They Can Smell Your Intentions

THEY CAN SMELL YOUR INTENTIONS
chapter nine

Darko's home was brightly lit and fashioned in pale pastels, two overly exposed things that instantly hurt Adam's eyes as he stepped past the patio doors and into the tiny home. Darko and Bianca had both eagerly welcomed Nigel and Adam in, crowding the little space they had to take off their shoes before hanging up coats in the tiny closet near the front door and making their way inside. Adam instantly began squinting but no one around him seemed to notice the distress the brightness of the house caused, especially not with Nigel brandishing a bottle of wine that Darko immediately wanted to open, and though Bianca swore and told him to wait, he eagerly grabbed a corkscrew and freed it anyway, pouring generous glasses for both himself and Nigel. He was about to give one to Adam, who politely declined, so Bianca was given it instead. Idly sipping it, Bianca was busy stirring a delicious smelling stew in a large aluminium pot and she gave him a pretty smile and a wink, two things Adam wasn't quite sure how to respond to since a wink often suggested something secretive. He gave her a tentative smile in return and this seemed to be the correct response.

She was a very pretty woman in her late thirties, with long, straight red hair and a dark, tanned complexion, her eyes heavily ringed in kohl. She was a Beta, that much was obvious, but he instantly got the feeling she wasn't as pushy as that gender usually was and she didn't ask Adam if he wanted a drink or if he could have a seat or any of those micro managing things that Betas instantly felt a need to take control of. She wore a simple pink pastel hued dress, and it clicked to Adam as to where Bianca had put her controlling, pushy nature. The environment of the house was entirely her stamp upon it.

"Fuck yeah, the game is on! Adam come on!"

Darko and Nigel, both being Alphas who were friendly with one another, were loud and boisterous as they entered the small living room, where a soccer game was already in full play on the large screen. England vs. Poland. It meant nothing to Adam, who didn't follow sports, just as Bianca's stew didn't mean much to him, since he wasn't a fan of pork, and overall he was feeling awkward and out of place and the creeping wish to be in his spacesuit floating around in space and nudging against the Crab Nebula, even though it would burn him to cinders, was a far more comforting distraction. He wasn't sure what to do with himself since he had no interest in sports and from the sounds of gleeful curses, the air punched by two overgrown boys who had already forgotten him, he would only be an annoying distraction. He stayed in the kitchen and kept a wan smile on his face that he hoped was the correct thing to be doing. Perhaps he could help Bianca with the meal, though he had to bite down on his tongue and refrain from telling her that she was cooking exactly everything his palate hated.

"So you're staying with Nigel?" Bianca asked him, her wooden spoon still stirring the rather goopy contents of the aluminium pot in front of her. She was not a slender woman, Adam noticed, she had a hard muscular bulk to her that didn't quite fit the flowery aesthetic of the pastels she surrounded herself in.

"I'm sleeping with him. Where is your washroom?"

Bianca's face twisted a little at this, and she gave Adam an odd look before motioning with the wet end of her wooden spoon down the hall directly off of the side of the tiny kitchen. The walls were painted a stark white and there were spotlights all the way down its length, already giving Adam a headache. "It's on the left, across from Micah's room."

There was the sound of a sliding back porch door being opened and Darko and Nigel's loud voices were accompanied by the sharp bark of a tiny dog who ran after Adam and sidled close to his heels before sitting down and giving him a friendly, tongue lolling yip. It was a tiny little fuzzy mop of a thing, its eyes freakishly small like it had some kind of genetic disorder and Adam noticed its teeth were mismatched, the slightly deformed dog unable to tuck his tongue in completely behind them. "What wrong with it?" Adam asked, and Bianca gave him another odd look.

She kept stirring the pot. "He's a purebred Pekinese, what isn't wrong with the stupid thing. Oskar! Leave his leg alone!" She shoved Oskar's ardour off of Adam's leg with the tip of her pale green heels. Adam had to wonder at the idea of having pets, which often served no purpose more than inconvenience, though it could be said the companionship they provided was often soothing. A dog or a cat didn't expect much from you other than the very basics, along with some attention. Maybe people were the same way, these were certainly basic needs he himself could relate to, and as he scratched behind the tiny dog's ears and watched Oskar wiggle his butt furiously in joy he was at least grateful for how well the dog cured his awkward feelings as he stood in the kitchen. He thought about how pets are believed to look like their owners over time and noted that Oskar was small and stout, just like Bianca. She was the only one in the house still wearing shoes, and she was extremely short without them, Adam realized, barely five feet. He wondered if she needed to wear them to be able to reach the stove.

