
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/4830527.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Blake's_7
  Relationship:
      Kerr_Avon/Roj_Blake
  Character:
      Kerr_Avon, Vila_Restal, Roj_Blake
  Additional Tags:
      Abuse, Past_Underage_Sex
  Collections:
      Hermit.org_Blake's_7_Library
  Stats:
      Published: 2008-05-26 Words: 6856
****** DELINQUENT ******
by HermitLibrary_Archivist
Summary
     When the crew rescue Avon from a psychiatrist, they wonder why he
     hates the profession so much.
Notes
     Note from Judith and Aralias, the archivists: This story was
     originally archived at Hermit.org_Blake's_7_Library, which was closed
     due to maintenance costs and lack of time. To preserve the archive,
     we began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-
     approved project in August 2015. We posted announcements about the
     move and emailed authors as we imported, but may not have reached
     everyone. If you are (or know) this author, please contact us using
     the e-mail address on Hermit.org_Blake's_7_Library_collection
     profile.
     This work has been backdated to 26th of May 2008, which is the last
     date the Hermit.org archive was updated, not the date this fic was
     written. In some cases, fics can be dated more precisely by searching
     for the zine they were originally published in on Fanlore.
The teleport twanged and Vila Restal shimmered into existence, with Gan steady
behind him. "Bloody hell, that was worse than I expected," he groaned,
staggering out of the bay. "Those people are maniacs, Blake. Really
frightening."
"What did they do to you?" Cally asked with a look of concern.
Vila hugged himself and shivered. "They talked ," he whispered. "Gan and me had
our blasters pointed at them the whole time but they didn't even seem to
notice, except for this one bloke who asked whether the guns made us more
secure. The rest of them just kept going on about how they understood and how
they only wanted to help and how we'd feel much better if we sat down in a nice
comfy chair and relaxed and let it all out. I nearly did, too. Force of habit,
I suppose. I was halfway towards sticking my blaster back in its holster when
Gan told you to bring us up."
Blake glanced across at Gan, raising a quizzical eyebrow. "Was it really that
bad?" he asked.
Gan shrugged. "They're pretty persuasive, Blake. All those kind, caring faces
and gentle, even voices. It gets to you in the end. Luckily, I haven't been
exposed to that sort of thing as much as Vila, so I realised we'd better escape
before they talked us right around."
"And Avon?" Blake prompted.
"Yeah, he's there, all right," Vila confirmed. "We got that much out of them,
at any rate. The chief headshrinker told us straight off. ÒThe same antisocial
pattern of behaviour as your friend,Ó he said when I pulled out my blaster. Not
that Avon'd thank the bloke for calling him a friend of mine but at least we
know we're on the right track."
Blake caressed his jaw thoughtfully for a few seconds and then gave a decisive
nod. "Time for a change of plan, then. Wait here, will you, Cally? I'll be back
in a minute."
As he hurried off down the corridor, Cally turned luminous brown eyes on Vila.
"I don't understand," she said plaintively. "Those people did nothing to you.
Why are you so upset?"
Vila spread his hands wide. "Listen, I can cope with thugs in full body armour
trying to kill me. I don't like it but - oh well, they're just doing their job.
The headshrinkers, though, they're true believers, which is a whole lot more
dangerous." He thought for a moment and added, "Mind you, it never really takes
on me. I had my head adjusted three times before they packed me off to Cygnus
Alpha, except somehow it wouldn't stay adjusted. But I can't help getting edgy,
all the same, whenever anyone says, ÒWe're only doing this for your own goodÓ."
"He's got a point there," Gan agreed. "The headshrinkers made me edgy and I
haven't ever been adjusted, because they gave me a limiter instead. Still,
there's no need to worry about Avon, Cally. He's an Alpha, so he's used to that
fancy way of talking. Besides, he's good at arguing back - look at the way he
and Blake keep going at each other. He'll be all right. Won't he?"
"I'm sure he will," Cally said, a little too quickly. Then her eyes flicked
across to the doorway as Vila let out a strangled squawk. Blake was standing
there, hands on hips, in the uniform of a Federation officer.
"You shouldn't creep up on people, not when you're dressed like that," he said
reproachfully. "Gave me a nasty turn, you did. My nerves aren't the best, after
what I've just been through."
Blake laughed and strode into the teleport bay. "Put me down somewhere in the
city, Cally," he ordered. "If I'm to play the part properly, I'd better arrive
at the rehabilitation centre by shuttle, rather than materialising in the
grounds."
Cally adjusted the teleport co-ordinates and reached for the levers. The last
thing Blake heard before he disappeared was Vila, saying in a confiding voice,
"Y'know, Cally, I could really use a dose of soma right now ..."
