Cornered Rat, part 2 of 3 (I hope it's only 3!) -- Ranalore, sorry I'm taking forever!
Oh, yeah: Highlander/X-Files, I'm not sure it's slash but it sure looks like it's trying to be.
Part 1
I've gotten used to doing things with one hand. I don't like it, but I've learned how to adapt and what actions are never going to work well with only one hand. It has to be this way; I can't afford to slow down just because I didn't have time to put my arm on or because I got caught and someone took it away. Towels work all right with one hand and a stump, shoelaces went the way of the dodo, and I've gotten used to Velcro, zippers, and buttons. Even taking time to enjoy the hot water, I'm still out and dressed in fifteen minutes. Time was I could do it in eight, but I lost a few minutes with my arm.
Sniffing the lotion tells me it does more than soothe the skin; there's a hint of something herbal to it. It's nothing chemical, and certainly nothing I recognize as poisonous, but I drop the tube in my shirt pocket to take down and ask him about. Hell if I'm using it before I know what it is and what it does.
The metal stairs are well constructed, but I let my steps clatter a little anyway. Nash nods to me from the kitchen. He's drinking red wine and stirring something on the stove that smells like beef, vegetables, and more cooking time than I've had to spare in years. "Stew, you said?"
"Stew." He grins suddenly. "Hope you're not picky about meat."
He's a little too amused so I just point out, "It doesn't stink enough to be goat."
"You have to be careful about skinning goat," he agrees, so deadpan that I'm not sure for a second if that means there's goat in the stew or not. "Beef, venison, veal bone while it was cooking, and rabbit. Root vegetables, some greens. Wine, spices, this and that. I didn't quite clean the refrigerator out making it, but I used up a few things."
"Sounds fine." I hand him the lotion. "What's in this?"
Nash takes another sip from his wine and hands it to me; it's still half-full, even after I've watched him drinking. He must have filled it to the rim. "Now that you know it's not poisoned." He pours himself another glass. "That's lanolin and distilled water, with a few other things as well. Angelica, cayenne, feverfew, St. John's wort, American ginseng, hops, rosemary, willow, yucca. No, almost forgot the black cohosh."
The wine smells good, and he could have taken an antidote while I was in the shower, but why bother? If he wanted me dead he could have shot me then, too. It's a good merlot, rich and strong. Must be one hell of a stew. Only after I've taken a sip do I ask, "So you want me to rub on stew ingredients and beer and aspirin?"
Nash chuckles. "Lanolin and water is an old moisturizer, and your skin can use it with that prosthetic. Hops and willow are good for pain and headaches; cayenne heats up the skin and reduces swelling. Ginseng also helps with swelling, and boosts your immune system. Black cohosh, yucca and angelica help prevent arthritis, and angelica reduces muscle spasms. Feverfew earned its name. St. John's wort is good against infection and depression. Any other questions?"
"You left out the rosemary."
Nash just snorts. "Good for your skin, good against bone swelling, which you'll need, and it smells better than the rest, which is reason to add it by itself." He leans over, stirs the pot again. "Give it five minutes and this will be warm enough." Nash reaches into a breadbox, slow enough for me to be sure he's not getting a weapon. Four croissants come out; he slices them open, then pulls cheese over from the stove top.
Two of the croissants make it to me, spread with the cheese. It's creamy and almost sweet and good enough that I could eat Nash's as well as my own. Not gulping my share is a bitch, but when I look up from it, there's a large bowl of stew in front of me and Nash is putting bottles on the table.
"Worcestershire?" I take a careful taste, then reach for the salt. "Thanks."
Nash shrugs, indicates the windows. "They're one-way glass. Don't worry too much about moving around in here during the day, but be careful where you turn on lights." He tastes his stew, adds pepper, starts eating.
It's an oddly comfortable silence with him, passing wine or salt after a glance rather than a spoken request. He gets up and refills both bowls of stew; I hunt through the breadbox until I find a half-loaf of something that looks like it came from a bakery rather than a supermarket and smells of Italian spices. Two slices of it go onto my plate, one onto his, and he puts cheese on all three without making me feel like a cripple.
Nash looks up when he's done eating, checks the clock, and nods. "They're not likely to be back tonight. If they were going to get a rush search warrant, they'd have done it by six, and been back here half an hour later."
Glancing down at my empty bowl helps hide my grin, and keeping my voice even is easier. "You sound like you have practice with New York's finest."
Nash snorts. "Only some of them count. And you knew that."
