Fringe Benefits 6: Two for the Price of One
"Everything go all right?" Dex met them out on the deck, taking the gear bag that King let fall from his shoulder. Abby bit down a smile as King walked right by Dex and into the base. "What's with him?"
"Danica Talos," Abby shrugged. Thinking about business killed her buzz. Still, he deserved to know what had come of this evening's hunt as it pertained to his safety. "She sent the familiars around the dock area."
"That's too close to here for comfort," Dex frowned, watching King's retreating back. "How'd he do?"
"Four of nine, not bad," Abby managed with a straight face. She'd made him say it on the drive home, over and over. How many, King? And every time, as if his life depended on it, he'd said, Four. Perhaps it was cruel, and she could not deny a slight annoyance that he had, after only six months with the Nightstalkers, matched himself pretty equally to her talent. Half of the kills were his, if they split the last one, and, if not, almost half. Not bad, indeed, for a man who had been vampire candy half a year ago.
"Abby?" Sommerfield waved to her as she stepped inside. Dex took the gear to Hedges for clean up. Thankfully, the sheet was still in the car. She'd have to think of an excuse to retrieve it later, or burn it. At this point, she suspected the sheet was beyond reuse, what with the pounding it had taken and the clean up at the warehouse...and in the car.
"Sommer," Abby placed a hand on Sommer's shoulder to let the blind woman know where she was. "What's up?"
"Everything go okay? You're late."
Abby groused, "We stopped at McDonald's." King's love of fast-food was infamous, as was her jealousy of his metabolism. It made for a handy excuse, accounting for the warehouse and the quick pull over King made onto the emergency shoulder on the way home.
"Is King okay? Did he perform all right?"
Abby's jaw dropped; though she recovered quickly, some days, she was grateful that her otherwise uncannily astute friend was blind. "Yeah, I was telling Dex. King got four."
"You learn anything?" Abby sighed. She wanted a shower, wanted to wash off the dust and sweat, and crash after such an exhausting evening. Hearing the weariness in her voice, Sommer patted her hand. "Not good news, I take it."
"They were looking for him."
"King?"
"Yeah. They didn't recognize him."
"I bet not," Sommer smiled, her eyebrows raising. "I don't recognize him. When he came in here, he sounded like a half-drugged cat and he felt so skinny." Sommer remembered details from her other senses better than the rest of them could ever do with their eyes. "Now, well, I couldn't be prouder of my patient. He's feeling so much healthier. Not sure if I like the beard, though," Sommer sniffed. Self-conscious of herself and her smell giving away her recent activities, Abby backed away to lean against Sommer's computer bench.
"It's not that bad."
"You don't mind then, hmm?" Sommer's one eyebrow stayed high over her sunglasses, the other sunk low. Busted, Abby knew it. "If there's nothing else you learned from the docks..."
"Not really," Abby said, certain. "They ID'd King from the kid at Starbucks, and he's dead."
"The one who pinched your ass that time?"
"Mommy," Zoe called from the floor, startling Abby. She hadn't even seen Zoe there, coloring while her mother worked.
"Sorry, Zoe," Sommer apologized. "Sometimes Mommy forgets, too." Around Zoe, they tried to keep the language clean, something that had been rather difficult when King first arrived and was being treated with the cure. She cleared her throat. "Sorry, the kid at Starbucks?"
"Yeah, don't know how they turned that into the docks. Maybe they followed us."
"Doubtful, or we'd have been seeing more of them."
"Something he let slip, then," Abby suggested. That was her other theory. The dockyard was along the river, just as the base was, only it was closer to the shore, where it saw more commercial boat traffic. If the vamps were sniffing around there, they might have a clue about their base being along the river and assume the Nightstalkers were at the docks instead of thirty-forty miles inland. "Think we should pack up, move on?"
"Maybe," Sommerfield frowned. "I'd hate to give up this place, though. It's been a godsend for working on Daystar. Much more bench space than we could afford in the city."
"More mobility, more anonymity," Abby agreed. "Okay, we'll wait then. See what Danica tries next."
Sommerfield, guided by her voice, reached out and felt along Abby's arm until she could give her hand a squeeze. "Why don't you go get a shower? You've earned it." Sommerfield stood, leaning close, barely moving her mouth when next she spoke. "You need it, too." And then she was gone, scooping up Zoe and her cane, headed off to bedtime-story land.
Agape, Abby fought a disbelieving, breathless laugh as Hedges came around the corner, tousling Zoe's hair as the kid passed. Putting on her best serious face, she nodded in greeting. "Yes?"
"Anything else we need for tonight?"
"Don't think so, Hedges. I'll come clean and calibrate my bow after I get a shower."
Hedges waved at her. "Angel, you touch that thing again, and I'll recalibrate your allowance." Their budget being solely built on the funds plundered from the vampires and familiars they destroyed, that was a valid threat. "It's fine the way it is. I wish you'd stop playing with it," he whined. He got so touchy about his handiwork.
"I need it to be perfect, Hedges."
"Nothing I design is anything less than perfect, my dear." Hedges stuck his hands in his pockets. "So, if you're going to be up, and, as I've freed you from hours spent worthlessly toiling against perfection, wanna catch a quick Halo match?"
Abby grinned. "Maybe another time, Hedges. Try hustling Dex. You can't beat him at anything else."
"Ah, ah, ah," Hedges waggled a finger at her. "That's stereotyping right there. Just because I'm a geek doesn't mean I can't kick ass with the best of them." When he turned, Abby lunged, grabbing his arm and forcing it up his back as she pressed him to the wall. "Ah," he said, swallowing hard, once. "I stand corrected."
"I have not even begun to fight, Hedges," Abby reached around with her free hand to wiggle her fingers lightly over his belly; Hedges was hopelessly ticklish. "Beg for mercy, Hedges."
"Mercy! I give! I give!" Hedges gulped between fits of unmanly giggles. She released him, accepting a gracious high and low five as she strode past, hips swinging exaggeratedly for his benefit. They might never be more than friends, but she treated him now and then. She took off for the showers at the aft end of the base, keenly aware of the sounds of water running. King was still cleaning up.
She had two choices: one, wait until he was finished, which, given how long he took in the shower, would mean hanging around in her dried sweat smell for another half hour; or, two, join him in the communal shower and glare at him to ensure he behaved himself or left prematurely. She decided on the latter course.
"Whistler," he nodded to her as she stepped through the curtain.
And into one of her fantasies. Her favorite one, too, the one with water. She'd noticed it before, how uninhibited- dare she say innocent? -he seemed in the shower. Three of them might be in there at once, and King wouldn't have known it. He showered with his eyes closed, face full tilt into the pounding spray. Too many years without had left him enamored with the simple pleasure of hot water streaming out of a showerhead with a massage setting. Water beat down on his hair, streaming along his head in waves and ripples and falling over the rise of his shoulders down the curve of his spine, into the hollow of his lower back, and on and on. He was too tall-there was just too much of him for the water to touch.
Was she a goner. Vaguely, she felt stung, displeased with herself; tonight was supposed to be about quenching a desire, exploring a curiosity, and closing the book on it. Then why did she lick her lip to taste a droplet there, wishing it was the one clinging to those short hairs at the nape of his neck? Privacy would have to be damned, if her body's reaction was any indication; King was a habit that would not be prematurely denied. So much for her plans. Unless maybe, just maybe, Hedges had corralled Dex into a game. They'd be at it for hours, cursing, whooping, blasting the crap out of each other. Maybe.
Maybe, her flaring libido decided, was good enough.
