter said, his voice dangerously calm.

By way of an answer, Bobby nodded at the two gunmen, who marched across the room, grabbed Peter and Stuart and literally threw them to the floor near Bobby's feet. Georgia, her feet still dangling in mid-air and eyes averted from Lincoln's body, let out a single terrified cry.

"As you can see," Bobby said, "*I'm* not fucking around here."

Stuart struggled unsteadily to his feet, supporting Peter with his arm; Peter swayed in Stuart's grasp, eyes looking ready to draw blood. "Bobby?" he said again. "Put her down, *now.*"

"Daddy?" Georgia spoke in a rush, fear making her voice crack. "Mommy knows that Bobby and those other men were stealing money, she found some papers and they had a fight about it, and she said she wasn't going to be some goddamned Mafia wife on top of everything else, and maybe she should just go to the police and Bobby told her to mind her own effing business and--"

"And like the good little golddigging whore that she is, that's just what she did," said Bobby, his voice edging into a snarl. "So *you* just shut your little trap and--"

"Because *you* hit her!" Georgia cried, almost triumphantly.

Peter was now clutching Stuart's arm, staring at his daughter in disbelief. "What the fu--what do you mean, he *hit* her?" he demanded.

"That's--" Georgia gasped for breath as Bobby's arm bore her still higher off the ground. "That's why they didn't go to the premiere last month, because her face and arms were all bruised up. She had two black eyes." She glowered at her stepfather. "I know he was *really* mad because usually he only hits her where it won't show--"

His own head throbbing, cotton wool clogging his brain, Peter tried to comprehend this. When both Jane and Bobby had done a no-show at the premiere, with no explanation, he'd *assumed* it was somehow Jane's doing, phoned her and screamed for twenty minutes straight that she was badmouthing him to Boddy and trying to fucking make him look bad in front of every asshole he had to work with every fucking day of his life...she'd been strangely subdued, he remembered. Hadn't yelled back at all.

He only hits her where it won't show. *Usually.*

"Georgia?" he said, his voice too steady. "Does he hit *you?*"

"No," she said, eyes still on Bobby. "Once he grabbed my arm and twisted it really hard, but that's all."

Peter nodded. "Oh, all right," he replied calmly. "That's all."

He tore away from Stuart's grip and flew at Bobby, feeling Stuart try futilely to hold him back, seeing the gunmen rush forward. One of them grabbed him by the throat and squeezed, sending him tumbling back to the carpet with white sparks dancing in front of his eyes; the other got Stuart in a headlock, deflecting his attempted uppercut with am arm-twist that made Stuart cry out in agony.

In the space of a mere few seconds, as Peter fought to get his breath back, the first gunmen had Stuart firmly pinioned while Bobby effortlessly passed the screaming Georgia off to the second. The two were carried away like bundles, their voices receding down the deserted DragonFire hallways as Bobby was left alone with his wounded prey.

********

With little ceremony, they were dragged through the building and out the back door.Georgia, precocious sangfroid completely abandoned, put her head down and wept; Stuart, his arm radiating fire and the pit of his stomach cold with fear and despair, had nothing he could offer her as comfort. Failure. Again, and again, and again, everything he touched, horrible failure...

They were pushed up against the wall of the building, still pinned down by their captors. The second gunman waited not two seconds before pulling his weapon and training the barrel directly on Georgia's skull. Stuart felt his own single, horrified gasp of breath ringing in his ears.

"No," he said quietly.

The first gunman clenched his arms harder, causing Stuart to clench his teeth with the pain. "Too late," said the man. "Sorry."

"You're not going to--" Stuart *was* in a movie, he decided, things this horrifying did not *happen* in real life, not to people that he *knew* and that he... "She's a *child!* She's a *little girl!*"

The second gunman shrugged. "I've got my orders." He cocked the trigger.

"No!" Stuart thrashed like a fish on the hook, trying in vain to get to her. "NO!"

Georgia had stopped crying. She was frozen where she stood, her eyes squeezed shut...

*Help us, help us, help us--* "*NO!*" Stuart screamed.

The first shot rang out, the second--

And as they hit their targets, the gunmen dropped soundlessly to the ground, silenced forever by the single bullet through each of their foreheads.

For a moment, Stuart and Georgia just stood there, stunned. Georgia put her hands to her own head, her wonder at finding it intact showing in her eyes; she looked to Stuart as if he could explain, but he could only half-laugh, half-cry in utter bewilderment...

And then he looked up, and saw a sight that made his jaw drop. Wendy, hands in her pockets and feet planted firmly in her red sequined spike heels; and next to her, Adam Rafkin, his gun still pointed at the two men he had just taken down. Georgia and Stuart stared at Wendy. Wendy stared at Adam. Adam stared at the bodies.

"*Shit,*" said Adam, to nobody in particular.

Wendy shook her head, then laughed out loud; she couldn't help it. "Now *that,*" she announced, giving Adam a look of grudging admiration, "is what I call a fucking natural-born shot."

"But--" Adam still looked bewildered, but that was hardly unusual for him. Georgia, still silent and unmoving, started trembling uncontrollably where she stood; without hesitating, Stuart put his arms around her.

"Georgia? Stuart?" Wendy's voice was softer, more cautious. "Are you all right?"

Georgia buried her face in Stuart's shoulder; when Wendy put a tentative hand on the little girl's arm, she flinched violently and clutched him harder.

"I think," said Stuart, his voice shaking, "that we've had enough."

"Daddy," Georgia said quietly, the word almost lost against his jacket.

Wendy's eyes grew sharp. "Where?" she said, not seeming to notice the two bodies at all.

"The main building," Stuart said. "My office. Wendy, Bobby's in there, it--" He shook his head.

"Adam?" Wendy motioned toward the two of them. "Stay with them. In case someone else comes along--"

That got Adam out of his reverie. "Wait a minute--you're going in there? *Alone?*" He blinked behind his glasses in disbelief.

"We've got no choice," Wendy shrugged. "I need to find Peter and they're both hurt, somebody needs to look after them--"

"Wendy--"

She closed her eyes for a moment in exasperation. "Adam, we don't fucking have *time* for this!"

"But--" Adam was staring at her. "Wendy--you'll get hurt."

Wendy frowned. Maybe she was just seeing things, but she thought, she *thought,* that just for a split second there was something in Adam's eyes that went beyond friendly concern. As if, *almost* as if he...

Naaaah.

"I'll be back," she said briskly. "Take them some place less out in the open."

Stopping only to relieve the two dead men of their weapons--tossing one to Adam, pocketing the other--she strolled almost casually to the main DragonFire doors and with no hesitation, vanished inside.

********

Peter tried to get up again, he really did, but between the horrible vertiginous pain in his head and the breaths caught in his aching throat, he simply couldn't do it. He remained where he was, crouching on the carpet and staring with loathing into Bobby's gloating face. The other man, looking as malevolently serene as ever, folded his arms and grinned a little.

"So, was it good for you too?" Bobby said wryly.

Peter said nothing. He was fighting nausea again; but this time, he knew, it wasn't from pain. It was hate.

Bobby, unfazed, cast another amused glance in the direction of Lincoln's body. "I meant it, Peter--never for a moment dreamed you had it in you. Oh sure, I mean, you can *scream* and holler with the best of them, but this is a whole other--"

"What do you want?" Peter demanded, his voice not as steady as he'd hoped. *Georgia,* he thought desperately. *Stuart will take care of--oh, fuck, who's gonna take care of HIM? They'll be all right. They have to be all right, they--*

Bobby shrugged. "What do I *want?* Well...I'm quite close to having it, as it happens," he mused. "DragonFire and all its subsidiaries are mine now--the legal *and* the illegal branches. I've gotten rid of my two would-be *partners,* by one means or another..." He smiled again. "And no blood on my hands. I've got everything they were trying to squeeze out of me in off-shore accounts and shelters that are completely airtight--even *if* the Feds had the brains to figure it all out."

He tilted his head, studying Peter. "And, thanks to you, I even have an heir to leave it all to--"

"You don't TOUCH my children!" Peter's face was brick red, his voice a hiss of pure rage. "You don't *fucking* go near Jane, *ever* again, and you don't fucking go near *either* of my children, EVER--"

"Peter?" Bobby didn't even blink. "I'm sorry to have to break this to you, but Jane is *my* wife, who happens to be carrying *my* son--and trust me, for all *my* stepdaughter's screeching hysterics, we both know that *my* wife, God bless the stupid cunt, would eat dogshit and love it if I gave her enough money. So I really don't think I've got anything to worry about on that front--"

"It's got fuck-all to do with the money," Peter hissed back. "She's terrified of you." And why hadn't that possibility even *occurred* to him before? *He'd* always been afraid of Bobby, for Christ's sake, why had it *never* crossed his mind that--

Bobby was now standing right over him, gazing at him like a scientist peering through a microscope. His expression was strangely thoughtful.

"You know something, Peter?" he remarked. "I've always been a little amazed that you don't remember me at all."

********

Her steps slow and cautious, head swiveling from side to side, Wendy crept down the main DragonFire hallway toward Stuart's office. It *seemed* deserted, as he'd said, but...she kept her weapon drawn and ready, hands out in front of her as if holding a bridal bouquet.

A few yards from what had been Stuart's office door, she heard the voices: Bobby's definitely, Peter's maybe, too far away for her to make out the words. *Careful,* she told herself. The last thing she wanted to do was go crashing in on a fucking roomful of guys with guns, get Peter *and* herself killed trying to play Wonder Woman...

Creeping soundlessly nearer to the doorway, she waited, and listened.

********

Peter blinked in confusion for a moment. "Remember *what?*" he demanded.

Bobby shook his head a little, then began pacing slowly in front of him; back and forth, forth and back.

"I'll admit there are a *few* things that could have thrown you off, Peter," Bobby replied. "I mean, it *has* been a good twenty-some years now, and I *was* a little younger, a little thinner...hair hadn't gone the way of Telly Savalas..." He flashed a falsely self-deprecating smile. "And of course, I hadn't de-anglicized the proud family name yet--I mean, Bobby *Green?* Boring. I deserved better. Now, Dragovich to Dragon does at least have a colorful sound either way, but when my father lopped off the old immigrant syllables he made himself even more boring than he already was..."

Green. The Greens.

Peter stared up at Bobby. Something horrible, horrible and locked away and hidden for years--decades--was rattling the bars of its cage, harder and harder.

"No," he said softly.

Bobby shrugged a little. "Well--yes, Peter. Don't tell me you never even *recognized* me, after--"

"*No,*" Peter said again.

Bobby's eyes were reminiscent. "God, I hated that house," he said. "My pathetic *parents*"--he spat out the word--"disgusting little blue-collar nobodies with their plastic slipcovers and their TV dinners and that shitty little Bless This House cross-stitch on the wall. Jesus!" He laughed in contempt. "And I know you hated it too, for exactly the same reasons. I could see it in your eyes. We had a lot in common, Peter--even if you were a good deal younger."

No. No. No.

"Lying," Peter whispered, his voice filled with dread. "You're *lying.*"

Paralyzed. Unable to move, to get away.

"I remember when they brought you home," Bobby continued. "What was that--six months after poor crazy mom finally managed to kill herself? A year? You were, ah, *acting out,* as they say. Mom and Dad got their fill of you pretty quickly--but *I* convinced them to give you another chance." He took another step toward Peter. "To let you stay."

Once, in bed with Jane, he'd had a real flashback--not just little bursts of memory but being *there,* again, completely. The feel of that weight on his body, the texture of the bedspread against his palms, the smells, the sounds--he'd almost *flown* out of bed, staggering into the bathroom and pressing his cheek against the coolness of the tile until the sick feeling was finally pushed away again (back in its box, but it never really left, it was just locked away).

And the next morning, both of them pretending nothing had happened, he got up a nd went ot work for his new boss, just like usual, never for a *second* seeing...

Bobby was very close now.

"You had such blond hair," Bobby murmured. "Even lighter than now, and such blue eyes and you were the prettiest thing I'd ever seen."

Afternoons, in the back bedroom. Staring up at the ceiling. Willing himself *away,* elsewhere, gone numb. And the times, once or twice, when to his shame and horror he'd felt his body unwillingly responding--and the *laughter,* the nasty triumphant laughter when that happened. All of it, shoved into a mental box that was now unlocking all by itself.

He couldn't move. Even as Bobby's hand touched his hair, stroked it in a mockery of tenderness, he couldn't move.

"You see, Peter," Bobby was saying softly, "you belong to me. You always have, and you always will."

Peter was shaking his head, chin down, his voice barely audible. "No."

Bobby was bending over him now, one hand grasping the back of Peter's neck as the other reached into his jacket, pulled out the gun that Peter *knew* would be there. Rested the barrel against Peter's swollen, bruised temple.

"You belong to me," Bobby repeated. "You know it, and I know it. And before you die, Peter, you're going to give me what's mine one more time."

He'd thought it was over. That he'd escaped, forever, left dead and gone that ltitle boy who wouldn't fight back because he was too afraid. Afraid of *him,* of Bobby, who liked to hurt him even when he didn't fight. And he'd never escape it. He was trapped and he had always been trapped and there was no way out, and Peter Dragon wasn't really a person--that was why he had no friends, had nobody who loved him or wanted him--he was a *thing.* Dirty, hollow, an object disguised as human that Bobby could use and throw away whenever he wanted. Forever, and ever...

As Bobby gripped Peter's neck, his voice became almost soothing. "Now, there's no need to behave like that, Peter. Just look me in the eye and--what are doing? That's all right, Peter, I don't mind if you cry. I used to hear you at night, you know, when you thought everyone was asleep..."

Peter was weeping now, soundlessly, tears streaming down his cheeks as his hands reached up obediently for the buckle on Bobby's belt. This was it. This was all he was, a thing, not human. That was all. Do it quickly and get it over with, one last time, that's all, so Bobby would finally put him out of his misery--

At the *click* of the gun trigger behind him, Bobby turned his head.

********

They sat silently in the undergrowth of bushes near the DragonFire back lot, eyes on the darkened landscape. Adam had removed his flannel overshirt and wrapped it around Georgia, who despite the warmth of the night was still shivering violently, her teeth chattering. Ignoring--or trying to ignore--the throbbing pain in his arm, Stuart held her in his lap.

"Maybe you *should* go in there," he murmured to Adam.

Adam wavered, looking torn. In spite of everything, he seemed strangely--and atypically--composed. "You said it was empty in there, except for--"

"I *think* it was. I hope. I don't know." Stuart laughed, ruefully. "I don't know a damn thing. Still."

A branch snapped suddenly; both men peered through the undergrowth, saw nothing, sat back again. Adam shook his head, clearly unsure what to do next without Wendy's guidance. "Can you fire a gun?" he asked Stuart. "With that arm? If you have to?"

"I think so," said Stuart, hoping he was right.

Georgia made a sharp sound; it was like a sigh, but ragged and distressed around the edges. Adam cast a worried glance at her, then pulled out the second gun and put it on the ground in front of Stuart.

"Okay, I'm gonna go in," he said, rising to his feet. "*Stay* here, and don't try anything that'll get you--AAAGGGH!"

"DON'T MOVE! FBI! *STAY WHERE YOU ARE!*"

The undergrowth was now an explosion of snapping branches as a good half-dozen FBI agents emerged from nowhere, two of them grabbing Adam Rafkin by the arms and slamming him to the ground. Stuart, still clutching Georgia, found himself staring at the metal glints of a federal badge and yet another gun barrel.

"Sir, is your name Peter Dragon?" demanded the tall, skinny, bespectacled owner of the badge.

"Stuart," he said, "I'm Stuart Glazer, and this is Georgia Dragon--"

"Out of there," the agent said briskly. "Come on."

Bewildered, and not entirely sure this wasn't another trick up Bobby's sleeve--but not having much choice in the matter--Stuart rose painfully to his feet, gently urging Georgia to do the same. He let them both be led with toward the DragonFire side lot, where they found Adam with two more agents--a man and a woman--standing on his feet again and looking extremely indignant. They stood a few yards away, watching the trio gesticulate and apparently argue.

Georgia, slightly aroused from her earlier torpor, was staring at the plethora of detectives who now seemed to be streaming into DragonFire like a colony of ants. "Are they real?" she whispered to Stuart. "Are you real?" she demanded of the agent who had led them.

The agent looked down at Georgia solemnly, then handed her his badge to examine. At the sight of her sharp, skeptical, entirely Dragonesque assessment of the thing, Stuart allowed himself to relax a little; she'd be all right after all. The agent pocketed his badge again at her approving nod.

"Is there anyone else in that building, Mr. Glazer?" he demanded. "We haven't been able to locate--"

"Peter Dragon," said Stuart, gritting his teeth at the sudden jolt of pain up his wounded arm. "And Robert Gianopolis, and--"

The agent nodded; that was all he needed to hear. "We found him," he barked into a walkie-talkie. "Secure the A-7 perimeter, and--"

"Aren't you going *in* there?" Stuart demanded, clutching his arm. At the same moment, he caught a burst of the argument between Adam and the agents:

"--tell me how to run a damn investigation!" the woman agent was saying.

Adam seemed to be back to his old shrill self. "Well, *goddammit,* I *tell* you I think this whole thing is gonna blow sky-high tonight, and it takes you forever and a fucking *day* to get here? You're lucky we're not all fucking dead!"

The woman agent crossed her arms, scowling at him as her partner rolled his eyes. "Oh, I *am* sorry," she replied. "But see, call me crazy for *not* wanting to risk compromising a two-and-a-half-year investigation, just because Special Agent Aaron Schutt's schoolboy crush decided she was gonna play the hooker vigilante--"

"You are skating on *thin* ice, Malloy," Adam snapped back.

"So settle it on your own fucking time!" the bespectacled agent yelled. "We've got a hostage situation in there and we're running out of time so GET ON THE FUCKING BALL!"

The man and woman agent turned and scuttled toward the main building without a sound, a good dozen black-clad, gun-toting underlings following in their wake. The bespectacled agent--their supervisor?--picked up his walky-talky again. "Diane?"

