Notes: Gracias for the reviews. I know this is a very limited fandom, so I write it for my own pleasure, but if I can convert anyone else to it, all the better. I also accept concrit, even blunt concrit, gratefully.
Part 1 of 3.
The day was beyond warm. It was beyond hot. A merciless sun beat down on browning grass and cracked earth. Humidity thickened the air to a consistency one could almost part with a hand. Insects droned a hypnotic monotone. No breath of wind moved; it was as if the air molecules were trapped in the same senescence of heat as the humans were. Not a single cloud dared to drift across the path of that hot sun.
The shade of the trailer was only nominally better than the glare of the sun. Bryce sat in his chair in a sweat-soaked undershirt and boxers, his bare feet up on his desk, and tried not to move. It had been a hot summer, but this day was definitely the worst it had gotten. He took a long, slow breath of muggy air, and expelled it as "I... can't... take... much... more... of... this."
Hillary looked up. He was cleaning Lara's spare set of pistols, and they sat in many pieces on the folding table in front of him. He had been working at this task slowly and meticulously all afternoon. He was feeling the heat, as well; he was shirtless, and his curly hair stuck to his head in sweaty ringlets. "We should have a storm by this evening. That should help."
"There ain't a cloud in the sky."
"No, but the birds are flying close to the ground. They're more sensitive to pressure differentials than we are."
Bryce snorted. "They're just knackered by the heat."
Hillary smiled and picked up the bottle of oil. Bryce tried to put some more work into the vid headset he had been designing as a surprise for Lara, but the tools slipped out of his hands, and sweat continually threatened to drip off of the end of his sharp nose and into the innards. He gave it up as a bad job and picked up the trashy novel he was midway through.
The oppressive weather lasted through the evening. Nightfall brought only minor relief. They made uncomfortable and sticky love in Bryce's cot, and then rolled to opposite sides immediately afterwards, gasping for breath in the stale air. Bryce could never stay awake after sex, not even in weather like this, and was out almost immediately.
xxxxxx
He wasn't sure what time he woke up, but it must have been very, very early in the morning. It was still dark, and it was very quiet. Hillary had rolled over and flung an arm over his chest in the middle of the night, and he sighed at the excessively warm weight of it. Then the blinds rattled - announcing the entry of a whiff of cool, moist air. Bryce drew in a deep breath of it, gratefully. A stiffer breeze followed, and then another, making the blinds jump and dance. Bryce carefully moved Hillary's arm, slipped out of the cot, and walked to the window.
In the faint light of the sliver of moon, he could just barely see the front of roiling purple clouds. A storm was indeed coming in, and quickly. A hard blast of cool, wet air came in, and Bryce grabbed the blinds to keep them still. He raised them. Huge drops began to fall, beating a steady rhythm on the distant driveway and a rattling tattoo on the metal trailer's roof. Bryce shivered as more cool blasts of air came in through the window. Lightning flickered on the horizon, followed a few seconds later by the muted growl of thunder. It's frightening, a good storm; and thrilling as well. They made him feel small, inconsequential, impotent, utterly alone...
"Bryce..." a sleepy voice came from the bed.
Bryce came back to himself and shivered. He crawled back into the bed; the hand that touched his waist felt unnaturally warm. "You're freezing," Hillary mumbled. He pulled Bryce closer, and this time he was grateful for the warmth that drove off the storm's chill and let him drift back to sleep.
xxxxxx
Bryce awoke to a gentle shaking underneath him. The morning sun that hit his eyelids was filtered through air cleaned and cooled by the night's rain. The day was one of perfectly balanced summer warmth, and Bryce rolled on his back and stretched out with a satisfied smile.
"Come to the manor. I'll make some breakfast."
Bryce opened his eyes. Hillary was wrapping a dressing gown around himself, and prodding the bed again with one foot. Bryce frowned.
"I don't feel like moving."
"You didn't move all day yesterday. Get up." Hillary prodded more insistently. Bryce grumbled, but got up on his hands and knees and pulled a clean set of boxers out of the chest-of-drawers. He slipped them on and walked out of the trailer, scratching his scalp and stretching. He walked around the trailer to look out over the vast lawn - and stopped.
"Hey."
He turned, and saw Hillary walking towards the manor. "I said, hey, wait, man!"
Hillary turned and gave Bryce a petulant look. "What?"
"Come look at this."
Hillary rolled his eyes, but walked back to where Bryce was standing. The slender man pointed at the marks of boot-prints in the soft earth around the trailer; fresh prints left in earth churned to mud by the storm the night before.
Hillary's brow furrowed. He looked left and right, then turned left and followed the bootprints with a purposeful stride that contrasted oddly with his blue silk robe. Bryce stifled a giggle and trotted off on his heels.
"They made a mess." Hillary muttered. The bootprints led to one end of the grounds, terminating in a muddle that could have been purposeful action and could have been milling about. More prints led back across the lawn, ending in the same muddle. All of the prints seemed to stop and start at the long driveway.
"Well, that's right strange, innit?"
Hillary sighed. "It's very odd. If they wanted to rob the place, why didn't they? If they were feeling out the security, why be so obvious?"
"Mebbe they were just lookin' for Lara."
"All they could tell from here is whether the lights in her room were on, and they could tell that from the driveway." Hillary's frown deepened. "Now, what to do...?"
