Taking Care
By Jennifer Lyon
Rating: NC-17, Cade/Eddie
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Taking Care
by Jennifer Lyon
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Well, I gotta tell you, Foster, these aliens are worse than teenage boys, Eddie griped into his headset. "All they think about is sex, sex, and more sex."
Cade's laugh was rare music in his ears.
"They do seem to be preoccupied with it," he answered, static coating his voice. "But so are we." He paused, and Eddie could sense him checking his surroundings before speaking again. "I think it's new to them - human sexuality. So they're studying it, just like they study everything else about us."
"Nah, it's more than that," Eddie disagreed, shaking his head and leaning back in his chair. "Look at all the trouble they went to in order to test out a sex drive stopper for use on their own people." His dark eyes gleamed with amusement. "Maybe that's their weakness. They're sex-starved."
"Sure you're not projecting?" Foster teased. It was Eddie's turn to laugh.
"Maybe...but maybe not." He settled into seriousness. "They are totally obsessed with it."
"Yeah...it does seem that way. Unfortunately, it's our people who suffer from their obsession. If this *is* the Gua, then they're racking up quite a toll this time."
Eddie's fingers flashed over his keyboard then flew to his mouse. His mouth pursed tight as he responded.
"Add another to the list, Foster. Larry Barnes just died in the emergency room at St. Joe's."
"Damn!" Foster swore. "I thought I'd gotten to him in time!"
"You did the best you could. At least you stopped him from raping his wife and daughter."
"It's not enough, Eddie! I need to know how they're spreading this thing. Are they targeting specific people or is it in the water or what?"
"I'm looking for connections as fast as I can. But so far, it looks random. None of the victims knew each other. Problem is, it could be in anything! Something they bought at the grocery store, a chance contact on the street..."
"I know...I know..." Cade sighed, his breath whooshing against the receiver of his cell phone. "I'll try to talk his wife again, see if she can remember something that might help."
"Grab some samples while you're at it...food, water, cologne, whatever you can."
"Will do," Cade agreed, moving to shut off his phone.
"Hey - Foster, be careful!" Eddie shouted.
All he received was silence and static and the echo of a smile.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Cade paced behind him as he worked, back and forth, like a caged tiger. Every so often, he swooped in to peer over Eddie's shoulder, grimace, then step back to pace again.
"Hey man, sit down and take a load off," Eddie finally complained. "This may take a while. I can't concentrate with you hovering over me all the time."
Rubbing at his eyes, Cade stopped still. "I'm sorry. I just hate not being to do something about this!"
"We are doing something. I'm testing these samples you took and you're getting some rest," Eddie replied without lifting his head from the spectrophotometer. "You'll be no good to anyone if you're exhausted."
Cade sighed, turned and dropped into the nearby couch. "Maybe you're right. I do feel a bit worn out."
"Yeah..." Eddie urged absentmindedly. "Get some shut eye. I'll wake you when I find something."
A loud yawn answered for Cade, who lay down, shut his eyes and fell instantly to sleep.
Eddie never paused to notice.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He tended to lose time when he was solving a puzzle and this alien experiment had been a challenge. They were definitely good - very good - but no one was better than Eddie Nambulous when it came to figuring things out. Scientific things, at least. Still, it had taken the better part of twenty-four hours and Eddie was hungry and tired when he finally shouted out his success.
"I found it! Oh, you are sneaky bastards! Lacing the coffee beans with a modified hormone." Standing up, he stretched and turned towards his slumbering partner. "Hey, I got it! They put it in these fancy designer coffee beans..."
Eddie stopped in mid-sentence as he turned to lean down over the other man, still laying on the couch. Cade's skin was flushed, beaded with sweat. Eyelids blinked rapidly over his eyes. He shifted, moaning in his sleep. Eddie placed a gentle hand on Cade's forehead, then exclaimed in sudden concern.
"Shit, you're burning up!" He dropped down to his knees beside the couch and shook the other man's shoulders. "Wake up! Foster! Can you hear me?"
Bright blue eyes flashed open and fixated on Eddie's face.
"Eddie?" he murmured.
"Yeah, it's me buddy. How do you feel?"
"Hot...I'm so hot," Cade moaned. He yanked at his shirt, trying to tug it off. Eddie restrained him.
"Lay still, I'll get some water and some aspirin."
"No, I don't want water...I want..." Those feverish sapphire eyes focused on Eddie's hands wrapped around his own forearms. He turned his arms so that he could grasp Eddie's arms in return, pulling him closer. "I want you..."
