Title: "Someplace Very Uncomfortable"
Author: Katherine F.
Fandom: Good Vs Evil
Pairing: Chandler Smythe/Henry McNeil
Rating: NC-17 ofr pretty boys doing pretty things in confined spaces.
Disclaimer: Chandler Smythe and Henry McNeil belong to a lot of
people other than me. Damn their handsome hides.
Spoilers: first season, up to "Evilator"
Archive: yes, anywhere; email distribution is also OK
Feedback: bring it ON! katherinef@softhome.com
Website: http://netdump.com/users/purity_brown/purity.htm
Summary: Chandler finds the life of a Corps agent hard to handle,
but maybe Henry can help...
Notes: Am I really the first person to slash this show? I'm not,
am I? I mean, geez, Chandler and Henry are *so* doin' it...
Warning: tears. I don't think they're unjustified -- I think Chandler
would be a nervous wreck if he didn't cry a bit off camera, given the
shit that he has to go through -- but, anyway, You Have Been Warned.
And yes, the title *is* a _Mallrats_ reference.

      "Someplace Very Uncomfortable"
      by Katherine F.

Do you have any idea how uncomfortable it is to have sex in the front
seat of an orange Volvo?...Okay, so I guess the colour doesn't really
make any difference, but you get my point. You have sex in the front
seat of a Volvo, you're looking at a week of severe back pain and
lingering aches in parts of your body you don't normally notice are
even there. It doesn't do the upholstery any favours, either.

I knew all this in advance, so why did I let myself in for it? Not to
mention breaking the "no sex" rule in a semi-public place where any
cop on the beat or passing Corps agent could see us?

One word: Chandler. Two words: Chandler *Smythe*. 23 words: drunk and
horny Chandler Smythe clinging to me and crying on my shoulder the
night he held a dying woman in his arms.

Let me back up a little. See, we were supposed to rescue Leona, and
we kind of did. That is, we got her out before the morlocks got a
chance to get what they wanted from her. We didn't get her out alive,
though, and it was Chandler who was in the back seat with her, holding
on to her as she was fighting for her life. I was just driving. I had
other things to worry about. But Chandler...

I'm telling you, the Corps should never have resurrected Chandler. I
don't mean he's not good, 'cos he's at least as good as I am, and I
don't care what Decker says: we're not useless cannon fodder no matter
how he and Ford treat us. But Chandler is way too sensitive. It gets
to him, all the blood, all the danger, all the shit we have to deal
with, and *do*, on a regular basis. Maybe it's because of Ben, maybe
thinking about him keeps Chandler connected to the past somehow, I
don't know. I do know that I've seen him come close to cracking up a
lot more times than a regular newbie would. A lot more times than I
did.

I should have known something was going on inside his head during the
ride home. I should have figured it out. I mean, he was all quiet and
broody and...*resigned*. Like he'd hit bottom or something, you know?
And I didn't notice, not really, or at least not until afterwards, and
I only knew *some*thing was wrong, I couldn't figure out what.

It wasn't until my cellphone rang in the middle of a Dr Pepper
commercial that the pieces really came together. I knew before I even
answered it that it would be Chandler. Not Decker or Ford or Esmeralda
or...well, I admit there aren't that many names in my little black
book.

I answered at the first ring. I never answer at the first ring.
"McNeil."

"Henry. Henry, my buddy, my friend... You know, you, you're a really
great guy, you know that?"

It was Chandler all right, and he was in Stage Three of extreme
shitfacedness: the urge to tell everyone you meet how incredible they
are and how much you love them. And then puke all over their shoes.
For
a moment I was glad Chandler was at the other end of a phone line. I
was wearing *nice* shoes.

"You sound a little out of it, Chan. You at home?"

"No, no, I'm at some bar somewhere...Hey, Henry, you ever wonder what
it's like to die? I mean, for real?"

"No, not really. Where's the bar, Chan?"

"'Cos I was thinking about Leona and how she looked when she was
going.
You hear stories, you know, about seeing a bright light and going down
a tunnel and crap like that, but I don't think...I don't...Do you
remember dying the first time?"

"Not really. Chandler, where's the bar?"

"I don't know. Westwood? Anyway...where was I..."

"That's what I'm asking, Chandler, where are you?"

