The first raindrop that hit him was ignored. Randall was pounding through the woods, breath a harsh pant, senses alight. Then there were two raindrops. Then a dozen. A mist turned into a downpour, and the world cut off into a curtain of gray rain as the skies opened.
Skidding to a halt, Randall gave a start, a jolt running through him, ears twitching. Slowly, he came out of the run-haze to realize he had absolutely no idea where he was. The late morning sun was long gone, hidden behind black clouds and a downpour. It was dark, the trees around him creaking, shaking, shadows darting around him. A crack of lightning made him jump, jerking backward, whining in fear.
Randall didn"t much like the dark these days.
He turned tail and started to run, desperately hoping he"d picked the right direction. The thunder chased him. Randall"s ears were flat against his head, his tail between his legs, as he raced back toward camp. Finally, he could smell it. He could pick out the twinkle of lights from cabins through the dark. Heart racing, he threw himself onto the porch of their cabin, shivering and soaked.
Anthony was still sleeping. Randall hesitated, paws on the windowsill, looking in. The last thing he wanted to do was wake his brother up from a rare decent sleep. Randall glanced around, eyes landing on the cabin next door. Redford"s cabin. Redford, who was out with Jed. That would do nicely.
Randall jumped off the porch and ran across the short distance to the other cabin, shifting back on the porch so he could work the latch. Shivering, soaked, and naked, he ducked inside.
Only to find Victor sitting on the bed, reading a book.
Ah.
For a few long moments, neither of them said anything. Victor just blinked at Randall, and Randall didn"t miss the way Victor"s gaze dipped decisively downward. If anyone else might have flushed or looked away or apologized for the blatant staring, Victor simply lifted his eyebrows in appreciation. Which was somehow so much worse. Flushing a deep red, Randall tried to not lunge for the nearest blanket, instead attempting a calm he certainly did not feel.
Gratefully wrapping the fabric around himself, he stammered an explanation. "I didn"t realize you"d be here. I"m so sorry. I was running, and it began to storm." And he"d gotten scared like some stupid child, lost in the woods. "I"ll go," he managed with the remaining tattered shreds of his dignity. "Again, I apologize."
"You"re quite welcome to stay," Victor offered. He took off his gla.s.ses, cleaning them on his sweater. "I was caught briefly in it too. It"s horrid out there. You"ll catch your death." A brief tone of amus.e.m.e.nt touched Victor"s words. "I am only borrowing the cabin, myself. The, ah, watch cat was very gracious." Randall caught sight of Knievel under the bed, curled up on what looked like a T-shirt, sleeping through the storm.
Ducking his head, Randall stared at his bare feet, at the little darkening spots from the water he was dripping. He felt so exposed, in a way he hadn"t during the full moon. But that was exactly the difference, wasn"t it? During the moons he was confident; he couldn"t help but be. Now it was just him, none of the adrenaline flush buoying him up.
And all at once, Randall realized that Victor was able to see his scars. The horrible knotted mess of them in the lower crook of his neck, the jagged white jumble of them in his elbows and up his arms, and the long, stretched ones on his ribs, where the vampires in Cairo had decided that knives were fun to play with. He"d hidden them away for so long, under long sleeves and collared shirts, that he almost didn"t know what to do with them so vividly on display. The full moon, once again, was not there to make him feel so wolfish that he forgot, to hide them in a softer light.
Jaw tight, Randall tied the blanket off around his waist, finding another on the bed to wrap tightly around his shoulders, until it was just his head poking out from a mound of fluffy pink covers. He sat gingerly on the edge of the bed, willing Victor to not say anything about what he might have noticed.
Apparently luck wasn"t on his side.
"Cairo?" Victor said softly, his tone neither disturbed nor overly curious, but sympathetic nonetheless. "I didn"t see those when I visited you in the hospital."
"I had a lot of bandages," Randall said flatly, not looking up. "And I was under the covers. It"s not a big deal." A terrible parody of a smile touched his lips. "I"m one of the fortunate ones, after all, aren"t I?" Mimicking the words that had been said to him over and over, by his brothers, by the doctors. He was lucky. He wasn"t dead. He should focus on that. So he had. It was just so much easier when no one talked about it, when no one could see what had been left behind.
