FicWad

"L is for LOVE, baby
O is for ONLY you that I do
V is for loving VIRTUALLY everything that you are
E is for loving almost EVERYTHING that you do
R is for RAPE me
M is for MURDER me
A is for ANSWERING all of my prayers
N is for KNOWING your loverman's going to be the answer to all of yours"

- Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, "Loverman"



When Avery returned, he found Pendergast had removed the robe, draped it over the back of the couch, and settled himself into a relaxed and flattering sitting position, with one leg resting on the seat and the other on the floor. "Gee," Avery said, his voice sounding strained, "I'd almost say you've done this before."

Pendergast turned his head lazily. "It's been a long time, actually."

"Your friend Charlie got you to pose for him, huh?"

He was half-teasing, but Pendergast's response was quite serious. "He always was very persuasive."

"Yeah, I guess so." Avery tore the paintings he'd been working on from the canvas pad and placed them on the floor next to his easel. He sat and regarded the blank sheet of canvas paper for a moment, and then turned back to Pendergast. "Okay. I guess we'll start with this then." He gave Pendergast a doubtful look, as if he couldn't quite believe the man had agreed to this, before picking up his pencil and beginning a preliminary sketch.

Rather than becoming quickly frustrated as he had before, Avery worked more gently and purposefully than he had earlier; his expression, too, was less tense, and Pendergast found his actions far more pleasant to watch when they weren't driven by frustration. Avery painted steadily, only stopping occasionally when he got up to tear off a completed sketch, change the lighting conditions, and direct Pendergast's position on the couch.

Very late in the evening, he stopped, checked his watch, and stood with a stretch. He took a step forward, one hand around the middle support of the easel, "I'm almost done, don't worry." Pendergast blinked in return.

Avery bit his lower lip. "You know, you don't have to hide your face each time, though." Pendergast said nothing, and Avery wrinkled his nose in annoyance. "You're pretty crafty, but I can tell you're trying not to give me anything more than a partial profile." He paused. "You're thinking this'd damage your career if it got out?"

"There's always the chance," Pendergast said as he moved back into a comfortable sitting position and turned to face Avery. He stretched one long leg out in front of him as he rolled his shoulders back.

"Worse than this happens in the FBI every day, I'll bet. You guys can be a wild bunch when you want to." He cocked his head to one side. "Hell, even J. Edgar was in the closet."

"I know several individuals who would argue that point very strongly."

Avery's lips quirked, but his eyes looked tired and unhappy. "Yeah, well, some people will argue with anything." He rubbed his hands over his forehead and his temples and sighed. "Look, what I usually tell the people who pose for me is either 'Hey, you know me, you can trust me,' or 'I'm paying you, so you'll do what I say.'" With a thoughtful look on his face, he sat back in his chair and slumped down slightly. "But neither of those things seems really relevant right now."

They stared at each other without speaking, having seemingly arrived at an impasse. Finally Avery gave in and looked away. "How about this," he said softly. "You let me get a good shot of your face, and once I'm finished using these sketches, I'll send them back to you."

Pendergast's eyelids lowered, as if he was very slowly falling asleep. After a long, drawn-out pause, he nodded slightly. "Thank would be acceptable."

"Good, great." Avery picked up his pencil and tapped it against his front teeth. "Can I get you lying down this time?"

Pendergast raised his eyebrows. "Lying down?"

"Yeah. like-" Avery sprung out of his seat to direct Pendergast. "-like, lie down with your head on the armrest. Wait, I've got a pillow back here, I think." He fished in the crack between the couch and the wall for a moment before emerging triumphant. "Here."

Pendergast slipped the small cushion behind his neck. "Right, that's good. Now, put this arm-" He tapped Pendergast's left arm with his pencil. "-on your chest and your other arm up over your head, kind of like you're cradling it. Yeah, exactly."

Avery hurried back to his easel. "Now, if you'll just look at me." He glanced up from his canvas pad and found a pair of pale blue eyes staring back at him, unflinching. "Awesome," he whispered, still somewhat unsettled by how comfortable and secure Pendergast seemed, even though he was in a position of relatively little control.

"And don't worry, I'll try to make this quick." He began to sketch with sharp, punctuated movements of his hand and wrist. He looked up once he had drawn in a vague layout, expecting Pendergast to have looked away in the interval.

