Swordbearer

Chapter Fifteen: "Grey Suits"

October 23rd, 2006 – evening

I made it up to the university with minimal fuss.

If people were staring on the bus, I didn't notice.

I even made it to class on time.

Which, given the state of my dress ('sword on the outside' I had to keep reminding myself) was a tiny miracle. I waited to be stopped by Dart, or by security, or by a professor, or by Phoey.

Or somebody.

I expected to have to elbow my way through a crowded corridor.

Instead, people stepped back out of my way.

Mmm. Clear hall.

First time in years I hadn't had to fight my way to class through masses of plodding students.

Hm.

Maybe there was an upside to this whole VWL, after all.

Somewhere below my feet, Professor Martin was engaged in conversation with a man in a grey suit.

"—and the university okayed the hiring of an Immortal?" Grey Suit was asking. He was sitting on Professor Martin's desk, on hip hitched up on the edge, knees crossed.

"He was the best qualified," Martin defended.

"Of course, we won't begrudge him that," Grey Suit said. He shifted and there was a drawn out silence as he appeared to collect his thoughts. "And the other one?"

"Abigail Deidre?"

"Yes."

Martin shrugged. "Good student, nice girl. A little bit defensive and always has been."

"Hm," Grey Suit said and thought again.

"She's, uh," Martin offered lamely, "she's fighting with her Watcher right now. I mean, so I hear. Never talked to, uh, the student... man acting as a student... whatever. I thought they were just friends but rumour says that he's her Watcher and they're fighting. Which I already said."

Grey Suit thought about this a little more. "Okay," he finally said, rising to his feet. The hem of his pants fell gracefully to hide his socks and all but the pointed tips of his shiny black dress shoes.

He moved towards the door and Professor Martin stood. "I...uh, I hope I didn't just get the kid in trouble with the Council."

Grey Suit turned to smile at Professor Martin. He kept one hand on the doorknob. His teeth were white and even and the smile almost too brilliant to be real. Maybe it was.

"Oh, no," Grey Suit said. "No, Mr. Small is not in trouble with ... us. The Council has become far more, well, lax in such matters since the MacLeod/Dawson incident."

"Okay. I'm relieved." He indeed looked it.

Grey Suit released the handle and came forward to place a firm, reassuring hand on Professor Martin's shoulder. "You just keep doing what you're doing, Professor," he said through another brilliant smile. "We appreciate your efforts tremendously."

"Oh. Thank you," Professor Martin said, somewhat meekly, smiling back, but his smile lacked the voltage of the other man's.

Grey Suit patted his shoulder once and squeezed, just that little bit too hard. "You'll make a fine Watcher one day."

This time the smile and his words were genuine when Martine repeated his "thank you!"

"No," Grey Suit said over his shoulder as he left the room, "thank you."

Garret was waiting for me outside of the classroom.

He was standing by the door, hands held loosely in his coat pockets. He didn't have any books or a backpack with him. In fact, he hardly looked like a student anymore.

He was dressed in tasteful slacks and a fashionable tee shirt under a blazer.

I had seen Garret gussied up before but this was the first time he had really looked... adult.

I wondered just how old he was, anyway. Did the Watchers recruit undergrads?

I paused by the door myself, standing right in front of him, one hand resting lightly on the pommel of my sword, the other wrapped tightly around my textbooks and binder. We stared at each other for a few moments.

Long, silent ones.

Finally I said, "Well?"

He jammed his hands deeper into his pockets and frowned a little, "I ... just wanted to see you so... so I could tell you that... I've withdrawn from the University."

That made me raise an eyebrow. "Oh?"

"Well, seeing as I wasn't attending to get a degree – I already have one, you see – I figured I might as well save the Council the tuition fees."

I snorted and rolled my eyes. "That's thoughtful of you. I'm surprised you can be that thoughtful."

My words were like a slap across the face. He reacted as if I had slapped him, blinking and taking a step backwards. Then his scowl deepened.

