Life's a Bitch
by Jalabert
ic pulled his truck to a stop alongside the dark sedan and got out. He heard the soft click of the sedan doors unlocking and quickly slid into the passenger seat. After just a few seconds in the pouring rain he was already nearly soaked to the skin.
"What's going down?" Vic asked Dobrinsky, cutting to the chase. He was too cold, too wet and too angry for polite conversation. He'd been dragged out of bed at one in the morning on a night when torrential rains were turning the streets of Toronto into canals.
"Mac, if he's not careful. He's up there," Dobrinsky said, pointing to a huge loading crane at the end of the pier. Vic angled his head and tried to see the top of it but the darkness made it impossible. He swore under his breath. "The Director would like him back—preferably in one piece. "
"Right." Vic reluctantly opened the door
"Good luck."
"Wait a minute. Have you got any intel on the parties holding him?" Dobrinsky merely laughed and drove off, splattering the annoyed agent with even more water as he went. Vic swore again and turned his attention to the task at hand.
Vic began to ascend the steps slowly and stealthily, trying to figure out what was going on and who was holding Mac captive. They were between assignments, and none of their recent adversaries were alive to seek vengeance. It had to be an old antagonist, therefore, or perhaps a new one. Vic ran through a short list of old enemies and came up blank. Everyone was either in prison or more likely to go after him or Liann rather than Mac. Of course, it was possible that someone was using Mac to get at him or Liann. It was also possible that the parties holding Mac were somehow related to his past with the Tang crime family. It really didn't matter, Vic decided; he'd shoot first and ask questions later.
He hazarded a glance to his right as he climbed the narrow stairway and felt his stomach flip as he saw the rough waters below. It was a wet, miserable night with gusting winds, thunder and heavy rains that pelted him and obscured his vision. Vic gripped the railing tightly and after his second misstep, he threw caution to the wind and holstered his gun so he could hold on with both hands. He'd be no good to Mac if he were blown into the river before he reached the top of the crane.
By the time Vic could see the top of the six-story structure he was angry enough to shoot the parties responsible for having him dragged him out of bed for that reason alone. Rescuing Mac would merely be a bonus, he decided with a perverse smile. The wind and rain had begun to dissipate, allowing Vic to pause and survey the gangway at the top of the tower that led to the small operator's cab. He could make out a slight movement. He wiped his eyes and squinted. When he looked again he saw the unmistakable long legs of his partner swinging back and forth. Mac was sitting on the gangway.
From his vantage point, Vic was unable to determine whether or not Mac was tied up, but he assumed that he was. He also could not discern any sign of Mac's captors. There didn't appear to be anyone in the cab. Had Mac been kidnapped and left up there as some sort of message? Vic withdrew his gun and began to climb the last half-flight cautiously. He could hear Mac's voice now. He was—Vic stopped and strained his ears—Mac was singing. Vic tightened his grip on his gun and picked up the pace.
A number of possibilities ran through his head as he ran up the remaining steps. Mac could be drugged. If he wasn't tied to the crane he could easily fall and be smashed on the ground below or worse, land in the river and be swept away so that his body would never be found.
Suicide is painless
It brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it if I please.
"Mac?" Vic asked cautiously. Mac stopped singing and looked up.
"Vic? What the hell are you doing all the way up here?"
"I was kind of wondering the same thing about you."
"Oh," Mac said with absurd cheerfulness. "Just hanging out...you know, thinking about stuff."
"You came up here to think?" Vic said tightly. He felt a mild sense of panic well up in his chest. "You mean you came up here of your own volition?"
"Yeah! It's quiet, well—when the wind dies down anyway. And it's peaceful, private." Alarms went off in Vic's head. "You can see practically the whole city from up here," Mac said as he waved his arm demonstratively. Vic noted that he was sitting with his back to the city and was facing the river. The view was bleak and desolate. He carefully sat down a short distance from Mac. He wasn't close enough to grab him if it became necessary and he hoped things didn't come to that. He didn't relish the idea of wrestling on a narrow walkway seventy feet or more above ground.
