Darach

Regan stumbled to a stop, using the wall to balance his abrupt halt.





The smell of decay and rotting food assaulted his nostrils as he waited, hidden between the dumpster and the wall, and he tried not to inhale too deeply. Damn Kian and his bright ideas; he knew he shouldn't have listened to him. Get them to follow you to the alley and I'll close the entrance, trap them. Famous last words; there was no sign of Kian in the alley or street, nor could he even sense him in the heaving throng of the club.



Lover or not, the idiot had been off all week. Over the last seven days, Regan had been tiptoeing through an emotional minefield whenever he was near the other-worlder. Kian's moods changed from miserable and quiet to angry and snappy twenty times a freakin' day. At some points the normally fiery Kian was as cold as ice, and at others, he was so in Regan's face he was damn lucky Regan didn't punch his lights out. He wasn't talking about what was getting him riled up, let alone sharing anything with Regan that might be dragging him down. Kian was in some kind of world of his own. God, that made Regan laugh—Kian in a world of his own.



Scarlet sparked on his palm and he clenched his fist to hide the light, the tension in his spine coiled and impatient for action. He shouldn't be worrying whether Kian had his back; concentrating on anything except getting rid of these bodyguards would just leave him vulnerable. If Kian wasn't going to be here, then it was up to him to get this done by himself. He called on every sense memory, every instance when he had dispatched the Nameless when he had hunted on his own.



The current Nameless threat had been tracked to the New York club, the Jack of Hearts, in the wealthy upstate area of White Plains. The Nameless they hunted today was different from the norm. This one didn't look like an addict, nor did he have the usual sycophants hanging on to his every breath. There was no obvious vulnerability Regan could ascertain at first glance, and Kian concurred. Agreement was reached; luring away the Nameless's bodyguards would be a good idea.



Which was just before Kian went glassy eyed and face-planted onto the bathroom floor. The face-planting was another thing he had taken to doing, much to Regan's worry. The episodes didn't last long. They reminded him of his Aunty Nancy, who had diabetes and suffered hypoglycemic attacks. Kian was spacing out.



When he could focus back on what was happening, he dismissed Regan's concerns.



"Kian. For fuck's sake--"



"I'm fine."



"Clearly." Regan was close to losing it with his lover and his whole "ignoring the elephant in the corner" routine, and he couldn't stop the sarcasm that dripped from the single word. Kian chose to overlook it, as he always did.



"I'll wait, you lead them out, and we'll get this finished in the alley out of sight." Kian had presented the plan as if it were foolproof, taking a tentative step towards the door and pausing to draw in a huge lungful of air. Thing is, the whole plan depended on Kian being in the freaking alley, and so far, there had been no sign of him. Regan tried to focus on his lover's green Fire, attempting some kind of connection, but there was zero there, just the vacuum of nothing, and it felt wrong. What if the idiot was lying somewhere unconscious?



Only a few minutes earlier, Regan had promised the Nameless death; clearly the creature credited the Hunter's threat, sending at least one of his bodyguards to find him. The first one was a great big hulk of a man with ebony skin and a wicked looking gun in his hands as he ventured into the dark alley. He wasn't a Nameless; he wasn't even possessed by a Nameless. He was just a huge fuck-off human paid to kill anyone who threatened the boss.



When a second bodyguard approached from the other end of the alley, Regan tensed; the situation was teetering on "out of hand". Their presence, not more than six feet from where he was hidden, pulled Regan back to full awareness. Fuck. He would do Kian no favors by worrying if it led to getting himself killed.



Kian had shown him some basic ways to use his Fire. Regan even had some control over the sparks inside him, an extra focus and strength that came with the Fire. The Nameless had sent his goons, not come out himself. Regan didn't want to kill the guards; he didn't do murder on what he labeled as 'normal humans' unless they were too far gone into being turned. Somehow he needed to incapacitate them. He sheathed his long-bladed knife in its scabbard and instead began to center himself. Allowing scarlet to trickle through his veins wasn't easy, but he concentrated hard, until the Fire was forefront in his mind as Kian had taught him. He just wished he had jade there as well, but Kian and his Fire were definitely missing in action. A sudden anxiety caused his fire to dwindle. What if Kian was crumpled, laid out somewhere hurt? His lover's mind hadn't been on the job all week. He had been close to getting himself killed in Rochester. He'd blamed the near miss on exhaustion, but when Regan had seen the blood on Kian, his stomach had turned.



He crouched as the second man passed him, not stopping to talk to the first, seemingly intent on his own mission. Then the first man halted maybe two feet from Regan, and somehow, Regan knew it was time to move, fast and decisive.



The fight passed in a blur, and another two bodyguards appeared from inside the club. Subconsciously, Regan counted them as the four he had spotted around the Nameless. And didn't that just make his job easier with the Nameless unprotected? A spark of green and suddenly Kian was in the fight.



Regan didn't have time to admire Kian's smooth movements, or the Fire that whisked around him, nor did he focus on how much stronger his scarlet was becoming as he fought. Finally, all four were unconscious, heaped tidily in the darkest corner with the huge dumpster hiding them. Kian whispered words Regan knew were magik, casting a net around the men. Then the lovers stood looking at each other. Kian opened his mouth as if he might say something, the aura of emerald around him dulling to sage and earth. Then he shut his mouth and remained silent. Regan brushed past him, cursing his own Fire as it called for him to touch Kian. Nope. There was so not going to be anything like touching Fire for a long time. Regan was furious at himself for thinking Kian was hurt or might bail on him, but mostly for doubting the man he loved. And he was angry with Kian for making him doubt.



The Nameless was easy after that. With it alone and cornered, Regan had no difficulty "encouraging" it into a room at the side of the main club. No one questioned their presence, and the lights were so dim it would be impossible to see the blood running freely down Regan's arm. The injury made the grip on his half hidden knife tenuous at best.



The Nameless in the Club, bereft of bodyguards, begged not to be sent back, offering money, information, anything to avoid his 'death'. Regan still didn't have a handle on where the Nameless were sent, whether they died or were just sent back to Kian's world. He just cast the words to dispatch them there. Kian reassured the guy, murmuring words like "going home" and "safe". Regan had wondered before if Kian was giving each Nameless a version of some sort of heaven as they died. It seemed each Nameless they disposed of together, even the one tonight who finally stopped pleading, left this world at peace. Kian spouting shit that Regan didn't properly understand and couldn't clearly hear was unnerving and, given Regan's state of mind, frustrating.



Kian wasn't sleeping, his head wasn't in the job, and they depended on each other too much for him to let things slide. The Nameless seemed to have multiplied, there were more and more occasions when Regan and Kian had to handle suspicious deaths. Either he or Kian was going to get killed if their minds weren't on the job. In fact, Kian and he needed to talk, because if Regan had to handle one more takedown with Kian's clear lack of support, his mumblings, and his God-damned Kian-ness then Regan was just going to have to kill the guy himself.



Here.



Now.