Equilibrium Fan Fiction ❯ Saying Never ❯ Saying Never ( Chapter 1 )

Title - Saying Never Author - trowacko Rating - NC17 Warnings - Partridge/Preston, angst Disclaimers - I do not own Equilibrium in any way, nor do I make a claim to. This work is <i>not</i> RPS <strike>just squint</strike>. No profit, no harm done. Author's Note - this one is alllllll for me, baby.       For so long a life, there had been necessities, but never emotion. As a child of eight, Preston had watched with clinical curiosity as children were taken from his class, made to stand before their unresponsive peers where they cried loudly - fear and anger, he learned. John Preston had found the tears fascinating in a formless way. Trails surely bred of guilt and shame - words he didn't truly understand, yet knew their unwanted penitence required acknowledgement and that equated the sensation of 'guilt' and 'shame' to the boy's mind. Their sorrow was something he'd seen only in videos before, not in stark color the way his classmates stood obediently while the teacher and principal droned on about the dangers of emotion. The children, he was told, had been guilty of feeling, condemned by parents who had also refused to take Prozium. Fear and anger and desperation - all of them had been evident in the children, his friends, the girl he shared a table at lunch with every day. Guilty, they were openly admonished - for feeling and damned by showing it. John catalogued the sight of tears away for further study after classes and ignored their pleas once they were pushed toward the door.   Not a single one ever returned.   No one ever explained why their guilt should have affected any of the children in the classroom that day. It took years for Preston to even realize the lost effect of scare tactics in children bred and raised without emotion, yet it had happened anyway. He understood that it was not the fault of the children that their parents had acted so unwisely. At such a young age, Preston hadn't felt anything untoward them when they were led out of the classroom to be processed. He was always a good boy - a dedicated boy, he amended as he regarded the small ampoule in his hand. The glass tube went into the administrator and he didn't hesitate when the instructor demonstrated how to take the dose they'd taken since infancy. He pulled the trigger to send the drug into his bloodstream, just as he had for as long as he could recall. John Preston would never be so unwise. It was obvious what happened to those who attempted to stand against Father, and he would not become one of those. Still, as the years wore on, he wondered about the tears he'd seen shed so long ago. Even after seeing tears when he was an adult, he never forgot the first ones and his own nagging curiosity, however starkly repressed, to know what that was like.   "Halt! Halt or be shot!"   Preston didn't flinch when Partridge drew a gun upwards before the warning was finished until it was parallel in front of his chest, close enough that he would have run into it had he not slid to a halt as though the command were meant for him.   The weapon fired a single shot.   A shout abruptly cut off at the same time and it was then that Preston turned to the left to see the offender at the corner he thought clear fall to the ground. Heat bloomed in his chest where the burst of hot air had hit him, but it was only wind and not a bullet.   "Thank you, Partridge," he commented. The phrase was automatic, a necessary comment to acknowledge the maneuver, not actual appreciation for quite possibly saving his life; such things were all but inconsequential. Errol Partridge nodded and holstered his sidearm.   "You're welcome," he replied, just as deadpan. "Upstairs, three flights, seven to ten offenders. Will you take lead?"   Preston glanced up the dingy front of the warehouse. At least five stories tall with most of the windows already broken out of it, it stood as a testament to the eras of war long gone. Dirty, unnecessary - <i>offensive</i>, he would have thought had the emotion itself crossed his mind.   "You take the lead," he answered and pulled free both of his guns. "You sweep. I'll clean."   It was the closest to humor he could manage and Partridge let a small smile twitch over his lips before it was gone a second later. Such were the minute spikes of emotion that could be expected of either of them. He followed behind Partridge, keeping a good three steps behind his partner to allow both the maximum range of efficient movement. The positions weren't entirely standard, but Preston knew that in time, they would be. Lacking emotion didn't make either a mindless automaton by a long shot.   