"In a manner of speaking." Victor was absently rubbing his own scar, a lot neater than Randall"s, placed much higher up on his neck, though his attention was firmly on Randall. "Everybody seems to forget the lasting impact of those kinds of scars."
"Ah." Randall"s eyes followed Victor"s hand, again feeling that little drop of jealousy in his gut for the one who had put them there. For the man who made Victor"s voice go so sad and so fond whenever he spoke of him. "But were you a willing partic.i.p.ant in yours?" One corner of Randall"s mouth edged upward in a vain attempt at a smile. "I imagine that would make quite a difference."
"That is a good question, isn"t it?" Victor mirrored the same smile that Randall attempted. He didn"t get very far with the effort either. "But I speak of aftereffects. Do either of your brothers know how it feels when the scars are touched?"
Startled, Randall"s head jerked up, and he stared intently at Victor. He"d never told anyone. Not his brothers, not the doctors, not anyone. "How did you know about that?" he asked, voice hoa.r.s.e. How could Victor possibly know? And then it hit him. Everything he knew, Victor would know. Every dark, secret part of his life had been gift-wrapped and handed to Victor, topped with a migraine bow. Of course Victor knew. Randall had no more secrets from him.
For a moment, Randall understood completely why the medusa had been run out of ancient towns as heretics and witches. How terrible, to be so utterly exposed.
After a beat, he slowly slid his arm out of the blanket coc.o.o.n he"d constructed. "It"s like they"re here," he muttered, eyes searching Victor"s face. "Like it"s happening all over again, if I touch them. I thought...." Randall breathed out a helpless laugh. "Well, I thought I was crazy."
Victor made a noise that Randall couldn"t quite identify, something between sympathy and agreement. He was sitting on one of the single beds, his back against the wall, and as Randall watched, Victor tipped his head back against the windowsill, eyes focused on the ceiling, deep in thought. "I don"t want to use the word imprinting, but it"s somewhat the case," Victor said. "The science isn"t exact. If you"re bitten for pleasure, the pleasure remains. If you"re bitten for pain, well, the example follows as is logical."
He tipped his head back down to look at Randall. "It must feel like the knives all over again," he continued in a murmur. "I almost want to congratulate you on your apparent extraordinary skills of concealment, if your brothers never noticed."
"Their teeth," Randall corrected softly. "It feels like they"re ripping me apart all over again, like they"re eating me. The ones on my sides don"t hurt. Just...." He gestured toward his neck, his elbows, shaking his head. "Of course they haven"t noticed. There"s no reason for them to notice. It"s just a bunch of scars, and there"s no need for anyone to know."
"Randall." Victor"s voice was a quiet protest. "There is every need for your brothers to know. The healing process is hardly one that can be done in isolation. You don"t want to spend the rest of your life studiously avoiding touch, do you?"
"It"s not a bad plan," Randall shot back, feeling that d.a.m.n heat hitting his cheeks again. "No one needs to touch them. I"ve become quite adept at avoiding it, and if my brothers do by accident, I can control my reactions."
"It"s a terrible plan," Victor corrected, "if you ever want to have a normal relationship. Don"t understate the effect of things like those scars. Before you know it, they could start poisoning more aspects of your life than you want them to."
He was tracing his fingers over his own scars again. Instead of watching his fingers this time, though, Randall studied his face, his expression. He wondered if Victor was speaking every bit as much to his own scars as to Randall"s. They were two sides of the coin, perhaps. The different ways that vampires could leave their marks.
Or, from the way Victor"s long fingers were still lovingly outlining the neat, pale scars, maybe not.
"What relationships?" he snorted, trying to swerve away from the topic. "It"s fine, Victor. They are just scars. I don"t know what kind of poison you"re speaking of, but clearly you haven"t dealt with yours and you"re fine. I need to focus on Anthony right now, on taking care of Edwin. I don"t have time for silly nightmares about things that go b.u.mp in the night."
"Then apparently my powers of deception are just as extraordinary as yours." Victor gave an odd laugh, a near-silent huff of air. "A word of caution, Randall, nightmares only grow stronger as you ignore them."