"I don't know, man, I don't know. I mean, where are any of us? Where
are we going? Why do we do what we do? Why not just give the fuck up?"
His voice was getting thick now, and I could hear tears coming. Damn.
That was all I needed.

"You know why not, Chandler. We're the good guys. We can't give up."

"We're the fucking good guys? So why do we screw up so much, huh? You
know, in the movies, the good guys always win..."

"Life ain't like the movies, Chandler. You know that."

"I know, I know, I just...why does it have to be so goddamn hard?"

I didn't have an answer to that one.

I could hear Chandler sniffling on the other end, making the kind of
choking sound you make when you're trying really hard not to cry.
"Listen, Chandler, buddy," I said, "I'm going to pick you up. You just
tell me where you are and I'll be there, and I'll drive you home,
okay?"

"Okay," he said in a tiny voice, resigned again, sad. I wanted to hug
him, just to prove the world isn't all blood and guts and morlocks.

"So where are you, Chan?"

"Uh...Madison's. Broxton."

"All right. I'm there. Don't drink any more."

I hung up. I didn't really expect him to stay dry till I got there. It
was just something to say. But when I did get there, he looked
completely miserable and relatively sober. Still not sober enough to
drive, but sober enough that I wasn't worried for my shoes.

"Hey, Chandler, you ready?"

He looked up from the bar and stared at me with this... *lost*
expression on his face. He looked all crumpled up, like he'd slept in
his clothes, and sort of small and vulnerable. He's a head shorter
than
me anyway, but the way he was curled in on himself made him look even
smaller. It was as if he was trying to make himself invisible.

I grabbed his shoulder and shook him a little. "We're going to get you
home, okay, Chan?"

"Home is where the heart is," he muttered, whatever that was supposed
to mean, but he came with me anyway.

It was in the car that he started to get philosophical again, and I
started to wonder how many drinks he'd had, and how many of them he'd
had between me hanging up and me arriving at the bar.

"You know, Henry, I wonder sometimes...what would my life be like if I
hadn't died?"

"I think we all wonder that sometimes, Chan." No shit. I'd gone
through a million different scenarios a million different times, and I
still wasn't sure I wasn't better off dead. Then again, I'd never had
a son.

"But we don't *know*. We don't know anything for sure." He stared out
of the window for a minute, not saying anything, his forehead all
furrowed up.

"I could have been...I was a bad father," he said after a while. "But
now, I just want to...I want to do all the stuff I never did when I
was alive. I want to be there for Ben. I want to...God, there's so
much I want to do. And I'm not going to get the chance."

"We all got regrets," I said. "But you don't want to deal with them
by going into a bar and getting shitfaced, man. It doesn't work. You
just end up with another problem to handle."

"I'm not an alcoholic, Henry."

"Who said anything about that? I'm talking about the hangover the size
of Burbank you're going to have tomorrow morning."

He dropped his head into his hands. "Shit."

"Exactly. Listen, man, you got problems, you've got to come to me
and talk about them. That's what friends are for."

"Sure, sure. You wouldn't understand."

"Try me."

"No, Henry, I'm serious. You don't want to know about my problems."

"Well, which is it, Chandler, that I wouldn't understand or that I
don't want to know? 'Cos I gotta say, you're really rousing my
curiosity here."

"Either. Both. Look, I just -- I don't want to talk about it, okay?"

"Okay." I drove in silence for a while, trying to figure out what to
say next.

"I just..." he said at last, rubbing his forehead, "I just get so...
lonely. And horny. And lonely and horny mixed up together is really
fucking frustrating when there isn't a goddamn thing you can do about
it."

"Now, see what I mean? What makes you think I wouldn't understand
that? We're all in the same boat here when it comes to shit like
that."

"I wasn't finished."

"Sorry."

He ran his hand through his hair till it stuck up in spikes. He does
that a lot. It makes him look kind of like a porcupine. It also makes
him look taller than he really is, which I suspect to be his reason
for doing it.

"You really...I mean, when I say 'horny', I don't mean regular horny,
I mean like industrial-strength horny. That's how I feel, and it's not
just now or when I would've been horny anyway, it's *all* *the*
*time*. I feel like I'm just one gigantic hard-on."

"Not *that* gigantic."

"Would you shut up for a second? I'm spilling my guts here."