Dr Wexler's office was a friendly, welcoming place. Soft, pastel-coloured
chairs, pastel sunlight seeping through the window screens, pastel flowers at
the corner of the big desk on which the doctor leaned, fingertips pressed
together to frame his friendly, welcoming smile.
"I'm sorry to miss the chance of working with Kerr Avon," he murmured. "An
interesting case and I feel we were starting to make some progress.
Rehabilitation is always better than punishment, Commander Coleridge,
especially for such a gifted subject who could contribute so much to the
Federation. I know that Supreme Commander Servalan hoped - but then, the man
was an associate of that rebel Blake, which presumably explains why she's
decided to make an example of him. Ah, here he is."
The door opened. Blake swung round and saw two burly guards - no, nurses -
crowd in, flanking a third man. The precaution seemed unnecessary. In his loose
grey coveralls Avon looked small and quenched and ordinary, an unexpected
reminder of their first meeting on the London. He had thought Avon plain then,
until the other man glanced up at him and Blake had seen those eyes: that
mouth. (And had fallen hopelessly in love, although he was only prepared to
admit it once every few months, when drunk or sleepless.)
"Well, Kerr," Dr Wexler was saying with practised warmth, "so you're leaving
us. That's a shame but I hope you'll go on thinking about the issues that
emerged in our discussions. You have a fine mind. I'm sure you can continue to
work on your conflictual relationship to authority, even without my
assistance."
Avon's shoulders angled in the arrested half-shrug that he used to dismiss
anything he did not wish to hear. Blake almost smiled at the familiar sight
but, just in time, he turned the smile on the doctor instead. "Thank you, Dr
Wexler," he said. "You've done a good job. It sounds as though prisoner Avon
should be more tractable now. I'll pass on your advice about rehabilitation to
the Supreme Commander and perhaps the prisoner can be returned here after his
trial."
Dr Wexler's eyes lit up and he rubbed dry palms together with a whispering
sound. "Excellent," he breathed. "We'd like that, wouldn't we, Kerr?"
Blake tensed, hand shifting to the hilt of his blaster. "We" and "Kerr" were
both taboo words, although Dr Wexler didn't appear to have realised this. He
waited for the inevitable reaction but Avon just stared straight through the
doctor, who flushed slightly.
"Resistant," he muttered, as if he were making notes. "Very fascinating. All
that intelligence ... and absolutely no ability to apply it to any useful
social purpose. You're a challenge, Kerr. I look forward to seeing you again."
"The feeling is not mutual," Avon replied, so formally that it took Dr Wexler a
few seconds to register the insult. He clicked his tongue in tolerant
disapproval and rose to usher them out.
Blake's shuttle unit was waiting at the front gates. As they stepped into the
perspex box and settled themselves on the padded seat, Dr Wexler shot a last
greedy look at Avon. "Au revoir, Kerr," he said, almost flirtatiously, and then
the shuttle slid off smoothly down its antigrav track.
The minute the doctor's gaunt figure dwindled into the distance, Avon leapt up
and started pacing around the box. Blake swung his feet onto the bench, to give
him more room, and watched indulgently. Another of Avon's sudden mood changes,
from the sullen nonentity of the doctor's office to a caged panther. His eyes
were bright now: with rage, Blake suspected. Two slashes of red branded his
cheek bones and he moved with barely controlled menace.
While Blake studied him, Avon prowled in a wider circle that brought him up
against the wall. His lips twitched in a snarl; his hand lifted and clenched
and slammed into the perspex, so hard that Blake winced in sympathy. For a
split second Avon stared down at his bruised fist, lips parted, eyes blank with
surprise, and then his elbow jerked back and his hand rose again. Blake let out
an inarticulate yell of protest and hurtled across the shuttle to grab Avon's
wrist.
They strained against each other, breathing fast. Then Avon forced his arm
down, broke the hold and whirled round. "Stop it," Blake commanded, staring
into wildcat eyes. "I'm on your side, Avon. I'm not the enemy."
The eyes hazed and became human again. "Thank you for the reminder," Avon said
courteously. "You collude so well that I had almost forgotten. That was a very
convincing performance, Commander Coleridge."
"It was meant to be," Blake said mildly, returning to the bench. "After Vila
and Gan failed to rescue you, I thought we ought to try the indirect approach.
One of my father's friends - my godfather, in fact - was a Federation
psychiatrist, so I know how to talk to the breed."
Avon tipped back his head and laughed, a harsh grating sound edged with
hysteria. "You sent Vila down there? I imagine he enjoyed the experience as
much as I."
"He did seem rather shaken," Blake admitted. "More than I would've predicted.
