Renegade Hearts

The silence which followed the Sacred Lance's lethal flight was almost eerie. No more gunfire, no more explosions, no more death screams sounded, nothing but the hungry crackle of flame through the surrounding pines.

Hank Storm slowly released the breath that should have been his last. Marino'd had him cold. If it hadn't been for Buster, his father and brother would have died unavenged, the most holy of the Lakota Indians' relics would have remained in Marino's hands indefinitely, and Hank himself would have died on his knees before his most hated enemy.

"Hank! You all right, man?" Buster's voice was hoarser than normal as he crawled to his side.

Neither of them had had an easy night of it, Hank recognized. There had been losses on both sides. Mike Finch had been McHenry's friend.

"Hank?" The rising panic in that newly-familiar voice started him out of his stasis.

"The Lance," Hank whispered.

The flame on the spear's wooden shaft had consumed most of the ancient horsehair hangings and was starting to lick its way towards the weapon's stone head.

Hank shrugged off his jacket, then quickly scrambled to the burning treasure whose theft had initiated this blood bath. Smoke stung his eyes as he smothered the fire in the soft suede of his coat. He gripped what remained of the shaft in his uninjured right hand and pulled.

There was no give at all; the lance was buried so deep in Marino's chest, far deeper than the utterly inexperienced Buster should have been able to hurl the weapon. Hank tried not to see any significance in that fact, but as with so much that had occurred since the Lance's theft, the deeper meanings were thrust upon him. It was almost as if the spirits of his ancestors had risen up to claim vengeance by directing McHenry's throw.

Hank's father had lived in a reality riddled with such juxtapositioning of the spirit world and the white man's. As it had been since his earliest days, Hank found himself torn between the two. All his life he'd wished that he could be like his older brother George – Lakota to the bone, but not...different.

But Hank could hear the voices on the wind, could almost understand the message in the coyotes lonesome howl if he let his controls slip far enough. His dad always said that made him special, gifted, but in Hank's experience the word 'special' equated to <i>freak</i>. All he'd ever wanted was acceptance, but the abilities which made him unique separated him from the rest of his people, as his inability to accept his own differences had distanced him from his father – the one person who could have understood what he was going through.

Now, when he had at last found peace with his father, done something which the old man would have felt pride for instead of disappointment, this crazed white man had stolen his father from him.

Hank gave the Lance another, much stronger tug. It came free with a sickening, wet, slurping sound. Carefully not thinking about what he was doing, he cleaned the spear head on the corpse's sweater.

"Christ, we've gotta get you to a doctor." Buster again. The other man was cautiously investigating the wound on Hank's left shoulder where a bullet had grazed him in his kamikaze horseback charge for the Lance.

"lt's just a flesh wound," Hank dismissed. As when he'd punched his left hand through that glass display case in the department store, he couldn't feel the pain yet. He clutched the Lance close to his chest, trying to take comfort from this success. There was no joy to be had in its safe return, no solace in the knowledge that they hadn't failed. The losses were too dear for even this blood bath of a revenge to recoup.

"Can you stand?" Buster asked, drawing Hank's attention outwards again.

A mute nod and McHenry helped him to his feet. For all the other man's solicitude, Buster didn't look to be in much better shape than Hank himself.

"We've got to get to a phone. Call this in before the locals show up." Smoke-reddened blue eyes moved from his face to the Lance cradled in his arms. "They're gonna want this for evidence."

"No. The Lance has been defiled enough. I promised my father I'd take the Sacred Lance back to my people. That's what I intend to do." Hank spoke in his usual soft tone, none of the grief he felt seeping through. Would Buster and he fight for the Sacred Lance as they had for the gun this morning?

<i>This morning?</i> That rooftop battle felt centuries away, the bond between Buster and him more like one forged by years of interdependence rather than the few short days they'd spent together.

"How did I know you'd say something like that? Come on. We'll figure something out." Buster's supporting arm didn't leave him, nor did Hank shrug free of the unnecessary assistance as he normally would.

There still seemed to be corpses everywhere, their gory presence and that of the flickering flames still burning in the outer buildings of Marino's complex turned the suburban ranch into a hellish specter. Fortunately, the main house hadn't been touched by the explosion. A single spark and the entire log building probably would ye gone up in flames.

Buster quickly reloaded his gun, approaching the front steps in a battle ready stance. It was a testament to how far they'd come, that the cynical cop trusted him enough to cover his back.

Shifting his precious burden to his uninjured hand, Hank knelt beside the body blocking the entrance to relieve the large man of his weapon. He checked the cylinder to see that the gun was loaded, then followed his friend inside.

Buster was a born hunter, moving soundless as a passing shadow from one shielded position to the next. Even a Native American trained in forest hunting could admire his stealth.

They cased the entire ranch house, roomful upon roomful of furnishings luxurious enough to buy his entire county back home. All were empty of life.

"The phone's in the den," Hank reminded as Buster retraced their path into the back rooms.

"Yeah, I know."

The smoke-stained cop emerged from a bathroom moments later with a first aid kit in hand.

"Sit down," Buster ordered, pushing him towards an easy chair.

"I don't need...." Hank protested.

"Sit down," Buster cut him off.

Too tired to argue the point, Hank acquiesced. He sat still as stone while McHenry eased the blood-sodden work shirt off his shoulders. The medical treatment he received at his friend's hands was a far cry from the impersonal attention Hank had given the gun-shot man five days ago. Buster hissed and flinched as he worked on bullet graze as if those hurts were upon his own flesh.

"This needs stitches," Buster said.

"Just bandage it."

"Chief..."

"Just bandage it."

The wound cleaned, Buster reluctantly followed his instructions. If Hank had learned one thing about his companion over the past five days, it was that Buster was a nervous talker. The chatter came almost nonstop as McHenry worked on him. To his complete astonishment, Hank found the verbal outpouring curiously comforting. What was even more surprising was the fact that Buster didn't seem put off by his own lack of input, the other man seeming to instinctively sense the silences that were so much a part of his nature.

"I'd better make that call," Buster said as he finished up.

Hank donned his cold, wet shirt. Half listening, he followed the one-sided conversation with Buster's captain.

The yelling on the end of the line died out after a few succinct, explanatory sentences, Buster speaking very calmly thereafter.

There was something about this man that made you want to believe in him, Hank recognized. He had felt it himself that first day when he'd dragged the wounded cop to that flea bag motel. There had been no reason to trust him, no reason at all – aside from Buster's attempt to draw his weapon when Marino had gunned down George at the exhibit. Hank had badly misjudged the other man, but Buster had yet to say, 'I told you so.'

"I've been ordered to hold off the locals until Capt. Blalock can get out here. Seems J.J. Williams – Marino's right hand hard case - was kind enough to leave his prints all over the gun we found at your sister's."

The gun that had sent his father to the Sky People. Hank looked away from those sympathetic eyes, perilously close to the breaking point.

All too soon the local fire department arrived, followed by the county sheriff. McHenry handled them all with a charm which would take him far in the white man's world of deceit and back-stabbing. That that charm was totally unfeigned made it all the more lethal.

The small town sheriff regarded them with the suspicion one would expect him to accord the only two men breathing in over an acre of corpses and burning buildings. Still, Marino's reputation must have been known to his neighbors. Or so Hank assumed from the fact they didn't end up in handcuffs.

Blalock, McHenry's superior, was far less easily appeased. While Forensics examined the waterlogged barn and environs, the captain grilled them both, separating them and going over their stories with a relentlessness which made the Hank suspect that the captain wouldn't mind putting Buster away for this mess.

In the end they were to be released on their own recognizance.

"Just be sure you get your ass into the station first thing tomorrow, McHenry," the tall black man barked. "Oh, and give that arrow to Pearson before you leave. The lab boys will need it to tie things up."

"No," Hank refused, clutching the Sacred Lance tighter to his chest.

"What?" Blalock demanded, visibly taken aback by this show of resistance from a hitherto cooperative witness.

"I must return the Lance to my people."

Buster stepped forward before the anger brewing in his superior's eyes could erupt. "Captain, the Lance is a sacred relic. Sort of like a holy chalice or Grail. Marino killed Hank's brother when he tried to protect the Lance at the museum. Hank lost both his father and brother getting it back – it's that important to his people."

The anger seeped from Blalock's face. "You know Forensics has to examine it, McHenry.'

"Yeah, but...they don't have to keep it long, do they?" Buster asked.

The pleading note in McHenry's tone was genuine. Hank had been around the other man long enough not to be startled by the depth of his perception. Buster made the request sound as if it were of personal significance rather than a favor for a friend.

"Give it to Pearson. Tell him I said to have it ready for your friend here in the morning."

"Thanks, Captain. I owe you," Buster said.

"Just get outta here, will you?" Blalock ordered.

The matter dealt with to his satisfaction, the captain turned his attention to one of his field men's questions.

"Come on, Hank. That's Pearson over there." Buster indicated a bespectacled individual sipping from a Styrofoam cup. "Hey, Johnnie. We've got a special package for you. The captain wants it ready to travel at 9 a.m."

"Get real, McHenry. This party isn't going to break up until noon," Pearson answered.

"Sorry, John. 9 am. And handle it with kid gloves. It's what started all this," Buster said.

"I thought the haul was six million in diamonds," Pearson said, demonstrating how quickly misinformation traveled.

"Just have it ready, John. Okay?" Buster asked.

Pearson deliberated a moment before grudgingly conceding. "Sure, Mac. 9 a.m."

"Give him the Lance, Chief, and let's get out of here."

"Buster..." Exhausted past the point of clear thinking, his bloodstained fist closed instinctively around what was left of the weapon's shaft. To just hand the Lance over to a stranger, a white man who could never properly appreciate its worth...

Buster stepped in close to him, covering his clenched fist with an undemanding hand. "Hank, they won't hurt it. If the Lance isn't ready by 9 a.m. tomorrow morning, I'll get it back for you myself."

Buster didn't say 'trust me,' but that was precisely what his gaze and manner asked of Hank. It was equally apparent Buster didn't expect him to agree.

Hank's mind flashed back to that same face telling him to get out of the burning barn while McHenry remained behind to give him cover. There could be no question of trust this late in the game.

Hank released his death hold, allowing the Lance to slip smoothly into the other man's waiting palm.

His concession was not lightly overlooked. The shock in Buster's tired eyes told Hank his companion fully understood how much it had taken for him to surrender the Lance. Buster's free hand rose to give his uninjured shoulder a reassuring squeeze.

Hank was very aware of Pearson's curious gaze following the strangely intimate exchange.

"Thanks, Hank." Then Buster broke the moment by turning to the forensics man. "Here, Johnnie. Guard ft with your life or you'll answer to me."

"Ah, sure, Buster. Good night."

Thankfully, there were no more questions as they made their way back to the car at the far end of the ranch. Hank sank almost gratefully into the passenger seat.

'What a night," Buster sighed, rubbing both palms over his face.

"I can drive."

"Nah, it's been even worse on you. I didn't expect it to go down like this, Hank." Buster's gravelly voice sounded oddly apologetic, as if he were somehow responsible for everything that had happened.

"Marino chose the path. We had no choice but to follow."

"I should never have involved you...or your family." There was no mistaking the guilt now.

"'You didn't involve me. Marino did, when he stole the Lance and shot George." He purposefully did not mention his father. That wound was still too raw for close examination.

"Yeah, well, anyway, I just wanted you to know that...I appreciate the backup. No one could have come through the way you did, Chief."

His whole life, Hank had struggled to ignore the opinions of others. Different, special, however they wanted to politely phrase it, the euphemisms had always boiled down to his being an outsider. Even among his family. A disappointment to his father, a mystery to his mom, an active threat to George, there had never been any true feeling of belonging, for all the pride he took in his heritage. Over the years, he'd inured himself to both praise and criticism alike, regardless of the source. Buster's words should have flicked by him like water off a mallard's feathers. Instead, they pierced him to the core of his lonely heart, penetrating like the beloved warmth of a campfire on the coldest and darkest of nights.

Swallowing past the painful tightness in his throat, he attempted to look away. But there was no breaking that steady gaze. After a moment's intense uneasiness, there was no reason to.

In the five days they'd spent in each other's company, Buster had seen more evidence of his unnerving abilities than most people experienced in years of contact. Yet there was no hint of the alienation or fear that usually accompanied such enlightenment in Buster's crystal clear gaze.

