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rsadellePart 1
Victoria was, as Gabe predicted, annoyed that he insisted on taking William with him to Clandestine Camp before she could even work explosives training into his regular duty roster.
"You don't really have everything I need anyway," William pointed out. "I'll make you a list, and we can start up when I get back." She wasn't much happier with that, but she did give him a data pad to make a list on and start combing the duty roster to find a team to send with them.
It took four days before they were ready to go. Four days of William being on regular duty during the day and going home to Gabe's tent at night. Four days of learning how little time Gabe really had to himself. William was asleep before Gabe even got back to the tent, and even in the mornings they barely managed a few minutes together. One morning William only knew Gabe had been there because their bedroll was too warm for it to have been just him in it all night.
"Winter's tougher," Gabe said during one of their mornings of stolen kisses. "It takes more work to keep everyone fed."
William put his head down on Gabe's shoulder. "I'm not so selfish I'd take you away from that."
"Someday," Gabe whispered, "when this is all over, it'll be just you and me and a real bed."
William smiled against the warmth of Gabe's skin. "I don't even know if I remember what a real bed feels like."
Gabe laughed softly. "And you've only been here a couple of months."
"It feels like longer." William didn't only mean his time at the camp.
"I know."
When he looked up, Gabe was looking at him with the softest eyes.
"You still like me even when I'm not yelling at you?" William teased.
"William," Gabe said softly, "I think I'll always like you."
***
"Association doesn't usually come this deep into the forest," Ryland said when they finally set out for Clandestine Camp. "But stay alert anyway."
It took the better part of two days to get there - two days that included Gabe and William on separate night watch shifts - but they arrived without any run-ins with the Association or anyone else.
On the way into the camp, William watched Ryland and Alex silently signaling guards. His woodcraft had gotten good enough that he only missed two of them.
When they got to the edge of the camp, they handed the horses' reins over to a guy with glasses and a labret.
"This is Andy," Gabe said after everyone else had a chance to greet the guy. "You'll have to get him to show you his ink when we're somewhere warmer. Andy, this is William."
"Hey," Andy said. He reached out to shake William's hand. "I've heard a lot about you. Make sure you find Joe sometime before you leave. I know he wants to talk housings or triggers or something."
"Yeah," William agreed. "I'll do that."
A woman with red hair swept away from the side of her face met them as they went deeper into the camp. Gabe picked her up with his hug, and she laughed before she made him put her down.
"Ashlee, Ashlee, Ashlee," Gabe said, not quite letting go of her, "I can't believe you're still here and not with me."
The Ashlee girl grinned, but she was looking more at William than at Gabe when she said, "You know I'm never leaving Pete." She pushed Gabe away and held out her hand to William. "You must be William."
"Ashlee?" William guessed. Her hand was soft in his.
"That's me." Ashlee looped her arm through William's. "Come on. I'll show you around while Gabe does the serious business stuff with Pete."
"Um." William looked to Gabe, who, instead of helping, grinned at them.
"We'll send someone to find you before we talk serious business about PR." And then he took Ryland and Alex and left William with Ashlee dragging him in a different direction.
"Guest tents are over there." Ashlee pointed out a group of tents. "We started numbering them. You and Gabe will be in 612." She shrugged. "Pete thought nonconsecutive numbering would be more interesting."
She pointed out a handful of other landmarks on their way into what appeared to be the social center of the camp.
"Almost everyone's in camp today," Ashlee explained as they got nearer to an open area with a bunch of crowded tables. She took a couple of faster steps toward a teenager who met them at the edge. The teenager was carrying a baby he handed over to Ashlee. "Hi, baby." Ashlee kissed the baby's cheek. "This is our son, Bronx." Bronx was a cute, round-faced kid, who twisted to look at his mother even as she tried to get him to look at William.
William passed his hand over Bronx's short, soft hair. "Hi, Bronx." He smiled as Bronx twisted to look up at him and then turned back toward Ashlee.
Ashlee pressed another kiss to the top of Bronx's head. "Let's help William find his friends."
They found his old team first. Mike, Butcher, and Michael sat around a table. A curly-haired guy in white jeans leaned against Mike's shoulder. Another two guys in the same mold sat across from them having some kind of spirited discussion.
Ashlee left sometime during the time William exchanged hugs with his old team and got introduced to the new members. The one with Mike was named Kevin; the other two were his brothers Nick and Joe.
William had barely had a chance to say hello to them before all three of them looked resigned.
"Mom's calling us," Kevin explained, and William realized they had implanted tech too. "It was very nice to meet you, William. We'll probably see you at dinner." He leaned down and exchanged a kiss with Mike that left Mike blushing and unable to meet William's eyes.
It was Butcher who grinned at him and explained. "They used to be Association. That's why they have the good tech. They belong to some religious sect, which means they're pledged to virginity until marriage." Butcher had to pause while William laughed. "Yeah. They still hold prayer meetings, too. But they're good people. Some Association division they were with kept pressuring Kevin to date some girl, so they left."
"And now," Michael added, "he has Mike wrapped around his little finger."
William laughed again. "Now who's falling for unsuitable revolutionaries?"
"Fuck you," Mike said. "At least he's not likely to get me killed."
"We going to get to meet your unsuitable revolutionary?" Michael asked.
William resolutely did not blush, and he didn't bother to argue that Gabe wasn't unsuitable. "Yeah. He's meeting with Pete right now. They're supposed to get me to talk about PR." William tapped out a nonsense beat on the table, and Mike responded with the hand signals for both "safe" and "listeners." William stopped tapping. "I think we need to get the word out, in the cities, that there's something else out there."
"Nick'll help," Butcher said immediately.
William smiled. It was good to be with his old team, even if it did make his throat catch with the memory of how much he missed Sisky.
They'd been talking for a while, working out plans and ideas in a combination of words and the hand signals that were a habit they hadn't yet been able to break, when Pete and Gabe found them. They were trailed by a third man, short and vaguely familiar. Gabe sat down next to William, not quite touching, but close enough for William to feel the warmth of his body.
Pete and the other man sat down across from them. "This is Patrick," Pete said, slinging an arm around Patrick.
"Stump," Patrick said. "I think we sort of worked in parallel circles a couple of years ago."
Pete frowned. "If they were circles, shouldn't they be concentric, not parallel?"
"Feel free to ignore Pete," Patrick told him. "You used to jam broadcasts, right? Replace them with a code the Association could never break."
William grinned. "Because it wasn't a code. Just recorded explosions we used to string together."
"So you have PR experience," Pete said.
"Enough," William agreed. "And you have the resources to make our plans a reality."
William's old team let him take the lead on explaining their plans to Pete, Patrick, and Gabe. Some of Pete's ideas were fairly outrageous, but Patrick knew what he was talking about.
William didn't realize they were still using hand signals until Gabe stifled a laugh at something that wasn't funny. William shot him a look, and Gabe looked pointedly at his hands.
He and Mike had been exchanging desultory insults about Gabe and Kevin between laying out practical ideas for getting the word out about the Resistance.
William tried to put his hands in his lap instead, but Gabe grabbed them and put them back on the table.
"I like watching you talk," Gabe murmured into his ear. William was still a little more careful about what he said about Gabe after that.
Their planning lasted until Ashlee, Bronx still on her hip, came to interrupt them.
"It's almost dinner time, and I bet you haven't even taken William to see his other friends," she chided. "Besides, Bronx wanted to see his daddy."
Pete reached his arms out for the baby. "Daddy always wants to see you."
"Come on," Ashlee offered. "I'll take you to Travis and Maja."
Gabe touched a hand to William's hip. "I'll catch up with you at dinner."
William reached down to tangle his fingers with Gabe's for just a second before following Ashlee. Their path took them away from the camp's center.
"Maja's on bed rest. It's driving her crazy, but it does make her easy to find." Ashlee stopped in front of a large tent and rapped on the knocker hanging next to the flap. Maja's voice invited them in, and Ashlee said, "I brought you a visitor," as she pushed into the tent.
"William!" Maja's face lit up, and Travie rolled to his feet.
"You didn't tell us you were coming." Travis wrapped William up in one of his wonderful, warm hugs.
"I tagged along with Gabe." When Travie let him go, William kicked off his shoes and curled himself up with Maja.
"You still could have sent word," Maja said, but she took William's hand and put it over her stomach so he could feel the baby kick.
Travis settled in on the other side of William and the three of them traded stories about their respective camps.
"You can stay with us," Maja offered.
William managed to say, "Gabe and I have one of the guest tents," without blushing, but Travis and Maja still had one of their unspoken couple conversations over his head.
"Is he good to you?"
William nodded and then tipped his chin up so the light would fall on the yellowing bruise under his jaw. "And I have the hickeys to prove it."
"He ever stops," Maja said, "you let me know. Even pregnant I could kick his ass."
William felt such a rush of affection for her. "I don't think it'll come to that."
A bell rang, cutting through whatever Travis or Maja might have had to say about that.
"Dinner," Maja explained. She reached over William to Travis. "Help me up."
"You're supposed to be resting," Travis objected.
"It's not that far, and William's here." Maja held her other hand out to William. "One dinner with the rest of the camp isn't going to hurt me or the baby."
William looked to Travis for guidance.
"If we don't help," he sighed. "She'll just do it by herself."
Travis and Maja sat on one side of a table with William on the other. With the kind of kid-radar they seemed to have, Astrid and Ingrid found them as soon as they were seated, and they both flung themselves at William. He had them settled in his lap telling him all about the amazing things they'd been doing when Gabe sat down next to him, the brief touch of his hand to the small of William's back serving as a greeting. William turned automatically to include him in the conversation.
Gabe disappeared to deal with more leader business after dinner. William helped Travis walk Maja back to their tent and then left them alone to rest. His old team was gathered close to the central fire with a group of other people and a surprisingly large number of guitars. When William got to them, Mike's boyfriend and one of his brothers were playing two of the guitars while the other brother sang. They were much better than William expected. He sat down next to Mike.
"They're good."
Mike nodded. "A little soft, but yeah." He looked at William. "Your revolutionary play?"
William shrugged. "I've heard him singing once or twice, but we haven't talked about it." He looked at the assembled group again. "Lot of instruments."
"Patrick has a contact," Mike said.
"Gets good stuff too," Kevin said as he sat down on the other side of Mike. Mike's face softened as Kevin rested his chin on Mike's shoulder. William wondered if that was how he looked when Gabe touched him.
The party broke up after a while. "It's sort of equal parts cute and funny," Butcher said as they watched Mike walk Kevin back to his family's tent.
"They're seriously not having sex?"
"That's the funny part." Butcher clapped him on the shoulder and went off toward his own tent.
William intended to wait up for Gabe, but they'd been travelling for two days that included night guard duty shifts, and Clandestine Camp had seriously well heated guest tents, both of which conspired to send him to sleep. He half woke when Gabe slid into the bedroll with him.
"Hey."
"Hey." Gabe kissed him lightly. "I didn't mean to wake you."
William turned toward him and slung an arm over Gabe's body. "Was trying to wait up."
Gabe chuckled. "You have plans for when I got back?"
William pressed closer to Gabe. "Not really." He found Gabe's mouth in the dark and kissed him sleepily. "Wanted to see you." He was already drifting off and missed whatever Gabe's response was.
***
They spent three days at Clandestine Camp. It was enough time for William to learn how much Maja hated being on bed rest, get to know Kevin, and find that Gabe wasn't any less busy when he wasn't at his home camp.
It was also enough time to make a fairly solid plan to get the word out to people in the cities about the Resistance, and a slightly shakier plan for creating Resistance networks within the cities.
It felt like they were finally getting somewhere.
***
William settled back into the daily rhythms of Cobra Camp that had become his routine, trading off camp duty and explosives training with long-range comm strategizing over the PR situation and missions in the outer world. Life with Gabe became, if not routine, at least familiar. Gabe continued to be busy nearly every minute of the day, but he managed to find, make, or downright force his way into time to spend with William. William soaked up every moment of it, from the times it was nothing more than just a minute of kissing to the few nights Gabe dragged him back to their tent after dinner with the gleeful promise that he'd turned all responsibilities short of death over to Vicky-T and taken the night off.
***
The door to the armory slammed shut. William, on inventory duty, had one of the guns in his hand before the sound stopped echoing through the space.
"William?" Gabe's voice followed the echo of the door.
"Back here!" William put the gun back in the box and picked up his data pad again.
Gabe's footsteps came towards him and stopped at the end of the row. "How close are you to being done?"
William waved at the stack of boxes. "About an hour, maybe." He looked up at Gabe after he said it. Gabe looked. Well, William wasn't exactly sure how Gabe looked, but it wasn't good. He put the data pad down on top of the stack of boxes. "Or I can be done now."