On the third floor, gunfire erupted around them. Partridge took stance and began to return fire. Preston hit the floor on his knees, arms stretched toward the walls, guns training as he listened intently. A bullet screamed by his face, probably centimeters away if he could detect the heat radiating off of it, but he didn't particularly care about the bullet itself as he did its origin. Adjusting the aim of his right hand, he squeezed off a shot and returned to his standby state while Partridge danced with deadly precision, weaving in and out of the volley that went back and forth, his arms never ceasing their fluid movement. With every step and turn, twin shots rang out from the barrels of his guns until he reached the end of the hallway. In and of itself, the motions were supremely efficient with barely a deviation from the kata that Preston was sure only he could have detected the millisecond lapse from a fraction of them. The symmetry and precision were beautiful in their execution, only he lacked the ability to grasp it as such that he nodded curtly when Partridge peered back at him to verify they were both alive.   "Clear to the point," Partridge called quietly.   Preston stood up and crept closer, still listening intently through the mild ringing in his ears. When he reached Partridge, his partner had finished reloading his weapons and stood at ready.   "Bring the others up," Preston ordered and overtook Partridge's position. His partner nodded in acknowledgement and walked crisply down the hall and stairs where the others waited. Turning around, he made it to the last door and kicked it open when he heard a whimper from behind it. A filthy bed lay in the center of the room, the window beyond it open with ragged curtains fluttering in the breeze. No one resided within. He was on the verge of leaving when he heard the sound again, fainter, but definitely there.   "Upstairs," he muttered to himself and tore out the door and past Partridge who turned on his heel to immediately follow while the others verified the deaths of those Partridge had already dispatched. It would have been an insult had it mattered to either cleric. It was simple efficiency, that was all.   Quick and quiet, that was the key. Preston sidled his way down the hall, unhurried, yet swift. A soft cry made him pause, risking a glance over his shoulder to verify Partridge was at his back. Partridge's eyes flicked back toward the door where the noise originated, focused and ready for anything.   "God!"   Probably wounded, Preston decided, settling in next to the door for Partridge to take position opposite. Down the hall, three men stood on standby, faces hidden under the familiar helmets of those whose skills couldn't quite match those of the Tetragrammaton. Loyal, nonetheless, and reliable enough to catch the few who slipped by the clerics.   "God!"   A woman's voice called shrilly again. Preston kicked hard against the door knob, sending the door into the room in splintered chunks. The tears he expected, the expressions of fear, pain - all the things he'd seen a hundred times before. What he didn't expect was the rush of warm air out from a room without windows. Two naked bodies lay intertwined on the floor, limbs convulsing in the throes of sex. The woman didn't demonstrate the cool beauty Preston had been instructed to appreciate, nor was the man clean shaven or well toned to illustrate his dedication to his body. But hers was an expression of utter devotion underlying the fear and something else he couldn't quite place.   "Please--" the man whispered around a moan. His hips didn't stop their incessant thrusting, the rutting of animals slicked with sweat. The slap of flesh against flesh was indecent, the man's breath ragged and loud in the tiny room. They didn't even lie in a proper bed, but a sea of old clothes that moved as if it were alive as well. Preston raised his gun, but it was caught a moment later by Partridge's hand. He glanced to his partner, question bright in his eyes. Partridge said nothing and both men's attention returned to the couple on the floor.   The woman's cries grew in volume, the sound one Preston associated with despair when offenders twitched the last of their lives away when a shot hadn't properly killed them immediately. Except she looked far from dying, even if tears coursed down her cheeks. She clung to the man, one last cry drawing long while her body shuddered. His voice joined hers, body wracked with similar spasms and a sound too much like a sob that Preston raised his gun and fired a single shot. The bullet punctured the back of the man's head and tore apart the woman's face just as their mouths closed together. Some small sigh slid between them and he didn't know which one had uttered it. Between the man's legs, his seed leaked free to soak into the clothes and he regarded it for a moment before dragging his eyes away to fix his partner with a hard glare.   "Why did you hesitate? What was that?"   Partridge's expression was cool and almost detached. He shrugged, sliding his sidearm into its holster, looking back to the fresh kills. "Sex by the looks of it," he finally replied as if it weren't obvious. "Never saw it quite like that before; have you?"   