A burst of static. "A-7 secured," announced the woman's voice--Diane's, presumably--at the other end. "Operation commencing."

"About fucking time," said the agent, more to himself than her. "By the way, Diane, I'm standing here with a kid in the early stages of shock and someone else with what looks like a broken arm, so an ambulance might be nice--"

"On its way," said Diane.

The agent turned and ran off after another team of detectives without a backward glance, leaving Stuart, Georgia and Adam standing alone together. Georgia stared after the departing agent, clearly intrigued, before fatigue and trauma won out and she sat heavily down on the ground. Stuart followed; his arm was really starting to kill him. Adam stood there beside them, watching the action unfold.

For a few moments, nobody spoke; finally, the two men exchanged wary glances.

"Adam?" Stuart ventured.

"Mm?"

"Who the hell is Special Agent Aaron Schutt?"

Adam pushed a fingertip against his glasses, breaking their slide down his nose. He studied his feet for a second. "Well," he said, "that would be me."

That got both Georgia and Stuart staring. Adam, looking slightly discomfited by the attention, shrugged a little.

"Look," he told them, pulling the FBI badge from his back pocket and fixing it to the front of his T-shirt, "it's kind of a really long story..."

********

Bobby turned his head, but didn't pull back, still holding the back of Peter's neck and pressing the gun to his temple. Wendy stood in the doorway, gun trained on Bobby and her eyes hard and cold. Bobby didn't blink.

"So," he said, "you finally decided to join the party."

"Let go of him," Wendy said, not raising her voice.

Bobby shrugged a little, and released his hold. But he kept the gun right where it was.

Wendy looked down at Peter. He was huddled on the carpet, his face bruised and tear-stained, clothes soiled and torn. His eyes were full of a resigned terror that made her stomach drop.

"Peter?" she asked evenly. "Are you all right?"

"No," he managed.

She nodded, not taking her eyes off Bobby. "I didn't think so."

Bobby surveyed her with undisguised contempt. "So, what brings you to our little get-together?"

Wendy's gaze was steady, and loathing. "I heard every word you said," she answered back. "So don't stand there and try to talk to me as if you were actually human."

Bobby rolled his eyes. He pushed the gun barrel closer against Peter's head; sliding it downward, and up again. Peter closed his eyes, not moving. Not daring to.

"Oh, come on, Wendy," Bobby replied. "Are you actually going to stand there and say you don't find any of this completely funny?"

Wendy stared at him in disbelief. "*Funny?*"

He actually grinned. "Please, Wendy. Peter fucking Dragon, the hotshot hot-shit suck-my-cock movie producer, the *terror* of DragonFire Studios, the man with half the town kissing his ass right and left, turns out to be nothing but a pathetic little fuck toy as crazy as his mother ever was--you don't think *that's* as funny as hell?"

Wendy's eyes burned into him. "I was raped once," she said steadily. "Years ago. When I was still working the streets. I'm never going to think that's funny."

"What am I supposed to do, *cry?*" Bobby sneered. "You're a whore. Occupational hazard."

She didn't waver. "And if anyone around here's insane, it's clearly you. Now get away from him before I kill you a lot more quickly than you'll ever deserve."

Bobby cocked the trigger of the gun. Peter flinched.

"Go right ahead," he answered. "But I'll take him right along with me. Whore."

Wendy raised the gun, concentrating her aim. "I'm counting to three," she said, "and if you don't get away from him by three, you're gone."

Peter kept his eyes closed, too afraid to open them. Too ashamed. Part of him was ready to cry again--with relief that she was here--and another part was just very tired and confused and wanted her to leave, so he could do what he had to do and it would all be over forever. The pain in his head wasn't letting him think...

"One," Wendy intoned.

Bobby curled his fingers around Peter's neck again.

"Two."

"I'm taking you right along with me, you stupid bitch."

"Thre--"

The room exploded into chaos, a phalanx of FBI agents roaring down the main hall and through the doorway, barreling past Wendy and knocking her straight to the floor. The lead agent barely had the word "Freeze!" out of his mouth before Bobby raised his weapon, before the room became a volley of cries and shouts and gunshots...

********

One of the agents lay on the floor, blood seeping from the wound in his side; another cradled her arm, fluttering like a broken wing. Three others had Bobby flat on his face, bellowing inchoately like a bull as his hands were cuffed, as he was hauled to his feet and the remaining agents radioed frantically for backup, for medical personnel. Malloy, the agent with the broken arm, raised her head...

"Merrick," she croaked to her partner, who was wrestling with Bobby. When he looked up, she jerked her chin in the direction of the blond man lying motionless on the office carpet. Wendy struggled to her feet, and saw it...

"Oh, *no,*" she breathed, then turned on the agents. "Was it *you?*" she demanded.

"Ma'am--"

"Was it *Bobby* who did that?" she shouted. "Or was it one of *you?!*"

Merrick grabbed for his walkie-talkie. "10-13, two down and the hostage seriously--"

"Who the fuck *planned* this?!" Wendy almost screamed. "How could you just come *barreling* in here like--"

"--and what looks like a dead body in the corner of the room--"

Wendy wrenched the thing from his hand, all her composure gone. "An *ambulance!* GET A FUCKING AMBULANCE!"

********

There was a hole in his chest. The color red was oozing from it, staining his shirtfront with a rapidity that surprised him. It didn't hurt, which surprised him; in fact, he didn't seem to feel anything at all. He was *above* everything, somehow, even as he was in it, floating inside his own body and watching the chaos surrounding him...

Peter turned his head, and then he saw her. And smiled.

His mother was walking toward him now at a slow, steady pace, a look of peace and happiness in her eyes. Elizabeth Dragovich, her blond hair just skimming her shoulders, as beautiful as she had been in life; so beautiful that total strangers, men and women alike, would turn to watch her walk down the street, would approach her and say, with no introduction at all, *You could be in the movies.*

More red, now; not the red on his shirt, but flashing red, a light from somewhere. He was being lifted, floating again; she floated right along with him. As she came closer he could smell her perfume, the one she'd always worn...a sweet flowery scent, like jasmine but lighter, less cloying. He'd searched for it a few times, in department stores, and had never found it.

"What's going on, Peter?" she asked, staring at the whirlwind of activity.

"I don't know," he said truthfully. He had been very upset about something, he remembered that much, but he couldn't for the life of him think of what or why...no matter. He kept his eyes on his mother.

Someone was shouting, there were sounds everywhere around him that he couldn't figure out. "Tell them to be quiet," he demanded, with the petulance of a small child.

She smiled again. "They can't hear me, Peter," she said. "Right now they can't hear you, either."

This seemed strange, but it didn't bother him. He kept his eyes turned toward her, ignoring everything else. Letting it fall away. Always, always his mother had been wonderful in emergencies.

"Are you all right?" she said.

"I don't know," he said.

"Here," she replied. "Take my hand."

He took it, ignoring the marks on her wrists, the places where the razor had gone in deep. Her fingers curled around his and he sighed quietly.

"I'm tired," he said.

"Rest," she said softly. "It's all right. Rest."

He kept hold of her hand, closed his eyes and sank easily into the blackness around him, letting it carry him farther and farther away.

PART 14
by
Nicole

She held him tightly in her arms, her presence enveloping him like a warm light. They were rocking back and forth slightly, with her whispering nonsensical assurances in his ear. He didn't even bother to open his eyes; the hazy fog that was swirling around inside his skull made him unable to do much more than lie there, basking in the comfort. Besides, what did it matter what might be happening around him, when he was safe and loved?

She had been gone for so very long, he remembered somewhere through the fog. But the thought slipped away almost immediately, like so many others, with the relaxing sense that it didn't really make a difference. She was there now, with him once again. And all was right in his world.

Until the sensation of something warm and thick dripping through his fingers made him open his eyes. Red -- darker, angrier red than seemed possible -- ran down the back of his hand, running slowly down his arm. He traced the path to where their hands were joined together, realizing with horror that she was the one who was bleeding.

He pulled out of her arms in terror, scarcely able to tear his eyes from the darkness contrasting against her pale skin. Her wrists wept red, a seemingly unending flow of life blood. He forced himself to look away, to look at her face. Sad, empty eyes met his -- eyes that were now dull and unblinking. Tears streaked down his face, their warm wetness a silent, mocking, repitition. He recoiled, and her limp form sank to the ground.

Wave after wave of terrible loneliness washed over him. He couldn't seem to move from where he sat, huddled against the solidity of an unseen wall. Then she was gone, and he was alone. Darkness. Footsteps. Coming from all around him, it seemed. He curled in on himself, whimpering softly, and tried to make himself as small as possible.

Laughter. Familiar laughter that still haunted him as it did that very first time. He forced himself to be silent, biting down on his lower lip until he tasted blood. Maybe, just maybe, he wouldn't be found. Maybe the footsteps would just pass by this time, leaving him alone.

Everytime he prayed for it to happen, but it never did.

The footsteps got louder, accompanied by a soft, taunting whisper. Nothing like the comforting tones of moments before, these murmured syllables held only malice. They began to get clearer, and he heard his name being repeated over and over, in almost a sing-song tone, like some hideous parody of a child's game. He couldn't stop the trembling that had taken over his body. He squeezed his eyes shut, hiding there in the darkness, and fervently wished to be anywhere else.

Hands grabbed his arms, dragging him roughly to his feet. He couldn't seem to get any purchase on the ground below, moving at the will of those who held him. He struggled, but sould not break their grip. In his ear, that voice sang his name with dark glee, obviously anticipating what was to come.

Hands everywhere, all over his body. Caressing, hitting, loving, hurting... He shrank away, but couldn't escape them in the darkness. A stabbing pain through his shoulder, as if someone had stabbed him with a hot poker. Calloused fingers brushing his face, his hair, his penis. Soft smooth skin against his body, his thighs, his mouth. His old companions humilitation and shame flooded through him once again, followed closely by the sharp tang of fear again as the hands became rougher, more demanding...

And then they were gone. He took a few stumbling steps, desperately trying to get away from that which he could not see. Something on the ground tripped him up, sending him sprawling on his face, his head striking the invisible ground with enough force to send light flashing across his vision. He turned, reflexively, to see what had caught him. There, illumiated in the spotty light, lay a body of a man whose head had been crushed in on one side. His features were no longer recognizable, half submerged in the rapidly spreading puddle of blood around the body; the other half mostly a gory mess.

He turned away almost instantly, retching violently until spots danced in front of his tightly closed eyes. His chest was on fire, and the pain in his head made him begin retching uncontrolably again. He hoped he would simply pass out, leaving the hurt and horrors behind. But he remained stubbornly conscious, lying flat with no strength or will to continue his escape.

A woman, more bruise than skin. A little girl, cowering in fear in her own home. A frightened shadow of a human being, frantically slashing at her smooth skin. A tall boy, taking what he wanted. A large man, echoing the boy's evil ways. Faces he knew, people he'd failed. And blood, blood over everything until the whole world was only one color.

The color of life. The color of death.

The color of pain. His pain.

He closed his eyes against them, but they would not leave him. Unable to do anything else, he wept.

***

Stuart hurried back along the hospital corridor, the muffled sounds of an increasing argument spurring him on. He knew he shouldn't have left, should have simply stayed where he was until Peter woke up. But he had left for ten minutes, to take a break from all the watching and waiting. And now there was trouble.

He pushed the room's door open with his good arm, careful to avoid bumping the other on the frame as he entered. The arm wasn't broken, as it turned out -- only very badly sprained. He was supposed to wear his new blue sling for the next couple of weeks, until he returned for reevaluation. He found he still needed a little practice with the whole manuevering thing.

Peter was lying in bed, fighting with the nurse and his direct supervisor. Over the last few days, Stuart had come to recognize many of the hospital staff as they had come and gone from the room. They had all been very nice to him -- especially the man who was in the room now -- even letting him stay at Peter's bedside through the night.

Not that he would have given them any choice in the matter.

When Stuart entered, all heads turned to him. Peter, looking pale and weak in his hopital bed, had a thick bandage covering his shoulder and running the legth of his arm, which was also in a sling. The bandaging and the sling were supposed to be keeping him imobile until his injury could heal. The bullet had thankfully missed any major organs, hitting high on his shoulder and chipping part of his collarbone. The doctor had told Stuart that they had had to remove not only the bullet itself, but a few bone fragments as well. Peter was most likely going to need some kind of physical therapy in order to use that arm properly again.

"What's going on?"

Peter and the nurse began to answer at the same time.

"Tell them to let me the hell out of here..."

"He's thinks he can just walk out of here..."

As Stuart tried to seperate the two sentences, the superviser held up her hands. She turned to Stuart. "Maybe you can calm him down. God knows he's not listening to either of us." She motioned to her coworker, and they left the room. Stuart could have sworn he saw a sympathetic smile on the woman's face when she passed him.

Taking a slow, calming breath, Stuart turned back to face Peter. He moved to the bedside, sitting down in the chair he had been inhabiting of late. Up close, Peter looked even worse. The bandages looked too thick, too serious. And the bruise on his temple was swollen darkly against the lightness of his skin and hair. But what was hardest to look at was the naked pleading in the other man's expression.

"Stuart, please, help me get out of here."

"Peter, you've been unconscious for almost four days now. I don't think that --"

He saw the eyes harden into their familiarly tough coldness. "Fuck you," Peter spat out, trying to raise himself off the pillows. "I'll just do it myse -- Oh shit..."

He fell back, his blue eyes tightly closed against the obvious pain that clearly strained his features. He lay there, panting, and Stuart felt panic rush through him. "Peter? Peter, should I call --"

Even as he was saying the words, his hand was reaching for the call button. Before he could summon help, however, Peter's hoarse voice scratched, "No. 'S okay..." With noticeable effort, he forced his eyes back open, blurrily focusing on Stuart's general direction. He opened his mouth to speak again, the words still labored, but carefully ennuciated this time. "I'm fine." He blinked a few times, clearing his vision ever-so-slightly. "Really," he insisted, though it was plainly far from fact.

Stuart hesitated, his hand hovering over the button. Peter was still breathing roughly, in short gasps through his clenched jaw. Stuart could see the tenseness of his body, the way he was holding himself stiffly to prevent any further pain. "I could get them to bring some painkillers, Peter. They'd help..."

The man on the bed seemed to consider this for a moment. Either that, or he was simply gathering strength to speak again. Stuart waited, unsure, but it turned out to be the later. "Can't. Have to stay awake."

"Why, Peter?"

He shook his head, wincing immediately at the movement. "Can't stay here," he mumbled, looking for all the world as if he were on the verge of tears. Stuart found himself at a loss. He reached for Peter, ignoring the twinge in his other arm, and grabbed the other man's hand. Somewhat to his surprise, Peter allowed the contact, even letting his eyes slide closed for a few seconds. He ran his thumb in tiny circles over the back of Peter's hand, willing the lines of pain on his face to relax.

Just as he was beginning to wonder how much of the other night's events Peter remembered, his boss' eyes snapped open and he frantically tried to sit up and look around the room. Stuart held onto his hand even more tightly, alarmed at the sudden motion.

"Georgia?" he rasped, his voice nothing more than a tight, strained whisper now. "Where's Georgia, Stuart?"

The panic was coming off the man in almost visible waves. "She's safe, Peter. She's with Jane. They're both safe. You need to calm down or I'm going to have to call someone."

He could feel Peter trying to reign in his emotions, trying to force himself to relax enough that Stuart wouldn't carry out his threat. "Calm. I'm calm," he swore. He raised his eyes to meet Stuart's. "They're really safe?" he asked softly, wanting to believe it was true.

Stuart smiled for the first time in days. "They really are, Peter. In fact, Jane said she would call later, to see if you'd woken up yet..."

"Safe," he repeated to himself, deflating against the pillows. His eyes began to slip closed again, before he reopened them, looking at Stuart's sling for what seemed to be the first time. "You?" he slurred, and Stuart's mind flashed back to the scene in the office, right before...

He pulled himself back into the present, noticing with approval that Peter was having a harder and harder time keeping his eyes open. "Fine, Peter. Just a sprain."

"'S good..."

"Just rest, Peter. You need it."

The hand in his squeezed faintly. "Stuart?" came the whisper so soft that he had to lean in to hear. "Don' leave, 'kay?"

Stuart smiled again, squeezing back. "I'm not going anywhere."

***

When he woke again, hours later, it was like they were doing a retake of the scene before. Peter, having this time managed to get himself into a sitting position -- with no little effort -- was once again insisting that Stuart help him leave the hospital.

"Peter, you need be here, resting. It's all over now."

Something flashed across his face, something that Stuart didn't understand. "It's not over," Peter informed him in a trembling whisper. "You don't know about --" He clamped his jaw shut then, refusing to continue. "Nevermind," he stated, his voice more determined now, more Peter Dragon. "I'm getting out of here, Stuart. Whether you help or not."

The mask was firmly in place now, Stuart saw. Whatever it was that he had been about to say had been savagely pushed back, replaced with this semblance of control. Stuart sighed. Once Peter got this look, there was never any arguing with him.

The silence between them was broken by a light knock on the door. Both men turned their heads to see Adam Rafkin enter the room. No, not Adam, Stuart reminded himself. Not Adam at all.

Peter groaned. Stuart glanced at him, noticing that he had made himself sit up straighter, almost all trace of weakness gone. He was amazed at the transformation, but wondered how long Peter could keep it up. "Get out of here, Rafkin. Whatever it is, I'm not in the mood."

Adam looked down at his feet for a moment, then back up at Peter. He cleared his throat, then reached into his coat and pulled out the badge that Stuart had seen before. "It's not Adam, Peter. It's actually Aaron. Aaron Schutt. Special Agent Aaron Schutt, to be exact."

Peter blinked, looking as bewildered as Stuart himself had felt when he first heard this revelation. "What the *fuck* are you talking about, Rafkin?"

"I'm not who you think I am, Peter."

"Stuart," Peter said, his voice the same deadly calm that usually came right before a huge explosion, "what's going on here?" His gaze never left the man he had known under a different name.

