Xavior

Central Communications assigned us a call regarding a break-in. The location turned out to be a blood bank. It wasn’t pretty. The overnight guard had his head bashed in, and half the product was either destroyed or stolen. They made a mess of the whole place, with blood splattered all over the walls and into the back alley.

I lobbed an imager into the air. It followed me around recording the scene various pieces of data. I was already annoyed because I spotted inconsistencies with the evidence collection. I made Greg put on more than gloves to walk around with all the trace evidence that was here. I didn’t want to contaminate it.

Greg and I hadn’t exchanged that many words this morning, even through our jog. I could tell he was tense about something. Frankly, I wanted to punch his boyfriend, but I didn’t think telling Greg that would earn me any favors.

The dinner had mostly started all right until we got to the dessert, and at that point, I somewhat wished I hadn’t talked Vanessa into being my date. She began telling stories, and Keith became more interested. I watched from across the table as Greg zoned out.

“Um, Xavior, what would it take to be invited to one of these infamous parties of yours?” Keith asked. Because, of course, Keith wanted an invite. He smelled like Greg, but I could pick up hints of other people. It might have been his job as a paramedic, but I doubted it.

“Know someone that’s invited, I guess.”

“Oh, well, that seems like a done deal.”

“Totally worth it,” Vanessa said. “Xavior's good about sharing, aren’t you, babe. How about you and Greg. Do you like to share?”

“Oh, I’m more of a sharer than Gregie is. He doesn’t mind sometimes, but he’s shy…”

Shy my ass. ‘Gregie.’ Ugh, what a stupid nickname, I thought.

“Earth to Brantley, hey… you paying attention? They have a print and a partial here on the cold storage case,” Greg said.

“Yeah, yeah, I’ve got it.” I moved toward him and motioned for the imager to zoom in and pick up the details before the techs lifted the prints. Now I was finding it hard to focus. Too much blood and too many smells were wrapped up in the place. I took a walk outside to clear my sinuses. Greg showed up outside after he wrapped up his interviews.

“Are you good with what you have?” Greg asked with a sharpness in his tone that made me bristle.

“Yeah. I’m good.” We were in the alley by ourselves. I walked closer to Greg. When I invaded his personal space, he took a few steps back. “What’s up with you? Why are you walking around here with a stick up your ass?”

“Me? What about you? You’ve been cranky all morning.”

“Cranky?”

“yEaH. Cranky, like…” He cut himself off, but I would hazard a guess about what he was going to say.

I’d taken Vanessa home after dinner. She’d made some snide comment about my brownstone and me slumming it, and I hadn’t appreciated it that much. But we were in the middle of taking our clothes off, and I was hard enough to cut glass, so I didn’t care.

When we got to my bedroom, I pushed her onto the bed and grabbed a condom from the nightstand. A few seconds later, I was inside of her, losing myself. As she began to make noises, I covered her mouth and kept going. We’d played a little rough before, so this was all pretty consensual, but she wasn’t exactly happy when we were done.

“Where did you go?” She was still naked in my bed, looking at me, propped up on her elbow.

“What do you mean?” I was on my back looking at the ceiling.

“I was here, fucking you, but you were somewhere else.” I made a noise. Vanessa continued. “You’ve never done that before, Xavior. I know we aren’t soulmates or in love, but you’ve always fucked me. Tonight you were fucking someone else.”

“Vanessa,” I groaned, annoyed.

“Don’t ‘Vanessa’ me. You were making eyes at Greg most of the night. Do you like him?”

“Of course, I like him. I work with him. If I didn’t like him, work would suck.”

“Yeah, but this is more. You looked like you wanted to pop Keith’s head off at one point.”

I vaguely remembered what she was talking about, and a smug satisfaction settled over me. I felt myself smile.

“See… you’re jealous. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you jealous, babe.”

I wiped my hands over my face. “Fuck, Vinny, I don’t know what to do.” She made sympathetic noises then and pulled me into her arms.

