Chapter 1 - Rusty Dusty Blues.

Brian shouldered his way past a rowdy gaggle of twenty-somethings who were bunched up near the side door of the pub. He was desperate to get outside and have a post-fuck smoke. He was glad it was still early enough in the evening that it was light out, although, judging by the lowering grey clouds that he could just barely glimpse overhead between the tall buildings that edged on the narrow alleyway, it would likely get dark quickly once the storm hit. He wasn’t that familiar with this part of Covent Garden though, so he was glad it wasn’t dark yet. Being a tourist in London, he felt like he always needed to be a little bit on alert, even though the pub he was in wasn’t in a bad neighborhood and his hotel was just down the street.

He was even more grateful for the fading light since there didn’t seem to be anyone else around as he ducked down the alley, which was a little bit creepy. He noted, in passing, the quaint brass sign affixed to the ancient red brick of the alley wall stating that this crooked, constricted aisle had it’s own official name: Duckett’s Passage. That caused the jaded man to snort with laughter. Of course the rear exit out of the gay bar was a back passage. What the fuck else would it be called.

Brian pulled his pack of Marlboro’s out of his pocket along with his Zippo lighter and lit up, taking a nice long drag. He knew he really should quit this shit. He’d promised Gus that he would. And he had tried, but there were certain social situations where the urge to smoke was almost uncontrollable. One of which was post-fuck at a bar. It was almost a personal ritual for him. He’d been doing this same thing since his first trip to Babylon, his favorite gay club back home in Pittsburgh, when he was seventeen. There was just something about the kind of hook up you got in the back room of a gay bar - the hot, humid, fast-paced lust, the hands groping you from every direction as you played the game and stalked your intended prey, and the final culmination of the hunt ending with a trick being pushed up against the wall and the mindless thrusting, pushing, pulsing, before the sweet rush of release - that simply needed to be topped off with a nicotine infusion. And what his not-quite-four year old son didn’t know, couldn’t get Brian in trouble, right?

As he took his time with the cigarette, Brian ambled slowly down the cobble-paved alley. He fucking loved London. He’d always been a bit of a history buff, so any chance he got to wander through the living history of a place like London was fascinating for him. Just walking around, looking at all the buildings, most of which had been there for hundreds of years, gave him a secret thrill. It made him feel like he was somehow a part of it. A part of the history of this amazing city. Sometimes, when he was visiting, he’d just get off the Tube at random stops and wander around aimlessly, gawking at everything around him. He’d made some really remarkable finds that way - enjoying the tidbits he’d read on the various historical markers that seemed to pop up everywhere, discovering homes of the famous and infamous, learning more about the city around every curve. Only the day before, he’d wandered down an unassuming side street just for shits and giggles and come across the home of Daniel Webster, the creator of the first dictionary, which Brian thought was a great find. So he was in no hurry to leave this interesting little alley, in case it might happen to lead to another such discovery.

‘If this alleyway could talk’, he thought to himself with a grin as he examined a stretch of wall where you could tell by the difference in the brickwork that several windows and doors which had previously been there had since been sealed off and vaguely wondering why.

He’d only made it about fifty meters down the alley, though, before he felt the first drops of rain falling. He looked up at the clouds, which seemed to be getting ominously blacker by the second. He cursed at them, worried that his brand new Saville Row suit would be ruined if it got too wet. He probably shouldn’t have worn it to the bar in the first place - it wasn’t exactly standard club wear - but he’d just been so in love with it when he picked it up from the tailors that afternoon that he’d decided to keep it on and show off a bit. He did look fucking fantastic in it, too. It was a beautiful, classic three piece, made out of soft, lightweight, merino wool, that felt marvelous against his skin. The dove gray color looked great against his swarthy skin. And the matching gray silk Van Heusen tie and the crisp white Alexander McQueen  shirt he’d paired it with were the perfect combination. He knew the clients he was presenting his pitch to the next day would be blown away by his appearance in that suit before he’d even opened his mouth. Provided, of course, that the damned rain didn’t ruin it.

