Chapter Seven - Grey on Gold
#1 of The Combat Negotiator
"Second and third on the top row, multiplied."
They were in the improvised holding cell again, sat at the table. There was a pause, the lion squinting at the rows of figures on the paper in front of him, trying to work out the answer. From where Lance was sat, he couldn't see the burned half of his face, and he looked almost handsome.
"Two hundred and...thirty eight."
"Right. Try...seventh down, third across, and third down, fourth across."
Another pause. Then the lion's face slowly screwed up, his muscles tensed, and he clenched his fists under the table. "This would be easier without the drugs." Victor rumbled, then slumped. Behind him, an impassive guard relaxed his grip on the handle of his stunner.
"I know." But we need you halfway sane, Lance didn't add. It had been difficult, but after two weeks, he'd gotten to the point where he could sit in the same room as him without the lion shackled down. "That's the reason we're doing this, to get you used to them."
He'd let the lion use the running track on the ship too, under heavy supervision. Lions didn't like to be trapped in, it stressed them, and for a few moments as he loped gracefully round the track, Victor looked...free. Like he'd been before the napalm attack, presumably.
"Lance, I..." The lion looked up, suddenly very aware of the guard behind him. "I don't feel angry, or suicidal, just...numb. I know that's the drugs. But, uh..." His speech was still heavy and deliberate, but now he looked almost shy. Normal. "I still have...other urges. The natural ones."
The wolf paused, his eyes flicking between the Victor and the guard, who almost seemed to be smirking a little. You wouldn't think this violent shell of a person would have been capable of saying something like that a week or two ago, but...it was natural, true enough. He'd want to mate, or at least take the edge off himself - every species needed to with varying levels of urgency, given time. Difficult, under strict isolation and a constant guard. And the fact he was opening up to him like this...
He paused, almost unwilling to say what he was about to say. Then he committed himself, resigned to the fact that he only had himself to blame if he got killed, or at the very least, temporarily blinded when they had to stun both of them if he got jumped.
"Canning." The guard looked up, his canine features hard, not liking where this was going. "Outside. You can watch from the monitors."
"Sir, I've been told specifically not t-"
"I know exactly what you've been told. Get out." He watched as Canning pulled off a salute that was just shy of insubordinate, then walked out of the door, closing the heavy slab of metal behind him.
That left Victor looking at him, a slightly awkward expression on his face now. He covered it with a growl, turning back to stare at the sheet of numbers, his big paws curling in on themselves on the table.
"It's a hard thing for us to talk about, Victor." He didn't want to look tensed, but it was difficult not to - talking about his breeding urges meant talking about the lion's young love to the female mouse he'd once known, and that was a trigger to sudden, violent rage that had killed four people. He studied him carefully, but the lion just looked lost for a moment before he spoke.
"We...we knew that everyone knew, but it was okay. Because I didn't care, and because...it was good for everyone, that we were defying the ways of things. Look at the big scary lions, they're not so bad, look at that one. Tame as a kitten around that mouse girl." he was staring at the numbers still, as if he could see something in them. "She was never afraid...people in town were friendly enough, but they always kept their eyes from meeting mine, always keep their ears down. She grew up with me, and that look she had...that smile, like she had a secret. That she knew what I was really like." He was on the verge of tearing up, torn between anger and a deep, deep sadness that emotional suppressants couldn't do much to help.
"Easy, Victor. You don't have to talk about it." He should have gone over and squeezed his shoulder, let the guy talk it out, but...what were the rules here? The lion sitting in front of him had already tried to attack him once.
Victor looked up at him, his burnt face starkly in view under the unforgiving light, and shook his head, talking on as if uninterrupted.
