November

November 27: Sunday

Yavisk woke up pissed because Havar was not in the bed. He called his name - no answer. Yavisk got up, pulled on a pair of thick sweatpants from the chair next to the bed, and began to search the house. Bathrooms first, he tore each apart, checked Miljan's room, the closets, went up and down the halls. No Havar. Worry tested anger. He went downstairs.
He found him in the kitchen.

~:~

James tried to stay late in bed, but found it very difficult to sleep next to Ortega. His mate's breathing was even and heavy, but even in his sleep, his face was full of unease, little lines of a frown creasing his eyes and mouth. James pushed the heavy quilted blanket aside and slipped his feet into his favorite blue slippers to wander downstairs in. Halfway to the door, he realized he was tiptoeing. He paused - what was the bother? Ortega slept, nowadays, like the dead. James looked at him for a moment, then silently made his way out.

Downstairs, Cris had made breakfast - cold eggs were still sitting in the pan on the stove, slabs of some kind of meat lay next to them, and bread was in a box being kept warm in the oven. James made himself a sandwich and padded down the hall, into the study. He sat down at the wide captain's table and began to peruse the papers he'd gotten. Yesterday, at Cris and Andy's recommendation, James had spent a few hours searching high and low at all the local trading shops for a copy of the most recent southern newspapers. Now, he sat down to read them. He opened first to the classifieds, squinting at words which he knew, but hadn't used in years, and trying to make sense of the description of every house and estate. The sun stretched across the floor. After a while, Mabby, the pretty white house cat, came in and laid down in it. James kept reading. After an hour, his eyes were exhausted, and he seemed to have gotten nothing done. He sat back in the chair, rubbing at them. He set the newspapers aside. Underneath them was a small, white envelope he'd acquired from the Centre. Ortega's grandparents' phone number was inside. He played with the corners of it.

~:~

"Are you sure about this, Joseph?"
Joe nodded firmly.
"Yes."
"There won't be any going back or changing your mind after it's all said and done, you know. It's not like getting a cat."
"I'll have you know I took excellent care of that cat, but I understand what you mean."
the Admiral studied his husband for another moment.
"It's going to change our lives. You know that, right?"
Joey looked up at him, took a deep breath, and slipped his hand into the Admiral's own.
"I know. But I think it's going to be OK."
the Admiral smiled, squeezed his hand and smoothed the hair back from Joey's face.
"I want so much for you to be happy."
Joey leaned forward and kissed him.
"Believe me, I will be."
the Admiral grinned at him.
"I can't believe you got me to do this. It's that damn handsome face of yours." he took a deep breath, then put a serious face on.
"Well. We should talk logistics. When do you want this to happen?"
"As soon as possible."
"Any preferences of any kind?"
"None whatsoever."
"Do you want to follow due process, or do you want to look directly for a family?"
Joey gazed at him happily.
"Eric, honey, I really don't care. Whatever we have to do to get us a baby."

~:~

Sai jerked awake and took a second to figure out exactly where he was. Right. Chapel. The service was still going on. When had he dozed off? What woke him up? To his right, Suleiman was staring at him and frowning disapprovingly. He had a songbook rolled up in his left hand. So probably, that. Sai looked to the other side. Sloane was on his knees, whispering something under his breath - a prayer, most likely. He seemed absorbed in what he was doing; Sai watched him for a minute. He'd never seen Sloane look so devout.

He began looking around idly for something to entertain himself. The prayer was droning on. He counted the overhead lights. 22. Same as always. He began counting the panels on the walls. At panel 45, he noticed someone looking at him; Broussard was there, sitting on the far left side of the second-to-back row. Sai put his head down immediately and tried to look pious.

~:~

The silence between the ringing was killing him. It seemed so long, stretching out unendingly until the next tone. What if nobody answered? He tried to figure out what time it would be there, a few hours behind himself. Maybe they would both be in worship. Maybe they were working. Maybe -
"Hola."
he was seized with insecurity, fear. He stammered, couldn't talk for a minute, couldn't get his words straight, remember which language to use. The woman on the phone repeated herself.
"Hola?"
he pulled it together quickly, shifted the phone receiver to his right hand, let the cord curl over his lap.
"Hola, señora. Mi nombre es James Irvine, y soy el nuevo marido de su nieto, Ortega Nq'taki Saloman de Garindes."