But then, so do you."
"And for the same reason," Avon said, beginning to prowl again.
Blake contemplated that for a while, thumb rubbing thoughtfully at his lower
lip. Eventually he lifted his head and said, "All right, I can see why Vila
wouldn't love the headshrinkers, as he calls them. As a Delta, he's seen the
down side of their profession. But you're an Alpha, Avon. One bout with the
interrogators after you were caught for embezzling isn't enough to send you
this far off balance."
"No," Avon agreed and kept pacing.
Blake sighed. "You're not going to tell me anything, are you? Very well then,
I'll have to work it out for myself. You were captured on our last raid but
you're physically unharmed. You spent three days in a rather luxurious private
rehabilitation centre before Orac was able to locate you. And yet, even though
I would've said you'd had a lucky break, you're so disturbed that for once you
can't hide it. Why, Avon? Is it something to do with Dr Wexler? Had you met him
before?"
Avon halted abruptly, slouched against the perspex wall and applauded. "Oh,
very good," he mocked. "A little more practice and you might almost approximate
logical deduction. You are halfway there, Blake. I was not previously
acquainted with Dr Wexler but I know his type well."
"How?" Blake asked and Avon gave him a glittering smile.
"Deltas who misbehave are sent to state institutions. Alphas who misbehave are
sent to - ah, luxurious private rehabilitation centres where they receive
incessant attention from devoted professionals."
"You, Avon?" Blake said, startled. "What did you - no, I'm sorry. It's none of
my business."
"You want a catalogue of my crimes?" Avon asked with a lift of one eyebrow.
"I'd be happy to oblige, although I can't guarantee to remember the full quota.
As I recall, it began with a lamentable inability to anticipate my father's
wishes and progressed through insolence and undesirable associates to some
reasonably sophisticated computer hacking."
"So that's when they packed you off to the headshrinkers? You were probably
fortunate, you know. A Delta in your position would have found himself in a
Juvenile Resocialisation Unit."
Avon's hands flexed into fists. He frowned down at them and slid them behind
his back. "Spare me the class analysis, Blake," he snapped. "As a matter of
fact, I was first sent to Dr Sorensen's establishment for disaffected Alpha
youth at the age of ten. By the time I was old enough to leave home, I had
spent more time with the headshrinkers than with my family. And that is why I
become ... disturbed when I am forced into the proximity of the caring
profession."
Another of Avon's charming, inappropriate smiles, smoothing away the frown
lines until he looked as serene as a choir boy. Blake gazed hungrily, fired by
the transient beauty. He wanted to reach out and comfort the child inside the
man but an insistent pressure against the fabric of his Federation uniform
reminded him that he wanted the man even more. So instead he lounged back on
the padded seat, ostentatiously casual, and said, "That can't have been easy,
Avon. Is there anything I can do to help? You must've felt -"
And Avon's suppressed fury erupted. "Enough!" he spat, surging forward to stand
over Blake. "I have no interest in discussing my feelings, with you or anyone
else. It is unpleasant enough to be locked in here after a session with the
headshrinkers, without being subjected to another inquisition. I wish I could
..."
His voice trailed away and his eyes stared blindly at the blurred landscape
rushing past them. "Yes?" Blake prompted. "How did you usually let off steam
after a session with the headshrinkers?"
The smile flashed out again. "Oh, just the usual boyish pranks. Smashing my
father's crystal collection. Sampling a range of recreational drugs. Stealing
ground flyers. Changing the codes on Federation data banks. Going to bars and
picking up undesirable associates." He glanced down, focussing on Blake for the
first time, and his smile broadened. "Well now, there's an idea. You certainly
qualify as an undesirable associate. Since you are so anxious to help, you will
presumably have no objection to this ."
He sank down onto the seat and bent over Blake, laying a proprietorial hand on
his throat and forcing his head back. Blake twisted away, lost balance and slid
down the wall. Avon moved with him, straddling his thighs and wrenching at the
buttons on the Federation uniform. He slid sinuously across the bared chest,
nipped at Blake's neck and, as he gasped, thrust the hard point of a tongue
between his lips. Blake sprawled across the narrow bench, dangled and helpless,
blood rushing to his head, blood rushing to his cock. He couldn't think. Could
only groan and open to Avon's mouth, sucking the invasive tongue deeper.
Avon bore down hard and ground his hips against Blake's erection, urgent and
ruthless. Blake cried out, half in protest, half in encouragement. He flung an
arm up and latched onto Avon's shoulder, locking them together. They writhed
and grunted and struggled, every movement tipping Blake further into a frenzy
of desire. Then Avon arched slightly and slid his hand between them. Cool air
tickled Blake's groin and knowledgeable fingers circled his cock, gripped tight
and moved steady up the shaft, squeezing every throb of sensation from eager
flesh. Blake's mind reeled. He whimpered and clung to the edge of the bench,
while his hips jerked and hammered. Above him, Avon chuckled: a small sinister
sound, without any vestige of enjoyment.
