Fandom:	Houston Knights
Series:	Other Authors
Rating:	NC-17
Pairing:	Joe/Levon
Archive:	Starwinder's
Title:	Too Close
Author:	Glo
e-mail:	gentlerainfall@yahoo.com
Standard Disclaimer: Houston Knights belongs to Jay Bernstein and Michael Butler and Columbia Pictures. No copyright infringement is intended. This is fan fiction, written out of love for the shows. I am making no money off this. I have no money so please don't sue me. Any original characters that may appear in these stories are the property of the author.

Standard Disclaimer: I make no profit from this story.

The red Jimmy 4X4 swung into the entry of the old drive-in theatre and came to a stop next to one of several blue and whites already on the scene. The blue flashing lights atop the cars looked pale in the bright noonday sunshine. Two men dropped out of the front doors of the truck, each settling his gun harness and pulling out a black leather ID wallet. Almost in unison, they flipped open the wallets, revealing HPD detective sergeant badges within. Each tucked his open wallet into his belt so that the police identification was in sight. It saved a lot of time if there were any new uniforms on the scene.

One of the detectives was dark-haired, slightly taller than the other and heavier in a muscular way. He walked with a loose, aggressive stride, his flat tie-down oxfords eating up the distance quickly. He was dressed in casual high fashion, pin-striped dark trousers pleated at the waist, turquoise shirt looking almost neon in contrast to his lightly olive complexion. His double gun harness peeked out from under the white linen jacket that he wore with rolled up sleeves in the heat. The second, the driver of the red truck, was less formally dressed than his companion. Wiry, thin and blonde, he wore an off-white Stetson and lightweight vest that partly concealed his shoulder-harnessed Colt. His pink shirt was tucked into blue jeans so tight that the strong muscles in his long, lean legs were visible as he widened his steps to keep up with his partner.

Both men looked alert and interested as they came to a stop beside two officers busily scribbling in small notebooks at the yellow-taped barrier to the crime scene. While the blonde, Levon Lundy, touched his hat with a finger in greeting, beginning to confer with the two uniformed cops, his partner, Joseph LaFiamma, continued into the area that had been cordoned off, stepping easily over the tape.

Neither man, nor any of the other Houston police present, was aware of the surveillance that kept close scrutiny on every move. LaFiamma joined the medical examiner and the photographer, silently observing as the camera flashed. The bodies of the two young men on the ground were gruesomely laid out for the world to see, the shaded walkway of the old concession stand preventing direct sunlight from striking the tableau. Both had been in their mid- to late twenties, once handsome, Caucasian, one brunette, the other blonde. They were naked and bloody, chained together, face to face, hands secured behind their backs with what looked like Duct tape.

The M.E. nodded briefly to LaFiamma, they'd met at many a murder scene in the past year, then continued with his own notes. The two officers outside explained to Lundy about the caretaker of the old theater discovering the bodies only an hour earlier. He'd been shocked and was now seated in the back of one of the police cars, being interviewed by another officer. They noted that his initial statement indicated no knowledge of the two victims or why they might be found here.

LaFiamma politely listened to Dr. Fulton describe the possible causes of deaths as unknown at this time. They both knew that until the M.E. had had an opportunity to look at the bodies closely back at the morgue, that any guesses would simply be that, guesses.

He shook hands briefly and walked out into the sunshine. Looking first out toward the flat horizon, where the skyline of Houston, Texas, fingered the sky, he then glanced down at the loose dirt and gravel of the old parking lot. Rows of speaker hook-ups, long since stripped of their equipment looked like forlorn pipes stuck into the ground. The slight hillock effect of the rows of graded parking slots for the movie-goers' cars made the lot look almost like a series of ocean waves frozen in time. It was easy to see that the area had been used for sometime by dirt-bikers, their tire track figure eights weaving in and out, up and down over the hillocks and between the rows of old metal speaker stands.

LaFiamma glanced down at his feet, clear tread marks of both dirt bikes and road bikes cut clean marks on the soft, loose ground. He could see where the bodies had been dragged behind, probably behind those same bikes, before being abandoned here.

Bikers. LaFiamma'd had his share of run-ins with that sub-culture back in Chicago, his native city. An arrogant lot, they were tight-knit, closed communities as a whole. Not all went under the better known banner of Hell's Angels, but whatever they called themselves, the ones that hung outside the law were poison. He'd have to rely on his partner Lundy to know where to look. He'd only been down here in Houston since a shoot out back in Chicago had forced his transfer from that police force to this one, for his own safety's sake. He frowned now at the tire tracks. Ugly crime, looked like hate crime or simple mindless violence.

Lundy had left the two officers now and was slowly making his way back through the entry to the crime scene. By now, the coroner's wagon was backed up to the scene and the M.E. on site was directing two pale blue suited attendants as they carefully shunted the still-joined corpses onto a single gurney. Fulton looked up and nodded in acknowledgement of Lundy's arrival, then stood and shook hands. Together they watched the bodies being covered and removed. The photographer had been doing some shots of the area, from different angles, and now covered the lenses on his cameras and began packing them away in his black carryall.

LaFiamma had walked out into the sunshine further away from the old building, to stand on one of the hillocks and stare about, following the fresh tracks with his eyes, noting where they'd come in from the highway through a broken section of fence. As he stood there, bareheaded in the heat, he was joined by Lundy who'd spotted his partner outside and strolled out to join him. The cowboy came to stand next to the ex-Chicago cop. Lundy's eyes quickly took in the story of the tracks as they silently surveyed the desolate abandoned movie-theater lot. He removed his hat and wiped his forehead with his forearm, the heat was a near blast furnace today, the humidity making his clothing stick uncomfortably.

The unseen watcher took a quick in-drawn breath at the sight of the blonde and brunette standing in the sunshine, tall and young, both good-looking men. It was almost too good to be true to find another pair so soon.

********

Later that afternoon, back at their desks in the Major Crimes Unit of the Houston Police Department, both detectives were staring with distaste at the crime scene photographs that has just been delivered. In the interlude since dropping in at the drive-in, they'd been back at their desks, finishing up paperwork on two other cases that they'd just completed. Now that the reports of this new crime were starting to come in, it was time to switch mental gears.

LaFiamma held up a photograph of the tread marks nearest to the bodies. "Looks like bikers."

Pushing a hand through his hair tiredly, Lundy tipped back his seat and lifted his booted feet up onto his side of their joint desks. "Yeah, way Ah read it, too."

"You know any bikers down here, Lundy?"

"Well, there's always Chicken."

"HE knows some?"

"He IS one, LaFiamma."

"Chicken?"

Lundy smiled broadly at his pardner, "Yep. He's got a great big old bike, don't know the make, he jest calls it hiz 'old hussy.'"

LaFiamma grinned back, "Big old hawg, huh?"

Levon Lundy pinched his lips, nodding and sitting forward, letting his feet back down onto the floor with a thunk as he took up another photograph. "We kin show him these, see if the tread marks mean enythin' to 'im."

LaFiamma surged to his feet, leaving Lundy to crane his head up at his partner. "Well, let's go. It's almost time for lunch anyway."

"You aim to eat at Chicken's today, LaFiamma?" Lundy's voice held a note of disbelief.

"He promised me he'd let me cook my own meat from now on," Joe LaFiamma said, shrugging his heavy shoulders into his jacket.

Lundy sat, shaking his head. "You are a piece o' work, LaFiamma." There was the sound of humorous affection in the blonde's voice and a smile hovered at his lips.

LaFiamma shuffled the photographs together and slid them back into the manila envelope they'd been delivered in. Holding it, he pushed in his chair and stood waiting as Levon Lundy slowly built himself up into standing position across from his partner. The rangy cowboy re-holstered his Colt and picked up his hat, settling it firmly down over his eyes.

Joe LaFiamma waited as Lundy came around their desks and led the way out of the bullpen. LaFiamma followed, eyeing his partner's snugly clothed ass in silent appreciation. He'd taken to following the Texan whenever he could these days. Lundy might not purposefully be putting that tight ass up for grabs, but Joe had become more and more protective as time went by. The Texan was his. Perhaps he didn't know it yet, but he was. For now, Joey was biding his time, he might not have officially staked his claim, but he was standing guard on the property anyway.

Lundy walked past hiz pardner and headed toward the elevator doors that opened directly opposite the door to the MCU bullpen. Today for some reason he noted that hiz pardner wuz once more letting Lundy go first. When the boy had first come down from up north, he'd been a walkin', talkin' menace and had made it a point to 'always go in first.' It had meant that he'd spent a lot of time follerin' the brunette out of and into places. LaFiamma had eased offa that, though, these last few weeks. Funny, he'd not really thought on it 'til now. Mebbe 'cause this time, Joe'd already been standing and had actually had to wait fer Levon to git up and move out afore follerin' him. Lundy shrugged. Makes no never mind, whichever way Joe wants to be, Levon had discovered hizself a real good pardner in the boy and had settled back to enjoy the burgeoning relationship. Though he'd be reluctant to admit it to the other detectives, he had developed a real likin' fer the northerner.

***********

Down in the garage, they climbed back into Levon's Jimmy. The drive to Chicken's wouldn't take very long and it went in silence. Lundy concentrated on driving while mulling over the known elements of the case. LaFiamma had removed the photographs again and was shuffling through them, stopping now and then to study one more closely. When Lundy pulled into the barbecue shack parking lot, Joe shoved the glossies back into the envelope once more.

"You see anything new?"

"No. Be interesting to see what the doc makes of the dead guys. After we finish here, how about we go over to the coroner's office and see what he's got?"

"What's yore hurry, LaFiamma? Doc Fulton'll give us a call when he's got something."

Joe lowered his head to stare at the sturdy envelope he held. After a moment he reluctantly answered, "Levon, there's something about this case." He looked up and straight out the front window of the Jimmy. "You remember that time when we were lookin' into the shootings in the TV ministries? When we went into that one church and I said I'd felt a 'Chicago chill?' And then we found the dead guy? Hanging off the balcony over our heads?"

Levon had gone dead still by now and was staring intently at hiz pardner. "Ah-huh. Ah remember."