An hour later, Ortega minus Torréon (who had gone for a walk earlier with Andy and was now who-knows-where in the house), made his way downstairs to eat. He walked slowly, barefoot across worn, old carpets in the hallway, sliding his hand along the dark wood wainscoting. Almost at the kitchen he paused. There were voices in the study. Somebody was speaking in Spanish. He wrinkled his nose. Bad Spanish. His stomach rumbled, but the sound intrigued him too much to be ignored. Closer, he recognized the voice as belonging to James. He crept closer to the study. At the doorway, he stood up close to the wall, and just barely stuck his head around. James didn't see him at first; Mabby the housecat was prancing across the desk, busily rubbing her flank on his shirt. When he moved his head back, he bumped the door, which swayed and caught her notice. She hopped down off of the desk to investigate, and James turned to watch her go. Ortega tried to tiptoe away, but the door swayed again, revealing him. James went pale and stuttered his Spanish, then switched back to English.
"I'm sorry, I - I have to go, I'm sorry. We'll call you back later."
He put down the phone. Ortega let Mabby curl around his legs and looked at James.
"Who was that?"
James opened his mouth, but didn't answer. He closed his mouth and frowned instead.
Ortega tightened his mouth.
"Who was it?"
James turned the chair entirely to face Ortega.
"Tega. Please, come, sit with me for a second. I want us to talk."
Ortega began to worry. Adrenaline surged toward his heart.
"Is it my family? Did something happen? Did somebody die??"
James shook his head vigorously.
"No, sweetheart. Nothing like that. Everyone, it seems, is OK but you. Please, Ortega, come here. We have a lot of things to talk about."

