Waiting for the Night

by Shadowfox and Dr. Ruthless

Disclaimer: They still don't belong to us, and when we try to catch them, they let out girlie screams and run. :::sigh::: We keep telling them we can fix it... =( If you happen to see our lost boys, could you send them home please? We can't finish this without them...

Pairing: Vic/Mac

Rated: M this time for oral gratification and implied drug use and imagery. This will be the only warning you get, so take it to heart.

Summary: No matter how much we try to beat it down, the plot grinds on. But fear not, we think there's a light at the end of the tunnel...Victor and Mac are lost without each other, and trying to struggle through.

Series: 1: Walking in my Shoes, 2: It's No Good, 3: Never Let Me Down Again, 4: Barrel of a Gun, , 5: Waiting For The Night, 6: Nothing

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

I'm waiting for the night to fall
I know that it will save us all
When everything's dark
Keeps us from the stark
Reality

I'm waiting for the night to fall
When everything is bearable
And there in the still
All that you feel
Is tranquility.

There is a star in the sky
Guiding my way with it's light
And in the glow of the moon
Know my deliverance will come soon

I'm waiting for the night...
--Waiting For The Night, Depeche Mode--VIOLATOR (1990) Sire Records

Vic's Voice

When I first saw Mac again, together with LiAnn, I instantly knew my baby was very, very unhappy. It's been two weeks since I was rescued; two weeks since my lover busted into that dank, abandoned warehouse and killed Ashwin Marken to save my life, his face alight with vengeful fury as he beat the hell out of the other man before snapping his neck and consigning the other man's tortured soul to hell.

Yes, I saw it all; saw what Mac did to Marken, and what he did afterwards. I don't know how to explain it, but I know that I did. It's like a dream, a startlingly clear dream with vivid sound and color; and all the everyday information gained by just being alive is so sharp and bright as to dazzle the senses to the point of painful overload. I was so close to leaving it all behind; and the only thing that kept me here is the pain I felt in Mac as he agonized over my dying body and begged me not to leave him all alone.

As usual, I can deny him nothing; and before all of this, that fact wouldn't have bothered me at all.

It's been two weeks. Two fucking weeks of nothing but Agency doctors futzing over me in between bad meals and even worse television. Two weeks; during which I've been dubiously graced with the company of Jackie Janczyk almost constantly, interspersed with thankfully short visits from the Director and Dobrinsky--hell, even Murphy and Camier overcame their well-known (and strictly professional, mind you) hatred of hospitals long enough to pay me a visit during my convalescence.

But the one person I'd been wanting and hoping to see hadn't come at all during that time, and his absence was a strong statement. Jackie told me the reason; told me that Mac and LiAnn were a couple again with sadness in her eyes and compassion in her voice, and that Mac was drinking heavily--had been since LiAnn's abduction--and getting worse by the day. So when the two of them had finally shown up a bare ten minutes before my release with Mac looking like he'd rather be anywhere else and LiAnn demurely, quietly smug, I wasn't terribly surprised.

I was, however, terribly hurt. That Mac would think so little of me, to avoid me this way, is very painful. What the hell did he think I was going to do, cause a scene the way LiAnn had? He should know better. If being with LiAnn is truly what my partner wants, I won't stand in their way. I don't have to like it, after all; I only have to get through it.

Getting through it, however, would be so much easier if Mac didn't look so beaten down and world- weary. The mischievous sparkle that I had loved so much is gone from the younger man's dark velvet eyes; leaving them dead and blank, as if his body is nothing more than an animated shell or a broken puppet missing some of its strings.

The stray thought brings to mind an image from one of those insipid boy-group videos they constantly run on MTV or Much Music or whatever. The one where the group members, newly freed from their strings, spend five-plus minutes trying to outsmart their demented female puppet master by escaping from whatever scenario she happened to drop them into. Looking at her now, I can easily picture LiAnn as the girl in the video, putting the two of us through our paces and laughing with great glee as we find all our exits blocked time and again.

It makes me angry. I want to scream, 'can't you see how fucking miserable he is? Don't you even care? Fucking look at him, for Christ's sake!' I want to shake LiAnn until her head rattles. I want to slap her teeth out. I really, really want to wrap my hands gently around her throat the way Marken did to me in her place and just squeeze until her breath rattles and her windpipe collapses under the relentless pressure and the light dies in her eyes and then Mac would...

"Vic? Hey, sweetie, you okay?" I blink slowly at the question and turn from my contemplation of LiAnn's delicate unbruised neck to look over at Jackie, concern evident in her face as she watches me steadily.

Fuck, I wish Marken had finished me off. Maybe I shouldn't have left a message with Nathan after all; I mean, they would have eventually found my body, right? I wouldn't have to be going through this pain right now if I hadn't wanted to keep Mac from worrying about me. But I did, and now I have to take my lumps for my selfishness.

"Yeah," I rasp. One of the souvenirs Marken has left me with is a bruised larynx and it makes talking an annoyance at best right now. "I'm fine. I just need to get the hell out of here," I savagely stuff my bag and avoid looking at my other partners--especially Mac, who is pale and sallow and starting to get that slightly jaundiced look from all the hard drinking he's doing. More than two weeks on a bender with no end in sight can do that to a man; I know that well enough from personal experience with my dad.

Oh, baby; I'm so sorry, I want so badly to reach out and touch Mac, wrap him tightly in my arms and let the rest of the world fade while we heal, but it isn't possible. Mac's made his choice and now we both have to live with it. But it's hard and it hurts so badly and the wound is still too raw and open for me to be able to successfully pretend I'm anything less than devastated at the moment.

And LiAnn knows it--of course she does. How could she not, with the way I'm broadcasting my pain and distress? It's like my emotions are wired to a radio tower or something, and I hate it. I've been such a sucker--again. LiAnn has played me so skillfully from the first time she walked into my life and now here I am, getting stepped on once more by a woman. Is there some kind of freaking sign tattooed on my forehead or something?

Dizzily, I close my eyes for a moment and take deep breaths. Just in...out...in...out...in...out, until the red haze passes and my anger is under control again. I know deep down that LiAnn couldn't possibly have faked everything over the years, know that what is going on with her at the moment is some crazy dysfunctional shit that she needs serious help for; but while my head knows it, my heart is still hurting from her spiteful selfishness.

Apparently, so is Mac's.

"I'll get the car," god, he sounds just as bad as I feel. He's gone before anyone can voice a protest, a slight wobble to his step as he hastens back through the door he just came in. Baby, please don't go...don't leave me again...why couldn't you just let me go when I wanted to, when I was ready for it? Now you're killing me a piece at a time instead, and it's damned cruel. It hurts--but I'll let you do it anyway because you asked it of me. You asked me to stay here with you, so here I am. Fucking pathetic, isn't it; and sadly, par for the course.

Well, hurting or not, we are still a team at the moment--which means we're all stuck with each other whether any of us likes it or not. For Mac's sake, I'll try to be charitable. "You don't have to do this," I sigh to LiAnn as I finish stuffing the bag, "Jackie's giving me a ride home." I look up at the last, straight into my ex's face, full of superiority under the mock concern and feel myself tense. There's a hard cold knot in my chest and I can feel it expand as she opens her mouth to speak.

"I never got to thank you, Victor," the tone is gentle, contrite and grateful. If I hadn't been watching her eyes I could believe that she actually meant it. "I mean, what I did was really stupid and if it hadn't been for you I would have..."

"Save it," a sudden vision of LiAnn and myself flashes before my eyes and I can hear the same tone of voice all those years ago as she told me how much I meant to her, how much she loved me and wanted to be my wife....if it hadn't been for you...

Something brittle inside snaps with the memory and I look up at her, gratified to see her flinch under my ice-cold stare. "You wanna thank me, LiAnn? You really want to express your gratitude to me? Then make the most of this chance and be good to him. Treat him the way he deserves to be treated, not the way you have been ever since he walked back into your life; the way you probably treated him when it was Michael Tang in my place."

Her eyes grow huge and I know I've struck a nerve. Contrary to my usual behavior, I grab it with both hands and run and it feels so fucking good to finally be free of this sick game of hers. Now, every word I say is both the death knell for our decaying 'relationship' and a celebration of my new-found freedom. Forgive me when I say I can't see any reason to be happy just now.

"Well, sweetheart, I ain't crazy or stupid enough to get dragged back into your little game. Unlike the late Mr. Tang, I learn from my mistakes. So you can bet I won't be dragging my ass across the Pacific--or anywhere else for that matter--to rescue you from your stupidity anymore. Never again, LiAnn. But if you don't start treating him right and giving him the love he deserves, there will be nowhere you can hide from me. Do you understand that, LiAnn? Nowhere." I mean it, too. Watch and see if I don't.

She stares at me for a long moment, looking so insipidly sweet in her shock and righteous indignation that my palms are itching again. "Victor, you seem to think I had something to do with him leaving you. I didn't. I swear, I didn't do anything. This was his choice--and the sooner you realize that, the sooner you'll see that this was all for the best. It never would have worked between you anyway, you're too different," she's talking down to me, using that soothing tone of voice she has when she thinks she knows better than anyone else and is 'just trying to help.'

It's all I can do not to physically hurt her right now, but there is no way in hell I'm going to keep the poison inside myself to fester. LiAnn might have won the day; but the very least I owe myself is to let her know that she didn't get Mac back for free.

"Maybe. Maybe not. It looks like we'll never know. But the one thing I do know is that I love him; I love him enough to let him go if that's what he needs from me. I seriously doubt you can say the same. The reason you got taken and got all of us into this mess in the first place was because you could never accept not being the sole center of his attention anymore--or mine. You couldn't accept that the game was over," as LiAnn continues to stare at me in hurt wonder, I decide I'm in for the jackpot and let it rip. There's no way the Director is going to take me off the team as long as I do my job and do it well; and it doesn't matter to me if she decides to in any case. Hell, she might even like the new dynamic; lord knows the woman is just twisted enough to.

Either way, I still have to find a way to make myself go back to the way it was before; a feat I'm becoming more and more convinced will be all but impossible. Mac took all of the most important parts of my defenses with him when he left to answer the siren call of the brass bitch standing before me, looking so very hurt and bewildered by this anger currently being directed towards her.

Well, what the fuck did she expect? She's toyed with us both for so long. She actually expected us to be happy with the crumbs she tossed our way while she fed off our animosity towards each other, then acted like a spoiled child when we didn't want to play with her anymore--a spoiled child who's gotten her way in the end, as usual, with all of us...Mac, me, and Michael Tang as well...so I figure I've got nothing to lose by venting at this point. "

I wonder if Michael realized just how well you played him before he died. I know Mac did," I grin evilly at the shocked look on her face, "and I'll give you another little bit to chew on, darling mine. The only reason Mac is by your side instead of mine right now is because of Family obligation. You must be so proud of yourself, being able to inspire that kind of slavish devotion in a man," LiAnn opens her mouth again but I ignore her. She's already gotten all the consideration I can muster for her today, and a damn sight more than she deserves from either Mac or myself considering the situation.

"A word of advice, beautiful: keep on playing it like you are and it won't be strong enough to hold him there. Sooner or later, he'll get tired of being treated like a boytoy again," I leave the fact that I'll be waiting for that day with open arms and an open heart unsaid. He'll come back to me someday. He has to.

Doesn't he?

I know I should leave it alone now, but the pain and stress of the situation--not to mention the events of two weeks ago--have finally caught up to me and I'm too far gone to put a rein on the acid and bile spewing from my soul. Truth be told, I don't even want to. I'm tired of being nice and understanding; all it ever gets me is a swift kick in the ass and LiAnn has kicked me more times than all the others in my life combined, including the bastards that set me up. I take great pleasure in watching her squirm as I drive my point home.

"Remember, LiAnn; always remember your pride. Always remember that's how Marken got to you, and if it wasn't for this pok gai, you'd be just another dead body on a slab. Most importantly, always remember that you have Mac to thank for your life any time you wanna make him bleed for forsaking you, because now I can honestly say that I don't give a shit about you anymore. You killed every last scrap of love and charity I ever felt for you by forcing him to choose between his Family and his happiness with your fucked-up, psychotic bullshit."

"Victor, I didn't force him...," there are crocodile tears in her eyes and a tremor in her voice as she tries to defend her position.

I'm not fooled for an instant and cut her off savagely. "If it were up to me and I had to do it all over again, knowing what I know about you now, I would have left you there with Marken. Because having just seen Mac and the way he is with you, I think he would have been better off after all," she flinches again and seems to deflate a bit, sagging back against the wall for support and staring at me like a scared rabbit.

Aww. Poor frail little LiAnn...getting picked on by big bad mean old Victor. Right. Well, the truth hurts and I'm not about to spare her any of it anymore. It's high past time she found out what real pain feels like.

Slinging my bag over my shoulder, I pin LiAnn against the wall on my way out the door by stepping into her space until we're almost touching bodily and looking deep into her eyes. Cheap and juvenile I know, but it's effective and I'll take what I can get.

"I also know that if you're stupid enough to let him get away this time, I'll be there to take up the slack and you won't get another chance ever again. So love him, LiAnn, and love him well; because he's given up his life twice now for it and may not survive the next time."

"Vic, don't you think that you were, like, way harsh?" Jackie says mildly as she drives to my apartment. Surprised, little girl? Didn't think the big dumb hick cop was capable of being anything but a doormat when it came to LiAnn, did you? I hope you learned something back there, Jackie, because I've just about had it with the lot of you and your bullshit head games. One more good push is all I need and you'll all be very, very sorry if I get it.

"What's it to you?" I snap waspishly. Not only am I tired of her constantly hanging around, it hadn't helped that I had to pass right by Mac with her in tow as I walked through the med center's front entrance. But the clincher for my current foul mood had been seeing Mac tear back into the hospital after LiAnn. It sums up the state of my life perfectly.

"Nothing," Jackie shoots back calmly, "nothing at all. But I'd suggest keeping a lid on your temper from now on, unless you actually like the idea of becoming Dobie's new personal slave."

"I'll keep that under advisement," I growl before turning away to watch the scenery go by and pointedly ignoring my unwanted Samaritan for the rest of the ride. What the hell's her problem anyway? She's been sticking up for LiAnn ever since that night in the club, not that the party in question would ever appreciate it. LiAnn considered Jackie a threat from the first time she laid eyes on her; which is hilariously pathetic to me. The biggest threat to LiAnn's happiness and peace of mind has always been herself.