Preston thought of his wife, delicate limbs wrapped around his waist while he worked them together, waiting for his seed to spill so he could get some rest before the next day. At times, she had that expression on her face and sometimes he touched her cheek as though he could rub it away. It didn't belong there - it didn't belong here either.   "Why do <i>that</i> instead of escape? Or fight?" he asked instead. The act itself had purpose, yes, demonstrated by his young son and infant daughter.   "Maybe it was worth dying for," Partridge mused.   Further reflection would have to wait when the sound of fighting began again in the distance. Preston started toward the stairs, ordering the faithful sweepers to follow. Back in the fight, he forgot about Partridge's words, but he didn't forget the brightly hot image of the couple or the incessant nagging that he'd witnessed something he could never understand.   Errol Partridge, second senior cleric in the most powerful and necessary Tetragammatron, probably hadn't forgotten either. Preston thought of Partridge's new title, letting it repeat in his head on the precipice between being dismissed and repeating. When it ran through his head again, he snorted quietly to himself and the unexpected act made him lose the thought in consideration of the anomaly.   "What's so funny?"   Preston barely heard the noise over the water sluicing down his body of the showers. He turned to see Partridge tossing aside his towel and choosing the space next to him to clean away the day's trials.   "Nothing," he replied automatically, "why do you ask?"   In the midst of letting his hair become soaked, Partridge ran his hands through his bangs to whip most out of the way. "No reason - sounded like you laughed for a second."   "Probably the water," Preston responded, shifting so his head was once again under the flow. "I must have gotten something stuck in my throat."   "Anyone ever tell you that you're a terrible liar?"   Preston blinked. "I have no reason to lie."   "A man of his word. Ah, Preston, you always will be. So tell me, truth teller, what were you thinking about before I walked in? Girls? Another round on the mat where I get to take you down for once--"   "The couple," he lied. Just as smoothly, he <i>knew</i> that's what he had been thinking of that it became truth enough that he stood up straighter to fix his partner with a brief stare. "Two days ago - it's been weighing on my mind."   Partridge paused in the midst of soaping his arms and shoulders. Preston followed suit with his own soap, forgetting how   <i>funny, it was funny, you just don't know that</i>   odd it was to imagine his partner's new status and rank. Deserved to be sure; in any situation, Preston could count on his partner more than he would any other cleric. By the time he reached his chest and was about to proceed to his lower body, he realized that not only had Partridge not answered, the man stood next to him. He straightened up, suds sliding off his body in white rivers.   "You're curious - did you know that?" Partridge asked quietly. His face was soaked, eyes tinted pink from the water and what little soap probably leaked down from his hair. Preston shook his head automatically, stilled when Partridge pushed in close enough to force him against the cold tiles of the wall that made him hiss in discomfort. He met the even stare at him with one of his own. "Sometimes, you play too dangerous a game, Preston," he commented softly. Preston's eyes narrowed.   "I'm not playing any games."   "First Cleric of the Tetragammatron shouldn't; especially not a boy as prized to Father as you, Preston." Partridge smiled briefly then, pulling away to return to his shower as though nothing had happened. Nothing <i>had</i> happened, Preston reminded himself.   "What made you smile just then?" Preston called over the sound of the showers. He didn't worry that anyone else would have heard them - they were, after all, the highest ranked clerics and the shower room was one of many available to them.   "What? -oh. Nothing. I hadn't realized I'd done something wrong," Partridge answered tossing the briefest of looks over his shoulder while he continued showering. Preston's lips pursed together and he regarded his partner's back. It was the way he had smiled just after his sentence that rang too familiar with how he'd thought   <i>it was funny too, only he can't say it either</i>   of Partridge's title.   "If you're ever curious enough, John, I'll help you sate it."   Preston pulled himself from his thoughts, perturbed that he'd stood in the same place for as many minutes that Partridge had already turned the water off in his section and meandered toward the lockers.   "I'm not curious," he reminded uselessly. Partridge waved and vanished into the columns of metal.   