Randall curled his fingers into a fist to hide their shaking, his head bowed, hair uncharacteristically messy as it dried, falling in his face. His blankets had slipped as they spoke, his shoulders bare and his skin p.r.i.c.kling with a chill left over from the rain. "I was weak in Cairo," he finally said, so quietly he didn"t even know if Victor"s nonwolf ears could hear him over the sound of the rain pounding on the roof. "I"m a wolf. Vampires shouldn"t have been able to get a jump on me." He snorted softly. "You can smell them from a block away. I was distracted and weak and they caught me. They tied me up. They called me good dog as they fed from me. I want to ignore them." The snap of his voice cracked just as loudly as the thunder. There was rage under his calm expression. There was frustration and guilt hiding just beneath the tense line of his body. "I don"t want to be weak again. This is my fault, and I"ll handle it. Alone."
Victor didn"t reply right away. A flash of lightning, followed by a crash of thunder, rattled the cabin. Then Victor was putting his book down and crossing the room to tentatively sit next to Randall. He smelled like rain, his hair still damp with it.
"That," Victor said carefully, his voice more gentle and kind than Randall had ever heard it, "is nothing to be ashamed of. You were never trained to expect such things would happen to you."
"Bad things happen." Randall found himself staring at Victor"s hands, the slim strength of them, at the way the man held himself just a little bit apart from the world. Studying him, like if he looked deep enough he"d find the magic answer that would make Victor see him. "That is the one thing I have learned to expect. No matter what, bad things always happen."
The thunder rumbled again, and Randall shivered. He drew his legs up to his chest, still wrapped in the blanket, resting his chin on his knees. Dropping his eyes away from Victor, he ignored the ache in his throat, the way he wanted nothing more than to lean closer to Victor. He knew Victor didn"t feel the same way he did, that his crush was one-sided. It was rude to want more. It was unfair to think that any of this was anything more than Victor being kind.
But then Victor, the man who consistently kept at least two feet of distance between himself and anybody else, reached out and touched Randall"s arm. His fingertips pressed lightly on the skin just below a ragged scar at the inside of Randall"s elbow.
"Bad things may always happen, but that does not mean you should simply roll over and never move past them," Victor said.
Under Victor"s hand, Randall"s arm jumped, and he found he was shaking, tiny tremors working their way through him. His eyes were locked on Victor"s fingers, waiting for them to move. Waiting for the pain to start. "What are you doing?" Randall whispered, fear threading through his voice.
"I"m showing you that this could cripple you, Randall," Victor said lowly. "I"m not even touching the scars, yet I"d hazard a guess that you can barely think right now."
But in counterpoint to his words, Victor"s hand was far from a threatening presence. Instead, he seemed to be curiously shifting his fingertips in fractional movements, as if he were more interested in feeling Randall"s skin. Drawing in a shaky breath, Randall found that his muscles were tightening under the touch for a very different reason. Not in fear, but in antic.i.p.ation.
"I can"t ever think when you"re around," Randall admitted throatily. "That"s hardly a fair example."
Victor hadn"t flushed when he"d seen Randall naked; he did color slightly then. "Well, I suppose my point just missed the mark," he muttered, but he didn"t sound upset about it.
Randall hadn"t meant to say that out loud. Truly, Victor being this close, touching him, threw off his thinking into fanciful circles and a logic-barren flight. He never should have admitted such a thing to a man who had no interest, who had clearly and quite politely shown exactly that. But Victor didn"t move away, as Randall expected. His hand didn"t leave Randall"s arm. In fact, Victor"s thumb made a soft arc against his skin, sending a shiver down Randall"s spine.
"What would you do?" Randall asked, leaning closer until his breath stirred Victor"s hair, until he could feel the warmth of Victor"s arm pressed against his side. "If you were me?" Not just about the scars. Not just about the nightmares.
Victor looked startled at the question, his mouth opening and closing a few times as if he had no idea what to say. Not exactly typical for a man who, at the drop of a hat, gave lectures about the bi-gendered deities of the Norse pantheon. "I"m not sure I"m the person you should be asking for that sort of advice," Victor admitted. "I don"t know."
At that, Randall gave him a very soft smile. There was a warmth in his gaze as he studied Victor that he struggled so hard to hide most of the time. "Not words you or I are fond of," he acknowledged. But it was fair. Perhaps no one could tell him how to proceed-after all, there was hardly a support group for vampire torture. "You don"t want to move on from yours. And I wish, sometimes, I could cut mine out of my skin. So we"re quite the pair."
