Himiko: Warrior (2 page)

Matt sighed and leaned into Jones' embrace. God, he had missed his friend. Jones rubbed his back, squeezing him tightly, and Matt relaxed, letting himself be held. Then Jones pulled back and tried to kiss Matt.

"Jones, no." Kissing somebody other than Pietr gave Matt an almost physical feeling of discomfort.

Jones got a hurt look on his face.

"Why can't I kiss you? You didn't mind before. Especially not just a kiss." Jones sounded accusing.

He was right; they had been doing a lot more than kissing, on and off, after they broke up. But being fuckbuddies wasn't in the picture anymore. Matt sighed and sat down.

"Listen, Jones..." Matt looked down at the flyers on the table. "It isn't exactly like you think. This, I mean." He pointed to the colorful leaflets.

"You weren't kidnapped?" Jones interrupted him.

"Well, yes, sort of, but it's a bit more complicated than that."

Jones got an apprehensive expression on his face. "They did do something to you, didn't they? Brainwash you or something like that? Or is this just a case of Stockholm syndrome?"

"No! I mean, yes, they did do something to me, but it's not like you think. They're decent people."

"They're not even people! Matt, how can you say that?" Jones looked confused, his eyes pleading with Matt.

"Because I got to know them, Jones. They're okay."

The expression on Jones' face was changing rapidly. "They're fucking disfigured monsters, that's what they are. What did they do to make you their little puppy dog? Or are you just turned on by those creepy elven ears?" Jones was seething. "Did they order you to come here to convert me, too?"

Matt shook his head. "Fuck you, Jones. I don't take orders, you know that. But I know them, intimately, and I can communicate with them. Perhaps I'm just able to form an informed opinion; did you consider that?" This was nothing like the happy reunion Matt had been envisioning.

"'Intimately'?" Jones was snarling by now. "You know them 'intimately'? Don't fucking tell me you let them fuck you."

Matt stood up and stepped so close that he was right in Jones' face. "It's none of your business who I decide to fuck, you hear me? As far as I remember, you were the one who decided you didn't want to fuck me anymore."

Jones didn't take the bait. "And what do you mean you can communicate with them? Do they speak some foreign language or what?"

"They implanted a chip. It enables me to talk to them. Listen, can I explain this?" Matt stubbornly kept trying to get through to Jones.

"But why do you even want to talk to those freaks?" Jones was shouting. "Why the fuck don't you just cut the chip out? Where is it?"

Matt kept looking at Jones, his eyes never wavering.

"It's in my brain stem. It can't be removed, Jones. And I don't want to have it removed."

Jones took a step back, his face a study in revulsion. At that moment, the front door opened.

"Hey, Jones, I forgot my..." Benjamin was in the room, looking stunned when he saw Matt. Then he took a step forward, a big smile spreading across his face.

"Matt!"

"Don't you fucking touch that pig," Jones hissed.

"What the..." Benjamin hesitated, his smile faltering as he looked from Jones to Matt. "But it's Matt."

Jones laughed, the sound bitter and borderline insane. "No, this is some sleazebag who fucks aliens. They gave him a chip in his brain to keep him in line."

Benjamin seemed thoroughly confused now. He looked entreatingly at Matt.

"Matt?"

"I only fuck one, and his name is Pietr. And nobody's 'keeping me in line.'" It might not have been the smartest thing to say, but then Matt wasn't known for his even temper.

"You're on their side now?" The sound of betrayal in Benjamin's voice made Matt wince.

"It's not about sides, that's the whole point! Maybe if we could talk to them, things wouldn't be as tense as they are now." Matt started pacing, too agitated to stay still.

Benjamin kept watching Matt. "'Tense'? You don't think it would release the 'tension' if they stopped kidnapping and torturing people?" His voice was scarily devoid of emotion.

"I'm not defending that!" Matt was yelling now. This was a hopeless battle.

"You're not exactly condemning it, either." Benjamin glanced around the apartment. "I guess we can throw these out." He picked up the flyers and nodded at the image of Matt. "This guy here is gone for good anyway."

Matt froze. Then he managed to tear his eyes away from Benjamin, looking imploringly at Jones. His best friend through almost eight years didn't bat an eyelid.

"I think it's best if you leave now, Matt."

Matt stared at Jones, completely numb. Then he nodded abruptly and left the room. He stopped in the hallway and looked back at his friends. Neither of them said anything. Matt turned and left.

***

He didn't remember anything from his drive home afterward. Pietr was banging on the car window when he came back to reality, and Matt started when he heard the sound. He was in the parking garage under his apartment building, but how he had gotten here, he had no idea. He rolled down the window.

