Boundaries of Wisdom

by Jane St Clair

A couple of days in bright sunlight enough to give him one of those radiant tans you thought only existed in magazines. And he just looks so *comfortable*. Loose t-shirt covering most of the shredded denim, sandals, very dark sunglasses that he wears like a mask.

In Quebec City, downriver from Montreal and less essentially urban. Coming down to the old city walls and the painted-shopfronts tourist land beyond. And feeling so *ordinary* in the crowd. The two of them just walkers among hundreds of other walkers, thinking about the summer music festival and the night market and the possibility of water. Talking casually about nothing. Jean-Paul's accent is stronger than usual, but it doesn't seem to be conscious. More like a habitat reaction.

And every so often, someone looks at him just a little harder, and sometimes Jean-Paul slides the glasses down his nose or turns around and smiles back, and Walter has to resist the urge to bare his teeth and growl, *Mine*.

Because he isn't his. Just his friend, his guide to summer in a strange city, and part of the reason for coming up was to let them get away from Alpha for a while. Get drunk, get stupid, possibly get laid.

And Alpha can damned well just foot the Chateau Frontenac hotel bill. They take enough abuse in the course of a year to deserve that kind of a view. And a dose of the gothicness that the whole building provides.

One more smile. Golden hair and very white teeth, shirtless in the sunshine. Young, male, t-shirt hanging loose from the back of his shorts. Little sparkle of him. And Jean-Paul easily detaches himself and slides over before Walter can break the rhythm of his stride.

And for a while he's cool about it. Finds the nearest bench and settles himself on its back, feet on the seat, leaning forward and not-watching. Noticing in spite of himself the grace of Jean-Paul's smile and the little outreach towards the other man's shoulder. Summer and cruising and this is what they *wanted*. Just to be happy and not-public. To slide around town with their skins damp under their clothes.

Except. Something. He might be jealous. Of the attention that he's not getting and Jean-Paul is, and over the loss of his friend. He was thinking ahead to the steps down to the river and something wet to eat and fighting to see if one of them could hurl the other into the water. Getting dressed later and clubbing somewhere fairly laid-back and getting loaded in front of their opened window at two in the morning once it had been firmly established that no sane person would ever have them.

Walter slides off his bench and wanders over. Comes up very close behind Jean-Paul, as quietly as he's ever learned, and just looms for a minute. Makes sure he's got the stranger's eye before he shows his teeth. Which is really quite... primitive, but it gets the result he's looking for. Quiet smile, polite but firm goodbye, and they're back to being just the two of them.

He has a second to be satisfied before Jean-Paul twists around and comes face-to-collarbone with him.

"Jealous, Walter?"

Walter shrugs. Takes a minute to let Jean-Paul's anger blow over before he says anything. "Which way were we going?" he says finally.

Jean-Paul glares at him through slits of blue eyes for a moment, then lets it go. Snaps into place a half-dozen strides ahead of himr and recommences trailing through the crowds. Leaving Walter to follow behind him, and watch.

It's that view that he remembers, later. In their room, showering down with his sticky clothes thrown on the floor. He left Jean-Paul on his bed, reading some bizarrely translated magazine and bitching about the heat. Down to just his shorts, navel and hard belly showing, ignoring Walter completely.

Something to think about while he cools down. Rinses twice, washes his hair out, thinks about the evening. Half-hard in some kind of anticipation that he isn't sure is entirely sex. Not even thinking about jerking off right now, just rubbing himself half-casually until a palm-slap on the bathroom door pulls him back to attention. Gets out and dries off out of the heap of towels they commandeered this morning and trades places with Jean-Paul.

Just a second's glimpse of white flesh above the tan before Jean-Paul ducks past him, breath of air like nothing, and slams the door.

Mostly dressed and barefoot by the time Jean-Paul re-emerges. Sitting in a chair by the window, watching the city and drinking something that's more whiskey than water. Walter half-turns at the door's opening and glimpses Jean-Paul spiky and wet and angular, already bending over his suitcase. Gold and pale and quite obliviously naked.

But the clothes he digs out aren't club material. Old, soft jeans, tight black t-shirt, runners. Hooded sweatshirt for the colder night. No underwear, apparently. And he dresses without turning around.

Walter says, "I thought we were going clubbing."

"You go. I'm going to attempt to get laid without a looming chaperone guarding my virtue."

Just a little sharp. And Jean-Paul turns toward him, anonymous young man, startly beautiful and with a fair-sized handful of latex shoved into his pockets.

"Enjoy yourself, Walter. I'll see you in the morning."

And goes, the door shutting invisibly behind him.

