Big Chicago

Big Chicago Part 23.…by Samayel


So quiet. It’s been like this since last night. Barely a word between us since that fucking call. I know it’s as much my fault as his…the silence, I mean. The situation, on the other hand, is entirely my own homegrown disaster.

I still can’t believe I did that. I knew better, but it didn’t stop me. I was mad. Scared. Horny. Maybe a little delirious too. Harry was home, and I was happy, and then I find out he got hurt, and I panicked. I calmed myself down enough to properly enjoy having him home again, and just when I’m starting feel comfortable and right about the way things are, that fucking phone rang.

I hate that phone. It’s like competing with a secret lover that continually steals what is supposed to be mine and mine alone. I know it’s just a hunk of plastic and some electronics, an inanimate object that has no real intention or meaning, but to me it’s like a symbol of the life that Harry has beyond my reach. The place he goes to for days at a time. The life that could get him killed and make my world crash down in flames. I’m scared of that, and I think I have every right to be.

But I still know that I shouldn’t have done that.

We’re on a plane over the Atlantic. Comfy. A lot better than the one Ron flew to take us to Saugatuck. This is a private jet. Company owned. We took off from a small, private airfield this morning. It’s quite a bit different than the chartered flights my father used to arrange. The upholstery on the seats is wonderfully plush, the table between us is not that much smaller than the one we dine on at home. The carpets are thick and don’t show any real sign of wear and the whole cabin for passengers could probably only seat a dozen people. In spite of that, the staff includes two people who wait on us, preparing food and fetching whatever we require.

I only wanted a pillow. I’m sitting by a window, with Harry beside me. He’s reading a book and looks calm, but I can tell by the muscles along his jaw that he’s as tense as I am.

Colors are so vivid up here. Looking down at an ocean of blue and clouds that we just pass right through, swirling mist trailing around us as we fly toward England. We headed north first, making a huge arc as we head to a higher meridian, where the distance around the globe is less, and then we’ll turn slowly south again as we approach our point of arrival. Not to mention my destiny.

I don’t know what that is. My destiny. I could wind up being erased from human memory and buried in some shallow grave for proving that I’m unreliable and potentially dangerous to them. Harry said it wasn’t likely, since he’s valued not just as an employee, but as a friend and protégé. But I still wonder. Even if it looks like I’ll live through this, I can’t shake the feeling that I’m going to wind up being ‘offered’ a chance to leave Harry and start a new life in exchange for a pile of money. After what I’ve done, they can’t possibly want me with him.

But what else can I be? I think from my heart. I run with my instincts. I always have, and maybe that didn’t work out so well for me, but I’m not really used to living any other way. I’ve always gotten along and landed on my feet because I have just enough smarts and intuition to make a place for myself anywhere I go. I guess I could survive without Harry.

But I don’t want to. Not anymore.

I just keep staring out the window, conscious of every little sound in the cabin. Every creak of the metal from the huge wings of the plane, the faint and muffled remnants of roaring engines and wind tearing by us. I want to cry, but I just can’t. I took my pill hours ago, and it’s working. I’m lucid and calm…but I’m still miserable and afraid. Worst of all, I know I disappointed Harry. He believed in me. Enough to vouch for me and make an exception to his company’s policies. He fought to make a place for me beside him…and I risked everything because of a temper tantrum over that stupid phone.

He has to be regretting his choices now. Looking back at the decisions he made to make room for me in his life, and just cringing at the thought of the stupid little whore that just complicated everything. He was nice last night…after he calmed down…after I made my choice and prayed he’d respect me for it. I want to be brave…I want to be the kind of person that belongs beside him, but even I have my doubts about that now. How could he not feel reservations about me after this?

I’m wearing the best suit I’ve got, right down to the Italian loafers and belt. The tie is silk and just a little loose at the neck because we’re alone and I feel the need to breathe easy while I still can. My hair is as conservative as I can make it, and my solitary act of rebellion against this outward image of male professionalism is the adorable little thong I have on underneath it all. Not that it matters, since Harry certainly doesn’t look like he’s in the mood, but I need the comfort of knowing that at least one article of clothing on my body still reflects my actual personality. I didn’t bother to pack anything I’d normally wear, since this isn’t kind of trip where I’d feel secure shocking or surprising anyone. In fact, I expect it will take every ounce of willpower I have to keep from breaking down and begging them to let me stay with Harry.

