They Can Smell Your Intentions

THEY CAN SMELL YOUR INTENTIONS
chapter five

As was common, the next few days of the Verger investigation slowed down in activity while they waited on information from United Main sources and their forensic accounting departments. This was the part Nigel hated, the long waiting game saturated in expectation, leaving him constantly tensed and on high alert for any news. This was the tide of an investigation, Nigel knew, for patience could be rewarded in one of two ways, either they would suddenly have enough evidence to go after Verger's accountant, or the information they'd already gleaned wouldn't hold up under international scrutiny and they'd have to cut their best lead loose . Nigel really hoped the decision hung on the former and not the latter because losing that many man hours to a creep like Verger and not getting anywhere would mean a hell of a reaming from their Subcomisar. If that happened, the investigation was dead in the water and fuck if that wouldn't suck, they'd have to cut their man hours in half thanks to Verger's slippery wriggling out of their scrutiny and hope that the next wave of Omega victims would provide more solid leads. And there were always more victims. That was one rotten inevitability he hated counting on.

The last three days since Adam had moved into his apartment weren't all terrible, however, and Nigel found he was tardy getting into work, enjoying the weird but oddly comforting rituals that were Adam's morning routine. First, there were Adam's arms around his waist as he woke up in bed, his head tucked sweetly against the curve of Nigel's neck, his moist, warm breath tempting the pulse that it found there. Adam had insisted he couldn't sleep without Nigel's presence in the bed with him, and while nothing overtly sexual had happened, Nigel discovered he couldn't resist the temptation of keeping the little spaceman close. Even drifting into sleep had become a comforting ritual, with his head on Adam's stomach as the smaller man balanced his laptop on his knees and explained the complexities of the planets that orbited beyond their selfish, blue sphere. Last night the lesson had been on the Galilean satellites of Jupiter, the four moons that had been discovered in 1609 by Galileo."

"Didn't he get arrested?"

" Yes, he was the scientist nearly executed for daring to say the Earth revolved around the sun."

Nigel closed his eyes, drifting into sleep as Adam stroked his hair, fingers absently combing through and nails gently scraping along his scalp. "So you see, it's not just you, is it, darling? People have been getting in trouble for telling the truth for ages."

The moons had strange, beautiful names, and Nigel's dreams had rolled along vibrant, fiery rings within them; Ganymede. Europa. Callisto. Io. In the darkness of space, Gabi and Charlie watched from afar as Adam pulled him ever closer, his big, eager eyes wide with joy and the colour of moons. Adam had Nigel waking up thinking of Heaven, which made perfect sense because one should never wake up not thinking of stars and moons and planets when in the arms of a fucking gorgeous angel who loved nothing more than to be held. If Nigel's lips brushed Adam's neck once or twice as he was awakening, what the fuck did it matter? His shuddering sighs were delightful to witness, accompanied as they were by that little curl of a smile that teased the corners of Adam's very sweet mouth. That was the hardest part of the morning, other than the one in Nigel's boxer shorts, of course. Resisting a taste of those precious, soft lips was a testament to Nigel's stubborn resolve.

And Adam, ah, his sweet cosmonaut angel, his eyes would flutter open like the wings of a lazy butterfly and once those big blues were on him Nigel could feel himself slip and fall and get hopelessly lost in the vastness of that infinite, complex, beautiful world Adam lived in and fuck if he wasn't up in there too, leaving the black, filthy shit of his life behind. "Good morning, my little spaceman."

"Good morning, Nigel. I'm going to brush my teeth and then make breakfast," Adam said, and Nigel closed his eyes and nodded happily into his pillow. Adam had said the exact same thing every morning, and as he lay there pulling himself onto Adam's side of the bed and stealing the emptied warmth, as had become Nigel's custom, he went through a mental checklist of the precise routine Adam had put into place. Water running and the sound of a toothbrush scraping across white teeth, check. More water as Adam washed his face and hands, check. The sound of a toilet flushing, check. More hand washing, check. Squeaky sound of sink being quickly cleaned, and countertop wiped down, check. Hands washed, under less water this time to keep from wetting the sink again, check. A quick pace out of the bathroom, his outline barely visible as he made his way to the kitchen, check. A saucepan for eggs and a sauce pot for coffee placed on the stove burners, check. The sound of the refrigerator opening, check. There is a pause, and this is different, and Nigel frowns slightly into his pillow, wondering what had stopped Adam from his precise movements, so predictable they were like gears in a clock.

"What's wrong, Adam?" Nigel shouted from the bedroom.

"We're out of ketchup packets," Adam replied.

Nigel sighed and let his head rest easy back on the pillow. "No, my darling, there are some in the drawer, under the one with the cutlery."