Curiosity was another useless emotion, though one tolerated in children as they grew older. Curiosity, he'd been taught when he'd first entered the ranks of the cleric cadets when he had only been twelve, could be factored mathematically, therefore, could not be dismissed as mere emotion. What they failed to further inform such clean, young slates, was that the anomaly could cost them their careers or even their lives. In terms of mathematics, Preston chose to puzzle over his own anomalies until the solution could be attributed to factors he understood implicitly. To those without an adequate solution, they were simply stored away and forgotten to the best of his abilities.   The couple, however, bothered him in a way irrational acts never did. Choosing to fight overwhelming odds was almost always suicide - that was a given he'd seen from offenders more times than he could recollect. Cursing or taunting was strategically unsound, yet offenders couldn't stop themselves from doing it anyway because they believed it provoked their enemy. Untrue if the clerics, yet their failed logic was still comprehendible. Fucking in the face of danger and death - it was so incredibly illogical that Preston fought with understanding what didn't need to be understood. Partridge was right on one thing - he had become Father's prized cleric and for a myriad of reasons. Most involved his ability to intuitively anticipate an offender's reaction before it was carried out. Such a skill had previously - unknown to him, which was probably for the best - marked him as a potential offender. But when a man had the longevity of Preston's life and career accomplishments, one had little doubt of the man's commitment. He didn't actually <i>feel</i> the emotion of offenders. He simply knew how to interpret reaction based on available data. Simple mathematics.   Yet the question of 'why' rang in his head long enough that he finally cornered Partridge in the locker room a few days later, quiet despite the lack of others nearby.   "I need to know something," he began carefully. Partridge nodded and gestured at the bench. Both men sat down. "You said before--" Preston paused, looking sidelong to see if he really needed to say it all.   "You really are curious," Partridge breathed. The hint of amusement crept back into his features before sinking back into serenity. "You know what you'll probably have to do to really cure you of what could become a dangerous obsession."   Preston nodded. "Which is why I'm coming to you. You said before-- and..." he nodded as if that explained everything.   Partridge thought for a while and nodded, decision made. "Tomorrow night? We should head into the slums for this experiment. You may not realize now, but everyone has a taste in who they want to fuck - your wife was chosen on subconscious reactions to others during screening."   The thought had never crossed his mind and it made Preston balk that his subconscious mind had emitted enough emotion for an appealing wife to be chosen for him. He shook his head; there was nothing he could do about it now. "Go on."   "I'd imagine you'd want someone who looks like her? Same hair, same build--"   "You," Preston replied simply. He chose to ignore the implications that such an arrangement was something Partridge had done enough times that his speech felt prepared up to that point. "I don't want anyone else to know about this."   If Partridge could have best illustrated his status as an offender, it should have then. The man blinked in consideration and finally nodded, however. "I've never-- really thought--"   "Tomorrow, you said? What do I have to do then?" Preston returned to business. Partridge followed suit.   "Yes, tomorrow," he nodded. "Skip your dose for this evening. Do you remember the warehouses we were at last week?" Preston nodded and he continued. "We'll meet there at sunset. You should leave early. Being off the dose for the first time--"   "I'll arrive in the morning," Preston cut in. "It would be wise to limit exposure of potentially incriminating behavior for the longest duration of time."   "I knew your good looks weren't the only reason you've become Father's favored son." Partridge smiled briefly - how he got away with it was beyond Preston - and got up. "Tomorrow night then, Preston." With a brief salute, Partridge was gone.   "Good looks?" he mused to himself. The comment made little sense and Preston dismissed it. For something as dangerous as what he was about to face, he knew careful preparation would be needed to keep anyone from discovering what the two highest ranked clerics were about to do.   The moment Preston woke up, he felt an odd tremor just under the surface of the skin when one was obviously not there. To verify, he ran his fingers over his skin, seeking out the source of the sensation and found none. Not in his flesh, or in his muscles; it could have been a product of his imagination, but he had little use to exercise that particular muscle and didn't count on it being the problem. Already perturbed, he pulled on clothes and left behind his wife for something as fatal as curiosity.   