"So what are you doing up here, Vic? It's kind of late for you to be up, isn't it?"
"Yeah. I was just...in the neighborhood and thought I'd come up and say hello."
"She sent you."
"Yeah."
"Figures. And you're pissed, right?"
"Actually, Mac, I'm rather concerned. Why did you choose this place to sit and think?" Vic asked carefully.
"I wanted to be in a place where she couldn't reach me. Just once, you know?"
"I know the feeling," Vic concurred. The wind picked up and he gripped the railing tightly. He noticed that Mac seemed indifferent to the weather, although he was no better dressed for the rain than Vic and consequently soaked to the skin. "So what are you thinking about?" he asked in what he hoped was a conversational tone.
"Death," Mac said simply. "Specifically, methods of committing suicide—I've been making a study of it."
"Oh?"
"Isn't this where you insult me about my inability to concentrate on anything beyond my next meal?"
"Consider yourself insulted," Vic said distractedly. "Tell me about this research."
"Oh man, it's so cool," Mac said animatedly. "I did a search on the net. You can find anything on the web these days and there are some very interesting sites on suicide methods."
"I did not know that."
"I didn't either till I had a chat with Murphy. Of course, he's such a fount of information that most of the stuff on the net was redundant, but it was fun to read. Man, I never imagined there were so many ways to snuff yourself. Some are really lame, but some are really interesting. I've been compiling lists."
"Are you saying you came up here to kill yourself, Mac?" Vic asked. Again he regretted not sitting closer to Mac when he had the chance. He considered moving, but didn't want to spook or startle him.
"Nah, just to think about it."
"Why would you want to think about suicide, Mac?"
"Are you kidding? What the hell have I got to live for? I haven't owned my life since I was twelve, Vic. First I was taken in by the Tangs and became part of a crime family that put a price on my head when I decided to leave. And I'm no better off now working for a shadowy government agency that would only be too happy to ship me back to the Tangs if I step out of line. I've had every aspect of my life dictated to me for the last fifteen years and frankly I'm sick of it."
"So since you can't control your life you want to control your death?" Vic assayed.
"It's a bit of a cliché but there you are."
"Mac, you can't—. I mean why commit suicide? It's not as though you couldn't get killed in the line of duty. We risk our lives every day. Doesn't that mean anything to you?"
"What's your point, Vic?"
"I don't have one. I guess...well, it seems a little crazy for someone who puts his life on the line for a living to blow his own brains out."
"Selfish, you think?"
Vic returned Mac's smirk. Leave it to him to find humor at a time like this. Vic edged a little closer to him, hoping the younger man wouldn't notice.
"There are so many people out there willing to do it for you. Hell, I've considered it a few times," he admitted.
"Yeah, but see," Mac said earnestly, "if I let you do it or one of the Tangs, or anyone else for that matter, I'd still be the pawn in their game. You see?" Mac's eyes shone brightly in the dim light. "I need to have something for myself."
"Your death? There must be something else."
"Like what?"
"I don't know. Haven't you got a hobby?" Mac's laughter cut through the chill air like a knife. "Mac, you really don't want to die, do you?"
"No, but living really, really sucks."
"You got that right," Vic said with warmth. His mind immediately wandered back to his apartment just an hour earlier, before the call came that brought him to the top of a crane in the middle of a chill, rain-soaked night. He had been sitting in the dark for hours contemplating life and his lack of it. He'd spent hours sitting there thinking about just how miserable his life had become and how the only thing that made it bearable these days was the man sitting beside him—the man now contemplating his own suicide.
Vic had long since come to terms with his feelings for Mac. The revelation had driven him crazy at first. Mac Ramsey was young, immature, brash, arrogant, impetuous and irresponsible. He was also fiercely loyal, possessed of keen instincts as well as intelligence, and extremely reliable under pressure. Vic had first become attracted to the sometimes-infuriating young man after a long undercover assignment, during which he was able to get a glimpse behind Mac's carefully constructed facade and come to understand him from an entirely new perspective.