That same tenuous expression which had followed the revelation of McHenry's father's past flickered through Buster's eyes.

Realizing how difficult it must be for his companion to make such a disclosure to a man often accused of having all the responsiveness of an ice cliff, Hank attempted to reach back. "I could not have retrieved the Lance without you." The words lay there awkward in the open. It was only after he'd spoken that Hank realized that they didn't truly convey what he was attempting to say. "That is, what I meant was..."

"I know what you meant," Buster dismissed, turning the ignition on.

"You do?" Hank tested, having learned enough of the other man to know Buster's thick skinned cynicism hid almost as much as his own stone walling.

"Yeah. We make one damn good team, Chief. So where to? Your sister's?"

"Not without the Lance. I can't return to my people without it"'

Buster absorbed this in silence. Although Hank could tell that it disturbed his friend on some level, there were no intrusive questions.

"How 'bout I show you my guns, then?" McHenry asked with weary cheer. "It's kind of late to go looking for a hotel."

"Yeah, fine," Hank agreed, aware he was being less than graceful, but unable to rise to the occasion.

An hour later they were back in Philadelphia.

His spirit heavy with the night's irreparable loss, Hank followed his companion up the stairs to Buster's small apartment. The place was very much a reflection of its owner – comfortable, mismatched furniture, clothes strewn about with enthusiastic abandon, piles of records and books crowding all available level space, erratically cleaned kitchen area, on the whole very lived in and extremely cozy. Like Buster himself, there was something about the flat that made Hank feel very much at ease, despite his troubles.

"Sorry about the mess. Make yourself comfortable. Are you hungry?" McHenry asked while taking their jackets. He surprised Hank by actually hanging them up on a peg on the back of the door. Hank had half expected them to end up dumped over the back of chair.

"No." The very idea of food made him nauseous, even though it had been almost a full 24 hours since they'd last eaten. Breakfast with Nema, her husband, their two boys...and father.

"Yeah, I'm beat myself. Look, the bathroom's through there. Why don't you grab a shower and sack out?"

"Okay." Numb to the soul, Hank did as bidden, moving like an automaton into the bathroom.

Hot water revived him some, easing a little of the physical ache, if not the emotional bludgeoning.

"Be out in a sec." Buster gave a tired grin as Hank stepped naked from the bathroom, his soiled clothing a forgotten ball on the white tile floor. "Help yourself to some clean underwear if you want. Dresser, top drawer."

A pair of neatly folded briefs in hand, Hank eased the bureau drawer closed, stopping suddenly as he became conscious of almost familiar eyes staring out at him from an aged black and white photograph. Curious, Hank lifted the gilt frame. A middle-aged man in police blues, fleshier than his friend, similar of feature, but lacking that vital spark he'd come to associate with Buster, stood cuddling an attractive blonde woman whose affectionate smile was also familiar to Hank. Buster's parents, no doubt.

"Those were my folks."

The soft voice spoke from directly in back of him, Buster having gotten further behind his guards than even Hank had suspected if he could get that close without detection. Normally he would have sensed another person long before he saw or heard them. But he was tired, with other things on his mind.

He carefully replaced the photo in its place.

"That was taken before he got busted," Buster continued, speaking despite Hank's lack of prompting, almost as if Buster felt a need to explain himself to him. "They're both gone now. She died while he was inside – the shock of it killed her; the official report was cancer. He drank himself to death when he got out."

The shower-damp McHenry waited, fidgeting with the belt of his blue terrycloth robe, his gaze intent upon Hank, for all the distracting hand motions. Almost as if he were awaiting judgment.

The agony belied by Buster's matter-of-fact tone reverberated between them, his friend's hurt accentuating his own. So much pain. Not knowing what to say, Hank remained silent, hoping that Buster would read what words couldn't express.

"Most of the guys I work with think that bein' a bad cop runs in the family. You never asked me if I was dirty, Hank." The last was a question.

<i>And you never asked me if I were a witch,</I> Hank thought. What he said was, "I didn't have to."

"Why not? You didn't know me from Adam. Hell, after the way we met..."

He supposed believing Buster's claim of being a cop, the natural assumption most people would have made given the circumstances of their meeting would have been that Buster was dirty. Still, once Hank had accepted that the other man was, in fact, a police officer, there had been no doubt as to his integrity. Even when he'd considered Buster a fast-talking hustler, instinct had told him there were things McHenry simply wouldn't do. Like murder. But how to explain the source of his confidence without sounding a complete flake left Hank bewildered.

"Hank, why? I've gotta know, it's been so long since anyone's...."

<i>Trusted him.</i> Hank heard it as clearly as if Buster had spoken the words aloud.

Even if it were his habit, there could be no dissembling under that vulnerable gaze. So Hank gave Buster the truth, fully aware of the consequences of speaking openly of a thing even his own people had difficulty accepting.

"We walked the spirit path together. Yours is a warrior spirit. There was no evil or weakness in your soul." Just a crippling pain, carried so close to the heart its burden left Buster's spirit longing for release.

Hank waited for the withdrawal that automatically followed such plain speaking on spiritual matters, his bruised body unaccountably tense.

Remarkably, the curiosity only deepened in those pale blue eyes. "<i>We</i> walked the spirit path?"

"In the hotel room after I removed the bullet. Your guardian spirit had been much weakened even before the shooting. It fled when you were hurt. It was necessary to retrieve it, but..." <i>Deny anything long enough and even the most instinctive of drives becomes stunted.</i> "...I wasn't strong enough. Dad brought your guardian back to you."

"I don't remember any of that night. Just your father chanting over me in the early dawn," Buster said, his tone wistful.

"He was strengthening the bond between the guardian spirit and your own," Hank further explained, unable to believe that Buster was still listening to him, let alone believing what he was telling him.

"No shit." Though not exactly profound, the exclamation conveyed the other man's sense of wonder.

"You believe me?" Hank's voice didn't betray his incredulity, but Buster, who had a knack for picking up on his most deeply hidden emotions, seemed aware of it.

"After that Obi Wan Kenobi number you pulled on that rookie on the rooftop this morning I'd believe almost anything you told me, Chief."

"His will was weak." Storm shrugged off the significance of the event.

"Could you do that to me?" Buster didn't sound anything but curious.

"No," Hank's denial was instantaneous.

Buster's brow furrowed. "Just no?"

"Just no." Wanting nothing more than to erase the event as if it had never happened, Hank found that he could not leave it alone.

Bitter experience had told him that most men would balk at half of what Buster had witnessed today. Either they'd run or accord him such a respectful loathing that it would have made Hank physically ill. But Buster remained unchanged. If anything, the distance between them had lessened, McHenry treating him with the same irreverent affection Hank had come to consider the bedrock of Buster's character.

"Why doesn't what you saw frighten you? Even my own people fear the wielder of such powers." Especially those rogues who refused proper Wicasa Wakan training.

Smile lines crinkled the corners of Buster's eyes as the other man threw his own words back at him. "We walked the spirit path together, Chief."

"That isn't funny."

Buster sobered immediately. "It's not meant to be. It's just...I know you, Hank. You wouldn't – <i>couldn't</i> – hurt anybody that way. If that were your nature, we never would have had to take Marino down the way we did. All I've ever seen you do is track someone...and defuse potentially explosive situations without violence. Maybe I don't understand how you do it, but I think it's kinda cool. We still friends?"

Hank nodded mutely, too close to breaking down to trust his voice. No one had ever judged him like this before – empirically, by what he'd done rather than by what they feared he could do. He swallowed around the lump blocking his throat, and forced the word around it. "Friends." Spoken as though it were a lifelong pact.

The word seemed to linger in the air between them long after the actual sound faded.

"Good. You gonna wear those, or stand there holding them all night?" Buster smiled, a jerk of his chin indicating the borrowed briefs in Hank's hand.

Hank belatedly donned the underwear. Normally, he would have felt very self-conscious doing so under another's gaze, but after having his soul so closely examined, the exposure of his physical body seemed meaningless.

"If you have a spare pillow..."

"Sure, but I don't think you wanna take it anywhere. The couch is about six inches too short. You're welcome to try it, of course, but the bed's more than big enough."

Not understanding the source of the sudden tension crackling in the room, Hank nodded his acceptance, numbly moving towards the double bed. Behind him he sensed Buster removing his robe.

"How's that shoulder doing?" Buster asked as he climbed in beside him.

The bed wasn't nearly as large as it looked.

"Fine." He actually welcomed the constant ache, for it gave him something to concentrate on besides the sharper emotional hurt.

"Good. Sleep well, Hank." With that, Buster turned out the light, sinking back onto the bed with a weary r sigh.

Almost shoulder to shoulder, they lay in the darkness. Silver street light seeped through the slits in the blinds. Buster seemed almost as accustomed to its presence as he was to the constant, subdued street noise. But the country-reared Hank was very conscious of its presence, and highly aware of the body heat pouring off the man dozing at his side. He was not accustomed to this closeness, on any level.

After the trauma of the last 24 hours, sleep should have come easily. It certainly claimed the tired cop soon enough. Although Hank's entire body throbbed with exhaustion, he could not find the release of sleep. Once the lights were out and Buster's body and mind were quiet beside him, the memory of how he'd last seen his father came back to haunt him: the mighty Holy Man dying in a puddle of his own blood on Nema's living room floor, his father's half of the broken medicine stone slipping from his lax grip....

Had breaking the stone broken the old man's luck? And, if it had, had his father known what he was doing when he'd split the powerful river stone in half?

Hank shivered as he remembered the traditional buckskin burial suit his father had packed along for this trip. Hank hadn't known of its presence until he'd stumbled upon it while searching through his dead brother's clothes to replace Buster's bloody, ruined shirt. The presence of the ceremonial outfit had disturbed him greatly three nights ago. Now he couldn't get it off his mind. The burial suit had been laying not ten feet away from his father's body.

The old Wicasa Wakan had known. Before they'd even left home, his father knew he wouldn't be coming back. And so knowing, he'd still chosen to come.

Why? What could be so important that it would be worth the old man's life? And George's? The exhibit had brought some much needed money and attention to the tribe, but not enough to justify that kind of a sacrifice.

<i>You came back because you belong there.</i> His father's words, spoken in the seedy motel room as the old man replaced his herbs and feathers in his medicine pouch after healing the dying Buster, echoed eerily through Hank's mind, a conversation that should have taken place last year when the road had finally brought Hank back full circle to his starting point, with no more answers than when he'd left four years before. Was all this has father's way of showing him where he belonged? What he was?

Hank recalled his fierce <i>I am that shit</i> when Buster had dared scorn the ancient beliefs, the very beliefs Hank had spent the last ten years of his life running from. Had he ever so openly laid claim to the old ways? Or dared such profligate exercise of his unusual talents?

And they hadn't failed him. Those long accursed abilities, and the man at his side, had won through the quest, seen the Lance safely returned.

But at what a terrible cost – his father and George, both gone forever.

No. Even if the old man had considered it worth his own life to supply his prodigal son with the answers for which he'd searched so desperately, his father would never have sacrificed George. Whatever had prompted his father to bring his burial suit along, it could not have been anything definite. It just couldn't, for Hank could never live with the guilt if this were all for his sake.

He tried to banish the troubling thoughts from his mind, longed to rid himself of the image of the death scene that seemed pasted on the back of his eyelids.

<i>Father....</i>

Shaking with emotion, he slipped from the suffocating heat of the bed, unable to lie so close to another human being with this agonizing loss torturing him.

His flesh prickled up in goose pimples as the chill of the autumn night soaked the warmth from his overheated skin. Shivering, he crossed to the window.

The empty city street, gray and depressing, was no dirtier than the hundreds of others he'd looked down upon throughout the years. How many times had he gazed out some unremembered window in the past and longed for home?

The road, his futile search hadn't been easy. No matter where he went, he was always alone. An Indian in the white man's world. He'd adjusted to that world, far better than some of his people, learned how to protect himself, learned to avoid the treacherous grip of the chemical joys that led ultimately to despair, learned so very much...except where it was that he belonged.

Always, the link to his home had tugged him back.