The first test came at the city's exit gate where men in armor and a wide variety of firearms waited for his identity to be established before releasing him to the slums. The strange jitter he woke up with increased the longer he sat at the gate despite reminding himself that the length of time was normal and that of course they'd let him out because he was,  after all, <i>the</i> cleric.   "Clear, sir," the muffled voice behind the helmet advised. The guard returned the thin plastic card after a brief salute. "We look forward to joining you later."   <i>--joining?</i>   A surge of coldness swept over Preston's body and he nearly betrayed himself when his fingers slipped before grasping his identification card. Recon had probably already left for the day then.   "If necessary," Preston returned crisply, fighting back a smile that tried madly to surface. He had no idea what the man looked behind the mask and trying to imagine the guards participating in what he was about if they did 'join him'...   "Good luck," the guard snapped off a quick salute and gestured for the gates to be opened.   A quick nod dismissed the man and the gates opened. Preston's instincts warred with logic. He wanted to jet through the gates before they fully opened just to taste the rush of adrenaline that nearly undid him before being set free. It took quite a bit of restraint not to and his car sedately slid through with plenty of room on either side. Preston wasn't a man who believed in luck, but right then, he needed it.   So did the slums he drove through. Buildings long neglected or damaged from the last war stood in silent testament to a dying past. Gone were the people who fought for ideals and whims all based on emotion. Preston, who was only familiar with emotion by definition, began calculating which he had experienced since the morning while buildings dragged by. His current had to be disdain, discomfort; hate. That the buildings held no appeal was quite beyond question. They offended him, yes, yet he lacked the ability to equate the word with the emotion. He was a blind man, experiencing colors by texture alone, and not their spectrum. It frustrated him to no end and his agitation only grew the deeper he went into the wastelands of society's past. He didn't belong amongst the dregs and he longed to return back there, back home.   Or, he frowned in serious contemplation; maybe what he desired was the comfort of familiarity rather than stark buildings that didn't appeal to him either. The only difference was that the buildings in the city didn't offend him. Like his home was the place where he went to and slept every night, sometimes with his wife unless it was the scheduled time for their intercourse so she could bear his allocated two children and since the results had been produced, hadn't the need.   Amid the cluster of a few tightly packed buildings, Preston parked his car in the warehouse where he found Partridge's already sitting. Vehicle secured, he struck off for the stairs leading to the upper section, wandering   <i>in frustration</i>   until he heard the responding sound of footsteps from another corridor.   "Identify!" Preston challenged. His hands went for his weapons, tense until he heard Partridge call back a greeting. Following the source, he stepped into a room cluttered with garbage that had been diligently swept into one corner and a very dusty cleric minus his uniform. "Partridge--"   Clad only in his boxers and a white tee, the definition of muscles was clear in his arms and thighs. It mattered little that Preston had seen his partner naked in the showers numerous times before. In the slight sweat sheen of his skin, the man was dirty, but far from filthy and there was something... appealing about that. Partridge's voice still sounded labored from the exertions of cleaning the room and Preston stood watching, curiosity spiked that much higher.   "Knowing you, I didn't want this done in a dirty room." Partridge chuckled and sat down on the edge of the impromptu bed, some mattress he'd found and covered with a few starkly clean sheets, pristine blue and tucked to cover any   <i>offending</i>   worn surface. The gesture was touching; something understood in the undercurrent of what Preston felt that he expressed his appreciation best by sitting next to his partner with their knees almost touching. His aversion to the garbage nearby was set aside, albeit with some effort.   "Have the sweeps already been done this morning?"   "Straight to business; Preston, sometimes I wonder if you even need the dose." Partridge snagged a towel from the neatly stacked pile of clothes and items sitting on a rickety chair near the bed. He wiped his face and worked on his arms, giving a nod while he scrubbed free some of the sweat. "Just before dawn; I waited until they moved toward the next sector before I parked."   