I shrug, then admit, "I've seen the files on that rash of beheadings back in the '80s." I don't mention that he looks exactly the same. He's too human to be a bounty hunter; they always slip somewhere. Nash is too prickly, too variable in too many human ways, to be a bounty hunter.
He's watching me when I put my spoon down, his eyes darker in the limited light from the kitchen and a lamp in the living room. "You're not police. Too contained and too used to bucking them. FBI once?"
"Not now?" I ask lightly.
"FBI wouldn't need to break in and hide with me." He's watching me, then he nods slowly. "And you've been running. FBI doesn't do that much either. I've asked no name of you, and I'm not asking why the police want you. I am asking if they want you, or if they've been suckered into working for someone else?"
I already mapped out my best exits; now to find out when I need them. "If they caught me, they'd find out they want me. But they're looking on someone else's behalf."
Nash just nods. "So? Would you last out a night in a holding pen?"
My laughter's sharp and bitter. "Tonight? No."
"Idiot." That makes me look at him rather than the room and the exit routes. There's no sympathy there, nothing to soften me into breaking. He looks annoyed with me, as if I've given a wrong answer on an exam. "Your edges are too sharp for anyone to think you have trouble defending yourself. If you're going to let losing that arm make you into a cripple, do it somewhere else. If you want an extra hand getting lotion onto it, and maybe some naproxen now you've eaten, say so."
"Your bedside manner sucks but I'll take both." I stand up and start taking dishes to the sink. "Why do you have this cream on hand?"
"I have two friends with arthritis. New York winters play hell with it." Nash brings over the rest of the plates, dumps soap into the sink and starts water running. "I'll wash these later. How long since you've slept?"
"Last night." Before he can ask, I admit, "Three hours, but sleep."
"And sleep where you were watching your back." It's not a question, so I don't answer him. "Upstairs, then. You'll want rest once your arm's taken care of."
"Meaning I need sleep or that your lotion puts people to sleep? I know naproxen doesn't." He's been helping me, but this is ridiculous.
Nash just chuckles. "Once the naproxen and the cream kick in, you're going to be out of caffeine, out of hunger, and out of pain. Do you really think you're going to stay awake?"
"Have you canceled any plans?" I'm not about to admit he's right.
"Nothing's changed about my habits. I usually handle laundry and housework on Tuesdays." Nash just looks at me. "If you'd rather stay in pain, say so."
I shake my head. "I already said I'd take them. Fine. Upstairs it is. You just don't want me seeing you vacuum."
He grins at me. "I'm not handing you a duster, no. Or letting you roam through my bookshelves. I think you understand me too well already."
I head back up the stairs, and for once I'm not worried about who's at my back. "I might at that. Do you always piss off cops?"
I can hear his footsteps behind me, and I know damn well it's deliberate noise. "What do you think?"
"That you expect them to follow the laws they're enforcing." That gets me one of his chuckles, husky and staccato as a Kalashnikov. That comparison makes me laugh, too. Nash doesn't ask why.
"You'd be right." He waves me into his room, peels the blankets down. The top layer is overlapping Hudson Bay blankets, bright against the walls. Under those is a comforter of varying thickness, down, I think, and white flannel sheets. There's a piecework fur blanket across the foot of the bed, and a couple thick pillows at the head. Nash just grins at me. "I like my comforts. In with you, and peel out of the shirt so I can work."
Part of me wants to argue. I swallow the words and unbutton the flannel shirt one-handed, to remind myself I can. Nash doesn't try to help; maybe he knows I'd hit him if he did. I peel out of boots, sweatpants, and socks, too, and climb under the covers wearing the briefs he loaned me, trying not to shiver. I've been back in the US too long; in Russia, I was used to cold.
Nash lets me see him take the naproxen out of the bottle, passes me two, then his wine glass; he looks... concerned under that impassive expression. I'm not about to tell him the corners of his eyes give him away, and the tilt of his head. He takes the wine back and presses me down onto my belly, firm enough to indicate a direction and no more, then the blankets come up over my back and good shoulder.
"Huh." He sounds skeptical, but I'm not sure what he's having trouble believing. A more contemplative noise warns me before he starts work. His hands aren't particularly gentle with that salve, and it's cold then hot, herbal and spicy all at once. Then his fingers dig in and I barely bite back the sound when he hits the first knot immediately.
The scary part is that he's good at it. Most people aren't. My muscles don't run as they should at the end of the stump, and usually only professionals massage them so they don't ache more from being rubbed into old alignments that don't work any more. I can't afford to be remembered, so I've learned the new alignments myself. Nash gets it immediately. Either he's done this before or he mapped out the new patterns while he was rubbing that cream in. Maybe both.