Gabe came toward him, every movement unnaturally sharp. William could have met him halfway, but instead waited for Gabe to come to him. Gabe crowded him back against the table and kissed him hard enough that their teeth clashed.
William dug his fingers into Gabe's cheeks and pulled and twisted his head until the kiss was still hard but not actually painful. While he was doing that, Gabe slid his hand between them and cupped William through his pants, making him hard so fast he was almost dizzy with it.
William groaned against Gabe's mouth and pushed harder into his hand. It brought him close enough to feel Gabe's cock hard against him.
"Is this what you wanted?" he murmured against Gabe's lips. He spread his fingers around the curves of Gabe's ass and pulled Gabe tight against him.
Gabe hitched one leg up and around William's hip. "I want you to fuck me." He said it between kisses, sharp things with teeth against William's neck.
William caught Gabe's chin in his hand and directed his mouth up again. "Did you bring something?" he asked after long moments of deep kisses that left him aching to have all of Gabe.
Gabe pressed a tube into his hand, and then slipped to the side, leaned over the edge of the table, and pushed his pants down all in one motion. William opened the tube and got his fingers slick enough to push two of them into Gabe at once. Gabe's hands slid against the table as he bent and got better leverage to push back into William's touch.
"That's enough," Gabe said before William thought it really was, but he wasn't going to argue about it. Gabe hissed as William pushed into him. "Harder."
William draped himself close over Gabe's back. "I'm not even moving yet."
Gabe reached back to claw at his hip, his nails leaving stinging lines on William's skin. "So start."
William bit lightly at the back of Gabe's neck. "You wanted me to fuck you. This is what you're getting." From the way Gabe had looked when he'd come in, he didn't just need something hard and fast, he needed to focus on something else for a while. William shifted his hips, just a short, soft slide in and out.
"You are such a bastard in bed."
"And out of it." William said it close enough to Gabe that he could close his teeth over Gabe's earlobe on the last syllable.
"You are so much trouble," Gabe bitched.
"But I'm worth it. In bed and out." William molded his hands around the curves of Gabe's hips and held him still while he worked in and out of Gabe in slow and steady strokes.
Gabe swore at him. "This isn't," he ground out, "exactly what I was asking for."
William dug his fingers into the hollows of Gabe's hips. "This is exactly what you're getting." He kept his thrusts slow enough to frustrate. Gabe on edge was always fun, and Gabe on edge and pissed at him was even more fun. And then, when Gabe pressed up, hands braced against the table to give himself some leverage, William rode him down into the table and then stopped, using his weight to hold Gabe still.
Gabe swore at him, and again when William kicked his legs a little wider. "Come on." He struggled against William's hold, but he was off balance and his hands slid against the table, and he didn't get anywhere. "You're a fucking pain in my ass," he ground out, and then, finally, he stopped fighting and laid himself across the table, his arms stretched out and draped over the other side.
William pressed down into him, touching Gabe at every point possible, for just a moment. Then he kissed the side of Gabe's neck before pushing himself back up to look down at Gabe while he fucked him. He pushed Gabe's shirt up as far as it would go so he could look down at the long line of Gabe's back and then lower to watch his cock move in and out of Gabe.
"You are such a fucking tease," Gabe bitched. He stayed over the table, though, which meant that William didn't care too much what he had to say.
"I always follow through." William proved it by moving faster, harder, enough to make Gabe cry out and the table scrape against the floor. William spared a moment to hope Gabe had turned on the armory's sound dampener or that no one was nearby.
He dug his nails into the flesh of Gabe's shoulder and dragged them down, all the way down and over the curve of Gabe's ass. He echoed Gabe's hissed "Yes" and scratched a matching set of lines on the other side of Gabe's back with his other hand.
He wasn't going to last long with his marks turning red on the canvas of Gabe's skin.
He timed the next scrape of his nails with a thrust hard enough to send the table skittering against the floor and leave Gabe scrambling to hold on. One more and Gabe shouted without words. Another and he wasn't even doing that, just huffing out breaths with each thrust. And then the one after that had him coming and saying William's name on a strangled moan.
William gripped Gabe's hips, and it was only a few short, sharp thrusts before he was coming too.
William leaned down over Gabe and pressed his lips to the center of his back, right over one set of his marks. He pulled back to look down at them for a moment, six sets of parallel lines starting to fade back into Gabe's usual soft brown.
He pulled away and grabbed a cloth from the bucket of clean rags. Gabe stayed where he was, and only moved when William made him turn so he could get them both as clean as he could.
William dumped the rag into the pile of rags waiting to be washed, did up his pants, and came back to put his arms around Gabe. When Gabe dropped his head down onto his shoulder, William cupped a hand around the back of it.
"You gonna tell me what that was about?" he asked after a while.
Gabe let out a shaky breath before he started talking. "There was a camp," he said into William's shoulder. "A small one. Maybe two, three teams and a couple of families."
William guessed some of what was coming and tightened his hold on Gabe.
"Association got them," Gabe whispered. "Killed two of the kids, one of the teams, took everyone else in."
There wasn't anything William could say to make that better, so he just kept holding on.
"I'm putting everyone in danger here." Gabe's voice was almost too soft to be heard.
William pulled back enough to look Gabe in the eye. "Everyone here knows what they're getting themselves into. They're all here because they believe in the resistance, and they believe in what you're doing."
"What about you?" Gabe asked. "Do you believe in what I'm doing?
William pressed his forehead against Gabe's. "I do, but I'm so in love with you I'd be here even if I didn't."
Gabe made a strangled noise and slammed his lips into William's. William kissed back just as fiercely, and then gentled it until they were just trading soft kisses.
Gabe eventually sighed and pulled away. "Give me half the list," he said, holding out his data pad. "I'll help you finish up."
***
Christmas wasn't a huge thing at Cobra Camp the way it could be in the city. There wasn't much in the way of gifts that could be exchanged, and not everyone celebrated it anyway. When Victoria asked William if he wanted to be on duty or off, he said, "Whatever Gabe's doing." She took him literally, and William and Gabe spent the day on kitchen duty.
The real party was planned for New Year's Day, when everyone was officially off and volunteers took short shifts to keep the camp running and everyone fed and safe.
William woke up in the middle of the night before the party to Gabe saying his name and shaking him.
"It's almost midnight."
"What?" William pushed himself up, hoping that sitting up would help him wake up enough to figure out what Gabe wanted.
"New Year's Eve." Gabe tugged William toward him, and he went, sleepy and pliant, and willing to be wherever Gabe wanted him. "If I can't throw a real party, I can at least kiss you at midnight."
William leaned in to be kissed, and they just kept kissing until Gabe pulled back to say, "Midnight. Happy New Year," and then they kept kissing some more.
They woke up late enough to have missed breakfast, and they spent a lazy morning in bed before going out to join the rest of the camp's celebration.
***
Two weeks into the new year, the singing Alex found William on child care duty. William knew, just from the look on his face, that he wasn't going to like whatever brought him there.
"Gabe's in the infirmary," Alex blurted out before William could ask. Then he stepped up to take the kid William was holding. "I got this. Go."
William ran the whole way and burst into the infirmary panting too hard to talk. He gulped for air while he looked around for Gabe. A crowd of people that included Victoria, Ryland, and Suarez surrounded a gurney.
William pushed through the rest of the crowd to reach Gabe's side. He took in Gabe's leg, ripped open and bloody, and the gray cast to Gabe's skin with one sweeping glance, and then tried not to see it.
"What the hell were you thinking? This was supposed to be an easy mission."
Gabe grinned at him, but it was strained around the edges. "I love it when you yell at me."
William turned to Ryland and Suarez. "You were supposed to be protecting him! Why weren't you doing your goddamned jobs?"
On the other side of them, Victoria was saying the same kind of thing, and there was a whole host of other people there bustling around, the med team efficient and professional, Nate rushing in, a couple of the teenagers who worshipped Gabe trying to push their way toward him.
"Enough!" The Chief Medic's voice finally cut through everything else. Leighton looked sweet, but she could wield real power when it was called for. It made her a good medic. "Everyone out."
There was no fucking way William was leaving.
"William stays," Gabe said, before William could do anything about it.
"This is my infirmary," Leighton snapped.
"William stays," Gabe said again, firmer the second time.
Leighton nodded. "Fine. William stays. Everyone else out."
William crowded in to take Gabe's hand while Leighton's med team pushed everyone else out. "You fucking idiot," he grumbled down at Gabe.
Gabe squeezed his hand. "I love you too." He tugged on William's hand until he bent over enough that Gabe could reach for the back of his head and tug him all the way down to where he could press his lips to William's. "Sorry," he murmured. "I didn't mean to-" He cut himself off and grimaced. "Fuck, that hurts."
"Sorry," Leighton said. She even sounded sorry. "This is going to take a little surgery. We're going to knock you out for this."
Gabe closed his eyes. "Yeah. Yeah, okay."
"And I'm gonna have to kick you out," Leighton said to William.
William gripped Gabe's hand tighter. "No."
"Yes," Leighton said, her voice sharp.
Gabe squeezed his hand again, a slow pulse of affection. "Yes," he said, softly. He tugged William into a kiss. "Leighton's good. Let her do her job."
William cupped his hand around Gabe's cheek. "Okay." He brushed his thumb across the line of Gabe's cheekbone. "Okay."
Leighton's team pushed the gurney away from William, and he watched until they went through the doors into her operating room before he turned around and went out to sit in the waiting area.
He dropped into a chair next to Victoria, across from Ryland and Suarez. "They're doing surgery."
"The mission was fine," Victoria told him without waiting to be asked. "It was a trap inside the forest on the way back. We're sending a team out to investigate."
William nodded. "Sorry," he offered. He looked up at Ryland and Suarez so they'd know he meant it for them too.
Victoria squeezed his shoulder. "We all know what he is to you."
William dropped his head to look down at his hands again. Victoria let go of him, and he got the sense she was having a silent conversation with Ryland and Suarez, but he didn't look up to find out.
In objective time, Gabe wasn't really in surgery for that long, but it felt like forever.
"He's going to be fine," Leighton said when she came to tell them it was over. "He'll have to stay off of it for a while, but he should be out of here in a couple of days."
"Can we see him?" Victoria asked while William breathed a deep sigh of relief.
"He's still out," Leighton said, "but one of you can sit with him."
There was a moment where William waited for Victoria to insist on seeing him. But instead she pushed at his shoulder. "Go on. We've got work to do." Then she leaned in and hugged him quickly. "I'll take you off the duty rotation for now."
William resisted the urge to just lean against her. "Thanks." He hauled himself up out of the chair and followed Leighton back to where Gabe lay silent and asleep in a bed.
He tugged a chair as close as he could get it to the bed and took Gabe's hand. Gabe was always so busy that William had barely ever gotten a chance to watch him sleep. He wasn't sure that was a bad thing.
Gabe asleep looked vulnerable and still in a way he never was awake, not even in those rare moments when they were just quiet together and Gabe wasn't the head of Cobra Camp, just Gabe, just the guy William was in love with. He wanted Gabe to wake up, to just be with him, and for a moment, he hated it all, Resistance as much as Association, for not letting him have just that.
He watched Gabe sleep for a long time.
Gabe's face eventually scrunched up and then his eyes opened.
"Hey," William said.
Gabe's eyes slowly focused on him. "Hey," he said, his voice raspy. "Hey, hey, hey."
William smiled helplessly. "You're pretty drugged up."
Gabe grinned back at him. "Love you, William. My William. William, William, bo Billiam," he sang.
William chuckled. "Really drugged up." He pushed Gabe's hair back. "Love you too."
The lecture about not scaring the hell out of him like that could wait until the drugs wore off.
***
The trap turned out to have been set by a trio of teenage girls. William suspected they weren't particularly serious about the Resistance and would have been just as happy to have been causing mayhem on behalf of the Association, but something about their wildness and abandon appealed to Gabe, so Melissa, Allison, and Dani stayed to put an almost permanent frown on Victoria's face.
Gabe was still on restricted duty - which meant he spent most of his day in the command tent and bitched endlessly about being well enough to get back to at least most of the camp duty chores - when Mike, Kevin, and Kevin's brothers came through on a message run.
"Are they your chaperones?" William asked Mike, after he'd shown them to two separate tents.
"Shut up," Mike said. "I think Pete just wanted to get them out of there. Nick and Joe are a fucking handful."
William walked them out toward his explosives training ground, betting on it being empty. "Kevin worth the trouble?"
"Gabe worth the trouble?" Mike asked instead of answering him directly. Point taken.
"He got hurt," William said a ways down the path. "Surgery and everything, and the girls who set the trap are part of the camp now."
"Anyone who hurt Kevin wouldn't live to join up." Mike didn't say it like a threat, just plain, like it was a fact.
"Gabe actually likes them. They're a fucking danger to all of us." William pushed aside the brush and led Mike onto his training ground.
