FIC: Family Hour (AB)
This is what happens when a plot bunny sinks its teeth into my brain and cannot be shaken loose. I wrote this today. It's Anita/Micah... let me know what you think; I'm curious if the intended reactions of Anita and Micah come across.
Family Hour
An Anita Blake fanfiction story by mhalachaiswords
Disclaimer: The Anita Blake universe belongs to Laurell K. Hamilton. I'm only borrowing and will return them at the end of the fic.
Summary: Anita is about to meet Micah's family for the very first time... what could possibly go wrong?
Rating: PG for language, implied sensuality.
Word count: 7,171
Spoilers: Contains spoilers for Micah.
Fandom: Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter (master list here)
fanfic100 Prompt: 54 -- Air
I took one last look at my hair, grabbed my lipstick tube off the counter and dashed out of the bathroom. It was almost time for this little disaster to begin.
"Micah?" I called.
"In the bedroom," his voice floated down the hall.
I frowned. I'd heard a lot of things in his voice over the last several months, and I wasn't sure I'd ever heard that level of moderate panic before.
"You almost ready?" I asked, slipping into the bedroom. Micah had his back to me and was staring down at his hands at two very similar blue ties.
"Why is this so hard?" he wondered.
Privately, I wondered if he was talking about the ties or the impending visitors. "Why not that green tie you wore to Larry's wedding?" I asked as I leaned against the doorframe.
"That makes my eyes yellow and that'll just freak everybody out." Micah's shoulders slumped. "I hate ties."
"Then don't wear one," I suggested. "I never understand why guys do. Tonight's going to be complicated enough without you feeling as if you're being strangled to death."
"You're right," Micah said after a minute.
"Of course I am."
"Cute." He threw both ties on the dresser, arms working smoothly under the shirt. The warm burgundy gave his skin back most of the tan he'd lost in recent months, and my breath stuttered as he slowly turned to me. "It's probably best. If I wore a tie voluntarily, I think my dad might have a heart... attack..."
His voice trailed off as he finally saw me. His eyes went wide in his face.
I knew I looked good, but still, I felt a blush creeping up my cheeks. "So," I said, pushing off the doorframe and giving a small spin. "Think I'll pass the parental check tonight?"
Micah caught me mid-spin and pulled me against him. "You look... wow," he whispered against my cheek, holding me tight. His nervous energy spilled over my skin, making me want to comfort him. "Let's call my family and tell them they can't come over, that something came up."
I ran my hands over his back, pressing my body against his. It started as a comforting gesture, but being so close to Micah almost always set off another reaction, and this time was no different. Even though we had fed the ardeur only a few hours before, I wanted him, badly.
However, we'd been working up to tonight for such a long time that I made myself squash those lusty feelings down. "Your parents and sister are going to be here in less than half an hour," I said, trying very hard not to shiver as Micah ran his hands down my back. "We can't cancel. Nothing's come up."
Micah nipped at my neck, severely testing my resolve. "We can work on changing that," he said suggestively, pressing his hips against me to let me know exactly how happy he was to be there.
I tried to protest, but the only thing that came out was a muffled "Mzh" as Micah kissed me, hard and fast and wet. His hands slipped beneath my skirt, running over my pantyhose up to my hip.
Micah broke the kiss as fast as he started it. "You haven't worn pantyhose in forever," he gasped.
I blinked at him, trying to stay upright on suddenly rubbery knees. It was totally unfair that Micah's kiss could bowl me over so completely. What were we talking about? Oh, right, my hosiery. "I'm meeting your folks for the first time," I said, stepping away from him because I couldn't remain that close and not have things escalate. "If I'm wearing this skirt, I can't guarantee not flashing the thigh-highs."
Micah looked at my skirt. "It's longer than what you usually wear."
The skirt stopped a generous inch above my knee. "It's new," I said defensively.
Micah gave me a look. "The shirt's also rather..."
"What?" I demanded.
"I was going to say demure," Micah said. "Anita, you don't have to do this."
"Do what?" I snapped, going over to the mirror on the wall to put on my lipstick.
"Be something you're not because my parents are coming here."
"I'm not!" I stared at myself in the mirror, fixing a tiny lipstick smudge. "I'm not," I repeated. "Maybe I just wanted to wear this."
Micah came over and put his arms around my waist. "They're going to love you," he promised.
I met his gaze in the mirror. He wasn't pressing me, which I think was the reason I spoke. "I don't have a good track record at meeting the families of people I love."
The house was silent while Micah absorbed that. Nathaniel had taken my jeep and gone grocery shopping, and wasn't planning on getting back until after we'd left for the restaurant with Micah's family. Damian was also gone to work for the night, leaving me and Micah very alone.
"You're not talking about Richard, are you?" he finally asked.
I shook my head. "No, Richard's family is nice." I set my lipstick on the dresser and leaned back into his embrace. "You know I was engaged in college, right?"
"I do."
I shrugged a little. "When his mother found out my mom was Mexican, she freaked out, didn't want me darkening her bloodline. So he ditched me."
Micah hugged me tighter, so hard it was difficult to breathe, but I didn't tell him to stop. "I'm sorry that happened to you," he said, easing his grip a fraction. "But I'm not him, Anita. I'm not leaving you, for anything."
I didn't say anything. Until I'd started talking, I hadn't realized how much tonight was worrying me. Intellectually, I knew Micah was in this relationship for the long haul, but part of me, the little girl who kept losing people, was scared he was looking for an excuse to leave.
"I guess you're stuck with me," he finished, pressing a feather-light kiss against my cheek.
I let out a shaky breath. "I guess I can live with that," I said.
"Good."
The doorbell rang. "We should probably get that," I said, not moving.
"Yeah."
"Before they leave."
"I know."
I turned in Micah's arms. "What's up?"
He tried to smile, but it didn't quite reach his eyes. "I just want everything to go well tonight," he said. "It's been a long time since I saw my parents, or Beth."
For a lot of that time, Micah's pard had been under the control of Chimera, a psychopathic pan-were alpha, who'd used pain and torture to an insane degree to control a hell of a lot of people, including Micah. Chimera was dead; I'd killed him, and I had Micah in my life now.
I took Micah's face in my hands and pressed my forehead against his. "It's going to be fine."
The doorbell rang again.
I stepped back and held out my hand to Micah. "Come on. What could go wrong?"
~~~~~~~~
Micah's family was a study in contrasts. His father, Franklin, was large, not so much tall or fat as just physically imposing. His coloring was paler than his dark son. The buzz cut and bearing just screamed 'Authority', which made sense, as Micah told me he was still the sheriff in his little town.
Micah's mother was tinier than I was. I'm only five-three, but Kathleen made me feel positively gargantuan.
Beth, Micah's younger sister, was somewhat taller than Micah, but had her father's coloring. Micah tended after his mother. Looking at Kathleen while Micah took her jacket, I was reminded a bit of a cat in the lines of her face.
"Mom, Dad, Beth, this is Anita," Micah was saying as he put things in the closet. "Anita, this is my family."
"It's nice to meet you," I said, trying to ignore my pounding heart. Kathleen was the closest to me, so I reached out to shake her hand first. She gave me startled eyes. After an embarrassing moment, me with my arm hanging out and not sure how to fix this, she shook my hand. It was a weak grasp, as if she wasn't used to doing this.
"Likewise," Kathleen said.
Well, that certainly wasn't a ringing endorsement. Franklin stepped forward, holding his hand out to me. "Miss Blake."
His palm dwarfed mine, but it was a cop handshake, and I was prepared for it. "It's Ms. Blake, actually," I said. "But please call me Anita."
Franklin's eyebrows went up. "Ms? Micah didn't tell us you were divorced." His eyes went to his son.
"Anita's not divorced, Dad," Micah said quickly, before I could speak.
"Nothing wrong with putting 'Ms.' on the envelope, Dad," Beth said, giving her father a bit of a glare. Oh hell, I so didn't want to be in the middle of a family argument like this. Beth transferred her glance back to me, and smiled. It was Micah's smile, and the friendly familiarity warmed me. "It's nice to meet you."
"And you," I said.
"It's always nice to meet any of Micah's girlfriends," she added.
Okay, maybe not so friendly.
"Why don't we all go into the living room?" Micah suggested, putting his hand on my back. "We can sit and talk until we have to leave for the restaurant?"
"Sounds good," Franklin said, striding ahead of us. "Nice place."
"Thanks, Dad," Micah said, ushering his mother and sister ahead of us. "Would you like something to eat? We've got some appetizers. Or maybe a drink?"
"How about a whiskey?" Franklin said, waiting until Kathleen was seated before sitting next to her on the couch. "Kath, you want something?"
