A/N:

I'm back, and aside from a staggering case of jet lag and a resulting creative crisis, I'm ready to follow through on my promise to wrap this sucker up.

As has been the case with some previous chapters, this one was supposed to be quite a bit longer, but if I mess with it for a few more days, I'm just dragging it all out longer. I decided I need to just put something out there, so I'm cutting it off here, and I'll transfer the unedited stuff to the next chapter.

Once again, the content that follows is borderline inappropriate for mass consumption.

Chapter 52

It's dark and it's cold.

Already the cloud-cover has returned, and the horizon on my side is a flat grey line separating black from blacker.

He holds my hand on the seat between us, but he gives me space, too. Just once between the battlefield and the cabin, he says, "You doing okay, Vic?"

I nod, but he can't see. It probably comes off as some sort of mute expression of a troubled psyche, which it isn't. I'd speak if I could.

We remove our boots at the door. I hang up my jacket and his coat while he turns on the lamps and lights the stove. I stand in the middle of the room, but still nothing comes to me beyond an increasingly loud humming in my ears.

I don't know what time it is, but it feels closer to dawn than to midnight.

He stands in front of the fire for a moment watching me, then comes over and takes my hand, rubs his thumb over my knuckles the way he does, and he says, "You want to talk about it?"

I shake my head.

"Want a beer?"

"No," I say. My voice is croaky and disembodied. I look up at him, bite my lip.

He tilts his head, and his lips twitch upward on one side.

"I want you to fuck me," I say.

There's a little flinch, a miniscule widening of his eyes.

I reach out slowly, so as not to scare him off, and start unbuckling his belt. He puts his hands lightly on my shoulders, but he doesn't stop me, not yet. In fact, I get all the way down to the third button of his 501s before he grabs my wrists.

"Vic."

Here we go.

"What?" I say, but I really have no intention of giving him the opportunity to respond. I'm not nearly as invested as he is in doing the right thing.

I stand on my tiptoes, fingers just edging under the elastic of his boxers, but when I try to kiss him, he tightens his grip on my wrists and pulls his head back. A powerful surge of some hybrid emotion floods me.

"Seriously?" I say. I try to extricate myself, but he's not letting go. "You're shutting me down on a verbal technicality?"

Now the other side of his mouth creeps up. "What?" he says. "No."

I tug my wrists back, harder this time, but he doesn't budge. His jeans are slipping down over his hips. He's already hard. What a waste.

"Just forget it," I say, and I feel my ears reddening.

He shakes his head, searches my face. His eyes, squinting, land on my lips. Talk about mixed signals.

"There might be men out there who would say no to that, Vic." He loosens his hold a little and rubs his thumb over the palm of my hand. "I'm definitely not one of them."

So I take that as a green light because how the hell else am I supposed to take it, but when I lean forward again to kiss him, he pulls back again.

I yank my wrists away. "What the hell, Walt?"

I'm tearing up, and it pisses me off.

"Blood spatter," he says, sounding defeated and infinitely sorry. He gestures to the left side of my face.

This activates a vivid, tactile memory of the warm spray immediately following the second gunshot. I wipe my hand down the side of my face and it comes back with brownish-red, dry flecks.

"Holy shit," I say.

I head for the bathroom, panicky, trying to remember how the whole spatter-membrane-prophylaxis thing works.

"When did you notice this?" I call out as I lean into the mirror.

His voice startles me when he says, "A few minutes ago. It was dark out there." He's standing in the doorway watching. "I don't think you have anything to worry about."

The spray is mostly on my forehead and in my hair, though there are a few specks down around my eye and on my cheek near my mouth. "He wasn't exactly the picture of health," I say.

"Bloomfield says there's less than one percent chance of contracting anything through infected spray. Hep B and C are more likely than HIV. Still rare, though."

"You'll forgive me if I'm not overly comforted by that."

He comes up behind me, making eye contact in the mirror. "We'll call him first thing in the morning, get him to test Van der Horn."

"Okay," I say. I sound calm, but I'm not.

I turn on the hot water and liquid ice comes out. I turn it off.

Now I'm concerned about everything I touch.

He opens a cabinet and takes out a towel and hands it to me. "Why don't you take a shower?"

I'm washing my face for the third time with his Irish Spring bar soap, when he peeks his head in through the curtain. His shoulders are bare.

"Can I join you?" he says.

"Probably not a good idea 'til we know I'm not infected."

He steps in anyway, totally naked, and glaringly ready to go. I can't help staring. Or gaping might be more accurate.

"You been keeping that thing going?"

"It has a mind of its own," he says. "No help necessary."

He takes the soap from me and reaches around, starts washing my backside. My face is up against his chest. "I already took care of that," I say, but I make no move to stop him.

He kisses my shoulder while continuing his attentions, mostly below the waist.

"You can't kiss me," I say.

"I know," he says into my neck. "It'll be okay."

"Viruses are transmitted through bodily fluids."

"No exchange of bodily fluids. You have my word."

I cannot imagine how at this point that could be possible, but I go with it. I take the soap from him, and return the favors focusing on the most interesting parts.

After I've washed my face for the fourth time, we dry off in the bathroom together.

"Party's over," I say.

"You wanted something," he says running his finger under my chin and leaning in so close I can feel his breath on my lips, "and I intend to give it to you."

He reaches over to the counter and produces a little foil package.

"Those things have an expiration date," I say.

"August 2017."

I stare at him, confused.

"Where did you get it?"

"Walgreens."

"You went into Walgreens and bought that?"

"This and four others."

"When?"

"A few months ago."

"For what?" I ask, and now in addition to containing the terror associated with blood-borne pathogens, I'm consumed by anxiety regarding his relatively recent purchase of condoms.

I'm suddenly remembering the haircut and the shave and the new shirt and the ultra-polite phone calls and the dinner plans.

"How about I just show you what it's for," he says, ripping it open.

"You were dating before me."

"Vic. Come on."

"Before we started seeing each other. All those dinner plans."

He sighs and rubs his hand across the back of his neck.

"I wasn't dating," he says. "I could tell you about all those dinner plans, but it'll probably ruin the mood." He's holding the unwrapped condom in his hand. "And this thing will shrivel up."

I think he means the condom.

"You weren't dating?"

I'm not really sure what my problem is.

"No. I was hoping to get lucky with you, and I did. That's all."

"You thought I might want to have sex with you a few months ago?"

"Yeah. If I could get you to start talking to me again."

He smiles, leans in close.

"You can't kiss me."

"I know." With his free hand, he pulls me closer. "Do you?"

"Do I what?"

"Do you want to have sex with me?"

"God yes."

"Okay then."