Walter stares after him for a while, then sighs and finds his shoes. Goes out, and walks instead of taking a cab like he'd planned. Music running up the streets, back outside the old city walls into the shell of something that must have been a warehouse before it gained its current layer of pretension. He pays the cover anyway, lurks around, drinks his outrageously expensive tequila, tries to remember why he thought this would be fun.

He gives up, just about the time there's a soft touch on his waist and a female body attached to it. Sun-blonde, little curves of her breasts. He can't imagine that she'd reach his collarbone. Flowered sleeveless top tied around her neck, leaving her back exposed, and that instinctive need to touch flares in him. Offers her the only smile he can muster and focusses it on the barely-visible freckles crossing her nose.

She offers him a hand. He can't even remember being able to distinguish voices. He half-shakes his head, but she catches his wrist and pulls. Younger than he is, playful, sparkling smile of a protected child newly grown up. Drags him with all her weight out onto the black tile and lays her palms on his hips. Tilts her head back and smiles and rocks, slowly back and forth, and pulls him close enough that he needs to move with her or fall.

This is something he can almost remember. Free, anonymous touch. Curve of this little body against him, his groin against her belly, hands on her hips. Watching her a little while he finds some kind of a rhythm in the noise, then edging in close enough to feel the nakedness of her breasts under her shirt. Little crooked smile up at him that he decides he loves.

And sometime after that, finds himself leaning back in his chair with her leaning across him, feeding him the ice from her drink. Clear-eyed and sober and running on adrenaline, soft legs where he touches them. Thinking in concrete terms for the first time about the possibility of making love to a woman tonight. That curve of body against his own that he felt the last time far too long ago.

Leans in and kisses her, gently and wetly, ice in his mouth chilling them both down. Just a woman. No powers, no spandex-laced angst. Human and lovely and willing against him. Younger than she should be but entirely adult and comfortable, settled in his lap and smiling down at him.

Gently kisses him. Holds his head and runs fingers up and down the back of his neck, wiggles in place. Grins at him with a ferocity that seems not quite to belong to her.

Entirely welcome in a way he didn't expect. He forgot at some point how *good* this could be. Girl-body straddling him, kissing him insistently. Breaks from her mouth long enough to get his lips to her ear and ask, "Do you want to come with me?"

"Mmm?"

"Viens avec moi. Please."

"OK." Clipped enough that he understands that this isn't her first language. Realizes how little it matters. Less that her body still against his side while he phones for a cab, her legs across his lap in the back seat while he strokes her ankles and insteps. Little whimper at the caress of his tongue along the top of her foot.

Something so essentially clean about her. As unnoticeable as any woman in the hotel when she follows him in, hand on his belt and slightly breathless, looking around at the hotel's interior. Impossible not to look, he knows. Victorian elegance of the castle that rises out of the city's core. She licks his mouth in the elevator. Shivers whenever he runs fingers along her spine.

Soft down there, and he turns her around so he can see better, sees her brace herself against the wall of the painfully slow elevator out of the corner of his eyes. Pale against some deeply tasteful burgundy print.

There are no tan lines here, but a slightly darker line where some ill-fitting bra must press. Her back is open to him, flesh and subtle curve, and it's only instinct to bury his nose in her dark blonde hair and breathe deeply before crouching behind her.

Tonguing the hollow at the base of her spine, soul somehow feeding on the sound of her moan.

Soft flesh there, curving over the bone, open like his mouth is open. Licks her carefully, then hard, like going down on her. Sweeps his tongue down under the waist of her pants, tasting sweat and female body and something bitter-sweet-sharp that must be her perfume. She's wet enough that he can smell her. Wants her.

Just rising when the floor-arrival chime rings. Pulls her back against him before turning and marching her half-playfully down the hall to his room. All of the necessaries of warm, soft, and easy. Comfortable. Her hair straight and sun-streaked and shoulder-length, glowing slightly in the dark of the hallway. Little naked strip of skin between her shirt and the swell of her hips.

He peels her shirt down once he has the door closed. Reaches over her shoulders to the newly exposed breasts. Freckles on the white, round in his hands, sensitive enough that she moans and arches back against him. Rocks her hips against his thighs, back against his erection. Asking and whimpering.

He turns her. Crouches and takes a nipple carefully between his lips, loves the gasp he draws out of her lungs. One arm around her back, one around her thighs, and he's sure she doesn't know what he's doing until he's picked her up. Holds her higher than anyone who was only human could, feels her knees grip at his waist. Breast in his mouth again. Lets her slide down, eventually, and wrap her legs around his waist. Kisses her and carries her into his bedroom, onto his bed, lands on top of her, rounded little legs against his waist in a fierce demand.