That was what we forgot to get. "We don't have any alcohol in the house," I said. "I don't drink."
For some reason, that seemed to surprise Kathleen. She and her husband exchanged looks. "Teetotaler?" Franklin said. "Good plan, it's bad for the liver. Got any coffee?"
"Yes, coffee would be nice," Kathleen said.
"Yes, we have coffee," I said, trying to not grind my teeth. "Beth?"
"No," she said, perching on the edge of the armchair. "But thanks."
"I'll be right back," I said, turning to the kitchen. Micah tried to catch my hand.
"Why don't I--"
I plastered a smile on my face. "No, you stay. Visit." I walked out of the room before I said something stupid.
The kitchen was so clean it practically gleamed. Nathaniel had engaged in an orgy of housecleaning that morning, and he'd devoted the afternoon to making plates of intricate little appetizers. He'd been going through a gourmet cooking phase recently and hadn't listened to my protests about cooking when he wasn't going to be here to enjoy the food.
I stomped silently through that shiny kitchen, and began to make coffee. I wish I could put my finger on what was bothering me so much about this evening. Everything had the potential of "disaster" written large all over it.
I dragged out making the coffee as long as I could, trying to ignore the muffled voices in the living room, but finally I didn't have anything else to distract me. Taking a deep breath, I picked up the appetizer tray and walking back into the living room.
Franklin broke off whatever he was saying to Micah when I reappeared. "I was just about to say to Micah what a great place he's got here," Franklin said to me. "Nice house, good yard. Is this lox?"
"Yes. And it was actually my place," I said, not sitting down. "I moved in a year before Micah came to St. Louis."
Franklin paused in putting a tiny vegetable concoction onto his mini plate. He seemed to be trying very hard to be putting his thoughts in order. "It must be nice to have someone help with the mortgage."
God, it was like someone had given him a script to hit all my buttons. "Actually, I bought the house outright a few months ago," I said, trying very hard not to get snarky.
Franklin put his plate back onto the table. "That's a lot of money, for a place like this." He was trying to keep on his happy face, but his eyes had grown cool. Cop eyes, looking to find out where you're lying.
Since I wasn't lying, all it did was piss me off. "I have a highly specialized job."
"Doing what?"
"Anita's an animator, Dad," Micah said. "Anita, why don't you sit down?"
The beeping of the coffee machine saved the day. "I'll be right back," I said, keeping eye contact with Franklin for a long moment before going back to the kitchen.
Once in the kitchen, I concentrated on putting the matched cups and saucers onto the coffee tray. I wasn't going to be able to do this, keep my cool with this shit being thrown in my face. I was going to ruin this for Micah and I didn't know how to stop it.
I set down the sugar bowl, and stared at the little white cubes. Desperate times called for desperate measures, and I opened the marks between me and Jean-Claude.
Across town, Jean-Claude felt the brush of my mind. He was standing in front of his closet, trying to decide what to wear, and I could see him as plain as if I was standing there. Ma petite? he asked. Is anything wrong?
No. Yes. Oh hell, I don't know.
Jean-Claude smiled faintly. Tonight is the night you meet Micah's family, he mused. Is there anything I can do for you?
Tell me I'm good for Micah.
Jean-Claude's eyebrows went up. What is this? Of course you are good for Micah, and he is good for you. Why do you ask such things?
I gave a mental shrug. This isn't going well.
Jean-Claude blew me a kiss. You are a wonderful woman who cares for Micah, anyone can see that. If his family has any questions, send them to me, I will set their minds at ease.
God, what a bad idea! I thought, but Jean-Claude was already laughing quietly at me. You're not playing fair.
All is fair in love and war, ma petite. He gave me a mental shove. Go back to your dinner. You have faced the most formidable vampires this world has to offer. I cannot see you letting this phase you.
I think Micah might object if I start waving holy objects at his parents, I grumbled, but I let my vampire fade from my mind. Putting the coffee pot on the tray, I hefted it and carried it back into the living room.
Micah's hand on mine stopped me as I was about to pour a cup, and I let him pull me back onto the loveseat. "Dad, do you want it black?"
"Yes."
Kathleen nibbled on an appetizer. "Anita, these are delicious," she said. "Where do you find the time to work full time and be a homemaker as well?"
I wasn't sure what to do with my face for a moment. "I didn't make the appetizers," I blurted out. Micah and I hadn't discussed what to say about Nathaniel, and I felt as if I was doing something wrong. But screw it. This was my life, and I lived with Micah, not his parents. "Nathaniel does most of the cooking and the housework. But Micah's a good cook, too."
"Nathaniel?" Kathleen repeated. "Who is that?" She looked at Micah.
"He's our roommate," Micah said. "His job is less time-consuming than ours, so he does most of the housework." That wasn't it exactly, but Micah apparently had as much desire to explain Nathaniel's submissive tendencies as I did.
"She doesn't cook, she pays all the bills," Franklin interrupted. "Sounds like you two have swapped gender roles quite nicely."
I felt Micah go extremely still beside me.
"Dad!" Beth exclaimed. "It's not the sixties anymore, you can't--"
"Don't you start with me, young lady, with your women's studies degree and your college learning." Franklin leaned forward. "We came here expecting to find that you had pulled yourself up out of that mess you got into before college, and now we find you're playing wife to someone like... like her?" He actually waved his hand angrily in my direction.
The annoyance at being caught in the middle of the family argument changed in a flash to anger. "Are you calling Micah becoming a wereleopard after he was brutally attacked 'a mess'?" I demanded. "It's not a mess, it's his life!"
"I lost my brother and his son in that attack!" Franklin exclaimed, "To something like him!"
The sudden silence was like someone had sucked all the air out of the room. Micah was very still, folding in on himself, going away. I didn't know what to say. If it had been anyone else under attack, I'd have found the words, but this time, it hurt too much. It wasn't anyone, it was Micah, who I'd loved for such a short yet wonderful time.
Micah recovered first. "I didn't know you felt that way about me being a wereleopard, Dad," he said in a voice so calm I wanted to cry. "But we never talked about it, did we?"
"That's not what I meant!" Franklin sputtered. "I mean you breaking up with Becky, and just leaving town like you did, no job--"
"Franklin." Kathleen laid her hand on her husband's arm, effectively shutting him up. "Micah, your father didn't mean anything."
The waves of disbelief rolled off Micah, but he had something else to say. "Then what kind of person was he referring too? When he was talking about Anita?"
"Micah--"
"No, Anita, I want to know exactly what he's talking about." Just as I had only gotten mad when Franklin was verbally tearing Micah to pieces, Micah was getting angry now that it was about me. "Is this about me not being the man you wanted me to be, or something else? What the hell does it matter who pays the rent or does the cooking?"
"That's not what your father is talking about," Kathleen said, still holding onto Franklin's arm. "It's not about the division of labor in the house, but..." She paused to collect herself, as Beth pushed herself out of her chair and stalked over to the window, removing herself from the situation. "It's about some of the things we've read in the media, about Anita and what sort of lifestyle she leads."
I tended to avoid newspapers, so I had absolutely no idea what Kathleen was talking about, but Micah apparently did. "Mom, how can you come in here and say these things about Anita, about us, without even asking first?" Micah asked. He kept his voice very calm, very even. It was a way he'd learned to deal with pain, years before I met him. He'd stopped using it recently, until today. "What does it matter, anyway, if I'm safe and happy? Anita's a good person, she's the best thing I've ever had in my life."
Franklin was shaking his head. "This isn't about rent, son, it's about the company she keeps." The way people were talking about me like I wasn't even in the room was stating to piss me off. "All those vampires, it's like--"
"Coffin bait," I said softly, cutting Franklin off. He looked at me, startled, his face going red. "I believe the phrase you're looking for is coffin bait." I bit out the hard "T" on the last word. "But what I do in my personal life has absolutely zero bearing on this conversation." I was trying very hard to not start shouting; it was the last thing Micah probably needed, but I was so fucking angry. I got that they were Micah's parents, but no one had a right to come into my home and start insulting me. "There are no secrets between Micah and me, and there never have b-- Oh!"
I jumped up as if I had been electrocuted. Nathaniel's voice was echoing loud in my head through the marks between us. Anita, you have to answer the phone! he thought at me in a panic, then he was gone.
"Anita, what's happening?" Micah asked.
"I don't know!" I exclaimed, running for the phone. It rang for half a second before I snatched it up to my ear. "Blake!"
"Anita, that you?" Zerbrowski's voice came crackly over the line. "I tried calling your cell but Graison said you left it in your car?"
"Why are you calling?" I demanded, tuning out the family strife behind me. It was sad, but I found dealing with the life and death of police work to be so much easier to handle than this emotional shit.