Just like that, the clockwork mechanism of Adam's day began again, the drawer quickly opened and shut and then the water running to fill the sauce pot, check. The sizzle of margarine in the sauce pan, check. The sound of a whisk in a metal bow, check. Adam never talked or hummed or played music while he did these tasks, they were automatic and strictly regimented, grounding tools to help him in this new environment, or so he'd explained to Nigel. It suspiciously felt like he was being grateful, this enforced domesticity Adam's version of a prayer of thanks. He could hear Adam take down two very specific plates for the eggs, the ones with the cherry blossom print, check, and two forks were taken out of the top kitchen drawer, check. The fussiness was easy to deal with, and if Nigel really wanted to examine it he'd have to admit that Adam was doing a good job of taking care of him. The past three days had been a bliss of adequate sleep, this breakfast ritual giving him a sense of clarity he hadn't felt in a very long time. He eyed the bottom drawer of his dresser and pressed his lips together in a slight measure of guilt. He hadn't quit smoking of course, though he used the silly little e-cig when he was in the apartment around Adam, the metal cylinder a weird weight against his lips, though he was getting used to it. He smoked his usual cigarettes on the balcony, so the smoke didn't bother Adam. He didn't smoke a pack a day anymore, which was at least some progress. He'd hid the several packs he bought yesterday under the trousers folded up in his bottom dresser drawer. He hoped Adam wouldn't find them.

He waited, breathing in the scent of Adam from his pillow, his consciousness drifting into that intergalactic realm that Adam had so firmly entrenched his dreams in. He nearly fell back asleep when Adam's cheerful voice shouted from the kitchen, announcing with a pride that was always fresh and welcome, "Breakfast is ready!"

Nigel got out of bed, groaning, his joints cracking in places and muscles reluctantly stretched. As he sleepily made his way from the bedroom and down the hall into the kitchen, he had to remark to himself the intense contrast of these several days with Adam against the two years he'd been married to Gabi. There had never been these kinds of mornings, he realized. Most of their good times together involved drinking and sex, which in the beginning was great, usually enjoyed the night before, and the morning was for hangovers and angry recovery. When they fought, which was every damned day by the end of the marriage, it was always when waking, the tone of the day set into cruel barbs delivered by both sides, a seething anger woken up with coffee and fuelled hard with one cigarette after another. He'd been waking up into a fucking battlefield for far too long, Nigel realized. An inner landscape full of burnt out lungs and scorched, black lakes.

He sat at the kitchen nook and Adam presented him with the small plate of scrambled eggs, a fork, a cup of steaming black coffee and a napkin. Check. Adam had the same, except he'd traded the coffee for a glass of milk. His laptop was closed, but waiting, on the clean and otherwise cleared kitchen countertop. He wouldn't open it until after Nigel had left for the precinct because breakfast was a time for conversation and easement into the day, his dad's friend Harlan had taught him this, check.

"I have had several job offers within Romania," Adam said over his glass of milk. He licked off the white moustache it left behind, but a tiny drop remained at the edge of his lips. Nigel reached out and gently wiped it away with his thumb, his heart doing happy flops inside his chest at how that curve uplifted at the corner of Adam's mouth, a brief hint of a smile. Nigel let his fingertips linger at Adam's chin before bringing his hand back to his mug of coffee and sighing into the way the heat was perfect against his palm. Adam took another swig of milk and daintily wiped the residue away with his paper napkin. "I may have a contract position lined up with a Russian toy manufacturing company, they need a programmer to help develop a new product. It will pay me a considerable advance which will solve my financial problems and I can move into an apartment of my own by next week."

Nigel felt a hit to his gut like he'd been sucker punched. He let his fork fall angrily to his plate and glared at Adam. "Why in the fuck would you move out? You don't have to do that, you're fully settled here, you got your spacesuit in the living room and everything." He bit his bottom lip thinking of the weird suit and its heavy construction sitting like a third person in the corner of his living room, a rather creepy, alien insertion looming at them. It felt like a fucking chaperone inspecting his every move on Adam and making him feel like he was being watched, especially when he'd drape his arm over the slighter man's shoulders while they watched DVDs, but he wasn't about to let Adam know this. "What kind of fucking bullshit stupid talk is this? Moving out. Bull fucking shit. Aren't you happy here with me? It's a nice apartment, you said so yourself." A simmering panic was rising within Nigel at the thought of no longer having these pleasant mornings and the soft, warm weight of Adam in his bed, and if he had to hide his smokes and wait to get into the shower a little longer than he was used to, so fucking what? What kind of fucking inconvenience was Nigel causing to this little brat of an angel of his, who was now sitting there in front of him, all blank faced and sipping fucking milk and talking about abandoning him back to the rubble that was his pathetic fuck of a life. Fuck that shit!

