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On the Road: Day Four
They’d hit some seriously deserted territory that day, and Rath had finally gotten the keys.
He’d surprised them all, though. He’d driven fast but not recklessly, and instead of playing something seriously pounding, he’d stuck with more restrained music, like Puddle of Mud and Incubus.
Lonnie slept most of the time, and Ava just watched the scenery go by, but Zan found himself watching Rath out of the corner of his eye, and he knew something was wrong. And it wasn’t just the man’s sudden pop track tendencies.
He let himself enjoy the calm for a few hours, then told Rath to pull over for gas. There, while the girls were in the washroom, he sat on the wide hood of the car, and waited for Rath to say something.
“Yo,” Zan said, getting impatient.
“Wassup, duke?”
Zan hated when Rath and Lonnie called him that, but he let it slide. “What crawled up yer ass ‘n died?”
Slowly, deliberately, Rath made a point of watching the gas gauge as the tank filled. “Dunno what’cher talkin’ bout.”
“Rath …”
Finally looking at him, Rath waited for a beat. When Zan didn’t continue, Rath spoke up. “What ‘re we doin’, Zan? You think I don’ see how ya changed? No way yer gonna kill ‘er now.”
Zan nodded. It was true.
“So what’s da plan? You gonna bring ‘er back ta N’York? Or ya gonna stay wit dem?”
He didn’t have to say who “they” were. Zan had an idea that sex on the road aside, all of them had been thinking about the other four pretty much non-stop ever since Ava figured it out.
“I dunno. ‘Pends what happens, I guess. Whatta you think?”
Rath looked up, half gratified and half suspicious that Zan asked. “Don’ matter unless it gets in da way of da mission.”
Zan didn’t respond for a minute. He kept thinking about Liz and what she’d told him, and about how secrets can ruin everything.
“Screw da mission,” he said.
Rath almost dropped the gas pump handle in his shock. “Huh? Whattaya mean?”
“From what this Liz told me, mine ‘n Ava’s dupes is keen on play king ‘n queenie. Yours ‘n Lonnie’s don’ seem so keen, so maybe ya could go instead if ya wanted, but I’m thinkin’ that maybe I don’ hafta. And I’m thinkin’ maybe it ain’t so bad.”
Rath closed his mouth slowly. “Ya kiddin’ me, Zan? You’d let us go back wit’out ya?”
Zan shrugged. “If ya wanted.” When Rath seemed about to freak completely, he explained, “Can only be one king, bro. I don’ wanna be ‘im if I don’ hafta. Too much work.”
It felt good to say out loud, and he laughed at the look on his second’s face.
“An’ the summit?”
Zan shrugged. They all knew how he felt about that. “I don’ trust ‘em, ya know it. Mebbe this Max guy’ll have a dif’rent take. Ask ‘im.”
Rath just stared at him.
Suddenly Zan realized something: Rath was nervous. Jittery. But why?
Something about the summit.
He didn’t miss the way Rath’s eyes sought out Lonnie, either.
Shit.
All senses alert, Zan turned to study Lonnie and Ava. They didn’t look different, exactly, but for the first time it occurred to him that maybe they didn’t like each other as much as he’d always thought. It was in the way they walked, the way they didn’t quite make eye contact, even though they were laughing over something and elbowing each other like old friends.
A little freaked himself, he turned back to Rath, wondering just what was going on. He’d to talk to Ava later, for sure. See what she knew. But in the meantime, what?
“You ain’t stayin’ fer the chick?” Rath said then, sounding curious.
“Nah. But she’d make de stay sweeter, ya know?” It wasn’t a lie, not really. He’d never really wanted to leave Earth, but all of a sudden he didn’t want Rath to know how stupid he was getting over Liz.
Rath nodded. Every now and then his eyes would shoot sideways, and once his mouth opened but then he closed it.
“What?” Zan wasn’t looking, but he could feel Rath’s gaze on him.
“Dis chick … why her? Why not Ave?”
Zan hesitated. “I dunno,” he admitted honestly. “Jus’ feels good.”
Rath nodded slowly. Then, “I wanna meet ‘er.”
“Tha’s why we headin’ ta New Mex’co, bro.”
“Nah. T’night. I wanna meet ‘er wit’out all th’ other shit.”
Zan thought about it. And it occurred to him that he’d like to see Liz’s reaction to his family, to get her impressions of them. “’Kay. But not ‘til I let ya in.”
Rath nodded, like there was any choice in the matter. “’Kay.”
The tank was full. Rath started to call for Ava, to get her to ‘warp the cashier into believing they’d paid, when Zan shook his head and pulled some worn bills out of his pocket.