Blake's eyes flicked open. As he stared into an agate-hard gaze, his body
chilled and his cock went limp in Avon's hand. "No," he said hoarsely. "I told
you before, I'm not the enemy. Don't do this."
"Why not?" Avon asked, choirboy innocent. "You want it, Blake."
He shook his head and felt thought return. "True," he said honestly, "but it
would be a mistake, all the same. You're not yourself, Avon. If I had to guess,
I'd say that right now you're an angry ten year old boy."
"Ah!" Avon said with an exaggerated air of discovery. "So that is why you
responded so enthusiastically."
The air stilled. There was a roar of sound in Blake's ears, like a chorus of
voices shouting, "Kill kill kill." He brought his knee up sharply, fending Avon
off, heaved himself into a sitting position and started to fasten his uniform
with hands that, he was proud to notice, barely shook. Once that was done, he
turned his face to the perspex wall and went away: into a place deep inside his
head where no one had ever been able to find or hurt him, not even the
Federation mindwipers.
I will survive. I can survive anything. Even this.
He was so far away that the voice took several minutes to reach him. A ragged,
shaking voice, frayed breathless with alarm. Blake came back reluctantly to
find Avon crouched beside him, fingers knotted in his sleeve and tugging
tentatively. It was, apparently, a day for firsts. At any rate, it was the
first time he had ever heard that note of panic from Avon.
"Blake, please," he was whispering. "Blake, I forgot. I never credited the
Federation's propaganda about your propensity for child molestation. Believe
me, I would not use that against you."
"Why say it, then?" he asked, still distant.
Avon rose and turned away. He walked to the far side of the shuttle and stood
there, head bent, arms braced against the wall. "Yes, I suppose I owe you an
explanation," he said finally. "You are not sexually interested in children,
Blake. But Dr Sorensen was."
Blake's remote calm shattered. Before he had time to consider, he was standing
behind Avon, arms wrapped tight around him. "Oh, Christ," he said in a low
voice. "You poor bastard."
Avon turned in his arms with a bright, fixed smile. "Wrong again," he said. "I
knew it and I played on it. I was the one who made the first approach. Dr
Sorensen was the one who killed himself afterwards."
Blake swallowed hard. This is important. I have to get it right. But he
couldn't seem to think properly. One minute he was trying to choose the most
appropriate words; next minute he was snarling in outrage, "And how old were
you then, Avon?"
"Thirteen," Avon said, politely puzzled.
"And Dr Sorensen?"
"How would I know? In his forties, I suppose."
"In his forties and your psychiatrist. Be logical, man. Which of you was
responsible for the situation?"
Avon made a small inarticulate sound and fell forward. Blake caught him and
held him. He could feel Avon's chest heaving, as though from some violent
exertion. Could feel his own heart hammering violently in response.
"He betrayed your trust," he said finally. "You do see that, don't you?"
"Perhaps," Avon said into his shoulder. "Or did I betray him? I have always
found it hard to recognise the difference."
"Thirteen," Blake repeated. "How much power did you have?"
"More than you think," Avon answered with a quiver of amusement but he didn't
move away. They stood there for a timeless moment, Blake's hands resting
feather-light on Avon's back, although eventually one hand lifted under the
pressure of an irresistible compulsion to touch and, greatly daring, stroke
Avon's hair. That broke the spell. Avon leant back and looked up at him, eyes
glossy and impenetrable as polished stone.
And the door of the shuttle slid open.
The noise of the city rushed in. Buskers playing the latest synthoharp melody;
street vendors offering news plaques and kaff and protein snacks; spruikers
from the cathouses advertising nice clean boys and girls; the rumble of
groundcars in the background. Blake took a deep breath, stepped out of the
shuttle and went striding across the platform.
"Where are you going?" Avon asked, catching up with him.
"To the nearest wine shop," he answered without breaking stride. "Judging by
what you've told me, I'd say you still need to let off steam. Since I'd prefer
that you didn't smash or steal anything on the Liberator, I suggest we all get
drunk tonight to celebrate your escape."
A quick gasp of laughter from behind him and then Avon said in his usual
laconic drawl, "Wait for me, Blake. I doubt if I can rely on you to select an
appropriate vintage."
As he fell into step, Blake let out a silent sigh. A day for firsts, indeed.