Shyly, LaFiamma flicked a quick glance at the westerner before returning to stare out the windshield. "Yeah, well, I felt one just now. When I was looking at the photo of the victims. Felt the hair rise up on the back of my neck. Like...like I felt eyes on me, us. I... I don't know, Levon, but I don't feel good about this one."

Lundy tilted his head to one side as he studied his pardner. Joe nearly never spooked. Might be something up on this one. "Ok, we'll go see Fulton after this." He spoke quietly and was rewarded with a rare look of gratitude from his dark pardner. Felt hiz heart warm in response. May er mayn't be enythin' happenin' on this case, but shore wuz somethin' happenin' between him and Joe. Not sure what yet, but it felt like things wuz changin'.

Probably thinks I'm crazy, but I really did feel funny looking at those two dead guys. They looked so much like us. Or like we could look, if we ever got to where I'm hoping we'll go someday. Joe felt a stirring in his groin, took a deep breath and ignored the growing heat below his belt as he climbed out of the Jimmy. Now was definitely NOT the time.

**********

Once out of the Jimmy, LaFiamma noticed a biker sitting on his motorcycle, the motor still revved, near the entrance to Chicken's parking lot. Anonymous helmet shield down, the man simply sat, gloved hands flexing as he rotated the handles, keeping the motor speed up. Something tingled, Joe looked down and realized the hairs on his forearms were standing up among goosebumps.

Lundy, who'd started toward the open front of the shack, stopped when he realized that LaFiamma wasn't following. Looking back he saw his pardner standin' there, seemingly frozen to the spot. "Hey, LaFiamma, something wrong?" Behind him, he heard the sound of a motorcycle roar and gravel spit. Turning to look over his shoulder, he saw a biker spinning out of the parking lot and into traffic, heading for downtown. Well, plenty of bikers around. LaFiamma hadn't answered him, was still standing there, staring after the departing cyclist. "LaFiamma?"

The brunette seemed to snap out of his trance and faced his partner. "Levon, did you see that bike?"

"Yep. So what? Plenty a'bikers stop here at Chicken's." Levon paused, scrutinizing his pardner. Boy looked nervy agin. "You got that feelin' agin?"

Grateful blue eyes met hiz. LaFiamma took a deep breath. "Yeah. Kinda creepy." He looked sheepish and smiled with a shrug. "Sorry, must be my Sicilian ancestors."

"'z'okay. You ready to come on now?" Levon didn't push, he could be patient when it seemed needed, had had plenty a'practice with Joe.

"Yeah." Together they walked into the rib shack where the big black man in a baseball cap and dirty apron greeted them from behind a plank countertop.

"Well, well, if it isn't my favorite de-tectives, Mr.'s Lundy and LaFiamma. Bit early for lunch for you two, isn't it?"

Levon flashed a grin at his long-time friend. "Well, this is kinda both lunch and business. We'd like you to look at some photographs."

"Sure, be happy to." The big man leaned up against the counter and put his hands on it, waiting. Accepting the envelope from Joe LaFiamma, he glanced up at the waiting men. "What's this about anyway?"

Lundy answered casually, "Got us a double homicide, Chicken, and it looks like bikers are involved. Out at the old Starshine Movie Drive-in over on Haskell. Lot ov tred marks, thought you might see something we don't."

The black man was slowly sifting through the clutch of photographs by now, while listening to Lundy. LaFiamma had seated himself at the counter and put his head in his hands, elbows on the countertop. Chicken paused to study the brunette seated in front of him, then went back to looking at the photos. "Nasty."

His comment seemed to spur the Italian who grunted, "Yeah, real nasty."

Chicken nodded and lifted one photograph. "This one shows tracks made by a big road bike, likely a Harley or Yamaha. There's one track over here, too, that I think is a side-car." He handed the photo back to Lundy, then stacked the rest together. "Looks to be mostly dirt bike marks, though, which makes sense. I'd heard some kids had taken to using the old place for an off-road rally and race track. But the Harley? Well, now, a big bike like that one wouldn't be playing out there. I'd say you need to look for a big bike."

LaFiamma sat up now and took back the photographs, putting them into the envelope. Without looking at his partner or the black man, he spoke softly. "Like the one in your parking lot a few minutes ago."

"Well, now, I don't know nothing about any bike outside just now. No one in leathers been in here yet today."

"What you thinkin', boy?" Lundy's voice sounded more curious than anything.

"Not sure, but I did get the tag number on that bike. I'd like to call it in when we go."

"Shore. Meanwhile, Chicken, thanks for your help. Now, think you kin rustle us up some ribs?"

LaFiamma's eyes took on a sparkle as he stood and came around the counter, saying, "Chicken, I'll do my own, like we agreed."

With a smiling glance at Lundy, the black man waved generously to the various stove tops and grills behind the counter, "Help yourself, Joe. I got you some of the chicken breasts you asked for, they're in the frig under the counter." He pointed with a set of tongs he was using to serve ribs to Lundy.

Levon grinned and shook his head at his picky pardner, then took up a rib dripping in sauce and began to gnaw at it.

**********

Back at the bullpen, both men spread out the photographs, clipping a notation of Chicken's comments to the one photo he'd pointed out. Then they headed out to check in at the coroner's office downstairs.

Walking into the cold tile rooms always made Lundy feel uncomfortable, but never seemed to bother LaFiamma. Today was different. Joe LaFiamma was looking unhappy again and Lundy noticed.

"LaFiamma, what's got you so riled, enyway?"

Hiz pardner eyed him for a moment, eyes bleak, then answered, "Just a feeling."

Inside the main autopsy rooms, they found Doctor Jack Fulton working over the bodies of the men they'd seen out at the drive-in earlier. He looked up as they entered. "Afternoon, Lundy, LaFiamma." He prodded at the body in front of him. "These two boys were put through some pretty bad stuff before someone finally put them out of their misery."

"Whatcher mean, Jack?" Levon stayed back away from the examination tables, never too happy to have to see the results of medical examinations down here.

"Both men have been repeatedly violated, sexually - some pretty brutal rape from the looks of it. Old unhealed scars layered with newer ones. Multiple layers at the anus. Genitals badly bruised and cut in places. Marks everywhere. Looks like they'd been in restraints of one sort or another for no less than three weeks. I base that on older scars that have healed under the newer ones."

"What killed them?" LaFiamma's voice was gruff, abrupt.

"Now that's the funny thing. None of the abrasions would have done it. Painful, yes, but not deadly. No, I'm going to have to do some testing on their blood. See, here," he pulled and turned an arm, exposing the inside of the elbow joint. "See these tracks of puncture marks?"

"Junkies?" Levon asked.

"No, I don't think so. Based upon the pattern of healing of earlier marks and lack of any long term evidence, I'd have to say they are concurrent with the rape."

"Drugged and raped." LaFiamma sounded grim.

Fulton looked over his spectacles at the brunette. "Yes, I'd say so. And I think they were either overdosed in the end or they were finally given something fatal."

LaFiamma shivered violently and began backing out of the room. Lundy was startled at the reaction from hiz pardner, watched as LaFiamma suddenly turned and bolted from the room.

Neither he nor Fulton made any comment about Joe's unexpected behavior. Sometimes the job got to you. It wasn't that uncommon. Lundy thanked the coroner and slowly, thoughtfully followed hiz pardner back up the stairs to the MCU bullpen and their desks.

*********

"You alright, pardner?" Levon settled into hiz seat across from LaFiamma who looked pale.

LaFiamma cocked his head to the side and looked at Lundy. "None of this bothers you, does it?"

Lundy raised his shoulders slightly, then dropped them. "Part of the job, LaFiamma."

Joe felt the chill chase up his spine again as he stared down at the photographs. This just was not right. Levon seemed imperious to the signals that Joe was receiving. Trust your instinct. Sometimes that's all anyone had. He stood up and started around his desk.

Levon had been watching hiz pardner from under his lowered brows. Boy still hadn't settled down on this one. It was kinda creepy, he'd admit that, those two men, chained t'gether like that, mistreated, then murdered. But... At this point, LaFiamma had stood up and walked off, heading for their boss' office. Before Levon could get up all the way to follow, Annie wheeled in the door and directly over to him, calling out, "Levon, I have the information Joey wanted on that motorcycle tag."

Sitting back down, he took the file she held out. "Thanks, Annie, I'll see that LaFiamma gets it."

"Mean man drives that machine, Levon. If you and Joey are mixed up with him, you better watch out." With those words, the wheelchair-bound policewoman turned and pushed herself back out into the hallway.

Lundy, ready to dump the file on LaFiamma's desk, paused at his friend's words. 'Mean man?' Curiously, he opened the file. This was the cyclist that Joe had spotted in Chicken's parking lot at lunch today. As he read, his eyes narrowed and a crease began to form between his eyebrows. The dark brown eyes turned reddish with disgust. Well, 'mean man' wuz one way to describe this hombre. Had a rap sheet a mile-long, mostly assaults and disturbin' the peace, a couple of B and E's, one count of DWI. Then there were the rapes, mostly women, but some boys, too. He'd never been convicted, though. The street bike was a big one, a Harley. He had a list of known associates who all seemed to belong to a gang calling themselves the Vultures. No, not nice. He wuz so focused on the report that he forgot for the moment that Joe had been heading off to talk to Beaumont.

A hand on hiz shoulder brought him back. "Levon? Joann wants you in her office." Carol O'Brien stopped only long enough to deliver her message before continuing to her own desk, her arms full of files. Lundy cricked his neck back to look toward Joann Beaumont's glass enclosed office at the end of the bullpen. Beaumont appeared to be in a face-off with hiz pardner, LaFiamma. Now what the heck had the boy gotten hizself into?

Rocking forward, Lundy rolled to his feet and stalked down the center of the room, keepin' an eye on the two people behind the glass wall. At the door, he stopped.

Beaumont relaxed at the sight of him. "Good, Levon, you need to be part of this. Joe wants me to take you two off this double homicide case."

Joe LaFiamma's heart sank as he turned to face his partner. Levon was looking at him blankly, eyebrows raised in question. He must think I'm crazy. Geesh. How can I convince them that we need to walk away from this one? Hopelessly, he returned Lundy's look with one of fear. Fear only his partner could read in the milky blue eyes, clouded with emotion.

