Braided Lives (3 page)
***
"Den! God, you have no clue how worried we've been about you!" Danny said, giving Espeleta a rough hug. He took Rayden's place at Dennis' side and helped the man in the direction of the triage area. "Hey, can I get you to check my guy out?" Valentine asked one of the corpsmen as he eased Espeleta down to sit on a crate. "You're gonna be fine," Danny reassured Dennis, as he dropped to a knee beside the man. He let his talents roam across the surface of Espeleta's mind. The operative was shaken, and in some moderate physical pain, but remarkably, seemed to be mentally holding it together pretty well. However, Danny wasn't sure exactly how long that was likely to last once the last of the adrenaline of being rescued had worn off and the rest of the trauma set in.
***
Danny was somewhat loathe to wake him, but he wanted to know if Peter had heard anything about Jonas'
condition. He squatted down beside the healer and gently shook him by the shoulder.
"Peter?" Danny said softly.
The man's head bobbed up, looking disoriented.
"Huh? Oh hey."
"You hear anything about Jonas yet?"
"Yeah, he got out of surgery, um…" Peter peered at his watch. "About half an hour ago. He's tentatively stable now, but it was apparently touch and go for a little while when they started repairing the torn artery."
"How are
you
doing?" asked Danny.
"Fine, I'm just dog-tired. What about Espeleta?"
"They're treating him for dehydration. He's banged up and pretty shaken, but okay. I think he could probably benefit from a good session with Benford," Danny said, referring so Division P's head psychologist.
"When this is all done, Jonas should have a few rounds with Stephen, too. What about the rest of the team? Where are they?"
"Recovering, more or less. I got us all rooms at the base's temporary housing. They can shower, eat and grab some down time. Speaking of which, did you ever eat? I'm sure all those sugar tablets weren't much more than a stop gap measure."
"Yeah, I grabbed some food in the cafeteria a while ago. I could probably use some more though."
"How 'bout we swing by the mess hall and pick up some stuff, then you can go crash. No offense, but you look like shit."
Peter gave him half a grin and said, "Yeah, I probably do."
"The housing is kind of tight for available rooms right now. I said we'd share. I hope you don't mind."
Danny was a little uncertain exactly where they stood, despite what had happened a couple of nights ago out in the demilitarized zone.
"No problem," said Peter.
***
Trudging up the corridor of the Spartan dormitory-like base housing, Peter reflected on the events of the past few days. They'd found their missing agent, Dennis Espeleta. Good. Another member of their team had been critically injured in the process. Bad. But Nightengale was alive and all indications at the moment were that he would continue to improve. Thank God.
As Danny Valentine walked along beside him, Peter was glad of his presence. Danny had proved to be a dependable colleague, relatively cool under pressure and… Peter would really like to revisit that kiss now that they were no longer in the war zone.
The two of them stopped in front of a door and Danny unlocked it. Inside, the room had the minimum necessary amenities: two single beds, night stand, chest of drawers and a desk. The bathroom was off to one side. Danny pushed the door shut.
Now was as good a time as any. Peter pushed his taller colleague back against the wall and clasped his hands around Danny's head, pulling him down into a hard kiss. Against his body, he felt Danny jerk a little.
Shit. He'd misjudged how open Danny was to the idea of the two of them. Damn, he was tired, and just plain not paying enough attention. Peter started to pull away, but firm hands restrained him, holding him close.
"It's okay," Danny whispered. "You just caught me off guard." His face dipped toward Peter's and he returned the kiss. In another half a minute they were pushing and pulling at clothing, T-shirts hitting the floor and belts being yanked loose. Danny paused again.
"What?" Peter whimpered, impatience reigning.
"You're covered in blood," said Danny slowly.
Peter looked down. Jonas Nightengale's blood had apparently soaked through his shirt in several places and dried on his skin.
"Oh, um," Peter mumbled.
Danny pushed him in the direction of the bathroom.
"Neither of us has had a shower in three days. I think we're due."
"You have a point."
They stripped the rest of the way while the shower warmed up. Peter let his eyes roam down the length of Danny's body as they got under the spray. Six feet four inches of hard lean muscle, the man was a good six inches taller than Peter himself. All those sculpted planes and curves, and the package was proportional to the rest of him.
Danny reached out and grabbed the fresh bar of soap from the sink and peeled the wrapper off before stepping into the shower. He began to rub it across the dried blood on Peter's chest and belly. The foam turned brown-red, and sluiced away as the water hit it. He continued, soaping lower down Peter's hip, down his hardening cock and under his balls. Peter groaned. It had been a while since hands other than his own had touched him. Danny dropped to his knees and lathered down Peter's legs, strong fingers running along tight muscles.
Grabbing Peter's hips, he turned Peter to face the water and dragged the bar of soap slowly up the crack of Peter's ass before kneading the curves of his butt. Danny stood back up and wrapped both arms around Peter's body, reaching forward to stroke Peter's cock as he ground himself against the base of Peter's spine.
Peter braced one hand on the wall, letting himself thrust into the obliging tightness of Danny's hand. He let his psychic shielding fall open, eager to feel the other man's mind sliding against his own.
He could tell Danny's pleasure was equal to his own, as his partner's shields were melting away too. As their soap-slicked bodies ground together, Danny bent his head forward to nip at Peter's ear, the corner of his jaw, down the side of his neck. Peter could hear Danny's harsh, uneven breathing at the side of his face. Riding the crest of the tension, Peter's fingers clawed at the tile as he splattered semen on the shower wall and over Danny's fingers. Danny's own release was seconds later as he pressed Peter's body flat to the wall with his own.
Peter felt both the warm spurting surge against his back and the toe curling spasm of pleasure that washed out from Danny's mind.
