MEN OF WAR

By Mala
malisita@yahoo.com

RATING/CLASSIFICATION: R, Helm/Grisham-ish, slash implications, a little physicality, angst, language.
SUMMARY: Plot, what plot? Helm and Grisham finish in private what they started in public. Or do they? A filler scene for "The Pretender". Not nearly as smutty as I'd hoped it would be.
NOTES: For those who need faces to put to the names... http://www.thequeenofswords.com
And, Mare, I swear you don't have to start watching this show! Be strong!
DISCLAIMER: I don't own these pretty boys...I wish I did.

~~~~~

"Whoever you are, you can come out. I know you're there."

Robert Helm couldn't help but wonder why his office at midnight was always busier than an Atlantic shipping lane. The dark shape detached from the shadows of his office and made it's way into the fresh candlelight. He half-expected the Queen of Swords...and he half-expected exactly who it was.

Captain Marcus Grisham's raw voice confirmed the leaping suspicion in his chest. "This time we finish it, Helm. No interruptions." He finished lighting the tapers on his desk, noting the bruises that stood out, blue and black, against the capitan's cheekbones. The bruises that he, himself, had put there when the sun had still been hanging high in the sky. "You looking to get thrashed again, Grisham?" he wondered, dryly. "You've come to the right place. I can break your bones and then re-set them."

"We'll see whose bones get broken," the soldier growled, eyes glinting blue like the sparks from flint and steel. He rubbed his close-clipped beard with the back of his hand, displaying reddened knuckles that were, evidently, raring for more abuse.

He sighed, dragging a hand through his hair. "As much as I would like to answer the charge of your masculine ego, Captain, I am a doctor and this is my office. I cannot afford to have you crashing around like an elephant and smashing valuable medicines."

Grisham's laugh exploded like buckshot, spreading into thousand of pieces in the space that stretched between them. "Then I'll just have to crash around and smash *you* instead, won't I?" he drawled, coolly.

His own laugh answered with droll mockery as he pushed up his shirtsleeves and undid his collar. "I'd like to see you try."

"I hate you."

"The feeling is mutual, I assure you."

They were both men forged in blood and death and dishonor...men who did whatever it took to win. They circled each other like two wary wolves, throwing all sorts of macabre outlines up on the mudbrick walls. He knew he had the battlefield advantage...this was his sanctum, his territory. But he knew his enemy's advantage as well. What Marcus Grisham lacked in strategy, he made up for with sheer brawn and the passion that drove it.

"Do you use violence to solve everything, Capitan?" Robert wondered, softly, rhetorically. "In every situation?"

Grisham bristled, obviously not too thick to understand the insult to his more cerebral attributes. "I'd offer to beat you in chess, Doctor, but it's a little too dark for a checkmate," he snarled, unbuttoning his starched cuffs, rolling up his sleeves.

"Is it?" He arched an eyebrow.

And after the space of three heartbeats--three staccato pulses--he sprang. With the element of surprise on his side, it was easy to tumble the other man to the ground. And straddling the captain's hips effectively immobilized him. They were well-matched for a fight...roughly the same size, although the soldier's chest and shoulders were broader. They were even more well-matched for the game he had in mind.

"Let me up! What are you, some kind of fucking sissy?" The rough voice was suddenly an octave higher, filled with panic. "Let me go!" Elbows flew up, but he pinned them down with his forearms.

"Shhh...it's all right. I'm a doctor," he reminded, silkily. "One wrong twist and you could be paralyzed, Marcus...or worse. Is that what you want? Is that what Vera Hidalgo would want?"

"Fuck you," Grisham hissed, blinking back anger and looking away.

Ah*, so the town gossip was on target about the Senora Hidalgo and the gringo capitan. Excellent.

He gripped the proud chin in his fingers, feeling the coarse hair scrape his palm, and forced the captain's face back to his. "Try again and maybe you'll get it right," he suggested, softly, turning his touch to something tender...something more suited to an East End rent boy than an American officer.

The man beneath him chose not to try again...perhaps defeated by his own fears...or his own desires. "What do you want, Helm?" he demanded, ceasing his struggles and lying still on the cold stone. His eyes were sparking with fury, with barely hidden helplessness.

"What do you want? You're the one that broke into my office in the middle of the night," he countered. "I'm simply showing you the price of ill-planned violence," he said with a careless shrug, moving his hand down to the loosened white collar...the smooth suntanned skin beneath.

Grisham leapt underneath his barest touch...two fingertips and the other man's pulse thrummed lightning fast, like Indian war drums. "Should've known...all you Europeans are queer, ain'tcha?" he gasped, jaw tight with something...something that was no longer panic.

Helm smiled, instinctively understanding the implication. "So, the Colonel fucks you, too, does he? Do you roll over for everyone or just him, Marcus? Are you his boy?" he chided, rolling his hips against a burgeoning ridge of buttons and flesh. "Is that why you're here? So you can pretend to be a man?"

"I'm nobody's boy!" the captain yelped, defiantly. "You may be a doctor, but you haven't got a clue about me, Helm. Or Montoya! You ain't nothing, Helm! You're nothing!"

He chuckled, couldn't help the mirth. And then he leaned down and brushed Grisham's mouth with his own in the lightest of kisses. Something for pretty maids in their mother's drawing rooms. For pretty boys in a doctor's examining room "Checkmate," he whispered against cool, dry, lips.

The capitan simply lay there, stunned, for a few moments, as Robert hefted himself up and brushed the dust from his trousers. "Do latch the door on your way out," he murmured, pleasantly. "I have a few important experiments to tend to before I close up tonight and would prefer no further disturbances."

And then Grisham was scrambling to his feet, swallowing oaths and bile. "You...you..." he floundered, all his bravado gone...all the wind taken out of his sails.

"It's finished this time, wouldn't you say?" he interrupted, smoothly. "And you're leaving with all your bones intact."

Marcus glowered at him. The ultimate in murderous glares...coupled with something he knew was the acknowledgment of who had won this round, of who had the upper hand. The only hand. "Fuck you!"

He hid a smile as he moved a taper to his workbench, illuminating a beaker and several vials. "As I said before...try again and maybe you'll get it right...and maybe I'll indulge you. Some day."

There were no more words this time...no more directives. Just a strangled cry. And, then, the door opened and closed and the sound of fast, fleeing, footsteps pounding away from the office echoed through the night.

As quiet once again reigned in the small chamber, he allowed himself to lean against the shelves and laugh. For minutes on end, the amusement spilled from his throat in heaving, near-sobs. When the hilarity was gone, he touched his lips. He traced their outline and imagined the imprint of stubble against his cheek. He knew that this was one bruise that would take more than days to fade. More than time to heal.

Some battles were worth winning at any cost...at the cost of soul and secrets and everything sacred between men of war.

"Checkmate," he whispered again, staring into the shadows.

And some were not.

--THE END--
May 7, 2001