Home meant father. So many things he remembered about the man – his gentleness, the balancing strengths, wisdom, his inner peace, the air of mystery that seemed to whisper about the man like the rustle of autumn leaves, the countless small kindnesses that had helped buffer Hank's difficult childhood, the guidance which had saved his sanity when his powers had awakened, how much he'd hurt that gentle man by trying so very hard to deny what he was, and, perhaps the most treasured memory of all, his father's graceful acceptance of his return. His mother, George, his sister, they had all looked upon that return as a failure. Hank himself had thought it was, dreaded what his father would have to say on the subject. There had been no 'I told you so,' no resentment. His father had displayed nothing but joy at his homecoming, a happiness which had run so deep that it shamed Hank to think of how badly he must have been missed.

Since infancy his father had been a larger than life figure. Invincible. A man who talked to gods. To see that great man shattered, lying in a pool of blood with a worthless punk's bullets in his chest....

A sob caught in his raw throat. He trembled with the effort it took to contain it.

"Holding it in never made anyone feel better." The quiet voice was accompanied by a tentative touch to his elbow, as if his companion were loathe to interrupt this private moment of suffering. The warmth of Buster's hand stole through his frozen flesh.

The unexpected interruption, coming as it did from directly behind him, froze Hank on the spot. His defenses shot to hell, he struggled to subdue the emotional storm raging within.

"It's – not – my way," Hank grated out from between clenched teeth, not turning around. Not daring to. The tremor coursing through him was already threatening to destroy him. He had the feeling that once he let this grief have its way with him, it would hold him forever.

"I know." The soft agreement was entirely devoid of condescension. "Christ, you're like ice."

It wasn't the first time that statement had been used as a character evaluation. Buster's hand flinched away as if from the burn of dry ice.

The air stirred from behind him. Buster leaving, no doubt. If asked a moment ago, Hank would have sworn that nothing else could further wound him, he'd been hurt so much this night. But, as usual, he was mistaken.

Hank clenched his eyes shut. <i>Like ice.</i> If only it were true. He wouldn't hurt so much then.

Hank actually jumped as something soft and warm settled over his shoulders. Not understanding, he stared at the quilt ends draped over his sides. Buster's arm settled cautiously across his blanketed shoulders, being absurdly careful of the bullet graze.

The shaking claimed him then, with a vengeance. At last, Hank turned to acknowledge the gesture, the words stopping in his throat at the worry in Buster's troubled eyes. Hell, it was more than worry; it was open fear. Fear for his sake.

"There's nothing weak about admitting that you care, Chief. Your father was a great man. He deserves to be mourned."

The grief avalanched over him, hot tears exploding from their dams to pour like flash floods down a dry mountain side.

Buster caught him, drew him in close. With a truly shameful lack of control, Hank clung to the shorter man, his face pressed deep into a terrycloth-covered shoulder.

"That's it, Chief. Let it all out," Buster urged, a firm hand rubbing his back, stroking his long hair. Buster's use of the hitherto annoying nickname was oddly comforting. Almost as comforting as the supportive embrace.

Vaguely, Hank was aware of Buster maneuvering them back to the bed. But as those sheltering arms gave no indication of abandoning him, he allowed himself to be led, accepting from this man what he could from no other. Even when Buster began to rock him as one would a frightened child, he made no protest, a part of him that had hungered for some human contact drowning in the unselfconscious embrace.

An eternity later, the tears trickled to a stop, the outburst calming to an occasional convulsive sob. Hank remained still a long time, listening to the beat of Buster's heart beneath his ear and the rhythm of the other man's breath. He felt no compulsive drive to pull back, none of the embarrassment which normally followed such a breakdown. For the moment he was content to stay where he was, soaking up Buster's warmth.

Nor was his friend displaying any signs of discomfort. Buster was giving every indication he'd be willing to hold him like this all night.

Hours seemed to pass before Hank reluctantly straightened from his hunched position, sitting very close to Buster on the bedside. That sense of closeness was more than purely physical. It might have been merely the aftermath of a cathartic cry, but Hank had never felt so at peace with another in his life.

"You think you can sleep now?" Buster asked after an extended period of comfortable silence, stifling a yawn.

Hank nodded, unprepared for the hands which guided him down onto the pillow. The diffused streetlight caught in Buster's hair, turning the honey blond to eldritch silver as the other man rose, pulling the covers up to Hank's shoulders.

Touched by the gesture, Hank caught hold of a terrycloth-covered arm as his companion turned to take his own side of the bed. He'd intended to express his thanks for the solace, but the words caught in his throat as Buster paused over him.

Opposite poles of the spectrum, blue eyes met black. Something unexpected sparked between the two.

Buster gasped, his shock as palpable a presence as the electric current operating between them. "Hank?"

The quaver in that gravelly voice shivered through him, setting his mind awhirl with the possibilities ignited by that one look. Hank's heart pounded with the wild, uninhibited beat of ceremonial drums, its thunderous roar drowning out all thought. The oxygen seemed to have escaped the no-longer chilly bedroom, or perhaps he'd just forgotten how to breathe.

The only thing that existed in this moment in time for Hank was the sight of Buster's eyes. They were wide, all pale blue iris and night-dilated pupils. Hank felt as though he were tumbling into them, spiraling down in a helpless fall that knew no end. The sensation was very much like spirit-walking, only far more disorienting, for Hank knew that he was still firmly rooted in his physical body. Was, in fact, more aware of his body than he'd ever been in his life.

Disjointedly, he wondered if this weren't some kind of delayed reaction to the actual journey they'd taken five nights ago when he'd tried to reclaim Buster's guardian. His father had always warned him of the hidden dangers of the spirit world. Was it possible that through his own inexperience he'd allowed them to get too close, that somehow he'd entangled their souls?

Hank wasn't even certain if such a thing were possible, but if it were, then it was his responsibility to guide them through this.

But how? He couldn't even hold a coherent thought with the way he felt right now, let alone act upon it.

While Hank struggled for control, the decision was taken out of his hands.

He watched the shock fade from the gaze holding him transfixed. Hank waited for the anger and revulsion which were bound to accompany the return to sanity, but those eyes did not close him out. Rather, they seemed to soften and embrace him. Cautiously, almost reverently, Buster lowered his head.

The warm, full lips lightly covered Hank's mouth, exerting no pressure, forcing no response, barely even asking for one, just waiting.

Hank felt his last desperate finger hold on sanity give way. He knew this was something he should not be doing, knew it was forbidden, wrong, perhaps even unnatural, knew this all on a vague, disjointed mental level.

But instinct told him something totally different. His body came alive under the undemanding touch of Buster McHenry's lips. Without conscious instruction, his hands rose to frame his friend's head. Fingers, both injured and uninjured, buried themselves deep in that short, unruly hair, pulling Buster down.

He tightened his hold as Buster seemingly made a try at a parting move, relaxing only when he realized Buster had merely shifted to lie down beside him.

His response ignited Buster. The mouth covering his own returned the pressure, arms equally as strong as his own banding his back, as if to hold him where he was forever.

Stunned by his own body's acceptance, Hank marveled at the unique feel of Buster's moustache against his mouth. The facial hair in question was barely a sprinkling of color above Buster's upper lip. Well-groomed, it didn't quite match Buster's short, wavy blond hair, tending more towards a ginger red than a honey gold. It wasn't nearly as bristly as it looked, being more a startlingly soft caress which brushed Hank's lips every time Buster moved his mouth. Though enjoyable, the moustache's very presence brought home the alienness of what they were doing. Hank, like many of his people, had never even had to shave.

Despite the strange awareness, the kiss deepened, their mouths kneading together.

Buster captured Hank's lower lip between his own, feeding hungrily on it before shifting his concentration to Hank 's thinner upper lip. Buster's attention to detail, his sheer sensuality was doing nothing short of overwhelming.

Buster's tongue tickled between his lips, beseeching entry. Hank opened his mouth immediately, welcoming the wet visitor with a playful stroke of his own tongue. Hardly believing what he was doing, Hank deepened the kiss, reaching back to explore the furthest curves of his companion's sweet mouth.

The taste of Buster, when added to the present stimuli of touch and smell, was all-consuming. The normally reserved Hank was somewhat shocked by the thoroughness of this intimacy, but distantly so. His nerves were thrumming with the thrill of Buster's exotic taste, like the residual reverberations through the strings of a guitar after the last note of a show-stopping solo died away in the air.

When they reluctantly broke for breath, Hank was left with the disorienting sensation that he'd never been kissed properly before tonight. Almost frightened by the degree of passion Buster aroused in him, he hesitantly sought his companion's gaze, not at all certain of what he'd find waiting for him there.

The similar, stunned quality to Buster's expression was immensely reassuring. Buster was regarding him with something very near awe.

"You okay on this, Hank?" T here was genuine concern in the hoarse question, Buster looking worried despite his desire.

And the desire was there in the sweat-sheened flesh, panting breaths, and burning eyes. It should have frightened him, did on some barely-acknowledged level. Uncertain of what would be unleashed should they go any further, Hank nonetheless found himself giving an assenting nod.

His loose hair fell forward at the gesture.

Buster's hand rose to tentatively comb it back, lingering to finger the baby-fine length.

Watching the absorbed concentration with which Buster accomplished even that small, asexual touch, Hank found the last of his restraints slipping.

His rational mind made one final protest, a frantic plea to remember that this was not his way.

True enough, Hank's heart cynically confirmed. His way was one of utter solitude. Empty days that had led to an even emptier bed. Never touching, never acknowledging even to himself the need to touch.

There had been girls, of course. On the road, his loneliness had seemed to attract attention. They'd been mostly drifters like himself; not a one of them had known what he really was. Whereas Buster knew, and it still made no difference.

And that was the most unique aspect of this situation, stranger even than the fact that his partner was of the same sex as himself. For the first time in his life Hank didn't feel as it he were hiding something. Buster accepted him for what he was, accepted and actively wanted him.

Stirred by that knowledge, Hank leaned forward. Their eyes still locked, he initiated another kiss, letting his hands drop lower to explore Buster's chest and sides.

Eider soft, the man was well downed. His own chest virtually hairless, Hank found himself intrigued by the difference. His uninjured fingers followed the line of golden red hair along Buster's sternum to his right breast. Not entirely confident in this yet, he experimentally ran his fingers around the flat nub of nipple.

Buster broke off the kiss with a hissing gasp, his eyes sinking shut, his head arching back as his nipple hardened and peaked beneath Hank's fingers.

Emboldened by the ready response, Hank 's mouth swooped to the exposed throat. No longer uncertain, he kissed his way down its length, his tongue soon replacing the effective finger.

Buster went wild beneath him. Head thrashing from side to side, Buster gave himself up totally to the pleasure, moaning and making hoarse vocalizations as Hank's flat palms skimmed his sides and flanks.

"Hank, please...."

Strong hands gripped his shoulders, firmly pushing him up and away. Wincing at the sudden pain, Hank., allowed himself to be forced back, bewildered as to what he'd done to cause offense. Tense now, he warily watched the opening eyes come to focus on him.

There was no repudiation in the pleasure-dazed blues. Looking at him, Buster seemed to read his very soul.

"Too fast, Hank. I don't wanna leave you behind," Buster explained. As if sensing something amiss, Buster's gaze dropped to his gripping hands. "Christ, Hank. I'm sorry."

The pressure on his wound instantly ceased, Buster carefully guiding him back onto the pillows. For an eternity, Buster just stared down at him, and not just at his face. Hank felt his cheeks warm at the area Buster focused on. Still, the attention wasn't entirely unpleasant. He hardened under that intense examination as he might under another's touch.

"Can we get rid of these, Chief?" Buster asked, giving the waistband of Hank 's borrowed briefs a questioning tug.

Not quite trusting his voice, Hank gave another tight nod.

Buster peeled the pants off with a single pull. Hank's hips lifting automatically to aid in the effort. Buster tossed the briefs aside, his hands returning to rest on Hank 's narrow hips.

Hank searched the familiar features for some echo of the trepidation he himself was experiencing, but could find no hint of uncertainty in the frank appraisal he was currently undergoing. Buster didn't seem at all phased by his erection. To the contrary, the other man appeared oddly relieved.

"You're beautiful, Chief," Buster whispered, his voice ragged not with nervousness or fear, but with appreciation.

Their gazes met again, Buster's shattering one of the basic assumptions Hank had made about this night.

"This isn't..." Hank began and faltered, knowing that it wasn't really his business.

Once again Buster appeared to read his thoughts.

"No, it isn't, but I wish it were," Buster confirmed, sounding regretful. "Do you wanna stop?"

