Kelly Robinson was in the process of single-handedly issuing an executive decision: No more unarmed rescues. In fact, no more rescues, period. The next time a general's daughter was kidnapped by some backwater crime-lord boss, instead of letting Scotty draw their fire and spiriting her off to their contact (who then promptly took off with his tearfully grateful charge, offering them no backup, not even a spare piece), Kelly was going to go off unscathed into the sunset with his partner and hand over the girl to the crime boss--Dumond, if memory served--with his every blessing.

The Department might not approve, but he'd throw any number of generals' daughters to the wolves if it meant he could avoid his current situation: creeping round a gang hideout established in a cave with a handful of rocks in hopes of creating a brilliant diversion that would draw out the crime boss' seven or eight redneck hired hands.

Hopefully before they killed his partner.

*******

Where the hell is Kelly?

That was what Alexander Scott wanted to know. Being tied face-down, bent over a table, hands and feet secured to its legs, was not, he decided right now, his favorite position. Even less so when his captors were borderline illiterate and very, very unpredictable. The racial insults they were throwing his way were most unoriginal and therefore offered nothing in the way of entertainment. And had he mentioned that this position was uncomfortable?

The leader of the thugs that passed for Dumond's hired help rose from his chair and circled the sacrificial table slowly. Scott seemed to remember his name was Stone, though that was on the short list of Names to Forget as Soon as Humanly Possible. "So, ape, you tellin' us where she's at, or what?"

Scotty clenched his fists, but his tone was calm. "I can point out at least three grammatical errors in your phrasing, my good man."

"We got ways of making you talk," said Stone.

He strove to sound bored. "Do they include threats that aren't recycled from at least twenty gangster movies?"

"Naw, they include this!" The leader's voice was strangely raw as he grabbed Scotty's jeans and dragged them down to his ankles, along with his underwear. A faint clinking sounded as his fly button popped off and rolled away on the smooth stone floor.

Scotty's mind blanked for a long moment in blind panic and his limbs strained wildly, irrationally, against the implacable ropes that bound him. It was not a calculated escape attempt; his body bucked quite involuntarily, as though it knew it was in danger. The air of the cave felt cold against his bare skin, and failing to wrench himself free, his body shrank back against the wood, all admonitions not to show weakness before the enemy evaporating like so much mist.

Through the ringing in his skull, he fought to make sense of the assembled men's guffaws. "Whoo! Lookit that nigger butt!"

"Not such a hotshot secret agent now, is he?"

"Man, he's a coon! Who ever heard of a coon secret agent?"

"Mebbe he's hard to see in the dark!" That got a burst of laughter. "Undercover man!"

"Goes undercover in the jungle!"

"With the other monkeys!"

Their leader joined in, glee in his voice. "Uppity nigger... teach him a lesson he won't soon forget... right men?" More laughter...

...and then he heard the sound of a belt being unbuckled. The vulnerability was visceral and all he could think was, Please, God, let him be about to whip me.

The widespread jeering cut off abruptly. An uneasy silence fell, the echoing quiet relieved hurriedly by nervous laughter from one or two of the lackeys. "Yeah," said one--a young guy with a beard, if he remembered his voice correctly--"teach 'im a lesson. Yeah,"

Young Beard continued, as though trying to convince someone.

Scotty's insides turned to water. If whatever Stone was contemplating was bad enough to make the rest apprehensive, he wasn't sure he wanted to know what it was. If the man... But rational thought fled as Scotty heard the sound of a zipper and the whisper of clothing. His skin stood out in gooseflesh and his mindless struggles against the ropes grew more frantic as his heart started to try (although he'd told it many times before it wasn't possible) to pound its way out of his chest.

"For the last time," Stone asked, "where is she?"

A burning in his eyes. Sweat. Surely the girl was safely away by now, and there was no percentage in getting deliberately--"She's gone."

A curse. "What do you mean, gone?"

Scotty was beginning to see spots dancing before his eyes, and tried to get his breathing under control. This was ridiculous, this panic. "By this time, she'll be on a helicopter back to her dad's loving arms."

"You know, nigger," came the shaky voice of Stone, "I don't believe you." Scotty knew he should say something at this point, but it was ridiculous that a bent-over position and a few sounds were making him freeze in terror as nothing else had. "You're a dirty liar. You know what the punishment is for dirty liars?"

"S-something I'm sure you'd be familiar with." Scotty was starting to get the sinking feeling that it didn't matter whether or not he was lying. This was sounding awfully like a foregone conclusion here. If it was going to be done to him no matter what he said, then he should just brace himself. An involuntary shudder ran through him. This was ridiculous, why couldn't he be a man about it? Why was the prospect of this unnerving him so badly? It's just another torture, just another torture, he began to chant inwardly.

There was a gasp from behind him and a murmured, "Jesus, Stone!"

Scotty couldn't actually see his tormentor, but he could tell Stone had spun round. "You tryn' t'buck my authority?"

And now, ladies and gents, the whimpering retreat. Man, Scotty hated whimpering retreats, especially in those defending him. "Sorry, man! I didn't mean it!"

The altercation had only wasted a few precious seconds, and from the ponderous silence, Scotty could tell that none of the other bumpkins was brave enough to question any unusual behavior from their leader. Stone spoke again, a leader taking his men into his confidence. "Keep in mind he's only a nigger, fellas, you know they don't feel pain like us." Oh God, not the professorial tone. Please not the professorial tone.

Especially as Scotty was in no position to deliver any kind of a convincing counter-argument.

"...I guess so..." somebody said hesitantly.

"You gotta do something really unusual to even get their attention!" Stone expanded upon his theme. "Why you think niggers beat their kids?"

"That's true, man," said another of the gang. "Had a crow living in the street near us. She was allus whalin' on her kids and they just made like it was nothin'." And you never called the cops. Scott shrugged inwardly. Some people there was no hope for.

"Yeah, see?" Stone sounded pleased at having regained the moral high ground, however dubious. From his voice, Scotty could tell Stone had turned back to face him - and now his tone was dripping with glee. "Ready to be taught a lesson, boy?"

Ready for Kelly to show up right about now and get me out of this predicament! That'd be really great, but if wishes were horses... he resolutely kept silent, and gritted his teeth against whatever was to come.

"Go get me the broom, Jerry."

The line was so incongruous that he actually snickered, feeling slightly detached from reality. "Now, is it Good Housekeeping to do your sweeping when the company's already here?"

The long silence that followed unnerved Scott. He tried to catch sight of anything beyond the men's shoes and the chair-legs. Hesitant footsteps sounded behind him, paused, moved away again. Stone gave a satisfied grunt, and his footsteps scuffed on the floor.

Without warning, a hard object poked Scotty in the rear, between his buttocks, and his vision washed to white. For the first time, he would think later, he'd understood the etymology of 'blind panic'.

"You're too dirty to put my dick in," the man hissed. The object - it felt like a pole - pressed against Scotty's anus, intimately probing, obscenely stroking, just short of invading his body. His muscles clenched involuntarily, his body taut and acting without his volition as it squirmed away atavistically. His heart pounded in his throat; his limbs lay cold and heavy. "I'm going to give it to you with this broom handle right here, clean your ass out before I put my dick in you. Teach your dirty nigger mouth to tell lies..."

"I'm not lying!" Scotty gasped frantically. "Call Mr

Dumond if you don't believe me." His voice sounded strange to his own ears. "Go on, call him!" Kelly's not coming, the despairing realization came to him, Kelly's not coming and this is really happening and nothing can stop it...unless they make that call and...

"Big-shot agent," Stone taunted some more. "Nothing but a hole, ain't he, boys?" The taunt was greeted by discomfited murmurs. This time Stone didn't bother turning; the pole pushed hard against Scotty's anus as the leader shouted angrily, "Shut up! I'm runnin' this show! Y'all turned nigger-lovers or somethin'?"

"C'mon, you know we ain't!"

"Good. What about you, Troy? Think we should have a colored mayor next term?"

That actually brought a guffaw from the assembled men.

"Right," Stone said with finality, "now watch as I show this nigger what he's really good for."

Silence descended again. Scott was hardly aware of anything any more as the wooden pole withdrew, sliding roughly out between his buttocks; a hand palmed one cheek, then both, slipping his fingers in between with a slimy touch that made him squirm. And finally, heavily, the awful realization sank in: He doesn't care about finding the girl any more. He's not going to make the call till...after. He wants to...to... His mind shied away from the word. Women who were raped were victims, and he would never be one. He had to be a man about it. Unaware that his petrified mind was moving in empty circles, he repeated to himself: He would be a man about it. It happened in prison, in the army, it was nothing. So what if it happened to him? So what? He would be a man about it, he...

A finger tickled his anus, the gentleness belying the fact that at any second something would be rammed inside... Scotty's stomach heaved. He felt defiled, felt like dirt.

Thank God Kel wasn't here.

He didn't know how it had happened, but as he lay there spread-eagled, being violated by this sorry excuse for a human being, he realized that his hope for his partner to come to his rescue had transformed, had inverted, into something like a prayer that Kelly Robinson would not, would never, come and find him and see him like this. Kelly must forever be shielded from the sight of him reduced to chattel, about to be taken by force like the slaves he was descended from. That was a gulf between him and his partner that could never be bridged.

And he found that nothing had prepared him for the despair of this moment.

"Get ready for the fuckin' of your life! You're a fucktoy, ain't you, coon?"

He was dead inside, but he wasn't so far gone that he'd respond.

"G'wan, say it! You know that's all they hired ya for, right? To do their dirty work!" The finger pushed at Scotty in earnest now, but his sphincter muscle was so tightly clenched in involuntary spasm that any entry was impossible. The pressure increased, the fingernail scraping, the blunt force a stomach-turning threat, hurting intimately enough to make Scotty's body start its involuntary bucking again. The Agency sex-abuse manuals, their information lying like a crumpled tissue on the floor of Scotty's brain, said to relax and you'd be torn up less. His mind buzzed when he tried; he could no more relax than he could sprout wings and fly Over the Rainbow out of this mess.