Lundy walked further into the room. Whatever he'd been about to say died on hiz lips. Joe was scared, really scared, Levon could read it in hiz eyes. No case wuz that important. "We might be a little too close on this one, Joann." What else kin I say? They's no real reason fer us to drop it, 'ceptin' mah parder's got the willies. But, that wuz reason enough, jest cain't say it to Beaumont.

The gratitude in Joe's eyes was reward enough for Lundy. He moved to stand beside LaFiamma, show hiz support. "Mebbe you kin give it to Holiday and O'Brien? Carol looked like she could use a change from working those back files."

Joe, whose heart had been in his feet moments before, found it soaring now. Levon was backing him and he'd not even warned the man about what he intended to do. Softly he spoke to the side, "Thanks, man." Looking back at their boss, he added, "Honest, Lieutenant, this case just isn't right for us."

Beaumont was thoroughly puzzled now. She'd fully expected Lundy to rip a new one in LaFiamma, right in front of her. Backing out of an assigned case was almost never done. Usually it happened when a conflict of interest showed up during investigation, but as far as she knew, the two detectives had barely started the case. There'd not been time to uncover anything to create that scenario. And now Lundy was backing LaFiamma's request with some bullshit that didn't even make any sense. One thing she did know, though, and that was that it didn't pay to force any of her men, or women, to take a case they didn't want or to push an investigation in one direction instead of another.

"Ok, as of right now, you two are off the case. You can take over the back file weeding that O'Brien's been working on. I'll give the case to her and Holiday. Give them everything you've got." She rounded her desk and sat, dismissing them with a gesture.

Lundy's face was a thundercloud as they left the office. He hated paperwork and now they were gonna face literal mountains of the stuff. He kept silent, fuming, all the way back to their desks. LaFiamma, beside him, seemed to sense the anger and was slightly hunched, almost submissive looking. Unlikely.

"Carol," Lundy called out as they reached their desks, "you and Nate better go see Joann, you're taking over our case. You kin send all those old files you got there our way."

Legs O'Brien started to laugh until she saw the look of serious anger on Lundy's face and the look of almost humiliation on Joe's. Something wrong here, but there was a clear no trespassing sign up at that partnership just now. She rose and tagged after Nate Holiday who'd looked surprised but fatalistic and was already heading back toward Beaumont's office.

Once the two had departed, Lundy sat down and faced LaFiamma who was already seated and gathering up the set of photographs once again. There was a slight tremor that Levon could see in Joe's hands. "Alright, boy, you want to talk about it?" Levon's voice was dangerously quiet.

LaFiamma swallowed and shook his head. Nothing he could say would make any real sense, it was just the feeling of intense foreboding that still loomed over him. Even the reassignment had not changed that. He simply couldn't shake it. He continued to stack the reports and photographs. A hand snaked across the desk and caught his right wrist, held it fast. One of Lundy's long-fingered, gracefully powerful hands. Staring at it with mingled feelings of longing and despair, Joe finally looked up into the eyes of his partner. He saw anger and confusion there, and something else, that he couldn't name.

"LaFiamma, you're aging me." Levon's voice had warmed a bit, wasn't quite so glacier. There was even a quirk of amusement at one corner of his mouth. Can't stay mad at the boy. He's real scared about somethin' here. Mah job to protect him, back him up.

"I'm sorry, Levon." Joe spoke in little more than a whisper. "I just gotta hunch on this one that we need to be as far away from it as possible."

"What about Nate and Carol?"

Joe thought about that. About them. Nothing. "I don't think it's gonna be a problem for them, not like it would be for us." He stood abruptly, almost angrily, defensive. "Don't ask me why! I don't know why! I just gotta feelin' is all."

Lundy stood and walked around the desks to stand beside him. "Look, it's ok." He put his hand on Joe's arm, felt the trembling. Got to gentle him, calm him down. "It's almost quitting time. We done enough overtime to leave early onct a while iffn we want to. What say we go back out to Chicken's, have a couple of beers, play a little pool?" He felt the arm beneath his hand relax, the trembling stop. He smiled.

Joe sighed and smiled back. "Just let me put all this on Holiday's desk."

In a moment, the two men were walking out of the bullpen, heading for the police underground garage and their vehicles.

***********

"The blonde lives on a small ranch at the city limits. The other one, he's from out of town, he lives in an apartment complex over on the west side."

"They both live alone?"

"Yeah. No wives, no relations here."

"Good, that will make it easier."

"We got the place all cleaned up. Got customers waitin' to be called, too."

"Then we take one tonight. The blonde, he's probably easier, out there in the country."

"Shall I ask the doc to whip us up some of the tranq?"

"Yes. Tell him we'll need the series of shots prepared, too, for both of them. Maybe we can get the other tonight too. Send in Prod. If he can find a way to get the brunette out without alerting the neighbors, then we'll take both."

"I'd like a piece of the dark one myself. A real pretty boy, that one."

"They'll both need to be primed anyway, so if you want him, he's yours for tonight. Maybe Jinks will take the blonde, he always seems to have a thing for blondes."

***********

Neither man really felt like staying long at Chicken's. Both had some thinking to do. They played a couple of games of pool, sipping a beer each. After eating a quick meal together, they parted company by mutual consent, heading for their separate homes. They'd made their peace.

Driving home, Levon kept re-running the events of the day, trying to see what had gotten hiz pardner so upset. Joe had pointed out how like them the victims had looked. Well, one wuz a blonde, t'other a brunette. But really, that wuz it. He shook his head in frustration. Whatever had set off hiz pardner, they were well out of it now. Ahead, the traffic was thinning as he left the loop road and approached hiz country lane.

There was blinding light jest up ahead, didn't make no sense less'en there was an accident up there. Darkness had fallen some time ago. Slowing, he put the Jimmy in low gear and squinted through the light, trying to see what lay ahead. He never saw the figure that appeared out of the night at his side, almost silent on a muffled motorbike. With a shattering of glass the driver's window of the Jimmy blew in, smashing into the side of Levon's startled face. "Wha......?"

He slapped at his neck where a sharp sting bit deeply, clinging to the steering wheel with his other hand, trying to keep the truck on the road. He'd automatically hit the brakes when the window broke. Now the truck skidded to a sideways stop on the deserted road.

Levon Lundy sat, hunched over the steering wheel, his left arm hanging loosely at his side, his forehead on the wheel rim, against the slow releasing knuckles of his right hand where it had clutched at the wheel seconds before. He was unconscious.

**********

Joe LaFiamma drove the Cobra into his private garage, one he'd specially rented from a neighbor. This was not a car you left on the streets at night. He turned off the lights, motor, slid out of the driver's side and locked the door, putting on the alarm system. With no roof, at first glance, the car looked to be easy pickings but the locking system disabled the ignition and the alarm system disabled the fuel injection system. He'd designed the additions to security himself. It wasn't going anywhere.

Closing the garage door, he turned toward the street. Heard a strange whining noise and then felt a painful sting on his neck. Damn mosquitoes, down here in Texas they were the size of small birds. Resentment gave way to panic as his vision darkened and his arms and legs began to numb. In a matter of seconds, he collapsed unconscious on the cement apron of the garage.

**********

When Levon woke, he felt cold and shaky. Couldn't seem to clear his sight, everything was blurry, indistinct. Tried to move, couldn't. Taking a slow breath, he waited. Nothing changed. Tried to move hiz arms but they were tied tight together somehow, behind his back, no behind his legs. He gradually became aware of his awkward position, lying on hiz side, knees up against hiz chest, arms wrapped around hiz thighs only, bound somehow so's he couldn't release them. He tried to move hiz lower legs. The ankles were fastened together but he could fold and unfold his lower legs, forward and back. Hiz head was resting on the floor near hiz kneecaps. And, he wuz naked, buck-naked.

Someone was stroking hiz spine.

**********

Joe blinked away sleep and tried to rise. He struggled, half-awake, convinced he was dreaming, having a nightmare. But the cold floor on his bare skin finally woke him.

Where's my clothes? How'd I get here? Where's here? Fumbling and writhing, he determined that he was bent double and his own arms were being used to restrain him, they were taped together across each other, holding his legs against his chest, or at least his upper legs. From the knee down, he appeared to have limited freedom. Ankles were held together somehow, felt like metal cuffs. He rolled on to his back and blinked some more, trying to see more clearly but it was like there was film over his eyes that he couldn't quite see through. "Hello?" He cleared his throat and tried again, "HELLO?"

A vague shape appeared over him, looming dark in the dim lighting of whereever he was. Nothing was said but rough hands grabbed him and rolled him back over onto his side, then onto his now folded knees, forcing his face against the floor. Cement. Gritty and cold. He grunted and tried to speak again but someone heard him clear his throat and he felt a hard slap on the top of his head, then a single hissed word, "Quiet."

Helpless, rump to the ceiling, Joe waited.

***********

"This is ridiculous! I don't care if they're BOTH pouting, I want them in here now!"

Joann Beaumont's bellow was heard throughout the bullpen as she stormed down the center walk area back toward her office. She'd not been talking to anyone in particular, just venting. Lundy and LaFiamma, released from their assigned case, were supposed to be hard at work sorting old files. It was nearly 10 in the morning now and neither had shown his nose inside the bullpen yet today.

Spinning back toward the room at the door to her office, Beaumont called down to Esteban Gutierrez, one of the detectives in the room. "Gutierrez, get on the phone and find them. Tell them I want them in here NOW."

"Yes, ma'am," the ex-Mexican cop replied politely, eyes twinkling merrily at his partner, Joe-Bill McCandless who grinned back at him. They both figured that Lundy and LaFiamma had found a way to skip out on the paperwork. But, obediently, Esteban reached for the telephone on his desk.

************

"...no answer anywhere. That's when the report came in about Lundy's truck. It's been found abandoned on the road to his ranch. Looks like he never made it home last night." Gutierrez solemnly reported what he'd found to Beaumont. Behind him, out in the bullpen, the other detectives, who'd already heard this, were finding ways to put their cases on hold. Lundy was in trouble, which meant probably LaFiamma was in trouble too. No one wanted to be left behind on this one. "Officers sent to LaFiamma's place found his car in the garage, still locked up. But no sign of his bed being slept in at his apartment."