But their eyes met again; Pendergast's interest had clearly not wavered. Avery's hand stopped as he felt a flush crawl over his cheeks. He pressed his lips together tightly, willing his mind to refocus on the task at hand.

When his eyes flickered back to his drawing, he saw that he had inadvertently made dark, jagged line down the middle of the page.


*


Art was really all about love, when you came right down to it. A love for visual communication, for visual stimulation. A love for the viewer, whomever they might be.

/Of course, one could communicate plenty of different subjects via the visuals arts/, he mused to himself as he worked. War and angst and the general shittiness of the human condition were all quite popular. But even in those works, he could see love: both the love of the artist and his own loves reflected back at him. Most people seemed to see the things they most hated or the things about themselves and the world that troubled them most.

He felt sorry for them, and sorry for the artists so consumed by grief and madness that they were incapable of feeling the love that resonated from their own works. His heart went out to the Van Goghs and the Dadds alike, the ignoble murderers and madmen and the respected suicides that peppered the world of art.

And let's not forget poor Magritte and his dead mother. He paused, knelt, and adjusted the cloth over the woman's face before standing and taking a step back to inspect his work critically. Viewing it at night, of course, with only the yellowish glow of the streetlamps, was nowhere near indicative of how it would look during the optimal conditions of the daytime. Still, he knew there was no use fretting over it like an overly fussy perfectionist. The effort was more than enough to get his point across. /To communicate my love/, he thought with wry little smile.

When he turned his back on his modest creation and strode out of the park, he left behind a near-perfect reproduction of the painting he had destroyed that evening; one rendered in chalk, fabric, blood, meat, and bone.


*


"Okay, I'm all done."

Pendergast stood, rolling his shoulders back to work out the kinks, and pulled the bathrobe on as Avery leaned back in his chair and stretched his arms over his head. He tied the belt loosely as he walked around to where Avery sat, stepping carefully around the paintings spread out on the floor. With an appraising eye, he looked first at the painting on the easel and then at the drawings at his feet. He stood close to Avery's chair, with his hands laced behind his back.

It was several minutes before he spoke, which led to a great deal of nervous fidgeting on Avery's part. "Very nice," he finally said, nodding to the portrait Avery had just finished. "And not a bad likeness."

"That's good. I wasn't even paying attention to trying to get a likeness." Avery scrubbed his eyes wearily. "Just going for color." And, indeed, the relatively thin, canvas-treated paper was molded with layer upon layer of acrylic paint.

"I can see that," Pendergast said quietly, laying one hand on Avery's shoulder. "You're very talented." Avery stiffened slightly beneath his touch, but said nothing. After a moment, Pendergast removed his hand and moved back to sit on the couch. "So, tell me... what's the focus of these paintings?" He cocked his head to one side. "The ones for which you're using me for practice, I mean."

"Oh, yeah," Avery said as he slowly began to clean his brushes. "It's sort of hard to explain, I guess." Pendergast gave him an encouraging nod. "It's kind of an exaggerated contrast thing and kind of a racial thing. About what it means to be too light or too dark these days." He shook his head several times, very quickly, as if trying to clear his mind. "Or something like that."

Pendergast nodded again, thoughtfully, and continued to watch as Avery cleaned his supplies. He made no move to ask about the suit Avery had taken from him and didn't express any particularly urgent need to get dressed. Avery watched him out of the corner of one eye as he scraped the excess paint from his palette. "Comfy?" he asked as he returned from rinsing out the cup he'd used for water and throwing away his paper towels.

"Quite content, thank you," Pendergast said as he leaned back and closed his eyes.

"Warm enough?" Avery asked as he moved his finished paintings to one side and began to shift his easel back against the wall. "It tends to get kind of cold in here."

"Yes, in fact. Thank you for the heater."

"Yeah, well, it's not going to be on much longer." Giving the easel a final nudge with his foot, Avery began moving his tools back onto the shelves and folding up his table and chair. "I don't like keeping it on, really."

"Why not?"

"It makes me nervous." He tugged the table over and set it against the wall next to the easel, not bothering to trying to move it back into the closet; he had to shift several large canvases to make room. "My mother's kind of psycho, see, and when I was a little kid she'd tell me that if you left something like a heater on for too long, it'd catch fire." Avery smiled ruefully as he propped his folded chair up against the table. "And then she would describe exactly what would happen if the house went up in flames." He paused in front of the couch and shoved his hands in his pockets. "It's the little things about childhood that really stick with you, you know?"