Stuart resisted the urge to duck for cover. "I'm not entirely sure myself yet."

"We've been running an investigation into Bobby Gianopolis for almost a year now," Adam began, looking as nervous as Stuart felt. Apparently Peter still made an impression on him, despite the fact that he was a FBI agent. Despite everything, Stuart felt a smirk tugging the corners of his mouth. "We almost had enough to move in, when he grabbed you and Stuart and Georgia. Look, I'm really sorry about the way things went down. It was inexcusible --"

"Damn fucking right it was inexcusible!" Fireworks time. "You knew what was going on, but you let them grab my little girl? What about Jane? Did you know what he was doing to her too? Did you just sit by and watch this whole thing like some cheap cable movie? I can't believe that --"

He broke off, his words dissolving into a fit of harsh coughing. Adam -- *Aaron* -- looked to Stuart as if he could do something. Stuart reached for the water pitcher on the low table beside the bed, pouring a small amount into a glass and holding it for Peter to drink from. He only let him have a few sips, so as not to make himself sick, before he replaced the glass. His hand rested lightly on Peter's good shoulder, rubbing gently and not giving a damn what it all looked like. Hell, if he thought he could get the sling off easily, he would take the other man into his arms if it would help.

Peter opened his eyes, glaring at the agent standing helplessly at the foot of his bed. Aaron fidgeted under his gaze. "I have to ask you some questions, but I could come back..."

"What questions?" Peter hissed.

"I should come back. You don't look very well, and --"

"Is that going to go into your report, *Agent*? I'm *fine*, goddammit. And I don't have to answer anything without a lawyer."

Aaron pulled his glasses off and began cleaning them on the edge of his shirt, not looking up. "That's true, but it would look a lot better if you cooperate with us now." He replaced the specs, meeting Peter's smoldering eyes. "I just want to know how much you might remember of what happened the other night."

"Nothing. Go fuck yourself."

Aaron flinched, but didn't back down or look away. "Look, Peter, if you don't cooperate with me now, I'm going to have to put you under arrest here. You'll be confined to this room until you decide to talk to us, or until you're well enough to be taken to jail and trial."

Stuart was on his feet in an instant. "You can't... I mean, he didn't --" He felt a hand on his arm and looked down to see Peter give him a slight shake of his head. Closing his mouth, he sat back down heavily, his arm beginning to throb.

"I don't remember much of anything after the point where I got this big fucking bump on the side of my head," he said, glaring at the agent as if daring him to contradict what he was saying. "I hear that head injuries tend to make it a little difficult to concentrate."

Aaron shifted his weight from one foot to the other, clearly uncomfortable. "Bobby Gianopolis is claiming that you killed two men in front of him."

Stuart felt like the ground had dropped out from under him. "Bobby isn't one of the most trustworthy men," Peter said tightly. Stuart could see that he was trembling faintly now, but he didn't think the other man in the room was close enough to tell.

Peter Dragon, putting on the show no matter what.

The agent watched him for a long moment, then nodded. "We know that. Obviously. You don't remember anything?"

"They had my little girl. Stuart was there... And Bobby. Hey, here's an idea," he said with an artificial brightness that didn't quite cover the seething anger in his voice, "why don't you go question the fucking *bastard* who hurt my family? I'm the one with the goddamn bullet wound, for crissakes. I certainly didn't shoot *myself* did I? You fucking morons think that just because *you* fucked up you can come around here and try to place blame?" His voice was getting louder by the second, the rough sound enough to make *Stuart's* throat hurt. The monitors around them seemed to be beeping louder and faster, and Aaron looked worried as worried as Stuart felt.

"Peter..." Stuart warned under his breath, fully expecting not to be listened to. But Peter looked up at him, and, despite the pain in his eyes, managed to bring himself under what looked to be some version of control. The frantic noises around them began to slow, though, from as close as he was, Stuart could tell that Peter was holding himself together with extreme tension and effort.

"You're right," came the voice from the end of the bed, pulling Stuart's attention away from his boss. "You're not really under suspicion. It's Bobby we wanted, and we have him." He hesitated for a moment, then continued, "But someone will probably need to speak to you again soon, to get an official statement, ask a few more questions."

"Fine. Are we done?"

The special agent shrugged. "Yeah, sure. We're done." He took a few steps toward the door, before pausing and looking over his shoulder at the figure on the bed. "Feel better, Peter. I am sorry."

The door closed behind him. Stuart turned to see Peter lying back against the pillows, breathing fast and shallow, his hand pressed against his shoulder wound. All pretense of health was, for the moment, completely gone. "Peter?"

He opened his eyes, forcing himself back into a sitting position. Without warning, he reached down and pulled the needle out of the back of his hand, cursing under his breath as blood welled up from the tiny hole. "Peter, what --"

Peter didn't look up at him, concentrating on undoing the other things that hooked him up to the machines around him and held him to the bed -- a task made even more difficult by the fact that he had only one useful hand. "I'm getting out of this place. Now."

PART 15
By
NAT

Stuart was motionless for a few more seconds, believing that maybe if he just stood there and pretended Peter wasn't climbing out of his hospital bed, the other man would admit defeat and climb back in again. Any ordinary man would. However, Peter Dragon could hardly be considered ordinary, in any sense of the word.

"Peter, at least let me get you a wheelchair," Stuart begged, sliding into place beside Peter, sliding one arm around his boss's waist, slinging Peter's good arm over his shoulder. Peter protested less than usual as Stuart wrestled him into a wheelchair and guided him out the door. Stuart somehow managed to charm the nurses into signing the release papers, then loaded Peter into the car (temporary, on loan from a friend until the dealer had figured out how to clean blood off leather).

"Now what?" Stuart asked, looking expectantly at Peter.

Peter shrugged. "Whatever. I'd like to see Georgia, but . . . " he yawned.

Stuart grinned. "Home?" he suggested, and Peter nodded.

********

Although he would never admit it, Peter was dead tired by the time they arrived at his house. He managed to struggle up the stairs and to his bed under his own steam, but collapsed in his bedroom, burying his face in the pillows.

"Remind me never to escape from the hospital again," he moaned at Stuart as the other man entered the room. Stuart grinned.

"Out," Peter said, waving a hand at Stuart. "I gotta change." Stuart obeyed, pulling the door shut behind him.

He leaned up against the doorframe, a tiny smile spreading across his face. In the house, alone, with Peter--he refused to let himself think about the last time this happened. "Stuart?"

Stuart swung the door open, and smiled. Peter was sitting up in the bed, blankets across his lap, pouting. "Yeah, Peter?"

Peter patted the bed beside him. "It's cold. Get in."

Stuart stared at Peter for a minute, then toed off his shoes and stretched awkwardly on top of the blankets. Peter snuggled almost joyously into Stuart, pressing his nose into Stuart's collarbone, arms going around the other man's waist. "Don't go anywhere, 'k?" Peter yawned, breath hot through Stuart's shirt.

He swallowed heavily. "Okay, Peter." He cautiously stroked one hand over Peter's hair, pulling him close. "I won't. I promise."

PART 16
By
Lokemele

Peter awoke in the middle of the night with a start, the pain in his shoulder and arm yanking him roughly into consciousness. He stared up at the ceiling, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness and finally permitting the relief at being out of a hospital, away from doctors and...everything they did. And didn't do. He had a boatload of painkillers, prescribed and otherwise, he didn't need any goddamned incompetent...

The sound of light snoring next to him made him start. He turned his head to see Stuart, still fully clothed, lying on the opposite pillow in a deep slumber. Peter stared.

"What the *fuck* was I flying on yesterday?" he said out loud. Stuart stirred but didn't awaken.

Moving slowly, his teeth gritting with the effort, Peter slid his legs from under the covers and pulled himself into a standing position. Fumbling one-handedly with his robe, he managed to pull it on before making his way painfully across the bedroom and toward the stairs.

He was white-faced and sweating by the time he got to the last step, but forced himself to keep going, past the kitchen and into the small study off the living room. Sinking gratefully into a chair, he let himself close his eyes for a few moments, then reached for the bottom drawer of a long, gleaming, mostly unused mahogany desk.

It took a lot of impatient rifling before he finally found what he was searching for. Pulling out the small sheaf of papers, he sat back in his chair again and began to read, one finger running thoughtfully down the page.

There were less changes to make than he'd thought. The bulk of the estate to Georgia, of course, with enough left over to give Lonnie a comfortable old age. That stayed the same, but he had a few things to add...

Grabbing a pen, he started scribbling notes in the margins. Some money for Wendy--just call it Services Rendered--plus that jade vase in his living room he knew she'd always liked. Some for Jane--just call it Combat Pay--who wasn't going to have much left but her jewelry once the Feds got through seizing Bobby's assets...

Stuart? Peter considered it, seriously, then shook his head. The guy could make his own damn fortune--not that Peter couldn't give him a decent head start, though. First thing tomorrow, he'd call Bill Buell, the head of Parnassus Pictures. Bill owed him a huge favor for taking Holden Van Junkie off their contractual hands; Peter'd tell him he had a great candidate for that vacant producer's position. Smart guy, loyal, knew the business, worked his ass off (not great at keeping the talent sober and skinny, but nobody's perfect), above and beyond call of duty blah blah, might as *well* point the guy toward a new job, there wasn't gonna be much of DragonFire left once the FBI got done with it...

And he didn't care. He simply did not care anymore.

He *was* grateful to Stuart--that was no lie. He wanted to get his affairs in order and...do what he needed to do as quickly as possible, and he wanted to do it at home, where he was safe and hidden from the world...and Stuart had helped speed things along immeasurably by getting him sprung.

Peter pressed his fingertips to his forehead. The Darvocet wasn't touching the ache there, right in the middle.

He *had* to do it quickly, whether he wanted to or not, because he knew how Bobby fought (oh, *he* knew all too well). Days, at the most, and Bobby would spill everything, drag Peter right down with him; it would be all over every newspaper and TV station out there, that Peter Dragon was nothing but a thing, an object (*crazy as his mother ever was*), Bobby's creation, Bobby's property. To bend, and break.

He'd thought he had escaped. That he'd gotten away running, free, and he never had to look back--but he was a mouse in a maze, Bobby lurking down every last pathway, and Peter had been in the maze his whole life without even knowing it, and he was too fucking *stupid* even to suspect it because he was a hollow shell, a toy. Key wound up, strings pulled, not human at all...

Nothing.

And now, everyone would know what he really was. And there was only one way out of that.

Only one.

********

Stuart gripped his glass of Scotch with a weary hand, downing it gratefully. What an endless day. What an endless *week* it had been since he'd assisted Peter's hospital flight; getting torn a new one by Peter's doctors for taking him home, by the visiting nurse and physical therapist for "getting in the way," by a snappish FBI agent for not handing her her case on a platter (they didn't have *enough* by this time to make a few damn charges stick?), by a trio of thoroughly noxious tabloid reporters he'd chased off the front lawn, by Lonnie for not giving him chapter and verse on everything beforehand, by Connie Hunt for telling her where she could put her new little "damage control" campaign...

And of course by Peter himself, who had nearly bitten Stuart's head off when Stuart *tried* to suggest, very gingerly, that it was a little early to be getting back to business again. No luck; Peter had spent hours at a time holed up in his study, teleconferencing with his lawyer and another studio (job hunting? Well, considering DragonFire would probably soon be history...), waving Stuart out of the room and, really, doing his best to ignore Stuart's whole existence.

Well, it wasn't like he was *hurt* or anything, really. He'd suspected that Peter's vague, impulsive ardor had less to do with real feelings, and more to do with fear and the danger they'd been in and any port in a storm...

Which didn't mean he had to *like* it, that fact staring him right in the face. So soon.

He sighed under his breath, turning the empty Scotch glass over in his hand, then turned his head when he heard footsteps. Peter had emerged from his study yet again, bearing the nearly untouched plate of food Stuart had prepared for him earlier; his face was tight with fatigue, but he looked much calmer than he had the past few days. More...settled. Stuart smiled at Peter, a gesture he didn't return.

"Stuart?" Peter set the plate down on an end table. "You wanna do me a favor? I just realized I'm down to my last few Xanax, if you can go get this refilled for me..."

He handed Stuart a crumpled prescription paper. "Go to the one on Cielo. I know it's a drive, but it's the only one where the pharmacist isn't fucking brain-dead."

For a moment--just a moment--the other man's tone made Stuart frown. The words sounded...not *forced,* exactly, but not natural either. Too offhand. Almost as if they had been rehearsed.

"Peter," he hesitated. "I don't know if that's a good idea. I mean, that on top of the Darvocet and everything else they have you taking--"

"Who the fuck *are* you now, Stuart, Barry McCaffrey? I've got a goddamned prescription, you've been dancing around here all day wanting to run and fetch for me, so go *do* it. All right? Or do I have to try driving down there with one damn hand?"

Stuart stared at Peter, then finally gave up and shook his head. Oh, hell--why not? Give the man a break, if anyone deserved a king's ransom in tranquilizers Peter did (and after the past week, Stuart wouldn't refuse some himself). Besides, the drive was long enough that he'd have a chance to get some air, clear his head...

He took the prescription from Peter's outstretched hand, then went hunting for his car keys.

********

He'd run it through several times in his head, that day in the study. He was a producer, after all; his whole damn business was helping orchestrate seventeen things at once and making them all run like a machine. This was no different.

Taking the plate into the kitchen, Peter dumped the sensible, nutritious convalescent's meal Stuart had forced on him, and put together a huge pastrami on rye. Hot mustard. Extra Swiss. His favorite. He forced himself to concentrate on the taste, the sharp tang of the mustard...

A quarter of the way through it, his stomach revolted and he put the rest of the sandwich down, leaving it on the plate. No matter. It was the principle of the thing.

He returned to the living room. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out the letters he had written that afternoon. Lined them up neatly on the coffee table: Stuart, Lonnie, Wendy, Jane and the hardest one of all, Georgia. His chest tightened a little as he placed it next to the others.

It would be different for her; it wouldn't be like when his own mother had done this to him. She had another parent and if something did happen to Jane, Jane's own parents were blessedly sane and normal (one of Jane's chief attractions for him, he now realized) and adored their granddaughter beyond all reason. Georgia would always have somewhere to go. He'd seen to that much.

He looked at his watch; twenty minutes gone by. He'd given himself a good window of time, sending Stuart many miles out of his way with a prescription he'd have to sit there and wait for, but it was still time to hurry.

With one last glance around him, Peter walked upstairs.

The gun was in the side table by his bed; one of Lonnie's, which Peter had appropriated for himself back when Bobby's bosses' men first began paying their little visits. He *could* use the pills, of course, the boatload of tranquilizers and painkillers he had at his disposal, but if Stuart found him in time then they might be able to bring him back. He didn't want to be brought back. He wanted *out.*

He could use a razor, like his mother had; a quick death, if you cut deep enough. He didn't want to use one. He knew what that looked like, afterwards.

Not that this would be any better, but at least he was spared the mental picture.

Taking a deep breath, Peter pulled the gun out of the drawer, checked to make sure it was loaded, walked into the adjoining bathroom and shut the door.

********

Stuart honked the horn yet another time, less out of the conviction it would accomplish anything than sheer unbridled frustration, and slumped back in his seat.

Of *course,* after he made what *he* thought was the perfectly sensible decision to go to the nearest pharmacy he could find, not to go out of his way to Cielo (he didn't like to leave Peter alone for that long, the man was sick and in pain and in case he *did* suddenly need a doctor...)--of course, after he decided this a fucking drunk driver decided to smash into a semi truck and bring traffic to a two-mile standstill. He was in a fucking parking lot, Peter's Xanax on the seat next to him, Peter not picking up the phone (which was good, if the ringer was off it meant he was sleeping, but still...). Good work, as usual.

God, he was tired. Stuart rubbed his temples, staring ahead at the flashing cherry lights of the ambulance and police cars. If he was really lucky, he thought blearily, they'd have the road cleared by sometime tomorrow afternoon.

********

His hands were shaking as he raised the run, from the pain of using his bad arm and also from fear. Peter swore under his breath, cursing his own cowardice, his own fucking hesitation...this was the *right* thing to do, do it quick, do it *now.*

He sat on the edge of the bathtub, gripping the gun, trying not to think about what the pristine white porcelain would look like afterwards. Better here than the bedroom, anyway. He raised it again.

*Georgia,* he thought. He'd never get to see her grow up.

She didn't need him. She was better off. There was nothing he could give her.

The child Jane was carrying; his child. His son. He'd never get to see him at all.

Like- he would anyway. Yeah. Great father he'd be for a boy. A real paragon of masculinity.

*This might be your only chance. Do it.*

Jane. He never got a chance to say he was sorry. That as horribly as they'd treated each other, as ill as they'd wished each other...the whole idea of Bobby, of *anyone,* hitting her made him physically sick.

*Do it.*

Wendy. He never got a chance to say he was sorry. For Jenny fucking Johnson. For treating her like...like a whore, that's how. He'd had a friend in her, he'd had genuine friendship. For the first time in his life. And he'd thrown it away.

*Do it quick.*

Lonnie. For treating him like an errand boy. Stuart. For leaving him to find this whole fucking mess.

*Do it NOW.*

The metal of the barrel was cold against his temple. His arm hurt so much.

That dream, he'd dreamed that Bobby was his fucking *lover.* He'd dreamed that. He must have wanted it. Asking for it. Brought it on yourself. All of it.

*Help me. Please, somebody help me, I am so frightened and I can't close my eyes anymore without seeing it all and remembering it all and it's my fault and I was asking for it and if anyone knew how crazy I really am they would laugh and LAUGH...*

He closed his eyes...

Footsteps. He heard footsteps, and he froze.

Bobby was coming for him. It was always like that, he would take refuge in the bathroom, in a closet, anywhere, Bobby always found him...

Footsteps, but the door stayed closed. Still. The door was closed.

"Peter," a voice said softly.

Peter opened his eyes.