"They never made it home last night." Beaumont was muttering to herself. She was tense, thinking hard. I'm missing something here. What? What? "Esteban, I want to see Carol and Nate. They went out to follow a lead on that double homicide. Call them in, now."

She began to pace her office as the dark complexioned cop left on his new errand. Could they have found something on that case, something they didn't want to tell her about? Something that made LaFiamma so nervous that he'd come in and asked that they be taken off the case. Frustrated, she wrung her hands and paced back toward her desk.

"Joann?" Annie's gentle voice called her to her office door.

Swinging around, Beaumont strode to the door. "Yes?"

"There's something...I don't know if it's important, but Joey asked me to trace a motorcycle tag yesterday afternoon. Said he'd spotted it at Chicken's. When I looked it up, belonged to a real long time criminal, name of Prod Fargo. I gave the file to Levon."

"Did he say anything?"

"Just said he'd give it to Joey. But, Joann, I think it was important to Joey, he seemed real worried when he called it in."

"He called it in? Didn't wait to get here to ask you to do it?"

"He called in by radio, from Levon's truck."

"Thanks, Annie. Will you go see if the file is at their desks?"

"Sure thing," the redhead wheeled around in her chair and rolled back down the bullpen.

Beaumont watched, thinking. I don't remember any mention of a biker spotted at Chicken's. But bikers are involved in the double homicide. Maybe I better see those files on the murders. Resolved, she walked out into the bullpen and down to O'Brien's desk. The files lay there, neatly stacked.

Beaumont started to rifle through them, came across the photographs and began on them. Stopped, frozen. The photo of the victims showed two young, athletic men, one blonde, one brunette, chained together, their arms bound behind them. They were pale, bloody, and their faces were full of pain, even in death. What stopped her was the similarity in appearance between the victims and her missing detectives. Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Oh, shit.

*************

Levon strained against his bonds. Useless. The hand on his spine was sliding up and down now and someone wuz murmuring nearby but Levon couldn't quite understand the words. Then he wuz pulled up by his waist so that hiz shoulders and knees supported most of his weight with hiz head twisted sideways against a cement floor. Hiz shins ground into the rough pavement, skin scraping. Whoever wuz shovin' him around didn't seem to care too much about making this easy on him.

Finally, propped in the awkward position, he was released momentarily. Before he could topple over agin, or roll, the hands were back. More than one pair. "Here's the lube. Wet him up for me."

Someone grabbed him by the hair, jerked hard, it felt like hiz neck was nearly broke. "Hello, sweet cheeks, say 'please'."

Levon tightened hiz mouth rebelliously. The hand pulled at his hair, he felt some come free from hiz scalp. "Say 'please,' sweet cheeks, and I promise not to mess with your friend."

They got Joe, too? Levon resisted answering as he felt someone push apart his buttocks and then there was the intrusive sensation of cold slippery liquid in his most private spot. "Please! NO!" It came out almost like a squeak before he could even stop it.

"That's right, sweet cheeks, just like that!"

Hiz head was patted and then, hard and sudden, he wuz split in two. Felt like someone was tearing him in half. Man's fuckin' me. He wuz ripped open, speared with pain. A thick cock rammed deep into his bowels with no regard. Invaded, he lost it. A scream rent the night. He'd been a virgin. It wuz him and he knew he couldn't do anything to stop it. Levon's cries, hoarse and wordless, came now almost continuously as the rough thrusts increased, in and out, in and out, grinding hiz face into the pavement, hiz legs. Tearing at delicate flesh, leaving bloody smears behind. Fingers gripped into his sides, squeezing him, digging into him. Just when he thought it couldn't get any worse, someone grabbed his balls and squeezed, hard. Levon saw stars and fainted.

************

Joe fought hard, tied up and helpless, he still struggled, wiggling and trying to kick, shouting curses, until finally the one called Dorso yelled that the doc needed to come in and give this guy some stuff. Lying on his side, panting, left temporarily alone, LaFiamma heard a scream. It seemed to come from another room, nearby. It was followed by a series of cries, painful and searing. Somehow, he knew he was hearing Lundy. Black, insane anger washed through him. Trembling with rage, he bellowed mightily. I couldn't stop this, somehow I knew we were in trouble and I couldn't stop this. Forgive me, Lundy...oh, god, Levon, please be all right.

"Already?" Footsteps. "I thought you liked to use them before I start the drugging?"

Then Dorso, that hated voice, whined, "Doc, he won't stay still long enough. Once you get him doped, I'll have plenty of fun, you bet."

Someone dropped a knee down on top of LaFiamma's ribs, yanked at his arms so they shifted slightly upward and out. There wasn't much leeway. He felt the cotton swab on the inside of his elbow. He flashed back to the morgue and Fulton holding out the arm of one of the murder victims.

"NO!" He jerked his arms free and tried to roll. Someone kicked him in the small of the back. The pain ripped through him and he cried out. Another kick, then another. His body was pummeled until tears rolled down his cheeks uncontrollably. A moan escaped. Then another. His back, covered with the marks of the hard boot tips, heavily bruised and already coloring, was aflame with agony. He lapsed into semi-consciousness eventually, sagging limply.

Again his arms were dragged to the side and he faintly felt the swabbing, "no-" came out as a whisper this time. The sharp bite of a needle and biting pinch of an injection and whatever was flowing into his veins was burning. He was burning. Flames danced in front of his eyes and the world receded another step. Large hands grappled him over onto his knees, so that his rump was once again up in the air. His dark hair fell into his eyes, blinding him as his cheek scraped against the rough cement floor, rupturing skin. Fingers prodded his asshole, shoving in some kind of grease. Then someone gripped his pelvis hard with crushing fingers and pushed deep inside him, someone with a big dick was fucking his ass. Shit. Damnation. He was being taken. He flashed back to the first time he'd been had by men, while still in high school, rough men who'd thought they could enjoy the choirboy. He had fixed them later, fixed them good. Since then, if he wanted sex with a man, it had been on his terms...until now. He closed his eyes and snarled curses, low voiced and vicious, even as his whole body bounced with the thumping of the rapist's drives into him. He was no virgin, but the harsh violation hurt, the sheer brutality of the thrusts, the scraping of nails, the pounding, pounding, pounding. When it finally stopped with Dorso's orgasmic screech, Joe slumped over, free to drop on his side at last. They'd pay, they'd all pay, he silently promised before passing out.

**********

For the next several hours, the kidnappers took turns with their newest victims and when they could no longer get hard enough to penetrate, they began using cut-off broom handles. They dragged Lundy into the room where LaFiamma's body lay.
By dawn, Levon and Joe had been so badly beaten and mauled that they were both comatose. The gang's 'doctor,' a homeless druggie they'd adopted for his talents, began a series of inoculations into the two men. Designer drugs - originally secret service truth serums, now altered by the creative genius of this anonymous chemist, they would pacify the men, as they had the two victims before them. Break through their resistance, create willing puppets, passive and obedient. Or so it had seemed with their first victims, now dead.

**********

"Lieutenant, I've got feelers out all over town, I promise, if I hear anything, I'll call you directly," Chicken said into the telephone. He listened and then hung up. Grimly, he picked up the list of telephone numbers he'd made and started calling again. Already the list had a third of the numbers scratched through, useless. No one knew anything. It was hard to believe his two favorite cops had been in his place only last night, and now, gone, as if they'd never been.

***********

Langen stood looking down at their prizes, Houston's finest, he thought ironically. Jinks and Dorso had dumped several buckets of water over them and scrubbed the worst of the blood, dirt, and grit from their bodies. The bound arms had been forced back over their rumps and left behind their backs. Legs sprawled free now. They'd be more attractive to clients if they were less confined. Now that the drug treatments were in progress, it was only a matter of days before they could start selling time with the pair. There were plenty of customers eager to 'play' with such a matched set. Oh, yes, these two would turn them a healthy profit.

It was time to start the next stage of the conditioning. Find out how far along the drugs had broken down their inhibitions. "Jinks, Dorso, wake them up."

Jinks and Dorso started shaking the prisoners. The blonde simply slid bonelessly from Jinks' hands. The brunette, though, began to rouse, coughing and calling out, "Lundy?" A quick cuff to his head shut him up with a grunt.

Langen squatted near the sullen, silent figure. "Joe?" The man's head came up, eyes strangely light-colored. "Joe, you will do what I tell you."

"Bullshit."

Langen frowned. He looked up at the medic. "Doc?"

The druggie shrugged and advised, "Just tell him what you want him to do."

Langen studied the brunette lying before him. "Joe, roll on to your stomach."

Wordlessly, the brunette complied. Langen nodded. "Good. Now, get up on your knees." He waited while the Italian struggled up. "Fine, fine. Come over to your partner Lundy now."

Joe looked vaguely around, spotted his partner in a heap nearby. Crawled awkwardly, a kind of graceless lurching motion, toward Levon. Lay down beside him and tucked his head in against Lundy's nearest shoulder.

Langen stood up angrily and then looked questioningly at the doc, who said, "They're a sight older than the first two but they should be ok. They still have several more treatments to go. Just takes time. The chemicals will work."

**************

The Vultures had moved on in the world since last the Houston Police Department had taken official interest in them. They no longer caused any problems, no public brawls or disturbances. They obeyed traffic laws and rarely traveled in groups, only pairs or singly. But they were still cohesive, their goals and aspirations had simply changed with the coming of Langen. Felix Langen was German. He'd immigrated to the United States only a short time ago, still had his green card. His bleached yellow white hair was cut in a short crewcut, like a flat table. His icy blue eyes had picked out the black leathered Vultures at a biker bar near the city limits. He'd arrived in Texas with a plan. The gang of motorcyclists known as the Vultures would be his soldiers. Recruiting them to his calling had been ridiculously easy. They saw the profits awaiting them, the corrupting amusements and joined him eagerly.

Standing in the center of the living room of the low ranch house they'd acquired through one member's family, Langen studied the sleek and fastidious clients waiting in the simple modern easy chairs that were artlessly scattered throughout the room. The reception desk was a slab of glass set on driftwood supports. Moss, their receptionist, was wickedly and lushly provocative in black leather, tight zipped up jacket with mandarin collar, straight skirt slit up to the top of the thigh on one side, black fishnet stockings covering the long, shapely legs. She sat in splendid scorn of her customers, flipping through an old Hustler magazine.

