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His Way	By : suz Category: G through L > Invisible Man Views: 1147 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own The Invisible Man, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1-his way
- 1
The

Invisible Man

"His Way"

(Aftermath of New Stuff missing scenes and tag)

- I will stand inside my private hell

and take the hand of death…

Just to reach you.

I don't care what they think

I don't care what they say

What do they know about this love, anyway?

Come to my window.

I'm comin' home…

Come to my window

-Melissa Etheridge

**********

"C'mon, princess, your carriage awaits," he says as he steadies Claire and walks her across the sticky floor to the door and the waiting cab. I watch them pick their way through dried puddles of beer, crushed peanuts and god knows what-all. We're practically the only people here, so it's a straight shot, unlike some nights when I hit this place after work. It's a little rougher than some of the places we usually go together, a hangout for tough-guys from all walks of life. Almost no yuppie executives with their thousand-dollar suits and their lap laptops ever wander in here, which is just fine by me. The usual crowd is teamsters, construction guys, the salt-of-the-earth types. Oh and their by-the-hour ladies. It isn't the kinda place you bring a girlfriend, either, which makes me wonder why I suggested the place to Claire, except that it's a cheap place to get drunk. I try not to look too closely at why I've never taken Fawkes here before. It just never occurred to me, I tell myself. Not the place for prettyboys like him. He'd probably manage to pick a fight with a three-hundred-pound iron-worker and end up being used to mop the crud off the floor.

I can't quite manage to get comfortable at the bar. Usually when the evening crowds are packed in like sardines, it's not an issue. But all the open space around me is making me edgy for some reason. I pick up my scotch, and Fawkes', and move to a back corner booth, somewhere I don't have to watch my back, and wait for my partner to come back in. I'm distracted from my thoughts as Fawkes saunters on in the door again, pocketing Claire's keys, and I raise an arm, which he doesn't see in the gloom. I watch him peer around, forehead furrowed, obviously wondering where the hell I've gone. He scowls when he spots me and makes his way across bar bar to my dark corner, sliding into the booth before picking up his drink and taking a healthy swig.

"She all safe and sound?" I ask gruffly. I can just see him walking her to the door and not waiting to see that she got in the cab. "You make sure the driver's gonna take care of her? She's pretty plastered, so if anything happens to her ...," I pause and he glowers at me, waiting for me to threaten him with bodily harm or something.

Eventually, he shrugs sullenly. "I gave the cabby an extra five to make sure she got inside okay," he says, as if it bugs him to admit he's catering to my little paranoid ways.

It pisses me off. Actually, everything is pissing me off right now. I still can't believe they didn't let me know what they were plannin' on in the Fat Man's office this afternoon. Claire askin' for a raise and all, and not lettin' me in on it? I mean, how LONG have I been bitching about not gettin' the raise they promised me three years ago? Crap. I turn my glass in my hands and stare into the amber liquid, watching the shadows and highlights flash through it.

"Look, Hobbes," Fawkes starts after a long silence. "You don't need to worry. I'm not gonna try anything funny, you know, like violating your honor or anything," he trails off, embarrassed.

I laugh sharply as I take a swig of my scotch to cover the shiver of anxiety his comment triggers. "I'd like to see you try," I mutter sarcastically into the glass, hoping he doesn't see through the bluster. Because the reality is, I'm not exactly sure how I feel about all this. Him and me, I mean. Talk about conflicted. It's been a long time since my wild days, the days I'd screw just about anything that moved, and the idea of changing teams midstream like this gives me the shakes. But so did that kiss. Man. It's been forever since a kiss got me that hot. Has a kiss ever gotten me that hot before?

"You're the one who made up the rules, Hobbes. You told me not to come back just because of you. So I didn't," he snaps at me, and I raise my head to stare at him, the amber light filtering in the windows casting his face in shades gold and steel where the fine bones jut against smooth skin.