"You remember how we were talking this morning about that string of armed robberies up in Illinois?" he asked.
"Yes..."
"Remember how we were both complaining about how the papers left out so many details that no one would even know what was really going on, and you made that crack that for all we knew, a band of rogue vampires could be terrorizing the countryside?"
"Fuck! Please tell me you are fucking kidding!"
"I wish I was." He grew suddenly serious. "They killed six people at a bank over in Hartford on the Illinois side of the river last night. The FBI think they've skipped into Missouri. A federal judge signed a warrant of execution on the five vampires involved."
"Moving between states puts it into the federal jurisdiction, and that means me," I said.
"It's not that simple--" Zerbrowski was cut off by rising voices on his end of the phone.
"Zerbrowski?" I said. Micah caught my eye, but all I could do was shake my head, when a new voice spoke on the line.
"Marshall Blake? This is Lt. Patterson of the St. Louis Police Department, Violent Crimes. I believe you were talking to Sgt. Zerbrowski about my case?"
"What do you mean, your case?" I demanded.
"I mean, my case. The bank robberies fall specifically into my jurisdiction."
"People are dead at vampire hands, Lieutenant, that makes it the jurisdiction of RPIT and the federal marshals," I said. In the other room, I heard the fax machine go off with little pinging noises. "They've crossed state lines, and there's a federal execution warrant out. I'm not sure how any of this applies to you."
"Marshal Blake, the people of this city are potentially under attack from a band of criminals. They deserve a more expansive task force than a small squad and a federal marshal."
I'd never met this Lt. Patterson, and already I didn't like him one bit. "You know, I forgot that this is an election year," I snapped. "Here's the deal: the second those vampires cross state lines, it became my case. End of story."
"Are you saying that you're refusing the help of this city's police force?" Patterson asked dangerously.
"No, I'm saying that if you come in on this, it's to aid RPIT and myself, not the other way around. How many of your people have ever dealt with a vampire?" The silence on the phone gave me my answer. "That's why RPIT and me are heading this one up, now put Zerbrowski back on the phone!"
The silence on the line made me wonder if he'd hung up on me, when Zerbrowski reappeared. "Sweet Jesus, Anita, what did you say to him?" Zerbrowski demanded. "No, tell me when you get here. I faxed the order of execution to your house, so you're free to bring along any firepower you need."
"That's so sweet of you," I said grumpily. "Where are you?"
"Headquarters. And get your cell phone from your stripper, in case anything comes up." The line went dead.
I slammed the phone down, just as Nathaniel burst in the front door. "Are you okay?" he demanded as soon as he saw me. "Zerbrowski called but didn't say why..." He noticed all the strangers in the room, and ducked his head.
"Everyone, this is Nathaniel," Micah said, coming back into the living room, fax in hand. "Here."
"Thanks," I said distantly, skimming the pages. It was a longer warrant that I was used to, because it listed all the crimes that had been committed by the vampires in question. It was a long list.
"What's going on?" Franklin demanded, getting to his feet. "Is there some sort of problem?"
"You could say that," I said, folding the warrant up. "I'm sorry about this, but I have to go."
"Anita--" Micah started.
"I have to change," I interrupted and headed to the bedroom as quickly as I could. My mind was racing on what I had to do, what might lie ahead, and I didn't hear Micah at first when he followed me into the bedroom.
"Anita?"
"What?" I asked, already jerking my shirt over my head. "I haven't got time, Micah, I have to change and get moving." Stepping out of dress clothes, including pantyhose, wasn't exactly fast or graceful, but I didn't rip anything as I stripped. "Did Nathaniel clean my sports bra?"
"Yes." Micah hesitated while I got into the bra, then into the jeans and a turtleneck that was the closest at hand. "Do you need anything?"
"A time machine to go back and stop those vampires from killing six bank employees yesterday?" I fought my way into my shoulder holster.
"I'm trying to help."
The soft, wounded edge in Micah's words made me stop my battle with my weapon accessories. There was a look in his green cat's eyes, something I couldn't decipher, and didn't have time to figure out.
"I know," I said quietly, before going back to dressing. "I wish I could deal with this better, but I so didn't plan this. I have got to move before that idiot in Violent Crimes decided to send in cops that have no training at all to find those vamps." I had to sit down to pull on some socks. "I'm sorry this happened tonight."
Micah let out a bitter laugh, startling me into looking up. "God, why are you sorry? You didn't start this."
I reached behind me to pull the Browning out of its holster on the headboard, and slipped it into my shoulder rig. "Micah, I--"
"You have to go," he said, pulling back on his outburst. "We'll deal with this later. Is there anything I can do?"
We'd deal with this later. That was becoming some kind of refrain in my life. "I need to get the ammo and the guns to the car."
"I'll get the ammunition," Micah said immediately. "What do you need?"
I rattled off the list of ammunition that I'd need to face down a quintet of murderous vampires, and Micah took off like a shot toward the basement where we kept the ammunition safe. I paused long enough to pull on my Nikes, then ran past the living room to the stairs. I'd installed a gun safe in an unused upstairs bedroom, which made sense from a safety standpoint, but was a real bitch in dragging guns to the car.
I'd soon loaded the cases containing my shotgun, the Firestar, the rifle and my new revolver into the backseat of my jeep, and had to make one last run into the house for the rest of my vampire kit, which held the holy water. When I passed the living room with my white sports bag slung over my shoulder, I paused. Everyone was there, Micah looking as if he'd broken off in an argument with someone. He spotted me and held out the ammunition case to me.
"Thanks," I said, taking it from him. "I'll be back when I can."
"Be careful," he said.
I gave him a tiny smile. "Sure thing." Then I looked past him to his family on the far side of the room. "It was good to have met you all," I said, not entirely truthful.
Franklin was still looking embarrassed, and Beth had a similar expression on her face, which I thought was odd because she hadn't said anything, but Kathleen stared at me as if I was some fascinating zoo creature.
Time was ticking. I gave Micah a quick hug and a kiss, and even though it was short, I put every fiber of my being into the kiss. Just in case something happened, and it was the last time I got to kiss Micah goodbye. I'd been doing a lot of that recently.
He smiled at me, putting on his brave face so I wouldn't be worried about him. "See you in a while."
I nodded, then quickly turned to the door. Nathaniel, hovering by the door, caught my attention. Without a word, I went over to him and gave him a hug and a kiss, too. Screw the Callahans; they'd pretty much called me a whore to my face, and I really didn't give a damn what they thought about me.
Then I was out the door and into my car, and I put the aborted family dinner to the back of my mind. I had more dangerous things to worry about than Micah's parents and their talk that I wasn't good enough for their son.
~~~
The sky was still dark but held a faint taste of dawn as I dragged myself toward the house, hands full of gun cases. I felt like shit and wanted to crawl into bed and die, but I had so much to do first. Put the guns away, wash the dirt off, untie my shoes... the complications were endless.
I managed to unlock the door without dropping anything, a good step. Kicking the door closed took more concentration that I'd have liked, and I ended up putting my handfuls on the hall floor.
Maybe I could just leave everything here. Or maybe fall over on the spot. Instead, I staggered into the living room and was met with a wonderful sight. Micah and Nathaniel were curled up together on the couch, the television on low. Micah blinked up at me, as if I'd just woken him. A huge relieved smile broke over his face.
"Nathaniel," Micah murmured, shaking the younger man's shoulder. "She's back."
Nathaniel woke with a start, sitting halfway up before he had even opened his eyes. "Is she here?" he asked, staring at me for a moment before he recognized me. "Oh."
"Yeah, 'oh'." I tried to smile, but it hurt too much. I shrugged out of my jacket on the way to the couch, and slipped down between my guys.
"What happened?" Micah asked, putting his arm around me as Nathaniel came up on my other side. "Are you hurt badly?"
"No," I mumbled, trying to stifle a yawn. "You know the old saying about getting a black eye by walking into a door?"
"You walked into a door?" Nathaniel asked.
"Less walk, more flung." I sighed and settled against Micah. "It's not too bad. We got the bad guys, warrants were executed." I hugged Micah tight, wishing I didn't feel so cold inside. "I executed five vampires tonight and I don't feel anything."
"You did what you had to do," Micah told me, smoothing my hair back from my face. "Didn't you?"
"Yeah. That's what Jean-Claude said when I talked to him, too." Actually, Jean-Claude had been a lot more vehement, something about the natural order of things and protecting people, but that didn't matter right now. "It's just sometimes I wonder what I'm becoming."
Behind me, Nathaniel cuddled against my back, his body warm. "Maybe you need to feed the ardeur."