That cut it. I can feel myself choking up and getting hot in the face. I need the bathroom. Thank goodness the seating in here is so spacious that I can get up and walk with incredible ease. Really…there is no comparison between coach and private travel. What they would charge for accommodations like this…hell, I haven’t any idea, but then…I’ve never traveled in anything less than style. Well, as long as long as you exclude police cars and prison vans.

The bathroom is wonderfully well decorated, and could only be called small if compared to the one at home. When you consider that I’m thousands of feet above the Atlantic, this kind of space and comfort is a luxury in itself. A splash of cool water to wash my face while I compose myself and take a few deep breaths, and I’m back in control of myself.

The mirror. So formal looking. If you didn’t know better, you’d think I was just another jet-setting corporate boy. Well…perhaps a bit slimmer and prettier than average, but still very respectable and clean cut. This just goes to show how meaningless appearances really are. I’m as much of a fucked up mess as my mother ever was. I’m attached to a dangerous and powerful man, I’m so stressed out that I needed booze or pills just to cope with the insanity of my life, and I wear the right clothes and try to make it look like nothing is wrong, because that’s what I’ve been taught to do. Pretend it’s all okay and take a few deep breaths, then go play my part like I mean it. Shit, the only real thing I know I feel is love, and I’ve gone and put that on the line or I wouldn’t be standing here worrying over it like this, in a plane, over the North Atlantic, shit-scared of what happens after we land.

Such is life. Or the end of it…maybe. Who knows? I just make my way back to my seat, because what else is there that I can do? Harry has his book, and I wish I’d thought to bring one for myself. All I can do is fluff my pillow a little, stare out the window, and wish I could fall asleep for awhile, just to escape the tension and trouble that comes of listening to my own thoughts.

“I’m sorry.”

My head swings to the right, and the book is in Harry’s lap. I’m lost in green that runs deeper and shines brighter than the edge of any ocean ever has. He looks so calm, even with all that hangs between us, and I really do want to be lost in those eyes for awhile.

“Harry…I…”

“Don’t. I was wrong last night. I panicked. I shouldn’t have yelled, and I shouldn’t have…I should never have handled you that way. I…I don’t even want to talk about it, because just the thought of it makes me sick. It wasn’t right…no matter what you did. I know you slipped up, and that’s still true, but I swear to God…I just…I lost my self control for a moment…because all I could imagine was being told to part with you. I don’t think I can do that. Not for any reason. Please…tell me you understand…tell me…you forgive me.”

And then it’s gone. That crushing weight between us that stifled every breath, the vast gulf that made him seem so far away and unreachable. Gone in a heartbeat, and I can hear his heart beating in his chest because I’m wrapped around him, face burrowed comfortably against his chest, not caring a damn if a few teardrops get onto his shirt.

Breathing the scent of him deep into my lungs, feeling the heat of his skin through his shirt, warm and close and good while one of his hands is in my hair and the other is rubbing my back softly. Who cares about anything right now? None of it matters when I have this. My mother never had this! Maybe I am a mess, but it was worth everything to feel this…to call this my own. It was worth every mistake and every wrong turn and every minute of pain and loneliness…to find this. He loves me. Idiot that I may be, he still loves me. It doesn’t matter what happens, because that one all-important thing won’t change.

I must be crazy. No other explanation for it. We’re thousands of feet above the ocean, burning a trail through the skies on the way to who the hell knows what, and all I can think of is finding a way to fit in one last round lovemaking before we land and fate has us back in it’s cat paws once again.

“The bathroom. Come on. Now.”

He looks confused when I stand up. Perplexed looks as good on him any other expression he ever wears. I give a stupid smile and lean in to whisper the rest.

“Now or never. Wanna join the Mile High Club together?”