"You don't have to be such a fucking bitch," he hissed under his breath, mindful of the small crowd gathering around us. "You can hate me and still be polite."

The second eyebrow rose to join the first. I was feeling particularly mean-spirited. "Who said I hate you?"

It was his turn to snort. "Fucking wonderful way to show me that you care, then. Denounce me and everything I've ever done with my life as the purposeless pryings of a group of 'peeping tom sickos'; reject me the instant you find out my occupation, then return my declaration of affection by fucking the first new Immortal that wanders into town. Oh, yes, I can see that you care."

I felt my dander bristling and sucked in a growling breath. "Now wait just a damn minute--!"

"No!" he bellowed. Everyone in the hall stopped what they were doing to stare at us. He grabbed my elbow and yanked me down the corridor towards a deserted seminar room. He shoved me inside with more force than I thought he had in him, and shut the heavy door behind us.

I stumbled a little, shocked by both his sudden rage and the shove, but quickly regained my balance, both mental and physical.

I threw my books down on the desk and turned to face him. Fine – he wanted a knock-down drag-out fight? He'd bloody get one. "First of all!" I screamed back at him, my finger like a dagger aimed at his nose, "I think you'd be pretty wigged to know that you supposed best friend was among the one group of people you thought had no fucking business prying into your life! Second, let's go back to the best friend part, the part where I'm supposed to be able to trust you!" My voice had risen in pitch until I knew I was shrieking shrilly enough and loud enough that I most definitely had to be interrupting lectures. I didn't care. "How am I supposed to trust you when the person I knew was a total fucking falsehood! Third, where the fuck did that just come from! You just confess your undying love and expect me to fall ass over teakettle in love with you on the spot?"

Garret's hands were out of his pockets and fisted against his thighs. "You didn't seem to mind the kiss!"

I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands, frustrated beyond words. "Yeah, and?"

Garret took a menacing step forward and before I had meant to do it, my sword was unsheathed and pointing at the hollow of his throat. "Don't even think about getting close to me with that face on, buddy." I hissed.

Garret stood his ground, chin lifted, hands white-knuckled balls by his side. "You're only sleeping with Pierson to make me angry," he said and he sounded so damn sure of himself.

Cocky even.

Like he really was my boyfriend and I'd slept with Adam to make him jealous.

As if.

"Who says I'm fucking him?" I snarled. "Did it ever occur to you that maybe we're just hanging out? You know, freak to freak?"

Garret snorted again. "You think you're the only Immortal with a Watcher?" The words were pure venom, meant to get revenge for my quip about his inability to be considerate.

This time it felt like I was the one who had been slapped.

I felt my mouth drop open and stared at him with sheer stunned anger. It quickly melted into confusion and hurt.

"Abby, oh, God, Abby, I didn't mean--"

I pressed the blade forward slightly. The tip scraped against the skin over his Adam's apple and the words died in his throat.

My own voice was harsh and raw when I spoke. "I thought you said that Watchers don't watch that kind of stuff."

Garret looked like he was about to shake his head, remembered the blade, and thought better of it. If he shook too vigorously, he may end up slitting his own throat, and he knew it.

"We don't, Abs. But Pierson's Watcher said that you... well, you went into his apartment at sunset and came out in the morning in the same clothes. What was I supposed to think?"

"You're not," I said and accented my displeasure with an almost imperceptible twist of my sword. The tip nicked against his skin but did not cut. "You're not supposed to think anything of it. You have no part in it, and no say in who I date or don't. You have no fucking claim to me!"

"Abby!"

"All you're supposed to do is be a good little Peeping Tom and shut the fuck up and stand in the shadows with your goddamned camera and your goddamned fucking notebook and forget that I ever called you my friend. You're supposed to be my Watcher – so go fucking watch and leave me the fuck alone."

The empty classroom rang with the last echoes of my furied words.

Garret sucked in a few deep breaths, as if he was hyperventilating.