"Sorry."

"Least you can do is pay attention...Anyway, it's like..." He looked
out of the window again. "After my wife died, I...I really threw
myself into my work. I mean, I was a workaholic anyway, but I worked
even more after she died because...I was thinking about her all the
time, you know? And it hurt, because she wasn't there any more, she'd
never be there again. It hurt like hell. So I worked ridiculous hours
just to distract myself, but that didn't make things better, it made
them worse, because at the end of the day, I still wasn't going home
to her, and I was neglecting Ben into the bargain.

"Now that I'm dead, I *still* can't see her. But I can't see Ben
either. Or anyone else. I mean, I never wanted anyone else when I was
alive, anybody but her, but I...I feel like I've moved on now, you
know? Like I could...I could be close to someone again. But I can't.
The Corps says I can't, so I can't. And every week I come this close,
*this* fucking close to dying, and part of me just wants to give in
and die so I can see her again. So I can be with her. But when I do
come out of it alive, I'm just so -- so -- I mean, I feel like I'm
going to explode if I don't...touch somebody, get close, even if only
for a second, but I *can't*."

"I know that feeling," I said, cautiously, not wanting to give away
too much. "It's biological. Nature's way of making the species survive
in times of danger."

"That doesn't make it any easier to deal with."

"No," I conceded, "but it's not something that's going to kill you,
Chan. You just need to get used to it."

"Do you feel this way?"

"Sure, man, like I said. But after a while..."

"Time wounds all heels, right?" He frowned and blinked a couple of
times. "No, wait, that didn't come out right...Ah, fuck it. It doesn't
matter. Point is, I'm going crazy here and I don't know what to do.
I mean, what am I supposed to do?"

"I don't know. Jerk off a lot. Call me when you feel depressed. Try
not to think about your wife too much."

Oops. Bad choice of words there, Henry.

"*Too* *much*?" he growls at me, like I just said he should eat Ben's
head for breakfast with his eggs over easy. "How the hell do you think
about your wife *too* *much*?"

"I don't know, okay? I didn't mean -- "

"You didn't mean to talk about the most important thing in my life as
if it was a source of saturated fats?"

"Chandler, she's not *in* your life any more. I know that's gotta
hurt,
but you have to move on. Shit, you said yourself you were ready to get
close to someone."

He slumped in his seat, the picture of misery and confusion. "I don't
know," he said, his voice low and raspy, like he was about to start
crying. "I *don't* *know*. I just feel like...like it's all too
fucking much. Like I can't take one more minute of it before..."

His shoulders shook, once, twice, then I was pulling into a parking
lot and parking the car so I could hold him as he cried.

He didn't say anything coherent for a while, and I just sat there,
my arms around him, shifting position from time to time to avoid
cramp. Little pats on the neck, the head, the small of his back --
just comfort, theoretically, although -- *no,* I said to myself,
*don't go there. Even if he's too out of it to notice. You're one of
the good guys, remember?

Right.*

But still...the way he was pressed up against me, sobbing into my
neck...I wanted to find whoever had made him feel this way and kill
them. Slowly. And then maybe take him off to Kansas or Idaho or
someplace equally peaceful and stick him in a house where no Corps
agent would ever find him and...*no. Don't go there.*

Chandler's sobs were beginning to slow down, and I knew that now would
be a really good time to prove my "good guy" credentials by letting
him go with a few neutral pats on the shoulder and never mentioning
this to him or anyone else. I held on, cradling him in my arms as the
crying stopped and his breathing began to slow down.

"You okay?" I said into his hair as the last tremor subsided. I could
hear a siren wailing somewhere outside, a block away or maybe two. Not
for us, I prayed. Now was not a good a time for interruptions.

"Mmm. No, not really," he mumbled into my neck, the vibrations making
my skin tingle. I laughed and patted his neck gently.

"Chandler-buddy, the day you *stop* complaining is the day I send for
the guys in white coats."

I felt rather than heard his laugh, a soft rumble that felt almost
like the sobs that had gone before. I tightened my hold on him. Sooner
or later, I knew, one of us would have to let go, but I was happy to
let it be him.

And he did draw back for a second, and I thought that would be it; I'd
drive him home, and we'd say goodbye the way we always did, and never
talk about it again. But he frowned a little and leaned his forehead
against mine, and said, "I never got to say it."

