Notes: Props to vampiremagick for being a giant LB geek and getting me in the mood to write fic. :P
Disclaimer: These belong to those other guys, you know the ones...Hackman and Elfboy
The Game Of Few
In the hotel room, the smile slides off Buck's face as soon as the door is closed. He shucks that bright, go-getter attitude off with his jacket. His hands are shaking and he can't stop them, rattling like his body is sending him some pre-disaster warning. All day long he's felt like that, as if some tiny screw inside him was being wound tighter and tighter and tighter. Until the pressure was beating against the inside of his head with each beat of his pulse, the mother of all headaches and then some.
There's a message on his phone from Chloe. He'd listened to the first three sentences then disconnected with something like a shiver. No bad news, just her voice, distant and loving and full of concern for him. He can see her face when he hears that voice, he knows exactly how her forehead will be creased, how her bottom lip will push out just a little, her 'oh honey' expression. It's so tender and soft and the thought of it fills him with a panic he isn't sure what to do with.
Buck drops down onto the coach and switches on the television without really thinking about it. His mind is fixed on Chloe and how much he cares for her. His palms sweat around the remote control. Tender. Soft. If she hugs him when they meet again he thinks he might scream. Everything has happened so fast. It's like he woke up one day and he was married.
It's a cold sweat he's broken into, not just his palms but all over. Maybe he's coming down with a fever. Chloe. Ten years younger than him and it makes a difference at that age. So sweet, she'd looked up at him with honest to goodness puppy dog eyes and he'd thought it was sweet. Infatuation. Then the world ended and he got married.
He loves her, he knows he loves her. She deserves his love. But if he gets back home and they're left alone and she wants him to…to love her, he doesn't know what he'll do and he's lying to himself if he thinks there's any if about it. They've slept together before, of course they have. Every time is like going through the motions. Touch here, kiss there, these spots are for foreplay and c'mon Cameron you have to get it up or she'll think there's something wrong with you.
His fingers press the channel button compulsively, he's not looking at the screen but he's certainly looking for something. The same thing he's been hearing on radios all day, the same someone who stares out of the pages of magazines and newspapers. Buck flips the channels some more and then heads to the mini-bar.
An hour and a half later he's well past drunk. He cleared out the little fridge forty five minutes ago and then called down to room service to get a real sized bottle of something with a kick. Used that patented Buck Williams charm on the lady at the other end, self disgust bubbling up inside him at the sound of her giggles, but he'd got his whiskey all the same. Jack Daniels, he used to play drinking games with that at University with Dirk. He used to…
He used to do a lot of things with Dirk. Buck tightens his fist around the neck of the bottle and takes another drink, screwing his eyes shut against the memory. Another one flies in to take its place. Bye-bye Dirk, hello Janet.
Funny, smart Janet. Janet who had listened to him, who'd been interested in who he was. Who had broken off the commitment he'd wanted to make to her because she knew she would never be the love of his life. His career, she'd said, too in love with his career but he had to wonder if that was all she'd meant. He had to wonder if he'd been so taken with young, naïve, Chloe because-
He cuts the thought off with another drink. The whiskey burning its way down his throat and settling into a too warm glow low in his stomach, the heat travelling up in a flush that spreads itself across his skin. Carpathia's voice rises, quiet and tinny from the television, the same as it has been doing for the past ninety minutes. Twenty four hour news where they replay the same stories over and over again. Carpathia giving a speech promising a brighter tomorrow. Carpathia bowing his head modestly in front of the assembled press, looking back up again with a dazzling smile, staring intimately down the camera lens. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Cameron slips down off the couch and onto the floor, holding the bottle between his knees. He and Dirk used to sit like this, stay up and watch late night movies together. Ha, ha, ma, you won't believe that the Globe thought me and Dirk were lovers, isn't that just the most out there idea you've ever heard?! Oh no, she couldn't believe it, not even as a joke.
Real funny joke that. Funny like putting him down as a 'friend' and calling that accurate. Scotland Yard funny.
"Oh God, I'm so sorry Dirk," Cameron moans aloud, pushing his shirtsleeve against his mouth to stop up the wail of distress that threatens to break free.
"…and with all of us, working together…" Nicolae's voice continues to buzz from the television.
Buck raises his head and stares blearily at the screen. Carpathia looks tiny, indistinct where he stands, very, very far away. The thought intensifies the ache in Cameron's chest, he holds out a hand, reaching out to the picture and then collapses into laughter. Hysterics, drowning out the rest of Carpathia's speech.
The camera zooms in as Carpathia waves his goodbyes to the crowd for the tenth time and Buck hiccups, his laughter dying. There's mild warmth in Carpathia's eyes, a look of pleasant openness. All a charade, Buck thinks weakly but he can see echoes of what he once knew in that gaze, a shock delivered thousands of miles over satellite signal that has him biting his lip. There's warmth there now that had been heat when Nicolae looked at him in the past, pleasant openness that had been invitation and solicitation all wrapped up into one squeeze of the shoulder. Carpathia had been so blind to so many things about him, but he had seen…had seen...
Nicolae, standing there so far away, who had once been close enough to touch.
He's not sure how long he sits there, watching the news loop over and over again in a carousel of suits and ties. He isn't thinking about time with the whiskey in his hand, erasing everything to dull fuzziness and self pity. He isn't thinking about Rayford.