Blouse off her, over her head because he can't figure out how to undo the back. Pants and panties off together. Little arch of her hips and then the openness of them, wide-boned and soft-bellied between them. Blonde-brown hair that he can touch his nose to. She laughs, wiggles against him, gasps a little when he strokes her thigh.

Lays her open in front of him and licks her. Flat and wide first, soaking her from top to bottom and then letting her soak him too. The *smell* of her, god, female and clean and bright and willing and lovely. Tip of his nose against her clit, then his lips, then his tongue.

Just *in* after that. Mouth open, tongue deep up inside her. Glorious and careful and wild. She pushes back against him, twists and fights and gasps and only settles when he pulls back a little and just licks her, hard and often and all over while his fingers pinch the tiny pink ball of her clitoris.

Strokes her thighs and belly while he mouths her, harder than he's been in ages. Delicate little whimpers from her that build and he can feel her tighten around the tip of a finger he brushes into her cunt.

Mouths her down. Lets her tremble and strokes her and then crawls back up on the bed with his pants still on. Shirtless and barefoot, he lets her explore his body. Little hands on his chest, on his throat. On his belly and in his pants as she works them off him. Tiny flinch when her hand brushes the wet front of his boxers, little hesitation before she slides her hand inside. Enough that he wants to tell her she doesn't have to, aching though he is.

She straddles him, eventually, and kisses him with more energy. Wet again on his belly, and when he rolls her under him she smiles and spreads her legs wider. Holds him against her while he pushes in. Deep and hard and then still, holding where he is while she adjusts. And after that, gently. Less about hammering than about the rare feeling of a female body against his. All the curves of her, the breath-touches of her pubic hair against his skin, her thighs curling in around his. Little arm around his neck and all the kisses he can claim before this ends.

Steady and rocking into her, just loving her body and the quiet leaps of her breath. His mouth on her collarbone as she squeezes around him and he comes. Sweet and steady and less all-encompassing than he expected. More like a beginning, but she slides out from under him almost immediately. Lays by his side for a minute, stroking him from shoulder to hip, before she leans in and kisses him. Soft, grateful, friendly but not inquisitive. Then gets up and pads off to the shower.

He thinks about following her, but ultimately doesn't. Finds his boxers instead and pulls them on, sits cross-legged on the rumpled bed and stares out the window at the city's tiered lights until the water stops and the girl lets herself out.

Moment of her damp and golden and pretty in the bathroom's light, the towel around her breasts oddly chaste. She stoops and gathers her clothes, still watching him. Dresses carefully, starting with her panties, and putting on her pants before her top. Before she can fully dress, he holds a hand out to her and she comes to him. He leans in and kisses her on the soft flesh where ribs and belly meet. Open-mouthed and sucking, leaving a mark. Licks it as he withdraws.

She smiles down at him.

"You are lovely." Stilted, even more so than Aurora's. She cups his chin, brushes her fingers across his scalp. "I was pleased to meet you, Dr Langkowski."

Little jump of his heart to hear his name so formally like this. "I don't remember, did I...?"

"I recognize you. You are quite famous." Another gentle, half-dismissing kiss. "I need to go home. I would give you my phone number, but I think you will find Toronto is too far."

She steps back and ties the strings of her top at the back of her neck. Smiles at him as she walks out the door.

Walter showers. Wonders, vaguely, if he should have asked for her name, at least. He makes it quick enough that her smell's still on his skin when he comes out, and he's just the thinnest kind of clean. Utterly wired and very awake, still aching for something he hasn't found. Entirely not raw enough.

Shoes, no socks. Leather jacket around his shoulders, and he tears two relevant pages out of the hotel's phone book before pocketing just his keys and some cash and going out.

Quebec City at one in the morning is different even from Quebec City at midnight. Quiet and steaming. Colder. The outdoor concert on the old city's edge broke up a little over an hour ago, and the buses have stopped running. He hails a cab as he's walking up the hill towards the legislature and gives the address, refuses to flinch from the look he gets.

And finds himself in Charlesbois, hopping over pooled water to get to the door at the bottom of a staircase reaching down into the earth. Concrete all around him and just a small sign on the door in front of him. Warmth and water and chlorine that hits him when the door opens.

He has, actually, done this before. For much the same reason. It was a different city, three or four years ago, and he was horribly awkward. Trying to explain that he was just looking for. Someone. Which got him a slightly sarcastic raised eyebrow, a towel, and two condoms. The same thing his money and his signature get him now. Though at least this time around he has the sense to read the register as he signs, with an eye for handwriting rather than names. To give some name other than his own.