As Vic's respect and admiration for Mac grew so did his attraction. Even now, Vic was aware of Mac's sensuous beauty, though he tried to quash it to focus on the matter at hand. It wasn't easy. Mac was—how had Liann described him? Compelling. Vic had concluded that she was either blind or had a great flair for understatement. Perhaps she was simply in denial. It no longer mattered. Vic saw Mac for what he really was—vibrant, beautiful and sexy as hell. And he intended to keep him that way.
"Life is a bitch and then the Director pays you a visit," Mac said sarcastically. Vic had to chuckle at the comment. They'd often joked about how the Director, their enigmatic supervisor-cum-keeper had entered their lives to snatch them from the depths of despair only to plunge them into something far worse.
"Or she calls."
"Yeah," Mac said. "But I've got the solution, right here."
"What's that?" Vic asked, eyeing the duffle bag beside Mac.
"Just what I said: the solution to all my problems. Well, several solutions." He opened the bag. "There must be a hundred different ways to commit suicide. Some of them are rather creative. I packed a few of the basics just in case I decided to end my glorious career and take the long siesta. I've been carrying this around with me for the past two weeks now. I keep it with me at all times. It wouldn't do to get the urge and be unprepared, although a nice fall from a high crane would work just as well as the strychnine, I suppose."
"You've got strychnine?" Vic asked as he eyed the bag and realized that he'd seen Mac with it on several occasions over the past week.
"Yeah. And cyanide and malathion, too, but I had a big dinner tonight and they're most effective when taken on an empty stomach. Hey, you can die from drinking a half-liter of vodka, if you don't have a tolerance for the stuff and drink it quickly. Of course, you can ingest other things that are even more lethal, like lye or bleach, but you'd have a hell of time getting it down and it doesn't taste nearly as good."
Vic stared at Mac as he continued, calmly reeling off more than a dozen different methods of suicide, complete with ideal dosage and method of delivery, reliability and estimated time to death. As he spoke, he opened the duffle and began pulling out various items, among them a liter of vodka, a box of matches (for self-immolation, he explained), several poisons, rope, a gun, razor blades, a box of salt and a plastic bag containing two death cap mushrooms.
"Now, gasoline, there's a versatile item for you. You could set yourself on fire—ouch—or you can poison yourself with it by injecting it into your—."
"What's with the salt?" Vic asked as his curiosity got the better of him.
"If you eat enough salt, dry or in a saline solution, it's as good as any other poison. Hell, you can kill yourself just by drinking water, if you drink enough of it. Of course, the old standbys are faster—your cyanide, gun to the temple, hanging. Don't bother slashing your wrists, though. All you'll get out of that is ugly scars unless you do it just right. But there's always drowning, or a nice swan dive to the pavement," Mac said as he looked down at the wet ground below.
"Oh, you wouldn't do that, would you? And ruin a good suit?" Vic said sarcastically. Again, Mac laughed aloud. Vic saw his opening and continued. "Come on, do you really want my last image of you to be in a wet, wrinkled, bloody suit? And you say I have no style!"
"You don't," Mac said. "If we both jumped I'd still be the better looking corpse, even if I bounced a few times."
"Bounced? With your scrawny ass you'd probably just be pulverized into dust on first contact with the pavement. Didn't you find anything in your research that would leave you looking good?"
"Gee, Vic, I didn't know you cared."
"Hey, I'm the one she's going to send to scrape you up. And I'd rather not have to."
"All right, how about poison, then?"
"If you die in agony I'll have to get a mortician to cut your facial muscles from the inside so you'll look good in the coffin."
"Vic, you are one sick mother fucker! Where do you get this stuff?"
"I'm just trying to be helpful."
"Do you really think I'm that vain?"
"Oh please—I know you're that vain!"
"If I'm dead why should I care what I look like?"
"What about the rest of us?"
"I have two words for you: closed coffin."
"How do you feel about cremation?"
Mac pondered the question for a minute, swinging his legs as he stared out over the black river.
"I don't know. Would you do it?"
"Hey, I'm not the one dying here."
"I'm not dying, Vic. I just—."
"Want to talk about it?" Vic asked gently. Mac shrugged. "Come on. What can it hurt? Let's get off of this thing, go somewhere and get dry. Then we'll talk."