********

Half a mile in half an hour; not a bad clip if you were riding a damn horse and carriage, Stuart supposed. Finally giving up the ghost, he craned his neck, watched for a space in the traffic along the road shoulder and darted in, joining the line of frustrated drivers snaking toward the nearest exit. A slow crawl of cars, and the route would take him even farther out of his way, but at least he was actually *moving* again.

Jesus, but Peter was going to be pissed when he finally made it back.

********

Peter lowered the gun and sat there, unmoving on the edge of the bathtub. His mother stared back at him, quietly, steadily. Standing there she seemed solid, real, no mere apparition, but around the blurred edges of her he could see the light passing through.

"I see dead people," Peter said, and laughed. An ugly sound. "I *am* fucking insane."

Elizabeth Dragovich stood there, hands in her pockets, just staring at him. She wore the cornflower-blue robe he remembered from his childhood, long and thick and drawn close to her slender white throat. It made her eyes look like sapphires; not that they needed the help. She'd always been so beautiful.

"So what do you want *now?*" he said, staring right back. The hostility in his voice startled even him.

No answer.

"What are you going to do?" he demanded. "Just fucking stand there and then *leave?* Like usual? Or are you trying to get your fucking wings or something by talking me out of this?"

Her feet, slender and pale as the rest of her, were bare against the tiled floor. She looked down at them for a moment.

"I know you hate me," she said calmly. "As much as you love me, and that's saying something, Peter. And I don't blame you for it."

Peter nodded. "That's nice," he said. "That's just great. Now leave. I have a little business I have to--"

"Peter," she said, as calmly as if he'd never interrupted her, "I killed two people that day."

He didn't answer.

"I killed two people," she repeated. "And for all of eternity, I'm living with that. Forever."

Peter swallowed for a moment. The anger was draining from him, slowly, without his wanting it to. "Are you..." He couldn't finish the question.

She actually smiled. "In hell? Is that what you're thinking?"

He managed a nod.

"I hate to tell you this, sweetheart," she replied, "but there's no hell." She put a hand to her hair for a moment, then down again; a nervous gesture he remembered well. "But the thing about eternity--it's a place where it's completely impossible to hide from your own mistakes. Your own failures. All of it."

One ghostly heel pressed against the tile floor.

"So I'm your big failure," Peter said. "That's nice--"

His mother shook her head. "You, my boy, were the only good thing that ever happened to me in my entire life. The *only* good thing. And I destroyed your happiness. Your peace. Your love." Her eyes grew sadder. "I hurt you from the time you were a baby, over and over again--and with one completely selfish, self-centered act, I ended up condemning you to the very same childhood that helped drive me crazy. *That* is my failure."

Peter closed his eyes for a moment. Sick--heartsick--but not surprised. Oh, no. He'd always known, somewhere inside of him. That someone, somewhere, had deliberately destroyed her.

"It won't be like that for Georgia," he said. "She has people who--"

"She needs *you.*"

He laughed; he had to. "Oh, no," he said. "Oh, *no.* She doesn't need *me.*"

"Peter--"

"No," he said, shaking his head. "No."

Worse, and worse, and worse. Putting on the old game face for Stuart, for the doctor, for so many people this past week that he thought he'd go (even more) insane. Bobby had been behind everything. *Everything.* All this time. He had taken everything. There was nothing left.

"She needs you, Peter. You need *her.* You need your son. You can't abandon them like this."

Lying awake, hour after hour, the painkillers trying to pull him under, fighting to stay awake because otherwise...because otherwise, it would all happen again, and again, and again. Muscles aching with fear, heart racing, he couldn't let anyone touch him, couldn't let anyone near him because he was dirty, because they would hurt him just like Bobby had, he was frightened, he was fucking *terrified*--

"It's Bobby's," Peter replied. "He took everything. I don't have anything left."

She looked so *serene*--who gave her the right to look so fucking serene, and so *sad?* A sadness he could never reach.

"Georgia had a choice," his mother said. "She chose you."

"Yeah?" He laughed harshly. "She'll learn. So will everybody else, right?"

"She had a choice. She chose you."

He studied the gun, lying there in his lap. "I could be with you," he said, almost to himself. "Eternity, right?"

No answer.

"Why aren't you telling me that?" he demanded. "Why aren't you telling me to *do* it, so I can be with you?"

"Peter--"

"No, fucking *answer* me!" The anger was back, bubbling and boiling up inside of him, twenty years' worth coming out to play. "Why don't you *say* it? Why don't you tell me to fucking *do* it so I can be with you? How come *every fucking thing you do* is so that I never get to see you again?"

She closed her eyes. "Peter, I killed you once. I will not do it again. Even if *you* beg me for it, I won't."

He stared at her.

"Get out," he said, his voice a near-whisper.

No reply.

"Get *out!*" he yelled. "Do they speak English wherever the hell you are now? Get *out!* I don't want you here, I don't fucking *need* you to come waltzing the fuck in and just FUCKING STAND THERE and *watch* everything that..."

His vision was blurring. He clutched the gun, not letting go, as the tears poured down his cheeks.

"Did you just *stand* there like that for it all?" he demanded. "Did--fucking ANSWER me, goddammit! Did you stand there and just *watch* it all? *All* of it?"

She opened her eyes again, large and blue and full of sorrow. "Yes," she said quietly. "That was all I could do, is bear witness. That's all."

"All of it! Fucking ALL of it!"

There was a long pause.

"You know what I really am," she said finally. "Don't you?"

Peter's own eyes were half-closed, a futile attempt to stem the flood of tears. "I don't know what you are," he replied, choking. "I don't know *who* you are and I never did."

She stood there, watching him cry.

"I'm your memory, Peter," she said. "No one else but you sees me, because no one else but you has *this* memory of me. This one. And you know...memories may seem individual, but they're not. They're all connected. And if you can remember me this clearly, there are so many *other* things you have to remember along with me, things you've been trying to pretend never happened..."

"I want to be with you," he sobbed. "I--"

"No," she said gently. "You want to be with the person you *wanted* me to be. The person you needed me to be. I failed you, Peter, that's no more than the truth. I failed you. The only thing I can do now is try to keep you from failing yourself. And your children."

This wasn't happening. He was crazy, out of his fucking *mind,* he--his grip on the gun was loosening. He could feel it, his fingers relaxing of their own accord.

"I'll never see you again," he managed.

"That's not true," she said. "If you can learn to accept what happened to you, Peter, you can start to remember me without being afraid. You'll begin to understand that it's over, and that you're safe."

Peter shook his head. "I'm not safe. He's out--" Peter couldn't finish the sentence.

"He can't hurt you anymore. You have to believe me, Peter, *he cannot hurt you anymore.*"

"I didn't even *see* it!" Peter was shouting again, and not at his mother. "I didn't *see* it, I didn't--so fucking--"

"You saw it, Peter. You always did. You just didn't know what to do with what you saw."

"--*stupid*--"

"Memories are all connected, Peter," she continued, almost merciless in her persistence. "And human beings are all connected, and as much as you may hate the idea that's just what you are--a person. A human being, like all the rest."

"No." His head was down.

"Who are you connected to, Peter? Who are you part of?"

"I--"

"Who cares about you? Who cherishes you? Who gives you their friendship? Their loyalty? Their love? Think about it, Peter. Connections." A little half-smile. "That's what they say in your business, right? It's who you know."

A sardonic expression on that beautiful face. Even Peter, distraught as he was, could see the resemblance. And Georgia, who had inherited not his eyes, not Jane's, but her grandmother's--so blue that even Wendy had commented on them. Connections. And memory, pieces of it everywhere he looked, in everyone he met. Ghosts.

Exhaustion. His arm hurt so badly.

"Bobby," he said softly. "The whole world, he'll tell--" He broke off. "I can't go out there. I can't."

"Peter."

"I *can't.*"

"And if you don't," she replied, "he controls it all, again. He tells the story. He writes the ending. He wins." She gazed down at him. "Is that what you really want?"

Peter was shaking.

"I'm so tired," he said.

"Rest," she said. "Gather your strength. Connections, Peter. That's your strength. Connections, and being the most stubborn son of a bitch I ever met in my life."

He looked at her, his eyes wide. She *almost* laughed. "It's true," she said. "Use it. Use it for what it's worth."

Even as he sat there, on the edge of the bathroom tub, he felt very far away. His eyes were closing of their own accord.

"I love you," he said.

"You were everything to me," she replied. "You still are. If you forget everything else...remember that."

The gun slid from his fingers and clattered to the tiles.

********

Stuart was running, running faster than he thought he ever had in his life, hot pounding breaths exploding in his chest, his throat as he took the stairs three at a time, the note a crumpled thing in his fist. Oh, God, oh, *God,* he should have seen this, he should have known this, he was a fucking *idiot* fucking moron he thought it would be all right out of the hospital oh God oh please oh my God--

"Peter!" he shouted. "PETER!"

The landing, almost doubling over from lack of air, the hallway, guest room, bedroom, please God, Jesus, Mary, *please*--

His shoulder, pounding against the locked bathroom door with a force he had never known he possessed, over and over again. He pitched forward, barely kept himself from falling as it crashed open on its hinges--

Peter was sitting huddled on the edge of the long porcelain tub, his eyes closed but *alive,* oh Christ, motionless and silent and his face calm and composed even as it was streaked with the remnants of tears. A gun lay on the tile between his bare feet, unused and forgotten.

Before he could think, could hesitate, Stuart was rushing toward him, kicking the gun aside and away and throwing his arms around Peter. The other man didn't push Stuart away, didn't recoil, but very slowly wrapped his own arms around him, still quiet, still unmoving.

Stuart let out a choked sound. He was crying.

******

Peter rested his head in the crook of Stuart's shoulder, listening almost dispassionately to the other man's sobs. Relief? Guilt? Anger? He didn't know.

He couldn't do this anymore. He couldn't. The shame. The fear. The loathing, of others, of himself. He couldn't do it. He'd been right about that all along; it was the answer, the solution, that he'd been wrong about.

Maybe.

*Connections,* he thought, letting Stuart hold him. Holding back. *Connections. Stubborn son of a bitch.*

He raised his head, and saw Stuart staring into his eyes, felt the other man touch his hair in a brief caress. His tears had stopped, but his expression was full of pain. For *him,* Peter Dragon? No.

Maybe.

"Peter," Stuart said quietly. Staring into his eyes.

Very easy, when you really sat down and thought about it. Three little words. That was all. He swallowed.

"Stuart," Peter said quietly, "I need help."

PART 17
By
Nicole

At the moment, however, it was obvious that what Peter needed most was rest. Stuart watched the struggle he was having merely keeping his eyes open. "I'll help, Peter. Any way I can," he assured him softly, noting that the other man was leaning heavily into his arms now, as if he didn't have the strength to hold himself up any longer. He was plainly exhausted, both physically and emotionally, and not without reason.

Refusing to look at the cold metal that lay silently on the tile floor, Stuart helped Peter into something approaching a standing position. Peter's eyes were open again, but unfocused, and Stuart quickly realized that he wasn't going to get much help from that quarter. It was like trying to direct a sleepwalker; what little energy Peter had been running on had slipped away after those three words had left his lips.

The walk from the bathroom to the bed stretched absurdly, taking far longer than one would expect for such a minor physical distance. Stuart was forced to almost carry the other man. By the time they made it to the big bed, he could barely find the strength to hold Peter up any longer. With one misstep and their unbalanced weight, Peter half-fell onto the blankets -- Stuart just managing not to fall on top of him.

He heard the sharp intake of breath and muffled whimper, and turned his head to see Peter, pale and sweating, his eyes squeezed tightly closed as he fought against the agony in his shoulder. Immediately he pushed himself up off the bed with tired arms, and hurried to empty out the pills to help his boss. It took a bit of coaxing to get Peter to take the medication -- something unusual enough that it had Stuart somewhat worried about how out of things Peter was. He refused to open his eyes, and allowed Stuart to help him into a more comfortable position and under the covers without even the smallest of comments.

Stuart stood over him, watching, the fingers of one hand lightly stroking the soft blonde hair of the trembling man on the bed. He didn't know how long he stayed that way, but at some point he realized that Peter had stopped trembling, his expression smoothed out into lineless sleep. From what the doctor had said (as part of the dressing down after the Great Escape), he should be out for at least four hours, if not longer in his exhaustion.

God, he was tired too. But he couldn't quite bring himself to leave Peter's side -- not after what almost happened. The image of him, in the bathroom, gun to his head; the blurred memory of the words on that page, not read beyond the realization of what the existence of the note itself meant; the idea of no longer having this man in his life... Stuart shuddered, huge tremors racking his body. For several minutes he found himself unable to do anything but stand there and shake uncontrolably, helpless tears filling his eyes again.

But he was tired, and unable to hold on to any strong emotion for very long. Later, he was sure, it would come again, and he would be forced to ride it out the long, hard way. But, for now, the fatigue was working to his advantage, and all he wanted to do was sleep.

Stuart looked longingly at the bed, Peter sprawled in the center. Despite the fact that Peter had invited him to sleep there before, it didn't necessarily follow that he would be pleased to wake up and find him there again. But he certainly wasn't about to leave him alone and go sleep in another room. With a soft sigh, Stuart dragged the heavily stuffed armchair to sit beside the bed, so that he would be right there if Peter woke up and needed him. He even told himself that he would stay awake for a while, watching just to make sure that everything was all right.

Five minutes later, he was slumped asleep in the big chair, his fingers entertwined with those of the man on the bed.

***

Peter awoke first to the pain. It disoriented him -- as did the medication coursing through his system -- and he had to struggle to figure out where he was.

Downstairs, on the black leather couch. The television was on, two Shiny Plastic Barbie People trying to sell him a juicing machine. He lay there for a minute, head resting heavily on the backrest, trying to summon the strength to move. He wondered what time it was, then decided he didn't really care. Still dark outside, though...

Had it been dark before? His mind swirled through the haze of drugs and pain, neatly dancing around what had almost happened in the bathroom earlier. Oh, he remembered the basics alright. But overall the whole thing was a bit fuzzy at the moment, and he was more than happy to leave it that way.

He had woken up from a nightmare, yet another mishmash of horrors from his subconscious, to find Stuart sleeping at an uncomfortable angle in a chair beside his bed. Not wanting to wake him but definitely unwilling to try for more tortured sleep, he'd dragged himself out of bed and clumsily draped a blanket over Stuart's form. A testament to his thoroughly drained state, the unconscious man hadn't even twitched.

Getting downstairs had proved to be almost too much for him, and he'd had to sit on the bottom step, panting like some elderly invalid, clutching his arm close to his side and waiting for the fire to subside. He had been warm, like the heat was on too high, but struggling out of the robe he was in had seemed far too difficult a task.

Once he had regained some of his composure, he'd realized that all the pills were upstairs. Unless... A trek to the downstairs bathroom had uncovered some Xanex squirrled away and forgotten in the medicine cabinet. The Darvocet would have probably been better, but what he had would at least dull things for a while. As much as he hadn't wanted to admit it, he didn't think he would be able to make it back up the stairs without help.

He had sat down in front of the TV, the threat of more nightmares plenty of incentive to stay awake. But, despite the intention, he had obviously fallen asleep at some point, his body demanding the rest it needed.

The pain hadn't allowed him to sleep for long though, and here he was, awake again. At least Stuart was sleeping -- Peter had seen how tired he was, following him around nonstop, desperate to help despite the fact that Peter had been ignoring him even more than usual. And, after earlier events (he wasn't even letting the word cross his mind, not yet), no doubt he wasn't going to be allowed out of the other man's sight long enough to use the bathroom.

Bathroom... Shower. Damn that sounded good. Just to stand for a long while under the steaming water, unthinking, undreaming, unhurting. He swallowed the last of the pills he had found downstairs, intending to keep his mind from going places he wasn't quite ready to go. If only he could hold on to this calm, stoned existence for a while longer. There were things -- important things -- he had to deal with soon enough. But nothing that could happen now, during the night. He could safely put things off until morning. Could let Stuart rest as well, because he was going to need him alert and on the ball. Besides, even without the medication, he doubted he could focus well enough at the moment to be of any use anyway.

Bobby...

Would get what was coming to him. Let it go.

Bobby...

Couldn't hurt him here. Couldn't hurt him any more. *Let it go.*

Damn his shoulder hurt. And his head. Felt like he had the mother of all hangovers. If he moved too fast, everything went into a tailspin. Half the time he had been speaking to Stuart -- when he had acknowledged him at all, during the last few days -- he hadn't even been able to see him. Not really. He'd turn too suddenly and the world would whirl, and he'd have to force himself to stand still and look toward the blur that was presumably Stuart, pretending like he could see just fine and hoping that the vertigo that he wasn't having didn't knock him onto his ass. Or cause him to throw up all over his hardwood floor.

He was freezing, trembling uncontrolably in the cold. Was the heat on? Should he turn it on? Maybe, but at the moment he was having a hard time remembering where the thermostat was. But a shower would get him warm.

Peter slowly pushed himself off the couch using his good arm -- not that the effort didn't cause him plenty of hurt anyway. He took a step, then had to reach back and hold onto the leather for support as the familiar dizziness washed over him. "Goddammit," he hissed through clenched teeth. "Somebody remind me not to get shot ag--" A twisted ironic smile tugged at his mouth, then quickly disappeared. "Goddammit," he cursed again, this time more of a sigh.

When he had regained as much of his equilibrium as he assumed he would, he let go of the couch and moved slowly down the hall. His head was beating to the rhythm of his heart, and he began to wonder if this little field trip was such a good idea. If Stuart found him face-down on the floor between here and the bathroom, he was going to be in deep shit.

The idea of Stuart angry with him for this, finally really angry at this last straw -- angry enough to yell, maybe -- made him smile. Sure, he didn't exactly encourage the man to stand up for himself or his ideas. But that was the way their game was played, right? He gave the orders, and Stuart dutifully followed. Except there were times when he could see it in the other man's eyes, could see that what Stuart really wanted was to go off into a screaming fit and tell Peter exactly what he thought of him. And sometimes -- just sometimes -- Peter was silently hoping that he would.

