Something was definitely wrong with Jack. Zach had begun to realize it with his slightly less than genuine enjoyment of their modeling debut. Normally Jack threw himself completely into whatever was going on, and Zach thought he'd never known him to fake an emotion. That it had obviously been done specifically for his benefit only made the knowledge worse. Something had really been bothering Jack and he'd trivialized it by thinking Jack could get upset over anything to do with appearances. After that misunderstanding Jack had apparently been afraid to broach whatever subject was preying on his mind. He'd seemed to enjoy himself a little in putting the outfits together but the reserved manner had returned as they made their purchases. Now, as they walked down the mall corridor, he was too quiet, immersed in thoughts Zach felt he'd made it impossible for him to share.

"Good thing we got dear Mr. Whittier to hold all our house stuff or we'd need a porter," Zach remarked lightly, the last in a series of attempts to get Jack to speak more than half a dozen words. The easy flow of connection between them since lunch had been disrupted, and Zach found that its absence was not something he could take at all lightly.

Jack smiled and nodded. "I don't know how we're ever going to get all these things in your car." The banter was the same but the playfulness wasn't really behind it and Zach let it go with an internal sigh.

"There's a cappuccino place just up there that makes wonderful pastries. Want to stop? I wouldn't mind a snack."

"Whatever you want, Zach," Jack agreed absently. When he saw the look on Zach's face at the flat response he gave a gentle squeeze to the arm he was holding and shook his head. "Sorry, I was just thinking. Sure, let's stop."

Zach was ready to drop everything then to find out the cause of Jack's discomfiture, but he had the feeling that another of his reactionary displays might school Jack to silence permanently. He knew his emotions weren't under his control when it came to Jack, not anymore, but he hadn't figured out yet how to regain his discipline. And that Jack might be afraid to talk to him for fear of setting him off wasn't something Zach was prepared to accept. He kept a tight rein on his curious apprehension and led the way inside.

"What kind of coffee do you like? They have everything."

"I don't, actually. I can just get a soda."

"You should have said something; there's a dozen other places we can go."

"It's really no big deal, Zach, even water would be fine. I'm not picky."

Zach started to turn and lead them right back out of the store anyway, then realized that would be exactly the wrong thing to do to convince Jack he could handle a serious issue without reacting like a stereotypical overprotective boyfriend. Instead he smiled and began pointing out the various sinful sweets Nadine's offered. They were in a not too long line before the counter, almost in the way of the small tables nearby, and Zach used the excuse of the forced proximity to press hip and chest lightly against Jack's back. Jack smiled over his shoulder at him. "You're trying to make me fat."

"As if I could if I wanted to. You -- Excuse me?!"

Zach turned to look a few places further down the line, jaw hard and eyes so livid Jack expected to see a glow. "What did you just say?"

The man was as tall as Zach and more heavily built, and his response to Zach's glare was to raise his chin and glare back with equal voltage. Jack began to get a sinking feeling in his stomach.

"I said 'your kind ought to be taken somewhere and shot.'"

He had on a dark gray T-shirt with a quote in crimson. 'The righteousness that He requires is the righteousness His righteousness requires Him to require.' "My kind?" Trust a religious bigot to sound like something out of a bad movie.

"A child molester walking around like…"

"'Child molester,'" Jack interrupted, seeing Zach go an alarming shade of white beneath his tan. He looked mortified now more than angry, and Jack tightened his hold on his waist possessively. "Sir, I'm an adult, and I'd appreciate it if you'd leave us alone." He turned himself and Zach to face pointedly forward. The other patrons were staring, uncomfortable but not getting involved. Jack knew he was the one who'd brought the worried expression to Zach's face, the one that aged him five years, and blamed himself for the incident. He'd spent months trying to disabuse Zach of the notion that he was a love-struck kid caught in hero worship, and maybe there had even been a hint of that in what he'd felt at first. But things had changed, he had changed, while he was in Greenland, and he knew that what he offered Zach now was something as real as anyone could ever hope for. That some loud mouth could restart all that self-examination in Zach was just intolerable, but he didn't know what to do except try to stop the scene now, before anything worse was said.

But the guy had moved out of the line now, to stand between a couple of tables about six feet away and resume his attack. "It just makes me sick. If the law didn't protect you I'd break your neck right now, turning a kid like that into a pervert."

Jack saw Zach's eyes close and felt him struggling for control in the link. Jack didn't dare make even the slightest attempt at opening on his side, not in such a charged environment, so all he could do was hold onto Zach tighter and rein back his own anger. This man was hurting Zach. "Sir, you don't have any idea what you're talking about, and it's none of your business anyway. I think you'd better go find someone else to harass if you're determined to make a scene."

