The Fatima Curse

He was on a mission. One of more importance than the one he had just completed. This would not be bloody work. Although it would be painful. Perhaps more pain than he had ever been put through. But he thought it would be worth it. Hoped it would be worth it.



He was not the same boy who had just a day earlier killed a man in a little motel room. He could feel himself changing, could feel some kind of calm settling over him. The others had noticed it, a softening of his voice, in his eyes. Uriel had been oblivious, but then, the man usually was when it came to such things. But he had sensed something the previous night when Shuuichi had come to him and tears, and he had held the boy in his arms.



Shu had felt it, and he had been too tired, too consumed by despair, to push it away. It all seemed so simple, but in that simplicity, it was deeply dangerous. He hadn’t been sure if he could trust it, if he weren’t just weakened and unable to tell the difference between want and desperation.



But in the morning, the ache had still been there. He had tried to ignore it, but it had only grown more insistent. It had been nearly intolerable when he had seen the man. His eyes had seemed to really see him for the first time. And he had taken stock of Uriel as though a stranger. Tall, broad shouldered, skin the color of coffee, hair pulled back in a loose pony-tail that fell down between his shoulder-blades. Square jawed, nose slightly crooked, lips caught in limbo between thin and plump. Eyes like chips of ice on fire. A roughneck, people would assume, seeing the scars on his face and the sharpness of his eyes and jaw. But the way he had held him…



That was where his mission had begun. The lies and armor had fallen away from him, the walls had crumbled around his heart. He admitted to himself, there in the early morning sunshine as he had watched the man move and chat and laugh, that he loved him. A little hopelessly, a little desperately. He loved him, and he knew that if he didn’t move quick, he would lose him.



And so, in the middle of the night, when the place was still, when only the shadows lurked, Shu decided to go to him. To tell him, to rip his own heart open. It had always belonged to Uri, since he had been a frightened child, and who better to piece it together? Who better to heal it?



He stood at his door, heart pounding, palms sweaty, feeling like that same little boy. That same little boy who had had his innocence ripped away from him, who had been thrown into this mess against his will. But who had found in Uri - in his friend - a closeness, a love, that transcended friendship and brotherhood and all the other things they had named their affection.



He knocked. Waited. Knocked again. A little impatiently. The bastard couldn’t be sleeping. He was probably in there, practicing some weird Zen shit, getting in touch with his soul. Well, Goddamnit, Shu wasn’t going to wait for him all night. He could feel the old impatience flaring, and he tried to push it down.



He knocked a few more times, and then pounded. “Uri, you shithead, open the Goddamn door before I come in there and bury my foot in your ass.”



“Uri isn’t here,” a small voice said from behind him. Shu looked down into Allister Moretti’s eyes. They were big and seemed to constantly be filled with tears.



“What?”



“He’s gone. He said he’d be back later.”



Shu’s heart sunk. “Where’d he go?”



“I don’t know,” Allister explained. He seemed to remember their previous conversation, his hand going to his wrist, where it rubbed absently, recalling how Shu had hurt him, albeit unintentionally. “He just left in a hurry, about twenty minutes ago. He didn’t say anything to me except he‘d be back later.”



“Leon,” Shu growled, and he punched Uri’s door before he could think about it. It swung open forcefully, showing him the empty, silent room. He noticed Allister jump from the corner of his eye, and he reminded himself that he had to stay calm, he had to keep himself from giving in to that old anger. He was trying to change, trying to prove that he could change. “I’m sorry,” he told the boy, watching his watery eyes become obscured by the fall of his hair. “Really, I…” Shu touched his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Allister. Go on back to your room now.”



Allister looked up at him, “Are you okay? Like, really?”



“Sure,” Shu told him, forcing a smile. “I’m okay. Go on, now.”



He watched the boy walk down the hallway, and when he was gone, he turned back to Uri’s room. There was no where else the assassin would go this time of night. He was with Leon. Probably banging him right now, the little blonde crying out his name and their sweaty bodies sticking together. Shu heard a low growl, and realized it came from his own throat. He tried to relax, but he was overcome with anger and hurt. He felt betrayed.



But you’re the one who told him to go after Leon, a little voice in the back of his mind meekly whispered, You’re the one.