"Shit," Mike said, looking around. "This is pretty fucking amazing."
The clearing was large enough to practice throwing bombs. A rushing creek bordered it on one side.
"Exactly what we never had."
"What are you doing out here?" Mike asked. "Cocktails? Detonators?"
"Anything Victoria can get our hands on. Plus safety training."
Mike laughed. "You got teams green enough for that?"
"I've got Cash Colligan, who thinks he's fucking invincible. I keep telling him he's going to get his whole team killed, but it's not sinking in."
Mike sat down on one of the fallen logs that served as a bench. "So this is what it's like to belong to the camp commander."
William kicked at Mike's feet. "Shut up. It's not like that. He offered me a place here before that."
"But he wanted to. You too."
William shook his head. "Victoria got me this, and she doesn't fuck around." He grinned. "I'm not getting away with this because of Gabe." He swung his pack off his shoulders and dropped it into Mike's lap. "Build me something without blowing us both up. Small enough we can detonate it here."
Mike flashed him the sign for "crazy" but dug through the pack and pulled out parts he slotted together with practiced efficiency.
William watched carefully, calculating blast radius and volatility.
Mike held up the finished product. "Meet with your approval?"
"Depends on the field test."
Mike had used a remote detonator, so he walked it out into the clearing, far enough that they wouldn't be caught in the blast, but not so far it would disturb the creek.
William pulled out two pairs of heavy-duty earmuffs and handed one to Mike. He gave Mike a thumbs up when his ears were covered, and Mike punched in the code on the remote, which was really just showing off; a simple push-button remote would have done just as well.
It was beautiful, practically textbook. William almost wished he'd brought some of his students out to see it.
"How long are you staying?" William took the earmuffs from Mike and bundled both pairs back into his pack.
Mike shrugged. "Depends on your commander." He dropped back onto one of the logs. "Could be a couple of days, or we might leave tomorrow." His eyes narrowed. "You're not trying to get me to help are you?"
"I don't know what they were doing before I got here, but it sure as hell wasn't explosives." William sat next to Mike. "And Cash might actually listen to you."
"He the team lead?"
William huffed out a laugh. "No, one of the Alexes, but they're joined at the hip."
"Fuck," Mike muttered, which meant William had won. "We're still here, I'll talk to him tomorrow."
William knocked his shoulder against Mike's in thanks. They just sat for a couple minutes before Mike spoke again.
"Thinking about making it official with Kevin, if he says yes."
William was so surprised he couldn't even think what to say. He decided asking when the last time Mike had gotten laid wasn't the way to go. "You barely know him," he finally managed.
Mike shrugged and refused to look at him. "Been a couple of months. Besides, when you know, you know, right?" He glanced at William. "You knew. Before you came to get me, you knew."
William leaned hard against Mike's side. It wasn't a conversation he'd had with anyone else. "I knew," he admitted softly. "I guess it's one good thing out of this war."
Mike nudged him. "You think we'd get away with blowing shit up without this war?"
It surprised William into a laugh, and something inside him that he hadn't even known was tight loosened.
***
Neither Mike nor Cash would divulge the contents of their conversation, but whatever it was seemed to work. William breathed a sigh of relief and sent his thanks in his next note to Mike.
Gabe's leg got better, and he and Victoria had a screaming fight with the dual results that William got fucked so hard he could feel it for days and Melissa, Allison, and Dani were sent on to Clandestine Camp. William figured he was the one who actually won that argument.
Winter started to warm into spring.
William was on stable duty, despairing over the sheer volume of mud, when Gabe came running at him yelling his name. William dropped the brush he'd been using, and Gabe picked him up and twirled him around.
"We won!"
"What?" William spluttered.
"We won." Gabe's smile stretched his mouth wide and lit up his face. "I don't think Pete even knows how he did it, but he did. Pete's in the government residence, and the Association is disbanding."
It took a moment for it to sink in, for William to realize it was really happening. "Gabe," he breathed out. Gabe still had him lifted in the air, so William had to lean down to kiss him. Gabe slowly lowered him, never breaking the kiss, until they were level again. William could feel his grin stretching wide to match Gabe's.
Gabe palmed his ass with one hand and used the other to tug William's leg up over his hip. "I can't wait to have you in a bed."
William laughed, joy outweighing the arousal that would have him insisting on Gabe having him right then. "You wouldn't believe the things I can do in a bed."
"I can't believe some of the things you can do in a bedroll." Gabe pressed a sound kiss to William's lips and let go of him, only to take his hand. "Come on. Leave the horses. Day off." Gabe tugged William with him toward the center of camp.
Word had clearly spread, and the camp's center had turned into a party. Gabe pulled William into the middle of it, where they exchanged hugs and high fives with most of the rest of the camp.
Ryland and Suarez had set themselves up on top of one of the tables with a set of speakers, a tech unit William was willing to bet they'd taken from the command tent, and a couple of microphones.
"This," Gabe said, catching William around the waist and holding him close, "is what we've been building." He turned William around to watch the crowd from his perspective. Couples danced to the music Ryland and Suarez kept coming, Cash and the Alexes had a couple of guitars and a tambourine and appeared to be trying to wheedle time with the sound system, and children ran around joining in the general air of delighted chaos. Even Victoria was laughing and dancing with Nate. "Something where victory is a party everyone can be a part of."
William leaned back, trusting Gabe to take his weight and tipping his head to press his cheek against Gabe's. "I love you so much." He could feel Gabe's answering grin against his cheek. "I mean that, you know." He twisted in Gabe's hold and twined his arms around Gabe's neck. "This is amazing. You're amazing." He felt like he would never stop smiling.
Victoria interrupted the moment by pushing at Gabe's arm. "Take it to your tent, or break it up and get up there to make a speech."
Gabe squeezed William tight before letting go. He pressed a gentle kiss to William's lips, and smacked a louder one to Victoria's cheek. "I'm going."
Victoria wrapped an arm around William's back, and he wrapped an answering arm around her shoulders. They stood together to watch Gabe make his way through the crowd to Ryland and Suarez's makeshift stage.
He hopped up on the table with them, and the three of them talked for a moment before the music stopped.
"Ladies and gentlemen," Ryland proclaimed, "Gabriel Saporta."
There was a roar from the assembled members of their camp, and if William clutched Victoria a little tighter, she didn't seem to mind.
Gabe was still laughing when he brought the mic up. "You've all been here with me working on getting rid of the Association," he said when both he and the crowd had quieted, "and now we've done that." He had to stop for the crowd to cheer. "But this is just the beginning. Now it's time to take what we've learned here, how to work together, how to live, how to party, and bring it to the rest of the world." There was another cheer. "It took us time to get here, and it'll take more time to remake the world in our image." He looked out at the crowd, and William was sure every one of them would swear he looked straight at them. "I don't even know how that's going to work yet, so just be cool about it, and we'll let you know when we know." He grinned, bright and cheerful. "And now I'm going to hand this back over to Ryland and Suarez. Tomorrow we'll start rebuilding the world, but tonight we're partying. Fangs up!" Gabe threw up the fangs, and the rest of the camp answered with the fangs and a roar of sound.
Ryland and Suarez started the music up again. Gabe handed the mic back and jumped down and waded into the crowd.
William turned back to Victoria. "He's really good at that."
"He's Gabe Saporta." Victoria smiled and hugged William close. William had never seen her so happy, or so relaxed.
Leighton came by to grin at William and drag Victoria into the crowd, and William found himself alone at the edge of it. He'd made enough of a home at Cobra Camp that he wasn't alone for long, but he didn't see Gabe for a while. The only chore someone had managed to keep going for the day was dinner, but even then William didn't get to spend time with Gabe. He was pretty sure Gabe didn't even get to sit down to eat; every time he caught sight of Gabe, he was standing and talking to someone, although he at least had a plate in his hands.
It was only later, when William was trying to teach the Alexes a song they didn't know, that Gabe found him. William handed the guitar to one of the Alexes and took the hand Gabe held out to him.
Gabe tugged him close. "This is going to go on all night. No one'll mind if we sneak away."
William grinned and pressed his lips to Gabe's cheek. "What'd you have in mind?"
"A little private party." Gabe started walking as he said it, and they ended up back in their own tent.
"I like the way you think."
"Then you're really gonna like this." Gabe slid to his knees, and the rush of arousal William had pushed away earlier came back full force.
William reached down to run his fingers through Gabe's hair and pet Gabe's cheeks while Gabe tugged his pants down far enough to pull out his cock. Gabe didn't bother with preliminaries, just took William in deep and sucked. It was amazing. It was everything - winning and Gabe and wet suction around his cock - and it wasn't long before he came down Gabe's throat and Gabe pulled back to lick him clean.
"I've been wanting to do that all day," Gabe said, still on his knees and sounding rough from William's thrusts.
"You can do that any time you want," William promised. He lowered himself down onto their bedroll with his head propped up on a pillow. "Come here. I'll do you."
Gabe took his clothes off first, which was a joy to watch, every inch of his skin being bared just for William. "Can I just come on you?" he asked after kneeling over William.
William smiled lazily up at him. "You can do whatever you want." He sat up enough to pull his shirt off and then settled back down. "You want me to do anything?" He ran his hands up Gabe's thighs and onto his ass.
"That's good," Gabe gasped out, so William kept his hands there and watched the rhythmic slide of Gabe's hand over his cock.
"Baby," William murmured, "you look so good like that."
"William."
"I would've let you do this before. You should've known that. I love it when you come in my mouth, my ass, all over my hand."
Gabe tightened above him, and William closed his eyes and kept talking until the sticky spurts striping his face stopped. He opened his eyes to find Gabe staring down on him in a kind of lustful daze.
"We're doing that again." Gabe slid down William's body until they were lying together.
"Yeah." William wriggled his pants all the way off. "And think of all the things we haven't done yet."
"Oh, I'm thinking of them." Gabe leaned in and licked over the come covering William's face. "I'm making a list," he said somewhere in the vicinity of William's chin.
William laughed and ran his fingers across Gabe's back in abstract patterns. Gabe's tongue on his skin felt amazingly good. Next time, Gabe was going first so William could really enjoy it.
There was only so much licking Gabe could do before it was all gone, and then he stretched out half on top of William.
"Pete wants Vicky-T and me in the city. We're probably leaving tomorrow or the day after."
William didn't have any conscious control over the way he held on tighter and dug his fingers into Gabe's back.
"Will you come with me?"
"Yes," William said on an exhale of the breath he'd been holding. "Anywhere."
***
Life in the government residence, where Pete had given Gabe and William a suite, was disappointingly similar to life in Cobra Camp: Gabe was up early, came to bed late, and only sometimes made it to meals.
Victoria did her best to rotate William into the things that needed doing, but most of the day-to-day stuff was already being done by people who'd been in the city and were happy enough to switch their employers from the Association to the Resistance's forming government. And Mike was right about peacetime not needing much in the way of explosives expertise.
William spent a lot of time wandering around reacquainting himself with the city.
He met Mike for lunch and reached out across the table to tap the ring on Mike's finger. "Liking the official life?"
Mike grinned. That much happiness was a look he'd never really seen on Mike's face. "Love it." Mike kicked him under the table. "And not just because I'm getting laid regularly."
"I wasn't going to say it," William protested. Mike just looked at him, and he relented. "Okay, maybe I was." He looked away from Mike. "At least someone is."
"Gabe not taking care of you now that you're safe in the city?"
William frowned. "How could he when he's never around?"
"Wasn't he busy when you were in the camp too?"
"Yeah, but at least then I had something to do." William heaved out a sigh and forced himself to smile. "Tell me what the official life is like. Aside from the sex."
Mike stared at him for a moment, but he let it go and instead told William about finding a place with Kevin, and the negotiation it took to move farther than a block away from his family.
When they said goodbye, Mike caught William up in a hug and said, "Things'll calm down. You'll see."
William didn't quite believe him - wasn't the end of the Association supposed to be when things calmed down? - but he appreciated the sentiment. He could've caught transportation back, but he walked instead. His wandering path took him past three different schools, and he remembered Gabe characterizing child care duty as getting away with playing hooky.
William had been to the almost overstaffed child care center for government employees, but not the separate facility that had been an orphanage under the Association and was slowly being transformed to a friendlier kind of halfway house for displaced children.
When he found the place, tucked away in the middle of a quiet part of the sprawling landscaping that made the government residence a surprising refuge of quiet in the middle of the city, he pushed open the door to be met with the dual sounds of a baby crying and a woman's pleading voice. There was also a chime that sounded when he walked through the doorway.
The pleading voice grew louder, until the woman came into sight, only she was more like a teenager, and she was holding the crying baby and looking completely flustered. "Maria had to go out, but she'll be back in a minute to help you," she said to William, and then to the baby, "Come on, honey. It's okay."