I took a step back from him and forced the muscles that had tensed in preparation for a physical fight to unknot.

I slid the sword back into my sheath and stalked out of the room, pausing only long enough to retrieve my books.

I heard the suppressed 'hic' sounds of someone crying (but trying not to) in the room behind me as I slammed the door shut after me. I didn't care.

I didn't.

Professor Martin was late for lecture.

So was I.

"I heard your fight with Garret this evening," Adam said as I let myself into his office. The coffee was already brewing and I had been able to smell it from the hall. It was what had made me stop and knock on his door.

He'd said that he didn't have to come into work tonight, so I assumed either he had remembered something he had to do, or he had come to pick me up.

I wasn't sure if I wanted it to be the latter or not.

That would indicate that we were... a couple.

Were we?

I didn't know.

The memory of Garret's kiss was still fresh in my mind, although the residual anger from this evening's blow-out was negatively colouring it.

In the window behind Adam, I could see the sun setting. It painted his hair gold and for an absurd moment, gave him a halo of wisdom. The eyes that looked out at me seemed for a brief second far older and wiser than his eighty years.

I shook my head clear of the anger-induced illusions.

I plopped down in the chair before his desk "You heard about my fight? Who told you?"

"I said I heard it, not heard about it." He shrugged and poured me a cup. As he handed it to me he added, "I think the whole campus did."

"Fan-bloody-tastic," I said and accept the cup.

He returned to hi seat behind the desk and said, "You know, I really do think you're being to hard on him."

"Yeah, maybe," I said non-committedly.

"You know, Mac was pretty mad with Joe when he first found out," Adam ventured, sipping his own coffee. "Threatened him with all manner of nastiness if Joe ever came near Mac again."

I had to admit I was mildly intrigued and said, "And?"

"And Joe did – until Mac needed his help. In accepting help from Joe, Mac learned that Watchers were indeed human, too."

"I don't doubt that Garret's human," I snarked.

Adam stood and came around the desk and laid his hands gently on my shoulders. He pressed his thumbs against the taut muscles in my neck, tight from stress and high emotion. I sighed and sank back into his touch.

"You can't bribe me," I said.

His hands lifted away fractionally. "Oh, shall I stop then?"

"Hell, no."

"Ah." He went back to work. ""I was a Watcher once too, you know," he said softly. He ran the tips of his long fingers over my eyebrows when I pulled them down in an expression of annoyance. "We're not 'peeping tom sickos'. They're just mortals protecting the best interests of the species."

"I know that," I said. "I just... Okay, if my Watcher had been anyone else, I think I could have dealt with it. But Garret was supposed to be my friend."

"Isn't he still? Joe and Mac are friends. I'm friends with Joe. Hell, I went through Watchers Academy with Linus, my Watcher. I sent him a fruit basket on Christmas last year."

"And what did he do for you?"

"Left me a little letter telling me to get the Hell out of town – a Headhunter was on the way."

"Good gift."

"Yup."

He moved the delicious pressure on my neck further down my back. "So, let me get this straight," he said, "You're furious at Garret because he was your friend."

I made a frustrated sound and set aside the coffee to gesture emphatically with my hands. "It's just that...well... the person I knew, the person I thought I could trust... isn't even the person I thought he was. It's like I've been friends for three years with a shadow. I don't know who he is, even through I've entrusted some of my deepest secrets, my biggest fears, to him."

"But not the one that mattered. Not even when the world found out about us did you tell him, You waited until there was no other choice."

"If he hadn't been a Watcher then it would have scared him."

"But he was. Don't you think that maybe if you had trusted him with your secret, he may have trusted you?"

"Or maybe not!"

"Yeah, or maybe not, but that's not the point. You feel betrayed because everything Garret was is a lie. But he probably feels equally betrayed – you were supposed to be his friend. Why didn't you tell him the most important thing until you absolutely had to?"

