Ethan drifted into the Station. It was dim and dark until he made his way to the main concourse. There he found a small lounge, ostensibly for the pleasure of the travelers. Certainly he would find some pleasure there himself. He glanced in through the double doors, just out of range of the sensors that would open them until he was ready. Behind the bar he saw a face he counted among the familiar and it was all he could do to resist dashing in at first discovery.
Coldsmoke, he thought with a private smile. How long has it been since you've vented your anger at me. Have the years mellowed you any my friend? I wonder. And what in the name of all that's Holy are you doing tending a lounge bar in this place? Did Michelle's death do that much to you? Reduce you to this? He watched his one time colleague serve drinks and speak to the milling patrons with deference and respect.
"Oh how the mighty have fallen," he murmured and went in.
It was possible *that* was a mistake.
As soon as he'd gone through the lounge doors he knew there was another immortal in the room. The lance of pain throbbed through his head. Long ago he'd learned to hide it, so long ago...
====
"You can't let it show!"
"Stop BADGERING me Robert! I care not, do you hear me?? I was under the earth for more dark hours than I wish to count. I DO NOT CARE who knows that I am alive, or immortal or whatever insane drivel you insist on spewing at me."
"Forgive me, my lord Swan, but what I say is so and you *must* believe me."
Ethan's savior had become most tiresome. The man was utterly insane, Ethan was certain. He continually swore up and down and by God and all His Saints that they were immortals both. That he had been alive for thirty years himself past the day he should have died making him 60 when he looked no more than 25. Robert was the son of a shoemaker, he said and died in the year of our Lord 1753. It was illness, he said, and would say no more of his death. No matter, Ethan reasoned. A man's dying is his own affair.
They had been together two weeks now, with Robert bringing Ethan to a small cottage he'd found abandoned not long ago and with Robert alone making forays into a nearby town to bring Ethan food. It had become unbearable to wait any longer in such isolation. Good God, I'm going mad with this, Ethan thought. "I don't want to hear anything more about it right *now* Robert, is that enough of an explanation for you, sir?"
"Yes, milord."
"Good. Come into town with me Robert? I've need of a woman's best parts."
Robert looked away and then back. "I would rather not milord. You should not show your face there, someone will know you." The man was so huge that it seemed odd for him to be so docile, but Ethan found he enjoyed having someone look up to his greater social experience. Especially a man he had already discovered could pin him to the ground with little effort. At 18 it was rare to command such strengths in others, but Robert seemed willing to be subjugated, though he was a man of such great physical prowess.
Robert had been forced to restrain Ethan when he first came out of the ground. Born anew, Ethan smiled to himself in twisted humor. He had finally come to understand that he couldn't go home. It was his first violent impulse to go back, find Thackery and dismember him in revenge. Robert had convinced him that he could find out by other means if his sister still lived and could exact his revenge by better, more long standing means. Robert had been trying to teach him not to let the pain of awareness show when other Immortals were near. It was next to impossible, Ethan knew. The headache that raged in his mind when Robert would move away and then come into range again was too severe to repress.
All he wanted to do now was take a break from learning about what he mustn't do to insure survival. "They all believe me dead, Robert. With the clothing you've brought me, there is no reason I cannot go into town. Surely, the gentle masses who remember me will not be frequenting the places *I* wish to visit this night."
"Go if you will milord, I'll not stop you, but I'll not follow either."
"Robert, have you no use for a woman's wiles? Are you monk or priest that you seek no soft skin in which to bury your sorrows? For surely we *are* the most sorrowful of men, condemned to this curse of eternity separated from God in a world in which we cannot die!"
Ethan had wanted nothing more than to die when he had dueled Thackery. To see his mother again in God's kingdom was his greatest desire that day. But, if God was so perverse as to create this possibility of immortality outside of the salvation of Christ, then Ethan questioned not only God's very existence but the Church's ages old declaration of the Almighty's purpose. He came to a conclusion that made him smile grimly, but one that suited him. The Almighty was a sadist. Very well, Ethan decided in his unstable nights since his "new birth" from the dark womb of earth. I will be like God.
"No milord," Robert answered quietly and for a moment Ethan wasn't certain what he was protesting. Then he understood. He smiled slowly. As a man of seventeen Ethan himself had discovered other avenues of personal pleasure and his tiresome, boorish savior had suddenly become a world anew to explore.
"Come into town with me Robert," Ethan said in a new and gentle tone. "We will find enough pleasures to suit us both... together."
The expression on Robert's face was surprise tinged with unexpected adoration.