There were footsteps coming down the hall, female laughter, Shu moved into Uri’s room and closed the door behind him. He walked to his bed, seeing that it was still newly made, Uri hadn’t even tried to sleep. He had known he would be going to see Leon. Shu’s eyes began to grow hot, and when he blinked, he felt tears slip down his cheeks. They were surprisingly cold, given the heat in his eyes. He sat down on Uri’s bed and cried, hearing the women outside his door as they passed, still laughing together.



He had waited too long, he knew that now. Uri was falling in love with Leon, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. He tried to tell himself that it wouldn’t have made a difference if he had told Uri sooner. But he thought of the gentleness with which Uri had held him the previous night. He thought of the lust and fire in his eyes as he had watched Shuuichi perform on stage. He thought of the way Uri had held his face in his hands and told him how important he was to him. And he knew that it would have made a difference. That if he had spoken up sooner, Uri would be there with him now.



But if he feels that way about you, he could have told you. He could have made the first move. But of course he couldn’t. That wasn’t the way Uri worked, and Shu knew it. Uri wrapped himself in mystery and kept his heart locked away. At times, he could seem cruel, even heartless, but Shu knew what he felt. He knew him better than he knew himself. He should have told him, he should have just told him that he loved him, that he needed him, that he couldn’t live without him.



Now it was too late.



Shu sat there in Uri’s room, smelling him everywhere, and cried.







Uriel was in fact with Leon, but unlike Shu’s lusty visions, the two men were only sitting together, drinking wine and chatting. Uri had not come there for anything tawdry, but he supposed Leon was ready at any moment if he proposed they take their conversation to the bedroom.



But he enjoyed sitting there with the blonde, listening to his stories. He spoke of past indiscretions, mistakes, laughed about old boyfriends. He did not speak of his childhood or his father, which Uri appreciated. Such conversation could lead to questions about his own childhood, and he simply couldn’t speak of it. Not to Leon, not to anyone.



“…and he said to me, But Leon, I love you, which, maybe he did. But that didn’t explain why he was banging the prom queen in the coat closet.” Uri laughed, shaking his head and taking a sip of wine. It was dry, but very good. “It’s funny now,” Leon said, smiling, “But at the time I thought the world was ending. God, to be seventeen again, huh?”



“Mm,” Uri agreed, returning the man’s smile.



Leon refilled Uri’s glass before sitting back and sighing softly. “I think I’ve talked enough,” Leon said, green eyes holding Uri’s intently. They were beautiful, almost painfully so, and Uri looked into them, a little spellbound. “What about you?”



“Me?”



“Yeah, what’s your story?”



Uri shook his head. “I don’t have a story, really. I’m quite uninteresting.” He looked down into his wine glass, almost shyly, seeing his own reflection staring up at him.



“Really? I think you’re very interesting.” There was a hand on his knee suddenly, lightly, suggestively, squeezing. “Come on, don’t clam up on me. Tell me about yourself. Like, what do you do for a living?”



“I’m what some people would call an exterminator,” Uri said soberly, eyes raising and looking at Leon squarely. “I don’t want to talk about myself, Leon.”



Leon smiled and spread his hands. “Well, we don’t have to talk at all, if you don’t want to. We could just sit here together, or we could go into the bedroom.” One eyebrow lifted. “Do you want to go into the bedroom, Uri?”



“Not now,” he answered dismissively. “I enjoy listening to you talk.”



Leon laughed, and when he did that, Uri thought he might be the most gorgeous creature he had ever laid his eyes on. There was something powerful about him, but Uri couldn’t put his finger on it. His sexuality seemed to be his most magnetic charm, but there were other things as well. He was what Uri’s mother would have called a free spirit, a gypsy, in his own way. He lived in a polished apartment building, swanky lobby filled with flirty, well dressed couples, golden elevator doors and spectacular views. But there was something strangely bohemian about Leon Fairfax. It lived in his eyes, and his dimples, poured out of him.



He looks like he belongs in the grass, Uri had thought when he had laid eyes on him. Out in the tall grass, naked in the sun. He looks like he should have dirt under his fingernails and between his toes. Like he should smell like honeysuckle and taste like rain. They were strange thoughts, and probably made very little sense, but when Uri looked into his eyes, he could feel the truth of those thoughts. Leon did not belong with all of this champagne and polished marble. He was something from the earth, something powerfully and erotically wild and natural.