As the rough probing continued, the bile rose up in his throat and choked his nostrils, forcing him to spit on the floor again and again. The room seemed to waver slightly, the temperature dropping. Stone twisted his finger, seemingly frustrated at being unable to gain entry. He gave a loud shout. "What ya say I give the good old-fashioned initiation to this blushing virgin, hey, men? Put the uppity nigger back in his place?"

The mob's hushed, horrified murmur hardly cut through Scotty's numb coldness; the voices merely skimmed across the surface of his panicked, pounding brain.

"Our little jigaboo's gonna love what I'm gonna do to it. Let it take the message back to the Department. You like it already, don't you, boy?" The finger withdrew and the rough wood, instead of touching his anus, nudged Scotty's privates, exposed and vulnerable between his legs, pushing what it could reach of them left and right against the side of the table; the terror froze his very blood in his veins. If Stone thought the handling would give his trapped privates some kind of erection, he must truly be a little unhinged, the thought flickered with mild hysteria across Scotty's frozen brain, his body impotently flailing in renewed and more central fear. "You're gonna beg for it. I'm gonna make you scream out that you're nothing but a little faggot! You asked for it..."

The instrument left Scotty's vulnerable private parts, but in the split-second between realization and relief, it returned to press against his clenched, convulsed sphincter muscle. Then he felt the broom handle twist, and Scotty knew the next touch would drive the rough wood violently into his body, rupturing his intestines. His entire body began to shake so violently his teeth chattered, and involuntarily strained against his bonds, but he screwed his eyes shut tight and gritted his teeth. His entire focus was upon his impending violation. Be a man about it. He wouldn't scream... he wouldn't scream...

A scream rent the air, piercing and girlish. "Daddy! Where are you, Daddy!"

"The girl!" The broom handle hesitated a regretful instant, then clattered to the floor, and the sound of pounding feet echoed through the room.

Alexander Scott was so far gone that he didn't even register it as a reprieve.

*****

Kelly flung the rocks as far as his arm would allow, wishing for a racket to lob them half a mile away. The gang thundered out of the cave, baying like wolves, led by Stone, who obligingly called "Over there!" and raced toward the sound. Watching to make sure the last of the thugs had gone on the wild goose chase outside the cave, he pounded towards the cave mouth. Thank God they were too dumb to leave a guard on their bound and helpless prisoner.

He calculated he had two minutes, three at the outside, before the Neanderthal rednecks that passed for Dumond's hired help realized his falsetto voice was a trick and that they'd been had. He knew he'd cut it close, but he couldn't have let out his scream at the entrance; to lead them far enough to take his bait of the thrown stones, he'd had to circle halfway round the rocky cave.

It had taken Kelly long, valuable minutes to think of a gambit, and he'd cursed himself and his own inaction a hundred times over as he lurked at the mouth of the cave. He'd had to listen for a while to make out that Scotty was in there, and had finally warmed to hear his voice, though the "punishment for dirty liars" was alarming. Oh well, he'd tried to calm himself as he tried to listen and scope out the area at the same time, it wasn't as though they hadn't taken a few knocks before.

He'd measured the distance between the mouth of the cave and an area around the back from which a man entering the hideout would be invisible. The sound of a rock being thrown would provide a passable diversion, but what was to prevent Stone from sending just one guy to check it out and then returning to his torture? From the disjointed words Kelly could hear, the man seemed to want to beat Scotty with a broom handle.

It all came back to the fact that they were unarmed, he'd thought angrily, and the others had weapons. Frustrated, Kel had wished he could just rush in screaming in a kamikaze attack, guns blazing. Only he didn't have a gun. Nuts.

The racial taunting and the ignorant theorizing he'd listened to with about half an ear, busy scoping out the area--the cave was at the top of a hill, and it was downhill all the way to the road, so no chance of starting a landslide from above, or driving above and dropping something from the car. Not sure that would work, either. His blood began to boil as the demeaning words continued, but he shoved it aside. Scotty was strong; he could take it. It was just words, and meaningless ones at that...

"Get ready for the fuckin' of your life! You're a fucktoy, ain't you, coon?"

The bottom dropped out of Kel's stomach and his blood chilled as it sank in. This Kelly was not prepared for. This he didn't think Scotty could take.

And he couldn't take it either.

It can't be true, it can't be true, Kel thought, but the next words confirmed it--Stone really intended to do it, to do that, to do it to his proud partner, to Scotty, in front of Dumond's gang.

Kelly's head swam with panic, but he snapped himself back with iron discipline. He'd just have to come up with his best plan ever, that was all, and come up with it now.

He'd been beyond frantic when inspiration had struck.

With the men out, he'd pounded around the side of the cave to the entrance. And now, finally, he rushed inside.

Kelly had known he'd find his partner bound; he knew what had been said to him, what might already have been done to him...

But even knowing all that, he froze at the sight of his partner roped spread-eagled and bent over, naked from the waist down, his white canvas jeans twisted around his calves like additional, bulky ropes.

The shock lasted for all of an instant, and then he was moving. "C'mon, Big Chief Running Water. Cavalry's here." His lighter was already out and burning methodically through the ropes, letting each one catch alight but not wasting time waiting for it to burn through while moving on to the next one. Thick and tied very tightly - Kel could see abrasions on Scotty's wrists - each rope would burn through in about ten seconds; not too bad as ropes went, though each one seemed to take an eternity. He'd leave the loose ends dangling from Scotty's wrists and ankles; they could work on those in the car.

Flicking his lighter closed, Kel moved around the table again, and something on the floor caught his eye--a broomstick, the homely instrument of Scotty's torture, lying on the floor pointed at his partner.

Kelly was unprepared for the nausea that assailed him at the sight of the harmless-seeming object. Swallowing hard, he kicked it away as far as the walls would allow. No point his partner seeing it when he got up. Then he turned back to Scotty.

They had only a minute, but he would not get another chance, so Kel knelt to pull the canvas jeans back up, taking in at a glance if they'd hurt him back there. The thugs really hadn't had time, he reassured himself, but it only took a moment to inflict terrible damage, and so he looked him over, fear coiling in his gut, for any blood, bruising, signs of forced entry. There was a bit of irritation--you couldn't see it on the dark skin unless you knew to look for the slight swelling--that made his blood boil. Some violation, then. But relief washed through him as the rest of his checking came up negative. The sphincter looked clenched so tightly he was satisfied that no penetration had actually occurred, and the absence of blood or bruises meant Kelly had been in time to stop any serious attempt at forcibly ripping the muscle apart. He closed his eyes. Thank God. If he'd done one thing right in his life, this was it.

The small flames fizzled out as the ropes parted - his little examination had only taken a few seconds - and Kel stood hastily, allowing Scotty to bolt away from the table as soon as his bonds were broken.

Only he didn't.

It was then that Kelly realized Scotty hadn't uttered a word since he'd arrived.

Kel frowned, a little knot of fear forming. Maybe he's embarrassed at being undressed. Hastily, he bent over Scotty and occupied himself for a moment with harmless fussing, adjusting Scotty's clothing, straightening his shirt and zipping his fly as his partner finally stirred and turned partly onto his side. Reassured, Kel bent slightly to face him and said cheerfully, "Never thought you'd get caught with your pants down."

No response, but Scotty started to move, painfully slowly, visibly shaking. The sluggish response worried Kelly, clock ticking urgently in the back of his mind, and he reached out bodily and peeled his partner off the table. "C'mon, no laying down on the job, now."

Finally upright, Scotty looked at him with slightly glazed eyes. "You came."

Kelly's chest hurt suddenly, but he shrugged it off. "You thought I was what, catching a movie at the drive-in? Now come on, Watson, we've overstayed our welcome." His partner blinked, swayed, and Kel reached out, grasped Scotty's shoulders--mildly shocked at the coldness of his flesh even through the shirtsleeves--and gave him a little shake, as though he'd been carrying him and was just setting him back on his feet.

Scotty blinked again, shook his head slightly, and seemed to snap back into full-agent mode. "Let's go," he said, already striding to the mouth of the cave.

Kelly considered telling Scotty his fly was open, but decided against it. "This way," he instructed. They broke into a run on the way to the car, spurred on by the shouts of the men, who seemed to be having no luck finding the elusive General's daughter. "I think we have another couple minutes, tops," Kel said.

There was no response from Scotty as he reached the car first, flinging himself into the passenger seat. Kelly, bringing up the rear, couldn't help watching him, and couldn't help a warm sensation of reassurance when the violent impact with the car seat appeared to cause his partner no pain. Buoyed considerably by the additional evidence, he leapt into the driver's seat. "Ready to set a new landspeed record?"

"Lead on, McDuff," Scotty replied, and if his voice was more subdued than usual, who could blame him?

As Kelly turned onto the main road and stomped on the accelerator, he saw Scotty look down at the ropes on his hands in a kind of detached surprise, as though he had no idea how they came to be on his wrists. Slowly he loosened them and shucked them off, bending like an old, old man to do the same, with effort, to the ones on his legs. That done, Scotty twisted round and fumbled in the back seat for Kelly's discarded hat, the Stetson he favored when outside the city, and jammed it down onto his head. That in itself wasn't unusual, but Scotty was wearing it very low, shielding his face from Kelly, the brim almost over his eyes. "Burn easily, Alphonse?"

"Yeah, somethin' like that." The answer was a mumble instead of a jazzy quip, but Kel figured the guy had the right. Focusing on the road, he turned his attention to driving.

*******

A few miles later, the car running out of gas and the gang in hot pursuit, Kel was forced to admit this wasn't turning out to be their day. He gunned the V-8 harder, thinking of a plan. The men had to have realized the girl was long gone by now. Dumond would certainly know it. Kelly weighed the probabilities. He knew no vengeance would be forthcoming from the crime boss - he was probably scrambling to vacate his headquarters from the descending wrath of the entire US Army. That relegated this confrontation to the mere status of a redneck gang wanting petty revenge, and he and Scotty had faced that kind of thing before. Plus it was almost certain that the absence of orders from their boss would prevent them from inflicting any damage too serious. All to the good.