"What happened? Why are you shielding from me?" Pietr sounded agitated, and his mate tried to break through Matt's shield.

Matt shook his head, trying to get rid of the feeling.

"They don't want me around. They say I'm a freak." He sat staring straight ahead.

"Open the fucking door!" Without waiting for him to respond, Pietr reached through the open window and opened the car door himself, and then Matt was in his mate's arms. The feeling of Pietr's warm body against his made his unintentional shielding fall apart, and he felt Pietr's concern surrounding him.

"I'm fine," Matt said automatically.

The fuck you are. Come on.

Peter tugged him out of the car, closing the door and leading him to the elevator. There was a woman waiting for it; she hastily turned around and walked away when she saw them. Matt cringed.

Don't worry. Come on, they're just humans.
Pietr had one arm around Matt and walked him into the elevator when it arrived.

I'm human.
Matt laughed, the sound completely devoid of any joy.
Or at least I used to be. Now I don't know what the fuck I am.

Mine. You're mine.
Pietr led him out of the elevator and down the hall to their apartment, and then Matt finally heard the door to the apartment closing behind them.

They called you a disfigured monster.

They don't matter.
Pietr's answer was emphatic.

Matt went into the living room and sat down on the couch. Pietr followed him closely, the worry a constant in his mate's mind.

They do to me.
That was the awful truth. Jones and Benjamin were his best friends. If not even his best friends could tolerate him now, what was he going to do? Live the rest of his life like a pariah?

Come on. I'm sure it'll be better at work tomorrow. We'll figure it out, okay?

The terrible thing was that Matt could feel the sadness in Pietr's mind. Pietr wasn't sure that it would be better; Pietr had seen way too much disgust and hate to believe that.

Jesus, Pietr.
The images in Pietr's head were frightening: flashes of one scared and angry human after another at the harvesting, until the memories blurred into a tapestry of hostility.

It wasn't exactly what we were after.
Pietr tried to keep his tone of voice light, but the pain in his mind was far too strong for it to be convincing.

I can't believe you could live with that.
Close contact with other beings was what kept a Himiko sane, and whether or not the humans could actually communicate with the Himika, the constant rejection had to hurt.

You seem to forget that we did it to ourselves. And to the humans.
Pietr tried to keep the flashes hidden from Matt, tried to spare him from the human fear and pain Pietr had witnessed, as well as Pietr's agony at having to face it day in and day out. Matt reeled at the mere thought of having to endure that.

You're not me. They won't hate you like they hate us.
Pietr's inner voice was quiet but firm.

No. At least I don't have pointy ears. The charm went out of those really quickly.

There wasn't much to say after that. Pietr kept close to Matt for the rest of the evening, but there wasn't as much comfort in his mate's presence as there used to be. It wasn't that Matt regretted anything -- he knew that their bonding had been both unavoidable and the best possible thing for him. He just hadn't accounted for the consequences.

They were very quiet when they went to bed that night.

Matt woke up the next morning determined to shake off yesterday's events. He had thought that Jones and Benjamin were his best friends. That was clearly not the case. It hurt, but shit happened, and he had to get over it.

He was determined to make his return to work more successful; at least now he knew what not to say.

There you go.
Pietr's inner voice was quietly encouraging.

Matt called his office in advance, and his assistant was over the moon with joy when she heard that Matt was coming back.

"I missed you so much!" Anne often used exclamation marks when she spoke. They hovered in the air around her long after she had finished talking. "I can't wait to see you again!"

She talked eagerly about their projects and the many pitfalls they hadn't been smart enough to avoid in his absence. Matt secretly thought that she had a crush on him, which was odd since everybody knew he was gay. In the end, he had to interrupt her.

"I'll be there in twenty minutes, Anne. We can talk then."

He was optimistic and really looked forward to seeing everybody again, but when he stepped through the door to the office, nobody answered his greeting.

"I said good morning."

Shaun finally raised his head. Instead of returning the greeting, he looked at Matt with cold eyes. "I talked to Jones."

Matt felt his shoulders slumping.

"And?" He dreaded the answer.

"The school project is going as planned. I've made a proposal on an extension to the city hall's administration building."

"That's all?" Matt couldn't help hoping that Shaun would get over whatever Jones had told him and talk to Matt. He had been the first employee that Matt had ever hired.

"We have two other assignments from the city."

So, this was how it was going to be. Matt made an effort to speak. "And the McCauley proposal?"