Some of these men, with a sprinkling of women as well, had already been into his office and agreed to pay his fees for the use of either one or both of the cops. The added titillation of knowing these were policemen had upped their value considerably to this rakish and degenerate sampling of the idle rich. Word had spread with remarkable speed, he had almost no overhead for advertising. The trouble was that sooner or later someone would hear, someone who they did NOT want to hear about this little enterprise. It had been three days since acquiring their newest products and was going extremely well.

The door to the back hall opened and a tall, thin man walked out, a smirk on his face and a bead of blood on his lower lip that he appeared not to notice. He caught Langen's eye and nodded with obvious relish and approval. "Very nice." The voice was dry, light. "I'd like to reserve the blonde for tomorrow night again?"

Langen made a subtle gesture toward the receptionist. "Moss will book you."

The door opened again. Prod stood there, looking quite different now that he was no longer in his biker leathers. Dressed in restrained elegance, in a suit that Langen had bought for him, he spoke in a low voice. "Misters Everhart and Calvista?"

Two men, both very large and swarthy, stood up from adjoining chairs. "Yes?" Answered the older looking one.

"This way." Prod stood back from the doorway and waved toward the hall beyond.

The men hesitated, then the older one turned toward Langen, "Felix? We ordered both." He eyed the tall thin man bent over Moss's desk. "If the blonde is not ready...?"

Langen's smile was tight and feral. "They are both ALWAYS ready."

With greedy relief writ on their faces the two men turned away and entered the hall, with Prod behind them, closing the door to the room.

A general sigh went lightly through the space. Felix Langen's smile widened slightly. Oh, yes, those two young police detectives were contributing nicely to the financial picture of the Vulture Corporation.

*********

Time and pain and the feeling of helplessness. A vortex of mist always preventing him from seeing clearly or thinking beyond the moment of one breath, then another. And hands. Always hands, pawing at him, fondling him, pinching and squeezing and prodding at him. He wuz conscious of commands that his body somehow obeyed from a distance as if separated from the real him. He had been tryin' very hard to remember his name for a while now. He wuz certain if he jest could remember it, things 'ud git better.

**********

Non posso continuare come questo, non e' possible. Non desidera vivere come questo. Merde'. Dio. Sono morte adesso. //I can't continue like this, it's not possible. I don't want to live like this. Shit. God. I'm dead already.// Drooping head, dark hair listlessly curtaining his face, he struggled to remember why he should fight to live. There was someone else. CHI? Chi 'e? //WHO? Who is it?// His brother, pain, sliced through him relentlessly. A gravelly voice in a foreign tongue ordered him to do something and his body traitorously obeyed, even though his mind refused to understand what was said. Dove' mio amore? DOVE'? //Where is my lover? WHERE?//

**********

With bitter reluctance, Beaumont had called off the search for Detectives Lundy and LaFiamma. Her chief had been insistent. He'd pointed out that every single officer of the HPD would continue to watch for sign of the missing men, but that other crimes continued to be committed, criminals needed to be apprehended and persecuted. So, she'd taken her people off the case, told them to pick up their other workloads and return to normal, if normal there be, operations at MCU. None of them had liked it and she suspected that they all found ways to continue the search while carrying on other investigations. A week was a long time.

Joe-Bill McCandless stopped by Lundy's ranch each evening to check on Fooler even though it had been arranged that neighbors care for the Lundy's horse indefinitely. Mainly, he jest wanted to see if there wuz any sign of hiz long-time friend.

Carol O'Brien pressed the buzzer for LaFiamma's apartment and waited, keeping the small circlet depressed firmly. Nothing. She'd expected that but hoped otherwise anyway. She'd promised Annie that she'd check on her way home at night, and had done so faithfully for six nights now. The first night, officers had checked both the ranch and apartment so she hadn't stopped that night.

**********

Barton, the druggie who acted as medical expert for Langen, had finally succumbed to temptation. Instead of administering the nightly dose of tranquilizer and inhibitor for each of the cops, he'd retreated to his room and taken some of the angel dust he'd bought in town with money for Langen's chemicals. Langen might want to kill him after this, but 'later' was another world away now as he flew ever higher into the kaleidoscope of happiness, limbo.

**********

My name! I remember it! Levon. Levon Lundy. The triumph was so great that he rode the rocket of happiness into a dreamless sleep. No memories had yet surfaced to match that name.

**********

Lundy, Levon Lundy! Mio amore! Levon. Caro. // Lundy, Levon Lundy! My lover! Levon. Dear one.// Sono...sono Giuseppe Antonio LaFiamma...penso. //I am...I am Joseph Anthony LaFiamma... I think.// He tossed restlessly, trying to reach out but always restrained, puzzled and sodden with sleep.

**********

Felix Langen met with Jinks and Dorso at eight that morning. It was much too early to expect any new clients today and there were no appointments until well into the afternoon. The freshness of their product had worn thin. It was nearly time to find a new attraction or two. Something really different, he thought.

The discussion with the two bikers was short. They were to start scouting out new prospects. He really held little hope they'd find anyone. They had found the cops but that had been unintentional, accidental so to speak. The one he really wanted on the job was Prod. The man had a gift for sodomy and perversion, he'd be like a magnet seeking the perfect victims. Soon to be 'new product line.' Langen smiled as he pulled the bell for Prod Fargo.

Fargo stood in the large bedroom studying the two sleeping cops. Their bodies were looking scraggly now, a bit ripe actually. The marks of abuse were beginning to detract from their initial beauty. Suppose I could wash them down again, but that seems to start the bleeding. Those drugs acted like blood thinner...once one of them started to bleed, he seemed likely to do it forever. Both were near white from combinations of starvation, shock, loss of blood, lack of normal sleep, and continuing abuse. Deep dark rings circled their eyes that were puffy, swollen. Well, Langen was likely to dump them soon. It'd been a week now, the other ones had lasted almost three weeks but they'd been much younger than these two. He'd noticed there were no longer very many repeaters and those clients who did come back complained of the bony-ness and lassitude of the blonde, and the viciousness of the brunette. Even drugged the dark one fought, like it was a condition of life for him. At first that had entertained, now it simply irritated the clients. Just as the quiet and slender blonde, for he had turned absolutely silent after that first night of screaming cries, was now too passive for the joy-seekers who once thought him a submissive challenge.

Coming closer to the king-size bed where the two men lay, Fargo hooked his thumbs in his belt and raised one leg to nudge the nearer body, the dark one's. Just then, the bell sounded in the hall. That meant that Langen wanted to see him. Must be just about time to find some new blood, he thought with satisfaction, it was too early in the day to be a client. He let the heel of his booted foot jam into the rump of the dark one, seeing with interest the blackened mark it left behind. He was more than ready to go on the hunt again, Jinks and Dorso could dispose of these two, like they'd done the others, he thought, turning away before he could notice that the dark man had stirred and was waking more alertly than he should have.

***********

Joe LaFiamma's eyes were sticking with sleep. He had to work at it to get them open. For some reason, he couldn't use his hands to help. The grayness of the morning light was easy on his eyes, at least. He rolled onto his back, felt his hands, arms behind. With a shock that energized his whole system, he was fully awake. And remembering. The first night, the gangbang, the drugging. He tried to make sense of the fragmentary thoughts that followed but it was like trying to catch wisps of dreams that melted upon waking. That he was a prisoner was clear. From what little he could remember, he'd been used for sometime as a kind of sex toy by strangers, faceless, nameless. He could remember touches, smells, sounds of heavy panting, cries. Tasted blood. Everything hurt. Everything. He carefully, slowly turned his head on a neck so stiff it felt like it was made of wood. Plain looking room, there was a certain style though. This was no motel room. Moving his head again, rolling it slowly the other way, his eyes widened at the sight of his partner, Levon Lundy, naked and similarly bound, lying beside him.

Lundy looked bruised, his face was tight with pain even in what appeared to be normal sleep. There were dark marks stark against his skin over all of the parts of him that Joe could see. I probably look the same, he thought, as aches deep and intense bit into his temporary calm. As if veils were being lifted, he felt a sharpness of thought, a clarity that had been beyond his grasp for so long.

With sudden determination, LaFiamma shoved himself closer to Lundy using feet, buttocks and shoulders. Wriggling and rolling, he managed to shift himself on the rumpled bed clothes until he was right up against Levon. The blonde just lay there, breathing shallowly. Joe put his lips to the pale forehead, felt the fever there, kissed lightly, tenderly, then let his lips travel down over fluttering eyelids to reach his goal. With minimal pressure, his lips touched Levon's. He tongued the dry, chapped lips he found, moistening them. Deep brown eyes, like blank windows, opened. He met them as he tenderly continued his licking.

Levon opened his eyes. Bright blue ones were looking at him from only inches away. Joe. And then he felt again the dampness on lips so dry and cracked that they bled as he tried to speak. Joe was licking them with hiz tongue. Felt good. He relaxed. The fact that hiz pardner was touching him this way went unquestioned. It was comforting and he was needy. He lay there, enjoying the gentle exploration of lips and tongue as Joe continued to lick and kiss him. Levon closed his eyes to feel more intensely the touches. The lips brushed acrost one cheekbone and back. He arched up slightly to follow the contact and, wham!, pain crashed through his body along with the shattering memories of the first night of their captivity. Ripped pieces of other nights followed, like a weird newsreel of hiz life, lived at one remove. He began to gasp.

Joe pulled back to better see Levon as the man started to tremble and pant. He's going into shock, hyperventilating. Clamping his mouth firmly over Lundy's, Joe pushed hot air into the man's airways. He released and repeated several more times before he noticed the blonde's breathing finally evening out. Then, on the last contact, the simple respiration response changed, and Levon was kissing him back. Mouths open, tongues suddenly dueling. Levon's forced itself into Joe's mouth, wiping across his upper teeth, then probing the roof of his mouth, sliding down the inside of one cheek to insinuate itself under his tongue. Joe's own tongue was busy in response, lapping at Levon's as best he could.