William held out his arms and tried to look unthreatening. "Want me to try?"
The girl half sneered at him the way teenagers did, but she handed over the baby. "Her name's Alexa." As an afterthought, she added, "I'm Demi."
"Nice to meet you, Demi. I'm William." William cradled Alexa against his chest and started singing to her, just nonsense syllables and a melody that seemed to fit. She quieted down to a sleepy murmur, and William looked up to find an awed look on Demi's face.
"How did you do that? No, wait, I don't care, just say you'll stay until she goes to sleep. Please?"
William looked down at the baby in his arms and realized he'd been missing time spent on child care duty, and time spent with Travis, Maja, and their girls, who hadn't moved back to the city yet. "Yeah, I'll stay."
"Awesome." Demi smiled in relief, and it lit up her whole face and made her look even younger. "Come on, you can sit down." She led William into what was obviously a common room, with toys on the floor, low bookshelves along one wall, and a rocking chair.
William settled into the soft cushions of the rocking chair and kept singing to Alexa until her eyes closed. "I thought there'd be more people here," he said, softly so as not to disturb Alexa.
Demi shrugged, seemingly unconcerned. "Just us, and Maria. She runs this place. Everyone else who was here before has been adopted and I guess there aren't that many kids around who need places to stay right now." She'd sat in one of the plush chairs, and she pulled her legs up and wrapped her arms around her knees. "I'm too old and Alexa won't quiet down for anyone."
William wasn't sure if he should push for her story or let her be, but he was saved from deciding by the entrance chime sounding. A woman with dark, curly hair and a smile on her face came around the corner.
"This is Maria," Demi said. "Maria, William got Alexa to go to sleep."
Maria looked as surprised as Demi had been. "Good for you," she said. "I think we met when you first got here. You're with Gabe, right?"
"Right."
Maria nodded. "Were you looking for me?"
"No." William looked down at Alexa. "No, I just had some time, and I haven't been here before, so." He shrugged.
"And then he got Alexa to go to sleep," Demi said again. "You have no idea," she said to William. "She never calms down."
William ran the back of one finger across Alexa's baby-soft cheek.
"Well, you're welcome to spend time with us whenever you want," Maria said, and when William looked up she was watching him soft and understanding. He looked back at Alexa, and Maria said to Demi, "You have homework to do."
Alexa woke up later, and William realized he'd been sitting there watching her sleep for hours. He talked to her softly while she woke up, and then sat down with her in the play area. Maria came to fetch her when it was time for her to eat, and William went back to the central part of the residence.
He went back the next day.
He started helping Demi with her homework, and discovered that she had a good voice, if untrained. She could play piano, too, and William brought her a guitar he could teach her to play, or use to keep her company while she played piano.
He took over the job of getting Alexa to go down for her nap, and spent a lot of hours sitting on the piano bench next to Demi with Alexa in his arms.
He left a message on Victoria's comm to let her know he was available if she had things that needed doing, but that he was spending time helping out Maria. While he did spend some of his time there with the other kids in and out of the place, he spent most of it with Demi and Alexa.
And he wrote a song, about lost little girls left behind by the world.
***
Just after five on a Saturday a few weeks later the door to their quarters opened and Gabe came straight through to where William was reading and kissed him. "Ashlee threw us all out. She said she and Bronx wanted Pete back." Gabe pushed his hands into William's hair and brought their foreheads together. "I'm all yours until Monday morning."
William could feel the smile spreading across his face as he closed his book and put it aside. "Yeah?"
"Yeah." Gabe grinned against his lips and kissed him again. "Come on. I remember promising you unhurried good times in our bed."
William pulled back. "I'm not that easy. We're doing this right."
"You, me, and a bed," Gabe argued. "That's right."
William couldn't resist laughing at him. "No. You're taking me to dinner, and then maybe dancing. Have you even been to Ryland and Suarez's new restaurant?"
Gabe smiled at him with what looked to be a mixture of amusement and pride, shook his head, and let William tug him out into the city.
Over dinner, Gabe told William about what they'd been doing to reorganize the government, and William filled him in on what he'd heard and seen around the city. Ryland and Suarez abandoned their responsibilities to their restaurant to sit with them for a while.
After dinner, Gabe took William to a club he knew from before his time in the forest that was still in business, and they danced and kissed until they were sweaty and breathless, and then they held hands through the streets as they walked home.
William expected the first time they really had time to enjoy themselves in their bed to be frantic and maybe a little rough like some of their best times, but instead it was slow and sweet. It was Gabe laying him out and touching and kissing him like he was trying to memorize William's skin with his hands and lips. It was Gabe telling him he was beautiful, and William reaching out for him because he couldn't stand to not be touching Gabe. It was just him and Gabe and nothing else.
And he was gone, so gone for Gabe. He'd known it before, but there was knowing and then there was feeling it right down to his bones.
And afterwards it was still just them, no rush to go to sleep to get up tomorrow, no something they had to go attend to. Just the two of them trading kisses until they couldn't stay awake any longer.
***
William woke up on Saturday to find Gabe watching him. "What?"
Gabe smiled and brushed William's hair back. "Nothing. I'm just not used to sleeping in."
"Okay." William stretched and settled again.
Gabe kept stroking his hair. "I heard you've been spending a lot of time in the old orphanage."
It wasn't a topic they'd covered at dinner the night before.
"Were you going to tell me about it?" Gabe didn't seem particularly concerned, just mildly curious.
All of the frustration of being left alone and not having anything to do and missing Gabe rushed through William like fire through his veins. "When would I?" he ground out. "You're never here!" He yanked himself away from Gabe.
Gabe scowled at him. "I've been working. Doing that thing we're here to do, you know, rebuilding the world."
William hurled himself out of their bed and looked down at Gabe. "Rebuilding it for what? Remember what you used to say about it? That Cobra Camp was different because it wasn't just about the fight, it was about the world after and the people and the families." His voice rose until he was shouting. "I'm your family! You're supposed to be with me now! But you're not, and you know it doesn't matter because I love you so much I won't leave you anyway!" William breathed in pants, like he'd been running, and he and Gabe stared at each other. "I wouldn't," he said softly. "Not for anything."
With Gabe still staring at him, William turned and walked into the bathroom. He didn't lock the door, and he wasn't surprised when Gabe joined him in the shower. Gabe pressed all along his back, and William could feel Gabe's lips against his shoulder.
"William, next time," Gabe sighed against his skin, "tell me. Just tell me. Wake me up in the middle of the night or tie me to the bed if that's what you have to do to make me listen, but tell me." Gabe stroked his hands down William's chest to settle across his stomach. "I love you, you are my family, and I don't want to ever leave you alone." Gabe tucked his head in against the curve of William's neck. "Do you remember that day in the armory, when the Association had taken out that small camp?" Gabe didn't wait for William's nod before continuing. "You reminded me what we were fighting for." Gabe's lips pressed against William's shoulder. "You're the best thing The Cobra ever brought me. I'm sorry I forgot that."
William turned into Gabe's embrace. "You need to come home," he said, his voice still rough. "You need to make everyone else go home sometimes too." He tipped his forehead onto Gabe's shoulder. "I want you to come with me and meet the kids at the old orphanage."
"Yes," Gabe said. "Yes, to all of it. I promise." He tugged William's head up and kissed him.
"Okay," William said, "okay," and he softened into Gabe's touch.
***
After a shower that included them nearly slipping and laughing about it and not letting it get in the way of the makeup sex, and after a late-morning brunch Gabe made for them, William took Gabe's hand and they walked across the grounds to the old orphanage.
Alexa's fussing met them when they came through the door. Demi came out on the heels of the chime with Alexa in her arms and a look of relief on her face.
"She's been fussy since last night." Demi handed Alexa over to William, and he, in turn, handed her to Gabe.
"This is Alexa," he said as he did it. "Alexa, sweetheart, be good for Gabe. And this is Demi. Demi, this is Gabe."
Demi looked from William to Alexa to Gabe. "Nice to meet you."
"It's very nice to meet you," Gabe said over Alexa's continued fussing, and then he walked away from them, bouncing Alexa a little and then talking to her softly.
"Is this going to work?" Demi asked softly as she came to lean against William's side.
William wrapped an arm around her shoulders and hugged her. "I hope so. He's good with kids, and I want her to like him."
Demi turned into his hug enough to put both her arms around him. "You love him, so she probably will."
William smiled softly down at her. "Thanks."
"You're welcome." Demi looked up at him. "I think I figured out that song."
William glanced over at Gabe and a quieting Alexa. "Yeah, okay. Show me." He and Demi sat at the piano where she played through the song a couple of times. After a while Gabe, with a sleeping Alexa in his arms, came in and squeezed onto the bench next to William.
"What do you think?" Demi asked Gabe.
"It's good," Gabe said. "You wrote it?"
"Yes." Demi's hands hovered over the keys like she wasn't sure what to do with them.
Gabe pressed a kiss to William's shoulder. "You certainly have a talent for finding musicians."
Demi's hands settled softly onto the keys. "It's because he is one." She played a few notes William recognized as the chorus to the song he'd written.
***
"Tell me about them," Gabe said later, on the way back to their quarters.
William sighed. "Demi's dad left them a long time ago, I guess, and her mom worked for the Association. She died a couple of years ago, and Demi ended up in the orphanage. She's older than what people were looking for, and then there's the music, which no one was willing to support. Alexa's parents were Resistance, killed by the Association. She doesn't quiet down for very many people, so no one wanted her either."
"Okay," Gabe said after a minute or two. "There are a lot of family quarters empty. If you'll work on packing us up, we should be able to move next weekend, and we're already set up to fast track adoptions from the old orphanage."
William barely dared to breathe. "Alexa and Demi," he didn't quite ask.
"Alexa and Demi," Gabe said. He squeezed William's hand. "They're your family now, and that makes them mine too." After a moment, he twisted their arms together to draw them closer to each other. "I can see we're going to spend our lives surrounded by Alexes." He didn't sound unhappy about it, and when William looked over at him, his lips were turned up in a smile William had to taste.
***
On Monday William sat down with Demi. "Gabe and I want you and Alexa to come live with us." It seemed like a good idea to just say it flat out.
Demi froze and looked at him with impossibly wide eyes. "You mean it?" she asked, sounding even younger than she was.
William reached out and tucked her hair behind her ear. "Yes. If you say yes, we'll take care of all the adoption paperwork. Gabe thinks we can move this weekend." He grinned. "And when Gabe wants something, he gets it done."
Demi flung herself at him and wrapped her arms around him. "Yes. Yes, please, thank you."
William held onto her as tightly as she was holding him. "I love you."
Demi's voice shook as she said, "Love you too," into his sweater.
***
On Tuesday, Gabe started coming home just after five. On Wednesday, he came home with their new quarters assignment and the news that if they picked colors the next day, they could be repainted before they moved on Saturday. On Thursday, William found a music store and bought a piano to be delivered the following week. On Friday, they signed the adoption papers and found temporary space for Demi and Alexa to spend the night in their mostly packed up quarters. On Saturday, they moved into a set of family quarters that had three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a living room big enough for both the piano and an entertainment unit, and a kitchen.
***
On a rainy afternoon a few months later, Demi sat at the piano working out a song while Alexa sat on the floor playing with the stuffed elephant Kevin and Mike had given her. William had a book open on his lap, but he wasn't really reading it. Instead he alternated his focus between the rain rolling down the window, Demi's occasional bursts of music, and Alexa's not-quite-words.
Gabe came in just after five, and William moved enough to let Gabe slide in behind him on the couch.
"Hey," Gabe murmured. He put his arms around William and kissed his temple.
William smiled, closed his book, and tucked one hand around Gabe's arm. "Hey." He looked at the girls, at Gabe's arms around him, at the life he'd never known he wanted, and tipped his head back to look at Gabe. "This is what we were fighting for."
Gabe said, "Yes," and kissed him deeply enough that Demi played a crashing collection of notes to remind them they weren't alone.
Victoria was, as Gabe predicted, annoyed that he insisted on taking William with him to Clandestine Camp before she could even work explosives training into his regular duty roster.
"You don't really have everything I need anyway," William pointed out. "I'll make you a list, and we can start up when I get back." She wasn't much happier with that, but she did give him a data pad to make a list on and start combing the duty roster to find a team to send with them.
It took four days before they were ready to go. Four days of William being on regular duty during the day and going home to Gabe's tent at night. Four days of learning how little time Gabe really had to himself. William was asleep before Gabe even got back to the tent, and even in the mornings they barely managed a few minutes together. One morning William only knew Gabe had been there because their bedroll was too warm for it to have been just him in it all night.
"Winter's tougher," Gabe said during one of their mornings of stolen kisses. "It takes more work to keep everyone fed."