"It's on your desk. We didn't get it."

Matt nodded, not knowing what else to say.

"I'll be in my office."

"Good." Shaun turned his back to Matt and went back to work.

Keeping his face carefully neutral, Matt went into his office where Anne was hovering, looking uncertain.

"They said that you've been brainwashed! And that you're having sex with the aliens! I told them that there was no way you would do that, but they kept saying..."

Matt had to raise his hand to stop the nervous stream of words. He sat down in his chair heavily.

"I live with one of them. He's my boyfriend."

Matt looked up, and saw the hope on Anne's face change into confusion. Then she tightened her lips, her eyes getting cold.

"I see. I can't say that I understand."

Matt sighed. "I can't say that I expected you to. Could you please give me the next proposals going out?"

Anne nodded abruptly and left the office.

Matt steeled his facial expression. The glass walls between his office and the rest of the people working here had seemed a good way to provide soundproofing for business talks in his office while maintaining a sense of unity in the firm. Right now, Matt wished he had real walls to hide behind.

Anne came in, put a number of portfolios on his desk, and left again, never saying a word. Matt sighed again and bent over his work.

***

On his way to the nearby parking lot after work, Matt met a guy who worked in the same building. They had had lunch together a couple of times, and the man was gushing when he saw Matt.

"I can't believe that you're back! It's really good to see you. I guess the rumors were wrong, then?" Steve looked inquiringly at Matt.

"Well, I don't know what the rumors were." Matt could imagine, though.

"That you had been harvested. God, I'm so glad you weren't subjected to that. The poor bastards who come back aren't human anymore."

"I was taken." Matt knew he sounded brusque. "They let me go again."

"Really?" Steve looked vaguely confused. "Well, I guess we have to celebrate. Let's have lunch one of these days."

Matt tried to smile. "Sure." There was always the chance that Steve didn't talk to any of Matt's employees.

***

The weeks went by, and Matt started realizing how his new life was going to be. The big eye-opener was Shaun's sabotage.

Perhaps against his better judgment, he had hoped that his employees had just been surprised or scared when they found out what had happened to Matt. Maybe it would clear up when they got back to normal and everybody found out that Matt was still just Matt.

So Matt kept coming into the office with a polite smile on his face, saying good morning to everybody he met. He never got an answer, though.

Then, one morning he checked a proposal one last time before sending it out, mostly looking for any misspellings. He had done almost all of the design work on this before he was harvested, and he had just had time to find the drawings and ask Shaun to do the technical specifications in order to make the deadline. It was a great project, and he thought he had a very good chance of winning it.

But not with these numbers in it. The specifications were wrong. At first, he thought it was just a typo. Then he found another, and then another. They weren't innocent, either; they made his proposal appear fifty percent more expensive than it really was. It was enough to get it turned down by the number crunchers before it even got to the architectural committee.

Matt groaned and hit his head in his hands. This was not only his junior architect being hostile toward him. This was deliberate sabotage.

He called Shaun into his office; he still felt he owed his employee a chance to explain what the man had done. Deep down, he still hoped it had been a mistake on Shaun's side.

Shaun just shrugged. "It's not a big deal. Just a couple of wrong numbers."

"It was a couple of wrong numbers that would cost us a potentially big assignment. And they weren't a mistake. You're far too good for that." Matt tried to be patient, to reason with him.

Shaun looked at Matt with cold eyes. "Then you'll just have to build houses for your alien friends instead, won't you?"

Matt slumped. "Shaun, does it really have to be like this? We were friends!" He knew he was close to begging, but he couldn't help it.

The humiliation got all the worse when Shaun just shrugged. "I guess it does. I'm not about to help someone who associates with those creeps."

There wasn't much else to do after that except to fire the junior architect. Matt couldn't risk one of his employees sabotaging any other jobs. If they got any assignments at all -- Matt had encountered a distinct hostility when he had called the mayor's office to confirm some details about a job they'd already won. They had signed the contract a long time ago, but everybody knew that you could get out of those if you really wanted.

After he sacked Shaun, the rest of his employees were cold, but they did their work. They didn't talk to Matt except for short, work-related questions, though, and he felt like he was slowly becoming invisible.

However, that was a lot better than the alternative.

***

Getting home late from work one day, Matt was ravenously hungry. Pietr looked up from his book, blinking a little. Matt could tell that his mate had been far away in the story.

Wow, you're hungry!
So was Pietr, but he had been so occupied with reading that he hadn't noticed it. Now his hunger was enough to make Matt want to chew the table.

