| Stef's Stuf |
| Too Many Lives: Chapter 5 |
| After a light breakfast, largely ruined by the necessity to avoid combining caffeine and pain killers, Jack made a quick call to Adam to report about his health and a longer one to Abbie to catch the news about how they were holding down the fort without him. Childishly, he resented the fact they 'were' holding down the fort without him just fine, but he made an effort to keep it concealed. Of course, Abbie being Abbie, she had him spotted on the second 'O' of his peevish 'Good' and mocked him shamelessly until she managed to obtain a good, honest laugh from him and the promise to stop worrying about the office at least until the next Monday morning. The end of the call with Abbie left Jack with a big dilemma: how to spend that Friday morning. He started walking from room to room looking for something to do, opening doors and switching on lights just to fight back the sense of claustrophobia that the almost unreal silence of his house was giving him. Then he piled together law books and settled down to do some research for a case, but trying to read those tiny lines kept clashing with his on and off headache, so he had to give up even this. He gave in and admitted that he was at a total loss what to do with all that spare time. He wanted to go out for a while, but the fear of having another bout of narcolepsy and falling asleep in the middle of a street made him reconsider. Out of sheer boredom, Jack changed the bedclothes on his bed and on the one in the never used guest room, vacuumed the floors, checked and reordered all his books, magazines and CDs on the shelves. Doing so he finally found a treasure: the newest digital re-mastered version of Pink Floyd's 'Dark Side of the Moon", still sealed. Silently he thanked his daughter for the gift, blamed himself for having forgotten its existence for so long, and put it in the CD player. Smiling, he settled down on the couch, put his hands beneath his head, closed his eyes and let the music envelop him. Spare time wasn't so bad, after all... ****** Jack stared at himself in the washroom mirror as he slowly washed his hands and wondered when he'd learned again how to smile. Probably around the time he'd found himself in front of Borlan's gun and decided that life was too good to let such a bastard take it away from him. He dreamily fell into a vision of a little ranch-style brick house surrounded by trees with a mini-van in the driveway. He nodded smugly at his reflection, knowing that it wasn't a dream any more. It was almost a reality. Drying his hands, he rushed out to the new Plymouth Voyager van he'd bought using part of the money he'd gotten from selling the rights to use his name in the movie about the Horny Satyr massacre. He got behind the wheel and started the motor, then drove out of the service station and toward the highway. A block away, he did a U-turn and came back to the service station, laughing at the look on Lennie's face as he stood in front of the mini-mart with two soft drinks and two sandwiches. Jack opened the passenger side door and took the soft drinks, then the sandwiches from Lennie's hands. Still left with a remnant of pain from the wounds Borlan's thug had inflicted on him, Lennie pulled himself up into the seat and fastened his seat belt. "That wasn't funny." Jack drove out of the station and proceeded toward the main highway in earnest. "Yes it was." Lennie couldn't keep from chuckling. "So where are we going?" Jack looked at him, his face a study in smug satisfaction. "Didn't I tell you?" "Nope." "Really? "Jack. Have mercy on a poor soul. After all that's happened, I've lost any remnant of enthusiasm for surprises." "Oh, but you're going to like this one." "No, I'm not." "Yes, you are." Jack laughed aloud. "Trust me." "With my whole life," Lennie answered and Jack saw his eyes loose the amusement of a second before and become somber. Damn. Lennie was still too shaken. James Dominici, Borlan's right hand man, had tortured Lennie and killed Bern Lipranzer before being killed by Borlan himself. The physical wounds from that night were almost completely healed, but only God knew when he'd be able to recover from the ones inside. He still had nightmares almost every night and woke up crying. Jack knew it, since he still had them too and usually was already awake when Lennie started to thrash about in bed. Doctors had diagnosed that they both were suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, as if giving it a name made it easier to face. Well, it wasn't easy at all, but Jack was sure they'd manage to get over it sooner or later. They'd survived already. They were still alive, and with Borlan and Dominici dead, they were also free. Free to heal. Free to build something good. Free to dream again and that was a lot more than what they both had to start with when they met. Jack reached for Lennie and gently caressed his cheek, still too pale from his trauma. Lennie took his hand and gave it a light kiss on the palm, and smiled again. "That's my boy." Jack muttered, satisfied. Thunderstorms which had been to the southeast passed right before them the moment they left the highway and started to climb the nearest hill. The lightning was relentless and awesome. As they drove into the storm, it became darker, and Jack turned on the headlights. Light rain began to fall on the windshield. "Well, Jack. If your surprise was an outdoor picnic, this storm literally pisses on your parade." "No, it doesn't," Jack answered, laughing. "It wasn't a picnic, and anyway I like storms." "You kidding?" "Not at all. When I was a kid I used to strip and go running on the grass when it rained like this. It made me feel wild, and as alive as