Danny's arm was still wound tightly around Peter's body and it was just about all that kept him upright for the next couple of minutes as he struggled to catch his breath. Eventually he turned within the circle of Danny's embrace to face him. He kissed Danny, a deep open-mouthed thank you, then he fished the soap up from where it had fallen on the floor and began to wash Danny. There was something entrancing about the solid presence of Danny's mind in his as his hands traced pecs and abs and quads and glutes. Jesus, the man could pass as the model for some Teutonic god.
Exhaustion was catching up again fast. Peter faltered in his exploration of that gorgeous body, his own wanting to fall into sleep while he stood in the comforting heat of the shower.
"You're almost out on your feet," Danny said as he reached back to turn off the water.
"Sorry," Peter apologized thickly.
"Don't be. Come on, let's go to bed. You need the rest."
Danny helped him dry off and guided him out into the main room. Peter sank onto one of the beds, too tired to hunt for skivvies in his duffle bag.
"I know the bed's not very big. Do you want company?" Danny asked.
Peter nodded and scooted over against the wall that flanked the bed. The same sort of feelings that had made him almost unconsciously reach out to Danny out in the field were still present. He'd spent hours holding Jonas Nightengale in the land of the living. On some primal level he needed the comforting touch of someone who wasn't on the verge of dying.
Snuggled together in the narrow bed, Danny whispered, "You and me, is this some kind of stress response thing?"
"I don't know," replied Peter. "Does it matter?"
"No."
***
"Still sleeping. He was wiped out after what he did for Jonas yesterday," Danny replied. All of his team received basic information on the Talents of their colleagues when they went through training. They also were taught awareness of some of the special vulnerabilities of various psi as well. "You hear anything more about Jonas?"
"I checked with the hospital. He's still in ICU, but he's fairly stable," said Claydon.
"Good. I talked to Bottman an hour ago. He's working on arrangements to airlift him to Landstahl in Germany in a couple of days. Then hopefully, fingers crossed and all that, he'll be flown back to headquarters in a week or so, for recovery and rehab," Danny told them.
"I'm guessing we're not hanging around that long,"
speculated Tabano.
"No, you're right. Barring a downturn for Jonas or some problem on the flight end of things, the rest of us are leaving at 2200."
***
The weather, however, had different ideas and the flight was postponed until the following day.
Hanging out in one of the biergartens near the base, Danny and Peter grabbed dinner and a beer.
"Last time I got a flight canceled on me while on assignment, I got stuck in O'Hare with about four hundred amazingly pissed off people. It was creepy weird, too," said Danny.
"Why? Did they riot or something?"
"No, no, I saw a couple of pushing and shoving matches but nothing that major. It was a 'me' thing."
"What do you mean?" asked Peter. Something about Danny's tone worried him a little.
"Maybe it was all the people, and me being really tired, I don't know. I had exactly one beer so I wasn't even close to drunk. It was overwhelming. For a little while I was so mad I couldn't even think straight. I finally walked down to the far end of the concourse where there weren't many people and punched a wall.
Damn near broke my hand, but the pain sort of reset my shield stuff. I hadn't had my empathic stuff get that far out of control since I was a teenager. The weirdest part is that I don't really even remember walking down the corridor. The whole rest of the day had this weird hazy quality to it, like my brain was only hitting on half the cylinders."
"How long ago was this?" asked Peter.
"Uh, about four months ago."
"I wish you'd come to me to have me look at your hand. Maybe I would have had a clue about the rest of it, too."
"It's kind of embarrassing in a stupid way. Getting so wound up I punched something. Anyway, I just bruised the crap out of my hand. It was no big deal."
"Maybe." Peter was unconvinced. He and Stephen Benford had spent the last couple of years cataloging and analyzing the unusual set of symptoms and side effects that often accompanied psi traits. He had a gut level suspicion that Danny's episode hinted at a something different. He just had no idea what.
May
The calendar on Danny Valentine's computer said it was a new month. Maybe this was a good thing, because in some ways the last one had been crazy, both good crazy and bad crazy. Jonas Nightengale was now back at the Division P complex, rehabbing from his serious injury. The other three men from the mission had returned to their normal jobs, and Espeleta had spent a week in counseling with Stephen Benford. Then there was Peter.
After all the events in Kosovo, a sort of "friends with benefits" relationship had developed. Danny's schedule was frequently frantic and sometimes involved travel, but when he was home at the complex, they'd occasionally hook up.
Speaking of busy, Danny noticed that a new recruit to Division P was arriving in a couple of days. Her name was Jennifer Sebastiano. Her "day job" was a bit odd, he thought. Most of Division P's recruits came from military backgrounds or the many government agencies.
This woman taught art at a community college part-time and spent the rest of her time as a forensic artist. Not the
"sculpt a face on a skull" type, but the kind that came up with sketches of suspects. She did freelance work for numerous police departments in the DC/Baltimore metro area. Sebastiano had a reputation for being able to get usable information from even severely traumatized victims. She had been suggested as a candidate for Division P after her work on a particularly brutal case that captured the attention of the FBI, where Division P
had several people permanently placed.
Ah, he kind of understood. According to interview notes, she was essentially a visual telepath who saw images of what people thought rather than heard or sensed from them as many other telepaths did.
Sebastiano also apparently did occasional gallery shows. He had thumbed through some snapshots of her paintings. Dark. Dark and seriously disturbing. Notes in the file from her interview with the Division P shrink, Stephen Benford, indicated the images were based on the memories of victims and not internally generated.
Still, putting those images on canvas meant she had to experience them in some way.
Once Sebastiano arrived and was assigned quarters, she would get the usual overview and a tentative training schedule that covered everything from focus skills and work on honing a psychic's specific talents to more strictly applied in-the-field skills, like hand to hand combat and small arms qualifications. Danny was the person primarily responsible for those last two tasks.