Luck
By Tiriel
PG-13, m/m
Disclaimer: They aren't mine. Never have been, never will be. Such a pity.
It's Ellie's birthday again. Sorry I couldn't give you exactly what you wanted, babe, but I hope this will do as a substitute. Love ya.
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Luck
by Tiriel
The timing couldn't possibly have been worse. I sat quietly in the passenger seat of the Caddy, cursing my luck, which didn't seem to have changed a bit. I'd had everything, and now it was all falling to pieces.
Cade and I had only been together for two weeks. We were still new, still treading lightly, but we'd finally come together. It should have happened a hundred times already, but it hadn't, not until two weeks ago. It should have happened after Ohio, after his latest near-death experience, when I had to stab him in the chest with a hypodermic to save his life, not sure that it would work. But it hadn't happened then.
It should have happened in Pennsylvania, after he was shot and betrayed and I was half-drowned by that bounty hunter, but it hadn't happened then, either. It should have happened after his reunion with his old crew turned into a nightmare that ended in the death of one of his oldest friends. It should have happened after the girl from the future came back and saved him from a death I never saw but could imagine all too clearly. It should have happened every time we risked our lives.
If it had happened sooner, maybe a lot of things would have been different. If it had, I surely would have already told him everything, and it would all be okay. But even if none of the if-onlys are true, even if it wouldn't have changed a thing, at least we would have had more than two weeks.
It happened after Normal, Illinois, of all places, where the alien obsession with sex was demonstrated yet again. We snapped at each other so much there that I suggested we split up and hunt separate leads for a while. We've worked in different parts of the country plenty of times, and in most cases I can do my job just as well from a thousand miles away as when we travel together. Some nights, the trailer seemed awfully small for two people. Too much time in a confined space, that was my diagnosis of the problem. We'd agreed on that, but it hadn't gone that way.
Neither of us said a word about it, but that night, after the lights were out, we moved toward each other and embraced, then kissed, then made love. He didn't leave in the morning, and I didn't ask him to. We'd slept together every night since, like it was no big deal. And in some ways it wasn't. We'd both felt it coming on for a long time, and we both knew that it was right. At least it had seemed that way to me.
Then the day of my high school reunion arrived. I'd been planning to go for months, slowly working up the courage it would take to face the people and places of my past. It was a good thing, too, because as it turned out I needed the courage for all that, plus alien-hunting, plus this.
I'd meant to tell Cade earlier about my past, but I just never knew how. I certainly didn't meant for it to come out in the heat of the moment, on the phone. But I was wrapped up in the whole Gua crashing my reunion thing, and it just happened.
The irony of the day's role reversal didn't escape me, and neither did the implications of his actions.
The plan was for me to go to the reunion, lay old ghosts to rest, see Marianne, and come back to Cade ready to move forward. After working up the courage to see the Binary Bandits again, I figured that telling him I love him was going to be easy. And it should have been. His obvious jealousy before the reunion had made my heart feel light. It was so clear that he really cared.
Even the hurt and anger in his voice on the phone when I spilled out the whole Larry thing without even thinking about it hadn't seemed so bad. After all, it wasn't long after that that he delivered his speech about how important it was that I stay safe, which was as close to a real "I love you" as we'd been. It wasn't until later, when his relief to see me alive and well wore off, that things got bad.
There are over two hundred bones in the human body. After pawing me enough to personally confirm that every last one of them was intact, he'd shifted gears from concerned to icy so fast that I was sure I'd heard the Caddy's transmission grind in sympathy.
And so we sat in uncomfortable silence. I was trying to think of something to say that would make things better, Cade was frowning at the road ahead and studiously avoiding even glancing over at me. He was obviously hurt and angry, and I could understand that. He had good reason to be. He'd found out that he was living with, *sleeping* with a man whose real name he didn't even know. If our positions were reversed, I knew I'd be hurt, too, and he hadn't even heard all of it yet. If I hadn't known better, I'd have thought that things couldn't possibly get worse.
With a cough and a rattle, the Caddy lurched to a stop on the quiet country road we'd been tearing down. "Fuck!" Cade hit the dashboard with his fist. "Goddamn piece of shit." He got out, slamming the door behind himself, and walked to the front of the car. I saw him reach down to pop the hood, then jump back, shaking his hand, cursing under his breath.
I got out of the car and approached slowly. "Let me take a look at that."
"Oh, please. Go right ahead. I'm sure you can deal with it." He waved his hand at the steam coming from under the hood of the Caddy.
"I meant your hand. How badly did you burn it?" I reached toward his arm.
He jerked his hand away. "It's fine. Just fix your damn car so we can get back to the trailer."
"Look, Foster, I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner. Like I said, it was for your own protection. I can understand why you're pissed, but it's just a name."