"Kid, you don't have to let him control you. I know people who can help you, you can come back into the sight of God…"

~I'm going to send you into the sight of someone.~ Jack realized the thought was his own and tightened down hard on his emotion, frightened of himself. "I don't need anything you can offer, and I'd appreciate it if you would leave us alone before I call security. I'm of legal age and have everything I need and I want you to leave us alone." The last was almost a shout and Jack turned away again, pulling Zach hard against him, uncertain if he were giving or taking support. He could feel the words thudding into Zach as if they were blows, and he wanted so badly to just reach out for the man and…

"Easy, Jack, control," Zach murmured, the teacher's sternness in the lover's tone. "He doesn't matter; focus on what you've learned." His own anger was almost beyond holding back and he wondered how he could sound so calm. This bastard had just shaken the hard-fought security of Jack's control, and Jack was visibly trembling, mentally struggling to hold on, to prove he could handle this. With completely atypical self-indulgence, Zach thought that it just wasn't fair.

"Oh, you've got him real well trained, don't you? He probably really is even eighteen. What do you do, catch them the day they turn legal?"

It was just too much, relegating Jack to the position of thoughtless, pathetic victim, the young man who had fought demons this fool only dreamed of and had overcome obstacles no sheltered idiot could ever comprehend. Zach wasn't aware of letting go of Jack and moving, but when he found himself at the far wall with his forearm against the bastard's throat he couldn't find it in himself to be sorry.

Jack watched in horror as Zach closed the distance with the bigger man in one lethally graceful stride, taking him backwards around a table and over a chair without even seeming to touch the ground. He knew Zach's training, but he'd never seen him move like this. Zach pinned the man to the wall with a slam then paused, gathered himself, and shook him very precisely, making his head hit the wall again. His voice carried through the stunned silence of the coffee bar, low and almost hissing.

"Who are you to judge what he does and doesn't understand? What do you think you know, a little human civilian who gets his ideas off the television." Another slam. "Just what do you think you know?!"

Jack ran forward then. Not for him. Zach's control, so important to not only his life but to his image of himself, would not be eroded for him. "Zach, let him go. Zach, please!"

Zach didn't even seem to hear him, and Jack reached for him, his arm and his presence in the psilink, and immediately knew his mistake.

That Zach's control over the hunger was manifestly superior to his own was a given, but it was harder to remember that for Zach their shared power was more than a craving, it was a tool. A thing to be honed and directed and used with precision. Jack had seen him do it once or twice during his early training, when something in him had still been rebelling quietly against Zach's harsh discipline. Now, for the first time, he felt it in use.

Zach had sent the tendrils of hunger deep into the man's mind, searching for the hate that had prompted all this, and hadn't found it. The man's emotions of the moment were only a completely genuine sense of outrage and helplessness and pity. He had believed every word he'd said.

So Zach had gone deeper, into the foundations of the psyche that had let such self-righteousness and absolutism grow into this white shield that allowed him to filter all the world through his preconceptions until he was literally incapable of perceiving anything except in his chosen predetermined light. He reached, into those evils that were so unlike hate and anger and yet had so much of the same negative power, and let their energy flow into him, got a good hold on them. Then twisted, until something broke.

Soul-shattering doubt flooded into the emptiness, forcing the man for the first time to question his beliefs and his internal worthiness in the cold light of reality. All the delicious fear and confusion and dawning horror swirled along his reaching tendrils, and in Zach's genuine fury he allowed himself the briefest pleasure of acceptance. At the point where the lash of his emotion met the turmoil of the other's, suddenly, there was Jack.

It was over in instant. Jack's newly trained hunger touched, then surged forward completely out of control along the pathways Zach had opened, reaching to strip the very essence of the man, to take him in his moment of near-insanity. Zach slammed his link with the man, and perforce Jack's, closed, throwing him clear of the merge of minds. Internally he shifted and caught Jack's out of control reach for the next most tempting target: himself. Jack was actually doing very well, caught unprepared but still scrabbling for restraint with every ounce of will that was in him. His hunger might be out of control, but Jack himself was not. Zach slapped the invading roil of need back behind Jack's barriers with a thought and the disciplines so carefully taught and painstakingly learned locked it down. All that in the space of heartbeats, and Zach forced himself to calm.

With the psilink closed tight between them, psisight respectively blinded and shut down, they were left staring at one another through purely human eyes.