Which gave at least a couple of hours before the next one would come through. "Good," he replied and got up to shed his clothes. When he had his shirt open, he paused with his hands at the trouser clasp. The reality of what he was about to do struck him full force, cramping in his belly that he hunched over, unable to continue. It was too reckless, too <i>impossible</i>-- Eyes closed, Preston waited, hoping the tremors that he couldn't still in his hands abated.   "Slow down, slow down, there's plenty of time."   The warm touch of fingers on his made Preston suck in his breath, but he didn't pull away at the insistent pull.   "Trust me, Preston. Can you do that?"   A stupid question when he trusted Partridge implicitly with his life. At the same time, he knew the gravity of what the man said when it came to something far more intimate than guns and death and certainty in a situation that lacked all three. It took more effort than he thought it would take to nod and release his hold, though he didn't open his eyes.   "Just listen, and do what I say. Trust me, Preston."   The voice became the background element; that touch of familiarity Preston needed when fingers pulled at the band of trousers and boxers, sliding them down and sparking shivers when his flesh felt the lines drawn on them. It was unreal, this sensation that he'd felt before lying down with his wife, but her fingers lacked the calluses that scraped over his too sensitive skin.   However much his trust wavered in the mounting fear, Preston refused to pull away. Some small sound escaped when the slide of touch traced the line of his hip bone toward his crotch.   "Easy, easy."   Preston fell when he felt the nudge to and landed on his knees next to Partridge. Opening his eyes, he blinked slowly, watching detachedly while being pushed to lay back. He didn't need the command to scoot back to keep his legs from hanging off the mattress and he was grateful - that was new-ish - for the thought behind the clean sheets when his body was comfortably situated on them.   "Father's favored son," Partridge crooned down at him, crawling up while Preston's eyes widened. "You were like a brother to me for so long, John. My brother."   "What--"   "Easy," Partridge smiled once he'd claimed his position between Preston's knees. "I'll show you what you want to see. All of it, I promise."   "I thought--"   "You wanted to see what they did, how they did - that's what you want, not control. I'll give it to you if that's what you want, but it won't be what you need."   The cool air made Preston's skin shiver and he laid back to look up at the ceiling filmed in dust, yet far enough away that he didn't mind its lack of cleanliness. He nodded and looked down to watch Partridge work, reaching to snatch a couple of things from under the towel. The tube he expected. The leather band, he did not. At his questioning frown, Partridge smiled.   "You'll see," he promised, fitting it at the base of Preston's cock.   It was snug, almost too tight and made the pulse of his growing erection that much more pointed. Preston's first instinct was to remove it when it made him feel more naked than the lack of clothes. He didn't because he trusted his partner - partner, that had a whole new meaning.   "It feels weird."   A chuckle. "Preston, this is going to feel even stranger."   No warning other than the nudge of his right leg higher before fingers slid along his ass, pushing. It took every ounce of control not to rebel against them when he knew why Partridge was shoving a pair of fingers into his ass, but still...   "Tell me what you feel."   Closing his eyes, Preston licked over his lips and tried to suppress a shudder that worked through his body. "Cold." On the surface, that was the first thing he registered throughout followed by a surge of warmth the deeper Partridge's fingers pushed. They twisted, scraped the inner walls that made the sensation feel as though they were deeper than they really were. "It's... slick." Fluid, yes, eased with some help, of course, but that was still physical.   Not so much so when the twist of deeper contact had his back arching and a brief struggle for control. Instinctively, Preston reached down, wanting to tug at Partridge's hand and instead pried his thighs wider. Breath shortened, Preston opened his eyes and forgot to say anything. Ah, but he didn't have to.   Being with his wife had so little in common with what his body grappled with. Strained and restrained, it was pleasure with an undertone of discomfort and a little embarrassment that lacked enough definition for him to properly grasp the word while still understanding the meaning. A low moan escaped him, a weak sound that had Preston pinning his lips together lest such a thing loosed itself again.   "You can watch if you want."   Doing so made him even more aware of what they did, yet Preston obediently looked down to watch how his partner worked him with one hand and fumbled at his trousers with the other. A man of talent, he thought with a dim sense of amusement that was immediately quenched under a deeper plunge. By then, he was afraid to touch his cock now that his nerves had been set alight and the throb he knew to be more in his mind pulsed throughout his gut and deeper. Afraid if he did, it'd be over that much quicker. Afraid he would have gained nothing but this short bit of pleasure when the dark look Partridge held him with promised something much more.   "I don't know-- how much longer--"   "Patience." Crooned and promised and in so small a word, Preston would have done anything Partridge asked of him if it meant <i>more</i>. The man slipped his fingers free, wiped them on the edge of the towel and tossed it back toward the chair without looking. He couldn't see the other hand, but knew it didn't lack purpose in being absent when Partridge eased closer, predator to not so helpless prey in movement as feral as the fear that crept up Preston's spine.   Especially when said fear managed to fuel the need rather than dampen it. The lack of true understanding was something he wanted to dwell on and ignore at the same time. The thick squelch of fluid and flesh kept the hunger near the surface, doubled when he knew what was being forced into him wasn't his partner's fingers. Opened wider and fighting the instinct to expel, Preston's breath hitched and he watched the ceiling numbly while the rest of him drank in every nuance of movement.   It wasn't right but it wasn't wrong either. It felt foreign and good, friction forced with little regard to the brief sparks of pain it ignited.  Pinned under Partridge hadn't been his plan, yet the decision was the right one. He wouldn't have felt everything that way.   "Just remember--" Partridge kissed along his chin, a new sensation to log away with the million others "-- to breathe."   The brief thrust had his back slipping a fraction of an inch up the sheet, the miniscule friction overridden by the depth of Partridge's plunge. Preston sucked in his breath and reached up to grip Preston's shoulders, limbs wanting to move in more than one direction and him helpless to decide which direction to take.   Partridge decided for him.   The feel of thighs wedged between Preston's legs, breath hot against his cheek and the heat building between them made a strong body weak, or perhaps weakened by a mind overloaded with   <i>wrong right wrong right</i>   unfamiliar sensations. He let his body move as directed, commanded in soft pants against his mouth until he forced his neck up to incite the kiss Partridge probably wanted.   Slick mouths moved from inexperience - at least on Preston's part - until tongues joined the chorus. Apart and together, waxed and waned while Partridge kept their bodies close and then closer, apart only to drive them together with just enough force to send tremors along Preston's flesh. Pleasure - he understood what that was, the desire for more and more. Something to make him   <i>question</i>   burn hotter that much faster yet keep it from ending. In the thick haze of letting his body succumb to   <i>death</i>   every tiny impulse, he heard something outside the room and wanted to ignore it. It couldn't be right.   "You-- said--"   "You wanted-- to know--" Partridge finished, breath almost as short as Preston's.   The struggle to get up dulled when Partridge's thrusts tried for depth rather than speed. The slow roll of heat working toward the pit of Preston's belly, culminating in a tight ball that warred with the hot ache in his cock still trapped in its leather bounds. Panic built with pleasure and to Preston's dismay - however much a lie it proclaimed itself to be - the need for more won out.   His fist went to his mouth and he bit against the knuckles hard. The other hand went down to tug at his cock, trying and failing to match how Partridge fucked him. The band was too tight and he barely felt Partridge snap it free and away until the pain sent a shock down it to merge and work the other way.   "Do you understand now?" Whispered against lips slicked with sweat.   Weak, weak, spent to his last in just a few more   <i>moremoremorepleasemoremore</i>   seconds of agonized ecstasy, Preston's fingers burned hot against his own flesh, pulled and pumped against nerves fighting him when he'd relied on them completely before. The first cry   <i>wept</i>   swept over his knuckles as though thinly veiled bone could hope to smother the wet exhale. Panic built and doubled, alternating hot and cold throughout his body and still Partridge thrust against him in equal   "Yes!"   frenzy that ended when heat bloomed heavy in his body. Slowed in its invasiveness when seed spilled over Preston's fingers as though in exchange for his body's acceptance of what had been deposited.   Footsteps sounded on the floor below, muffled when the cautious sweep would take the stairs at a slower pace for the loud intrusion. Deep in the depths of conscious thought, Preston wondered faintly which clerics led the assault. The rest of him wanted to revel in the rapidly subsiding shivers despite knowing that at any second they would be   <i>disgraced</i>   discovered intertwined on a bed together, naked and obvious in what they did. Oh, but he couldn't move, couldn't think, refused at the basest of levels to even try.   "Don't move."   Without thought, Preston obeyed, splayed out over the mattress and tried to breathe under the blanket and whatever else Partridge tossed on top. He heard the man move and left the matter to something as simple as trust. Something he'd never felt on that kind of level when hope intertwined with it to create something alien and intoxicating at the same time.   Seconds and seconds and perhaps a few more; time lost meaning under the weight of what was no doubt debris from around the room on top of him. Preston turned his head and tried to regulate his breathing, something that would've been easy in the past and not so much now. They would be found out and killed and he'd end up dead naked - soiled to boot - and how would his family take that?   They'd care superficially, his newly liberated mind supplied helpfully. There was no such thing as shame to disgrace their future. It would simply be an unfortunate incident, easily wiped away and replaced by a new husband, new father, new cleric... Under the weight of cloth, Preston agonized at how it must be so. That he'd be so easily forgotten and swept away as just another offender when it wasn't the offense he was guilty for, but the miniscule curiosity of a couple Partridge had killed...   "They're gone."   <i>I know.</i>   Layers swept away that Preston didn't resist until he lay exposed to Partridge's scrutiny. To hope and dreams and what was hope other than the longing that built so strongly he could taste it on his tongue?   "Are you--"   "<i>NO!</i>"   In a scramble over the mattress, Preston clawed his way to the place Partridge deposited his belongings and with too shaking fingers, found the gun with two doses secured in its handle.   "Preston--"   "No!"   It took two stabs to get an ampoule into the discharger and that against his neck.   "Preston - don't--"   It took both hands to still the quake and one thumb to discharge the amber liquid into his neck. Preston sank back, waiting, hoping, and futilely believing the pull of a trigger could answer his questions and problems alike in a single moment. When nothing changed, he worked at getting the second dose into it and never mind the prospect of possible permanent catatonia, he   <i>needed</i>   wanted normality and familiarity. Outside the memory of Partridge against him - <i>in</i> him - and the sound of boots against a floor when he knew what they did was   <i>right</i>   deadly and not just to him. The second charge barely followed the spent dose being expelled from the device with the minute suck of air to say the next was ready in its mechanical deliverance.   "Calm down; just calm down." Partridge's hand fought his and wrested the device from his grasp.   Such an odd thing to utter to the man who'd secured, in so brief a time after the academy, the position of head cleric. Emotion was something Preston silenced by lethal means - it wasn't something to be warned against.   "It was foolish," he told Partridge, relinquishing the hold on the 'gun' when the blanket of dulled sensation finally crept over his mind.   "You know now--"   "I didn't need to," Preston cut him off. "I didn't need to!"   The expulsion of the sentence left him all but breathless at its lack of necessity in volume. Instead of waiting for a response, he stumbled his way to his clothes, using some fouled remnants of old to wipe at the seed still leaking from him before pulling on clothes that made him feel dirtier for what they hid beneath. Even the dose couldn't keep that particular feeling at bay. Home was all he wanted. Home and a shower and anything to rid him of this   <i>wanted needed</i>   failed experiment. Preston turned on his partner, leveled <i>control</i> and protocol by glance alone.   "If you report this, you might as well ask to be killed," Partridge offered before a word could be uttered.   "It doesn't need to be," Preston answered crisply, fully in control once more. "An anomaly was considered and it needn't be any longer."   Some lingering emotion struck him when Partridge's gaze seemed...   <i>hurt</i>   different. For one as dosed by now, it was still foreign.   "Do you agree, Partridge?"   A second wave of footsteps sounded and Partridge stood up straighter to let his guns slip into his hands.   "No one else should be in here. If there is - you sweep. I'll clean."   With a terse nod, Preston agreed with barely a moment's pause. His own guns felt heavy in his hands, surely a byproduct of his lapse of judgment. Such anomalies were bound to occur from time to time, yet their partnership had weathered many a situation. This last was obviously just another that illustrated their dedication when it could be walked away from so easily.   *just because it comes from the mind of a wacko, doesn't necessarily mean it's insane*