"Whaaa?" was all Eddie could say. "Foster, you're... Oh Fuck! You drank the damned coffee, didn't you?" His question went unanswered. Cade was more interested in drawing Eddie as close to him as he could. He sighed with relief as Eddie tumbled over across his chest, bringing them nose to nose. He arched his back upwards, swiftly grabbing Eddie's hair and pinioning him into a kiss.
Eddie yelped but the sound was caught in Cade's mouth as it seared his. He was too shocked to resist at first, his lungs frozen still as Cade ravished his lips, tongue jabbing for entry. Finally, a small bit of awareness sparked, he grabbed Cade's wrists and held on tight.
"Whoa...Foster! Stop! Did you drink the coffee?" he demanded again.
"Coffee? Yes...I drank coffee..." Cade muttered, still clinging tightly with desperate hands.
"Damn, damn, damn," Eddie shouted, finally disentangling himself. "Shit, you're infected with this hormone stuff!" He didn't make more than about three steps before Cade caught up with him. Spinning Eddie around, he yanked him into a full body hug and kiss.
"Mmmmph," Eddie tried to speak, but the words were lost. The kiss stopped only because of the need to breath. Cade buried his face in the curve of Eddie's neck, lungs gasping for air, his chest heaving. His hands clutched at handfuls of Eddie's shirt, refusing to let him go.
Eddie held onto to him too, stunned, equally starved for air, but his brain racing madly for a solution. He let Cade push him up against a wall, tried as best he could to murmur soothing words, while he fought for an answer. The alien hormone was a new entity, so all he could do was guess. Some of the cases had survived, but only after they'd raped some other poor soul or souls half-to-death. In most cases, the sexual frenzy had lasted about twenty-four hours, after which the individual fell unconscious. There was something one of their victims had said that strained at the edge of his mind, but it was difficult to concentrate with Cade biting and sucking at his neck, hands wandering over his body.
He tried to push Cade away for a moment, but only received an angry growl and a fiercer shove up against the wall. That did it, he remembered the woman saying that after each bout of sex, her husband would be OK for a while, but the period in-between kept shortening, until he finally collapsed at the end. Did that mean that sex might actually help?
Cade was tearing at his clothes now, ripping the T-shirt. Eddie grabbed at his wrists to stop him, then reconsidered and pulled it up over his own head and tossed it away.
"OK, buddy, if this is what you need, let's give it a shot," he whispered. Cade didn't seem to hear a word, he simply lowered his head and began to kiss his way down Eddie's breastbone. His hands settled hard on Eddie's side, trapping him in place.
"Hey, it's all right. Easy. I'm not going to fight you," Eddie said soothingly, settling a hand in Cade's short, burnished gold hair. He stroked his scalp, earning a low moan against his belly. Cade's tongue dipped into his belly button, tearing a similar sound from Eddie's own lips. He was sensitive down there and being needed like this was terribly seductive.
Eddie tried to remember that he was doing this to help his friend survive being dosed with an alien chemical, but it was hard not to get caught up in the moment. Now that Eddie was no longer fighting against him, Cade was more willing to slow down. So Eddie was able to propel him over to the bed at the far end of the trailer and remove their clothes without further damage. But finally, all he could do was lay down on the mattress, draw Cade down upon him, and let nature take its course.
~~~~~~~~~
Cade did sleep afterwards and Eddie was able to extricate himself from the sticky tangle of their bodies. He settled a sheet over the man's bare body then quickly cleaned himself up a bit before grabbing a glass of water and some aspirin. Once he'd taken some, he sat down beside Cade and gently woke him up.
To his relief, the eyes looking up at him were almost aware.
"Drink this and swallow these," he commanded, pushing the tablets at Cade's swollen lips. Cade accepted them, lifting his head to let Eddie feed him the water. After a few sips, though, he refused, shaking his head. So Eddie dumped the rest of the water onto a towel and started to bathe Cade's face and then his neck and shoulders.
The man under his administrations lay still, his normally fair skin flushed bright red. Those acute blue eyes were shuttered, half-closed, hazed with fever and rising desire. His body was surging swiftly into another round of sexual need, his cock rising hard from its nest, tenting the sheet. Eddie removed the thin covering and drew the washcloth downwards, then paused, his throat catching. For all they'd shared, this was painfully intimate. Could he continue with this? A low, raw sob from Cade was all the answer he needed - he'd do anything he had to.