It almost had to be here. No one else would be open this late.

Locks up his clothes and shoes and wraps a towel around his waist. Pushes through the swinging door and goes walking.

Somewhere between film-noir industrial gothic and a floating world. Quiet and compartmentalized, but most of the walls are only eight feet high, and the ceiling must be twice that. He's aware that he's being watched. He's thirty-four years old, golden all over, hard-bodied in the way that superheroes, even mild-mannered ones with glasses, tend to be. Two blatant offers from men in individual stalls, one hand on his shoulder, too wide-palmed to be the one he's looking for. Little smile and head-shake for each.

Walks through the showers, eyes forward. Something about this. The steam heavier than any possible outdoor humidity. Dark and welcoming and primal. The welcome of him simply as a male being.

The door in front of him is both glass and opaque. Steam behind it like a living wall.

Walter pushes it open and steps into a cloud. Somewhere beyond his line of sight, there are benches, and the wood floor is oddly welcoming. He finds the wall by touch and follows it around. No living person there, as far as he can tell. Too late at night, maybe. Three quarters of the way around before he finds the man he's looking for.

Jean-Paul's stretched out on his stomach, his towel somewhere below him on the floor. Every inch of his skin wet and glossy, like a seal's pelt, shades of his tan like the vagriated colours of a hide. Sleepy and dark and sharp-faced. He looks up with a half-smile, starting at Walter's waist and only after waterlogged seconds running up to his face.

Then wide eyes and he sits up suddenly, pulling the towel up from the floor into his lap.

"Is something wrong?" Tension running back up into his shoulders as he gathers the extremities of himself back into something like a fighting readiness.

"Nope." Walter lets his knees go and settles down on the bench. Very comfortable in this heat and steam. He could stay like this forever, he thinks.

Blink. "What are you doing here?"

He doesn't answer for a while. Settles down in a long, prone stretch that mirrors Jean-Paul's and rests his chin on his folded arms. Basks.

"I thought you might have the right idea." Said with a small grin. He refuses to get up and eventually Jean-Paul stretches out again, facing him but with his head turned to one side, cheek pillowed on forearm.

There are faint tooth impressions on Jean-Paul's shoulder. Upper front, like mandibles digging in. Just barely visible through the steam, but all the more interesting for that. Little red marks that attract Walter's fingers. Make him reach out and stroke the damage, rousing Jean-Paul from his half-dozing state.

"Hmmm. Walter?"

He looks. Pause. This warm space between them.

Walter says, "Was he good?"

"Fantastic."

"Did you get his name?"

"Did you get hers?"

"No."

Jean-Paul gives him a "well, then" shrug and goes back to staring out into the steam.

Walter thinks about that. Thinks about what it would have been like had Jean-Paul brought this magnificent, unnamed man back to the hotel instead of fucking him in this decadent shell of a place. Imagines coming in with the girl to a suite that wasn't empty. Jean-Paul and some anonymous man and the breathy, entirely male sounds of their coupling filling the space. The girl's surprise, her laughter. Her not minding. Dragging him off to bed and still making love to him with the voices of others as a background rhythm, hard and fast against their paired slowness.

Shakes his head at this revisionist history but still can't resist the allure of it. The voices. The idea that he and Jean-Paul could be so close to the same.

*

Brushes his hand against that still-pale shoulder again. Jean-Paul's only managed the faintest tan on his body. Shimmering pale against the gold of his legs. And this time Jean-Paul lets it go without comment, only sighs softly and relaxes under the touch, and Walter understands that he's been forgiven. For interfering this afternoon and for touching when he shouldn't and for coming here tonight when it wasn't any of his business.

Walter drifts in the warmth. Rouses himself eventually and sits up, securing his towel a little better.

"C'mon. We're going to fall asleep here."

"I can think of worse fates."

"You might not think so in the morning. I don't think you're supposed to stay in the sauna that long. Come on. Up with you." Hands under Jean-Paul's arms, pulling him upright and laughing at the half-playful resistance. Marches him towards the door, just barely clinging to their towels. "Time for your cold shower."

"Walter."

"What?"

"No."

"Barbarian. It's part of the process."

"I think this is a different process. No cold showers necessary. Not even for you."

Odd little moment during which he gets this *look*, and at the end of it Jean-Paul leans in and kisses him lightly. Just a friendly kiss, lip to lip and smiling, quick enough that it couldn't possibly be mistaken for anything else. Except that it's all Walter needed to remind him that he's still on edge, on all his edges, still aching for something he didn't find. And by the time he takes a breath in, Jean-Paul is gone, gliding through the half-dark with the grace of a man whose bearings have been taken.

Quiet between them while they dress, and just a moment in front of the mirror in which Walter can take in what they look like. Only a half-dozen years between them, and a steady, bracing friendship, but with one of them in dark leather and still-pressed pants and the other in ripped denim and sweater, it looks more than a little like Walter's collected someone to entertain him for the rest of the night. The effect's marred a little by the confidence inherent in the sunglasses Jean-Paul throws on for a moment. Not really wearable at this time of night, but it reminds him of the sheer gloss that Jean-Paul is capable of projecting when he needs to.

Upstairs, where they find the night clerk asleep in the old, vinyl-covered armchair in the corner. Turn in their keys and sign out and walk out quietly. Walter wonders where he'll find a cab, but Jean-Paul just throws him a glance and commences walking.

It's what he needed, actually. Cold and clear after the steamroom, and they're climbing enough of a hill that he can think about his body and the way it moves instead of brooding. Jean-Paul moves more easily, feet just skimming the ground. One glittering smile while he stands on the opposite side of the crosswalk for an empty street, enough to make Walter ignore the few rules of traffic in force at this hour and just chase him. The strength in both of them more than enough, and they're up into the old city before Walter realizes he's winded.

Silent in the hotel at four in the morning. The night clerk isn't much more awake than they are; neither their adrenaline nor her coffee is a real substitute for sleep. Walter's genuinely tired now, and edgy. Still wanting and not able to even consider asking.

Elevator, hall, door. Jean-Paul beside him is obviously considering something, but it's not clear what. Walter kicks off his shoes inside and drops his jacket on the couch, stands shaking a little in the middle of the room, waiting.

Jean-Paul asks, "What threw you?" Walter blinks at him. "You didn't come after me because you were craving a midnight sauna. What happened?"

He thinks. "She recognized me. It was strange, that she knew me and I had no idea who she was." Beat. "I thought you were the one everyone was supposed to know by sight."

"Probably am. But anyone who finds himself signed into a bathhouse in the middle of the night already knows something about being discreet. You should try it sometime."

"I thought I had."

"Neither time counts. In Calgary, you came looking for me because Heather said that if you didn't, she would, and it offended your sense of propriety to allow a respectable matron to wander through the debauchery that I was wallowing in at the time."

"Tonight?"

"Tonight, I think you were lonely." Pause. "Perhaps it counts."

Jean-Paul walks towards his room, peeling the sweater off over his head absently. Pauses in mid-stride when Walter calls to him.

"What?"

"Do you. If I asked you to sleep with me tonight. Would you?" Fragmentary question, but he knows that Jean-Paul struck something when he said 'lonely.' Aching and wanting and. Unnamed yet.

Jean-Paul looks at him for a moment, then says, "I'll be there in a minute. Let me change."

And goes, shutting the door behind him. Walter pads off to his own room, peeling off clothes as he moves and tossing them into a chair. Strips to his socks and boxers and stands still a minute, feeling the room's air move around him. Stretches in front of the window. Stares out at the city's muted lights.

Little cough behind him that he turns toward. Jean-Paul in the doorway. In the soft, hip-hugging grey of his boxer-briefs and a t-shirt loose enough to cover him most of the way down. Just flashes of the grey visible. Modesty about the whole thing that makes Walter realize how close to naked he is. How much he assumed.

Jean-Paul slides up beside him and stares out the window. Just a second in which he lays his head against Walter's shoulder.

When Walter turns toward him, he's gone. Lying on his side on the bed, half-curled up and watching sleepily.

Nothing offered, but present, at least. Walter pulls himself together and goes to bed. Stretches out next to Jean-Paul in the dark, aching from the night and from whatever he was looking for and didn't find. And just lies still for a while, trying not to disturb the man beside him. On his back, which isn't really comfortable, but he needs this presence too much to risk driving it away.

Stillness until a single, warm hand comes to rest on his chest. He turns, stares into Jean-Paul's face. Startled when the fingers rise and trace over his face. Little tense moment in which he tries not to breathe. Then ducks his head gratefully as Jean-Paul slides in against his side and gives him room to settle properly. Jean-Paul's touch neither flinching from his naked skin nor quite revelling in it. Just holding him. Steady and friendly, warm against his back.

Soft breath against his neck while he falls asleep.

*

He wakes and there's cotton and warmth against the beard-stubble edging his face. Light making his eyelids translucent. He flicks them open carefully. Naked glass letting in the first light is just in his line of vision. The warmth under his face is Jean-Paul.