"Great." I sat up slowly. "I have to go put the guns away, then shower, and--"
"Let us put the guns and everything away, you go and get cleaned up," Micah said, interrupting me. "Then we can all go to bed."
"I didn't mean for you to stay up," I said, standing stiffly. "Did you go out for dinner with your family?"
Micah growled, an actual growl. "No."
"They're coming back over for lunch tomorrow," Nathaniel added. "Micah and them had a long talk before they left tonight."
I looked at Micah in the half-light from the television. "Talk about anything important?"
"Nothing that we need to discuss right now," he said. "Go on. We'll get the guns."
It wasn't exactly a ringing endorsement of familial harmony, but I figured I could deal with it when I wasn't in danger of falling asleep standing up.
The shower woke me up a little bit as I scrubbed dirt off my skin. No, it wasn't from wrestling with vampires, I'd just been standing on a rickety ledge that collapsed and dumped me into a flower bed. Oh well. I didn't go into this job for the glamour.
When I was sparkly clean, I wrapped a towel around my body and walked down the hall to the bedroom. Micah and Nathaniel were already in bed, waiting for me. I paused in the doorway, wondering if I had ever seen a more welcome sight than the two of them. I doubted it.
Micah held out his hand to me. "Come on, you'll get cold."
I let the towel drop and climbed into the bed over Micah. I snuggled down between them, all of us naked, and slowly the lycanthropic heat from their bodies began to warm me in ways the hot water could not.
Nathaniel gently kissed my shoulder. "Who's going to feed the ardeur?" he asked.
"I will," Micah said.
I frowned at him. "You fed it this afternoon."
"And I'll feed it again. You can feed off me twice in a row, just not often." He pushed my hair back from my face, fingers avoiding the bruising around my eye. "Please."
There was something fierce in his face, something needy and important. I didn't understand, but I had made a vow a few months ago, not to pick at emotional matters. If Micah needed to do this, that was fine with me. He'd tell me what it was about when he was ready.
He was careful and gentle, and pushed me to such an intense climax that I was left gasping underneath him after he collapsed on me. It hadn't ever been quite like that between us, not so much. When he pulled out and curled up behind me, I wasn't quite sure what to think.
Nathaniel spooned against me, sighing with contentment as I put my arm around him to hold him to me while we slept. I was glad Nathaniel was there, as close as always, but somehow, Micah seemed a million miles away.
~~~~~~~~~~
When I woke up the next morning, the sun was shining directly onto the bed. "Who left the drapes open?" I mumbled, burying my face in the pillow.
"I just opened them," Micah said from the window. He'd been looking out at the backyard, but now he turned to me. "Are you still up for lunch?"
I sighed. So much for lying around in bed. I rolled onto my side and laid my head on Nathaniel's shoulder. "Only if you want to. They're your family, Micah, not mine." And I'm not the one they called a failure and a monster, I mentally added.
"My dad wasn't very nice to you last night," Micah reminded me.
Underneath me, I felt Nathaniel tense, but he kept pretending he was asleep. "I think we all said things that weren't very nice."
"Yeah." Micah pushed his hair out of his face. "I'm going to go call them, then." He walked out of the room without another word.
"Is there anything wrong with the phone by the bed?" I asked Nathaniel in a soft voice.
"No," he replied, opening his eyes.
"'Kay."
The thin knot of worry in my stomach was growing. I know what Micah had said, about never leaving me, but that was before his family came and things got so messed up.
Nathaniel kissed the top of my head. "The bruising on your face is gone," he noted. "Is there anything I can do for you?"
I put my hand flat on his bare chest, feeling his heart beating. "No."
Unlike any other man in my life, Nathaniel didn't argue with me. "He was really mad at his parents last night," Nathaniel said. "I've never seen him so mad."
"What do you mean?" I asked, propping myself up on my elbow.
"Not loud mad, but quiet mad. Like he got with Caleb that one time." Nathaniel couldn't hold back the shiver at the remembrance. "I was in the kitchen and didn't hear much, but it was enough."
"Why was he mad at his parents?" I asked stupidly.
Nathaniel wrapped a curl of my hair around his finger, giving it all his attention. "Because of what they said about you, I think."
"He didn't have to do that."
"Yes he did." Nathaniel tugged lightly on my hair, pulling it straight, then letting it go. "It was a thing he had to do."
I shifted away from Nathaniel a fraction and laid flat on my stomach, arms crossed under my head. "Did he say anything about what they said about him?"
"I don't think so," Nathaniel said. "What did they say about him?"
"That I was a monster and pretty much useless as a man," Micah's voice came from the doorway. Nathaniel sat up in an instant, cowering against me. "Got anything else you'd like to tell her?"
"Hey!" I exclaimed, rolling up onto my knees. "He was filling me in, it's not some kind of attack!"
"How would you like it if he started telling me all your secrets?"
"What the hell is wrong with you?" I demanded. "I'm on your side!"
Micah crossed his arms across his chest, glowering at the carpet. After a minute, he said, "Nathaniel, can you leave for a few minutes?"
"I'll go make coffee," Nathaniel said, getting up. He carefully ducked around Micah and out into the hall.
When Nathaniel was gone, I sat back on the bed and pulled the sheet up over my knees. "Do you want to talk about it?" I asked.
"No." Micah rubbed his hand over his face. "No, I really don't."
"Were you expecting that, last night?" I asked. He may not want to talk about it, but I needed to deal with this stuff, and soon, if only to appease the worries that had been building in my head.
"What, for my parents to call me a freak?"
"They didn't call you a freak," I reminded him, although for the life of me I wasn't sure why I was trying to defend his father.
"Close enough." Micah slowly padded across the carpet on bare feet and slumped down on the side of the bed. "And I'm not even sure if he's wrong."
"Of course he's wrong!" I exclaimed. I maneuvered around on the bed until I could spoon against him, putting my legs on either side of his hips and pressing my chest against his back. "He's wrong in every single way."
Micah sighed, but he didn't pull away from me. "Last night really didn't go like I planned," he confessed. I hugged him tight. "I wanted to show them that I'd done some really good things, with my job and with you and this place, that I had this amazing life. Then the first thing my dad does is freak out because you're paying for everything, like I'm not good enough."
"That's crazy," I said against the side of his neck. "Ask anyone in the pard, hell, ask any lycanthrope in this city. You've done something no one else could, with the Furry Coalition and us all working together. You're helping people." I kissed his neck, wrapping myself in the smell of his skin. "You're helping me."
"I am?"
I hesitated, then nodded. "This is going to sound corny, and if you tell anyone, I'll never talk to you again, but I think you're making me be a better person." I sat back as Micah twisted around to look at me. "It's like, when I'm with you, I'm home."
Micah stared at me for a very long time. "That's not corny," he finally said. "That's how I feel, too."
From the kitchen came the sound of pots crashing into each other, then a muffled "Oops." Micah's face crinkled into laughter, and I followed. It wasn't really funny, but it let the tension go, easing out of me. I hadn't realized how tense I had been until it was gone.
"Do you think we should go rescue him?" I asked when I'd caught my breath.
"Yes." Micah pulled me to my feet and caught me up in a hug. "Yes."
I had a feeling that Micah was responding to a different question, something I hadn't asked, but I was too happy to care.
"I told my family that if they couldn't understand that you were a good person, then they shouldn't come back," Micah said abruptly.
"You what?"
"You heard me. What they said about you last night was just..." he searched for the word.
"Rude?"
"At the very least it was rude," Micah said. "I can't believe they did that."
I shrugged, but Micah caught my chin and made me look into his eyes.
"None of that," he said. "You said I help people, what about you? You ran out there last night to face off against the bad guys, like you always do. My dad thought that was pretty brave."
I didn't know what to say to that.
"He's seen a lot of cops in his life, and he knows what it's like, going out into danger." The corner of Micah's mouth twitched. "Besides, he liked that 'election year' comment."
I rolled my eyes. "At least he didn't have to deal with Patterson. He's the one who dumped Zerbrowski on RPIT, you know that? What an ass. I really wish Dolph was back in town, because he wouldn't have taken any shit from Pat--"
"Shh," Micah interrupted me. "I get that Patterson's an ass. He's not going to be here for lunch." Micah gave me some serious eye contact. "Are you going to be okay with my family here?"
"I guess." It was important to Micah, I knew, so I told myself that I'd suck it up and deal with his family, for his sake. "But what about Nathaniel?"
"I explained to them about Nathaniel."
My eyebrows went up. "Explained about Nathaniel how?"
"It's a long story," Micah said. "Come on. Get dressed, and we'll go help Nathaniel with lunch."
I held back. "Did this little story in any way include the phrase 'menage a trois'?"
