Who Watches the Watchers?
by Dr. Ruthless
Author's Notes: This was written for the 2003 Secret Santa game. Thanks to Maria Covington-Brooks for allowing it to be posted.
Rated: T for language
Pairing: Vic/Nathan
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Why did everything he touched turn to shit? Just look at his life to date; look at his history. Family? Well, there was Alice sorry, Allegra. She was dear to him, but she was off trying to save the world now, and she certainly didn't need him.
Lovers? All the lovers he'd ever had were long gone. LiAnn was just the latest in a long line of them who'd played him, taken him and then dumped him when they were tired of his presence. He didn't know what it would take to find someone, given that however hard he tried, he just wasn't quite good enough to make the grade.
Work? He'd had and lost the job he loved and been fucked over into the bargain, by corrupt bastards who had fitted him up, then had him sent down for a stretch in the Vancouver Jail.
His freedom if it could be called freedom had been arranged by a red haired deviant, who spied on him, harassed him, and generally made his life, such as it, was a misery. He had no life, no love, and no hope.
Fuck ‘em all, anyway.
It was the Sunday before Christmas.
He'd found himself heading to the agency complex, even though it was the weekend, purely and simply because, if he didn't go and work, he wouldn't even get out of bed. What a miserable person he was turning out to be sour, embittered, worthless.
Brooding, he began walking through corridors that were, as usual, deserted. He didn't know where he was going, and he had no idea what he would do when he got there. He just knew that he was all out of options.
Approaching the library, he stopped. The weekend was a good time to use the library, because it would be empty, its whacko occupant off making tin foil hats for his pet mice, or something equally fucked up. He could try and get ahead of the game on the gambling scam he had been working on for the past several days.
Squaring his shoulders, he approached the door. At the last minute, he almost turned away, but finally he gave a gentle sigh and went in.
It was quiet in there, as it always was. The books and papers gave off an old, dusty aroma, and faint rustlings gave the entire room the illusion of age. As Vic approached the stacks to start seeking out research materials, he felt loath to make too much sound. It was almost as though he was scared that might disturb the ghosts of readers long since departed from the material plane.
Arriving at the section in which his interest lay, Victor began to sift through files and folders, trying to weed out the pertinent from the rest. He wanted to lose himself in the minutiae of research, but only succeeded in dropping a large, fat, wallet file and scattering papers from it all over the floor as the elderly brown paper burst asunder and shed its load.
"Oh, Jesus," he hissed, looking around himself nervously, as if he thought that divine retribution would be exacted from him any moment. Mumbling cusswords to himself, he crouched down and began to gather up the data that had fallen to the ground, piling it up on Nathan's desk as he retrieved it.
"It doesn't do to call on the head of another order." Nathan's voice floated to him from on high, and he jumped, knocking his hastily gathered pile of data off the desk again.
"Nathan!" Vic's voice was a mix of exasperation and fury - the kind of sound he could only ever make after having been scared half out of his wits. A scan around the room revealed the strange, gaunt librarian perched, cross-legged, atop a tall set of steps, with a large tome open and propped on his knees.
"Walls have ears, Victor, and the bug creatures are mining under the complex. I've heard them at night, when they think it's safe. Sometimes, *she* comes in here to call to them." Nathan unfurled lanky limbs that seemed each to have its own, independent method of moving without regard to anything that the rest of his body might be attempting to accomplish, and began to climb down the ladder.
Too late! Vic looked around for something that might help him avoid the weird tête-à-tête he was sure would follow, but alas, he was alone and there were no immediately visible trap doors, although, he thought with growing hilarity, the bug creatures might well have constructed one, and he could find it, if he were to bring in some kind of echo location device. He found himself making a mental note to get one, and just as rapidly shook himself. It seemed that Nathan's weirdness was catching. Maybe he needed to start wrapping his own head in tinfoil after all.
Sighing, he watched Nathan clamber down the ladder and began backing out of the stacks, wishing fervently that he'd stayed near the exit and could make a clean getaway.
"I want to show this to you, Victor," said the librarian. "It's made me worry about your safety. You must stay safe. The galaxy depends on you."
Vic froze. Nathan's hand was on his arm, and his bony fingers had clutched his shirt. There was no way out.
"All that stuff about being Zoltan was just a joke. I'm not really him." He didn't even know why he was trying to play Nathan's silly games with him, but the words were flowing from his mouth even as he railed at himself for encouraging the crackpot by appearing to take him seriously.
"Zoltan?" Nathan's eyes gleamed. "Who's Zoltan?"
"Defender of the uni... Oh, for Christ's sake, never mind!" Vic could feel the conversation getting away from him. Talking with Nathan was rather like knitting with eels. Somewhere deep down inside himself, he formed a wish that he had learned to knit. Then, the information that Nathan was spreading out before him, suddenly sank in, riveting his attention and dispelling all his normal impatience.
"You carry a cell-phone, don't you?" Nathan had been speaking for some time, his words had been coming at a steady pace, and the sweaty, bony, urgent face had been contorting itself into more and more fearful expressions, but his words were getting through now, and Vic began to study the pages he was handed, one by one, each more telling than the last.
"They know where you are. They can tell when you leave and where you go. They can find you and track you by your phone, Victor. You know what this means?" Nathan seemed to be really worried now, the sweat rolling down from his brow in rivulets as he took hit after hit from his Ventolin inhaler.