The first time Avon had trusted him enough to reveal anything significant about
his past. The first time he'd actually accepted one of Blake's offers of
friendship. The first time Blake had ever felt so close to his difficult,
demanding and tantalisingly attractive crew mate.
It was just a pity that, in order to deserve Avon's trust, he would clearly
have to sacrifice those vague, wistful fantasies of some day getting Avon into
bed with him.
Several hours later Blake was swirling the wine in his glass and beaming
muzzily at his companions. Cally and Jenna and Gan had retired, one by one, but
Avon and Vila were still competing to top each other's stories of their
encounters with the headshrinkers. It was an entertaining sight. Vila
unabashedly drunk by now, nudging Avon in the ribs and gesturing expansively.
Avon neat and self-contained as ever, no visible signs of intoxication, except
that his diction was even more precise than usual - and that he was letting
Vila elbow him.
"Then, of course, there's the way they test you by being all sympathetic, so
they can lure you into saying stuff that'll incriminate you even more," Vila
continued with a random flourish of his glass.
Avon arched an eyebrow and wiped a drop of wine from his sleeve. "So you fell
for that?" he asked.
"Nah," Vila said quickly. "Not after the first half dozen times, at any rate.
How about you? I s'pose you didn't believe a word of it."
"Naturally," Avon replied. "Not after the first half dozen times."
Blake smiled to himself and rubbed the back of his head: a futile attempt to
scratch the itch inside his brain. For some reason, the conversation seemed to
be stirring up some of the memories suppressed by the Federation's mindwipe.
Images flickered across a screen in his brain, too fast to focus on, too
blurred to make sense. He shrugged and reached for the bottle again.
"Always knew we had something in common, despite appearances," Vila was telling
Avon earnestly. "A pair of juvenile delinquents, right? Although I bet you
Alpha brats never actually ended up in Resoc, the way us Deltas did."
"Oh, you'd be surprised," Blake slurred, surprising himself when the words
echoed back at him. While he wondered what on earth he had meant, he heard
another echo and realised that Avon must have started to speak at the same
moment, their voices colliding and cancelling each other out. "Go on," he
urged, to cover his confusion, and received a dazzling smile in reply.
"After you, Blake, I insist," Avon said with feral politeness. "Apparently, you
are about to tell us some tales of your own youthful delinquencies. I am sure
Vila and I will be fascinated."
Blake gulped more wine. "Nothing so interesting," he said, suddenly morose.
"I'm afraid I was a tediously virtuous young man, up to a certain point. It's
just that - well, there's something I've been trying to remember. Something
rather important but ... no, I can't quite grasp it."
"Keep talking," Vila suggested, looking intrigued. "Maybe it'll all come back,
once you get going."
"All right, I'll try," Blake agreed. He turned his gaze inward and watched the
flickering images coalesce and sharpen. Frowned, snapped his fingers and said,
"Yes, of course. My eighteenth birthday. I was just starting to question the
Federation's control and my parents were worried, so they called my godfather
in. He took me to one of the Juvenile Resocialisation Units, where he was a
consulting psychiatrist, and marched me through room after room of sullen,
resentful Deltas. But the more he lectured me about the consequences of
disobedience, the more I lectured him about the inequities of the Federation
class system."
"As pompous then as you are now," Avon said, amused. "How did your
headshrinking godfather respond?"
"He laughed. Then he led me down to the maximum security section, opened a
peephole into one of the cells and said, ÒThis is why I brought you here, Roj.
Take a look and see what happens to Alphas who fancy themselves as rebels. This
young lad thought he could fight the system but the system always wins.Ó "
"Bloody hell," Vila breathed. "That must've been the famous Alpha who started
the Dome City Resoc rebellion. So you actually saw him, Blake. What was he
like?"
Blake pressed his thumb hard against his lower lip and stared straight through
Vila, focussing on his returning memories. "I suspect my godfather meant to
show me somebody who'd been completely defeated," he said slowly. "But I
thought he looked more defiant and - well, heroic than anyone I'd ever seen
before."
He blinked and focussed on his companions again: Vila perched on the edge of
his seat, Avon leaning back, shuttered and remote. Blake smiled and said,
"You've changed a lot since then, Avon. It's taken me quite a while to make the
connection."
Vila was impressed. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen anyone silence
Avon. But when he glanced across at Blake to see how he'd done it, Blake had
gone silent too. The two of them sat there, gazes locked, so still that they
hardly even seemed to be breathing. He whistled softly to himself. Well, well.
Maybe Gan had been right when he reckoned Blake and Avon fancied each other.
Vila hadn't believed it at the time - after all, if they were both keen, they'd
be having it off, wouldn't they? But then, as Gan had also pointed out, Alphas
could be funny about things like that. He'd better listen to the big lunk more
carefully in future.
