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“Jesus, James. What kind of hunter gets lost that easily?”

James didn’t answer. Finally he made contact with Miz and she started plodding off. She looked kind of unhappy. Suddenly Matt realized they were more or less sending her off without knowing when or if they’d see her again.

Shit. That was kinda… mean. “Bye, Miz,” he called quietly. “We’ll see you again, soon.” She stopped and looked back at him for a second. He could swear she almost looked like she liked him. Then she started moving off again, with a little more walk and a little less plod.

“That was nice, Matty,” James said in his ear, startling him again.

Damn open mic.

When James arrived at their rendezvous spot—approaching from downstream where there was less cover for his tail—Matt had covered himself head to toe in a sleeping bag.

Matt heard James hit the ground next to his head kinda hard. What the heck? James lifted the edge of the bag up, peering in anxiously at Matt. Had he been worried?

For a minute, Matt thought James was going to rip the bag off and expose his face. Matt hadn’t shaved in days, and his last sonic had been over two months ago. He wasn’t sure he could pass for James’s wife like this.

Guess he could have a hairy wife.

James seemed to relax and get a grip on himself almost instantly. Then he smiled that dazzling smile at Matt. “Hello, Matilda?” His voice was loud.

“What?” Th’fuck?

“That’s your name.” He was murmuring now. The tail must be a few yards away, still. James’s smile had calmed down to one of his lip quirks. He seemed downright happy.

Matt sighed. “Well, fuck me running.”

“Any way you want it, baby.” James winked. He was doing that thing again. Being all playful now that whatever was stressing him out had worked itself out.

Maybe he had been worried about Matt.

Matt felt a slow smile light his face. “James! I didn’t know you were into girls,” he answered back in a quiet falsetto. Then he murmured, “How do you like my Matilda voice? Who the hell picked that name, anyway? I could have picked something better than that.”

“It’s fine, hon. You just rest up here while I pack up the camp. Your PMS is gonna ease up in a day or two.” PMS. Nice.

James’s tail was getting really close to them. Matt heard the guy. James’s shadow had climbed up the bank and was creeping along the edge on his belly, sending little showers of dirt and rock down the bank. Matt rolled his eyes.

“Thank you, sugarplum.” Matt made his voice sound weak and breathy. “What happened at the convent?” he added subvocally. James leaned forward so it looked like they were just being mushy.

“Went fine. Pearl Hessia—Sister Immaculata—was expecting us and knows you’re injured. Colonel Viteaux contacted her last night. I got in, no problem, but they took a read on my ID. If we get connected to this place, the RIA will know my alias.”

Probably an unavoidable risk. “They going to need an ID for me?” That was going to be a big problem if they did.

“Nah. This is Idaho. I’m the man and if I say you’re you, you’re you.” James grinned at him again. Matt was going to start losing brain cells if he didn’t cool it with the lethal charm.

James got serious again quickly. “Hessia’s nervous about something, though. She seems competent, ’m not worried, but something’s weird. Think maybe I make her apprehensive. Something like that.”

Before Matt could ask James for details, he heard someone else arriving. “Gonna cover you up again now. Sister Immaculata’s here with another ‘gardener’.”

“Whaddya mean, ‘gardener’?” Matt asked, but James flicked the bag over his head before he got it out. Fine. He’d find out back at the convent.

T
HE
“gardeners” were the Vatican militia. They knew shit about effective covert ops, so pretending they were gardeners seemed to be pointless. Who knew, maybe they actually gardened too?

When they finally got into their room at the convent—a small prefab, but a fairly large single room inside, with its own bathroom—Sister Immaculata waved the gardeners’ “assistance” off, and they were alone. The one who’d been tailing James turned out to be a “gardener” as well. He’d made no secret of the fact that he’d been “hiding,” lying on his belly at the top of the bank.

When the guy had slipped and tumbled down the stream bank, Sister Immaculata had raised her eyes heavenward in a particularly nunly expression of disgust.

“What a couple of dumbasses,” Matt remarked drowsily after he’d managed to strip down to his shorts and climb into the bed. Sister Immaculata had given them the all-clear for listening devices. Still, James turned the antique satellite receiver on for background noise.

Sister Immaculata snorted. Matt looked at her sharply. “Sorry, was that cursing? I guess I figured if you knew Anais, cursing wouldn’t be a big deal.” She gave him a small smile, but said nothing. “I also wasn’t so sure you were actually a nun….”

