Love for the Cold-Blooded (52 page)

“Here’s an idea.” Serpentissima smiled slowly, evilly. The needle tips of her fangs caught the light, sparking maliciously. “Why don’t you take a hostage? My son, for example. He’ll just have to nip out and put on some proper clothes first.”

~~~~~

“D
ude, I’d kill for a pizza right now. Do they serve good pizza here, d’you think?”

The couch shifted as someone dropped down heavily beside him. The fresh, musky scent of expensive shower gel wafted over Pat in a strangely pointed manner, as though to remind him that underneath his hastily thrown-on t-shirt, he himself was still oily, dusty and thoroughly unpresentable.

A word from Nick, and in ten to twenty minutes there’d be a selection of whatever kind of clothes Pat wanted — sweats or suits or kimonos or Star Knight uniform replicas. His own clothes, even, fetched from his apartment and laundered and pressed on the way here. Such was the power of the serving heart, backed by obscene amounts of money. Pat was fine with hanging out like this, though. Nick would just have to suck it up.

There oughta be a maxim for this… something like ‘hang out with wolves (snakes, whatever) and you get hair on your couch, sucker’.

“Fuck you,” said Nick, with considerable delay and without heat. He sounded just as tired as Pat felt.

Even given the general uncertainty of the situation, it was too much to ask of Pat to pass up an opening like that. “Pizza first,” he demanded accordingly. He rolled his head to the side so Nick could appreciate the suggestive waggling of his eyebrows, and also so he could try to get some kind of reading on Nick’s mood. “You don’t want your valuable hostage to starve, do you? I bet that would be a boatload of trouble.”

Nick had thrown on a worn pair of jeans and a Ghost Matter sweatshirt. His hair was still damp from the shower and darkening his shirt’s neckline with moisture; he was drooping slightly, clearly exhausted but too stubborn to show it. He even tried to get up the energy for a proper glare before giving up.

Just, seriously, it was ridiculous how much Pat had missed this lame-ass dude. He was only just realizing how much, tipped off by his need to stare at Nick forever; to drink him in and glut himself on his presence. It hadn’t even been that long, really, but it felt like he’d been missing him for an eternity or more. He’d missed the man even when he was right there, all heroic and distant in his silver uniform, separated from Pat not by force fields and quantum armor, but by the revelation of Pat’s parentage.

He’d missed him especially then, actually. That distance felt way more threatening than a few kilometers between them and two full schedules to keep them apart. Sure, Nick had promised he wouldn’t hate Pat for any non-disclosed shit when disclosure finally occurred, but that kind of promise was easy to make, and way more difficult to keep.
Promises shmomises
, as a much younger Zen had so eloquently put it.

Pat kinda missed Nick still.

Thing was, now that his first surge of elation over the outcome of the showdown had worn off, he wasn’t certain where he stood with Nick. Yeah, it was awesome that neither Nick nor Mom had suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of the other, and that they’d agreed to a ceasefire. Yeah, Nick hadn’t objected to being called Pat’s partner, and had agreed to attend the West family dinner. But did that really mean what Pat wanted it to mean, or just that Silver Paladin was a good hoagie who did whatever he had to do to neutralize a rampaging challenger?

Pat could have just asked, of course, but he was a little scared that Nick would tell him, and that it wouldn’t be what he wanted to hear. Because what he wanted to hear was that sure, Nick had been shocked to find out Pat was Serpentissima’s kid, but that — once the initial startlement had passed — he didn’t really care. That he wasn’t angry, or at least not very. That he still wanted to do… whatever it was they’d been doing, only more so. Namely with family dinners and paintball and surprise visits by nosy sisters and —

“If you were a color,” Nick said, blandly. “Which color would you be?”

Pat blinked, and stared at Nick. Nick stared back evenly, looking just as bland and matter-of-fact as his voice.

Relief flooded Pat, tearing a surprised-sounding burst of laughter from him. “That is the lamest question ever, dude. Which color would I be?”

Nick raised both eyebrows at him in a clear prompt. Warmth was building in Pat’s chest, growing in the light of a slowly solidifying certainty.

Everything was going to be alright. Pat had known it all along (he had! kind of, anyway), and clearly, he was a genius who was never wrong. Nick didn’t hate him at all. Nick was still Nick, and they were still whatever they had been, and somehow, it was all going to work out.