"You're upset," Adam observed, and he poked at his scrambled eggs with a half hearted effort, his mouth opening and closing as he tried to inwardly formulate the best answer and constantly coming up empty. "I thought maybe you wanted your apartment back to yourself as soon as possible, this was supposed to be a temporary place for me."

Nigel glared into his fluffy scrambled fucking eggs and began stabbing them angrily with his fork, the metal hitting the ceramic plate in loud pings. "Whatever, Adam. Just do what you fucking think you need, nothing to do with me."

Adam frowned. "Is it what you want me to do?"

"What the fuck does it matter what I want?"

"Nigel." Adam picked at his scrambled eggs, staring into them and refusing to lift his gaze. He didn't eat, just pushed the yellow bits around the plate, smearing them in the small amount of ketchup he'd put in a pile along the edge. "You are very upset with me."

"Like I said, it doesn't fucking matter."

"You are saying that, but I suspect you mean something else. I don't know why you are upset, I thought my getting my own apartment was expected of me."

The coffee tasted bitter and the buttery eggs held no appeal. Fucking honesty, right, that's what works with this guy? No subtle hints, no passive aggressive bullshit. He glanced over his mug at Adam's tense inspection, his shoulders hunched as he waited for Nigel to respond. Nigel closed his eyes and sighed, and fuck, why did the truth always feel so damned difficult to express? "I like having you here, Adam. I barely use this place anyway, this week is the most I've ever lived in it. You don't need to leave, I like your company." He turned away from Adam, suddenly infected with the smaller man's inability to face him eye to eye. "Maybe it's my companionship you don't like. I don't blame you, I can be a fucking asshole."

Adam's head shot up. "Oh, no, Nigel, that's not true at all!" His head shook at the perceived misunderstanding. "Please don't be angry with me, Nigel. I would very much prefer to stay here, I feel safe and your company is very comforting to me. I was just worried that my presence here in your life has been disruptive, and I know that my routines can be very daunting. As you have made clear since our meeting, you have a significant amount of stress in your life and I didn't want to add to your burdens."

"You are a lot of things, Adam, but a burden isn't one of them." His initial anger gradually morphed into a feeling of such intense fondness it took a great amount of self control not to wrap his little spaceman up in his arms and kiss away that delightful wrinkle of skin between his eyes. Seriously, how was it humanly possible a frown could be that fucking cute? "For someone as smart as you it's pretty damned annoying you can't see how much I enjoy having you around. Breakfasts, a nice warm bed at night, pretty lectures about your home in Heaven, what's not to like?"

"I talk about space," Adam corrected him, annoyed, and Nigel couldn't help but grin at him. "Okay," he said, finally. "I'll stay here."

The mood between them was much lighter now, and Nigel was happy that Adam had changed his mind, it was nice having him here and he'd be damned if he was going to let that kind of positivity just wander out his front door and out of his life like a fading star that had died millions of years ago and he'd only just noticed its light was missing.

"Nigel," Adam said, and his voice was small, expectant. He glanced up at Nigel, meeting his eyes ever so briefly and sending that tiny thrill of a spark between them that made Nigel's body shiver in sensual high alert. "Are we in a relationship?"

Nigel pursed his lips over his coffee, blowing on it before taking a sip of the hot, black liquid. He glanced over the rim at Adam, who was very heavily concentrating on his now empty plate. "Maybe. I don't know. I like how things are, don't you?"

"Yes," Adam said, and he blushed and smiled and Nigel's heart did flip flops and fuck if it all wasn't just perfect. "I guess this is what they mean by 'taking things slow'. Harlan talked to me about that. Is that what's happening right now, between us?"

Nigel's happiness faltered just a tiny bit at this, and he had to inspect what Adam was suggesting carefully, and with a slow realization hitting him he knew that yes, Adam's perception of what was going on was exactly on the mark, and wasn't that some kind of miracle all on its own. "Well, fuck me, my little spaceman, you might be right."

"I'm an Omega and you are an Alpha," Adam said, shrugging. He picked up both their empty plates and brought them to the sink, his back turned to Nigel. "It is perfectly natural for us to feel this way, though the nature of compatibility is yet to be established. I like you very much, Nigel. Should our relationship progress beyond certain boundaries, I will not be resistant to it."

Nigel swallowed his coffee, hoping Adam didn't notice the red blush he could feel rolling along the back of his neck, or the sudden sensation of arousal working its way through his groin. "I'll keep that in mind," Nigel said, and Adam seemed happily satisfied with this answer.

Adam gave him a wide smile as he rinsed the dirty dishes off in the sink and set them on a dishtowel he'd placed on the countertop next to it to air dry. His steps were light as he passed Nigel and placed a feathery touch on the inspector's shoulder. "I'm going to take a shower."