There was an irrational part of him which resented the fact that this was not the first such encounter for them both. That unreasonable side felt horribly betrayed.

But Buster had not seduced him.

The spark which had initiated this had risen spontaneously between them both, the idea as much of a shock to Buster as it had been to Hank himself. Hank knew that to be the truth. Just as he knew how uncertain Buster was, looking at him as if he expected Hank to call a stop to this because of his honesty. Hank sensed how Buster believed him to be within his rights to do just that.

Another piece in the puzzle of this complex character fell into place as Hank realized how difficult life must be for a gay cop – a gay cop living in the shadow of his father's mistake. Little wonder this warrior's spirit was so riddled with pain.

Buster's gaze followed Hank's hand as it rose. His guarded expression told Hank his companion was braced more for a blow than a caress, and willing to accept such a rejection from him if it came to that.

Hank gulped past the lump choking his throat, forced the words out and made them true. "It doesn't change anything." Moving as if to stroke a wounded forest creature, he gently brushed the hair off Buster's brow.

Buster turned his face into the caress, capturing Hank's injured hand to place the most tender of kisses in the palm, his gift chaste and pure as the spirit which guided those lips.

Whatever might have remained of the man of ice melted under that gentle nuzzling. Hank's fingertips soothed Buster's cheekbone and temple as the other man kissed his palm. The slightest bit of pressure turned his friend's face back up to him.

Hank's breath caught in his chest at the expression in those open blue eyes. "Buster, don't...."

"Don't what?" Velvet soft, the question was a caress in itself.

"Don't look at me like that. I'm not...worthy of it."

Buster turned Hank's captured hand over, his gaze fixed on the ugly rips the glass in the display case had left in the skin of Hank's knuckles this evening. "You don't know yourself at all if you believe that, Chief." A kiss that barely touched the torn flesh, then Buster's gaze seared his soul again.

The kiss that followed rent his heart open. Hank felt himself drowning in the sweet depths of Buster's mouth, burning in liquid flame as the incandescent body covered his own.

Hank an his hands down the sweat slick back until stopped by soft cotton. With one fingertip he lightly traced the outline of the generous butt beneath the white material.

Buster growled deep in his throat, instinctively thrusting against Hank's genitals.

The feel of that hard organ pressing at his own through the scant cotton barrier was a whole new experience, unnerving yet exhilarating. Deciding he wanted to feel more, Hank slipped his uninjured hand down the back of Buster's briefs, not at all sure how the other man would respond to such a move. When there was no immediate protest and the kiss remained unbroken, he insinuated two fingers between the hot cheeks.

That received a definite response. Buster moaned against Hank 's mouth, thrust his hips against his once more, and spread his legs wider for easier access.

Hank's hand curled a little further around the well-formed rump. His middle finger dipped blindly into the cleft, zeroing in on the close-guarded entrance. Lightly he tapped the tight-clenched bud of muscle with the ball of his finger, felt the sphincter's convulsive spasm and the resulting tremor which ran the length of Buster's body.

Buster broke the kiss with a gasp of shock.

"Feels good, Hank," Buster approved, then pulled far enough away to squirm free of his briefs. He turned for a moment to rummage through the night table drawer, turning back with a small jar of Vaseline that looked as if it hadn't been opened in a long, long time. "It'll feel even better with this," Buster offered. "That is, if you want to."

The slight blush told him Buster wanted it, but Hank wasn't precisely sure what it was the other man was offering him. Feeling an utter idiot, Hank tried to phrase a question that wouldn't leave him sounding like the complete novice he felt. "Yes, but...."

"But" Buster patiently prompted.

"What do you – how far...."

Buster placed the small jar in Hank's uninjured palm, closing both his hands around it. "However far you feel comfortable going, Hank."

In other words, Buster was letting him call the shots. His mouth ran dry. Touched by the gesture, but longing for more concrete instruction, Hank wryly reminded, "You're the Indian here."

The instantaneous chuckle turned into an all out laugh which left the tousled cop gasping for breath and Hank smiling ever so faintly.

Buster's grin faded like the setting sun as their gazes touched, only its memory remaining to light the pale blue eyes. Hank waited for that lingering glow to pass as well, but the spark burned steady and bright. Hank couldn't understand why that light made him so uneasy or why he found it so impossible to look away.

Buster's gulp was very loud in the quiet between them. "Maybe so, Chief, but I don't feel that way with you." Buster didn't say what he felt, but it was all too clear in his eyes.

The admission lay before them, gaping and awkward in its honesty.

Seeing the regret forming in those too-expressive eyes, Hank leaned forward and very deliberately kissed the other man. He knew and accepted the mistake he was making. This was no longer simply a question of breaking the rules of convention. Each touch, every tender kiss accentuated the danger of what they were doing. Even as he gave himself totally over to the feeling, Hank knew how dearly he was going to pay for this. Dawn's light was going to see a lot more broken than society's rules.

But dawn was an eternity away and Buster was all too real in his arms to pay those warnings too much heed. No empty bed. Not tonight. The desperation with which he resumed their...lovemaking eventually communicated itself to his partner.

"Hank?"

Even the way Buster said his name sounded different, special. Reluctantly, Hank raised his head, met the worried gaze, praying to the spirits of his ancestors that the other man would not realize the sentimental fool he was bedding.

"Is something wrong?" Buster averted his gaze, focusing on the lock of straight black hair he was attempting to coax into a ringlet. "I talk too much sometimes."

"No. I like the sound," Hank admitted, aware that that was one compliment the gravel-voiced Buster was unlikely to have received too often in the past. To his bemusement, it also happened to be the truth.

"You do?"

As expected, the peculiar declaration diverted Buster's attention. Nodding, Hank furthered the diversionary tactic by running a slow finger down the center of Buster's broad chest, trailing the dusting of body hair down to his navel and dipping lower.

Ignoring how strange it felt, Hank gathered the heavy cock into his palm, stroking the velvety testes with his free hand. The heady, clean scent was intoxicating, the feel of those moss-soft balls almost addictive.

Buster groaned, thrusting his hips up at him, the open hunger making Hank want more.

But <i>more</i> entailed a far more serious step than he'd ever considered taking, not that he'd ever confronted such a possibility before tonight. Hank measured himself against the idea. A lifetime of prejudice was not an easy thing to move beyond. Buster's people, even more than his own, considered this a perversion, unnatural....

Yet there was nothing unnatural about Buster. And Hank had been the victim of unthinking prejudice too often in the past to fall thrall to it himself. He'd never tried this before. Everything they'd done to each other so far had been fantastic. Was he going to deny his partner pleasure because of some groundless bias? Was he that insecure?"

A moment's silent deliberation and Hank lowered his head. Buster's body stilled, his eyes going very wide as he absorbed Hank's intent.

"Hank, you don't have to.. .ahhh….."

The sigh was one of pure delight as Hank experimentally licked the flaring head. He tried to be objective as he sampled the salty flavor, failing miserably as the taste spread through him. Heart pounding in a maddening, deafening tattoo, he carefully drew most of the straining organ into his mouth, his fingers playing through the ginger gold patch of hair at its base.

His immediate problem was breathing; that, and resisting the impulse to gag on the unaccustomed bulk. If Buster had moved, he probably wouldn't have been able to adjust at all, but the other man remained motionless, as if aware of his dilemma

Finally, Hank figured out how to breathe around the organ as he began to suck. Even if Hank found the experience unpleasant – which he didn't – Buster's obvious enjoyment would've made it worth the effort.

"Oh, God, Hank. Yeah...harder..." Buster urged, thrusting powerfully up at him.

Not yet proficient at timing his movements to his friend's rhythm, Hank found himself choking. He pulled back, looking up at Buster's face through tearing eyes.

Buster's groan at the abrupt withdrawal caught on a sob. Panting hard for each breath, Buster studied his face with surprising clarity. "Takes some getting used to, doesn't it?" Buster reached for his hips. "Shift over, Chief. I'm leaving you behind again."

A little amazed Buster would be capable of thinking of him when this close to the edge, Hank willingly complied.

Hank tried to remember what he was supposed to be doing to that nearby cock, but the moment Buster's hot mouth sucked him in, all thought was blasted from his mind. The instant that hot suction claimed him, it was more than apparent that Buster knew precisely what he was doing. The sensuous mouth did not belie Buster's ability; rather, it surpassed its raw promise.

Hank actually whimpered at the sensations that bubbled through his touch-starved body. Buster set his blood to dancing, igniting fires that Hank in his loneliness had never dreamed existed.

Belatedly remembering that he was supposed to be returning the favor, Hank made a feeble attempt to reciprocate. He cried out in dismay as Buster's delightful sucking ceased, not understanding as strong hands separated him from the pulsing organ in his mouth. "What?"

"Lay back, Chief. Let me do this for you." Buster's smile warmed him to the icy depths of his existence. "Don't worry about me. I'm the Indian around here. Remember?"

As he did recall something of the sort, Hank allowed himself to be pushed back down.

Buster returned to his ministrations, working with an enthusiasm and undeniable expertise that left Hank trembling. He watched the golden head bob up and down, committing every single detail to memory: the fall of blond hair over his groin as Buster's head lowered, the hollowed-out cheeks, the irresistible suction and, above all else, the exquisite tenderness that accompanied every movement.

Buster couldn't know how that tenderness was destroying him. Hank felt as if he were torn open, his soul laid bare and branded, Buster leaving an indelible mark on the very fiber of his being.

Reason tried to tell him that it was a perfectly natural reaction to such an intense encounter after so long an abstinence. After all, it had been – what? A year? No, a year and a half since his last casual affair. This was bound to be more devastating, for there was nothing at all casual about what he felt for Buster.

Which was precisely the root of his problem. This was the most dangerously non-casual feeling he'd ever felt for anyone, man or woman.

Hank made a determined effort to still the voices in his brain, to exist only for the pleasure of the moment.

The last didn't take much effort. The joy Buster gave him now made thought all but impossible.

Warm flesh touched his uninjured hand, removing something from his tight-knuckled grip. As the rhythm of Buster's sucking remained steady, Hank paid only the slightest attention to the event. That was until he felt the slick fingers probing behind his balls for his anus. Instinctively, his body stiffened, a very primal fear clawing through his innards.

Buster felt the change about the time his fingers located their objective. Buster raised his head, neither impatience nor disappointment visible in his earnest expression. "It's okay, Hank. Trust me. I'm not gonna do anything you don't like. Is this a red light or a warning signal?"

Whichever it were, Buster's attitude made it more than plain he was prepared to respect Hank's decision.

Drowning in eyes almost too compassionate to bear, Hank found his voice, not certain of what he was going to say until he heard himself answer, "Green. Only – "

"Proceed with caution. Gotchya."

Buster's mouth returned almost hungrily to his flesh. Hank could only marvel at the open enthusiasm. In the interim following Hank's first attempt at fellatio, Buster's lower body had shifted away from him, his friend concentrating his full energies on his self-assigned task. Yet, Hank could see that Buster was still as hard as when he had been touching him, his partner apparently as aroused by the act of pleasing as being pleased. A rare spirit, indeed.

The unique sensation of a slick finger easing up inside him put an end to all cogitation. Hank had thought such an.invasion would detract from his enjoyment of the more familiar gift Buster was giving him. At first the awareness was somewhat distracting, but Buster knew how to please here as well. His finger pushed deep up inside him, as if seeking something specific. Hank gave a tiny, involuntary cry as his friend achieved his goal.

Pure, mind-searing ecstasy flashed through Hank's entire body from that unexpected pleasure source, delight so sharp it bordered upon agony. The result – instant explosion.

Hank spurted forth his burning seed deep into Buster's throat, endless streams that went on and on. The flushed Buster accepted every drop, drinking of him with a desperation more suitable to a desert victim stumbling upon a cool, hidden oasis. In the incredible intensity of that outpouring, Hank felt their very souls fuse together, Buster's molten gold to his own cool silver.

When Hank was at last entirety spent with nothing left to give, Buster reluctantly released him. His sweat-sheened friend sat back on his heels, palms resting lightly on Hank's thin thighs, Buster's own erection seemingly forgotten as he drank in the sight before him.

Such close scrutiny would normally have been unnerving at such a time, were it not for the fact that Hank found those familiar features as mesmerizing as Buster appeared to find him.