Not until he pulls the fur up over my legs do I realize I'm shuddering. He shifts something under the stump to support it, maybe the flannel shirt I was wearing, and starts rubbing my back. Not soothing muscles; soothing me. Hard enough to be comforting, long, circular motions that make me want to snap that I'm hardly a child to be petted to sleep. The problem is, it feels good, and the shudders are letting up, and this is as safe as I've felt in years, with this sharp, dangerous man between me and his door.
"Warm enough?" He keeps his voice neutral, almost reserved. It lets me nod, which he takes for the reality: the fur comes up over my back and shoulder and Nash says calmly, "You've just been hurting too long. This'll pass. Try not to fight it."
"Done this before?" My voice is level enough, I think, but I realize my control's shot when I hear myself go on. "You don't look like it."
Nash just keeps rubbing my back. "I haven't asked your name, you know. Don't ask about my past."
Spitting the word out hurts more than my arm but I manage. "Sorry."
"You're hurting." He settles the blankets further into place, goes back to soothing his damn lotion into my arm. The worst part is that it's helping. Cold, then warm, spicy in a way I could never mistake for Oil in my mouth, and the muscles are yielding, easing from knots I hadn't known were under the knots I did know about. It's the relaxation that's so bad. I can tense against pain, but this comfort feels like it may kill me.
Warm, finally, with a t-shirt trapping the lotion against my skin. Unstrung, or unstringing, and is that like unsinging? How do you unsing something? Words can't be unsaid, how do notes fade? Cool air against my side wakes me completely to the realization that the noises I've heard in the background were nothing to worry me, and that Nash has been talking to me while he got ready for bed.
"Go back to sleep, man. No one's come. You're safe 'til morning." He pulls the blankets back up over us, shifts me back into the pocket of warmth, and sprawls along my side. One arm over my bottom ribs, one leg over mine, and I'm still not worried; he's left my arm free. Sharp and dangerous and he's guarding me. A soft chuckle falls between us.
"What's so funny?" I sound sleepy, and try to wake up.
"You're laughing," he says, and that chuckle is still under his words. But I'm under him... and clearly not awake.
"Huh." He's warm, though, and my nerves say I'm safe here. One of my senseis is speaking, clear as the first time he said it, or the last, reminding me that the trick to hitting hard enough is to relax on the swing. My eyes are closed again, and I flex my hands, then relax into the darkness and sleep.
ETA: And, finally, Part 3.
Part 1
I've gotten used to doing things with one hand. I don't like it, but I've learned how to adapt and what actions are never going to work well with only one hand. It has to be this way; I can't afford to slow down just because I didn't have time to put my arm on or because I got caught and someone took it away. Towels work all right with one hand and a stump, shoelaces went the way of the dodo, and I've gotten used to Velcro, zippers, and buttons. Even taking time to enjoy the hot water, I'm still out and dressed in fifteen minutes. Time was I could do it in eight, but I lost a few minutes with my arm.
Sniffing the lotion tells me it does more than soothe the skin; there's a hint of something herbal to it. It's nothing chemical, and certainly nothing I recognize as poisonous, but I drop the tube in my shirt pocket to take down and ask him about. Hell if I'm using it before I know what it is and what it does.
The metal stairs are well constructed, but I let my steps clatter a little anyway. Nash nods to me from the kitchen. He's drinking red wine and stirring something on the stove that smells like beef, vegetables, and more cooking time than I've had to spare in years. "Stew, you said?"
"Stew." He grins suddenly. "Hope you're not picky about meat."
He's a little too amused so I just point out, "It doesn't stink enough to be goat."
"You have to be careful about skinning goat," he agrees, so deadpan that I'm not sure for a second if that means there's goat in the stew or not. "Beef, venison, veal bone while it was cooking, and rabbit. Root vegetables, some greens. Wine, spices, this and that. I didn't quite clean the refrigerator out making it, but I used up a few things."
"Sounds fine." I hand him the lotion. "What's in this?"
Nash takes another sip from his wine and hands it to me; it's still half-full, even after I've watched him drinking. He must have filled it to the rim. "Now that you know it's not poisoned." He pours himself another glass. "That's lanolin and distilled water, with a few other things as well. Angelica, cayenne, feverfew, St. John's wort, American ginseng, hops, rosemary, willow, yucca. No, almost forgot the black cohosh."
The wine smells good, and he could have taken an antidote while I was in the shower, but why bother? If he wanted me dead he could have shot me then, too. It's a good merlot, rich and strong. Must be one hell of a stew. Only after I've taken a sip do I ask, "So you want me to rub on stew ingredients and beer and aspirin?"