The hot sun blazed down as Kel continued his train of thought. It being broad daylight, their best hope was to head for a populated area where there were limits to the vengeance the men would exact. Dumond

had this town pretty much under his thumb, but unless Stone and his Neanderthal posse forced them back to the hideout at gunpoint - not so easy to do in the daytime, even in this neck of the woods, without attracting undue attention - it would be pretty hard to get into more than a punch-up in the public street. He didn't relish yet another fistfight, nor getting beaten up, but it was nothing he and Scotty couldn't handle.

He hoped.

Kelly fought the engine, wrestling with the jolting sensation of an automobile at its last gasp and in desperate need of fuel. He made a sharp right turn at a sign for a gas station. "Gas! Gas! The working man's grass," he ad-libbed as they made it into the tiny mom-and-pop filling station. Less populated and civilized than he'd have liked, it was nevertheless a Godsend. "Rocket fuel for the weary. Manna from heaven." He hopped out of the driver's seat and set about the business of filling up. In an office across from the pumps, maybe thirty yards away, he could see a pimply youth at the counter of a little convenience store typical of such places that doubled as the register for the gas. "Maybe we should pick up some soap, wash those guys' mouths out."

"Detergent," came the reply from Scotty.

Kel grinned openly, glad of the response. He'd been starting to worry. "Extra-strength."

"Bleach."

"Super-duper, whiter-than-white," Kelly smiled at his friend over the pump. "Cures what ails ya." All filled up, he holstered the nozzle. Part of him wished he could just hop in and drive away without wasting valuable moments paying, maybe put a few more miles between them and the yahoos. Hand resting on the pump, Kelly glanced up at the temptingly open road and sighed. "Don't go anywhere," he only half-jokingly admonished Scotty as he turned to head across the expanse of the station--too far, too exposed, he thought, though it wasn't himself Kel was worried for.

"I'm staying right here," Scotty answered. "Scout's honor."

"Since when were you a scout?" Kel snapped off over his shoulder.

"I'll have you know I won a medal."

"Medal, right. For what?"

"Tying knots."

"Shoulda earned one in untying them, with your job."

"Why untie 'em when you can cut through 'em, man?"

Kel grinned and headed for the store.

But when he came back, he found Scott hadn't been able to keep his promise.

***

Eight--finally Kelly got the full count of them, eight--heavies had forced Scotty out of the car and were standing around him menacingly. No armament as yet, but the sheer weight of numbers weighted Kel's stomach down with lead. Oh well, the best defense is a stupid offense. Okay, maybe not the best, but... ah, heck with it. He strode purposely through the group, ignoring their threatening poses, to stand pointedly next to Scotty. "What, Jack, I can't leave you alone for a minute without you drawing a crowd? Told you that pelican impression would get you into trouble, man." He turned to the heavies. "Sorry if the quacking and flapping gave any offense, fellas. We'll just be on our way now..."

He'd thought it was a pretty good line of patter, himself, but the heavy hand that landed on his shoulder told him his audience was Not Amused. Especially not the guy he recognized from the surveillance pictures as Stone, who now spun Kelly around to face him. "We got no beef with you, fella," the man said. "Just got some unfinished business with Monkey here."

Kel looked around in confusion. "There a zoo `round here somewhere?"

"Shaddap!"

"Ah, a quick intellect," Kel murmured in an aside to Scotty. "How I admire a man of ready wit."

"And int..." Scotty swallowed hard. "...intelligent repartee," he managed to finish.

"I'm warning ya," Stone grated, "get lost."

"Without a map?"

Kel got a light push in the shoulder for that. "We don't wanna hurt a white man, do we, guys? One of us?" Various calls of assent went up from the assembled idiots. "We just got a beef with this nigger here." Kelly quietly vowed to break the hand that lashed out and shoved Scotty into the car, hard enough to make him stumble.

"Oh!" Kelly affected the air of one hearing a revelation. "You mean Agent Alexander Scott, my partner?"

Murmurs went up from the assembled group. "Yer partner?"

"Why yes. We work for the Department. Have you heard of--oh, that's right, they arrested your boss, didn't they?"

Amazingly, Kel thought, the ringleader still hadn't belted him, even though he'd revealed he was an agent, though he'd taunted him about his boss. Reluctance to hit a white man? What?

Perhaps, the thought flickered uneasily as he saw Stone look at his partner again, it was just that the man was more focused on Scotty.

"So you ride around in this fancy car with this ape?" The question was directed at Kelly, but Stone's gaze returned unerringly to Scotty. "Not ten years ago a nigga like you wouldn't have dared to set foot in a fine ride like this one. Be banned by law."

"Yeah," another of the Neanderthals piped up. "Couldn't even walk in the same streets as us. Isn't that right, coon?"

Kelly felt Scotty's breathing quicken. Then his partner deliberately adopted his habitual relaxed stance, as though willing the words to roll off him like water, and Kel took his cue, schooling himself to do likewise. This wasn't fun, but compared to some of the other things they'd been through, it didn't even register on the scale. Best to let them have their kicks. He gritted his teeth. He'd make them pay, soon enough.

But the redneck wasn't finished. He stepped closer to Scotty, giving him a shove in the chest, making him step back, away from Kelly, alongside the car. "I asked you a question, monkey."

Scotty didn't dignify him by looking him in the eye. "I must be terribly hard of hearing," he said, and Kel smiled inwardly at his affectedly cultured tone. "If you'd be so good as to--"

Stone spat in his face.

Kel saw Scott flinch, and his gut clenched at the stifled gesture. Even worse, he saw his partner shrink a little beneath the white Stetson, as though he'd crumpled in onto himself. "Why don't you leave him the hell alone!" he exploded. Not the wittiest thing he'd ever said, nor the wisest, but at least it took their eyes off Scotty, meant they didn't get to watch and gloat as he rubbed his face against his shirtsleeve like a little boy. Saving him that humiliation wasn't much in the greater scheme of things, but it was all he could do for now.

"Nigger-lover, huh?" His voice low and dangerous, the leader walked over to Kelly, and he relaxed--he didn't want Scotty to be the focus, not here in Redneck Heaven. He thought of saying "What's it to you?" but decided against letting his language regress to the level of these schoolyard bullies. Get through it and get out, get through it and get out, he repeated like a mantra.

Stone was still looking him up and down. "You know what we do to nigger-lovers in these parts. Don't know why I don't just shoot you like a dog."

Scott seemed to have regrouped. "Because those aren't your orders."

Incensed - the words seemed to have hit a nerve - the man swung back to face him. "Maybe not. But we don't need orders for you. Remember the Freedom Riders? We'd be just upholdin' our rights to do the same thing to an uppity nigger like you, wouldn't we, fellas?"

Kelly felt an involuntary chill at that, although Scotty seemed to have gone back to the stone-faced mask. There was a lot of hooting and catcalling. Stone added a coda to his impromptu riff, shoving Scotty in the chest repeatedly, pushing him all the way to the other end of the car, away from Kelly, goading him all the while. "Wouldn't we? Huh? Wouldn't we?"

Desperately, Kelly clamped down on any mad desire for retaliation. Superior numbers, he kept telling himself, and they're probably armed. In the absence of any recourse, he resorted to the bullied kid's prayer: Please let them tire of this. Please let them tire of this.

But obviously gang bosses didn't provide TV: entertainment must be so hard to come by that the two Department men were providing a virtually inexhaustible avenue of fun and games. One of the gang, looking singularly nitwitted, and seeming to feel he had been out of the game long enough, chimed in on the racist theme. "You wasn't allowed to dirty up our buses. I should just call the animal shelter to pick you up! Look at that face! Monkey, monkey!" He began to make high-pitched chattering noises that his fellows found vastly amusing, judging by the rise in pitch and volume of their howling and laughter. "I ask ya, fellas: is this the face of a man? Lookit them lips! Yabba,

yabba!"

"Jesus, did any of you get out of fourth grade?!" Kelly took a couple of paces forward, goaded completely out of his reason. Testosterone-fueled violence and insults were one thing, but this--his gentle partner standing there and taking it, not responding, not reacting to Kelly's jibes at their tormentors or even meeting his eyes, crumpling more and more inside--it hurt, and it unsettled him. And that filled him with a fury he could rarely remember feeling.

The click of a hammer being pulled back snapped him to his senses. Apparently, one of the morons had figured out how to cock his weapon. A trickle of ice ran down his spine and he froze. This was already not good, and adding weapons to the mix meant that it could get very bad very quickly.

"I think you should take off those white man's clothes you're wearing, coon." Stone's voice was low, a hiss.

It slammed into Kelly then, all that had gone before. For the first time, he really looked at the man's eyes, shining a little too excitedly, his gaze a little too heated as he stared at Scotty's body. "What for?" he snapped loudly, on instinct.

The man's flinch, the way he hurriedly averted his over-bright eyes from Kel's searching ones, told him his intuition had been correct, and his mind whirred as the sadistic drawl responded, deliberately slow. "Why, to teach you a lesson." Stone reached out... "Cowboy hat..." and flipped it off the other man's head to land in the dirt. Two of the boys stamped on it, but Kelly's eyes were riveted on a sight that shocked him: with the hat off, Scotty was actually hanging his head, squinting in the bright sunshine. What gives? "Since when do the likes of you wear a white hat? That belongs to White Men. You know. Cowboys. The good guys." He paused for the appreciative whoops and guffaws. That chorus was getting old very quickly.

"And that cowboy shirt," Stone continued, gripping the collar from behind and yanking it down so hard that the buttons popped off the cuffs. Scotty staggered backwards but righted himself quickly. With the shirt free, Stone threw it to the ground. "That's better. Since when is a black man a cowboy?"