He didn't voice this observation, however, he was getting better at not asking highly personal questions of strangers, and instead made his way to the bathroom to pretend to urinate when he what he really wanted to do was have a few moments alone to regroup himself and try not to think about how harsh the lighting in Darko's home was, or how loud everyone was, or that the meal he was set to eat was slowly turning into some kind of ghastly pale beige meat mush that couldn't possibly be appetizing.

The light was harsh in the bathroom, too, and the theme was a bleached beach white. He sighed and closed his eyes, pressing his forehead against the mirror above the sink and wishing he could quell this rising panic welling within him. It wasn't fair to Nigel to be like this, and it certainly wasn't to Darko who rarely had the opportunity to have his friend on the neutral ground of his home. Adam realized he was just going to have to endure this, and with his face hot and slightly feverish, he cupped his hands beneath the running tap and pressed his face into the cold water and told himself, in a mini mantra, "Cassiopea A. is at a distance of 10,000 light years. Synchrotron radiation, detected throughout its presence, suggests large quantities of energy exist within its expanding confines..."

He closed his eyes and braced himself, and then left the bathroom, opening the door wide and, much to his curiosity, was greeted by another opened door and a room that was blissfully darker than any other space within the tiny house. Adam blinked slightly and then entered the room with a sense of sighing relief, the dark navy walls and ceiling encompassing him within their cool influence, the room dimly lit by a blue lava lamp that slowly oozed melted wax within its lit cylindrical base. He watched it for a few moments, noting that the blobs of blue wax were similar to the gaseous emissions caught by the Hubble in deep space. His concentration was gradually broken by the fact that he was not alone in the room, there was a rather chubby young boy sitting cross legged on the floor, a video game paused in front of him, and his little black eyes that were as small and piercing as his father's were staring up at him.

"Uh...Hi. I'm Adam." Adam nodded and the boy said nothing, he just kept staring, which Adam thought was kind of rude, but then he wasn't an expert on social graces himself, no matter how much he studied them. "I'm sleeping with Inspector Nigel Ionescu." He glanced at the screen with the paused game and gave it a cursory inspection. "I see you are playing Dead Rising, it is one of my personal favourites. You can pick up anything and use it as a weapon against the zombies, but don't try using paper, it just flutters around and you'll end up getting eaten. Ah, I see you are running out of time, you have a three day time span to get through and if you've missed a step that means you have to do a hard restart." Adam let out a disappointed sound at this. "This game proved to me the unfortunate fact that hiding out in a mall from a zombie apocalypse is not feasible in the statistical realty."

Micah stared at Adam. He reached beside him and wordlessly held up an extra remote.

"Yes, I would like to play," Adam said to the unspoken question and he collapsed onto the floor beside Darko's silent, chubby son, his legs crossed and buttons eagerly pressed as the zombies started dropping on the screen.

They did this silently for a while, Adam racking up points as he took out the hungry dead, though he was lacking in medical supplies and his health was failing. Micah was gaining in the body count. Adam wondered how this was, and he reasoned that perhaps he had better anticipatory instincts thanks to having played the game recently and placed the killings into muscle memory, though Adam's own experience and equally quick reflexes should have had them closer to par. He whacked at a zombie crawling along the floor in front of him, narrowly missing the one reaching out to take a bite at his neck.

There was a knock at the door, and Micah quickly paused the game, both himself and Adam silently turning to see who was there. Nigel stood in the overly bright frame, his arms braced on either side of the door, his body in silhouette. "Dinner is ready, kids," he said, and gave Adam a smiling wink as he headed back down the hall towards the dining room.

