A Minor Variation

AN: So, long time when, I did a story that I might end up posting here wherein, while traveling through our world looking for a way home, Ed wound up spending some time with a French piano player who was our version of Havoc. That short story spawned this chapter one. Huzzah, bunnies.

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He despised this country, and everything in it. He despised the food, the wine, and the fact that there wasn't a decent lager to be found anywhere. He despised the extravagance, the decadence, all of it built on the poverty of his own country thanks to that damned Treaty. He despised the people here, and their nauseating displays of affection to people they didn't even know. He despised the language, a painful mangling of his own Germanic tongue and Latin, and that goddamned Gaelic accent that made its way into everything. He despised the fact that he had to be here in the first place, and the fact that they weren't allowed to return to Munich until they fetched whatever whim of a research notion his sponsors wanted him to wheedle out of Einstein while he was staying here.

But, as he stared into his glass of British whiskey and wished to God it was beer instead, he couldn't decide what he despised the most. The fact that that dog of a Frenchman was currently draped around Edward like a whore looking for a trick, or the fact that Edward was not only familiar enough with the older blond to allow it, but to be smiling like some lovestruck schoolgirl about it.

He glanced up again to glare at the man, who merely gave him a cheerful smile and an invitation to join their group and not have to stay curled up in the corner alone in return to his mental attempts to make him sod off.

He despised him.

***************

He'd never thought he would be in this city again, and the thought had made him very happy indeed. But now, with Edward well and truly gone and his research in ruins, he'd found himself wandering aimlessly through train stations and streets, and somehow, by luck or fate, he'd ended up standing at the door of a man he still harbored a bit of a grudge against in a country he hated.

He found that he'd underestimated the Frenchman's skill of observation. The older blond, who's name he couldn't remember to save his life, merely took one look at the miserable young man on his doorstep and murmured in heavily accented English "He's gone," and they both knew it wasn't a question. He nodded dully anyway.

He was gently ushered inside and bade to sit. The flat was smaller than he would have expected, and not elaborate at all. It was still bigger than what he and Edward had shared, though...and warmer, even with most of the windows open to let in the night breeze. It was...oddly homey, compared to the mental images he'd had of what it would look like the last time he and Edward had been in Paris.

A glass appeared in front of his face, and he blindly took it and took the first long pull from the glass without even bothering to ask what it was. After choking for a second from the sudden vicious burn to his throat, and managing to regain his breath, he squeaked out an inquiry.

"Bourbon with honey and a little cream," his host replied, somehow managing to fold his lanky frame into an odd-looking armchair with little effort. "I've found that... it is a good source of comfort when left alone."

Alone... The simple word broke through the numbed sense that had settled over him somewhere between Romania and Switzerland, and he didn't hear the glass shattering on the floor as he buried his head in his hands and began sobbing. Gone. Edward was gone, and had taken everything he'd worked for in the process of vanishing back to whatever mysterious world he had come from in the first place. He was suddenly and acutely aware of the feel of arms gently sliding around him and a hand rubbing his back soothingly. His stomach wrenched, and he clung to the older man, not caring that this was someone he was supposed to still dislike. The important thing was the first warm body and comforting embrace he'd been near since he'd wound up on his own over a year ago.

The arms around him shifted, and he dimly realized that he was being pulled to his feet and lead down the hallway. A surging sense of panic rose when his mind cleared enough to pick up what the man was saying as they moved, the thought of being left to sleep alone in a strange bed again too much to take, especially now.

The older man's mouth tasted of the alcohol they'd both had and some sort of cigarettes, but he didn't care. He should have been mystified by the lack of resistance or protest, but he didn't care about that either. All that mattered right now was feeling, venting, anything that didn't require him to think. But even under the haze of adrenaline and what little liquor he'd consumed, his mind was still working at a feverish pace. This was a bed Edward had slept in. The body beneath him was quiet and pliant and as long as he kept his eyes tightly shut, he could almost imagine...

It wasn't enough. Oh, God, it wasn't enough, and even as he came, he was brokenly sobbing Edward's name against his host's chest. When he'd cried enough that he'd begun to feel sick to his stomach and cough painfully, the older blond slowly pushed him back, slid off the bed, and vanished, returning to begin carefully wiping him down with a warm, damp cloth. He shuddered, accepted the glass of water that was also offered, and the coughing subsided eventually, as did the strength he'd had during the actual coupling. Feeling weak and drained, he faded off into sleep as the other man continued to bathe him down in slow, soothing passes of the cloth, murmuring reassurances he didn't understand.


Beer, he could handle in mass quantities. Harder liquors, not nearly so much. He squeezed his eyes shut with a small whimper of pain as the few small rays of sunlight seemed to stab straight through his eyelids and into his brain, and was vastly grateful when the light vanished. Hesitantly, he cracked his eyes open to find that the shades of the bedroom windows had been pulled down. Despite the agony in his head, he tried to sit up, only for gentle hands at his shoulders to hold him put.

"You will only make your hangover worse if you try to get up," chided a voice in accented English. A voice and an accent that was both annoying and familiar.

Wait.

He went rigid under the hands at his shoulders as he remembered the night before. He had... Part of his mind rebelled at the mere idea. He had slept with one of these dogs. The same one he'd always railed at Edward for having had a sexual relationship with. Another part of his mind was wondering how the hell this had happened. He knew the Frenchman was stronger than he was, especially in the health he'd been as of late... The rest of him just felt violently sick.

A wastebasket had mysteriously appeared when he leaned over the edge of the bed to retch, and the hands held him steady so he didn't fall as he heaved. When his stomach was empty and the stomach convulsions stopped, he was again offered a glass of water, this time with orders to rinse his mouth and then swallow the pain medication that was held out next. Having done as told, he found himself settled on his back, and his host seated on the edge of the bed.

"Why?" he croaked weakly.

"Because you needed it."

They weren't talking about the medication or the water, and they both knew it. But he didn't understand the answer until the man had left to go do something in another room, and the pills had cleared enough of the pained haze in his head that he realized he recognized the emotion in the older blond's eyes. Then his own eyes widened, and he covered his face with a miserable groan.

Stupid. He'd been so stupid. Too busy drowning in his own grief to realize that of course the man would understand what he was going through. His host had only been through it himself. Twice, if his suspicions were right about the closeness the man and Edward showed to each other the last time he'd been here with his research partner. The guilt was palpable and heavy, making the queasy feeling return, although there was nothing left to throw up.

Idiot.

But even as much as that sense of guilt that came with using someone who already understood that they'd both been used weighed on him, the sense of need and selfishness was stronger, especially when the Frenchman returned with a plate of toast and a cup of thin tea. This was someone who understood. Someone who knew. More than that, someone who'd not only let him in, but hadn't put up a fight, and seemed willing to look after him. He needed that, after having looked after someone, only to be burned and abandoned.

And so, when the older blond gently offered to let him stay until he could get back on his feet, he couldn't bring himself to do the right thing and turn the proposal down.