Not the way he would have expected to wake up, but wonderful. He's halfway down the bed, curled up and tangled in the sheet, with his cheek against Jean-Paul's abdomen. One arm slung around his hips. There are fingers resting in his hair, but he doesn't think Jean-Paul's awake yet. Only sleeping and comfortable with him.

Walter curls in closer. The bare feet resting flat against his thigh are warm, and the belly against his cheek is. Not soft. Hard muscle and a sleek absence of body fat, if he's honest. Little scrape-sounds of body hair when the t-shirt's cotton shifts. But comfortable. The way he remembers it being when he was a kid, and he'd be in the middle of a pile of guys, sacked out after a football game, using each other as furniture. Steady unbreakability of the male body.

Two fingers slide under the t-shirt's hem and stroke the too-pale skin underneath. Not even a full touch, just nails and the sides of fingers, but it draws a shiver out of the sleeping man. A little whimper and wiggle towards him. And something in that too: a knowledge that he can elicit that kind of reaction, that Jean-Paul doesn't shrink from his touch. A knowledge that he's out of bounds, and that if he's caught like this -- groping his best friend, miles out from where he has any right to be -- it's probably the end of their friendship.

He takes his hand back. Pushes up to the pillows and rests his head beside Jean-Paul's, pulls the man into a half-spooned embrace and dozes there until full morning.

*

And somehow, this afternoon. In the Old City, half a mile from the nearest tourist street. Just walking, with Jean-Paul zipping around just out of reach and Walter almost shivering at the street's narrowness. Impossible that someone should have parked a car down here, let alone the great road boat of a Mercury that's blocking most of the available street. Walter has an urge to sit on it and crush it to the size of a vehicle appropriate to the sheer Europeanness of the world all around him. An Audi, maybe. Or a Citroen. Something compact and secretly delightful.

Jean-Paul drops down beside him on the Mercury's hood. Somebody two storeys up is playing the piano. It's a nice effect.

Jean-Paul pulls his feet up on the big, chromed bumper and rests his elbows on his knees. Looks over at Walter. The perfect, precarious nature of the pose reminds Walter of the Cirque du Soleil. He wonders if they ever tried to recruit Jean-Paul, or if the real ability to fly would strike them as a lesser talent. The wood-spirit sharpness of his face is something you could touch up with face paint and turn loose in a night-festival market. Knife-sharp cheekbones, little hook in his nose. All the more striking for the still seriousness of his expression.

Somewhere within a couple of blocks, there's water. An open pool, maybe, or a waterfall. He can smell the extra liquid in the air.

Jean-Paul cocks his head. Curious like some bizarre animal. Then just the tightest fraction of a grin.

"So. What's next?" Said in a way that Walter tries desperately not to think of as insouciant.

Glittering fruit-sugar high. There was an open market a block from the hotel, full of street performers and musicians and people selling handcrafts. Walter wandered off to pet the carriage horses while Jean-Paul flitted between stalls, charming various fresh-faced young entrepreneurs into selling him whatever lovelies were catching his eye. The horses not working were tethered on lines, eating contemplatively. They smelled Walter carefully, and for a long time. Not sure whether they trusted him. Whether he might be a predator. Only gradually relaxing while he whispered to them softly. Thinking about a world larger and more sense-driven than the one he lives in now. Wildness that he doesn't get enough change to indulge.

A hand on his shoulder turned him, and he was faced with Jean-Paul, bag under his arm, grapes and strawberries overflowing from his palms. Offering, generous for someone so constantly hungry.

Walter accepted a couple of berries, watched Jean-Paul wolf the rest down. Since then, he's been running on the sun-brilliant energy of that food. Mischief somewhere just under his surface, waiting to get out.

Just this constant *tease*. Slender and dark and beautiful. His best friend and the body he woke up twined around this morning. Who stroked his hair and half-smiled messily at him before getting up and wandering off to shower. Tugging his shirt down absently, way too graceful for someone who just got up.

Same almost-smile now. Disturbing and sexy and friendly and it's just that much over the line.

Jean-Paul's fast, but he's not expecting this. Only watching and waiting for an answer. Too easy to catch him around the shoulders, pull him in and across Walter's lap, and kiss him. On the hood of this car, his bare legs scraping Walter's chinos, just startled and tense at first. Returning the kiss after a couple of seconds. Softer mouth, fiercer. *Pushing* towards him suddenly. No hands.

Wet and warm and *wanted*.

He's laid bodily across Walter's lap by the time the kiss breaks off, and Walter has a second to contemplate the differentness of six feet of hard muscle and bone. This absence of curves. The whisper-edge of stubble that's scraped the edges of his mouth raw.

Bump of a forehead against his. "You're pretty good at that. Not practiced, maybe, but naturally talented. Eight out of ten from the Italian judge."

