//Calling 'cross the blue
It's all I do
One day you'll come back to me
It's a secret of the sea
I'll always love you...always//

"You gave him my bike," growled Geo. His fists clenched and unclenched against the wall.

Eagle lowered his gaze. He was leaning up against the wall, with Geo only a few inches from his face. They had been in that position several times, but this time Eagle wasn't wide-eyed and stammering, or sly-eyed and teasing, which were his normal reactions depending on his mood. His gold eyes looked faraway, and dull. They looked dead.

Geo gritted his teeth. "You gave him MY bike!" he yelled.

Eagle turned away. "Sorry," he mumbled. "I'll give you mine, when it's fixed. I just...needed yours, and I couldn't wait because Lantis was...leaving...." His normally rich alto died away into a rough whisper, and he put a hand up to his shoulder, clutching it and curling up on himself.

Geo's anger drained away like sand through his fingers. "Eagle..." His hand came up to stroke Eagle's cheek, as it had done so often before. Before they had stopped belonging to each other. Before he had come.

Gently Eagle pushed Geo's large hand away. Just that touch, that brush of Eagle's slender fingers against Geo's rough ones, was enough to make Geo's breath come fast and dry in his throat. But Eagle gave no sign of recognizing the touch. He rose and glided away, down the corridor toward his apartments.

//I see
Floating on the ocean
Somewhere under the sun
Your golden skin
In cypress and blue//

It had never been clear to Geo just how Eagle did that, that drifting walk that seemed as if his feet barely touched the ground. Ever since Geo could remember, Eagle had always seemed to float everywhere he went: his liquid step, his cape flowing out behind him, his expression turned inward as if he were contemplating something important--which he usually was. Some trend-crazy Autozam teenagers, hoping to be noticed by the president's son, had tried to copy his floating stride by attaching mini-suspensors to their ankles or boot fastenings, to keep them just a tiny bit off the ground. But it was a poor imitation; they had none of Eagle's absentminded grace. It was one of the things Geo loved most about his best friend.

Tonight, though, there was wrongness in every movement. Every line of Eagle's body seemed etched in misery and fatigue. His head tipped listlessly to one side and his shoulders drooped as he made his slow, smooth way across to his rooms.

It had been a long day. First thing in the morning Eagle had rushed off on Geo's bike (without even a "thanks for dressing me" to Geo, who had fussed over his coat for fifteen whole minutes), just to say goodbye to that Lantis. Then he came back without the bike, but Geo hadn't had a chance to ask about it all day because the palace was packed with bigwigs who'd come to celebrate the military festival. And now it had turned out that Eagle had given Geo's own bike, the very same one on which he'd taught Eagle to ride, to LANTIS! That... that poker-faced magician from the garden world!

Geo slammed his fist against the wall, earning a reproachful look from a passing servant. He leaned his head against the cold synth-stone.

"Weren't you happy with taking my Eagle?" he murmured, squeezing his eyes shut. "Did you have to steal my bike too? You planning to run away with all my treasures? Take the GTO while you're at it, 'jack my mech too, go on....Meat-eating magician."

He wished Lantis had taken everything else. He would give up his precious bike and his even more precious robot...if he could have just kept Eagle.

//I hear
Waves that come rolling in
Fleetness of wings
A sound is missing
A sign from you//

The door to Eagle's room was sliding open before Geo even realized he'd gotten there. He took his hand off the print plate that opened the door and went in.

Eagle had dragged all the potted plants in the room around his bed, making a thick green bower that swallowed his slender form. Geo caught the flash of gold and creamy-white as the boy shifted in his huge bed.

"Geo?" said the Supreme Flight Commander faintly.

Was this a bad idea? Geo went over to the bed, pushed his way through green fronds and thick leaves. A few flower petals fell on the sheets as he sat down next to Eagle. The boy was curled into a ball in the middle of the bed, clutching a pillow. The dark blue pillowcase had an even darker damp spot. Eagle's eyes were puffy, his face and lashes wet.

Automatically, Geo reached out and stroked Eagle's pale fluff of hair. This time the boy did not pull away, but scooted closer until his head was practically nudging Geo's thigh.

Geo bit his lip, hard. How many times had the two friends rolled around in this bed, exchanging secrets and stories? How many times had he dreamed of taking Eagle here? Of making love for the first time, savoring Eagle's wonder and delight in the first kiss, the first breach, the first orgasm?

All that was gone now. Lantis had taken that too.

//I may never know
Where you did go
Whatever took you from here
On the currents that run deep
I'll always love you...always//

"Do you want me to go?" Geo asked Eagle, even though the boy had now pillowed his head in Geo's lap.

"No!" Eagle clutched Geo's knee. "I'm sorry I pushed you away, Geo. I was tired and I wanted to sleep...but I got here and now I don't know if I can sleep by myself any more...." He began to sob, quietly.

Gently the older man pulled Eagle into his arms. Eagle buried his face in Geo's chest and began to cry in earnest. "Don't go," he sobbed. "You can't leave me, too. I'm so lonely."