Another wave of vertigo hit him, and he swayed, reaching out blindly for support. His hand found the wall, and he used it to prop himself up for a moment. Stuart. After everything, Stuart was still around. After everything he now knew, after seeing who he was, seeing what he had been --

Peter tried to find his way back into the drugged fog. He was not going back to this. Not now. He was going to walk the rest of the way down the hall, take a shower, and... Well, he'd decide what was next when he got that far. As soon as the sun was up, he'd face things again. Just a few hours of tired peace.

His arm hurt so bad, holding up the gun. The cold steel felt like it was melting into his skull...

Peter closed his eyes, willing the image back into the depths of his mind. He couldn't breathe very well, like he was being smothered. His mother... She had been there. She had been there with him...

Let it go. It's over. *Let it go.*

His breath was coming in shallow gasps now, and the dizziness had a firm grip. He felt himself sliding down the wall to sit on the cold floor, desperate to get more air. Sweat ran down his back, despite the fact that he couldn't stop trembling. The gun was in his hand, clenched in fingers that had changed to lead when he wasn't looking. But he didn't want to do this. He had decided not to do this. Why was this happening again?

Then Stuart was there, telling him to breathe. Rubbing a small, soothing circle on his back, the coolness of his skin breaking through his intense heat. Stuart wrapping his long arms tight around his shaking body. Stuart keeping him safe now, protecting him from the world.

"Peter, for gods' sake, what are you doing?"

His eyes opened, and he found himself surprised to see that Stuart was actually there, with him, on the smooth hallway floor. Surprised to see that he hadn't just imagined the comforting presence coming to his side. Stuart's eyes were tired -- lined and red -- and filled with concern. An unexpected apology caught in his throat. Stuart looked about as miserable as he felt, and it was because of him.

"Taking a nap in the hall," he snapped instead, the words out before he could stop them. Stuart flinched just a little, and he felt a stab of guilt. "Shower," he mumbled, leaning his head back against the wall behind him.

Stuart's eyes darted down the darkened hallway and back. "Oh," he said. "Uh, I could..." He didn't quite meet Peter's eyes.

His drugged mind filled in the rest after a minute, and he fought down a smile of almost delerious fatigue. "Oh," he repeated, trying not to giggle like he was ten years old and looking at a fucking nudie mag. This was ridiculous. He was a grown man, for chrissakes. And Stuart was... Stuart. "Maybe not then."

Did Stuart look just a bit disappointed? He was *not* going to think about that.

Stuart took a breath, rubbing sleep from his eyes. "Well you can't just sit here on the floor."

"Why not? My floor." Christ, he *did* sound like he was ten.

Stuart sighed, almost inaudibly. "You need to be in bed. Resting," he ammended quickly. Then, in a weary murmur that Peter probably wasn't supposed to hear: "Hell, if either of us had any sense, you would be in a *hospital* bed."

"Heard that," he growled.

Stuart gave him a look that made it clear he didn't really care at the moment.

Peter was tempted to smile, but the pain in his head was increasing its tempo -- making any movement at all a risk. He rubbed at his forehead, careful not to brush against the tender bruise along his temple. He'd made the mistake of accidentally doing that earlier, and he'd almost blacked out. He tried to speak without moving his jaw, holding his head as still as possible. "Could you...?" He couldn't hide the accompanying wince, even though he tried.

Stuart was in action within the second. "Let me help you to the couch first, Peter," he urged, reaching for the man on the floor.

He almost shook his head, but stopped himself just in time. "No, I... In a minute," he forced out, making himself open his eyes and squint up at Stuart as if he could really focus on him standing overhead. "Please?" He tried not to sound as if he were begging, even though he pretty much was.

"Okay, give me a minute."

The Stuart Blur turned and moved away. Peter heard the sound of footsteps ascending the stairs and closed his eyes again. The near hyperventilation moments before had not helped the pressure on the inside of his skull. He wanted nothing more than to lie down, but the roaring nausea that accopanied the change in the elevation of his head was more than enough to send him upright again.

Maybe Stuart would bring that gun down here and put him out of his misery.

Before he could start to dwell on *that* ill-timed joke from his muddled brain, Stuart was back. Peter swallowed the pills that Stuart had brought him, barely able to hold the water glass in his shaking hands. Why was it so cold in this room?

He let Stuart help him up this time, insisting on the couch instead of the arduous journey up the stairs. Stuart pulled him slowly to his feet, while he did his best to help. Despite instruction, his feet seemed determine to do what they wanted, and Stuart ended up doing most of the work.

He could already feel the smooth fingers of the Darvocet slipping in to caress the insides of his head, reaching tendrils down into his burning shoulder. Stuart helped him settle on the couch, resting a cool hand on Peter's forehead.

"You feel really warm, Peter. Are you hot?"

"Uh-uh," he mumbled, letting the fog surround him. "Cold."

"You're cold?"

He opened his eyes and looked at Stuart. "Yeah, why?"

The other man looked at him for a moment, then shook his head. "Nothing. Don't worry about it. Just sleep, okay?"

Regardless of the fact that his eyes had slid closed again, Peter said, "Don't want to sleep."

Stuart was in front of him -- He could sense it even with his eyes closed and painkillers rushing through his blood. Probably sitting on his glass coffee table, looking at him in that usual look of vague confusion. "You need to," he protested. There was a beat, and then he added: "Besides, it's almost midnight. What are you going to do instead?"

"TV?"

He could almost hear Stuart's frown. "I'm not going to leave you down here in front of the TV all night..."

"Stay." He said it as if he wasn't sure whether it was a request or a demand. He was curious as to Stuart's expression now, but he couldn't bring himself to open his eyes and see. Instead he waited, the pain in his body mercifully retreating to a background ache, to see what happened next. He wasn't exactly sure how he'd take it if Stuart said no and left him alone down here.

He didn't want to be alone.

PART 18
By
Nat

Stuart sat next to him, holding his hand. Why in hell was he letting Stuart hold his hand? Why had he let Stuart talk him into this in the first place? Peter felt his body tense, his breaths become shorter, quicker.

Stuart squeezed his hand gently, evenly, and for a reason Peter didn't want to think about, he calmed. There was far too much sun in the room, really, even for mid-morning in an east-facing Hollywood highrise office building. Too much fucking light. Weren't there any vampires left in Hollywood anymore?

But vampires had gone out of style as quickly as bellbottoms and disco, and Peter thanked god none had come back in. The last thing he needed was a vampire in bellbottoms at a disco party--

"-Peter?" And that was most definitely not Stuart's voice, which meant there was someone else in the room. Peter looked up, tried to smile.

The quack ("Psychologist, Peter," he could hear Stuart's voice in his head reprimanding him, "He's not a quack, he's a trained professional and he can help you") smiled at Peter. Tall, thin but not stick-like, graying hair, concerned eyes. Peter felt himself bristle on principle. "Peter, hello. I'm Doctor Barker, it's nice to meet you."

Peter sneered. "Well hello, *Doctor* Barker," he replied in his bestest little boy voice. "It's *so* nice to meet you. I'm absolutely *delighted* to have the opportunity to--"

"Peter!" Stuart jabbed him in the ribs, astonished at his tone. "Please, Dr. Barker only wants to help you. I only want to help you. Please." His eyes begged Peter silently, please, do this for me. Peter sighed.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly. "I shouldn't have been rude to you."

"It's all right," Dr. Barker murmured, looking not at Peter but at his desk. "I want you to feel comfortable in here, Peter, I want you to feel like you can always tell me what you think, how you feel." He pulled off his glasses and looked up at Peter. "Do you think you can do that, Peter?" he asked. "Do you think you can try?"

Peter nodded without knowing quite why. "Okay," he said quietly.

************

Stuart resisted the urge to bang his head against the wall. They had chased him out half an hour into the session, and he had been sitting here--he checked his watch--two and a half hours longer. Dammit, how long did it take? He felt so guilty, leaving Peter in there all alone. Peter had begged him not to go, trying to be cool and casual about it, but panic showing through in his eyes. Goddamn that Doctor Barker and his I Want You To Feel Comfortables--

The door opened, and he looked for Peter but didn't see him. "Is he okay?" Stuart asked Barker nervously.

"He'll be fine," the other man said, cleaning his glasses on the edge of his shirt. "He got a little upset, he's in the bathroom."

Stuart resisted the urge to twitch. "Upset? What do you mean upset?"

Barker glared at him. "I'm afraid that information is confidential," he said sternly. Stuart stared at him, open-mouthed, searching for something intelligent to say.

But Peter emerged, eyes red and tired, jacket rumpled. "Peter!" Stuart crossed the lobby and pulled Peter into his arms, held him. "Are you okay?"

"Take me home, Stuart," Peter said, voice muffled against Stuart's shoulder. "Please, I wanna go home."

Stuart kissed Peter's cheek gently, without thinking, and was astonished when Peter didn't react. Not just didn't react negatively, but didn't react at all. Stuart kept one arm around Peter's shoulder as he led him from the building. He and the receptionist had already taken care of the bill.

**********

"Do you wanna talk about it?" Stuart asked quietly in the car, on the way home. Peter was hunched over next to Stuart, curled against the opposite door, staring out the window. "Peter?"

"I don't want to," he mumbled. "Don't wanna, wanna go home."

"We're almost there," Stuart murmured, reaching over to stroke Peter's shoulder. "We'll be there--"

With no warning at all, Peter slid across the seat and curled up against Stuart, sliding under Stuart's arm. Stuart pulled him close, managing to keep hold on the steering wheel and Peter at the same time. "It's okay, Peter," he mumbled as he felt Peter's body shake. "It'll be okay . . ."

PART 19
By
Vali

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Lots and lots of plot herein and it could go just about any way you like--or it could all wrap up very quickly, so youse guys pick. Feedback welcome.

Small plot-detail note: The "Weinstein brothers" mentioned are the founders of Miramax Pictures, the folks behind Shakespeare in Love and many other movies too high-quality for DragonFire's taste.

********
(And now, Part 19...)

They got through the door and across the living room, walking in awkward tandem as Stuart supported Peter on one arm. Peter was still red-eyed, grim-faced, but had recovered some semblance of calm as they made their way to the stairs. Slowly, very slowly.

There was far too much sun in the room, even for the height of the afternoon; too much fucking light, streaming in from...from God knew where, because there *were* no windows in the living room.

"I had invisible ones put in," Stuart said, answering his silent question. "While you were at the doctor's. Clever, huh?"

Peter nodded; he'd suspected as much. He wondered idly to himself if Stuart was also the one who'd taken the railing off the stairs. He set foot on the first steps gingerly, one at a time, trying not to lose his balance.

The staircase not only had no railing, it had twisted itself into a spiral; it circled endlessly upwards, the bedroom miles away. Peter negotiated the steps in escalating panic, he wanted to get upstairs, he *needed* to be someplace dark and quiet, he was going to fall--

"Stuart?" he called out, an edge of fear in his voice.

"You were wrong, Peter," said Stuart matter-of-factly, right behind him. "There *are* vampires left in Hollywood."

Peter whirled around, and saw something with Stuart's face and blind, whiteless eyes the color of dried blood. He let out a cry, and "Stuart" sneered nastily, showing a mouthful of long jagged teeth. Dr. Barker, his own fangs exposed, was pinning Peter's arms to his sides as he and Stuart drew closer to his throat, to the jugular, laughing...

********

"Peter? Peter, wake up!"

Bleary with sleep himself, Stuart grabbed for Peter's arms, flailing in the other man's fight with some dreamworld adversary. He had ended up staying with Peter downstairs, on the couch in front of the TV; he was afraid to bring Peter back upstairs again, back where the unused--loaded--gun still lay in a corner of the bathroom. Six *hours* ago, he had come home from the pharmacy to find Peter on the bathtub's edge with that thing lying between his feet? It felt like ten lifetimes.

"Peter!"

Peter wrenched awake. He stared wide-eyed up at Stuart, his expression and the rapidity of his breath bespeaking a nightmare; his face looked pale and clammy, beaded in sweat. He shivered.

"Did you know Dr. Barker was a vampire?" he demanded of Stuart.

Stuart blinked in bewilderment. Vampire...doctor... "Peter? I don't--"

"Dr. Barker," Peter insisted. "You *brought* me to him, he *said* I had to tell you that--"

"Peter, you had a dream." No answer. "Peter? It was a *dream,* okay? That's all it was. We haven't been to any doctor. It's still nighttime, we haven't left the house."

Still no answer. Peter closed his eyes hard for a moment, rubbing his forehead with one palm; he seemed to realize that what he said made no sense, but not to understand why. "Bell bottoms," he muttered, shivering again. "Disco."

Stuart straightened himself into a sitting position, ignoring the little crick in his neck. "Peter--"

He studied the other man closely. Peter's face was far too pale, even for a bad dream, and he was shivering more and more violently. Stuart put a hand to his forehead, almost reflexively, and pulled it away in shock; beneath the clamminess of sweat, it was scorching hot.

"Peter?" he said. "Are you all right?"

"Cold," Peter muttered, drawing his bathrobe closer around him. Huddled against the couch, eyes closed, he didn't resist when Stuart pulled it open again, to find the shorts and undershirt Peter habitually slept in literally soaked with sweat. He reached out to touch Peter's injured arm, and...

"Stop," Peter said, his voice shaky and teeth gritting as he cradled the stiff, swollen arm. "Have to get the stairs fixed..."

Stuart was already on his feet. "Peter?" he said, as calmly as he could manage. "I think you need to see a doctor."

Peter nodded. "After the stairs."

"Right now, Peter."

He didn't resist at all as Stuart guided him to his feet, threw a coat over his shoulders and--feeling almost dazed from his own lack of sleep--led him out to the car.

********

"You're sure he'll be all right," Stuart asked, yet again.

Dr. Rance made another swift note on her clipboard before looking up. "Not to worry," she said briskly. "The infection's low-level and we caught it before it had a chance to spread through the system. Antibiotics, observation, he'll be fine."

Stuart sat there and clutched his Styrofoam cup of coffee. A kindly-looking orderly had handed to him, declaring, *You look like you need this more than me, buddy.* He didn't want to look in a mirror, afraid of the zombie he'd see staring back. "How could this happen?" he demanded. "I thought they knew what the hell they were--"

Dr. Rance put her clipboard aside, running a hand through her unruly gray hair. A pair of small, wire-rimmed glasses was poised halfway down her nose, looking like they'd slide right off at the first opportunity. "Read the surgical consent form again, Mr. Glazer--infection is a garden-variety risk of any surgery. No operating theater is a hundred percent sterile. All you can do is be vigilant."

She paused, looking sidewise at him. "Of course, it's much easier to catch these things early when the patient is actually *in* the hospital post-procedure, the way he's supposed to be--"

"What are you saying?" Stuart flared. "This is *my* fault? I'm some kind of *moron* because I--"

Dr. Rance was unmoved. "Mr. Glazer, don't expect me to applaud you for helping expose your own partner to this kind of risk."

"I just *told* you, I--"

"Have you ever seen a patient with full-blown peritonitis, Mr. Glazer? Trust me, you don't want to."

Stuart closed his eyes, taking a long swallow of lukewarm coffee.When he opened them again, he saw Dr. Rance regarding him with something approaching compassion.

"There's no *fault* to assess here," she replied. "But he's lucky you didn't let this go another couple of days. That's all I'm going to say."

Stuart stared into the coffee cup, feeling the edgy pinpricks of guilt. He didn't like losing his temper; he'd been brought up in a household where such behavior was considered nothing short of vulgar and ill-bred. Maybe that's why Peter's constant explosions had always been, well, rather fascinating to witness. The lure of the forbidden.

"He isn't good with hospitals," Stuart finally said. "I told you--"

"I know that," Dr. Rance said matter-of-factly. "We got the childhood medical records from Social Services, when he was in here the first time--but I'm sorry, Mr. Glazer, I cannot treat sepsis on an outpatient basis." She paused. "As for the other things..."

Stuart looked up in alarm. "What other things?"

Dr. Rance just gazed at him, silently; after a moment, Stuart nodded back. He knew perfectly well what other things.

"I've sent the files over to our psychiatric facility," Dr. Rance said. "I've got a colleague there who's agreed to talk to him--she specializes in adult abuse survivors." She paused for a moment. "She's also quite good with, shall we say, high-maintenance patients."

Stuart nodded again. It was out of his hands, then; actually, it had all been out of his hands from the start. He wasn't sure if this relieved or frightened him.

God, he needed some sleep.

Dr. Rance cleared her throat. "Now, as I said, once the infection is down to a dull roar, my job is done. However..." A pause. "As I'm sure you are aware, Mr. Glazer, California law requires any patient exhibiting suicidal behavior to be kept in a psychiatric facility for a minimum of ninety-six hours' observation--which minimum can be renewed indefinitely, if necessary."

Clear gray eyes were boring into his face. "Now, when Dr. Stegner speaks to him, she'll draw her own conclusions, but I'm asking you--has Mr. Dragon exhibited any sort of behavior since leaving the hospital that you would term actually *or* potentially self-destructive?"

The gun, lying in one corner of the bathroom; for a single irrational moment, Stuart wondered if they knew about it. The medical records from Peter's childhood, emergency room visit after visit after visit. His mother vanishing into one mental hospital after another. His desperation to get home. To hide from the world.

"No," Stuart said calmly to Dr. Rance. Looking her straight in the eye. "He hasn't."

There was a very long silence.

"All right," Dr. Rance replied. "If you say so." Another pause. "Like I said...Dr. Stegner will draw her own conclusions. Now, for your own sake, please go home and get some sleep. You need it."

With that, she turned again and left the room. Stuart sat there for a long moment, gazing at nothing in particular on the opposite wall.

*Partner,* he suddenly realized. That was the word Dr. Rance had used; casually, as if it were immediately evident that that's what he and Peter were.

So did she know something he didn't? Or was the whole world just as delusional as he was?

Reluctantly, he dragged himself off the chair's worn vinyl cushion. She was right about one thing, definitely; he needed to get some sleep.