A long moment of silence stretched between them. "Yes." Pendergast's reply was soft and sympathetic. "Unfortunately, that's very true."

"Oh well." Avery shrugged and sighed. "Can't do anything about it." Then, apparently without thinking, Avery leaned perilously over both Pendergast and the arm of the couch, stretching to grasp the cord of the space heater to unplug it. Startled, Pendergast drew in a sharp breath and instinctively placed his hand on Avery's lower back to steady him.

Avery froze, his fist curled around the cord. After a slight pause, the 'pop' of the plug pulling from the socket broke the stillness. Avery relaxed his hand and straightened up, and Pendergast allowed his own hand to slip from the man's back. "I guess..." Avery's voice intruded quietly into the uncomfortable silence. "I guess that you'll probably want to, you know, get dressed and get out of here." His manner had changed abruptly; his voice had dropped and lost all but the slightest inflection, he'd crossed his arms stiffly, and his eyes refused to meet Pendergast's, instead concentrating on a point somewhere above and to the left.

"Is something wrong?" Pendergast asked gently, leaning forward and feeling the cheap terrycloth robe slip awkwardly across one shoulder.

Avery shrugged and took a step back. "No, hey, everything's fine," he said flatly. "You were a great sport, thanks so much, but I'm just betting that you're all set to haul ass and get back to your life." He reached down and grabbed Pendergast's mug from the floor in a quick, jerky movement, before turning and heading back toward the kitchen, snatching his own mug off the table as he went. Pendergast heard the harsh clanging of ceramic on the metal basin of the sink. After a moment, Avery emerged again. He hovered near the doorway, uncertain. "Well? Are you leaving or what?"

Pendergast hesitated slightly before he stood and bowed his head. "I'm sorry. I see that I was incorrect in thinking that we had established a rapport."

"Look," Avery sighed. "You barely know me." His mouth twisted into a sardonic little smile. "And I barely know you. But from what I do know, you aren't really the kind of guy who would... hah, 'stay here overnight.'" He paused, as if struck by an unpleasant thought. "Not that most guys actually bother to stay the whole night."

"I think that's a shame."

"You barely know me!" Avery threw up his hands in disgust. "Besides, I promised myself I'd quit picking up strange guys just to fuck them."

Pendergast's cheeks colored at Avery's insinuation; he pursed his lips, lowered his eyelids, and dipped his head in thought. "I'm afraid that, perhaps, there has been a misunderstanding."

Avery snorted. "Yeah? Well, I wouldn't be surprised."

"Please." Pendergast held up a hand. "This is going to be far more difficult than it already is if you continue to adopt that attitude." Avery said nothing, but avoided Pendergast's intense gaze. "You and I both know that I didn't come here with the intentions you implied."

"So why did you come here?" Avery asked, his voice underscored with a confrontational growl. "I mean, my god, I'm a complete stranger, and here I am asking you to come pose for me?"

"I was impressed by your artwork," Pendergast said simply. "And I found you intriguing." He hesitated. "I meet a great many people in my work, and while many of them provide me with distractions or interesting cases, very few can truly hold my interest."

Avery's expression was skeptical. "You're saying that I do?"

"You do."

"That is the biggest load of shit I've heard in a long time."

Pendergast smoothed the front of the bathrobe in an offhanded, anxious gesture. "I'm sorry, I'm not accustomed to expressing... ah..."

Avery's lips stretched into a smile that wasn't entirely friendly. "No, please keep going. It's not like I get to hear anything like this too often in my life."

Pendergast sighed. "If I could, I would much prefer to state my intentions in a more formal setting." Avery didn't respond. "This would feel far more appropriate after a period of courtship, however," he gestured to himself, with the slightest hint of self-deprecation, "you've already seen all of my shortcomings."

"You've got to be kidding. Shortcomings?" Avery rolled his eyes. "Please. You should have seen the last guy I brought home."

"In any case," Pendergast continued with a slight cough of embarrassment, "Yes, I find you exceptionally... fascinating, I suppose."

"Listen, I can't tell whether you want to have sex or psychoanalyze me." With an exasperated sigh, Avery pushed his hair back from his forehead with both hands and then began to rub his temples. "Can't this just be easy? Can't you just find me repellant like most people do?"