"It means..." Victor frowned. "I'm never safe - never free. They always know where I am, if I have my phone with me. Isn't it enough that they bug my home? They have to track me wherever I go?"
"You have to find a way. One of the Nine shouldn't ever be at such risk." Nathan laid his hand on Vic's shoulder, daring a movement that was almost a caress, and even when Victor raised his brows, snarling his most aggressive snarl, Nathan didn't let him go. "I will protect you. Kill me if you must, but your safety is paramount."
Looking at Nathan's fervent face, Victor made several - for him - gigantic leaps of faith. His thoughts raced, and for once, he didn't permit the violence that was always just below the surface within him to take over.
Come on Vic! It's going to happen anyway, he thought. Why fight it. Why not revel in it and see where it leads? The man is a nutball, for sure, but he might have a solution to this. For heaven's sake, you wouldn't even know about it, if it wasn't for Nathan.
Taking a deep breath, Vic looked up at his peculiar acolyte, and managed a wan smile.
"Okay, Nathan," he said, and as he began to speak, he found his confidence growing. This would be easy to do; he was grateful to the librarian and he would treat the poor man kindly, then he'd make his escape as soon as possible. "First, I want to thank you for bringing this to my attention. I don't want them tracking me like this."
"I thought that as soon as I started to put the pieces together." Nathan smiled a smile of such incredible relief that Vic felt somewhat distressed for treating the man so badly in the past. "It's part of your job to be naughty. You can't be nice all the time."
"Huh?" Victor shook his head. Okay, he's weird. Let's not forget that. "Never mind. I have to find a way to make it look as though they always see me - always know where I am, and yet sometimes I can do stuff they don't see. What do you suggest?"
Nathan seemed to be thinking. A faraway, glazed look filtered through, filming his eyeballs and performing some peculiar transformation to his mouth so that the nondescript librarian looked almost noble. Forget it, thought Vic. He's a weirdo, plain and simple. Let's face it; he thinks LiAnn's a 'bug creature.' I've slept with LiAnn, and there was no carapace - no chitin. She was definitely not a...
He shook himself. He was going to have to seek help. Solitude wasn't good for him; it made him think strange thoughts. He was about to walk away, intent on finding himself a new life, when Nathan shook himself and appeared to surface from his reverie. Welcome back to the world as we know it, thought Vic, sourly, and assumed an air of polite interest as Nathan began to deliver his verdict.
"The only way," he said, "Is for him to continue to believe that he knows where you are all the time."
"Exactly," said Vic, nodding. Perhaps Nathan would have an answer, after all, even if he apparently seemed to have decided that The Director was a man.
"So you need to get another phone for the other times, if you even want to be contacted at those times; one that's in someone else's name. You could trade phones with me if you like. I could carry yours for you, and you could carry mine, but that would make... might make him think that you were perhaps.... seeing me." Nathan seemed so overcome by that idea that he needed to take a couple of hits of Ventolin to keep going.
"Seeing you?" Victor's brow furrowed, and he paused, totally befogged by Nathan's words.
"Seeing me. You know? Dating." More hasty squirts of the inhaler, and Nathan had begun quivering visibly. Vic hoped that was because he was afraid of being beaten senseless, rather than any other scenario.
"I... I see." There was a pause, while Vic tried to suppress a reaction of either fury or laughter. He knew that Nathan was vulnerable, and he wasn't an unkind man, although he knew that his temper was somewhat hasty on occasion. He really didn't want to hurt Nathan, especially after he'd been given this kind of warning. "You think that would be bad, don't you."
"Well, truthfully, Victor, I don't think he'd like it." Nathan laid his hand on Vic's shirt again, and Vic steeled himself to remain still. Easy, Tiger. He's not going to harm you; He's trying to help.
"Okay, Nathan. Thanks for the help, and for the tip. I'll start leaving my phone at work for now, because I know that your reputation is something you guard carefully."
Was that a flicker of disappointment in Nathan's eyes? Vic hoped not. He stared at the shiny, bony face; saw the deep set eyes, full of intelligence, and the high, Roman nose. The man was like a thoroughbred horse, loyal, eager to please and skittish.
"I'm protecting you, too, Nathan." He didn't know where that had come from, but the effect it had on the skinny librarian was incredible. The smile that transfixed his features was seraphic. As swiftly as a thought, the strange young man suddenly bent to press his lips to Vic's, claiming them in a kiss that was swift, unexpected, and totally passionate.
"Thank you, Victor," Nathan whispered, and bowed his head, apparently awaiting retribution for his actions.
Come on, Mansfield! Quit while you're ahead, thought Vic, stunned. Let's go, Zoltan! He cleared his throat, and aloud said, "It's all right. I won't hurt you." ...Much, he thought, knowing the pain that unrequited love could give, and feeling horribly guilty without really knowing why. Nathan lifted his head to gaze at Vic in adoration.
There was a moment's silence, and Nathan continued to look at him. Vic began to feel very weird under his scrutiny. Clearing his throat, he cast about for some way to divert the attention from him. "Hey, Nathan, You keep talking about this, 'him,' who is watching me, and not The Director. Who do you mean?"
Nathan raised his head, fixing Vic with a sorrowful, burning gaze, as though in amazement that his prince didn't know such a vital piece of information.
"Why, Santa Claus, of course," he said. "Merry Christmas, Zoltan."
End
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