"Of course not." Micah waited until I was at the closet to say, "My parents don't speak French."
the end
Family Hour
An Anita Blake fanfiction story by mhalachaiswords
Disclaimer: The Anita Blake universe belongs to Laurell K. Hamilton. I'm only borrowing and will return them at the end of the fic.
Summary: Anita is about to meet Micah's family for the very first time... what could possibly go wrong?
Rating: PG for language, implied sensuality.
Word count: 7,171
Spoilers: Contains spoilers for Micah.
Fandom: Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter (master list here)
fanfic100 Prompt: 54 -- Air
I took one last look at my hair, grabbed my lipstick tube off the counter and dashed out of the bathroom. It was almost time for this little disaster to begin.
"Micah?" I called.
"In the bedroom," his voice floated down the hall.
I frowned. I'd heard a lot of things in his voice over the last several months, and I wasn't sure I'd ever heard that level of moderate panic before.
"You almost ready?" I asked, slipping into the bedroom. Micah had his back to me and was staring down at his hands at two very similar blue ties.
"Why is this so hard?" he wondered.
Privately, I wondered if he was talking about the ties or the impending visitors. "Why not that green tie you wore to Larry's wedding?" I asked as I leaned against the doorframe.
"That makes my eyes yellow and that'll just freak everybody out." Micah's shoulders slumped. "I hate ties."
"Then don't wear one," I suggested. "I never understand why guys do. Tonight's going to be complicated enough without you feeling as if you're being strangled to death."
"You're right," Micah said after a minute.
"Of course I am."
"Cute." He threw both ties on the dresser, arms working smoothly under the shirt. The warm burgundy gave his skin back most of the tan he'd lost in recent months, and my breath stuttered as he slowly turned to me. "It's probably best. If I wore a tie voluntarily, I think my dad might have a heart... attack..."
His voice trailed off as he finally saw me. His eyes went wide in his face.
I knew I looked good, but still, I felt a blush creeping up my cheeks. "So," I said, pushing off the doorframe and giving a small spin. "Think I'll pass the parental check tonight?"
Micah caught me mid-spin and pulled me against him. "You look... wow," he whispered against my cheek, holding me tight. His nervous energy spilled over my skin, making me want to comfort him. "Let's call my family and tell them they can't come over, that something came up."
I ran my hands over his back, pressing my body against his. It started as a comforting gesture, but being so close to Micah almost always set off another reaction, and this time was no different. Even though we had fed the ardeur only a few hours before, I wanted him, badly.
However, we'd been working up to tonight for such a long time that I made myself squash those lusty feelings down. "Your parents and sister are going to be here in less than half an hour," I said, trying very hard not to shiver as Micah ran his hands down my back. "We can't cancel. Nothing's come up."
Micah nipped at my neck, severely testing my resolve. "We can work on changing that," he said suggestively, pressing his hips against me to let me know exactly how happy he was to be there.
I tried to protest, but the only thing that came out was a muffled "Mzh" as Micah kissed me, hard and fast and wet. His hands slipped beneath my skirt, running over my pantyhose up to my hip.
Micah broke the kiss as fast as he started it. "You haven't worn pantyhose in forever," he gasped.
I blinked at him, trying to stay upright on suddenly rubbery knees. It was totally unfair that Micah's kiss could bowl me over so completely. What were we talking about? Oh, right, my hosiery. "I'm meeting your folks for the first time," I said, stepping away from him because I couldn't remain that close and not have things escalate. "If I'm wearing this skirt, I can't guarantee not flashing the thigh-highs."
Micah looked at my skirt. "It's longer than what you usually wear."
The skirt stopped a generous inch above my knee. "It's new," I said defensively.
Micah gave me a look. "The shirt's also rather..."
"What?" I demanded.
"I was going to say demure," Micah said. "Anita, you don't have to do this."
"Do what?" I snapped, going over to the mirror on the wall to put on my lipstick.
"Be something you're not because my parents are coming here."
"I'm not!" I stared at myself in the mirror, fixing a tiny lipstick smudge. "I'm not," I repeated. "Maybe I just wanted to wear this."
Micah came over and put his arms around my waist. "They're going to love you," he promised.
I met his gaze in the mirror. He wasn't pressing me, which I think was the reason I spoke. "I don't have a good track record at meeting the families of people I love."
The house was silent while Micah absorbed that. Nathaniel had taken my jeep and gone grocery shopping, and wasn't planning on getting back until after we'd left for the restaurant with Micah's family. Damian was also gone to work for the night, leaving me and Micah very alone.
"You're not talking about Richard, are you?" he finally asked.
I shook my head. "No, Richard's family is nice." I set my lipstick on the dresser and leaned back into his embrace. "You know I was engaged in college, right?"
"I do."
I shrugged a little. "When his mother found out my mom was Mexican, she freaked out, didn't want me darkening her bloodline. So he ditched me."
Micah hugged me tighter, so hard it was difficult to breathe, but I didn't tell him to stop. "I'm sorry that happened to you," he said, easing his grip a fraction. "But I'm not him, Anita. I'm not leaving you, for anything."
I didn't say anything. Until I'd started talking, I hadn't realized how much tonight was worrying me. Intellectually, I knew Micah was in this relationship for the long haul, but part of me, the little girl who kept losing people, was scared he was looking for an excuse to leave.
"I guess you're stuck with me," he finished, pressing a feather-light kiss against my cheek.
I let out a shaky breath. "I guess I can live with that," I said.
"Good."
The doorbell rang. "We should probably get that," I said, not moving.
"Yeah."
"Before they leave."
"I know."
I turned in Micah's arms. "What's up?"
He tried to smile, but it didn't quite reach his eyes. "I just want everything to go well tonight," he said. "It's been a long time since I saw my parents, or Beth."
For a lot of that time, Micah's pard had been under the control of Chimera, a psychopathic pan-were alpha, who'd used pain and torture to an insane degree to control a hell of a lot of people, including Micah. Chimera was dead; I'd killed him, and I had Micah in my life now.
I took Micah's face in my hands and pressed my forehead against his. "It's going to be fine."
The doorbell rang again.
I stepped back and held out my hand to Micah. "Come on. What could go wrong?"
~~~~~~~~
Micah's family was a study in contrasts. His father, Franklin, was large, not so much tall or fat as just physically imposing. His coloring was paler than his dark son. The buzz cut and bearing just screamed 'Authority', which made sense, as Micah told me he was still the sheriff in his little town.
Micah's mother was tinier than I was. I'm only five-three, but Kathleen made me feel positively gargantuan.
Beth, Micah's younger sister, was somewhat taller than Micah, but had her father's coloring. Micah tended after his mother. Looking at Kathleen while Micah took her jacket, I was reminded a bit of a cat in the lines of her face.
"Mom, Dad, Beth, this is Anita," Micah was saying as he put things in the closet. "Anita, this is my family."
"It's nice to meet you," I said, trying to ignore my pounding heart. Kathleen was the closest to me, so I reached out to shake her hand first. She gave me startled eyes. After an embarrassing moment, me with my arm hanging out and not sure how to fix this, she shook my hand. It was a weak grasp, as if she wasn't used to doing this.
"Likewise," Kathleen said.
Well, that certainly wasn't a ringing endorsement. Franklin stepped forward, holding his hand out to me. "Miss Blake."
His palm dwarfed mine, but it was a cop handshake, and I was prepared for it. "It's Ms. Blake, actually," I said. "But please call me Anita."
Franklin's eyebrows went up. "Ms? Micah didn't tell us you were divorced." His eyes went to his son.
"Anita's not divorced, Dad," Micah said quickly, before I could speak.
"Nothing wrong with putting 'Ms.' on the envelope, Dad," Beth said, giving her father a bit of a glare. Oh hell, I so didn't want to be in the middle of a family argument like this. Beth transferred her glance back to me, and smiled. It was Micah's smile, and the friendly familiarity warmed me. "It's nice to meet you."
"And you," I said.
"It's always nice to meet any of Micah's girlfriends," she added.
Okay, maybe not so friendly.
"Why don't we all go into the living room?" Micah suggested, putting his hand on my back. "We can sit and talk until we have to leave for the restaurant?"
"Sounds good," Franklin said, striding ahead of us. "Nice place."
"Thanks, Dad," Micah said, ushering his mother and sister ahead of us. "Would you like something to eat? We've got some appetizers. Or maybe a drink?"
"How about a whiskey?" Franklin said, waiting until Kathleen was seated before sitting next to her on the couch. "Kath, you want something?"
That was what we forgot to get. "We don't have any alcohol in the house," I said. "I don't drink."