Buster looked….tranquil was not the right word, for Hank could clearly see the burning need being brutally banked down. Still, there was something of that peaceful quality shining in Buster's sweat-glazed face. Perhaps transcendent might be a more appropriate description, for Buster truly looked as if he had just achieved some long-sought goal. Or found his heart's desire.

"Buster?"

"Yeah, Hank?"

Never had the mere voicing of his name shivered through him as when played on that rough instrument. Hank gulped around the sudden fear. "Finish it.'

Hank's brow furrowed, as if not quite understanding. So that there would be no question, Hank opened his thighs, repeating, "Finish it."

Inside Hank was quaking. He wondered if those piercing eyes could see that.

Buster reached out to brush Hank's high cheekbone, as if to assure himself of his reality, his gaze achingly bright. An inner war seemed to be waging behind those sparkling jewels – Buster's concern for him weighed against his hunger.

"You sure about this, Hank?" The concern won out.

As he wasn't sure of anything, least of all his reasons for making this offer, Hank confined his response to a single, definitive nod.

The depleted haze of afterglow was fast deserting him, leaving Hank doubting his own sanity, doubting everything save the disturbing light in the other man's eyes. That seemed to be the one fixed point in this radically altered reality. In a world without father, without George, Buster was a strength he could rely on, however temporarily.

Hank's insides quivered at the thought of what was to come, an ambivalent tingling which wasn't entirely fear. He felt drawn to this union, compelled, the way the two halves of father's broken medicine stone yearned to be rejoined.

Buster leaned forward, his kiss oddly unrushed, considering his need.

The unaccustomed weight and press of hard flesh against his own flaccid organ should have been intimidating, but weren't. For all that Hank could feel the other man's contained urgency in the fine quiver running the length of Buster's body, Buster made no attempt to immediately claim what his hungry flesh so desperately craved.

Buster's hands ran restlessly over Hank's sides and back, frantic pleas which Hank struggled to meet. He could feel the gradual increase in pressure in those palms, how touching him only fueled this burning want, sensed how hard-won his companion's control was. Buster's tongue joined the heated effort, circling one nipple and then the other, lapping the cooling sweat off Hank 's chest and flat belly in a single, wantonly provocative sweep.

Hank understood what Buster was attempting, knew the other man was reluctant to take him cold. But even had this dark day not claimed all his reserves, the ferocity of the earth-shattering climax Buster had just given him would have left him drained for at least the next few hours.

Buster rubbed his face back and forth over Hank's unstirring genitals, silently begging response from the tired flesh. The sensation was incredibly erotic – the contrast of the baby-smooth cheeks, soft moustache and prickly beard stubble. Hank could appreciate this experience even if he couldn't adequately respond to it.

But this was no longer enjoyable for Buster.

Reading how the other man's desperation was teetering on the brink of despair, Hank buried his fingers in the thick, golden hair and urged Buster's head up.

Hank freed his uninjured hand long enough to snag the Vaseline. "Enough. Take what you need."

'I don't wanna hurt you," Buster rasped out, looking away, as if by hiding his eyes he could disguise his need.

His throat unaccountably tight, Hank guided Buster's face back to him. "Then stop hurting yourself. Do it. Now."

The calm command seemed to penetrate. Determination replaced the desperation, Buster mastering himself through an obvious act of will. "Turn over, then."

Panic flared. Hank wanted – no needed – to see Buster's face were he to carry this through. He shook his head in mute denial.

"Hank, it hurts more...."

"Face to face," Hank cut Buster off, opening the jar. His tone left no room for argument.

Another man might have made Hank instantly and painfully regret his obstinacy, would perhaps have been justified in doing so, considering how deliberately contentious he was being.

"God damn it, Hank..." Buster raged, looking angry and frustrated enough to strike him.

"Face to face," Hank reiterated, not raising his voice, in no way revealing the cold fear which squeezed his guts at the very thought of losing eye contact. Although, if Buster glared at him as he was now, he didn't know how reassuring that infuriated gaze would be.

Buster wordlessly snatched the Vaseline jar from his hand, digging his fingers in the glutinous gel with unrepressed savagery.

The same way he'd enter his body, Hank couldn't help but wonder. The knee which pushed its way between his thighs to spread them further apart reinforced that fear.

Hank took a deep breath and steeled himself for the worst as he watched the shaky pale hands prepare an erection denied too long. Buster's breaths sounded more like sobs now than the hoarse pants they'd been moments ago.

Hank scoured the strained features, searching for some trace of the Buster he knew. Large beads of perspiration stood out on the high brow and glistened in the short moustache hairs. The full bottom lip was caught between Buster's teeth, every iota of the aroused Buster's attention seemingly concentrated on not coming as he lubricated himself.

The raw carnality chilled Hank. Buster's need was so palpable, like a primal force of nature, unreasoning, knowing only the drive to completion. Hank had been there once or twice himself and felt that helpless urge, but it had never been directed at him before. Knowing it was his flesh which would slake that terrifyingly intense lust made Hank want to....

Buster's bent head slowly rose.

There was something in the reluctance with which his strung-out friend met his eyes that communicated Buster's self-consciousness, the near-shame at being so utterly out of control, and the vulnerability that came from such need.

Buster did not shirk his gaze. Once their eyes touched, the tormented blues held steady, allowing Hank to read everything in those windows to his soul.

Consequently, Buster did his own reading. When he spoke, it was as if Buster had heard every panicked thought. "You don't have to go through with this."

True. He could get out of this bed right now, abandon his friend here on the edge, and never be able to look himself in the eye in the mirror again. "Don't I?"

This time when he looked at Buster, it was the suffering he saw, not the threat, the pain born of wanting him. No one had ever ached for him like this.

Two halves of the medicine stone drawing together, two halves of a soul reuniting. The paralysis of fear lifted from Hank. The worry was still there, but it was no longer crippling. Compassion, and another unnamed warmth unfurled within him, a soft emotion with diamond sharp edges that Hank instinctively knew would tear his heart for the remainder of his life.

Buster was still kneeling between his thighs, his tumescence rising like a primeval archetype.

Hank curled his legs around his partner, his calloused heels pressing into fleshy white cheeks, inviting completion.

Further delay was impossible. Buster was too close to the edge for anything but immediate action.

As if in slow motion, Hank watched those pale hands slide under his own ass, lifting him up until his butt was centered directly below Buster's groin, his long legs draped over either shoulder. That moment was frozen forever in his mind's eye: the sharp but pleasing contrast of his deep red skin against Buster's almost ghostly white flesh, the rosy cock flaring its impatience over taut, pink balls, the sticky sheen of sweat where their skins touched, and above all else, Buster's expression at that moment.

Then the stasis broke and that blood-engorged cock eased into him. The shock of penetration ripped through Hank. The sheerest, most concentrated agony besieged him as that never before explored channel struggled to accommodate Buster's intrusive bulk. His forefathers might have perfected the stoic endurance of pain to an art form, but despite his own training, Hank cried out as the waves of pain hit his system, aware even as he did so that Buster was too far gone for moderation.

To his astonishment, Buster froze above him, groaning with the strain of holding back. One supporting hand left Hank's hip to fumble at Hank 's still-soft cock. Useless effort. Even if he'd been capable, the pain was just too intense.

"Hank, you've gotta relax."

Hank tried to comply. A deep breath helped some, but it did nothing to ease the source of the internal pressure. It felt as if Buster were splitting him right open. The worst part was knowing that Buster was barely inside of him. The fierce agony was just the flaring head. Hank didn't want to dwell on what the next six or seven inches were going to feel like.

"Please, Hank...." The plea was more of a sob, as if Buster were the one hurting.

"I can't. Just. ..do it," he ordered through clenched teeth.

Buster sucked in a desperate breath, still not moving. "Squeeze me, then relax. It – it'll help."

Hank tightened the muscle he was trying so desperately to soothe, gripping that intruding bulk tighter than a vise. That hurt, too. Buster's resulting hiss only accentuated the pain. But when Hank released the tension, the pressure inside was infinitesimally better.

The instant the tract loosened, Buster sank that much further into him, causing him to tighten up with that same piercing agony.

"Again," Buster commanded, his voice so strained as to be almost unrecognizable. The urge to just push up and claim that virginal channel as his own blazed in the incandescent blue gaze.

What his restraint cost the other man, Hank could only imagine. But again and again, Buster held himself back, waiting for Hank's body to accommodate him that little bit before proceeding.

Even at the most agonizing height of discomfort, Hank recognized how hard this patience was on Buster. Each time he squeezed Buster's cock, Buster came just a heartbeat away from losing control completely. Yet somehow his lover always mastered himself to hang there on the very edge.

Though Hank could hardly call this agony enjoyable, there was something unquestionably unifying about this grueling climb to completion. It was Buster's outright refusal to just give in to his need and forget about him, Hank realized. As with the trials of the past five days, they suffered together.

What seemed like hours of torture later, Buster's balls finally squeezed flat against Hank's backside. Buster was finally all the way in. Although the thought brought some relief, Hank still felt as though he had a lance shoved up inside him.

Buster stayed motionless above him in that most uncomfortable of positions for the longest time, as if savoring the sensation to the fullest. Then, with a sudden pull, he withdrew – all the way. The next thrust was a single powerful slide – all the way back in.

Restraint a distant memory, Buster at last claimed him for his own.

As Hank hung there with his legs dangling over Buster's shoulders, that great battering ram pounding in and out of him, he wondered if he'd even survive this. Then, everything changed between one heartbeat and the next.

Buster shifted ever so slightly, entering at a somewhat different angle. The secret pleasure center that Buster's fingers had called to life came into contact with that pounding cock. The very instant they touched, Hank's reality realigned.

Concentrated waves of delight spiraled out, deposing the reigning agony. His own cry of shock joined Buster's ceaseless verbal flow.

Hank found himself rising to meet every thrust, rather than shrinking to avoid them. He hardened almost instantaneously. His own hand encouraged his erection, falling into Buster's irresistible rhythm.

They were together at last. Grunting and moaning almost in unison, they worked their way to orgasm, restraints forgotten, rutting with all the shameless abandon of two wild mustangs.

Hank felt as if his spirit were flying free, circling high above with its paler life-mate right at his side. He wondered if it were the same for Buster. Hank looked up to see.

Buster's head was thrown back, his eyes clenched shut as he buried himself yet again in Hank's welcoming body. Buster's thrusts were more erratic now, almost dangerously wild. This one felt as if it impaled Hank to his very soul.

Buster withdrew again. Hank sensed the power in the gathering stillness, knew this thrust or the next would complete the circle.

With that ultimate plunge, Buster's eyes snapped open and locked with his own. Buster had mumbled a lot of passionate nonsense on this incredible ride to completion, Buster as vocal in bed as anywhere else. None of it meant anything, not the primitive curses or the softer endearments. But this time Buster was completely aware of what he was saying , the words offered with a sense of disbelieving wonder. "Jesus Christ, I fuckin' love you, Chief." As ever, profanity encapsulated the profound with Buster, but that didn't make the sentiment any less true.

Buster exploded within him, the hot internal shower sensed more than felt. Buster's declaration still rang in his ears as Hank spurted forth over his belly and chest, the powerful streams just missing his face.

Buster collapsed on top of him, burying his face in his left armpit, both their chests heaving as if they'd just completed a marathon.

When their breathing stabilized at something near normal, Buster raised his head. r

"Are you okay?"

Knowing he would never be 'okay' again, Hank turned the question back on his questioner. "Are you?"

Hank's was perhaps the more legitimate inquiry, considering that Buster's face was streaked with tears – tears that were still flowing.

"Hank, I...."

Unable to bear hearing those impossible three words spoken aloud again, Hank covered the moist mouth with his own. Buster melted against him, hot drops dripping down to mingle with a similar, unacknowledged wetness on Hank's cheeks.

Not understanding the source of this emotional storm, Hank guided his companion through it, rocking Buster until long after the sobs had stilled to an occasional hiccup and the other man lay heavy with sleep in his arms. He reached over his cherished armload, snagged a blanket end and pulled it over both their cooling forms.

Hank regarded the face pillowed so trustingly against his chest. With teardrops still sparkling in those long, reddish lashes, the passion-flushed cheeks, and the abiding expression of deep vulnerability, Buster looked like a little boy. <i>Little boy lost.</i>

Why was it he'd found Buster now, now when his people needed him so?