Joe finally lay back down on the mattress, taking gulps of air. Levon simply turned into Joe's body, laying his own length against Joe. His golden head came to rest tight up against Joe's collarbone, face tucked down toward the mattress. Joe nuzzled at the stringy curls. Neither had spoken yet.

It was pain, not the new level of intimacy that finally drove them apart again. Shoulders on fire from the long restraint of bound arms, Joe began to try flexing first one shoulder, then the other. This only produced more, deeper pain. Taking a deep breath, he began to whisper into Levon's nearest pink ear.

"Levon, sweetheart, we gotta get outta here." When there was no response, he continued, "We hafta get free somehow. Come on, baby, please? Turn over and I'll see if I can free you."

Lundy didn't answer but after a few moments, he twisted his body grunting with his own pain, pain that painted his brain with white flashing light. Once facing away from LaFiamma, he lay still.

Joe could see now how they were bound - duct tape, like the other victims that they had been going to investigate so long ago. It didn't look like he'd be able to chew through that stuff. He bent sideways so that he could get his eyes as close as possible to Levon's tape. It looked to be wound around a couple of times. That was all. That was enough. Well, we can't stay here. Joe studied the surface of the tape, silver and matted. There. The edge of the cut off end was near the top of the wrapping. Turning his head to the side, he delicately put his mouth down onto the surface, let his tongue search out the threaded end, just a bit ragged, like it had been torn instead of cut. He began to lick it, prodding with his tongue.

After a while, he'd coaxed up a tiny corner of the end of the tape. He pulled back enough to look it over, then ducked in and bared his teeth, scraping across the curvature of Levon's arms beneath the tape until that tiny corner caught at his teeth. He nibbled. Nipped. There, got it. Holding firmly with clenched teeth, Joe tugged. After a short initial resistance, the tape peeled back, making a soft sticking noise. LaFiamma released and re-bit, getting a better grip and began to pull in earnest. Trouble was how to get it unwrapped from the part between Levon's arms and his backbone. Joe was twisted now, lying across Levon's back. The blonde was silent and unmoving.

Joe let go when he'd pulled it all the way down the front of the wrapping. "Levon? Can you raise your arms away from your back at all? I've got to try to force this tape up and off you."

Silence, then Lundy's arms lifted a scant inch. Joe could actually hear a joint pop and felt if not heard the groan of stiff muscles, but Levon made no noise. Hurrying, LaFiamma pushed his face up under the arms, knowing that he was causing even more pain but needing to get the tape unrolled further. By the time he re-emerged from under Lundy's arms, the cowboy's body was shaking, the arms actually vibrating with strain. But it had been a success. Joe had the tape up over and in front again. With focused attention, he ripped it down the front of Levon's bound arms, and there it was - bare skin, he could see where the tape began underneath. Grabbing at the loose end and working it with his mouth, teeth, he managed to clump it stickily together so that it would not reaffix itself to Lundy. Not bothering to try to get under the arms again, he picked at the now visible other end of tape in front, nibbling at the end until it began to come up from Lundy's skin.

A sharp intake of breath told him that tearing off was hurting. Probably taking up hair and skin, too, after all this time. No choice. Joe ignored what he couldn't help and with a snake like movement of his now limber neck, Joe ripped the tape upward until only one section still held Levon, the side of tape between Levon's body and his arms. It would not be enough if Lundy pulled at his arms. But, they'd been like that so long, it wasn't going to be easy.

Joe laid his head on Levon's spine, closing his eyes and just breathing for a moment. There really was not time to waste. There was no way to know why they'd been allowed to emerge from their drug enforced semi-comatose states or why they'd not been attended to yet today. He had vague memories of being washed. Of urinating into a bottle...No, there was no time to waste.

"Levon?" No answer. "Lundy? Listen to me. I've got you nearly free. Can you pull loose?"

From a great distance, Levon heard Joe's words. He had been retreating to the safe place he'd found earlier, a cloud-land with no substance. It helped to separate himself from hiz body's pain. Now Joe wanted him to do somethin'. To pull at hiz arms. At first, his brain simply didn't seem to remember how to order that movement, but finally, like rusty machinery, hiz arms started to flex. He tugged and bent his arms away from his body, felt the final give of the tape that took surface hair and bits of skin with it as it ripped free of him. Amazingly, hiz arms actually came loose, lay limp and stinging at his sides. They felt like leaden logs.

"Levon?" That was Joe agin. Oh, yeah, gotta git him free, too. Lundy struggled around, sitting up slightly now that he could. The world spun dizzily. There was Joe, laying on the bed next to him, head down near hiz waist. He'd used his teeth to pull the tape offa me. Levon leaned down and put his arms around the dark Italian. Hands were beginning to flex more now, he let them stroke down Joe's chest. Man belongs ta me. LaFiamma was raising his face now. Levon cupped it between hiz two hands and let his fingers stroke the strong jaw line. He slid down on the bedding until their eyes were level. Stared into the cornflower blue of hiz pardner's eyes. He called me sweetheart. Ah heard him. Levon studied the eyes that looked back so intently into hiz. Then he closed the distance and kissed the brunette. Kissed him hard, possessively. Jest want to be safe with you, Joey, keep you close.

Joe returned the kiss with equal passion but when they broke apart, he spoke again, quietly, insistently. "Le, you gotta unbind me, too. We gotta get away from here. Please?"

Levon's dream-state dissipated with LaFiamma's plea. Joe never begs fer enythin.' Kissing the man once more, Levon moved back and up. Joe rolled over so that his back and bound arms were toward the cowboy. Getting hiz arms to work agin was not easy but Lundy struggled with the tape with fumbling fingers, working it loose. Part of him thought wonderingly at how LaFiamma had managed to free him from similar bindings, using only hiz mouth and teeth. That oughta do it, Lundy thought now as he quickly tore the tape back and around, unwinding it from Joe's arms. He didn't stop when he reached skin, knew it was gonna hurt from personal experience, but it needed to git done and easiest way was fast. Joe grunted a bit but stayed real still. Then hiz arms, too, were free.

Lundy let himself fall back down to the mattress. He gathered Joe into hiz arms and drew him close, hugging him. Joe responded with clumsy arms of his own. They clung together, naked and in pain, on the big bed that had been their prison for so long. Joe was the one to push Levon slightly away in the end. "Levon, we gotta git outta here or we'll be right back the way we were - or worse." He felt Lundy's head bob in agreement against his shoulder, then both were sitting up and looking around the large room.

Levon slid out of bed to hiz feet and promptly collapsed on the floor. Hiz legs had refused to carry him. Joe crawled to the edge of the bed and swung around to put his feet on the floor. There he sat and waited for the world to stop spinning. Reaching down, he pulled Levon up beside him with hands under the blonde's arms. "Go slow," Joe instructed. Lundy nodded.

**********

"Someone's spotted Prod Fargo!" Carol's call of triumph echoed throughout the bullpen. Everyone stopped and turned toward the HPD detective. She had her hand over the mouthpiece of a telephone receiver. "A plainwrap is tailing him right now."

Several of the other detectives converged on her now, demanding more information. Beaumont appeared from her office, drawn by the commotion in the outer bullpen at MCU. "What's going on?"

Esteban Gutierrez answered over his shoulder, "Fargo's been seen. He's being tailed now."

Beaumont walked down the aisle between desks to where O'Brien still held the telephone to her ear, listening intently, then passing on what she heard to her attentive audience. Joe-Bill McCandless had settled on the desk top beside her, Nate Holiday leaning on his shoulder. Gutierrez and Beaumont came closer together. O'Brien was saying, "...and west on Leeland. Yeah, that does sound like he's heading out of town."

She looked up at Beaumont. "Central has ordered a chopper up to continue the surveillance. Good thing, he'll spot a tail once he's out on a rural road."

Joann Beaumont's heart was in high gear, her anxiety for her men, Lundy and LaFiamma, had been suppressed for days now, hidden from her people but troubling her sleep and keeping her on edge in waking moments. She folded her arms as if holding herself together. "Leeland? There are lots of small ranches out that way."

The others nodded in agreement. Reaching a decision, she looked around. "Those of you who can break loose from what you're doing, get moving. We're heading for Leeland."

Grins and cheers broke out. O'Brien led the way to the gun cabinets where the detectives helped themselves to a formidable array of armament, beyond their normal guns. Within minutes the bullpen of the Major Crimes Unit was empty except for two detectives who were in the middle of interviewing a witness. They'd watched with envy as their brethren had left.

*************

Langen hadn't seen Barton yet this morning. Now that he'd dispatched the others to start shopping for new merchandise, he thought he'd better check on his current pair, see that they were still viable for this afternoon's and evening's clients. There were several appointments scheduled and he wanted to be certain all went well.

Opening Barton's door, he looked down in disgust. The chemist was lying on the floor in a pool of vomit, dead. Bastard must have been plunging again. Langen sighed with distaste. Moss wasn't due in for several more hours and all the others were out. He shut the door. The mess could wait. They'd need a new chemist now. Deep in thought, he walked back out toward the front rooms and his office beyond. He knew of two possibles and needed to secure one of them immediately. Telephone finesse was not his strong suit, but it would have to do, there was no time to arrange face-to-face meetings.

**********

Shambling with none of their usual grace, Joe and Levon supported each other and made it to the door of their room. To their surprise it wasn't locked when Levon put his hand gently on the knob and slowly turned it. With silent exchange of glances, they each stood against a side of the door as Levon pulled it open a few inches at a time. It was soundless.

Nothing.

Clinging to the wall, LaFiamma shuffled along and around the doorjamb. A hallway. No one in sight. Across the way was an open door, what looked like someone's private room, he could see clothing. "Come on." Levon nodded in answer to the whispered command, followed Joe across the hall and into the other room. He'd shut the door to their room first, no point in announcing their departure prematurely.

LaFiamma was already sitting on the smaller bed, dragging some leather pants up over his legs. He used his chin to point toward some jeans hung over a straight back chair by the wall. Lundy took up a pair and sat on the chair, pulling the pants up over his mottled legs. Whoever's clothing they were raiding was in their size range fortunately, pants a bit loose on Lundy, snugger but passable on LaFiamma. Each automatically grabbed a tee shirt. Put them on.