For some reason, that seemed to surprise Kathleen. She and her husband exchanged looks. "Teetotaler?" Franklin said. "Good plan, it's bad for the liver. Got any coffee?"
"Yes, coffee would be nice," Kathleen said.
"Yes, we have coffee," I said, trying to not grind my teeth. "Beth?"
"No," she said, perching on the edge of the armchair. "But thanks."
"I'll be right back," I said, turning to the kitchen. Micah tried to catch my hand.
"Why don't I--"
I plastered a smile on my face. "No, you stay. Visit." I walked out of the room before I said something stupid.
The kitchen was so clean it practically gleamed. Nathaniel had engaged in an orgy of housecleaning that morning, and he'd devoted the afternoon to making plates of intricate little appetizers. He'd been going through a gourmet cooking phase recently and hadn't listened to my protests about cooking when he wasn't going to be here to enjoy the food.
I stomped silently through that shiny kitchen, and began to make coffee. I wish I could put my finger on what was bothering me so much about this evening. Everything had the potential of "disaster" written large all over it.
I dragged out making the coffee as long as I could, trying to ignore the muffled voices in the living room, but finally I didn't have anything else to distract me. Taking a deep breath, I picked up the appetizer tray and walking back into the living room.
Franklin broke off whatever he was saying to Micah when I reappeared. "I was just about to say to Micah what a great place he's got here," Franklin said to me. "Nice house, good yard. Is this lox?"
"Yes. And it was actually my place," I said, not sitting down. "I moved in a year before Micah came to St. Louis."
Franklin paused in putting a tiny vegetable concoction onto his mini plate. He seemed to be trying very hard to be putting his thoughts in order. "It must be nice to have someone help with the mortgage."
God, it was like someone had given him a script to hit all my buttons. "Actually, I bought the house outright a few months ago," I said, trying very hard not to get snarky.
Franklin put his plate back onto the table. "That's a lot of money, for a place like this." He was trying to keep on his happy face, but his eyes had grown cool. Cop eyes, looking to find out where you're lying.
Since I wasn't lying, all it did was piss me off. "I have a highly specialized job."
"Doing what?"
"Anita's an animator, Dad," Micah said. "Anita, why don't you sit down?"
The beeping of the coffee machine saved the day. "I'll be right back," I said, keeping eye contact with Franklin for a long moment before going back to the kitchen.
Once in the kitchen, I concentrated on putting the matched cups and saucers onto the coffee tray. I wasn't going to be able to do this, keep my cool with this shit being thrown in my face. I was going to ruin this for Micah and I didn't know how to stop it.
I set down the sugar bowl, and stared at the little white cubes. Desperate times called for desperate measures, and I opened the marks between me and Jean-Claude.
Across town, Jean-Claude felt the brush of my mind. He was standing in front of his closet, trying to decide what to wear, and I could see him as plain as if I was standing there. Ma petite? he asked. Is anything wrong?
No. Yes. Oh hell, I don't know.
Jean-Claude smiled faintly. Tonight is the night you meet Micah's family, he mused. Is there anything I can do for you?
Tell me I'm good for Micah.
Jean-Claude's eyebrows went up. What is this? Of course you are good for Micah, and he is good for you. Why do you ask such things?
I gave a mental shrug. This isn't going well.
Jean-Claude blew me a kiss. You are a wonderful woman who cares for Micah, anyone can see that. If his family has any questions, send them to me, I will set their minds at ease.
God, what a bad idea! I thought, but Jean-Claude was already laughing quietly at me. You're not playing fair.
All is fair in love and war, ma petite. He gave me a mental shove. Go back to your dinner. You have faced the most formidable vampires this world has to offer. I cannot see you letting this phase you.
I think Micah might object if I start waving holy objects at his parents, I grumbled, but I let my vampire fade from my mind. Putting the coffee pot on the tray, I hefted it and carried it back into the living room.
Micah's hand on mine stopped me as I was about to pour a cup, and I let him pull me back onto the loveseat. "Dad, do you want it black?"
"Yes."
Kathleen nibbled on an appetizer. "Anita, these are delicious," she said. "Where do you find the time to work full time and be a homemaker as well?"
I wasn't sure what to do with my face for a moment. "I didn't make the appetizers," I blurted out. Micah and I hadn't discussed what to say about Nathaniel, and I felt as if I was doing something wrong. But screw it. This was my life, and I lived with Micah, not his parents. "Nathaniel does most of the cooking and the housework. But Micah's a good cook, too."
"Nathaniel?" Kathleen repeated. "Who is that?" She looked at Micah.
"He's our roommate," Micah said. "His job is less time-consuming than ours, so he does most of the housework." That wasn't it exactly, but Micah apparently had as much desire to explain Nathaniel's submissive tendencies as I did.
"She doesn't cook, she pays all the bills," Franklin interrupted. "Sounds like you two have swapped gender roles quite nicely."
I felt Micah go extremely still beside me.
"Dad!" Beth exclaimed. "It's not the sixties anymore, you can't--"
"Don't you start with me, young lady, with your women's studies degree and your college learning." Franklin leaned forward. "We came here expecting to find that you had pulled yourself up out of that mess you got into before college, and now we find you're playing wife to someone like... like her?" He actually waved his hand angrily in my direction.
The annoyance at being caught in the middle of the family argument changed in a flash to anger. "Are you calling Micah becoming a wereleopard after he was brutally attacked 'a mess'?" I demanded. "It's not a mess, it's his life!"
"I lost my brother and his son in that attack!" Franklin exclaimed, "To something like him!"
The sudden silence was like someone had sucked all the air out of the room. Micah was very still, folding in on himself, going away. I didn't know what to say. If it had been anyone else under attack, I'd have found the words, but this time, it hurt too much. It wasn't anyone, it was Micah, who I'd loved for such a short yet wonderful time.
Micah recovered first. "I didn't know you felt that way about me being a wereleopard, Dad," he said in a voice so calm I wanted to cry. "But we never talked about it, did we?"
"That's not what I meant!" Franklin sputtered. "I mean you breaking up with Becky, and just leaving town like you did, no job--"
"Franklin." Kathleen laid her hand on her husband's arm, effectively shutting him up. "Micah, your father didn't mean anything."
The waves of disbelief rolled off Micah, but he had something else to say. "Then what kind of person was he referring too? When he was talking about Anita?"
"Micah--"
"No, Anita, I want to know exactly what he's talking about." Just as I had only gotten mad when Franklin was verbally tearing Micah to pieces, Micah was getting angry now that it was about me. "Is this about me not being the man you wanted me to be, or something else? What the hell does it matter who pays the rent or does the cooking?"
"That's not what your father is talking about," Kathleen said, still holding onto Franklin's arm. "It's not about the division of labor in the house, but..." She paused to collect herself, as Beth pushed herself out of her chair and stalked over to the window, removing herself from the situation. "It's about some of the things we've read in the media, about Anita and what sort of lifestyle she leads."
I tended to avoid newspapers, so I had absolutely no idea what Kathleen was talking about, but Micah apparently did. "Mom, how can you come in here and say these things about Anita, about us, without even asking first?" Micah asked. He kept his voice very calm, very even. It was a way he'd learned to deal with pain, years before I met him. He'd stopped using it recently, until today. "What does it matter, anyway, if I'm safe and happy? Anita's a good person, she's the best thing I've ever had in my life."
Franklin was shaking his head. "This isn't about rent, son, it's about the company she keeps." The way people were talking about me like I wasn't even in the room was stating to piss me off. "All those vampires, it's like--"
"Coffin bait," I said softly, cutting Franklin off. He looked at me, startled, his face going red. "I believe the phrase you're looking for is coffin bait." I bit out the hard "T" on the last word. "But what I do in my personal life has absolutely zero bearing on this conversation." I was trying very hard to not start shouting; it was the last thing Micah probably needed, but I was so fucking angry. I got that they were Micah's parents, but no one had a right to come into my home and start insulting me. "There are no secrets between Micah and me, and there never have b-- Oh!"
I jumped up as if I had been electrocuted. Nathaniel's voice was echoing loud in my head through the marks between us. Anita, you have to answer the phone! he thought at me in a panic, then he was gone.
"Anita, what's happening?" Micah asked.
"I don't know!" I exclaimed, running for the phone. It rang for half a second before I snatched it up to my ear. "Blake!"
"Anita, that you?" Zerbrowski's voice came crackly over the line. "I tried calling your cell but Graison said you left it in your car?"
"Why are you calling?" I demanded, tuning out the family strife behind me. It was sad, but I found dealing with the life and death of police work to be so much easier to handle than this emotional shit.
"You remember how we were talking this morning about that string of armed robberies up in Illinois?" he asked.
