Rescue

by koibito

"Got a message for you, Zangulus."

The tall mercenary narrowed his dark grey eyes. Another job? Sylvan knew he was already in the middle of something. and it was just the kind of work he liked - - challenging and extremely lucrative. The only drawback was his employer, a man with a nasty reputation that was justly-deserved. All the more reason to finish this as quickly and well as possible. Right now he didn't see much of the necromancer; the minute he shirked or failed in his duties, that would change.

Zangulus reached out a gloved hand to take the parchment from his long-time associate. Always a trusted partner, the white-haired man had become more over the past several months: a friend. The dusky-skinned swordsman was still one of the best, and still careful and somewhat solitary, but his dealings with Gourry, Zelgadis, Lina and the others had changed him. Sylvan approved of the change, enough to take it as it was and wisely refrain from commenting on it.

Zangulus read the message, his steel-grey eyes widening as he did. He reached absently to shove back the mass of ebony curls that habitually escaped his ponytail to fall over one eye.

"Sylvan," he said slowly after a minute, "I don't care what you tell my employer. Just make sure that he knows I'm leaving, and I'll be back to deal with the job and whatever objections he has. And make sure you tell him in person. I don't want him taking out his temper on you. Tell him, and then go somewhere else."

Sylvan snorted. "Lina Inverse and Master Gourry again, it must be. Tell him I send my greetings."

Zangulus crooked a smile and extended a hand. "That I will, Sylvan." The older man took the offered hand in a tight grip.

"Try not to let your head get too big for that damned hat, and you should be fine." He clapped Zangulus on the shoulder and let him go.

Lina stared up at this fighter Phibrizzo had sent against them, mind working furiously for some way to stop him, right up to the moment the Sword of Light swooped toward her...

...and encountered nothing but the ground. Lina shook off the shock of having a pair of arms scoop her away from the strike she couldn't counter and couldn't avoid, and her eyes went wide in a different kind of shock.

"You!" she exclaimed.

"It's him," Zel echoed, staring, as they all were, at Zangulus, who ignored everything else and asked Lina...

"Where's Gourry?"

"Don't tell me you're just following Gourry..." that took most of the dash out of a perfectly good rescue, in Lina's eyes. Zangulus felt his face turn red. Maybe Lina wasn't as oblivious as she seemed. He knew this was a bad idea, showing up without a good excuse. But she didn't really seem to care. On the contrary, in typical fashion, she told him what she knew would interest him and help her as well. This opponent was obviously giving the lot of them trouble. And he had the Sword of Light. Considering the message he'd received, Zangulus didn't like the implications.

Until he faced off against the mysterious warrior, and in the first strike, a more disturbing thought assailed him. The more he fought, the surer and more impossible it seemed. Merciless, but unmistakably...

Lina interrupted their battle with some very powerful spell, a conjure of some sorcerous sword, but even while riding out the shockwave the resulted from the unsuccessful clash, his mind was racing. And he was proven right, when the face mask cracked and revealed Gourry. Then he was as shocked as they all were, but to him, some pieces were also falling into place.

And he managed to fit everything together that night, while they sat talking over the table. He wasn't going to stay with them, despite the circumstances that had brought him there to begin with. As he told them, he didn't work well in groups. And if he stayed, it was unlikely they would continue to believe his arrival to be a coincidence, or continue to leave unquestioned his assertion that he only wanted to duel with Gourry one last time.

As the tall mercenary walked out, Martina watched him go, her thoughts on him not quite kept to herself. Amelia, who had seen her fasten first on Gourry, then on Xelloss, and who suspected that at their first meeting the princess of Zoana had been firmly fixated on her own Zelgadis, couldn't refrain from saying, "I've been wondering about her taste..."

Widely varied to say the least, she finished silently to herself, because Zelgadis cut her off, mumbling, "Leave her alone."

Zel's eyes cracked open, the silver that normally remained hidden, there only if you knew it was there, catching the moonlight. A gentle breeze fluttered the curtain, the whisper of the flapping cloth clearly audible to his sensitive ears. A smile crept over his lips and he barely held back a shiver as a moist heat caressed one of those pointed tips, accompanied a moment later by a deep voice, husky from keeping itself just above a whisper.

"Know anything about this?"

A piece of parchment slipped past his shoulder to land on the pillow in front of him and tilt over, -ssh-shing to the floor. Which didn't matter at all, since he knew exactly what it said in his own neat hand.

Gourry needs you. Leaving Foressen for Sairaag.

... and the date, three days ago.