"I know exactly what I'm gonna do."
"What?"
"Take a shower." Bryce headed back towards the manor. Hillary looked down, seeming to notice for the first time how he was dressed, and hurried to join him.
xxxxxx
Half an hour later, Bryce sat at his desk in jeans and boots. Hillary was in what Bryce called his "full buttlin' getup," checking the alarm system.
"They did set off the perimeter alarms, after all. I thought you wired those to your trailer?"
"Yeah, but I turned the volume down. I didn't want 'em botherin' us."
Hillary sighed and straightened. "That does tend to defeat the purpose of an alarm."
Bryce shrugged nervously. "Pretty much, but I wanted me sleep."
Hillary glared. "Well, whatever it was they were planning, they caught us with our pants down."
"Maybe they're voyeurs."
"Well, all we can do is hope that they underestimate our readiness," Hillary said, pacing. "And, er - make sure that the readiness actually exists from now on, yes?"
"Maybe we impressed 'em." Bryce grinned.
"You do have a one-track mind."
"Nah, five. I counted. You know, I really do think they were just lookin' to see if Lara's in."
Hillary stopped pacing and sighed. "I wish I knew where she is. She didn't tell me."
"Whoa, she didn't? I guess I shouldn't tell yeh, either."
Hillary looked vaguely hurt. "I don't believe this," he muttered. He added, more loudly, "Check all of the alarms. Freeze the volume somewhere in the loud range, please." He walked off towards the arms room.
Bryce sighed. This was going to take a large chunk of the day.
xxxxxx
Bryce walked back to the study, chewing on a piece of cold toast. He had checked every sensor manually over the past four hours, and was ready to sit down and let the computer do the rest. He started the software diagnostics and leaned back in his chair with a sigh.
Hillary got up from his chair in the sitting room and walked over to Bryce. He held out a small black revolver. Bryce raised his eyebrows as he chewed. "I'll blow me knob off, man."
Hillary put it in his hand and demonstrated. "Safety on, safety off. Trigger. Keep the safety on until you need to point it at somebody and look bad-arse. Don't shoot until you see the whites of their lips."
"I got a doctorate in looking bad-arse," muttered Bryce, taking the gun gingerly and setting it down on his desk. He glanced at the monitor. "Time to greet company, Mr. Butler." A black Mercedes sedan was pulling up the long driveway. Hillary straightened his tie and walked out to the entryway.
xxxxxx
He stepped out of the massive doors and walked down the steps to the end of the driveway, where the black sedan had rolled to a halt. A young, broad-shouldered, black-capped driver got out, and opened the rear driver's side door. A rather small man with a thick head of snowy white hair stepped out. He was wearing an exquisitely tailored black silk suit, and walked with an air of almost palpable self-assurance.
"Good afternoon, sir. May I help you?" Hillary asked.
The man walked towards Hillary. "Perhaps you may," he said in a smooth, measured voice as he drew close. "I am looking for Lady Croft."
"I am afraid she is not in. What is your business? Perhaps I can be of service."
"A pity. Perhaps the man Bryce is in? My business is actually with him."
"He is not." Out of the corner of his eye, Hillary had been watching the black-capped driver walk quietly around the two and start to mount the stairs. He backed up the stairs to keep the driver from maneuvering between him and the doors. After the events of last night, his normally respectable paranoia had been taken up a notch.
"Interesting," said the man, walking up the stairs as Hillary backed up them. "Are you sure you're not mistaken?"
Hillary could see the driver's hand moving to his belt. He didn't try to reach the driver; he was too far away to reach him in time. Instead, he grabbed the white-haired man by the throat, swung him around, and reached across his chest to pull out the gun in the waist holster that the exquisitely-tailored suit was absolutely not tailored to conceal. The driver now had his gun out and pointed at Hillary, and Hillary had the white-haired man in a chokehold with his own gun pointed at his head.
It was a classic stalemate.
And in his peripheral vision, Hillary saw that the manor doors were still open. Bryce. Shut the bloody doors. He must have seen enough by now to know to do that.
"This does not appear to be a tenable situation for anybody involved," the white-haired man said, speaking more loudly. He remained completely calm and composed. "It does not have to end badly, however. If Bryce is listening, I'm sure he realizes that."
The door creaked, and Bryce stepped out. Every foul word that Hillary knew seemed inadequate. He had put on his black leather jacket, incongruous on this warm summer day, and held both empty hands out at his sides. "It's cool, mates." He glanced nervously from Hillary to the driver and back again.
"If your friend here puts the gun away," said the white-haired man, "it will make things much more civilized."
"Please, Hil, put it away." Bryce looked at him with pleading eyes. They struck Hillary numb, and it felt like a stranger's body who loosened his grip and let the gun be taken out of his hand. The man straightened his suit jacket, replaced the gun in its holster, and took Bryce by the upper arm. "Come." They walked down to the car. The driver kept his gun trained on Hillary as he walked slowly down the stairs after them. The white-haired man opened the door and pushed Bryce towards it; he gave Hillary one last apologetic look before ducking inside. Once they were both in the car, the driver slipped back in himself, pulled a swift U-turn, and headed away.
Hillary stood on the tops of the steps. Not ten minutes had passed since the car had arrived. The silence it left in its wake was deafening, like the calm before a storm.