Kel waited for Scott's smart comeback, and when it was apparent it wasn't coming, he looked up. "We built this country together," he snapped, unable to hold his peace any longer.

The chorus of guffaws was initiated by the thin, bearded one this time. "Aw, isn't that sweet?" said, high-pitched and saccharine. "We built this country together!" the redneck mimicked girlishly. "Built this country with the monkeys!"

"What you mean, nigger-lover," Stone said urbanely, "is we built this country by using colored slaves like the animals they are." His face screwed up in disgust. "And they shoulda stayed slaves, not got uppity and walked around wearing white men's clothes and driving white men's cars and..." He snorted in disgust and turned to face Scotty. "Now take off the rest of those white man's clothes you stole. Come on, we haven't got all day."

Scotty bowed his head. Kelly was becoming extremely unnerved at his uncharacteristically passive demeanor. He looked hard at his partner, trying to catch his eye, trying to convey It's all right or We'll get through this but the dark eyes remained downcast, fixed in the dirt, staring at his feet. As his partner folded his arms about himself, and Stone clenched his fists, Kelly looked up.

"You know, Stone old pal," he drawled, "I might not do that if I were you."

The man's eyes came round to him in mute, if sneering, inquiry. "Who's gonna stop me?"

"Oh, nothing," Kelly said airily, "but you know, if it got back to your boss that you wanted to see another man naked," he shrugged, "ah, I dunno, people might, you know, think things."

The backhand to the face, he figured, was worth it. It hardly hurt, even. Smiling, he narrowed his eyes at the man's blazing blue ones. "Whatsamatter?" he asked, his voice not quite a taunt. "A little too close to home?"

Stone's eyes widened and his face flamed. "Just because you're a little homo prancing around the country takin' it up the ass from this coon don't mean real men are as sick as you!" This time it was a solid roundhouse punch, not a backhand, and Kel saw stars. "Limp-wristed, pink-shirted sonofabitch!"

Pleased to have got to him, Kelly smiled through the blood in his mouth and cast a calculated glance around him at the other thugs, watching the exchange with bated breath. They see it too, he thought. "Afraid your boys will start to think...?"

"You little faggot!"

This time the uppercut packed power, and Kelly was sent flying. It was just bad luck that he knocked his head against the windshield on the way down. He lay on the ground, unable to move, head spinning. He barely had time to take inventory - not nauseous, good, not seeing double, good, now why the hell can't I snap out of it and get upright - before receiving a kick in the ribs, which knocked the wind out of him and just generally really didn't improve matters.

"Man, you really afraid to have your boys here hear that, aren't you?" Scotty's voice didn't sound right, but at least he was standing up for himself, even if it was only carrying on the line of attack Kel had started. "Tell me, boys, does he look too long in the shower room?"

And too late, Kelly realized how dangerous that tactic could be. He could recognize drawing their fire when he saw it. Damn that chivalrous streak! Damn it all to hell! How had this situation got out of hand so fast? He commanded his muscles to move, but they were sluggish, rebellious, rendering him immobile.

Stone walked slowly, deliberately up to Scotty, hands in his pockets, and Kel saw his partner flinch, even shrink back slightly. What the hell--?

"You're a fine one to be sayin' that, nigga,"

the man drawled. "You wasn't so uppity with your black ass in the air. I think you're due an attitude adjustment."

Kelly's vision washed to scarlet for an instant and he struggled to move with everything in him. He would strangle the man with his bare hands right here, right now. He would grab Scotty's chin, slowly drifting down to his chest, and make him hold his head high again. He would--but stunned, out for the count, he had no recourse but to watch.

Stone clucked his tongue. "Too bad we didn't get to finish what we started. You was liking it, wasn't you?"

Kel was desperate to catch his partner's downcast eyes, but he couldn't move. He didn't know what he would have conveyed, what he would have done, but he just wanted to catch Scotty's eye, to tell him that he wasn't alone in this--but even that was denied him; his muscles were completely unresponsive.

"A good fucking woulda put you back in your place! Knocked all them uppity airs and graces outa you!"

Kelly could have wept with frustration as Scotty shrank into himself a little more, arms folded, head bowed. The lackeys traded uncomfortable glances, but at this point, with both himself and his partner out of commission, there was no potential to exploit it to create a little discord, and Kel dismissed it as irrelevant. There were more important concerns: Kelly was desperate to hear any of his partner's trademark repartee--a self-deprecating remark, a quip, anything--but to all intents and purposes, Alexander Scott had shut down.

Stone raised his voice again. "How about that! Our fairy-ass nigger's modest! Whasamatter, boy, you only strip down before customers?"

The Greek chorus of lesser intelligence took up the catcalls, getting caught up in the game of facile degradation, their earlier hesitance dissipating in the absence of overt sexuality. "Here's a dollar! You'd strip off for a dollar, won't ya?"

"Hell, no! For a dollar he should take it up the ass!"

"Dollar's too much for him! A dime's enough!"

"Aw, c'mon, homo coons ain't a dime a dozen round these parts!"

The jeering was silenced by the report of a bullet. Kelly had some vague idea of it striking the ground by his head, but was still too dazed to be sure. The voice seemed to have some bearing on the situation: "G'wan, or we'll ventilate your Master's nigger-lovin' head! Then who'll you find to pound your filthy homo ass?"

"All right! All right!" Panic in his voice, Scotty yanked his T-shirt over his head, just as quickly shucked his pants.

"Shorts, ape! Shoes, socks, all of it!"

Again, Kelly struggled to move. But Fate seemed to have the last laugh: he remained condemned to inaction as Scotty, moving like an automaton, slid down his shorts, wrenching his shoes and socks off together and letting them fly where they would. He straightened up, naked, arms crossed over his chest instead of covering his crotch. The catcalls renewed, more animalistic howling than actual comments by this point. "Now kneel, monkey! Kneel like the slave you are!"

"Yeah, on yer knees! Bet he's a house nigger, ain't he?" Stone laughed as though he had just told a capital joke. "Your massa here teach you yer A-B-Cs?"

Kelly could actually feel his fist in the man's mouth, knocking his teeth out, could feel them crunching under his knuckles. His chest constricted as he looked at Scotty. His partner--his partner, the Rhodes scholar, who spoke seven languages, who could make a bomb with a shoebox full of fertilizer and a bottle of bleach, who'd taught him things that could fill a dictionary, who could put in an hour in an interpretation booth in Swahili while holding two men at gunpoint--just stood there in the nude, arms folded, head bowed, unmoving, impassive. Still life in flesh.

But his broad shoulders were slumped in shame; his proud head was bowed, his bright eyes defeated.

It was as though Kelly had never known heartache until that moment.

Kelly jerked involuntarily as another bullet buried itself into the ground next to him. "Y'know," Stone said, "we don't have to kill your master. Dumond might not like that." His voice took on a sinister meaning. "But there' s nothing that says we can't shoot him in a kneecap... or maybe turn your cock into a hen!" More hysterical laughter.

Scotty dropped to his knees immediately. "Yeah, that's it! Kneel to your white Massa!"

Kelly's vision was still tunneled, but he saw a boot on his partner's neck, shoving his face down into the dirt. "Stick that black ass up in the air, jigaboo!"

The report of the gun sounded again. A booted foot descended on Scott's back, all its owner's weight behind it. If he'd been able to, Kel would have groaned in sympathy as Scotty grunted, the pain and pressure making him curve his spine inwards. Kelly winced as the men kicked him in the rear with their booted feet, hard, taking turns.

Mercifully, a siren wailed in the distance. Stone snapped alert at the sound, face odd, as though realizing he'd gone too far. "Time to go, fellas," he gestured to his posse. Kel went weak with relief as they piled into the truck. If I ever see you again, you're dead men, dead, dead, dead...

"Been a pleasure," their tormentor said as the engine turned over. The truck roared out of the lot, and then there was silence.

***

Sprawled naked on the ground, Alexander Scott struggled to right himself. His neck and back ached, and his rear end, but in the final tally, he was actually physically pretty much unhurt but for bruised muscle.

Blindly, he reached out for something to cover his nakedness, hit his discarded jeans, and pulled them on, his hands shaking so badly he couldn't manage the belt buckle. He finally left it dangling open untied and pulled on his rumpled, discarded tee, jamming the mangled Stetson down over his head; there, that would hide his blackness for the time being. Maybe later he could put on a shirt. Maybe later he could put on a hood, hide where no-one would ever see him again...

"Scotty?"

The voice hit him with a pang. He didn't want Kelly to see him; he just wanted to curl up alone. But he couldn't leave Kelly lying on the ground, hurt. He shoved his pain somewhere where it didn't show, and walked over to his partner, feeling strangely detached. He knelt in the dirt for the second time that afternoon. "Yeah, Kel? You all right?" His partner had a thick skull, but he'd taken quite a knock to the head... Shaking his head to clear it, he slipped his fingers into the soft hair to probe the lump. Now if he could get his hands to stop shaking long enough... ah, no, everything was going away again, into that strange numbness...

"Scotty, why's it so dark?"

The cold knot of fear that choked his breath pushed everything else into abeyance. "Kel, it's the middle of the day. The sun's shining really bright," he said gently, reaching out to grip his partner's shoulder.

Kelly fumbled for Scott's hand, and Scott clasped it, tight. "Well, that's just dandy. I guess I can't see."

A wall of panic over Kelly's sight slammed the world aside. Shame, color, humiliation - it all faded away as though it had never existed. Kelly could not have gone blind. Nothing else mattered.

"You're kidding." He had to be kidding. Scott focused on Kelly's eyes. "Your pupils are responding normally to light--nothing looks unusual--Kel, you're kidding me, right?" He knew he sounded desperate, but he didn't care. "You wouldn't kid me about something like this, right? You wouldn't!"

"No," his partner's voice was sad and resigned, as it was when he tried and failed at an assignment, "no, I guess I wouldn't." Clasping Scotty's shoulder for support, he sat up slowly, his eyes focusing to meet Scotty's, looking intently into them. "Can't blame a guy for trying, though, can you?"

