Duet

A JAG Story by Mareen

Fourth in the "Equinox"-Series.

Disclaimer: I don't own them. Owned by CBS. No infringement intended. I'd just wish they'd use Webb as much as he deserves it. But now that they don't, I will. And Harm will, too.

Rated PG for some language.

Dedicated to Gail. Thank you for hearing Harm and listening to him.

Feedback addy: syad.nms@gmx.net

"I'm often seduced by struggle."-SARK, Succulent Wild Woman

Duet
By Mareen

When I enter the State Department, I do it while holding back a yawn.

The last weeks have been quite busy. I had several tasks going at the same time which all needed my full awareness. There are too many idiots in and outside the CIA who need to be kicked in the ass to get anything right. Some people in higher positions than mine seem to believe I'm the best for the kicking job, so at the end I was the one ending up with a lot more responsibility, and it did no good to my sleeping habits.

I was working a lot. So much, that sometimes I didn't even go home anymore but slept in my office instead. The last night was one of the first for a long time I spent at home, in my own bed.

Though thinking about it, it isn't such a bad thing to work most of your days and nights. First of all, making the impression of having no life outside the Agency has always been good for the career. Secondly, my job is really good for distraction. I won't try lying to myself and pretend I didn't need that distraction. I *did*. I needed it a great deal.

I had always tried to make myself believe that it would become easier to get over it. But it doesn't. It becomes harder, even though it's been three weeks now since we saw each other the last time. But in spite of it still being hard for me, I am determined to get back into my old life, the life I had before it became a Hell consisting out of only two kind of moments: Being angry at Harmon Rabb or sleeping with Harmon Rabb.

Nodding at the guard besides the door, I shake the raindrops off my coat. A lot of the wetness hits the guard and he looks at me with a grim expression of disapproval I do not care about. More water drops off my head onto my shoulders. My hair is wet from the heavy rain outside, too, so I turn to one of the toilets first, to make my appearance acceptable again.

It feels as if it's been raining constantly for weeks. I can't even really remember sunshine anymore.

I stare at my own eyes for a moment after I'm done with combing my hair, then step to the sink and turn on the water. The soap smells like toilet cleaner and I'm frowning down at the slimy pink stuff on my hand, when I hear the door being opened behind me, a sound that makes me look up and into the mirror in front of me more out of pure instinct than curiosity.

Rabb.

Harmon Rabb in uniform, his hat in his hand, the slight smell of cigars and his eau-de-toilette wavering around him and filling the toilet the moment he enters. A smell that is so entirely Harmon Rabb, the world starts spinning around me.

What the HELL is he doing here?

Rabb stops dead when he spots me. His eyes rush over me, obviously searching for something in my eyes or expecting me to say something, but I force my expression into coldness and do not say a word.

I want to swing at him and beat him or tackle him down and do him, but instead I'm just standing there with my hands in the sink and the water is running and running over them, washing the soap away and I. Just. Don't. Move.

I just follow *his* every move behind me in the mirror. How he passes me and vanishes into one of the toilets. And I listen to him taking a pee and flushing the toilet and then watch him again when he comes out of the toilet stall then and turns on the water of the sink beside me and washes his hands and dries them and turns the water off again. The paper he dried his hands with ends up in one of the trash cans and the whole time he looks so damn calm. If I didn't know better I'd say he's not human.

When he turns to me at last I hardly realize that I still have my hands in the sink and that the water is still running over them.

He stares me up and down so very calm, and, still deadly calm, he tells me:

"You damn asshole."

And he hits me.

And the water is still running while I lie on the floor and hold my bleeding nose and just watch him leave in silence.

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I groan, when I slowly get up again after a few moments. The blood is still spurting on my face and down on my 2000 dollar suit. The nose isn't broken but that doesn't change the fact that it hurts like hell. When I turn to look into the mirror and see what Rabb did to me, I feel the rage coming up, more rage than I have ever felt about Rabb before. The water is still running and I angrily splash some of it on my face. My blood leaves deep-red marks in the sink, before it vanishes down into the drain.

I take one of the papers, wet it and try getting the streaks of red off my suit. Of course, it's not working. When I look up, I glance over my face and I frown about the swollen and broken skin around my nose. I smash the useless paper into a trash can and leave.