~:~

"Stop."
Tiger craned his neck to reveal more of it to Miljan.
"Sto-op."
Miljan grunted and continued kissing a path down the side of Tiger's neck, pulling aside the collar of his shirt to bare more skin. Tiger closed his eyes blissfully for a minute, then opened them again and put a hand to Miljan's chest.
"Stop."
Miljan gave one last nibble, then raised his head and tightened his arms around Tiger's waist, sliding his hands across the smooth skin of Tiger's back, underneath his shirt. They were in the large, leather desk chair in Miljan's study, with Miljan sitting in it proper and Tiger straddling his lap, his knees on either side of Miljan's sizeable thighs.
"Say 'stop' again and I will."
Tiger put one hand to the side of Miljan's jaw and turned it to place a quick kiss on his cheek.
"I'm hungry."
Miljan leered at him and slid his hands downward, into the pajama bottoms, to rest on Tiger's bare ass.
"Me too."
Tiger gave him a stern but annoyed look.
"Stop. We always do this, and it never goes anywhere. I'm sick of being hard all the time."
Miljan's eyebrows nearly lifted off of his forehead, then his expression resettled into a mixture of lust and interest.
"And where do you want it to go, mladunče?"
Tiger's skin pinkened immediately.
"Nowhere. Nothing." he blurted. Embarrassed, he tried to pull away from Miljan's grasp and unstraddle himself from his lap. It didn't work.
"Dammit, kidnapper, let me up." Miljan just held tight around his waist and pulled him back into place.
"No. Talk to your husband about this, Tiger. What do you want to happen between us now?"
Tiger shrugged and looked resolutely at the wall.
"I don't - I don't know. Nothing, I guess." he folded his arms across his chest.
Miljan nodded sympathetically and twirled one of the curls behind Tiger's ear with his finger.
"Nothing like this."
He used the same hand to hold Tiger's head as he swooped in to savour a kiss. They broke and Tiger's pupils resized themselves.
"No, nothing like that."
Miljan nodded and moved his hands up Tiger's back again, flexing his fingers into the muscle as he did so.
"Nothing like this, either."
he leaned forward, using just his teeth to pull aside the open collar of Tiger's shirt. Tiger shivered when Miljan nipped his collarbone.
"N - no. Nothing like that either."
"Mmm."
Miljan looked up at Tiger's eyes. His pupils were wide again, his eyes lidded, breath coming a little quicker in through his nose. Miljan marveled at his good luck for just a second. His mate was absolutely beautiful. Tiger bit the side of his own lip, gently, and Miljan almost came in his pants. He grunted, shifted Tiger in his lap, and moved on.
"And I am sure, nothing like this."
In one fluid, sudden motion, he lifted his knees, forcing Tiger to raise his ass to compensate, and as his little mate did so, Miljan swept the pajama bottoms down to his thighs, leaving him completely exposed.
"Mil!"
Tiger tried to cover himself with his hands, but Miljan smacked them away.
"Stop. I want to see."
Tiger shook his head, the shyness all back in a rush. Miljan sought out his eyes, tried to get him to turn his head back towards him. He ran his hands down Tiger's arms, admiring the sight.
"You are beautiful to me, Tiger."
Tiger shrugged, staring at the wall, clearly embarrassed once again.
"Listen to me, mladunče. When we are married and you are done," he leaned forward again, tightening his arms and closing the space between them, "We will make love, just like this, all over the place, all the time."
Tiger's breath quickened again and his fingers flexed where his hands covered his cock.
"I will have you in this study, in this chair, your neck thrown back and your legs spread open for me."
Tiger glanced at him out of the side of one eye, perhaps to judge the veracity of this promise, then looked away again. Miljan used his hands to lift Tiger's arms, then laid a kiss on either side of his ribs.
"I will have you on the desk." Tiger glanced at it, the big mahogany thing, and his muscles involuntarily flexed.
"I will have you against that wall, that one, right there. I will have you there, little one, shivering and moaning for me."
Tiger glanced at him for a little longer this time. His eyes were going black; his breath was almost panting.
"Does that excite you, Tiger, little cub, mladunče, little handsome one?"
Tiger lifted his head a little, then suddenly looked at him straight-on, challenging. The hand which had mainly been shielding Tiger's cock was moved to make a fist around it instead, and he began to rub in long, easy strokes.
"If that is what you've planned, Miljan, then I think there's something you should know."
Miljan gazed at him, buzzing with a haze of lust, only distantly interested. Tiger took his free hand, intertwined the fingers with Miljan's, and guided it to to his groin, to the underside of his cock and the tight, bulging place beneath it. Just past the lump of still-swollen flesh, Miljan's fingers slipped on something wet. Startled out of his haze of ardor, he snatched his hand away, then jerked Tiger's thighs apart and looked down to see what his fingers had touched. Leaning backwards, his hands supporting him on Miljan's knees, Tiger grinned smugly, his eyes still lidded, breath still half-panting.
"I'm almost done changing."

~:~

"So what's wrong with you?"
Sloane ignored him and picked at his meal. Clint chewed and watched him not eat.
"What, did I do something wrong again?" he asked, with not a little bit of bitterness. "I piss you off today?"
Sloane sighed and shook his head, ultimately deciding that he probably could eat a carrot. He tried it. It tasted like cardboard, but he was so hungry, he ate it anyway. Clint watched him. Sloane tried to eat another carrot, but it tasted for some reason like fish and he spit it back out. Tears welled to his eyes. If he couldn't even eat a carrot, how was he supposed to have a child?
Then all the emotions came crashing down on him like a wave, and he started to utterly bawl.
Clint, to his credit, looked horrified and completely guilty.
"Jesus! Sloane! I'm sorry, I - stop crying! STOP CRYING!"
Clint yelling at him just made Sloane cry more. Clint was bewildered. Around them, tables were beginning to stare. He did the only thing he knew.
"STOP FUCKING CRYING, SLOANE! What is the goddamn matter with you?!"
Sloane tried to suck breaths in unsuccessfully. It was a full-bodied cry he was in, the kind he hadn't had since he was 6 years old. It took his heart and his stomach and his lungs and his whole entire body with it when it heaved, bringing about the kind of sobs that made him feel like he was drowning. He tried to talk, but Clint apparently couldn't understand his words. People around them were starting to whisper. Clint looked around embarrassedly.
"Sloane! What is the matter?? What is the goddamn matter??" Worry was seeping through at the edges of Clint's feigned anger.
Sloane bit his lip to calm himself and finally managed to pull in enough oxygen to cry-yell back at him.
"I'm pregnant, you asshole! I'm fucking pregnant! That is what is the goddamn matter!"
Clint had just enough time to think, 'What?', then 'Holy shit' before Sloane got up, took his sweater, and broke into a dead run out of the room.


