AN: SECOND IN SERIES BEGUN WITH ASHES AND DUST
DISCLAIMER: I BOUGHT THE DVD FOR £7.99 IN HMV, THIS DOESN'T EQUATE TO OWNING THE SERIES, WHICH I DON'T
Release
'I did the worst to him I loved the most.' Old Norse Anonymous
Less than twelve hours after Serge made his preliminary recommendations to the UN, orders came through for Raven's release into Serge's custody. Within this twelve hour period, almost every single one of Serge's recommendations/demands had been agreed to. Serge had left almost immediately, the UN had not seemed sorry to see him gone.
Serge had begun his report to the Security Council by mentioning the status of the repairs to the Variable Gears, and the fact that Halcyon Scarlet was operational. He had never seen a group of politicians so eager to co-operate. It made him feel vaguely nauseous.
Some of the offers the various members of the UN had made him, implicitly in exchange for his support, had been ridiculous to the extreme. One meeting had been called to discuss the future leadership of STAND and afterwards a delegate had hinted that it might be possible for Serge to be given the role. After firmly telling the delegate he was in no way interested in such a role, he had made it clear to the entire Council that STAND always had and always would answer to Captain Raven and Captain Raven alone. Once he had made it perfectly clear what his agenda and affiliations were, the meetings had gone somewhat more smoothly.
Nonetheless, Serge was even more glad to be leaving the UN than the UN was to have him leave. The mix of hypocrisy and bureaucracy had been poisonous.
But even the corruption of the politics had not been the worst thing about the UN. The worst thing about the UN had been the scientific briefings. Occasionally, he would have been sitting, doodling on the side of a folder, when he would have realised that what the speaker was saying was incorrect, although he did not know why or how. The doodles had occasionally revealed themselves to be of places he had never seen or things he could not know. Once he had looked down at his pad to find he had sketched the diagnostics for a nuclear warhead, the delegate sitting next to him had been very conciliatory towards him for the rest of his stay.
Even worse than the knowledge that he did not know were the scientists themselves. Many of them he had been introduced to while undergoing the strangest sense of déjà vu. Most of them looked at him with unrestrained curiosity, as they obviously tried to remember if and when they had seen him before. But the worst had been the grey-haired and bearded French physicist with failing eyesight who had seen and recognised him from across a crowded conference room. The old man had crossed the room towards him at a surprisingly fast pace, addressing him as 'Milan' and wrapping him in an embrace. Extricating himself from that situation had been difficult. He was not about to let the UN know that he was a clone.
And that was the other reason why he was glad to be leaving the UN. He needed to talk to Raven. His dreams were coming back, though they had not been strong since he had joined STAND. But these dreams were different. Whereas before they had been confused dreams of pain and death, these were tantalizingly clear, and unbelievably erotic. In fact, the only thing that the dreams had in common was Raven's constant and inevitable appearance in them.
He would have been tempted to dismiss them merely as dreams, for Raven was a startlingly attractive man and Serge wasn't dead, but there was an aching familiarity to these dreams and whenever he woke from them it was to a tearing sense of loss. He wanted Raven, and not just because the Captain was painfully beautiful. He wanted Raven because he needed Raven and because without him nothing made sense at all. It had always been all about Raven.
Unfortunately, visiting the UN as an ambassador of sorts meant that Serge had to travel in appropriate luxury. Not that he particularly minded luxury as a rule, but it meant that he had to fly to the UN and back in an appropriate Zainell shuttle, which were not slow, but nor were they particularly fast.
Due to this, the journey back from the UN to Neo Hong Kong took place over night. As Serge had spent the entire previous day in stultifying meetings with various delegates and officials, he took advantage of the fact that the luxuriously appointed shuttle was equipped with a pilot and a bedroom.
Leaving the pilot – when he had declared his desire to fly himself he had been met by a horrified chorus of replies that that would be entirely inappropriate – to fly the shuttle, Serge had retired to the bedroom, giving orders that he was only to be awoken for communications from members of STAND using high-priority frequencies. This done, he had lain down in the entirely too comfortable bed and gone to sleep.
As he slept, Serge had dreamed.
He awoke with his skin slick with sweat and a burning arousal.
He took a cold shower and dressed, rubbing his hair dry with a towel as he walked into the cock-pit. He managed to persuade the pilot that the UN would not find out if he piloted the shuttle during the hour that remained before they arrived at the temporary STAND head-quarters just outside of Neo Hong Kong, he sent the stuttering man away and put a call through to Mirei.
He smiled as the young computer genius picked up almost immediately.
