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[Friday]
Friday starts off bad, and only grows worse in the passing. Nathaniel runs into Jason, who insists on treating him to lunch - or perhaps on showing off the perks of having gotten a daytime-job - and who is fairly obvious about being happy it'll be weekend tomorrow.
Nathaniel doesn't quite get the point; he knows for a fact that Jason's working Saturday-evening. Some people might not consider stripping down to one's underwear while dancing and looking sexy at the same time anything like hard work, but Nathaniel isn't one of them.
Although he supposes that Jason might, at least, get some dates out of his act on stage. Nathaniel doesn't even get that much; he's been informed in no uncertain terms that Jean-Claude hasn't got the least intention of allowing Anita to find any pretext of being annoyed with him, and allowing Nathaniel to pick up a date seems to be considered as too much of a risk.
People keep telling him he should get more self-confidence and assert himself, but when he sees and hears things like this, it makes him wonder if they have got any idea what they're talking about. Sure, he wouldn't want Anita to get mad at him either, only there's being cautious, and there's being ridiculous, and Nathaniel knows what he thinks about this action of Jean-Claude's.
Jason leaves him alone eventually, still smiling and goofing around, and not having gotten the phone-number of the pretty waitress with the long black curly hair. He promises to give Nathaniel's best wishes to Vivian and Gregory when he sees Stephen again, unwittingly reminding Nathaniel of how empty the house is going to be this evening.
Anita being gone for three weeks was a bad enough prospect. Her practically ordering everyone to find a place to live on their own, or else suffer her wrath when she got back was worse. Nathaniel has tried; he knows Anita will be disappointed if he wouldn't, and having her be disappointed with him is even worse than having her be angry with him.
This is St. Louis though; a big, booming city, with lots of students looking for cheap housing, and Nathaniel has never needed to do anything like finding a home for himself for as long as he can remember. Before, there have always been persons telling him what to do, where to live, what to wear, when to eat, sleep and have sex. And before that, he lived on the streets - but he doesn't recall a lot about that, because those memories come with one type of pain he doesn't care for.
Nathaniel has hung up notes, and Cherry, Zane and Gregory have all promised to keep an eye out for him, but he doesn't have much hope of there being anything to show for it when the three weeks have passed. For the moment, he will keep on living in Anita's home - alone and lonely.
It's started raining at some point in between the moment he left to go to the place he'd have called his if Anita'd been there and the present. Nathaniel remembers an evening spent listening to the sounds of waterdrops on a roof, and Anita reading out passages of a book. He decides the rain fits his mood very well, although his clothes will be twice as hard to get out of if they get too wet.
Of course, there's really not going to be any reason for him to want to get out of them in a hurry, not when there's no one there to welcome him. He can let them get wet, and nobody's mind. He can take a longer route home, and nobody'd get worried. He could go to Narcissus in Chains, and nobody'd scold him for it.
For a moment, the temptation's there, because it's been a long time since he's been with anyone who knew if not precisely what Nathaniel as an assertive, self-confident individual wanted, then at least what Nathaniel as a non-dominant wereleopard who's walked into Narcissus' domain wanted.
It passes, not quickly, but eventually and slowly, and mostly because Nathaniel knows Anita will find out, and be disappointed with him. There's irony in that, Nathaniel realizes. Anita is the one who wants him to rule his own life, forcing her views, her ideas and ideals on him. She may not do it intentionally, but Nathaniel has learned long ago that intentions never count for anything.
When he opens the front-door, it's half past six. He hadn't meant to get here this early, to wander about the house with nothing to do. He could watch TV, he supposes, or read a book. Anything to take his mind off the call he's probably not going to get, because there's a long list of people Anita will want to call, and while Nathaniel knows his name's on it, too, he also knows it's not going to be anywhere near the top. Richard will get a call, and Jean-Claude, and possibly Cherry, because she knows most about what goes on in the Pard, and Anita probably won't feel like calling all three of her men on the same night.
Dropping the bag that contains his meals for the next three days, Nathaniel heads for the kitchen, deciding something warm and liquid will probably make him feel at least a little better. Halfway, he realizes he should have brought the bag, since its being heavy and wet doesn't change the fundamental fact that it had food in it, and that food belongs in the kitchen.
Nathaniel sighs and decides he'll go back for it later. Who's going to complain about a wet bag dripping water over the welcome-mat after all? He's home alone; he can do whatever he wants in here.
"You're late," Micah tells him, leaning against the wall that faces the open door to the kitchen, sipping coffee from a mug with penguins on it. "And soaked. You should take an umbrella with you next time they predict rain in the evening."
[Saturday]
Nathaniel takes off his shirt, and thinks about Micah's naked body pressed against his. The music, loud and pulsing and compelling, surrounds him like a living creature, as he allows it to push him to the front of the stage, where people are staring at him with hungry eyes and hands like claws.
He knows he is smiling, and that no one should be able to deny him anything in this moment. The feeling, the complete confidence never lasts; it's something that belongs in the here of the stage and the now of the beat that seems to have synchronized itself with the beating of his heart, too loud and too fast, and perfect and exciting.