the storm itself. Of course I stopped the day I learned what lightning really was, but I still miss it sometimes." Lennie laughed. " Wow! I'd never thought you capable of anything like that. You keep surprising me." "And I've just started. The real fun will start right..." Jack looked around, spotted what he was searching for and turned, leaving the main road for a secluded driveway that climbed the hill. "... Now. We're heading right there." "Where?" "Do you see that little brick house hidden by the trees at the end of this driveway?" "Yeah." "That's it" "What?" Lennie growled good naturedly. "Our little refuge. Do you recognize it?" "Of course I do. I sold it." "Yeah, I know. And your secretary told me of all your listings, this was the place you liked the most. I promised myself that if we survived the ordeal, I was going to leave L.A. for good, since we did, I talked with your clients and rented it. Just six months for now, but with an option for other six and eventually for buying it." Lennie's jaw dropped a couple of notches. "You can't be serious." "Yes, I am." Lennie stared at him, a confused grin on his face. "Damn. You ARE serious." Jack nodded, overjoyed. The storm became fierce, and Jack had the wipers on the fastest setting. He waited until the car turned the last bend and then killed the engine about a hundred yards from the porch of the house. Lennie rolled his eyes. "What now?" he asked, looking at the windows that were beginning to fog up. "Now I have another promise to take care of." Lennie frowned. "Another promise?" "Yup, It's a bit crazy, but I still made it to myself the moment I saw this perfect spot. And you know about me and promises." "Well, are you going to tell me?" "Of course. I promised myself I'd suck your cock the moment I had you in front of our new house. " "No way..." �Oh yes. And I don't want to have to think this out any more than I have already, so be a good boy and take it out." Lennie realized that he was serious. "No, Jack. Now's not the time. Try it during the heat of passion sometime. Take one little step at a time." "Unzip those pants, Lennie," growled Jack impishly. "Jack, no," pleaded Lennie. "There's so much to lose. It works so well the way it is. I don't want it ruined for good." "Believe me. Nothing will be ruined and things will work better. I'm not going to start my new life with you still hung up on this one little thing." "Your new life with..." Lennie gaped, and Jack took advantage of the moment. He unbuckled Lennie's belt and unzipped his jeans, pulling the still limp cock out where he could get to it. He gently stroked it, smiling as it came to life in his hands. "Hello, old friend. It's been a long time..." He joked. Despite his fears, Lennie couldn't help responding to Jack's touch. He couldn't believe this was happening. Jack stared at the growing penis as if it were a cup filled with some exotic, mysterious potion. He closed his eyes and without stopping to think about it, he opened his mouth wide and took it into his mouth. . It felt like having a mouth full of hot, wet velvet. Before long it had grown to full size and begun leaking; he sucked hard, breathing in the smell of cum and sweat. "Okay, that's enough," whispered Lennie. "Back off and let me do my job," Jack murmured between strokes. He felt he could continue this forever. Dimly, he thought his jaw should be hurting by now, or that he should have more trouble breathing, but he ignored all that and concentrated only on making Lennie feel as good as he could. He berated himself for having waited so long before trying. So much time wasted. "Oh, Jack, I can't hold it back," Lennie said with urgency, pushing at Jack's face "I'm gonna cum, Jack." "Uhhhhh," Jack responded, moving forward and sliding his lips all the way down the long, thick, throbbing cock. Lennie tried to pull away, terrified that his semen would so totally revolt Jack that their relationship would be ruined. He opened the door and was pelted by the rain. Trying to step out of the car, he stumbled and fell backwards onto the ground, astonished that Jack was still clamped on him. A crackling, streaking bolt of lightning struck somewhere less than a mile away, and Lennie experienced the most dynamic climax of his life. Unable to see because of the rain in his eyes, he reached for Jack's face and neck, feeling a careful swallow. Jack lifted Lennie to his feet and held him in the rain, kissing him, offering him a taste of his own semen. "Promise fulfilled," Jack shouted over the roar of the rain, laughing at the top of his lungs. Then he pushed Lennie down to his crotch and unzipped his own trousers, offering his frenzied, primed cock to Lennie's mouth. Another streak of lightning arced down from the sky and soared back upward, striking nothing, impregnating the entire area with dancing, static electricity. Jack erupted and leaned back against the car. He quaked violently as the throbbing offered ecstasy, then he soared to grand heights of rapture. He howled in celebration at the rain. Lennie lifted himself from his kneeling position and embraced him around the waist and they kissed again until they both recovered their breath. "I feel like running... " Jack declared. He let trousers and boxers drop to his ankles, got rid of his soaked shirt and stood nude in the downpour. "You're crazy, you know that?" "Yeah. I'm happy, I'm alive and I'm in love. So I must be crazy..." He freed his ankles from the offending garments and sprinted stark naked toward the house, stopping midway to turn and gesture for Lennie to join him. "Well. Why not," Lennie laughed, throwing his t-shirt over his head and pushing away his trousers. ********* Jack woke up reluctantly, feeling cheated for