"So why did you come back?" I ask bitterly. "And why the hell didn't you warn me?" I slam the palm of my hand onto the table top, making the glassware jump and a nearby patron moves further away from the dark cloud of my temper into the residual daylight still coming in through the front windows with their original seventies textured amber glass.

"Warn you?" he answers disbelievingly. "You're the one who told me if I came back it had to be my choice; my reasons, and that I couldn't use you as an excuse. You can't have it both ways, pal!"

I glare at Fawkes warningly, but he's getting up a head of steam.

"You're the one who said all he was to me was some easy lay, some excuse to get my rocks off without breaking any of the stupid Agency rules about 'need to know'!" He gulps the last of his scotch and maybe it's a trick of the yellow light, but his eyes flash with something that looks like pain. Damn. Now I've hurt the kid, feelin' sorry for myself and taking it out on him.

"That's not exactly what I said," I answer, frowning

"Yeah, well, close enough," he snarls, refusing to look at me. "I just wanna make it clear, here, that I can be a professional about this. I'm not gonna let what I feel keep me from doing the damned job, okay?" he insists self-righteously, finally glaring back at me.

The flash of regret I had evaporates as his usual self-pity kicks in. "Yeah, right. And I'm the pope," I mumble sarcastically. "Look, kid, you've never been able to keep what you feel separate from anything, especially the work. You really expect me to believe you're gonna start now? After the way you came on to me last night?" I demand, rubbing his nose in the fact that he was the one who started it all, half afraid he'll try to pick up where he left off later on down the line - and afraid he won't. Shit. Shit-shit-shit.

He stares at me, and now there's no mistake. Pain, then anger, flash in his eyes. Damn, he can't hide anything. He's as transparent as a window, this kid. I get involved with him and it'd be like putting up a billboard: "Darien Fawkes is gettin' some."

"Yeah. I do. You may find this hard to believe, 'partner', but I've never gone after someone who doesn't want me. Not when they've made it as clear as you have, okay? So if you can't move past it, can't lighten up on me for telling you what you mean to me, then maybe now's the time to say so. Because if we're gonna work together like we did before, both of us are gonna have to get over last night. All I'm sayin' is, I have. I've moved on. You don't want what I want? Fine. Not the end of the world. You can't work with me cuz of it? Fine. But let me know now." He hesitates, as if expecting me to jump in with some kind of rebuttal or something. "It looks to me like it's your turn to decide what you're getting by stayin' with the Agency. And what you're not." His voice is low, but the anger in it could carry to the top of Everest.

I take a quick look around to make sure no one is close enough to get more than the hostile vibe comin' offa him. "Keep it down, will ya?" I shush him. "This isn't the place!"

"Well, this is where we are, pal. And for your information, I AM keeping it down! What, you're embarrassed to be seen with me all of a sudden? Don't want the world to know that the big, bad Bobby Hobbes has a partner who's in love with him? Fine. Excuse the hell outta me. I didn't know it was an issue of national security. From now on, I'll make sure to keep it under my hat," he hisses at me and slides out of the booth, leaving me staring after him feeling as though an iceberg just landed in the pit of my stomach.

***********

I've been sittin' here for almost three hours, watchin' the working stiffs trickle in, first a little at the time, then in groups of five, ten, maybe more. The thing that's kept running through my head is the look on Fawkes' face as he left. Humiliated. Like it absolutely killed him to think that bein' with him embarrassed me. I've been askin' myself with every scotch I've drunk if he's right; am I embarrassed to be seen with Darien Fawkes? 'Hell, no' is the answer that keeps jumping into my head, but the gnawing little ache in my guts tells me I'm doin' the denial thing, as my therapist'd say.

I keep circling around it, picking at it like a scab, knowing it'll probably hurt like hell if I rip it off and really look at it, but unable to keep from obsessing on that question. Does bein' with Fawkes - a guy - embarrass me? I guess it boils down to how I'm with him. Partners, no problem. Lovers? That's the big unknown. I watch the grubby working-class guys yukking it up around the bar, their cut-rate 'dates' soaking up as much beer as they can con the guys out of. Macho. Manly. And probably homophobes. Beer bellies, filthy plaid and denim, christ. The sorta guys I hung out with in the Marines, the CIA, the FBI. I swear, sometimes I think we're all clones of each other.