The soft, damp strokes of the washcloth made Cade's strong body twist and jerk, hips thrusting upward. Eddie tightened his grip, drawing in his second hand, and settling into a firm rhythm. If it could be done this way; if the hormones released from orgasm would fight the alien chemical, then this was not too hard. Cade's flesh was soft and satiny under his fingers, the veins pulsing. He stroked and urged, dropping the cloth aside and using the touch of his hands only. It was what Cade needed -- it didn't take long for him to release in a flood of fluid, body convulsing, then collapsing.
Tears stung Eddie's eyes as he gently cleaned up his friend's body then went for more water. This time, Cade was less aware. The fever was building almost instantaneously again. He'd run out of body fluid to lose soon at this rate and dehydration was a serious issue. Serious issue... Eddie grimaced at himself. This was barely beginning and it was only going to get worse before it ended. Dehydration was the least of his worries.
Even so, he did manage to get half a glass of water down Cade's throat before the need got too bad again. That was the only relief they got; the intervals got shorter and shorter and the intensity of stimulation required to push Cade over the edge only got higher. Hands worked once more, then weren't enough.
Eddie had never once imaged doing this for another man, but his terror for Cade's life was too high to allow anything else. So he bent his head and took Cade's rock-hard cock into his mouth, gently at first, trying it out, gasping for air as Cade thrust upward, seeking more and deeper contact. Eddie pulled away, fought free of the hands groping for him and took a deep breath. That breath and one look into Cade's agony-twisted face were all he needed. In the end, this was done for love - he made the final decision in that one instant that this would also be done *with* love.
So he gave Cade all he had - this time and the next and the one after that. He gathered Cade up in his arms, talking to him, soothing him with gentle caresses, bathing him with the damp cloth, fighting to get fluid down his throat. Waiting for the next seizure of demand, meeting it any way he could.
He'd never be able to say afterwards how long this went on or how many times Cade's body shook with painful release in his arms. His last memory of that night was wrapping himself around Cade and kissing him on senseless lips. He woke hours later to find himself still entangled with the other man's body, but Cade - at long last - sound asleep.
Eddie stroked his chest, his cheeks, his forehead. The skin temperature was down, the flushing slightly faded. He breathed a deep sigh of relief, considered getting up. His movement stirred Cade; in his sleep the man tightened his grip and murmured a single word.
"Eddie."
Eddie slumped down on Cade's body, his body taking its turn to shake, tossed on a silent tidal wave of emotion.
~~~~~~~~
Cade slept for nearly twenty-four hours. Eddie watched over him, straying no further away than the nearest computer terminal. All he wanted to do was gather Cade up in his arms and hold him forever. But life carried on and now that he knew Cade would recover, there were things that had to be dealt with.
In an executive decision, he made a number of phone calls. Several of their 'Believers' had begged for a chance to do something. Now was their opportunity. Cade might have survived the alien poison, but many others weren't. The death and damage toll was rising sharply. Someone had to do something...
It didn't take long to have four people on their way, fully briefed, and as prepared as anyone could be. He'd been able to warn them about the coffee, in fact, to not eat or drink anything they weren't sure of. That would help -- he'd done this for Cade, only for this one man, there was no way he could do it for any one else.
And it helped to know they weren't totally alone. Not that he had told them the truth about Cade's condition. The flu was a solid-enough explanation. It worked.
Now there was only the question of what would happen when Cade woke up. Eddie cringed at the thought, but knew there was no way to escape it. How much would Cade remember? He hoped it was less rather than more. For all of the depth of their friendship, the love that was real between them, this had opened a door that Eddie hadn't been prepared for. He didn't think Cade had been ready for it either. That scared him. Could Cade accept this?
~~~~~~
When Cade stirred, Eddie ran over to him. Cade's eyes were hazy with sleep and the aftereffects of the alien hormone-induced madness, but they found and settled on Eddie's face with obvious relief and recognition. Eddie breathed his own sigh of relief, reaching out to restrain Cade.
"Hey man, take it easy," he urged.
Cade made it to a sitting position despite Eddie's hands pressing down on his shoulders. He licked at his lips in preparation to speak, frowning at the dryness of his mouth. Eddie grabbed for the glass of water he'd kept close, constantly refilled, over the long previous day. This time he didn't have to feed it to Cade; Cade accepted it with a shaky hand and drank it all down rapidly.