When the song stops, his entire body is covered in sweat, and he feels as if all the desires he's read in the faces surrounding the stage have been fulfilled. If he'd get to do this every night, he thinks it just might be almost enough for him to be content with. Almost.
Robert asks him how he's doing before he leaves. Nathaniel, still on a high that nothing's going to knock him off of, at least not for another five minutes, replies he's doing fine, and not that he thinks Jean-Claude should worry more about Anita and Richard, and less about someone like Nathaniel, who knows perfectly well where things stand, and how to stay out of trouble, at least trouble that involve Anita getting mad at him.
It's raining again. Nathaniel doesn't use the umbrella he's brought along only because Micah told him to, instead allowing the cold water to cool him down, to make his shirt stick to his chest like a second skin, and his pants to cling to his legs even tighter. Lycanthropes don't catch colds, or other diseases, which is probably one of the reasons why he's still alive today.
Micah will be waiting up for him, in the empty home that's not so empty after all, even if it's not the same without Anita there. Nathaniel likes the idea of someone waiting for him somehow, even if it might be for no other reason than that Micah, too, wants to look out for him. Micah is his Nimir-Raj, after all, the way Anita is his Nimir-Ra; if they worry about him, it's their good right. If they want him to pack his belongings and move to some small, run-down apartment, it's their good right. If they want to have sex with him, and then pretend nothing has changed at all, that's their good right, too.
"I'll call you back later," Micah is telling someone over the phone, when Nathaniel walks in, wondering for one heartbeat if Anita has called, and Micah is keeping her from finding out Nathaniel's still where she left him. "No, I don't need you here. I can take care of myself." Micah hangs up and looks tired, before he spots Nathaniel and looks half-amused and half-concerned instead. Nathaniel notices the way both emotions are superficial, put on like a mask to hide behind a human mask that part of him which isn't. "Merle can be such a pain."
Nathaniel smiles. He should feel cold and soaked, and a little self-conscious about getting water all over the floor of the living room, but he feels warm and comfortable, and aware of the fact that his clothes are showing more than they are covering. "He doesn't like not being allowed to protect you twenty-four-seven."
"Tough luck for him." Micah turns to him with cat's eyes. "Why didn't you use your umbrella?"
"I didn't feel like it." Nathaniel wants to grin, but doesn't. Micah's his Nimir-Raj, after all; by rights, Nathaniel should have obeyed his orders, even if Micah only told him to take the umbrella with him, not to use it when it would start raining. It's a mere detail, though, something that humans might hide behind with some success, but not people like them.
Micah raises one eyebrow, in another human gesture. Nathaniel wonders at the pretense, at the masks that Micah is putting on just for him. "You didn't feel like it."
Nathaniel nods, stripping off his wet shirt in one quick movement that no human could imitate. He starts on his pants next, though they're harder. Skin-tight jeans weren't meant to be gotten out of quickly when soaked. Micah watches with inhuman eyes, and Nathaniel allows his instincts to take over, to relive those moments on the stage, when he's everything anyone could ever want.
Micah, of course, isn't anyone. "You felt like getting soaked and putting on a private show for me instead?" Micah's voice is still human, and a little amused. His eyes are telling Nathaniel that he's going to get what he's asked for tonight, and that he'd better not change his mind at the last minute, because it's too late for that.
Nathaniel wants to be flippant and say: "Something like that", implying that, of course, that was his intention, but something won't let him. "You're my Nimir-Raj."
"Yes." For someone who's never worked as a stripper, Micah, too, can get out of his clothes amazingly gracefully - although Nathaniel has never seen him differently, and Micah's clothes, at least, are dry. "I am. And Anita is my Nimir-Ra."
"And mine," Nathaniel breathes, knowing that it's true, and that while Anita's not here, Micah will give him what he needs, and, possibly, also something of what he wants, because he and Anita are connected in more ways than she and Nathaniel will ever be. Once, that knowledge might have hurt Nathaniel, but at present, it only makes things right.
[Sunday]
Nathaniel is surprised to wake up somewhere warm and safe, with Micah still holding him in a way that's half-possessive and half-protective. If he moves, Nathaniel thinks, Micah will wake up and withdraw, probably rise to make coffee and call Merle, the way he's promised.
Micah takes his duties seriously, just like Anita. Nathaniel has no doubt that they both care about him, and will protect him against anything he needs protecting from, up to and including himself.
Still, he used to doubt if either of them would ever go so far as to give him this, to allow him to give a part of himself to them - or rather, to allow him to have them take from him. Anita, especially, seems to find it hard to take, to not only give but to allow people to return the favor, or to simply offer her the only thing of value they possess.
"You're awake, and I'm awake, so we can either go and find something for breakfast, or we can stop pretending we're both asleep and do something else." Micah's tone of voice leaves little room for doubt about anything, least of all what he proposes they do if Nathaniel decides it's too early for breakfast.
Nathaniel wonders, briefly, if he ought to be surprised at getting the choice, before he realizes that he shouldn't be, at about the same time he realizes that he doesn't feel like getting out of this bed at all.
The End