Nash chuckles. "Lanolin and water is an old moisturizer, and your skin can use it with that prosthetic. Hops and willow are good for pain and headaches; cayenne heats up the skin and reduces swelling. Ginseng also helps with swelling, and boosts your immune system. Black cohosh, yucca and angelica help prevent arthritis, and angelica reduces muscle spasms. Feverfew earned its name. St. John's wort is good against infection and depression. Any other questions?"
"You left out the rosemary."
Nash just snorts. "Good for your skin, good against bone swelling, which you'll need, and it smells better than the rest, which is reason to add it by itself." He leans over, stirs the pot again. "Give it five minutes and this will be warm enough." Nash reaches into a breadbox, slow enough for me to be sure he's not getting a weapon. Four croissants come out; he slices them open, then pulls cheese over from the stove top.
Two of the croissants make it to me, spread with the cheese. It's creamy and almost sweet and good enough that I could eat Nash's as well as my own. Not gulping my share is a bitch, but when I look up from it, there's a large bowl of stew in front of me and Nash is putting bottles on the table.
"Worcestershire?" I take a careful taste, then reach for the salt. "Thanks."
Nash shrugs, indicates the windows. "They're one-way glass. Don't worry too much about moving around in here during the day, but be careful where you turn on lights." He tastes his stew, adds pepper, starts eating.
It's an oddly comfortable silence with him, passing wine or salt after a glance rather than a spoken request. He gets up and refills both bowls of stew; I hunt through the breadbox until I find a half-loaf of something that looks like it came from a bakery rather than a supermarket and smells of Italian spices. Two slices of it go onto my plate, one onto his, and he puts cheese on all three without making me feel like a cripple.
Nash looks up when he's done eating, checks the clock, and nods. "They're not likely to be back tonight. If they were going to get a rush search warrant, they'd have done it by six, and been back here half an hour later."
Glancing down at my empty bowl helps hide my grin, and keeping my voice even is easier. "You sound like you have practice with New York's finest."
Nash snorts. "Only some of them count. And you knew that."
I shrug, then admit, "I've seen the files on that rash of beheadings back in the '80s." I don't mention that he looks exactly the same. He's too human to be a bounty hunter; they always slip somewhere. Nash is too prickly, too variable in too many human ways, to be a bounty hunter.
He's watching me when I put my spoon down, his eyes darker in the limited light from the kitchen and a lamp in the living room. "You're not police. Too contained and too used to bucking them. FBI once?"
"Not now?" I ask lightly.
"FBI wouldn't need to break in and hide with me." He's watching me, then he nods slowly. "And you've been running. FBI doesn't do that much either. I've asked no name of you, and I'm not asking why the police want you. I am asking if they want you, or if they've been suckered into working for someone else?"
I already mapped out my best exits; now to find out when I need them. "If they caught me, they'd find out they want me. But they're looking on someone else's behalf."
Nash just nods. "So? Would you last out a night in a holding pen?"
My laughter's sharp and bitter. "Tonight? No."
"Idiot." That makes me look at him rather than the room and the exit routes. There's no sympathy there, nothing to soften me into breaking. He looks annoyed with me, as if I've given a wrong answer on an exam. "Your edges are too sharp for anyone to think you have trouble defending yourself. If you're going to let losing that arm make you into a cripple, do it somewhere else. If you want an extra hand getting lotion onto it, and maybe some naproxen now you've eaten, say so."
"Your bedside manner sucks but I'll take both." I stand up and start taking dishes to the sink. "Why do you have this cream on hand?"
"I have two friends with arthritis. New York winters play hell with it." Nash brings over the rest of the plates, dumps soap into the sink and starts water running. "I'll wash these later. How long since you've slept?"
"Last night." Before he can ask, I admit, "Three hours, but sleep."
"And sleep where you were watching your back." It's not a question, so I don't answer him. "Upstairs, then. You'll want rest once your arm's taken care of."
"Meaning I need sleep or that your lotion puts people to sleep? I know naproxen doesn't." He's been helping me, but this is ridiculous.
Nash just chuckles. "Once the naproxen and the cream kick in, you're going to be out of caffeine, out of hunger, and out of pain. Do you really think you're going to stay awake?"
"Have you canceled any plans?" I'm not about to admit he's right.
"Nothing's changed about my habits. I usually handle laundry and housework on Tuesdays." Nash just looks at me. "If you'd rather stay in pain, say so."
I shake my head. "I already said I'd take them. Fine. Upstairs it is. You just don't want me seeing you vacuum."