“Bright red,” Pat said; he didn’t even have to think about it. “Fire-engine red.” Total no-brainer, right? But Nick’s brows bunched into a discontented frown, and Pat hurried to barrel on, talking right over any attempt the man might have made to say something ridiculous like ‘don’t be absurd, you are entirely verdigris’ or ‘how can you be unaware you are carnelian’. “Don’t even start with me, dude. And don’t give me any nonsense about you being silver, either. You are so not.”

Burgundy was more like it, or maybe a warm, rich shade of blue. Silver was pretty, yeah — and brilliant too, Pat guessed. But it was too cold, all hard and untouchable. Not nearly alive enough. Not nearly vital enough.

Nick gave a scoffing noise that made no secret of his opinion of Pat’s color-defining abilities. He didn’t say anything, though, evidently content to let the matter rest for the moment. No doubt he’d bring it up again later, at the most absurd possible moment. Pat could hardly wait.

“So how’s about that pizza, then?” He flung out an arm, hitting Nick lightly in the stomach with the back of his hand. Nick caught his wrist immediately. His thumb pressed uncomfortably against one of Pat’s countless bruises, but Pat didn’t complain, or try to pull away.

Nick didn’t seem in any more of a hurry to talk than Pat was, but they’d have to at some point, Pat was pretty sure. Get it all out into the open, kind of thing. It’d be pretty cool to start over without any misunderstandings or secrets between them. Just Pat and Nick, both of them on the same page.

Unfortunately, Pat had no idea what to say to get them to that point. He’d agonized for so long about telling Nick his mom was the Dread Serpent, and now that that snake was finally out of the hen-house, there was a whole other matter to disclose. How did you confess to your hoagie boyfriend that your infamous challenger mother expected you to seduce him into the family business?

Quickly, that was how. He wasn’t going to drag this out the way he’d dragged out the Serpentissima thing. No, he was going to come right out and say it, just like that:
Hey Nicky-boy, by the way, my mother’s hatched a scheme to entice you to change sides by means of my dubious charms. I don’t really think you’re the challenger type, though. Honestly, bro, I’m just in this for the sex, and for you. Just thought you should know.

“Ay, send up a pizza, extra large,” Nick said into the reproachful silence. “Pioppinis, truffles, lime shrimp, smoked butterfish, and roasted almond broccoli. For cheese… old emmentaler and gorgonzola.”

Snorting with laughter made the bruises on Pat’s stomach hurt. Totally worth it, though, especially since the puzzled ‘what now?’ written all over Nick’s face was clearly entirely unfeigned. The dude honestly had no idea of what a parody of himself he was. It was sad. Also (scarily enough) kind of endearing. But mostly sad.

Life was pretty great. Sure, so Pat ached all over. (How on earth had he managed to get bruises on his ass, of all places? He shifted, trying to get comfortable, and then gave it up for a bad job when he sat on different bruises instead. Whatever, he’d heal.) And sure, there was the thing with his mom plotting nefarious plots concerning his boyfriend, and that other thing where Pat had no idea how to broach the subject with said boyfriend. But apart from the bruises and the usual existential angst and uncertainty, things had gone so much better than could reasonably have been expected.

“I understand why you didn’t tell me right away,” Nick said, abruptly.

It seemed like a lead-in for a big whopping ‘but’, and Pat waited for several beats. He’d have felt more nervous about things if Nick’s hand hadn’t still been wrapped around his arm, Nick’s thumb absently stroking the delicate skin of Pat’s inner wrist.

The ‘but’ never came, even when Pat waited a little longer. Finally he had no choice but to say something himself. “Yeah, you know. I tried, but. Could have tried harder, I guess.”

“Needless to say I was perfectly aware you were the child of a supervillain.” Nick was watching him with the usual intense concentration, like he wanted to suck Pat’s soul out through his face. Pat had grown weirdly fond of that look. “It would never have occurred to me to consider Serpentissima, however.”

Pat didn’t know what to say; just stared at Nick with wide eyes. The cold flash of shock warred unpleasantly with the pleasant warmth that had been spreading through him, and all of a sudden, he needed to be doing this sitting up straight, rather than sprawling all over the place.

He had to tug his wrist from Nick’s grip in order to scoot into an upright position. Nick’s hold tightened briefly before he let go. When Pat dared a glance, he gave him the annoyed eyebrows. “I’m not stupid, Patrick.”

Pat managed to swallow down the first words that leapt to his tongue. Yeah, he guessed there had been enough clues, from Pat’s general attitude towards challengers to the entire minion duty thing. He’d just never thought — Nick hadn’t said anything. Why hadn’t he said anything?