"Nah, I think I want to hang out here for a while longer."
"Oh for crying out loud, Mac! It's wet, it's cold, we're both soaked—."
"Coming up here was your idea, Vic. Nobody invited you."
"I came up here for you, Mac."
Mac looked chastened, but he stubbornly refused to budge. By this point Vic was convinced that Mac was not imminently suicidal; had he truly intended to kill himself he would have done so before Vic got anywhere near him. But Vic could not risk leaving Mac alone—he was far too impulsive and could probably do himself a harm before he had a chance to think about it. Vic carefully got to his feet.
"Look, we're getting off this thing now. It's crazy to stay out here in this weather!"
"Afraid I'll catch my death of cold? I can add that to my list."
"Mac!" Vic shouted. He held up his hands in apology and tried to gently steer Mac's mind away from death. "Look, you know that if I leave you up here the Director will just send another flunky after you."
"That's just it! It's so damned frustrating being constantly under her surveillance. It's time I made a point to the Director and the powers that be."
"That point being?"
Mac was silent for some time. After a few minutes he sighed heavily, his shoulders lumped in defeat.
"I want a drink."
"Let's get out of here."
Mac looked up awkwardly, unable to meet Vic's eyes. Vic appropriated the bag and extended his hand to Mac, who reluctantly accepted it and climbed to his feet. The two men slowly made their way back to the stairs. Vic held onto Mac's hand tightly to assure that he followed. It briefly occurred to him that if Mac suddenly decided to jump he'd be dragged to his death along with the younger man. But Vic knew intuitively that as long as he had Mac in his grip, Mac would cooperate.
So it was that they descended the steps hand in hand. Mac was silent, which worried Vic. The young agent was not given to silent introspection. The fact that he'd been brooding over the state of his life and contemplating his death scared the hell out of Vic. Not that Vic hadn't had similar thoughts himself—more often than he cared to admit, Vic had contemplated his own mortality. The one thing that ultimately prevented him from doing himself in time and again was the man for whom he was currently serving as a lifeline. Vic smiled at the irony of the situation.
It had never occurred to him that Mac Ramsey might need him. Vic had always been the needy one. It was something that he didn't like about himself. He saw his need for emotional connections with others as a source of weakness, one that had been frequently exploited by everyone from the Director, to Liann, to his former fellow officers in the narcotics squad, to any number of his enemies over the years. But at the moment Mac was depending on him and Vic was determined to be his source of strength.
That was enough for now. Someday, maybe, there would be more. Maybe one day Mac would look for something more in Vic than a working partnership. Perhaps when this was over he would begin to see Vic in a new light. Vic wouldn't be the first man in his life. One night after work when they'd had a bit too much to drink, Mac had let it slip that he played both sides of the field. Vic had been too surprised and nervous at the time to confess his own bisexuality. After cursing himself for weeks for blowing a prime opportunity, he decided that it was for the best. A drunken confession might have gotten him a quick tumble in the sack but Vic wasn't interested in a one-night stand with Mac.
They reached solid ground and Vic insisted that Mac ride home with him. He stowed Mac's bag before settling him in the passenger seat of his truck. Mac hadn't spoken since they began their descent and he was so quiet during the drive back to his apartment that Vic initially thought he had fallen asleep. When he glanced over, however, he saw that Mac was staring at the road ahead. He looked pale and tired and he'd begun to shiver. Vic turned on the heat but they reached his place before the cab of the truck could get warm.
Mac didn't get out of the truck on his own, so Vic gently but firmly pulled him from the cab and steered him into the building. It had begun to rain again and Vic immediately felt the cold wind whip through his wet clothes as he drew Mac across the parking lot and into the building. Vic shoved Mac into the elevator and rode up to his floor as he watched his partner's teeth chatter.
"Let's get out of these wet things," Vic said as he locked the door. "I'll get some towels and dry clothes for you and then I'll put on some water for tea."