"Wh..." It took Scotty a moment to realize that his partner had been kidding, and it was all he could do to keep from punching his lights out. As it was, he couldn't stand to be near him; he pushed off the ground and leaned into the car, gripping its side with both hands, breathing hard. "What? Why? Why would you do that to me? Like our enemies aren't enough, man?"

Kelly's voice was calm. "I wanted to bring you back."

"In case it slipped your notice, I haven't exactly been vacationing in Acapulco!"

Kelly smiled, feeling slightly less worried. He'd gambled that protectiveness would blow the fog of depression away, if only for the present, and his desperate ruse had worked--this was more the Scotty he knew. He hoped he could get the message through... "Sorry 'bout the lie, but you know what?"

"No." The voice was sullen, but still had more of an edge to it than the frightening emptiness of ten minutes previous. "What?"

"You know when they say, 'Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me'?"

"Man, what is this? Twenty questions? Because I've got to tell you, I am not in the mood--"

"That saying's a lie too."

Scotty shut up. But he didn't turn.

"I'm sorry, Scotty."

"Mind telling me what you're apologizing about?"

"What they did. What happened to you."

"Nothing happened to me, Kel! They punched your lights out, they yakked a bit more and then they drove off."

Kelly stared. He'd heard of denial, but this was ridiculous. "I was conscious."

"Don't know what you're talking ab--you were conscious?"

Kelly just nodded. "And remember, I'm the one who untied you, in the hideout. I heard what they said back there, too."

Complete, utter silence this time, ponderous and choking, filling up the sunlit air and blocking the light. Perhaps now wasn't the time. Kelly barreled on before Scotty could freeze, making his tone deliberately weak and vulnerable. "Scotty - could you help me up?"

"What'll you pay me?"

"Eternal goodwill?"

The man shrugged. "'kay--guess I'm kinda short on goodwill at the present."

Hoping to keep his partner alert a bit longer, Kelly subtly overplayed his injury, making it seem impossible to rise without assistance. The hands that helped him up were strong and gentle, and Kelly clasped them tightly, gratefully. The handclasp lingered a moment longer than usual, Kelly willing Scotty to see that whatever other idiots populated the world, there was at least one person who respected, who valued, who treasured Alexander Scott for everything, everything that he was.

One day he might even say it out loud.

Once Scotty had him settled in the front seat, Kel let his head fall back. He must have drifted off because the next thing he knew was Scotty starting the engine, pulling out of the parking spot and onto the road. Looking through the windshield, straight ahead, Scotty asked as though there had been no lapse in the conversation, "When did you wake up?"

Kelly looked at him, full-on, his face open. "I was never out."

His partner turned to look at him, his mouth falling open, before turning back to the road. Kelly barreled on, determined to make Scotty see it wasn't his fault.

"Conscious for all of it. For when they made you strip by threatening me. For when they kicked you in the dirt by threatening me." He paused, letting a smile quirk his features. "I do have this to say: despite the fact that I am apparently a limp-wristed homo and a little faggot, I am truly glad you didn't let them turn me from a cock into a hen. It's a truth I must admit."

Instead of a smart remark, Scotty gulped in air, let it out in a whoosh--and his face twisted into a mask of torment, eyes screwed tight shut, mouth gaping wide, teeth bared in a silent scream. It took an alarmed Kelly a second to realize that he was crying. Pulling jerkily off the road, Scotty turned off the ignition and surrendered to his emotion, hands fisted on the wheel, his body shaking with the force of his weeping. It was frightening to see: He looked in agony, as though he were on the rack, yet he never made a sound, and shed not a single tear.

"Hey. Hey." Kel leaned over, reached out and pulled Scotty into his arms, even though the other man resisted, too lost in his own agony, every muscle in his body convulsing wildly with his suffering. "Scotty. It's okay. Don't hold back, okay?"

The silent screams turned into deep, shuddering groans, the wildly flailing hands fisted into Kel's jacket. He gripped Scotty more strongly and pulled the shaking body tightly to his chest, and his partner went limp, burying his face into Kel's shoulder, moaning as though in the grip of some unutterable torment. "Hush," he murmured. "Hush. It's okay. It's okay." But it wasn't, not yet, not with his strong, cool, calm, resilient partner shattered and humiliated by such a brutish assault. He prayed that his worst fear wouldn't be realized, that these bastards would not have pierced to the core and dented Scotty's self-worth. With gratitude, he realized that the traumatized reaction seemed to have subsided; Scotty was breathing hard, lying spent in his arms. "I'm sorry," he found himself whispering into the nap of the hair against his cheek. "I'm sorry."

The voice came from the recesses of his jacket, the head never lifting. "What do you have to be sorry about?"

He took a deep breath. Where to begin? How had he got into this nightmare situation in the first place? "Sorry for all of it." He gritted his teeth. "Sorry for the Freedom Riders. For Rosa Parks. For the Sasser churches. I'm sorry for James Meredith. For fucking George Wallace. For Hamilton vs. Alabama, Fannie Lou Hamer,

Medgar Evers, for all of it, all of it." He noted that at some point his partner had risen up out of his arms and was looking at him with a stunned stare. "Yeah, I know it's not my doing. But I'm still sorry that this--this crap--goes on in the country we work to defend. And I'm sorry you have to go through it."

The stare was still there. Scotty's mouth worked for a moment before he said, astonished, "You know the history."

"Course I know the history. I'm an American, aren't I?"

Scotty was obviously working at keeping his tone level. "Most Americans might not know this."

"Well, I'm not just any American." He drew himself up tall. "I'm Alexander Scott's partner."

The amazement was palpable now. "You looked it up... because of me?"

For the first time since the start of the conversation, Kelly was embarrassed. "If I say yes, will you deck me?"

"No. No. But I... White guys don't usually... don't ever study... don't..." he stared again, understanding dawning, "don't know what it's like."

"And I can't," Kelly said gently. "I never can. I've never been kept from riding the bus, never had to look round for a restroom till I thought my bladder was going to burst..."

"You always pee in the bushes anyway, man."

Kel smiled but didn't stop; this was too important. "I don't have grandparents who were maybe tortured and killed, or whose friends were. I don't worry about liking a girl who's maybe the wrong color..."

Scotty was looking at him in wonderment.

"... I don't have to wear a suit-and-tie just for people to take me seriously and have the cops not look at me funny--oh yeah, don't think I haven't noticed it, Jack--I don't have to worry about how some bigoted racist sonofabitch store clerk is going to treat me despite the fact that he never graduated high school and I have a graduate degree..." Kelly knew his voice was getting bitter but he didn't care, "I don't get treated like dirt by every idiot who comes down the pike, I get away with jaywalking and trespassing and double-parking and countless misdemeanors that'd get a black man thrown into jail. I know what my educated, my cultured, my absolutely brilliant

partner, who risks his life defending the whole damn country, has to go through out there just to get a taxi! I know that once we're home, we live in different worlds, Whites Only and Coloreds Only!" He snorted. "I know how they treat you when I leave your sight when we're in the good old U.S. of A., I wish it wasn't like that but I do know it, and the least I can do, the very very least I can do is put a little goddamned research into the God-damned history!"

He was breathing hard now, sure he had embarrassed himself. Looking away, he almost didn't catch the mumble that came from Scotty as he slumped exhausted into his seat. When his brain processed it, it turned out his partner had said, "There's no-one like you, Kel. You're one of a kind, you know that?"

and for some reason, it only made him madder.

"It doesn't matter," Kelly retorted. "We're not talking about me, we're talking about you. You're exceptional, and even if you weren't, it still wouldn't give a bunch of goddamned rednecks--bigoted bastards--the right to..." Another mumble. "What is with you? What did you just say?"

The words were hesitant, low, but perfectly clear. "I feel dirty."

Quashing the jolt it gave him, Kel reached over and turned the keys in the ignition. The car jolted forwards and he wrenched the gearshift angrily into neutral. "Motel. Now."

"But--"

"Humor me, okay? Now."

***

Kel manhandled his partner into the small, white-tiled bathroom, turned on the shower, matter-of-factly stripped him out of the filthy T-shirt and the canvas jeans that would probably never be clean again--he'd throw them out as soon as he could do so unobserved. "Inside." He knew he was touching upon recent, raw psychological wounds, but he didn't want the memory to stay in Scotty's head, didn't want the last recall of being naked to be something like that - hostility, enmity, humiliation, self-loathing. "C'mon," he said gently. "You're all dusty, Stan." Shell-shocked more than anything else, his partner mechanically complied.

The moan Scotty let out as he stepped under the hot water made Kelly smile openly. As his partner just stood there, eyes closed, luxuriating in the warmth, Kelly lathered up a face towel and gently, nonthreateningly, touched it to Scotty's shoulder. Encouraged by the minimal flinch, he began to soap his partner's back, slowly, in ever-widening circles, gently, but pressing just a little bit harder each time. The grunts of pleasure were both indication and reward, and he added his left hand to the right using the washcloth, skimming it lightly over the shining brown skin as the smooth, glittering sheet of water flowed down it, trying to convey through his touch everything that was too awkward to say, hoping the nurturing, parental gesture would help ground and relax Scotty, that it might help erase the degradations and abuses of this day.

"Kel, I can take it from here, you don't have to..."

"Man, you ever know me to start a job and not finish it?" His words were bantering, but his tone was gentle, affectionate. "You pipe down, Jack; unless you can spin your head like an owl, you can't see where the problems are!"

His partner's acceptance of that, without further protest, told Kelly just how vulnerable Scotty was, how much he needed this. He kept washing, frowning as the mud on his lower back resolved into a nasty heel-shaped bruise on the spine, right on the third lumbar vertebra. Gently he soaped it, cursing; he was just lucky that hadn't caused any permanent damage. Amateurs sometimes inflicted injury, through ignorance, that professionals couldn't or wouldn't.