Ethan began to laugh.
The laughter in his memory died as he slipped into the bar further. The pain lingered. He cast a glance at the almost empty room and saw the mirrorshades. He knew then. There was the source of the headache. He didn't linger on that form, he knew it well enough. Instead, the man behind the bar had his focus. He concentrated, while staring from the doors at the top of Smoke's head. Look up, look up.
Ethan saw Smoke look up. "Get out of here," Chris Coldsmoke said, glowering darkly. "You're lowering the property values."
"I've only come in for the women..." Ethan smirked, moving across the room to lean against the bar at last. He was genuinely pleased to see Smoke, but it was plain that there was no such pleasure in this meeting for Smoke himself.
"There aren't that many women. At least none wanting to talk to me especially when they find out *what* I specialize in."
"You chasing them away again, C.C.? Tsk, tsk. Can't have that. I keep telling you to find a new profession." Smoke just growled at him and tried to tend to his work.
"Admit it C.C. You saw me and it brought everything back. She wouldn't have wanted that. " In the chrome edging behind the bar Ethan could see Walker across the room. He wasn't sure if he should be pleased or annoyed or worried. Walker didn't seem to want a fight, but with him, one never could tell. Walker reached into a pocket, producing a cigarette. Ethan was good with details and in the brief glance he spared for the chrome and the other immortal in the room, he saw that the lighter was rather old looking. The brief crack of flame reflected hot and white from his shades as Walker lit his smoke. He was so casual, so matter of fact. Ethan admired both his form and poise absently. Walker tilted his head back, blowing a diffuse cloud of smoke to the vents. The cloud was lit within as it passed the neon lights of the lounge wall.
CoIdSmoke frowned at Ethan and the stress of the situation drew a touch of his old English accent out. "She wouldn't have wanted you to stab a blade through her heart either."
Walker lifted his drink and sipped it. Ethan's gaze drifted away to the viewport. "It wasn't me, Chris." For dramatic effect, the Captain of the Camelot not only used the man's first name but also looked his old acquaintence in the eye. "I swear."
It was then that Ethan noticed the girl who was watching Smoke and he wondered about her, but didn't comment. He merely kept her in the back of his mind's vision, along with Walker, to see what would happen for his old friend, and himself, that night. Ahh, she must like him, Ethan thought. There's that "I don't care if you are innocent, he thinks you're guilty and I condemn you," look. Her eyes said it all.
Walker's attention was on them both, though Ethan noted he was trying to appear uninterested. As if any immortal could ignore the talk of blades or hearts or ... heads.
"You are such a good liar, Ethan." Smoke shook his head. "Michelle was the best thing that ever happened to me...and you and your Ripper took it all away from me. All of it!"
Ethan frowned and it was the first evidence of any displeasure with the conversation. Truth be told, it struck him deeply this accusation. Liar, of all things!
The girl was displeased with this news. Ethan wasn't sure if that was proof that they'd made love already or not. He thought not. She was hoping she could be C.C.'s one and only. Poor girl! So sad. The look on her face was so clear! She was silently chastising herself. Interest in C.C! What was she thinking?
And Walker! Well, he was captivated, or at least confused. Ethan would have laughed but Walker was clearly listening now, though his shades revealed none of his inner thoughts. Merely the drawing together of brows. It was the Ripper comment, Ethan was sure. Most thought of Jack the Ripper when they heard "Ripper". Ethan had never been that insane and well Walker knew it. Even so, Walker didn't know everything.
Still, the Liar reference bothered Ethan to the point that his nostrils flared in mild anger. "A liar is one thing I am not, nor ever have been, C.C."
"Do you know how frightened I am to even talk to a woman now? I am afraid you might just step out of my shadows and kill them as well."
My my, Ethan thought. That's unusual. He's not the type to reveal his fears in a room full of strangers. I must have really rattled him tonight. Ethan took a deep breath and a sip of his brandy, smiling slightly. "If we get into discussion every time we see one another, either we'll come to blows or I'll sue you for defamation. Relax, will you, C.C.?"
"Then you truly believe you did not kill Michelle?" Smoke's eyes were hard, hazel chips in the bad lounge lighting. Crackers, Ethan thought. I remember brown.... how very odd.
The girl slid off her barstool and fastened her jacket. Well, she's off, Ethan nearly smiled. Now I've got him to myself. There was another woman there, a lovely lady, who seemed embarrassed for Smoke. Ethan was himself, in fact, it was all so sad. He set down his brandy.