Adam and Micah faced one another and Micah, as annoyed with having their game interrupted as Adam, reluctantly got up from his position on the floor, Adam quickly following him. He instantly began blinking as the blinding light of the rest of the house assailed him, and he followed Micah to the kitchen and the narrow dining table which was heavily adorned with pink flowers and a white filigree crocheted tablecloth knotted into a pineapple pattern. The food smelled okay, and he tried to smile as the slop from the pot was dumped onto his dish, complete with a couple of brussel sprouts, which he hated, on the side. Nigel and Darko were busy drinking bottles of beer and rough-housing at the end of the table, the two of them given harsh looks by Bianca as she continued serving the food.

"Darko, would it kill you to use a glass?" She pointed at the partially crushed beer can he had perched beside his plate and though he tried to give her a mixture of bravado and Alpha posturing back, he did sheepishly get up and get a glass, and one for Nigel, too, and he did pour his beer into it, and bid Nigel to do the same when he handed the wide rimmed pint glass to him.

Adam poked at the beige stew with his fork, wondering how he was going to pretend to eat it without Bianca noticing he hadn't taken a bite. The brussel sprouts were a serious problem, he was aware they were often full of small aphids that could never be washed out properly, and those little seed like pink pods within it was their bloated, cooked bodies. He didn't like brussel sprouts. Micah nudged his arm, and, staring silently at him, he 'accidentally' rolled a brussel sprout to the floor where the yippy Pekinese dog Oskar was happily waiting. The tiny dog gobbled it up, and, making sure Bianca didn't see him, Adam quickly tipped one of the three sprouts on his own plate down to the dog, who was more than happy to feast on them.

He was nearly caught the third time, and he quickly rolled the sprout back onto his plate when Bianca turned to him and asked, "So, Adam, I hear you're a really smart guy. You were at the space program in Moscow?"

"Yes, I was at Roscosmos, I was their lead planetologist." Adam tore a piece of bread and pretended to dip it into the stew and then quickly ate it. Bianca was still looking at him, expecting more of an answer and he wasn't sure what more she needed to know. He swallowed his morsel and took a drink of water before saying, "I was studying interplanetary soil samples at the time, specifically lunar rock and more interestingly, sediments from Mars. Roscosmos has a very detailed exploration program and they hope to have a small colony on Mars by the year 2057, though by my estimate that goal may be reached sooner with more careful planning amongst the varied departments." He gave her a small smile and decided to utilize a useful phrase he'd picked up from Nigel. "Scientists are passionate about their fields and some are very competitive and resistant to experts outside of their specialities. They are constantly having pissing contests."

Bianca raised a heavily arched brow at this and Micah giggled. Nigel was digging into his stew, seemingly oblivious to the conversation, though when he spoke it was clear he had, in fact, been paying attention. "They are bunch of assholes for letting you go, darling. But I'm glad they did, otherwise, I would never have met you."

He gave Adam an encouraging smile, one that Adam returned with a soft blush. He pushed around the stew on his plate with a fork, and Micah turned to him saying, clear as day, "I had a pissing contest with this kid George, at school. He won, but I think there was something wrong with him. He had to piss six times in one day. I think he had an infection." Micah shoved a piece of bread in his mouth and talked to Adam around the crumbs. "You touched dirt from Mars?"

Adam felt a small well of pride at this and he grinned at Micah. Oskar pawed at his shin, seeking out another brussel sprout, but everyone was looking at him, the scrutiny making his cheeks and neck redden. "Yes, I did."

"Cool."

"It's comprised of a high amount of salt perchlorate, which is not conducive to plant life and suggests the soil may be incompatible despite adequate levels of potassium, magnesium and chloride."

Micah thought for a long moment, his fork poking through the stew with just as much as a lack of enthusiasm as Adam. He gave the slight man beside him a sneaking look. "Do you want to see my marigolds?"

"Are these the ones from your gamma ray experiments? Nigel told me about them."

"Yeah."

"I would love to."

They both excused themselves from the table and practically ran back to the comfort of Micah's room, the paused zombie game remaining in stasis for the moment. The darkness of the space gave Adam a sense of calm. Micah draped his arms around his terrarium of marigolds and brought them over for Adam to inspect. He remarked on how varied the results were and that keeping his control plants separate from these flowers was a wise decision.

"You must have got a very good mark," Adam said, smiling and Micah kicked at the tiled floor.

"Nah. I failed it because I couldn't talk in front of the class."