"Yes..."
"Remember how we were both complaining about how the papers left out so many details that no one would even know what was really going on, and you made that crack that for all we knew, a band of rogue vampires could be terrorizing the countryside?"
"Fuck! Please tell me you are fucking kidding!"
"I wish I was." He grew suddenly serious. "They killed six people at a bank over in Hartford on the Illinois side of the river last night. The FBI think they've skipped into Missouri. A federal judge signed a warrant of execution on the five vampires involved."
"Moving between states puts it into the federal jurisdiction, and that means me," I said.
"It's not that simple--" Zerbrowski was cut off by rising voices on his end of the phone.
"Zerbrowski?" I said. Micah caught my eye, but all I could do was shake my head, when a new voice spoke on the line.
"Marshall Blake? This is Lt. Patterson of the St. Louis Police Department, Violent Crimes. I believe you were talking to Sgt. Zerbrowski about my case?"
"What do you mean, your case?" I demanded.
"I mean, my case. The bank robberies fall specifically into my jurisdiction."
"People are dead at vampire hands, Lieutenant, that makes it the jurisdiction of RPIT and the federal marshals," I said. In the other room, I heard the fax machine go off with little pinging noises. "They've crossed state lines, and there's a federal execution warrant out. I'm not sure how any of this applies to you."
"Marshal Blake, the people of this city are potentially under attack from a band of criminals. They deserve a more expansive task force than a small squad and a federal marshal."
I'd never met this Lt. Patterson, and already I didn't like him one bit. "You know, I forgot that this is an election year," I snapped. "Here's the deal: the second those vampires cross state lines, it became my case. End of story."
"Are you saying that you're refusing the help of this city's police force?" Patterson asked dangerously.
"No, I'm saying that if you come in on this, it's to aid RPIT and myself, not the other way around. How many of your people have ever dealt with a vampire?" The silence on the phone gave me my answer. "That's why RPIT and me are heading this one up, now put Zerbrowski back on the phone!"
The silence on the line made me wonder if he'd hung up on me, when Zerbrowski reappeared. "Sweet Jesus, Anita, what did you say to him?" Zerbrowski demanded. "No, tell me when you get here. I faxed the order of execution to your house, so you're free to bring along any firepower you need."
"That's so sweet of you," I said grumpily. "Where are you?"
"Headquarters. And get your cell phone from your stripper, in case anything comes up." The line went dead.
I slammed the phone down, just as Nathaniel burst in the front door. "Are you okay?" he demanded as soon as he saw me. "Zerbrowski called but didn't say why..." He noticed all the strangers in the room, and ducked his head.
"Everyone, this is Nathaniel," Micah said, coming back into the living room, fax in hand. "Here."
"Thanks," I said distantly, skimming the pages. It was a longer warrant that I was used to, because it listed all the crimes that had been committed by the vampires in question. It was a long list.
"What's going on?" Franklin demanded, getting to his feet. "Is there some sort of problem?"
"You could say that," I said, folding the warrant up. "I'm sorry about this, but I have to go."
"Anita--" Micah started.
"I have to change," I interrupted and headed to the bedroom as quickly as I could. My mind was racing on what I had to do, what might lie ahead, and I didn't hear Micah at first when he followed me into the bedroom.
"Anita?"
"What?" I asked, already jerking my shirt over my head. "I haven't got time, Micah, I have to change and get moving." Stepping out of dress clothes, including pantyhose, wasn't exactly fast or graceful, but I didn't rip anything as I stripped. "Did Nathaniel clean my sports bra?"
"Yes." Micah hesitated while I got into the bra, then into the jeans and a turtleneck that was the closest at hand. "Do you need anything?"
"A time machine to go back and stop those vampires from killing six bank employees yesterday?" I fought my way into my shoulder holster.
"I'm trying to help."
The soft, wounded edge in Micah's words made me stop my battle with my weapon accessories. There was a look in his green cat's eyes, something I couldn't decipher, and didn't have time to figure out.
"I know," I said quietly, before going back to dressing. "I wish I could deal with this better, but I so didn't plan this. I have got to move before that idiot in Violent Crimes decided to send in cops that have no training at all to find those vamps." I had to sit down to pull on some socks. "I'm sorry this happened tonight."
Micah let out a bitter laugh, startling me into looking up. "God, why are you sorry? You didn't start this."
I reached behind me to pull the Browning out of its holster on the headboard, and slipped it into my shoulder rig. "Micah, I--"
"You have to go," he said, pulling back on his outburst. "We'll deal with this later. Is there anything I can do?"
We'd deal with this later. That was becoming some kind of refrain in my life. "I need to get the ammo and the guns to the car."
"I'll get the ammunition," Micah said immediately. "What do you need?"
I rattled off the list of ammunition that I'd need to face down a quintet of murderous vampires, and Micah took off like a shot toward the basement where we kept the ammunition safe. I paused long enough to pull on my Nikes, then ran past the living room to the stairs. I'd installed a gun safe in an unused upstairs bedroom, which made sense from a safety standpoint, but was a real bitch in dragging guns to the car.
I'd soon loaded the cases containing my shotgun, the Firestar, the rifle and my new revolver into the backseat of my jeep, and had to make one last run into the house for the rest of my vampire kit, which held the holy water. When I passed the living room with my white sports bag slung over my shoulder, I paused. Everyone was there, Micah looking as if he'd broken off in an argument with someone. He spotted me and held out the ammunition case to me.
"Thanks," I said, taking it from him. "I'll be back when I can."
"Be careful," he said.
I gave him a tiny smile. "Sure thing." Then I looked past him to his family on the far side of the room. "It was good to have met you all," I said, not entirely truthful.
Franklin was still looking embarrassed, and Beth had a similar expression on her face, which I thought was odd because she hadn't said anything, but Kathleen stared at me as if I was some fascinating zoo creature.
Time was ticking. I gave Micah a quick hug and a kiss, and even though it was short, I put every fiber of my being into the kiss. Just in case something happened, and it was the last time I got to kiss Micah goodbye. I'd been doing a lot of that recently.
He smiled at me, putting on his brave face so I wouldn't be worried about him. "See you in a while."
I nodded, then quickly turned to the door. Nathaniel, hovering by the door, caught my attention. Without a word, I went over to him and gave him a hug and a kiss, too. Screw the Callahans; they'd pretty much called me a whore to my face, and I really didn't give a damn what they thought about me.
Then I was out the door and into my car, and I put the aborted family dinner to the back of my mind. I had more dangerous things to worry about than Micah's parents and their talk that I wasn't good enough for their son.
~~~
The sky was still dark but held a faint taste of dawn as I dragged myself toward the house, hands full of gun cases. I felt like shit and wanted to crawl into bed and die, but I had so much to do first. Put the guns away, wash the dirt off, untie my shoes... the complications were endless.
I managed to unlock the door without dropping anything, a good step. Kicking the door closed took more concentration that I'd have liked, and I ended up putting my handfuls on the hall floor.
Maybe I could just leave everything here. Or maybe fall over on the spot. Instead, I staggered into the living room and was met with a wonderful sight. Micah and Nathaniel were curled up together on the couch, the television on low. Micah blinked up at me, as if I'd just woken him. A huge relieved smile broke over his face.
"Nathaniel," Micah murmured, shaking the younger man's shoulder. "She's back."
Nathaniel woke with a start, sitting halfway up before he had even opened his eyes. "Is she here?" he asked, staring at me for a moment before he recognized me. "Oh."
"Yeah, 'oh'." I tried to smile, but it hurt too much. I shrugged out of my jacket on the way to the couch, and slipped down between my guys.
"What happened?" Micah asked, putting his arm around me as Nathaniel came up on my other side. "Are you hurt badly?"
"No," I mumbled, trying to stifle a yawn. "You know the old saying about getting a black eye by walking into a door?"
"You walked into a door?" Nathaniel asked.
"Less walk, more flung." I sighed and settled against Micah. "It's not too bad. We got the bad guys, warrants were executed." I hugged Micah tight, wishing I didn't feel so cold inside. "I executed five vampires tonight and I don't feel anything."
"You did what you had to do," Micah told me, smoothing my hair back from my face. "Didn't you?"
"Yeah. That's what Jean-Claude said when I talked to him, too." Actually, Jean-Claude had been a lot more vehement, something about the natural order of things and protecting people, but that didn't matter right now. "It's just sometimes I wonder what I'm becoming."
Behind me, Nathaniel cuddled against my back, his body warm. "Maybe you need to feed the ardeur."
"Great." I sat up slowly. "I have to go put the guns away, then shower, and--"
"Let us put the guns and everything away, you go and get cleaned up," Micah said, interrupting me. "Then we can all go to bed."