William put his head down on Gabe's shoulder. "I'm not so selfish I'd take you away from that."
"Someday," Gabe whispered, "when this is all over, it'll be just you and me and a real bed."
William smiled against the warmth of Gabe's skin. "I don't even know if I remember what a real bed feels like."
Gabe laughed softly. "And you've only been here a couple of months."
"It feels like longer." William didn't only mean his time at the camp.
"I know."
When he looked up, Gabe was looking at him with the softest eyes.
"You still like me even when I'm not yelling at you?" William teased.
"William," Gabe said softly, "I think I'll always like you."
***
"Association doesn't usually come this deep into the forest," Ryland said when they finally set out for Clandestine Camp. "But stay alert anyway."
It took the better part of two days to get there - two days that included Gabe and William on separate night watch shifts - but they arrived without any run-ins with the Association or anyone else.
On the way into the camp, William watched Ryland and Alex silently signaling guards. His woodcraft had gotten good enough that he only missed two of them.
When they got to the edge of the camp, they handed the horses' reins over to a guy with glasses and a labret.
"This is Andy," Gabe said after everyone else had a chance to greet the guy. "You'll have to get him to show you his ink when we're somewhere warmer. Andy, this is William."
"Hey," Andy said. He reached out to shake William's hand. "I've heard a lot about you. Make sure you find Joe sometime before you leave. I know he wants to talk housings or triggers or something."
"Yeah," William agreed. "I'll do that."
A woman with red hair swept away from the side of her face met them as they went deeper into the camp. Gabe picked her up with his hug, and she laughed before she made him put her down.
"Ashlee, Ashlee, Ashlee," Gabe said, not quite letting go of her, "I can't believe you're still here and not with me."
The Ashlee girl grinned, but she was looking more at William than at Gabe when she said, "You know I'm never leaving Pete." She pushed Gabe away and held out her hand to William. "You must be William."
"Ashlee?" William guessed. Her hand was soft in his.
"That's me." Ashlee looped her arm through William's. "Come on. I'll show you around while Gabe does the serious business stuff with Pete."
"Um." William looked to Gabe, who, instead of helping, grinned at them.
"We'll send someone to find you before we talk serious business about PR." And then he took Ryland and Alex and left William with Ashlee dragging him in a different direction.
"Guest tents are over there." Ashlee pointed out a group of tents. "We started numbering them. You and Gabe will be in 612." She shrugged. "Pete thought nonconsecutive numbering would be more interesting."
She pointed out a handful of other landmarks on their way into what appeared to be the social center of the camp.
"Almost everyone's in camp today," Ashlee explained as they got nearer to an open area with a bunch of crowded tables. She took a couple of faster steps toward a teenager who met them at the edge. The teenager was carrying a baby he handed over to Ashlee. "Hi, baby." Ashlee kissed the baby's cheek. "This is our son, Bronx." Bronx was a cute, round-faced kid, who twisted to look at his mother even as she tried to get him to look at William.
William passed his hand over Bronx's short, soft hair. "Hi, Bronx." He smiled as Bronx twisted to look up at him and then turned back toward Ashlee.
Ashlee pressed another kiss to the top of Bronx's head. "Let's help William find his friends."
They found his old team first. Mike, Butcher, and Michael sat around a table. A curly-haired guy in white jeans leaned against Mike's shoulder. Another two guys in the same mold sat across from them having some kind of spirited discussion.
Ashlee left sometime during the time William exchanged hugs with his old team and got introduced to the new members. The one with Mike was named Kevin; the other two were his brothers Nick and Joe.
William had barely had a chance to say hello to them before all three of them looked resigned.
"Mom's calling us," Kevin explained, and William realized they had implanted tech too. "It was very nice to meet you, William. We'll probably see you at dinner." He leaned down and exchanged a kiss with Mike that left Mike blushing and unable to meet William's eyes.
It was Butcher who grinned at him and explained. "They used to be Association. That's why they have the good tech. They belong to some religious sect, which means they're pledged to virginity until marriage." Butcher had to pause while William laughed. "Yeah. They still hold prayer meetings, too. But they're good people. Some Association division they were with kept pressuring Kevin to date some girl, so they left."
"And now," Michael added, "he has Mike wrapped around his little finger."
William laughed again. "Now who's falling for unsuitable revolutionaries?"
"Fuck you," Mike said. "At least he's not likely to get me killed."
"We going to get to meet your unsuitable revolutionary?" Michael asked.
William resolutely did not blush, and he didn't bother to argue that Gabe wasn't unsuitable. "Yeah. He's meeting with Pete right now. They're supposed to get me to talk about PR." William tapped out a nonsense beat on the table, and Mike responded with the hand signals for both "safe" and "listeners." William stopped tapping. "I think we need to get the word out, in the cities, that there's something else out there."
"Nick'll help," Butcher said immediately.
William smiled. It was good to be with his old team, even if it did make his throat catch with the memory of how much he missed Sisky.
They'd been talking for a while, working out plans and ideas in a combination of words and the hand signals that were a habit they hadn't yet been able to break, when Pete and Gabe found them. They were trailed by a third man, short and vaguely familiar. Gabe sat down next to William, not quite touching, but close enough for William to feel the warmth of his body.
Pete and the other man sat down across from them. "This is Patrick," Pete said, slinging an arm around Patrick.
"Stump," Patrick said. "I think we sort of worked in parallel circles a couple of years ago."
Pete frowned. "If they were circles, shouldn't they be concentric, not parallel?"
"Feel free to ignore Pete," Patrick told him. "You used to jam broadcasts, right? Replace them with a code the Association could never break."
William grinned. "Because it wasn't a code. Just recorded explosions we used to string together."
"So you have PR experience," Pete said.
"Enough," William agreed. "And you have the resources to make our plans a reality."
William's old team let him take the lead on explaining their plans to Pete, Patrick, and Gabe. Some of Pete's ideas were fairly outrageous, but Patrick knew what he was talking about.
William didn't realize they were still using hand signals until Gabe stifled a laugh at something that wasn't funny. William shot him a look, and Gabe looked pointedly at his hands.
He and Mike had been exchanging desultory insults about Gabe and Kevin between laying out practical ideas for getting the word out about the Resistance.
William tried to put his hands in his lap instead, but Gabe grabbed them and put them back on the table.
"I like watching you talk," Gabe murmured into his ear. William was still a little more careful about what he said about Gabe after that.
Their planning lasted until Ashlee, Bronx still on her hip, came to interrupt them.
"It's almost dinner time, and I bet you haven't even taken William to see his other friends," she chided. "Besides, Bronx wanted to see his daddy."
Pete reached his arms out for the baby. "Daddy always wants to see you."
"Come on," Ashlee offered. "I'll take you to Travis and Maja."
Gabe touched a hand to William's hip. "I'll catch up with you at dinner."
William reached down to tangle his fingers with Gabe's for just a second before following Ashlee. Their path took them away from the camp's center.
"Maja's on bed rest. It's driving her crazy, but it does make her easy to find." Ashlee stopped in front of a large tent and rapped on the knocker hanging next to the flap. Maja's voice invited them in, and Ashlee said, "I brought you a visitor," as she pushed into the tent.
"William!" Maja's face lit up, and Travie rolled to his feet.
"You didn't tell us you were coming." Travis wrapped William up in one of his wonderful, warm hugs.
"I tagged along with Gabe." When Travie let him go, William kicked off his shoes and curled himself up with Maja.
"You still could have sent word," Maja said, but she took William's hand and put it over her stomach so he could feel the baby kick.
Travis settled in on the other side of William and the three of them traded stories about their respective camps.
"You can stay with us," Maja offered.
William managed to say, "Gabe and I have one of the guest tents," without blushing, but Travis and Maja still had one of their unspoken couple conversations over his head.
"Is he good to you?"
William nodded and then tipped his chin up so the light would fall on the yellowing bruise under his jaw. "And I have the hickeys to prove it."
"He ever stops," Maja said, "you let me know. Even pregnant I could kick his ass."
William felt such a rush of affection for her. "I don't think it'll come to that."
A bell rang, cutting through whatever Travis or Maja might have had to say about that.
"Dinner," Maja explained. She reached over William to Travis. "Help me up."
"You're supposed to be resting," Travis objected.
"It's not that far, and William's here." Maja held her other hand out to William. "One dinner with the rest of the camp isn't going to hurt me or the baby."
William looked to Travis for guidance.
"If we don't help," he sighed. "She'll just do it by herself."
Travis and Maja sat on one side of a table with William on the other. With the kind of kid-radar they seemed to have, Astrid and Ingrid found them as soon as they were seated, and they both flung themselves at William. He had them settled in his lap telling him all about the amazing things they'd been doing when Gabe sat down next to him, the brief touch of his hand to the small of William's back serving as a greeting. William turned automatically to include him in the conversation.
Gabe disappeared to deal with more leader business after dinner. William helped Travis walk Maja back to their tent and then left them alone to rest. His old team was gathered close to the central fire with a group of other people and a surprisingly large number of guitars. When William got to them, Mike's boyfriend and one of his brothers were playing two of the guitars while the other brother sang. They were much better than William expected. He sat down next to Mike.
"They're good."
Mike nodded. "A little soft, but yeah." He looked at William. "Your revolutionary play?"
William shrugged. "I've heard him singing once or twice, but we haven't talked about it." He looked at the assembled group again. "Lot of instruments."
"Patrick has a contact," Mike said.
"Gets good stuff too," Kevin said as he sat down on the other side of Mike. Mike's face softened as Kevin rested his chin on Mike's shoulder. William wondered if that was how he looked when Gabe touched him.
The party broke up after a while. "It's sort of equal parts cute and funny," Butcher said as they watched Mike walk Kevin back to his family's tent.
"They're seriously not having sex?"
"That's the funny part." Butcher clapped him on the shoulder and went off toward his own tent.
William intended to wait up for Gabe, but they'd been travelling for two days that included night guard duty shifts, and Clandestine Camp had seriously well heated guest tents, both of which conspired to send him to sleep. He half woke when Gabe slid into the bedroll with him.
"Hey."
"Hey." Gabe kissed him lightly. "I didn't mean to wake you."
William turned toward him and slung an arm over Gabe's body. "Was trying to wait up."
Gabe chuckled. "You have plans for when I got back?"
William pressed closer to Gabe. "Not really." He found Gabe's mouth in the dark and kissed him sleepily. "Wanted to see you." He was already drifting off and missed whatever Gabe's response was.
***
They spent three days at Clandestine Camp. It was enough time for William to learn how much Maja hated being on bed rest, get to know Kevin, and find that Gabe wasn't any less busy when he wasn't at his home camp.
It was also enough time to make a fairly solid plan to get the word out to people in the cities about the Resistance, and a slightly shakier plan for creating Resistance networks within the cities.
It felt like they were finally getting somewhere.
***
William settled back into the daily rhythms of Cobra Camp that had become his routine, trading off camp duty and explosives training with long-range comm strategizing over the PR situation and missions in the outer world. Life with Gabe became, if not routine, at least familiar. Gabe continued to be busy nearly every minute of the day, but he managed to find, make, or downright force his way into time to spend with William. William soaked up every moment of it, from the times it was nothing more than just a minute of kissing to the few nights Gabe dragged him back to their tent after dinner with the gleeful promise that he'd turned all responsibilities short of death over to Vicky-T and taken the night off.
***
The door to the armory slammed shut. William, on inventory duty, had one of the guns in his hand before the sound stopped echoing through the space.
"William?" Gabe's voice followed the echo of the door.
"Back here!" William put the gun back in the box and picked up his data pad again.
Gabe's footsteps came towards him and stopped at the end of the row. "How close are you to being done?"
William waved at the stack of boxes. "About an hour, maybe." He looked up at Gabe after he said it. Gabe looked. Well, William wasn't exactly sure how Gabe looked, but it wasn't good. He put the data pad down on top of the stack of boxes. "Or I can be done now."
Gabe came toward him, every movement unnaturally sharp. William could have met him halfway, but instead waited for Gabe to come to him. Gabe crowded him back against the table and kissed him hard enough that their teeth clashed.
William dug his fingers into Gabe's cheeks and pulled and twisted his head until the kiss was still hard but not actually painful. While he was doing that, Gabe slid his hand between them and cupped William through his pants, making him hard so fast he was almost dizzy with it.
William groaned against Gabe's mouth and pushed harder into his hand. It brought him close enough to feel Gabe's cock hard against him.
"Is this what you wanted?" he murmured against Gabe's lips. He spread his fingers around the curves of Gabe's ass and pulled Gabe tight against him.
Gabe hitched one leg up and around William's hip. "I want you to fuck me." He said it between kisses, sharp things with teeth against William's neck.
William caught Gabe's chin in his hand and directed his mouth up again. "Did you bring something?" he asked after long moments of deep kisses that left him aching to have all of Gabe.