Joe looked regretfully down at the boots. Too small. Levon tugged on a pair, would do. Better than barefoot. He realized Joe wasn't trying to put on a pair, saw that the brunette's feet were longer. Funny never noticed that afore now. Both stood.

It was amazing how much more in control he felt now that he had clothes on. Levon spoke for the first time. "Joe, we gotta get you something fur yore feet. Cain't run far barefoot."

LaFiamma nodded. "Yeah, but won't find anything here." He was rummaging through the closet and came back out with a pistol. "Better than nothing," he said sticking it inside the back of his waistband.

He closed the distance between them now, coming to a stop in front of Lundy, chest nearly touching chest. Looked deeply into Levon's eyes and then tilted his head and pressed his lips to the blonde's again. He slid his arms around the narrower man's body, bringing them together. He was afraid that he'd imagined their closeness, needed to be reassured.

Levon hesitated for a moment, then sighed into the kiss and brought his arms up as well. The kiss went on forever. When they pulled back to look at each other again, both were flushed. Levon brought his right hand up to push Joe's errant shag of hair back from his brow. His fingers gently stroked down Joe's face, trailing on down the thick neck and onto the heavy shoulder. He could hear Joe's breathing, it was so quiet.

************

Looking closer now, hiz eyes clearing, Levon saw signs of the depravations of the last week on LaFiamma. Boy wuz turnin' into skin and bones. He'd lost a lot of weight. Levon spared an assessing glance down at himself - Ah look even worse, course there weren't too much on me to start with.

Joe saw Levon's eyes enlarge as he stared at Joe, then slide down to view himself. We look a bit the worse for wear, Joe thought with weary amusement. Things are kinda fading in and out, he realized that lack of proper food and water was as much at fault as the maltreatment and abuse they'd suffered. Levon must be feeling it too. We gotta get out of here and get help.

Both spun toward the door at the sound of footsteps coming down the hall. The sudden movement caused both weaken men to lose their balance. Joe tripped and fell back on to the bed, Levon stumbled and ended up sliding down the edge of the bed to land on his knees against Joe's legs. The brunette jerked the pistol he'd found free from the back of his waistband and aimed it with two shaking hands braced together at the closed door.

They could hear the person stop outside, then the sound of a door opening. Must be to the room where we wuz, Levon thought, listening. "Verdammt!" Someone was right upset, and in German, too.

Whoever it was came stomping back out into the hall, then stopped. For a moment there was silence, then with a crash, their door was kicked in and a tall man stormed in. Joe didn't even stop to think, he fired the pistol, again and again, emptying it into the man who was driven back across the hall by the hammering bullets. The noise was so great that both felt deafened and shaken by the encounter.

Again all was silent. Slowly, Joe rose to his feet and bent down to help Levon up. Once they were both standing, they walked together to the door and stood staring down at the dead man at their feet. His short, whitish-blonde hair and European-styled clothing told them little. Joe leaned forward cautiously into the hallway, looking both ways but no one was coming. They seemed to be alone with the dead man.

Levon went over to the body and braced himself on the wall as he squatted down next to the corpse. A quick search found a wallet with ID for Felix Langen, a wicked looking pistol in a shoulder holster, and some keys. Pocketing the keys and arming himself with the pistol, Levon looked up to find Joe swaying over him, reloading the pistol from the bedroom. Musta found the ammo box.

"Joe, think these 'ud fit?" Levon pointed to the tassel loafers on the dead man's long, narrow feet.

"Might," LaFiamma paced out into the hall as Lundy pulled the shoes free from feet that would never need them again. He was able to slip into the shoes with Lundy's help, then helped Lundy to regain his feet. "Ok, come on, let's get outta here."

Using the walls for support, the two trudged slowly toward what appeared to be the front of the house. Coming out into the front room, set up like a waiting room, LaFiamma moved to the large modern desk as Lundy went to the windows to look out.

"Shit." LaFiamma was ripping pages out of a planning calendar in rage.

Lundy turned to watch. Whatever was bugging Joe, didn't really matter, they were about to meet some more of their kidnappers. "Joe," he said sharply, "we got company," just as a soft rumble roared into the deep-throated purr of a street bike, a heavy one, arriving out front. "Looks like the same guy you saw at Chicken's that day."

LaFiamma stuffed the loose sheets of paper into a pants pocket and joined Lundy at the window. "We'd be better off outside."

"Yeah. Front door?"

"You got it, I'll go out the back, circle around." LaFiamma ran for the back, wobbling only slightly.

Lundy straightened his shoulders, drew out the German's gun, and opened the front door. Concentrating on the cyclist, he only vaguely heard the sounds of sirens in the distance and the thromp-thromp of a lowering chopper. "Hands up!"

The cyclist, who'd just dismounted and was removing gloves, froze at the command and then slowly looked up. Took in the sight of the wavering cowboy standing in borrowed clothes in the doorway.

Instead of obeying the command, the man reached for something on his motorcycle. His hand came back full of sawed off shotgun, which he levered as he faced Levon. He didn't see Joe rounding the corner. LaFiamma saw where the gun was aiming and simply began firing again. He heard Lundy's gun explode into action as well. The man in front of them crumpled just as an HPD helicopter, all blue and white, came swooping down toward the open yard. A megaphoned voice could be heard saying, "This is HPD. Put down your weapons and raise your hands."

Joe dropped his borrowed gun, seeing Levon bend over and place his down on the porch. The cowboy tried to stand back up but was clearly not well, and grabbed at the porch railing to steady himself.

Dust was rising now from the chopper's blades, coating the silent prone figure of the dead cyclist in the center of the yard. Joe squinted up into the sun, seeing the black silhouette of the small helicopter. In the background, he could hear the sirens getting louder.

**************

The racing cavalcade of HPD vehicles headed out on Leeland, Beaumont riding shotgun in the lead car with Nate Holiday driving and Carol O'Brien in the back seat, loading a set of matched double-barreled shotguns. In the rearview mirror, Holiday could see McCandless' white pickup, Esteban Guiterrez in the passenger seat talking on the radioset. Behind him were at least two more unmarked vehicles, all sporting bubble-tops flashing blue in the mid-day light.

Ahead of them, Beaumont saw two motorcyclists suddenly swerve and duck off into a side street. Grabbing the mike she called into the radio, ordering the last two cars to veer out and follow, apprehend and question. At this point, anyone on two wheels was suspect and fair game, especially if they started acting strangely.

Holiday's car and Joe-Bill McCandless' truck continued out of the city, Beaumont monitoring the HPD copter's radio reports. Still minutes away from the turn off into a solitary ranch, she heard the pilot describe the shoot-out in the front yard and that two men were apparently surrendering. Holiday spun the wheel hard up the gravel drive that she pointed out and they saw the blue and whites ahead of them bouncing up the pot-holed lane.

From the back seat, O'Brien asked, "Lieutenant, do you think it's them?"

"I don't know, Carol, but we're gonna find out soon." Beaumont had her gun out of the holster and was holding it pointed at the car's ceiling as they jounced the final distance before breaking free of the small road and out into a large turn-around, seemingly full of vehicles, most of the HPD blue and whites, one plainwrap with a bluelit bubble. Uniforms and detectives were all lunging out of their cars as Holiday skidded to a stop.

Above, the HPD helicopter continued to hover. It had moved higher to stop driving dust into the air. In the center of the open space, a huge road bike sat, tipped into park position against it's kickstand. On the ground beside it lay a large man in black leathers, arms akimbo, one hand loosely resting on a sawed off shotgun.

Beyond this tableau was a small nondescript ranch house, single level. Hanging on the porch railing, was Levon Lundy. Standing outside, at the corner of the house, facing toward the dead man, was Joe LaFiamma. Both men looked depleted in ill-fitting clothing. Guns lay at their feet. LaFiamma had his hands in the air but seemed to be swaying, looked like he was about to fall down. Lundy wasn't even making a pretense of raising his hands, he simply stood against the rail, both hands clutching at it, head bowed.

For a moment, the scene seemed frozen and Joanne Beaumont knew that she'd never forget what she saw as LaFiamma dropped his arms and walked, stumbled really, over to the porch and up the steps, ignoring everyone, everything. He pulled himself up the three steps and over to Lundy who turned at his approach, releasing his grasp of the rail. Lundy raised his arms and LaFiamma walked into them, his own closing around the blonde's body even as Lundy's hugged the Italian tightly to him. Both heads bowed, rested each against the other's shoulder.

Out front, men were slowly reholstering their weapons and moving in cautiously when Beaumont snapped out of her concentration. "Those men are HPD. Everyone stay back. Beaumont, MCU!" Her command voice, and raised shield got everyone's attention. Her own people were shouldering through the crowd now and it was Guiterrez and O'Brien who reached the pair on the porch first. Beaumont stopped by the dead man and McCandless and Holiday turned him over.

"It's Fargo, alright." Joe-Bill said laconically. "Looks like Lundy and LaFiamma done took care of him."

Beaumont, as ranking officer present, took charge. The yard was searched, men went into the house to search there while the forensic teams were called. Some of the blue and whites left, the helicopter took off. Radio reports came in reporting that the other two cyclists had been apprehended, their names were Dorso and Jinks. Beaumont ordered an APB out on all other known members of the Vultures.

From a distance, Joanne kept an eye on her two wayward detectives. O'Brien and Gutierrez had coaxed the two dazed men to sit down on the porch steps, though they absolutely refused to be parted, sitting shoulder to shoulder, hands clasped together, both shaking. Holiday and McCandless emerged from the house, both looking pale. Neither said a thing to the seated men, but Joe-Bill hunkered down beside Lundy and put a hand on each of their shoulders, just rested there and gripped them reassuringly. Finally he murmured something and stood back up to come down the steps to Beaumont where she stood by one of the cars, talking on the radio while watching her people. Holiday had turned abruptly after leaving the house and gone to the end of the porch where he hung over the rail and retched.

"Better call an ambulance, Joanne." McCandless voice was so flat that Beaumont looked sharply up into his face.

"What did you find?"