Kelly was slightly reassured as Scotty relaxed and leaned forward into the shower stall, leaning his elbows on the tile, giving in to Kel's ministrations completely. He soaped a little further down, not daring to touch between his partner's buttocks--one invasion today was one too many--so he glided the cloth over his rear, already showing boot-shaped bruises. Kel clenched his teeth. "Good thing none of those hit your tailbone," he commented, calculatedly casual as he soaped the mud off, knelt to give the same treatment to his legs. He winced as he caught sight of the rope-burned ankles, clamped down sternly on any visuals of how they got that way. Lightly, Kel patted the water against them, careful to soothe with his touch and not irritate.

Scotty sighed with pleasure, then self-consciously shifted--squirmed. "Kel, really... I can..."

Scotty's protest was the last straw. Kelly found he had to bite down on the desire to lash out at his partner for daring to think himself in any way unworthy of these ministrations. In the end, he settled for, "It's nothing you haven't done for me, so shut up."

He expected some retort from Scotty, something about how indeed he had no idea how Kelly had survived before he met him. But none was forthcoming, so he stood again, just skimming his hands lightly over his partner's clean shoulders, noting angrily the newly forming bruise on the nape of the neck, watching the water soak into the curly black hair, hair that would never go limp and flat even if he stood in the shower for a hundred years. With a pang, he suddenly remembered Dalton, a recruit back at HQ who had thought it would be funny to hypothesize about how many insects sought refuge in that 'nap' of Scotty's--thankfully not in the man's presence. Kel had promptly retaliated by dunking his head in a toilet. Didn't mean that kind of thing hadn't been repeated when his partner was around, he thought. Maybe today was a day for healing all kinds of old wounds. "I wish I had your hair," he threw out, letting the unusual statement hang there in the steamy air.

Scotty turned to face him, face set in disbelief. "Now I know you're kidding."

"Why?" That had worked out rather well, considering Scotty's back was as clean as it could get. Matter-of-factly, Kelly began to lather Scotty's front. "It keeps its shape. I fall in the river, I come out looking like a drowned rat. You fall in the river, you come out looking like a stockbroker."

"A Negro stockbroker," The bitterness in Scotty's voice was palpable.

"Yeah," Kelly said lightly, with finality, like he wasn't even aware of what Scotty was saying.

Scotty took a breath as Kelly soaped him, taking the opportunity to run the warm towel over the dark skin of his collarbone, his shoulders, the center of his chest, to lay his hand flat on the strong beat of the heart--anything to comfort Scotty, to relax him, to show him how valued he was. His next words told Kel he'd been right about the hair thing opening up a can of worms. "I always, always got grief about my hair."

"Yeah?" Casual, casual. Kel kept his eyes on the washcloth, not on Scotty's face.

A shaky breath. "Yeah. Growing up, I had a lot--a lot--of guys laugh at me because I didn't straighten it."

Now Kel was genuinely confused. "What? Why would you want to straighten it?"

He'd forgotten not to look Scotty in the eye, and the regard that fixed his was patient, long-suffering, tolerant. "To make it look white."

Kel squeezed the brown shoulders for a long moment before snapping the water off. "Let's try something else."

Scotty stepped out, grabbed a towel, as Kelly watched the water pour down the drain, watched the soapy, muddy water swirl away to clear.

***

"You don't have to do this, man."

"I definitely, emphatically have to do this." He'd marched the still-passive Scotty out of the bathroom--not so much passive, though, Scotty had always been amenable, always ready to follow Kel's lead--and flopped him down on the bed for a massage. "I don't give you a massage," he editorialized, "those bruises on your back," he tapped them lightly, "will make your muscles tighten up, you'll be a grouch to work with, I'll suffer."

There was a mumble from the man beneath him. "What?" he asked with half an ear as he moved around, gently creamed the raw wrists and ankles, deciding against a bandage.

A sigh, and a silence that went on too long.

Kel's tone was slightly sharper when he spoke again. "Answer me. What'd you say?"

Another silent, deep breath. "I said," the voice was strangely devoid of emotion, "you're the only white man I knew who could find a bruise on a Negro."

Kel's brow furrowed as he warmed the massage oil in his hands. "Looks pretty obvious to me."

"Only to you."

Kel placed the pads of his fingers lightly on the bruised shoulder so as not to startle the man on the bed, then started to press gently down, feeling out the tense spots. "Why do I get the feeling that means more than it sounds like?"

No answer.

"Scotty."

He was careful to keep his hands moving; his fingers never stopped kneading the too-hard muscles as the other man began to speak. "When I graduated Temple, I signed up for six months of postgrad neurolinguistics." A breath. "Let's just say not everyone at the new school shared my enthusiasm about racial integration."

His hands very nearly stopped as the implications of that sank in, coupled with where the conversation had been before... But he managed to keep it casual. "How many of 'em did it take to beat you up?"

"Six."

"On one, of course." A grunt was his only answer. "But I'll bet you showed 'em where they got off? C'mon, I know my partner. What'd you do to 'em? Some surprise you set up, huh?"

"Nope," Scotty responded. "I was going to get 'em legal. Racial violence was against the law, huh? Beating up another student? I was gonna get them expelled."

"Mm-hmm. Serves 'em right too," Kelly said, rubbing his oiled fingers carefully over the broad back, zeroing in on the muscles to the left and right of the bootprint, drawing his fingers to the side just outside the bruises to encourage drainage. When the silence stretched out, he encouraged, "Then what?"

Scotty let out a breath. "I took my complaint to the Dean. He said to go get checked out, make it official. The campus doc..." He paused.

Kelly felt the muscles bunch up beneath his fingers and felt himself go tense, too. "What?"

His partner swallowed. "Said I was lying. The docs said they couldn't find a bruise on me. Couldn't have been beaten up." Frightening as the curtness was, even worse was the defensive tone that crept into the next words, as though Kelly might accuse him of mendacity. "I swear they did beat me up, Kel. I couldn't move for two days."

Abandoning all pretense, Kelly let his forehead drop onto his partner's back. "Hell."

"It's okay," Scotty said quickly, that protective instinct of his coming to the fore again. "I passed the course, so they didn't get what they wanted anyway. And..." A little smile crept into the voice. "And they had to repeat a semester when their test papers mysteriously turned up missing."

"That's my partner." Head still down, Kel raised his hands, let them massage around Scott's spine for a moment, then blurted sincerely, "You're beautiful, you know that?" Shit, he thought, that sounded lame, but it was too late to take it back.

There was a snigger. "You tryin' to seduce me or what?"

"You wish." He laughed gently--his golden opportunity to laugh off what he'd just said--but then raised his head seriously, his hands fiercely cupping Scotty's shoulders, gripping them tight. "Scotty... I mean... all that garbage they say, you know it isn't true, right?"

The curly head slowly turned away. "No," he said, and the wretchedness in his tone broke Kel's heart. "Today, I don't."

Kelly's heart ached, but he resisted cursing and throwing things; of all times, now was the time for him to be strong for his gentle partner, as the man had so many times been strong for him. "I don't know how to convince you, but anything those bastards said, it's a God-damned lie. Your face..." Scott snorted and Kel's gut clenched. "It's strong, it's honest... clear. Your eyes, they're bright, they're... you're so smart I'm jealous of ya. Your eyes light up the room with that intelligence in 'em." Another snort. "What?"

"Nothing."

"No, no, go on," Kelly said, his ire rising. "Today's obviously my day to learn lots of things I had no clue about before. What's wrong with your eyes?"

Slowly, the dark head turned towards him. The words were sullen, the lips barely moving. "They used to say," Scotty mumbled, "that my skin was the color of mud, that I'd never get clean, but my eyes... my eyes were brown because folks like me were full of... well, of manure, and that was where it came out."

"Who used to say, Scotty? Who?"

"Why?"

"So I can kill 'em."

That got a hesitant laugh, and Scotty turned away again. "Sorry," the back of his head said curtly, "Self-indulgent crap. Don't know what came over me. Just a lot of stuff... I'd forgotten till today." No wonder it picked today, Kelly thought, but was cut off by his partner's repeated apology. "Sorry. Forget it."

"Should have told me." And you still haven't gotten over what happened in the cave. What they said you deserved. What they did.

Scotty's response was an oblique answer. "What for? 'S over and done with."

Kelly rubbed his hands over the bruised back, over and over, trying to say with his touch what he couldn't, trying to convey They were fools. You're worth a hundred of those... Ah, heck with it. "Scotty, look at me."

The dark head stayed turned away.

"Scotty."

He turned, and Kel hated the wounded look in his partner's eyes. "What."

"You

are beautiful," he repeated firmly, wonderingly. "Your eyes shine with intelligence, and anyone says any of that crap about crap I'll punch him into next week, I wish I had a Roman nose like yours..." he ignored the laugh that might make him want to deck Scotty, "your--your mouth, your chin... everything about you is handsome and...and..."

"I have a black face," Scotty said evenly. Defeatedly. As though that changed everything.

"Yeah!" Kelly exploded, the desolation in that tone tearing at his heart. "Yeah, you do! So what! I'm fine with that, and so should you be! Your mom has one, and she's a fine upstanding woman!" Forcing himself to calm down, he said knowingly, lightly, "And that black face of yours had Jeannette making sheep's eyes at you today, or did you forget that little detail? I wouldn't be complaining if I were you."

"Jeannette?"

The total ignorance in Scotty's tone incensed Kelly. "Jeannette, the General's daughter. The girl we got all this grief for rescuing, or has that fact erased itself from your head?" He rubbed his partner's back gently, in a contrast to his rising, bantering tones. "She was falling for you like nobody's business! 'Do you live in Washington, Agent Scott?' 'Can I write you, Agent Scott?' 'I feel so awful, Agent Scott sacrificed himself for me! I'll never forget him!' Agent Scott this, Agent Scott that. What am I, the rhythm section? Made me feel all loved and appreciated." With a mock-huff, Kelly rolled his eyes and waited for the answering quip.