Except, well. Pat knew why, didn’t he.

Nick was completely fearless in battle. Pat had seen footage of him flinging himself into the mouth of an interdimensional vortex; expanding his force fields to cover an overheating karmabot and contain the explosion; facing down any number of monstrously powerful opponents and deadly threats without batting an eye. But Pat had also known him uncertain, feeling his way; unsure of how to impress Pat, and nervous about the prospect of not being able to. He’d had Nick refuse to listen to Pat’s confession because he didn’t want to risk their fragile reconciliation. He’d seen Nick vulnerable, and uncertain, and out of his depth.

Pat hadn’t been the only one afraid to rock the boat. This thing they had between them — somehow, without either of them quite noticing when or how, it had turned into something neither of them could afford to lose. And Nick was every bit as scared, clueless and insecure as Pat.

A sudden, fierce surge of protectiveness welled up in Pat. He turned to face Nick, folding one leg up underneath himself, and scooted over the cushions until his knee bumped gently into his lover’s side. (That’s right, his lover. Anyone wanted to make something of it, Pat knew what to do. Yeah, he didn’t
think
so.)

“Yeah, yeah, you’re not stupid,” Pat said, with a bit of delay. Whatever, he’d been thinking. He still was, in fact. To wit: Nick’s hand was lying on his stomach, loose and relaxed, and Pat was wondering how weird — on a scale of one to ten — it’d be if he reached out and took it. “So whose kid did you think I was, then?”

Nick’s shoulders moved awkwardly against the backrest when he shrugged. “I hadn’t formed a truly viable hypothesis. Dark Star, possibly, or Crimson Ranger.”

What the hell?

Fortunately, unlike certain pigeons, the Andersen Estate’s AI had perfect dramatic timing. A low, melodious chime sounded just as Pat was drawing in a deep breath in preparation to opening his mouth. “One pizza, extra large, with old emmentaler, gorgonzola, pioppinis, truffles, lime shrimp, smoked butterfish, roasted almond broccoli,” the AI announced pleasantly. “Bon appetit, Mr. Andersen. Mr. West.”

Wow. Was Nick fucking kidding? This was so not okay.

Pat leaped up to stalk over to the dumbwaiter, scowling. The kicker was that Nick didn’t even seem to realize what kind of an insult he’d just dealt Pat… if he’d insulted him intentionally, it might have been easier to take than the thought that Nick had honestly considered there might be a genetic connection between Pat and Crimson Ranger, of all people. That was like Pat declaring Mariachi and Silver Paladin could be twins.

His indignation cooled somewhat on the way back to the couch, helped along by his growling stomach and the enticing odor wafting up from the huge tray he’d retrieved from the dumbwaiter. For all of his remarkable qualities, in the end Nick was still a hoagie, and there were some things not even the most remarkable of hoagies could be expected to understand. So Pat decided to be the bigger man and contented himself with a comparatively minor act of revenge: When he set the tray down on the low table in front of the couch, he made sure to hold it at a steep angle for just long enough to start the pizza toppings sliding, ruining their previously perfect symmetry.

Nick glared at him. Pat shot back a wide-eyed look of clueless innocence. The look would have worked better without the accompanying smirk, of course, but no revenge was complete without some amount of gloating. Well-known fact.

Whoever was down in Nick’s kitchen, they’d done a fine job. Pat wasn’t sure how he felt about that, all things considered, but it was an undeniable fact. Before it had run afoul of Pat, the pizza had been laid out with uncompromising, geometric precision; the dough was rolled out in an even, near-perfect circle, all toppings selected for uniformity and arranged in orderly rows and circles. The slices were cut to precise Nicholas Anderson Handbook specifications, and the accompanying napkins and silverware conformed to regulations, too.

One thing was drastically wrong, though… but that pretty much had to be a rule update rather than a mistake. Pat couldn’t imagine anyone employed by the Andersen Estate would be sloppy and/or wildly daring enough to overlook the cardboard box requirement (had it still been in place) and use an unsanctioned marble platter. That kind of mistake would get you fired without references.

Pat wasn’t the mysteriously impenetrable type (heh, dirty pun, ten points to him), so he wasn’t too surprised to find Nick frowning at him when he looked up. Clearly, his train of thought had been written all over his face. “What did you expect? I don’t like pointless pretense, Patrick.”