“Not worth th’ risk.” His voice made it an order, not a suggestion.
Rath shrugged and went to pay.
An hour later, Zan waved his hand and the music went silent. “I’m gonna bring yous in tonight, ta meet ‘er.”
No one answered, although Ava nodded at him, letting him know she thought it was a good idea.
After a minute, he waved his hand and Rath’s music filled the air again. Soon Lonnie leaned against Rath’s shoulder, and he put an arm around her shoulder. Zan could see his sister whispering something in Rath’s ear, but Rath just nodded and adjusted his grip on the steering wheel.
Something about the two of them together gave Zan chills, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that they were up to something. Shit. He was half tempted to force a confrontation, make them talk to him, but he found he didn’t really want to.
So when no one said anything to him, Zan breathed out, long and deep, and closed his eyes against the warm sun. He was going soft. And it was all her fault. He wondered if it’d be worth it. If she was worth it.
Hell, if he was worth it.
<>
Liz was on her balcony surrounded by candles when he showed up.
His mouth quirked at the sight of her bunny-pattern pyjamas, but he just chalked it up to something else a girl like her would wear.
“Zan!” she cried out, and he was relieved to find her looking happy again. “I wasn’t sure if I was dreaming yet,” she told him. “Everything looks just like it did when I came out here earlier. I even have my sleeping bag,” she laughed, pointing to it.
He sat on the wall of the balcony, enjoying the view. “Do ya know when yer dreamin’?” he asked, curious. Most humans didn’t, not until they’d woken up.
“Are you kidding? Ever since you showed up, it’s like a soap opera. You know, like a serial,” she said, when he looked confused. “Only not so PG.”
“Cereal?” he said doubtfully, but shook his head. It didn’t matter. There were more important things, like being a lot closer to her – especially when she was smiling at him like that.
“Hey, sweets.” He pulled her against him as he said it, wrapping his arms around her and resting his head on top of hers.
Her response was muffled by his chest. Biting his lip, he loosened his hold slightly. He didn’t want to scare her.
She made a show of gasping for air, and he knew she was just playing around.
“Sorry. Jus’ wanted ta hold ya.”
She smiled at him then, all silliness gone. “I like holding you too.” Unlike Ava, she didn’t seem to think it was a big deal for him to say he was sorry. He tucked it away as just one more thing to think about later. One more difference between them ...
“So why don’ we hold each othah,” he suggested, bouncing his eyebrows so she knew what he really meant, “’n then we gotta talk, ‘kay?”
She looked intrigued, but she didn’t push it. Instead she turned and led him through the window into her room. He would’ve just imagined them already in there, but he couldn’t resist the sight of her little butt wiggling in his face. So he was in a pretty good mood when he straightened up on the other side where she was waiting for him.
She stood patiently before him, sensing that there was something different about this time.
Heart beating fast, Zan leaned down to kiss her, one guiding hand behind her nape and the other in the small of her back. He kissed her thoroughly, deliberately, as if memorizing the taste and feel of her for the first time. She let him, enjoying the sliding of tongues against each other and the back-and-forth motion of their bodies.
After a while his hands migrated southward, massaging her ass gently before cupping her possessively to him. Her eyes flew open at the sensation, but she didn’t break contact, not even when he lifted her against him, hands under her thighs, urging her to wrap her legs around his waist. She complied willingly enough, enjoying being able to kiss him without straining her neck.
She felt when he started moving, and she was expecting it when he bent to release her onto her bed. She let him, keeping her legs around his waist but allowing her upper body to fall back along the mattress, her arms settling somewhere over her head, pulling her slinky pajama top taut across her chest.
He watched her stretch before him, studying the way her body moved, thinking about how he knew each part of it, how it tasted and felt against him. She watched him watch her, pleased at the reaction she felt pressing between her legs, restrained only by the clothes they wore.
When he didn’t do anything, she cocked her head inquiringly. “Zan?”
Slowly he reached down and grasped the bottom of her shirt, running his palms under it, feeling her stomach muscles flutter under his touch, before lifting it upwards. He pulled it up and over her head without ceremony or teasing, but her breath caught when she saw how solemnly he regarded her nakedness. She gazed up at him in wonder, amazed by the depth of emotion that passed over his face as his hands roamed.
“Zan?” she asked again, wanting to understand.
“Am I Max to you?” he demanded suddenly, his voice quiet but urgent. “Am I Max, or Zan?”
“What? I – I don’t understand –”
His hands came up to hold her wrists over her head, so she couldn’t move, couldn’t touch him, couldn’t evade him.