We didn’t pack much, but the carry on bag I brought has what I need, and the rest is up to Harry. I slip the tube of gel to him…let him worry about when to apply it. I just want him in that well appointed little room, pants around his ankles, nailing me hard enough to make me forget everything else for a little while.

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England is a lot prettier than I imagined. Of course, we aren’t at Heathrow, crammed into the heart of a busy capitol and world city. We’re at some ridiculously tiny private airfield, surrounded by green fields and rolling hills. The sky is a bit cloudy, but the sun is out in force and making the world bright and cheery. The breeze is perfect, and carries the scent of foreign fields with it.

I keep wandering the wrong way, or bumping into Harry when he stops too soon. In fact, it’s kind of hard to remember why I’m here or where I am for more than a few seconds. Not really complaining, mind you, since I was awfully demanding about an hour ago, but I swear…we’re lucky we landed safely, because I just got fucked so hard that he nearly put me through the wall of the plane. The things he said still ring in my ears, drowning out all those horrible thoughts that dogged my heels most of the way here, and they’re still at the front of my mind while we climb into the cream-white Bentley waiting for us.

’Drake, I love you. I love you so much. No matter what…I won’t let anything happen to you. Nothing. Whatever happens, I will be with you.’

When you consider that I’m headed for the most important meeting of my life so far, and that I should be very serious and somber about this, in deference to the gravity of our situation, the fact that I’m so giddy that I can’t stop smirking is probably a little juvenile.

But then, what the hell? Fuck ’em. What are they gonna do? Shoot me?

Okay…well…maybe. Insert your own nervous laugh right here. I’m still giddy and sitting down is somewhat uncomfortable. My butt’s bruised and the thong that looked so cute earlier is chafing something fierce, so it’s hard to concentrate on anything but Harry.

We talked…after. He was upset mostly because he was scared, but also because I cringe when I think things are going to get violent. Especially with him. I’ve started to realize that, just because I believe in him and love him, it doesn’t mean that I’ve forgotten my instincts. Getting hit is something you get used to…something you learn to expect when dealing with alpha males. I usually use sex as a distraction, but I fall back on complete submission when I think I’m in real danger.

So logical. So analytical. I can look back at it and explain it all so very well. And it doesn’t change a fucking thing. My heart knows he wouldn’t do that to me, but the rest of me knows that powerful men use their power however they please, and my gut instincts won’t let me ignore them.

It makes Harry sick. I think he’s starting to grasp that I come with baggage that doesn’t go away, but he’s an angel about it. That’s the other reason I’m so daft, dazed and dreamy while we ride through the countryside in style. He’s the kind of person that can see how fucked up I am sometimes, in all the ugly little ways that a shitty life can make you, and he can still see through it and want me…want to prove to me that my instincts are all wrong, and there is something better out there, and that I have it. I’m holding it’s hand right now.

Knowing that, wouldn’t you smile even in the face of impending disaster?

Well, it looks like we’ve landed in the fairytale land of the Queen Mum. Pip-pip…cheerio and all that rot! What a view! This place is like a castle, the kind I saw in Europe when I was a kid. Not the imposing fortress kind, but the gated manor kind that came into style when the kings stopped letting their noble subjects have fortresses and private armies. Just gorgeous, set against a backdrop of green and rolling hills, low stone fences and thick but manicured hedges.

People are busy everywhere as we drive in, cleared by security and pulling through the gates. Landscapers and greens keepers, all people doing something and looking very businesslike about it. The closer we get to the entrance, the more we pass people who look like they know what they’re doing. Stables and a garage and outbuildings that must be for guests or employees. It’s like a damn village in here! Now this…this takes money! The kind that makes guys like my Dad and Harry look like poor country cousins.

Still…there are armed security personnel moving in and out through the bustle, and I know I saw mounted cameras at the entrance. There are bound to be more. This place may look all sweet and rosy, but storming this castle would cost a life or two at the least. It doesn’t feel dangerous though. Just…protected. The security men wave hello to the other people working, and nobody here seems to scowl or frown very much. It can’t be all that bad of a place, can it?