"Oh?" Adam said, and frowned at this. "Why not?"

Micah shrugged, not looking up at him and keeping his head downcast. "I wanted to talk about the results but all I could think about was how everyone was staring at me, and I didn't want to mess up. Then I couldn't say anything, because I was so scared. So I failed."

"No, you didn't fail, your experiment was a success and you have extension notation. If I was you I would approach your teacher and ask that she reconsider her decision."

Micah looked up at him, aghast. "But she already marked me, and she said the whole point of the project was to stand up and talk in front of the class."

"Then she should have given you an assignment with that exact parameter and not a complex experiment with various components. You can argue that if your presentation was flawed then so was her expectation. The worst that can happen has already happened. She can't fail you twice and at the least you will have voiced your protest."

Micah seemed to consider this. Adam once again inspected the marigolds in their glass enclosure and inwardly remarked on how shockingly beautiful some of the mutations were. Rich orange flowers doubled up and bursting like flames off of their green stems.

Micah gestured to the video game that was still paused and waiting. Adam silently nodded, placing the terrarium full of flowers onto the centre of Micah's bed and then sat cross-legged on the floor beside him. Micah instantly upped his body count by ten points before Adam could release a single swing. He grabbed a knife from the House Of Knives but it wasn't nearly as effective as Micah's baseball bat. He had to concede that Darko's son was an expert zombie killer.

~*~
They sat on the back porch because Bianca hated smoking, and Darko had no interest in helping with the dishes, though he'd be doing them all himself once Nigel and Adam went home, Nigel knew. He liked to pretend he was the big Alpha man at home, but Bianca had him whipped. Nigel chuckled into his cigarette at this and took a long drag before raising the bottle of palinca and pouring them a couple more shots. They clinked them together and toasted 'Salut!' before downing them in unison, mouths twisted in twin grimaces as the sour and sweet pear liqueur went down with a punch.

Darko's backyard was almost twice the size of his tiny, narrow house. It was lined with all sorts of pastel coloured flowers, Bianca's touch yet again, and the small five piece white bistro set was a delicate, highly feminine insertion into the space, the thin aluminium barely containing the Alpha bulk of both Nigel and Darko that took up the small seats. The bottle of palinca was in the middle of the table, the two shot glasses waiting to be refilled. They were also flowery and pink, Nigel noted, and he wondered if Darko was given any decision in his house at all.

"I'm courting Adam," he announced to his friend, and Darko nodded sagely at this.

"So when are you skipping over all the bullshit and knotting him, then? No one ever makes it past the second step, it's all 'witch, dinner, fuck'. He must be going into heat soon, when is the season in Russia? Or is he still on biological clock Two Cent, Ohio Mainland, United Main, time?"

Nigel couldn't answer him and the logistics of figuring it out had given him a headache earlier that afternoon. He'd tried the formula he found online to figure the latitude and longitude of Two Cent, only to realize Adam had probably been in Moscow and exposed to other Omegas long enough to be synchronized with *their* heat schedule, and that one was apparently months away, but he had also been exposed to possibly dozens of Omega pheromones when he first came to Romania and began working for Verger at the club, which according to some medical web sites meant that he would be syncing in the season of his peers almost immediately. Nigel ended up with three wildly different dates, with months in between them, and he'd ended up giving up trying to calculate further. It wasn't like he could hand the information over to Adam and get him to figure it out, he'd be asking Nigel to explain to him why he wanted to know and Nigel would have to reply that it was so he knew when to buy the fucking condoms. He hadn't missed how spooked Adam had gotten over the idea of children, though he didn't know what the big deal was, they were only helpless for a temporary amount of time and dammit, he was getting along great with Darko's Micah, a kid who didn't talk to anyone unless he'd met them at least a dozen or so times before.

Darko poured them another couple of shots and Nigel was grateful his friend was so eager to help him forget his troubles. "So this thing with Adam is getting real fucking serious."

Nigel contemplated the stupidly pink shot glass. "Yeah," he said, without enthusiasm. "I'm thinking of getting obsidian rings, going for the traditional route, you know? They're expensive as fuck but he's worth it. I still got the ones Gabi rejected, never bothered to take them back after I got her the diamond rings instead."