********

He should have been afraid. That was the thing, he should have been fucking terrified to be where he was, surrounded by doctors and IVs and medical equipment, having arrived here feverish and delirious and having said God knows what during all that, a fully functional psychiatric ward on the eighth floor like the very last time his mother had brought him to the emergency room, she never went home again and neither did he...

Peter shook his head, dispelling the thoughts.

He stared down at his own arm, the spider-tubes of antibiotics running into it, saline solution--he'd been dehydrated too, they said--listening to the steady, hypnotic rhythm of the heart monitor. His other arm, so swollen he could hardly bend it just a week ago, was now back to relative normality. Stuart should apply for an honorary medical degree, he'd been here around the clock...

Which was...he really wasn't used to that. To having someone else *around,* for him, when he wasn't feeling right.

Well, Jane had come, both with Georgia and alone; a drawn, haggard-looking Jane, now living in the Palm Springs beachhouse which was one of the few possessions left to her. That and the jewelry and furs she was now pawning. He had offered her money, which she had politely refused; they had talked quietly for a long time, about their children. And each other.

And Georgia, more solemn and quiet than any eleven-year-old should be, who had walked right up to his bed and, without saying a word, laid her head on his chest and arms around his neck. He had Georgia...but *he* was supposed to go to the mat for *her,* not the other way around. It was different.

And Lonnie, he had visited too, as often as his intensive schedule of naps would permit...

But this was different. Wasn't it? It just *felt* different.

And safer. He couldn't just be...taken away somewhere, seven floors up, if Stuart was around to watch his back. Right?

Peter blinked a few times, trying without much success to keep his eyes open. He'd been sleeping around the damn clock lately, that was plenty, he didn't need to...

He was in a large, richly furnished bedroom--not his own--and someone was moving chairs around from corner to corner. Odd, but not really disruptive. A butler was bringing him his breakfast of a live (and strangely docile) chicken on a tray, and just as Peter was about to ask just how he was supposed to digest all those feathers, he woke up again.

"What's wrong with the chair?" he asked his visitor, who was dragging it back to one corner in favor of another one.

"Broken," she said, setting the new chair down at the edge of Peter's bed. "Private room, private nurses, you'd think they'd have the money to replace a damn chair..."

Wendy set her purse on the floor and settled into the chair. They stared at one another for a long time, blue eyes meeting green.

"How are you?" Wendy finally asked.

"Okay." A pause. "How are you?"

No answer. Peter studied the bedsheet, idly plucking it with his fingers.

"You know, I think a lot about leaving," she said, looking beyond him to a spot on the opposite wall. "Calling a cab and getting out of Hollywood...going somewhere else. Somewhere *clean,* right?" A wry smile. "But you know and I know that Norman Rockwell Middle America stuff is all bullshit. It just *looks* sleazier here, is all."

Peter nodded. He knew, all too well.

"So what *are* you going to do?" he said.

She laughed a little, studying her sandaled feet. "I don't know yet," she said. "Give it time." There was a long pause. "What about you?"

He shrugged. More silence.

"I ran into Stuart in the hallway," she finally said.

"Mm." Peter rubbed at his arm, the skin itching around the IV tape.

"Are you two still--" Wendy broke off. "Sorry. None of my business."

Peter shrugged again. "Is he still staying with me? Yeah."

Wendy nodded, seeming unsure of what to say. "Well, if you..." She smoothed out her skirt with her palms. "Are you okay with that?"

"He loves me," Peter said. No gladness or bragging in his tone, just a simple statement of fact.

"Do you love him?" Wendy asked.

Peter considered the question.

"I don't have a fucking clue," he said. "Maybe this isn't the time to decide."

Wendy shook her head. "No," she said quietly. "Probably not."

He closed his eyes for a moment.

"Peter, if you want to sleep, I can--"

"Wendy?" His eyes were open again, his voice suddenly hesitant and urgent all at once. "Remember when you found me with Bobby, you said someone, that they--"

Shit. He should *not* be asking this. "You were talking about how when you were, uh, on the street, you said, and somebody--"

"Raped me," she answered quietly. "Yes, I remember."

"Uh-huh." He couldn't look at her anymore; he was staring at the bedsheets, his voice coming faster and faster. "Okay. So, so when this, this happens and then you, how do you know what to--Wendy, I can't--I--"

Someone was brushing a hand against his face; a gentle hand, a forgiving one. He couldn't open his eyes to look.

"Wendy?" he repeated. "What do you *do?*"

She considered the question.

"Cry," she answered. "Try to pretend it was no big deal. Hate men. Hate yourself. Want to blow up the planet. Want to hide somewhere for a thousand years. Cry some more. Talk to someone about it. Scream, yell, throw things around the room. Get through it. Accept it. Put it in the past where it belongs."

Put it in the past. "*How?*" he almost whispered.

She sighed a little, her hand now stroking his hair. "With a whole hell of a lot of work," she said. "Hard, exhausting work."

He nodded. He had suspected as much. He didn't *want* to, he couldn't, he was so fucking tired...

Of feeling this way. Of hate. Of fear. Of not being able to love someone back.

*Connections, Peter. Draw on them.*

He straightened up a little on the pillows, opening his eyes. Wendy was sitting on the edge of the bed now, something fierce in her expression. He welcomed it.

"Do you think we could not hate each other so much?" he finally said. "Maybe?"

She closed her own eyes for a moment. "I never hated you, Peter. I just..." She threw out a hand. "It just spiraled out of control, okay? You fucked up, I fucked up, it hardly matters any more. It's in the past."

He nodded again, feeling some of the tension draining out of him. He hadn't realized--hadn't *wanted* to, maybe--just how much he had missed her. Her friendship. Her intelligence, that gift for cutting to the no-bullshit heart of things. All the mind games he'd dealt with, he could really use some of that...

"I'm afraid," he said suddenly, his voice calm and matter-of-fact. "He's going to get out, Wendy--"

"Peter? No, he isn't."

Peter was shaking his head. "Wendy, I didn't just get this out of my head, he's got lawyers that make O.J.'s Dream Team look like--"

"What is he going to *pay* them with, Peter?" Wendy countered. "All his assets are FBI property now--never mind the fact that he tried to kill two federal agents in front of a roomful of witnesses, you don't really think--"

"Wendy, they'll *think* of something. I'm telling you--"

"Peter? *Listen* to me. It won't happen."

"He's going to kill me if he does. You *know* this."

Wendy was leaning closer to him now, her large bottle-green eyes almost boring holes in his face. "Peter?" she said quietly. "I will bet you all the money I ever spent to shove coke up my nose and heroin in my veins and Dilaudid down my throat--and that's a *lot* of money, Peter, trust me--he's not getting out."

Silence. Peter listened to the beeping of the monitors, a heavy blanket of exhaustion weighing him down, taking the edge off his mood. That and the painkillers they were pumping into him, and the antidepressants Dr. Stegner had started him on (she claimed he wouldn't feel any effect for a good six weeks, but he didn't believe it).

Dr. Stegner, a tiny, soft-voiced, red-haired elf with horn-rimmed glasses and a silver brooch on her jacket lapel, who had talked to him for nearly two hours that morning; he'd been too tired to throw her out of the room. She'd said he could go home, once the infection was under control.

She wanted to see him five times a *week,* for starters (Jesus, even *he* hadn't thought he was that fucked up). She seemed to think the railless-staircase dream was very important.

Wendy was still staring at him.

"Do you believe me, Peter?" she asked quietly.

Too tired to throw the doctor out, too tired...of feeling this way. Of being half a person, half a raging grieving thing wanting only to hide or die. Something had to change. Somehow.

"Peter?" Wendy repeated.

*I'd like to help you, Peter,* Dr. Stegner had said, finally, her first words in nearly two hours. *I think I can. Will you let me?*

Slowly, looking into Wendy's eyes, he nodded again.

Wendy reached out and smoothed his hair, flattened on one side by the pillow, then rose from her chair. "I'll let you get some sleep," she said.

"That's all I've been *doing,*" he said irritably. "I need a new damn hobby..." But he was already starting to drift.

"I'll be by later," said Wendy, reaching for her purse.

"Wendy?" he murmured..

"Hmm?"

His eyes were fully closed. "I really do care about you, you know," he murmured.

She smiled, more than a little acerbically. "All the shit you put me through, Peter? You damn well should."

He was already asleep.

********

"...so I think an outpatient basis is the best option," said Dr. Stegner. "The reasons should be obvious to you, I'm sure."

Stuart nodded, watching the small, slightly built woman run a hand through her Eton-cropped hair as she sipped her coffee. She sat with quiet poise on Peter's living room sofa; her voice was so soft Stuart sometimes had to lean forward a little to hear it, but he got an impression of contained will and forcefulness. He remembered Dr. Rance's recommendation: *good with high-maintenance patients.*

"I'd like to see you as well," she continued, "if I may. At your convenience--"

Stuart frowned a little. "I think I've told you everything I know," he said. "I mean, I'm not sure what..."

Dr. Stegner shook her head. "I mean I'd like to see *you,* Mr. Glazer." She set her coffee cup down. "A patient's family and loved ones are an integral part of this whole process--and they need support as well. Both for the patient's sake and their own." One fingertip pushed her glasses back against the bridge of her nose. "It can be very difficult, coming to terms with a loved one's mental illness--"

"He's not crazy," Stuart replied sharply. "You know, I'm *really* getting sick of hearing people throw around words like--"

He broke off when he saw the doctor's expression.

"Mr. Glazer," she replied, a note of sternness in her voice, "major depression is a mental illness. Post-traumatic stress disorder is a mental illness. With the proper attention, mental illness can be treated, just like any other serious disease. You're giving me a knee-jerk response to a pervasive societal stigma...which rather proves my point, I think."

After a moment, Stuart nodded. Reluctantly.

It was all out of his hands...wasn't it? What *was* he supposed to do here? Or say? Or think?

He should have seen all this a long time ago. He should have. He hadn't. No wonder Peter thought he was so fucking stupid.

Right?

"Loved ones," he said. "Hardly."

What was he supposed to do? What was he supposed to do for Peter? What the hell were *they* supposed to do...if Bobby...

It was all very overwhelming, all of a sudden. Stuart put his head in his hands.

"Mr. Glazer," he heard a voice say, "with all due respect, you should give yourself a little more credit."

He found himself crying, in front of a near-total stranger, and to his surprise felt very little embarrassment.

********

The dress was too short, too tight and too sequined to past muster at even the most down-at-heel country club, but it was the most conservative-looking thing she owned. After frowning into the mirror one more time, Wendy strolled out her apartment door and climbed into the black Jaguar.

The prison guard, after the inevitable ogling (dream on, buddy), let her through the gates and into the bench-strewn, barbed-wire-gated yard which attempted, without much success, to imitate an outdoor picnic area. Scanning the yard with her eyes, she finally found her target--a tiny, frail, white-haired man sitting hunched in a wheelchair at one of the wooden tables, hooked to a large oxygen machine.

"Wendy, *cara,*" he smiled, raising one hand. "Forgive me for not getting up..."

Wendy slid onto one of the opposite benches, smiling back at her former client as she folded her hands in her lap. One of the guards in the far corner of the yard turned his head toward them, then away again; the old man was hardly a flight risk, or any sort of danger. It was thought.

Even back years ago, when he'd first hired her, the "businessman" Aldo Farnese had been too much of an invalid to handle the rigors of conventional sex; she'd strip-teased for him, danced, sat down naked to talk after he was finished. She had a certain affection for the clients who didn't lay a hand on her, especially the ones who paid her as well as Aldo had. When the RICO charges and Sammy "The Bull" Gravano's rat-snitching had caught up with him and gotten him four consecutive life sentences, she'd been genuinely sorry.

"How are you feeling?" she asked.

He shrugged, wheezing a little. "I have my good days and my bad days, of course...though the prison doctor tells me the emphysema is getting worse. Such a brilliant diagnostician. I couldn't tell this by my own breathing, of course." A sarcastic smile. "They've been talking about granting me a compassionate release--so my daughter tells me, anyway."

Wendy nodded formally.

Aldo nodded back, not responding for a moment. "What is it, my dear?" he said. "You seem as if you wish to say something important to me...but you hesitate."

Wendy studied the battered wood of the picnic table.

"Do you remember, a long time ago?" she asked. "You told me that if I ever needed a favor, that..." She trailed off.

"I meant it, my dear," Aldo said. "You were a great comfort to me after the passing of my wife, God rest her soul. And of course, I thought I was dying myself, for a very long time...and now that I really am, well." A shrug. "What do you wish for? Ask me."

Wendy felt a hot knot forming in her chest, tighter and tighter; she *had* to say it, this might be her only chance. And after several long weeks of tossing and turning and trying, without success, to dismiss the whole idea from her head...she'd decided it really was the right thing to do. The *deserving* thing to do.

She looked around to make sure no one was listening, and then told him what she wanted. And held her breath.

After a moment, he smiled. "Is *that* all?" he said, with a dismissive little wave of the hand. "My dear, from your face I thought you had come to ask me for something truly impossible... this is nothing. A mere errand-boy's task."

He cocked an eyebrow at her, his sallow old face suddenly very shrewd. "Of course, you realize that on such short notice, there may be certain expenses that--"

"I have money," she replied. "I have whatever it takes."

He nodded. "I know you do, *cara,* I trust you. Very well, then. I have several men on the outside whom I also know to trust; I will turn this task over to them. You may send them payment when the job is done. Is that satisfactory?"

She nodded. "Very much."

Another smile. "It was good seeing you again, Wendy. I wish you well."

He extended his hand. For a moment, Wendy wondered if she were meant to kiss it; then, stifling a laugh, she took the weak fingers between her own and gave them an affectionate squeeze before gathering up her purse.

Back in the car, she realized that her hands were clenching the steering wheel far harder than they needed to. It wasn't guilt; none of that, she was far past it. Fear? Maybe. A little. But most of all, she thought, it was anger. Pure, righteous, unassailable anger.

She'd pay Aldo's men upfront. Cash. Unmarked bills. The sooner this was done, the better.

********

"Tell me about Tony," Dr. Stegner said to him.

Peter slumped a little in his chair, heels drumming against the soft beige carpet of the psychiatrist's spacious office. Everything tasteful and low-key, much like the doctor herself: soft golden lighting, mahogany furnishings, an artfully arranged vase of flowers. The diplomas and medical certificates were crowded against a far corner of one wall, pride of place given to a large, vaguely eerie sepia-toned landscape.

Eerie, but absorbing. He'd gotten to know this room very well, in the six weeks since he'd been released from the hospital; a month of five-time-a-week sessions, now down to four. Maybe if he was *really* good--whatever that might entail, he still wasn't sure--he'd make it down to three. Two hours a session, and he went home feeling as drained as if he'd just spent a full day at DragonFire (RIP). This was his new job, now.

"There's nothing to tell," he finally said.

Dr. Stegner's lips twitched a little. "You do realize," she replied, "that you say that to every question I ask you."

Peter made an impatient gesture. "*What?* There's nothing to *tell,* all right? Jesus, so swift on the uptake--"

"How did you meet?" asked the doctor, unruffled.

Still hunched over a little, Peter ran a hand through his hair. His injured arm still felt stiff, almost rusty, but he could actually use it now without hurting. "Group home," he said. "When I was fifteen. They were running out of foster homes." His mouth twisted. "Another dumping ground. They had us in units of ten kids a counselor, Tony was in the same unit as me. He'd already been in there a year."

He stared at the painting, remembering. The juvenile detention facility masquerading as a group home, where he'd been sent after trying to set fire to the last foster place. He wasn't even sure why he'd done it; the Williamsons had been decent enough people, they'd even *visited* him in stir. For a while.

"He came up and said hi," Peter continued. "Riveting, huh? You must just be in heaven, getting *paid* to hear fascinating shit like this..."

It was a dangerous place to be, that detention home, if you were pretty and couldn't defend yourself. But he hadn't ever felt in danger. With Tony around, somehow he'd just *known* he wouldn't have to look over his shoulder, sleep with one eye open. He'd just...*felt* it. A sort of connection. Even before anything happened.

"Did you have a sexual relationship in the group home?" she asked.

Baldfaced--fucking *rude,* actually--but as low-key as ever. He'd been allowed to lead the sessions at first, Dr. Stegner keeping it down to gentle prompting, immediately dropping a line of questioning when he said *stop.* That was starting to change. He'd had a feeling it would. He didn't like it.

"Yeah," he said. "We did."

"Consensual?"

"Yeah," Peter replied curtly, and didn't elaborate.

He'd hated being touched without express consent, after Bobby; would go ballistic if someone even tentatively approached him. But Tony could put a casual arm on his shoulder, against his back, and somehow that was all right. It was different. And when Tony had approached his bed one night, when everyone else was asleep, whispering, *Can I sleep here for a while?*...that was different too.

"Why are we talking about this?" he demanded, shifting restlessly in his chair. "It's got nothing to do with anything--"

"Did you ever tell Tony about the abuse?" she asked, smoothly interrupting. "During this time, I mean."

Peter studied his shoes. Tony hadn't minded his hesitation, his nerves. Seemed almost to welcome them. He got off on being The First One.

"No," Peter replied.

A long silence.

"He waited for me," Peter suddenly said, without prompting. "When he got out. He really did. I thought that was all bullshit, him saying that."

Dr. Stegner nodded. "You were together a long time--" v "Almost eleven years. Look, I don't--"

"He waited for you. He built a life with you. You had every reason in the world to *believe* you could trust him."

Peter looked down at his feet, again, and when he looked up he was glowering.

"I'm not fucking *stupid,*" he told the doctor. "I know where this is leading--"

Dr. Stegner shrugged. "Then lead me."

"You know what? Just fuck off. I'm not--"

"You're going to have to do better than that," Dr. Stegner replied. No hint of a smile.

She never even raised her fucking *voice.* How the fuck could you *argue* with someone who wouldn't-- "What is the *point* of this?"

Her head tilted as she studied him. "The *point,* as I think you know perfectly well, is that you refuse to acknowledge just how damaging Tony's behavior was to you."