Gabe pressed a tube into his hand, and then slipped to the side, leaned over the edge of the table, and pushed his pants down all in one motion. William opened the tube and got his fingers slick enough to push two of them into Gabe at once. Gabe's hands slid against the table as he bent and got better leverage to push back into William's touch.
"That's enough," Gabe said before William thought it really was, but he wasn't going to argue about it. Gabe hissed as William pushed into him. "Harder."
William draped himself close over Gabe's back. "I'm not even moving yet."
Gabe reached back to claw at his hip, his nails leaving stinging lines on William's skin. "So start."
William bit lightly at the back of Gabe's neck. "You wanted me to fuck you. This is what you're getting." From the way Gabe had looked when he'd come in, he didn't just need something hard and fast, he needed to focus on something else for a while. William shifted his hips, just a short, soft slide in and out.
"You are such a bastard in bed."
"And out of it." William said it close enough to Gabe that he could close his teeth over Gabe's earlobe on the last syllable.
"You are so much trouble," Gabe bitched.
"But I'm worth it. In bed and out." William molded his hands around the curves of Gabe's hips and held him still while he worked in and out of Gabe in slow and steady strokes.
Gabe swore at him. "This isn't," he ground out, "exactly what I was asking for."
William dug his fingers into the hollows of Gabe's hips. "This is exactly what you're getting." He kept his thrusts slow enough to frustrate. Gabe on edge was always fun, and Gabe on edge and pissed at him was even more fun. And then, when Gabe pressed up, hands braced against the table to give himself some leverage, William rode him down into the table and then stopped, using his weight to hold Gabe still.
Gabe swore at him, and again when William kicked his legs a little wider. "Come on." He struggled against William's hold, but he was off balance and his hands slid against the table, and he didn't get anywhere. "You're a fucking pain in my ass," he ground out, and then, finally, he stopped fighting and laid himself across the table, his arms stretched out and draped over the other side.
William pressed down into him, touching Gabe at every point possible, for just a moment. Then he kissed the side of Gabe's neck before pushing himself back up to look down at Gabe while he fucked him. He pushed Gabe's shirt up as far as it would go so he could look down at the long line of Gabe's back and then lower to watch his cock move in and out of Gabe.
"You are such a fucking tease," Gabe bitched. He stayed over the table, though, which meant that William didn't care too much what he had to say.
"I always follow through." William proved it by moving faster, harder, enough to make Gabe cry out and the table scrape against the floor. William spared a moment to hope Gabe had turned on the armory's sound dampener or that no one was nearby.
He dug his nails into the flesh of Gabe's shoulder and dragged them down, all the way down and over the curve of Gabe's ass. He echoed Gabe's hissed "Yes" and scratched a matching set of lines on the other side of Gabe's back with his other hand.
He wasn't going to last long with his marks turning red on the canvas of Gabe's skin.
He timed the next scrape of his nails with a thrust hard enough to send the table skittering against the floor and leave Gabe scrambling to hold on. One more and Gabe shouted without words. Another and he wasn't even doing that, just huffing out breaths with each thrust. And then the one after that had him coming and saying William's name on a strangled moan.
William gripped Gabe's hips, and it was only a few short, sharp thrusts before he was coming too.
William leaned down over Gabe and pressed his lips to the center of his back, right over one set of his marks. He pulled back to look down at them for a moment, six sets of parallel lines starting to fade back into Gabe's usual soft brown.
He pulled away and grabbed a cloth from the bucket of clean rags. Gabe stayed where he was, and only moved when William made him turn so he could get them both as clean as he could.
William dumped the rag into the pile of rags waiting to be washed, did up his pants, and came back to put his arms around Gabe. When Gabe dropped his head down onto his shoulder, William cupped a hand around the back of it.
"You gonna tell me what that was about?" he asked after a while.
Gabe let out a shaky breath before he started talking. "There was a camp," he said into William's shoulder. "A small one. Maybe two, three teams and a couple of families."
William guessed some of what was coming and tightened his hold on Gabe.
"Association got them," Gabe whispered. "Killed two of the kids, one of the teams, took everyone else in."
There wasn't anything William could say to make that better, so he just kept holding on.
"I'm putting everyone in danger here." Gabe's voice was almost too soft to be heard.
William pulled back enough to look Gabe in the eye. "Everyone here knows what they're getting themselves into. They're all here because they believe in the resistance, and they believe in what you're doing."
"What about you?" Gabe asked. "Do you believe in what I'm doing?
William pressed his forehead against Gabe's. "I do, but I'm so in love with you I'd be here even if I didn't."
Gabe made a strangled noise and slammed his lips into William's. William kissed back just as fiercely, and then gentled it until they were just trading soft kisses.
Gabe eventually sighed and pulled away. "Give me half the list," he said, holding out his data pad. "I'll help you finish up."
***
Christmas wasn't a huge thing at Cobra Camp the way it could be in the city. There wasn't much in the way of gifts that could be exchanged, and not everyone celebrated it anyway. When Victoria asked William if he wanted to be on duty or off, he said, "Whatever Gabe's doing." She took him literally, and William and Gabe spent the day on kitchen duty.
The real party was planned for New Year's Day, when everyone was officially off and volunteers took short shifts to keep the camp running and everyone fed and safe.
William woke up in the middle of the night before the party to Gabe saying his name and shaking him.
"It's almost midnight."
"What?" William pushed himself up, hoping that sitting up would help him wake up enough to figure out what Gabe wanted.
"New Year's Eve." Gabe tugged William toward him, and he went, sleepy and pliant, and willing to be wherever Gabe wanted him. "If I can't throw a real party, I can at least kiss you at midnight."
William leaned in to be kissed, and they just kept kissing until Gabe pulled back to say, "Midnight. Happy New Year," and then they kept kissing some more.
They woke up late enough to have missed breakfast, and they spent a lazy morning in bed before going out to join the rest of the camp's celebration.
***
Two weeks into the new year, the singing Alex found William on child care duty. William knew, just from the look on his face, that he wasn't going to like whatever brought him there.
"Gabe's in the infirmary," Alex blurted out before William could ask. Then he stepped up to take the kid William was holding. "I got this. Go."
William ran the whole way and burst into the infirmary panting too hard to talk. He gulped for air while he looked around for Gabe. A crowd of people that included Victoria, Ryland, and Suarez surrounded a gurney.
William pushed through the rest of the crowd to reach Gabe's side. He took in Gabe's leg, ripped open and bloody, and the gray cast to Gabe's skin with one sweeping glance, and then tried not to see it.
"What the hell were you thinking? This was supposed to be an easy mission."
Gabe grinned at him, but it was strained around the edges. "I love it when you yell at me."
William turned to Ryland and Suarez. "You were supposed to be protecting him! Why weren't you doing your goddamned jobs?"
On the other side of them, Victoria was saying the same kind of thing, and there was a whole host of other people there bustling around, the med team efficient and professional, Nate rushing in, a couple of the teenagers who worshipped Gabe trying to push their way toward him.
"Enough!" The Chief Medic's voice finally cut through everything else. Leighton looked sweet, but she could wield real power when it was called for. It made her a good medic. "Everyone out."
There was no fucking way William was leaving.
"William stays," Gabe said, before William could do anything about it.
"This is my infirmary," Leighton snapped.
"William stays," Gabe said again, firmer the second time.
Leighton nodded. "Fine. William stays. Everyone else out."
William crowded in to take Gabe's hand while Leighton's med team pushed everyone else out. "You fucking idiot," he grumbled down at Gabe.
Gabe squeezed his hand. "I love you too." He tugged on William's hand until he bent over enough that Gabe could reach for the back of his head and tug him all the way down to where he could press his lips to William's. "Sorry," he murmured. "I didn't mean to-" He cut himself off and grimaced. "Fuck, that hurts."
"Sorry," Leighton said. She even sounded sorry. "This is going to take a little surgery. We're going to knock you out for this."
Gabe closed his eyes. "Yeah. Yeah, okay."
"And I'm gonna have to kick you out," Leighton said to William.
William gripped Gabe's hand tighter. "No."
"Yes," Leighton said, her voice sharp.
Gabe squeezed his hand again, a slow pulse of affection. "Yes," he said, softly. He tugged William into a kiss. "Leighton's good. Let her do her job."
William cupped his hand around Gabe's cheek. "Okay." He brushed his thumb across the line of Gabe's cheekbone. "Okay."
Leighton's team pushed the gurney away from William, and he watched until they went through the doors into her operating room before he turned around and went out to sit in the waiting area.
He dropped into a chair next to Victoria, across from Ryland and Suarez. "They're doing surgery."
"The mission was fine," Victoria told him without waiting to be asked. "It was a trap inside the forest on the way back. We're sending a team out to investigate."
William nodded. "Sorry," he offered. He looked up at Ryland and Suarez so they'd know he meant it for them too.
Victoria squeezed his shoulder. "We all know what he is to you."
William dropped his head to look down at his hands again. Victoria let go of him, and he got the sense she was having a silent conversation with Ryland and Suarez, but he didn't look up to find out.
In objective time, Gabe wasn't really in surgery for that long, but it felt like forever.
"He's going to be fine," Leighton said when she came to tell them it was over. "He'll have to stay off of it for a while, but he should be out of here in a couple of days."
"Can we see him?" Victoria asked while William breathed a deep sigh of relief.
"He's still out," Leighton said, "but one of you can sit with him."
There was a moment where William waited for Victoria to insist on seeing him. But instead she pushed at his shoulder. "Go on. We've got work to do." Then she leaned in and hugged him quickly. "I'll take you off the duty rotation for now."
William resisted the urge to just lean against her. "Thanks." He hauled himself up out of the chair and followed Leighton back to where Gabe lay silent and asleep in a bed.
He tugged a chair as close as he could get it to the bed and took Gabe's hand. Gabe was always so busy that William had barely ever gotten a chance to watch him sleep. He wasn't sure that was a bad thing.
Gabe asleep looked vulnerable and still in a way he never was awake, not even in those rare moments when they were just quiet together and Gabe wasn't the head of Cobra Camp, just Gabe, just the guy William was in love with. He wanted Gabe to wake up, to just be with him, and for a moment, he hated it all, Resistance as much as Association, for not letting him have just that.
He watched Gabe sleep for a long time.
Gabe's face eventually scrunched up and then his eyes opened.
"Hey," William said.
Gabe's eyes slowly focused on him. "Hey," he said, his voice raspy. "Hey, hey, hey."
William smiled helplessly. "You're pretty drugged up."
Gabe grinned back at him. "Love you, William. My William. William, William, bo Billiam," he sang.
William chuckled. "Really drugged up." He pushed Gabe's hair back. "Love you too."
The lecture about not scaring the hell out of him like that could wait until the drugs wore off.
***
The trap turned out to have been set by a trio of teenage girls. William suspected they weren't particularly serious about the Resistance and would have been just as happy to have been causing mayhem on behalf of the Association, but something about their wildness and abandon appealed to Gabe, so Melissa, Allison, and Dani stayed to put an almost permanent frown on Victoria's face.
Gabe was still on restricted duty - which meant he spent most of his day in the command tent and bitched endlessly about being well enough to get back to at least most of the camp duty chores - when Mike, Kevin, and Kevin's brothers came through on a message run.
"Are they your chaperones?" William asked Mike, after he'd shown them to two separate tents.
"Shut up," Mike said. "I think Pete just wanted to get them out of there. Nick and Joe are a fucking handful."
William walked them out toward his explosives training ground, betting on it being empty. "Kevin worth the trouble?"
"Gabe worth the trouble?" Mike asked instead of answering him directly. Point taken.
"He got hurt," William said a ways down the path. "Surgery and everything, and the girls who set the trap are part of the camp now."
"Anyone who hurt Kevin wouldn't live to join up." Mike didn't say it like a threat, just plain, like it was a fact.
"Gabe actually likes them. They're a fucking danger to all of us." William pushed aside the brush and led Mike onto his training ground.
"Shit," Mike said, looking around. "This is pretty fucking amazing."
The clearing was large enough to practice throwing bombs. A rushing creek bordered it on one side.
"Exactly what we never had."
"What are you doing out here?" Mike asked. "Cocktails? Detonators?"
"Anything Victoria can get our hands on. Plus safety training."
Mike laughed. "You got teams green enough for that?"
"I've got Cash Colligan, who thinks he's fucking invincible. I keep telling him he's going to get his whole team killed, but it's not sinking in."
Mike sat down on one of the fallen logs that served as a bench. "So this is what it's like to belong to the camp commander."
William kicked at Mike's feet. "Shut up. It's not like that. He offered me a place here before that."
"But he wanted to. You too."