"What?" I said, wondering what this gesture meant. I'd never touched
foreheads with somebody I hadn't slept with before, though God only
knows why not. Too much closeness, I guess. Too much of a need to be
honest.

"What I was going to say. You know, in the elevator. You stopped me."

"Oh, *that*? Listen, you don't have to say -- "

"I know, I know, but I want to. I... Henry, you...keep me sane. If it
wasn't for you I'd be a gibbering wreck by now. I'd be climbing the
walls. I just want to thank you, you know, for being there."

"Just doing my job."

He shook his head, the tips of his hair brushing against my forehead.
"It's not your job to put up with my crap. Look, Henry, I know I'm not
the best of partners, okay? I complain and I panic and I forget things
and I make *incredibly* stupid mistakes, but you...you don't give me
half as much shit as you have a right to. You put up with me. I mean,
Christ, Henry, look at us! *This* isn't in the job description for a
Corps agent."

"No, I -- I guess it isn't," I said, trying very hard to keep my voice
neutral. I didn't really want him to figure out why I did all that
above-and-beyond stuff; we were already too close for comfort. Too
many near-death experiences, too many opportunities to save each
other's lives... too much water under the bridge for the short time
I'd known him.

"Henry?" he said.

"What?"

He cupped the back of my neck and slid his fingers inside my collar.
"I love you," he said.

*Meltdown.*

I could have pulled back and told him we couldn't do it, that we were
agents of the Almighty Corps and that meant no sex under any
circumstances. I could have let him down gently with reassurances of
friendship, told him I loved him too, in a way. At least, I guess I
could have done that, and maybe I should have.

But I didn't.

What I *did* do was lean forward and kiss him, slowly, gently, making
it clear that if he chose to bail at any point and say he didn't mean
it like *that*, he was absolutely free to do so...and when his tongue
slipped into my mouth -- almost shyly, as if it was asking for
permission -- I felt a shiver rise from the pit of my belly and make
its way up to the roots of my hair.

The Corps has its reasons for making sex one of its big no-nos, even
though it's easy to complain about how pointless it is. Sex is
amazing,
sex is one of the most amazing things in the world, because even
though
a lot of the time it's like sneezing or eating a good meal, once in a
while it gives you warm shivers and butterflies in your stomach, and
when you meet someone who can give you that feeling, you don't give a
shit who they are -- human, morlock, or the Devil himself; it's all
the same to the butterflies.

But Chandler had *already* betrayed the Corps for me. Sure, it worked
out okay in the end, but that was mostly luck. He had been willing to
sell them out. For me. And I suddenly realised I would do the same for
him in a heartbeat.

As I pulled him closer and he drew circles on the back of my neck, I
thought of what he had said that day. *I guess that's the difference
between you and me.* Was that what he was saying? Was he trying to
tell me, even then?

I broke off the kiss for a moment, just to see what was in his eyes.
What I saw there made me catch my breath. "Look," I said, "we don't
have to...I mean, we probably shouldn't...I mean, I -- "

"I want to," he said, and that was it for talking. Not that I don't
like to hear Chandler talk, especially when his voice is all deep and
raspy like it was then, but there were more important things to think
about. I had to get him out of his jacket and shirt, for one thing, at
least enough so that I could touch the skin of his chest. And once his
shirt was open I couldn't help myself; I had to lunge forward and lick
and suck my way down to the bulge in his pants. Getting his pants off
was a *real* bitch, but somehow we managed. I think if we hadn't, I
would have ripped them to pieces with my teeth.

And then he was moaning my name and coming in my mouth, and I was
doubled up and humping his leg, and it was all over much too soon. I
was out of practice and so was he, and we were both, in Chandler's
words, "industrial-strength horny". It couldn't have lasted more than
sixty seconds.

As he cradled my head in his lap, I thought of the Corps, and
Esmerelda, and of how sixty seconds could really be enough, if the
world was ending or your life was falling apart. In the morning I'd
have a backache and a ruined pair of jeans, and we'd have to work
together and push each other around like nothing had happened.

In the morning, I would let myself remember the taste of Chandler's
mouth, the heat of his skin under my lips. For sixty seconds.

It would be enough. It would have to be.

[end]
--
Katherine F.