Messalina Munroe, Jimmy Duran, Russell Holland, and any others you don't recognize are mine.
Rated R : Strong but brief violence, language, m/m sexual contact. Some scenes are intense.
This story includes slash, which involves sexual situations between two men. If you're uncomfortable with the idea, don't read this.
Reviews are always appreciated.
"Let's go over it again."
Eric stared up at them. Questions, more questions. He had realized almost immediately that they suspected him. He could even understand why. Somehow he didn't quite have the energy to care very much. Except that they kept after him; they wouldn't give up and let him leave this stark interrogation room and go home, when all he wanted to do was lock his doors and hide from a world that had become altogether too cold and empty to bear.
Lina had done the questioning for the last half-hour, now Jimmy had taken over. The same Jimmy Duran who had seemed like such a nice guy the times they had met before; his easy smile now gone, his face hard, his voice sharp.
"I've told you everything."
"Not everything. You told us you were out that morning, and you went to Wes's office when you got back, after lunch. Why did you go to see him?"
Eric shrugged. "Just wanted to check in with him. Talk to him."
"Talk to him about what?"
"Nothing in particular."
"And when you got there?"
"Russell Holland was there."
"And?"
"Wes invited me in. They finished their conversation."
"The conversation about overseas investments. What then?"
"Holland invited Wes out for drinks after work." A momentary shadow of the anger and resentment that had come over him resurfaced. Eric knew he had reacted, and saw Jimmy's eyes narrow.
"And then?"
"Then Holland left." And he had picked a fight with Wes. Such a stupid thing to get angry about... and now he would never have the chance to say he was sorry. Eric's mind retreated from that knowledge into dullness again.
"That was when you and Wes argued."
"Yes." He stared at the table, not looking up.
"What did you fight about?"
And that was what it always came back to. That was what they wanted to know, and what he couldn't tell. Not because he was ashamed of his own irrational jealousy, or even more of his lingering resentment of Wes's position as the boss's son, although he was. Not because knowing the true nature of their relationship would probably only make the detectives' suspicions stronger. Not even because he didn't want them to know he was gay, or wanted to protect his own privacy. None of those things seemed to matter anymore; nothing much did, with Wes gone.
No, he simply couldn't betray Wes in this way, expose his memory to gossip and contempt, expose his father to the inevitable embarrassment. He hadn't been able to save Wes's life this time. Now this was the only thing he could do; keep their secrets, keep what they had felt for each other inside himself, safe from the world.
"Nothing," he answered softly, folding his hands on the table.
"Nothing?" Jimmy's voice was just as soft. "It didn't sound like nothing to the people who heard you."
"It's not relevant to your investigation."
"Why don't you let us decide what's relevant?"
"I didn't kill Wes. That's all you need to know."
Jimmy was silent long enough to prompt Eric to look up at his face. "If you won't cooperate, we can't help you," he said. "All we want to know is what you two argued about. Then we can straighten all of this out."
"No."
"Eric -- you're not in a good position here. Please, don't do this to yourself."
Startled by the almost pleading tone, Eric hesitated. But then he shook his head.
"Okay. Have it your own way." Any trace of friendliness was gone. Jimmy leaned towards him. "Want to know what I think?"
"Not particularly."
"We know you and Wes used to fight when the mutants were here. You fought all the time, from what we hear. After all, Wes was Alan Collins' son. He walked away from Bio-Lab and from his father, back then. And you walked in. Got a morpher, just like him. Got the job he had turned down, as commander of the Guardians. But you were afraid he'd come back, weren't you? Take your morpher, and take your job."
Eric shrugged. It was close enough to the truth.
"And then that's exactly what happened, isn't it? Wes got your morpher."
"I gave it to him. And he gave it back."
"A little charity, sure. The important part is that he took your job."
"He became my partner. Equals."
"After you fought for that job, spent close to a year making the Guardians what they are now, Wes just walked in and became your co-commander. No training, no experience, no qualifications except being the boss's son."
"He was a good commander. A good partner."
"But you knew he didn't deserve it. He was just a spoiled brat, after all."
"No!"
"That's what you called him, isn't it? A spoiled brat who doesn't think about anything except himself?"
"I didn't mean it!" But he had said it. Words shouted in anger, and now he could never take them back.
"You hated him!"
"No! I never hated Wes!" Eric found himself glaring into Jimmy's face, his heart pounding, the dim fog he had been living in since the moment he had seen Wes's ring on that burnt corpse suddenly swept away. "I -- I cared for him. Wes was one of the nicest people I've ever known, and he was real, there was nothing -- nothing fake or phony about him... He was my friend. My partner. I would never have hurt him, not on purpose."
"Did you hurt him by accident? Is that what happened, you didn't mean it, but things just got out of hand...?"
"No!" Eric took a deep breath and stood up. It was suddenly too much, the lights, the faces watching him, the grief and pain and guilt that had broken through and refused to go back into hiding. "For the last time, I didn't kill him. Are you going to arrest me?"
Jimmy and Lina exchanged a look. "No," he said. "At least not yet."
"Then I'm leaving."
He didn't give them time to object, and they probably knew they couldn't stop him anyway. Eric opened the door and walked out, hardly noticing the squad room and the eyes that followed him with curiosity and suspicion, and not able to bring himself to really care.
Three. He had learned it in the survival training he had taken as a Guardian. The Rule of Three. Three minutes without air. Three hours without shelter. Three days without water. Three weeks without food. And you're dead.
Wes slowly closed the top on the water bottle. Not much point, but no reason not to. He raised his eyes to the end of the pipe again, seeing that little spot of blue sky, fresh air, life, so near and yet so unreachable.
Three. Three days he had been down here now. He thought it was the third day. Hard to keep track, only that pale light reaching him through the pipe to divide day from night. The water had lasted until now only because he had stretched it out as long as possible. The beef was gone too, and he was very hungry, but the thirst was already worse. And it was only getting started.
He could survive three days without water. He was already dehydrated, so it would be less, probably no more than two. He was already weakened, and would lose his remaining strength quickly. Become delirious. Lose consciousness. Fade away into death. All alone, down in this box, and it would become his coffin, after all.
Fear, desperation, panic; they had all faded into hopelessness, into grief for his own death. Into an overwhelming sadness for everything he would never see again. His home, his room, Bio-Lab, his friends there. His father, who had tried so hard to be a good parent, not always successfully, but he had done the most important thing. He had shown his love, always, even in the times they hadn't been getting along. Whatever the problems, Wes had always known he could depend on that.
And Eric... Wes sighed, hugging his knees and squeezing his eyes shut against sudden tears. Couldn't afford to cry, couldn't waste the moisture. But he would never see Eric again, never touch him, never hear his voice. A wave of loneliness and loss... and concern. What would happen to Eric? There was another rule... three months without love before you start to lose hope. Would Eric turn back into the hard, cold, angry person he had been two years ago? Would he get worse? He was the most alone person Wes had ever known; what would this do to him?
No, Eric would survive. He'd been through worse than this. So would Wes's father. Their lives would go on without him. It seemed incredible that the world could continue, when Wes Collins would end. But it was true. It would all end, for him... "Dammit," Wes muttered softly. "I'm not done yet. I have things to do. I want my life!" He raised his head. "Let me out of here!" he shouted, anger drowning everything else out. "Let me out, dammit!"
The next minutes became a blur of his fists pounding on the ceiling, punching, not caring about the pain. When his knuckles began to bleed Wes rolled onto his back, raised his legs and kicked upwards as hard as he could, shouting, over and over, until the surge of rage faded as quickly as it had started, and he curled up, letting the tears come until he sank gratefully into sleep.
"Wes. We need to talk. Call me."
A few seconds of silence. A click.
"Wes... Look, I screwed up. Just call me, okay?"
"Don't you check your messages? I'm home, waiting. Call me."
Jimmy reached to press the 'off' button on the recorder, and then pulled a small answering machine a little closer. "And then this one, on Wes's home machine, at just after eleven."
"Wes, I know I was wrong. I guess you're still mad, but please call me tonight. I'm -- I'm sorry."
"Sorry... but for what?" Lina wondered aloud. "Why won't Eric tell us what they were fighting about?"
"There were a couple more calls from Eric's phone. Guardian headquarters. Silver Hills Hospital."
"Worried because Wes didn't call back?"
"Or faking it, covering his tracks. What if Wes went to Eric's house that night? He could have already been dead by that time."