Darko nodded at this, the palinca poised at his lips. "You still talking to Gabi?"

Nigel nodded. "Charlie needed money to get his dead father's ashes sent overseas." He and Darko downed the shots of palinca and grimaced anew before setting their shot glass down. "Adam wasn't happy about that. He's kind of...Well, he told me I'm not allowed to give her money any more."

Darko loudly laughed at this, and he slapped Nigel on the back hard enough to make his healing ribs smart in protest. "Never mind no fucking rings, Nigel, he's got you tamed as fuck! You're giving up the Gabi drama for him, that's really something, my friend. I better give you my congrats already, there's no way you aren't knotting that little thing before the end of next week!"

Nigel felt light headed, the booze finally doing its work and pushing him into a grey cloud of floating inhibition. "You're such a fucking pig, Darko." Nigel smoked his cigarette, a curl of a smile coursing through his snarl. "Can't say I haven't thought about it. A lot. He fucking...Darko, I have to tell you this and you can't say a fucking word, all right?" He leaned in close, and Darko narrowed his eyes into thin, concentrated slits of black. "I was kind of, you know, messing a bit with him this afternoon. And I kid you fucking not, just scenting his slick made me cum in my pants. I mean, what the fuck? I've been with all types before, Darko, I fucked the best and the worst out there. But fuck me, if that wasn't some kind of intense shit, it's kind of freaking me out a little now that I'm thinking about it."

Darko was quiet a long moment at this, eyeing the palinca as though it had an answer for them. "Nigel, I think you ought to start rethinking your fucking math. Sounds to me like Adam's heading straight for his heat season and damned soon. Your body doesn't fucking lie about that shit."

"You think that's what that was?"

"I don't know. You've been holding off, right? It's like going on a bender when you haven't been drinking for a while, you get fucked up faster and sicker than usual." Darko contemplated the stupid little pink shooter and then poured the rest of the palinca, emptying the bottle. "Just make sure you know it's what you want. This isn't the same as with Gabi, she's a Beta and look at how that disaster did you in. The two of you were drunken morons, saw that train wreck a mile away. You don't mess with Alpha and Omega unions without being sure, Nigel, so you keep that in mind. You knot him and that's it. That kind of biological chemistry, that's for keeps. If this doesn't work it'll be a damned long time before the scent of him is off of you. We're talking ten years at least."

Nigel wasn't worried, if he held Adam's sweet, delicate scent for the rest of his life it would be something he'd revel in daily, reinforcing as much he could, either with sex or affection or other modes of imprinting that would leave him lingering in some way within Nigel's cells. He smiled to himself at the thought, wistful little hopes drifting up from within his increasing drunkenness, his head cocked to one side as he thought of Adam's flushed cheeks and his fluttering eyes blinking open in shocked erotic surprise. There was a fantasy building around his future life with the Omega, and yes, there were children in there somewhere, he was sure Adam would come around, and damn if the very idea of putting a little black ring on his finger made Nigel's heart all sorts of stupid giddy. "My little spaceman only has Heaven to go to. I'll be sure to take him there as often as I can."

"Fuck's sake." Darko leaned back in his chair rolling his eyes and turning away from Nigel. "You got it just as fucking bad as the last time, if not worse. You don't fucking learn."

Nigel bit back on his happiness, it's joy instantly muted as he sat beside Darko on the back porch, the palinca worming its way through his system and making his mind feel tired. "I got a lead on the shipped Omegas that bastard Masters was talking about. Adam's cousin, Will Graham, the one with the FBI, he did a profile of the case for me and he sent me some possible warehouse locations where they can be found. I was studying the satellite images of the area on Google Maps all fucking afternoon. There's activity there, new coffee cups thrown on the ground outside. The look of it is identical to the one we raided, probably the same set up."

Darko was tense as Nigel spoke, his muscles on high alert as though he was about to go smashing up traffickers with his bare fists at any second. "Subcomisar Gorecky know about this?"

"Sent him an email, haven't heard anything back yet."