"Serge!"
He laughed at her enthusiasm, it was impossible not to find Mirei cheering,
"I should be back within the hour, how's things?"
Mirei made a face,
"Slow. How was the UN?"
Serge grimaced,
"If I ever go back, it'll be ten million years too soon. But I have got good news."
Mirei looked up hopefully,
"They're getting rid of all these pathetic idiots from Zainell and sending some real technicians?"
Serge shook his head,
"Sorry, no. But you can look forward to a vastly increased budget."
Mirei squealed,
"They said yes?"
Serge nodded,
"I do believe they found me intimidating."
Mirei sniggered,
"I can't imagine why."
Serge rolled his eyes,
"Anyway, I'm almost back, so I'll see you all when I arrive."
Mirei nodded and cut the connection with a smile.
It took Serge significantly less than an hour to fly the remaining distance to the STAND headquarters. He believed this was because the Zainell pilot made his flight time estimations on the basis that everyone flew like he did, like someone's half-blind maiden aunt. Nonetheless, the others were waiting for him when he arrived and he found it impossible not to smile when Erika and Mirei bounded up to meet him.
It was always impossible to be cheered by the girls' seemingly boundless energy. Yuiren seemed to contain equal quantities of excitement and enthusiasm, but the engineer/mechanic was still somewhat reserved around him. Mirei and Erika seemed to have no such reservations.
He and Jouichirou exchanged nods and the girls rolled their eyes unanimously. It was perfectly natural that the two of them maintained some level of distrust and professional competitiveness, at least they thought so. The girls thought it was entirely ridiculous and blamed it entirely on overdoses of testosterone. Which was obviously perfectly ridiculous.
Macus wasn't there and for a moment he wondered why, the acting commander of STAND would probably want to hear his report. Then he remembered Jouchirou's presence and the fact that they were still in the 'keep them away from each other for a while' stage of the reconciliation between the two men.
The girls, seeming to have finally noticed that the enthusiasm of their greeting was making it hard for him to breathe, backed off a little. Serge looked at them and tried to work out exactly what it was that had changed about them. Then he noticed that Erika was standing by Yuiren's side and the two girls were holding hands somewhat shyly. He smiled at the two of them in what he hoped was a reassuring and supportive manner; that was a far better arrangement that Erika getting hurt through a continued attraction to him. Besides, the two of them looked cute together. He was a guy, he thought these things.
He nodded at them all and then spoke,
"I've got to go."
Erika frowned and pouted,
"Already? But you've just got here."
Serge smiled,
"I'm not going far. I just have to deliver the release papers for our illustrious commander."
Mirei squealed in delight, making Serge and Jouichirou puts their hands to their ears in pain. For such a little girl, Mirei could make a lot of noise. Once the squealing had finished, Mirei spoke excitedly,
"That's great! That's really, really great…hey, you! What do you think you're doing with that?"
This last was directed at one of the Zainell technicians who had taken advantage of the girls' temporary distraction to start checking the status of Mirei's computer. As the girl advance on the slightly trembling tech, Erika turned to Serge,
"Is he really being released?"
Serge nodded,
"Once month's probation in my custody and then he'll be returned to full command of STAND."
Erika made a face,
"One month's probation?"
Serge nodded and rolled his eyes slightly,
"I believe the Secretary General was feeling both self-important and intimidated at the time."
Mirei scowled,
"Politicians! He's not going to like that."
Serge nodded agreement,
"No, he never did like being caged."
The others looked at him strangely and he shook his head slightly to straighten his thoughts. He turned to them and smiled,
"Apologies. My time at the UN was…confusing…my memories are somewhat…fluid."
Erika and Yuiren nodded understandingly, but Jouichirou looked confused. Serge elaborated,
"I mean that my memories are becoming interchangeable with those of Milan."
Jouichirou still looked confused. Serge smirked,
"I'm remembering stuff from my life as Dr. Milan Treyn. Do you understand that, or shall I use shorter words?"
Jouichirou growled at the insult and Serge walked towards the detention centre smirking, as the two girls struggled to hold the irate man back. Serge heard Erika complaining audibly about men and their inability to behave in a mature manner.
The chief of security in the detention wing had looked somewhat terrified when Serge had walked through his door. The shade of puce he had turned when Serge had calmly demanded Raven's immediate discharge had been, from a purely scientific perspective, quite extraordinary.
The petty bureaucratic little man had been much comforted by the release papers that Serge had handed over, especially when he saw that they had been signed and approved by the UN Secretary General himself. Serge frowned as the man departed to make the arrangements. The man was almost as annoying as the Secretary General himself, and that was truly saying something.