Harry leads me in after the chauffeur drops us off at the entrance. A butler, balding, gray-haired and bushy browed, is waiting for us and bows when Harry and I walk up. The man is dour and grim, but that’s mostly just the stiffness that comes of being a professional servant to the upper crust. He looks like the kind of person that notices a fleck of dust from a yard away and then discreetly chews out the maid that missed it.

“Master Harry. So very glad you’ve arrived safely. Dinner was delayed for your arrival, and will be ready in one hour. Accommodations have been made for you…and for your companion…in your usual suite. If you’ll excuse me, sir, I trust that you can make your way well enough, but I have a number of matters which must be taken care of…with dispatch…before dinner is served. Do enjoy your stay.”

So formal. Crisp and utterly unemotional. You get the impression that he considers the place his, and we’re just interlopers who came to mess the place up and make more work for him. Ugh. He totters off and Harry motions for me to follow.

“Come on…let’s go. Don’t mind Argus. He’s been here for half of forever, and he’s been crusty since the day I met him. The guy practically never sleeps, and he keeps the staff on their toes by threatening everything but death, but his only pride is in keeping this place running smoothly and looking good. Just…if you should happen to get a chance to go riding…and get mud on your boots…don’t track it inside the manor. Believe me, it isn’t worth going there. Let me show you the suite…there’s something you ought to see as long we’re here.”

He’s got me curious now. “Okay, okay. What’s the hurry? We’re already dressed for dinner. Are we going to be here long enough to ride? I’m still jet-lagged, you know? Well…and sex-lagged too. Kinda sleepy. Incredible digs though. Did you live here for awhile?”

I have to hurry beside him. At least I’m not trying to keep up in heels! I love a tall man with strong legs, but keeping up with one when he’s in a hurry is a bitch. He looks more boyish than ever, grinning from ear to ear as we walk down hallway after hallway and up staircases lined with red carpet. The portraits in here are probably worth a fortune on the open market. There’s enough of them to open a damn gallery right here. Amazing.

“You’re right. I did live here. Off and on really. After…after my godfather died. I was in military school back in the states, I was fifteen and didn’t know shit about estate management, even though I had two estates waiting in my name. I didn’t really have a home of my own, so when school was out…I came here. ‘Mr. White’ handled my estates and investments for me and gave me a place to live. Other than here…I don’t really have a home. I keep a few things with me wherever I go, but the rest stays here where it won’t get lost. The staff keeps my suite ready for visits when I can arrange them.”

“Damn! This makes my dad’s estate look like a backwater dump! Go you! You seem awfully relaxed. Am I right to guess that things are…okay?”

“I’ve just got a hunch. If it was bad, we’d have known as soon as we arrived. They held dinner for us, so it can’t be all bad. Everything seems normal enough, so I’m betting that you and I might get asked some difficult questions, but nothing worse than that. I don’t know for sure…but it feels good to be home.”

He stops at an ornate wooden door in one of the halls. No wonder he’s so fit, if he spent any time at all running through this place. The sloppy grin is still in place.

“It’s a little cliched…given that we’re grown adults and all, but…want to see my room?”

Cute. His confidence is rubbing off on me. He believes we’ll get out of here with our asses intact, so I believe it too. He turns the door open, and it’s like page out of history, spliced into the modern world. The bed is probably a hundred and fifty years old, but the posters on the wall scream modern teenage boy. He already fumbling with the huge trunk at the foot of the bed, turning the know on a combination lock while I walk around staring at the room and its furnishings.

It’s so weird. Logically, I know that Harry has a life and a past and all those things, but locked into place in my mind is Harry as a commanding and powerful man, dangerous and yet civilized. I can’t imagine what he was like at fifteen. I know what I was like, and that puts a shiver right down my spine. At fifteen, I was a horrid brat, obsessed with sex and spoiled rotten, surrounded by luxury I barely appreciated, looking for every opportunity to enjoy myself or get off with the guy of my choice.