William shook his head. "Victoria got me this, and she doesn't fuck around." He grinned. "I'm not getting away with this because of Gabe." He swung his pack off his shoulders and dropped it into Mike's lap. "Build me something without blowing us both up. Small enough we can detonate it here."
Mike flashed him the sign for "crazy" but dug through the pack and pulled out parts he slotted together with practiced efficiency.
William watched carefully, calculating blast radius and volatility.
Mike held up the finished product. "Meet with your approval?"
"Depends on the field test."
Mike had used a remote detonator, so he walked it out into the clearing, far enough that they wouldn't be caught in the blast, but not so far it would disturb the creek.
William pulled out two pairs of heavy-duty earmuffs and handed one to Mike. He gave Mike a thumbs up when his ears were covered, and Mike punched in the code on the remote, which was really just showing off; a simple push-button remote would have done just as well.
It was beautiful, practically textbook. William almost wished he'd brought some of his students out to see it.
"How long are you staying?" William took the earmuffs from Mike and bundled both pairs back into his pack.
Mike shrugged. "Depends on your commander." He dropped back onto one of the logs. "Could be a couple of days, or we might leave tomorrow." His eyes narrowed. "You're not trying to get me to help are you?"
"I don't know what they were doing before I got here, but it sure as hell wasn't explosives." William sat next to Mike. "And Cash might actually listen to you."
"He the team lead?"
William huffed out a laugh. "No, one of the Alexes, but they're joined at the hip."
"Fuck," Mike muttered, which meant William had won. "We're still here, I'll talk to him tomorrow."
William knocked his shoulder against Mike's in thanks. They just sat for a couple minutes before Mike spoke again.
"Thinking about making it official with Kevin, if he says yes."
William was so surprised he couldn't even think what to say. He decided asking when the last time Mike had gotten laid wasn't the way to go. "You barely know him," he finally managed.
Mike shrugged and refused to look at him. "Been a couple of months. Besides, when you know, you know, right?" He glanced at William. "You knew. Before you came to get me, you knew."
William leaned hard against Mike's side. It wasn't a conversation he'd had with anyone else. "I knew," he admitted softly. "I guess it's one good thing out of this war."
Mike nudged him. "You think we'd get away with blowing shit up without this war?"
It surprised William into a laugh, and something inside him that he hadn't even known was tight loosened.
***
Neither Mike nor Cash would divulge the contents of their conversation, but whatever it was seemed to work. William breathed a sigh of relief and sent his thanks in his next note to Mike.
Gabe's leg got better, and he and Victoria had a screaming fight with the dual results that William got fucked so hard he could feel it for days and Melissa, Allison, and Dani were sent on to Clandestine Camp. William figured he was the one who actually won that argument.
Winter started to warm into spring.
William was on stable duty, despairing over the sheer volume of mud, when Gabe came running at him yelling his name. William dropped the brush he'd been using, and Gabe picked him up and twirled him around.
"We won!"
"What?" William spluttered.
"We won." Gabe's smile stretched his mouth wide and lit up his face. "I don't think Pete even knows how he did it, but he did. Pete's in the government residence, and the Association is disbanding."
It took a moment for it to sink in, for William to realize it was really happening. "Gabe," he breathed out. Gabe still had him lifted in the air, so William had to lean down to kiss him. Gabe slowly lowered him, never breaking the kiss, until they were level again. William could feel his grin stretching wide to match Gabe's.
Gabe palmed his ass with one hand and used the other to tug William's leg up over his hip. "I can't wait to have you in a bed."
William laughed, joy outweighing the arousal that would have him insisting on Gabe having him right then. "You wouldn't believe the things I can do in a bed."
"I can't believe some of the things you can do in a bedroll." Gabe pressed a sound kiss to William's lips and let go of him, only to take his hand. "Come on. Leave the horses. Day off." Gabe tugged William with him toward the center of camp.
Word had clearly spread, and the camp's center had turned into a party. Gabe pulled William into the middle of it, where they exchanged hugs and high fives with most of the rest of the camp.
Ryland and Suarez had set themselves up on top of one of the tables with a set of speakers, a tech unit William was willing to bet they'd taken from the command tent, and a couple of microphones.
"This," Gabe said, catching William around the waist and holding him close, "is what we've been building." He turned William around to watch the crowd from his perspective. Couples danced to the music Ryland and Suarez kept coming, Cash and the Alexes had a couple of guitars and a tambourine and appeared to be trying to wheedle time with the sound system, and children ran around joining in the general air of delighted chaos. Even Victoria was laughing and dancing with Nate. "Something where victory is a party everyone can be a part of."
William leaned back, trusting Gabe to take his weight and tipping his head to press his cheek against Gabe's. "I love you so much." He could feel Gabe's answering grin against his cheek. "I mean that, you know." He twisted in Gabe's hold and twined his arms around Gabe's neck. "This is amazing. You're amazing." He felt like he would never stop smiling.
Victoria interrupted the moment by pushing at Gabe's arm. "Take it to your tent, or break it up and get up there to make a speech."
Gabe squeezed William tight before letting go. He pressed a gentle kiss to William's lips, and smacked a louder one to Victoria's cheek. "I'm going."
Victoria wrapped an arm around William's back, and he wrapped an answering arm around her shoulders. They stood together to watch Gabe make his way through the crowd to Ryland and Suarez's makeshift stage.
He hopped up on the table with them, and the three of them talked for a moment before the music stopped.
"Ladies and gentlemen," Ryland proclaimed, "Gabriel Saporta."
There was a roar from the assembled members of their camp, and if William clutched Victoria a little tighter, she didn't seem to mind.
Gabe was still laughing when he brought the mic up. "You've all been here with me working on getting rid of the Association," he said when both he and the crowd had quieted, "and now we've done that." He had to stop for the crowd to cheer. "But this is just the beginning. Now it's time to take what we've learned here, how to work together, how to live, how to party, and bring it to the rest of the world." There was another cheer. "It took us time to get here, and it'll take more time to remake the world in our image." He looked out at the crowd, and William was sure every one of them would swear he looked straight at them. "I don't even know how that's going to work yet, so just be cool about it, and we'll let you know when we know." He grinned, bright and cheerful. "And now I'm going to hand this back over to Ryland and Suarez. Tomorrow we'll start rebuilding the world, but tonight we're partying. Fangs up!" Gabe threw up the fangs, and the rest of the camp answered with the fangs and a roar of sound.
Ryland and Suarez started the music up again. Gabe handed the mic back and jumped down and waded into the crowd.
William turned back to Victoria. "He's really good at that."
"He's Gabe Saporta." Victoria smiled and hugged William close. William had never seen her so happy, or so relaxed.
Leighton came by to grin at William and drag Victoria into the crowd, and William found himself alone at the edge of it. He'd made enough of a home at Cobra Camp that he wasn't alone for long, but he didn't see Gabe for a while. The only chore someone had managed to keep going for the day was dinner, but even then William didn't get to spend time with Gabe. He was pretty sure Gabe didn't even get to sit down to eat; every time he caught sight of Gabe, he was standing and talking to someone, although he at least had a plate in his hands.
It was only later, when William was trying to teach the Alexes a song they didn't know, that Gabe found him. William handed the guitar to one of the Alexes and took the hand Gabe held out to him.
Gabe tugged him close. "This is going to go on all night. No one'll mind if we sneak away."
William grinned and pressed his lips to Gabe's cheek. "What'd you have in mind?"
"A little private party." Gabe started walking as he said it, and they ended up back in their own tent.
"I like the way you think."
"Then you're really gonna like this." Gabe slid to his knees, and the rush of arousal William had pushed away earlier came back full force.
William reached down to run his fingers through Gabe's hair and pet Gabe's cheeks while Gabe tugged his pants down far enough to pull out his cock. Gabe didn't bother with preliminaries, just took William in deep and sucked. It was amazing. It was everything - winning and Gabe and wet suction around his cock - and it wasn't long before he came down Gabe's throat and Gabe pulled back to lick him clean.
"I've been wanting to do that all day," Gabe said, still on his knees and sounding rough from William's thrusts.
"You can do that any time you want," William promised. He lowered himself down onto their bedroll with his head propped up on a pillow. "Come here. I'll do you."
Gabe took his clothes off first, which was a joy to watch, every inch of his skin being bared just for William. "Can I just come on you?" he asked after kneeling over William.
William smiled lazily up at him. "You can do whatever you want." He sat up enough to pull his shirt off and then settled back down. "You want me to do anything?" He ran his hands up Gabe's thighs and onto his ass.
"That's good," Gabe gasped out, so William kept his hands there and watched the rhythmic slide of Gabe's hand over his cock.
"Baby," William murmured, "you look so good like that."
"William."
"I would've let you do this before. You should've known that. I love it when you come in my mouth, my ass, all over my hand."
Gabe tightened above him, and William closed his eyes and kept talking until the sticky spurts striping his face stopped. He opened his eyes to find Gabe staring down on him in a kind of lustful daze.
"We're doing that again." Gabe slid down William's body until they were lying together.
"Yeah." William wriggled his pants all the way off. "And think of all the things we haven't done yet."
"Oh, I'm thinking of them." Gabe leaned in and licked over the come covering William's face. "I'm making a list," he said somewhere in the vicinity of William's chin.
William laughed and ran his fingers across Gabe's back in abstract patterns. Gabe's tongue on his skin felt amazingly good. Next time, Gabe was going first so William could really enjoy it.
There was only so much licking Gabe could do before it was all gone, and then he stretched out half on top of William.
"Pete wants Vicky-T and me in the city. We're probably leaving tomorrow or the day after."
William didn't have any conscious control over the way he held on tighter and dug his fingers into Gabe's back.
"Will you come with me?"
"Yes," William said on an exhale of the breath he'd been holding. "Anywhere."
***
Life in the government residence, where Pete had given Gabe and William a suite, was disappointingly similar to life in Cobra Camp: Gabe was up early, came to bed late, and only sometimes made it to meals.
Victoria did her best to rotate William into the things that needed doing, but most of the day-to-day stuff was already being done by people who'd been in the city and were happy enough to switch their employers from the Association to the Resistance's forming government. And Mike was right about peacetime not needing much in the way of explosives expertise.
William spent a lot of time wandering around reacquainting himself with the city.
He met Mike for lunch and reached out across the table to tap the ring on Mike's finger. "Liking the official life?"
Mike grinned. That much happiness was a look he'd never really seen on Mike's face. "Love it." Mike kicked him under the table. "And not just because I'm getting laid regularly."
"I wasn't going to say it," William protested. Mike just looked at him, and he relented. "Okay, maybe I was." He looked away from Mike. "At least someone is."
"Gabe not taking care of you now that you're safe in the city?"
William frowned. "How could he when he's never around?"
"Wasn't he busy when you were in the camp too?"
"Yeah, but at least then I had something to do." William heaved out a sigh and forced himself to smile. "Tell me what the official life is like. Aside from the sex."
Mike stared at him for a moment, but he let it go and instead told William about finding a place with Kevin, and the negotiation it took to move farther than a block away from his family.
When they said goodbye, Mike caught William up in a hug and said, "Things'll calm down. You'll see."
William didn't quite believe him - wasn't the end of the Association supposed to be when things calmed down? - but he appreciated the sentiment. He could've caught transportation back, but he walked instead. His wandering path took him past three different schools, and he remembered Gabe characterizing child care duty as getting away with playing hooky.
William had been to the almost overstaffed child care center for government employees, but not the separate facility that had been an orphanage under the Association and was slowly being transformed to a friendlier kind of halfway house for displaced children.
When he found the place, tucked away in the middle of a quiet part of the sprawling landscaping that made the government residence a surprising refuge of quiet in the middle of the city, he pushed open the door to be met with the dual sounds of a baby crying and a woman's pleading voice. There was also a chime that sounded when he walked through the doorway.
The pleading voice grew louder, until the woman came into sight, only she was more like a teenager, and she was holding the crying baby and looking completely flustered. "Maria had to go out, but she'll be back in a minute to help you," she said to William, and then to the baby, "Come on, honey. It's okay."
William held out his arms and tried to look unthreatening. "Want me to try?"
The girl half sneered at him the way teenagers did, but she handed over the baby. "Her name's Alexa." As an afterthought, she added, "I'm Demi."
"Nice to meet you, Demi. I'm William." William cradled Alexa against his chest and started singing to her, just nonsense syllables and a melody that seemed to fit. She quieted down to a sleepy murmur, and William looked up to find an awed look on Demi's face.
"How did you do that? No, wait, I don't care, just say you'll stay until she goes to sleep. Please?"
William looked down at the baby in his arms and realized he'd been missing time spent on child care duty, and time spent with Travis, Maja, and their girls, who hadn't moved back to the city yet. "Yeah, I'll stay."