A hand the color of dark honey slid under the covers and along his shoulder, pushing down the material as it went, pausing when it encountered his bare chest. Zel let his eyes close again when a weight settled on the bed and the covers lifted. Then a long, lean body pressed against the length of his own, a warmth encased in clothing that had been cooled by the night air. The hand moved lower, stroking lightly over his stomach before running down his flank and stopping there abruptly. Zel could feel the heat that flushed through the body against him, scratchy cloth and leather warming too; only the hard belt that nearly bit into the bare small of his back was still cool, much cooler than the other hardness that suddenly pressed into his backside. The hand moved to his other side, the arm it belonged to draping over his hips, then tightening its embrace and pulling him back to push more firmly against that hard length.

"Not a stitch," the low voice gasped, surprise plain. "You were expecting me," it continued with a playful rumble.

"I knew you'd help Gourry, if you could," Zel murmured, deliberately shifting his hips and reaching his own hand back until he could run his fingers over the perfectly muscled thigh resting over his own. "But I was hoping you wouldn't forget about me."

"Now, that's not likely," Zangulus chuckled, and his mouth fastened just below Zel's ear, sucking hard. Zel gasped and relinquished Zan's thigh to tangle his fingers in the thick black curls - Gods, he'd missed that! - and pull Zangulus' wet, very hot kisses lower, letting go with a groan when they moved back up, under his chin.

"I didn't expect you to reach us so quickly," Zel said, his words tapering into a moan when Zangulus' thumb, and then all of his fingers, rubbed over the smooth skin where hair curled on everyone else; not on Zel. The mercenary was endlessly fascinated by that... why, Zel had no idea, but he had no complaints about it, either. Zan bared his teeth, letting them scrape just below the rocky clusters along Zel's jaw.

"Some things," he purred, the words vibrating through his chest where it met Zel's back, "demand immediate attention." His hand finally found the shaman's aching erection and pulled on it, a little roughly.

Zel bit back a cry and jerked, his fingers clenching in Zan's curls once more, and ground his ass back hard against the stiff bulge in Zan's already tight pants. The resulting reaction, Zangulus' pause and hissing intake of air, gave him the chance to pull away long enough to turn toward his long-absent lover, throwing the covers out of his way and pulling himself tightly against the swordsman, chest to chest this time. He wrapped his arms around Zan's arms and shoulders, trapping them, and rubbed against him until his hardness sliding over the one trapped in Zan's pants was too sharp a pleasure to maintain, then back up so that he could kiss Zangulus, forcing his tongue past the teeth that Zan had clenched at the friction the chimera was causing.

Zel couldn't help the short, breathless laugh that escaped him when Zangulus pushed at him with one hand and fumbled at his belt with the other. The shaman 'helped' him drag off his shirt and vest, using the opportunity it gave him while the swordsman's arms were trapped to cup his hand over leather sheathing Zan's erection and squeeze. The resulting groan from Zan, who buried his face in Zel's slightly prickly hair and bit an ear in reaction, gave Zel no choice but to relent. He was too aroused himself to let the other man stay clothed a minute longer. Zangulus had grabbed his wrist, but he broke the grip and both hands struggled to pull the pants off, the two releasing a soft grunt into each other's mouths when Zangulus lifted his hips from the bed and they bumped and brushed together.

Finally Zel was free to run his hands over that smooth, dark skin again. Their giving and taking of pleasure was seldom slow and even more rarely tender, but tonight it was desperate, the fire coursing through them the only distraction they had from the image of the blonde warrior they both loved advancing implacably on them, looking out at them from behind glazed and confused eyes, that hint of understanding more horrible than the blankness and anonymity that had shielded them, if not Gourry, from what was happening.

Zel whimpered, trying to shut it out, fastening his lips and tongue over a dark rose nipple and sucking, primitive action to drive out conscious thought. His fingernails scraped Zan's side, and Zangulus, assaulted by the same ghosts of the earlier battle, had to struggle to break the his suction, his grip. He hooked his arm under one of Zel's legs, pulled at it, pushed at the chimera until he succeeded, and Zel, forced up, latched onto an ear instead as he rolled onto his back. Zan's cock, slick with the drops of fluid leaking from it slid against Zel's heat, his hardness, and past to the spot of softness that was always unexpected in the hard planes of his lover's body.

"Now," Zel demanded, nudging thick curls aside with his nose, burrowing through them to find the silky neck they covered, and that he could easily reach with Zan's head bent against his shoulder. Zangulus gasped, trying to keep control long enough to push a slicked finger partially into Zel.

"NOW," Zel insisted, nipping at the soft skin under his mouth. Didn't want to talk, wanted to turn over, or turn Zan over, reach more of him, but there was no more time. Couldn't wait!

Zan groaned and gave in - - he couldn't fight his own body and Zel, too. He pressed in as slowly and carefully as he dared, gathering himself to thrust harder once he could, but Zel had his arms wrapped under the tall man's arms and gripping his shoulders, and the chimera growled and wrapped his other leg around Zan's waist and pulled himself, closer, forcing himself onto Zangulus. Zelgadis arched into his lover, his cock rubbing against the ridges of Zan's stomach, and Zangulus surrendered to the rhythm, thrusting fast and hard. Barely supporting his weight on his forearms when Zel snaked a hand between them to stroke himself, Zangulus clenched the bedsheets in his fists, caught in the inevitable build, until he felt Zel shudder. He buried himself to the hilt inside the white heat that gripped him tightly with tiny shudders of its own, and the flood of release took him, blind and breathless before he finally collapsed against Zel. He felt the air leave his body in a long, voiceless, shaking sigh.

After a few minutes, the hot, smooth surface beneath him shifted, bringing his attention to the sprinkling of places that scratched against his chest, stomach, thighs. He opened his eyes and lifted himself enough to roll onto his side and perform a cursory inspection of Zel. Once he got past the silvery glow of the shaman's barely slit-open eyes, he was satisfied that Zel was fine.

Zelgadis had enough demon in his chimeric make-up that pain fed his arousal - - his own, someone else's, it didn't matter. After their first encounter and the injuries they had both sported, it had become mutual agreement between the two that Zan was fast enough and strong enough to look out for himself and make sure that the more resilient shaman took the brunt of the roughness, if and when it came to the point that it was unavoidable. Zel didn't hold back; and considering the battle earlier that day, Zan had been expecting things to get rough and demanding. It was nice to have someone else like himself, who wasn't breakable, for whom the disregard of one moment didn't spoil the closeness of the next.

Zel opened his eyes all the way and reached up to tug on one of the ebody curls that was brushing his collarbone. "I think it's grown," he said. "Gods, has it been that long?"

Zan shrugged and Zel released the lock of hair.

"Sylvan sends his greetings," he said with a smile. Zel chuckled.

"Knew it was me, did he? Is he reading all your messages now, or did he think it was a love-letter?"

Zan snorted. Sylvan had been pestering him to settle down for a long time now.

"He's right, you know," Zel commented. "Not that you should, but that you shouldn't just ignore the possibility. I'd disappear somewhere and spend my evenings by a fire in my own library, if I could. The life I lead now is just the means to the life I want. You can't be a merc forever, you're already getting dissatisfied with it. You've changed too much. You may be able to do the job just as well as ever, but you don't like it anymore."

"Now isn't exactly the time to stop. And besides, I don't have a reason to."

Zel let that rest for a moment, but then he pulled himself up and leaned against the headboard.

"You know you're not going to tell him. No more than I am."

"You sound confident we'd have the chance," Zangulus said quietly. "You've seen this Hellmaster... what do you honestly think?"

Zel tucked his chin and narrowed his eyes. "I think there's Gourry, or oblivion. Which suits me perfectly."

Zangulus nodded. He stood and started retrieving his clothes, absently, his mind on what lay ahead. He'd only managed to pull on his pants and find a few other pieces, which he had yet to put on, when a dirisive puff of air from Zel's direction made him turn around.

"That ridiculous hat," the shaman said, his lips twitching and finally giving into a full smile.

"Oi!" Zan protested, but the sight of one of Zel's real smiles was too charming to allow him to pretend outrage. He mussed the chimera's silvery hair instead, watching Zel squinch one eye, then close both and arch his neck into Zan's rubbing fingers. Zangulus understood; even the freedom to indulge in such a simple, casual touch was a rare pleasure for either of them.

"Stay," Zel said suddenly, not opening his eyes. "You can sneak out in the morning, when the rest of them are fighting over sausage. It won't make a difference, anyway, except to me."

Zan paused. "And if I don't," he said in a perfect imitation of concern, though a slow grin was trying to creep across his face, "will you come and attack me in my sleep?"

Zel pretended to consider that fully. "Probably," he finally replied.

Zan sighed and flopped onto his back on the bed. "All right. Prisoner to an insatiable shaman for one night can't be too bad, I've lived through it before."

Zel tugged on the blankets until Zangulus move enough to free them. He pulled them up and settled against Zan, warm, but not feverish.

"Actually," he said, "I was thinking of sleeping."

And they did, the absent and unknowing member of their group between them and holding them together.

§ end §

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