Brian quickly turned around, heading at a much more rapid pace back towards the pub, hoping to reach shelter and save his suit. The rain was already starting to get heavier but he thought he would still make it. However, right as he stepped around a small bend, the building there jutting out at an odd angle into the passage, the clouds above completely broke open and buckets of rain began to dump down on him. Brian immediately stepped under the only protection he could find - a small brick ledge fit into the angle of the bend - and huddled as close to the damp, rough bricks as he could get in a vain attempt to save his precious clothing.

Not that it was working very well. He already felt like a drowned rat. It’s not like he hadn’t been to London before; he knew better than to leave his hotel room without a fucking umbrella. What had he been thinking? He imagined his hair probably looked atrocious, plastered to his head the way it was. So much for his plans to pull another trick or two at the pub before he headed back to the hotel for the night. Not gonna happen looking like he did now. Plus, he’d have to get his suit to the concierge as soon as possible so it could be pressed again for the next day. Fucking rain.

Just as Brian was debating whether or not it was worth it to brave the rain and make a run for the pub, a new freshet of rain drenched him, causing the already wet man to cringe and press back even further against the wall. However, before he had time to recover from that assault or figure out what to do next, the entire alleyway became suffused with the smell of ozone. Brian’s skin prickled and he felt the small hairs on the back of his neck standing on end. There wasn’t anywhere to go or hide, though. Another second and a deafening crack of thunder echoed through the small space of the passage and Brian was blinded by a flash of brilliance as the metal guttering pipe on the building just across the alley from him was hit by lightning.

The last thing he saw before his world faded to blackness was the wall next to the metal pipe, which seemed to be throbbing and glowing in the oddest way . . .

Brian groaned loudly as he attempted to pull himself up into a sitting position. He blinked around him in the darkness of the alley, trying to reorient himself. Why the fuck was he lying on the wet ground? What the fuck had just happened? He didn’t think he’d been so drunk that he would have passed out, and he definitely hadn’t left his drink unattended, so there was no way he could have been slipped any drugs . . . but it almost felt like it. The entire right side of his body ached, his forehead stung like a mother fucker, and his ankle hurt whenever he tried to move it. How could such a perfect night turn to shit so quickly?

Raising his hand, Brian wiped at his forehead, hissing as it made contact with the giant cut above his right eye.

“Shit.”

Looking around himself, it was clear that Brian was still in the alley behind the pub. It was much darker now than it had been before, although the rain had thankfully stopped. In fact, oddly enough, the street he was lying on was only slightly damp. It barely looked like it had rained at all, which didn’t make any sense considering the downpour that he’d been caught up in just a few minutes before. He could feel the fabric of his suit jacket was still very wet, so why wasn’t the street wet too?

Dismissing that anomaly, Brian carefully climbed to his feet, using the brick wall next to him for support and taking care not to put too much weight on his sore ankle. The narrow confines of the alley were deeply shadowed now, meaning he must have been there for quite a while. He looked up at the sky but saw only the usual night time darkness, giving him no clue as to what time it might be. There didn’t appear to be many clouds lingering after the storm, but even so, it seemed much darker than Brian was used to.

He shook his head, trying to clear away the lingering cobwebs and figure out what the hell had just happened to him. He recalled the pub and the great fuck he’d had with the hot little Pakistani trick he’d met there. He remembered going outside for a smoke. He remembered rain. Lots of fucking rain. And then . . . Fuck! He remembered the lightning hitting the building across from where he was hiding from the storm and the passing thought that the brick wall must have caught on fire or some shit, what with the way it had been glowing. He must have fucking passed out from the lightning strike. Shit! He was lucky to be alive! That had been too fucking close.

Brian took a deep breath to steady his nerves. He’d never been almost killed by lightning before, so he supposed it was okay to feel a little shaken. He hobbled forward a couple small steps, wincing with the pain, but feeling relieved that it seemed to get easier the further he walked. With one hand braced against the wall, he was able to make his way slowly down the dark alley, one mincing step at a time, even though, at that rate, it was going to take him the rest of the night to get back to the pub.

It was so dark that he really couldn’t make out much around him as he hobbled along, but Brian thought that something in the alley didn’t seem quite right. Why the fuck weren’t there any street lights down here? And where was the big dumpster he remembered passing? The entire passage seemed somehow dirtier and more dilapidated. Older somehow? He looked back over his shoulder and saw the building he thought he’d been looking at before the rain started - you know, the one that had the bricked-in doors and windows - but it couldn’t be the same building because this one had all its windows and doors in place. He also didn’t remember seeing the string of laundry hanging out of that window over yonder or that rickety old wooden cart over there. What was going on here? He couldn’t pin down what it was, exactly, but something just wasn’t right. Brian felt very uneasy.