Peter shook his head in amazement. What the *fuck?* "What *damage?* I got *over* it, all right? I'm not some fucking teenage girl with a pathetic little crush on--"

"You told someone you had *every reason* to believe loved you, unconditionally, that you were sexually abused," she continued relentlessly. "And his response was a categorical rejection. Your emotional trust was violated. Your worst fear was realized. Peter, in what universe is that *not* horribly damaging?"

Silence. The small clock on her desk ticked softly.

"I don't want to talk about this anymore," he said.

"Your current relationship," she said, "I think--"

"I *don't* want to *talk* about this anymore."

"--I think you need to acknowledge that it *has* been affected. It *is* being affected."

"I don't *have* to acknowledge a fucking--"

"How do you feel about Stuart?"

Peter shook his head, one heel drumming against the carpet. "What the fuck do you mean, how do I *feel* about him?" he demanded. "He hangs around, he--does, whatever." A shrug. "Whatever."

Dr. Stegner rested her elbows on her desk. "Are you attracted to him?"

Peter gazed at the painting, not meeting her eyes. Several moments ticked by.

"Yeah," he said. "In a way."

"In a way?"

"In a way I have no fucking need to *act* on, all right?" he snapped, his errant heel thudding more rapidly. "It's just...whatever. It's *there.* It doesn't matter."

"Why not?"

No answer.

The doctor plucked a bit of lint from her jacket, gazing at him thoughtfully. "Would it be something you *would* act on, if he didn't know about your past? If he hadn't already found that out?"

Peter stared at her. She watched him carefully, clearly anticipating another explosion (and not looking particularly perturbed about it); but instead his gaze faltered and he again looked down at the floor.

"What part of my past?" he asked carefully.

"I think you know," she replied.

Peter didn't look up.

"I don't..." He trailed off. "Look, people don't *need* to know everything about each other, all right? It's usually better to just...kind of coast along at a certain level of bullshit."

The doctor nodded, seeming to consider this. "A certain level of bullshit," she repeated. "One where all failures and vulnerabilities are hidden away. Where nobody can hold them against you. Judge you for them. Reject you. Because..."

She tilted her head again, birdlike, now seeming to think aloud. "Because if people *admit* to failures and vulnerabilities, nobody can love them anyway. Is that the idea?"

Silence, for a very long time.

"I don't want to talk about this anymore," Peter finally said, his voice quiet.

He was hunched over even farther in his chair, his head down. Something in him wouldn't allow him to look up.

"All right," said Dr. Stegner softly. "That's enough for today."

********

The *thud* of the front door crashing open, and then shut, told Stuart right away that that afternoon's session hadn't gone well. Peter stalked through the living room and toward the kitchen, his face a thundercloud; with some trepidation, Stuart followed.

"How was..." he ventured cautiously.

"Fine," said Peter tightly, slamming open cabinet doors and drawers in search of God only knew what. "Great."

Bang. Crash. "Peter?"

"What is your *problem?*" Peter suddenly demanded, poised with a hand gripping the refrigerator handle.

Stuart blinked. "Peter, all I asked you was--"

"No, I'm *serious,* Stuart. What the hell do you want from me?"

"I--"

"Because whatever it is, you're shit outta luck."

Slam. Bang. Stuart looked down at his own hands for a second, trying to figure out just how to defuse this particular bomb. "Peter, I don't want anything from you, all I asked was--"

"You know what, Stuart?" Peter threw a handful of silverware against the countertop with a resounding clatter. "Just give it up. Okay? Take that fucking job at Parnassus that I busted my ass to get set up for you, quit hanging around here like you're gonna fucking *rescue* me from God knows what, give up on DragonFire, give up on playing nurse--just *give up.* Okay? Can you do that? Because you're driving me even crazier than I already am."

Stuart just stared at him.

"Do you *get* it?" Peter almost snarled.

"I'm not deaf," Stuart responded softly. "Or dumb."

"Fine." Peter grinned mirthlessly, then tossed all the silverware except a knife back into the drawer. "Then we're on the same damn page. Perfect. *Never* better."

Turning his back on Stuart, he threw open the refrigerator and began rifling angrily through it. A long moment passed.

"Peter," Stuart finally said, "exactly what do you want from me?"

Not looking up, Peter shook his head in disgust. "Nothing," he said, jars and bottles clattering beneath his hands. "Absolutely fucking *nothing.*"

Stuart watched for a few more minutes. Clatter. Crash.

"Peter?" he finally said. "Enough."

Peter turned from the refrigerator, the muscles in his jaw taut. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me," Stuart replied, anger making his voice softer instead of louder. "Enough of this. Enough trying to push me away. Enough *testing* me. You understand? I'm not putting up with it anymore."

He saw the old familiar glint in Peter's eye, the dangerous light that meant a five-alarm explosion was just around the corner. Stuart didn't flinch.

"*Testing* you," Peter replied. "What the fuck does that mean? *Testing* you?"

"You know damn well what it means." Stuart folded his arms. "Peter, I'm not going anywhere whether you like it or not, so--"

"You're not *going* anywhere?" Peter almost threw a jar of mustard onto the counter. "In case you forgot, *buddy,* this is my fucking house. *My* property, *my* decision who stays here and who packs his shit and gets his ass in the street--does that whole concept get through your skull at all?"

"Throw me out if you want," Stuart said evenly. "I'll go. It's your house. But you can't get me out of your life that easy."

Peter was silent for a few moments. When he spoke again, his voice had the razor's edge of a sneer.

"Oh, yeah, *you'd* never leave, Stuart." He smiled, a derisive and ugly expression on his face. "You'd *never* leave. Right? You've got *no* problem with any of this shit, no problem with me, *none* at all--"

"Peter--"

"Right? It's all just *completely* fucking unconditional, *right?* Yeah! *Heard* it before, Stuart!"

"Peter, will you *listen* to--"

"NO! I'M NOT FUCKING GOING THROUGH THAT *AGAIN!* NOBODY ELSE GETS TO *LIE* TO ME AND FUCKING DISAPPEAR *EVER AGAIN!*"

The room got very quiet. Peter turned abruptly away from Stuart, hands clutching the counter as he stared fixedly at the kitchen wall. From where he stood Stuart could hear the other man's ragged, uneven breathing.

Well. Now he knew exactly what today's session had been about. And he wished he didn't.

"Do you want me to leave?" he asked quietly.

No answer.

"Peter, I don't want to go, but if you want me to leave the house I will."

"See?" Peter's voice was drained of all energy. "I told you. Can't live without you, babe, oh I changed my mind, bye-bye--"

"I said the *house,* not you."

"Same difference."

"Since *when?*" Stuart walked toward him, cautiously. When he placed his hands on Peter's shoulders, the other man didn't turn around; but he didn't pull away either. Stuart kept his palms there, lightly, not attempting any further contact.

"Tell me what you want," Stuart said. "Please."

No answer.

"Do you want me to leave?" No answer. "Peter? Yes or no. Please. Tell me if you want me to--"

"No, *no,* all right?! I don't! Are you *happy* now? Will you fucking *leave me alone* now? Will everybody just *leave me alone!*"

Peter slammed a fist against the counter, red-faced, impotent fury in his eyes. Stuart watched, quietly, until the other man's breathing began to slow down and his color return to normal. Count to one, two, three...

"All right," Stuart said softly. "That's settled, then."

"Nothing's settled," said Peter. "Nothing's any good." His voice was miserable.

"Give it time," Stuart replied.

"I *have.*"

"Give it more." He tightened his grip on Peter's shoulders, almost imperceptibly.

"Stuart?"

"Yeah?"

"My hand's killing me."

Stuart sighed. "I know."

The two men stood there together, motionless and silent.

********

He was craving sleep now, constantly, a symptom of the fucking depression (so sayeth Dr. Stegner--so when the hell did those pills of hers start working, anyway?), and of the stress of the past months; and the other thing was that when he lay down at night he was allowed the soothing relief of Xanax, now denied to him during the rest of the day. The doctor seemed to think he had developed a wee bit of a substance-abuse problem, on top of everything else (right before writing him another prescription), but apparently you couldn't go cold turkey off the stuff without becoming a gibbering wreck. Tapering off, slowly, but he still got a good dose of it when he needed it. Not *enough,* but better than nothing.

The bad part of it, Peter thought as he turned on his side beneath the blankets (two-thirty a.m.--still not sleeping through the night, any night, even with the pills), was that he could feel himself starting to rely on this woman; feel himself starting to trust her. To tell her things he had sworn nobody on earth would ever hear, under torture. This was not good. The less people knew about you in this town, the better--the less material they had with which to royally fuck you over. As everyone, everywhere, *always* ended up doing to everyone else.

That was another thing she kept saying he needed to work on. Trust.

Yeah, well, what did she know? Smart woman, he'd grudgingly admit, but not too wise to the ways of Hell-Ay; swore to him she'd *never* had the slightest desire to work in the movies. Or to be a Physician to the Stars. Not like that asshole starfucking OB-GYN of Jane's, what the hell was his name...Baxter...

Barker--that was it. Dr. Barker. *That's* how the name had popped into one of his dreams. In spite of himself, Peter almost laughed as he closed his eyes once again.

********

"I've brought you here for a reason," said Dr. Stegner. "It'll do wonders for you, therapeutically speaking."

Peter nodded, somewhat distracted as he tried to negotiate the maze whose walls stretched what seemed like miles above his head. Laboratory mice whizzed past him, turning the corners with an ease that made him slightly embarrassed. He suddenly felt a hand on the back of his neck, and whipped around indignantly.

"What the hell are you doing?" he demanded.

Wendy rolled her eyes. "What do you *think,* Peter? I'm checking for vampire marks."

Well, he had to admit that made sense. Concentrating on the maze, he turned one corner, another...

The sound of the buzzer made him jump. Dr. Stegner nodded in approval, not seeming to see Stuart standing right in front of her patient.

"Hear that?" Stuart said to him. "That means you got through the first part of the test."

"What test?" Peter looked around him suspiciously.

Stuart didn't seem to hear him. "That means you get a reward."

He leaned forward, hands on Peter's shoulders, and kissed him. Peter slid his arms slowly around the other man, the taste of his mouth making the walls of the maze dissolve. The buzzing was getting louder and louder...

Peter awoke in a haze, blinking disorientedly for several moments before realizing the hallway phone was ringing. Stuart poked his head into the room. "I'll get it," he offered, "go back to sleep."

Peter lay back down and closed his eyes, but wakefulness was winning out. He heard the sound of Stuart's voice but not the words; bleary with sleep at first, then...surprised? And oddly happy. What the hell could get the guy so worked up about some middle-of-the-night telemarketer, Peter didn't know, but--

"Peter?" Stuart was practically bounding into the room, bedhead and all. "Uh, that was the hospital--"

"The hospital?" Fully awake now, Peter sat up in alarm, then realized Stuart was smiling. "What are you so *giddy* about?" he demanded rather peevishly.

The smile didn't go away. "Well...apparently Jane went into labor this morning, and, uh, a few hours ago--"

Peter was now on his feet. "Is it over? Is everything all right?"

The guy was *grinning* now. "Seven pounds, ten ounces. No problems. They're in the Cedars-Sinai maternity ward."

Peter thought this over. "I've got a son," he said to Stuart.

Stuart nodded. Still smiling. "Uh...yeah. You've got a son."

"I'm a dad," he said aloud to himself. "I mean...again."

"Yeah. Again."

Peter was now searching for his clothes, and his shoes, and his car keys. He was--he had--all the time he was sitting in Stegner's office--Jesus, Jane loved to drop surprises on people like nobody he'd ever met. He was *smiling.* For real. "You coming?" he demanded of Stuart.

Stuart looked startled for a moment. "You mean, to the hospital?"

Jesus. "No, to the *morgue*--where the hell else would I mean? What, you don't wanna see my kid?"

"Peter"--now the other man was laughing--"I would love to see your kid."

"Then don't just fucking *stand* there, for Christ's sake. Where are the car keys?"

********

The small bank of windows in Jane's hospital room gave a panoramic view of the approaching dawn. Sitting up in bed, the very picture of exhausted accomplishment, she held up the small wrapped bundle in her arms for Stuart's perusal.

"Isn't he pretty?" she demanded.

Stuart laid a finger gently to the newborn's chin, the soft pulsing spot on his skull. "Beautiful," he said sincerely.

Peter was lingering behind him impatiently. Stuart straightened up again, then nodded at them both. "Uh, I'll just--anyway, I'll be right outside if you need anything."

Jane and Peter both nodded back, somewhat absently. Feeling a little awkward, Stuart left the room, pulling the door three-quarters closed behind him.

Neither Peter nor Jane spoke for a few moments; finally, Peter walked over and sat down on the edge of the bed, getting his first real look at his son.

"Can I hold him?" Peter said. His voice sounded almost formal in his ears.

"Of course," Jane said, holding out the small lump of blankets. "Be careful, put your hand behind his head, like that..."

Arms held as instructed, somewhat stiffly, Peter stared down at his son. Red wrinkled newborn face, tiny punchdrunk fists, a thick shock of light blond hair standing up like a coxcomb. The eyes opened briefly, a milky-pale newborn blue, and then the little face split open in a huge yawn.

"What do you think?" Jane asked. Pride and uncertainty mingled in her voice.

Peter nodded, without looking up. He felt...overwhelmed. In a good way. A way he remembered feeling when he'd first seen Georgia through the glass of the maternity-ward window: *Jesus Christ almighty, that's my kid. Mine! How the hell did that happen?*

"How are you doing?" he asked. "How was it?"

"Okay," Jane said, shifting into a more comfortable position on the pillows. "My water broke right in the middle of the living room, that was fun, but other than that...no problems. Easier than Georgia, that's for sure--"

"Is she at home?"

"With my parents."

Peter nodded again, then looked over at his ex-wife. Her hair, still dark with sweat, fanned out over the pillows; devoid of makeup, with shadows of fatigue under the eyes, her face seemed both older and younger all at once.

"I was thinking of Daniel," she offered. "For a name? And then Stephen, after my dad."

Peter thought that over. Daniel Stephen; a nice solid-sounding name, nothing Hollywood-trendy about it. "I like it," he said, then repeated it to himself, silently. *Daniel, my son.*

"My parents were here most of the night," Jane continued. "In shifts. You just missed them." She brushed a lock of hair from her eyes. "They're going to be staying with us for a while."

Good. Georgia needed to be around some normal people for a while, after everything she'd been through. True, they hadn't been crazy about him while he and Jane were married; but he'd been elevated considerably in their eyes once they got a look at Son-in-Law Number Two. "Can I come out and visit--"

"Of course." Jane gave him a look that suggested it was a ridiculous question. Then her expression grew hesitant. "I was thinking that..." she started, then trailed off.

"Thinking what?" Daniel waved his fists around some more, then closed his eyes more firmly.

"Well..." Jane studied the opposite wall, then the empty bassinet next to her bed. "There's this house on Mulholland, about two blocks from where you are? It's up for sale, and...I mean, I can't stay out in Palm Springs forever, Georgia has school and...that way, she could see you more. And you could see Daniel, and...you know, whatever, living arrangements you have now, that's not a problem for me, Peter. I mean...I sort of, told Georgia."

That made him look up. "What did you tell her, exactly?"

Jane's eyes were guarded, the eyes of a woman who had learned it was very important not to make other people angry. It made Peter sad to see it; it had never been like that, when they were together. Sure, they'd had a uniquely shitty marriage, but...the *thought* of doing that to her had never crossed his mind. No matter how angry they both were at each other.

"She sort of...asked me if Stuart was your boyfriend." She smoothed the bedsheet with one hand. "I said I didn't know, but I thought he was."

Peter nodded. "And..."

Did he want to hear the answer to this?

"She loves you, Peter," Jane said softly.

Maybe he did.

Daniel sneezed, then kicked some more. A live wire at age six hours.

"Is that a good idea, then?" Jane repeated. "The house on Mulholland?"

Peter touched the shock of blond hair on his son's head; the kid looked like a cartoon character who'd had a close encounter with an electrical socket. Handsome as hell, too, of course. "I'd like that," he said quietly.

"All right." Jane nodded, looking relieved.

"Do you have the money for this?" he said. "If you don't, I can--"

Jane shook her head. "I have enough. They unfroze some of the bank accounts--the clean ones, I guess. I wouldn't know. And I have the money from selling off Bobby's stuff. The things he gave me." Her face hardened. "I don't want anything he gave me. Jewelry, clothes--none of it. I want it all gone."

Daniel was dropping into a doze. No wonder; he'd done a lot of work today. Gingerly, as though handling a live bomb, Peter handed his son back to Jane. He stayed sitting where he was on the edge of the bed.

"Why didn't you ever tell me?" he said. "I would have helped you, Jane. You know I would have. So why didn't you tell me what was going on with Bobby?"

Jane looked down at Daniel.

"Why didn't you ever tell *me,* Peter?" she replied softly.

Peter's stomach dropped twenty floors.

He stared at Jane; she gazed steadily back at him, a combination of sorrow and empathy in her eyes. They sat there together for a long time, silently, feeling a mutual understanding of the sort they had never managed to achieve while they were married.

********

As Daniel Stephen Dragon, now nearly eight hours old, slept the proverbial slumber of the newborn, Special Agent Aaron Schutt--known to the wider world as Adam Rafkin for the better part of two years--lay staring up at the ceiling of his West Hollywood apartment as he tried and failed to lull himself unconscious.

He needed all the rest he could get, nowadays; now that a good half-dozen major cases were exploding like popcorn kernels all at once, all bringing fuckups and recriminations and endless goddamned government paperwork in their wake. Though none of them, put together, equaled the rapidly expanding nightmare that was United States et al v. Gianopolis.