The UN Secretary General had truly aggravated Serge, something that, after he had spent months working with Jouichirou, was rather hard to achieve. He had been fat and bald and expensively dressed. His hands had shaken all the way through all of their interviews together, during which he had smoked countless expensive clove cigars, the stench of which had filled his opulent office.
A pudgy hand touched on his sleeve and Serge turned to glare at the sweaty security officer, who was waving a data pad and stylus in a pacifying manner in his direction. He snapped at the man,
"What is it?"
The man trembled and held up the pad as if it could protect him. Stuttering, he attempted to explain,
"W-well. It's j-just proc-procedure, really" A nervous laugh "We…we need your signature to validate the re-release form…Sir."
This last was added as a terrified afterthought. Serge suspected the man's terror would have been more amusing if it weren't so damned irritating. Irritably, he grabbed the pad peremptorily from the man's trembling grip and scrawled his name across the sensor pad. Shoving the slender pad onto the surface of the man's overflowing desk, he snarled,
"Is that quite everything to satisfy your procedure?"
The man looked like he was going to faint. He managed to stutter out,
"Y-yes, sir! If you'd just like to come through here, you can wait until the prisoner is released."
The man was gesturing into a waiting room off of the main office. Serge sighed and followed the man inside, settling down for what he expected to be a long wait. Fortunately for Serge's sanity and the security officer's continued health, the wait was pleasantly short.
It was less than ten minutes after the security officer had left Serge in the waiting room that he reappeared. The harried official was trailing after Raven, who was purposefully striding too fast for the other man to keep pace. As he saw Raven approaching, the swearing official in his wake, Serge had stood from where he had been sitting and absently noting all the errors in an article in an outdated issue of a scientific publication.
Raven looked glorious, and furious. He was dressed in a slightly rumpled dress uniform that he was trying to brush the lint off of as he walked. His normally immaculate black hair was in disarray and fury was glinting in his amethyst eyes. Something other than fury crossed his those glorious eyes when he saw Serge and for a moment the younger man felt a pang of something like pain in his chest. In that moment one thought came clearly to Serge, Raven had never been more attractive than he was in that moment.
Shaking the thought clear, Serge greeted the Captain in what he hoped was a suitably neutral tone,
"Raven."
The indecipherable look was still in Raven's eyes, but when he answered, his tone was normal enough,
"Serge."
In that moment, their eyes met, and Serge felt another surge of that exhilarating pain flash through him. Then the panting and sweating bureaucrat spoke up nervously,
"Ah, sirs…"
The man wilted down to almost nothing under the combined stares of both men. But, he managed to retain his officious sense of purpose and managed to stammer,
"Ah…there's one more form that you need to sign."
Serge scowled,
"I thought you said that procedures had been completed."
The man sweated and stammered,
"I…ah…er…that is… the procedures were complete…for you. The prisoner…er…that is…I mean…the Captain needs to sign his own release form now…please…sir."
Serge sighed and turned to Raven who in turn turned to the flushed and terrified guard.
"Bring me the form."
The bureaucrat paled,
"But…procedure states…"
Raven's glare was implacable,
"Bring me the form. Now. And that is an order."
The security officer seemed bizarrely comforted by having orders to follow and hurried out of the office at a waddle. He returned clutching the form in his sweaty fist and handed it to Raven with a respectful incline of the head and several 'here you go, sir's. Apparently unsure of what his purpose was now that his undemanding task had been carried out, he hovered obsequiously while Raven filled out the bureaucratic twaddle the form required.
While the official rushed off to get the correct approval stamp, Serge turned to Raven and spoke respectfully,
"I fulfilled your order to get you out of this place; I hope I didn't take too long."
Raven rolled his eyes,
"If I'd had to stay in that cell any longer, I would have started to mould."
Unperturbed by the seeming criticism, Serge simply said,
"I had to go to the UN to get you released. You're lucky it didn't take a decade to get approval for your release."
Raven frowned, but said nothing. Serge found that in his silence, he was very aware of Raven's proximity to him. As the official finally found the correct stamp, located the correct tone of ink and stamped the form in the correct box, he informed them that they were free to go. Then he remembered and added,
"Sir, you'll have to come back once your probation is over to fill in a final form."
These words echoed on their ears as they walked into the bright sunlight outside the detention centre. Raven turned on Serge with a furious look on his face. Serge swore under his breath. The one subject he had been uncertain how to raise and the idiot official had brought it up immediately. Raven spoke, his voice low and deadly,
"Probation?"
