Page 15 of Drift

Gray loved obsessively, he knew that. But his kind of love, as best as Gray could define it: it was there in Jan’s look, in Jack’s. That mirror of intense obsession coming back his own way that said fuck to everything outside home shores despite knowing everything that had gone on behind them.

Yeah. Never about the cologne, just the men and their choices beneath it.

Jan rested his head against Gray’s and gave a rough sigh. “Work. I need to go.”

Gray buried a smile at his… avoidance of Shaun. Because he wasn’t late. Jan rarely was.

“I’ll walk you to the Oval, but then I’ve got to get off.” Jan pulled away with a blush, then scratched at his hair before holding the en suite door open for a moment for Gray.

“So…” Jan shut the door behind them. “Interrogation of an MI5 director of counterterrorism, Question twenty-four.”

Gray inwardly groaned and buried a smile. He allowed Jan one a week, no more. It was how he’d found out about Gray’s education. The questions mostly stayed light, but sometimes they turned serious: too calculated in their concern, and once or twice Gray quietly called “no” to just how intrusive his questions got. Jack always just threw something at Jan for his “boring as fuck” questioning, even if he did have a private smile that said he was listening.

“In your professional opinion,” said Jan, “what’s the greatest threat to people in the UK and what’s the one thing that can save them from it?”

Gray gave him a glance, and eventually said, “Sophistry… and sophistry.”

Jan narrowed his eyes. “You on loving expanding my lexicon thing, huh?” He leaned in. “What’s this… sophistry?”

Gray cocked a small smile. “And thus my point is proven.”

“Huh?”

Gray sighed heavily and plucked out his phone. A moment later, he handed it over to Jan.

“Sophistry.” Jan called on a sexy tutor tone, even a brief sexy tutor look up over the phone before he eyed the definition. “The clever use of arguments that seem true but are really false, in order to deceive people, according to the Cambridge Dictionary.” He nodded, then—“Hey.” He handed Gray his phone back after thumbing through it. “God, that’s bloody twisted thinking for a Monday morning, you seeing lies as the main threat to the UK yet thinking they’re the one thing that’ll save our dumbasses in the long run. Nowt but horses with the blinkers put on to keep us calm and docile, according to you. You bulk buy those blinkers from Amazon before you make us wear them to really keep us inside the chicken holding pen?”

Assholecame back Gray’s way in the dictionary, and he laughed.

Yeah, he could be. Just sometimes.

“Jan get off okay?” Gray headed into the kitchen, checking his watch even as he made the coffee on the table his first stop. Jack’s version of a continental breakfast could always feed the five thousand and mimicked all the colour and the life Jack had represented upstairs: sliced toast, doughnuts, pastries, plus everything that had hit his senses coming down the hall concerning croissants and rolls. Pancakes stacked themselves on a plate, but Gray stayed with the coffee for now before he shifted his look back to Jack.

Sat at the kitchen table, Jack stared down at his drink.

“Stunner?”

It took a second or two, then—“Hm.” Jack shook out of it, looking his way and offering a smile. “M’ere, mukka.” He scratched distractedly at his jaw. “Just wondering how long Bill’s damn MOT is gonna take after Halliday’s appointment this morning.”

Gray stayed with him a moment. Sometimes it was so damn hard to tell one of Jack’s absences from anyone’s normal way of daydreaming: they looked so similar, just a thousand-yard-stare to begin with, and they’d crept in a little after losing Martin. Under Halliday, Jack had found a balance, some peace, and that had in turn settled peace in Gray.

But sometimes, just sometimes, there were moments like this, where after all the playfulness in bed… away from it, Gray would catch these quieter moments, almost as if Jack stepped inside his own head, looking for Martin after each no show.

With each small seizure, each time he’d come out tired, each time he’d come out alone, sad, almost seeming like he’d climbed out of a swimming pool and carried all the weight on his shoulders. Alone. He just looked so… alone.

“Just asking if Jan got off okay.” Gray went over and stroked at the back of Jack’s neck. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m good.” Jack patted Gray’s neck as he leaned down and kissed at his jaw. “Other than Jangetting offon you this morning, Monique called through from the main gates, and he mumbled something about congestion tax and carpooling that saved his head and pocket, then he legged it.” He snorted. “He’s burning stress out in sex plus avoiding Brennan, huh?”

Jan must have told him Shaun was on his way over, as for the rest? Gray snorted a half smile and nodded. “Just a little.”

But Jack seemed okay. Maybe. Martin making an appearance would let Gray know when he wasn’t. Yet as Martin kept to his stay away, that kept Gray in check over not getting too involved with Jack’s care plan. Jack was doing good. Martin’s stay away called that.

A flurry of movement came from behind Gray, and a mass of fur and muscle almost buffeted him out the way as it jumped up onto Jack’s lap just as he tried to reach for his coffee.

“Fuck. Seriously?” Jack tried to scowl past at what grinned back at him before it turned around and slumped down on his lap. “I’ve not even had my coffee yet.” He tried to reach for it, but only ended up dodging one hell of a huge Maine Coon cattail that could have bested a katana for the length and strength behind the blow to Jack’s jaw as he tried. “This…” He tried to push the cat off. “This thing’s gonna be the bloody death of me, forget emotional support pussies.”

Gray handed him his coffee and tried so badly not to react as he took a sip of his own drink and rested back against the table.

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