Walking in Daylight Ch. 05

His smile stayed with him as he finished his shower and dried off. The phone interrupted daydreams of a life built together with the younger man and he grumbled until he opened the line. "Sealey here."

An electronically altered voice immediately spoke up. "Agent Sealey? We don't appreciate people who associate with half-breeds. We advise you to end things. Immediately."

"Who the Hell do you think you are?" Ryan demanded, all his good humour disappearing at the hateful words. "I don't care how you feel about things, but I won't let you try and interfere in my life."

"We have your brother, Agent Sealey. Unless you end things with the half-breed, things could become, shall we say, uncomfortable for Benjie here." Tortured screams sounded, like nothing Ryan ever heard before. "I have a nice, sharp knife and I'm very skilled and efficient with it. Invite your half-breed to lunch and end things. I have you under surveillance and will see and hear everything. Do not try to contact anyone, including your father, or I will know and might just have to bring him into these negotiations. You wouldn't like that, I promise you.

"Once your relationship is severed, your brother will no longer be in any danger. I will release him tomorrow and will call you with a location where you can pick him up. If you don't listen and keep on seeing the freak, I will call you tomorrow with a location where you can pick up the body. Have a nice day, Agent Sealey."

Right away, Ryan hurried into the office and called a meeting with the NCB. A search of Benjie's apartment showed it to be wrecked, the door barely holding once it was opened. There was too little information for them to find out anything. There was no help for it. Ryan had to go and 'break up' with Pen. It twisted at his guts, but everyone promised that they would do all they could to catch whoever was responsible.

Carlie startled him out of his reverie when she took his hand in hers. "We'll catch this guy and then I'll go with you to try and explain. Come on, the NCB agents have come up with some names they want to run by you. They've also decided it might be a good idea for someone to go talk to your father anyway."

He had a hard time concentrating as he looked at name after name of people who were known to be vocal, not only against half-breeds, but against nightwalkers and daywalkers as well. It was a waste of time, since he hadn't seen anyone and the voice was altered. Except there was one name that he recognized. Benjie Sealey. Surprised, he looked at the information, expecting it to contain only the details of his part in Pen's attack in high school. It contained a lot more than just that incident. There were three pages of accusations, ranging from harassment to kidnapping and torture. They were accusations only, because there was no proof and none of the victims identified him or pressed charges.

Sickened, Ryan gave his brother's profile to the agents in charge of the investigation. They didn't seem surprised, and Ryan saw them exchange a long look. "What is it? There's something you're not telling me."

"One of our agents went to your father station to talk to him. Your brother has been staying out there since early yesterday. We confiscated his cell and found that he made a phone call to your home this morning, at 7:20am."

The implications crashed down on Ryan and he went blank. His own brother. He didn't know how long he sat there, stunned, but finally Carlie got his attention enough to ask if he wanted to go see Pen.

Pen. Yes, he had to go see Pen and beg for his forgiveness. Agent Carlisle said they had about two hours before Ryan's father and brother arrived for questioning, but they would wait if necessary. Ryan kept seeing the light of joy fading from those beautiful green eyes, the light that had only recently taken residence there. He knew he couldn't expect the forgiveness he so desperately wanted, but he had to try. Pen had to know that it wasn't his fault; that he deserved to be happy with someone who would love him and be proud to be with him.

Carlie drove the car, since Ryan was too nervous and upset. The trip seemed to take twice as long as usual and he was both anxious and reluctant to arrive at their destination. Finally, they arrived and he was out of the car almost before it came to a complete halt. Twice, as he made his way up the walk, he stopped and turned around to leave. The third time he stopped, it was to stare at the box sitting just outside the door, his name written in large letters on the side. Slowly he went forward again and climbed the two steps. On the top of the box were the words 'Leave your key'.

Those words cut through the fog Ryan waded through since learning his brother was involved in ruining both his and Pen's life. He pounded on the door, calling for Pen to come open the door and talk to him. After five minutes, he took out his key and unlocked the door. Nothing looked disturbed at first glance. He wandered through the rooms, looking carefully in case Benjie had come and done something to Pen after they parted at lunch.