I hear her mutter, "Jeez. Some people are just so hard to help," and ignore that too.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

One week later...

I don't know what the hell I think I'm doing. This is stupid, right? Hanging out online in a chat room in the middle of the night...it's the epitome of not having a life. Yet here I am, doing exactly that; because, well, I don' t have a life. Didn't have much of one before Mac, and don't have one at all now that Mac's gone. Fitting really. So I hang out and watch the words scroll by on the screen, waiting for a conversation to find me because I'll go crazy from the memories if I don't.

(hongkongfooey) Anyone out there?

When the IM finally comes, I'm tempted to ignore it; not really feeling up to chatting after all. Then I remember why I fostered this particular online relationship in the first place. Maybe this is Corey's way of telling me that I need to pull my head out of my ass and start living again. But I don't want to right now. It still hurts.

You have to do it sometime, Moose. When did my conscience start sounding like my beloved best childhood friend, the first boy I ever kissed and the first man I ever loved? It doesn't help that I can close my eyes and see Corey sitting right in front of me. It'll get better eventually, baby. Promise.

God, am I ever losing it. Still, I click the mouse and type back...

(MightyMoose) hey! long time, no see...what's up?

(hongkongfooey) Is that the polite form, or do you really want to know?

(MightyMoose) touchy...I'd really like to know...

(hongkongfooey) Got masochistic tendencies, do ya?

(MightyMoose) hey, you know me...pain, and lots of it... [g]

(hongkongfooey) Everything in my life seems to have fucked itself up. I'll join you in hell, shall I?

Boy, is that ever on the bull's-eye...

(MightyMoose) yeah. so what's going on?

(hongkongfooey) I seem to have talked myself out of the best thing in the world, 'n into slavery.

Ah...work again. Well, that's nothing new. Fooey's boss seems to delight in torturing the poor guy. Still, it could be worse. He could have been working for the Director.

(MightyMoose) the boss eat you for breakfast again?

(hongkongfooey) I wish that was all it was. This is so far beyond that, I need a telescope.

Ho-kayyyyy...

(hongkongfooey) Tell me this, have you ever been in love? I mean really in love?

Oh, man, you just don't know...it hurts to *live* right now...

(MightyMoose) :::sigh::: yes. very, very much in love...with the last person I ever expected to be...why?

(hongkongfooey) Because I've just managed to talk myself out of being with the love of my life...

How the hell do you do that? It's bad enough when they don't want you...

(MightyMoose) damn. talk to me...what happened?

(hongkongfooey) Ah...How do you feel about gays?

Brother, if you only knew...

(MightyMoose) :::frown::: what do you mean? do i have a problem w/it? No...I mean, you love who you love, right?

(hongkongfooey) Right. ::sigh:: thas the prob. I fell for the most gorgeous guy you ever saw...And hid it from him for months.

(MightyMoose) yeah? why? he had a problem w/it?

There's a long pause, then the answer comes back...

(hongkongfooey) My guy-I suddenly found out that he loved me right back. How cool was that?

Well, that's good...at least somebody's getting the love they need...

(MightyMoose) Really? that's great!

(hongkongfooey) And he... oh, man, you gotta see him. He's more than I deserve.

Yeah? You haven't seen my baby...that thought brings a stab of pain with it, and I ruthlessly squash it by turning flip. Mac would be so proud.

(MightyMoose) yeah? [eg] tell me...

(hongkongfooey) So I had to fuck it all up, didn' I?

Huh?

(hongkongfooey) See, it's wrong.

Oh, jeez, not another poor tortured soul wrestling with his sexuality. I seem to remember the guy talking about some wacked-out girl he'd been chasing for a while a few months back, one who liked to play mind games...and a guy he was working with...could that be the one he's talking about?

(MightyMoose) what? what's wrong?

(hongkongfooey) Can't be having ttoo much fun. 'swrong. So I can't have hm

Okay, this is not good. This is definitely bad. The typing is starting to screw up...

(MightyMoose) I don't understand...you're not making sense...

(hongkongfooey) Makes perfec sense. He's not mine. Can't be. Won[' be ever again.

It was a couple of minutes before he answered me, so naturally I'm a bit worried...and there's this slight nagging in the back of my mind...I push it away and concentrate on the words on the screen.

(MightyMoose) are you....are you okay?

(hongkongfooey) Course I'm okay. What could possibly be wrong? O-kayyyy.I won't call him on it yet.

(MightyMoose) yeah? lots of typos tonight...so what happened?

(hongkongfooey) My tpying is fine.

(hongkongfooey) Tld you already. Duty calls, and I got to give him up.

What the fuck? God, I think this guy's got a bigger guilt complex than I do...maybe it couldn't be worse...the Director is a bitch and something of a control freak, but she'd never go *this* far...

(MightyMoose) duty? what duty? your boss can't tell you who to love...it's not like he can fire you for it.

(hongkongfooey) She'd fire me in a heartbeat. Think that's all that's left now. Get fired and it can all go fuck itself. Ah. Well maybe she wants him all for herself. Still, there's no way she could get away with it...

(MightyMoose) listen...you cannot be fired for being gay. that's against the labor laws...

(hongkongfooey) She'd wend me back. I'd be dead in a day.

I think I have to call him on it now...that just made no sense at all...

(MightyMoose) wend?

(hongkongfooey) What? Wend? Oh... send. Sorry. Fingers a little fuzzy.

Tell me about it...Fooey, man, what the hell are you doing to yourself? And why do I care so much about it?

(MightyMoose) I can see that...okay. Tell me what happened. Did he find out about your past?

(hongkongfooey) already knew all fo that. Tol you. Perfect man.

Something tells me to wait, and I do so. The most important thing I learned with Corey, honed to perfection by years of drug counseling was how to be patient with these bruised, battered wrecks of humanity as they struggled to express all of the hurt and pain buried and festering inside themselves--the reason most of them were using in the first place.

(hongkongfooey) See, there;s a prior claim on my affectoins/ so I can't be happy. Got to do the duty.

Okay, the picture's starting to come into focus...not the boss. Maybe an old girlfriend?

(MightyMoose) girlfriend? what happened? is she pregnant?

(hongkongfooey) Pregnant isn't an option. She'd just kill herself and it would be my fault.

God, what a guilt trip. Whoever this chick is, I'm surprised that my boss hasn't gotten hold of her yet...there's nothing she likes better than somebody who can turn a good head job...

(MightyMoose) suicide is the choice of the person who uses it...it's the coward's way out...

(hongkongfooey) My fault. All my fault. She's gonne get herslef hurt and is my fault.

What is with all these manipulative women lately? I think I'm starting to really dislike the female of the species...or some of them, at any rate...

(MightyMoose) NO! not your fault...why would you think that?

(hongkongfooey) She can't seal with me an' him.

(hongkongfooey) Deal.

(hongkongfooey) Not seal.

Okay...now I really have to call him on this--he's not usually this sloppy when he chats...

(MightyMoose) are you drinking?

(hongkongfooey) Only a bit. Spilling most of it...

Shit. I knew it...

(MightyMoose) damn.

(hongkongfooey) Yep. Damn is right.

I feel somehow responsible...as if I let Fooey down by not being there when he needed someone to chat with...my selfishness of the past few weeks iscoming back to haunt me in more ways than one. It's an arrogant assumption, I know, but maybe if I had been there he would be better able to deal with his demons now.

(MightyMoose) put it down. right now. didn't you tell me that you didn't want to go back to what you used to be?

(hongkongfooey) Don' ubderstand. Put it down? Too late...

(MightyMoose) you told me once that you didn't want to be the person you were anymore...why is it too late?

(hongkongfooey) I don't want to be the person I am. Don' wanna hurt like this.

(MightyMoose) and what person would that be? booze isn't gonna make it better...you'll still have the same problems when you come up for air...more...

(hongkongfooey) Gonna make it go away.

(MightyMoose) no it isn't...it's gonna make more...I should know...

(hongkongfooey) An anyway, didn't just do the booze. He'd be sick if he knew.

My heart stutters and stops in my chest...whatever's going on in Fooey's life must be horrible for him to turn back to the illusory comfort of some of his stronger vices...suddenly, a horrible suspicion hits me, but then I chalk it up to too many years of working for a shadowy government agency...

(MightyMoose) the drugs too? what did you do? the ecstasy?

(hongkongfooey) Got myself wasted...Don't know...too much.

For some reason, I'm desperate now...I have to know, but getting the information is a delicate and dangerous task...if I push him too hard, he could just sign off and I'd never see him again--and I'd never know what happened to him. I don't want to take that chance...

(MightyMoose) how wasted? did you shoot? What? what happened?

(hongkongfooey) Did it all, man. They fucked me an I didn't even know. Woke up half naked in thesnow. Oh, fuck. Lost 24 hours

Gang-banged. Sweet Jesus in heaven...I feel the chill crawl up my spine as my mind supplies pictures of victims from my days in Vice...but there's a more pressing concern right now...

(MightyMoose) define all...what drugs did you do? please...it's important...

(hongkongfooey) Don't know. Why do you care

If I tell him I used to be a cop, he's gonna bail, so I give him a small portion of the truth...

(MightyMoose) because...I used to work w/addicts...

(hongkongfooey) yeah?

(MightyMoose) yeah...

(hongkongfooey) An you think I'm an additc?

Careful, Vic...this is dangerous territory here...

(MightyMoose) i'm not here to judge, man...I just know that you can get yourself into serious trouble...a lot of that shit is seriously addictive...

(hongkongfooey) Don't you see, I want to? Want to haev it all out of my hands. Nothing I do is gonna help now.

This is the hard part, the part I hate the most because it's an all or nothing proposition. Trying to convince an addict who's lost hope that there 's still something to live for...

(MightyMoose) but you wanted to be in control...that's why you got sober...isn't it?

(hongkongfooey) That was when there was a reason to do it.

(MightyMoose) there still is. You're the reason...

No answer for a long moment. Damn, I'm losing him...God, please help me...I don't think I could take this on top of Mac right now...

(MightyMoose) okay...just tell me this...did you shoot?

(hongkongfooey) Yeah.

(MightyMoose) shit. what?

(hongkongfooey) Dunno. Didn't help. Came down hard...

(MightyMoose) did you share needles?

(hongkongfooey) Not gonna. Don't really know. Did a whole lot of stuff there. They really stuck it to me.

My heart clinches hard and I wish for a moment that I was the kind of man that could just take justice into my own hands...this is too much like Corey for my comfort...

(MightyMoose) :::sigh::: okay...so what else happened?

(hongkongfooey) Tol ya. Lost a day. Went with this guy... He smelled like...my guy. Leather. Too nice.

(MightyMoose) okay...half-naked in the snow...do you know how you got there?

(hongkongfooey) He took me to a party an there were a lot of other guys there. Couldn't find my shirt.

(MightyMoose) yeah...what else?

(hongkongfooey) Borrowed the leather jacket. Went out to go home, and they followed, I think. Took the jacket back. Didn't matter anyway. Wasn't really his. He looked so fucking good in that leather.

(MightyMoose) okay...what else?

(hongkongfooey) You writing the book, man? Just leave it.

I'm starting to get frustrated now...and I still don't know why it matters so much to me; except maybe that I need to know that I can still help someone like Fooey...it may be all I have left now.

(MightyMoose) quit dicking around...why won't you tell me?

(hongkongfooey) It's all screwed. I'm a mess, and I lost my love. That's all there is. What else could there be?

(MightyMoose) right. You're drinking, drugging and partying...and you won't tell me what happened with the guy.

(hongkongfooey) READ THESE WRODS. I. DON'T. REMEMBER.

I have to back off a bit, but I think he'll stay and talk to me anyway...he needs somebody to talk to, or else he wouldn't have IM'ed me...

(MightyMoose) did you know him?

(hongkongfooey) Nope. Din't know him. He fucked me though. They all did. Could tell after. You get this certain pain in the butt. Oh, hell yeah...this is way too much like Corey. I don't want to ask, but I know I will anyway...

(MightyMoose) any protection?

(hongkongfooey) Don't think so. Was oozing come.

Oh my god. I'm speechless and shaky for a long moment, and there is a nagging buzz at the back of my mind that tells me I'm missing something important here; but since I can't figure out what, I turn my attention back to the screen and type the first thing that comes to mind...

(MightyMoose) fuck.

(hongkongfooey) You got that right.

(MightyMoose) did you get checked out?

(hongkongfooey) The Dragon Lady sent me for testing. Dunno if I can be called healthy though. Waiting.

Well, at least his girlfriend's not completely stupid...she's a stone-cold bitch, but not stupid...

(hongkongfooey) Why would I care? I don't like the tone of that question...it's too final...

(MightyMoose) why wouldn't you?

(hongkongfooey) Don't see the point any more

(MightyMoose) the point is that somebody somewhere cares about you...your man?

(hongkongfooey) He hates me.

(MightyMoose) how do you know?

(hongkongfooey) Doesn't want to look at me any more. He'd have to. I betrayed him. Betrayesd us both.

A sudden anger flares up in me, and subsides just as quickly. My situation is different, and I know I have no right to preach to Fooey about what he should be doing when I can't even take care of my own life...

(MightyMoose) does he know about any of this?

(hongkongfooey) Don't know. I don't know what to do.

(MightyMoose) you said the girlfriend forced you back with her...does he know that?

(hongkongfooey) Yeah. He looked at me like I killed him. Maybe I did.

Again, something nags at me as I read this, but I can't figure out what. Thinking of the situation between Mac and me, I try to give Fooey the wisdom of a jilted lover's perspective...

(MightyMoose) maybe he's trying to give you what he thinks you need...

(hongkongfooey) I need? What do I need?

(hongkongfooey) Can't do this any more.

(MightyMoose) can't do what...live?

(hongkongfooey) Guess so. You're perceptive.

Oh, that's rich. If I was so fucking perceptive, I would have figured out how to keep Mac with me without alienating him from LiAnn...I hate the fact that he needs her, loves her, more than he does me...and I guess it makes me the one that's pathetic...

(MightyMoose) :::snort::: hardly...

(hongkongfooey) Bet you're happy. Bet you never had to put up with this kind of crap in your life.

(MightyMoose) oh yeah...ducky...