Leon seemed to sense these thoughts, for his smile curled and his eyes took on a lovely, demure glow. “Hmm, well, I don’t know what else to talk about. After high school I took a job at the club, as a waiter mainly. Then I got roped into performing, and after a few years…” He shrugged. “I was the most popular guy there, and I had enough cache and finances to buy the place.”



“Do you enjoy it?”



“Most of the time. But sometimes I wish I’d taken a different road,” Leon confessed, “The money is nice, and the guys that work for me. But some of the customers make me uncomfortable. I don’t have a problem being naked, if that’s what you mean.” Leon’s smile was wide and uncomplicated, a white boy’s smile, Uri thought. A smile that could only come from generations of ancestors who had smiled the same way.



“What would you have done if you hadn’t have ended up there?,” Uri asked. He was sincerely interested in the man, and that seemed to please Leon.



“Oh, probably nothing interesting. I probably would have gone to work for my father. He was one of the partners in a law firm. Big hotshot. He would have made me his gofer, probably just some glorified secretary.” Leon looked away from the man, his smile slipping. “He’s dead now though.”



“I’m sorry.”



“No, don’t be,” Leon told him, “It’s better this way. There were things about my father… that I couldn’t handle, or forgive him for. There were things that he deserved to pay for, and I guess he did.” Those eyes looked back at him, no longer bohemian, no longer gypsy, a child’s eyes now. Glassy and filled with pain. “He had his throat cut in the parking deck of his building.”



Uri felt a cold finger press on his heart. “Oh?”



“Yeah,” Leon said. He tried a smile, but it looked shaky. “Joseph Kiernan. You probably heard about him.”



Uri’s stomach rolled uneasily, his heart sinking a little. “Oh, yes, I’ve heard of him,” Uri said. His voice sounded dry and a little rough to his own ears, but Leon didn’t seem to notice. “You know,” he said, waving his hand dismissively, “Here and there.” Uri set his glass of wine aside. “Isn’t your last name Fairfax?”



“It is now,” Leon explained. “When I turned eighteen I changed my name. I wanted to cut my father out of my life. I wanted to make sure that he understood I was making a break from him. He got the picture. The first year I was gone, he called me all the time, asked how I was doing, said he wanted to see me, that he missed me.” A few tears slipped unnoticed down Leon’s face as he spoke. “But I blew him off, and he understood. So he cut me out too.” Leon gave a dry bark of laughter. “When he died, I got calls about his last will and testament, you know, all that bullshit. Apparently, he didn’t leave me a goddamn thing. The guy thought it was a mistake.” Laughter again, this time bitter. “Like I cared about his money.”



“I’m sorry.” It was all Uri could think to say. He reached out and squeezed Leon’s shoulder. Leon led his hand to his face, Uri feeling the warmth and wetness of his tears. He brushed them away with his thumb.



“What about your mother?”



“My mother died when I was a kid,” Leon continued. “I don’t remember her too well. All I remember is she was good to me. Better than my dad could ever be. Me and him knocked around that big old house until I was grown, then I just split. I couldn’t handle him. My mother was a buffer for us. She kept him in line, and maybe me too. Without her, all we did was argue. After a while, I think we both just started to hate each other.” Leon closed his eyes and pressed his cheek tighter to Uri’s palm. “That’s sad, huh? Hating your own father?”



“Yes,” Uri said. “But you can’t blame yourself for that. A father should be good to his son.”



If I had known, Uri thought, feeling Leon’s smooth cheek with his thumb, How horrible he had been to you, I would have killed him slower. The thought shocked him. He had never been connected to one of his kills so personally before, and the fact that Leon’s pain touched him so much, filled him with so much pain, was a little frightening.



“Uriel?”



“Mmm?”



“Will you make love to me?” There was something so broken about the question, so sweetly vulnerable. He had never heard Leon sound like that before. Their first time together, he had been playful, dominant, steeped in sexuality and charm. Now he seemed tired, lonely, a little sad. But the question was serious, Leon’s wet eyes looked at him hungry and intent.



