Allie's War Season Three (162 page)

"Are you going to make my military commander cry again?" he said.

Jon gave him a hard look, then averted his gaze, not answering.

"Seriously, Jon," Revik said, dropping the bad attempt at humor. "If you're going to be hard on him, maybe you two should wait. See some kind of mediator. At least get some sleep. Maybe Tarsi..." he added. "...For the mediation, I mean. Wreg still listens to her."

Jon's jaw only hardened.

Shaking his head, he didn't slow in his movements towards the door.

Revik watched as Jon shoved his arm into a jacket he’d pulled off a chair by the hall table, tugging it around his back. For the first time, he noticed that Jon was still wearing the combat pants and boots they'd all worn in Argentina. Feeling his stare, Jon gave him another hard look before he motioned with his head and hand for Revik to lead the way.

A little nervous in spite of himself, Revik checked his side holster almost in rote for the Glock that rested there, more of a nervous tic than from having put any thought behind the gesture. After touching the handle with his fingertips, he tugged on the ends of his own jacket to close the front, right before he moved to lead Jon through the open door.

JON FOLLOWED REVIK to the elevators, still feeling like he'd been punched in the gut at least five or six times in a row, and maybe kicked with the same military boots he wore, just for good measure. He grew conscious of the fact that he also still wore the clothes he'd hiked in and sweated in for hours, even before he sat on a plane for however-long and finally passed out in the Humvee and then the crate.

Thinking about where his head had been at, even since before they left for Argentina, Jon scowled again. He'd already been pissed off at Allie for staring at Wreg more than once, even right in front of him. Wreg blew it off as nothing, of course, making a joke about how good he looked in a suit, but Jon hadn't really been able to laugh it off then, either.

The truth was, Wreg
did
look damned good in a suit, all of his bravado crap aside, and whether or not Revik cared about his wife's gawking, Jon sure as hell did.

More importantly than that, though, at least in Jon's mind, was the fact that he was thinking about any of this crap at all, given what was happening outside the boundaries of New York right now. The more he thought about where his mind had been all day, much less his priorities, the more his anger at himself grew. Even apart from Cass being with Shadow, human-killing viruses and the threat of nuclear holocaust, the base stupidity of his own thoughts made him angry enough that he couldn't think straight due to that alone.

He knew he didn’t have to worry about Allie.

It wasn’t just that he trusted her...which he did.

It was her.

Allie was crazy about Revik. Head-over-heels, would basically throw herself in front of a bullet or a moving car for the guy
crazy
about him. She'd already nearly died for him more times than Jon could count. Her blatant disregard for her own well-being when it came to Revik had been one of the things about both of them that drove Jon completely nuts.

The idea of Allie hurting Revik to sleep with Wreg was absurd.

It was beyond absurd.

Anyway, she would never do that to
him...
meaning Jon himself.

Once the thought fully solidified in his mind, the second Jon really let it in, he felt his shoulders relax. He knew how true it was. It wasn't even a question.

Jon felt the man standing beside him in the elevator car relax in the same set of seconds, as if exhaling a held breath. Once he had, Revik leaned down, punching the 'L' button for the lobby at the bottom of the lit grid of round numbers.

Revik glanced at him then. Gratitude shone in his clear eyes.

"Thank you, brother," he murmured. "I needed to hear that right now."

"What's going on?" That time, Jon heard the concern in his own voice, and was relieved to note it sounded real. When the Elaerian's expression relaxed still more, Jon realized that he had heard the difference, too.

"I don't know," Revik confessed. He gave Jon another cautious look before he added, "She was acting strange when I left the room. And it really bothered her, that she hadn't noticed more of the changes in you, Jon. She didn't say much, but I could tell it worried her that she hadn't seen it, too. She thinks something's wrong."

"Wrong?" Jon snorted, shaking his head as the words sank in. "What's
right,
man? Half the planet's dead or dying. We have no idea where Shadow is, or even
who
he is...and each of our theories is more depressing than the next. The Lao Hu and most of the humans want us all dead. We've got a list of people to save, but no way of finding most of them. Her ex-boyfriend, his groupie girlfriend and her old friends all think she’s trying to kill every human on the planet. We're locked in a quarantine zone with a bunch of rich, heartless fucks who may have conspired to kill a good chunk of their own species. Oh..." he added. "...And her brother nearly went to her room and tried to beat her up today, just because he's having 'adjustment issues' with his new boyfriend. Why would anything be
wrong
with Allie, man?"

Revik gave a dark laugh, conceding Jon's words with a tilt of his hand.

"Yeah," he said. His eyes and voice grew distracted though, almost as if he were thinking out loud. "But she thinks the problem is her. She thinks something is wrong with
her
...and I’m not sure what to tell her. I need to tell her something, though..."

"Tell her something?" Jon stared at him, studying his face as the elevator car settled to a stop and the doors opened. “Tell her what? What’s wrong with Allie?”

“Nothing’s wrong with her,” Revik said, shaking his head.

“Then why does she think there is?” Jon said, puzzled.

