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“Yeah, smells dreadful.”
“If you want you can stay at the house.”
“Yes.” Matt smiled without hesitation leaned across the table and draped an arm over Peter’s shoulder. “Who knows you may actually sleep.”
“I don’t sleep Matt.”
Matt felt his heart lurch. “I know Peter, but we gotta start somewhere.”
Peter shrugged before looking up, “What is this?”
Praeger squeezed him around the shoulder; he wasn’t certain himself and wasn’t prepared to examine his growing emotions too closely. “It’s called friendship Dr. Axon, surely you’ve heard of it before?”
“It’s been a while.” Peter admitted quietly.
~~~****~~~
He felt the dream, knew its insidious tendrils would weave into his mind as he tried to seek the much-needed rest. But his dream self knew too that he was undeserving of such rest and tormented him with the nightmare images. He remembered in vivid detail the cold air that punished his lungs as he tried to run free, to escape the roiling heat that flowed behind him. Felt the precious burden in his arms slip free from him, begging him to let him be, to let him go, and felt the sharp stab of guilt as he heard Conner snap at him over and over again. He thrashed on the bed, but the dream was not finished with him yet, it would torture his soul and sear into his brain with an aching hollow need and he felt alone. More alone than he had ever felt in his life, looking for the tiny spark of understanding, of sympathy or respect that he was due as a human and came up lacking. The fissure grew broader, the arms felt colder and he saw Conner again swimming so close to him, knowing he was dying, feeling the death inside his own heart and unable to let him go he dragged the body free from the burning rubble to face the condemnation of his peers and the vitriolic dialogue from the only person he loved.
Peter curled screaming into the pillows, his face beaded with sweat as the sheets wound around his legs, holding him firm, making him face the pain and anger, and his sobs died silently on his lips as he woke in the still night air. Darkness surrounding him not deep enough to drown in allowed the shadows of his past to loom in frightening clarity and he wanted nothing more than to remember the laughter that the room had seen and couldn’t. Nothing ever changed, the pain didn’t stop and he lay there panting heavily as the tears streaked his face again this time coming unbidden as he curled into the comfort of strong arms.
He shuddered, surely he was free of the dream, that this was not some other image that taunted him and he felt large hands petting him softly, as a parent does to a worried child. It took time; long moments suspended in molasses as he recognized the voice and felt the heart that murmured softly beneath his ear.
“Matt?” he asked his blurred senses finally making the connection.
“Some dream.” Matt rocked slowly, his arms cradling the stricken man as he brushed his hand across the silver-shot hair.
He knew he should move, knew that he shouldn’t allow Praeger to hold him and comfort him, knew that it went against everything in his heart yet somehow he couldn’t bring himself to lose the warmth against his skin and unconsciously he curled around the longer frame.
Matt sighed softly when he realized that Peter was sobbing silently, the heavy body racked with tiny ripples as the pain lanced through wounding him sharper than any blade. He looked down, almost foetal Peter had curled into him, the only source of warmth or compassion he had been shown in nearly two years and Matt had to fight the urge to stop the tears from falling.
“Is it the same every night?” Matt asked softly when he felt he could trust his voice again.
“No.” Peter shuddered in the light embrace.
“Getting worse?” Matt pulled the feather down higher around him and settled him comfortably against his chest.
“It’s not the dream.” Peter answered somewhere near sleep, “It’s the knowing that it’s real that breaks me.”
And Matt knew exactly what he meant.
~~~****~~~
“You weren’t at home Matthew.” Kelly drawled as he leaned against the rail on the back decking of Peter’s home.
“I see you had no problems in finding me.” Matt sipped on the coffee and watched the play of light in the sky. He loved early mornings; crisp and clean it made him feel new.
“So where’s your little friend?”
“Asleep.” Praeger shot him a warning glare and Kelly smiled.
“You said you wanted the information immediately.”
“What have you got for me?”
“Apart from advice?”
“Don’t start Mike it’s not what you think.”
“Perhaps but its not what you think either. Axon is vulnerable, don’t become something you can’t be Matthew.”
“I’m impressed Mike, you actually made that sound like you care.” Praeger walked forward and leaned over the rail.
“I’m getting old Matt, too old to lose any more friends. You were correct there was a retrieval team that was flown in to within two miles of the facility and completed the crossing on snow. Axon didn’t look beyond the rubble inside. The agency was the CDC under the jurisdiction of your friends in the government. Elsinger placed a call to the Washington number the day they left for Russia and had a team standing by.”
“He knew what they were walking into! Son of a bitch!”
“Now here’s the funny part, within the entourage that arrived on site there was a full Hazmat unit complete with a cryo team.”
“Cryo?”
“Cryogenics Matthew. They had foreknowledge that these bugs were only made dormant by the cold.”
“Put’s Elsinger into the hot seat. Okay so who or what agency orchestrated this fiasco?”
“I’m not certain yet but on the same day that the team was sent to Russia, GemCorp floated ten thousand preferential shares into Elsinger’s name at a market price of sixty five dollars, into what was considered at the time a bear market.”
“Can we prove it?”
“Enough to get a senate committee to act on? I have a little more digging yet, but the destination of the retrieval team continues to elude me. I strongly suspect if we find that out all of our questions will be answered.”
“Thanks Mike.” Praeger smiled. Elsinger was going down, and it was only a matter of time.
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