Adam's fleeting ghost of a kiss meeting Nigel's lips before he headed back down the hall. Check.

~*~
Nigel was feeling damned good when he got out of the shower, so much so that he didn't even try to hide his near nakedness from Adam as he damply padded back into the bedroom, a bath sheet wrapped around his waist. Adam didn't look up from his computer screen as he sat cross legged on the surface of the neatly rearranged bed covers, the laptop balanced on his knees. He was watching some crappy romantic comedy from the European Union made in the early nineties, the cheap costumes and poor production values not bothering Adam in the least as he repeated each line, careful to borrow the emotional nuances. He had told Nigel that he used this movie as a method to help him with social interaction because he had been accused in the past of sounding like a robot. He added that this was why he liked watching The Walking Dead, because the highly emotional scenes were an excellent study of expressions during times of crisis. Watching Chief Superintendent Rick Grimes's tortured woe as he hacked away at the dead through the decaying streets of London in a vain attempt to find his family was also a safe way to explore those emotions. Nigel told him he probably wasn't the only one who watched it for that reason.

Nigel rummaged through his top drawer, dragging out underwear and socks and tossing them on top of the dresser as he leaned down and picked out a pair of trousers from his bottom drawer, surreptitiously tucking a pack of smokes into the back pocket as he did so. "Another day indoors, my little spaceman? Your eyes are going to burn out looking at that screen all day."

Adam frowned at this. "That's not going to happen." He glanced over at Nigel just as he discarded the bath sheet and hung it over the edge of the bed and began getting dressed, quickly averting his eyes, his neck blushing furiously. His sudden shyness made Nigel chuckle. He'd been so open in his talk about sex and yet the sight of someone naked in front of him freaked him out. "You should go outside, get some fresh air. Take a walk around the neighbourhood, just don't go into the parking lot that's where the gangs hang out, there and out the back where the children's park is. Don't go there. But go for a walk down to the store, maybe pick up ketchup and some more eggs, it will do you good to get out,darling, human beings aren't made to be sitting in front of fucking screens all damned day, no matter how productive you are when you do it." Nigel's cell phone rang and he opened his bedroom closet door as he answered it, and blindly grabbed the first shirt his hand fell on. "Yeah, Darko, I'm on my way, it's not like I'm going to get that overtime they fucking owe me so quit bitching that I'm late."

Darko growled on the other end, and cursed loudly. "We got a goddamned development, Nigel and it's an ugly one. Our boys you had parked at the loading dock just sent word that the owner of the warehouse we've been staking out has put out a notice of non-payment. There hasn't been any movement of the goods to or from the warehouse from what we can see and the warehouse has been chained closed since before last week. We've told the owner not to open it until our crew is there to make sure nothing rotten springs out, and we're waiting on the snipers just in case there's Verger Corporation muscle hanging around. The owner says Verger's accountant is supposed to stop by at noon to check on why the payment hasn't gone through and to maybe cut a cheque. I say we put a team in place and strike while that transaction goes down. The warehouse owner originally contacted the drug trafficking brigade and they were the ones who jumped departments to let us know. This whole thing isn't sitting good in my gut, Nigel. There's something really wrong here."

Fuck no, it wasn't right, and Nigel felt something sick worm its way though his stomach, his nerves tingling with an edgy sensation he couldn't shake. It didn't make sense for the warehouse not to be paid, and Nigel had to wonder if maybe they were staking out the wrong building, another waste of man hours he was going to have to explain. But that still didn't make sense, it was clearly being utilized by the Verger Corporation, and though it seemed to be sitting empty it was definitely poised to be housing something sketchy. It wasn't like Mason to not pay a bill and draw attention to himself like this. The fucking creep kept his accounts in order, it was the easiest way to hide.

Nigel slid on his pants, buttoning and zipping up with one hand as he talked to Darko, his long arms diving into an ugly bowling shirt with pineapples dotting its black surface. "I like the idea of surprising the accountant, but we can't afford to have him assassinated by Verger's men if we're sloppy during the take down. Let him think he ironed out the problem with the warehouse owner and then we'll take him while he makes his leave. The team knows the layout of the place, we've gone over this all week, so there's no fucking big surprise, we get in when the warehouse owner nods and we take him down after we've scouted out the high points where Verger's sharpshooters might be hiding. No fucking casualties, got it?"

Darko let out a low whistle at this, clearly upset with the whole thing. "That is a lot of fucking crazy set up for an empty warehouse, Nigel."

"It's what we have to do, I can fucking feel it right into my goddamned DNA. If it's for nothing, Subcomisar Goreck can ream my ass for it, so don't lose any beauty sleep. I'll be there in less than an hour." He hung up his cell and tossed it onto the surface of the bed, near Adam's stockinged feet, the blue argyle a sharp contrast against the beige coverlet. Nigel buttoned up his shirt and after snatching up his phone and pocketing it, he sat at the edge of the bed, close to Adam's waist and leaned over his laptop with a raised brow.