"I'm afraid I'm not like most people."

"That's for damn sure."

"I'm also afraid that this is causing you a great deal of stress, and yet I have no idea why."

"You really want to know? Fine." Avery began to tick off the reasons with his right hand. "First: like you said, I didn't ask you to come here so that we could end up in bed. Because I don't do that anymore. Second: you barely know me, and despite what you might say now, there's no way in hell that you could actually like me already. You'd dick around and then leave and, god, what a waste of time that would be. And that leads right into number three," Avery paused to take a breath and then continued nastily, "which is that I'll bet you're a straight guy who's starting to think about branching out a little. Am I right?"

"Not exactly," Pendergast said quietly.

"So, what? You're bi?"

"My sexual activity has been somewhat limited in the past few years, since the death of my wife. Before I was married, I was predominately celibate, though I had several notable relationships with both sexes as an adolescent and young adult." Pendergast shrugged slightly. "I suppose that 'bisexual' is as accurate a way as any to describe myself."

Some of the tension seemed to drain from Avery at this explanation; he sagged against the wall and stared blankly at Pendergast. "Look," he finally said, his voice taking a softer and more even cadence. "It's just that... I'm not here to be a release or a novelty or whatever for you. All right?" Pendergast nodded. "You'd better be really goddamn serious."

Slowly, Pendergast stepped forward to where Avery stood. He cupped the younger man's chin in one hand, delicately rubbing his thumb against the line of Avery's jaw. "I am rarely anything if not serious about the things that are important to me."

"Jesus Christ." Avery whispered hoarsely. "Aren't you a sweet talker?"

"I try my best." There was a momentary pause between them and then, gently, Pendergast leaned forward and carefully touched his lips to Avery's.

The kiss was very short and chaste, and yet when Pendergast pulled away, Avery's breathing had become heavier and his cheeks had become flushed. He blinked several times in quick succession and sighed. "I'm sorry about your wife."

Startled, Pendergast jerked back slightly and then seemed to catch himself; his sharp features settled into a neutral expression. "I'm sorry too," he said quietly as he moved his hand up to tuck a lock of hair behind Avery's ear. "I'm also sorry that you've had previous experiences that lead you to distrust me."

"Oh no, please." Avery ducked his head. "That's totally my own fault, okay? My own malfunction."

"You don't think that you deserve to be treated with respect?"

"See? If you really knew me, you wouldn't be asking that question." Avery tilted his head back against the wall and stared up at Pendergast, subtly defiant. "I can give as good as I get, believe me."

"I do believe you." Pendergast moved forward and pressed another quick kiss to Avery's lips. "But have I done anything to earn your enmity?" Languidly, he reached up and cradled Avery's head in his hands, preventing him from averting his gaze.

Avery let out a shaky sigh. "No, you haven't." He paused, opened his mouth as if he was going to say something more, and then abruptly surged forward for a kiss. Pendergast ducked his head and they bumped noses awkwardly. Avery gave a short, nervous laugh and then, more carefully, tried again. He looped one arm around Pendergast's neck, pulling him down closer for several quick, buffeting kisses. "But you won't like me afterward," he hissed. "I'm a horrible person."

"I make my living trying to identify the horrible people in this world and stop them from hurting others." Pendergast paused to slip one hand around Avery's waist to the small of his back. "You're not one of those people."

"How do you know? Avery cocked his head to one side as he began to idly massage Pendergast's shoulders. "Maybe I'm trying to get you into the back room so I can disembowel you, just like I do all my victims. Did you think of that?"

"Hmm. And yet, I think I'll be able to defend myself." Pendergast smiled faintly as Avery made a face.

"Don't serial killers and psycho people get really strong when they're provoked?"

"Occasionally. I wouldn't say that it's a common experience."

"Damn. There go my all hopes for someday becoming strong like the Hulk."

"I'm sorry to disappoint."

Avery shrugged. "It's okay." He paused and chewed his lower lip. "But... we are going back to the bedroom, right? I didn't read this completely wrong, did I?"

"I think we're reading each other fairly well, actually." Pendergast pulled back, hesitancy flickering across his face. "Of course, it's been a... well, a very long time for me, and if you'd rather wait-"

"Are you kidding me? If I say we wait, I'll never see you again."

"Now that's not true at all. You'd still have to deliver my painting."