He’d only made it maybe ten meters, trying as he went to pin down what it was that was bothering him so much, before he was startled by a loud blaring noise going off overhead. It sounded like some kind of siren or something. He had no idea what the fuck it meant, but it made him even more worried. It didn’t sound like a standard fire alarm or anything. There had been some new terrorist incidents in the city only recently, so it was always possible that it had something to with another of those, right? Did London have some type of new terrorist sirens they’d installed or something? Brian hadn’t heard about anything like that, but it was possible, he supposed. Whatever the cause, he decided he’d better get the hell back to the pub sooner rather than later, and he pushed himself to limp faster.

In the dimness of the dark alley, Brian couldn’t see much, but he thought he could hear some kind of commotion coming from the area where the passage opened out onto the High Street and it looked like there were people running past. That was not a good sign. He hoped the terrorists hadn’t bombed that very street. Why the fuck did this shit have to happen while he was visiting? Well, this night was certainly going to fucking hell pretty fucking fast.

It seemed to take forever to get back to the far end of Duckett’s Passage. The sirens abruptly died before he was halfway there. He wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or a bad one, but tried to hustle even faster. It seemed like the commotion out on the street had died down too, leaving the whole area eerily quiet. Brian was starting to get seriously freaked out. What the hell was happening?

When he finally made it back to the corner where the pub was located, Brian became even more confused. The lively, packed, pub he’d just left a little while before, now appeared to be closed, and the side door he’d come out of earlier was actually boarded up with heavy wooden planks. Had he hit his head harder than he thought? He tried reaching through a gap in the boards where the door knob was located and rattled the latch, but it was securely locked and didn’t budge.

“Okay. This is fucking weird,” Brian mumbled, unsure what to do next.

He didn’t think he’d be able to walk all the way down the street to his hotel on his injured ankle. But it didn’t look like he’d be going back into the pub and sitting there until it felt better, either. Maybe he could flag down a cab out on the street or something? That seemed silly with the damn hotel only a few blocks away. He didn’t have any better ideas, though, so what the fuck?

Brian managed the last few meters of the passage and limped around the corner of the building . . . Only to find the entire street completely deserted and dark.

“WHAT THE FUCK!” Brian growled, not caring that his loud voice seemed completely out of place in the silence of the night.

Something was definitely not right here. Brian lifted his arm to look at the time on his brand new Cartier watch and noted that it had only just gone midnight, proving he had indeed been passed out in that alley for a lot longer than he’d realized. But, even so, Covent Garden was a busy area and would still usually be packed with people coming out of the pubs and clubs and making their way home. When he’d come down this way earlier in the evening, it had been bustling with late shoppers, people getting off work and heading home for the night, tourists ambling along looking at the sites or going in and out of one of the many hotels in the neighborhood, and about a hundred other people doing the thousand other things folks did in a busy city like London. So where the fuck had they all gone in the few hours Brian had been down that fucking alley?

And not only that, why didn’t any of the shops have lights on? Was there some kind of power outage? It must be a fairly serious one since there didn’t appear to be any lights on anywhere in the area. In fact, looking up at the sky, Brian couldn’t see any light anywhere at all - the normal glow of light pollution that usually surrounded any modern city was completely missing. All he saw above him was the deep black of a moonless night studded throughout with more stars than he ever remembered seeing before.

“Seriously. What the FUCK is going ON?” Brian yelled at the twinkling Milky Way above him.

But, since the stars didn’t provide him with an answer, he simply shook his head and turned back to the immediate problem; he still needed to get back to his hotel.

Brian tried to take a few more steps down the vacant street, letting go of the wall he’d been holding onto for balance so that he could edge further out, more into the street, where he could hopefully see more. This turned out to be a rather bad idea. He hadn’t gone more than three steps before his ankle gave out on him and he toppled over onto his ass in an inelegant heap. Damn it! Brian definitely wouldn’t be wearing this suit to his meeting tomorrow.