"Black holes," Adam said, not looking up. "They are created by supernova explosions where the force of gravity is too strong thanks to an excess of matter, preventing the ability of a neutron star to form. The star then collapses in on itself and a black hole is formed, which has a massive gravitational pull, sucking all surrounding mass within it. Not even light can escape it."

"Pretty fucking scary," Nigel observed, and Adam silently nodded his agreement. He leaned on one elbow closer to Adam, the mattress depressed slightly beneath his weight. "I'm going to go to work. Don't go wandering too far around Bucharest, I would hate for you to get lost, and Verger's men are still out there. I doubt they know you are with me, you are probably safe, for the most part, in this shitty neighbourhood. If someone asks, you tell them Nigel Ionescu is your boyfriend, okay?"

"Okay," Adam said, and gently smiled at this. "I won't have any problem saying that because you *are* my boyfriend."

Nigel wasn't sure how to respond to this, especially since they had been fucking sleeping together all damned week, even if he didn't get his rocks off. He stared at Adam's expression of deep concentration, his wonderful head so full of intergalactic danger the ones on Earth barely mattered. Nigel traced a long finger down the length of Adam's cheek and Adam's attention was momentarily distracted.

"Can I kiss you, Adam?"

Adam frowned a little at this, so pretty the way his brow pinched. "Why?"

"Because I'm going to have a very bad day and I think I could use something nice to remember while I'm up to my neck in shit."

Adam shrugged at this, disbelieving him. "How do you know it's a bad day? It's barely started. But I don't mind kissing you. In fact, I would like that." He lifted his head up from his laptop his gaze startling everywhere in a halo around Nigel's face, meeting his eyes only fleetingly before he blushed and quickly focused on Nigel's shoulder instead. Oh, how sweet was that mouth, parting ever so slightly as Nigel leaned in, Adam's body tense and expectant and making Nigel feel, ridiculous as it was, like some fucking prince in a shit piss dorky Disney movie breaking an evil spell. Capturing Adam's lips with his own felt so damned fucking gorgeous, his heart leaping into the heat of it, and at that moment he knew what a fucking black hole was, because Adam's delightful, *heavenly* fucking mouth was sucking him deep into its core, destroying every last shred of Nigel's ability to tell his little spaceman 'no', all his pain and his worry and the rot of his life just plain *gone*. Dammit, was that Adam's sweet tongue sliding against his, tasting his teeth, that soft angel's mouth opening wider to take more of him in? Fuck, oh fuck, this was too delicious, this was a fucking disaster, shitfuckdammitfuck, he was going to cum if they kept kissing like this, and it was so good. *So* good.

He broke free through some wilful miracle and forced himself away, breathless and feeling slightly feverish. Dammit, he'd never reacted like that before, they were just *kissing* for fuck's sake. He pulled himself into a semblance of edgy decorum and managed to gently wave good-bye.

"Have a good day at work," Adam replied, his voice monotone, automatic.

Well, fuck, with all those fucking exploding stars rolling around in his body and his head and heart what choice did have now?

~*~
"How many does that make?"

"Seven casualties in all. The remaining thirteen here in hospital have mostly been stabilized, but there's two who are still in critical condition in the ICU and the doctors have said they might not last the night, they're too dehydrated and malnourished, their organs are shutting down. Fuck, Nigel, this is fucking crazy shit, just what the fuck!"

Darko howled in frustration and punched the wall of the hospital corridor, hard enough to leave a dent in the plaster. His hand was bloody when he pulled it back. At least they were in the right place to get him bandaged up. Nigel, for his part, could still feel the blood coursing down his face and into his mouth, his fractured nose running like a tap, the blood in his mouth seeping out and trickling down his neck. He didn't dare look at his face in a mirror, he was sure the sons of bitches who were Verger's henchmen had done their job turning him into fucking hamburger.

They thought they were taking down the accountant and bringing him into custody, not operating a goddamned rescue mission. They'd shown up with plenty of muscle, and a good hit on the two sharpshooters waiting on the roof of the warehouse. Taking them out had been easy and when Nigel gave the shout to go after the accountant, the guy barely had anywhere to run. He was breathless and talking about needing his United Main lawyer and that he wasn't saying anything, he didn't know a thing, and the fucker clammed up in the back of a chester's cruiser and started reciting international trade law. Nigel gave him a kick in the stomach for good measure and then, the pivotal point came. He turned to the warehouse owner and demanded he cut open the locks and open the fucking doors, fuck you very much.