The man crumbled into a ball on the floor, sobbing, but neither of them spared him so much as a glance. Jack's hand slowly loosened and fell away from Zach's arm. His eyes were wide and shocked and hurting, set in a face so pale Zach wondered for an instant if he would faint. He wanted to curse himself but couldn't find words sufficient to the reason. In his mind the man had deserved to be punished for shaking Jack's control, wounding his sense of self-sufficiency. What name could he give to the crime he'd committed in making Jack lose it completely? And to drive him out of their link so forcefully -- it had been necessary, but oh the hurt.

"I…didn't mean for you to feel that," he less than whispered.

"I reached. For you." Jack said in a voice directed nowhere. Then sparks of terror and rage flashed through the cracks in his still imperfect control, immediately restrained.

~He really is doing so well.~

"You made me reach for you." In his voice at least the terror was the strongest. "For you."

"Jack, you didn't hurt me…"

"I can't hurt you." Unwilling in the moment to consider the dozen contexts in which those words were untrue. "But I tried. You turned me from him and I tried." He ripped away from hands reaching hesitantly to offer comfort, stumbled almost blindly among the tables, reached the door, and ran.

Zach started after him, packages left forgotten all over the floor. He hesitated at the door to turn a glance on the pathetic man who was only now managing to raise his head. The look was one that had been the last sight of the world for so many, though Zach didn't permit even a flicker of the glow. The man fell back and put his head under his arms, sobbing resumed.

Zach burst into the corridor, eyes searching wildly for a hint as to Jack's direction. He couldn't, didn't dare, touch Jack with so much as a hint of even passive energy, not now. Finally he caught a glimpse of flying, shining black descending a short step back towards the nearest mall juncture. He took two strides in pursuit before his peripheral vision found another figure of significance. A nondescript man had taken a step away from the wall where he'd been leaning. Zach had known he was there since before they'd even reached the mall, and the man had doubtless known that he knew, a type of gentlemen's agreement he'd accepted as standard for Three Eyes agents under voluntary surveillance. Zach could never be put under surveillance involuntarily, and they knew it. Now Zach stopped again, glared, and actually let a hint of the light rise in the depths of his eyes. Let this bastard report him to Darius as a rogue, some things deserved to go unwitnessed.

The man stopped too, unafraid but visibly surprised. He studied Zach for a moment, at last raised hands palm up toward him and resumed his lazy stance. He would wait.

Zach ran again, slowing only when he reached the edge of the slightly depressed area where three corridors intersected. He did a quick scan of the two branches across the way and saw no sign of either Jack or the crowd disruption a running man would cause. That left only the shadows of the escalators and the two decorative fountains overhung by large-leafed plants as Jack's possible refuge.

He wasn't actually hard to find. In the corner of the nearest fountain's brick containing wall with the side of the escalator the plants had been permitted to get completely overgrown, creating a spot where no one could see the edge of the water. Pushing aside a browning stem as thick as his thumb, Zach saw Jack sitting up on the bricks in the dim alcove, knees pulled to his chest and head down on top of them. He hesitated, doubting that Jack heard him over the soft burbling of the water, uncertain if he should even approach.

Jack, actually angry with him and nothing he could do to fix it. It wasn't something his heart was prepared to understand. His mind came up with a dozen different ways to cross those few feet of silence, casting each away as bearing no relation to the hollowness in his stomach, to the desolation written in every line of Jack's posture. He was in the process of turning away, willing to wait as long as necessary for Jack to come out, when the black head slowly raised.

Jack didn't really look at him, but neither did he pull away or tell Zach to leave. After a moment Zach took a hesitant step towards him. Still no response. Another couple of steps, then he climbed awkwardly up on the bricks beside him, not too close. Jack might have sighed. Finally Zach offered in a very quiet, completely steady voice. "I know that 'sorry' can't fix everything, but I am so very…"

"Stop." Just a flat word but it froze Zach's heart. If Jack wasn't even willing to talk to him about what happened…

"Just, stop. You're not really sorry, Zach." The automatic protest was bitten back and Jack continued, still looking away. "You're not sorry because you can't be. You don't even know exactly why I got…upset. You just can't stand for us to have a fight."

There was nothing Zach could say to that. His realization that he needed to moderate his responses to Jack's distress had apparently come too late. Jack's voice was remarkably calm, but his face showed a terrible combination of anger and hurt.

"It's like you think if we have a cross word it means I don't love you."