I am that angry, I am hardly able to stop myself from running. No matter how good I tried cleaning myself, I can't hide that I have been hit.

People in the building are staring after me, a good amount of them grinning about the fact that obviously someone finally showed me how everyone else just feels about me. I don't care what they think. I never intended to join a popularity contest. But what they saw is going to be widely known soon, and it's going to reach the wrong people, too, and I am going to owe that to Rabb. The thought alone makes me even more angry. He is messing with my job again.

Outside the building I get into my car, slam the door shut and leave with wheels screeching. Now and then I wipe my hand over my nose and whenever I come up with new red streaks on my fingers, it enrages me even more. I had intended to go home to change clothes, but after half the way I turn the car around and head towards Falls Church, Virginia instead. Judge Advocate General Headquarters.

I've had enough of this shit.

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Entering the JAG Headquarters is like running the gauntlet. Like inside the State Department, everyone stares at me here, too, sometimes in curiosity, sometimes with a smug smile. I dash into the building, take the elevator upstairs, storm out of it as soon as the door is open, and only slow down when Rabb's office comes into my field of vision and all the time I am trying to ignore the glances following me. The blinds on the glass windows surrounding the office to the inside are closed, so I can't see if he's in there or not. I hadn't even considered the possibility that he could have just gone home or wherever. Hopefully just to Hell.

Bud Roberts, the little punk, is suddenly there and touches my arm with that frantic look he always gets when he's near to peeing his pants. He tries to make me look at him when I move to enter the office to have a look inside. His eyes flicker over my face and he blinks as if he cannot really believe what he sees. I glance down at his hand on me and into his face then. Immediately taking his hand off me as if he burned himself, he stutters a "Commander Rabb is not avai--"

So he is in his office. "Just close your mouth and step out of my way and there won't be a problem, Roberts," I growl. "Commander Rabb and I have something serious to talk about." I shove him aside rather brutally. He looks after me with his mouth opening and closing, but no further word comes from him when I open the door to Rabb's office and step inside.

The room lies in semi darkness and smells of cigars, and the man himself is sitting on his desk chair in his white navy shirt, smoking, staring at nothing, an angry expression on his face.

"Haven't they told you about all those new no smoking areas, Rabb?" I bite at him while smashing the door shut behind me.

"Kiss. My. Ass, " he answers and blows smoke up in the air.

"Thanks. No. I already did that, "I bite back as smugly as possible. "Although it was quite a pleasure and you seemed to like it, too."

With an angry hiss, he stubs out his cigar and jumps off his chair to approach me threateningly.

"I want you to leave right now, or you are going to kiss your own ass good-bye, okay?" he shouts at me. "I can't bear this shit of yours anymore."

"What kind of shit are you talking about, eh?" I shout back. "I'm not the one who called you an asshole and nearly broke your nose in a toilet of the State department. Are you aware that I have a reputation to lose?!"

His whole body is clenching, his jaw, his shoulders, his fists, when he obviously tries to fight the urge to hit me again. I take a step away from him, ready to hit back if he should dare to try me again. I'd really love to beat him right now.

"I shit on your reputation, Webb! You deserved it! How dare you treat me like that!"

Unbelieving, I take another step back from him.

"I can't believe you just said that." The laughter that's coming dies in my throat.

He is actually serious.

"You are the one, " I say. "You do remember that *you* fled my apartment three weeks ago without looking back?"

"After you as good as threw me out, Webb!" he hisses back.

"I did what?" I snort. "Now let's see," I start acidly. "We have sex in my living room. You run away. When we meet later, you ignore me. Weeks later you come to my house again. You initiate sex between us so you can make yourself believe you didn't sell yourself for information the first time. Then you leave to never be seen again. We meet a third time, you call me an asshole and hit me. Did I miss anything?"

"What the HELL are you talking about!?"

I can't read his face. It's like he's shocked or surprised or bewildered. Something strange is going on inside of him, but I don't know what. He even stopped screaming.

"I didn't sell myself to you," he says slowly. "How can you even *think* something like that!?"

"Now let me consider this, too," I answer grimly. "Maybe because what I am seeing when I look at you is a man who only comes to me whenever he needs something. And that one time I actually say `noŽ to helping him with one of his little projects and mean it that way, we suddenly end up on my floor together. What did you expect me to think?"