Okay…so maybe some things don’t change all that much. Still, my guy of choice is Harry, and I don’t want anything or anyone else, and I appreciate those luxuries now, damn it! Seven years in hell will give you a very refined appreciation for the good thing in life.

“There it is! Just like I left it. It’s my photo album. This and a few other things are all I keep here. I don’t really have a lot beside this.”

We sit on the bed while he tells me the stories behind the pictures, and I get a window into the past and a look at who my lover really is. Whatever else he may have become, Harry is just like anyone else. He had parents, and a life before we met, and feeling and thoughts and memories he hardly ever gets to share with anyone because of his work.

There are other pictures of his parents, apart and together. It looks like they met in school or college. Harry’s dad looks tall and a bit gawky, but his mother shares the eyes that I find so hypnotic. These are the people that combined to make him. They only exist on paper and in photos now. He never even met them. When you see his finger brush across the surface of the photo album, you can tell how much that loss is still a part of him.

There are other pictures, some just as informative in their own way as the ones of his parents.

“Who the hell are these people? They look nothing like you…and is that really you? You’re…tiny! And you have glasses!”

“Uh…well…yeah. Corrective surgery when I was sixteen. Those…that’s my mother’s sister’s family. They took care of me before my godfather came for me. I was kind of small for my age. I didn’t really grow until I was late into my teens.”

“So that’s who you grew up with? There’s only one photo of them. You were there for like…twelve years. What’s up with that?”

Wrong question. His jaw’s tight again. “Harry, I’m sorry…never mind, let’s try another page.”

“No. I should have said this to someone before now, but there was never anyone worth saying it to. My mother’s family practically disowned her. She was an intellectual and a firebrand, a radical compared to the lumps in the rest of her family. That’s how she wound up getting recruited in college to work for the early Phoenix Corporation along with my dad. When my parents died, the only people left to take care of me that were related by blood were her sister’s family. They didn’t want me. They made sure I knew it too.

It wasn’t like I didn’t try to make them happy. I tried. I guess I learned a few things from them after all. I figured out faster than most people that, you have to learn to like yourself, because you can’t really count on anyone else to do it for you. They gave me a good solid definition of what a complete pack of assholes would be like, and I pretty much gauge right and wrong by just doing the opposite of what they would have done. The best day of my life was the day my godfather took me away from there.

I think my aunt knew a little about what he did for a living. My uncle was going to shoot off his mouth about it all, but she told him to shut up, which I think was just about the only time she ever contradicted him in public in her entire life. My godfather, Sirius Black, would have come for me if he hadn’t wound up in some shithole prison in Eastern Europe for almost a decade. He gave them one angry look and they were falling all over themselves just to get me packed and out the door.

He had his own little estate, smaller than this by a long shot, but he didn’t wave his money around. He…I guess he knew that I hadn’t been...treated well, so he took a lot of time just to be with me and pound it into my head that I was worth something. It’s amazing what knowing that you matter to someone can do to your outlook. I was a really quiet kid. Didn’t like a lot of sports or take any risks. I was so fucking self conscious of every thing I did. No confidence at all. Until him. I could always tell that I was the most important thing in his entire world. I wanted to be like him more than anything else.”

The man in the picture Harry points to is the essence of cool. Motorcycle, black clothes and trench coat, dangerous and civilized, just the way I like them. There are a couple of other pictures of him as well, always as dark and sleek as a panther, looking perfectly at home wherever he was…like the whole world was dancing to his tune. The last picture of Sirius Black shows the difference a decade in prison can make. He’s thinner, paler, more somber, but you can see something in the eyes. Like fire. Even hell couldn’t burn the soul out of him. His arm is around a skinny, gangly teenage boy with short dark hair and glasses. Harry’s looking up at him, and you can tell he’s as happy and carefree as a teenage boy ought to be. No more quiet, serious little shadow in the corner, keeping his mouth shut to stay out of trouble. No wonder someone who made him feel that way would be his idol.