Matt went to the fridge and found nothing there but orange juice and yogurt -- and he didn't feel like having either for dinner.

Come on, let's go to the store. I want meat.

Pietr laughed.
You have a one-track mind when it comes to sex and food, honey.

Hm. Sex. No, he was too hungry.

That little internal dialogue made Pietr laugh his ass off mentally, and they put on their jackets to go shopping.

The supermarket was only a few blocks away, and Matt was occupied with talking to Pietr. He blocked his fellow sensitive humans without even thinking about it anymore, so it wasn't until he looked up that he noticed the stares they were getting.

Most of them were pure fear when the people on the street saw Pietr. Then there was the lady waiting for the bus who kept her eyes trained on them. At first, it looked like she was drawn to Pietr like a mouse to the snake. Then she must have noticed how close Matt and Pietr were walking, and her eyes narrowed in disgust.

Traitor!

Matt shuddered. He'd never heard any actual words from another human before.

Yeah.
Pietr's voice was a little sad.
Hate is a really strong feeling. You sometimes need stronger shields to avoid that.

Matt's mind was reeling. He hadn't foreseen this at all. He had been so busy looking forward to all of the things he could do with Pietr in the city, all the places he wanted to show his mate. He should have seen this coming; he'd been terrified of the Himika before he was harvested, too.

He was still trying to digest the woman's malicious word when they reached the supermarket.

You go find your meat. I'll take care of the breakfast stuff
, Pietr informed him.
It had turned out that Pietr had an overly creative approach to the ingredients in an American supermarket. It hadn't been a problem at the cabin, where they had gotten their food delivered and Matt had overseen the cooking. But after the first couple of times when Pietr had brought back less than appetizing combinations of food (pork with bananas and coleslaw on the side), he had been banned from buying anything but juice and yogurt if it wasn't on the grocery list. He had grumbled, but even he had to admit that the pork had been atrocious.

Matt was wavering between a couple of quite expensive steaks and some much cheaper ground beef when he heard a low sound. He looked up and saw a man ducking behind a display of sauces, beckoning him over.

Matt hesitantly got closer, looking to see if he could help the man.

"Come on!" The older man agitatedly grabbed his arm and pulled at him.

"Excuse me?" Matt put down his heels firmly; he wasn't about to be dragged anywhere.

"He's not looking! You can get away now."

Then Matt realized what the man meant, and his heart sank.

"I'm not a prisoner. I'm with him."

The man's face was confused. Matt could see the comprehension dawning on his face, and his expression turned into one of pure disgust. The man spat on the floor in front of Matt and turned away.

Matt stood, his feet glued to the floor, and stared at the gob of spit on the floor. In the middle of a supermarket. Somehow, that made the whole situation even more absurd.

However, when he looked up, nobody was laughing. There were hastily turned heads, but he still registered the barely hidden revulsion. Matt obviously hadn't thought about the consequences of a simple thing like going to the supermarket with a Himiko.

***

Pietr was almost oblivious to the hate and fear that met them wherever they went, but Matt couldn't ignore the stares and the glimpses of hostile thoughts he got from the few sensitive humans around him. He told himself that he had to get used to it, but it was still hard.

A couple of days after he returned to work, he met Steve again. Matt had been making an effort to ignore his employees' hostility, which basically meant ignoring them completely. He waved at Steve when he saw the man in the lobby, relieved to have someone to talk to on his lunch break.

"Hello. Up for lunch today?" He smiled, the concept of not eating alone a welcome change.

"Uh, hi. I'm, well, I'm afraid I'm busy." Steve didn't meet his eyes, and Matt felt the smile leaving his face.

"Yeah, I guess you are. Listen, shouldn't you at least check out for yourself if I've been brainwashed or not?"

His anger was in vain, though; Steve hurried away from the elevators, saying something about having a meeting in town. Matt tortured himself by walking past the elevators and waiting in a dark corner. Sure enough, Steve returned after a couple of minutes, carefully looking around before entering the elevator. Matt didn't reveal himself. There was a fine line between self-torture and public humiliation.

***

A couple of days later, Matt was so exhausted when he got home that he didn't even notice Pietr at first. He was studying a story in the paper while taking off his jacket when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

"Jesus!" He jumped.

Why the fuck are you shielding from me?
Pietr was more hurt than angry.

I was? I didn't realize.
It took an effort to let go of his shields, even if it was to let Pietr in.

Well, don't.
Pietr pushed in close, hugging him. Matt fought to get out of the jacket, and then he just leaned.

Tough day?