"That we are." Victor sounded rueful. The normal indifferent mask he wore had softened slightly. "I doubt even my books would be particularly useful on a subject like this."
That was who they were. They were men of research, of dusty tomes and stacks of notes, of the fervent belief that every answer was able to be found by the one who was willing to do the work to unearth it. Admitting that there was no book, no solution, that they were forging a path that was unknown, was something of a big deal. Randall should be more worried.
Instead, he was absorbed in the sensation of Victor"s fingers absently sliding along his forearm. Chalk it up to being young, but this once, Randall"s heart was shouting far louder than the logic of his head. Which was more than likely why he caught Victor"s hand, why he brought it up to press a kiss to Victor"s palm. "Then perhaps we"ll have to write our own."
Victor stared at him like he"d never seen Randall before, like he was some new kind of fantastic creature that Victor had stumbled across a picture of once but was only just now seeing in the flesh. He looked like he couldn"t quite believe what he was seeing and hearing. "That is quite possibly the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me," Victor said slowly. Victor took Randall"s hand in a tighter grip.
There were moments. Randall knew that because he"d read the old stories, he"d grown up on fairy tales and history books. There were moments when a single action sent ripples out, cascading into a thousand more possibilities. There were moments.
And this was his.
He leaned in, heart crashing in waves, hand rising to cup Victor"s cheek. Before he could talk himself out of the action, before logic could supersede daring, Randall drew Victor in, their lips meeting in a soft exhale.
For a few seconds that felt like an eternity, Victor didn"t move, clearly too surprised to reciprocate. Victor"s response, when it came, was as tentative as the touches to Randall"s arm had been. There was no surge of pa.s.sion, no swelling music or bells on any hills. It was a kiss, nice but perfunctory, as if they were pa.s.sing acquaintances who happened to get their lips in the same general vicinity.
Pulling back, horrified and struggling not to show it, Randall managed, "I apologize." Shame hit him, hard, and he began fighting with the blankets, trying to stand, to get away. "I am so sorry. I shouldn"t have done that."
Listening to one"s heart had always been something his brothers excelled in, not himself. Randall should remember that his brain was the only organ which should be making decisions in the future. It would avoid all of this. Victor did not want him. That was a fact that had been made clear. Misreading some kind attention and soft touches was not going to change that.
"No, it"s...." Victor trailed off, touching his fingers to his lips.
Randall hardly had any sort of precedent for recognizing the look that came to Victor"s face, but right then, he could almost see the visions swimming in Victor"s mind, all the possibilities of the future that Victor had seen making his eyes look distant and his expression torn.
And then Randall realized what was going on. Why Victor had behaved so kindly and why the kiss had gone nowhere, they both had the same answer. Victor had seen inside his head. The memories, yes, but also the present, the possibilities of the future. He knew Randall had feelings for him. He knew what paths his future might take, in very specific detail. And he was picking and choosing from those paths for Randall.
Running hot and cold, yes, but the reason behind it was not as confusing as Randall had been a.s.suming. "You"re orchestrating this. You"ve seen something in my head, and you"re trying to.... I don"t know, steer me away? Steer me toward?" Frowning, Randall stood, torn between anger and hurt. "Hard to tell when you"re the only one that knows the answers. One second you"re being so kind that it"s like you"re really seeing me, and the next it"s as if I don"t exist."
"Randall-" Victor tried to protest, but Randall didn"t stop. He wasn"t going to be the polite little wolf, not now.
"If you actually felt that way, that would be one thing, but that"s not it, is it? You"re picking things from my brain and deciding which ones you want to become real."
This time Victor waited a few seconds to make sure Randall had finished saying his piece. He drew in a deep breath and took off his gla.s.ses, fussing with them and cleaning them on his sweater. "It"s not just your future I saw," he said, his voice tight. "The future of any one person is not an island. We affect so many other people"s lives with our decisions-"
"That"s bulls.h.i.t," Randall spat. "G.o.d, Victor.... If you"re not interested, that"s fine. I"m a grown man, not a kid with a crush. You can be honest. But every time I think we"re going somewhere, every time I think I see something in how you look at me, you put up a wall six miles high and I"m left feeling like a dumb pup. So at least give me the respect of reacting to me and not some possible maybe you found in my head-"
"I saw us getting married!" Victor blurted.