"Awesome." Demi smiled in relief, and it lit up her whole face and made her look even younger. "Come on, you can sit down." She led William into what was obviously a common room, with toys on the floor, low bookshelves along one wall, and a rocking chair.
William settled into the soft cushions of the rocking chair and kept singing to Alexa until her eyes closed. "I thought there'd be more people here," he said, softly so as not to disturb Alexa.
Demi shrugged, seemingly unconcerned. "Just us, and Maria. She runs this place. Everyone else who was here before has been adopted and I guess there aren't that many kids around who need places to stay right now." She'd sat in one of the plush chairs, and she pulled her legs up and wrapped her arms around her knees. "I'm too old and Alexa won't quiet down for anyone."
William wasn't sure if he should push for her story or let her be, but he was saved from deciding by the entrance chime sounding. A woman with dark, curly hair and a smile on her face came around the corner.
"This is Maria," Demi said. "Maria, William got Alexa to go to sleep."
Maria looked as surprised as Demi had been. "Good for you," she said. "I think we met when you first got here. You're with Gabe, right?"
"Right."
Maria nodded. "Were you looking for me?"
"No." William looked down at Alexa. "No, I just had some time, and I haven't been here before, so." He shrugged.
"And then he got Alexa to go to sleep," Demi said again. "You have no idea," she said to William. "She never calms down."
William ran the back of one finger across Alexa's baby-soft cheek.
"Well, you're welcome to spend time with us whenever you want," Maria said, and when William looked up she was watching him soft and understanding. He looked back at Alexa, and Maria said to Demi, "You have homework to do."
Alexa woke up later, and William realized he'd been sitting there watching her sleep for hours. He talked to her softly while she woke up, and then sat down with her in the play area. Maria came to fetch her when it was time for her to eat, and William went back to the central part of the residence.
He went back the next day.
He started helping Demi with her homework, and discovered that she had a good voice, if untrained. She could play piano, too, and William brought her a guitar he could teach her to play, or use to keep her company while she played piano.
He took over the job of getting Alexa to go down for her nap, and spent a lot of hours sitting on the piano bench next to Demi with Alexa in his arms.
He left a message on Victoria's comm to let her know he was available if she had things that needed doing, but that he was spending time helping out Maria. While he did spend some of his time there with the other kids in and out of the place, he spent most of it with Demi and Alexa.
And he wrote a song, about lost little girls left behind by the world.
***
Just after five on a Saturday a few weeks later the door to their quarters opened and Gabe came straight through to where William was reading and kissed him. "Ashlee threw us all out. She said she and Bronx wanted Pete back." Gabe pushed his hands into William's hair and brought their foreheads together. "I'm all yours until Monday morning."
William could feel the smile spreading across his face as he closed his book and put it aside. "Yeah?"
"Yeah." Gabe grinned against his lips and kissed him again. "Come on. I remember promising you unhurried good times in our bed."
William pulled back. "I'm not that easy. We're doing this right."
"You, me, and a bed," Gabe argued. "That's right."
William couldn't resist laughing at him. "No. You're taking me to dinner, and then maybe dancing. Have you even been to Ryland and Suarez's new restaurant?"
Gabe smiled at him with what looked to be a mixture of amusement and pride, shook his head, and let William tug him out into the city.
Over dinner, Gabe told William about what they'd been doing to reorganize the government, and William filled him in on what he'd heard and seen around the city. Ryland and Suarez abandoned their responsibilities to their restaurant to sit with them for a while.
After dinner, Gabe took William to a club he knew from before his time in the forest that was still in business, and they danced and kissed until they were sweaty and breathless, and then they held hands through the streets as they walked home.
William expected the first time they really had time to enjoy themselves in their bed to be frantic and maybe a little rough like some of their best times, but instead it was slow and sweet. It was Gabe laying him out and touching and kissing him like he was trying to memorize William's skin with his hands and lips. It was Gabe telling him he was beautiful, and William reaching out for him because he couldn't stand to not be touching Gabe. It was just him and Gabe and nothing else.
And he was gone, so gone for Gabe. He'd known it before, but there was knowing and then there was feeling it right down to his bones.
And afterwards it was still just them, no rush to go to sleep to get up tomorrow, no something they had to go attend to. Just the two of them trading kisses until they couldn't stay awake any longer.
***
William woke up on Saturday to find Gabe watching him. "What?"
Gabe smiled and brushed William's hair back. "Nothing. I'm just not used to sleeping in."
"Okay." William stretched and settled again.
Gabe kept stroking his hair. "I heard you've been spending a lot of time in the old orphanage."
It wasn't a topic they'd covered at dinner the night before.
"Were you going to tell me about it?" Gabe didn't seem particularly concerned, just mildly curious.
All of the frustration of being left alone and not having anything to do and missing Gabe rushed through William like fire through his veins. "When would I?" he ground out. "You're never here!" He yanked himself away from Gabe.
Gabe scowled at him. "I've been working. Doing that thing we're here to do, you know, rebuilding the world."
William hurled himself out of their bed and looked down at Gabe. "Rebuilding it for what? Remember what you used to say about it? That Cobra Camp was different because it wasn't just about the fight, it was about the world after and the people and the families." His voice rose until he was shouting. "I'm your family! You're supposed to be with me now! But you're not, and you know it doesn't matter because I love you so much I won't leave you anyway!" William breathed in pants, like he'd been running, and he and Gabe stared at each other. "I wouldn't," he said softly. "Not for anything."
With Gabe still staring at him, William turned and walked into the bathroom. He didn't lock the door, and he wasn't surprised when Gabe joined him in the shower. Gabe pressed all along his back, and William could feel Gabe's lips against his shoulder.
"William, next time," Gabe sighed against his skin, "tell me. Just tell me. Wake me up in the middle of the night or tie me to the bed if that's what you have to do to make me listen, but tell me." Gabe stroked his hands down William's chest to settle across his stomach. "I love you, you are my family, and I don't want to ever leave you alone." Gabe tucked his head in against the curve of William's neck. "Do you remember that day in the armory, when the Association had taken out that small camp?" Gabe didn't wait for William's nod before continuing. "You reminded me what we were fighting for." Gabe's lips pressed against William's shoulder. "You're the best thing The Cobra ever brought me. I'm sorry I forgot that."
William turned into Gabe's embrace. "You need to come home," he said, his voice still rough. "You need to make everyone else go home sometimes too." He tipped his forehead onto Gabe's shoulder. "I want you to come with me and meet the kids at the old orphanage."
"Yes," Gabe said. "Yes, to all of it. I promise." He tugged William's head up and kissed him.
"Okay," William said, "okay," and he softened into Gabe's touch.
***
After a shower that included them nearly slipping and laughing about it and not letting it get in the way of the makeup sex, and after a late-morning brunch Gabe made for them, William took Gabe's hand and they walked across the grounds to the old orphanage.
Alexa's fussing met them when they came through the door. Demi came out on the heels of the chime with Alexa in her arms and a look of relief on her face.
"She's been fussy since last night." Demi handed Alexa over to William, and he, in turn, handed her to Gabe.
"This is Alexa," he said as he did it. "Alexa, sweetheart, be good for Gabe. And this is Demi. Demi, this is Gabe."
Demi looked from William to Alexa to Gabe. "Nice to meet you."
"It's very nice to meet you," Gabe said over Alexa's continued fussing, and then he walked away from them, bouncing Alexa a little and then talking to her softly.
"Is this going to work?" Demi asked softly as she came to lean against William's side.
William wrapped an arm around her shoulders and hugged her. "I hope so. He's good with kids, and I want her to like him."
Demi turned into his hug enough to put both her arms around him. "You love him, so she probably will."
William smiled softly down at her. "Thanks."
"You're welcome." Demi looked up at him. "I think I figured out that song."
William glanced over at Gabe and a quieting Alexa. "Yeah, okay. Show me." He and Demi sat at the piano where she played through the song a couple of times. After a while Gabe, with a sleeping Alexa in his arms, came in and squeezed onto the bench next to William.
"What do you think?" Demi asked Gabe.
"It's good," Gabe said. "You wrote it?"
"Yes." Demi's hands hovered over the keys like she wasn't sure what to do with them.
Gabe pressed a kiss to William's shoulder. "You certainly have a talent for finding musicians."
Demi's hands settled softly onto the keys. "It's because he is one." She played a few notes William recognized as the chorus to the song he'd written.
***
"Tell me about them," Gabe said later, on the way back to their quarters.
William sighed. "Demi's dad left them a long time ago, I guess, and her mom worked for the Association. She died a couple of years ago, and Demi ended up in the orphanage. She's older than what people were looking for, and then there's the music, which no one was willing to support. Alexa's parents were Resistance, killed by the Association. She doesn't quiet down for very many people, so no one wanted her either."
"Okay," Gabe said after a minute or two. "There are a lot of family quarters empty. If you'll work on packing us up, we should be able to move next weekend, and we're already set up to fast track adoptions from the old orphanage."
William barely dared to breathe. "Alexa and Demi," he didn't quite ask.
"Alexa and Demi," Gabe said. He squeezed William's hand. "They're your family now, and that makes them mine too." After a moment, he twisted their arms together to draw them closer to each other. "I can see we're going to spend our lives surrounded by Alexes." He didn't sound unhappy about it, and when William looked over at him, his lips were turned up in a smile William had to taste.
***
On Monday William sat down with Demi. "Gabe and I want you and Alexa to come live with us." It seemed like a good idea to just say it flat out.
Demi froze and looked at him with impossibly wide eyes. "You mean it?" she asked, sounding even younger than she was.
William reached out and tucked her hair behind her ear. "Yes. If you say yes, we'll take care of all the adoption paperwork. Gabe thinks we can move this weekend." He grinned. "And when Gabe wants something, he gets it done."
Demi flung herself at him and wrapped her arms around him. "Yes. Yes, please, thank you."
William held onto her as tightly as she was holding him. "I love you."
Demi's voice shook as she said, "Love you too," into his sweater.
***
On Tuesday, Gabe started coming home just after five. On Wednesday, he came home with their new quarters assignment and the news that if they picked colors the next day, they could be repainted before they moved on Saturday. On Thursday, William found a music store and bought a piano to be delivered the following week. On Friday, they signed the adoption papers and found temporary space for Demi and Alexa to spend the night in their mostly packed up quarters. On Saturday, they moved into a set of family quarters that had three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a living room big enough for both the piano and an entertainment unit, and a kitchen.
***
On a rainy afternoon a few months later, Demi sat at the piano working out a song while Alexa sat on the floor playing with the stuffed elephant Kevin and Mike had given her. William had a book open on his lap, but he wasn't really reading it. Instead he alternated his focus between the rain rolling down the window, Demi's occasional bursts of music, and Alexa's not-quite-words.
Gabe came in just after five, and William moved enough to let Gabe slide in behind him on the couch.
"Hey," Gabe murmured. He put his arms around William and kissed his temple.
William smiled, closed his book, and tucked one hand around Gabe's arm. "Hey." He looked at the girls, at Gabe's arms around him, at the life he'd never known he wanted, and tipped his head back to look at Gabe. "This is what we were fighting for."
Gabe said, "Yes," and kissed him deeply enough that Demi played a crashing collection of notes to remind them they weren't alone.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-27 05:01 am (UTC)I love William and Gabe's relationship and the way they just fit in real life and you managed to make that feel so perfect and right in this.
Kevin and Mike!! I giggled in delight, no lie. :-D
I just love the end of how William's kind of at odds with himself and how he kind of just finds Demi and Alexa. I love that Gabe gets him immediately in that William's finding his family slowly. It's so beautiful and absolutely gorgeous.
Fantastic job. :-)
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-27 04:02 pm (UTC)One of the secrets (well, if you don't follow me on Twitter where I fretted about it for weeks) about this story is that I had no idea where it was going and no story arc, so I kind of just found Demi and Alexa too, and only later realized I really had given William a story arc about family.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-27 04:28 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-27 05:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-27 05:02 pm (UTC)except poor Sisky, that made my heart clench
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-27 05:54 pm (UTC)Yes, poor Sisky. :( But people die in a war, and there had to be someone for Travis to comfort William about so Gabe could be jealous.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-28 02:40 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-28 03:51 pm (UTC)Kevin/Mike is the new OTP, you know. There's even a community:
(Edit: You'd think I'd know how to use the lj user tag on the first try by now, but no.)
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-29 02:48 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-29 02:48 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-29 04:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-29 09:04 am (UTC)♥!!
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-29 04:01 pm (UTC)(Your icon is cracking me up!)
(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-19 11:17 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-20 02:04 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-03 08:49 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-03 10:26 pm (UTC)Fighting For
Date: 2010-05-18 06:43 pm (UTC)Re: Fighting For
Date: 2010-05-24 02:33 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-04-18 01:48 pm (UTC):D
(no subject)
Date: 2011-04-20 03:47 am (UTC)