Mac didn't respond as Vic headed down the hall. He wanted to attend to Mac's needs first so he quickly stripped out of his wet clothes and pulled on a pair of sweat pants before grabbing an armful of towels from the linen closet. When he returned to the living room a few minutes later with he found Mac standing where he'd left him in the foyer.
"Here you go, man. I left some sweats for you on the bed. Why don't you take a hot shower to get yourself warm and then put them on? I'll have the tea ready by the time you get out."
Mac took the towels and walked down the hall. His overall demeanor suggested that lethargy had set in and Vic watched worriedly as Mac shut the door to the bedroom behind him. Vic picked up Mac's duffle and took it to the kitchen, where he stuffed it into the cupboard under the sink. He put on the kettle and grabbed a bottle of scotch and two glasses. Returning to the living room, he sat down and poured out a finger of the fiery liquid and sat down to wait for Mac to come out of the bathroom. After a few minutes he realized that the water wasn't running and went to check on Mac as he considered all the potentially lethal objects to be found in his bedroom, including spare guns, a set of throwing knives, martial arts weapons he'd received as a gift from Mac, and a Swiss Army knife.
"Mac!" Vic cried as he burst into the room. He instantly drew up short, however, when he found fast asleep across the bed. He'd gotten as far as peeling off his wet clothes before passing out on the bed in only his shorts. Vic sighed in relief as he carefully lifted Mac's feet and turned him around so he could cover him. Vic spread the comforter over Mac and turned off the lamp.
He decided to forgo a hot shower and reached for a spare blanket from the closet. Returning to the living room, Vic finished his drink, turned off the kettle and stretched out on the sofa. It took him a while to fall asleep as thoughts of Mac and his conversation with him on the crane swirled in his head.
Sometime later, Vic heard a sound and sat up abruptly. He instinctively dropped to the floor and reached for his gun, remembering belatedly that he'd hidden it before retiring in case Mac woke up. He heard the sound again and scrambled to his feet. The sound had come from the bedroom and he immediately went to investigate. When Vic opened the door he found Mac searching through his closet.
"What are you doing, Mac?"
"What did you do with it?" Mac asked impatiently as he fell to his knees to dig in the bottom of the closet.
"What did I do with what?"
"The bag, Vic, the bag! It's not out in the living room or any of the closets out there. Where the hell is it?"
"Why do you want it?"
"I need it, Vic!" Mac came out of the closet looking slightly wild-eyed and panicked. "Where the hell is it?"
"Why do you want it?" Vic repeated as he tried to figure out why Mac would awaken from a deep sleep and begin a frantic search for the implements of his own destruction. Vic made a mental note to check the contents of the bag later to find out if Mac had been taking drugs.
"Damn it, Vic! I'm not in the mood to play twenty questions here! Tell me what you did with the bag. I know you didn't leave it in the truck."
"Tell me why you want it, Mac and maybe I'll give it to you."
"Never mind, Vic, I can manage," Mac said as he turned and attempted to walk past him. Vic grabbed his arm.
"Where are you going? It's nearly four in the morning."
Mac paused and eyed Vic for a moment. He ran a hand through his hair and sighed.
"Yeah, you're right. It's too late to go anywhere now except back to bed."
"Yeah, so why don't you crawl back under the covers and grab a few more hours of shut eye?" Vic suggested as he picked up the comforter that had slid to the floor.
"Why don't you join me?" Mac said calculatingly. Vic's eyes went wide just as Mac wrapped an arm around his shoulders. Before Vic could react, Mac pulled him closer and kissed him passionately. Shock quickly turned to pleasure and Vic wrapped his arms around Mac's waist and returned the kiss, pressing his body against his partner and grinding his erection into Mac's thigh. Mac abruptly pushed him away with an amused expression on his face.
"Well, that didn't work," he said disappointedly as he sat on the edge of the bed. Vic looked down at his arousal and then at Mac.
"Worked for me." Mac looked up in surprise. He took in the sight of Vic's erection and started to laugh bitterly as he fell back on the bed.
"Damn! I can't do anything right tonight, can I?" Vic took a few steps toward the bed.
"If at first you don't succeed—." Mac sat up abruptly and looked up into Vic's eyes.