He grins at me. "I'm not handing you a duster, no. Or letting you roam through my bookshelves. I think you understand me too well already."
I head back up the stairs, and for once I'm not worried about who's at my back. "I might at that. Do you always piss off cops?"
I can hear his footsteps behind me, and I know damn well it's deliberate noise. "What do you think?"
"That you expect them to follow the laws they're enforcing." That gets me one of his chuckles, husky and staccato as a Kalashnikov. That comparison makes me laugh, too. Nash doesn't ask why.
"You'd be right." He waves me into his room, peels the blankets down. The top layer is overlapping Hudson Bay blankets, bright against the walls. Under those is a comforter of varying thickness, down, I think, and white flannel sheets. There's a piecework fur blanket across the foot of the bed, and a couple thick pillows at the head. Nash just grins at me. "I like my comforts. In with you, and peel out of the shirt so I can work."
Part of me wants to argue. I swallow the words and unbutton the flannel shirt one-handed, to remind myself I can. Nash doesn't try to help; maybe he knows I'd hit him if he did. I peel out of boots, sweatpants, and socks, too, and climb under the covers wearing the briefs he loaned me, trying not to shiver. I've been back in the US too long; in Russia, I was used to cold.
Nash lets me see him take the naproxen out of the bottle, passes me two, then his wine glass; he looks... concerned under that impassive expression. I'm not about to tell him the corners of his eyes give him away, and the tilt of his head. He takes the wine back and presses me down onto my belly, firm enough to indicate a direction and no more, then the blankets come up over my back and good shoulder.
"Huh." He sounds skeptical, but I'm not sure what he's having trouble believing. A more contemplative noise warns me before he starts work. His hands aren't particularly gentle with that salve, and it's cold then hot, herbal and spicy all at once. Then his fingers dig in and I barely bite back the sound when he hits the first knot immediately.
The scary part is that he's good at it. Most people aren't. My muscles don't run as they should at the end of the stump, and usually only professionals massage them so they don't ache more from being rubbed into old alignments that don't work any more. I can't afford to be remembered, so I've learned the new alignments myself. Nash gets it immediately. Either he's done this before or he mapped out the new patterns while he was rubbing that cream in. Maybe both.
Not until he pulls the fur up over my legs do I realize I'm shuddering. He shifts something under the stump to support it, maybe the flannel shirt I was wearing, and starts rubbing my back. Not soothing muscles; soothing me. Hard enough to be comforting, long, circular motions that make me want to snap that I'm hardly a child to be petted to sleep. The problem is, it feels good, and the shudders are letting up, and this is as safe as I've felt in years, with this sharp, dangerous man between me and his door.
"Warm enough?" He keeps his voice neutral, almost reserved. It lets me nod, which he takes for the reality: the fur comes up over my back and shoulder and Nash says calmly, "You've just been hurting too long. This'll pass. Try not to fight it."
"Done this before?" My voice is level enough, I think, but I realize my control's shot when I hear myself go on. "You don't look like it."
Nash just keeps rubbing my back. "I haven't asked your name, you know. Don't ask about my past."
Spitting the word out hurts more than my arm but I manage. "Sorry."
"You're hurting." He settles the blankets further into place, goes back to soothing his damn lotion into my arm. The worst part is that it's helping. Cold, then warm, spicy in a way I could never mistake for Oil in my mouth, and the muscles are yielding, easing from knots I hadn't known were under the knots I did know about. It's the relaxation that's so bad. I can tense against pain, but this comfort feels like it may kill me.
Warm, finally, with a t-shirt trapping the lotion against my skin. Unstrung, or unstringing, and is that like unsinging? How do you unsing something? Words can't be unsaid, how do notes fade? Cool air against my side wakes me completely to the realization that the noises I've heard in the background were nothing to worry me, and that Nash has been talking to me while he got ready for bed.
"Go back to sleep, man. No one's come. You're safe 'til morning." He pulls the blankets back up over us, shifts me back into the pocket of warmth, and sprawls along my side. One arm over my bottom ribs, one leg over mine, and I'm still not worried; he's left my arm free. Sharp and dangerous and he's guarding me. A soft chuckle falls between us.
"What's so funny?" I sound sleepy, and try to wake up.
"You're laughing," he says, and that chuckle is still under his words. But I'm under him... and clearly not awake.
"Huh." He's warm, though, and my nerves say I'm safe here. One of my senseis is speaking, clear as the first time he said it, or the last, reminding me that the trick to hitting hard enough is to relax on the swing. My eyes are closed again, and I flex my hands, then relax into the darkness and sleep.
ETA: And, finally, Part 3.