Neko-laus 2 : Toy Tiger

Posting from San Francisco - Yaoi-Con 2010 - I hope I have redeemed myself in your eyes, Loyalistas! Mugs and Kisses!


Chapter 17 - Easy

I think I might have actually made it about ten steps before someone shot me. I felt a sharp pain in the ass then my knees turned to jelly and I slammed hard down to the black floor. I couldn’t even get my arms up to shield my face. My tears stopped when my head went thump against the floor.

The one good thing about the medics tranquilizer is that when it works, it takes everything. Sight, sound, movement and memories. I don’t dream. I don’t cry. I don’t hurt so much inside. It was tempting to stay in that place but I’ve never been a coward. I might be beaten back down but I don’t have to stay there and wallow in it. I’ve been a fighter. I’ve always been a fighter. I hadn’t changed than much. Still...

How the hell could he do that in front of me?

Not the best thought to have in my head when I first opened my eyes...to a pure white room. I couldn’t believe it for a moment then my fight or flight response kicked in. I went from laying prone on the strangely soft floor to being up on my feet moving towards a wall. I hit it with more force than I thought I would and lost my balance crashing down on my side as my limbs fought to catch up with the speed my mind was racing. The time it took to sync to the power or the source has been steadily fading. Before I had to search for it. I had to take the time to center myself and get a handle on my ‘other’ vision. It was as if I had progressed from crawling to a full out sprint. I just thought and the lights were burnt out from a massive power surge. I sat in complete darkness breathing hard with my jaw clenched tightly together.

Out. I had to get out of here. Whatever they did to me in that white room back there was lost to my memories but my body knew enough to get as far away as possible. Whatever that was soft and smooshy on the floor was on the walls as well. My hands ripped at the walls but I couldn’t find a door seal. Stop! Stop panicking. Relax. Breathe. Come on, Breathe. Focus now. I fried the grid. I unwittingly sealed the door. Did I burn out everything completely? Breathe.

I had to sit my ass down on the floor. My heartbeat was pounding in my ears. Slow down. Breathe in. Relax. Letting my breath out slowly through my mouth let me settle down and get a grip. I was an emotional wreck but that didn’t help me in the here and now. Okay. I spazzed out and demolished the Mage Lounge. The brass knew that I could this which is why it became their number one priority to keep me and Mags from each other. They didn’t want an unlimited power source supporting an unstable mage. They didn’t need to bother sending Wendy after me...he just had to shake his ass in front of....damn, focus. Focus. Stay in the here and now. Where am I?

I lay my palms flat on the floor and slowly searched for a power spike. As soon as I found one, I coaxed it towards me. I...merged...with the intensity. I was still on board the ship in the medical wing. They knew about the power serge. I pulled back and opened my eyes to the darkness of the room. I was better off here. I couldn’t get out. They couldn’t get in. I was right where they wanted me to be...so I’d just be – for now.

Shifting slightly I lay down on the floor on my side, my back still supported by the wall. It was oddly comforting. Tears began to seep from my eyes and my chest hurt from the inside. I thought I knew pain before. When I watched my first lover die; when the man who wore my father’s face raped me; when Donnie betrayed me with another. Nothing hurt so much as watching stunned as the man I gave my heart to oh so casually kissed an old flame. Not only kissed but basically made a confession that he had always been on his mind since their days at the academy. I wanted to do more than just punch both of them in the face. If I was the mage everyone claimed I was I would have done some spectacular damage on them.

So, do I love him?

Fuck yah.

What I am going to do?

Teach him the error of his ways.

How am I going to do that?

Don’t know. Yet.

Should I even try? Does he mean than much?

He’s broken. Even now, he’s only known abandonment. His own mother sold him into slavery, and that is what his service has turned out to be another form of slavery in the name of duty. The Empire told him what to do and when to do it. They taught him to be cruel and ruthless. He did all that to make them proud of him to make to the ultimate rank in the Mage Division – King Tiger, Rank One. And now, when his abilities are called into question they put him out on military parade as the beginning the walk to the end of his days. Instead of trying to fix him, or even help him with a kind word, they were going to take their King Tiger out one final time and let him ash himself to death on the battlefield.

The ultimate abandonment.

Ultimate cruelty…and there was the crux. How could I expect…what I expected from him when he has never seen it. When he has never felt it. When no one has ever taught him anything. Then again did I? Was I guilty of being a complete bastard the way the Empire was?