"And then...we were still so young...I'd been play fighting with one of my brothers, we were both getting to the age where we needed to...to..." He made a loose fist with his paw and pumped it up and down, smiling a little now. "I don't know how it is with wolves, but maybe you know how it works...we'd help each other out when we were done playing." The wolf nodded, smiling back just a little. He knew. "And then I went to see her, the scent of all of it all over me." The lion wasn't looking at anything much now, lost in his memory. "And she...wanted to see. She told me not to play around, told me to take off my clothes...I was helpless with her when she had that tone of voice, it turned me to butter." He bit his lip a little, unconsciously, a tear streaking down the ragged skin under his eye. Then he seemed to come back into the room, looking at Lance with a frown again. "The anger was easier than this, and you've taken it away from me. I don't want the drugs doing my thinking for me." He stood up, backing away from the table, and climbed into the cot they'd put there for him, his large frame curling up on it, hiding his face from the light.
"We won't keep you on them long. They're addictive, and your body tries to overcompensate for them."
"Not that you care. Your plan for me, it's suicidal, however you and that panther dresses it up, talks of vengeance. And the worst part of it is, I don't care. I'd rather be dead than this." He rolled over suddenly, back on his feet, his finger pointing accusingly at Lance. "And the fact you know that makes you no worse than-"
He stopped. Lance had glanced down, at the lion's prominent bulge through the loose waistband of his grey trousers, the whole length of it proud and hard under the fabric and under the shirt too. He paused, utterly unsure of how to react, then Lance padded over to him, squeezed him on the shoulder and sat down on the bed, looking at him.
"We used to push the bunks together in the barracks, most nights...male, female, didn't matter too much. We all needed it, and when the women went into season...could've been on the other side of the grounds and across a minefield, and they'd have found a way. Even the military recognises that some things can't be changed." He smiled as Victor sat down next to him, not quite looking at him.
There was another pause as the lion thought about it, but his very immediate problem wasn't going away. When he looked over at Lance, it was at his body, not his eyes.
"You gonna take that off?" He said gruffly, nodding at Lance's shirt. "I need...I mean, I want..."
The wolf nodded back, already leaning down to untie his boots. The lion needed to feel fur in his paws.
* * * * * * *
"You fucking idiot."
Despite his tone, Enfield was grinning, in a vaguely stunned and impressed way. Lance had walked in on half a dozen people crowded round a screen, watching the wolf and lion sprawled half-naked on the cot. He raised an eyebrow, leaning past them to pick up some coffee.
"Basic physiology. He'll remember that, now, when he sees me. Slight rush of endorphins, a sense of pack familiarity." He swirled the dark liquid around in the cup, watching the screen absently. "An improvement on how we started."
Canning, having been rotated out of guard duty for the moment, snorted, picking himself up and walking out of the room. On the screen, the lion's back arched, a lupine paw unzipping his trousers and slipping under them.
"Well, granted, but..." Enfield shook his head. "Not something I'd have thought of."
The majority of the canid furs in the room snapped to attention and saluted as the panther commander entered the room, almost blocking out the glaring fluorescent light behind him. His eyes went from the screen to Lance, then back again, as if confirming something distasteful he already knew.
"So. I hope this means you'll be ready soon. We've had positive confirmation that Slater's lieutenants are operating out of the northern capital, so he likely is too. You'll be dropped as part of a cargo shipment a few hours out of the city limits and meeting up with a sympathiser to our cause. He's expecting you within a week. Will he be ready?" The panther's stare narrowed as he tried to studiously ignore the screen now, his eyes on the wolf's.
"Four days from now. Give him access to the running track again, every day until then."
This was greeted with a growl. "I can't just shut down the entire station's training facilities every damn time you want your new boyfriend to stretch his legs-"
"We'll be risking our lives, all of us, to assassinate a high-value political target inside an enemy held city. And he'll almost certainly die, especially if he succeeds. I think four days is enough, Tolin."
The panther stiffened visibly at the use of his first name, then held his gaze and nodded shortly, turning around and walking out without a word. He paused, though, turning back, a frown of contempt on his face.
"And yet you did...that, with him? With a man about to die?"
Lance nodded, glancing back at the screen without really seeing it.
"I know you're a station commander, not army. We're just another type of cargo for you. But back in the wars, battles, skirmishes...we knew we were going to die then sometimes, too. It helped."
A pause, then the panther nodded again, stalking off down the corridor.
"Be ready!"