“Oh, I’m a nun. After I left SOUF I joined a North American Catholic Church nunnery. I ended up here because of my combat experience.” The NACC had quite a spy network in place in RCC strongholds. Usually, they were ordained members of the RCC who were stuck behind enemy lines, but secretly defected to the NACC.

“So they bought that? That you’d join an NACC nunnery and then defect to an RCC convent?”

“Oh, they haven’t completely bought it, yet. I’m still being watched—hence the ‘gardeners’. But the RIA hasn’t caught on, yet, and the Vatican is only allowed so much power inside the Red.” She shrugged. “It hasn’t been hard to stay one step ahead of them.”

“So, they’ll be keeping an extra eye on us.” James looked over at her from where he was digging clean clothes out of his pack.

“I don’t know. Be cautious. You’re the first guests I’ve had in the two years I’ve been here. We’re not exactly a stop on the Grayscale Underground. And I do have relatives in Idaho.”

“You’re sure this room is clean?”

“My partner here came in and scanned the room while I went to get you. Sister Carmella was a Navy SEAL.” Matt could see James visibly relax.

“Thank you, Sister Immaculata.” James came over to where she was sitting on the bed, organizing medical supplies. Matt could tell he was deeply and sincerely grateful. James’s normally stoic expression had eased, and he’d taken her hand.

Sister Immaculata looked back at him in surprise. Then Matt saw her squeeze James’s hand lightly. But she said, “For God’s sake, thank me by not using that name in private. They gave me that here. In the NACC I’m just Pearl.” She turned to Matt. “I suppose you could call me Great-Auntie Pearl, if it makes you feel better.”

James gave his little half-smile, dropped her hand, and turned to Matt also. “’M gonna take a shower. Out in a few.”

“So….” Matt gave Pearl his most innocent look. She sighed.

“Anais warned me about you. Ask what you want to ask.”

“Why are you a nun? I mean, after the SOUF. You probably had a hard life, and now in your retirement—” Matt cut himself off when she looked up at him.

“I’m a nun because I feel I have sins I need to expunge.”

To break the strange tension, Matt made a poor joke. “Wow. I wonder when Anais is going to become a nun.”

“She doesn’t have any sins to repent.” Pearl was looking at her supplies again, but Matt could see a sad little smile on her face. She began mixing up a concoction he supposed she was going to send into him through IV vial.

“I thought Anais wouldn’t do anything unless it was a sin.” No joke this time; he believed it.

Pearl laughed a little. “Hers are very different than mine. Harmless. I think I helped to harm a lot of people. Soldiers.”

“We all do our share of damage to the enemy.”

“The soldiers I did the most damage to weren’t enemies.”

Matt went cold. Instinctively, he didn’t believe she meant him any harm. But she was mixing up a drug cocktail for him…. On the other hand, James wouldn’t have left him alone with her if he’d sensed any ill intent.

Pearl looked at him. “Not that kind of harm. I wasn’t a spy or double agent. I was part of a task force looking into biocybe enhancements for soldiers. Things got to the point where… experiments were done.” She held his gaze. “On Psi-force.”

Oh.
Oh
. “Um… James—”

“I need to talk to James, see what’s happening with him.” She looked hesitantly at Matt. “I thought you might broach the subject with him. He seems somewhat close to you.”

Were they close? Like, brothers-in-arms close, or an even more intimate kind of close? Brothers-in-arms close was good enough for the situation. “Yeah, I’ll talk to him.”

She expelled a breath, quietly but obviously. “You’ll have a couple of days before you’re well. I haven’t looked yet, but from what James indicated, you need at least that to be able to travel without assistance.” She cut off his obvious objection. “Walking out, no horse, no one to hold you on the horse, no sleep if necessary.”

Oh. That kind of well.

“I’d like at least a few hours to talk to James. Tomorrow would be good. Now lay back. I need to look at your arm and shoulder.”

Matt fell back more than laid. He had a hard time with wounds. His own, that was. Other people’s? That was the same as it ever was. He could deal; battle dress, triage, whatever. But every time he got injured he fought flashbacks of lying in that New Mexico scrub, looking down and seeing his leg gone.