"Inside? Two more dead men, one wuz German from hiz papers, t'other looked to be a real junkie, looks like our boys shot the German. The junkie seems to have OD'ed." Joe-Bill paused, then went on. "The ambulance is for Lundy and LaFiamma. They need seeing to."

"Like the double homicide victims?" Beaumont knew her voice trembled a bit at the question. Oh, god, no.

"Yes, ma'am, like them. What we seen inside, it wasn't a pretty picture. How those boys got themselves free is beyond me, but they ain't gonna be doing much o'enythin' fur a spell. Looks like it was rough."

"Right." Beaumont cleared the radio and called the ambulance. Then she turned to McCandless. "Joe-Bill, take over. I need to see them, talk with them."

"Take it slow, Joanne. They're in bad shape."

She nodded and braced her shoulders, walking slowly up to the porch where her people were gathered. Holiday, she noticed was wiping his mouth now with a handkerchief and leaning against the side of the house, up on the porch. O'Brien and Gutierrez still hovered by Lundy and LaFiamma who didn't seem to be paying them any attention. Gutierrez was sitting on a lower step, looking up at them, O'Brien stood bent over them, a hand stroking each head gently.

Carol looked up as Joanne approached. "They aren't responding to us."

Esteban stood up and away from the men, moving slowly so that he didn't startle them and turned to Beaumont. "You sent for an ambulance?"

"Yes." She nodded to her injured men, "Thanks, Esteban, I'll stay with them, you go help the others. I want to get everyone who was part of this."

"That would include the 'clients'." Holiday spoke from his refuge by the wall. He swallowed hard. There's a list inside. Phone numbers and names. Even credit card accounts." He spat out over the rail.

Shocked, Beaumont took in the meaning of that and nodded. She approached Lundy and LaFiamma who sat huddled now, foreheads touching, eyes closed. "Levon? Joe?"

For a moment, she thought they hadn't heard her, then Joe opened his eyes and lifted his head groggily. Levon leaned back, but did not relinquish his grip on Joe's hand. He opened his eyes and swung his head around to face Beaumont. Spoke. "Joanne, that you?"

Beaumont came closer, perching on the stair one down from them so they could both see her. "Yes, Levon."

"Joe an' me -" he stopped. Tried again. "Joe and me. We're gonna need a little time off."

"Levon, you and Joe are going to get lots of time off. An ambulance is on the way."

Both stiffened at this. "No!" That was Joe, looking panicked.

"Easy boy," Levon caught up Joe's other hand so that he held both. "You know we need help."

"Levon, no..." Joe's voice was so soft, Beaumont had to strain to hear it.

"Joey, ain't gonna make no difference. World already knows er soon will. Might's well get it over with, get the hurtin' fixed."

LaFiamma nodded reluctantly. Swiveled back to face Beaumont but didn't let go of Lundy's hands. "I took the evidence."

"You what, Joe?"

Shamefaced, LaFiamma hung his head.

"Joe, what evidence?" She watched his white face turn even paler if that was possible.

"The appointment book."

"Appointment book?" She was puzzled for a moment, then remembered what Holiday had said about clients, remembered the autopsy reports on the two previous victims. Realized that two of her own were now victims. Oh - my - god. The appointment book. With tears in her eyes, she said quietly. "Where is it, Joe?"

Lundy leaned close and kissed LaFiamma on the cheek, causing Beaumont to gulp. She remained silent in amazement as Lundy whispered something into LaFiamma's ear. He nodded and kissed Lundy's cheek in return, then released the blonde's hands and was dragging crumpled papers out of a hip pocket of the leather pants he was wearing. "Here."

He didn't attempt to hand them to her, simply dropped them on the step where she retrieved them. Her men were holding hands again, relaxed against each other. She'd have to think about the implications of their actions later. For now, she just wanted to protect them. Looking up, she spoke to O'Brien. "Carol, see if you can find a blanket, a sheet, something to wrap around them."

The long-legged detective nodded silently, tears streaming down her face. She turned and went into the house followed hastily by Nate Holiday. Beaumont could hear him say, "Carol, don't go back in there, I'll get one. Wait here."

Beaumont stayed there on the steps with her men until the ambulance came up the narrow road and into the yard. The medics helped the two men to stand and walk to the ambulance, helped them in. The discarded blanket that had been tented over them lay on the porch steps, mute testiment to their pain. They had remained silent for the rest of the wait. Were silent as they were led to the ambulance. Beaumont listened to the wail of the siren as the vehicle left, she sighed. They were alive. The rest would have to wait. She turned back to her other people and reassumed command, supervising the crime scene with a heavy heart.

********

Joe LaFiamma lay on the stretcher on one side of the ambulance's interior, knowing his partner, Levon Lundy, lay on the other across from him. The attendants kneeling between them prevented him from talking to Levon. Didn't want others hearing what he wanted to say. They had been so close, in their pain, their captivity and escape. Normal restraint had seemed ridiculous. Life, death, living with truth, with love. That was all that mattered, or so he'd thought only a short time ago. Levon seemed to feel the same. But now the real world, their 'normal' world was back with a vengeance. Would Levon retreat to what had been before? Would he realize that Joe loved him and wanted to be with him, to touch him, hold him, kiss him, make love to him? Oh, god. Had it all been too sudden? Too close? Too soon?

He sank back down in miserable fear that he might have already lost what he'd just found.

Levon Lundy wriggled uncomfortably on the narrow stretcher. It seemed to be punishing his sore body. Where's Joe? Ah want to be with him, cuddle up with him. It was so nice, laying with him fur those few brief moments when they'd come to and been drug-free. The kissin' - that had been a real revelation. The touches, the comfort he'd had from Joe's touch, how much he'd liked holding the boy in his arms. All the hurts of the world seemed to disappear then. Joe. Levon realized that LaFiamma was there with him, just across the aisle of the ambulance that bounced now, going down a rough road. He wanted to reach across and touch but there were two strangers, the ambulance medics, in his way. He lay back down, closed his eyes. Gotta wait.

******

At the ER, the partners were split, each taken to a separate examination room. Or, at least, that was the intent of the nurses rolling the gurneys in through the doors of the emergency room. But Levon's gurney and Joe's had been run side by side and the men had taken advantage of the moment to reach across and hold hands, grips firm and tight. When the nurses tried to steer the gurneys to separate rooms, the men refused to let go of each other. After a short battle of wills, a doctor came out and resolved it quickly, "Take them both into the big room. We can look at them there."

The doctors and nurses had the men stripped and washed in minutes. The strained quiet as the medical people worked was partly shock at the extent of the injuries and trauma to the two bodies, partly respect for the policemen who'd been so badly mistreated. The lead doctor kept up a quiet inventory of the injuries as he assessed each man, making sure that they both heard everything. It was clear that they cared deeply for each other and he saw no point in increasing their aggravation needlessly by keeping them in the dark.

Once through, he pulled up a folding chair and sat between them. The gurneys were cranked up so both men were partly raised and could see him and each other. "Well, gentlemen, you will be staying with us for an overnight observation." At the sudden tension he saw, he added, "We'll put you in a room together." Two sighs of relief answered that statement and he almost smiled. Then as the grim report emerged the smile left his eyes. He explained the extent of their injuries, mostly bruises and surface abrasions, but some torn tissue in the rectums, and remnants of designer drugs in their blood streams.

"But, you said only overnight?" That was the brunette.

"Yes, you should be well enough to leave by tomorrow. Drugs will be out of your systems. We'll monitor for any withdrawal reactions but you were only on them for a few days, it's unlikely to be anything too serious. I'll have a physical therapist stop by tomorrow before you leave, test your muscles, prescribe any exercises to return tone - you were both in restraints for some time. We'll give you some dietary supplements and a diet plan for the malnutrition and some pain meds. You'll be stiff and sore for several days."

"Thanks, doc." That was the blonde.

"I read the report. No one should have to go through what the two of you had to. I hope they get the monsters who did this to you."

"They will." The brunette again, with a finality to his voice.

"Good. Now, we'll send you up to a room and you both need to work on getting some rest"

********

The day shift nurse looked in to the semi-private with amusement, the two patients, fellow police officers according to the report that came up with their charts, had managed to get out of their beds long enough to rearrange the room slightly. The two beds had been rolled up against each other and locked into position. The nightstands now stood to the sides instead of between the beds. And the two men were curled up together on top of the joint bed, sound asleep in each other's arms.

Well, their only prescription for today was bedrest and observation. Pain meds on request. So, no need to disturb them. Sleeping patients were model patients as far as she was concerned.

Earlier, as the men had settled into the beds and waited for the nurses and orderlies to leave the room and let them rest, each had eyed the other. Once alone, Lundy had broken the silence. "LaFiamma? Joe?"

"Yeah." Joe quaked, was this it? Was this when Levon said that it had all been a big mistake?

"Joe, Ah feel a might lonesome over here." Levon hoped that the signals he'd been getting before this case landed on their heads, and the new rapport they'd reached as they escaped their captivity, were signals that Joe wanted this. This new intimacy, closeness. As much as he did. He waited to see what Joey would say.

"Lonesome, huh?" Joe LaFiamma was suddenly filled with exuberant joy. There was no way to misread his laid back partner now. "How 'bout we move the beds together?"

"Now that's what Ah've always liked about you, LaFiamma, you are a smart boy." Saying that, the blonde slowly rolled out of bed and began pushing at his bed.

"Whoa there, man, wait a second." Joe was practically laughing as he slipped between the beds and shoved the bedside cabinets out from the middle. As soon as he'd cleared the space, Lundy had his bed moving up against Joe's. With a little extra effort, they had the covers opened, free of the center and could slide under together.

It was like coming home, Levon thought, snuggling close to LaFiamma's broad chest. "God, it's good to be close to you, Joe."

Joe LaFiamma had his arms wrapped around his precious friend, kissing at the nearest shoulder. "Me too, Levon. Never be too close for me."

"Joe, we gonna stay this way, right?" Levon suddenly wanted some reassurance.

"You mean, stay close like this?" Joe wanted to cry he was so happy.

"Yeah, cause I love you and I want to be close to you from now on. Not jest sometimes."

"Always, caro mio. We'll make it work, you'll see." They sealed their new pact with a kiss.

The rest could wait for another day. -------finis--------