He'd been very careful as to what he revealed, opting to keep Dr. Lecter's identity as the Chesapeake Ripper under wraps until he had some really solid evidence to go on, and even then he wasn't sure how he felt about the supposed serial killer turned vigilante. The murderer's motives, though personal, had a weird resonance with Nigel's own frustrations. He wanted to talk to him first, find some way to convince him to shut down his international operations before things went too far. Getting homegrown Omegas to fight for the cause was one thing, but recruiting ones from foreign soil through chat rooms and locked newsgroups? Not exactly something Nigel was willing to overlook, this was about the United Main, this wasn't *their* fight.

The booze was really hitting him now, and he didn't like that his thoughts were becoming darker, the shadow of the Ripper and the plight of the Omegas in the United Main taking over their enjoyment of the evening. He pushed all thoughts of them aside and loudly laughed at a joke Darko told him that wasn't particularly funny. He wondered where his darling little spaceman was. He slapped Darko on the back in an overtly friendly gesture. "Got any more of that wine?"

~*~

"Why are you being such a fucking pill, my darling angel? Come on! Take one and drink it!" Nigel staggered as he walked down the centre of the suburban street, cars passing them and beeping for him to get the hell off the road. He shoved the bottle of Darko's bitter homebrewed beer into Adam's unwilling hand, and shook his head at how his angel merely tolerated it in his grip, not opening it to take a drink with him. "It's not poison, darling, not after the third one."

"I don't like it," Adam insisted, and Nigel cursed.

What was getting into his precious little spaceman, anyway? He'd spent the whole night at Darko's avoiding everyone but Micah, and had played video games with him the whole time, sequestered in the kid's room and happily mowing down zombies with a skill Nigel found impressive. It wasn't his fault if Darko had kept plying him with booze and wouldn't let up even when Nigel said it was probably time to go home and instead Darko opened up yet another bottle of wine to wash down the palinca and before he knew it they were drinking homemade beer and yet another bottle of wine and somewhere along the line there was vodka, and dammit, why was it so hard to walk? And what were these fucking cars doing here, honking their stupid horns at him and screaming at him to get the fuck out of the middle of the road? He's a fucking pedestrian, he has the right of the goddamned way.

"Nigel! We need to get on the sidewalk!"

Adam's voice was sharp but Nigel didn't mind it, his sweet little spaceman was looking up at him so worried and delightful and fuck, he just loved him, so very fucking much. Look at that, that little blush as Nigel sloppily tried to kiss him and why wasn't he smiling? Such a fussy little precious thing.

"When I knot you, you are going to go to heaven, my angel," Nigel promised him, and he could feel his voice deepen into a sultry growl as Adam led him up the curb (why do they make these things so damned *high* and difficult to step over? Fucking pricks at The Department of Urbanism, can't get their heads out of their asses)and onto the sidewalk, his arm tight around Nigel's waist. Nigel draped a long arm around Adam's shoulders, wet kisses placed with drooping purpose onto his scalp and his cheek. "I'm going to make you moan and lose yourself. Is that what you will do for me, my precious little spaceman angel? Are you going to writhe and beg me as you cum? Mm, you taste so sweet, I want to eat you up, I want to eat you out. I'll make you clutch that pillow so hard, you'll want to rip it apart."

"Nigel." Adam's voice was cold. Clipped. How strange hearing such a tone from an angel, like he was being admonished in church. "Have some self control, we are in public. I know you are inebriated, but we aren't far from the apartment building and the walk will do you good as long as you keep moving and please stop being ridiculous, this is not the place to be grabbing at my buttocks."

"Your ass, darling," Nigel teasingly corrected him, grinning into a kiss that Adam, for some reason, didn't want to return. He splayed his hand wide over the rounded mound and did exactly what Adam told him not to. "It's delightful, just the perfect handful," he said as he squeezed.

They walked further down the street, Nigel still relentlessly pawing him, and he wondered why Adam was suddenly so adamant that he keep his hands to himself. He loved him so much, he wanted to keep his little space baby in his life forever, couldn't he see that? He reluctantly pulled back and held off on the kisses, though he truly longed to drown Adam in them. He was so very cute, the way his little face was scrunched up, that angry tiny line along his brow fastened deep into his expression. He wanted to kiss that away so badly.