"You want me, don't you?"
"You don't want me?" Mac rolled his eyes and groaned, falling back on the bed once more. "What the hell's going on?" Vic demanded.
"I thought—never mind what I thought. Where's my stuff?" he asked as he rose from the bed and pushed his way past Vic. "I've got to get the hell out of here." Vic grabbed his arm and spun him around.
"You bastard!"
"Sorry, Vic. Didn't mean to play the cock tease, all right?" Mac said as he tried to pull away. He wouldn't meet Vic's eyes and the angry man tightened his grip on Mac's arm.
"You bastard! You wanted me to hit you, didn't you? You thought I was going to turn around and beat the crap out of you! What's this, your variation on suicide by cop?"
"Hey, how the hell was I supposed to know you had the hots for my bod?"
"Don't flatter yourself," Vic growled. He felt physically ill, stung by both Mac's betrayal and that of his own body. He'd wanted Mac for so long that he'd walked right into his trap.
"Hey, you were the one doing the meet and greet with my tonsils," Mac reminded him pointedly. "And you're also the one sporting wood."
"What's that in your shorts, a banana?"
"Actually, Vic," Mac said, as he reached into the waistband of his shorts to retrieve the item in question, "I believe this is also your hard on." He handed Vic the dildo. "I found it in the closet. How apt. I thought I'd use it to blackmail you with later." Vic turned crimson. "It's a nice big one, Vic. Is that how you like your men?"
"It was Liann's," Vic growled.
"Yeah, sure it was. And six months after your break-up you haven't gotten around to returning it. Or did you just keep it as a reminder of your failed relationship? How she fucked you over and—." Before the last word was out of Mac's mouth he'd been flipped over and was on his back on the bed. Vic viciously jabbed his knee in between Mac's legs and pressed against his testicles, causing him to howl and squeeze his eyes shut.
"You listen to me you annoying little shit! I've had it up to here with your big mouth. The dildo belonged to Liann and I never returned it because I didn't even know it was in there. You can make all the snide remarks you want to but that won't alter the facts. And I'm not going to beat you up. I'm not going to play into your sick and twisted little game, you got that? Get back to sleep and tomorrow morning I'm dragging your sorry ass down to the Agency and getting you into some sort of counseling."
Mac opened his eyes, then, and the confusion and fear Vic saw there made him abruptly turn away. He sat on the edge of the bed and ran a hand through his hair.
"Dammit, Mac! You scared the hell out of me! Do you realize that you could have died up there tonight? Hell, I might have died up there trying to save your scrawny ass!"
"That was the general idea, Vic. The part about me buying it, I mean. How the hell did I know you'd be stupid enough to follow me to the top of a six story crane in a fucking rainstorm?"
"I thought you needed my help!" Vic said through gritted teeth. "Instead I get up there and find you playing Dr. Death. You never take anything seriously, do you? Not your life, not your death." And certainly not me, he thought bitterly. Mac sat up and regarded Vic soberly.
"I take your life seriously, Vic. I never intended to endanger your life or anyone else's. Honestly, if I had known the Director was going to send someone up after me I would have chosen a more secluded location to commit suicide." Vic shook his head.
"You don't really want to die, Mac."
"Yes I do." Vic turned to look at him.
"No you don't. Can't you see? You want to live—."
"Please don't hand me that 'cry for help' mumbo jumbo. I've read all about that. This is what I want, Vic."
Vic shook his head again.
"That's not what I'm saying. Look, I know exactly what you're feeling, Mac." The younger man began to protest but Vic pressed on. "I'm in the same boat. Neither of us has anything resembling a real life anymore. We both live in a glass bowl under the Director's constant scrutiny. We do what she wants, when she wants, how she wants. We have no privacy, no freedom, no close relationships to speak of—no friends, nothing but the certain knowledge that there is a handful of others just as miserable and fucked as we are. I've lost count of how many times I've considered swallowing a bullet or ripping open a vein. And I've been at this far longer than you have, Mac."
"How do you deal?"
Vic scooted back on the bed so that his back was against the headboard. Mac scrambled over and joined him.