Serge looked anywhere but at his commander. He spoke cautiously,
"The UN Secretary General was, I believe, feeling his own sense of inflated self-importance. It's only for a month."
Raven grimaced, but the rage died down slightly,
"And who has been assigned to baby-sit me for this month?"
Serge looked away and murmured,
"I have."
Raven looked at him searchingly for a moment, in which Serge had the disturbing feeling that his skin was being stripped from him and that Raven was looking at him and seeing straight through him. Then the older man looked away and spoke,
"Then, escort me to my quarters."
Serge felt a shiver of arousal flash through him and he nodded, unable to speak. He knew what that tone in Raven's voice promised, knew exactly what that voice meant, although he was not quite sure how he knew. And with that knowledge came clarity. Clarity that he knew exactly what he wanted. Everything he had, he wanted Raven to force him to surrender. He wanted to give himself entirely to Raven's control, to surrender to everything that he felt, everything that the older man could force him to feel.
He could not ever remember feeling that kind of surrender before, but the need to submit to Raven was as familiar as a nemesis, something that was with him always, that guided his actions even without him always knowing it.
The air was rich with promise, with arousal and with something else, something that had always been present between the two men, but never recognised, never admitted. The journey to Raven's quarters was utterly silent.
As soon as they had entered the dark and silent suite, Serge felt all his breath leave his body as he was slammed against the wall. Raven's mouth was hot and demanding and hungry on his own, all the things he had imagined, but so totally different and still painfully familiar.
And suddenly Serge knew, knew clearer than day what it was that had been missing in his understanding. This was familiar because this had been done before. Raven had done this to him before. Raven had always done this to him. And then there was something that he needed to say, needed to say almost more than he needed Raven. Gasping, he pulled away, his lips swollen and his head clouded with desire, arousal burning like a brand. But he managed to speak, his voice unsteady but clearly audible.
"I'm not him."
And there, he had said it. He bit his lip, looking away, not wanting to see Raven turn away from him. But Raven was pulling his head back around and yes, yes he could drown in those eyes. The older man's voice was soft and husky and sent a shiver of desire through him,
"I know."
And the older man kissed him again, and yes, he was drowning, and this was spiralling out of control. And it was everything he had ever wanted, but it still wasn't enough. But he knew what he needed and he surrendered completely, everything he was, because Raven had him. And he should have done this months ago, should have recognised what this was the first time he had seen Raven.
Before the pleasure drowned him in its blazing whiteness, he heard a voice, was that his voice, how could it be his voice, Raven's mouth was hot and hungry and hard enough to bruise against his own, but it was his voice, like he had never heard it before. And the voice murmured 'I love you'. Then the pleasure took him and such thoughts blurred out of existence. All that mattered were the waves of pleasure and the constant heat of Raven's body pressed so close against his own.
When Serge came back to himself, it was many hours later and in a very different place to being so expertly fucked against a wall. He was in a dark room, with smooth silk sheets pressed against his bare skin. Raven's sheets. He knew these sheets, knew they had to be Raven's. Because he had been tangled in these sheets before, or at least almost identical ones. But not only that, but the elegance of the feeling of the sheets was so exactly like Raven.
Other than the smooth caress of the silk, the only sensation that Serge could feel was the constant reassuring presence of Raven curved against his back. There was nothing overtly sexual, or at least overtly arousing, about the man's figure pressed against his own. Not now at least.
Coming back to his own body, further sensation returned. He felt tired and drained, like after a good workout, every muscle in his body tired. And he ached. But it was a good ache, a constant reminder of what had gone on to cause that feeling. And yes, there was blood flecked on his thighs, but that was good too, he wanted Raven inside him totally, and the blood didn't matter, because it was like the pain, it was good.
Raven's arms were wrapped tightly around his waist, and his breath was warm on Serge's neck. One side of the other man's face was concealed by his curtain of obsidian hair. The one visible eye was closed and peaceful.
Unable, or perhaps unwilling, to extricate himself from that firm embrace, Serge lay there, unsure as to what he should now do. He had never woken up in bed with his commanding officer before. As he lay there, the one visible eye flickered open, revealing one perfect violet-blue eye.
Serge stiffened, prepared to pull away, but Raven merely sighed in content and pressed a kiss on Serge's bare shoulder. Serge relaxed into the older man's embrace.