A slow, heavy sigh was his only response. "Aw, man," Scott mumbled,

"in this state, it's a felony to even look at her." Depression and linguistics warred for a second across the expressive face; linguistics emerged victorious, forcing one more word from Scotty. "Miscegenation."

Kelly gritted his teeth, then forced a laugh. "Now how am I supposed to take a law seriously that I can't even pronounce?" Unable to keep up the light faade, he continued, low and intense, "You know as well as I do that that law's unconstitutional, that they can't keep it forever. This isn't the lawyers and the judges, it's men and women, the birds and the bees." He paused for an instant, getting his emotions under control. "You do know about the birds and the bees, don't you? I'd hate to have to explain, at your age..."

He waited for the "You're not exactly a spring chicken yourself," but it never came. The miserable, defeated silence stretched out, and finally came a pliant, "Okay."

"Scotty," Kelly snapped, at the end of his tether. "You're wonderful whether you like it or not, and I'm sorry you live in this bitch of a country where people still treat you like dirt for the color of your skin, where there's riots and segregation and all that garbage. I know you have to fight it every day of your life. What happened to you? Fight it, man!"

"Maybe," a deep, weary breath, "maybe I'm tired of fighting." Almost a whisper. "Maybe they're right."

"What's gotten into you today?" Kel snapped, frustrated beyond his limits.

"I haven't been having a very good day," Scotty said with an unnerving lack of anger.

"No, I guess not." Kel was immediately contrite. "Sorry." But then he looked up. "We've had worse days. Why today?"

"Today... was just..." A shaky breath escaped his partner. "I'll be fine. Don't worry about me."

Kelly knelt back on his heels, stumped. What in the world had got into Scotty? It wasn't like they hadn't, a hundred times over, been beaten, tortured, abused, chained up...

...And then, suddenly, it came to him. He almost laughed with relief at the realization that his partner wasn't cracking up, that their basic training had placed the keys to his salvation in his hands. But this had to be handled delicately...

"You read the training manual, didn't you?"

Surprise cleared the despair for a moment. "Sure I read it."

"How long ago?"

"What's this about?"

"You read the chapter on sexual assault?"

The brown eyes hardened. "What's that supposed to..."

"If you did, and I know you did," Kelly began, keeping his tone smooth, but brooking no argument, "then you know that after a violation of a sexual nature, like what happened to you today..." it had to be said, "in the cave..."

Scotty didn't deny it. His eyes closed, squeezed shut, and Kelly gripped his shoulder supportively and went on, "...the victim feels guilty regardless. It's the violation, you know that, right?"

Scotty's normally easygoing visage was tormented; his eyes remained tightly closed, and he gave no answer. Kelly rose to sit next to him on the bed, and gentling his voice, continued, casually resuming his massage.

"You can't help thinking there must be something about you, something you did to cause it, because..."

"...Imagining one is the cause of it helps one believe that one had some kind of control over what occurred, which is less painful than admitting one was powerless to stop the incident," Scotty quoted, his eyes shut; verbatim, Kelly'd have been willing to bet.

"It makes you doubt yourself, even more if you're a minority group," Kel tried to remember--he didn't have the manual memorized, damn his partner's memory, anyway--"so, if... if you're a woman you begin to feel there's something wrong with being a woman, with your womanhood, as though there's something about who you are, what you are, that made you deserve to have that happen to you. It..."

"Strips you of your pride," Scott mumbled.

"In who you are."

"What you are."

"Right," Kelly nodded. When no answer was forthcoming, he just kept rubbing the bruised back, smoothing his hands over the skin, kneading the unbruised areas of muscle deeply and firmly with his fingers. Now, more than ever, he had to hold Scotty up till he came through, as Kel knew he would. And if he was in pain, if it took a little longer this time, what were friends for?

Eventually Scotty took a deep breath; Kelly could feel him holding it before he let it out. When Scott did speak, his voice was scarcely more than a whisper, as though he were imparting a secret. "...so ashamed."

Kelly nodded. It hurt to hear Scotty say it, but it was a relief, too. "'Course you do," he said gently, still quoting. That part of the passage he remembered. "Sexual assault is known to cause a sense of shame. Those subjected to it would do well to bear in mind," he tried not to be too obvious about emphasizing his next words, "that sexual assault is never the fault of the victim, but is solely the product of those sick individuals who practice it. They do it to erode one's sense of self-worth...and all too often, they succeed."

A shuddering breath left the prone body, and a fraction of the tension left the taut shoulders. The curly head nodded.

Kel bent lower over Scotty, so low his upper arms were touching his partner's back from elbows to fingertips. If Scott was upset by Kelly's breathing on him, he didn't show it. After he had rubbed his back for a few moments, he ventured to voice what weighed heaviest on his mind. "Hey, you know it's those rednecks who should be ashamed, right? You, you've got nothing to be ashamed about." Still with Scotty in that almost-hold, he murmured, "Hey, if you wanna feel ashamed, you might wanna

be ashamed of your partner, who threw you to the wolves just to protect a civilian."

He took the shake of the head as a good sign, but the continued silence as not so good. After a few moments in which nothing could be heard but Scotty's deep breathing - though he fancied a lightening of the atmosphere, but that could be just wishful thinking - he decided to try and help move things along a little. "You said...dirty," he ventured.

He got a tight nod in response, followed by a deep, shuddering breath.

"Remember, the instructor said that it can make you feel defiled. Unclean." He kept the contact with Scott, unbroken. "So yeah, it's no big deal if you felt...like that. It's just a... a consequence." He racked his brain for something to say. "Comes with the territory."

That got a response--the merest huff of air, but at least it broke the silence. After a long moment, Scotty whispered, "Dirty. So dirty. I feel..." His face was racked with pain, and Kelly's heart went out to him. The dark hand quested blindly along the sheet, and Kelly caught it, clasped the cold fingers tight, rubbing his thumb fiercely over the back of his partner's hand. He slid to the floor to place them both on the same eye level, though Scott's remained closed.

"Scotty... it is the violation talking, you know that, right? You were violated, and you're feeling the effects. You're not Superman. It's got to hit you some way." He gripped his partner's shoulder, held on. "Those bastards really did a number on you."

Scotty nodded, his face closed.

Perhaps it had to be voiced. "Maybe even--stripped you of your pride."

"Yeah," Scotty breathed, "yeah, they did." And then his face crumpled, silent tears falling. If Kelly were a woman, he would have been relieved; as it was he was terrified, and slid an arm around Scott to support him as he wept, resting his cheek against the prone man's shoulder. On the far side of his partner, Kel's hand came into contact with a pillow, and a bright idea occurred to him; he shook the pillowcase free, and fumbled it over to Scotty's face, dabbing clumsily at the tears with the hand still holding his partner's. Scotty wept silently like that for a few moments and then gasped out, "Kel... I feel... less of a man. How am I going to cope with that?"

"I don't know," Kel answered honestly, pulling his arm tighter around him, "but I'll be right with you while you figure it out." He gripped the shaking hand more tightly. "Other than kill the bastards who hurt you, of course."

"They did," Scotty whispered, as though ashamed to admit it.

"Hm?"

"Hurt me," he choked out. "Kel--you're--you're right, they did, they did hurt me."

"I know." Kelly kept his voice gentle, shoved the boiling rage aside. He was openly stroking the broad back now, making no pretense at massage, holding Scotty as close as he could in the one-armed hug, his face pressed to the trembling shoulder. "I could see it. You were really hurt, and I was really scared."

At that, the closed eyelids cracked open, giving him a questioning glance. He didn't ask, "Scared?" but it was right there in his eyes.

"Yeah,"

Kel huffed, remembering. "Petrified. And you know what scared me the most, Scotty? I could see they were getting to you, getting under your skin. I was absolutely terrified," and there was no shame in admitting that, "that they'd--break you. Make you doubt yourself." It wasn't quite a question.

"They did," Scotty admitted. But the tightness of the muscles slumped a bit, almost in--relief?-- and for the first time Kel could see the torment clearing from his face. It mystified him--he'd have thought crying and admitting all that bad stuff would have made it worse--but he wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. "Luckily, I have my partner to believe in me." The tone was definitely lightening; underneath it, like an undertow, was a gratitude so deep and desperate that it not only humbled Kelly, but mystified him--like there was something there that remained unvoiced.

He let it go for now, though. "Who wouldn't, Scotty?" Kel responded sincerely. "You're one of a kind, too. Those assholes just caught you off guard. They did some pretty lousy shit to you." His grip on his partner never faltered. He strove for a humorously superior tone. "The doc prescribes twenty-seven aspirin and says you're gonna hurt for a while, but you'll be good as new." And then he ruined it all by saying with all his soul, "I promise."

"You promise, huh?" There was almost amusement in the voice--that and, Kelly hoped, at least a smidgen of confidence borne of having his partner to lean on. And he always would, Kel swore, always.

" 'Course I do," he said lightly. "However long it takes, I'm right there beside you. You get any... doubts, if it comes back to you, just let me know." He felt the tense shoulder finally relax under his hand, and rubbed it affectionately. "Scotty, you..." He searched for words. "You're the most... the most upstanding man I know," he said, hoping his passionate emotion would show in his voice. "Don't ever forget that."

"Like your acquaintance is populated by sterling characters," came the quip, at long last, and Kelly went limp with relief. "All you know is spies and assassins. All in all, I think I'll wait for a better judge of character before you type that one up in triplicate."

"Puppeteers."

"What?"

Scotty rolled up on his elbow and blew his nose into the pillowcase.

"Spies, assassins, and puppeteers. You know, the ones who send us into death without a second thought?"

Scotty smacked his forehead. "Right, right. Puppeteers. Forgot about those."

As Kelly watched, Scotty swung up to sit on the edge of the bed, the bath towel draped loosely across his waist and most of his knees, and Kelly warmed to see him so comfortable in nothing but a towel, no lingering ghosts--but then their eyes met, and behind the smile, Kel could see the ghost of pain, carefully hidden. "Uh-uh."