Licking his lips. Half-tasting, half something else. Drawing himself together. By the time the tongue-tip's disappeared, the face Walter's looking at is the same one he's seen on a score of Alpha promotinal posters. Only. Breathing that much harder. And his smile is gently happy.

The happiness almost invisible. Walter slides down off the car hood and walks away, but when he turns and looks over his shoulder, it cracks open into something so heart-stoppingly brilliant that he forgets to keep moving. He hasn't earned that smile more than two or three times in his life. Even Aurora only graced him with it once, and hers was. Mad.

What Jean-Paul's promises isn't sex, exactly. More like. Intimacy. A knowledge that Walter's so far been denied.

Something fierce about it. Essentially male. In case he had any doubts that this *isn't* Aurora.

It hits him to the bone. Not just *friend* or *best friend* or *Jean-Paul*, but another *man* that he just kissed. Which is ... not him. Nothing like anything he's done up to now. Nothing like *him*.

He doesn't know what he was thinking, exactly. Because whatever Jean-Paul is, he isn't one of Walter's soft, easy lovers. Nothing curved or gentle or. Female about him.

He looks at the pavement. Starts walking.

Silence for the next three quarters of an hour, while he thinks very hard about it. Something in his belly that's a lot like cold fear. He isn't sure he's even got a name for this. Or he does, but it doesn't fit. Square peg trying to push into the round hole between the soft, nameless girl of last night and the sheer *maleness* that Jean-Paul exudes. The quiet, scarier *gay* thing.

And Walter'd like to think that he's better than that, than freaking over that, but he isn't, always.

When he looks up, he's walked out of the Old City, and up the hill into one of the residential suburbs that are really part of the city proper. More houses, big trees, jewellery stores and art galleries in a row of glossy brownstones.

Another half hour on top of that before he realizes, really, that he's alone. How long exactly he's been walking solo. How disoriented he is. Not hard to catch the next Metrobus back downtown, but there's some essential direction missing.

He takes random turns. Walks and breathes very deeply. Dark, reflective smell of very close-cut lawns and manicured roses. Ozone on top of that. Clouds moved in while he wasn't paying attention, and he's suddenly aware that it's colder, and that it's going to rain. Which it does, leaving him in shirtsleeves and soggy pants, still walking because he can't think what else to do with himself.

"Walter." Just at his shoulder.

Jean-Paul falls into step beside him. Hands him a jacket. Not waterproof, but it warms him up at least, and he can stop shivering for a minute.

Walter thinks about how pathetic he must look. Big man with both arms wrapped around his abdomen to ward off. Something. Soggy hair and face and shoes. Jean-Paul beside him is inscrutable.

"You hungry?"

"Yeah."

He doesn't bother to imagine what kind of restaurant would accept them in this condition. Works on not thinking about Jean-Paul coming looking for him. About his own misery and the hurt that's frozen under the other man's non-expression.

What he finds isn't quite what he wanted. When he thought 'restaurant,' he was thinking of something with very deep, soft booths and a generic menu; what he gets is a converted house with a large, charicaturized pig sign hanging from a brass rail. A little, irrational sign that says *Le Cochon Dingue*. But it's open and he's freezing and he's starving. Jean-Paul has to be a couple of degrees beyond that. His palms are flexing gently and constantly with the restlessness that means that his metabolism is insistently asserting itself.

So. This patio, wood-roofed and canvas-walled, warm in a way that he wouldn't have thought possible. Little fire-bowls hanging on chains from the ceiling. Pretentious, but cheerful about it. And it feels too good for him to complain. The fire-heat's soaking down through Walter's shoulders into his body, letting him know how cold he was.

He's perfectly happy at the moment to munch on his foccacia bread and bask and not think too hard about the several levels on which he needs to apologize.

Fire-warmth and green, almost opaque light. Passable red wine. He thinks he'll reccommend the place to Heather the next time she's down. Everyone around them looks like her -- soft, clean-faced, glossy-haired and professional. And even the messy pasta would probably sit alright with her. It's enjoyable, and she could take Jean-Paul along, since watching him eat is an entertainment in and of itself. His interest in his fettucini is almost artistically intense. And once you feed him, his mood eases. Something grim about a hungry speedster, but carbohydrates are good for him. He stops looking so miserably drained. He relaxes, arches a bit in his chair, reaching towards the fire above them. Licks the rim of his glass reflectively.

And wonderful, because the next real look he gives Walter contains all of *you're a shit* and *you're forgiven*.

"s'cusez. Je regrette de vous deranger, mais, nous aimons bien savez si vous etes d'Alpha Flight."