In the bedroom, Ryan saw the rearranged furniture and the candles in the garbage. Along with the candles were a home test kit and some lube. Pain squeezed at his heart. He knew what that meant, just how much Pen cared about him if he was willing to take that step.

"Ryan? I checked the last number called from the phone, and it was a cab company. The driver remembered Pen and said he drove him to the Bank Street Hotel." Carlie hated to see her partner like this and hoped it would all work out for him and Pen. "The hotel doesn't have anyone registered under Penlan Taylor, but I thought we could go out there and see for ourselves. I won't let you give up so easily."

Although the clerk at the Bank Street Hotel remembered a man of Pen's description approaching the hotel, he never actually came in, but turned away at the doors. The two agents spent some time canvassing the nearby stores and came up empty. Pen, suitcase in hand, had effectively disappeared.

The rest of the afternoon and into the evening Ryan listened through one-way glass as Benjie gloated about how he'd pulled one over on his brother. Then he began to realize just how much trouble he was in and tried to pass the blame over onto some of his friends. Unfortunately for him, his earlier words were recorded and he was in big trouble, along with the friends he implicated. Benjie then tried to say how his brother was an agent for the FDPA and his father a chief of police and he wouldn't be in trouble. That defence was blown out of the water when Ryan and their father came in the room and told him he was on his own.

Ryan got home and collapsed on his bed dejected. Everywhere he looked, there were reminders of Pen and his visits. The reminders were either things the man had left behind, or just memories of kisses and laughter and togetherness. "Please Pen, don't let this push you back into the darkness." He remembered how Pen once told him that it felt like he was walking in daylight for the first time in his life when he was with Ryan.

The phone rang and woke him in the middle of the night. He growled into the receiver when he saw it was one-thirty in the morning. "This had better be damned good."

"All hands on deck, Ry," Carlie's voice was tight with urgency. "We got a call from someone at MedLabs, something about a bunch of daywalkers dying because of something to do with a nightwalker plot. Whoever called wasn't making much sense. Meet up at the Lab, Room 3 and someone will get there with the code."

"Send me the recording of the call, and I'll see if I can decipher some more on the way."

Ryan used his Mustang, since he was leaving from home, and he programmed the auto-drive so he could concentrate on getting all the information he could from the recording. He was halfway to his destination when the file arrived and he closed his eyes, ready to write in his notebook, for any pertinent information.

"You've reached the emergency line of the Federal Daywalker Protection Agency. How may I help you?"

"I was ... trial at MedLabs, Room 3. We're all dying. I ... doctor say ... this was ... for nightwalkers ... rid of daywalkers. The code ... room is E X T 4 9 7 2 4. Please hurry. The doc... Silversmith and his assistant is Sarah."

"I will send a team out to your location immediately. Stay on the line with me until help gets there."

"I CAN'T! I'M BURNING; WE'RE ALL BURNING! I NEED SOME WATER! AARRRGG!!

There was more to the recording, but Ryan didn't bother listening. Each miss in the recording contained groans and whimpers that garbled whatever words Pen tried to speak. The screaming at the end tore at his heart because he knew that voice. It was Penlan who spoke with agonizing pain and screamed at the end. It was Penlan, who, because Ryan rejected him, found himself taking part in a clinical trial at MedLabs. It was Penlan who was dying on the phone, who might already dead by the time Ryan got there.

Several ambulances and agency vehicles were already on the premises by the time Ryan arrived. He ran inside, not pausing as he flashed his credentials at the men standing guard and yelled for someone to find and detain Doctor Silversmith. Inside, everyone surrounded the access panel, trying to input the code to unseal the doors. Ryan was just about ready to push them aside and do it himself when the doors finally opened.

The stench of burnt flesh hit them like a wall, almost pushing them back as they gagged. When they got into the room itself, they found six bodies in various contorted poses on the floor. None of them looked burned, which didn't correspond with either the phone call or the smell. As they approached, they saw how the bodies were caved in around the bones. One of the ambulance medics knelt down next to one of the bodies for a quick examination.

"I think they burned on the inside. It's the only thing that would make sense, but we won't know for sure until they're processed. We'll look for survivors, although that doesn't seem too likely."

"Ry! God, what happened in here?"