He didn't want to think about the Omegas sitting in a damp warehouse pit in some disgusting, cold abandoned section of Baltimore, their fates becoming closer to death as every minute passed. He had done the math in that regard since he had last talked to Will Graham and received the profiler's information. He wanted to have hope, but the longer there was a delay the more likely a scenario like what he had walked into late last week was becoming a given. Jack Crawford had been contacted, but he couldn't get the search warrants and the GSF was swarming around the FBI, doing all they could to undermine their efforts. Anything to do with Omegas was considered the GSF's domain these days, and considering they were the most perverted, miserable fucks he'd ever had to correspond with in the past, he doubted the well being of a bunch of trapped Omegas was high on their priority list. They were slowly being murdered, Nigel thought, his teeth ground together as the unjust cruelty of it hit him. The fucking bastards were killing innocent victims. If there were moles among them, ready to become a part of the Ripper's army, well, all the more reason for them to be rescued and shipped home safe and sound. They had families who loved and cherished them here, careers and lives. There was no point going to some other miserable shore of the world and putting on war paint to battle monsters that weren't their own.

They passed by a bar that was still open despite the late hour, and Nigel steered Adam towards it, his sweet spaceman's protests sounding as though they were coming from very far away. "Just a couple of drinks, darling, nothing too much, I promise. That's right, sit on this stool beside me, closer to me, lean against me, darling spaceman, my angel. You are the only pure thing in my life, my Adam Raki. You are my fucking world, my whole galaxy, you shine like every star in the fucking universe and all of them have your name, do you fucking know that?"

"They don't have my name, in fact most of them are charted by co-ordinates. Nigel, you are very, very drunk."

Nigel slammed the counter of the bar with the palm of his hand. "You have thirsty travellers waiting on drinks! Are you fucking pissing in the glasses or what?"

His little spaceman was uncomfortable, squirming a heck of lot to find an adequate way to sit on these stupid bar stools. Nigel himself was having a hell of a time keeping himself propped up. The bar they were in was a place Nigel knew well, situated as it was just a block away from his apartment building. The bartender and owner eyed him with contemptuous study, knowing well the kinds of trouble Nigel's drunken fists could bring. He lit a new cigarette and he heard Adam protest in a quiet huff. "I need them, darling, I am feeling so stressed, sitting here in this little pissup of a bar that is nothing more than a counter and some dirty glasses. I wanted vodka shots, you asshole, not fucking ice water!" Nigel damn near threw the glass of water at the bartender only for Adam's hand to come down hard on the crook of his arm, making him spill it all over himself.

"I told him not to serve you any alcohol, only to give you water."

Nigel swayed on his stool, not understanding. "My darling," he pouted, his words slurring long in a drunken drawl, " Why would you do such a cruel thing to me?"

The tiny bar, which was no more than the size of its counter, spun within Nigel's vision and he was fighting the strange off balance feeling that overtook him, the brutality of its waves like a rush of water down a heaving stream. It knocked Nigel off of the stool, and he got back onto it with difficulty, the back of his hand held at his mouth. "My darling angel little spaceman baby, I am not feeling well."

"Drink some water, Nigel."

"My beautiful, darling angel. Kiss me, darling."

"You just told me you were going to be sick."

"Mr. Raki?"

The intrusive voice annoyed Nigel, who didn't like the snobbish cadence within it, and he searched out the source though the mission was near impossible. The bar was spinning at an alarming rate, at one no doubt his darling Adam had already calculated. He managed to still the overturning universe for one indulgent moment as he took in the slight man standing in front of Adam, his tweed suit looking too casual for his liking, his round black glasses like little mirrors. He was holding what looked like a pint, which he took tentative sips from while he sent a few worried expressions over Adam's shoulder, his judgemental glare not at all liking the condition of Nigel.

"I'm sorry I couldn't get back to you earlier, I was planning on calling you tomorrow."

The fuck? Who was this little roach of a man being too friendly with Adam, who was right now smiling nicely, and being polite, his usual resting bitch face for strangers not evident? Nigel grabbed the water he'd been offered and downed it like it was a bottle of vodka before he slid off the chair and approached them both.

"It's not a problem at all, I've decided that the University of Bucharest is not where I would prefer employment. My research could be hindered by the current political landscape of your institution. This is an issue I think you need to seriously address. In my opinion, the best recourse would be to ensure that these students, though they are Alphas from the United Main, be made aware immediately of the differing social standing of Omegas in the Eastern Unions. Pandering to their needs and worrying over their culture shock will only lead to an atmosphere of excuse."