"You asshole. You thought I offered you sex? For some stupid information? What kind of man do you think I am?"

"A very determined one," I answer coldly.

"Well, I'm not that determined, I tell you. - I was of the opinion I could ask you because we are friends."

"When have we ever been friends?" I spit at him. "We have never been. You don't treat me like a friend. You don't even look at me like a friend. You look at me like at something you would scratch off the bottom of your shoes."

It feels so good to spit these things at him and I clench my teeth, in an imitation of a grin.

"Do you really have a self esteem that low, Webb?"

"Don't you even start with patronizing me," I dare him. "It makes me sick! This has nothing at all to do with me. This is entirely about you. If it wasn't for getting what you want, then why would you let me fuck you?"

With grim satisfaction I watch him swallow hard at the constellation of the words "you", "me" and "fuck" in one sentence.

"Tell me why," I keep on pressing. "One good cause. Because you certainly have no record in the `Don't ask, don't tell`-department."

"You checked it?!"

He sounds that incredulous, I give a low laugh.

"Of course I did."

"You do not trust anyone, do you?"

"Comes with the job, Rabb. And you didn't answer the question. Why would you let me?"

"And you just changed the subject." But then he sighs and turns his back to me, as if he's unable to answer the question while looking at me. "I didn't `let` you. I don't know why it happened. But it had nothing to do with `letting` you," he answers. "I do not even like you, you know. You are some kind of friend, but I don't like you. I don't trust you. I want to...but whenever you are part of anything I get in touch with, I'm expecting you to lie to me and use me for your purposes. You help me, yes, but only as far as it helps you."

I watch Rabb clasping his hands in front of his body, staring at the half open blinds of his window. His shoulders are tense. I can see them moving under his white Navy shirt, an ongoing stretching of muscles. I have to fight the urge to go to him and to put my own hands on those shoulders and feel them move under my fingers again. The picture of his naked skin under my hands is coming up in my head and I close my eyes. For the first time since all of this started, I am wondering if just maybe I've been wrong about something entirely fundamental. When I hear him move around, I force my eyes open and shake my head for a second to get rid of the momentary feeling of weakness. I can't believe what this man is doing to me. Again.

"After that first time," he starts, "I tried to make myself believe it was a slip that happened because you had given me a bad conscience by telling me I had used you. I tried to just forget it. I freaked and I was ashamed. So I ignored you or at least I tried to, because, after all, you were the one who constantly remembered me of my `failure`. And it scared me that I didn't even tried to stop you. - I needed time away and there still was that job to do you gave me the information for.... I ran. - But you know what? While running, I had a lot of time to think. I realized that I must have behaved like a total jerk when I left without a word. That's why I tried talking to you when I came back." He stops and looks at me intensely. "I tried to talk to you."

"And you let me fuck you," I answer between clenched teeth. I want to make him angry. I want him to stop. None of what he's saying can be true. I couldn't have been that wrong.

"Boy, you really like to use that word, don't you!" He looks away.

It's still raining outside. Strange, that I would realize that in a moment like this..

I try saying "Sorry." But it's always been such a hard word for me. Besides that, recalling his words, I realize something. What did he just say? I open my mouth and close it again without a sound coming from me, cut of the words: "You used the sex as an excuse because you had a bad conscience about running away?" My voice gets high-pitched and loud and angry and I take a step forward, maybe even to threaten him. "What about--." My hands become fists for a moment, when the memory of him bent over my couch hits me with a vengeance. It's as if I can hear him again and feel him again and my sweat is collecting in my arm-pits. I feel myself taking a deep breath. "Did you have sex with me because you felt bad about treating me badly?" I repeat slowly.

"No!" Rabb frowns while turning to face me again. "Of course not. God, you really think I'm `determined`, don't you? - I was sorry, yes. But definitely not that sorry." He stares at me disapprovingly. "Boy," he whispers then and pushes his short hair back out of his face with his fingers. "Let me just....," he stops, then starts again. "You know what the really funny thing is? I have no idea why. You have been really getting on my nerves since the first time we met. But suddenly I end up with your tongue in my mouth. Regardless of what they say about what's secretly going on in the military or the navy, I have never had a sexual encounter with a man before. And even if I would have ever felt the urge...you are certainly not the person I would have expected to end up with my cock in his mouth... but the bad conscience was a stupid idea. I was trying to protect myself for a while with that possibility. Then...after I had `gotten used` to the thought of you and me...." He actually blushes when he says it. "I just couldn't forget anymore how it had felt like. How much...," again he takes a break. Staring down at the floor, he seems to sigh, but it sounds more like a little shudder to me. "But I just didn't know how to say it out loud, you know. That day when I came to you again... I probably knew all the way why I came, even if I said I didn't. But I needed your help."