Of course, the warehouse was empty, Nigel expected as much, but there was a scent lingering in the air that was getting more potent the more he went into one specific corner and it wasn't entirely Omega in origin.

"The fuck is that stink?" Darko had said, wrinkling his nose and keeping his hand on his glock, a motion that had Nigel also reaching for his piece. Being Alphas they had more sensitive noses than their Beta counterparts, and Nigel let his do the sleuthing, the reek of Omega and that ever unpleasant fear mixed with sex mixed with death. His heart sank at that and he quickly spoke into his earpiece to the rest of his team waiting outside of the warehouse. "Get an ambulance out here, and the coroner, cover all our bases. I'm smelling some serious shit around here."

The warehouse was silent, and both Nigel and Darko began inspecting the walls, which were made of corrugated aluminium and weren't exactly ideal when it came to hiding contraband goods, or the shadows of moving Omegas behind them. There had to be a secret spot hidden away in here, and it was when Nigel was kicking at the dirt, following the strengthening scent of death, that he found the outline to the trap door. Darko near exclaimed over it, and Nigel pressed a finger tight against his lips, ordering him to keep his fucking mouth shut. With his glock poised and ready, he reached towards the seam of the trap door that had been buried under a scant inch of dirt.

Two massive brutes suddenly erupted out of it, the corner of the door smacking against Nigel's nose and sending him reeling, his glock knocked out of his hand. He was tackled to the ground while the second bastard lunged for Darko, who pistol whipped him, getting in a few good hard punches before sending a fatal bullet through the middle of his skull and dropping him right quick. The guy's partner in crime tried to make a break for it, and Nigel pursued him, tackling him at the back end of the warehouse and earning a few good kicks and punches into his side and abdomen. He was a hell of a big guy, twice the size of Nigel and Darko combined and made of nothing but muscles and bone. What blows Nigel managed to inflict were shaken off and significantly more powerful ones were slammed against Nigel's back.

Nigel collapsed and the son of a bitch was getting ready to give him a fatal body slam to his skull, his boot about to crush him, when a bullet whizzed through the air and hit him flat in the centre of his forehead, a twin injury to his crony who was still dead at Darko's feet. Darko's aim was unwavering, and he kicked Nigel's glock towards him, keeping his own weapon out and ready. "You fucking dropped your gun, you asshole? Are you fucking kidding me?"

Nigel coughed up a pint of blood as he stood up, forcing himself not to sway as a wave of dizziness hit him. The stench of death was overpowering now, and Nigel wasn't sure what was worse, the fact he was swallowing a good portion of his own blood or that he was undoubtedly approaching the same condition as the corpse lurking under the ground. Every portion of his body ached, and he knew he'd suffered some broken ribs, that guy's hands had been the size of boxing gloves.

"Aceasta este politia! Aven dreptul de a trage pentru a ucide!" Then, switching to English in case the sons of bitches were United Main punters and needed the heads up, "This is the police! You are on Eastern Union soil, we have the right to shoot to kill!"

A soft whine met this and, frowning, Nigel hesitated as he stood at the edge of the opened trap door, unsure of whether or not he really did want to go down those crudely constructed metal stairs leading into what was clearly a hastily manufactured trafficking cavern. He leaned closer and could hear the damp drip of water seeping into the underground space, and the stench of death nearly knocked him over. Darko stood beside his crouched form, the back of his hand pressed tight against his mouth.

"That's fucking foul, man." Darko gave Nigel a knowing look. "We got a graveyard here? Should I call in homicide?"

But the tiny whine increased in tempo and was joined by another and, admittedly fearful of what he was going to find, Nigel swung his legs over the edge of the opening and began the descent. The iron rungs were imperfectly shoved into the dirt, and some were falling off. He had to be careful not to fall, though it would be a small drop, only about seven feet.

When he found firm ground, he took out his cigarette lighter and lit up the black gloom into an orange brilliance.

"Inspector Nigel Ionescu?"

Nigel shivered where he had collapsed in the blue plastic chair in the hospital emergency room, dried blood flaking off his hand as he shakily brought it over his face. The horror of what he'd seen in that cavern couldn't quite make it into his present reality, and if there were black holes out there, it had to be a merciful thing sometimes to be swallowed up by one.

He looked up at the concerned face staring down at him, a pleasant, plump woman of African roots, the stethoscope draped around her neck telling him she was a doctor. She kept her grip tight on her clipboard and stood back from him, her brow furrowed into a deep frown as she visually assessed his condition.

"Yeah, that's me."