"But... how did he wind up in that cabin in the woods? Impossible for the coroner to determine an exact time of death with such a badly burned body, but according to the hikers who found it the fire happened the next evening."
Jimmy shrugged. "Eric killed Wes in his house. Left the body there while he went to work the next day. Took it up into the woods that evening, set the fire to destroy any evidence. He's familiar with that area; he worked on the Warren case."
Eric and the Guardians had gotten involved when an old country home in that part of the woods had been robbed and vandalized a year before. Lina frowned at the reminder that Eric was almost one of their own, just as much as Wes had been. "But the way he reacted to seeing the body. Pretty hard to fake something like that."
"Guilt, maybe. Reaction to being confronted with what he'd done. Genuine grief. We've seen stranger things."
"I don't know. He didn't seem to be expecting to see Wes like that." Lina glanced up at Jimmy's face, seeing him smile faintly at her. She knew he didn't like this any more than she did, and that he wasn't any more convinced of Eric's guilt than she was of his innocence. This was simply the way they worked together, testing out theories, arguing opposite sides. "We'll need more than a theory to get a search warrant for Eric's house," she went on. "I'm not sure there's much point, anyway. He's had plenty of time to destroy any evidence."
"We've interviewed his co-workers. How about his neighbors? Maybe someone saw Wes that night, or noticed his car."
"Sounds like a plan." She sighed and stood up, watching as Jimmy collected the recorders. "Those messages," she said thoughtfully, half to herself. "A call every hour. Why so many? Why was he so anxious about that fight?"
"Maybe he was afraid to have the boss's son mad at him."
"I don't think that's it. He sounded more like..."
"What?"
"Nothing." No point in repeating the suspicion that had just popped into her head, not without anything to back it up. But it gave her another reason to wonder exactly what Eric's neighbors would have to say.
Russell paced restlessly, up and down the living room, the room that was too big, in the house that was too fancy, in the neighborhood that was too expensive. Money. That was what had gotten him into this mess. Between the gambling and the house and the car and the clothes and the vacations... Somehow he never seemed to be able to live on what he earned. He always needed just a little more.
The plan had been supposed to take care of that, for the rest of his life. Five million, his half of the ransom. He never would have had to worry about money again. He had worked it all out, the plan: it had started off perfectly, with Chris knocking Wes out in the bar parking lot, shoving him in his own car and bringing him to the old graveyard. They were supposed to have him safely hidden, buried inside the box, before he woke up. Then they would have demanded the money, told the cops or the Guardians where to find Wes as soon as they got it, and by now they would both be multi-millionaires. But the old grave had taken too long to dig up, and that idiot Chris hadn't given Wes enough of the drug. After Wes had seen them, none of the rest would have worked. Chris deserved what he had gotten.
And now... they had found the body already. They had identified it as Wes. Maybe that was a lucky break. They'd never know it was really Chris, they'd never find the connection, never know Russell had anything to do with it. They'd think someone had murdered Wes for personal reasons. From the rumors he'd heard, they were asking a lot of questions about Eric Myers. Maybe they'd pin it on him. No one would suspect Russell Holland; what possible motive could he have, after all?
He'd hidden Chris's things, his suitcase, the identification Russell had insisted he leave behind. Too dangerous to throw it away just yet; someone might find it, but no one would look under the floorboards in his closet. His plan was there too, all written down in a small notebook -- so detailed, so perfect. So useless now, but he couldn't bring himself to get rid of it. He had taken care of Chris's car tonight, left it parked on a back street, no license plates or registration, where no one would notice for a while. He'd done what he could. He'd be safe. As long as no one found Wes...
But... just in case someone poked around the graveyard and found a patch of disturbed ground... Just in case they found the box, he had to make sure Wes couldn't tell them anything. Only that one detail left. He glanced down at the heavy duty plastic trash bag clutched in his fingers. All he had to do was tape it over the end of the pipe. Wes would run out of air in a couple of hours. It would be a kindness, really. It would take him days to die of thirst. Yes, this way was best, and the sooner it was done, the better. Gathering his resolve, he headed for the door.