More confused than alarmed, Liz tried to read his expression. “What do you mean?” she asked.
“When yer here wit me,” he explained doggedly. “Am I jus’ Max wit a makeover or am I Zan? Do ya know it’s a dream?”
The way his eyes burned into her when he spoke conveyed volumes. “I know it’s a dream,” she told him softly. “I know you’re not really here, just as I know you’re not really Max.”
She smiled brokenly, and it was bittersweet to see.
“I think about this, you know. Obsess about it. When I’m awake, these are the only dreams I remember, and sometimes I wish I didn’t, because they’re so much better than my reality. And then I get angry,” she said, speaking faster now, “because I don’t want to forget them. Hell, I never want to leave them. I don’t care if you are some fragment of my mind, or some symptom of a mental breakdown or something; I spend all day wanting to come here, to be with you.”
“Am I Max or am I Zan?” he persisted, but his voice had lost its urgency.
“You’re Zan,” she confirmed. “Max could never be you.”
“You mean, I could never be Max,” he argued suspiciously.
She shook her head. “When I make up dream lovers,” Liz said, smiling despite herself, “I insist on the best.”
Zan couldn’t resist. He had to smile a bit too, undeniably pleased by the compliment. Bending down, he shifted her farther onto the bed so that he could lay down over her, her heels rubbing along the back of his thighs as they kissed some more.
He wasn’t quite sure how or when it happened, but his next conscious thought was how perfect it felt to be naked against her, how right it felt to be thrusting against and then inside her, and how much he wished it was real. He wanted to know if she really felt this soft, and if she would really be this open to him. He wanted to feel her real hair and look into her real eyes and know that she wanted to be with the real him.
He wanted it all to be real, he realized. Over and over, he heard Rath’s questions in his head. Would he stay for her? Was he willing to give up everything that came with being a king to be with her, a human that he barely knew?
When she shuddered and clenched underneath him, biting her lip so as not to cry out, he felt like dying, because he couldn’t believe that there was anything else worth living for. And then he let himself go and the expression of pride on her flushed and shining face changed his mind. He studied her face through the haze, just lay there and watched her, until he could feel the little tickle at the back of his mind that told him company was coming.
Lonnie was getting impatient. He’d have to let them in soon.
Shaking off the last of the stupor, he caught her gaze, trying to communicate how important this was for him. “Liz, I gotta tell ya’ somethin’. And I don’ want ya’ ta freak, ‘kay?”
Looking marvelously refreshed and blithely unconcerned, Liz nodded curiously.
Zan hesitated. How to start? “Um … you know about dreamwalkin’, right?”
Liz smiled, as if it were a silly question. “Yeah. It’s Isabel’s forte.”
Isabel’s what? Zan shook his head. It didn’t matter. Though he was thinking that if things went the way he was hoping, he was gonna have to find a dictionary or something in whatever language she spoke, ‘cause that sure as shit wasn’t English.
“Well, that’s what I’m doin’ right now.”
Liz looked puzzled. “What do you mean? You …” Slowly her expression changed, whitening with disbelief and then reddening, her eyes flashing with something much more volatile.
She was angry. He could tell. Really, really angry. Zan found himself holding his hands in front of him protectively, only to find them slapped at. Hard.
“Hey,” he protested, but soon found himself busy fending off pillows, lamps, CDs, anything else she could put her hands on. Damn, but when this girl dreamed, she dreamed in detail.
She was shouting too. “Max? Is that you? Are you playing with me? Why? Why would you do this, huh? Why?” She was still throwing things at him, not harder but with better aim, and more of them hit him.
“Liz – ” He ducked when she threw a book that was on her dresser.
“What is it, you want to have your cake and eat it too? I did it, damn it! I did what you asked. You’re going to be with Tess now. I get it! I get it! So what is this,” she sneered, so bitterly that Zan winced, “your little alien queen not enough for you? Pretending you’re someone else so you can have the stupid human girl too? Can’t even be fucking friends by daylight but getting a little on the side at night? You bastard!”
She ran out of things to throw at him, and now she was standing next to the bed and looking about as threatening as a naked teenage girl could. Scary enough.
“Liz!” Zan shouted finally, trying to get her attention. “I. Ain’t. Max!”
She didn’t say anything, but her hands clenched at her side.
“I ain’t. I swear. I’s Zan, and I’s Max’s … dupe, is the best word for it. I grew up in N’York, wit Ava an’ Rath an’ my sister Lonnie,” he continued gamely, speaking just for the sake of speaking, as soothingly as he could.