Dispirited, in pain, and still confused, Brian lay there in the street, panting through the pain and cursing a string of hateful things at London as well as at his own piss poor bad luck.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, he heard rapid footsteps approaching him from behind and then felt someone crouch down beside him. He looked up to see a comical looking little man with a face like a lumpy potato wearing a strange metal hat with a big ‘W’ emblazoned on it. Brian was so surprised by the disconcerting sight, he couldn’t even think of anything to say to this odd apparition.

“‘Ello there, Gov’nah. Looks like you’ve gone all to cock. Need an ‘and?” the strange manifestation in front of Brian asked, his accent so strong that it took a full sixty seconds before Brian was able to mentally translate what the man had said. “Better make a leg or’n you won’t make it to the shelter ‘fore Gerry drops a load on your loaf of bread.”

Brian didn’t have a clue what any of that meant or how to respond, so he simply sat there with his mouth hanging open.

“Is everything okay here, sir?” Brian heard a new someone ask from the other side of the street, and Brian wasn’t sure why it felt so good to hear an American accent all of a sudden, but it did.

“This bloke’s just settin’ here on his jacksy like a Joe Soap. I think he’s gone a bit barmy,” Brian’s incomprehensible potato-faced friend answered for him as the man with the American voice quickly trotted over to investigate.

Before the new arrival reached them, though, there was a loud whistling noise coming from somewhere across the city followed by a muffled bang. Both ‘W’ and the newcomer looked over their shoulders in the direction of the noises with matching frowns. Whatever it was, it seemed to spur them both into action.

“Right-O. I’m off then. Got my warden duties, ya’ know. You’d better kip off too, Skipper, for’n Gerry gets any closer. Good luck to ‘ya,” the man tugged on the shank of hair hanging down over his forehead and then skittered off across the street and around the far corner of a building Brian could just barely see in the moonlight.

“Quite,” the remaining man stated succinctly. “Well, now, what’s to do here? You okay, there, Buddy?”

Brian looked at the man who’d started to hunker down beside him  and swallowed audibly. This guy was a great deal better looking than Potato Face had been. He was young - maybe twenty or so - with a trim build and a big beautiful smile. He was also dressed in what Brian believed to be some sort of military uniform. The blue jacket and matching slacks looked neat and tidy, showing off the young man’s form quite nicely, with the belt at the waist pulled tight and the pants stretching a bit tightly across the guy’s plump little bubble butt. There were a number of insignia decorating the area above the pocket on the left of the jacket, including a largish patch embroidered in gold depicting a pair of wings, although Brian couldn’t really see them all very well in the darkness. To top it all off, the man was wearing a matching blue, military-style, cap, tilted at a rakish angle. All in all, the kid looked damn tempting. Brian had never been a sucker for a man in uniform, but after seeing this hot little blond in his spiffy togs, he may have changed his mind.

“I-I-I fell or something back in that alley over there and I think I’ve fucked up my ankle,” Brian finally stuttered when he eventually remembered the guy had asked him a question.

“Oh, uh . . . Well, I see. That’s rather a rum deal, ain’t it?” the blond commented, seeming taken aback by Brian’s sudden foul language. “Can you stand on it?”

Brian nodded and attempted to pull himself up, ignoring the hand that was held out to assist him. He almost immediately realized his mistake, though. He hissed loudly at the pain that shot through his ankle before sighing in defeat and sinking back onto his ass again.

“Shit,” he mumbled dispiritedly.

“Here, let me help you,” the blond offered again, ignoring the cursing this time around, and before Brian could answer, the sturdy little blond had placed both hands under Brian’s armpits and manfully hoisted him up to his feet, carefully bracing the injured man on his one good leg.

“Alrighty now,” Brian’s helper stated once he seemed stable. “We really do need to make a leg, or they’ll close the doors on us. Do you think you can walk on it if I help you?”

‘Close the doors? What was this gorgeous little twinkie talking about?’ Brian wondered, thinking again that he might have hit his head a little too hard in his fall, since nothing around him was making any sense.

A new round of disturbing noises interrupted Brian’s musing just then - the whistling louder, and this time accompanied by what sounded like a faint motorized humming, with even more booming noises following.

“Applesauce! They’re getting closer. Let’s go!” The blond ordered curtly.