(hongkongfooey) ?

(MightyMoose) my lover...*ex* lover hates me...I fell so head over heels...and then it exploded in my face...

(hongkongfooey) She does? Why? What did you do?

I grin ferally at the assumption that the lover I speak of is female, but since I don't feel like sharing all of the details of my sorry life, I let it stand.

(MightyMoose) I fucked up.

(hongkongfooey) Hah. Join the club. There should be a club for us fuck-ups.

I guess a bit of levity wouldn't hurt right about now...

(MightyMoose) there is...Fuck-ups Anonymous... [g] I'm a charter member...meetings every tuesday...

(hongkongfooey) Guess I need to join then. Does she hate you now?

Well, there's a question for you, Victor old boy. Does he? It sure feels like he does...

(MightyMoose) :::sigh::: oh, yeah...can't even stand to be in the same room w/me...

(hongkongfooey) What did YOU do?

(MightyMoose) like I said, I fucked up...I lost something important...I got it back...but it's too late...

(hongkongfooey) So you reckon to grin and bear the heartache?

(MightyMoose) fuck grinning...I can't pretend I'm okay when I'm not...but after living w/my dad and seeing what his drinking did to him, I can't do that either...

(hongkongfooey) I know what you mean. Aren't you tempted to get stoned out of your mine/?

(MightyMoose) hell yeah...but then I see my dad's face and remember the hell he put all of us through...I swore I'd never be like that, ya know?

(hongkongfooey) Wish I could stop, man. I hate everything.

(MightyMoose) you can. it's easy. just put it down and walk away...

(hongkongfooey) I can't. I've got nothing left to walk towards. You make it sound so easy... Hmmmph...that's a joke...

(MightyMoose) yeah? well, I can tell you that it fucking *isn't*...my baby's so fucking unhappy...and I want to just kill...somebody...but I can't...

(hongkongfooey) Wanna help me out here? Why don't you just go get her? Love her?

Yeah, why don't I? Why am I letting it stay like this? Then the memory of Mac pushing me away when LiAnn was missing pulls me up short...

(MightyMoose) can't...it's not up to me. choice isn't mine to make...

(hongkongfooey) She has a husband?

(MightyMoose) something like that...somebody that means more than I ever could...

(hongkongfooey) Well I'll tell you what... We should go out together and cry in each other's milk.

(MightyMoose) yeah?

(hongkongfooey) You can stop me from drinking too much and I can give you hints on how to get her back. I'm just great with the women...unfortunately. I should start a bloody lonely hearts club.

(MightyMoose) bud, I can't stop you from doing anything...but I can tell you why you shouldn't be doing it... [g]

Well, I've got him thinking beyond himself and his misery at least. Let's see if I can get a little more...

(MightyMoose) are you still doing any drugs?

(hongkongfooey) Why do you care?

(MightyMoose) because I do...I'm just that way...for all the good it does me...

(hongkongfooey) Well, Tuesdays you said. [g] We can have a rally. March on the computer dating service...

(MightyMoose) yeah... :::sigh::: I guess your avoidance answers the question...my baby used to do it too... [g]

(hongkongfooey) What did she do? Avoid? They all do that.,

(MightyMoose) yeah...I miss it, you know? Miss a lot of things...

(hongkongfooey) Me too. Miss his voice the most. It's this lovely, growly, soft voice...like velvet on the ears.

(hongkongfooey) Think I need to go to bed.

(MightyMoose) you should...

(hongkongfooey) Think about it. I don't smoke. Used to be fit. Wanted to be fit. Now, I just don't care.

(MightyMoose) but I know it's hard to care right now. You want to tell the whole fucking world to piss off... [g]

(MightyMoose) I'm a decent guy...I try to be a good person...I'm not Charles Manson...so why do I always wind up alone?

(hongkongfooey) Well, baby, nice guys finish last. If you quit caring, all of a sudden they want you.

(MightyMoose) yeah...but I could never be that cold...it's not who I am...

(hongkongfooey) Hey, man, I know. You seem like a pretty nice guy. I don't know what to tell you.

(MightyMoose) but the thing that scares me most is that I can feel myself dying inside...it hurts...I can feel it creeping in...

(hongkongfooey) I feel the same. you feel like you lost the whole direction.

(MightyMoose) that's it...I don't know who I am anymore...for that one little minute, I knew...and then it was all gone...how could that happen?

(hongkongfooey) I know. I know only too well. Feels like someone gets into you with a knife.

(MightyMoose) I don't understand it...I mean, if she truly loved him, I could accept it...but she doesn't. I hate having to watch my baby be so fucking miserable, and I can't avoid it...

(hongkongfooey) He? She? Who? If she's miserable, what's the problem.

(MightyMoose) She doesn't love him. it's a complicated situation...

...And that's just about the understatement of the century...

(hongkongfooey) Just make her come back to you. Tell her to get a divorce. Life's too short.

(MightyMoose) they're not married...but they're wound up in each other...so much so that they could never be completely free of each other...which would be okay, if she truly loved him.

(hongkongfooey) Well in that case, I don't see the problem, unless he's blackmailing her. If he is, the cops should know about it. Hey, I have an idea. Why don't I kill him for you? That way, she'll be free for you, and if I get caught, hell, what difference does it make?

(MightyMoose) she does in a way; I know she loves me too, but she's so dependant on him...even when he wasn't there she was...and she doesn't know how to make it be any other way...What?? don't even think about it...

(hongkongfooey) No? But it would solve everything.

(MightyMoose) yeah. except for the guilt I'd suffer after you went to jail...

(hongkongfooey) Hey, man, I don't care. I've been in jail before. It's not so bad.

(MightyMoose) yeah? well I do. I appreciate the thought, though. :::snort::: so have I. I don't want to go back. it sucked. I was *not* Mr. Popularity. half of them wanted to kill me, the other half wanted to fuck me...then kill me.

(hongkongfooey) You too, huh? We have a lot in common. You got a particularly peachy ass, or are you an informant?

(MightyMoose) [g] well, I think it's kinda cute, but that's just me.

(hongkongfooey) Hey, I have to go to bed. My head's spinning a little. Don't feel so good.

Okay...this time I'm gonna do it and he's not gonna sidetrack me again...it's a Devil's bargain I'm making here, but I still have to try...I don't really expect him to quit doing what he's doing, but maybe having to commit to someone will be enough to make him start thinking about wanting to again...

(MightyMoose) yeah...you should...will you do something for me?

(hongkongfooey) Sure, if I can. What?

(MightyMoose) will you give up the drugs? just the drugs? you can still drink...please?

(hongkongfooey) Oh, fuck, man. I guess I can do that. I can try, anyway.

(MightyMoose) just try it for a day or two...maybe if you can function without them, you'll start finding out that it isn't as bad as you thought...

(hongkongfooey) ::shaking head:: It's worse.

(MightyMoose) I know it's hard...

(hongkongfooey) That's just where you're wrong. It hasn't been hard since he and I were last together. I don't think it will ever work again.

(MightyMoose) I know exactly what you mean.

(hongkongfooey) I have to go now. Not feeling great.

(MightyMoose) okay...get some rest.

(hongkongfooey) Yeah. You too. See ya.

(MightyMoose) see ya...

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

It's been a couple of days, and I've been going stir-crazy here. The Director was quite emphatic about me taking another week off; but with the weather, there hasn't been very much to do and I'm ready to climb the walls. There are too many memories of Mac here, and being alone with them is doing nothing for my peace of mind. I'm having nightmares: ones about Mac being gang-raped while I look on and sliding into a hellish oblivion where I'm feeding poison into his veins as I suck the breath from his lungs in a horrible parody of the kisses we used to share. I woke screaming from the last one...and the vision of Mac with hundreds of spent needles hanging out of every possible patch of skin, begging me to help him, is still making me shudder.

I finally realize the impetus for the nightmares while I'm brewing coffee. Fooey hasn't been online for the past couple of days and I'm beginning to really worry about him. Since we've never met face to face, it's only natural for my subconscious to give my worry a familiar visage. After all, I'm worrying about Mac too.

So, even though I swore I wouldn't--again, I called Mac earlier. Didn't say anything, didn't leave a message, just listened to his voice on the answering machine. Pathetic, huh? I really should just get on with my life, but I can't. When I told Mac there wouldn't be anyone else after him, I didn't know how right I was.

Baby, please be okay. I don't want to see you suffer.

I grab the fresh pack of cigarettes, the first I've bought in eight years, and move toward my desk. When I see the icon flashing, my heart gives an unexpected jump. He's alive at least...

(MightyMoose) hey...there you are...what's going on?

(hongkongfooey) Hmmm? Not much. How's things with you?

(MightyMoose) about the same.

(hongkongfooey) Yeah. Nothing changes.

(MightyMoose) how are you? how are you holding up?

(hongkongfooey) I'm okay, I guess. Doin' anything interesting lately?

(MightyMoose) not a damn thing...off work for a little while...

(hongkongfooey) Yeah? Holiday?

(MightyMoose) nope. had an accident at work...

(hongkongfooey) Oh, shit. Not good. What happened?

(MightyMoose) did something stupid...no big deal...I'm still walking, talking and breathing...[g] what about you?

(hongkongfooey) I guess that's good then. Wish I was. Well, I haven't really been out much in the last couple of days. Somehow don't feel like it.

(MightyMoose) :::sigh::: still drinking?

(hongkongfooey) A little.

(MightyMoose) and the rest?

(hongkongfooey) Look, far be it from me to start an argument, but you're starting to sound like my boss, and that ain't good.

(MightyMoose) hey, it's cool. I'm just concerned. speaking of which...how are you dealing with work?

(hongkongfooey) Got time off to recover from a particularly nasty incident that happened a little while back.

(MightyMoose) do I want to know?

(hongkongfooey) It's not something I can talk about.

(MightyMoose) no problem. so how long are you off for?

(hongkongfooey) Couple more days. The boss wants me in, day after tomorrow, whatever that is...How about you?

(MightyMoose) I go back beginning of next week...gotta tell you, though, I'm not used to this much enforced inactivity...

(hongkongfooey) Me either. Don't know quite what's happened to me. Lifestyles of the rich and famous, huh?

(MightyMoose) yeah...

(hongkongfooey) Sit back, suck a beer and watch WWF on the TV. Bunch of shit!

(MightyMoose) i hate TV...rots your brain...

(hongkongfooey) There ya go. I never had one, so I'm safe.

(MightyMoose) so what do you do for entertainment?

(hongkongfooey) Nothin'. What is there? Been getting my collection of belly button lint in order.

(MightyMoose) Books, music, art? LOL! that must be interesting...

(hongkongfooey) Oh, you have no idea. Has a race with a couple of woodlice yesterday. I won!

An idea suddenly strikes me, and I decide to run with it...

(MightyMoose) you need to get out more...I was thinking...

(hongkongfooey) Careful. Isn't there some safety device you need when you do that?

(MightyMoose) funny. where do you live?

(hongkongfooey) Downtown Toronto. Why?

(MightyMoose) Really? so do I...look, I don't usually do this kind of thing; but I'm going stir- crazy...and you sound like you need to get out in the fresh air...you want to meet somewhere? Somewhere neutral and crowded...

(hongkongfooey) What's with this fresh air thing? You don't fancy a club? A little pool, a beer or two? It's snowed, you know. Cold.

Hm. Nice try, bud. But you'll never get me into another club again...you get your heart ripped out in those places...

(MightyMoose) I'm not into the club thing...had a bad experience...

(hongkongfooey) Well, better make it Starbucks, unless you wanna re-enact "Sleepless in Seattle" and use the CN Tower.

Gawd, not there either...Christ, does everything have to remind me of Mac? Then I remember that the Van Gogh exhibit is in town. I wanted to see it, and it's the kind of place that's ideal for a meeting like this...

(MightyMoose) You like art? there's an exhibit...

(hongkongfooey) What kind of an exhibit?

(MightyMoose) Van Gogh...

(hongkongfooey) Starry Night, and that kind of thing? Hmmm.

(MightyMoose) yeah...interested?

(hongkongfooey) ::shrug:: Sure. Why not. It's not like my engagement calendar is full.

(MightyMoose) okay...when?

I cannot believe I'm doing this...what the hell is wrong with me? Still, it's not like it's a clandestine meeting. I can always slip out if it's not what I expect...

(hongkongfooey) Hmmm? Well I guess it needs to be tomorrow if we're gonna do it. I may be back in work after that., Tomorrow afternoon?

(MightyMoose) sure...how will I know you?

(hongkongfooey) I'll bring all of my lint?

(MightyMoose) :::laughing::: yeah, okay...what else?

(hongkongfooey) Ummm... I'm tall. 6'4". And skinny. And I'll wear a yellow turtle neck under a brown suede jacket. Hair's black, and.... ummm. I have big feet. You? You gonna amaze me by being a 20 year old blonde with huge boobs?

Yeah, right. I'm an ex-mob princess too...

(MightyMoose) you wish. i'm 6'1...dark hair...be wearing a brown leather bomber...

(hongkongfooey) Okay. I'll tower over you then. That will make me feel superior.

(MightyMoose) whatever you need to get your self-esteem up...

(hongkongfooey) Fuck. you sound like a damned pop psychologist.

(MightyMoose) :::shrug::: never underestimate the power of a good pop...

(hongkongfooey) :::snort::: Ha, ha. So I'll meet you at the Van Gogh exhibit?

(MightyMoose) Yeah. What time?

(hongkongfooey) Hmmmm...around 2?

(MightyMoose) Two's fine. I'm kinda tired now. See you tomorrow?

(hongkongfooey) Yeah. go to sleep...take care of yourself.

(MightyMoose) You too...'night...

(hongkongfooey) Night...

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

I check my watch, and then look around again.

Not seeing anyone fitting the description I was given, I turn back to my exhibit pamphlet and try to absorb the information on the page. It's only been five minutes, so I think I'll wait a little longer before...

"Hey there..."

I freeze at the familiar voice. I'd know it anywhere. My heart stutters, then beats triple time. Suddenly, I want to throw myself at Mac's feet and beg forgiveness, to kiss him endlessly and tell him how very sorry I am for everything and that I'll do anything just to be *friends* again; but I don't. I sit gaping at him like a beached fish instead.

"Sorry I'm..." He trails off into confused silence. He isn't the only one who is.