Uri did not answer, not with words. He pulled Leon close to him, cradling his head against chest, like a small child. He felt, for an instant, that he was holding Shu, who had always sunk into him like a weary kid. But then Leon was touching him, touching him in places that Shu would never dare touch, and he was breathing an affirmation to him.



And he forgot Shu, as he moved inside of Leon and lost himself in his deep, bohemian eyes. As his muscular thighs closed around him and his arms came up, so ready to hold him, and he let himself be held. He let himself be touched and kissed and for the first time in his life, Uriel Fatima found himself falling in love.







Later in the night, in Leon’s bed, feeling the blonde shift against him as he slept, Uri thought of Shu again. Not as he had in the past, but in a new, strange way. He thought of Shu standing on stage in the lights, naked and sweaty and wrapping himself around the pole. He thought of Shu the previous night, stumbling in, crying and vulnerable, falling into his arms. He thought of him as a little boy, knobby kneed and elbows scarred, looking up at him as though he were the last saving grace he had.



Had it always been that way? Had Shu always looked at him like that, or was Uri only inventing memories, selecting and choosing the ones that made him think that Shu needed him?



But that morning, Shu had been so quiet, so still. He had watched and listened and rarely smiled.



Shit, he couldn’t think about Shu. It was all too much at the moment, and Leon felt nice against him, all lean muscle and silky skin. He closed his eyes and held him close, smelling his hair, which held the aroma of their sex.



Falling in love, there was another problem. He had never been in such a situation before. He had always kept himself distant. He had taken men to bed, but they had never gotten more than his body, they had never worked themselves into his heart. And with Master…



He couldn’t think about it. All he wanted to do was lie there in the darkness with Leon’s naked body on him, with his sex pressing against his thigh and his breath on his shoulder. He wanted to let the feelings carry him away, and for one night, simply not think about anything.



Uri closed his eyes and let his mind drift into nothing. After a few minutes, darkness stole him, and he slept.







When Uri was asleep, Leon’s eyes opened and watched his face. So brutally beautiful. His hand slipped under his pillow, where the knife lay sheathed. He removed it, pulling it out and holding it in the moonlight. It glittered brightly, shockingly, and Leon studied it, eyes flicking from the weapon to Uri’s sleeping face.



“And Leon. Don’t forget your mission.”



No, how could he? And furthermore, why would he want to forget his mission? Uri was a lovely man, but a mission was a mission. He didn’t need the old man reminding him of that, he had been doing this for years. He had known at the beginning that he would have to get close to Uri, that he would have to start a relationship with him. Uriel Fatima, he had been told, was a cold, calculating killer. If he had been assigned to kill Leon, there would have been no hesitation. None of this late night tossing and turning. He would have slit his throat as effortlessly and emotionlessly as he had slit Leon’s father’s.



Right?



The knife grazed Uri’s stubbled cheek, making a scratching noise. He withdrew it, watched Uri’s face twitch before he stilled once more. After a few more minutes, it was placed against his throat, lightly, the blade barely kissing the assassin’s skin.



“I don’t have a story. I’m quite uninteresting.”



But of course, Leon knew Uri’s story. Worse, he knew just how dangerous he really was, which was something Uri only had the vaguest knowledge of. It was better this way, better to cut his throat and let him die. To release him from the full, horrible scope of that knowledge. To let him die with some kind of dignity.



And so why was the knife falling away, why was it being sheathed under the pillow, why was he moving into Uri’s chest and crying against him? What had gone wrong? What had changed so profoundly inside of him?



“Leon?” A sleepy murmur.



“Y-yeah?”



“Mm, what’s the matter, baby?” There was a gentle hand on the back of his head, stroking him. Uri’s words rumbled in his chest, Leon could feel it on his cheek.



He shook his head, crying on him. Sobbing on him.



“I love you,” he blubbered.



“Oh, Leon…”



And his face was pulled up and his mouth was kissed and sometime between when Uri started kissing him and when he rolled off of him sweaty and exhausted, Leon knew that he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t kill him. Whatever had changed within him, had changed the moment he had seen Uriel’s face.



He was dangerous, brutal, he had to be stopped.



But all Leon could do was lie there with him and love him. In a way, he thought that was enough.



But he was wrong.