Oh.
Blinking, Randall let the words hang there for a long pause, filling the s.p.a.ce between them. They just kept growing, those words, and Randall honestly wasn"t sure what to do with them. Married. They were going to get married? That was....
"With children," Victor added. "Or... wolf cubs. Though I suppose it"s the same thing."
"How would we get cubs?" Randall asked faintly, feeling as though he ought to sit down. He did so immediately, waving off the question just as fast. "Never mind. I... oh, dear."
"Quite." Victor"s voice was muted. He looked like he wanted to respond to the question Randall had asked, but he obviously held his tongue. "I never tell people this, Randall, but then again I have never seen myself in their futures. But yours...."
He shook his head, lifting himself off the bed to go stand at the window. The rain was finally starting to calm, and from the sound of the thunder, it was distant now, moving farther away. "About half of the possibilities had us getting married," Victor continued. He sounded as distant as the thunder, clearly trying to remove himself from emotional attachment to what he"d seen. "And I never saw myself as the marrying type." He laughed weakly, scrubbing his hands over his face. "But we were so happy."
"You sound like you"re describing some horrible thing," Randall said very softly. He studied his hands, laced together in his lap, holding on tightly, as if that simple act would keep him from melting into some puddle of useless emotion. "Like you saw a train wreck you"re desperately attempting to avoid." Marriage, children, love-none of that sounded so terrible to him.
But perhaps that was the problem. Victor saw him, had seen him, and the mere idea that he might actually wind up with Victor was apparently very distressing. "It seems as though you"ve dodged a bullet," Randall pointed out with a strangled little laugh. He rubbed his hands across his face, feeling a bit as if he was waking from a long dream. "By seeing the possible future, you"ve now the means to ensure you"re never trapped in something so horrific."
"That"s not what I meant," Victor said lowly. "Imagine you saw a future in which you never went to college. You wound up working a small office job where all you do is type budget reports every day. But you"re happy. You see yourself happy and content with every aspect of your life." Victor looked back at Randall with a very small smile. "I imagine budget reports would be the last thing you want to do in your life."
"Any time you want to stop comparing marrying me to an eternity stuck in a cubicle doing budget reports, that"d be great," Randall said dryly, giving Victor a sideways glance.
"I"m getting to the point," Victor said, scowling.
"I see. This is the scenic route. I apologize. I didn"t realize." Despite himself, despite every other emotion pinging around in his head, Randall felt one corner of his mouth twitching up in a very faint smile. "Please, do go on. I"m very much looking forward to the moment when you use an endless trip to the dentist as an a.n.a.logy for our possible s.e.x life."
"Oh no, I saw that as being very fulfilling," Victor said. He then seemed to realize what he"d said and quickly looked out the window again.
Now Randall really was smiling. "That"s because you were with a wolf," he intoned seriously. "But unless you"d rather switch to that topic completely, please continue."
"Of course," Victor said, his tone as dry as Randall"s. "As I was saying. You have seen a future which you at the present moment never wanted for yourself, but you see yourself being deliriously happy with that future. It has little to do with specifics or people-you did not want your life to be an office job."
He finally slipped his gla.s.ses back on, turning to properly face Randall as he leaned against the window. Victor then seemed to think of better of it, frowning as he pulled away from his lean, smoothing down the wrinkles in his shirt. "But you have not seen why you are happy with it," he continued. "You have absolutely no clue how you got to that point, and all you see is this thing, this life situation, that is the complete opposite of what you presently want. It"s... confusing, to say the least."
Bowing his head, Randall let out a slow breath. Yes, he supposed it would be. None of that made Randall any more settled in the situation. Victor had jumped to the end in every possible way. Instead of getting to know each other, seeing if there was any chance of something more, Randall was left at the starting gate while Victor read ahead and already knew how it all ended. Whatever beginning Victor had seen them having, it was gone now. All that was left was this-and most of this, Victor decidedly didn"t want.