"Uhm, hey..." Oh, that's real intelligent..."what's going on?"

"I...er... I didn't expect to see you here... Er...how are you? Are you feeling better?" Mac is uncomfortable, because of me, and I'm dying inside at the realization.

No, I'm not, I think sadly, I miss you and I hurt. But if I tell him that, any chance we have for a friendship is dust. "A little. My throat's still a bit sore. What are you doing here?"

"Hey, you know me and culture." Mac laughs, but it's a forced laugh and I cringe inside. "How about you? You developing a love of the arts?"

"Something like that. I wanted to see the Van Gogh exhibit." Baby, you're so thin...isn't LiAnn taking care of you?

"I... I have to admit I prefer Rembrandt, but Van Gogh had an eye for color..."

"They're beautiful, aren't they?" I whisper very softly, "Just like you." I'm not looking at him as I say this, and I'm pretty confident that the words will be lost in the general hubbub of activity.

He confirms this with his next words. "Guess I'll sit down for a minute. I'm supposed to meet someone. Seen anyone looking lost?" Mac sits, leaving a space between the two of us and I have to stifle a small sigh.

"No, not really," I turn my head away to hide my pain at Mac's statement, then shake it off. Mac isn't mine anymore. "I'm waiting for somebody too," I belatedly remember my meeting with Fooey and look around, hoping that the other hasn't been scared off seeing me sitting here with Mac like this.

"Guess I shouldn't keep you then. When do you come back to work?"

"Beginning of next week. You?"

"Think she wants me in tomorrow, but I don't know..."

He trails off and I look over at my love, see him staring with growing horror...then realize what's been nagging me since I saw him come up... Mac is wearing a yellow turtleneck...and a brown suede jacket. Oh my god, oh my god...Mac is...Fooey.

His gaze is suddenly hard and accusing. "You wouldn't happen to be the Mighty Moose, would you?"

I gasp. It couldn't be. It just couldn't be...but I know in my heart that it is and suddenly everything drops into place with a gut-wrenching click. Oh my god, baby, how could I not have known? "H- how do you know that?"

"You know something, I couldn't make a right decision if my life depended on it," he snarls, "I don't believe this. Come on, Vic, you can't be that dumb."

"You're who I've been chatting with?" Jesus, I wish my mouth would catch up with my brain!

Mac hangs his head. When he speaks, it's like hearing the lost and lonely child he used to be and it breaks my heart into a million pieces. "Guess you know more about me than you really wanted to, huh?"

I'm awestruck. This is fate, it has to be, and it's been a long time since I've fought fate where Malcolm Ramsey is concerned. "Come with me," I rasp, reaching for his hand. Mac--my sweet baby Malcolm, keeper of my heart and soul--is finally coming home to me. I can feel it, and I won't accept anything less.

But it would seem that he has other ideas as he laughs in a somewhat hysterical manner and scoots out of my easy reach. "Oh, I don't think so."

No...oh, no...he doesn't get to backpedal out of this If I can't fight it, then I won't let him either. "Oh, yes...right now. Don't push me, Malcolm." After all, he came to me first, even when neither of us knew it.

"So you've gotten some woman pregnant, have you, Victor?" Mac flares at me. "Push you? I'm not touching you!" He holds his palms up and open in a defensive gesture.

"What? What the hell are you talking about?" confused, I'm struggling to keep my voice down inside the museum, but we've gotten a few strange looks from passersby as we argue in hushed tones.

"Come on... *Moose!*" he growls sarcastically. "You were bemoaning the fact that you'd gotten this woman of yours pregnant. Think I'd forget something like that?"

Then I realize; I never told Mac that it was a man I was talking about, I'd let him assume that it was a woman. But I knew I'd never said anything about getting somebody pregnant. Then I remember... "No. That was you...although come to think of it, you never said that. My dad was right."

"Your Dad? What the hell are you talking about?"

"Never assume: it makes an ass out of you and me. Let's go." I grab Mac's arm, and quail at the thinness of it. "We need to get some things straight, you and I."

"Go? Go where?" Mac fights to pull away, but when an attendant begins to approach us with menace in his gait, he permits me to lead him away from the hall.

"Home," is the simple response. He's coming home, and I feel the realization of it singing in my veins, making me dizzy and high.

Perversely, Mac stops short outside the museum. "Home? Don't be doing this to me, Victor."

"Doing what?" I ask in genuine confusion. "Everything that's happened has been because you wanted it."

He struggles again and I drag him into a small alleyway and out of sight. "Nothing that's happened is because I wanted it. Nothing. You're mad," he's babbling and I can see the panic in his face as he tries to back out yet again.

"You kissed me. You kissed me first," I growl with feral helplessness as I lean into his space, remembering our very first time together in the back of my truck, "you're the one who walked away." I'm feeling very dangerous, trembling on the brink of...something. I don't know what, but the one thing I'm sure of is that Mac is coming home with me today one way or another. I'll lose the last dregs of my humanity if he doesn't.

"I did what? What are you talking about, Mansfield?"

Mac's eyes are wide and scared and it's all I can do not to wrap myself around him and fuck both of us into oblivion. I need him that desperately. It makes me harsher than I should be. "You walked away from me to go back to her. Didn't you? Answer me!"

"I... I... I can't, Vic..."

"You can't? Why? You don't love her. You said you loved me," I gamble with reminding him of our anonymous chat of a few nights ago. "Were you lying to me, my baby?" I can't help the soft, seductive note in my voice as I speak. It's always there when I call him mine and will be until the day I die. But Mac doesn't answer, just closes his eyes and turns his head away. His body is starting to shake, but I can't give in until he tells me the truth. I need to know where I stand with him before we can go forward in any direction. "Answer. Me. Now!" I force his head back. "Do you really want to see how far I can be pushed, baby?"

Mac backs up until he's against the wall of the gallery and tries to shove me away from him. "Just leave me be, Vic, please...," but I hold him off easily, and spare a pang for the muscle mass he's let go to waste.

"I can't, baby. If I thought you were happy, I'd be able to, but you're not and it's tearing me up inside. You're killing me, Mac. Don't you understand that?"

Mac looks at me, stricken. He opens his mouth and then closes it again without saying anything. He shakes his head from side to side as though to make it all go away. "For God's sake, Vic..."

"I'm dying, baby," I beg pitifully, "dying a slow painful death because you're killing yourself. Don't you know that?" I gently kiss Mac and then kiss him again...the shuddering in his body intensifies, and he whimpers as my lips touch his cold skin. "I love you, and unless you can look me in the eye and tell me that you don't love me, you are coming home with me if I have to drag you by the hair. Don't test me right now. I've had all I can stand." I need to love you baby...I need you...please...can't breathe without you...

"I can't," he whispers miserably. "I love you, but I..."

"But what?" I whisper, trying to coax him into opening up to me.

"So I love you. So what?" Mac snarls, angry now. "So fucking what? You think that I could live with myself if..." He stops speaking, and hugs his own body. "It just can't happen any more, can it? You understand, don't you?" he asks plaintively.

"If what? What can't? Tell me," I'm talking over him and his last question drains the last of my patience. "No, I don't fucking 'understand.' Spell it out for me."

He flinches from my vehemence even as he tries to answer the question. "LiAnn... You know what she did... I can't cause her death." Mac hangs his head, the epitome of misery, and I vow that our ex-lover will make this up to both of us. She will beg on her knees for our forgiveness before all of this is over.

For now, I have to try and get my baby to see reason. I close my eyes and lay my head against Mac's shoulder, snuggling into his neck and smelling the sour poison in his system as it slowly seeps from his skin. "So you'd let her kill you instead? And I'm supposed to just accept this?" I ask gently.

"I guess that way I wouldn't be committing murder."

I almost break down sobbing at those words, and wonder how I can reach him--how I can fight this programming that's killing both of us. Desperate, I look up at him with unshed tears in my eyes and say in the steadiest voice I can manage, "I can't accept this. I won't. I shouldn't have to, and neither you nor LiAnn can make me."

"I don't understand," he frowns at me in his confusion, "what are you going to do?"

"You're coming with me, Mac. I don't care what I have to do to make you, but you are. You are going to eat, and then we can figure out how to make this work."

"For fuck's sake, Victor, quit turning the knife. It hurts enough as it is."

He's snarling again, but we both know I'm more than a match for him in his current condition. "You don't get it. You're the one turning the knife, with a little help from LiAnn. It stops now. I'm done with being the one who has to sacrifice..."

"You think?" Mac screams at me, spit flying in his rage. "You think you're the only one that's suffering? You think you're the only one who's lost anything?"

I feel my gaze turn hard and watch him flinch away again. "I love you, I want you, and I need you, so I'm taking you back, and LiAnn is going to have to deal," I inform him calmly, leaving no room for doubt as to my meaning.

Mac stares at me for a very long moment. "I don't know. I can't think any more." His voice is very quiet, and I have to strain to hear the soft words.

"I've lost a lot in my life, Mac, and I refuse to lose you too. I'm asking you one more time, come home with me. Please. That's all I ask. If you ever loved me, you'll give me that." Well, I said I'd do anything and I guess that means stooping to LiAnn's level and using emotional blackmail too. Suddenly, Mac's eyes fill and he slumps, but he doesn't say anything. He merely lays his head down on my shoulder for a minute.

I feel like such a shit, but know that I won't stop pushing until I get what I need--Mac in my arms and happy once more. "Please," I beg again as I stroke his soft hair, which is slowly turning brittle from the garbage in his system. "Just to talk. We need to talk about this," and talk we will, but I can't promise that we won't do anything else. I just hope he doesn't call me on it.

Mac shudders under my touch. "How can you want me...want this after what's happened?" Again, he sounds like that lost and lonely child and I crush him to me, wanting to absorb all of his pain into myself and let him heal at last.

Instead, I kiss the tears away and revel in the warmth that his thin frame is radiating. I never fully realized how cold it's been without him until right now. "Shhhhh. We can talk about it at home...just know that I do want you, that I still love you...believe in that for me."

I pull back to look him straight in the eyes and say, "It's time to come home, baby." That seems to be too much for Mac. He slides his arms around me and holds on tight, pressing his face into my shoulder. I hear a long pitiful sob, and then he's still. I stroke and soothe him, desperate to get him home and safe before I wake up and find out this has all been just a dream--maybe the cruelest one yet. "We'll figure it all out, I promise. Let's go."

It takes a minute, but finally, Mac raises his face, pale and blind, and gazes at me. "It's going to hurt, Vic," he whispers, "it's going to hurt us so bad..."

"What is?" I ask gently, even though I think I know what he's going to say.

"All of this. There are no easy solutions, if we try to change things."

"Shhh...We'll get through it together. I know she loves you deep down; she can't possibly want to see you suffer like this anymore."

Mac nods slowly and exhales, then he takes my hand. "She knows that I can't be her lover any more."

I know my confusion is written all over my face, but decide to hold off on questions until later. "Let's go."

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Mac's voice:

Sometimes I wonder why. I mean, why are we given things just to have them taken away? Why the hell do we spend all of our lives wishing, and wanting, and knowing that it's all pointless? I wanted LiAnn for so long, I can still taste the flavor of longing inside my mind. I would have given up everything to have her back in my arms, and of course, she'd moved on to someone else.

Time passed, and I suddenly realized that I didn't want her any more. I wanted her ex-lover. That was weird. I mean, he's a guy, right? He's a guy, and so am I, and wanting another guy isn't exactly something I ever expected to happen. You have to see him, to know him, to know just why I love him.

Victor. I want to write his name on furniture, to scribble it in the sand for people to read. I actually carved it into a tree 'Mac loves Vic' God help me! It's true; I love him, for better or worse

For worse, as it turns out. See, just when I thought that I had what I wanted, I found that everything had gone to hell, and I had to turn away from it. Vic loves me, I know he does, and me, well I adore him. I feel sick thinking about the way he makes me feel inside. It hurts me, because I can't have him.

You're gonna think that I'm some kind of idiot for this, but it turns out that I have to take LiAnn after all, and now of course I don't want to. I want Vic. I want him, and I can't have him because I have to take LiAnn or she'll do something drastic to herself. Besides, my family had these expectations of me, of us. I don't expect you to understand. I barely understand it myself. All I know is that if I don't dance attendance on LiAnn, she's gonna go off and do something totally stupid, and possibly - probably - life threatening.

When Vic was in the hospital to begin with I went there every day. I hung around outside his door, waiting for news on how he was doing, and wanting more than anything to go inside that damned door and take him in my arms, but I couldn't. I couldn't do it to him. After a few days I stopped, because I knew that it was stupid. I hadn't got any right to him.

I couldn't go inside and face him because I knew what I'd done to him. I went home and I sat and stared for a while. Then I opened a bottle of Jim Beam and I drank it.

When LiAnn came over a little while later, she tut-tutted at me for getting myself potted, but she tidied up and put me to bed. I woke up to feel her snug against my back, and for a moment my heart leapt. When I rolled over to kiss my Victor awake, it was LiAnn lying there next to me and I knew right then that it was all too late.

I got through a lot of booze, I don't mind telling you. It helped to keep the pain away, and gave me moments of forgetfulness. LiAnn tried to snap me out of it, and didn't really manage it. The Director came and went. I was drunk, and the whole thing was just too funny. She went away as well. Booze wasn't doing it for me so I went out to see a friend of mine - someone who was left over from my days with the Tang. Jackie could probably tell you more about him than me. That is, if you can get the silly bitch to shut up long enough to ask her the question.

So I got my miracle pills. A couple of these, washed down with booze, and I don't hurt so badly any more. They call them 'ecstasy', but I tell you, they should be called 'survival.' I began taking them when I couldn't stand real life any more not all the time, just two or three times a week. They helped me. When I was under the influence, I wasn't lonely any more. I felt contented, and lord knows, I needed that any way I could get it.

The day Victor came out of the hospital was somehow a turning point. LiAnn had been sleeping over at my place since I'd pulled Vic down from that cross. She said that she owed me her life and that she wanted us to get back together and take up where we left off. I knew she was full of shit, but somehow I just couldn't make myself worry. If Vic was no longer mine, what did I care who? I'd done all of this for LiAnn, hadn't I? If I didn't keep pandering to her, she'd kill herself, wouldn't she? I knew that I wouldn't be able to live with that guilt.