Ryan turned to his partner and managed to get his voice functioning, albeit at a croak. "Pen is the one who called us in. It was his voice on the recording, Carlie. I don't see him anywhere here, though, so we have to find him. No matter what hap...happened to him, we have to find him."

"Hey!" Ryan and Carlie turned to the agent who called out. "That door back there is opening. The one to the men's showers. We've got a live one! Come on guys, get a gurney in here!"

Remembering Pen saying he needed water, his hopes soared as he moved in that direction. His feet halted at the sight of someone with dark red hair pulling themselves along the floor through the door. Ryan's heart dropped when he realized it was the wrong colour hair. Two ambulance medics blocked his view and he looked again at the bodies still lying on the floor. None of them was Pen.

Carlie grabbed Ryan's arm and directed his attention to the one by the shower door. He'd been turned over to be transferred to the gurney and his facial features were clear. "Pen! Pen, sweetheart, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean any of it."

"Stand back," one of the medics came to block him. "He's a nightwalker, Sir, we can't take any chances."

"No, no he's a half-breed, half daywalker and half nightwalker. Pen has the fangs, but not the instincts. Let me through."

Carlie joined Ryan to walk beside Pen on the way to the ambulance. Pen was panting and thrashing against the restraints, but even as they watched, the fangs retreated, as did the short claws on his thumbs. For a moment, his eyes opened, and they were no longer green but black. They flickered over those people near him, their gaze empty of everything but pain. They finally fixed on Carlie and he managed to indicate he wanted to speak with her. She leaned close, even though the medics advised against it.

"Love him, Carlie. He is so good, too good for me, but he deserves love. Give it to him."

"No, Pen. I do love him, but only as a friend. He's madly in love with you. Let him explain what happened and then let him love you. It's all he wants, you know."

Ryan couldn't hear what they said, only that Pen held onto Carlie's jacket so tightly. He started whimpering again about the burning, his voice quickly rising into an agonized wail of disjointed words. Some ice packs from the back of the ambulance seemed to help and Ryan was left with his partner as Pen left for the hospital for treatment.

++++

Pen fought against the darkness. The darkness had seemed so familiar for a while, but now it was different. It was now filled with pain, fire, and a voice that tried to see him through to some light. The voice told him that Ryan loved him. The voice told him to listen to Ryan and know that he was loved. Pen was afraid of that voice, because it gave him hope.

Hope now could break him. Every time he felt hope in the past, it was always an illusion that cast him back into the pits when he realized it was false. And yet, he was listening to that voice simply because it gave him hope. There had never been a voice togive him hope before, unless it was his own voice. The mocking voice he usually heard generally tried to put him down and make him doubt himself.

When the fire threatened to overwhelm and consume him, the voice became louder. It told him that Ryan was madly in love with him. Pen couldn't help but listen and cling to the voice that helped him ride the wave of pain brought by the rise of the fire. The voice wrapped around him to soothe the burning when the fire retreated once again.

"Pen? Can you hear me, Pen?"

Oh, that was Ryan! Pen heard the beloved voice and all the pain he felt, both because of the fire and because of the words Ryan spoke at lunch vanished. It didn't seem possible that he would just forget how Ryan only considered him a friend, but he did, because the voice told him that Ryan was madly in love with him. Not just 'in love', but 'madly in love', and Pen knew, somehow, that voice wouldn't lie to him.

"I'm so sorry for what I did, Sweetheart. I'll never be able to apologize enough for hurting you like that. I thought I didn't have a choice, and it turns out it was all a lie."

The sadness in Ryan's voice bothered Pen. He didn't want Ryan to be hurting like that. Pen wanted to wrap the man in his arms and soothe him, but he couldn't yet find his way out of this blasted darkness. It wasn't right that Ryan should apologize to him. That wasn't the way things should be. When things went wrong, it was Pen's fault; it was because of something Pen had done.

A small flash of light nearly blinded him in the darkness, even though he knew the darkness was inside him and his eyes weren't even open.But I didn't do anything wrong, this time. It was the strangest thing, especially since it came from himself rather than from someone else. Not that it was Ryan's fault either, he'd said he'd been lied to, but Pen knew he didn't deserve the way Ryan spoke to him at lunch.