For almost four years, he had lived the life of a gypsy, always on the move, searching for that one special person that would make anywhere feel like home just by being there with him. Never once had it occurred to Hank that that person could be another man. The realization was shocking, but he accepted it. Just as he accepted how impossible a dream it now was.

Buster had a life of his own. That life was centered here in this concrete-covered land of noise and desperation. Hank had learned long ago there was no place for him in this world, but for Buster he would have ' been willing to try to fit in.

But he was no longer free to make such a choice. Responsibility had come with his father's death. There was no other Wicasa Wakan in their tribe, not even a youngster with potential. His people needed him now, to keep the land and their spirits healthy. This was not a responsibility he had ever wanted. He'd spent most of his adult life trying to deny it, but now with his father dead, he was the only one left who could continue the tradition.

In his heart Hank cursed the bitter fates which would offer him love at the one time he could not accept its gift.

He supposed he could stay, pretend once again he wasn't what he was, tell himself as he had so many times in the past that it was all just superstitious nonsense, that his people would do just fine without him. But, as he had told Buster three mornings ago, he was <i>that shit</i>. These past few days had taught him the truth of that if nothing else.

His arms tightened convulsively around the sleeping Buster. Hank had always accepted that life wasn't fair, but never had he understood why it had to be so cruel. Buster and he had worked so well together, both physically and emotionally. Different in almost everything, they nonetheless...harmonized, belonged. Even their bodies were a perfect fit.

Hank shifted, Buster's sticky gift seeping from within. The sex had been so... ultimate. It had stripped them both to their very souls, uniting them as not even their spirit walk had. Buster had been just as affected by what they'd shared as Hank himself. Perhaps even more so, he amended, recalling the tears. How was he supposed to just walk away from that?

Or explain to Buster why he had to leave him?

Deep down he knew that Buster would never allow him to go once he admitted his feelings aloud. And with his own desires so at war with what he knew to be his duty...it wouldn't take very much for his persuasive friend to dissuade him.

If he had any doubts as to Buster's ability to do just that, he need only recall the events of the day – the car this morning, their visit to the crack house, the restaurant kidnapping....

Truth was, Buster wouldn't even have to exert his charm. All it would take would be the repetition of those three words and Hank would be lost.

And what about his friend? Didn't Buster have a right to be part of the decision? It affected him just as much. There was always the possibility Buster might not even want him to hang around.

That shadow of doubt had undermined every relationship he'd ever had, but for once Hank was completely free of it. His spirit had never before told him, <i>Yes, this is the one.</i> He could question everything in the world, except the truths of his spirit. Their souls had touched. Buster was real.
###
So where did that leave them? What was he going to do come morning? Wrestling with these and a thousand other questions, Hank watched the gloomy, gray half-light of dawn fill the bedroom.

It was almost four hours later when the sleeping Buster finally stirred. Hank shifted in the chair he'd pulled up close to the bedside, dreading the moment those eyelids would part.

Buster turned on his side, eyes still closed, his hand reaching for where Hank had been. Encountering only empty space, Buster's eyes snapped open, panic gripping his features as he shot up in the bed.

The change which occurred when the abandoned gaze settled on Hank wrenched his heart.

A smile spread slowly across Buster's entire face, the smile of a man who'd found that the cherished, long-shattered dreams of childhood were true, after all.

"Good morning," Buster greeted, glowing with well being.

Hank nodded, his shields firmly up, giving away nothing. Buster had a way of turning even such clichéd pleasantries into a sensuous invitation.

"You're dressed," Buster noticed, still smiling, not commenting on the borrowed shirt.

Hank wanted nothing more than to return that smile and reaffirm the intimacies of the night. Instead, he hardened his resolve and blanked all emotion from his face. "lt's late. You've got to be in Blalock's office in less than an hour."

Bewilderment clouded the fond gaze, the first stirrings of hurt entering Buster's eyes as he confronted the ice man. "What's going on, Hank?"

"We're going to be late," Hank stonewalled, rising to his feet.

"Hank?"

He left the room with slow purpose, taking his time while his heart urged him to run, forward or back, anything to escape that crushed tone.

Staring blindly out the living room window, he listened to the creak of springs as Buster rose from the bed, sensed the other man watching him from the doorway. Hank could feel the waves of misery pouring off his friend, the confusion at his absolute withdrawal, how deeply he'd wounded already.

"You could at least tell me what I did wrong."

Little boy lost. Buster tried to match his cool distance, trying to pretend it didn't matter, but Hank could read right through it. Buster sounded very much like a small boy who'd been told big boys don't cry. r

Knowing himself to be the worst kind of liar, Hank glanced back with studied casualness and gave Buster the truth. "Nothing."

"And last night — was that nothing, too?"

<i>Answer this one right and you'll never need to worry about Buster bothering you again. Ever.</i>

But that would require a direct lie. His brother George might have been the one who'd gotten his tongue cut for lying when a child, but it was the younger of the two Storm brothers who had taken the lesson to heart. Hank had always found lying outright extremely difficult, impossible when it came to doing so to one whose only crime was loving him.

Hank's delay cost him.

As if drawn by the pain beneath his indecision, Buster stepped forward — still stark naked — and reached for him. "Hank?" Worried now, Buster almost sounded as if he'd forgiven him the earlier hurt.

"Don't," Hank pleaded, backing away from that touch as he hadn't from loaded guns. "I — I can't deal with last night. Not yet."

<i>I fuckin' love you, Chief.</i> Last night's words were there in Buster's over-bright eyes, silently begging acknowledgement. He could have thrown them out at Hank and used them as a weapon, but he didn't.

"I'm sorry," Buster said at last, his voice flat and lifeless as he looked away. When he turned back to Hank, his features were shuttered. Without understanding how he knew, Hank felt this new wound being forced to that same secret place Buster hid all his other hurts. "I'll go get dressed."

The silence with which Buster left him was the loudest, most accusing sound Hank had ever endured. It lingered unbroken all the way to the police station. Over 36 hours since food had passed either of their lips and the hedonistic Buster didn't once suggest stopping to eat. That, more than anything, told Hank how mortally he'd wounded his friend.

"Hiya, Buster." The pretty, blonde, civilian desk clerk smiled as they approached the visitor's desk.

"Yeah," Buster replied. "We'll need a visitor's pass for my friend here."

"Ah, sure," the young girl stammered, as disconcerted by Buster's attitude as Hank was disturbed by it.

Throughout all the trials of the past five days, Buster had kept his humor. Now it seemed to Hank that he had succeeded in destroying that which their enemies hadn't been able to touch.

But what could he expect. He was responsible for this change. He'd either have to live with it, or...

He'd have to live with the responsibility. His decision was made. There could be no turning back.

Buster didn't even seem to hear his coworker's goodbye as they walked away.

They passed through a seemingly endless series of busy corridors. Hank noticed how, although many of the cops they passed visibly recognized his friend, there were few greetings. Quite a number of these strangers appeared either hostile or wary. He wondered if that dislike were a lingering legacy of Buster's father's mistake or if it were something of Buster's own doing. Either way, it reminded Hank of how little they actually knew about each other.

The Forensics lab was more akin to a science lab than the rooms they passed in the rest of the station. Clean, orderly worktables, microscopes, and chemical apparatus gave the place an academic air. Although Hank had not attended college himself, he found the scholarly atmosphere preferable to the apathetic squalor of the criminal investigation area.

The man they had met last night, Pearson, sat behind a desk that was the only island of clutter in the organized room.

"Have you got that Lance ready for me?" Buster demanded without preamble.

Pearson glanced up from his jelly donut and removed his feet from his desk. "Well, and a bright good morning to you, too, Buster." His smile was surprisingly free of sarcasm.

"Can it, Johnnie. The Lance — is it ready?"

Brown eyes narrowed then seemed to soften. "Yeah, sure. I'm sorry about Finch, Buster. I know you two were tight."

Buster's face remained blank with incomprehension until his friend's death became real to him again. "Yeah. Thanks, John."

Hank's heartbeat quickened as the fine-boned Forensics man removed something carefully folded in a white towel from his crowded desk. The tingle of ancient power in the air told Hank what was so carefully wrapped within.

Pearson passed the Sacred Lance to Buster, digging a clipboard and pen from the strata of paper right after. "Just sign here and it's all yours."

Buster scribbled his signature on the receipt as Pearson's phone buzzed. "Thanks, Johnnie."

"Anytime. It was nice meeting you." The Forensics man smiled at Hank as Buster turned to the door.

Buster stopped just outside the lab, his stooped figure appearing very isolated despite the busy bustle of uniformed officers hurrying up and down the hall. Buster stared at the cloth-covered relic in his hands for a long moment before finally looking up at Hank.

"Well, 1 guess this is it, Chief."

Buster passed over the Sacred Lance, holding it as carefully as their chief had when he'd entrusted it to Hank's father's hands.

"Thank you, Buster."

Buster's blue eyes shied away from his own, as if the very touch of Hank's gaze had the power to wound him. One hand dug into the pocket of Buster's scuffed, black leather jacket, emerging with something clenched tight in its fist.

"Do you want this back?" Buster asked, opening his palm.

Hank stared at the broken medicine stone resting in the hand that had caressed him with such tenderness last night, feeling as if he'd been kicked below that belt. "Once given it cannot be taken back," he said.

"And if you could take it back?" Buster demanded from behind so many defensive barriers that Hank hardly knew him.

"I would like you to keep it."

"To remember you by?" Buster tried for a sneer. It didn't come out that way, his voice breaking helplessly on the question.

Hank ignored the mocking tone, knowing he'd hurt this man more than even he could appreciate. "For luck," he answered calmly, refusing to take offense. "Take care of yourself, Buster."

"Hank." Buster reached out and stopped him as he turned to go. "I've gotta know something. About last night..."

Hank's gaze leapt to the crowded corridor in alarm. Buster worked with these people. One indiscretion could well be worth his career. "What about it?"

"You said we were friends. Is that still true?"

Stunned, Hank stared into those serious eyes. He'd meant only to keep Buster from changing his mind with this withdrawal. That the other man could so doubt....

The guilt which settled on his already heavy heart was overwhelming.

"McHenry, is that you? Blalock's been screaming for you the last hour. Where the fuck have you been?" The voluminous shout shook the hallway, causing more than only their heads to turn.

Buster jumped at the interruption, glancing over his shoulder. "Be there in a minute, Frank."

"Be there an hour ago. Get your ass in gear. That means now!"

The portly, graying man who approached them was almost a stereotype of his profession. Everything about him screamed 'cop,' from his nondescript dark suit to his suspicious eyes. A beefy hand settled on Buster's arm, obviously prepared to physically move Buster to his appointment.

"You got a death wish, or are you just deaf? The commissioner wants your ass, IA wants your badge. The
only thing you got standing between you and them is Blalock — and he wants your balls."

"Ain't it nice to be wanted?" Buster sighed. "Okay. Ease up, man. I'm coming"

The quick look his friend shot his way told Hank that Buster had already decided that the answer to his question was 'no.'

"Buster," Hank called impulsively before his companion could be spirited away.

Two pairs of eyes settled upon Hank. The irritated hazel he ignored, but the naked hope shining in those familiar blues stopped his breath.

"Yeah, Hank?"

"It's been forged in blood. Like the medicine stone, you can't take it back."

Buster's momentary confusion blossomed to understanding. There was no lingering resentment in his eyes for the unforgivable treatment he'd received this morning, nothing but a joyful relief and vital enthusiasm. "Hank, we gotta talk...."

"You can do that on the unemployment line. Get moving, McHenry." The shove the bellicose older man gave nearly unbalanced Buster.

Hank automatically steadied him, even that brief contact burning through him.

Buster looked down to where Hank's hand rested on his elbow as if similarly affected.

The harrying cop gave another tug at Buster's jacket.

"I've really got to go, Hank," Buster explained regretfully, still making no move away from him.

Hank could read a thousand unsaid messages in the once-again unshuttered eyes. "Yes, you do." Realizing it was up to him, Hank took the necessary step away.

"I'll come by and see you later." Buster smiled like an eager schoolboy.

Hank made no reply as his friend was finally hauled away, not wanting a lie to be the last thing between them. He watched Buster's retreating back until Buster and his guide turned a corner, then Hank reluctantly took his first step on his solitary path.