Victor? He was strong. He'd go on. He was safe now, and I could make sure that he'd stay that way. LiAnn? She needed me. I couldn't shake off the knowledge that she had almost died because of my stupid, fucking lust.

We went to the hospital. I'd intended to drive Vic home and have a little talk with him. I wanted to see him. God, how I wanted to see him. I phoned to tell the Director I would take Vic home, and then got ready to go pick him up. LiAnn wouldn't go away. She wouldn't let me go to the hospital alone.

"We're a team, Mac. It's only right that we all go and bring our partner home. He means a lot to me." I could see that she meant it. I could see that there was no way she was going to let me be alone with him, too. I finally shrugged, popped a couple of my survival pills, and drove to the hospital with LiAnn in tow.

Seeing him for the first time since I'd rescued him twisted the knife in my gut. He looked at me as though he wanted to hit me. I've never seen that look on his face before, but it told me right enough that it was over between us, and that he couldn't forgive me for choosing LiAnn's needs over his. I think I choked. I know that I couldn't say anything, and LiAnn pulled me from the room pretty fast. She must have thought that I was going to cry or something. I said that I'd go get the car and I went. Stupid how one goes on automatic at that sort of time, isn't it?

I brought it around to the door and got out to find Vic, and suddenly he was there, walking past me and out of the door with Jackie in tow. I stopped dead in my tracks and watched them head for the sunlight, leaving me behind. Then, I turned and plodded back into the hospital to look for LiAnn. She was sobbing in the room where Victor had been, and sniffed broken heartedly as I called to her. She tried to tell me that Vic had been mean to her, but I wasn't listening. I was still seeing his eyes, dark with pain, and the light all gone from them. I was telling myself that I did it to him.

I was numb. Back at my apartment I took another pill and some vodka. There was no whisky left, but alcohol is alcohol, right? Then I lay down. I think I slept, because I dreamed that Vic was here with me, in the bed, doing things to me that made me hard and telling me in his husky voice all the things he'd missed about me, calling me Malcolm. Nobody else in the world calls me that, so I knew that it was him. Even my Dad calls me Mac.

I lost myself in the sweet sensation of arousal, and as he stroked my dick, mouthed it and told me how beautiful it was, I spread myself for him, expecting him to roll me over and sink himself into me the way he usually did. He moved up to brush my mouth with his lips, and told me that he wanted me inside him, the way it had been the night LiAnn was taken, and that made my dick pulse, I can tell you.

I felt him climb onto me, and sink himself down on my cock until he was pressed tight to my thighs and the two of us were joined so closely that there was no way we'd ever be able to stop. When he began to move on me, it was wonderful. His muscles milked me, drawing the fluid from my balls and the tingling sweet pleasure through from the base of my spine to the end of my dick.

I think my muscles were rigid as I poured myself out into his welcoming body, and I know that I screamed. I cried his name, and told him how much I loved him, needed him and how sorry I was. I whispered it again and again.

"Vic, my Victor, my love."

Then, feeling the sudden cold as he drew away from me, I opened my eyes.

LiAnn. It was LiAnn, and she'd fucked me. She'd fucked me up. She didn't say another word to me; she merely dressed herself and left. Me? I stayed behind, and went to hell.

I wasn't eating. I definitely wasn't working out, and for some reason I couldn't seem to get an erection any more. The Director had hauled me in for an examination and some stupid psychological testing that probably told her in words of many syllables what she probably knew without even asking, namely that I was fucked up and didn't care any more. I was given a diet sheet, a regime of exercises to follow, and told I had a couple of weeks to get myself back in shape.

Yeah, right.

I laid back and proceeded to ignore the world. I don't recall too much about the days that followed. I know that I watched the TV, and actually remember sobbing my heart out when they showed "West Side Story" one afternoon. The world fucks you up, and I was starting to think that I'd never again know happiness.

So I felt sorry for myself. So sue me.

I think that about ten days had gone by, with my brain in a fog, and no motivation to do anything except lie in my bed and try not to think about the things I'd lost. I was watching the stupid television again, and there was some puerile confrontational chat show on with a couple coming to blows because the guy had had an affair with a male colleague. I watched with growing unease, and when the woman started to talk about her partner's betrayal, I lost it. I kicked out, and my television set exploded, showering the apartment with shards of glass, and peppering my naked skin with scores and slashes.

Once the television was out of commission, I turned to my computer. I started to dial in to the local server - 'Toronto Now' and got into chatroom fisticuffs over the Leafs' prospects a couple of times. Gradually I'd begun to find myself chatting more and more to a guy who called himself Mighty Moose although he'd been unaccountably missing for days now.

I started to get on line whenever I couldn't sleep, and soon found it a solace to talk to these people I couldn't see, and knew that I'd never meet. That brings me to tonight. It's 2am and I'm wired. There are too many thoughts going through my head, and not enough space in the world for me to outrun them. I boot up the computer and log in to Toronto Now. Then I type in my invitation, and sit back to wait for someone to help me beat this loneliness.

Anyone out there?

When I return to the keyboard, bearing a large brandy, I see that he's back.

(MightyMoose) Hey! Long time, no see...what's up?

Oh, terrific. I suddenly feel a rush of affection for these little blue lights on my screen. It feels so good to make some kind of contact with someone who doesn't want to make me do something for them. I type in my reply, wondering if it will scare him off.

(hongkongfooey) Is that the polite form, or do you really want to know?

(MightyMoose) Touchy...I'd really like to know...

(hongkongfooey) Got masochistic tendencies, do ya?

(MightyMoose) Hey, you know me...pain, and lots of it... [g]

I shrug my shoulders. Okay, bud, you wanted to know. I'll tell you. Maybe it will help me to talk about it with someone who has no axe to grind. I grit my teeth and try to phrase things so that they sound plaintive, but not needy.

(hongkongfooey) Everything in my life seems to have fucked itself up. I'll join you in hell, shall I?

Oh, well. Failed again. Still, I think it says it all, don't you?

(MightyMoose) Yeah. So what's going on?

I sigh, and take a seat. He wants to know. I'll tell him. It will feel good to tell someone.

(hongkongfooey) I seem to have talked myself out of the best thing in the world, 'n into slavery.

(MightyMoose) The boss eat you for breakfast again?

He thinks I'm talking about work. Damn. If only I could go back to the days when work was all that pissed me off. It was so damned ridiculous to get mad about it. It's true. You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone.

(hongkongfooey) I wish that was all it was. This is so far beyond that, I need a telescope. Tell me this, have you ever been in love? I mean really in love?

(MightyMoose) :::sigh::: Yes. Very, very much in love...with the last person I ever expected to be...why?

(hongkongfooey) Because I've just managed to talk myself out of being with the love of my life...

This is where he excuses himself and runs like hell.

(MightyMoose) Damn. Talk to me...what happened?

No? Well let's put it all out there. How's this for a whammy?

(hongkongfooey) Ah...How do you feel about gays?

(MightyMoose) :::frown::: What do you mean? Do I have a problem w/it? No...I mean, you love who you love, right?

Oh, man! He understands. I can talk to him.

(hongkongfooey) Right. ::sigh:: thas the prob. I fell for the most gorgeous guy you ever saw...And hid it from him for months.

(MightyMoose) Yeah? Why? He had a problem w/it?

Now I've got someone to talk to, I suddenly don't know what to say to him any more.

(hongkongfooey) My guy-I suddenly found out that he loved me right back. How cool was that?

(MightyMoose) Really? that's great!

I picture Vic, the night that we lost each other, looking so incredibly hot in his leather. If he were here now If he were here now I wouldn't be fucking about with anonymous chat rooms. I'm tearing up as I type.

(hongkongfooey) And he... oh, man, you gotta see him. He's more than I deserve.

(MightyMoose) Yeah? [eg] Tell me...

(hongkongfooey) So I had to fuck it all up, didn' I?

(hongkongfooey) See, it's wrong.

(MightyMoose) What? What's wrong?

(hongkongfooey) Can't be having ttoo much fun. 'swrong. So I can't have hm

My tumbler's empty. I wander out and find another drink, and then come back to the computer.

(MightyMoose) I don't understand...you're not making sense...

(hongkongfooey) Makes perfec sense. He's not mine. Can't be. Won[' be ever again.

(MightyMoose) Are you....Are you okay?

Fuck it. Would I be babbling to you on a dumb computer if everything were okay? That's not fair of me. I'm the one who wanted the conversation. I bend to the keyboard, and type.

(hongkongfooey) Course I'm okay. What could possibly be wrong?

(MightyMoose) Yeah? Lots of typos tonight...so what happened?

(hongkongfooey) My tpying is fine. Tld you already. Duty calls, and I got to give him up.

(MightyMoose) Duty? What duty? Your boss can't tell you who to love...it's not like he can fire you for it.

(hongkongfooey) She'd fire me in a heartbeat. Think that's all that's left now. Get fired and it can all go fuck itself.

(MightyMoose) Listen...you cannot be fired for being gay. That's against the labor laws...

(hongkongfooey) She'd wend me back. I'd be dead in a day.

(MightyMoose) wend?

(hongkongfooey) What? Wend? Oh... send. Sorry. Fingers a little fuzzy.

He's gonna start getting snotty with me. I can tell. So I'm drunk. It's 2;30 am, and if I wasn't fucked up, I'd be in bed and sleeping with my Victor by my side right now.

(MightyMoose) I can see that...okay. Tell me what happened. Did he find out about your past?

(hongkongfooey) already knew all fo that. Tol you. Perfect man. -- I stop there. How can I explain this when it sounds so stupid even to me? I have to get it in order in my own mind before I can lay it out for anyone else and expect them to understand it. I resume typing. -- See, there;s a prior claim on my affectoins/ so I can't be happy. Got to do the duty.

(MightyMoose) Girlfriend? What happened? Is she pregnant?

(hongkongfooey) Pregnant isn't an option. She'd just kill herself and it would be my fault.

(MightyMoose) Suicide is the choice of the person who uses it...it's the coward's way out...

(hongkongfooey) My fault. All my fault. She's gonne get herslef hurt and is my fault.

He just doesn't know. How could I face my father? How could I face anyone?

(MightyMoose) NO! not your fault...why would you think that?

(hongkongfooey) She can't seal with me an' him.

Oh-oh Quickly, I correct.

(hongkongfooey) Deal. Not seal.

(MightyMoose) are you drinking?

You got me, bud. Yup. I'm drinking.

(hongkongfooey) Only a bit. Spilling most of it...

(MightyMoose) Damn.

(hongkongfooey) Yep. Damn is right.

(MightyMoose) Put it down. Right now. Didn't you tell me that you didn't want to go back to what you used to be?

(hongkongfooey) Don' ubderstand. Put it down? Too late...

(MightyMoose) You told me once that you didn't want to be the person you were anymore...why is it too late?

(hongkongfooey) I don't want to be the person I am. Don' wanna hurt like this.

(MightyMoose) And what person would that be? Booze isn't gonna make it better...You'll still have the same problems when you come up for air...more...

I think about that, trying to taste the truth in it, but there is no truth, just empty words that echo hollow inside my head. Forgetting is the only answer.

(hongkongfooey) Gonna make it go away.

(MightyMoose) No it isn't...it's gonna make more...I should know...

(hongkongfooey) An anyway, didn't just do the booze. He'd be sick if he knew.

(MightyMoose) The drugs too? What did you do? The ecstasy?

It's my friend. My old, dependable friend. How can he decry it when it makes me feel real again, just for an hour or two? Besides, it's all irrelevant now. The guys who fucked me over just after LiAnn was taken saw to that.

(hongkongfooey) Got myself wasted...Don't know...too much.

(MightyMoose) How wasted? Did you shoot? What? What happened?

(hongkongfooey) Did it all, man. They fucked me an I didn't even know. Woke up half naked in thesnow. Oh, fuck. Lost 24 hours

(MightyMoose) Define all...what drugs did you do? Please...it's important...

Hang on a minute. What's it to him?

(hongkongfooey) Don't know. Why do you care

Something about this conversation is setting of alarm bells in my head. Something familiar.

(MightyMoose) Because...I used to work w/addicts...

(hongkongfooey) yeah?

(MightyMoose) Yeah...

(hongkongfooey) An you think I'm an additc.

(MightyMoose) I'm not here to judge, man...I just know that you can get yourself into serious trouble...a lot of that shit is incredibly addictive...

(hongkongfooey) Don't you see, I want to? Want to haev it all out of my hands. Nothing I do is gonna help now.

(MightyMoose) But you wanted to be in control...that's why you got sober...isn't it?

What's he trying to do? Cure me? There's no cure. No cure.

(hongkongfooey) That was when there was a reason to do it.

(MightyMoose) There still is. You're the reason...

I don't know what he means. Draining my glass, I head out to the kitchen again, stumbling over the shoes that are scattered in the doorway and breaking the glass I was using. I don't bother to get another one. I wipe the blood from my hand onto my sweatpants, and grab the bottle. I fall a couple of times on my way back to the computer, but miraculously, I don't spill my remaining booze. Sinking back into the chair, I see that he's asking me more questions.

(MightyMoose) Okay...just tell me this...did you shoot?

(hongkongfooey) Yeah.

(MightyMoose) Shit. What?

(hongkongfooey) Dunno. Didn't help. Came down hard...

(MightyMoose) Did you share needles?

He's like an aching tooth. Won't let me rest. I want to tell him about Vic, and how I love him, but he won't stop picking away at this. Like it matters.

(hongkongfooey) Not gonna. Don't really know. Did a whole lot of stuff there. They really stuck it to me.

(MightyMoose) :::Sigh::: Okay...so what else happened?

(hongkongfooey) Tol ya. Lost a day. Went with this guy... He smelled like...my guy. Leather. Too nice.

A vision of Vic in his leather outfit rises before me. He's so close I can smell him, and I reach out to touch him. Of course he isn't there, and I bury my head in my hands. The room is spinning a little as I close my eyes.

(MightyMoose) Okay...half-naked in the snow...do you know how you got there?

(hongkongfooey) He took me to a party an there were a lot of other guys there. Couldn't find my shirt.

(MightyMoose) Yeah...what else?

(hongkongfooey) Borrowed the leather jacket. Went out to go home, and they followed, I think. Took the jacket back. Didn't matter anyway. Wasn't really his. He looked so fucking good in that leather.