"My name is Doctor Ella Torus. The Omegas your team brought in are in no condition to answer questions, you do understand this. Several of them were very close to death when you found them. It's my professional opinion that your investigation is going to have to wait at least a few days until we can determine what drugs were pumped into them and just how advanced their malnourishment and dehydration is. I can tell you from my initial findings they are not in good shape. One of the first admitted into ICU has already succumbed to starvation." She gave Nigel another once over, and bid him to raise his head with a nudge from the tip of her pen. He really was too much of a mess to touch. "You need to be checked in yourself, we need to assess your injuries."

"I'm fucking fine," Nigel barked, and he woozily stood to his feet to prove it. He saw Darko storming back down the hall, his injured hand bandaged, and Nigel weakly waved him over. All he could smell was soured blood and death. "Tell me you got that bastard accountant in ironclad custody."

"He's not going anywhere," Darko promised. "Not a peep from the Verger lawyers, and he can't get a hold of Mason. The son of a bitch is out of friends. The two goons who attacked us, according to one of the Omegas, they were on the scene just before the accountant arrived. They'd been chained up in that damp hole for nearly two weeks and no one went in to feed them or check on them. It's fucking weird, Nigel, this isn't how Mason Verger usually works, he's got his hands all over every piece of his operation and he wouldn't let drop the ball like this, this is a lot of money he just let go to rot."

Nigel winced at the analogy, thinking on the corpse he'd accidentally stood on as he made his way into the underground bunker, the stench of waste and decay and terror lingering still in every pore of his body. "What's the body count?"

"Twenty in total. Seven dead at the scene."

"One more so make it eight. She died in ICU just now."

"Fuck this shit, Nigel. Fuck everything about this."

"Don't punch another fucking wall, you idiot, I don't have the money to cover the damage."

Dr. Torus aimed to find a reasonable person in Darko, and hell, if that wasn't barking up the wrong tree. "You need to convince Inspector Ionescu that he can't leave the hospital. We want to keep him overnight for observation, he has some serious lacerations, a broken nose and there is the possibility of internal injuries."

"I'm going home," Nigel announced.

Darko gave Dr. Torus's frustrated glare a helpless shrug. "Look, how easy is it for you to tell *your* boss what to do?"

"At the very least if he starts showing signs of distress you're bring him back to emergency." Dr. Torus cornered Darko, refusing to let him leave until he gave her an answer.

"Yeah. I'll drag his sorry ass back here."

"Good."

She marched away from them, though it was clear she didn't want to, and Nigel had to hand it to her, it wasn't easy being the tough doctor on the block dealing with belligerent, stupid ass patients like himself. "Fucking pushy Betas," Nigel said, shaking his head and Darko sadly laughed in agreement at this.

"Nothing like what you got waiting for you at home, my friend, you'd better brace yourself."

Nigel could feel chunks of clotted blood going down the back of his throat and he fought the urge to gag. "The fuck you talking about?"

"That little spaceman of yours is going to be real upset with you, Nigel. He'll have all kinds of facts as to why you should have stayed at the hospital and he's going to be real mad that you never called him and let him know what happened. I bet you twenty leu he's got a now cold dinner waiting for you and he's been sweating and pacing a hole in the floor wondering why you're not home. Hope you can make it up to him and good, my friend. You're not one of his stars right now, you're so far from fucking heaven you're a bullet in the devil's asshole."

~*~

"Why did you leave the hospital!"

Was there anything more unbearable than Adam's big, fat blue eyes brimming with tears and knowing he was the miserable cause of it? Right now, Nigel was sure there wasn't. He should have at least made an attempt to clean himself up before he headed home, but he was so fucking tired and bruised, the aches coursing through every measure of his soul, and damn if it all wasn't one big black maw just waiting to swallow him up. By the time he made it to the apartment and opened the front door, Adam had leapt from his seat in the kitchen to greet him, his face crumbling like a fragile teacup smashed hard against concrete. He'd howled and wrung his hands and hugged himself and rocked at Nigel's appearance, and Nigel had gently eased his way into the apartment, his mouth barely able to form words.

"Hello, my angel."

The interrogation had begun at that moment, Adam demanding to know what happened and Nigel gave him the highly edited notes, information that the news reporters on the scene would be spewing out over the next couple of weeks. That they'd found the Omegas being trafficked and it was clear they hadn't been at the club for a while, and were holed up in an underground bunker in a warehouse for the past two weeks. He'd had to fight his way past a couple of Verger's henchmen, but they were dead and sadly so were some of the Omegas and they got that slimy fuck of an accountant in custody and holy shit, he was feeling dizzy, couldn't he just sit down here on the fucking couch for a while and try and catch his breath? Then Adam did exactly what Darko promised he would do, he started listing all the reasons why Nigel should never have left the hospital, all in a startling, rolling detail that would have made Dr. Torus proud.