Raising a hand to my forehead I just gave a big sigh. No one has ever stood beside him long. Wendy dumped him. His Handler fucked off as soon as he realized what the Empire was trying to do. All his Latents died on him. Well he killed them, but it wasn’t intentional. That first draw on me back in the Shambles would have killed another Latent. He just doesn’t know how to control what he’s got. A sad laugh came out of my tight throat. He sure as well really didn’t know how to control me. Maybe this was a poor attempt at his testing my feelings for him. I’ve already said that he didn’t know anything about companionship, comradely which would be the training wheels to the love I wanted from him. When he tested his boundaries…I punched him in the face. Well I kicked the living crap out of him and his potential boytoy. I had no doubt now that Wendy was in the same boat. I booted him worse than Mags. Here I as holding the torch of love and I was kicking kittens around who didn’t know any better. I really despise the Empire. And maybe myself.

I think getting me out of MI and synchronizing me as his Latent was the first independent action Mags has ever taken, and look where it’s got us now. I’m locked in a box and if he’s out there fucking Wendy...

I pressed my hand to my chest. I could feel Mag’s heartbeat. It was slow and steady. He wasn’t doing anything incriminating at this moment. A short controlled pulse startled me as my tiger tattoo began to itch. Itch? Wendy, again. Wait…No, it was warm and rippled like water flowing over a rock. I closed my eyes and concentrated lightly. It was Mags. The ‘feel’ of the sync was there. This was just like a gentle caress to see if I was responding.

My anger was still there but the fear of waking up in this white room had tempered everything. I was an emotional wreck but then again I really wasn’t under a direct death sentence. It was sobering to realize that I wasn’t the pillar of support I wanted to be. It was all about me. Like always.

I drew my knees up to my chest and wrapped my arms around my shins trapping the gently glowing tattoo in the center of my body. If Mags was looking to replace me with Wendy there would be no way that he would be powering our mage marks and it wasn’t the usual instantaneous burn hard and explode in glorious orgasm. Was he trying to tell me something? Had he been telling me something and I just didn’t listen?

I frowned. He had acted the ass during the day deliberately provoking me. At night, he was different – a calm almost serene man who clung to me with an intensity that was overwhelming even if it was done with warm kisses and gentle caresses. Looking at it now with a little bit of prospective he was trying to provoke me. He kept playing with my hair brushing it back away from my eyes. He knew damn well that I…he wanted me to blow up at him in a public place?
What the hell would that accomplish? I’ve been trying everything I could to be the stabilizing influence in his life.

He didn’t want me to do that? Or, was it he didn’t want the Empire to know I was a stabilizing influence on his life. I am not the sharpest tool in the shed on some things.

It was easy to backtrack the stream of power back to Mags. I could feel his startlement when I lit him up. Once again, not our ode to premature ejaculation but the light gentle caress that he was sending to me. His tattoo intensified for a heart beat then settled down. I was acknowledged.

Think, Niki.

Mags has been trying to provoke me. He wanted me to burn out something in a big way. Did he want me to kick the crap out of Wendy? Maybe. He was still a little pissed that Wendy had made a move on me and had even gotten a kiss for getting the explosive collar off my neck. Everyone was waiting for him to go all crazy mage on Wendy’s ass. They were practically salivating over the prospect. King Tiger getting all snugly with Tiger Wendell was not part of the plan. Not part of anyone’s plan.

So Mags wanted me to burn out something. He doesn’t want me to be his stabilizier…or at least not look like I was. If I’m not a calming influence on King Tiger who has proven to be unstable and is viewed as a threat to the empire then I’m useless as a Latent. I stiffened my back upright. I wasn’t a Latent any more. I wasn’t a Latent because Mags insisted I was a Mage. A Mage doesn’t back up another Mage the way a Latent does. So far from what I have witnessed they can’t and they wouldn’t.

So far Mags was showing the brass that I might be an influence but only as a bedwarmer, not as a the most power Latent ever discovered. This constant upheaval this past month or so was to get me to blow up like that in front of others. This was to show that I’m unstable too? Was that it? I can’t be relied on. A lightening bolt struck me.

He was trying to save me.

That King Ass of a Tiger was trying to save his little Neko from the Empire. Right at the moment the Empire was looking at separating us to keep the little battery available for the next King Tiger to get transferred in. What did they say? There were currently five Mages with the Rank of King Tiger. Once Mages was ashes blowing in the wind the Empire was planning on plugging the next King Tiger Rank One into little ole’ Neko-laus Magnus. If I’m unstable, and showing not the usual Latent fade but being violently aggressive no Mage, Tiger or Panzer would want me. If I was useless the Empire wouldn’t want me.