"Well, for a while I had Liann to brighten things, but as you said, she fucked me over." Vic sighed—a sound something akin to a sob—and for a moment Mac thought he was going to cry. "Fuck it; I need a drink," Vic said as he climbed over Mac and left the room. He returned a moment later with the bottle of whiskey and glasses. He poured out generous helpings of liquor and handed Mac a glass before resuming his place. "Where was I?"
"Liann." Vic sighed again. "Hey, you don't have to talk about this if you don't want to. I'm the one in trouble here. No point in both of us being depressed." Vic looked at Mac and the two men exchanged a smile.
"It's not that bad. Not anymore, anyway. At first I blamed you for the break up, but I've since come to understand that you were right about her all along. Liann is nothing but an illusion. You think you can have her, but the minute you allow yourself to believe you've got her firmly in your grasp you—."
"...Wake up and realize it was all just a pretty dream."
"Yeah," Vic said softly. "I'm sorry, man."
"For what?" Mac asked after draining his glass. Vic reached for the bottle and poured more whiskey for both of them.
"For not believing you. For not believing in you," Vic said hesitantly. "I let you down, Mac. I let you believe that I didn't care, that you didn't matter. You do matter, Mac. Sometimes the only thing that keeps me going is the knowledge that you and I are in this together. If it weren't for you I might have acted on my impulse to end it all a long time ago." He raised his glass to Mac. "Tell you what: I vow not to blow my head off so long as you're around to cover my back. In return, I'll watch your back and I...I'll be here for you, Mac," Vic said with heartfelt emotion.
"Yeah?" Mac smiled crookedly and touched his glass to Vic's. "Deal."
"No more talk of suicide and death?"
Mac ducked his head, but he softly muttered an agreement. Vic sighed in relief and took a gulp of whiskey.
"Hey, Vic, I realize now that I really spooked you up there but really, man, some of that shit is really fascinating. You should see that list Murphy came up with. There are ways to do yourself in that I've never even dreamed of. I couldn't believe it! And I even found hypothetical methods on one site." Vic carefully set down his glass and reached over to take Mac's. That, too, was set aside as the younger agent prattled on. "Did you know that if you—?"
Quiet prevailed as Vic cupped the back of Mac's head, roughly yanked him closer, and kissed him hard. Mac floundered for a moment before he relaxed and warmed to the kiss. Vic reached out blindly and turned off the lamp and then maneuvered himself and Mac so that they were lying down. The two men stroked and caressed each other until the need for air finally forced them apart.
"So you are hot for my bod!" Mac said.
"Don't look now, Ramsey, but I don't think that's another dildo in your shorts."
"Oh yeah? Why don't you take a look and see?" A second later, Mac groaned loudly as Vic's hand found its goal. "Oh yeah! I'm definitely beginning to see the upside to being alive."
"I can so make it worthwhile for you Mac, and I'm not talking about just for one night."
"Promise? You were saying something earlier about my needing a hobby—." Vic smirked and silenced him with another kiss. "And as an older man you'd provide me with much-needed stability and—."
"Maturity?" Vic managed to ask between nibbles at Mac's throat as he began to urgently tug at his shorts. Mac raised his hips to facilitate their removal and helped Vic to discard his sweats. Vic then rolled Mac over onto his back and lay on top of him, aligning their bodies so as to achieve maximum contact. He began to rock his hips, slowly at first, gaining speed as Mac got with the program and picked up the rhythm. The action was hot, intense and sweet. The friction between their bodies increased until both men found their release. Vic collapsed on top of Mac, panting and spent. After a moment, he tenderly kissed Mac's forehead and dragged himself to the bathroom, returning with a damp cloth to clean Mac's torso.
Vic climbed back into bed, drew up the covers, pulled Mac into his arms and held him to his heart. Mac, who'd been silent since he'd come screaming Vic's name, fell asleep almost immediately.
"I'll be here for you, Mac," Vic whispered to the man in his arms. He closed his eyes and slept.
The End
"Suicide is Painless," © Johnnie Mandel and Michael Altman