"Just a name," Cade parroted, looking at me like I'd said the Gua were "just here for a friendly visit."
"Yeah, just a name." And it was, really. I didn't think of myself as Larry, hadn't in years. It was like a childhood nickname, or how your mother is the only person to ever use your middle name. It didn't feel like a big deal to me. But he disagreed.
"Just a name, Eddie? It seems more like a trust problem to me. What else haven't you told me?"
There he had me. There was no way I could lie about it now, or maneuver things so it would come out gracefully. I just stood and stared at him like a deer in headlights.
"What else, Eddie?" he demanded.
I took a deep breath. "Well, I was kind of married."
"Kind of?"
I had to bite the bullet and just say it. "Three times."
"Three?"
"They all divorced me. It's not ea--"
"When the hell were you going to tell me that, Eddie? When one of them showed up for a visit?"
"It just seemed weird, that's all."
"Weird? Because we've been fucking, you mean? You had plenty of time to tell me before that happened. And apparently it wasn't 'weird' for you to go to your reunion and get together with your old girlfriend."
I had screwed up, yes, but I didn't deserve that. I snapped back at him. "It wasn't like that. And you should talk. You're the one who fucked that traitorous bitch you took hostage--Tina or Gina or Bambi or whatever the hell her name was--and meanwhile I was getting drowned in a barrel by a bounty hunter who was after your ass."
"You know damn well that her name was Lena. And that was before. You're the one who has women's clothing and makeup in the trailer ready and waiting just in case someone like Lizbeth, who you were awfully eager to follow back to the future, needs them. Stocking up for wife number four?"
"If I was, I could have snagged her today. But I didn't, you stupid son of a bitch. I sent Marianne home and called you to come get me. Maybe that was a mistake."
"Maybe."
I continued, angry words spilling rapid-fire from my mouth. "I mean, why the hell should I bother to come back to some jackass who constantly underestimates me and never listens to one damn thing I say? I went so I could let go of my past and then we could move forward. But maybe I let go of the wrong thing. You don't need me, Foster. You can save the world without me, and next time some chickie you rescue asks if she can come along for the ride, you can take her up on her offer to keep your bed warm. I'm done."
"You're done? With us, or with the job?"
I hadn't meant to say it, but at that moment I really thought it might be the best solution. "I don't know. Maybe both."
"It's not that easy, Eddie." There was a quiet kind of desperation to his voice as he spoke now. "You've kept me going. You think I don't need you? Maybe I did underestimate you, but after today it sure as hell looks like you could do the job all by yourself. I think you're the one who doesn't need me."
That wasn't what I'd expected to hear. "That's crazy. You do the hard stuff."
"No, Eddie, I don't. What I do, what you did today, that's the easy part. You don't have to think about it, you don't have to worry, you just do what needs to be done. It's what you do that's hard, and you're all I've got. You can't leave. Don't."
It was the eyes that got me. I looked into his eyes, and all the righteous indignation drained right out of me, leaving this big ache in its place. "And you're all I've got, too. Don't you know that by now? But haven't you wondered about that? I mean, that's part of why I went today. I wanted to know if I was only in love with you because you're all I've got."
Cade looked silently at me for a long time, and I realized just how much more I'd said than I'd meant to. I hadn't meant to tell him that I loved him, not like that.
"Are you?" he asked, finally.
"Yeah," I admitted, knowing it was too late to take it back, "but not because you're all I have. Marianne would have, but I didn't want her. Not anymore."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure. But if you'd rather--"
"Eddie. Shh." He shook his head gently, then moved closer, looking deeply into my eyes. "Yes, I wondered. That's why I didn't do anything about it sooner. I wanted to be sure. I didn't want to hurt you. I didn't want to get hurt. I've loved you for a long time, Eddie. And I should have said it sooner. I should have told you a long time ago."
"And I should have told you about the Larry thing, and my exes, but it's not because I didn't trust you."
"Well, you are paranoid." His mouth twitched with the beginning of a smile.
I reached out for him, and we stepped into each other's arms. "I'm not paranoid with you."
"You don't need to be, Eddie. Never."
I smiled at him, feeling the ache inside me vanish, as it was replaced by relief and happiness and love all mixed together. It was okay. I brushed my lips lightly against Cade's. "I think we'd better fix the Caddy."
"Good idea," he said, and kissed me deeply, thoroughly. We lost ourselves in each other's mouths for a moment, then he pulled back, smiling. "So tell me, Mr. Alien Hunter, do you need someone to keep your bed warm?"
I felt a thrill at his flirtatious tone. "Nah." I shook my head and chuckled. "The job's already been taken. I think you know him. Ex-thief, fellow alien hunter, hottest thing I've ever seen. Puts everyone else I've ever known to shame."
"That so?"
I nodded.
"Well, he's a lucky man, then."
"Actually, I think we both are."
The End.
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