Heartened by her attentive stance (and trying to ignore her pointed glare), he kept going.
“Lonnie stumbled inta one of yer dreams a few days ago. Ya’ knew I’s alien, and I got curious. An’ we hadda know if yer dang’rous. So we’s comin’ ta Roswell, ‘cause I want ‘em ta’ see ya.” He paused. “I wanna see ya’.”
She seemed to be thinking this over. “Not Max,” she said, trying to understand such an alien concept.
“No. Zan.”
“I don’t know what to believe,” she told him finally, regretfully.
He kind of regretted that too. “I ain’t lyin’,” he promised, wanting – needing – her to believe that.
“What year are you from?”
He blinked. That one, he was not expecting. Oh, wait. “I ain’t from da future, Liz.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Just … tell me something,” she requested, still keeping her distance. “Anything. Help me out, here.”
He blew out the breath he’d been holding and ran a hand over his face, trying to decide what to say. “Whattaya wanna know?”
“Are Max and Isabel and Michael in danger?”
“Ya mean our dupes?”
She nodded.
He shrugged. “Dunno. Prob’ly.”
The look on her face was not a happy one. “From you?”
Zan shook his head. “Nah. If we wanted ‘em dead,” he offered reasonably, “they’d be dead already.”
She didn’t seem to find that as comforting as he thought she would, but she accepted it. “Do you know where you came from?”
“Antar,” he answered promptly. “Dunno much more ‘n dat.” He paused. “Mebbe we could swap what we know wit yer guys.”
She didn’t press the matter, and he got the idea that she really didn’t want to hear about it right then. He waited while she considered her next question. “And your – your group? Tell me about them.”
He climbed out of her bed and walked over to her dresser. Choosing a picture of her and Maria working at the Crashdown, he pointed out three figures in the background. “Lonnie, Rath, Ava,” he said, pointing to Isabel, Michael and Tess respectively.
“Ava,” she echoed numbly, refusing to look at him. “Your … girlfriend? Wife?” She seemed more depressed than angry, but he had an idea that he should be careful what he said next.
He shrugged. “Not anymo’.”
Now she did make eye contact, like she was trying to figure out what he was saying. “What do you mean?”
“We tight, but it’s dif’rent now.”
“‘Tight’ … you mean you have …”
“Fucked? Sure. We was good togethah.” He spoke factually, not quite understanding why she flinched.
“Oh. And … Mi– Rath and Lonnie? They’re … together?”
He nodded candidly. “Horndogs, both of ‘em,” he said, looking at more of her pictures and not really noting her strained expression.
He did look up when she touched his arm.
“You have scars,” she said suddenly.
“Well, yeah” Zan said, not knowing precisely what caused her to stop yelling at him or what would set her off again but liking the feel of her hands on him. “N’York is a rough place ta’ live.”
“Why didn’t you just heal them?”
He looked at her like she’d just told him she was the alien. “What the hell’re ya’ talkin’ ‘bout?”
“Healing,” she said, intently. “Why don’t you just heal yourself?”
He just shook his head, utterly bewildered.
The look on her face softened then. “Wow,” she said, studying him as if for the first time. “You don’t know that you can … you’re really not …” Suddenly energized, she turned and walked back to the bed, forgetting her anger. “Zan! If this is real, if you’re not Max or something I made up, you have to meet the others! This could be important –”
“I know,” he interrupted, making himself comfortable next to her. “That’s why we’s on our way. We’ll be there in maybe a couple days.”
She nodded, but her mind was clearly elsewhere. So he waited patiently for her next question. Well, as patiently as he could with her hand drawing random patterns on his thigh.
Distracted but knowing he was running out of time, Zan finally grabbed her hand, willing her to look him in the eye. “The other’s wanna meetcha now. Ava an’ Rath an’ Lonnie, I mean.”
Again she nodded automatically, clearly trying to absorb it all, but suddenly she shrieked and dove under the cover as she became aware of others in the room.
Zan concentrated, and when Liz threw back the blanket, she was wearing more than a sheepish grin. The pajamas she’d been wearing when he first showed up, to be precise.
“Hi,” she waved, more embarrassed than afraid. After all, it was her dream. “I’m Liz. Nice to meet you.”
Zan laid back against her pillows and watched in silence as Ava introduced herself and the others. It occurred to him, then, that everyone who meant anything to him was here in Liz’s mind. It was odd, and it wasn’t that important, but he couldn’t get the thought out of his head.
Remembering what she said earlier, he nodded to himself. He had to agree.
He never wanted to leave here either.
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