Let me tell YOU about lonely, my love. "I'm not going anywhere," he murmured, tightening his arms round his friend, kissing the pale gold hair. "I'm not leaving. I'll never leave." You're the one who left me! But he couldn't bear to accuse his golden boy, not now.

Eagle drew back, gulping like a child. "Geo," he whispered. "I've never asked you to...but...but now I... Would you..." His fingers reached up to Geo's face, shy but hungry, desperate for someone. Anyone. "Please. I want to forget...."

"Me too." Geo bent his head, covered Eagle's mouth with his own. It was salty, instead of sweet as he'd always thought; salty with tears, but soft and warm and the heaven that Geo had always imagined they would be.

//We would sail into that big sky
Forget about the time
On the wind we would ride
Watching wild birds sweep and glide//

"Let's forget, Eagle." Kicking off his boots, Geo lay Eagle on the pillows, crawled onto his best friend, kissing, tangling tongues, his hands moving in trembling strokes down Eagle's chest, to the frogging of the jacket he had fastened so carefully that morning. "Let's forget there ever was someone besides you and me," he whispered against Eagle's willing mouth. "Let's forget that someone else became your best friend, and your lover, before I could."

"What? Geo..." Those meltingly deep golden eyes searched his, confused. "You were always my best friend."

"That isn't all I wanted to be," said Geo bitterly, pulling one fastening so hard that both of them heard the snap of parting threads. "You didn't know...I had to watch your eyes light up, every time he came into your line of sight. I had to watch the way you reached for him, and leaned into his touch. Once I saw you two kissing in here...." Geo bit his lip hard again. "I would hear you...making...having...and I wanted you so badly my palms would ache. But I could only ever be your best friend, because of him."

"Geo," whispered Eagle, running his fingers through Geo's spiky black hair. "You love me."

"I always have, Commander." Geo got the jacket undone, and Eagle got up on his elbows to help get it off more quickly. The white throat rising out of the cream-colored undershirt was too lovely to resist. Geo lavished soft, tender bites on it, making Eagle writhe underneath him.

The pants proved a bit more difficult, and Geo was trying to get the panel lacings undone when Eagle cupped Geo's face in his hands and tipped his head up.

"What happened?" asked Eagle sadly, stroking Geo's face and smoothing his hair, for all the world as if he was Eagle's lover. Well, tonight, he was. Before the cold eyes of the stars, tonight he was Eagle's lover. Alone. No longer forced to one side, or watching on the sidelines, trying to be happy for his friend, and secretly jealous as all hell.

"I was ready to take the next step, before he came," he said roughly, leaning his forehead against the fair, high one. "I was just waiting for the right moment. Then I would tell you, and ask you to take the next step with me." His chest ached like he'd been trying to breathe without air. "I know you would have said yes, Eagle. You would have been mine. I was just waiting. I wanted it to be perfect." His eyes burned; his vision blurred. "It would have been perfect."

//I'll linger just a little more
Drifting on a foreign shore
Spend my nights waiting out the tides//

"I love you, Geo," said Eagle wistfully, and tears began to slide down Geo's face too, as they kissed desperately, Eagle's arms sliding up Geo's shirt as Geo finally freed the laces and slid the pants down Eagle's slender thighs. Geo's rough hands cupped Eagle's tight, silky-skinned bottom and pulled him closer. He could feel Eagle's young erection rubbing through his own pants. His thighs were so soft, but the muscles beneath were supple and firm, shifting as Eagle spread his legs for his friend.

"I love you, Geo." In the dreams, he always said that, cried it out or murmured it tenderly into Geo's ear in the dying afterglow of the dream sex. But it sounded different now, and Geo knew the words would never be the same for him as they were for Lantis.

"Tonight..." He dug his teeth into Eagle's clavicle, just by his shoulder, and Eagle shuddered in pleasure. "Tonight you did say yes. Tonight you're mine. Just for tonight, Eagle." Tears pooled in the hollow of Eagle's shoulder. Geo looked up, saw Eagle open his mouth to say something, and overrode it. "Please, Eagle, just grant me one thing. If you like, I'll never mention this again. I'll never ask for another night with you. We'll go on friends just like we always were. I'll give you my embrace, my shoulder to cry on, my right arm. You can tease me all you want and I won't hold it against you..."

He pressed his lips to Eagle's lips, his cheekbone, his temple. "Just, please...love me like you love Lantis. Love me like I love you. Just tonight, my Eagle, my sweet Commander...please love me...."

Eagle kissed him then, and this time Geo could taste the difference. "I love you, Geo..." whispered Eagle again, burying his face in Geo's neck, and when he said it this time, it was as it should have been.

//Calling 'cross the blue--it's all I do
One day you'll come back to me
It's the secret of the sea
I'll always love you
I may never know where you did go
Whatever took you from here
On these currents that run deep
I'll always love you
I'll always love you
I'll always love you//

END

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