Tall, blond, starkly tanned. Blue denim of a shirt against khaki, meeting at a too-slender, hipless waist. Thirtysomething and friendly and still boyish. Smiling, but not at Walter.

And that's the crux of it. Because if they are Alphans, then they're public figures. And they have to say hello. Be polite. Answer questions. Acknowledge themselves in some fundamental way that lays them back into their public personae, of angry, sexually ambiguous bad boy and loveable, brainy straight-boy geek.

Angry at the intrusion into something he needed to be private.

Looks for an interim answer. Finds one that involves stretching his hand across the table to catch Jean-Paul's wrist in mid-reach. Looking up at this stranger and letting his incisors transform not too subtly into Sasquatch fangs.

Jean Paul says, "Oui. Mais nous sommes en vacance, et ce soir est prive, d'accord?"

Lashes sweep down towards the man's cheeks. "Ca met egale. Je m'excuse." One slightly regretful look at Jean-Paul, who doesn't look back. And gone.

Stillness between them while they measure each other. Walter pulls his hand back, eventually, without letting go. Pulls Jean-Paul's hand with him. He has to lean in across the table to kiss the knuckles that his own grip leaves exposed.

"Walter."

He ignores the word. Turns the hand over instead and rubs the palm. Narrow and soft-centred. Scar just below the fingers that he knows comes from Jean-Paul's messy, early terrorist life. It's a story he only has pieces of so far, and one of these days he's going to have to really ask.

Brush on his shoulder from their waitress. Walter orders dessert without looking up. Just massages and thinks. And takes a fork when she comes back with it, spears a mass of chocolate, and feeds it to Jean-Paul.

Flash of joy and energy that the sugar and caffeine raise in him. Open and happy for a second. Until he pulls himself together. Then reclaims his hand and sits back, finishes his dessert on his own.

Very quiet in the cab on the way back. The whole city's steaming in the downpour. Bizarre moment of cars in the Renaissance-proportioned square at the hotel's heart, and a moment of drowning wetness before they get inside. Quiet in the space between them, wood and gilding of the elevator and their wet clothes.

He doesn't see Jean-Paul move when the doors part, but the door of their suite's open by the time he focusses on it, and the other man's gone.

Walter follows. Walks into their suite and finds Jean-Paul perched on the back of a chair with his soles pressed to the seat, staring out the open window.

He says, "Don't do this to me, Walter."

Quiet, so close to misery that Walter drops into the chair nearest the door and just stares at him. Gets up long enough to retrieve a glass and a bottle, the price of which Alpha can ream him for later, and pours himself a drink.

"Would it be that bad?"

Long, glacier-blue look. "Does the sex mean so much to you that you would risk the rest of our friendship on it?"

"Maybe." Trying to keep his voice as level as possible.

What he gets in answer is a nearly-hysterical laugh. "I think I envy you that luxury, to have so many friends that you can risk throwing them away." He slides off the chair and walks to his room. Doesn't storm, but Walter gets the impression it's a near thing. The snap of the door isn't quite final, but it's pointed enough that he could cut himself on it.

So he thinks about that. About the closed life they have at Alpha, and the even more closed life that Jean-Paul has. In which he fights with the Betas, and with anyone else in the room. In which he gets most of the shit the press has to throw at them. In which he reads and takes care of Aurora and still mourns baby Joanne more than a year after her death. Some kind of a wound that hasn't healed and maybe isn't going to.

Goes off, eventually, and strips off his wet clothes. Finds enough dry ones that his presence won't say anything he doesn't want it to. And then goes and lets himself into Jean-Paul's bedroom.

He's belly-down, crosswise, on the bed. Staring at the rain and the encroaching dark. Stiff and unhappy and aching. Long lines of his body stark under the still-damp layers of his clothes.

Walter reaches out a hand and lays it on that too-thin back. Jean-Paul tilts his face to look over. Tight and miserable and he curls in on himself in reaction. Pulling away until Walter drops himself onto the bed and hauls the man into as comfortable a hug as he can manage.

It takes a while before Jean-Paul returns it, but fierce when he does. Tight around his shoulders. Grim little smile of apology.

Walter hugs him tighter. Folds them both down eventually, pulling Jean-Paul in against his body. Keeps hanging onto him.

Thinking that he isn't sure he likes this place. The hotel's gloss and coldness are too huge around them. Wanting to sink into some kind of warm, contained space where they could stay curled up like this after daylight. For weeks, maybe. Without a view or any contact with the outside world. As if there were some kind of isolation that could strip this fear out of him and make him strong enough to do whatever it is he needs to do next.

End

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