*~*~*

Renegades and Other Dreamers

Buster McHenry eyed the passing hills, tall grass, early wildflowers, butterflies, all overwhelmed by the unending sky, a sky of the deepest azure the native Philadelphian had ever seen. Early morning sun poured down, its gentle light highlighting every exquisite color. The sweet-scented air was filled with trilling birdsong and the contented drone of nectar drunk honey bees emerging from their long winter sleep. Had Buster tried, he could not have envisioned a more perfect or more peaceful setting.

Buster attempted to absorb some of that pervasive calm. Everything around him seemed to be asking him to relax and enjoy the morning, only...he was too wired to react to the beauty on anything but the most superficial of levels.

This trip was a mistake. Every instinct he possessed was telling him that. He hadn't heard word one from Hank since the morning after his father's murder. Hell, Hank hadn't even told him he was leaving town. Hank had just cut out without so much as a so long, it's been good to know you. What could be a clearer statement of the other man's feelings? At the best of times Hank Storm wasn't someone you took liberties with. After the way they'd parted.... Now that he'd had time to think about what happened that last night together, Hank no doubt hated his guts.

Yes, this was a definite mistake.

But Buster didn't know what else to do. He'd tried giving it time. Seven months had done nothing to dull the empty ache. Every morning the hurt was worse. He'd get up feeling like a chunk of his soul had been ripped from him, spend the day pretending that he wasn't bleeding inside, and then return each night to the very bed in which this agony had been born.

Nothing helped. He'd worked out until he couldn't move, thrown himself into his work, kept so occupied he shouldn't have had the time or energy to hurt like this. But it was no use. He was being haunted by a man who wasn't even dead.

Buster found himself shivering at the thought, even though the warm, South Dakota sun beat down on him like summer as he guided his rental car along the quiet dirt road. Probably because it was so true. He was being haunted. Like the enchanted prince in some fairy tale, his heart had been stolen. He'd been bewitched by a pair of midnight black eyes and there could be no rest, no peace at all for him until he found Hank again.

He didn't need anyone to tell him how crazy this was. He'd only known Hank Storm for a total of five days, three of which he'd spent unconscious. They'd made love once, and Hank had closed himself off from him the next morning as ruthlessly as any scandalized one-night stand. Any sensible person with even vestigial self
preservation instincts would have put the encounter forever behind him.

But Buster couldn't leave the memory alone. Granted, they'd only been together a few days, but they were the most trauma-fraught days either of them had ever known. A bond had been forged in that short period that not even the emotionally overwhelmed Hank had been able to deny on that fateful morning after.

So here Buster was, over half a year later, chasing a dream down a dirt road in a reservation full of people who'd been making it plain all morning that he wasn't welcome here.

And what could he expect at the end of this bizarre pilgrimage? A punch in the teeth as like as not.

Yet, Buster still had to come. From the moment Hank left, he'd been drawn here, almost against his will. The compulsion was unnerving, frightening in its intensity – sort of like that night with Hank. Buster had the feeling now that he was so close that if he closed his eyes and concentrated, the connection which had existed between them since their gazes had locked in that gallery where Marino had gunned down Hank's brother would lead him straight to his friend.

As he had concrete directions from the boy at the Storm's family stable, Buster hadn't put that tracking ability to the test. Mostly because he was afraid he'd succeed.

This was already weird enough without him going all metaphysical. One… mystic in a relationship was as much as a simple Philadelphian street cop could deal with.

The car crested another of the endless hills. Buster's heart gave a wild leap as he sighted a group of horsemen ahead. Poised at the edge of a steep bluff with the morning sun behind them, the riders and their mounts were silhouetted against the majestic backdrop like the heroes of a 40s' western. That first sight of Hank at the head of the group couldn't have been more dramatic if the unassuming Lakota had staged the meeting for effect.

At a distance as yet, Buster just drank in the reality of Hank up there ahead of him.

Uncertain how to play this scene, Buster hit the horn to attract the group's attention. Not knowing r anything about horses, he didn't want to come up on them too quietly and surprise them.

The appaloosa Hank was riding pranced high spiritedly as Hank turned the animal around to face r the car.

Buster's stomach gave a nervous lurch as he took in Hank's straight back and the disapproving set of his jaw – sure signs of trouble.

Had he been recognized already?

Buster found himself paralyzed behind the wheel, staring at the well-remembered figure. The pinkish hue of Hank's salmon-colored shirt perfectly accentuated his dark skin, as the tight blue jeans did every inch of his lower body.

Buster's heart raced from just looking at the other man. However Hank might feel about this meeting, Buster was glad to see him. So much so that his enthusiasm outweighed his apprehensions.

Whatever Hank had to say, it could be no worse than what Buster had been telling himself for the last six months. He knew Hank probably hated him for what he had done to him that night. He had every right to. Even at the time Buster had recognized that his actions were inexcusable. Hank had been in shock, grief stricken by the loss of his father, physically hurt from a gunshot. He'd trusted Buster enough to accept emotional comfort from him.

Buster had needed no words to tell him how rare an occurrence that was. Hank was so self-sufficient it was downright intimidating at times. When Hank had finally broken down enough to share his grief and let someone in behind those impenetrable walls, Buster had fell honored that he had been the one so entrusted.

And how had he repaid his friend? By violating that trust and taking advantage of a vulnerability.

Technically speaking, it had not been rape. Hank had offered no protest. Hell, it had even been Hank who had suggested they take that final step. Buster would never have asked that of him. Yet, Buster couldn't help but feel he should have refused, not just that last, but everything. Hank really hadn't known what he was doing at the time.

<i>Like you did?</i> the realist in him questioned.

The feeling had come upon Buster that night like a hit and run driver – out of nowhere and unavoidable. Before he'd even figured out what was happening to them, Buster had found himself in over his head, drowning in those dark eyes, doing and feeling things he'd sworn to himself he'd never do or feel for another man again.

And in six months nothing had changed. Buster was as helpless against this feeling now as then. Perhaps even more vulnerable to it, now that he knew how good it could be.

But that didn't lessen his guilt any.

Well, whatever was about to happen, at least it would put an end to this unbearable limbo of not knowing.

Nervous as a potential bridegroom of dubious prospects, Buster stepped from the car. Humor, as always, carried him through.

"Hey," Buster called to his still-tensed friend, "you're under arrest."

There were ten riders, most of them kids. Every one of their heads snapped Buster's way, various degrees of alarm and dislike showing on each face. Buster barely registered their presence. He had eyes only for their leader.

To say he had not known what type of reception he could expect from Hank was the grossest of understatements.

Gaze glued to that unforgettable profile so he could catch every nuance of the habitually reserved man's response, Buster held his breath in unconscious dread, his entire body tingling at Hank's proximity.

Hank glanced away, his gaze darting out over the open valley below as if to hide or stamp down on some strong emotion. Buster's hopes plummeted at the gesture. But when Hank looked back at him....

The breath whooshed from his screaming lungs, his legs melting to rubber at the open joy shining on Hank's face. Never had he seen Hank smile that way, in complete delight.

"Buster," Hank greeted, sliding smoothly from his saddle, the first trace of something like shyness entering his attitude as he approached him.

The need to touch became an undeniable imperative. Buster stepped forward, his hand awkwardly outstretched in the only gesture that wouldn't embarrass his friend. "How you doin', Chief?"

Hank's dry heat closed around his own moist palm in a tormentingly brief clasp.

In all the times he'd rehearsed what he would say at this particular moment, Buster had never once envisioned this meeting as taking place before an audience of gawking kids. Highly self-conscious, he shoved his hands deep into his pants pockets, noting as he did so how Hank had tucked his own thumbs in his jeans' pockets, as if the temptation were as hard on him.

"Good. It's good to be back. How 'bout you? You're a long way from home," Hank commented, his gaze dropping almost questioningly to McHenry's slacks and tie.

"Yeah, well...they made me leave town for my vacation this time." He saw Hank glance back at the watching kids, obviously as acutely aware of their observation as he was himself. "I'm actually on probation," Buster continued, lest he lose himself in those eyes again, their audience notwithstanding. "My story stuck, though. Looks like everything is going to be okay. I might even get a commendation for this after the investigation's over."

"You might even deserve it." Hank smiled.

They both fell silent, as if not knowing what more could be said.

"Yeah, uhh...." The awkwardness reminded Buster of just how much they were strangers to each other. He tried to explain his presence here in a place they both knew he would never have come to before, tried to explain in terms that would not embarrass Hank in front of the youngsters, "'I really came out here just to.. .uhh...say thanks. I didn't get a chance." Remembering just why he didn't get an opportunity – Hank had left without even saying goodbye – he suddenly felt even more self-conscious, like the world's biggest fool. He looked at Hank, wondering what was going on behind that often unreadable face.

Hank's gaze dropped, every indication telling Buster he didn't want to discuss this topic in front of an audience. Then the dark gaze met his again, Hank giving the most imperceptible of nods.

Acknowledging what? Just his thanks only? Or the feeling that lay behind it?

"I'm gonna...ah.. .be stayin' in a motel in town for a couple of days," Buster informed the restrained man he'd traveled over a thousand miles to see. "If you wanted to find me."

Leaving everything up to Hank, his gaze fell disconsolately to his muddy shoes, all too aware of the error he'd made in coming here. He turned back to the car, even now fighting the magnetism pulling him to Hank's side.

"I found you before." Utterly tentative, the words stopped Buster in his tracks.

He looked back at Hank, caught the fleeting, unsure smile, as if Hank somehow thought he'd waited too long to reply for anything he said to be readily accepted. Buster realized then that he'd never seen this man anything less than 100% certain, no matter the situation.

Suddenly unaccountably shy, himself, Buster gave an answering smile. "Yeah, you did."

Aware that something had been settled but not at all sure precisely what, Buster got back into his car, sensing Hank's movement as he remounted his horse.

He felt that dark gaze following him as he sped off down the dirt road. Each time he looked in the rear view mirror he could see Hank silhouetted on the hilltop, just watching him go until he was lost from sight in the valley below.

And quite literally lost. It was a good ten minutes before Buster calmed down enough to realize he should have made a U-turn where he'd met Hank and gone back the way he'd entered the reservation. Not up to
another encounter so soon, he drove on, hoping for an intersecting road.

Two hours later, his mud-splattered rental coasted to a stop in the Holiday Inn's parking lot, the trip back from the reservation having taken twice as long as it should have. His initial enthusiasm for the way their meeting had gone had waned, doubts eating away at his confidence as he recognized how little had been settled.

The worst of his nightmares had not been realized. They were still friends, maybe. Hank hadn't ordered him out of his life, but then again, he hadn't definitely said he'd come see him, either. Cursing himself as an utter moron, Buster realized he hadn't even told his friend which hotel he was staying at. <i>Great</i>.

Emotionally and physically drained from the morning's nerve-wracking ordeal, he turned off the ignition and sat there for the longest time, staring blankly into space as the South Dakota sun relentlessly baked down on his car.

He didn't know what he was going to do if Hank didn't come.

All the way back here the only thing he'd been able to think of was Hank. How good he'd looked sitting on that horse, the grace with which he'd moved, how carefully he seemed to chose every word while Buster himself blithered on nervously...how bottomless those dark eyes truly were, filled with secrets that hinted at greater, unfathomable mysteries. Most vividly of all, he recalled the Hank's pain, the well of loneliness his proud friend kept so carefully hidden. It was that which drew Buster, perhaps even more strongly than this intense physical attraction.

From the first, Hank had seemed so alone. Hank had perfected self-reliance to an art form and gave every indication his solitude was self-chosen, but Buster knew better. He had lived the same lie, day in and day out since his father's conviction. That degree of self-sufficiency was never the product of choice. Somewhere, sometime in the past, people Hank had counted on had let him down, had taught him the only person he could rely on unconditionally was himself.

Buster used to feel that way, too. Until he'd met Hank. Instinct had told him from the very start that here was one man who would never let him down.

Memories of their first meeting unreeled in his mind like an old matinees. Marino, J.J. Williams, and he had been fleeing the cops. Marino had just ordered everybody down at the museum where they'd taken refuge. Women were screaming, people throwing themselves to the floor. The gallery had been in a complete panic.

Everyone, that was, except for the three tall Indians near the wall. Buster remembered how the younger two Indians had placed themselves between the armed hoodlums and the old man with whom they stood. Their calm in that sea of confusion and fear was what had attracted Buster's attention. Hank and his family alone had faced the guns without fear.