“Sirius died when I was fifteen. He finally had to do get back to work, and I had private school and staff to look after me, so he took off for Europe. The last time he was seen, he was getting into a car after a meeting with Consulate official in Romania. We don’t know everything, but we know now that security on our end was breached. A lawyer that worked for the company got bribed or threatened and turned double agent on us, then ran for it. He was the one who leaked Sirius’ location to Riddle’s people.

No body was ever found, but we know how to connect the dots. The assassin we know entered that area at that time was better known in Spain, and she was one of the best hitters the Basque separatist movements ever spawned. She went private back in the Eighties, and she’s been smart enough to cover her tracks well after every job. I don’t care about her, or anyone else though. I want Riddle. He’s the one who pulled the strings. He’s the one who ordered the death of my parents, and the death of Sirius. He took away the people that mattered to me, and once I make him pay, I’m done.”

I point to the next group of pictures. Military school. He looks so hot in that uniform, bright-eyed, fierce and full of discipline, but there’s a dark side to it. I can feel it. The boy in this picture isn’t the happy kid from a year before. The discipline and eagerness hides the shadow of anger. Rage. The lust for revenge.

“Yeah. That’s me at the Academy. Fourth in a class of three hundred and twenty. I arrived there later than a lot of other students, but I took half again the usual class load to catch up. Also honored for superb marksmanship and hand to hand combat, leadership in field exercises my final year, and long distance running. I was still angry. I channeled it into making myself stronger…strong enough to get even someday. My ’employer’ today was the only person left to look after me then. He told me then that if I learned the skills on my own merits, he would find a place for me in the Phoenix Corporation. I think he thought I’d quit or back out once I calmed down. He didn’t really want me to make my life about killing people. He also said he wouldn’t help me get those skills, because it was up to me, and if I earned it and still wanted the position, he would test me and see if I was able to handle it.

I signed up for basic training a week before graduation, and since I was an emancipated minor at seventeen, they let me in. I specialized and took additional training, and I was visiting every hot spot in the world between the ages of nineteen and twenty-two. Then I came back and asked for the job I really wanted.”

I just have to ask. “So what was the test?”

“Heh. Funny thing. He never actually got around to holding one. Mostly because the night I asked him…I didn’t tell him I was coming. I penetrated the security here, knocked out a guard, stole a uniform and a radio to keep tabs on the rest of them, slipped through the whole place untouched and unnoticed, and woke the old man up in bed to ask my question. He re-examined his entire security system because of me. After that, he decided I didn’t need testing.”

“Ha! I guess not! So I’m guess you really liked it here, didn’t you? It just seems like you’re…you know, younger here than I’ve ever seen you. Like you’re home.”

Harry looks at the window for a minute, then sighs and looks me in the eyes. “Kind of. Almost. I don’t think this is any more my home than anywhere else, but it’s the only place left with some memories attached to it. And people that I know and can safely interact with. This place is one of the most secure in all of England. At least as far as being overheard goes. Interference has been set up all over, and I have a freedom here that I don’t normally have. Still, you know the drill. Never mention business unless I mention it first. If I talk…that means it’s safe and I’m sure of it. Got it?”

“Word of honor, love!” I give him a sassy little salute and put on a serious face that only makes him chuckle.

“Your fingers were uneven, your hand was in the wrong position, your elbow was too low and that was the most undisciplined expression I’ve ever seen associated with a salute…but if good looks count for anything, you pass muster every time.”

I get introduced to the British term for kissing. Apparently, in this part of the world, it’s called snogging. Sounds gross when you say it like that. Like some kind of activity that involves coughing up mucous or something equally unpleasant. After all the books I’ve read, I always imagined the English would have a slightly more, you know, poetic…term for kissing, but I guess I can’t complain.

When we finally stop for breath, Harry stands and offers me a hand.

“Ready? Dinner should be almost ready by now, and remember, it will be okay. I’m with you no matter what. Understand?”

And I really think I do. Maybe my instincts make war with me now and then, but the rest of me understands one hundred percent. We’re on the way to dinner, I’m strangely calm, and I just realized something else.

In all the confusion, I never took my second pill. Looks like I feel this good all by myself. Thanks, Harry. You don’t even know how much you do for me.

TBC!!!