Brian nodded, not eager to be caught up by whatever the fuck was making those alarming noises. He let the blond wrap an arm around his waist and support some of his weight as they tottered forward in tandem, heading for the same corner where Potato Face had disappeared. With the younger man’s help, Brian was able to move a lot more quickly. He didn’t know exactly where his Savior was leading him to, but strangely enough, he already felt like he could trust this man. So, throwing caution to the wind, Brian gave in and just let himself be swept along to wherever his SoldierBoy wanted to take him.

And meanwhile, despite all the exigencies of the situation, a small part of Brian‘s mind seemed to focus not on his surroundings or the odd happenings going on around him, but rather on the person whose tantalizing body was tucked up closely against his side. Brian found that he was intensely aware of every single place their bodies touched. Where Brian’s shirt had become untucked and the man’s hand touched his bare skin, there was an exciting tingle of warmth. And, fuck, the guy smelled good. Brian tried to guess what cologne he was wearing; Brian knew he’d smelled it before, but couldn’t quite place it. It seemed kind of old fashioned, but it was great on this guy. Brian vaguely wondered if his rescuer tasted as good as he felt and smelled.

While Brian was busy secretly contemplating all the lusty particulars of his savior, they had managed to walk several meters. The support from the other man helped him walk a lot faster than he would have been able to on his own. They’d already made it clear across the street, down the block, and we’re almost to that distant corner, where the other man had disappeared a few minutes earlier. Brian was impressed.

“You’re a lot stronger than you look,” Brian told him, enjoying the way the smaller man seemed to support his weight so effortlessly.

They paused for a second and the blond shot him a look before continuing. “I am a pilot and you have to be relatively fit to do what I do,” the young man replied almost defensively.

Brian nodded. He definitely wanted to know more about this mysterious blond, but before he could ask anything else they turned the corner and stopped in front of the entrance to the Covent Garden Tube station. And here, finally, there seemed to be some people around. In fact, while he’d been so engrossed in the feeling of the man’s arm around his waist, he hadn’t noticed the virtual gaggle of people that had formed around them in the darkness of the unlit street.

“Tickets,” the man at the entrance shouted as he held out his hand and snatched the pieces of paper from people’s hands and ushered them down into the maw of the Underground station as quickly as he could.

They joined the queue and shuffled forward with the rest. When it was their turn, Brian’s blond chap took out a rumpled piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to the man at the door. The ticket taker shook his head sadly, shoving the ticket back into the blond’s hand and moving to block their entrance.

“This ticket permits just one of ya to enter the station, me lad, and unfortunately there are two of you. Ya see the prol’em here, boyo?”

“My name is Justin Taylor, First Officer, Eagle Squadron, Fourth Fighter Group,” the blond informed the rather disgruntled man at the door, pointing at the insignia on his uniform jacket. “Lieutenant Jacobs, my C.O., is waiting for us downstairs on the platform.”

“Oh, I’m terribly sorry, Sir. Quite right. Head on down immediately. And if you get in any trouble for being tardy, tell them it was because of me. My name’s Alfie Smith,” the ticket taker apologized profusely, stepping aside and gesturing them in with deference.

Justin nodded authoritatively to Mr. Smith then renewed his grip around Brian’s torso and promptly led them into the bottleneck of people heading down into the depths of the station. Brian couldn’t help the groan that escaped his lips a moment later, as they started down the non-operational escalator. The larger than normal steps put an awful amount of pressure on his ankle as they descended and he was grateful when he felt Justin wrap his arm tighter around Brian's waist. Despite his earlier misgivings about the slightly built young man, he let himself lean into the wiry strength a little more heavily until they were back on level ground.

“Is your Lieutenant really waiting for us down here?” Brian asked quietly, maybe even a little nervously, as they continued to follow the herds of other people down a long tunnel. He still had no fucking clue as to what was going on and there was nothing more irritating to Brian Kinney than not being in control of a situation.

Justin looked at him, smirked slightly and shook his head softly as he brought a finger up to his mouth. “As they say here in London, that’s a bit of a ‘Porkie’, but it got us in, so that’s all that matters, right?”