There was a chance they might hand me back to Military Intelligence, which I doubted because of the animosity between the Mage Division and them. There was a bigger threat that I would end up with a bullet in the head before they would hand me over. If the Empire couldn’t use me, no one was going to. So…Mags was deliberately trying to take me with him on his final tour.

And Wendy? The Empire had no use for a one eyed Tiger. Mags knew that was well as I did. Bringing Wendy into the equation meant that he wasn’t romantically interested him in, I will give Mags the benefit of the doubt, but he was trying to save him as well. Wounded, scarred and unstable the Empire had no use for either of us so it might view whatever Mags suggested as the final solution as the best scenario to deal with all of us.

That fucker! Why the hell didn’t he…cause I can’t keep a secret off my face. Even I know that which is why I have my hair long and in my eyes. I slumped back against the padded wall. Damn. It was no wonder Mags was so strangely clingy at night. All of this was on his shoulders his life, my life and Wendy’s life weighed on his shoulders. He couldn’t tell me about it because the quarters where bugged again and even seemed to be doubled in the number from before. He couldn’t have told me if he had wanted to. So, silently Mags was asking for my support at night and I punched him in the face and…oh, I think I might have even kicked him in the face.

BANG!

I stiffened as the sound thumped through the padded room again. A section of the wall swung outward. In my normal greeting, I would have bounded over, kicked the door open and rush the guards and doctors knocking them out of my way. The medics were no match for me. That is what I would have done. That is what is expected. It was time to get my head out of my ass and help Mags get us the hell out of here. It was time to do the unexpected.

The door swung open quickly and the muzzle of the usual dart gun entered the room. I sat quietly in the corner my arms wrapped around my shins. My forehead rested on my knees and I closed my tightly.

“Neko?” A doctor called out to me. “Neko-laus?”

“Yah…”

“Are you all right?”
“No.”

“Are you hurt?” The voice drifted in but the orderly came fully into the room.

“Is he hurt?” I lifted my head to the side and rested my cheek on my forearm.

There was a pregnant pause. “Who do you mean?”

“Arthur.”

“King Tiger is fine.” The doctor reassured me. Unfortunately I could detect a little quaver in his voice.

I tamped that little bit of alarm down. I was depressed and heartsick or at least they had to think it. Since it wasn’t that far from the truth, it wasn’t a lie. “Really? I hit him pretty hard.”

“He needed a few stitches in his lip and he is a little bruised.”

I said nothing. There were times that Mags had nothing on me in the physical arena. I sent Wendy crashing through a table so he was probably worse off. I wasn’t going to ask about him though.

“Neko-laus…Neko?”

“Can I see him?”

“I don’t think that it’s a good idea at this time.” There was a few shouts and then the doctor and an orderly piled into the padded room in a disarray of limbs. What the…?

Mags pushed his way passed them then glared at the remaining orderly with that King Ass stare I dispised so much. All the man had to do was pull the trigger and Mags would be down. All of his planning and pain would have been for nothing. Damn it.

“Arthur…” Mags snapped his head towards me. His expression softened but remained a little wary. I guess I taught him well.

“That’s not my name, Nicki.” Mags voice softened.

“Maggie.” I caught his gaze from underneath my bangs. His brows narrowed slightly.

My mother was always fond of telling me how exasperated she would get with me as a baby because I went from laying there cooing to walking after my father. I missed the crawling stage all together. That was odd to me now because I my only real memory that I can recall is his death. Why was this in my head now? I remembered my Father crawling because if he didn’t want the King to harm me. He humiliated himself to save the ones he loved even knowing that doing this wasn’t going to save his life.

What does a child know about the lengths a parent will go for love?

It was sad to say that I was only understanding his sacrifice now. Nicolai – my father, the brother to the King of the Wild and my namesake. I am your son after all.

“Nicky?”

I rolled over onto my side then pushed myself up to my hands and knees. One hand forward. Opposite knee trailing forward. The next hand and the next knee. I dropped my head and stared forward at my hands as I crawled across the floor. I stopped when my shoulder touched Mags leg. I sat back on my heels and looked up at him. His stricken expression halted me.

“Nicky…”

“I want to go home, Maggie.”

His hand reached down and cupped the side of my face, brushing my hair back from my eyes. “Then that’s where we’ll go, Neko.”

I closed my eyes and rested my cheek against his black clad thigh. I could feel his warmth but what set me at ease was the soft intensity glowing on my chest.