"You may be right," the slender man said to him, frowning now as Nigel struggled to approach them. His legs didn't want to work right, and he staggered as he made his way towards Adam, his hands in tight fists. No one was allowed to flirt with his Omega, this was his Adam, this wasn't some fly by night fucking lay that wasn't going to go anywhere, this was his fucking *mate*. Adam was for motherfucking *keeps*. Hands off, you son of a bitch little fuckwad!

Adam turned to Nigel as he approached, and he was still pleasantly smiling. "Nigel, this is the rector of the University of Bucharest, Dimitri Stanislov. Nigel is an officer with the politia Romana, the chief inspector of their anti Omega trafficking brigade."

Nigel could feel the world spinning and he could barely keep Stanislov in focus. "You're the son of bitch who wouldn't hire my space baby."

"Nigel, that's an ancient problem now, and it has been solved. I decided I don't want to work there until their issues have been resolved."

Stanislov gave Nigel a highly judgemental once over before turning back to Adam. "Adam, are you all right? Do you need me to call you a cab?"

"We're fine, Dimitri, Nigel is simply very, very drunk."

"I can see that."

Fucking son of a bitch, he wasn't about to let him get off that easy. Nigel steeled himself, putting the whirling world into focus at least for a few moments before he stomped forward, his fists tightly pressed into rocks made of knuckles. He shoved past the other patrons of the bar who were spilling out in likewise drunkenness and he was beside Adam, his precious little spaceman, who was shaking his head at something he'd recognized, though Nigel couldn't interpret what that could be.

"You made my little space baby cry, you fucking piece of shit!"

His fist hit rector Dimitri Stanislov's face with alarming force, right square in the centre and giving the sexist pig bastard a bloody nose. Laughing in victory at this, Nigel stood over his collapsed form on the ground, his fists ready to hit their mark again. He pointed down at him in warning fury. "You don't fucking tell Omegas they can't work at your University, especially not mine, do you hear me? You hurt my angel, you fucking bastard..."

Stanislov was on his knees, hands in front of his face in a futile effort to block the blow. There was the sound of police sirens in the distance. Along this noise there was another, a high pitched keen that crept along Nigel's spine with vicious terror, and he was suddenly alert, worried for Adam. Adam was out of the bar and halfway up the street towards their apartment building, his hands clasped tight over his ears. He was howling, Nigel realized, and the pain of it was so awful Nigel was nearly sick. He ran up to Adam to comfort him, to gentle the back of his neck and embrace him, surround him in kisses and warmth...

"Don't touch me!"

"Adam..."

"You are a terrible person! You hit someone for no reason! Go away, Nigel! Go *away*!"

He tearfully stormed up the street, leaving Nigel behind. Hearing the increasing sirens, Nigel ran up to him, the adrenaline kicking off most of the affects of the booze, though he was certainly feeling sick now, especially with the way Adam was tightly hugging himself and wouldn't let Nigel make any effort to comfort him.

"I'm sorry," Nigel said, and he was pleading now, he'd crawl and beg and get on his knees if that's what it took. He'd do it until his skin tore off and there was nothing bones on concrete. "Adam...I'm sorry..."

"You didn't need to do that!" Adam shouted at him, and he was crying and Nigel felt like the whole universe just got swallowed up by one of those big black holes Adam talked about because *he* was the one who did it this time, *he* made his angel cry, and goddammit if that wasn't enough to make his soul just crush inside of itself and eat everything he was away.

"My space baby, I'm sorry, please." Nigel tried to touch Adam's shoulder and he shook it off, still red faced and furious. Fuck, this couldn't be happening, he could feel the loss like an amputation inside of himself. Not his darling Adam, not this. "Please don't leave me, I need you, Adam. I need you so fucking much."

"Go home and sleep it off!" Adam barked back at him. He paused once and Nigel saw his anger and he damn near collapsed in misery at the absolute disdain Nigel found there. Yeah, he'd fucked up, and bad. Adam's words echoed down the centre of the street and hit Nigel's gut like a bullet. "You're sleeping on the couch!"