"Thanks Eddie," he said, giving back the empty glass. Eddie smiled softly as he set it aside.
"How do you feel?" he asked, turning back to study Cade's face intently.
Cade grimaced. "Like I was run over by a very large truck."
Eddie couldn't help continuing to touch Cade. His hands hovered over the other man's shoulders, stroked his upper arms.
"In this case it was a very nasty alien-modified hormone, but the result probably feels about the same."
"How?" Cade asked. Eddie's stomach twisted with a tangle of emotion. Did that mean Cade didn't remember. Trying desperately not to show his mix of relief and pain, Eddie explained as nonchalantly as possible.
"They put it in these designer coffee beans. That's why the victims were so scattered and unconnected. Turns out they sold them to about a half-dozen different shops."
"At Burns' house." Cade whispered. Horror lit his eyes. He focused them, bright blue beams of energy, at Eddie. "How bad?"
Eddie shrugged, but couldn't stop his grimace from communicating the answer for him. His words, however, were deliberately light. "I took care of you."
"Care." Cade echoed. His mouth pursed tight as he fought for memory. Some sparked behind his grim expression, his eyes widened. "God, Eddie. I.I'm so sorry!" He reached out and took hold of Eddie's forearm in panicked emphasis. "I didn't hurt you?" he asked with open desperation.
Eddie grasped Cade's arm in return. "Nah. I knew what was happening and as long as I didn't fight you, there wasn't a problem. That's why so many others got hurt. They had no clue what was turning their spouse into a raving sex maniac, so they fought it."
That didn't provide Cade with much reassurance. "Eddie, you.I.we." he stammered.
For the first time in days, Eddie found himself actually grinning. "Like there was no tomorrow. I gotta tell you, that if I hadn't been so terrified you were going to up and die on me, it woulda been one of the best nights of my life." Eddie knew he was lying, knew that his words fell flatter than a pancake, but he couldn't come close to vocalizing the truth of what that night had been like. Terror and love and tenderness and desire and fear and desperation all intertwined.
Cade breathed roughly, his chest heaving, his grip tightening on Eddie's arm. He had seen the results of this in other people. He knew how bad it was.
"Eddie," he whispered hoarsely before his voice rose sharply. "I'm so sorry." He struggled for something more to say, but couldn't find the words.
"It's OK," Eddie rushed to assure him. He reached out with his free hand to touch Cade's cheek. "Really. It wasn't your fault and you didn't hurt me at all. Actually, " he admitted warmly, "Parts of it were pretty nice."
Cade's face twisted. "Nice.?" he echoed. That made Eddie laugh aloud.
"Yeah, you're a rather good kisser."
"Thanks, I think," Cade responded, shaking his head. Pain lanced across his temples, settled into his neck and shoulders. He groaned.
"Lie down," Eddie barked, instantly concerned. Cade didn't argue, let Eddie ease him back onto the mattress.
"Get some rest," Eddie ordered.
"But." Cade protested, "the aliens and."
"Being taken care of," Eddie replied.
"What? How?"
"Later," Eddie insisted, adjusting the pillow under Cade's head and tucking him in.
Cade tried to protest again, but the stern look Eddie was giving him brooked no argument. His body went limp as he gave way.
Eddie gave his shoulder a squeeze before getting up. Cade grasped his arm and held him fast a moment longer.
"Thank you," he said, his eyes and expression multiplying the simple words into a flood of emotional meaning.
Eddie smiled and squeezed Cade's shoulder one last time.
"You're welcome, buddy."
~~~~~
It was nearly a week before Cade fully recovered. By that time, the Believer team had managed to recover and destroy all of the alien-altered coffee and killed the alien team. Cade had not been happy about leaving that to others, but Eddie had kept him confined to the trailer, if not to the bed.
So it was only after they had moved on to a new, safer location, that Cade was able to step outside. Eddie still hovered behind him, sparking a faintly annoyed look.
"I'm OK," Cade grumbled.
"Glad to hear it," Eddie rejoined.
Cade's irritation faded fast. He smiled ruefully. Eddie returned the expression, coming to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Cade. Both men silently watched the leaves on the trees tremble in the breeze. Fall was coming, turning the greenery into a kaleidoscope of oranges, browns and reds. Cade sighed softly, then reached out beside him to find and Eddie's hand.
Eddie's fingers intertwined with his own, holding tight. Neither man said a word, letting the touch of their hands speak for them. They'd gotten through this - together - and somehow they'd get through the future the same way.
End
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