"What?"

"Don't make me sock you in the chin." At the uncomprehending, lost stare, Kel gritted his teeth. "Don't hide it, Stanley." He locked his eyes onto the dark, haunted ones. "It ever hurts, and it's going to, don't hide it from me. Okay?"

The expressive eyes were grateful, but insincere. "Yeah, sure."

"Why're you lying to me?" Kelly asked, very gently.

The protective light was back in Scotty's eyes. "It's just... Kel, you've got enough..."

"Demons?" It was a measure of how off-balance Scotty was that he would say it to his face. "Well, yeah, sure. Doesn't mean I have a monopoly on 'em, though."

The dark eyes avoided his. "Guess not."

In that moment, Kelly washed through a wave of emotions--regret that his volatile nature and selfish depressiveness had led Scotty to feel he had to deal with his pain alone, and a fierce desire to give back some of that rock-steady dependability his partner always gave him. Enough with the self-indulgence. Who's he got but me? His voice was firm as he said strongly, "Hey. Scotty. I lean on you, you're there. You've always been there. What, I can't do the same? I'm not good enough?"

"Never said you weren't good enough, Kel."

"It's nothing you wouldn't do, right? What, you wouldn't be there for me if...something like that happened to me?"

Scotty's eyes clearly said, Of course, but it's not the same.

Not the same? Okay, time to cut the crap. "What aren't you telling me?"

Scotty's brows came together, but his eyes still held something in reserve that told Kel he was on the right track. "Everything," he quipped.

Kel was in no mood--no mood--for bantering. "I don't mind you keeping everything from me, I mind you keeping the one thing among the everything that you're keeping from me that makes me feel like you're keeping something from me!"

"And they call me the linguist."

"Yeah, yeah. Give."

"I'm not telling you what I got you for Christmas."

"Nice try. Give."

"Nor what I told Mom about you in my last letter."

"Scotty!"

"Come on, man!"

"No, you come on! It can't be that bad!" A terrible thought struck. "Scotty..." He felt the blood drain from his face in sudden terror. "He never finished what he started, did he?" Damn, damn, damn! If his partner had managed to conceal that from him... Scotty might need stitches, could be bleeding internally while Kelly, like a fool, had wasted an hour sitting here yapping! And here they were, God knew how far from the nearest hospital... Kel found his hands gripping Scotty's arms without consciously remembering making the move. "How far did it go, Scotty?"

The lack of an answer made him more frantic and he shook his arms, just a little. "How far did it go?!"

"Not too far." Before Kel had finished slumping with relief, the gaze that met his was amused, bitter. "Would it matter to you?"

"What kind of a dingbat question is that?" Kelly snapped.

"Would you request a new partner?"

"What?"

Kel's grip dropped limply from Scotty's arms. The question was so completely out of the blue, so utterly unexpected that Kelly just stared at Scotty, the few inches separating them a great gulf of lost understanding. "What are you talking about?" he finally ventured.

"Why would it matter to you," Scotty asked warily, "how far it went... unless it would make a difference to you to serve with a man who'd been defiled?"

Kelly stared. And then, as he processed Scotty's intent, he began to laugh.

Now it was Scotty's turn to stare, an uncomprehending smile beginning to tug at his lips out of sheer reflex. "Oh boy," Kelly panted. "Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. Are you ever barking up the wrong tree, Stanley!" He put a hand to his forehead and fluttered his lashes. "Oh, I'm a maiden aunt! I can't work with a man who's defiled! Defiled!" He let his voice go up into a girlish squeak, and laughed harder. "Oh, I'm having a fit of the vapors!" He burst into another fit of guffawing, and then faced Scotty.

"Look here, my pea-brained pal. The only difference it would make to me is I'd prefer my friend to be hurt less rather than more--not because I want to serve with a man with an intact virtue! Man, oh man, oh man!" And he dissolved into another fit of the giggles.

"I hoped you'd come," Scotty blurted, his voice as raw as Kelly had ever heard it. "And then... I hoped you wouldn't."

Kel's laughter died away as he digested that. Whatever this strange statement meant to Scotty, it was the cause of the hidden shadows that lurked behind the more obvious pain. "Wanna run that by me in English, pal?"

But Scotty had obviously reached his quota of revelations for this evening, and Kelly had to fall back on the statement, rolling it round and round, making sense of it.

"So," he began, "when they had you tied down, you wanted me to come and get you out...?" A nod. "But when they started doing...those things to you, then it changed--you didn't want me to come? ...Huh?" For Scotty had whispered something inaudible.

"...I didn't want you to see me... like a slave."

The word--coming from Scotty--socked him in the gut. "...Helpless. Humiliated," Kel clarified, understanding dawning and bringing compassion.

"...Taken -by force." Scotty was forcing the words out. "Like..."

Like the slaves. That's why he thinks it's not the same, as if he'd somehow returned to his roots--as though if I found out, I'd despise him. Compassion blazed into incandescent outrage. With a superhuman effort, Kelly clamped down on his blinding rage. This was about Scotty now, what Scotty needed to banish this idiocy forever. How could his partner think that something like this could come between them?

His next words were gentle. "You didn't think I'd think less of you, surely?"

Silence.

"You did!"

"Didn't want you--to ever see me--like..." More silence. A slightly sheepish silence now, and the bitter shame slowly melting into cautious hope.

"Scotty, they wanted to make you feel...degraded. Doesn't mean their tactics worked on me. I wasn't even there."

A sigh, and Scotty shook his head helplessly.

Kel placed his hands on the towel covering his partner's legs, felt the warmth seep through the fabric. "Man oh man, and the guy has a university pedigree as long as your arm. What good was all that education, Holmes, if you keep making these dumb mistakes? Me think less of you because somebody tortured you? Me--"

he paused for emphasis "--think less of you--" he paused again, his face unguarded, showing Scotty all the affection that bound them together, letting it stretch between them for a long moment-- "because somebody tortured you?" He waited for the flicker of response in the dark eyes, and continued, light but emphatic. "I oughta smack you upside the head. Where do you get these stupid ideas anyway?"

Scotty's smile was sheepish and hesitant, but no hidden demons remained anywhere in his open gaze. "I know it sounds dumb when you put it like that..."

"You betcher life it does."

"But..."

Kelly gripped his partner's knees, looked into the vulnerable brown eyes and sighed inwardly; this was obviously on the list of Unpleasant Things to Say Out Loud today. "You thought I'd come in and see you being...taken against your will, and think, 'Oh, Scotty's less of a man, or a slave, or whatever the hell bright ideas were passing through your empty head on their way to the bocce ball tournament, and not want to be your friend anymore?" He was smiling as he finished his sentence, lightly rubbing the terry-clad limbs, and he could see Scotty's hopeful face mirroring a smile of his own. "Can we get one thing straight?" he swept on, only half-joking as he fixed Scotty with an earnest gaze. "I wouldn't care if you slept with every man and woman in the People's Republic of China."

"They have a population of 300 million, you know."

Kelly refused to match the bantering tone until he'd got this said. "And listen, the only reason I care if you've been violated or not is because I don't ever want to see my partner hurt!"

The warmth shining in the brown eyes lit up the room. After a moment, Scotty ducked his head. "Guess they just got to me."

"Yeah, they did. C'mon, look at me. This is important." As Scotty's bright eyes tracked up shyly, Kel's eyes locked on the brown ones with a blazing intensity. His hands searched for his partner's and gathered them into his, tight. But his next words were smooth, light, easy. "They used every trick in the book: of course they got to you. They had you restrained, they used psychological warfare to break you down, isolate you, cut you off from your world. But the next time someone tries to make you feel alone, do me and everybody else a favor and remember you're not?"

Scotty nodded, his face still alight. Kel wanted to preserve that look forever, sunbathe in it when he was feeling down. One more thing, though. "And you'll tell me if it hurts."

"I'm really feeling much better now." And that much was true; he could see it in his partner's face, the nebulous grief dissipated like mist in the sunrise.

"But if it comes back to you, even a little, you'll tell me." It was a demand.

"Cross my heart and hope to die." The dark eyes met his, and it was all he could do to keep his breathing even at the trust he saw in them.

"Not for a long time yet," he quipped when he could breathe again.

"Of course," the answer came easily, and the eyes were clear. Kel let his head drop onto their linked hands, closed his eyes, and let the relief wash through him. After a moment, Scotty spoke again. "Talking of hurt," he began,

"you know what would be great therapy?"

"I think," Kel said, seeing where this might be going, "you're gonna tell me."

"Well, I was thinking, all this talk about hurt, and we don't get to inflict any on those rednecks who did a number on us. That's not really fair, is it?"

"Most, most unfair," Kelly grinned. Savagely.

"Well then," Scotty was actually beginning to smile with real enthusiasm, "What do you say we go get even with 'em?"

Kelly was already casting about for his clothing. "Soon as I get our stuff from the car," he rose to his feet, rubbing his hands together in anticipation, "we go beat the crap out of the yahoos. 'Sides, I figure I've got more of a reason to be mad than you."

A pair of surprised--and unclouded--brown eyes met his. "How'd you figure that?"

Because it makes me madder when someone hurts you, the thought popped into Kelly's head, but that wasn't what he'd been going to say, and they were past that downer, anyway. "You see," he began lightly, "after all, they kicked you in the rear, but they punched me in the head. Now which is more important, your rear or my head?" He figured a straight line like that couldn't hurt.

"Well." Scotty adopted a professorial tone. "On analysis of the contents thereof, I'm forced to conclude that the matter is inconclusive and worthy of further study."

"You wound me, Stanley. You wound me deeply."

"Not as deeply as they're about to be wounded, hm, Duke?" The feral grin warmed Kelly's heart. Welcome back, partner, he said inwardly, but outside he just smiled. "Indeed, Scotty. Indeed."