The sound of the lock turning surprises him, but his body turns sluggishly and his head spins at any movement at all. He hasn't even had a chance to focus his eyes properly when Ray shuts the door behind him.
"Buck?"
Ray sounds puzzled, eyebrows furrowed. Cameron watches his eyes move slowly from the bottle in his hand, to the television and then back to him again.
"Buck," Rayford says again, stern this time. "It smells like a brewery in here."
"Don't brew whiskey, Ray," Cameron smiles, lopsided.
Rayford walks across the room and to Cameron it feels like he's moving way too fast. One moment standing by the door and the next moment crouched down on the carpet next to him, his face way too close too and peering into his face like he wants to give him an eye exam or something. Buck feels himself blushing, his face glowing from embarrassment or shame or something worse than either of those things.
"Ray," he says, softly, his smile disappearing. "Ray…I…"
"Did something happen, Buck?" Rayford asks him.
Buck looks away, down at the floor. Nicolae's voice seems louder than before and something inside him squirms at the sound, he feels like he's been caught watching a dirty movie. His fingers itch to find the remote control and switch it off but he can't remember where he left it. If he starts looking and he can't find it he might lose it, just start throwing the cushions off the coach, launch himself at the television and pull out the plug.
"Did something happen…" a gasp, "did something happen to Chloe?"
"What?" Buck looks up to see alarm writ large all over Ray's face and shakes his head back and forth. "No! No it's fine, Ray, she's fine."
"Oh," Ray breathes a sigh of relief.
Rayford sits down next to him and gently prises the bottle from Cameron's hands. Buck lets him, it leaves his hands free so he can bury his head in them and he doesn't want to look at Rayford right now. He can hear the rumble of the other man's disapproval.
"I guess it'd be stupid to ask if this was full when you got it. What's going on with you, Buck?" Rayford pauses, but Cameron can't see what he's looking at or even begin to guess what he's thinking. "What are you doing watching this? You can't be working all the time, you know. You obviously need a break, nothing wrong with that."
Rayford's hand comes down on his shoulder and Buck flinches. Trust Rayford to think that he was stressed and too macho to admit he needed some downtime. Trust Rayford to touch him like that, brothers-in-arms stuff, perfectly innocent. The weight of Ray's hand feels heavy on his shoulder and his throat aches.
"No…no I don't need that," Buck gasps, voice almost breaking when he manages to get the words out. The last word dissolves into a sob and he clenches his hands into fists, trying to wrench his self control back. "Don't wanna break, don't want time to…to…"
He shakes his head desperately and Ray squeezes his shoulder and Buck's head snaps up, staring at Rayford with wide, hurt eyes. It hurts so bad and Ray doesn't even know what he's doing, can't know.
"Please," Buck whispers, dropping his gaze from Rayford's face to the solid, warm expanse of his shoulders, his chest. He reaches out and twists his fingers in Ray's shirt, leaning forward so that his forehead rests on the other man's shoulder. He's shaking again.
"Buck," Ray says and Cameron can feel his breath skating his cheek.
He's not crying, Cameron won't accept that he's crying. He's numb all over anyway, can't sense the way his body is trembling or the damp tracks on his face, his body is like some alien thing, distant from him. The only thing that matters is Rayford, sitting there like a rock, saying his name. Holding him, yes, almost holding him. His shirt is soft and Buck runs his hands over the material, up and down. So busy looking at the chequered fabric and feeling the heat from Rayford's body seep into his fingertipd that he doesn't notice the way Ray's jaw tightens.
"…to join with your fellow man…" Nicolae is saying from the television.
"Buck," Ray says again and his tone is suddenly sharp.
All that Buck hears of that though, is a command to look up and he lifts his eyes to Rayford's. Nicolae's voice is ringing in his ears. Nicolae with his hand held out, offering him…everything. Chloe lying on her back, holding her arms out, offering what's allowed.
Rayford takes his hand away and Buck surges forward and kisses the other man.
Presses his body against Ray's and whimpers at the feel of it. Ray's mouth stays pressed in a hard, thin line but Buck kisses him anyway then buries his face in Rayford's neck and hears the whistling, outraged intake of breath from Ray, loud as a gunshot.
Ray yanks him away by the collar and punches him. Cameron goes sprawling backward, pain exploding in his jaw and he groans as he head hits the floor. Rayford pulls up again at once and Buck flinches, eyes screwed up, waiting for the next blow. Instead, he's frogmarched to the bathroom. Rayford shoves him inside.
"You need to sober the hell up," Rayford growls and slams the door.
Buck falls to his knees in front of the toilet and lets his forehead hit the cool, smooth porcelain. The world is unsteady around him. He licks his lips and tastes nothing but whiskey there. Suddenly he can't breath, that screw is back, tightening, tightening, deep in his chest. Hyperventilating he looks around the bathroom for…for what he doesn't know and ends up with his hands buried in his hair, yanking. The sting of that is better than the sickness crippling him, the pain in his gut that has nothing to do with the whiskey. He sticks his fingers down his throat anyway.
Cameron sleeps hugging the toilet that night.
When he sees Rayford the next morning, a shadow of something crosses the other man's face for half a second before he hands Buck a cup of coffee. They don't talk about it. Buck decides it's better that way.
He calls Chloe that afternoon and tells her that he loves her.
End