So along comes Darien Fawkes. One of a kind. Whiney. Self-absorbed. And sarcastic, witty, charming, a decent guy. An innocent in a lot of ways. And despite the self-involvement, one of the most gentle and generous people I've ever met. He starts caring about someone, he'd give 'em the shirt off his back, his last dime, even his life. It's one thing for someone like me, a trained Agent, to be ready to risk my life for another Agent. It's another for someone like Fawkes, who's basically a punk kid who's had more than his share of bad breaks, to do it. But no training, no nothing, he got himself stuck in the middle of a government science project in the starring role of lab rat. And he hasn't stopped bitching about it the whole time I've known him. He also hasn't stopped trying to be my friend since we got over the initial Mexican stand-off we had goin'. At first he was an assignment. But it didn't take me long to figure out that behind the complaining was a scared kid, just trying to do his best.

What gets me, I guess, is that his best is a hell of a lot better'n most. He may have been a crappy thief, but he's one hell of an Agent.

It wasn't that he couldn't pull off a successful job, but the key to planning and execution for a thief is that ruthlessness that lets them do what it takes. He ain't got that. Never has, from what I can tell. He's got the conscience of a bleeding heart. Nothing in his record says thug. He made a point of staying away from armed assault of any kind. See, that's the gap I spotted, first off. The gap between attitude and conscience. He can think like a thief, he just can't take that last step and act like one. I mean really act like one. But that's what makes him one hell of an investigator. That knack for looking at all the angles. For thinking on his feet. It gave me something to work with.

None of which tells me what to do about the fact that he kissed me last night, though. And I kissed him back.

And liked it.

Hell.

Loved it, would be more like. My stomach does the anxiety flip-flop it's been doing all evening since Fawkes stormed out of here, and I swallow some more scotch, hoping to numb the tension to a bearable level.

Did kissing Fawkes embarrass me?

It didn't then, not with his brown eyes all wide and startled and trusting staring into mine, not with the heat of his body against mine, the feel of his skin under my hands, the taste of him in my mouth. Not with the raging, aching need to be touched like that, touched the way he was asking to touch me, burning along every nerve, making every muscle tremble. Not with my dick harder than it's been in years pressed up against his face. Jesus, I'm getting hard again just thinking about it. Un-friggin'-believable.

But here, here I'm embarrassed. Sitting here in a bar full of your average macho jerks, I'm embarrassed. So why the hell am I here? Why the hell did I ever bring Fawkes to a place like this? Or Claire, for that matter?

I've spent way too many hours on psychiatrists' couches, spent way too much time second guessing why I do things, not to be able to figure this one out, eventually. I sit there and watch the testosterone parade passing through Herb's on your average Friday night, and it hits me like a nine millimeter slug; I brought 'em here to prove something. To prove that this is the kinda place I'm at home in, the kinda guys I'm comfortable with. Not with a too-bright, too-observant, too-gentle guy like Fawkes.

Only right now, I don't have any more in common with these guys then I would with a herd of wild pigs, snorting and grubbing and pawing at the ladies in their war paint and too-tight dresses, lookin' for the casual grope, the fast, impersonal fuck. To meet the need, but not make the emotional connection.

Is that what's scaring me? That emotional connection? I mean, I know I warned Fawkes what I was like when I start to get really serious about someone, and he knows about Viv. Hell, he's even met her. And he didn't run screaming in the other direction. But he doesn't know how bad I can get, even though Viv tried to tell him

I swallow another mouthful of alcohol.

So what, exactly, is the difference between what I felt for her, and what I feel for him? What's the difference between a wife and a partner? Sometimes, it doesn't seem like much at all.