"So that"s it, then?" he asked, looking over at Victor. "I"m never going to know if you are attracted to me or if you hate me, because you looked in my head and saw one thing that might happen?" He shook his head, running a hand through his hair. He probably looked completely unpresentable, chest bare, hair standing out at all ends, damp and curling from the rain. "I get that it"s tough for you, Victor. I don"t want to diminish that. But you"ve changed it all now." Randall"s lips edged upward in a grim smile. "Observation, by its very nature, changes the path of the observed object. That future was yours too, and by looking in on it, you"re already behaving differently toward me than you ever would have before. And I don"t know, maybe it still could come true. Maybe not. Maybe it never would have." Philosophical theories of fate and destiny were always so much easier to debate in the abstract. The reality of it, something like this impacting his daily life, was not something Randall was equipped at the moment to deal with.
Maybe he should just be blunt. It had always worked for his brothers. "Look," he started, leaning forward, arms on his knees, searching Victor"s face with an almost painful earnestness. "I"m just.... I"m just a guy who has a crush on an amazing, brilliant, handsome man. I"m not good at that anyway, Victor. I never would be smooth or polished or sure of myself. Add in the fact that I can"t tell if you want me around or you wish I"d disappear completely, and maybe it"s best if I just keep my distance. It certainly seems like it"d make you happier."
"Of all the things I saw, of all the things I can"t picture myself being happy in, Randall, you were the one thing that actually made sense," Victor said. He was looking at Randall with the softest expression Randall had ever seen on the man.
"So why can"t you just see what"s right in front of you?" Randall asked, very quietly. "I don"t want to get married right now either, Victor. And if you show up with a wolf cub, I"m going to check you for a brain injury. I just...."
There weren"t words for what he felt around Victor. It was like running in a full moon, it was like howling, lungs full, the sound echoing through the night air. It was deep in the bones of him, and he"d no more asked for it than he"d asked for his tail. It just was, and he didn"t know how to explain that to Victor. It was the most illogical he"d ever been, over a man who seemed to have no use for such emotions. "I don"t want your envisioned futures," he wound up saying, voice hoa.r.s.e and desperate for Victor to understand, "I just want you."
The wolfish side of Randall, the side that longed for the woods around him, the ground under his paws, the sun on his back, it hated the words. They hung there in the air, and they didn"t encapsulate everything they should. And while Randall the wolf was a very quiet one, he was no less of a wolf for that reserve. In two steps he was across the room. In one more he was pressing Victor back, his fingers finding their way into that strawberry-blond hair that had taunted him since the first time he"d caught sight of Victor. Randall hauled him in, meeting him in a kiss that wasn"t soft or hesitant or unsure.
He kissed Victor fully, wolfishly, to try and show him what words didn"t seem to capture. And Victor responded. Still tentative, but there was palpable emotion underneath his movements, in the way he put his hands on Randall"s arms, in the way he tilted his head so they fit just right.
It wasn"t perfect. Randall didn"t believe in perfect kisses, in sweeping, grand, love at first sight romances. He believed in this, though. In good matches, in love that built, in the way Victor"s lips parted, in how their bodies pressed together. In how a shiver worked its way under his skin, heat flashing through him. Want and need and a sense of rightness he"d never experienced. When he pulled back, gently teasing a strand of Victor"s hair from his forehead, he was smiling. Victor looked dazed.
"Just because you can see the future, medusa, doesn"t mean you have to live there all alone," Randall murmured.
The rain had turned to a soft whisper against the window. Randall saw the confusion still in Victor"s expression, the hesitance. But their lips met once more, so gently it ached through him, before Randall pulled away, wanting to cup his hands around that moment and keep it just so.
He let the blanket fall for the few moments it took him to shift back into his wolf form. As soon as Randall was on all four paws, Victor knelt down, one of his hands resting lightly on Randall"s back. "Thank you," Victor said, so quietly even Randall barely heard it. "Just...." Victor shook his head. "Thank you."
Nudging his head under Victor"s chin, Randall sat there for a few long seconds. They were warm, Victor smelled of tea and old books and, very faintly, like him. It was good.
But Anthony would be waking up soon, Edwin would be looking to warm up, and they both would be hungry. The real world was waiting outside. Randall had taken enough time away from it for now. So he nuzzled Victor"s chest, tail wagging faintly, before he left the man there in the cabin alone.
Perhaps he didn"t believe in perfect moments. That didn"t mean he couldn"t stumble across one now and again.