Clint caught up to him in the hallway outside of his wing. Sloane was leaning against the wall by a corner, just trying to catch his breath. His sweater was wet on one corner where he had obviously been wiping his face. He looked up and saw Clint, and just melted pitifully against the wall. Clint decelerated a few feet from him and began to approach slowly.
"Sloane?"
Sloane shook his head and just started crying again.
"Leave me alone. Leave me alone leavemealoneleavemealone. Just leave me alone, please just leave me alone."
Sloane was wheezing and his face was turning bright red. His hands were shaking horribly.
Clint shook his head and held out one hand as he approached.
"I can't do that for you right now, Sloane, OK? I can't leave you, baby."
Sloane started to sob again and curled against the wall. Clint got close enough to touch his hair, then his back, and he drew him into his arms. Sloane just whimpered and held on tight.
"Shh. Hey. Shhh. I know, baby. I know."
Clint smoothed down his hair, patting it somewhat into place. Sloane sagged to the floor and Clint went with him, cradling him in his lap.
"You f - fucked me and now I'm preg - pre - pregnant." Sloane sobbed. Clint nodded his head and held him.
"I know, baby." he kissed the top of his hair. "I know."
"And now I'm - I'm st - stuck here because what - what can I do with a baby??"
Clint nodded and Sloane wailed, his emotions feeling raw all over again.
"I can't - I thought - thought I would be able to - to get out. And now I'm stuck a - and I can't get out. I can't ever get out."
Sloane kept crying and Clint pulled him closer. Behind his back, he dug the key to Sloane's room out of his back pocket and held it in his hand, still just rocking Sloane on the floor.
"I know. I'm sorry, baby. I'm so sorry." he shifted the weight of Sloane in his arms. "But come on. Let's go inside, alright? I can make you some sweet milk and you can lay down if we go inside."
Sloane shook his head at first, and fought and resisted when Clint tried to make him stand. But after a few tugs, he acquiesced, allowed Clint to lift him to his feet and half-help, half-carry him the rest of the way down the hall to his room, where he could cry at least with a little privacy. The least Sloane was owed, Clint decided, was a little bit of privacy.


Sloane was agitated for another hour and a half, when he'd fallen asleep, and Clint had tiptoed out to order something to be dropped off for dinner. When he came back, Sloane was awake and red-eyed, staring blankly at some nothing on the wall. Clint sat down carefully beside him and stroked his back. Sloane didn't move, but he did close his eyes. They stayed that way for a few minutes; there was just the two of them, and the distant sound of footsteps in the hall.
"You used to be so nice to me."
Clint looked down at him.
"Our kid isn't even going to be nice to me."
Clint felt his stomach turn a little bit.
"Of course he will. You're his mother."
Sloane didn't answer. Another minute passed. He wiped his face on the pillow. He was still shaking.
"You used to be so nice to me. Why'd you stop?"
Clint hesitated.
"I don't know."
Sloane made a little noise of acceptance.
"Do you love me?"
"Yes."
"I don't love you."
Clint hesitated again.
"I know."
"I don't - I don't know if I can love a baby, either."
"You can - "
"I don't know if I can love something that comes from you."
There wasn't really anything to say after that one, so Clint just was silent and stroked his back, trying in vain to imagine a way that he could make the whole thing right.