I sat up abruptly, shoving Adam's hands away. "I don't want to hear this," I said, rising to my feet. "I'm leaving."

I turned to do just that, then yelped in surprise as I felt Adam's lean body slam into mine. He pushed me backwards, bending me over the desk, hands slamming down to pin my wrists to the blotter, legs on either side of my hips to keep me from wriggling.

I didn't struggle.

I just stared at him.

"What the fuck are you doing?"

His eyebrows turned down and he glared at me out of those piercing eyes.

"You are not leaving," he said. "You are going to listen to me."

"Gerrof!" I growled.

"No."

This time I did try to struggle, but Adam had superior strength and leverage.

"You listen to me," he said. "You're acting like a spoiled brat. So the guy that you're friends with is your Watcher, so what? He's still Garret. You're tearing him to shreds, Abs."

"I don't care!"

A small smirk twisted the corner of Adam's lip. "You're a bloody awful liar. This is tearing you up just as much as it is him."

I glared in defiance at Adam.

He was wrong.

I didn't miss Garret.

I didn't.

I was mad at him.

He had lied to me.

He was an awful friend.

I felt the tell-tale burning behind my eyes a fraction of a second too late and blinked rapidly to try to will away the tears. I swallowed heavily, but they came anyway, spilling over my eyelashes and making a path down my cheeks.

Adam pulled me up and pressed me against his chest, and I sobbed into his shirt, my wails muffled against his increasingly-damn sweater. He pressed one hand against the back of my head in a gesture of comfort, laid his cheek against my head, and rubbed up and down my back with his other hand. He made soft "shhhhhuhhh" sounds.

Eventually the tears subsided into sniffles and Adam pulled back to look at me.

"You should go talk to him. Apologize," Adam said softly and I only nodded. "He's your best friend, you deserve to still be friends, despite his occupation."

"Yeah," I said softly. "I guess he didn't have to be my friend."

"He chose to be your friend because he wanted to be, not because he was assigned to be your Watcher."

I laughed, but it held no mirth. "You're good at this."

"What?"

"This comforting weeping women thing. Most men head for the hills."

Adam chuckled and hugged me close again. "I'm had many years of experience."

"Hah."

We held each other silently for a long, comfortable moment. I enjoyed the feel of his body heat seeping through his sweater and into my own skin. I could hear his heartbeat and I'm sure he could hear mine.

Adam tilted his head slightly and pressed a lingering kiss to my forehead.

"I have one last question to ask you," he said softly. "If Garret hadn't been your Watcher, would you have rejected his ...attention?"

I fish-eyed Adam. "By which you mean – am I going to drop you like a hot coat and go boff Garret instead?"

He chuckled. "Rather more blunt that I would have put it, but... yes."

I shook my head slowly. "Even if he wasn't my Watcher, I just don't see myself with Garret."

"He's been in love with you for years."

"Which hardly infects me with the same feeling. I just found out that my best friend has had the hots for me. I just don't reciprocate."

"At least you admit that he's your friend again."

I sighed, enjoying the slightly spicy scent of his aftershave. "Yeah."

He pushed me a little bit and manoeuvred us until I was sitting on the edge of his desk, the inside of my thighs pressing against the outside of his. "If I hadn't been here, do you think you would have accepted Garret?"

"That's hardly a fair question," I said. "You're here now."

"Mmmm," he said, and bent his head to touch his lips to mine.

The kiss quickly deepened and I could taste coffee and Irish cream on his tongue. He'd laced his coffee.

He pressed me backwards again and this time I didn't fight against him.

"Are you seriously trying to get some nooky in your office with a student?" I teased after we broke away from each other for air.

"I wouldn't be the first Professor." His hand slip up my leg and wormed under my shirt.

I eyed the monstrosity of a scuffed wooden desk that sat under us. "Think this desk has been Christened yet?" I asked him in a low, sultry voice.

"Dunno," he said back, smiling. "I guess we better make sure. Wouldn't want the other desks to tease it."

"Indeed."