He focused on a spot on the ceiling, trying to zone out on the music. It was the slightly discordant instrumental dance music that had been popular in the 2070s. He wasn’t so into it. Pearl quickly had his pressure patches off, and redressed the shoulder wound in an air-circulating wrap. The arm took longer. She had to debride it, first.

“James should have done this when he did your shoulder. With the new super-bugs that are always popping up, he shouldn’t have taken the chance.” She was murmuring so quietly, Matt didn’t know if she was talking to herself or him. “Why didn’t he?” she continued after a moment.

“Um… I can’t remember. Maybe we were interrupted?” Or maybe he hadn’t been dealing with it well, and James had decided his mental health was more important than his physical?

Pearl gave him a look, but said nothing and went back to his arm. She’d numbed it with a hypo-spray, so all he could feel were tugs and pressure.

Matt heard the shower shut off. Pearl started rewrapping his arm wound in the breathable wrap. He felt truly comfortable for the first time in days, and he’d started to drowse. He couldn’t feel either his arm or his shoulder, and he was getting extra loopy again. “D’you give me some painkillers?”

“Yes, when I numbed your arm. James had been underdosing you a little.”

“Whoopsie,” Matt giggled. James was just coming out of the bathroom. He’d shaved, and looked all clean. Matt bet, if he ran his lips up that neck to that jaw, James would smell like soap and man. Mmmmmm.

James stopped and stared at Matt. “Did you give him more painkillers?”

“I’m starting to think I shouldn’t have.”

“He’s pretty sensitive to them.” James gave Pearl a weak smile. “Guess I shoulda mentioned that.”

She shrugged and went back to preparing his IV. “Well, I gave him enough to make him drowsy—”

“’M drowsy.” Matt nodded enthusiastically.

Pearl gave him a wry look and continued. “I’m not giving him a sedative, but I am giving him more nano-menders, which will make him more tired. I think you’ll sleep soon, Matt.”

“What else’s in there?” He nodded floppily at the IV she was preparing.

“Anti-bionanos, since your arm wasn’t cleaned for so long.” James looked sheepish. “A nutrient mix to feed the nano-menders, and a time-release NSAID. No more painkillers for you until tomorrow morning.”

Matt lost interest about halfway through the list. He looked over at James. “Whadda you gonna do?”

“Babysit you, I guess.” He gave Matt his lip-quirk half smile. Then James started organizing all the stuff that had spilled out of their packs, and put the dirty clothes in the in-room wash-dry.

Pearl put the IV vial in, gave instructions for James on pulling it out—he shuddered and swallowed, but said he could do it—and left them alone with promises that someone would bring food soon.

Matt was still awake when James finished straightening up. His eyes were cracked, watching James.

James stood awkwardly beside the bed, looking everywhere but down at Matt in his underwear. Matt smiled a little and stretched, arching his back off the bed a tiny bit and pointing his toes. He knew he was showing off, but it seemed like a good idea. Give James a peek at his abs. Or you know, an eyeful.

James cleared his throat. “You kinda cold? Wanna get under the blankets?”

“Nope,” Matt said languidly, and looked James up and down, slowly. “But maybe I would if you got in with me.”

James sighed and ran a hand through his hair, tangling his fingers in the curls and gripping slightly. “Matt,” he said after a tense moment, “you’re high. We can’t, uh… do anything. Not right now.” He stopped and cleared his throat again. “Even if I do lay down with you for a while.”

Matt dropped his eyes down to look at James’s dick. He could see it pretty clearly, even in the loose clothes James was now wearing. As he stared, he could almost see it getting harder and bigger. Matt flicked his tongue out over his lower lip.

James groaned. “Matt, c’mon, don’t do this to me.”

“Do what?” He didn’t even try to act innocent; just grinned at James. Well, at James’s dick.

“You know what.” James’s voice was rumbly.

Yumbly.

“C’mere,” Matt whispered, looking up into James’s eyes.

Matt knew James wanted to resist, but he didn’t want to
enough
. He was pretty sure that what James wanted more was lying in a bed, mostly naked and heavy-eyed, trying to entice him into said bed. James groaned again, and took a step forward. He was close enough so Matt could raise his hand and rest it on James’s thigh.

“Closer,” Matt said in that same whisper, grinning and looking James in the eye. James swallowed and took another step. Matt dropped his eyes, and began trailing his fingers lightly up James’s leg. He was close enough to the bed that his knees were pressed against the side, and Matt could trace fingertips all the way up to his groin without straining.