Something inside Pen loosened as he realized that truth. Other words Ryan spoke to him in the past came to mind. How he would never intentionally hurt Pen, and how much he cared about Pen. The one constant he could count on since Ryan returned into his life was that the older man always tried to comfort and boost Pen. If Pen did something wrong, though, Ryan didn't hesitate to point it out, so he wasn't just talking generalities.

Ryan stayed with him a lot while he was lost in the fiery darkness. Pen heard about what Benjie did, which was the reason Ryan told him they could only be friends. He heard how scared and guilty Ryan felt when he discovered that Pen was at MedLabs and in danger. Pen also heard those things that Ryan didn't say. Ryan didn't ask for forgiveness. He didn't say that he would apologize again when Pen was awake. He didn't talk about any future for them.

The omissions frightened Pen, more than anything had ever frightened him in his life. It sounded, in a way, as if Ryan was saying goodbye.

In spite of the pain, of his fear of the fire, Pen blasted through it all in the hopes to make himself heard. "S-s-stay with m-me, Ry-Ry-Ryan! Love you."

Some time later, Pen didn't know how long, he became aware of his surroundings again. He identified the sounds he heard with confidence: a door, quiet footsteps, and the rattle of metal rings on a curtain rod. Instinctively he knew that he was in a hospital bed, and then he remembered why. He also remembered that Ryan stayed with him. He remembered everything and wanted to smile. The voice he heard wasn't familiar, but he wasn't worried. Instead, he opened his eyes.

He drank in the sight of the beautiful man speaking to the doctor. The dark blond hair looks mussed up as though he's run his hand through it repeatedly or just got out of bed. Ryan's dressed in a tight tee, tight in all the right places and looks sexy because he usually wears a shirt and tie, and jeans that hug his hips and ass. Pen just stares and lets himself feel the love he has for Ryan. He'll beg if he has to, just to make sure that Ryan never, ever leaves him.

"Ryan, I hear we had a quiet night?"

"A good night for sure. There were no temperature spikes, no convulsions, and he took the water well on his own." Both men smiled at each other.

"The last scan confirms my theory," the doctor said, handing over a piece of paper. "He scans as normal human now, not even a hint of either daywalker or nightwalker in him at all. Nobody can really explain it, but there are talks of grants to scientists to see if the compound can be used to turn nightwalkers to full human again. Not too sure how I feel about that, but it's out of my hands."

Ryan gave a short laugh at the news. "That would certainly be ironic; the nightwalkers pay for something to kill daywalkers, and it turns out it will turn them human again."

"Not to interrupt," Pen said, "but I'm pretty damned thirsty over here, and my nose is itching like crazy."

"Sweetheart! Oh, it's nice to see your beautiful eyes again. How are you feeling? Here, have some water. I know you probably want me to leave, but you have to let me explain and apologize, even if you can't forgive me. You just..." Ryan kept on babbling and Pen thought it was about the sweetest thing ever.

"Shut up, Ryan. I love you. I could hear you, you know, and I heard everything you had to say about Benjie and all. Even before I heard all the explanation, though, I still wanted you here. I heard your voice and it helped me stand up to the fire."

The doctor moved closer and gave Pen a quick scan. "You can both talk in just a bit, there are some things we need to take care of first."

"All right, but before all that, there's one thing I really need."

"What's that, Sweetheart? Anything you need, anything at all."

Pen looked at both men for a long moment before answering. "I wasn't kidding before, you know. If one of you doesn't scratch my nose soon, I'm going to fucking scream."

+++

Pen stepped out of the shower and after a quick wipe down, looked at his reflection in the mirror. Ugh. At some point in the hospital, they'd removed the dye from his hair. Something about a possible reaction to the treatment or some other such nonsense. He knew Ryan liked his white-blond hair, but the change had been nice for him. Back to being cute with pale curls around his face, he supposed. At least until Ryan went back to work and he could dye it again in peace.

In the week since he'd been released from the hospital, Ryan stayed with him to be sure nothing happened. Nothing had happened, either. Ryan slept in the guest room at night, even with the hints Pen sent his way. Unfortunately, Pen was quite brave enough yet to send less-than-subtle hints.