He stares at me and seems to expect me to say something. But I am silent. He probably suspects it to be arrogance. Actually, it's just speechlessness.

"I wanted it to happen. I wanted you. I thought you wanted me, too. But what you did was to treat me like shit as soon as it was over. How can you expect me to not be angry at you when we saw each other again today? I thought you had used me this time, out of a feeling of vengeance. But I'm not your personal idiot, Clayton Webb."

I cough hard. If I wasn't so close to throwing up, I'd start laughing. Personal idiot. He's even using the same words I used.

Suddenly, he stares at me again with that intense gaze he has. I feel myself getting white. The blood is leaving my face and starts rushing in my ears instead.

"I tried to tell you how I felt... You are such a damn idiot, Clay. You never even tried to listen to anything I said, didn't you?"

"No I didn't," one voice in my head hums. "He's lying," another voice answers. I don't know whom to trust. I never do when it comes to Rabb. I swallow hard. If this really is a game, it's the cruelest I ever was part of.

"Why did you do it, Clay? Why treat me that way? I thought you--?" He stops talking.

I shrug. I can good as say the truth. "I thought you used me again. Part of me still believes it. As you said, I don't trust anyone. I know what lies people are capable of, because I know what *I* am capable of. When I didn't want to talk to you..."

"You tried to protect yourself against me."

"You cannot hurt me, Rabb," I answer much too fast.

He frowns slightly. "I didn't say anything about `hurting`."

He looks at me searchingly and suddenly his eyes open wide as if he finally understood something. I don't want him to. I pray to a God I do not even believe in that he doesn't understand. Everything is going to be even worse when he understands that he has the power to hurt me.

His face softens, becomes understanding, and I realize that my prayer has been useless. He knows it now.

"I'm sorry about your nose," he says softly and nods at the blood streaks on my suit and my beaten face.

I just shrug it off, unable to answer him. All I want to do is hit myself for talking without thinking first. And there's still something...

"I still don't understand...," I say very slowly, "why you would want me."

Rabb stares at me as if he's considering his answer, as if he is trying to remember why.

"Because," he whispers after a while. "Because all those bad habits of yours... your ignorance, your arrogance, the fact that you would sell your best friend for the good of one of your `jobs`, all those little things that make you who you are... They fit
together into an infuriating, self-loving little bastard."

I snort. "What kind of logic is that supposed to be?"

"Maybe... I don't like you, you know," he shrugs apologetically. "But I like you, too, somehow."

And the strangest thing is, I know exactly what he is talking about. Sometimes there just isn't an answer that explains it all. It's just incredibly hard to accept that, too.

"There is no answer," Rabb says and inside I smile about the fact that Rabb comes to the same conclusion as I do. "I am sorry about that and not just because you would like to have an explanation, but me, too. It scares the shit out of me, that it took me until now to find out something as fundamental as," a deep breath, "as that I could want sex with a man about myself. But there just is no answer. Maybe one day there will be. But not now." He sits down on his desk and crosses his arms over his chest, looking at me as if he is nervous. "But I can tell you," he keeps on, "that I'm not trying to use you and I'm not trying to trick you into anything. That's what I can promise you."

It's enough for me, because it's more than I have ever hoped for. Even if it is probably a lie.

I bite the inside of my cheek, trying to come up with an intelligent remark, a promise of my own I can give him. But I am unable to overcome my own nature. Instead, I just watch him when he suddenly comes up from his desk and steps nearer to me, and even nearer until our bodies aren't touching, but I can still feel his body-heat radiating through the clothes. I frown a bit while we are just standing there, looking at each other. His face looks soft. Astonished and unable to move away, I watch him bend down towards me and with the last pieces of my working mind, I swiftly turn around to make sure his office's blinds are really
closed, so no one is going to see us.

