Disc.: They belong to CC and the IRS ... Hey everyone pays taxes.
Summary: I was feeling blue.  I thought I write whatever came to mind
... you know as a form of exorcism.  God ... I so hate growing pains.
Beta-reader: Elz who read this and said, "Kid you need help. Here have
some Smarties."
Megan who read this, ran for cover and is now trying to figure out which
HR god she pissed off.
//I spy with my little eye Megan who moans to the heavens ‘Why me god?
Why me?'//
Warning: Slash ... kind of ... not really ... maybe.  If you are in a
good mood go away. If you are feeling lousy come and join me in my
depressive state.  God this is so fuck.
P.S.  sigh ... I am thinking of maybe changing the title of these
snippets and calling it the Obsession series or something and the like
because Elz, my Bindlestitch British chic, thought it dealt nicely with
dysfunctional relationships.
 

Vancouver
1:00 am

He hadn't always been like this.  There was a time when he had been a
hero, a warrior, a man with honour. Now he had nothing and everything.
His thoughts were interrupted by Tom who, had in his sleep, moved closer
to him.

These days rest was so rare that he hated to disturb Hobbes' sleep.  As
he glanced down at Hobbes, he found himself wishing the night would
never end;  that this moment would last a lifetime. He finally gave in
to temptation and gathered the young man to him, all the while thinking,
'forgive me'.

Eight months ago, he had been in Bosnia as part of a United Nations
peacekeeping force. There were no words to describe the atrocities he
had witnessed in this divided nation.  During those days  nothing had
seemed to touch him. Not the darkness,  nor the temptations offered to
him in exchange for food, information or protection.

He had been so sure of himself and so proud that no woman, drug nor
money could tempt his soul, his conscious or his deeds. And he could not
have been more wrong.

How the mighty fall.

He had seen him during a mission in Sarajevo.  A fellow soldier, a young
man untouched by the darkness that surrounded him.  He knew at that
moment he would sell his soul to own him, to taste the sweetness
promised.  All he could think was how much he wanted to sink deep in the
warmness the young man offered, even if it meant he be damned in the
process.

He had used his military connections to find out more about him, and he
was given the name Lieutenant Thomas F. Hobbes.

A week later while on a reconnaissance mission over Croatia, he was
called back to the States by retired General Omar Santiago to head start
a project code name Harsh Realm.

Months passed before he got to see or hear about Hobbes.

Pinocchio sighed.  His left arm had fallen asleep and he would rather
die than wake up Hobbes.  God.  How he wished he could change the
circumstances of their first meeting.  With his right hand he gathered
the blankets more tightly about them and thought back to the events that
led them here.

While testing one of the head gears on the virtual reality program a
chip had malfunction, short circuited and the left side of his face had
been scarred in the process.  Upon awakening at the Army Hospital he had
been met by Lt. T. Florence, a fellow officer, who had served with him
in Bosnia.

Before returning to the States, he had asked her to keep an eye on
Hobbes. He had wanted the young man to return safely home so he could
offer him a position working at Harsh Realm.  After briefing him to the
situation in the Baltics, Florence had then gently revealed that an
accident had befallen Lt. Hobbes. While on a mission in Serb control
Sarajevo, Hobbes had been critically injured.  He had been attempting to
save his friend, Sergeant Major Mel Waters, when the roof had collapse
trapping both men inside the abandoned warehouse. He had been in coma
for the last two weeks.

Pinocchio was again brought back to the present.  Hobbes had shifted in
his arms.  He touched Hobbes face, reassuring himself that Tom was with
him, then he laughed at the foolishness of this action.  This wasn't
real.  It could never be real.

By now in the real world, Thomas F. Hobbes should have been recuperating
from his injuries, married Sophie Green, and probably started a family.
Instead, he was hooked up to machines and a prisoner of Harsh Realm.
God.  It had seemed so simple then ... he hadn't thought ... had not
meant ... *sigh* ... had not known that Hobbes was like a fine wine one
savoured with time, a drug to which he was addicted to, that seeing him
from a distance did not prepare him from having Hobbes in his life.

All he had meant to do was hook Hobbes up to Harsh Realm, stimulate his
brain patterns and help him come out of  the coma.  It had seemed like
such a simple plan.

He had pieced together the accident and provided it as a basis for
Hobbes participation into the game. Then he had hooked himself up to the
machine and waited as Hobbes was slowly brought out of the coma.

It was only because he was still recuperating from his injuries that
Hobbes freely accepted the  information given to him.  He had not
questioned why a lone soldier would be sent to fight an entire army,
with only a gun for back-up.  He had not questioned the appearance of
Sergeant Major Mel Waters, his friend, who had died in Bosnia in the
abandoned warehouse.  He had even accepted the notion that one man could
have so much power as to control the fate of nations. He had failed to
realize that in today's world no systems was safe from hacking and had a
Santiago really existed there were simple ways for governments to combat
the problem.

But the most damning issue was that he had trusted Pinocchio from the
very beginning, not really questioning his role in Harsh Realm.

He should have let him go. Hobbes had been ready for the past two months
to rejoin the real world. His physician had indicated that Tom had
recuperated from his injuries and his brain waves were consistent with
normal brain pattern.  No permanent damage was detected.

But he couldn't let him go, even though he knew it was only a matter of
time.

Already Hobbes was questioning his orders, demanding to know more and he
truly would have let him go if a part of him had believed that Hobbes
did not return his feelings.

Only three nights ago they had begun to share a bed.  For warmth had
been the excuse, but for the past three nights he had slept with Hobbes
beside him and awoken to find himself wrapped around the young man.  As
those days passed he found himself unable and unwilling to end this and
send Hobbes back to his real life.

If only ...

For the past three days, all he could hear where those words ... if
only. God, what was he going to do?  He couldn't keep Hobbes here.  It
wouldn't be fair, but it was so hard.  He was so damn close to getting
everything he wanted ... so close.

He looked down at Hobbes and his hand reached out to touch the young
man's face.

"Forgive me."  He whispered as he titled Hobbes head up.  "Forgive me."
He again repeated as he bent his head and finally tasted the sweetness.
 
 

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