having to leave such a good place to come back to reality. And it wasn't just the arousal this time, it was the whole package: the laughter, the happiness, the future full of promises. It was the love and it was so real he kept feeling it, like an afterglow, even after he'd shaken away the last remnants of sleep. If his subconscious was trying to tell him something, it was screaming it in his ears like a banshee now, and it was playing for the win. But why? Ok, he thought, the why is obvious. A stone had almost broken his skull and that should authorize any subconscious to take it as a wake up call and act accordingly. He had been practically hibernating since the day he'd lost Claire. He still missed her dearly, but he knew he had begun to suffer the loneliness and the need for physical contact long before the vivid dreams of the last two days had brought them into the open. So his subconscious was telling him it was time to start to live, and possibly love again, but was it really suggesting a man? Granted he needed some changes in his life, wasn't turning homosexual at his age a bit too much? Jack tried to remember if he'd ever been attracted to a man, any man, before. There had been little flickers of interest, times when he'd find himself looking at a man and feeling something. It had happened, he remembered, during puberty, that confusing period of hormonal flux, when his sex drive was a sort of curse, a perpetual source of embarrassment he never managed to master. And then, when he was seventeen, two very different women burst into his life and any confusion about his basic orientation was gone. Shortly thereafter, there was college, and the sudden rise of his personal star. Lovers, female lovers, seemed to fall into his hands the same way good grades seemed to be his for the taking. Oh there had been men who were interested, but things being what they were, he'd never had any reason to return the interest. Except one time, in college... What was his name? He snapped his fingers a couple of time trying to focus, and suddenly remembered: Bernard Lipranzer. He berated himself for not having made the connection before, because he'd been sure that name had to mean something. Bernie Lipranzer was a year behind him in college and was the kindest, and the most unhappy guy Jack had ever met at the time. He'd taken him under his wing and actually wound up giving serious thought to the quiet invitation for a date that Bernie had extended one day, but then Angela Hilson, whom he had been steadily pursuing for weeks, had interrupted the conversation and he'd ended up going out with her instead of Bernie. Amazing how everything was coming back to him, when just seconds before he couldn't remember Bernie's name to save his life. Bernie never tried again and they lost track of each other pretty soon after that evening... And to cap it off, Angela had turned out to be quite a disappointment, boring, self-centered... So Lip was the proof that his sudden interest in men was anything but that, and also explained why he kept feeling perfectly at ease in his dreams' scenarios instead of panicking like any "straight as an arrow" kind of guy would in front of a homosexual wet dream. He guessed he was discovering that he was bisexual, admitting that in a very odd kind of way, it made sense. Undeniably he did love women, and not just for the sex. He liked being with them, talking to them, listening to them, looking at them. He had loved Claire and when he'd lost her he'd thought he'd never be able to love another woman the way he loved her. It'd wound up being a self fulfilling prophecy. So was his subconscious trying to skirt around that block, bringing back his deep buried and totally forgotten attraction to men? If he had to take his dreams as proof the answer was obviously yes, and it seemed that his subconscious, busy little bastard, had also chosen the object of his future interest, but why Lennie Briscoe and not someone else completely, he was not able to explain. It was true they'd grown to like each other during the years and had become friends, but that was all. It was also true he enjoyed Briscoe's company, he liked to play pool with him every time their tight schedules allowed them to, and he missed it when they were forced to skip an evening. He liked talking with him. They were both workaholics, lone wolves, both too much dented around the edges to not comprehend each other at a first glance. He was glad to concede that Briscoe was now his closest friend, but was that enough to make him the next 'special someone' in his life; the one he was born to be with? Was it a real possibility or was he just working himself up out of mere wishful thinking? Putting aside the fact that Briscoe was probably straight to the bones, there was always the chance that, once tested on the field, all his theories could deflate like punctured balloons. What if, despite the vivid dreams of the last days, he'd wind up finding himself totally uninterested in the real thing, or frozen on his feet when he tried to actually do something, or found himself totally unmoved by Briscoe's nearness? "You've got a lot of circumstantial evidence, Jack, but not a case," he told himself, after what seemed to him like an awfully long amount of time spent in perfect stillness. "So what are you going to do now? Are you going to sit on your ass some more, or are you going to look for some answers?" Thinking it was probably the craziest thing he'd ever done in his whole life, he picked up the phone and called Lennie. Continue on to Courting Lennie Send us some feedback Back to the Story Index Disclaimer: These characters belong to Dick Wolf and NBC; we're just borrowing them for fun, not profit. |