He looked wonderful, edible. He's there in front of me now, and I want to sink into him, smell the leather, and feel the heat from him. He's not real; I know that. I wish that I could lose myself in my lovely vision, but the pull as the words appear on the screen dispels him yet again.

(MightyMoose) Okay...what else?

(hongkongfooey) You writing the book, man? Just leave it.

(MightyMoose) Quit dicking around...why won't you tell me?

I bite back the reply I want to give him. He means well, and I guess I owe him politeness if nothing else. Sighing, I aim for the keyboard again, narrowly missing knocking over the brandy bottle.

(hongkongfooey) It's all screwed. I'm a mess, and I lost my love. That's all there is. What else could there be?

(MightyMoose) Right. You're drinking, drugging and partying...and you won't tell me what happened with the guy.

Leave me alone. Angry now, I let him have it.

(hongkongfooey) READ THESE WRODS. I. DON'T. REMEMBER.

(MightyMoose) Did you know him?

(hongkongfooey) Nope. Din't know him. He fucked me though. They all did. Could tell after. You get this certain pain in the butt.

(MightyMoose) Any protection?

I shake my head. Shut up. Go away and leave me alone. My bottle is empty now and I'm angry about that as well. I'm starting to come down from the pills, and I'm beginning to think that talking like this was a waste of time.

(hongkongfooey) Don't think so. Was oozing come.

(MightyMoose) Fuck.

(hongkongfooey) You got that right.

(MightyMoose) Did you get checked out?

Did I? Yeah. I did. Should I tell him? Probably not. The clap, I can deal with, but who knows what else I may have? I won't know for at least another 6 months if I'm going to develop HIV.

(hongkongfooey) The Dragon Lady sent me for testing. Dunno if I can be called healthy though. Waiting. Why would I care?

(MightyMoose) Why wouldn't you?

(hongkongfooey) Don't see the point any more

(MightyMoose) The point is that somebody somewhere cares about you...your man?

(hongkongfooey) He hates me.

(MightyMoose) How do you know?

(hongkongfooey) Doesn't want to look at me any more. He'd have to. I betrayed him. Betrayesd us both.

And there you have it. I'm crying now, fucking sorry for myself. Damn! I wanted to sleep tonight, and now I won't. It's already too late.

(MightyMoose) Does he know about any of this?

(hongkongfooey) Don't know. I don't know what to do.

(MightyMoose) You said the girlfriend forced you back with her...does he know that?

Does he? Does he ever. He hates me for it. He believes that I'm a coward, or a shallow user. I don't know what he thinks, but he doesn't love me any more. He didn't look at me as he left the hospital. Didn't stop to say hello. He brushed by me with a vacant stare and Jackie, the slut-bride from Gangstas - R - Us on his arm. That's really when I knew that he'd never forgive me.

(hongkongfooey) Yeah. He looked at me like I killed him. Maybe I did.

(MightyMoose) Maybe he's trying to give you what he thinks you need...

Yeah. Maybe. What I need right now is oblivion. Maybe Vic would kill me if I ask him nicely? Even as I think about it, I know that I'm doing Vic a disservice. When was he ever mean? Face it, Mac, old boy, you've hurt him as much as you've hurt yourself. You deserve the pain. Just suck it up, will ya?

(hongkongfooey) I need? What do I need? Can't do this any more.

(MightyMoose) Can't do what...live?

(hongkongfooey) Guess so. You're perceptive.

(MightyMoose) :::Snort::: Hardly...

He's pissing me off now. Some people are so self-righteous. This asshole never had to live through the kind of devastation I'm facing.

(hongkongfooey) Bet you're happy. Bet you never had to put up with this kind of crap in your life.

(MightyMoose) Oh yeah...ducky...

(hongkongfooey) ?

(MightyMoose) My lover...*ex* lover hates me...I fell so head over heels...and then it exploded in my face...

(hongkongfooey) She does? Why? What did you do?

(MightyMoose) I fucked up.

That I can relate to. Fucking up is something I can identify. Just call me Mr. Fuck-up. Suddenly I feel more charitable towards him.

(hongkongfooey) Hah. Join the club. There should be a club for us fuck-ups.

(MightyMoose) There is...Fuck-ups Anonymous... [g] I'm a charter member...meetings every Tuesday...

That makes me laugh, and then I fall off my seat. It takes me a minute to crawl back into position. My head's spinning now, and I feel really nauseous, but the idea of a club is just too delicious.

(hongkongfooey) Guess I need to join then. Does she hate you now?

(MightyMoose) :::Sigh::: Oh, yeah...can't even stand to be in the same room w/me... Just like me and Vic. You'd think that there would be some kind of medication for star-crossed lovers, wouldn't you? I wonder what his particular crime was and try to ask him.

(hongkongfooey) What did YOU do?

(MightyMoose) Like I said, I fucked up...I lost something important...I got it back...but it's too late...

(hongkongfooey) So you reckon to grin and bear the heartache?

(MightyMoose) Fuck grinning...I can't pretend I'm okay when I'm not...but after living w/my dad and seeing what his drinking did to him, I can't do that either...

(hongkongfooey) I know what you mean. Aren't you tempted to get stoned out of your mine/?

(MightyMoose) Hell yeah...but then I see my dad's face and remember the agonies he put all of us through...I swore I'd never be like that, ya know?

But chemical oblivion is all I have. You can't take it away from me. I hear your message, and I'll agree in principal that you're right, but nothing will mend my life for me now. All I have left is avoidance.

(hongkongfooey) Wish I could stop, man. I hate everything.

(MightyMoose) You can. It's easy. Just put it down and walk away...

(hongkongfooey) I can't. I've got nothing left to walk towards. You make it sound so easy...

Hmmmph...that's a joke...

(MightyMoose) yeah? well, I can tell you that it fucking *isn't*...my baby's so fucking unhappy...and I want to just...kill somebody...but I can't...

I ponder the possibility that killing someone would make things better for me. Who would I kill? LiAnn? Victor? The Director? Nope. No way out there, or I'd have the Cleaners come in and use some of their extreme prejudice on my behalf.

(hongkongfooey) Wanna help me out here? Why don't you just go get her? Love her?

(MightyMoose) Can't...it's not up to me. Choice isn't mine to make...

(hongkongfooey) She has a husband?

(MightyMoose) Something like that...somebody that means more than I ever could...

(hongkongfooey) Well I'll tell you what... We should go out together and cry in each other's milk.

(MightyMoose) Yeah?

(hongkongfooey) You can stop me from drinking too much and I can give you hints on how to get her back. I'm just great with the women...unfortunately. I should start a bloody lonely hearts club.

(MightyMoose) Bud, I can't stop you from doing anything...but I can tell you why you shouldn't be doing it... [g] Are you still doing any drugs?

Okay, levity over. Here comes the next lecture, right on schedule. Damn! I hate when Vic does it, and I love Vic. I'm beginning to detest this conversation. I try rudeness.

(hongkongfooey) Why do you care?

(MightyMoose) Because I do...I'm just that way...for all the good it does me...

(hongkongfooey) Well, Tuesdays you said. [g] We can have a rally. March on the computer dating service...

(MightyMoose) Yeah... :::sigh::: I guess your avoidance answers the question...my baby used to do it too... [g]

(hongkongfooey) What did she do? Avoid? They all do that.,

(MightyMoose) Yeah...I miss it, you know? Miss a lot of things...

(hongkongfooey) Me too. Miss his voice the most. It's this lovely, growly, soft voice...like velvet on the ears.

I view the empty bottle disconsolately. Nothing is gonna be open at this hour of the night, so I don't think I'll be staying for much longer.

(hongkongfooey) Think I need to go to bed.

(MightyMoose) You should...

(hongkongfooey) Think about it. I don't smoke. Used to be fit. Wanted to be fit. Now, I just don't care.

(MightyMoose) But I know it's hard to right now. You want to tell the whole fucking world to piss off... [g]

(MightyMoose) I'm a decent guy...I try to be a good person...I'm not Charles Manson...so why do I always wind up alone?

Maybe you have warts. Maybe you're butt-ugly and fart a lot. The thought makes me giggle for a minute, and I slide off my seat and under the desk. Man, I'm wasted. When I've settled myself back into my seat, I ponder his question.

(hongkongfooey) Well, baby, nice guys finish last. If you quit caring, all of a sudden they want you.

(MightyMoose) Yeah...but I could never be that cold...it's not who I am...

(hongkongfooey) Hey, man, I know. You seem like a pretty nice guy. I don't know what to tell you.

(MightyMoose) But the thing that scares me most is that I can feel myself dying inside...it hurts...I can feel it creeping in...

(hongkongfooey) I feel the same. You feel like you lost the whole direction.

(MightyMoose) That's it...I don't know who I am anymore...for that one little minute, I knew...and then it was all gone...how could that happen?

(hongkongfooey) I know. I know only too well. Feels like someone gets into you with a knife.

(MightyMoose) I don't understand it...I mean, if she truly loved him, I could accept it...but she doesn't. I hate having to watch my baby be so fucking miserable, and I can't avoid it...

I'm sobbing now. The tears are rolling down my face to plop onto the desk beside the keyboard. How come we're all miserable? Why is there no justice in the world. A thought occurs to me.

(hongkongfooey) He? She? Who? If she's miserable, what's the problem?

(MightyMoose) She doesn't love him. It's a complicated situation...

(hongkongfooey) Just make her come back to you. Tell her to get a divorce. Life's too short.

(MightyMoose) They're not married...but they're wound up in each other...so much so that they could never be completely free of each other...which would be okay, if she truly loved him.

Suddenly, I have an idea. It's really hard to type now, but I steady my wrist, and tap out my message with a single finger.

(hongkongfooey) Well in that case, I don't see the problem, unless he's blackmailing her. If he is, the cops should know about it. Hey, I have an idea. Why don't I kill him for you? That way, she'll be free for you, and if I get caught, hell, what difference does it make?

The thought of this asshole stopping my friend from achieving happiness makes me see red, and I grab the empty bottle and hurl it against the wall, watching with great satisfaction as it smashes, and the pieces of glass rain down to mingle with the wreckage of the TV.

(MightyMoose) She does in a way; I know she loves me too, but she's so dependant on him...even when he wasn't there she was...and she doesn't know how to make it be any other way...What?? don't even think about it...

(hongkongfooey) No? But it would solve everything.

(MightyMoose) Yeah. Except for the guilt I'd suffer after you went to jail...

How sweet. He doesn't seem to realize just what a waste of space I am. How to disabuse him? I type:

(hongkongfooey) Hey, man, I don't care. I've been in jail before. It's not so bad.

(MightyMoose) Yeah? Well I do. I appreciate the thought, though. :::snort::: so have I. I don't want to go back. it sucked. I was *not* Mr. Popularity. Half of them wanted to kill me, the other half wanted to fuck me...then kill me.

(hongkongfooey) You too, huh? We have a lot in common. You got a particularly peachy ass, or are you an informant?

(MightyMoose) [g] Well, I think it's kinda cute, but that's just me.

Oh, God. How did I get into this conversation? How can I get out again? I find myself lurching again and cling to the desk as I try to remain upright. I definitely don't feel good.

(hongkongfooey) Hey, I have to go to bed. My head's spinning a little. Don't feel so good.

(MightyMoose) Yeah...you should...will you do something for me?

(hongkongfooey) Sure, if I can. What?

(MightyMoose) Will you give up the drugs? Just the drugs? You can still drink...please?

(hongkongfooey) Oh, fuck, man! I guess I can do that. I can try, anyway.

(MightyMoose) Just try it for a day or two...but maybe if you can function without them, you'll start finding out that it isn't as bad as you thought...

(hongkongfooey)::shaking head:: It's worse.

(MightyMoose) I know it's hard...

Oh, yeah. That's a joke. I can't remember the last time I managed to get it up. Actually, that isn't true. The last time was when LiAnn woke me, and I thought that she was Vic. Since then I haven't felt even remotely sexual. That in itself is scary. Up until now I've been used to having sex on a daily basis.

(hongkongfooey) That's just where you're wrong. It hasn't been hard since he and I were last together. I don't think it will ever work again. But I'll knock off the pills, for you.

(MightyMoose) I know exactly what you mean.

There's a sudden, horrible wave that flashes over me, and I know that I can't do this any more. My gorge rises, and my teeth begin to water.

(hongkongfooey) I have to go now. Not feeling great.

(MightyMoose) Okay...get some rest.

(hongkongfooey) Yeah. You too. See ya.

(MightyMoose) See ya...

That's it then. No time to turn off the monitor, no time to log out. I'm suddenly, horribly sick. As I lie shivering on the soiled carpet, with the room spinning around and my stomach trying its damnedest to eject itself from my throat, I reflect on the fact that I can't go any lower than this.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

The following day is lost time for me. I crawled to my bed and slept there for a while. At one point I awoke to the sound of people talking in the living room, and the crash and tinkle of glass. I had no idea that they had been sent by the Director to clean up the mess I'd made. It was only much later that I found that out. They left, and I don't think that I even noticed that they'd been there. LiAnn, however, gives me no such option. When she arrives, it's late in the afternoon. I'm in a total fog, and her presence doesn't make that much of an impression on me.

"Eww, gross! What the hell happened in here? Mac...Mac! Get up!" LiAnn's voice is generally soft and musical. Today, it isn't. Today, it reverberates inside my head as if she's banging a gong. How she achieves that level of stridence I can't quite imagine, but it pierces my drugged-out cocoon. I curl in on myself and she nudges me with her toe, rather viciously, I think.

"Wha...what? Go 'way.... Lemme sleep." I don't want to wake up. I want to sleep forever.

"Mac, get up right now!" It's obvious that she isn't going to go away. I open a single eye and peer at her. I can't see anything against the terrible brightness of the daylight, and bury my head again. "What the hell is wrong w/you? Oh, god you smell..."

"Oh, God... Go 'way." Even as I speak, I know that she won't.

"Mac," There it is again, that voice like a red-hot bradawl. I struggle up, thinking that I need to get this over with. "I'm sick and tired of this melodramatic bullshit. You act like your whole goddamn world is crashing around you. So you fucked him, so what? I had him too, and trust me; he is not that stellar in the sack. Now get the fuck up."

"LiAnn? What? Oh, God, my head..." I want to vomit. The whole of my universe exists within the single, bright pain that pounds behind my eyes.