Right now, though, he needed to make sense of what was going on. He dredged up
Blake's last statement, examined it from a couple of different angles and
squeaked in surprise.
"Bloody hell," he said, blinking at Avon. "Who would've thought it? They still
talk about you, y'know. One of my little cousins finished a stint in Resoc,
just before I was packed off to the prison colony, and he was raving on about
the famous Alpha who -"
"Shut up, Vila," Avon cut in. Then he swung round, snarling, "And you can stop
staring at me like that."
"I'm sorry, Avon," Blake said, still staring. "It's not every day I get to meet
one of my childhood heroes. You do realise I might never have become a
revolutionary, if I hadn't been inspired by your example?"
"Hoist with my own petard," Avon muttered incomprehensibly. "Blake, I achieved
nothing - nothing at all. I relied on other people and, predictably, they let
me down. So please don't romanticise me."
Blake's broad shoulders lifted in a shrug. "Too late for that," he said. "Truth
is, I fell in love with you the minute I looked into that cell. I even went to
a psi-artist next day and asked her to sketch the image in my mind, before it
blurred." He grinned suddenly and added, "I had your picture on the wall above
my bed for years."
That silenced Avon again. He sat hunched and wary, frowning down into his empty
glass, while Blake watched him intently. After a while, Vila began to feel
irrelevant. He rose and tiptoed quietly to the exit, changed his mind and
scuttled back to collect the half-full bottle. The two Alphas were still locked
into their intense, charged silence. He whisked the wine from under their noses
and scooted off again, without either of them noticing.
As he dodged round one of the consoles, a choked voice said, "Avon?" When he
glanced over his shoulder, Vila saw Blake stand and hold a hand out, his heart
in his eyes. One minute turning away with a look of incandescent triumph, next
minute swinging back in sudden doubt. And Avon, all troubled beauty, hesitating
and then choosing to follow.
Vila sighed. Wish I could be a fly on that wall. But, oh well, at least I
scored the bottle. He hugged it close and went scampering down the corridor, to
get out of their way.
The door of Blake's cabin swished shut, a barely audible sound but Avon heard
it. He whirled round, fast and savage as a trapped animal.
"It's all right," Blake told him. "You can leave at any time - although I hope
you'll stay. This is one of the more remarkable experiences of my life. I'd
like to prolong it a little, if I can."
The set of Avon's back relaxed slightly. He shrugged and said, "Apparently,
unfeigned admiration from you is more effective than any of the drugs I ever
sampled. I'll stay, even though it is against my better judgment. After all, we
might as well do what we came here to do."
He glanced across at the monitor and added briskly, "Lights down, level three."
As the room dimmed, he tensed in anticipation and Blake, senses heightened by
longing, saw years of squalid bars and undesirable associates take shape in the
gloom behind Avon's studded-leather shoulder. He sighed - good boys always envy
the bad boys - and reached out like a child grabbing for a tinsel-tied parcel.
Avon brushed his hand aside and swept him into a piratical kiss, his tongue
raiding Blake's mouth while his hands attacked shirt and vest in a display of
focussed expertise that had Blake naked to the waist within seconds.
Then the hands propelled him across the cabin and pushed him down onto the bed.
Blake sprawled there, graceless and adoring, and watched Avon strip with his
usual theatrical efficiency. The first sight of space-pale skin hit him like a
blow. Avon's outfits generally managed to be both provocative and severe,
stressing the outline of rounded buttocks but rarely revealing anything more
than the shadowy hollow at the base of his throat: if that. Now, staring in
breathless succession at unexpectedly muscular arms, streamlined chest, long
thighs and the dark grape-bunch of genitals, Blake felt as terrified and elated
as if he had broken some enticing taboo.
"Ah, my dear," he breathed and agate eyes swivelled towards him, impatient and
censorious. Blake glanced down, following the direction of their gaze, and
realised that he was still half-dressed. He fumbled with his trousers, which
snagged on the jut of his erection, grimaced at his clumsiness and freed his
swollen cock. Avon paused on his way to the bed, eyes widening fractionally:
one of those infinitesimal shifts that somehow conveyed more than other
people's stares or leers.
"Oh yes, very nice," he approved and pounced, straddling Blake's thighs and
wrapping both hands around the base of his cock.
Clearly, Avon had learned a lot from his undesirable associates. Having
measured Blake's erection with his eyes, he nodded appreciatively and took its
full length in one flamboyant swallow. Blake shuddered. His eyes closed
reflexively and flicked open again to absorb the almost unbelievable image of
Avon bent over him, a white arc in the cabin's dusky half-light, sucking on his
cock. Teeth grazed the shaft and an adept tongue lapped and sipped, squeezing a
groan from the bottom of Blake's lungs. He thrust once into the welcoming
wetness, then clenched his hands on the sheets and fought for control.