"You were angry, with me," Zach offered carefully. "If I'm doing things that hurt you…"

"That's just it, Zach. Sometimes things just happen, and you react to them, and yes it may upset me, but I never think that you set out to hurt me. Not ever. You don't have to keep telling me that."

"But I did hurt you…"

"Zach, I really don't want to discuss this now, because you never believe me when I say I don't blame you for something, anyway."

Zach wanted to answer that so badly his teeth ached, but at least Jack seemed to be trying to come to some understanding, so he made himself say quietly instead, "Then what do you want to talk about?"

"Things got out of control back there, Zach. I don't mean…just me, either." He shook his head, looking exhausted. "For one thing, the only reason you got so distracted was because you knew I was already upset."

Zach couldn't deny that one either.

Seeing that he was past reflexive response, Jack relaxed a little. They were heading into treacherous waters here, and he decided to start at the shallow end. "Well, maybe that's because you don't seem willing to accept a 'no' from me. And then what happened, you were doing that for me, and I was begging you not to, and you didn't even listen."

"I just don't want anything bad for you." It was a whisper, unaffected, and Jack forced himself not to respond to the unvoiced pain. If he didn't stand firm on this now, things would only get worse the next time.

"I know that. I never doubt that. But, like, back in the clothes store, I was telling you 'no, I really don't want you buying this for me' and you didn't listen at all."

"I…that was really about my buying you clothes?"

Jack bowed his head again and for the first time Zach got a glimpse of the one emotion underlying all the others. Shame. "I came to you with nothing, Zach, and you've been so incredibly generous, but I've tried so hard not to ask for anything. It isn't that I don't appreciate it all. But you have to respect it when I say 'no.'"

Despite himself a note of incredulity was back in Zach's voice. "But it should never be about money between us, love. Do you know how much I make?"

Jack actually glared at him and Zach flinched. "So what does that mean, that you're going to keep me like some kind of mistress? Zach's pet lover." The absolutely horrified look in Zach's eyes stopped him and he swallowed the desire to apologize on the spot. It was how he felt.

Zach replied instantly, "You don't really believe that…" Jack met his eyes, anger fading but hurt as strong as ever and Zach's voice broke to a whisper. "My god, you do believe that." That terrible feeling of not being able to breathe was back in his chest, but this time he didn't allow it to keep him from addressing the issue that caused it. "Jack." Carefully not presuming the use of the endearment again. "I never meant for you to think I was trying to…buy you. I just, I don't think I've ever, really been in love before. Everything I have…everything I do, looking back it seems…seems so meaningless compared to how anything feels…when you're a part of it."

"A part of it, Zach? You keep making it so that everything's about me. And it is so nice of you, so sweet, but I just feel… You know, I made it on my own for a long time on the streets. I'm not fragile, I'm not going to be crushed if someone insults me or cusses me out. And we're two different people, Zach. You can't protect me from everything all the time, and even if you could, what kind of person would I be if I let you?"

Zach tried very hard to find the perfect words to help Jack understand. All he had ever wanted was to keep those precious, open eyes from gaining the taint of cynicism, keep the fragile-seeming body and soul from facing more of what it had already carried with such inexplicable strength. If he could just force Jack to the realization that accepting a period of shelter didn't make him weak.

Force?

Shaken, he offered inadequately, "You've just been through so much already."

"You know, I don't need you, Zach, except for the training, and even that, well, I did fine for a month on my own. If I kept myself to controlled situations I could almost make it alone now. There's half a dozen places I could go, just as a mooch, and not have to lift a finger for myself. I can play the wounded youngster bit anywhere."

It took as much self control as anything had in Zach's life to say reasonably, "You're certainly free to go wherever you want. And I'll always assist you in your training, regardless. Just tell me where you want to go and…"

Jack's head had dropped to his knees again and a shudder took his whole body. The hard determination was gone as if it'd never been when he interrupted, "But, Zach. Zach, I don't want to leave." He raised his head and Zach was startled by the dark emerald sheen. Jack didn't cry. Through situations and circumstances that should have broken him he had never hidden in dispassion. He had been expressive, honest. But Zach had never seen him cry. "I love you. I love you."

Zach had closed the distance between them without thinking and Jack kicked his legs down and reached for Zach's hands. "And so much has changed, even in me, until the only thing that's permanent is that knowledge. 'I love him.' But I can't give up being a person for that. I've tried too hard."

The back of Zach's knuckles brushed the thick black lashes as Jack closed his eyes, and came away wet. "Thank god," he said hoarsely. He had his arms around the slim form in a heartbeat, and Jack responded convulsively. "I love you," he said again into the hollow of Zach's neck. "I love you. I love you." Like a mantra against the distance so briefly between them.