"Yeah, your head," she sneers. "What do you expect when you act like a stupid fool? Don't you have any self-respect anymore? The Mac Ramsey I knew wouldn't be caught dead like this." Well fuck me. I think I know a little better than you what Mac Ramsey would do. I rise cautiously to a seated position, and my head does not in fact roll from my shoulders. This is not necessarily a good thing; believe me. I blink at LiAnn, and try for a little dignity, silly though that might be.

"Who the hell do you think you are? You come in here," Talking hurts my head, and I groan. "And start in on me as though you own me. Who gave you the right?" I lurch to my feet, and then think better of it, plopping back down on the edge of the bed. She doesn't seem to care. She starts in on me.

"Your partner, that's who I am...the one who's bailed you out of more stupid fucking stunts than either of us can count, the one who gave up her life for you. Remember, Mac? Because of you, I'm stuck here in this life, with no chance of ever getting out." I'm about to start yelling back at her, but that one brings me up short.

"Gave up your life? What the hell are you talking about?" I soon find out.

"You were the one who wanted to leave, Mac. You were the one who begged me to come with you." It takes me a minute to realize that she's alluding to our attempt to break free of the Tang family. I snort.

"You didn't give up a thing for me; you were here long before I came. I frown. Damn, I feel ill. "I thought you were dead. You sure as hell never looked for me. You got here all on your own. If it hadn't been for you, they'd never have come looking for me."

"Because I was stuck here. Is that what you think?" She's still loud, but now she's trying to justify herself. I interrupt her.

"Think? I know it." She tries for the pathos angle.

"The Director knew you were alive, Mac. I mourned for you. I thought you were dead." Oh, please

"Yeah. You mourned your way all over Victor." Victor. Unbidden, he rises before my eyes again. I bite back a sob.

"You know nothing about my relationship with Victor...and you're a fine one to talk... or did you forget that I saw the two of you in flagrante delicto?" That's rich. Jealous bitch that she is, she's going to make me hate her. I look at her, trying, really trying one last time to understand.

"Tell me about your relationship with him, LiAnn? Why did you lead him on like that? You hurt him...the way you hurt everyone you touch." I genuinely want to know. She's mad though. Her face colors up as she ploughs into a response.

"Lead him...I did *not* lead him on, Mac. What the hell was I supposed to do? I *saw* that warehouse blow up, and then you just waltz back into my life after a year and a half and expect me not to be confused? He knew I had issues with you... he chose to get involved anyway." I'm getting angry myself now.

"Hah. Confused you call it. You just have to have every guy, don't you? Every woman too, as like as not."

"WHAT? What the hell are you talking about? Who do you think you are?" I've had enough of this. I've had enough of her. I start to bite it back, for the sake of what we were, but then my temper, never good, gets the better of me, and I let her have it. My head is clearing a little, and each word rings down a death knell on the relationship - a relationship that should have been over a long time ago.

"I know who I am, LiAnn, and I know what you are too. Look at you. Sympathy oozing out of every pore. You're fine as long as it's all about you. Trouble is, as soon as it's not about you, you sulk. Well, I've got news for you. Not everything is about you, so why don't you just go back where you came from and count your trophies? You heard me. You get off on people's misery, and I've had enough of it. You're a fucking emotional vampire." By the time I've finished, she's pale and gasping. I don't think I've ever seen her so furious.

"Oh, really? Be careful, Mac...be very, very careful and think about the next words that come out of your mouth. You just might live to regret them." Veiled threats were always my favorite thing. I smile, deliberately annoying.

"LiAnn, I'm tired, and I don't feel so good. Why do you feel you've gotta persecute me? I'm already regretting waking up this morning. Why do you feel you've gotta make it worse?" I get to my feet and stagger into the bathroom. When she follows me, I'm astounded.

"I don't want to make it worse, Mac. I just don't understand why you think all of...this," she gestures around theatrically. "Is necessary? You've never acted like this before."

I turn to her, somewhat aggressively. "LiAnn, I'm trying to take you seriously, but just how the hell do you know how I've acted? You don't fucking know me."

"That's not true, Mac. I know you very well. You've always had a weakness for a pretty face and I've always forgiven you for it, Mac. I've always let you come back no matter how bad you were and how far you strayed. I'm willing to let you come back this time too. Why are you hurting me like this? Why are you making me beg?" That makes me laugh. Picture this. Here I am, clad in my boxers, leaning up against the sink, dirty and hungover, and needing to pee, and there she stands, clad in self-righteousness, not noticing, or at least not caring that she's in my way. I round on her.

"Oh, fuck! How noble of you. Poor, long-suffering LiAnn! How you must agonize. I'm not making you do a fucking thing, sweetheart. I just want a bit of peace. I'm not hurting you. I don't think it's possible to hurt you." There's a shocked hush, and then she rallies.

"No? I almost died because you did exactly that, Mac." I gasp at the sheer, barefaced cheek of her.

"Who the fuck told you to go out and get yourself taken? You almost got Vic killed, you bitch. Don't you dare throw that at me!" I'm fuming now. There's no way that she's going to get away with this. She's livid too, and all her reserve has gone out of the window as she screeches at me.

"Throw what? The truth? If you and Vic hadn't wanted to go whore around upstairs instead of do your jobs and back me up, maybe I wouldn't have felt the need to go out back and sob my eyes out, you selfish bastard."

"Selfish? How the fuck am I selfish, LiAnn? I love Vic. I love him, God damn you!" I'm screaming back at her, and for a second she steps back. I think that she's going to leave then, but I'm not so lucky. She starts back, speaking low, her fury a palpable entity as she berates me.

"You flaunted your relationship every chance you got, you and Vic both. How you must have chuckled over my catching you that first time in your apartment. Poor, stupid LiAnn, did you see the look on her face? And all the sweet, sappy kissing and touching...Jesus, it gave me a toothache!" There we have it. The true reason for her behavior out at last, in the open. I throw back my head and laugh. I can't stop myself now, even though I can see it all unraveling around me.

"You know what, LiAnn? We didn't give it a moment's thought. We were too busy being together. You're just a jealous bitch, and it's not about you, get it? It's not about you!" I turn then and switch on water for the shower, one hand trailing under it to tell me when the chill is off. I think for sure now that she would have left in a huff, but it's obvious that it's not to be my lucky day. She crowds me as I ready myself for the shower.

"Love him, Mac? You love him?" She's sneering and I want to hit her. "I've heard that one before. What a joke. You don't give a damn about anybody but Mac Ramsey; you never have. It's the reason Father was always on your back."

"Here we go." I roll my eyes, and then deliberately I drop my boxers and stand naked in front of her, ready to get into the warmth of the shower. "Bring him into it. You have to, don't you? LiAnn? What are you doing here? Why don't you go find a nice Chinese boy and get married." I turn to step under the spray and she grabs my arm, pulling me back. I round on her, angrily. "Let me go."

"Well, gee, I could...except I'm indentured for life to the Agency, courtesy of you." She's still sneering, and I'm gritting my teeth now, biting off the words that drop uncensored from my mouth.

"That again? Let me tell you how it is, LiAnn. You alone got yourself here. Having done that, you made sure that they got me too, and you sank your hooks into Vic on principal, just because he was there. I told you, I thought you were dead." An idea strikes me. I shake her off my arm, and yell at her. "You know what, LiAnn? The only one left for you to put your mark on is the Director... Why don't you go after her? Go on... You might as well try for a full set... think of the benefits. You've got all the skills now, LiAnn. You honed them on poor suckers like Michael. Just play her the way you played him. The poor cow won't stand a chance. Think of what you'll be able to get out of her, LiAnn... more than I could ever give you, that's for sure." When the slap comes, I allow it to land. I've never squared off LiAnn, and I don't think that I can take her just at the moment. I'm not at my best, to put it mildly. Her hand lashes out to hit my face, and I wait, merely raising my hand to touch my lip, from which the blood is oozing.

"How dare you?" she screams. "What gives you the right to be so holy? You used people all the time, me included, and never thought twice about it. You've got a nerve, Ramsey."

"Fuck! LiAnn, you only ever see things that you want to see. Why don't you just get the hell out of here, and leave me alone? I don't really want to look at you." I turn away then and step under the shower. She's still there as I grab the shampoo and begin to lather my hair.

"It would serve you right if I just dumped your sorry ass right here and now." Just for a minute, I grind my teeth.

"Yeah, LiAnn. It would serve me right. Go on then, punish me. I deserve it." When I step out of the shower, clean again at last, she has gone.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

My bedroom is a tip. There's stuff lying everywhere that I've not put away, and frankly it could all use a wash. My head aches, and my body is trembling with residual toxins. When I stumble into the living room, I expect it to reflect the violence of the night before, but to my amazement, it's spotlessly clean. There's no sign of my TV set, and no glass on the carpet, which seems to have been freshly shampooed.

I pull on a fresh set of underwear and climb into a pair of jeans, then lurch to the kitchen for juice and aspirin. Fortified temporarily, I creep to the chair beside my computer, and idly boot it up. It takes me a while. I piddle about with a few porn sites, though nothing seems to excite me any more. Eventually, towards midnight, I wander into the chat room, and there he is.

(MightyMoose) Hey...there you are...what's going on?

(hongkongfooey) Hmmm? Not much. How's things with you?

(MightyMoose) About the same.

(hongkongfooey) Yeah. Nothing changes.

Not true. I'm free. I don't know if it's a good thing or not, but I'm free. Of course the man I love hates me, and won't ever forgive me, but at least I'm not bound to LiAnn any more.

(MightyMoose) How are you? How are you holding up? If only you knew. If only I could tell you I stay neutral.

(hongkongfooey) I'm okay, I guess. Doin' anything interesting lately?

(MightyMoose) Not a damn thing...off work for a little while...

(hongkongfooey) Yeah? Holiday?

(MightyMoose) Nope. Had an accident at work...

(hongkongfooey) Oh, shit. Not good. What happened?

(MightyMoose) Did something stupid...no big deal...I'm still walking, talking and breathing...[g] what about you?

(hongkongfooey) I guess that's good then. Wish I was. Well, I haven't really been out much in the last couple of days. Somehow don't feel like it.

Now if that isn't an understatement, I don't know what is. I smile slightly. That makes me think. I haven't felt like smiling for a hell of a long time, and I wonder idly if my face will fall in half.

(MightyMoose) :::Sigh::: Still drinking?

(hongkongfooey) A little.

Oh, baby, if you knew

(MightyMoose) And the rest?

(hongkongfooey) Look, far be it from me to start an argument, but you're starting to sound like my boss, and that ain't good.

(MightyMoose) Hey, it's cool. I'm just concerned. Speaking of which, how are you dealing with work?

(hongkongfooey) Got time off to recover from a particularly nasty incident a short while back.

(MightyMoose) Do I want to know?

No. Trust me, you don't.

(hongkongfooey) It's not something I can talk about.

(MightyMoose) No problem. So how long are you off for?

I frown, because for the life of me I don't know what day this is. Hell, I don't seem to know anything any more. If Vic could see me now I guess he'd say that I got what I deserved. Gotta tell him something. I prevaricate.

(hongkongfooey) Couple more days. The boss wants me in, day after tomorrow, whatever that is...How about you?

(MightyMoose) I go back beginning of next week...gotta tell you, though, I'm not used to this much enforced inactivity...

(hongkongfooey) Me either. Don't know quite what's happened to me. Lifestyles of the rich and famous, huh?

(MightyMoose) Yeah...

(hongkongfooey) Sit back, suck a beer and watch WWF on the TV. Bunch of shit!

(MightyMoose) I hate TV...rots your brain...

I look at the place where my TV used to stand, and shrug my shoulders. I never watched the stupid thing anyway.

(hongkongfooey) There ya go. I never had one, so I'm safe.

(MightyMoose) So what do you do for entertainment?

I only have so much patience today, and I'm starting to use up the last dregs.

(hongkongfooey) Nothin'. What is there? Been getting my collection of belly button lint in order.

(MightyMoose) Books, music, art?

A pause, and then

(MightyMoose) LOL! That must be interesting...

(hongkongfooey) Oh, you have no idea. Had a race with a couple of woodlice yesterday. I won!

I wonder how long it will be before he gives up on me and goes away. Part of me is appalled at my own cavalier attitude, but mostly I just couldn't care less.

(MightyMoose) You need to get out more...I was thinking...

(hongkongfooey) Careful. Isn't there some safety device you need when you do that?

Oh, I slay myself.

(MightyMoose) Funny. where do you live?

(hongkongfooey) Downtown Toronto. Why?

(MightyMoose) Really? So do I...look, I don't usually do this kind of thing; but I'm going stir- crazy...and you sound like you need to get out in the fresh air...you want to meet somewhere?

Well what do you know? This is such a surprise. It's sweet of him, and so I don't instantly type in 'fuck, no!' I ponder. Do I want to go out or not? I feel somehow lightheaded. LiAnn walked out on me. There's no way that I'm going to marry her now. I'm free. So, okay, Vic won't want me, but we're all alive, and I don't have to play games any more.

(hongkongfooey) What's with this fresh air thing? You don't fancy a club? A little pool, a beer or two? It's snowed, you know. Cold.

(MightyMoose) I'm not into the club thing...had a bad experience...

Baby, let me tell you about the all time bad experience in a club. I bite back the urge to get into a confession schtick, and bend my mind to possible venues.

(hongkongfooey) Well, better make it Starbucks, unless you wanna re-enact "Sleepless in Seattle" and use the CN Tower.

(MightyMoose) You like art? there's an exhibit...

(hongkongfooey) What kind of an exhibit?

(MightyMoose) Van Gogh...

(hongkongfooey) Starry Night, and that kind of thing? Hmmm.

(MightyMoose) yeah...interested?

I prefer Rembrandt, but I'll take Van Gogh, and I always relish the opportunity to check out the security in the art gallery. Hell, why not?

(hongkongfooey) ::shrug:: Sure. Why not. It's not like my engagement calendar is full.

(MightyMoose) Okay...when?

(hongkongfooey) Hmmm? Well I guess it needs to be tomorrow if we're gonna do it. I may be back in work after that., Tomorrow afternoon?

This is interesting. It's almost fun. For the first time in weeks, I feel a little hope.

(MightyMoose) Sure...how will I know you?

(hongkongfooey) I'll bring all of my lint?