"I didn't mean for you to stay up," I said, standing stiffly. "Did you go out for dinner with your family?"
Micah growled, an actual growl. "No."
"They're coming back over for lunch tomorrow," Nathaniel added. "Micah and them had a long talk before they left tonight."
I looked at Micah in the half-light from the television. "Talk about anything important?"
"Nothing that we need to discuss right now," he said. "Go on. We'll get the guns."
It wasn't exactly a ringing endorsement of familial harmony, but I figured I could deal with it when I wasn't in danger of falling asleep standing up.
The shower woke me up a little bit as I scrubbed dirt off my skin. No, it wasn't from wrestling with vampires, I'd just been standing on a rickety ledge that collapsed and dumped me into a flower bed. Oh well. I didn't go into this job for the glamour.
When I was sparkly clean, I wrapped a towel around my body and walked down the hall to the bedroom. Micah and Nathaniel were already in bed, waiting for me. I paused in the doorway, wondering if I had ever seen a more welcome sight than the two of them. I doubted it.
Micah held out his hand to me. "Come on, you'll get cold."
I let the towel drop and climbed into the bed over Micah. I snuggled down between them, all of us naked, and slowly the lycanthropic heat from their bodies began to warm me in ways the hot water could not.
Nathaniel gently kissed my shoulder. "Who's going to feed the ardeur?" he asked.
"I will," Micah said.
I frowned at him. "You fed it this afternoon."
"And I'll feed it again. You can feed off me twice in a row, just not often." He pushed my hair back from my face, fingers avoiding the bruising around my eye. "Please."
There was something fierce in his face, something needy and important. I didn't understand, but I had made a vow a few months ago, not to pick at emotional matters. If Micah needed to do this, that was fine with me. He'd tell me what it was about when he was ready.
He was careful and gentle, and pushed me to such an intense climax that I was left gasping underneath him after he collapsed on me. It hadn't ever been quite like that between us, not so much. When he pulled out and curled up behind me, I wasn't quite sure what to think.
Nathaniel spooned against me, sighing with contentment as I put my arm around him to hold him to me while we slept. I was glad Nathaniel was there, as close as always, but somehow, Micah seemed a million miles away.
~~~~~~~~~~
When I woke up the next morning, the sun was shining directly onto the bed. "Who left the drapes open?" I mumbled, burying my face in the pillow.
"I just opened them," Micah said from the window. He'd been looking out at the backyard, but now he turned to me. "Are you still up for lunch?"
I sighed. So much for lying around in bed. I rolled onto my side and laid my head on Nathaniel's shoulder. "Only if you want to. They're your family, Micah, not mine." And I'm not the one they called a failure and a monster, I mentally added.
"My dad wasn't very nice to you last night," Micah reminded me.
Underneath me, I felt Nathaniel tense, but he kept pretending he was asleep. "I think we all said things that weren't very nice."
"Yeah." Micah pushed his hair out of his face. "I'm going to go call them, then." He walked out of the room without another word.
"Is there anything wrong with the phone by the bed?" I asked Nathaniel in a soft voice.
"No," he replied, opening his eyes.
"'Kay."
The thin knot of worry in my stomach was growing. I know what Micah had said, about never leaving me, but that was before his family came and things got so messed up.
Nathaniel kissed the top of my head. "The bruising on your face is gone," he noted. "Is there anything I can do for you?"
I put my hand flat on his bare chest, feeling his heart beating. "No."
Unlike any other man in my life, Nathaniel didn't argue with me. "He was really mad at his parents last night," Nathaniel said. "I've never seen him so mad."
"What do you mean?" I asked, propping myself up on my elbow.
"Not loud mad, but quiet mad. Like he got with Caleb that one time." Nathaniel couldn't hold back the shiver at the remembrance. "I was in the kitchen and didn't hear much, but it was enough."
"Why was he mad at his parents?" I asked stupidly.
Nathaniel wrapped a curl of my hair around his finger, giving it all his attention. "Because of what they said about you, I think."
"He didn't have to do that."
"Yes he did." Nathaniel tugged lightly on my hair, pulling it straight, then letting it go. "It was a thing he had to do."
I shifted away from Nathaniel a fraction and laid flat on my stomach, arms crossed under my head. "Did he say anything about what they said about him?"
"I don't think so," Nathaniel said. "What did they say about him?"
"That I was a monster and pretty much useless as a man," Micah's voice came from the doorway. Nathaniel sat up in an instant, cowering against me. "Got anything else you'd like to tell her?"
"Hey!" I exclaimed, rolling up onto my knees. "He was filling me in, it's not some kind of attack!"
"How would you like it if he started telling me all your secrets?"
"What the hell is wrong with you?" I demanded. "I'm on your side!"
Micah crossed his arms across his chest, glowering at the carpet. After a minute, he said, "Nathaniel, can you leave for a few minutes?"
"I'll go make coffee," Nathaniel said, getting up. He carefully ducked around Micah and out into the hall.
When Nathaniel was gone, I sat back on the bed and pulled the sheet up over my knees. "Do you want to talk about it?" I asked.
"No." Micah rubbed his hand over his face. "No, I really don't."
"Were you expecting that, last night?" I asked. He may not want to talk about it, but I needed to deal with this stuff, and soon, if only to appease the worries that had been building in my head.
"What, for my parents to call me a freak?"
"They didn't call you a freak," I reminded him, although for the life of me I wasn't sure why I was trying to defend his father.
"Close enough." Micah slowly padded across the carpet on bare feet and slumped down on the side of the bed. "And I'm not even sure if he's wrong."
"Of course he's wrong!" I exclaimed. I maneuvered around on the bed until I could spoon against him, putting my legs on either side of his hips and pressing my chest against his back. "He's wrong in every single way."
Micah sighed, but he didn't pull away from me. "Last night really didn't go like I planned," he confessed. I hugged him tight. "I wanted to show them that I'd done some really good things, with my job and with you and this place, that I had this amazing life. Then the first thing my dad does is freak out because you're paying for everything, like I'm not good enough."
"That's crazy," I said against the side of his neck. "Ask anyone in the pard, hell, ask any lycanthrope in this city. You've done something no one else could, with the Furry Coalition and us all working together. You're helping people." I kissed his neck, wrapping myself in the smell of his skin. "You're helping me."
"I am?"
I hesitated, then nodded. "This is going to sound corny, and if you tell anyone, I'll never talk to you again, but I think you're making me be a better person." I sat back as Micah twisted around to look at me. "It's like, when I'm with you, I'm home."
Micah stared at me for a very long time. "That's not corny," he finally said. "That's how I feel, too."
From the kitchen came the sound of pots crashing into each other, then a muffled "Oops." Micah's face crinkled into laughter, and I followed. It wasn't really funny, but it let the tension go, easing out of me. I hadn't realized how tense I had been until it was gone.
"Do you think we should go rescue him?" I asked when I'd caught my breath.
"Yes." Micah pulled me to my feet and caught me up in a hug. "Yes."
I had a feeling that Micah was responding to a different question, something I hadn't asked, but I was too happy to care.
"I told my family that if they couldn't understand that you were a good person, then they shouldn't come back," Micah said abruptly.
"You what?"
"You heard me. What they said about you last night was just..." he searched for the word.
"Rude?"
"At the very least it was rude," Micah said. "I can't believe they did that."
I shrugged, but Micah caught my chin and made me look into his eyes.
"None of that," he said. "You said I help people, what about you? You ran out there last night to face off against the bad guys, like you always do. My dad thought that was pretty brave."
I didn't know what to say to that.
"He's seen a lot of cops in his life, and he knows what it's like, going out into danger." The corner of Micah's mouth twitched. "Besides, he liked that 'election year' comment."
I rolled my eyes. "At least he didn't have to deal with Patterson. He's the one who dumped Zerbrowski on RPIT, you know that? What an ass. I really wish Dolph was back in town, because he wouldn't have taken any shit from Pat--"
"Shh," Micah interrupted me. "I get that Patterson's an ass. He's not going to be here for lunch." Micah gave me some serious eye contact. "Are you going to be okay with my family here?"
"I guess." It was important to Micah, I knew, so I told myself that I'd suck it up and deal with his family, for his sake. "But what about Nathaniel?"
"I explained to them about Nathaniel."
My eyebrows went up. "Explained about Nathaniel how?"
"It's a long story," Micah said. "Come on. Get dressed, and we'll go help Nathaniel with lunch."
I held back. "Did this little story in any way include the phrase 'menage a trois'?"
"Of course not." Micah waited until I was at the closet to say, "My parents don't speak French."
the end