It was several minutes before they had both calmed enough to sit back a little, look one another in the eyes. Zach took Jack's hands again and noted absently that both of them were still shaking. His voice was husky but steady when Jack looked capable of hearing him. "All right. All right. My turn."

Jack gave him a slight nod, cheeks not wet, but for the moment completely incapable of speech.

"I heard everything you said. Now just listen to my side for a minute. First, you have to really realize that I will never be able to take money as an issue for us, not seriously. It's wonderful that you don't want to take advantage of me, it is, but, well, I am a very wealthy man. I'm not saying that to impress you because, being you, it won't. It's just true. Imagine an executive for a fortune five hundred company and you'll be getting pretty close. Given that, the way I live is actually very modest. But the only thing I've ever found that money is really good for is getting out, traveling and…and playing, and trying to enjoy the world when I get the chance. You know how short life can be, Jack, better than most. I know you're not settled yet, don't know what you're going to do or maybe how to contribute, but you're here. With me. And those things can take time. I don't want to put off enjoying what my lifestyle can offer the two of us."

"You've given me everything…"

"You love me?" How could it still be so hard to ask? Jack nodded, eyes momentarily fierce, and Zach's voice got abruptly huskier. "Then you've given me everything. I don't care how that sounds, or how little anyone else understands it. 'People' may fall in love every day but I don't. I never have before. I'm not trying to keep you penned in, but damnit, give yourself a little time. As long as you need, without working, without stressing, without sweating all the small stuff. Take what I offer as I intend it, as a gift."

"But Zach, I know I needed help at first, some stability to get my head on straight, but you have to know that, that isn't what it's about anymore. It's just not! I don't want support or protection or money. I just want to be with you."

"That's easy," Zach told him in a low voice that was suddenly almost amused. "Just don't ever leave me. Because I'm not going anywhere. Stay with me and let me bring as much pleasure into your life as I can."

"You do that just by walking into the room," Jack whispered, and hugged him again with all his strength. Zach held him just as tight, forget restraint, just hold him until the shaking goes away. At last Jack murmured, "Maybe I could go back to school. Seriously, I mean."

A wave of utter relief crashed over Zach and he laughed, pulled back enough to put a dozen tiny kisses over Jack's face. "Yes, Jack, school. Any field you want, any school you want. It's perfect. Moving forward." And a decision made in the choice, that Jack wouldn't be moving around anymore, that their arrangement wasn't a matter for short term thinking anymore.

Then he felt Jack open his side of the link again, reaching with a very careful control that almost raised another flash of anger at the man on the coffee bar floor. The emotions that rose made him incapable of another thought, and certainly of anger. And beneath all the joy and warmth a new, struggling patience.

"Love, shouldn't we maybe go find our clothes and get home? We have a whole lot of furniture to say goodbye to."

Zach raised a hand to rest against the fair cheek and sent his own careful flow of emotion down the link. Watched eyes brighten in a way that made his heart seem too small for his chest. "Yes. Let's go home."

Walking slowly back towards the coffee bar Zach said almost idly, "You can't be the kitchen maid, you know."

"'Ways to contribute,' remember?" Jack returned in a similar light tone. "You ought to enjoy it while I still have the time to make you breakfast every morning." A few moments of easy silence, then he offered on his side, "You can't always be my bodyguard."

Zach thought a moment, then answered with absolute honesty. "I can, I will, try."

That grin Zach felt he hadn't seen in years broke slowly over the beautiful face. Without breaking the almost wandering tone Jack told him, "That's fine, love. After all, you only have forever to get it right."

"Forever?" Zach repeated in a tone too deep, too serious, for the had-to-be-playful words. It was too much, too fast, it would send Jack out of even this fragile moment.

Jack's grin gained a hint of teasing, something very quiet and soft in his eyes. "Don't think I'm rushing you, love. Maybe in a couple of years, when I've got my feet under me, then we can start looking for a minister."

"Married." Zach tried the word in his mouth. He had never let himself even consider it. He was one of a kind. Unique. Separate. But so was Jack. Maybe they could be separate together. "My husband."

Jack's grin was surrendering to that look in his eyes despite all effort. "'My husband.' Now that doesn't sound bad at all."

Zach had to admit it then. He was an idiot. A complete and utter fool. He'd spent most of the day searching for synonyms and variations on 'hopeless,' not realizing till now that what he and Jack had between them was the very definition of hope.

***