"Well you're home now, so we have to make the best of it," Adam said, and he sniffed loudly, his tender jaw set in a determination that made him look like an angry kitten. "I went out and obtained ingredients for dinner and I made a traditional Romanian dish called sarmale, which looks exactly like cabbage rolls and I don't particularly like cabbage rolls, but I made them because I thought you might like them because they are a type of food you might be familiar with and..." Adam trailed off, choking on his tears again, wringing his hands so hard he was at risk of tearing his damned fingers off.

Nigel found it difficult to keep Adam in focus. Dried blood shaved off of him in flakes and he fought the urge to be sick. His poor little angel, so traumatized and scared and it was all his fucking fault.
"I'm sorry my little spaceman," Nigel said, pouting his self admonishment with a decided moue of agreement. "I'm a shit boyfriend."

Adam's tears faltered at this and he sniffed loudly, his head cocking to one side then the other, mentally doing his usual checks and balances and seeing where Nigel showed up on his inner graph. "No, you're just very foolish for not staying in the hospital and for not getting someone to call me and let me know you were okay. Dinner is cold and you don't look like you are very hungry right now, I know I wouldn't be if I was...If I was covered in blood. So, I'm going to go the bathroom and I'm going to draw you a hot bath and I think that will help." Adam nodded, more to himself than to Nigel. "Yes, that is a good course of action. I will do that."

~*~

How was it that this person who had such a remote understanding of how things were supposed to be knew exactly the right methods to make Nigel feel better? He contemplated this as he sank further in the tub, the vanilla scented bubbles piled high around him, the water deliciously hot and easing all the aches out of his fractured bones and bruised skin. Adam had propped an iPod behind the taps in the bathroom sink and soft classical music wafted through the small bathing room. He'd lit several scented candles and created a quiet, spa like ambiance within the tiny space, and as if this wasn't enough he had gone so far as to use the shower head to wash Nigel's hair, the warm water a soothing balm against his scalp and washing away the scabs of blood smearing it.

Nigel grinned and propped his neck at a better angle beneath the rolled up towel Adam had given him as a bath pillow. "This is definitely better than staying in the hospital, my little angel spaceman."

"It was still a bad choice to leave, but you do look much better now that you are cleaned up. That does not mean you do not have serious injuries, however, and I will be monitoring you carefully for concussions and internal bleeding and the possibility of infection and ensuing sepsis."

Nigel placed a wet hand on Adam's wrist, halting him from rinsing his hair with the shower head. "Do you know what I need right now, my angel? I'm sure it will cure me of all that ails me, right away."

Adam turned off the shower head and then carefully re-attached on the hook near the ceiling of the bath. He crouched back down beside Nigel, his expression one of intense concentration. "Do you need whiskey or a cigarette? They are comforting measures but they will not cure you, in fact they will impede your healing progress."

"Oh no, none of those things, darling. What I need is so much more fucking important than that shit, that crap doesn't compare, not even a little."

Adam remained blank. His shoulders shook as he momentarily met Nigel's gaze and quickly looked away. "What is it?"

Nigel's smile spread into a crooked grin, one that he hoped pulled Adam directly into it. "I need a kiss, darling. Maybe more than one, seeing as how badly beat up I am. I may need a fucking overdose of them, I hope you have some ready to give me."

Adam blushed and damn if he didn't *giggle* and it was the most delightful, sweet, precious thing Nigel had ever heard and fuck he was getting hard underneath these bubbles, better not let him know that or things would get weird. Not that it wouldn't be fantastic, it was just..he was doing that whole 'take it slow' thing, and kissing wasn't so bad, it was a pleasant stepping stone, a little practise note before the big symphony.

"Kissing you is not going to facilitate rapid healing," Adam said, and he was grinning.

"You're very wrong about that, darling, they will make me feel much better."

Adam shyly smiled before he nuzzled Nigel's neck and gave it tiny, uncertain nips with his teeth. He pressed his lips over every bruise he found lining Nigel's jaw and taking especial care to be light on Nigel's split lip, tender little endearments put at the big gash on the bridge of his nose. As Adam continued, as thorough as ever, Nigel could feel it, the madness swelling up deep from that place inside of him that started pushing away all sense of reason, his heart singing as it did a pirouette within his chest and demanded it be heard above all else. He opened his lips against Adam's, seeking to explore that pleasant little planet that was Adam Fucking Raki and dammit, fuck it all to hell, he was in love. Inspector Nigel Ionescu, fucking jackass, was in over his head through that big black hole and out of the reach of time and space, well past the Orion constellation and hurtling headlong into deep space. He was in love, a supernova kind of love. Fucking exploding nuclear neutrinos birthing suns. Oh shit, he was so in love. Every galaxy was full of stars and every star was Adam in his beautiful world and yes, kiss there, darling, kiss me right there, and you are my universe, my little spaceman, you are my every fucking thing.