Partner. It's a word that's come to define me and the way I work. One that's meant the difference between stayin' alive, and buying it out in the field in some covert action no one would ever admit to sendin' me on. See I was never cocky enough to think that I could automatically pull off whatever the job was all on my own. My years as a Marine taught me that. Teamwork. Bein' part of something larger than myself. Those are the things that 'partner' means to me. That and the fact that there's someone who'll be there for me, however I need them to be. It's kinda weird to think that Fawkes is probably the first partner I've had who felt the same way about it I do. Yeah, he gives me shit, yeah, he's a pain in the butt, sometimes, but lately, he's been pretty good about not letting me down. Not like the first year we worked together. At least not until the thing with the FBI a couple of weeks ago. And I can see why he did what he did. I'm okay with it, I guess.

When we were still new with each other, him acting out against all the rules the Fat Man wanted to strangle him with, he disappointed me in little ways. Goin' back to that thief partner of his, Liz Morgan. Now that was a disappointment, let me tell ya. But the Agency and me're the ones he came home to again, not his thiefy pal. Well, okay, maybe not me, but I think I had something to do with it, maybe. I don't think I'll ever forget the look in his eyes when he told us what he'd done. He kinda focused on me, sitting there in the administering chair in handcuffs, like it was the most important thing in the world for me to believe him, to trust him to be tellin' the truth about the FBI's protected witness. The one he'd just stolen the witness protection file for and handed over to Johnny 'Books' Castagnacci. Well, Liz had handed it over. Fucked the guy's cover. Darien knew I'd be able to protect the guy, or atst gst give him a fighting chance. So he latched onto me with those big brown eyes and just pleaded with me to clean up the mess he'd made.

What's weird is, it's never bothered me with him, the way it has with some of my partners, when they came to me whinin' at me to bail 'em outta some jam. Maybe because with Fawkes, it's not himself he's lookin' to bail out, it's whoever he's accidentally gotten into the jam with him. He wasn't looking to me to forgive him, that time with Castagnacci, he was lookin' to me to believe him. Even then, even against my better judgment, I was starting to see a trend in the kid. He might mess up, sometimes royally, and he might even do a lotta in'in' about it. But if someone is in trouble because of it, he always makes sure he does his best to clean it up. Make it right. And maybe that's why I started trusting him the way I do. Because in spite of the punk act, in spite of the criminal background's 's still got a conscience.

But the thing with Claire and her raise today. Dammit. He didn't even bother to include me in on the deal. Okay, so I know it's sorta my own fault, what with telling him not to let some fantasy about us bein' together the way he wanted be the only reason for him to come back. The problem is, the ache in my chest tells me I lied. Not just to Fawkes, but to myself. Because for me, Fawkes is… everything I want in a partner; decent, gutsy, bright, good sense of humor, a mind reader, sometimes. Knows when to listen to me, knows when I'm outta my depth and when to bring in back-up. I can trust him. With my life. With more than that.

Sittin' here, staring across the crowded room into the smudgy mirror behind the bar at the reflection of the shadowy corner I've been lurking in pretty much unseen for the past three hours, the reality of it starts breaking out of the terrified little part of my heart that knew what it wanted a long time ago. What's really killin' me about what happened last night is that I'd never figured on him doin' what I told him.

Hellova time for him to start, huh?

No. I'd been counting on him getting as far as the lobby of my building before getting himself worked into one of his drama queen moods and come storming back upstairs to finish what he'd started. You got any idea how weird it is to be sittin' here, realizing all of a sudden that you'd been offered something on a silver platter you hadn't even known you'd wanted, and you'd screwed up and sent it back where it came from? The problem is, that want was buried so deep, I didn't even know it was there until Fawkes told me how he felt. And then I freaked out on him.

But the thing is, it's not me I was worried about. I really didn't want the kid coming back to the Agency unless he was sure that was where he wanted to be. But to be sitting here, hurting like I did the day Viv walked out on me because he took me at my word? How stupid - how pathetic - is that? I'm such a closet romantic that I really figured he'd refuse to take no for an answer? That he would tell me the hell with what I said I wanted, what I told him? That no matter what I said, he was coming back with me?For
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His Way