The girl interested in Smoke waved to the other woman and bid her a good evening. The second lady replied in kind, her voice a warm sound to Ethan's ears. Perhaps she'd be worth finding later.
But for now... Ethan laid his palms flat on the bar and looked Smoke right in the eyes. "I did not kill her."
Smoke's nod was almost as full of sorrow as his words. "I see."
His eyes were drawn to the reflection of the room in the viewport. The girl pushed her hands into her jacket pockets and turned toward the double doors that led to the concourse. Her Mary Jane's clicked on the bare floor. Ethan heard and flicked his eyes away from her reflection back to Smoke's eyes.
He was frowning deeply, as if he'd destroyed himself, Ethan thought. "Maraith?" Smoke whispered all too softly.
The Camelot's Captian was not pleased that he had lost some of Smoke's attention and commented, "There you do see.. and so do I. No matter what I say, I cannot make you believe me." He shrugged one shoulder and turned to fully watch the girl walk out of the bar. Possibly out of Smoke's life.
"Damn," Smoke said, his head bowed.
Ethan tilted his head to one side, arched a brow, gnawed lightly on his lower lip. He was tempted to say something but thought it was too easy. He didn't realize he'd said, "too easy" out loud.
The other woman filled her shot glass again and stared at it as she held it.
Smoke turned his back on Ethan to hide perhaps. But in a moment, he'd turned back in a whirl of motion. He grabbed Ethan by the front of the shirt, half-hauled him over the bar until their faces almost touched. His breath was hot on Ethan's face.
Ethan swallowed as he was hauled over the bar, his eyes widened and he could see Walker's amused look in the chrome. Nice, Walker, very nice. Walker just sipped his drink and enjoyed the spectacle.
The other woman responed with tension in the lift of her head. Perhaps she'd be the type to jump in and say, "No, don't!" but Ethan doubted it. Don't get involved, that was the policy of most of the people who ventured into lounges of that type, in space stations that hovered in the darkness of nowhere.
"Chris.. really.." Ethan said, sounding unruffled.
"You are lucky I do not have my gun on me, you scum...otherwise I splatter your brains all across this room!" He brought the index and middle finger of his left hand to Ethan's temple, effectively simulating a gun. Ethan's imagination filled in the rest quite nicely. Losing one's head was losing one's head after all.
Walker, wonderful Walker decided just then was a good time to speak up. "Do refrain," he said, sipping his drink. "Cleaning soft leather is such a pain." Ethan nearly spasmed with laughter but his control was absolute.
"Too messy," Ethan concluded for Smoke while he just stood there, holding him. "Besides if you wanted to dance.. you could have just asked me."
Smoke ground his fingers into Ethan's temple, reddening the skin as he spoke in an undertone. "And make no mistake...the next time I see you... this is over." He dropped Ethan then and moved away to wipe the imagined grime of handling "murdering scum" off his hands with a bartowel.
"It was a long time ago. Don't force something you aren't ready for," Ethan told him in a moment of compassion. He frowned, trying to brush the wrinkles left by large hands out of his coat.
Smoke checked the time and moved quickly for the doors. He jumped up to look out over the crowd. "Maraith?!" It was sad. It was far too late, Ethan reasoned, for Smoke to fix what seemed irreparably broken.
The Camelot's Captain moved toward the doors. "There must be bars with more amenable 'tenders in them, *somewhere* on this station."
Walker took a relaxed drag on his cigarette. He released the smoke upward again, deliberately directing it toward the venting system. He let out an amused chuckle that sounded quietly in the dead lounge air.
Ethan looked at the smoker and paused in his trek to the doors to regard him. The garish neon lights reflected crazily from Walker's mirrorshades. A devil's aurora, Ethan thought with a smile. The expression of the face behind the glassed radiated amusement and simple observation. No heads tonight.
The sole other occupant of the bar studied Ethan as he paused near Walker. He could feel her eyes. Yes, he'd have to look for her again.
Ethan smiled into the shades. He nodded once, as if in greeting. He couldn't tell if there was an inclination of the head behind the shades. Perhaps. Perhaps not. Walker raised his drink for a measured sip and then simply smiled.
You haven't forgotten me, then, you bastard, Ethan thought. Good. And he began to sing softly as he continued on for the door. "C'est moi.. c'est moi, 'tis I.. I've never lost in battle or game, I'm blessed with an iron will.. " His voice grew softer as he slipped out, yet still somehow heard above the din in the concourse. "If I'd been made the partner of Eve we'd be in Eden still..."