An almost electric charge had shot through Buster when Hank and his eyes had locked, a dizzying, inexplicable sense of deja vu overwhelming him, as if he'd known this dark stranger very well in the distant past. Yet all the while, he'd been aware he had never laid sights on the man before. Nevertheless, his reaction was incontestably one of recognition, his move to protect the disturbing stranger after Marino gunned down the man's companion one of pure instinct.

The eerie connection that formed that day still unnerved Buster. What was even weirder was how completely he'd trusted his taciturn captor. Considering how Marino had shot the guy's friend, he should have been worried about the treatment he'd receive, should have been trying to escape from the start, despite his wound. He'd had opportunities to call attention to his plight. Waiting alone in the stolen car outside the hotel until Hank came back for him – then later, while checking into the fleabag dive, had he identified himself as a cop, somebody would have helped him. Maybe.

But he hadn't tried to get away, not until Hank had started talking about offing Marino. Before that, he'd played along with his nameless captor, sensing he was somehow safer with him than with the police.

There had been a few hairy moments there, as Hank had prepared to remove Marino's bullet from his side. Buster feared he'd misjudged the situation, that the other man would take revenge upon him with that long hunting knife, after all, but that had been a sheer-panic response to Hank's unnervingly intense silence.

Ultimately, instinct had proven reliable. If the hands tending his injury hadn't been particularly gentle, they hadn't been notably ungentle, either. When Buster had been helpless, completely at Hank's mercy, he had not been subjected to unnecessary pain.

Even when a kick in the pants had been justified, Hank had been remarkably slow to administer it. Buster recalled the fourth day of his recovery, how he'd thrown a bowl of hot soup at his caretaker's face. When his escape attempt failed – Hank had blocked the dish like a pro – Buster had thought himself dead. But all Hank had done was toss him back onto the bed and clean up the mess, his body physically vibrating with the strain of holding in his rage. Anyone else would have thrashed him to within an inch of his life for what he'd done.

Buster had learned that type of consideration was one of the basic components of Hank Storm's character. There was something about the soft spoken man that would not allow him to use his strength to bully someone physically weaker than himself. That...chivalry, for want of a better term, was one of the many traits Buster had come to respect in the five days he'd spent with Hank.

But there were so many things he admired about Hank. Even if Hank didn't want them to be lovers, Buster hoped they could still be friends.

His spirits so low he couldn't really envision Hank wanting even that much from him, Buster slowly pried himself from the overheated car. It wasn't far from the parking space to his room; if that beat up blue pickup truck hadn't stolen his spot, he could have parked right in front of his door as he had that morning.

The lock stuck again when he tried to get in. Dripping with sweat and cursing even more volubly, Buster at last persuaded the recalcitrant door to admit him, trying not to think that even his hotel room didn't want him here.

Blinded by the bright noonday sun, several seconds passed before his eyes adjusted to the interior gloom. In the act of locking the door, Buster froze and stared over his shoulder in disbelief.

"How did you...?" Remembering whom he was addressing, the question died on his lips. If Hank wanted to find him, he'd find him. A locked door wouldn't be much of a deterrent to a man who'd outwitted the entire Philadelphia police department.

"I hope you don't mind," Hank said, rising from the easy chair in which he'd been waiting – for some time, from appearances.

"No, of course not," Buster dismissed the issue as irrelevant, not caring if Hank had walked through the walls to get in. Considering some of the things he'd seen Hank do, it wasn't as preposterous a proposition as most might imagine.

Still not sure why Hank was here, he waited, content to just drink in the sight of him.

"You didn't come straight back," Hank remarked at last, seemingly as at a loss as Buster.

Sensing the other man's uneasiness, Buster tried to smile past his own apprehensions.

Hank didn't appear angry with him. That was a start, at least. When he'd turned and saw Hank sitting there, waiting for him, he'd thought he'd come to tell him a few things he hadn't been able to say before a group of children.

"I...uh… sort of took the scenic route. Unintentionally," Buster admitted.

"Did you take the left at Black Rock Hill?"

"Eventually." Unable to stand Hank's guarded expression another minute, Buster brightened his smile. "Relax, Chief. You're among friends."

"Am I?"

Buster couldn't keep his reaction to that tentative question from showing.

Puzzlement overcame Hank's caution, then a look of understanding. "What I meant was...do you still consider me your friend?"

Swamped by an almost dizzying wave of relief, Buster automatically answered, "Sure. Why wouldn't I?" Had he thought about it, he would never have voiced such a stupid question.

"The way I left, it wasn't right. You had every reason to be angry."

"'You had your father's burial arrangements to see to, Hank. I understood."

"That wasn't the reason I left so suddenly." Always brutally honest, Hank didn't hide behind the offered excuse.

Almost wishing Hank had accepted the easy lie, Buster fished for a response, one that wouldn't give too much of his real feelings away. "Yeah, I know."

The tension in the room was a palpable presence, tingling along Buster's nerve endings like a random electric charge. The polarity was certainly still in effect. Denying its pull, Buster felt akin to an electron attempting to refuse the call of its mated proton. The restraint was unnatural, but...damn it to Hell, Hank Storm was straight!

It was the sex that had sent his friend running back here to South Dakota. Buster intended to do nothing to shatter whatever remained of their friendship. That Hank could believe he was angry with him for his perfectly understandable withdrawal from such a heavy scene more than showed how badly their lovemaking had unbalanced him.

"It took great courage to come here," Hank said at last.

"No, Chief, courage didn't have anything to do with it. I just... needed to... needed to see you. I...ah...wanted to apologize for...everything that happened."

To apologize for falling in love with him. That was what he had really come to say.

"There is nothing to be sorry for."

Rather than assuaging his guilt, the soft words only exacerbated it, reminding Buster anew of how horribly he'd taken advantage of Hank's rarely given trust.

"Jesus Christ, Hank. How can you say that? I never should've..... It never should've happened." Even speaking about that night made it too real.

Shaking, Buster turned away, struggling to get a harness on his runaway emotions, lest Hank see the raw need coursing through him and take flight again.

His body tensed as he sensed Hank's approach, his hold on this fierce wanting all too tenuous. Hank was too close.

A hand settled on his elbow, resting partially on his rolled-up shirtsleeve and partially on bare flesh. The delicacy of the touch spoke of the other man's concern, Hank moving as if he knew how tortuous his mere presence was to him. Even without that caution, the effect was the same as if Hank had laid that burning hand over his throbbing groin.

"Do you believe that?"

The only thing he believed was if Hank took one single step closer, he'd go insane.

Buster sucked in a shuddery breath of Hank-scented air. It didn't help much. "I don't know what I believe anymore, Chief."

His words had an unanticipated effect on his companion. Hank 's lanky body stiffened, barriers Buster couldn't help but view as defensive springing up between them like an impenetrable, invisible force field in a low budget 50's B movie.

"Don't lie to me." Hank's strained voice was the same as when Buster had told his soup-covered caretaker he was an undercover cop.

Now, as then, Buster was telling the truth.

"I'm not," Buster protested, not sure what had disturbed his normally unflappable friend. The emotion glimmering in those onyx eyes was very near anger. "Hank – "

"Would you refute the coming of dawn or the change of the seasons? Would you deny your next breath, your next heartbeat?"

"What?" Buster asked, confused by what sounded like nothing so much as poetry, uncertain if his bewilderment were owing to a legitimate lack of sense in the rapid fire questions, or his own state of heightened sexual frustration.

"Would you?" Hank demanded.

"N-no. Of course not," Buster stammered, unnerved by the vehemence.

"Then why do you deny the truths of your soul? You know what you believe." The raw accusation burning in those familiar black eyes was like nothing he had ever encountered. Utterly merciless, that gaze left Buster nowhere to hide. It stripped his soul bare...and found him wanting.

Aghast, Buster felt his own eyes misting over at the silent repudiation, but he didn't look away. He met the blaze of furious contempt with as much dignity as he could muster. "You're wrong, Hank. I-I'm not like you. Nothing is ever that certain for me. I don't know what I believe. Not anymore. I believed in my father, right up until the DA forced him to admit to perjury on the stand. I believed in Mike Finch. A very long time ago, I even believed in love. But now...l just don't know. You – " Buster slammed his jaw shut before he could admit how Hank scared him.

He wasn't sure precisely what changed or why, but suddenly Hank 's anger was gone as if it had never been. "Yet you believed enough to travel all this way, after all this time." Now Hank sounded merely puzzled.

Buster shrugged, not up to trying to explain the compulsion that had brought him here.

All his hopes and fears were lodged in a painful ball in his throat, the tremor that came from pent-up anxiety so much a part of him that he was barely aware of it anymore. At that instant, Buster had only one imperative – to not break down totally in front of Hank. He was willing to accept almost anything Hank could give, except his pity. Pride wasn't much of a consolidation, but it was the only thing he had left.

"Buster?"

The tentative tone was too gentle for his overwrought nerves. Buster looked away, forcing himself to concentrate on the horrid blue flowers in the tasteless bedspread's pattern. "Yeah, Hank?"

"You did right to come here."

His gaze snapped back as Hank took the final step closer and wrapped him tight in his arms. For all his slenderness, Hank was powerful, the flesh on those aspen-thin limbs all corded muscle. The way Hank was holding him...it felt as if he never intended to let him go.

Buster gasped at the unexpected contact, hugging back with all his bewildered might as he buried his face in the front of Hank's shirt.

Up close, the smell of Hank flushed through him, warm and wonderfully real. After only one night of passion and a six month separation, it shouldn't have been so familiar a scent, but it had the feel of coming home. Buster's sensitive nose picked up the traces of horse that lingered in the jeans and cotton shirt, responding to the exotic fragrance as most men would to a woman's expensive perfume.

Remembering that he was supposed to be behaving himself, Buster tried to ignore how wonderful it felt to be here in Hank's arms after almost seven months of desperate, hopeless pining. He forcefully reminded himself that he didn't even know Hank's motivations for initiating this embrace, his laconic friend still as much an enigma as when he was a thousand miles away in another world.

There was so very much at stake here...more than Buster would have dreamed possible.

He didn't even understand how he had come to this state of affairs. Persona non grata on the force since his father's conviction, he'd learned never to allow anyone to get close enough to matter. Self reliance was as ingrained in his character as it was in Hank's, that philosophy coloring his personal life as well.

Once bitten, twice shy, as the old saying goes. There'd been a time when he'd though he was in love, when he'd felt as much for someone as he'd imagined it possible to feel. But there was another cliché of which he should've taken warning – namely, it takes two to tango. Jimmy had left him in no doubt as to how entirely one-sided love could be. Even now, almost six years later, Buster's pride still smarted over how goddamned idealistic he'd been, how blind love had made him. Afterwards, he'd sworn on what few things his burnt heart still held sacred that it would never happen again, that he would be nobody's fool.

But here he was, nearly six years later, in so deep he couldn't even see the shore anymore. And what he felt for Hank, it made Jimmy seem like a light case of puppy love by comparison.

Buster had never needed anyone like this in his entire life. He didn't know how to need, how to act. He was afraid of what going forward was going to cost him, and even more terrified of going back to the limbo in which he'd existed since Hank left Pennsylvania. His will a dry autumn leaf in a November gale, Buster had no choice but to race to where his reckless heart drove him. Right over a cliff edge to destruction was the way it was feeling right now.

Hank's hand rubbed his back consolingly, as if he sensed the emotional wreck Buster was at the moment.

Buster tried to pull himself together, to step away and reclaim his autonomy. The tears hadn't been allowed to flow, but the small victory didn't make that much of a difference, inside he hurt so bad.

It was Hank who withdrew at last, only partially. Their waists still remained pressed together, Hank supporting a good deal of his weight.

Although he felt that dark gaze scouring his features, Buster didn't open his eyes as he waited for Hank to completely detach from him.

Unexpectedly, there came the lightest brush of fingertips down his left cheek, the touch so insubstantial it barely contacted his skin, gliding across the invisible hairs right below his cheekbone to the bristly tips of the beard stubble lining his jaw.

Buster gave a small, breathy gasp, his lips parting as the exquisitely subtle sensation quivered through him.

A moist exhalation, sweet as cut grass, touched his face. A shudder ran through him as he realized how close Hank must be. Then, Buster's helpless breath was cut off as a pair of dry, warm lips covered his own.

No amount of previous experience could prepare him for his body's jolting reaction.