Some time later, Raven slipped from the bed, murmuring that he was going to take a shower. Lounging back onto the pillows, most of which had been collected from where they had fallen onto the floor, Serge watched the perfection of Raven's form as he crossed to the bathroom. As the light flickered on in the bathroom, Raven's naked back was cast in clarity. Bloody wheals trailed down Raven's back, ending just above the curve of his buttocks. A look at his own nails showed traces of blood beneath them. And that was good too.
Sniffing slightly, Serge came to the definite conclusion that he needed a shower also. This cooled his ardour enough that, when Raven emerged from the bathroom with only a white towel wrapped precariously low around his hips, he only stared mutely for a few seconds, before slipping past the older man into the bathroom.
When he emerged from the bathroom, Raven was dressed once again, and this made him slightly regretful for a moment, but the open collared white shirt and black slacks that the Captain had donned did little to conceal his figure, so Serge said nothing about it. The bed had been remade and there was a pile of what he assumed to be his clothes resting on the sleek black silk sheets.
He dressed quickly, aware of Raven watching him from the doorway. The jeans were cut close to his skin and the black polo-neck was also comfortably close-fitting. He brushed his fingers through his hair, walking out into the living area. Looking around, he saw that Raven had ordered dinner and he suddenly remembered just how hungry he was.
Sitting carefully, he ate quickly and neatly. When he had finished, he pushed his bowl away from him and looked at Raven. Managing to keep his voice even, he spoke,
"So, what's next? You said there was more work for us to do."
He wanted to linger on the word 'us' but he knew that this would be acting too much like a sixteen-year-old girl with her first crush. Raven didn't seem to notice Serge's dilemma with his maturity, and instead answered coolly,
"There are still traces of the Virus on the Earth, they must be eradicated. That is our task."
Serge nods and he suddenly hundreds of miles away and he knows exactly what Raven is talking about, knows perhaps more about it than even Raven does. He hears himself speak, but he does not recognise the words as his own,
"Yes, the Virus was sent specifically to several other locations, but once those locations are targeted, it should not be difficult to eradicate the last traces."
And he doesn't know how he knows that and maybe it wasn't even him who knew that. But Raven nodded and asked,
"What would be the simplest way to extrapolate those locations?"
Serge frowned and let the interloper in his head do the thinking. After a moment's consideration, he answered,
"Analysis of the Virus samples we have should enable us to determine the frequency on which the Virus was transmitted. We can then scan for other transmissions on this frequency and that way establish were else the Virus was sent."
Raven nodded,
"How long should this analysis take?"
Serge considered,
"If the Zainell techs ever get Mirei's computers fully wired up again, then about a month."
Raven frowned,
"How much damage will the Virus cause in that time?"
Serge thought on this for a moment,
"Damage should not be extensive. The Virus transmitted to Neo Hong Kong was by far the most virulent and volatile strand of the Virus, the other transmissions are far more placid."
And Raven actually looked bemused by this and he asked,
"Why was the Virus transmitted here so much more volatile?"
And Serge didn't know why Raven didn't know the answer, it seemed obvious, but he explained anyway,
"Because you were here and I was here."
And Raven seemed stunned by that, but only for a moment. Then he had risen and walked around the table. And he was kissing Serge, kissing him like neither of them needed to breathe. One of the older man's hand was pressed against Serge's chest, pushing him down into the chair.
And, although he was sore and aching, Serge wanted to push that hand down, wanted Raven to fuck him on that very table, fuck him until the whole world was nothing but a blur of white light. And it was like Raven was one of the drugs Serge had managed to avoid becoming addicted to when he was on the streets, he was addicted and he couldn't stop and he didn't want to stop.
But he managed to pull his mind of its daze and murmur,
"We ought to talk to the others."
Raven nodded absently, then spoke firmly,
"Later."
And Serge nodded,
"Yes, later. Later sounds good. Much later."
And then Raven's mouth was back on his own, and the older man's arms were pulling him to his feet. The older man pulled him through back into the bedroom, his hands raising the jumper over Serge's head and quickly undoing the button on his jeans.
As the coarse denim was peeled from his legs, Serge felt his knees collide with the edge of the bed. And Serge's hands were reaching for the lapels of Raven's shirt and pulling the older man down onto him, reaching for the fastenings of his belt. And Serge's last conscious thought was trying to remember exactly why they needed to talk to the others.
Yes, later sounded good. Maybe they could stay in Raven's quarters until the end of the older man's probation. As Serge wrapped his legs around Raven's hips, he considered this to be a very good idea indeed.
He was sure the others wouldn't mind.
Then Raven was inside him and such things as thoughts became completely irrelevant.
Fin