Revik only shrugged again, using the same hand as he walked out of the elevator car in front of Jon. Still watching the Elaerian, Jon saw what he'd missed on him before, in his little freak out about Wreg. Revik looked tense. Tenser than usual maybe, and definitely tenser than he had before they left for San Francisco. He also felt evasive, like, whatever was going on with him and Allie, he’d only given Jon a fraction of the story.

Jon felt something else on the male seer, too, something in his energy that made it spark around him in odd currents.

He found himself wondering if it had something to do with the damaged telekinetic structures, when suddenly Revik pushed him roughly off his light.

“Do you mind?” Revik groused at him.
I'm not exactly in the mood to have Wreg try to beat the crap out of me right now, if it's all the same to you...

Startled, Jon jerked back, even as it occurred to him that Revik was serious, that he really thought Wreg would take his simple curiosity as some kind of sexual thing. Even as he thought it, and before he could begin to make connections in his own head, about what Allie said about her being more interested in Wreg simply because she knew he and Jon were sleeping together, Revik spoke up in a more subdued voice.

"Curiosity isn't a crime, brother," he said, his voice low as they crossed the busy lobby. "...But it's dangerous in the vicinity of you and Wreg right now." Revik gave him a meaningful look. "And yeah, just ask Allie...in case you missed the reference there."

"No, I got it," Jon muttered, shoving his hands in his pockets. His face reddened more when he realized the other unspoken context. Namely, that Revik had heard Jon thinking that Allie wanted to sleep with Wreg.

"Sorry, man," Jon mumbled, walking to catch up with Revik's longer strides.

The taller seer made a dismissive gesture, but Jon frowned, shaking his head.

"No...really," he said. "I'm sorry. I get how crazy that was..."

When he glanced up at Revik next, the black-haired seer was smiling, clicking his tongue in more genuine humor.

"Welcome to being a seer, Jon." Revik smiled, clapping him on the shoulder. "...Just don't let your psychotic boyfriend kill me for no good goddamned reason. Oh, and..." His voice grew more openly warning. "...Don't hurt my wife. Or you and I are going to have a serious problem."

Jon rolled his eyes, but gestured in acquiescence, using the formal version half-seriously and half in jest.

He found himself looking around in bewilderment at all the activity then, watching as Revik fielded a number of greetings, a lot of them from ex-Rebels but some from Adhipan and Seven, too. A lot of the humans who had been sitting around the lobby earlier, looking lost, had vanished, as had their luggage, but Jon saw a lot more of the refugee seer population wandering around, along with members of the old team that had stayed behind. Most of those who had gotten back that morning were probably still sleeping it off in their rooms.

"Yeah," Revik remarked, his voice distracted. "...Balidor, too, from what I hear. They decided to leave most of the interrogations and debriefings for tomorrow. So they've got the prisoners secured and under guard downstairs, and..."

He trailed for a few seconds, even as his eyes slid out of focus.

Jon glanced up as the seer missed a step, nearly stumbling.

When he resumed walking and talking, Revik’s voice sounded almost as if he hadn't noticed his own lapse.

"...We've got the humans from San Francisco all staying in one suite for now,” Revik added tonelessly, his eyes still distant. “They've got guards on the door, like a lot of those on the list, but the room is large and they've got enough beds and two bathrooms and clean clothes, so they should be comfortable. Allie thought it was a good idea to house them all together, so they could start to talk things through without feeling any pressure from us..."

Jon nodded to that, too, but continued to watch the Elaerian's face, conscious again of the tension emanating off the taller man.

"So where are we going?" Jon said warily. "The old bar in the atrium is an orchard now, right? Or some kind of sprouting wheat field...?"

Revik motioned him to the right with a flick of his hand. "Balidor said the seers have staked out the bar in Park Place South. Apparently that's become more of an infiltrator hangout, since so many of the list humans seem to prefer to eat in the Third Jewel..."

Jon nodded, feeling his apprehension rise as they neared the entrance to the much fancier restaurant. He'd only been in there once, actually, and that had been with Wreg, too. The seer had insisted on taking him out for what he called 'real' seer food, on their one and only formal date after Allie and Revik's wedding. Shoving his concerns and attention off Revik’s weird behavior, Jon blanked his mind as they entered the restaurant’s dimly-lit foyer. Half-envisioning a drunk, angry and now potentially retaliatory Wreg, Jon braced himself as they passed the
maitre d's
podium. They only paused long enough for Revik to throw the seer standing there a wave, and for that same female to smile and point them in the direction of the bar itself, to the right of a giant fish tank that started near the entrance and curved into the darker room.

Jon found himself uncomfortably aware of the female seer's light on his, even as it skirted around Revik's, probably out of respect for Allie since even Jon could tell Revik was in pain. He’d started to notice that Allie and Revik both got a lot of attention from other seers, anyway, even when they seemed to be shielding. The one time he mentioned it to Allie, though, she waved it off, saying it was something to do with their position within the construct.

In the same set of seconds, Jon felt Wreg.

Not for long, though.

In fact, he felt the seer’s touch for only the barest instant before Wreg's light vanished from around his...and before Jon could get any kind of read on what he should expect when he actually faced the older seer.