"No," he rasped. "Together."
Seizing Avon by the shoulders, he tipped him backwards and rolled onto him.
Avon growled like a tiger cub, teeth sinking into Blake's neck. His hips bucked
with reckless haste but Blake laughed and prised him away. He stared down into
dark, dangerous eyes, pinned Avon to the mattress with one hand and let the
other hand travel in slow motion down the black whorls of hair on his chest to
the deeper shadows at his groin.
"I've always loved you," he said matter-of-factly, as his fist closed on Avon's
cock. A momentary hesitation, to allow time for a shiver of delight, and then
his hand moved up the shaft with relentless control, thumb tracking the
sensitive ridge. Avon's hawk-gaze softened. He stared up, dreamy and puzzled,
chest heaving rhythmically.
"You," he whispered, as though he had only just noticed that Blake was there.
"You, Blake. You."
Blake smiled and increased the tempo until his hand was moving fast enough to
traverse the shaft in a second, although not so fast that he lost the ability
to relish everything he touched. Skin succulent as magnolia petals, stretched
over muscle hard as bone. Corded veins and sleek cap, already sheened with
moisture. He teased and tested and worshipped, his eyes never leaving Avon's
face. Watching the faint frown-pucker between feathery brows, dark halfmoons of
eyelashes against white skin, lips parted in a soundless sigh.
Avon shifted and stretched, languid and unbearably graceful. He opened his eyes
and looked steadily at Blake. A small gasp escaped from his lungs, only to be
caught and stopped at the back of his throat: the same plaintive sound he had
made when wounded by Saymon's humanoid. Blake's heart swelled painfully and he
reached down to gather Avon into his arms.
As their bodies fitted and fused together, the boundaries between them blurred.
There were two hearts pounding violently, two mouths searching and scalding,
two cocks thrusting with symmetrical force, two voices crying out in sudden
desperation: but it seemed impossible to distinguish one from the other. Blake
whispered, "Avon?" and then, "Avon ." He groaned and stilled, thrust one last
time and dissolved into a cloud of whirling atoms.
By the time he had pieced himself together again, his arms were empty. He
struggled onto one elbow, scanned the room and focussed on Avon's naked back.
"Where are you going?" he demanded and Avon glanced round, arching his
eyebrows.
"Back to my cabin," he explained, provocatively patient. "I am not in the habit
of sharing a bed with my undesirable associates ... and you did say I could
leave at any time."
"Yes, but that was before -" Blake began involuntarily and then broke off,
stalled by Avon's look of wounded triumph.
"So you didn't mean it?" he spat. "Ah well, I can't say I am surprised. I
thought your sudden conversion to democracy was too good to be true. I hope you
are not under the impression that sleeping with you means I will now play
follower to your leader. This changes nothing, Blake."
He reached for his shirt, frowning down at a scarlet mark emblazoned on pale
skin. My mark, Blake thought. He settled back and smiled.
"You're wrong," he said, content and certain. "It changes everything."
Avon pulled on the silk shirt and fastened black leather trousers before he
spun round, armoured again. "Oh, I see," he said with an elaborate affectation
of surprise. "So you are about to make good on your promises and hand Liberator
over?"
"Not exactly," Blake told him and then, as the wounded triumph deepened, "But
you're close. I was thinking more along the lines of joint command."
A strange expression flared behind Avon's eyes: something that Blake had never
seen there before. He was tentatively identifying it as hope when Avon went
rigid, quenched the flare and crossed the room in two strides to stare down at
him.
"There are times when I hate you more than anyone I have ever met," he said
conversationally. "More than the unfortunate Dr Sorensen, certainly. Perhaps
even more than the tyrant my father. I made a mistake tonight but I can assure
you I shan't repeat it. Goodnight, Blake."
For a moment Blake floundered, swamped by a backwash of despair. Illogical,
Avon would call that. Why should he be so devastated by losing a dream that
he'd only held for two minutes? He glanced up, expecting to watch his computer
expert disappear through the door, and discovered to his surprise that Avon was
still poised beside the bed, hands folded in front of him, waiting for an
answer. There was a subtle tremor in the stubby, competent fingers: another
first.
"Sit down, Avon," he commanded, dragging together every scrap of authority that
he possessed. It worked. Avon settled on the edge of the mattress, looking
startled at his own compliance. Blake suppressed a sigh of relief and snapped,
"What brought that on? I made a genuine offer and -"
Avon laughed: a discordant, jarring sound in the small room. "Genuine?" he
echoed. "As genuine as your performance in Dr Wexler's office this afternoon, I
suppose. Tell me, Blake, what would you have done, had I been gullible enough
to accept?"