(MightyMoose) :::Laughing::: yeah, okay...what else?

(hongkongfooey) Ummm... I'm tall. 6'4". And skinny. And I'll wear a yellow turtleneck under a brown suede jacket. Hair's black, and.... ummm. I have big feet. You? You gonna amaze me by being a 20 year old blonde with huge boobs?

(MightyMoose) You wish. I'm 6'1...dark hair...be wearing a brown leather bomber...

Curses! I could have gone for the blonde An image of Jackie, perfect package that she is, floats up before me, and I shudder. Okay, forget the blonde. I'd rather have my beautiful, dark, green-eyed boy any way.

(hongkongfooey) Okay. I'll tower over you then. That will make me feel superior.

(MightyMoose) Whatever you need to get your self-esteem up...

(hongkongfooey) Fuck. You sound like a damned pop psychologist.

(MightyMoose) :::Shrug::: Never underestimate the power of a good pop...

Oh, baby, I don't. I'm craving chemical relief even as we speak, but somehow I don't think that's what you meant.

(hongkongfooey) :::Snort::: Ha, ha. So I'll meet you at the Van Gogh exhibit?

(MightyMoose) Yeah. What time?

(hongkongfooey) Hmmmm...around 2?

(MightyMoose) Two's fine. I'm kinda tired now. See you tomorrow?

(hongkongfooey) Yeah. go to sleep...take care of yourself.

(MightyMoose) You too...'night...

(hongkongfooey) Night...

I have a date. Astonishing. I have a fucking blind date. Sighing, I return to my wreck of a bedroom, lie down, and fall asleep.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

I rush into the gallery at 5 past 2. I know I'm late, and I wonder if I've made it, or if the other man will have gone.

There are a few people in the hall. I look around for a brown bomber jacket, but don't see one at first, then, as I scan the browsing public anxiously, I spot a brown-leather clad back and make for the figure of the man that's sitting off to one side, reading.

"Hey there..." I watch as the man checks his watch, and then looks around him. If he'd only turn my way I'd feel better, but that must be him.

The man on the bench turns back to his exhibit pamphlet and I hurry up to him, calling out a greeting. It dies on my lips half spoken as I realize just who it is that I'm addressing.

"Sorry I'm..." I trail off into confused silence.

"Uhm, hey..." Victor Mansfield says. "What's going on?"

"I...er... I didn't expect to see you here... Er...how are you? Are you feeling better?" I know I'm babbling, as I try to cover my confusion. My God! Not only am I here, having this embryonic conversation without any preparation, I'm also here to meet a man. He hates me already, but he'll totally flip when I go off with another guy.

"A little. My throat's still a bit sore." He looks gorgeous. I want to grab him, and cover him with kisses. Instead, I hover, shuffling from foot to foot like an idiot. "What are you doing here?"

"Hey, you know me and culture." I laugh artificially, too loud. I can tell that he sees through me like a piece of glass and rush on into inanity. "How about you? You developing a love of the arts?"

"Something like that. I wanted to see the Van Gogh exhibit." The look he gives me is kinda cold, and I feel a shiver travel the length of my spine. I'm afraid that I'll give away how I feel and I look away, putting my faith in a discussion about art.

"I... I have to admit I prefer Rembrandt, but Van Gogh had an eye for color..." I'm babbling again, but he plays the game and lets me off the hook for the time being.

"They're beautiful, aren't they?" Not as beautiful as you, my love. My fingers itch to touch him, but he's not mine any more

"I'm supposed to meet someone. Seen anyone looking lost?" I sat, leaving a space between the two of us so that he won't get up and go, but unable to walk away from him myself. "Guess I'll sit down for a minute."

"No, not really," Vic turns his head away and I can tell that he doesn't want to be with me, doesn't want my company. Why I can't just bite it, and leave him to it I don't know, but I stay, determined to tough it out, just so I can watch the way his eyes gleam. "I'm waiting for somebody too."

That thought sticks like a knife into my heart I stand up again, ready to high tail it out of there. I don't want to see him start over. I don't want to know who he's dating. I try and extricate myself. "Guess I shouldn't keep you then. When do you come back to work?"

"Beginning of next week. You?"

"Think she wants me in tomorrow, but I don't know." I'm gazing at him, mute with longing, taking in the gorgeous face, and the rugged brown bomber jacket...

The brown bomber jacket.

I think my jaw drops just then, because that's when I see his eyes widen and he looks at me I mean that he really looks at me.

"Fooey," he breathes, and his voice is strained in a way that makes my heart leap like a fucking salmon going to spawn. Suddenly, I know, and curse myself for being so damned stupid!

"You wouldn't happen to be the Mighty Moose, would you?" I ask, even though I know the answer almost as much as I fear it.

I see him gasp.

"How do you know that?" Oh, please! Like he didn't know. Sure he didn't know. He's made a fool of me. I've told him things that make me want to cringe. Suddenly I'm angry - angry at him; angry at me, at the whole damned world.

"You know something, I couldn't make a right decision if my life depended on it. I don't believe this." I want to run screaming. The things I've said. The things I've told him. Oh, my stupid, stupid mouth. "Come on, Vic, you can't be that dumb..."

He's still sitting there, looking at me as though I'm a little gone in the head. "You're who I've been chatting with?"

Fuck me, he didn't know. Well, I guess that he does now. Damn it all, he knows far more than I want him to. He knows it all, doesn't he? "Guess you know more about me than you really wanted to, huh?"

"Come with me." Oh, great. He wants to hit me. I draw away from him, searching for a way out that will let me get away, go home and lick my wounds. I start to laugh, because if I don't, I'll run screaming, and that would be a bad thing.

When I can talk, I tell him, "Oh, I don't think so."

"Oh, yes...right now." He's in my face, and I'm afraid. "Don't push me, Malcolm."

"So you've gotten some woman pregnant, have you, Victor?" I flare at him. Get onto the offensive, quick, boy, or he'll have you begging. "Push you? I'm not touching you. I hold my palms up and open in denial.

"What? What the hell are you talking about?" he's talking in a strained, whispering yell that seems to carry almost as well as his ordinary, velvety tones. I guess that he's trying to remain low profile, but we've already gotten a few strange looks from passersby as we argue in hushed tones.

"Come on... Moose! You were bemoaning the fact that you'd gotten this woman of yours pregnant. Think I'd forget something like that?" I'm trying urgently to divert attention from myself. I can recall every last thing I told that anonymous presence on my screen, and I'm dying inside with the embarrassment of having him there, and lost to me, and knowing it.

"No. That was you...although come to think of it, you never said that exactly. My dad was right." I stop for a minute, riveted by the very odd non sequitur.

"Your Dad? What the hell are you talking about?" I frown and relax my guard for a minute, and he nails me.

"Never assume: it makes an ass out of you and me. Let's go." he grabs my arm, hauls me away as though I were a naughty school kid. "We need to get some things straight, you and I."

"Go? Go where?" I fight to pull away, but when an attendant begins to approach us with menace in his gait, I give in and permit Vic to lead me away from the hall and off outside. He's going to hurt me, and I deserve to be hurt, but that doesn't mean that I want it.

"Home," It's a simple response but it sticks in my head, rings in my ears, and makes the world fade for a minute..

"Home? Don't be doing this to me, Victor." Don't hurt me, please don't hurt me.

"Doing what? Everything that's happened has been because you wanted it." I look at him, jaw down on my chest. If this was the summer, I'd be catching flies.

"Nothing that's happened is because I wanted it. Nothing. You're mad." I think back. It was LiAnn who was the instigator. All I could do was what I did. 'And look where that's got you,' says a small voice inside my head, but my mouth stays determinedly tongue tied.

"You kissed me. You kissed me first," I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't that. I follow him limply as he drags me off the street, and into a small alleyway.

"You're the one who walked away," he leans into my space - almost close enough to touch my lips, but he doesn't, and I know that this isn't about love at all; it's about war. He wants me to grovel and I know that I will. I love him so much.

"I did what? What are you talking about, Mansfield?"

"You walked away from me to go back to *her.* Didn't you? Answer me!" I gape at him.

"I... I..." I can't answer. I just don't know what to say. "I can't, Vic..."

"You can't? Why? You don't love her. You said you loved me. Were you lying to me, my baby?"

Still I don't answer. I close my eyes and turn my head away. I can feel that my body has started to shake, and the tears are welling up in my eyes. I don't want him to see me cry.

"Answer. Me. Now!" He forces my head back. "Do you really want to see how far I can be pushed, baby?"

I've backed up until I feel the wall of the gallery pressing against my back. I make an attempt to shove Vic away from me, but I know how feeble it is. I'm wasted and trembling. Leave me. Go away and let me die. "Just leave me be, Vic, please..."

Vic holds me off easily. Not only has he always outweighed me, but he's fit and strong, whereas I'm in serious need of a dose of chemical assistance. "I can't, baby. If I thought you were happy, I'd be able to, but you're not and it's tearing me up inside. You're killing me, Mac. Don't you understand that?"

I look at him, stricken. I open my mouth and then close it again without saying anything. Don't! Don't. I need you to be well for me, Vic. I shake my head from side to side as though to make it all go away. "For God's sake, Vic."

"I'm dying, baby, dying because you're killing yourself. Don't you know that?" He gently kisses me and then kisses me again while my whole world rocks on its axis. I want to bury my face in the smell of him. I want to feel his warmth around me and have him speak to me again of home, but I can't bring myself to let him torment me if it's going to be taken from me again in a minute.

My shuddering intensifies, and I whimper as Vic's lips burn me. "I can't. I love you, but I..."

"I love you, and unless you can look me in the eye and tell me that you don't love me, you are coming home with me if I have to drag you by the hair. Don't test me right now. I've had all I can stand. But what?" Fierce voice, burning eyes, and hands that grip me so tightly that they bruise. I feel consumed in the heat of him.

"So I love you. So what?" The heat sends sparks, and suddenly I flare, trying to fight his passion with my own, empty fury. "So fucking what? You think that I could live with myself if..." I stop speaking, and hug myself. "It just can't happen any more, can it? You understand, don't you?"

"If what? What can't? Tell me... No I don't fucking understand. Spell it out for me." Now he's angry, so angry that the eyes of him burn me, scoring deep under my flesh. I don't know any more. I just don't know.

"LiAnn... You know what she did... I can't cause her death." I hang my head, hoping that he will see and understand my misery.

He closed his eyes and lays his forehead against the top of my head in a tender gesture that catches me unawares. "So you'd let her kill you instead? And I'm supposed to just accept this?"

"I guess that way I wouldn't be committing murder." Okay, that's a stupid thing to say, but it's true. It's how I feel.

"I can't accept this." He's yelling now, but it's not directed at me. I want to hold him, but instead I stand and listen, too afraid to try any more. "I won't. I shouldn't have to, and neither you nor LiAnn can make me."

"I don't understand." I'm a liar. I understand all too well. "What are you going to do?"

"You're coming with me, Mac. I don't care what I have to do to make you, but you are. You are going to eat, and then we can figure out how to make this work..." It would be so easy to give in and go with him, but nothing would be solved, would it? I retaliate as best I can, yelling at him in my attempt to make him lay off me - leave me alone in my misery.

"For fuck's sake, Victor, quit turning the knife. It hurts enough as it is." I think at that point I choke. I can't continue, and he seizes the opportunity to make me feel dreadful. I don't want to listen, but his hoarse voice is laying down the words like a spell to take my heart and squeeze it.

"You don't get it. You're the one turning the knife, with a little help from LiAnn. It stops now. I'm done with being the one who has to sacrifice. I want you, I'm taking you back, and LiAnn is going to have to deal."

"You think?" I screamed at him. "You think you're the only one that's suffering? You think you're the only one who's lost anything?" I watch numbly as his gaze turned hard and cold. This is it. This is where he hits me and leaves me. This is where I begin to die. I stare at Vic uncomprehendingly as I try to process the words. I'm at my last resources, and I know it. I no longer know what the hell I should do, or even why I ought to do it. "I don't know. I can't think any more."

"I've lost a lot in my life, Mac. And I refuse to lose you too." For a minute, the words don't percolate through my thick skull. When they do, my belly is too busy doing it's strange flip-flop thing for me to concentrate on anything other than the glow in his eyes, and the beauty of his face when he's being serious. "I'm asking you one more time, come home with me. Please. That's all I ask. If you ever loved me, you'll give me that."

My eyes fill, and I slump, but I don't say anything. I can't. There's a lump in my throat that I can't seem to speak around. Finally, I lay my head down on Vic's shoulder, for a minute remembering the strength of him, and the warmth, and the love in him.

"Please," I could feel him caressing me, stroking my hair. "Just to talk. We need to talk about this."

I shudder under his touch. Just to talk is right. He doesn't know how bad it is. He has no idea that I can't do it any more. He will throw me out soon enough. "How can you want me...want this after what's happened?"

"Shhhhh. We can talk about it at home...just know that I do want you, that I still love you...believe in that for me," he kisses the tears away from my face and I almost believe that it could be alright again. Just one more day with him. That's all I'm asking. "It's time to come home, baby."

That's just too much for me. I crumple, and my arms go around him as I cling to him for support. I hold him tightly, pressing my face into his strong shoulder. Damn, this is weak. I choke back a sob and then stand, unmoving. He smiles at me. He fucking smiles, and I don't know if I'm happy or not. I do know that I'm scared shitless.

"We'll figure it all out, I promise. Let's go." His voice is so soft that I almost miss his words. It takes a minute, but finally, I look up at Victor. "It's going to hurt, Vic. It's going to hurt us so bad..."

"What is?" He's still smiling, his eyes incandescent with strangely timed joy. He's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

"All of this." I'm trying to tell him. I'm trying to be honest, and he lays his hand to my lips in a gesture that's meant to silence me. I speak around the fingers. "There are no easy solutions, if we try to change things."

"Shhh...We'll get through it together. I know she loves you deep down; she can't possibly want to see you suffer like this anymore." He's smiling. To him it's already solved. He doesn't know the pain we have in store. He doesn't know that I can't make love to him.

I nod, slowly, and exhale. Then I take Vic's hand. It's a solemn moment. I try to tell him what my problem is. "She knows that I can't be her lover any more."

He looks a bit puzzled, but holds off on any further questions.

"Let's go."

Hand in hand we leave.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

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