But down on the street, the first thing he saw was a cop car. No reason to think they were watching him -- but it was frightening. Maybe it was too soon, maybe they were still out there at the crime scene. Russell stood on the sidewalk, uncertain, trying to think, the bag clammy and cold in his hands. The patrol car turned the corner. But now it was starting to rain. It was dark. He remembered those woods; Chris had been the one who knew the way to the old gravesite, he'd never find it in the dark.
Even as he hesitated, a flash of lightning flared overhead, followed by a crack of thunder. Wandering around an old graveyard in the dark, in a storm, maybe getting lost... Forget it. Russell turned to go back inside. There was always tomorrow...
It was after midnight when it pulled Eric out of a restless and unsuccessful attempt to sleep: the rumble of thunder, and then the soft sound of rain on the roof of his house, accompanied by a chilly breath of breeze. With an inner sigh he threw back the bedcovers and got up, crossing to the window. Cool air and a few drops gusted against his bare skin as he raised his hands to pull it shut. He stopped, hesitated, and then pushed the frame up and leaned on the windowsill, letting the rain blow over him.
It had been raining on that day six months ago when Wes had come here to the house. That had been when Wes admitted the truth, that he was gay, to himself and to Eric. That had been when Wes first said he loved him, and it had been the beginning of the only genuinely happy time Eric could remember in his life. It had still been raining that day when they had made love -- technically not the first time, but close enough. The sound of rain still brought those moments back, with all their fulfillment.
Eric left the window open and returned to his bed, lying down and pulling the covers up against the air still blowing in, and the deeper chill inside him. He closed his eyes. Wes had been his first love, and probably his only love. No one else could possibly make him feel that way, and probably no one else would ever feel like that about him. No, it was over, everything was over, gone and over... Without Wes what was left?
Without Wes... His eyes snapped open. What would Wes say if he were here now? If he could see this? Giving up? Feeling sorry for yourself? That's not the Eric Myers I know... This was the last thing Wes would have wanted, he knew with sudden clarity. Wes would have wanted him to go on living. To fight, to clear his name of any suspicion. Not to be lying around grieving, but to do the only thing left that he could do for his friend, partner, and lover.
Wes might be gone, but whoever had killed him was still out there, somewhere, still walking around free. That thought pulled Eric up out of bed again, to return to the window. The wind had died down, leaving the steady patter of a heavy rain. He stared out into the night, leaning over the sill, letting the water strike his face, cool and pure, washing away the dullness and apathy.
"I promise, Wes," he said softly into the darkness. "I promise I'll find out who did this. And when I do... I'll make them pay."
"Wes..." The voice seemed to echo hollowly inside the box.
"Eric..." Wes mumbled. He twitched, caught in the vagueness between sleep and waking, struggling towards the surface of consciousness.
It came again, soft in his ear. "Wes."
"I'm dying... Help me..."
The voice came again, harsh now, bringing Eric's image to him so sharply he felt a renewed pang of longing and loss. "Look at you, just lying there, waiting to die. Move your lazy rich butt and save yourself!"
"I can't..."
"Don't give up. Don't ever give up as long as you're still alive. You can do it..."
Wes's eyes opened. He was alone, in the box, but he could almost feel Eric's presence; as if insubstantial fingers had stroked his cheek, lips had brushed lightly over his. "Eric?" he murmured, but there was nothing there.
No, not nothing. He felt a tiny, soft impact on the blanket he was rolled up in. And became aware of dampness. Wetness. He reached to feel, and felt a drop hit his hand. Water. In seconds the flashlight was on, still bright, thank God, showing him water dripping from the pipe. The air smelled fresh when he put his face to the end, rain-fresh... it was raining!
For a time he just sat, letting the rainwater drip into his mouth, listening to the sound of distant thunder from outside. Must be raining hard, it increased into a slow trickle, enough to blunt his thirst after fifteen or twenty minutes. Wes uncapped the water bottle and carefully set it where it would catch the flow. He watched for another minute before turning out the light and sitting back against the side of the box, listening to the beautiful sounds of water splashing.
The rain was slowing. But the clock had been reset. Three days. More, with the water in the bottle. Time to keep trying, time to find a way to escape this trap. Eric had said he could do it... If he were here, Eric would never give up. He would keep fighting to his last breath. Maybe it had only been a dream, but somehow Wes found hope in it. It was past time to stop sitting here, waiting for someone else to save him. Somehow, someway, he was getting out.
TBC...