The moment I look back at him again with a relieved sigh, his lips brush over mine. He feels warm, soft. His tongue darts out and brushes over my lip, just enough as to make me realize it's there. When I try to answer his brushing with one of my own, he has already stepped away from me and looks at me expectantly. A bit nervous, I lick my upper lip. I can still feel the wetness from his touch there.

"Can I call you later?" he says with a strange expression of calmness. "Maybe...you know...maybe we could..." He shrugs.

"Get naked together?"

"I didn't know you had a sense of humor, Webb," he says, grinning.

"I'm only just trying to cultivate it."

Rabb tilts his head, lost in thoughts for a while. I don't want him to realize that his staring has always been able to make me feel unsure of myself. I'm even beginning to question my own behaviour under that look, something I can't allow myself to do in my occupation, but have done more than once. I can stand Chegwidden's demands and his threats to beat me or do whatever. I do not even flinch under the eyes of whoever powerful is screaming at me because usually they aren't aware that they aren't as nearly as powerful as I am. I hardly ever listen to that crap and I certainly don't take it as a serious threat, even if people believe I do and call me a crawler. It's all part of the Big Game, of making people underestimate you. But Rabb only needs to look at me and I cave in. He has the bad habit of messing with my mind, just like right now. The feeling of uneasiness is making me
crazy. I wonder what he thinks right now, if he looks right through me like I'm afraid he does and is about to plan his next little game with me.

But all he says at last, very carefully, is: "I have no idea who you really are, Clayton Webb."

I just look at him sternly. "I don't think you want to."

Again, he's thinking for a long while and maybe I should feel hurt that he needs that long for his answer, but I'm not. The more he thinks about it, the more he's aware about what kind of consequences could result out of either answer.

"No, I do want to." He smiles a bit, and before I can stop myself, I answer his smile with one of my own. "So, can I call you then later?"

"You do remember that spying is a full time job? You might have to try a few times," I answer mockingly. The thought alone of Lieutenant Commander Harmon Rabb and me, Clayton Webb, CIA Agent, out on a date together makes me want to start
laughing hysterically.

But when our eyes meet, there's this expression of extreme earnest on his face. I can't keep my eyes off him.

"I will," he answers softly. "Count on that."

When he takes a step away from me, he looks somehow expectant. I've never been good with nice words. I do biting better and easier, so I'd keep my lips pressed together. I don't want to start a fight right now with some stupid remark I`d only say because I didn't have anything better to say.

Rabb looks at me...quite amused.

"What's so funny?" I ask. I don't like the path this meeting has taken at all.

"You."

I nod sourly. "I thought so."

"You should see your own face right now," he chuckles. "You look actually shocked."

"You kissed me in your office and you as good as asked me out on a date," I answer sarcastically. "What do you expect?"

Obviously pleased, he stands there and looks at me without saying another word. He's just staring. I hate it when he does that.

"Well," I say.

"Well?" he answers, still amused.

"I`m going then...now...I have to---." I make a waving sign with my hand, that's supposed to have a meaning.

"Being a spy is a full time job, eh, Clay?"

And while I still try to find out when we left Real Life and entered the Twilight Zone, I finally realize something strangely assuring.

I step towards the window and look outside. "It stopped raining."

Rabb stands beside me and crosses his arms over his chest.

"Yes," he says, nodding slightly. "Was about time. It started being depressing." Out of the corner of his eyes, he gives me another one of his mocking grins. "I still don't like you, you know. You are usually a moron, Clay. - But I think I understand you, too. God help me, but I think I understand why you behave that way."

The breath I had been holding for a long time, finally escapes my lungs. Our eyes meet. Warmth spreads through my body before I can stop it.

"Shut up, Rabb," I answer to make a break before it goes too far. He just grins softly and looks back outside. Standing side by side, our shoulders brush against each other, but Rabb doesn't step away so I don't either.

I suddenly realize, that Rabb never even told me why he was in the State Department. But that doesn't really matter. I suppose he is soon going to ask me for my help anyway. I just don't know yet what I am going to answer.

Watching the sun, I take a deep breath, so I will be able to hold it again later. I suppose I will be needing it. Or maybe I will not.

After considering it for a while, I just exhale deeply, taking my chance.



END