The Bobby G affair had been--in the words of Aaron's very British mother--a complete and utter balls-up right from the start. The missteps, the in-fighting, the miscommunications, the utter disaster that was the final impromptu raid on DragonFire Studios; and now, on top of it all, the very real possibility that the fucking sixties-Berkeley-relic judge might actually *set a bail hearing.* Attempted murder? Assault? Hundreds of millions of dollars gone missing? The near-murder of *two* federal agents? Oh, no problem. Why worry? *He's* got rights too, you know! Aaron had stood there in the courtroom, hearing the angry shouts of disbelief around him from his fellow officers--and the bailiff, and the gathered crowd--and it still hadn't quite sunk in; the judge was *setting a bail hearing.*

Fuck these antiquated, criminals-are-the-real-victims granola idealists. Fuck them all.

It was torture of a unique sort, *trying* to question Bobby. The asshole was a master of smiling evasion, remorseless chill; just sat there with an unwavering smirk on his bulldog face, as though the whole enterprise *amused* him immensely. And raked his eyes up and down his questioners, contempt in every glance. And in a light, conversational tone, told reminiscent stories that made Aaron feel almost physically ill.

He wanted to believe they were all lies; but something inside him--call it Fed's intuition, call it whatever the hell you want--told him they were all too true. And if they were, *if* they were...

Oh, hell. He had transferred from sex crimes to white-collar *precisely* to get away from this shit. And it was still following him around. Haunting him.

And the fucker was *getting a bail hearing.*

Flipping his pillow yet again to the cool side--now the slightly-less-warm side--Aaron punched it in frustration, then jumped when the bedside phone suddenly shrilled into his ear.

"Hello?"

"Schutt? It's me."

Aaron sighed inwardly. Matteson, of course; who *else* would be calling at this hour? Doubtless to deliver one of his little look-sir-I-dotted-every-i-and-crossed-every-t kissup reports. "Yes?" he replied wearily.

"Schutt? You gotta get down here. Now."

"I do?" Aaron reached for his glasses, annoyed; Matteson had a unique ability to pull crises out of thin air. "Why, exactly?"

"Are you sitting down?"

Jesus. "I'm *lying* down, Matteson, it's four-thirty in the goddamned--"

"He's dead."

Aaron frowned. "Wha--*who's* dead?"

"Robert Gianopolis."

Slowly, Aaron sat up straighter. "Bobby G? *That* Robert Gianopolis?"

"Right in one."

"What--"

"Schutt? Just get down here. It'll be easier to explain."

******

The body was found during the changeover from the night-shift to the morning-shift guards; every man who had access to Bobby's protective-custody cell had been questioned, and re-questioned, and questioned again. The body was found lying in bed, no signs of a struggle, with the throat neatly slit from ear to ear.

"Autopsy results forthcoming," Matteson informed Aaron; like his colleague, he was sporting the five-thirty-a.m. fashion of a pajama top tucked clumsily into his trousers. "But it looks like a pretty straightforward hit to me."

"Hit?" Aaron glanced toward the half-open door, satisfying himself they weren't being overheard. "You're not speaking colloquially, I presume--"

Matteson looked sober. "You'll see the reports yourself, and the crime scene; but yeah, that's what it looks like to me. A straightfoward mob hit." He laughed, shaking his head. "Right in his fucking cell. It--hell, I don't wanna think about the overtime we're gonna put in on this one."

Aaron nodded absently, looking over the early paperwork; predictably, it told him nothing Matteson hadn't already reported. "A straightforward mob hit," he repeated.

"Well..." Matteson hesitated. "Sort of."

"*Sort of* straightforward?" Aaron put the reports folder down. "Explain."

Matteson glanced over his own shoulder. "Well, along with the actual, uh, parting shot, so to speak..."

"Yeah?"

"He was castrated."

******

They kept him there the entire day, the same questions over and over again from four different agents; lunch brought in, a brief break for sandwiches and coffee before it started up again. Peter's eyelids were granite weights; any anger or fear he might have felt from being holed up in a police station were subsumed under both exhaustion and disbelief. Dead. Bobby was *dead?* Not just dead; murdered. He had a son, Bobby was dead. Those two events simply did not add up. That they had occurred a mere eighteen hours apart was, in fact, nothing less than impossible.

Bobby was dead. That couldn't be true. Maybe this was all some kind of trick. If it was, he thought grimly, it was one insanely elaborate, and expensive, practical joke.

Peter stared at the walls of the small questioning room, where he had been left to cool his heels all by his lonesome. Table, chair, two-way mirror; that was it for the decor. Stuart was somewhere down the hall, holed up with two more agents. Telling them God knew what. Telling them...

No. There was no possible way that Stuart would ever be behind something like--

Wasn't there?

As Peter sighed and rubbed his forehead wearily, the door to the small room suddenly opened. Adam--no, Aaron whathisname stood there, surveying him with an unreadable expression.

"We're going to have to question your ex-wife as well," Aaron said with no introduction.

Peter straightened up slowly in his chair. "I can tell you *exactly* where she was when this happened, you little--" He bit off the rest of that sentence. Fed, he reminded himself, *not* screenwriter; different set of rules entirely. Fuck.

Aaron looked unperturbed. "I said question, not arrest. There is a difference. As for you and Mr. Glazer...you're free to go."

Peter blinked in surprise.

"I am?" he finally said.

"Yep."

Peter stared down at the tabletop for a moment. Wasn't this an old trick of some kind? He *knew* he'd seen it in some cop show, somewhere...

"Peter?" Aaron repeated.

Peter started. "I can leave," he asked again.

Aaron motioned toward the door. "We'll be in touch. If necessary."

******

As he dragged himself down the dimly lit hallway, Peter glanced up at the clock, then did a double-take: fourteen hours. Jesus, they couldn't possibly have been here for *fourteen hours*...he was so tired, he was starting to feel punchily hyperactive. Stuart, slumped on a bench outside the questioning rooms, looked equally drained and twitchy. They stared at each other for a moment.

"Are you all right?" Stuart finally asked.

Peter shrugged. "Are you?"

"I guess."

They drove home in complete silence and, in complete silence, dragged themselves upstairs, throwing themselves side by side on Peter's bed without bothering to take off anything but their shoes. Fourteen hours. Almost immediately, Stuart fell asleep; Peter lay awake for several more minutes, staring up at the bedroom ceiling.

Bobby was dead. Gone. And someone, somewhere, had done this for him--somehow, Peter knew this wasn't the work of one of Bobby's "colleagues," or some outraged guard or fellow prisoner. He just knew that...someone, somewhere had done this. For *him.*

Stuart? Wendy? Lonnie (the old guy had met a boatload of unsavory characters, driving Tony from pillar to post)? It *couldn't* have been Jane. Or maybe, knowing all *she'd* suffered at Bobby's hands, it could have.

Bobby was gone. He had a son. And his son was...safe. And in the end, it didn't really matter how, or why, things had worked out that way. That was just the way it all was. His son was safe. The *future* was safe. The past was a dead letter.

Maybe this was what Stegner was always babbling about, Peter suddenly thought, when she said he needed to learn about letting go.

It was a start.

******

Wendy was just sitting down to a spaghetti dinner for one when the doorbell rang. Feeling slightly irritated, she walked over to the front door and flung it open to find Special Agent Aaron Schutt standing on her doorstep.

Not a surprise, she thought as she stood there; not really. Though she did wonder why he'd broken the charming Fed habit of traveling everywhere in pairs...summoning all the sangfroid she'd acquired through her years of both acting and whoring, she gave him a calm smile.

"Nice to see you," she said. "You like marinara sauce?"

Aaron didn't smile back, just leaned a little against the doorframe and studied her. An old Fed trick, big deal. Wendy stared right back. Gray suit, badge clipped to the waistband, his Adam Rafkin hornrims abandoned for smaller wire frames. He'd never be handsome, she mused, but at least this incarnation had a certain poise and dignity to recommend him.

"Yes?" she finally said.

"I'd like to know why you did it," he replied.

Wendy didn't waver, or let her expression change. "Do what?"

Aaron ran a hand over his hair. "Don't play games with me," he said quietly, "and I won't play them with you."

"Games about what? Honest to God, if you wanted to cop a free meal off someone, you could just--"

Something in his expression made her stop in mid-sentence.

"I'm not kidding," he said, even more quietly.

Wendy studied her shoes for a long moment.

"Prove it," she challenged him. "Go on. Go ahead and try."

He didn't answer.

"Did you hear me? *Prove* it." She gazed back into his eyes now, defiantly. "Go ahead, if you're such a brilliant--"

"I didn't ask for proof," he answered evenly. "And I didn't ask for a confession. I asked why."

Wendy gave him a derisive laugh. "*Why,* huh? You wanna know why? Guess." She laughed harder when she saw him blink. Good; he was edging toward the defensive. "I mean it. You're so smart, go on and guess!"

No answer. The silence lasted for several minutes.

Wendy's fingers drummed the doorframe; her stomach was knotting up, and not from fear of being arrested. "I've been there," she said, the words escaping from between her teeth. "I'm not some cream puff fresh off the bus from Wisconsin, all right? I know he's fucked up in about ten thousand ways, and not all of them are someone else's fault. But I've *been* there, courtesy of three little USC frat boys and a knife against my throat and literally not being able to walk for an entire fucking month, I've *been* where he is right now and I'm *not fucking sorry* I did it."

There was another long silence, punctuated only by the sound of Wendy's breathing. Her face was sauna-hot, all casual pretense vanished; she turned away, trying to collect herself. *Collect, goddammit. Collect.*

Finally, as she turned back to him, Aaron nodded.

"So you ordered it," he said. "That much I guessed. If it wasn't the ex, and it wasn't the uncle, and it wasn't the--boyfriend, friend, whatever the hell he is, I couldn't figure it out--it'd have to be you. But tell me this--who actually did the deed?"

Slowly, and firmly, Wendy shook her head. "Forget it," she replied.

Another nod, and a slightly twisted smile. Aaron stared off into the evening sky, looking rather thoughtful.

"You know," he commented, "when I came over here, I was about ninety-nine percent sure of what you were going to say. But I really, really wish you *hadn't* said it."

"Why?" Wendy thrust her hands into her pockets. "Because now you're gonna be crying into your beer about arresting poor little me?"

Aaron shook his head. "No," he replied. "Because now I could never ask you to dinner without it looking like the worst kind of blackmail."

Wendy's mouth dropped open.

Aaron shrugged, the smile now slightly self-deprecating, and clapped her briskly on the shoulder. "Have a nice life, Wendy Ward," he said.

Then, as she stood there in the doorway, he turned and walked away without looking back.

"Yeah," she said, her voice barely audible. "You too."

******

Stuart started a little when he woke up, still stretched out fully clothed on his side of the bed. Disoriented with sleep, ee blinked hard, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness, then angled his head toward the nightstand clock: two-thirty. When had he fallen asleep...when had they gotten home? Six o'clock, seven? It was all a merciful blur.

He stretched a little--careful not to make too much noise--turned his head in the opposite direction and saw Peter lying fully awake, staring thoughtfully up at the ceiling.

"Go to sleep," Peter offered, not turning his head toward Stuart. He sounded preoccupied, but not upset.

Stuart pulled himself up a little on his elbows. "You haven't been awake all this time--"

"No. In and out. Drifting." Peter yawned, as if to prove the point, then rested his hands behind his head. Still looking upward.

Stuart shifted on the bed. He wasn't sure what to say, or if he should say anything, or if he should stay or leave; and, lucky him, he'd just gotten a solid eight hours' sleep and was hopelessly wide awake in the middle of the night. "Well," he said awkwardly. "I guess I should, uh--"

"You know, Stuart," Peter interrupted, "there was actually a time when I really loved movies."

Stuart leaned up against the headboard, watching the other man. Peter stayed where he was; not looking at Stuart, still, but not exactly turned away from him either.

"I mean, I loved them because...I loved them. Not for the money they could make me." Peter ran a hand through his hair, tangled with sleep. "Or the stars, or the starfuckers, or any of that. Because they *meant* something."

Stuart nodded. "Yeah. I know what you mean." He angled his shoulders into a more comfortable position. "That's...pretty easy to lose, in this business."

Peter didn't answer for a second.

"Have to go see my lawyer next week," he eventually said. "And all the people who used to be DragonFire's lawyers. Wind up things--business stuff. That's the actual legal term for killing off a corporation, 'winding up.' Another fun fact." He yawned again. "As of next...Thursday? Yeah, Thursday. DragonFire will be officially dead."

Stuart nodded. "Does that...I mean..."

"Bother me?" Peter thought this over. "Yeah. I guess. It shouldn't, but--"

"It's the principle of the thing," Stuart offered.

A smile. "Yeah. Exactly."

There was a long pause.

"More newspaper crap, I guess," Peter mused aloud. "More Access Hollywood bullshit. I'm not talking to any of them--"

"Neither am I," Stuart said with distaste. These past few months, he'd had enough of incessant media attention to last him ten lifetimes.

Peter laughed suddenly. "You can imagine it, right? The Wall Street Journal story? 'When asked about the sudden tumble down the shit-chute of what *appeared* to be Hollywood's most successful production company, Mr. Dragon simply smiled, shrugged his shoulders and replied, "I knew we should never have passed on Shakespeare in Love." ' "

Now Stuart was grinning. "You mean that piece of...how did you put it, exactly...'pretentious limey jack-off bullshit'? That Shakespeare in Love? "

Peter finally turned his head, looking slightly indignant. "You're not gonna sit there and tell me with a straight face that that actually *deserved* Best Picture, are you? Jesus, at least Silence of the Lambs was..." He trailed off, suddenly. "I could do that, you know."

"Do what?" Stuart asked.

"*Not* pass on Shakespeare in Love. Or whatever. That's what," Peter replied. He was looking up at the ceiling again, thoughts clearly racing ahead of his words. "I mean, I *do* know a shit script from a Shinola one, okay? I could...I don't know, *good* screenplays, good directors, movies that weren't just coredump crap. *Good* actors. Something that wasn't arthouse shit, okay, but you still need a *brain* to watch it? I could do that...right? I mean, if those two fat Weinstein fucks can do it..."

His arms were folded now, his words somehow both assertive and tentative. "I could...I could *be* that kind of producer. If I wanted." He turned toward Stuart. "Couldn't I? Couldn't you? Wendy, too, if she hasn't had it with this whole business, I mean..."

Stuart sat propped against the headboard, considering this idea...this business proposition. In his years at DragonFire, he'd spent many more hours than he cared to contemplate going through slush pile after slush pile, trying to find something, *somewhere,* that might actually be worth seeing on screen. Ninety-nine percent of it, of course, was pure unadulterated crap--but more than once he'd unearthed a script that was truly, unabashedly *good.* Intelligent. Engaging. Actual three-dimensional characters you gave a damn about. And almost every time, he'd had throw it by aside because it just wouldn't fit the patented DragonFire formula: Explosions, boobs, explosions. It might be nice to go the other way...to take a chance. Actually do something that was (sometimes, almost) as exciting as Hollywood was supposed to be.

Apparently he'd hestitated too long in answering, because Peter's expression darkened. "Okay, so it's a *stupid* idea," he said angrily. "You could just fucking *say* that right out, Stuart, and not let me lie here *blithering* like some--"

"Jesus, Peter, give people time to *react,* all right?" Stuart shook his head. "I was *going* to say that I think it's a good idea. A really good one." He pictured it in his head; he could see it. He really could. "We can do this."

After a moment, Peter nodded. Thoughtfully.

"Where are you from, anyway?" he suddenly asked Stuart.

Stuart blinked at the sudden change of subject. "Uh...what do you mean?"

Peter made an impatient gesture. "Where are you *from?* Long Island, right? So where on Long Island? Just wondered."

"Massapequa." Stuart stretched out his legs. "The heart and soul of Howard Stern territory. Have pity on me."

Peter laughed. "I *do.* Jesus."

Silence, again. Stuart followed Peter's gaze toward the expanse of the ceiling, snapshots of his childhood flickering behind his eyes. His parents, who had long since given up on having children when he came along; as a result, he could do no wrong in their eyes. Massapequa. The playground of the elementary school, one big sheet of asphalt. The "progressive" day school he'd transferred to after one fag-bashing too many. His parents, again, embarrassing the hell out of him by having his Harvard acceptance letter *framed.*

Wandering through the Fenway one spring break, over and over, too timid to do any actual cruising. Which led him back to his first...well, you wouldn't exactly call him a "boyfriend," just this pretty kid from the progressive school who deigned to fool around with him sometimes, this tough wiry little scholarship kid with a fast brain and a foul mouth and this wavy blond hair that...

"What?" Peter turned toward Stuart sharply. "What are you *laughing* about?"

"Nothing," Stuart managed, biting his lip for a second. God, the resemblance was nothing short of eerie, and he'd *never* seen it at all until...unreal. Not quite *twins,* he and Peter, but they most definitely could have been brothers.

"I was just thinking," Stuart said. "You remind me of someone...this kid I used to know. Back in high school."

Peter snorted. "Yeah? Lucky you."

Neither of them spoke for a while.

"Peter?"

"Yeah?"

Stuart hesitated. "Are you okay?"

Peter turned toward him again. "I'm getting there," he said. "I think."

Stuart nodded.

"This is where I'm supposed to say it doesn't feel real," Peter said. "And it *doesn't*, but--it does. I mean, all of it, separately, does feel real...but string it all together, and, you know." A laugh. "Forget it. I'm not making any fucking sense."

Peter shrugged, then sighed a little. "I'm tired. I'm so tired..."

Peter closed his eyes. Stuart sat there for a few moments, not moving; then he watched as his hand, as if of its own accord, reached out and touched Peter's hair.

Peter didn't move, but he didn't draw away. Stuart let his hand run tentatively through Peter's hair, then down the length of his arm, stroking it gently. For a moment, just one moment, he thought he'd made a terrible miscalculation; but Peter, not opening his eyes, shifted position quietly until his head was resting against Stuart's shoulder. Stuart's fingers traced the other man's shoulder, his neck, the lines of his face.

"Peter?" he said. His voice sounded awkward, forced, in his own ears. "Do you want to sleep?"

Peter opened his eyes without looking up.

"No," he said quietly.

As Stuart bent his head forward, Peter raised his chin. Their mouths met at the same time, locking wetly together, as their arms drew slowly, tightly, around one another's bodies.

PART 20 SOON