Blake sat up in a flurry of sheets. "So you're not completely opposed to the
idea?" he asked, brightening. "That's wonderful, Avon. But why are you looking
so doomstruck?"
As he reached out impulsively, Avon ducked and averted his face. "Don't
manipulate me, Blake," he said in a voice that tried for cold and detached but
only achieved lost and hurt. "I know what you are doing. This is one of the
headshrinkers" techniques. You pretend sympathy, I admit that my designs on
your leadership go beyond half-joking threats and then, having confessed, I am
punished."
He lifted his head and stared at Blake without seeing him. Blake scowled and
thumped a fist into his palm.
"I've told you twice before, I'm not the enemy," he grumbled. "You have a poor
opinion of me, don't you, Avon? I'll have to see what I can do about that."
His hand clamped onto a silken shoulder but Avon jerked away and gripped him by
the arms, fingers digging in deep, mouth tugged down at the corners like a mask
of tragedy.
"Blake," he said. "Blake, listen to me. Are you serious? Do you really intend
to stand by that offer?"
Blake slumped back on the bed, pulling Avon with him. He sighed and said, "To
state the blindingly obvious, I have just as many problems with authority as
you do. That makes me a good rebel but a rather reluctant leader. I fantasise,
on a more or less daily basis, about leaving all of this and going off on my
own - but it never occurred to me before today that I could actually share the
leadership. Would you do that, Avon?"
Avon froze and frowned, sat up and contemplated an invisible horizon,
remembered the need to breathe and said tersely, "Yes. I accept." Then he
stretched, cat-like, and added, "With some qualifications, of course. Your
current problem, Blake, is that you have no overall strategy. There are, in my
estimation, three potentially viable methods of overthrowing the Federation
that we ought to consider."
He talked on at machine gun speed for the next ten minutes, outlining
alternatives and then analysing them with remorseless logic, while his hands
dissected the air in staccato gestures. Blake chewed on a knuckle and stared.
Although he had, of course, dreamed about winning Avon over to his cause, he
had always envisaged a long and hard-fought campaign, not a split-second
switch. It was, he found, more than a little unnerving.
"Slow down, Avon," he interrupted. "Just tell me one thing, before you
reorganise the entire galaxy. Is this another way of testing me or do you
actually mean it?"
Amber eyes clouded. Avon stared down at his hands, looking as unnerved as Blake
had felt. "I believe I do," he admitted reluctantly, "although I confess I am
puzzled by this sudden resurgence of revolutionary zeal. After the Resoc
rebellion failed, I settled for making myself so safe that no one could touch
me ... but now I find myself back where I started, with no more guarantee of
success than before."
Blake leaned back with a satisfied grin. "Oh, we'll muddle through," he said,
cheerfully and deliberately obtuse.
He had picked the right word. Avon stiffened and turned an arrogant profile
towards him. "Muddle, Blake?" he repeated distastefully. "With my undoubted
skills and your dubious charisma, we can certainly do better than that."
"You'll have to give up your detached cynic pose, if you want to make a go of
this," Blake warned. "Not to mention your schemes for embezzling Federation
funds and the Liberator. Do you think it would be worthwhile?"
Avon glanced sidelong through a veil of lashes. "Well, you see, I love you," he
explained apologetically. "Not one of my brighter ideas, I know, but there it
is."
Then he shrugged off that lapse into sentiment and returned to his plans. Blake
listened, one part of his brain noting and assessing the tactics that Avon
favoured, while another part studied the contrast between Avon's ardent,
expressive eyes and Avon's perfectly-shaped, carefully-controlled mouth. A
poignantly evocative disjunction, as though the defiant young rebel from the
maximum security cell in Resoc was gazing out at him from behind the cynical
mask.
Dr Wexler was more right than he knew. If Avon's decided to apply his
intelligence to a socially useful purpose - for example, fomenting revolution -
the Federation won't know what's hit them.
He slid a hand up his lover's thigh, to get his attention. "Avon, do you
remember that quote about armies from the Symposium ?" he asked. "Phaedrus's
words, I think, one of the young men in Plato's circle."
A shutter-swift blink of Avon's eyelids as he accessed his photographic memory.
"An army of lovers cannot fail," he said automatically and then he recognised
the implication and smiled.
"Well now, I may have to reclassify you," he murmured, shifting to accommodate
Blake's hand, "According to Phaedrus, you seem to count as a desirable
associate, after all."
 
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