“Aww, sweetie. It’s a little cute and a lot pathetic at the same time. How hung up are you on this guy?”

“Enough to see red where his boyfriend’s concerned. It would be one thing if they were in an open relationship and Keith had permission to fuck around, but they aren’t. Or at least I don’t think they are based on what I’ve gathered from Greg. And I’m pretty sure Keith is, and that’s not fair to him.”

“Wow. You have got it bad. You picked up that from his smell?” She asked.

I nodded. “I’m sorry, Vinny. You’re right. It's not fair to you.”

“Promise me I get one last fuck before you go all monogamous. Something to remember you by.” She laughed softly into my ear and kissed my forehead.

“It’s not going to get that far, Vinny. I care because he’s my partner, and I care that his life partner treats him like crap. I need to get my shit under control, and maybe never meet his boyfriend in a dark alley.” She laughed and kissed me again. I sighed softly and finally felt better for the conversation. “Let me make it up to you,” I whispered.

She perked up. “Are you going to do the tongue thing?” I laughed at the request because her eyes were bright with anticipation and desire.

“Sure. Is that what you want?”

“Is the sky blue? Fuck yes, that’s what I want.” She laughed. I laughed with her, then eased down her naked torso to settle between her legs.

Greg snapped his fingers in front of my face. Fuck. I looked at him.

“Xavior, what the hell is going on?” Greg asked.

“I could ask you the same thing,” I said.

“Look. I’m sorry Keith was an asshole. He’s usually not that bad, but he’d had a lot of wine.”

The fact that he was making excuses for his jerk boyfriend made me want to throttle him now too. I growled. “Usually, huh? Somehow I don’t believe that.”

Greg looked away. I’d hit a nerve, and then I was pissed at myself for doing that. It wasn’t his fault.

“Um, let’s finish out the scene and get the paperwork done. All this blood is messing with my sense of smell.” I implied that it was making me moody, cranky, or whatever. Greg nodded. It took two hours before we were done and headed back to JPS headquarters.

We didn’t talk in the vehicle until Greg pulled over a few blocks from headquarters and parked. The vehicle was still running, though. He looked at me. Before I had a chance to ask why we stopped, a question tumbled out of his mouth that I never thought he’d have the guts to ask.

“Did you fuck her?”

“What?”

“You heard what I said.”

“That is so way the fuck out of line I don’t even know how to answer that.”

“I’m confused as fuck. I’d like an answer, though I don’t deserve one.”

I blinked. I didn’t know what Greg was doing to himself with this line of questioning, but he was tense and anxious. The smell of it was burning, sharp, and brutal enough in my nostrils that I had to keep from scrunching my nose up in disgust.

“Vanessa and I’ve been casually seeing each other for ten years, Lyndon. Yes, we had sex.”

He seemed to relax at that, which I thought was even weirder. “Okay, good. I mean, I thought you were gay, but I don’t think I could have handled it if you were….”

“In the closet?” He shook his head, so that wasn’t it. “Using her?” He gave a subtle nod, and that shocked me more than I thought it would.

“Oh. No. Lyndon. I’m sorry if I confused you or gave you the wrong impression. I wouldn’t do that to someone. Not even to make them jealous. Dragons tend to be omnisexual. Like Vanessa said, I’ve had some experiences.”

He chuckled a little at that. The tension melted. I wanted to reach out and touch him, but I didn’t think that was smart. I was afraid if I did, I wouldn’t let go.

“Are we cool?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said as he took a deep breath. “Let’s get this fucking paperwork done so we can go have a beer.”

“Sounds good.” We settled into our comfortable cadence to finish up work. We talked about sports, entertainment, bets on the next office pool. Underneath all that, our attraction to each other bubbled along with the knowledge I had that Keith was cheating. I wanted to tell Greg, but if I did, I’d be responsible for whatever he did about it, and he wouldn’t like me for it. So I kept my mouth shut, drank a couple of beers, and yelled at the FIFA games like everyone else in the bar.