Once the tunnel opened up and they reached the train platform proper, the heat hit Brian hard. He looked around and guessed that there were at least a couple of hundred people down there . . . wherever here was . . . he still wasn't sure. Or exactly why they were all gathered here.

“It’s like a fucking sauna down here,” Brian complained.

“Oi, watch your language,” an elderly man tutted disapprovingly as he walked passed. “Ladies present.”

Brian scoffed quietly, but kept his mouth shut. He didn’t realize people in London were so tetchy about that sort of thing; it was definitely not something he’d noticed before.

“Here, sit down,” Justin said as he found them a space on the packed platform floor.

Brian couldn’t help but scrunch up his nose. No way was he sitting on that dirty ass floor. His poor suit had been through enough this evening. But Justin ignored Brian’s disdainful look and pushed him down gently.

Once he was seated, Justin forcibly manhandled him around until Brian was situated so that he was perched on the edge of the platform with his legs dangling down over the tracks. Then the blond jumped down into the pit, narrowly avoiding the rails, and began to remove Brian’s shoe. Brian started to object, but Justin only rolled his eyes at the struggling man, shook his head, and continued what he’d started.

“Hold still, mate. I know what I’m doing here; I got first aid training in basic,” Justin ordered, as he carefully peeled the sock over the injured foot and lifted it so he could see better in the dim lighting of the station’s platform.

Brian jumped when he felt Justin’s warm hands running over his sore ankle. “What exactly are you doing?”

“I need to check you’ve not broken anything.” Justin examined the ankle carefully. “Yeah, you’ve sprained it alright. I’m pretty sure nothing’s broken though. I am going to need to wrap it for you, though” he explained.

Brian watched quietly as Justin walked over to a young lady sitting a few feet away and asked her something. Brian couldn’t quite make out what was said, but watched curiously as the woman handed Justin the silk scarf from around her neck. The RAF officer pulled what looked like a money clip out of his pocket and peeled a bill off which he gave to the woman before turning back to his patient.

While all this transpired, Brian looked around himself curiously. His nose started to twitch from the fug of too many nervous bodies in such close proximity, too much cigarette smoke, a variety of men’s colognes and women’s perfumes, a few babies with dirty diapers and the overall mustiness of the damp Tube station itself. All of which seemed to overwhelm Brian. In contrast to the quiet up on the street, there was a low roar of noises down here - people talking, babies crying, shuffling feet and bodies moving around, arranging themselves amid the pack of people - all adding up to create a continual susurrus of sound. Several groups of people were already bedding down, using rolled up blankets and jackets as pillows, looking for all the world like they were prepared to sleep there in the station for the night. There were even a couple of children who were tidily tucked into makeshift hammocks strung up between the rusty metal train rails, looking happy as clams in their neat little beds.

Brian was having a hard time taking in everything that was going on around him. He really didn’t have any clue what was happening. If there had been some kind of terrorist attack on the city, why were all these people so calm? Why were they all down here in the station camping out together? Where were the damned police? And why wasn’t anyone telling them what the hell was going on up above? None of this made any fucking sense.

Brian was still gaping around at his strange surroundings, so confused and struggling to put together all the little pieces of this fucked up puzzle, when Justin returned, bringing him back to the present.

“I'm going to need to bandage your head too,” Justin told him as he began expertly wrapping the silky scarf around Brian’s swollen ankle, tightening it just right so that it felt supported.

Brian had almost forgotten about his sore head what with all that had happened, but now that he was reminded, he could feel it throbbing. He reached up and prodded at the tender spot, wincing as he caused himself a new jolt of pain. When he took his hand away, he noted that his fingers were smeared with a dab or two of fresh blood.

And, whether it was the sight of the blood, the throbbing pain in his head, the overwhelming heat down there in the Tube station, or just a backlash from the fear and adrenalin that had been keeping him on the run since he first awoke back in that alley, Brian suddenly felt a bit queasy. He saw little flashes of lights go off in the periphery of his vision and the tiled walls of the station seemed to close in around him closer and closer. The blond who’d been holding his ankle just a moment before put his arm around Brian’s shoulders again in order to steady him. Brian looked up into the man’s now worried face. Then the entire Tube station upended itself, spinning around him, and the last thing Brian saw was the pretty, gemstone-bright blue eyes of his concerned blond, before everything went black.