fugue - Oblique Publications
fugue - Oblique Publications
fugue - Oblique Publications
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Page<br />
8<br />
FUGUE ˆˆˆˆˆ<br />
JANE BARON<br />
ˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆ<br />
Avon thrashed and muttered. His hand<br />
struck Blake’s, but at random.<br />
“Wake up. Come on, Avon.” Blake<br />
shook harder and Avon clutched at him, struggling.<br />
He spoke loudly and distinctly. “Avon.<br />
Wake up..”<br />
Dark eyes snapped open wide and gazed<br />
into his without recognition. Strange how disconcerting<br />
that was. Then Avon broke the<br />
locked gaze and blinked, reason clearly returning.<br />
His eyes darted around the room.<br />
Oh damn, thought Blake.<br />
The technician sat up all at once, freeing<br />
himself like a spring uncoiling, knocking<br />
Blake’s hand away. This time, on purpose.<br />
“What the hell…?”<br />
“Strange,” Blake muttered, whimsy<br />
overtaking him once more as he found no other<br />
inner resources equal to the situation. “That was<br />
precisely my own first reaction.”<br />
“Have you finally lost what’s left of your<br />
mind? Or have the aliens been at it again?”<br />
Blake, massaging his collarbone for<br />
comfort, was briefly distracted by annoyance.<br />
“Avon, that is uncalled for—”<br />
Avon’s teeth made a brief appearance.<br />
“You haven’t answered the question.”<br />
Blake rolled his eyes heavenward—or<br />
perhaps Liberator-ward, even he wasn’t quite<br />
sure—then looked pointedly at the empty pile of<br />
blankets on the other side of Avon. He then<br />
turned his gaze to his own blankets, scrunched<br />
up blamelessly against his side of the tent, and<br />
onto Avon himself, well within enemy territory.<br />
He finished it up with raised brows and a slight<br />
inclination of his head toward his companion.<br />
Avon glared back. No I did not.<br />
Blake spread his hands and tilted his<br />
head to one side, lips quirking. Sorry, but I’m<br />
afraid you did.<br />
Avon replied with a searing look which<br />
commented briefly but vividly upon Blake’s<br />
ancestry, his intelligence, his habits of personal<br />
hygiene, his reason for existence, and the probable<br />
destination of his immortal soul; then he<br />
rose in one fluid motion.<br />
ˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆ PÆAN TO PRIAPUS<br />
“Look, Avon,” said Blake, aloud this<br />
time. “I could have just let you go on having the<br />
nightmare. It was only out of the goodness of my<br />
heart—”<br />
He was, of course, by now talking to a<br />
flapping tent door.<br />
“Bloody sod,” he muttered, meaning<br />
both the man and the situation. He had the<br />
distinct feeling he’d be saying it again, and soon,<br />
and often.<br />
That evening found him sitting in HQ,<br />
doing a slow simmer and fully justified in his<br />
prediction. He’d forgotten how vicious Avon<br />
could be when in an ill-humor. He had no idea<br />
where the man had spent the few hours before<br />
the start of the next work ‘day,’ and he wondered<br />
what Avon proposed to do that night. Sleep with<br />
Cally or Vila? Unlikely. He’d already driven<br />
Vila into stuttering fury with a few well-chosen<br />
barbs over breakfast, and had even conjured a<br />
smoldering look or two from Cally during the<br />
afternoon. Knowing Avon, Blake thought,<br />
clenching his teeth on the dozen-and-a-half<br />
things he could think of to say to the tech, and on<br />
the picture of holding Avon very tightly by the<br />
throat against a wall whilst he said them, the<br />
technician would spend the night with his computers.<br />
Except, of course, that that would be<br />
tantamount to admitting he was afraid of Blake.<br />
And so, that evening when Blake entered<br />
the tent, Avon was already wrapped in his bedroll,<br />
lying perfectly still, to all appearance dead<br />
to the world.<br />
Blake, for his part, lay down resolutely<br />
and tried to sleep. He had only indifferent success.<br />
His subconscious was uneasy about rendering<br />
himself helpless with an undomesticated<br />
Avon in the vicinity. There were times when the<br />
man seemed not so much cryptic as just plain<br />
bloody barmy, and who knew what he might<br />
take it into his head to do during his next noctivigational<br />
fit?<br />
But, for tonight at least, the latter point<br />
was moot. Which Blake suddenly realized when<br />
ˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆˆ